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Hostile V posted:ALL FLESH MUST BE EATEN All this on combat manuevers reminded me of one other difference between Classic Unisystem and the Cinematic version. Damage in Classic is rolled generally. In the example below you roll a D6 and multiply it times Strength+2... Hostile V posted:ALL FLESH MUST BE EATEN In Cinematic you take the average of the die roll instead, so a D6 = '3' for example. The same maneuver in the Buffy RPG looks like this. BtVS RPG Combat Maneuvers posted:
Less base damage, but more action movie-esque because if you can pull off a sweet flip as you start off, you can do more damage plus you don't run a risk of landing on your face even if you screw up.
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Nov 28, 2016 19:07
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Yeah, AFMBE offers average damage as an optional rule rather than the core rule. Makes sense they'd clean it up a bit more for the later games like Buffy.
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Nov 28, 2016 19:22
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occamsnailfile posted:Re: Sword World translation, basically that game had the problem of anime licensing in that the creators felt their product was worth WAY more than it would actually make if anyone bothered trying to translate and sell it here. It's mostly only interesting in being western fantasy through a Japanese sort of lens, and some of the other more quirky/cute games already give us that. Ryuutama, what we've been able to see of Meikyuu Kingdom, etc. Looks like a job for Kickstarter. Probably not as interesting as Ryuutama, but there's always money to be made with fantasy.
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Nov 28, 2016 19:23
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Literal Blender Zombies.
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Nov 28, 2016 19:40
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Hostile V posted:[b]ALL FLESH MUST BE EATEN I read this update while listening to Thriller. It was 
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Nov 28, 2016 21:14
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Middenarde So, while waiting for the Kult revamp/remake/restart to release, as well as waiting for Desborough to release his Gor RPG which someone made me promise to review, someone actually contacted me, wanting me to look over their Kickstarted RPG before finalizing the final draft sometime around Christmas and releasing. So keep in mind, hopefully what I critique is exactly what the author will fix... though I have my doubts, since my issues with the game are somewhat fundamental. The Kickstarter promises: Footsoldiers Kickstarter posted:Foot Soldiers is a low-fantasy, high-mortality game of medieval strife. A pen & paper RPG system set in England in the 1450s, Foot Soldiers challenges you to take the role of a peasant or a commoner, someone without riches or fame to their name, and bring them to greatness, or die trying. Foot Soldiers tells the stories of real adventurers, people who aren't exceptionally gifted or exceptionally lucky, but still have to make a living. Some of them end up as the skeletons that always litter the floor of dungeons. Others survive, but bearing the marks of their trials, missing limbs and scars. They are ordinary people, like you and me, trying to leave their mark on the harsh and divided landscape. This is very much unlike what I'd normally be interested in, so I can hardly be considered an entirely dispassionate and objective reviewer, but I'm going to give it a shot. Straight off the bat, though, it's giving me some serious Fantasy Wargaming flashbacks, which is a bad thing(also you should go read that review if you haven't before, I find it consistently entertaining). I'm going to go through the RPG as I read it, rather than going all the way through it first, to give a genuine first-impression as far as possible. So, let's begin! 1 - INTRODUCTION   The text is separate from the actual art in the .PDF, so I'll probably end up copying them separately when they overlap, to show off the art better. To give the game fair credit, something that I absolutely cannot fault is the art. It's competently done, the style is great, so far I haven't seen any Magical Realm-esque content and... for once it's just nice to review something with art that wasn't made in loving Poser or was screenshotted from a bad ninja anime. Unfortunately, the rest of the .PDF isn't quite as visually pleasing. There's art separating the chapters, and that's it, the only prettification that the rest gets is a black-and-white border.  It's a functional layout, but really boring, and the large text size also annoys me when the game moves on to listing stuff like skills, since it means more flipping through the book. I'm just generally not a fan, but, that's about all I can comment on with regards to the presentation, let's move on to the substance. As you may have noted, there's a quote on that page, in the upper right. Every chapter starts with a quote, usually from someone that can be called a philosopher of some sort(there's a Sartre one next, for instance), and it just feels really, really 90's. Like in a bad way, not in a funny, B-movie way, just: "I thought we had tried this enough and realized it was a bad idea. Why are you still doing it?"-90's. You may also note that there's a suggested order to read the book in at the bottom of that first page(or, well, third page, after the cover and the index)... the book is NOT organized in that order. In fact, it's organized almost the reverse of that. It recommends reading the character creation second to last, but instead the character creation is immediately after the introduction and glossary. So why not just organize the book that way rather than forcing the player to flip back and forth? I'm going to ignore this recommended reading order thoroughly. Then we move on to the subsections present at the start of most RPG's. "What is an RPG?" and "What's the theme of this RPG?" Normally I'd ignore the former and just breeze through the latter, but in this case, I'm going to actually check them out, because they're a bit different from the standard in terms of content. What Is Roleplaying? posted:Middenarde is a Role-Playing Game, abbreviated as RPG, wherein players create “characters” meant to be real people within the fictional setting of the game, and attempt to step into the “role” of those characters. One player is the host, most commonly referred to as the Game Master, who does not play a single character but rather controls the world and the story that other players react to. The process of pretending to be a character in a fictional world and reacting to fictional events as that character would is called “roleplaying.” For one thing, I've never seen this written so patronizingly, with such a massive assumption that the player is retarded and just picked up the book at random, expecting it to be, I don't know, about accounting or something instead. What Is Middenarde? posted:It is and it isn’t. Many RPG systems emphasize “heroic fantasy,” which focuses on stories with an epic scale, typically featuring heroes with superhuman powers, battling grand forces of unquestionable evil, going on quests, and delving into ancient ruins. They are frequently beyond the laws of the land, looked up to by its populace, and relied upon to solve crises. Even fledgling heroes are typically more powerful than fathomable by most human beings, and the course of their experience is a straightforward path from relative rags to unimaginable riches. The only thing heroic fantasy characters have to worry about is where the next adventure is and how to spend their newfound wealth. And it's always kind of sad when an RPG starts off by taking these petty shots at other RPG's, suggesting that they're not deep, that they're pitiful power fantasies or whatever. What Is Middenarde? posted:Middenarde is also designed to be “high mortality.” Mortality is defined as “the state or condition of being subject to death.” In heroic fantasy, characters rarely die. When they do, it iseither because they got in way over their heads, or their deaths serve to move the story forward in some way. They have what is commonly called “plot armor,” which means that the plot of the story protects them from harm unless it is dramatically appropriate for them to be hurt, and they frequently escape from dangerous situations and violent battles with hardly a mark on them. It keeps on like that for another full page or so and pretty much instantly blows any good faith or good will the game had garnered from the excellent cover art. What Is Middenarde? posted:Middenarde is a low-fantasy, high-mortality game, so it may not appeal to people who are averse to death, or are only interested in playing powerful and awesome characters. Don't play this if you're one of those fun-having scrubs, guys. Then there's the glossary, FIVE PAGES of it. I feel like if you have a five-page glossary, either you're terrible at explaining terms in the actual text, or you just have way too many non-standard terms you made up to feel special when, instead, you could've just used some more generally accepted term for something.  Let's have some more of the art. It's nice. 2 - CHARACTER CREATION In what's pretty much standard-issue terrible formatting, this game drops character creation on us earlier in the book than the rules, meaning that unless we jump to the back and read the later sections first(though to be fair, the book does suggest we do that), we have no actual idea what the impact of any of our chargen choices are, except in the most general sense. We're also greeted by YET MORE HARPING ON about how we're going to die face-down in the loving mud five feet off our doorstep. STOP HAVING FUN posted:In Middenarde, no characters are intended to be “heroes” at their inception. In fact, most characters will not even be the master of their own destiny, and will have to struggle for their very survival. It’s likely that no one outside of their family and close friends even knows who they are or will remember them when they are gone. Therefore, when you envision your character, you should imagine someone who is at the very beginning of the journey that will define them as a person. I mean seriously! This is just getting beyond the loving point of parody now. "You're going to die horribly and no one will miss you! Also my metaphors are painful and superfluous!" This also introduces a link to an online character sheet that we can use to set up our character, that's not too bad, though it does reveal some worrying hints of what's to come, such as grittily-detailed HP, split up over eleven separate body parts, like Right Foot(Major) and Right Foot(Minor). It isn't exactly Eoris, nothing quite that bad, but if your game prides itself on being high-mortality, then shouldn't the sheet be similarly simple, so that if Bob the Baker gets killed by a squirrel or a house cat, I can rapidly generate Carl the Clown to replace him? And then Dan the Dirtfarmer after that? In any case, at level 1, we get a single skill point, we get to decide whether we're right or left-handed and we 31 pence(though, bafflingly, the shorthand for pence in the book is consistently d. So we'd be starting with 31d). 25 of these have to be spent on a single "heirloom" item, though, and any of them not spent is lost, for largely incomprehensible reasons. The example character gets a weapon that isn't garbage, a shirt, some pants and some hardtack. Flipping ahead to the equipment section, there are literally prices and stats for different types of shoes, for loincloths, aprons and wimples. Holy poo poo. Literally ALL you can afford outside of your shirt and pants is your single "heirloom item," so try to avoid starting off unarmed or something like that. Jesus. The next section is to tell us that the example character dies after getting ten level-ups and being "stabbed by a thief." That sure is an exciting life for "Jason Baker," the example character. Makes me eager to tread in his footsteps! There are, thankfully, also rules for not being a dirtfarmer that dies just past the doorstep. But the game warns us before using these... Starting At Higher Levels posted:Don’t start at too high a level, though; it’s counter to the spirit of Middenarde to begin with too much wealth and power. Good thing the author's here to tell me what me and my players should enjoy doing with his game. What a jackass. 