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how many pages are spent on this tedious unskippable cutscene?
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Oct 22, 2018 01:59
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| # ? Apr 20, 2024 01:58 |
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Mors Rattus posted:All of this poo poo is just backstory that I get the sense is not actually relevant to the day-to-day work of the PCs.
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Oct 22, 2018 02:27
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By popular demand posted:how many pages are spent on this tedious unskippable cutscene? Many. Mors Rattus posted:I'm getting the distinct sense that you aren't intended to fight God in The End. All of this poo poo is just backstory that I get the sense is not actually relevant to the day-to-day work of the PCs. Pretty much. FMguru posted:I'll take "1990s RPGs" for $1200, Alex. Oh absolutely. But at least it wanted to do a different premise than a lot of 90s crap. Not that this isn't somewhat awful too, just that it's at least a little creative. Humbug Scoolbus fucked around with this message at 02:47 on Oct 22, 2018 |
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Oct 22, 2018 02:42
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The RPG I came up with while reading this was "the people who get raptured are pissed their loved ones died horribly and set out to do something about it"
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Oct 22, 2018 02:52
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isn't 'the german ambassador turned head of the UN is the antichrist' LITERALLY what Left Behind did to play off right wing fears of the UN
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Oct 22, 2018 03:54
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sexpig by night posted:isn't 'the german ambassador turned head of the UN is the antichrist' LITERALLY what Left Behind did to play off right wing fears of the UN Yeah, he takes over the world by reading out the name of every country and this is considered the best speech ever. He was from a different country, though. Left Behind is the worst.
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Oct 22, 2018 04:00
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When Lucifer decided that he would take every soul that rejected God, there were two humans. He maybe expected to recruit, like, a hundred humans to his side, at most. He had no idea how fast and eagerly humans would reproduce. Now he lives in abject terror of the thought of a revolt, and he does everything he can to appease the fallen of hell. He is perfectly aware of the irony, thank you very much.
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Oct 22, 2018 04:07
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Night10194 posted:Yeah, he takes over the world by reading out the name of every country and this is considered the best speech ever. He was from a different country, though. Yeah, he was from Romania. And the son of two gay men. I'm a Christian, and I hate Left Behind. I've never read a more hateful, bigoted, anti-Christian series of books in my life.
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Oct 22, 2018 04:17
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sexpig by night posted:isn't 'the german ambassador turned head of the UN is the antichrist' LITERALLY what Left Behind did to play off right wing fears of the UN They came out the same year so this may not be deliberate but instead a 'happy' accident. Night10194 posted:Yeah, he takes over the world by reading out the name of every country and this is considered the best speech ever. He was from a different country, though. His name was Nicolae Carpathia and he was from Romania. I hate that I have remembered this.
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Oct 22, 2018 04:18
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Night10194 posted:Yeah, he takes over the world by reading out the name of every country and this is considered the best speech ever. He was from a different country, though. I remember the front page article on this. https://www.somethingawful.com/news/tribulation-force-disciplinary/
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Oct 22, 2018 04:23
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Cythereal posted:Yeah, he was from Romania. And the son of two gay men. There was an extremely detailed takedown of why it's a pile of heresy and evil that helped get me into religious studies when I was in college. That was my main experience with the series; I never bothered to read the actual books themselves because, well, terrible stories AND evil.
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Oct 22, 2018 04:26
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Night10194 posted:There was an extremely detailed takedown of why it's a pile of heresy and evil that helped get me into religious studies when I was in college. That was my main experience with the series; I never bothered to read the actual books themselves because, well, terrible stories AND evil. I read them because everyone I knew at the time was reading them. I thought they were terrible and un-Christian from the first, but I kept reading because I had a sick fascination with wanting to see just how terrible they'd get.
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Oct 22, 2018 04:33
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Prism posted:They came out the same year so this may not be deliberate but instead a 'happy' accident. I've dealt with a lot of terrible Romanian stereotypes but if you're goddamn telling me the bad guy in Left Behind was named 'Nicolae Carpathia' from Romania that's probably the worst. "Hey what up I'm John Appalachians, just a normal American" "Yea make this guy boss of the UN"
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Oct 22, 2018 04:39
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At the same time, at least he like, actually takes over the world for awhile. What did German guy do? Get shot by a secret Vatican ninja, that's what. The other Antichrist at least had the good grace to get disintegrated by Jesus's powerful death cannons. Because those are something Jesus would have. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 04:48 on Oct 22, 2018 |
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Oct 22, 2018 04:46
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God is defined as the greatest possible power. A God with laser cannons would be more powerful than one without. Therefore, Jesus must have laser cannons.
