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Evil Mastermind posted:So, is that like...a prestige class, or...
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# ? Jan 31, 2017 20:36 |
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# ? Mar 28, 2024 09:22 |
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Evil Mastermind posted:Now I'm wondering if I still have my copy of Authentic Thaumaturgy laying around. The "realism" is just Bonewits special syncretic form of magic and his obviously delusional beliefs about reality, combined with rants about the "religious reicht" and people who don't believe in magic. That, and a GURPS Vehicles-esque approach to calculating how to magnetize a metal in terms of mana per Gauss. (Though it's somewhat interesting to see how Bonewits ideas about psychic powers have spread to other games in a very specific form, like GURPS: Psionics and the World of Darkness psionic characters.)
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# ? Jan 31, 2017 20:44 |
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LatwPIAT posted:The "realism" is just Bonewits special syncretic form of magic and his obviously delusional beliefs about reality, combined with rants about the "religious reicht" and people who don't believe in magic. That, and a GURPS Vehicles-esque approach to calculating how to magnetize a metal in terms of mana per Gauss. Not gonna lie, I just checked the credits of the Aysle sourcebook to see if Bonewits was listed. Shockingly, he's not one of the two people listed under "Magic Theory Assistance".
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# ? Jan 31, 2017 20:59 |
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For Polaris, I want to see a lovely wizard so you can really dig into this whole quote:fugitive hedge mage(read: a Human who wasted a lot of feats on toys they can't use) thing.
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# ? Jan 31, 2017 21:09 |
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I thought the not-orcs wrecked the poo poo out of anyone who went underground, but all of these nation-states seem to be half-dug into bedrock?
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# ? Jan 31, 2017 21:10 |
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Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:For Polaris, I want to see a lovely wizard so you can really dig into this whole Bieeardo posted:I thought the not-orcs wrecked the poo poo out of anyone who went underground, but all of these nation-states seem to be half-dug into bedrock?
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# ? Jan 31, 2017 22:10 |
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Asehujiko posted:Are people reading but not commenting on Polaris because there's so little to say about the game's bone dry subject matter or is a game that starts off with 90 page fake geography textbook just too much? I've still got another 30 pages of contradictory history sections and those settlement writeups alone to go. Asehujiko posted:Alright, I'll try to be a bit more concise with the Polaris fluff but I'm afraid that if I slim it down even further, what little context of X town getting annexed by Y faction is in there will be lost completely and if I just end up picking out the book's contradictions it will mostly be a list of With such games it's important to summarize your criticisms section by section. For example, when I was doing Everlasting, the author went into exhaustive detail about vampires are beautiful and tragic and Anne Ricey. Then all the descriptions of the various vampire bloodlines made them out to be rich, psychopathic occultists. Instead of enumerating each of these points as the book repeated itself, I summed up by saying that vampires are basically the Dark Elves of the setting, with a lot of sops to Anne Rice that don't jive with them being mass-murdering devil-worshipers. (The joke here is that it's me, I'm the pot calling the kettle black. My review of the Godlike's history chapter is as Let's-Read as I ever get. I've already written an intro chapter for Dirty Secrets of the Black Hand, and I go into how I used to review books chapter-by-chapter, but reviewing crazy-rear end RPGs has changed my style over time.) Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 22:24 on Jan 31, 2017 |
# ? Jan 31, 2017 22:17 |
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Halloween Jack posted:(The joke here is that it's me, I'm the pot calling the kettle black. My review of the Godlike's history chapter is as Let's-Read as I ever get. I've already written an intro chapter for Dirty Secrets of the Black Hand, and I go into how I used to review books chapter-by-chapter, but reviewing crazy-rear end RPGs has changed my style over time.) The difference is, of course, the history section in Godlike is actually an interesting part of the book and critical to the book and game's themes (namely that the Supermen don't actually change the overall shape of a global war with millions of combatants, only some of the contours and details), so it needs to be covered in depth.
