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Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!

Night10194 posted:

What's always most interesting is how D&D accidentally created its own genre of fantasy and almost never seems to have noticed.

Or, at least, never quite figured out how to profit from it outside the hobby (and pulp novels) outside of their dalliances with SSI and Bioware. at least until Bioware figured out they didn't really need D&D anymore.

And there's always the fact that D&D managed to birth the first graphical MMORPG... that barely anybody remembers. Ooops.

hectorgrey posted:

I rather liked how Kevin Crawford threw out the Rogue class for Spears of the Dawn and just made it so that the Warrior class relied on both combat skill and other mundane skills.

Yeah, it was just on the brain after recently reading a pirate RPG (Fragged Seas) that assumes everybody is a competent sailor, so there's no skill for basic ropework or swimming. That's just something you can do. So in a pulp fantasy game, just assume everybody fights. Of course, that kind of thing is easy to work into D&D-alikes as well, just assume everybody fights to an extent as a fighter of their level (at least, in versions with simple fighter classes).

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TheGreatEvilKing
Mar 28, 2016





Alien Rope Burn posted:

Yeah, it was just on the brain after recently reading a pirate RPG (Fragged Seas) that assumes everybody is a competent sailor, so there's no skill for basic ropework or swimming. That's just something you can do. So in a pulp fantasy game, just assume everybody fights. Of course, that kind of thing is easy to work into D&D-alikes as well, just assume everybody fights to an extent as a fighter of their level (at least, in versions with simple fighter classes).

You really don't see guys who just stab in the source material. Boromir is a nobleman who presumably has a good education. Gimli is a nobleman who manages to sweet talk the queen of a bunch of dwarf-hating elves into giving him a token. Conan is a smart dude who likes poetry, is a fairly accomplished politician, and is capable of holding his own sailing around with a pirate crew.

The dumb killbot D&Dism is just a D&Dism that's not faithful to the source material.

Libertad!
Oct 30, 2013

You can have the last word, but I'll have the last laugh!


Hello everyone. I'm still riding the writer's high from my Northlands review, so I'm striking while the iron's hot to cover another realm of which I have a great passion. The Midgard campaign setting is the brainchild of Wolfgang Baur, a world he's developed for his home campaigns since he was 14 years old. But unlike a lot of similar long-running projects which often turn into humanocentric low-fantasy, Midgard distinguished itself among the pack. The first glimpses utilized evocative world-building. Central and Eastern European folk tales served as major inspirations, and the initial products centered around a clockwork city that sat on the edge of foreboding forest (which may or may not have a mind of its own). Over time more material was released for Midgard in Kobold Quarterly and Open Design, Baur's gaming periodical and publishing house respectively. There were also crowd-funded "patronage projects" which acted as a sort of ur-KickStarter for fans.

A proper campaign setting sourcebook was released in 2012 for Pathfinder/AGE System (Dragon Age/Blue Rose), but throughout its lifespan experimented with variant rulesets. To my knowledge, material for Midgard is available for the 3rd through 5th Editions of Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder RPG, 13th Age, Swords & Wizardry, and the AGE System. As of 2018 it released a mostly system-neutral World Book which advanced 10 years from the original setting. There's also a Player's Guide, Hero's Handbook, and Guidebook for Pathfinder, 5th Edition, and Swords & Wizardry systems to go together with the World Book as "sister supplements." The World Book is the one we're reviewing today; as the owner of both it and the 2012 version, I'll do my best to illustrate the major geo-political differences whenever they crop up.

Our book opens with some in-universe fiction by Wade Rockett, where a group of adventurers are on a quest to discover what troubles the World Serpent's sleep in order to save their city from an undescribed darkness. The adventurers all contain character aspects from the setting, such as an undead ghoulish monk and a clockwork priestess undeterred by the cold blizzard sweeping over the land. I'm not really one for fiction in sourcebooks, so I don't have much to say other than it demonstrates how a Midgard adventuring party can include more exotic options of races.



Right from the outset, the Midgard World Book highlights several major aspects which set it apart from other settings. It acknowledges that there are many pseudo-medieval fantasy worlds on the market, so the Seven Secrets of Midgard are meant to be played up to make gaming sessions here feel like a truly different realm. I like this concept: with the wealth of 3rd-party material out there, it's very hard to commit to purchasing a new sourcebook that several others don't do already.

[LIST=1]
[*]A Flat World: Instead of a sphere, the world of Midgard is a floating disc-shaped object encircled by Veles, a serpent-god biting its own tail. Few have truly made it to the edge to see this great beast for themselves. The cosmos is similar, with a moon and stars, and there are rumors that a civilization of fey live on the "bottom half" of the world.
[*]Elemental Dragon Lords: Dragons in Midgard are strongly keyed to elements rather than alignment and the good metallic/evil chromatic set-up. Several centuries ago most dragons combined their resources into forming a vast empire, realizing this could get them more influence and power than fighting amongst each other in hoard-filled caves. The Mharoti Empire is the most populous and powerful country in the known setting. It is here scaled races, from dragons on down to the lowly kobolds, are the dominant social force.
[*]Gods That Dabble and Plot: The gods in Midgard are very active in the mortal world, although they wear masks to conceal their true identity. The reason for this is that one gains a god's power via murder or enslavement, and as such the masks make it so that the true number of existing gods is unknown. Deities may take a different name (and even moral code and teachings) from culture to culture yet are united by similar themes (Perun and Thor both command lightning).
[*]Hidden Races: Midgard has several major races who had a prominent place in the world from the outset. But there are other peoples who are isolated enough that they only recently have been discovered to the point that they can interact with wider society.
[*]Ley Lines and Shadow Roads: Magical energy known as ley lines rushes through the world, and enterprising mages can tap their power to fuel their spells. An ancient elven empire used said lines to create shadow roads capable of long-range teleportation to link their empire. Both sources are keyed to specific locations in the world and are prized by heroes and villains, kings and archmages alike, for the power they contain.
[*]Shifting Borders and Falling Kingdoms: Midgard is not meant to be a static world where published material takes place within the same year in perpetuity. As you can imagine, Kobold Press has a sort of metaplot going for the setting in terms of published material. But this section is more personal advice for GMs to make politics, revolts, etc change the world around the PCs whether by changing things directly or from situations beyond their grasp.
[*]Time Flies, and Status Matters: This part is expressed in two optional rules, one of which is detailed later. Time Flies is meant to cover longer-term campaigns over a period of months and years as personal progression is meant to be a significant undertaking of one's life. Going from apprentice to archmage in a year is not the presumed standard. Aside from time-sensitive missions and dungeon crawls, the rules suggest that the timeline advances by twice the real-world time that has passed between game sessions. For long-form sagas, it is two months of game-time instead. The Status rules are detailed later, which is meant to bake ancient-world style social status into a trait for characters.
[/LIST]

Personally speaking I like most of these iconic setting traits. I am a bit more wary of metaplots, and the time flies rules should be more subjective than definite; I prefer the Northlands approach, where individual adventures are spaced between each other by in-game years regardless of how many gaming sessions it takes to complete them.

History



After this we get a timeline of events of Midgard, from the creation of the world to the modern day. The creation is subject to multiple interpretations, and the various races and cultures all have their own tellings. Dragons claim that the world was created by Veles for them to rule over, whereas the giants' insist the world was fashioned by the gods from the corpse of their murdered progenitor Aurgelmir. Regardless of the truth, it is known that the gods formed factions upon Midgard and warred against each other. The dwarves claimed that during this time they were created by the smith god Volund and the thunder god Thor to fight against the elves, giants, other races serving under the banner of enemy gods. During this time the dwarves achieved great deeds, but their halls fell from war and natural disasters. Historians have different reasons for this: some say they pushed they gods away and so were punished, while others say that elven sabotage and magic brought them low. The dwarves split in a diaspora with different cultural groups settling into new homes across Midgard.

