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Asimo posted:big blocks of stats are stupidly easy to write up, at least when you don't give a flying gently caress about game balance. Fills page counts quick!
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Nov 29, 2015 17:34
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Nessus posted:Are there any cyberpunk games where there isn't some bullshit arbitrary "you can't aug up or you lose your soul/humanity/whatever" that don't go full Eclipse Phase? (Mental stress or complications are fine, I mean the Shadowrun/CP2020 "you literally go bonko like that dude in AD Police Files" kind of stuff.) I think the problem is, and someone who has read more of the genre can correct me, Transhuman fiction inevitably goes full on borg because metal beats meat and refusing to become the machine marks you as obsolete/conservative/badwrong. Which doesn't mesh well with me for whatever reason.
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Nov 29, 2015 17:34
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From a game design perspective, there generally needs to be a balancing mechanic and "you go crazy and then die" is a lot more immediately interesting than some of the alternatives. OGL Cybernet, an unremarkable d20 cyberpunk system from Green Ronin sort of described being over-aug'd as just being less and less emotionally present. Not because your soul is being eaten, but because more of your life is spent doing things to serve the machine. It takes time for your cybereyes to boot up, and when they do, it's 100% perfect vision at all times. You might be stumbling-bleary-rear end drunk, but you're still seeing the world normally and disconnect from it because it's not what you expect to be seeing. Your cyber legs never tire, or at least not for hundreds of miles, and you forget that you're even supposed to. There's also an element of body-mod addiction at play, at a certain point you turn against the meat, maybe you feel that it holds you back or you stop identifying as a human at all. I think a lot of futurism, I hesitate to call it fiction, is coming from Elon Musk-worshipping-STEMlords. The type that only eat soylent because it's "more efficient" and pop hundreds of supplement pills to survive until "the singularity." Cyberpunk is my favorite genre because, when it's done right, it can penetrate the inequality that will be present in a future built by these folks. Augmentations are cool, prosthetic limbs are too, but to tell interesting stories, we have to be able to talk about them as more than just a perfect solution to life's problems.
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Nov 29, 2015 18:02
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ZorajitZorajit posted:I think a lot of futurism, I hesitate to call it fiction, is coming from Elon Musk-worshipping-STEMlords. The type that only eat soylent because it's "more efficient" and pop hundreds of supplement pills to survive until "the singularity." Cyberpunk is my favorite genre because, when it's done right, it can penetrate the inequality that will be present in a future built by these folks. Augmentations are cool, prosthetic limbs are too, but to tell interesting stories, we have to be able to talk about them as more than just a perfect solution to life's problems. Deus Ex is a video game series, but it takes a good, long look at these issues that's worth considering.
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Nov 29, 2015 18:39
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Tasoth posted:I think the problem is, and someone who has read more of the genre can correct me, Transhuman fiction inevitably goes full on borg because metal beats meat and refusing to become the machine marks you as obsolete/conservative/badwrong. Which doesn't mesh well with me for whatever reason. Yeah I doubt there's anything behind the intent other than wanting a cost/reward system. One option being Just Plain Better is boring.
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Nov 29, 2015 18:47
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Halloween Jack posted:If there is such a thing as the Siembieda Method, it's this. See also Torg. Even "generic" NPCs baddies have like half a page's worth of stats. I don't think it's a page count thing as much as a consequence of having an inherently crunchy-as-gently caress system (because verisimilitude) and the belief that NPCs have to use the same ruleset as PCs.
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Nov 29, 2015 19:10
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There's nothing wrong with cybernetics/psychic powers/writing "wizard" at the top of your sheet if that's the whole point of the game. If the major fun thing in your game beating poo poo up with your metal arms and shooting lasers out your cyberbutthole, make that the focus. Give it to all PCs and balance the game around the idea that everyone has crazy poo poo like that. I'm not the biggest fan of Eclipse Phase but I really like that it decided what its fun thing would be and actually made the game about that, rather than saying "here's a fun thing you could have, or you could have less fun."
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Nov 29, 2015 19:20
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Cythereal posted:Deus Ex is a video game series, but it takes a good, long look at these issues that's worth considering. Check out Bobbin Threadbare's LP of it which goes into unbelievable detail on the science and philosophy. http://lparchive.org/Deus-Ex-(by-Bobbin-Threadbare)/ Humbug Scoolbus fucked around with this message at 20:13 on Nov 29, 2015 |
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Nov 29, 2015 19:21
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I think we're overthinking it: the "too-much-aug-is-bad" rules are just for character balance. If not everybody is supposed to aug, then there must be incentives not to. Though, it leads to the wizard/fighter problem. One could argue it'd be better if everyone auged. Alternatively, some might argue a carrot approach would be better: the more augs you get, the less fate points you get every session, for example. To respond to the perceived overthinking, I think futurism suffers for two main reasons: it's too utopian and the most vocal supporters are an unpleasant sort that our hobby forces us into proximity with.
