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Thank you. That's a much more specific and actionable piece of feedback - I can do things with that.
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Jan 18, 2019 17:40
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Like, what was the goal of the art direction, exactly? What were they trying to achieve as an aesthetic?
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Jan 18, 2019 17:41
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Night10194 posted:Like, what was the goal of the art direction, exactly? What were they trying to achieve as an aesthetic? I'll let our art director speak for himself on that front if he chooses. It would be inappropriate for me to risk misrepresenting him on a topic like this. RiotGearEpsilon fucked around with this message at 17:52 on Jan 18, 2019 |
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Jan 18, 2019 17:50
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Of course, I definitely understand. Still, thank you for your comments on things. I'm happy to have brought MS to some peoples' attention, because I think it's a really interesting example of its genre and a generally well designed game. Like yeah, my review was 'you should consider buying this game if you like crunchy space opera' because I genuinely think it's a well done crunchy space opera game. Though I'm going to need to tweak the crafting system, or else I've definitely misunderstood something about it, because so far a competent engineer can make almost anything in the game in one or two intervals.
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Jan 18, 2019 17:55
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Night10194 posted:Though I'm going to need to tweak the crafting system, or else I've definitely misunderstood something about it, because so far a competent engineer can make almost anything in the game in one or two intervals. That's intentional! We want people to be able to make their own gear, without having to jump through a billion hoops to do it. Myriad Song isn't like Dungeons and Dragons, or Exalted, or even Shadowrun - your equipment isn't expected to just keep getting better and better forever. You can start the game with The Best Possible Gun or close to it. Because of that, there's no reason to make equipment crafting require extreme investment in personal abilities, as in Exalted, or cost of irreplaceable personal resources, like DnD. It's meant to be doable. If you make an engineer, you can build things. poo poo should work.
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Jan 18, 2019 17:59
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This is ironically way more realistic than any simulationist game I know of.
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Jan 18, 2019 18:02
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That was one of the questions I had had on the gear section in general in the review, whether or not there was intended to be a 'progression' of equipment. It was just so much cheaper and easier than buying things that I'd suspected I'd misread the interactions with Proscribed and Rare. In that case, Lady Solan's hand-built autocannon from her buddy Kenna is go (most of the example characters I used in the review are past or present PCs). E: Engineers in general have a ton of different ways to do a lot of useful stuff. Also the Trait/Aim/whatever systems mean almost everyone can still do something in combat or non-combat situations even when they aren't specialized for them, which is good. The big party merc being able to say 'I'm using Body+Athletics to help lift heavy stuff and help with the engine repair' is a small thing, but nice to have. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 18:09 on Jan 18, 2019 |
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Jan 18, 2019 18:02
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Dawgstar posted:What? No rules for brewing beer? I cannot be the post-apocalyptic Bob or Doug McKenzie? Kevin, I am shattered. Brewing was in New West. Given they're (Along with the It's worth just quoting for how little sense the text of it makes, my eyes glazed over because New West was loaded with new skills, but this packs a new level of confusing into nearly every sentence:. Rifts World Book 14: New West posted:Brewing: The understanding and methods of making fermented alcoholic beverages from grains and fruits. This specifically includes wine, mead, ale, beer and moonshine. Stronger alcohol, such as brandy, rum, and whiskey, are not included, nor are champagnes or fine wines. The first percentile number indicates the chance of success (a failed roll means an undrinkable batch of booze). The second indicates the quality of the brew — the higher the number rolled the tastier the drink.
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Jan 18, 2019 18:11
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Makes sense. I mean, come on, imagine how brokenly overpowered it would be if you gave players the ability to make champagne!
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Jan 18, 2019 18:15
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If your players make sparkling wine anywhere outside northeastern France and call it champagne, sicc Stone on them!!!
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Jan 18, 2019 18:17
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Halloween Jack posted:If your players make sparkling wine anywhere outside northeastern France and call it champagne, sicc Stone on them!!! This!
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Jan 18, 2019 18:22
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more like Prosucco
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Jan 18, 2019 18:24
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Night10194 posted:Also the Trait/Aim/whatever systems mean almost everyone can still do something in combat or non-combat situations even when they aren't specialized for them, which is good. The big party merc being able to say 'I'm using Body+Athletics to help lift heavy stuff and help with the engine repair' is a small thing, but nice to have. We want people playing the game to be in a position to ask themselves, "What can I do here to help?" and have an answer at hand. We want to encourage players to collaborate and cooperate, not to silo completely in to their own specializations. I'm glad the rules are helping on that front!
