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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!

Joe Slowboat posted:

New Kult is, wow, that's incredibly bad and makes original Kult worse by the comparison.

It does make me want, like, a game about Gnostic urban exploration, though. Take Elysium and Gaia and Inferno and make it explicit - all of them are built on the ruins of a universal war of conquest by the divine powers humans once were, and give rules and systems for stumbling around that wreckage. Take out all the demons, or at least most of them. Make the universe mostly empty after humanity was restrained, and the Demiurge has hidden.

Vistas of emptiness with alien angels floating high above, as you sift through the ruins for gnostic understanding, in the hopes of reawakening Humanity, and perhaps redeeming us. Something quieter and less edgy, about cosmic sin and the graveyards of the apocalypse, which all their static cyclopean art implies (and all their actual writing denies).

Ryuutama in the cosmic wasteland would be so much better than this.

But without magic rape curse DVD's, where will the horror come from.

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Tasoth
Dec 13, 2011
So is my grasp of bitcoin poor, or are Seeds/Signal just a blockchain setup? Start mining the next signal on your PC and then when you hit it, put it into use.

Bieeanshee
Aug 21, 2000

Not keen on keening.


Grimey Drawer

Selachian posted:

Now wait a moment. Anarchist cyborgs with l33tsp33k names? It's the Freakshow from City of Heroes.

Blahpunk and Teh Pwnzz0r deserve a better game.

Libertad!
Oct 30, 2013

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

Hostile V posted:



The Regime

The Regime has no ideological nexus.
It inherited the trappings of fascism and gladly wears them to ensure that all wealth and goods trickle upwards to the President and his cronies. Everything they promote is a means to that end and they're so open about its rampant corruption that governmental loyalists don’t care, not as long as the people they dehumanize and other can be punished in their eyes. Communists, immigrants, The Gays and liberals are enemies of the state who should be punished and cast out and The State is strong and powerful forever but constantly under attack.

Is the bolded part your words or inside the book? It sounds like "inherited the trappings" implies that it's just window dressing, but the whole concentration camps and continual hatred of (((degenerates subversives))) is the core of fascism as well as the trappings.

From my initial impressions the Regime are fascists of the overt Hitlerian kind. In the sample pages on Drive-Thru RPG one of them portrays a middle-class family giving the Nazi salute to a television screen:



From the last post SIGMATA reads more like US Red Scare fears cranked up to 11, but no Man in the High Castle style Nazi Parties getting in power or how The Jewish Question came back in vogue; it sounds like SIGMATA's America still has a two-party system, albeit with the Democrats weak and ineffectual. The modern era and our President calling Charlottesville protestors "very fine people" is more a very recent culmination of white nationalism that's been bubbling under the surface since the Southern Strategy, but the whole McCarthy-Nazi pipeline feels a bit far-fetched without more explanation.

Libertad! fucked around with this message at 04:45 on Jul 31, 2018

BinaryDoubts
Jun 6, 2013

Looking at it now, it really is disgusting. The flesh is transparent. From the start, I had no idea if it would even make a clapping sound. So I diligently reproduced everything about human hands, the bones, joints, and muscles, and then made them slap each other pretty hard.
I knew nothing about Sigmata going in but, uh, I did not expect a large part of the worldbuilding to revolve around a magic signal that turns people into cyborgs..?

Ghost Leviathan
Mar 2, 2017

Exploration is ill-advised.

Selachian posted:

Now wait a moment. Anarchist cyborgs with l33tsp33k names? It's the Freakshow from City of Heroes.

Man, the Freakshow are awesome. Basically a cross between l33tsp33k nerds, gangsters and Orks. Really. Their whole thing is ghetto bionics with lots of spikes, and constantly doing hilariously dumb poo poo.

Vox Valentine
May 31, 2013

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

Libertad! posted:

Is the bolded part your words or inside the book? It sounds like "inherited the trappings" implies that it's just window dressing, but the whole concentration camps and continual hatred of (((degenerates subversives))) is the core of fascism as well as the trappings.

From my initial impressions the Regime are fascists of the overt Hitlerian kind. In the sample pages on Drive-Thru RPG one of them portrays a middle-class family giving the Nazi salute to a television screen:



From the last post SIGMATA reads more like US Red Scare fears cranked up to 11, but no Man in the High Castle style Nazi Parties getting in power or how The Jewish Question came back in vogue; it sounds like SIGMATA's America still has a two-party system, albeit with the Democrats weak and ineffectual. The modern era and our President calling Charlottesville protestors "very fine people" is more a very recent culmination of white nationalism that's been bubbling under the surface since the Southern Strategy, but the whole McCarthy-Nazi pipeline feels a bit far-fetched without more explanation.
I am in fact quoting the book in that part and a little bit after. And yeah that art is directly from the book, that's one of the splash pages that prefaces the fiction chapter. And guess what: the Regime does engage in coy support of hate groups like Carolina Nazis and white supremacists but this isn't shared until much later in the book. There is a lot of stuff ripped directly from the headlines of 2017-2018 that the Regime is doing in 1986, it's pretty jarring to have that on top of internment camps and implied executions of prisoners.

