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Mors Rattus posted:So what's a Bloodthirster's Movement? Can an elf just kite them forever? 6, 12 flying. They're faster than an elf and when they fly they can outrun a horseman. Honestly, the Empire book isn't bad, reading it again in preparation, just...not as exciting as Bretonnia or Kislev. It was their first 'country' book and it got cannibalized a *lot*. Magic is all in the Realm of Sorcery. The real detail on the Gods is in Tome of Salvation. The real write-ups of the great cities are all in the campaign books. That sort of thing. Also, it does a silly thing that they learned better about and tries to give direct populations for every town and village in the whole Empire, leading to hilarious stuff like all of Hochland Province having less than 1000 people in it. Oh, and it was written pretty soon after Storm of Chaos, so it's got some GW mandated 'Really play up how much damage Archaon did to the northern Empire and how everyone is really scared he might come back now!' stuff all over it that hurts it some. E: Seriously, the entire Empire has fewer than 1,000,000 people, roughly, according to Sigmar's Heirs. The 16th Century HRE had like 20,000,000. The Empire is presented as one of the largest and most populous countries in the world. The moral: Don't put exact population numbers in your RPG. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 20:18 on Aug 18, 2017 |
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Aug 18, 2017 20:13
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marshmallow creep posted:I am not that into it, but isn't the Fate series of anime products something like that, where people can summon Gilgamesh or King Arthur? Yep. In fact, you can have multiple, conflicting interpretations of the same historical figure show up and fight each other. Fate is at it's best when it's goofy.
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Aug 18, 2017 20:26
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I really want to see two wizards/priests in Warhammer duking it out Pokemon style with rival, regional interpretations of Sigmar. Also throw another vote for Kislev because Kislevites have a really cool (har!) culture and magic. marshmallow creep fucked around with this message at 20:52 on Aug 18, 2017 |
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Aug 18, 2017 20:43
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Ratoslov posted:Yep. In fact, you can have multiple, conflicting interpretations of the same historical figure show up and fight each other. Fate is at it's best when it's goofy. It's worth noting that, for many characters, all of the interpretations are anime girls. Initially, it was just King Arthur as a consequence of switching Fate Stay Night from having a female protagonist to a male one (for marketing purposes), which had a lot of plot consequences and lots of talking about how the hell this even worked. Then they realized the audience, for the most part, didn't really give that much of a gently caress about the whys, and now we have idol singer Elizabeth Báthory.
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Aug 18, 2017 21:47
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Oh Japan. Demon Princes aren't, say, the idea of a person. They're that person's soul. Becoming a Demon Prince and ascending to be a part of the Realm of Chaos is what every Champion is shooting for, just by the time they get it, since they've lost all memory of who they were and had a personality change implanted by their God...I kinda question how much it's the original Champion's soul anymore. Sort of a metaphysical ship of Theseus.
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Aug 18, 2017 21:56
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chiasaur11 posted:It's worth noting that, for many characters, all of the interpretations are anime girls. Also, they really liked the character design of Arturia, which has resulted in a slew of characters who look like Arturia in a different costume. It turns out King Arthur, Nero Claudius, Souji Okita, and Jeanne D'arc all looked nearly identical. There's also the evil twins and 'the same but with a spear' variations. poo poo's weird, yo.
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Aug 18, 2017 22:10
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chiasaur11 posted:It's worth noting that, for many characters, all of the interpretations are anime girls. who is 'they' in this case, because it sure as hell ain't Nasu, who gets off on five paragraph diatribes about magic circuits and the world of heroes and other insane bullshit and it sure isn't the hardcore nasuverse fans, who get off on talking to you about all that poo poo for three hours straight i was friends with a nasuverse fan for several years and now i know far more about the nasuverse than anyone ever wanted to
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Aug 18, 2017 22:13
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Night10194 posted:Oh Japan. And that's what I'm going off of. This thing, this powerful presence, is based on a real person but because of how it has been elevated to the supernatural, it pretty much by definition isn't them anymore. There's a kernel of what they were but that's all. If you go with the "psychic reflection of human ideas" explanation for the Chaos Gods and I think you could have some interesting things happen with this idea taken to one conclusion or another.
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Aug 18, 2017 23:09
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marshmallow creep posted:And that's what I'm going off of. This thing, this powerful presence, is based on a real person but because of how it has been elevated to the supernatural, it pretty much by definition isn't them anymore. There's a kernel of what they were but that's all. If you go with the "psychic reflection of human ideas" explanation for the Chaos Gods and I think you could have some interesting things happen with this idea taken to one conclusion or another. Yeah, that would be fun to do for a Prince some time. The bolding helped see what you were gettin' at.
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Aug 18, 2017 23:13
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Ratoslov posted:Also, they really liked the character design of Arturia, which has resulted in a slew of characters who look like Arturia in a different costume. It turns out King Arthur, Nero Claudius, Souji Okita, and Jeanne D'arc all looked nearly identical. There's also the evil twins and 'the same but with a spear' variations. poo poo's weird, yo. Jeanne D'arc was this for important plot/theme reasons as part of a larger story. The rest was to sell video games
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Aug 18, 2017 23:16
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What happens to a vampire if it wanders too far north? I seem to remember that the Ruinous Powers find them too dead to take over.
