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Mors Rattus posted:Another thing to note is that Unknown Armies was written in the late 90s. Gathering and revising content from the 90's or culturally stuck in it, and where it should have stayed.
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Jan 5, 2016 03:09
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W20 ran into some of those problems because they have things like "the irish tribe", "The Mystic Native American Tribe" and "The Angry Native American Tribe" but they're a lot harder to excise since they're part of the games premise and they did what they could to minimize it and break some of the stereotypes in the W20 core and subsequent books. Brucato added that stuff in.
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Jan 5, 2016 03:14
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LatwPIAT posted:Thanks! ^_^ One more follow-up: what are your thoughts/opinions on the Hand to Hand module of PCCS, or is it mostly just the Firearms module that you've studied?
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Jan 5, 2016 04:03
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RocknRollaAyatollah posted:Pretty much all of the Year of the Lotus stuff was busted. I think it was part of the selling strategy, get the anime fans and bring in the rest with the overpowered character options. To an extent. Changeling was relatively underpowered compared to just about any other core game, though. So any competent supernatural type was "overpowered" compared to some of the dogshit changelings had to trudge through, like having to rank a Realm up to 5 just to do offensive effects against foes or having to blow Glamour and Willpower just to use their innate abilities against normal people. Balance in oWoD was always sufficiently hosed and never at any time became any less hosed.
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Jan 5, 2016 04:26
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The Mystic Hermaphrodite is in UA more about drawing power from contradiction and change, being mercurial. You generate charges by changing, not by being one thing. The Godwalker of the Archetype is explicitly only recognizable due to the Freak's piercing habit, as it changes appearance, race, gender, sex, and build constantly.
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Jan 5, 2016 04:45
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gradenko_2000 posted:One more follow-up: what are your thoughts/opinions on the Hand to Hand module of PCCS, or is it mostly just the Firearms module that you've studied? If it's PCCS-related, and I've been able to get my hands on it, I have studied it! The Hand-to-Hand module is about as much complexity as one could expect from the Firearms Combat System, but there's a lot of potential extra complexity in anticipating enemy moves (since you can/need to allocate blocks to enemy strikes) and trying to find a strategy that'll work against a foe. I've not played/analysed it enough to really know what it plays like in practice, but it's certainly unique. It could very easily be converted to another system, even, since all melee weapons use the D&D-style XdY+Z for how deep into a target they penetrate. It may not translate perfectly, but, say, Call of Cthulhu's melee weapons list translates fairly well. My quick analysis is that it may be really fun for duels or short fights against two opponents, but it lacks some tactical depth because there's just not that many options, and because of the decision-making, table-checking, and multiplication you have to do, it'll quickly bog down with any appreciable number of opponents.
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Jan 5, 2016 04:59
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My archive is now (to the best of my knowledge) completely caught up with all three threads, with two exceptions: at some point Evil Mastermind rebooted the TORG review and I skipped the reboot because I would like EM to tell me what to do about that (merge it with the previous one, delete the previous one, etc), and also I skipped the fanskin writeups for Monsterhearts and Apocalypse World because they seemed to require a lot of back-and-forth conversation posts to make sense. I have a few requests going forward:
I will generally aim for the archive to be no more than a week behind the thread; my software downloads new posts every hour, but I probably won't add posts into the writeups more than every other day. (I also intend to change "ongoing" writeup status to "abandoned" if they go two months without a post. Probably nobody will care, but I figured I'd mention it.) inklesspen fucked around with this message at 05:24 on Jan 5, 2016 |
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Jan 5, 2016 05:21
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Alien Rope Burn posted:To an extent. Changeling was relatively underpowered compared to just about any other core game, though. So any competent supernatural type was "overpowered" compared to some of the dogshit changelings had to trudge through, like having to rank a Realm up to 5 just to do offensive effects against foes or having to blow Glamour and Willpower just to use their innate abilities against normal people. It was, there's no doubt about it. It's kind of the opposite of Mage where thematically it doesn't fit with the others and the power level difference makes crossovers unlikely. The Hsien were probably just an idea someone had and they couldn't figure out where it went. They probably never playtested it either and wanted it to sell. Make them really powerful as a selling point, which was undoubtedly one of the biggest selling strategies during that era. If you look at all the one off stuff they introduced, like mummies, they're really powerful but not much else can be said about them. Lines that were given longer lives like Hunter were weak or moderately to very powerful like Demons. This might be giving them too much forethought though because favorites of the writing staff would get all kinds of over powered toys while the unloved ones would get mediocre to terrible stuff. Year of the Lotus was especially hosed because it had gems like the kitsune to go with all of the Kuei-Jin, Black Rain late 80's, early 90's Nipponophobia that was still a thing I guess in the late 90's. They wanted everything to be more powerful in Asia for some reason, along with massive heapings of Orientalism.
