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Night10194 posted:The sheer prevalence of Sexy Kill Trap Lady in RPGs will never cease to astound me. Goes all the way back to mythology. "Sexy woman who wants to have sex with you = evil monster" crops up in mythologies around the world.
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May 7, 2019 00:17
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Look out, fellas! She may look like a nice girl, but before you know it, you'll be tipping over for Tolkeen! Remember: if it's cute, shoot! You'd think they'd notice a thousand men total going missing but eh.
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May 7, 2019 00:25
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Dawgstar posted:You'd think they'd notice a thousand men total going missing but eh. The Coalition doesn't need to be good at war, they got Kev in their corner. So they're playing a little loose.
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May 7, 2019 00:26
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The more I read the more I hate this.
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May 7, 2019 00:28
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Dawgstar posted:You'd think they'd notice a thousand men total going missing but eh. Logistics is for nerds.
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May 7, 2019 01:26
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It's easy to win a war when you get 50 new hovercraft varieties every book. And they all come with hidden micro-missile launchers.
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May 7, 2019 01:32
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The hidden sexy kill ladies should just unveil their hidden micro-missile launchers rather than any other kind of trap for foolish Coalition grunts.
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May 7, 2019 01:34
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I think what annoys me the most is that there is a blindingly obvious way to write this story if you REALLY wanted to make Tolkeen villainous. Rifts is lousy with evil magically-aligned groups. Have it be clear, "So says the Prophecies", Winter Is Coming obvious that Tolkeen is going to lose this war! Have King Creed start making deals with the Atlantians or getting advice from Lord Dunscon or start summoning demons! The road to hell is paved with good intentions! Instead we get like 12 books of justification for why the "Are We the Baddies?" guys waging a genocidal, expansionist war full of loving WAR CRIMES are maybe just as bad as the guy who should have known he was going to lose and uhhhhh King Creed is actually evil I guess and these books really seem to assume that you're fighting for the Skull Army despite literally everything else making them the cannon fodder you're suppose to not feel bad about shooting.
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May 7, 2019 03:10
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A disappointingly large percentage of Rifts players were likely cheerfully donning their skull armor and goose-stepping off to genocide the wizards.
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May 7, 2019 03:42
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wiegieman posted:A disappointingly large percentage of Rifts players were likely cheerfully donning their skull armor and goose-stepping off to genocide the wizards. Settings with Nazis loving love having the Devil because hey look, the Nazis are better than the Devil, right? They're evil, but they're no Devil, and you know when you think about it maybe they have some Ideas about strength and purity in the face of The Devil that'll- I mean, so says the guy on the long quest to cover all of WHFRP, but at least there there's a constant 'Also actually being Nazis to fight the Devil will only let the Devil win, you morons, you dunces.' refrain.
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May 7, 2019 03:48
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Night10194 posted:I mean, so says the guy on the long quest to cover all of WHFRP, but at least there there's a constant 'Also actually being Nazis to fight the Devil will only let the Devil win, you morons, you dunces.' refrain. With the Empire's main strength being its diversity and ability to bring disparate people together etc.
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May 7, 2019 04:03
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WFRP literally took the Nazis' favorite medal and turned it into an in-setting diversity symbol. Sigmar is the god of the Empire not just because he was a great warrior, but because he was a great statesman.
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May 7, 2019 05:12
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Sigmar being the God of beating Orcs and also Roads Are Cool is a pretty good take on a barbarian empire former.
ChaseSP fucked around with this message at 05:23 on May 7, 2019 |
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May 7, 2019 05:19
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Yeah, I'm just saying even there you've gotta be careful to keep reminding people that the crazy Witch Hunters are actually the allies to darkness, even though they don't mean to be. And I'm also just a little down on things because I've been reading Book 3 of Paths of the Damned and it is reallllly bad and really wants to tell you about how dumb and womanly that dumb woman Countess of Nuln is. I am not looking forward to Forges of Nuln. E: The weird bug up its butt that all of 2e has about Liebowitz in general is just weird and uncomfortable. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 05:37 on May 7, 2019 |
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May 7, 2019 05:21
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wiegieman posted:A disappointingly large percentage of Rifts players were likely cheerfully donning their skull armor and goose-stepping off to genocide the wizards. Can confirm. The Coalition War Campaign was a popular book and much beloved on the Palladium mailing list, talked about in a way I assume people talk about the Empire now. (And probably back then, but I wasn't on a Star Wars mailing list.)
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May 7, 2019 05:21
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Dawgstar posted:Can confirm. The Coalition War Campaign was a popular book and much beloved on the Palladium mailing list, talked about in a way I assume people talk about the Empire now. (And probably back then, but I wasn't on a Star Wars mailing list.) I always thought the whole 'The Empire were the good guys!' stuff really took off after the prequels' terrible writing made the Jedi seem like a bunch of total pricks, but I'm probably wrong because some nerds have always loved fancy uniforms and jackboots with big guns.