BinaryDoubts posted:

I knew nothing about Sigmata going in but, uh, I did not expect a large part of the worldbuilding to revolve around a magic signal that turns people into cyborgs..?
Believe me, same. There are also three chapters on how radios and telephones and modems work. I think it might be in case of occupation or terrible poo poo going down you could crack open the book and educate yourself. Or maybe it's just to ensure verisimilitude and realism in your game.

We will be coming back to why it might not be the latter because the latter doesn't exactly work.

Liquid Communism
Mar 9, 2004


Out here, everything hurts.




Libertad! posted:

Is the bolded part your words or inside the book? It sounds like "inherited the trappings" implies that it's just window dressing, but the whole concentration camps and continual hatred of (((degenerates subversives))) is the core of fascism as well as the trappings.

From my initial impressions the Regime are fascists of the overt Hitlerian kind. In the sample pages on Drive-Thru RPG one of them portrays a middle-class family giving the Nazi salute to a television screen:



From the last post SIGMATA reads more like US Red Scare fears cranked up to 11, but no Man in the High Castle style Nazi Parties getting in power or how The Jewish Question came back in vogue; it sounds like SIGMATA's America still has a two-party system, albeit with the Democrats weak and ineffectual. The modern era and our President calling Charlottesville protestors "very fine people" is more a very recent culmination of white nationalism that's been bubbling under the surface since the Southern Strategy, but the whole McCarthy-Nazi pipeline feels a bit far-fetched without more explanation.

The art for Sigmata has nothing to do with the game Walker wrote. I actually refunded my kickstarter pledge for this one based on the stuff he showed off about the setting, because it is very, very unrealistic about how fascism works and is fought against.

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

Mors Rattus posted:

7th Sea 2: Nations of Theah, Vol. 2 - Don't ask me how the apostrophe is pronounced.
Molhynia Province is the largest and strangest, made of the windswept steppes. Its largest permanent city is Breslau, high in the northern steppes and surrounded by walls. At its highest point is the kremlin of Koshchei, and no one of the city below may enter or leave it. Secret underground passages link it to the outside, but only Koshchei or his 'brides' may ever use them. All of the population is expected to serve as the city's militia, maintaining the strong fortifications and manning the walls against invaders or bandits, a tradition that dates back to the city's birth as a mining town. The mines produce demantoid gemstones, gold, copper, diamonds and some iron, which keep Breslau rich as long as trade south or east continues. The mines are run on a worker-run commune, an idea dating back to the early Orthodoxy, which was far less hierarchical and authoritarian than it presently is. Koshchei collects a portion of the profits as tax, but otherwise lets the miners do as they please. The main issue with this is that it's technically illegal. A few centuries back, the boyars pressured the Czar to outlaw communes after a number of muzhik revolts replaced their boyars with Breslau's system. When visitors from other lands come, Koshchei comes out of the castle and has the administrators dress up all fancy so everyone can pretend that boyars run the mines. Sadly, it's only a matter of time before the truth gets out, and some boyars would love a chance to sweep in and seize the mines. Others fear or hate Koshchei and would like to act against him. Worst, their attention may clue in the outsider to Koshchei's big old scheme of protecting the abused.

So, as I am understanding it Koshchei the deathless helps to run both a proto-communist worker owned mines and is a protector of the abused and downtrodden.

He's basically the big skeleton from the anti-red army propaganda posters brought to life, isn't he?

RedSnapper
Nov 22, 2016
re: Kult

drat.

This here almost makes me retroactively dislike the games I GM'd.

So - they didn't repair any of the self-contradictory fluff, didn't fill any of the plotholes and silliness of the original, they didn't fix the magic, they didn't rework the mental balance into someting that makes sense, they just sprinkled bodily fluids all over the game and garnished it with severed dicks. Serve lukewarm, in a bowl made out of a diembodied rear end in a top hat.
Yes, I mad.


Joe Slowboat posted:

Vistas of emptiness with alien angels floating high above, as you sift through the ruins for gnostic understanding, in the hopes of reawakening Humanity, and perhaps redeeming us. Something quieter and less edgy, about cosmic sin and the graveyards of the apocalypse, which all their static cyclopean art implies (and all their actual writing denies).

