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Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003

La morte non ha sesso

Alien Rope Burn posted:

I hate for my first comment on this to be superficial, but wow, that piece of art
Vince Russo?!

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wdarkk
Oct 26, 2007

Friends: Protected
World: Saved
Crablettes: Eaten

Alien Rope Burn posted:

I hate for my first comment on this to be superficial, but wow, that piece of art

Big Head Mode enabled.

Quinn2win
Nov 9, 2011

Foolish child of man...
After reading all this,
do you still not understand?
Well I mean, he is supposed to be a dwarf, it's not just weird perspective.

That being said, yeah, wow that art.

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

Alien Rope Burn posted:

I hate for my first comment on this to be superficial, but wow, that piece of art

The art for this section looks like it's a weird thing where it feels like they're photoreferencing the face and then drawing more roughly around it, it's a little odd. I don' t know if that's the case but it looks like something is accidentally or deliberately amiss about it.

I'm glad someone finally brought this up.

I can see why the need photorealistic artwork for a kinda-realistic setting, but the art's like this odd mishmash of photos, some from copyrighted and/or well-known sources, that have been gone over with the Blur tool. I remember seeing one character that was literally a stock photo of Hilary Clinton from a few years back that had been smudged all to hell and another was James MacAvoy from X-Men: First Class overpainted and put through a filter]. I think I also saw Idris Elba in the before-last character post, also with retouchment. This looks like someone stuck Jacquin Phoenix's beardo phase head on another body. I know this has been going on for recent years, since a lot of concept artists will use photo reference or directly paint over a photo or manipulated it for a quick turnaround time, but that stuff isn't for public release. Anything that gets published really needs to use royalty-free stock images, creative-commons-licensed, or original photos.

I'm reminded recently of the whole Ryan Archer fiasco over in the Star Citizen thread, where the artist for a related project used a still of Jessica Biel from Stealth and Star Wars fanart from another artist in order to sell the game he did artwork for. Turns out that wasn't the only thing he did where he either used unattributed photos and/or stuff that has a copyright.

Count Chocula
Dec 25, 2011

WE HAVE TO CONTROL OUR ENVIRONMENT
IF YOU SEE ME POSTING OUTSIDE OF THE AUSPOL THREAD PLEASE TELL ME THAT I'M MISSED AND TO START POSTING AGAIN
There should be tons of good public domain Dracula art to use, too.

Hostile V
May 31, 2013

Solving all of life's problems through enhanced casting of Occam's Razor. Reward yourself with an imaginary chalice.



SOPHONTS OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM

A sophont is defined as a species of intelligent creature with sapience equal to or greater than mankind's. The game admits that some of the races might present a challenge to roleplay (namely Europans) but the challenge might be part of the fun. They expect most of your party to be human because most people who play this game will be comfortable as playing a human, but don't limit yourself creatively; play an alien race because you think it'll be fun.


EARTHLINGS


Yeah, it's our Solar System now, no matter what anyone else says.

Earth of the 1930s has a lot of similarities to our current day but it's still got its own issues. The cultural/technological gap between nations is massive with some humans packing RAY guns and jetpacks and others still living day-by-day with spears and nets. The big thing that separates us from the aliens (besides living on a Goldilocks planet) is that we persevere and we're a bunch of lucky knuckleheads. Only the Warrior Castes of Mars like crazy lost causes like we do but no other race would jump into the unknown unprepared like we do.

Humans can have up to a 6 in Awareness, Coordination, Ingenuity, Presence, Resolve and Strength. Psychic powers are rare for us, we generally require a focus on them or training. Humans also get the Trait Friends (Minor Good) for free. A human character costs 1 point to play.


EUROPANS


I am on a peaceful mission to study the lives of the Deutsche Marskorps. Please know that I kill you only to further that understanding.

What mankind has learned about Europans has only been revealed by what we can see and what we've been told. They have small ears, small noses, small mouths and big eyes. Each hand (on a long arm) has seven fingers flanked by an opposable thumb and each digit has five knuckles. They're hairless, three meters tall and come between blue-grey or light purple in skin tone with red or yellow eyes. Europans have genitals and they possibly have five genders: male, female, neuter and two unknown. What's really odd to humans about Europans is that they've never spoken Europan, they've always spoken perfect English/Spanish/etc and they've never been seen using their arms to lift. The majority of Europans are met under two conditions. First, there's the Europan Emissary, a wandering scholar who observes the races of the solar system to take notes and study. Second, there's the regular type of Europan one would meet around Jupiter. The second example will not tell you about their planet and their people while the first example actually can't. Emissaries can't seem to remember a single thing about Europa but they also tend to be more open-minded and willing to listen to other ideas.

Europans get +1 Awareness (max 7), +1 Coordination +1 (max 7), Ingenuity +1 (max 7), Presence max 6, Resolve max 6 and Strength max 5. For Traits, Europans get Alien Appearance (Minor Species Bad), Distinctive (Minor Bad), Hypnosis (Minor Good), Immortal (Major Species Good), Immunity: Disease (Major Species Good), Immunity: Poison, Psychic Training (Minor Good), Weakness: Lead (Major Species Bad). Because the majority of Europans are psychic and get training, they can take further psychic skills. Europans cost 10 points.


GANYMEDIANS


The forest may be our home, but we must venture to the sky beyond, and beyond that, to gain the power to defend it.

Ganymede itself is basically one big organism and the Ganymedians reflect that: they're mobile plant and fungal colonies that are like cells of the planet. They're bipedal with skin made of bark and wood pulp, three-toed and have rotating fan ears and antennae that act as scent organs. Ganymedians can see in the dark well and they have no hair, only leaves. Ganymedian skin has red-brown bark skin, dark black/brown patches of rough and hard bark and hair-leaves. The black patches of bark are actually a fungus that's a wound coagulant/stauncher, quickly growing over a wound and making it tougher until it fades away into regular bark. They even eat through photosynthesis.

What's truly interesting is that the only absolutely vital parts of the Ganymedian anatomy are the nervous, reproductive and circulatory system. Everything else (organs, skin) are plant/fungus symbiotes with universal compatibility. Ganymedian medicine boils down to harvesting the proper seed/pod for a replacement and putting it in their body until it grows or taking what's needed from another Ganymedian. The scavenging of replacement parts from injured Ganymedians was unfortunately misinterpreted in two ways. First, humans on Ganymede saw them doing this after battle and think the Ganymedians are cannibalistic savages when it's no more cruel than switching pieces on a Lego figure. Second, Ganymedians attempted to heal injured humans by stuffing pieces from other humans into them before realizing their mistakes (and this was also seen by humans as more proof of their savagery).

Ganymedian society focuses on the Sacred Grove, the tribe and the band. The Sacred Grove is the tree that they were born from, kept in a protected area with permanent houses, gardens and other luxuries like running water. The Grove is protected by the elderly before they're buried in the tree's roots for nutrients. A tribe is simply every child of a single tree and bands are collections of six or more Ganymedians born during the same season. Bands live and hunt together and only disassemble when there are less than six, the rest joining new bands. Bands keep things running smoothly on Ganymede; they make tools, prepare food (never cook, they fear fire despite having no natural weaknesses), make sure that the different creatures of nature do what they should. The most important part of Ganymedian society is the yearly flowering when flowers painfully push through a Ganymedian's bark over the span of 2-3 weeks and they're overcome with irritability, wanderlust and hunger. When the flowers are in full bloom and they're at the Grove, their flowers will spread pollen to the trees in a mass seeding so the Grove will drop seeds into the soil to grow new Ganymedians.

Ganymedians get +1 Awareness/Resolve (max 7), Coordination max 5 and all other stats at max 6. For Traits they get Alien Appearance (Major Species Bad), Alien Organs (Minor and Special Species Good), Alien Senses: Ultraviolet (Minor Species Good), Armor (Minor Species Special Good), The Flowering (Minor Species Bad), Photosynthetic (Minor Species Good), Keen Senses: Vision (Minor Species Good), Impaired Senses: Touch (Minor Species Bad). Ganymedians have not exhibited psychic powers to date. They cost 4 points to play.


IOITES


Are you going to just throw that away? Sure, I'll eat it, I don't care how long it's been left out in the sun, or what this "road kill" is that you speak of.

Ioites are quite striking in their appearance. They lope on their crouched legs and knuckles; their skin is grey with their skin conditions ranging the primary colors with the occasional patch of hair, lesions or bumps. Because their mouths have snouts, it’s their eyes that hold their expressions of emotions. Ioites are constantly “crying” (or constantly leaking liquids) from the corners of their eyes and each emotion is clearly defined in the ways their eyes widen, shrink, squint or shift. The most common emotions expressed are anger, fear, greed, lust or surrender.