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Aug 18, 2017 23:51
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The Lone Badger posted:What happens to a vampire if it wanders too far north? I seem to remember that the Ruinous Powers find them too dead to take over. Depends on if the cloud cover holds. Chaos might not do anything to them, but they still don't care for Mr. Sun.
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Aug 18, 2017 23:56
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I wonder if the sun's presence can really be said to be a thing once you've gone so far north you've stepped out of reality entirely. A few vampires going north and going all 30 Days of Night on some Chaos tribes, going underground for the months when the sun is too high would probably be a good episodic adventure.
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Aug 19, 2017 00:12
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Mors Rattus posted:who is 'they' in this case, because it sure as hell ain't Nasu, who gets off on five paragraph diatribes about magic circuits and the world of heroes and other insane bullshit if you see a nasuverse fan, cross over to the other side of the street before it's too late. Nothing good ever comes of doing anything else.
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Aug 19, 2017 00:38
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I've been reading through the Abandon All Hope write-up (great job, btw) and at the same time I've been going through my Shadow of the Demon Lord stuff and I came across this in a supplement about the Void (which is basically spacehell)quote:
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Aug 19, 2017 02:36
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Huh, that's a much more evocative encounter, especially because it sounds like something you're supposed to come across and deal with. Quite an interesting idea.
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Aug 19, 2017 02:41
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 Unarmed Combat When your weapons break, either in the course of an adventure or in the middle of a fight, you may not have time or opportunity to get them repaired or replaced. If this is the case, you can either pick up a nearby rock, or start whooping rear end the oldest of ways: With your fists. Going mano-a-mano inherently puts you at a disadvantage against an armed enemy. If they have long weapon such as a spear or heavy club then any attacks against them are at -2 for the Attack Test. If you successfully hit them, you get to pick from five Unarmed Combat moves to perform:
Catastrophes and Critical Blows The degrees of success for unarmed combat are slightly different from those if you are armed.
Wrestling with an Animal Say you want to put a reindeer in a headlock, the difficulty is based on the animal’s weight. The heavier the animal, the more dice it rolls for any opposed strength tests, up to a max weight of 300kg and 4d6. You cannot wrestle an animal weighing more than 300kg, they’re just too dang huge for a human to manhandle. Also, when immobilizing or strangling an animal they can always choose to attack you, but do so at a -3 penalty. That covers Unarmed, next time Wounds, Damage, and Protection!
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Aug 19, 2017 03:43
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Night10194 posted:Oh Japan. I'm reminded of how apparently King Arthur being a woman in armour explains at least why Guinevere never had any children. (dunno about Mordred though) Also, made me picture a fallen hero turned Demon Prince having to taken on a Runepriest summoned manifestation of the legend that they once inspired.
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Aug 19, 2017 08:03
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It's a Japanese porn game, how Mordred was made should be fairly self evident.
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Aug 19, 2017 08:52
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 CHAPTER TWO: EXPRESS ELEVATOR TO HELL Or Posh Captivity The hatch leads down to the cell blocks that the Jaybirds have called their home. After a little bit of bellyaching about the loss of the pod, Louie breaks out the pruno and they have a brief toast to one last failed try at escape. The Jaybirds get themselves comfy and take the edge off with returning to their hobbies and taking drags off their smokes. A few of them curse Murphy's Law but the entire gang settles down into a state of relaxation. G-Unit gets a chance to actually meet the Jaybirds on better terms now. They're less a gang and more of a social club, all of them somewhat jaded but tempered with patience and a sense peace with themselves and their possible death. Out of all of the prisoners, the Jaybirds are the least afraid of death thanks to having spent so long behind bars. Hey, while we're here, at the end of the book you can find Traits for Elderly convicts. Now's as good a time as any, I don't feel like going over them at the end of the book.  
Talking about the alliance with Louie isn't something he really wants to discuss. He's thankful they saved his life, he's willing to listen to their speech, but he holds firmly to the notion that the Jaybirds are a neutral party. Asking Louie about getting to Oblivion is something he's more willing to entertain. Mitya consults diagrams of the ship's infrastructure and locates the elevator. It's offline but he's confident he could get it working again. Getting there is going to be hard, so Louie allows Mitya to accompany G-Unit as a guide and a tech expert thanks to Mitya memorizing schematics in the past when he was bored. The pacing of getting to the elevator is up to the GM in question. There's no map to be found here. Suggestions for encounters:
