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JcDent posted:
As a graphic designer, this book is 100% what happens when you let a couple graphic designers loose with no constraints.
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Jul 29, 2017 19:22
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Someone in the Total Warhammer thread has pointed out that that game reflects the fluff about Duke Alberic very well. He wants to go on his Quest and become a Grail Knight, but he's so ridiculously good at being a governor - and Bordeloux is such a wealthy city to begin with - that you the player really will almost certainly want to use him as a governor rather than letting him go on adventure.
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Jul 30, 2017 01:45
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Cythereal posted:Someone in the Total Warhammer thread has pointed out that that game reflects the fluff about Duke Alberic very well. He wants to go on his Quest and become a Grail Knight, but he's so ridiculously good at being a governor - and Bordeloux is such a wealthy city to begin with - that you the player really will almost certainly want to use him as a governor rather than letting him go on adventure. Contrasting Alberic, who is willing to sacrifice his personal desires and ambitions to do his best at his duties as governor and ruler, with Hagen, who is basically a pompous rear end in a top hat but whose insistence on All The Rules got him the grail, who lets his province suffer while he runs off and browbeats the king, is great.
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Jul 30, 2017 01:52
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 CHAPTER FOUR: THE ASSAULT Or gently caress You, Lose Anyway The assault on Sanctuary comes a few days after the election, giving G-Unit enough time to get everything together to prepare for the attack. The siege is pretty static. There are five phases to the raid and two of the phases have alternate things the players can tackle, splitting the party to handle both of dedicating all of their forces to one of the two problems. Let's see the list:  I'll explain later when I go over them but the ideal choices for maximum PC survival are Hospital Dilemma and Relief. So take the choice during the second phase. If the PCs decide to handle the hospital issue, the raid on the Sally Port is taken care of with no problems and no casualties. Depending on how the party handles each phase, they have to roll to see how many defenders are lost due to attrition. Because guess what, there's attrition mechanics.  Yeah. The siege is literally twice the size of the defenders of Sanctuary. Even if you wanted to, you can't kill all of the forces of the invaders. However, we do start with some dead thanks to G-Unit's preparations. For starters, killing four DOS reduces the attacker pool by 4. The thing that helps a ton is the fact that they fixed the turrets. Now, unfortunately, the turrets don't kill as many as I'd like but they do kill 2d20 invaders before they're overrun and destroyed by sheer numbers pushing the approach. That said, I did roll 27, so the horde starts at being down 31 marauders. On the upside, G-Unit did do enough to recruit some more defenders to bolster defenses.  So let's begin. WAVE ONE   I forget what exactly he reminds me of, all that comes to mind is a really lovely comedian mugging for the camera as he does a set.  G=Giant, U=Psycho, Skinhead=S, players start on the second floor of the gate. Everyone automatically gains 1 point of Despair. The intent of episode 1 is to demoralize the defenders by showing how much manpower they have and force the defenders to stay in cover. To begin with, there are 5 Skinhead Soldats and 2 Psycho Meats. On the helper side, there are 3 Giants armed with Room Brooms and rubber bullets (though -1 due to how Soapbox chose to focus the troops).    The encounter is run by having the Soldats throw molotovs at the walls to force the defenders to stay in cover. The Psychos are armed with fully-loaded scatterguns with rubber slugs and will also take shots at the defenders as they approach the gates. Their goal is to get close enough to use their secret reserve of 2d6 barrier buster rounds on the gate. The gate can only take 25 points of damage before it collapses and you do not want it to collapse. If the gates fall, 2 more Psychos will charge with 7 more Skinheads in tow to push the advantage and get over the gap. Which doesn't really make sense; it's said that the gap is too big to jump but only 10 feet deep and then they say nothing about the horde filling the gap at all. Anyway. The way to win this combat depends on whether or not the gate falls. If the gate falls, killing all of the Soldats or all of the Psychos means that the combat is won. Alternately, the players can kill the initial two Psychos before they get close enough to the gate and that'll do the job as well.  The big problem is closing the gap to the Psychos; there's no easy way down to the thick of it to fight in close quarters and guns aren't really the most prevalent thing around. However...there are no rules for, like, distance in ranged combat. Soapbox and Doc confiscate the Room Brooms from the Giants and work with Beth's shiny new scattergun in laying slug fire down on the Psychos, spread out along the walls while Pincushion and Tama hang back. When the Psychos go down and the Soldats start to scatter, the three lower the gate and Tama and Pincushion run out to loot the molotovs dropped by the scavengers, coup de grace the downed Psychos and return with their scatterguns, molotovs, rubber slugs and barricade busters. The gate is secured and the gunners are a little scuffed (easily taken care of with a quick heal from Doc) as Doc and Soapbox return the guns, keeping the scatterguns and splitting the 10 buster rounds. Consequences Not a bad way of handling it, but despite the good job they did there's still fighting all along the perimeter. So no matter how well the players handle the situation, there's still background fighting, but depending on how well the players do the losses incurred shift. Let's see the chart we have for this section.   