They’re still sufficiently intelligent. Ioites use tools, they think, their language is a working hodgepodge of grunts, gestures and words. They are capable of compassion and emotion, especially towards members of their tribes. There’s no grand unifying society on Io; there’s only tribes of survivors living among claimed areas of the ruins.

Ioities get +1 Awareness (max 7), Coordination max 6, Ingenuity max 5, Presence max 5, +1 Resolve (max 7) and Strength max 6. They start with the Traits Alien Appearance (Minor Species Bad), Fast (Minor Species Good), Immunity: Poison (Major Species Good), Keen Senses: Smell (Minor Good), Night Vision (Minor Species Good), Quick Reflexes (Minor Good), Tough (Minor Good), Unattractive (Minor Bad). Ioites can be psychic and it’s more common than most species, but they lack the proper training. It costs 6 points to play an Ioite.


MARTIANS


Since my freedom I have gone from turning a crank on an Ancient machine to building a new device to turn the crank for me.

Craftsmen: Imagine if the robot arms on a car’s assembly line were a race of people. Those are the Craftsmen of Mars. There is a dangerous ignorance on Mars for how things are made and actually work, for even though every step needs a Craftsman along the way they will only know their part. A Craftsman who lays brick for walls has no idea how to mix mortar, a Craftsman who mixes mortar has no idea how to bake the bricks, the Craftsman who bakes the bricks has no idea how to lay the bricks and so on. The entire Craftsman caste is made of subcastes on subcastes on subcastes, starting with a big industry (like masonry) and slowly breaking it down further and further (mix mortar, lay brick, bake bricks, etc). This is entirely by design of the Ancients and the Royals so that everyone in the Craftsman caste has something to do. You can’t marry outside of your subcaste; the best you can do is try and get transferred to a new principality. This is what it’s like for one of the biggest Castes on Mars, day in and day out. No innovation, no new creations, you do what you were born to do. Using tools not meant for you is punishable by death and innovation is heresy against the infallible designs of the Ancients.

Craftsmen are the closest to human of the Martians. They average around 6 feet, their build depends on their industry and have coppery-red skin with brown/black eyes with a slit and black hair that seems to only be on their head. Craftsmen wear tunics dyed in dark colors that have their family history and subcaste tailored on the hem in designs. They also like to fashion little articles of jewelry/adornments that indicate their specialty of work. Craftsmen are generally psyched as all hell for humanity because we’re more than willing to allow them to explore beyond their craft, especially if we can make money off of it.

Craftsmen get +1 Awareness/Coordination/Ingenuity (max 7) and Presence/Resolve/Strength max 5. They get the Traits Keen Senses: Vision (Minor Good), Technically Adept (Minor Good), By the Book (Minor Bad), Obsession: Choose (Major Bad) and Unadventurous (Minor Bad) but they can replace By the Book or Unadventurous with Outcast (Minor Bad) and/or Phobia (Minor Bad). Craftsmen are rarely psychic. They cost 3 points to play and as a side note, their Obsession should be Minor, not Major for reasons that will be explained later.


Feral: There are four broad subspecies of Chanari Martians. The Silt Sailors are the biggest tribe, sailing the Silt Seas and carrying passengers and goods. They’re considered to be the most approachable tribe. The Desert Dwellers are the ones crazy enough to live in the deserts and they enjoy raiding. The Desert Dwellers are what Martians and humans think of when they hear “Chanari”. Scavengers live in the ruins and pick through rubble of old principalities for things to sell, living somewhat comfy lives in the shadows of ruins. Finally, the Caravan Chanari dislike the Desert Dwellers and roam the roads helping Merchants.

The Silt Sailors are like Craftsmen but with long braided hair and a slightly shorter stature but with deep brown-red skin. Desert Dwellers are tall and lithe with the same type of skin, naturally hairless except for thick eyebrows and eyelashes. Desert Dwellers have a nictating third eyelid, broad and deep noses with big nostrils full of hair as natural sand filters. Scavengers are smaller with vertical slit pupils, weak/no chins, thick brows, big noses, short bodies, long arms and much more hair than is normal on a Martian (but that’s not really saying much). Caravaners? Well they’re kind of descended from Merchants, so…kinda like more swarthy Merchants.

Feral Martians get +1 Awareness/Resolve (max 7) and all other stats have max 6. They get the Traits Adversary: Rival Tribe (Major Bad), Friends: Tribesmates (Major Good), Keen Sense: Sight (Minor Good), Tough (Minor Good) and Unattractive (Minor Bad). Feral Martians can be psychic but it’s considered unlikely (as an interesting side note, a future book mentions that Chanari tribes have no problems with psychic power or homosexuality, considering the latter to be a sign of the former even if they’re not). It costs 3 points to play a Feral Martian.

Tribute or blood, nobody passes our land for free.

Merchant: Answering the question of “what do the Merchants look like then?” is the fact that they have the same slender build as the Royals but with hair and more humanoid facial features. Merchants keep Mars running, going between principalities as needed to broker trade deals, get cargo moved and operate the thriving Martian black market. There’s not much too them, really; on a psychological level, they absolutely love what they do and the art of mercantilism.

Merchants get +1 to Awareness and Presence (max 7) but a max 4 in Strength (all others are 6 for stats). They get the Traits Brave (Minor Good), Friends (Minor Good), Indomitable (Major Good), Owed Favor (Minor Good), Obligation: Masters (Major Bad). Obligation can be traded for two of the following: Eccentric (Minor Bad), Impulsive (Minor Bad), Phobia (Minor Bad), Outcast (Minor Bad). If a Merchant is psychic, they need the Dark Secret negative trait; they might pick up the training for it but the Merchant caste isn’t trusted particularly well and the psychic powers are definitely a deal breaker. Merchants cost 5 points to play as them.

Here's the deal, five bahmoots, fifteen screaming Maduri mercenaries for a week, and fifteen fistfuls of gold.

Priest: Priests can marry between castes and climb the ladders of the subcastes. All Priests uphold the general principles of the worship of the Ancestors, which is like Buddhism/Hinduism mixed with Andrew Ryan’s Great Chain. The Ancients are at the top of the Ladder of Being with all life going down the ladder: Ancients, Royals, Priests, Warriors, Craftsmen, Slaves, Chanari, domestic animals and wild animals. Live a virtuous life according to the ideals of the Ancestors and when you die you’ll be bumped up the ladder. Everything besides that is open to interpretation and all that jazz, with some Priests being involved in somewhat heretical sects and some Priests living in a temple dedicated to the cleaning of Ancient Machinery for ascension.

The three most popular sects are the Orthodox Fellowship of the Transcendent Light, Order of the Sacred Hamaxe and Society of Eternal Bliss. The Orthodox Fellowship are your standard conservative Martian religious order: the Royals love them for maintaining the status quo, they do a lot of rituals on a daily basis and organize festivals, the High Hierophant is basically the Martian Pope, the temples run banks, political advancement is really only for men, you have to ascend the Ladder one rung at a time and anyone not from Mars is less than a wild animal in their eyes for religion as a being that did something really bad to be born not on Mars. The Order is a newer group that revolves around warbands of Priests who follow Warriors to protect Mars from wild animals, Ferals and “demons”. They do exorcisms, they fight wars and battles and they tend to treat everyone in their group as an equal (their warbands also include slaves, craftsmen, etc.). The Society boils down to “if you do really well in life, you might be able to jump a few rungs” which the Orthodox doesn’t like at all. There are rumors that the Society supports the Communist uprisings in some of the principalities but as a whole it preaches for general equality among the castes and among Martians who want to follow the teachings of the Ancients.

Priests get +1 to Presence/Resolve (max 7) and all other stats get max 6. For Traits they get Code of Conduct (Minor Bad), Psychic Training (Minor Good) and Voice of Authority (Minor Good). It’s common for Priests to be psychic. They cost 3 points to play.

The Ancients command that we resist the coming of these Aliens, as they resisted all those who would come and defame their glory.


My word is nothing less than a command.

Royal: Even though a single Prince/Princess rules a principality, even though the Merchants keep the food moving, the Warriors protect them, the Slaves keep everything running and the Craftsmen make everything, pretty much every Royal has something to do. The Royal caste is heavily stratified with subcastes and if you want to be a Prince, you should’ve been born in the Prince caste. The best you can do in Martian society as a Royal is to be at the top of your subcaste if you’re not a Prince. An officer of the Military Caste can never be a Police captain, but the bureaucrat who checks passports might very one day be in charge of the Security Caste if they’re clever enough. The Prince rules but every Royal actually plays a part in keeping things running.