 In G-Wing, Level 51, the party comes across an empty and abandoned stretch of cell blocks plunged into deep darkness. Here is where they'll find the elevator and the main obstacle between them and descent.  G-Unit emerges from a tunnel into a sewage maintenance chamber. It's dark and everything is rusted over from dripping condensation, but the room is safe.  This room isn't safe. The water in the pool is heavily contaminated with blood and beneath the water is a lurking Progenitor of Sins who will emerge if anyone in the party meets the following criteria:    For reference.  What sucks is that they spell out how to use the POS step-by-step: Acid to melt the players' armor, Lash to Infest, Kiss the ones with the strongest weapons to paralyze them, Pain Is Pleasure-bite them to heal. Fortunately, G-Unit doesn't have anyone in the party who would provoke the POS so there's no fight here (and even if they did, the POS would emerge and then keel over dead).  Jackpot (Trustee) and Doc (Orderly) recognize this location for what it is: a secret refuge the Warden would unlock for important prisoners in case of an uprising that was big enough to cause the general armories to become inaccessible. In fact, this room can only be unlocked by Jackpot: this is her reward for killing Lobo in the last module.  You can't hack the computers or find out more info from them, they'll automatically shut down after three minutes and are unresponsive. In the middle of the room is a clear plexiglass case and Beth immediately makes a bee-line to try and open it, easily opening the unlocked case...and hurting herself for 1 health in the process as a needle in the clasp draws a blood sample from her. Doc makes a Medical Knowledge exam to realize that the Warden has now taken a DNA sample of the first person to open the box and everyone looks around nervously about what this will entail. The contents of the box are pretty good though: 1 set of riot armor and helmet (goes to Peacemaker), 50 feet of nylon rope, six ration packs, two cold-climate blankets (there is griping about how they would be handy a few days ago), a tracking band that can be activated and tracked with proper equipment, two flashlights, five hydrogen cells, two entanglement grenades, two scatterguns (use to replace some of the Room Brooms), 30 rubber slugs and 10 barricade busters. While G-Unit divides up the spoils of the box, the machinery of level 7, 8 and 9's factories kick on to begin the Warden's plan to deal with the demonic incursion. The plan is threefold. First, the Warden's designs for assassin androids will be fed into a production line and the factories will create an army of robotic assassins. Second, Beth's DNA will be cultivated (along with the DNA of other prisoners) to create organic covering for the androids. Third, the Beth-Terminators will be seeded throughout the ship and will begin the mission of infiltrating the gangs of survivors to weaken the gangs so the Warden can bring them back into line. The Beth-Terminators will also deal with the Demons as they come. This won't actually take place this mission, this is just "a future plot point" idea and the first generation may resemble Beth but future generations might not.  I guess Beth officially looks like this now.  The superconductor magnets in the rails are malfunctioning, so whole swathes of the rails are currently alive with electricity and occasionally they arc and spark. A well-timed jump over the rails will prevent anything bad from happening. The player crossing the rails rolls 1d12 and so does the GM. If both numbers match, the PC crossing the rail is electrified and dealt 3d6 damage. If any of the dice display a 6, their heart stops and they'll die in 10 rounds without Medical Knowledge attention. Harrowing, but the odds are on your side. Regardless of what you roll, it's a 1/12 shot for the GM's number to match yours. Just go for it.  This leads to another level of the ship but it's sealed by rust. You can open this with a laser cutter which...oh hey, Beepy has that now, doesn't he? Good boy, Beepy. Opening the door reveals...well gently caress you, you figure it out, you're not actually supposed to open this thing.  Mitya is baffled but immediately complies: this should be the elevator to Oblivion. Instead, this is where the Protectors, the prisoners who would be Colonial Administrators and the Family have been. The entrance is guarded by 24 Protector grunts armed with submachine guns or cattle prods and two more grunts working the spotlights acting as lookouts. G-Unit reluctantly complies.    Let's take a closer look at exactly what has happened here. The Protectors are generally a force of folks who are ex-soldiers like Beth, Doc and Peacemaker who feel betrayed by the PTM and refuse to consider themselves proper criminals. Their leader has a familiar name: Marius "Patton" Gordon, a five-star general from the Last War who Shel was trying to research in the last module. Patton and the Protectors formed a fighting force in response to Perdition, using their status as Trustees to access forbidden parts of the ship and knowledge of prison life to recruit more military-minded folks to the cause. In the process of hunting for more guns, Patton and his men ran across Papa Vito Paladino, the don of the Paladino Crime Family/The Family. Defying all reason, the two formed an alliance after Papa Vito explained that he had received a position in the Colonial Government and that Vito had a safe space to go to. Instead of just like slapping the poo poo out of a mobster and his cronies until he tells you where his safety zone is, Vito convinces the Protectors that they have a stockpile of military weapons there and they should team up.  This zone is Site B, a collection of prefab buildings and bases to be used to act as governmental buildings upon colonization. There are no guns there, but to keep up the lie that there are, Vito has had his men get submachine guns that he paid people to hide in the ship. Site B is now full of Protectors, members of the Family and Colonial Administrators that have managed to survive defrosting/Perdition in general to make it there. And they’re not exactly thrilled that a mob of 20+ people, two robots and a small yet vicious dog have showed up. Actually that’s a lie. It has been literal years since anyone has seen a dog. People are pretty psyched to see Kira. Someone is absolutely going to pet his belly while people are interrogating G-Unit once they drop their weapons.  Wits check to understand that the Protectors want to check their identities. If they fail that (they don’t) Mitya will explain it: the Protectors consider themselves better than convicts and you should probably lie your way out of this. You can gain access to Site B by:
 The man is a Protector who wants to find out more about the party. He’s gruff, rough and authoritative. Here’s how this plays out:
Also for the record, I keep saying “Posh Captivity” because the book keeps saying Posh Captivity which is the section that is headed with Posh Captivity because G-Unit is sent to Posh Captivity. POSH CAPTIVITY So G-Unit has been recognized by Fournines so they’re immediately put under Posh Captivity. What does this mean? Well, they’re confined to living quarters while Fournines relays the info to the Don.   Ha ha one room. This is to laugh. No. They’re confined to like six rooms. I’ll let you pretend how the slumber party bunking logic shakes out. Point is, these are by far the nicest, most comfortable digs they’ve been in so far. The rest of the day is spent taking a goddamn hot bath for the first time in weeks at least, everyone taking turns to rest and relax in the rooms as best as they can. And then, right around the time they plan on all getting some rest (in a goddamn bed for once and hell even sleeping on the floor isn't so bad for once), there's a knock on the door. For the purposes of party size, let's pretend their visitor ushers them to a place where they can all sit and talk.  Let's meet the leaders of the Family! Vito "Papa" Paladino (#9992102) Born in Hell's Kitchen and speaking with the accent of a Brooklyn boxer, Vito's appearance and mannerisms belie a deeper criminal intelligence. Peace in the wake of the Last War was the absolute best thing that could've happened for the Paladino Crime Family, taking advantage of the rebuilding efforts to peddle drugs and skin and guns. In anticipation of everything going horribly wrong for him, he knowingly donated millions to the construction of the Gehenna to ensure comfy housing for him and his men along with stashes of guns and drugs hidden all over the ship. He also donated a shitload of money to secure a membership in the Colonial Administration. He would prefer to not be in a Hell dimension and instead establishing an intergalactic crime empire, but for now using his legitimacy to keep Patton from killing him is good enough.   Carl Lombra (#9992075) Carl Lombra (played here by a younger Peter Weller) has been Vito's bodyguard for the last ten years and has survived that long by being a paranoid bodybuilder. He's in impeccable shape (there's a handful of people in G-Unit who are in fact more buff) and he treats fitness like it's a religion. The main reason he's still going is because he loves being a murderer for the mob and relishes the danger.   Amadora "Viper" Paladino (#9992105) Once upon a time, Amadora fled her home to try and model in New York and instead ended up dancing at a strip club own by da Fambly. At 17 she started making eyes at Vito and whoa wait hooboy I just realized she was an underage stripper oh good lord how did I not notice this before, I mean it's kinda inconsequential for everything else in this book but oh wow uh this sure was a decision. Uh. Wow. Okay, gonna be a bad taste in my mouth for the rest of this because she ends up saving him from an assassination plot by snitching on the conspirators to him. Three months later the two of them get married and she becomes the Dona of the Family. She's as smart as she is beautiful, though, and her role in the Family was a legitimate one hidden beneath the veneer of appearing to be a trophy wife 30 years younger than her husband. She secretly hates that everyone in the Family outside of the core group treats her like a know-nothing bimbo and as a result of tradition Vito can't set her up to be his successor legitimately without causing a schism. In the end, she willingly turned herself in to join her husband in the Gehenna and played a maudlin role in the media to make her sacrifice seem noble. She's been by Vito's side ever since behind bars, as evil and cunning as her husband.   Tommy "Fournines" Chen (#9999821) If you don't recall Fournines, he was a mid-level admin who jumped at the chance to have governmental power in a prison colony by willingly getting frozen. G-Unit thawed him out when they found a compromised cold sleep facility missing its power and Beth ended up saving him from the DOS by being awesome at throwing knives precisely. Somewhere along the line, he regained his memories and bailed on G-Unit and Sanctuary to find Site B and has been here since. He's ascended up the social structure of Site B to become Vito's assistant and is totally down with both the criminal element of the Family and the colonial government idea. If he dislikes the PCs (and he kinda does; in the process of saving him, he did get stabbed once with a throwing knife), he wants them dead. But if he can't, he'll just try to shut them down at every turn and publically shout them down and make Vito hate them.   Meeting Vito, Carl, Amadora and Fournines (I'm not calling him Tommy Chen, he's Fournines) is a roleplaying experience. Vito is boisterous and grandiose, Amadora plays arm candy but has surprising insight, Carl stands around and glowers and looks tough and Fournines does his best to piss off G-Unit. The meeting is a gesture because Patton won't be here on purpose, kept out of the loop for Vito's plans. He will pretend to entertain the idea of letting G-Unit use the elevator but...well, Vito is on the side of damnation, kind of surprisingly. For some inexplicable reason, he wants the triumvirate of the Psychos, Embracers and DOS to succeed and will posit his position as "if we let people go down to Oblivion, this might kick the hornet's nest and hell will rain down upon us". Because G-Unit can't really be allowed to leave Site B, he leaves them with promises of positions of power and work in Site B.  So I guess you better break out, huh? How To Break Out Basic Vito can't be convinced otherwise at the moment, but the moment Vito leaves that still leaves Carl, Fournines and Amadora to be talked to discretely. Trying to convince Fournines won't work, even if there's loyalty and friendship between them. You can, however, trick Fournines into delivering poo poo to the hotel room that can be used to assemble a tool to hack the doors and let you out. Carl, likewise, can't be appealed to. The Carl route is to goad him into opening the doors to the room and fight you and you can overpower him and escape. Amadora is icy and distant, but you have two approaches for her. Approach 1 is to empathize with the fact that she's clearly smarter than she lets on. Approach 2 is to seduce her and have a secret intimate dinner with her (it's explicitly stated that if the PC is caught with her, both will die at Vito's hand) to learn more about the group. Either approach will lead to her plan to assassinate Vito so she can take control of the gang. You can also, uh. Give her control the group and then it's perfectly possible for her to not uphold her side of the bargain. The final option is to appeal to Vito's sense of honor using Prison Culture Laws. Alternately there's the G-Unit approach which is "ignore the mafia, take plenty of baths, help yourselves to the amenities and rest before you have to go into a deathtrap". Sadly Mitya has a plan if nobody can figure out just how the gently caress to get to the elevator.  