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Oct 22, 2018 04:54
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I mean, what do you think he used on that fig tree?
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Oct 22, 2018 05:04
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Now that's a messiah I can get behind! Please continue with the review, I'm dying to see how much more engaging ideas get just tossed aside in favour of pointless worldbuilding.
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Oct 22, 2018 05:05
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By popular demand posted:Now that's a messiah I can get behind! I'm certainly not going to stand in front of him. Thelogical question: was Jesus a mecha? The laser cannons and the three-as-one combining thing both suggest it, but I've never seen a clear answer.
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Oct 22, 2018 05:08
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 Part One: How To Play To play Infinity, you'll need d20s and d6s. In addition, Infinity also uses Combat Dice (hereafter referred to as Ns), d6s that have the one, two and six specially marked. When rolled, the one and two are counted normally, while the 6 are Effects that activate special abilities. They also have custom d20s for rolling hit locations, but the book provides a table for using a regular d20 instead. Modiphius, of course, offers complete dice sets in each faction's color.  Skill Tests Characters have 7 Attributes; Agility, Awareness, Brawn, Coordination, Intelligence, Personality and Willpower. There are also 24 skills, each with two ratings: Expertise and Focus. Expertise is a measure of how well they've mastered the skill, while Focus reflects discipline and insight into the skill. To make a skill test, you determine your target number by adding together the relevant Attribute and the Skill's Expertise rating. The number of successes needed is determined by the difficulty, rated from D0 to D5, with D1 being average. 2d20 are then rolled, and each dice that comes in equal to or less than the target number generates 1 success. If the dice comes in equal to or less than the Skills' Focus rating, it generates an additional success. As long as the successes gained are at least equal to the difficulty number, the test is successful. Extra successes generated beyond what's needed to pass are converted into Momentum, the uses of which will be covered in a bit. Any dice that come up 20 result in a Complication, making things more difficult. Complications can happen even on successful rolls, but they can never turn a success into failure. Complications are covered in more detail later, but one of the simplest options is for the GM to convert the Complication into 2 Heat, which serves as the GM's answer to Momentum. The complication range can be increased by some factors, for example being completely untrained in a skill. Simple tests (tests made at D0) do not require a roll, as they are so easy to complete it is automatically successful. However, this also means that the test cannot generate any Momentum whatsoever. A PC can choose to roll dice for a Simple test, taking the normal amount of time and generating Momentum as usual, but also makes the roll subject to Complications. Face-to-Face tests are used when two people are competing with one another. Each person performs a skill test, with whoever generates the most Momentum winning. Ties break in the direction of whoever has the most Expertise in the skill. By default, the difficulty is set at D0, but the difficulty can be adjusted higher in situations where is possible for both sides to fail. Difficulty adjustments can also be made to individual sides to reflect circumstances affecting each contestant. If the character's success at a task is assured, but the GM wants to know how long it will take or how well they will succeed, a Complication test is made. The character succeeds regardless of the outcome of the test, but a failure means a complication happens, in addition to any generated by rolling 20s. If a character is in a situation where they feel they're going to fail the test anyways, they can ask the GM for a failsafe. In return for failing the test voluntarily, and paying the GM 1 Heat, the character receives an Infinity Point, a more powerful version of Momentum, in return. When the situation calls for it, multiple characters can work together by making a Group test. One person is designated as leader, while the others are assistants. Each assistant must describe how they're assisting in the test, and then roll 1d20. If the leader generates at least one success, any generated by the assistants are added to the total. All complications generated by the assistants and the leader are totaled together. Complex tests are used when the character is attempting an extended, complicated task. They're a series of basic tests, which continue until the character either spends a certain amount of Momentum or fails a certain number of tests. Progressive tests are almost the same, but every roll that fails to generate a success increases the Difficulty by 1. Momentum Momentum is the resource players use to enhance their successes or increase the likelihood of success. In addition to Momentum resulting from dice rolls, it can also be gained as a bonus from gear or character abilities, but only on a successful roll. Momentum can be spent immediately on the roll that generated it, to increase the quality or scope of the success, or to reduce the time needed. If not spent right away, Momentum can be banked in a pool shared between players, with a cap of 6 points saved at any one time. At the end of each scene, or each round in an action scene, the pool loses a point of Momentum. The most common use for Momentum is buying additional dice to roll. Each point buys an extra d20 for a test, up to a total of 5d20 in one roll. It can also be spent to hinder an opponent, increasing the difficulty by 1, 2, or 3. Either of these