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ninjaiguana posted:Of course, all of that is way more effort than this game is worth, I suspect. Almost certainly true. Mind you, with the beta for Band of Bastards on its way, I could see that handling Highlander quite well - it has a similar melee system to The Riddle of Steel and Blade of the Iron Throne, so you have your awesome single combat; it has a large amount of support for different technology levels, meaning that you could quite easily jump to different periods in time while keeping it set in the modern day, and decapitation is a possible specific wound - the only one that would actually kill off an immortal. As for the problem of everyone wanting to play an immortal, I can see two possible answers - the Ars Magicka method (everyone has multiple characters, only one of whom is a fully trained immortal) and the Smallville method (PCs are not assumed to be together at all times - or even always on the same side).
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May 16, 2015 18:14
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I've been trying to listen to RPG books lately, using the text-to-speech feature on the PDF viewer of my tablet. Tonight I was driving home while listening to GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 2 - Dungeons. One of the early sections covers pre-dungeoneering activities, and one of them is "Scoring Extra Cash". Characters can panhandle, gamble, engage in busking, or even dredge gutters and mud-pits for loose change. Less scrupulous heroes can try cheating at gambling, or pickpocketing villagers, or: quote:Debasing Coin: Really depraved scum can debase (shave or add impurities to) the King’s coin. Start with honest coin up to $1,000 and then roll against Counterfeiting. Success increases the sum by 10%. Failure means ruined coin or lost metal, costing the crook 20% of his stake. Critical failure means the King’s men stick his hand in molten silver, giving him One Hand. A couple of pages later, the book is now talking about actually being in the dungeon and exploring it. The book goes on to talk about Mapping: quote:Traditionally, the GM describes what the PCs see and the players attempt to map it. Players and GM alike should read Player-Made Maps (p.B491) to understand how this works. Both times made me go "wait, what?!" like I was still listening to System Mastery.
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May 16, 2015 18:16
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Cythereal posted:Genius: The Transgression, Bardos and Manes You know, all this has made me want to run a massive nWoD crossover game, where the God-Machine is the BBEG, and a Lemurian invention. In order to fully realize their existence in our, well, reality, they created said God-Machine to stabilize ancient Earth. The GM did this by smushing together various alternate realities (so every creation myth, from Father Wolf and Friends to Atlantis and Irem are all true, just from different realities mashed into the WoD). It'd ironically be why Seers and Lemurians can't see each other; they're so attuned to their 'proper' realities they literally have to make an effort to see into other dimensions to perceive their rivals. It would also handily explain why bardos can survive on their own without fudging the numbers of geniuses around; they would only need Mania to interact with our reality- otherwise, they're fine on their own. The Hollow Earth would be another piece of Infrastructure- one designed to sustain bardos. Just wish I had time to do all this poo poo though 
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May 16, 2015 19:14
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The entire thing is too Old Mage to fit in the New World of Darkness, but the Grey Plateau of Tsoska sounds awesome.
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May 16, 2015 19:24
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CommissarMega posted:You know, all this has made me want to run a massive nWoD crossover game, where the God-Machine is the BBEG, and a Lemurian invention. In order to fully realize their existence in our, well, reality, they created said God-Machine to stabilize ancient Earth. The GM did this by smushing together various alternate realities (so every creation myth, from Father Wolf and Friends to Atlantis and Irem are all true, just from different realities mashed into the WoD). It'd ironically be why Seers and Lemurians can't see each other; they're so attuned to their 'proper' realities they literally have to make an effort to see into other dimensions to perceive their rivals. It would also handily explain why bardos can survive on their own without fudging the numbers of geniuses around; they would only need Mania to interact with our reality- otherwise, they're fine on their own. The Hollow Earth would be another piece of Infrastructure- one designed to sustain bardos. You've hit on my great frustration with Genius: there are some genuinely cool ideas in this line, and bardos are one of my favorites. It just doesn't use those cool ideas as well as it could. They're not talked about here even though they do belong to a bardo, but there are Nazi supermen (as in: super soldiers, magic and/or psychic powers, mech-suits, the works) on the dark side of the Moon and in the Hollow Earth. They'll be covered later in the antagonists section. I used the Crystal Spheres in the nHunter game my gaming group regularly plays. Some of the cosmic machinery had been sabotaged and there are enough people who still believe in geocentrism that it was starting to cause problems. Task Force VALKYRIE to the rescue to repair the Crystal Spheres and hunt down the saboteurs. Cythereal fucked around with this message at 19:30 on May 16, 2015 |
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May 16, 2015 19:27
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Rifts World Book Six: South America (Part 12): "Unlike their super-powerful mutant cousins, the felinoids' personalities are almost completely human, with a few cat-like instincts such as a love for taking naps during the day, pouncing on moving objects, a love for hunting and purring when they are happy." staaare at the pyramiiid Omagua - City of Jaguars So, we get a the spread of population statistics that Rifts loves, with the population mostly being "Felinoids" and "Assorted Mutant Felines". Despite being the "City of Jaguars", werejaguars are only about 4% or so of the population. We then jump into the backstory, which goes into a "Project Achilles" which sought to create super-soldiers by, uh, splicing human and cats. (Cue "herding cats" "joke".) It was all brutal and violent and cruel like science tends to be, and though they tried to breed a slave mentality into the cats, it never worked. Still, escapees or rebels generally had their whole genetic line wiped out just in case. Then they discovered ZB-23 or "Zee", a mutant panther who had ESP abilities, who could psychically instill peace in the other cats. They bred more of them, calling them "Oracle Cats". But the Oracle Cats were also super-smart, and sought a way to lead an escape. A week before the Great Cataclysm, they had visions of it, as well as three feline gods showing them the way to a new home. Then, a few hours before the Cataclysm, they led a violent revolt, and the survivors escaped into the jungle. The Cataclysm ensured, of course, that they wouldn't be followed. They then met magical werejaguars who had hid in the jungle for centuries, like you do, and they worked together on a magical ritual to summon Omagua to Earth. There they secretly built up the city, at least until the raids from Cibola began. When they ran across Manoan explorers, they mistook them for Cibolans, and attacked. This was a trick, though, and the distrust that Manoa and Omagua have was deliberately planned by Cibola. So much for having 80,000 psychic ESP cats who you'd think might see thorugh that ruse, but oh well... The Divine Felines Omagua was created by three gods:
 Their real reasons are a mystery and they might be plotting evil, or not. GMs decide!Government The gods rule the city, but they leave most of the actual hard work to the Claw Leaders, who are holy warrior-mayors. Then there's the Assembly of Prides which is a democratically elected Council that handles the legislative and judicial ends of things. Society For the most part, Omagua is fairly utopian, though they don't put up with much blasphemy and have some level of prejudice against un-cats. Those who aren't a little nyan get second shrift in just about any sense unless they're well-established members of the community. Foreign Relations Omagua is mixed up with other (unnamed, undescribed) dimensions and occasionally has had to go on (unnamed, undescribed) wars off-world. They have a cold conflict with Manoa due to Cibola's continued plotting. Their main enemy is Cibola, though they don't think they have enough intelligence for an all-out assault. (Once again, 80,000 psychic cats can't puzzle it out.) Lagarto alarms them and they may end up at war with the lizards. And Atlantis has sent spies to find out more aobut the cat-city and to "spread mischief". (Why? Wouldn't that draw attention to them? Oh well.) City Highlights Omagua is actually in a sort of transdimensional flux and can't be travelled to normally without running into Bermuda Triangle-esque shenanigans, and can only be entered through a secret rift. The city itself is built from yellow stone from another dimension, and mixes stils from Islam, Incas, and Egyptians. There's