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Jan 18, 2019 18:32
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Ironclaw 1e I loving LOVE GAME MECHANICS So. This is going to be a different kind of review for me. See, the fluff in Ironclaw didn't really change between editions. And I already wrote up 2e. So if you're interested in the fluff and setting of Calabria and the history of Walt Disney Presents: The Borgias (Thanks to Mors Rattus for that alternate title for IC, it's pretty perfect) that stuff's all over in the archive under Ironclaw: Squaring the Circle. Instead, we're going to be talking about nothing but game mechanics, all the time! This is because Ironclaw 1e is the first Cardinal System game, and it's really, really mechanically interesting for what ended up getting carried over and what got dumpstered in the transition to the later incarnations of the system. Part of why I'm interested in Cardinal is the consistent effort to change and refine it as the company has made more games with it. Ironclaw 1e is a very different game from IC2e or Myriad Song. In many ways, it's much more conventional and less sure of itself. This is because the Revised Edition I have on hand is marked March 2001 and mentions being worked on since 1999. This game is 20 years old; game design has changed a lot in the last 18 years. This game came out about when I was first getting into RPGs, and was one of my first experiences with games outside of the D&D milieu and my own hacked together creations in high school. It tried to do interesting things with dicepools, things that would end up getting refined down in 2e to be easier to run and more mathematically sound. We don't see systems like Rote yet (which I believe first showed up in Albedo, which was itself a very experimental variant on Cardinal, trying to drastically cut down the number of dice involved), though advancement is still primarily based on buying Gifts and Skill Marks as before. Focus and actions work much differently, there's generally no Counter/Threat system, magic has actual magic points, and there's a Flaws system to go with Gifts, where you buy mechanical or plot impediments for more character points. What's truly interesting, and why I want to cover all of this, is that almost everything I can point to as a flaw in IC1e gets addressed in later games. I want to talk about this because there are whole subsystems and concepts that get thrown out and entirely reworked over the course of Cardinal's development as a system in the name of making it better, a process that largely succeeds. Also, there were things that made IC1e fun to play; it was a good game when it came out, warts and all. They kept the same setting in 2e because Calabria is a legit fantasy setting; I haven't seen people do 'low fantasy, but because magic is actually fairly common and mostly pretty mundane in its own way' very often, and the focus on being set in a liminal period of history and being about conflict with other people rather than battles with slavering monsters or demons was really fresh for high school era Night coming off getting introduced to D&D. The animal-people thing works as a way to make a fantasy setting with highly diverse playable races and lots of different mechanical abilities, and they were actually more mechanically distinct (to a degree that could get intrusive) in 1e. Also the entire character size and encumbrance system in 1e is loving trash garbage but hey, we'll get to that. Also to note, they begin the book with an actual changelog from the first printing, which I've never actually seen; the 2001 Revised Edition is the only book I've owned for this game. One thing the game does well is start out defining terms, explaining why it wants to have rules, and walking you through creating a PC. It also explains the dice scale and what things mean before you create a PC; this is good! Games should tell you what the stuff you're putting on your sheet means before you put it on your sheet. When we get to the table on PC size, though, we see something that will be a shock coming from 2e: Your Body stat can go above d12! All stats can! This was a thing in 1e, and something they dropped in later games with good reason. Let me tell you, it could lead to some crazy dice inflation and when people are throwing around 7d12 or whatever, the chances of a draw at 12 go way, way up. Your Body and the various Gifts you took used to determine your size, measured in Stone, which would then determine the weight of all your armor, meaning bigger characters suffered more encumbering from heavier armor, at a rate that made increasing strength nearly useless for being able to wear heavier armor. Ouch. Also, PCs ranged in size from 1m tall and weighing as little as 13 kg, to 2.3m tall and weighing 131 kg. It was a little silly. Ranks of the Gift of Strength (and your base 'level' of Body, from 1 at d4 to 8 at d12+d8 and so on) would directly contribute to melee damage (there used to be whole separate damage rolls!) and 'Lift Bonus', how many 'stone' of equipment and gear you could carry. Speed used to vary your Dash and Stride a lot more, but Dash and Stride have always been with us. Combat actions are going to be really different when we get there. Mind, Will, Career, and Race didn't used to have derived characteristics and things. I suspect a reason they moved away from directly derived stats is because that overvalued Body and Speed. Trust me, Speed is gonna get so much play in this game, it's going to be crazy. Also, your stats were much higher, dice-wise. You started with d12, d10, d8, d8, d6, d4, with the same Mind, Will, Speed, Body, Career, Race traits. Then you got 20 character points to spend on Gifts and skill marks, with the ability to take another 10 points in Flaws. You also had to pay for the Gift/Flaw balance of your species, but the Gifts from your Species didn't count towards the 10 points of Gifts you could take. So someone who was, say, a Rhino would pay 5 CP for Strength+2 and another 5 for Robustness (Damage reduction/endurance)+2, and 1 their natural Horn weapon, but get 3 points back for their Poor Eyesight flaw. They'd then be able to spend 10 of their 12 remaining CP on Gifts, including upgrading their Strength and Robustness (which, both being +3, is effectively 3 more levels of Body, Rhinos usually did this because they were goddamn powerhouses) if they wanted, then take 10 more points of Flaws if they wished and still have 12 skillpoints. There's a reason Flaws were first transitioned into 'dubious gifts' in Albedo, and then dropped entirely as a main line concept. Merits and Flaws systems are always difficult to balance. And when your Flaws can be things like Heroic (4 point flaw, have to try to be a hero), that's just stuff the player wanted to do anyway. You could load up on plot hooks and quirks you wanted to play/be challenged by anyway for significant starting mechanical benefit. This was a product of an older time in game design, and as far as