I'm counting this as excellent because nobody really got hurt and the gate stood. 3 defenders are lost but so are 18 attackers. At the conclusion, a dozen attackers start to go after the gate again but reinforcements of 8-10 Giants appear to back up the defenses. Now that the numbers are getting bigger and heavier, it's time for G-Unit to put their new acquisitions to good use in the next stage.  If you're playing this normally and don't want to split the party, absolutely go to see what Dr. Needles is up to. However, G-Unit will be showing off everything, and as a result they decide to split the party. Because Tama and Pincushion aren't great fighters, they're sent to go off and handle Needles (Doc figures that the two of them are more than a match for the older serial killer). Doc, Beth and Soapbox will go handle the problem at the Sally Port. WAVE TWO   * is a starting point for the PCs, U is for Psycho, A is for Animal. Despair check! Some of the Skinheads were killed in the explosion along with the Giants defending the door. Right now the invasion force consists of an Animal (a Psycho who has submitted to painful tortures to become desensitized to pain and become tougher) and three Meat (well, two Meat thanks to the Demoralized attackers). The Meat aren't armed with anything interesting but the big threat is the fact that the Animal has a Scorcher.  The combat is straight-forward here. On turn 1, the players are alone but every turn after 1d2 Giants will come to their aid as reinforcements. The combat ends when the Psychos (or the PCs and Giants, grimly) are killed and the port can be retaken. Here's something important, though: the Scorcher has a range of 15x15. Beth stands on the P in Port and instantly pops him in the skull with a rubber slug followed by Doc providing the double-tap from behind her. The Meat are easily mopped up in a skirmish and now G-Unit has a flamethrower (given to Doc, who is incredibly uncomfortable with it but understands this is going to have to be helpful). Let's go check on Tama and Pincushion.   N is for Needles, P is for Patient, * is a starting space. To the horrified Giants, it looks like Needles is euthanizing the wounded with lethal injections. In reality, all he's doing is giving them all a dose of Tranq so they'll remain calm and won't cause any issues if they panic and cause a manifestation. The threat here is the fact that this is all a horrible miscommunication because Needles immediately sprang into action and didn't explain himself. Anyone who asks him what he's doing (or has Medical Knowledge) can learn the truth of the situation. If the PCs are headstrong and rush the room, he'll shoot at the first person through the door with his zip gun and can be pretty easily overwhelmed. This is the worst possible thing you can do, though: the commotion causes the patients to panic and what happens is a manifestation of six Devourers who infest the corpses in the Morgue and attack the hospital (if the PCs don't sedate the patients themselves, that is). If the PCs do fight, four of the waiting Giants will join them in the brawl. So how is this scenario resolved? Well, either the Devourers are all killed or it's averted to begin with and the patients end up sedated. While Pincushion is terrified that he'll end up euthanized next, Tama has enough sense to get the truth out of Needles and help the doctor get all of the patients calm without any violence occurring. They're also successful in convincing Needles to hang out with them as backup healing. Consequences  Both teams handled their obstacles with grace and finesse, repelling the attack and helping stop an internal threat from causing more chaos. Now, I don't believe that splitting the party and doing both means there are two rolls done on the Consequences table because both events happen simultaneously. So let's roll 'em up!  Well that's 5 defenders lost (I'd say mostly due to the bomb) and 13 attackers lost. 69% of the attacking force is left. Nice. Unfortunately, now is the time Lucretia signals for their betrayers to do their dark deed and open the back door.  And while Tama and Pincushion are contacted (again) and ignore it (again), Bradley doesn't. WAVE THREE   G is for Giant, B is for Bradley, T is for Traitorous Guard, D is for DOS, S is for Silent Sister, * is where players can start. Remember that Skeleton Key? A thing I didn't explain? Hold on.  Yeah, so, Bradley has used the skeleton key to open the back door and let the DOS in. If it was another player who got seduced into doing this, you would straight-up be trying to kill a traitorous PC in this scenario in addition to Bradley. And this is not an easy fight: 10 DOS (9 due to attrition), two Silent Sisters, Bradley and his two guards vs. the players and 5 Giants (7, thanks to Soapbox's divisions of forces) armed with Room Brooms and rubber slugs. It's a very well matched fight in terms of size.  The win condition to this is to get Bradley and the DOS to retreat or kill them all. Bradley will hide behind his guards and use his slug pistol to take shots at the most competent party member/leader (read: Soapbox) while the DOS rush to attack in melee. Bradley will automatically run if his guards die, but the DOS don't generally retreat. And they kind of should because Doc now has a flamethrower, letting the DOS get into the choke position into the room and lighting them the gently caress up as she desperately ignores the gravity of what she's doing. As for Bradley, Soapbox whips a molotov cocktail at the little room he's in, setting the senator and his guard on fire and providing a wall of flame to keep the DOS in the tunnels at bay. Tama is able to wrest the skeleton key from the flaming corpse of Senator Bradley and uses it to lock the door shut (having the key is actually kinda integral to the finale; if he runs, he drops it behind him). Concentrated fire from the Giants and rest of the party leads to the party being a little bruised and sore but hey, it beats being mobbed and stabbed to death. Consequences  Things start getting worse as the fighting gets more and more intense. Due to the fact that they handled the scenario with caution and flare (heh) I'm going to count this as Excellent (in general I'm going to keep counting these as Excellent outcomes).  