3 - SKILLS  So, to do anything in this game, we roll a 3d6 and attempt to pass an arbitrary TN set by the GM to succeed. This is pretty simple. To help us do some of these things, we have skills, in which we can have ranks. Nothing REQUIRES ranks to be attempted, ranks are just straight +1's to the roll. We get one of these +1's starting off. Some "skills" are also just passive bonuses to stuff like damage, blocking and armor. Difficulty posted:On a 3d6, you can only roll a number from 3 to 18, and your chance to roll a 10 or an 11 is significantly higher than your chance of rolling a 3 or an 18. However, a Difficulty Check may be lower than 4 if there is no chance of failure unless the person is hindered in some way. So, a couple of things that get me here. Firstly, why is there even a TN for something you can't fail at? Shouldn't you just straight up succeed at that? Is he expecting people to roll for all of this poo poo? Secondly, thanks for listing out some random, pointless, percentage odds. Maybe you should, say, provide a table of those odds? Like Godlike does? That would help people have a genuine idea of their skill level, and give the GM a genuine idea on how to set TN's to hit certain odds, at least roughly. And after that little pointless aside on probabilities, we're straight into the skill list. Which ends with an overview of skills, rather than starting with it, and the massive text size means there's barely space for two skills on a page at once. In an attempt at helping us play the game, each skill has examples of what would be considered Easy, Intermediate and Hard challenges for it. It's not a bad idea, but in practice it... raises some questions. Acrobatics posted:Easy: Walking a sturdy log across a stream. I mean, again, why are you making anyone roll for walking across a log over a stream? That's the sort of thing I'd only even consider rolling for if it had been a really calm session, so I could pretend at some drama and we could all have a laugh over how Edith the Elk-Herder managed to avoid having her trouser leg soaked. I'm going to skip some of these skills, because a lot of them are pretty standard(though quite a few of them overlap, for instance, we need both Investigation and Visual Acuity, but for some reason there's no Auditory Acuity, and there's both Animal Handling and Riding, there's three different negotiating skills, Psychology, Influence and Mercantile, you've got both Healing and Bandaging as separate skills, etc.), and just going to get to the ones that baffle or annoy me. Attunement posted:This skill is used in sensing and manipulating the supernatural. There is plenty of mystery in the world. In the Middle Ages, much was unknown, and superstition was rampant. Because Middenarde takes both the real history of the world and the beliefs of the time as seriously as possible (being what is called ‘low fantasy’), it is assumed within reason that they were all true. Like this. This skill and its accompanying flavour text raise SO MANY questions. It's supposed to be based on Middle Ages myth, assuming that most of its real "within reason"(what does that even loving MEAN). Is the Orlando Furioso real? Norse Myth? Arthurian Legend? Slavic folklore? You can't just drop that in there. And then you've got poo poo like "casting spells from scrolls," pretty sure that's nowhere in Middle Ages myth, instead being present only in fantasy RPG's for the most part. And I mean, what can I sense, exactly? Can I use it to spot ghosts? Fairies? Do I generally get to use it to manipulate any magical item, like an old witch's crystal ball? Baba Yaga's hut? Cleverness posted:The all-around ability to figure things out, especially when your character should be able to but the player may not. The skill may be used to solve a challenging riddle when enough hints have been presented, draw connections between seemingly unrelated pieces of data, or understand when the odds are not in your favor. It’s best used to keep the campaign going at an even pace or to prevent players from making exceedingly poor decisions. Willpower posted:This skill governs one’s force of will. The ability to resist temptation, the urge to survive, and the strength of one’s conviction are all measures of Willpower. Ah yes, those BUBBLING GREEN PITS OF ACID, so prevalent both in myth and historical Europe! I'd also like to note that this says its used for "resisting temptation." Willpower, it has basically the exact same description, except that Willpower is just a passive skill(i.e. a static number, there's no mention of what it's used for here in the skills chapter, whether it increases some other value or just matters on its own), while cleverness is something actually rolled. Concentration posted:Easy: Solving a crossword puzzle. There's also Concentration, which is basically just a weird skill to even have, in that it's straight-up: "If you fail this, and you're stressed, you don't get to do that other skill you wanted to use." Instead of just applying a penalty to the other skill's roll due to the stressful circumstance. Why add a separate skill check? These examples are also weird. The Hard and Intermediate examples suggest what stress levels will require a check(drowning and dodging sword swings, respectively), while the Easy one doesn't, unless solving crossword puzzles just makes the author's adrenaline start pumping, veins in his head throbbing and excitement making it hard to think of anything other than what 11 Across could possibly be. The Craft skill, which, like usual, is split up into multiple sub-categories, just in case a player wants to be a master wainwright or something. But one of the categories... Craft:Exotic posted:In general, anything that isn’t covered here or anything that may be from another time period, assuming the character has the appropriate knowledge to create such a thing. This just seems like an excuse to get into an argument with your GM about what knowledge is necessary to craft an AK-47. The closest thing the game has to a "knowledge" skill would be other craft specialties, or Cleverness, so if you want to do this by RAW, there aren't really a lot of ways for the GM to limit player knowledge without demanding they roll one of those. There also seems to be no specific skill for MAKING magical items, so I guess Craft:Exotic is also the skill if you want to make Excalibur. Just generally seems like the sort of skill that's a warning sign if any player has it. There are already craft categories for everything INTENDED to be in the game, so why is this one even there? At this point I'd also like to point out that there are some passive skills, which I haven't been noting, because they're very dull, that give a +1 for every two skill levels. Considering that you only get ONE skill point per level-up, that just seems like a great big old "gently caress you" to having any sort of fun. Enjoy spending your entire level gaining a big, fat, nothing. There's a skill ENTIRELY for using ropes, "Fettering." And a skill entirely for escaping from bonds and traps, "Escape Artist." Those two certainly couldn't have just been rolled into one skill or been made part of something else. Madness. The passive skill Heft which does nothing but increasing your carrying limit, in case you wanted to be the party's mule, tasked with just carrying piles and piles of poo poo for the rest. Probably the safest occupation in the game, really, since "carrying stuff" doesn't seem to have a skill check you can fail(Heft is also one of the skills that can be advanced in infinitely, there's no skill check for lifting stuff, and XP gains are just tied to "sessions" rather than to actually accomplishing anything, though GM's are advised to offer more XP for accomplishing cool stuff. So nothing's really preventing a given character from eventually being able to lift and carry anything). Investigation is also a weird skill, since it includes both straight-up spotting stuff, and also getting information for people, which seems more like it should have been under one of the three social interaction skills. Influence posted:The ability to convince others to do things your way is affected by this skill. Note that it has limits; for instance, no amount of smooth-talking will convince a servant to let a dirty peasant into the lord’s manor without good cause, and people will not betray their loyalties or ideologies. Each day’s worth of pay offered along with this skill adds a +1 bonus. All Influence checks involve at least an idea of what you might say to accomplish your goal; charisma requires substance. So, in Middenarde, you can only convince people to do what they already want to do or are likely to do, and while you need good arguments to get them to do anything at all, better arguments won't result in bonuses, only money will, and everyone who can be influenced, will also be influenced better by more money. It won't make anyone suspicious at all that they're being offered huge amounts of cash for what seems like a petty task, or offend them when someone tries to bribe them, it's a universal constant. Similarly, you can negotiate with anyone, even if you don't know their language, though it means you're likely to get worse prices. Blocking, Disarming and doing more damage with Brutality are general passive skills, work for every weapon. Perform, however, the ability to play musical instruments, something which the game in fact straight-out says is a waste of your skill points, is carefully specialized by instrument. There's ALSO a separate skill for actually specializing in a weapon, though. Also in keeping with historical realism, you can invest in Stoneskin which just passively makes you better at shrugging off people straight-up wailing away on you. Survival posted:This skill governs the kinds of activities you need to do to stay alive; the basic skills of any outdoorsman, like starting fires. This skill can also allow you to get the bare minimum of food and water you need to survive in the wild, if you roll successfully each time you need them. However, these meagre meals have a DC of 15 for malnutrition. It’s impossible to eat like a king on nuts and berries, no matter how good you are. Ahhh, yes, rolling to avoid scurvy, the true, exciting depths of an RPG, and fits in well alongside all those mythical heroes of Europe that we're going to be including. I remember that time Merlin got dysentery. Swimming doesn't actually say what the penalties for failure are, they can't be getting dunked under water, because you have to make a swimming check whenever you try to dive and then stay under water, too... how do you fail at diving underwater? Do you become magically bouyant and IMMUNE to drowning? Technically, if the generic answer to "you fail" is that "the opposite of what you're trying to do, happens," this seems to suggest that the safest thing to do if you're a bad swimmer is to keep trying to dive, because then you'll never end up underwater(I actually asked the creator and he confirmed that, yes, attempting to dive and failing would result in staying on the surface.). So, how's the system doing on those promises after three chapters? Classless, sure, but characters get so few points to customize with that they're basically all clones. Statless? Ha loving ha, they still have stats, just more defined by their equipment than their character. Accurate? loving pffffffffffft. BUBBLING GREEN PITS OF ACID And there's still another 150 pages of this. I can't wait to get to the combat rules.
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Nov 29, 2016 18:26
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The thing is, I LIKE games where you start out at humble places and can, from there, become a major hero. That can be fun. Shitfarmer to Elector Count is a fun way to do WHFRP2e! But you kinda need the second part, and more importantly, it's not a one-true-way-to-roleplay. I mean, just look at Ironclaw: That's still a relatively grounded and gritty game about politics and internal struggles, but you still have agency and ability.
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Nov 29, 2016 18:34
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Merriam-Webster posted:Definition of midden Subtle humor to describe what sounds like a crapsack world, or not thinking things through? You make the call! PurpleXVI posted:In any case, at level 1, we get a single skill point, we get to decide whether we're right or left-handed and we 31 pence(though, bafflingly, the shorthand for pence in the book is consistently d. So we'd be starting with 31d). "d" was the abbreviation for the penny before Britain went decimal (from the Roman denarius). Selachian fucked around with this message at 19:18 on Nov 29, 2016 |
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Nov 29, 2016 19:14
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Night10194 posted:The thing is, I LIKE games where you start out at humble places and can, from there, become a major hero. That can be fun. Shitfarmer to Elector Count is a fun way to do WHFRP2e! The creator has specifically told me that the characters should never be expected to impact the world beyond a single town or small region, or maybe getting a medal.
