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The old joke is no one complains about the railroad if the view is nice and destination is Awesometown.
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Nov 17, 2017 21:57
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Comrade Gorbash posted:The old joke is no one complains about the railroad if the view is nice and destination is Awesometown. Also helps if they get the occasional chance to get off and stretch their legs.
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Nov 17, 2017 21:58
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I'm looking at my ancient copy of Horror on the Orient Express and wondering if some cosmic gaming joke wasn't perpetrated on younger me.
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Nov 17, 2017 22:01
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Comrade Gorbash posted:The old joke is no one complains about the railroad if the view is nice and destination is Awesometown. One of my High School friends ran a ludicrously railroady campaign because he had everything planned out in his head and any deviation from the path needed to be immediately corrected. There was this long circuitous path through a forest to a cave that we needed to get to for some reason, and I, the ranger, wanted to bushwack. We were assaulted by a fiendish dire tyrannasaur that chased us back onto the forest path and then disappeared back into the treeline. When we got to the cave we were attacked by an unseen foe from within the cave, 3 of us dove into the underbrush and one of us ran into the cave. Apparently running into the cave was the correct response because the rest of us were instantly killed and had to go play PS2 while he continued the campaign with the one person who made the correct choice.
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Nov 17, 2017 22:09
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Years ago, playing Vampire, the party had a sudden burst of brilliance and managed to figure out the plot before finding all the clues. Cue the GM going, "You weren't supposed to go to the club until Thursday!"
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Nov 17, 2017 22:13
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Angrymog posted:Years ago, playing Vampire, the party had a sudden burst of brilliance and managed to figure out the plot before finding all the clues. Cue the GM going, "You weren't supposed to go to the club until Thursday!" One thing I will give the big Hams campaign, as I prepare to go through it after I finish Realm of the Ice Queen. Chapter 2 tries to be freeform and explicitly includes a route for 'The players figure everything out, do everything right quickly, and solve the entire chapter in a couple sessions. If they do, eh, they earned it, everything works out.' E: I mean, gently caress, you can actually beat the bad guys to the MacGuffin and then it becomes an optional thing where you can decide if your players still want to clean up some cultists who aren't that big a threat anymore. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 22:21 on Nov 17, 2017 |
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Nov 17, 2017 22:17
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Everyone knows the old joke about Shadowrun PCs doing much better if they just gun down Mr Johnson the moment he opens his mouth. It's a problem when the writer's ego overwhelms any notion of good adventure design.
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Nov 17, 2017 22:18
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Angrymog posted:Years ago, playing Vampire, the party had a sudden burst of brilliance and managed to figure out the plot before finding all the clues. Cue the GM going, "You weren't supposed to go to the club until Thursday!" In the World of Darkness, there are goth clubs running every night of the week in palatial real estate.
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Nov 17, 2017 22:21
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Angrymog posted:Years ago, playing Vampire, the party had a sudden burst of brilliance and managed to figure out the plot before finding all the clues. Cue the GM going, "You weren't supposed to go to the club until Thursday!" We were playing the V5 playtest, and there was this line of backstory in my character packet that seemed completely incongruous with the rest of the information I was given. So I kept paying attention and trying to figure out what was going on. When we caught wind that there was some kind of uprising going on and people were killing the Vampires in power I was like "Hey, what about that one girl's basment?" "What girl?" "The one that I killed?" "..what?" "The one in my playtest packet, I killed some anarch in her secret basement haven and I'm the only one who knows where it is?" And so we rode out the revolution in someone's basement then drove to Sweeden with an unconscious elder in our trunk.
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Nov 17, 2017 22:23
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I remember playing the original Harlequin adventure pile for Shadowrun. First adventure involves sneaking into some dude's place, cracking his safe, and replacing a single datachip with a virtually identical one. The group was explicitly told not to make any copies of either, or steal anything else, which seems like the kind of Johnson boilerplate you should half expect to be ignored, but was apparently a campaign-halting dealbreaker as written. GM's younger brother copies the chips and makes off with some really low-ticket data. Admits to all of the above. GM is so used to keeping us on rails one way or another that he just shuts off like a Star Trek AI faced with a dumb logic puzzle. I need to see if I still have that book, because that feels colossally idiotic even for a prewritten SR adventure.
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Nov 17, 2017 22:37
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Bieeardo posted:I remember playing the original Harlequin adventure pile for Shadowrun. First adventure involves sneaking into some dude's place, cracking his safe, and replacing a single datachip with a virtually identical one. The group was explicitly told not to make any copies of either, or steal anything else, which seems like the kind of Johnson boilerplate you should half expect to be ignored, but was apparently a campaign-halting dealbreaker as written. Say what you will about those early D&D/AD&D repackaged tournament meatgrinder adventures, at least they had been played through a number of times and weren't trivially easy to knock off their track.
