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Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Hunt11 posted:

This is wrong as it was the Grey Knight codex that was published in 2011 that had the infamous Sister incident.

Ah, dang. I tried to look it up and couldn't remember when they were, I must've gotten the dates mixed up. Guess these guys are the crazy Matt Ward Grey Knights, then.

Sometimes, it'd hard to keep all the goddamn retcons straight. Changed the description a bit for archival purposes to note the difference.

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Hunt11
Jul 24, 2013

Grimey Drawer

Night10194 posted:

Ah, dang. I tried to look it up and couldn't remember when they were, I must've gotten the dates mixed up. Guess these guys are the crazy Matt Ward Grey Knights, then.

It feels weird using 1d4chan as a source but the Grey Knights page has an entire section talking about what changed with the 5th edition fluff.

Edit: In regards to the Necrons what is kind of funny is that if Black Crusades had been released a year later then the Necrons would have been the much more characterful version then the boring robot legions that they used to be.

Hunt11 fucked around with this message at 17:53 on Jun 1, 2018

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Ah, that was my mistake. I thought the change happened in 7th, so I looked up the publication date of the 7th Ed Grey Knights codex. Thanks for the correction!

Hunt11
Jul 24, 2013

Grimey Drawer
I remember the change happening back when I was still playing 40k so it really narrowed down the possible release for that bullshit.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Warhammer 40,00 Roleplay: Black Crusade

An end to endless war

Black Crusade is a very weird game. It can be fun to play, but we all know that's no real measure of a game's fitness as an RPG. You will eventually hit a point (probably sooner rather than later) where you're operating at such high power that the basic mechanics of the system become completely irrelevant to the proceedings. There isn't even a semblance of balance. Everyone is turned up as loud as possible and you go on turbo adventures in space hell where you rip the devil in half while rocking out; this can be really fun to do with the right group.

But like I said, the mechanics become irrelevant at a point, yet there's so goddamn many of them! The game ends up getting played in a narrative fashion, while having reams of tiny bonuses, penalties, and fiddly bits to mess with. All they end up doing is dragging your game down. The actual game system completely stops bringing anything good to the table, and it had stopped way back in Deathwatch when the PCs were so powerful that despite having a bunch of interesting tools most groups would never need to use them. To me, this represents one of the consistent failings of the 40k Roleplay system: If you're having a good time, it probably isn't because the actual rules are enabling it and working with you to produce interesting mechanics that will help you do so. It can be fun, on some level, to say 'With my Unnatural WS 8 from Warp Time and 99% to hit, I strike him 10 times for 2d10+45 damage!', it's also pretty impossible to balance, because anything that can withstand that is now immune to the vast majority of the rest of the game. At a certain point, you have to ask yourself why you're slowing everything down with all these rules in the first place.

40kRP never managed to address its most serious issues: Out of control damage/gear porn, and an inability to find a balance between PCs feeling like useless chumps who take thousands of EXP to be able to do their basic job (DH) and becoming invincible turbo gods who render the system itself mostly irrelevant (DW, BC). You end up with a system where if people are playing honestly (And I suspect many, many 40kRP groups do not; this seems like the kind of game that promotes a lot of dice fudging) you can very quickly lose a PC who takes quite a bit of time to make. Worse, the game-line's idea of difficulty is to throw 'Investigation Check at -20' at you. The rules themselves just never really add to the game; they're at once too complicated and too unnecessary.

To be fair to FFG, the initial system was not good, either. I played WHFRP2e years after I started Warhammer Roleplaying stuff with Dark Heresy, and the weirdest thing is how WHFRP2e feels like an updated, fixed version of Dark Heresy's rules system, despite being made years before it. Gear is useful but not wholly character defining. PCs start out competent at their job with a lot of room to grow. You can take a few hits or have a few things go wrong without everything exploding. The designers of the original system made some serious mistakes and to this day I can't think of a single system that I think genuinely works better in DH rather than its predecessor outside of the Initiative system. That is on Black Industries. As is the original fluff and the terrible dullness of the Calixis sector; Dark Heresy was their game.

FFG continued to publish and produce for a game with a flawed system they never even really tried to fix. They tried to work on everything around it, but never addressed the core issues with rocket tag, unbalanced advancement, or the issues that come out of a system that assumes low base chance but abundant modifiers rather than a system with a more solid base-chance-to-succeed number like WHFRP2e. They made a real, good faith effort to write better 40k fluff. They even made a very good faith effort to make 40k more inclusive with later games, being sure to include women and people of color and pouring a lot of effort into presentation. They also loved the copy-paste key, though that's more of a function of how much of the fluff and base gameplay is repeated between games despite them being new gamelines, since they're all about playing as human PCs. They did the best they could with the setting and system they had, and I sure as hell don't blame them for closing the door on it and heading off to focus on Star Wars and other properties instead.

