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Let's do some pulp adventure wrapped in an enigma wrapped in mirrored sunglasses printed on old newspapers: The Secret of Zir'An.
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Mar 14, 2017 04:36
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wiegieman posted:FFG did end up doing their own thing from the ground up, and it was WHFRP 3rd edition, which is kind of like what they did with Star Wars except when it's not. Man, I really liked some of that game's ideas and even bought a boxed set for it only too realize I'd discovered it too late and it was almost immediately dropped afterwards (I guess because FFG and GW split?) At least I know a few more people interested in their Star Wars games now, so I might have better luck with that or talk some of them into trying out WHFRP3e.
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Mar 14, 2017 05:07
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I'm kinda bummed that FFG never did a Night's Dark Masters for 3e, but you can probably just port over the 2e stuff without too much trouble.
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Mar 14, 2017 05:30
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Since people brought up Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd edition when talking about Deathwatch, I decided to look at the rules for the first time. Is there a reason I wouldn't spend my first 100xp on exiting to an Advanced career if I could get the trappings together? Is it just leaving advances on the table? Is there still a WFRP thread for questions like that? There was one for 3rd edition for a while, but I think it died.
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Mar 14, 2017 05:49
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marshmallow creep posted:Since people brought up Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd edition when talking about Deathwatch, I decided to look at the rules for the first time. Is there a reason I wouldn't spend my first 100xp on exiting to an Advanced career if I could get the trappings together? Is it just leaving advances on the table? You can do that, but you'll lose access to any of the skills and talents the last career had.
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Mar 14, 2017 06:03
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wiegieman posted:FFG did end up doing their own thing from the ground up, and it was WHFRP 3rd edition, which is kind of like what they did with Star Wars except when it's not. WHFRP3 is still itself a deeply flawed system. not even getting into the fact that your character sheet was actually 30 different bits of cardboard and plastic, in the eight or so releases that came out before the players handbook, they released, the only non-spellcaster, non-social (Read: Combat focused) advanced class that is avaliable to people who aren't humans or dwarves and also insane, is Assassin.
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Mar 14, 2017 06:32
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marshmallow creep posted:Since people brought up Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd edition when talking about Deathwatch, I decided to look at the rules for the first time. Is there a reason I wouldn't spend my first 100xp on exiting to an Advanced career if I could get the trappings together? Is it just leaving advances on the table? Given I'm still engaged in a long-term review in which I intend to eventually get through all the sourcebooks (I've been without computer for days and phone-posting until recently) I can answer that: In 2e you cannot exit your current Career until you have all its advances. The only way out of a Career early is to spend 200 EXP and pick a Basic Career, any Basic Career, to immediately enter.
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Mar 14, 2017 06:53
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theironjef posted:Ah yes, famous for their ability to barely turn at all, their capacity to carry 3 missiles to fool congress into thinking they're fighter planes, and their incredible function of leaking all their fuel all over the place when they're on the ground. Truly the fighter plane of the ages. Midjack posted:Depending on your choices you can get something better (in earlier rulesets and hopefully here too). The Blackbird is just what any old Cell can get.
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Mar 14, 2017 06:56
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Night10194 posted:Given I'm still engaged in a long-term review in which I intend to eventually get through all the sourcebooks (I've been without computer for days and phone-posting until recently) I can answer that: In 2e you cannot exit your current Career until you have all its advances. The only way out of a Career early is to spend 200 EXP and pick a Basic Career, any Basic Career, to immediately enter. I expected that would be the case since I believe that's how it worked in 3rd edition, but I couldn't find the sentence in the rules that actually said that.
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Mar 14, 2017 14:50
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theironjef posted:Let's do some pulp adventure wrapped in an enigma wrapped in mirrored sunglasses printed on old newspapers: The Secret of Zir'An. Apparently there were copies of it that were actually legible, but the ones that had bad print issues were numerous enough and the word of mouth was bad enough as a result that it pretty much killed the line. I think they published the GM's guide as PDF-only before folding?
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Mar 14, 2017 19:01
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Zir'An is yet another one of those games that had an interesting premise, but the inclusion of Tolkienish races really killed it for me.
