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The peak came near the end of '89 and the Nikkei collapsed in 1990. Nippon Tech came out in '91, and the myth of Japanese dominance was still going strong at that point.
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# ? Feb 14, 2017 00:57 |
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# ? Mar 29, 2024 09:20 |
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Halloween Jack posted:The peak came near the end of '89 and the Nikkei collapsed in 1990. Nippon Tech came out in '91, and the myth of Japanese dominance was still going strong at that point. I'm a bit miffed that Torg Eternity is bringing them back as Pan-Pacifica, mostly because Nippon Tech constantly abused the trope that every Asian character was a Nippon Tech or Marketplace spy, ninja, or patsy or what have you. I would rather have Marketplace be multi-ethnic so I don't expect the Chinese restaurant waitress or the Korean convenience store owner I might find in the average city to be some Kanawa assassin in disguise.
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# ? Feb 14, 2017 02:29 |
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Doresh posted:Now let's think about the possibility of all those big neon AR signs containing hidden information that only shows up for the right people. OBEY
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# ? Feb 14, 2017 02:46 |
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Halloween Jack posted:The peak came near the end of '89 and the Nikkei collapsed in 1990. Nippon Tech came out in '91, and the myth of Japanese dominance was still going strong at that point. It's also pre-Internet and dominance of the 24 hour new cycle. The Japan is doomed, these guys can't stop humping pillows, fluff pieces hadn't come into vogue yet. People were more focused on the collapse of the Soviet Union, Warsaw Pact than the collapsing property market in Japan.
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# ? Feb 14, 2017 03:22 |
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Young Freud posted:I'm a bit miffed that Torg Eternity is bringing them back as Pan-Pacifica, mostly because Nippon Tech constantly abused the trope that every Asian character was a Nippon Tech or Marketplace spy, ninja, or patsy or what have you. I would rather have Marketplace be multi-ethnic so I don't expect the Chinese restaurant waitress or the Korean convenience store owner I might find in the average city to be some Kanawa assassin in disguise. It was Nippon Tech that had the explicit rule that any organization of 100 people or more had at least one traitor, too, right?
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# ? Feb 14, 2017 03:23 |
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RandallODim posted:It was Nippon Tech that had the explicit rule that any organization of 100 people or more had at least one traitor, too, right? I think it was 3 or more.
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# ? Feb 14, 2017 03:27 |
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Rifts World Book 8: Japan Part 15: “Most of the people of the New Empire follow the ancient ways, so only samurai carry the Daisho, however, mercs, adventurers and "techno-lovers" (just about everybody else) do not give the weapons or the samurai caste the reverence they deserve and may use a Daisho, katana or wakizashi separately.” High-Tech Weapons Patrick Nowak & Kevin Siembieda Appro of nothing. Armatech Industries ... is the old international name used by "Akizuki International", a company in the Republic of Japan. So, why are they still using it even if Japan is completely isolated and it's hard as hell to say "Armatech" in Japanese? Well, it's a mystery. They were a world leader in lasers, particle beams, bionics, nanotech, and in general your usual military-industrial complex kind of things, given they sell almost exclusively to the government and the samurai class. I guess we have a samurai class in the Republic too, now? Before the rifts, they got tasked with making variations on the SAMAS (revealed to stand for "Strategic Armored Military Assault System” for the first time) and the Glitter Boy for the American Empire, so look forward to rehashes of those later on. Nonetheless, their equipment gets leaked onto the black market (lower case) all the time. It's illegal and the government will confiscate them on sight. As such, they tend to be rarer and more expensive outside of the Republic. They're polite about it and won't press charges if it seems to be some ignorant foreign adventurer, but it's not like they'll make up for the money you paid. Less cooperative people tend to get shot. H-Brand What does the H stand for? This is a company in the Kingdom of Otomo that makes cheap knockoffs of Armatech's stuff, and though it says they're "good, reliable items", it gives a number of vague penalties to inflict on PCs that buy their crap (less durable, heavier, jams at some GM-inflicted moment). The classic gotcha move. “Oh, you wanted to save 10% on your gun, the gun jams 10% of the time, that’s balanced, yeah?” Sometimes they just draw a real gun and say it does mega-damage. Odds & Ends We get some idea of what "credits" are - debit cards, mainly, that somehow have