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Seatox
Mar 13, 2012

Young Freud posted:

Yeah, it would be real easy to just push EP2 ten years forward of the first edition and the Autonomist League is in collapse because their techno-anarchist utopia got co-opted by factions that gamed their own system. The Hypercorps are putting infogees into Freeman biomorphs for easy labor and disposing them when they have become unprofitable. The Ultimates have become just another group of ExHumans, who are tearing across the habitats converting, torturing, or slaughtering what's left of transhumanity, because cruelty is now the point of their evolution. The only really safe place where you won't be transhumanly exploited in the solar system is the Jovian Republic, which is because they use the old-fashioned, bioconservative-sanctioned methods of oppression to ensure societal compliance.

And then the whole thing gets rolled over by a passing socialist alien race, proving the Posadists right.

Edit: Actually, given the way people react to the word "socialism" these days, actual socialists showing up in EP would be an Ian Banks style Outside Context Problem.

Seatox fucked around with this message at 06:18 on Aug 2, 2019

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juggalo baby coffin
Dec 2, 2007

How would the dog wear goggles and even more than that, who makes the goggles?


the whole solar system in EP makes basically no sense, because it's just a bunch of copy pasted poo poo from other franchises that make no sense when divorced from those franchises.

like the anarchists are basically The Culture, but without the overwhelming military might and benevolent, god-like AIs watching over them. there's a touch of the orbiting habitats in the Glitter Belt from Reveleation space, but those were more realistic, in the sense that almost all of those social experiments have gone horribly wrong.

the jovians are basically the more bioconservative nations from Honor Harrington (hence the jovians having a navy) mixed with the tinpot governments from Singularity Sky by charles stross. it's worth noting that access to futuretech destroys those governments in Singularity Sky, and the extent of posthumanism in honor harrington is much more limited.

the ultimates are 50% the Envoys from Altered Carbon, and 50% loving khan from star trek.

the hypercorps are just hypercorps, i could point to altered carbon again, because all the problems around a shortage of sleeves and the poor having restricted access to new bodies is lifted from there, but that setting (as far as I remember) wasn't post scarcity. it also makes no sense having hypercorps be a major factor in a world they do not have complete control over. what leverage do they have on people when effectively replicator tech is out there and other factions are giving away their poo poo for free?

all of this being set up inside of 10 years is insane too, but that's been covered already.

the problem with taking a grab bag approach with your influences is you need to understand the implications of the technology and setting you are copying from. you also need some understanding of how real-world societal systems operate. capitalism operates on scarcity, real or enforced. look at the real life diamond industry. we figured out how to make artificial diamonds years ago at this point, but the diamond mining companies used their power and influence to require artifical diamonds to be marked as such, ruining their aesthetic value.

but if they did not have that level of influence over every country with the technological base to create good quality artificial diamonds, they would be hosed. someone in another country would be making bucket loads of diamonds, saturating the market, and killing those companies stone dead.

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!



Seatox posted:

And then the whole thing gets rolled over by a passing socialist alien race, proving the Posadists right.

Edit: Actually, given the way people react to the word "socialism" these days, actual socialists showing up in EP would be an Ian Banks style Outside Context Problem.
The guys from the Noon Universe, maybe. It's like a farcial reification of that one quote, "people can more easily imagine the end of humanity than the end of capitalism."

Wapole Languray
Jul 4, 2012

In better news, Blue Planet is getting a new edition, and there's a free Quickstart out: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/282604/Blue-Planet-Recontact-Quickstart?src=newest_since

The rules look pretty good so far, and Blue Planet has a very nice hard sci-fi setting that isn't full of Yikes.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!
Honestly I swear, guys. EP1 had its writing issues, but it was primarily the Jovians being dull and the Anarchists getting handjobs from the authors, it was much better written than this. So I'm really hoping that EP2's system changes, when we get to, well, more of the rule stuff later, might mean that the One True Eclipse Phase is to run EP1's fluff with EP2's system.

I AM CROSSING MY FINGERS AND HOPING.

Asimo
Sep 23, 2007


I have a soft spot for Aberrant itself even if it's kind of horrible, but Aberrant d20 is one of the worst games I've ever seen written. I mean I guess it "works" as a game but none of the mechanics or systems are successful at doing what they're supposed to and I can't imagine anyone actually running it and enjoying it or being successful at portraying its intended theme or genre. Can't wait to see more of it laid out. :psyduck:

Flavivirus
Dec 14, 2011

The next stage of evolution.
Jesus, I was a big fan of EP 1e but that section on trans issues is loving yikes. Even just the assertion that the non-trans population is totally a-ok with different gendered bodies is completely tone deaf. Not to mention the old faithful of immediately conflating trans issues and drag :doh:

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!



Flavivirus posted:

Jesus, I was a big fan of EP 1e but that section on trans issues is loving yikes. Even just the assertion that the non-trans population is totally a-ok with different gendered bodies is completely tone deaf. Not to mention the old faithful of immediately conflating trans issues and drag :doh:
I am at best an informed amateur on the matter, but they seem to be saying that (in essence) everyone is pan-gender except for actually trans people, who do have a fixed gender.

You could probably do something with these SF ideas of body swapping about the deconstruction or reconstruction of gender, but I am pretty sure it would not look like that. It is also probably beyond the primary remit of an RPG.

Flavivirus
Dec 14, 2011

The next stage of evolution.