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Mar 14, 2017 19:05
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Halloween Jack posted:Zir'An is yet another one of those games that had an interesting premise, but the inclusion of Tolkienish races really killed it for me. Agreed, that felt like the weirdest point. I don't reflexively hate Elfs/Dwarves/etc. but they felt really out of place in the otherwise weird fiction setting of the rest of Zir'an.
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Mar 14, 2017 19:11
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 Godlike, Chapter V, Part IX The last update saw crippling blows to the Axis war machine at the Battle of Leyte Gulf and the Battle of the Bulge, not to mention the famous Twilight of the Gods wherein Allied Talents trained in conventional tactics defeated Hitler’s Überkommandos. 12/31/1944, Hungary Turns: After the Soviets surrounded Budapest, rebels captured the pro-Nazi leader Ferenc Szalasi, and Hungary formed a provisional government friendly to the Soviet Union. A month later, Hungary declared war on the Axis. 1/1/1945, Attack on Army Group Center: The Soviet 4th and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts easily pushed through the German front on the border of Czechoslovakia. German Army Group Center, with only a million men, was the last line of defense on the Eastern Front. But the Soviets held air, tank, and Talent superiority, with Talent shock troops softening up the Germans before the main assault. 1/5/1945, Kamikaze at Luzon: The Allies’ next target in the Pacific was Luzon, the largest island of the Philippines. The U.S. 7th fleet and Allied aircraft began attacking Japanese positions around the island in preparation for a landing force. Hoshi led waves of kamikaze attacks on the U.S. 7th Fleet in the Lingayen Gulf within northwestern Luzon. With Hoshi as a propaganda tool, the Japanese launched over 4,000 kamikaze planes which sunk 26 ships and damaged 400 more. At the first sight of the landing ships, various Filipino resistance movements rose up and seized 2 airports and several ammo dumps. On the 9th, the 6th Army came ashore and the Japanese made a planned retreat to the mountains. They had hoped the Japanese would surrender Manila, but instead they were forced to fight every step of the way. By the end of January, they’d linked up with the Hukbalahap, the largest Filipino resistance force, led by the Talent Anguis. 1/5/1945, Death of the Luftwaffe: The Luftwaffe launched Operation Bodenplatte (“Base plate”) to support the Ardennes offensive and gain air superiority in Belgium. Over 1,000 aircraft and 300 Übermenschen attacked Allied airfields, losing 400 planes and 150 Talents in less than a week. The Luftwaffe was hamstrung--they still had plenty of planes, but no experienced pilots to fly them. 1/10/1945, Pevnost Fuels the Fire: A huge force of 150,000 partisans attacked German occupiers all over Czechoslovakia, ruining any attempt to hold off the Red Army. Pevnost was the architect of the plan, using his power to arm the rebels with 30 tons of weapons and equipment within a month. Sabotage and assassination completely destabilized the German position in the country. The 10th Soviet Shock Army, composed of 3,000 Talents, stormed through German defenses and linked up with 12,000 Czech communists near Dubuzy. All German forces either fled towards Austria or found themselves surrounded. 1/12/1945, the Vistula Oder: A huge 2 million strong Soviet force poured across the Vistula river and into Poland. By the 20th, the Soviets had crossed the country crushing all German resistance in their path. The Red Army was now less than 200 miles from Berlin itself. 1/15/1945, Allied Counterattack!: The Allies considered their next move. Eisenhower proposed a plan to penetrate the Siegfried line, followed by a two-pronged assault to surround the Ruhr Valley. Montgomery’s 21st Army Group slowed down when they entered the thickly forested and heavily defended Reichswald (“Empire Forest”), then heavy flooding paralyzed all troop movements in the region. General Omar Bradley’s forces in the south broke the Siegfried line and pushed towards Mannerheim. Patton’s Good Time Boys captured bridges and eliminated Überkommando teams in advance of the main force. The German forces no longer had the men and materiel to resist, and were slowly crushed from all sides. 1/17/1945, North Burma Cleared: Chinese forces seized Namhkan, totally eliminated Japanese forces in Burma and restoring the Burma Road from India to China. 