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LatwPIAT posted:It seems like a system that would be very fun and kinetic to play. Speaking as someone who literally started an Infinity campaign a few weeks ago: it is. The flow of Good Points and Bad Points add a whole new dynamic to the game. Most RPGs just have a resolution system (more often than not, "roll die + bonus") and nothing else, but the points naturally introduces escalation, sudden reversals of fortune, and new events. In any RPG I can introduce enemy reinforcements in the middle of combat but I rarely do so, because it's lame and probably unbalanced. The GM has an endless supply of NPCs to throw at the PCs and overwhelm them, I might as well just say that rocks fall and everybody dies, cut out the middle man. But the Bad Points of Infinity can be spent for that purpose and so I actually do it now, because it has a cost from a finite supply, meaning it's ok. I was going to spend those points on something anyway, might as well be that. And if I go easy for a while on the players, then oh boy I am saving up for something good. All in all it's been a welcome change of pace.
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Oct 10, 2018 03:32
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Sage Genesis posted:In any RPG I can introduce enemy reinforcements in the middle of combat but I rarely do so, because it's lame and probably unbalanced. The GM has an endless supply of NPCs to throw at the PCs and overwhelm them, I might as well just say that rocks fall and everybody dies, cut out the middle man. But the Bad Points of Infinity can be spent for that purpose and so I actually do it now, because it has a cost from a finite supply, meaning it's ok. I was going to spend those points on something anyway, might as well be that. And if I go easy for a while on the players, then oh boy I am saving up for something good. I have one small reservation, which is that having to choose when and to which degree to gently caress over the players is something I'm a bit apprehensive of. At least for something like Infinity (as opposed to, say, Call of Cthulhu) in tone. (It's tempting to posit a houserule where certain events, like rolling 20s, invite rolling a Bad Points-sized d6 pool to determine how many Bad Points get used to do Bad Stuff to the players.)
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Oct 10, 2018 04:06
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LatwPIAT posted:I have one small reservation, which is that having to choose when and to which degree to gently caress over the players is something I'm a bit apprehensive of. At least for something like Infinity (as opposed to, say, Call of Cthulhu) in tone. I get what you're saying, but that sounds like a hassle. 20s are not that uncommon, given that people routinely roll 2 - 5 dice each turn, and I don't want to count the poker chips each time, grab a handful of dice, roll 'em, and count out the results. The Bad Points aren't there to gently caress over players as such, just to generate extra spice to an adventure. Adding in two more troopers, or saying a pipe bursts which releases obscuring steam, or saying a gun jams so they need to make a TN 1 Tech roll to fix it? That's not some gruesome punishment, that's just keeping things interesting. IMO and all that.
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Oct 10, 2018 04:19
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Hey, so, I just remembered this here game existed, and apparently nobody else has ever seen it because it died after about six months for reasons that will become apparent as we explore: Alpha Omega: The Beginning and the End  Yeah, the cover's not much to look at, but the artwork inside the book is great, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Cast your minds back, if you dare, to the halcyon days of 2008. Everyone was excited to vote for one Barack Obama, celebrities died by the dozens, and nerd culture, such as it was at the time, had become consumed... with a mystery. A trailer had released, depicting some sort of cataclysm in New York City. One moron misheard a snippet of dialog and thought it would be Voltron. Then the viral marketing began, an ARG that swept the internet. Fans debated and argued what the nature of this film. Would it be Godzilla? Evangelion? Some sort of remake of The Stuff? In the end, it was a technically competent but utterly forgettable giant monster movie, titled Cloverfield. Why am I bringing this up? Because amidst this flurry of speculation, an anomaly arose. "Ethan Haas was right" was an ARG that for most of its run was widely believed to be related to Cloverfield. However, after weeks of confusion, the solution to the puzzle was revealed. It wasn't Cloverfield at all. It was Alpha Omega, a new post-apocalyptic RPG that had nothing at all to do with Cloverfield. Everyone more or less immediately lost interest. Flash forward just a few months. I'm at the FLGS for a Free RPG Day promotion, and get talking with someone as I'm waiting for people to gather to play games. He mentions he's promoting a game. Alpha Omega. I recall the ARG and the vast disappointment that followed the reveal. I decided to talk a bit with the guy, learn what all the hubbub was supposed to be about. He tells me a little about the game, but it's clear he's fairly uninterested in the whole "promotion" thing. He was apparently given a copy to hand out, and as the first person to talk to him, he palms it off on me so he can consider his volunteer job done. It's the first RPG book I'd ever owned. The game line died out quickly, its insistence on too-high-for-tabletop-RPGs production values, expensive ARG, and decision to just hand out a bunch of free copies up front led Mindstorm Labs to close quickly, before they could even put the monster manual into full production. A decade later, and I might be the only person who's ever read the whole core book. Well, let's dig in, shall we? The Premise As I mentioned, Alpha Omega is post-apocalyptic. What kind of apocalypse? Pretty much all of them. Hundreds of years in the future, humanity's hubris led nature to revolt, with years of storms, volcanoes, the works. Humanity responded by going to war with each other, dropping bombs, releasing manmade plagues, developing murderous AI, all of which went basically how you'd imagine it. After that, meteors began bombarding Earth, wiping out what civilization remained and, perhaps ironically, preventing the other apocalypses from spreading enough to truly wipe out humanity. Then, the aliens came. Every 10,000 years, the Seraph and Ophanum, two races of aliens, would arrive on Earth to war with one another. Why? Nobody knows. The Seraph look like Renaissance depictions of Biblical angels, the Ophanum like demons, and serving them both are a bioengineered slave race, the Grigori, whose looks depend largely on the purpose they were designed for. All of this was predicted by a 19th-century author named Ethan Haas. No, nobody knows how or why. Now, a few cities remain in the world, amid the blasted wastelands, and humanity has spent the last two centuries recovering, though many have been mutated severely, into what are effectively new races. Also there are bioengineered humans that were once and still frequently are used as servants, soldiers, etc. Also cybernetics. And did I mention that when the aliens came, they brought magic with them? Wielders, individuals who could exert influence over matter and energy through force of will, began to appear among the human population, and naturally exist among most non-human races. And that's where the players come in. Now, you may think that someone had way too many ideas and crammed all of them into a single game, and that it would come off as an unfocused mess as a result. You would be right! Chapter 1: Three ways to play! The opening of the book suggests not one, not two, but three distinct ways to represent the game's action. As one might expect, they include "just use your imagination and don't bother with minis" and "get some minis and a grid", but, always the ambitious one, Alpha Omega also suggests setting up some terrain and measuring things in inches, like a wargame. The measurements they give, then, are designed to be applicable to all three of these styles. To their credit, this works out decently. This chapter also includes the basic RPG boilerplate, explaining the basic concept, and what you need to play. Of note is that it requires at least one of every single die type, from d4 all the way to d20. I should mention that this game uses dice pools for rolling. Feel that chill down your spine? There's a reason I'm doing this in October. But it'll be a while before we get the dice out. Chapter 2: Remember how we had an ARG? Alpha Omega devotes an entire chapter of two whole pages to talking about how Ethan Haas was a writer in Paris who released a book of fiction then mysteriously vanished and then when all the apocalypses happened people realized (despite his book being forgotten by history?) that his book was actually a prophecy. The whole thing seems to exist to justify the ARG, and that's it.  