a Great Palace built using that ol' pyramid power atop a ley line nexus, and it has gold and jewels and statues and all those things classic gods love. They have a Business District where you can get a lot of goods, including technological once, though magic trade is rare. Lastly there's the... ugh... ... Kitty Litter... ... which are the local slums where smuggling and drugs and all the bad stuff occurs, though it's not like the total hellzones you see around Coalition cities. (Wait, how do they smuggle anything with only one entrance in or out of the city.) The local authorities suspect there are Atlantean or Cibolan spies where but don't do anything about because eh, you're the GM, you figure it out! And then without a chapter break, on to the new classes! Mutant Cat R.C.C. ... does not get any stats. The book refers us to buy Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and other Strangeness or Heroes Unlimited instead. Blah. As mentioned in my and occamnailfiles' Rifts Conversion Book review, mutant animals are kind of rear end to try and use in this setting, since their power level is a notable notch below Dog Boys and other mutants in this setting. It also refers us to the hodge-podge mutant cat rules in Rifts World Book One: Vampire Kingdoms, which are squashed into the middle of a city section and are easily missed on a skim-through if you never noticed them. Felinoid R.C.C. Jaguar Mutants - An Optional Player Character  Note the headless guy just hanging out in the backdrop. Wait, are they really mutants if they were genetically engineered? Anyway, these are the run-of-the-mill cat people with only minor psionics, your basic anthropomorphs that make up most of the working population. They're mainly strong and fast, and are strong-willed and overall fitter than humans. They also have nightvision, the crappiest claws, bonuses on climbing and jumping, and a bunch of minor psionics. Basically, better than humans except for the fact that being covered in fur's gotta suck in the Amazonian jungle. We also get a lot of small variants (the default is jaguar), like:
Flying Tiger R.C.C. Optional Player Character  nananananananana BATCAT These are tiger / humans who were bred for "psychokinetic genes". They found that some could levitate, so they spliced in a loving bat, and now you get psychically flying tiger-men who can shoot mind bullets and create force fields, because it seemed like a good idea at the time. They're stronger-willed, stronger, more agile, and faster than humans. They also have hundreds of S.D.C. and a natural force field that's roughly the equivalent of normal armor, only it can level up to 200+ M.D.C. in later levels. They can fly at MACH 1, see super-well, shoot dinky mind bolts, and they get a bunch of minor psionics and great combat bonuses. They mostly just have wilderness and combat skills, if not many. Some are mutant flying jaguars instead of tigers, but their stats are the same. And that's that! Flame Panther R.C.C. Optional Player Character  Come on, let's shake hands! Panther-men bred for pyrokinesis, because it seemed like such a good idea. They're a lot like Bursters from the corebook, only, you know. Cats. They also work as firemen for the city, since they can psychically douse flame. They're stronger-willed, more agile, and tougher than humans, but slightly less charismatic. They also can take hits like the Flying Tiger and get a "Flame Aura" that somehow deflects attacks like a suit of armor. They're nearly invulnerable to fire, can put out fire, cover themselves in fire, shoot fire, and... "rocket jump" by blasting flames out of their rear end. Rifts! Also they can sense fire and get additional minor psionics. Their skill list is wilderness / combat / sneaky, but get only a handful of other skills. Hunter Cat R.C.C. Optional Player Character  "Finally, we have isolated the rear end in a top hat gene." So, this was the ultimate goal of the Achilles Project, a hybrid tiger / jaguar / gorilla / human with superhuman strength and psychic powers that boosted its physical capabilities to be the literal equivalent of a man-sized tank before we factor in the supernatural and the rifts. Seriously, their S.D.C. is on par with main battle tanks. Small catch: they're all bloodthirsty murderous berserkers. Well, nobody's perfect. The head scientist tried to stop the project on account of them being so crazy, but the evil Argentinean government prevented him, because crazy unstoppable murder cats was an A+ idea to them. Though they've become part of Omagua's community, there's a real issue where they'll just flip out and attack people, and they largely rely on the Oracle Cats (more on them in a moment) to calm them down. Others have gone renegade to become murderers or bandits after leaving the city, or team up with evil monsters, like you do. Stats! They have really high strength, speed, and endurance, and great agility, too. They aren't very charming, but they're actually prettier than humans, oddly enough. As aforementioned, they get the S.D.C. levels of a tank from other games, though that's not much in M.D.C. terms (like 14 or so M.D.C.). Fortunately, they get a psychic force field that's the equivalent of minor power armor. They can do Mega-Damage with punches, regenerate through meditation (yeah, these guys seem totally capable of meditation?), shoot dinky force blasts, have dinky claws, some physical and "super" psionic powers, and some pretty great combat bonuses. Their skills tend towards wilderness and hunting, and they only get a small smattering of other skills. And for some reason Omagua trusts these guys with an awesome rocket rifle and additional M.D.C. armor. However, whenever they might get angry (totally undefined GM call), they have to make a save (the type of saving throw isn't indicated) or go crazy. They get a big strength boost while berserk, and some smaller combat bonuses, but have to kill all the things. This lasts until everything's dead or around 5 minutes passes, which is a 20-round eternity in Rifts terms. Empaths or simvan warriors can try and calm them down, but their odds are a bit lousy, because it's a psionics saving throw to recover from this which they have to lose, which they get a base of 8 or more on a d20 to save. That means a human empath has around a 10% chance of calming them down, a simvan monster rider can try with a 20% chance, and an oracle cat has a whopping 25% chance, because nobody looked at the odds of it actually happening, I suppose. (And also because Oracle Cats get a penalty to calm down beserkers, despite it being the main thing they do in the fiction.)Basically, if you don't have an Oracle Cat paired with every Hunter Cat in your party, you're hosed whenever somebody pees in their cheerios, presuming you're not just willing to have a stronger character class just beat them down every time (and probably murder them, because pulling punches doesn't really work against these cats once you knock their force field down). So yeah, not really playable unless you love inter-party combat whenever the Hunter Cat gets a thorn in their paw. Did I mention these guys are like 7% of the total population around Omagua, or 100,000 of them? Statistically, that means at least several hundred or thousand are going berserk all the time. Rules! Oracle Cat R.C.C. Optional Player Character  Built with genes from a cat, human, and an anime. So these are "cartoonish" cat-people with big eyes and small bodies "that make humans think of cuddly, stuffed animal toys". Yyyeah. Oh, and they're powerful psionics, in case you didn't miss the wobbly-headed implication. Generally they're good guys, with only a few turning evil, and most are figures of authority in the city or medical professionals. They can also become priests and get all the priest powers, but have to double their XP, which super sucks because all priest powers - as you may remember from Conversion Book 2 - are really dependent on level. So, yeah, you can be a "Divine Oracle Cat", if you like sucking. Of course, if you ever get to the top levels you'll shatter the game under your god-powered might, but I don't think you'll want to go through the decade of game nights necessary for it. So, they're crazy strong-willed, smart, and charming, with low strength but overall great attributes otherwise. They get a very minor psionic force field that barely provides any M.D.C., a ton of inborn ESP powers, a calming aura that isn't too great due to its dinky handwaviness, and more psionics as they level up. Given how these cats have been built up, it's pretty underwhelming. They're good at math and medicine, and get a modest selection of other powers. Their equipment includes the worst Mega-Damage armor (seriously, worse than Plastic-Man armor from the core) and a dinky weapon. "Wears little in the way of clothing, unless adventuring."  