2/10/1945, the Yalta Conference: The “Big Three” met again at Yalta to discuss the disposition of the world after the war. Stalin refused to meet in Cairo, citing health trouble, which made Roosevelt and Churchill’s bodyguards nervous. But Stalin merely wanted to meet in Soviet-occupied territory to flaunt his power. To the public, Yalta was a meeting of Allies, but the three leaders shared little agreement on how the map should be redrawn. Roosevelt and Churchill came to terms to counter Stalin; having already secured a secret agreement that gained him Hungary, Berlin, Czechoslovakia, and Romania, he was just grandstanding at this point. He agreed to affirm the Atlantic Charter, to fight Japan after the war in Europe was finished, and to a communist/government-in-exile coalition government in Poland. On the 10th, the three leaders posed for their last photograph together, flanked by their generals and top Talents. 2/11/1945, Anguis KIA: The Filipino resistance leader Anguis died fighting the remains of General Homma’s forces on the streets of Manila. When his shapeshifting powers failed him, reverting him to human form, he and 14 fellow Hukbalahap fighters were killed by tank fire. 2/14/1945, the Resurrection of Dresden: A RAF force of 873 bombers dropped thousands of tons of explosives and incendiaries on the German city of Dresden, igniting a fire that raged for two days as American planes continued bombing the wreckage. Though many made it to bomb shelters, the intense heat consumed so much oxygen that hundreds died of asphyxiation. The attack accomplished its aim of disrupting rail lines through the city and crushing German morale. Most of the city was destroyed and 200,000 people were killed, including American expatriate Charles Lindbergh. A day later, over 3,000 native survivors had the same dream, of “a Dresden not yet built.” Their leader, an ex-priest named Matthias Kniep, preached of “a world of symmetry and beauty where nothing is destroyed except destruction itself.” By the end of the war, Die Erbauer (“The Builders”) had over 5,000 followers, who would go on to publish Die Wiederauferstehung Dresdens (“The Resurrection of Dresden”), a manifesto both spiritual and architectural.  2/19/1945, Iwo Jima: A huge U.S. landing force invaded Iwo Jima, a tiny island 660 miles from Japan itself, after 3 days of bombing. Mistakenly believing that the bombardment had destroyed the enemy, U.S. troops met fierce resistance and suffered heavy casualties. Japanese defeat was inevitable; the Americans had air and naval superiority, and the initial 30,000-strong landing force was larger than the entire Japanese garrison of 21,000. But as they had done before, the Japanese retreated to positions in the mountains and were ready to fight to the bitter end. Their positions were prepared with hundreds of pillboxes, spider-holes, and a vast network of underground shelters and command positions. The Marines fought tooth-and-nail, sometimes literally, for every inch of ground. On the 23rd, six men raised a large American flag on the peak of Iwo Jima. Three would later die in the fighting. Over 6,800 Marines and about 18,000 Japanese died in the fighting; only 216 Japanese were taken prisoner. Casualties are difficult to estimate due to thousands of Japanese who continued hiding after the garrison surrendered, many succumbing to their wounds days or weeks later. The Second Coming posted:Pvt. John McGrath of Albany, NY was a marine just out of training when he landed with the first wave on Iwo Jima. In the midst of barbaric combat, his mind snapped. On February 21st, he shouted “Lazarus, go forth,” and a nearby dead Marine rose up, his fatal wounds healed. 2/21/1945, Crossing the Irrawaddy: General Slim’s British 14th Army crossed the Irrawaddy River, destroying the Japanese troops holding the bridgehead in central Burma. Allied offensives forced the Japanese into the wilderness. 2/26/1945, Bombers Over Berlin: 1,200 bombers of the American 8th Air Force dropped thousands of tons of bombs on Berlin. American losses were light thanks to the Luftwaffe’s defeat; AA guns downed 24 craft. The First Non-Mechanized Long Range Flight Group, sent to protect the bombers from flying Übermenschen, were startled to find the skies so empty. 3/3/1945, the Good Time Boys vs. the Überkommandos: Patton’s Talent team, going in advance of the 3rd Army as usual, met Überkommandogruppe 101 while securing a bridgehead across the Kyll river. The Good Time Boys lost 4 men, but the Übermenschen were all killed in a battle that leveled 3 city blocks. The Germans managed to destroy the bridge, pausing Patton’s push across the Rhine. 3/7/1945, Cologne Captured: Germans abandoned their 3rd-largest city for defensive positions to the west. Capturing Cologne was a great victory for the Allies. Over 200 Übermenschen surrendered to the 1st Army as it secured the city. 3/20/1945, Across the Rhine: After piercing the Siegfried Line, the Allies surged across the Rhine river, into the Ruhr Valley and towards Bavaria. British artillery and airstrikes destroyed German positions and liberated much of the Netherlands. Patton’s forces swept toward Leipzig, while the 7th Army pushed the German 19th into Bavaria. German forces were in chaos, outgunned by air, artillery, and Talents, and their few counterattacks resulted in disastrous losses of soldiers, weapons, and Übermenschen.  