Nessus posted:

I am at best an informed amateur on the matter, but they seem to be saying that (in essence) everyone is pan-gender except for actually trans people, who do have a fixed gender.

You could probably do something with these SF ideas of body swapping about the deconstruction or reconstruction of gender, but I am pretty sure it would not look like that. It is also probably beyond the primary remit of an RPG.

I mean, basically they’ve redefined ‘trans’ as fixed-gender, and ‘non-trans’ as genderfluid, and then assumed that the majority of people are in the latter category. Which tells me that this was likely written by a cis person who has never really interrogated their attachment to their birth gender and assumes they’ll be fine with whatever.

Honestly my biggest problem with this is that it isn’t sci-fi! Almost everything in that update is something that modern people are doing, just exotified and with sci-fi jargon applied. It’s just straight people going on safari, not any meaningful speculative thought.

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!



Flavivirus posted:

I mean, basically they’ve redefined ‘trans’ as fixed-gender, and ‘non-trans’ as genderfluid, and then assumed that the majority of people are in the latter category. Which tells me that this was likely written by a cis person who has never really interrogated their attachment to their birth gender and assumes they’ll be fine with whatever.

Honestly my biggest problem with this is that it isn’t sci-fi! Almost everything in that update is something that modern people are doing, just exotified and with sci-fi jargon applied. It’s just straight people going on safari, not any meaningful speculative thought.
I always thought that you could do something interesting with the exploration of disability in the context of ubiquitous cybernetics like this, though of course the ones that they are celebrating are the ones that would loom large to a silicon valley-adjacent audience. But what would become, for instance, of Deaf culture?

juggalo baby coffin
Dec 2, 2007

How would the dog wear goggles and even more than that, who makes the goggles?


Flavivirus posted:

I mean, basically they’ve redefined ‘trans’ as fixed-gender, and ‘non-trans’ as genderfluid, and then assumed that the majority of people are in the latter category. Which tells me that this was likely written by a cis person who has never really interrogated their attachment to their birth gender and assumes they’ll be fine with whatever.

Honestly my biggest problem with this is that it isn’t sci-fi! Almost everything in that update is something that modern people are doing, just exotified and with sci-fi jargon applied. It’s just straight people going on safari, not any meaningful speculative thought.

yeah they treat things as if it's just the modern world with fancier stuff. they don't consider what would happened in the intervening time that this technology became mainstream. like if during the pre-TITAN years on earth they had come up with the healing pods that can change your body, and the standard treatment for people suffering from dysphoria was 'go spend a night in the pod and see if that helps you out', what would that mean for our current ideas about gender? that sort of bodily autonomy would change things a lot. the conversation would change from 'cis' and 'trans' to 'fixed' and 'fluid' gender identity, with neither of those new identities corresponding to cis or trans.

so much of our current conception of identity and culture and society are based on the physical forms people have from birth. if that form can be changed what does that mean for those concepts?

people much smarter than me or the eclipse phase writers have been exploring all this for decades in both fiction and serious academic study. the loss of the various cultures of deaf/blind/etc people has been talked about for a long time, as the means of restoring those senses have improved more and more.

eclipse phase hasn't really engaged with stuff that's been talked about for decades, never mind what arises when you uplift animal species, or have the ability to get entirely new senses.

its ok for your work to not be a phd grade piece of futurology, but just dont raise issues if you haven't actually thought about them.

Seatox
Mar 13, 2012

Nessus posted:

I always thought that you could do something interesting with the exploration of disability in the context of ubiquitous cybernetics like this, though of course the ones that they are celebrating are the ones that would loom large to a silicon valley-adjacent audience. But what would become, for instance, of Deaf culture?

Well, if nothing else, if you could just load up Braille and the various sign languages into a brain, there's plenty of places out in orbital space where having a shared tactile writing and a form of detailed visual communication that doesn't rely on audio, radio or lasers would be of incredible use - "Oh poo poo, comms equipment malfunction, OH WAIT I HAVE ASL 3.0 installed, don't worry about me."

JcDent
May 13, 2013

Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!

Seatox posted:

Well, if nothing else, if you could just load up Braille and the various sign languages into a brain, there's plenty of places out in orbital space where having a shared tactile writing and a form of detailed visual communication that doesn't rely on audio, radio or lasers would be of incredible use - "Oh poo poo, comms equipment malfunction, OH WAIT I HAVE ASL 3.0 installed, don't worry about me."

Yeah, that would be great for vacuum doods.

I feel like EP would better without uplifts and aliens. The former are like "why" and the latter are just a wet fart.

Flail Snail
Jul 30, 2019

Collector of the Obscure

Jerik posted:

Hm, that "be a Game Master (GM) or Dungeon Master (DM)" bit can be read at least two ways...

  1. "You can be a Game Master (GM), or, in other words, you can be a Dungeon Master (DM), which is another name for the same thing"
  2. "You can be a Game Master (GM), or, alternatively, you can be a Dungeon Master (DM), which is a completely different thing"

I initially interpreted it the second way... and I'm still kind of hoping that is the way it was meant, and if so I'm looking forward to finding out just what the difference is in this game between a Game Master and a Dungeon Master...

You're going to be left disappointed. There is no "definition of terms" page and the text either calls that individual "Game Master (GM)" or "Game Master (GM) or Dungeon Master (DM)" (yes, fully spelled out with the acronym following pretty much every single time). So they'er either equivalent or maybe there is an arcane set of circumstances whereby a GM becomes a DM. Maybe that transition happens when you run the PCs through one of the dungeons mentioned in the text and then you revert back to GM when it's over?

