|
By popular demand posted:Declare that in keeping to a oath sworn to some half forgotten Bretton there can be absolutely no women aboard, therefore any sailor counts as a man while serving and will be held to all the duties of a male sailor. Isn't that sort of how it works in Exalted's The West?
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2018 01:16
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 05:53 |
|
|
Dawgstar posted:Isn't that sort of how it works in Exalted's The West? In those parts that are infested by a certain kind of storm god, yes.
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2018 01:49
|
|
|
I mean, in Exalted to qualify as ritually and socially male as one of the Tya you have to get the right set of tattoos and sterilize yourself with jellyfish venom. Or just carry around a redhead; storm mothers hate those.
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2018 02:07
|
|
|
Or be an Exalt. They don't mess with player characters, too dangerous.
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2018 02:22
|
|
|
Alien Rope Burn posted:I've been writing a lot on stuff that's generally more positive if somewhat less nerdy lately. Coincidentally, I just started writing on them again this week, though. The major issue is that I'm looking to get 3-4 books ready to go in a row, because World Books 20, 22, and 23 are all on the same subject - Canada. So I'd like to be able to just fire off that whole lot at once (like I did for Russia), and that'll take awhile. Glad to hear you're doing more enjoyable work, and looking forward to the walls of Canadian text  Thanks for the recommendations! Gotta get that Siembieda nonsense in my brain one way or another...
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2018 03:24
|
|
|
No women, no wizards, _no fun_ E: I mean, there may or may not be an old IRL superstition that women bring trouble to the ship, but I don't think pirates would care too much for that, since they're sailing towards trouble anyways.
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2018 11:23
|
|
|
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2e: WHFRP Companion Piggalo the 1st So, Tobaro is way better than Sartosa. Like Sartosa, it is a Tilean city-state that stands apart from normal Tilean city-state politics. This is because it's built into a cliffside and around a series of natural caverns, where people both live and mine the earth. They have a very defensible harbor, but the jagged rocks and many currents require local pilots to help guide ships in safely; something the more piratical or underhanded Tobarans use to lead 'unexpected' freelancers onto the rocks and then steal their cargo. If you won't be missed, pay your pilot well. If you're an Estalian or elven vessel, you'll have nothing to worry about; despite being Tilean, Tobaro is on friendly terms with Estalia and a full half of their foreign commerce comes from their neighbor. They rely on the harbor and trade for food (which keeps the occasional bit of wrecking from getting out of hand; if people cut off trade Tobaro would starve), because you can't eat rock-face, and they trade their ore and metalwork for whatever they need. Most Tobarans are sailors, traders, or miners. Much of the city lies within the caverns, because the actual uncovered real-estate is quite sparse. The Engineer's Guild is very powerful, because someone has to maintain all those tunnels and keep the city from collapsing onto itself. They tend to have paler skin than most Tileans because they don't get out much, and a curious quirk means Tobarans are usually shorter than other humans; people joke that they're part dwarf, given they live in tunnels and tend to be stocky folk. Ranald, Myrmidia, and Manaan are the main Gods of the Tobarans, because Ranald and Myrmidia are the main Gods of all of Tilea and anyone who has to deal with the local currents would never be so stupid as to try to shortchange the Lord of the Sea. Unusually, Tobaran humans join their dwarf neighbors in building shrines to and paying tribute to Grungi, the God of mining and engineering. I mean, he does a great job watching over the dwarfs; it would just be prudent for a tunnel dwelling people to join in offerings to 'Il Grungnio'. Tobaro was originally an elven settlement, built during their colonization of the Old World. They drove off strange winged beasts that had constructed the original tunnels, implied to be some kind of massive harpy roost, and the elves are responsible for the enlargement and construction of a proper space for a harbor. Their purpose had been building a defensible trade post and possibly a quarry or mine, which is exactly what Tobaro relies on to this day. They were driven off by the dwarfs when they lost the Grudge War, and Tobaro stood abandoned for ages until a group of Tilean shepherds found the elven construction while trying to shelter their flocks from the winter. Realizing this was an old elf colony and that elfs built those in valuable places, they went back and got others to try to re-settle the ruins, rediscovering the rich mining in the caverns and the defensible (if tricky) port. Tobaro is the only good harbor in western Tilea; most of its harbors are in the south and east. This quickly made it a vital trade link to Estalia, though it was held back by the dangerous currents and need for pilots to bring ships in to anchor safely. However, those same currents (and being built into a cliff) kept the city safe during every war it found itself involved in, so while it never attained the heights of opulence of the wealthier city-states, it always managed to maintain its own safety. Until the rat nazis. You knew they were coming. No-one gets to have an extensive tunnel system without having to deal with Skaven. The city's lower tunnels were captured in 1563 IC, and until 1565, the rats waged war with the locals, enslaving most of the population and occupying most of the city-state. The city was saved when one of the merchant princes who had escaped, Meldo Marcelli, returned. He had spent his entire fortune on a large army of mercenaries, and had voyaged to the lands of the elves to inform them they were losing their investments in trade with the port of Tobaro. To that end, the elves agreed to send in the Marines. A small army of High Elf regulars accompanied the merchant prince, and along with resistance from the formerly enslaved locals and his new allies, he succeeded in driving the rats back into the lower city. After a few more years of skirmishing and on-and-off conflict, dwarf engineers were able to isolate the reinforcement tunnels and strategically collapse them, dealing the rats a decisive blow. Rather than haphazard Ratcatchers, the Tobarans now employ a tunnel-fighting militia, the Deepwatch, who get their own variant of Militiaman as a new class. They are charged with killing all rats, large enough to be a nazi or not, and the job is a respectable trade in Tobaro. As an added bonus, less rats. The actual Deepwatcher class is interesting; they're an okay fighter and explorer with Dodge and 2 attacks, but no Strike Mighty Blow and no extra weapon profs. They know how to be stealthy and they're like a quieter human version of a Dwarf Shieldbreaker. They can exit into Engineer, Explorer, Smuggler, Veteran, Sergeant, and Merc, which