Hostile V posted:

ARB, Kevin Siembieda being a total knob is inspiring me to finally get off my rear end and review something I've been wishy-washy about tackling, so thanks for that.

wiegieman posted:

I wish I had links saved, but there are some great angry paragraphs about how terrible Kevin Siembieda is at pretty much everything.

Mors Rattus posted:

I'm still amazed that Palladium has what might be generously called current releases.

quote:

“Is it jammed?” Jesse asked. From the other side he thought he could hear voices, maybe a man and a woman, it was hard to tell through the thick darkroom door. He repeated the question, louder this time, but if there was any particular response he didn’t hear one, just more indistinct talking. Jesse shivered, and with a sense of growing confusion realized the handle was cold in his hand. Had it been that way when he grabbed it? He felt like he would have noticed that. It was cold outside, but the heat was on in the building.
He let go, turned to walk away—
Boom.
“Oh, for gently caress’s sake, fine.” Jesse turned back, grabbed the handle and put his shoulder to the door. There was a moment’s resistance, but then the door flung open and Jesse stumbled after it into the darkened room. At first he figured the dim red light was simply par for the course in a darkroom, until he saw what was emitting it, and had just enough time to wonder who had put up torches in a classroom before the many things that were one was upon him. The door slammed shut as Jesse began screaming.

quote:

“You’ve got to be loving kidding me.”

The two women were standing in the basement hallway where Jesse had died only a few weeks earlier, staring at the last door he’d opened. The college had reopened the room in the week after the “tragic accident,” but now that the two women were close enough to it, no supernatural senses were required to feel the otherworldly chill emanating from the room. Sam stood across the hall from the door, hands on her hips and a disgusted, almost offended expression on her face. “You didn’t sense this before?” Becca asked.

“No! I mean, I haven’t been here in,” Sam paused to do some math. “Well, let’s call it a while. I got bored of art, figured I’d give it a break for a few years. gently caress!” She slammed her hand into the wall hard enough that Becca winced. “I’m getting sloppy.”

“Not to twist the knife,” Becca began cautiously, “but this is way, way older than a few years.” She pointed at the door, and then gestured around them. “This has been here since before all of this was built. Now something’s breaking and it’s coming apart.”

quote:

“Yeah, well, this? This is news to me.” Sam felt an absurd urge to attack the door itself and reined it in. She was already hungry. She hadn’t had a proper feeding since she noticed Becca following her around, and the bad mood that accompanied a lean time was only getting worse. “Seriously. I haven’t got a loving clue what’s going on here, but I’m going to find out, believe me.” She felt the blood running down her palms and a feral smile crossed her face. “Nobody hunts here but me.”

“I don’t think anyone is hunting,” Becca said. Seeing Sam’s sideways look, she explained. “I mean, yes, whatever’s down here killed that guy. But I don’t think it’s a person, or even a thing. I think this place is hunting.”

“What, like … an Amityville thing?”

“Well, Amityville was a hoax,” Becca corrected reflexively, “but yeah, if it was real, I’d say something like that.” She put a hand out toward the door, feeling the chill intensify as she got closer. Even the gate under the old hanging tree back home hadn’t been this powerful, and that had set her heart racing just passing by. This gate, whatever it was, felt like standing too close to the bass speaker at a concert — a constant, low-level thrumming in her bones. “I did get some research done before I ran across you,” Becca said, pulling her hand back. Her fingertips looked bleached, as if she’d plunged them into a snow bank. “You know this was the site of the college founder’s original residence? I mean, it was the president’s house until the ‘50s, then it burned down and they had another building in mind for the president’s residence, so they put the new art building on top of it.”

“So, what, are you saying people died in the fire or something?”

“No, not like that. That might cause a haunting, but not this.”

“Was he like some sort of weird occultist or something?”

