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Rock Donut Thursday is a perfect resolution system.
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Mar 20, 2017 18:42
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Doresh posted:I'm curious what'll happen when he discovers the concept of LARP. "Giving Monte a Hand Job." "Giving Monte a Blow Job." "Bending Over to make it easier for Monte." None of them actually beats the others, since the only person who ever wins is Monte.
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Mar 20, 2017 18:44
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Doresh posted:I'm curious what'll happen when he discovers the concept of LARP. 
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Mar 20, 2017 18:49
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Kurieg posted:The gestures are Those names aren't pretentious enough: Hanjo, Blo, Ben'Ver.
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Mar 20, 2017 18:52
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Sure sure, now what spell does the wizard class get that invalidates all of this?
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Mar 20, 2017 18:53
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Baby bunny cuddles baby duck and everyone wins Plus a d20 somehow.
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Mar 20, 2017 18:52
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Halloween Jack posted:Baby bunny cuddles baby duck and everyone wins If he really puts effort into it, he can probably make a rock-paper-scissors version with 20 gestures. I think I've even found ones that had more.
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Mar 20, 2017 18:54
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I'm just disappointed it doesn't use a resolution system involving a three card spread.
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Mar 20, 2017 18:57
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Probably rolls several D20s and consult a chart to decide how to cook a chicken dinner. ... and a separate chart for the mystical hand gestures
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Mar 20, 2017 18:59
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Barudak posted:Sure sure, now what spell does the wizard class get that invalidates all of this? Middle Finger of Death.
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Mar 20, 2017 19:22
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The same thing that always wins in paper rock scissors, the TNT Plunger.
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Mar 20, 2017 19:37
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 Polaris RPG(2016) Part 13, Book 1, Chapter 1: The World of the Deep, section 1.2: Civilizations of the Deep Minor Nations The great nations only form a small section of humanity under the ocean, the majority lives in independent stations(I highly doubt it because the Coral Republic, Hegemony and Red League add up to 200 million by themselves and 450 million was given as the world population at the start of the fall of the Azure Alliance and that was just at the start of the sterility crisis and ahead of the third set of apocalyptic world wars), where they slave away in the mines and hydroculture fields or fight against the never-ending attacks from pirates, sea monsters and other dangers. Despite their subsistence living, the independent stations completely eclipse the five major nations combined in military and industrial might if put together, somehow and all of them are wholly dependent on imported resources and foreign manpower, you know, completely the opposite of what the last 28 pages have been telling us at length. Equinox is a major hub of these kinds on contracts getting signed and according to the book the independent stations will be even more influential in the future because today's superpowers are waning(actually only the Red League is dying, everybody else is doing fine). Some of them have even begun forming into new nations themselves, of which the book presents "a few"(read: all of them because the map is full): Amazonia  Clearly these smaller and slightly less overdesigned flags are what will lead these newcomers to triumph as the powers that be collapse under an uprising of enraged vexillologists. Amazonia is a closed off state that only a handful of outsiders are allowed to visit. It's ruled by a king called Basanf who occasionally meets with representatives from the Cult of the Trident but otherwise nothing is known about Amazonia other than that they have a well developed pharmaceutical industry. Haha just joking here's their detailed capital writeup. Amazonia Population: 36.000 Depth: -140m Fertile population: 48% Mutant population: 20% Nobody knew Amazonia existed up until 8 years ago until Lavara Teknacos, it's diplomat to Equinox, rolled up. Barely any outsiders are allowed into the city and others are reliant on long range surveillance to see that the station is unusually close to the surface(not really, see Coral Republic) and that the locals are mining some unknown, diamond-like material. The city is protected by a large energy field of unknown source and priests of the Trident are not welcome, leading to rumours that the city is under control of the Black Sun(again, contradicting the previous paragraph). Amazonia also harvests from hundreds of ancient ruins, from which they take both their language, Amanean, and their religion, the worship of a snake bodied god named Leziryss(note: Amazonia is located in Bolivia, which is nowhere near any civilization that worshipped Kukulkan or Quetzalcoatl). Amazonians also have an unexplained ability to speak Arkonian(The book will not explain why that is important for another 30 pages. It's the Genetician language). Ecology wise, the region is plagued by predatory fauna but Amazonia's pharmaceutical industry is capable of producing many high quality plant based medicines which are in high demand all across the world(All of it is Azurean. The book will not tell you this where it makes sense to say that, namely here, but in the equipment chapter, some 300 pages further in). The Enderby Confederation  Some crude google maps distance estimating shows the nearest seahorse population to be 7000km away from where Enderby is. Good job. The Enderby Confederation is a mining community led by a woman named Emma Peterson and constant rival to nearby New Lemuria, fighting over local mineral resources. Recently, Equinox oversaw the signing of a treaty so maybe they'll become friends in the future. Cape City Population: 30.000 Depth: -2.100m Fertile population: 14% Mutant population: 17% Cape City is the only permanent human habitation in Enderby, the rest is all mineshafts. With the new diplomatic ties between them and their old rival New Lemuria, the states may soon merge into a single larger one. Explorers sent onto land have discovered traces of a Genetician depot. The Rift States  This would be a functional flag if they had just stuck to the pyramid, Ahnk symbol and sun disk so they just had to go and put hundreds of polka dots on the background. The Rift States are located in the fertile Red Sea and are the world's premier foodstuffs producer. Somehow. Despite having only 28.000 people compared to the Coral Republic's 127 million. Keep that first number in mind, it will become important soon. They are friends with their neighbours and ruled by a productivity commission. Ossyr Population: 22.000 Depth: -300m Fertile population: 37% Mutant population: 1% Ossyr is one of the largest commercial hubs in the world(Coral Republic and Red League say hi) and stretches down several kilometers into the depths(I'm sure it does given that it's located somewhere around the Dahlak Archipelago where wikipedia tells me the maximum depth