Merits and Flaws systems worked it wasn't that bad.The other interesting thing is you could buy off Flaws with EXP later on, as you started to learn better or made peace with your enemies or whatever. It wasn't bad, but you can definitely see why it was dropped. The other really huge change was the skill list was goddamn HUGE in IC1e. HUGE. Every individual weapon type was its own skill. Sword, Axe, THROWN SWORD, THROWN AXE, it was madness! Careers used to include 4 skills instead of 3, and that's partly because there were so goddamn many skills! You had separate skills for Cryptography, Dancing, Digging, etc etc etc. It was a mess and I wholly approve of the tendency in later games to cut the skill list to the bone, reduce the number of skill marks you get, but make every skill mark really matter because each skill is covering a very broad range of abilities and actions. In fairness, at least a Sword and an Axe were significantly mechanically different? Looking at the Gift section, there's also an early version of the Gift of Personality, where you could buy extra traits as passions. So for instance, you could buy a Joy die, and include it whenever your being really happy mattered. This implementation did not work as well as the later '+d12 on one action a session that really exemplifies your character's most important personality trait' version. You could also buy extra traits like second Careers fairly cheaply, or a special trait die like Toughness or Quickness. This idea was dropped in later editions with good reason, because it was very awkward and by including, say, the Trait of Dexterity you end up saying Speed isn't used for fine motor control, making Speed more awkward in favor of having extra traits not everyone has anyway. Much simpler to make Speed count for all general precision and agility later on. Also, you used to have hitpoints! We'll get to those when we get to combat. Also, Gifts don't Exhaust/Refresh in this edition; that's a later innovation. Characters were much different. Much more narrow, but with much higher starting traits. You still generally had the sense that a starting PC in IC1e was competent, but they were much more limited in what they were competent at, and it was much easier to make a more useless PC who would end up sitting out parts of adventures than in later incarnations of Cardinal. Next Time: We Make a PC
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Jan 18, 2019 19:09
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Josef bugman posted:Who is Loren Coleman? The principal actor in the "let's embezzle a million dollars from Catalyst that should have gone to writers and ruin Shadowrun forever" story.
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Jan 18, 2019 19:21
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megane posted:Makes sense. I mean, come on, imagine how brokenly overpowered it would be if you gave players the ability to make champagne! I like that you can make moonshine but not whiskey. Who've wrote that has never drunken alcohol. Moonshine is tax-free whiskey. That's the only difference and nowadays, it's mostly just marketing slogan since a lot of brands now play up the "outlaw" aspects.
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Jan 18, 2019 19:25
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Only with the 'pour stuff into barrel and wait" exotic skill could you craft whiskey. I know that and I don't even drink whiskey.
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Jan 18, 2019 19:29
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By popular demand posted:Only with the 'pour stuff into barrel and wait" exotic skill could you craft whiskey. Hey distilling is really hard, if you get greedy or are dumb and dont throw out the first few fractions you inject a lot of poison. That would be a great failure state, and you wont know it's bad until someone drinks it E: unless you have the liquid chromatography subskill
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Jan 18, 2019 19:54
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Not only does it let you make wine but not "fine" wine or brandy, not only does it make you make alcohol from grain but not whiskey, but it also determines the quality of how good it is by how high your roll is in a roll-under system. Does that mean you have to roll under that 30% + 5% per level and the higher your roll, the better it is? That seems to be the sensible interpretation, but it's so vague it's not clear. Even if it is, it also means if your skill is at the maximum of 98%, the quality of your brew is nearly random- while you're going to have a chance to make the best brew, you also have an incrementally greater chance to make the the worst brew.
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Jan 18, 2019 19:58
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The talk of highly restricted brewing is goddamn hilarious after someone working on another game just popped in to go 'Oh, no, we want our crafting rules to be pretty easy to achieve. You're a heroic engineer. Go build a minigun in your garage and some power armor.'
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Jan 18, 2019 20:01
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Night10194 posted:The talk of highly restricted brewing is goddamn hilarious after someone working on another game just popped in to go 'Oh, no, we want our crafting rules to be pretty easy to achieve. You're a heroic engineer. Go build a minigun in your garage and some power armor.' Do you want your minigun to shoot vodka or gin?
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Jan 18, 2019 20:09
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wiegieman posted:The principal actor in the "let's embezzle a million dollars from Catalyst that should have gone to writers and ruin Shadowrun forever" story. Ohhhhh myyyy. Can you provide a link to this? I would love to find out more!
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Jan 18, 2019 20:14
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RiotGearEpsilon posted:Do you want your minigun to shoot vodka or gin? Get me Colin Furze on the line!
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Jan 18, 2019 20:15
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Josef bugman posted:Ohhhhh myyyy. It got brought up recently in the Shadowrun thread.
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Jan 18, 2019 20:17
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Cooked Auto posted:It got brought up recently in the Shadowrun thread. Thank you!
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Jan 18, 2019 20:23
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wiegieman posted:The principal actor in the "let's embezzle a million dollars from Catalyst that should have gone to writers and ruin Shadowrun forever" story. It's a nice deck though. I kind of wish Catalyst Loren Coleman was that other Loren Coleman and blew all the money on Bigfoot hunting.
