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 Part 7: The Autoduellist (and Friends)  GURPS Autoduel characters are built as standard GURPS characters of their time, with the default 100 points. As is standard, we get some suggestions:
 I'm not going to explain every advantage and disadvantage, but they should be self-explanatory. Bizarrely, they list Autoduel as a "low mana" world with no mana in some areas, which means magic is very hard, but possible. This doesn't make a lot of sense, and I'm not sure why it was done, since magic will barely be mentioned otherwise. Though there are later articles in Autoduel Quarterly for "Dragons in Car Wars" and "Magic in Car Wars", they're extremely tongue-in-cheek and unofficial. It notes duellists can take sponsors in the form of the Patron advantage, and fame is done through Reputation. Oddly, they allow the GM to grant players temporary reputation for free (like being publicized due to a road duel), but if PCs don't back up their points-paid, fame-based Reputations by getting media attention, it can fade away at no compensation to the player. Dick move, Autoduel. Status generally represents government or corporate positions. Starting Wealth is $5K, which is supposedly "enough to outfit a small vehicle", but honestly is the bare minimum you'd need to build a car on. Ideally you want at least $10K-$15K, like, you know, a real car. Given that it's called GURPS Autoduel, it'd be nice to be able to buy more than a "1st-level" car without having to be wealthy, but alas. It notes that Illiterate people will have a hard time with some signs and maps. "Proles" and "weffies" - those that live on welfare - get a minor Social Stigma. Outlaws, like biker gangs and bandits, have a much more severe Social Stigma. GURPS Autoduel emphasizes that GURPS skills require specialization (like you don't just know guns, you have Guns (pistols) or whatever), but also gives an additional (small, -1) penalty to driving a new type of car or vehicle until you're familiar with it. By type of car, thankfully, it doesn't mean a specific vehicle - it means driving a van when you're used to sedans, for example. How this is actually tracked is somewhat vague. It gets heavy into the differentiation of the different types of vehicles, but I'll skip that. Notable bits: Battlesuit is useless, as battlesuits don't explicitly exist (though come to think, all the technology necessary to make one seems to be present). It notes that archaic weapon skills are more common than in modern day due to the prevalence of things like professional gladiatorial fighting. Parachuting is used for ejection seats. There's also the Electronics and Area Knowledge skills added in this game that would be incorporated into future editions of the core rules. Personal Equipment  We get the requisite list of personal guns, many of which are just real weapons or have obvious real-life analogues (M-26A2, AK-13, Uzi). It also has a few oddities born of the Car Wars game. Grenades come in frag, tear gas, smoke, concussion, but also paint (to obscure helmets and windshields). There's limpet mines that are basically mass-produced shaped charges. There are a few vehicular weapons on tripods (like a recoilless rifle or machine gun). It requires a power pack, but there's a laser rifle. And no doubt thanks to the Road Warrior, there's a "MiniCrossbow". There's also special rules for "Cheap" weapons - lower cost, but gives a small penalty to hit. In addition to your usual flak and kevlar vests, there's also the iconic body armor and improved body armor of Car Wars, which honestly don't provide much protection considering the amount of damage dealt out by guns, but it's certainly better than the unarmored alternative. There's also special suits to ward off fire and lasers. Trying to ward off lasers is a bit hilarious, though, since most of those are vehicular and will burn right through your dorky little suit. We also get weapon accessories, tools, electronics, survival gear, etc. About the only bit of note is that computers store information on half-pound "computer cubes", and computers themselves can do things like download the newspaper, shop, send Elmays, etc. There's also apparently smaller computers that are plugged into public terminals and run off of that connection ("as common as public phones" - well, not anymore). Sample Character Finally, we get a sample character, Douglas "Crusher" Kern, an ex-commando scout turned big rig gunner for the Brotherhood of Truckers. He's hoping to buy his own rig, and is willing to take high risks to do it. Named "Crusher" because he likes to ram lighter targets with his vehicles, and also because he knows board-chopping karate. He's a decent guy looking for the next big score. I won't go over his actual numbers, because it's a pretty standard well-rounded GURPS build, and nothing particularly unusual. We can move on to something more important than people. Cars.  Next: Before GURPS Vehicles, GURPS had vehicles, small "v".
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Apr 7, 2016 04:08
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Alien Rope Burn posted:[*]Commando Scout: Like a Boy Scout, but also trained in civil defense. It gives a cap to points spent on skills based on age, but I don't remember if that was a mainstream GURPS rule. Maximum of twice your age in CP spent on starting skills, yeah. I think we used that one all of once or twice, and dropped it entirely for high-CP games.