Royal Martians are two meters high with slight builds (the thinner you are, the better your breeding is presumed to be unless you might actually have to be on the field). Their skin is deep ochre to a light copper. Their eyes are slitted with purple/maroon irises and no hair grows on their body except for the head. Because it’s considered the ideal of Martian beauty to be bald, most of them are (if it grows it’s straight hair and blue-black). They love their clothing to an extreme, with only the Royal caste being allowed to wear white clothing. Most Royals wear bright, loose, airy clothing with it being common to have Slaves dedicated to keeping your outfit together.

Royals get Presence +2 (max 8) and Resolve +1 (max 7) but Strength/Ingenuity max 5 (with the rest at 6). Their Traits are Attractive (Minor Good), Friends (Minor Good), Psychic Training (Minor Good) and Voice of Authority (Minor Good). Psychic powers are common in Royalty and cultivated if they appear. Royals cost 6 points to play.


Slaves: Slaves are also stratified by sub-caste and purpose but are generally divided between Labor or Service. Labor Slaves carry things and perform dangerous tasks while Service Slaves are often used in higher society, sometimes as sweepers or watchmen or armor cleaning or more. Service Slaves are more purpose bred than Labor and tend not to do more than one specific job. Labor Slaves are big; large frames with muscles and height, hardy strength and endurance at the cost of intelligence and free will. Their skin is a dark red, their eyes shiny and devoid of spark, their faces brutal with heavy brows, thick jaws and long black hair. Service Slaves are generally copper-toned, little hair, black/brown eyes that may or may not reflect intelligence and a regular humanoid build. Courtesans are a different matter with being designed to appeal to the ideal of Martian beauty. Courtesans have long limbs, slender bodies with creamy copper skin, little to no hair and two striking features: natural pheromones and bright green/violet eyes.

Laborers get Strength +2 (max 8) but get Coordination max 5 and all other stats at max 4. Their Traits are Tough (Minor Good), Enslaved (Major Species Bad), Technically Inept (Minor Bad) and Unattractive (Minor Bad). Enslaved can be exchanged for two of the following: Forgetful (Minor Bad), Impulsive (Minor Bad), Insatiable Curiosity (Minor Bad) or Outcast (Minor Bad). Laborers are incapable of being psychic. Playing as a Laborer actually gives you 3 points, their cost at -3.

Courtesans get +1 Awareness/Coordination/Presence (max 7), Ingenuity max 6 and Resolve/Strength max 4. Their Traits are Attractive (Minor Good), Charming (Minor Good), Distinctive (Minor Bad), Empathic (Minor Good), Enslaved (Major Species Bad) and Technically Inept (Minor Bad). Enslaved can be exchanged for two of the following: Adversary (Minor Bad), Cowardly (Minor Bad), Insatiable Curiosity (Minor Bad), Obsession (Minor Bad) or Outcast (Minor Bad). Courtesans can be psychic but require the Dark Secret negative trait. They cost 0 points to play.

Laborer: I be free now, you want cargo move, you pay one dollar./Courtesan: Hello, is there something I can...do for you?


We fight because we are Maduri, we win because we are Maduri, we die because we are Maduri, there is nothing more to say.

Warrior: The Warriors of Mars stand around two meters tall with coppery red skin, red/blue/purple eyes, wiry black hair and two to four “tusks” that jut from their faces. A Warrior’s legion is their family and you’re born into a specific roll, drilled into it and made the master of it. Legions are broken into two cohorts and each cohort is broken into squads of 8-20 Warriors. You’re related to every last person in your legion. Men are trained for aggressive combat that focuses on raids and going to the enemy, women are trained in defense and managing support groups. This isn’t mentioned in this book, but the sexual dimorphism between men and women Warriors is quite large. The men are humanoid and average-sized while the women are bigger, tougher and stronger for playing defense. A legion either serves the state or a religious sect and their strategies and armaments depend on what role they play on Mars.



Warriors get +2 Resolve (max 8) and +1 Coordination/Strength (max 7) with all others at max 6. Their Traits are Alien Appearance (Minor Species Bad), Brave (Minor Good), By the Book (Minor Bad), Code of Conduct: Maduri Code (Major Bad), Fast Healing (Major Species Good), Fighting Man (Minor Good), Night Vision (Minor Species Good), Obligation: Master (Major Bad), Obsession: Order (Minor Bad) and Quick Reflexes (Minor Good). They can exchange Obligation: Master for two of the following: Adversary (Minor Bad), Argumentative (Minor Bad), Outcast (Minor Bad), Obsession: Order (Major Bad) or Unlucky (Minor Bad). Warriors can’t be psychic. They cost 5 points to play.


VENUSIAN


I came here to learn, to explore, not to kill, but if I must, I will.

Venusians are Erisians who survived the destruction of Eris to live on Venus instead. They’re two and a half meters tall and often walk like gorillas, their pelts coming in a wide range of color from white to dark grey. They also have thicker skin on their chests that coordinates with their pelts (pink for light hair, grey for dark). How do you tell a Venusian male apart from a female? The males have thicker chest plates that only get thicker with age and a male Venusian older than 30/40 will have their pelts start to turn silver like a silverback. They have six fingers plus a thumb on each hand tipped with claws, excellent night vision (with the general flaw of farsightedness not being uncommon) and heightened smell.

Venusian culture is tribal in nature with Concordats breaking down into tribes that live communally. Concordats are located around one place where the tribes can convene, a fortress full of food and seats for debates and politics. These places are old structures built by ancient Venusians. Venusians take very well to Communism, true Communism; all children are raised by everyone in the tribe, items are shared freely. They speak a complex language of vocalizations but don’t have a written language outside of carved pictographs/hieroglyphs and their word for “tool” is the same word as “weapon”. Venusian culture is incredibly social; peer pressure, condemnation and disapproval are strong enough that if enough in a tribe feel one way, the person they feel about is no longer part of the tribe. An isolated Venusian can die from loneliness and exile is considered one of the worst punishments to the person being ostracized tends to do their best to change and conform. Aside from this, there are no inherited positions of power in a tribe or Concordat; all power must be earned and it’s earned through respect and merit. A good Venusian will live their life according to the philosophy of the Thirty-Three Truths and with more respect the more your voice is heard, the more mates you get and the more power you get.



Public debate and philosophy is one of the key cornerstones of Venusian society and psychology. Venusians absolutely love to talk all the time about everything. Public speeches are often interrupted or heckled or challenged and it’s a sign of respect if a crowd of watchers is quiet enough to not question the merits of their speech or presentation. They love storytelling, they love gossip, they love taking a contrary opinion or talking about something controversial to get a topic rolling. This is why Speaker is one of the highest positions of authority a Venusian can aspire to. Even in the company of non-Venusians or other sapient creatures, a Venusian will still do their best to talk for the sake of talking to get more insight into the people they’re traveling with.



Sometimes there will be a matter all tribes of a Concordat must weigh in on. In that case, they’re all summoned to their sacred temple for the Speakers of each tribe to debate without interruption like lawyers presenting sides of a case. When the High Speaker feels enough debate has passed, they call a vote. Every fortress has a collection of colored stones that Venusians use to cast votes with each color counting as a different choice. Every man, woman and child gets a vote, picking a stone and placing it in the coffer with the Speakers casting two (one for themselves, one for the god they represent). Any public decisions made by concordat vote must be followed by all tribes at the cost of banishment.

Venusians get +2 Strength (max 8), +1 Awareness/Coordination (max 7) and all other stats at max 6. They get the Traits Alien Appearance (Major Bad), Climbing (Major Good), Empathic (Minor Good), Impulsive (Minor Bad), Keen Senses (Major Good), Natural Weapons (Minor Good), Psychic Training (Minor Good), Swinger (Minor Good) and Tough (Minor Good). Venusians can be psychic, especially their priests, and the presence of the psychic training trait means they have an in to start with psychic powers without having to buy training. Venusians cost 10 points to play.


NEXT TIME, let's build some dang characters! I have an example from a friend of mine, but I'm looking for one or two suggestions for a character idea.

MJ12
Apr 8, 2009

It just said that Venusians are kings of trolling. I think we want to make Venusian Troll Extraordinaire. He uses his trolling powers for good (okay, for lesser-evil) and with his friends he fights crime and Nazis.

oriongates
Mar 14, 2013

Validate Me!




Psionic Artifacts of Athas part 5:
Life Shaped Items


So, as I mentioned we are at the end of the traditional artifacts in the book already (including the mere 2 actual psionic artifacts). Next we've got 15 solid pages of random artifact power charts. Because 2nd edition.

I won't bother you with the details on the tables, suffice it to say that its mostly dull lists of spell-like abilities usable X times/Y.

After that we reach Chapter 2: Life Shaped Items. That's Items, not artifacts. These are just standard, halfling-made life-shaped creatures (although mixed in are several of the items that were previously referred to as rhulhisti artifacts: life-shaped objects that can't be recreated).