The face of a prophet. Chapter 3: A whole lotta nonsense. Finally, a chapter with more than five pages. It opens with a two-page version of the story I told up above, then jumps right into a glossary of setting-specific jargon, and yes, it will all be on the test. The only term of interest for you, gentle reader, is "Elim", a term used to refer to both races of warring aliens collectively without having to say "Seraph and Ophanum" every goddamn time they come up. However, the glossary also reveals that there remains a worldwide internet, organized banking, and other modern trappings. Oh, you thought this was just a post-apocalyptic RPG? No, you see, it's post-apocalyptic for most of the world, but in the few remaining cities, it's more like Shadowrun. Because who needs a consistent tone? Chapter 3 goes on to describe the conventions of this new world. The City-states, literally the surviving cities turned into powers unto themselves, are cyberpunk dystopias, while the Freezones, between them, are terrifying hellscapes full of mutant monsters, murderous robots, alien warriors, and deadly weather, with the occasional peaceful area that serves as home to a small village or city-state colony. Some cities have giant walls around them, and there are several largely self-contained arcologies, which function more or less identically to normal cities aside from being closed in to varying degrees. The chapter goes on to explain that energy and food production are actually quite stable because of future science, and it's raw building materials that are the most sought-after resource, and the most common cause of violence between city-states. So far, so normal. The rest of the chapter proceeds in this fashion, discussing the difference between people granted citizenship in the city-states and those force to live on the fringes of society, language, food, finance, the internet, and so on. Of note is that Augmented Reality is a significant part of life within cities, with pretty much everything you own doubling as some form of "smart" device. The most popular form of entertainment is basically MMA meets pit fighting. Also cities offer free healthcare because, apparently, medical supplies remain quite abundant in this world. In the next section, the book describes how most animals and plants on Earth have mutated terribly and are all extremely deadly. Seemingly alien and/or extradimensional entities are also out there somewhere. From there, the book goes into detail about the aliens, and all that's important is that they're just better than humanity and we're all hosed if they decide we're a problem rather than a resource, and that they've had agents here all along, prepping the world for their return since the last time they fought on Earth.  Just your average alien infiltrator, on his way to work. Next, the basic mechanics of Wielding are explained. In-universe that is, there's two whole chapters between us and anything resembling game mechanics. Wielders affect the world using a combination of Sources and Intentions, and if that sounds a bit like Ars Magica, that's because it is. Spellcasting itself is also split up into those who can Wield innately, those who learn it through study, and those who come to it through faith. What's that? Sorcerer, Wizard, and Cleric? Never heard of 'em! However, this is where we see the first mention of the titular Alpha and Omega, which are the Sources used exclusively by "Spiritual Wielders", our Cleric equivalent. Alpha is basically the primal force of positivity, love, and kindness in the universe, while Omega is the opposite. They sure sound a lot like positive and negative energy from D&D, but, when you finally learn how they work in-game, well, I'll wait until we're at the chapter on magic for that.  Not pictured: an explanation for what any of this means. Imagine four balls in a ring in outer space... After Wielding, there's a bunch of pages about technology and bioengineering, it's all your typical cyberpunk fare. Is "cyberpunk heartbreaker" a term yet? Alpha Omega proves that it should be. The chapter closes with a one-page description of the war between the Elim. Basically, we're all in the middle of a three-year mustering period, during which the two sides gather their forces. After that, all hell will break loose, and humanity will get a chance to maybe influence how the war goes. Right now, there's only a few Elim on Earth, but within a year, thousands will arrive. Hope you don't have any long-term campaigns planned!  Oh, right, this is what the aliens look like. They made a loving ARG to promote this. Chapter 4: Oh, I see the problem, they put the back of the book first. Chapter 4 is yet more setting information, because gently caress putting character creation up front, the writers want you to see how brilliant and interesting this world is! Now they're on to describing all the major locations of the world. Most areas are pretty normal for the genre, all the major cities you expect to still be standing, are. However, there are a few interesting locales. The Loth Foundry is home to a rogue AI who has a massive robot army but isn't trying to kill all humans at the moment, though visitors are decidedly unwelcome. Sanctuarium is the home of the Necrosi, a mutated offshoot of humanity I'll go into more detail about when we get to character creation in chapter 6. However, for the most part, the locations in the game are pretty basic. On the other hand, credit where it's due, Alpha Omega includes cities suitable to any sort of campaign tone. The Parisian arcology of "Arcon-C-Hell" (originally named "Arc-en-Ciel" but future people are Very Clever) is a hive of crooks and murderers, Terranova City (on the Yucatan Peninsula) is largely democratic and advanced but dangerously polluted, The Island City of Divinus (off the coast of Brazil) is basically Las Vegas But Bigger, Lavan Free City (in Spain) is as close to a "good guy" city as one gets (and it's not even doomed!), and so on. None of them are especially fresh or different, but at least there's a lot of them to choose from, I suppose.  Tag yourself, I'm the six-story tall martini.  Oh, and there's a giant corporate-owned prison island, in case you were worried the LITERAL END OF THE WORLD might hinder the prison-industrial complex. Chapter 5: For gently caress's sake, just tell me the rules! Chapter 5 is the chapter all about the unforgettable and unique characters and organizations populating this vibrant, interesting setting. While the personas dramatis are pretty much a collection of stock character types, this is where the artwork in the book starts to shine. It's not perfect, but a lot of effort went into it, clearly, and I'll admit I found many of the character designs appealing, even if most of them are pretty fuckin' goofy. So, rather than drone on about a bunch of people that absolutely do not matter to 90% of prospective GMs, have some pictures:  The spikes and leather straps say "post-apocalyptic" but the katana says, "yeah this is still cyberpunk somehow". Very chic!  Okay, it's not all great, such as this fellow with SEVERE back issues.  Harry Potter and the Ill-Advised Soul Patch.  I just love this image. Yes, he's an evil surgeon, but goddamn does he love his job! After the NPCs, there's a bunch of corporations and other groups, most of them evil to some degree, none of them all that compelling. And that's it for chapter 5, the final obstacle between us and the poo poo we actually care about : the rules. Next time: We finally get to the fireworks factory, and I reveal the TERRIBLE SECRET OF ALPHA OMEGA.
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Oct 10, 2018 05:05
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Fuuuuuck me I haven't heard of "Ethan Haas Was Right" in years. I had no idea it was for this weird RPG.
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Oct 10, 2018 05:21
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"I saw it it's a lion it's huge." So is the terrible secret that the author believes that the Elim are real?
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Oct 10, 2018 05:23
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Oh man, Alpha Omega. I'd been meaning to ask if someone had heard of this thing because I stumbled upon it in a big collection of RPG rulebooks and it along with one of the others just completely boggled me. This was the LESS confusing, in that I just couldn't figure out what the players were supposed to be doing, as opposed to the other one (which was called The Second World or something hideously generic like that and I think was someone's OGL D&D setting, I'll see if I can track it down) where I tried reading through the setting information and went crosseyed a couple of paragraphs in because everything was completely disjointed. This one is at least vaguely comprehensible if overfull of stuff.
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Oct 10, 2018 05:30
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grassy gnoll posted:Well. I mean, it works for Warhammer having factions ranging from Not-Aliens/Zerg to Not-Space-Knights to various space armies that are basically war re-enactors down to the uniforms but with laser guns that look like rifles and all, Not-Cossacks, Not-Both-Sides-Of-The-Vietnam-War, etc etc.
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Oct 10, 2018 06:34
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Mors Rattus posted:I kind of love the idea of an AI superdeity whose entire mission statement for servitors is: NWS, in that it will gently caress up your productivity at work. Keep going if things slow down, it goes much further than you'd expect. http://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/index2.html
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Oct 10, 2018 06:37
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EclecticTastes posted:Hey, so, I just remembered this here game existed, and apparently nobody else has ever seen it because it died after about six months for reasons that will become apparent as we explore: How many games have we reviewed that have this same premise?! The most recent one was Obsidian: Age Of Judgment but I swear there's others. I'm thinking "pseudo-religious post-apocalypse heartbreaker" is a genre of it's own.
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Oct 10, 2018 06:40
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All I knew before this about that Infinity game was their godawful love of cheesecake models featuring women with visible panties and bras sculpted in.
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Oct 10, 2018 06:55
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Young Freud posted:How many games have we reviewed that have this same premise?! The most recent one was Obsidian: Age Of Judgment but I swear there's others. I'm thinking "pseudo-religious post-apocalypse heartbreaker" is a genre of it's own.
