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Asimo posted:Hey I like her art. Uran has improved immensely since the early 00's and looking at her recent work it's genuinely skilled craftmanship. But her work from the KotE period shows that she had serious issues with proportion, anatomy, and faces. Some of it, like the Flame Phoenix signature character, doesn't even look too bad and I kind of like it, despite having Uran's sameface-issue. But then there's stuff like this: 
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Feb 1, 2017 18:46
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Oh my God, don't try to stand! I'll get you some ice. That's all we can do until the ambulance arrives.
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Feb 1, 2017 18:48
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LatwPIAT posted:Uran has improved immensely since the early 00's and looking at her recent work it's genuinely skilled craftmanship. But her work from the KotE period shows that she had serious issues with proportion, anatomy, and faces. Some of it, like the Flame Phoenix signature character, doesn't even look too bad and I kind of like it, despite having Uran's sameface-issue. But then there's stuff like this: I am the anime girl's armored gorilla arm.
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Feb 1, 2017 18:55
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Halloween Jack posted:I'm confused about [stop formatting god drat it]WWW[/fuckyou] So, you're playing people who are pro wrestlers, playing both the person and the gimmick. But your success in matches is based on Heat, and it doesn't seem to distinguish between audience heat (our feud is popular) and legit heat (I'm pissed at you for badmouthing me to the boss). There are some prominent examples of a personal beef playing into great matches, but it's not the norm. It does and it doesn't: Things that cause legit backstage heat reduce the Heat with the person, which means they're less likely to work well together. Things that improve Heat are sticking with one another or good promos/etc. The guy who made the game did later say that maybe Heat wasn't the best word for it, but it's not as bad when you think of backstage heat as negative Heat. Work stat is good if you're focused on the wrestle-parts a lot. It's useless for anything outside the ring.
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Feb 1, 2017 19:09
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That's the part I don't understand. You can do wrestling with Look, Power, or Work. Work seems to do literally nothing that other stats don't do too.
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Feb 1, 2017 19:14
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Halloween Jack posted:That's the part I don't understand. You can do wrestling with Look, Power, or Work. Work seems to do literally nothing that other stats don't do too. It's easier to get higher (especially at the start) and it has some interesting moves attached to it when you can pick from all the playbooks. Plus, it's the sort of "default" wrestle stat. The other ones, you have to go out of your way to use. It's a narrative thing, which means it differs at every table, but I've never found it to be highly lacking as people with high Work usually have ways of using it in more interesting ways.
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Feb 1, 2017 19:27
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I haven't read WWW, but based just on my wrestling vocabulary, Work would be how good a wrestler is at putting on a match. For example, Hulk Hogan would be someone with very high Look and Power (he can generate huge interest in his matches), but his work would be low (his matches are predictable, he gets beat on for a while, and then he Hulks Out, does a toss to the ropes, gives a boot to the face, and does the Atomic Drop for the win). Mick Foley does a pretty good job explaining how between injuries and changes in his routine (seeing how his family reacted to his "I Quit" match had a big impact on him), the quality of his matches declined considerably through 1999. Or as he put it, "I spent 14 years reaching for the stars, but in the 15th year I was reaching for a sock." Then when he had the opportunity to bridge HHH into WrestleMania 16, het took the time to get back into shape. This let him have a pair of outstanding matches in the next two Pay-per-Views.
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Feb 1, 2017 19:58
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Honestly using the generic wrestling move with Look or Power should be a rarity.
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Feb 1, 2017 19:59
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LatwPIAT posted:Uran has improved immensely since the early 00's and looking at her recent work it's genuinely skilled craftmanship. But her work from the KotE period shows that she had serious issues with proportion, anatomy, and faces. Some of it, like the Flame Phoenix signature character, doesn't even look too bad and I kind of like it, despite having Uran's sameface-issue. But then there's stuff like this:
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Feb 1, 2017 20:26
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LatwPIAT posted: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. Like, off the top of my head, the Paths of Enlightenment are a good concept that really, really needs to be cleaned up. The Roads in Dark Ages were much better done, since (IIRC) they were designed later. Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 21:23 on Feb 1, 2017 |
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Feb 1, 2017 20:34
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Rifts World Book 8: Japan Part 3: Continuing our tour  Takamatsu is our second stop on this wild tour of Rifts Japan. The population is about 320 thousand people total, so a mid-sized city, primarily based on northern Shikoku. It’s interesting how completely Siembieda rejected Tokyo, which is very much the center of Japanese life, and focused on the Kanto region. The Takamatsu kingdom is reasonably modern with early 20th century level industrial capabilities. Their main asset is the use of a stable rift to raid the natural resources of a seemingly uninhabited Earthlike dimension. That’s kind of huge, it seems like a lot of enemy powers would want that very badly. Also, it’s surprising their industrial base is that poorly advanced with those kinds of resources. The Republic of Japan (whom we haven’t met yet) are somewhat dependent on Takamatsu for resources and considering signing a closer alliance with them.  honestly? reminds me of the city set in Crackdown Takamatsu is a huge melting pot of conflicting cultures and ideas, high-tech and low, magic and mundane, humans and non-humans. It is tolerant and diverse and. That’s as much as we know about their society and government. The name says ‘kingdom’ but nothing else is written about what’s involved there, if it’s a constitutional monarchy, or anything else. The population is 43% D-Bees so I guess they’re pretty open to new experiences. Really though, this area just screams ‘adventurers recruit here’ since you can easily justify any concept running around, but they give us nothing at all about this place. It’s just generically friendly-modern. Next