Oh no! A heart attack! Let us all follow Mitya and the Protectors helping him.  Time for Fighting Justice! A trial is a fight between two people, each representing each side and doing it in the ring. Everyone in Site B is excited for the fight and even the Protectors and Fournines are interested. Each side elects a person to do battle for the trial and the obvious choice is Beth because the fight is with knives. That's right, knives! Not shivs, knives! The time for knives is now in the final book! This book includes rules for knives at the end of the book. But you know what? Why not take a look at these knives now? DIAL THIS NUMBER FOR FREE SHIPPING IN THE NEXT TEN MINUTES!   Butterfly knives deal 1d4 damage and someone with the Knife Fighter Trait gains +1 Prowess up to 11 Prowess when fighting with a butterfly knife.  Combat knives look like bowie knives and deal 1d4+1 damage.  Multitool knives are pocket knives. They deal 1d4 damage and can be used as Rudimentary Tools.  Switchblades deal 1d4 damage and are easier to hide when the blade is tucked away.  Tantos deal 1d4 damage and...don't do anything special. They're, like, baseline knives.  Throwing knives deal 1d4 damage and using Knife Fighter can be used to throw the knife with no penalty 1 square for every point of Prowess the fighter has.  Beth has a choice between a combat knife, butterfly knife and switchblade. She picks...the butterfly because it is, by far, the best knife due to the fact that it's basically a +1 to hit weapon meaning you hit more with it. She's lead into the ring: a circle of people around the fighters, the ring lined with cattle prods to keep people in the ring. And now she gets to meet Vito's champion. Her opponent? A Devourer in riot armor.   Meet Bryce! Bryce died to a horde of Devourers while out having adventures working for the Family and his body got possessed. Vito loves tormenting the Devourer and the Devourer loves being tormented in turn. He's been using Bryce to solve problems and is really excited to use Bryce in the ring.  Bryce is actually kind of interesting because his armor inhibits his abilities. You have to destroy his duds to make him easier to kill, but then he gets more abilities. However...y'all see where this is going. Beth enters the ring and spins the butterfly knife, showing off the crowd and mugging. Bryce stumbles into the ring, goaded on by cattleprods poking him in the right direction. Someone blows a whistle, Beth flips her butterfly knife into the readied position...and Bryce keels over and dies. Combat over! Chapter over! NEXT TIME: untold amounts of bullshit in the depths of Oblivion once they actually get a chance to get on the elevator. Vox Valentine fucked around with this message at 09:30 on Aug 19, 2017 |
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Aug 19, 2017 09:24
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Serf posted:I've been reading through the Abandon All Hope write-up (great job, btw) and at the same time I've been going through my Shadow of the Demon Lord stuff and I came across this in a supplement about the Void (which is basically spacehell) Isn't Shadow of the Demon Lord set in not-Diablo European fantasyland? Which supplement is this and how did they work in space and spaceships? Loxbourne fucked around with this message at 12:53 on Aug 19, 2017 |
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Aug 19, 2017 12:25
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Cold Steel's 'middle aged office workers hit stuff with swords' marketing will never stop being funny. E: Also, their d20 is really showing with all those knives. A sane game would just go 'Actual Intended Knife: More durable, slightly better than a Shiv, Knife Fighter is better than ever now.' and then been done with it. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 12:56 on Aug 19, 2017 |
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Aug 19, 2017 12:46
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Night10194 posted:Cold Steel's 'middle aged office workers hit stuff with swords' marketing will never stop being funny. I can't be the only one who thinks that Dadjokes, swords and sandals (with socks) could definitely work for a quick game.
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Aug 19, 2017 13:19
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I think I'll do Realm of the Ice Queen next, so look for peasants becoming winged hussars, bear tamers, ice witches in magic sleighs, mustaches, nice hats, and the god who can't hear you over how awesome he is.
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Aug 19, 2017 13:26
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Mors Rattus posted:who is 'they' in this case, because it sure as hell ain't Nasu, who gets off on five paragraph diatribes about magic circuits and the world of heroes and other insane bullshit The first warning sign is calling it ~the nasuverse~
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Aug 19, 2017 14:24
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It is literally impossible for them to have been on board gehenna any longer than anyone else, right?
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Aug 19, 2017 14:48
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Kurieg posted:It is literally impossible for them to have been on board gehenna any longer than anyone else, right? Yup. AAH's writer(s) have had some serious issues with tracking the passage of time as the writeup has noted. It's just easily to lose in the whirling tornado of poo poo from all their other serious issues.
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Aug 19, 2017 15:44
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Loxbourne posted:Isn't Shadow of the Demon Lord set in not-Diablo European fantasyland? Which supplement is this and how did they work in space and spaceships? There's lots of small nods to sci-fi stuff in the supplements. The core book does include a for-sure robot alien creature. But for this supplement (The Hunger in the Void), the titular Void is a hell dimension where the Demon Lord lives. It is mostly empty, but bits of old worlds destroyed by the Demon Lord drift around, and those worlds could contain literally anything. So you occasionally come across cool sci-fi stuff like this.
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Aug 19, 2017 16:09
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The idea seems to be they were for-lifers prisoners before getting thrown onto Gehenna, but again the writers forgot about this and again can't create a coherent timeline or plot.