8 defenders are lost to the combat, meaning that the buffer is going to run out soon. In turn, 11 attackers are killed, putting them close to having lost 40% of their army. But we're not out of the woods yet because here comes another choice.  This one is tough to figure out for the party to split over. Ultimately it's decided that Soapbox and Tama will go help the refugees while Beth, Doc and Pincushion go out and fight Demons. Split up! WAVE FOUR   R is for Rageling, players can start anywhere outside of around the Pit. A handful of Skinheads were convinced to willingly allow themselves to be possessed and become a new form of Demon, a RAGELING. The Ragelings have been on the lower level and the combat has given them a chance to climb up through the Pit now that the covering has been lost in the fighting. Let's check out our new threat! RAGELINGS  Ragelings are nasty little bastards, manifesting by taking over the corpse of a hopeless soul or someone who willingly submitted to the Demons and causing spontaneous combustions around them. They're the creatures on the cover of the book, creatures made out of ash powered by a smoldering, popping core of fire. Their existence is one of burning (heh) hatred, consumed with a desire to slaughter all life. They're also awful to fight. You run the risk of catching fire or losing your weapons handling them in melee and they also have a natural armor caused by regeneration. Plus to make matters worse, this fight has a gimmick where the GM rolls a d6 and a 1 means another Rageling climbs out of the pit. So this fight is against 5 Ragelings (I guess technically 4? How do Demons work with attrition?) and 2 Giants (3) armed to fight in melee. However, eagle-eyed readers may notice a problem. Doc, Pincushion, Beth and the Giants rush in, confronted by the Ragelings...who immediately keel over and die. Victory! How are Tama and Soapbox doing?   F is for Fury, S is for Skinhead, U is for Psycho, G is for Giant, * is a starting point. Yeah the gate falls anyway. The enemy has started to occupy the yard but the Furies that G-Unit found while scouting have decided to stand up and join the fight. The problem is getting through the mob in the courtyard. 11 (10) Soldats and 4 Meat stand between 10 Furies (along with 3 Giants covering with rubber slugs). In motion, the fight is simple: the Furies will try and fight their way through but the mob in the yard will attack them and ignore everyone else (there's an optional rule where the combat is streamlined with 1d3 Furies dying a round). The Furies can be abandoned but that's a Guilt check with a possible +2 gain. The fastest way to resolve this is to yell out to the Furies to just run for the tunnel and they will. So that's exactly what Soapbox does and they...do it. Because everyone moves 6 spaces a round, all of the Furies just take double movements, get as close as they can to the entrance and then get in as soon as possible. Victory! Consequences  Fortunately the Furies come with gifts: 5 first aid packs, 2 doses of Cardiolax and a box of 30 rubber slugs. Outside of that, G-Unit did a great job but things are reaching a fever pitch.  8 defenders are lost and in turn the attackers are down 16. Almost half of the attackers have been slaughtered by the defenders. But oh man is it gonna get worse because here come the big guns. FINAL WAVE   H is for Herald, E is for Embracer, G is for Giant, U is for Psycho, players can start anywhere but can't be more than 5 squares closer to a Herald. Despair check! Insanity check! The Embracers and Psychos are buying time in this fight. The plan is for the Heralds to just hoot and holler until something big and nasty can show up; they'll only fight if they're directly threatened. It's completely valid and reasonable for the PCs to flee and abandon Sanctuary at this point. The Four Embracers are tough to fight, the Heralds are big annoying Demons and the Psychos are just armed with poo poo to throw and improvised weapons. The Giants are armed with slugs and if any Furies survived, three of them will hang out to help fight. The win condition of this one is to kill all of the attackers, something that might be a bit easier than expected.   The Heralds immediately keel over and die while the battle gets started, G-Unit raining molotovs down on both sides of the gap from the second floor as the Furies and Giants back them up with rubber slugs, making them all die screaming and burning. Consequences   8 more defenders lost but 22 attackers are killed, meaning that final count is 32 dead defenders with 73.3% survivors and 111 dead attackers with 44.5% of the attackers surviving. They put up the best possible defense they could and made the attackers pay dearly, but Sanctuary still falls. ESCAPE  If Sly or Bradley were elected, Johnson seizes control here. If Needles was elected, he'll agree with Johnson. Since Soapbox was elected, Johnson will attempt to convince her and she'll agree that a retreat is in order. The remaining defenders will allow Johnson and the squad to get to the rear exit and Johnson will use the skeleton key to open the door. And fortunately for the defenders, the retreat is quick and orderly; the DOS have abandoned trying to enter from the rear in a sneak attack after it failed so the exit is safe. And then the skeleton key breaks before Johnson and G-Unit can escape and the doors slam shut. Which. Does not make a lick of sense? It's a thing that tells a door to open, it's not like it's channeling a door-opening spell. But Johnson has a plan for another escape.  Johnson will arm himself with a Room Broom and provide cover for the party to escape. Abandoning him incurs no Guilt gain because it's a willing sacrifice. Trying to stay and help him means that he'll threaten to shoot them because he doesn't think they'll need to die needlessly like him. Getting the rope from JD's shop is no problem. Tying the rope off is no problem. Getting down is a problem. Climbing requires a Reflexes check each turn where a success is 10 feet gained down and a failure means a 5 foot slip and another check to not fall to the bottom of the Pit. The problem is that the Pit is 200 feet deep and the bottom is not solid but full of rushing water going to parts unknown. Making things worse is that cultists and Psychos will eventually get to the edge of the Pit and start to cut the lines.  