is <200 meters. This also directly contradicts the stat block above). In addition to being a trade port, the "city of a thousand wonders" is also a major tourist destination and the temple to the sun god Ossyr is one of the greatest sights in the underwater world. They also decided to name their local language, Ossyrian after it. Ziar Population: 14.000 Depth: -665m Fertile population: 13% Mutant population: 19% A city of 22.000 inhabitants and one of 14.000 somehow add together to form a country of only 28.000 people. A+ rating would let Tessier do my math homework again. Ziar is Literally Dubai and consists of an upper class of traders and merchants living in opulence and many imported labourers exploited in squalid conditions. The book has completely forgotten about the Ziar Empire in the Mediterranean Union history section. The Cape Federation  Somebody misunderstood the idea of smaller flags and instead shrunk down a big one to the point where it's not even possible any more to see all the little details. The Cape Federation is a collective of 34 diamond and gold mining settlements(consisting of 24 regular stations and 12 major cities... I think Tessier may be suffering from discalculia) led by Supervisor Elliot Deminsk. It has a population of 189.000, many of which used to be mercenaries, hence it's relatively large fleets. Working conditions in the mines are terrible and the cities are constant under attack by Burrowers. It also has an arms factory and some rudimentary farming areas, where they co-operate with a large group of dolphins. HEY GUY'S ITS LITERALLY SOUTH AFRICA. Draken Population: 24.600 Depth: -410m Fertile population: 12% Mutant population: 13% Draken operates many mines on the surface and thus has a bigger than average collection of backhoes. Pitcap Population: 52.300 Depth: -230m Fertile population: 23% Mutant population: 12% Pitcap is the Federation's capital and largest mining city. The Burrower attacks are so bad that the Supervisor has recently purchased a lot of Hegemony equipment to counter their threat. Walvis Population: 40.200 Depth: -1.500m Fertile population: 17% Mutant population: 34% Hey look at just how South African this place is! It even has random Dutch words for town names! It's under attack by Burrowers and pirates. Contrary to it's name translating to "Whale" it has nothing to do with cetaceans of any kind. Fuego Liberdad  Flag design courtesy of Tessier's 14 year old nephew, I think. The richest state in the region(despite being wedged between the Hegemony and the Red League), this community of 34.000 souls is owned remotely by a council of shareholders located in Equinox and is almost entirely focussed on mining Cylast and tri-terranium. It also features a very high birthrate and gets not one but two named characters, Admiral Pellock in charge of it's defence fleets and Cyrus Terling, it's majority shareholder in Equinox. On June 23, 567 Fuego was attacked by pirates and forced to call for foreign aid. The Hegemony answered but they didn't stop with driving away the pirates, instead they occupied the entire community and raided their newly discovered Genetician depot. This led to loud complaints but no further action by the S.M.S.O. Hang on, according to the Hegemony history section, the war started with an unprovoked Hegemonic attack and THEN the pirates got involved, leading to an embarrassing defeat and hasty retreat. Consistency! Fuego Liberdad Population: 34.600 Depth: -4.800m Fertile population: 43% Mutant population: 18% Wow they truly do have the highest birthrate! 600 new babies born between their description paragraph and the statblocks! The mines are not running at full capacity and are expected to be expanded soon. There are rumours that the community secretly supports the pirate Telkran Raljik. By "rumours" the book means this was already confirmed 30 pages back. New Lemuria  I can't tell if this is supposed to say something in a language I can't read or if it's just gibberish. A 28.000 strong tri-terranium mining community led by Karl Onstarberg. It owns "a small fleet of cruisers" somehow. Kergeulen Population: 8.000 Depth: -1.600m Fertile population: 10% Mutant population: 26% A drab and grey mining settlement. It's recently been surrounded by whirlpools and nobody knows why or how long they'll last. Lemuria Population: 18.000 Depth: -410m Fertile population: 28% Mutant population: 19% Capital of New Lemuria and seat of it's ruling council. The state actively fights pirates and supports smaller independent settlements against them as well. The rivalry with the Enderby Confederation is never mentioned again. Rhodia  I'm the four different gradients of blue ruining up this otherwise sensible flag. Rhodia started when the community of Rhode found an Azure Alliance depot. The new state is growing economically and attracts many migrants. It's previous council president, Paul Gan, died in an unspecified accident and has since been replaced by somebody named Victorius who aims to turn Rhode into the greatest economic nexus in the world, using machines found in the depot. This is the last time the entire nation is mentioned for the rest of the book. The rest of the ruling council is filled with priests of the Trident and the state does not have it's own military, relying solely on the Watchers for protection. Rhode Population: 12.900 Depth: -1.560m Fertile population: 12% Mutant population: 13% Rhode is constantly under attack by pirates seeking to loot it's Azurean technology. The Cult of the Trident jealously protects said technology with it's Watcher fleets(remember, the Watchers are supposed to be independent from the Cult). The Kingdom of the Indus  And we close off this post with another dose of single pixel details. A wealthy and economically growing community of "over 45.000" inhabitants making a living from farming as well as mining copper, gold and Cylast. It's ruled by a Hegemonic nobleman who calls himself Duke Pillar de Rochas(Kingdoms are not ruled by dukes. It's right there in the name) who build a feudal society around himself. Kryss Population: 20.000 Depth: -215m Fertile population: 29% Mutant population: 6% A typical KotI city where nobles rule over serfs with no rights at all but apparently the nobility provides them with decent living conditions. Awww, look at who's being all benevolent dictator here. The local language is Trashanes, a mix of old Azuran, Arkonian and an unmentioned language of ancient times. Kryss is also the drug capital of the world, exporting all kinds of hallucinogenic to every corner of the ocean. Pushkar Population: 32.000 Depth: -230m Fertile population: 29% Mutant population: 10% Capital of the The section ends with another Trident cultists letter to Equinox, this time from a spy in the KotI talking poo poo about the Duke and how he's an rear end in a top hat for killing his political opponents by exiling them to the surface and that he may secretly have ties with the Ashniri as if that wasn't already blindingly obvious. Next time: The Fellowship of the Watchers and some other unimportant losers who got lumped into a section with them.
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Mar 20, 2017 21:38
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Doresh posted:If he really puts effort into it, he can probably make a rock-paper-scissors version with 20 gestures. I think I've even found ones that had more. Oh hey I had this laying around. 
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Mar 20, 2017 21:53
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INSPIRES . GUN is exactly the kind of result I'd expect to show up on a Monte Cook chart in a sorta narrative game. Polaris is heavy on unnecessary detail, but so was Blue Planet and that's considered a niche classic. I'm not sure why wizards are at all necessary, though?
