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Angrymog
Jan 30, 2012

Really Madcats

PurpleXVI posted:

Please tell me I'm not the only one who keeps seeing this thing with a spiky green penis.

Now you've mentioned it. ..

If there isn't a F&F discord I'll make one

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Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!



One big obstacle to using tanks to destroy the Mythos creatures would be that I don't think there were tanks in that period.

Of course there was a guy back in Italy who would probably love to find out ways to apply organized violence against supernatural matters. If you work hard, you can change the course of WWII in order to blow up a scary hut!

8one6
May 20, 2012

When in doubt, err on the side of Awesome!

Nessus posted:

One big obstacle to using tanks to destroy the Mythos creatures would be that I don't think there were tanks in that period.
...

The first use of tanks on the battlefield was the use of British Mark I tanks at the Battle of Flers-Courcelette (part of the Battle of the Somme) on 15 September 1916

The Lone Badger
Sep 24, 2007

Nessus posted:

One big obstacle to using tanks to destroy the Mythos creatures would be that I don't think there were tanks in that period.

Tanks were invented during WW1.
Interbellum tanks sucked compared to WW2 tanks, but all you really need is a SPG.

Hipster Occultist
Aug 16, 2008

He's an ancient, obscure god. You probably haven't heard of him.


Overall they were pretty poo poo yeah, but the later models were actually not bad on dry land and contributed a lot to the western victory in the Battle of Cambrai. In mud they were pretty poo poo though, and if WW1 had a lot of anything it was mud.

If you wanted to keep things a bit more grounded, any sort of artillery piece pulled by a couple mules would likely do the trick. Can animals go insane?

Angrymog
Jan 30, 2012

Really Madcats

Hipster Occultist posted:

If you wanted to keep things a bit more grounded, any sort of artillery piece pulled by a couple mules would likely do the trick. Can animals go insane?
Mules are related to horses, so I'd assume they're half-way mad to start with.

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!



The Lone Badger posted:

Tanks were invented during WW1.
Interbellum tanks sucked compared to WW2 tanks, but all you really need is a SPG.
Did Austria-Hungary have 'em? I mean, access to the tanks is another factor.

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!



a war-scarred chieftain stares thoughtfully into the distance of the



We resume with an examination of the notable Ringworld hominids.


Grass Giants are large hominids who have spread into an ecological niche that was left wide open: that of the plains grazing herd herbivore. Each group has a king who is the biggest, baddest son of a bitch and is technically the husband of all the ladies. (There do not seem to be queens, but then the point seems to be that they live like plains buffalo.) Periodically the king wanders off for a while and whatever he didn't see, didn't happen.

The Grass Giants are the size of Kzinti, in some cases bigger. They are not complicated but receive prize of place because they were the first hominid species that the team met in the first Ringworld novel. One Grass Giant king challenged a Kzin to fight him for real without weapons, but the conflict was never resolved.

Grass Giant stats are more or less normal other than their huge size and a slightly lower average INT (2D6+5). Grass Giants have 2 points of armor from their thick skin, and typically have hardened-leather armor (2 points additional). Kings will usually have some kind of metal armor (6 points).

Hairy Ones are a catch-all for generic natives who were often affiliated with City Builders, but, well, we saw where that got them, probably. They're notable for having complicated religious or superstitious belief structures which were mostly developed to deal with how the City Builders' stuff all got dong-razzled due to the superconductor plague, and now all their "luxurious living" is "away from them." One classic example is a forbiddance of "fighting with light," which means your laser gun will not awe the natives, but will instead piss them off. O, Tempora! O, Mores! Statistically speaking, Hairy Ones are identical to humans, but stupider (INT is 2D6+4.)

Hanging People have returned to the honorable and traditional lifestyle of being an ape and living in trees. (This makes more sense given the mid-60s setting detail of the great apes probably also being the descendants of Pak breeders.) They are agile and dextrous and often find social niches with other species, serving as technicians or infiltrators into ruins... sometimes also thieves. They have also somehow managed to sprout prehensile tails... go figure that one out.

Hanging People take a hit for STR and MAS (both 2D6) as well as CON (2D6+2), but have an eye-popping DEX check of 3D6+12. Hanging People will thus probably break the action economy over their skinny primate knees, especially if



they acquire modern weaponry.

Herders are obligate carnivores who prefer their meat raw and who pursue their favored herd animal across the plains, coming in conflict with Grass Giants because their various animals eat the same food as Grass Giants. (Herders do not eat Grass Giants, not least because Herders are somewhat smaller than humans, and Grass Giants are the size of Kzin.) They are notable for being extremely friendly if you aren't in their way, and will happily talk to strangers. Their eagerness to chow down on some raw meat will also make them easy to get along with for Kzin.

