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Ah, vampire powers, where half of the powers are really only useful/meaningful for NPC's or flavourful but entirely useless for a variety of reasons, and most of the actually useful ones are the flavourless ones like "do a big punch" or "do a fast punch."
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Jul 19, 2019 22:56
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Freaking Crumbum posted:it runs afoul of too many of the bug-a-boos inherent to contemporary protestant christianity for me to buy into the setting. so the existence of this hell and satan specifically seems to imply we're working with a christian cosmology, which itself necessitates that there's an omnipotent omniscient creator that likewise runs heaven, in which case it makes no sense at all for some random angel to just kapoof into hell to rescue an "innocent soul" because said creator should just be able to immediately correct that particular mistake solely by divine fiat. The presence of Hades and his cunning plan for a return to a greco-roman afterlife implies that the situation in Heaven is similar, with a current paradigm that favors a monotheist deity, but which could be shifted by the right events.
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Jul 20, 2019 00:39
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Oberndorf posted:I took to house-ruling Fortitude to be a straight automatic success on soaking lethal or bashing damage to let it keep pace with Potence. Also changed the fire/sun/aggravated damage soak roll to straight Fortitude rather than Stam+Fort to keep it from being too silly. yeah i hate stuff like dread gaze as it's written cause its the old 'air breathing mermaid' scenario like a book introduces a feat called 'mermaid air breathing' which allows a mermaid to breathe air, when prior everyone had just assumed mermaids could breathe both. you shouldnt need a feat or power for something all vampires can do
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Jul 20, 2019 02:44
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I like the proposed fix for Dread Gaze. It would be even better if it's purely mental, so you could humiliate a rival by sending them screaming from a boardroom with everyone else none the wiser. I've avoided Vampire V5 like the plague, but I skimmed their Discipline rules and...their Celerity seems like the best version in Masquerade?
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Jul 20, 2019 05:42
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So from reading them, Dominate is how you get the judge to let someone off, but Presence is how you get people to donate to your pet politician's fundraiser?
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Jul 20, 2019 05:46
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Thaumaturgy (and Revised Necromancy) at least have the limitations of no Path extending beyond 5 dots; all you get is the ability to learn and cast ultra-complicated resource-and-time-extensive level 6+ Rituals. I know, such a limitation on the wizvamp flying above you, tossing fireballs and lightning bolts like they’re still playing D&D wiegieman posted:So from reading them, Dominate is how you get the judge to let someone off, but Presence is how you get people to donate to your pet politician's fundraiser? AmiYumi fucked around with this message at 06:25 on Jul 20, 2019 |
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Jul 20, 2019 06:22
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wiegieman posted:So from reading them, Dominate is how you get the judge to let someone off, but Presence is how you get people to donate to your pet politician's fundraiser?
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Jul 20, 2019 06:37
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Nessus posted:Dominate directly controls someone's actions, Presence just makes them like you. Of course the one-two punch is very powerful. Ventrue are the bosses for a reason.
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Jul 20, 2019 12:55
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Ventrue used to have Animalism instead of Presence. They changed it in Revised. They still have Animalism in Requiem, though. VtM would eventually publish all 13 clans, close to 20 Bloodlines, and almost 30 Disciplines including several versions of Thaumaturgy and Necromancy, another macro-Discipline. That doesn't include the Kindred of the East, who are not actually Kindred, or the Kindred of the Ebony Kingdom, who are somehow different and weird because they're in Africa. You know, that place where human and Kindred civilization began.
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Jul 20, 2019 14:02
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Halloween Jack posted:Ventrue used to have Animalism instead of Presence. They changed it in Revised. They still have Animalism in Requiem, though. No, they always had Presence in Masquerade. Getting Animalism was unique to Requiem.
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Jul 20, 2019 15:29
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Joe Slowboat posted:There was and is a particular strain of RPG fan, and more generally SFF fan, who thinks that human characters and human drama are fundamentally boring. The most interesting possible thing, in this view, is for somebody or something to be inhuman, to have strange ways of thinking or being, because that's different from real life and therefore more creative. I was thinking about stuff like this (well, mostly oWoD/hearstakers and their "gently caress comfortable civilized life") and it probably stems from the relatively comfortable lives nerds were living back then, in the neoliberal end of history. There was to be no shakeup, only bland and boring today (or maybe they felt the emptiness of the consumer life on some level), so something radically different seemed cool. After all, history ended already, so where could adventures be if not behind some hidden veil?