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Nov 29, 2016 19:17
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This is where we see someone not merely crossing, but leaping the line from "maybe not the system for you" and into "let me tell you how to have fun."
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Nov 29, 2016 19:20
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Literally Shitfarmer the RPG and unbelievably it sounds like Fantasy Paranoia so far.
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Nov 29, 2016 20:25
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I think I'll stick with Harn, thanks.
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Nov 29, 2016 20:28
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The storm has a name... - Let's Read TORG Part 15c: The Olde And the New So now it's time to talk about the Aysle realm, so of course to start off we have to talk about Tolwyn of House Tancred, a.k.a. possibly the series' Mary Sue-iest character. As I've mentioned before, Torg technically begins with a trilogy of novels that cover everything that happens from the first bridge drop in Indonesia to the defeat of the Gaunt Man, ending at the "start" of the box set a few months after the invasion began. One of the main characters in the novels was Tolwyn, a knight from Aysle and the leader of Ardinay's Knight Protectors. Tolwyn was supposed to protect Ardinay during Uthorion's invasion, but Ardinay cast a spell to remove Tolwyn's spirit from her body and leave it in a sort of suspended animation. How Ardinay knew that this was a good idea is anybody's guess. (And since this is Torg, that spell is available in the game as an eternity shard power. You know, in case you want to send the soul of one of the PCs centuries into the future.) Regardless, Tolwyn's soul floated around for the 500 or so years of Uthorion's rule. Then the whole invasion thing happened on Core Earth, and Tolwyn's soul was (somehow) slam-dunked into the body of a Core Earth woman Wendy Miller who was the victim of a hit-and-run during the confusion of Baruk Kaah's attacks on New York. (I bring this up because it's some that's always made me feel uncomfortable; in the novel we see Wendy's soul passing by Tolwyn's as Wendy dies in the hospital, and she seems awfully chill about both being killed and someone else taking over her body. Stuff like that always makes me uneasy.) Anyway, Tolwyn does drat near everything. She assembles the main characters of the books to fight together, she's the one who creates the term "storm knights", she's the one who defeats Uthorion, blah blah blah. She's just awesome all around and is the one who wins (and as the line progresses, continues to win) pretty much everything. Oh, and Tolwyn has a full stat block because of course she does. The point of me telling you all this is because she was the only one who was destined to defeat Uthorion. Uthorion knew this, and when he heard that Tolwyn had returned but had been killed he came down one of the bridges to Core Earth. Tolwyn wasn't dead of course (since she's a pet NPC and all) and confronted Uthorion in the Dreamtime. Which, if you may recall, was where Malraux got the cybervision that caused the Cyberpapacy to happen. Uthorion was ousted from Ardinay's body, Ardinay was back in her body, and that put the forces of Light more-or-less back in charge. There's two reasons I'm leading with this information. First, it's because the chapter leads off with it. Second, Ardinay's seeming change of heart halfway down the bridge has put her leadership position on very shaky ground. Because nobody knew about the whole possession thing, it looked like Ardinay went from "GO FORTH AND CONQUER, MY MINIONS!" to "We must sue for peace and help these people" in like half an hour. Now the forces who were loyal to Uthorion-as-Ardinay are either in disarray or seeing this as a chance to sieze power for themselves. Let's take a look at the ol' realm map, because this is gonna get more complex than it needs to.  The Aysle realm, about three months after the initial invasion. Uthorion's defeat did more than just shift control to Ardinay. It also altered the ream itself in a rather fundamental way. quote:Uthorion’s defeat and the restoration of Ardinay’s spirit wrought many of the same changes in the Aysle realm as occurred in the cosm. Dunad offered the Ayslish on Earth the same choice he had given the residents of the cosm: live under the world laws as perverted by Uthorion, or return to the natural tenets that had existed long before the High Lord arrived. And now we get into the details. There are seven Aysle bridges all told: the main bridge from Ardinay's castle landed just outside Oxford, and the others are in Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, and Finland. Unfortunately, the map only shows five of them so I don't know if the other two were pulled up or if they're just not shown. The first country we learn about is England, and it's in a really bad spot. The entire island is operating under Aysle axioms, effectively cutting the whole nation off from the rest of the world. The reality storms around the realm's borders make it incredibly dangerous to get goods in (or people out) by sea. Not helping matters is the fact that both sides of the English Channel are taken over, so that two-mile-wide stretch of water is a constant storm of three realities battling each other. The sea monsters that have cropped up in the realm aren't helping, either. The inability to get any sort of easy basic supplies into a realm is always a problem, but England's position makes things worse than usual. Ardinay is unique in that she won't stop goods from coming in, but ships have a really hard time getting through the reality storms. England's farmlands have been hit with a one-two punch of getting wrecked by the land becoming Corrupt (which kills the soil) and the fact that they're forced back to a medieval level of technology that is ridiculously unable to keep up with the needs of England's modern-day population. In fact, the technological drop and stelae zone coverage have really driven home how geographically isolated England actually is. The "main" Aylse bridge is in Oxford just outside Christ Church College, and this has become the seat of Ardinay's realmside government. Since her "change of heart" many of the college's academic staff have become her advisers. Refugees from the surrounding areas are swarming into the city since it's one of the safest areas in the realm. Speaking of refugees, the lack of easy departure from the island has left thousands upon thousands of people stuck wandering between cities that can't support them. Not helping matters is that the countryside is now swarming with highwaymen, bandits, minotaurs, dragons, giants, ogres, and other assorted fantasy detritus that see refugees as a source of income and/or food. There is a bridge in Wales as well, but because it was dropped just before Uthorion's defeat (and therefore didn't have Dark armies sent down it) Wales has actually made out relatively well. That's not to say it's completely safe, but the lack of heavy monsters in the area have made the transition a little less terrible. It's worth pointing out that Ardinay is currenly focusing on fixing things in England and Wales, and is pretty much ignoring Scandinavia. She'll send her own troops or Storm Knights to go help there, but so far they're on their own. There are four major hardpoints in England: London (duh), York, Stonehenge (also duh), and Salisbury Plain. Out of all these, London is the only one that gets any actual description. So London. London, as you can imagine, is undergoing the biggest overcrowding problem it's ever had to deal with at about 24,000 people per square mile thanks to refugees streaming in almost constantly. Power for the city is handled by coal and oil burning, but since those aren't easy to get under Aylse's tech axiom the city is forced to heavily prioritize who gets electricity. Said priority goes to government offices, vital infrastructure (like hospitals), and the military. This means that the rest of the city has to rely on personal generators at best or batteries at worst. A black market has sprung up selling power-related goods, and a lot of Aylsish dwarves have been making a good living fixing broken generators and figuring out how to build converters for car batteries. The lack of power means there's almost no mass communication inside the city, and lack of fresh water is also starting to become a problem, partly because it's drat near impossible to get water up past the third floor of a building. quote:York Road between Westminster Bridge and Waterloo Bridge is completely without water because a band of dwarves has blocked off the pipes and turned them into living quarters for themselves. It's interesting to point out that the London Stock Exchange is still operating, which is surprising given the rather destroyed state of the world economy. No information is given on how it's working or interacting with the outside world, but we are told that dwarven merchants have started getting involved on the Exchange and are making a killing. The biggest internal threat facing London is from the Underground. Due to its dungeon-like nature and lack of power, it's become a home for ogres, trolls, and the occasional dragon. The Underground has also become the de facto home of the newest species to show up: the goblins.  At least they're not soccer hooligans. Overall, though, London is attempting to soldier on. It's generally held that the current situation is better than what happened in the last war, and Londoners are becoming accustomed to seeing the occasional dwarf or elf going about their business in the city. There is a growing tension growing in the populace about the state of the royalty, however. Out in the countryside, it's not uncommon for native English to refer to Ardinay as the Queen, even though she's not even queen back in Aylse. She's not making any attempts to stop anyone from calling her this, which has led to suspicion that this may be a long-term plan to undermine the Royal Family. The Royals, for their part, are safe in Buckingham Palace under heavy guard. You know, just to be on the safe side. While not a hardpoint, Oxford gets some coverage due to being ground zero of the main bridge drop and for being Ardinay's seat of government in the realm. The initial invasion did a number on the city, but now that Ardinay is back in charge the city has become the central point of trying to figure out how to undo all the damage done by the invasion. Ardinay is advised by people from both Aysle and Core Earth, and this makes the city a very tempting target for the forces of Darkness. The city is protected by the Home Guard, a combination milita and police force that answers directly to Ardinay. Meanwhile, Ireland is doing a little better than England. Most of the country is still under Core Earth axioms, so the general populace still has access to things like medicine and electricity. That's not to say everything's great; Uthurion's invasion force has been composed mainly of giants and dwarven demolitionists that have done a pretty hefty amount of damage to the country. This has forced the IRA to work with the British military, which neither side is really happy about. Since all their weapons and homemade bombs stopped working under the axiom wash, the defensive forces have had to resort to guerilla warfare. All Irish citizens are given "officially unofficial" basic military training and are drafted into military-ish service, becoming medics, rescue personnel, and other support positions. The general mindset is "if you're going to stick around here, you're gonna have to help." The two biggest Core Earth hardpoints in Ireland are the Books of Kells in Dublin amd St. Patrick's Tomb in Downpatrick. Belfast has been hit particularly hard by the invasion force, partially because the giants that attacked the city were one of Uthurion's elite units, and partially because the dwarven half of the invasion force remembered they hated the giants half and turned on them. quote:Worse than the wanton destruction in the dwarves’ eyes was the fact that much of the potential plunder was ruined, and not having any great love for the giants to begin with, they began to turn on their Brobdinagian allies. When Ardinay made what seemed to be a miraculous change back to the ways of peace, the two groups realized they would have to look after their own interests, and skirmishes broke out in the city. Regardless, between that and a dragon that decided to set itself up nearby for some reason, Belfast is pretty much a warzone where everybody is fighting everybody else. Dublin, meanwhile, is in a dark Asyle dominant zone, which means it's partytown for goblins and ghouls despite the city's hardpoint. quote:City officials made overtures to some of the dwarves in the area in search of help, and the little folk readily agreed. Unfortunately, they discovered the abandoned Guinness Brewery at the same time, and have since been seen but rarely, staggering and hiccupping up and down Stevens Lane.