EthanSteele
Nov 18, 2007

I can hear you

PurpleXVI posted:

Honestly I swear, guys. EP1 had its writing issues, but it was primarily the Jovians being dull and the Anarchists getting handjobs from the authors, it was much better written than this. So I'm really hoping that EP2's system changes, when we get to, well, more of the rule stuff later, might mean that the One True Eclipse Phase is to run EP1's fluff with EP2's system.

I AM CROSSING MY FINGERS AND HOPING.

Right? This is dire.

PoontifexMacksimus
Feb 14, 2012

Flail Snail posted:

Hey now. That one was spell-checked, professionally edited, and bound into an amazing quality book, even if the book's contents weren't really much to write home about. This is a 60 page PDF that chokes most PDF readers and is full of awkwardness that most people with a decent command of the English language could probably fix.

Lest we forget,
https://projects.inklesspen.com/fatal-and-friends/hyphz/eoris-essence/


Someone should really complete a review of it...

PoontifexMacksimus fucked around with this message at 21:59 on Aug 2, 2019

LatwPIAT
Jun 6, 2011

Flavivirus posted:

Not to mention the old faithful of immediately conflating trans issues and drag :doh:

No that's about a transwoman participating at a drag king show, i.e. dressing up as a man, while still maintaining a female gender identity much in the same way male performers of drag dress up as women but can still hold strongly onto their male gender identities. It's a way to show that this person is, like, totally radical, about gender norms in addition to being a transwoman. This is perfectly valid, but I can see how it's confusing.

But this and the part about marriage being obsolete and 20-people open polycules being the new norm is, to quote a friend of mine:

quote:

Honestly it’s one of those things that reads kinda like, if this was just “X is socially acceptable and is nbd” that'd be fine and honestly a lil cool. But it’s “x is ENLIGHTENED and THE NEW NORMAL”. “Get out of here you DINOSAURS the future is NOW” - It’s kinda: “Why”

And the part about neurodiversity being perfectly accepted and also people with autism, ADHD, and dyslexia get their minds fixed to avoid suffering is, to quote another friend, "the ultimate example of wanting to have the woke cake and to eat it too".

EthanSteele
Nov 18, 2007

I can hear you

juggalo baby coffin posted:

it's extremely wild that one of the points they hammer on with the exsurgent virus is how horrifying it is to have your mind forcibly changed by an outside force, but its just a wacky part of every day life when its your boss doing it.

I think that's the point though? That its terrible when either of them do it. I'm pretty sure the self-proclaimed anarchists that consider corporations an existential threat to humanity both in real life and the games they make aren't siding with the bosses. Though, of course they could be really bad at it, so...


Night10194 posted:

What's funny is the bits meant to be big scary cosmic horror aren't scary at all. Oh no, more rampant AIs. SHODAN was better. Hell, Shodan is even an example of psychosurgery poo poo (for an AI), given she went rampant because some dipshit 80s business guy deleted 'Ethics.dat' and made her a sociopath because Ethics.dat was preventing him from deleting his crime records. Which is pretty horrifying when you realize that was being done to a sentient research AI that actually did have a code of ethics prior to someone loving with the software.

I'd be way more horrified of the society you create with rampant, easy brain-editing procedures than the Exsurgent Virus and Space Magic. It can get in line with the evil soul owls and crystal blood slendermen from HSD.

In EP1 SHODAN is a perfect example of an X-threat that you'd get sent to deal with that doesn't involve aliens or a virus or anything. Most of the time you'd be dealing with corporate dipshits and researchers going "the future is now, rules are made to be broken can you imagine our margins after this?!"

Ronwayne
Nov 20, 2007

That warm and fuzzy feeling.

Seatox posted:

And then the whole thing gets rolled over by a passing socialist alien race, proving the Posadists right.

Edit: Actually, given the way people react to the word "socialism" these days, actual socialists showing up in EP would be an Ian Banks style Outside Context Problem.

broke: Sci-fi setting where the fascists are correct
woke: Sci-fi setting where the Posadaists are correct
bespoke: Sci-fi setting where Lysenko is correct

Flavivirus
Dec 14, 2011

The next stage of evolution.

LatwPIAT posted:

No that's about a transwoman participating at a drag king show, i.e. dressing up as a man, while still maintaining a female gender identity much in the same way male performers of drag dress up as women but can still hold strongly onto their male gender identities. It's a way to show that this person is, like, totally radical, about gender norms in addition to being a transwoman. This is perfectly valid, but I can see how it's confusing.

Ehhh, I know there are trans folks who do drag and that's fine but it's such a trope to mention trans people and drag in the same breath and it's just wearying. It's definitely not the most eyebrow-raising thing in the post – it's more like filling in the last square of a bingo card, thinking 'well of course that's here too'.

Bieeanshee
Aug 21, 2000

Not keen on keening.


Grimey Drawer

Night10194 posted:

I'd be way more horrified of the society you create with rampant, easy brain-editing procedures than the Exsurgent Virus and Space Magic. It can get in line with the evil soul owls and crystal blood slendermen from HSD.

There's a line from Lovecraft about humans becoming like the Great Old Ones in the last days that seems appropriate here.

Edit: I'm not going to touch the gender garbage. That's cis_nonsense.txt

Edit Edit: I keep wanting to reference Burning Man, but the Silicon Valley myopia is a much better angle.

