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PurpleXVI posted:I really can't believe I've never heard of Ballads of Eldoru before, like, it's a shittier system than SenZar, and apparently with a crazier author, too. It's not the game F&F wants, but the game it deserves.
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Apr 1, 2018 21:23
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 Ballads of Eldoru, by Oscar Merlyn Moffett Chapter Seven This is the equipment chapter. You know how Gygax had all those goddamned polearms in D&D? Yeah, he has them. He also has the gladius, xiphos, falcata, zweihander, cutlass, rapier, espada, dueling sword, falchion, arming sword, falx, cudgel, mace, baton, pickaxe, cosh, blackjack, aklys, bola, chakram, dart, kestros, throwing knife, plumbata, swiss arrow, dirk, facon, kris, parrying dagger, poignard, rondel, stilleto, athame, yatagan, cinquedea, misericorde, ear dagger, battleaxe, dane axe, francisca, tomahawk, great axe, waraxe, hand axe... It goes on. And on. And loving on. With little notes on where the weapons came from in the real world, and bits that were copied out of the Encyclopia goddamned Britanica, because Wikipedia was only like two years old when this came out. They do varying amounts of damage, some of them have situational modifiers, and there's usually a clear winner in each category. A dane axe does more damage than a battleaxe. A longsword has better reach than a shortsword and more damage. Claymores do gently caress tons of damage, but add three turns to the attack and a penalty to the roll, which means a longsword will end up with more damage and let you use a shield. Or hell, just keep a hand free so you can flip off the enemy, and it's still a better use for your off-hand. There are also cosmic weapons. Laser pistols, perterbium ion blasters, laser swords, repulsor rays. These are strictly better than any of the Skynight weapons, which means he makes it as hard as possible for characters to get them. Each one is gene-locked to a specific person, and no one else can ever use them. This can't be changed, and "no Union of Trade member would ever allow a primitive access to technological weapons for fear of contaminating their noble cultures." Tourists and merchants are authorized weapons to carry. The only way to get a cosmic weapon is to play a cosmic marine, so I hope you bought your GM pizza. Then there are mundane goods. These are your blood turnips, fire apples, golden flax, carts, horses, all the fixings. Unlike weapons, these actually have listings for how much they cost in each area. Foods have notes about how quickly they spoil. This is where Moffett's love of mercantilism takes flight. He makes a note that players may wish to create a spreadsheet to determine optimal market conditions for their goods. This is one of the longest chapters in the book, rivalling the skills chapter. If you ever have trouble going to sleep, I recommend this book. If the list of weapons and trade goods doesn't put you out, have a buddy club you over the head with it. It's guaranteed to knock you out. The next and final chapter is the combined Bestiary and NPC chapter, Foes and Allies.
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Apr 1, 2018 21:27
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FMguru posted:"Useless Ads/Disads System" and "Trivially Breakable Action Economy" are like the free center squares on a Bad 1990s RPG bingo card. I really have to wonder why 'You have a stat or talent or skill that lets you take more turns' caught on so goddamn much.
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Apr 1, 2018 21:27
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JackMann posted:
I just realized how dumb a roll under 2d10 system is.You've got everything you need to go percentile and have a functional and opaque workhorse of a system, but decided to go with a bell curve and end up with strange breakpoints and swingy modifiers.
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Apr 1, 2018 21:27
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NGDBSS posted:Is there a link to any of this crazy poo poo? I tried searching for "Ballads of Eldoru" on Google and got nothing. Not just no forum drama, but absolutely nothing relating to that phrase in the first place. There are games like that. People straight up refused to believe in Great War of Magellan when we reviewed it. Just came and went without a blip, and that book was written by the original Starbuck and was like 400 pages. Also this drat disc is Mac formatted. I mean, the chance that it's readable 20-odd years down the line is basically nil anyway, but for Christ's sake let's just toss one more barrier in the way Moffet.
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Apr 1, 2018 21:33
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This guy sounds like the perfect example of why inheritance should be heavily taxed.