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Apr 7, 2016 04:39
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 Chapter 4: Mystica Mundi So the history and worldbuilding chapter is written in character. From the viewpoint of Minerva, Abby Soto's self insert. It's also got a higher percentage of typos and bad sentence structure than the character creation chapter so I'm going to summarize heavily so that both you and I can be done with this book as soon as possible. I'll also include enough quotes and screencaps for you to properly grasp how miserable the experience is. quote:It's all a lie, every story, legend, religion, you name it, one big lie created so we would forget what was and what can be again,. It's a lie so old and deep that it has spawned lies of its own. It's also why upon our rebirth we all scream and we cry.  The Goddesshead quote:Wrapping your head around what exactly the Goddesshead for most people is like trying to explain the Ramones music to a tone deaf yokel in just colors. The Goddesshead is by here(sic) very nature near unfathomable, but for the sake of you and your future as a Maga I will try. So every planet with life on it has an energy field, and when life on that planet becomes sentient, so does the energy field. When the beings on that planet start to create religions, the energy field taps into that and creates the various earthly deities that the Goddesshead has as facets. Also since only females can create life most proper planets spirits are female as well. quote:Yes, our planet is a lesbian, big whoop, right?  So the Goddesshead created the first Maga. Their job was to guide all intelligent life on the planet on the correct path. One that benefitted all life and was the best for everyone *coughtheonewherewomenareinchargecough*. After they died their spirits returned to the Goddesshead and became the first aspects. They're still their own people, apparently "Like a large cosmic band that makes is(sic) music together but can if needed be split off and do their own thing." Maga quote:So what are you? Are you a goddess? A Witch? Or a crazy woman hearing voices? The answer to that question is yes. You are all of those things and so much more. quote:We're usually, artist, poets, rebels, criminals, and outsiders, a bit touched in the head and a bit enlightened. They watch us, test us and then one day, usually in our darkest hour come to us and give us a choice, serve or not. Those that do... Well you know the rest, ritual of rebirth, we die, we're reborn and we get the mojo. Also: the Serpent? Is actually the Planet Soul of Mars. quote:But where our planet was a loving mother, it was a the worse "sports dad" ever doing its best to create the ultimate beings through trials and tribulations just hoping to one day attract the power of creation and create a godhead. Along the way his top sentient beings, what can best described as snake people destroyed themselves and left the planet a waste land. So where does a planets conscious goes when its dying? To the one next door which was Earth only our planet was occupied by a very powerful Goddesshead and protected by Maga.  So unsurprisingly, when you're ruled over by an all powerful divine ruling class who tells you how to think and act, you get jealous. Mostly the men (but apparently some women), and some of those men started worshiping the Serpent for the power it offered. They rewrote history, made women into the villains, shored up human society with Martian technology (Yuuupp) but the Maga were able to make the Serpent the enemy in most human religions.. somehow... even though most human religions with villainous serpents have a male god at the head of the pantheon. Also the church of the serpent created the concepts of competition, sports, and mysogyny. Sports. The Rising South quote:Sarah Diane South (aka Sadie South) is a name you should learn and respect and if you have time, revere. She was the last maga born before the 21st century. Born in South Carolina to the South's, a rich Slave holding family she was an abolitionist at the age of 13, a teacher at the age of 16, and travelling America speaking on slave and women's rights when she was in her 20's. Things people weren't to keen on especially in America in the 1800's. quote:At the age of thirty Sadie would become a Maga and use that power to change the world. As medium she would visit the White House and talk to President Lincoln about the Evils of Slavery. quote:After his death she would to the best of her ability while dodging minions of the Society of Serpents place the world on a path towards women sufferage, immigrants rights and racial justice way into the 1920's when women inspired by the students of Sadie would rebel against social norms. Ever wonder why Maga who smoke use cigarette holders even today? It's our tribute to that time. quote:Sadie would for the sake of hiding her longevity vanish from "public" service for decades after those "roaring" times. Her causes had started to grow strength and the Goddesshead was starting to recover. Across the world things where(sic) starting to improve and across the world the Serpent fought back. It created world wars, threatened us with nuclear annihilation and made us paranoid of various menaces be they communism, a gay agenda, or feminism. For every step forward the enemies of a sane society pushed back. When someone spoke with logic, they spoke with anger, hate and bigotry. Novus Dea Ashley Porter was a Straight A Student, very strong willed, but not very popular. Mostly because she loved exploring alternative religions, and Arguing with the school board about spending too much money on SPORTS and not enough on Art and Science. When her school's football team lost the big game, someone pointed out that she must have cast a hex on them, so "on a cold autumn evening a group of students and parents dragged her out of her home, beat her, berated her, and burned her alive. The authorities did nothing."  Like literally nothing. Police, FBI, nothing. She was painted as an "Agitator" and a Pagan so only women's groups actually cared that she died. And that wave of fury and anger empowered the Goddesshead enough to empower a new generation of Maga.  She then spends about 2 pages repeating stuff from earlier in the book or stuff that should be loving obvious. Though there is a funny bit showing off why Maga don't proselytise.  And saying "HELP WOMEN HURT MEN HELP WOMEN HURT MEN" for about a paragraph.  Witch groups are Covens. Gatherings are groupings of witches from multiple covens who can combine their magic to do crazy things. Like apparently teleport the entirety of New York State to a pocket realm for a week so they could fight an ancient Horror where it normally is. No one remembers it happening because SURE. Places to go So let's talk about important places in witch society. Crossroads The crossroad is a thing, no one knows what it is, but everyone calls it The Crossroads. You can't get there without a key, and to receive a key you need to be invited by someone with a key. Except the door apparently stays open for a few seconds after you use it so people can follow you in. It opens up into a vast forest labyrinth that is magically confounding to anyone who isn't a Maga or being touched by a Maga. It's the home of Baba Yaga... Sure. Who is apparently actually an ancient Regina  Beyond the forest lies the Market at the foot of the Cathedral. Where you can buy anything, no matter how morally questionable. The example given are the souls of newborns. Yup, these are totally the heroes.  