aren't half bad exits; lot of different options for where to go. Also very specifically specialized to fight Skaven, being very resistant to disease and great in tunnels. The Marcelli family remained the Princes of Tobaro for a long time; saving the city with a heroic merchant voyage and a timely mercenary army with international allies will do wonders for your house's reputation. However, in 1877, the succession was disputed, and civil war threatened to break out among the tunnels. The court seer (who was well respected for always being right) popped up to solve the problem by predicting something really awful would happen to the next Prince. Suddenly, no-one wanted to be Prince anymore, and the merchant houses returned to merchanting, focusing on commerce and greatly benefiting the city. But they still needed a Prince, even if no-one would do the job. Thus, someone had the idea of Prince Piggalo I, who was a pig. He is considered an excellent Prince, having guided Tobaro for 12 years of benign neglect while the families worked together to build the city's economy, since they weren't competing over who would rule it at the moment. Tragedy struck when some rear end in a top hat pushed the pig off a cliff, though; they've never proven it was an assassination, but there was a thorough investigation of several of his courtiers for treason at the time. Which also means the seer was actually right. To date, it's become tradition to adopt a pig as a mascot when running for Prince of Tobaro, and Princes are often reminded they should rule wisely, lest people prefer to support their mascot in usurping the throne. No pigs have been elected since Piggalo I, but the threat remains; a pig is always in the running for Prince at each election. The Princes are elected whenever a current prince dies, with the patriarch of the most popular merchant house being made Prince. This being Tilea, elections are fairly common because terrible things happen to Princes pretty often; that seer was making a really safe bet. The current Prince has only ruled for 2 years, taking over after his uncle died in a duel with a spurned lover, which was considered a very impressive way for a ninety year old man to die and a lasting legacy to leave behind. There were rumors that Prince de Vela bribed his way into the throne, but given he's a merchant house patriarch, one would think that would be more a mark of political acumen than anything else. The Navigator Families form the petty nobility that lives in the rocky islands dotting the harbor, and they maintain their status by keeping the port working. They range from honest (but highly paid) pilots and navigators to the brutal crime family of the Naufragios. The Naufragios are infamous for making a living salvaging the ships that don't quite make it to the harbor, and they primarily guide smugglers and less savory customers through the rocks. In a hard year, they'll demand an awful lot of money from their charges, or else they can't promise them safety. They like to light up their little island such that it's easy to mistake it for the lights of the city, when in fact it's a lovely little estate island surrounded by jagged rocks and the lights are a trap for unwary navigators. They also live in relative squalor and have a reputation as skinflints, despite being an ancient and wealthy family. Nanna de Naufragio, their current matriarch, is presented as a criminal patron for PCs. Alternately, the adventure seeds present her as a suitable villain for a campaign arc about dealing with her lovely pirate/crime family. This is another good bit of this writeup: Every major setting element for the city has a 'adventure ideas' section after it suggesting how PCs might come into contact with it, something missing from Sartosa. The Deepwatch also gets their own section, with the sidenote that one of the Watch's privileges comes in getting first pick of any ancient elven treasure uncovered in the deep ruins and tunnels. They find fabulous ancient treasure while on patrol just often enough to make it a tantalizing bonus for the professional adventurers that make up the city's tunnel militia. The city authorities run a propaganda campaign painting the Deepwatch as swashbuckling heroes, fighting an eternal war against the rat nazis in the tunnels of the city and uncovering all manner of ancient secrets. In reality, the job is usually dull, dangerous (more for tunnel collapse and spelunking hazards than ratmen), and doesn't pay quite as well as the recruiters say it does. Still, it's honest work, and the propaganda makes Deepwatchers popular people in Tobaro, so they've never had trouble filling the roster. A Deepwatch game is suggested for groups that like older hex-based dungeon crawls and stories about exploration. The Tobaran Engineering Guild is responsible for maintaining the tunnels and mines, and are the only non-mercantile Guild with a say in electing a Prince. They are also a major employer for the city's sizeable dwarf population, and the dwarf engineers are unusually willing to train and work with their human neighbors and recruits; it's not uncommon to see a gruff old dwarf ordering a human student around and trying to teach the young not-Italian proper dwarven work ethic. In addition to maintaining the tunnels and mines and helping educate humans about engineering, the Guild also helps the Deepwatch quietly open up new tunnels to look for more of that buried elven treasure, for a cut of the profits. This occasionally risks causing another rat nazi incursion by opening the wrong tunnels, but that's just another opportunity to earn bonuses and be a hero, no? Tobaro's actual city districts range from the wealthy tower-villas of the merchants in the Altezza to the poorly maintained tunnels and slums of the Trafuro. Everywhere in the city, space is at a premium and people will pay a lot to live where they can see the open sky occasionally. Every individual district gets its own adventure seeds, like someone stealing Prince de Vela's pig mascot (a sign of terrible luck) and the PCs being hired to find and rescue him, or the Skaven taking advantage of a gold rush of elven artifacts in deep tunnels to invade while the Deepwatch is busy finding shiney things. It's a fun place with a lot to do. Tobaro is neat. It's a strange place, but it's strange in the 'lots of stuff to do' way that makes Hams fun. An Italian cliff city full of dwarf buddies, constantly beset by rat nazis, with all sorts of ancient architecture and treasure to be found down in its tunnels and cute traditions like the pig prince? Yeah, this is the kind of stuff you should be doing in one of these city-articles. The new class is even a pretty fun little first tier with interesting exits and potential. The gallant to Sartosa's goofus, I suppose. Good job, Andrew Kenrick, you've written the second decent article in the book. Especial good marks for having 'how do the PCs get involved with this' after every significant setting NPC or element; that's a critical part of what makes the main-line WHFRP sourcebooks good RPG setting writing. Next Time: lovely Illuminati
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2018 16:21
|
|
|
You had me at "Actually has a good militia guarding against the rats" the pig Prince is gravy. Seriously seems like a good place to run campaigns in.