[quote] It's worth pointing out once again that the leader of the Vikings, Thorfinn Bjanni, is actually the current meat suit of Uthorion. Nobody's aware of this (remember, very few people in Aysle even know Uthorion exists), but some of the Viking tribal leaders have noticed that Thorfinn's been acting more bloodthirsty than normal. Denmark has hit a very odd equilibrium in terms of the invading forces. The Vikings were able to take over about a third of the country right at the start of the invasion, but then the whole Uthorion-gets-kicked-out thing happened, and suddenly the Vikings had no support from the "Queen". As a result, the Viking forces are sitting around awaiting orders because they don't know if they're still supposed to be taking the country. Sweden is one of Uthorion's landing points, with a giant waterspout landing in the middle of Stockholm. But there was a delay in getting the bridge dropped (why? Doesn't say; it's probably in the novels.) so the Swedish army had a chance to get ready when they saw the other bridges dropping. Since they knew that modern tech wouldn’t work, the defense forces started pulling ancient weapons out of the Livrustkammaren and the Historika Museet which proved to be still effective under the new axioms. That’s not to say Sweden had everything its own way; Viking forces still swept up the coastline from Norway, forcing the Swedish government to pretty much abandon the northern part of the country in order to focus their defenses. Finland has been having a lot of problems with Vikings, but more of a problem with trolls, giants, dwarves, and other assorted non-human threats. The Finish defense forces have fallen back on tactics used back in WWII against Nazi invaders, such as ski trooper units who are a lot more familiar with how to fight in snowy regions and have started resorting to guerilla tactics. The Finish people are not happy about this whole “another drat group of would-be conquerors” thing, and the central government has set up a “Radio Free Helsinki” that broadcasts exhortations for the people to take up arms and fight against the invaders. Okay, before we move to the next part...I have to point out again how loving dense this book is. You see those paragraphs where I summarize what’s happening in each country? In the book, they’re at least a third of a page, with some of the capital cities getting another column or so. Meaning that each country gets the better part of a page. But really...do I need that much information? Again, I get that this is supposed to be a globetrotting game, but come on, I don’t need troop movements and who’s doing what to who gives a poo poo and all this loving detail. Learn to summarize, book that came out 20 years ago!  Anyway. We’re still not done because it’s time to talk about Life in the Aysle realm! Needless to say, the economy in England is a loving mess. See, the economy in Aysle is based on magic; specifically conjuration magic. The base monetary standard in Aysle is the “conj”, which represents how much energy it takes to use a conjuration/magic spell to create half an ounce of platinum for one hour. quote:Since all money must have some tangible basis for its value, Ayslish economists spent many months determining just how much such a spell would be worth in precious metals. For instance, the standard conjuration/magic spell is worth .5 ounces of platinum, one ounce of gold, and 1.85 ounces of silver. Of course, this has been wreaking havoc with the London Stock Exchange. Not only are they trying to integrate a monetary system that is literally based on magic, now all these new stocks are forming for things like dwarven mining and, yes, magical services. The trade in magical services has actually caused a boom in the Ayslish economy due to Storm Knights seeking out magic training or weapons in order to fight the good fight, but it still wouldn’t take much at this point to completely tank both the Aylsish and British economies. We get a brief discussion on The Sexes in Aylse, which boils down to “equality of the sexes has been the norm for centuries”. Not much to really expand on here. Now we get to learn about the Class System, which is where the inequality comes in, because it really is based off caster superiority. At the top of the class system are human sorcerers, i.e. people who actually focus on and have expanded on their magical ability. Below them are human priests, and below them are human warriors. And yes, those are the terms the books use. I guess it’s a literal class system? Below the warriors are the freetraders, a.k.a. the people who actually keep the economy working, and after that it pretty much boils down to “everyone else”, with the barbarian types on the lowest rung. The non-human races tend to follow the same basic class structure, with the wizards and sorcerers being at the top and everyone else below them. That said, humans tend to treat elves and dwarves as “below them” on the ladder, while the elves just know they’re better than everyone else. All that said, the half-folk are basically slaves with no rights in general Ayslish society, with the lesser folk like gnomes, goblins, and ogres barely considered “people”. In fact, killing lesser folk is barely considered a crime. Which leads us nicely into Justice in Aysle, which gets less space than the next section on fashion because we all know what’s important here, right? Basically the laws of Aysle more-or-less line up with England’s. Yes, there’s a section about Fashion because it’s really important to get into the details of how people dress. Big shock, they dress as you’d expect for a Standard Generic Fantasy Realm, which is to say "Reneisance Festival".  All the lonely people...where do they all belong? The next part is about Magic and Technology, because there is a rather important culture clash there. As stated previosuly, everyone from Aysle is capable of casting at least one spell. This means that, due to magic being so prevelant, technological advancement has been incredibly slow. Technically speaking, magic fills the role of technology in terms of day-to-day life. An Ayslish resident paying for someone to cast a long-distance communication spell is treated with about as much gravitas as someone from Core Earth making a phone call. Citizens are expected by law to register their magical abilities (as in, which magic skills they know) with the government. This is so said government can keep track of who's capable of doing what, pretty much in the same way we register our ability to drive or own a handgun. Also like reality, not everyone who should be registered is registered. Since the Ayslish economy (and now Core Earth's) are tied into concepts of magical ability, it's not unheard of for casters to manipulate the economy for their own benefit. Likewise, since magic does pretty much everything the people of Aysle have little use for technology, and Core Earth tech is given the ol' side-eye by most Ayslish. Back home, people see technology as kind of pointless; why spend all this time and effort trying to figure out how to make demolitions for mining when you can probably find someone who can just cast a "move earth" spell and call it a day? As a result, only the dwarves seem to care about technology. In Aysle, single-shot gunpower weapons and basic steam engines are pretty much the cutting edge. This has caused a few...incidents when the invasion happened and the invaders came up against Core Earth technology. quote:Shortly after the invasion, a band of Freetraders encountered a Stormer serving in the Dark Forces. The Stormer shot one trader with a pistol, wounding him in the stomach. The merchants were familiar with primitive firearms, but not having seen the Stormer go through the complicated process of loading the gun they were used to, did not make the connection. Thus, believing the gun a magical weapon and the wound caused by the great noise it made, they did not discover and remove the bullet, and their companion bled to death. Almost done! We just need to get through talking about The Houses in the Realm! Each of the noble houses have, of course, set up shop in northern Europe. Each one has "claimed" a part of the realm, despite whoever was actually there first. House Tancred has set up shop in southeastern England, and is run by Tolwyn. Despite the infighting between the members following Tolwyn and the ones loyal to Gareth, the House has re-pledged itself to Ardinay and trying to fix the damage of the invasion. House Liandar are in the northern part of the realm, and are stuck between House Vareth's land and Utorion's forces. House leader Cedric Liandar has determined that Ardinay has recently shaken off a dark sorcery that twisted her mind (which is sort-of true) and has pledged himself to her service. House Daleron is still allied with Uthorion, even though they don't know where he is right now. Daleron has the largest House-controlled military in the realm, and has taken the counties of Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridge, Lincoln, Leicester, Nottingham, and Rutland, and the cities of Cambridge and Norwich. Manfred, head of the House's lands in the realm, is currently focused on taking Oxford from Ardinay. House Gerrik is pretty much Oxford's main line of defense against the other Houses. In fact, House Gerrik were actually gifted the counties of Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Glouster, and the surrounding counties by Ardinay herself. The House's interests are managed by Duncan Gerrik, who is in love with Tolwyn and is hoping to marry her and bring the two Houses together. House Bendes is also still loyal to Ardinay, even though historically they paid lip service to Uthorion. Bceause of their service in using its vast wealth to support rebel forces against Uthorion, Ardinay gave the House "control" of Wales. Earl Thomas Bendes has been focused on fixing the economy and infrastructure of Wales, focusing on food and weapon production to support other Houses. House Vareth is still terrible. Even after Ardinay's return, they're still invloved in the slave trade. The House has actually stepped up its game, using forces of minotaurs with automatic rifles to take isolated villages and towns for people to sell off. Taleron Vareth is in charge of the House's territory around York and Lancashire, and is a firm believer in the use of violence and torture to get what he wants. --- loving finally. This chapter...this chapter is waaaaaaay too goddamn dense. I know how much I keep saying this about every Torg book, but there is just too much stuff here. I mean, look how long this post is, and summarized a lot of things. And the biggest problem is that I don't need to know all of it. Nothing is summarized or described in broad strokes, and after a while your eyes just slide off everything. And we're still two chapters away from the WORST chapter in the book. NEXT TIME: Rules of behavior. Evil Mastermind fucked around with this message at 22:11 on Dec 1, 2016 |
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Nov 29, 2016 20:44
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Midjack posted:Literally Shitfarmer the RPG and unbelievably it sounds like Fantasy Paranoia so far. Heartbreaker: The Not-Learning-From-Previous-Mistakes-ening
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Nov 29, 2016 20:45
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Isn't it Dungeon Crawl Classics that does the whole 0-level character funnel thing? That seems a way more efficient way of going about it.
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Nov 29, 2016 21:37
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Maxwell Lord posted:Isn't it Dungeon Crawl Classics that does the whole 0-level character funnel thing? That seems a way more efficient way of going about it. Middenarde may be the platonic ideal of "I'mma fix D&D with REALISM!" thinking.
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Nov 29, 2016 21:40
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Evil Mastermind posted:Yes it is, and yes it does. Of course, none of this realism will affect the spellcasters.
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Nov 29, 2016 21:58
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PurpleXVI, ask your buddy there what other games he's ever played besides D&D. I honestly want to know how short that list is. 