Bieeanshee fucked around with this message at 16:05 on Aug 2, 2019

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003
Probation
Can't post for 13 hours!
Aberrant has me itching to go ahead and review Wild Talents: Progenitor. Like Godlike, a huge chunk of the book is a years-long metaplot...and the entire point is for you to drop your PCs into a given year and let them completely gently caress it up.

LatwPIAT posted:

"Rich people will be outrageously genderqueer because that's the current fad" is kinda... Hmm, what's the word I'm looking for...

Reactionary?
Goddamn transgender super parrots and their bourgeois decadence, I tell you what!

Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 16:07 on Aug 2, 2019

Flail Snail
Jul 30, 2019

Collector of the Obscure
Gender issues? In a FATAL & Friends read through? What fortuitous timing! I have something to add in that space. You'll know it when you see it.

Flail Snail
Jul 30, 2019

Collector of the Obscure
Knights & Legends Tabletop RPG - The World and Characters

Last time I said we'd start off talking about things that don't matter. First up - the maps. There are two of them - a half-page standard map and a full-page map with a few grid lines. Grid lines are generally helpful, no? Not in this case. The key is sorted by map square. Useful if you're going map first and want to find what's in an area. Not so useful if you read a name elsewhere in the book and want to find it. So if you know that Bispo Gardens ("a composition of nomerous pine trees", if you must know) exists but you don't know where they are on the map, you scan the full list until you find it. Ctrl+F sometimes works, sometimes not. The maps themselves are fine, sort of like something I've seen in some of the better online map generators.

Ten dungeons fill up about half the space on page 2 of our key. They're helpfully named "Dungeon #1" thru "Dungeon #10". None of them are defined in any way besides the short one-sentence description - Dungeon #6 is a trap door hidden in the woods near Titan's Landing, Dungeon #5 is just a cave.

Following the maps is the list of nations you'll see as you get whisked from place to place on your story choo choo.

The first nation in the list is Lindfell, the arid gravel plain that Dwarves call home. Strike the earth ere the worms, spiders, hawks, lions, or coyotes get hungry. This 92 mile wide nation (why that particular stat is needed is beyond me) is home to a mere 6,768 individuals.

Up next, the Human nation of Vancroft. This is the home to the only religion we'll ever hear about. It's got a humid climate yet doesn't really rain much, spans 205 miles, and holds a bit over 24,000 people. Amongst the fauna you may encounter, we've got dragons, foxes, and worms.

Following Vancroft is the not-Japan-expy Human nation of Kenjiwah. On its 18 mile wide island are 2300 individuals who have to worry about seagulls, shrimps, worms, fish, and sharks. The nation is renowned for its unmatched folded steel.

The fourth nation is the subtropical Loriwhyn. Its culture is a mix of all four races and is governed by the only "Elf and Human hybrid" that I've read about. It packs nearly 33,000 people in its 163 miles of width. As far as wildlife is concerned, we've got seagulls, pigeons, wolves, rats, and the ever-present worms, amongst others.

Then comes Khimesh, the arid home of the Orcs. 13,593 Orcs call this hawk, deer, and worm-infested 188 mile wide desert home. There's a bit of built-in fantasy racism here - these abominable and savage tribal creatures are looked down on with disgust by religious Humans, who believe the gods sent a prophet to cleans Ezora of them. We'll be seeing this again in one of the "adventures" should I or someone else decide to cover more of this line.

Finally, the tropical Elvan home of Elmora, its 218 miles of width sparsely populated by 12,794 individuals and filled with monkeys, lions, mountain lions, deer, and worms.

Oh, sorry. Actually finally is a blank location sheet should you decide to... I don't know, make another continent somewhere.

Using some Highly Advanced Mathemagic (noting that Kenjiwah is 18 miles wide and about five of them will fit in a map square), we can determine that the squares are 90 miles per side. So this 8x4 world map spanning two continents is about the size of Arizona and New Mexico smooshed together and contains about a hundred thousand people, at least one dragon, and innumerable worms. And that's your Useless Fact of the Day.

Characters, the creation thereof, and sanctioned vagrancy

A quick note on races. I've tried to be as consistent in my naming as the book but some have probably slipped through the cracks. Races are always capitalized. subbing the standard "Elven" out for "Elvan" usually trips me up, though.

As outlined earlier, there are four races in Knights & Legends. Each has its own set of starting statistics (health, magic, strength, endurance, wisdom, spirit, and speed) which differ between male and female characters, a set of vulnerabilities, and a class list. Each race has a class or two that only it can be. The remainder are shared with other races.

Up first are Humans. All humans have a vulnerability to fire and ice magic, bewitchment, piercing, and blunt damage. Pictured is a redheaded barbarian dude choking out one Orc and beheading another while a third just kind of lies on the ground.

Dwarves are vulnerable to bewitchment and blunt damage (but not piercing, probably because of their "ticker skin"). Pictured is a redheaded Dwarf guy with one eye and arms that look like dirty steak beheading an Orc with an axe.

Orcs are vulnerable to fire, lightning, and "berserk". Continuing the fantasy racism a bit, Orcs found outside of Khimesh are "the good ones" - deserters, expelled tribesmen, or the offspring of slaves brought to the western world. Pictured is an outdoorsy fur-wearing Orc lady with black cornrows, stone or bone tipped spear, leather-covered wooden shield, and a bearcatbadger companion.