This. This sentence calms me down, thank you.

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

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



Sigmata would be way cooler if it was like Spirit of '77, just set in '86 and with pirate radio giving you sick Terminator power to beat the poo poo out of Ronny Rayguns.

I imagine the purpose of "the Regime has no ideological underpinnings" is to simultaneously avoid writing something that might offend or cause lots of complaining by the plausible audience (which is lame) but also to remove even the hypothetical prospect of a "True Believer" who genuinely and profoundly believes in the ideals of AmeriKKKa, and that latter part I think has some value to it.

The Lone Badger
Sep 24, 2007

Josef bugman posted:

So, as I am understanding it Koshchei the deathless helps to run both a proto-communist worker owned mines and is a protector of the abused and downtrodden.

He's basically the big skeleton from the anti-red army propaganda posters brought to life, isn't he?

I picture an Eisen Hexe monster-hunter being very confused why El Vago keeps thwarting him.

Ghost Leviathan
Mar 2, 2017

Exploration is ill-advised.

Josef bugman posted:

So, as I am understanding it Koshchei the deathless helps to run both a proto-communist worker owned mines and is a protector of the abused and downtrodden.

He's basically the big skeleton from the anti-red army propaganda posters brought to life, isn't he?

Skeletons have been an extremely common theme in anti-communist propaganda, there's a whole C-SPAM thread about it. And they are indeed kicking rad.

Liquid Communism
Mar 9, 2004


Out here, everything hurts.




Nessus posted:

Sigmata would be way cooler if it was like Spirit of '77, just set in '86 and with pirate radio giving you sick Terminator power to beat the poo poo out of Ronny Rayguns.

I imagine the purpose of "the Regime has no ideological underpinnings" is to simultaneously avoid writing something that might offend or cause lots of complaining by the plausible audience (which is lame) but also to remove even the hypothetical prospect of a "True Believer" who genuinely and profoundly believes in the ideals of AmeriKKKa, and that latter part I think has some value to it.

The purpose is that the four factions you have to appease as The Resistance are groups that are all natural allies of fascism, so a regime with any ideological underpinnings would be 'one or more of the protagonists are really the Enemy'.

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

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



Liquid Communism posted:

The purpose is that the four factions you have to appease as The Resistance are groups that are all natural allies of fascism, so a regime with any ideological underpinnings would be 'one or more of the protagonists are really the Enemy'.
Now I'm just a humble country puppeteer and I may not be fully up to date on who is to blame for all the troubles, but wasn't one of those groups explicitly "left-leaning progressives a la :bernpop: "

Some days it feels like literally everyone is the natural ally of fascism, which makes me wonder if the term has perhaps been construed too broadly.

Mr. Maltose
Feb 16, 2011

The Guffless Girlverine
If by “left-leaning progressive” you mean “ Stalin was right to send in the tanks, actually”.

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

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



Mr. Maltose posted:

If by “left-leaning progressive” you mean “ Stalin was right to send in the tanks, actually”.
Oh okay, I dimly recalled the breakdown being "Gilead," "Seasteaders," "Are Troops" and "the Liberal Crime Squad."

But really isn't Stalin the natural predator of fascists? :ussr:

Ghost Leviathan
Mar 2, 2017

Exploration is ill-advised.
The 'protagonist' faction is basically the Neoliberal Crime Squad from all indications.

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!

Nessus posted:

Oh okay, I dimly recalled the breakdown being "Gilead," "Seasteaders," "Are Troops" and "the Liberal Crime Squad."

But really isn't Stalin the natural predator of fascists? :ussr:

Alright, I know what all these are pretty much by heart except for "Gilead." Anyone want to clue me in on what variant of dumb I'm missing here? :v:

That Old Tree
Jun 24, 2012

nah


PurpleXVI posted:

Alright, I know what all these are pretty much by heart except for "Gilead." Anyone want to clue me in on what variant of dumb I'm missing here? :v:

The theocratic hellscape from The Handmaid's Tale.

Liquid Communism
Mar 9, 2004


Out here, everything hurts.




Nessus posted:

Now I'm just a humble country puppeteer and I may not be fully up to date on who is to blame for all the troubles, but wasn't one of those groups explicitly "left-leaning progressives a la :bernpop: "

Some days it feels like literally everyone is the natural ally of fascism, which makes me wonder if the term has perhaps been construed too broadly.

Nah, it's right wing militamen (the 1980's Compound In The Woods kind mixed with weird post 9/11 abandoned vets despite it being way early for that), Evangelical Christianity, Randian Libertarians upset that the fascism is getting in the way of profits, and tankies.