Around 5,000 years ago the mighty pseudo-Egyptian Kingdom of Nuria Natal arose among a ley line-powered riverbank. Their civilization is the oldest continuous human kingdom, surviving through times when the rest of Midgard was brought low into war and barbarism. Two-thousand years later there was also a technologically-advanced island nation of Ankeshel which had flying carriages, lightning spears, and other marvels. It fell beneath the waves from the horrors living under the sea. And 800 years after that, a second great nation of elves created a new empire connected by shadow roads. They even ruled humans and other races, who by this time saw their rule as preferable to the centuries of chaos preceding their founding. But over time new generations knew only of elven rule, and Young Kingdoms seeking independence grew in lands the elves chose not to govern. Many of these dynasties still exist in some form today, albeit more in legacy than in unbroken succession. Krakova and Zobeck number among them. 800 years ago a war known as the Black Sorceress' Revolt broke out in the western nations of Bemmea, where human mages relied upon risky pacts with dark powers to summon into Midgard as soldiers. A mutual arms race between humand and elves arose out of this. In desperation some elves threw their lot in with similar dark powers, creating the subraces known as the shadow fey among the elves and the tieflings among the humans.

Shadow roads were shut down to prevent hellish forces from traveling Midgard at will, but not before the forces of the elven nation of Thorn marched through them long last time before disappearing completely. This began the start of the Great Retreat 482 years ago, when the elves withdrew in mass numbers from the mortal world. They left their empire barren in but a week. Other races stepped in to loot and occupy the empty lands, with the only elven enclave of Arbonesse remaining and closed off from outside contact. Gnomes, halflings, and servitor races were now free and directionless.

300 years ago a wise and powerful dragon known as Mharot created a political pact between others of his kind to create a Sultanate. As no dragon was willing to put another with supreme authority over them, they chose a human puppet prince to rule day-to-day affairs. The Sultan/Sultana paid tribute to the greatest dragon lords, and lesser dragons below them served as nobles administering their traditional lands-turned-imperial-districts. Utilizing legions of kobolds, dragonkin, and other subjected races, their power expanded across three continents by force or by treaty. They managed to crush the minotaur city-states and send their people scattered, but the dragons suffered their first major defeat from the god-kings of Nuria Natal. Even so, the Mharoti Empire still desires to claim the riches and land of Midgard under nobler guises. During this time the vampire and darakhul (ghoul) kingdoms of Morgau and Doresh formed, using the advantages of undeath to wage war at night and in winter. And the elves are starting to reappear in Midgard with little explanation on their part, seeking out ley line nodes, lore, and old religious sites.

We end this section with a series of recent events within the past 50 years. More nations enter into defense pacts against the Mharoti, the formerly-imprisoned sea god Nethus is freed from his prison but brainwashed by the goddess Hecate into believing himself her loyal husband, the darakhul conquer the nation of Krakova to absorb into Morgau, the shadow fey hatch an unsuccessful plot to take over Zobeck, the Queen of Dornig falls into an enchanted sleep, the Mharoti Empire's former Sultana flees the throne due to a coup from her previous military failures, among other things.



People of Midgard



We get a brief overview of the major regions of Midgard, which will be covered later in their own chapters. Midgard has seven major races, defined more by their representation in major world events and in some cases their commonality. There's also 8 minor races who have their place in Midgard. The races and their magical traditions are entirely in "fluff" (no game mechanics) but we're referred to appropriate system-based sourcebooks for Pathfinder and 5th Edition for actual rules. Each of the major races besides humans have a brief entry on cultural magical traditions which arose among them.

Before covering the races we have the optional Status rules. Basically it is a score every character has. It can range from 0 (slave) to 60+ (legendary heroes, demigods). It is either a flat 4 if point-buy is used, or with a roll of 1d6+1. A PC adds their Charmisma modifier to their starting status, and one's race (and class if using the Pathfinder rules) can further alter it. In short, in an adventuring party NPCs will address the PC with the highest Status as the default party leader. There is a table provided to be used as a yardstick for an average NPC's social standing. Personally I find it rather arbitrary in places: what separates a "peasant" from a "commoner," and why is an archer's status just below a guild leader or bishop? It's also a bit restrictive, in that it may lock out certain character concepts with a bad roll. You wanted to be a noble scion wizard struggling with familial obligations of rulership when they'd much rather bury their nose in books? Too bad your Charisma is 10 and you rolled a 1 on the d6. Welcome to serfdom!



Humans are a farflung group and inhabit all sorts of social structures and kingdoms. We get a rundown on the major ethnic groups and their cultural languages. Caelmaran live mostly in the western lands and are closely associated with dark magic (sometimes unfairly, sometimes not). The Dornigfolk are humans living in traditional elven lands and as such adopted the language and culture of "the last bastion of the empire of Thorn." Kushites are people of Nuria Natal, the Mharoti Empire, and many Southlands kingdoms. The Madgar hail from the kingdom of their name and live among the Rothenian Plains; they are also skilled in animal husbandry and sadly prone to drunkenness. The Northlanders are pseudo-Scandinavians who hail from a martial culture. The Roshgazi are mostly a sea-faring folk who share close ties with the minotaurs. The Septimes (who call themselves the Manzaro) are the people of the Seven Cities whose realms are notable for their methods of ritualized, honor-based warfare.

Finally there's mention of numerous smaller human ethnic groups and a perception among other races that humans are more prone to supernatural corruption.

Dragonborn (known as Dragonkin in the 2012 sourcebook) are the youngest race of Midgard. They are humanoid reptilians imbued with elemental traits of a draconic lineage and organize their ethnic groups along these lines (interbreeding is possible). They comprise a huge portion of the Empire's military force where their breath weapons (and elemental resistance) are incorporated into military tactics and formation. As a culture tend to be very arrogant and patriotic, pointing out how relatively fast their civilization grew in spite of their race's youth. Dragon magical traditions focus on the elements and there are rituals capable of turning members of the reptilian races into "higher" forms (kobold to dragonborn, dragonborn into drake).

Dwarves are divided into three major cultural regions. The dwarves of the Northlands are the most tradition-based, favoring the gods Thor and Volund and making continual warfare against the monsters of the northern realms and raiding coastal territories of the south. The dwarves of the Ironcrag cantons are focused in the crossroads and famed for their advanced technology, including gunpowder and airships whose construction is a closely-guarded secret. The dwarves of the Southlands live primarily in Nuria Natal and are integrated into the dominant human culture as bodyguards, warriors, creators of clockwork servants, and engineers of god-king's pyramids. Dwarven magic is believed to be learned from Wotan and are the mutual traditions of rune magic (which even non-mages can use) and ring magic.

Elves once lived in a grand empire of Thorn, and although not the eldest race they take pride in teaching the human and dwarves "the art of civilization." As of now the few elves remaining in Midgard are part of three groups: the ruthless and duplicitous shadow fey, the nomadic Windrunners of the Rothenian Plains, and the river elves of the kingdom of Arbonnese. The Elfmarked are humans with traces of elven blood which sometimes manifest in ways such as pointed ears. Arbonesse elves have three names: a birth name by parents, a personal name taken upon adulthood, and a lineage/family name. Dornig law forbids those without elven heritage from appropriating elven names, but there's a brisk trade in genealogy in that realm for tracing one's ancestry in hopes of claiming this social status. Elven magic tends to be ritual-based and tied to the shadow roads.

Gearforged are deceased souls imbued into an artificial clockwork body, first created by the priesthood of Rava. They were made to serve as soldiers in the city of Zobeck, and their bodies rely upon a combination of magic and technology to function. Their magical traditions involve soulforging (the creation of transplanting souls into gearforged bodies), and a tradition of Clockwork Magic focused around machinery.

