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Banishers Do Nothing Wrong.
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May 10, 2016 02:11
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Or "We appreciate the thought, but try a more subtle approach instead. Mythbusters, not Twilight Zone."
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May 10, 2016 02:21
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 Time for a brand new episode! We are finally reviewing GURPS! Kind of. Tangentially. And it's the Lite Rules. Still, though. GURPS! And much more importantly than any of that, Discworld!
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May 10, 2016 05:44
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Post a picture of the podcat.
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May 10, 2016 05:48
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Kavak posted:Post a picture of the podcat. 
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May 10, 2016 05:56
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Good podcat.
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May 10, 2016 05:56
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Cythereal posted:Or "We appreciate the thought, but try a more subtle approach instead. Mythbusters, not Twilight Zone." Now I'm picturing a mage using Mind to make a movie studio produce more Final Destination movies because he's having a creative slump.
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May 10, 2016 06:13
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If you cast a spell to point the car at the sky, you could just shoot the fucker into space.
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May 10, 2016 08:47
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Siivola posted:If you cast a spell to point the car at the sky, you could just shoot the fucker into space. "Kars eventually stopped thinking."
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May 10, 2016 09:07
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kaynorr posted:Everyone take 10 when searching for secret doors, it's time to look at Awareness and Stealth in the giant fistful of dice that is Exalted 3rd edition! Stop making me want to play Exalted. It has so many issues but I can't help but love it anyway.
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May 10, 2016 15:21
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I always (in general) liked the Exalted setting. It was ambitious and imaginative and went outside the Hollywood idea of all-white Medieval Europe for its cultural inspirations and dropped the Tolkien Comfort Zone races and 'arc structure' of having the one Big Bad threatening all the things. Instead there's a dozen Big Bads who all have kind of a valid point somewhere in the carnage, and the Good Guys have some serious issues they should really examine. The system has always killed it for me though. Third is...improved by the looks of things but still, ugh.
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May 10, 2016 15:26
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I'm still a bit wary of Third since it seems like this is now a game that has to serve several masters. Like, combat can be quite lethal and is kinda common in the setting but also people want to be able to make characters who have no combat ability whatsoever for some reason.
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May 10, 2016 15:55
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I like the new minigame they built into it where people can argue about Bureaucracy on the forums endlessly.
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May 10, 2016 16:02
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Cythereal posted:Or "We appreciate the thought, but try a more subtle approach instead. Mythbusters, not Twilight Zone." If you put all physics spells into a single discipline, you're just begging for something like that to happen. Siivola posted:If you cast a spell to point the car at the sky, you could just shoot the fucker into space. And if it somehow survives the trip to space, who knows how fast it'll go without that pesky friction getting in the way.
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May 10, 2016 17:30
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 CHAPTER TWO: What It Takes To Be A Hero Heroes are defined by their traits, skills, quirks and powers. Your Traits are your attribute stats: Smarts, Speed, Spirit and Strength. You have to have a minimum of 1 in each and a max of 5 during character creation and you've got 12 points to spread out. Your average human has a 2 in a Trait. Smarts represents education and brain things you can do. Speed is the Dexterity stat, influencing dodging and shooting. Because this is a 90s RPG, this is an important stat. Spirit is your mental fortitude/charisma stat. Strength is strength and also health so don't skimp too much on this one. There are also the traits of Pace and Size. Size is...size and everyone is by default Size 5, just like nWoD. Pace is how fast/far you can move in a round and is Total Speed Dice+Speed Bonuses+5. In a single round, you can move that far in inches (for tabletop minis) or multiple your number by 2 for yards. Yes, this means Skippy Nopowers can move 14 yards every round.  I put on my robo-pants like everyone else, one rivet at a time. Skills are...skills and because this is a 90s RPG it takes 26 pages with this formatting to go over every skill. When you want to use a Skill, you roll the correlating Trait then add the stat you have in that skill to the final result. If you pick a skill that has subskills (like Driving) you can't just take the parent skill, you have to pick a subskill (like Personal Vehicle). Worth noting: Shooting does not have subskills but Fighting and Martial Arts do. Just keep this in mind. What's nice about Skills is that they aren't just tied to Smarts, you get 3xParent Trait points to pick skills and you get some skills for free. You can have 5 points max in a skill at character generation. Quirks are...*sighs* they're Advantages/Disadvantages. Powers are powers. They're always on, which is an interesting way to go about it, because your powers are basically just always flat bonuses or conditional modifiers unless they're something like "Energy Beams". There is actually one more thing to mention: Tricks. Tricks are basically feats and you can pick them from a general list or a list of tricks that relate to your type of Delta.  The friendly faces of Delta Prime agents. HOW TO MAKE A CHARACTER Choose between an archetype or building one from scratch. There's premade characters in the book; those are the Archetypes. Making one from scratch is point-buy building. 1: Spread 12 points across Traits. 2: Spend skill points, your pool being 3xTrait Number. 3: Spend leftover skill points on Positive Quirks or take up to 10 points in Negative Quirks to get points. Actually this is kind of a bad idea to tie your points for Quirks to your friggin' Skill Points. Quirks aren't tie to Traits, so you just take any leftover points per Trait set and add them up. 4: Pick a power package. You only get one choice, it can't be changed and there are (currently) no rules for becoming an Alpha so weigh your choices. 5: Pick three Tricks. 6: Buy your gear. You have $1000 to spend, more or less depending if you took wealth-related Quirks. So let's take a look at the different types of Delta that are available. There are 10 to choose from, you can't make your own and if you want more Delta types then you better buy the other books.