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2018 18:44
|
|
|
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2e: WHFRP Companion I've already discussed the matter with the Burgomeister, your appointment will be finalized within a week. Conspiracies are hard to write. Hidden networks of power with wheels within wheels and agents everywhere are difficult to do well. When writing one, you have to keep in mind how they keep themselves secret, why they keep themselves secret, just how many of them are there, really, and what their big personalities actually want. More importantly, you need to give them actual concrete plans and goals and reasons the PCs will run into them and stomp on those things. Brian Clements is here with a great example of how not to write a conspiracy with the Cult of Illumination. We're going to get the works: No actual concrete goal for players to try to stop, a lot of pretty sad fluff, some really weird assumptions, and a lot of telling us how hard it is to find or interact with these guys and how they have agents everywhere without really making a good case for them even being a threat. The cult starts off okay; they have a strategy of recruiting businessmen and politicians by offering their services as a series of fraternal orders that will boost someone's career. They provide favorable loans, they give access to networks of patronage, etc. They do the same for artists, with famous artists who are members apprenticing younger ones and boosting their works to famous patrons (who may be members of the other wing of the cult). Sure, fine, this is all an acceptable lure for a cult. They then pull the whole 'once you're far enough in we'll give you the choice between worshiping Chaos or we'll kill you' thing, after preparing the client enough that they'll probably say yes (they'd rather have a cultist than a sacrifice). That's not terrible; this is sort of standard operating procedure for Chaos Cults. They generally like their new recruit to be implicated in something before they reveal themselves so the person can't go for help. No, the weird part starts with 'this cult worships both Tzeentch and Slaanesh together'. The idea being that they actually recruit mediocre artists who will need Slaanesh's help to achieve anything and thus be beholden to providing a propaganda wing for their cult, while Tzeentch boosts the businessmen and politicians. Chaos usually doesn't like to work together so closely, but sure, fine. Those two Gods don't especially hate one another, anyway. They could be working together. People go up the circles and wings of the cult, first thinking they're a Tzeentch or Slaanesh cult and then eventually being told they're both, and at each level if you say 'this all seems a bit weird' they summon a demon and it eats you. The cult was started by a Constance Drachenfels. I have not read his novels, so while I'm sure I'm supposed to be very impressed by the guy by the wide range of powers he supposedly had, he's really just getting namedropped here and won't have anything further to do with the cult after kickstarting it. He recruited a guy who doesn't merit any description besides a name (Johannes Graumann. Of course they named him 'Grey Man'. Goddamnit) and a title, The Grey (because his name is Graumann, you see). He originally hosed it up by inviting people right into his inner circle, at which point they became indolent and tried to order him around because he was recruiting nobles, so he came up with the idea of inventing lots of levels of the cult to jump through before you meet the GRAND ILLUMINATOR because it turns out a cult that's just THE CIRCLE OF THE GRAND ILLUMINATOR doesn't really impress people. Having successfully discovered the basic tactics of cults after his first attempt, he then started recruiting artists to big up his buddies and tell people how great they were, letting him offer an actual benefit for joining besides a discount on hoods and occasional tentacles. The structure of the cult ends up a fairly basic pyramid scheme where you give just enough to new recruits to get them to give back and move up the ladder of 'enlightenment'. If they don't, you eventually feed them to a demon. Fairly standard. 'Cult rules are rarely broken', we are assured, and if any member of the cult steps out of line, demon, eating, you know how it goes. No-one ever reveals cult secrets, and if they do, surprisingly there's just a significant fine and a professional black mark (yes, really). If you were high enough to know about the demons, though, eaten by demons instead. I wonder if they ever spice it up by turning someone into a Chaos Spawn or like, just shooting them in the head and throwing them in a river? Summoning demons on speed dial to eat anyone who messes up has got to be expensive. We are assured there are no public temples of the cult, which seems like kind of a no-brainer. I wonder how long 'Hi, we're an ecumenical alliance of Slaaneshi and Tzeentch worshipers, would you like a pamphlet!?' would survive across the street from the Grand Temple of Sigmar (given this cult is located in the rich parts of Altdorf)? I bet they'd live a little longer than you'd think, just because of the traffic jam of eighty or so Warrior Priests all trying to fit through the door at the same time in the rush to blow them apart. Anyway, they have a Grand Illuminator and his 11 Prefects, he has absolute power, the Prefects oversee the cult temples and matters and display his will across Nuln, Altdorf, and Talabheim. 3 for each city, then the last 2 somehow have 'influence over multiple Elector Counts' each. No detail or mechanism given. The Prefects and Illuminator know the other cultists and can destroy them, either by the tried method of demon devouring that we all know and love or by just destroying their reputation, THEN having them publicly shamed and fed to demons. See, that way the masters can please both Gods at once. They are clever boys. We get the little levels of the cult, along with the possibility PCs will accidentally join as 'candles' and then get drawn into their TWISTED WEB OF INTRIGUE (hey, someone finally remembered PCs might be involved in all this!), with only about 10% of recruits ever making it to the 'we tell you it's Chaos, show you the demons, and then ask if you want to join up or get eaten' level where they get to learn actual sorcery. There is also a cult within the cult that provides the Grand Illuminator and Prefects with the ILLUMINATE GUARD who will ensure the actual villains escape if any PCs should happen to actually have an adventure and get the idiot in their crossbow sights. The cult grants members access to a bunch of social skills and talents and can eventually teach Chaos magic. Then we're told what kinds of careers join them. This is probably the funniest part of the writeup: There's the usual politicians, merchants, etc. But this, the cult whose main lure is 'we will be your propaganda guys and boost you politically and socially' will 'never recruit Agitators or Demagogues.' Because the author assumes those types would automatically run out into the street shouting 'MAN IT SURE IS AWESOME BEING IN THE CHAOS ILLUMINATI! YON CROWD OF THE COMMON FOLK, YOU