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Mar 20, 2017 21:58
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Asehujiko posted:enraged vexillologists I had someone get really mad at me for saying that I thought the non-salsa version of the Aztlan flag that I posted last update was 'fine', and they suggested that 'fixing' it would be removing the curve of green in replace for a straight line, changing the stroke on the octogon, and removing the stylized eagle-on-cactus symbol. I pointed out that the actual real-world flag of Mexico has the same icon, and he doubled down on it saying that the actual mexican flag is bad and that they 'should be ashamed of having a flag that can't be differentiated from Italy's at a distance'. I decided that I respected the intensity of his convictions and let the matter drop. Asehujiko posted:Fuego Liberdad This, however, is 
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Mar 20, 2017 22:03
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Green Intern posted:Mmm, Cheesetaters. Seriously. Another poster covered how much bullshit the Heavy Bolter is able to put out earlier, and it's staggering. Because Deathwatch has exploding 10s for critical hits, with the right weapon it's entirely possible to keep rolling 10s and deal more than enough damage with just the Heavy Bolter to punch through the frontal armor of a Dreadnought or even a Land Raider. Rites of Battle is one of the first splatbooks that they made before errata, and there are a ton of bullshit weapons that break the system. Someone earlier mentioned the Breaching Augur - this is one such weapon.
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Mar 20, 2017 22:06
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Crasical posted:This, however, is It looks like a Gurren Lagann ripoff, though?
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Mar 20, 2017 22:08
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If all you want is the Heavy Bolter, playing a TacMarine with Bolter Mastery applies to the Heavy Bolter. It's still a Bolt Weapon. Also you can take your specialist ammo clip for TacMarine for the HB, though Hellfire rounds don't work well in it since they get weird with HBs. Honestly the fact that Bolt weapons are so goddamn amazing (and even moreso pre errata, before they starting to realize 'wait poo poo the Righteous Fury rules mean maybe we should be regulating how many D10s you're rolling per hit) makes playing a Bolt Mastery TacMarine who just focuses on rifles and HMGs (or in one case, doing john woo poo poo with a rifle in one hand since Marines can wield their Bolter one handed and their sidearm in the other) work out real nicely.
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Mar 20, 2017 22:10
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Darth Various posted:Oh hey I had this laying around. I thought this was a Naruto Jutsu chart. I am still not convinced it isn't.
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Mar 20, 2017 22:18
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Darth Various posted:Oh hey I had this laying around. Wolf should get more bonuses on account of being harder to throw at speed.
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Mar 20, 2017 23:04
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 Godlike, Chapter VI: Life in these United States So, a brief recap of the history chapter: at about a hundred pages of the book, it’s Godlike’s longest chapter. I really appreciated the way they put some focus on oft-neglected theatres of the war, like Scandinavia and Czechoslovakia, but I felt they gave short shrift to China and Korea. This is reflected in the featured Talents: we get a Dane, a Czech, a Finn, and one Chinese and one Japanese guy. They make it clear that Talents are psychological, and cultural memes influence Talent creation, but “Japanese people don’t develop Talents” is an odd device to give Japan short shrift. I also would have liked to see some meaningful changes to major battles of the war. I mean, the biggest Talent-related changes to the war include things like a greater role for resistance groups thanks to Pevnost, the assassination of Quisling, and the Russians not being able to raise the Red Flag over the Reichstag because it was already leveled. In fact, the occasionally-mentioned “tribal magic” has a much greater impact on the setting than anything the Talents of the developed world did. Lord Yama is sort of the exception that proves the rule. Anyway. Chapter 6 is a brief overview of life in the 1940s and how it was changed by Talents, focused on the United States. The book hastens to say that Godlike isn’t meant to be U.S.-centric, but they don’t have the space to describe daily life in every country affected by the war. By the same token, if anything here sticks out as terribly wrong, remember that you’re reading my summary of their summary of various summaries. The first thing this chapter points out is that the U.S. made a huge contribution to the war effort, but our perspective tends to be skewed by the fact that we never fought the war in our homeland. We fielded over 16 million military personnel over the course of the war, and lost over 400,000 people counting a very few civilian casualties. Compare that to the USSR, which fielded 20 million soldiers and lost as many as 11 million soldiers and 20 million civilians. American in the 40’s At the end of the 1930s, the U.S. was busy recovering from the Great Depression. The economy was recovering rapidly thanks to the New Deal, so despite years of hardship, the public was optimistic about the future. Many people were the first person in their family to own a radio, a washing machine, or a car. The downside of this is that few questioned the status quo. Even as the Nazis invaded Poland, unless you were Polish, Poland might as well be the moon. It was a time when people obeyed the rules, spoken and unspoken. Husbands were heads of the household, wives were homemakers, children obeyed their parents, and they all attended church together each Sunday. Prosperity took the wind out of communism and other dissident political movements that had gained popularity in the ‘20s. Women were objects to be protected, kept away from “real” labour. Career women were harassed and blackballed and couldn’t do much about it. With rare exceptions, American women weren’t combatants, even while China, the USSR, and many resistance groups deployed women soldiers. Different ethnicities didn’t mix, and minorities created their own communities including their own networks of businesses, churches, etc. Nonwhite people, Jews of any ethnicity, and anyone noticeably foreign were considered second-class citizens at best, and blacks suffered under a bevy of “separate but equal” laws. Racial slurs were common, but aside from that, most people didn’t even consider racial stereotyping to be bigoted or cruel--it was just “the way things are.” After Pearl Harbor, Japanese-Americans were rounded up and interned in concentration camps to prevent a nonexistent “insurgency.” Later a group of Japanese-Americans, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, fought in Europe and became the highest-decorated unit in Army history, but the government and the media never mentioned their accomplishments. The all-black 99th Fighter Squadron was similarly overlooked. Public Opinion The Great Depression and the death toll of WWI imbued the U.S. with a strong isolationist sentiment that held out even as the Nazis rolled through Poland. That isolationism waned rapidly as Germany attacked the English-speaking United Kingdom. Americans were gradually persuaded by such things as Edward R. Murrow’s reports from ruined British cities, the courage of Winston Churchill, and their own President Roosevelt’s “fireside chats.” American antiwar opinion was almost totally eroded before Pearl Harbor caused it to collapse. (On a personal note, I once assisted a research project that had me skimming a lot of Boston newspapers from the late ‘30s. There seemed to be a mixture of ridicule and bemused concern in articles about Germany doing such things as starting an Aryans-only national chess league.) In Godlike, American opinion shifted more rapidly thanks to Talents. Joe Blow American didn’t give a poo poo about Slovakia or Finland, but he was fascinated by Der Flieger and Pevnost. A related reason was the expatriation of Charles Lindbergh. In real life, Lindbergh was indeed a pro-Nazi racist who nonetheless