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Spears of the Dawn was reviewed earlier in this thread or a predecessor. Also I appreciated your choices of smilies for the classes.
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May 13, 2015 23:16
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I don't know how any of this actually ends up playing, but there is something seriously seductive to me about taking classic mechanics and boiling them down to something way simpler and less enamored with tables, math and modeling things that don't need to be modeled. I especially enjoy a feat system that doesn't look like it's complete balls, and that you actually get to start out as a hero doing heroic stuff rather than someone only barely above shitfarmer.
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May 14, 2015 01:02
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Y'know, the first thing that came to my mind when I read Red Tide was "I bet this would be pretty cool if you took these sorts of rules and applied them to an entire party instead of just a single player doing one-on-one games" and what do you know. Kevin Crawford seems like the sort of dude I wish more OSR types were like.
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May 14, 2015 01:06
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theironjef posted:I love that my copy of Skyrealms is signed because it was a gift from the author to my girlfriend's aunt, who he was dating in the 80s. I'm tenuously connected to greatness!
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May 14, 2015 01:21
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AmiYumi posted:Heeeeyyy speaking of, the download link on yr blog for the Skyrealms of Jorune episode is dead. Streaming still works, and I can confirm that all of the other download links (including the video ones and Horror reviews) work. Oh, okay. I know exactly what's wrong there and I can fix it. Give me a minute. edit: Man mp3s are really hard to download even if you're the content creator aren't they. Well hopefully it's on my old hard drive somewhere. edit again: Okay, got it. theironjef fucked around with this message at 01:52 on May 14, 2015 |
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May 14, 2015 01:37
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Also in the 5th Afterthoughts you mentioned Stonepunk. There actually is a legitimate punkish entry in that genre. Specifically Zenoclash which is about rebelling against tribe elders and more advanced imperialists.
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May 14, 2015 04:02
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Kai Tave posted:Y'know, the first thing that came to my mind when I read Red Tide was "I bet this would be pretty cool if you took these sorts of rules and applied them to an entire party instead of just a single player doing one-on-one games" and what do you know. Kevin Crawford seems like the sort of dude I wish more OSR types were like. Scarlet Heroes is the one-on-one RPG, Red Tide is his Labyrinth Lord setting.  Exemplars and Eidolons It has to be this way Let's talk about foes! They're the myriad bad guys, beasts, minions and other mobs that the heroes end up facing. Foes are nowhere near as detailed as heroes in mechanical terms; sure, the GM could create heroes to oppose the party and give them Gifts and such, but by and large foes are pretty drat simple. Many other NPCs may also exist, but by and large it's not necessary to model them mechanically - the question of how foes will fare when fighting heroes comes up way more often, so they get the stat block treatment. A basic foe has AC, attack bonus, damage roll, a morale score, and hit dice. Indeed, the only reason these are called "hit dice" at all is simply to make conversion from other OSR sources easier. Morale is a number from 2 to 12 that reflects how willing the foe is to face the heroes in battle. When a foe needs to make a Morale check, the GM rolls 2d6. If it's greater than the foe's Morale, they will flee, surrender, retreat or otherwise stop fighting. Some foes may have special abilities, too - multiple attacks, greater movement rate, or other stuff. Foes are not dumb, though, and they can think twice before fighting heroes. Another 2d6 check is done when first meeting a band of foes. A result of 2 means that they're immediately hostile, a 7 that the outcome is uncertain, and a 12 that they're as friendly or helpful as they can conceivably be. A successful Charisma check on part of the heroes may cant this reaction check in a more helpful way. A group of foes that starts losing members has to roll Morale - only the most fanatical or frenzied enemies will truly fight to the death. Creating new foes is pretty simple, too: assume an ordinary human has 1 HD, elite specimens have 3 HD, and anything beyond that is truly supernatural strength. The new foe's AC should reflect their average armor, whether it's actual armor or hardened hide or whatever, and damage dice should be assigned based on the closest approximation to weapon categories. Monstrous beasts and exceptionally nimble warriors may get more than one attack. Morale is usually 7 for common folk, 8 for trained soldiers, 10 for elites and 12 for creatures that literally know no fear. A more dangerous variant is the Mythic foe: these are the really bad guys, the ones spoken of in hushed tones. Any foe can become Mythic with some changes. First, they become immune to mundane weapons. Only magic weaponry or artifacts can damage them. Second, they have HP instead of plain HD, about as five times as many HP as their basic HD. And perhaps more importantly, their damage dice are read straight - if they do 1d10 damage and roll a 7, that's 7 damage right there. They're treated as if they had their original HD for purposes of Fray dice, spells and other Gifts, however, and if you for some reason have a Mythic foe with just one HD and the heroes have the ability to instantly kill 1HD foes, welp. Mythic foes almost always have some other unique ability - breathing fire, draining energy by touch, or something else, and normally apply a -4 penalty to resisting these effects in addition to the penalty from their hit dice.  Like this witch lady gives a gently caress about her home being on fire. Foes can have their attributes rolled, but by and large it's assumed that they have a generic attribute score of 12, with 16 for something the foe is particularly good at and 8 if it's something they're bad at. Saving throws are the same, but remember that the penalty for hit dice goes both ways: a foe rolling a save will have the hero's HD used as a penalty against them. We then get E&E's bestiary - forget about endless Monster Manual entries, E&E has a single page for stats and another for explanations and that's it.We get stats for humans (from warriors to mages), called entities (what Summoners bring into the world, from lesser minions to the Outer Lords themselves), undead (what the Necromancy dudes use, from skeletons to liches and everything in between, no zombies though), animals (from simple wild animals to the spooky God-Beasts that feed on worship and may cast spells) and mobs. Mobs are a special kind of creature for when you don't want to roll for all 6d10 goblins. They represent 50 enemies or so, and behave as a single creature but have a lot of attacks (4-8) and lots of HD (10 or better). They normally act as if they only had one HD for purposes of Fray dice and Gifts, but abilities that one-shot one HD enemies only reduce the mob in one die. Area-effect spells and Gifts deal double damage to mobs. Wealth and Treasure! We know how Wealth works by now - it's not the pocket lint from that orc you just whacked, it's serious loving cash. We said that Wealth can be traded for Influence, but we also find out now that you can't just throw money at a problem: the first point of Influence costs 1 Wealth, but the second costs 2 Wealth and so on. Unless it is a problem that specifically can be solved with just a lot of money, in which case the ratio is 1:1. Wealth can be cumbersome, and in order to enjoy it it may be necessary for characters to come back for it with faithful minions and hirelings to haul the loot back home and be able to use it. And if the faithful minions and hirelings scoop some of it, who could begrudge them? As for other loot, heroes can find influential artifacts (that provide Influence with a relevant goal, normally needing to commit Effort to the artifact but not necessarily so) scrolls, spellbooks and grimoires (as per the Magic rules, though it bears saying that a grimoire simply grants access to a spell or number of spells and doesn't need to be carried by the character to benefit from it), healing items (because OSR material will obviously use different healing rules, healing items are treated as if they dealt reverse damage so a potion that heals 1d6+1 damage has to be compared against the damage table to heal) and others. If a Gift does something that a magic item would prevent, the Gift always wins.   "Jankenpin"? Well, rock-paper-scissors is "jankenpon," so I dunno. Finally, we get to see how Influence works! This part opens telling GMs how to set up the initial situation in which PCs are involved. Crawford tells us about simple scenarios, detailed settings, and the old stalwart of OSR gaming - the sandbox campaign, which is something he really likes considering his other works. For starters, the GM has to think of a large problem: rebel nobles, a natural disaster, a big rear end war, a magical apocalypse. This doesn't necessarily have to affect every single aspect of life, but it's there and it's obvious. After identifying the major antagonists and players in this, the large problem is then divided into four smaller ones - consequences of the larger issue, or just random trouble that popped up in its wake. A big war leaves breakouts of plagues and famine, roaming bands of deserters, brutal warlords asserting power, and nobles pressganging peasants as cannon fodder. And finally, the GM sets up a small problem, one that directly involves the PCs into the campaign. Ideally, this one points to the four subdivisions of the big issue and sets the PCs on the path to solve it. With these problems in hand, now we can get to the mechanical effects of Influence. Each problem has a Difficulty score. Very basic problems have a Difficulty equivalent to twice the number of players. More complex problems (like the four subdivisions) have a Difficulty equal to four times the number of players. The real big troubles, like our campaign's big bad issue, have a Dificulty of eight times the number of players. To solve them, the heroes must accumulate Influence on the problem. Some Gifts allow Effort to be committed in order to gain Influence, but those Gifts can only affect one problem at a