SHOULD CONVERT!' Seriously, he believes the street-politicians would not be capable of, instead, going and hawking the cult's members and supporting them politically, that they'd 'automatically' be yelling about exactly who they are and what they support. Our prominent figures of the cult are a bunch of people you've never heard of who you're assured are celebrities and very important, and then the Grand Illuminator, who has managed to achieve a position of immense power by his secret machinations. He is the advisor to a middlingly important Baron in the Reikland who everyone hates. Klaus von Talber, GRAND ILLUMINATOR, masterful plotter and man who will make the world turn at his whim, is...personal advisor to a forgettable noble. Yes, yes, I get the implication he's supposed to be using that guy to get access to the Imperial court and give other people advice and commiserate with them about how lovely his boss is, but come the gently caress on man! Also you might have noticed a lack of something: The cult doesn't actually have any plans besides 'continue to be a cult'. There's nothing for your players to stop. They aren't even interested in Chaos taking over the Empire or whatever, they're just...there. Like the Sybarites in Nuln but with less sexual menace (which is an improvement). Tell me, from this write up, what does an ADVENTURE with these dumb assholes look like? You're told a lot about how they're totally subtle and hidden and have my favorite trope in fiction, the Impossibly Perfect Network of Clever Spies Who Tell Them Everything (I hate this trope), but they don't use them to actually do anything. There's no actual hook for you. They just seem to hang around and chortle and then have someone fed to demons from time to time. They seem like the chortling type to me. They're just bad. They're subtle because you're told they're subtle, they have a couple attempts at hooks that aren't actually hooks (like the Slaanesh/Tzeentch fusion taco that is their belief system, except it's really just a Tzeentch cult and the author thought if you had any artists in there you had to be Slaaneshi too because he's a hack or the namedrop of Constance Drachenfels), and they're just so goddamn boring. There's no project. They don't even have designs on, say, expanding the cult into other lands or trying to take over the Empire fully behind the throne. They're just kind of a petty club of jerks with a fondness for feeding people to demons. So have fun with that. Tzeentch is, and always will be, catnip to lovely writers who aren't half as clever as they think they are. Next Time: I Need A Drink
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2018 19:56
|
|
|
Night10194 posted:I've already discussed the matter with the Burgomeister, your appointment will be finalized within a week. Oh yes.
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2018 20:12
|
|
|
Cooked Auto posted:Oh yes. Wait, when did this become Deus Ex?
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2018 22:14
|
|
|
Mr.Misfit posted:Wait, when did this become Deus Ex? When the lovely Illuminati showed up and reminded me that Deus Ex was a more fun ridiculous conspiracy than them. At least Bob Page had an objective and you could take it away from him while he whined about it.
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2018 22:21
|
|
|
Constant Drachenfels - yes, not Constance, Constant - is very goofy old lore. That’s about it.
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2018 22:29
|
|
|
I love it when they look at those old Puritan names and loving runs with it in settings.
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2018 22:40
|
|
|
JcDent posted:No women, no wizards, _no fun_
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2018 22:41
|
|
|
Robindaybird posted:I love it when they look at those old Puritan names and loving runs with it in settings. I really hope I run into a guy named Increase in a campaign some day. Increase Mather is my favorite ridiculous Puritan name.
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2018 22:51
|
|
|
So, who is Constant Drachenfels? First, he's one of the few idiots that does both necromancy and Chaos at the same time, somehow. Second, he's a 15,000-year-old wizard, by his claims. He says he was a "semi-human tribesman" from "before the toad men came from beyond the stars." Which is loving impossible because humans didn't exist at the time in any form. Anyway... Dude remade his own body by killing people and stealing their souls and then stapling their body parts to himself, built Castle Drachenfels and worshipped Chaos but kind of in an offhand way. He gathered an army of goblins to fight Sigmar when Sigmar got big, but suffered his first-ever defeat, and Sigmar killed him. He survived that, restoring himself to power over the course of a thousand years. In 1854 he gathers an army of undead and daemons, which he somehow manages to keep from killing each ohter, and attacks Parravon in Bretonnia, seizing their loot and executing their nobles. Then he wanders off for a few decades, declares he is going to confess and repent of all his evil, and pays a large sum of money to all his living victims, making a big deal of apologizing to all the various graves. He does this enough that Emperor Carolus decides to take his entire imperial court to eat at Castle Drachenfels, but the feast is poisoned, paralysing all of the guests and forcing them to starve to death as their children are butchered before their eyes. 800 years later, Genevieve the vampire and her buddy Oswald kill Constant again, which somehow kills or reveals all his agents, because magic. In 2505, Oswald buys the castle and hires a playwright to make a play based on the defeat of Constant Drachenfels, to be performed for Emperor Karl Franz and his son Luitpold, along with all the Elector Counts, at Castle Drachenfels. Drachenfels returns to life during the play, for reasons, but Genevieve and the playwright, who is her boyfriend, kill him again and Karl Franz declares Genevieve to be legally allowed to be a vampire, because reasons. In the end times, Nagash apparently resurrects Constant as a ghost slave without memories, The Nameless, who possesses Luthor Huss, dedicates himself to Nurgle, kills a bunch of Von Carsteins and ends up being defeated by loving Manfred von Carstein, who manages to piss Luther Huss off enough for him to take his body back, consuming The Nameless in a burst of holy fire. Constant Drachenfels is loving nonsense.
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2018 23:05
|
|
|
Alternatively, it might be related to Thomas Laqueur's theories on gender. He believes that some ancient people believed in there was only one sex, male. This belief, which can be traced to Aristotle and Galen, says that females are not a separate sex, but merely imperfect males that lacked "vital heat". It also says that wombs and vaginas are inverted penises, and female fluids were undeveloped forms of semen. This idea is extremely sexist, but strangely trans-friendly. The misogynistic believers thought that females could become males by absorbing "vital heat", causing their "imperfect" wombs to transform into a "perfect" penis.