Becca frowned, considering. “Maybe? I don’t know how you’d create something like this on purpose. This is a real Avernian Gate — a gate to the Underworld –— but it’s been modified, somehow.” Becca gestured vaguely at the doorway, trying to find the right words. “Most gates are locked, one way or the other. Otherwise, people would just wander in and out of the Underworld, living or dead. That’s true here too. As strong as this gate is, believe it or not it’s still locked. Well, mostly.”

quote:

“drat.” To Sam, the large, vaulted chamber looked like a man-cave designed by Aleister Crowley — tall shelves stacked with books, black candles burning in elaborate brass candelabras, rich carpets the color of pooled blood spread across the floor, even some overstuffed chairs with suspiciously textured leather. A fire blazed in the hearth, though no heat emanated from it, just waves of bitter cold.
The Devourer might once have matched the room better or so said the tatters of its suit, but it had bloated past human proportions, swollen skin bursting out through straining seams. Its face was a puffy mess of flesh devoid of any recognizable features aside from its wide, slobbering maw, which had distended to stretch almost the entire way around its head. What sheltered form of immortality it had grasped at had come at a steep cost. At the sound of their intrusion, it raised itself up on ponderous legs and gurgled at them, waving its fleshy hands in an unmistakable gesture of outrage and surprise.

quote:

“I’ll come back and check on it later,” Becca said. Her skin was losing its metallic sheen, and fortunately, whatever sort of ectoplasm passed for the thing’s blood and tissue had evaporated on crossing through the gateway. In a moment, she looked herself again, just an unremarkable college girl. She paused. “Do… do you want to check it with me?”

“What, are we a team now?” Sam asked. She meant it to be sarcastic, but to her surprise, it came out straight, and to her greater surprise, she found she didn’t mind. She’d just learned there was a whole side to her campus she didn’t know, for one, and for another she’d started to admire the fearless girl who thought herself shy. Becca was blushing; about to apologize it away, but Sam squeezed her hand to stop her. “I’d like that.”

“Really?” Becca smiled. “I thought you had this territorial thing going on.”

“Well,” Sam said, “territory’s not just the place. It’s the people.” They made their way slowly up the stairs, arms around each other’s shoulders.

quote:

Zhuangzi, the great Taoist philosopher, once dreamed he was a butterfly, lazily fluttering about his garden on a spring evening. Upon waking, he couldn’t tell if he was a man who dreamed he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was a man. That story never used to bother me before I learned that dreams are real. I don’t have the luxury of doubt. I struggle with my own version of his dilemma with one big exception. Zhuangzi dreamed of something beautiful, and I dreamed of a monster.

quote:

I felt the Hunger rear up in my bones, my head, and my heart. Under all the noise, I heard the monster Start to hiss and growl. I thought with all these people around, that I’d be okay. Yet again, I’m wrong. Breaking into a cold sweat, I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the growing sense of fear that swelled within me. All these people, all so close. I hadn’t been to a show in so long. Not since I realized the truth about what I am. Not since the monster. Too many people all crowded in. Too close, too real. How stupid of me to come here.

quote:

“Just tell Bec that I’m here. She wants to see me. I guarantee you.”

The bouncer scoffed. “Sure she does.”

“Open the door,” I said. I also screamed it, the sound reverberating around the man from all angles. Reaching into his mind, I unfurled my wings and bared my teeth. I was everywhere. His face contorted and his whole body shook for a moment. Sweat began to pour down his forehead.

I reached past him and grabbed the doorknob. At the first hint of movement, he slunk away into the corner, his palms flat against the walls, his mouth still hanging open. The other patrons went about their business unware of my actions.

It seemed like a simple conversation to them.

Dinner is served. I hadn’t intended on feeding. I just needed to get past him. The Hunger abating as ferociously as it had arrived, I breathed a slow, contented sigh. The monster’s desperate craving sublimated into a newly strengthened sense of focus. “Thank you,” I said. The bouncer, gasping for air like a waterlogged swimmer, held his head in his hands and dropped to his knees. Colin following behind me, I walked through the door. We moved down a hallway decorated with faded old playbills on the walls. A single, uncovered light bulb hung from the ceiling and quietly buzzed.

quote:

“Excuse me, Bec? I need to talk to you,” I said.

“I was wondering if I’d get to see you,” she said. “Come in.”

