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Mors Rattus posted:They also did Masks, too, which is tonally more on-point...but yeah, Urban Shadows is not so great. It's probably better than this, but not by much. What're the issues with Urban Shadows? Like reading Epyllon it's IMMEDIATELY obvious what the problems are, but I've skimmed Urban Shadows a few times and I didn't see anything too bad with it? Certainly looked better than like, a Dungeon World or monster of the week.
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Jun 26, 2017 17:33
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The problem with Urban Shadows is that one of the authors wrote a blog post that people here found unforgivable. (Hint, its about Zak, which is guaranteed to send this forum on a spiral or mindless rage and pure envy.) (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST)
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Jun 26, 2017 17:38
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Ah shoot guys I'm hulkin' out! Everyone get clear, you wouldn't like me when I'm envious!
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Jun 26, 2017 17:42
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Oh, burn! You're so clever. Doesn't make what I wrote any less true. Zak is much more talented and successful than any of the fat losers here.
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Jun 26, 2017 17:48
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imagine stanning this hard for hard for Zak S lol
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Jun 26, 2017 17:56
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Nancy_Noxious posted:Oh, burn! You're so clever. Doesn't make what I wrote any less true. Zak is much more talented and successful than any of the fat losers here. Zak sockpuppet? Neopie posted:What're the issues with Urban Shadows? Like reading Epyllon it's IMMEDIATELY obvious what the problems are, but I've skimmed Urban Shadows a few times and I didn't see anything too bad with it? Certainly looked better than like, a Dungeon World or monster of the week. I ran it for about 7 months. I would say it ran okay. Some people don't like it because it uses so much of the different Splats of world of Darkness at once. However it works when you recognize that it's going for a congested Metropolis with people from many different backgrounds. It's not trying to be a game where everyone is a vampire but a game where multiple different ethnic groups have to intermingle and tensions arise. That said I do remember some issues arising with the actual mechanics. Like you have to remember debts because they're like strings in MonsterHearts. I also remember some weirdness with some Play Books. Honestly though the campaign went fine enough. Though I know one of my players could probably explain all the issues because I remember him not liking some things. If he's reading this and wishes to explain that would be nice but obviously no obligation.
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Jun 26, 2017 17:56
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Covok posted:Zak sockpuppet? Nah, they're just a troll, check their post history in this thread.
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Jun 26, 2017 18:03
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Troll or not, its still true: everytime you see someone in this forum bitch about a game that bears Mark Diaz Truman's name, its not about the game itself, its because this forum once had a meltdown over a blog post by Mark. Once he wrote that blog post, his games became "bad games" around here. People is this forum are petty lile this.
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Jun 26, 2017 18:08
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Delurking to say, I never heard about this Mark guy but the dragon game is a mess on every level, just from what we see here, so I don't think it's anything beyond that. Also, Zak is such scum that an OP freelancer fled the company rather than be anywhere near that harassing, vicious inanity. So, anyone who thinks it's a question of 'envy' ... Well I'm just glad they're probably just Zak's sad self.
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Jun 26, 2017 18:14
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I apologize for feeding earlier, my good thread, but this thread has been so great without any Zak or Beast talk, can we just wait for Ettin to swing through? By the way, we've got episode 99 figured out for the show, gonna be a real good one. We'll have James from One Shot on for the whole thing.
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Jun 26, 2017 18:28
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theironjef posted:I apologize for feeding earlier, my good thread, but this thread has been so great without any Zak or Beast talk, can we just wait for Ettin to swing through? Good to see you finally reaping the fruits of selling out to Big Podcast.
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Jun 26, 2017 18:33
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Hah yeah. We're still working out the exact details of how it's going to help us. We're not connected to their Patreon in any way. Mostly we just get a few extra links and mentions. Eventually the goal is that we take advantage of James' industry contacts to publish one of our games. This upcoming episode is a favor for him since he's launching something soon and needs to be on shows, but we worked out a good way to bring him in.