The Cathedral itself is a meeting place and temple and "Twice as tall as anything built by the Patriacracy". There are temples for all goddesshead aspects, and a giant loving library containing any book written by a Maga or an uncorrupted woman... Which means there isn't any Ann Rynd because she was apparenty a rogue maga. Beneath the Cathedral is the "Dea-Womb" which is a giant pit of blood of everyone ever killed by the Serpent. It is the blood in which all Maga are magically reborn but no one can actually touch the Dea Womb and actually being in it's presence is a great honor and I want this to just end. Suffering Sappho Bar It's a bar in New York that caters to Maga. There are false storefronts in most major cities that lead to it but it's Patroness doesn't like people using it as a form of quick transportation. Ms. Sadies School for Girls Apparently Young Maga are rare, but children of Maga are at a 15% chance to be a maga themselves. That said there are still a few young maga and Sadie has turned her family's old plantation into a boarding school for girls.  Aeaea Coffee House A coffee house in Greenwich Village run by an Avatar of Circe herself. Minerva works here, as does her totally real boyfriend Oliver.  Rogue Maga So yeah, despite the fact that the Maga only marketplace sells the SOULS OF ORPHAN CHILDREN apparently if you break the rules and kill too many "innocents" or use your power for your own ends you go Rogue. What is an innocent? Basically only Children, or people who live off the grid. Everyone else is corrupted by the Serpent. And if you are a rogue Maga, you are subjected to the Hubris rules.   Because being evil makes you ugly. This is the worst loving kind of Feminism. Killing a Rogue Maga returns her power to the Goddesshead, but some Maga like to at least try to convince them to return to the fold. The Serpent Everything bad in the world is the result of the serpent. Yes even that. And that. Society of the Serpent The SOS is a modern group of the rich and powerful who are aware of the existence of the Serpent and maga. They're also the descendents of the original men who made the pact with the Serpent in the first place. Their public face is the Keepers of Truth, a benevolent semi-religious (all-male) order who want nothing more than to show men and boys how to be proper sons, fathers, and husbands according to the "Ancient Law". Of course the way to do that is to have women at your feet naked and pregnant. Their goal is nothing less than to rule the world. They teach a litany of Survival of the fittest. Their membership is almost solely European and white. Also there's a Scientology style "Tier" System, with 16 tiers in total. 90% of their membership is at tier 5 or below, and "Maga exist" is something you learn at tier 12. "The SOS is actually a thing" is tier 10. To actually achieve Tier 10 they need to ritually bind themselves to the God Oroboros. And profess the truth that the only reason the serpent is seen as evil is because of "Women, inferior races, and pagan beliefs"  Black Viper A PMC based out of Idaho that wants Peace at any cost. "Peace" in this case means "Kill all the women and minorities". All of their members are at least a low tier member of the KOT. They recruit from the military, police force, and intelligence forces with promises of higher pay and better benefits. Potential recruits must go through a gruelling 6 month training course where 50% of them drop out or are killed. After a few years of service a Black-Viper member can be called in for "enhancement" where they are injected with the venom of Oroboros and undergo a rebirth of their own. Gaining enhanced speed, strength, and shapeshifting abilities.  The New Saints Church Yeeeahhh it's the Westboro Baptist Church except it's somehow managed to spread to London as well as the US. "Burn witch burn, kill, kill, kill". Their members are usually recruited from other Christian sects that aren't "Radical Enough". Followers aren't allowed to be baptized unless they have proven themselves through donations and work for the ministry. Men also have to be Truthkeepers in good standing. The baptism binds their sight to high ranking members of the SOS, and they can hear and see through any of the Baptised regardless of where they are in the world. Most members of the church aren't allowed to rise above rank 9, but apparently some of the gifts that members of the NSC are given allow them to undo the ritual of rebirth, and change your sexual orientation.  ASP News ....Yuuuuup It's literally just Fox News, except the Rupert Murdoch stand in is a rank 15 truthkeeper who's angry that they won't make him a rank 16 so he's trying to literally destroy the middle east through media to prove his worth.  Children of Jormungander You know Nazis. Well specifically the Thule society that went underground after Hitler killed himself. And all the leaders are actually Tier 18 members in the SOS (Did I mention that apparently it goes up to 18 now? Even though they said 16 before?) Their main goals are to kill all the Untermensch and become the masters of the Serpent. Also they use genetic engineering to make serpent-human hybrids because that's how the Nazis work right? They work against the SOS because they want to be the ones in charge and any Truthkeepers they recruit are turned into spies. Also they're behind the NRA.  gently caress Abby Soto.  And gently caress whoever came up with Sadie South. The only things that are left in the book are the Monster Manual that's really short and incredibly uninteresting beyond some bits of art that are dumb (Like a color shifted Octopus that's apparently a "Madness" and anyone that fails a horror roll against them loses a permanent point of resolve because that's good game design) and a sample adventure that's really poorly designed and involves the characters making Adam West Batman level leaps of logic, the only bit of it that's actually "No wait what" dumb is that the climax takes place in a brothel in an old speak easy... that's actually a giant 7 story tall metal drum anchored in the Hudson River. That's still a hidden secret despite the fact that it's accessed by an elevator that just juts out of nowhere in the water. Also if you don't kill the owner of said Brothel, and punish all of it's patrons, the GameMistress is told to remove favor from the entire group.  I'm done with this book. When it isn't being mathematically terrible, it's a textbook example of the worst kind of Faux-Feminism. Where literally all men are the enemy unless they're your fucktoy. Where it's okay to do everything the enemy does because it's your divine right to do so, and anyone who says otherwise is someone that you are compelled to murder because your Goddess rewards you for it.  So yes. gently caress you Abby Soto, gently caress you right in your punchable TERFY face.
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Apr 7, 2016 05:58
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Anyone else just pick up on the fact that the great corrupting force being a serpent is a phallic metaphor?