The actual escape is found at the bottom of the Pit near the water: a small catwalk leading to a cramped passageway. Anyone who landed in the water can swim over to the catwalk and climb up, otherwise the folks on ropes can make a Prowess check to swing over onto it (or fall into the water if they miss). CONCLUSION "Ultimately the characters fought, and in so doing, won the right to live". Yeah alright gently caress you too. What happened to the refugees who escaped is unknown. So is Johnson's fate. G-Unit is on their own, far from "home" and exploring a part of the ship they've never seen before. Plus they get BP for their actions! Everyone gets a minimum of 200 BP and then there's more to come based on their Goals.  Everyone gets 570 experience, 170 of that coming from saving 88 defenders from Sanctuary. That's a pretty drat good haul, and they now all qualify for More Health! But oh boy, seeing as how four of them are women and we have new Female-Only Traits, that means that they qualify for these. Except they kinda don't. NEW TRAITS  
Female Traits suck. The new Demon is literally unusable. The idea behind this whole thing is half decent but the implementation is tonally incoherent and inconsistent. I have never really seen a game before interrupt Standard Questing Bullshit with something as wildly off-base as in-depth democratic election mechanics. Like if one was to take those details and set them in, like, a post-apocalyptic game then yeah it makes sense. But this is a game set on a prison hulk in Hell. It's like if I made a club sandwich and then before I finished it I started dousing it with clam juice, sprinkles, Cheetos and chocolate shell. And, like, the whole thing was doomed to begin with. I guess the important thing is the lessons we learned from this whole affair: never charge a choke-point if the defender of the point has a flamethrower and always proofread the monster stats. The latter is a lesson that will continue to be actively ignored. NEXT TIME our brave squad have gone so deep into the bowels of the Gehenna that they're now on the W Deck at the gates of a sanitarium overrun by the insane and the damned. If they want to escape from SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN they're going to have to beat the poo poo out of an evil child who has a fascination with 20th century horror cinema despite the fact that he was born in the 27th century. 
Vox Valentine fucked around with this message at 01:23 on Jul 31, 2017 |
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Jul 30, 2017 01:59
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Ah, the old 'Horror means constant failure even if you won' chestnut. God, I hate that one.
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Jul 30, 2017 02:16
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Night10194 posted:Contrasting Alberic, who is willing to sacrifice his personal desires and ambitions to do his best at his duties as governor and ruler, with Hagen, who is basically a pompous rear end in a top hat but whose insistence on All The Rules got him the grail, who lets his province suffer while he runs off and browbeats the king, is great. I'm struck by the potential of either the PCs suggesting to Alberic, or Alberic starting to wonder himself, if the Grail Knight chivalry stuff is really the end-all, be-all of good, and whether being a good man is necessarily the same thing as being a good knight.
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Jul 30, 2017 03:19
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Night10194 posted:Ah, the old 'Horror means constant failure even if you won' chestnut. Yeah, if someone lost more half their forces, even if numerically superior, while the defenders where bruised but relatively unbloodied pretty much means that the attackers failed in such a way that either a final "to the last man" push (which is what I was thinking would happen, I'm not even sure if the game is hinting that, too), or, more likely, since they've lost numerical advantage, Sanctuary's defenses have given them a 1:3 k:d ratio, and they're mostly undisciplined rabble led by tactical ignoramuses to boot, go into a complete rout. Especially give that there's at least four factions trying to break Sanctuary, each with its own wants and desires. Each of the gangs would start looking for who to blame, who was weak, who lost more and what the others are going to need to pay to keep them on. Infighting would break out, between the gangs and even inside the gangs, as the frontline fodder wonders if the gang leaders are smart enough to keep following. The Skinheads would probably figure it's not worth their time after being the brunt of most of the attacks, Lucretia and the Daughters figure they could have just stayed home and masturbated after the failure of the back door, while the Embracers wonder if Blade and his Psychos truly have the Dark Gods' favor. The Psychos would probably keep it up, but psychosis is not worthy replacement for strength, competence, and numbers and would eventually just burn and bleed out banging their head against a wall.  at the Furies' contribution. While I'm sure the supplies are helpful, I was really expecting something like the Furies to come in like the Eagles of the Misty Mountains, turning the tide of battle, or at least attacking the forces in route or at their rear, reducing their numbers.The alternate timeline is that Soapbox as leader of Sanctuary tells everyone that it's an idea worth fighting for, the forces of evil squeeze their forces into bottlenecks until they've exhausted their mortal selves or abandon the siege, eventually more Jailhouse Giants and other non-hostile gangs like the Protectors, Lion's Army, and Furies show up to reinforce, and Sanctuary holds and becomes a permanent redoubt in a sea of barbarism.