time, and the hero must describe how exactly they're working in order to deal with the issue. Heroes can also do something constructive in order to find a solution - that is to say, adventuring! How much Influence is gained at the table depends on the scope of the adventure, as we'll see later. Furthermore, it's not possible to simply throw Gifts and Wealth around and let a problem solve itself: even if the PCs manage to gather enough Influence, they must still do one thing on their own to see the issue through, even if that act is simply the culmination of their previous efforts. Heroes may also define their own goals, using the above guidelines to determine the Difficulty of their ambition. Extremely large accomplishments can be broken down into smaller ones, so a Difficulty 12 problem for a gang of three heroes can be divided into three smaller parts for them to progress through. These steps should be made clear to the players, and they should always have at least one thing to do in order to further their goals. I'm very much reminded of how Obstacles work in An Echo Resounding, Crawford's domain management rules for Labyrinth Lord: these are a much simpler, leaner version of them. So, how does a GM challenge their players? One thing to realize is that, as heroes, there's lot of things that shouldn't be a challenge. They're heroes, they shouldn't have to be afraid of the city guard or botching burglaries into the city mayor's house by traipsing over the house cat. The GM can simply let the players push as far as they can go - once the silver-tongued rogue realizes that they can bend almost anyone to their plans, and start testing the real scope of their power, they'll eventually find true difficulty and challenge. Another way is, of course, plopping down Mythic foes here and there, with their accompanying thralls of minions and underlings for the heroes to face. Another tack can be simply stealing oldschool adventures - one party of level 1 E&E heroes could easily deal with a 5th-6th adventure for ordinary adventurers. Or the GM can create a situation where victory isn't clear cut, or where the PCs have to think it through in order to get a solution they're comfortable with. Also, rewards! As a general rule, XP is handed out for solving goals. PCs will have to adventure for them, of course, but XP doesn't just come from adventuring, it comes from having a purpose and seeing it through. A small Influence goal is worth 2 XP, a medium one 4 XP, and a large one 8. Wealth can be rewarded in a similar fashion, though if using oldschool adventure material the GM will have to determine which loot is actually worthy of being Wealth and what is simply booze money. Rewards can also come in non-tangible forms: the friendship of a king, a pact with a celestial power. The game ends with a random table for possible conflicts and antagonists. And that's Exemplars and Eidolons for you! Traveller fucked around with this message at 04:18 on May 14, 2015 |
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May 14, 2015 04:16
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Terrible Opinions posted:Also in the 5th Afterthoughts you mentioned Stonepunk. There actually is a legitimate punkish entry in that genre. Specifically Zenoclash which is about rebelling against tribe elders and more advanced imperialists. Actually the punk genres we listed were directly pulled from some Wikipedia list. Jon's variation of Flintstones furniture uprising was his own new thing, but yeah stone punk was definitely on the list.
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May 14, 2015 04:19
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Hey, Traveler, what's with all the Metal Gear Rising quotes?
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May 14, 2015 05:09
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Crasical posted:Hey, Traveler, what's with all the Metal Gear Rising quotes? It's a game.
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May 14, 2015 05:13
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Midjack posted:Spears of the Dawn was reviewed earlier in this thread or a predecessor. Has there also been a review of Stars Without Number? That one's on my to-do list. Traveller posted:
"My flames are the flames that will burn the heavens!" And man, E&E could become my go-to oldschool fantasy game. Mazes & Minotaurs - Players Manual  IV: Adventuring This last chapter of the Players Manual starts with some short rules about travelling time and distances (which surprisingly doesn't require a long table) before moving to the ship rules. Ships & Sailing The Greeks were pretty big in sailing, so it's not unusualy for the PCs to travel in their own ship to loot islands instead of dungeons. The Maze Masters Guide even has rules for random island generation. This chapter has a short, but nice section about the quirks and limitation of Ancient Greek sailing. In short, they avoided sailing outside the spring and summer season, and they made sure to always keep the coast in sight as they had no compasses and weren't particularly big into star navigation. The two main types of ship in the game are round ships used for trading and the typical war galleys of that era. If the PCs need something smaller, they can opt for a boat or raft. Ships only have two stats: its Strength (which is also its hit points aka structure points) and Fortune, a modifier to various rolls, showing how cursed or blessed a ship is (Greeks were a bit superstitious; the iconic eyes painted on their galleys were meant to bring luck). The main danger ships can face during travels is bad weather, which has its own rules along with a table to determine the current weather condition. Feats & Perils These are M&M's skill rules, except there aren't skills. Swimming, climbing and whatnot is handled with a Danger Evasion roll, with the default target number being 15. The odd man out are the rules for Feats of Strength, heroic displays of badassery like bending iron bars or lifting a huge boulder. They're performed by rolling a d10 and trying to get equal or under the character's Might modifier. A failed Feat of Strength can be attempted again as long as the character succeeds at a Physical Vigor roll. While every character can attempt all the feats described in this chapter (except for Feats of Strength if your Might mod is not positive), some classes are naturally better a them. Nymphs generally rule in their home turf (Nereids breathe underwater and never have to make swimming rolls, Oreads climb mountains as easy as a goat, and Dryads can go all Rambo on your rear end in a forest), and Hunters and Thieves can add their special derived attribute to a lot of rolls and can pull off exclusive stuff with certain feats (like tracking a monster or pick some pockets, respectively). Falling rules are the usual "1d6 damage per 10 feet" affair, with the little addition that suffering more than ones Luck score in falling damage causes instant death. I'd say that's a good addition to avoid those silly moments were high-level characters can just casually survive absurdly long falls. Dealing with NPCs First reactions from a NPC can be determined on a reaction table, using a 2d10 roll modified by the PC's Personal Charsima. This rule is optional, however. The reaction rules get a bit more depth with Reputation. A PC can add his level to the reaction roll if the NPCs in question fall into a certain group depending on their class. Nobles for example can use their "Aristocratic Authority" when dealing with people from their own city-state/kingdom, while Sorcerers and Elementalists use their "Eerie Mystique" to impress minor NPCs. Followers Oldschool games had a thing for giving the PCs an entourage of weak NPCs, and M&M is no exception. They come in to flavors: Retainers follow the PC out of pure admiration and loyalty, and are limited in two ways: A PC can't have more retainers than his Leadership score (aka Level + Will mod + Grace mod + Luck mod, with a maximum possible sum of 20), and the retainers have to come from the same group the PC's Reputation affects (so a Noble can only get retainers from his home, while Elementalists have to deal with easily-impressed dudes). If a PC needs more manpower, he can go for mercernaries. These aren't nearly as loyal, but you can have as many as you can afford (even more than that if you agree to share the plunder or treasure with them). As this isn't a game were you can just buy/create magical items, I can see a good chunk of PC wealth going into buying a personal army. Statswise, Retainers are handled as creatures, with their own entries in the Creature Compendium (which I will probably tackle in some form, if only to point out the silliest monsters). If the PCs face off against a fearsome creature, or if half of the retainers of a PC are killed or incapacitated, the PC has to roll 1d10 equal to or under his Leadership to avoid having the surviving half flee. Character Advancement Character Advancement is an interesting thing in M&M, as each general group of classes gains a different sort of XP in a slightly different way. Warriors earn Glory by killing, capturing or otherwise defeating a creature or major NPC. It's just like normal (newish) D&D XP. They also gain Glory for heroic deeds, aka saving the city or stopping the bad guy. Magicians can gain Wisdom, a different sort of XP for supernatural creatures denoting just how plentiful and/or powerful their supernatural powers are. As this number is generally much lower than Glory, all Magicians in the group get the full value instead of having to share it. They also get Wisdom from exploring unknown lands/islands and magical sites. The two Specialist classes (Hunter and Thief) gain Experience, both having different rules for how to get it. Hunters gain Experience for killing or capturing Beasts and Monsters. Their Experience is twice what a Warrior would gain in Glory (aka they split the Glory with the Warriors and then double their share). If the creature is not a Beast or Monster (like a human or spirit), they gain nothing. They also gain a small amount of Experience from making important Hunting rolls. Thieves are like OD&D characters in that their Experience is equal to the earned loot in gold pieces. Another source for Experience are important Thievery rolls. All in all, every class becomes more powerful by doing what they're supposed to be doing. The notes & comments section of this chapter talks about criticism regarding the unrealistic rules and the "mockery of naval simulation" that are the sailing rules (with the never-released Triremes & Tritons supplement becoming a running joke). Next Time: I'll summarize each of the other 3 main books, with special attention being paid to the rather nifty creature creation rules in the Maze Masters Guide and the silliest creatures from the Creature Compendium.