One of the other core issues they faced is that 40k just isn't a great setting, especially for small scale roleplaying. Look at how they had to have a separate gameline for each type of Imperial Human Character because even mixing those up is a bloody jumble in setting, let alone adding in characters from other factions. The whole setting can't escape being about the Imperium of Man, and the Imperium is like a straitjacket on everything about it. 40k is very concerned with limiting your options in canon, even as it tries to claim it can do 'anything'. It reminds me of the OGL, except for setting writing, and like the OGL, it causes a lot of heartbreakers and shovelware as fiction. Some of the pieces of the disjointed mess that is Warhammer 40k look kind of cool, or interesting, but when you put them together, it's you doing it while 40k tries to take the credit. It's not worth your time; just write your own setting, it's already pretty much going to ask you to do that anyway.

And really, that's just my final assessment of the line. It tried hard, but it's just not worth the time or money you'd put into it by buying and playing the games. The mechanics are a mess that don't end up adding anything, you'll mostly have to write the setting yourself, and the books are full of holes. They're beautiful books, with great art and presentation, that don't have much to them once you're through all that; in that, they reflect Warhammer 40k really, really well.

Next Time: Realms of Sorcery! Or maybe Tome of Salvation.

By popular demand
Jul 17, 2007

IT *BZZT* WASP ME--
IT WASP ME ALL *BZZT* ALONG!



Dungeons and Dragons
The Dream Lands

The Lunar Ladies

Day 2

Generic forest description, then it starts raining and everything turns muddy.
Each character has a 1 in 6 chance to notice a quicksand pit, I guess we're on foot now but the module doesn't say.
Anyone in the pit sinks up to their neck in 6 rounds and will then drown in 2 - 4 rounds unless helped,
while this is going on two Mud Golems join the fun (no treasure).


Eventually the party reaches a shallow river, beyond which they see the City of Magic
(it's mentioned the city is 2km away for no reason).

Day 3
The city of magic is only described as a Magocracy which is part of the Tismanian empire,
other than that the GM is told to come up with whatever.

Day ~9

After 5 days riding the party gets to Philosophy City, capitol of the land of Philosophy.
On the way they encounter a patrol that demand 30,000gp tax to continue, those are of course corrupt soldiers
and the players are supposed to figure this out somehow. no advice beyond "this doesn't have to end in a fight"

quote:

Commander
AC 0
Sword +3
Str 17
warrior LVL 15
HP 80

12 soldiers
AC 2
Sword +1
Str 13-15
warrior LVL 8-12
treasure: 45,000gp

Day ~10

The city of Philosophy is full of universities and "People who like very much to 'philosophize'",
The GM is told to imagine a land based on the mind and schooling and knowledge,
if your loving peanut brain can grasp the concept! (doesn't say it but that's what I feel he's saying)

There are experts aplenty that charge upwards of 2,000gp for information
the info you can buy is:
1.A geography lesson on Moonland which is completely useless as you got a map, thanks for the gold sucka!
2.Lunar Ladies culture and politics, the single useful bit, unless the players wish to join LL society
is also revealed when the party gets to Moonland.
3.The best route to take. note that any deviation from said route forces the poor GM to create absolutely everything.

Day ~ 13


Between Philosophy and Kozor the party is attacked by a giant Purple Worm. Does it gain surprise? is there a chance
to detect the worm? Geva isn't telling.

Next: the city of Kozor.

White Coke
May 29, 2015
I take it Black Crusade doesn't have rules for Chaos Orks then, or any non-human Chaos worshippers? Not even a mention of Khorne's Stormboyz?

By popular demand
Jul 17, 2007

IT *BZZT* WASP ME--
IT WASP ME ALL *BZZT* ALONG!


Chaos orks are not a thing, however there are some groups of orks who were influenced enough to break out of the Waaagh psychic connection and fight for their own goals (which are inscrutable to normal orks).
Also a mad shaman who built a throne of skulls but isn't sure who's supposed to seat on it.
As far as humans are concerned they are all common orks.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

White Coke posted:

I take it Black Crusade doesn't have rules for Chaos Orks then, or any non-human Chaos worshippers? Not even a mention of Khorne's Stormboyz?