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# ? Jan 31, 2017 22:29 |
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OTOH, my review of Tradition Book: Hollow Ones was in large part me spending thousands of words losing my poo poo at an author writing The Goth Book for The Goth RPG Company without knowing anything about the goth scene that you couldn't learn from an old SNL sketch. I hope everyone enjoyed my twee goth rage. Hey, someone reviewed V20, didn't they? Where is that? Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 22:49 on Jan 31, 2017 |
# ? Jan 31, 2017 22:45 |
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The Hanged Man Nephilim that Jef and John mentioned in their review (guy made of fire pretending to be abnormal person) sounds a lot like Demon.
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# ? Jan 31, 2017 23:10 |
unseenlibrarian posted:Deadlands honestly doesn't borrow much at all from the Dark Tower other than maybe "There are guys in cowboy hats with guns on the book covers" Mostly it's a big pop culture reference melange so maybe there's A Dark tower reference on one page of one book of Hell on Earth, but on the other hand 3 pages later you'll read about how the secret weapon of the evil mutant army is domesticated killer tomatoes so. It's very grounded and overdetailed but also weirdly winky about things. Maybe the Hucksters are partly based on Last Call, though? Because this book I bought because of Unknown Armies stops every few chapters for detailed descriptions of magical Poker games.
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# ? Feb 1, 2017 00:17 |
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ZorajitZorajit posted:I honestly thought that was Wraethuthu. Which really needs to get a spot on the show if it's not simultaneously too uncomfortable and too kinky. Jef and Jon should just say they did a review of it and just never specify what episode they did it in. Green Intern posted:The Hanged Man Nephilim that Jef and John mentioned in their review (guy made of fire pretending to be abnormal person) sounds a lot like Demon. There was also a Kindred of the East splat that was all about just getting back to your life before you became a vampire. Which, of course, was heretical, because you're supposed to pretend you're alive but not pretend that much, or something. Which was too bad, because a number of the heretical groups were way more interesting than the core groups.
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# ? Feb 1, 2017 00:23 |
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Green Intern posted:The Hanged Man Nephilim that Jef and John mentioned in their review (guy made of fire pretending to be abnormal person) sounds a lot like Demon. Demons have the God Machine to worry about, Hanged Man Nephilim seem to just do it for kicks.
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# ? Feb 1, 2017 00:29 |
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Yeah I was kinda blown away by "hey don't play a hanged man!" They sounded like the most interesting concept. Makes them way more sympathetic too rather than the alien bodysnatchers that all the other nephilim seem like. Especially because their whole path to ascension seems to revolve around becoming more and more human.
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# ? Feb 1, 2017 00:40 |
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Count Chocula posted:Maybe the Hucksters are partly based on Last Call, though? Because this book I bought because of Unknown Armies stops every few chapters for detailed descriptions of magical Poker games. Not really. Last Call's about tarot (and, for that matter, regular playing cards) as Archetypes, with Arthurian poo poo mixed in because of the Fisher King. Deadlands Hucksters are "We thought Gambit is cool, and wizards are cool, so what if Gambit...was a wizard". No one in Last Call blasts people with a spray of ghostly poker cards, for better or worse.
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# ? Feb 1, 2017 00:41 |
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unseenlibrarian posted:No one in Last Call blasts people with a spray of ghostly poker cards, for better or worse.
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# ? Feb 1, 2017 00:56 |
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It is! I would kill for a Fault Lines Trilogy HBO series but man, I don't think you could do 'Edison's ghost as vaguely sympathetic character' these days just from internet backlash about Tesla.
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# ? Feb 1, 2017 01:13 |
Wait why would anybody think Gambit is cool? A UA game using Deadlands' poker chips gimmick sounds like a fun one-off. unseenlibrarian posted:Not really. Last Call's about tarot (and, for that matter, regular playing cards) as Archetypes, with Arthurian poo poo mixed in because of the Fisher King. It took me 3 reads of the prologue to realize that that wasn't what was happening. 'Oh, the main guy isn't Gambit' really sets up things nicely. The Duckfeed guys have a great riff on their Days of Future Cast that Gambit's power is shared by every guy with a ponytail in Vegas. I just read about an AI trying to beat top Poker players. Why wasn't that an optional part of the Deadlands climax - the AI or Demon Challenges the Huckster to a game with the highest stakes of all... Count Chocula fucked around with this message at 02:41 on Feb 1, 2017 |
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# ? Feb 1, 2017 02:31 |
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Count Chocula posted:Wait why would anybody think Gambit is cool?