The Sekhmet Optional Player Character  A cat with a beard, now you've seen it. These are magical lion-men servants of Bast and Simba, though they're more like normal humanoids than the Ramen of Rifts Africa. We get cultural details on how they form war bands and their initiation rites which apparently they're not supernatural until their coming of age ceremony, in which they get superpowers. They've been used in a lot of interdimensional wars against evil deities and monsters, though occasionally they've worked for them too, because...? But most of them work for the "Pantheons of Light". Often now they're introducing other cat-people into their warbands and you can justify mixed-cat parties this way! You didn't really need to, but it's an option. In any case, they're supernaturally strong (not as much as the hunters, tho), tough, and agile. They get a modest amount of M.D.C., nightvision, regenerate, combat bonuses, low-level spellcasting, minor psychic powers, and hunting / wilderness skills. They come with a great suit of magic armor and a techno-wizard weapon, if you want it. Not too bad, but they're generalists; not particularly great at anything. They'd be more interesting if they could at least select a class, but nope. And despite them being lion-men, we get jaguar-art above. Well, art direction is optional, sometimes. Werejaguars & Werepanthers Optional Player Character This is just a reprint of their stats from Rifts Conversion Book or Rifts World Book 1: Vampire Kingdoms. Not much new information other than they're rival warriors with the hunter cats, which is funny because the hunter cats can beat the unliving poo poo out of them due to power creep. Seriously: the hunter cats don't even need silver, their dinky psionic blasts can kill a werejaguar even though their fists can't. The Divine Felines A Triumvirate of Gods So Yaguar-Ogui used to be a big deal in the Andes area before the Inca deities pushed him out, and so he dreamed of getting together with cats and making a cat-pantheon and nobody could push him into lockers anymore, and everybody laughed ath him, but eventually Bast had a fight with th Pantheon of Light and quiet out of that, and Simba is just looking to get a foothold on Earth again. And so they got together and contacted the Oracle Cats, and teamed up to make Omagua! Ta-da! Bast Egyptian Cat Goddess  Physical Beauty 22 So, Bast turns out to be a wild party god, but is kind of a selfish jerk, and one day saw Ra had his Ramen, which were lion-headed servants of his. And she gets upset and accuses Ra of stealing her bit, her "bit" being people with cat heads on, and demands that Ra turn over all his Ramen to her. Ra is like "what, gently caress no, I earned these cat men!", and so she stormed out to make her own city with cat-men and booze and blackjack. Generally, though, she isn't outright evil, and is helpful to the city, but is flighty and often goes off on her own adventures or even leads combat missions, which is really risky for her because- she has only 9,000 M.D.C. outside the city instead of 45,000, oh no- Ultimately she does what she wants like that fat kid from South Park and gives few shits to what her godly partners think. "her sarcasm can be devastating" So anyway she has generally potent supernatural powers, nightvision, invisibility, see invisible stuff, teleport, dimensional teleport, turn into any cat, regenerates, has top-level spell casting and stone magic and all the basic psionic powers, magic scale armor, and is tops at wilderness and domestic skills. She can cook a divine pie, I guess. However, her natural attacks are scarcely better than a vibro-blade, whee. Lastly she has "The Cat's Gaunglet" which is a clawed glove which is a greater rune reason, which has bunch of fire spells, does solid hand to hand damage and more against alien intelligences, and can fire knuckle spikes on chains which can drag people over to her, no doubt while shouting "Get over here!" Oh, and she has weakened duplicates of this weapon which apparently she gives out to cat-people she really really likes. Doesn't it require a living soul to be murdered to make these? Well, I guess it says it's good on the stat-sheet, so it must be fine. Yaguar-Ogui the Jaguar South American Feline God  Physical Beauty 20 An old tribal god of hunters and warriors, he supposedly made werejaguars by shoving a human and a jaguar together, and is an enemy of the Ellal (evil undead, we'll see them later). He hates the Inca gods for stealing his thunder and even blew them off when they recently showed up to save the Earth from aliens (no, really, see Rifts World Book Nine: South America 2, or wait for the review). So he's largely abandoned humanity as a result and dotes on his cat-people instead. Still, he's thinking of backing human tribes against growing nations like Lagarto or Cibola. He also doesn't trust Manoa because he was around for Atlantis, and generally regards the Atlanteans as gently caress-ups who are not to be trusted with the good china. So he's a much weaker god than the others, with only 15K M.D.C. to his stat shee, but he has the werejaguar damage immunities, which means you need silver, magic, or psionics to hurt him. Also he has other stuff like super-senses turns into a jaguar or half-jaguar (front or back half?) or teleports or dimensionally teleports and gently caress I hate these god statblocks so much let's see some powerful spellcasting and all sensitiv and psionic powers and magic M.D.C. robes, no poo poo, guy has like 15,000 M.D.C. and can take hits with a boom gun to the face and be like "was that a gnat or some poo poo" but he needs to have magic flowing robes that can take a nuclear weapon, sure. And he's alright with a sword. Next! Simba African Lion God  Physical Beauty 17 No poo poo, it's The Lion King. Well, it's taken from the Swahili word for "lion", but I can't find a mythical basis for this guy other than Disney. So yeah. So anyway supposedly this guy was a part of an animistic pantheon that's largely died out except for him, and he was having a really hard time because of that, so he joined with the others mostly out of desperation. He's not really too involved with Omagua, but is all too happy to use its military for proxy wars. He's the most inclined to have an eye towards conquest, and takes to take over Manoa or Cibola, because apparently he's a war-happy, thuggish lion. Whatever happened to you, Simba!? You were a nice guy in the movie! I think! I've never watched it! He rivals Bast for toughness, and can roar "sometimes loudly enough to shatter glass". He's a "16th level warrior and magician" even though those aren't classes. I presume they don't mean the Stage Magician class from Heroes Unlimited, though that would make him way more interesting. He doesn't have any psionics, but can see invisible, teleport, dimensionaly travel, turn into a big ol' lion or lion-man, and knows kung fu. He also gets a magic club with a fist on the end that can make or stop rain, and has special grab rules where he can give minor combat penalties and inflict automatic damage when grappling with the hand on the end. The grapple is automatic, whee. And that's all for Omagua! I know, I know, you're all probably disappointed this is the end of the cat people section, including Bast, your sexy cat-god waifu, but we've got to move on to something far more phallic. Next: Atlantis II: The Worm Turns Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 04:31 on May 26, 2015 |
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May 16, 2015 19:39
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You missed a perfect opportunity for a Pumaman joke there.
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May 16, 2015 19:47
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Kai Tave posted:You missed a perfect opportunity for a Pumaman joke there. You too. And now it's too late. 
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May 16, 2015 19:59
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I thought the highlander mythos was adequately represented by Katanas and Trenchcoats. (e: to repair dishonorable misnaming.)
Nessus fucked around with this message at 20:30 on May 16, 2015 |
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May 16, 2015 20:27
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Traveller posted: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. Sanity-check me here: if I'm fighting a boss backed up by a 10 HD mob and I roll anything above a 1 on my fray die, it hits the mob (because the mob is treated as 1 HD for this), doesn't auto-kill the mob because for applying damage the mob still has its full HD, and then applies damage as normal?
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May 17, 2015 03:42
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Then can take any class that doesn't involve the Coalition / Triax, power armor, or juicing. So basically none of the good ones?
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May 17, 2015 06:31
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The Lone Badger posted:So basically none of the good ones? Eh, Shifters and Ley Line Walkers are pretty alright. A Mind Melter or Mystic can be good, but only in a clever player's hands. Rogue Scholar or Scientist if you're one of those weirdos who actually uses skills. poo poo! I answered your question seriously, the real answer is none, yes. 
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May 17, 2015 06:51
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inklesspen posted:Sanity-check me here: if I'm fighting a boss backed up by a 10 HD mob and I roll anything above a 1 on my fray die, it hits the mob (because the mob is treated as 1 HD for this), doesn't auto-kill the mob because for applying damage the mob still has its full HD, and then applies damage as normal? I think the mob just gets reduced to 9 HD.
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May 17, 2015 08:51
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theironjef posted: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: Belatedly, please produce all of these in time for GenCon. :-)
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May 17, 2015 14:13
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Does anyone have the link to the archive of reviews? I went back a few pages and didn't see it.