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May 7, 2019 05:42
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Cults: Jehammedans, pt. 2 Degenesis Rebirth Primal Punk Chapter 3: Cults Parables One of the bigger cultural marks of Jehammedans is separating people into shepherds (good) and fishermen (bad). See how it goes: quote:The fisherman takes a bucket of paint and paints his boat to protect it from the worm; the shepherd guards his flock, protecting it with his life. And so on. I wondered if the fisherman was some allusion to Christianity (what with the whole “fishers of men” thing), but the metaphor doesn't seem to go any deeper than this. Fisherman A curious thing is that the fisherman isn't a supernatural force opposing God, for “there are no supernatural beings except for the Lord; there are only humans and animals on the stage of creation.” Fisherman's issues are his own drat fault, the very human failings he falls into. It's possible to redeem a fisherman, but is it worth it? quote:Obstinacy or laziness are in the renegades’ blood. In the end, that will impact their thinking and behavior, and tomorrow they will walk the path of discord. That's some phrenology stuff going on here, fellas.  Family ties Here's where we start delving into Jehammedan family ties, because there was effort put into making the system, drat it, and they'll make you read everything about it. However, this is just a taster of things to come. Abrami is the married man that leads the family, just like Abraham did. But just as Abraham took a slave of his for procreation, so does the Abrami have a Hagari.. Her girls will prepare for Hagaridom and help her out with chores, while the boys – the Ismaeli – will herd goats, provide water and guard the camp. If Ismaelis want glory (and to get laid), they can become Swords of Jehammed and go to war. If they do good enough, they might become Abramis themselves.  Abramis also hate and loathe manicure However, Hagari isn't the only type of wife available! quote:Although the Hagari births children to the Abrami, she’s not considered his primary wife. For this the Abrami chooses a Saraeli, a virgin creature, strong and pure in her faith. Once in the cycle from spring to winter, the Abrami and the Saraeli share a bed. If a son arises from this union, the joy is boundless: the Lord has blessed the clan with an Isaaki! This stuff went weird. Future Jc here: it will go even weirder. Anyways, Isaakis: they're the spoiled children of the family. They get all the best food, clothes, and all of the respect. However, the Isaakis are always drilling for war, since they're basically brought up as martyrs: quote:Day in, day out, he shapes his body and soul to be a perfect vessel of devotion to God. He is the sacrificial lamb that the clan will offer to the Lord on the battlefield. There will be many opportunities for this; he rides into battle after battle. The Isaaki leads the host, gallops in front of them into the enemy ranks, is a blazing example. Very few live to reach their thirtieth winter, and only if God wills. What happens if an Isaaki doesn't die on the battlefield? Well, the old murder dude is declared to be an Iconide by the Council of Elders and starts dealing with the more administrative Cult duties. Iconides Abraham bargained with God to save Sodom and Gomorrah, right? Well, he didn't really succeed, but this is the basis for Iconides to bargain with the Lord. To do so, Iconide retreats to a room, burns incense, washes his feet in a ritual way, and prepares two cups of tea (poured out of samovar, lol). He then sits at the table, waiting for God. When he starts feeling the presence of God (it may take hours or days), he opens a golden box to offer an Icon – the symbol of the deal. quote:The Iconide explains to the Lord what it symbolizes: the skull of a Jehammedan torn apart by machine-gun fire stands for the wish to punish an emplacement of Scourgers with death and destruction; with the severed hand of a thief, the Iconide pushes for quiet and order in a rebel village; gazing at a piece of concrete from Tripol, he discusses a flood to punish the sinful city; a broken sword is intended to lead to an Isaaki who is considered lost back to the temple of the community. The Iconide then sweetens the deal by telling God about all the hardships his clan had endured. Usually, old Saraelis will drag him out of the room unconcious. He lacks sleep and food, and needs to rest. Then comes the wait: the Iconide reads news for signs that the bargain was upheld. It may take months or years. If a deal is considered to have been carried out by God, the Icon becomes a relic. If it doesn't, the Iconide will hide it himself, to retrieve it at some later date and use it to decipher God's will... somehow. I'd think that an Icon of a bad deal already shows that God had issues with your plan in the first place, but I'm no Iconide. Jehammed's Legacy Here we learn that most Jehammedans are illiterate. You could learn that as a child, but doing that distracts from herding goats, which is just the thing a lovely blighter (the word is used here for the first and possibly only time) would do. However, once you're an Abrami, you're too proud to be taught as if you were a child Yet an Abrami will still lust for Jehammed's word captured on paper, and will trade for scrolls, probably in a pious bout of conspicuous consumption. quote:His inability to read doesn’t bother him, for he carries his true faith in his heart. Tie this to criticism of your least favorite religious group here. Looking at Prosperity Gospel, I can't say that the ability to read holy texts necessarily goes hand-in-hand with comprehending or interpreting them right. Anyways, those texts are also useful, since Iconides like to visit people and read them – and being visited by one makes the patriarch a respected man. I guess the idea is that Abramis are hunting down relics from the time of Jehammed and not just regular copies of not!Q'uaran. Otherwise, why would the Iconides care about reading more of the same copies of the word?  Lamb Meat & Tinctures quote:As caught up as the Jehammedans are in their spiritual worldview, which they pay tribute to through rigid traditions, they cannot deny that they are still very humble shepherds. Goat is love, goat is life; the bigger the flock, the more Ismaeli the Abrami can have. Having many children is a blessing from God: even if you never made an Isaaki (maybe try having sex more than once a year), you still boosted the ranks with new Swords of Jehammed. The sheep - and whatever else they herd - are used for the prosaic purposes. Just imagine a paragraph about what things can be made from which parts of a goat. The only interesting thing here is that old women use various (likely gross) extracts from animal organs and herbs to make combat drugs for Swords and viagra for Abramis. :goatdrugs Next time: sedentary life is for idiots and fishermen
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May 7, 2019 06:35
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Night10194 posted:I always thought the whole 'The Empire were the good guys!' stuff really took off after the prequels' terrible writing made the Jedi seem like a bunch of total pricks, but I'm probably wrong because some nerds have always loved fancy uniforms and jackboots with big guns. Can confirm, it was always the uniforms and the stormtrooper armor and the sleek white ships.