Bec dismissed her bandmates, who left through the rear entrance to smoke and stow gear in the van. She motioned to a ratty couch. “Please, sit down.”

“My name is Sally. This is Colin.”

“Nice to meet you. Did you enjoy the show?”

“Fantastic,” I said, trying not to gush too much, “but I think you know the real reason I’m here.”

“I do,” said Bec, beaming for a moment. “You’re family.”

quote:

“You’ve been alone this whole time?” She asked. “I met Colin pretty soon after it all happened, but I’ve never met someone like us.”

Bec nodded. “I’m sorry. Some of it is instinctual, but it must have been overwhelming to cope with all that by yourself.”

Colin said, “I tried to help Sally the best I could, but I don’t understand how any of it works.”

“I’m sure you played a greater role than you realize,” said Bec. “The Uratha and the Begotten are both descended from the Dark Mother. We’re cousins, you might say.”

“How did you know what I am?” he asked.

“I’ve met your kind before.”

quote:

“Feeding must have been a problem,” she said. She studied me intently. Like a bug on a pin? No, like a fine painting hanging on a museum’s wall. That was it.

I finally caught what she said, and a wave of vertigo hit me. All the memories of the things I did to feed the monster. “I’ve done things I’m not proud of.”

“You shouldn’t feel guilty. People need to feel that kind of fear from time to time, or they get too complacent. You said you use the word ‘monster’ to describe what we are. Do you know where that term comes from?”

“No,” I said.

“It’s derived from a Latin word meaning ‘warning’. That’s what we do. We warn them of all the dangers in the world. We teach them what to fear because that knowledge saves lives. It shaped civilization.”

“But we hurt people.”

She cleared her throat. “Back when I first realized the truth, I was lucky enough to find Victor. He helped me figure this stuff out. Let me ask you what he always asked me when I would doubt. What does a shepherd do?”

“Guides the flock?” I’d never really been around sheep, so I was guessing.

“That’s what I said, too. Yes, but how does he do it?” I could see in her eyes that she had a specific answer in mind, but I didn’t know what.

“I don’t know. I guess he shows the sheep the right path to take?”

“Wrong. A shepherd shows the flock where it shouldn’t go. If a sheep tries to stray of the path the shepherd shoos the wayward animal back to where it needs to be.”

“For its own good,” added Colin. “That lamb would be doomed out in the wilderness.” He seemed like this made sense to him. It was a little unnerving.

“Exactly,” said Bec, smiling at him. “We are what they need. You can’t simply tell them because they don’t understand the words. Not really. Oh, they’ll know, but what they need is to feel. Deep in their hearts. Deep enough that they’ll never forget or rationalize it away.”

“How do you do that?” I asked.

“You terrify them. You put so much fear in them that it creates a watershed moment. The kind that divides their lives into ‘before’ and ‘after’.” Her eyes
narrowed.

“You mean traumatize them,” said Colin, crossing his arms. “That’s pretty cold.”

“It’s necessary,” she replied. “People need this. They long for it. Why do paying customers watch horror movies or ride rollercoasters?”

quote:

I cleared my throat and shifted on the bench a little. “Well, I was going for the role of Titus, who—”

“But you’re a girl,” she said.

I shrugged. “My dad taught me to always go for the best roles. Even if you don’t fit the role, directors like actors who show off with the heavy parts. Besides,” I said, grinning, “I feed on the shock of the audience.”

She was grinning too. “Yeah, I could see that being really cool. Walk out on stage, everyone’s wondering who you’re supposed to be, then you shock them all as you do…whatever it is Titus does. That’d be cool to see.”

“Yeah, well,” I said, distracted by a slight growl in my stomach. “I guess; I should get back to memorizing it then.”

She frowned. “Aren’t actors supposed to practice their lines out loud?”

“Well, yeah, but I don’t know where I can do that, and I don’t want to look crazy, reading to myself” I said, shifting back to read.

The girl stood up. “Well, c’mon then, I know a place that should work.”

I felt a little warm. “Nah, you don’t need to.”

“A trade then,” she said. “You give me a performance; I give you half of my lunch.”