Liquid Communism fucked around with this message at 12:30 on Jul 31, 2018

LatwPIAT
Jun 6, 2011

Hostile V posted:

Believe me, same. There are also three chapters on how radios and telephones and modems work. I think it might be in case of occupation or terrible poo poo going down you could crack open the book and educate yourself. Or maybe it's just to ensure verisimilitude and realism in your game.

The author's passion is communications technology and the inspiration for the game was the Arab Spring, so all that stuff is apparently about explaining the technological basis of a decentralized popular revolution. This is apparently also why the factions are so offbeat: they're supposed to be analogous to factions in the Syrian Civil War. Which, while interesting, also comes off a bit tone deaf in the current political climate, which is very different from that milieu.

And, you know, yes, Al-Nusra is against Assad but with the exception of a few splinter groups and a few short alliances of convenience, the religious fundamentalists are not friends of the other anti-Assad groups.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

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

7th Sea 2: Nations of Theah, Vol. 2 - Grandmother Winter's Lessons

So, the Dar Matushki are the gifts of Matushka, who protects Ussura from outsiders, other Leshiye and, indeed, even from Ussurans themselves. She seeks out those that need to be corrected, who lie and act cruelly and so on, and she tests them. Those that pass her tests return with what they need, and a little gift besides, such as new boots, for being good people. Those that fail suffer a Lesson. A Lesson forces you to face your weakness. They are typically painful, to stick in your memory better. Maybe you speak in toads and snakes until you stop lying, or maybe a fox follows you and forces you to agree to terribly difficult things until you stop running away from what you fear, or maybe you thirst and thirst no matter how much you drink until you put aside alcohol. Once you have finally learned what the Lesson must teach, however, Matushka is kind. She gives you Gifts. Forget your Lesson, though, and you will lose your Gifts. Not permanently, but as a warning. If you persist in your forgetfulness, then you will receive the Lesson again. This time it will be more painful, as you clearly need it to be harder to forget.

Matushka's tests are always easy to pass and easy to fail. She travels the land, disguised as an old woman or a child, whichever one her target is more inclined to ignore. She asks for help - never much. Some bread, a guide home, a bit of money, a toy fetched out of a tree. She never asks for more than the target can afford to give at the moment, in money or in time. She tests three kinds of people. First are those who act in a way that harms Ussura, but who have the ability to learn and the potential to be heroes. She will not waste her time and power on those who cannot or will not contribute to the nation. The second are those who, having learned a Lesson, request another. Matushka likes people with the desire to better themselves, though that doesn't make the Lesson any easier or less painful. The third are those who bear terrible hardship with good cheer and patience. For these, the test presents a possible reward for good behavior. They get a gift, but not Dar Matushki. These people do not need a Lesson, so they don't receive one - only a gift.

Without exception, Lessons hurt. The pain may be physical, or it may be of the mind or of society. It's whatever is most effective in a given case. The Lesson reveals one of your vices, targeting it. Cowardice, spite, lying, cruelty, indifference to others, overindulgence. You must learn why you failed your test and why Matushka thinks you need to change. The Lesson ends when you prove you understand by your actions. These demonstrations of understanding are highly personal, and typically easier than the penance for breaking a restriction once you've earned your magic. A liar, for example, might need to confess their lies and undo some harm their lies caused. A coward might need to brave a scary task. Occasionally, a person refuses to learn their Lesson. For them, the mystic curse of the Lesson just doesn't end.

Once the Lesson is over, Matushka will visit you, in person or in a dream, and give two Gifts and a Restriction. She will explain the Gifts and everything that you will be expected to do to maintain them. Those who complete a Lesson are known as Poluchatel, Recipients. Their Gifts are an extension of Matushka's power and command over the land and its creatures, or her expertise in healing and mending. Each comes with a Restriction that reinforces the Lesson Matushka taught, and breaking that means you lose your Gifts until you do penance. If you fail to do penance, you must suffer your Lesson again - and it will be harder this time. The exception to all this is someone that actively seeks out Matushka. She watches over these people, selecting which ones can find her and which cannot. Those who find her are given three things: a thing to destroy, a thing to protect and a thing to give away. They must determine which is which and treat them appropriately. This requires a discriminating eye, a keen mind, obedience to Matushka and the ability to control your own desires, for the thing you want most is often the one you must give away or destroy. If you succeed, you receive two Gifts and a Restriction she has decided is easiest for you to keep. If you fail...well, you get a choice. Go away emptyhanded, or suffer a Lesson.