is “The Ichto Province.” I’ve put that in quotes because “Ichto” is missing a letter somewhere and I can’t figure out if it’s meant to be Ichito or what. Its location doesn’t correspond to any major Japanese city; Fukuyama, more or less. The Ichto Robotics Corporation is an ancient rival of Armatech and when those portions of pre-Rifts Japan returned to Earth, it ended up deciding to go independent rather than join in solidarity against the waves of monsters attacking everything. So these guys might be kinda dicks. Despite calling themselves the Ichto Province they are not a province of anything and are one of those belligerent little independent places--they call it a kingdom again but the government is actually run by the Ichto corporate board. Alien Rope Burn: Yeah, I can’t make heads or tails of what “Ichto” is supposed to be. It’s not proper Japanese and there are no major locations I can find that the name might have been mangled from. For all that they’re kind of jerks, Ichto has fairly modern and relaxed laws which permit open immigration and borders with many of their neighbors. They sell techie stuff like cybernetics and juicer implants. To anyone. This has upset the Republic of Japan on more than one occasion because that includes unsavory pirates and monsters or whatever, not that most supernatural creatures can use cyber legs. And more’s the pity! They argue a lot with the New Empire for obvious reasons, and they don’t suffer hippies gladly in their territory. Security forces will harass and spy on anyone without an iPod. They have a bunch of people in prison on charges related to anti-technological activities, but “only in 15% of cases are the charges true or completely accurate.” I get them jailing dissidents who question the authority of the mighty Ichto Corporation but but apparently criticizing technology is considered insurrection against the government. I guess they don’t have a lot of tech bloggers reviewing new pieces. Ichto is arrogant enough that they just ignore Otomo and H-brand, two more factions we’ll meet shortly, and for this they are hated in turn.  just you try and sort out the limbs in this picture Though they are industrial-heavy, Ichto still needs some farming villages and these are apparently back to feudal hand- and animal-powered technologies. Because reasons. :eyeroll: Apparently Ichto Human Resources don’t believe in wasting money on book learnin’ for shitfarmers. I’m sure that will work out well for future food security. Now, The Otomo Shogunate. 5,400,000 population roughly. About half the population is in the city of Otomo, about 30% are the marvelous new “Eta/D-Bees” category. The Otomo Shogunate is “a strange blend of tradition and magic, with several levels of technology.” Otomo itself was built by survivors of the cataclysm who cobbled together whatever they could to retain their way of life and very survival, rejecting the anti-tech rantings of what would become the New Empire. Of course, they did that, but they also used the Tokugawa as a model for their government because that is Proper Japan according to midwestern white guys. In doing this they naturally chose to use supertech cyber-samurai and made their power armor look like samurai armor instead of more Kevin Long anime-rips.  like so They conquered (this one at least acknowledges that military dictatorships do not vote new states into their polity) other burgeoning warlord states and slaughtered armies of demons to carve out their little safe haven of feudal supertech warrior heaven. They were doing fairly well for themselves by allying with H-Brand when the Republic of Japan appeared out of the ether and If they stay on their current course they’re going to destroy or be destroyed by the other human powers in Japan. They’re a brutal dictatorship and “a land of decadence and cruelty” but they are also a stable government that keeps the oni at bay, so it’s going to suck a lot for everyone involved no matter what happens. Obviously they will not be swayed or rethink this course of action. They are obviously enemies with the New Empire. Given that the New Empire just uses a few highly-trained but fairly squishy magic users and highly-honorable samurai  , and the Otomo have power armor and MDC guns they can shove in the hands of conscript soldiers, I would say advantage Otomo. They’re expansionist so they keep trying to bite off pieces of other peoples’ (and demons’) lands and this makes them few friends. They’re not big on green initiatives and they’re the kind of capitalists who chant ‘free market!’ while using slave labor. They’ve made a non-aggression pact with the oni to their north not to retaliate for attacks on human areas controlled by RoJ, Takamatsu and the New Empire while they plan an invasion of the latter. There’s a specific “Note: It is impossible for Otomo to conquer more than a quarter of the New Empire’s territory.” And of course, the oni are totally going to honor their pact while the two big human kingdoms whale on each other.The Otomo have strained relations with Takamatsu. They were stockpiling supplies until recently, then demanded that Takamatsu break off all relations with the RoJ, which was refused with a ‘pfft’, and now they’re refusing to pay their tab or buy more goods. This seems short-sighted given the resource limitations Japan faces normally. Otomo has been sending a lot of (completely not obvious) cyborg and juicer ninja agents to conduct sabotage in Takamatsu and would really like to bring them down and take their stuff for themselves.  roughly Nagoya The Republic of Japan remains Otomo’s main rival, and they are much more resistant to the spies and ninja dispatched to try and disrupt their operations. Basically they are The Worst. As mentioned before they hate Ichto because Ichto can’t be bothered with them. If Ichto were to take an interest in Otomo’s actions, it could be an important lever in the course of events. Mostly, the Otomo are engaging in the most obvious treachery imaginable and making the dumbest deals possible to screw over everyone completely when their plan blows up. H-Brand is an independent power within the Otomo Shogunate (those being something military dictatorships love) with a corporate power structure. They more or less respect the authority and laws of the Otomo, however, being aware of which side their bread is buttered on. They’ve been allies for almost 200 years. Instead, they just get a lot of special economic treatment, tariffs and intimidation against their competitors and government protection from spies and sabotage attempts. I really don’t see why they’re independent, they work hand-in-hand at every turn. Anyway, their own private forces are only 10% smaller than the Shogunate’s (again, this is not something a military government would put up with) and include thousands of borgs, various ninja, cyber-samurai, 4000 power armor troops, 1200 robots and 21 total Glitter Boys in two designs.  i’m not sure why they installed a dryer hose for her neck H-Brand has never met Naruni Enterprises but they have similar life goals and NE might even offer to buy H-Brand as a wholly-owned subsidiary and make them an official distributor within Japan. As of now, H-Brand is mostly a mercenary-and-arms dealer to basically anyone with cash. We’ll stop there for now. Next we get into some of the scattered smaller kingdoms and demon-infested areas.