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May 7, 2019 06:35
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ChaseSP posted:Sigmar being the God of beating Orcs and also Roads Are Cool is a pretty good take on a barbarian empire former. I choose to believe that the reason he was so successful in war was because he loved nerding out about roads and logistics and supply chains, so his army was always twice the size and better fed than his opponent's. (He was also a massive slab of conan with a badass hammer, because people can be multiple things)
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May 7, 2019 07:56
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 Etherscope #2: I Won’t Try to Write Manc So what else have Ben Redmond and Nigel McClelland written besides Etherscope? Mostly their output consisted of a bunch of more forgettable d20 products, and d20 Modern in particular, under their Malladin's Gate Press imprint. This was almost certainly why Etherscope isn't just a fork of D&D 3E. And that's not to say this was all they wrote, but their other pieces were anemic and unfocused. A Goodman Games 4E module? Credits on two Witch Hunter splatbooks? Babby’s first generic RPG? Compared to that, It's safe to call Redmond & McClelland stuck in the d20 creative bubble. (If you really dig hard you can find a Norse-themed RPG called Midgard, just by Ben Redmond, that used an abstruse implementation of a dice pool for its RNG.) On to the game itself! Etherscope’s introductory fiction is simply titled “Jack”. We open with our titular protagonist driving his “Hackney Cab” through Manchester while the audience gets fed a bunch of detail on how this is at once a Victorian industrial hellscape and vaguely cyberpunk. Jack’s trying to sneak into a particular flat, and while something’s up he figures he’s prepared enough to handle things. It turns out, however that someone’s already in the flat and they’ve drawn a rifle on him. Just great for Jack! Our protagonist first tries to bluff his way past Brutus the gunman and his handler Michael, but after that fails Jack realizes that Brutus is actually his target Kevin’s brother, and that they all have common aims. See, Kevin was apparently looking into some “Scope poo poo”, and told both his brother and his former flatmate about it before dropping off the face of the world mysteriously. Brutus and Michael didn’t know about Jack, but they did know that bigger capitalist fish would be looking for their mate and sensibly took the paranoid approach when ransacking his place. Anyway, neither of them knows much about Scope use (basically the Internet and cyberspace), so they ask Jack to use Kevin’s Scope point instead. Unfortunately most of Kevin’s data and email’s been deleted, but there is one new message that must have come after the data purge. Michael recognizes it to be some occult symbol and our heroes set off for the library. Adventure ho! Unlike a lot of its contemporaries this piece doesn’t overstay its welcome, lasting for maybe a page and a half. Good job not acting like White Wolf! There’s also an appreciation for detail to draw the reader in, but the writers stumbled here on how much to tell versus how much to show. We can figure out from context that Manchester here is still that Victorian hellscape and that the Scope is some kind of overwrought internet system (Jack has to manipulate “physical” objects with VR gloves), but we have to be told what coffin flats are or how Brutus is part canid. Oh, and we have our first Africa Shoutout where apparently there’s not much use for Scope points. Here the mention is innocuous, but it’s a portent of things to come. Workmanlike, not spectacular, 2.5/5. The Year is 1984. Welcome to the Great Metropolis. Remember how I said that our writers were probably from Manchester? See, that “Great Metropolis” isn’t London but rather an urban sprawl that stretches from Liverpool to Manchester. The GM is the industrial capital of the British Empire, and moreover the largest city in the world with a hundred million inhabitants. Wait, what? You do realize that Britain’s current population is only ~66 million, right? And that even modern metropolitan areas (city + the surrounding community) don’t get above the 30s million because they don’t need to be? This might just be one detail to fuss over, but it shows how much the writers often just misremembered stuff from their sixth form history classes and called it a day. Anyway, the titular “ether” was first postulated in its modern form by Herbert Spencer. Mr. Spencer was an actual Victorian polymath and contemporary of Darwin, but his specialties in real life didn’t include anything about physics. (They did include what would become Social Darwinism, though!) Etherscope Spencer’s thesis was that the classical Greek elements corresponded to actual states of matter - fire was energy, water was liquid, air was gas, and earth was solid matter. But what about ether? (The book consistently associates this with Plato, but it was instead Aristotle who was its greatest proponent at the time.) Spencer figured that not only was this classical ether the same thing as the luminiferous ether, a pseudoscientific theory mistakenly attributed to Faraday (who had a completely different theory on how light moves!), but that both were equivalent to...entropy. Which is a categorically different property concerned with the disorder present in a system. (Yes, the book expands on this later to really shoot itself in the foot.) This would’ve remained a fringe theory considered to be patent nonsense, as in the real world. But in ES 1874 the fictional Harold