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Apr 1, 2018 21:38
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NGDBSS posted:Is there a link to any of this crazy poo poo? I tried searching for "Ballads of Eldoru" on Google and got nothing. Not just no forum drama, but absolutely nothing relating to that phrase in the first place. Check the date. I think we're getting Duckman'd again.
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Apr 1, 2018 21:42
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Ballads of Eldoru, by Oscar Merlyn Moffett Chapter Eight Foes and Allies is the catch-all NPCs and monsters section. And hoo boy does he have some NPCs. First, we get the two big GMPCs of the setting. Nemryl Taleweaver is a level 35 wizard. He has every spell in the game. His intelligence is 25, and he gets massive bonuses to his Arcane Knowledge rolls for being an Archmage. He has a bundle of magic items and a pet Star Dragon that he rides on. He is "extremely handsome" and is beloved by the fairest sorceresses and witches in the land. It recommends using Nemryl if your players are going off the rails of the plot, to "remind them of their responsibilities and to not deviate from the course plotted by the needs of the adventure." He's basically Elminster, but with a shorter beard. Also? He has the Spot skill. He is literally the only character in the game capable of spotting things. Rosca Cometblaze is one of the most powerful members of the Union of Trade, and a level 25 human Cosmic Marine. She's got near-perfect stats and a special laser sword that can fire out lasers in a deadly arc around her. She's got "a fiery temperament but a heart of gold," and she's in love with Nemryl Taleweaver becasue of course she is. It's recommended that if your players are thinking about going off to slay a giant or a dragon, the GM should simply have her go and take care of it so they don't get distracted. There are stats for all of the Southern Plains kings. It looks like he actually rolled for these, since they all have very different stats. They all have the nobleman class, but only seven of the twelve have the 14 appearance and 16 intelligence needed to qualify. They range from level 10 to level 15. Several of them have spellcasting, which they really shouldn't have. There are a few villains. Chorsk Gorewallow, orc warlord who is opposed to "the principles of civilization and free trade" and raids the Southern Plains, but is always routed by their superior armies. Capsy "Iron-Eyes" Darkstar is a space pirate who wants to swoop and and steal the valuable resources of Skynight. Morgruun the Dark is an evil wizard with "sallow eyes and dusky skin" who raises the dead and drinks souls. You also get some basic stat blocks for things like town guards, merchants, bandits, pickpockets, "trollops," and farmers. The stats seem to have been rolled up. Some of them don't have classes, and just have skills tossed on haphazardly. Which isn't a huge deal, except that he says elsewhere that NPCs should always be built in the same fashion as player characters. Next we get to monsters. These are mostly rejects out of any fantasy RPG monster manual. You have fug trolls (which are more like D&D ogres, but with a stench attack), blade wolves (wolves with knives sticking out of their noses), primal rats (rats that are, like, big), and pit dragons (dragons that live in caves and pits). There are different kinds of giant, oozes, walking trees, giant insects, all sorts of elemental (including plasma, electric, and solar elementals), daemons, and various sorts of kobold and goblinoid (no relation to ghabnar). Then you get a few more exotic creatures. Star dragons are actually alien crystalline creatures that live in deep space, but can visit planets when they want to. They look vaguely dragon-shaped, but with big crystal wings on their backs. They shoot plasma out of their mouths. Ch'k't'vr are insectile creatuers that burrow underground and attack creatures on the surface for their bones, which they use for building their nests. Striltor are little gremlin-looking things that eat glass and are considered a common nuisance. Oh, and swarms! I have to share the swarm rules with you. If you have twenty rats, everytime you hit, each rat has a 1/20 chance of taking that damage (which you have to track for each rat. As written, this doesn't change when rats in the swarm die, so you're still rolling for the 1/20 chance when you get to the last rat. Insect swarms are written as having as many as a thousand individual insects (though, mercifully, they generally have a damage threshold of zero and 1 hit point each). If you're in a swarm, then you take the damage of the swarm, multiply it by the number of creatures in the swarm, and then modify it by the percentage that are in same space as you (so if the swarm takes up for spaces, you take 25% of that), modified by your height. The taller you are, the more damage you take, because of course you have more surface area. It does not take weight into account, so a 6' beanpole takes more damage than a 5'1 dude who weighs 300 pounds. Finally, you have some notes on building encounters. You should not "coddle" your players by trying to balance encounters around them, but instead think of what would be realistic for the situation. If it's too much for them, then they should show the wisdom to summon the town guard instead. That's the last chapter. Next we'll get into a summary.