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Jul 20, 2019 19:54
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JcDent posted:I was thinking about stuff like this (well, mostly oWoD/hearstakers and their "gently caress comfortable civilized life") and it probably stems from the relatively comfortable lives nerds were living back then, in the neoliberal end of history. There was to be no shakeup, only bland and boring today (or maybe they felt the emptiness of the consumer life on some level), so something radically different seemed cool. After all, history ended already, so where could adventures be if not behind some hidden veil? I think that's putting too much thought into the reasons behind it. It seems to be more "I like this and want this and therefore anything that doesn't enable the things I like are objectively bad".
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Jul 20, 2019 21:16
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I do think that internet transhumanism is driven in no small part by a disdain for the human condition, which itself does not recognize ways that that condition might be improved short of individual immortality and robot tentacle arms. This means the strange and inhuman becomes the only interest because humans are inherently disappointing and uninteresting. It's not a very interesting critical approach, and also leads to constantly overstating how alien characters written by humans are, in order to justify caring about them.
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Jul 20, 2019 22:30
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Joe Slowboat posted:I do think that internet transhumanism is driven in no small part by a disdain for the human condition, which itself does not recognize ways that that condition might be improved short of individual immortality and robot tentacle arms. This means the strange and inhuman becomes the only interest because humans are inherently disappointing and uninteresting. Or it's because you're unable to visualize accomplishments that don't have flashy special effects. Hence, why Solars should have ki-blasts, because with a ki-blast you know something extraordinary is going on, while someone who just looses arrows from a bow with superhuman precision, well, how can you tell they're any better than a regular person? (But the flashy special effects must not, under any circumstances, be gold!)
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Jul 20, 2019 23:22
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JcDent posted:I was thinking about stuff like this (well, mostly oWoD/hearstakers and their "gently caress comfortable civilized life") and it probably stems from the relatively comfortable lives nerds were living back then, in the neoliberal end of history. There was to be no shakeup, only bland and boring today (or maybe they felt the emptiness of the consumer life on some level), so something radically different seemed cool. After all, history ended already, so where could adventures be if not behind some hidden veil? The End of History thing also manifests in other properties. Shadowrun isn't OWod, but they were neighbors back in the day and share a ton of themes. For a supposedly punk game, especially later versions, supposed meaningfully challenging the system to be utterly futile, and a better, post-capitalist future to be unthinkable. By 4th ed and 90% of 5th, the consensus was you were corporate thugs with the occasional mohawk (granted, this might have been heavily influenced by the rise of the security state and that weird brief bit in the mid 2000s where mercenaries has rockstar-like fame.) Also the shadowrun living communities I've been on have been full of the most tepid centrist liberal technocrats who all think punk is an aesthetic, not an ideology*. *from an internal left viewpoint, I do think punk is insufficient, but for babby's first leftist insurgency, its adequate here. Ronwayne fucked around with this message at 00:57 on Jul 21, 2019 |
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Jul 21, 2019 00:54
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LatwPIAT posted:(But the flashy special effects must not, under any circumstances, be gold!) So they also have a problem with the people who have sun powers glowing like the sun? loving nerds man
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Jul 21, 2019 07:08
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wiegieman posted:So they also have a problem with the people who have sun powers glowing like the sun? loving nerds man
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Jul 21, 2019 08:33
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Oberndorf posted:I took to house-ruling Fortitude to be a straight automatic success on soaking lethal or bashing damage to let it keep pace with Potence. Also changed the fire/sun/aggravated damage soak roll to straight Fortitude rather than Stam+Fort to keep it from being too silly. Because I hate my players, and I think that superman is better with kryptonite, I've house ruled sun and fire damage to be unsoakable. gently caress you, the sun hates you. No free passes.
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Jul 21, 2019 09:53
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Nessus posted:Yeah, I find Solars relatively boring but they absolutely should be glowing like Aztec sun gods and/or Super Saiyans at all time. that's kind of their thing If your Solars magnificence isnt literally blinding to lesser humans, are you even really a Solar?
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Jul 21, 2019 12:26
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Barudak posted:If your Solars magnificence isnt literally blinding to lesser humans, are you even really a Solar? Yeah, you obviously are because you developed an internal technique to make everyone inspired by you able to stare at the Sun without blinking (or you're a Nigjt caste). If you're not only blinding your enemies, you're just being sloppy!