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Nov 17, 2017 22:46
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Bieeardo posted:GM is so used to keeping us on rails one way or another that he just shuts off like a Star Trek AI faced with a dumb logic puzzle. I suspect it's a mix of 'writers forgot players tend to be murderhobos who don't obey orders', and your GM is the type that's utterly incapable of thinking on his feet when things go off rails, some people literally have to be handheld when GMing.
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Nov 18, 2017 00:59
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 Starfinger Alien Archive Part 11: "They can be blessings for some ships, serving as constant attendants for one of a starship’s most crucial systems, but their fickle nature also means they grow bored with regular routes or overlong stays in port, and they create drama to amuse themselves." H monsters for your H games.
  Haan (CR 3) and Haan Combat Pilot (CR 7) So, these are arthropods that fly through Generally, they deny themselves the use of technology because... they do. However, sometimes they leave their world and make excellent pilots due to their experience in fart-flight, though that results in their permanent exile. As such, many who leave end up replacing their family loyalty with loyalty to a particular organization. They're kind of neat as far as weird races go, though the fact that the two art pieces can't decide whether or not they have hands does throw me off. Normally they're 8' long with flight, a claw attack, and the ability to attach balloons to people. Ballooned enemies fly up as long as they're in an atmosphere, though you can attempt to cut yourself free. Alternately, they can shoot hot fire. The pilot version has better numbers and some operator abilities. Lastly, there's a PC version that only gets darkvision, can shoot fire (that barely levels at all), and the ability to slow their falls. Weirdly, PCs don't get flight, so there's a murphy's rule where if they try and return home they'll just fall into Bretheda's core. Ooops. That's game balance, Paizo-style - a complete inability to survive in your home environment!  Hallajin (CR 17) 20' octopi of pure energy, these were originally a throwaway reference to energy beings on Hallas (a moon of It's believed the the hallajin were attempting to obtain divine apotheosis, but it's not clear if they failed or are content in their current state. Communication with them has been largely a failure, on account of the head-exploding. Some cults have come around them thinking they can become energy beings, and nobody really stops them because good luck with that, guys. As flying, incorporeal aberrations, hallajin can attack with a heat tentacle or heat beam. They also get a number of spell-like abilities based mainly around gravity and neural attacks. They also have immunity to a wide variety of conditions, can teleport anywhere on the moon that isn't enclosed by "electrical barriers, inflict psychic damage to anybody who attempts mental contact, and give off light. And that's that.   Hesper (CR 2) A fey creature that "[embodies] the potential for change inherent in technological power sources", whatever that means. So, they tend to find "[repositories] of advanced technology" and build little nests where they tinker with devices and ask all sorts of questions. While they can be useful in helping repair power systems, they tend to get bored and make assholes of themselves. Also- Pathfinder Alien Archive posted:Notoriously shameless flirts, hespers often keep mortal lovers who protect or provide for them. A hesper reproduces by triggering the growth of a grotesque exowomb on a willing lover, which expands for 1–2 weeks before spilling forth a small but fully matured hesper. uuhhh kay  In any case, they're human-sized fey that rely mostly on spells to defend themsleves, like jolting surge or energy ray. However, they also have a "mutating touch" where they can inflict mutations off of a random table that last for 24 hours, which are generally penalizing, from bioelectric cells that short out any technology you try and use, to a musk gland that nauseates everybody around you. They can also merge with a reactor core to heal themselves. Naturally, they're immune to fire and radiation. Also their hair color changes every day! How kooky. Next: I is for EYEBLOOD IN YOUR EYE.
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Nov 18, 2017 01:02
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Robindaybird posted:I suspect it's a mix of 'writers forgot players tend to be murderhobos who don't obey orders', and your GM is the type that's utterly incapable of thinking on his feet when things go off rails, some people literally have to be handheld when GMing. Well, in Shadowrun you're literally playing as a combination of thief, mercenary, and political radical and it's generally understood by everyone involved (in character, I mean) that the Johnson is trying to screw you and you're also trying to make a little extra off the top or accomplish personal goals on the job. If a Shadowrun adventure doesn't account for what happens if PCs try to skim a little off their job or for them being suspicious of the people hiring them, that's a problem.
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Nov 18, 2017 01:09
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At least the Hesper's gross baby sack that they implant on their lover is explicitly consensual. I mean, that's something.