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May 14, 2015 20:14
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Flames: Flame on! The Flames apprentice gets to cast firebolts on others, extinguish fires, create smoke barriers and be temporarily resistant to fire and extreme heat. As dominion over the school increases, so does the size and heat of the flames at the mage's command. One Master level spell manipulates a structure into being as inflammable as dry wood, and the Archmage spell lets the caster burn their own life essence (HP) in order to literally burn the unburnable.
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Hey so this is sorta dumb and off topic but here's the pub logo for Cheese Dudes
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May 15, 2015 06:27
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Doresh posted:Has there also been a review of Stars Without Number? That one's on my to-do list. I don't see it on the index. Tell you what, you do SWN and I'll do Red Tide, deal?
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May 15, 2015 06:29
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theironjef posted:Hey so this is sorta dumb and off topic but here's the pub logo for Cheese Dudes Endorsed by Chester Balloonman and Gay Tree Spirit (OTP).
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May 15, 2015 06:30
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Plague of Hats posted:Endorsed by Chester Balloonman and Gay Tree Spirit (OTP). I think art of those two (and Helga the Punch Witch, a Nalaberong acting all Venderant, and a T-Shirt.... City of Violence) can't be far behind. For now we're gonna try and make these happen: 
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May 15, 2015 07:07
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Looks like I'm about to have another t-shirt I don't even try to explain to anyone. 
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May 15, 2015 07:44
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AmiYumi posted:Looks like I'm about to have another t-shirt I don't even try to explain to anyone. Hah, sweet! The website we'll use puts then on sale for the first 5 days or something so I'll announce on the show and here when we do it. Probably on Tuesday.
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May 15, 2015 07:54
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Done with finals, back in the States. Gonna try another F&F. Deciding between Engine Heart, Princess: the Hopeful and Pokemon Tabletop United. Two are /tg/ productions with one simpler and somewhat more successful compared to the other. There's also Adeptus Evangelion (actually two different games due to a rules split) that's another /tg/game based off of Dark Heresy that's worth reviewing, but I'm not at all familiar with that rules set to give it all the lumps. Which should I try and knock out?
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May 15, 2015 12:49
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We've already got Genius, lets see what Princess is like.
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May 15, 2015 12:55
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Kavak posted:We've already got Genius, lets see what Princess is like. Speaking of which, sorry for the delay getting the next round of Genius up. Real life's been a bit crazy. Next update should be up by tomorrow at the latest.
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May 15, 2015 13:16
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Would Dr. Dinosaur be a good example of an Unmada? He spouts crazy bullshit that is obviously nonsense but... somehow isn't, and makes elaborate nonsense machines that can do anything if it involves crystals.
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May 15, 2015 13:20
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The Lone Badger posted:Would Dr. Dinosaur be a good example of an Unmada? He spouts crazy bullshit that is obviously nonsense but... somehow isn't, and makes elaborate nonsense machines that can do anything if it involves crystals. EDIT: I mean, he's openly admitted at least once to putting a thing in a machine that had no purpose other than to make it look cooler. EDIT: In fact, here it is: 
Zereth fucked around with this message at 16:10 on May 15, 2015 |
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May 15, 2015 13:41
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The key thing about Unmada is that they're utterly insane but believe that they are not, that they are sane and everyone else is crazy. Someone mentioned before that it's going not just why does your power strip plug into itself, but why doesn't your power strip plug into itself, it doesn't work if you don't. Only Unmada can make that view of reality actually take hold. Edit: Look up Timecube guy for a good example of what an Unmada looks like. Cythereal fucked around with this message at 13:49 on May 15, 2015 |
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May 15, 2015 13:45
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I think Genius could work well for Ork: The WAAAAAGHening.Traveller posted:I don't see it on the index. Tell you what, you do SWN and I'll do Red Tide, deal? Deal. Doresh fucked around with this message at 16:38 on May 15, 2015 |
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May 15, 2015 16:30
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Doresh posted:I think Genius could work well for Ork: The WAAAAAGHening. I would pay to see Orks vs. most of White Wolf's entire catalog. Watching a bunch of screaming soccer hooligans joyfully dismantle the 'cunning' petty plots of vampires who have woven them for hundreds of years would be priceless. Oh, right, that often happens in Warhammer Fantasy as is.
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May 15, 2015 17:12
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The next parts of Adventure Fantasy Game are going to be long and fairly standard, so I wanted to knock something nice and short and in keeping with the Kevin Crawford power hour Black Streams: Solo Heroes  Solo Heroes is a free supplement for Labyrinth Lord released by Kevin Crawford in 2014, as a sort of preview to Scarlet Heroes. It's a set of rules you can layer on top of Labyrinth Lord or any other OSR game in order to make the game more friendly to running an adventure/module with just a single player-character without the GM needing to significantly rework the adventure as-written. The First Rule: Damage Dice Whenever damage is rolled: A roll of 1 does no damage A roll of 2 to 5 deals 1 damage A roll of 6 to 9 deals 2 damage A roll of 10 or more deals 4 damage Further, an effect such as a trap or a scripted spell that deals a flat amount of damage instead deals 1 damage for every 4 points noted in the text. Anything that deals less than 4 damage doesn't even scratch the Solo Hero The Second Rule: Inflicting Damage Damage taken by the Solo Hero subtracts from their Hit Point count. If an Orc with a 1d10+2 Greataxe rolls a 6 for damage when attacking our Solo Hero with 10/10 HP, our Solo Hero would be down to 8/10 HP after the attack. However, damage dealt by the Solo Hero kills off an entire monster Hit Die per point of damage dealt. If our Solo Hero with a 1d6+1 Short Sword rolls a 2 for damage when attacking an Orc with 1 HD, he kills the Orc straight dead with that one attack. This rule also adds a new feature for Solo Heroes, called the Fray Die. The Fray Die is simply a damage die that the Solo Hero can roll every turn to attack enemies with equal or less Hit Dice without needing to roll to hit. If our Solo Hero wants to attack normally, then they do get to make their attack on top of rolling the Fray Die for even more damage. The Fray Die is supposed to represent "mighty hewing, punching, kicking, biting, object-hurling, and other assorted fisticuffs or short-ranged combat spells delivered toward an enemy that does not clearly outclass them in skill." The other thing to note is that Solo Heroes do get to roll their Fray Die even if they did not make an attack roll that round, to represent the havoc they might be wreaking even while, say, opening a stuck door or backing up a corridor. Fighters roll a 1d8 for their Fray Die, Clerics, Thieves and "other non-strictly-martial-classes" roll a 1d6, while Magic-Users and other spellcating classes roll a 1d4. The final note for this rule is that any damage dealt by the Solo Hero can carry over across multiple targets. If our Solo Hero rolls a 10 for their damage, then they could kill 4 different 1 HD goblins with that single attack, provided that the attack roll could have hit the AC of all the targets. The same applies to Fray Die, on top of the fact that a Fray Die's damage does not need an attack roll at all (although you cannot use a Fray Die against an enemy with more Hit Dice than the Solo Hero). The only time that this "cleave" feature doesn't apply would be if, for example, our Solo Hero is attacking with a melee weapon and one of the potential targets is supposed to be way out of reach, such as on a high balcony. [In Scarlet Heroes, there is a note for Magic-Users that they can always shoot an enemy with their 1d4 Fray Die, as the assumption is that they're using bolts, rays and other magical projectiles to destroy their enemies at range] The Third Rule: Healing This is just the inverse of the second rule: translate the roll of any healing effect according to the First Rule, then it restores that many Hit Points to the Solo Hero. If the Solo Hero rolls a 6 when they drink a 1d6+1 Healing Potion, they gain 2 HP. Further, a Solo Hero can take 5 minutes to bandage their wounds and catch their breath after every encounter, and this will restore up to 2 HP, but never more than what the Solo Hero began the encounter with. The Fourth Rule: Defying Death Since OSR adventures tend to have "save-or-die" effects and traps and whatnot, and since the prior three rules still don't guarantee victory in combat situations, Solo Heroes still need a way out. Whenever the Solo Hero is confronted by a situation that might otherwise kill them, they instead Defy Death: roll a number of dice equal to the player's level, and then translate that into points of damage. If the damage would be enough to reduce them to 0 HP, then they are instead left at 1 HP. Anything that takes the Hero to negative HP can still kill them, otherwise they just take the damage. The die size used in the Defy Death attempt starts at 1d4 and goes up to the next size for every succeeding Defy Death attempt in the same session adventure. Example: Our level 3 Solo Hero with 19/21 HP fails a Save vs Poison, which the adventure text says is supposed to kill them. Instead, the Solo Hero rolls 3d4, and they get an 8, which translates to 2 damage. The Solo Hero takes 2 damage instead of completely dying and so