Kobolds were the slaves of dwarves long ago, suited to menial labor and minework. Many live in the fringes of society in dwarven kingdoms, and in the city of Zobeck are confined to a large ghetto. They learned to adopt unorthodox tactics to survive, such as trapsmithing, creation of small warrens, and dirty fighting. They dominate the mining industry in many lands, and in some cases they own their own mines which they guard fiercly. The Mharoti Empire is an exception to their otherwise low social status: there they are treated as being above humans yet still below dragonborn and dragons. Many kobolds throughout Midgard either aspire to travel there or view the realm as one of liberation. There is no mention of kobold-specific magic.

Minotaurs are a searfaring race of warriors. They are fond of self-decoration, whether carving patterns in their own horns, shaving or dying their fur in certain ways, ritual scars, and braiding hair with tokens of fallen enemies. They are great lovers of food and many communities devote significant time to finely-prepared cuisines during festivals and important events. Minotaurs who have their horns broken face considerable stigma and must constantly prove their worth, which ironically has produced some of the most famous members of their race among the "brokehorns." Minotaur magic focuses on labyrinthine themes, from confusing illusory charms to traps and abjuration. Said magic is forbidden to be taught to non-minotaurs.

Ravenfolk are also known as huginn or heru. They have small settlements all across Midgard and distrusted for associations with spies, thieves, and being all-purpose troublemarkers. The exception is in Nuria Natal where they are honored and serve in high positions in temples of Horus. But whatever culture they live in, ravenfolk take pride in being messengers for the gods; they do not choose which god seeks an individual, and it is an unlucky Ravenfolk who brings the attention of one of the Dark Gods. They claim to have invented or shared the runes of the All-Father, and tend to focus on prophetic and shadow spells.

Shadow Fey are believed to be elves and goblins who swore an oath of service to Sarastra, the goddess of night and magic. They gained great power and prestige in the Shadow Realm, at the expense of being cut off from their former allies and an aversion to sunlight. They still adhere to the cultural traditions of their elven ancestors, and their magical traditions involve the manipulation of shadow and starlight.

The Minor Races are low in number, too scattered or isolated to match the power and legacies of the major races. Their entries are much shorter here. The Aasimar are human descendants of angels concentrated in the realm of Ishadia and are engaged in a war of attrition with the Mharoti Empire. Bearfolk are anthropomorphic bears who live in roving bands concentrated in the Northlands and Shadow Realm. Centaurs roam the Rothenian Plains and have a violent history of banditry. They've even destroyed small nations and entire cities. Darakhul are undead akin to ghouls who feed upon the living. They have a pact with the Dark Gods and live in in an underground of Doresh. Dust Goblins are people who refused to be conquered or negotiate during wartime, but due to being on the losing side of many wars got pushed to the most inhospitable regions of Midgard. The text contradicts itself on the "no masters" part by mentioning that worgs and nightgarms treat them as pets and servants and in turn the goblins worship them. Dust goblins scavenge among ruins for relics to trade in cities, thus earning the "dust" moniker. Gnolls are raiders of the southern kingdoms and tend to be xenophobic, but have integrated to various degrees in Nuria Natal. Gnomes are a people whose ancestors earned the wrath of Baba Yaga and thus turned to the aid of devils for protection. They now mostly live in the forest kingdom of Neimheim of which little is known. Tieflings once dominated the noble families of western magocracies but are now reviled for being "hellborn," although shadow fey, gnolls, and gnomes tolerate them. Trollkin are people with mixed giant and fey bloodlines; they are known for being ferocious warriors as well as having powers over spirits and the roads between worlds. They have their own kingdom in the Northlands. Finally the halflings, or Winterfolk, left with their elven masters during the Great Retreat. Those few who stayed behind in Midgard are rarely seen and ply their trade on the rivers of the Grand Duchy of Dornig.

Miscellaneous Stuff

There's quite a bit of entries here for various cultural details. I'm not going to treat them as their own sections, instead surmising them.

Time and the Seasonal CalendarWe get an explanation of Midgard's calendar system (12 months, 360 days and 6 intercalendar festival days) along with days of the week of the most populous cultures. We have a discussion of how various people mark their years.

Travel, Trade Fairs, and Festivals: This has detailed accounts of the passage of days between well-known cities of Midgard both by foot and by horseback. Daily pay for guards is listed based upon
profession, and there's a list of trade fairs based upon their location, date, and what goods are their specialty. Major holidays festivals around Midgard focus around seasonal changes. Some of the more interesting ones include the Lantern Festival during the Winter Solstice where a torch-light vigil to the sun-god parades around town; New Year's Dawn where people gather to watch the sun rise and bang pots and ring bells to drive away bad spirits; Hatching Day for reptilian races in which many of them are said to have their first birthday; and the Day of Misrule where a child is pronounced high priest or king/queen and the adults seek to fulfill their pronouncements.

Ley Lines and Shadow Roads: Ley lines are primarily used to empower spells beyond their base capabilities. They come in three varieties based on strength: weak, strong, and titanic. The specifics for their game effects differ depending upon the rules system, but in general grant beneficial effects for free and/or add to the numerical values of spells. However, manipulating their power is no sure thing and mages risk backlash of varying magnitudes if they fail to concentrate the power. We also get a map of the known ley lines of Midgard:



The arrangements are not coincidental. More than a few nations based their territories on ley lines, such as Nuria Natal whose line more or less goes along the riverbanks. The Greast Wastes of the western realms are screwed up from the elf-mage wars and so has only one reliable line in the far west.

Shadow Roads are basically fast-travel networks. The best-maintained ones are in the former elven lands of Dornig and can take 1d3 days of travel, but beyond there the travel times are longer (particularly in the Great Wastes where 1d12 is the standard). Not all shadow roads are safe. They may be guarded by celestial, fiends, fey, and other dangerous entities. In order to travel a shadow road, you must know its location and be able to open it via a Shadow Road spell or Key of Veles magical item. Some have additional prerequisites for their function, like only being usable on a full moon.



Magic and Scholarship: This section highlights the major magical colleges of Midgard and their specializations which aren't always wizardly in nature. Colleges tend to be specialized rather than generic, able to study a variety of magic but with a major emphasis on certain kinds. For example the Arcane Collegium of Zobeck is notable for clockwork magic as well as alchemy and illumination magic, whereas the Great Linnorm House is built out of the bones of dragons and makes heavy use of runic spells and has an all-female order of celestial magical practitioners.

Languages: There are 28 major languages of Midgard. Whereas this would be a vestigial feature in most games, language has a folkloric effect and some of the more supernatural and stranger tongues grant speakers unique abilities. For example, mastery of Void Speech (spoken by alien gods and beings of the outer darkness) adds +1 to the DC of fear-related spells and skill checks, while Whisperium (a silent language of gnomes and diabolists) allows the speaker to cast a spell silently once per day. Many tongues grant a bonus on social skill checks related to their dominant culture 1/day. This both shows that the speaker's knowledge of their culture and phrases rather than being an outside, and reflects how concepts are more easily understood in one's native tongue.

The World: The final section of this chapter talks about the setting's cosmology and the planes of existence. We know already that Midgard is a disc-shaped realm surrounded by Veles, but the Elves retreated to a land on the opposite side of the coin alternately called the Bright Land, Elflands, and similar names. Between these two sides is the Shadow Realm, a dark and forlorn place of nightmares. The heavens are geocentric, meaning that the sun, moon, planets, and stars orbit Midgard. The sun is the chariot of Khors, or Aten, or whatever dominant culture views as their sun god. There is a single primary moon and seven lesser moons known as the Mage's Stars for their symbology in arcane magic. Stars (not moons) in the sky are intelligent living creatures capable of coming down to Midgard, whether just to visit people or in need of great heroes.