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Jan 18, 2019 20:33
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Emerald Empire: The War At Daddy's House In 39 IC, Fu Leng returned from the south. Hantei's rule had been wise and beloved, with perfect laws and perfect rule. The other Kami were overjoyed when Fu Leng returned...but cautious, because the Crab had reported evil stirring in the south, where he came from. Fu Leng was enraged that his siblings had excluded him from the tournament to decide the emperor, though their reason had been that they thought him dead. He called them liars, traitors and monsters, and it soon became clear that he had been corrupted by the evil power of Jigoku, the dark mirror of the true underworld. He demanded the right to challenge Hantei for rule of Rokugan - which Hantei accepted, naming Togashi as his champion. However, when Fu Leng told Togashi to name his weapon, the mighty ruler of the Dragon Clan named all of Rokugan and all that lived within it. Infuriated, Fu Leng retreated to the Shadowlands, vowing he'd return with his own army to fight that duel. The south was overrun by creatures of darkness - goblins, oni and worse. Warriors gathered to face these monsters, but all were defeated. Fu Leng used his evil magic to summon new forces and win battles, and the armies of Rokugan were slowly pushed back. In this time, the tribe of Isawa joined the Empire. Before then, the spiritual leader Isawa, who was beloved by the Fortunes and lesser kami, had seen no prupose in serving under the Kami, but as the war went on, Shiba himself went to the Isawa tribe and begged their aid. Isawa refused, for he would not give up his tribe's traditions - and so Shiba knelt, swearing that he and all his descendants would serve Isawa and the Isawa tribe, should they agree to join the Phoenix Clan. Isawa was so impressed that he accepted, and to this day, while a Shiba is Phoenix Champion, the clan is run by the Isawa. It was also in this time that an old monk came to the camp of Hantei. He named himself Shinsei, and he said he knew how Fu Leng's forces might be defeated. While at first, Hantei would not listen, after Shinsei managed to defeat the guards sent to get rid of him despite wielding no weapons at all, the Emperor grew curious. The two spoke into the night, and Shiba recorded all that was said. This became the Tao of Shinsei, the entire teachings of the Little Teacher about the world, the elements and enlightenment. Shinsei said that fortune favored mortals, and so he would gather seven human warriors to defeat Fu Leng. Hantei gave permission, and one warrior from each tribe was chosen. These were the Seven Thunders. The Seven Thunders headed south, and for many weeks, no one know anything of what they did. However, one day, the armies of the Dark Kami suddenly fell to pieces, and the warriors of the Empire were able to defeat them in a fierce battle, driving them from the battlefield. Thus it was clear that the Day of Thunder had come, that the Thunders had won. Hantei had a feast prepared, but of the Thunders, only two returned - Shinsei, and the Scorpion Thunder Shosuro. She carried twelve scrolls which she said bound Fu Leng, and Hantei ordered that these were to never be opened, giving them to the Scorpion for safekeeping. That is the end of ancient history, such as it is, and the beginning of the era known as the Thousand Years of Peace, in 42 IC. With Fu Leng defeated, the Rokugani returned to building up the Empire. However, Hantei did not forget what had happened - an enemy from without had come, after all - and called his sister Shinjo, for she had always been a wanderer. He charged her and her clan, the Ki-Rin, to explore outside the Empire, to see what threats lay without. Doji was sad to see her sister go, giving Shinjo a beautiful fan she had personally made, to remind her sister of their close bond. Shortly after Shinjo left, Hantei died. Some say he died of a lingering wound from the war with Fu Leng, while others say he merely tired of the mortal realm and returned to the Heavens. He was succeeded by his son, Hantei Genji, the Shining Prince. Genji had, in his youth, been a great adventurer, and as Emperor he sponsored many temples and monasteries, to spread the knowledge of the Tao of Shinsei and the Five Elements. He also continued the work of infrastructure until his death, when his daughter, Hantei Murasaki, took the throne. It was during Genji's reign that the Imperial Law was codified and reformed by Doji Hatsuo and Soshi Saibankan. Under Hantei, the law had always been perfectly just and without omission, for he was a Kami, but judges were mortal and flawed, varying in ability. By annotating the law, Hatsuo and Saibankan allowed for consistent rulings across the Empire. They founded the Emeral Magistrates, officials with authority to investigate crime and pass judgement. The land prospered for many years, producing far more yield than ever before, with the spread of cheaper and more effective iron tools and the discovery of wheat flour noodles, which could be made in lands too cold or dry for rice, and which were easier to cook than whole grain while being tastier than porridge. Trade spread, but barter soon became limiting. Many areas used plates or bars of gold and jade, but they were hard to use due to varying size and forgery. Coins developed with the rise of mining and casting, and the Emperor decreed their value - the koku would be set at the worth of an amount of rice sufficient to feed one person for one year. This and smaller coins allowed for easy and profitable trade. Literacy also spread widely among the samurai class, for many clans prized ideas and wisdom. Annotated maps and written orders were useful to armies, reports preserved knowledge, and written works spread. The famous books Leadershi (by the Kami Akodo), The Sword (by the first Emerald Champion and husband to Doji, Kakita), Niten (by Kakita's great rival, Mirumoto Hojatsu), the Tao of Shinsei, and Elements (by Isawa). By the end of the first century, Lies also appeared, generally attributed to the Kami Bayushi. Even more books spread over the years, and the people achieved great advances in astrology, philosophy and theology. They unified the teachings of Shinsei and the ancient worship of the Fortunes, developing new healing methods and use of alchemy. The tea ceremony spread, invented by Lady Doji, and became quie popular. In 390 IC, however, came the Time of Greed. Disputes between the Crane and Crab over land were common. The Yasuki family renounced their loyalty to the Crane, joining the Crab, and there was no rule in the Empire. While a Hantei sat upon the throne, the Crane, Phoenix and Scorpion Champions had conspired against him. They formed the Gozoku, a conspiracy that kidnapped the Emperor's heir, forcing him to make political concessions, and when the Emperor died, they prepared to make that heir their puppet. However, while the Emperor's sons had all been fostered to be subservient to the Gozoku, the youngest child, Yugozohime, had instead been raised by the Lion. She was a mighty warrior and an honorable samurai. When her father died, she challenged her eldest brother to a duel, slaying him and claiming the Throne for herself, ending the power of the Gozoku in 435 IC. The decade that followed would be known as the Blooming of the Lotus. Next time: Gaijin appear.