Wallace discovered Etherspace, a parallel dimension with basically magic properties, and proved Spencer right. Anyone could access it by carefully magnetic manipulation to do weird stuff like miniaturization, forging of supermaterials, or accessing unlimited clean energy. We skip ahead to 1914, because apparently nothing else worth even a sentence of detail happened in 40 years. (This gets readdressed later but only slightly.) Archduke Franz Ferdinand got assassinated, mainland Europe went to war, and Britain noped out because “[we] did not consider the Germans a match for our navy and, after all, Kaiser Bill was a cousin of King George”. Wait, what? Do you cretins not realize that royal relations didn’t stop any of the major powers from warring, that Britain went to war because it had signed a pact as one of the major Entente Powers, and that British militarism after its colonial struggles would have made the populace more eager to fight the German upstarts? Anyway, France apparently got conquered handily and Italy soon followed. How’d they get involved in the war when in real life they started out neutral? What did the US do for the entirety of the war? How does Russia of all places hang on until 1922 without either dissolving or losing ground because its industrial base was poo poo?   Their borders eventually were reestablished at the Volga, which is a hilarious amount to actually conquer. (Brest-Litovsk was still significant but with the way the writers go about their counterfactual history it feels like they played way too much Civilization.)In the wake of all this rigamarole, in 1926 Germany entered into a personal union with Austria-Hungary. Kaiser Wilhelm III married Sofia of Austria, and in 1928 their son was apparently named the heir to both empires. Never mind that Austria-Hungary was already held together very loosely, or that Germany instead favored centralization, or that the earlier Austrian Empire was fine with the Empress Maria Theresa on the throne; somehow they got this outcome to work. In 1929 Karl I of Austria-Hungary abdicated in favor of his great-nephew, and later on in 1946 his parents would abdicate in turn to grant him control of the New Reich. Ugh. Strictly speaking, the German “reich” translates as “realm”. But the problem with using that specific word is that there’s been almost no instance in the past century or more when it hasn’t corresponded with something worrisome if not actually vile. It’s variously corresponded with German nationalism and Naziism, and only the Weimar Republic was able to briefly use it as a purely bureaucratic distinction. Would it have hurt ES to instead call it the New Realm? In parallel, after the Pan-European War (basically WWI) Russia’s capital of St. Petersburg was flooded with refugees. You know, instead of being put under German administration as part of a “here comes the new boss same as the old boss” calculation. This apparently set off the Russian revolution in 1925, fully eight years after real life and also three years after the end of the war rather than in the middle of it. No mention is made of what happened to the Tsar, but Josef Stalin became the head of a socialist state (where are Lenin, Kropotkin, Trotsky, Kerensky, and other leftist Russian intellectuals) and decided to transport said refugees to the eastern end of the country for reasons. Infrastructure? Apparent planning? Ha! This in turn heartened British workers, who’d been “denied representation in Parliiament”. When did that happen? Woops, forgot to tell you about that! Anyway, the Communist Party led the north in a 1937 uprising to try to seize economic and political control for those disenfranchised. But unfortunately for them, the British Army had far better technology like power armor and mowed down apparent millions in a bloodbath. Afterwards British leadership had to figure out how to fix its labor shortage, because remember the British Army had killed a large part of their workforce. And the best solution they could come up with? Why, breed and clone more humans with the help of the Eugenics League! (Another word to run away from really fast.) On top of the designer baby chart are “alphas”, superior to standard human “betas”. “Gammas” came next as rodent hybrids (mouse DNA was malleable), but they had loyalty issues (I wonder why) and were succeeded by canid-hybrid “deltas” and equid-hybrid “epsilons” who were more pliant. True to history, in the 1930s Japan set out to colonize its end of the Pacific. It seized German and British colonies on the Chinese coast (when did they take those?) but apparently avoided Singapore and Hong Kong “to avoid angering the British”. As if they didn’t already; keep in mind that the British first went to war with China just so they could sell the Chinese addictive drugs. The British Empire was loving awful in how petty and spiteful it could be. But instead the Japanese invaded eastern Russian territories, Russia called in Britain anyway, and oops we had Oh, and in one sentence the US occupied half of Latin America. Did Ernest Cline ghostwrite some of this? Next: Peace in Our Time, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the d20
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May 7, 2019 08:48
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The Lone Badger posted:I choose to believe that the reason he was so successful in war was because he loved nerding out about roads and logistics and supply chains, so his army was always twice the size and better fed than his opponent's. Reminded how that's basically the reason the Ultramarines steal the show; their gimmick is logistics.