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Apr 7, 2016 06:03
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Serpents, rods and staffs have always been phallic symbols. Ironically, so have brooms and magic wands. Now I want a a Promethea RPG - sounds like it would hit much of the same beats, but better. I think From Hell also talks about a magical patriarchy cult erasing goddess worship. The enemies in the book somehow seem less scary than the modern Republican Party. quote:Also the church of the serpent created the concepts of competition, sports, and mysogyny. Can you think of a better symbol of toxic masculinity than sports? Hell in many places sports teams essentially are cults that can get away with all sorts of hosed up stuff. Gotta say, 'THE PATRIARCHY IS AN EVIL CONSPIRACY. BURN IT ALL DOWN' would be a fun game in better hands.
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Apr 7, 2016 06:39
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Count Chocula posted:Gotta say, 'THE PATRIARCHY IS AN EVIL CONSPIRACY. BURN IT ALL DOWN' would be a fun game in better hands. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that no, it probably wouldn't be. "Let's sit around a table pretend-fireballing imaginary strawmen for six hours" does not sound like an incredibly compelling basis for a game, and I'll go back out on that limb and suggest that what a lot of actual feminists probably want are regular ol' RPGs about fantasy adventurers and superheroes and urban horror and stuff, just more inclusive and with less gratuitous cleavage and tragic rape backstories.
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Apr 7, 2016 06:50
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Kai Tave posted:I'm going to go out on a limb and say that no, it probably wouldn't be. "Let's sit around a table pretend-fireballing imaginary strawmen for six hours" does not sound like an incredibly compelling basis for a game, and I'll go back out on that limb and suggest that what a lot of actual feminists probably want are regular ol' RPGs about fantasy adventurers and superheroes and urban horror and stuff, just more inclusive and with less gratuitous cleavage and tragic rape backstories. I'm gonna say that's a pretty strong limb and sit on it with you.
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Apr 7, 2016 07:25
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Snake Nazis, or Snazis. Man those enemies aren't particularly compelling in general.
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Apr 7, 2016 07:35
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Mercenaries being injected with magic snake-venom to become shapeshifting snakemen super-soldiers sounds like a good VIPER plot for the next time I run Champions though. Also, In the original Car Wars, It really needs to be stressed how fragile characters are. You have 3 wounds, armor can give you another 3, and almost any vehicular weapon in the game can cut through that on a good roll. The game was very much a wargame and there wasn't much -point- in giving your characters nicknames or backstories, considering their frailty and the fact that just about every other arena combat was going to kill a PC.
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Apr 7, 2016 07:44
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Starting Wealth is $5K, which is supposedly "enough to outfit a small vehicle", but honestly is the bare minimum you'd need to build a car on. Ideally you want at least $10K-$15K, like, you know, a real car. Given that it's called GURPS Autoduel, it'd be nice to be able to buy more than a "1st-level" car without having to be wealthy, but alas.
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Apr 7, 2016 08:15
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Hostile V posted:Snake Nazis, or Snazis. Isn't that the idea behind both HYDRA and COBRA?
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Apr 7, 2016 08:22
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Count Chocula posted:Isn't that the idea behind both HYDRA and COBRA? Vox Valentine fucked around with this message at 08:59 on Apr 7, 2016 |
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Apr 7, 2016 08:34
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Crasical posted:Mercenaries being injected with magic snake-venom to become shapeshifting snakemen super-soldiers sounds like a good VIPER plot for the next time I run Champions though. Venom that turns people into superstrong shapeshifters? That's not a very good poison.
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Apr 7, 2016 09:16
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Mystic Mongol posted:Just take childhood stories and replace your idiot friends with critters. What's that you say, your childhood stories don't have broad, sweeping plots? That's fine, someone falls down and busts their chin open, everyone runs around panicked for half an hour is a perfect little Golden Sun Story. There's also inspiration from, in the west at least, stuff like the Andy Griffith show oddly enough--people in a small town who are not genuinely malicious end up with problems like cheating in a pickle-making contest that requires two characters to eat like, fifteen jars of pickles. A lonely older person manipulating the legal system to conceal their loneliness. Home maintenance issues gone awry. Pets that go missing for non-nefarious reasons. That kind of thing.
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Apr 7, 2016 09:19
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Bellum Maga really makes me want to play Hunter.
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Apr 7, 2016 10:48
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Count Chocula posted:Can you think of a better symbol of toxic masculinity than sports? Hell in many places sports teams essentially are cults that can get away with all sorts of hosed up stuff. are you joking? off the top of my head, the military-industrial complex, PMCs, law enforcement, those stupid militias... a lot of nerds have a chip on their shoulder about not being popular in high school and I think a lot of the aggressive snarkiness about "sportsball" comes from loving up the locus of their resentment the whole idea of punishing your ideological enemies by role-playing them as straw villains is so unbelievably creepy and childish. gently caress soto forever.
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Apr 7, 2016 14:07
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Because women never play sports. You said you're from Connecticut, right? Have you somehow not noticed that UConn cares way more about women's basketball than men's?