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Jun 26, 2017 18:36
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theironjef posted:Hah yeah. We're still working out the exact details of how it's going to help us. We're not connected to their Patreon in any way. Mostly we just get a few extra links and mentions. Eventually the goal is that we take advantage of James' industry contacts to publish one of our games. This upcoming episode is a favor for him since he's launching something soon and needs to be on shows, but we worked out a good way to bring him in. BlimpleggersBlimpleggersBlimpleggersBlimpleggers
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Jun 26, 2017 19:05
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Neopie posted:What're the issues with Urban Shadows? Like reading Epyllon it's IMMEDIATELY obvious what the problems are, but I've skimmed Urban Shadows a few times and I didn't see anything too bad with it? Certainly looked better than like, a Dungeon World or monster of the week. I ran a pretty good Urban Shadows campaign in pbp on this forum, I think the game can work but it’s in the same vein as Dungeon World. It’s trying a little too hard to emulate another game (in this case WoD instead of D&D) but at the same time drops some of the stuff that makes that game fun and unique in favor of questioningly implemented generic Apocalypse Engine system ideas. It’s also a little overcomplicated with fiddly rules, which is not what you want from an Apocalypse Engine game but it’s what you almost always get with emulation hacks. In particular, the debt system is a little bloated and mechanically dense and it’s probably the biggest addition to the whole thing. The worst playbooks are the ones that manipulate debts (vampire and fae) because they often dictate other character’s behavior in annoying ways. The game is functional and can be fun, but I’d actually rather play a good WoD (or rather Chronicles) game or a good Apocalypse World game than a good Urban Shadows game. Although even AW has some really lovely move/playbook content (Arresting Skinner got printed twice!) and I will never defend any of the WoD design decisions.
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Jun 26, 2017 19:10
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theironjef posted:I apologize for feeding earlier, my good thread, but this thread has been so great without any Zak or Beast talk, can we just wait for Ettin to swing through? When you do episode 100 (D&D 3E), you should use this for your intro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA5I3vEIQ8E
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Jun 26, 2017 19:11
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SirPhoebos posted:When you do episode 100 (D&D 3E), you should use this for your intro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA5I3vEIQ8E You have no idea how close I came to using Fett's Vette for the intro for the Expounded Universe stuff despite the fact that would mean we'd never be able to like Patreon it or anything.
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Jun 26, 2017 19:29
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SirPhoebos posted:And the whole thing is a distraction from what Rifts aims to be. Unless the game is based on currency exchange, a unit of money should be the same regardless of where you are. First there would have to be a Trader O.C.C. to begin with. The notion is given in some NPC statblocks in the way that they sometimes write NPC classes as appro of nothing gibberish, but there hasn't been any trade-based classes I can think of. Covok posted:Zak sockpuppet? Let's not give Nancy that level of credit. Ignore, please.
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Jun 26, 2017 20:45
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Being honest, I don't think RIFTS understands that human interaction exists outside of exposition and violence.
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Jun 26, 2017 21:02
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Yes. The explanation actively makes things far more bewildering given that everybody uses the credit, from the Phoenix Empire to New Babylon to Tritonia. But apparently not Tombstone. (Japan's money is different, tho.) You know what would be cool if you were doing a more coherently planned out RIFTS with similar concepts (Mega-Damage et al)? Make 'money' come in the form of food, water, power, and ammo. Especially Mega-Damage ammo. Kinda like Metro 2033. So a gun might be worth like, 20 E-Clips or whatever and places with water purifiers and powerplants can literally print money, which is why the Coalition is so powerful relatively speaking-it has a lot of infrastructure and thus can literally print the poo poo that most places consider valuable trade goods. It also makes looting more entertaining, which in a game about fightin' things and looting, is not bad.