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May 7, 2019 08:51
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 Rifts Coalition Wars 1: Sedition, Part 11: "Despite the tantalizing scenario outlined in the previous pages, the chance of it ever happening is remote at best." So, the next scenario is odd and interesting enough that I singled out a single update for it.  He isn't in the adventure, he just floats around looking sweet, man. The Town of Solomon This is a town North and out of the way of the immediate invasion, near enough to the Xiticix Hivelands to be endangered- and the Coalition are making a beeline for it. It turns out they're trying to find a mysterious artifact known as the Key of Solomon, located at the Town of Solomon. Tolkeen soldiers have arrived to defend the town, and they have a deadlock. Most of its treasures have been evacuated, but the Key can't be moved because it's in a "temporal stasis". The Coalition doesn't actually know what the Key is, just that they have intel from a prisoner that the "the Key of Solomon will forever change the Coalition and save Tolkeen" before he committed suicide. They're presuming it's an assassination plot of some kind, and the resistance is only confirming their suspicions. I turns out there is no magic artifact there- instead, the "Key of Solomon" is actually a mystic gifted with the ability to use the "Orb of Solomon". However, the Orb is an actual orb. While the Key is not a Justice League villain, they are a person given the seemingly arbitrary ability to use the Orb, and they also gain immortality and wisdom how to use it best. Eventually, the Key will sense somebody in need of wisdom (the Wisdom of Solomon, I suppose, getit) to be imparted by the Orb, and can do so by touching the Orb to them. This Key is an (unnamed) woman who has become convinced that Emperor Prosek is the one in need of wisdom. However, she needs the Orb to wisdom-whammy him. If the PCs agree to her plot, they can be sent on the quest to find the Orb. Where one might find the Orb is left up to the GM, but generally locations in Canada are suggested. After all, they just released some books on that place, don'chaknow? Presuming the PCs can find the Orb, they can come back to recruit the Key and then go on a mission to try and play tag against Emperor Prosek with a magic Orb. They don't need to bring the Key - she can teleport to it once she feels the person in need nearby. The writers can't really decide whether or not the Coalition would kill the Key if they take the town of Solomon, and literally have a table where tails, they blow up the building she's in, heads, they set up a garrison to keep her under guard to research and understand it. If the latter happens, Tolkeen won't retake it - important people in Tolkeen are aware of the plot to enlighten Prosek, but don't really take it seriously enough to throw more troops after it. When the PCs arrive, the Key will recognize that they're the ones she needs because destiny and pop out of the temporal stasis that kept her from being moved. Rifts Coalition Wars 1: Sedition posted:This may also be a suicide mission for those who help The Key (the player characters?), because to get close to the Emperor is likely to put them in the middle of Chi-Town or a column of soldiers. Protectors of the Emperor will see the sudden, magical appearance and actions of the group as an attack on their beloved leader, and they will shoot first and ask questions later. Any characters who are dubiously lucky enough to survive will be captured (if not, they will be relentlessly hunted down), imprisoned, interrogated, tortured and probably put to death unless the Emperor intercedes on their behalf. Which he probably won't, even if imparted with great wisdom. Rifts Coalition Wars 1: Sedition posted:Despite the tantalizing scenario outlined in the previous pages, the chance of it ever happening is remote at best. Even if the player characters (G.M.'s Note: The idea here is to get the player group involved in this fantastic, life saving, world altering "what if" scenario) could find the Orb of Solomon, the odds of getting it anywhere near Emperor Prosek are astronomical. Even if they could get near — getting the Emperor to "touch" the Orb is a whole other problem. He isn't going to do so willingly and trying to throw, roll or hit him with it will require getting past an army of security guards all willing to lay down their lives to protect their Emperor — and all willing to leap in front of any incoming attack, strange crystalline sphere or no. Thus, somebody is likely to leap in the way, block the Orb with their body, knock it away, try shooting it (knocking the indestructible magic item away), or grabbing it to dispose of it (i.e. throw it off the side of a building, out the window, into a sewer or lake, onto a passing vehicle, scooped up and flown/driven/run away fearing it is some type of explosive or area effect magic device that must be gotten away from the Emperor). Meanwhile, Emperor Prosek will be ushered away in a matter of 1D4 minutes, still surrounded by 1D6+4 of his elite guard, to a safe, top security facility while 1D6x100 additional I.S.S. and NTSET rush on the scene within the next minute or two, all shooting to kill. This means characters are likely to have only ONE shot at this, if super-lucky, maybe two. Oh, and during all this activity they must protect the Key from getting killed or all is lost. If the PCs manage to use the Key and the Orb on Prosek, he probably won't spare them the likely imprisonment or execution despite his newfound benevolence and enlightenment. This is justified in that while his newfound wisdom grants him newfound benevolence, he realizes suddenly acting out of character could inspire a coup and likely put his son (Joseph Prosek II) in charge. And given his son is a calculating psychopath, he wants to do anything to avoid that. He'll see the PCs freed if he thinks he can avoid it being traced back to him. Afterwards, he'll seek a quick peace with Free Quebec, and continue with the war against Tolkeen... until he has a proper excuse to pull out, some major loss or disaster that can cause him to end the conflict "for the safety of Chi-Town". After that, he has to face with how to deal with his son. Chances are, he'll simply have to find a means to murder Joseph or otherwise take him out of the picture- as much as it agonizes and pains him to even consider. Rifts Coalition Wars 2: Sedition posted:G.M.'s Note: The idea here is to get the player group involved in this fantastic, life saving, world altering "what if" scenario...  "Just throw in some leftover art, nobody reads these adventures anyway." Another possibility is to try and use the Orb of Solomon on King Robert Creed. If suggested, the Key will agree to this, and it's frankly a much easier sell. King Creed will see it as an honor, as an aid to his war, but accepting it will bestow the realization that his side of the war is doomed. He can't stop the war at this point - the Coalition is already coming and there are enough of his people that won't back down no matter what, but he'll be able to try and get a minority evacuated and try and save as many lives as possible. It says that he'll probably die during the final battles working to preserve as many lives if possible, and if he survives, he'll likely be crippled by guilt over the war. Rifts Coalition Wars 2: Sedition posted:Note: Remember, the Orb of Solomon must be recovered before either the Prosek or the King Creed plot can be attempted. An adventure unto itself, and one that may prove fruitless (G.M.'s discretion). Though the plot device is more than a little hackneyed, this is perhaps one of the most interesting scenarios we get to see in all of the Coalition Wars books. Giving the players the ability to alter the course of the war - and likely the setting itself - should be what this event was about. Elements like this or the Mobius should be something a high-powered, "epic" game like Rifts should delve into, but we'll see the players forced into bit roles for the most part aside from this. Next: Don't forget to enjoy the war! Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 14:34 on May 7, 2019 |
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May 7, 2019 11:32
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I'm trying to think how your average RIFTS group looks and how hard it would be for them to sneak into the middle of Chi-Town to bop Prosek with the Orb. "A dragon, a Rahu Man Cyber-Knight, a Ninja Juicer and a Ley Line Walker walk into a bar..."