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Apr 7, 2016 14:17
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 Summer: Other Things Ending a Story Eventually, the story ends. Dreams, Feelings and Wonder aren't carried over, so spend as many Dreams as you can to strengthen your Connections - the sum of the strengths of all your Connections towards others, not counting the Connection to the town, is how many points of Memories you get. Memories are bonus points that can be used as Feelings or Wonder, but unlike those, they can be carried over between stories. Next, turn your Connections (save for the one with the town) into Threads. Write down for each Thread who it was with, and what the contents were. Threads are the long-term relationships you forge through your journeys - when you meet that character again in a new story, you can use up that Thread to give your new Connection with them 1 extra strength per Thread used. Products of Civilization Henge aren't humans, and aren't suited to using human stuff. Any interaction with technology will require a check, even something as simple as making a phone call. This usually goes off of your Adult attribute. Surprise There aren't rules in GSS for taking damage, but Surprise is probably the closest thing. When henge do unnatural things, like using powers or talking or behaving generally not like normal animals, it can surprise humans. Sometimes just running across a henge at all will be Surprising, like if someone finds a fox in their kitchen. Sometimes henge can even Surprise other henge. Surprise results in a check. If you're surprised by some kind of incident, the Narrator sets the difficulty. If someone is trying to Surprise you on purpose, they use their Henge attribute. The henge or person being Surprised uses whatever their highest attribute is. If the Surprisee fails the check, then what happens to them depends on the margin of failure:
Fighting Fighting is bad, friends. Don't get in fights if you can avoid it, there's always a better way to solve your problems. If you do end up in a fight, though, make an opposed check using Animal (for scratching/biting) or Adult (for punching/weapons). The loser of the check is knocked down or runs away. It should be emphasized that there is no reward for winning a fight - more often than not, trying to solve your problems through violence will cause more problems instead. If you get in a fight, your Connection with the town drops to strength 2 if it's higher than that. Please don't pick fights with people, that's not how you create happy stories.  Weaknesses Lots of Weaknesses you can pick say "you must do X" or "you can never do Y", and sometimes this can stonewall someone who needs to advance. So, it actually is possible to temporarily overcome these limitations when you really have to. If you want to briefly overcome a Weakness, spend 6 points of Feelings, Wonder, or some combination thereof. This lets you ignore it for a single action - if a cat henge with Can't Swim wanted to retrieve something from the far side of a river, it would cast 6 points to cross, then another six points to cross back. If you don't have 6 points, though, there's another option - with Narrator permission, you can actually remove the Weakness permanently. The cost for this is, of course, that the Weakness's additional power is also lost. If you wind up with no Weaknesses, you have to pick a new one. Your Connection to the Town Every henge starts with a Connection to the town they live in, with a strength of 2 in both directions. The town's Connection to you has a contents of "Acceptance", yours can be whatever you want, as long as it makes sense. This is a general Connection to the community and everyone in it, and it can rise, fall, or change like any other Connection. Unlike other Connections, though, it doesn't become Memories or Threads at the end of your story, but its strength and contents persist between adventures. Strong Connections If a Connection stays strong and grows over time, it may eventually reach strength 5 in both directions. When this happens, both sides of the connection gain 10 points of Wonder and Feelings at the start of their next scene as a reward. When this Connection becomes Threads, it gives two threads instead of one to each person. Riko's Big Mistake, Part 2 quote:Kuromu isn’t really interested in hearing about how to save friends.  Everyday Magic If you're wondering what the genre of Golden Sky Stories is, this is how Kamiya defines it. It's shared with a much older Japanese RPG called Witch Quest, and there's a few modern games that are similar, too. It's about two main concepts. Non-Violent Role-Playing GSS wasn't created because violent stories are bad; it was created because there's untapped value in this other kind of story. There are no villains; if someone is doing something bad, it's because they have what they think is a good reason for it, or they're not thinking about the feelings of others. Your goal isn't to stop them or prove them wrong, it's to show them that there's a better way to do things. Telling stories in this idiom might be hard to get the hang of at first. Endings aren't set in stone, because how things resolve is based on how people's hearts and minds guide them. There might not even be a problem to solve, just someone to make friends with. It should always be possible for every character to leave the story happy. The important thing is to make sure all your players are on board with what kind of game this is before going in. Little Stories A major part of GSS's atmosphere is the scale - not how huge the adventures are, but how tiny. Even a non-violent social adventure might sprawl over days or weeks and involve a wide network of interacting characters. Your typical GSS adventure involves two to four henge and one to three Narrator characters, and take place over the course of an hour or less. You might go between the town and the forest, but that's the limit of mobility. The stakes are small, too - nobody's fighting for everything they believe in, conflicts are more of wrinkles that need straightening out. Unlike most RPGs, the protagonists aren't absolutely necessary, they're just nudging events to make them just a little bit better than they would have been otherwise. The goal of making the game so small is a feeling of intimacy. If there's so few characters, all of them can become your friends. This is also conveniently the size at which the game's mechanics function the best! If you get much higher than 5-6 total characters in the story, the Connection net gets big enough to let the party power through just about anything with their huge piles of Feelings and Wonder.  Next: Telling your own stories.
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Apr 7, 2016 14:27
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Golden Sky Stories is an inspiration. I love, love, love the way it specifically sets out to focus on a small, intimate scale and backs that up with its rules. It's really touching to see something that takes the role-playing genre so far from its wargaming roots, but does so with no axe to grind or hearts to break.
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Apr 7, 2016 15:04
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You know, as reprehensible Bellum Maga is on pretty much every level, it seems even worse now in the light of the recent "Tabletop has a White Male Terrorism Problem" post and related fallout. Like, this is completely the type of  feminism that gets held up every time someone brings up the idea that maybe gamers could be a little less terrible once in a while.I am having a bit of fun imagining Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg popping into this setting and not havin' with any of this, though.