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Nov 29, 2016 22:09
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occamsnailfile posted:Re: Sword World translation, basically that game had the problem of anime licensing in that the creators felt their product was worth WAY more than it would actually make if anyone bothered trying to translate and sell it here. It's mostly only interesting in being western fantasy through a Japanese sort of lens, and some of the other more quirky/cute games already give us that. Ryuutama, what we've been able to see of Meikyuu Kingdom, etc. And ironically it sounds like the reason why Sword World got written to begin with, the D&D licensing in Japan was a complete mess...
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Nov 29, 2016 22:10
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Asimo posted:Ah, yeah, that sounds logical. I know there's several classic anime series that are a bitch to license because they're super popular in Japan (and maybe some other markets like south america) but nobody knows about or really gives a gently caress about them in America but the companies still want millions for the license. I think they also have a tendency to sell anime licenses as a bundle with a bunch of less successful shows. Somewhat unfeasible for the tabletop market, though.
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Nov 29, 2016 22:25
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That's another big gimmick thing yeah. Not sure how prominent it is these days, but during the early 00's anime DVD boom this reason is why a lot of crappy C-tier things nobody would ever buy or watch got released. I forget the exact title, but I know for a fact there was at least one retail release acquired through a deal like this that sold double digit copies. 
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Nov 29, 2016 22:29
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 Godlike, Chapter V, Part VI The last update concluded with the (thoroughly ahistorical) Battle of Warsaw, in which a group of Polish Jewish Talents, reinforced by the Allies, defeated the armies of the Reich and flew the Star of David over the Ghetto. Before getting into the historical events for this update, I’d like to discuss two subjects which are mostly presented in sidebars and don’t fit neatly into the chronology of wartime events. The first is Soviet Talents. Publicly, Stalin loved the hundreds of Russian Talents who sprang up in the first year of the war with Germany, and heaped praise on them in radio addresses, speeches, and official pronouncements. Privately, Talents were a potential threat to his supreme authority, and Stalin’s paranoia reached a fever pitch wherever Talents were concerned. To Stalin, Talents were valuable tools, but ones that should be destroyed as soon as they outlived their usefulness. As a result, the vast population of Soviet Talents was poorly mobilized, to say the least. Talents working for the state were often killed or “missing in action.” Many did fight for the Red Army, and many died, but many were also sent on suicide missions or murdered by the NKVD (whose leader, the psychopathic Lavrentiy Beria, was also head of SD-1). Russia’s most successful Talents kept their powers hidden from their commanders, operated outside the army as resistance fighters, or served openly and risked Stalin’s purges. Many who survived the war fled the Soviet Union, and those who didn’t had little hope of a long and happy life. In 1990, the extent of Stalin’s megalomania was revealed. Already in his 60s when the war began, it took a took on his health, and he began taking injections of “invigorative extracts” up to 20 times a month. Why did the NKVD collect the “vitamins” for St;alin’s treatments, and why did SD-1 doctors administer them? As it turned out, Stalin had the remains of Soviet and German Talents liquefied and injected them into his body, hoping to absorb their power and vitality. Just as the Great Purge of the 30s had killed thousands, a Talent purge continued from wartime until Stalin’s death in 1953. (Strangely, this alternate history story more closely resembles Hitler’s relationship with Dr. Theodor Morell.) The second subject is British colonial possessions. The historical narrative ends shortly after the war, but we’re told that the politics of British colonial nations after the war are vastly different thanks to the Talent phenomenon. As I mentioned briefly in a previous chapter entry, some tribal societies possess “magic” which breaks the rules of conventional Talents. It can be taught, it can pass from person to person, and it can have many different effects. During the war, Great Britain made many promises of independence to its colonial holdings, none of which were formal and some of which were outright lies. After the war, both tribal sorcerers and conventional Talents among these subaltern peoples forced the British Empire to make good on its promises. After repulsing a Japanese invasion, Lord Yama carved out an independent state for his followers, forcing Great Britain and later India to recognize the nation of Assam. In Burma, when negotiations between the Kachin tribesmen and Great Britain broke down in 1946, the Kachin Arvat priests responded with a threat: Britain would recognize an independent Kachin nation, or every child in London would die of fever. The nation of Gamgaw was created that day.  Wizard supremacy? Really? 4/21/1943, the Plague of Rangoon: British command received word that the Kachin tribesmen planned to “attack” Japanese-held Rangoon. The British were confused as to how they could possibly have the weapons and manpower to mount the attack, but they paid attention. Soon they intercepted reports that Japanese medics were scrambling to treat an epidemic. Over 2,500 Japanese died from a “Red Fever” that caused bloating, burst capillaries, and fatal blood clots. Soon, Brigadier-General Wingate met with Arvat Sittuang and his fellow magicians. They demonstrated their power on a captured Japanese soldier, who burst into flame after a few minutes of chanting from the magicians. Wingate passed the news along, and Allied analysts were forced to rethink the situation in Burma. 4/21/1943, Yamamoto Dies: Mistaking MacArthur’s “island-hopping” for a defensive line, Admiral Yamamoto toured forward positions to raise morale. Once again, American cryptographers delivered a victory by decoding his itinerary. Eighteen P-38s shot down Yamamoto over Ballale island. The reluctant architect of the Pearl Harbor attack was dead at59. 4/30/1943, Target: Montgomery: A squad of 12 Überkommandos, transported by the powerful German teleporter Der Springer, launched a surprise attack on General Montgomery’s headquarters in Qairwan. However, Montgomery was far away in Le Kef, meeting General Patton. The Übermenschen killed more than 40 Allied troops before retreating due to mounting losses--seven were killed, and two were captured by Flare, a Canadian Talent. 5/7/1943, Fall of the Afrika Korps: The British 11th Hussars pushed the Germans out of Tunis, while General Omar Bradley took Bizerta the same day. What remained of the Afrika Korps was now trapped between American and British lines or on the Cape Bon peninsula. Generaloberst Hans-Jürgen von Arnim and his forces prepared to fight to the bitter end to delay the Allied invasion of Sicily. On the 13th, von Arnim surrendered to Montgomery and Patton, ending the war in North Africa. The Allies took over 200,000 prisoners, as well as 200 tanks and thousands of other munitions. No Übermenschen were among the prisoners, most having escaped to Sicily or southern Africa. 5/10/1943, Eli the Brain: Section 2 discovered Eli Watson, the first American Hyperbrain, in New York City. Once a lousy student, the 18-year-old Watson had graduated with a college degree in mathematics within months and was considering a doctoral program in physics. Ironically, it was his mother who figured he was a Talent and sent him to the recruitment office--the thought had never occurred to him. Soon, Watson was demonstrating his powers to the public with a press conference in which he he answered complex math questions and speed-translated Latin “for fun.” On the 27th, Watson became part of the atomic bomb project at Los Alamos. He assisted with some engineering specifics, but “the Brain” was mainly utilized as a human calculator, able to provide instant answers to complex equations. 5/12/1943, U.S. Army Retakes Attu: The U.S. 7th Infantry landed on Attu in the Aleutian Islands, attacking Japanese positions at multiple points. After 18 days of fighting, only 30 out of 2,400 Japanese soldiers survived to surrender. Though the withdrawal process took 2 months, Japanese presence in the Aleutians was now over. 5/16/1943, the Fall of the Nephilim: The Jewish forces in the Warsaw Ghetto were finally overcome when Hitler ordered the 2nd Panzer Army and a huge Übermenschen force into the Ghetto. The remaining 250 Jews offered fierce resistance but were badly outnumbered. Fourteen thousand Jews and 3,500 Germans had died in the uprising. When the Nephilim leader Hashomer was hanged the next day, his last words were “I die today dreaming of Israel.” 5/22/1943, Doenitz Suspends Patrols: Doenitz was finally forced to call off U-boat patrols of the North Atlantic. Improved radar and sonar and increased coastal patrols led to the destruction of over 100 U-boats within months, along with the most experienced crewmen. Though new U-boats were still launched, the Reich’s iron grip on Atlantic waters had been broken for good. 5/26/1943, the Battle of Montenegro: Over 120,000 Axis troops attacked Josef Tito’s force of 16,000 Communist partisans at Montenegro, aiming to capture or kill the leader of the Yugoslavian resistance. Despite being badly outnumbered, the British-trained partisans forced the Axis to withdraw after 3 weeks of intense fighting. Tito and his Talent bodyguard Stasio escaped unscathed, rallying even more Yugoslavians to the Communist resistance. 5/29/1943, Der Archiv: Walter Zingel, the first German Hyperbrain, was discovered during an exam for SS candidates. Zingel listed numerous professions on his resume, and skeptical officers found that he was indeed an expert on numerous subjects despite lacking any college education. A night clerk at a Berlin library, Zingel suddenly attained an encyclopedic memory while sorting books. He knew the number and location of the 3,521 books he had sorted--and soon, he had memorized their contents as well. Der Archiv (“The Archive”) was assigned to Hauptamt SS command to work on war logistics. Zingel’s career amounted to little more than frustration. It didn’t take a Hyperbrain to trace every strategic blunder back to Hitler himself--Zingel’s intelligence simply made it impossible to ignore. Like so many Nazi commanders before him, Der Archiv tried to make changes without being noticed. When he suggested withdrawing from the Ukraine, only Albert Speer’s intervention saved him from being sent to the Eastern front. He survived the rest of the war as Speer’s adjutant. Zingel was never an ardent Nazi, but a patriot who wanted the war to end quickly with minimal loss of life. His only substantial impact was in convincing the high command to disperse German industry in the last months of the war, discouraging a focused Allied bombing campaign. Beyond that, his “contribution” to the war effort was keeping his mouth shut. For example, his wartime diary shows that he quickly deduced that Britain had subverted every German spy within its borders through the XX System. Der Archiv hid this and other insights, hoping for a swift end to the war. 6/5/1943, Montgomery Burns: At a public rally in London, General Montgomery was incinerated by a German Talent, Der Feuermann (“The Fireman”). Three others were killed and 16 injured, and Der Feuermann escaped. The next day, it was announced that “Montgomery” had actually been a body double, 1st Lt. Bernard Law. King George presented his widow with the Victoria Cross. 6/10/1943, Operation Pointblank: In advance of a cross-Channel invasion of Europe, the RAF and American 8th Air Force launched Operation Pointblank, an intense year-long bombing campaign against German air bases, factories, and industrial cities. The operation included the “Bullseye” system, in which Talent fliers and teleporters marked bombing targets with flares. After losing 54 Talents in a few months, Bullseye was scrapped due to unacceptable casualties. 