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Feb 1, 2017 20:44
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Mr. Maltose posted:Honestly using the generic wrestling move with Look or Power should be a rarity. There are some other things I could criticize (in light of wrestling history it's odd that Real is used to "shoot" both verbally and physically) but that's the big one. It's still the best game I've ever seen for playing Terry Bollea or Philip Brooks.
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Feb 1, 2017 22:20
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occamsnailfile posted:Rifts World Book 8: Japan Part 3: Continuing our tour Yeah, it won't be clear until later, but the Otomo Shogunate both hates d-bees and is simultaneously willing to make deals with oni. It's like they got pushed down the staircase of villainy and tried to hit every step on the way down.
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Feb 1, 2017 22:47
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Halloween Jack posted:Eh, I only have the free downloads and what I remember from the Beta rules, but the playbooks specifically point out that you can use Look and Power for Wrestling, and that Work is only good for wrestling. I get that the usefulness of Stats in a PBTA game is limited by what's logical in the fiction, but in Monsterhearts (the gold standard IMO) the Stats are also very well balanced from a strict mechanical point of view. I feel like unless you have a Dark-focused playbook in Monsterhearts there's not a reason to use Dark much - especially since by its nature, 'gaze into the abyss' is a move that you take when you're away from the other characters and are 'alone' (even if you might actually be tripping on drugs in the middle of a dance club), while everything else you use on other people.
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Feb 2, 2017 00:26
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Halloween Jack posted:Eh, I only have the free downloads and what I remember from the Beta rules, but the playbooks specifically point out that you can use Look and Power for Wrestling, and that Work is only good for wrestling. I get that the usefulness of Stats in a PBTA game is limited by what's logical in the fiction, but in Monsterhearts (the gold standard IMO) the Stats are also very well balanced from a strict mechanical point of view. Yeah, sorry for being unclear. I meant fictionally most wrestling moves should be rolling with Work, except for very specific incidents. Everything but the most flash or physically demanding moves really rely on knowledge of the mechanics.
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Feb 2, 2017 00:47
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bewilderment posted:I feel like unless you have a Dark-focused playbook in Monsterhearts there's not a reason to use Dark much - especially since by its nature, 'gaze into the abyss' is a move that you take when you're away from the other characters and are 'alone' (even if you might actually be tripping on drugs in the middle of a dance club), while everything else you use on other people.
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Feb 2, 2017 02:35
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occamsnailfile posted:the marvelous new “Eta/D-Bees” category. Eugh. Throwing around the term "Eta" like it's nothing is something I'm not particularly fond of seeing in BattleTech either.
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Feb 2, 2017 02:57
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I had the realization today you can't actually tell how many humans there are in some of the nations because "eta" (uuuuuugh) are lumped in with D-Bees as if they were literally inhuman. 
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Feb 2, 2017 04:24
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Yeah, it won't be clear until later, but the Otomo Shogunate both hates d-bees and is simultaneously willing to make deals with oni. It's like they got pushed down the staircase of villainy and tried to hit every step on the way down.
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Feb 2, 2017 05:30
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My knowledge of Shadowrun is puddle deep since every game I tried to play of it was awful. 
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Feb 2, 2017 07:35
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the Harebrained Games really is a good translation of the setting and puts the annoying mechanics in the background so they're not in the way of fun (for the most part - fans were split on the changes in the Matrix between Dragonfall and Hong Kong), I found Shadowrun's tabletop rules to be way too unwieldy and there were massive issues like deckers having an almost different game running and the inevitable arguments over tone (Mirror Shades vs Pink Mohawk)
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Feb 2, 2017 07:48
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PoptartsNinja posted:Eugh. Throwing around the term "Eta" like it's nothing is something I'm not particularly fond of seeing in BattleTech either. Yeah, when this book was published I don't think it was really common knowledge that 'eta' is a slur, though the research done for this book is not...great. Lumping them together with 'literally not human' is pretty mean no matter what though. Rifts World Book 8: Japan Part 4: Other Places of Note The Zone is the domain of the oni and they are apparently not good at names. What few human settlements exist are enslaved by monsters and abused freely. The only upside to the chaos is that the oni, kappa and other demons are not organized--they exist in tribal units who contest each other for territory constantly. Many of these tribes are nomadic, moving through an area until the hunting is depleted, then moving on. I suppose it is somewhat refreshing to see a force of evil that isn't tightly unified and poised for conquest.  