a universal standard that's anonymous (bitcoins?) but usable by anybody with the card, because down with security and up with random muggings. Some places don't use credits (gasp!) and may use barter (choke!). Well, I guess that's why they call it Bartertown. It notes that the Republic uses an incompatible credit system based on the Yen, so your money's no good here, outsider! The Empire of the Sun finds swipe machines offensive to the spirits and god and the emperor so they use barter, the most efficient way to run an economy! Even the koku was better than that, but koku. Then, suddenly, Siembieda is dropping truth bombs about lasers. We've seen this in previous books, but it's been a long time since we reviewed Rifts Conversion Book, so we can at it once again. Do laser weapons have recoil when fired? What Siembieda says: No. What the truth is: Yes. But likely not enough to notice. Do laser weapons make a noise when fired? What Siembieda says: No. That's just Star Wars + Trek with their zappity-do-dah! What the truth is: Lasers make a tremendous racket because they ionize the air like a lightning bolt. There's video on this, just look up pulse lasers. What about other energy weapons? What Siembieda says: Ion weapons and particle beam weapons make no sound. What the truth is: There's no such comparable real-world weapon to an ion weapon, but if lasers ionize the air, it's very reasonable to assume an ion weapon would, and make a loud sound. Particle weapons are basically the same as a gun, just using a different kind of ammo and projection system (that is, particles rather than a bullet). Siembieda is wrong in thinking of particle beams as an “energy” weapon. What Siembieda says: Ion weapons and Particle Beams weapons have no recoil. What the truth is: Ion weapons would probably be the same as lasers and have negligible recoil. Particle beams would have recoil because they’re firing matter. What Siembieda says: Plasma would have recoil due to the immense release of energy. What the truth is: He’s correct but his explanation is wrong. Plasma would have recoil because you're firing matter, just like a gun. Just because it's in a plasma state doesn't make it "energy". What Siembieda says: Plasma would only make noise due to the firing mechanism. What the truth is: Plasma would, once again, probably make noise. It's a key component in "screaming" sonic weapons being developed and tested by the US military right now, after all! What Siembieda says: Gamma guns would make no noise and have no recoil. What the truth is: Presuming we're talking about some irradiating weapon, probably not. Siembieda is probably right. But there are no such weapons in Rifts. What about rail guns? What Siembieda says: Rail guns would make noise and have recoil just like a conventional firearm. What the truth is: Siembieda is entirely right. Call of Duty: Republic Roguemando With that out of the way, we can then move on to actual equipment, starting with the SNARLS Weapon System developed by Armatech (and not H-Brand) used to sense and target invisible foes, as well as provide instant identification of supernatural beings and enhanced humans. There's the Armed Forces Personnel Backpack with a variety of wilderness survival items, a homing beacon, extra ammo and weapon parts, explosives, and some variants have a radio or rail gun ammo. We get a rehash of E-Clips, and are told H-Brand makes worse E-Clips than Armatech but stat-wise they're the same. We also have Energy Canisters that provide extra ammo but give an extra penalty to hit. Vibro-Blades get re-hashed, and of course there's a vibro-katana that does more than a vibro-sword (somehow, even though they both use the same tech) and also get vibro-tanto, vibro-wakazashi, vibro-kusari-gama (the chain is not vibro, tho), vibro-yari, vibro-naginata, vibro-bisento, vibro-tiger claws (in case you need to vibro-climb?), vibro-sai, and vibro-arm claws (like TMNT's Shredder has). There's also a vibro-jitte - somehow, a blunt weapon getting the "vibro" treatment. I think there might be other uses for that. There's also an "exploding shuriken" that creates an "energy field" that only does S.D.C., which I think is an error, but so much of this book is an error it's hard to tell. Whew! I'm all vibro'd out, if you know what I mean. I have no idea what I mean. Nanotech wiffleball. Thanks to some characters getting the ability to convert S.D.C. damage to M.D.C., we get an extensive list of Japanese weapons mostly copy-pasted from earlier Palladium books with some new setting notes. To boil it down, the best one is the katana or the no-dachi, since they do the most damage and damage is the only mechanical metric. There is a cute note about vampire hunters running around with bokken, though. There’s a number of art pieces copy-pasted from the old Palladium Book of Weapons and Armor, as well. All we get for the weapon is a description, how much damage it does, and maybe a range. If you’ve seen a Palladium book you’ve already seen it, and I don’t feel the need to cover it. We then can start on with special weapons:
Energy Pistols The gun parade marches on! A lot of these have H-Brand knockoffs listed that I won't go into detail on, they usually have reduced range or ammo. Palladium paid for a drawing of a pen.