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Nov 29, 2015 19:36
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I mean, for an example of what happens if you don't put in any balancing factor for augmentations outside of cost, check the 40kRP games. Where the Techpriest has slowly turned from 'neat specialist class that's maybe a little overpowered' to 'God of hellfire and ultimate power outside of Psykers' with each book and how characters will scramble to augment the hell out of themselves because why not.
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Nov 29, 2015 19:44
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Covok posted:I think we're overthinking it: the "too-much-aug-is-bad" rules are just for character balance. If not everybody is supposed to aug, then there must be incentives not to.  Everyone. Even dogs. Dogmentation.However that does put a tone and style on things which may not be what a particular game is going for, I had mostly wondered if there were any straight-out pro-borg games. You can certainly argue it's internalizing the logic of capitalism. As for futurism, I think the transhuman singularity folks have kind of been hijacked by some kind of weird right-wing thread which was not necessarily originally present, even if, of course, just about anyone who is a thought leader on transhumanism is also going to be a giant nerdlord.
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Nov 29, 2015 19:49
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I think balancing factors for augmentations are fine for gameplay purposes or if you want to approach a certain tone or set of themes for your game, but that "getting cyberware makes you craaaaaaaazyyyyy or maybe KILLS YOUR SOUL ooooooh" is both overdone and badly handled a lot of the time because it generally boils down to "whoops, you passed the arbitrary augmentation threshold, you immediately turn into a psychotic spree-killer." A combination of actually interesting psychological impact as well as other assorted difficulties...debts and obligations, upkeep and maintenance, the SOTA advancing without you unless you struggle to keep up...would be better than "at X points of 'ware you turn into a psycho/die" imo.
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Nov 29, 2015 20:15
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Doresh posted:More importantly: Is this behavior in line with Rifts' alignment system? Can evil guys even cooperate without ceasing to be evil? Yes. Though they may be inclined to lies and betrayal, there's nothing saying they have to lie or betray. It's not in line with the stated spirit of the alignments, but gently caress, it's not like Palladium alignments often come up. If you're supernatural and evil, "Sense Evil" can out you, and rune weapons are keyed to good or evil alignments (never selfish, though, I think?), but it's not like they have any mechanical effects on their own. Yes, Sense Evil senses demons, but not genocidal fascists. Because magic. occamsnailfile posted:Also the New Navy hating and being bad at cybernetics is dumb, but then, a lot of the declarations against cybernetics are dumb and seem to serve no purpose other than trying to ward PCs away from power-ups. It should be mentioned that, unlike a lot of the games being referenced, Rifts cyborgs aren't any more "inhuman" save in finger-wagging fluff. I mean, you get a penalty to "touch-based rolls", but who knows what the gently caress those count as in the Megaversal system. Cybernetics and bionics are nearly entirely incompatible with spellcasting or any overt supernatural powers, but if you're a mundane human, the only real penalty is that you have to switch to the 'Borg O.C.C. and lose a lot of level / skill progression. I think there are even some ways to maintain psychic powers and be a full conversion, but I don't feel like looking it up at the moment. occamsnailfile posted:That does sound like a fun campaign, and is part of the concept of the New Navy that I like. It's the masturbatory tech specs that are less interesting than say, difficulties of constant life on the open seas, psychological issues from being under constant martial law and dealing with scarcity and hierarchy. Yeah, it could be really cool and the book mentions it in passing, but it's pretty much something you're left to on your own aside from the discussions of culture and sub stats. If you want to do a New Navy campaign, a lot of the fine details are something the GM would have to research. Asimo posted:I suspect it's mostly that big blocks of stats are stupidly easy to write up, at least when you don't give a flying gently caress about game balance. Fills page counts quick! Pretty much. Each vehicle takes up 2-4 pages, so that adds up fast. The inefficient way Palladium presents nearly any mechanical information is generally reliable filler.
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Nov 29, 2015 20:24
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Nessus posted:Are there any cyberpunk games where there isn't some bullshit arbitrary "you can't aug up or you lose your soul/humanity/whatever" that don't go full Eclipse Phase? (Mental stress or complications are fine, I mean the Shadowrun/CP2020 "you literally go bonko like that dude in AD Police Files" kind of stuff.) I've been trying to get down and finish up a cyberpunk game over the past few years now. One of the things I'm doing is that augmentation tends to be both cheap and expensive depending on how you go with it, such as going to a reputable surgeon in a clean lab or trusting some street doc in the backroom of a veterinarian's office or amateur "grinder" (bio-hacker) in a garage to do the job. Augs start out high-priced but can be bought with disadvantages (sorry Iron Jef) to where you can get them at a reasonable level if you can deal with their drawbacks. The most common flaws are being really obvious, which adds to detection by the universal panopticon and could get you harassed or increase the obstacles around a goal; complications to healing, since your augs could interfere with normal surgical procedures, require anti-rejection drugs, etc.; and metabolic strain, where your augs may be pulling additional energy from your body, requiring you to eat more or rest more to avoid fatiguing easily. There's other specific flaws would include hackable and EMP-vulnerable cyberware, stiffness, and high-maintenance augs.
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Nov 29, 2015 20:26
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I am now reinstalling Deus Ex. drat you all...