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Oct 10, 2018 07:37
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It's time to continue our journey into the Magical Realm of the Last time, the party of first level muppets made it to the entrance of the halls. This time, they get to explore. Have a look at the map.  The Halls Let's talk about the map. There are a lot of unnumbered, hence undescribed rooms. Even worse, a lot of these are behind secret doors, implying that they should be interesting, but they're left for the GM to populate, whether by hand or by using the little dungeon dressing table provided. Either way, this is rather unsatisfying. This sort of half-populated dungeon has been done before (B1 iirc) but in that case it's called out as an intentional feature; in this case it feels more like laziness. They could have spent a bit less time wanking over how awesome Lord Winter is and how lovely the village and surrounding area is, and a bit more on the reason the adventurers are here in the first place. Entry doors The entrance to the halls are a pair of stout, magically preserved, oak doors. They're latched, but not locked. The party opens them and moves onwards into the Forechamber This large, rectangular room contains a pile of weapons in the centre of the room, and a shallow puddle of water in the northeast corner. There's a passageway leading west, blocked by a set of metal gates. Aiden pokes at the pile of weapons, triggering a Magic Mouth spell which appears on one of the shields and says, "Beware! These were carried in by those who will never carry them out again!" Investigating the gates, Janie discovers that they're rusted shut, and there's a crossbow mounted on a tripod beyond them. There are also a pair of secret doors in this room that offer options to progress into the Halls if the party can't force the gates. Aiden and Janie try to force the gates; combined they have a 11% chance; surprisingly, they just about make it. They're then pleased to not be shot by the obvious crossbow trap, as it�s totally decayed. A detail that'll make no sense later on in the dungeon. Behind the door is a tunnel leading west, with corridors going off to the north and south. The Western corridor leads to area 8, the Welcoming Trap, which is the main entrance to the halls and the room depicted on the cover of the module. The group decide to look at the side tunnels first before heading towards the big obvious doors and statues. On their way to the Guard Quarters they discover a tunnel leading SE, which brings them to a blank wall. A bit of searching later they find the secret door leading back into the Forechamber. There's little to find in the Guard quarters at area 4. Smashed and mouldy furniture, a shattered and petrified goblin, and a tunnel leading to the privy. They're in awe at the idea that a caster was prepared to waste Flesh to Stone on a goblin, though Mags ruins the mood by suggesting it might have been done by a medusa. They trot on to look at area 5, the Privy. There's a sword +1/+4 hidden in the rocks behind the privy, but no clue that the characters should go digging through rubble. If I was running it, I'd either have a partially buried body visible, or the scabbard itself. As it is, the party don't go through the rubble, and don't get ambushed by the Huge Spider which is lurking over the privy. Which, in retrospect is probably a good thing. The party return to the crossroads and takes the northern corridor, again discovering a tunnel and secret door back to the Forechamber. Area 6 is also Guard Quarters. Very different from the first one in that it's totally empty; not a fragment of furniture remains. The doors in the north and western walls are closed. The group, being low level idiots don't think this is at all suss, and trot in. As Quota enters the room, the Green Slime on the ceiling drops onto Aiden, Bhed, and him. Green slime is a gently caress you monster, and has unclear rules. It has a ThAC0 of 19, but no attacks except for the initial drop. I decided to give potential targets a Save vs. Breath attack first; if they fail that, they're covered by the slime, in which case the attack roll is used to see if it hits flesh, or just their armour. Bhed leaps totally clear as the slime falls, whilst Aiden and Quota aren't so lucky. Luckily it doesn't touch Aiden's skin and he's able to strip out of his outer layer of clothes before they're consumed. It does leave him half-naked and bereft of all weapons apart from his dagger. Quota however actually gets hit by the slime, and now has one round to try and remove it before the damage is irreversible and he's converted into slime himself in another two rounds. There's no rules for adjudicating this; obviously not all the slime fell on Quota, so it would be unfair to ask them to do the full 14 points of damage to the slime. The room description says that the ceiling is completely covered, and there's 6 squares in the room, so let's say they need to do 3 points of damage to it. Scrapping the slime off does no damage to Quota, but will ruin the dagger, whilst burning or freezing it will do half damage to both. Green slime is one of the gently caress you monsters of D&D, hearkening back to the early days where pixel-bitching was the norm. It's also the sort of thing that's only going to catch a group out once, maybe twice, because you know that after an encounter like that they'll always be checking the ceiling from now on. What makes green slime especially harsh here is that the characters are unlikely to have any way of dealing with the slime themselves at this point. There is an Elixir of health in the next room, but it's hidden behind one of this module's new monsters (the lock lurker, which is a nasty little creature with a paralysing sting.) The party dithers on which technique to use until Aiden draws his dagger and starts scraping the slime off, managing to clear Quota before the damage is permanent. All of quota's equipment is ruined. Leaving the rest to burn out the rest of the slime they go to the pile of weapons. Aiden picks up one of the longswords, the dagger, and the shield, but there's nothing that Quota's cleric vows will allow him to wield. Mags gives Quota her staff. The group decide that there's no point returning to town as they can't afford to replace anyone's armour and gear just yet. The Northern door opens into what was clearly a privy. The short corridor leads to an evil smelling hole above which is a single seater wooden seat. On the wall above the seat is what looks like a hand-sized cobweb. Not sure it makes sense that the privies still smell as the place has been abandoned for decades. Aiden climbs up to investigate the cobweb, at which point the seat of the privy collapses, dropping him into a hole of unspecified depth. Let's say its 10'. There's no save to avoid this - the only hope is that the characters think to check that the seat is in bad condition and specify that they're standing on the stone surround rather than the seat. There's a lightning trap coming up that allows a roll under Dex to avoid damage. Despite lightning being far harder to avoid than a collapsing loo seat. The walls of the pit are rough, and Aiden is able to climb up with relative ease. The 'cobweb' turns out to be some arts and crafts - a handmade mesh hiding a small square block with a finger hole in it. Aiden is just about to stick his finger in, when he has a sudden attack of caution, and sticks a dagger in again. There's a slight impact, and a metallic scrapping noise. Repeated insertions of the dagger cause the same result. Having nothing in their equipment to make it easy to open the block, the party move on, making a note to come back later, and open the western door into area 24, the Ambush Elbow. Janie thinks its strange that there's so many cobwebs and other rubbish here compared to the rest of the corridors they've seen so far, but Aiden poo-poos her and goes forward. At which point, just before the corridor jinks south, there's a tension under his feet, the sound of three crossbows being fired, and three bolts ricochet around the corner. The bolts fire with ThAC0 15 at anyone around the corner. Aiden gets hit by one for 5 hp, whilst Bhed gets hit by 2, and Quota ducks out of the way In time. Everyone lives (just in Aiden's case), and Quota casts Cure Light Wounds, bringing him back to 4hp. "Could we perhaps be a bit more careful?" says Mags as she watches the divine first aid in progress. The corridor ends in a door to the west. Just in front of it, the trap is visible - a jury rigged contraption of three heavy crossbows mounted on a tripod. Aiden kicks it over in revenge. Unknown to the party there's also a secret door in the northern wall of the corridor, just before it jinks to the south. This door also has trip wires across it, which would trigger the trap. Bhed has moved into the lead of the party, and opens the door of the room, revealing 8 kobolds, who are not surprised. Fortunately, neither are the party. Weapons are drawn, and a fray commences in area 21 the Kobold Guardroom. There's not enough space for everyone to get into the room and fight - the front line and dogs would be it. Two other people can fire projectiles in. The fight ends with dead kobolds, Aiden having been dropped to 0hp, but cured up by Janie. I'm using one of the optional rules that has death occur at -10 rather than 0 The room contains many weapons, overlooks areas 19 and 20, and has an obvious door to the east, and a secret one