The chapter starts with a bit of a dumbed down introduction to the history of life-shaping similar to the contents of the Windriders of the Jagged Cliffs book.

Really, this whole section comes off as something like errata for the rules from Windriders of the Jagged Cliffs as it doesn't mention several very unpleasant rules that came up in Windriders. For instance, life-shaped weapons and armor apparently don't suffer damage from use. Most life-shaped items now have a "dormant" stage where they can last for centuries without feeding or care. There's one big problem: at no point are these differences actually addressed. They seem unwilling to come right out and say "hey, the life-shaped items we originally made were way more trouble than they were worth, here are better rules for making them more playable." Instead they vaguely say:



The goal seems to be to create the opportunity for life-shaped items or creatures to appear as loot. On the one hand re-enacting scenes from Alien with weird, horrifying life-shaped creatures isn't a bad goal...on the other hand the idea of life-shaped "loot" is kind of laughable considering the care and feeding that they still require (including cahm-rahn for most of them). Even more laughable is the claim that life-shaped creatures have "evolved" in the wild since the Wind-riders of the Jagged Cliffs books makes it very clear that the life-shaped are completely incapable of living independent lives for a full generation, let alone actually evolving on their own. Of course, this problem could be easily solved by saying that the original life-shaped creations were capable of breeding, feeding themselves, etc and that the life-shaped of the Jagged Cliffs are inferior versions that depend on purified nutrient solution and oxygenated fluid baths because the Jagged Cliffs halflings are lovely life-shapers (or have intentionally sabotaged the process to keep the life-shaper's monopoly). But the book doesn't seem willing to address that.

There's a few pages on how you can try and incorporate the life-shaped into regular Dark Sun adventures in the Tyr Region and then we get into a big list of life-shaped items. Many of them are duplicates of items from the Jagged Cliffs book but with odd differences. For instance, arm-blades do 1d6 damage instead of 1d8 (making them just short swords that are tough to put down) and has only 1 HD. In fact almost everything has 1 HD or less. Presumably they didn't feel the need to make them so tough since they won't be taking damage with every blow anymore. Of course, the "AoE vs Lifeshaped" rule has not been mentioned at all...so presumably a single area-of-effect spell is death for all lifeshaped now rather than simply most.

I won't re-post every single life-shaped object, but here are some of the more interesting ones that aren't simply re-prints.



This is a parasitic life-shaped item...essentially the life-shaped equivalent of a "cursed" item. Note that although it says that the host has two rounds to try and pull it off before it burrows into his flesh...but it doesn't provide any suggestions on how that should be handled mechanically. I guess just stabbing it could work.



While most of the re-printed life-shaped items are fairly similar with a few numbers changed the Climbing Boots are very different. These boots are actual grafts that clamp onto your feet and never let go. They can only be cut off and no rules are provided for what happens if the boots die of old age, disease or some other circumstances. The upside is that they provide a much bigger climbing bonus (+25% vs +5%) and let you do things like hang upside down by your feet.



This is probably one of the worst life-shaped things ever without being an actual parasite. It takes 6 clothworms an hour of crawling over your entire body to produce a suit that (being woven directly on top of your flesh) is basically skintight and which is woven to match your current mood (generally a bad thing...why would you want clothing that tells everyone around you how you're feeling?) and decays off of your body within 24 hours. I'm not even sure how you'd be able to easily remove the clothing from your body...do you just let it rot until you're naked?



Darkboots are another parasitic life-shaped. What's ridiculous about them is after biting down on your foot they apparently attempt to flee. How?

The Earial just sounds painful. And apparently wearing one costs a point of charisma...keep in mind that having a sword attached to your fore-arm, weaving grubs crawling all over you or a tail doesn't hurt your charisma...but people just can't stand weird-looking ears.



That guy seems oddly chill about it.



This is one of those cases where the writers seem to forget that life-shaping isn't actually supposed to be magical. Lifeshaping specifically predates magic and psionics...so how the hell do Farspeakers talk mind-to-mind? And why are they immune to psionic mind-reading?



The first of several stat-boosting life-shaped items. The Flexars are also another one of those "can never be removed" grafts. So get used to your seashell knuckles.



The healing pod is basically a life-shaped Bacta Tank...except you'll probably die if you have to get out early.



Another stat-booster. This time for intelligence. Honestly I can't really imagine what Ingenies look like when grafted in place...I guess like soft, weird horns sticking out of your hair?

Oh, and for even more fun, if any of your ingenies die you go insane and die within 24 hours! Considering that they have only 1/2 a HD that means that if you get caught in an AOE (or if your opponent just decides to aim for the the obvious meat-horns on your head) you die. Oh, and life-shaped tissues have a .1% chance per week of catching a fatal disease and even in the best circumstances they live only 1-2 years. Hope the +1 intelligence was worth it.



Wrist vaginas are all the rage in rhul-thaun fashion these days.

The klacker is another weird, pseudo-magic bit of life-shaping. At least presumably other-planar beings were around back in the Blue Age...presumably at least. The details of things like elemental magic in the Blue Age are quite vague.



The most hated life-shaped items by fans of 4th edition.

The Pathfinder is one of those life-shaped items that's theoretically useful but there's tons of much more practical ways to do things (say by drawing or carving markers). For instance, the fact that the pathfinder can only follow its scent trail on the ground means that if you have to pick it up and carry it then it'll lose that trail and become useless. And considering that you have to allow it to walk along all the way through whatever maze or trail you're trying to mark and all the way back...no mention is given as to how fast the Pathfinder can travel. Considering its basically a foot-long caterpillar I can't imagine its very quick. (EDIT: Alternatively I could actually read the entry more carefully before I post and realize that I don't always know what I'm talking about. I still submit it's impractical though and that the summoner is totally broken).

Anyway, that'll be all for now. I'll finish the rest of the life-shaped later.

oriongates fucked around with this message at 05:22 on Apr 21, 2016

Prism
Dec 22, 2007

yospos

oriongates posted:


The Pathfinder is one of those life-shaped items that's theoretically useful but there's tons of much more practical ways to do things (say by drawing or carving markers). For instance, the fact that the pathfinder can only follow its scent trail on the ground means that if you have to pick it up and carry it then it'll lose that trail and become useless. And considering that you have to allow it to walk along all the way through whatever maze or trail you're trying to mark and all the way back...no mention is given as to how fast the Pathfinder can travel. Considering its basically a foot-long caterpillar I can't imagine its very quick.

Anyway, that'll be all for now. I'll finish the rest of the life-shaped later.

Sure it does. A movement rate of 6 is half as fast as a human, which was 12.

Most of these life-shaped things seem like they would be cool but just... aren't, mechanically. That makes me sad. I want freaky parasite things to be cool!

oriongates
Mar 14, 2013

Validate Me!


:doh:

I need to read the things I rant about more carefully.

Monathin
Sep 1, 2011

?????????
?



Ah, Exalted. Love it or hate it, most everyone in the hobby has heard of it, including this thread. Polarizing, fetishizing, absolutely loving disgusting in the case of the oft-intentionally-forgotten-about Infernals book, it’s universally agreed on by lovers and haters of the system alike that the system it works on is abso-loving-lutely busted in all the worst ways. Combat is a slog, social influence is basically trying to brainwash each other, and all in all, everyone agreed that it was just a loving mess. It’s a game that, honestly, if it had better mechanics, a more tightly controlled setting, and some setting bits that didn't make you want to barf into a paper bag, it'd be a much better game.

Enter Onyx Path. In May of 2013, a Kickstarter went up to help them revitalize the gameline and start anew. Nearly 700k was raised for the 3rd Edition, which, in my opinion, is pretty drat good for a tabletop book! Three years later I join this thread, holding on my hard drive the PoD version of the PDF that you can buy as of today. I’ve been playing with a group of friends since we got access to the backer first-run PDF, and while we’re not masters of this system by any means, I’ve found it fast-paced, energetic, and downright fun. It’s a version that, instead of trying to deny its heritage with anime, manga, and wuxia films of excessive over-the-top action, embraces it wholeheartedly. It’s an edition that tries to shake off its sordid past (for the most part, there are still -some- parts that make you shake your head) and give you a mechanically sound, over-the-top game in a dangerous, ancient realm.

Does it succeed? I think so, personally. Some people might disagree! But the only way to get the answer is by digging deep into this game’s guts (And there’s a lot of them, Exalted 3e is a mechanically intensive game, though it never -feels- like it in practice.) and hold them out under the microscope. To that end, I’m dedicated to trying to examine every inch of this book, front to back. It might take a year. It might take two. But I want to dig deep into the system and show off the things I like about it, and hopefully you come away liking it too. If not? Then at least we can have a civil discussion about what it gets right and wrong.