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Aug 19, 2017 16:22
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Serf posted:There's lots of small nods to sci-fi stuff in the supplements. The core book does include a for-sure robot alien creature. But for this supplement (The Hunger in the Void), the titular Void is a hell dimension where the Demon Lord lives. It is mostly empty, but bits of old worlds destroyed by the Demon Lord drift around, and those worlds could contain literally anything. So you occasionally come across cool sci-fi stuff like this. Expanding on this because I think it's a cool setting: Basically, the in-realty setting doesn't have space flight as such, but it does have portals to other planets/moons, which goes full-on planetery romance. There's a surprising amount of planets/moons with livable atmospheres/gravities, there have even been colonies set up by people from the not-Diablo European fantasyland (which have failed for various grisly reasons), there's a dead planet with the remains of an ancient alien civilization, and generally weird poo poo all around. You could easily have an entire 0-10 campaign set off Urth. Then there's the Void, which is basically the Nothing in "In the beginning there was nothing". Shenanigans happened, then in the Void bubbles of realities happened (possibly each one a universe onto itself?), and one such bubble is where the main setting is. It's kinda like being in space, crossed with the Ethereal Plane from D&D, plus a decent dose of SotDL weirdness.
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Aug 19, 2017 17:09
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Antilles posted:Expanding on this because I think it's a cool setting: Basically, the in-realty setting doesn't have space flight as such, but it does have portals to other planets/moons, which goes full-on planetery romance. There's a surprising amount of planets/moons with livable atmospheres/gravities, there have even been colonies set up by people from the not-Diablo European fantasyland (which have failed for various grisly reasons), there's a dead planet with the remains of an ancient alien civilization, and generally weird poo poo all around. You could easily have an entire 0-10 campaign set off Urth. Then there's the Void, which is basically the Nothing in "In the beginning there was nothing". Shenanigans happened, then in the Void bubbles of realities happened (possibly each one a universe onto itself?), and one such bubble is where the main setting is. It's kinda like being in space, crossed with the Ethereal Plane from D&D, plus a decent dose of SotDL weirdness. Sounds like Spelljammer to me.
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Aug 19, 2017 18:35
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Horrible Lurkbeast posted:I can't be the only one who thinks that Dadjokes, swords and sandals (with socks) could definitely work for a quick game. Night10194 posted:E: Also, their d20 is really showing with all those knives. A sane game would just go 'Actual Intended Knife: More durable, slightly better than a Shiv, Knife Fighter is better than ever now.' and then been done with it. Robindaybird posted:The idea seems to be they were for-lifers prisoners before getting thrown onto Gehenna, but again the writers forgot about this and again can't create a coherent timeline or plot.
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Aug 19, 2017 21:14
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Hostile V posted:Yeah to be honest I've largely given up trying to adhere to any semblance of the timeline and am just making the characters I want to make for this whole thing. It does present the opportunity to extrapolate backwards from the text of the feat, meaning that somewhere there's a child who was brought aboard the ship by his parents due to sedition or some such, but since he was in the first 10% of the passengers he's now a lifer and the most grizzled and world weary 8 year old that has ever existed. He
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Aug 19, 2017 22:43
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Kurieg posted:It does present the opportunity to extrapolate backwards from the text of the feat, meaning that somewhere there's a child who was brought aboard the ship by his parents due to sedition or some such, but since he was in the first 10% of the passengers he's now a lifer and the most grizzled and world weary 8 year old that has ever existed. e: I officially put more thought into this dumb prison scenario than the makers did, and normally my thoughts about prisons involve 70s movies.
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Aug 19, 2017 23:10
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Hostile V posted:Yeah to be honest I've largely given up trying to adhere to any semblance of the timeline and am just making the characters I want to make for this whole thing. I would actually like to see a similar setting, in a better system, with G-Unit as premade characters and/or important NPCs. Your little touches, like the relationships between the team and NPCs they've rescued, make them far more compelling than this game deserves. Some aspects of the setting are interesting; they just happen to be the parts that were stolen from better sources (such as Event Horizon) and managed to not get entirely buried under a mountain of poo poo writing. It wouldn't be hard to do it better. The bar can't get lower--FATAL's in the way.
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Aug 19, 2017 23:38
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AAH is the only game I've ever seen where I'd actually expand the gear list if I could. Like, I'd distinguish between lovely disposable shivs (like sharpened toothbrush handles), good shivs, and proper fighting knives.
