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Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

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

I mean, they could PROBABLY get Snikch to assassinate Queek...but it'd be the hardest contract he's ever had.


e: Snikch is basically a terrifying single combatant in his own right, the way the wargames stat him up. He's nearly impossible to hit, super sneaky, and has three Weeping Blades, which are great weapons.

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Ghost Leviathan
Mar 2, 2017

Exploration is ill-advised.
And of course the joke is that the Skaven are an entire society of lab rats.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

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

Skryre offers huge money for your Eshin party to find a way to kill Queek Headtaker. Eshin tradition grants you one (1) epic training montage/journey to prepare for your incredible contract.

Queek's description in the old Army Books is 'He fights with the fury of the deeply conceited.'

Dawgstar
Jul 15, 2017

Feinne posted:

Also known as Tuesday in the Under-Empire.

Yeah. I like to think, not unlike in Alpha Complex, absolutely catastrophic disasters and violent uprisings are narrowly avoided by the thinnest of margins on the regular. Possibly by some low-ranking Clanrat in the wrong place at the right time, who is probably then entire crushed, exploded or eaten by a peckish Rat Ogre.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

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

y'know, do any of the Eshin careers ever get a talent for tail-wielding so you can be cool like Snikch? I don't think they do.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

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

Mors Rattus posted:

y'know, do any of the Eshin careers ever get a talent for tail-wielding so you can be cool like Snikch? I don't think they do.

They do! Also Errata suggested rules for Weeping Blades (SB+0 Magic Sword that always counts as having Black Lotus poison, which does 4 Wounds on any hit that did at least 1 if they fail Tough-10). Tail-Fighting is the main reason to be a Master Assassin, as they can now use any Ordinary weapon in their tail without off-hand penalty.

That includes javelins dipped in deadly deadly poison while you use your Defensive punch-dagger and little ninja sword in your other paws to effectively have a sword and shield while also having a ranged weapon equipped.

E: Tail Fighting and Wall Running are the big reasons the Assassin is better than the human Assassin, which has the same disappointing combat-stealth hybrid while lacking the ability to triple wield stuff and run along walls/scamper up things so fast you might as well be an Assassin's Creed character. Oh, the Master Assassin also gets kung-fu that lets their paws count as daggers (and not allow enemies to double AP against their bare-pawed fighting) but they get that in Gutter Runner.

Night10194 fucked around with this message at 18:04 on Dec 7, 2018

Feinne
Oct 9, 2007

When you fall, get right back up again.

Night10194 posted:

They do! Also Errata suggested rules for Weeping Blades (SB+0 Magic Sword that always counts as having Black Lotus poison, which does 4 Wounds on any hit that did at least 1 if they fail Tough-10). Tail-Fighting is the main reason to be a Master Assassin, as they can now use any Ordinary weapon in their tail without off-hand penalty.

That includes javelins dipped in deadly deadly poison while you use your Defensive punch-dagger and little ninja sword in your other paws to effectively have a sword and shield while also having a ranged weapon equipped.

E: Tail Fighting and Wall Running are the big reasons the Assassin is better than the human Assassin, which has the same disappointing combat-stealth hybrid while lacking the ability to triple wield stuff and run along walls/scamper up things so fast you might as well be an Assassin's Creed character.

If I understand how the advancements in WHFRP work I think you also have the strength of being able to divert to Sorcerer and learn the Real Ultimate Power of Ninja Magic after Night Runner, then when you've got that mastered switch to Gutter Runner and then Master Assassin to combine all that poo poo and be the mighty Stabmage.

I'm not sure why Weeping Blades wouldn't have a strength bonus in this, given they have one in tabletop.

unseenlibrarian
Jun 4, 2012

There's only one thing in the mountains that leaves a track like this. The creature of legend that roams the Timberline. My people named him Sasquatch. You call him... Bigfoot.
The Broodrats are an especially weird take given how important the rat princess was in the story that Skaven (And D&D wererats) basically originate from.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

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

Feinne posted:

If I understand how the advancements in WHFRP work I think you also have the strength of being able to divert to Sorcerer and learn the Real Ultimate Power of Ninja Magic after Night Runner, then when you've got that mastered switch to Gutter Runner and then Master Assassin to combine all that poo poo and be the mighty Stabmage.

Yes, you can truly master Kung Fu Treachery.

Especially as the Sorcerer's magic is pretty much made for a more active warrior-mage who likes to steal and sneak.

Also, to some extent, a career having less advances isn't a disadvantage. Take Ghost Strider (Waywatcher) for the elfs. It's a poo poo 3rd tier fighter, having 'only' +20 WS, +30 BS and mostly having a ton of things you probably already bought in Scout. But at the same time, it gets you a 3rd attack, gets you Fleet of Foot (+1 Movement, rare and valuable talent), and when you're done with it 'quick' for a 3rd tier you've got a ton of options of where to go next. Sometimes a career being 'fast' is good.

grassy gnoll
Aug 27, 2006

The pawsting business is tough work.
Is it ever mentioned how skaven assay and issue their coke-tokens? Is there a cocaine mint or some central bank that's the only sacrosanct thing in their culture?

That seems like a major avenue for loving with your rivals, but I don't recall even the slightest mention of it in the RPG or TT books.

Feinne
Oct 9, 2007

When you fall, get right back up again.

Night10194 posted:

Yes, you can truly master Kung Fu Treachery.

Especially as the Sorcerer's magic is pretty much made for a more active warrior-mage who likes to steal and sneak.

Also, to some extent, a career having less advances isn't a disadvantage. Take Ghost Strider (Waywatcher) for the elfs. It's a poo poo 3rd tier fighter, having 'only' +20 WS, +30 BS and mostly having a ton of things you probably already bought in Scout. But at the same time, it gets you a 3rd attack, gets you Fleet of Foot (+1 Movement, rare and valuable talent), and when you're done with it 'quick' for a 3rd tier you've got a ton of options of where to go next. Sometimes a career being 'fast' is good.

Yeah, it's the old job system method of diverting into poo poo you don't really care about long-term for one really baller bonus.

grassy gnoll posted:

Is it ever mentioned how skaven assay and issue their coke-tokens? Is there a cocaine mint or some central bank that's the only sacrosanct thing in their culture?

That seems like a major avenue for loving with your rivals, but I don't recall even the slightest mention of it in the RPG or TT books.

I think the purity of warp tokens is backed by the full faith and credit of the Council and to deny that would be to deny the Horned Rat himself, so it kinda works. Also the Grey Seers have a vested interest in all warp tokens being the same.

Feinne fucked around with this message at 18:24 on Dec 7, 2018

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

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

The Career system in 2e is for real my favorite RPG advancement system. I see what they tried to do in 4e but I don't think they nailed it since the 4 tiers of each career are just kind of level-ups of that career.