My stomach roared at that. Traitor.

“Is that a yes?”

There was something disarming about this chick. It usually takes me a month or two to make friends. But even with her poking and prodding, I felt at ease with her. Hell, I was kind of intrigued at her sticking around despite my being a jerk. Not a lot of people just go up and start talking to strangers.

“I guess I can be blackmailed into it,” I groaned. I stood up and followed her into the school.

quote:

“You are not enough,” the wolf said, the cavern turning it into a chorus of spiteful growls.

I didn’t have breath to waste on an argument. Instead, I pulled myself inches ahead through the water, shivering in cold pain as I tugged on the ribbon at my fingertips. The tunnel continued to curve ahead of me, and I wanted to say I wasn’t anywhere near the end. But I wouldn’t. I always made my way to the wolf’s jaws inevitably, but tonight, it was going to be my choice.

“Your promise is already betraying you,” the wolf snarled. “If an immortal hand could not free the world for two, what hope can your failing form give us?”

I fumbled the ribbon in between my fingertips for a long time, slowly wrapping it around and around until I was decently tangled up in it. I dragged my head up, and took a breath just in time for the water to surge up. I gagged and sputtered, and I swore frost was spreading over my lungs as I gulped quick, small breaths. I went for another deep inhale, and pulled myself forward, cringing as I tore up my belly along the sharp rocks. I reminded myself of the wolf chewing on me night after night after night, my throat crunched, my femurs stabbing out, my rib cage collapsing. That thought filled me, and I screamed as I threw my other arm onto the ribbon.

I knew why it was happening. The wolf was trying to escape the ribbons and the cavern, but it wasn’t strong enough. All it had to eat were scraps, the unwilling, the unaccepting-people who were nothing but empty calories. It kept drawing me in, but like an audience, it kept eating faces I wore, and never the real me. If it kept going like that, it would stay trapped forever. The wolf didn’t get the idea, though, and so it would keep gnawing on me every night. I wasn’t going to let that happen. I wasn’t going to let the wolf keep drawing me back in night after night until it finally realized it wasn’t filling itself. I would not let it control me like that.

“Bright as your defiance is, you are bound as deeply as I. Your flesh binds you to the world that bars your dream. Your fate is sealed.”

I started fidgeting the ribbon around my other fingers. I could barely get them to twitch. I wasn’t going to stop until the wolf was free. I wasn’t going to stop until I was free.

The wolf laughed, long and loud, genuinely pleased. It sounded cracked, like faint faith grated a throat used to cynicism.

“Fulfill the oaths, then. Become all that I am and free yourself from this cycle.”

I tore the ribbon apart, anticipating the inevitable. The great wolf who had been stalking me for the whole year finally lunged and snapped me up. I could feel my bones lance sharp and hot out of me with each bite, before I plummeted down its throat. We opened the eyes of my body and looked frantically around my bedroom, and I felt the truth as the Hunger raced through my bones — my nightmare was always who I was. It was my soul. I was its body. We were one.

quote:

“So, what exactly did you have in mind for letting me make up my test grades, professor?” Wendy said with a perfect tremble. A little nervous, a little depressed, flat enough for resignation, but strong enough for false hope. What I’d do to convince her to take to the stage.

“Well, business is a serious major, Wendy,” Mr. Prescott said, his dark voice flowing with a layer of velvet I’d never heard before. “Quite frankly, to give you a chance to continue on at this point in the semester would involve me breaking some rules.” That was creepily effective on a lot of emotionally manipulative levels.

“So, I can’t just work hard over the weekend on re-taking the tests?” Wendy whined slightly, some lost fight with fake panic.

“Well, I know one way you can work hard to make up for this,” he nearly whispered. A second later, there was a bump and scrunch, and some uncomfortably silenced sounds. That was as much of a cue as I needed.

The wolf within reared back, and I broke through the door with my elbow. I spun in and took a shot before the teacher could even turn around. The Polaroid slid out neat and easy, and I shook it as I bounced around the edge of the office to the stammers of Mr. Prescott. Yep, that was his red-sleeved hand at Wendy’s crotch, and his chiseled face smashed against hers all right. A wave of nausea rolled through me, making my muscles itch all over and the ache in my bones pulse.