Matushka pays special attention to the Czars and Czarinas. She tests them repeatedly, granting them her blessing for as long as they pass her tests. The tests are secretive and unpredictable, and only once a leader has failed does Matushka reveal what was going on. One famous failure involved an apple tree. Every night, someone stole its apples. Rather than investigating personally, the Czar sent his sons. The thieves killed one son and injured another, and Matushka berated the Czar for being a lazy coward, refusing to act himself, and removed her blessing. After that, the injured son died and the Czar's wife left him for fear that the curse would taint her, too. Every Czar and Czarina knows that they must always be their best, because Matushka is watching, and without her blessing, rulership always requires terrible sacrifices and loss. Many are now waiting for either Ilya or Ketheryna to fail a test before thy decide who to support, but whatever Matushka has put before both of them, they seem to have passed so far.

Ussurans tend to treat the Poluchatel with wary respect. They are wary because everyone knows that you don't generally become Poluchatel without there being a reason Matushka tested you, but respect, because Gifts require great self-control to maintain. Several famous Ussuran heroes have been Poluchatel, and tales of how bad children met Matushka and learned how to be heroic adults are extremely popular in Ussura, especially with kids.

Next time: Tura's Touch

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

LatwPIAT posted:

The author's passion is communications technology and the inspiration for the game was the Arab Spring, so all that stuff is apparently about explaining the technological basis of a decentralized popular revolution. This is apparently also why the factions are so offbeat: they're supposed to be analogous to factions in the Syrian Civil War. Which, while interesting, also comes off a bit tone deaf in the current political climate, which is very different from that milieu.

And, you know, yes, Al-Nusra is against Assad but with the exception of a few splinter groups and a few short alliances of convenience, the religious fundamentalists are not friends of the other anti-Assad groups.

Yeah, the only good white knight armed faction in Syria is the Kurds' Self-Defense Groups and even they've done questionable things. TBF, an analogue to the Kurds in Sigmata would be something like the Black Panthers, the self-defense group of a minority community seeking autonomy.

Also, the only good guys in Syria are the White Helmets, despite all the slander they get from Russia and Assad apologists.

Terrible Opinions
Oct 18, 2013



Also claiming that the regimes opposed by the Arab Spring have "no ideological underpinnings" may be the stupidest US liberal thing to say.

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003
I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!
I'm a little behind because my laptop was in the shop, time to read the last few pages and work myself up into a murderous frenzy.

Pieces of Peace
Jul 8, 2006
Hazardous in small doses.

Young Freud posted:

Yeah, the only good white knight armed faction in Syria is the Kurds' Self-Defense Groups and even they've done questionable things. TBF, an analogue to the Kurds in Sigmata would be something like the Black Panthers, the self-defense group of a minority community seeking autonomy.

Also, the only good guys in Syria are the White Helmets, despite all the slander they get from Russia and Assad apologists.

After learning about the behind the scenes aspects of Sigmata in this thread, I’m actually more offended by the tankies than the other factions now. Some misplaced analogizing between anti-Assad forces and historically proto-fascist US subcultures is a simple mistake but I don’t think it’s particularly impugning everyone; comparing the democratic socialist forces of the largest ethnic group in the world that lacks its own nation to Stalin fanboys is just character assassination.

It’s almost like a game about fascism and fighting it should have been made by a social sciences nerd instead of a communication sciences guy :thunk:

Davin Valkri
Apr 8, 2011

Maybe you're weighing the moral pros and cons but let me assure you that OH MY GOD
SHOOT ME IN THE GODDAMNED FACE
WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!

LatwPIAT posted:

The author's passion is communications technology and the inspiration for the game was the Arab Spring, so all that stuff is apparently about explaining the technological basis of a decentralized popular revolution. This is apparently also why the factions are so offbeat: they're supposed to be analogous to factions in the Syrian Civil War. Which, while interesting, also comes off a bit tone deaf in the current political climate, which is very different from that milieu.

And, you know, yes, Al-Nusra is against Assad but with the exception of a few splinter groups and a few short alliances of convenience, the religious fundamentalists are not friends of the other anti-Assad groups.

Did the author say anything about why he didn't go with the Arab Spring theme directly? I understand that it might have come off as in bad taste, but there are games set in that region and time that at least show their research and treat the matter with the seriousness it merits, like Volko Ruhnke's entire milieu. (Yes, I know his day job is CIA analyst, but he wears that label on his sleeve and does not attempt to hide it.)

Zereth
Jul 9, 2003



BinaryDoubts posted:

I knew nothing about Sigmata going in but, uh, I did not expect a large part of the worldbuilding to revolve around a magic signal that turns people into cyborgs..?
I guess they're going extremely literal with the "This machine kills fascists" subtitle?