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Jan 18, 2019 20:39
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RiotGearEpsilon posted:
Late to the party, but: Almost all of the art is very good by itself, but I feel like it would probably have benefited from having only a short list of artists, like two or three, so everything would have a unified style and mood.
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Jan 18, 2019 20:49
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This is a deep cut. We invested enormous effort and funds in to the art direction for Myriad Song, and hired a long list of pretty storied artists, so hearing that it fell flat completely is taking me aback. Can you elaborate on this criticism a bit?
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Night10194 posted:The talk of highly restricted brewing is goddamn hilarious after someone working on another game just popped in to go 'Oh, no, we want our crafting rules to be pretty easy to achieve. You're a heroic engineer. Go build a minigun in your garage and some power armor.' Look if you allow players to make fine wine they could break the whole complicated Chi-Town wine economy and force Prosek to buy from you exclusively for Bene Vino Villaggio Bianco, and then poison him, and then change the setting forever. The decision is just to preserve setting balance, think about it!
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Jan 18, 2019 20:51
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Ironclaw 1e What's a PC look like? Let's show off some of the interesting quirks of character creation, and how some of this has actually stuck around since. We'll start, like many good things, with a bear. We are going to build the holiest goddamn bear, you don't even know. Being a Bear gets our character Strength+2, Claws, and Teeth, for 7 of his 20 CP. Bears are, naturally, flawless. As our Bear is going to be huge, he starts with d12 Body, d10 Speed, d8 Career (Paladin), d8 Will, d6 Mind, d4 Bear. He is very good at being big. He is not so good at being bear. Our bear desires being huge, so he spends 2 of his Gift points to go from the 5 point Gift of Very Strong to the 7 point Gift of Incredibly Strong, for Str+3. Our bear then spends 6 points on Increased Body, raising his Body to d12+d4, and his Lift Bonus to 9. This is important. You see, our Bear is going to carry the biggest goddamn sword. He spends his last 2 points on Possessions. Each Possession Gift grants you an additional Expensive item to start the game with. The actual cost of the item does not matter. Thus, our Bear selects a suit of Proven Plate Armor, the finest in the realm, and a Full Stone Sword. The size of weapon you can use is determined by your Lift Bonus, and 9 is enough to make even the biggest weapon 'easy'. Note that our bear is so powerful, so mighty, so bear, that he can wield this massive sword one-handed. That's right. When they put a crossbow bolt in his left paw, he simply shoulders the sword and keeps cutting people in half one-handed. Note that our Bear is so huge that the size chart for his armor weight does not actually cover bear. His armor will weigh 14 stone. A stone is 14 pounds. Our bear is covered in 196 pounds of armor. He is wielding a 14 pound sword. How is this done. Because there is no way our Bear will ever dodge anything (He simply cannot. His Dodge dice are limited by how encumbered he is, and at minimum he, the mightiest possible starting PC, is at -5 Encumbrance for his armor alone and thus dodging with only d4s), he will simply get a Heater Shield and Parry/Block. These are unaffected by Encumbrance. Characters can start with as much non-expensive gear as they want. Also note our Bear can go down to -20 Encumbrance from the Body/Strength table. He will never be swift, but he can carry something like 406 pounds of gear and supplies and still fight, because that's his 9 Stone lift bonus and then -20 over it. The Bear is a mighty creature. Now our Bear only has 3 character points for skills, and this is insufficient for his plans. Thus, our Bear will accept some flaws, but only the kind that do not interfere with his majesty. Our Bear is Heroic, giving him 3 points because he cannot believe anyone could possibly stand in the way of his holy will. He will always do what is right and just, and 'others may try to use this to trap him'. They are welcome to goddamn try, they will get an 8 foot sword through the dick. Our Bear will also select Honorable, because he is a knight of honor and justice. Note that he does not actually have the Gift of Investiture (Knighthood). No-one has ever actually knighted our Bear. As he is immense and carrying plate armor and sword and shield, most will assume he is a real knight, or not correct him when he declares he is a Knight of S'Allumer (God). He will also take Overconfident for 3 more points, maxing out by taking all the personality traits an enormous man-slaying paladin was going to play anyway. 10 free points for being self-confident, just, and willing to face his problems Bear to Puny Person Who Cannot Fight Bear? Bear accepts this. Bear can only take 5 points in a single skill at a time, so he will, because he is Bear, max out Sword. He will also take 3 in Resolve, 2 in Leadership, 1 in Oratory (he is very inspiring), and 2 in Dancing (He is allowed to have hobbies). Thus, we have created a man who strikes others at a base of d12 (Skill), d8 (Class), d10 (Speed), which will only get better if he's aiming or something. When he hits, he hits for 2d12 (Weapon), d12+d10 (Hugeness) and again, he has ways to boost this. He parries with an extra 2d10 for his shield. He is both immense and mighty, and resists damage very well with his immensely heavy armor and huge Body. You might also notice that he's got a fuckton more high dice than a 2e or Myriad Song character. The context of Bear's equipment will become plain later, but suffice to say he has a really