Six planets orbit Midgard, but most people only know of five and the sourcebook does not say if they too are disc-shaped. They are associated with various elements in alchemy or believed to hold sway over various aspects of the world. Asaph is believed to influence the seas of Midgard; Ermoan is a small and fast planet which some believe to be a comet or a lost court of shadow fey; the darkened planet known as Melgros is only able to be seen by those with the keenest eyes and thus earned the name "Archer's Planet" because most who see it happen to be legendary archers; Temperos is believed by the giants to be home of the gods; Tiomoutiri is most visible at sunrise and as such has a sacred spot among sun-worshipers; finally, Zuhal is considered to be responsible for controlling all magic.

As for other planes of existence, they are the domains of the gods and their servants. There's the tortuous Eleven Hells; the gluttonous Evermaw which is the afterlife for all undead; the voidlike realm of the Ginnungagap full of alien, maddened creatures; the great marketplace of Lingedesh where anything can be bought and sold; Ravatet the Plane of Rusty Gears where forgotten treasures lurk among the junk piles and strange scavengers; Silendora, a mythical land believed to be where the Elves retreated; and Valhalla/the Storm Court, where gods of the North and of war come to meet and hone their blades.

And connecting all the planes together is Yggdrasil, whose World Trees are its branches that poke into Midgard and allow travelers to visit other realms. They are revered almost everywhere they grow, and druids and worshipers of the Northlands pantheon treat their spells as if they were 1 level higher when on such sacred grounds. We get a list of known World Tree locations, including some of which became corrupted by dark powers.

Thoughts So Far: Midgard has a sort of storybook feel in the set-up of its world, what with masked gods and talking stars and a flat world. The racial magical traditions, association of planets with alchemic metals, and list of colleges for spellcasters point to a high fantasy and high magic style of setting. Having the most powerful country be a non-human realm is also novel, and I do like how they gave learning languages mechanical benefits even if not all options are equal. The bulk of the rest of the book covers the various lands of this wonderful world:

Next chapter we'll cover the Crossroads, the geographic and cultural heart of the continent!

Libertad! fucked around with this message at 06:21 on Apr 19, 2018

hectorgrey
Oct 14, 2011

TheGreatEvilKing posted:

The dumb killbot D&Dism is just a D&Dism that's not faithful to the source material.

To be fair, it's not even all that faithful to old school D&D (at least, not in terms of what the class is actually able to do). While AD&D 2e certainly has its problems, its non-weapon proficiencies give a decently intelligent Fighter quite a bit to work with outside of combat, as well as increasing the number of weapon proficiencies available to them if that optional rule is being used.

Joe Slowboat
Nov 9, 2016

Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements




Midgard looks cool, but I have to note - that map looks a lot like Exalted's map, which makes sense given that I imagine they're both more or less 'the Mediterranean world of antiquity' but it's really strikingly similar.

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy

Alien Rope Burn posted:

I was thinking recently of how one might as well throw out the fighter class. Not many characters in pulp fantasy that don't know how to fight. Just let every class be fight-worthy, and avoid the trap of an archetype that only comes into its own when there are fights around.

I was just thinking about how, for example, Diablo has the Paladin, the Barbarian, the Amazon, the Druid, and the Assassin, and that's not counting the melee possibilities for the Necromancer and the Sorceress.

Meanwhile, Diablo 3 has the Barbarian, the Monk, and the Crusader.

Diablo 1 has the "Warrior", but even then they weren't locked-out of magic - arguably you even needed to train on magic to be able to tele-kill Succubi and Advocates in Hell. WoW also has the Warrior, but it has a distinct class identity as being The Tank (or at least, began that way).

Back in the tabletop space, Legend d20 has the Barbarian, the Monk, the Paladin, the Ranger, and the Tactician.

I think that at the same time that the "universalist Wizard" needs to be cut down to narrower spell schools, so we also need to ditch the "Fighter" as an overly-broad, overly-generic concept. It doesn't even describe how the Fighter fights.

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!

hectorgrey posted:

To be fair, it's not even all that faithful to old school D&D (at least, not in terms of what the class is actually able to do). While AD&D 2e certainly has its problems, its non-weapon proficiencies give a decently intelligent Fighter quite a bit to work with outside of combat, as well as increasing the number of weapon proficiencies available to them if that optional rule is being used.

Also don't forget fighters and leadership. It's not that hard to argue that, say, Boromir(since he already got used as an example) is a 9th-level(or higher) Fighter who gets to command dudes when he's at home but is just exceptionally away from his holdings.

Libertad!
Oct 30, 2013

You can have the last word, but I'll have the last laugh!

Joe Slowboat posted:

Midgard looks cool, but I have to note - that map looks a lot like Exalted's map, which makes sense given that I imagine they're both more or less 'the Mediterranean world of antiquity' but it's really strikingly similar.

Link to Exalted map because it won't load up on this post.

Hmmm, perhaps in the sense of "desert to south, islands in the west, snow in the north" but besides that it I am not sensing any uncanny resemblances.

Joe Slowboat
Nov 9, 2016

Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements



Libertad! posted:

Link to Exalted map because it won't load up on this post.

Hmmm, perhaps in the sense of "desert to south, islands in the west, snow in the north" but besides that it I am not sensing any uncanny resemblances.

Here's the 3e Map



It's not the exact same but I do think that if you make the Isle in the middle of Ex3's map into a peninsula with the peninsula just above it, it starts to look pretty similar.
I don't mean that I think this was copied - I really do think that 'fantasy Mediterranean world' is going to generate similar fjords, similar deserts, and similar Strait of Gibraltar-looking bumps on Northwest Not-Africa.

Joe Slowboat fucked around with this message at 15:39 on Apr 18, 2018

The Lone Badger
Sep 24, 2007

Night10194 posted:

I mean if magic is going to be the only way you get worthwhile abilities in a game, deciding the game is going to include only characters with magic would hardly be insane.

Isn't that just Earthdawn?

Angrymog
Jan 30, 2012

Really Madcats

TheGreatEvilKing posted:

The dumb killbot D&Dism is just a D&Dism that's not faithful to the source material.

The dumbkillbot was really a 3rd and Pathfinder thing. 5e lets you use backgrounds to have a broader base of skills, and as said above, the NWPs in 2e had far more varied options available to the warrior classes than 3rd allowed as class skills.

Thuryl
Mar 14, 2007

My postillion has been struck by lightning.

Angrymog posted:

The dumbkillbot was really a 3rd and Pathfinder thing. 5e lets you use backgrounds to have a broader base of skills, and as said above, the NWPs in 2e had far more varied options available to the warrior classes than 3rd allowed as class skills.

I think one little-discussed disadvantage of giving players more control over their character's stats (whether through point buy, arrays, or roll-and-assign) is that while it allows you to set a baseline of competence at the things your character should be good at, it also creates more uniformity in what characters of a particular class are bad at. People aren't gonna voluntarily give their fighter a 15 in Int if that comes at the cost of the main thing they're meant to be doing.

Of course, people do like to have some choice in what kind of character they're playing. And if your game saddles the Fighter with a skill list that has maybe one Int-based skill on it, it's not like rolling that 15 buys you much either. So if you want to keep the idea of a skill system, the solution is gonna be more complicated than going back to making people roll 3d6 down the line.

GimpInBlack
Sep 27, 2012

That's right, kids, take lots of drugs, leave the universe behind, and pilot Enlightenment Voltron out into the cosmos to meet Alien Jesus.

Thuryl posted:

I think one little-discussed disadvantage of giving players more control over their character's stats (whether through point buy, arrays, or roll-and-assign) is that while it allows you to set a baseline of competence at the things your character should be good at, it also creates more uniformity in what characters of a particular class are bad at. People aren't gonna voluntarily give their fighter a 15 in Int if that comes at the cost of the main thing they're meant to be doing.