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Nov 29, 2015 20:29
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I feel "pick the drawback of the tech you're stuffing into your body" is way more acceptable than "pick your character's flaws so you start with more points at character creation"
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Nov 29, 2015 20:30
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Young Freud posted:I've been trying to get down and finish up a cyberpunk game over the past few years now. One of the things I'm doing is that augmentation tends to be both cheap and expensive depending on how you go with it, such as going to a reputable surgeon in a clean lab or trusting some street doc in the backroom of a veterinarian's office or amateur "grinder" (bio-hacker) in a garage to do the job. Augs start out high-priced but can be bought with disadvantages (sorry Iron Jef) to where you can get them at a reasonable level if you can deal with their drawbacks. The most common flaws are being really obvious, which adds to detection by the universal panopticon and could get you harassed or increase the obstacles around a goal; complications to healing, since your augs could interfere with normal surgical procedures, require anti-rejection drugs, etc.; and metabolic strain, where your augs may be pulling additional energy from your body, requiring you to eat more or rest more to avoid fatiguing easily. There's other specific flaws would include hackable and EMP-vulnerable cyberware, stiffness, and high-maintenance augs.
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Nov 29, 2015 20:50
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Young Freud posted:amateur "grinder" (bio-hacker)
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Nov 29, 2015 20:52
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Zereth posted:Why is that called a grinder? Because it's a real life term for people like this... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grinder_(biohacking) I'm not sure where the etymology of the term came from, but it's probably a play on words for "organ grinder" and grinding in a RPG/MMO for experience. A lot of grinders will experiment with their own bodies to increase that experience of biohacking. People like Kevin Warwick, who implanted an RFID array into his arm to control various objects; Steve Mann, who has experimented with augmented reality and wearable computing; the performance artist Stelarc; and Lepht Anonym, who created a biopaste that would protect implanted neodymium magnets it implanted itself and was developing a GPS implant it would implant itself. There's a range of genius and crazy all in one when it comes to the grinders. Young Freud fucked around with this message at 21:04 on Nov 29, 2015 |
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Nov 29, 2015 20:57
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Young Freud posted:Because it's a real life term for people like this... I'm not going to check but I'm guessing any of the people you just named who are biologically capable of doing so are sporting ridiculous facial hair.
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Nov 29, 2015 21:20
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Midjack posted:I'm not going to check but I'm guessing any of the people you just named who are biologically capable of doing so are sporting ridiculous facial hair. Possibly, although I think Warwick and Stelarc are clean-shaven these days and Lepht Anonym was born a woman, with "it" being the preferred pronoun since Anonym declared itself genderless. Edit: one of the names I didn't mention, Tim Cannon, does have this ridiculous goatee in his VICE/Motherboard interview pre- and post-implant surgery for his Circadia biomonitor (maybe  for iPhone-sized implant in the guy's arm.)
Young Freud fucked around with this message at 21:46 on Nov 29, 2015 |
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Nov 29, 2015 21:33
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 Part 16: "The seas are vast and virgin territories." Human Info & Equipment Nooo not more equipment- oh, it's an O.C.C. Salvage Expert O.C.C. So, you're a garbageman of the sea! Wait, no, that's mean. Sanitation official of the sea? Rifts World Book Six: Underseas posted:The salvage expert can be a likeable rogue who pulls sunken reature from the sea, an privateer/mercenary for hire, adventurer, pirate, or a foul-hearted villain who takes what he wants and crushes anybody who gets in his way, including the opposition and any innocent aquatic life forms. It goes on about how some salvage experts will punch a baby mermaid and strangle a sea hobo for a rusty doubloon and how horrible that is, boo hoo. Fried Christ at the county fair, can we have a simple "picks poo poo off the sea floor" class without turning it into some moral handwringing, Siembieda? In any case this probably has the most intensive stack of underwater skills we've seen (mainly because it accounts for them, unlike other classes), making them the strongest underwater expert in the game... for what skills are worth in this system. 74% chance to play one, since they're easy to qualify for, if profoundly dull. Bizarrely, though, they get shat on for other skills, but at least you get a boat or any power armor you want. If you're employed by a group like the Navy, you get a bigger boat! What sort of boat? All it says is "large". Well, let's talk about boats. Human Ocean Equipment We get it reiterated that most of the coastal communities were hard hit by the rifts either due to tidal waves or swallowed by the sea, so most seaside communities have been hammered together using widely available S.D.C. materials, even though that means a mutant shark could blow it up with a particularly long stare. The skills of boat-building have apparently really regressed and proper M.D.C. vessels are rare. Which, once again, is an issue since there are probably laser barracudas lying in wait. I just made those up, but it's hardly a stretch. It notes that Triax, Japan, Atlantis, Naruni, and Iron Heart are the main forces in actually building seagoing ships and equipment, though the Coalition is getting into it, as we'll see in Coalition Navy, a horribly niche book of skullboats I'm dreading. But it's a long ways out. Hooray! So we get extremely brief statblocks for boats like Canoe (standard), Pacific Twin Canoe, Pacific War Canoe, Rowboat, Sailboat (small), Sailboat (large), Sailing Corsair, Sailing Schooner, Sailing Brigantine, Sailing Frigate, Sail & Oar War Galley, Sailing Cutter-   A boat without guns? Well, it's of no interest to anyone. There are two things key to these boat descriptions. Once again, most are S.D.C., so a pixie could probably explode your boat with a tiny punch. Secondly, they're horrendously overpriced. For example, a tugboat will have 40-50 M.D.C. and cost as much as a 300 M.D.C. power armor suit. Now, one of the things is that they give is the notion that some of these have been converted to M.D.C., but they don't give a cost for that. So we don't know how much it takes to create an M.D.C. war canoe. If you do manage that, though, most military vessels get horribly powerful, being listed with cannons that do 1d6 x 100 M.D.C. or more and 10,000+ M.D.C. So we do have stats for a battleship or aircraft carrier, though it's not clear who might be refurbishing or fielding the things. Also, for some reason they feel inclined to have stats for the most primitive of vessels, so if you want to convert a war galley circa 500 B.C. to M.D.C. and sail the seas with your slave crew, well, you can do that, you big jerk. Just be prepared to take a long, long time getting anywhere and pay a lot of money to do so. We get some more random equipment designed by Who Knows, Who Cares Inc.. I guess some of it was designed by "AquaTech", a company that is only hinted at by these product names. (Tritonia was founded by "OceanTech", so it may be an editing oversight instead.)