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Jan 5, 2016 05:44
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inklesspen posted:My archive is now (to the best of my knowledge) completely caught up with all three threads, with two exceptions: at some point Evil Mastermind rebooted the TORG review and I skipped the reboot because I would like EM to tell me what to do about that (merge it with the previous one, delete the previous one, etc), and also I skipped the fanskin writeups for Monsterhearts and Apocalypse World because they seemed to require a lot of back-and-forth conversation posts to make sense. This is fantastic to see. I wanted to thank you a lot for your hard work preserving... a lot of hard work. I realized recently I've done nearly 15 F&Fs so far, and even forgotten occasionally about which ones I've done. And, dog help me, I'm working on another, because I don't learn. I think the only question is whether or not it's possible to double-credit some reviews? There are the ones occams and I have done together (the Rifts Conversion Books 1 & 2) and I don't want to take all the credit for them. If not, we can have one credited to one of us and one to the other, perhaps? RocknRollaAyatollah posted:Year of the Lotus was especially hosed because it had gems like the kitsune to go with all of the Kuei-Jin, Black Rain late 80's, early 90's Nipponophobia that was still a thing I guess in the late 90's. They wanted everything to be more powerful in Asia for some reason, along with massive heapings of Orientalism. I think part of the key to YotL other than what you mentioned is that most of it came out through supplements. As far as I know, the only thing White Wolf generally playtested was the core books, and supplements just never got the same attention. A lot of storyteller system design just seems to be "eyeballing it", which generally what happens with any game with a supplement march, but White Wolf is unusual in that it added whole new character types on a regular basis that probably never touched a game before they touched a page.
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Jan 5, 2016 07:01
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RocknRollaAyatollah posted:Year of the Lotus was especially hosed because it had gems like the kitsune to go with all of the Kuei-Jin, Black Rain late 80's, early 90's Nipponophobia that was still a thing I guess in the late 90's. They wanted everything to be more powerful in Asia for some reason, along with massive heapings of Orientalism. Well, as printed the Hengeyokai book was pretty goddamned terrible. It's just that Werewolf didn't abandon the YOTL material after it moved on, PGTTCB and CB20 both have extensive sections on both the Kitsune and the Emerald Courts. And they toned down the "WE'RE SO MUCH BETTER THAN YOU! SUCK MY EIGHT TAILS GAIJIN!" by a lot.
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Jan 5, 2016 07:11
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Alien Rope Burn posted:To an extent. Changeling was relatively underpowered compared to just about any other core game, though. So any competent supernatural type was "overpowered" compared to some of the dogshit changelings had to trudge through, like having to rank a Realm up to 5 just to do offensive effects against foes or having to blow Glamour and Willpower just to use their innate abilities against normal people. Technically you only had to rank up a realm to 5 for human enemies! If you're fighting other Changelings/Weird elf poo poo, it's based on either their -social class- or how weird their elf poo poo happens to be....commoners are easier to affect with magic than nobles, who are easier than chimera, who are easier than things like Nunnehi/Thallain/Menehune/inanimae etc. On the other hand, you needed an entirely different realm at 4 if you were being attacked by an angry housecat. Basically, the magic system incentivized only casting self-buffs (And there were several of those that were fairly potent) or only ever loving around with other Changelings. Which is probably why the sidhe had to have a special splat power to be immune to magic-induced humiliation.
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Jan 5, 2016 07:16
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Kurieg posted:W20 ran into some of those problems because they have things like "the irish tribe", "The Mystic Native American Tribe" and "The Angry Native American Tribe" but they're a lot harder to excise since they're part of the games premise and they did what they could to minimize it and break some of the stereotypes in the W20 core and subsequent books.
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Jan 5, 2016 07:22
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Nessus posted:Tribes in W20 also had at least some flex in it - I think they did anyway. Was there a formal way to change tribes? Like over half of them seemed like you could join them from other tribal backgrounds or as a random lost cub. COGgies, Bone Gnawers, Black Furies (if female), Stargazers maybe, etc. I think you could even join the Uktena if you were an outlander. (Not the Wendigo tho, presumably.) Yes, the Rite of Renunciation could be used to switch tribes as well as auspices, if necessary. But until you were an initiate in a tribe there wasn't an excessive amount of stigma in trying to go someplace else if your heart wasn't in it. Where as a Renunciation Switch Did carry quite a bit with it since obviously you hosed up the first time. Bone Gnawers, Black Furies (if you were female), Coggies, Glass Walkers(They were desperate for new blood due to their dwindling lupus population), Get of Fenris(if you really impressed them), Red Talons(If you were a Lupus), Uktenna(if you weren't white), and Stargazers... maybe? It had more to do with how the person who introduced you to the tribe was feeling that day and if they thought that you would serve some purpose in doing so.
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Jan 5, 2016 07:27
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Time for a brand new System Mastery (yes, it's a day early, I have a job in the morning finally) So when we were talking about settings we really enjoy, I didn't want to talk about this one too much, because we were reviewing the book very soon. Gamma Terra rules, Gamma World rules, long live Gamma World. 
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Jan 5, 2016 07:51
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This sounds loving sick, just got to Doppleganger and it's amazing in so many ways. This is the best superhero game.
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Jan 5, 2016 12:25
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Nessus posted:Tribes in W20 also had at least some flex in it - I think they did anyway. Was there a formal way to change tribes? Like over half of them seemed like you could join them from other tribal backgrounds or as a random lost cub. COGgies, Bone Gnawers, Black Furies (if female), Stargazers maybe, etc. I think you could even join the Uktena if you were an outlander. (Not the Wendigo tho, presumably.) One of the Second Edition iconics is a white Wendigo Philodox named Evan Heals-The-Past.  I think he was part Native American but I remember him having no idea about any of that. I would imagine the totems would be down with anyone they deemed worthy. EDIT: I think the strictest one was Griffin because the Red Talons were strict on the no homids rule. RocknRollaAyatollah fucked around with this message at 13:34 on Jan 5, 2016 |
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Jan 5, 2016 13:31
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Alien Rope Burn posted:I think the only question is whether or not it's possible to double-credit some reviews? There are the ones occams and I have done together (the Rifts Conversion Books 1 & 2) and I don't want to take all the credit for them. If not, we can have one credited to one of us and one to the other, perhaps? Yeah, should be possible. Right now it just lists the author of the first post as the author of the writeup; if you click through you'll see each individual post is attributed to whoever wrote it. I can just add an actual 'author' field on the writeup as a whole. The URL itself for the writeup won't change, though; people are already linking to things and I don't want to break the links.