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2018 23:10
|
|
|
I think the weirdest bit about him being talked about here is like...it's literally a namedrop. It's "you're supposed to gasp, because this cult was founded by DRACHENFELS, the guy from the Genevieve Novels! Who then had nothing further to do with it besides telling some guy 'hey man, you know what'd be sweet? A kinda dumb illuminati. You should get on that' and then going off to do whatever the hell Constant Drachenfels actually does."
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2018 23:10
|
|
|
Mors Rattus posted:Constant Drachenfels is loving nonsense. Yeah, that's what makes him great.
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2018 23:15
|
|
|
Constant Drachenfels is the best moustache-twirling, dumb as a bag of bricks villain this side of Mannfred von Carstein during his widows peak phase. Dude is just cartoonishly evil for no loving reason and can come back from the death because he just can. I love to use him as a reoccurring villain.
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2018 23:33
|
|
|
Warhammer is at its best when it owns the weird and over the top stuff. An immortal body part stealing caveman necromancer sorcerer who spent decades selling his fake redemption scheme only to cackle about how the FOOLS HAD FALLEN INTO HIS TRAP? Perfect.
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2018 23:37
|
|
|
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2e: WHFRP Companion Just play as the gambling den owner and his buddy So, taverns are pretty important to Fantasy. They're a major social center in the Empire, given the love of drinking and the fact that they're a place where people of different classes can rub elbows and accidentally end up forming an adventuring company. This has been a thing ever since the Core Book had a whole sidebar on 'yeah, odds are you actually did meet in a bar, bars are for meeting people' and so Jody MacGregor has decided we'll have a little chapter on some example taverns to give you ideas for the sorts of plot hooks you can do with bars, gambling dens, and drug parlors. This chapter is basically inoffensive, though the best two NPCs in it are more 'you should probably just write a campaign about these two' because they have the level of detail/plot hook that suits PCs better than NPCs, but that's a minor complaint. All the bars are city-agnostic, with a little suggestion on how to make them fit in whatever city or large town your PCs are drinking in. Our first inn/tavern is the Arena Inn, run by Hargin 'Hook Hand' Garimson, a retired dwarven pit-fighter (because of the hook hand). The inn used to be a fighting pit, one that Hargin bought out in order to close it down after he lost his will to fight when he lost his hand. He's converted it into a happy, peaceful inn with the fighting pit turned into an extension of the common room (I'd have made it a dance floor, myself) and all its old trappings of violence removed. Hargin runs a good bar and has the friends to get proper dwarven beer cheaply, and so he's become popular with the community. The problem and plot hook is that buying out a major fighting pit put a dent in the local pit fighting business, and now the out of work pitfighters are vandalizing the bar and throwing bricks through the windows with angry notes on them (given the average pit fighter can't read, I imagine most of them just have pictures of a dwarf getting punched or something). PCs can obviously get hired by the old dwarf, but might be just as likely to step in to stop a bunch of thugs from loving up their favorite drinking pit. The Crow and Cat is a Ranaldan temple, a drinking hall, and a gambling house at the same time. Brother Reuban runs the tables and games in the back room, a down on his luck gambler who once promised himself to Ranald if he could win the hand he staked his life on. He's been a priest ever since he walked away from the table alive. In tribute to his God, he doesn't allow the House to cheat at his parlor; Gambling tests are opposed by a +10% House rather than a +40% House advantage, because his dealers (and the Brother himself) are good at games of chance but play them honestly and trust to luck. In return for the fair odds, one coin in ten belongs to Ranald, as the strictures say. Those who don't pay won't be welcome in the back rooms ever again. The cult also smuggles goods through Reuban's bar, and he'll hold stuff or launder money for the local underworld, too. In return, they've given him an up and coming bouncer, Big Sigird, and by her given stats she is an incredible badass in the making. As a 'just-finishing 1st tier' character, she's at 49% Str, 42% Tough, 43% WP, and 46% WS, and that's only in Thug, which isn't the greatest of fighting careers. She's described as 6 feet tall, towering over the average man and woman both, and covered in tattoos of butterflies, flowers, and other cute things. She was just assigned to watch him and keep his gambling house out of trouble by her bosses in the mob (the other gambling houses hate having a fair operation in town and it's hurting business, so Reuban's had threats), but she's started to listen to the Brother's sermons, and is considering becoming a lay worshiper or priestess, herself. You see what I mean by they have just a little too much detail to work purely as NPCs? They've got the setup of a duo plot all on their own already and a game about an impossibly tough thug and the blessed, charmed gambler she's protecting in underworld adventures would be fun. The Cock and Bucket is a hobbit bar. A very short-ceilinged hobbit bar with an extensive list of chicken dishes and service/food good enough to excuse the backaches in elves and humans. It's beloved of the local guild of lawyers, because it's across from one of their largest offices, and so you can always find hunched over men and women in fancy wigs and robes in among the cheerful hobbits, discussing the day's legal business while they get a drink and a pot pie. There's also mention that there's the occasional brawl when a Bretonnian visitor suggests that the fantasy French could out-cook the halflings, only to find their Imperial neighbors take offense at that. The Cock and Bucket doesn't really have a plot hook, it's just a cute little place rub by hobbits and full of overworked lawyers with neck-aches. The Flying Bat is a drug den, the kind of place you don't find without a bawd to lead the way. They deal in all sorts of exotic intoxicants and some of the latest products of Imperial medical science. It's your standard opium den, full of besotted patrons and a smiling sociopath who hates his clients, plus an obvious Imperial mad doctor who sells the same snake oil he used to as an Apothecary, just without lying about the crazy hallucinations it's going to cause you. The actual plot hook is that Klovis Wurznelke (the owner) is a hereditary minion to a vampiress; the Wurznelke family has always served their lady Lenora. When she was visited by vampire hunters, it was the Wurznelkes who swept up her remains and stuffed them in the first properly ornamented jar they could find. A jar the family has spent several decades filling with blood from time to time, on the principle that this should eventually resuscitate the mistress. Klovis is madly in love with Lenora, despite not having been born when she was ashed, and he's convinced that any day now the next sacrifice will wake her up, and she'll love him back and make him a vampire and they'll have a romance like Vlad and Isabella. As you might imagine, considering he hates his customers and needs to get blood for her from somewhere, well...some of his clients don't come back out of his bar. He's set up as a plot hook for the players to investigate and deal with, obviously. And...that's the bars. A community center made out of a fighting pit, a gambling house temple to Ranald, a drug den with a crazy vampire cultist owner, and a cheerful hobbit bar. The chapter's kind of superfluous but I kind of can't hate it. It's so harmless, and some of the stuff in it is kind of cute. Klovis would be a decent enemy for a low level party if you don't want to do the Chaos Cult dance. Save The Community Center times at the Arena Inn could be fun. Sig and Reuban would make a great pair of PCs for a duo game. And the hobbits are kind of charming. It's not adding a lot, but hey, it doesn't have to, and I'll take it after the lovely illuminati or that gawdawful set of social rules. Next Time: How the heck did we get to the Nuln Gunnery College? Also, game breaking schooling rules.