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Jul 30, 2017 03:48
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JcDent posted:IRL, the the role of infantry small arms is to pin the enemy in place so that either outflanking or artillery would happen to them. Is there a TRPG that "correctly" models suppressing fire to the point where fire-and-maneuver tactics is possible/the correct approach? For example, consider a scenario where Player A and B hiding behind (full) cover, and with an Enemy also behind (full) cover. The fire-and-maneuver tactic would be for Player A to provide covering fire while Player B moves to get to an angle against the Enemy where they no longer have cover and thus it is possible to hit them. In a "traditional" combat model, you can't get to the "covering fire" part - Player A shooting at the Enemy doesn't impede the Enemy's ability to hit Player B while Player B is moving across open ground. At most, you can maybe do something like "Player A readies an action to shoot the Enemy when the Enemy pops out of cover to take a shot" and then Player B makes their move, and then the Enemy pops out to shoot Player B (lest the Enemy be outflanked), and this triggers Player A's readied action to shoot back ... and then you're counting on the game making a distinction between "full cover" and "waist-high cover" such that the Enemy is easier to hit once they switch to the latter to take their shot. But even then, the kill-shot is going to come from Player A hitting the Enemy, and not from Player B shooting the Enemy from a position where the Enemy is no longer in cover. EDIT: It seems like you would need an effect to either give the Enemy a penalty to hit, or a chance for the Enemy to not carry out the attack action at all, to model the hesitation that would be caused by Player A laying down suppressing fire (while Player B moves up). gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 05:00 on Jul 30, 2017 |
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Jul 30, 2017 04:20
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Really what you need is the ability to take automatic "suppression shots" on anyone who exposes themself in the area you suppressed. That way they'll stay down and your buddy can shoot them in the back.
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Jul 30, 2017 04:27
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The entire combat system of the first game I reviewed, Albedo: Platinum Catalyst, is built around squad fire and maneuver tactics, to the point that each PC is controlling a small squad of subordinate soldiers and a highly competent officer. The intent being to use suppressing fire, snipers on overwatch, or heavy weapons teams in the back to keep an enemy pinned in place while a PC squad or PC minion squadmates close to flank or grenade their position.
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Jul 30, 2017 04:30
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While the rules themselves aren't great, the 40k RPGs at least attempted to cover that with their rules for pinning and overwatch and the like.
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Jul 30, 2017 04:32
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Also 'common' professional infantrymen in Albedo were good enough shots that being out of cover at medium range was pretty literally suicide, while being in cover at the same range necessitated lots of work to dig someone out.
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Jul 30, 2017 04:33
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gradenko_2000 posted:Is there a TRPG that "correctly" models suppressing fire to the point where fire-and-maneuver tactics is possible/the correct approach? I thought Cyberpunk 2013's Friday Night Firefight or Cyberpunk 2020 had something similar, where you make a COOL roll to even stick your head up in such a mess, but I was wrong.
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Jul 30, 2017 04:52
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As I was going through the thread backlog and reading TORG, I got this picture from a friend via Discord. Apparently it relates to some nationwide Ingress operation. Seems familiar, somehow.
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Jul 30, 2017 05:37
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I know Shadowrun at least has a specific action for suppressing fire. I forget the exact mechanics but it gives your target penalties to do stuff. As with everything in SR it's overcomplicated and less effective than just murdering them directly, but whatever. In general I would do something like this: You can suppress a target with your gun as an action; if you make an attack using full-auto, you suppress the target for free (even if you miss). If you're suppressed, you have to make some sort of fear/willpower/whatever roll to leave cover, and if you do, the one suppressing you gets a free, clean shot at you. You can shoot without leaving cover, but take a big penalty. I wonder if anyone's made a system that has tactical considerations like this without it being a grid-and-minis thing. For instance, you don't have to plot out exactly where in the room there's cover; instead, players can roll Find Cover (If you succeed, you get to cover. Roll well and you get Heavy Cover) or Flank (If you succeed, you move in such a way that you get to ignore your target's cover) etc. Armored Commander handles it that way, but I can't think of a TRPG that does.
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Jul 30, 2017 05:51
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Shadowrun is notable for even having a quality (Superhuman Psychosis) where you're so unconcerned with that sort of thing that you can just charge through suppressing fire with half penalty. In Shadowrun, incoming fire is usually defended against with Reaction + Intuition, it's just hard to do that against a full auto burst (but possible, say, if you have disgustingly high reaction like some kind of vampire physical-adept.) For Suppression, you must duck and cover or be forced to test Reaction + Edge(luck) against everyone suppressing you, and you take a dice pool penalty to all rolls equal to the best rolled attack(yes, including your defense roll against sticking your head out into the hail of gunfire.) This can get really hairy if there are five guards spraying the pillar you're hiding behind, because one of them is going to get four hits on his shooting test and now you're rolling at -4 against a whole lot of bullets if you do anything but wait for them to reload. It is less hairy if you're the kind of Troll who thinks of rifle fire as a light massage.