3/30/1945, the Soviets Invade Austria: General-polkovnik Tolbukhin’s 3rd Ukrainian Front crossed from Hungary into Austria, surrounding the 6th SS Panzer Division. As in the west, German counterattacks ended in disaster and 6 Überkommandogruppendied launching behind-the-lines attacks to disrupt Soviet defenses. The attacks were successful, but the follow-up assaults never came. Tolbukhin set his sights on Vienna. On April 9, a Soviet force led by 3,000 Talents seized Vienna after a day of fierce urban combat with a small Austrian defence force. The rapid victory allowed 10 Soviet divisions to pour through Vienna towards Prague and the German border. 4/1/1945, Okinawa: The largest of the Ryukyu islands was the last stepping-stone to invading Japan. After five days of American bombardment and Japanese kamikaze attacks, a combined Allied fleet of 1,500 vessels began landing troops on April 1. Marine and Army forces seized airfields with little resistance until, a few days later, they encountered the heavily defended cave complexes. The Battle of Okinawa was an extremely long and bloody one, lasting until the last week of June (the book says July 2nd for some reason). American forces picked away at Japanese defenses with rifles, mortars, and even naval guns. This was the bloodiest battle of the Pacific war, so awful that I can’t even settle for an accurate count of casualties. Godlike says that over 8,000 Americans and 107,000 Japanese died on Okinawa, but a Japanese war memorial counts over 243,000 total dead on all sides. As part of this battle, the battleship Yamato was sent on a suicide mission with orders to beach itself on Okinawa and fight to the death. On April 7th, the ship was spotted and sunk by American bombers before reaching the island, sinking with 2,500 men aboard. By May 29th, Japanese defenses were failing, and almost every Japanese soldier on the island was dead by the end of the battle. The U.S. now had the perfect staging ground for an invasion of the Japanese home islands. Next time on Godlike: The end of the war.
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Mar 14, 2017 20:13
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ZorajitZorajit posted:Agreed, that felt like the weirdest point. I don't reflexively hate Elfs/Dwarves/etc. but they felt really out of place in the otherwise weird fiction setting of the rest of Zir'an. Same issue I have every time with the Tolkien races. It's obvious they aren't part of the initial plan. Each race has one picture each, then there are about a hundred generic human pieces in the book. There's one country for each race, 35 for humans. Humans come in every color, Neolli come in Neolli color. It's an imaginative world with some basic races tacked on later. Authors should either think about their races or think about why they are including them at all, basically.
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Mar 14, 2017 21:29
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theironjef posted:Same issue I have every time with the Tolkien races. It's obvious they aren't part of the initial plan. Each race has one picture each, then there are about a hundred generic human pieces in the book. There's one country for each race, 35 for humans. Humans come in every color, Neolli come in Neolli color. It's an imaginative world with some basic races tacked on later. Authors should either think about their races or think about why they are including them at all, basically. Though that's honestly pretty typical: Humans are the only ones who can diversify in both alignment and nationality without having to split off into sub-races.
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Mar 14, 2017 21:44
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There's actually a second country Neolli can be from but it's really uncomfortable because it plays up the 'our fantasy orcs are basically a Native American analogue" stuff to 11. The Periphery, where the only job history packages are like 'bandito' and 'wandering cowboy detective'. Meanwhile all the Neolli-only jobs are"Tribal warrior" and "Shaman". And the Neolli are basically orcs because their backstory is "Created by an evil wizard as monster foot soldiers", so, uh, yeah. The Gogach are basically the only non-humans with much thought put into them
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Mar 14, 2017 23:58
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Hey, what was that dieselpunk (I think?) game that was covered ITT, about air aces with superplanes?