 Seems safe. We also have vehicles! I'm doing these quick because I'm sick of 'em, but there's a UB-300 Mini Sub, a tuff sub unless you target the huge canopy in front, which takes a measly 60 M.D.C. to break. It looks like it's a rejected Triax design, given the Kevin Long art and all the triangular shapes in its design. It has lasers, mini-torpedoes, and lots of sensors. There's also the thrillingly named Basic Underwater Sled, but I think you can work that one out on your own. It doesn't have any art. And that's all for human equipment! Except for the stuff made by Atlantis. Or Naruni. Well, I guess it's still human even if they stole it. Man, the Naruni are loving slumming it if they're building this stuff, compared to the rest of their product line. Next: The Klingons of the sea. Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 00:34 on Dec 21, 2015 |
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Nov 29, 2015 23:38
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Quick googling of the names provided no interesting facial hair, aside from Sterlac's very slight case of mutton chops.
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Nov 29, 2015 23:47
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My favorite cyborg/transhumanist thing is Deadlands: Hell on Earth. Taking and running augments as a normal person shrinks your spirit die because they were designed by mad scientists to run off soul power. There are battery options but they're heavier and have to be recharged and cost more. Shrinking that die is kinda bad though! It makes it harder to beat rolls for fear and courage (also magic) but you can turn off non-essential pieces to get your die better. These people with major augmentations are called Scrappers and they only really show how bad everything is. But a cyborg...well, that's another story. Death is not always the end in Deadlands. Sometimes you can come back as a Harrowed, a walking corpse with an evil spirit called a Manitou riding shotgun and occasionally grabbing control of you to make you do evil poo poo. Cyborgs are Harrowed with augmentations. They still have a soul, because that's what is keeping their bodies running because they're literally walking corpses. But they also have the Manitou. And all that shiny new chrome runs directly off the evil spirit inside of them and it keeps the Manitou so weak it can't even attempt to control you. Congratulations, you survived death and now are an immortal post-human manchine that can survive drat near anything with no downsides except maybe a bit of rot smell and disfigurement from how you died, but some alcohol will fix that so start drinking.
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Nov 30, 2015 00:50
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Alien Rope Burn posted:
That someone being Buzz Lightyear of Star Command.
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Nov 30, 2015 00:51
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Maxwell Lord posted:That someone being Buzz Lightyear of Star Command. It is a striking resemblance! But Rifts Underseas was released five months before Toy Story, so it seems unlikely.
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Nov 30, 2015 00:55
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Young Freud posted:Because it's a real life term for people like this...  Biological hacking is the opposite of repeating the same action over and over to get better at it. Damnit now I remember leaving through some comic in the store once that called this same sort of thing "grinding" and used the same reasoning for it and having the same "BULLSHIT" reaction. I knew there was some reason I was getting angry about this.
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Nov 30, 2015 01:24
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Nessus posted:As for futurism, I think the transhuman singularity folks have kind of been hijacked by some kind of weird right-wing thread which was not necessarily originally present, even if, of course, just about anyone who is a thought leader on transhumanism is also going to be a giant nerdlord. Well futurism does have its root in the Italian fascist movement, and i remember reading that some of fascist parties in Italy were atleast interested in transhuman in the last quarter of the century.
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Nov 30, 2015 02:56
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There's something to be said for the idea that transhumanism is about how being a rich westerner will be even better in a decade. There are way more important problems to solve than getting cat pictures directly into consumers' brain stems.
