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RocknRollaAyatollah posted:It doesn't. Hedge magic is mundane and allowed by the consensus of reality so it doesn't invoke paradox. Awakened or enlightened magic are completely different and only superficially appear to be similar. The player wouldn't be incurring a residual backup of paradox from using hedge magic, just like a theoretical physicist wouldn't for writing up their theories on quantum mechanics. For those unfamiliar with Mage, those two might not seem related but they're two ends of the spectrum in the Ascension War. So, I'm in the minority here who doesn't think Wick was being a total tool with the Nick scenario. Nick wanted to play a Mage; Wick started him out as unawakened but kinda magical. Violating the WoD theme doesn't bother me since it's full of swiss cheese holes already. He then used Nick's ambition to offer him what he wanted with a large raise in the stakes and it sounded like it was pretty exciting, but they all survived in the end. Now, I think what ARB was getting at in the review was the posturing threat--"I'll kill you if I can" being kind of a disingenuous way of explaining the plan to seriously endanger the PCs if they go down this road. The other problem was that Nick's choice plunged the whole party into extreme peril, and I hope there was table discussion with the other players about this decision before it was made. So Wick still comes off as a smug jerk but I feel like this story shows he has learned at least a little from his spine-snapping mother-killing days in Champions. Really this whole book comes off as a whole lot of  smeared liberally over a few bits of genuinely good advice, and really poorly-researched historical comparisons. I'd expect no less from the creator of Legend of the Five Rings of course. (no hate for 5R, but its issues have been covered in this thread a lot already)
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Dec 23, 2015 16:45
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Traveller posted:Stormbringer 5th Edition Man, it is interesting seeing this from the perspective of writers who aren't total Stormbringer fanboys. And does anyone else think Power Rangers when they hear "Goldar"? Mad science, AM's midlife crisis, and grimdark Astro Boy (Casshern?). Now that's a good start. Hostile V posted:Shiden V was an experimental pre-war prototype of robot whose siblings designs would later become the backbone of one of the world-wide produced robot trooper types, the Bishonen. It was assigned to a JSDF loyalist group to help them destroy the Osaka AI when all other JSDF robot troops were taken control of. Shiden V and the loyalists failed in their mission, leaving Shiden as the only survivor, forced to go dormant to save power and conceal itself. Shiden slept for a decade until it was found by a bunch of gomi teens, restored and repaired with their help. Now, with their allies and its knowledge, Shiden V and its teen allies have formed the Fudokawa (steadfast sword) resistance group to liberate the Zone and overthrow Tokyo. Neither Tokyo nor SHI-023 and the superbots know of the Fudokawa, but Shiden's goals do not align with the latter and the Fudokawa is acting wholly independently. The Terminator anime has some weird fanservice going on. unseenlibrarian posted:It's a little like the "Dead box" in TBZ, though that's the player's choice instead of the GM's. Or +Warn systems on WOD MUSHES! I'd say TBZ does is better, as filling the Dead Box has the player go "I have to win this fight, and if Lady Luck is not on my side, so be it!" I'm also not sure how declaring "dire peril" magically prevents bad-luck-induced anticlimactic deaths. Horrible Lurkbeast posted:I vote Middle east, Africa I want to see how much more hosed up the region gets. That, out of morbid curiosity. Double Cross - Advanced Rulebook  Trait Loises - Part II Access to the following T-Loises are all restricted in some way. Of particular note are the Syndrome-exclusive ones, as they sorta act as a class kit or specialization, nudging the character closer to one of the two extremes most Syndromes offer. No. 18 - 20: UGN-exclusive T-Loises These can only be taken by official members of the UGN (as opposed to Illegals who just help them out every now and then). Normal agents can make use of Backup, making use of the UGN's vast resources to help them out, be it in the form of fellow agents assisting during investigations, or in the form of a surprise sniper/ninja squad. UGN Branch Chiefs (which isn't a particularly rare PC choice; almost every example adventure assumes that one of the PCs is the Branch Chief of the default city) use their Leadership skills to assist an ally's check. UGN Children that have spend pretty much their entire life inside an UGN training facility are True-Born and receive a permanent bonus to one specific skill due to their training. No. 21 & 22: Renegade-Being-exclusive I just have to quote the intro prose for the first T-Lois here: No. 21 Divinity posted:... I am a god. That's right. You're a Renegade Being that used to be worshipped and/or feared as a god. In fact a lot of gods and mythological critters might've just be Renegade Beings, Overeds or Gjaums. Whether you still actually believe that you're a god is up to you, but that kinda goes against one of the core definitions of a Renegade Being (aka "You actually know that you are a lump of sentient Renegade virus"). The awesome in-game effect of all this is that you can go Old Testament God on the world once per Scenario, destroying any building or vehicle in the Scene or insta-killing all cannon fodder in a single Engagement. Due to plot armor, none of your shenanigans can actually hurt other PCs or proper NPCs. So yeah, make a Neumann/Bram Stoker/Morpheus Renegade Being, take this T-Lois and lead your Red Servant phalanx to glorious victory as vampire Athena. The second option is Reincarnation, which is just that. You died, and now you're back with your old memories. You may have been a normal human or even a former PC who died, but now you're a Renegade Being in the form of a ghost, computer program or normal human. The effect of this is that like Duplicate, you start with a single power from another Syndrome (reflecting parts of your former self's powers). This power can only be used at an Encroachment Rate of 100%, and you can't raise it through XP. One the upside, it will already start at near max level. No. 23 & 24: Pure-Breed-exclusive Avatar signifies that your mastery over your single Syndrome is second to none, granting you access to one of the Avatar-exclusive powers that serve as additional "meta-powers". Want to boost one of your combos? Gain additional actions? Or do you want to ignore power restrictions? Full-Blooded is an extreme specializiation that lets you improve a single power even higher than you can already do thanks to being a Pure-Breed. The downside? You're so focused on your one Syndrome that you can't learn any Common Powers aside from the three everyone starts out anyways and a fourth that is just a variation of one of the three. No. 25 & 26: Demi-Breed: Crossbreed-exclusive Overeds with Deep Encroachment show remarkable skill at merging their two Syndromes. They have a signature combo of sorts that can be boosted once per Scenario. Demi-Breeds are an odd case in which a Crossbreed has a very lopsided relationship with his two Syndromes. This can result if two Pure-Breeds of the same Syndrome get a child that develops a second Syndrome, or if a Pure-Breed suddenly turns Crossbreed. Whatever the case, the Demi-Breed starts off with a power that's otherwise exclusive to Pure-Breeds, at the cost of having a smaller selection of possible powers for the other Syndrome. No. 27 & 28: Tri-Breed exclusive The Tri-Breed-version of Deep Encroachment is known as Miracle Breed, signifying a perfect balance between all three Syndromes. Being more conservative than showy, it just reduces the Encroachment Rate increase of any combo using powers from each Syndrome. Specializing like crazy makes you a , well, Specialist. You get a single Encroachment-Rate-restricted power for which you can ignore the usual max level reduction due to being a Tri-Breed. The downside is that you can no longer get any other restricted powers, so make it count. No. 29 & 30: Angel-Halo-exclusive Are you a Light Bringer, whose light is not just angelic, but outright divine (aka you get a new power that boosts your other Angel Halo powers), or are you a Dark Bringer who messes around with enemy actions and is so focused on darkness that even your light-based powers are covered in dark energy that is darker than darkness itself? No. 31 & 32: Balor-exclusive The Wicked Eye lets you turn one or both of your eyes pitch-black, allowing you to boost several gravity-based powers, and cursing anyone you look at with misfortune. Chrono Trigger lets you straight-up travel back a few moments in time to correct a fatal mistake (letting you modify a rolled die). Or do you just have visions of the future? Nobody is sure what's exactly going on here, not even you. No. 33 & 34: Black-Dog-exclusive If you're into the lightning-aspect of the Black Dog Syndrome, you can hyper-charge your lightning powers as a Thunder Lord. If you prefer the cybernetics stuff, there's Full Cyborg, which means that something - or someone - messed you up so badly that you are now somewhere between RoboCop and fully-fledged android. This makes you pretty sturdy, but you have to watch out for people finding out about your robot body. No. 35 & 36: Bram-Stoker-exclusive You can be a Vampire, but that doesn't actually do what you'd think it does. It merely means that at one point, you were forced to drink the blood of someone else to survive, revitalizing your own blood to the point that you can use it to heal others. If you're into Red Servants, you might want to become a Master of the Twilight who can create strangely twisted-looking Red Servants extremely fast. No. 37 & 38: Chimaera-exclusive If you are in tune with your animal side, you might be a Beast Heart, granting you quick transformations and the ability to befriend animals. As a Tyrannos, you are the strongest there is. You hit so hard that you break any melee weapon you try to use. No. 39 & 40: Exile-exclusive A Freak is like Nightcrawler from the X-Men, branded as a monster due to mutations. On the plus side, they get to use powers for cheaper. Kinda dabbling into Black-Dog-territory is the Tool Master, who can fuse with items for improved performance. No. 41 & 42: Hanuman-exclusive You can be a Speedster who is has a strong urge to run and can pull off the Infinite Mass Punch, or you can be a Sonic Master whose prose I just have to quote: No. 42 Sonic Master posted:If you ever meet the Sonic Master, watch out. He may not have any weapons, and couldn't use them even if he did, but he doesn't need them. If there's anything that can transmit sound waves, there's no escape from his attacks. So much cheese. Anyhow, this T-Lois lets you boost sonic powers with the Renegade virus, which according to the fluff even lets you use them in a vacuum. No. 43 & 44: Morpheus-exclusive Being an Alchemist makes you especially talented at creating items, while being a Sandman makes you suck balls at it, while granting you a new defensive power making use of all the sand your failed creations turn into. No. 45 & 46: Neumann-exclusive A Genius is not only a Jack, but also a Master of all Trades, granting a nice meta-power to boost any check. An Adept on the other hand reaches unparalleld mastership with a single power. No. 47 & 48: Orcus-exclusive With Elysium, the Domains you create are especially otherwordly and potent, making for nastier attacks. As an Animal Master, you instead focus on the animals dwelling inside your domain, which lets you use them directly for attacks (instead of having them merely assist). No. 49 & 50: Salamandra-exclusive The two T-Loises Eternal Blaze and Absolute Zero are very similar in that they have the Overed focus so much on one end of the heat spectrum that he can even scorch/freeze other Salamandra Overeds. No. 51 & 52: Solaris-exclusive Memory Diver makes you a Vulcan or general telepath, able to fix mental issues and even turn a Titus back into a Lois. Kind Miracle makes you so empathic that you actually share the pain of others, giving you a neat support ability. Next Time: Unique Items - time to bring out the railgun. Doresh fucked around with this message at 19:24 on Dec 23, 2015 |
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Dec 23, 2015 19:22
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Alien Rope Burn posted:
 RANT TIME! As someone who's spent years working on creative projects, I understand what it's like to toil over a work of art and finally produce something worth reading. I also know what it's like for those efforts to fail and leave you with nothing for all the effort you put in. When he writes "blood, sweat, and tears", he's only exaggerating on the blood part, and even then not by much; creative work is harder than many give it credit for, and producing finished, saleable products - especially as many as he has as frequently as he has - is nothing short of a miracle. But I'm not paying for miracles. If I wanted to buy miracles, I'd donate to a seed church. What I want to spend my money on - money earned with my own hard work, maybe not as hard as Wick's but still hard - is something worth spending money on. I bought Houses of the Blooded recently to try and port its domain management mechanics for a game I'm running. What a mistake! The domain management rules take a base system so obvious it's boring and make it too complex to actually use without dedicating entire sessions to domain management instead of playing the loving game. I wish I hadn't bought it! Creative work is hard, but being an artist does not excuse you from making something worth buying. If it isn't worth buying, I reserve the right to tell other people that. If you get a bad review, it isn't because they don't get how hard it is to make a game. That's not a reviewer's job. Their job is reviewing! Likewise, most reviewers are biased, and every reviewer on Earth is a blithering idiot, including John Wick. None of that matters. A reviewer's job is to decide whether they like a game and tell readers why. If they're wrong, they're wrong, but their wrongness doesn't change the facts of the job. That job is evaluating games and telling other people about them. Pretending the excuses Wick gives change this is the height of arrogance. If your all your blood, sweat, and tears produce a turd, it is still a turd. I'm not going to eat it because pressing that loaf was an epic endeavor. It's still a turd. Rant over. Hostile V posted:Reign of Steel!  Third Ed GURPS settings are almost always great, and this is one of the best. My favorite AIs are Caracas, Washington, and Moscow, and I can't wait till you get to them; I'm going to eat this poo poo with a spoon. Speaking of which! I was almost inspired to review HotB, but then I realized I'd rather castrate myself. Instead, I thing I might review GURPS: Fantasy II, my favorite setting of all time. Reasons include:
I like to call Houses of the Blooded "HotBreaker" sometimes. Then I laugh because I am so clever
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Dec 23, 2015 19:31
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occamsnailfile posted:So, I'm in the minority here who doesn't think Wick was being a total tool with the Nick scenario. Nick wanted to play a Mage; Wick started him out as unawakened but kinda magical. Violating the WoD theme doesn't bother me since it's full of swiss cheese holes already. He then used Nick's ambition to offer him what he wanted with a large raise in the stakes and it sounded like it was pretty exciting, but they all survived in the end. This is all true and shows some growth. I elaborated on this because this isn't so much theme breaking, it's mechanic breaking to have paradox fall on him in that manner. By the rules as written, nothing should happen to him. After he becomes awakened, he has plenty of opportunities to get hosed now that he's in a whole new dangerous world. There's nothing wrong with upping the stakes and there are plenty of avenues for that but how he handled it was unsurprisingly done poorly.
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Dec 23, 2015 19:45
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I was kind of surprised we didn't get any more example of work-restricted T-loises that aren't connected to organization membership. But maybe I'm alone in wanting a Banchou T-lois for delinquents that lets you call up your street gang to help out once a scenario, or a maverick T-lois for cops that gives you a Lois with "The Department" that will almost inevitably convert to a Titus when you're forced to hand in your badge and gun but then recovers at the end of the scenario. (Also an endless series of partners just 3 days from retirement.)
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Dec 23, 2015 19:49
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unseenlibrarian posted:I was kind of surprised we didn't get any more example of work-restricted T-loises that aren't connected to organization membership. But maybe I'm alone in wanting a Banchou T-lois for delinquents that lets you call up your street gang to help out once a scenario, or a maverick T-lois for cops that gives you a Lois with "The Department" that will almost inevitably convert to a Titus when you're forced to hand in your badge and gun but then recovers at the end of the scenario. (Also an endless series of partners just 3 days from retirement.) I think that's more something for the Connection "items" or Loises that are organizations instead of a single person, especially since a street gang won't do you any good in actual combat as Overeds can just shut normies down with Warding. I think they only used the UGN because they're the only ones with sizable resources and staff for Overed-related stuff. Then again you can probably use Backup or Leadership for any other organization of that size, like the various Anti-Overed military branches.
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Dec 23, 2015 20:04
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Falconier111 posted:
Look, unless you've personally toiled over InDesign margins to make a PDF compatible with DTRPG's PoD service, I really don't care what you have to say Mr. "Your system math accidentally produces 90% failure rates on the regular". I think Wick has probably backed off on this particular vein of stupidity over the years, and I doubt it was all that true for him to begin with, but it's one of the many factors that go into my complete lack of hope for 7th Sea: Sail Harder.
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Dec 23, 2015 20:12
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That Old Tree posted:Look, unless you've personally toiled over InDesign margins to make a PDF compatible with DTRPG's PoD service, I really don't care what you have to say Mr. "Your system math accidentally produces 90% failure rates on the regular". Considering how hard Wick fought to remove all actual sailing from 7th Sea, I wouldn't think that's a very appropriate subtitle.
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Dec 23, 2015 20:18
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Night10194 posted:Considering how hard Wick fought to remove all actual sailing from 7th Sea, I wouldn't think that's a very appropriate subtitle. According to his and some associated person's posts on RPGnet, there's some intention to be much friendlier to Age of Sail exploratory adventure. They mentioned Indies, Africa and Asia analogues, which given his track record recent and old makes the grogs.txt in my heart rub its hands with glee. Of course, this was before any real development had been done, during the fervor following the AEG and Wick announcements; I wouldn't be surprised if the entire project falls down a bottomless pit.
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Dec 23, 2015 20:26
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If there's more sailing in 7th Sea 2, it'll only be so it's easier to punish Eisen fighters for overinvesting in heavy armor by pushing them overboard.
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Dec 23, 2015 20:30
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I think Wick may be the only person I trust less than GW with Africa and colonialism. Also, seeing Double Cross reviewed again has convinced me to get the PDF of it. Parasite Eve Times will be coming for my players.
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Dec 23, 2015 20:32
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Have fun with it :3unseenlibrarian posted:If there's more sailing in 7th Sea 2, it'll only be so it's easier to punish Eisen fighters for overinvesting in heavy armor by pushing them overboard. Unless they come up with ultra-light steel that floats on water.
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Dec 23, 2015 20:43
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Evil Mastermind posted:Wick's D&D3 review johnwickpresents.com posted:I love stories. All kinds. My favorite kind of story is the “Beat the Devil” story, where the Master of Lies gets himself tricked. The reason is selfish: I live that story every day of my life. The strange thing is that he added a fanciful scenario where nebbishy dork, Ryan Dancey, is hosting a dinner party. The Wick crashes the party and Dancey looks on impotently while everyone gets drunk in the hot tub with The Wick, awestruck by how cool and outrageous he is. At the time I thought it was a pretty good skewering of Wick, but I wonder how it would read now. Anyway, that's probably the meanest thing I can say about Wick. "When I was 18 years old, I thought his persona was immature and derivative." FMguru posted:Yeah, a high-lethality campaign is a perfectly legitimate playstyle but it relies on the GM playing fair, which (as you point out) is the opposite of Wick's approach to the game (see: the titles of his essay collections). theironjef posted:The thing I always wonder is how he would react to a player playing the way he DMs. All like he says "the orc swings a greasy rusted blade at your temple" and the player responds with "I punch him in the nerve center bundle in his upper arm rendering his sword arm inactive, then put him in a half nelson and walk him off a cliff. Initiative doesn't matter because just swinging a sword is a gambit that an idiot would do, or perhaps a baby." He also strikes me as exactly the kind of guy who thinks he knows all about fighting because he has a yellow belt in hapkido. That Old Tree posted:The degree to which Wick comes across as smug and getting one over on his players, and especially the degree to which he self-describes as a gaping anus and his players loving it, always strikes me as containing significant amounts of after-the-fact rationalization. Technically he's probably not making most of it up, but there's a lot of spin going into his stories to the point that the parts that matter to his theses are basically made up. Night10194 posted:John Wick isn't Grognards.txt, he's stdh.txt. theironjef posted:Also I'm pleased that having written an RPG qualifies me to critique his work, which is characterized by being poo poo, the kind primarily found in or near butts. Woo! Duckman pays off again. I think I will move the Immortal revised edition up my review schedule. Sneak peak: a conundrum is now simply called a shard. This bodes well.
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Dec 23, 2015 20:56
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Falconier111 posted:Speaking of which! I was almost inspired to review HotB, but then I realized I'd rather castrate myself. Instead, I thing I might review GURPS: Fantasy II, my favorite setting of all time. Ooh, please do this. Adventures in the Mad Lands is like Ehdrigohr's bitter, even more obscure mirror.
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Dec 23, 2015 21:28
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Falconier111 posted:
The other thing about creative work is that, especially if you're formally taught in a college or art school, you get used to the concept of peer critique. It doesn't matter if it's writing, fine art, video game development, etc., you put your rough work out to show and your peers disassemble it in front of you to see how it works for them, what needs improvement, and where it doesn't work. It's a humbling experience to have a good chunk of your life that is a creative project destroyed so that you can take those pieces that did survive and rebuild them into a better work. That's what makes Wick's complaint about "no one should review his masterworks". It's clear that he's probably either in an echo chamber of cowed whipped dogs or sycophants and that whenever he hears anything outside that bubble. Most professional reviewers are or were artists themselves, famously Roger Ebert doing screenwriting on a couple of Russ Meyer's movies. Even the "review as critique" works with Ebert, considering the famous scuffle between him and Vincent Gallo over The Brown Bunny, where Gallo actually went back, reedited the film down, and Ebert gave it another pass and gave it a "thumbs up" for the effort in reworking the movie. Gallo now actually hates The Brown Bunny, being self-indulgent and still being too green in his sophomore film. Point said, if you want to claim being a creative, then you have to accept critique and review as part of the natural process of the creation process.