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Jun 26, 2017 21:03
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I have no idea who the person who wrote it is supposed to be, but Epyllion is pretty weak design-wise. It manages to miss basically all the good things about PbtA, replacing them with several gallons of weapons-grade fanfiction. One of the reasons why AW and MH are so great is that everything in them, including in particular the list of MC moves and agendas, is tuned towards producing a particular theme. AW's themes are 1) the ubiquity and inevitability of violence and 2) what we're willing to do to survive in times of scarcity. So every single solitary thing in AW is about violence or scarcity or both.* Epyllion's playbooks and moves, however, are all super-generic. The themes are supposed to be... conflict between the old and the young, and mumble mumble corruption darkness I guess? The Power of Friendship? How are those served by the Crafter, or by any of its moves? It has a move about repairing broken machinery. Why? Outside of that, good PbtA systems have built-in tension within the group. AW playbooks all need something, and their needs clash. The Hardholder wants peace and protection for her hold, but the Gunlugger wants battles and chaos so he can do his thing and get paid -- remember that the Hardholder's lifestyle is paid for as long as her hold is safe, but the Gunlugger has to shell out cash every session to eat. An AW group can go an entire session without the MC having to introduce outside conflict of any kind, because the mechanics themselves push players to make poo poo happen on their own. Where is that in Epyllion? Every example they give involves some older dragon giving the group a job, or something bad/weird happening and the group acting to stop/understand it. If you, the MC, aren't throwing fights at him, why should your slightly checked-out buddy playing the Warrior do anything but wait? * A couple of the extended playbooks for 1E stray out of these themes, and those are easily the weakest among them in my estimation. megane fucked around with this message at 21:18 on Jun 26, 2017 |
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Jun 26, 2017 21:15
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MJ12 posted:You know what would be cool if you were doing a more coherently planned out RIFTS with similar concepts (Mega-Damage et al)? Make 'money' come in the form of food, water, power, and ammo. Especially Mega-Damage ammo. Kinda like Metro 2033. So a gun might be worth like, 20 E-Clips or whatever and places with water purifiers and powerplants can literally print money, which is why the Coalition is so powerful relatively speaking-it has a lot of infrastructure and thus can literally print the poo poo that most places consider valuable trade goods. The Savage Worlds version adds some slight scrounging mechanics, at least. It's not terribly robust. It's a little strange I haven't seen any random rolls for pre-rifts junk or the like in 26 books, it'd at least make for a fun chunk of %s to engage with, particularly in places like the American Southeast or West that might not be tapped out of treasures.
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Jun 26, 2017 21:19
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theironjef posted:Hah yeah. We're still working out the exact details of how it's going to help us. We're not connected to their Patreon in any way. Mostly we just get a few extra links and mentions. Eventually the goal is that we take advantage of James' industry contacts to publish one of our games. This upcoming episode is a favor for him since he's launching something soon and needs to be on shows, but we worked out a good way to bring him in. Yessss....Duckman needs to become reality! Weird...crazy....maddening reality.
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Jun 26, 2017 22:36
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MJ12 posted:You know what would be cool if you were doing a more coherently planned out RIFTS with similar concepts (Mega-Damage et al)? Make 'money' come in the form of food, water, power, and ammo. Especially Mega-Damage ammo. Kinda like Metro 2033. So a gun might be worth like, 20 E-Clips or whatever and places with water purifiers and powerplants can literally print money, which is why the Coalition is so powerful relatively speaking-it has a lot of infrastructure and thus can literally print the poo poo that most places consider valuable trade goods. I would play this Fallout mod so hard
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Jun 26, 2017 23:06
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occamsnailfile posted:Related to thread: Really Siembieda? Now is when you want to talk about credits being insane? I always just pretended they were some pre-Rifts banking system carried forward that people were still sort of willing to trust because worrying about currency conversion was well beyond uninteresting and not what the game was about. I mean it did get steadily more and more ridiculous, especially when products like Phase World finally acknowledged the problem, but among the many inconsistencies of the setting, that's the one he chooses to address? RIFTS is born of 80's game design and sensibilities. Nothing is real unless it has numbers or justification behind it. Things need to be explained, even if the players will never touch the explanation, even if everything is designed so that they can't. Not that Siembieda is willing to put in the research and work to understand how those numbers or explanations should actually look. He'll come up with something on the spur of the moment, and then assume that he's smart enough that whatever came off the top of his head must be good, or at least close enough. That's how you get super firearms that fire significantly slower than modern firearms and monetary systems that break down the second you squint at them. The idea that you could abstract these things, represent them with fuzzier mechanics, is foreign to that kind of designer. The fact that they abstract other things doesn't really occur to them, and if it did, they'd start trying to argue that either real life really did work that way, or else try to de-abstract it and make it work as "realistically" as possible.