Like it says on the tin. Huge scope, tiny bullpup.
Making Guns Out of Boxes: Drawing Guns the Rifts Way. We then get a bunch of new explosives, like concussion missiles that do less damage than other missiles of their class but almost always knock down their targets. There's heavy-hitter missiles that supposedly do more damage at reduced range, but their damage is often the same or only slightly more than other missiles in their class. There's heat-seeking missiles that get a big attack bonus with no downside. We get torpedoes and depth charges reprinted for the handful of vehicles in here that use them. Grenades are mostly just reprints outside of the concussion grenades that cause knockdown but only minor damage. And finally, we have satchel charges that can be thrown 2d4 x 10 feet (irregardless of your strength), but have a blast radius of 30 feet. Good luck not blowing yourself up!... but you can plant them normally, that’s just shade thrown at players who want to use them as thrown weapons. Mind, throwing satchel charges is something soldiers have historically done since their invention, but gently caress that, this is Rifts! Speaking of explosives, there's a CC-26 Bomb Detector... which only as a 65% chance of detecting bombs at 75 feet. Well, better than nothing, I suppose. Land mines get expanded rules, and there are a variety of special mine detectors you can now add to vehicles for 40%-90% roll, or you can use Detect Ambush or Detect Concealment rules to detect them at a -10% to -50% penalty. Yes, there are only penalties involved, never bonuses. Good luck not getting yourself blown up! Next: The Glitter Boys: Big in Japan.
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# ? Feb 14, 2017 03:33 |
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wiegieman posted:In many ways, China is still a developing nation. Because they use so much coal they are choking on their own pollution, enough that they are seeing impacts on crop production. Comparatively large numbers of their population are rural illiterates, whereas other economies typically see a wide spread of technical skills required in those areas. They still rely heavily on sate-sponsored industrial theft rather than home-growing ideas. Most dangerous of all, they are fast approaching the point where their half-commitment to fair business cannot be propped up by government spending on fake projects and aggressive currency controls. The Chinese Miracle is collapsing much faster than the Japanese miracle, modern Chinese pop culture is loving terrible thanks to state interference, and there is a general decline in the power and influence of nation states. Another key thing is, China kinda realized from the get go while their getting richer and more powerful that they aren't going to ascend into pre Cold War superpower status. Japan bought into the "Japan is going to rule the world!" bullshit as much America did. Novels and self help books about the superiority of the Japanese business model, school system, and morality/family unit were huge in Japan until the early 90's when it became apparent that the decline was permanent. This corresponded into moral panic over Otaku for obvious reasons. .
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# ? Feb 14, 2017 03:37 |
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Hey guys, let's talk about Star Frontiers in System Mastery's 88th episode. I like this one. It's relatively simple and it has great alien races in instead of just green forehead prosthetic-mans. Edit: The episode is busted. I'll remove this when it works. theironjef fucked around with this message at 05:03 on Feb 14, 2017 |
# ? Feb 14, 2017 04:00 |
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Yeah, the Star Frontiers races are great. Who doesn't want to play 'shapeshifting goo man convinced dad jokes are the highest form of comedy?" Nobody, that's who. Though sadly I think what killed it was "A Sci-fi game with no rules for having your own spaceships". Or...rules for Spaceships, at all.
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# ? Feb 14, 2017 04:07 |
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I only have dim memories of "this is neat, but what do I do with it?"
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# ? Feb 14, 2017 04:09 |
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unseenlibrarian posted:Yeah, the Star Frontiers races are great. Who doesn't want to play 'shapeshifting goo man convinced dad jokes are the highest form of comedy?" Someday I'm gonna get back to Myriad Song because it sounds like this has the same issues and virtues.
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# ? Feb 14, 2017 04:19 |
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wiegieman posted:I think it was 3 or more. theironjef posted:Hey guys, let's talk about Star Frontiers in System Mastery's 88th episode. I like this one. It's relatively simple and it has great alien races in instead of just green forehead prosthetic-mans. Alien Rope Burn posted:"this is neat, but what do I do with it?"