supported the war effort after Pearl Harbor. In Godlike, the appearance of Der Flieger convinced Lindbergh of European racial superiority so strongly that he expatriated to Germany and renounced his American citizenship. Hating Lindbergh soon became a national pastime, even including mass burnings of memorabilia commemorating his famous flight. Lastly, the British Talent fundraising tour in the summer of 1941 did a great deal to rally American public opinion in favour of Lend-Lease and entering the war. Bolt, Pop, and Bulldog became instant celebrities. The Arsenal of Democracy Even in hindsight it’s hard to grasp how quickly the U.S. mobilized for war after the attack on Pearl Harbor. In 1939 we had 170,000 active military; at the end of the war there were well over 8 million. Almost every able-bodied person volunteered for the war, if not as active military, then as part of civil defense. The support for the war on the “home front” was just as remarkable as the country shifted to a war economy overnight. The U.S. produced over a million fighting vehicles, millions of guns, and over 41 billion rounds of ammo. Scrap rubber, metal, and oil were collected, and consumer goods like gasoline, sugar, and meat were controlled by rationing laws. But that was small potatoes compared to the wholesale redirection of American industry toward making planes, tanks, bombs, guns, ammunition, and other military equipment. Roosevelt’s administration made war production good financial sense--also true for the millions of women who entered industrial jobs for the first time. While America had incredible manpower in the wake of Pearl Harbor, our military was ill-equipped to properly train them. Tactics were obsolete relics from the trenches of WWI, and drills were practiced with antique equipment or none at all--grenadiers and machine gunners practiced with potatoes and broomsticks. There were far too few schools to train officers and specialists. You’re in the Army Now The Army expanded its facilities and updated its methods until by late 1942, training was intense and efficient. Recruits in boot camp had vanishingly little free time. Every soldier learned many specialized skills including map reading, artillery spotting, radio ops, handling POWs, and the list goes on. For some men, this was the first time they were taught basic literacy, hygiene, and first aid skills that we take for granted today. After boot camp and before deployment, on the other hand, soldiers often had little to do besides busywork dreamed up by their commanders. Life in the field was rough. Soldiers slept in foxholes, waiting for rations, ammo, and news delivered by couriers on foot. When occupying a town, troops were just grateful for cooked rations and a roof over their heads. Looting valuables was common. Some officers punished it harshly, while others simply demanded the first pick for themselves. On the other hand, looting and bartering enemy weapons and equipment was openly tolerated. Propaganda, Propaganda, Propaganda! WWII was arguably the first time that media had an impact on the war, not just vice versa. Media publishers in every country followed government orders, and opportunism, artistic vision, and heartfelt dissent were all put aside in favour of the war effort. In the U.S., the most widespread popular entertainment was radio. Popular programs included Your Hit Parade and Truth or Consequences, and shows featuring popular hosts such as Milton Berle, Red Skelton, Jack Benny, Bob Hope, the list goes on. Not to mention superheroic shows shows like Superman, The Shadow, Green Hornet, and Buck Rogers! Movie theatres were also popular. The era produced stars such as Humphrey Bogart and Judy Garland, and now-classic films like Casablanca and Citizen Kane. People also flocked to theatres to see newsreels like The March of Time. For most this was the only way to see events across the world. The fascist countries were making effective use of propaganda long before the United States. In Germany, Minister of Propaganda Josef Goebbels oversaw the production of film, radio, and print media glorifying the race and the Reich and damning the “Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy.” Massive statues of Aryan demigods, and films like the masterfully-directed Triumph der Willens portrayed Germans as a pure Apollonian warrior race. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHs2coAzLJ8&t=5382s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iH6a1iYQ0GA In the United States, once we were committed to war, that was it: the media supported the government one hundred percent. Certain unspoken rules were followed. Newspapers discarded any story, no matter how valuable, that might threaten operational security. Mainstream journalists avoided directly criticizing President Roosevelt, and he was always depicted in such a way as to minimize his disability. A division of Warner Bros. was incorporated into the Army. Stars like Clark Gable and John Wayne were making propaganda films, along with Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny. Jimmy Stewart joined the Army Air Corps and flew dozens of combat missions, while many stars performed at USO shows and war bond fundraisers. Americans were kept abreast of the war--at least, of what the government wanted them to know--through nightly radio broadcasts and newsreels in local theatres. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNMrMFuk-bo I saw this cartoon dozens of times before I was old enough to know about Hirohito, income tax, sauerkraut, and other things my grandfathers hated with a passion. From the beginning of the war, public ire was directed at the Japanese. Officials played on the public’s fear, making the Pacific War feel minutes away from the West Coast. The Japanese were depicted as shrimpy, dimwitted subhumans who were nonetheless a dangerous horde fanatically loyal to their false god, Hirohito. Washington knew that the Japanese were anything but stupid, and the top brass were desperate to mobilize the country as fast as possible. Talents and Propaganda Before the Nazi threat became impossible to ignore, Der Flieger was one of the most popular and beloved people in the world. He had movie star good looks and he could fly. Women wanted him, men wanted to be him. He was the Nazi Superman...but only while he was the only super-man. When the “British Four” toured America to drum up support for Lend-Lease, the whole English-speaking world now had Talent celebrities who were the talk of every town. When America got its first Talent in the form of the Indestructible Man, Allied analysts correctly predicted that many more would follow. American Talents were bigger than movie stars, and some actually became movie stars. The Indestructible Man dated Lana Turner, the Flat Man starred in comedies, and Kilroy starred alongside Jimmy Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life. Directors like Welles, Disney, and Murnau cast many Talents in their films. The media created an elaborate fantasy biography that papered over Claude Moreland’s origins as an obscure nobody before he became the Indestructible Man. But still, the appeal was clear: anyone could dream of suddenly becoming a Talent. On the war front, large events of the war were often depicted in terms of Talent clashes, making the events easy for common people to understand. (As an aside, this is the essential appeal of Marvel superhero films today.) Nazi Übermenschen were portrayed as comic-book villains and Allied Talents as flawless comic-book heroes. Talents and the War Many of the first Talents had dangerous powers, but they were few in number, more useful as propaganda tools than as human weapons. As the world population of Talents grew, governments figured out how to use them in commando operations, and eventually on the front line. The British and Germans were the first to use Talents as shock troops, attacking flanks and striking deep behind enemy lines. Powerful Talents introduced an acute “what if” factor to every military operation. But once there were enough Talents, analysts realized that since they could all detect and resist one another’s powers, the solution was to spread Talents thinly across front line units. This is probably the biggest reason that Talents didn’t make a huge difference to the overall history of WWII. Most nations had a mandatory draft for Talents, though the U.S. didn’t, and it wasn’t necessary. Almost every active Talent in the world served in the war in some way. While governments