dunno why this inkblot is ‘monsterland’ but it is Once in a while some great monster or warlord might unify the oni tribes enough to come roiling over the mountains at the human kingdoms, but this is rare. Apparently we shall be getting a companion book to Rifts Japan which describes “The ainu (sic), more oni, elementals, gods and supernatural beings.” Perhaps it is available for pre-order. A few other places are mentioned extremely briefly: [list] [*]The Domain of the Gods: On Hokkaido, few humans around, but some of the Ainu are still there. Oni, dragons, and Japanese gods also live here. There’s a secret Millennium Tree hidden in a mountain valley. [*]Surusa is a small feudal kingdom on what was once the Bōsō Peninsula of Tokyo Bay, now an island. They use whatever they can get--Samurai, magic, tech bought mostly from H-brand. [*]Yukimura is another small shogunate located near Surusa and Tokyo that is more or less a haven for pirates and brigands, but still a human settlement. [*]Toshiie is a militant shogunate of anti-technologists near Yukimura and they’ve had the New Empire-Otomo fight in miniature for generations. [*]Other Islands: Japan has a lot of outlying islands and these are mostly untouched and not resettled by humans. A pre-rifts project, the Undersea Naval Platform, has been taken over by Horune pirates. [*]Sakhalin and the Russian coast: Mostly fishing villages if anything, some pirates and some very low-level industry. These were not exactly friendly coastal regions before the Rifts and they aren’t great now.  this is kind of a cool pic, i am not sure who drew it [*]Mainland China: This got covered later but it’s listed here as a living nightmare completely dominated by monsters who’ve enslaved everyone because certainly China had no soldiers or industrial base for fighting back when the cataclysm started. [*]Korea: They noticed Korea exists! Long enough to state that only about 3% of the population survived and live in fishing villages. Supernatural creatures fill the interior wilderness, including ‘faeries, goblins, trolls and elementals.’ One small pocket of interest is a burgeoning kingdom near Seoul, run by a Master Khan, secretly a Chiang-Ku dragon. He’s created a bevy of tattooed monks to defend the kingdom, and teaches enlightenment. That’s more than China got I guess. [*]Taiwan: Completely destroyed, only repopulated at all recently. [*]Philippines: The rising of the oceans mostly destroyed this island chain. The US naval presence there was sunk and hasn’t been retrieved, though after three centuries it’s not much more than scrap.  amontillado? Nothing about the rest of Southeast Asia, but that may be for the best. Now we get to hear some more about Millennium Trees, specifically the Kyoto Millennium Tree which we heard about back in the New Empire section. A lot of this is repeated from England, describing how Millennium Trees are a thousand feet tall and feed on PPE but not in the way that all those nasty supernatural monsters do, no, they just set their roots on a ley line nexus and get to eating. Shinto priests label the tree as a powerful kami which is not entirely out of character. However, they go on with explaining that the coming of the rifts has proven many of these Shinto beliefs to be true.  I mean, this guy is so stuck on the Satanic Panic that he can’t even type the word “Christianity” in an RPG book but he’ll assert that Shinto is validated by the existence of the supernatural? I do not get it but it’s kinda racist. They call the tree the ‘himorogi’ which Siembieda asserts is “Sacred Tree.” (it’s not) Because Rifts, the tree just popped up in the city of Kyoto, justifying it as an ancient sacred place, and they keep asserting that Kyoto is in the shadow of Mt. Fuji which it is not. Fuji is closer to Tokyo than it is Kyoto and even then it’s not ‘in the shadow of,’ it’s ‘in train distance of’. Shinto priests, Bishamon fighting monks and sohei warriors all live on and near the tree, since it helpfully provides housing on its body. The tree has existed for about 260 years but there aren’t records of its growth, only its existence in its current state. Supposedly it was gifted by the kami, but that’s probably Shinto myth. Nobody can talk to Millennium Trees directly, though they emanate “good vibes” and have been known to send visions of danger to those they deem worthy. The Shinto again describe it as able to hear everything under its branches in all languages which is minor-creepy; I guess folks don’t usually mind if a tree hears them boning.  obligatory postcard, wish we weren’t here Millennium Trees are able to drop branches and leaves and these are magical items with various powers. These are mostly lame but sometimes useful and detailed in Rifts England. They create really dangerous explosions when people try to harm them, starting at 2d4x10 for one leaf. They also create ley line storms when severely threatened. The trees aid healing to those sleeping nearby, they can regrow limbs and even raised the dead sometimes if people are brought to them swiftly enough. They’re overwhelmingly good things to have around. I’m going to skip listing all the specific items and powers that they have because I did that already in reviewing England and there are no changes in the twelve pages of reprinted content they were kind enough to provide here. I’ll stop this one here, since next we get into a bunch of Japan-specific magical items by CJ Carella. That has the potential to be kinda cool if still very stereotype-driven.
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Feb 2, 2017 14:59
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Looking back, it's hilarious that I pored over every Shadowrun supplement full of gear, but I don't know all the details of the setting. In fact, I think I got more of that from reading several of the novels.
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Feb 2, 2017 15:34
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A new Torg Eternity preview dropped, and they went into some of the changes for Nippon Tech (for starters, it's not called "Nippon Tech", it's now "Pan-Pacifica"), and they're keeping the whole thing where nobody knows that Japan and China have been invaded.quote:The Delphi Council strongly suspects that an invader has taken over the region, but ‘fake news’ and social media campaigns have blunted effective resistance to Kanawa or the multiple regimes they work with.
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Feb 2, 2017 16:28
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Someone needs to cover Shadowrun, either here or on System Mastery.