You may notice that one of those doesn't really seem to belong on this list. We'll talk more in depth about this later.  I think this is supposed to be Delta Primers cornering a delta. There's no context given. CHAPTER THREE: The Basic Mechanic. Everything in Brave New World revolves around Target Numbers and hitting that number to do something. The number in your Traits refers to a dice pool of d6s and how many you have to roll. When you roll them, you can take the highest of all results and use it as your result to augment with modifiers. Plus, sixes explode and if it's another six it explodes but they don't add.  Example: Billy Everyhero gets two sixes in his dice results. He rerolls the first and gets a 1. He rerolls the second and gets a 5. The final numbers are a 7 and a 11 and Billy's clearly going to pick the 11. For every 5 points over the TN, you get an Extra Success which you can cash in for other mechanical benefits with related Tricks. If you don't know the Trick, it costs 3 extra successes. Opposed Rolls are simply "highest result wins" after everyone rolls and the rule of Extra Successes applies. If you get a majority of 1s in a dice pool, you get a Shadowrun-style Disaster where no matter if there's a success in the pool, it all fails. If your lowest possible action roll is equal to a TN, you can do it without rolling or roll anyway, up to you. I'm not going to lie, I'm surprised at how quick this book goes by. It's somewhat refreshing.  Eat poo poo, bad drivers! NEXT TIME: Skills'n'Quirks. I have to do both at once because I can't stomach splitting them up and wasting extra time. Vox Valentine fucked around with this message at 02:19 on May 11, 2016 |
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May 10, 2016 17:37
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Mage: the Awakening, 2nd Edition Life is the Arcanum of healing, disease, food, animals, plants, evolution, metamorphosis, physicality and vigor. It is visceral, often, and governs over all that lives - even your nerve cells. It is tenacious, and its magic lets you be just as tough. Life 1 spells include: Analyze Life determines the target's species, gender, age and overall health. It also gives the total number of all dots in Physical Attributes, but not the value of any one Attribute. It reveals any illnesses, diseases, physical Conditions, injuries ot Tilts. It will identify living but supernatural beings as unknown species, even in human form, unless you've identified their kind before and studied them. The undead do not register to this spell at all. For 1 Reach, you may choose to learn the value of one of the target's Physical Attributes rather than the total dots in all of them. Cleanse the Body gives +(Potency) to the next roll to resist a toxin. For 1 Reach, the target can also make that roll immediately on top of the one they'd get at the normal interval. Speak With Beasts lets you speak to a targeted animal, generally by making noises at it, though it isn't needed - the target will speak and the magic will translate it for you. This gives you no control over the beast, just understanding. Animals have only limited understanding of what humans do and what goes on around them, but you at least get +(Potency) to any Animal Ken rolls on the target. Animals are also good at remembering any physical features their senses are good enough to pick up on. For 1 Reach, you can speak to all animals, not just the target's species. Web of Life detects all nearby living things within limitations you declare. (Don't pick 'all', you'll go mad from microscopic organisms.) You may detect all beings that fit your specifications within the spell's area or that enter the area during the duration. If you cast on a person rather than an area, you can scan them for parasites, bacteria or pregnancy. Life 2 spells include: Body Control, which gives control over the target's bodily functions. For the duration, each level of Potency gives you one rank in eah of these:
Control Instincts causes a Condition representing the desired instinctive response on the target, such as fight-or-flight response, leaping, hunger or secreting venom, for various animals, or fatigue, hunger or adrenaline responsse for humans. This works on any mundane lifeform - and a human who just has Supernatural Merits counts as mundane. For 1 Reach, you can affect supernatural living creatures. Heightened Senses increases your perceptions, giving +(Potency) to all Perception rolls. For 1 Reach, you also instinctively know how to track by scent for the duration. Lure and Repel magically calls or repels creatures. When luring, you specify certain types of organism to be drawn to you. Plants and microorganisms have Resolve 0 for Withstanding. These organisms are not necessarily friendly to you and will remain cautious or hostile if that is their nature, but will not openly attack the target unless cornered. People affected by the spell find the target irresistable or repugnant but cannot pinpoint why. Repelling a chosen organism means that type of being must Withstand the spell to enter the area of effect, fleeing if they do not. For 1 Reach, lured creatures are benign to the target and will offer food or small favors. For 1 Reach, lured intelligent creatures treat the target as having a good first impression and repelled ones treat the target as having a bad first impression for purposes of Social Maneuvering. Mutable Mask allows you to change the target's skin pigmentation, phenotypical features, apparent sex, hair color, hair texture, small fat deposits, their scent or the sound of their voice. You can add or remove moles or scars, too. However, even at the most extreme there will be some resemblance left afterwards, like a familial resemblance, though the changes are enough to fool sketch artists or facial recognition. However, fingerprint scanners and retnal scanners can stil tell. You cannot use this spell to mimic specific people. The changes are purely illusory and can be seen through with a Clash of wills by certain powers, such as Life Mage Sight. For 2 Reach, you can duplicate a person's appearance, all the way down to scars, retinal patterns and fingerprints. Purge Illness reduces an illness or infirmity's severity level by (Potency), curing it entirely if its Potency is greater than the severity level. Life 3 spells include: Bruise Flesh deals (Potency)B to the target via bruising. For 1 Reach, they also suffer a -1 wound penalty on top of any normal wound penalties due to endorphin blockage. Degrading the Form reduces one of Strength, Dexterity or Stamina by (Potency), to a minimum of 1, chosen when the spell is cast. For 1 Reach, the Potency can be divided in lowering two Attributes. For another Reach, you can divide between all three. Honing the Form increases one of Strength, Dexterity or Stamina by (Potency), chosen when the spell is cast, but cannot raise them above the target's maximum. For 1 Reach, you can spread the bonus between two Attributes. For another Reach, you can spread it between all three. For 1 Reach and 1 Mana, you can go over the target's maximums. Knit heals (Potency*2)B damage, including damage caused by toxins or deprivation. For 1 Reach, you can heal physical tilts such as Arm Wrack, forcing broken bones to mend. For 1 Reach, you not only heal deprivation damage but also charge the target's system as though they'd had a full meal and lots of water. For 1 Reach, you reproduce the effects of a night's sleep, including regaining Willpower if applicable. Many Faces lets you alter the target's body and appearance in any way within the bounds of species and age. This is not illusory, but entirely functional and physical. You may even rearrange up to (Potency) dots of Physical Attributes, though you cannot alter the total number of dots, reduce any to 0 or raise them over the target's maximum. With Time 3, you may also alter age. Transform Life can transform the target to grant features found in other creatures, granting (PotencY) features. The target instinctively knows how to use these features. This can even target microorganisms, if you can perceive them, though obviously many features besides increased Toxicity, resistance to environments or new ways to reproduce will not be useful to these. Common features include:
Life 4 spells include: Accelerate Growth, which doubles the target's growth rate for each level of Potency. When the spell ends, the target reverts back to their natural age at the same rate...and if they die of old age, they return to life. For 1 Reach, the effects wear off even faster than they aged, stressing their mind and body enough to need a Stamina roll to not enter a coma for (Potency) days. Further, targets dead of old age do not return to life when they revert to their natural age, appearing to have died of natural causes despite their youth. Animal Minion allows you to take control of the target's body, making it do anything it is capable of, though you have no access to their thoughts. You can force a human to talk, but not intelligibly except in your own words, and targets often move differently than they would naturally. While using this spell, your body is rendered inert (though it ages and tires as normal). You lose Defense and are only vaguely aware of your own body, though you are alerted to any damage and may immediately end the spell to return to it. For 1 Reach, the body behaves more normally and you get an understanding of its normal tics, movements and habits. Life-Force Assault deals (Potency)L via unspecified tissue damage. For 1 Reach, it can also cripple nerves, increasing all wound penalties by 2. For 1 Reach and 1 Mana, the damage is agg. Mend heals (Potency)L. For 1 Reach, it can erase scars. For 1 Reach, it heals deprivation damage as well and charges the target's system as if they had a meal and lots of water. For 1 Reach, it also reproduces the effects of a night's sleep, including Willpower regeneration if applicable. For 1 Reach and 1 Mana, the spell heals agg damage. Regeneration can restore lost limbs, scarred tissue, dead tissue and even brain damage, as long as the target is alive, with larger or more important parts costing more Potency. The regeneration takes about 1 minute per level of Potency needed. Most mages cast this with Indefinite duration, but some can't or don't, and when the spell ends, the regenerated parts wither in less than a minute. Shapechanging transforms the target into another animal, with all the instincts of that animal. They must roll Resolve+Composure not to obey those instincts when they are triggered, though mages add Gnosis and other supernaturals add their Tolerance traits. With Matter 4, you also merge the target's gear into their new form. For 1 Reach and Matter 4, the gear becomes part of the form, appearing as scars, fur or scales with odd patterns. For 1 Reach, the target can be turned into a swarm. For 1 Reach, the target has full reason and no instinctive urges. Life 5 spells include: Create Life conjures a new organism from nothing, though it has no mind of its own and acts purely on instinct, simple even for an animal but otherwise fully functional. You may create anything you can imagine, though it will obey laws of physics - a conjured dragon can't fly, for example. When the duration ends, the creature vanishes, which can be an Act of Hubris against Enlightened Wisdom, as can the creation of certain creatures. Created human bodies are soulless. With Mind 5, the creation has a true mind appropriate to its nature. With 1 Reach, you may apply up to (Potency) features as per Transform Life. Contagion unleashes a disease of Severity (Potency). If you have equipment that can store it, you can create the disease in that, or else you must find a carrier suitable to its transmission method. It is immediately contagious, requiring a Stamina+Resolve roll to not contract it. For 1 Reach, the disease can be an entirely new one, unseen before. This is almost always an Act of Hubris. Because no living creature has ever encountered the disease, rolls to resist getting it or resist its effects are at -5. Salt the Earth kills all living creatures in the targeted area, period. Even microscopic organisms die and decomposition halts due to this. Nothing in the area can become fertilized, though any existing pregnancies remain if, somehow, something survives. The area becomes an Extreme Environment of level (Potency). For 1 Reach, anything that manages to survive is unable to grow or heal naturally and also gets a -1 wound penalty on top of any they already have. Next time: Matter
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May 10, 2016 17:49
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Grnegsnspm posted:Time for a brand new episode! We are finally reviewing GURPS! Kind of. Tangentially. And it's the Lite Rules. Still, though. GURPS! And much more importantly than any of that, Discworld! Yeah, the million-to-one chance thing is called out when Nobby and crew are trying to game it, as something on the order of "Destiny favors million-to-one chances, but Fate has 999,999 deciding votes".
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May 10, 2016 17:56
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Interesting. So I only need life 2 to make someone crap their pants? Seems mandatory on most wizards, unless the other arcana can replicate that
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May 10, 2016 18:02
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Hostile V posted:CHAPTER THREE: The Basic Mechanic. Amazing: adjective 1. causing great surprise or sudden wonder. Incredible: adjective 1. so extraordinary as to seem impossible: incredible speed 2. not credible; hard to believe; unbelievable. Phenomenal: adjective 1. highly extraordinary or prodigious; exceptional: phenomenal speed It would seem that the phenomenal is easier than the incredible. And how do I tell when something is Phenomenal as opposed to Amazing?
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May 10, 2016 18:32
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LatwPIAT posted:Amazing: adjective 1. causing great surprise or sudden wonder. More seriously, uh, there are no actual examples of anything higher than Difficult that I've been able to find so far. I'll get back to you if I can but so far most of the things I've seen are just "look set the TN low and if they want to do something really amazing like cure AIDS (this is not hyperbole) then they need this many extra successes".