“So, not only hacking, cyber-stalking, and academic discrimination against female students, but sexual assault too,” I growled, waving the picture up in the air as he stammered and shambled away from Wendy. “I think such atrocities should be shown to the world, don’t you?”

“Absolutely,” Wendy said with devastating sensuality as she rolled of the desk and strutted over to the front door. “Let’s start an exhibition here. Pin that one up on the shelves, I think that’ll look nice.” She smiled brightly at Prescott, and I swore he was staring into Heaven’s judgmental light as he fixed his eyes on her.

I stole his attention back by sweeping my arm across a bookshelf with such force that the pages flew apart from their covers. He jumped and yelled, like that would make a difference this late at night I placed one Polaroid there, and then reached into my bag and started sticking up the photos we stole from him of each lesbian he had raped.

quote:

Half an hour later, Wendy started rubbing my back stiffly. She hadn’t forgiven me yet, and she wasn’t quite sure why I was so shaken. She wanted answers for why I did it, why it hurt me now, and why I didn’t think about how she would feel. She wanted to know why I was selfish.

But her hands still went up and down my back, and she didn’t say anything. That was her punishment-to let me choke on self-loathing as she saw to our relationship first where I had not, and to burn as she showed me the flaw behind that feeling still playing second to the despair binding me.

“My bones still ache,” I said, sniffling. “No matter what I do, no matter how I fill myself, I still can’t stop it. I just hurt all the time, down to the soul, and even when it falls asleep, I still hurt. I’m broken, and I don’t even know why or how.”

Her hands stopped, for a second. Then she pulled me onto her lap and held me, resting her cheek on my head, stroking my hair with her fingers. I felt her bitterness at that answer. I felt her hatred for how I hadn’t trusted her when she told me that we would find out how to fix that together. I felt her disappointment that I placed my problem over her plans for our larger work tonight. I could feel her every dark emotion about this.

But I tasted her sympathy for my confusion. I smelled her compassion for my pain. I could hear her acceptance of my self-loathing. I knew her caring for every loss I had coursing in my veins. Wendy had hope for my growth the way prophets had hope in their gods, and she was dedicated to making us work.

“We’ll find a way,” she said simply, saving everything else for when I was more composed. “If it takes another decade or ten, we’ll make you whole.”

In that moment, I believed in her love more than anything, and I hated that my bones ached with emptiness.

quote:

She knelt down and dug her talons into my wrists. “How could you beat the crap out of Mike and wreck his chambers? I thought you gave up on that vampire’s bullshit, that we were going to find an actual answer, that—”

“I found an Incarnation,” I said quietly.

She stopped, blood draining from her face.

“During the show in Vegas, I met a dragon named Shen-Lung. Not like us, not a nightmare in flesh. He was a nightmare made flesh. Incarnate. I heard he was there from some travelers a few months ago; the show was to check it out. He hunted me down, and I could just feel it. Even as I ran, he was...whole. Complete. When I escaped him, he caught up and I asked him about it. He told me it felt like an aching emptiness, bone deep, before he achieved it, how he finally felt when he Incarnated, and I knew — I knew — I had to try it. And Wendy, it’s true. The myths of Incarnation are true, and they’re what I’ve been missing. I feel it, I know it.”

quote:

I really wanted to. My bones didn’t hurt, but looking at her face, contorted and lost, it didn’t matter. She was right, Mike would forgive me, and from there so would everyone he knew. It would take Wendy time, but I could go with her and continue acting for her events, fighting bigotry and having fun, and slowly make up for everything.

I almost could have swallowed that.

I handed her the key. I had tasted a larger world, and I couldn’t go back.

There weren’t any other words between us. I’m not clear when she left. One second she was there, and then only the aching emptiness. I got up, trying to think of who wouldn’t have heard the news, who I could devour before the walls started coming up.

Titus had lied to me. When you didn’t have any tears left to shed, there was no laughter. Only the Hunger remained.

quote:

I glared at her. “No.”