Liquid Communism posted:

Nah, it's right wing militamen (the 1980's Compound In The Woods kind mixed with weird post 9/11 abandoned vets despite it being way early for that), Evangelical Christianity, Randian Libertarians upset that the fascism is getting in the way of profits, and tankies.
Unless the game is really convincing I think I'm going to find "the first three of these you listed are not firmly in bed with the government" more unrealistic than "there's a radio signal that turns people into sweet-rear end cyborgs, somehow".

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

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

7th Sea 2: Nations of Theah, Vol. 2 - The Sky Father

Where Matushka is the great mother of Ussura, Tura is its father, and he views his role much differently. Instead of restrictions, he grants responsibility and freedom. Some say he is less cruel than Matushka, but in the end he is equally demanding. The difference works like this. You need to bake a cake. Matushka gives you a recipe and swats your hand with a spoon whenever you make a mistake or forces you to start over. Tura gives you all the ingredients you need or request and a kitchen to work with, but then lets you figure out the rest yourself. Both are still going to require you to make a cake. It also needs to be understood that Tura doesn't disagree with everything Matushka stands for. Rather, he dislikes her methods and her treatment of the other Leshiye. Once, the pair loved each other and shared in each other's power. Matushka granted Tura the power to use and grant Regeneration as a Gift, and he gave her the power to use and grant Storm. Now, though, they see each other as dangers to the land. However, Matushka is currently unaware that Tura is acting against her, for he has used her own transformative power to hide from her in the form of Chernobog, remaining high in the mountains.

When someone finds Tura, he gives them Gifts in exchange for a Task and a Mark. Those that refuse his offer awaken in the mountains with no memory of Tura or their time with him. Those that accept become Chernobog's Cursed. Tura's tasks are generally focused on righting what Tura perceives as Matushka's wrongs - primarily, he wants to free the other Leshiye from her prohibitive laws. When the Cursed leave the mountains, they typically weave fanciful tales of how they disturbed Chernobog and earned his wrath, and they are all united in their work against the control of Matushka and the keeping of Tura's secrets. Only if they find someone who might aid their cause do they share the truth. Tura never seeks anyone out, but instead waits for people to come to him. Some come by accident, exploring the mountains, while others are told of his hiding place by the Cursed. Either way, when you take Sorcery (Tura's Touch), he grants you two Gifts and a Task. He also places a black mark around the size of a big thumbprint on your face, neck or hands. Once you have the Mark, Tura may give you additional Gifts (and Tasks) via your dreams.

All of Tura's Gifts focus on the sky and weather, unlike Matushka's, which focus on mending and animals. All require you to spend 1 Hero Point to activate, exactly as Matushka's Gifts do. His Tasks are special Stories, called Tura's Task Stories, that detail what Tura demands of you. You can complete Steps in other Stories as normal, but until Tura's Task is complete, you cannot write new Hero Stories. Once you do, you can continue as normal.

Gifts
Tura and Matushka share a few Gifts - specifically, Illuminate, Purify, Storm and Regeneration. The game also lists some examples of Tura-specific Gifts. And obviously you can make up your own with GM assistance, just as with Matushka's. The main thing is Tura has sky and weather flavor.
Language of Birds: You can speak to birds - any birds - for the rest of the Scene. They will tell you anything they've seen or heard, and if you request their aid they will try to help you, even if they've never been to Ussura. If a request requires a Risk, the birds roll 5 dice and you decide how they spend Raises. They get 2 Bonus Dice if the Risk is particularly suited for them.
Lightning: You can call down lightning. Any weather is fine, but you must have clear access to the sky, such as being outdoors or having an open window. You cause (Scholarship) Wounds, which cannot be defended against by any means.
Read the Wind: The wind will bring you images of what it touches. You can activate this to quickly check for anyone following you or setting up in a nearby ambush or such, or you can activate it to make a Notice Risk to focus in on an event at any distance. For each Raise you make, you may ask one question about what is happening elsewhere. Each question may involve only one sense - what is audible, visible or smellable, specifically - and not two or more at once.
Wind Walk: You and anything directly touching your skin turn into air. You are invisible and intangible, though you are still audible if you, say, speak or make noise, and people may notice a breeze as you pass. You may travel in any way an air current can, so you can't go through liquid or objects, but can pass through cracks or holes. However, you must be careful not to get trapped in an area too small for you to turn back human. If you remain air for more than 15 minutes (or one Scene, whichever is most appropriate), you start to lose yourself. Every Scene after that costs 2 Wounds, taken at the start of the scene. They cannot heal until you become corporeal again. If you take a Dramatic Wound while air, you immediately become corporeal unless the space you are trapped in is too small to hold you. If you are trapped, you just keep taking Wounds until you are freed, and immediately become corporeal once freed.