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# ? Feb 14, 2017 04:56 |
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I figured the general thrust of Star Frontiers gaming was "Stumble across a scheme run by the Space Annelid Mafia and try to stop them from completing their doomsday device for vague reasons of "I keep my stuff on this planet that I can't leave because we have no idea how spaceships even work in the setting"
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# ? Feb 14, 2017 05:43 |
Leaving aside amateur Sinology and so on, I think China HAS been incorporated in cyberpunk media to some extent, it's just that cyberpunk stuff fell out of fashion for a while. (One theory, bleakly, is that it wasn't fictional any more.) In Deus Ex, Hong Kong/mainland China were important locations, weren't they? Even in Neuromancer, the mcguffin was a Chinese military virus.
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# ? Feb 14, 2017 07:05 |
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Nessus posted:Leaving aside amateur Sinology and so on, I think China HAS been incorporated in cyberpunk media to some extent, it's just that cyberpunk stuff fell out of fashion for a while. (One theory, bleakly, is that it wasn't fictional any more.) In Deus Ex, Hong Kong/mainland China were important locations, weren't they? Even in Neuromancer, the mcguffin was a Chinese military virus. The future is Chinese in Deus Ex, yeah. Also Firefly and Cowboy Bebop. It's just not as common as Japanese cyberpunk stuff is.
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# ? Feb 14, 2017 07:33 |
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cyberpunk is stupid racist nerd fetish poo poo. cyberpunk and steampunk fans should be drowned en masse like that one episode in the french revolution where they drowned priests in the loire
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# ? Feb 14, 2017 08:11 |
Steampunk's poo poo, yeah, but cyberpunk predicted a ton of stuff, and the aesthetics are cool. If you want all the Japanophilia of it with none of the tech, tho, see Ridley Scott's Black Rain. In Australia, 'China is taking over' is a common fear. OTOH, we get new Stephen Chou movies in theatres. Looper also has a mixed Chinese & Western future (less exotic when you live in Sydney but still cool). Where does Hong Kong cinema fit in? This is, what, the 3rd Wuxia game we've seen? And while Feng Shui is the most obvious example, World of Darkness has a ton of John Woo influence. When I was a kid, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon was huge, and the Chinese historical blockbusters I see on TV seem pretty cool & would make great RPGs. Is there an RPG scene in China? There's like 3 Ip Man franchises, one of them's gotta have an RPG.
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# ? Feb 14, 2017 08:37 |
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icantfindaname posted:cyberpunk is stupid racist nerd fetish poo poo. cyberpunk and steampunk fans should be drowned en masse like that one episode in the french revolution where they drowned priests in the loire Sorry you can't enjoy good things because nerds made bad things from them, but Neuromancer is still good no matter how much garbage is pumped out by people who didn't really get it.
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# ? Feb 14, 2017 08:42 |
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RandallODim posted:Sorry you can't enjoy good things because nerds made bad things from them, but Neuromancer is still good no matter how much garbage is pumped out by people who didn't really get it. it's still bad sorry
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# ? Feb 14, 2017 09:04 |
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Young Freud posted:I'm a bit miffed that Torg Eternity is bringing them back as Pan-Pacifica, mostly because Nippon Tech constantly abused the trope that every Asian character was a Nippon Tech or Marketplace spy, ninja, or patsy or what have you. I would rather have Marketplace be multi-ethnic so I don't expect the Chinese restaurant waitress or the Korean convenience store owner I might find in the average city to be some Kanawa assassin in disguise. Well, Pan-Pacifica implies a much broader reach than just Japan, and the Pacific region offers an extremely diverse array of peoples, and therefore possibilities for corporate spies. Throw Australia and my own home of GLORIOUS NEW ZEALAND in there and you can even have white people doing the spying if you really want. Diversity! Full disclosure: I haven't read any of the background materials for Torg Eternity. If they're called Pan-Pacifica but restricted to just Japan, I am going to be super pissed.
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# ? Feb 14, 2017 11:55 |
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The Sin of Onan posted:Well, Pan-Pacifica implies a much broader reach than just Japan, and the Pacific region offers an extremely diverse array of peoples, and therefore possibilities for corporate spies. Yeah, I've read one book that featured a Pacific Commonwealth whose founding members were the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Micronesia and the other small island nations, and the Philippines.