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May 10, 2016 18:59
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Well, if I'm reading the system correctly, that's probably because hitting anything past difficult is enormously unlikely without huge numbers of dice and/or very large bonuses. "Difficult" requires you to roll 15 on one (exploding) die. That means you have to roll a 6, roll another 6 on the explosion, and then roll a 3 or higher on that explosion. That's a 1/54 chance per die; for a 50% chance of hitting that check, you need to roll 37 dice. To hit "amazing" at 20, you need three sixes in a row, and then a 2 or higher, giving you a one in 259.2 chance per die. Phenomenal, by the way? That's 5 sixes in a row, a one in 7776 chance. Good luck. megane fucked around with this message at 22:28 on May 10, 2016 |
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May 10, 2016 22:20
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Hostile V, which of the BNW books are you missing?
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May 10, 2016 22:20
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Maxwell Lord posted:I'm still a bit wary of Third since it seems like this is now a game that has to serve several masters. Like, combat can be quite lethal and is kinda common in the setting but also people want to be able to make characters who have no combat ability whatsoever for some reason. I believe this is less severe now, although A. Mr. Dex 3/Melee 2 will still not be a good fighter against things that aren't very weak compared to him and B. at a certain point they should abandon the pretense of skill dots.
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May 10, 2016 22:36
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megane posted:Well, if I'm reading the system correctly, that's probably because hitting anything past difficult is enormously unlikely without huge numbers of dice and/or very large bonuses. "Difficult" requires you to roll 15 on one (exploding) die. That means you have to roll a 6, roll another 6 on the explosion, and then roll a 3 or higher on that explosion. That's a 1/54 chance per die; for a 50% chance of hitting that check, you need to roll 37 dice. To hit "amazing" at 20, you need three sixes in a row, and then a 2 or higher, giving you a one in 259.2 chance per die. Humbug Scoolbus posted:Hostile V, which of the BNW books are you missing?
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May 11, 2016 00:24
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So is hell real in bnw? Demon summoning is really conspicuous.
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May 11, 2016 00:35
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chaos rhames posted:So is hell real in bnw? Demon summoning is really conspicuous. Also I was wrong about Phenomenal actions. It takes a TN 30 roll and a week of prep and recreation for a Bargainer to replace a destroyed totem. That should say a lot about the issues they have in the core book as written.
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May 11, 2016 00:41
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Siivola posted:If you cast a spell to point the car at the sky, you could just shoot the fucker into space. At that velocity it's irrelevant which way the car is going; Earth's escape velocity is around 6.96 miles per second or 11.2 km/s, if friction didn't burn the car to ashes it would be flying through the void of space.
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May 11, 2016 03:38
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LatwPIAT posted:Amazing: adjective 1. causing great surprise or sudden wonder. You can tell something's amazing if wealth and fame are ignored. Action is the reward.
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May 11, 2016 03:53
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Nessus posted:I think it'd be hard to avoid having any combat ability at all unless you were deliberately avoiding it, but it had the common white wolf problem of "You think 3 DEX and 2 (fight stat) mean you're passingly hard? You are completely wrong." and in previous editions this was amplified heavily by the fact that just about anyone could produce a giant bucket of dice pretty easily, meaning that fights resembled rounds of Dive-Kick more than anything -- UNLESS you had a "perfect defense," which was a Charm that explicitly let you block anything without harm (explicitly literally anything that didn't hit specific flaws in the Charm - though it might have not been functional against environmental damage). I can comment on this, since I'm still working on the next update, but 1) The book calls out that Melee 2 is meant to be the level of skill a mortal soldier would have. It outright encourages you to push a Skill to 3, at least, and pump it up further with EXP/Bonus Points. This is largely because almost all starter Charms for a skill require at least 3 dots to purchase. And besides, an Exalted is meant to be a demigod-like being, so you'd think you'd be better than a mortal at having to face things down. 2) Compared to 2nd Ed, I'd say that it's far easier for characters to be combat-capable, and the book continues to encourage -some- level of this, whether it's via Occult for Spellcasting or one of the other combat skills. 3) Perfect Defense Flaws are no longer a thing in Ex3. There are some charms that give you a very -situational- defense. (For example, in Resistance, one of the few Perfect Defenses is against Uncountable environmental damage, such as, say, falling from a mile in the air, or having a mountain chucked at you, or falling into lava.) However, the way combat works in Exalted 3e you have a better buffer against taking a lot of damage immediately, so overall the 'mote chicken' game is pretty much gone. I'm still slogging through Part 4, but I hope to have it up soon. Monathin fucked around with this message at 05:32 on May 11, 2016 |
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May 11, 2016 05:19