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May 7, 2019 12:44
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Etherscope is far more batshit insane than I ever expected. The science, politics, history, sociology, and very word choice is... wildly wrong in all sorts of worrisome ways. And that's a bit of a shock with Degenesis and Rifts going on at the same time. Also, out of professional curiosity, do they ever explain how they can possibly clone people and create genetically engineered people and animal/human hybrids? Because that just baffles me. I don't know how Victorian steam industry expects to do that, even with the power of magnets and free energy from ether.
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May 7, 2019 12:45
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Why would they even make humanimals for that. I realize the answer is almost certainly 'to have them as PC races, for variety'. But what possible advantage does a dogman have as a laborer besides that the British gentleman with the whip keeping him on task may well be able to dehumanize him even more effectively than a human worker?
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May 7, 2019 13:14
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Because game writers understand the aesthetic and themes of steampunk about as well as they do cyberpunk. Worse, actually.
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May 7, 2019 13:18
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Night10194 posted:Why would they even make humanimals for that.
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May 7, 2019 13:20
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I mean 'We used poorly understood and ridiculous psuedoscience to create a slave race that we exploit mercilessly because our entire society is based on exploitation and people dying in giant gears' could be perfectly within genre for steampunk.
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May 7, 2019 13:21
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Night10194 posted:I mean 'We used poorly understood and ridiculous psuedoscience to create a slave race that we exploit mercilessly because our entire society is based on exploitation and people dying in giant gears' could be perfectly within genre for steampunk. Yeah but it's also usually too punk for most steampunk.
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May 7, 2019 13:30
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Also  the Nazi to un-Nazi him and actually save Tolkeen seems really out of place for Rifts but actually kind of okay?Also hilarious that using it to convince the king to run still gets most of his people killed because hey look genocidal Nazi swarm. Almost like the whole 'pack up your entire nation and flee'/'Hide, like Belgium in the Onion' plan wasn't very wise to begin with.
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May 7, 2019 13:34
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Night10194 posted:I mean 'We used poorly understood and ridiculous psuedoscience to create a slave race that we exploit mercilessly because our entire society is based on exploitation and people dying in giant gears' could be perfectly within genre for steampunk.
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May 7, 2019 13:41
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What Fire Has Wrought: Dragons of Frozen Death The Wanasaan are called on across the Northwest, by those who know of them. They are called when the dead rise to threaten the living, to dominate and command them. Where others might make great lines of salt, pacify with worship or call on the monks of the Immaculate Order, the fishermen in the lands beyond Fajad gather a great bonfire and cast something precious into it, whispering the name Wanasaan. The first sign that their call is answered is the mists rolling off the sea, blanketing the area with thick fog. Only when the fog puts out the bonfire will the Wanasaan exorcist appear, wrapped in thick cloaks and with a straw hat hiding their eyes. Moisture drips off all surfaces in the presence of an exorcist, and the many totems and talismans on their arms jangle wildly. The locals give the exorcists the best of everything, telling them of the problem the community has with the dead or the dark. When the elders finish speaking, the exorcist listens, then nods, then names a price. The price is always paid – to refuse the Wanasaan once means they will never come again, and they do not tolerate competition. The Wanasaan stand between living and dead, in both a metaphorical and literal sense. Each Dragon-Blood of the family, on turning 25, is ceremonially drowned in a freezing cold lake on the Silent Isle, which is forever shrouded in fog. Sometimes, an initiate is too weak to survive this rite, but the family does it anyway – it’s the only way they have to maintain their status. Mortals born to the Wanasaan may petition to undergo the drowning rite, though they are much less likely to survive, and so can those who wish to join the family as adoptees. A survivor, when resuscitated, brings death back with them as a chilling ice in their heart from the inhaled water. This is both a source of sorcerous enlightenment and a hungry pit to consume the souls of the dead. Family legend holds that 200 years ago, Wanasaan Adiura found the Silent Isle. Whether she fell into the Spring of Echoes or drowned herself by choice is unclear, but the enlightenment it gave her has been clear through generations. Her descendants, being rather more mercenary than Adiura was, now hold the Isle in a kind of reverence as the key to their monopoly on exorcism in the region. They have made it their citadel, and while not all Wanasaan live on the island, enough do to make it the heart of their family and their tiny culture. For the sake of keeping the blood fresh, they marry outside the family at least a few times each generation, treating it in almost the same way they do all other business dealings. Those that sail off to marry the Wanasaan rarely return. The current family head, Kemra, is an old but still powerful Wood Aspect who claimed the island from her brother, Shiga, in a bloody coup that left the family decimated about 30 years ago. Custom says she should now direct the family from her guarded retreat on the Silent Isle, never leaving it to do exorcisms herself. However, with barely a dozen Dragon-Bloods left, the family is strained to keep up its business. Much of her time is spent recruiting outcastes for fear of losing the bloodline entirely, and she’s unsure if it’s working. Even her greatest loyalists wonder if the cost of victory over Shiga was too high. The Sisterhood of Pearls was founded some two centuries ago when a pair of Immaculate missionaries went to the Isle of Fevers. They hoped to spread the faith and teach proper society on the island, which was dominated by a