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Nov 30, 2015 08:43
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Young Freud posted:Because it's a real life term for people like this... Nessus posted:As for futurism, I think the transhuman singularity folks have kind of been hijacked by some kind of weird right-wing thread which was not necessarily originally present, even if, of course, just about anyone who is a thought leader on transhumanism is also going to be a giant nerdlord. Communist Zombie posted:Well futurism does have its root in the Italian fascist movement, and i remember reading that some of fascist parties in Italy were at least interested in transhuman in the last quarter of the century. I think it's exactly this simple: people interested in transhumanism are geeks who skew toward being privileged, educated, and white. It's relatively easy for these people to imagine uploading their minds into immortal cyborgs who live on space stations. Nevermind the percentage of the world population that doesn't have access to running water or electricity. All those poor brown people and their petty concerns get crammed into a little box labeled "Transhumanism will fix all of this somehow." Libertarians do the same thing. Everyone laughed when Newt Gingrich proposed a moon colony, but that was a little window into how a certain class of privileged conservative people think. They won't quite put it into words, but deep down they imagine that a bright space opera future will happen because the elites are going to leave the rest of humanity behind--never mind how that happens, or what happens to those people. Warren Ellis is, I think, one of the foremost authors covering transhumanism, and there's a reason that the villains of Planetary are an homage to the Fantastic Four who say "We're astronauts, on the Human Adventure. And you can't all come along." I promise an update this week reminding all of you that Thou Shalt Not Deform The Soul.
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Nov 30, 2015 17:31
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The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed. --William Gibson* *Gibson doesn't actually claim this quote, but it's apparently sourced The Economist, December 2003.
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Nov 30, 2015 17:55
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I used to be really into transhumanist nonsense when I was a teenager. It sounds pretty good when you're disabled, after all. Then I wised up and realized it was a rich white boy's game and that I'll never have the cash to get a piece of that pie. We ended up getting all the lovely parts of cyberpunk without any of the cool stuff.
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Nov 30, 2015 18:23
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I used to believe in transhumanism - part of me still does, or wants to. Cutting off my arm and replacing it with a robot arm sounded easier than exercising. Now I've moved on, and I just paste chunks of the Futurist Maifesto in every thread because I love it's language. Is there a good thread on SA for talking about this stuff? The Soylent thread kinda died, though the Dark Enlightenment thread is close. I love the art in RIFTS Undersea, though. Way more high tech than the Waterworld stuff I liked as a kid, or Freakwave.
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Nov 30, 2015 22:09
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Serf posted:We ended up getting all the lovely parts of cyberpunk without any of the cool stuff. In other words, Robocop without the Robocops. In other other words, Detroit.
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Nov 30, 2015 22:55
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Communist Zombie posted:Well futurism does have its root in the Italian fascist movement, and i remember reading that some of fascist parties in Italy were atleast interested in transhuman in the last quarter of the century. Hostile V posted:Death is not always the end in Deadlands. Sometimes you can come back as a Harrowed, a walking corpse with an evil spirit called a Manitou riding shotgun and occasionally grabbing control of you to make you do evil poo poo. Cyborgs are Harrowed with augmentations. They still have a soul, because that's what is keeping their bodies running because they're literally walking corpses. But they also have the Manitou. And all that shiny new chrome runs directly off the evil spirit inside of them and it keeps the Manitou so weak it can't even attempt to control you. Congratulations, you survived death and now are an immortal post-human manchine that can survive drat near anything with no downsides except maybe a bit of rot smell and disfigurement from how you died, but some alcohol will fix that so start drinking. Can these cyborgs get new gear? Replace what they had installed when they became something off a metal album cover?
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Nov 30, 2015 23:09
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In Tenra Bansho Zero, mechanica aka cybernetics do eat your soul, but so does everything else if you don't change or adapt. Tenra Bansho Zero  There's some North America in my Feudal Japan. Oni  Japanese Rob Liefeld knows how to draw feet. Oni are the native race of Tenra. They are visually indistinguishable from a human aside from the 1-2 horn growing on their foreheads (which gave them their human name) and have a strong Ainu / Native American theme going on, with the latter being the more dominant one (they even live in tipis). Like with the Native Americans, the human colonists of Tenra didn't wait long to fall into the real-life murder hobo shtick of "Kill the natives and take their land" - which is especially dickish seeing how Oni welcomed them with open arms. The murder hoboism went into overdrive once the humans discovered that Oni hearts are roughly spherical gems that continue to provide an endless supply of energy even after the Oni has died. Encased in steel, these gems have become the Heart Engines that keep Armours and Kongohki operational. With both now being mass-produced, the demand shot through the roof, bringing the Oni that much closer to extinction. Mind you that the general human population doesn't know about the true nature of the Heart Engine. People just assume they are named that way because they act as the "heart" of the Armour/Kongohki. Lords and of course the Priesthood do know the truth, and they have spend several generations propagating the image of Oni as fiendish man-eaters who are just one of the many monsters on Tenra. Villagers are therefore more than willing to report any Oni village they discover, so the brave lord can rally troops and mercenaries to harvest some hear... err, I mean free the villagers from this menace.  