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Apr 7, 2016 15:16
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Evil Mastermind posted:You know, as reprehensible Bellum Maga is on pretty much every level, it seems even worse now in the light of the recent "Tabletop has a White Male Terrorism Problem" post and related fallout. Like, this is completely the type of In all fairness, ANY setting could be improved by Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg popping in and disapproving. Except Golden Sky Stories, they'd just have tea and call Henge "Wossnames"
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Apr 7, 2016 15:26
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Kavak posted:I'm gonna say that's a pretty strong limb and sit on it with you. Pretty sure this is actually a bench in a tree, which is pretty rad tbh. A "leftist revenge fantasy" that involves rampant murder and rape, or a "feminist" revenge fantasy that involves treating all men as evil except for the dudes you gently caress (and that is their only stated redeeming quality) and rape/forcibly impregnate is very much missing the point. This is the sort of thing you think of in disgust when you see victim blaming or harassment or whatever other poo poo, much like briefly fantasizing about if someone you hate got injured because that would show them. But most people know better than to entertain the idea for more than a minute. Actually making a game about beating up strawmen, or putting it in a novel, is gross and short-sighted since it means those MRA types can point at it and yell, "See, this is what those feminazis REALLY think!" when... No, it really isn't. And this isn't helping. It's stooping to the level of writers who make women weaker than men statistically because  , or reduce them to rapebait fucktoys with no agency to satisfy male fantasy. Doing the same thing in reverse is just as stupid.Viewing it as a leftist or feminist revenge fantasy that would be "good to see" is lazy at best, suggests some unpleasant things at worst. Bellum Maga is a steaming pile of poo poo with no redeeming qualities.
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Apr 7, 2016 15:31
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Count Chocula posted:Can you think of a better symbol of toxic masculinity than sports? Hell in many places sports teams essentially are cults that can get away with all sorts of hosed up stuff. Yes, several, the point is that it doesn't matter. Sports, historically, evolved from trying to teach children how to hunt, or evolved naturally from children's play. Because Calvinball is a thing that can literally happen and if you think that's any other way then you've never tried to play a game with a 5 year old. But that's besides the point because Soto is saying that the very platonic idea of "Competition" itself was created by the serpent. And before that we all lived in harmony and free from want under our benevolent yonic overlords. But we could be even more specific and focus on the two characters in the plot who were both described as smart and amazing and special but were directly harmed by the mere existence of sports, First Minerva, Soto's self insert, and Second Ashley, who was burned at the stake because her football team lost a game. That reads to me as "I was bad at sports in high school and am pissy that I wasn't noticed so now Sports are literally the tool of the devil. Don't you wish you paid attention to me now people at my 10 year reunion!??!?!?" I was bad at sports too, I missed out on Academic Lettering my first two years of high school because I was unlucky enough to have Gym first semester. Sure I was pissed off about it, but I'm not leading a one man crusade against the very idea of sports existing in any capacity over it. Also: There is precisely one male in the game portrayed in an unambiguously good light. His two sole contributions to the story are having sex with Minerva and working at her Coffee Shop. Flipping the gender narrative on its head with no other changes isn't feminist. It's only empowering because you're flat out admitting "Yes the current system works I just really wish it would work for me instead." Feminism's end goal is supposed to be equality, not female dominance where men are punished for their vile penises. In short: Kai Tave posted:I'm going to go out on a limb and say that no, it probably wouldn't be. "Let's sit around a table pretend-fireballing imaginary strawmen for six hours" does not sound like an incredibly compelling basis for a game, and I'll go back out on that limb and suggest that what a lot of actual feminists probably want are regular ol' RPGs about fantasy adventurers and superheroes and urban horror and stuff, just more inclusive and with less gratuitous cleavage and tragic rape backstories.
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Apr 7, 2016 15:33
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Echo Cian posted:Pretty sure this is actually a bench in a tree, which is pretty rad tbh. Exactly - you said everything I want to. And notice we say TERFY about Bellum Maga? Because it loving is. The one mention of Trans individuals is offensive, trite, and hammers in the TERF narrative that Transmen are gender traitors and Transwomen are never women - and they're only acceptable as some kind of loving hermaphroditic succubus. That's not feminism or equality, that's making a new club that excluding everyone who doesn't think like you. Chocula, I'm not sure how you managed to miss the loving point when several people - women including are telling you at length why this is just someone's masturbation bait using feminism as a thin excuse to to justify it.
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Apr 7, 2016 16:18
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I'm not sure I'd call Bellum Mage TERFy; it's not feminist and it's not radical feminist. It's not even excluding transwomen from feminism, because it's not feminist in the first place. It even says that transwomen are women and part of the anti-patriarchy fight!! It just happens to be offensively misguided about what it means to be a transwoman.
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Apr 7, 2016 17:21
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Crasical posted:Also, In the original Car Wars, It really needs to be stressed how fragile characters are. You have 3 wounds, armor can give you another 3, and almost any vehicular weapon in the game can cut through that on a good roll. The game was very much a wargame and there wasn't much -point- in giving your characters nicknames or backstories, considering their frailty and the fact that just about every other arena combat was going to kill a PC. Well, that's why you have Gold Cross, which is for some reason buried in the GMs-only no-players-allowed section, but we'll get to it. Echo Cian posted:Bellum Maga is a steaming pile of poo poo with no redeeming qualities. The more I see of their work the more I'm reminded of a child's view of morality, where children think the more severe a punishment is, the better it will work (irregardless of the actual offense), where offenses should be punished vengefully regardess of the offender's intent, that there are just flat-out "bad people", that punishment should come automatically and instantly, etc. I've probably brought up the comparison before, but it makes me think of the power fantasies of Axe Cop, only without the excuse of being co-written by a literal child... and instead replacing that with an adult's deep fetishistic focus.