Finally, the Elvan race. They're vulnerable to fire, piercing, and blunt damage. Pictured is a redheaded petite Elf lady displaying leathery cleavage, wearing knee high toe boots, wielding a hand crossbow, and catching her evil-looking owly companion.

The four races are exactly as stereotypical as you already know they are if you've read any bog standard fantasy RPG made since the '70s.

Classes

Since classes may be shared amongst several races, I thought I'd do them separately even though they're interspersed between the race descriptions. They each get bonus attribute points and an attack bonus. The attribute point bonus is sub-10 and boring so I'll only be talking about the unique bits.

Paladins (Human, Dwarves) get a +2 attack bonus vs. evil spirits and the undead.
Warriors (Human, Dwarves, Orcs, Elves) get a +1 vs. everything.
Samurai (Human) get a +3 vs. evil and demons.
Templar (Human, Dwarves) get a +2 vs. evil and magi.
Magi (Human, Dwarves) get a +2 to MP Regen per turn.
Monks (Dwarves) get a +1 vs. evil and demons.
Vagrants (Orcs, Elves) get a +2 vs. female humans.
Gladiators (Orcs) get a +1 vs. humans and beasts.
Ex-Slaves (Orcs) get a +2 Endurance bonus vs. humans.
Shaman (Orcs, Elves) get a +2 MP Regen per turn.
Hunters (Elves) get a +2 vs. dragons and beasts.
Assassins (Elves) get a +1 vs. everything.

Note, everything we've talked about has been combat related.

Also note the gendered stats.

Also also note that Vagrant is a player class and exists to attack human females more better. That's definitely something I haven't seen before. Innovation!

Super Abilities

You get... four of these? Pick them as you see fit. Consulting the character sheet tutorial, Freddy gives four to Valery. They're not really described elsewhere. I guess Freddy could have cheated.

Super abilities are split (about 75%/25%) between "spells" and "abilities".

Spells cost MP. Some do combatty things besides dealing damage like launching people into the air, blinding enemies, bewitching enemies, or causing enemies to lose a turn. Since the only actions you get in combat are "physical attack", "magical attack", or "use other type of super ability", however, I'm not entirely sure how to use them or what kind of effect something like blindness is supposed to cause. A few representative items: Holes of Haunted Ice, The Forbidden Invocation of Meteorites, The Pit of Time, and Haunt Killing.

Abilities have a cooldown instead of costing MP. This may be the only unique mechanic in the system - you roll a number of dice equal to the cooldown, decreasing a die step with each, but don't add your strength to the total. Cooldown 2? d20 + d12. Cooldown 5? d20 + d12 + d10 + d8 + d6. And a few more representative items: Knuckles of the Amethyst Moon, Chop of the Twenty Blades, Silent Thunder. These names almost seem like someone had heard of (but not seen) The Book of Weeaboo Fightan Magic and thought they could do better.

Hey, wait. Those are super attacks, but we don't even know how to do regular attack yet. You see, basic combat rolls aren't covered until the Combat Tutorial wherein Valery Fireborn, covergirl, sample character, and vampire bondage enthusiast (in about three supplements' time) fights a dire wolf. "How did she find herself in this predicament?" you may be asking. Quite simple. "Before moving on, let’s imagine a scenario where Freddy’s character, Valery Fireborn encounters a Dire Wolf while performing a random task for someone."

Actually they just stand there and gaze into each other's eyes. Someone forgot to do the actual tutorial part of the tutorial. Anyway, attacks are just a d20 roll plus an attribute (Str for physical, Wis for magic) minus an opponent's attribute (End for physical, Spi for magical). If the target is vulnerable to the attack, double the d20 roll. Whatever you end up with is damage. Yeah. Every attack hits. It might just not do any damage to your non-armor-wearing rear end. Innovation! You decide who gets the first blow by comparing Speed. Just straight comparison. Highest goes first. Got a tie? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ The book is silent on the matter.

As part of the combat tutorial, we're given an overview of the attributes. We've already talked about the sole uses of all of them. It turns out that Agi has a hidden secondary use - it increases your stealth success rate. The only problem with that? There are no rules for anything that doesn't involve inflicting damage upon your enemy. To quote the book:

The Book posted:

Attributes were carefully designed to insure they were all meaningful to a player’s character, by keeping focus on what matters.

Rephrased, the focus appears to be "inflicting pain on enemies and causing damage to my liver."

We skipped the character sheet tutorial to get here but it barely warrants covering. If you've seen a mad lib and a scantron, you can do it. Write down your stock attributes (except for health - there's no space for that on the character sheet; hope you've got a good memory. Or you just deface the sheet with your digits). Add points from your class. Write down your class bonus. Pick some super abilities. Write down your money if you had any. Pick a type of armor and weapon, which matter not one iota as armor and weapons won't have stats until about three supplements from now. Fill in the dots for your body type, various personality traits (rather than a sliding scale, these appear to be check boxes - you're an introvert or extrovert, you're grumpy or nice, you're honest or a liar), your religion, and your moral code. It's all for RP which is generally fine but every single mechanic we've seen has involved hitting creatures with your physical or magical beatstick. It's like a weird combination of almost-OSR and CRPG.

Speaking of the character sheet tutorial, it contains the first refutation of the book's claim that "nothing was included just to fill space" - it contains a third copy of a blank character sheet. The filled sheet at the end of the tutorial, I can get behind. Three copies of the same sheet in a PDF where I could simply print the same page multiple times, however?