Run for your lifes! She will eat us all! While Oni are individually stronger than a human and can live up to 1,000 years, they have never been as numerous as humans, and female Oni only become pregnate every couple decades. Not to mention that they don't really have anything of use against massed gunfire. Or giant robots and crazy fast killbots fueled by the hearts of their fallen. With this grim outlook, Oni either live in hidden village and have resigned to their fate, or they lead a desprate fight against overwhelming odds. Others actually cut off their horns and hide in human society, which is a high prize to pay for an Oni in more than one ways. (And as a little creepy plot idea, it is theoretically possible for an Oni's soul to remain in his heart and eventually awaken...) Faith Oni are known as the Lu-Tirae in their own tongue, which means something along the line of "supervisor" or "caretaker". This is because their god Yi-yil or the God-Who-Left created them to watch over Tenra while he is away somwhere in space, or maybe another plane of existance. While he is gone, another being known as Dii-go the Earth-Speaker (who is apparently somewhere inside of Tenra) acts as Yi-yil's voice and messenger, speaking to the Oni through their heart gems. This has made the Oni quite spiritual, and they like giving themselves body tattoos using variations on the simple geometric glyphs representing their little pantheon (they don't have an actual alphabet). Still, the situation for the Oni is far from good, and Dii-go's voice has become muffled and pained over time, causing some of the younger Oni to ditch a faith that doesn't seem to be doing them any good. Resonance Resonance - also known as Tae Rayi - is the term used to describe the innate supernatural powers of the Oni, which all involve manipulating surrounding Sha energy. These powers can be split into Alu ("heaven") which uses the horn(s) and Dii ("earth") which uses the heart gem. Alu Oni horns aren't just for decoration. As a gift from Yi-yil, their horns grant them telephatic abilities. They can read mind and speak to others mentally. This power however is waning, and the Oni are no longer able to communicate entire telepathically like they used to in the olden days. Nevertheless, this rudimentary hive mind resulted in the Oni not thinking of themselves as individuals, but as a collective. They don't even have first and second person pronouns in their own language, and their names are more like job descriptions than anything else. Still, the near-extinction and the culture clash with the humans has made more and more Oni become more individualistic. Alu masters can also use these telepathic powers for mind bullets. Dii The heart gem of an Oni is his connection with the land of Tenra, granting him a form of telekinesis. This is pretty straightforward: You start out only being able to move a couple kilograms, until you're able to hurl small temples around. Dii Masters can also wreck Shikigami by absorbing the Sha energy that keeps them alive. Special Tae Rayi Every once in a while, an Oni is born with special Sha manipulation abilities that go beyond Alu and Dii:
Half-Oni Despite the hatred and propaganda, love does occasionally bloom between Oni and human, creating these offsprings. There isn't really a lot in the book about these guys, aside from the obvious "Has troubles fitting in any culture" stuff. I'd also assume that humans will try to kill them as they are hard to distinguish from Oni. They also seem to provide the only bishounen artwork in all of TBZ, which I'll safe for later. Powerwise, Half-Oni have access to basic Resonance powers (though they do have a heart gem like a real Oni), but they are incapable of beeing born with the above special abilities. The Makuu Nindo Revolt After the schism, it turned out that things could become even worse for the Shinto Priesthood: An Oni monk of the Ebon Mountain sect going by his Buddhist name Makuu Nindo started a revolt in the state of Kikoku, which was not only the place on Tenra with the highest Oni population, but also the one where humans were the must sadistic. With the help of a mysterious woman known as the Sleeping Girl who may or may not have been an incarnation of Dii-go himself, Makuu Nindo united the Oni - and even a couple humans who had enough of their lords and/or the Priesthood - to start a large-scale attempt to make Kikoku their own.  Just needs some Scottish face painting. Greatly outnumbered and outgunned, it seemed that this revolt was short-lived - if it wasn't for the Two Month Night: Tenra's entire Sha flow just stopped without warning, leading to a massacre on Kikoku's forces as Armours and Kongohki ceased to work, Shikigami vanished and Samurai found themselves depowered. It's like an Oni-Waaaaagh. To counter this sudden turn of events, the Priesthood sent one of their airships to blow the rebels to Kingdom Come. Unfortunately for them, an elite rebel team managed to capture the ship, resulting in one of the Priesthood's biggest blunder.. With Kikoku now in the hands of Oni, things are far from behing peaceful. The Oni and their human alliance still can't quite get over generations of bloodshed, the neighboring lords aren't exactly on good terms with them, and the Priesthood is apparently looking for a way to locate and nuke Dii-go's physical body because they really don't like people stealing their toys. Next Time: The Shinto Priesthood - playing a dick. Also hacking. Doresh fucked around with this message at 17:44 on Dec 1, 2015 |
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Dec 1, 2015 00:29
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Nessus posted:I hadn't even thought of that, I was using it in the generic sense of 'an ism about The Future." Cyborgs can get new parts and replace current systems. There was one important thing I forgot about cyborgs, though: most of them were built by the military and they had an AI installed in their skulls to control their new undead supersoldier by directing electric shocks into the pain/pleasure center. So if you're a cyborg, there is a chance that you will have to listen to the Prime Directives from Robocop regarding rules of engagement. This can be a problem if the Harrowed is not friends with their AI because directives can include stuff like: cannot use certain weapons, act as expendable as possible in combat, execute two civilians per town if attacked in town to make them an example and pacify the population, act as if you are behind enemy lines at all times and never stay in the same place twice or a total deniability directive rigged to an explosive the size of a fist in your chest that will pop you like a ripe tomato if you're too injured.