Tasks are different in complexity based on how much power Tura has given you this time. Each time you purchase Sorcery (Tura's Touch), you get two Steps worth of Tura's Task, which you may have as two one-Step stories or one two-Step story. If you take the Sorcery advantage twice, you then have four Steps to distribute between Tasks. If you take Sorcery at chargen, you may begin play with half of your required Steps completed, rounding up. If you do, you and the GM have to decide what you've done so far and name someone affected by it. Typical Tasks are focused on spreading Tura's message (mostly, doing things or telling stories that make other Leshiye look good to people or make Matushka look bad, or identifying potential Cursed), undermining Matushka's message (mostly helping people learn to take care of things themselves, showing how indulgence can be positive or convincing people to work together to keep out the wild's dangers or solve problems without relying on Matushka or her magic), or stopping Matushka's plans (usually stuff like doing some specific order for Tura that may not make a lot of sense, investigating or spying on a Poluchatel or even investigating Matushka herself).

Further, all of the Cursed receive Tura's Mark, a black splotch on the face, hands or neck that is cold to the touch. If you have the Mark, you can always tell if someone else's Mark is real or fake. It also lets you get new Gifts without having to go all the way back to the mountains to chat with Tura directly. Handy, that.

How the Ussurans treat a Cursed is depends on if they know of the Mark. Those who don't know typically assume a Cursed is actually a Poluchatel and will treat them accordingly, even if they see use of a Gift only Tura can offer. If they know of the Mark, however, they know that you're one of Chernobog's Cursed, and therefore treat you with suspicion and pity. Suspicion, because of the stories spread by the Cursed about themselves and Chernobog. Pity, because they believe the Cursed are doomed to die a violent death. If an Ussuran knows you are Cursed, any action taken in a Dramatic Sequence that involves them requires an additional Raise to overcome their suspicion. Generally speaking, though, Poluchatel and Cursed tend to get along. The Poluchatel tend to treat people they don't know kindly regardless, and the Cursed like to cultivate friendships they can later use to gain information about Matushka's plans. This is likely to change when Matushka becomes aware of what Tura is doing.

Next time: Fencing!

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

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

Davin Valkri posted:

Did the author say anything about why he didn't go with the Arab Spring theme directly? I understand that it might have come off as in bad taste, but there are games set in that region and time that at least show their research and treat the matter with the seriousness it merits, like Volko Ruhnke's entire milieu. (Yes, I know his day job is CIA analyst, but he wears that label on his sleeve and does not attempt to hide it.)

When I asked him about it he didn't say why he made that decision.

JcDent
May 13, 2013

Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!
So 7th not only gives you Viking Early Modern Swedes, but also Cossacks That Are Actually The Mongols? Lame.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

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

JcDent posted:

So 7th not only gives you Viking Early Modern Swedes, but also Cossacks That Are Actually The Mongols? Lame.

The actual Cossacks claimed to derive from the actual Khazars, who were an actual group of Turkic origin.

Which is to say, the same culture group as Mongols.

e: even if they were wrong about being Khazar-originated, they were definitely Turkic in origin before intermarrying heavily into the Eastern European ethnic groups in the areas they lived in.

Mors Rattus fucked around with this message at 15:54 on Jul 31, 2018

Comrade Gorbash
Jul 12, 2011

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

JcDent posted:

You might want to read up about where the Cossacks came from.

[quote="Mors Rattus" post="486625661"]
The actual Cossacks claimed to derive from the actual Khazars, who were an actual group of Turkic origin.

Which is to say, the same culture group as Mongols.

e: even if they were wrong about being Khazar-originated, they were definitely Turkic in origin before intermarrying heavily into the Eastern European ethnic groups in the areas they lived in.
On top of which Mongolian successor states and steppe empires built on their model were a going concern well into the 16th century, and throughout the 17th and 18th were mostly converted to semi-autonomous vassals of sedentary empires without much changing their character or behavior. Their was an shift in ethnicity and religion during the 16th and 17th century but the political/military organization remained largely the same. And even then there was, as ever, significant cultural exchange across the steppe all the way from the Crimea in the West to Manchuria in the East.

potatocubed
Jul 26, 2012

*rathian noises*

Liquid Communism posted:

The art for Sigmata has nothing to do with the game Walker wrote. I actually refunded my kickstarter pledge for this one based on the stuff he showed off about the setting, because it is very, very unrealistic about how fascism works and is fought against.

LatwPIAT posted:

the inspiration for the game was the Arab Spring, so all that stuff is apparently about explaining the technological basis of a decentralized popular revolution. This is apparently also why the factions are so offbeat: they're supposed to be analogous to factions in the Syrian Civil War. Which, while interesting, also comes off a bit tone deaf in the current political climate, which is very different from that milieu.