There's a little bit in the Khorne book about the Orks trapped on Berin, but for the most part they're normal Orks aside from one Weirdboy who's building a skull throne and probably on his way to getting possessed by a daemon prince.

For the most part, the Chaos Gods stay away from Orks in both setting because they're terrified of the real powerful Gods, Gork and Mork.

By popular demand
Jul 17, 2007

IT *BZZT* WASP ME--
IT WASP ME ALL *BZZT* ALONG!


In 40k lore Orks are both very hard and very limiting for warp entities to possess, and so it's almost unheard of.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

It would be a very Ork thing for a Chaos prince to manage to snare a supplicant, get him to build the ritual throne, prepare to get in his new vessel, and then realize that because it's an Ork he has no way in while the Ork sits there and wonders why the hell he built a big useless gubbin' outta skull bitz.

Josef bugman
Nov 17, 2011

Pictured: Poster prepares to celebrate Holy Communion (probablY)

This avatar made possible by a gift from the Religionthread Posters Relief Fund

ChaseSP posted:

Doesn't Glorantha as a setting basically say character mannerisms are separate from players unless stated? Like saying the greeting which is never actually explicitly stated due to it being obvious if your character would know and say it or not. Being uptight in that setting sounds absurd to me.

I always understood it that way.

Night10194 posted:

It would be a very Ork thing for a Chaos prince to manage to snare a supplicant, get him to build the ritual throne, prepare to get in his new vessel, and then realize that because it's an Ork he has no way in while the Ork sits there and wonders why the hell he built a big useless gubbin' outta skull bitz.

"greeetinngssss my child I offer you power unrelenting is exchange for sssssservice"

"Is Service dat fing wiv da buttons you gotz me to make?"

Josef bugman fucked around with this message at 22:08 on Jun 1, 2018

By popular demand
Jul 17, 2007

IT *BZZT* WASP ME--
IT WASP ME ALL *BZZT* ALONG!


Some Tau are also mentioned to develop some aggressive behavioural problems the empire can't explain.
Point being: Chaos can be a veeeeery slow trickle when it cannot outright overwhelm, give it a few centuries and you may see a big change.

By popular demand fucked around with this message at 22:12 on Jun 1, 2018

JcDent
May 13, 2013

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

Night10194 posted:

It would be a very Ork thing for a Chaos prince to manage to snare a supplicant, get him to build the ritual throne, prepare to get in his new vessel, and then realize that because it's an Ork he has no way in while the Ork sits there and wonders why the hell he built a big useless gubbin' outta skull bitz.

Probably because he's the biggest and he's da boss.

Man, orks are so cool when you to play them straight instead of SUBVERTING EXPECTATIONS. gently caress the Beast.

Also, that DnD adventure seems deathly boring and uninspired. You leave the castle, get swindled by walking bitcoin mine, reach undetailed City of Noun, get into quicksand and golems, run into what I assume is a surprisingly powerful corrupt patrol (I mean, level 15 commander of lvl 10-12 dudes should be something in DnD land, right), visit another City of Noun, a purple worm attacks you... I'd say it's like a 14yo wrote it, but those are usually happy to add more detail.

By popular demand
Jul 17, 2007

IT *BZZT* WASP ME--
IT WASP ME ALL *BZZT* ALONG!


JcDent posted:

Probably because he's the biggest and he's da boss.

Man, orks are so cool when you to play them straight instead of SUBVERTING EXPECTATIONS. gently caress the Beast.

Also, that DnD adventure seems deathly boring and uninspired. You leave the castle, get swindled by walking bitcoin mine, reach undetailed City of Noun, get into quicksand and golems, run into what I assume is a surprisingly powerful corrupt patrol (I mean, level 15 commander of lvl 10-12 dudes should be something in DnD land, right), visit another City of Noun, a purple worm attacks you... I'd say it's like a 14yo wrote it, but those are usually happy to add more detail.

Spoiler: it doesn't get any better.
The other module is mildly more interesting.
Also I'm surprised no one commented on the stupid staff sidebar yet.

JcDent
May 13, 2013

Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!
It's a just an Agony babby-demon head atop three titties, it's not very special, especially after we had witnessed Terratic Tome.

By popular demand
Jul 17, 2007

IT *BZZT* WASP ME--
IT WASP ME ALL *BZZT* ALONG!


You don't have to stare at it while you read and translate terrible prose masquerading as background information.
After awhile you'd want to ram it up Geva Perry's arse. Not in a good way.

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

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

JcDent posted:

Probably because he's the biggest and he's da boss.