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# ? Feb 1, 2017 02:42 |
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Count Chocula posted:Wait why would anybody think Gambit is cool? People who watched the X-Men cartoon and didn't really read the comic. He's betrayed the X-Men several times, one of which involved the deaths of a bunch of homeless people and one time involved the premeditated murder of a baby. The only thing more surprising than him rejoining is the team not killing him. Edit: The baby murder was more recent but the Mutant Massacre was in the 80's. RocknRollaAyatollah fucked around with this message at 03:04 on Feb 1, 2017 |
# ? Feb 1, 2017 03:00 |
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Count Chocula posted:Wait why would anybody think Gambit is cool? The funny thing is that Gambit was originally designed as a superhero mentally created by a mutant child to be that child's conception of the ultimate cool hero. That was discarded when the original writer left and he became really popular and-
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# ? Feb 1, 2017 03:01 |
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Alien Rope Burn posted:The funny thing is that Gambit was originally designed as a superhero mentally created by a mutant child to be that child's conception of the ultimate cool hero. Was it Franklin Richards?
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# ? Feb 1, 2017 03:05 |
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RocknRollaAyatollah posted:Was it Franklin Richards? Nah, it was supposed to be a kid called... Nathan, probably, who grew up in the same orphanage as Cyclops. He was an immortal kid (who looks eternally 11, I'll mention for troubling reasons) who had created Mister Sinister with vaguely defined powers as a powerful alter ego, but he falls in love with Rogue but he can't approach her since he looks like a child in his normal form. And Mister Sinister's already an established baddie. So he creates Gambit to infiltrate the X-Men and try and win Rogue's heart. In other words, to stalk and try to seduce her. And undermine the X-Men while he was at it. Gambit would in theory be overcome by the power of love and begin to develop independence from Nathan and probably become a good guy for real but that full story, mercifully, never came to be. Other writers were likely unaware of this and instead gave him a different backstory that wasn't creepy as gently caress- well- was less creepy, at least.
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# ? Feb 1, 2017 03:23 |
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I have known multiple women who were massive fans of Gambit. One of whom enjoyed drawing portraits of him to put on her wall. He has a specific fanbase. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlVMEqjGrIQ
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# ? Feb 1, 2017 03:36 |
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unseenlibrarian posted:It is! I would kill for a Fault Lines Trilogy HBO series but man, I don't think you could do 'Edison's ghost as vaguely sympathetic character' these days just from internet backlash about Tesla. Just because he's terrible doesn't mean he deserves to be eaten by a hobo.
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# ? Feb 1, 2017 04:18 |
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Based on my avatar I believe we can all safely understand that I fuckin love Gambit, but even I will tell you in comics he is abysmally bad.
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# ? Feb 1, 2017 05:00 |
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Other people who like Gambit: the guy who made Rurouni Kenshin, apparently.occamsnailfile posted:Also there’s another one of those Bermuda Triangle thingies southeast of Japan, called the Dragon’s Triangle of course.
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# ? Feb 1, 2017 05:37 |
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Alien Rope Burn posted:There was also a Kindred of the East splat that was all about just getting back to your life before you became a vampire. Which, of course, was heretical, because you're supposed to pretend you're alive but not pretend that much, or something. Which was too bad, because a number of the heretical groups were way more interesting than the core groups. The Kuei-Jin establishment doesn't like the Flames of the Phoenix because something of a central tenet in the orthodoxy is that the Kuei-Jin have their place in the Heavenly order, and by trying to just be mortals, the Phoenixes reject this. I like the Flame Phoenixes conceptually, but they're somewhat awkward to play, since they try very hard to just be rice farmers and flight attendants or whatever instead of going on adventures. Kindred of the East is a game I want to like because it does some pretty cool things mechanically and thematically, but it's also so full of truly terrible elements. Like the entire splat about playing torture-murder-rapists, the splat of evil women and transvestites that marry men to drain their souls and bank accounts, and the atrocious Mel Uran art.