if left with 17/21 HP. The next time they need to Defy Death, they're going to roll 3d6 instead, and then 3d8, and so on. This is also supposed to cover situations that are "unsolvable", such as an altar protected by a magical ward that the adventure says should be dispelled by a Magic-User, or a killer trap when the Solo Hero isn't a Thief. If the player can't get through such barriers by any other narrative means, the GM can make the Solo Hero take a Defy Death attempt as a cost to bypass it. The Fifth Rule: Experience and Henchmen Simply put, a Solo Hero only earns 25% of the experience from any kills, treasure or quest reward, to account for the fact that such rewards are usually scaled to be divided up between four or more players. If the player wants to bring henchmen along with their Solo Hero, the henchmen are to be treated as monsters: any damage dealt to them converts into full HD, so a 2 on an Orc's damage roll can kill a 1 HD footman. The idea is that the rest of the rules are supposed to buff up the Hero enough that they shouldn't feel the need to bring henchmen at all, on top of avoiding the book-keeping overhead of managing henchmen when it's just 2 players at a table. Finally, there's a fairly obvious warning that using these rules when you have multiple players may trivialize the content. What it all means These rules are intended to address four main issues when trying to run an OSR adventure with just a single player-character: 1. Hit points deplete too quickly - now monsters will kill players much slower; they might need to score 3 to 4 successful hits as opposed to just one or two 2. Enemies don't die quickly enough - a player will, on average, be able to kill off 1 HD worth of monsters every round just via the Fray Die 3. Instant death and incapacitation effects can wipe out lone heroes - the Defy Death mechanic will prevent instant and unavoidable game-overs, but without letting the player just brave them blithely nor asking the GM to make up rulings on the spot, since they now have a firm framework to adjudicate the effect of a spiked pit 4. Lone heroes lack the wide range of skills and abilities possessed by a party - as I mentioned in The Fourth Rule, a Defy Death check can be used to get through an encounter that demands a particular class, skill or spell when the player doesn't have it, but such a bypass is never for free Optional Rules and Guidelines At this point we get a set of additional rules that might not necessarily be needed for the framework to work Enduring Protagonists If the player wants to play their Solo Hero through multiple sessions/adventures/modules, then the GM might want to make additional adjustments to better ensure survival. First off, players start with maximum HP for their level and class. Second, hitting zero HP never means death. It might mean getting knocked unconscious, or being left for dead, or being able to escape the battle through an unlikely plot contrivance. If the Solo Hero was on a time sensitive quest, then being defeated and thrown out of the dungeon might mean failing that quest, unless the hero perhaps chooses to instead be taken captive so they can continue the fight from inside the dungeon, provided they can facilitate a breakout of some form and are willing to give up their inventory (until you can retrieve it, FPS-style) Converting Other Games The author mentions that these rules should work just as well when playing other OSR/retroclones, specifically the author's own post-apocalyptic Other Dust and sci-fi Stars Without Number systems. [In fact, a supplement similar to this one exists for Stars Without Number - Mandate Archive: Stellar Heroes] However, significantly different systems might give level 1 PCs 12 HP or more, at which point it's recommended to revise HP gain per level to a maximum of 10 for the toughest archetypes, and perhaps a maximum of 4 per level for less martial characters. The other note is that games that award additional attacks-per-round might be better converted into a larger Fray Die size or additional Fray Die rolls rather than additional normal attack rolls. Automatic Initiative If normal initiative rules are followed, and the Hero rolls badly on initiative, and a (half) dozen goblins all get to take shots at the Hero before the Hero gets to react, the Hero might still be taken down rather easily even with the reduced damage intake of these rules. The optional rule therefore is to simply let the Hero always win initiative except when narratively special. Not only will this prevent hordes of monsters from killing the hero without a chance to respond, it'll give the Hero the respond with "discretion is the better part of valor". In cases where the Hero really does flub his way into an ambush and gets walloped? Defy Death applies. Extra Fray Die Giving players additional Fray Die rolls is mentioned as an additional tool that the GM can leverage whenever circumstances permit. Whereas a GM in a "normal" game might give a player a bonus to their attack roll for having the high ground or attacking from stealth, it might translate to extra Fray Dice in a Solo Heroes game. One Pair of Hands Since adventures are written with the assumption that they will be played by multiple players, some "puzzles" or encounters in such adventures might assume players being in two places at the same time, whether in the form of two levers at opposite sides of a room that need to be pulled simultaneously, or a wilderness that'll spawn random encounters for parties that don't have anyone standing watch. It's recommended to either modify these encounters to be doable by a Solo Hero, such as moving the levers next to each other or assuming that the Solo Hero's keen senses can catch any night intruders. The assumption is that avoidance in hardship/difficulty by handwaving away such issues is more than made up for by the other difficulties inherent with just a single character in play. The supplement then closes out with a short, 2-page, 9-room dungeon for a level 1 character called The Yellow Toad God's Well So there you have it - something that could potentially let you run through, say, Keep on the Borderlands with just you and one other friend, sibling or significant other. Translating the damage rolls into yet another number might take a bit of getting used to, but since you're only playing with just one other person the rest of the overhead is much lower too.
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May 15, 2015 17:28
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Rifts World Book Six: South America (Part 11): "60% prefer to fight unencumbered by armor" Have a map El Dorado The Cities of Gold So, it turns out the myths of El Dorado are actually based on three hidden cities. One is an (True) Atlantean city that transported itself to another world (Manoa), another was the "home of the werejaguar race" in an adjacent dimension (Omagua), and the last one is a interdimensional market ruled by a supernatural monster (Cibola). The rifts brought all cities back to Earth proper, and they're all rivals of thmselves. There's also some hints that there may be even more "El Doradoes" out there and that GMs may make up another or others if they like.  Let us tell you the history of Atlantean refugees- wait, don't go, we have tits! Manoa The "original" El Dorado, even though it's not actually called that, this city was founded by True Atlanteans fleeing the destruction of their continent. The founders were from the Atlantean group known as Clan Skellian, who had forseen the disaster, but nobody listened to them. Very House of El, but instead of just firing a baby off into the abyss, they all packed up and moved away. They settled in South America where they "influenced the Indian cultures" but in what fashion is horribly unclear. Nearby, there was an native indigenous tribe where the male population had been nearly annihilated by a mysterious man-hating plague, and the remaining women had taken up all the tribal roles. However, enemy tribes saw them as weak, and they were due to be wiped out by chauvinistic maniacs in other tribes. However, the Atlanteans came to their aid, and used magic and bio-wizardry to make the tribe of women supernaturally strong and tough. (Why they'd never bothered to make themselves supernaturally strong and tough is a mystery for the ages.) The tribe and Atlanteans then joined forces and founded the city of Manoa. The Altanteans built the city out of marble and gold (using stone magic), hence the El Dorado legend. They also rescued a group of transdimensional refugees known as the Ewaipanomas who were being hunted down by humans, and gave them a new home. This status quo lasted for thousands of years, but then magic begain to wane, and when they worked to forsee the future, they foresaw the end of magic, the arrival of the Europeans, and even the arrival of the Rifts. So they decided to transport their city into a dimensional Limbo, so when the Europeans arrived, they got to hear all the legends but there was nothing found. See, the Amazon was named after the legend of the female superhuman warriors of Manoa!  (It's actually named after Icamiaba female warriors that Spanish explorers clashed with historically. Probably.)So Manoa stayed in its limbo for centuries, in which they somehow got food and water and grew as a city. They had transdimensional trade? So maybe that's why. They also took in Shaydor Spherians (from Rifts World Book Two: Atlantis) fleeing Splugorth, but emigration of the True Atlanteans kept their numbers from rising. When the rifts occurred, Manoa was sucked back to the Earth through the remaining portals to Earth, and they focused on just using their magic to make the transition safely. Though a lot of the locals were intitially alarmed, most eventually built friendly relations with Manoa. Clan Skellian Since Skellian tried to warn the other Atlanteans of their trouble, they get to be smug and don't have the usual True Atlantean guilt complex. They've been trying to get the Clan resituated, but haven't been noticed by the larger True Atlantean community, other than general suspicion due to their secrecy. They intend to free Earth from supernatural monsters - eventually - and have been working with Chiang-Ku dragons (those guys again!) to make new tattoo-based warriors. They eventually want to free Atlantis, but don't nearly have the force to do so yet. City Highlights Styled in the Greco-Roman style popular with Atlanteans (despite predating Greece or Rome), Manoa is located in a valley that's been cleared of jungle. They have magic statues like the evil Atlantis that can be animated for city defense, too. We get a listing of local sites, including:
 What kind of piercing gun do M.D.C. people use? Law & Government The city is ruled by a True Alantean "Lord Protector" who lasts for thousands of years (a "Lord Temarkhos", presently), and they are advised by a Council of Wisdom made up of multiple races. How they're chosen or elected is not clear. They have a Civil Bureau that handles the infrastructure, made up mostly of Shaydor Spherians. Finally, there's a Security Bureau largely led by the True Atlanteans and the Council of Wisdom. Generally crimes are punished with community service, with serious crimes resulting in exile or execution. However, their crime rate is apparently exceedingly low, being a city of good guys and all. Society Manoa is apparently unusual for an Atlantean city for its tolerance towards non-True non-Atlanteans, who are allowed to take government positions, unlike other True Atlantean communities. However, there is still a sort of a "True Atlantean's Burden" that drives them to lord over the other races as they see themselves as older and more powerful. Generally, this doesn't flare into actual drama, but the wishes non-Atlanteans are subtly dismissed from time to time. Foreign Relations The Kingdom of Lagarto is seen as a potential threat, and it's likely that Manoa will have to act against them. They believe that the gods that rule Omagua have designs of conquest (they don't) and maintain a cold conflict with then with occasional sparks. While they're actively at war with Cibola, it tends to be focused on eliminating Cibolan raiders and rescuing slaves. Finally, they have a shoot-on-sight policy for the minions of the Splugorth. Weapons of Manoa Unlike most other countries, Manoa relies almost entirely on techno-wizardry. They've developed a way to make E-clips that run off of magic power, and their pyramids double as techno-wizards factories. Rifts World Book Six: South America posted:Note: This process uses the skills of both stone masters (see Rifts Atlantis) and techno-wizards using a very advanced form of magic. Normal techno-wizards (and yes, that means player characters and other True Atlanteans) will be unable to replicate the process. Don't let your players get too uppity!  Enhanced Armor We get alchemical M.D.C. armor, which is really good but apparently hard to find repairs for outside of Manoa. Their "light armor" is better than any "heavy armor" in the corebook though, and their heavy armor has about 100 M.D.C. Repairs will almost always run into thousands of credits or tens of thousands.  Not exactly a comfortable grip. Then, without a title header, we get magic guns. For some reason they're modeled after flintlocks, despite the Atlanteans having skipped that section of Earth history in their dimensional limbo.
 It's magical, but still has a hammer to cock because ennnnnh Without notice, it's time for power armor! Hoplite Power Armor By C.J. Carella & Kevin Siembieda  It's okay to idealize slaveholders as long as it was a long, long time ago. This is a fancy suit of techno-wizard power armor designed to look like a Spartan hoplite, despite the Atlanteans of Manoa living half a world away from anything Grecian, but eh, facts. It has to be recharged about every few days at a ley line, but it doesn't require any special process. It can also magically heal while in a ley line or magic pyramid, too. It has the fancy title of "M-100 Hoplite" because even magical Atlanteans give their legendary sparkly armors model numbers. In any case, it's pretty tough for a power armor, mostly because it gets to layer a magical force field on top of its normal armor. It can chug around at 60 MPH, provides air and translation, has a meh-ish spear that shoots energy, a shield that does crappy damage but can at least knock people down, crappy eye lasers, and crappy melee strength. It can also use hand-to-hand weapons, and can have two optional features from the following list:
Lictor Assault Robot By C.J. Carella & Kevin Siembieda  "We love peace, but see also our robots modeled after a brutal, imperial regime." The bigger cousion of the Hoplite, this is mainly used for Manoa's defense and occasional special operations. It's modestly tough thanks to its force field, and somehow has technological features like radar, air purification, radio, etc. It also has a magic translator can breath without air, and can fly around magically like a 30' superman. It has a TK-Rifle that does rail gun levels of damage, a rad energy axe that returns or shoots lightning and does... well, the same amount of damage, eye lasers that do... the same amount of damage, and mini-missiles for when you want to do much more damage. I'll never understand these robot writeups that have like three different totally redundant weapon systems. Oh, and it has lovely laser fingers too! It can also be equipped with the same features as the Hoplite. Its weapons become "giant-size" but that doesn't apparently affect the stats. Makes sense!  Without a section break, it's on to the classes! Amazon R.C.C. By C.J. Carella & Kevin Siembieda  They wear little to distract their foes! As long as those foes are human. None of their foes are. Made superhuman by alchemy, bio-wizardry, and faceless nameless South American goddesses (wait, those weren't mentioned before-), the "Amazons" are called "Amazons" because... uh... because! I mean, Greece wasn't even in existence when they were created, and they were in another dimension when the river was named, but I guess they're Amazons now, sure. Apparently they're culturally more Atlantean now than native (which, judging from most of their art, also means "white"). Also, if they were made with bio-wizardry, isn't that supposed to be eeevil? Because of reasons? So they distrust men because men underestimate them, despite working alongside men all the time who would be perfectly aware of their superhuman powers. Sure, makes sense. In any case, they're practical, self-reliant, courageous warriors, and have all that machismo attributed to Amazons in fiction typically, detesting lies and trickery and all that. Apparently most normal humans are afraid of them so they're a little isolated. When they mate with "normal humans, True Atlanteans, or ogre males", there's apparently an 85% chance of them coming out as Amazons, and 15% of them come out as a male of the father's species.Rifts World Book Six: South America posted:Some of the more hardened warriors will simply use their lover to conceive a female child and then abandon him. More often however, the Amazon enters into an honest and loving relationship. Men's riiiights. In any case they love a fight and Earth is just a target-rich environment they're happy with. Some wander the world to find more fights, tho. Despite all that, they're usually good-aligned. So, they're superhumanly strong, agile, tough, beatutful, strong-willed, and fast, but are slightly less charismatic. They get around 100 M.D.C. naturally, can see in the dark or far away, are resistant to heat and cold, and regenerate. They also get a choice of magic spells and minor psionics or psionic sword/shield and major psionics. They live to be several centuries old, but just get a pretty standard layout of wilderness and combat skills and a small number of other skills. We're reminded they wear sparse clothing, because of the jungle! Well, that makes sense. They get some techno-wizard weapons and armor but "45% prefer to fight unencumbered by armor". Independent Amazons raise this percentage to 60%. I get it, the book really wants to see magic Amazons in halter tops. (No, really, part of their equipment lists "a short tunic or halter top".) There's certainly been worse stuff in RPG but this is pretty eye-rolly, particularly since they're noted as being practical and willing to take any advantage in a fight. You know. Like armor. Atlantean Monster Hunter R.C.C. By C.J. Carella This is a special type of tattooed warrior (see Rifts World Book Two: Atlantis) that often acts as special forces or spies for Manoa, or as the generic wandering warrior archetype that Rifts loves to death. Most are True Atlanteans get all their great attributes and special, fancy powers. I'm not gonna cover magic tattoos again - see the Atlantis writeup - but the specialty these ones have are "monster-shaping" tattoos where they can take on various monster forms. They don't get any of the creature's magic powers or natural abilities, but get all their M.D.C. (up to 800!) and natural weapons. That's right, you shift into a giant monster fish, forget around breathing underwater, or if you turn into a dragon, you can't fly. So it's mostly just useful as a monster-shaped suit of armor, and would be pretty lame were it not for the ability to have one of the higher PC M.D.C. values in the game. Oh, and the magic tattoos still show when morphing, which means it's not super-subtle for those who know about tattoo magic. Their skills are crap and barely worth mentioning. We also get a reprint of the True Atlantean stats with no explanation of what one is. Buy another book for that! The Ewaipanomas R.C.C. Headless Men of the Amazon Optional Player Character  "Boobteeth" may be going too far but oh well. The disaster caused by the Atlanteans accidentally dragged about 2,000 of these otherdimensional creatures to Earth. Having come from a near-barren world, they found the amount of life in South America maddening, and also the magic that they used daily (earth warlock magic, to be clear - blah blah Conversion Book blah) was weak here, too. Local tribes thought they were monsters and tried to hunt them down, and it was only the arrival of the Atlanteans that gave them safe haven. They're apparently very chill despite all this and are rational, peaceful people who only get upset by things like slavery or brutality and then they have that kind of gentle giant rage thing going. In any case, they're superhumanly strong, have mild M.D.C., have good endurance overall, but have low beauty (yay, human standards). They have slow regeneration, can chat with elementals naturally, and most of them choose from the earth warlock or stone master classes, but 10% are "others". Just in case you wanted to play one as a Coalition soldier, it doesn't say you can't! Shaydor Spherians, a race of walking globes, get a reprint from Rifts World Book Two: Atlantis. It's kind of neat to see a less humanoid race in here, in retrospect it'd be good to see more of them. And that's it for Manoa! It's good to see an outright benevolent kingdom, as well as True Atlanteans that aren't useless dopes, but amazons always make poo poo complicated in a game, don't they? Next: Cat People. Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 04:31 on May 26, 2015 |
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May 16, 2015 01:06
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Zereth posted:There's a decent chance he's just lying. Just because your simple mammalian brain cannot contemplate the superior machinations of his reptilian genius does not mean you can make slanderous propaganda like this! Do you forget when his TIME BOMB successful destroyed time and sent that metal bucket back to your mammalian era of nomadic ox herding!