6/21/1943, Super-Man Attacks New Georgia: A force of 750 U.S. Marines made a covert landing on New Georgia in the Solomon Islands, to seize a 76mm coastal gun. They accomplished their mission quickly but were besieged by 3,000 Japanese troops. Reinforcements rushed from Guadalcanal. Sgt. Harry O’Malley manifested his Talent after a Japanese grenade bounced off his chest and into a group of four men huddled nearby, killing them but leaving him unhurt. O’Malley tore off his shirt, screamed “I’m Super-Man!” and proceeded to rout the entire Japanese force by himself, capturing their commander to boot. O’Malley was an incredibly powerful Talent, exhibiting superhuman strength, speed, and stamina, invulnerability, flight, and even “heat vision.” When the landing force arrived, they found that O’Malley had already secured New Georgia. They also found him to be utterly insane. A few days after his Talent manifestation, he killed a fellow Marine “for murder,” decapitating the man as he fired back at a Japanese spider-hole. Soon it was clear that O’Malley was a “mad Talent.” He refused to answer to any name but Super-Man. He told General Darrenovsky “All these guns, all this killing, it’s wrong,” and announced “I’m going to end this war, starting now.” He immediately began disabling vehicles and weapons with his powers. Four Marine Talents subdued O’Malley while he was building “houses for all the good people to live in.” He was shipped back to Pearl Harbor command, who decided he was too dangerous. “Super-Man” was lobotomized and spent the rest of his life in a California sanitarium. 7/1/1943, Null: A RuSHA SA recruiting drive discovered Hartmann Landers, soon codenamed Null. Landers was not only the first German “Zed” Talent, but likely the most powerful Zed who ever lived, able to affect dozens of Talents at a time. Null was the answer to the high command’s prayers, and not for his potential in combat. Hitler had become so paranoid he could hardly function, even employing food tasters. He only trusted his Überkommando bodyguards, and after the March 1943 bomb plot, even they were suspect. Null was the solution to Hitler’s demand for a defense against Talent powers. Soon he held the title of Führerprotektor and was by Hitler’s side 24 hours a day. 7/4/1943, Carnage at Kursk: The Nazis launched Operation Citadel, a massive assault on Kursk. The assault included 900,000 men and 3,000 tanks, but the Russians had mustered 1.3 million troops and 215 Talents to defend the city. The Germans were hammered by air raids and repulsed by infantry, while behind-the-lines Talent assaults disrupted their organization. Days later, they threw a 212-strong Überkommandogruppe at the Russians’ southern flank, but after a brief surge, they were slaughtered by artillery fire. An enraged Hitler ordered another 200 Übermenschen to the eastern front. 7/9/1943, the Invasion of Sicily: General Montgomery and Lt. General Patton landed 180,000 men on Sicily. Initial landings by British gliders and American paratroopers resulted in heavy losses when high winds blew them far off course, but when the 2,500 ships landed their troops, they quickly gained the advantage over the 315,000 Italian and 50,000 German troops on the island. Four TOG and three SSO teams, comprising 84 total Allied Talents, inflicted huge losses on the Italian 6th Infantry, holding off 3,000 men at Pointe Grande until British forces relieved them. The Allied attack on the “soft underbelly” of the Axis had begun. 7/11/1943, Göring v. Patton: The Hermann Göring Division attacked Patton’s forces at Gela, attacking with Tiger tanks and the 24-man Überkommandogruppe 19. They almost pushed Patton to the sea before he received air support from Pantelleria. Patton rushed his tanks forward while his paratroopers attacked from the rear. They suffered heavy losses, but forced the Hermann Göring Division to pull back and evacuate Sicily. Patton was always skeptical of the use of Talents in warfare, not least because his massive ego wouldn’t allow him to share glory or headlines. TOG teams were used in North Africa and Sicily over his protests. Eisenhower was aware of the public obsession with Talents, and cared more about public morale than Patton’s vanity. However, after seeing 4 Übermenschen scatter an entire tank company, Patton changed his mind as he examined the ruins of a hurled tank. In August 1943, twenty-six American Talents were assigned to his command. Soon known as the “Good Time Boys,” they were led by 1st Lt. John “Muscles” Meyer. The team wrought havoc on Axis forces in France and Germany...and graciously allowed Patton to take credit for their accomplishments. Meyer himself considered Patton “like a father” and credited him with the group’s many victories. 7/13/1943, Tanks and Talents Clash on Eastern Front: A Soviet counterattack at Prokhorovka interrupted von Manstein’s plans for another push, leading to the largest battle of Talents yet seen in warfare. The Germans sent 600 tanks and 111 Übermenschen against 850 Soviet tanks and 105 Talents. Over 9 days, Germany lost over 600 tanks and half a million men, as well as 71 Talents. Hitler canceled the offensive and pulled forces back to defend Italy. Like von Paulus before him, von Manstein found that Hitler had steered him into disaster and then left him high and dry, all his gains reversed, with no recourse but to fight the Russians to the bitter end. By the 17th, Soviet forces were storming disorganized German positions around Kursk. Von Manstein had no time to organize a retreat, so the German 2nd and 9th armies were scattered by Russians who were well-supplied, reinforced, and supported by tanks and air support. 7/15/1943, the Push to Palermo: Patton and Montgomery’s forces swept up opposite coasts toward the Sicilian capital of Palermo. While Patton’s forces met little resistance, the British 8th Army endured heavy fighting, and the retreating Überkommandogruppe 19 held them off near Mt. Etna despite a flanking maneuver by the 1st Canadian Division. On the 2rd, Patton entered Palermo at the head of a huge tank force, greeted by cheering crowds. Most of Sicily was now under Allied control as Axis forces retreated to the mainland. Patton then violated direct orders by moving his forces east--he and Montgomery were now in a race for Messina, the entry point to Italy. 7/19/1943, Rome Bombed! Rome was bombed for the first time, by an Allied force launched from a Sicilian airbase. The Allies gave the populace several hours’ warning via radio and propaganda leaflets, and avoided historical landmarks. 7/23/1943, WINDOW: The British introduced a brilliantly simple technology to aid bombing runs on Germany. Called WINDOW, we know it today as chaff--small, thin sheets of aluminum dropped to overwhelm radar with false echoes. The next night, a raid on Hamburg killed 30,000 people and 14 Übermenschen, reducing most of the city to rubble. 7/25/1943, Il Duce Under Arrest: On the 19th, Hitler and Mussolini had their last meeting in Letre to discuss Italy’s role in the war for Europe. Mussolini asked Hitler to seize control of Italy, and was refused. Mussolini had never enjoyed the same support as Hitler, and neglected to mention that his political position was in freefall. On July 25th, the Fascist High Council restored King Emmanuel to power and deposed Mussolini. His replacement, Marshal Pietro Badoglio, imprisoned him and went through the motions of creating an interim government, secretly hoping to negotiate a separate peace with the Allies. 7/26/1943, the Soviet Push: German High Command finally ordered their forces to retreat to the Hagen line in the Ukraine. Hitler ordered von Manstein to hold the Soviets at Kharkov, and refused to allow an orderly retreat to positions with shorter supply lines. Stranded and ill-supplied, the troops were completely demoralized. On August 5th, the Soviets launched a 3-front assault on the Hagen line; von Manstein was barely able to hold them off by rapidly moving his tanks from one gap to another. 8/1/1943, Ploesti Bombed: American bombers attacked facilities at Ploesti, the Romanian oilfields that supplied over half of Germany’s oil. The bombers flew low and dropped hundreds of tons of bombs, inflicting considerable damage that took two months to repair. Fifty-four planes were lost, and some pilots were forced to land in neutral Turkey where they were interned for the duration of the war. 8/3/1943, Axis Retreat from Sicily: Axis forces made a full retreat across the Strait of Messina to the Italian mainland. Air patrols by ME-109s and Übermenschen covered the Axis retreat. After Cantania surrendered to the British 8th on the 5th, Sicily was lost. 8/7/1943, the Death of Il Duce: Suspicious of Badoglio’s government, Hitler ordered his forces to seize power in portions of Italy, dividing the country politically. He also ordered an Übermenschen to free Mussolini...orders which were canceled when news of Il Duce’s death reached Der Führer. Marshal Badoglio dealt with the Allies in extreme secrecy, even relying on an American teleporter named Peter “Fastball” Tucker to transport negotiators. The Allies demanded unconditional surrender and the extradition of Mussolini, so Badoglio stalled for a better deal. Meanwhile, a British/American Talent group lead by Major “Camo” Carter uncovered Mussolini’s location. An Allied commando group stormed the Abruzzi hotel where Mussolini was held, but only secured the building after a half-hour of fierce combat. Captain Thomas “Goliath” Levin was the last person to see the dictator alive--standing on a chair with a noose around his neck. “He looked at me, looked at my beret, smiled, and jumped.” Mussolini died instantly from a broken neck. 8/15/1943, Kiska Abandoned: A Canadian/American force landing on Kiska in the Aleutian islands found that the Japanese garrison had already left. The loss of Attu and ruptured supply lines had convinced them to abandon the Aleutians. As part of the Alaska Purchase, it was the only American territory that had been lost to the Japanese. 8/17/1943, Sicily Falls: Montgomery and Patton inflicted heavy losses on retreating Axis troops in their race toward Messina. Neither would admit that the push to Messina had become a competition between two massive egotists. On the 17th, Patton reached Messina less than 2 hours before Montgomery. The soft underbelly of Axis Europe was about to be punctured.  8/22/1943, the Flying Bricks: The U.S. Army Air Corps created a team of 21 “flying bricks,” Talents who could fly and were hyper-tough. They escorted bombing raids by the 8th Air Force, a direct response to fears of Übermenschen air defense. The “1st Non-Mechanized Long Range Flight Group” had their first sortie escorting 276 B-17s on a daylight raid over Schweinfurt. While they lost two Talents, they killed one Übermensch and downed 11 planes. It was some time in 1943 when Prof. Daniel Talbot, a Section Two scientist, realized a link between the age and education level of Talents and the powers they manifested. Many young men manifested flight, invulnerability, hyperstrength and speed, and even “heat vision” and “x-ray vision.” After a brief conversation with his young son, he realized that servicemen were gaining the powers of their favourite superheroes. Comic books were soon a common sight in the hands of enlisted men. 8/23/1943, Retreat from Kharkov: Hitler finally gave the order to withdraw from Kharkov, after General Raus held out for two weeks. Russian forces took the city the next day. 8/25/1943, Baba Yaga Must Die: Thirteen T-34 tanks from the 18th Soviet Army attacked Baba Yaga as it picked through a battlefield near Kharkov. The tanks coordinated fire on the “creature” from less than 1,000 yards, but Baba Yaga reacted to the hail of 76mm fire by slowly getting up and turning towards its attackers, as if intrigued by a sudden light snowfall. Then it rushed the Soviet positions and tore them to shreds, killing 2,000 and wrecking 60 tanks. The Russians retreated. 