Ladies and Gentlemen, Let’s Review Exalted: Third Edition.

Part The Zeroth: Introduction

White Wolf, White Wolf never changes. Before we're thrown into the system - before we even hit the table of contents, we're treated to ten pages story set in the city of Wu Jian that's meant to hype us up for the rest of the book. I'm going to skip this, largely because it doesn't cover anything we aren't already going to cover in this introductory update, partially because I’ve never liked White Wolf/Onyx Path’s method of putting a story before you even get to the mechanics. Every time I read a story like that, I feel like the book is trying to sell me on its system when I already have the book in my hands, and that frustrates me. I think the only one I've ever read through all the way and enjoyed was the lead-in to Midnight Roads. So I’ll make note when there’s a bunch of fiction, though thankfully the beginning is the largest chunk of it.

Then, we get to the Table of Contents. And while it’s not anything that would be immediately obvious to someone that hadn’t dealt with the unindexed/first run PDF, the Table of Contents is wondrously thorough. Compare this:


Blech.

To this:


Much better, I can actually find things now!

Some complaints and arguments can be said for the organization, as it can be in almost all Exalted books - some people like Character Creation right at the front, one of the first things you get to, some people like the fact that the setting comes first, given Exalted is a setting-heavy game. Personally, myself, I would have probably at least put a section on the core mechanics in front of Character Creation so you know what some of these systems and phrases mean before you put your character together, instead of having to go through 60 more pages to find them. There’s also still a few omissions - exact details on the Solars the book is meant to help you create are spread out between Chapter One (a brief overview), Chapter Three (mechanics-wise) and Chapter Four (In-detail summaries in that gap between 134 and 148, special Anima Banner effects under 174). It’s not god-awful, but it’s a drat sight better than the first-run PDF. I’m going to be compiling from some of the other chapters as-needed, noting where it’s particularly egregious (like the first example), because I want this guide/review to be as comprehensive as possible.


This book’s art is pretty drat good, for the most part.

After the table of contents, we’re treated to the usual legal acknowledgements, a short one-page story (much more digestible! More of these!), and then we dive right into the setup. It’s been summarized before, but for the thread, I’ll give an overview: In the beginning, there was chaos, the world of Creation shaped from it. The Primordials (though they aren’t specifically outlined, they’re clearly there) ruled over the world and the Gods of that world. Unable to turn on the Primordials that chained them, the Gods created from Mortals the Exalted, champions and paragons of these gods, unbound by the Gods’ restrictions, they rallied against the Prometheans and cast them down, freeing the Gods and ushering in the First Age - an age of glory and wonder lead and championed by the Solar Exalted - the most talented Exalted, brought forth by the strongest of Gods, the Unconquered Sun. For five thousand years, the Solars ruled Creation, working hard as the rulers of the domain.

Of course, the Primordials are the ones who get the last laugh, cursing the Exalted with their last breath to deal with madness, wickedness, and spite. They grew greedy, sinful, and turned on each other in a civil war for power, followers, and respect. Mad with power and unwilling to listen to reason, the Dragon-Blooded Terrestrial Exalted, with the aid of the fate-weaving Sidereals, overthrew the Solars and their partners - the Lunar Exalted. So began the Usurpation. Most all the Solars were slaughtered to the last, their souls trapped in a prison of jade - as the Lunars fled for parts unknown. In the wake of this, much of the First Age came to ruin - Creation buckled under its own weight, kept stitched together just barely by the Dragon-blooded - who set up their own Shogunate, and the Sidereals - who established the Immaculate Philosophy to justify the hunting of the Solars, and the Wyld Hunt to carry out finding the remaining escaped Solar and Lunar Exalted. Having done this, they erased themselves from history, manipulating the stars and the fates so that most everyone would forget that they existed.

Reality wasn’t done loving with Creation yet, as this Second Age begins with the Great Conntagion - a plague that kills 9/10ths of the population, setting the stage for the invasion from outside its borders - the Wyld. The primal chaos which Creation was shaped from, and the Fair Folk - those who reside in the Wyld, who desire nothing but the destruction of the order of Creation, who can only subsist in its ordered realm by feasting on the hopes, dreams, and souls of mortals. Planning to split creation at the seams from the very center of it, a lone Dragon-Blooded was able to brave the ancient, near-impenetrable defenses of one of the Solars’ last working and largest artifacts from the First Age - the Realm Defense Grid. Managing to bring it online at the eleventh hour, she sent the Fair Folk scrambling back to the borders of Creation, and saved it from utter annihilation. The Shogunate dead and in control of the most powerful weapon in Creation, she did what any reasonable authority figure would do - she wrested what was left from anyone who would oppose her, forced the ones who didn’t to swear fealty to her, and ruled from the center of Creation as the Scarlet Empress.

The Dragon-Blooded’s Shogunate was reborn as the Realm, organized into houses that the Scarlet Empress pitted against to keep them busy enough to keep them from overthrowing her, and set out establishing her rule in all of creation - with the exception of the East, who were protected mostly by the fact that they’re waaaaay the gently caress over there and they needed, y’know, boats and poo poo to get over there.The Sidereals come back into the picture here, aiding the Scarlet Empress in exchange for the establishment of the Immaculate Philosophy and the continued establishment of the Wyld Hunt. This went on for nearly eight hundred years.

Then, she vanished. And of course, with no central figurehead, the Realm began to deteriorate, the houses that had bickered over meaningless power grabs now bickered over the most meaningful power, as the Empress planned no order of succession. A figurehead was placed on the throne, and the Realm recalled its forces abroad to deal with the manipulations and political skullduggery needed to fight itself for supremacy, causing the downtrodden subjects of the Dynasty to rebel, the Lunars - those who had remained, fighting on the edges of creation - stepped up their retaliations against the Dragon-Bloodeed for past crimes, the Fair Folk rumble beyond Creation, eager for a rematch without the Realm Defense Grid to provide an ultimate trump card; and the city-state of Thorns - once one of the largest tribunes of the Realm, was slaughtered to a man by the forces of the Deathlord known only as Mask of Winters, riding atop his throne, the Corpse-Fortress Juggernaut, casting fear over the Scavenger Lands, which quickly lapsed into individual fiefdoms, city-states, and settlements outside the Realm’s rule.

It is into this time, the Age of Sorrows, the Solars are finally reborn - the jade prison holding their souls has broken open, allowing them to reincarnate and Exalt anew. The Wyld Hunt has lapsed, the Realm’s borders no longer stable or expansive enough to patrol all of Creation. The book posits only one question: Will the Solars save the world? Or doom it to destruction?

From there, it dives into a how-to-play, which gives a sort of standard boilerplate ‘what is a roleplaying game’ overview, and then a lexicon of need-to-know terms I’m not going to summarize here because I’ll be covering near all of them when we get to them. It also gives us a summary of various media that went into the influence of Exalted, especially Third Edition. The usual suspects are there (Conan, Journey To The West, Night’s Master, The Bride With White Hair), but it also comes forth and admits quite a bit of anime, manga, and videogame heritage. From Inuyasha to Claymore to Ninja Scroll to Dynasty Warriors. There is one particularly important influence that doesn’t get a lot of expounding on-

Exalted Third Edition posted:

Dissidia Final Fantasy, Square-Enix
Dissidia’s heroes wield giant weapons and over-the-top magic that fits right in with Exalted. Its agile, cinematic battle system was the single largest influence on Third Edition’s combat rules.

Remember this for later, it’s quite important.

Next time! Part the First: So what IS an Exalted?

Monathin fucked around with this message at 08:41 on Apr 21, 2016

The Lone Badger
Sep 24, 2007

I bought Spellbound Kingdoms thanks to this threat and have been giving it a look.
Is there any way to increase Heart after chargen? None of the classes give it as a bonus, and that seems to be the only way to increase stats.

Doodmons
Jan 17, 2009

The Lone Badger posted:

I bought Spellbound Kingdoms thanks to this threat and have been giving it a look.
Is there any way to increase Heart after chargen? None of the classes give it as a bonus, and that seems to be the only way to increase stats.

Nope. Make sure to put Heart as one of your higher stats in chargen because it's not getting any higher permanently. There are a couple of temporary buffs to it using magic or alchemy, but you can't increase it.

The Lone Badger
Sep 24, 2007

Doodmons posted:

Nope. Make sure to put Heart as one of your higher stats in chargen because it's not getting any higher permanently. There are a couple of temporary buffs to it using magic or alchemy, but you can't increase it.

No way to get a D10 Heart permanently then. I guess that would be overpowered.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!

Mors Rattus posted:

My experience playing ORE is what makes me speak up - I found it actually rather difficult to have good pools for everything I wanted, while the poo poo I did end up good at I was often godlike at. It was a very strict dichotomy, and one which I found rather unfun. A coinflip is absolutely not what I want my baseline 'poo poo I am not terrible at but not focused in' to be.