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Mar 15, 2017 04:50
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Doresh posted:Though that's honestly pretty typical: Humans are the only ones who can diversify in both alignment and nationality without having to split off into sub-races. Yeah, this is hardly the first time we've come across that. I think I was complaining about it what, like maybe three episodes ago. Oh right, X-Crawl! unseenlibrarian posted:There's actually a second country Neolli can be from but it's really uncomfortable because it plays up the 'our fantasy orcs are basically a Native American analogue" stuff to 11. The Periphery, where the only job history packages are like 'bandito' and 'wandering cowboy detective'. The Neolli struck me as an anime-inspired inclusion more than anything. The few pieces of art of them were generally of the sexy variety, they sorta looked like whatever race Prince Lotor was.
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Mar 15, 2017 04:58
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Halloween Jack posted:Hey, what was that dieselpunk (I think?) game that was covered ITT, about air aces with superplanes? Warbirds
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Mar 15, 2017 06:36
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marshmallow creep posted:Man, I really liked some of that game's ideas and even bought a boxed set for it only too realize I'd discovered it too late and it was almost immediately dropped afterwards (I guess because FFG and GW split?) At least I know a few more people interested in their Star Wars games now, so I might have better luck with that or talk some of them into trying out WHFRP3e. FFG Star Wars has exactly the same problem with auto fire weapons, too..
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Mar 15, 2017 13:27
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hyphz posted:FFG Star Wars has exactly the same problem with auto fire weapons, too.. I'm not 100% convinced that FFG Star Wars didn't start out as an overhaul of 40K RP. The system of buying advances struck me as fairly similar, especially coming from the same company.
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Mar 15, 2017 14:47
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I remember flipping through a hardcopy of Zir'An back in the day. Tell me: is this one of those games where the setting is emphasized, but the first chapter is literally a thousand years of history, and the second chapter is details on every single nation? I've really come to loathe that style of presentation. Really sours me on Fading Suns, for instance. The authors of Zir'An are probably sick of having their game compared to Eberron. But it came out the year after Eberron, so that was inevitable. In fact, between 2000 and 2006 we got Adventure, Hollow Earth Expedition, Pulp Hero, and Spirit of the Century, so pulp games were not exactly rare and unique during that time, either. Also, while D&D 3e's rules are largely crap for what Eberron was trying to do with its setting, I think Eberron mostly benefited from being part of the D&D Genre. There's a lot going on in that setting, but you have the strong hook of being D&D Adventuring Party doing D&D things. Humbug Scoolbus posted:Warbirds
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Mar 15, 2017 15:58
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theironjef posted:Let's do some pulp adventure wrapped in an enigma wrapped in mirrored sunglasses printed on old newspapers: The Secret of Zir'An. Somewhat disappointed neither of you called it Secret of Zur-En-Arrh at some point.
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Mar 15, 2017 16:04
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Cooked Auto posted:Somewhat disappointed neither of you called it Secret of Zur-En-Arrh at some point. I could barely remember to call it the secret instead of the legend, so if I had been making a move on golden age Batman jokes they would have fallen flat for sure. I also got the author's name wrong: which is great. I've been trying to remember to list author and publisher at the start of episodes, this was a great way to do it.
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Mar 15, 2017 17:23
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unseenlibrarian posted:Apparently there were copies of it that were actually legible, but the ones that had bad print issues were numerous enough and the word of mouth was bad enough as a result that it pretty much killed the line. I think they published the GM's guide as PDF-only before folding? Apparently complaints about the silver foiling were bad enough that they released a PDF of the worst sections for free on their website.