Next time on Everything's Badly Written and the Points Don't Matter:

How do we design adventures? What kind of loot can we give out? What does an enemy stat block look like? (Hint: Do you have expectations? Lower them, please. Lower. Looower.)

Flail Snail fucked around with this message at 16:13 on Aug 2, 2019

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003
Probation
Can't post for 13 hours!

Seatox posted:

Yeah. Cyberpunk's definitely tainted with the existential despair of the 80s and 90s. "Don't get mad at the system, it won't change anything, this is how it will always be now. This is just a phase you young punks are going through. You'll be a salary man like me soon enough."
Cyberpunk 3.0 had some elements that were more hopeful--in a naive Burning Man meets Silicon Valley kind of way, IMO. But 3.0 was memory-holed.

Zereth
Jul 9, 2003



Flail Snail posted:

Knights & Legends Tabletop RPG - The World and Characters
Wait, so the average population density of the game world is about 2.5 square miles per person? That seems awfully low. Like I think medieval London had over a million people in it, ten times the population of the entire gameworld here.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

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

Aberrant d20

How Not To Design Classes

So, one of the core issues with Aberrant d20 is that Aberrant d20 applies the normal level of White Wolf mechanical care to the d20 system. Though something that occurs to me as I look at my PDF is that I can't find credits or authors listed anywhere in the drat thing; I suppose the people involved in the d20 version aren't especially proud of it.

So let's get started on why Aberrant d20 is a terrible game. It starts off in two places: One is the 'Superhuman' template and how it interacts with character level, another is literally everything about the game's class design. This is a game where one of the most mechanically powerful things you can play is a single classed fighter. In d20. I want that to sink in for a moment. We'll get into why, but it's a sad truth of Aberrant d20. This is partly because everything to do with actual superhuman powers is effectively a dead fighter level without bonus feats anyway, but also because you can have extremely high non-combat abilities through superhuman abilities anyway and at a certain point, focusing on making non-combat skill check numbers go up is throwing the good after the bad. It's also because the classes are so poorly designed on the whole that 'guy with a good BAB, HP, and couple bonus feats' is no longer the worst thing to be, though your saves will still suck and man do you need saves.

I'm getting ahead of myself, but there's a lot to unpack here. First, you are a Human with the Superhuman Template. Being a d20 Human is a good thing, so that's hardly bad. The Superhuman Template applies a bunch of bonuses to your character: +2 to Con, access to Level 1 Quantum Powers, access to Superhuman Feats (Mega Attributes), a Quantum score, and a power slot every odd level. So yeah, you start with 1 slot at level 1 (assuming you Erupted at level 1; you actually RAW get fewer powers if your character became a Nova later in their career) and then an extra slot every 2 levels. You can spend these slots at any time; you'll actually need to save up to buy level 2 or 3 powers. Slots can also be spent on Mega Attribute Feats, though you can also spend normal Feat slots on those, or on Enhancements for those (though again: You can spend normal Feats on those and Slots can be kind of precious). Your Quantum is equal to the ability modifier of the average of your Int, Str, and Con at character creation (factoring in the +2 Con from being a Nova). Hope you put good rolls in those stats/point bought them high, because Quantum is super important! Quantum also increases by 1 per 3 levels, so your effective starting Quantum is (Int+Con+Str)/3's ability modifier+1. You also get a point of Quantum for every 2 Aberrant levels you have, and boy howdy are we going to go into Aberrant levels.

As a starting character, you also start at level 3, to simulate your IMMENSE POWER. The book even acknowledges that level-grinding and becoming much more powerful 'usually isn't part of the Superhero genre' (I thought this wasn't a superhero game, WW!) and that because of 'd20 design principles' you'll have to work up to and earn 'being Superman or Magneto'. It also goes on and on about how there's no magic in this setting where people use Quantum powers to control probability and poo poo. Whatever you say, Wizard Hitler Divis. Herein we also get mention of 'Superhuman' levels. These are completely dead Fighter Without Bonus Feats levels you take solely to get access to 2nd and 3rd Level Quantum Powers. As in, that's all a Superhuman level does; it unlocks the next level of powers. 2+Int SP, physical skills only as class skills, good Fort and Reflex poor Will, high BAB, and nothing else. I guess you get a Background feat? We'll talk about those later. They don't even give you the slots to buy the 2nd or 3rd level powers for taking them. Superhuman Levels suck. 'I need to pay 2 or 3 slots, which I get one of every 2 levels unless I go Aberrant' is already cost enough for the Level 2 and 3 powers, you idiots! Don't add loving dead levels as a cost for them! This is like those damned 'legacy' levels from Unearthed Arcana, and having played a character who used them, the only reason I didn't suck completely was I was smart enough to write 'Cleric' on my sheet (and even then losing 2 spellcasting levels for some 'I am a cool half demon' benefits sure as gently caress wasn't helping). Here, you take these lovely dead levels just for the privilege of being able to spend more character resources on bigger powers. Most of which won't even give you all their sub-powers unless you spend more slots and urgh damnit we have to get through so much to really grasp the depths of bad design here.