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2018 23:46
|
|
|
HerraS posted:Constant Drachenfels is the best moustache-twirling, dumb as a bag of bricks villain this side of Mannfred von Carstein during his widows peak phase. That's why Mannfred had to ice him. You come at the king, you better not miss. Also, Reuban and Big Sigrid missed their calling as protagonists. They really should be stars of the WFRP equivalent of the Ciaphus Cain novels.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2018 00:05
|
|
|
Alright, it’s time to return to Aberrant with the Aberrant Player’s Guide! This is a weird book actually, because it’s a nearly-random mishmash of fluff followed by some kind of rules that relate to that fluff without any real flow from one thing to the next at times. So the first bit of fluff is a few pages on Nova codenames. There’s a company called Appellate Lexington that has an ‘official’ register of Nova names and who owns the rights to them and if you’re not paid up with them prepare for the very real likelihood some douchebag is going to want to rumble over what you call yourself. Or hell, they might want to do it anyway. There’s then a couple pages of a Utopia document on the legal ramifications of Nova powers. It’s interesting and useful to keep in mind but also pretty common-sense. Novas that aren’t part of a law enforcement agency are allowed to use sensory powers to gather information that is then admissible in court just as private citizens are allowed to use means law enforcement isn’t. Using creepy mind poo poo on people is very context sensitive. You can’t blow someone up with blasts of energy and claim self defense if you’re loving bulletproof. That sort of thing. We get a couple of pages of discussion of the fact that masked vigilantes are really pretty fascist and awful when you get down to it, always a good talk to have. We get a couple of pages of an interview from Count Orzaiz next, on the subject of the Teragen’s view on law with respect to Novas. Basically they don’t believe the laws of humanity apply to them and instead just consider the law to be ‘whatever the gently caress I think is right, that’s what I’m going to do.’ This does not universally result in them being shitgibbons but it is a philosophy very attractive to people you would never want to interact with and boy howdy is that some of them (we’ll learn more in their book). We switch now to some words on legal issues for Novas in different parts of the world. North and Central/South America are pretty good, Europe’s okay. The Middle East is super lovely, Africa is either great or really dangerous, and Asia is either China or fine. China’s super restrictive as far as Novas go and perhaps it’s not a big surprise they also make it through the Aberrant War more intact than anyone else. We get our first rules now, though it’s actually slightly out of order. It’s some talk on some of the organizations you might be connected with and how mechanically your Backing background with them manifests. In this case it’s Utopia, the Teragen, the Directive, and DeVries. This section isn’t much of anything, though, and I’ve got books on three of those organizations (and lol the Directive is intensely boring) so let’s just move right on. We get some discussion of recruitment into organizations and how Novas fit into society and stuff like that, useful but again just guidance that nearly might as well be fluff even though it’s a ‘rules’ section. On page 36, we finally get some actual loving rules for something! That starts a page on Novas in space. We get some discussion of what sorts of power combinations are necessary to survive in space, and how travel works. They give the distances and are basically like ‘yeah so you’re not just loving flying most likely’, then give how many successes on a Teleport or Warp you need to do the trip. They give a couple of ideas for adventures that might take you into space and overall this is a cool section. We get some stuff on the OpNet that’s also really boring, my eyes just slide past lovely fluff at this point. We then get four pages of discussion on Eruption. This is a pretty good section actually, it talks through really thinking about the powers you want to take and how you should lay out your Eruption to make them make sense. It also notes that essentially Novas really are infinitely powerful in theory, but the human mind is entirely incapable of actually withstanding that and essentially immediately strictly limits itself for its own preservation. Our last section for today is going to be on historical Novas. It starts with a wild claim in some tabloid OpNet poo poo that Jesus was really a Nova and all kinds of farcical evidence for such. It then talks about someone who wrote some Ancient Aliens style poo poo about how all myths and legends and whatever have really always been talking about Novas. Both these things are obviously pretty bullshit, but from Adventure we do know that Novas have sort of always existed. They suggest you should start characters with significantly fewer Nova points than normal given the solid evidence that any Novas that did exist were much less powerful, and then detail a bunch of other eras you could theoretically set games in (and also the fact that time travel can be possible in some circumstances, which could further let you use those settings). We’re going to start next time with a really cool blast to the future, after the blast to the past that ends this.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2018 03:38
|
|
|
The Halfling lawyer bar would be perfect in a travelling judges game. The PCs are called in to provide legal cover because the entire town's court and law enforcement apparatus are all laid up with injuries after another idiot tourist insulted the cuisine. "Give me any more trouble, sirrah, and I'll have you up before the magistrate!" "BITCH I AM THE MAGISTRATE!" I'd have the PCs discover little brass plaques on the furniture: "His Honour Judge Schwartzfell was thrown through this table in 1783".