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Mar 15, 2017 17:36
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Halloween Jack posted:I remember flipping through a hardcopy of Zir'An back in the day. Tell me: is this one of those games where the setting is emphasized, but the first chapter is literally a thousand years of history, and the second chapter is details on every single nation? I've really come to loathe that style of presentation. Really sours me on Fading Suns, for instance. I think it's symptomatic of the kind of people who write RPGs being the kind of people who get really deep into them and therefore actually appreciating that kind of stuff, or thinking that for their game to be popular the setting needs to have "depth". Which ironically is the exact opposite of what they should be doing, which is to make a game that is comprehensible and easy to start playing, so nobody ever goes puts the book aside for "later".
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Mar 15, 2017 17:36
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LatwPIAT posted:I think it's symptomatic of the kind of people who write RPGs being the kind of people who get really deep into them and therefore actually appreciating that kind of stuff, or thinking that for their game to be popular the setting needs to have "depth". Yeah, for many RPG players "depth" generally seems to actually just mean "you will never use 90% of this game".
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Mar 15, 2017 17:44
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ZorajitZorajit posted:I'm not 100% convinced that FFG Star Wars didn't start out as an overhaul of 40K RP. The system of buying advances struck me as fairly similar, especially coming from the same company. Yea, advances are from 40k and the dice system is from WFRP 3rd.
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Mar 15, 2017 18:00
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LatwPIAT posted:I think it's symptomatic of the kind of people who write RPGs being the kind of people who get really deep into them and therefore actually appreciating that kind of stuff, or thinking that for their game to be popular the setting needs to have "depth".
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Mar 15, 2017 18:59
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Evil Mastermind posted:Which is funny because they spend so much time with the "depth" they forget to mention what kinds of things the PCs are supposed to be doing apart from just wandering the setting and admiring it. Honestly lot of writers that go deep into that pings the "Frustrated Novelist GM" stereotype hard
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Mar 15, 2017 19:04
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LatwPIAT posted:I think it's symptomatic of the kind of people who write RPGs being the kind of people who get really deep into them and therefore actually appreciating that kind of stuff, or thinking that for their game to be popular the setting needs to have "depth". Thing is, going back to Eberron, even the setting has plenty of little D&Disms I find annoying (due to the requirements of the contest that made it an offical setting). But there are several strong hooks it dangles in front of the players, like exploring Xendrik and the Khyber, or fighting the Daelkyr. Does Zir'An have similarly engaging stuff that gets buried in the way the setting is presented? (It's funny that SLA Industries, which basically makes you Government Licensed Celebrity Detective Murderhobos, is also front-loaded with tons and tons of pointless setting crap.)
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Mar 15, 2017 20:11
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An example that always gets me is that Eclipse Phase puts "What the hell you do in the setting" front and center fairly early in the book, but it's one of the games where "What the hell do I do with it" comes up most often in threads about it.
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Mar 15, 2017 20:28
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Halloween Jack posted:Yeah, I've seen a lot of that, and it seems especially a problem for games published in that period from about '95 to '05. I suspect it's a mix knowingly or unknowingly trying to copy the success of Dungeons & Dragons and the World of Darkness games by saying "Yes, we also have a rich setting with lots of secrets, metaplot, and the potential for tie-in novels worth more than our entire RPG!" or simply cargo-cult design copying that - it fits with the time period, at least. unseenlibrarian posted:An example that always gets me is that Eclipse Phase puts "What the hell you do in the setting" front and center fairly early in the book, but it's one of the games where "What the hell do I do with it" comes up most often in threads about it. Sometimes people are just being idiots.
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Mar 15, 2017 20:38
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unseenlibrarian posted:An example that always gets me is that Eclipse Phase puts "What the hell you do in the setting" front and center fairly early in the book, but it's one of the games where "What the hell do I do with it" comes up most often in threads about it. On the other hand this gives me horrible Exalted flashbacks, so maybe not.