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Jul 21, 2019 16:26
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 FOUNDATION (LA)  So Foundation! What is it? Confusing! See they SAY Foundations are your personality, current social standing, etc. But they aren’t. Remember how previously I mentioned, over and over, Wizard Interior Decorating? How Wizard Interior Decorating is A Big Deal? Yeah this is the Wizard Interior Decorating chapter. Foundation is a pun, because foundation of your house. Anyway, there’s 8 foundation’s and they’re all boring as hell. In basic terms it’s your starting money, Hidden Knowledge, what kind of House you have, connections, and so on. Yes, it is incredibly boring. As a side-note as I go over these: Money is in Crystal Orbs. The currency system is loving insane and awful, but that’s a while to go. Just understand that Orbs=Cash.
 VISLAE HOUSES Yep, HOUSES. Told you Wizard Interior Decorating is important.  So houses are made up of three things: Type of House, Level of House, and Augments. Augments are special features and abilities tied to your house. You can buy them with Acumen (XP). What type of house determines how many augments you can have. House level is increased with Crux (The other XP) and determines the level of the augments you can have. House augments are, by the by, In Another Book. So you don’t get to know those yet. So house types! You have Small, Average and Large which just refer to size. Small is an apartment, Average is a standard house, Large is a big rear end mansion. They give you 5, 7, and 8 Augment caps respectively.    Prominent means your house is famous or well known in some way. It might be a landmark, or historical significance, or just very recognizable. Seven augments.  Unique are like… well. Houses that aren’t normal buildings. Made out of whimsical stuff. 6 Augments.  Hidden are.. Hidden. Not in public, you can’t easily find it. Secret hideout stuff. Five augments.  You also have to choose a peculiarity for your house. Which is… just Random Bullshit. Maybe your house moves! Has a ghost infestation! Doors lead to the wrong rooms! Squatters! Drafty! It’s all stuff that’s actively annoying to players and nothing that seems cool or fun.  SHADOW SKILLS AND MEMENTOS Right, so while you were trapped in Shadow IE The Real World and not Cool Wizard World you learned things and got stuff. When you came back to Cool Wizard World you kept one skill and one possession from Shadow. Skill is just… you get a level 2 skill relating to whatever you did while in Shadow. Bleh. The shadow possession is also poo poo. You basically get to pick one thing from your Shadow Life that you bring back to Actuality with you. The thing you bring back works even if it makes no sense, like smartphones still having internet connections and cars running without gas. These are explicitly useless. quote:However—and this is a big however—in the QUIRKS gently caress me I hate these. OK so you get a Quirk. It’s just… random bullshit. You make one up or pick one from the list. The suggested ones are awful and well…  You can feel Cook trying to be original or interesting or fun or just… clever and it just never ever works. Not a single one of these feels properly strange or magical, just like weird random bullshit you put in your Livejournal RP Description of your Harry Potter OC. CONNECTIONS Connections work just like skills, but they apply to organizations, groups, and social class. Whenever you’re interacting with that group, or making any roll connected with them, you can use that connection as a skill. I’d list some of them, but pretty much all of them are just names of setting stuff with no context. NPC BONDS THese are not in any way connections. These are stupid as poo poo though. So, Bonds are with specific NPCs. To get them they cost Acumen. Each bond represents a type of relationship with an NPC, for example:  The bonds are Associate, Contact, Friend, Old Friend, Lover, and Relative. Can you see the issue? These have no mechanics. Like, they may earn you Joy or Despair, but they have NO MECHANICS. These are purely narrative descriptions, but you still need to spend XP for them.  Next Time: Sick of Character Creation Yet? The Final Step: NARRATIVE MECHANICS
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Jul 21, 2019 21:52
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And I thought the Child Of Light translators couldn’t scan..
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Jul 21, 2019 22:15
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I wish Cook had the quirk of being unable to write the word "vislae"
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Jul 22, 2019 00:47
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The worst part of pretty much all those "quirks" is that none of them mean anything. Most of them would ever come up in normal play, and even if they did they're not going to have an effect on anything. I mean, who cares if you get two yolks out of every egg, or if you can talk to earthworms but they never say anything? I'm not saying they should all have a mechanical thing tied to them, but they at least need to have a point beyond "let me bring up how ~unique~ my character is."
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Jul 22, 2019 00:50
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"What if One Unique Thing, only it didn't matter and nobody cared?"