“This isn’t a discussion, Robin. It’s a jury council.”

She put a gun in my other hand. I was stunned, and she guided the barrel to her forehead in that moment.

“What are you doing?”

She was maddeningly calm. “It’s judgment day. I can’t abide you hurting family for your pain, and this is my punishment for you. You can stop everything you’re doing, or you can get everything you want. But you’re going to stop hurting family like you did Mike and the others.”

I couldn’t stop shaking. I was frozen to the spot. If I overpowered her and ran, she would punish me the only way she thought would work. I saw that in her eyes. But I didn’t want to choose between the two.

My bones ripped at me, splinters of pain and confusion racing through my thoughts, my blood, my being. I felt like ribbons were binding my heart, my throat, my hands, my feet so tightly I would be crushed by them if I didn’t get out. I couldn’t choose. It wasn’t right, I should just be able to take and win and be, I shouldn’t have to be bound to this!

My stomach roared, and my bones joined in a chorus. Their song pierced me, hot and angry, want so intense it threatened to devour itself and I could only scream in fury, only hide in myself by curling up and closing anything that might get in.

The gun went off.

I watched as she fell, her head splitting like lightning, and I fell to the floor as my world broke apart. I fell and I drowned and I died. I screamed, and cried, and rolled through oblivion, trying to kill this moment, trying to wake up, trying to find comfort, trying to escape these endless tunnels. I only found darker ones.

“I think she got the idea,” said a young boy with a nasal voice. “Can I go now?”

I rolled over and blinked my eyes clear.

There was a scrawny, awkward kid sitting where Wendy had lain dead, sticking bits of skull back over his brain as blood raced back inside. And near the stairs, there was Wendy, tired as hell, but alive.

Wendy glared at the boy. “Yes, vampire, now get out of my city. If I see you again, there won’t be a scrap of you left to find, understand me?”

quote:

Her words clicked in my head, and I felt frail. I hurt all over. I curled up on the altar, and I rutted through how helpless I felt.

You are not enough.

I was so close. The chase for Incarnation had been hard, but each soul I wrecked made the world that much vaster, and at the same time brought me closer to satisfaction.

What hope can your failing form offer? Your promise is already failing.

I was so close. I could almost reach out and grab it if I wanted to. However, I couldn’t reach past her. She was too wide a chasm for that.

Your flesh binds you to the world that bars your dream.

I didn’t want to give up. I was so close. I felt like I could stop hurting. I felt like I could be something in this world, if I could just overcome this one obstacle. If I just wasn’t bound up like this.

“Hey, Wendy?”

She stopped near the stairs. “Yeah?”

Fulfill your oaths. Become all that you are and free yourself from this cycle.

I hesitated, gripping the gun.

“Thanks for feeding me.”

Mors Rattus posted:

I'm still amazed that Palladium has what might be generously called current releases.

Night10194 posted:

I'm still amazed anyone has actually played Paladium games.

Alien Rope Burn posted:

I'll just point you folks to reference the most popular RPGs (historically or current) and the companies that produce them. Familiarity and nostalgia are amazingly powerful forces, and some people have no trouble forgiving debacles even when a company is amazingly capable at walking into rakes. I'll skip examples, but I'm sure folks can think of a more than a few. In any case, Dead Reign has had five supplements with a sixth in production (though, granted, they are slim 64-page releases from what I've looked at). Somebody's buying it, presuming Palladium isn't taking a wash on each book they put out. If it's a disaster, it doesn't show on the shelves.

Night10194 posted:

I'm still amazed anyone has actually played Paladium games.

Kurieg posted:

LongDarkNight posted:

RIFTS was the first table top game I played. Simon was a T800 programmed to believe he was a Catholic priest. I kicked rear end for Jesus and totally saved the soul of a robot horse.

Nuns with Guns posted:

wait... beasts don't age? and can get away with attending the same university for decades without anyone noticing?

Kurieg posted:

They live for long periods of time and tend to only die by misfortune, how this manifests physically isn't described.