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Mar 15, 2017 20:55
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LatwPIAT posted:I suspect it's a mix knowingly or unknowingly trying to copy the success of Dungeons & Dragons and the World of Darkness games by saying "Yes, we also have a rich setting with lots of secrets, metaplot, and the potential for tie-in novels worth more than our entire RPG!" or simply cargo-cult design copying that - it fits with the time period, at least. 1. Our rules are REALISTIC and LOGICAL and UNIVERSAL, unlike D&D which is for babies. 2. Our setting is RICH and UNIQUE and STORY-FOCUSED, unlike D&D which is for babies. Post-2000 you started to see a lot of both, especially in the case of fantasy heartbreakers from that time. A lot of 90s games that sold themselves based on their setting and playstyle still had crazy realism-obsessed rules, for reasons that are still a matter of debate. My less cynical side sympathizes with the genuine desire to write a setting that's eminently playable, but with a richer history and broader range of cultures than your typical D&D setting. (It's the elves and dwarves that feel tacked on, and really drag the whole thing down for me.) I think that a lot of people who wrote such things really couldn't put themselves in the place of someone picking up their game for the first time and finding that the first huge part of the book is history, geography, and politics.
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Mar 15, 2017 21:33
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If say I don't really care how many chapters an RPG has, as long as exactly one of them is the basics of character creation. If it's the first six chapters because you gotta know a lot about local languages in several countries, you're not gonna be able to sell that to people at a con. Also I'd give this game a tentative yes on the players having something to do. There's low level threats regularly described, which is usually the big issue. Normal games with these issues (TORG cough cough) just have a litany of impossible mega threats that the PCs couldn't affect.
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Mar 15, 2017 21:44
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and then you get the nadir of Deadlands where it's not just you can't even touch the pet NPCs, but you're not even allowed to to sneeze without the setting's permission.
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Mar 15, 2017 22:25
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Asimo posted:This is a real interesting case, honestly. Since while it is up front about the things you can do with the setting, the character generation is so absurdly broad that it's really easy to focus on that and get off track. It really might be a game that would be better off with a general setting/core rule book centered on a single element and then secondary core books for different parts of the setting, just to force the reader to focus on the specific themes and locations they want to use. This, so much. Eclipse Phase has a serious case of biting way more than it can chew, so it tries to run Delta Green and Global Frequency in space, with characters that should have every possible background in terms of life story, employment, current residence and political allegiances and also the political groups are at each other's throats for a wide variety of reasons. It's much like Werewolf: the Apocalypse, where each of the 13-or-so playable tribes hate at least one other tribe. Lunars don't trust AGIs and hate people in synthmorphs, the Morningstar Coalition doesn't like the Planetary Consortium for political reasons, Jovians hate everyone but especially the Autonomists and also won't use the fun technology the setting has, Autonomists don't like capitalists (basically half the setting), Mercurials don't like bio-conservatives, Extropians are Autonomists who don't like other Autonomists, Brinkers just want to be left alone... If they'd cut it down so the only playable options were competent anti-TITAN operatives from one political group, it'd probably come out as a more coherent game.
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Mar 15, 2017 22:28
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LatwPIAT posted:This, so much. Eclipse Phase has a serious case of biting way more than it can chew, so it tries to run Delta Green and Global Frequency in space, with characters that should have every possible background in terms of life story, employment, current residence and political allegiances and also the political groups are at each other's throats for a wide variety of reasons. It's much like Werewolf: the Apocalypse, where each of the 13-or-so playable tribes hate at least one other tribe. Lunars don't trust AGIs and hate people in synthmorphs, the Morningstar Coalition doesn't like the Planetary Consortium for political reasons, Jovians hate everyone but especially the Autonomists and also won't use the fun technology the setting has, Autonomists don't like capitalists (basically half the setting), Mercurials don't like bio-conservatives, Extropians are Autonomists who don't like other Autonomists, Brinkers just want to be left alone... This is basically what the official FATE core hack does, TRANSHUMANITY'S FATE. I've always loved Eclipse Phase's setting but the system is just too married to some of the ShadowRun design asthetics (too granular skill list with some dumb skill names, too obsessed with gear and, ironically, gear costs). TF narrows the default assumption down to Firewall (Delta Green style secret agent folks) vs. nasty extinction-level threats. It's also well written and a fast read. Strongly recommend. The Lemondrop Dandy fucked around with this message at 22:43 on Mar 15, 2017 |
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Mar 15, 2017 22:40
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Also a lot of the "what do I do with it?" sort of arguments are really more "what sort of antagonists do I write up for the group and how do I make them mechanically fair?", and that's a thing a lot of games have historically had problems with.
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Mar 15, 2017 22:42
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