to the north. The kobold's hand crossbows are too small to be comfortable used by a human, but Quota is able to find a flail and shield from the weapons in the room. The party have a quick look around the room, sticking their heads into area 22, the Ready Room, now a midden and kobold junk heap. They don't poke around in the filth for treasure. There isn't any. Nor do they manage to find the secret door to the north, but they don't spend a lot of time searching. They do manage to find some things in the watchpost that they think they can use to safely pry the block out of the wall in the privy. Return to the privy Bhed volunteers to look at the block and is able to pull it away, revealing a foot deep cavity that contains a large, flat, copper coin, and beyond it some vials. Not seeing any visible traps, he pokes the coin with a knife, and is almost struck when a sting-bearing tail materialises and lashes out, the tip scrapping harmlessly against Bhed's gauntlet. Bhed stabs at it and misses. The Lock Lurker hunkers down, threatening to attack anyone else who tries to get at the vials behind it. Deciding that his armour should protect him, Bhed just reaches past it to grab the vials. He's not so lucky this time - as he grabs the vials and starts to withdraw his hand the lurker strikes, dealing 8 points of damage (putting him down to 0) and paralyzing the paladin. The party see him go rigid. Aiden and Quota are able to pull him away from the wall, and manage to prise his hand away from the vial he'd grabbed. Mags opens and sniffs it, declaring it's a potion of healing. The party pour the potion down Bhed's throat, managing not to drown him in the process. He's no longer dying, but will still be paralyzed for 5 hours. Aiden takes Bhed's gauntlet and a dagger, and goes to deal with what's now been termed a Murdercoin. No one tries to stop him. Unfortunately, he's not faster than the lock lurker, and it does enough damage to drop him. Adding insult to injury, he too fails his save. With Bhed paralyzed, there's nothing the party can do to save him, and the fighter dies. Once Bhed is moving again, they explain the situation to him and decide to head back to town. This also allows Aiden's player a chance to make a new character; his player comes up with Belle Rainbreaker, another Human fighter, this time CG rather than CN. Smarter than Aiden, but with an awful Wisdom score. The party spend their meagre loot (71gp) and some of their initial cash on a new suit of Chain for Quota. The next day they return to the Halls, prepared to breach the Welcome Trap. As the party have been away for a few days, the kobolds have had a chance to get their poo poo together again. They haven't been able to construct more traps, but have manned the guard post again, and there's a group patrolling the dungeon. If encountered, the patrolling kobolds will engage the party then try to lure them into the kill zone of the guard post. They've also barricaded the doors leading into the guard post and room 32, which has a shaft that leads into their stronghold above the halls. This part about the dungeon changing between visits isn't in the module, it's just something that makes sense Current score RIP 1 Fighter RIP Quota's equipment
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Oct 10, 2018 07:47
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LatwPIAT posted:I have one small reservation, which is that having to choose when and to which degree to gently caress over the players is something I'm a bit apprehensive of. At least for something like Infinity (as opposed to, say, Call of Cthulhu) in tone. You're missing the perspective. It's not about 'loving over the players' it's about 'adding more of a challenge'. Generally, the PCs are going to be fine, the worst that escalation costs them is a bit more in the way of resources.
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Oct 10, 2018 07:58
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Liquid Cannibalism posted:You're missing the perspective. I say the only time you should legitimately try and TPK a party is during the finale of the Campaign. (But not in an unfair way.)
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Oct 10, 2018 09:20
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Alpha Omega Part 2: Derived statistics based on other derived statistics. Alright, after boring the poo poo out of everyone with the first half of the book, Alpha Omega finally deigns to let us know how the game is actually played. Turns out they had a good reason to hide it in the back. Chapter 6: At least it's not deadEarth Step 1: The game includes in the first step of making a character getting a piece of scratch paper and a calculator, so you know we're in for a good time. You record 500 Character Development Points, or CDP, because "Character Points" isn't mature and innovative enough, you see. From there, it's the usual, think up a concept and grab a character sheet.   Class of 2280 yearbook photo. I feel like I wasted the "tag yourself" joke on the last post now. gently caress it, tag yourself, I'm the albino crash test dummy. Step 2: Here's where you choose your species, and is easily the most significant choice you'll be making as you create your character. I'll be playing along with an example character, to demonstrate. But before we get into that, let's review our options for species: -Human: Humans in Alpha Omega, rather than being simply "the average race" are actually kind of wimpy. Your Core Qualities (the AO name for your base attributes) are generally worse than every other non-human race, and merely average compared to the other human races. However, you get 100 extra points that can be spent only on Abilities (Advantages in most other games, and yes, this does sound a lot like "humans get a bonus feat at first level"), and your skills have the highest maximum ranks attainable, making humans ideal for aspiring skill monkeys. Humans also can't use Innate Wielding or the most exotic cybernetics, because they're not mutated enough to do so, and their magic is the weakest of all the races capable of Wielding, aside from the other human races, who are even worse.  Knifegun: Almost as dangerous to your enemies as it is to you! -Necrosi: These are humans who hid underground from the end of the world and turned into Cenobites. Their Core Qualities make them more dextrous and smarter than baseline humans, but they're a little less healthy and likeable from all the scars. They get a bunch of bonus abilities related to their sadomasochistic tendencies, as well as improved low-light vision and hearing, and even get 80 bonus points for abilities to the humans' 100. However, they have to take 80 points of Drawbacks to compensate, and take penalties when faced with bright lights or loud noises. Additionally, Necrosi have lower maximums for their skills and magic, but can make use of Necrotic Augmentations (a special form of cybernetics, basically creepy stuff most people wouldn't want in the first place, we'll get to it later). And they're still not mutated enough for Innate Wielding.  Hot Topic presents: The RA Salvatore collection. -Remnant: Classic mutants, freaky, tumor-covered weirdos that hobbled out of the wastes when the smoke cleared. Their Core Qualities are slightly better than normal humans, but have to take 40 points of Drawbacks, and get 120 points they have to spend on Genetic Deviations (mutations). Their skill maximums are pretty low, as are their maximums for magic. However, being mutated lets them take Innate Wielding, if you don't mind being bad at it. They're also too hosed up to use Biological Augmentations (AKA bioware, in games like Shadowrun and Cyberpunk 2020), and are limited to Cybernetic Augmentations and Mesh (genetic tampering to upgrade your DNA with someone, or something, else's).  With a face like that, how could you NOT want to play as a Remnant? -Bio-engineered: Replicants without the robot parts. They can't Wield at all, and can use the same augmentations as humans, but they're forced to spend 300 CDP buying a premade package of Core Qualities and skills, defining what purpose they were vat-grown for. This also alters their skills, as their maximums for skills considered native to their design are as high as humans, while their maximums for all other skills are extremely low. They also get free CDP to spend on their design's preferred skills, but they have to take 80 points of Drawbacks. All in all, it sucks to be a Replicant.  "I want you to clone me the greatest soldier money can buy, but also, could you just, like, totally gently caress up his ENTIRE head? Thanks!" -Nephilim: These are half-Elim, and come in both Seraph and Ophanum varieties. Their Core Qualities are much higher than most of the other races, they get Spiritual Wielding abilities for free, the best Wielding maximums in the game, free ranks for their Wielding, and get a bunch of free Abilities and beneficial Genetic Deviations, they start out with a free level of Ascension (more on that later), and they have access to Elim Genetic Deviations (special alien powers). However, their skill maximums are the third-lowest in the game (only half what humans get), they can't use Arcane Wielding at all (I guess being naturally gifted at magic precludes studying it), and can't use any augmentations aside from Mesh. Plus, their free Ascension has prerequisites that they can't fall below, so they have less freedom to sell off those high Core Qualities to get more CDP.  