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Apr 1, 2018 22:06
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Ballads of Eldoru, by Oscar Merlyn Moffett Summary As you can see, this is a very... interesting RPG. There are some interesting ideas and hints of a better system and setting, but Moffett veers away at every possible opportunity. Publishing his own game gave him all the freedom he needed to make his vision come alive. Unfortunately, his vision was hamstrung by his inability to think his rules through, his insistence on controlling what players could do, and his weird obsession with trade and economics. Really, I think the biggest take away is that you need to have other eyes on your work, and you have to be willing to listen to them. Moffett reacted poorly to criticism at every juncture, taking even the mildest criticism as a personal attack. As a result, his game bankrupted him and he's now barely remembered. I'd love to see a game that tackles the basic premise of a sci-fi setting crashing into a D&D one. Something like Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, but a full campaign setting instead of an isolated adventure. I think you could have a lot of fun with it. Lots of systems have both magic and technology, but I'd love to see one that actually looks at the tropes of Space Opera and Dungeon fantasy and works them together. You could get a lot of material out of the old pulps for something like that, back when sci-fi and fantasy were considered part of the same genre. For the record, I think that the basic system could work okay. 2d10 roll under can work out okay if you control the math better. It's a compromise between the tighter bell curve of 3d6 and the much swingier d20. But you'd need to actually figure out how the math works and keep it simple. Obviously, Moffett failed to do that. He just went with whatever notion popped into his head and called it good. I could almost forgive him, since he had to come up with mechanics for over two hundred skills, but then, he's the one who made it a system with way too many skills that all work differently. Of course, most of us haven't come up with full game systems, and it's harder than it looks. But there's a reason most people don't. It takes work, and if you don't have a critical eye for what you're doing, it's going to turn out incoherent. Leaving aside the failed system and the waste of a setting, Moffett clearly had a specific idea of what he wanted in a game, but couldn't get away from the basic framework of D&D. It's clear he wants the game to be about trade and agriculture, but the rule system is still clearly based around the old D&D model, despite his railing against the "contrivance" of adventuring parties. It leads to a frustrating situation where the system is built around adventurers, but then throws everything Moffett can think of to keep you from adventuring. So, in summary, if you want to know the real take-away from Eldoru, read the first letter of each paragraph in this post.
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Apr 1, 2018 22:18
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I feel betrayed
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Apr 1, 2018 22:22
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This has been the most bizarrely specific and involved joke I've seen in a long time.
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Apr 1, 2018 22:29
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Fool! You have desecrated the Holy Purpose of this Project! You have broken the bonds of the Hellpit! drat you, you fool! For now I must CLEANSE THIS THREAD! The only thing that can save us... is one of the Worst. There are many Worst Things. Worst Games, Worst Settings, Worst Adventures. Here I bring you: The Worst Bestiary.  A product of writer:  and Illustrator:  Lusus Naturae is a third party Bestiary for Legends of the Flame Princess and Other OSR Roleplaying Games. It got funded through kickstarter and is a Garbage Fire of Edginess, Grimdark, Rape, Piss, Blood, Titties, and of course LOTS OF GROG.
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Apr 1, 2018 22:37
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I hate being unable to trust anything on April 1. (  well done)
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Apr 1, 2018 22:39
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You're an artist JackMann.
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Apr 1, 2018 22:40
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Oh my goooooooooooooooood
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Apr 1, 2018 22:41
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כל הכבוד! האח והידד.