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Feb 2, 2017 17:02
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Warhammer Fantasy: Night's Dark Masters Manfred von Carstein Bravely Evades Conflict When last we left off, we had gotten through the prehistory of the vampire counts and into the modern era. What's important is that the book does not go into huge detail about Vlad von Carstein's wars, since those were covered in the main sourcebook (and I wasn't going to repeat them anyway) and instead focuses on what happened afterwards. Manfred, despite all his plans to take over after hanging his dad out to die by letting the Empire get the Carstein Ring, first found himself relegated to second banana by his batshit insane brother Konrad. Now Manfred von Carstein will tell you this was a clever ruse to let Konrad destroy himself and not have to bother fighting his brother. I will tell you instead that Manfred was pretty obviously terrified of Konrad. Konrad was known for having his mortal mother killed for the crime of giving birth to him, arguing with clouds, and having a favorite tower to perch on and scream angry challenges at the chaos moon. You don't want to get close to that kind of crazy. Konrad eventually bought it, as you'd expect, and Manfred made his own attempt. He lost his nerve at the gates of Altdorf when the Grand Theoganist offered to repeat his dad's scuffle, and was chased down and killed at the Battle of Hel's Fenn near the border of Sylvania. That should have been the end of the Sylvanian vampires, but shortly before the assumed 'modern day' of the RPG someone was fool enough to return Manfred to life. He set about cautiously rebuilding his control over Sylvania, and when the Storm of Chaos came and one of the Chaos hordes got the idea they'd go through the obviously underdeveloped and poorly defended province to get at the Empire from the Eastern flank, they had a bad time of it. Manfred's forces slaughtered the Chaos invaders, raised their corpses, and decided now was their time; the Empire would surely be distracted by Chaos and Manfred's army of the dead could sweep in and assume control of the Empire after crushing the survivors of both the Chaos host and the Imperial army at Middenheim. A bold plan that didn't count on how badly Archaon's horde ended up losing; when Manfred arrived, his undead legions scattered and crushed the remains of Archaon's army (though canonically the wounded Everchosen escaped, if you want to be rid of the bastard this is a pretty good place to write his death) and found themselves facing a surprisingly intact Imperial army, backed up by Kislevite and Bretonnian allies, and with plenty of Elves and Dwarves honoring their alliances. For once, I am not going to say Manfred was a coward for declaring victory and scampering back to Sylvania to consolidate, and perhaps wait for these alliances to strain. There was no way he could have predicted the Great Lord of the End Times would fail to even take the walls of Middenheim, and facing a solid alliance of basically every 'good guy' in the setting, in the strongest defensive position in the world, is pretty much how Archaon got mulched. So, that is where things stand at present. The Empire knows Manfred von Carstein has returned, and that he wields considerable necromantic influence and has plenty of von Carsteins on his side. They know he rules Sylvania again, and they know he has designs on the Imperial throne just as his father did. Unfortunately, the Empire is currently broke and trying to absorb the political shocks of their mass mobilization for the Storm of Chaos, as well as clean up leftover raiders, demons, and horrors. They simply don't have the time and energy to do more than try to bottle up Sylvania for now, hoping that Manfred's famed caution will make him stay his hand until they're ready to deal with him. This is, of course, the perfect place to have enterprising Witch Hunters or the Order of the Shroud hire your PCs to head into Sylvania itself and assess Manfred's forces, or attempt to go after some of his weaker allies and lieutenants with an aim to eventually stop the Count himself before he can convince himself the odds are good enough to move. If the Empire cannot afford an army, surely it can afford some unlikely heroes to go and try to do the impossible! Next Time: The Nature of the Beast, Or Why Vampires Are Dicks, And Why Your PCs Can Still Kill Them. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 15:16 on Aug 4, 2017 |
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Feb 2, 2017 17:27
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Legend of the Five Rings 1e: Night of a Thousand Screams Part 3 8:15 PM The players and their pet Crane magistrate now go to investigate an attack on a Unicorn trader’s warehouse. The players’ reasons for going to the warehouse are honestly not too strong but there are really no other leads at this point so I guess they take what they can get. When they arrive they find the Thunder Guard (the governor’s private SWAT army) talking with the Unicorn merchant who owned the warehouse. His crates of goods have been torn apart by some sort of animal. The PCs will clearly recognize the handiwork of the rampaging Oni. It seemed to once again be going after masks intended for the evening’s celebration. If they investigate around they might notice that one shipment from this warehouse was sent to the mansion they just came from. The players are given a chance to pass a fairly simple Heraldry skill roll, which becomes quite a bit more difficult if no one has Heraldry as a skill. If they pass they find that the shipment originally came from a Scorpion controlled warehouse. If they don’t pass this skill roll then I assume the GM will need to come up with another way for them to progress the plot. I’d say a Thunder Guard member makes the discovery for them. 8:40 PM At any rate, they now go wandering off to a Scorpion controlled warehouse to see if they can find why the Oni keeps attacking crates of masks originating there. This encounter is actually the most deadly in the adventure in my experience. Sure, the Oni is a brutal beast and will kill the poo poo out of your players without a thought, but the players know that. No one is going up against a boss monster without putting everything on the line. Here we have an encounter that is deadly mainly because the designers didn’t have a good grasp of how deadly combat in their own games ends up being. Your players just get crushed under waves of enemies that grind them down. The PCs arrive at the warehouse and enter to shouts from guards that it’s the “Magistrates! Get them or we’re all dead!” Six armed guard rush the PCs while someone bars the door to prevent escape. The stats for the guards are given and are all at basically the level of an average beginning level PC. You can easily make a better PC purpose-built for combat but these guys are no slouches. To make things worse, they all have the first rank Bayushi school ability that allows they to roll an extra die for initiative. Thanks to the way initiative works in 1e L5R, that just means they’re twice as likely to go first - an incredible advantage