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Dec 1, 2015 00:39
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Part 17: "All other life forms are considered to be inferior or feared, and meant to be used or conquered by the amphibians."  Any race with a tentacle face really just has a hyper-evolved evilstache. Naut'Yll Civilization Get it? Naut'yll? Get it? Oh, it is to laugh. So these are militaristic, imperialist slavers from another dimension. Stop me if you've heard this one before... well, it is a little different from all the others in Rifts. These guys are under the sea. That's different. In any case, they are technologically and magically advanced, but mostly want to just attack Earth and take our people and stuff. Though they have face tentacles, they aren't particularly illithidesque. They're more like humans with cuttlefish for heads. History Having evolved on a watery planet, the naut'yll mainly got civilization together when they discovered land and so could invent fire and metalworking and things like that. Also they discovered magic, though not because of land, and started shaping a mollusk into a super-tough chitin called korallyte. Then time passed, and they became jerks. Seriously, that's all we get. Of course, developing dimensional travel only worsened those tendencies, but they're basically Klingons of the Sea. After conquering a few dozen worlds, they discovered Earth and have put together about seven cities under the sea, but have had serious issues with fighting the Lemurians, and yes, we're 145 pages into this book and still don't have a clear picture of who the Lemurians are. It says here that they're an "ancient races that has secretly thrived in the oceans of Earth for over million years!", even though "secretly" and "thrived" seem to be two notions at odds. Ultimately, nearly every seagoing force on Earth hates these guys for being slaving invaders. The New Navy hates them. Tritonia hates them. Lemuria hates them. Atlantis hates them. Etc. About the only folks who don't hate them are the Horune pirates, but the Horune are great team players as far as generic evil goes. Culture & Government It turns out they became warlike by fighting with each other over valuable, dry land, and those became nations, and then those became a planetary government! Naturally. Literally, that's the explanation. I guess at no point did they settle down and get peacey. In any case, they're taught racial superiority from an early age, though some renegades have come to accept humans as "fellow superiors". They are pretty fecund, but 85% of them go to serve in the military... really? Granted, a good chunk die (in training or combat) or leave at an early age, but supposedly 70% at any time are members of the military. Predictably, they're a militocracy, and rely heavily on ranks to organize and exult blind obedience as a virtue. On Earth, there are those who try and escape this brutal culture, and settle in with Tritonia or the New Navy. Slaves handle all labor, while the remaining 30% of naut'yll handle skilled occupations like medicine or engineering. They also like to capture surface-dwellers and trap them in undersea domes where there is no escape for non-protagonists. Naut-Yll Magic & Techno-Wizardry So, kids that show an aptitude for magic are sent to special magic schools, which are probably more Kobra Kai than Miyagi, though some of them become free thinkers because magic opens their minds too much. As a result, the magic schools tend to be more liberal than most of the society, giving them enough freedom that they don't chafe too much while still keeping them loyal. It works, usually. Foreign Affairs Mostly, the naut'yll are located in the southern Atlantic, since the Lemurians have kept them out of the Pacific and kicked their rear end. The New Navy sees them as alien invaders and opposes them at every turn, and has roundly kicked their asses. Tritonia is a common target of the naut'yll, but they've failed to seriously do damage, and gotten their rear end kicked. The naut'yll are terrified of the Lord of the Deep and its monster naut'yll minions, because it regularly kicks their rear end. For the most part, the naut'yll are the whipping boys of Atlantis (which - no poo poo - hunts naut'yll for sport), but they're really hoping to change that. The naut'yll have actually considered getting into the Germany / Gargoyle conflict, but see Germany as too paranoid and the gargoyles as being Splugorth tools. However, they might team up with the Brodkil Empire to gain their aid in pushing into the Baltic and North seas. They trade a bit with Lagarto, but only because they don't know Atlantis isn't involved there. One of the weird things is that for a group set up as a threat, the naut'yll are really on the beating end of every stick they come across. That isn't to say they don't seem dangerous, but they're much more of a paper tiger than many conquering factions in the Rifts setting. Naut'Yll R.C.C. Optional Player Characters  With the casual white tee of the sea. So, looking like three-eyed cuttleflayers, the naut'yll are amphibious and have both lungs and gills, like Aquaman. They're also mildly supernatural due to coming from a world with a bit more magic, and... yeah. Most of what there's to say has already been covered... except numbers! They're smarter, stronger, and tougher than humans, but uglier. Their M.D.C. is pretty token, though they also have nightvision, slight regeneration, and resistance to cold. However, they require immersion in water roughly every half-day or they start taking penalties, and can easily die in a few days to a week of being waterless. They're also vulnerable to magic weapons and fire / heat. Oddly for a conquest-oriented race, 20% get the psionic/magic class "mystic"; its unclear whether or not you roll that on