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Dec 23, 2015 22:55
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Alien Rope Burn posted:The other example goes back into the  No, your character doesn't do that ", combine it with " my DMPC is so awesome you guys totally back down and now I shall narrate what happens instead ", and figured out a way to accomplish both without even having to put in the slightest effort to justify it in-game. I know the WoD bit was pretty obnoxious and unfun, but this here is the pure-strain Wick.
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Dec 23, 2015 23:21
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Houses of the Blooded LARP he runs. There was a time when some folks wanted to poke in a ruin for artifacts, but he invoked dire peril because they were "poorly equipped" and they backed off. He talks about a regular player he has who decided for a change of place to play a duellist that hated sorcerers. (In the setting, sorcery is illegal, but everybody does it anyway, because sorcery is rad.) So she duels and kills them. Then she finds out the character she's working under is a profilic sorcerer, and when she goes after him, John walks around after holding up a sign that said Dire Peril. And I guess people were cowed and it was awesome and stuff, and she cuts a few people down (who volunteered to be cut down in that scene, we're told).
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Bieeardo posted:Ooh, please do this. Adventures in the Mad Lands is like Ehdrigohr's bitter, even more obscure mirror. Your wish is granted! Presenting; GURPS: MADLANDS!  Asparagus is an ancient and storied vegetable, its cultivation dating back to Ancient Egypt in ~5000 BC. Asparagus is distantly related to lilies, onions, and garlic, and once it was considered closely related to those plants. However, today it sits in its own genus – the unintuitively-named, unguessable Asparagaceae. Asparagaceae Officinalis (presumably common asparagus) is native to the Mediterranean region and much of the rest of Europe, where it was apparently sacrificed to the gods in ancient times.  Asparagus does best in cool and wet climates, but if you can get it to grow, it’ll grow well in most circumstances. Cooking it isn’t particularly difficult; the average shmoe has maybe a 95% chance of getting it right, though he might overcook it if he’s unlucky or – gasp! – ruin it on a crit fail. At this point, the supplement introduces a new item to the GURPS vault; an Asparagus Cooker, worth about  . And you should probably get it, because our favorite plant might be useful for more than  Also, you can play as asparagus. I wouldn’t, though. For comparison, the point value of an average human weighs in at 100.  Finally, the supplement presents its own themed world for Infinite Worlds (GURPS’s canned setting, in which players hop from alternate timeline to alternate timeline to stop English Meritocrat Nazis and enforce the Prime Directive). Asparagus-1 is covered in asparagus and nothing else; no complex organism except for asparagus grows there. However, the plant is densest where Earth cities are today. Upon realizing this, the forward scouts promptly sealed up the timeline and never came back. Scary! And that’s that. Next time; GURPS: Mustelids! e: I'm still going to do real Madlands, just had to get this out of my system Falconier111 fucked around with this message at 01:58 on Dec 24, 2015 |
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Dec 24, 2015 01:29
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John Wick posted:Never say "I didn't like it". Play Dirty 2: Even Dirtier Part 6: "Tell them that John guy suggested a whole ton of stuff that was just terrifying." Episode 5: Happy Halloween So Wick talks about running Call of Cthulhu every Halloween and, well. Play Dirty 2: Even Dirtier posted:It’s a tradition. Something I’ve rarely broken. Every year, I dress up in my “Man in Black” outfit (black pants, black shirt, black vest, black jacket, black tie, black hat and Yellow Sign pin) and I tell a story of man’s futile attempts to understand the universe. I'm pretty sure that's not- that's not what the song is about- Play Dirty 2: Even Dirtier posted:But this year, for various reasons, has proven to be a year of breaking traditions. I’m forty-one-years old this year—forty-two on December 10th—and the whole three hundred and sixty days seemed to be a hovering point between the magic and mysticism and absurdity. Forty is the year a man is old enough to start learning magic. At forty, he is mature enough to understand qabalah. It is the year of the Magician. Forty-two, of course, is an entirely different number with its own significance. And so, at forty-one, it seemed a good year for breaking as many traditions as possible.   So, he talks about running a game called Schauermarchen which is about kids being hunted by a scary man in a suit in a small village that is also a industrial hellscape. We'll find out more about the jerk in the suit later. I had to look that game up, by the way, Wick doesn't explain it clearly. (The name translates to "horror story" in German, for those wondering.) He talks about how this let him do different things from Call of Cthulhu, but never explains what that difference might be. See, when you write an essay, usually at the end you bring all your points together but in Wick's case they often just trail off in different directions. So that game is not actually mentioned for the rest of this article, and I don't know why he brought it up. Product placement? The Haunted House This part is about using haunted house tricks, and how you should be like "Gee I read some of this John Wick guy, he has some good horror tricks but some of it is tooooo scaaaaary but some of it was pretty good." and that will freak people out. And things like leaving the temperature uncomfortably cold or keeping the lights low or playing in an unfamiliar location. Like the bathroom. Not making that up, his suggestion. Or telling the Bloody Mary story to a player and removing all the lightbulbs in the bathroom. Play Dirty 2: Even Dirtier posted:One of my players went into the bathroom…and found that the lights didn’t work. All gone. She didn’t go back in the rest of the night. Was she scared, or did she just not want to poo poo in the dark? I know what Wick wants me to think, but I also know what I'm thinking, and they're not the same thing. Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima So you turn off the lights and try and get complete silence and darkness and he then directs us to play this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfBVYhyXU8o Ooops. That's embarrassing. The link in the book doesn't work. And it's a PDF, so I can click on it and know the link is as intended. Well. Let's do a search. He then directs us to play this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dp3BlFZWJNA Oh poo poo, John is looking at my review and he's doing it from inside the house and he's all in black with his Yellow Sign pin on, oh no... so this is by Krzysztof Penderecki, a modern classical composer who did a lot of haunting and spooky music (as heard in The Exorcist or The Shining). He doesn't bring that up, mind, but just tells us to play his stuff. A lot of it is fantastic stuff, but I think I'd find Threnody a little too distracting at the table for more than a minute or two. Play Dirty 2: Even Dirtier posted:Play the whole thing in complete darkness. Just let them sit there and listen. Then, halfway through the listening, get up and take their character sheets away. One at a time. Play the whole thing? It's nearly nine minutes long (or seventeen minutes in not-allowed-to-check-your-phone-time). Also try not to trip over poo poo in the darkness or bang your leg when you get up to take away character sheets. He also mentions using glow sticks (and credits John Tynes) or phones solely to light the play area. Which is a fine idea.  The Character Sheet He mentions taking away character sheets to create uncertainty (as noted above) and if people forget what they have on the sheet, tough titties. Which leads to situations like "Do I have pick lock?" and Wick describes smugly saying "Roll and find out." Well, Wick, I'm pretty sure I know whether or not I know how to loving pick a loving lock. Just play Dread or another one of the sheetless horror RPGs out there, that's just obnoxious way to approach a solved problem. The Ringer So you have a friend hide in the closet and you're like "And then there's a knooock at the doooor!", and your friend then knocks and BAM PSHHHHHH MINDS BLOWN. Look, I don't mind using cheap theatrics but like play it up as a fun thing not like a some kind of mystic secret from the horror sifus of terroria. Play Dirty 2: Even Dirtier posted:Just remember this: your players want to be scared. They have shown up on Halloween to play a horror game. If they don’t, they should go play a roleplaying game where they get to be the serial killer. BAM PSSSSHHHHH MIND BLOWN  John is like the guy who can't stop talking about his ex. They broke up years ago but he still watches in on what she does on Facebook and sneers and jibes. It's not healthy, John, you need to let D&D go. You have different lives now. Move on. But he won't. We'll see. Next: "Please don't make me be a jerk."
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Dec 24, 2015 01:31
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Falconier111 posted:Your wish is granted! Presenting; GURPS: MADLANDS! God bless this post.
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Dec 24, 2015 01:34
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Astounding. Though dozens of RIFTS fansites have come and gone, and reams of terrible WoD crap parped into the ether with the loss of Geocities... GURPS High Heels still remains. I refuse to check if the links on that page to GURPS Sex are still active, but since they're in the same directory...
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Dec 24, 2015 01:41
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Y'know what I just got ahold of? Into The Steam is the sourcebook for all things Arcanist, Steamfitter's Union and parts north of Malifaux. It covers the lands north of the city, a new character creation method (the Assembly Line Tarot) with option to play as one of the Invested - a sentient robot. There are eight new basic Pursuits and five new Advanced Pursuits, some new Talents and a lot of new options for skills. There's also new items and new magic variations, plus a bunch of new monsters and rules to make mutant or robot monsters. The north is one of the areas least controlled by the Guild - it's the primary stronghold of both the Arcanists and the Ten Thunders. Much of the land is known as the Northern Hills, full of soulstone veins and other ores. Lots of abandoned boomtowns and a few that have flourished in the five years since the Breach opened back up. The railroad heads all the way up to Ridley Station, and some small companies are trying to push it even further. We get a digression on Malifaux astronomy. The place has two moons: Illios the Revealer and Delios the Dark Stone, names found in old documents from before the first Breach. Delios is the first to rise, moving east to west and glowing faintly green. It is known as the Dark Stone because it looks like uncut soulstone. Its light is barely enough to illuminate the ground, and it is often associated with deceit and magic. It is the harbinger of darkness, and the sick or dying are sometimes said to have had the light of Delios upon them. Some say that those who die when Delios alone is in the sky have their souls trapped within it. Illios is slower, taking hours after sunset to rise. It moves southwest to northeast, and it shines white-blue, bright in the sky. Most wait until its rise to travel by night. It is tied to the concept of truth, and many use the phrase 'Illios has not yet risen' to say that the truth will be revealed in time. When both moons are in the sky, it can be as bright as daylight...well, Malifaux daylight, but everything is given a yellow-green tint. Many in the North don't mind traveling by the light of Illios, if only to add color to an otherwise dull trip. The sun of Malifaux, meanwhile, is not so bright as Earth's sun. Clouds are common, and bright days rare. The days are shorter as winter approaches, and common reckoning holds that the sun rises east and sets west - apparently, the original Malifaux inhabitants used an entirely different system, but humanity has essentially ignored it entirely. Eclipses are rare but not unheard of, typically seen as omens, and a night without a moon might happen once in a lifetime. These nights, known as Fallow Nights, have never been witnessed by human eyes, but they are recorded in old tomes and grimoires of the ruins. There are also many, many stars, some even bright enough to see by day on clear afternoons. Unlike Earth stars, the stars of Malifaux are more colorful, with red and green and, much more rarely, blue. Blue stars are good omens, but can only be seen in the darkest part of the darkest nights. We also get some mention of Malifaux's massive underground cavern complexes, to be detailed in a later supplement (Under Quarantine). The Northern Hills are relatively tame, but have some animals - mostly moles, and most notably the rare and aggressive Molemen, a magical creation of the Arcanists that's had an offshoot go wild and feral. They are aggressive, territorial, rather clever and very good at weakening mines. As yet, there has been no decision reached on whether the Miners and Steamfitters Union should engage an active project to exterminate or contain the Molemen. The rest of the dangerous animals of the Northern Hills are rare - mostly jackals, Night Terrorsand, near the mountains, Maulers and Hoarcats. There is plenty of other animal life that is less dangerous and relied on for meat. The lands near Frostrun also suffer from Razorspine Rattlers (giant snakes) and giant boars wandering in from the river. Most settlements in the Northern Hills don't break a thousand people, outside of Ridley or Hollow Marsh. There's just not enough food for large populations, and people tend to be transient - the hillfolk, as they are often disparagingly called in Malifaux. They're survivors, no-nonsense and gruff, with strong ties to local settlements. Most belong to the M&SU, which has fostered a spirit of camaraderie and mutual support, but they don't easily welcome newcomers. They aren't hostile, just standoffish and not quick to help anyone that doesn't pull their own weight. Many towns actively defy Guild mandates, and while Guild men come for the Soulstone, they don't often stick around long. Direct confrontation is rare, given the Guild's heavily armed nature, but they are defied often - magicians, for example, are often protected from them, as are peaceful outlaws, as their skills can be handy to have around. Northerners tend to call themselves the Folk, reclaiming part of the insulting 'hillfolk' nickname. People from nearby settlements are often 'cousins,' a name encouraged by the Union to build a sense of family and community. Still, people tend not to move around too often, except to avoid trouble or find new resources. Still, when it does happen, this network of 'cousins' and their 'cousins' helps people settle in. However, the area between towns is rife with highwaymen and bandits that prey on these rare travelers, often based out of old ghost towns. Next time: Ridley and Points North
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Dec 24, 2015 02:02
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I am looking forward to the next Through the Breach sourcebook -after- this one, because when I see the cover-to-be all I can think is "The Lion King, but with zombies."