9/3/1943, Italy Surrenders: In a radio address, Badoglio announced Mussolini’s suicide and Italy’s unconditional surrender to the Allies. “Fascism,” he stated, “is over forever in Italy.” Many Italians were overjoyed but others were frightened--German troops were still garrisoned across Italy, especially in the north. Hours later, Generalfeldmarschalls Rommel and Kesselring occupied Italian territory. Meanwhile, the British 8th Army crossed the Strait of Messina. The Allied invasion of Europe was underway. 9/8/1943, The Immortal: A young man named Dionisio Valenti became the first Italian Custos (“Keeper”) defending his hometown of Orvieto from Nazis as they looted, raped, and burned. To the Nazis, every Italian was a traitor and a valid target. Valenti himself was beaten, stabbed, and finally doused with kerosene and left with a live grenade. His body was blown to pieces and incinerated. A few days later, he stood up. quote:Immortale 9/10/1943, Nazis Seize Rome: On the 9th, the Allies landed 2 large forces on the Italian mainland. Lieutenant General Clark’s force at Solerno endured heavy resistance and two Übermenschen attacks on his headquarters before TOG 6 and TOG 10 were attached to his command. Still, Anglo-American positions were overextended, while the Germans were well-reinforced. Meanwhile, the British 1st Airborne landed at Taranto, and a British Talent force seized Montecorvino before being pushed back. The next day, Generalleutnant Maelzer’s forces seized Rome from confused and outnumbered Italian troops. Maelzer ruled Rome with an iron fist, enforcing martial law with murder and torture. 9/11/1943, the Fate of the Italian Fleet: The small Italian fleet moved to Malta as part of an agreed-upon surrender to the Allies. They were attacked en route by Luftwaffe and Überkommando forces. In the first use of a guided missile in warfare, the Roma was sunk by Fritz-X glide bombs with all 1,200 crewmen aboard. The Übermenschen Tyr and Sonnenrad damaged the Italia so badly it remained in port for 18 months. A few days later, the British battleship Warspite was also crippled by glide bombs. 9/23/1943, Italy Divided: Hitler officially established the Reichskommisariat Norditalien (“North Italian Protectorate”). Northern Italy was now part of the Third Reich. On October 13th, Marshal Badoglio’s government officially joined the Allies. While Hitler’s Italy was no more than a buffer state for Germany, loyal Italian soldiers were too scattered to assist the Allies. 10/1/1943, Montgomery Takes Naples: Paratrooper reinforcements had narrowly saved Allied forces from being pushed back to the sea. But with reinforcements and support from the British 8th, Clark’s forces broke through the German 10th Army. The British took Naples on October 1st, greeted by cheering civilians. 10/14/1943, Allies Destroy Schweinfurt: The U.S. 8th Air Force attacked the ball bearing plant at Schweinfurt again. They lost 25 B-17s, two P-47s, and 1 Talent, but took down 12 ME-109s and 4 FW-190s...and killed 4 Übermenschen. The factory was leveled. 10/30/1943, Russians Seal Crimea: Generals Tolbukhin and Petrov’s Soviet Army Group attacked Crimea from points north and south, trapping the Germans on the peninsula. The USSR was now poised to invade Germany with millions of soldiers and thousands of tanks. 11/1/1943, Allies Invade Bougainville: The 3rd New Zealand Division made diversionary landings to allow U.S. forces to invade Bouganville, largest of the Solomon Islands. It was a perfect staging ground to launch bombing raids on Rabaul, the Japanese base on New Britain. The 1st Marine Amphibious Corps landed at Torokina with 14,000 troops and 40 Talents. Progress was slow, but they built airbases almost as soon as territory was secured. By December 10th, the Allies had pushed the Japanese beyond a controlled perimeter and were ready to launch air raids on Rabaul. 11/20/1943, Battle for the Gilbert Islands: When the 2nd Marine Division landed on Makin and Tarawa, they expected little resistance. Little did the know that a network of tunnels and caves had protected Japanese forces on Tarawa from air raids. The Marines fought for every inch of ground; only additional landings allowed them to move past the beach. The Marines lost 1,500 and killed 5,000 Japanese over four bloody days. 11/28/1943, The Big Three: Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin all met for the first time in Tehran to discuss the war and plans for a cross-Channel invasion. Tehran was chosen for its neutrality and its apparent lack of Talents; the 3 leaders had 80 Talent bodyguards between them. While they negotiated, the city raged. Riots between the Tudeh (“Masses”) and the Shah’s supporters resulted in fires across northern Tehran. (Even worse, Stalin and Churchill supported the Shah while Stalin supported the communist Tudeh.) The non-Russian Allied Talents were dispatched to support the Shah; over 2,000 civilians and 500 soldiers were killed. Several Talents were detected in the riots, but none captured. Nonetheless, the “Big Three” came to terms on several issues, including plans for the invasion of Europe. 12/1/1943, Der Seefahrer Executed: Convicted of espionage after a brief military trial, Georg “Der Seefahrer” Klingen was executed by lethal injection in New York State Prison. His body was remanded to Section 2 for study. 12/13/1943, the P-51 Mustang: The P-51 was perhaps the greatest single-seat, prop-driven fighter ever created, unmatched by similar craft in its speed, range, and maneuverability. It made its debut in an attack on Kiel. By the end of the war, almost every Allied force employed the P-51 as its primary attack craft. 12/14/1943, Russian Winter: The Germans hoped that the oppressive Russian winter would keep the Eastern Front static. Instead, a massive Soviet army moved on Kiev, and encircled or destroyed every German unit in their way. The Russians were soon occupying the Polish border. Baba Yaga attacked Russian and German forces throughout the offensive, stalking the Pripet marshes north of Kiev. Any unit that encountered the invincible monster had no choice to withdraw. It seemed mostly content to pick through corpses and wreckage. Mostly. 12/26/1943, Allies Invade New Britain: The 1st Marine Division invaded New Britain. The Japanese had been wracked by bombing raids and monsoons, and the Marines faced little resistance. After the Marines secured the island’s airbase, Rabaul would cut off--they would be bombed and starved out without a costly siege war. 1/3/1944, Russians Enter Poland: The 1st Soviet Army swept through German defenses, invading Poland from multiple points. The USSR had invaded the country along with Germany in 1939, and Stalin had not recognized the Polish government-in-exile. Many Poles feared what would come next, and Cien’s inquiries to the Russian foreign minister Molotov (he of the Molotov-Ribentropp Pact) went ignored. 1/4/1944, Operation Carpetbagger: “Carpetbagger,” a huge airborne and Talent operation, went behind enemy lines to supply resistance groups in Axis-occupied countries with tons of weapons, equipment, and medical supplies in preparation for the D-Day invasions. Over 14 months, even field artillery and small vehicles were airdropped and teleported into the hands of partisans. 1/12/1944, Crossing the Rapido: General Alphonse Juin led a French Allied expeditionary force on a successful march across the Rapido River near the Germans’ Gustav line, despite great losses. The march restored flagging Allied morale in Italy and was a prelude to the Battle of Monte Cassino. 1/15/1944, Leningrad Liberated: The besieged Russian city of Leningrad was finally relieved by a huge Soviet army, including over 160 Talents. German forces were attacked on three sides and eventually pushed 50 miles from the city. 1/17/1944, Monte Cassino: The small town of Cassino, on the Rapido river, became the center of a costly battle as the Allies tried to break through the Gustav Line and seize Rome. German forces on the mountains rained artillery down on a series of Allied assaults.The Allies believed they were using the Benedictine abbey of Monte Cassino as a spotter position, but 3 days of recon by TOG 6 determined that they were not even occupying it, and air strikes were called off. Instead, British forces launched a frontal assault, and planned a landing to attack the Germans from the rear. On the 20th, American troops suffered severe losses clearing a path for armored units to move in. TOG 10 launched behind-the-lines operations to disrupt German communications and build bridges faster than the Germans could destroy them. Soon, hundreds of tanks and heavy vehicles had crossed the river. 1/22/1944, Anzio: The Allied VI Corps landed behind German lines at Anzio. Expecting limited resistance, the landing force encountered 45 Übermenschen and an entire battalion of Waffen SS. The Allies triumphed after a long and bloody battle, thanks in large part to Zed’s ability to neutralize German Talents. General Lucas made a costly mistake when he ordered his men to dig in, instead of advancing on Rome. 1/23/1944, Randolph Churchill’s Landing: Major Randolph Churchill, son of the Prime Minister, parachuted into occupied Yugoslavia in support of Tito’s partisans. After linking up with Tito and Stasio, their force of about 9,000 escaped an attack by the Germans and Chetniks. 1/27/1944, Zed Dies: German reinforcements surrounding the Allied bridgehead at Anzio, pressing them against the sea with continuous shelling. Peter “Zed” Cesay, the world’s first Zed Talent, was killed early in the fighting by an 88mm shell. 1/30/1944, Operation Flintlock: The U.S. 7th Infantry and 4th Marine Division seized the Marshall Island atolls over several days, killing 11,000 Japanese troops. From the airbase at Roi, they could launch attacks on the Caroline Islands, with plans to attack the Mariana Islands soon. Meanwhile, Rabaul wasted away. On the 18th, Captain Peter “Whippet” Murphy captured the command post and airbase on Engbei almost singlehandedly using his Talent powers, and received the Medal of Honor. After 4 days of intense combat that saw 4,000 Japanese casualties and only 400 American casualties, Eniwetok was in Allied hands. It was the first Japanese pre-war territory captured by the Allies. By the 20th, the Japanese had been forced to abandon the airbase at Rabaul. Although 91,000 stranded Japanese would hold on more than a year, the base was no longer a threat to the Allies. 2/19/1944, Big Week: The U.S. 8th Air Force and the RAF launched day and night raids on German industry in over a dozen cities. The campaigns were successful, but the dispersal of German industry at Der Archiv’s recommendation prevented the Allies from totally crippling them. The 1st Non-Mechanized Long Range Flight Group now boasted over 65 Talents, and claimed 20 German craft and three Übermenschen during “Big Week.” 2/20/1944, Bloody Anzio: Supported by artillery in the surrounding high ground, ten German divisions surged forward to attack the Allied positions in an offensive called Fischfang. Besieged American/British forces suffered massive losses, determined to maintain their beachhead behind the Gustav line. General Lucas exploited the lack of Übermenschen in the battle, ordering several Talent teams to attack until air support could be called in. The plan worked, but the Talent death toll ran high; fewer than 20 of the 135 Allied Talents present survived the battle. Due to heavy casualties, the Germans were forced to call off the attack and retreat to a defensive perimeter. The German offensive made Anzio the bloodiest battle of the Italian campaign, with over 20,000 casualties on each side. Anthony Larsen, the leader of the Talent group "Larsen's Folly," was among the casualties. 2/26/1944, One Hundred Fifty Thousand Talents: Michael “Specs” Lovetz, a Hyperbrain conducting a study for the U.S. Army, published the first paper estimating the world population of Talents. Lovetz accurately estimated approximately 155,500 Talents worldwide, over 60% of them undiscovered. He projected over 200,000 Talents by 1945, and 1,200,000 by the year 2000. Next time on Godlike: Market Garden, D-Day, and the deaths of several famous Talents. Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 18:16 on Mar 16, 2017 |
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Nov 29, 2016 22:30
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Evil Mastermind posted:Yes it is, and yes it does. The best part is how unrealistic these things tend to be.