their psionics table that you have to play a mystic, or if you have to roll it to play a mystic. Later, it says 5% of the race are mystics... ugh, make up your mind... Also half of them are honorably evil! They did a poll! Naut'Yll Soldier Did you know the naut'yll word "h'keezh" means outsider, foreigner, enemy, and evil? Well, the book just told me, and they're indoctrinated to be monstrous xenophobes, and sing songs while beating up human villagers, or at least they would if they weren't such monstrous squares. These are your goose-stepping, goose-swimming fascist cthulhumen of the sea. Goofily, since they have a Physical Strength requirement of 12 and Physical Endurance of 12, and their base attributes are 3d6 + 8 and 3d6 + 4 respectively, only 0.5% of them will fail the strength requirement and about 16% will fail the strength requirement, which gives us a 85% chance of playing one of these. They actually get a really solid combat bonus - their M.D.C. nearly doubles and they get an extra attack - but other than that they mainly have fightin', pilotin', and undersea skills. They get some decent skill picks, some standard naut'yll armor and weapons, and they're on their way to fascist glory. Naut'Yll Devastator Soldier: Special Forces The "stormtroopers", these are like the soldiers, only better. I mean, they get slightly fewer skills, but even better combat bonuses and they can select a magic or psionic class and get all the powers of that and get all their normal trooper skills. This is the pro naut'yll maximization sweet spot - they're not broken per se, but it's a pretty strong option to be a wizard that can pilot power armor. They also get a great suit of korallyte armor. However, given naut'yll base stats and a high Physical Prowess requirement, you only have a 9% chance of playing one. Good luck! Naut'Yll Koral Shaper  Bringing a knife to a torpedo fight. So, these are naut'yll wizards that specialize in using magic to shape korallyte, which is both a mollusk and a substance. They use it to make into all sorts of weapons and armor and... weapons and armor. And due to a modest I.Q. requirement and high racial I.Q., you have a 74% chance of playing one. So they get the ability shape korallyte, though it's not clear if they do it by hand or with mind powers at a range, or what. It also notes they can make living armor and give themselves all sorts of spiky bits and weapons, bonus attacks from living, symbiotic armor, shoot koral lasers (my name, not theirs) by converting the korallite to energy, or regenerate their armor. They can also sense korallyte, but it starts at downright sad 30%, can summon korallytes to gather their sweet sweet shells, and they get a number of spells, but can't get spells of a level higher than their level, putting them firmly in the 2nd-tier spellcaster category. They do get a number of minor psionic powers, though, like a low-class version of the mystic. They do get a respectable spread of skills in combat and sea stuff, and a decent number of spell picks. Bizarrely, they don't get a suit of korallyte armor, they have to make their own. Two issues, though: korallyte is never described - they call it a "mollusk" but with no more detail. Is it a snail? A nautilus? A geoduck? What? It's unspecific. Worse, korallytes apparently can't survive on their own on any other world but the naut'yll homeworld. So that ability to shape or sense or gather it? Useless in like 95% of Rifts games. In fact, if your korallyte armor gets killed off, which can happen if you take too much damage, you're stuck having to get some from the naut'yll themselves, it's not like anybody else is going to have the stuff. You only start with 20 lbs. of it, even, which is only 40 M.D.C. worth, so it's easily wrecked. Which isn't an issue if you're playing a game where you're all fascist loser cthulhus, but I'm pretty sure nobody has played or will play such a game. Kreel-Lok Nomad R.C.C. Optional Player Character  "This is the only expression I have, sorry." This is a kind of a shark with arms that are largely enslaved or employed by the naut'yll, which is tragic because they're really good people and sometimes people mistake them for sharks and then there's a kreel-lok crying by the shore because somebody's littering- - I may have gotten off track there, so let's get the stats! They're strong, tough, ugly, fast, have only minor M.D.C. but a high horror factor, heal fast in water, resist cold, have excellent smell or see in the dark, but they can't breathe on land and can only crawl. Also they dehydrate. Basically, don't include them in your rad adventures fighting the Phoenix Empire in the desert. They get a number of bonus sea skills - plus math - and are mostly vagabonds (boooo) or wilderness scouts (mehhh) but can be spellcasters (alright!). They don't like technology because reasons. And they don't get any armor. Mostly, they kinda suck, but if you want to play part of the oppressed armshark minority, go for it. Next: Squidstuff. Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 00:36 on Dec 21, 2015 |
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Dec 1, 2015 00:52
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 In today's Afterthought we discuss the differences between a baldfaced Asylum films-style ripoff and a pleasing, well crafting homage (let's say... the Klaatu Barada Nicto stuff in Army of Darkness). Then we answer some questions and everyone goes home happy.
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Dec 1, 2015 18:10
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Doresh posted:
Look, you're telling me a campaign pitch for TBZ is "you can play the heroes of an ikkō-ikki uprising."  as gently caress.
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Dec 1, 2015 19:22
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