Man, orks are so cool when you to play them straight instead of SUBVERTING EXPECTATIONS. gently caress the Beast.

Also, that DnD adventure seems deathly boring and uninspired. You leave the castle, get swindled by walking bitcoin mine, reach undetailed City of Noun, get into quicksand and golems, run into what I assume is a surprisingly powerful corrupt patrol (I mean, level 15 commander of lvl 10-12 dudes should be something in DnD land, right), visit another City of Noun, a purple worm attacks you... I'd say it's like a 14yo wrote it, but those are usually happy to add more detail.

The beast?

The only beast I know of is that terrifying dinobot combiner that's in constant screaming agony.

Zomborgon
Feb 19, 2014

I don't even want to see what happens if you gain CHIM outside of a pre-coded system.



Mythender Part 10: Mythmastery


With no further ado, let’s get into what sorts of advice this game thinks your GM, or Mythmaster, should hear prior to play.

First off, the author intends for the GM section to not just be suggestions, but rules. They just happen to be “soft” rules that choose when they apply. So… not rules at all. Thanks, game.

We get some tips for first-time Mythmasters: don’t be afraid to reference in the book occasionally, use the tutorial battle (they *keep* pushing this), and:

quote:

watch high octane media… like 300, The Avengers, various awesome anime and related stuff like Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. Even watching some Dragonball Z could help you see how to do a Mythending battle

And the truth comes out.

More tips: There’s no “maybe” or “try,” actions always succeed. Descriptions should reflect this. Then we get to the really weird one:

quote:

Grovel & Enjoy It
You’ll see more of this on page 240, but make sure you do bow and grovel at times. Players used to other games won’t expect this from you, and it’s often their first clue that they really are playing epic characters.

Do not skimp on this!

I skimped on it and did just fine, thank you very much. Let’s skip a few pages and see this trashpile:

quote:

First and foremost, treat the players like they are Mythenders. This makes the difference between playing a game where you are just told you’re epic heroes and where you feel like epic heroes. The main way to do this is to treat them like they have a higher status than you.

Be Their Narrative Butler
Present choices to them, whether in character creation or during play, with deference and politeness. Pretend that they could just kill you with a glance, and you should be utterly respectful. “Would you like to see the other History options, Lady Mythender?” or “Which Weapon are you using now, Lord Mythender?”

Watch for that smile, as they’re being treated with respect they aren’t normally given in games as players. Revel in that glee. When you have that, you know you have that player hooked... When you present a choice and they decline it, say “I apologize for presuming, Lady Mythender.”


Challenge Them at Times
The flip side of treating players as Mythenders is to treat them with expectation. If they’re playing it safe during battles, push back. “You’re not taking the Mythic Die? Oh, so would you like me to also change your diaper?” Goad them into taking Corruption.

Don’t do this much outside of battle. They should make the choice to act horrific or heal themselves. The only thing that you should push against is inaction. “So, Lord Mythender, with all your power you’re just going to let the Endless Fire burn up the farmlands? That’s cool. How do you feel when your Companions look at you with tears in their eyes because the screams of the people in the fire echoing throughout the land breaks their hearts? Or did you, you know, want to actually do something?”

Non-header bolding mine. I can’t even begin to unpack this idiocy.

Here’s a bit of a gem from the bit I skipped, “On Making Mistakes as a Mythmaster:”

quote:

I’m here to say that it’ll be okay. Because, honestly, you cannot gently caress up my game more than I have!

Ryan’s talking about a specific example that he then details, but I think we know better. At least he mentions that you should be honest and open about mistakes you make and fix.

Then we get some guidelines on describing the world. In addition to the advice from earlier, players should get descriptions that are filtered through a Mythender’s perceptions- even if a Myth has been known to show kindness, that aspect should get downplayed in favor of justifying a quest for their End. This perception, once established, can then be disrupted. Backgrounds can play into this, like having an Apostate Mythender encounter her family, who then beg her to give up her quest to End the deity who protects them.

After description on how to act out mortals and Myths, we get more directions on tone. The Mythmaster is charged with maintaining the state of tone, thought it can shift over time, and in a fashion they do acknowledge that groups may not be keen on the way prior material has been presented. The same action might result in very different descriptions:

quote:

“You’re all ‘I slice off his ear, right?’ Sweet! SLICE! Blood flows everyone. Odin’s screaming all over the place, causing earthquakes with his thrashing rage. You’re there like a badass, holding his fuckin’ ear in our hand. Hell yeah!”