I know he looks like Raiden with wings, but I promise, you're gonna want to save the Mortal Kombat jokes for later. -Lesser Nephilim: A half-Nephilim, or quarter-Elim. Their Core Qualities are only slightly better than humans, but their magic remains far better (though not as strong as full Nephilim), and their skill maximums are pretty low. However, they can use any augmentation they want (even Necrotic), get low-light vision for free, and get an additional 100 CDP to spend on further Genetic Deviations, not to mention access to the Elim list. It's about at this point that one realizes that nobody actually checked this game for balance, because Lesser Nephilim are just kind of better than most races. Though, given what a raw deal the Bio-engineered get, maybe it's not a surprise.  All the magic, cybernetics, and special abilities he wants, and he STILL goes for a sniper rifle. I bet the fucker spawn camps, too. -Grigori: Despite being lab-grown by the Elim, you don't need to deal with premade skill packages here. Of course, part of this is because they have the lowest skill maximums in the game. Their Core Qualities are focused entirely on physical abilities and toughness, their intelligence and charisma are terrible. Their magic is limited to the rather restrictive Innate Wielding, but their maximums are solid, and they have unique access to the ability to State Shift (more on that in a bit). Their massive, weird bodies means they can only use cybernetic augmentations and mesh, and they're completely unable to take genetic deviations at all (outside of one particular sub-category, more later).  Uh, you forgot to stick sci-fi poo poo all over this D&D ripoff, chief. That's just an orc. -Lesser Grigori: Like the Lesser Nephilim, but for the Grigori. They give up some of their strength to get smarter and prettier, they gain access to genetic deviations, can use any sort of augmentation, and while their skills still pretty much suck, they retain competence at magic (though they're restricted even more than the Grigori). Further, they retain the Grigori ability to State Shift, and while they're forced to take 100 points of Drawbacks, they actually get points back for taking them in this case. Much like the Lesser Nephilim, you get a feeling the Lesser Grigori get the best of both worlds.  It's like some sort of unholy fusion of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and Killer Croc, wrapped in a Jedi robe for some reason. -Anunnaki: The offspring of a Seraph Nephilim and Ophanum Nephilim. Naturally, this unholy union makes them swole as gently caress, but they're not quite as strong in their mental Core Qualities as the Nephilim. They get pretty much the same suite of free Genetic Deviations and Ascension as their parents, but don't let all that bulk fool you. Their skill maximums are the second-lowest in the game, their Wielding is generally weaker (though, their Innate Wielding has more versatility), they don't get the free Spiritual Wielding (and still can't use Arcane at all), and they can't have any augmentations, not even Mesh. They're great for smashing poo poo and blowing stuff up with magic, and that's about it.  Aren't you glad you saved those Mortal Kombat jokes? Toasty! -Artificial Intelligence: Robots and androids. Now, most races have maximums for their Core Qualities that they need to raise by spending CDP to break their race's limits and evolve to the next stage of blah blah blah. Robots can pump their stats straight to 100 right out of the gate. At first, it looks like their Core Qualities start out lower than every other race, with 9s across the board (humans begin with 12s, Anunnaki go up to 20 with some of them), but robots get a pool of 50 points to spend 1-for-1 to raise those bases up. Naturally, they can't take any Genetic Deviations, nor can they Wield at all, and they're limited only to cybernetic augmentations (though they can take twice as many of them as meatbags). Their skill ranks can also hit the true maximum, like humans, and they get free skill ranks to begin with. Also, they're immune to a bunch of stuff like hunger, disease, poison, and so on. Sure, they can't take Ascension levels, but who needs 'em when you've got a howitzer for an arm?  This one kind of owns tbh. I'd totally play "rusty, skinless T-800 with SMGs in my wrists and a handy rucksack just because". Alright, so these are our choices. For my example dude, I'll take a Lesser Nephilim, since they're easily the most versatile species, with access to basically everything. This starts me with 13s in every Core Quality, and racial maximums of 22. Step 3: Now it's time to adjust my Core Qualities. It's recommended that I not spend more than 100 CDP here, but I'll be sure to spend a few, so you see how it works. Let's have a look-see at our options. One interesting note is that your height, rather than altering your Strength directly, just applies a modifier to how much weight you can manage. Anyway: -Strength: Alters how much you can carry, and affects melee combat in an unspecified-as-yet fashion. I'm thinking my Lesser Nephilim will be more about fighting at range, using magic and possibly guns, but I like the idea of just being able to dunk all over humans just because, so I'll just leave it as-is. -Agility: This helps with aiming, stealth, balance, and the Reaction Tertiary Quality. Tertiary Quality? Now if that ain't ominous. Well, so far, so obvious. I think I want a couple points here, so, let's refer to the chart that tells me how many points it costs to raise a Core Quality within this range. So, I'm in the 11-15 range, so it's 15 CDP per point. I'll spend 30 CDP to get to 15 Agility. -Conditioning: Ah, now we're into it. This represents fitness and stamina, basically how long one can keep up strenuous activity. I'm good with my decidedly-above-average 13. -Vitality: This one's a measure of my inherent health and vigor, which contributes to my Health Pool (HP), and my ability to resist poisons, disease, etc. Again, 13 is a solid starting score, so I'll leave it for now. -Discipline: Mental fortitude, it also seems to contribute to my endurance, like Conditioning, but it also improves my saves against fear. Not bad, but no need to spend a lot of points right away. -Intelligence: Higher Intelligence will give me a scaling discount to the cost in time and "trust" (presumably the willingness of NPC teachers) to improve my skills and Wielding during play. I'll need a 16 to hit the next break point on that scale, and getting from 15 to 16 on a Core Quality costs 20 points, rather than 15, but still, I think it's worth the 50 points to get up there. I want my guy to be smart, anyway. -Charisma: Charisma is, as usual, likeability. I've already spent a fair number of points on my Core Qualities, and they were solidly above-average to begin with, so I'll leave it as-is for now. Okay, so that's it for-oh wait, now there's Secondary Qualities. Step 4: Secondary Qualities: -Athleticism: This is the average of my Strength and Agility, and affects physical skills and melee damage. With a 14, I deal +1 melee damage. Woo. -Physical Acumen: The average of Conditioning and Agility, this affects ranged damage and other physical skills. Another +1 modifier to damage. -Fitness: Another physical trait, this time the average of Conditioning and Vitality. -Will: This one is the average of Discipline and Vitality, and affects one's focus and ability to resist outside control. -Wisdom: This is the ability to discern the truth, made from the average of Discipline and Intelligence. -Wit: This is quick thinking, and averaged from Intelligence and Charisma. -Presence: How physically imposing I am, using the average of Charisma and Strength. Okay, I've calculated all that, so now I-oh gently caress, right, the Tertiary Qualities! Step 5: Tertiary Qualities: -Reaction: Reaction is basically initiative, and determines which segments of the action cycle I act in and oh dear I do not like the sound of that. It's the average of Athleticism and Wisdom, rounded up. Wait, so my Agility only contributes to one-fourth of my Reaction? Why did the book emphasize its effect on reaction, then? I suppose because that's because Agility doesn't do much else. -Physis: The average of all my Core Qualities put together. This is apparently a measure of how high up I am on the evolutionary ladder, and based on what was said back in the section on robots, it also determines how much cyberware I can shove into my body. It looks like it's also used to resist certain Wielding effects and death. -Endurance: This is a pool of points I can use to get minor boosts or pay for certain kinds of Wielding. It's just the sum of my Conditioning and Discipline. -Movement Rate: This is based on my Athleticism, and the chart for that is found in the next chapter. Guess it'll be a surprise! -Defense: This is my ability to passively defend myself, and it's half my Reaction. Looks like it has a lot of uses. Step 6: Okay, now that that's done, it's time to calculate my Health Pool, which is, I guess, a Quarternary Quality? That's the sum of my Conditioning and Vitality, so that's easy enough to figure out. Step 7: Okay, abilities and drawbacks, this ought to be fun. Odd that I haven't seen the skills yet, though. Now, I'll want to keep some points available to purchase Wielding later, so let's see some options. I'll start with Good Memory for 60 CDP, moving my costs for learning new skills down two steps on the chart and providing a bunch of minor bonuses in tricky situations. Then, I