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May 17, 2015 14:33
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Pinball posted:Does anyone have the link to the archive of reviews? I went back a few pages and didn't see it. Here you go
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May 17, 2015 14:39
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inklesspen posted:Sanity-check me here: if I'm fighting a boss backed up by a 10 HD mob and I roll anything above a 1 on my fray die, it hits the mob (because the mob is treated as 1 HD for this), doesn't auto-kill the mob because for applying damage the mob still has its full HD, and then applies damage as normal? It's treated as 1 HD for the purposes of being able to use your Fray Die against it, and then your damage roll of 2 would be translated to 1 point of damage, which then reduces the mob by 1 HD, to 9/10 HD.
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May 17, 2015 15:01
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Platonicsolid posted:Belatedly, please produce all of these in time for GenCon. :-) I might have like three or four of them by then. Of course we won't be at GenCon (this is a San Diego operation run by poor people) but it'd be hilarious to have our dumb thing represented there, so I will try.
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May 17, 2015 15:39
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gradenko_2000 posted:It's treated as 1 HD for the purposes of being able to use your Fray Die against it, and then your damage roll of 2 would be translated to 1 point of damage, which then reduces the mob by 1 HD, to 9/10 HD. This. If you had an effect that would automatically slay a 1HD foe like the Slayer of Legions gift, it would simply take off one HD from the mob. I'd say that a higher level character with Slayer of Legions would simply be removing as many HD from the mob as enemies it could kill for free in a round. With that gift and Breaker of Armies, you can play Dynasty Warriors: D&D pretty much. 
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May 17, 2015 18:13
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Traveller posted:This. If you had an effect that would automatically slay a 1HD foe like the Slayer of Legions gift, it would simply take off one HD from the mob. I'd say that a higher level character with Slayer of Legions would simply be removing as many HD from the mob as enemies it could kill for free in a round. Or in other words: "Against mobs, the hero inflicts their level in HD". Breaker of Armies, Slayer of Legions and Unstoppable Wrath (later adding Terrifying Presence and Titanic Blow) would make for a good Lu bu Build.
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May 17, 2015 19:56
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Doresh posted:Or in other words: "Against mobs, the hero inflicts their level in HD". With a heavy weapon and above-average Strength that's killing what, at least three foes a turn on dice rolls alone for a level 1 Warrior? I think Slayer of Legions should wait until around third level, since the effect triggers for enemies that are 1/3 the character's level in HD or less.
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May 17, 2015 20:24
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Princess: the Hopeful Part 1: Another forums.RPG.net production that doesn't understand the importance of editors, images, and turning extra content into supplements [No title image because no one ever made one and gently caress doing that myself] Disclaimer: I have very little experience analyzing TTRPGs and while I am familiar enough with the rules for nWoD to try this out, I'm still a bit lacking in my knowledge for nWoD 2E. Like how Genius seems to lean heavily on inspiration to oMage, there's likely some inspiration from oWoD in this game that will just run right past me since I have absolutely no knowlege of oWoD stuff beyond the names of the games and what I've absorbed from this thread and the WoD thread, so if I miss something from oWoD or nWoD that the game seems to be clearly aping, feel free to point it out. Background: The original foundations for this game were laid in the RPG.net forums and continue to be developed to this day. If this was a proper book and production, what counts as the core book would likely have been split into the core and an supplement. As it currently stands, the pdf runs at 394 pages (and 431 with condition cards). In terms of time spent on development, the first post that started this thing off was dated March 3, 2009 and originally titled Princess: the Fading. It was remaned relatively quickly (since the second thread six months later had it with its current name). One of the bigger sparks in development was the release of the anime Puella Magi Modoka Magica. Even prior to this, there was a lot of inspiration to draw from such as Sailor Moon and subversions/parodies like Sailor Nothing. However, there wasn't really a series that hit the themes of PtH quite like Modoka Magica and likely affected the development heavily from that point forward. Prior to that, much of the development was based on emulation of the genre and then creating their own subversions or elements of darkness. As much as I'd like to go on and on about the dev process for this fan game (since it provides a lot of useful context for something like this), much of itis wrapped up in the rpg.net threads which is now on #8 at ~2700 posts. Compared to Genius, Princess still sees a bit of active development with minor updates usually popping up once a month based on their update log. That log doesn't go past 2012 though. As for how serious this game is, it's definitely a real tossup since this amount of development is too much for a parody, but the original rpg.net post starts with this: quote:Today I remembered John Biles' parody homebrew, Senshi: The Merchandising, and I started brainstorming how'd you go about something like for nWOD. Also, as it turns out, there were two previous attempts to do Princess before this. One was abandoned (by McGiygas and also actually about the forked version that's been stalled since 2012 afaik) and the other is listed as complete (by recon_etc). Both are in archives and just looking at those posts (courtesy of the F&F archive), a bit has changed since their posts including the introduction. Not enough that it may as well be a different game, but just enough that there are noticeable changes. There is no guarantee that I'll go beyond the completed version which got all the way to the Charms section, but one can always Hope Introduction: quote:No matter how old we may be now, all of us were once young. The world was unexplored and exciting, full of possibility. What we lacked in experience and wisdom, we made up for in possibility and enthusiasm. We dreamed of fame, fortune, wealth, glory, respect. We wanted to be astronauts, cowboys, firemen, doctors, singers, rock stars, or all of the above at once. After all, we didn’t know what was possible – and that meant ANYTHING was possible. We looked at the world through guileless eyes, felt it as fully and intensely as anyone ever could. When we came to a new idea, we embraced it zealously and whole-heartedly, convinced we’d found the secret that would change the world. When we loved, we were convinced it was the most passionate ever felt; when we hurt, we thought it was a tragedy the likes of which had never been seen. We were convinced that we had the whole thing figured out, that we could make everything perfect if we just had a chance, if the grown-ups would just listen. After all, we could do anything if we put our mind to it. We were fearless. We couldn’t wait to grow up so we could grab life by the horns. Before we're out of the gate, we get a rousing speech that's the equivalent of the opening fiction I guess. I may be off, but there's definitely some Changeling: the Dreaming vibes based on all of the "growing up isn't all it's cracked up to be" stuff. It's all like this too. Just overblown and a little pompous. I could try an sum up all of the weird nonsense that the introduction puts forth, but it's all kinda bad so I'll just quote it. quote:A Game Of Fighting Fear The theme of the game is obviously Fighting Fear and making a difference against reality and the troubles it brings. The mood is Exhasution since the trials will never end and any spare time is few and far between. Themes of growing up also seem to be apparent based on the Introduction section alone. One thing that's also apparent is how closely it edges on being some sort of Superhero WoD splat instead of Magical Girls. The unending battle for hope and doing the right thing and such just screams Superman rather than any sort of Sailor Moon deconstruction. There's also not a Glossary at this point, so when "Status Quo" appears capitalized in text, it's assumed that it's something important in the text, but idk if it is or if it's just the severe lack of editing because someone didn't get the memo that status quo isn't a proper noun. Princesses (and Princes) are also known as the Nobility (again, no glossary, so I'm assuming here). Inspirations: Sailor Nothing  I'll let TVTropes (  ) explain this one:quote:Take a basic Magical Girl template, influenced most of all by Sailor Moon (note the title). Infuse some Neon Genesis Evangelion, mix in the tone and atmosphere of Animorphs, and add some of the self-awareness of Scream on top. What do you get? Sailor Nothing, a Web Original written by Twoflower and a very scary magical girl story, not unlike Elfen Lied. It also predates some other takes like Futari wa Pretty Cure and Puella Magi Madoka Magica (but not Shamanic Princess), being written in 2000 and 2001. Puella Magi Modoka Magica  As mentioned above, this anime premiered in 2011 and made huge waves in the Magical Girl scene by being less than subtle about the darkness within it which becomes readily apparent after the first plot bomb. The universe doesn't exactly mesh with the setting Princess has so it's not a perfect match, but the trials and tribulations are supposed to be relatively accurate. Mai-Otome Without going into the batshit setting involving nanomachines and the virgin girls they are bonded to, the inspiration noted is based on the Realpolitik that's involved. I don't know either. For further reading though, consider the meme O noes her nanomachines!11!!(  ).Brave - What happens when a Princess shirks their duties Coraline - The world Coraline enters is representative of a Dreamland and the Other Mother is an example of a one of their antagonists. Peter Pan (2001 Film) - The pitfalls of Dreamlands and themes of growing up. First thoughts: As a twenty-something who consumes way too muchanime and superhero comics, the growing up themes actually do resonate with me and I'm sure the collaborators of Princess may have done a bit of the same. Also, Cythereal is a real trooper for being able to get through Genius since Princess seems to be in the same mire of being overloaded with content with the book having a monstrous lack of aethetics to at least soften the blow. There's a lot of text to pore through and I'm sure some of the more obviously dumb stuff might go over my head. However, Chapter 1 has a section titled Nakama so clearly the anime is strong in this game to a likely embarrasing degree. Also of note, the Gordian Knot line has been in the text since 2010 as referenced by a /tg/ thread lambasting the game so any amount of editing and critical commentary has been minimal. At some point somewhere, this was also probably a slight comedy game or something with more noble intentions. However, it's reached someplace a bit creepier and offputting. Also, the lack of Princess Tutu in the inspiration section is a little disappointing.