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Jul 22, 2019 01:18
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Technology is useless in wizardland! All your posts turn to poo poo on the internet! ... so Awful.app still runs just fine.
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Jul 22, 2019 01:53
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juggalo baby coffin posted:
I hate to be the "actually" guy this day, but... ...Frankenstein's Monster actually looked like this originally: (Dude at the bottom, also warning for weirdly large image)  IIRC, in the original book, he was just an ugly looking human that didn't have clear marks from being stitched together by some mad scientist or was literally green like in Universal's movie. Sure, I agree that PtC making everyone conveniently have shift changing powers is pretty silly, but it's either that or rolling the dice every time you come out into public with your Elephant Man mask, so I can accept it. Also RE:Mummy, I am not familiar with the sources that WW pulled from, but the Universal movie The Mummy and it's remake/prequel of the same name that had that lovely sequel where the rock was in really bad CGI had IIRC the Mummies look like completely normal people, who's only weird thing on glance was that they were wearing really loving old clothes and poo poo. Plus, considering the Egyptian's entire Mummification stuff was meant to preserve the body as fresh as possible, I don't see a reason why magical litch people have to be ugly assholes, if it required sucking people's souls, the game would feel like a rip off of Vampire. Halloween Jack posted:The general lack of attention paid to non-Western cultures doesn't stand out as much as it might, because the Vampire corebook doesn't do a "[Secret Monsters] Round the World" section like later games and supplements would do. The Revised corebook actually does have a "History of the Kindred" section that's entirely Western (after we get past mythical Bronze Age origins of course). But by that time, they had figured out that East Asia is dominated by the Kuei-Jin and Africa by the Laibon, so it doesn't prompt you to ask "What do vampires in, like, Thailand make of this thoroughly Abrahamic mythos?" And this is why the nwod is literally better in almost every loving way. No lovely "BOO THE ASIANS ARE DIFFERENT MONSTERS WHO WANT TO KILL ALL OF THE EVIL WESTERNERS" stuff, eastern monsters are just westerns monsters but with slightly different/modified but still mostly the same as their western counterpart cultures, or weird monsters that aren't necessarily all that much different from the other non-splat weird monsters of the "west". And yet, there are people who unironically think that Kindred Of The East wasn't as racist as something made up by hp loving lovecraft. Seatox posted:Technology is useless in wizardland! All your posts turn to poo poo on the internet! As lovely as the anti-technology poo poo was in Old Mage (And yet the Technocrats are STILL the coolest faction in all of WOD imho) was, AT LEAST there WERE mages who realized the internet was a useful place to share cool magick tricks on the deep web(tm), as supposed to some Werewolf style "Noooo, THE INTERNET IS BAD BECAUSE OF SOME lovely EXCUSE THAT WE MADE UP ABOUT SOME lovely SPIRIT SPIDER" bullcrap. You can even play a WOD version of TRON in it! Seriously, the BEST part of Mages In Modern Day (Both Mages and Unknown Armies) is actual Mages In Modern Day. When you make the internet a totally useless piece of poo poo, then you might as well just play the game in the 60's (not 1960's, 1760's) at that point. Or just play UA instead. Awesome game. Somebody needs to do a review of its group supplements someday.
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Jul 22, 2019 03:23
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To be fair, even very well preserved mummies tend to look like they're made of leather and anorexia nervosa.
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Jul 22, 2019 04:07
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My favorite part is the apparently insuperable reflex to head off any attempt to make quirks matter, ever. "Small flames don't burn you BUT BIG FLAMES DEAL 1D6 DAMAGE PER ROUND AS NORMAL, BOB" The sheer effort it must've taken to put the hair-made-of-silver thing in there and not add that it turns to dust when cut off and therefore can't be sold or used for anything.
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Jul 22, 2019 04:12
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megane posted:My favorite part is the apparently insuperable reflex to head off any attempt to make quirks matter, ever. "Small flames don't burn you BUT BIG FLAMES DEAL 1D6 DAMAGE PER ROUND AS NORMAL, BOB" The sheer effort it must've taken to put the hair-made-of-silver thing in there and not add that it turns to dust when cut off and therefore can't be sold or used for anything. wherever this is, I've already forgotten. Is it one big city?
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Jul 22, 2019 04:24
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I'll say what I'm assuming everyone is thinking : I read it as "Farttown" every single time. Because I am a child. Farttown!