covered up bad publicity related to Talents, they were rarely pampered. It’s true that Talents usually got the best supplies and equipment to keep morale high, but their training was grueling, and discipline for misbehaviour was especially harsh. The Marines gave a special pitchfork badge to those who graduated from their all-Talent “Hell’s Motel” camp on Paris Island. Talents and the Law Wisconsin vs. Taft set a precedent whereby state and local governments were free to create laws forbidding the use of Talent powers except in private or in self-defense. The first man convicted of using his Talent to commit murder was Enzo “the Eraser” Tagliano in 1951. He was convicted despite making his victims literally disappear. However, such crimes were rare--Talents rarely had trouble making an honest living with their powers. Incarcerating Talent prisoners was surprisingly easy, but harsh. Those who misbehaved were kept on sedatives, while extremely dangerous cases were sometimes lobotomized. “Super-Man” O’Malley was the most famous case. Talent soldiers who committed serious crimes, like the Army teleporter who smuggled Nazi gold, could look forward to long sentences in Leavenworth and a steady diet of sedatives. As Roosevelt put it, “Power precludes abuse. Or the government’s acceptance of such abuse.” Talent POWs were also easy to control with harsh threats. Captured Übermenschen were threatened with RAF bombings on their hometowns, or being turned over to the Russians for a “military trial.” Rumours of how the Red Army treated POWs kept most in line. One who did escape, a young German called Der Habicht (“The Hawk”) flew in circles for hundreds of miles before eventually turning himself in, unable to navigate the vast United States. On the other hand, Allied POWs captured by Germans and Japanese were treated as subhuman subjects for experimentation. Australian Corporal “Gravedigger” Graves had his limbs amputated over and over again without anesthesia so his Japanese captors could study his power. Many Allied Talents chose suicide over capture. Gimme five bees for a quarter you’d say There’s a glossary of slang from the ‘40s, some of it invented for the setting, much not. I’ve learned my lesson after reviewing Immortal and Everlasting, so I’m just going to include the ones I find most interesting. A Direct Line to God: Any Talent that prevents damage. Applesauce: Bullshit. Bulldozer, Muscles: A super-strong Talent. Chairborne: A soldier with a desk job. Charity Girl, V-Girl: A woman who will sleep with soldiers. Shell shock, Shakes, Heebie Jeebies: Combat stress/PTSD. Bughouse, Camp Happy, Cutting Out Paper Dolls: References to insanity and asylums. Dud: Useless Talent power. GI Jesus: Army priest. If a paratrooper, a Jumping Jesus. German Yellow Fowl: Der Flieger or other flying enemy Talents. Goldbrick: To loaf around on the job. Give ‘em the Hotfoot: Using a fire-based Talent. Kaiser’s Boy: German soldier. Uncle Joe’s Boy: Russian soldier. Leadproof: Bulletproof Talent. My Invisible Friend: Telekinesis. Pull a Claude Raines: Use an invisibility Talent. Poof: To teleport. I wonder what the British thought of this one. Popper: Teleporter. Propless Wonder: Talent flyer. Steel Straitjacket: Reference to mental illness among Talents. Überkraut:: German Talent. We Die First: Play on the TOG motto, “We Go First.”  Next time on Godlike: Guns. Machine guns. Anti-tank guns. Long-range guns. Guns, guns, all kinds of guns! To blast the aggressors from the seas. Bombers! Dive bombers! Flying Fortresses! Interceptors! To stalk the birds of prey that fly by night. Ships. Battleships. Battlecruisers. Destroyers. All kinds of battlewagons! Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 00:44 on Mar 21, 2017 |
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Mar 21, 2017 00:41
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  Chapter 4: Tradecraft The Basic Rule Ruleschat time. This is Unisystem, the system that is united. If you've read a Unisystem review before, you'll probably be disappointed at the lack of anything new to discuss here and may want to just skip this post. I'm going to try to balance covering things and not being too verbose on them as a result Action resolution is entirely predicated on the d10 plus any bonuses and outside modifiers to the d10 roll. There are two forms of resolution that are present in Conspiracy X/Unisystem games. Tests come in two difficulties, with Simple being your d10 roll + (Attribute x 2), while Difficult is just straight up roll and Attribute. Tasks we covered the basics of back in the Skills section of chapter 2. If your Task or Test is meant be an opposed roll rather than targeting the usual result of a 9 or higher, such as a Simple Strength Test vs. Simple Strength Test for arm wrestling or Dexterity and Stealth Task vs. a Simple Perception Test to avoid being noticed, it is referred to as a Resisted Test or Task. If you don't have any ranks in the skill you want to use, you can choose to make a Difficult Test based on the Attribute associated with the skill's Task and an added -2 penalty. You also can't get an Outcome any higher than Decent when using an Task unskilled. What's an Outcome, you may ask? It's an optional degree of success related to the rolling of a Task or Test, which can be used "as often or as seldom as the Chronicler desires". So anything on this big ol' table...  ...can be ignored or utilized depending on whether or not you feel it's useful. Finally, you have what is referred to as the Role of Luck. This is the Unisystem's name for its critical failure and critical success system. I'll just quote these because honestly it's a bit hard for me to attempt to put into simpler words.  Conspiracy X Second Edition posted:On a roll of 10, roll again, subtract five, and add the result (if higher than zero) to 10. If the second roll is five or less, nothing is added and the final roll remains 10. If another 10 is rolled, add five to the roll (for a total of 15), and roll again. If a player rolls a string of 10s, he keeps adding fives to the result and rolling again. The possible results are summarized in the Role of Luck Table.  Getting Scared Fear Tests are your standard fright checks. These are a Simple Willpower Test in most occasions, changing to a Difficult Will Test if a character has psychological complications that weak their resolve in the situation. Some events can add a negative modifier to the roll, with the same light hand being given here as it has been in other situations describing modifiers: "very gory and gruesome events", "hideous creatures", and "alien or thoroughly evil auras that inspire a deep, instinctual fear in people" each have their own range of roll penalties. There are also optional rules for forcing Fear Tests if you are shot, or even shot at if you are particularly cruel. You can choose to either be simple and have most failed Fear Tests just result in either a lost turn or a desire to run away (which always apply for the above shot/shot at optional rules), or you can consult the dreaded  Fear Table , wherein lie such effects as d8 turns of screeching and babbling, making GBS threads yourself, fainting, gaining new Mental Drawbacks, or having a heart attack. What is always set in stone is that you lose points of Essence due to failing a Fear Test. This is a single Essence point for a roll of 7 or 8, 2 Essence for a roll of 5 or 6, d4 on a 4, d6 on a 3, d8 on a 2, and d10 on a 1. Combat Hurting each other is a specific type of Task that is a bit more involved than most, and has a specific turn order in order to keep everything clean. Each turn of combat is broken down into Intention, Initiative, Performance, Damage, Repeat (have the previously four steps repeat for each other player in the turn), and End Turn. After everyone declares their Intention (what they want to do in the turn), you roll for Initiative via d10 + Dexterity and determine who moves first, second, and so on and so forth. You can also just eschew rolling entirely and decide who goes in what order by what action they are taking, if that suits your fancy. Performance is the actual Task rolling. Close combat (two individuals with unarmed or melee weapons) allows for one combat Task and one defense Task or Test, with any actions beyond that having a cumulative -2 to their roll, while any other form of combat starts piling on those -2s for any action past one initial one. Hitting someone is a Task that has Dexterity plus the relevant weapon skill for its roll, while