few thin-blooded outcaste families ruling an undercaste of peasants. Rising Flame’s passion and Willow’s Strength’s generosity won over some of the people, and within a year, they built a small temple. Within five years, they were teaching the children to read. In the meantime, they debated the Immaculate Philosophy with each other. Year by year, Flame and Willow refined the issues they had that separated them from the mainstream Philosophy, the Five Insightful Criticisms that redefined their worldview. Their fervor drove them on, and their message of absolute equality won over the peasants. Soon, the old rule was abolished, and the rulers either converted or fled. Sister Flame and Sister Willow rebuilt the island as their ideal paradise. According to the pair, they are the response of the world’s cycle of reincarnation to the excesses of the Dynasty, a pearl formed to protect the truth. The example of the pearl forming to protect a clam is often used in their sermons and even forms the name of their sect. The Sisterhood of Pearls seeks to perfect themselves, as a pearl is sand perfected. The First Insightful Criticism is: “All souls are part of the cycle of death and rebirth; all souls are therefore equal.” The Sisterhood believes that all beings with a soul are equally worthy, and that to kill any interrupts the lessons of their life. All members of their community are vegetarians and prefer to avoid violence whenever possible, though they are not afraid to defend themselves or others if need be. The Second Insightful Criticism is: “The Essence of the Immaculate Dragons is the Essence of enlightenment, but though the enlightened may be wise, and may help to guide others, their souls are no greater in worth.” While Flame and Willow are Dragon-Bloods and lead the Sisterhood, those two facts are not directly connected. The remaining outcastes on the Isle do not treat the mortals there as inferior, as they did when they ruled. In practice, Dragon-Bloods are still deeply respected, their words given great weight, but any mortal may speak out against them or criticize them if they seem lacking in enlightenment. The Third Insightful Criticism is: “To divide the community according to place and purpose is to ignore the fundamental equality of all souls; abolish, therefore, all divisions.” The Sisterhood are still Immaculate and still believe that the job of life is to instruct the soul. However, they disagree fundamentally with how society is organized in the Realm. Within the Sisterhood, all property is held in common outside of a few personal possessions, and none may gain wealth or power over others. Those that join the community must give up their valuables, either throwing them into the sea or donating them to the Sisterhood’s arsenal, largely based on how useful the stuff is. The Sisterhood is for complete gender equality, and all decisions are made by the community after extended religious debate. Anyone may argue for what they believe best aligns with the Five Insightful Criticisms. The Fourth Insightful Criticism is: “Dragon-Blooded who squander their enlightenment on the material have turned aside from the True Way; they imperil their souls in doing so.” Rising Flame and Willow’s Strength have always been disgusted with the excesses of the Dynasty, and both joined the Immaculates to escape that. Seeing how the Order’s rules had failed to fix things, they refused to allow their new people to fall prey to the same petty troubles. All labor is done in common, with duties rotated among the people. Dragon-Blooded are, if anything, expected to live far more ascetically than mortals, rather than be corrupted by luxury. The Fifth Insightful Criticism is: “The path to enlightenment is not a straight road but a turning wheel; the most high may be reborn as the lowest.” Dragon-Blooded Exaltation is not, per the Sisterhood, a reward for past lives. It is a transient state of grace. On death, the soui may be reborn in any role, even an Anathema, in accordance with the harmony of Creation. Mortals must therefore be treated with respect, as a cruel Dragon-Blood may well suffer the same treatment in their next life. The Anathema are wicked, and so the Sisterhood forgives the sin of killing one in the Wyld Hunt, but even they are deserving of as much compassion as can reasonably be given. The past century has forced Flame and Willow to rely closely on each other. They do their best to support their community and they love each other deeply, but they have been divided for decades over one major issue: what should the Sixth Insightful Criticism be? Rising Flame says: “Even a pearl was once a grain of sand; so too must the Sisterhood soothe the ache of the Dynasty’s misrule.” Willow’s Strength says: “Even a pearl was once a grain of sand; so too must the Sisterhood be complete in itself.” This disagreement has flowed through the entire Sisterhood, pushing other disputes to the surface. Flame and her followers want to proselytize, first in the West and then, ideally, across the world. She believes that Willow’s objection betrays the First Insight and places the Sisterhood’s enlightenment over the needs of Creation. Willow believes Flame is ambitious, and while her purpose is noble, she imperils her soul – which Willow cannot allow her love to do. She and her followers condemn any expansion off the Isle of Fevers. The argument is deadlocked, and they both know it. They both know they will not give in. Only their love for each other and their community is preventing things escalating further. Each is terrified and saddened that they may destroy it all, but they cannot turn from their faith. Their factions, meanwhile, grow increasingly radicalized and may end up making the decision for them. e: Just gonna make this explicit, this is very much Lesbian Elemental Lenin and Trotsky here. Next time: The Temple of the Reverent Whisper and the Seven Storms Brotherhood Mors Rattus fucked around with this message at 14:21 on May 7, 2019 |
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May 7, 2019 13:43
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Tibalt posted:I think what annoys me the most is that there is a blindingly obvious way to write this story if you REALLY wanted to make Tolkeen villainous. Rifts is lousy with evil magically-aligned groups. Have it be clear, "So says the Prophecies", Winter Is Coming obvious that Tolkeen is going to lose this war! Have King Creed start making deals with the Atlantians or getting advice from Lord Dunscon or start summoning demons! The road to hell is paved with good intentions! It always interested me how like, the various demon witch groups don't get the same kind of consideration. The Federation of Magic are just super evil without any kind of redeeming thing about how actually they're just driven to it by their loathing of the coalition to deal with demons and do child sacrifice. It's just Nazi Cobra that gets this treatment.