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Apr 7, 2016 17:24
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Incidentally, I spotted this at the game story the other day: Faerie Skies, a kickstarted stretch goal book that acts as an expansion pack to GSS, moving it from Japan to the English countryside. Fae instead of henge, et cetera.
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Apr 7, 2016 17:24
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Part 8: Autoduelling Many years before GURPS Vehicles terrified gamers and became infamous for its heavy math put in the service of making everything from steamboats to star cruisers, this book managed to its own vehicle design system in fourteen pages, covering cars, bikes, trikes, and tractor-trailers. How? Well, mostly just by adapting the existing Car Wars design rules to GURPS. As such, it openly admits the vehicle design rules aren't realistic, but are designed for ease of use and ease of conversion from Car Wars. GURPS Autoduel posted:Just pretend you're Lee Iacocca, and away we go... Who?   Vehicle design is still mathy, but is much simpler than later GURPS implementations. You pick your vehicle's body type (compact, heavy cycle, sleeper cabover, etc.). This determines your maximum load (weight) and cubic feet (space) to put in the rest of your components. You can spend extra money on the chassis to allow it to carry more weight, and / or the suspension to improve its handling (and get a bonus on your driving skill) or to adapt a vehicle to drive off-road. Then you take your power plant, which can improve your top speed and acceleration, but the bigger it is, the more it costs and weighs. Unlike later versions of Car Wars, vehicles have a ultra-simplified 80 MPH to 100 MPH top speed, though accessories can improve that. Next comes tires, where you're trading weight and cost against durability. Lastly, you can streamline your vehicle for improved speed but reduced space. Armor sees the most major change from Car Wars. In Car Wars, buying armor just effectively adds more hit points to the side of the vehicle you assign it to. In GURPS, though, armor reduces damage (with a small chance to cancel it entirely) instead. This means there's a sharper difference between a car and a tractor-trailer rig or even a subcompact and a van, just because it's easier to create vehicles that can take damage indefinitely instead of being whittled down. However, it also means whenever you do take damage, something's getting busted. In any case, there's several variant types of armor: fireproof (not proof against fire damage, but won't ignite), laser-reflective (reduces laser damage), honeycombed (increases damage resistance, reduces chance of attacks deflecting entirely), surface-hardened (the reverse of honeycombed), and sloped (reduces space, but increases the deflection factor). Weapons includes a variety from Car Wars, mainly in several categories: machineguns, rockets, flamethrowers, shells, lasers, dropped weapons (oil, flaming oil, mines, spikes), gas weapons (smoke and paint clouds), grenade launchers, and gauss guns (flechette rail weapons). Accessories includes things like ejection seats, fire extinguishers, radar, ram plates, targeting computers, turrets. Once again, all from car wars. Once you're out of money, weight, and / or space, your car is done. It requires addition and subtraction, but is based on early Car Wars rules, so it doesn't have any of the complex top speed or armor equations later versions of the game have.  Sample Vehicles There are a number of Car Wars vehicles converted to GURPS, which it openly admits is more of a starting point than any sort of definitive list. we have: Notable cars include the Joseph Special, with a machinegun and a paint spray on the right side for drive-bys. There's the iconic Piranha with machineguns pointing from every orifice except for the rocket launcher in front. The Foxbat has a stealth mode, a cybernetic targeting helmet, radar and infrared, and a gauss gun as well as a vulcan (gatling) gun and comes in at an appalling $80K. The Vigilante is a powerhouse pickup with very heavy armor and machineguns. The worst of them all is the Torch, which is overloaded with flamethrowers or rockets pointing in every direction, but has armor so thin you could literally penetrate it with a .22 rifle - or a good hard kick, if you're modestly strong. Note, of course, that none of these can be purchased with starting wealth. Which means if you don't buy a wealth advantage, you literally have to make your own car. Whups, that's a bit of an oversight.  There are also a number of motorcycle designs, which mostly vary from the heavy Outlander with its machinegun and solid armor to the RoadMiser, which is literally just an unarmored light cycle. Most have laughable armor, which is a side effect of going from Car Wars to GURPS Autoduel - having a little bit of damage reduction just isn't that worthwhile. We also get trikes, like the alpha-striking Leo loaded with heavy one-shot rockets and (once again) laughable armor, and the Vapor Trail, which fires rockets in every direction and is armored well enough to compete with cars in its price class.  Only one truck cab for a big rig is listed, the Roughrider, with combination of recoilless rifle, matching machineguns, and very heavy armor in front (handy for rams). We also get details on a variety of trailers - flatbeds, reefers (refrigerated), tankers, dumpers, and van trailers. One bus is listed, the Commando, which is one of the most heavily armed vehicles with four recoilless rifles between two turrets, and can have dozens of armed passengers poking their pistols and rifles out besides... just don't tell the passengers that it's only lightly armored.  Overall, the vehicle design is pretty simple if you don't mind a bit of serious addition and subtraction. The biggest issues is that if you're doing conversions, the values for things like space and armor are just different enough that you have to do all the math for each Car Wars vehicle over again, and adjust it. Furthermore, the way armor works in GURPS drastically changes how combat works - cycles become even more vulnerable than they were before (and they were already pretty vulnerable), and sets of light weapons (like the popular double machineguns) become drastically less useful. A more subtle issue is that some modifiers are ported directly from Car Wars - like the +1 to Gunner skill from a targeting computer - even though Car Wars uses 2d6 for resolution and GURPS uses 3d6 for resolution. Often the problem is that the conversions from Car Wars are done in a straightforward fashion, even though the tactical utility of a weapon or accessory can shift notably. Next: Driving 101.