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CHAPTER FOUR: Getting the Job Done So you get Skills to pick equal to 3xStat in the skills that apply to that stat. You can transfer points between stats with a conversion of two-to-one, so 4 Strength Skill points become 2 Smarts Skill points. The following Skills are free at creation: Area Knowledge (Hometown) 2, Climbing 1, Language (Native) 2, Scrutinize 1 and Search 1. These skills are recommended in general: Bravery, Driving (Personal Vehicle), Fighting (Barehanded), Perception, Persuasion (Bluff), Stealth and Swimming. The majority of these are straight-forward and I really don't feel like explaining what they all are. Some of them I will if they don't immediately make sense and I'll include any interesting charts or art I find. Smarts
 Her poor spine and joints. Spirit
Academia: I don't have to explain this one, it's just non-science smarts, but I find it hilarious that you can just take Comparative Literature. I wouldn't put it past certain Deltas to end up focusing on Randian Objectivism. Bravery: You can roll this before you do something incredibly stupid or more likely when the GM makes you do it to do something. If you fail you panic and freeze.  Bureaucratics: 90s as fuuuuuuuck. Dodging: Put points in this for combat. Driving: Pretty much just for stunty driving, if you have to drive normally you can. Escaping: Not just for death traps, also for being tied up. It's also explicitly mentioned that most villains just straight-up kill heroic deltas by shooting them in the head.  Distant cackling. Faith: How strongly you believe in your faith. Some kind of deltas might need this for their powers! Who knows! Stay tuned for more books! Forgery: Surprisingly necessary because important papers are needed for a lot of things. Gambling: Does not work in actual gambling or games of chance like roulette or craps. This is for, like, poker and cheating in poker. Language: 1 is illiterate in that language and child talk, 2 is high school level and writing. Leadership: Prevents surprise and the person with the Leadership skill can give other people their extra actions per round. Mimic: Copy someone's voice and mannerisms. Separate from disguise. Profession: Not actually used to make money. Quick Draw: It's TN 5 to draw and shoot in a firefight. You probably don't ever need this skill to be over 3.  Scrutinize: Sense Motive, also spot fakes. Search: Find people, not things. Speed-Load: Reload faster, more useful than Quick Draw. Sport (Deltaball): An organized sport for deltas only because they can't/should not play normal sports. It's like Blood Bowl, basically. Tactics: A role-play only skill where good rolls help plug holes in the plan. Tinkering: Mandatory for Gadgeteers. CHAPTER FIVE: The Well-Rounded Hero So yeah. Advantages and disadvantages. There are way more negative quirks than positive ones. You have to have one of the following quirks per choice. Delta or Reg (0): If you're a Delta, congrats. You're a superhero. If you're a Reg, congrats. You're a normal person. You can kind of just stop here and not worry about the rest of the book if you're a normal person. Public Identity or Secret Identity (0): If public then you better be registered, otherwise you immediately get the Wanted quirk. Registered or Unregistered (0): Give the government every detail of your life or don't.  Yellin'. POSITIVE QUIRKS Alert (3): +2 to Perception/Search. Ambidextrous (5): You're really good at dual-wielding or using either hand. Incredibly handy for combat. Authority (1-5): The higher the level, the more power you have. You have to take Duty as well.  Beautiful (1): +2 to Persuasion for lookin' good. Brave (1): +2 to Bravery rolls but you need a Spirit roll to run when you should. Brawny (3): Requires Strength 4. Increases Size to 6. Contact (1-5): Talk this over with your GM but this is the friend trait. Dark Secret (1-5): This is both positive and negative. Negative is "you have a dark secret that could wreck you". Positive is "you have someone's dark secret and could wreck them". Destined for Greatness (5): You can't die to minor bad guys or threats, only major villains. Handy. Double-Jointed (1): +2 bonus to Escape. Famous (2): +2 bonus to Persuasion rolls depending on what you're famous for. Favor Owed (1): Once it's called in, it's gone.  Gear (1-5): Each point is roughly 50K or more. Good for getting that expensive thing. Iron Jaw (3): -2 to TN when hit with a Stun attack. Light Sleeper (1): -2 to TN to wake up if suspicious things are happening. Lucky (3): Get an extra Delta Point. This extra point can be used in the normal ways plus it can undo a disastrous roll. What's a Delta Point? Well, everyone gets 3 and they're basically explained later and the alter rolls. Also includes the incredibly unfortunate sentence "The world treats your hero like she's Irish and every day is St. Patrick's feast". Ordained (1): You can do religious stuff legally. Sure, why not. Patron (2-5): Someone can help when you need it. Photographic Memory (5): Smarts rolls to recall stuff. Rich (1-5): Get munny.  Self Confident (2): +2 to any Persuasion rolls when resisting someone's efforts. Sense of Direction (1) Sense of Time (1) Sharp Ears (1): +2 to hearing Perception rolls.  Sharp Eyes (1): +2 to sight Perception. Sidekick (5): Build a teenage buddy to assist you then Vow to protect them. Tough (2): -1 to Wound-Effect modifiers you're suffering from. Veteran (0): Get 5 free points to spend on Skills, Quirks or Tricks but get a Rank 5 Enemy and Wanted for being a veteran hero. Voice (1): +2 to friendly Persuasion, +2 to hostile Persuasion. Wise (3): Spirit roll to ask the GM if you're about to make a mistake.  