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Dec 24, 2015 02:15
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Stormbringer 5th Edition Pledging your soul to forces beyond your ken for fun and profit Time to make a character! Something I really, really like about the game is that there's a whole flowchart spread across two pages with all the instructions you need to make a character with minimal back and forth flipping. Depending on your character concept, you might not need to flip pages at all, just reference the flowchart and your own character sheet. Characters are defined by seven stats: STRength, CONstitution, SIZe, INTelligence, POWer, DEXterity and APPearance. One 2d6+6 roll for each, for a 8-18 spread - no INT 3 goons here. Up to three points can be redistributed around all stats except POW. Many times stats are multiplied by a given factor in order to have a number to roll when a skill isn't appropriate, and four of these rolls should be precalculated now: Idea (INT x 5), Luck (POW x 5), Dexterity (DEX x 5) and Charisma (APP x 5). A minimum of 16 POW is needed to cast magic, and if you want your adventurer to be a caster but don't have the points to do so you can trade two points from other stats into a single bonus POW point. A successful Luck check is necessary every time this is done (once the Luck check is failed, no more attempts can be made), and it adds a Chaos point every time this is done. More on this later. STR+SIZ gives the character's Damage Bonus. (CON+SIZ)/2 gives the character's Hit Points. HP in Stormbringer are a more direct representation of vitality and health than in, say, D&D: many poisons and diseases directly reduce HP instead of going after stats and the like. A character's Magic Points equal their POW. MP are used for casting and resisting spells. At this point, the character starts taking shape - gender is chosen, though it has no mechanical effect. You can roll or choose one of four Backgrounds that give a 20% bonus to a number of related skills: you can solve things through physical strength, finesse, deceit or persuasion. This is unrelated to a character's Profession, what they did before they turned to the adventuring life. Characters get 250 points for their profession's skills, as well as some money. If so wished, they may roll for their profession in one of two tables: one is completely random, while the other is "realistically" weighted (as the game itself points out, the most likely outcome in this table is being a peasant or farmer  ) Professions also come with up to three spells that characters may take, but they're strictly optional. Some Professions also have special rules: shamans and priests start with more allegiance points, while if a beggar fails a Luck roll they have contacts in Nadsokor. There's an optional Distinctive Traits table to roll on, then a character gets their age by rolling 1d6+17. That same d6's result is multiplied by 30 to get a character's starting money. Characters may roll more d6s to grow older and get more skill points (10 per roll) but after five rolls they start losing stat points. Elric that's not how seppuku works come on Characters that don't get spells may choose to start following the Law (20% bonus to 1-3 skills, +1 Law point per bonus) or the Balance (+1-3 bonus to their lowest stat, +1 Balance point per bonus) Finally, characters get 600 bronzes specifically to purchase armor (though they can pocket that money), and they start with a horse, a saddle and every weapon whose skill they give at least 20 points. They also get a memento from their family worth 1d20-1 bronzes. Finally, the character picks their homeland, which is kind of weird as the description for each nation and kingdom comes with favored skills, weapons and traits. You'd think this step would be taken early on, but that's how Stormbringer rolls. There's also a table to roll for, but players should ask their GM for permission if they want their characters to be from Melniboné or Pan Tang. So what's with these Chaos and Law and Balance points, anyway? They are part of the Allegiance system. From their choices during chargen, each character starts with a tendency towards one of the three cosmic forces. The greater the number of points of one flavor, the greater the loyalty of the character to that force. However, most people don't act in the same manner all the time, and it's perfectly possible to have points not just in one force, but two or even all three. When a character has 20 more points in their highest allegiance than the next higher, they're considered to be allies of that force. Allegiance points are gained by allegiance checks done after an adventure: the GM asks for a d100 roll, and if the character gets less than their allegiance score they gain 1d8 points (Chaos) or 1d6 points (Balance, Law.) Some actions can gain points directly: for instance, knowing or casting spells is always a Chaotic act. Points can be lost if the GM considers a character is going against their allegiance (same check as gaining allegiance points, only the 1d8 or 1d6 bonus is a reduction) or by outright reducing them without a roll. This is more or less safe unless the characters have scores of one hundred or more, in which case they really should consider going against their cause. A character that is allied to Chaos can, if they run out of Magic Points, pray to Chaos and gain 1/10 of their current Chaos score in MP. This can be done up to three times per session of game, and only after the third time does the character fall unconscious (normally, a character that hits 0 MP is knocked out) The character must succeed at an allegiance check at the end of the adventure, and they may try calling on a specific Chaos Lord with 1% chances of success. A character that is allied to Balance can, once a session, restore 1/5 of their Balance points in HP. They must pass an allegiance check at the end of the session. Allies of Law can pray to the White Lords to add their full Law score to a skill. This must be done before a roll, and can be done up to three times per session. These rolls don't get an experience check. Like their Chaos counterparts, they have 1% of chances of having their call to a Lawful god heard. Characters with 100 points or more in one of the three forces get a powerful vision asking them if they want to undergo Apotheosis and become a champion of that force. Scores in the other forces don't matter. The character must prove that they are worthy of such an honor and they must also want it. If they reject it, their scores continue increasing as normal until they die or retire. Law and Chaos attempt to persuade, tempt and charm the character into accepting apotheosis; Balance doesn't force the issue but every few sessions an APP x 2 roll (later APP x 4, APP x 6, etc.) is made for the character to find their true love. The Balance loves love, after all, and there's always the chance of protecting said love in Tanelorn. :hug:  My allegiance is to Star Wars, Trekkie scum. A Champion of Chaos can, if they die, roll under (POW x 1d8) and if they succeed they vanish in a stinking cloud reform at the place of their apotheosis eight days later, losing a single APP point in the process due to the horrible pain involved. If this roll fails, they ascend to some superior plane to become a loyal pet of their patron.  Their MP are doubled, and they must choose a Lord of Chaos as a patron. They get POW x 3 chances of their Lord hearing their call if their need is great, but that doesn't mean their patron will do anything to help them (Elric got ditched by Arioch many, many times) A Champion of Balance becomes worthy of seeking Tanelorn, which involves a long quest that reveals the character's place in the world. If they succeed, they win the cosmic game and escape the fate of the Young Kingdoms. Their HP are now straight CON + SIZ, no averaging. A Champion of Law can go to the World's Edge and shape new lands from the formless Chaos there. 1d100 + 160 square kilometers, full of animals and plants as the Champion wishes, and even a small populace to rule. Three skills get their scores doubled, and like the Champions of Chaos they must choose a patron to call on in times of need, with the same POW x 3 chances. And just like Chaos, the Lawful gods may just proceed to ignore said need.  This chapter ends with some survival tips: try to have a weapon skill with 101% or better (101%? oh, yes, skills can go over 100%.), invest in shields and armor, get a really high POW if you want to work serious magic (mind the Chaos points!), have some talky skills, ask first, don't fight if you don't know what your opponent is, take care of your friends (here it mentions how while characters may have different allegiances, they don't have to stab each other at the earliest convenience, though like Elric realizes all the Law vs Chaos conflict really does is driving wedges between people) and, if everything fails, try to get captured and ransomed back to safety. Prices for stuff are given in bronzes, metal coins that are worthy enough to be useful without your losing your month's wages if you lose one. The game assumes money works the same across the world rather than sticking to different monetary schemes from place to place, but characters are warned not to, say, spend Melnibonéan coin in Vilmir. Skills are similar to other BRP games, but the list itself is shorter compared to other games. Many distinct skills are rolled into umbrella skills, like Art or Trade. There is no distinct Martial Arts skills, instead characters deal more damage with unarmed attacks once their Brawling hits 101% or better. There's the Repair/Invent skill, that is based off DEX x 4 and never increases by any reason except DEX raises. And then there's the Fly skill, that is pretty useless to anyone that isn't a myyrrhn character. So, on to the game system! Generally, things are not rolled for every single action PCs can take, only if the action is extraordinary or dramatic. Some stuff, like weapon skills, is always rolled only in extraordinary or dramatic circumstances. To make a skill check, roll a d100 and try to get equal to or under the skill. This is a success... well. There are several degrees of success and failure in Stormbringer. Rolling equal to or under the skill is a plain success; rolling equal to or under 1/5 of the skill is a critical success; and rolling a 01 in an attack roll with certain weapons gets an impaling success. On the other hand, rolling over the skill is a failure; while rolling 99-00 in a skill with 100 points or less (only 00 with a skill over 100 points) is a fumble, and that's not good. Crit successes work better than regular ones, while fumbles are just awful. Sometimes characters may end up opposing each other just using their stats: to use the old RPG example, two characters engaged in arm wrestling. In this case a Resistance roll is made of (50% + Active Stat x 5 - Passive Stat x 5), though there's a table that you can reference straight away instead of adding and subtracting numbers. Experience checks are indicated by the GM as the adventure proceeds for skills used in play: roll a d100 for them at the end of the session, and if the roll goes over the skill then it gains 1d10 points. For skills over 100-INT, they have to make an INT x 1 regular roll instead. Characters may also train under masters: this takes time, money, and can only increase a skill up to 80%. Stats can be increased by resistance checks against enemies that have a greater score in the stat. They can go up to 21 points for humans, except INT and POW which are uncapped. STR, CON and APP can also be increased by training. Yes, APP, you loving goons. You can learn to shave your neckbeard.  Look at it. Just look at it! All the art in the book is various flavors of grim and/or dark, and then there's this.  Wounds! As said before, a character's is a representation of their health and stamina. A light wound is one that takes less than half of their HP. They don't impair the character, but if they take enough for a severe wound they must roll POW x 4 to remain conscious. Enough light wounds can leave a character unconscious at 2 HP. Severe wounds take more than half of a PC's HP, and they're bad. There's a Severe Wounds table to roll on if they fail a Luck roll: it always involves stat point loss, though sometimes the blow is enough to knock the character then and there and sometimes they can continue fighting for a number of rounds equal to however many HP they have left. A fatal wound deals more damage than the character has HP left. If they aren't restored by first aid or magic to positive points by the end of the round, they die. Next: we're going demon summoning! Also, fighting!