good chance of shrugging off musket fire and looming angrily over any normal foe in the game. He even has a pretty good chance of just chopping down enemies in a single blow, while having a good to-hit and good defenses. I made this ridiculous character partly to demonstrate how much easier is it to do that in 1e. You'll also note he doesn't really pay anything for his flaws; 'I want to play a righteous, honorable paladin who is tremendously confident in the fact that I am the mightiest man in the realm' is a character concept, not really a drawback, but it got him 10 character points. He could have taken things like '-1 Hit Points' (That is a big deal, as it effectively has you act as if you've taken 1 damage at all times and you only have 12 HP, with bad stuff starting at 3 missing and death threatening at 6) that have mechanical weight. Why would he do this. That is for fools. The main thing you'll notice that does stick around is how he paid 2 Character Points to start with the heaviest, most expensive armor and one of the heaviest and most expensive hand weapons in the game. Also, if I'd felt sillier, I could have given him a Full Stone Fencing Sword and Fencing as his weapon of choice/skill instead. It would reduce his damage slightly but give him +1 to Parries. Oh god, we'll get into bonuses and penalties next time because that's the path to madness. As he also gets any other Average item he wants, he also takes an infinite supply of wooden lockpicks for inscrutable Bear purposes, since they have no actual weight. Also a large quantity of forks, for the same reason. Outside of some very unusual equipment in IC2e, getting gear is less of a concern than in many RPGs. The Bear will probably never upgrade his weapon, shield, and armor, because there's nowhere to upgrade them to. He is as powerful there as he's ever going to be. Character creation can be a silly place. I suspect the move to much more directed character design is to cut down on characters such as The Bear, Knight of Ursine Might. You can build much more balanced characters, true, but you're kind of disincentivized from it because it's much harder to be 'generally' skilled in IC1e. When you're both able to specialize to such a huge degree, and kind of unable to be 'broadly' skilled, the rules end up rewarding The Bear significantly more than, say, one of the example characters, a bat scribe named Annushka. She is not actually that good at anything adventurers are going to do, having had to spend all her points on loser traits like Craft: Calligraphy. If she was in a later game, she could put all that under Academics and still have room to do other things. She is not. So she is sad, while the Bear chortles. Thus, we see why there was a strong shift towards consolidating skills and trying to lower starting dice somewhat. If your ceiling is high and specializations are narrow, you will end up rewarding hyper-specialization, and that ends up siloing each PC into specific roles and then they can't contribute outside them. The Bear is not going to do great at much besides fighting and a little light religious work, plus his dancing skills. To be a dedicated thief, or scholar, or whatever can often take similar dedication. That's before getting into how Wizards and Atavists have to spend skill points on individual spells and powers (Wizards and Atavists kind of suck in 1e). And so you see why things changed to what they are in IC2e, and then later in Myriad Song. You can still make a huge character like The Bear in IC2e; one of my players did play Italian Fox Musketeer Guts. But that character will not be as dominant in combat, while having more resources to spend on rounding themselves out. Later games enable a concept to stand out like The Bear, without taking over their role completely and without rewarding you so much for only doing one thing. Next Time: Dice Mechanics, All Of Them Night10194 fucked around with this message at 07:07 on Jan 19, 2019 |
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Jan 18, 2019 21:03
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PurpleXVI posted:Late to the party, but: Almost all of the art is very good by itself, but I feel like it would probably have benefited from having only a short list of artists, like two or three, so everything would have a unified style and mood. This is good feedback, and I'll take it seriously, but there's a reason we haven't tried to solve the problem of consistency this way in the past. We took this approach with one of our other products, FarFlung, which is illustrated by only two (very talented) artists - but it also had very few illustrations. Fewer artists necessarily means either less art, or a much longer production time. Artists are humans - they can only produce art so quickly, and they can misjudge their own capacity to deliver, so putting a big burden on a small group of artists puts more eggs in fewer basked. I'm aware of how powerful a unified illustrative mood can be. I remember when I first popped open Castles & Crusades, I was impressed by the effect that limiting their illustrations to one artist had. But I also noticed how little art there was. RiotGearEpsilon fucked around with this message at 21:17 on Jan 18, 2019 |
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Jan 18, 2019 21:12
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oh gently caress I have to come up with an asian name in 5 seconds, gently caress gently caress what do I doMors Rattus posted:Miya Chinatsu
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Jan 18, 2019 21:44
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Wrestlepig posted:oh gently caress I have to come up with an asian name in 5 seconds, gently caress gently caress what do I do I mean, Chinatsu is an actual Japanese name, which is more than can be said of some L5R characters. Miya, well, she's a Miya. The Miya family maintains the Imperial Histories, among other things. You can play one!