Context needed. Seriously. There's no context even in the book. NEGATIVE QUIRKS Absent-Minded (3): +3 to the TN of any Perception roll for things you're not focused on. Addiction (1/3): Lesser is jonesing for minor things, major is severe. If dry for 24 hours, add +3 to any Smarts roll TN or +5 if severe. Arrogant (3): You're a dick. +2 to TN for any non-hostile Persuasion rolls. Bad Habit (1-3): You do something that grosses out other people if they see you do it. If they see you do it and you try to friendly-Persuade them, add your rank in Bad Habit to the Target Number. Bigot (1-3): You're even more of a dick and this is meant more for NPCs. Bloodthirsty (2): TN 10 Spirit roll to not murder someone surrendering to you in a fight. Cautious (3): Spirit rolls to act beyond your careful nature. Cheap (2): Find gear 25% cheaper because you're frugal but if it's damaged, roll a d6 and if the result ends up 10+, it breaks.  Deals so low, they're insane. Clumsy (3): +2 to TN on unskilled Speed rolls. Doesn't apply to Skilled ones because you're trained to not be clumsy. Code of Honor (3): Don't kill needlessly (especially in cold blood), don't hit someone from behind, don't ambush. +2 bonus to Persuasive rolls if you have to be a cape-type person and Persuade people. Coward (3): You're cowardly and if people know you're a coward, +2 to the TN of Persuading them. Crazy (1-5): The "Legitimate Mental Illness" trait.  Curious (3) Dark Secret (1-5) Death Wish (5): You're fixin' to die and you're taking big stupid risks. That's it. No mechanical rules for it. Dependent (1-5): This is the "I have annoying family/friends" Quirk that you take and have to pretend to feel sad when they inevitably die or you just mail them off to Sweden. Disabled (3/5): Yep. Rules for having impaired legs/arms. Duty (1-5): The more demanding it is, the more points you get back. Enemy (1-5): Has to be a distinct person. No rules besides "the more powerful/they show up, the more points you get back". Frail (3): +1 added to any Wound modifiers you're suffering under. Glass Jaw (3): +2 to TN to making a stun check. Greedy (2): No real mechanical use. Gullible (2): Opponents get +2 bonuses to their attempts to persuade you. Heavy Sleeper (1): +2 to TN to waking up from suspicious noises. Hefty (2/3): Increase Size to 6 and reduce Pace by 2 or increase to 7 and reduce by 4. Heroic (5): You're, uh. Heroic. Boo. Hiss. Honest (3): Can't take Bluff, people get +2 bonuses to Scrutinizing your lies but you get +2 bonuses to Persuasion if folks know you're honest. Illness (1/3/5): Your rank in the Quality is the TN you have to beat for Strength at the start of every session. Success is good, failing imposes modifiers, critically failing makes your illness worse.  Illiterate (3): Y Kant Delta Read? You can only have a 1 in Language for any language. Impulsive (3): Any time you need to make a plan, TN 10 Spirit roll to not stomp off in a huff.  Loyal (3): You have to make a Spirit roll to deny a friend your help. Lusty (1): +2 bonus to Persuasion if they like the fact that you're horny, -2 to the roll if they don't. Mean (2): Even more assholery. You get -2 to good Persuasive rolls and +2 bonus to hostile Persuasive. Mute (3) Obligation (1/3): The higher one means the debt you owe is ongoing. Obvious (3/5): Lesser rank is just "you look conspicious", higher is "you're quite obviously a Delta". Old (3): -1 to Speed dice total. Pacifist (3/5): Only kill when it's absolutely necessary vs. never kill ever. Poor (3): Can't hold on to money, start play with just $100. Poor Ears (2/4): +3 TN to Hearing Perception or absolute deafness. With a hearing aid, still +1 to TN. Poor Eyes (1/3/5): Needing glasses, +3 to Perception TN, blindness. Savage (3): Flip the gently caress out if you can't make a Spirit roll when stuff gets tough. -3 to Smarts when freaking, +3 to Strength bonus, can only use a club.  Self-Righteous (2): Holier-than-thou dick. -2 to Persuasion when people don't agree, +2 if they do. Skeptical (1): +2 to resisting people's attempts to persuade you stuff. Slow (2): -2 to Pace. Slight (5): -1 to Size. Snobby (1): Elitist dick. -1 to any attempts to Persuade people politely. Softhearted (1): Make Spirit rolls to ignore people in need. Stubborn (2): Pig-headed dick. Spirit rolls to change your mind. Stutter (2): -1 to friendly Persuasion or make a Spirit roll to speak normally when poo poo is real. Superstitious (2): Spirit roll to resist a -1 modifier to dealing with supernatural crap. Squeamish (2): Bravery roll or run if stuff is gross. Temper (2): Spirit roll to not react violently. Ugly (2): -2 to friendly Persuasion, +2 to hostile. Unlucky (5): You need one less 1 than normal to trigger a Disastrous roll. Vengeful (2): You basically want to get revenge forever but there's no mechanical effect. Vow (1-5): The more intrusive it is, the more you get back. Wanted (5): Cops are comin'.  Young (1): -2 to any Persuasion because you're a teen. NEXT TIME: We got us some game mechanics and also probably Tricks in Chapter 6 and 7. I hope you're ready for a clumsy initiative system.
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May 11, 2016 08:05
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Ah, Destiny merits, or, "pay this point tax to be an actual hero". I guess the default state of PCs would be "Destined For Meekness", then?
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May 11, 2016 11:41
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The meek shall inherit the earth! I just want to say that the art is frickin' hilarious. I know it's trying to be 90's comics, but it's either bland or really bad. At least none of them are trying to imitate Liefeld.
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May 11, 2016 11:57
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The colored art is pretty good! The black and white, ehhh. It's mostly black and white from her on out but the really weird part that I sprinkled that in to break up the words, but even with their placement in the book they don't entirely make sense (the Wanted art is where it should be, for instance).
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May 11, 2016 17:04
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Ah, Destiny merits, or, "pay this point tax to be an actual hero". I guess the default state of PCs would be "Destined For Meekness", then?