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Jul 22, 2019 04:27
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Zereth posted:I'm guessing mundane materials like silver aren't very valuable in see the sidebar of page 239 of book 3 for setting information
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Jul 22, 2019 04:41
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How much time would it take the average person to figure out that butterflies are uniquely scared of them?
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Jul 22, 2019 05:28
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theironjef posted:How much time would it take the average person to figure out that butterflies are uniquely scared of them? If the dumb wizards have zoological facilities with a classic butterfly house like every reputable earth zoo has, about 30 seconds of walking into it (Typically in a well populated one you'll have them landing all over you if you stand still long enough). Otherwise, probably quite a long time.
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Jul 22, 2019 05:57
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I just bought the TinyD6 Bundle of Holding specifically for the Tiny Wastelands ruleset (which I intend to modify quite a bit), is there interest here for a review? (Unlike those boring Israeli modules)
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Jul 22, 2019 06:19
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It's magicland. The butterflies there probably speak and scream.
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Jul 22, 2019 06:42
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Bieeanshee posted:It's magicland. The butterflies there probably speak and scream. They text, but the texts are all gibberish. And hey, finally caught up with the thread!
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Jul 22, 2019 06:50
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TheNamedSavior posted:I hate to be the "actually" guy this day, but... there was something outright horrible looking about him. he had gross yellowed eyes and translucent skin. he was like a walking uncanny valley. Frankenstein built his body to be beautiful, but as soon as it was animated it looked hideously off. victor posted:How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips the monster posted:Hateful day when I received life!' I exclaimed in agony. 'Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust? God, in pity, made man beautiful and alluring, after his own image; but my form is a filthy type of yours, more horrid even from the very resemlance. Satan had his companions, fellow-devils, to admire and encourage him; but I am solitary and abhorred. he didn't look like our modern idea of a frankenstein, but he was obviously unnatural to any observer. He was also 8 feet tall, which was even taller when the book was written than it is now. juggalo baby coffin fucked around with this message at 07:00 on Jul 22, 2019 |
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Jul 22, 2019 06:58
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Any reason for that reverse lepidopterophobia thing, and not some other random, wacky and mysterious quirk? Sounds like there isn't any relation between your "shticks" and your quirks - or, apparently, an advice to make such a connection. Also, "if I crack open an egg, it always has double yolk". Wait, so do you make it to double itself retro, or it's like schrodinger's egg, and you can't determine the number of yolks inside 'till you open it? By popular demand posted:I just bought the TinyD6 Bundle of Holding specifically for the Tiny Wastelands ruleset (which I intend to modify quite a bit), is there interest here for a review? 
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Jul 22, 2019 07:13
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Post Mortem Degenesis Rebirth Primal Punk Chapter 3: Cults Degenesis: Primal Punk certainly took more time than I imagined. It was a very bumpy ride, to say the least. Like many people say, it's a very beautiful book, but the information layout is dogshit. Certain things are nearly duplicated. Many remain unexplained for hundreds of pages. I'm not entirely sure if placing Cultures before Cults was a great idea. The lack of any time frames before the History section is loving terrible. Having the Primer info in the front of everything else might have been the only good idea when it came to layout. Meanwhile, for the Cults themselves... I'd say that Scrappers and Clanners existing as Cults is loving stupid. Scrappers and Clanners are such diverse people that having some sort of unifying theme for them is silly, especially when you compare it to Spitalians and Hellvetics. It's like saying that Peasant and Knight of the Exclusive Order Of Followers Of An Obscure God are both equally specific. And of course, an extra special gently caress you for Apocalyptics: they have a stronger claim to factionhood due to the memetic inception, but that's all they have going for them. They're, without a doubt, the evil faction, the functioning of which makes no God-drat sense. Every word written in their own section makes you hate them more. Apocalyptics should definitely be an NPC faction, especially when you already have Spitalians, Anabaptists and basically any other right-thinking faction gunning for them. I’m still kinda interested in the world of Degenesis and would probably play a game in it, but I would have been better by not reading the fluff book first. The writing, the repetition and the lack of explanations just wear you down, sapping enthusiasm and the will to go forth. If Degenesis: Primal Punk is tantalizing, it’s despite itself, and not because it’s purposefully so. The book badly needs an outside editor with no buy in into the setting. The relative novelty of setting post-apocalyptic adventures in strange Europe can only carry it so far, even for a European. THE END Next time:Chapter 5
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Jul 22, 2019 07:16
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