Muck Ogres, or Mud People are a complicated case. The "Mud People" are actually tall, sleek and handsome folks who would be visually appealing to flatlanders. They tend to be insular and rude and mock outsiders, and are generally shunned by other hominids.


they are absolutely laughing at you

The Mud People also have a sort of curse. About two-thirds of their number, after reaching late middle age, will begin to mutate, slowly but surely...



"much like my posting," eh? eh??

Part of why Mud People are relatively widespread on the Ring is that they were often kept by City Builders or other imperial cultures, who found Muck-ogres to be useful as living guards. Muck Ogres, while enormous and sedentary, are strong... and intelligent... and usually BORED. It is entirely possible to talk your way out of captivity, although courteous offers to study their genetic condition will usually not be a winning strategy.

That said, their condition IS genetic, and is clearly some kind of malformed expression of the whole protector thing, so it WOULD be worthy of study. If you're okay with doing that.

Next time, ghouls, vampires, and the healers!

Hipster Occultist
Aug 16, 2008

He's an ancient, obscure god. You probably haven't heard of him.


Nessus posted:

Did Austria-Hungary have 'em? I mean, access to the tanks is another factor.

Yes and no, but mostly no.

Whats interesting is that an Austria-Hungarian inventor actually drafted what was likely the first tank design (the Burstyn-Motorgeschütz in 1911), and in fact was closer in design to WW2 tanks and thus miles ahead of what the British would poo poo out years later. However, Austria-Hungarian military command was unimpressed and declined to put it into production unless the inventor could build one himself and show them that it was worth it. He couldn't quite afford that, and thus it never left draft paper. So it could have happened, and in another world maybe some of them were put into production, but given Austria-Hungary's limited industrial base they never could have been produced in large enough numbers to matter much or change their overall strategy.

Austria-Hungary did however build a few armored cars like the Junovicz Armored Car, as well as a few other prototypes that were built but never saw a production order for their series. it wouldn't be too hard to imagine one of these being shuffled off into a corner somewhere.

Dallbun
Apr 21, 2010
Characters with a Wisdom of 19 or more are immune to

The Deck of Encounters Set One Part 74: The Deck of Arcane, Bulettes, and Elementals
Is this... alphabetical monster encounters again? :shrug:

409: First Contact

In a dimly-lit tavern (the true homeland of all adventurers), the PCs are approached by a cowled figure who only drinks water and starts asking them questions, ranging from ones about the local government to “what color should be on the backside of a healthy goat.” If the PCs are willing to play along, it’ll depart at the end of the evening, “but not before giving each party member a platinum piece sporting unknown markings.”

It’s an Arcane, btw. Good old Arcane. I love these guys. Keep.


410: The Ravaging

The PCs are easing on down the road when they run into an area that’s just wrecked. Trees are upturned, buildings are ruined, crops are ravaged. No corpses, weapons, or treasure, though.

The devastated area is 30 miles in diameter, but the PCs aren’t going to get very far in, because each round they explore, there’s a cumulative 5% chance that the bulette responsible for the destruction bursts from the ground and attacks.

“If the party defeats the landshark, they will discover that it had already been sighted in a nearby region, obviously planning on moving to new territory fairly soon.” Was it just shopping around for its new home, but waiting for its lease to expire on the old place, or what? That nearby community will throw them a party and give them each silver plagues worth 50 gp. I assume they read “I Saved a Town from a Bulette and All I Got Was This Lousy Plaque.”

Not great, but keep.


411: Mated for Death

The PCs are going through a ravine pass and hear snapping and chewing sounds from around the bend. It’s a pair of bulettes chowing down on a hill giant. They’ll attack the PCs and try to eat them too. Yaaay. And if you kill one, its mate will concentrate on killing whoever dealt the lethal blow. There’s a lump of gold next to the giant worth 150 gp, for some reason.

This isn’t great either. Just a pair of not-great bulette encounters. I guess this could lead in to allying with local hill giants against bulettes or other threats, though, so that’s something. Keep.


412: Moebius Loop

In an underground passageway, ideally near a spellcaster’s lair, the PCs run into a 100-foot “standard, featureless dungeon hallway.” There’s a door at the far end. You can walk halfway down it, but after that you make no progress. (Since this card has an AD&D compulsion to explain everything in terms of established rules as much as possible, it explains that it’s a unique version of a distance distortion spell.) You can’t even turn around and come back where you came, which makes sense as a trap but seems potentially brutal.

The spell is being powered by two earth elementals, so if they break the spell with dispel magic, they’ll be freed. They’ll just return to their home plane unless messed with, though.