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Nov 18, 2017 03:30
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So Hespers turn turn their lovers into the dumbest Star Trek race, the Ocampa?
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Nov 18, 2017 03:37
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Mors Rattus posted:At least the Hesper's gross baby sack that they implant on their lover is explicitly consensual. I mean, that's something. I mean, having a five-foot radioactive fey growing out of you may be a dampener on adventuring, but I'm sure it'll appeal to some users I've seen on deviantart. It's... progress? This is fine. 
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Nov 18, 2017 04:07
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Grotesque Exowomb is my Shadowlands handle. Y'all should remember the king of railroad campaigns, Cthulhu Tech.
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Nov 18, 2017 05:36
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Bieeardo posted:I'm looking at my ancient copy of Horror on the Orient Express and wondering if some cosmic gaming joke wasn't perpetrated on younger me. I remember a note in the book that was basically "If the investigators fail to retrieve this item... make them go get it later because they have to." For BtMoM, things start to break down after you get to the City. Before that there's a good flow to things, and the railroading is understandable because you're on an exploratory vessel. Then things sort of just... happen. The campaign was written by a bunch of different people, and it shows- the art is also very inconsistent, with different groups being drawn in different styles.
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Nov 18, 2017 07:32
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Starfinger Alien Archive Part 12: "Riveners are ikeshtis who were unable to find a mate while rutting and lost their personalities to the brew of hormones swirling inside them." Time for monsters that start with eyeblood.
  Ikeshti Brood-Minder (CR 2) and Ikeshti Rivener (CR 6) So, these are horny toad lizardfolk with a complicated life cycle. Also, have I mentioned that they shoot blood from their eyes? (Technically real horned lizards squirt blood from their eyelids, not the actual eye, for fairly obvious reasons. But details are tough.) So they start out like little lizards, grow into industrious adolescents by age 5 and get a job. After about a decade of child labor, they go into heat, grow quite a bit, and find another Ikeshti to gently caress (hopefully). Then after loving and egg-laying, the two mates than fight to the death. If the male survives, it becomes a "brood-minder", and if the female survives it becomes a "congregant". Those that don't mate become savage, hulking monsters called You'd best gently caress or you'll turn into a monster, kiddo. The brood-minder is written up as a low-level technomancer that can squirt eyeblood, which counts as harrying fire (gives an ally a bonus to hit that target). Sadly, as any ranged attack can perform harrying fire, the eyeblood isn't useful for more than conserving ammo. The rivener writeup is just a large, tough humanoid that will claw at people, but has practically nothing unique or interesting about its statblock; it doesn't even have the tears of blood. Lastly, we have the PC version, which are small humanoids (presumably brood-minders or congregants, but it doesn't say) that get a natural climb ability, can go without water for extended periods, can shed parts of their skin to get a bonus against grapples and restraints, and finally get the squirt blood ability a limited number of times per day. Why limit it per day, when it's not that useful to begin with? Well, this is Starfinger...  Inevitable, Anhamut (CR 10) So, the same time that Triune revealed "the Signal" that gave Drift tech to all mortal life, the axiomites (denizens of the plane of law) got a mysterious message containing a plan for a nanite robot. So they built it, like you do with mysterious plans for a robot you get from an unknown source that could never kill you all- Thankfully, the anhamut did not kill them all, but instead turned out to be dedicated to preserving the means of exploration, and protects things like hyperspace beacons and sometimes aids explorers in making sure they can deliver their information home. They're not really concerned with colonization, just making sure the universe is mapped and defined. Maybe they were created by Triune, maybe not.  In any case, they're tough flying outsiders that can regenerate from anything except chaotic weapons, are immune to electricity, have "nanite blades", can teleport between worlds, shoot lightning, and split into multiple- - whups! I didn't know it split into a swarm of nanites. That's what, the sixth monster that splits like a banana? I'm fuckin' done here. Also there are rules for "nanite weapon fusions" that cause a weapon to inflict acid damage and can nauseate targets as it grey goos a foe. Pretty sure that violates the Space Geneva Conventions, but okay. Done! No monsters start with J, so- Next: K is for The Aquabats.
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Nov 18, 2017 15:11
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Great, humanoid lizard  .Keep loving that chicken Paizo.
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Nov 18, 2017 15:14
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Well, seeing how they're nonmagical space lizards, they can have all the biotruths they want. Especially if they have stupid results for both succeeding and failing pon'far. Also, the INEVITABLE hyperspace patrol doesn't have a separate entry for the smaller monster, so I doubt it counts.