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Jul 30, 2017 07:13
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Young Freud posted:Very good points and interesting dissection. But, spoilers, that never happens. The only thing worse than Chaos Undivided is a complacent Chaos Undivided. The Psychos, the DOS and the Embracers make up the majority of the movers and shakers of the forces of Damnation with the Skinheads providing allied muscle and the rest of the grunts being barely-functional mental patients who've been dragged out of the hospitals and kept functional long enough to use as fodder. And, frankly, it's not like the Demons really need that much help but the fact that there's never any friction that just annoys the hell out of me. Blade continues to lead the Psychos, Lucretia leads the DOS, a mysterious new figure is the head of the Embracer cult and there was supposed to be a fourth person (we'll find out what happens to them) and there is never any friction and strife, they're all just happy and unified under the banner of Damnation. I mean hell I don't even know if it's supposed to be a Four Horsemen thing but poo poo, probably considering that Nazi Dave or whoever of the Skinheads never gets picked to be one of the people in charge. Also thanks for reminding me that I forgot to include the suggestions for playing characters already in gangs...that are found at the end of the book.  It's real cool and good when the game is like "yeah you can play the baddest of the bad gangers and you should totally abandon the party and try to kill them, this is fine".
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Jul 30, 2017 08:26
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Hostile V posted:It's real cool and good when the game is like "yeah you can play the baddest of the bad gangers and you should totally abandon the party and try to kill them, this is fine". Yeah, it's especially weird how on one hand the adventure consciously accounts for the possibility of one or more PCs betraying the rest, but on the other it doesn't really give any PCs that leave the main group anything to do for the rest of the adventure if they manage to do that without getting themselves killed.
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Jul 30, 2017 09:19
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Why do they keep putting an apostrophe before Giants? It's a full word abbreviating a phrase.
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Jul 30, 2017 09:46
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So I'm guessing that you had all the demons drop dead because they didn't list HP totals for them; is there a way in the book to calculate what those HP totals should be? Are the HP totals listed in the main bestiary and just left out of the adventure stats?
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Jul 30, 2017 11:30
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It all makes me think of why The Suffering was so, so good, since it had a very similar thing going on. It was an old action-horror game where you're a condemned prisoner who may or may not have killed his wife and kids, trapped in a prison where demons representing methods of killing and execution are running amok. If you decided you were playing a good guy who was wrongly accused, you actually got tons of chances to accomplish things and help other people escape, survive, or just get through the part of their story that intersected with yours. It felt good to end a long segment with an ally character by actually getting them off the island or helping them get going to find their wife and kids while you kept working towards escaping. Being able to accomplish stuff is particularly important in an interactive medium.
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Jul 30, 2017 11:52
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The Suffering was part of the last days of the Golden Age of survival horror in the sixth generation. Silent Hill 2 and 3, the Fatal Frame series, Siren- man, what the hell happened? We get like one good game every few years now.
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Jul 30, 2017 12:01
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Though The Suffering was much more action than survival horror, which was the explicit intent of the writers and director. They wanted Torque to be a total badass, just a total badass presented with an enormous problem and endless hordes of monsters. Which would've also worked great for Abandon All Hope, as people have pointed out. Badass prison action heroes who can usually win a fight presented with a situation where you need to do more than just win fights before they wear you down with attrition would've been fine.
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Jul 30, 2017 12:04
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Angrymog posted:So I'm guessing that you had all the demons drop dead because they didn't list HP totals for them; is there a way in the book to calculate what those HP totals should be? Are the HP totals listed in the main bestiary and just left out of the adventure stats? I kinda figured their Psy Strength was just their health. But also I like the idea of these horrible monsters manifesting and just immediately dropping dead.
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Jul 30, 2017 12:31
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Hostile V posted:Getting the rope from JD's shop is no problem. Tying the rope off is no problem. Getting down is a problem. Climbing requires a Reflexes check each turn where a success is 10 feet gained down and a failure means a 5 foot slip and another check to not fall to the bottom of the Pit. The problem is that the Pit is 200 feet deep and the bottom is not solid but full of rushing water going to parts unknown. Making things worse is that cultists and Psychos will eventually get to the edge of the Pit and start to cut the lines. Ah, what an amazing finale to the adventure. Rolling dice between 2 and 20 times for each character, with chances for instant death. Green Intern fucked around with this message at 13:13 on Jul 30, 2017 |
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Jul 30, 2017 13:09
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Cassa posted:I kinda figured their Psy Strength was just their health. But also I like the idea of these horrible monsters manifesting and just immediately dropping dead. "Damnit, still haven't got the hang of this 'bodies' thing. What do I need to remember to include now? Is it kidneys?"
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Jul 30, 2017 13:45
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The fact almost all the female prisoner traits involves being a victim of torture, or in Ilsa's case a torturer says a lot about the writer's view on women, or least apparently their taste in pornography.
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Jul 30, 2017 16:26
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Robindaybird posted:The fact almost all the female prisoner traits involves being a victim of torture, or in Ilsa's case a torturer says a lot about the writer's view on women, or least apparently their taste in pornography. G-Unit is pretty clearly not the authors' intended sort of party, considering. Something I always wonder about in these 'hard' high lethality games is, what do you do about dead PC's players when you don't wipe? Do they just sit out? Night10194 fucked around with this message at 16:41 on Jul 30, 2017 |
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Jul 30, 2017 16:38
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Night10194 posted:G-Unit is pretty clearly not the authors' intended sort of party, considering. They flip through the rulebook and see how they can earn their fun more effectively.