If they’re not packing dispel magic, I have no idea how the PCs would get out of that. I’m sure they’d come up with something cool and I’d roll with it, though. Keep.


413: Fire Fight

The PCs are traveling the desert at night, and find a recent battle site. There are the smouldering remains of desert raiders and burning shrubbery surrounding a woman wearing robes. PCs with the spellcraft proficiency “will recognize the robes as characteristic of certain sects of mages.” Certain sects, huh? Want to tell me anything about those sects? No? Okay. I’m so glad I took spellcraft instead of tracking.

Speaking of which, if the bodies weren’t enough, the tracks make it clear that she was attacked by the raiders. One of the fires is actually a fire elemental that is still protecting her dead body, and will flare up if they try to investigate her. On one of her severed fingers is a ring of fire elemental command. Nice.

Keep. I’ll have that “certain sect” of fire elementalists try to retrieve their ring later.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Evil Mastermind posted:

I spent the last two hours c&ping chunks of this game and its art into the discord.

Nobody should review this game.

We have a discord?

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy
System Mastery dudes, can we see the ninja pouch art from Tomorrow Knights? because the description is amazing.

JcDent
May 13, 2013

Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!

Hipster Occultist posted:

Burstyn-Motorgeschütz

Awww, it's cute.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!

Angrymog posted:

If there isn't a F&F discord I'll make one

Just as long as you post a link here, I'd get in on that.

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003
Probation
Can't post for 12 hours!

Young Freud posted:

I'll admit, I'm not sure if the Japanese actually use that term for sci-fi/cyberpunk dungeon crawlers, but it definitely came from one of those works and aptly describes the genre: BLAME!'s subtitle is "Adventure-seeker Killy in the Cyber Dungeon"

It's one of those subsubgenre things where there probably aren't enough extant examples to really form a genre, but it's recognizable. Like, right now I'm watching a list of (mostly Italian) movies that were all inspired by the confluence of The Warriors and Escape from New York, something I can best describe as "urban post-apocalypse." I wasn't familiar with most of the examples you cited, but I immediately thought of Final Fantasy Legend/SaGa, The Guardian Legend, Farmer's Dungeon series of novels, and of course Ringworld.

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

Angrymog posted:

There's a fatal and friends discord?

Sorry, no, I meant the general TradGames discord.

DigitalRaven
Oct 9, 2012




Evil Mastermind posted:

Sorry, no, I meant the general TradGames discord.

Don't we have like twenty of them because someone threw a shitfit or something?

theironjef
Aug 11, 2009

The archmage of unexpected stinks.

gradenko_2000 posted:

System Mastery dudes, can we see the ninja pouch art from Tomorrow Knights? because the description is amazing.

slap me and kiss me
Apr 1, 2008

You best protect ya neck

It looks like he's ripping a heinous fart.

Rand Brittain
Mar 25, 2013

"Go on until you're stopped."
Beckett's Jyhad Diary is finally out to non-backers, and we absolutely have to find somebody with sufficient oWoD knowledge to do an F&F of it.

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

DigitalRaven posted:

Don't we have like twenty of them because someone threw a shitfit or something?
I only know about the two, only one of which gets any actual discussion at all: https://discord.gg/u5bPw7

There's no F&F room, but there is a new grogsdottext, which is where I was posting stuff.

Bieeanshee
Aug 21, 2000

Not keen on keening.


Grimey Drawer

Why is that man trapped in an old bakelite radio?

Lurks With Wolves
Jan 14, 2013

At least I don't dance with them, right?

I know we're all focused on Pouches Mcgee, but I want to call all your attention to the very serious man in the back who is 1950s D.Va.

Comrade Gorbash
Jul 12, 2011

My paper soldiers form a wall, five paces thick and twice as tall.

Bieeardo posted:

Why is that man trapped in an old bakelite radio?
Fashion.

Vox Valentine
May 31, 2013

Solving all of life's problems through enhanced casting of Occam's Razor. Reward yourself with an imaginary chalice.

Lurks With Wolves posted:

I know we're all focused on Pouches Mcgee, but I want to call all your attention to the very serious man in the back who is 1950s D.Va.
Roboter. Machiner. Toastermensch.

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003
Probation
Can't post for 12 hours!
Roboter Machiner Toastermench: Dual Heiankyo! Aleste: Gaiden is my favourite cyberdungeon anime.

PantsOptional
Dec 27, 2012

All I wanna do is make you bounce

Hostile V posted:

Roboter. Machiner. Toastermensch.

Very nicely done.

Angrymog
Jan 30, 2012

Really Madcats

Mods made a F&F channel on the discord linked above.