I find that it varies a bit by ORE game, usually the thing that prevents having good pools is when some ORE games decide to split skills up in a very granular way. For instance, I remember one, I can't remember which, but it may be Godlike, where the various "spot" skills were literally split by SENSE. Meaning you needed to invest in every drat sense separately, it seemed a bit ridiculous. The ORE games also tend to be somewhat poor about splitting up abilities well by stat, some always end up kind of forgettable while others end up dominating the game.

Also having literally only one roll with two variables(length and width) sometimes means that some things clash in combat where, if I remember right, there are some odd interactions between the initiative and dodging/blocking rules.

Strange Matter
Oct 6, 2009

Ask me about Genocide

PurpleXVI posted:

Also having literally only one roll with two variables(length and width) sometimes means that some things clash in combat where, if I remember right, there are some odd interactions between the initiative and dodging/blocking rules.
This is actually kind of by design though. Combat in ORE is supposed to be brutal, with the attacker typically having an advantage over the defender. To block an attack, you first must choose to perform a blocking action, which unless you're using multiple actions locks you out of your own attack, and your defense set needs to beat both parts of the attacker's set.

REIGN mitigates this by introducing Martial Paths (particularly the School of the Insouciant Monkey and Iron Tortoise Techniques) which vastly improve the defender's ability to protect himself, but since Martial Paths are optional it's not something you'll come across all the time.

What this translates to is making ORE a system where the best defense is a good offense, because hitting your opponent first will knock a die off his highest set, so if you hit someone with a 3x5 before they can hit you, their attack falls to a 2x5, and a 2x attack would be broken entirely. This turns some people off I'm sure, but the trade-off is that combat with ORE is super fast and fun because once all the dice are rolled, just about anything can happen.

One of the best examples is in the Heroes of New Arcadia campaign on RPPR, in the pilot episode. One of the heroes was throwing up a forcefield around a group of villains, and another hero was trying to use his super speed to zoom in and beat them up, but when the dice were rolled, the forcefield had greater width, so it went up first and the speedster ended up careening off it.

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003

La morte non ha sesso
One of the things I like best about ORE is that in Wild Talents, particularly, it's very easy to oppose a power with a power. If Grodd throws a pile of bricks at a crowd, he rolls that as an attack, and Flash rolls his Speed power as a defensive pool to create Gobble Dice to stop it, trying to catch all the bricks. Plenty of games let you oppose a roll with a roll in a fairly freeform way, but ORE does it in such a way that you have clear guidelines for measuring the results either way.

Lupercalcalcal
Jan 28, 2016

Suck a dick, dumb shits

The Lone Badger posted:

No way to get a D10 Heart permanently then. I guess that would be overpowered.

Yeah, exactly, and Brunner explicitly calls out in the text that you should consider making heart your highest stat, or at least high. It needs to be pretty even across the classes, because heart is important to everyone.

Strange Matter
Oct 6, 2009

Ask me about Genocide

Halloween Jack posted:

One of the things I like best about ORE is that in Wild Talents, particularly, it's very easy to oppose a power with a power. If Grodd throws a pile of bricks at a crowd, he rolls that as an attack, and Flash rolls his Speed power as a defensive pool to create Gobble Dice to stop it, trying to catch all the bricks. Plenty of games let you oppose a roll with a roll in a fairly freeform way, but ORE does it in such a way that you have clear guidelines for measuring the results either way.
That's a very unique strength of Wild Talents, in that they define a power as one of three Qualities: Attacks, Defends and Useful. And for Attacks and Defense, all powers are fundamentally equal unless a power has a specific flaw that would render it ineffective against another kind of Power. If you have "Pyromancy" as a Power and give it the Attacks and Defends Qualities, then you can use you fire to block a punch. How does that work? Well that's up to you to figure out! It's a an awesome balance of mechanics and freeform narration that I love.

I'd do a write-up on Wild Talents for F&F, since I've been playing it for like two years with my wife, but I doubt I'd have the time or talent to do it justice.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!
Strange Matter: I admit it's been a while since I looked at the rules, but as I remember it, it was more along the lines of the game having rules for "partial" blocks, where even if you don't have enough dice to COMPLETELY negate an attack, you may have the dice to knock some width(or is that length?) off it. But, in order to attempt to block/dodge an attack at all, you needed to beat its initiative, and you couldn't do that without having the width/length(I seriously forget which it is) also needed for a complete block. So, as I remember it, despite there being a rule for partial blocks, it was literally impossible for it to happen, except in some strange edge cases.

Simple10

Today it's time to bully badly-designed "indie" RPG's.

Again.

But unlike Hc Svnt Dracones, at least Simple10 seems to be freely distributed rather than something the creators are charging money for.



There's also art, which varies between "bad" and "bland." Mostly it seems to be an RPG designed by someone who's never actually played or read another RPG, despite the foreword describing the creators as "veterans," and somehow this 82-page .PDF(60~ pages of which are just class abilities) took "years" to make.

The Basic Rules

I'm going to sort all of the rules first, which is counter to the game's organization. For some reason they decided it was a great idea to list the races and classes for some 60 pages before really explaining what any of their abilities and modifiers do. The one thing the game does manage to deliver, at any rate, is that it's simple. You roll a d10 vs a TN, if you roll over, you succeed. A 10 is always a success, and a 1 is always a failure. The basic TN is 6, which means that you're going to have great fun loving up every other time you try to do something, unless the GM decides to give you a nicer average TN.

The formatting and editing are also terrible, I'll note, but I can give that a pass for a project that has no formal editor(though the constant rear end-backwards wordings and typographical errors, combined with the generally awful font choices, makes me wonder what the three people on "layout" were doing).

Let's move on to combat, because the bad combat rules are basically why I wanted to review this thing in the first place. At first glance, combat is so basic as to be inoffensive, you trade blows, costing each other "Hits," until someone reaches zero "Hits," at which point they're "Helpless," and lie around losing "Wounds"(when attacked or just over time), while trying to recover. If they reach 1 "Wound," they're out of the battle(or, if someone walks over and finishes them off, dead, losing the last wound can only happen if someone else attacks you to finish you off.). If you recover, or if someone else helps you recover, you default to being restored to full "Hits."

Then you look up how to attack enemies and how to be attacked by them, and it all goes to poo poo.

The difficulty of hitting an enemy defaults to 6, as usual, if you're of the same "tier."(a stand-in for "level"). For every step you're above them, the TN to hit drops by one, for every level they're above you, the TN rises by one. The higher you roll, the more damage you do. Here's the example damage table against an enemy of the same level.

Simple10 posted:

R O L L 6: 1 damage
R O L L 7: 2 damage
R O L L 8: 3 damage
R O L L 9: 4 damage
R O L L 1 0+: 5 damage

If only the rest of it was as straight-forward and sensible.

Simple10 posted:

Enemies rarely roll on their own. They are instead assumed to roll the opposite of what the attacking player rolled. Enemies that nobody attacked deal 1 Hit to a random player at the end of the turn each.

But wait, what's the OPPOSITE of a roll? Is the opposite of a 10 a 1? The opposite of a 9 a 2? Or is it a -9? Dice rolls don't have opposites. Besides, enemies don't need to roll anything to attack players, because check out what happens if you roll under your TN, here's the table for, again, an enemy of equal "tier."

Simple10 posted:

R O L L 5: 1 Hit lost
R O L L 4: 2 Hits lost.
R O L L 3: 3 Hits lost.
R O L L 2: 4 Hits lost.
R O L L 1: Instantly helpless

The "logic" is that whenever you miss with a "combat action," your opponent "counterattacks." This also means that 10% of the time, your character is going to attack, fall on his face and be unconscious in the mud. However, that may be the safest place to be, after all, enemies don't roll to attack, and it specifically says that they do 1 "Hit" of damage when not attacked themselves. When you're Helpless you no longer have Hits, you only have Wounds. By the rules as worded, anyone on their face in the mud, bleeding out, is immune to mooks damaging them(it might seem logical that extra "Hits" would spill over into "Wounds," but again, this isn't stated anywhere.).

"But obviously, Purple," you're thinking, "These rules only apply to evenly matched opponents, where there's a chance of an attack instantly being met by being knocked on your rear end!"

Ha ha, no.

When your tier rises, that's true, the TN falls. But, here's the thing, and they spell this out explicitly in the PDF:



By the rules as explicitly spelled out, you will always have a 10% chance of KO'ing yourself with any "combat action," which is a delightfully vague term that could probably be stretched to include most skill use and, for instance, firing a bow at someone. It doesn't matter who or what you are, as long as you're not a generic enemy who's denied his roll to attack(and, frankly, it's probably safer not to be rolling at all), every tenth attack will knock you out(or every 5th, if you're using a two-handed weapon, which critfails on a 2 as well as a 1).