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Nov 29, 2016 23:03
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Evil Mastermind posted:PurpleXVI, ask your buddy there what other games he's ever played besides D&D. I honestly want to know how short that list is. "I've played All Flesh Must Be Eaten, Pathfinder, PARANOIA, Deathwatch, GURPS, Ironclaw, Exalted (3e Deluxe Edition hype!), Eclipse Phase, and a bunch of homebrew. I've also got some 3.5 books I've read but never used." I think really the only truly incriminating thing there is that he's hype for 3rd ed Exalted.  Also, I have to give him credit, I actually didn't think he'd change anything, but all the critique I've been posting on here, I've been giving him directly as well(and then some, in even more impolite ways a lot of the time), and he actually seems to be taking some of it to heart. It'll be interesting to see if the changes he's mentioning will actually amount to anything... but here's hoping.
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Nov 29, 2016 23:07
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Eden's Unisystem's martial arts and style construction rules are probably the best martial arts rules I've ever seen (for a game that isn't 100% about martial arts). There is some unevenness and imbalance in how the rules appear across various games. For example, in Conspiracy X some moves are just obviously better than others, so everyone becomes a Spin Kick machine. And Eldritch Skies gives you a weird selection of "cinematic" options to fit the Cinematic Unisystem, like running up a wall, but leaves out other fun martial arts maneuvers. But all the books are more or less compatible with each other and it's easy to patch.
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Nov 29, 2016 23:10
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Making a game where characters are disposable and using the standard level structure are two things that are fundamentally at odds. It's bizarre. The level structure is there to reward extended survival in the grand majority of games that use it. If a game has 20 levels but the average PC can't make it past 4th without filling a punji pit, what's the point of ever writing into double-digit levels? Furthermore, if you're in a gritty medieval world, who wants to go to war, anyway? It seems once you drag stuff back to realism the interesting stories aren't about soldiers - think about the number of historical foot soldiers we get to hear about by name in history books, not a whole lot, because very few people care - but about communities and politics and everyday discoveries. I mean, if adventuring and warring is just punished by dying at the end of a blade, miserable infection, starvation, etc., it gets harder for me to understand why you'd play one of those guys. Go on off to war, I'll play a baker, and make delicious bread and marry young and have some living children... sure, I mean, I'll probably die of some uncured malady in misery, but I win that game, compared to some poor fool who went out to the crusades to glory and died as a desperate bandit before they saw their third decade. Meanwhile, I'm carrying stale bread to the orphanarium and getting to be ten times the hero, somehow. Pretty sure I made the right choice.
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Nov 30, 2016 00:59
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Asimo posted:Ah, yeah, that sounds logical. I know there's several classic anime series that are a bitch to license because they're super popular in Japan (and maybe some other markets like south america) but nobody knows about or really gives a gently caress about them in America but the companies still want millions for the license. This used to be the case for Gundam. I think at one point, Bandai and Sunrise would only accept an all-or-nothing license for the entire franchise, but they seemed to have lightened up on that/are just doing it themselves.
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Nov 30, 2016 01:03
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I thought the D20 license and the advent of supercheap PDF creation and distribution would mean an end to the Fantasy Heartbreaker, but I guess nerds will never, ever, ever stop making "AD&D but with more stuff that is also more realistic and complicated" games. I'm a little baffled that this thing got enough KS backers to go to production. People were really willing to spend $5300 on some no-name's ideas about rolling dice to hack of limbs and contract dysentery? What a world, what a world.
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Nov 30, 2016 01:10
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FMguru posted:I thought the D20 license and the advent of supercheap PDF creation and distribution would mean an end to the Fantasy Heartbreaker, but I guess nerds will never, ever, ever stop making "AD&D but with more stuff that is also more realistic and complicated" games. Hey, at least I'm doing "AD&D but with more stuff that is also goofy and anime"
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Nov 30, 2016 01:11
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Furthermore, if you're in a gritty medieval world, who wants to go to war, anyway? It seems once you drag stuff back to realism the interesting stories aren't about soldiers - think about the number of historical foot soldiers we get to hear about by name in history books, not a whole lot, because very few people care - but about communities and politics and everyday discoveries. I mean, if adventuring and warring is just punished by dying at the end of a blade, miserable infection, starvation, etc., it gets harder for me to understand why you'd play one of those guys. Go on off to war, I'll play a baker, and make delicious bread and marry young and have some living children... sure, I mean, I'll probably die of some uncured malady in misery, but I win that game, compared to some poor fool who went out to the crusades to glory and died as a desperate bandit before they saw their third decade. Meanwhile, I'm carrying stale bread to the orphanarium and getting to be ten times the hero, somehow. Pretty sure I made the right choice.
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Nov 30, 2016 01:16
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Evil Mastermind posted:That raises a good point: what the hell are you supposed to do in Middenarde? What's the point of the game apart from just surviving? Die, mostly.
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Nov 30, 2016 01:20
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Night10194 posted:Die, mostly. "I love you, My Wife, but this world is boring and awful except for you. My best years are behind me, I'm not 13 anymore, so me and a bunch of the lads from the ale house are going to go steal a lot of gunpowder and sail a flaming ship loaded with explosives to Spain to spark a war between this awful monarchy and the Spanish." "That sounds cool. Can I come with? We can just abandon the kids at the monastery so we can both go off and die together." "I knew I married you for a reason, baby." "I thought you married me because Dad had six chickens." "...I mean, yeah, but."
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Nov 30, 2016 01:48
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Hostile V posted:"Life sucks in the Middle Ages so figure out the coolest, most spectacular way to die (suicide doesn't count because you're not eligible for Heaven according to the church) despite being a serf" would be an excellent hook for a game along these lines, especially if you put it in the hands of a bunch of motivated players. Four Lions by way of Warhammer Fantasy and Paranoia. Would play. Murder: The Game of Getting Murdered.
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Nov 30, 2016 01:52
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Peasant: The Murdering
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Nov 30, 2016 01:53
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Thanks for the plot to my next one-shot.
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Nov 30, 2016 01:53
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Killing the rich was the best thing the French ever did.
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Nov 30, 2016 01:57
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License that one show 100 Ways To Die. Just kill yourselves in spectacular ways.
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Nov 30, 2016 01:57
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I'm not sure that I see the point of Middenarde when WFRP2e already exists. There's even a retroclone if you don't like the setting. I mean there is probably room for other grim, picaresque low fantasy games, but probably not ones that blather on about how lovely the PCs' lives are supposed to be.
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Nov 30, 2016 02:02
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Asimo posted:That's another big gimmick thing yeah. Not sure how prominent it is these days, but during the early 00's anime DVD boom this reason is why a lot of crappy C-tier things nobody would ever buy or watch got released. I forget the exact title, but I know for a fact there was at least one retail release acquired through a deal like this that sold double digit copies. That's how Evangelion got shipped over. Couple of other big American favorites were bargin bin discounts (though only a few got popular like Evangelion did later on)
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Nov 30, 2016 02:17
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Halloween Jack posted:I'm not sure that I see the point of Middenarde when WFRP2e already exists. There's even a retroclone if you don't like the setting. I mean there is probably room for other grim, picaresque low fantasy games, but probably not ones that blather on about how lovely the PCs' lives are supposed to be. There is a WFRP retroclone?
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Nov 30, 2016 02:18
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