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Aug 20, 2017 00:14
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CHAPTER THREE: GOING DOWN Or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaC0vNLdLvY Where we last left our intrepid knife infomercial, she had just killed a Devourer by doing nothing and the crowd loves it.  They now have an audience with Patton and Vito has stepped aside to let G-Unit use the elevators as they wish, secretly pissed that he lost but unable to do anything but try to save face. General Marius "Patton" Gordon (#0001452) Patton was a high-ranking general before he was promoted to Supreme Commander of the Meritocracy Ground Forces and became the master and commander of the final push against the anti-PTM rebels. As the architect of the end of the Final War, Patton was awarded All The Medals until he was pretty much immediately put on trial for his involvement in the war. He spent time in a re-education camp before the Gehenna was built proper and his family have been replaced with the Protectors (mostly because his wife died long ago and his sons died in the war). He's still willing to suit up and fight alongside his men and they idolize him as a result. Patton doesn't trust the PTM in the slightest, but he trusts most prisoners less. The only prisoners he's really willing to give the time of day are prisoners with military history, Dissidents or Anarchists (because those crimes were often used to get rid of people the government didn't like). The main reason he's working with the Family and the Colonial Administration at all is because he doesn't trust them and would rather have the guns first before they betray him. If the ship ever did land on a planet to be colonized, he would still be willing to make the Protectors into the police for the colony. Right now he just wants to focus on fighting Demons.   The chat with Patton has some strings attached. Making contested Sociability checks are done with d10s instead of d12s unless you have Military Training/Experience. He can be convinced to turn against Vito, but he won't do it immediately and will only go after him once you leave. If you want to join the Protectors and have a Military Trait, he'll waive you in. If you mention that the DOS want to assassinate him, he will reward the group with either a waiving of probation to be in the Protectors or you can get a full load of ammo and batteries for every weapon you carry (take this last one). Also, telling him about the assassination attempt will convince him to ally with the Furies and Giants against damnation. When they're done chatting with Patton, Paladino reluctantly turns over a map to the elevator and is like "alright fine you win or whatever". The elevator is a quarter mile down the way through maglev tunnels attached to the site, the elevator intentionally a part of Site B so if the colonials had to use the foundry for their own needs they could. Mitya hangs back to regain his energy for the trek back to the Roost, planning on putting a good word in for G-Unit once he gets home. G-Unit sets off, the blast doors close behind them and there's no trouble getting to the elevator which has been intentionally sabotaged and reactivating the power requires Hacking and a Wits check. Investigating the elevator to find this out gives you a bonus if you have Educated or Hacking. Everyone piles into the elevator and holds on tight.  Oblivion, at first, is dark and hot. Not hot enough to be dangerous but hot enough to be unbearable. The elevator's drop-off is around the corner from Oblivion proper but it's still hot and noisy from the sounds of industry, so noisy that spotting sneaky people has a penalty (like that's a thing). Everyone braces themselves and turns the corner. OBLIVION  Oblivion is fully automated except for the few parts that required people for hard labor. Many of the prisoners sent here didn't return thanks to the dangerous machinery, heat, liquid metals and radiation pulses. There are some hazards to be had at the beginning of the entry into Oblivion, hazards such as:
 If you choose to investigate (and you can keep walking), you'll find the Man in the Suit (MS for short). The MS will help G-Unit slip around some more hazards and will bring him back to his little hidey hole where he's scavenging supplies and calcium carbide for lights. Speaking through his facemask, he'll chat with G-Unit. Now, this is the same guy from Sins of the Past that they saved from a Psycho by giving him an opening. If they didn't save him, this is just some other Fittest who needs a Social check to be made more friendly. If they were a dick to him/helped the Psycho, this happens:    DIGESTER  A Digester is a Demon that has managed to possess architecture, summoned by a Despair manifestation. The moment the Digester appears, the thing it's possessing takes on a sinister appearance like a hallway having squishy floors and stuff looking like teeth on the ceiling. They literally devour despair and suffering as nourishment. When the Digester is hiding, there are some tells not unlike Infrastructure like weird stuff out the corner of your eyes or "an evil appearance".  So yeah the moment you're inside of a Digester's zone, it's hard to leave and it'll just bite you to shreds. Fortunately such a creature will just immediately die but also G-Unit wasn't a dick to the MS. Because they helped him, he feels like he owes them a debt and will listen to their requests. Telling him that they want to find the DOS and Psychos leads to him grumbling but agreeing. He doesn't really want to go anywhere near them, but the best way to their lair is through a place he calls The Forge. He will, however, warn them pretty hard about how the Nether has been loving up time and space and will be worse past the Forge. He has also seen the Psychos, DOS and the Embracers, referring to their leaders as "a horned demon" (Blade has been engaging in some mutations), "a walking corpse" (Lucretia, kind of rude) and "a man who has the power to destroy minds with a whisper" (the leader of the Embracers, a man named Major Havoc). He thinks they've been fighting against each other, but in reality the Warden has started making overt moves against them in the heart of Oblivion. With that information dropped, they all go forth to The Forge. The Skeep posted:Anyone want to take bets on what dumb mechanic they'll use for the setpiece? My guess is on the party having to run through a operating factory belt.  The Forge Or   Welcome to the thing that's going to kill most of the party. The Forge is explicitly stated to be 430 feet deep. At the base of the Forge is the entrance to the Dorms of Damnation. The gangs here know all of the sneaky ways to get around and unfortunately you don't. Descending the Forge is, uh. Hard. There are a lot of instant death traps and if you didn't use your Hope, you totally can to escape some of these issues. There is also a new mechanic called a flub which is basically like a mulligan for one player to use to avoid danger, like Hope but just for you. Flubs can be spent to help other people at the cost of losing your own flub. Flubs only exist because otherwise this section would be even more impossible.  