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Apr 1, 2018 22:44
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Wow. I did sort of wonder why you were posting everything so quickly, but just assumed you couldn't wait to get to the next terrible bit.
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Apr 1, 2018 22:45
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LeSquide posted:Check the date. I think we're getting Duckman'd again. Is that what people are calling it? I'm so proud.
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Apr 1, 2018 22:49
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Did you make the cover yourself? That's some good foolin'.
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Apr 1, 2018 22:50
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  Are you ready for this to suck baby? Since this is a Monster Manual, we'll whip through quick! Lots of quotes incoming for lovely mechanics and lore baby! So, let's meet the First Monster! Abstruct  Warning: Jenga Tower made of Dismembered ChildrenOkay so. Some things about the Abstruct are kinda cool. First, they're not inherently hostile! They're intelligent and generally civil and friendly, and will gladly have conversations with passerby, especially about philosophy and religion. They have a special fondness for Clerics especially, and if you have a Cleric in the party it will gladly cast Cure Disease and Cure Serious Wounds on the players. It only turns hostile if you attack it or stop it from fulfilling its "sacred task". In combat it can cast Invisibility, use telekinesis to throw poo poo at you, but has no other offensive abilities. If you make the finishing blown on an Abstruct then the next time you attack a monster your blow gets a one time-bonus of +4 To-Hit. So, nothing special right? Oh, wait that "Sacred Task" thing. See, Abstructs just wanna build Citadels of Perpetuated Joy, great elaborate cathedrals! Made from dismembered children sealed by preservative saliva! Yeah they build churches out of dead children. The explicitly have to collect them alive and kill them right before they're "used" so that the bits are still fresh to work with. The world of Lusus Naturae is full of churches made from dead children. This is a relatively tasteful monster. God help us all. Wapole Languray fucked around with this message at 22:31 on Apr 2, 2018 |
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Apr 1, 2018 22:52
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Rand Brittain posted:Did you make the cover yourself? That's some good foolin'. The cover was done by Jordan Peacock, who's done art for Savage Worlds, Wonderland No More, Iron Claw, and other games. He also did the work to make it look distressed, added the stickers, the product number, the whole works.
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Apr 1, 2018 22:53
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Rand Brittain posted:Did you make the cover yourself? That's some good foolin'. It's perfectly authentic to what we would expect the source material to be, too. I expect attempts to dethrone this magnificent work in one year's time.
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Apr 1, 2018 22:53
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I think the octagonal grid is my favorite part because it sounds dumb enough to be a plausible internet argument.
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Apr 1, 2018 22:55
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JackMann posted:So, in summary, if you want to know the real take-away from Eldoru, read the first letter of each paragraph in this post. Dang dude. Nice.
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Apr 1, 2018 23:01
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Honestly that prank lasted way longer than Duckman ever did. We didn't do anywhere near the advance prep or research. The whole thing was improv'd from the word go so someone immediately noticed you could build a character with 0 HP. Like within an hour of releasing the episode. This was way above our prank planning level.
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Apr 1, 2018 23:03
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theironjef posted:Honestly that prank lasted way longer than Duckman ever did. We didn't do anywhere near the advance prep or research. The whole thing was improv'd from the word go so someone immediately noticed you could build a character with 0 HP. Like within an hour of releasing the episode. This was way above our prank planning level. I'm still waiting on Duckman 2nd Edition. Lean into it.
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Apr 1, 2018 23:05
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Adversary  OK, in general I like this monster. It's a type of demon that has to be summoned, and is then bound to overthrow and kill some sort of ruler or authority. It's intelligent, and goes about recruiting and building a body of revolutionaries that it gifts with demonic powers. It builds its forces until the authority it was set against is destroyed, then it returns to Hell. Overall, I actually like this. The powers are all useful in a fight, it's flavorful, you can definitely spin off some great adventure ideas or even give the players an incentive to summon one. I don't hate it! Well, no sorry that's a lie. There are some problems with it. One, for some reason I can' fathom at all, when you summon one a random large predator nearby will give birth to a rapidly growing cannibal mute neanderthal. Yeah, it doesn't do anything with the Adversary, or whatever just... Animal gives birth to a man eating Sasquatch that grows up in hours and starts murdering people. Ok? Also, the Death Blow effect is our first "gently caress You ~Signed, the GM"! This is a prominent theme in this book, where players do a thing and then.. "gently caress You! ~Signed, the GM". 