Of course, people do like to have some choice in what kind of character they're playing. And if your game saddles the Fighter with a skill list that has maybe one Int-based skill on it, it's not like rolling that 15 buys you much either. So if you want to keep the idea of a skill system, the solution is gonna be more complicated than going back to making people roll 3d6 down the line.

Have you heard the Good News of DTAS?

potatocubed
Jul 26, 2012

*rathian noises*

CONTENT WARNING: misogyny, dead children, torture

DRAGONIAC
A dragon exiled by other dragons, they're condemned to live out their lives as a warped hybrid of dragon and human with the strengths of neither. They're kind of interesting in that the writeup calls out the various possible reactions dragoniacs might have: bitterness, anger, philosophical, etc. Some apparently go hunting dragons as a form of vengeance, but they're way too low-HD for that to be plausible.

Despite being a tatter-winged spike-fisted dragon-person hybrid, the one in the illustration has perfect tits.

DREG-STALKER
Sort of a cross between an intellect devourer and a sewer ooze. Low-level. Commands vermin. It can absorb the memories of anyone it eats. Pretty decent for a low-level enemy.

ELVEN KHATUN
An elf queen. (Elves in this setting are all turbo-racists, but that's not unusual for fantasy settings.) The khatun is trained for a hundred years to be an elite assassin in service to the previous queen, then when the previous queen dies the elite assassins all fight to the death to be the new queen. Rinse, repeat.

EPEXIANT
Another tentacled worm-creature. Despite being animal-intelligence it hunts those who can't let go of their grief, yacks green ichor into their mouth, then scoots off. The victim transforms into a green zombie monster who gets up and wanders the countryside looking for blood, then they fall apart and a new epexiant crawls out. The stats are the epexiant itself, despite the fact that if you get into a fight it'll be with the green zombie. Kind of an oversight there but so far, so old-school.

The Teratic Tome posted:

Many apothecaries claim that an elixir crafted from ground epexiant bone acts as a powerful aphrodesiac

And there's the OSR overlay.

As a side note, this mis-spelling of 'aphrodisiac' is the first language error I've noticed and I'm almost halfway through. So props to the editor!

(Yes, I'm almost halfway through on the letter 'E'. Blame demons, devils, and dragons for front-loading the book.)

EREMITE
Okay. I have opinions about the eremite. (Incidentally, a real-world eremite is a religious recluse or hermit.) These are monsters created by a cannibal priesthood to infiltrate other religions (using magical disguises) and separate out 'the damned' (those who will not convert to the cannibal religion) from the repentant. The repentant get to live with a change of god and a change of diet, while the damned are thrown into Bond villain style deathtraps. This is a concept, I feel, which has legs. It's an adventure waiting to happen! It's even got few enough HD that adventurers likely to face it won't have the illusion-piercing magic to see straight through its disguise.

Then we get to its appearance.

The Teratic Tome posted:

Eremites look like women with pale white skin, long hair, and bright green or blue eyes. In lieu of arms, they have two segmented golden tentacles attached to their shoulders, and instead of legs, two muscular arms that grip the earth. At the crotch, three glistening black serpents hiss and snap.

Naturally, her tits are perfect.

So lets dig in here, shall we? There is no reason for this thing to have any human elements at all. It already looks outlandish enough that it has to polymorph or shapechange to carry out its infiltration mission, so when you're designing its look why keep the human head and torso? More to the point, why keep the 'hot woman' head and torso?

Even more to the point, the cannibal priesthood live in a desert. Why is their woman-torsoed killer lily-white and blue-eyed?

Hint: It's because the OSR has strong currents of misogyny and racism which reach back to OD&D and the Appendix N stories it took as inspiration, and unless creators specifically examine their work for those elements they're likely to reproduce them without realising.

ERSATZ
Okay, this one is cool. It starts as a lump of clay-like muck which assumes a humanoid form when approached, but isn't aggressive. If you fight it, it fights back. If you talk to it, it gives you a gemstone. More talking, more gemstones. It'll follow you around, help lift heavy objects, help out in fights... it's pretty handy.

It also gradually adopts the likeness and mannerisms of the person who first spoke to it. Becomes less helpful and more of a dick. Eventually, it's going to snap and come after its template with a heavy blunt object.

EXCRUCIATOR
A lizard thing with a woman's face in its mouth. It encourages people to commit suicide by tearing their own innards out. Its influence makes its victim stronger, stops them from feeling pain, and also softens their bodies, enabling this self-rending.

What's interesting is that this monster thinks of itself as a liberator and bringer of joy. It keeps souvenirs. It thinks it's doing good work! None of this will matter because the characters will murder the poo poo out of it the moment it drops invisibility.

BLOOD FAERIE
Small woman with tentacles for arms and vampire fangs. Naturally, her tits are perfect.

They stalk anyone powerful who is trying to keep a scandal quiet, learn all their secrets, where the bodies are buried... then the faerie murders their family. And anyone who suspects the victim of trying to keep something quiet. And every time it kills it tries to leave clues implicating the victim.

I don't... I don't understand. The blood faerie seems to want the victim to go down for something, but definitely not the thing they actually did. You can't hang a mystery plot on this because the motivation is so weird no-one will ever guess at it.

FARRAGO
A mindless slaughter-monster that looks like a random jumble of body parts stuck together. Weak in its early stages, it gets so frighteningly powerful in its later stages that even sworn enemies will ally to put one down.

Mechanically it's a terror in physical combat with no special defence against magic, so I expect it'll last perhaps thirty seconds against a decently potent wizard.

FOTHOQ
A spiky reptile humanoid. Not really interesting.

GELATINOUS PYRAMID
Like a gelatinous cube, but a sillier shape.

Like, in-world, gelly cubes are that shape so they can clean walls, floor, and ceiling of a 10-ft-square dungeon corridor all at once. In-game they're that shape so they fill the whole of a 10-ft-square dungeon corridor and can't be dodged. Gelly pyramids make less sense in both cases.

STATS SO FAR
Monsters: 52
Female Monsters: 8 (I'm deliberately skipping unique female NPCs for this count)
Female Monsters With Their Tits Out: 8 (I'm including unique female NPCs in this one though.)
Anti-Theist Monsters: 2
Worm Monsters: 3

Angrymog
Jan 30, 2012

Really Madcats

Thuryl posted:

I think one little-discussed disadvantage of giving players more control over their character's stats (whether through point buy, arrays, or roll-and-assign) is that while it allows you to set a baseline of competence at the things your character should be good at, it also creates more uniformity in what characters of a particular class are bad at. People aren't gonna voluntarily give their fighter a 15 in Int if that comes at the cost of the main thing they're meant to be doing.

Of course, people do like to have some choice in what kind of character they're playing. And if your game saddles the Fighter with a skill list that has maybe one Int-based skill on it, it's not like rolling that 15 buys you much either. So if you want to keep the idea of a skill system, the solution is gonna be more complicated than going back to making people roll 3d6 down the line.
Yeah, it's one of the reasons I do like rolling stats. You might not get to play exactly what you want, but as long as there's some flexibility it lends itself far more to varied characters.

Angrymog
Jan 30, 2012

Really Madcats

New thread title: Tits are perfect

Torchlighter
Jan 15, 2012

I Got Kids. I need this.

Angrymog posted:

Yeah, it's one of the reasons I do like rolling stats. You might not get to play exactly what you want, but as long as there's some flexibility it lends itself far more to varied characters.

Screw it, Every class has a primary stat and a secondary. Primary gets 16, no questions, secondary gets 14, no questions. every other stat? Roll it!

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!

Joe Slowboat posted:

Midgard looks cool, but I have to note - that map looks a lot like Exalted's map, which makes sense given that I imagine they're both more or less 'the Mediterranean world of antiquity' but it's really strikingly similar.

Midgard just looks like Europe / Northern Africa given a pass through a mutator to me.