options must be chosen before the dice are rolled. There are several additional uses for Momentum, outlined in the various rules chapters that will be covered later. Also of note is that NPCs do not have a Momentum pool; any points that aren't spent right away are converted into Heat for the GM. Heat Heat is the GM's answer to Momentum, giving them a pool they can use to make things more complicated and difficult for the players. Unlike Momentum, there is no cap on how much Heat the pool can store, and it does not deplete between scenes. The GM starts with 3 Heat per player. In addition to the starting pool, and anything generated from NPC Momentum or Complications, there a couple other ways to increase Heat. If players are needing Momentum but don't have any available, they can substitute Heat paid into the pool. This can be used for any expenditure of Momentum, but a player is limited to paying 6 Heat a turn during action scenes, or 6 Heat an action during other scenes. PCs are also required to pay Heat to make Reactions during action scenes; 1 point for the first in a round, 2 points for the second, etc. Finally, some locations and enemies are so threatening they add Heat to the pool when they appear. The main use of Heat is to create Complications, throwing unforeseen difficulties into the path of the PCs. 1 Heat buys a minor Complication, a nuisance that will probably only need a Minor Action to fix. 2 Heat is a standard Complication, the same as if a player had rolled a 20. Standard Complications can involve loss of resources, or inflicted stress, and usually take a Standard Action to fix. Major Complications cost 4 Heat, and are serious issues that require massive effort to overcome, sometimes even causing damage. If the Complication involves one of the PCs traits, the cost is reduced by 1. A Hazard is a specific type of complication that inflicts damage. The damage is 1+XN, where X is the amount of Heat spent. The number of combat dice rolled is doubled if damage can be avoided with a D2 test, or tripled if it's a D1 test. Additional Heat can be spent to add Qualities and Effects to the damage. GMs can also spend Heat for NPCs just like PCs spend Momentum. In addition, there are a few other special options GMs have. They can spend Heat as a unit of any of the item resources that exist. Some NPCs have special abilities that require Heat to use. The GM can spend a point to have an NPC interrupt the action order. Finally, Heat can be spent to bring in reinforcements, or to activate environmental effects, such as fog, fire, or bystanders. Infinity Points Infinity Points are the supercharged version of Momentum, enabling truly outstanding feats. Players start each session with a number of Infinity Points equal to their refresh rate, and can never have more than 5 at a time. In addition to Failsafe tests, players can gain Infinity Points by triggering one of their Traits, spending a point of Momentum or Heat and taking a significant, dramatic action that ties into the Trait. GMs can also award Infinity Points at their discretion for being awesome. The standout use of Infinity Points is buying a d20 for a test. This d20 is not rolled, but simply placed down as a 1. This means it automatically succeeds, and also counts as a second success if the character has any Skill Focus. Another major use is spending a Point to gain an additional Standard Action on your turn. They can also be used to ignore the effects of Harm for a scene, keep a GM from invoking a Trait for a scene, instantly end a Condition, recover Stress, or even add details to the current scene (with GM approval, of course). Personal Thoughts I like how the 2d20 system works. The various pools available to the players and GM give the game a real ebb and flow, ratcheting up the drama as Heat accumulates and letting the players use Momentum and Infinity Points to overcome the obstacles introduced. The only complaint I have off the top of my head is that keeping track of all the different spends can be a bit much at times, and I haven't even covered the various action scene spends yet. It does make me appreciate the Player's Guide as a cheaper option to having to acquire multiple Core Rulebooks for the table. Next up: Character creation made easy. THREAD PARTICIPATION BONUS Throw out some character ideas for me to use, and I'll pick a few to use as I go through character creation.
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Oct 22, 2018 05:22
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A Recreation of a figure obscure enough that no-one actually recognizes him as a Recreation, created by the supreme nerd computer for fun.
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Oct 22, 2018 05:34
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Werewolf political activist.
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Oct 22, 2018 05:38
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Roman Reigns: Then Now Forever
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Oct 22, 2018 05:41
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Night10194 posted:A Recreation of a figure obscure enough that no-one actually recognizes him as a Recreation, created by the supreme nerd computer for fun. Go for L.L.Zamenhoff ,A personal favourite of mine and a staunch pacifist.
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Oct 22, 2018 05:48
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Alternately, Gotz of the Iron Hand, now with actual cyber-arm. Possibly with arm cannon.
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Oct 22, 2018 06:28
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I love the Modiphius 2d20 System; Star Trek Adventures uses a variant with six Attributes instead of seven and six Anyway, you wanted character ideas. Qwo Poo, last monk of the Kae Bing Dammit Monastery, trained in the Ancient Oriental Art of Cheatalotto. (Well, it's more "open-palm face slaps and crotch kicks punctuated by Bruce Lee noises," but it works for him.)