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Nov 18, 2017 16:24
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I'm reminded of the story about the player who insisted on role-playing an Entwife going through the pollination process.
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Nov 18, 2017 16:29
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Horrible Lurkbeast posted:I'm reminded of the story about the player who insisted on role-playing an Entwife going through the pollination process. "You want bees? You want loving bees? Here ya go! ROLL INITIATIVE!"
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Nov 18, 2017 16:30
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...so she's an ent that has bees all around and causes allergies to act up in orcs?
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Nov 18, 2017 16:31
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JcDent posted:...so she's an ent that has bees all around and causes allergies to act up in orcs? No, she kept trying to hump flowers for pollen until the DM lost it and destroyed her with a pair of Colossal Monstrous Bees.
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Nov 18, 2017 16:34
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Point being that you shouldn't include systems in your game, it attracts the kind of people that make Catpiss guy(tm) look good in comparison.
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Nov 18, 2017 16:36
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In total fairness, 'this alien has an incredibly weird reproductive cycle' is a sci fi staple. This isn't the best version of it, though, if you're gonna do this kind of thing then it's best to get really weird. Go full Motie at least.
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Nov 18, 2017 16:40
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A Type O hoard has a 50% chance to contain 1d100 cards from The Deck of Encounters Set One Part 31: The Deck of Golems, Grell, Griffons, and Greenhags 182: Fool's Guardian In a cold and narrow mountain pass, there’s a wizard’s apprentice with a terrible fever collapsed in the middle of the road, and a flesh golem guarding him. (The apprentice is carrying an important spell component, hence the security.) The dude told the golem to “guard him from everything” before he lost consciousness. If they manage to bring the apprentice back, the wizard will let them copy a spell from his spellbook; if they didn’t kill the golem in the process, they get a minor magic item, too. Open-ended problem, multiple ways to solve it with varying degrees of success, and the PCs don’t even have to get involved if they don’t want to. I’m cool with it. Keep. 183: Death from Above There’s a grell hiding way up high in a dungeon with a high ceiling held up by pillars. It’ll drop on the last member of the party, and if it’s successful paralyzing them, whisk them back up to the ceiling without a sound and to consume them. “The party may not even know what happened to their friend for some time.” So, in other words, grells gonna grell. And what do I do? Pass. 184: Hungry Hatchlings Grell babies have just hatched from eggs in nooks in the ceiling. (Grell abandon their babies to fend for themselves from birth.) They swarm a PC “like a swarm of bloated locusts.” There are eight of them, and hitting them is tricky without damaging the PC. If they take half their HP in damage (3), they’ll detach and flee. If it’s a certain kind of game, I would expect the PCs to be trying to capture the grell babies alive. And in fact, backing up and casting a single sleep spell centered on the PC would solve this problem in short order. So it might not be that interesting in practice. But keep. 185: First Flight A young griffin decided it was time to learn how to fly, jumped off its rocky nest, crashed through trees, and broke its wing. Its mother will show up in 1d6 rounds to search for it. If she finds it being accosted, she’ll screech for help from 1d6 more griffins who show up in 2d6 rounds. Obviously (so obviously the card explicitly mentions it), the PCs will be tempted to babynap the griffin to raise it as a mount. I like the idea of them evading a pack of angry griffins while also hauling a heavy, possibly struggling young’un. Keep. 186: Flock of Hunters A pack of six griffons swoop down and attack one of the PC’s horses, pulling it to the ground and starting to feed. They’ll try to intimidate any PCs who try to stop them, but all they really want is to chow down on horseflesh. According to the card, the best move for the PC who was riding the horse is just to slip from their saddle and cautiously get the hell out of there. A humanoid who runs away in a panic might start to look like a tasty snack, however. Keep, I guess - there’s just enough detail here that it’s more useful than reading the MM entry. 187: Green Heart In a swampy area, the PCs find a young maiden drowning in a pool.  It's a trap. The girl is actually a greenhag who needs the “heart of a hero to cast a curse on the small, nearby hamlet she believes has harmed her.” She’s found the PCs. I don’t know if there are any heroes among them, but this is AD&D 2E, so her odds are probably better than they would be in B/X. She used change self. She’ll deliberately miss ropes thrown at her to try to force someone to jump into the water, drag them under, drown them, and try to “slip away among the water reeds.” There are a few rewards from the local village if you kill her, and “searching for [the hag’s hideout] may prove to be a source of adventure” (except no, searching for it is the boring part). This is one one of those many, many “apparently attractive young woman in distress who is actually a murderous demon/old person” monsters. Not my thing. Pass. Dallbun fucked around with this message at 23:07 on Nov 18, 2017 |
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Nov 18, 2017 17:37
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It is seriously irking me that Starfinder has all these alternate PC races, but you don’t get any of the main special features, or they aren’t at the full power that the monster version gets.