Young Freud posted:

And they've experimented often enough that you can tell what's the failures largely by what never progressed passed it's core book, like the Y2K-themed System Failure and the biomegadamage Splicers.

Alien Rope Burn posted:

Well, I imagine other factors play into it, as there have always been books fans would like to see but only Siembieda will work on them for whatever reason, leaving them halted on the schedule for over a decade in some cases. Sales are a factor but the company's quirky enough that other things play into it. And by "other things" I mostly just mean "Siembieda".

Having the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Robotech RPGs at the perfect time pretty much cemented them in the industry, and then Rifts was lucky enough to hit at a time where it was cheap, toyetic, and offered power fantasies other games frankly didn't dare to for the most part outside of the occasional oddity like the Immortals Rules for Basic D&D. During a time most games wagged their finger at you for wanting to play a drow or dual-wield machineguns, Rifts was like "well, if your GM's cool with it, have a unkillable wereleopard!" It still wagged its finger at you for wanting to give your wereleopard a cyber-arm with a rail gun, but, y'know, baby steps.

theironjef posted:

Those two lucky breaks with licensing always make me wonder what would have happened if Kevin hadn't ruined his shot at a movie and hitched his chances on a videogame that didn't come out exclusively on a bad phone.

Alien Rope Burn posted:

You might be thinking of a famous RPG.net thread where the poo poo hits the fan here, in which Bill Coffin drops multiple bombs, along with nods by CJ Carella, Jason Vey, and Steve Conan Trustrum. That was posted years before Dead Reign was submitted or published, but it shows that the experience of Josh and Joshua's was anything but unique.

PurpleXVI posted:

I think this is one of the few games I can remember where the pre-made "warrior" character is a woman, rather than a burly dude.

Humbug Scoolbus posted:

The Cinematic version from Buffy:the Vampire Slayer and Evil Dead RPGs also unfucks it a lot. The concept of Drama Points which the 'White Hats' (Norms) in those systems get huge bonuses with in terms of quantity at start and ease of refreshing for example along reducing the skill list to about a third of its length and completely bagging the Essence system.

"Hogtie" Feat posted:

Down on the ranch, those good ole boys sure know how to tie something up and make it squeal like a pig. After getting some firsthand lessons, now so do you.

"Jockey" Feat posted:

A Wasteland Dwarf has taught you the forgotten pastime of the small human, Horseracing. Now you know how to kick that mule in the right spot to haul rear end.

"Mule" Feat posted:

Working for the scavenger Sanford and his son as a mule pulling his broke down red pickup truck has paid off. Now you can carry even more Wasteland junk.

Hostile V posted:

I should really look into those games, thanks for the info.

Kevin Siembieda posted:

Fate was kind to me: I had a blast writing this book. The ideas and words poured out of me like water. The work load and schedule was brutal, but it kept me focused, and I am very pleased with the end result. Heck, I think it may be one of the best things I have ever written. I would have never have guessed that zombies are in my blood.

quote:

A familiar is an extension of your own soul given a quasi-real substance in the world. Often, your familiar is not visible to the other characters—it is little more than a voice in your head, keeping you company (after a fashion) and helping you remember things you might otherwise forget. As such, taking an extra round to consult your familiar grants you a +1 bonus to any Intelligence-based skill check.

quote:

A familiar that you ignore even for a moment stops manifesting. Mainly, this occurrence is up to the DM’s discretion. A player cannot say, “I keep my familiar manifested all the time,” because no one can maintain that kind of concentration and hope to accomplish anything else. As a rule of thumb, assume that if you manifest your familiar, it remains for 10 rounds or the duration of an encounter,whichever is longer. The familiar of a sleeping, stunned, or unconscious wizard always stops manifesting.

Sidebar posted:

Another core change to the rules is that Hide and Move Silently have been merged into a single skill - Sneak

quote:

Sorcerers likely prove unnecessary to your game with the new rules provided in this book—giving wizards disciplines makes them more like sorcerers. If you still want to have sorcerers in your campaign, however, offer them the wizard spell list presented in Chapter Five:Magic.

Night10194 posted:

It's really, really hilarious to compare Dead Reign to AFMBE.