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Jun 27, 2017 02:16
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Mors Rattus posted:Being honest, I don't think RIFTS understands that human interaction exists outside of exposition and violence. Pretty much, you have all this high-tech stuff with no apparent infrastructure, societies with no nuance or internal conflict, a litany of seemingly sentient creatures that are born to do evil - it's usually written at a level you'd expect for a toy line, Eighties anime, or Bronze-Age comic book, and it kind of falls apart once you start asking any hard world-building questions. And that would be okay if it deliberately flags that it's Just A Show, but Rifts is written with about 90% dead seriousness and a lack of genre awareness regarding the very genres that inspires it. Similarities to Star Wars are not coincidental, right down to the evil empire that may be a bunch of murderous fascists, but would make for a pretty cool bunch of toys. So when it tries to break things down and detail what's going on, frequently the explanation is actively worse than the lack of one.
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Jun 27, 2017 02:57
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Alien Rope Burn posted:The Savage Worlds version adds some slight scrounging mechanics, at least. It's not terribly robust. It's a little strange I haven't seen any random rolls for pre-rifts junk or the like in 26 books, it'd at least make for a fun chunk of %s to engage with, particularly in places like the American Southeast or West that might not be tapped out of treasures. Oh yeah, and if you make 'ammo' a valuable trade good suddenly micromissiles don't seem as ridiculously OP, because you're literally burning cash when you fire them off in large volleys. I think like in the Metro games, the fact that military-grade bullets were also money made a lot of people wary of spending them as ammo, even though they were actually fairly plentiful. The moment you tell the players 'this is actually money' instead of that one-step-removed 'this is ammo you can sell for money' they seem to behave very differently on how willing they are to spend it.
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Jun 27, 2017 03:12
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It would also feel so much more like the post-apocalypse.
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Jun 27, 2017 03:29
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Deadlands: Hell on Earth kinda-sorta used the bullets-as-currency thing, but also priced everything in dollars anyway. It's just that one standard caliber pistol bullet was one buck, IIRC. But Deadlands also had the apocalypse having happened in living memory, which is slightly different than the Rifts situation, really.
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Jun 27, 2017 03:52
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Midjack posted:BlimpleggersBlimpleggersBlimpleggersBlimpleggers I really want to revisit that but I don't think FATE was going to be the right toolkit for us. Now I'm not sure what to do with it, I love the world for it so much.
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Jun 27, 2017 05:54
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theironjef posted:I really want to revisit that but I don't think FATE was going to be the right toolkit for us. Now I'm not sure what to do with it, I love the world for it so much. You guys seem to be keen on systems with abstract, but still tactical, combat. Maybe Strike!, or Savage Worlds?
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Jun 27, 2017 07:11
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theironjef posted:I really want to revisit that but I don't think FATE was going to be the right toolkit for us. Now I'm not sure what to do with it, I love the world for it so much.