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Dec 24, 2015 02:20
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Traveller posted:Stormbringer 5th Edition What happens if the end of session rolls fail?
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Dec 24, 2015 03:04
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Through the Breach: Into the Steam Ridley used to just be a small rail station used for trading, but since it was a trade center, it was only a matter of time before little Ridley Station became the largest settlement in the North. It's built atop a plateau, giving it a great view of the area, and while it hasn't reached the edges yet, it will soon, which will limit its growth. It is the southernmost town of the Northern Hills, bordering the Footprints, so it gets very little rain or much in the way of good cropland. Indeed, the only reason Ridley works is that it's the connection to Malifaux City. Even trains headed to Hollow Point have to stop there - and the city council won't honor tickets to Hollow Point bought in Malifaux, so don't bother doing that. Just buy a new one in Ridley. The city council runs a tight ship in Ridley, and every member is a card-carrying Steamfitter's Union man or woman. They keep the place humming. Since Ridley can't feed itself, they have imposed a Sustenance Tax to pay for importing food and water to sell back to the people. The prices are kept low by the council, but many are still uncomfortable with this, especially those with Guild leanings. The Guild control exactly one thing in Ridley: law enforcement. Despite many attempts by the council to take over the courts, it's reached the point where Ridley is backing down to avoid agitating the Guild further, though the council still gets to define the law. The Guild just enforces it...and some of their own laws, at times. The council is made of eight people, each representing one district. Districting is by population, but the ones at the outskirts are the poor ones, mostly the old or the disabled who can no longer make it on the frontier. On top of the council, there is a largely ceremonial mayor. Mayors are kept in for a year and are primarily retired Union leaders. Most try to get a bit more power, but all such attempts have so far been foiled. The mayor's only true power is that they serve as Guild liaison, and the Guild's started going straight to the mayor in hopes of bypassing the council. So far, it hasn't worked out very well - retired Union heads tend not to like the Guild. Ridley's districts are Center City (the rich part at the center and one of the nicest places in Malifaux due to a functioning sewer), the Smelt (industrial), Slate (a slum), Iron (artisans), Ivory (Guildtown) and the three housing districts, Bronze, Quartz and Jade. All of those three are relatively poor but mostly support the Union thanks to subsidized bread and water. Outside Hollow Marsh is Hollow Point Pumping Station, the other major settlement of the Northern Hills. It is the brainchild of Victor Ramos, a giant pump to keep the mines clear of floods by hollowing out a mountain. The people of Hollow Point live on the mountainside, and it's safer and wealthier than anywhere else in the Hills. The Union's even paid for a railway - a public line, if rarely used by non-Union people. Hollow Point is on the edge of the Bayou, so it has plenty of water and fertility, allowing them to grow rice, which is shipped throughout the Hills. Ridley depends almost entirely on Hollow Point food. The only real separator from the Bayou is the Frostrun, an icy river that comes down from Ten Peaks in the north. It is rough and treacherous, so it keeps most monsters and natives out...though some Gremlins are determined and cross anyway to loot local villages, which are mostly defended by the robots they use for mining. In the far northeast is the inexplicably successful Promise, just below the mountains. It's three weeks by horse from Ridley, across unforgiving land, and the winters are harsh. Despite this, Promise has done well, with good cropland and hunting. Indeed, the town appears to be self-sufficient. It is settled mostly by people from the Three Kingdoms, and it's as much an Asian as European town, with a uniquely hybrid culture. People from Promise are easy to spot as a result. And the reason the place works so well? Soulstone trading. The Second Breach, high in the mountains, is one of the best-kept secrets in Malifaux, and it's run by the Ten Thunders. They use it to manage a massive illegal Soulstone smuggling ring based out of Promise. The town is also called Delios by Ten Thunders operatives to keep its status secret - saying you're 'traveling by Delios' leads many to think you mean 'by darkness' rather than through Promise. Delta Six is the largest mining site in the hills, located north of Hollow Point. It's immense, covering one of the largest Soulstone veins in history, and it's very profitable. It's so big that it's more a quarry than a mine, and Hollow Point was built mostly to keep Delta Six dry. Before its construction, floods were common and very damaging. Nearby Bedlam Quarry, on the other hand, produces no Soulstone whatsoever. It mines granite and occasionally other minerals - even gold, sometimes. It's not so profitable, but far more reliable and easier to staff. Indeed, it's the safest mine in the north, though more tightly Guild-run. Mostly, it gets used to break the will of convict miners and test their skills. Those with an aptitude for the job or for following orders are often shipped to other mines, but all convict labor comes through Bedlam Quarry at some point. It's one of the few shared experiences that the convict miners tend to have, and when two convicts meet, it's Bedlam they gossip about. The last place of importance before the Ten Peaks is Perennial, home of the Perennial Mines. It was one of the few ghost towns left standing just after the second Breach, with practically no decay at all. Indeed, it was named because it was found in near-perfect condition. The mine was soon cleared, with the Soulstones coming out of it easily and the lowest casualty rate in the north. Perennial became a cushy Union post, a prize town to be sent to for good work. That is, until the town fell apart following a brutal winter and the place's first major mining accident. A lesser town would have survived, but Perennial lost the charm it once held, and most people just moved on. The Arcanists, however, decided to keep the town going on paper. Soulstones of other mines were attributed to Perennial, and all Guild overseers there are Arcanist infiltrators. The entire place exists solely in documentation, and the town isn't even maps any more. Working at Perennial Mines is Arcanist code - a cover story for important Arcanists to use without having to maintain a life there. It's a fiction, a signal to other Arcanists, and the Guild still doesn't realize it.  I don't know, either. Ten Peaks is as far north as anyone's ever really managed to get. It's a mountain range running from the Bayou to parts unknown, and its meltwater feeds the Blackrill and Frostrun rivers, and ultimately most of the Bayou. It was named because ten of its peaks could be seen from Malifaux City when exploration first started. The mountains are in near-constant snowfall, as storms roll in from the north and break on the peaks, never getting to the lands beyond. Occasionally, there are avalanches. Very little grows there, and only predators make their homes on the mountainsides. They are hardy, vicious beasts, and the Folk have learned to avoid anything coming down out of the mountains. The most common creature to be discussed is the Wendigo. Few know how they come to be. Occasionally, a person from the Hills or even Malifaux City will find themselves drawn northward, trekking without food or water, driven by primal need. As they reach the mountains, they change. They hunch over, shriveling, but will over time grow even larger than humans - the mighty Wendigo. The strongest never leave the mountains, but any will devour anyone they meet. The Mauler, a rare type of mutated bear, is also symbolic of mountain life - twisted, vicious and hungry. Few people live in the mountains - mostly exiles and criminals, and there's no law out there. They aren't friendly or good-mannered, and they don't look out for each other. Grudges last a long time for them, and most have cast aside human morality just to survive. It's almost tribal, with the strong leading so the strong can live. In winter, they band together to raid settlements, kill anyone they meet and rob them. These groups are known as the Hordes, and while they strike but a few villages each year, their destruction is not soon forgotten. There is one other type of person out in the mountains: the Cult of December. They seem to worship the mountains, the cold and the entity known only as December. They have great magical knowledge, using it to carve a massive temple atop one of the peaks. They use this temple as a base to hunt food from via their followers and strange beasts. No mountain settlements exist, at least according to maps in Malifaux or Ridley. That's not to say they don't exist at all, though. The Temple of December is a massive edifice of ice and snow, frozen eternally as tribute to winter. It is covered in ice sculptures of strange faces and beasts, which can be animated to defend the Temple as a small, frozen army. Inside is the Cult, with their bulky cloaks. They are small in number, but not so small as must would hope. Most are acolytes, mere adherents to the glory of December. Above them are the Silent Ones, the priestesses of December. They know much of magic, but most had their tongues cut out by an earlier generation of leaders in the cult. Alongside them are the priests, tasked to care for the Temple and commune with the entity December. There are also strange things outside the hierarchy, like the Blessed, a former Silent One warped by magic into a flesh-eating monster, a testament of the raw, feral power of the Cult. Then there's the Grove - an unsettling place of "trees" carved from ice. The ice-trees are thick...and more strangely, laden with fruit. Few have eaten the fruits of the Grove, but those who do are entranced by the taste, said to be the most wonderful in all the world. They tend not to leave the Grove, and the small village that exists there is quite successful, even friendly, in ways the mountains don't often see. When asked how they survive the winter, they say only 'the trees take our complaints.' A poem implies that the trees command them. The other village of the mountains is Windblown, the largest of the roving villages. Hunters across Malifaux speak of it with awe, for it is the home of the world's finest trackers. Unlike most roving villages of the mountains, it heads south to trade, not raid. The people of Windblown eat meat almost exclusively, making them look unhealthy but muscley and able. They are tough and hunt only in packs, and only for the largest prey. They wear furs of their best kills - Maulers, sometimes even Wendigo. They revel in the hunt, though often one or two die on each hunt. It keeps the population low and thus fed. Some were professional hunters on Earth, but most were convicts or just those uncomfortable with city life They have little respect for those unable to survive like they do. And then there's the Footprints - the badlands between the Northern Hills and Malifaux City. They are desolate, full of canyons, and not much else. No animals call the Footprints home naturally, save vultures. Few people do, either, save bandits who stay a short while to raid travelers...and even then, there aren't many travelers, and most are destitute, or they'd have used the train. Thus, the trains are the only real prize, and bandits must come up with elaborate plans to slow them down and rob them. It annoys both Guild and Union, but not enough to wipe out the bandits. Next time: Factions in the North
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Dec 24, 2015 03:20
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Lynx Winters posted:What happens if the end of session rolls fail? Doesn't really say! And I never got far enough into a Stormbringer game for ally powers to matter. I'd say the scores remain as they are (with an increase on a success, as the character relies more on the power of their allegiance) but honestly I'm not sure.