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May 16, 2015 01:14
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If you’ve never seen the 1986 film Highlander, I’ll try to sum it up as best I can. There are rare individuals, simply called Immortals, who die a violent death and come back. From that point on, they don’t grow older or have children, and any injury results in no more than a short nap. The only thing that can truly kill them is decapitation. But when one Immortal cuts off another Immortal’s head, the killer absorbs his victim’s power and knowledge as their life force spills out in an eruption of fire and lightning. So Immortals live for centuries, and become expert swordsmen (or die trying) as they kill each other in secret duels. Ancient prophecy says that the last surviving Immortals will be mystically drawn together at a time called the Gathering, where they’ll fight amongst themselves until only one is left. The last Immortal wins the Prize...no one knows what it is. The movie is set in present-day (in the 80s) New York City. The Gathering has come, and Immortal Connor MacLeod, a Scottish Highlander born in the 1500s, is preparing for battle with his rival, a psychopathic Immortal called the Kurgan.  Always match your sword to your sneakers, not your trenchcoat. The movie wasn’t a box-office hit, but attained enough cult status to spawn a franchise. I don’t want to spoil it for you, but there are no Immortals left at the end of the film, which would seem to prevent any sequels. To make a second movie, they had to retcon the premise so that the Immortals were exiles from another planet, and Connor MacLeod fights alien Immortals in a cyberpunk future. Highlander 2: The Quickening is regarded as one of the worst sci-fi/fantasy movies ever made. Roger Ebert put it best: “This movie has to be seen to be believed. On the other hand, maybe that's too high a price to pay.” Although none of the movies seem to have made their budget back, they kept making sequels, and they range from “crap” to “hilarious crap.” The fifth and last film didn’t make it to theaters, and came out on DVD in Russia months before premiering on the Sci-Fi Channel. If that wasn’t enough to kill the series, long-time producer Bill Panzer died in an ice-skating accident. The most successful product of the franchise was Highlander: the Series, starring Adrian Paul as Duncan MacLeod, a younger kinsman to Connor. The series had its own continuity wherein Connor was old and powerful but not the last Immortal, and the Gathering was depicted not as a running battle, but a sort of perpetual last era of history that had already arrived. (Much like the “end times” in all of the World of Darkness games, in fact.) This provided a good excuse for Duncan to constantly be running into other Immortals, and ran for six seasons of Duncan chopping the heads off of bad guys. It seems like almost anyone I ask about this show seems embarrassed about having watched it, but the show was an international hit. The film sequels were all bombs, but the original film and the series set the tone for pretty much every “urban fantasy” or “action horror” property where the hero broods and hides a sword in his trenchcoat. Of course, this means that Highlander was a big hit with roleplayers, especially the audience for Vampire: The Masquerade and the many games that followed in its wake during the 90s. I’ve seen fan-made Highlander supplements for the original World of Darkness, new World of Darkness, GURPS, Unisystem, and D20, and maybe more that I’ve forgotten. The problem is that Highlander doesn’t lend itself to roleplaying any better than it lends itself to sequels, if you stick to the canon of the TV series. Immortals don’t stick together in adventuring parties, they only duel one-on-one, and of course, the ultimate end of the Highlander story can only mean one Immortal left on Earth. The good stuff in the franchise is centered on a single Immortal fighting evil Immortals (and sometimes ordinary criminals) while trying to protect his loved ones. Not only that, but Immortals don’t adapt well to, say, the World of Darkness--besides their immortality, they don’t really have any whiz-bang superpowers like controlling minds, shapeshifting into massive were-beasts, or transforming their enemies into lawn chairs. Onto these thorny issues steps Legacy: War of Ages. Released 2 years after the first edition of Vampire and only weeks after the first season of Highlander had finished airing, it’s...now I feel silly. All that rambling about Highlander? I told you a long story so I could tell you a short one. Legacy is Highlander with the serial numbers filed off, dumped into a perfunctory cyberpunk setting. The whole thing is so sketchy that I declined to give this game a shot even after it landed in the discount bin of my local gaming store. Now that Abebooks and Amazon Marketplace make it easy to buy crap books from around the world at rock-bottom prices, Legacy joins the ranks of books I’ve bought just so I could leaf through them and laugh. Get ready to dive in, but be warned--it’s so shallow you’re likely to hit your head.  Two notes before we go forward. First, the book isn’t properly divided into chapters, so I’ll be covering the book in parts as appropriate. Two, the art. They’re not stingy with it. The bad news is that all of it, and I mean all of it, is in the style of “I took pictures of my friends in the park and ran them through a Photoshop filter” that was popular in second-rate gaming books in the early 90s. It’s just like the art from Immortal: The Invisible War, but worse. It’s all in black-and-white, and often blurry. Second, if you’ve read original World of Darkness books, you’re familiar with the trend they started of including flavour quotes from books, songs, poems, etc. under topic headings--anything from Baudelaire to Black Flag, as long as it set the tone. A lot of White Wolf imitators have used and abused the gimmick, but I’ve never seen a book do it as much as Legacy. They include quotes under almost every single heading, and it works out to an average of almost one quote per page. While reading, it feels like a lot more than that, because that’s counting the index and pages that are mostly charts, sample character sheets, etc. The setting topics often contain three quotes per page; it’s ridiculous. They use some of the same sources as Vampire, and in one case (Body Count’s “Cop Killer”) I believe they swiped the exact quote.  The road to hell is paved with blurry rocks. Legacy Part 1: The Techno-Gothic World Without even explaining its premise (a Highlander rip-off), Legacy introduces us to its setting, “the Techno-Gothic World.” However, instead of giving us a succinct overview or concrete details, it goes into a pompous rant to the effect that, basically, technological advancement hasn’t stopped people from being selfish, cruel, fanatical, and superstitious. quote:Yet with all of humanity’s advances, the bestial nature of Man has not been overcome. With the slow dissolution of national and economic boundaries has come a new territorialism. Ethnic and cultural differences are seized upon and proclaimed sacrosanct by small-minded people who fear the loss of their cultural identity. Religious zealots seek to impose their twisted views of morality upon an unsuspecting and often apathetic populace. Megacorporations plot and play with the lives of millions, using advertising, subliminal messages, and mind control to create the perfect consumers, who buy anything and everything without asking themselves if they need it. Like too many rats in a crowded cage, humanity has begun to turn on itself, and news of serial rapists and ritual murderers are not only commonplace, but passé. People still do crimes! They sacrifice virgins to Satan! And eat livers with fava beans! And kick puppies! And forget to tip the barista! How come logging into AOL and playing Shadow of Yserbius hasn’t fixed human nature? It goes on like this for a full page, and all we learn about the “techno” part of the setting is that there’s a super-Internet, called the “Winternet,” and that humanity survived a great plague, imaginatively called “The Plague.” It also makes several references to what Immortals think of all this, when we haven’t been told about Immortals yet. So, Legacy’s “Techno-Gothic World” is cast from the mold of White Wolf’s “Gothic-Punk” World of Darkness. That is, the present-day viewed through a misanthropic lens, with even more corruption, alienation, bigotry, and violent crime. And the skyscrapers have gargoyles on them. Am I alone here, or do most of these “dark urban fantasy” settings from the 1990s seem like a white suburban mom’s paranoid fears of what will happen to her kids if they go to college in a major city? Maybe it’s just me, but I cringe a little every time I see a reference to “urban predators” in one of these old RPG books. (Read Ninyou’s writeup of Destiny’s Price if you don’t pick up what I’m putting down.) Let’s get to the point. In this Techno-Gothic world, there are Immortals. No one knows where they come from, or what makes them immortal. But every culture has myths about them, and they’ve been around as long as the earliest human civilizations. Immortals begin life like everyone else, but before they turn 30, they find that their aging has slowed to a standstill. If they’re killed, they revive quickly. They can even regenerate after having their limbs hacked off or their brains blown out. They need to eat, sleep, and breathe like anyone else, but if they