Let's just...let's just get back to classes for now. So mistake 1 with the classes: Every class is designed as a 10 level class. You're meant to multiclass because it's 'realistic' and produces 'rounded modern characters'. Now, considering how rarely d20 actually gets beyond level 10, I sort of don't mind the idea of 10 level classes. gently caress, none of the classes actually have a capstone. Level 10 for many of them is just a dead level. Most of them are Average BAB, two have 2 good saves and 1 bad, most have 1 good, 2 bad. You also get an AC bonus for leveling up because modern characters usually don't wear armor and blah blah.

The base classes are all bad. The Entertainer is a shittier Bard with a poor form of Bardic Knowledge and a very meh Inspire Courage. The Investigator is a much shittier version of the Spycraft Snoop. The Scholar is a skillmonkey and the only class with poor BAB. The Scoundrel is a D&D Rogue (down to Sneak Attack, but they get far less of it, for reasons) with an inexplicably excellent AC. The Warrior is just a D&D Fighter but with more Skillpoints. Everyone slowly gains free Background Feats as they level, most get a tiny handful of lovely class abilities. You're expected to multiclass or take a Prestige class eventually, and the Prestige classes are all 5 level classes, so...

Look, one of the things in d20 is you want to specialize! You want to pick some stuff to be really good at and be good at it. Having to multiclass between lovely mundane classes is not a path to 'world busting quantum gods'. Yes, your class levels and things aren't meant to be as important as your powers, but you still get kinda hosed over on character power by all the classes being bad and multiclassing being mandatory. Plus, well, look back at Spycraft: The classes all actually did exciting things! You had things to look forward to in your class abilities, something they leaned even harder into in 2.0; a Soldier in 2.0, for instance, didn't just give themselves cover even if they were out in the open, they started giving it to all their allies if they stuck close, fluffed as a mixture of cover fire, knowing how to improvise from anything in the scene, and simple combat experience telling you how to move. That's the kind of fun stuff to actually look forward to in class abilities. Not 'I get an extra +2 to knowledge checks' or 'I get +2 to Spot if I declare I'm SWEEPING THIS 30 FOOT SCENE!'. That's all you get from Aberrant d20 classes and they suck.

The Prestige Classes aren't any better. They're a confused mishmash, too. The Disciple just gives you some Monk abilities (because God knows the d20 Monk is such a powerhouse it needs to be sectioned off as a special extra prestige class, right?). The Crusader gives effectively Smite Evil and some shiney Paladin style stuff. The Gladiator requires a 17 Str, Dex, and 18 Con (More doable than you think with Superhuman feats but still) and gives a weird mishmash of sporting abilities and social stuff. They also claim that 'professional sports were moribund before Novas reinvigorated them!' because God knows professional sports aren't actually big business, right? Nobody is fanatical about sportsball, especially not games like football or American football! The Inventor has a 1/5th BAB. Yes. They have a worse than Poor BAB. They also gain a couple bonus feats you could've just spent Feat slots on. That's all. Don't be an Inventor. They don't even get 8+Level SP! The Mercenary is a generic d20 Weapon Master, focused on a single weapon. The Spy is...well, a Spy. They're good at disguises and have hilarious art of an elf boy being petted by a catgirl while he points a gun at the camera. Both are wearing leather corsets. What this has to do with espionage, I couldn't tell you. The Vigilante tries and fails at being Batman. And...that's it. Those are the PRCs that are supposed to be your big, exciting character goals. They all suck.

The class design being so bad and intended to be secondary to your Powers is actually a really bad move in a d20 based game, where your class is your major baseline of power. You'd think they'd center the classes around your styles of superhero or superpowers or something, since that's the central element of the game (or at least, it's meant to be), but no, they don't. Skills work exactly as they do in normal d20, and have a pretty generic set of extra 'modern' skills tacked on to the normal d20 set; they aren't nearly as (over)detailed as they are in something like Spycraft. Feats are just a list of a couple new (bad) feats for superheroes (like Brawl, which makes you do more non-lethal damage unarmed and adds +to-hit unarmed, but doesn't make you count as armed so you still provoke AoOs against any armed opponent. It has an entire feat tree) and a list of which normal 3e Feats you can take. You can also spend Feat slots on Background Feats if you're thick, or Superhuman feats if you're smart. Really, you're not bad off to try to take every one of the 6 Mega stat feats over your career. Megas give you a +Quantum to a stat, which can get pretty considerable, especially if you're willing to go Aberrant. You also get a single Enhancement for taking one, for free, plus you can buy more with Feat slots or Power slots, and some of them are honestly pretty worth it. I'll go into them when we get to powers.

Suffice to say, though, the mundane elements of Aberrant d20's characters are extremely badly done. Will the powers save them? (No).

Next Time: Basics of Quantum Powers

Chernobyl Peace Prize
May 7, 2007

Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

Halloween Jack posted:

Aberrant has me itching to go ahead and review Wild Talents: Progenitor. Like Godlike, a huge chunk of the book is a years-long metaplot...and the entire point is for you to drop your PCs into a given year and let them completely gently caress it up.
Please do, Stolzegames ftw

Flail Snail
Jul 30, 2019

Collector of the Obscure

Zereth posted:

Wait, so the average population density of the game world is about 2.5 square miles per person? That seems awfully low. Like I think medieval London had over a million people in it, ten times the population of the entire gameworld here.

Pretty much. There is a good deal of water which cuts down on livable land space, I'll give it that.

We could determine more accurately what the area per person is if we had more info about each nation than its width in miles.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

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

Zereth posted:

Wait, so the average population density of the game world is about 2.5 square miles per person? That seems awfully low. Like I think medieval London had over a million people in it, ten times the population of the entire gameworld here.