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Dec 24, 2015 03:37
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Through the Breach: Into the Steam While the Guild is often seen as omnipresent and ever-vigilant, it mostly has just been good at applying force in the right place at the right time, creating that illusion. Its power is centered on Malifaux City, and it is not yet strong enough to control the northern lands. Instead, it focuses on profitable locations there. The overseers track what comes out of the mines, the troops man the trains and the customs officers tax what they can. The Guild doesn't usually do much else in the North, as that would take more manpower. They play the economy - they need Soulstones to stay in business, but they can't extract them very efficiently. The Union checks their power, but they themselves are checked by the Guild's control of the Breach. The Guild might stamp them out if they organized more, but the Union can halt the flow of Soulstone. Guild leaders want heavier control of the North, to increase their returns. They believe it'd pay for itself. However, success is far from a guarantee and the Guild isn't big on risk, so they've settled for economic war, looking for ways to cut Union profits and authority and to get the Northerners to believe the Guild would help them prosper more. The northern operations are overseen by a man named Gilgamesh, rarely seen. He operates the Guild there with clandestine cells and spies, and it is he who commands the shadow wars against the Union. He understands them deeply, and the Union fears an infiltrator in their ranks, which helps the Guild - their infighting has slowed them down. Other than Gilgamesh, there is also Derrick Westmore, head of the mine overseers, who has made the overseers more responsible after he defected from the Union due to being fed up by their politics. There is also a sizable number of Witch Hunters going after the Arcanists in the area, though they're mostly good at catching minor operatives. The Miners and Steamfitters Union was born in the North, and it is strong there. It formed first among the miners, led by Erick Ulish, and made enough money from dues in a few months to address safety concerns. It hired engineers to focus on lighting and flooding, and that's when Victor Ramos showed up. Ulish, President of the Union, pushed to accept Ramos and his engineers, and by the time the Guild knew what was happening, its influence had already spread throughout the Northern mines, making it impossible to easily remove. Ramos was originally in charge of safety, but he quickly expanded thanks to his massive success. After Ulish died in an accident, Ramos was quickly elected the next President. He has made the Union what it is today, uniting the membership massively. The Union controls a lot of infrastructure, and it works hard for its people...and itself. The Union doesn't help anyone that won't pay dues - it has to be that way to stay strong. It's forced a number of people with no mining or engineering skill to join, for practical reasons. In the North, in fact, not joining the Union is considered absurd. The Guild might have authority, but everyone knows Ramos and the Union have the real power. The line between Miners and Steamfitters has started to blur, but the Miners are larger and more profitable, covering anyone involved in mining concerns. The Steamfitters cover everyone else - mostly craftsmen of all kinds. The Union has recently been experimenting with company towns - low cost of living and definite work but low pay. It's caused some concern, but company towns would let the Union live entirely outside Guild control. So far, the experiment is working, and it's growing. Beyond that, the Union focuses on opposing the Guild politically, though Ramos has always been careful to appear willing to compromise. He is the friendly face, allowing his subordinates to be more hardline and aggressive while he keeps his hands clean. Below the top levels, most decisions are made by committee, with each mine or other organization having their own committee and reporting to larger committees. Almost all decisions are by vote. The Arcanists are often felt but rarely seen in the North. The Guild knows but can't prove they have strong ties to the Union. The truth is, Victor Ramos leads both groups. Most Arcanists are also Union members, and they use it for cover. It's simplest to think of the Arcanists as the criminal arm of the Union, smuggling Soulstone and illegally training wizards. Ramos keeps an eye out for magical talent to recruit and protect, bringing them into the Arcanists whenever possible. Ramos founded them around the same time as the Union started, because he knew mages like himself were being hunted, and felt they weren't doing anything wrong but be powerful. He used his wizard allies to bolster the successes of the Union, and the two organizations grew together. Their mixing of magic and technology has often been helpful, such is in the creation of the Leviathan, an immense construct resembling a giant centipede that, until recently, was an immense weapon. Its soulstone has since cracked and rendered it inoperable, however. The Arcanists are also looking for ways to open their own Breach, to try and break the Guild's power, but they must be careful - if the Guild learned of it, they could use it to cement their control. Victor Ramos is usually more personally invested in the Arcanists - the Union mostly runs itself well without his involvement - but the Arcanists are still mostly autonomous. Most members are also Union, and so answer to both a Union master and an Arcanist one. Sometimes these are the same person, but not always. Most Union members are vaguely aware that their organization shelters Arcanists, and most are fine with it, treating them as family as much as any other Union member, especially since the Arcanists will happily use magic to help the Union. Most are not aware, however, of the extent of the collusion, and only a handful know Ramos leads both groups. The Guild is vaguely aware of the Arcanists using the Union as a shield, but even they would be shocked to learn the level of collaboration between the two groups.  Rah, rah, Rasputin, lover of the Russian queen The Cult of December worships the Tyrant December, and they are drawn to the north, to the high Temple. The call of December is strongest among the starving, and if they survive the climb, they join the Cult. Their leader is the Winter Witch, Rasputina, who will do anything to get what she wants. Still, she is not so cold as some say. She cares deeply for the Cult, going to great lengths and even resisting December's will to protect them. The Cult was once led by the male priests of December, who cut out the tongues of the priestesses to avoid a prophecy of a woman controlling the cult. When Rasputina came from without their ranks to take control, she killed most of the priests and elevated the priestesses to lead as the Silent Ones. Her pragmatism and struggle of wills with December has led her to ally with the Arcanists, gaining access to their stores of magical knowledge in order to control her gifts and resist December's influence. The Cult predates her, however, dating back to the first Breach. Indeed, some of the eldest priests and priestesses were found after the second opening, frozen in the Temple. When thawed, they taught the new arrivals the ways of December, allowing the Cult to quickly regain much of its former glory. The call of December keeps the ranks full, as those fallen on hard times are lured to the Temple. The Foundry is a subset of the Union focusing on the expansion of rail travel, and its members mostly work on steel mills to make railroad tracks or constructs. When not doing that, they lay track. They are almost all fiercely loyal to the Union rail boss, Mei Feng, who trains them, keeps them safe and protects them with a Mauler's ferocity. Her magical skill lets her control fire and metal, allowing her to operate the biggest and hottest machinery easily. She was quickly recruited by the Arcanists and given leadership in the Foundry, but the Arcanists have not realized her true loyalties lie instead with the Ten Thunders. She's not stupid, however, and knows that when she stops being a useful spy, she will be discarded, and she's trying to gain Arcanist favor in preparation for that day. The Foundry fights with her, no matter what side she chooses, and so do their rail golems. Condor Rails is led by an Earthsider named Aucaman, a man of Native American heritage who came to Malifaux after discovering he'd never make the top ranks on Earth thanks to his blood and embezzling large sums of money from his old bosses. Once there, he found his heritage no longer mattered socially, and he used his money to invest in rail companies, quickly outpacing the competition. Condor Rails has been gobbling up smaller companies ever since. It's just about the only game in town now, besides some minor concerns. It owns all the major tracks and most of the cars. Other services pay Condor a fee to run on the tracks, and Condor trains always take precedence. Aucaman is a businessman, and he subsidizes the workers he needs, mostly hiring out to the Union and specifically the Foundry. After all, he wants the best, always, and Mei Feng's crew is the best. Aucaman's consolidations have made him extremely important, and Condor Rails is the de factor confidante of many other organizations, with the Guild and Union both trying to get Aucaman on their side, but he remains stubbornly independent. Rumor has it he plans to take over the train lines through the Breach, though the Guild has been working against him on this, though with a softer hand than they're used to. They could move against him openly, but it'd mean strikes along the entire rail line, and their attempts at a rival rail have never succeeded - Aucaman buys them out too fast. There are four major lines on the railway. The Green Cannonball runs to Fortune Falls Station, and it's named for the speed it travels the Knotwood with. It has few passenger cars, mostly transporting freight - trees, primarily. It shares track with no other trains - there's only one Green Cannonball, and the trips aren't all the time, but it's a profitable line nonetheless. It does have issues with Neverborn, though, usually on the slower trip home. Still, Neverborn don't seem to like being on trains and are usually driven off. The Ridley Express, meanwhile, goes from Malifaux City to Ridley to Hollow Point. It was the first regular line after the second Breach and is a staple Condor income source. It runs two types of trains - even-numbered engines are Soulstone runs, and odd-numbered trains carry passengers. It's believed that the bandits know not to attack the more heavily defended even-numbered engines. Despite the name, the Express isn't very fast, to avoid wear and tear on bridges, though it runs faster between Ridley and Hollow Point, even if the hills make the overall speed a little lower. While the second stretch is sparsely used, the cars are not often changed for it. The Downtown line serves inside Malifaux City limits, traveling around the city to stops like Industry Station and Southgate. It's mostly older engines, low on freight cars and often with very short, all-passenger trains. They get across the city quickly and safely, with a few engines always set aside for Guild use. Many smaller lines snake through the city, a remnant of the time before Condor, and Aucaman has even put small trains on some of these lines for direct service to select neighborhoods. The last line is the Southern Belle, heading to the only southern stop of note: Edgeport Station, hub of all southern Contract Towns and the Ortega family. The Belle is fast, as it has no other stops, and it's got a classy set of train cars. Like the Cannonball, there's only one Southern Belle - there's not enough demand for more, and the prices are high to ensure a high class experience. There's only a few freight cars for the Contract Towns in the south, not nearly so many as the Cannonball or Ridley Express. And then there's Winston Finnegan of Winston's Dirigibles. He is not a businessman, come into his control by accident when his uncle died. He's been wasting resources on his hobbies ever since. He's a social climber, wanting to host the best parties, and he'll use the company's money to do it. So far, it seems to be working out for some reason. His uncle was a better businessman, but Winston's connections have let him expand the aircar lines faster than anyone ever imagined, and business is booming. Prices are high, but service is great. Winston will attend any party he can, regardless of who's holding it, but his company is closest to the Guild, and the aircars in the city move Guild troops. Recently, Winston moved to Ridley to get into social circles there, and he took a lot of the business with him. Ridley now boasts a single aircar line and a second under construction. Winston hates the ban on free-floating zeppelins in Malifaux City, and that's part of why he moved to Ridley. He's planning to build a fleet. So far, he has two, the largest of which he calls the Mountaintopper. The Union helped design them and is using them to win Winston over. Winston dreams of using them and his aircar lines to unite the Badlands, but it's probably little more than a pipe dream. It's theoretically possible, but they haven't even gotten from Ridley to Malifaux yet, and none of the Contract Towns would generate fares to make it worthwhile. Still, some people have approached Winston to fund expeditions to the Bayou for mapping, and despite his advisors' protests, he seems interested. Next time: More factions
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Dec 24, 2015 04:13
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Bieeardo posted:Astounding. Though dozens of RIFTS fansites have come and gone, and reams of terrible WoD crap parped into the ether with the loss of Geocities... GURPS High Heels still remains. idgaf and clicked, still works.