in a game where going first is one of the most important determinants to combat. Two more guards are standing above on an upper level walkway firing down at the PCs with bows. For an average group of 4 to 5 PCs this is a horrendously grim situation. Surviving the six guys on their level is no guarantee, and getting fired on for at least several turns with no good way to respond only makes it worse. If they manage to rout the guards on the ground, they have to run up some rickety stairs that require a TN 15 agility roll to avoid slipping on and losing a turn. For a beginner level PC that probably around a 50% chance of happening. If they killed the six guys on the ground, ran up the rickety stairs and killed two more guys with bows, then they can move toward the warehouse offices on the second floor. Here your likely injured or nearly incapacitated PCs run into three more guards to dispatch. After heroically fighting through a horde of enemy samurai they come to a locked office. They can pretty easily bash down the door and come face to face with three more guards and one guard with a bow hiding behind a barred gate. Using the power of love your PCs manage to subdue the three guards and now can’t get to the one behind the gate without several PCs working together (under fire) to lift it. Or the guy may run out of arrows while peppering the PCs. If the PCs don’t break in then he gives up when he runs out of arrows and gives the PCs a key if they promise not to kill him. The one time I ran this game around 15 years ago the PCs were not beginners by any means, but hadn’t yet made it to the second insight rank. One was crippled and one was injured to the point of uselessness (the game is known for its brutal death spiral) before they could even make a move. They didn’t even finish the first portion of the combat let alone the two more waves. I had to cut it short to avoid a pointless party wipe. I think I just had Oruko show up with a small private army of Crane guards to threaten the warehouse guards into stopping. There was no loving chance my players were going to survive. I cannot stress how brutal the death spiral was in 1e. If your PC gets hit by one katana strike by an average enemy, they’re in for around 20 damage. For an average Stamina 2 PC they are now down 4 dice on everything they do and a hair’s breadth away from being totally incapacitated. Even if they survive everything they can do is down four dice, which is tough in a game where a talented PC is throwing around seven or eight dice on a roll. There is really only one healing spell in the game and it doesn’t heal for much, so that PC is going to be useless for the rest of this adventure. If they were higher level with great stats then maybe they could manage to squeak this one out. The odds of a random hit, particularly in 1e L5R where it’s easier to hit than in later editions, makes this one insanely dangerous even then. No amount of void points are going to get you through fifteen armed, quick and well prepared samurai unscathed. This game isn’t D&D and sometimes the writers seem to forget it.  The guy behind the gate is terrified because of what is going on in the main office. When the PCs enter they find a man in the middle of a blood ritual. Nothing can penetrate the circle of candles surrounding him so it’s lucky that a shugenja is cringing in the corner to explain things. This shugenja is the one who helped the man in the circle summer the Oni, and he’s more than willing to explain why. All of the people the PCs just fought through were part of a bandit gang that attacked a caravan carrying supplies for the celebration. They brought the supplies they liberated back to their warehouse to be fenced and managed to sell some to the various people thus far struck by the Oni. Yesterday a group of men with a black moon tattooed on each of their wrists came and visited the boss, a man named Chizaro, who is currently in the summoning circle. Other than the tattoos they didn’t seem unusual, wearing plain brown kimonos and being slightly overweight. The shugenja doesn’t know what these men said to Chizaro but he does know that when they left Chizaro was terrified and needed to get one single mask back from among the many crates they sold and he only had one day to get it done. He has also figured out that they’re moon cultists who worship Lord Moon which is a dangerous heresy in Rokugan. Apparently Chizaro’s fear was enough that he agreed to give his name to an Oni from Jigoku (re: superdemon from hell) in order for it to find the mask. The problem is that the shugenja only knew a third rate Oni summoning ritual to bind it. So long as the candles continue to burn then the Oni is forced to do their bidding and search for the mask. If it finds it before the candles burn down then they can banish it and Chizaro can get his name back. If the candles burn down first then the Oni will permanently take Chizaro’s name and be free to kill at maim at its leisure. Dropping a free, named Oni in the middle of a populated area like this is equivalent to a major terrorist attack. The only other useful thing the shugenja can tell the PCs is that one more crate appears to be unaccounted for – it was sold to a merchant named Whisper. 9:00PM  Now we get one of the most annoying parts of the adventure – a frustrating talk with the tattooed man who’s been shadowing the PCs for a few scenes. I’m reminded of an NPC from an Unknown Armies adventure (or it might have been Feng Shui) who was cursed so that he could only speak in fortune cookie style couplets. It was incredibly hard for him to communicate meaningfully and it pissed him off to no end. The tattooed man here seems to be laboring under the same curse but doesn’t appear to mind. The gist of what goes down is that the tattooed man tells the PCs that he is working for the merchant Whisper and used some of his magical tattoos to steal into the Crane mansion to take a sword for Whisper as repayment for some unspecified favor. The sword, it turns out, is very specifically dangerous to Oni and can hurt this one grievously. It also has a drawback in that it hurts the wielder, too. Instead of just explaining this, though, you have to filter everything through the lens of a fortune cookie or Chinese monk stereotype. If he wants to tell the PCs that they’re doing something wrong, he says “Not all blooming flowers bear fruit.” If he wants them to know that the sword he stole is dangerous to the Oni, he says “With courage, buy victory. With blood, buy peace. With death, buy life.” It’s nonsense. Actually, let me just post all the suggested dialogue options:  Holy poo poo shut the gently caress up with this crap. This is probably the most important infodump yet and it has to come from a man with some kind of brain damage. The adventure suggests making him more coherent for the most important information but I suggest dropping this poo poo entirely. It’s cutesy crap that just annoys me. Next time: The Penultimate Chapter
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Feb 2, 2017 17:30
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Mannfred is the one who's the Hunter Hearst Helmsley tryhard of the bunch, right?