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Jun 27, 2017 14:28
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theironjef posted:I really want to revisit that but I don't think FATE was going to be the right toolkit for us. It needs to be a LARP engine, using a crossover between Cyberworld and Cthulhu Live. Come on guys, you know you want to.  (Also, it needs a special video episode featuring you and Jon fully dressed up as Chester Balloonman and The Fuzz) Comrade Koba fucked around with this message at 16:54 on Jun 27, 2017 |
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Jun 27, 2017 16:48
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Strange Matter posted:Fung Shui? I found least with 2, it's too swingy for a sustained campaign,
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Jun 27, 2017 21:39
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Simian_Prime posted:You guys seem to be keen on systems with abstract, but still tactical, combat. Maybe Strike!, or Savage Worlds? I mean in terms of running it as a setting, I have all the setting and species notes, people could run it in any system they want today. In terms of publishing it someday, I think Savage Worlds already had a blimp supplement. What we need is some designer with an established ruleset that is actively looking for cool settings to wander into this thread. Comrade Koba posted:It needs to be a LARP engine, using a crossover between Cyberworld and Cthulhu Live. Come on guys, you know you want to. I actually also have a full story about Chester and his crew smuggling hooch in his custom blimp, the Arbor Devil. theironjef fucked around with this message at 21:48 on Jun 27, 2017 |
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Jun 27, 2017 21:46
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Robindaybird posted:I found least with 2, it's too swingy for a sustained campaign, In fairness to FS2, this was intentional in its design and it's meant for one-shots/short linked scenarios for the most part.
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Jun 27, 2017 21:58
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theironjef posted:I mean in terms of running it as a setting, I have all the setting and species notes, people could run it in any system they want today. In terms of publishing it someday, I think Savage Worlds already had a blimp supplement. What we need is some designer with an established ruleset that is actively looking for cool settings to wander into this thread. Strike! might actually be it, then, though usually we just have to talk about it to get Jimbozig to show up.
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Jun 27, 2017 22:06
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Nancy_Noxious posted:Oh, burn! You're so clever. Doesn't make what I wrote any less true. Zak is much more talented and successful than any of the fat losers here. I'd say I could be more successful if I tried hard enough to be honest.
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Jun 27, 2017 22:35
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 Oubliette: A dungeon only accessible by a trapdoor at the top. Derived from Middle French from oublier, “to forget”. Oubliette is a newly released RPG by Joseph Lee Bush via Voidspiral Entertainment, using Evil Hat Publishing’s Fate Core system. It’s also my perfect RPG, hitting 99.9% of mY aEsThEtIc like nothing else I’ve ever seen. First off: It uses a very minorly modified Fate Core as the engine, which is generally held to be a drat good game system, and its flexibility works wonders for this game, which is essentially an overflowing scrapyard of concepts. The system has minor tweaks, an expanded ladder and a mess of new skills, a new type of stress track, a rough “Level” system, etc. but is 90% Fate Core. As such, most of the book is setting, gobs and gobs of shockingly good setting. The best way I could describe it is if you blended Planescape, Jim Henson’s Labyrinth, and Kill 6 Billion Demons, and Metroid together, then hit it with a thermonuclear war to get the kinks out. But, the best way to sell it is to show it. In the first post I’m just going to transpose the first page or so of text, with some of my own commentary in between. This is a pseudo in-universe fiction, and serves pretty well to wet the appetite and serves as an excellent start to the book. §1 Awakening Body of Light, spirit of the Forgotten, come to me. Being of Matter, be no more, and rest here in forever. (This book is full of quotes, so instead of using quote boxes for every one, italics will be used instead) §1.1 Where am I? posted:It’s an alley. Stone. Slick with muck up to the hip, and you’re laying in it, slipping and falling as you try and fail to stumble upright. Irrational—or perhaps delayed—terror courses momentarily through your veins, causing you to cower into the shadow of a mound of decaying garbage and rot, from which you recoil moments later. Every new sight is a surprise, a shock. Now to dig into this a bit: We know that