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May 7, 2019 13:45
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Dawgstar posted:I'm trying to think how your average RIFTS group looks and how hard it would be for them to sneak into the middle of Chi-Town to bop Prosek with the Orb. "A dragon, a Rahu Man Cyber-Knight, a Ninja Juicer and a Ley Line Walker walk into a bar..." I like how there are 100-600 police officers able to respond within around a hundred seconds, in an archology, fully armed and ready to shoot... ... but that it can take up to 4 minutes for Prosek to be ushered away from the scene. the numbers are not helping
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May 7, 2019 13:53
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Etherscopes alternate history is just lazy. If youre going to half-rear end everything this much just dont even provide a setting history.
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May 7, 2019 14:00
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NGDBSS posted:We skip ahead to 1914, because apparently nothing else worth even a sentence of detail happened in 40 years. (This gets readdressed later but only slightly.) Archduke Franz Ferdinand got assassinated, mainland Europe went to war, and Britain noped out because “[we] did not consider the Germans a match for our navy and, after all, Kaiser Bill was a cousin of King George”. Wait, what? Do you cretins not realize that royal relations didn’t stop any of the major powers from warring, that Britain went to war because it had signed a pact as one of the major Entente Powers, and that British militarism after its colonial struggles would have made the populace more eager to fight the German upstarts? Anyway, France apparently got conquered handily and Italy soon followed. puts on pedant hat Well, actually... the British were reluctant to get involved in World War I. There was pretty serious waffling in the cabinet of the time about whether or not to commit troops to the continent. The British Army was tiny compared to the French Army, and there were doubts about whether it was worth it. In the end, they went to war because if they didn't, they'd end up without friends--if Germany wins, well, England's potential allies are now conquered, and if France/Russia win, England didn't help them, so they're still out in the cold. The French Army was actually considered equal to the German army, and barring serious deviations from what happened in our TL were unlikely to be easily defeated. "Conquered handily" is just applying World War 2 France to World War 1 era. 
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May 7, 2019 14:28
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I kinda, sorta remember 'Etherscope' as part of the steampunk boom of the late 2000s that never really took off but still somewhat integrated itself in pop-culture. I still hear 'steampunk' used as a term to describe anachronisms in fiction from time to time. Night10194 posted:I mean 'We used poorly understood and ridiculous psuedoscience to create a slave race that we exploit mercilessly because our entire society is based on exploitation and people dying in giant gears' could be perfectly within genre for steampunk. A good steampunk game would really play that up. Like Well's Morlocks were regular people altered by thousands of years of underground slavery in analogue to the conditions for industrial workers of his time.
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May 7, 2019 14:28
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Alien Rope Burn posted:I like how there are 100-600 police officers able to respond within around a hundred seconds, in an archology, fully armed and ready to shoot... Well what you're not considering is that maybe the 600 police officers rushing in is why it takes Prosek 4 minutes to get away, because he has to elbow his way through a tsunami of cops. 
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May 7, 2019 14:40
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Hypnobeard posted:Well, actually... the British were reluctant to get involved in World War I. There was pretty serious waffling in the cabinet of the time about whether or not to commit troops to the continent. The British Army was tiny compared to the French Army, and there were doubts about whether it was worth it. "Sounds like a plan. The sun shall never set on our Empire!"
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May 7, 2019 14:46
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Ah, Etherscope. I've heard a lot of things, mostly bad. The idea of a cyberpunk setting that has grown out of a steampunk one could have been interesting if they'd remembered to make it meaningfully different, but I'm not seeing anything to differentiate this from the usual standard steampunk stuff. Actually that take on WW1 isn't entirely implausible for different reasons. England waffled for several days about whether or not to commit troops to a war on what was, after all, French soil. But worst of all it's boring. Surely the joy of this setting should be autonomous calculating battleships that are smarter than their own admiralty with a better sense of humanity? Clockwork butlers with scalding tea-cannons in their hats which are driving the actual servant class out of work? Or the Royal Society struggling with genetics that don't appear to have a gene for British Superiority? GURPS Steam-Tech is the best steampunk book I've ever read because it remembered to be silly. The writers tapped into actual veins of Victorian-era consumer culture. That book has a two-page spread devoted to gadget canes (mostly real) and there's a type of calculating AI-engine that can be built into a woman's dresser so it can give you (clanking, steam-driven) fashion advice. It has rules for oil-fired sushi vending machines that can be sent into Attack Mode if given the correct coded order. Then there's a mansion whose analytical engine may be awakening to sentience as its slowly-going-senile owner relies on it more and more to prompt him. It does all of this long before the alternate history section. Give readers and players that kind of stuff, not nonsense about Glorious Germanic Triumphs which I suspect are going to go down grimly familiar historical paths.
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May 7, 2019 15:48
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