Wapole Languray fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Apr 2, 2018 |
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Apr 1, 2018 23:08
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 Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Horror Adventures, Part 1 (of 1) A lot of people have bugged me for awhile to do more Pathfinder reviews beyond the core material, but to be honest I've never been too enthused to do them. Firstly, there are a lot of books, and there's no way I'd be able to ever cover the line like I've been doing with Rifts. There are in theory less Pathfinder books than Rifts books*, sure, but they're very dense in comparison. In addition, Paizo isn't as amateurishly sloppy as Palladium; they're professionally sloppy, which is harder to have fun with. Also, as time goes on, Palladium fades from relevance, and more people have more to discover about them... unlike Pathfinder, which you can probably go and find a group for right now if you really want within mile. Hell, they're probably playing Pathfinder next door. Go and ask. But then I found this one-page version Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Horror Adventures. Now, I thought this had been reviewed before by Cease to Hope, but seems like this might be an playtest or promotional version. Which is interesting to see; there aren't any feats, monsters, or rules at all to be found other than a list of organic equipment. The equipment seems to be Lovecraft-themed, which, with Paizo I guess that's all "horror" is to them - raiding Lovecraft's grave again. Well, he's not around to protest, which is how we no doubt got this equipment list of various * Unless you count Golarion books, or the Adventure Paths... but then you'd have to count The Rifter, and even my fauxsessive-compulsive disorder has better things to do. STARTERS I guess this is stuff you'd start a character with. Now, you'd think mythos-based items wouldn't be something you'd start with, you'd build up to finding that sort of thing in an ancient temple, but I guess Paizo has to let you know that up front you're playing a Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Horror Adventure. And so you get some things to get you into the mood. The first thing on the list is the Mythos Dip. Now despite "encompassing the secrets of the cosmos", this really doesn't have much to do with the mythos. It describes the dip being made up of chicken, and cheddar cheeses. A "swirl of mo'fo hot sauce truly blows the mind" - what the gently caress? This is just buffalo chicken dip with tortilla chips! How the hell is this evoking the mythos? Was there a chicken-themed horror while I wasn't looking? Okay, okay. But certainly the next one could be better. The Eldritch Chips are "crunchy battered dill pickle chips", which... I guess they're green-ish like Cthulhu? But why aren't they a Cthulhu-themed item, then? I mean, they're then served with "ectoplasmic goo" which is actually just horseradish or ranch sauce. That doesn't sound like it came from a ghost to me. And I know ghosts are in the Call of Cthulhu core, but are they really Lovecraftian? I don't think so. Better call the loving Ghostbusters on this garbage. The Mound is a "mysterious pile of succulence from the Great Beyond". But then it just turns out be fries with beer cheese, jalapenos, and pork. Is this supplement supposed to be horror? Because that doesn't sound mysterious at all, though it does sound delicious. Probably better at Corky's, though. Still, I'm not sure how any of this is supposed to scare anybody but calorie-counters. It's when I get to the Temple of the Pillars I start to wonder if this is actually intended as horror at all or just some Cthulhu-themed tchotchke. You expect some kind of like, miniature temple or portal or something, but no. No, it's just pretzels and mustard cheese. It's apparently "flavored with a Golden Zoe IPA", which I guess is from supplement I haven't read. Hell, I can't even find it on the Pathfinder SRD site. Well, I guess it gets people to buy more books. If somebody knows how any of this is going to help you on a horror adventure, let me know. Feels like all of this is just going to slow you down and attract monsters with the smell of cheese and meat. ENTREES (ALL SERVED WITH YOUR CHOICE OF SIDE) In case you may guess, the sides aren't listed here. I guess