The main issue with it is this weird brainworm it gives some of the authors where they think, like, a character in Agitator does nothing but be an Agitator all the time rather than 'this is an adventurer who know how to agitate'.

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003

La morte non ha sesso
There are some clunky things about the Careers system, but I love it in spite of myself. A game where you're a Fighter with Background: Ratcatcher just isn't the same.

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

OvermanXAN posted:

EDIT: Consider what the likely outcome of killing Gnawdwell would be. Queek gets on the Council, screams VENGEANCE-VENGEANCE and then murders everyone else in the room. All of them.

Or Pestilens murders him with a plague. Queek's a terrifying fighter, but Pestilens doesn't need to fight him directly.

NGDBSS
Dec 30, 2009






Night10194 posted:

The Career system in 2e is for real my favorite RPG advancement system. I see what they tried to do in 4e but I don't think they nailed it since the 4 tiers of each career are just kind of level-ups of that career.

The main issue with it is this weird brainworm it gives some of the authors where they think, like, a character in Agitator does nothing but be an Agitator all the time rather than 'this is an adventurer who know how to agitate'.
At least it's not the cargo-cult wonkiness that you find in the career tables of Dark Heresy 1E/Rogue Trader/Deathwatch. Those were so much of a mess in practice that while Aptitudes in Black Crusade/Only War/Dark Heresy 2E were still Not Good they were certainly less bad than working off a giant clusterfuck of lookups.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

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

I actually think Aptitudes are straight up worse than the Career System in DH since they create a more fully 'solved' system with nothing to gate you off from just rushing the same build with most PCs, but it's a 'stabbed vs. shot' thing. They're both terrible. The variable costs in DH still generally funneled you into specific builds and trying to go against type at all would often gently caress you, and you were at the mercy of the talent/skill writers remembering you needed things (Hello, Scum can't even do stealth until 3rd level).

I just remember being really excited about Only War (I was still kind of into 40k when it came out) and then being immensely disappointed by it. It's the game that really laid bare 'this system absolutely doesn't work' for me. Which is why it's the only one I didn't do for the 40kRP line, because it would've just been me screaming at it for 20 updates and we got enough of that over the rest of 40kRP's terrible mess of a system. By OW, they're out of 'interesting mess' and into just 'mess'.

E: The relative flaws of the two are basically a matter of taste at that point. 4e's system seems much more focused than 2e's but not necessarily a problem like either of the 40k styles of advancement. To me the key of Fantasy's advancement system is it's very 'positive'. You're always getting solidly better at something as you climb up. Say I'm an Initiate and decide I'm going to switch out to Barber Surgeon, I will outright get better at some stuff (and in important ways) in return for not becoming a Priest immediately (or even ever, because I've also opened up other ways to advance). Or a Knight falls and becomes a Chaos character during a campaign; suddenly doing Cult Initiate/Magus will make that character, who is still good at Knight things, into a competent-ish cultist at the same time. The only thing that really feels like it can screw you is sticking around 1st tiers, swapping between them, for a little too long.

Also on a dumb fluffy level it does a good job of telling a 'story' for your character, so to speak. When you're high level and you look back at all the weird poo poo you've done to get there, it feels textured. You can mechanically follow the path of a guy who gets kicked out of their religious order and finds a new job, or drops out of college and gets dragged into vampire hunting, or whatever. Similarly, for major enemies, something like the Cultists classes are a really good way to build villains who have 'day jobs'. That knight in the above example isn't just a wizard of Chaos or whatever, he's totally capable of looking like a normal knight, doing knight things, infiltrating knightly orders. The Chaos builds on top.

Night10194 fucked around with this message at 19:01 on Dec 7, 2018

White Coke
May 29, 2015
Queek's greatest enemy is the Night Goblin Warlord Skarsnik, and now I wonder how much help Skarsnik gets from other clans out to sabotage Mors.

Feinne posted:

EDIT: It's occurred to me that a lot of things suggest female Skaven are smarter than their brothers are giving them credit for, and to be fair not going along with the whole 'eat bon-bons and be stoned off your rear end and pregnant all day' would mean actually participating in Skaven society.

It could also be that the giant brood mothers are just another Moulder invention and the only reason they're necessary is because most female Skaven don't want to be relegated to Kinder, Küche, Kirche. They want be the ones ruling when the Skaven INHERIT-INHERIT the surface.

OvermanXAN
Nov 14, 2014

White Coke posted:

Queek's greatest enemy is the Night Goblin Warlord Skarsnik, and now I wonder how much help Skarsnik gets from other clans out to sabotage Mors.

It's possible but Skarsnik is a legit badass for a Night Goblin, on the other hand...

NGDBSS
Dec 30, 2009






Eh, there were enough distinct things you could buy with Aptitudes that there wasn't really a One True Build for anything. That said, Aptitudes as presented in the books had the massive problem of delineating purchases into "buy this now because it's half-price" vs. "it's at regular price, take it if you like" vs. "technically you can take this but it costs so stupid much that haha we're just presenting false choices". And the effect was that, like with builds in D&D 3E and PF, you were absolutely encouraged to pre-plan and min-max your Aptitudes so that your build could get going as fast as possible. It was bad enough that when I used to run DH2E (and a brief foray into converting the fluff of RT to DH2E's system) I straight-up rejiggered the cost structure so that Aptitudes weren't so much of a straitjacket.

But like you said it's kind of a matter of taste. I could actually stomach those issues more than looking over several different tables at once for RT or DW characters, since I used to be part of the D&D 3E optimization community on the Wizards boards. That game made 40K RPG look tame in comparison with how much book-diving and record-keeping you might have to do to work out a character to suit your vision. So if I don't have to deal with the bullshit of character accounting I can be that much happier.

Edit: This is also why I will continue to yell at my current tabletop group about playing less crunchy games, because I've absolutely had to deal with thousands of pages of it in multiple games and it was so rarely worth it when poo poo like narrative permissions can suffice.

Dawgstar
Jul 15, 2017

OvermanXAN posted:

It's possible but Skarsnik is a legit badass for a Night Goblin, on the other hand...

Yeah. Even Orcs are happy to let him be King Under the Mountain, and he's one of those Greenskin leaders who show the scariest thing in the Old World is getting said Greenskins to organize on a mass scale.

Comrade Gorbash
Jul 12, 2011

My paper soldiers form a wall, five paces thick and twice as tall.
Part of the issue with the Warhammer antagonist factions in general is just an artifact of the war game requiring an eternal stalemate for game balance and marketing reasons. The way that manifests with Skaven in particular is that, when a writer finds themselves in a corner, they just default to "Skaven plans always blow up in their faces" and return things to the status quo.

But that doesn't have to be true when you're running the RPG, which immediately makes the Skaven much more credible. And as OvermanXAN pointed out, it might make Skaven one of the [i[most[/i] useful antagonist factions since a Skaven scheme coming off doesn't automatically mean "you lose, everyone dies" the way it tends to with Chaos and the like.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!