don’t, they just become weaker and weaker. Immortals can also sense each other’s presence over short distances, a sensation called the Immortals do age, in fact, but it takes centuries for them to age a few years, and it stops completely before they look 50. They cannot have children, although medical tests will show that they’re fertile. The only thing that will kill an Immortal is  Join me, and together, we can rule this food court as father and son! The War of Ages This is where the price of immortality comes in. If an Immortal kills another Immortal, they experience something called the Ancient prophecy says that one day, the world will be engulfed in warfare and natural disasters, and the last surviving Immortals will be drawn together in the Gathering (Yes, although Legacy’s Immortals have minor differences from those of Highlander, these concepts are precise ripoffs with the names changed.) Nobody knows the origin of the prophecy of the Ragnarok and the Conclave, and nobody knows what the Legacy is, either. Some Immortals don’t believe in it at all. But it doesn’t really matter if you believe in it or not: other Immortals are going to try to kill you and take your power, so you’d better be ready. Immortal life is difficult and lonely. They outlive all their loved ones, can’t produce children of their own, and have other Immortals gunning for them. Any one of these is bad, but combined, they tend to force Immortals to live on the fringes of society. If you do choose to have friends and family, your enemies may strike at you through them. The only friends who can really understand you, other Immortals, are inherently untrustworthy. And every year new technology and bureaucracy makes it harder and harder to forge a new identity or leave an old one behind.  Imagine a thousand years of Doors albums. Immortal Traditions Fortunately, the War of Ages isn’t a complete free-for-all. Immortals have some traditions that almost all of them follow, almost all of the time. Some of these are customs followed for practical reasons, others are rules of honour--and if you don’t take that seriously, there are old and powerful Immortals who do. First, Immortals don’t blow their cover. They’re not invincible or even particularly powerful, and no Immortal wants themselves or another to end up in a laboratory. This isn’t even considered a “rule” that other Immortals will come down on you for breaking--it’s considered a no-brainer. When an old Immortal encounters a young one, they often take them in and train them. Practically speaking, a newbie doesn’t stand a chance against a veteran (especially thanks to the Foreboding), and it’s not likely that your pupil will be the one to cut your head off in a few hundred years, either. Elder Immortals do this out of pity or simply because they’re lonely, and it’s nice to get a fresh perspective on this whole Immortal thing.  From here it’s just a nice, easy chip shot onto the green. Another Immortal custom is Introduction: when you sense another’s presence, you find them and introduce yourself politely in a safe place. Most Immortals get their hackles up as soon as they feel the Foreboding, so it’s best to just say hello to the other guy at the concession stand, so he knows that you didn’t come here to stalk him and murder him, you just came to see Paul Blart 2. Using an Introduction to get the drop on somebody is a serious breach of etiquette, almost as bad as talking during the movie. Noblesse Oblige is a moral principle that grew out of medieval chivalry. Basically, experienced Immortals are obliged to be magnanimous toward younger and weaker ones, and all Immortals are obliged not to treat normal people like poo poo. Unfortunately, this ideal is in serious decline. Sanctuary is the oldest rule in the Immortal playbook. In short, Immortals don’t fight each other on holy ground, meaning any place of worship for any religion. The theory is that the first Immortals were worshipped as demigods, and had cults and temples devoted to them.  Welcome to Castle Anthrax! Threatening an Immortal in their own temple became taboo, and that evolved into a respect for all places of worship. Violating Sanctuary is an abominable crime. If you break it, Immortals who have hated each other for centuries will team up to hunt you down. Oh, you’re an atheist? Good for you. Get ready for a duel with a guy who’s been chopping off heads since Christ was a carpenter. The most serious Immortal rule of all is the rule of single combat. When two Immortals fight, no one else, mortal or Immortal, is allowed to intervene. Sure, there are Immortals out there who will murder your wife and children just to break your will, but when they come for your head, they’ll come alone. In fact, the most despicable Immortals are the strongest supporters of the tradition of single combat, because it ensures the strong will kill the weak, and because they have the most to lose if teamwork became acceptable.  You just published pictures from your parents’ vacation album? There had better be two Immortals fighting in George Washington’s dick. One of Highlander's strengths is that it never gets caught up in the tedium of explaining its mythos. No one knows where Immortals come from, or what empowers them. No one knows where the prophecy of the Gathering and the Prize comes from, either. Why don't they fight on "holy ground?" For that matter, why don't they form gangs, and why don't they just gently caress each other up with guns or bombs and cut each other's heads off with hacksaws after? The answer is simply that they don't; with a handful of exceptions in the series that I won't get into, they obey these traditions as if under a mystical compulsion. But ripping the setting off for a roleplaying game and expecting PCs to do the same is...well, if you've ever run a game of any kind, you know it's a disaster waiting to happen.  If you’re just going to include a picture of a random building, it should be a parking garage. Next time, on Legacy: War of Ages: Immortal history. And CYBERhistory.
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May 16, 2015 04:54
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Halloween Jack posted:The only thing that will kill an Immortal is 40mm frag'll do that, no worries.
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May 16, 2015 05:37
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Halloween Jack posted:One of Highlander's strengths is that it never gets caught up in the tedium of explaining its mythos. No one knows where Immortals come from, or what empowers them. No one knows where the prophecy of the Gathering and the Prize comes from, either. Why don't they fight on "holy ground?" For that matter, why don't they form gangs, and why don't they just gently caress each other up with guns or bombs and cut each other's heads off with hacksaws after? The answer is simply that they don't; with a handful of exceptions in the series that I won't get into, they obey these traditions as if under a mystical compulsion. But ripping the setting off for a roleplaying game and expecting PCs to do the same is...well, if you've ever run a game of any kind, you know it's a disaster waiting to happen. Yeah, and that's the biggest place you're going to fall through. Even if both GM and players are on board for playing it as it's presented in universe, eventually somebody's gonna get that bright idea of, "what if I just like get a tank, or maybe rig a warehouse with thermite and C4 while I hide out in a blast-proof box in the middle of it?"
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May 16, 2015 07:59
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Covok posted:Just because your simple mammalian brain cannot contemplate the superior machinations of his reptilian genius does not mean you can make slanderous propaganda like this!
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May 16, 2015 08:25
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Zereth posted:Hm. I think I'm behind, actually. I don't remember reading that one! It's like the penultimate and ultimate storyline before the series became a webcomic. Both of the stories are now available legally, free on the Atomic Robo website if you want to read about it.
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May 16, 2015 08:37
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LornMarkus posted:Yeah, and that's the biggest place you're going to fall through. Even if both GM and players are on board for playing it as it's presented in universe, eventually somebody's gonna get that bright idea of, "what if I just like get a tank, or maybe rig a warehouse with thermite and C4 while I hide out in a blast-proof box in the middle of it?" The book apparently even tells you that the immortals that are most in favor of the whole "tradition of single combat" schtick are likely to be huge assholes, which gives even players who are willing to buy into the rest of it a reason to want to see how far they can bend the rules. Strangely enough, "no you see it's tradition that you have to agree to the terms set by the guy who murdered your family and friends and pets, play nice now" probably isn't going to be an argument most players find compelling so much as an excuse to start asking the GM what the equipment section has in the way of explosives.
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May 16, 2015 08:45
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Sticking to one on one duels is going out the window quick since it's a multi-player game.