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# ? Feb 14, 2017 13:59 |
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Dareon posted:
That was a fun read! Interesting to see noqual and the akata- they were a big chunk of a chapter from Paizo's old Second Darkness campaign, and I didn't think I'd ever see those anti-magic, zombie-making, tentacled space lions again!
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# ? Feb 14, 2017 14:34 |
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The Sin of Onan posted:Well, Pan-Pacifica implies a much broader reach than just Japan, and the Pacific region offers an extremely diverse array of peoples, and therefore possibilities for corporate spies. Throw Australia and my own home of GLORIOUS NEW ZEALAND in there and you can even have white people doing the spying if you really want. Diversity! Yeah, Pan-Pacifica has expanded quite a bit. e: From what I've seen, it looks like Kanawa doesn't get a foothold in the States. Probably because Kaah isn't just losing territory because metaplot anymore.
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# ? Feb 14, 2017 15:30 |
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Alien Rope Burn posted:What Siembieda says: Plasma would have recoil due to the immense release of energy. With plasma weapons, aren't you talking about an extremely small amount of matter? Most games envision a plasma weapon as firing a stream or bolt of plasma out of a reactor/tank fulla plasma, but I've always preferred David Drake's powerguns, where each shot is a plastic cartridge containing an extremely small amount of metal atoms to be ionized. The Sin of Onan posted:Well, Pan-Pacifica implies a much broader reach than just Japan, and the Pacific region offers an extremely diverse array of peoples, and therefore possibilities for corporate spies. Throw Australia and my own home of GLORIOUS NEW ZEALAND in there and you can even have white people doing the spying if you really want. Diversity! Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 15:49 on Feb 14, 2017 |
# ? Feb 14, 2017 15:47 |
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It's still recoil, regardless of the length of the barrel the laws of physics state that for every action there needs to be an equal and opposite reaction. The amount of force imparted to the target is the amount of force the gun+wielder system needs to absorb, but since the gun is long and heavy, and the way that the force is imparted, it would probably be more "Push back into the firer's shoulder" than "Wild muzzle climb". Same with plasma weapons, it's an amount of matter so there will be at least some recoil.
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# ? Feb 14, 2017 16:00 |
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Well, plasma would have recoil either way, that just varies the amount depending on the mechanism. Either way, he's wrong as to why, which is my point. You're probably right that rail guns might not have the same "kick" or feel but the amount of force on the firer would ultimately be the same. Granted I'm not a scientist or engineer and I could have certainly gotten something wrong as far as fictional rayguns go, but I can at least do better than Siembieda.
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# ? Feb 14, 2017 16:15 |
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Recoil from personal firearms is something that - at least in declassified, online, English-language publications - has not really been extensively studied. It's possible and for most intents and purposes easy to quantify the forces and energy, which are often termed "recoil" in scientific language, but recoil-as-experienced, the physiological effect of recoil, are much less well-understood. Though for the case of high-velocity railguns, the experience of recoil will be little different from the recoil of an equivalently sized and capable firearm. The real difference is probably that with a railgun, there's no excess exhaust gasses that contribute to recoil after the bullet has left the barrel, so you get a slight reduction in recoil compared to an equivalent firearm.
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# ? Feb 14, 2017 16:30 |
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I remember in the UFO After-X games the early plasma weapons just contain the stuff, then decontain it in a specific direction in a horrifying aerosol mist of plasma like a shotgun. I have no idea if that's at all plausible, but the idea of a mist of sun-hot matter is pretty metal.
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# ? Feb 14, 2017 16:56 |
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My favourite idea for a "plasma shotgun" is from Mass Effect, where the gun actually launches three small toroids. On impact, the toroids arc electricity between them that flash-fries the air into plasma.Kurieg posted:It's still recoil, regardless of the length of the barrel the laws of physics state that for every action there needs to be an equal and opposite reaction. The amount of force imparted to the target is the amount of force the gun+wielder system needs to absorb, but since the gun is long and heavy, and the way that the force is imparted, it would probably be more "Push back into the firer's shoulder" than "Wild muzzle climb". In the diagrams of coilguns I've seen, multiple coils along the barrel are actually pulling the projectile forward, rather than repelling it away from the receiver. Would that make a difference? (If you have a coil near the receiver repelling while another coil near the end of the barrel is attracting, would their reactions act against each other, canceling recoil effect on the shooter but placing shear stress on the barrel?)