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Nov 18, 2017 17:52
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You have very likely murdered a member of your fellow species by virtue presuming you're playing an of-age ikeshti. Murdering half your population or alternately removing them from the breeding pool entirely seems like a bad adaptation to have in a species, but hey, I guess it's weird and alien. I mean, I can't find any signs of it in earthly animals, but there's certainly things I might not know about. Sure, there are animals where the male is eaten after copulation, but there's a purpose behind that (ensuring the female is well-fed, for one). Just straight-up murdering the other and leaving doesn't seem to have a clear purpose. But I guess it is weird and alien. It's a mystery, just like everything else in this book, why justify anything when you can just constantly shrug at the reader and be like "Gosh, nobody has been able to figure this out even though we have hyperadvanced science, magical divination, and a literal hotline to the gods! But aren't you more interested now that there's a mystery? Huh? Huuuuh?" ... I could be getting a little worn out on this book's habit of nonexplanations, tho. Green Intern posted:It is seriously irking me that Starfinder has all these alternate PC races, but you don’t get any of the main special features, or they aren’t at the full power that the monster version gets. Yeah, it's particularly galling with races like formians or the ikeshti, where it's like "well we have to limit your ability to squirt eyeblood" when squirting eyeblood isn't even useful. They also have a habit of giving PC races like the formians 1d3 natural weapons which, even with their "level x 1.5" damage bonus (basically a free weapon focus feat for your claws) isn't going to be a weapon you use if you have literally anything else is available. If you're reduced to using your claws beyond level 1, you're probably turbofucked in one sense or another. And why don't the formians get the aid another bonus the NPC version has instead of those claws? That'd at least be useful, would be a unique racial benefit, and a extra +2 to an ally's roll when you give up your entire standard action isn't going to break the game... but they seem to think it will... it's weird.
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Nov 18, 2017 18:40
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But an extra bonus to aid another might throw off their carefully planned and balanced skill DC Mat...oh.
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Nov 18, 2017 18:54
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I'm just pissed they didn't go with elves, orcs and dorfs as the main playable races and added others afterwards. Though 22 playable races already seems a wee bit too much.
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Nov 18, 2017 20:06
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Mors Rattus posted:In total fairness, 'this alien has an incredibly weird reproductive cycle' is a sci fi staple. This isn't the best version of it, though, if you're gonna do this kind of thing then it's best to get really weird. Go full Motie at least. Of course, if they're just animals, that's no great sin.
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Nov 18, 2017 22:00
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Those weird lizards are PCs, so they're not just animals.
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Nov 18, 2017 22:06
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unseenlibrarian posted:But an extra bonus to aid another might throw off their carefully planned and balanced skill DC Mat...oh. Be careful, that +2 Charisma or Wisdom is so strong that they should be a level behind the rest of the party.
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Nov 18, 2017 22:07
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Mors Rattus posted:In total fairness, 'this alien has an incredibly weird reproductive cycle' is a sci fi staple. This isn't the best version of it, though, if you're gonna do this kind of thing then it's best to get really weird. Go full Motie at least. I'm still waiting for a humanoid race that has a plant reproductive organs replacing the male-female reproductive organs. Like has flower for a crotch, pistule/stamen, releases pollen, may have a symbiotic relationship with insects and birds, has baby fruit, etc.
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Nov 18, 2017 22:10
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Some of D&D's biggest problems come from no-one ever just sitting down and going 'Okay, how much does having a 20 in each specific stat actually matter and mean, how much of an advantage should it give, how much does a +1 bonus actually help' etc. Or 'What should be worth a feat'.
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Nov 18, 2017 22:16
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JcDent posted:Those weird lizards are PCs, so they're not just animals. I suppose another factor here is that both the kzin and puppeteer reproductive cycles have approximate parallels in extant organisms (and, in the kzin case, are at least partially engineered). "Half of your species will die in Pon Farr" is not an adaptive trait if you aren't producing huge swaths of spawn. Even the kzin don't, I think, have litters.
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Nov 18, 2017 22:20
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Young Freud posted:I'm still waiting for a humanoid race that has a plant reproductive organs replacing the male-female reproductive organs. Like has flower for a crotch, pistule/stamen, releases pollen, may have a symbiotic relationship with insects and birds, has baby fruit, etc. Didn't know Oglaf read the forums
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Nov 18, 2017 22:46
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