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Apr 7, 2016 17:38
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If you ripped it away from Bellum Maga, you could probably work with the basic idea. So keep the feminine planet spirit, that women can work magic because they bring life into the world and links them to said spirit, and that being a man doesn't inherently make you evil. Spin it so the invading god found out that because men lack the link to Earth's deity, they have innate resistance to magic. Set up bad men as being the first agents of the Serpent, which makes the witches think the whole thing is a masculine plot as all they see is male servants. Throw in some detail that the snake worked out that the more 'Masculine'/macho a man is, the more resistant to magic the man is at the cost of the Serpent being unable to interact with them. Cue the building of cultural drives for men to be macho to take off and become out of hand. Now you have a Patriarchy that can be view as both bad and tragic, and the Serpent as being an evil gently caress. Make the heroic, modern maga those of a younger generation who are open minded, accept people for what they are and help people deal with how lovely life is.
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Apr 7, 2016 18:03
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ProfessorProf posted:Incidentally, I spotted this at the game story the other day: Faerie Skies, a kickstarted stretch goal book that acts as an expansion pack to GSS, moving it from Japan to the English countryside. Fae instead of henge, et cetera. (Though I hope it doesn't just become "eat your hamburgers, Apollo".)
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Apr 7, 2016 18:05
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ProfessorProf posted:Incidentally, I spotted this at the game story the other day: Faerie Skies, a kickstarted stretch goal book that acts as an expansion pack to GSS, moving it from Japan to the English countryside. Fae instead of henge, et cetera. This is the sidebar illustration on half the pages:  That is a beholder having tea with a mimic. Or, to put it another way, a magical tea party. I believe that makes this the Best Game. e: the beholder's name is Callie. the mimic's name is Mimi. Best Game confirmed. Evil Mastermind fucked around with this message at 18:26 on Apr 7, 2016 |
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Apr 7, 2016 18:23
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Count Chocula posted:Can you think of a better symbol of toxic masculinity than sports? Hell in many places sports teams essentially are cults that can get away with all sorts of hosed up stuff. Mors Rattus posted:Because women never play sports. You said you're from Connecticut, right? Have you somehow not noticed that UConn cares way more about women's basketball than men's? Clearly, rhythmic gymnastics is the most fiendish tool of the Serpent. The rope and the ribbon are obvious symbols of his.
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Apr 7, 2016 19:00
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Count Chocula posted:Serpents, rods and staffs have always been phallic symbols. Ironically, so have brooms and magic wands. Now I want a a Promethea RPG - sounds like it would hit much of the same beats, but better. I think From Hell also talks about a magical patriarchy cult erasing goddess worship. Chocula man, I think I can tell what you're trying to say but hitching your wagon to this mess isn't going to help you get the point across.
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Apr 7, 2016 19:05
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I can't believe Bellum Maga apparently steals a plot point from CS Lewis of all places, though in the Space trilogy it was -earth's- embodying spirit that was evil and basically Satan...oh, wait.
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Apr 7, 2016 19:06
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Evil Mastermind posted:Thanks for reminding me I had this; I hadn't looked at it yet. That's Fantasy Friends, which isn't available to non-backers (yet). Faerie Skies came out earlier.
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Apr 7, 2016 19:18
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Alien Rope Burn posted:That's Fantasy Friends, which isn't available to non-backers (yet). Faerie Skies came out earlier. But both are on DriveThru.
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Apr 7, 2016 19:20
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Doresh posted:But both are on DriveThru. Oh, I didn't think it was out yet. That changes things.
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Apr 7, 2016 19:22
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Tasoth posted:If you ripped it away from Bellum Maga, you could probably work with the basic idea. So keep the feminine planet spirit, that women can work magic because they bring life into the world and links them to said spirit, and that being a man doesn't inherently make you evil. Spin it so the invading god found out that because men lack the link to Earth's deity, they have innate resistance to magic. Set up bad men as being the first agents of the Serpent, which makes the witches think the whole thing is a masculine plot as all they see is male servants. Throw in some detail that the snake worked out that the more 'Masculine'/macho a man is, the more resistant to magic the man is at the cost of the Serpent being unable to interact with them. Cue the building of cultural drives for men to be macho to take off and become out of hand. Now you have a Patriarchy that can be view as both bad and tragic, and the Serpent as being an evil gently caress. Make the heroic, modern maga those of a younger generation who are open minded, accept people for what they are and help people deal with how lovely life is. Because that's still bad and not at all what feminism is supposed to be about. Gender roles are enforced and literally empowering. The only true deity is still a feminine one. A world in which one gender is superior is still the "correct" endstate (the only issue is that right now it's not women and that should be fixed). The only thing you've done is make the men more relateable and tragic in a game where arguably the men who first rebelled already had a loving point. A true feminist game should be about breaking down gender roles while encouraging equality, and it should spend as much time deconstructing Martha Stewart and The View as it does PMCs and Westboro. And it should definitely definitely not take away positive social change from the hands of the historical men who implemented it just because it would be more empowering if a white woman did it.
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Apr 7, 2016 19:28
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Yeah, I don't think there's a point in trying to "fix" Bellum Maga, if you want to do a feminist-themed game, you'd be much better doing your own research and starting all over from first principles. It's a rotten foundation, don't try and build on it.
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Apr 7, 2016 19:32
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I think Bellum Maga fell into the old World of Darkness "Wouldn't it be neat and clever if every major event in human history was actually just vampires?" trap. I mean, aside from falling in to, like, a dozen other traps.
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Apr 7, 2016 19:35
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