Art Interlude

So who wants to look at some art before we move on to the badly-written class abilities?

Because, hopping back to the start of chargen, there are also races! Because you can't have a fantasy RPG without races.



You can play as an anime human and, as per usual for humans in RPG's, have a tiny bonus in some edge cases.



You can play as an anime elemental, and, somehow, have even less noteworthy abilities. You get "telekinesis," but literally no thoughts on how it might interact with mechanics at all(also note that at the top of the page it says that Simple10 is in "4th edition," I can't tell if it's a joke or if it literally took them four editions just to get this far. What was 1st edition? A coin flip?).



You can be a furry, with the ability to eat anything, and being agile. Each race also has noted alternate races it could function as, retaining the same racial ability, in this case it suggests that the "Capra" could also be replaced with catfolk or elves. This amuses me since it'd also mean that elves would retain the ability to eat non-food items, crunching up old cans for lunch.



You can be a second kind of fursona, granting you permanent flight. Amusingly enough, shooting at enemies from the sky with a bow would still subject you to the 10% chance of KO'ing yourself with every attack, so it, in an entirely unintentional way, doesn't quite break the game.



No real hiding it, like half of the race options are various animal people. Considering how mechanically minor the differences between them are(it literally comes up to a +1 in most cases, if even that in some of them), I wonder why they didn't just throw them up as a "pick one and make up a fitting race"-list.



Not really sure why rock elementals should have tits. Probably have the only really "powerful" ability, because they have a 50% chance of ignoring anything that makes them Helpless, once every four rounds of combat, leaving them at 1 Hit instead.



You can be sketchy insect people with an HP bonus.



Or you can be shoggoths who are immune to mind control, probably the dullest extradimensional terrors ever.



Bad Class Abilities

Obviously, I'm not going to list out every ability, but I'm going to point out that they're almost all badly written. Even the ones that are mechanically non-confusing, are littered with vague terms like "nearby," which seem like a great way to get into an argument with the GM for half an hour about what "nearby" includes. Is it within arm's reach? Everyone in the room? More? Less? Or "Inspire," which has the non-combat use of letting you play music, though the actual mechanical effects or rewards of doing this is entirely up to the GM... which seems like exactly what would happen if any PC said "I pick up a lute and play a cool song." Some are just thoroughly pointless:

Con Artist posted:

On success, whatever you say, no one thinks you are trying to deceive them. Characters with evidence or knowledge contrary to your claim may disprove you. Outlandish or ridiculous statements can be seen through. This skill also applies to forgery of evidence and documents.

For the cost of a third of your starting skill points, you get to lie as well as just about anyone else, which is to say that generally people won't assume you're lying unless what you're saying is absurd or there's proof to the opposite! The only niche use of this skill, as written, is in case you're dealing with someone who doesn't trust you and would suspect you of being a deceitful liar no matter what you said.

Terrify posted:

Scary stories are the oldest kind of stories. 8+ renders a group of targets helpless.

So how much is a "group"? Can I knock out an entire crowd of people? Is this affected by tiers? Also at chargen you get to pick one skill you have a +2 to using. This means it's possible to start out with the ability to instantly knock out a "group" of enemies of equal level, 50% of the time.

There are also constant references to having "minions" or "pets," but no actual mechanics for them beyond skills affecting how many you can have. It never says anywhere what "tier" they act at, whether they have skills and classes of their own, etc.

Mend posted:

Don’t be such a baby, ribs grow back. A target regenerates grievous injuries such as lost extremities, damaged vital organs and internal bleeding. Cannot be used in combat, nor restore hits or wounds.

This would be great if there were actually any mechanics for losing limbs or breaking bones. There aren't! So this skill is only useful by GM fiat, since it doesn't actually interact with any mechanics. You get the option to reverse it, which sounds kind of cool and horrifying... except that it doesn't actually heal any damage, so presumably the reverse wouldn't actually cause any damage. So I guess you get to make people's bones snap and splinter, their organs pop out and their limbs fall off... but somehow it doesn't actually hurt them or make them any easier to fight.

Healing Hammer posted:

Mercy and fury are but two hands holding the same weapon. Can direct your other action at an ally, healing them for as much as it would have damaged a foe, or damaging them on a failure.

What "other action"? This skill doesn't grant a second action, and players only have one action per round. Do they mean we get two actions, and the first hurts an enemy, then the second heals an ally for as much as we hurt the enemy? Or do we get one action that heals instead of hurting, but the phrasing is terrible? They should have just named this "Simple Ways To Argue With The GM For 10 Hours." Though I guess it doesn't roll off the tongue as nicely as Simple10.

There's also a skill, "Inure," that gives immunity to a "damage type," but nowhere does it say what the game's damage types are. "Target is immune to a specific damage type (fire, ice, poison, possessed etc) for a short time." How long is a "short time"? Is it enough to dash through a wall of fire, or enough to run across a volcano's caldera? What even counts as a "type" of damage? Swords? Is "sword" a damage? Or "sharp"? Who even loving knows with this stupid game.

They also clearly didn't even notice how breakable their game is. The "Knight" class gets an ability that means the first action they take in combat always rolls the minimum needed to succeed. You can combine classes. What if you make a Knight/Bard who uses his "Terrify" on the first round of combat, knocking out a "group" of enemies? Congratulations, every combat encounter in the game is now over before it even has a chance to start.

Hat Magic posted:

You can pull off amazing tricks out of your hat. Conjure anything small enough to fit through the hat out of it, regardless of length. Difficulty Tier depends on the item Pulling out a generic object (e.g.: bouquet of flowers) is equal to the caster, +2 tiers to pull out a specific object (e.g.: the key to this exact door), +4 tiers to pull out an object wider than the hat. Rolling too soon for the same object after failing will cause failure regardless of roll because the universe catches wise to your tricks. Enchanted items can’t be pulled out.

But why would I WANT something specific? If I can pull out anything small enough to pull out of a hat, and my hat is large enough... a door? Sure, lemme just get out a cutting torch to burn through the lock. An enemy encounter? Sure, let me just pull out a few chunks of refined uranium and a beryllium sphere. I mean, there isn't even any limit to length, I could just pull out an unending rod of pure gold until any given opponent goes: "I'll take that as payment for loving off."

And so on. There isn't a single class in this "game" that doesn't have at least one skill that isn't incomprehensible, broken or has a completely broken interaction with another skill. The creators of this game should feel bad for having made it.

Quinn2win
Nov 9, 2011

Foolish child of man...
After reading all this,
do you still not understand?

This is the art that did make the final completed cut? Couldn't they have at least erased the sketch lines?

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!

ProfessorProf posted:

This is the art that did make the final completed cut? Couldn't they have at least erased the sketch lines?

It seems like they had four artists on the game. One of them seems competent, and I recognize their art because they sign their pieces, they did two or three pieces of art in the book that I've found. Another of them I recognize from elsewhere, he's responsible for everything I've linked so far, mediocre in skill and three/quarters of his stuff in the book is unfinished(and most of the art in the book is his). For the remaining two, they're responsible for two or three unsigned pieces of art and a turnip, a dagger and a pile of stones in the book's margins.



Here's a piece from the more competent artist.

PurpleXVI fucked around with this message at 15:05 on Apr 21, 2016

LatwPIAT
Jun 6, 2011

PurpleXVI posted:

But wait, what's the OPPOSITE of a roll? Is the opposite of a 10 a 1? The opposite of a 9 a 2? Or is it a -9? Dice rolls don't have opposites.

Actually, they do! The number on the opposite face of the dice is naturally the opposite of the rolled number. Now, I have here a d10, and all the opposite sides have a sum of 9, with 9 and 0 being opposites. Though you're right in that this needs to actually be explained, because not everyone are as geeky about convex isohedra as I am.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!

LatwPIAT posted:

Actually, they do! The number on the opposite face of the dice is naturally the opposite of the rolled number. Now, I have here a d10, and all the opposite sides have a sum of 9, with 9 and 0 being opposites. Though you're right in that this needs to actually be explained, because not everyone are as geeky about convex isohedra as I am.

Well, that's the, uh, "spatial" opposite, yeah. But there's no telling if that's actually what they mean.

Doresh
Jan 7, 2015

ProfessorProf posted:

(Our favorite is generally Tora, the guts hero who punched Carlo through a wall in one of the earlier images Doresh included.)

She is my Monk/Warlord/Waifu.

Behold the Void posted:

Thanks for the awesome writeup! And yes, everyone hates Carlo. We live to make him suffer.

He is very punchable.