Night10194 posted:

The bit with him actually taking his son (who he acknowledges as his son) aside and saying 'You're not a freak, it's okay that you really like fighting people directly and I'm proud of you' (which then makes Queek fanatically loyal) is a great example of why Gnawdwell is dangerous and why Purple is 100% right that until Skaven's less-lovely meter hits 'no longer xenocidal' any less shittiness from the Skaven is going to make them more dangerous and thus paradoxically more lovely.

It turns out that Skaven are so starved for positive reinforcement that it's like mind control(if you can get them to believe it's not a backhanded insult or secret manipulation), like, in Skaven society, there's (apparently outside of Mors) no such thing as actual appreciation of another Skaven. A compliment is intended to butter up their ego, to distract, placate or bribe them, and if a Skaven acknowledges another as competent it's only with the deepest of jealousy and insistencies that they only got there via cheating or aren't actually as competent as they seem to be.

When the Clan Eshin assassin comes for you and asks if you have any last words before he pumps your body full of warpstone shurikens, just tell him about your boundless appreciation for his arts of stealth and murder and how cool you think his clan's Cathayan traditions are. It'll paralyze him long enough that you can carve his brain open and run away.

I could see a campaign where Skryre and Moulder expose Mors operations to adventurers and the like so the adventurers will target them... which inevitably backfires when the adventurers capture one of the Skryre/Moulder agents feeding them information and start taking their poo poo apart, too. "poo poo, gently caress, where are all the Mors guys we expected to protect us?!" "uhhhhh, we sold them out to the humans last week, remember?" "who could have foreseen such tragedy?!"

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

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

Also, Skaven often blow up just enough to give you a shot at fighting back, rather than entirely blowing themselves up. Like with Emperor Mandred. Yeah, he got an opening because of Skaven Issues and their poor decisions on mission creep in Sylvania, but he still had to rally an army, rescue other major population centers, put together the Empire, and defeat them in the field. It gave a hero an opening to get off the back foot but he still had to be a hero to win.

KingKalamari
Aug 24, 2007

Fuzzy dice, bongos in the back
My ship of love is ready to attack

Angrymog posted:

Could this avalanche of minutae be a result of them having to pad out what was probably relatively small booklet to what's an expected page count in the 2000s?

That's probably part of it, alongside the fact that, as Halloween Jack pointed out, this is an old as hell setting that had built up a large amount of lore piecemeal during its original run. My gripe about it is less that it's got a bunch of minutae and more that it crammed so much of it into the very first section of the Player's Guide. Gotta hook 'em right from the get-go!

Hostile V posted:

Always lowkey looking forward to what PC ancestry/class options are available so I can see how much I'm going to hate/ignore/like a d20 product. Interestingly mediocre so far.

From what I've heard of the setting beforehand it should get a bit more interesting in a gonzo-70s kind of way once we get into more of the actual setting details. It was from that era when fantasy fiction and science fiction weren't as clearly delineated and has a lot of weird blending between the two.

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003

La morte non ha sesso

Hostile V posted:

Always lowkey looking forward to what PC ancestry/class options are available so I can see how much I'm going to hate/ignore/like a d20 product. Interestingly mediocre so far.
You're in luck; the Wilderlands' race options are in fact ridiculously racist in a manner peculiar to 20th century pulp fantasy. The only games that are worse are noted Tolkienazi Varg Vikernes' MYFAROG and an OSR game called Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyberborea.

Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 03:25 on Dec 8, 2018

FMguru
Sep 10, 2003

peed on;
sexually

Angrymog posted:

Could this avalanche of minutae be a result of them having to pad out what was probably relatively small booklet to what's an expected page count in the 2000s?
"Avalanche of minutiae" was a pretty common characteristic of 60s/70s fantasy as a form of cheap verisimilitude. You came up with your own calendar, system of weights and measures, names for days/weeks/months, numbering system, currencies - or sometimes multiple versions of them - because in your imagined secondary world there are no miles or Saturdays or pounds. I think everyone was trying to be Tolkien, with the appendix full of fiddly details and timelines and calendars.

I'm not surprised a game supplement tracking back to that era fell into the same trope. Gygax's Greyhawk from the same time period was also full of similar boring ungameable nonsense (also: population numbers, migration maps, linguistic distributions, etc.). One reason I could never get into Tekumel (also from this era) was the investment required to learn all of Barker's invented terms for common things, although I know for a lot of people part of the fun of Tekumel is immersing yourself in its fully alien liguistic milieu.

As a style of worldbuilding, it's really fallen out of fashion. My favorite recent example is GRRM's World of Ice and Fire, in which people's ages are expressed in numbers identical to what we know (an 8 year old in Westeros is the same as an 8 year old here on earth) despite the fact that the hyperdetailed world (which just saw the publication of a 700 page pre-history of the setting) doesn't have stable seasons or year-lengths. When asked about it, GRRM just shrugged and quoted the opening credits to MST3K, because even he knows that no one has time to continually flip to the back of the book to translate sentences like "their army is camped 17 kelmor from the entrance to the pass; we have five glizma before it is closed to us; we must hurry".

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

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

There's a reason that while Hams technically has 400 day years with different months and seasons and names for every day, my group has always just called it Monday, Tuesday, etc and played it as a 365 day year and a 'normal' time span.

Because the 400 day year doesn't matter at all to any of the stories and only exists so they can say it isn't Earth.

So much of that kind of stuff is just totally pointless busywork.

FMguru
Sep 10, 2003

peed on;
sexually
I just took a look in my 1983 copy of Gygax's World of Greyhawk. The table of contents for the main book starts off with

quote:

Eastern Oerik in Relation to The Whole Oerth & The Heavenly Bodies...........4

Trees Common to the Flanaess......6

A Brief History of Eastern Oerik.......8
That's right, almost the first thing you get hit with when you crack open the guide to Greyhawk is a two-page article about motherfucking trees.

KingKalamari
Aug 24, 2007

Fuzzy dice, bongos in the back
My ship of love is ready to attack
Hey, did someone say racism and dull minutiae? I don't know why but that makes me think of...

The Wilderlands of High Fantasy | Part III: How Were People Still This Racist in the 70s?



So, the book starts the race options section off by telling players that they a character created using the rules in the 3.x PHB should be fine to play in the Wilderlands but also offers a bunch fo extra races and options to make a more "Wilderlands tailored" character.

Humans, or: "I don't care if you're black, white or purple..."

The human section starts off with...A treatise on skin color?



Rather than being some sort of weird aside into Robert E. Howard style racism it's instead a pleas from the creators to not drop the fact that a bunch of the humans have weird skin colours like blue and green because...It's truer to the material that inspired the original Wilderlands? I'm not a real scholar on oldschool pulp fantasy but I've seen this same thing come up in one or two OSR games, is there an actual source behind this? The only thing I can think of is the John Carter of Mars series with the variously coloured Martians?