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Oct 22, 2018 06:41
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Master Sgt John Henry, a very angry black Ariadna-American who kills TAGs with a rocket-propelled sledgehammer. ALEPH needed to do a self-audit just to make sure it didn't Recreate him and somehow forget about it.
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Oct 22, 2018 06:46
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Do people want to see another module done with a party of characters? I was thinking of the King's Festival/Queen's Harvest duology as I already mentioned the first when talking about Eveningstar.
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Oct 22, 2018 06:51
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Absolutely would like to see more adventure modules, yes. Go for it
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Oct 22, 2018 07:17
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Gnostic apocalypse, Jesus comes back to fight God and his lying lackeys. Actually I'm pretty sure that's a JRPG.
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Oct 22, 2018 08:01
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Night10194 posted:There was an extremely detailed takedown of why it's a pile of heresy and evil that helped get me into religious studies when I was in college. That was my main experience with the series; I never bothered to read the actual books themselves because, well, terrible stories AND evil. Was it Fred Clark's Slacktivist blog? Dude was a devout Christian but hated what the Evangelical Right turned into and did a long-term Let's Read analysis of the series. I discovered the existence of Left Behind through him, actually. That, and TV Tropes.
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Oct 22, 2018 08:27
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Angrymog posted:Do people want to see another module done with a party of characters? I was thinking of the King's Festival/Queen's Harvest duology as I already mentioned the first when talking about Eveningstar. I for one require an immediate play/read through the entire Queen of the Demonweb Pits starting with Against the Giants so I have something to read while I'm drinking my coffee, and it would be very selfish not to oblige my demands. 
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Oct 22, 2018 08:39
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Mors Rattus posted:I'm getting the distinct sense that you aren't intended to fight God in The End. All of this poo poo is just backstory that I get the sense is not actually relevant to the day-to-day work of the PCs. I contend that any RPG where the endgame isn't fighting God is inherently flawed. EDIT: Deptfordx posted:I for one require an immediate play/read through the entire Queen of the Demonweb Pits starting with Against the Giants so I have something to read while I'm drinking my coffee, and it would be very selfish not to oblige my demands. Actually, this is kind of tempting to do myself if Angrymog doesn't feel like I'm stepping on their toes. I'm a big fan of Against the Giants -- or at least I was, back in the day. potatocubed fucked around with this message at 08:52 on Oct 22, 2018 |
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Oct 22, 2018 08:46
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potatocubed posted:I contend that any RPG where the endgame isn't fighting God is inherently flawed. For that you'd need a JRPG.
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Oct 22, 2018 09:05
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potatocubed posted:
I still am a fan of that series...Eclavdra 4 Lyfe!
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Oct 22, 2018 09:10
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potatocubed posted:Actually, this is kind of tempting to do myself if Angrymog doesn't feel like I'm stepping on their toes. I'm a big fan of Against the Giants -- or at least I was, back in the day. Go for it.
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Oct 22, 2018 09:49
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Deptfordx posted:I for one require an immediate play/read through the entire Queen of the Demonweb Pits starting with Against the Giants so I have something to read while I'm drinking my coffee, and it would be very selfish not to oblige my demands. Hell yes.
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Oct 22, 2018 12:39
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Libertad! posted:Was it Fred Clark's Slacktivist blog? Dude was a devout Christian but hated what the Evangelical Right turned into and did a long-term Let's Read analysis of the series. I discovered the existence of Left Behind through him, actually. Yes, that was it. That was years ago.
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Oct 22, 2018 13:04
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PurpleXVI posted:Personally, I've always adhered to the racial limitations on what classes can be played, but I've never actually tangled with the racial level limits, because dear God, who's actually run a campaign for that long? It's just never come up. But I appreciate the reasoning behind it. I'm one of those assholes who always wanted my setting to be internally consistent to the extent that if we applied the rules to everyone and everything, all the time, we'd come up with a sensible result. This is probably some sort of deep-seated psychosis and I should be locked up. I like the cut of this guy's jib
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Oct 22, 2018 13:12
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Night10194 posted:Yes, that was it. That was years ago. So far as I know, it's still going. This doc only has until 2016 but there are more recent entries.
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Oct 22, 2018 13:31
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I remember before he got banned hpapylfe was talking about a system for dynamic modern action where the PCs could build up "Flak," which I think had some positive effects (unlocking Limit Break type powers) but a critical mass of flak was extremely dangerous to you. Momentum/Heat reminds me of that. It also reminds me of the Doom Pool in Marvel Heroic Roleplaying.
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Oct 22, 2018 14:00
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