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Jan 5, 2016 14:41
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Hostile V posted:Personally I don't feel like you have to be able to set a campaign in all of these different places, they're there to illustrate the disparity between the different Zoneminds' ways of thinking and execution. Mexico City really feels like it's just there to be a counterpoint to Overmind and a threat you don't want to let get any extra power and land, it's the far, faaaaaaaar end of the scale between the different beliefs of the AIs. Berlin I feel works well as a road bump along the way path of a bigger trip: if we're going to get to London, we're going to have to go through Paris, but first we have to go through Berlin. Berlin (and Caracas) also work as a stunning counterpart to the rest of the world. You've been doing pretty good so far skulking through ruined cities, avoiding plagues and radiation. How're you going to fare surviving in actual wilderness though, teeming with resurrected predators and absolutely no chance of any human amenities? I think some of the Zoneminds also present storytelling potential for being a touch more sympathetic to the AIs, more analogous to the geth from Mass Effect: you're witnessing the birth throes of a new sentient species. Zone Overmind specifically calls attention to the fact that none of these AIs are what we'd call emotionally mature, and might be sentient but not sapient. Not yet, perhaps. I think there's potential for a campaign based around making peace with at least one of the Zoneminds, or going for a more esoteric ending by having humanity die out but manage to pass on some spark of humanity to the AIs that they'd carry with them for the rest of their existence. Say, something happens in Brisbane. Something comes out of what used to be New Zealand, and for whatever reason the humans left in Brisbane prove capable of fighting it where the AIs cannot - nanotech that eats certain metallic alloys critical to the AIs that humans don't use, for example, or something that can short out electricity. Hell, I think there's room to take it one step further and have something else happen, threatening to cast the Minds down into refugees just like the humans before them. It's an interesting setting and I've been enjoying the writeup.
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Jan 5, 2016 15:25
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RocknRollaAyatollah posted:One of the Second Edition iconics is a white Wendigo Philodox named Evan Heals-The-Past. The Wendigo tribe wasn't too happy about him being chosen by the totems, but the spirits told them that if they had a problem with it they could ask the spirit of hunger and cannibalism themselves. So far no one has gotten a good answer to their questions. As far as Griffin, he's legitimately insane and the Talons have the totem they want.
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Jan 5, 2016 15:43
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Kurieg posted:As far as Griffin, he's legitimately insane and the Talons have the totem they want. Red Talons were one of the biggest reasons I had for why werewolves needed a morality trait. A vampire kills someone and degrades into a monster. Supposed agents of balance in the world destroy a town and raze it to the ground, suffer no consequences and are still Gaian. Chronicles of Darkness was such an improvement mechanically speaking it's not even funny.
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Jan 5, 2016 17:16
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At the same time, that's part of the Red Talon's hypocrisy that required a really good writer to point out and draw attention to. The tribes, and the nation as a whole, were always meant to self police. The local spirits would run and tell a Theurge or some other entity and try and get attention drawn to their crimes. But the Red Talons lie they use duplicity and deceit to pull off their poo poo, they use the human mind they so despise to facilitate their crimes. And the hatred of man that they adore so much comes not from their "Wolf Heart" but the human mind as well, I'm pretty sure Wolves aren't capable of the kind of religious fervor they put into. But that's also why they're dying out. Their wolf packs are loving scared of them. They aren't acting like wolves anymore, they're acting like they've convinced themselves wolves should be, but they're so afraid of self reflection, the kind of thinking that would expose this to them, that they're just running with it and destroying their tribe.
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Jan 5, 2016 17:49
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RocknRollaAyatollah posted:Supposed agents of balance in the world destroy a town and raze it to the ground, suffer no consequences and are still Gaian. Isn't that kind of the point of Werewolf, though? That they were created for the sole and specific purpose of extreme violence, and their claims of being agents of balance are at best somewhat hypocritical and at worst actively delusional? I thought it was a more or less overt theme to all of the World of Darkness that no matter which line you're playing, you are playing one of the monsters, a bad guy.
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Jan 5, 2016 17:54
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They're not supposed to be the force for Balance, they're just doing their best to fill the role because the current guy in charge of balance is raveneningly insane and trying to destroy reality and turn the planet into a festering radioactive heap. Things would probably be better if the War of Rage hadn't happened, sure, but the blame for that shouldn't fall solely at the Garou's paws.
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Jan 5, 2016 18:26
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Cythereal posted:I thought it was a more or less overt theme to all of the World of Darkness that no matter which line you're playing, you are playing one of the monsters, a bad guy. I'm not sure that the poor abused sods from NWoD changeling would agree with you there.
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Jan 5, 2016 18:57
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Werewolf: the Apocalypse was a game that wanted to both have werewolf society be horribly flawed and also have it be largely correct about the world and never really reconciled those two notions.
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Jan 5, 2016 19:49
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Cythereal posted:I thought it was a more or less overt theme to all of the World of Darkness that no matter which line you're playing, you are playing one of the monsters, a bad guy. Unless you're VASCU, at which point you're just Francis York Morgan and obviously the best.
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Jan 5, 2016 19:51
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inklesspen posted:My archive is now (to the best of my knowledge) completely caught up with all three threads, with two exceptions: at some point Evil Mastermind rebooted the TORG review and I skipped the reboot because I would like EM to tell me what to do about that (merge it with the previous one, delete the previous one, etc) e: Oh, and Apocalype World wasn't abandoned, it was finished. Misspent Youth was also finished.