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May 11, 2016 17:17
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Mage: the Awakening, 2nd Edition Matter is the Arcanum of alchemy, gases, solids, liquids, shaping things, crafting, transmutation and stasis. It covers all that is inert, lifeless and material. Even stuff that used to be alive or was produced from life, like wood or wine. Many see it as the basest Arcanum, closest to the Lie, but in truth it is an echo of the perfected material of the Supernal. Matter 1 spells include: Craftsman's Eye, which reveals the intended use of any tools, no matter how simple or complex, or if it has no purpose. It also reveals the nature of any problem that prevents the object from fulfilling its purpose. For 1 Reach, you also learn how to use the object - the combination to the safe, say - and get 8-again to any roll to use the most recently studied item. For 2 Reach, you learn all possible uses for the target, though focusing on any particular use may require a Wits+Composure roll for especially complex items. With Fate 1, you can name a specific task when casting, and the spell will highlight any item that would be useful for that when you look at it. Detect Substance lets you name up to (Potency) substances that fall under Matter. You are aware of those substances' presence and location in the area of effect for the duration. The substance can be defined as broadly or specifically as you like. With Tim 1, you can detect if the substances were in the area in the past equal to the spell's duration. With Forces 1, you may search for specific electronic information, revealing both what device the information is on and, if you are using it, where the file is stored on it. Discern Composition makes you aware of an object's composition, weight and density. For 1 Reach, you are aware of anything concealed in the object. For 1 Reach, you instinctively know the object's structural weak spot, and any attempts you make to damage it treat it aS (Potency) Durability less than normal until the object is destroyed or fully repaired. With Space 2, you also know where the materials making up the object came from precisely. However, using this on an Artifact produces an overwhelming rush of symbols, rolling the Artifact's rating against your Gnosis. If you lose, you gain the Shaken condition, resolvable for an Arcane Beat. Lodestone lets you name a substance or object. For the duration, that substance is drawn to the target. Coins bounce towards them, water flows towards them as long as they are downstream, whatever. Unless the object can move under its own power, it can only be lightly nudged - a ball might roll towards you but a book won't fly at you. You may alternatively repel the substance instead - not enough to deflect a blow, but enough to keep you dry in the rain or saf from poisonous gas. Remote Control allows you to make any mechanical device perform its function - you can flip a switch, make a press slam down or shift a car into gear. Anything that could be done in an instant action and which the device is capable of doing. If the action needs a skill roll, treat it as having (Potency) successes. For 1 Reach, you can also perform complex tasks while controlling the object, including extended actions or maintaining continuous control for the duration. Matter 2 spells include: Alchemist's Touch, which lets you name a particular material or form of matter. That material cannot cause Bashing damage to you, and any lethal damage from it is reduced by (Potency). Aggravated damage is not reduced. However, this only reduces harm intrinsic to the material - the harm from a sword or bullet is the force behind it and so is not reduced. However, you could handle radioactive materials or breathe chlorine gas. For 1 Reach, you may add a second form of matter to the protection. For 2 Reach, you are immune to both Bashing and Lethal damage and reduce Aggravated by (Potency). With Forces 2, you are also protected from extreme temperatures caused by the material - you could touch lava unharmed, scoop up molten steel or dip a finger in liquid nitrogen safely. Find the Balance improves a tool's balance via subtle manipulation of density. The tool grants 9-again for the duration, as long as this balance could help it. For 1 Reach, it instead gains 8-again. Hidden Hoard makes the target object seem entirely unimportant. Mundane attempts to find it automatically fail, and supernatural ones require a Clash of Wills. Machine Invisibility renders all inanimate objects incapable of seeing you - cameras, microphones, and so on cannot detect you at all. Supernatural objects such as remote-viewing Artifacts provoke a Clash of Wills. For 1 Reach, this also applies against unliving constructs of magic, such as golems or zombies. They always provoke a Clash of Wills. Shaping allows you to control the shape and movement of gas or liquid or amorphous solids. You may shape them in any form you like, ignoring gravity, for the duration. You can't change their state of matter, but objects made temporarily malleable by magic can be affected. Particularly intricate shapes may take a Crafts roll. For 1 Reach, you can alter solids as well. If used to warp a tool or weapon, reduce the equipment or weapon bonus by (Potency), making it useless if reduced to 0. For 1 Reach, reduce the number of successes needed to create or repair an object in an extended action by (Potency), to a minimum of 1. For 2 Reach, you can create an appropriate Tilt, such as Earthquake or Howling Winds. Matter 3 spells include: Aegis, which renders a wearable object tougher or weaker. For each level of Potency, choose one:
Alter Conductivity changes how an object conducts electricity. It can automatically shut down any powered device that isn't powered enough to inflict damage, or it can increase or decrease the amount of electricity that can flow through an object. For each level of Potency, the object can conduct 2 points of electrical damage or reduces electrical damage by 2. The object must still be in contact with the electricity source capable of dealing that damage. Reducing damage to 0 also shuts down any devices tied to that power. For 1 Reach, you can alter the ability to transmit other forms of energy, such as heat, sound or even light. Each additional form costs 1 Reach. Alter Integrity increases or decreases an object's Durability by (Potency) without affecting Structure. For 1 Reach, you may instead spend levels of Potency to give 2 Structure per level of Potency spent for the duration. For 2 reach, this spell's effects are Lasting. Crucible grants 8-again when using the target object for (Potency) rolls due to Supernal purity. Valuable objects become incredibly pure, increasing their value in Resources by (Potency), to a max of double its original value. For 1 Reach and 1 Mana, the object gains the rote quality for (Potency) rolls, rechargable during the duration for another Mana to give another (Potency) rolls. For 1 Reach, the object's value can increase to triple its original value. Nigredo and Albedo lets you restore or inflict (Potency) Structure damage. For 1 Reach, this damage ignores Durability. Shrink and Grow moves an object further or closer to its Supernal ideal, making it grow or shrink. Add or subtract (Potency) from its Size. Size 0 items can be shrunk to the size of a dime. With Life 3, this can affect living targets. State Change transmuts a material one 'step' on the path of solid-liquid-gas, without altering temperature. Newly made solids have (Potency) Durability and (Size+Durability) Structure. When the duration ends, the object returns to its natural state but retains the form it held in its altered state. With Forces 3, you can transmute matter to plasma. For 1 Reach, you can transform a