“Your blade finds the corner where his ear meets his head, and bites into his flesh. He struggles to stop you, but you are too fast, your sword sundering his flesh, blood dripping down from his face. The ear falls into your hand, and Odin backs away, rage in his eyes as the blood on his face literally boils away.”

And yet neither of these is any better. Anyway, the book then goes into how to talk about tone- simply asking players what tone they want probably isn’t going to be fruitful “unless you’re around a bunch of screenwriters or improve players,” so they suggest comparison over than direct questioning- their example is “are you more Superman or Batman?” Similarly, the scale of actions should be kept consistent.

Pacing gets some notes, but the structure of the game is rigid enough that it’s not normally an issue, even out of combat. The book does suggest giving people more free reign when they’re using their powers for themselves than when trying to regain humanity, to give that sense that they’re forcibly taking center stage and directing the action. Otherwise, if there’s a lull, either a mortal or Mythic situation should immediately get introduced- Mythenders don’t get breaks.

At long last, we get to my favorite bit: Hacking Mythender into little pieces. The Author outright encourages hacking the system into other settings. In the author’s eyes, Mythender’s system can work with any setting that supports big fights and power with a cost worse than death. I’d assert that the last bit isn’t quite necessary- a cost that can put you permanently out of the fight is sufficient. No need to get grimdark.

Some elements can require changes in certain settings. Intrinsic Weapons could be explicitly about inborn magical abilities in a fantasy setting, or characters might get specific Weapons to fit a class system. The connection of Corruption and Forms might be nonsensical as it is presented in Norden, so one might instead use a more Exalted-like change in the vien of the Anima marks, or perhaps a WoD-styled game’s werewolf would show no visible change until the maximum form is reached. Personal blights and Fate powers are likely worth cutting entirely, unless your setting’s heroes also have a power that passively warps the world. Finally, your relationship with normal people will likely be far different- if you’re in an X-Men game, showing your humanity to reduce corruption would be used to incite societal change in perception rather than as a means of self-control.

To be frank, I’ve never personally seen Mythender run in Norden; one of my friends ended up fighting Cthulu, and another ran it as Witchender in the Madoka Magicka universe (a rather inspired idea, in my estimation). In the latter case, he renamed the Mythic Die as the “Heart die,” along with some other terms. Something as simple as changing "Might" to "Mana" gives a very different feel for what Gifts are. I ran Fate:Mythender, as in the Type-Moon property, with Servants who wanted to remain on Earth indefinitely and had to battle the forces of the heavens just to stay. All of my RPG friends at the time were massive weebs, so each of those games went pretty well. The tone differed greatly, but we left the mechanics as they were and it was a great time.

From that, we have learned something important: Even if you find that Mythender is a good system for your group, and it can be so long as you have fun when rolling fistfuls of dice and improvising cool combat descriptions, but actually playing with the book’s tone and setting won’t be nearly as good as what a group can come up with on their own. The entire thing is built as a platform for your group to build upon, so limiting yourself to their setting really doesn’t do you any favors.

Next time: Optional rules- Cheating your Stats, Triple Techs, and Hacking (apart) the Planet

SirPhoebos
Dec 10, 2007

WELL THAT JUST HAPPENED!

How :happyelf::hf::devilchild: are these reviews going to get?

By popular demand
Jul 17, 2007

IT *BZZT* WASP ME--
IT WASP ME ALL *BZZT* ALONG!


I'm not getting what you mean.
If you want to see me getting more and more angry about the state of Israel that is a different concept of D&D.
(The Israel and Palestine thread)
Otherwise I don't get what you are saying.

SirPhoebos
Dec 10, 2007

WELL THAT JUST HAPPENED!

Eh, nvm, consider it a drunk post.

JcDent
May 13, 2013

Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!
I'm sure that by the end of the review, noble reviewer will hate the author enough to go see if he has said anything about Palestinians.

AmiYumi
Oct 10, 2005

I FORGOT TO HAIL KING TORG

SirPhoebos posted:

Eh, nvm, consider it a drunk post.
TBH, I thought this was a response to the latest part of Mythender and you wanting to murder everyone involved. After that GM section, I just thought, “Extreme, but not wrong.”

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

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



The idea of using Mythender for Madoka Magica is actually pretty clever, though you'd have to tone it down a little if you're going for a pace more like the implicit pace of the show.

Thuryl
Mar 14, 2007

My postillion has been struck by lightning.

Nessus posted:

The idea of using Mythender for Madoka Magica is actually pretty clever, though you'd have to tone it down a little if you're going for a pace more like the implicit pace of the show.

You'd probably also want to rework the PVP conflict mechanics to have stakes other than "at least one character inevitably dies".