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# ? Feb 1, 2017 06:17 |
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In other medias, Gambit's not too bad, a roguish reformed thief, but yeah comics wise he's pretty awful, but then again nearly every X-men except for maybe Jubilee and Shadowcat had done some pretty loving awful things - though it's a question of how much of those things stick.
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# ? Feb 1, 2017 06:37 |
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The only knowledge of Kuei-jin I have is from Bloodlines, where they got a really rude awakening as a low generation vampire tore through them at superspeed because they aren't dealing with the loving anarchs anymore.
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# ? Feb 1, 2017 06:50 |
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LatwPIAT posted:The Kuei-Jin establishment doesn't like the Flames of the Phoenix because something of a central tenet in the orthodoxy is that the Kuei-Jin have their place in the Heavenly order, and by trying to just be mortals, the Phoenixes reject this. I like the Flame Phoenixes conceptually, but they're somewhat awkward to play, since they try very hard to just be rice farmers and flight attendants or whatever instead of going on adventures. The Devil-Tiger book redeemed them pretty well though.
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# ? Feb 1, 2017 08:00 |
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MonsieurChoc posted:The Devil-Tiger book redeemed them pretty well though. People keep saying that, but from reading Dharma Book: Devil-Tigers, I only got the impression that it was more rape, torture, and murder. It opens with a comic about a guy summoning a pair of demons to rape his wife to death for the sake of eeeeeeevil, which sets a quite unpleasant tone for the rest of the book, which really just felt like a bunch of more words about how, yeah, it's rape, torture, and murder. Like, there's a reason Humanity 0 vampires and Nephandi are considered unplayable characters, while Devil-Tigers basically went all-in on playing that. When the signature/example character is the guy who tortured his girlfriend to death and trapped her soul in a state of despair for eternity, there's not all that much appealing about them, y'know?
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# ? Feb 1, 2017 10:09 |
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LatwPIAT posted:People keep saying that, but from reading Dharma Book: Devil-Tigers, I only got the impression that it was more rape, torture, and murder. It opens with a comic about a guy summoning a pair of demons to rape his wife to death for the sake of eeeeeeevil, which sets a quite unpleasant tone for the rest of the book, which really just felt like a bunch of more words about how, yeah, it's rape, torture, and murder. Except the comic (which I thought was bad anyway) is supposedly about the character reflecting on his mistakes. What he did there was him being a terrible Devil-Tiger. What the books does is go in-depth into their philosophies and beliefs, making them pretty coherent instead of just "evil for the hell of it". Their thing is that the Yama Kings rebelled against Heaven and stopped doing their jobs so they have to take over. Evil must have a purpose is one of their core tenets, after all.
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# ? Feb 1, 2017 10:27 |
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LatwPIAT posted:The Kuei-Jin establishment doesn't like the Flames of the Phoenix because something of a central tenet in the orthodoxy is that the Kuei-Jin have their place in the Heavenly order, and by trying to just be mortals, the Phoenixes reject this. I like the Flame Phoenixes conceptually, but they're somewhat awkward to play, since they try very hard to just be rice farmers and flight attendants or whatever instead of going on adventures. To be fair, having a wacky vampire sitcom where you're trying to keep your true nature hidden would be better than most of KotE as it is. "The bodhisattva of pain is supposed to be visiting? That can't be! My in-laws are coming over that weekend!" *cue an episode with slamming of doors and stammered excuses* It would at least be more entertaining than edgelord nonsense about how a vampire tortures a woman for eternity, but gosh, at least it taught him a valuable life lesson and isn't that what's important? Devil-Tigers stood out as one of the better splatbooks when it came out, but that says less about its quality and more about White Wolf's generally low standards for third-tier supplements.
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# ? Feb 1, 2017 12:37 |
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Wait, so no one's reviewed V20 in this thread? I must have confused it with the V20 Mage review. Will people even understand my references to the Sabbat and Camarilla and Assamites and Paths of Enlightenment and whatnot?