think I'll go with Fast Learner, to halve those costs, reducing my overall cost for learning to something pretty negligible. Then, let's take Citizenship for 20, the benefits of citizenship look pretty massive compared to the low cost. And while I'm at it, let's make sure the GM can't spring any nasty surprise storms on me and take Sense Weather for 10, to let me feel oncoming weather in m'bones. Now, for drawbacks, I could take Exiled to gain 150 CDP and just say I was exiled from a city-state on the other side of the globe, but that's clearly a scummy way to go about it. I'll take Bad Driver for 20, and One-hand Dominant (taking a larger penalty for actions with my offhand) for 50, leaving me with 300 points for other stuff. On the way out, let's have a look at State Shifting, the Grigori's special ability, because it's part of this step for some reason. So, it looks like a fair amount of information vital to this is found in the next chapter, but it seems the Grigori can alter one of seven states for themselves or, sometimes, others: Size, Speed, Fear, Density, Disposition, Thought, and Emotion. Buying the ability to alter those states costs 200 CDP, each, and the number of states you can have, as well as how many points you get for shifting them, are based on your Physis. Even getting two states requires you to break the maximum stat limits, and even with 100 in every Core Quality, you can't have more than 4 of them. It seems that Grigori can only alter other people's emotional states, the Speed, Size, and Density State Components only work on themselves. So, depending on target, duration, and intensity of the effect, State Shifting costs a varying amount of points, but it's multiplicative, so it likely gets expensive fast if you start trying to scare bad guys. It's kind of lovely and not exactly well thought-out. Step 8: Alright, Genetic Deviations, I got a free 100 points to spend on this stuff. So, first up, I get low-light vision for free. Now, the first portion of the deviations are just upgrades to basic bodily systems. Since Wielding apparently takes endurance, I'll take both levels of the Respiratory System upgrades, to gain 20 additional Endurance, for 80 points. And since I can take Elim deviations, I'm going to take Wings and fly, dammit. They're 100 points, but they're worth it. Okay, 220 points left. gently caress it, it's Alpha Omega, I'll go back and take Exiled, jump back up to 370. Step 9: Alright, on to skills. Looks like skills are split up into broad fields, broken up into individual skills. Putting ranks into Fields represents broad, general knowledge about all the related skills, while having ranks in a specific skill represents specialized knowledge. Right now, I can only buy up to 4 ranks of any field or skill. Looks like any Field would cost 30 points per rank, and skills cost 10. I'll take four ranks of Concentration from the Alertness field, as it's required to maintain Wielding under duress. From there, I think my character is more of a scholar than a man of science, but I'll take four ranks of Arcane from the Science field to represent his study of Wielding, as well as two points each from History and Theology from the Arts field, plus one rank of the Arts field itself. I'll finish up with 4 ranks in the Pistols and SMGs skill in Small Arms, for a total of 190 points.  The example image for the Chemistry skill is just a Goofus and Gallant cartoon. Step 10: Finally, what we've all been waiting for, magic! I have 180 points to spend, I may have to swing back to previous sections to shore up my points if I want a cool wizard. In fact, that's just what I'll do. Not only was I Exiled, but I'm Wanted and have a Price on my Head, for 260 additional points. I'm a baaad man, baby! Okay, now that I'm flush with CDP, let's go hog wild, and take all three Wielding types, seeing as Lesser Nephilim are one of only two species that can do so. So, 80 for Arcane, plus 20 to get a required first rank in a Source and Intention, 50 for Innate, which, based on my race, gives me one free Source and two Intentions, all at rank 3 for no extra cost. For Spiritual, I have to choose whether to use Alpha or Omega. I think I'm more of a rebel with a heart of gold, so I'll go with Alpha. So, let's see what all I can do here, starting with Intentions, since there's a whole sixteen of them, split into four groups, and each Intention can only be used with certain Sources. I'll have to skip ahead to chapter 7 to see them, but in this case, I have no choice. -Sancto: This set of Intentions seems mostly geared towards helping people. Deliverance can heal wounds, cure disease, and so on, and can only be used with the Being, Alpha, and Omega sources. Salvation can be used to make protective barriers, and works with the Elemental, Energy, Void, Alpha, and Omega Sources. Creation can be used to make matter or energy, including illusions, and works with all six Sources. Inspiration can instill courage or provide skill bonuses to allies, and works with Energy, Being, Alpha, and Omega. -Bane: The Bane Intentions all seem to be the opposite of Sancto's. Agony is used to inflict damage, using the Elemental, Energy, Void, Alpha, and Omega Sources. Damnation debuffs enemy defenses, using the same five Sources. Nihilism is used to destroy non-living matter and illusions, using Elements, Energy, or Void. Malice fills enemies with fear and doubt, loving up their rolls, using any Source except Void. -Order: Order Intentions are a little more high-concept, dealing with constants and the known. Constancy can extend durations, prevent or redo random rolls, and alter the size and shape of stuff, using Void, Being, Alpha, or Omega. Clarity clears up confusion and lets people see through illusions, using Elemental, Being, Alpha, or Omega. Insight can let you read minds or block mental effects, using Elemental, Void, Being, Alpha, and Omega. Control can telekinetically move matter, take control of summoned creatures, keep people calm, or alter someone's appearance, using Elemental, Energy, Being, Alpha, and Omega. -Chaos: Like Bane opposes Sancto, Chaos opposes Order. To save you some time, the intentions are Entropy, Insanity, Ignorance, and Anarchy, each opposing their equivalent Intention in Order. Hm, for my two free rank-3 Intentions, I'll take Deliverance and Agony, then spend 20 points each leveling them to 4. For an introductory Intention for Arcane Wielding, I'll just spend 30 get Control at 3. And sure, I'll take Creation at 3, to represent my Spiritual Wielding. Now, for Sources. -Elemental: Wielding with this Source manipulates the Greek elements of earth, fire, water, and air. That sounds pretty powerful. That said, the success or failure of Elemental Wielding is based off of Conditioning, which I'm not really focusing on with this character. -Energy: This Source controls all energy, including electrical, photonic, and kinetic. Energy also uses Intelligence as its Core Quality for Wielding, so I've got an edge with it. -Void: The Void Source is all about negating or erasing stuff, and seems to be the primary Source for dispelling opposing Wielding effects. Its Core Quality is Discipline, which I'll probably raise later on, as I gain more CDP. -Being: This is the Source that lets one directly affect living matter. I can't heal people without this Source, looks like, so of course I want it. It's based off of Charisma, another Core Quality I was thinking about raising. And now, the moment you've all been waiting for: What do the Alpha and Omega sources do that's so important that they share their name with the title of the game? -Alpha/Omega: They work with almost every Intention, but only affect ghosts made of Alpha and Omega energy; they're incapable of affecting physical matter. That's right. The titular goddamn options, and they're completely useless the vast majority of the time.  Guess that explains why Spiritual Wielding is so cheap. They're based off your Will, making them the only Sources based off a Secondary Quality. So, fine, let's take Energy as our free rank 3 and pay 20 to put it at 4, then another 50 to bring Being up to 4, and 30 each to bring Void, Elemental, and Alpha to 3. And we're done! All that's left is a name, picking out spoken languages, and other minor stuff. Well, there's equipment, too, but all of that is next chapter. So far, Alpha Omega has been largely just bland and forgettable, aside from making the "holy" magic of the game completely worthless and generally being too goddamn complicated for its own good. But that's because you don't know what all these numbers do yet. Be afraid. Be very afraid. Next Time: The assassination of dice by the coward Mindstorm Labs. Bonus: Other skill example images, because Mindstorm Labs actually had a pretty solid sense of humor about them.  This is for the Gather Information skill. Told you that robot was cool as gently caress.  Theft. I'm not sure that's how that skill works.   One-handed Melee vs. Two-handed Melee. Pretty sure this is another Goofus and Gallant, but I couldn't tell you which is meant to be which. EclecticTastes fucked around with this message at 09:27 on Oct 10, 2018 |
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Oct 10, 2018 09:24
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Angrymog posted:The Halls Wouldn't be a Forgotten Realms adventure without paragraphs upon paragraphs of utterly tedious bucolic setting verbiage. Like yes, I'm English, I'm fully familiar with what 'twee' looks like. Can we move on?