It also gives me a bit of whiplash where I feel like I'm really interested in the more fantastical elements that Baur uses and then keep getting brought down to back to bog-standard D&D elements. Looks like it might be an interesting mine for my own personal world-building, though. Also, having it be called "Midgard" and be not specifically Norse - yes, I know, it's also got more broad European usage as a term over time - does throw me a bit.

Always nice to see William O'Connor getting work, in any case.

Torchlighter posted:

Screw it, Every class has a primary stat and a secondary. Primary gets 16, no questions, secondary gets 14, no questions. every other stat? Roll it!

This is essentially how Gamma World 7th Edition does it and it's a really functional compromise.

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

gradenko_2000 posted:

I was just thinking about how, for example, Diablo has the Paladin, the Barbarian, the Amazon, the Druid, and the Assassin, and that's not counting the melee possibilities for the Necromancer and the Sorceress.

Meanwhile, Diablo 3 has the Barbarian, the Monk, and the Crusader.

Diablo 1 has the "Warrior", but even then they weren't locked-out of magic - arguably you even needed to train on magic to be able to tele-kill Succubi and Advocates in Hell. WoW also has the Warrior, but it has a distinct class identity as being The Tank (or at least, began that way).

Back in the tabletop space, Legend d20 has the Barbarian, the Monk, the Paladin, the Ranger, and the Tactician.

I think that at the same time that the "universalist Wizard" needs to be cut down to narrower spell schools, so we also need to ditch the "Fighter" as an overly-broad, overly-generic concept. It doesn't even describe how the Fighter fights.

I like Final Fantasy 14's take on it: the land is so inundated with magic that everyone's using magic, no exceptions. Even if you're a seemingly non-magical class like archer, marauder, or rogue, no you're not really capable of superhuman feats - you're just as much of a mage as that conjurer over yonder, you're just channeling magic into your body and weapons instead. Archers and mechanists (a gun-using class) explicitly just use magic to summon more arrows/bullets to explain how they don't need to worry about ammunition.

Feinne
Oct 9, 2007

When you fall, get right back up again.

gradenko_2000 posted:

I was just thinking about how, for example, Diablo has the Paladin, the Barbarian, the Amazon, the Druid, and the Assassin, and that's not counting the melee possibilities for the Necromancer and the Sorceress.

Meanwhile, Diablo 3 has the Barbarian, the Monk, and the Crusader.

Diablo 1 has the "Warrior", but even then they weren't locked-out of magic - arguably you even needed to train on magic to be able to tele-kill Succubi and Advocates in Hell. WoW also has the Warrior, but it has a distinct class identity as being The Tank (or at least, began that way).

Back in the tabletop space, Legend d20 has the Barbarian, the Monk, the Paladin, the Ranger, and the Tactician.

I think that at the same time that the "universalist Wizard" needs to be cut down to narrower spell schools, so we also need to ditch the "Fighter" as an overly-broad, overly-generic concept. It doesn't even describe how the Fighter fights.

For those that haven't seen it since they've put in a bit more attempt to try and really differentiate WoW specs, the Warrior's non-tank specs archetypes are the armsmaster and berserker, at least philosophically.

Bieeanshee
Aug 21, 2000

Not keen on keening.


Grimey Drawer
I've always liked Earthdawn's approach, where every PC is a big drat magical hero from the word 'go'. Sure there are mundane adventurers, but they are explicitly a much less powerful NPC class.

That kind of thing leaves the people who actually like playing hardscrabble dirt-farmer origins in the cold, though it's still nice being able to avoid arguments over what the game is ~supposed~ to be.

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy
I mean the only reason why the issue of "everyone is magical" keeps coming up is because the game is otherwise set up in such a way that non-magical characters are so much more limited in their capabilities than magical characters. You wouldn't need to "drop the Fighter and replace them with a spellsword" if the Fighter could do poo poo without narratively needing to write "magic" on their sheet.

Zereth
Jul 9, 2003



Cythereal posted:

I like Final Fantasy 14's take on it: the land is so inundated with magic that everyone's using magic, no exceptions. Even if you're a seemingly non-magical class like archer, marauder, or rogue, no you're not really capable of superhuman feats - you're just as much of a mage as that conjurer over yonder, you're just channeling magic into your body and weapons instead. Archers and mechanists (a gun-using class) explicitly just use magic to summon more arrows/bullets to explain how they don't need to worry about ammunition.
All crafting recipes involve crystallized magic juice, too. At least the ones players are doing.

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003

La morte non ha sesso

Alien Rope Burn posted:

Yeah, it was just on the brain after recently reading a pirate RPG (Fragged Seas) that assumes everybody is a competent sailor, so there's no skill for basic ropework or swimming. That's just something you can do. So in a pulp fantasy game, just assume everybody fights. Of course, that kind of thing is easy to work into D&D-alikes as well, just assume everybody fights to an extent as a fighter of their level (at least, in versions with simple fighter classes).

TheGreatEvilKing posted:

The dumb killbot D&Dism is just a D&Dism that's not faithful to the source material.
Not only that, it's pretty reasonable in a quasi-medieval setting to assume that many people know a little bit about a lot of things, particularly violence.

gradenko_2000 posted:

I mean the only reason why the issue of "everyone is magical" keeps coming up is because the game is otherwise set up in such a way that non-magical characters are so much more limited in their capabilities than magical characters. You wouldn't need to "drop the Fighter and replace them with a spellsword" if the Fighter could do poo poo without narratively needing to write "magic" on their sheet.
Moreover, half the rules are spells or spell-like abilities that work on the basis "when this is triggered, X happens." Spellcasters are using a different set of base mechanics that other classes don't get to touch, and most of the interesting stuff happens there.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

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

Zereth posted:

All crafting recipes involve crystallized magic juice, too. At least the ones players are doing.

It makes the food taste better and keeps the gremlins out of your carpentry.

Ultiville
Jan 14, 2005

The law protects no one unless it binds everyone, binds no one unless it protects everyone.

gradenko_2000 posted:

I mean the only reason why the issue of "everyone is magical" keeps coming up is because the game is otherwise set up in such a way that non-magical characters are so much more limited in their capabilities than magical characters. You wouldn't need to "drop the Fighter and replace them with a spellsword" if the Fighter could do poo poo without narratively needing to write "magic" on their sheet.

Exactly. "Everyone uses magic" is a fine conceit for an RPG, but it's certainly not the only way to go. And 4E D&D's fighter was non-magical and one of the coolest classes in the game. One of the best things about Warlord was that you were just such an awesome leader, etc.

What's important is that everyone be working on similar enough mechanical ground that magic users aren't playing a different game, but the idea that you need a "magic system" is a relic of D&D as it has (4E exempted) existed. But part of what's cool about a high fantasy setting where you're Big drat Heroes is that you get to be cool and awesome and special in various ways, and the idea that one of those might be "I don't use magic but I still keep up" seems like good ground for imagination.

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

Zereth posted:

All crafting recipes involve crystallized magic juice, too. At least the ones players are doing.

The Secret World is the same way. The poo poo you're up against laughs at actual swords and bullets and whatnot. Your swords and guns work because they're nothing but focuses for your magic even if you don't have actual elementalism or blood magic or whatever as one of your combat styles.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!


Rifts Index & Adventures Volume Two, Part 4: "Ezekiel is not your average saloon bum."

Time for a full adventure! This is a very average adventure. Which means it's one of the better Rifts adventures, grading on a curve. It's all downhill after this, though. Way, way downhill.

Click here for Part 1 of the review!
Click here for Part 2 of the review!
Click here for Part 3 of the review!
Click here for Part 4 of the review!