Following that we get a quick general overview of Humans as a whole, which begins with the following line:

quote:

"Strictly speaking, the human race has no sub-races, only cultural and ethnic divisions—of which most humans unfortunately make far too much of a difference."

This would probably be a lot more noble and enlightened a sentiment if it weren't immediately followed by a strict categorization of the humans of the WIlderlands into various ethnic groups based on skin and hair colour that mechanically affects your character's skills, stats and occasionally attitudes to other races and genders!

We're also told that the most common humans are called "Mixed-blood" humans due to them being a mix of a bunch of the more specialized races and RPG designers didn't discover the concept of not being casually racist until the mid 2000s.

Default humans are basically the same as the PHB option and run the gamut of skin colours from "fair" to "pale olive", a spectrum that totally represents all of the possible tones a human is capable of possessing!

Alryans

The folks that hang out around the City State of the Invincible Overlord. Wide range of skin tones but mostly brown hair and eyes. We're told they're descended from a mix of Tharbrians and Altanians "but they consider themselves “civilized.”" loving hell, book, you wanna lay that poo poo on a little thicker?

They have a major hate-on for Tharbrians and barbarians, are generally Neutral, get a +1 racial bonus to spot checks and always get Sense Motive and Diplomacy as class skills. In exchange they don't get any starting languages but Common.

Antillian

People from the city of Antil, they are a mix of Alryan, Orichalan, Tharbrian, Elven and Antili. Their schtick is apparently being a mixture of every random racist stereotype you can think of, thrown in a big melting pot: They're super greedy, vengeful and prone to vendettas, ostentatious, general sexist pricks to women and love taking people as slaves. About the only good thing the book has to say about these guys is that they're "lithe and graceful" but notes if you compare them to half-elves (on account of their pointed ears) they will totally kick your rear end!

They described as swarthy, with a light build and are usually Neutral Evil (Hey, our first explicitly not-white race is the first evil one! Whee!). They gain a bonus to Bluff checks and get automatic proficiencies with daggers and rapiers but have a default "unfriendly" attitude to women with the associated social check penalties.

Hey book writers: Maybe you should have leaned a bit more heavily into that whole "Give the humans in this setting a bunch of weird skin colours that don't line up with people from Earth" thing you were apologizing for earlier!

Common Avalonian

The peasant-folk from the city of Valon. They're expert craftsmen, sailors and shipwrights who tend to dip into magic-use to aid them in their work. Generally neutral good, they have pale skin with a bluish tint and get Rope Use, Sail, Spellcraft and Swim as class skills.

Common Orichalan

We're told there aren't many of these guys left due to all being hunted down by the Altanians. They come in three sub-varieties:

Common Orichalans live on the Southern end of the Orichan Peninsula and are self-hating, "perhaps as a result of their “tainted blood,” over which they had no control" (Hey book, does HR need to send you in for sensitivity training, again?)

Moonraker Moor Folk are more wild and travel across the Wilderlands. They respect folks who stay on the road but will rob your rear end the second you step off it. We are told they're mostly dudes and the rarely seen women are usually powerful sorcerers. Roger Moore is currently trying to prevent them from building a rocket as part of a scheme to destroy the world.

Roglo River Folk are descended from the merchants of the extinct Dragon Empire and run river trading boats between The City State and Modron. We're told the locals consider them a "necessary evil" but aren't given much of a reason why anyone is put off by them?

Regardless of subrace they all have purplish skin (With occasional scaly patches) with dark hair. Their only major bonuses are a +1 to Craft (Alchemy), some subrace-specific favored classes and the option for Common Orichalans to take Orichalan or Draconic as a bonus language. In exchange they get a -1 to reaction rolls with everyone. We're told they're usually Neutral or Neutral Evil but there isn't really anything in the fluff that would lead us to believe so.

Common Viridian

Descendants of the original Viridians who founded the Empire of Viridistan (The Green Emperor and his wife apparently being the only remaining members of the original Viridian race) who are identified by their greenish skin. Not much else to them.

They're usually Lawful Neutral or Lawful evil and get Knowledge (Local: VIridistan) as a class skill. I feel like whoever was in charge of these guys really phoned it in.

Dunael

Native to Dearthwood and locked in a perpetual struggle with the Orcs of The Purple Claw. They're mostly Druids and Rangers these days but used to have a great civilization descended from the ancient Orichalans.

They're usually Chaotic or Neutral Good with bronzed tan skin and dark hair. They get Knowledge (Local: Dearthwood) and Survival as class skills and gain the feat Foe Hatred: Orcs.

Ghinoran

Descendants from the Ghinoran Successor States that split from the ancient Kelnoran Empire but fell thousands of years ago. They're now mostly a tribal society.

Generally have darker skin and hair (Though some have green eyes) are neutral and get absolutely no extra traits or bonuses relative to PHB humans. The most boring humans yet!

Gishmesh

Descendants of the two barbarian tribes that defeated the Kingdom of Kelnore. We are told that these guys "Retain their tribal feel". They're ruled by Sultans and are "ruthless merchants and pirates"...Uh oh, I don't like where this is going.

They have bronzed skin with brown or black hair and are usually Lawful Evil. They get Profession (Merchant) and Appraise as class skills and only have Gishmesh as a language option.

Karkhan

Not-Mongolians who come from off the map. They love horses, ritualized wrestling and pointed helms (Seriously, the book makes a big deal about those helms for some reason). They pride themselves as teh best mounted archers in the world and, well, nobody's really proved them wrong yet.

They're listed as being 5'2" on average with yellow skin and are often bow-legged (You were doing so well, book, you almost had a not-white option that didn't paint them as cartoonishly worse than white people!). Usually Lawful Neutral or Evil. They get Handle Animal and Ride as class skills alongside a +1 racial bonus to Ride and Mounted Warrior as a bonus feat.

Skandik

Vikings. These are straight-up Vikings. They even worship the Viking Gods. The book really hammers in that they like the water: They're ritually birthed in water, only build their cities on the coastlines, the men can't reach climax unless the ocean is visible, Some of them have webbed toes, etc. (Only one of those was made up!). They also only let their warriors grow beards for some reason.

Pretty much what you'd expect appearance-wise: blond-haired, blue-eyed and beefy with an aggressively Neutral alignment. They get Swim and Sail as class skills and a +2 Racial bonus to Swim.

Tharbrians

Hey, it's those guys that kept sacking Viridistan! What's their deal?

Well, they're nomads from the central Wilderlands who migrated in from the West. They're still mostly nomadic but a few of them have settled down (Modron was founded by these guys). They fancy themselves an honourable people with a strict code of battle that forbids killing the helpless, however in practice this translates to them taking a lot of slaves from the people they raid and conquer. Women hold equal status to men in Tharbrian society and their smiths are really good at what they do.

Tan skin with dark hair, they're described as Chaotic Neutral and get Ride and Survival as class skills.