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# ? Feb 1, 2017 15:01 |
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MonsieurChoc posted:Except the comic (which I thought was bad anyway) is supposedly about the character reflecting on his mistakes. What he did there was him being a terrible Devil-Tiger. It kind of sets the context for what the game is about though; he may be a philosophically uncouth Devil-Tiger, but he's nonetheless a Devil-Tiger, and apparently planning the seduction and rape-murder of your innocent girlfriend is the kind of think you're supposed to do to achieve enlightenment? For all that it details their philosophy, it's ultimately of stripping themselves of all humanity and torturing people. But only people who deserve it, honest! Alien Rope Burn posted:To be fair, having a wacky vampire sitcom where you're trying to keep your true nature hidden would be better than most of KotE as it is. "The bodhisattva of pain is supposed to be visiting? That can't be! My in-laws are coming over that weekend!" *cue an episode with slamming of doors and stammered excuses* I also wonder what compelled them to illustrate the Flame Phoenix with an evil-looking police officer with Mel Uran face #3 who's obviously just committed a murder, and not, say, a normal-looking clerk or rice farmer... Halloween Jack posted:Wait, so no one's reviewed V20 in this thread? I must have confused it with the V20 Mage review. Will people even understand my references to the Sabbat and Camarilla and Assamites and Paths of Enlightenment and whatnot? It's a pretty decent book that's a bit dry. I don't think it lends itself too well to a FATAL & Friends-style review because there's just not that much to rant about. It's flawed - the two most pertinent flaws that I can think of are the absolutely atrocious lack of clear formatting of Discipline writeups and setting details that haven't been updated since 1998 (just check the part about the NSA) - but overall a very well-made compendium of almost all things Vampire with some pretty cool art. It's not like M20 where every single chapter is dripping with horrible writing and bad editorial decisions that one can really get into the flaws of.
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# ? Feb 1, 2017 16:09 |
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I really have no idea why they let Brucato helm what is essentially a new edition. (And that's "edition" in roleplaying terms, where it often means a total rewrite of the source material.) Brucato seems like that weird sort of Heinleinian bro-hippie where he's all about New Age hippie poo poo because to him, it means getting laid. Ed Greenwood was the same. Also, a word on Deadlands: I think this is the worst railroady metaplot I've ever seen. Altogether, the WoD probably beats it, but the WoD is (off the top of my head) eight core games and a few "fatsplats" in one setting! Deadlands is a single game line, arguably two or three.
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# ? Feb 1, 2017 16:27 |
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LatwPIAT posted:atrocious Mel Uran art. The problem is that it was such an abysmally poor fit for the WoD and just helped to highlight a lot of the other super dumb issues with KotE, yes. Alien Rope Burn posted:There was also a Kindred of the East splat that was all about just getting back to your life before you became a vampire. Which, of course, was heretical, because you're supposed to pretend you're alive but not pretend that much, or something. Which was too bad, because a number of the heretical groups were way more interesting than the core groups. Yeah it's really amazing how the B-tier splats for the line were so much more fun and useful.
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# ? Feb 1, 2017 16:31 |
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Halloween Jack posted:Also, a word on Deadlands: I think this is the worst railroady metaplot I've ever seen. Altogether, the WoD probably beats it, but the WoD is (off the top of my head) eight core games and a few "fatsplats" in one setting! Deadlands is a single game line, arguably two or three.
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# ? Feb 1, 2017 16:39 |
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# ? Mar 28, 2024 09:22 |
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thelazyblank posted:World Wide Wrestling is the PbtA one, and it's pretty good in general but definitely has a few breaking points. It's made, like most good PbtA games, for short campaigns or using your later advances to switch roles/characters/etc. The second book, International Incident, actually gives suggestions on ways to make it so people don't just pile up stat increases over and over again and never fail anything. It's also a PbtA game without much mechanical innovation, which means if you really don't like the system, you probably aren't going to like it. Also, the Work stat seems to be literally useless
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# ? Feb 1, 2017 18:04 |