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Jan 5, 2016 19:54
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Josef bugman posted:I'm not sure that the poor abused sods from NWoD changeling would agree with you there. The phrase "Even the best of them cover for the worst" comes to mind.  Then again, I'm the guy who used to run a light-hearted beer and pizza Task Force Valkyrie game. Unfortunately I'll be moving in a couple of weeks for a new job, so those sessions have finally come to an end.
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Jan 5, 2016 20:08
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GURPS FANTASY II 3 – DAILY LIFE  House for sale, upside down boat with cozy living spaces, fire pit, and hardrock floor, 1 room 50 bed 0 bath 36x18 sq. ft. The characters are assumed to do a lot of hunting, so details are laid out here. All hunters go out in parties (easier not to get hosed sideways by the environment that way), usually about 2-3 hunters to 2-3 fishers (a perfect party size). The skills necessary to hunt are listed (exactly what you’d expect). Bears and dear are considered the best targets, but they’re not always available; small animals like squirrels and rabbits are also collected, as well as valuable medicinal herbs and occasionally lumber or iron ore. The wilderness is crawling with monsters, but encounters with them are actually rare and most hunters injuries and deaths are caused by mundane animals, especially bears; however, monster encounters are much more deadly and greatly feared. The same goes double for gods. Also, outlaws and exiles live in miserable camps in the interior and raid any hunting parties they come across, while deceptive geography and weather also kill their fair share of Madlanders every year. Game Idea 17: A hunting party has encountered a group of outlaws desperate for weapons and food! Can the players outsmart the hardened criminals and destroy their camp, navigating past traps, ambushes, and dangerous wildlife? Game Idea 18: A giant bear is threatening the village. The players are tasked with hunting it down and killing it, but must also face its enraged mate and near-mature offspring.  Aww, it just wants to cuddle  Fishing is the other main type of expedition, and though it lacks the supernatural bullshit that plagues the land it’s still plenty dangerous. Mostly, fishers go out in much larger crews – 15 to 20 people are common (I’m not sure how this would work with an average-sized party). There’s plenty of fish to be found during fishing season (when’s fishing season? Good question) as well as squid and crab. Crabs deserve special mention; crabbing boats are smaller and have a much easier time than their fishing-focused cousins, and hunters scramble to claim a position on them and avoid the more dangerous open water. And dangerous it is; though the water is actually warm enough to prevent hypothermia, drowning is a concern and storms are frequent and often devastating. Whales (mostly killer whales) are considered excellent prey but can wreck a boat or even a fleet; giant squid sometimes surface and behave exactly like you’d expect; seals, though nonviolent and civilized, will ruin catches and misdirect boats out of spite; and sometimes Savarginian pirates will raid the area for goods, food, and slaves. Game Idea 19: A storm has swept your crabbing boat out to sea, into the shore of a mysterious island. Can your party, the mixed hunters and fishers who survived the wreck, find out where they landed and eke out survival? Game Idea 20: Fishers have spotted a fleet of Savarginian pirates out at sea – and they’re heading for the village! The party must prepare their fleet for war, building warships, collecting weapons, and even calling on neighboring villages for help.  This may look like hard work in the field to feed their families, but these tubers are for booze makin’. Food is a huge deal in the Madlands; pleasure needs to be found wherever it can, and food and drink serve that purpose admirably. Madlander food is strong in taste and smell beyond belief due to heavy use of many different kinds of tubers, all of which grow fast (in village plots tended by the women) but need intense care to protect them from weeds, insects, and the lovely, sandy soil the women grow them in. Once grown, these tubers are carefully stored, then shredded and dried before use. The authors then list the varieties of tuber grown by Madlanders: bozatu (not-potato), kakew (spice plant with many uses), kawi (not-carrot), pi ev (mega-horseradish), katti (sweet and sweetener), nuwidap (not-sweet potato), te ekke (flavorless plant that absorbs tastes from the soil it grows in) and nivi (preservative). There’s also an option for healing substances made from rare tubers and weird poo poo like squid brains and hallucinogenic mushrooms; the book tells you that these substances stretch credibility (“this cocktail of ground tubers and squid oil cured my alcoholism!”) but are probably necessary if you don’t want to make new characters any session. If these are to be used, the book presents a healing salve (not a health potion, just helps you heal faster), an addiction cure and universal antidote, and a short-term memory loss drug. I’m somewhat unsettled by the last one; though the book emphasizes that it’s usually used to treat traumatic experiences, the potential for its use to do awful things is not addressed. Game Idea 21: The healing salves so important to the village have stopped working! The characters are tasked by the village council with finding out what supernatural forces are foiling these vital brews. By the way, the Madlands are extremely deadly and without medicinal brews your characters have a good chance to die in every combat. I’ve said before that combat is something to be avoided in this setting is at all possible, and that’s absolutely true; it’s the reason why the seeds I’ve been writing emphasize non-combat adventures. Still, since it’s so deadly, combat can be extremely exciting; just be prepared to make a new character when yours bites it, which is a hassle unless you have half an hour or more to spend picking advantages.  