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May 17, 2015 20:46
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Traveller posted:With a heavy weapon and above-average Strength that's killing what, at least three foes a turn on dice rolls alone for a level 1 Warrior? I think Slayer of Legions should wait until around third level, since the effect triggers for enemies that are 1/3 the character's level in HD or less. True. Either way, it's good to finally find a d20 game that can pull off Dynasty Warriors. Xelkelvos posted:The theme of the game is obviously Fighting Fear and making a difference against reality and the troubles it brings. The mood is Exhasution since the trials will never end and any spare time is few and far between. Themes of growing up also seem to be apparent based on the Introduction section alone. One thing that's also apparent is how closely it edges on being some sort of Superhero WoD splat instead of Magical Girls. The unending battle for hope and doing the right thing and such just screams Superman rather than any sort of Sailor Moon deconstruction. I think this is sorta true as a deconstruction of the first Sailor Moon anime, which suffered from the DBZ syndrome of having lots and lots of filler because manga and anime ran almost in parallel (doubly problematic for Sailor Moon because that manga only got a new chapter once a month), turning a "lieutenant of the week" manga into a "monster of the week" show. The manga also had like 5 different evil organizations, the anime at least one extra. Taking a quick look at the official Princess wiki, I'm a bit confused how organization/nation/kingdom management rules fit into a roleplaying game about girls in frilly dresses defeating evil monsters with fists, weapons and laser beams. And why would you not influence your dark magical girl roleplaying game after Princess Tutu? Drosselmeyer is essentially a GM. That being said, I actually kinda sorta have a setting for this game. It's basically an attempt at a magical girl analogue to Kamen Rider Decade and the Gokaigers, set in a magical not-Roman Empire that ends up being invaded by shadowy creatures whenever a magical girl show is concluded (as the evil energy of the defeated antagonists has to go somewhere). It may or may not include an evil magical girl of the now seldom used idol singer variety that is a death metal ganguro harpy. And this somehow developed from another idea about a magical girl in a setting where a) magical girls form a secret society, b) she is the worst magical girl ever and c) the bad guys are intentionally crappy Cthulhu mythos adaptions. I may end up using Silent Legion's mythos creation rules for some fleshing out. Doresh fucked around with this message at 22:09 on May 17, 2015 |
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May 17, 2015 21:58
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Xelkelvos posted:Also, the lack of Princess Tutu in the inspiration section is a little disappointing. That's because Princess Tutu is Changeling: The Lost. Talespinning is a Drosselmeyer simulator.
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May 17, 2015 22:14
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Ugh, gently caress Princess forever. I'm personally not a fan of any "dark" magical girl stuff that isn't Princess Tutu or Pretear to begin with, but it's just...it's just bad. E: That said, fighting for hope and love and so on is a magical girl thing, especially in more earnest series, but this all is just not nWoD material at all, it's not WoD-appropriate material in general and it's just...gently caress nerds, gently caress everything about nerds. This is the worst nerd poo poo, it's like what happens when nerds hit ponies. They can't let cute things made for little girls to have fun with stay cute or fun. Mors Rattus fucked around with this message at 22:20 on May 17, 2015 |
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May 17, 2015 22:17
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Xelkelvos posted:Princess: the Hopeful There's something inevitable about nerds taking something they loved as a child (or something childish they love) and dragging it kicking and screaming into more transgressive themes, mistaking "thing I wasn't allowed to watch when I was thirteen" for actual maturity. And that's not to say you can't have a more grim or adult take on childish things and make it work, it requires a certain emotional maturity to understand that the childish aspects of those things often aren't necessarily dross to be discarded, but that they're part of what makes them what they are in the first place. Of course, hand in hand is that that the idea that "childish" ideas are somehow forbidden to adults. Though as adults we often prefer more complexity in our narratives than children do, there are so many ways to handle that other than just tipping anything joyous into a pool of misery.
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May 17, 2015 23:02
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And speaking of pools of misery... Rifts World Book Six: South America (Part 13): "Beyond that, however, he is also a thoroughly evil entity that requires death and suffering to exist." Cibola, the Gilded City Another contributor to the legends of El Dorado So, Cibola was an interdimensional trade nexus that occasionally used dimensional portals to visit Earth, and the multiple appearances of those portals caused people on Earth to think it was multiple cities, and not just once. Hence, the "The Seven Cities of Cibola". It's run by Inix, who is part of a species of supernatural intelligence known as "Soul Worms", one of many collections of giant eyes and tentacles so popular in Rifts. He's pretty much a evil evil evil monster who uses mercantilism to spread suffering, part of a continuing theme in Rifts where business isn't just evil, it's eeevil. He's really much like the Splugorth, but focuses more on evil drugs and evil medical treatments. Apparently the interdimensional pocket dimension was (somehow) rendered unstable due to the magical cataclysms on Earth, and so they used magic to "land" on Earth safely instead of being knocked adrift or the like. Of course, Inix saw it as a big opportunity, since Earth was mostly virgin territory to be exploited, but accidentally landed near Manoa and and Omagua. He intitially tried some exploratory attacks on both cities, but realized that a full war would be too risky. So he's fooling Manoa and Omagua into fighting against each other, which at least prevents them from wiping Cibola off the map. However, he's also having trouble with the Naruni making inroads in the south, and the Splugorth taking over the Lagarto in the north, so the situation is a lot more unstable than he likes. What's more, he prefers to rob local cultures for things Cibola needs rather than trade for them, which keeps him from making a lot of friends. We get population statistics, naturally, which most of the people being Pogtalian Dragon Slayers, the giants from Vampire Kingdoms and pincer warriors (an insect warrior like shown on the cover). Brodkil, grimbor, and gatherers (bug-men servants of him) fill out most of the population otherwise, along with a large human slave population. Government Inix is an absolute dictator, though he relies on personal advisors who carry how his will, though he plays favorites to keep any one from gathering too much power. The gatherers handle most of the bureaucracy. Given that they're all kleptomaniacs, I have to wonder how that functions... or, more properly, how it doesn't. Society Built on a "greed is good" sort of principle, Cibola is overrun with crime and corruption and ennnnh is the generic Rifts sort of evil, it's basically a alternate, smaller version of Atlantis' villainy. It's hard to say what crime is here, anyway, since the laws are never described. Most of the labor is done by slaves, and most of the "free" population is made up of "lazy aristocrats, conniving business people, corrupt merchants, thieves, and vagabonds who consider work to be something that free men shouldn't bother doing." Slaves are treated very badly, and naturally, they consider humans to be worthless chattel etc. However, if you're a good consumer, you'll generally get respected as long as you're throwing around money for goods and bribes and have the power to take care of yourself. Foreign Relations Cibola raids its local territory for slaves and ingredients for druuuuugs. He's really into druuuugs. He's like the space slug equivalent of those '80s action movies were all the villains were drug kingpins in South America. He's that. Anyway, he's opposed to Manoa because they're "go-gooders and meddlers" and also that they'll bring the attention of the Splugorth closer. He doesn't trust any gods, so Omagua is no good, but he's putting feelers out to try and see if he can call a hitman on the three gods. An anti-deity hitman. Sure. Lagarto is bad news for him since they're Splugorth tools. He doesn't like Colombia but may aid them against the vampires, or oppose them if they ally with the Coalition. He wants the secrets of Maga Island but the jungle elves already know about him and will basically kill his forces on sight. Lastly, he's interested in the Empire of the Sun, but we have to wait until the next South America book to hear about the Neo-Mayans. Cibola City Highlights Like Atlantis, Cibola loves gilding things in platinum or gold, as you commonly might do in a city filled with thieves. There are statues that may or may not be spy statues, and the city is surrounded by druuuuug farms. Some buildings use phase technology to make their buildings, whatever the gently caress that is, because it just points us to Rifts Dimension Book Two: Phase World for details, which wasn't out when this was printed, but it at least came out soon after. Gatherers and pincer warriors patrol and generally ask for bribes of a non-specific amount to gain entry. Unlike most cities, though, Cibola gives no shits about the Earth credit, so most PCs won't be able to use their hard-earned money here. In fact, there's no details on what currency they do use, which is problematic when you're describing a city based solely on mercantilism, evil, and evil mercantilism. Anyway, we have:
Cibolan Armed Forces Apparently 60% of the population is military, even though they aren't actively at war. Makes sense! We get the usual Rifts focus on unit makeup for those wanting to throw non-random encounters at PCs, and can move on. Key Forces & Characters Inix - Alien Intelligence  "Really, I move so slow, if I drain your soul, it's really your fault." No introductory text per se, we go right into the statblock. He's described as "a monster with the soul of a used car salesman", and is power-hungry and sadistic (ho hum) but is generally kind of cowardly. Other than that, he's a several-ton worm with one eye and a bunch of tentacles. All his attributes are awesome except for his Physical Beauty of 2, not that such provides anything other than thematic penalities. 14K M.D.C., minor spellcasting, all sorts of ESP and some mind contorl psionics, sees the invisible, sees in the dark, can shapeshift to look like a humanoid, regenerate, invulnerable to fire, teleport, dimensional teleport, and can drain people's souls (though it's too slow for combat) where he eats somebody's psychic energy and then their mental endurance, and gains their memories for a short period of time. Oh, and it inflicts insanity and loss of skills and class levels, so if you're a PC, prepare to enjoy the vagabond class, because that's all you can take! You'll be lucky to know how to use a fork! Ha ha! gently caress you, players!  All of its glances are longing glances. We then get a general statblock for generic Soul Worms, in case you want more of them in your game. (You probably don't.) They might be related to the Zembahk (of Rifts World Book Two: Atlantis, but are crazy more powerful if they are. They used to serve a supernatural intelligence or mmmaybe an Old One, but then their master vanished and people rose up and killed most of them, and only a "few thousand" survive across the multiverse as tinpot dictators, pirate lords, or servants of bigger god-fish in the god-sea. All of them are as buff as Inix, and a whopping 3% of them are good guys, which is about the only interesting thing I've heard about them so far. It explicitly says you can't play one, though, so don't get your hopes up. Malkhom Cibola's Head of Security  "Doom? Never heard of the fellow." A temporal raider (of Rifts World Book Three: England), he's impassive and honorable, though still eeevil. He's basically the Destro to Inix's Cobra Commander. Or maybe Shockwave to Inix's Starscream? Despite being honorable, though, he uses blackmail on the other advisors, because honor? He's a little unusual in that he'll commit good acts (shock!) if they help him achieve his ends. Or just torture the gently caress out of you, whatever logic dictates. Anyway, he's a 14th level Temporal Raider and doesn't have any particularly unusual powers despite the usual array of nonsense one gets. Iridna Inix's War Chief  A goth in burlap. Despite looking human, Iridna is actually a godling of unknown origin, and she's bloodthirsty and willing to kill underlings that annoy her because she's murderous and sadistic (ho hum), though she's a little too war-hungry for Inix's taste. As such, she may be on the way out. She's mostly just crazy buff, though her attributes are formidable overall. She has all the basic godling stuff, but can also shoot lovely energy blasts. Somehow she has a Sword of Atlantis, and is all gothy and grim in her fashion- Rifts World Book Six: South America posted:A pale black-haired woman with intense deep-blue eyes. She favors black lipstick and nail polish, accentuating her paleness, and always dresses in black, wearing short tunics and thigh-high boots to formal occasions, or black demonic armor in combat. Rendell The Slave Master  A dragon that once was in a dungeon. An adult fire dragon, Rendell is all yessss master to Inix, which a lot of people find appalling because dragons are supposed to be proud, but Rendell is all too willing to murder people who point it out. Apparently he was imprisoned by another dragon in a dimensional prison for centuries, and Inix rescued him and slew his captor. Rendell is crazy, and sees Inix as "an angel from heaven", which makes him part of a litany of Rifts sub-villains that see their masters as gods or angels or whatever. In fact, he hates anybody in good with Inix because Inix is apparently his waifu, though he's come to respect Malkholm. He's also often hopped up on special druuuuugs formulated to affect an adult dragon. In any case, he's an average adult dragon, with modest spellcasting and psionics, and nothing too exceptional about the statblock iself. He often shapeshifts into a "giant Gatherer" to interact with Inix's followers. Kastor Leader of the Gatherers  Even his eyebrows are spiky! Centuries old, Kastor used to be the old Head of Security (or Chief of Intelligence), but he had the issue of all of his gatherer agents being kleptomaniacs (it's a species thing). So Inix fave his position to Malkholm, and Kastor is resentful and now is in charge of radiding for slaves. But sooner or later he's planning to give aid to Cibola's enemies when he thinks he can get away with it, and get revenge on Inix and Malkholm by bringing down the city. Though he's pretty tough, he's- well, another coward at heart. Stat-wise, he's pretty tough for a gatherer. We'll get to them in just- The Gatherers Minions of Inix  They like to pinch things! Get it- ennnnh- Lobster / toad / human mix-ups, these are dimensional nomads who teleport from world to world and rob people, since they have no sense of private property. Inix recruited some two millennia ago, and likes them so much he's been trying to collect them all. They're often used on raiding missions thoughout South America. Then we get a long-rear end trirade on how they're not recommended as PCs but you can use them if you really want but the PC will still be a kleptomaniac and nobody trusts you and and how you can only choose a selfish alignment and the whole thing is really passive-aggressive as per usual. They're super-strong, in any case, and are actually superhuman in most senses save for charm and beauty. They actually get more M.D.C. than a dragon hatchling, averaging at 450 M.D.C., can see invisible stuff, can turn invisible, get very minor regen, nightvision, and a really powerful dimensional teleport. Unlike most dimensional teleports, they can attempt "blind" teleports to unknown locations, though with only a 32% success rate, I have to wonder how bands of them stay together without being accidentally stranded across different dimensions. Rules! They get minor spellcasting and master psionics, and a modest amount of skills including a lot of tracking, navigation, and lore. Pogtalian Dragon Slayers This is mostly just a reprint of their statblock from Rifts World Book One: Vampire Kingdoms, and Inix has hired them to join his army, and they're rivals for the gatherers. They're too proud to really worry about victimizing humans very often, looking for strong foes to match their skills against. Unlike the Gatherers, the book is just fine with you playing a Pogtalian if you want, just warning that they're associated with Cibola in South America and are likely seen as baddies by Manoa or Omagua. The Pincer Warriors Supernatural Minions  I wonder what part Siembieda drew? Bloodthirsty bug-men who Inix recruited, their origins are mysterious and might be the result of design or particularly harsh evolution. Doesn't matter. They might feed of of life force. Or maybe not! We get another diatribe about how you probably shouldn't use them as PCs because they're really predatory and brutal and if you really really want to allow one I guess it could be a mutant freak who doesn't want to murder everything and everybody will hate you etc. In any case, they're stronger than gatherers, but only have a fraction of the M.D.C., though theirs at least increases with level-ups. They regenerate, take less damage from energy attacks, can go months without food by gorging, get some wilderness