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# ? Feb 14, 2017 17:12 |
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Warhammer Fantasy: Night's Dark Masters The native soil of Sylvania, and its exports of misery, death, terror, and inexplicably fine wine Sylvania has always been a harsh, gloomy, and suspicious land, located in the furthest eastern reaches of the Empire. During the ancient history of the Empire, they quietly avoided joining Sigmar's tribal confederation and refused to deal with dwarves, because they reasoned dwarves came from the same direction as the orcs and so they had to be connected. Sylvania originally struggled along in obscurity, the insular people keeping their own company and bothering no-one, until the Black Death of the 12th century post-Sigmar. The population of the county was devastated, and even moreso when first a rain of poisonous warpstone fell all over the province, and then when terrible ratmen began to spill out of the base of the World's Edge Mountains to sack and loot the place for said warpstone. Warpstone being raw, crystallized magic and something akin to a mixture of plutonium and cocaine for Skaven. They were only stopped by the intervention of Frederick van Hel, a wizard who had learned to raise the plague dead from a mysterious foreign prince (It was Vlad). Whenever foreign foes would threaten Sylvania in the future, even foreign undead, they would be met with the unquiet bodies of generations of Sylvanians. The character of the province grew even darker, their original stoicism and suspicion replaced with a blase attitude towards death and dying that would seem almost suicidal to a foreigner. The rulebook lists their major exports as death, terror, and misery. Among the Dark Wizards who ruled Sylvania, the most prominent were the Von Draks. Count Otto von Drak's daughter, Isabella, would then become Isabella von Carstein when she wedded the foreign Prince Vladimir, who showed a remarkable knowledge of Sylvania and its ways, almost as if he had been watching the place for centuries. Up until Manfred's original defeat in the Wars of the Vampire Counts that brought an end to the fighting, Sylvania would be ruled by Von Carsteins, who were regarded as violent and horrifying but much fairer about it than the Von Draks. Afterwards, the Empire made the huge mistake of delegating the rulership of the province to many of the lesser nobles of Stirland, the neighboring province. Many of them hated their new subjects and regarded being given land in this dreary country as an insult, and took it out on their people. To the average Sylvanian, the Imperial rulers were no better than the Von Draks, certainly worse than the Von Carsteins, and worse at protecting the country than either. When Imperial Witch Hunters initiated a great purge of the province to try to root out remaining Carstein sympathizers, they only made things worse; the Sylvanians began ever more to see themselves as a separate people entirely and to hate the Imperials as tyrants and invaders. When the Von Carsteins began to return, the people of Sylvania were happy and proud to welcome them; anything but these Imperial, foreign devils! The soil is bad. The weather is harsh. The land is riven with monsters and still shot through with dark magic from the warpstone. But the people of Sylvania pride themselves on surviving it all. Their technology is backwards and provincial, and they are suspicious to the extreme of hating all non-humans (Sylvanians would generally rather have a mutant for a neighbor than a dwarf or an elf, and are astonished the Empire tolerates them as citizens). Most Sylvanians have no idea they are technically, legally still part of the Empire and most could not tell you the current Emperor. They have their own language and many do not speak Reikspiel; similarly, foreigners are suspicious, as they might be more Stirlander tyrants or big-hatted murderers out to kill the Count. Outsiders risk being handed over as part of a village's blood tax while the locals rejoice that they will have to pay less this month. Dark wizards, necromancers, feral ghouls...all these things are common problems, and the Sylvanians bear them without complaint. That is simply the way of life: Sometimes the Count demands more and some people die. Sometimes the monsters attack and the militia and local necromancer can't stop them in time. Sometimes the crops fail and some of your people starve or you have to resort to cannibalism in the winter. Such is life, and most do not even complain. The main sop to this sort of mixture of learned helplessness and stoicism is how Sylvanians have a thousand and one small superstitions for warding off misfortune. Anything out of the ordinary could be bad luck and could draw these powerful forces to you, so you must be ready to fling salt over your shoulder or spit in your reflection to ward it off. If you wish to play as a Sylvanian, you can choose to substitute Common Lore (Empire) from the normal human skills for speaking Sylvanian, and you can swap the normal urbane Gossip skill for Outdoor Survival if you want to be very antisocial and from one of the backwater villages, but otherwise they're normal humans. You may, of course, choose to have a ridiculous accent. I prefer to imagine they sound like the Janosz Poha from Ghost Busters, because they seem like the type to declare allegiance to 'VIGOR, SCOURGE OF THE CARPATHIANS! SORROW OF THE MOLDAVIANS!", but that's just me. Next Time: We Make A Vampire, And The Book Assures Us They Are Not For Use As PCs Before Giving Tons Of Rules Only Useful For A Vampire PC (And Then Having A Section On Using Them As PCs Later). Night10194 fucked around with this message at 16:18 on Aug 4, 2017 |
