Count Chocula posted:

I was just thinking the same thing. I'd use the Cover rules from God Machine Chronicles to determine how human your Ryan Gosling/David Hasselhoff/Max looks.
In Christine, she makes her drivers more monstrous & devoted to her, like a ghoul.
Or just let them be self-driving cars.

Simian_Prime posted:

would it be good or bad timing to start a review of A Red and Pleasant Land?

Simian_Prime posted:

Question: Considering the current trainwreck involving Zac S and nuWW/Paradox, would it be good or bad timing to start a review of A Red and Pleasant Land?

potatocubed posted:

Remember thst if you say anything even remotely positive about it, he'll quote-mine you for endorsements.

Count Chocula posted:

You don't even need to make them obviously supernatural, there's enough examples in fiction and real life of Drivers and Mechanics who are bonded to their cars. Speed Racer! At high levels they get Ryan Gosling in Drive style badassery.

I feel like motorcycles should be their own thing, 'cause motorcycle gangs/humanoid motorcycles are such a huge conceptual space that you'd want to give them room to breathe. You've got everything from Rebel Without A Cause to Kamen Rider to Akira to Werewolves on Wheels to Sons of Anarchy to the various biker gangs scattered throughout this thread. There's more about freedom and independence, while supernatural car stuff seems to be more about interdependence with the car.

Count Chocula posted:

Who was making Motor Adepts for Mad Max? Was it you?

I feel like the various World playbooks around driving are a good place to start.

Doresh posted:

Cereal: The Breakfast.

You play as Cereal, shards of a primordial hivemind. If a human eats from your Phylactery aka cereal box, you can possess it. Experience the world with his or her sense. You and your kin have controlled the world for centuries, and you have always fought vampires and other beings who don't eat breakfast, for they are beyond your control.

The Cereal are divided into tribes known as Brands, each of which has its own Pantheon of totem spirits known as Mascots.

By dousing your cereals with milk - the Catalyst - you can summon the essence of the Mascot, letting you invoke various powers known as Commercials based on the various aspects that embody it.

MonsieurChoc posted:

Cars: the Driving sounds like it would actually be fun to play, and a better fit for the nWoD than Beasts.

Amazing.

Simian_Prime posted:

That's kinda what I'm afraid of. I'm in this weird place where I actually enjoy the book for its imagination and presentation values, but I don't want to seem like I'm endorsing his despicable behavior.

Count Chocula posted:

Get some Ed 'Big Daddy' Roth style art alternated with RIFTS style vehicle porn, figure out a car customization system that's not too complicated or too simple, make all combat play out with Hot Wheels cars...

Wait I think I just described a game an old grognard I know runs, I'll ask him for details.

I guess what would make this different from other car games is the pain, the angst, the pathos of being a living car! Like Christine, or Teen Boat, or Drive.

We need some splats. Keep in mind that I do not know how to drive, or know anything about cars:

Snobbish Splat: fancy sports cars
Muscle Splat: muscle cars are the noble warriors, trucks and construction equipment are the brutal thugs
Social Stat: lovingly restored classic cars
Ugly Stat: Mad Max style custom cars (not the V8 Interceptor, I know it's not ugly, don't hurt me car people!)
Magic Stat: vanishing hitchhikers, rebuilt Model Ts? I'm sure there's something that fits

Upstart Rebels: electric cars, self-driving cars (all cars in this setting are self-driving but these ones are supposed to be)

oriongates posted:

Magic cars would be things like VW hippie mobiles, re-purposed schoolbuses and so on. Airbrushed vans with wizards, dragons and (of course) wolves.

Simian_Prime posted:

That's kinda what I'm afraid of. I'm in this weird place where I actually enjoy the book for its imagination and presentation values, but I don't want to seem like I'm endorsing his despicable behavior.

Saguaro PI posted:

I'm curious purely because there's this thing where he has a reputation for being some kind of genius, but everything I've seen him write, from his blog to tweets about how art works to the horrendously dumb elfgame arguments he's been in left me with the impression that he's one of the dumbest people alive. Like, this is a man who needed it explained to him that referring to women as "bitches" might come off as insulting, and no, the fact that you can do so in the privacy of your own home with your partner doesn't change that. It would be kind of nice to have the mystery as to why the gently caress anyone could possibly have a favourable opinion on his intellect solved.