By popular demand
Jul 17, 2007

IT *BZZT* WASP ME--
IT WASP ME ALL *BZZT* ALONG!



Dungeons and Dragons
The Dream Lands

The Lunar Ladies

In Kosor city, Kosor land.
The only thing mentioned here is a festival for the local king's birthday.
The party can waste some time Lancing, Boxing and wrestling for rewards of 500-2000gp.
You are drat right those are weakass incentives to waste a day on.

Day ~13

In order to get to the city of Culture the party must climb the Mountains of Specters
(not many specters to report) and enter "The Road of Death" which is a passage.
It's stated that the journey takes a day of riding and seven days of mountain climbing,
and then it a bit confusingly tells you that the climb to the cave takes an hour.
No events are listed in between.
we get:
6 turns a climbing / D20 o' rolling/ Dexterity level a checking/
D6 damage a rolling for every meter of falling.


The Road of Death. (notice the sideways view map on top)
The cave was built by magic and only spells of 4th level and above function inside.

A.Entrance (left side)
Dark, have to crawl into the second chamber.

B.The statue room.
1st character checks Dex on a D20 to not get bonked by a falling brick (2D10).
next characters just have to declare that they avoid the trap.
the room contains two ivory statues depicting "strong and cruel warriors" both have
a silver key on a chain around the neck, which must be used to get onward.
you can actually avoid fighting the obviously animated statues by switching their
chains with a bit of rope and something to weigh it. Indy is shaking his fist somewhere.
otherwise each statue only attacks whoever took the key ignoring any other attacks,
should the character fall down the statue retrieves the key and gets back into place.

2 Statues
AC -4
HD 14*
HP 100
ATK 2
Damage 3-18/3-18
Move 30 (10)
Saves as warrior 14
Morale 12
Alignment neutral
XP 2300
Immune to mind effecting spells and non-magical weapons.

C.Cobwebs of the spider
the party has to enter in single file to this room which only matters if the forward guy
is stupid enough to disturb the cobwebs before everybody gets in.
anything touching the cobwebs attracts the spider and the web is immune to anything but
magical fire (60HP). funnily enough, there's no mention of the spider noticing the web
burning so I assume you can just bypass or surprise it.

The Spider of Horror
AC -2
HD 18*
HP 118
ATK 6
Damage 1-10 + poison
Move 40 (14)
Saves as warrior 18
Morale 12
Alignment evil
XP 3150
poison does 2-20 damage (save for half damage)
treasure: Bastard sword +3, Plate armour +2 and a staff of counterspell

D.it's bullshit puzzle time (The enchanted traffic light, yes really)
on a massive you-must-solve-this door there are five coloured buttons
a scroll nearby describes them thusly:
Red - passage
White - nothing
Black - life
Blue - items
Yellow - clothes
Green - barrier
there is no green button, can you guess the solution?
the entire puzzle is figuring out the descriptions omit the word 'no'
(yes 'no nothing' is correct in Hebrew)
Red drops a barrier between the last room and this
white does nothing
black releases poison gas 3D10 every round (save for half) if room C
is open you can just wait it out.
Blue transports everything but worn items to room G
Yellow transports worn items except magical armour to room G
Green (pressing blue and yellow at the same time) opens the door and the barrier if it's down.

E. The Obstacle Rooms
first up is a room which automatically seals as the entire party has entered and then it heats up,
adding another D6 on every round unless someone had the foresight to hold the door against closing.
the door to the next area needs to be damaged by cold spells (25HP) to break down.
now the party is assaulted by 7 Spectral Hounds, but at least there's no bullshit blocking the way.

F.Exit
An items transported are lying on the floor here in case the party is unarmed against the hounds,
Unless you have the 'Faded' debuff from the hounds' special attack, can't pick up items than.

Day ~21
The City of culture.
a single paragraph notes there's plenty of entertainment around.
Nothing special happens, the GM can amuse himself by creating stuff.

Next: The City of Ruby and the Ruby Mountains

JcDent
May 13, 2013

Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!
Haven, City of Violence
and its sister city
Heaven, City of Culture

By popular demand
Jul 17, 2007

IT *BZZT* WASP ME--
IT WASP ME ALL *BZZT* ALONG!


As I said, completely unimaginative.
If nobody translates the map names by the time I'm done with the second module then I'll do it. You all deserve to read every bullshit name.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

I am not surprised to see DBZ as inspirational 'high octane' media for Mythender; it's kind of the foundation of its style, that makes sense. It's the most famous example of 'charge up my big attack and murder the guy who we've been told can annihilate the universe if he finishes charging' action.