Review Notes:
  • This part covers the adventure "Treasure Hunt" written by Christopher Jones, who once again is a Rifter contributor, but nothing else I'm aware of.
  • I cut an unfunny joke referencing the "Far West" kickstarter. All other unfunny jokes remain intact.
  • It can't be understated how much detail the Coalition soldiers get considering many groups will likely never interact with them.
  • Seriously, their officer is "unprincipled", yet guns down a man for his treasure map, and then goes down to claim jump the PCs. I'm guessing the writer has a flexible definition of what a "good" alignment allows.
  • Except it can't be flexible! Unprincipled characters "Have a high regard for life and freedom.", "Will not kill an unarmed foe.", and "Never harm an innocent.", all rules Major Garret Benford manages to break in the first two or so pages of the adventure.
  • They're also written very sympathetically they're written even though - once again - they're rail gun fodder as far as the plot goes.
  • The music used is "Hook, Line, and Sinker" by Apache Tomcat and is used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

This menacing Coalition armor emerging from the water? Never shows up in the adventure.

Next: "gently caress this adventure, let's go to the circus."

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

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



gradenko_2000 posted:

I mean the only reason why the issue of "everyone is magical" keeps coming up is because the game is otherwise set up in such a way that non-magical characters are so much more limited in their capabilities than magical characters. You wouldn't need to "drop the Fighter and replace them with a spellsword" if the Fighter could do poo poo without narratively needing to write "magic" on their sheet.
FFXIV approaches this well I think: every class in the game is explicitly channeling the setting's ambient magic after, like, the D&D equivalent of level 3.

AmiYumi
Oct 10, 2005

I FORGOT TO HAIL KING TORG
It’s strange that there doesn’t seem to be as much of a TRPG version of the J-fantasy/jRPG “Hero” archetype; the dude that’s good with a sword, does some magic, and is made to be the party face. Similar to the Paladin, but usually with less outright religious overtones.

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

AmiYumi posted:

It’s strange that there doesn’t seem to be as much of a TRPG version of the J-fantasy/jRPG “Hero” archetype; the dude that’s good with a sword, does some magic, and is made to be the party face. Similar to the Paladin, but usually with less outright religious overtones.

That's more or less the bard in D&D, particularly the skald and blade archetypes. They're not terrible to downright good with a sword, they have some magic, they're the party face.

I think it's mostly down to different cultures having different ideas and traditions, though.

Ultiville
Jan 14, 2005

The law protects no one unless it binds everyone, binds no one unless it protects everyone.

Cythereal posted:

That's more or less the bard in D&D, particularly the skald and blade archetypes. They're not terrible to downright good with a sword, they have some magic, they're the party face.

I think it's mostly down to different cultures having different ideas and traditions, though.

I dunno, Aragorn is pretty similar, given LOTR is very low on overt magic. I'd more blame that hybrid-y classes in D&D have nearly universally sucked.

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

Ultiville posted:

I dunno, Aragorn is pretty similar, given LOTR is very low on overt magic. I'd more blame that hybrid-y classes in D&D have nearly universally sucked.

Aragorn was the basis of the ranger class and archetype.

FrozenGoldfishGod
Oct 29, 2009

JUST LOOK AT THIS SHIT POST!



Cythereal posted:

Aragorn was the basis of the ranger class and archetype.

How do you figure? He doesn't do any fancy archery, he doesn't have an animal companion, his one use of a magic item feels more like a 3.x Rogue 'Use Magic Item' roll that went really well for him, he doesn't use any spells, and he doesn't fight with two weapons. He's a Fighter that everyone agrees to call a Ranger. Sure, he does some tracking in The Two Towers, but frankly Legolas handles most of that for him with his 'elf eyes'.

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

FrozenGoldfishGod posted:

How do you figure? He doesn't do any fancy archery, he doesn't have an animal companion, his one use of a magic item feels more like a 3.x Rogue 'Use Magic Item' roll that went really well for him, he doesn't use any spells, and he doesn't fight with two weapons. He's a Fighter that everyone agrees to call a Ranger. Sure, he does some tracking in The Two Towers, but frankly Legolas handles most of that for him with his 'elf eyes'.

The term Ranger for starters, and the emphasis on wilderness skills, being an expert tracker, not wearing heavy armor, and being equally adept in melee as with a bow. Also the stereotype of being a loner who wanders the wilderness fighting evil and only occasionally venturing into civilization. The two-weapon fighting thing didn't come until fairly late in D&D and was mainly inspired by Drizzt.

It's why early rangers in D&D were required to be of good alignment.

Kaza42
Oct 3, 2013

Blood and Souls and all that

FrozenGoldfishGod posted:

How do you figure? He doesn't do any fancy archery, he doesn't have an animal companion, his one use of a magic item feels more like a 3.x Rogue 'Use Magic Item' roll that went really well for him, he doesn't use any spells, and he doesn't fight with two weapons. He's a Fighter that everyone agrees to call a Ranger. Sure, he does some tracking in The Two Towers, but frankly Legolas handles most of that for him with his 'elf eyes'.

The original ranger sub-class didn't have an animal companion or two-weapon fighting, and weren't particularly good at archery (normal fighting man level, no special bonuses). They got very basic magic starting at 9th level, and got a bonus on tracking and fighting Giant Class monsters (which includes kobolds). Also, they got a special follower table which could get them anything between two second level thieves and 48 golden dragons.

unseenlibrarian
Jun 4, 2012

There's only one thing in the mountains that leaves a track like this. The creature of legend that roams the Timberline. My people named him Sasquatch. You call him... Bigfoot.

FrozenGoldfishGod posted:

How do you figure? He doesn't do any fancy archery, he doesn't have an animal companion, his one use of a magic item feels more like a 3.x Rogue 'Use Magic Item' roll that went really well for him, he doesn't use any spells, and he doesn't fight with two weapons. He's a Fighter that everyone agrees to call a Ranger. Sure, he does some tracking in The Two Towers, but frankly Legolas handles most of that for him with his 'elf eyes'.

The 1st ed ranger was so Aragorn in fact that they gave them the ability to use magic-user only scrying objects like crystal balls because Aragorn could control the palantir.

Skellybones
May 31, 2011




Fun Shoe
Rangers were also given the ability to use divination-related magical devices, because Aragorn used the Palantir that one time.


unseenlibrarian posted:

The 1st ed ranger was so Aragorn in fact that they gave them the ability to use magic-user only scrying objects like crystal balls because Aragorn could control the palantir.

:arghfist:

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003

La morte non ha sesso

Cythereal posted:

The two-weapon fighting thing didn't come until fairly late in D&D and was mainly inspired by Drizzt.

Kaza42 posted:

The original ranger sub-class didn't have an animal companion or two-weapon fighting, and weren't particularly good at archery (normal fighting man level, no special bonuses).

I went reading into this a long while back, and here is how I remember it: Two-weapon fighting was introduced in 1e, and rangers were one of the classes that could do it, by virtue of being a fighter subclass. This only became a signature Ranger Thing after Drizzt.

Rangers are good at archery because of their high chance to ambush opponents and avoid being ambushed. If you're actually using the rules for combat segments, rangers are ace at softening up the opposition before they can get a shot off.