But yeah, all the stuff others have said about ego feeding and whatnot applies. You do you.

Simian_Prime posted:

That's kinda what I'm afraid of. I'm in this weird place where I actually enjoy the book for its imagination and presentation values, but I don't want to seem like I'm endorsing his despicable behavior.

Count Chocula posted:

Every time I ask my friends about Australian car culture I get more questions than answers. But maybe the affection people have for their cars generates mystical power?

...

Wait, that's just Speed Racer.

quote:

There are three stats in Invisible Sun. The first two are Certes, measuring everything physical and tangible about the character, and Qualia, measuring everything mental and intangible about a character. The third is Hidden Knowledge, and it works very differently than the other two so let’s just talk about Certes and Qualia for now.

Certes and Qualia are subdivided into refined categories. For Certes, it’s movement, combat, and physicality. For Qualia, it’s interaction, knowledge, sorcery, and sortilege. Basically, these are the types of actions you can take in the game. At character creation, you end up with totals for your Certes and Qualia scores, and you take those numbers and divide them into the aforementioned categories. (This process is referred to as taking your core stat and refining it.) Let’s say you have an 11 Certes score, so you put 5 points into movement, 3 points into combat, and 3 into physicality. Your character is probably fast and graceful, and only moderately good at fighting and withstanding damage.

So you put 5 counters in your movement pool and 3 in the other two. Now, any time you take a movement-related action, you can spend a point out of that pool and get a bonus to that action (skills and circumstances play into this too, but let’s not get down into those weeds at this point). You remove a counter from your pool of 5 so you have 4 left. A few times each day you can take a break and refresh your pool and get the counters you spent back. No math or erasing numbers on your sheet.

What’s more, let’s say you get a spell cast on you that makes you more graceful. It adds, perhaps 3 more counters to your movement pool to spend as you wish. No tracking spell duration or having to remember if you’ve used up the spell effect or not. It’s just all right there with tokens in the pool. But then you get a spell cast upon you by a foe that impedes your ability in combat. You get 3 negative counters (a different color) added to your combat pool. Now, the next 3 times you take an attack action, you suffer a penalty—which you could, if you wanted to and have the points to spend—offset with your normal points in your pool. Again, no duration tracking or anything of the kind. It’s just right there in visual and tactile form in front of you when you play.

quote:

Long form magic are invocations, enchantments, and rituals that take a long time to perform and have requirements (non-trivial ingredients, specific tools, multiple casters, etc.). You don’t use them in an encounter. Their effects are often open-ended and contextual. For example, there’s an invocation called Beseech in which you attempt to contact a higher power and ask for… something. If the being you name in the invocation hears and is interested, it starts an encounter with that being. This might be a conversation, a negotiation, a plea… it depends on the situation. In the course of my playtest campaign, the PCs threw a party to give themselves an opportunity to inquire with some high society people regarding information they needed. Uninvited, a clearly powerful being named The Eldest mysteriously showed up at the party, hung around a bit, and said some cryptic things. Only later did one of the PCs realize that they had an opportunity to ask this being for a favor but didn’t take it. They saw the Beseech invocation as a way to open up a line of communication with the Eldest again. Would he hear them? Would he care? They didn’t know, but it was a way for them to take control of the narrative a bit and use magic create an encounter because they wanted to have it.

Doresh posted:

If I were a backer, I'd have withdrawn my money the instant I read "Certes".

Evil Mastermind posted:

Monte Cook's

Halloween Jack posted:

I admit, it gets my goat that Grandpa Monte shows up, learns about concepts invented years ago, and apparently makes a killing by poorly imitating them.

Halloween Jack posted:

I admit, it gets my goat that Grandpa Monte shows up, learns about concepts invented years ago, and apparently makes a killing by poorly imitating them.

Halloween Jack posted:

Halloween Jack posted:

I don't get it. Why is Monte Cook a draw? Who'd he ever beat? I've never seen him do anything that impressed me beyond the level of being a sourcebook with new player options, mostly for spellcasters.

Halloween Jack posted:

I don't get it. Why is Monte Cook a draw? Who'd he ever beat? I've never seen him do anything that impressed me beyond the level of being a sourcebook with new player options, mostly for spellcasters.

Alien Rope Burn posted:

I had to look up "sortilege" and that's not even a game term.