Altanian

The Red Men of Barbarian Altanis. They're played up as being rad-rear end barbarians but it kind of falls flat after all the other barbarian cultures we've already encountered. The dudes are mostly warriors and are led by the quasi-religious Sword Knights who carry sacred ancestral swords. Women take care of pretty much everything else and apparently tend gardens with their innate druidic abilities. That said there is a single lodge of warrior women: The Ivory Swan.

They come in varying shades of red, ranging from "Probably just a case of rosacea" straight to "Is a Dragonball Z villain". The book apparently saved all the meaningful mechanical adjustments for these guys as they get a +2 to Strength and Constitution, a -2 to Intelligence and Charisma, Track as a bonus feat, Knowledge (Nature), Handle Animal and Survival as class skills with a +2 racial bonus to Survival and suffer the mechanical penalties of higher age groups one stage later than typical humans. The downside is that they don't get the bonus skill points of other humans.

Amazons

Big boob-ed warrior women who disdain armor. We're helpfully given an illustration of a topless warrior woman in a loincloth petting some kind of panther (It's probably supposed to be a sabre-toothed tiger, which they're briefly mentioned as riding). The books describes them as "...a race of humanoids dominated by the female.", (which leads me to believe the writer of this book is some sort of alien bug-person in a human skinsuit) and says they originate from far to the south and live in some sort of Amazon castle.

They touch on most of the fetishization and sexual politics you'd expect from a fictional race of warrior women written by 1970s neckbeards...

"Amazons take their captives as slaves, though only the female slaves are put to work. Male slaves (including male Amazons) are used solely for reproductive purposes and sport."

Their racial stats describe them as having a "lithe to voluptuous build" and they get a +2 bonus to Wisdom and Charisma as well as a "+1 psionic bonus to AC" if wearing specialized amazon or no armor. On the downside they do not gain armor proficiency feats as part of their base class features and their default attitude towards men is "unfriendly" with penalties to male characters making social rolls on them.

Despite the whole psionic armor bonus thing we're explicitly told they are only very rarely psionicists.

Avalonians

Merchants by trade and pompous jackasses one and all (Everyone in Avalonian society has a noble title, even the peasants). They are all about swimming and sailing (Some of them even have gills, apparently) and claim to be descended from merfolk and people from the Plane of Water. To complete the smugness inherrent to their people they are also almost all magic users specializing in ice and water spells (Wizards being, of course, the smuggest pricks amongst the class options).

They've got blue skin and blond hair (Which I am having a hard time picturing as not ridiculous looking) and are apparently Lawful Good (I'd have guessed otherwise from the write-up). They get a +2 to Intelligence and Charisma and a -2 to Wisdom and Constitution. They get Profession (Sailor), Rope Use, Sail, Spellcraft and Swim as class skills with a +2 racial bonus to Rope Use and Spellcraft and a +4 bonus to Swim as well as one level of cold resistance!

The gilled variety also get some extra features: They take an additional -2 to Constitution (Under the justification that their hybrid breathing system isn't as good in either air or water than someone with a specialized system) but can breathe underwater and get a +10 bonus to swim. This comes at the expense of a +2 racial adjustment level.

Alright, that takes care of the humans! That was...An experience. For the most part each of the human subraces are kind of bland mechanically and, aside from the Viridians, Avalonians and Orichalans, aren't too terribly interesting. The cultures as a whole show a lot of influence from the works of Robert E. Howard and it's weird seeing just how long Howard's particular brand of racism stuck around in fantasy circles.

Well, let's move onto the non-human races, which are hopefully less overtly racist!

Dwarves

Dwarves in the Widlerlands are exactly the same as Dwarves in literally every other work of fiction ever: They are short, stout miners who live underground and love beards, booze, gold and more beards. They come in five sub-varieties:

City Dwarves (aka Kazadrach)

These are the Dwarves that live in human cities. They have lost the beardy ways of their ancestors: The women have no facial hair while the best the dudes can muster is a well-trimmed goatee or handlebar mustache.

Basically trhe same as the Dwarves in the PHB but with a +2 bonus to Craft (Alchemy) and Bluff and Darkvision that only goes half as far (30ft).

Deep Dwarves (aka Kazadrugar)

The nerds of the Dwarf world. They shun the light and live deep in the dark bowels of their mom's basement Earth, studying dark magic so they can one day show Stacy up for not going to prom with them conquer the surface world. They keep Goblins and Trolls as slaves, worship demonsand and are weirdly hairless (I guess all a Dwarf's goodness is stored in the beard?).

They get a -2 to Strength and Charisma but a +2 to Dexterity and Intelligence as well as Darkvision to 120ft and the bonus feat Spell Focus if they take a magically-inclined class. On the downside they take a -1 in daylight.

Hill Dwarves (aka Karazdurlul)

Pretty Dwarfy all around: They worship a Dwarf King and their warriors tend to work together in mercenary bands. The dudes grow passable beards while the women (Who the book notes hold equal status in Hill Dwarf Society) usually sport rad sideburns or moustaches.

They get a +2 to Constitution, a -2 to Charisma, Darkvision to 60ft and a +1 attack bonus against Goblins and Trolls.

Mountain Dwarves (aka Kazadaran)

The Dwarfiest of all Dwarves! They live in an honour-based society with a rigid social structure. Lady-Dwarves are super rare and are thus kept secreted away from the rest of the world. Both men and women grow the raddest of beards, though men are way more vain about their facial hair.

They get +2 Strength and Constitution but -2 Dexterity and Charisma, Darkvision to 60ft and a +1 attack bonus against goblins and orcs.

Feral Dwarves

We're given a brief section on the Wild Dwarves of the Jungles of Chim who have sunken to barbarism and cannibalism and aren't even capable of language. You can play as one if you want to but considering they take a -2 to Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma I don't see why you would ever want to. On the plus side they don't take a penalty to Dexterity like normal Dwarves?

Elves

Everyone's favorite race of smug assholes, Elves in The Wilderlands come in 9 sub-varieties:

Dark Elves

Basically The Drow. In a nice change of pace we're explicitly told their name does not come from the colour of their skin, which is actually pale white, but from the...ashes of their great forges? Dammit book! That's the same excuse the Dutch used to try and justify their blackface Christmas mascot!

They get a +2 to Dexterity and Charisma but a -2 to Constitution and Intelligence. The have 120ft Darkvision but suffer from LIght blindness. They get no automatic weapon proficiencies but do get 4 0-level Sorcerer spells as spell-like abilities.

High Elves

The most common of Elves, they mostly hang out in the northern reaches and considered their widely dispersed settlements to form a single, united kingdom called Alfheim. They really don't like Orcs and like to team up with the Dunael Woods-Folk to gently caress up the Purple Claw tribe.

They have no significant modifications from PHB Elves aside from a slight difference in languages and favored class.