# ? Feb 14, 2017 17:44 |
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LatwPIAT posted:The real difference is probably that with a railgun, there's no excess exhaust gasses that contribute to recoil after the bullet has left the barrel, so you get a slight reduction in recoil compared to an equivalent firearm. I would say railguns and coilguns are more energy-efficient, in that more of the energy is used solely to accelerate the projectile than do some random explosion stuff. Still, there's plenty of energy getting loose in their. It's why railgun barrels don't last very long.
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# ? Feb 14, 2017 17:46 |
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Halloween Jack posted:In the diagrams of coilguns I've seen, multiple coils along the barrel are actually pulling the projectile forward, rather than repelling it away from the receiver. Would that make a difference? (If you have a coil near the receiver repelling while another coil near the end of the barrel is attracting, would their reactions act against each other, canceling recoil effect on the shooter but placing shear stress on the barrel?) No, cause the respective forces are the same, if you pull or are pulled by an object it is moved in the opposite direction of your movement, same as if an object pushes or is pushed by you.
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# ? Feb 14, 2017 17:50 |
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theironjef posted:Hey guys, let's talk about Star Frontiers in System Mastery's 88th episode. I like this one. It's relatively simple and it has great alien races in instead of just green forehead prosthetic-mans. Seems like it's working now? I always liked this old ad for the game. Strangely, AFAIK one of the factors that killed Star Frontiers wasn't D&D, but sadly it was the Buck Rogers game getting focus instead. An interesting footnote is that most or all of the Star Frontiers races showed up again in Spelljammer, just renamed.
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# ? Feb 14, 2017 19:41 |
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And then again in D20 Future, without the renaming! (And thus basically unplayable because of how 'well' 3.5-derived D&D handled weird race qualities like being a bug-centaur or "Can kind of half-assedly glide"
unseenlibrarian fucked around with this message at 19:55 on Feb 14, 2017 |
# ? Feb 14, 2017 19:44 |
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Alien Rope Burn posted:I always liked this old ad for the game.
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# ? Feb 14, 2017 19:53 |
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Fight! - Round 2 Chapter 6: Systems and Settings (Shadow of the Game Attorney) This is a rather short section on campaign building and GM tools. No pictures here, but I've got a few from somewhere else. You'll thank me later. Building Thugs Thugs are the mooks of the game, very similar to your typical beat-'em-up punks. They appear in large groups, don't have a lot of attack variety (to the point that they only have one attack eachin Fight!), and fall over easily. Instead of a small Life Bar on their own, they just get a "Life Save" akin to a tabletop wargame. The Thugs' overall strength and the PCs skill distribution (with or without enforced hard caps by the GM) can greatly change how fights with Thugs feel. You could have swarms of Thugs that fall over like Dynasty Warriors grunts, or vicious elite mooks that can actually put up a fight. Or both at the same time. In the corebook, Thugs were tiered into levels, from "Normal" aka level 0 for civilians up to level 5 for dangerous Thugs who hit hard and have enough Quality slots to fill up with goodies, like the ability to inflict Hit Stun (which Thugs don't do by default) or being close enough to a proper Fighter that the PCs don't gain extra actions against them. If those 6 levels and customization options aren't enough, Round 2 introduces a point-buy system. Just write down the desired stats and effects and compare the total with the base templates to see how weak or tough the creation is. These point-buy rules also come in handy for a certain campaign options: The first chapter of this supplement introduced the "Hidden Abilities" Weakness that locks your move set behind having to henshin, put on some power armor or whatnot. If you think that still being able to kick rear end with Basic Moves and such is still too much, how about having the