Is it just me, or does that fish have the face of Danny de Vito? Cooking is important to Madlanders but less important to me. Basically, they have little oven-pots they heat up in the fire and then use to grill, boil, or fry food; said cooking is done in the wavobak and served communally. There really isn’t anything exciting when it comes to Madlander cooking unless you like food porn, in which case…  I now want to taste marinated whale blubber. Speaking of zoxibek! It’s a wildly strong alcoholic beverage described as “thick, dark and foamy… with a throat-constricting sweetness and a sour aftertaste.” I have no idea if it’s supposed to correspond with a real drink; I dunno, tequila? Stout? Somehow I managed to go through 3 years in a fraternity without learning poo poo about alcohol. (In fairness, all I drank there was Jameson’s, Fireball, and lovely, lovely beer. Also, we spent more time on nerd things as we did on booze; I played my first tabletop RPG there and when I left there were 3 active campaigns and 2 homebrew systems under construction. In other words, typical frat life ) Both genders brew zoxibek and brewers gain great prestige; their products are usually too strong to drink without watering down and super-watered-down versions are given to kids. Though booze is beloved, being boozed up is not; drunks are shamed and censured by the community. Of course Madlanders use static blueprints and build their buildings in exactly the same way! Wavobeks are where every Madlander lives; each clan occupies one by itself. Resembling upside-down boats, these longhouses are divided up into little alcoves for each family (Madlanders like it crowed). Those wooden platforms in the diagram are used as storage in summer while people live on the rock floor; in the winter, those switch so people can stay where it’s warm. Cooking is done on wood fires in a trough down the center, while smoke holes let woodsmoke out and can be plugged to keep the heat in. Apparently, sleeping areas are covered in a periodically-changed layer of wood chips and shavings, which I believe people have to sleep in  . I hope you like splinters!Boats are built much in the same way as wavobaks, just, y’know, flipped the other way. Speed doesn’t matter to Madlanders as much as stability and resilience, so their boats are built like floating brick shithouses and have both a sail and oar stations in case one is compromised. They also have spikes under the waterline to discourage orcas from ramming and overturning them, but there are too many ways for a particularly ornery whale to avoid them; the authors give here a proverb that is literally “build a better mousetrap”, just with anti-whale spikes. The book points out that a character could invent a new type of spike and make themselves greatly respected in the village; however, the idea isn’t alone enough to make an adventure with. Speaking of which… Game Idea 22: A particularly large and vicious killer whale has been hunting down the village’s boats and sinking them. Can the players come up with a way to fight back, using any means at their disposal to kill the whale? By the way, a sidebar talks about carpenter stereotypes; Madlanders consider carpenters arrogant pricks who think they know everything and have stories to back this up. It’s a nice bit of characterization to stick in a campaign.  Madlanders aren’t much for technology outside of railroad construction. Madlanders don’t really have much technological expertise. They do use iron to make weapons and a few tools, but they don’t use it in construction, crafting, or armor creation. Mostly, Madlanders build poo poo out of wood or bone, depending on the object, with a few objects (such as cooking pots) made out of clay. The book tells us that the reason iron tools aren’t more common and advanced is because, while women make everything else, ironworking (and boatbuilding, incidentally) are men’s work. It outright informs us that women are more creative and would totally innovate with metal if they were allowed to smith, once again reinforcing gender roles while trying to break them  .However, they do love their arts and crafts, which are mostly used for decoration. Both genders wear jewelry, men preferring necklaces and bracelets and women preferring hair ornaments and piercings; all jewelry is made with animal byproducts – or human or monster byproducts, if they’re particularly fearsome. Madlanders take trophies from monsters and intelligent beings, but they alter them before using them as decoration so they don’t cause possession. For some reason, the book gives us an entire 3-paragraph sidebar on hairstyles; men shave their heads before fishing season and sometimes wear a ponytail, women wear braids or multiple ponytails with decorative things woven in, and both genders dye their hair. Moving on. I’d go into detail on Madlander clothing, but you’ve already seen it. There really isn’t much to talk about here, just that Madlander men also wear hats in summer (something the pictures don’t depict), most clothing is made of deerskin, and people wear heavy fur coats in winter! How interesting  ! This image is too boring to give a funny caption. Finally we get to Madlander pastimes; we’re nearly done with the chapter! The music section opens with telling us instruments are made by women and played by men, Thanks, game!  Madlanders use wood flutes, drums, and a 3-string double bass; some songs are purely instrumental and improvisational, others include singing and follow a more set form – and this time women are included as singers! (Only men can play instruments.  ) After telling us that songs tend to focus on mundane emotion instead of great events like stories and are often used to cope with death, a sidebar gives us some examples; a pair of lovers are separated when one is kidnapped by Savarginians and they die longing for each other ( ), an outlaw is so miserable he provokes some hunters into killing him ( ), a tribunal is called against a couple accused of shamanism in which it’s revealed the elder that called the tribunal is guilty instead ( ), and, jarringly, a comic song where two guys compete over a girl’s heart and get so caught up in the contest they lose the girl to someone who’s actually accomplishing things ( )Game Idea 23: The details of a villager’s songs describe another villager too closely for comfort – a sure way to invite possession. Why are they doing this? Are they a shaman? Are they just stuck in their ways? Will the target villager do anything about it?  The disadvantage of loincloths. Games!  and just have somebody with a good memory keep tract of them all. As games serve the purpose of diffusing tension through fair competition, cheating in a game is viewed as a possible indication of possession or shamanism which can lead to execution or exile  . Beetle fighting is popular; villagers take not-stag beetles, train them and paint them in clan colors, and have them fight until one gets flipped over. Foot races (pictured) and not-Mahjongg are also common, though not-Mahjongg mystifies me; the book tells us straight up that they use traditional patterns as the scoring method, but doesn’t repeating any pattern in anything invite possession? The book also mentions not-hackeysack in some detail, and not-chess, not-dice, vole racing, and wrestling without detail. But there is one game that outshines all the others, a game I saved for last.  