solid to a gas directly or vice versa. Windstrike causes wind or water to lash out at the target, dealing (Potency)B damage. For 1 Reach, this also creates an environmental tilt such as Flooded or Heavy Winds. Wonderful Machine allows you to superimpose parts of objects on each other, transposing one quality per level of Potency - such as making a rotisserie's heat generation become part of a gun, say. You can swap out what bullets a gun uses, or incorporate a full gun into another device, disguising it until it's used or is closely inspected. With Life 3, you can graft properties of machines onto living beings, like taking a blowtorch and giving a bird fire breath...or taking the bird's flight and making a flying blowtorch. Matter 4 spells include: Ghostwall renders a volume of matter wholly or partly insubstantial, remaining where they are but unable to touch anything. They are not in Twilight - they're just not 'real.' With Death, Mind or Spirit 3, they can be made Twilight, attuned to the Arcanum used. Golem animates an object, letting it move as if alive as a Retainer of (Potency) dots, whose 'field' is simple labor, fighting and simple tasks. The golem is mindless and can only obey one order at a time, which must be simple. If attacked, it has no Defense but has Durability based on its makeup and Structure of (Durability+Size). With Death or Spirit 3, you can bind a ghost or spirit respectively to animate the golem as an intelligence, using the ephemeral entity's powers and a 'field' of whatever it is now capable of. With Mind 5, you can create a mind for it whole cloth as per the Psychic Genesis spell. Piercing Earth makes stone and earth attack the target, dealing (Potency)L damage. For 1 Reach, this applies an environmental tilt, such as Earthquake. For 1 Reach and 1 Mana, this deals Agg damage. Transubstantiation turns any matter into any other matter, with purity and quality determined by Potency, treated as an equipment bonus or Resources value as appropriate. Both the initial and transformed substance must be relatively pure - wood to gold, yes, but not gold chased with silver. Purity is, according to Moros, a perceptual concept - wine may be a mixture, but it is seen as one thing, so it's 'pure'. With Life 4, you can turn matter into living things or living things into matter. Unless you also have Mind 5, any life created this way is mindless and driven by pure instinct. For 1 Reach, you can turn multiple substances into one or vice versa. Matter 5 spells include: Annihilate Matter reduces any inert matter into nothingness instantly, dissolving its atomic lattice entirely. Not even dust remains. Magical objects cannot be touched by this spell. For 1 Reach and 1 Mana, they can be. Ex Nihilo creates an object from nothing - any simple tool or relatively uncomplicated machine, like a revolver but not an automatic. Potency is allocated as you choose between Durability and equipment bonus. For 1 Reach, the object can be as complex as you like, even electronic, so long as it obeys all known physical principles. Self-Repairing Machine causes an object to heal (Potency) Structure each day for the duration. For 1 Reach, it heals every hour instead. For 2 Reach, every 15 minutes. Next time: Mind
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May 11, 2016 18:08
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A good alt name for Craftsman's Eye would have been "Adventure Game Protagonist"
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May 11, 2016 19:03
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 Dogs in the Vineyard is a 2004 indie RPG about the Dogs, young gunslingers who wander a fantasy world based on pre-statehood Utah, preserving the Faithful in the face of sin and demonic influence. It's full of things and ideas that I absolutely love. There's also stuff in here that I really hate. Between the two, I couldn't not do a writeup of it. The game is set in something like the Wild West in the middle of the 19th century, but the details are different. Religious pioneers flee the violence and persecution of the East. They build towns, small and vulnerable to attack both from external forces and internal corruption. Pride becomes sin, anger becomes violence, resentment becomes hate. Then, the demons move in.  The book doesn't feel like most tabletop RPG texts. It's formatted a lot like a novel, and the tone is unusually conversational. It's like having a chat with the game creator, trying to explain his magnum opus to you over drinks. I kind of like it. Not much art, though, so this'll be pretty wall-of-texty. What's it Like to Play? After a basic explanation for people who have never roleplayed, we get an overview of the flow of the game. It's intended to play episodically - each session is a new town, with new problems. You move in, solve what you can, then move on, leaving the town behind you. The described tone of play is, again, pretty unusual. It encourages things like players contributing to the story actively with suggestions even when they're not involved in the scene (a good idea in any storygame, really), and the GM telling the players things their characters don't know ICly: quote:"You cut out across the field toward the smoldering wagon. There’s a gang of robbers hiding in the grass and behind a couple of nearby trees. You haven’t seen them yet. What do you do?" The GM is also heavily discouraged from planning a story. The GM's role is to create a town at the brink of crisis, then respond to the players. Play the NPCs, be willing to let them die, don't have an ending in mind. Before You Play One GM, two to four players. The players are expected to be at least passingly familiar with the Western genre. The GM is expected to have created a first town. You'll need dice - a whole lot of dice. All of DitV's mechanics rely on big meaty piles of dice, with no modifiers added to them. A group of dice can have two main operations performed on it: Add a Die (4d6 becomes 5d6), or Change the Die Size (4d6 becomes 4d8). Under some conditions you'll end up with mismatched dice (1d6 4d10), but a single pool is usually all of the same die. At the First Session Four things happen:
From Then On The party wanders from town to town. Each adventure is one town. Something is wrong in the town, and God's Watchdogs are there to right it. This means uprooting the cause, passing judgment, and enacting the will of God - mercy, justice, or vengeance. The rules are there to do three things: Create congregations in turmoil, relentlessly escalate conflicts, and bring the consequences of those conflicts back down to the players. Next: The setting.
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May 11, 2016 19:29
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Mover posted:A good alt name for Craftsman's Eye would have been "Adventure Game Protagonist" Yeah, that particular trick is nice enough that it wouldn't be out of the line as a Exalted Craft charm.
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May 11, 2016 20:05
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I recall a lot of whining about this game on RPGnet and the like back when it was new, but hell if I remember what actually set it off. Besides being one of the early modern-style heavily theme-focused storygames that made grognards absolutely livid.
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May 11, 2016 20:21
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I think it was because DitV was one of the early Forge-theory produced games. Though RPGnet hasn´t really changed since then. They still whine about things incessantly and for the most part still seem to adore CthulhuTech.
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May 11, 2016 21:05
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