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May 16, 2015 13:47
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LornMarkus posted:Yeah, and that's the biggest place you're going to fall through. Even if both GM and players are on board for playing it as it's presented in universe, eventually somebody's gonna get that bright idea of, "what if I just like get a tank, or maybe rig a warehouse with thermite and C4 while I hide out in a blast-proof box in the middle of it?" It's almost like a trap. "No, see, if you do that, even more powerful Immortals will come after you. And they'll also come for you alone, armed only with swords! Here's the thing: Street Fighter is another game I've reviewed that has one-on-one tournament combat in a multiplayer game. But it deals with that in multiple effective ways. One, there are team tournaments. Two, there is combat outside of professional Street Fighting arenas. Three, there are Honor and Glory mechanics that punish you for being a cowardly treacherous gently caress. The New World of Darkness fanmade Highlander had Honor as the Morality stat. The Lone Badger posted:40mm frag'll do that, no worries. Kai Tave posted:asking the GM what the equipment section has in the way of explosives. Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 15:56 on May 16, 2015 |
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May 16, 2015 14:56
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Genius: The Transgression, Bardos and Manes What happens when an idea long believed in a world that operates to some extent on oMage's consensual reality is conclusively proven wrong? In Genius, it suddenly appears, brought into existence by its own disproof. Genius posted:A mane is what happens when a theory is abandoned. Paradoxically, the moment the Community decides that I'm at a loss for what kind of threat the Martian Empire actually could have posed. Bardos and manes are susceptible to Havoc, so normal mortals would have dispatched the Martians in short order just by thinking really hard about how they work and where they came from. Still, it's an idea I really like for a world of mad science, a fine alternative to standard supernatural realms and alternate dimensions. Bardos and manes require Mania to survive, and get it by the undefined force of people who still believe in them and sending out manes, all of whom possess the Calculus Vampire merit. Which... only lets them drain Mania, and there aren't that many geniuses in the world unless you take Genius at its previously discussed word that there are a lot of mad scientists. So... moving on. Yet by their very nature, and the failing trickle of Mania to sustain them, all bardos represent failed dreams and they're all in slow collapse. The magnificent Space Age vision of Space Station Colossus is a hive of corruption and degenerate society in a barely functional L5 colony. The Grid, the cyberpunk vision of the Net, is growing dim and outer reaches are vanishing. Every bardo is fundamentally on the way out, though that doesn't mean they're not dangerous or have nothing to offer. Orphan inanimate manes and wonders from bardos are always handy, and the intelligent manes can be useful allies, dangerous enemies, or even PCs - if you took the Mane merit at character creation (a dumb idea in my opinion due to Havoc), one of the most likely explanations is that you're from a bardo. Genius posted:In game terms, entrances to a bardo are located "near" it in physical space; a bardo located on the bottom of On to sample bardos! The Crystal Spheres would make Dyson poo poo a brick were he to witness the great winged beings of light pushing the seven planets around unending planes of glass, all revolving around the immobile Earth at the center of the universe. This is the last remnant of geocentrism, and it is a place of bleak, empty beauty. Some Peerage and Lemurian starships journey deep into the cosmos of the Crystal Spheres, looking for other realms beyond or remnants of Dante's vision of the cosmos, but there is little here of interest to most geniuses. The Grey Plateau of Tsoska is the metaphysical melting pot for every dystopian Communist and fascist dream of the 20th century. Tsoska was born in the early 20th century as the first idealistic socialists saw the cold, brutal reality of the Soviet Union replace their workers' utopias, then grew and thrived during the Cold War. The fall of the Berlin Wall sounded the death knell for Tsoska and the bardo has gone into decline, but it remains a powerful, influential realm in the world of mad science. As long as a genius' papers are in order, Tsoska is welcoming to foreigners, eager to demonstrate its glory and accomplishments, and there's a lot of interesting science and art going on in the shadows of the Party's nearly omnipresent eye. The Grid is the 80s vision of the Internet, and anyone who's played Shadowrun or seen Tron or Hackers will be at home in this electronic world connected to every hooked up computer on the planet. Computer hackers have a field day here, though it's not all sunshine and roses. Electronic programs give rise to peculiar life forms that dwell in the Grid, and the security programs are aggressive and lethal. The Grid is a popular neutral meeting ground for mad scientists, though like all bardos the lights are beginning to dim and outer reaches go dark as this vision of the electronic future fades away. The Hollow Earth is a weird one even by bardo standards. The idea of an interior surface of the Earth that was inhabited, with a strange not-star at the Earth's core and vast realms of fungi and dinosaurs was never seriously believed to any wide extent, and science fiction's never paid the idea much mind, so geniuses aren't quite sure how the Hollow Earth survives. They have noticed, though, that primitive humans coexist side by side with misimagined dinosaurs and every mistake of paleontology over the centuries. Also, there are Nazi supermen down here. Lemuria began as an idea to explain how animals got to different continents before plate tectonics and continental drift became things, and began specifically as a land bridge that connected Madagascar to Africa. As time went on, Lemuria became similar to Atlantis and Mu, a lost world or great unexplored island filled with strange people and technology and God knows what else. Unlike Atlantis and Mu, Lemuria begged to differ when the world decided Lemuria never existed, and we'll see later how this gave birth to Lemuria the organization. Lemuria today is a blasted wasteland, utterly crushed by the Invisible Wars, its natives and their mysterious technology functionally extinct. A few Peers and Lemurians have begun to explore the shattered ruins of Lemuria, but it remains a dangerous and inhospitable place. Genius posted:The Martian Empire: Space Station Colossus was the grand dream of the Space Age and the Golden Age of science fiction, an idea born from Clarke, Heinlein, and countless other visionaries who saw the future of mankind in space. Colossus is an enormous O'Neil cylinder floating near the L4 point, ten miles long and, at first, a glittering jewel in the skies. But Colossus first appeared in 1984, and today the space station is a shambling ruin filled with malfunctioning systems, charming "futuristic inventions" fallen to pieces, and a fair few embittered Atomists. That's not to say Colossus is without value to Peers: the station has become the great marketplace between Earth and the realms of space, and if you can name it it's for sale somewhere in this decaying sci-fi paradise. Autocthon, Vulcan, Planet X, and Nemesis are barely existent bardos, various visions of planets in the solar system that don't exist - an alternate Earth on the far side of the Sun, a rogue planet beyond Pluto, the planet that shattered into the asteroid belt, etc. Little is known about them, for they flicker into existence only briefly ever so often, and only might become real if they somehow obtain a source of Mania. Next time, more miscellanea.
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May 16, 2015 16:27
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LornMarkus posted:Yeah, and that's the biggest place you're going to fall through. Even if both GM and players are on board for playing it as it's presented in universe, eventually somebody's gonna get that bright idea of, "what if I just like get a tank, or maybe rig a warehouse with thermite and C4 while I hide out in a blast-proof box in the middle of it?" The swordfighting could also be cut short with a taser to the face. chaos rhames posted:Sticking to one on one duels is going out the window quick since it's a multi-player game. I presume the book has a rule about how the bad guys never have fewer members than there are PCs.
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May 16, 2015 16:36
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I seem to recall the Highlander series mentioning that immortals don't fight on holy ground (of any religion) because it tends to cause natural disasters. Methos pointed out that the last time an immortal killed another immortal on holy ground, Pompei was destroyed as a direct result. Something like that would probably be a good reason why even the Kurgan wouldn't fight on holy ground... Edit: Also, again from the series, immortals don't tend to gang up on each other because only the one who gets the killing blow actually gets the quickening. That said, one villain did gun down his opponents before lopping their heads off. To be honest though, I think the only real thing that's going to keep players from deliberately breaking all the genre conventions is an out of character agreement between the players and the GM that they're not going to. hectorgrey fucked around with this message at 17:57 on May 16, 2015 |
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May 16, 2015 17:52
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hectorgrey posted:I seem to recall the Highlander series mentioning that immortals don't fight on holy ground (of any religion) because it tends to cause natural disasters. Methos pointed out that the last time an immortal killed another immortal on holy ground, Pompei was destroyed as a direct result. Something like that would probably be a good reason why even the Kurgan wouldn't fight on holy ground... You could probably work a meta angle into the game if you needed a more explicit reason to stick to the rules - go with the idea that 'When Immortals break these rules, Bad Things happen (often to them)'. Then if people do break one of the rules, give them a Bad Thing token of some sort. Maybe the GM gets to spend the tokens to gently caress you over at some point. Maybe they don't do anything at all, and it's just millennia of superstition, with no consequences for breaking the status quo. Of course, all of that is way more effort than this game is worth, I suspect.
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May 16, 2015 18:00
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