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2018 12:07
|
|
|
Loxbourne posted:The Halfling lawyer bar would be perfect in a travelling judges game. The PCs are called in to provide legal cover because the entire town's court and law enforcement apparatus are all laid up with injuries after another idiot tourist insulted the cuisine. There's something really adorable about how the Imperials will go to bat for the honor of hobbit cooking.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2018 15:48
|
|
|
I could see the Ranaldan place and the NPCs there being patrons or beneficiaries of a Ranald-themed game. A place like that would be a fine base of operations for suitably inclined PCs, perhaps making Reuben the PCs' boss. Season to taste with playing matchmaker between Reuben and Sigird.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2018 16:30
|
|
|
There's a lot of dumb or bad stuff in the Companion, but that taverns article is gold. Useful, clever ideas that build on the setting and make it better.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2018 20:44
|
|
|
mllaneza posted:There's a lot of dumb or bad stuff in the Companion, but that taverns article is gold. Useful, clever ideas that build on the setting and make it better. The good articles in this book are all fairly concise and minimally mechanical. They recognize they don't have a lot of time to work with, so, say, 'Here's some examples of what a plotted out tavern can mean for a game' or 'Here's some ideas for playing a carnival' or 'here's a new city you might visit for a plot arc and why you might' is what works for the format.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2018 20:48
|
|
|
Saw a 3.5E DnD homebrew rule today that tried to fix crossbows some, given this thread's interest in crossbows. The house rule is that crossbows completely ignore armor - you can dodge a crossbow bolt, but if it hits it's going straight through no matter how heavy your armor (or armored hide) is. Not sure it fixes crossbows, but it at least buffs them and gives them a niche.
|
|
#
?
Dec 2, 2018 04:14
|
|
|
Cythereal posted:Saw a 3.5E DnD homebrew rule today that tried to fix crossbows some, given this thread's interest in crossbows. The house rule is that crossbows completely ignore armor - you can dodge a crossbow bolt, but if it hits it's going straight through no matter how heavy your armor (or armored hide) is. Not sure it fixes crossbows, but it at least buffs them and gives them a niche. The problem with this fix in 3.x is that primarily armor in 3.x adds to your ability to dodge attacks, and there isn't that much DR around. Unless what you're saying is that it gets treated like a Touch Attack and thus only cares about Dex modifiers and magical bonuses, which makes it kind of scarily effective against big, heavy enemies since their heavy armor would likely preclude much of a Dex bonus to AC. They'd still need to be stripped of their feat tax, but it's something.
|
|
#
?
Dec 2, 2018 04:39
|
|
|
PurpleXVI posted:The problem with this fix in 3.x is that primarily armor in 3.x adds to your ability to dodge attacks, and there isn't that much DR around. Unless what you're saying is that it gets treated like a Touch Attack and thus only cares about Dex modifiers and magical bonuses, which makes it kind of scarily effective against big, heavy enemies since their heavy armor would likely preclude much of a Dex bonus to AC. They'd still need to be stripped of their feat tax, but it's something. Yeah, that's what I meant, just wasn't in precisely those words.
|
|
#
?
Dec 2, 2018 04:49
|
|
|
That's what pathfinder tried to do with guns and they were still pretty bad iirc
|
|
#
?
Dec 2, 2018 18:31
|
|
|
Leraika posted:That's what pathfinder tried to do with guns and they were still pretty bad iirc Because the problem with both crossbows and guns in those games is based on action economy and access to damage boosts, not to-hit. Not to mention plenty of foes don't rely on physical armor anyway. A crossbow doing d10 or a gun doing d12 isn't going to mean poo poo past a certain point, because for the most part base damage die is one of the weaker parts of a weapon's damage. So much more is dependent on feats and magic bonuses and abilities. And a longbow has a x3 crit, which is considerable (guns have a x4, but again, without lots of means to boost damage this barely matters), and can fire every turn (and multiple times a turn if you have multiple attacks) without feat taxes. Why in God's name would you ever use a weaker weapon that costs extra resources to even pretend to equal a longbow? Most of the weapon choices in the d20 system are a solved system, anyway.
|
|
#
?
Dec 2, 2018 18:44
|
|
|
PurpleXVI posted:The problem with this fix in 3.x is that primarily armor in 3.x adds to your ability to dodge attacks, and there isn't that much DR around. Unless what you're saying is that it gets treated like a Touch Attack and thus only cares about Dex modifiers and magical bonuses, which makes it kind of scarily effective against big, heavy enemies since their heavy armor would likely preclude much of a Dex bonus to AC. They'd still need to be stripped of their feat tax, but it's something. Also it makes fighters and such even weaker than they already were; that's what usually happens when people try to use "realism" to fix things, since we can come up with endless reasons why X might do Y in a physical context, but magic is above such considerations. Alternate fix: crossbows are mechanical and thus prove the superiority of science and so ignore all magical defences. Eat poo poo mage armor.
|
|
#
?