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Dec 24, 2015 05:52
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Night10194 posted:I think Wick may be the only person I trust less than GW with Africa and colonialism. King Leopold trumps Wick though.
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Dec 24, 2015 07:44
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John Wick posted:Just because you didn't like something doesn't mean someone else won't. Play Dirty 2: Even Dirtier Part 7: "They were all written almost half a century ago, we’ve all heard them, and John Cleese is a lot funnier than you." Episode 6: Con Games So this is about running convention games. Apparently they're terrible and harrowing to run. I haven't experienced this much. Generally you have people who have financially and temporally committed themselves to playing a game and are interested more often than not. In my experience, folks who aren't into it are usually tired or feel obligated, but most people are great. John's Table Rule So John presents his "contract" as a suggestion to use. Play Dirty 2: Even Dirtier posted:Entertain Us I like how it opens with a pass-agg jab right in the second sentence. The general notion is fine, but let's not compare people to public masturbators right away. It's not polite, even if they are. Player Advice He has some advice for players. First, don't make him correct your behavior, because he'll get so mad at you. Yosemite mad, perhaps. Oooooooooooo. The other is "no segues", so no Monty Python, no talking about recent TV shows, and no- Play Dirty 2: Even Dirtier posted:No war stories about other games. You do this and you will get the Glare of Doom. You don’t want the Glare of Doom. Trust me. Telling people not to trade war stories at a con is denying our cultural heritage. Also, "Glare of Doom"? What? I remember when I was fifteen and I thought it was funny to stick "of doom" on everything. "Poke of doom!" And then you try and poke your friend. Yeah, that was funny. I was so clever.  GM Advice Let's see, he advises games being less than three hours to make sure you don't lose people's attention. Also to end on a cliffhanger. That seems like a jerk move. Play Dirty 2: Even Dirtier posted:A cliff hanger at a con game? Yup. You’d better believe it. I want you walking away going, “Man, I wish we didn’t have to stop!” Ah, yes, the "pull out before your partner climaxes" GM technique. He also advises us to get rid of... well, I'll let him say it. Play Dirty 2: Even Dirtier posted:If I even see a cell phone, on or off, I stop running the game. I just stop. If he reaches 0, what happens? Does he explode? Or does that end on a cliffhanger, too? On a more more productive note, he mentions using in medias res and basically constantly keeping things in motion, moving from event to event, and to keep the amount of events low because it's better to end early- wait what about that cliffhanger, can't you always just fall back on that? He notes you should "turn it to 11" (A British comedy reference? For shame!) by doing silly things like wearing special hats or wigs for different characters. Play Dirty 2: Even Dirtier posted:Wear not just a shirt, but a jacket or a vest (or both), and use various combinations for each character. Whoa. Keep your shirt on, Mr. Wick! I don't know what kind of reader you think I am! ... he also talks about ignoring rules and letting people succeed where expedient. Play Dirty 2: Even Dirtier posted:One of the best games I ever ran. I'll tell you someday. That's cool, I'm good, tho. He then brings up using tokens to reward good roleplaying, like that hasn't been in every game for the past twenty years. Only he suggests making Hershey's kisses instead and people can eat them (he mentions using these as tokens repeatedly). Question is: do you want to eat a kiss from John Wick? Finally... Lastly, he brings up advice on being the best roleplayer award at a con table is to play a dwarf, since that's basically carte blanche to be a loud, boisterous stereotype. (What if there's no dwarf? I guess you just play an Italian-American stereotype instead. Eyyyy.) Play Dirty 2: Even Dirtier posted:Be loud. Be boisterous. Swear on your beard. Next: "Thank you, Wolverine."
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Dec 24, 2015 09:34
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Something I've long since learned as a DM is never to give out 'good roleplaying' awards. They're insanely subjective, they can make things uneven, but the worst part is I noticed they often discouraged shyer players from participating. They were afraid to 'mess up' and that's not conducive to getting everyone around the table to relax, have fun, and pretend to be elves/french/doomed anime viral superbeings. They can work okay if the bonus is for the whole group, but on the whole I prefer to avoid them outright. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 09:58 on Dec 24, 2015 |
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Dec 24, 2015 09:54
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I remember playing some of the Temple of Elemental Evil with a self-styled killer DM. I've never sat down and read through the module (I've only got a copy of the Village of Hommlet), so I'm not sure if this was actually baked in or not, but he claimed there was some kind of 'session MVP' mechanic where we'd have to vote on one of us getting some kind of bennie the next session. These voting periods took way too drat long, often resulted in half of us voting for ourselves, and always ended with a bunch of grumpy, frustrated losers.
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Dec 24, 2015 10:05
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Play Dirty 2: Even Dirtier Part 7: "They were all written almost half a century ago, we’ve all heard them, and John Cleese is a lot funnier than you." The way you're quoting things from the book, and the way they're described, there's very little advice here, and even less analysis - just John Wick telling you how he does things, and how awesome it is when he does things, because everyone obeys the Wick and his Glare of Doom. Often combined with anecdotes that are mostly about Wick being teh best evar, and only a tenuous connection at hand. Or this: quote:One of the best games I ever ran. I'll tell you someday. No, see Wick, you're not my friend or associate. You're someone whose book I'm reading - you tell me now, instead of teasing me with wild tales. You have more than enough space in your self-published book to tell the whole loving story. Also, this: quote:Your job as a player—and my job as a GM—is to entertain the other people at the table. We do not sit down at the table to entertain ourselves. There’s a word for that and you can do it in your hotel room all by yourself. gently caress that poo poo. I'm there to have fun for my own sake only, especially at conventions where I don't know anyone. I try to make things enjoyable for everyone when I play RPGs, but I'm not going to sacrifice my own enjoyment (beyond reasonable limits) for the sake of other people's entertainment. Perhaps Wick meant some nuanced thing about not having fun in a way that makes other people have less fun if you could have had fun in a way that didn't make the other players have less fun... but then he could bloody well write so.