Pieces of Peace posted:

It’s almost like a game about fascism and fighting it should have been made by a social sciences nerd instead of a communication sciences guy :thunk:

The overwhelming impression I have of Sigmata is that the author just doesn't know enough about politics or history to write the game he wanted to write. Like, sure, base your factions off the Arab Spring, whatever -- but you can't just translate those into 1980s America and have things still make sense. That's not how politics works.

You can look out of your window right now and see how three of his four 'resistance' groups are enthusiastically lining up to support the fascists, internment camps and all, and the fact that he apparently didn't bother to do even that frustrates me immensely.

Of course, the other impression I get of Sigmata is that the dude was trying to write a real-life resistance handbook disguised as a game. And... I don't know what I think of that?

JcDent
May 13, 2013

Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!
Yeah, but when they say "Cossack" you probably imagine a fuzzy hat, sabre and musket, not what seems like the actual Mongols that torched Baghdad. Same as TYW Swedes coming from, ugh, viking Swedes, but not looking like/being culturally the same as vikings.

At least their name is pronounceable.

Liquid Communism
Mar 9, 2004


Out here, everything hurts.




Zereth posted:

I guess they're going extremely literal with the "This machine kills fascists" subtitle?

Unless the game is really convincing I think I'm going to find "the first three of these you listed are not firmly in bed with the government" more unrealistic than "there's a radio signal that turns people into sweet-rear end cyborgs, somehow".

That was pretty much my peeling off point for deciding I'd never get people to sit down and play the game. The factions are deep enough into the mechanics that I don't think you could drag them out without rewriting enough that it's easier to play shadowrun instead.

Liquid Communism fucked around with this message at 16:38 on Jul 31, 2018

JcDent
May 13, 2013

Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!
How do you bake tankies into the mechanics?

Do they have cyborg gulag powers or what?

Liquid Communism
Mar 9, 2004


Out here, everything hurts.




JcDent posted:

How do you bake tankies into the mechanics?

Do they have cyborg gulag powers or what?

You make them a group that your PCs have to have backing from and keep happy or you lose.


potatocubed posted:

The overwhelming impression I have of Sigmata is that the author just doesn't know enough about politics or history to write the game he wanted to write. Like, sure, base your factions off the Arab Spring, whatever -- but you can't just translate those into 1980s America and have things still make sense. That's not how politics works.

You can look out of your window right now and see how three of his four 'resistance' groups are enthusiastically lining up to support the fascists, internment camps and all, and the fact that he apparently didn't bother to do even that frustrates me immensely.

Of course, the other impression I get of Sigmata is that the dude was trying to write a real-life resistance handbook disguised as a game. And... I don't know what I think of that?

Here's an interview he did where he explains his choices. It comes off as deeply naive to both history and politics to me.

quote:

Chad Walker: As a classic insufferable liberal, I feel really gross about the public discourse becoming so vile and grotesque—and inhumane—when it comes to people’s struggles. Whether it’s immigrants, or people of color getting killed by police all the time, or transgender people being denied their very existence, the rhetoric from their opposition is so vile—and it’s no longer on the fringes. The vileness is front page.

That really concerns me. But it’s more than all that awfulness. I also think about liberalism’s failure to solve or counter it. Think back to the 2016 election. I forget which of the debates it was, but in one, Hillary Clinton showed up wearing all white, like Gandalf the White. She had come as this avatar, this holy angel of liberalism: super articulate, super smart, super polite, and in a lot of ways, humanitarian, concerned about people, nuanced—she had all these things. On the other side, of course, was the grotesque. The wall of traditional liberalism, with all its nice manners, its Victorian haughtiness, its pearl-clutching—all it does is amplify the grotesque. Suddenly all we can see is the grotesque; suddenly all we’re talking about is the grotesque.

You can’t counter the grotesque with good manners. That’s when I started thinking about the radical. Can the radical be a counter to the grotesque that traditional liberalism cannot? Again, I identify as the type of liberal who most people hate—but I acknowledge that liberalism is an incomplete counter to what we’re dealing with today. So I wanted to explore the radical as an answer.

To do that, I started with what I know—as a technologist, but also as a foreign policy thinker by virtue of my security career and academic discipline. What are some useful frameworks to think about what’s happening in America and abroad? And can any of those frameworks, even though they might have been used for imperialist enterprises throughout history, be subverted in any way to teach us how we can put humans first in some of these struggles?

It's some PoliSci101 level poo poo.

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JcDent
May 13, 2013

Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!
Inkless should include that interview bit into the archive.

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