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Jul 30, 2017 16:44
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Angrymog posted:So I'm guessing that you had all the demons drop dead because they didn't list HP totals for them; is there a way in the book to calculate what those HP totals should be? Are the HP totals listed in the main bestiary and just left out of the adventure stats?  The core book stats for fighting a Monitor:  And TRTL's Monitor stats:  They cut the human stat block up in the books to be used for inhuman characters who don't feel DGI or have psychic stats and then never fixed the formatting like they did for the core. I mean, it's not hard to tell what it supposed to be what: Psi Potential is supposed to be Movement, Psi strength is supposed to be Health. Thing is, I don't really respect this game and a shitload of non-human encounters are just wildly unfair bordering on impossible. So having enemies instantly die is more interesting to me than flagrantly cheating and having G-Unit come out as victors. Also they never fix this. Four more modules and they never fix the incomplete non-human statblocks.
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Jul 30, 2017 17:21
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The Lone Badger posted:"Damnit, still haven't got the hang of this 'bodies' thing. What do I need to remember to include now? Is it kidneys?" This would explain why there are demons made entirely out of genitalia.
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Jul 30, 2017 17:30
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 Rifts World Book 15: Spirit West, Part 11: "All Man-Monsters, regardless of their totem or appearance, are the embodiment of evil, depravity, and insanity — abominations who loathe and destroy goodness, innocence and life." Monsters, Gods & Spirits By Wayne Breaux Jr. & Kevin Siembieda Bestiary time!  Steve had some issues with economy seating on his airline. Black-Winged Monster-Men So, the Nez Perce went to turn a city into a Preserve (more on those at the back of the book) but ran into 12'-20' tall, flying, black-shaded "sub-demons" similar to gargoyles. They enslaved humans, and the Nez Perce were able to liberate many of the slaves, and a guerrilla war between the two has continued ever since. They're pretty generic "we like to fight and murder" bad guys who apparently either like nesting in buildings or building termite-style tower-mounds. They're physically powerful and have a surprising amount of M.D.C., similar to gargoyles, which means they're real damage sponges for something that's suppose to come in groups of 4-12. They're immune to and can shoot lightning, but are weak to pure iron weapons. The iron thing seems weird because it's not exactly something you'd likely find in Native American myth - not that I could find anything like this in Nez Perce mythology. They're not treated as playable, and are just kind of generic guys to fill your post-urban dungeon with. Not sure if they're actually related to any myths. About the closest thing is I could find is a huge flying head with bat wings and claws, which... seems like it would have been more entertaining, at least.  Had to get our skulls in somewhere! Man-Eagles So, these are eagle guys who are sadistic edgelord baddies who like causing suffering because suffering is a thing they like and liking suffeagering is like suffering like suffer like um- pre:502 NONSENSE OVERFLOW ERROR Rifts World Book 15: Spirit West posted:They have an unexplained need/lust/desire for mortal women and often kidnap maidens, whisking them off to their home in the sky. When they tire of the woman, she is beaten and used as a slave, or tortured and thrown back to the Earth. Oh, gently caress this book so much. Sometimes they work for bad guys, a typical trait of monsters in Rifts when you need a wall of meat between the heroes and a villain. They seemingly live in the clouds but it turns out to just be a dimension of solid clouds with stone buildings, and you have to search around on the tops of mountains to find the secret magical gate (you'll probably fail a lot before you succeed). They're not that tough but have flint armor that can make them a bit more damage spongey (wait, they fly around with rock armor, how does that work?). They're your usual "ugly but tough" enemies, get a sixth sense and the ability to turn into mist, and some basic air spells. Other than the weird cloud dimension they have going on, they're very generic and we can move on. Oh, NPC only, if you care. Man-Monsters Examples of excessive spirit potential in humans So, sometimes evil shamans trick or force spirits to give up too much power, which is taboo but some people do it anyway. This is "Bad Medicine" in that it gets you blacklisted by the spirit world, but some seek to become more powerful for whatever. Hope you're not vain, though, because you'll quickly look superfreaky no matter which route to illicit spirit power you take. It notes sometimes non-Native Americans can become these with the right rituals, including some human-like beings like True Atlanteans, Elves, and Ogres. So, let's get to the specific types.  Nothing scarier than this. Animal Man-Monsters take too much power from animal totems and look like freakish animal-human hybrids. They often become "man-eaters" and are increasingly driven by their "base instincts". Also, they go insane because their senses are too sharp and it drives them mad. They become, in order as they level up: sadistic > bloodthirsty (literally) > "man-eaters" > megalomanical. After that they roll on a random chart for each and get random stuff from pyromania to the Siembieda-beloved "Jeykll and Hyde Syndrome" that I'm pretty sure pops up as a possibility on half the insanity tables they devise. But with all those issues, what do you get from being a man-monster? Well, your affinity and beauty drop like rocks, but you get modest physical increases across the board and supernatural strength. You become mega-damage, can live for a millennium if somebody doesn't kill you first (good luck with that!), you get a variety of generic animal abilities (nightvision, climbing, regeneration). They can become human-looking for short periods of time, become giant animal totem with boosted M.D.C. and stats over the normal animal form, can sense the supernatural, extremely keen senses (enough to sense "anger/hate" amongst myriad other effects), and magical powers to summon and control their totem animal. Notably, the senses are actually given mechanical backing and provide penalties for those using ambush or prowl skills to slip up on them. However, they get extended penalties against any attack against the senses (so flashbangs, pepper sprays, etc.).  