Gray Elves

The whitest of the already very white Elves, these guys are supposed to be the closest thing around to the Ancient Elves of yor. They're basically super serious fuddy-duddys who rarely take a hand in mortal affairs. Apparently one of them founded the City State of the Invincible Overlord.

They get a -2 to Strength and Constitution but a +2 to Dexterity and Intelligence.

Mer-Elves

Underwater Elves. They have fish tails and die of dehydration if they're out of the water for too long, so good luck actually playing one in a campaign. Once per day they can turn their tail into legs, but it only lasts an hour. We're told there are rumours that they can extend the duration of this but that does very little good in making them actually playable using RAW.

Northern Elves

Also called the Alvar or Blue Elves migrated to the Wilderlands from the Great Glacier to the North and are racists to all the other Elves because they are especially big jerks. There is nothing to distinguish them from other Elves besides having blue skin.

Southern Elves

Also called Altan or Red Elves are the Elves who are native to Altanis. Like the humans they are rad barbarians, which the book seems to want to paint as a bad thing but honestly these guys sound way more fun than their dork-rear end cousins.

Another point in their favor is that, unlike the Blue Elves, they actually have stuff that mechanically distinguishes them from other Elves! They get +2 to Strength and Constitution but a -2 to Dexterity and Charisma as well as Darkvision and a +1 attack bonus against orcs and Goblins.

Wild Elves

Also called the Green Elves, they are reminiscent of The Incredible Hulk in both skin colour and their desire to be left alone. They live out in the woods, forsake modern technology, wipe their asses with leaves and are hostile to outsiders.

They get +2 Dexterity but -2 Intelligence.

Wood Elves

Basically Wild Elves Lite. They live in the woods but are less reclusive, when High Elves are around they pay lip service to the whole "Alfheim" but don't actually give a poo poo. They get a +2 to Strength and Dexterity but a -2 to Constitution and Intelligence.

Feral Elves

Basically the same deal as the Feral Dwarves only applied to Elves. They also get the same -2 to Constitution, Intelligence and Charisma with only a +2 to Dexterity to offset it.

Gnomes

Poor Gnomes get less than half a page and no mechanical differences from the PHB. We are told of a few cultural variants: City Gnomes, who tend to be sorcerers and alchemists; Forest Gnomes, who are described as "pudgy and roly-poly" and tend to shy away from other folks; Lightelf Gnomes, who have abandoned magic in favor of kicking rear end and taking names; and Red Cap Gnomes, who are colossal assholes that live in ruins and murder folks.

Half-Elves

Same as the PHB but with a short section making Half-Mer-Elves, who are not as narravitely limited as their full-Elf parent but still need to immerse themselves in water at least an hour a day and take a whopping -4 to Constitution! They get a +2 to Dexterity and the ability to breath underwater but I don't feel that's much of a consolation.

Half-Orcs

Alright, I am actually a big fan of Orcs and their variants as a playable race in general, so I was looking forward to this! Given the general barbarian-heavy nature of so many of the other options I'm sure they have some interesting stuff for the ol' Half-Orc. So, I get to the section on the Half-Orcs at the bottom of page 25, see the usual note about creating them as per the PHB, turn the page, and...

The section ends. Half-Orcs' entire write-up is just "Use the PHB".

Halflings

Ugh, after that let-down Halflings do little to make up for it. They have the same basic set-up as Gnomes: No mechanical differences but some fluff listed for a few subraces. You've got the craft-loving Common Halflings, the Tolkien-clone Highland Halflings and the burly Stouts.

And with that wet fart of a finale we end the races section. This book is turning out a lot less enthralling than I'd hoped: I was promised barbarians fighting alien dinosaurs and instead all I'm getting is racism and warmed over D&D staples! Next up is the Classes, which will hopefully pick things up...

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

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

KingKalamari posted:

This would probably be a lot more noble and enlightened a sentiment if it weren't immediately followed by a strict categorization of the humans of the WIlderlands into various ethnic groups based on skin and hair colour that mechanically affects your character's skills, stats and occasionally attitudes to other races and genders!

I think we can thus classify the preceding section as 'I'm not a racist, BUT-'

And it is just science that after that BUT is comin' the most racist poo poo you can imagine.

Also I think you can tell how bad a fantasy setting is by if it has more than like, 2-3 flavors of elf.

Echo Cian
Jun 16, 2011

Mors Rattus posted:

So far as I know, it's still going.

This doc only has until 2016 but there are more recent entries.

This was a while back, but I double-checked, and the last actual update was the last entry on this list. He's spent two years reposting them. The official LB index ends after the movie and doesn't even include Nicolae: Rise of the Antichrist, so this is the most complete list. (And I just added the posts he's put under that tag since then.)

Last October he was still trying to convince himself to continue. I hope he can, eventually, but I can't say I blame him for having a hard time finding the motivation after 2016...


On-topic, all I've liked from The End is the entry on Gabriel. I might save that. The game is dumb but I always enjoy when those of you who've studied religion have an excuse to speak up. I grew up religious, so naturally I don't know any of this poo poo.

Zereth
Jul 9, 2003



FMguru posted:

"Avalanche of minutiae" was a pretty common characteristic of 60s/70s fantasy as a form of cheap verisimilitude. You came up with your own calendar, system of weights and measures,
I kinda like the way FF14 handles this. Weights are measured in ponzes and onzes, lengths ilms and fulms, etc.

They're identical to pounds/ounces and inches/feet, and close enough you can tell this from context. Just different enough to remind you that it's Not Earth, and close enough you don't actually need to learn anything new.

FMguru
Sep 10, 2003

peed on;
sexually

Zereth posted:

I kinda like the way FF14 handles this. Weights are measured in ponzes and onzes, lengths ilms and fulms, etc.

They're identical to pounds/ounces and inches/feet, and close enough you can tell this from context. Just different enough to remind you that it's Not Earth, and close enough you don't actually need to learn anything new.
Yeah, that's good. There was one Glorantha supplement that did something similar, where all the map distances were measured in "keymiles" or "km", and guess what one keymile was roughly equivalent to?

Robindaybird
Aug 21, 2007

Neat. Sweet. Petite.

and keymile sounds like a possible unit of measurement - way too many drown in Minutae type settings end up giving 'cat walk on keyboard' or 'Suessian rejects' type names to stuff.

FMguru
Sep 10, 2003

peed on;
sexually
Speaking of recurring characteristics of 60s/70s fantasy, is Wilderlands also one of those fantasy settings with SF elements grafted into it (a crashed spaceship, a citadel protected by robots, a malfunctioning AI computer that's worshipped by the locals as a god, a long-vanished race of Ancients whose leftover high-tech artifacts seem magical, etc.)?

By popular demand
Jul 17, 2007
Probation
Can't post for 21 hours!
Has any FRPG ever just gave you the fantasy units of measure at the start and then said "but for simplicity and ease this work is entirely in earth units"?