But Advent Children? Suggested as 'awesome action anime'? That's an, uh, interesting choice.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!
There's no action anime better than Dragonball Z or Final Fantasy: Advent Children. That's the top of the mountain. You can only look down from there.

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:
I really do not like Mythender's Roleplay loop of
"Come on Baby, what's wrong? Don't want to touch true power?"
"er..okay?"
"What the gently caress is wrong with you? A small child weeps nearby as his puppy bursts into a fountain of blood."

JcDent
May 13, 2013

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

Kurieg posted:

I really do not like Mythender's Roleplay loop of
"Come on Baby, what's wrong? Don't want to touch true power?"
"er..okay?"
"What the gently caress is wrong with you? A small child weeps nearby as his puppy bursts into a fountain of blood."

Tangentially related: any FPS game that has non-lethal takedowns and wants to be deep also works the same way.
"Hey there, look at all these awesome guns and upgrade systems we put in the game! Aren't they cool?"
*You shoot one dude*
"Oh my God, you're no better than the blood thirsty bandits/literal nazis/inhuman corporations! How could you do that?!"

Looking at you, Metro and Deus Ex (past the first one).

Ghost Leviathan
Mar 2, 2017

Exploration is ill-advised.
Boring lazy planet where the populace is so passive-aggressively lazy that supervillain overlords give up trying to oppress them sounds like a stealth utopia.

By popular demand
Jul 17, 2007

IT *BZZT* WASP ME--
IT WASP ME ALL *BZZT* ALONG!


Some possibly interesting new:
Turns out that the Mitzuv company is still run by the Perry family, they moved on and became a consultation firm.
I just left them some massages asking to interview Geva or Guy.

More details as they come.

Hel
Oct 9, 2012

Jokatgulm is tedium.
Jokatgulm is pain.
Jokatgulm is suffering.

Horrible Lurkbeast posted:

Some possibly interesting new:
Turns out that the Mitzuv company is still run by the Perry family, they moved on and became a consultation firm.
I just left them some massages asking to interview Geva or Guy.

More details as they come.

While I've got to say the adventure doesn't look that good it's always really interesting to see non-american & non-w.european takes on D&D and RPGs.

Cooked Auto
Aug 4, 2007

If you will not serve in combat, you will serve on the firing line!




Ghost Leviathan posted:

Boring lazy planet where the populace is so passive-aggressively lazy that supervillain overlords give up trying to oppress them sounds like a stealth utopia.

I never knew they made a 40k planet just for me.

EthanSteele
Nov 18, 2007

I can hear you

Thuryl posted:

You'd probably also want to rework the PVP conflict mechanics to have stakes other than "at least one character inevitably dies".

I think that's actually pitch perfect for Madoka. In show when they turn on each other and it escalates, one of them will die. It encourages the players not to escalate to actual fighting PVP unless its something they're willing to kill/die for, which is also extremely Madoka.


Zomborgon posted:

Non-header bolding mine. I can’t even begin to unpack this idiocy.

The language for "hey you big baby, you gonna be a baby coward and not take the power?" is truly awful. But the point of "you have incredible power to stop a terrible thing and you didn't, your companions are very upset by this" described in an utlra melodramatic way is perfectly on genre.

Alien Rope Burn posted:

There's no action anime better than Dragonball Z or Final Fantasy: Advent Children. That's the top of the mountain. You can only look down from there.

I think its more that those are very popular examples that a lot of people will be aware of so they're easy touchstones rather than an honest review of what the author considers the best media of all time. And considering we've been saying "oh, thats very DBZ" over and over I think he was correct in that assumption. Also the quote listed explicitly excludes DBZ from the "awesome anime" qualifier, so, uh, its definitely right there in the text that the author doesn't consider DBZ to be very high quality.

Advent Children has a fight scene where boys with swords fly around the sky, is full of ridiculous melodrama and a boy finds a lump of his mum, absorbs it and becomes the new incarnation of a super evil crazy boy that is the main boy's ultra rival from hell. It's on genre.

By popular demand
Jul 17, 2007

IT *BZZT* WASP ME--
IT WASP ME ALL *BZZT* ALONG!



Dungeons and Dragons
The Dream Lands

The Lunar Ladies

Day ~22
Ruby City, capitol of the Ruby Mountains region
Before even entering the city the party is pounced upon by two adult red dragons.
Why? Who knows. There are two paragraphs of background on Ruby, completely irrelevant
such as how everything is built out of red mountain stone.
I'm sure the Lunar Ladies are just itching for backstories on random cities.