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Oct 10, 2018 09:31
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So besides aliens and mutants and such, does Alpha Omega feature any art of people who are not white? Or women, once you go past the class photo where options are obligatory? Because that sure is a whole lot of white boys.
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Oct 10, 2018 10:18
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Sage Genesis posted:So besides aliens and mutants and such, does Alpha Omega feature any art of people who are not white? Or women, once you go past the class photo where options are obligatory? Because that sure is a whole lot of white boys. In fairness, I went with the larger photos on the lefthand side of the species pages, which were all the male examples (most of them tend to look sillier, anyway). Here are the female examples, in order (this will also show off the Ophanum-based Nephilim, which just happened to be the women, and that not all Grigori look like orcs):           So, yeah, plenty of women, though, aside from the black guy in the big group shot at the start of my post and a few characters of ambiguous race (such as the Remnant lady), it's pretty much a whites-only game. I think there's a single non-white NPC in chapter 5, and her illustration's in black-and-white (the book's artwork is a mix of the full-color stuff I've shown off and simpler black-and-white art). But don't worry, you'll have plenty to hate Alpha Omega over once I get to the equipment section. Preview: Two guns are named the Raust X-GF and Promethion X-W1F3. I'll be posting their descriptions from the book verbatim when I get there.
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Oct 10, 2018 10:40
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I never thought I'd say it but that rpg art looks like it belongs on a van, but in a bad way.
Wrestlepig fucked around with this message at 12:16 on Oct 10, 2018 |
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Oct 10, 2018 11:23
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MonsterEnvy posted:I say the only time you should legitimately try and TPK a party is during the finale of the Campaign. (But not in an unfair way.) I've GM'd several TPKs in Shadowrun, but they were always situations where the PCs knew this was possibly a suicide mission going in and they decided to go with it anyway. People are generally cool with it if it means 'okay, well, put together a new team with your standing karma totals and we'll start in a new city next session'.
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Oct 10, 2018 11:31
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Infinity is my favorite miniatures game with the fluff that I constantly fail to summon interest in. I mean, I play Neoterra (a PanO subfaction), because it's the easiest(?) and PanO is a Catholic welfare state. Almost all PanO troopers have Cube for personality upload, but the process of implanting the cube in a cloned host is expensive, partially because of Haqq monopoly on a drug called Silk. PanO also has an explicitly religious sub-faction: the Military Orders. They are literally knights in space, dudes in power armor that really want to hit stuff with their swords (there's actually a whole order of explicitly cube-less knights meant to fight aliens without falling for their Cube-borking shenanigans). I'd play them, but getting into melee is a lot harder than shooting folks. That's why Yu-Jing (yee chang) have something called "Yu-Jung tears": bitching about having kinda useless melee proficiency on anything, even if shooting would be more useful. Also, China has the literal suicide bombers. The closes Haqq comes is having dudes who fall unconscious as their implanted repeater (for hackers) sucks their energy to power itself. Mors Rattus posted:I kind of love the idea of an AI superdeity whose entire mission statement for servitors is: EI is actually the second AI its creators made. The first one was developed to help them overcome their mortal forms and ascend to higher plane of existence to avoid heat death of the universe. So it did - without telling them how to do it. Naturally, they were unhappy about that, so they made a new one which programmed to share the data. Somehow, this actually prevents it from ever achieving ascension, but it doesn't know it, so its going out to conquer races to get processing power. Somehow. I dunno if its going full Therian and grounding up matter to make more processors. The game is made by some very horny Spanish weebs:  I'm also of the minority opinion that aliens shoudn't exist in the game, keeping it a more straight up human affair.  Back to the matter at hand: PYF stupid gun/blade combo: In case you need to secure the barrel in the target before firing? Socket bayonets: a lost art in this dark day an age, so you have to jam an axe down your shotgun barrel
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Oct 10, 2018 12:32
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All the haters gonna look foolish when she axes her way to Empress of the Wastelands. 
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Oct 10, 2018 12:56
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I just mentally replace any 'the AI is using excess processor cycles to do <X>' in sci fi with 'mine bitcoin' because it is always, always, always something that is equally dumb and unhelpful.
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Oct 10, 2018 12:59
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Mors Rattus posted:I just mentally replace any 'the AI is using excess processor cycles to do <X>' in sci fi with 'mine bitcoin' because it is always, always, always something that is equally dumb and unhelpful. Hmm, checks out.
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Oct 10, 2018 13:28
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potatocubed posted:Wouldn't be a Forgotten Realms adventure without paragraphs upon paragraphs of utterly tedious bucolic setting verbiage. About half the book is buccolic setting verbiage. Will give page counts by topic next update
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Oct 10, 2018 13:34
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potatocubed posted:Wouldn't be a Forgotten Realms adventure without paragraphs upon paragraphs of utterly tedious bucolic setting verbiage. Vast amounts of dubiously useful background is like D&D's original sin. Look at the castle in Keep on the Borderlands or the Village of Hommlet.
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Oct 10, 2018 14:13
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FFRRPG 4e part 3: Stats&Levels, The Basics of Combat I mentioned the stats are Earth, Wind, Fire and Water? You don't get exp which levels you up, then get 1 stat point per level. The relationship is reversed you spend exp to buy up your stats, and your level is the sum of your stats with all attendant benefits. The first point costs 10, and each point after costs 20*Current+10. So 10, 30, 50, 90, 110, 130, etc. Now these stats are both the attack, and associated defense to such attacks. Earth= Strengh/Fortitude Wind= Dexterity/Reflex Fire= Intelligence/Insight Charisma=Charisma/Willpower If any stat is a god stat it's Earth. As it determines hp and can be your attack stat, and doesn't fall behind as a defense. But over investment means falling behind in level with attendant abilities, and falling behind in hp/mp growth from level. If any stat is a dump stat it's Water. It's extremely common as a defense and does determine mp, but lacks attacks I mean it's not even used for Cure magic Fire is. Fire has more attack variety than most stats, but gets attacked the least. Wind is basically balanced. Criticism: Give water more chances to be an active stat, Cure spells at the minimum, possibly trigger more Reactions and Offensive status spells. It's fine being the "Not for damage" stat, but "Not for attacks" is a bit far. Into combat We start with with initiative, each player rolls 3 dice. Those are their initiative counts, when they get to act. Yes you get three actions per turn at different initiatives. Haste adds an extra die. Once everyone has rolled the GM starts counting up, if multiple people go on the same phase, they count up their initiative total(all their dice) and highest goes first, if there is still a tie you use wind. If there is still a tie I have no bloody clue. So your turns come up and there are two questions immediately in front of you Act or Delay, You can delay to hold one initiative die that can be used to interrupt. That is to say at any time "Nope I go now not you", or for triggering reactions. Instead of spending a delayed dice you may also dump any two dice to interrupt. You can have one delayed action at a time, you do not drop it between rounds. If the next round comes up and you haven't used it you roll 3 new dice and keep your delayed action. Actions come in three speeds, Quick actions which just happen, slow actions where you add+X to the dies value and it happens then as usual however if it goes above 10 it won't happen this round but just rolls over into the next round as phase(Result-10), And Reactions I basically talked about. Criticism: While I love that reactions are completely a tactical decision not being % based but dropping init dice, needing to ready them sucks, they are reactions, let me just drop them. For the more powerful reactions It is fine to classify them to require an interruption but it shouldn't be the default. There is also a rule that if you are charging a slow action you can't take other actions except to delay, people are going to forget this they are going to see it's their turn and they are going to take an action, also you can only delay one die and losing dice is just not a good thing for my own abilities to randomly do. Personal Talk: Ok I'm going to explain that THIS is a huge reason this game makes me super stoked, i said in 3e that initiative penalties for abilities were the most interesting thing. This is a game built from the ground up around initiative positioning, not taking the things we do for grid based tactical games and removing the grid. Controlling the flow of battle means controlling rounds and