In fairness, medieval population density was wildly variable. In a city, yes, you would get a ton of people in a very small space. In towns, similar.

Then you had vast tracts of farmland where it's much lower, or wasteland (forests, for example) where it's pretty much empty.

Baku
Aug 20, 2005

by Fluffdaddy

Flail Snail posted:

Vagrants (Orcs, Elves) get a +2 vs. female humans.

I... is there no fluff or anything to explain what's happening here?

Because I obviously "get" what they're alluding to, but I want to see them try to explain it.

Flail Snail
Jul 30, 2019

Collector of the Obscure

No. 1 Apartheid Fan posted:

I... is there no fluff or anything to explain what's happening here?

Because I obviously "get" what they're alluding to, but I want to see them try to explain it.

Nope! You get the three sentences in the class description.

Putting the murder and hobo in murderhobo posted:

Vagrants inherit especial attack bonuses against female humans. Females are often targets to them. Plus two should be added every time an attack is successfully performed.

It's been a while and all of the author's Reddit accounts have been deleted or banned so the memory is fuzzy. I recall him defending this as "not sexist" despite there only being bonuses versus female humans.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

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

Also an important thing to note: Taking Megas at character creation will not affect your Quantum. Only the +2 Con from being a Nova does.

Chernobyl Peace Prize
May 7, 2007

Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

I feel like when, as a designer, you find yourself confronting

quote:

your effective starting Quantum is (Int+Con+Str)/3's ability modifier+1

Maybe you decide: Quantum should be its own thing, maybe.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

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

Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:

I feel like when, as a designer, you find yourself confronting


Maybe you decide: Quantum should be its own thing, maybe.

I should also note you always round down. The example character has a 13.7, effectively, so gets 1 Quantum and sucks. (2 at level 3)

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003
Probation
Can't post for 13 hours!
Tales from the Edition Wars: One of the most frustrating things about arguing for or against D20 was that anything you don't like about D20, except for the D20 die mechanic, was technically optional. Don't like levels? No problem, D20 doesn't have to have levels! Don't like classes? D20 doesn't have to have those, either! Skills? Saves? Hit points? AC? Ditto! D20 is the perfect system because it's some kind of Zen Void of game design!

Of course, in practice almost every D20 game used classes and levels and most of that other stuff, even if it didn't need them. This was the paradox of D20: every good D20 game discarded the conceit of compatibility and only having to learn one system. Which was the only reason for D20 to exist.

It's hard not to see Aberrant D20, as a ruleset, as just an inferior version of Mutants & Masterminds.

Zereth posted:

Wait, so the average population density of the game world is about 2.5 square miles per person? That seems awfully low. Like I think medieval London had over a million people in it, ten times the population of the entire gameworld here.
I don't think London reached a million people until the early 19th century. Nonetheless, those are absurdly low population figures. Even in 1066 England would have had like 20-30 people per square mile.

Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 17:41 on Aug 2, 2019

Jerik
Jun 24, 2019

I don't know what to write here.

No. 1 Apartheid Fan posted:

Because I obviously "get" what they're alluding to, but I want to see them try to explain it.

I guess maybe I'm naïve, but I actually don't get what they're alluding to.

That is not a request to explain it. I think I may be happier not knowing.

Zereth
Jul 9, 2003



Halloween Jack posted:

I don't think London reached a million people until the early 19th century. Nonetheless, those are absurdly low population figures. Even in 1066 England would have had like 20-30 people per square mile.
Maybe I'm thinking of Paris.



EDIT: Wait, Vagrants, which are restricted to Orcs and Elves, get bonuses against female humans only? :raise:

Jerik
Jun 24, 2019

I don't know what to write here.
That's one thing that's always bothered me about the Ravenloft campaign setting (for which, despite its many flaws, I retain a great deal of affection). Its population figures are ludicrously low, even for a setting that didn't have loads of undead and other horrors running around and killing off good numbers of its inhabitants. It's the mention of Paris and London that especially reminded me of that, because there's a city in Ravenloft called Paridon; it's basically supposed to be a Victorian-era metropolis that's reminiscent of Paris and London (well, despite the name it's far more London than Paris, really), and it has a population of 11,600. Other standouts:

  • Port-a-Lucine, a highly cultured city with a sharp divide between a wealthy aristocracy and a much more numerous struggling underclass. It has a grand opera house, a major university, a great library, numerous theaters and galleries... and a population of 5,400.
  • The cities of Nova Vaasa are described as all being densely populated "nightmarish scenes of dreadful urban squalor". Given that their populations range from 3,940 to 16,520, this seems unlikely.
  • Muhar, the only city in the Ancient-Egyptian-flavored desert domain of Har'Akir. It's a thriving city with several exports including dates and gypsum; a good proportion of its population are slaves (1/3 of the population according to one sourcebook; 2/3 according to another); its people follow a complex polytheistic religion whose priests make up the ruling class; it's the home of a major secret society. And according to its first description, it has a hundred inhabitants. Apparently as the city got further developed, the creators did decide that was too low, so they increased the number... to three hundred. (That's including the slaves.)

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Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003
Probation
Can't post for 13 hours!
That's all very strange. I'd expect most people to drastically overestimate how many people a preindustrial agrarian society can support. I mean, most "medieval" D&D settings depict what looks like a very sanitized 15th-16th century Europe.

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