and sneaky skills, and some get some fancy weapons assigned to them. They're mostly just thugs seemingly meant to get cut down in droves, and don't particularly deal big damage or withstand damage particularly well. Grimbor Ape-Men Optional Player R.C.C. This is another stat reprint, this time from Rifts Conversion Book, of sentient ape-men with horns. Apparently Inix shifted into a false god for them to worship, and has gathered a lot of them to serve him as scouts and guerrilla fighters. Get it? Because they're gorillas- ennnnh. Mostly they're just cannon fodder. Just in their original writeup, they're S.D.C creatures, but get a military training package and some pretty fantastic set of equipment, including an armor with added force field and "yumbuto clubs" which are clubs with a special energy... thingy?... that lets them club you for Mega-Damage. They avoid cybernetics for no particularly good reason. They're not magical, after all. Cibolan Weapons & Equipment It's noted here you can find almost any weapons in Cibola, but Splugorth weapons are more expensive and rarer. We get reprints of Naruni weapons - the NE-4P, NE-10, and NE-200 - from Rifts Mercenaries, only with new art that doesn't match the old art at all for some puzzling reason. Then we move on to vehicles! Dragon Death Power Armor  "A bat is making love to my head! Fear it!" Subtle. This is special power armor fo the Pogtalian Dragon Slayers, built to work with their natural force field. It has modest M.D.C. buoyed up somewhat by the force field, a 300 MPH jet pack, mini-missiles, a modestly powerful plasma cannon, and improves an Pogtalian's hand-to-hand-damage. Kinda meh compared to better mechs in the game but if you're a Pogtalian, it's great to have and supplements just about all your natural abilities. Also, dragons can kick the poo poo out of it. Cibolian Flying Platform  Adaaworable purveyors of death. These are flying topless trucks, more or less, and they often carry gatherers. Their actual M.D.C. is pitiful, and they mostly rely on a decent force field for defense. They also have special rules for destroying the hand railings on them and having people fall out. They can zip around at 200 MPH (yes, with an open top, prepare for windburn). There's a plasma cannon that's no better than the hand-held one, and mini-missiles, though that art certainly doesn't make the missiles look mini. Cibola's Drugs & Potions Cibola is supposedly one of the finest places for chemical recreation, and it notes you can find any Earthly drug, including the ones from Rifts World Book Five: Triax and the NGR. It notes they don't have juicer or crazy treatments, but Inix is interested in them even though he apparently has more powerful drugs that make people super. We have a note added that drugs are bad, and drugs are also bad for PCs. Good to know. Magical Potions and Pills
And that's it for drug-peddling slavery bugs. Note: The indigenous people of South America... according to Rifts. Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 04:32 on May 26, 2015 |
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May 17, 2015 23:48
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Red Tide Welcome to the jungle And on that note, let's continue with the Kevin Crawford love! Red Tide is his setting for the Labyrinth Lord retroclone. LL is specifically a retroclone of the 1981 Basic/Expert edition of D&D, also known as Moldvay/Cook D&D: all that you have to really have to know is that in LL Elf, Dwarf and Halfling are classes of their own. Red Tide is a sandbox setting where the last remainders of civilization eke out a living in a hostile archipelago, trapped along with savage natives and the dangers of the isles by a malevolent, cosmic force. Handily, this also limits the size of the sandbox to manageable levels, and as the review progresses we'll see that Crawford really tried everything to make sandbox gaming not just appealing, but as easy to run and play in as possible. But first, we're going to get some background! quote:Three hundred years ago, the world ended. Okay, so this world used to have its bog-standard collection of realms, kingdoms and empires. It was an ordinary fantasy world, as far as these things go. One day, Archmage Lammach, First Seer of the Ninefold Celestial Empire, saw omens of a dire fate. Only thing was, he was the only diviner to see them, and therefore no one else believed him despite his exalted status. The omens were so horrible, however, that Lammach took it upon himself to build a fleet that could carry refugees to the only place he saw would be a refuge from the coming apocalypse, an isolated collection of islands loved by pirates, smugglers and other ne'er-do-wells. The effort to which Lammach went was enough that some people started taking notice, but it would be too late. East of the empire, the Red Tide appeared. The Tide was as tall as a city wall, an encroaching mist from which things that were not of this world crawled forth. Its advance was relentless, consuming everything in its path. The Emperor finally accepted that Lammach had been right, but by then there was little to do but flee to the western ports and secure passage on one of his fleet's ships. The last command Lammach received from his liege was taking the Tablet of Heaven and the treasures of the Empire with him and flee. The Emperor stayed behind with his greatest sorcerers to buy the fleet as much time as they could. And so, refugees from all over the world abandoned their homelands to the Tide, heading to the only place in the world that would be safe from it for centuries: the Sunset Isles. The Isles were a backwater. Some empires of old had tried conquering, but they were too far away and had too little of value. Sure, there were ruins and such, but nothing really worth mobilizing forces. As such, the Isles were a haven for exiles, pirates and other outlaws. Some tried colonizing the isles, too: most of those ended up as fodder for the native inhabitants of the isles, the warlike Shou. But to the Isles the refugee fleet went all the same, because Lammach saw that something in them was inimical to the tide. There were great veins of glossy black stone deep beneath the isles that the Shou called godbone, and something about it made the Tide recoil. Eventually, the fleet made landfall in Ektau, the largest of the isles, and in a short period of time (aided by the Imperial sorcerers that had gone with Lammach) they erected a new city, Xian, over the ruins of ancient settlements. The neighboring Shou would have normally crushed any settler expedition, but the refugees were desperate from their escape, and thus drove the native tribes westward, clearing large swathes of land for their own use. Many settlers died in the coming years to the perils of the Isles, but little by little they started rebuilding what they had lost. They had some help from the local non-Shou inhabitants, particularly from the small and relatively safe port of Nordheim, which was used as a waystation for trade ships back in the day. This knowledge and the settler's coordination helped push the tribes back, as they had little in the way of unity: each single tribe believed they and they alone were the chosen of their god, Shakun, and they thought little of stabbing each other in the back as well as fighting the settlers. Lammach's divinations helped the exiles strike at the Shou's disunity, and so the Clearing Wars went well for them despite the Shou's ferocity and the might of their witch-priestesses.  Punch time, motherfucker. Unfortunately, Lammach himself fell to a desperate, suicidal strike by the Shou. His son was appointed the Mandarin of Xian, and his line continues to rule the city-state today. The death of the archmage blunted the settlers' advance, and so everything ground to a quiet, fitful halt. Some thirty years after the initial landing, three other cities were built in Ektau. To the north, the Kueh (fantasy Japanese) raised the port of Kitaminato. where the old ways of their kind could be preserved - though it bears saying that most of the surviving Kueh were fishermen and peasants, not blue-blooded aristocrats, so their 'old ways' had quite the bit of invention to them. Its ruler was Archmage Rai, who was content to follow the lead of the Mandarin as long as Xian did not interfere unduly with Kitaminato's affairs. To the northwest, Eirengarder (fantasy German/Swiss) built the grey-walled city of Hohnberg. It was a military minded city, a bulwark against the Shou, as befitted the character of its builders. The Eirengarders had a proud military tradition, and the Thusundi (ruler) of Hohnberg owed allegiance to the Mandarin but in a practical way: unity between the cities helped them withstand the Shou better, so the Mandarin did not push Hohnberg too hard. And finally, Tien Lung was built in the sweltering jungles of the southern coast. It started as a magical college built by some of the remaining arcanists and magic-users, afraid that their lore would be lost in the chaos, but soon enough hangers-on showed up that it became a city of its own right. The surrounding terrain was superb for growing