Comrade Gorbash
Jul 12, 2011

My paper soldiers form a wall, five paces thick and twice as tall.

Halloween Jack posted:

Roboter Machiner Toastermench: Dual Heiankyo! Aleste: Gaiden is my favourite cyberdungeon anime.
Definitely using that as the title the next time I run a mecha game.

That, or it should be the new thread title.

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

Hostile V posted:

Roboter. Machiner. Toastermensch.

Geh g'radeaus
Lass es raus!

theironjef
Aug 11, 2009

The archmage of unexpected stinks.

Bieeardo posted:

Why is that man trapped in an old bakelite radio?

Oh Tomorrow Knights laid claim to being the first property to have both cyberpunk noir action AND mech suits, together in one! He's in a big dumb mech suit. Looks like Max Headroom driving a jukebox to me.

Hey, here's the rest of the cover. Special attention to the not at all exploitative Japanese demon cyborg and the guy that figured Mr. Fantastic's hair was just the beginning:

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

theironjef posted:

Oh Tomorrow Knights laid claim to being the first property to have both cyberpunk noir action AND mech suits, together in one! He's in a big dumb mech suit. Looks like Max Headroom driving a jukebox to me.

Hey, here's the rest of the cover. Special attention to the not at all exploitative Japanese demon cyborg and the guy that figured Mr. Fantastic's hair was just the beginning:



Maybe as an American comic IP. Masamune Shirow's Appleseed was in the American market around 1988. I'm pretty sure if there's other stuff out there.

Bieeanshee
Aug 21, 2000

Not keen on keening.


Grimey Drawer
Looks like ROM the Space Knight and Dr. Reinhardt from The Black Hole.

theironjef
Aug 11, 2009

The archmage of unexpected stinks.

Young Freud posted:

Maybe as an American comic IP. Masamune Shirow's Appleseed was in the American market around 1988. I'm pretty sure if there's other stuff out there.

Oh to be clear we though the claim was ridiculous.

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003
Probation
Can't post for 12 hours!
Tomorrow Knights seems to have that problem where there are different character "classes," but they don't really work together at all. They'd work together in a game like Technoir or The Sprawl, which models the action of a novel or an ensemble TV show, where the PCs aren't presumed to be in the room together all the time.

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

theironjef posted:

Oh Tomorrow Knights laid claim to being the first property to have both cyberpunk noir action AND mech suits, together in one! He's in a big dumb mech suit. Looks like Max Headroom driving a jukebox to me.

Hey, here's the rest of the cover. Special attention to the not at all exploitative Japanese demon cyborg and the guy that figured Mr. Fantastic's hair was just the beginning:



theironjef
Aug 11, 2009

The archmage of unexpected stinks.

Halloween Jack posted:

Tomorrow Knights seems to have that problem where there are different character "classes," but they don't really work together at all. They'd work together in a game like Technoir or The Sprawl, which models the action of a novel or an ensemble TV show, where the PCs aren't presumed to be in the room together all the time.

It's got that licensed-game problem where they give you the tools to recreate generic versions of the heroes of the license, and then peters out and stops. Seen for example in every single game ever made about LOTR. "Make a Dunedain Ranger! He's worse than Aragorn though."

Couple that with how every character they describe is "The only successful experiment of this kind" and it just becomes silly. That cyberdemon lady? Only one. But here's her powerset so you can make... another one I guess? It's not canon but gently caress if we were gonna come up with either a reason there's more now or a new thing you could also be.

theironjef fucked around with this message at 21:40 on Jan 10, 2018

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003
Probation
Can't post for 12 hours!
Some things just don't adapt to games well. I think you've heard of Legacy?

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!



theironjef posted:

It's got that licensed-game problem where they give you the tools to recreate generic versions of the heroes of the license, and then peters out and stops. Seen for example in every single game ever made about LOTR. "Make a Dunedain Ranger! He's worse than Aragorn though."
It would go against the media tie-in allure but I think the best place where you could put big rear end hero adventures is during the Silmarillion times. There's a shitload of room and weirdness to play with there and the "power level" is much higher. If you weren't affiliated with the Silmaril drama, congratulations, you just have a loose timeline and some cool poo poo to work with.

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Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:

Nessus posted:

It would go against the media tie-in allure but I think the best place where you could put big rear end hero adventures is during the Silmarillion times. There's a shitload of room and weirdness to play with there and the "power level" is much higher. If you weren't affiliated with the Silmaril drama, congratulations, you just have a loose timeline and some cool poo poo to work with.

Just ignore the times when the elves killed like, half a million of another race of elves. It only happened like... six times.

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