Day ~25
the Forest of Electricity.
Enchanted trees that work like tesla coils, 18 turns of rolling a D20:
1-4 lightning hits close to a character
5-9 a mild hit to a character D10 damage
10-14 direct hit to a character 2D10 damage
15-20 explosion. everybody rolls D20 against Dex or 2D20 damage
The GM is encouraged to allow characters covering in thick clothes or whatever
to get some protection, so there's that at least.

The party now takes a boat ride, paying 500gp per person and 700gp per horse.
All is well until the second night when a Dragon Turtle attacks.

3 sailors (warrior 1) and the captain assist the party.

quote:

Captain Roark
Warrior 12
Alignment good
HP 54
Str 18
Wis 9
Int 12
Dex 14
Con 16
Cha 10
AC 1
Sword +1

Day ~28

Moonland - inner sea
the party is to beeline it directly to, let's call it City of Luna.
5 days where they have a 1 in 3 chance to encounter a hostile Lunar Ladies squad
with a leader and 50% chance of a priestess too:

quote:

Warrior Moon Lady (5 appearing)
AC 0
LVL 10
HP 60-80
Weapon 2handed sword +2 or +3

Commander
Ac -2
LVL 16
HP 80-100
Weapon 2handed sword +2 or +3 which deals double damage to spell users

Priestess
AC 2
LVL 15
HP 50-70
Weapon +3 warhammer

Lunar Ladies are -2 to saves against spells and take double damage from magical sources

Also every morning noon and evening there's a 1 in 6 chance for random encounters:
1- Fembutterfly (I'll tell you about it later)
2- LVL 12 mage with an obsidian golem
3- beholder
4- adult green dragon
5- 8 giant rats
6- 2 malfras

nighttime only gets one roll (still 1 in 6 chance)
1- 3 of that spore thing that looks like a beholder
2- 6 ghost dogs
3- banshee
4- poltergeist
5- 3 crystalline things whatever they're called
6- giant manta ray

so 5 days of suck.

first day in moonland the party meets two women with a man who look exhausted,
they relate how the Lunar Ladies killed every able bodies man with them
while leaving the women and a one-eyed one-armed man alone.
they also tell about the magic vulnerability.
these by the by those are noted to be adventurers from Femininia, so there.
what happens to them after the info dump is not mentioned.

second day in moonland tall grass is actually Grasping Grass!
and 10 scorpion men appear because gently caress you.

third day in moonland is uneventful (except random encounters), at night
a Treant possessed by an Odik.

forth day just rain until dawn the next day

fifth day a Drolem, at evening the city of Luna is finally in view.

Day ~33 (I hope no one revealed the mission or the empress loses her head)
the city of Luna.
All males in the party have to use magic to appear crippled,
then the party pays 500gp a head to enter.
The city is ruled by women who maim every male baby because evil feminists?
the party gets a room in a boarding house overlooking the palace, from which
the queen can be seen leaving at night and entering a sekrit entrance!

I'm stopping here for now, but here's a new monster:

quote:

Fembutterfly (the Hebrew name is stupid too)
AC 0
HD 12*
Move 40 (13)
Flight 120 (40)
Atk 2 + special
Damage 1-12/1-12 + special
no. appearing 5-30
Morale 11
Treasure special
Alignment neutral
XP 1900

.5 meter tall, weaves herself a cocoon at night.
these creatures subside on human and demihuman hair, they attack with two knives
attempting to shave off your beautiful neckbeard!
they try not to kill so I guess you can just lie down and take it.
"therefore in most cases they'll they will try to attack women as their hair is longer"

they also got some magical abilities, such as charm person twice daily.
they speak common, elf and Halfling.

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Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

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



Kurieg posted:

I really do not like Mythender's Roleplay loop of
"Come on Baby, what's wrong? Don't want to touch true power?"
"er..okay?"
"What the gently caress is wrong with you? A small child weeps nearby as his puppy bursts into a fountain of blood."
I have always heartily disliked situations where the big twist is "previously neutral/positive source of power turns out to actually be super evil," because it is always presented as a gotcha or some kind of lovely moral on how there is no ethical consumption under capitalism or whatever. gently caress fighting Superman: if Lex Luthor used the brain power he uses to create complex rationalizations justifying how he (a supercrime megabusiness) is better than Superman (who would be content to save landslide victims left to his own devices), he could cure at least one major disease.

This is not the same as saying that there should not be consequences or downsides to power, of course.

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