The evil power of shrubbery. Plant-Monsters are those that, for whatever reason, stole power from plant spirits and are now plant people. Rifts World Book 15: Spirit West posted:A Plant Man-Monster can be a hauntingly seductive maiden with leaves and flowers growing from her hair and body, with hard bark-like armor covering her arms, legs, and chest or belly, while Plant-Monsters from swampy areas in the south often have thick vines or roots entwined around their bodies or replacing their muscles. So, being part plant dampens their emotions, and it's only hate and edgy sadism that keep them from falling into lassitude. Apparently they like complex, sinister schemes and backup plans because... they do, don't worry about reasons. Sometimes they can get stuck roleplaying a plant and falling into trances for days if they lose focus. Like the others, they're mega-damage monsters with supernatural physical traits, but they get boosted affinity because, unlike animals, plants are sexy. They live two millennia, sense water, can live on plant food, always sense the sun and moon (which somehow gives them perfect direction) and can see "all spectrums of light" but have "poor vision at night". They can turn into a human briefly, turn into a giant monster tree, regenerate even after being mostly destroyed (but not totally), and can cast some plant magic. They have the drawback that they need sunlight and water, but generally get a pretty good shake if you don't mind being automatically eeevil.  "Am I too late to fill the book's skull quota? Some bird got here first? poo poo!" Spirit-Monsters steal power from ancestor and "other" spirits, which makes them into megalomanical people whose bones show through their skin. Basically, they become skeletors. They often float around because walking is for chumps. Not as many  on these ones, but they're supposed to be extremely rare.Though they become mega-damage like the others, they're more aligned towards being magical powerhouses. They get bonuses against magic and energy attacks, can sense "energy auras" (i.e. magic), are fearless, can create an astral form or can enter people's dreams, turn temporarily human or into an energy being, shoot awful energy beams, self-resurrect (losing permanent magical power), has a few super psionic powers, and can choose magic from nearly any category (except Techno-Wizardry or Rune Magic, and the latter doesn't have any rules for it anyway). Yes, this means you have to kill them like ten times for them to die. But they take damage from anti-magic or negate magic effects, so there's that. And that's that! We get the usual thug / schemer / overlord division of Siembiedan monsters, and move on to other monsters. Next: Monster-American Manual II.
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Jul 30, 2017 20:31
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gradenko_2000 posted:Is there a TRPG that "correctly" models suppressing fire to the point where fire-and-maneuver tactics is possible/the correct approach? Spycraft has a Suppressive Fire action but it's more for making it difficult for the enemy to move through a particular area than interfering with his/her attacks. Hostile V posted:WAVE ONE That's a Bizarro, dude.
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Jul 31, 2017 01:01
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Selachian posted:That's a Bizarro, dude. It's been bugging me, but it's been reminding me of a pop- or post-punk rocker like Billy Joe Armstrong or Gerard Way. The megaphone is obviously concealing the microphone in the source image this was traced off of.
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Jul 31, 2017 02:06
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I can see that. I personally keep seeing Stewart Lee. Evil devil worshipper Stewart Lee. Not to imply that he is a lovely comedian.
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Jul 31, 2017 02:14
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People keep beating me to Shadowrun things, but yeah. Shadowrun Suppressing Fire, at least per 4th edition, lays down a cone of hurt where people who don't keep their heads down take damage unless they can succeed a difficult skill check. This can be lethal enough to encourage you to sit tight in cover until the enemy needs to reload, and opens you up to flanking by his allies, unless, as wiegieman noted, unless you're a tank-built character or your opponent is using a peashooter to suppress you.
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Jul 31, 2017 03:12
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Night, I was looking on the F&F archive and was reading your old WHF posts. Did you ever finish em? Last post they have is the one about Morr. I'd love to read more. Do you have them collected somewhere? E: Not talking about Grail Knights stuff! If it in this thread, could anyone with the ability to check post history help me with a page number thereabout? Firstborn fucked around with this message at 04:14 on Jul 31, 2017 |
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Jul 31, 2017 04:00
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Kurieg posted:This would explain why there are demons made entirely out of genitalia. "Oh come on! You mean there's such a thing as 'too many' organs, as well as 'too few'? ...I'm never going to get this right."
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Jul 31, 2017 04:28
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Firstborn posted:Night, I was looking on the F&F archive and was reading your old WHF posts. Did you ever finish em? Last post they have is the one about Morr. I'd love to read more. Do you have them collected somewhere? I did go back and finish, and also did the vampire book, I guess it got missed by the archiving. E: I'll look up the dates/page numbers when I'm on internet that isn't a potato. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 14:19 on Jul 31, 2017 |
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Jul 31, 2017 13:27
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| # ? Apr 24, 2024 02:39 |
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gradenko_2000 posted:Is there a TRPG that "correctly" models suppressing fire to the point where fire-and-maneuver tactics is possible/the correct approach? There's always Phoenix Command! There's also the Vietnam RPG PATROL, which has a pretty abstracted combat system where suppressive fire are attacks that increase the difficulty of the opponent's attack rolls.
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Jul 31, 2017 14:16
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