you have to pick up a supplement for those too, because I can't find what's referring to in SRD. There's a class perk called "Side-by-Side", but that's 3rd party. Now I see why this is only a page, maybe it's a preview for some bigger book. I'm not sure what "Entrees" refers to exactly, either. I guess that means these are entry-level items, for low-level characters? This is making far, far less sense as it goes on. In any case, the first item on this equipment list is the Saaitii Sandwich. I don't know who Saaitii is, but let's face it: if you're a horror and you didn't make it in by the 3rd edition of Call of Cthulhu, you got dredged up from the bottom of the barrel. Apparently he's a "nightmarish manifestation of the Great Hog", and brave adventurers defeated him and "brought back fixings for this sandwich". Wait. There are adventurers killing Mythos horrors and bringing them back for sale to eat? Is this supposed to be one of those "man is the real monster" things here? Next, we have Necronomicon Grilled Cheese which is "summoned from the depths of the flavor cosmos". Spoiler alert: it's just grilled cheese with pork and macaroni. Also, if you're doing to be summoning things from the flavor cosmos, there should really be some player-facing material to do so - a summon flavor spell. The fact that only NPCs can apparently summon flavor is pretty lame. Did you know Cthugha, The Burning One is just a spicy chicken sandwich? Yep. In the the world of Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Horror Adventures, Cthugha is just a chicken, which really makes me doubt their Mythos bonafides. Did they do any research at all on this? It's like they asked a child what a "Cthugha" is and were told it was a chicken and and literally wrote that down. Chaos of the Old Ones is a burger with the works and also peanut butter that was apparently developed through occult divination. They could have saved themselves the time of calling on eldritch forces for this one. Apparently the Arkham Sandwich will drive you insane without a saving throw, though they don't detail what kind of insanity because  . Man, I know Paizo has had some trap options, but paying for a buffalo chicken sandwich and having it somehow drive you to madness is really stupid, especially after you've paid your geeps on it.You'd think the Test of the Starstone would be something dramatic, but it's instead a two-pound, four-patty cheeseburger. It says "only those destined for divinity" can conquer this, but gives no Fort save DC or prerequisites to quality for it. It also says "EAT THIS MONSTER AND RECEIVE YOUR PRIZE!", but no prize is detailed because some editor was asleep, I guess. BREWHOUSE PIZZA I... what? Well, the Dunwich Horror is apparently just an all-the-meats pizza. Welcome to a combination of zero research, starving authorship, and general laziness. It says "the taste of this pizza will jump out and grab you", but who wants to actually use the grapple rules in Pathfinder? Not me. BREW-HOMEMADE DESSERTS Stuff you'd find in a desert, or... typo? Okay, I'm just completely lost at this point, and not in a scary way. The All-Seeing Eyes is a cookie sundae. The Unnamable Void is the same goddamn thing, but with a brownie! I mean, aren't brownies sentient? Are people really cooking up the fey folk as ice cream-topped provisions for their horror adventures? I guess... that's the first creepy thing we've had so far, so points up. But the cookie poo poo isn't scary at all.  Lastly, we have the "Cthulhu Brew" taking center stage, which appears to Cthulhu crossed with a Pathfinder goblin, but there are no stats, rules, or text for it, so I don't know what it's supposed to be. Really, this supplement shows how lazy and dull Paizo can be, and not much of it makes sense. They clearly didn't actually do much or any research before writing Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Horror Adventures. Nor is there really anything scary other than the sundae with a dead faerie covered in caramel. But is that Lovecraftian? No. That whirring sound is disrespect being lumped all over one of horror's greatest authors* as he reaches a record-breaking RPM. But hey, it's just another grave for Paizo to rob. Well, now you know why I don't do more Pathfinder reviews. * I kid, gently caress Lovecraft's skinny, anti-semitic, sexist, racist rear end. THE END.