dodging is either Dodge + Dexterity for those who have that skill or a Difficult Dexterity Test for those that don't, and the two are obviously Resisted Tasks/Tests against each other if both sides are engaging in action and reaction accordingly. Martial arts in particular are a bit more complicated, in that the Martial Arts skill has its own set of techniques, known as Combat Moves. You get to choose three Combat Moves that are always the same level as your Martial Arts skill, as well as a special pool of points based on your Martial Arts level that you can use to buy up further Combat Moves. You get 3 Combat Move points per level of your Martial Arts skill, with Combat Moves outside of your free core three costing 6 Combat Move points for their first level and then a single point for each additional level. You can't raise a Combat Move's level higher than your Martial Arts skill's level. Most Combat Moves are the same as those in All Flesh Must be Eaten's martial arts book Enter the Zombie, including techniques such as Choke (win a Strength and Choke Task vs. a Strength and Constitution Test on a grappled target to choke them for -2 to all their actions and a lack of air), Disarm (win a Dexterity and Disarm Task vs. Dexterity and weapon skill Task to disarm someone), and Roundhouse (deal d6 x Strength damage, but you can't make any other attack actions in your turn). A big change, however, is that you can now buy Combat Moves grouped together as Combos. Combos cost a number of points equal to how many Combat Moves as in the Combo, though you can attempt them unbought at a -1 penalty to your skill rolls. They're a pretty risk and reward type of maneuver to pull off: get all the skill rolls for each Combat Move pulled off and you have a flowing set of actions that don't suffer the normal penalties for multiple turn actions, screw it up (be it a failed roll, a dodged attack, or a blocked attack) and you both have your combo end and your turn's move actions spent up. What can make Combos even crazier is the three new Gun Fu Combat Moves added in Conspiracy X. As you might guess, Gun Fu moves are Combat Moves that put a pistol into your melee maneuvering. The Draw Pistol move is vital in combos, as it is what allows you to segue from fist to gun, and is needed to prepare for the other two Gun Fu moves, Pistol Whip (smack a guy with a pistol, deal d4 x [Strength + 1] damage) and Shoot (you shove the shooty end of the gun into your opponent, dealing the gun's damage at melee distance for great effect, but at the cost of the foe being able to knock the gun away with a Martial Arts move before you blast them). Ranged combat unsurprisingly adds range into the mix. The generic no-issue range is labeled "Short Range", with any range lower getting bonuses to hit and/or higher damage multipliers and any range higher going the other way.. There are also some guns that treat multiple action penalties differently, with non-heavy recoil semiautomatics having a cumulative -1 rather than -2 and automatics having special fire options. An automatic weapon gets to fire a volley (three to five shots for a burst fire, and ten for hosing/"rock 'n roll") that count as a single attack roll and action at the cost of a greater penalty for multiple actions in the turn. Such automatic firearm attacks look to the Outcome roll table, with each level of success up to the number of shots fired equaling another damage roll that removes the usual multipliers and just deals a flat die of damage instead. And if all of this is a bit too much for you, you can choose to utilize the Reduced Rolls system. It has you create flat scores for enemies rather than roll for them, putting all the rolls in the hands of the player. An enemy's attack "roll" is always Dexterity + weapon skill + 6, their defense is always the same formula but with Dodge instead of a weapon skill, they always deal the average damage of the weapon they use, and their armor is similarly always averaged.  Damage and Injury Sheer physical damage is all about the multipliers in Conspiracy X due to the lack of multiple dice for weapon damage, as was went over during the discussion of weapons last chapter. One of the ways to boost this damage is through called shots (or Targeting Body Parts, as it's called here). This is the kind of knowledge that will make your enemies get all worried and yell out "watch out, they know about Weapons aren't the only way things can hurt you, of course. You could be struck by poison, for instance. Conspiracy X breaks up poisons into three types: Corrosive and Irritant deal Life Point damage in a single die roll or over time with each dose respectively, while Narcotic is any type of poison that can induce drowsiness, unconsciousness, or organ failure. There are also a number of other effects such as disease, radiation, and drowning that pit the character in a Simple Constitution Test against a Simple "Strength" Test, with the Strength score being based on the potency of the danger in question. And, of course, there's also straight up damage rolls for falls and fire. On the opposing end of the paradigm to damage is defense. Armor is of the damage resistance/reduction variety, wherein the armor has a flat number plus a roll of a die. This number is how much damage from an attack ends up getting removed from an incoming attack, with full removal meaning the attack was fully absorbed. The available armors back in the last chapter are a generic body armor ("worn by SWAT teams and military units"), bomb suit, diving suit, generic hard helmet, radiation suit, kevlar vest, light vest (meant to deter melee weapons, not bullets), and wetsuit. The wetsuit is weakest with d6 +1 protection, while the bomb suit is the heftiest with d10 x 5 + 20. Static objects have both their own Armor Value and an equivalent for people hiding behind them, known as a Barrier Value. Once you've taken damage, you have to deal with the injury. 5 to 2 LP causes a -1 to most rolls, 1 LP means you are suffering -5 to those rolls. Once you hit 0 or below, you're making a special Willpower + Constitution - (HP below 0) Test known as a Consciousness Test to stay lucid and act for that turn. Hitting -10 means you are very much in trouble and are forced to make a Willpower + Constitution - (HP below -10) Test known as a Survival Test then and there, plus every minute afterward, accumulating a further -1 to the roll for each minute that passes. If you fail, you're dead. Someone who's dying can be stabilized by medical attention and certain psychic powers, and if you get to them in time you can even resuscitate a recently dead individual. Assuming they're not, like, decapitated or atomized or something, of course. LP recovery is either natural or aided through the First Aid skill. Attacks meant to KO someone and strenuous activity drains Endurance Points instead of Life Points. Getting to 0 Endurance Points means you are making a Consciousness Test at a -1 penalty for every 5 Endurance Points below 0 you have reached, with failure meaning you fall unconscious. Finally, Essence Point loss is its own strange beast. Reaching 0 Essence causes you to become really depressed, causing a -3 penalty to all Tasks and forcing a Difficult Willpower Test to avoid either losing a point of one mental Attribute or temporarily gain some mental illness on the Drawback chart. Go all the way down to -30 and you are forced to make a Survival Test to avoid dying via your soul just giving up, leaving no obvious cause of death and contributing to a fair number of "heart failure" diagnoses on the books. Experience EXP! You know it, you love it, it's all right here at the end of each game session. Experience points are point buy points just like those at character creation, only you have to both explain how you got better at what you got better at and need to spend more points for certain things than you would have at character creation. For instance, you can only raise an Attribute score by a level above the level it was at character creation, which costs 5 EXP rather than the 1 CP it costs to add a level of an Attribute back during chargen. On top of Experience Points, characters get to choose what they do for "downtime" between sessions, recommended to be around two weeks of in-game time wherein the agents can train, gain more resources, get therapy, and extended their sphere of influence. Next Time: With all that cruft over, it's time to look at ghosties, ghoulies, and terrible beasties. Chapter 5: The Paranormal looms ahead!