These two like getting each other sticky. Normally, the games described in the book have their name given in Madlander, often with a translation. This game is just called Trouble Fish, with no translation given. Before the game, each villager is given a basket with three of those useless fish mentioned earlier coated in glue. The idea is to run around the village slapping each other with fish, as a slapee is visibly fished and out of the game; no physical contact is allowed between players outside of fish-slapping but otherwise anything goes. Stealth and cleverness are rewarded with victory except in two situations; the glue can be dissolved in seawater, so any wet player is automatically disqualified, while leaving village limits also disqualifies you. You’d think that means someone could cheat by dumping water on a rival, but the authors already indirectly covered that; cheating is bad and a sign of supernatural fuckery, children! Finally the book points out everyone of every age and gender plays Trouble Fish (as long as they want to). And we’re done! THOUGHTS: A lot of this stuff is really interesting and would make a fun addition to a game, but there’s just too much material to work in to keep a game moving. Of course, you have the option to ignore some parts and just through in what you want and keep the rest separate; however, so much in this chapter is intertwined that many parts can’t function without other parts, which can’t function without other parts etc. etc. Despite this, this chapter is really valuable for fleshing out Madlander society, providing context for the players, and giving people hooks to latch onto and understand the culture they’ve been thrown into. I give it a B+. Game Ideas: 23 Should I stop doing these? I think I've made my point. The next chapter is about making characters, and since nobody cares about GURPS’s mechanics except for me I’ll skip it. However, I’ll use it to make characters for you all! If you have any ideas, give me an English name or indicative phrase, character concept, and level of ability (one of village hero, local leader, ordinary shmuck, or poor unfortunate soul) and I’ll whip something up for you. Then, we can get to the gods that make the Madlands so, well, mad. Next Time: JESUS CHRIST
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Jan 5, 2016 20:12
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The storm has a name... - Let's Read TORG Part 12f: Training retreats And now we get to the skills section. There are four Nippon Tech-specific skills. Disguise does what it says on the label, and was actually given in other realmbooks first because why on earth would you make that a skill in the core book, right? Business is your ability to navigate the corporate beuracracy. It's supposed to allow you to make shittons of money, but really its only use is in the corporate warfare mini-game that's coming up in the next chapter. Meditation is your ability to be zen. It's a Mind-based skill, and can't be used unskilled. You can try to meditate at pretty much any time, although the difficulty is higher if you're in a fight or something. That said, it takes 15 minutes to entere a meditative state so it's not something you're going to be doing on the fly. Once you've tranced, you get three benefits. First, you can substitute your meditation value for your Perception or Mind when attempting to solve a riddle or puzzle, unless it's science-based. Second, you heal faster; shock and KO heals twice as fast, and if you meditate for three hours you heal an extra wound level. Lastly, you can go without food and with minimal air for a number of days equal to the meditate total. But that's not why you're here. You're here because you want to learn about kung-fu, TORG style! And oh man is it Torged.  "Modern" Japan. Let's start with the basics. By which I mean unneeded backstory about the Power of Ki. Using "martial arts" (the skill) isn't the same as using "martial arts". Using hapkido or karate technically is considered using the unarmed combat skill. Martial arts is as much about the philosophy of fighting as fighting itself. quote:The martial arts are combat strategies and maneuvers which cannot be separated from the philosophy of the warrior who practices them. In Core Earth, the schools of thought which gave birth to these arts were founded by a group of Chinese monks known as the "Shao-Lin," just over 1000 years ago. It was the Shao-Lin who first theorized about the existence of an amazing store of energy within each human being (which Japanese masters later dubbed ki) and discovered rudimentary methods for tapping these energies and redirecting them into the material world. Which, of course, means we need to worry about axiom limits because God loving forbid we have something that you can just use without worrying about disconnection. Using martial arts requires a world with a Spiritual axiom of at least 7, because that's the minimum level where a spiritual ritual could generate an actual tangible effect. But since the lowest Spirit axiom out of all the available realities throughout the whole game line is Nippon Tech's at 8, it's a completely moot point. You also need a Social axiom of 21 ("Pluralism on a transnational scale is possible, balancing the needs and wants of nations against each other. The beginnings of a “global society” may take shape.") for some reason, and that's a problem because only three realities have a Social axiom of 21 or higher: Nippon Tech, Core Earth, and one more we haven't seen yet because spoilers. So unless you're in Core Earth or Nippon Tech, using your awesome kung-fu stunts can cause you disconnect if you're not careful. Martial Arts is keys off Dexterity, is only available to P-rated characters, and effectively replaces the unarmed combat skill. Base martial arts damage is STR+2, and can be used to defend against unarmed, martial arts, melee, and missile attacks. On top of that, if you're fighting someone who doesn't have martial arts training, you get a DEX+1 bonus to your attacks. You can also use the skill in place of melee weapons or missile weapons, but in those cases you use the weapon's base damage. Martial arts can't be used unskilled (duh), but costs more; the first add you buy, be it during character creation or during play, costs three times the normal cost. Now that's all fine. But that's not the real reason you want martial arts. I mean, we've got ninjas and a whole good-guy kung-fu secret order. What's the fun of those without awesome kung-fu powers? That's where styles, maneuvers, and training come into play. Every martial arts practitioner has a style, which is his or her specific fighting style. Tiger Fist is a style, ninjutsu is a style, jujutsu is a style despite the book stating that "mundane" fighting styles aren't really "martial arts" but whatever. Each style has eight maneuvers, which are basically like 3.Path feats or Fate stunts. If you have martial arts, you have to have at least one style. Once you start learning a style, you can't learn another until you master your current one by learning all the maneuvers it contains. Maneuvers come in three types: minor disciplines, which are your bread-and-butter