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Apr 1, 2018 23:15
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Right now, DriveThruRPG has the PDF of Lusus Naturae on sale for $6.66.
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Apr 2, 2018 00:48
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Double Plus Undead posted:So, in summary, if you want to know the real take-away from Eldoru, read the first letter of each paragraph in this post. I never suspected a thing. Excellent leaning into Poe's Law to sell the lie.
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Apr 2, 2018 01:05
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Eeyup, I was convinced and had a laugh sharing some stuff with friends on skype at the same time.
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Apr 2, 2018 01:30
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Eldoru was brilliant and I anticipate a new version powered by Savage Worlds.
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Apr 2, 2018 01:38
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drat. I'm sure I heard the Octagon argument before, but it's just that right level of bad design and crazy creator, and that cover - it's really believable.
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Apr 2, 2018 01:51
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Robindaybird posted:I'm sure I heard the Octagon argument before, but it's just that right level of bad design and crazy creator, and that cover - it's really believable. Yeah, well, the octagon idea is like every novice's reaction to a hex grid after a month or two, I think, it's just that most people realize, "Oh, no way that works!" and move on.
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Apr 2, 2018 02:57
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Edit: nm
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Apr 2, 2018 03:07
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Yeah, well, the octagon idea is like every novice's reaction to a hex grid after a month or two, I think, it's just that most people realize, "Oh, no way that works!" and move on. I had an argument with a friend about using octagons when we were kids. To this day, I'm not sure he wasn't serious. And god drat, the cover for Eldoru sold me. Well bloody done.
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Apr 2, 2018 04:03
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That was one of the most coordinated and believable April Fool's Day pranks I've ever seen.
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Apr 2, 2018 04:13
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I'm gonna be completely honest, I figured I was caught when BinaryDoubts caught the Keebler bit. Thanks to all the people who played along. Special thanks to folks like Alien Rope Burn, Unzealous, and InklessPen who helped me come up with some of the stuff for Eldoru. I'm sorry to those who were upset to have been fooled, but I think most people enjoyed the ride. Maybe in penance I'll review a real game sometime. A lot of the stuff in the game comes from bits in this thread and System Mastery. One of the most fascinating things to me about the games that get reviewed in this thread are places where the writer had something really cool in the setting or the system, and then veered away hard. I love that liminal space between good and bad game design, that part where if they'd just gone slightly differently, they would've had something great. I don't think this review would've been half as interesting if the rules hadn't had at least some interesting ideas to bite down on. I went through and tried to think of as many things that could be fun and simple and made them unnecessarily complicated. It was important to me that the setting be something that should be fun. Space opera meets dungeon fantasy is a pretty cool idea for a setting. Being able to have a space marine pal around with a wizard should be a great game. So I had to start from there and then move as far away from it as possible. Things that particularly inspired me: That one dude who went on a rant about how his players should be trying to import mustard instead of picking pockets or going on adventures, which gave me the blood turnip trade. The Pathfinder dev who played with his mouse, giving me "pull-ups aren't possible because I can't do them." Any number of systems with too many skills, particularly when they don't offer nearly enough skill points for players to spend. Every 90's game that let you break the action economy. TheIronJef's seduction skill watch. His and Jon's hatred for merits and flaws systems. It was a lot of work, but I enjoyed it, and I'm glad you guys did too.
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Apr 2, 2018 04:40
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Blood turnips. gently caress me, that just clicked.
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Apr 2, 2018 04:59
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JackMann posted:I'm gonna be completely honest, I figured I was caught when BinaryDoubts caught the Keebler bit. Thanks to all the people who played along. Special thanks to folks like Alien Rope Burn, Unzealous, and InklessPen who helped me come up with some of the stuff for Eldoru. I'm sorry to those who were upset to have been fooled, but I think most people enjoyed the ride. Maybe in penance I'll review a real game sometime. Let's face it: none of that, even the Keeblers, was particularly outlandish by this thread's standards.
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Apr 2, 2018 05:01
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