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Feb 2, 2017 17:34
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Halloween Jack posted:Mannfred is the one who's the Hunter Hearst Helmsley tryhard of the bunch, right? Mannfred is smart, generally tries to avoid making 'common' mistakes, has absolutely no sense of drama or style, and is so afraid of taking risks that he will hold out for a sure thing and gently caress up since he feels he needs to be invincible. He has his own big section (as he's intended, as one of the big setting NPCs, to possibly be a whole-campaign-villain for a vampire-fighting party) where I'll go into him in more detail. He does a good job of being the kind of person your PCs might eventually take down, but who poses a real threat to the entire eastern empire.
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Feb 2, 2017 17:37
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This reminds me of a guy in an Unknown Armies adventure who's been cursed to only speak in these fortune cookie-style phrases. At least there it's played for tragicomedy. It's a shame there's no response on the table for "JUST ANSWER THE loving QUESTION".
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Feb 2, 2017 17:39
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I'd feel compelled to quip '...in bed' after everything the poor bastard said.
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Feb 2, 2017 17:40
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While you wait, the demons are getting laid, bro.
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Feb 2, 2017 17:42
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SirPhoebos posted:Someone needs to cover Shadowrun, either here or on System Mastery. What edition? First edition would be best for maximum dated predictions about the future and complex math. It isn't to say Shadowrun was ridiculous in terms of math but it was at that late 80's level of mechanics no game needed to be at.
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Feb 2, 2017 18:05
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RocknRollaAyatollah posted:What edition? First edition would be best for maximum dated predictions about the future and complex math. 1st Edition sounds good 
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Feb 2, 2017 18:06
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Halloween Jack posted:Yeah, if I were going to do it myself, my only real criticism would be that it's not well-formatted to be a reference book. Otherwise, I'd just be complaining that it's a compendium of all things Vampire, rather than a final, new and definitive edition. Onyx Path appears to be doing good works with their new sourcebooks for vampire like Anarchs Unbound and The Black Hand: A Guide to the Tal'Mahe'Ra, so I think I'd trust them to revise and rationalize a lot of stuff in Vampire. On second thought, it's of course possible to critique V20 on account of flaws of the underlying system. V20 doesn't really set out to resolve such underlying flaws of Vampire: the Masquerade, but it is possible to critique V20 as if it were a new release - the kind of thing pertinent to people who're considering whether Vampire is any good at all. In that context there's a lot more critiques to level; the inherent flaws in the old Storytelling system's dice pools, Merits and Flaws, the lack of balance in Disciplines, thematic inconsistencies and flaws, Clans that should really be Sects, etc.
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Feb 2, 2017 18:05
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God drat it, I think you've convinced me to review Vampire 2e.
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Feb 2, 2017 18:12
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oVamp or nVamp 2e?
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Feb 2, 2017 18:24
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Vampire: The Masquerade, 2nd edition, the book that my father probably still regrets giving me for Christmas one year. Then I'll have to do the Player's Guide and Storyteller's Handbook to the Sabbat, so that everyone will see just how off the rails things went in Dirty Secrets of the Black Hand. So my Dirty Secrets review will just be in storage for awhile. Who knows, I might even go on to do the Revised-era books that tried to rationalize the stuff in Dirty Secrets without totally retconning it.
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Feb 2, 2017 18:27
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This'll be a good time. oWoD has some amazingly goofy stuff.
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Feb 2, 2017 18:33
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Warhammer Fantasy, Night's Dark Masters How and why vampires do what they do. A vampire is created by a process known as the Blood Kiss. Both the parent vampire and the soon-to-be infected subject drink one another's blood, and then the fledgling is drained to the point of death. This replaces their blood with the crazy vampire blood, instead, and pulls their departing soul back into their now undead and rapidly changing body. The experience is said to be mind-shatteringly painful, forever separating the subject from the normal cycle of life and death and denying their spirit rest even if their undead vessel is eventually destroyed. This, incidentally, is why vampires are one of the very few creatures in the Old World that can be raised from death after their destruction. A vampire's spirit will never find rest in the Realms of Morr and cannot be seized by the Dark Gods; they are forever bound to this world, trapped, and denied rest by their own hubris. A newly changed vampire will be starving, and is very likely to rip the first human they see to pieces to make up their deficit of blood. A newly reborn vampire is still the person they once were, but they will have lost any fear or horror of blood, and often acquired a measure of emotional distance from the idea of doing harm to others. They are equipped with an instinctual ability to hunt, superhuman strength and senses, and immense speed and hardiness from the very start, and these will only grow further as they drink and learn and grow. What's interesting is that vampires remain uncertain if this darkness comes solely from their condition, or from the sort of people vampires tend to choose to take on as proteges. Vampires tend to be extremely selective in who they grant the Blood Kiss; a student or heir will be erratic and have difficulty controlling their urges when they are young, and can bring immense trouble down on their master. Further, vampires tend to regard their condition as a great and precious gift, reserving it for truly favored servants, students, former family, or lovers; it wouldn't be special and wouldn't let these incredibly arrogant elitists lord it over others so well if vampirism was common! Von Carsteins, for instance, will only pass the blood on to proper Sylvanian nobility (unless they have a truly