moves; major disciplines, which are the things that require CG; and master disciplines, which is when you go full anime. Every style has five minor, two major, and one master discipline. On the plus side, the player can create their own style by just picking the moves off the provided lists. There are a handful of pre-made styles, but at least you can make your own. Minor and major disciplines can be used at any time, but master disciplines require spendng Possibilities to use. So let's look at some of the minor disciplines. There are more than these, of course, but let's cherry-pick. Block/Strike lets you, well, block an attack and hit back in the same round as one action. You roll both your defense and attack separately, but at least one isn't dependent on the other. Dagger Dance requires a dagger or sword, and lets you "leap, spin, and lands in a combat stance, all the while manipulating your blade so that light reflects off its surface." All this does is let you use your martial arts instead of your maneuver skill to make someone fatigued/stymied/unskilled for a round. Drop Kick actually isn't a drop kick where you leap up and plant both feet in someone's chest, it's a when you drop to the ground, kick up against a charging opponent, and flip him over you. You can fling someone up to 5 meters away with this. Heart Punch is a vital blow (-8 to hit, damage STR+6) that also forces the target to take a setback. Instant Up is just a kippup. Without this, it takes an action to stand. Ki Punch is useless. It's a punch that does STR+5 instead of STR+2 damage, but when you use it you can't make another attack for three loving rounds afterward because you have to restore your strength. Lightning Fist lets you attack twice as one action, rolling once for one target or separately for two targets. The downside is that you can't Lightning Fist two rounds in a row, and can't use it if you have a flurry bonus (which gives you two actions anyway). Sacrifice Kick isn't much better. This is an actual running dropkick, and is treated as an all-out attack. Since it's been a while since we covered the basics, that means that the attacker gets +3 to his attack total and +1 damage (making it STR+3), but everyone else gets +3 to hit him until his next action. In fact, it's worse than a normal all-out attack because on top of the normal penalty, attackers get +3 to their damage values and the user ends the round on his rear end, meaning he needs to use his next action to stand up unless he also knows Instant Up. I guess the advantage is that you can move and attack? Stone Fist is just a STR+4 damage strike with no downside. Which makes it better than a lot of the other damaging maneuvers, including Ki Punch. Strike does nothing. Like, literally nothing. quote:this is a basic maneuver, relatively easy to master. While it does not have the awe-inspiring appearance that a whirling attack or a leaping kick might have, it is a swift and efficient way of downing an opponent. Sweeping Kick just imposes the knocked down effect if it lands. So nothing really earth-shattering there, apart from how useless some of those moves are. Maybe the major maneuvers will be better? Detect Lie gives you +4 to rolls to detect lies with the willpower skill. Hail of Blows gives you two actions for two consecutive rounds, but after the second round you're considered unskilled (no roll-agains on a natural 10) and fatigued for a round as you get your energy back. Flashback is... quote:when combined with the meditation skill, this discipline allows a martial artist to reflect back upon her training, looking for the solution to a current problem or dilemma. This doubles the contemplation bonus received from meditation, and at the gamemaster' s discretion, may or may not result in a cryptic hint regarding how to resolve the situation. Iron Fist is a no-frills no-downside STR+6 basic attack. Sadly, it doesn't stack with Stone Fist. Weapon Master gives you a whopping +2 to your martial arts skill with a specific melee or missile weapon. Whirling Attack lets you make a "whirling, flailing" attack against multiple targets with one action. You can strike all opponents within 4 meters (13 feet) for STR+2 damage, but only roll once without any penalties for multiple actions and apply the roll to each target. Sadly, you can't do this two rounds in a row, but still. Lastly, there are the master disciplines. Each style only gets one, so make sure you pick carefully. There are only seven, though, so we might as well touch on them all. Cyclone Attack is a stronger version of Whirling Attack with a +2 to hit and STR+4 damage that also imposes a -2 penalty on defense rolls. You can use this every round if you want, but each time costs you two possibilities. Death Touch costs four possibilities, and if it hits the target must make a Toughness check with the attack's final total as the difficulty. If he succeeds he's fine, but if he fails he takes a shitton of damage (Ords take 4Wnd KO 15, P-rated characters take 3Wnd KO 5) and even if they survive that. P-rated targets can reduce the damage, but regardless if they don't get medical treatment in 20 round they just flat-out die. Just as a reminder, characters have 4 Wounds total before they die, KO means they're knocked out, and the number is how much shock damage they take, so assuming the attack hits and the target fails the check they're hosed. Oh, and when you use this attack, the GM makes an attack roll against you to see how much shock damage you take from the "lethal vibrations". Long Life extends your natural lifespan to 20 times your martial arts skill value. It also gives you +10 to attempts to resist natural diseases, but doesn't negate the stat penalties for aging. In other words, it's the trap choice. Power Shout lets you focus you ki into a yell that hits everyone within 15 meters in front of you. It gets +5 to hit and does Spirit+5 damage. This costs two possibilities. Thunder Kick costs one possibility and just gives you a +5 bonus to your damage value when making a basic attack. True Invisibility gives you +5 to stealth checks for two possibilities, but you have to re-roll every five minutes to maintain your focus. Wind Running makes you super-fast (about 200 meters per hour, and gives you +2 to your dodge and maneuver skills. This costs one possibiltiy per 15 minutes of use.  