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Jan 18, 2019 21:54
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In the histories bit for Emerald Empire, do they keep the bit where Shinjo tried to go talk to Fu Leng? I always liked that.
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Jan 18, 2019 23:10
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It isn't explicitly mentioned - the events of the part where the Kami were alive are kind of elided over quickly.
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Jan 18, 2019 23:17
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Mors Rattus posted:I mean, Chinatsu is an actual Japanese name, which is more than can be said of some L5R characters. Miya, well, she's a Miya. The Miya family maintains the Imperial Histories, among other things. You can play one! yea it sounds kinda like that but it's actually one of the 'better' names considering L5R still somehow has an issue where every name you get has like a 25% chance of just not being a Japanese kinda name despite the world being explicitly super clearly fantasy Japan.
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Jan 18, 2019 23:40
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Emerald Empire: Brothers in Shinsei By the 400s, the monks known as the Brotherhood of Shinsei were leading innovators in medicine, and many commoners and nobles supported them as a result. Their growing resources and respect led many to the Tao and its teachings, but few peasants actually knew the Tao rather than just stories about Shinsei. The Brotherhood began to sponsor festivals that performed plays based on events of the life of Shinsei, mixed with sermons and readings from the Tao. This led to the development of kabuki theatre, quickly a favorite among wealthy heimin and lower ranking samurai. As the writers got better, even ranking samurai began to accept it. The monks also spread the tea ceremony to all classes, even the geisha. Some samurai found this scandalous, but many priests argued that teaching the sacred ceremony was not harmful and would help cleanse the spirit of interaction with money. Today, geisha, wealthy artisans and merchants are the most common peasants to know the ceremony, as few farmers have much interest, though historically there have been major tea masters from among the peasant classes. This was also the time in which foreigners first arrived in Rokugan, seeking audience with the Emperor Yugozohime. Before now, the only gaijin known to Rokugan had been the desert tribes in the west and merchants from the Ivory Kingdoms. These gaijin came from a distant land called Pavarre, a kingdom across the great Sea of Amaterasu, looking for trade. Yugozohime allowed them to remain for two years to see if they could learn to be civilized, bringing much fear and debate from courtiers and leaders. The minor Mantis clan were especially active in support of this, seeing a chance to grow powerful and rich, while others were put off by their strange and ignorant ways. After the two years, the Emperor decided she had grown tired of the gaijin, commanding them to cease all trade with Rokugan and to leave immediately. In response, the gaijin took up arms against the Empire; this doesn't count as war, we are told, because gaijin aren't people. They slew the Emperor herself, and as a result all gaijin in Rokugan were put to death in what has become known as the Battle of the White Stag due to the cliffs at which the fight took place. A few escaped in ships, but were confronted by Crane and Mantis fleets. If any got past that, they have not returned. It is theorized that the gaijin brought about spiritual imbalance, which allowed a maho-tsukai, a user of forbidden blood magic, to grow in power. His name was Iuchiban, and he was first known in the beginning of the 500s, when the artisan Asahina Yajinden made several swords for the Crab, Crane, Lion and Scorpion. Shortly after, the Lion Champion attacked the Dragon in midwinter, the Crab Champion murdered his children and the Crane Champion confessed to an affair in front of his entire court. All three killed themselves with the gifted blades. Only the Scorpion Champion escaped, revealing the corruption of the smith and his membership in the Bloodspeaker Cult, led by Iuchiban, whose history is unknown. He led an undead army on the capital, for in that time bodies were buried rather than burned, but he was defeated due to the timely warning of the Scorpion. After Iuchiban's execution, he was buried in a tomb meant to prevent his spirit ever escaping, and he was the last human ever buried in the Empire, for after that the Emperor decreed that all corpses must be burned to prevent their desecration by evil magic. After his defeat, the revival of the older No style of theater became popular, due to a number of plays written by Kakita Iwane about the lives of the Kami, giving a chance to return to a past more glorious than the recent tragedies. No became very popular among the nobles, though not the peasantry, due to its wide range of emotion portrayed with minimal action. Woodblock printing also became popular to spread prints of famous actors and characters, though samurai derided these as perversions of true art, without real soul. (Besides, actors are mere hinin, making it even worse.) The end of the century brought the reign and death of Hantei the Sixteenth, the only Emperor known to have lost the Mandate of Heaven, ever. He is remembered as the Steel Chrysanthemum, whose early years were promising before his descent into paranoia and violence. He executed thousands for crimes that never happened, and at last, after he ordered his own mother strangled to death before the Court, his son rebelled and led the Imperial Guard against him. The son's success is proof that Amaterasu had withdrawn her support. Hantei XVI's son then retired to the Brotherhood of Shinsei, and all of the guards involved in the revolt committed seppuku. The STeel Chrysanthemum's youngest brother took power, reigning well and in peace for a long time. After centuries undisturbed by the Shadowland forces that had followed Fu