Castle Oubliette is dirty and filthy, and somehow inherently terrifying and strange, but hey it has rain so that’s good. Presumably this world has at least semi-normal weather. §1.2 How Did I Get Here? posted:Approaching cautiously, she leads you further into the alley. She stops under an overhang of rotting wood, fabric, and leather from which dozens of glass jars hang, catching the rain. Faces peer over the edge and down at you from above, but they are shaped and colored wrong so you look away. So, from what we can read between the lines here, water and food are both rare and precious. You don’t put out random jars to catch rainwater if you live somewhere with indoor plumbing and bottled water. And well, since eating random giant bugs you grab in an ally is seemingly a normal thing to do there probably isn’t a Whole Foods down the block. §1.3 Aren’t I Immortal? posted:“My apologies, that was cruel of me. Few people believe when they first arrive. But it’s important for you to understand that, deep in your heart, because if you don’t you might end up Broken.” Hm, if you’ve played Eclipse Phase this might feel familiar to you. If we’re functionally immortal, it makes sense that the biggest threat is to our precious sanity. Unbroken is also the general name for PCs in this game, for future reference. Also, hints at how the skill system is… unique in this game. Namely: Everyone is a wizard. Everyone. Oh, and we’ll be learning more about Lucette later, when we get to learning about the denizens of Oubliette. §1.4 What’s It About? This next section is actually something I wish more games had: A list of themes that the game is based upon so you know what the designer was wanting to invoke and what sort of games you can run in it. These are split into three categories: Core Themes, Meta Themes, and Direction Themes. Core themes are the bedrock of the game, and are present throughout the book and should form the basis of any campaign. They are:
Meta themes are the basis of Oubliette as a game, and act as more design goals and GM guidelines than setting elements.
Finally Direction themes, which aren’t universal. Some games focus on all of them, or pick a few, or even one, but they run throughout the book and act as a good conceptual level for campaigns.
§§1.5-1.8 This bit’s the general introduction sections. What materials you need, lets you know how the book is set up but with a hyperlink/page reference if you want to skip to Character Creation, the quick overview of Fate Core to give you some idea of what some key terminology means up front, and hilariously enough §1.8.1 is “A Note for D&D Players” explicitly going over the differences between Oubliette/Fate Core and your typical dungeon crawling D&D game. It’s totally devoid of badwrongfun, and is mostly about explaining how different cognitive modes are needed to play this than D&D. It’s nice to see though. That wraps §1 up, next time we get into §2 and jump face first into a bottomless chasm of really well written setting lore.
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Jun 27, 2017 23:39
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Wapole Languray posted:As such, most of the book is setting, gobs and gobs of shockingly good setting. The best way I could describe it is if you blended Planescape, Jim Henson’s Labyrinth, and Kill 6 Billion Demons, and Metroid together, then hit it with a thermonuclear war to get the kinks out. You're missing the central ingredient, I think - Dark Souls. The themes, the core conceit of 'you don't die permanently, but you might lose yourself,' the castle - this all screams Souls game. You even have an impressive Capitalized Noun for PCs which denotes what makes them immortal, like Chosen Undead or Unkindled. Unbroken is a clear hat-tip to that. Which isn't a huge surprise; Soulsborne RPGs are pretty clearly on the horizon the way souls-likes are becoming huge in video games. I hope it does it well!
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Jun 27, 2017 23:57
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 Rifts World Book 14: New West Part 4: "It contains the Mount Rushmore monument and the neighboring Indian monument, all believed to be slumbering mountain gods by a few bands of primitive D-Bees." New West Overview of Territories We start with about a half-page of handwringing about what the New West comprises, and the answer is generally "United States only", Canada and Mexico go in other books. There's some handwringing from Siembieda about how he really wanted to include the whole west including Canada, but he didn't have the space. I dunno, maybe he'd have more space in his book if he wasn't giving us a definition of "cowpoke" or  with explanations like these...... like the discussion of what a gorge or mesa that follows that apology.   This is all the art this time. Git! We get synopses of the New West, which I'm going to bullet point because it's informative but painfully dull for the most part.
Next: Free-Range Racists.
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