Speleothing
May 6, 2008

Spare batteries are pretty key.
Loving all the usually Evil humans. Particularly love that Vikings are one of the exceptions. Because longboat raids were happy funtimes, unlike horse nomad raids.

Terrible Opinions
Oct 18, 2013



KingKalamari posted:

Rather than being some sort of weird aside into Robert E. Howard style racism it's instead a pleas from the creators to not drop the fact that a bunch of the humans have weird skin colours like blue and green because...It's truer to the material that inspired the original Wilderlands? I'm not a real scholar on oldschool pulp fantasy but I've seen this same thing come up in one or two OSR games, is there an actual source behind this? The only thing I can think of is the John Carter of Mars series with the variously coloured Martians?
I know that at least pops up in Fafhr and the Grey Mouser with the transparent skinned people, and it seems to be something people think they remember about old pulp but I can't find many instances of weird skin colored people from those old pulps.

Speleothing
May 6, 2008

Spare batteries are pretty key.
Possibly old comic books?
Colorists just doing whatever because black/brown skin messed up the contrasts?

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Feinne
Oct 9, 2007

When you fall, get right back up again.
Alright now it’s time for a special edition, Aberrant Player’s Guide Merits and Flaws! Because those are never a hornet’s nest of poorly thought through nonsense for powergamers!

So, Merits and Flaws. You can only take them at character creation, and they give/cost Bonus Points. That’s already a good idea, you can’t use them to buy a bunch of extra Powers or w/e, they happen before Nova Points. They DO let you have some points that you could use instead of Nova Points, though. The text suggests that you shouldn’t let people have more than ten points of Flaws, just on the grounds that the person’s probably fuckin’ around at that point without using those specific words. There’s a couple of Merits that are basically the same as Enhancements, and they don’t stack if they do. If you’ve got the Mega-Attribute in question, you just get the Enhancement for free and lose the Merit.

I’m going to talk about all of these briefly, going to stream of consciousness through the book here.

Physical Merits and Flaws:

Acute Sense: One Point Merit. Add an extra die to your Perception rolls involving one sense, compatible with Mega-Perception. This isn’t super broken compared to the cost of a full Perception point, and thus is probably pretty okay.

Ambidextrous: One Point Merit. You don’t get an off-hand penalty or a penalty for using two weapons at once. You, in fact, get an extra die if you’re dual-wielding. You need one of Dexterity 3 and Wits 3, or either Mega-Attribute to take this. It doesn’t affect your ability to take multiple actions so it’s probably okay.

Huge Size: Four Point Merit. You’re a big motherfucker. You get an extra Bruised health level and + 1 Stamina for the purposes of soaking Bashing damage. Like the last one, you either need Strength and Stamina 3 or either Mega-Attribute to take this. The extra health level is what you really get out of this, which is hard to value properly but I’m willing to say this is probably just bad honestly. You’re way more likely to just get splatted in one hit than somehow go ‘yeah I lived because I had this’.

Short: One Point Flaw. You run at half speed, and short people ain’t got no reason to live. It’s exactly the sort of Flaw people take for essentially free points and shouldn’t exist.

Speech Impediemnt: One Point Flaw. When you’re under stress people have to roll to understand what you’re saying, so just always make sure you never need to talk under stress and this is a free bonus point. Sigh.

Weak Sense: One Point Flaw. One of your senses suffers a + 2 difficulty to Perception rolls using it unless you have some kind of way to correct for it. This can apply to Nova extrasensory powers if you have them. This is the kind of bullshit that is free points until your Storyteller gets sick of you being a powergamer and murders you because you can’t smell or w/e.

Dependence: One to Seven Point Flaw. You need a certain substance or environment to survive, and if you go too long without or outside it you start taking damage. The more points this is worth, the rarer or more often you need the thing in question. This is probably okay, especially for things like modeling someone who’s become amphibian. But be careful as hell about it, don’t let some rear end in a top hat take a free point by needing to drink loving water every day like this implies could be a thing.

Mute: Two Point Flaw. You can’t speak. Literal free points if you’re just a shitkicker but you’re definitely committing to that.

One Eye: Two Point Flaw. Gives you extra difficulty to ranged attack rolls and Perception rolls. Probably more trouble than it’s worth unless you’re a close combat munchkin build.

Addiction/Compulsion: Two to Four Point Flaw. Sort of like Dependence, but you take difficulty penalties instead of damage. Two point flaws are for things that are legal, four suggests the thing isn’t so much or is otherwise a fucker to get. You’re allowed to be addicted to your powers which lol good job White Wolf you idiots.

Lame: Two to Four Point Flaw. Mike Pence has this flaw. I kid, your legs don’t work right. At two points you move at quarter speed and obviously limp, and at four you need crutches or braces. This is either really nasty or meaningless.

Deaf: Three Point Flaw. You can’t hear. You automatically fail any rolls involving hearing and you can’t have any power or enhancement that requires hearing. You are immune to anything that would require you to hear it, and can learn to read lips and/or sign with Linguistics. Could be annoying enough to actually justify the cost.

Disability: Three Point Flaw. Pick an Attribute, you suffer + 2 difficulty to rolls involving it. Picking Strength for a character who focuses on things like Quantum Blasts is basically free points, honestly.

Disfigured: Three Point Flaw. You are Appearance 0 like a Nosferatu, and can’t ever raise it. You automatically fail all rolls that rely on Appearance except Intimidation. For some Tainted characters this is definitely free points, to the extent that I wouldn’t let those fuckers get away with taking it.

Blind: Six Point Flaw. You can’t have any sight-related powers or enhancements and life in general kind of sucks for you even if you’ve got some powers that can compensate. Doing your poo poo through a sensory power requires you to roll your power, then act at + 5 difficulty with your successes on the sensory power negating difficulty one for one. That’s super rear end, don’t be Daredevil.

Paraplegic: Six Point Flaw. You’re Professor X, you need a wheelchair and even if you have powers that can move you without it you can’t fuckin’ walk. Presumably if you’re taking this power your character concept doesn’t need you to be super mobile so this is probably kinda broken maybe. Hard to say, the penalties are nasty so maybe six bonus points aren’t really worth it?

Mental Merits and Flaws:

Concentration: One Point Merit. You don’t suffer penalties for distractions other than wounds and get a one die bonus to Meditation rolls. This is probably mostly okay, most penalties in combat aren’t going to fall under it so fine.

Internal Compass: One Point Merit. You have an excellent sense of direction and can orient yourself or retrace your steps with relatively easy rolls. Legit probably a fair and good one.

Time Sense: One Point Merit. You are good at keeping track of time and can estimate roughly what time it is and for example how long you were asleep or knocked out. You can’t take this if you have Temporal Manipulation. Also you shouldn’t take this because lol get a loving watch.