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RatEarth
Aug 7, 2017

I didn't say that.
but it'd be funny if I did
Urban Jungle: Part 5

It's been a bit, so now it's time to cover character interaction and combat basics! In the chapter covering some basic mechanics, I mentioned opinion dice, a type of dwindle dice (refresher: these are dice that, when they roll a 1, "shrink" to the next size down), so now it's time to discuss what they actually do. If a person has a good opinion of you, whether it's due to your reputation or your past actions towards the person, you can claim a d8 bonus to social rolls with that person until the good opinion die dwindles to zero, representing your character eroding that person's goodwill. If they have a REALLY good opinion of you, you can claim 2d8 instead of just one. In the same vein, bad opinion dice are penalties against you. In social rolls vs 3, the GM will take whatever this die rolls if it's higher than 3. These also dwindle when they reach 1, so it's possible to bring up someone's opinion of you. If you push a person too much for info, the GM might decide to give you a bad opinion penalty, which keeps social situations from being the classic "keep trying until you squeeze every drop of info out of them". If a person has a contradictory opinion (for example, you have a good reputation in a group but might not have a good reputation with the individual), the GM can decide whether to roll the good and bad and keep the one that rolls higher, or keep both the penalty and bonus die and apply both at the same time. One of the more interesting aspects of the opinion system that keeps the world feeling dynamic is that your reputation will ripple outward to other members of a community. If an individual has a bad opinion of you, that can spread to any group they belong to, and the same goes for good opinions. And if a group has a good opinion of you, an opposing group may have a bad opinion of you. This applies to the law, too. If you keep gaining bad opinion die with the police, the GM might decide to send more and more of them after you, starting with your neighborhood cops and spilling over to state police or even the FBI. The rules for this are pretty loose, so in the hands of a bad GM it'll just end up playing out like a really bad karma system from a video game. On the other hand, if you have a good GM it can help weave a tale of intrigue and betrayal among different factions and gangs. You can also attempt to influence minor characters to give you information, items, or even do things for you. With one success, you won't get what you want, but you won't offend the person unless you immediately try (and fail) to influence them again. With two, you will be able to get anything a professional could get. With three, you also get to roll an additional good opinion die. When trying to influence a group, you'll need more successes, and might even require assistance, since the maximum successes you can get is four, counting the bonus die.



Combat mechanics are pretty straightforward and streamlined from Ironclaw, but even more deadly. When combat starts, before rolling initiative, you need to refresh any abilities that can be refreshed in combat or per-scene. The side that starts the fight will always go first, with turn order not determined by initiative, but rather by whatever the GM decides (the book recommends going around the table on the left, but it suggests other methods in the back). Initiative, which is determined by your Mind and Observation die, only determines how you enter combat. If you fail a roll under specific circumstances, you enter the battle dazed, unable to counter attacks, able to be blindsided (enemies can include tactics dice when attacking), and your next action must be to recover, unless an ally takes the rally action. Under ideal circumstances, where you started the fight or have a clear view of enemies, you only need to score one success to avoid being dazed. If you don't have a clear line of sight or are distracted, you need two successes. If you're completely caught off guard, you need three successes. The GM could also pretty easily determine turn order via the initiative dice by adding them together, if you want a more traditional random turn order. Drawing smaller weapons generally does not take an action, but readying larger weapons, like rifles, may take one to equip.

On your turn, you can opt to pass and let others take their turn before you, act and take two actions on your turn (sometimes more if you have certain gifts or focus, and never the same action twice), or focus, which lets you skip your turn entirely for certain bonuses. If you have focus, you can choose to expend it to either interrupt any action by another character with one action of your own (if you're about to get shot, you can interrupt and guard to get bonus defense), or you can choose to take three actions on your next turn. Becoming dazed or panicked immediately makes you lose focus.



Since you get two actions per turn, a lot of things that are minor actions in some games take up a full action slot here. I'll go over the ones listed in the book here.
Aim: Pretty basic d8 bonus to attack, but only against one declared target, so if the attack is sweeping, you still only get a d8 bonus to attack that one opponent.
Attack: These have their own section where they're discussed in further detail. All that's really important for now is that attacks can provoke counterattacks, and some statuses like panicked prevent you from attacking.
Control a vehicle or device: In combat, if you're driving something, you need to spend an action to keep it in your control or else it will become uncontrolled, which can lead to a crash if your vehicle is moving at high speed, dealing 4 or 5 points of damage to the occupants. This action also covers things like opening doors or pulling levers.
Swap/equip weapons: Most small weapons won't need an action at the beginning of the fight to equip, but if you want to swap between them you'll need to take an action.
Guard: Take a bonus d8 to defensive actions
Hide: Roll Speed and Evasion vs. 3 if there is an object that can conceal you within near range (3m). If there are no focused enemies, one success is enough to get you hidden. If there are focused enemies, you roll their Mind and Observation die vs. 3, and the highest number of successes scored by any enemy is the number of successes you need to hide. If there are no successes, you only need one. When hidden, you get a bonus d12 to dodge actions.
Move: Distance has been simplified into various tiers: close (up to 1m), near (up to 3m), short (up to 10m, + d8 to dodge), medium (up to 30m, + d12 to dodge), long (up to 100m + 2d12 to dodge). I'm not the biggest fan of this system since I prefer more granular rules for distance, but it works pretty well for theater of the mind where you aren't drawing out a battlemap. For an action, you can move towards a target from short to near or near to close, or away from close to near or near to short. If you want to move more than one distance, or from medium to short, you need to roll Speed and Athletics vs. 3, with each success representing one tier of distance. Weirdly, there are no rules at moving in from long range, so I assume you could just take an action to make a Speed and Athletics roll. They also include the rolls you need to make for jumping a gap or climbing, and what to do if the terrain is bad (add more require successes).
Rally: You can spend an action to roll your Will and Tactics dice vs. 3, given that you don't have a status that makes you unable to rally. Scoring one success means you can remove a dazed or panicked penalty from another player, and if they aren't already dazed or panicked they get focus. Two successes mean you can remove both dazed and panicked, or remove one and give focus. Three means you can remove both and give focus. The handbook advises not to penalize players if they botch a rally roll, and to simply let them lose the action without doing much. There are certain penalties applied based on range and line of sight as well. It is a perfectly legitimate strategy to have one guy with great tactics bark orders at other players and buff them constantly, and any game that lets you be a bossy rear end in a top hat is a good game in my book.
Recover: This is the action you must take if you enter your turn dazed. However, some gifts will also recharge every time you recover, plus if there are no enemies in line of sight you can rally yourself with it, making it a decent action to take even if you don't need to.

The more self-explanatory actions are reload and stand up. There aren't really any special rules for these.

You can also take a stunt action. These are more dangerous actions that immediately end your turn and leave you dazed after you do them.
Equipping an awkward weapon: These include larger weapons stored in less ready places, such as instrument cases or under coats.
Frighten an opponent: If you succeed in a contest of Body, Will, and Presence, you can make a target panicked, with the side effect of immediately giving them a d8 bad opinion die, which makes it harder to reason with them should you choose to make that stunt. Scoring two or more successes ups the bad opinion die to d12, and lets you roll to frighten another enemy in range. This keeps chaining, so every time you score two successes, you can keep choosing a new target until you run out of them or you roll fewer than two successes.
First aid: Damage is only covered in much detail in the back of the book, so it doesn't really say what first aid does here. If one of your friends is within close range, they can use this stunt to improve your condition, such as making you knocked down as opposed to fully unconscious.
Reason with an enemy: This is a contest of Mind, Will, and Negotiation, attempting to convince your enemy to stand down. If you succeed, minor characters will take a focus turn to consider what you have to say, though major characters may choose to ignore you. The difficulty on this is mostly up to the GM.
Scramble: Roll Body, Speed, and Athletics vs. 3. With one success, you can move from short up to close range, or from short/near/close range to medium. With two success, you can move from medium to close range, or from close/near/short/medium to long range. Scoring two successes is enough to get you out of combat in all but the most open locations, so fleeing as a party is viable if you feel that you're not prepared for the danger.
Sweep: A contest of Speed, Mind, and Deceit vs. Speed, Mind, Observation, and Questioning. Works pretty much exactly like frighten, except without incurring any bad opinion penalties and with the dazed status instead of panicked.

Most of the standard D&D free actions are the same here, such as dropping an item (though picking something up off the floor is a stunt, talking, or releasing a grappled opponent, and you can do them even if it's not your turn. You can also become panicked as a free action, which is something players with the Coward gift may find themselves doing a lot.

Next time: Attacks and Defense!

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