Alien Rope Burn posted:

I hate for my first comment on this to be superficial, but wow, that piece of art

He could be a little person.

Covok posted:

Calling it now: Battle Century G.

Not crunchy enough. And no, it's not Mekton either XD

PurpleXVI posted:



Here's a piece from the more competent artist.

Silly witch get-up aside, this is easily the most memorable class choice here.

Doresh fucked around with this message at 17:21 on Apr 21, 2016

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!

"And now, we show you all the races... near-naked! Why? Well, Pathfinder did it! Why did Pathfinder do it? Well... um..."

That being said, I'll take "three furry folks" over "three races of little people". It'd be an alright spread if it wasn't thematically and mechanically dull as dishwater.

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

PurpleXVI posted:

It seems like they had four artists on the game. One of them seems competent, and I recognize their art because they sign their pieces, they did two or three pieces of art in the book that I've found. Another of them I recognize from elsewhere, he's responsible for everything I've linked so far, mediocre in skill and three/quarters of his stuff in the book is unfinished(and most of the art in the book is his). For the remaining two, they're responsible for two or three unsigned pieces of art and a turnip, a dagger and a pile of stones in the book's margins.



Here's a piece from the more competent artist.

This art and character/race design is better than this game deserves.

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003

La morte non ha sesso
If you're writing a lame heartbreaker, you have to include all the boring standard fantasy races, plus a couple furry races and maybe people with wings. This game omits the boring standards and gives us elementals and Slenderfolk.

Doresh
Jan 7, 2015

Halloween Jack posted:

If you're writing a lame heartbreaker, you have to include all the boring standard fantasy races, plus a couple furry races and maybe people with wings. This game omits the boring standards and gives us elementals and Slenderfolk.

This brings me back to when I played Sacred 2. One of the classes was "Ancient futuristic anubis robot with an arm cannon".

Quinn2win
Nov 9, 2011

Foolish child of man...
After reading all this,
do you still not understand?
So in Spellbound Kingdoms, how does the immortality thing actually work in application? If the PCs capture the bad guy and spend a few hours hacking at his helpless body with axes, what happens? Does he inexplicably show up later still alive? Do the axes bounce off? Does he magically regenerate back to the brink of death? Are you just not allowed to kill him? I'm having trouble figuring this out from the text of the writeup.

Hostile V
May 31, 2013

Solving all of life's problems through enhanced casting of Occam's Razor. Reward yourself with an imaginary chalice.

"For you see, Guillermo, when you ran me through with your sword I felt my life slip away. When I hit the ground, I was so sure death was near. But you did not finish the job. Every single blow you laid upon my helpless body was not something I felt, my mind distant as my body grew cold. No, none of those "final strikes" did the job. You should have stayed to watch the body."

"One would think I was done for, with that flaming support beam crashing through the roof and collapsing the floor beneath me. But through some strange miracle, I survived. I was pinned in the basement of a flaming tavern, yes, but I survived. And when my men searched and found me, they dug me free and nursed me back to health. *casts off his shirt, revealing wicked burn scars for bonus dice*"

"Antonio I have no idea what happened. Last thing I remember is falling into that magical cauldron full of acid after your friend shot me. I dunno how the gently caress I'm still here."

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!

Evil Mastermind posted:

This art and character/race design is better than this game deserves.

If anyone wants to check out the game for the art(there's another couple of pieces by that competent artist), here's the bad artist's blog post that links to the RPG: http://moronsonofboron.tumblr.com/post/143089718900/simple10-rpg-now-has-a-printed-form-gold-edition

The link itself should be SFW but pretty much every link on the page other than the Simple10 dropbox link could lead to something NSFW. So be careful.

Quinn2win
Nov 9, 2011

Foolish child of man...
After reading all this,
do you still not understand?

Hostile V posted:

"For you see, Guillermo, when you ran me through with your sword I felt my life slip away. When I hit the ground, I was so sure death was near. But you did not finish the job. Every single blow you laid upon my helpless body was not something I felt, my mind distant as my body grew cold. No, none of those "final strikes" did the job. You should have stayed to watch the body."

"One would think I was done for, with that flaming support beam crashing through the roof and collapsing the floor beneath me. But through some strange miracle, I survived. I was pinned in the basement of a flaming tavern, yes, but I survived. And when my men searched and found me, they dug me free and nursed me back to health. *casts off his shirt, revealing wicked burn scars for bonus dice*"

"Antonio I have no idea what happened. Last thing I remember is falling into that magical cauldron full of acid after your friend shot me. I dunno how the gently caress I'm still here."

Yeah, but this relies on the deaths all being ambiguous - vat of acid, collapsing building, left for dead. What if you just decapitate the guy?

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003

La morte non ha sesso
Whoops! He switched places with a double. Where does he keep finding them!

The thing is, a lot of mechanics, narrative or otherwise, will strain plausibility in these kinds of edge-case scenarios.

A comparison that immediately comes to mind is the Ghoul power in Monsterhearts that says you straight up can't die. So what if you dissolve the Ghoul in acid? Well, I don't know, what then? It's up to you to rationalize it somehow.

Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 18:04 on Apr 21, 2016

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

ProfessorProf posted:

Yeah, but this relies on the deaths all being ambiguous - vat of acid, collapsing building, left for dead. What if you just decapitate the guy?

Then it turns out he was a Doombot the entire time.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!

ProfessorProf posted:

Yeah, but this relies on the deaths all being ambiguous - vat of acid, collapsing building, left for dead. What if you just decapitate the guy?

I think you'd need the players to cooperate a BIT with the mood, obviously. If they're too meta and aware of their opponent's immortality, yeah, reasoning it out could be difficult. But at the same time, the GM could help set it up, like...

The fight takes place on a cliff above a storm-tossed sea, and as the final blow strikes the bad guy, he staggers backwards and topples over towards the rocks and the waves below. Or he could treat the badguy as a load-bearing boss, the castle is on fire, and the instant the badguy collapses and the princess is out of her cell, the ceiling starts coming down, so there's no time to hang around and really chop him up.

By popular demand
Jul 17, 2007

IT *BZZT* WASP ME--
IT WASP ME ALL *BZZT* ALONG!


I figure that's when you get nasty, as in 'bad guy is actually a possessing spirit/gets reborn' kinda way

Hostile V
May 31, 2013

Solving all of life's problems through enhanced casting of Occam's Razor. Reward yourself with an imaginary chalice.

ProfessorProf posted:

Yeah, but this relies on the deaths all being ambiguous - vat of acid, collapsing building, left for dead. What if you just decapitate the guy?
You know how there's that medical condition where your heart is on the right side, dextrocardia? Well here comes it's bizarre uncle, Regenerating Skull Syndrome.

Or he switched places with a double, or you didn't ENTIRELY decapitate him properly, or the royal chirurgeon gets there and the five second rule is good so he can just sew the guy's head back on but now he has a BADASS SCAR to show off to demoralize you. Or maybe when you're Immortal From Passion like the game presumes, you just have stupid amounts of tenacity and willpower so the guy will eventually get up, tuck his head under his arm and carry himself to a hospital.

Actually out of the ones I wrote I picked the "vat of acid" one to be the most thorough dead. I wrote that under the assumption that the guy fell in and his opponent just waited and watched to make sure he got all fizzled away.

Terrible Opinions
Oct 18, 2013



Alien Rope Burn posted:

"And now, we show you all the races... near-naked! Why? Well, Pathfinder did it! Why did Pathfinder do it? Well... um..."
Pathfinder did it because 3rd edition Dungeons and Dragons did it. Can we find an earlier link the chain or does the buck end with Skip Williams and Monty?

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Tasoth
Dec 13, 2011

ProfessorProf posted:

So in Spellbound Kingdoms, how does the immortality thing actually work in application? If the PCs capture the bad guy and spend a few hours hacking at his helpless body with axes, what happens? Does he inexplicably show up later still alive? Do the axes bounce off? Does he magically regenerate back to the brink of death? Are you just not allowed to kill him? I'm having trouble figuring this out from the text of the writeup.

Mechanically, it isn't so much that you can't die from a high love/inspiration, it's that your given a chance to get out of the situation. So he gets a Cha vs Rsn roll against the party as he tells them about his 'hidden treasure'. If he succeeds, he can now officially string them along with other rolls until he can escape or lead them into an ambush. When the axes actually fall, he may end up dead, or if no one made sure to remove this head, he gets a scene where the GM rolls body to see if the bad guy crawls off. He could then returned as a maimed, wheel chair bound maniac who has had a lot of time to think about payback.

EDIT: Or you spell surge/crisis surge and suddenly, the dude you offed is back, funneling a poo poo ton of magic and has a huuuuuge axe to grind. Maybe even literally.

Tasoth fucked around with this message at 18:37 on Apr 21, 2016

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