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Dec 24, 2015 11:38
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Through the Breach: Into the Steam The Resurrectionists have little presence in the North. The ones that live there tend to be solitary necromancers, unaware of the others. They rarely have the ability to band together and mostly pursue their own individual goals. This does keep anyone from seeing them as a real threat, though, and for the most part they keep a low profile and are left alone. Many of them are content just to research minor magic, but others are searching for something more, hearing the call of Soulstones. Soulstones are less rare in the North, after all, and the ones that are dug up there behave a little differently. Most magic users never notice, but a Resurrectionist might, hearing the stones sing with the lives they've taken. Most Northern Resurrectionists are researchers, working in the mines to have a chance to get close to Soulstone. This can be a dangerous study, however, as the stones often amplify the whispers most Resurrectionists suffer from, and often they will steal a Soulstone and vanish into the depths of the caves, never to be seen again. The Neverborn do not leave the North alone, quite. Attacks are not so frequent as in the Knotwoods or Badlands, but they exist. The most common type of Neverborn in the Ten Peaks are the Kaltgeists, strange beings made of snow that can reshape their bodies. They are practically impossible to spot when hiding and will stalk prey for days at a time before striking. There are also the Mountain Wisps, small, faerie-like creatures that glow like campfires. They feed on dead flesh and like to lead travelers off the path by pretending to be campfires. In the Northern Hills,. the most notable Neverborn is Collodi the Puppet Master. Collodi travels the towns of the North in a colorful wagon, and in each town it puts on a puppet show, hiding its wooden body beneath many disguises and letting the puppets take center stage. It enjoys these shows, but it hates the humans that watch them. Collodi is lonely and hateful, and in each town it kidnaps a child or two, using their blood and souls to make new puppets. It takes most of its puppets with it, but some get left behind sometimes, to cause trouble, particularly if it got heckled. These Neverborn puppets are rare, but the stories of their actions are spreading, and some parents now refuse to give their children any toys at all for fear that they were made by Collodi. Still, while Collodi is powerful, it is not a planner and is more interested in pain than power. The Ten Thunders have agents across Malifaux, but the North is where they've put down roots outside Malifaux City and its Little Kingdom. They settled the town of Promise, which lays close to the Second Breach. Promise is the start of their foothold in Malifaux, but it isn't enough for the Oyabun. He is directing Ten Thunder expansion in the North, always working subtly to avoid attention. Placing Mei Feng in a ranking position in the Union and Arcanists has been their greatest success so far, but the Oyabun knows she's not as loyal as would be ideal. He is working to establish new assets, in case she forgets who she works for. The other Ten Thunders base in the region besides Promise is the Hidden Temple, located in the foothills of the Ten Peaks. It's more fortress than temple, and it's where most Ten Thunders training happens, both martial and mystic. The Oyabun is building an army there, and so far, no one even knows it exists. Promise lets the Ten Thunders and their servants appear civil, integrated...but the Hidden Temple hides their true purpose and their strength. Anyway, that brings us to the new character generation method! The Assembly Line Tarot spread is meant for characters from the North, who have Union or Arcanist leanings or who are robots. We will need seven cards for this.  The first two cards are Replaceaqble Parts. We set them aside for later. A 3 of  Then we deal out our five cards - Allegiance, Body, Root, Mind and Endeavor. This is where things start to get different - unlike the Crossroads Tarot creation, there's no Heritage. Instead, we get Allegiance, which tells us which faction or group our character has some tie to, though it may not be a tie that determines loyalties. We also now have the option to swap in one of our Replaceable Parts for any one of the other cards we drew. So, for Allegiance for this character, we draw the 8 of Crows. Our Allegiance is Resurrectionists, and the first line of our Fate reads: quote:When the winds of change blow through your core But I'm not feeling Resurrectionists here, I think. We could swap in the 3 of Crows but that wouldn't change much. So instead, we swap in the 5 of Masks. This means that at some point in our history, we were going to be indebted to the Resurrectionists, but then something changed our fate. Instead, our Allegiance is to the Outcasts, and our Fate reads: quote:If you witness the hollows of the night This brings us to our Body card, the Red Joker. We get 0/0/0/3 to divide between our Physical Aspects. quote:If you witness the hollows of the night And then on to the quote:If you witness the hollows of the night Next, the Mind card: the Ace of Masks. -3/-1/+1/+3. quote:If you witness the hollows of the night And, finally, our Endeavor card, for our next set of skills. Northern characters generally get more but smaller numbers here compared to the Root. We get the 8 of quote:If you witness the hollows of the night We would now be able to either raise an Aspect by 1 point or get 2 ranks in a Skill we do not already have, then we'd select a Pursuit and a Talent and so on as normal. There is, however, another option - the game allows for an optional rule to take a Flaw instead. The GM flips a card. If it's a Ram, you reduce your highest Physical Aspect by 1. Tomes is highest Mental, Crows is Wounds and Masks is Willpower. If you take a Flaw, you do not receive a Talent, but instead a Manifested Power or another point to spend on either +1 to an Aspect or 2 in a skill you don't already have. But suppose we wanted to play a robot? The Invested are made similarly to human characters, but require one of two things: 1. the GM allows it or 2. your Body card is Tomes. Any Tomes Body on the Assembly Line Tarot is an Invested, and that's the main use of cheating a card in via Replaceable Parts. But the game says if you really, really want to play an Invested and don't draw it, well, the GM should allow it anyway. What's different about the Invested? Well, first, after Step 7, if your Charm Aspect is positive, it becomes 0. You may then increase any one Physical Aspect by 1, to a maximum of 4. Invested are immune to any Condition referencing Living anatomy, such as Bleeding Out, but can still be knocked unconscious. They may choose to have any starting gear be integrated into their body. The Defining Suit of their Twist Deck must be Tomes. They also get to choose a chassis, which determines their Height, Defense and Armor. Their Evade skill does not help their Defense at all, so no point having one. A Lightweight Chassis is Height 1, Defense 6. A Standard Chassis is Height 2, Defense 4, Armor +1. A Heavy Chassis is Height 3, Defense 3, Armor +2. Lastly, Invested do not have the Living characteristic. They have the Construct characteristic instead. However, if their Body card was an 11, 12 or 13, they may choose to have both. That's the sum total of differences in playing a robot. And yes, if you cheat in a Tomes card, the game suggests that you may not have always been a robot - maybe you died and were trapped in soulstone and now your soulstone animates a robot - and if you cheat one out, maybe you were part of some grand and potent magic that granted your robotic self true life. Next time: Allegiances
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Dec 24, 2015 16:13
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Traveller posted:
I love it Double Cross - Advanced Rulebook Unique Items Unique Items are a new brand of Items that are bought with XP, with costs ranging from 10 (cheaper than getting a new power) to 50 (holy crap that's a lot). Unfortunately, this means you generally don't see these Items around unless you use the point-buy chargen method or save up XP. Like the Items gained through the Secret Weapons T-Loises, they can only be used by the character who bought them. Also like the Secret Weapons, they fall into the "Stronger version of a normal Item, with maybe a special effect attached to it" category, though Unique Items are even more potent. General Unique Items include the Wicked Blade (an Ex Renage sword that more or less takes the best stat from each stock sword), The Cursed's Gun (a pistol that hits like an assault rifle) and the Damage Glove (for the martial artist who doesn't want to turn his hands into claws to fight). As for vehicles, you have the Exotic Car that can outrace anything but the fastest motorcycle, and a friggin' Military Helicopter that comes with a chaingun. For HP restoration, you can nibble on a crystalized Panacea's Fruit. But those are not the main feature presentation. That's the various experimental gadgets that can only be used by someone with the right Syndrome. Angel Halo Items These are all about making use of an Angel Halo's enhanced perception: the Hell Sniper is a suped-up, extra accurate sniper rifle, while the Mystic Eye is a pair of mirrored sunglasses that improve your sense even further at the cost of a heavy nervous strain. Balor Items Some rad stuff here: The Hourglass of Time is an hourglass full of Evil Eyes that normally pop up when messing around with gravity. It can be used to prevent reaction powers from triggering. The Black Diamond boosts your Warding Field to the point that it "freezes" the entire area. Ran into a Gjaum while shopping and ended up wrecking the entire mall? No worries, 'cause teh Black Diamond will just reset everything and everyone back to before you used Warding. Black Dog Items Now here's some fun stuff. You can get a friggin' Railgun, using your own bio-electricity in place of the oversized generator you'd normally need. You can't fire this more than once per scenario as the barrel can't take more. Overall a short-range version of the core book's anti-material rifle (which is prohibitively expensive unless your PC specializes in being stinkin' rich). As an alternative (and possible addition) to the Full Cyborg T-Lois, you can get yourself a Complete Augmentation, replacing anything but your brain for a superior robot body, including additional armor and a suped-up punch. Bram Stoker Items These are all about being more vampire-y: The Noble's Formal Wear gives you a probably Victorian-era-style dress that is also an EX Renegade which boosts your action in exchange for blood, while the Coffin of Roses is another EX Renegade that is, well, a coffin full of roses, which you can sleep in to recover HP. Chimaera Items Only consumables here: The X-Gene Crystal grants you a crystalized hide to ward off attacks, while the Cursed Fruit boosts your strength. (And just as a reminder, any sort of consumable or broken weapon you paid for with XP or Stock points is restored/replaced between Scenarios). Exile Items Exiles being Exiles, these items are a bit gross: The Phial of Worm Toxin makes you poisonous, while the Extra Heart is, well, an extra heart that is also an EX Renagede who essentially acts as a 1-Up. Hanuman Items These make heavy use of Hanuman's sonic aspect: The Gaseous Blade is corrosive gas formed into a blade, while the Wind Cutter are nano-wires that let you play as Walter from Hellsing. Morpheus Items Rainbow Sand (supposedly EX Renaged grinded to dust) is a special sand that makes creating stuff cheaper, while the Heart of Dreams describes any sort of item that a Morpheus user can consume for a one-time power boost. Neumann Items Only a Neumann Overed's brilliant mind can handle the data feed of the skill-boosting Support Program. There's also the Reaper's Book which is straight-up Death Note, except it gives the cursed a slight chance at survival by merely increasing any damage he takes. Orcus Items Cherished Steed is an EX Renegade horse that can keep up with most vehicles in the game. For your Domain, there's the Twisted Kingdom, a miniature European castle that boosts Orcus power damage. I guess it uses cannons and miniature soldiers. Salamandra Items The Vapor Wall is a suitcase housing what is essentially a steam deflector shield. If you want to play as a ninja, there's the Full Active Camouflage Suit that is Salamandra-only for no other reason than the heat ventilation being a bit borked. Solaris Items Here we have a combat drug in the form of the Synapse Booster, and you can use your Warding power to debuff a single target with the help of Hamelin's Flute. Next Time: The World - let's see if we can figure out where one edition ended and the next one started. Also introducing Overed tumblr. Doresh fucked around with this message at 16:49 on Dec 24, 2015 |
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Dec 24, 2015 16:35
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One day I shall play Double Cyborg. One day.
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Dec 24, 2015 17:15
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Play Dirty 2: Even Dirtier Part 7: "They were all written almost half a century ago, we’ve all heard them, and John Cleese is a lot funnier than you." quote:He has some advice for players. First, don't make him correct your behavior, because he'll get so mad at you. Yosemite mad, perhaps. Oooooooooooo. The other is "no segues", so no Monty Python, no talking about recent TV shows, and no- Never once have I ever felt the need to cut off war stories, or glare at someone checking their phone when it's not their turn, or throw something at a player who's not "doing it right". I guess I'm just not as...dedicated a GM as Wick. e: of course, if the players are invested enough in what's happening, they'll stay focused. Maybe Wick's not as engaging as he thinks. quote:Let's see, he advises games being less than three hours to make sure you don't lose people's attention. Also to end on a cliffhanger. That seems like a jerk move. quote:That's cool, I'm good, tho. He then brings up using tokens to reward good roleplaying, like that hasn't been in every game for the past twenty years. Only he suggests making Hershey's kisses instead and people can eat them (he mentions using these as tokens repeatedly).
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Dec 24, 2015 18:00
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Let's see, he advises games being less than three hours to make sure you don't lose people's attention. I see this kind of thing repeated a lot in this hobby: "no gadgets at the table!", and so on. What I hear from actual (board)game designers is that the latter (using the cellphone) is the benchmark for when the former (losing peoples' attention) is occurring. If I'm running a game and I see people checking their phones, it's not necessarily a sign that I should tell them to put it away so much as it is a sign for me to try to look at why they might be disengaged at the moment. Which is also besides the point that I could think of a dozen different occupations where someone might be on-call and have a totally legitimate excuse to be checking their phone every so often, and that's not even factoring in personal reasons.
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Dec 24, 2015 18:59
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gradenko_2000 posted:I see this kind of thing repeated a lot in this hobby: "no gadgets at the table!", and so on. What I hear from actual (board)game designers is that the latter (using the cellphone) is the benchmark for when the former (losing peoples' attention) is occurring. If I'm running a game and I see people checking their phones, it's not necessarily a sign that I should tell them to put it away so much as it is a sign for me to try to look at why they might be disengaged at the moment.
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Dec 24, 2015 19:12
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Evil Mastermind posted:Yeah, I'm the same way. If I see someone surfing on their phone (not just checking, but actually doing something involved), that's a sign to me that I need to give that player something to do because they're bored. But you're not supposed to make John Wick look like a jerk getting bored of his antics makes him look like a jerk
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Dec 24, 2015 19:21
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