initiative. A low die on the first round immediately asks questions, is this for statusing enemies(as most statuses last until end of round) or for saving to interrupt when I need to do a thing? While high dice are for your huge attacks, even your slow ones. Basic Attack Resolution You roll 1d10+Stat, vs. Difficulty+Their Stat, sometimes a task has a higher difficulty for a second effect like hitting with status touch weapons. Basic Actions !Attack- It's your basic attack, the difficulty is 4. If you are unarmed it is Earth for Attack and Defense, and does 1xEarth+5 crush elemental physical damage, weapons have their own attack and defense stats as well as higher damage. !Dodge- A reaction against basic attacks, Roll Air vs. 7+Earth if you win the attack is negated. This reaction is pretty bad but exists to give everyone a reaction. !Draw- You draw an item or weapon to use with item....WHY DOES THIS COST AN ACTION?! !Item- You use an item or equip a weapon you pulled out with !Draw, no seriously why is !Draw an action? !Flee- Roll Wind vs. 4+Wind using the highest enemy Wind, If it succeeds you get away. Critting I'm going to admit this is the one rule that seems built around the complicated rules. If you roll a 10, you can reroll your action and if it succeeds it crits. Mostly only basic attacks can crit(for x2 damage) but some other things can as well. Elements and Damage So the elements are Cut, Puncture, Crush, Fire, Ice, Lighting, Air, Earth, Water, Bio, Light, Shadow. That's 12, that's a few too many. Criticism: I like that physical attacks have elements and non-elemental is this big spicy thing(Because non-elemental is better than elements when there is a GM), but that's just a few too many elements for resistance to matter. Maybe cut down to just Fire, Water, Air, and Earth with Light&Shadow for the magic elements? Calculating Damage Step 1) Calculate Base Damage, Stat * Damage code. Step 2) Calculate Ability modifiers, if a thing says does 3x weapon damage. Step 3) Account for Strenghen/Weaken. Step 4) Add 5, just, add 5. (This basically just fixes low level damage because you are doing like 2*3 damage at charter creation.) (You should have everything up to step 4 precalculated) Step 5) Apply target's Armor, yeah there is still armor, it is a LOT more relevant. Step 6) Apply target's modifiers, this is where you apply things like protect, shell, critical hits etc. WhitemageofDOOM fucked around with this message at 15:14 on Oct 10, 2018 |
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Oct 10, 2018 15:10
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grassy gnoll posted:As of January, you could buy your own copy of the Modiphus-published licensed Infinity RPG. When I heard there was going to be a RPG I was really interested, and then the news just sort of dropped off over time...
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Oct 10, 2018 15:41
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Scuttlebutt is that at least one of the production delays on the Infinity RPG corebook was because they accidentally touched on a thing that had literally not come up in any published form before and had to go back and rewrite to match the version in his head. I do appreciate that the Infinity setting, based on the RPG core, (I got the PDF for free with points from ordering a bunch of Fragged Empire stuff from the Modiphius website awhile back.) just takes a future with universal basic income as a given.
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Oct 10, 2018 15:49
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As a fan of the oWoD I'm down for overly complicated backstory but I tried reading Alpha & Omega once and I swear my eyes just glazed over, possibly as a self-defense mechanism. Never mind the mechanics.
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Oct 10, 2018 15:58
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Alpha and Omega looks real, real bad. Im super excited for new and fascinating ways for all of the math to fall completely apart. And we absolutely need a genre name for "Christian Cyber Punk Post Apocalypse"
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Oct 10, 2018 15:59
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You kind of have to have an actual hook to get people to bother reading complicated backstory. Like for all its problems, Vampire at least had a hook: "You're sexy vampires just like those sexy vampire novels that are popular! Come live in sexy dark vampire society and be different than D&D." is going to get someone's attention, especially at the time it came out. Here it's like pages and pages about its dozen silly apocalypses and who even cares, there's nothing about what you get to do in the game so your eyes just slide off the page. RPG setting writing is its own writing style and its own writing skill, driven by a need for hooks, a need for some degree of 'space' for players and GMs to fill in while giving them enough of a solid core to build on and use your material, and a knowledge that you're writing a setting for other people to write stories in rather than your own novel.
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Oct 10, 2018 16:05
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I really need to FATAL and Friends 'The End'.
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Oct 10, 2018 16:10
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I don't even know what you're aplhaing and omegaing about yet. E: I think their issue is that they're not starting on a personal level promise/hook (you're a vampire doing intrigue in gothic urban hellscape) and then moving into the weeds (antediluvians, space doesn't exist, but mages do, etc), while the heartbreakers go "here's our stupid cosmology, 65 million years of it, gently caress you." JcDent fucked around with this message at 16:15 on Oct 10, 2018 |
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Oct 10, 2018 16:12
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I'd much rather have weirdoes making games for themselves than chasing what has a marketing niche. This is by no means a recipe for consistent quality, but who cares? The occasional Nobilis is more than worth a couple dozen Alpha and Omegas or RIFTS or whatever. e: this doesn't negate the observation about hooks and space for players to actually do something being important, just that the two concepts needed to be teased apart Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 16:21 on Oct 10, 2018 |
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Oct 10, 2018 16:19
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really a lost opportunity to not name the aliens 'alphas' and 'omegas'
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Oct 10, 2018 16:23
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This reminds me, is that Invisible Sun "pay us 800 bucks to make up a dumb fact about witches and mail it to you hand-engraved on gold foil" thing out yet, I want somebody to F&F that
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Oct 10, 2018 16:27
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FFRRPG 4e Part 4: The complicated rules are awful Before we begin on the horribleness...a quote. the actual rules posted:The FFRPG 4th edition kept the d100 mechanic from earlier iterations of the Returner�s games. However, the dice used increases the burden of an already-crunchy game. This optional rule revamps the whole game engine with lower numbers, and generally speeds up play, easing the math burden. The very first paragraph to the simplified rules admits to how awful the non-simple rules are! Let's break this poo poo down piece by piece. Anytime you would roll a d10 roll a d100 instead....because. Skills Instead of rolling X extra dice based on your skill level, you can reroll up to X times and keep one from which you then spend destiny. Stat values&Stat levels So you have a stat value, this is used for only two things instead of adding Earth*10 to hp and Water*10 to mp you add your stat value, and you use stat vlaue attack/defense checks. Every 10 points it raises the associated level by 1, and everything else is referenced to stat levels. Including your level, stats cost 1 point to raise plus their level*2 exp. Attacking Obviously you multiply all difficulties by 10, in addition you add the 1s digit to the damage in stage 4 instead of just adding 5 meaning it's not precalculated and does a worse job of bumping auto-attack damage at low levels. A couple of abilities work differently, using d100s. So Geomancy would be 1d100+Level. Wild magic would also be 1d100 etc. Critical hits The thing designed around the complicated rules in complicated if you roll doubles 100, 99, 88, etc. and hit you get a Crit. Crit related abilities work very differently but I will as i explain the rules explain those abilities simple forms, and give the complicated form here. The Berserker's Unwavering let's you add or subtract 1 to your opponent's attack roll. Instead of deciding if a critical threat confirms on you. The Dervish ability Deadly Accuracy let's you add or subtract 1 from your attack rolls. Instead of making you threaten crits on an 8+ The weapon ability Improved Critical let's you crit if you get doubles and miss. Instead of skipping a confirmation roll. WhitemageofDOOM fucked around with this message at 16:51 on Oct 10, 2018 |
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Oct 10, 2018 16:48
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Yeah, the initiative stuff is what I like least about 4e. I don't like that your wind score (or any score) has no bearing on your initiative, I don't like how easy it is to roll like fresh rear end and get three attacks at the very end of the round which lets monsters reduce you to a fine paste before you can do anything. I really don't like the complicated initiative manipulation stuff; to me it's a lot of work and a lot of tracking for very little cool mechanics benefit other than 'oh boy we sure want to have fidelity to the video games'. The simplified rules weren't a thing when I played so I'm super glad to see them exist, at least, even if 4e is not the game for me.
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Oct 10, 2018 16:58
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