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Mar 21, 2017 00:48
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It does seem weird that there were few Japanese Talents in Godlike. You think the Imperial culture that tied in Shinto and Zen Buddhist elements would have created waves of kami-style Talents, Ameratsu-style sun goddesses and samurai heroes and the like.
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Mar 21, 2017 01:23
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gourdcaptain posted:Also, I think Juicer Uprising is next, and the titular event is amazing for how much of a bizarre mess it is. It's not, but it's coming up fairly soon. I'm hesitant to mention what the next one is because it's so amazingly underwhelming. I had to change my whole review method just to interest myself enough to cover it, which is why it's taking longer than it usually would.
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Mar 21, 2017 01:28
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Alien Rope Burn posted:It's not, but it's coming up fairly soon. I don't even pretend to remember the release schedule, but that sounds like Coalition Navy to me, since it's nothing but a list of ships and obvious water versions of regular Coalition stuff. Water dogs! Sea Spider Skull Walkers! Sleep! It could not be less interesting.
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Mar 21, 2017 01:48
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theironjef posted:I don't even pretend to remember the release schedule, but that sounds like Coalition Navy to me, since it's nothing but a list of ships and obvious water versions of regular Coalition stuff. Water dogs! Sea Spider Skull Walkers! Sleep! It could not be less interesting. Oh, geez. Coalition Navy. That sounds like luxury. It also has the completely rewritten nuclear weapons rules that make you ask "So, why isn't the Coalition just nuking everything?" But no, that's a long ways off, but it is close to where I'm working ahead on other supplements. hell the water dog boys are a loving reprint, even
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Mar 21, 2017 01:57
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Hey, so I don't usually post Afterthought episodes in here, since this space is for game reviews, but I thought this week it'd be worth it, since it turned out that Chris Hockabout, the author of The Secret of Zir'an, is a listener of our show already. So when he heard our review he reached out to us on Facebook, and we invited him on the show to talk about his game immediately. And here are the results of that interview in Afterthought 53 - The Secret is Inside.
theironjef fucked around with this message at 04:59 on Mar 21, 2017 |
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Mar 21, 2017 04:57
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potatocubed posted:Wolf should get more bonuses on account of being harder to throw at speed. I'm pretty sure with a boxed set that size he'd be using the next version the same guy came up with.. RPS with 101 symbols. http://www.umop.com/rps101.htm
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Mar 21, 2017 11:23
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Alien Rope Burn posted:It's not, but it's coming up fairly soon. ...You're not reviewing an index book, are you? Because that sounds rather pointless.
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Mar 21, 2017 15:53
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Lack of Japanese talents mostly seems like laziness to me. Either that or a fear that talents would have too much influence on naval battles compared to their relative impact on infantry fights.
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Mar 21, 2017 16:36
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Speleothing posted:Lack of Japanese talents mostly seems like laziness to me. Either that or a fear that talents would have too much influence on naval battles compared to their relative impact on infantry fights. Seems more like the latter. I apologize, but I haven't been reading the Godlike timeline, does it have anything on the 2nd Sino-Japanese War?
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Mar 21, 2017 16:37
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The part where superpowers have essentially no real effect on the war is the weirdest part of Godlike to me. Not the most offputting, but that only because it takes its premise - suffering and stress cause superpowers - and then doesn't follow through when dealing with the Holocaust, because that would change history. But seriously, it's just a WW2 timeline with footnotes of 'and also a superpower happened; nothing changed.'
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Mar 21, 2017 16:42
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That does completely throw away the sheer scale of symmetric warfare and how a small set of superpeople (in the end they are all still as fallible and vulnerable as the rest of us) cant change the tide of war. Say some key battles were turned in favor of the nazis due to talents, but the rest of the front kept being pushed back, the wins in those battles become meaningless as those positions start to become indefensible, unsuppliable islands. Delaying the inevitable as it were. Its also easy to go "and then the talents fixed and changed everything the end", and undermines the concept of godlike which is "as close to real life as we can get except with superpeople". We wouldnt have today as it is without the influence of ww2, without the cold war, without all the defining and forgettable moments through history. IMO tho where talents would really change the path of history is in insurgencies and in asymmetric, guerilla warfare. Vietnam, indochina, korea, Iraq/Afghanistan, civil uprisings and revolutions. Those kind of settings. Imagine The Troubles but with talents.
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Mar 21, 2017 17:15
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Yeah, see, I'm pretty sure that the Warsaw Uprising would've ended differently if superpowers got involved. To say nothing of the camps suddenly having superpowered people in them. Like, whatever, fine, the battles don't change, sure, whatever. Mordechai Anielewicz was already a goddamn superhero. You're telling me that nothing would change if some of the Jews, homosexuals, Roma or other people in the camps suddenly got superpowers? Like, I legitimately find it insulting that we have established that Talents are caused by stress and there isn't one rebelling Jewish Talent, the Holocaust hasn't changed at all.