The rarely seen "samurai spaz attack" maneuver It's worth pointing out that some of the higher-ranked disciplines are stronger versions of lower-ranked ones, but the benefits don't stack and there are no prerequisites. If you want your style to have Iron Fist, there's no reason to have Stone Fist too because once you learn Iron Fist there's no reason to use Stone Fist anymore. It's the 3.Path problem of abilities that don't scale with character growth; yeah that STR+4 damage ability looks cool when you start out, but after you get more powerful attacks that just becomes a dead pick. When defining your style, you pick five minors, two majors, and one master. Maneuvers have to be learned in a sequence, so you set up the sequence for the minors, then the majors, then the master one is the last one. So if I wanted to make "Roaring Tiger" style, I could set my maneuver list up like this: pre:1. Minor - Block/Strike 2. Minor - Crushing Block (does damage to attackers I defend against) 3. Minor - Instant Up 4. Minor - Feint 5. Minor - Stun Attack 6. Major - Iron Fist 7. Major - Whirling Attack 8. Master - Thunder Kick Anyway, now that you have the list of maneuvers, you can start learning them. You have to learn the maneuvers in order down the line, and you can't skip over any. And how do you learn your maneuvers? By training, of course! See, for every maneuver you put in your style, you have to give it a training exercise you have to complete (via skill roll) in order to learn said maneuver. If you fail the roll, you can't make another attempt until you put another point into martial arts and find a master of your style who's willing to teach you. When you make your character, you take six "years" of training. For each year, you can attempt to learn a new maneuver. If you make all six rolls, then you start the game knowing all your minor disciplines and the first major one. However, if you tank your rolls, it's possible to not know any of them. And what are these training exercises? Well...you ever see the old Kung Fu TV series? Yeah. Training exercises are also split into minor/major/master, and after you select the maneuvers for your style, the GM assigns them each a training requirement of the same rank. Ulitmately, they all boil down to skill rolls. Minor trainings include: quote:Board Break: to signal that he has learned the corresponding maneuver, the martial artist must break a wooden board in half with his fist or foot. To break the board, the student must generate a martial arts total of 9. A few major trainings: quote:Arrow in the Air: the martial artist must pluck from the air an arrow which has been fired at him. This requires a successful martial arts total of 13. Failure means the arrow strikes the martial artist (the arrow has a damage value of 12). And finally the zen-ness of master training: quote:Appreciate Sunrise: to complete this test, the master sits out and watches the sunrise every morning until she feels one with nature. This requires an ability to be at peace with one's self and the world around one, and a successful Spirit total of 13 to accomplish. Still, flubbed rolls can wind up costing you more possibilities as you try to not miss your once-per-skill-increase chance at learning a new move.  A sample martial arts style It's just amazing how they can take something so simple and make it so unappealing. Martial arts sound cool on paper, but like so many other things in Torg there's unnessesary subsystems and these ridiculous requirements that can result in you either not getting the power you want or rendering you useless. The idea that you can disconnect because you went to Asyle and punched a dude twice because magic exists but that level of physical ability apparently doesn't. On top of that, a lot of the maneuvers are useless or can be made useless by stuff you can get later. You can spend one of your eight maneuver picks on attacks that are worse than your generic skill-based attack. You can fail to learn anything about your style if you roll badly enough. But again, we don't want characters getting too powerful in our game about globetrotting cinematic heroes, do we? That'd just be silly. NEXT TIME: How to run your own megacorporation!
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Jan 5, 2016 20:13
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inklesspen posted:My archive is now (to the best of my knowledge) completely caught up with all three threads, with two exceptions: at some point Evil Mastermind rebooted the TORG review and I skipped the reboot because I would like EM to tell me what to do about that (merge it with the previous one, delete the previous one, etc), and also I skipped the fanskin writeups for Monsterhearts and Apocalypse World because they seemed to require a lot of back-and-forth conversation posts to make sense. Wonderful. Hopefully, I'll do the subtitles right. And so far, everything I've done is completed. Unless I feel like making more Dark Eye stuff, though doing this with the last edition is a bit lame. theironjef posted:Time for a brand new System Mastery (yes, it's a day early, I have a job in the morning finally) Does anyone know whether or not the last edition of Gamma World happened before or after Wizards tried to add a bit of Magic the Gathering to 4th edition with those weird Destiny cards, or however they were called?
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Jan 5, 2016 20:16
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Oh, Torg. But then, massively overcomplicated martial arts systems are about as 90s game as metaplot and god NPCs.
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Jan 5, 2016 20:19
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I think I'll do a thread reboot later this evening for 2016, if there are no objections. Taking suggestions for the thread title, in any case!
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Jan 5, 2016 20:24
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Alien Rope Burn posted:I think I'll do a thread reboot later this evening for 2016, if there are no objections. Fatal Friends 2016: The Neverending Storygame II: The Next Edition
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Jan 5, 2016 20:27
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Night10194 posted:Oh, Torg.
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Jan 5, 2016 20:29
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Fatal and Friends Fourth Edition: Chronicles of Dorkness
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Jan 5, 2016 20:29
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Fatal and Friends volume 4: Unnecessary colon: Edition
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Jan 5, 2016 20:34
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I guess I should put off the next HSD post until after the new thread starts, then.
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Jan 5, 2016 20:36
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Fatal and Friends Revised: Burning Both Ends of the Wick. Or Hate-Read 'til climax.
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Jan 5, 2016 20:36
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Evil Mastermind posted:Two of the hallmarks of Torg! I've said it before and I'll say it again: I never thought I'd see something more 90s than oWoD, but here's Torg.
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Jan 5, 2016 20:38
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