medicinal, alchemical and  plants, and the Enlightened Sage that led the Academy of Refulgent Wisdom grew to be almost the equal of the Mandarin in influence. And of course, many other lesser towns, hamlets and villages grew around these cities, particularly in the territory between Tien Lung and Hohnberg, that would later be known as the Westmark.It was not to last. In 120 AL (After Landing), the witch queen Agrathi of the Shou united the warring tribes by persuasion and witchcraft and led them on a grand Ravaging of the hated intruders. The Westmark was smashed by the horde, and there were just not enough heroes and capable people to drive them back. The Hohnbergers were only saved because they held the line long enough for the horde to find easier prey, but they wouldn't have been a match for the full might of the Shou. The other cities paid a terrible price for their survival. Tien Lung's sorcered conjured forbidden arts that fed on the life energies of sacrifices to fuel the magic necessary to drive the Shou back, but by the time the horde receded only one in ten citizens remained. The need to repopulate Tien Lung and find labor made the practice of slavery common in the city, and now Tien Lung is a blighted place. In Kitaminato, archmage Rai (still alive, clinging to life with alchemy and magical research) made a dark pact with the Hell Kings, the demons of the plane, and an unholy horde slaughtered the invaders. But the souls of everyone in the city were the price to pay, and Rai became the undying Shogun of Kitaminato to better enforce the will of his dark lords and secure sacrifices for them. And in Xian, where the horde struck deepest and hardest, the local sorcerers even undertook the taboo practice of raising the dead to fight off the Shou, but not even dead legions could hold the horde back. Cut off from the other cities and from their dwarven allies, it looked like the Shou would succeed in driving the exiles to the sea. Ultimately, an unlikely group of unknown adventurers undertook a suicidal mission to kill Agrathi, and without the witch-queen's influence the horde broke apart and was cast away by forces from Hohnberg, Tien Lung and Xian. And so the exile civilization survived, but now no longer united under the Mandarin of Xian, and the horrible prices paid for their survival made them all wary and mistrustful of each other. The Thusundi and the Enlightened Sage only paid lip service to the Mandarin, and the Shogun issued harsh demands of his own that pleased absolutely no one.  A gate to nowhere? Dunno, just wanted to break the wall of text. Civilization has recovered somewhat, but the Westmark is still a place of ruins and harsh living, where hard bordermen try to make the best they have surrounded by Shou and other perils. The Shogun is becoming more and more openly hostile to Xian, abandoning his policy of quiet corruption and subversion. And more alarmingly, Tide Cults are springing up everywhere, tendrils of the Tide that grant boons to the desperate and turn them into nodes of corruption to penetrate the last bastion of stability in the world. It's so easy to just do this one little ritual with very tangible benefits, and life is so harsh for so many in the Isles. The year is 300 AL, and it's a time of danger and adventure! Next: the most metal demihumans ever.
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May 18, 2015 01:19
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quote: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. They forgot Nibiru, which I totally didn't learn about from Scooby Doo: Mystery Inc. Bardos are a great idea, and a bunch should have appeared when the 2012 Apocalypse failed
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May 18, 2015 01:32
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Count Chocula posted:They forgot Nibiru, which I totally didn't learn about from Scooby Doo: Mystery Inc. I think Genius got started before 2012, and the game presents those just as sample bardos. There is offhand mention of others, like the capitalist dystopia equivalent of Tsoska called Voltt City and tiny, short-lived utopian bardos of all stripes being commonplace. Atlantis is another shoe-in, though given Genius' oMage roots it's understandable why they'd skip that one. I also skipped over some rules and crunch for bardos, but Genius does give you everything you need to create bardos of your own. Bardos are another one of Genius' genuinely good ideas that I'm a bit sorry to see wasted here.
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May 18, 2015 01:43
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Autocthon? Someone played too much Exalted - that's not a place. It means 'born from the earth', an autocthon in ancient Greece was someone born of the earth, without parents. In modern usage it means something native to somewhere.
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May 18, 2015 01:44
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Mors Rattus posted:Autocthon? Someone played too much Exalted - that's not a place. It means 'born from the earth', an autocthon in ancient Greece was someone born of the earth, without parents. In modern usage it means something native to somewhere. It's likely a reference to OMage's Autocthonia, a machine realm where Iteration X's Computer resides.
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May 18, 2015 01:52
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Mors Rattus posted:Autocthon? Someone played too much Exalted - that's not a place. It means 'born from the earth', an autocthon in ancient Greece was someone born of the earth, without parents. In modern usage it means something native to somewhere. Genius claims Autocthon was a theorized second Earthlike planet perpetually on the other side of the sun from Earth. It sounded plausible enough for a discredited theory that I didn't check to see if it was real.
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May 18, 2015 01:53
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Technically, this is...sort of accurate? It's a Greek word you could use; more traditionally these days it's called Counter-Earth.
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May 18, 2015 01:55
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Technically, the Greek word was Antichthon.
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May 18, 2015 02:24
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Alien Rope Burn posted:There's something inevitable about nerds taking something they loved as a child (or something childish they love) and dragging it kicking and screaming into more transgressive themes, mistaking "thing I wasn't allowed to watch when I was thirteen" for actual maturity. I don't even think it's that; it just a general mistaking of grimdark blacker-than-black for "maturity". I've grown up, so I'm going to make that thing I loved as a kid "grow up" with me, even though that'll kill everything I loved about it.
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May 18, 2015 02:28
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Cythereal posted:Genius claims Autocthon was a theorized second Earthlike planet perpetually on the other side of the sun from Earth. It sounded plausible enough for a discredited theory that I didn't check to see if it was real. See, I had just assumed Nemesis was the counter earth, because that made way more sense as a name for the opposite earth, to the point that I seem to remember it being used for one in some movie from a few years ago.
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May 18, 2015 03:07
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Evil Mastermind posted:I don't even think it's that; it just a general mistaking of grimdark blacker-than-black for "maturity". I've grown up, so I'm going to make that thing I loved as a kid "grow up" with me, even though that'll kill everything I loved about it. I don't think we're actually in disagreement about that.
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May 18, 2015 03:10
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Playing the first generation of magical girls having grown into adults and still fighting for hope and love on the streets against people who have bent the big bads to their pursuits would be an interesting concept. Princess Streetfight wouldn't even have to be grimdark, just bare knuckle brawls in back alleys to protect your city and neighborhood.
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May 18, 2015 03:11
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RandallODim posted:See, I had just assumed Nemesis was the counter earth, because that made way more sense as a name for the opposite earth, to the point that I seem to remember it being used for one in some movie from a few years ago. Nemesis is a sometimes-theorized planet out beyond the orbit of Pluto whose gravity sends occasional comets and showers of asteroids from the outer asteroid belts towards the inner solar system.
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May 18, 2015 03:17
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