hilarious or eccentric urge that might make them the talk of the social season!). Lahmians use a long period of vetting, study, and training for their acolytes before they ever consider the Blood Kiss, generally. Necharchs have no urge to teach and so only create progeny as part of insane experiments or in a fit of mad whimsy. Strigoi will sometimes just grab the closest ghoul because they're crazy and miserable. Blood Dragons, naturally, seek out worthy warriors and people who can survive combat with them. A promising warrior of any sort may be taken as a student, because a Dragon needs to continue to practice and learn, and teaching their skills to a Thrall is an excellent way to hone them further. No vampire can ever turn an elf, halfling, or dwarf; vampirism is an exclusive human condition, though whether this is entirely due to the snobbery of vampires or some quirk of the magic is left up to the GM (so if you want a shocking twist elf vampire, you're free to go ahead) Even a young vampire will hunt and kill by instinct. And that instinct is incredibly strong. Every vampire needs blood, and needs it badly. Any blood will do, but the blood of humans and elves is best (elves being described as a rich dessert, too sweet to be common fare, while humans have the most variety and the best balance). In addition to the physical changes and the loss of fear at the prospect of violence, vampires tend to gain even further in unshakeable self confidence. It is nearly impossible to find one who is not arrogant or megalomaniacal to a degree. This confidence and strength, combined with their clumsy lack of knowledge, is the death of most young vampires. When you can slice a man in half with a shortsword, how is some idiot human with a fragile, snappable neck going to kill you? Young ones who aren't attended tend to lose themselves in feasting on blood and settling old scores until they either run into a particularly heroic human, a clever hunter, get blindsided by their weaknesses, or just discover that 10 State Troops with muskets can shoot them to pieces just fine. Most young vampires will be guided by their creator, kept from making such foolish mistakes until they learn what can kill them; a young thrall won't know which weaknesses they inherited any more than a surprised Hunter stumbling on a vampire without planning would know exactly which to use on them. A vampire will tell you they use stealth and try to avoid being unmasked by humans out of conveniences' sake, but the truth is that a vampire who is too incautious opens themselves up to being researched, hunted, trapped, and killed. The thirst is a driver to every single vampire, and one of their greatest pleasures. They need nothing else. Food, air, water, sleep, none of it matters next to blood. A vampire can still choose to sleep, can still enjoy drinking wine or having a fine roast, and certainly they like to make a show of breathing if only to deliver their many, many overdramatic monologues, but they neither need these things nor do any of them ever manage to surpass the joy of feeding. An older vampire can choose to feed less and less often, but most will happily drink whatever they can get when they can get it. Overfeeding and overindulgence risks a vampire warping into a mad beast, a creature known as a Varghulf, that has completely lost its mind to its addiction to blood; these things are regarded as something of a family embarrassment by their kin. A vampire can choose to feed without killing their victim, but most don't bother; this is most common among Lahmians, who prefer to remain undetected in the cities and find that a string of bloodless corpses is one of the worst ways to stay hidden. Vampires also tend to acquire their own quirks and tastes in feeding; one might genuinely enjoy the tang chaos corruption adds to the blood, another might try to stick to Abhorash's strictures and only feed on criminals and foes with sword in hand, and another might find it an insult to take blood that wasn't given willingly by a charmed or cowed servant. As I said earlier, Nagash cursed the vampires with many flaws in their immortality out of anger for their abandonment. For some, silver will burn their flesh and a silvered blade will hack through them as if all their undead resilience was irrelevant. Holy (and unholy, Chaos symbols and Chaos blessings work fine) blades and sigils and places will drive back many of the thirsting dead. Almost all will be burned by the sun if they don't wear thick coats and big hats at all times, and having those damaged or stripped from a vampire that made the mistake of walking out in the day will quickly see them catch aflame and die. Rare herbs (and in rarer cases, mocked by their fellows, garlic) will keep some vampires from your door. Many vampires will literally melt if immersed in running water from an ocean or river. Others can be spotted by their inability to give a reflection. And finally, if nothing else works, a cannonball to the head or hacking the body to pieces will kill the bastard, though that's often quite hard to do. Vampires struggle with time. A young vampire will still reckon time like a human, but as the years tick by they begin to suffer a sense of unhurried ennui. Many will fight this by taking up insane and incredible projects; the vampiric tendency towards grand ambitions and theatrical plots may well be an attempt to ward off boredom. Almost every vampire will find some obsession or ambition to pursue. Scholarship, conquest, political maneuvering, the arts, magic, feuding with their own kind, cultivating great rivalries with worthy human foes, all of these things are common means to stave off the madness of the years. The Count needs his dramatic confrontation with you just as badly as you want to kill him, after all! Vampires also tend to have a bit of a taboo against actually killing their own kind; most will happily ruin their fellows but to actually take immortality away from a peer is considered a little gauche, unless there were mitigating circumstances. Vampires also tend not to do anything by half measures; they love to fall for mortals, or engage in star-crossed romances or and great rivalries. The best way to describe their mindset is that every single Warhammer vampire would eagerly describe themselves as the main character of whatever story they're in, regardless of what their actual role might be, and they will act accordingly. Similarly, they feed on notoriety for a very good reason: As I mentioned, a vampire can be brought back from a pile of ashes by necromantic rituals. Even if a vampire dies, if someone can get hold of their remains, if they are REMEMBERED, they can still come back and continue playing the eternal game of life they sold their souls for. The only vampire who is truly dead is one who has become boring, one who is forgotten. Next: The Bloodlines! Night10194 fucked around with this message at 15:18 on Aug 4, 2017 |
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Feb 2, 2017 18:49
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