Devotion: Two Point Merit. You pick a cause, and attempts to sway you from it get + 3 difficulty as long as you are faithful to it. If you gently caress up, though, you’ll need to make amends to get the benefit back. Very questionably worth the points.

Lightning Calculator: Two Point Merit. Basically the Mathematical Savant Enhancement from Mega-Intelligence, it has the same system and you can’t have both. Bonus Points are less valuable than Nova Points I guess so meh.

Speed Reading: Two Point Merit. The Speed Reading Enhancement, in Merit form. Whatever, same as above.

High Pain Tolerance: Three Point Merit. You suffer one less wound penalty than normal. You still suffer damage as normal, though. Reasonably okay, honestly, when it comes up it’s pretty valuable. The questionable part is that you’re often going to just get splatted.

Photographic Memory: Three Point Merit. Just like the Eidetic Memory Enhancement, but it costs one more bonus point than the others that are just replicates. Okay.

Iron Will: Six Point Merit. You can spend a Willpower to just NOPE a Social Ability or mental power that’s trying to control you. That’s pretty powerful and unique, and I’m not sure it would have fit well as an Enhancement, so I like it. Might be overly expensive? Hard to say.

Costume Fetish: One Point Flaw. What the gently caress do you think it is from the name. You’re a weirdo and suffer penalties if you’re ever not in some specific sort of costume. This both fits and is so goddamn nineties, I hate it.

Intolerance: One Point Flaw. You’re a huge bigot and suffer + 2 difficulty to Social rolls involving the sort of person you’re a piece of poo poo about. Nope.

Lusty: One Point Flaw. You’re a sexmonster. No, no, loving no.

Overconfidence: One Point Flaw. Thank god, something less lovely. The Storyteller will always describe things to you as though they are going to be easier than they are, and you have trouble backing down from direct challenges. See, this is actually a fun one, unlike racism and sex perversion.

Trademark: One Point Flaw. You Zorro the gently caress out of things. Fan of this, there IS a downside and it won’t actually fit for all characters so not everyone is going to just take it for a free point.

Pacifist: One or Four Point Flaw. At one point you have to spend a Willpower to start a fight, though you can fight back normally unless you want to use a lethal attack (which costs a Willpower as well). If you get the four point version, you need to spend Willpower to fight at all and can’t use lethal attacks period. Saying this is pretty bad would be an understatement, do not take this.

Obsession: Two Point Flaw. You need to roll Willpower to resist chasing whatever your particular rabbit is down its hole when it comes up. Lots of risk of this one either being meaningless or creepy, soft pass.

Overwhelmed: Two Point Flaw. You don’t do well in chaotic situations, and get a difficulty penalty in them. You can’t have this and Concentration. Not the worst if you’re going for a character who’s not really about combat, I mean I’d have to take this if making myself to I can’t poo poo on it too hard.

Phobia: Two Point Flaw. You need to roll Willpower at + 1 difficulty to stay in the presence of the thing you’re afraid of, and if you botch you nope right out of things. Don’t let people be cheap as poo poo by taking dumb phobias.

Vengeful: Two Point Flaw. You need to roll Willpower not to take revenge on people you’re upset at. I like this one more, it has an actual penalty but at least says something interesting about your character.

Combat Paralysis: Three Point Flaw. You roll Initiative twice each time and take the worst result. This is fine, it’s bad but not in a way that’s insurmountable. Equally, though, you would have to build around it for it to be no problem at all.

Flashbacks: Three Point Flaw. Another one of the ‘roll Willpower or freak out’ flaws, but it’s to do with a specific situation. I’m less annoyed by this one, it fits well with the idea that a lot of Novas erupted under traumatic circumstances and it’s easier and more thematic to trigger it as a Storyteller.

Low Pain Threshold: Three Point Flaw. You suffer one more level of penalty from injuries than you normally would if you’re injured, and resisting pain in general is harder for you. I’m okay with this one, it’s a real tradeoff.

Amnesia: Three to Five Point Flaw. At three points you’re an amnesiac who doesn’t know who they are. At five, you don’t even know what you can do (you literally don’t even build your character in this option, your Storyteller actually does that and keeps your sheet and you’ve just gotta sort of figure out what the hell you can do by how well you do at it, presumably though you do get with the Storyteller and tell them what you’re wanting roughly). This is at least an interesting one.

Uneducated: Five Point Flaw. You don’t have basic education. It’s more expensive to buy Intelligence-based Abilities and you’re limited to two dots in them at creation. A shaky one to exist because a lot of people building combat characters might look at it as five free points because who gives a gently caress about the costs of Abilities they don’t care about.

Social Merits and Flaws:

Natural Leader: One Point Merit. Take an extra die for Leadership rolls, two if you’re leading from the front as it were.

Sexy: One Point Merit. Why White Wolf, why?

Debt: One to three Point Merit or Flaw. This can be either, either you owe a significant debt or someone owes one to you. Fine, especially since it’s a one-time thing either way.

Minority: One Point Flaw. For whatever reason a large percentage of the population are super lovely to you and you suffer difficulty penalties with social rolls as a result. Great. Just being a Nova doesn’t count, because most people like Novas.

Secret: One/Three/Five Point Flaw. More points means a secret that would cause you more trouble if revealed. You’ll need to work out with the Storyteller what the hell is up, but this one is probably okay.

Bad Vibe: One to Three Point Flaw. You suffer a + 1 difficulty to social rolls for each point of this just because you seem like a creeper. Incels all have this at + 3.

Enemy: One to Seven Point Flaw. The stronger the enemy and the more they dislike you, the more points. A one point enemy might as well be a sitcom rival, seven points will be a really spooky fucker who wants your blood. At high points this is supposed to be really dangerous, that’s fine.

Dependant: Four Point Flaw. You’ve got someone you depends on you, like a family member or loved one. This one’s okay, you get rewarded for having someone that can become a plot hook. Also punch your Storyteller if they legit fridge your loved one.

Quantum Merits and Flaws:

Eufiber Attuned: One to Three Point Merit. You can store one more point of Quantum in attuned Eufiber for each point. This is fine, it makes Eufiber even better defensively but isn’t super overpowered.

Quantum Recovery: One to Three Point Merit. Each point increases your Quantum recovery by one point per hour. Again, I’m actually okay with this, it’s not super powerful but it does help you.

Taint Resistant: Five Point Merit. Your botches only give you temporary Taint if you get at least two ones, and you can’t gain Taint from botching rolls for rapid Quantum recovery at all. This is both really good and probably fair cost wise, honestly. Five bonus points is a loving lot.

Eufiber Rejection: Two Point Flaw. You can’t attune to Eufiber at all, which sucks for you if you don’t have the Attunement background but do have powers that would gently caress your clothes up. Better have some stretchy purple shorts or something. Potential easy points, if you don’t have powers that would destroy your clothes and don’t want to take Eufiber.

I’ll stop there for today, next time we move into some more detail on backgrounds.

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