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Mar 21, 2017 17:27
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They seem to want to have their cake and eat it too. Yes, one teleporting dude is not going to flip the strategic balance of the war, but for the overall flow of events to basically be exactly the same no matter what is a little too much. One person at the right place and the right time can change history. I think the timeline was a mistake, or at least it should have only been up to the start of 1942 or thereabouts. Giving the whole setting the canon outcome of "Basically the same as IRL" is boring.
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Mar 21, 2017 17:38
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It is true that a select few superheroes can't change history too much unless they're like Superman, but it's pretty obvious that "WW2 happened as in the books" was a giant rock the writers had to navigate around.Simian_Prime posted:It does seem weird that there were few Japanese Talents in Godlike. You think the Imperial culture that tied in Shinto and Zen Buddhist elements would have created waves of kami-style Talents, Ameratsu-style sun goddesses and samurai heroes and the like. Just you wait till tokusatsu takes off in about in the 60s or so. Doresh fucked around with this message at 18:12 on Mar 21, 2017 |
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Mar 21, 2017 18:05
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I liken superpowers (and magic) to technology. Many technological and scientific advances have modified warfare, and the people who learned those lessons first will win. At least initially, until the best ideas are copied. Though some superpowers would be more like the invention of the nuclear weapon than the invention of gunpowder.
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Mar 21, 2017 18:06
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Kavak posted:I apologize, but I haven't been reading the Godlike timeline, does it have anything on the 2nd Sino-Japanese War? Mors Rattus posted:Yeah, see, I'm pretty sure that the Warsaw Uprising would've ended differently if superpowers got involved. Rigged Death Trap posted:Its also easy to go "and then the talents fixed and changed everything the end", and undermines the concept of godlike which is "as close to real life as we can get except with superpeople". We wouldnt have today as it is without the influence of ww2, without the cold war, without all the defining and forgettable moments through history. My stance is that I agree with those who say that Godlike's timeline wasn't ambitious enough. However, if only for the sake of argument, I'll go to bat for their reasoning as regards specific events of the war. The way the Uprising went down in Godlike is that the Allies transported in Talents and equipment, but the Nazis had Talent shock troops as well--so the Allies pulled out their Talents when it became clear that Stalin was deliberately withholding reinforcements. There were thousands of Jewish Talents, but they're spread among numerous resistance groups or fighting with the Hagganah or Allied forces. At the end of the war they came together and made Israel a much more powerful nation that it was in real life at the time of its founding. The single biggest differences I can point to during the war are the use of more powerful poisons in the death camps (Zyklon-C) and the Battle of the Warsaw Ghetto. Jewish Talents killed a number of Ubermenschen, inflicted heavy casualties including the destruction of an entire tank division, and managed to evacuate some survivors before a small group of 250 Jews stayed behind to fight to the death as the Ghetto was overrun. The Nazis were apparently able to kill most of the Talents that manifested in the camps, as a scared, starved, demoralized civilian Talent is still a scared, starved, demoralized civilian. Many Jewish Talents probably manifested before they were sent to camps and not in them. In many ways I see Talents as analogous to other weapons. Gun-rights activists like to wax romantic about how no tyranny is ever truly secure thanks to "one man and his rifle," but the actual result of weapons proliferation is that petty warlords can more effectively terrorize and control people with technicals and AK-47s, as long as greater powers leave them to their own devices. The sudden manifestation of a Talent adds a big poo poo-happens factor to any operation, but a Talent who's already been recruited, trained, and armed by a powerful government has more impact than a panicked refugee, and organized units of Talents can leverage their abilities for even greater impact. Where Talents depart from this analogy is that Talents are often created by deadly danger. When you're the greater power in an asymmetric war, trying to get away with inflicting hugely disproportionate casualties with little risk, you're creating enemy Talents and few to no Talents on your own side. Imagining Godlike: Vietnam is just the beginning. Imagine Godlike in the current era, where supposedly serious people believe in the logic of techno-thriller novels, and believe we can win wars with "surgical strikes" carried out by planes and drones. The world of Godlike is in fact significantly different at the end of the war. Gamgaw and Assam are now independent nations in what was occupied Burma and India. The nation of Israel has a huge Talent population. One thing the books don't go into, but which I think they should've acknowledged, is that a lot of European nations would be stronger and better-off than they were in the real aftermath of the war thanks to Talent resistance movements. I figure that Pevnost probably did more to change the war than any Talent besides Lord Yama and Der Flieger by arming partisans with tons and tons of equipment and, at times, reinforcements from TOGs and other commandos. I figure that Czechoslovakia and France, and perhaps several other nations, came out of the war in better shape thanks to Pevnost alone. (Oh, and Viljo is basically just a superhuman counterpart to Simo Hayha.) The question this all raises for me is why we're not seeing the Nazi war machine die faster thanks to their policies that were as foolish as they were monstrous. So, war analysts on all sides eventually figured out that you deal with the possibility of sudden Talent appearances loving up your poo poo by spreading your Talents among the frontline units, and you use other Talents as behind-the-lines commandos. What this means for the Nazis is that they now have to devote Talents to einsatzgruppen carrying out mass slaughters of civilians. What happens to the Heer when you're peeling off Talents to supervise the massacre of a village in Lithuania? (You know, maybe the reason there were so "few" Japanese Talents is that they were all killed by the Talents they created in China and Korea.) I can only suppose the logic is that these losses would just "make up" for the tactical advantages they enjoyed early in the war thanks to powerful Talents like Der Flieger and Feuerzauber.
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Mar 21, 2017 19:05
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The more simple reason for Godlike's timeline going "but the future refused to change" is that WWII is heavily linked with a relatively few key events in the public mind, and they want them to take place so you can stick the PCs into those events. If a Polish Talent assassinates Hitler at the start of the war, or if Japan conquers Hawaii with Talent forces, then there's no D-day, Iwo Jima, Battle of Britain, or anything else you've seen a billion times in movies.
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Mar 21, 2017 19:24
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Tulul posted:If a Polish Talent assassinates Hitler at the start of the war, or if Japan conquers Hawaii with Talent forces, then there's no D-day, Iwo Jima, Battle of Britain, or anything else you've seen a billion times in movies. Sticking the PCs into these events is nice but unless it's part of a larger campaign like "Do well enough and the western Allies may reach Berlin first", or you're playing as the Axis, nothing changes in the grand scheme of things. "Winning harder" is a difficult sell for alt history. Basically, the PCs should be the ones assassinating Hitler and conquering Hawaii.
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Mar 21, 2017 19:52
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