Leng, most had forgotten the threat, outside of Crab lands. They were merely a historic thing, and it is believed that the reemergence of the Shadowlands and Iuchiban in the 700s was divine punishment, either for the Steel Chrysanthemum's actions or the blasphemy of his own guards striking him down. Still, not all was bad. Agasha Hyoutaru developed a new, more vibrant ceramic glaze, and Kaiu Naizen invented a new kiln flue to allow greater control of pot firing, which led to a boom in decorative ceramics. Still, the Shadowlands invaded twice in the 700s. In one event, a massive attack distracted the crane, allowing the Kinjiro no Oni to lead a second force to overwhelm a Crane garrison near Earthquake Fish Bay until the arrival of Daidoji Masashiga, daimyo of the Daidoji, who drew the forces of the Shadowlands into the bay at low tide, keeping them there until high tide destroyed both forces. Thus did the Daidoji earn the nickname Iron Crane, granted by the Crab survivors in honor of Masashigi's sacrifice. The next year, the oni known now only as the Maw swept across the Crab lands, pushing so far north that the ancestral fortress of the Hiruma, Daylight Castle, was lost entirely. While the Hiruma and Hida, aided by the Kuni Purifiers and Witch Hunters, were able to stop the advance, the borders shifted. The Kaiu built the Carpenter Wall, which still stands even now as the defense against the Shadowlands. The Hiruma lands have never been recovered, the first territorial loss ever to strike the Empire. This was not even the worst, however, for in 750 IC, the spirit of Iuchiban escaped his tomb, possessing a body to replace the dead one it had lost. Iuchiban gathered an army of cultists and undead, attacking once more. He was stopped at the Battle of Sleeping River, where a Togashi Order monk trapped the sorcerer's spirit in his own body long enough for both to be sealed away. In the aftermath, it was found that many had defied the Imperial edict against human burial, and hundreds were harshly punished. In 815, the Ki-Rin returned to Rokugan, and for the first time, the Great Clans nearly went to war with one another. Gaijin goods, unseen since the expulsion of the gaijin centuries before, poured into the Empire. Some wonder if this is the cause of the elemental imbalances of more recent centuries that led to earthquakes in 1120. Due to various magical happenings, the Ki-Rin returned through the northern Shadowlands, and in their haste to escape the wastelands, they actually used their cavalry tro force their way through crab defenses, and were not at first recognized. In their wanderings, they had changed their name to Unicorn and had taken bizarre clothing and customs, even losing the purity of their classical language. Their horses were amazing, however, and their tactics had never been seen before, allowing them to defeat Scorpion armies that came after them. As they forced their way through the mountains, the Lion moved to stop them, but were halted by winter snows. This allowed the Unicorn to make contact with the Crane, who recognized Lady Doji's fan, gifted to Shinjo. The Emperor forbade the Lion from attacking, giving the Unicorn their ancestral lands - which the Lion didn't appreciate, as they'd been given stewardship over the fertile farms of the Ki-Rin. However, they obeyed. Many saw the Unicorn as gaijin, despite the Crane testimonies, due to their strange names, manners and food - especially because the Crane had adopted the Moto family, who were kin to the Ujik of the west. Some argued that the Moto should be expelled as gaijin, but the Unicorn Champion appealed to the Emperor, saying that the Moto had been adopted by Shinjo's own command, and the Emperor agreed. The Crane set about civilizing the Unicorn - as best they could, anyway. The Unicorn accepted much, but would not give up their foreign names, food, clothing or the custom of shaking hands. While Unicorn courtiers behave properly outside their own lands, the Unicorn territory is foreign still to most Rokugani. However, they also brought innovations in metalwork, leatherwork and dying of fabric, as well as, of course, horses, advanced riding techniques and stirrups. They also were quite wealthy due to trade with the nations they'd met outside the Empire, and possessed the unique name magic of meishodo, by which they bound spirits into talismans, allowing similar magic to the shugenja of other clans without needing to bessech the kami in the same way. Many still see this as blasphemy. Next time: Opium.
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Jan 18, 2019 23:45
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Dawgstar posted:In the histories bit for Emerald Empire, do they keep the bit where Shinjo tried to go talk to Fu Leng? I always liked that. Mors Rattus posted:It isn't explicitly mentioned - the events of the part where the Kami were alive are kind of elided over quickly.
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Jan 18, 2019 23:45
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Also, one other thing I'd like to see in a Myriad Song 2e if one gets made: I would legit like a 'suggested media' section, particularly for music. The music theme is really cool in theory but there isn't a lot done with it and I'd love a little instruction/inspiration for that kind of thing. I like knowing a thing's inspirations, it usually helps me write for it.
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Jan 19, 2019 00:57
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NGDBSS posted:Remember that this is the official Imperial history of Rokugan. In-setting it will probably have errors or contradictions with other non-Rokugani accounts, and out-of-setting it allows you to include that stuff if you like without necessarily bogging down the text with A Thousand Pages of Deep Lore. Yeah, good catch. If anything proves that its saying "Iuchiban whose history is unknown." Wink, wink. Dawgstar fucked around with this message at 01:10 on Jan 19, 2019 |
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Jan 19, 2019 01:01
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