PCs built their unpowered PCs as Thugs, and having them buy the new Combat Training to suck less as Thugs? Since an unlucky save can cause Thugs to go down in one hit, fighting in this state is pretty darn scary. Still, very fitting if your campaign looks less like Street Fighter and more like Gundam or Sailor Moon. You might even pull of Metal Slug if the PCs are stuck being Thugs. Social Combat This is the big one. Social Combat has an odd fasciniation for certain people, as it promises to expand simple skill rolls or roleplaying with the excitement and tactical finess of the system's combat rules. The end result of this noble goal can end up a bit weird, though: You either have something like Exalted were Social Combat is just plain mind control, or you end up with a "Lite" version of the normal combat system were everyone can do the same action. Fight! doesn't screw around with its attempt at Social Combat and just uses everything from normal combat: the 1-dimensional map, Combos, Special Moves, even Super Moves. There's even an extra layer since everyone has a pool of points to activate fitting Qualities on themselves to gain bonuses or Weaknesses on "opponents" to give them penalties. He will verbally juggle you out of prison. Once everyone's on board with building "OBJECTION!!" as a Super Move, it's time to change the character creation and advancement rules. Characters now have around 50% more points to play around with, with the catch being that they have to divide these bettn normal and social stuff. I'd probably be careful letting PCs overspecializes, lest someone derails the campaign with a Social Combat monster. God tier, plz nerf. Alternate Campaign Styles This section gives a few guidelines to adapt Fight! to something less orthodox by fighting game standards: If Capcom's excellent duology of Mystara beat-'em-up is any indication, then something like Fight! and Traditional Fantasy Gaming can work quite well. This type of campaign should make plenty use of Thugs and Dramatic Combat, where Combos aren't a thing, Moves are used more like Encounter Powers and you can use all sorts of non-combat skills to affect the outcome of the fight. PCs should also be separated into "Warriors" who are created normally and "Non-Warriors" who focus more on skills than raw combat ability. This section also introduces a nice modifier to the Buff element that lets you Buff others to simulate support spells. Mecha Gaming is more straightforward. Since pilots rarely fight outside of their mecha, you can usually get away with building them as a single character. Supers Gaming probably has everyone invest in the Powers Quality, and the Dramatic Combat has probably the most cinematic feel for this type of campaign. That's all the book hightlights, but you can easily come up with other stuff. Why, I think most of us should be familiar with a certain long-running franchise whose characters and plotlines are about as ludicrous as your typical fighting game, except conflicts are settled in a less physical way... Duel Fighters - where every character is Testament. FAQ A collectin of answers, clarifications and sometimes corrections, most if not all appear to come from the game's Google group page. Very oldschool. And then the book ends with an Appendix of all the various campaign options, and where to find them if they're from the corebook. Bonus: Example Character (Warning: A new wall of text appears!) Now let me whip out a character I didn't know exist until like two pages ago, using my fighting game knowledge and investigative journalism powers. I picked Power Level 3 as starting point because you can get your first Super at that point, and your defenses start to look a lot more well-rounded. quote:Pullum Purna
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# ? Feb 14, 2017 20:48 |
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I don't know if this is mentioned in the episode, but you can actually get the various Star Frontiers from here with the okay of the license holders.
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# ? Feb 14, 2017 20:52 |
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Doresh posted:
Objection! as a super move
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# ? Feb 14, 2017 20:58 |
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# ? Mar 29, 2024 09:20 |
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Idunno why Space Jef and Space Jon mentioned Star Wars in the same breadth as ridgehead aliens, since Star Wars really isn't bad about that like Star Trek is. Because Star Wars makes movies and cartoons without Star Trek's budgetary limitations, and also because ridge-faced aliens who easily incorporate into a multicultural cosmopolitan society are against the grain of Star Wars. If you're talking about Contenders, that's one of the few supplements out there that just makes me mad. It's like they were just completely taking the piss, and pissing on their audience. Making up cool Street Fighters for the PCs to fight or ally with shouldn't be hard.
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# ? Feb 14, 2017 21:06 |