Flub flub flub flub flub. For future reference, every 10 feet you fall deals 1d6 damage. The Crane Assembly is 60 feet below the entrance. Simply dropping down will kill most of this party. The only way to avoid this would be to use rope which hey, there's been rope all of this module and using rope requires no role. The frame of the crane is 12 feet wide and wobbly thanks to the moving crane, requiring a Reflexes check every turn you stand on the frame. Fail this check and you fall onto the scrap conveyor and take 9d6 damage which would kill any survivors if they dropped onto the crane to begin with. The Scrap Conveyor is 90 feet below the crane. The crane is constantly going across the scrap conveyor to move trash elsewhere, raising up and down and moving and causing the frame in the zone above to wiggle. Getting down to the scrap conveyor involves climbing down the 50 feet of cable hanging from the frame, holding on to the hook and landing on the scrap conveyor. Your success climbing on the cable is entirely dependent on your Prowess.  How exactly does this work? I don't know! I'm gonna assume you roll the dice of choice and if you get a 1 you fall and receive 9d6 damage like you fell off the crane assembly. The Incinerator destroys rubber or other flammable, useless materials and poops out the remaining metal onto the heap conveyor below via shaft. You can avoid the Incinerator in one of two ways. First, just jump onto the heap conveyor below. It's 30 feet down and this will deal 3d6 damage. The other way to get down is to use the fact that the incinerator's fires activate in flashes and dodge into the incinerator in the handful of seconds when the fire isn't on. This relies on your Wits.  Failing the timing means you catch fire for 5d6 damage and take 1d6 damage until you get extinguished. Stopping, dropping and rolling will put the fire out on a 1 on a roll of a d4. The Heap Conveyor...doesn't actually hurt you to land on because the piles of scrap metal catch your fall despite it literally saying above that leaping onto this conveyor belt will deal 3d6 damage??? I mean. I'm not gonna lie. Landing on a pile of scrap would hurt but hey if it's safer than playing red light green light in a furnace I'd do it. The heap conveyor is safe (except for the compactor) and is 60 feet above the crucible conveyor. The Compactor Unit grabs scrap off the heap conveyor and forces the metal into big blocks. Unless you jump to the crucible (which will deal 6d6 damage!) or use rope to rappel down, you automatically end up in the compactor and are squished and killed. The only way to avoid this from happening is to burn your Hope or Flub where instead you'll be perfectly safe and spat out on the crucible conveyor. The Crucible Conveyor carries compacted scrap to the crucible where it's exposed to 4000 degree temperatures to melt it. Big metal robot arms grab the blocks of metal and throw it into the big yellow thing in the background, a detail I am including because I was baffled for far too long about how this works. The only way off this level is to jump to the crucible pipe or to "the mold conveyor" (not a thing? The cooling conveyor maybe? How about no because it's super far down). However, the big metal robot arms are in the way. Compare your Reflexes to see if the big metal arms will grab you and throw you into the crucible and kill you instantly.  Spending a Flub or Hope will let you wiggle free at the last minute. The Crucible Pipe is 20 feet down so that's 2d6 damage inflicted. Because it's a pipe spitting out molten metal, touching it deals 1d6 damage every round you're standing on it. However, as a double gently caress-you, sometimes the pipe poops out a Rageling (one of those Demons that attached Sanctuary, the spicy boys) like Ragelings are made out of liquid metal or whatever. Whenever someone lands on here, roll 1d4 to see how many spawn and will chase the PC. These Ragelings are still the same Ragelings from Sanctuary and they immediately crawl out of the pipe, keel over and die. The Vat Conveyor is 40 feet below the pipe. The vats catch molten metal and then pour the molten metal down into the conveyor belt below. Landing on this conveyor from the pipe doesn't deal any damage. Instead you have to time check your Wits to see if you run the risk of landing in a vat.  Landing in a vat deals 5d6 damage, permanently scars you, sets you on fire and destroys all of your stuff. Don't land in a vat of molten metal. The Cooling Conveyor is 20 feet below the vat conveyor. Spray nozzles loaded with liquid nitrogen are delivering bursts of cold to the molds of liquid so the robot arms can transfer cooled metal to train that leads to a processing plant. Landing on this conveyor is a flat 1 in 4 chance of getting sprayed with liquid nitrogen and dealing 2d6 damage. The Foundry Floor is 30 feet below from the cooling conveyor and deals 3d6 damage. From here you're safe from the Foundry and can see an open 20 foot wide grate that leads to Chapter 4 and the lair of the damned. Okay! So let's take a look at what it'd look like for the most athletic, most fitting person to run this gauntlet. This would be our good friend Doc who has a 10 in Reflexes, Wits and Prowess. And because Doc isn't suicidal and will play cautiously, let's pretend she has the rope that has been accrued from all over this zone (roughly 150 feet of rope).
 I'm just avoiding making everyone do Reflex Checks Or Die. NEXT TIME: Chapter four, entering the heart of damned territory and getting closer and closer to the end of this entire module. Will G-Unit triumph against the threat of the leaders of the Psychos, Embracers and DOS? I mean there's around 30 of them, two are robots and one is a dog and pretty much everyone is heavily armed. Vox Valentine fucked around with this message at 02:28 on Aug 20, 2017 |
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Aug 20, 2017 02:18
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A loving 2d platformer level. It was a 2d platformer level.
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Aug 20, 2017 02:29
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I was going to ask what kind of stupid, fuckass, shithead thought process was involved in THAT, but then I remembered the tweet I saw earlier tonight.13thAge posted:I asked @JonathanMTweet and he smiled and said, "I created the Fight In Spirit rules because I wanted PCs to die."
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Aug 20, 2017 02:41
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| # ? Apr 24, 2024 15:56 |
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Alternate solution to this problem: the entire party leaps and free-falls to the floor. Because a Hope point affects the whole party, they burn the Hope and land comfortably.
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Aug 20, 2017 02:48
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