Dec 2, 2018 18:45
|
|
|
AD&D: 2nd Edition Chapter 7: Magic  So the book happily tells us that some of the most powerful tools we have at our disposal are spells. This is both correct and false, spells are pretty powerful, but unfortunately they're wielded by wimps who're busy being bullied by Fighters machinegunning lawn darts across the battlefield. The only place where mages have a clear and inarguable advantage is if we're dealing with literal armies of enemies, or if they're given several days of careful preparation and perfect intelligence on their enemies. It also tells us that the reason bards can cast spells at all is because they make friends with lonely wizards and convince them to share their magical knowledge. Not doing good at convincing me about the arcane sanctity of the wizardly brotherhood, here, game. Next, it starts in on what magic actually is in 2e AD&D, which is an interesting topic, because I think every setting's had some sort of variant assumption about it. From the very weird(Dark Sun: Literally eating life energy to poo poo out fireballs) to settings where it doesn't matter(Forgotten Realms) to something in between(Birthright: Where only elves or godblooded can tap into real arcane magic and everyone else can really only use it for party tricks). The book's answer is... no one really knows. The accepted answer is that we're draining the batteries of some other dimension to fuel our Wish spells, and that wizards just happen to be the savants who can memorize the highly complex and illogical equations, sounds and movements needed to poke a hole in the dimensional barrier and channel it the right way. Most wizards, it hastens to point out, don't actually give a gently caress how or why it works, only that it does. Someone remind me what they need that Intelligence score for again? As something that's more or less a footnote, though, it points out that whenever a wizard re-memorizes a spell, he has to take into account things like seasons, motions of planets, etc. which more or less immediately presents the adventure hooks that comets/asteroids and climate change could gently caress up wizards' spellcasting. Just to add a slight extra bit of "gently caress you" to playing a wizard, by the way, the game re-iterates one of the weirdest rule omissions about 2e AD&D... it never specifies how you determine a wizard's starting spells except "you start with a spellbook, your GM decides what's in it." It leaves the GM with some adjudicating that determines everything about a starting mage's power level, so it's surprising there's not in the PHB, or any setting I've seen for it, any suggested method that actually gives you a baseline to operate off of. There's also an extensive section on illusions, mostly about adjudicating when something's believable, when it isn't, and what effects well-crafted illusions have on enemies and characters. Specifically, if you create an illusion of something that should, believably, kill someone, like a giant rock falling on them? They may just keel over from a heart attack. It's about a 50-50 chance whether it'll kill the average mortal resident of the setting. A few posts back I mentioned a rule about dual-wielding that I'd never found until a few months back, due to the drat way this book is organized. Here's another thing I never found before: Mages and Clerics lose their Dexterity bonus to AC while casting spells. Which in the Mage's case is likely to be his ONLY defense at all unless he's got protective spells or magic items. This is extremely gently caress you to wizards and I wonder if 3E was in part designed by people who got angry that their mages kept getting bullied out of their spells(to recap, in 2e, there are no concentration checks. If you get hit or fail any saving throw while casting a spell, it's instantly a fizzle.). Analyzing Chapter 7: Magic  To the game's credit, one of the first things the DMG does is it answers the question that I complained about the PHB never answering... by not actually giving a definite answer, or instead giving answers that are all kind of bad: #1: Have the player list off all the spells he wants, keep rolling to see whether he learns them or not. I love this one because it can end up with a Mage that has no useful spells at all or nothing he wants. #2: You just enforce which spells the PC should have. Hope you know what he has fun with. #3: Roll 3d4 to determine how many spells he automatically learns... and then either pick them for him or let him pick them himself. Which is the best of a bad lot even if it can result in a wizard who only knows three spells at chargen. gently caress you, mr. mage. The next bit then is about how mages get spells during play, which is mostly by killing enemy wizards and stealing their spellbooks, or looting scrolls out of dungeons. The DMG warns us not to let wizards have any spells that would gently caress up the campaign, but hey, maybe if there's a spell that could casually gently caress up an entire campaign don't have it in the game. Though to be fair, I can't think of many spells that could accomplish that. By the time a wizard gets any of the really nasty spells, the competition should also have ramped up their game. The remainder is really just rules for how to randomly generate NPC spellbooks and how to adjudicate research of new spells. The latter could more or less be summarized as "don't let players copy an existing spell, changing nothing but letting them cast it way cheaper and easier. Also don't let them have a spell that makes them a God. Have fun figuring the rest out for yourself." Analyzing Chapter 8: Experience This is one of the few chapters that barely even exist in the PHB, so tackling the PHB's version of it wouldn't make much sense since there's essentially nothing there beyond, "YOU GET XP, SOMETIMES IT MAKES YOU LEVEL UP," and the DMG's version is the side that has something to actually point at and complain about. It doesn't start out too badly, mind you, suggesting three metrics for determining XP. Fun, Survival and Improvement. If someone contributed to everyone's fun, they deserve more XP. Not dying that session is a baseline requirement for getting XP at all. And lastly the XP gained is largely determined by whether the characters experienced/tried something new or were challenged. After all, sitting in a cellar hitting rats with a stick might technically be fighting enemies worth XP, but by the 1000th rat, there's no new experience there, and the rats no longer pose a challenge of any kind for the player(the book uses an example with orcs, but it's much the same: enemies' XP values are predicated on them actually being a threat or other challenge to the players). This section is largely okay except for it's exceptional stinginess, suggesting that players should never in a session get more than 1/10th of the total XP needed to advance a level. This might be an okay idea at the higher levels, but if I had to spend 10 sessions as a level 1 character I think I'd start getting exceptionally bored with the pace of the game, because D&D has never been a game that's at its most fun at the earliest levels. And then there's the part that I outright hate... "Individual Experience Awards," which just seem to encourage micromanaging your actions to gain the biggest XP output and will almost certainly annoy people as a lot of the opportunities for these very specifically-detailed XP gains are unlikely to pop up in equal quantities for everyone in the party(for instance, the Wizard just gets XP for using his spells to kill enemies or solve problems, the Cleric only gets XP for this if it somehow "furthers his ethos," so if no enemies of the faith show up in that session, sucks to be the Cleric!). Plus, giving the party members unequal amounts of XP would just be massacring the sense of team play and team work that these games depend on to be fun. Though I'd be curious to hear if anyone's ever actually used these rules and been happy with them.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2018 03:19
|
|
|
Changing order JcDent posted:Well, he is an idiot, so it would be in character for him to boast that he predates the Slann, and to start a cult that worships both Tzeench and Slaanesh without accomplishing much. MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 11:11 on Dec 3, 2018 |
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2018 07:00
|
|
|
wiegieman posted:Warhammer is at its best when it owns the weird and over the top stuff. An immortal body part stealing caveman necromancer sorcerer who spent decades selling his fake redemption scheme only to cackle about how the FOOLS HAD FALLEN INTO HIS TRAP? Perfect. Well, he is an idiot, so it would be in character for him to boast that he predates the Slann, and to start a cult that worships both Tzeench and Slaanesh without accomplishing much.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2018 10:45
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 05:53 |
|
|
Since Tzeench is all about scheming for scheming's sake and Slaanesh is nonstop self gratification, making convoluted plans that drag on forever and ultimately fail at everything but making you feel important is right on the money.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2018 11:04
|
|