|
So almost all that stuff is also in Dark Heresy somewhere. 40k loves its gear porn. I've never really gotten the whole 'Hrud are 40k's Skaven' thing given they're weird time/entropy monsters. If anything, the Imperium is 40k's Skaven.
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2019 17:13
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 23, 2024 13:49 |
|
|
For Zine Reviews I'd like to see Beat the Boss and Comrades the most. I also just picked up Comrades and from my limited reading Its Good Folks.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2019 17:26
|
|
|
Joe Slowboat posted:The 'nice anarcho-socialist habs' aren't the scum barges, those are medium-bad at best, I don't think the authors were ever particularly enthused about '4chan but it's a pseudo-nation-state.' I was thinking about Titan, and the implied habs that have their poo poo together but aren't really the narrative focus precisely for that reason? The Scum are definitely written in a way that makes it seem like the authors want you to know they're too cool for school. They party all the time, they have kinkier sex than you squares, they're totally radical, they don't obey the Man's law, man, and they have Molotov Cocktails on the drink menu because no rules woooooooooooooooh!
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2019 17:28
|
|
|
Jerik posted:I'd definitely be interested in your comments on the chapter. I mean, don't feel obligated if you don't feel up for it, but if you do want to post about the matter I'd certainly be interested in reading it. I did try to do my own research about the gods in the chapter (which is largely why this post took so long and why so much time passed between the post on the Central American Mythos chapter and this one), but like I said in the post I'm absolutely not in any way an expert on Chinese culture and mythology, and I'd like to hear from someone who is. I'm sure there are plenty of things I've missed or gotten wrong. Again, emphasizing that I'm not yelling at you. I'm yelling at the book that you are doing a very good job of summarizing. It's just mixing like 4 religions together and jesus christ the "Chinese" (yeah it gets scare quotes) is just painful. Reading it is like getting hit with a taser. I'd almost prefer racist ching-chong noises. Anyway, I wrote another 8 pages of my dissertation so I'm going to crack a beer and re-read the post while keeping a google doc open for comments, then I'll post that. This will be my "reward" for a productive morning and early afternoon. We'll be rolling the dice on how pedantic I'm feeling. (Pretty loving pedantic.) quote:...Like that, for instance. Oops. Okay, yeah, my bad; I knew Wade-Giles was an older romanization system no longer in use, but I didn't know exactly how old, and I guess I just assumed that it was still standard when Deities & Demigods was written. I should have checked instead of assuming. I'll edit the post to correct that bit. Well at least they already did Guan Yin so they can't gently caress her up more. And Wade-Giles is literally from the early 19th century and just the most piping hot bullshit. While it somehow still survives for randos who don't speak Chinese (like on bad Chinese restaurant menus actually run by Thai people), everyone who actually does anything with Chinese got on the pinyin train within a decade of it existing cause it really is just better in every way (except for Taiwan/the ROC that still uses zhuyinfuhao). It's actually a pretty decent test that if something was written after like the mid 60's talking about anything Chinese and is still using Wade-Giles you can just ignore it, it clearly is coming from someone who doesn't know what they're talking about. The only exception I can think of is The Tao of Pooh which is actually a decent summary of Daoism and opens with an explanation of why they used the Wade-Giles in the title for marketing reasons.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2019 18:06
|
|
|
SirPhoebos posted:Imagine what you'd get if you ran Christianity through the Deities & Demigods filter Well, Gary’s St. Cuthbert is the god of beating you about the head with a stick.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2019 18:14
|
|
|
Ronwayne posted:Yeah, "Disposable" is a lot of the impression I get out of everything in EP. Even characters themselves are disposable, given how forks exist and there is literally nothing stopping you from pulling an AD&D style "Oh, Andy died? I'm his identical brother Randy. There's also the sisters Mandy, Sandy and Candy, so you better hope nothing happens to m-URK. Reminds me of some critiques of the concept of Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism (as opposed to the meme), namely that it fails to jettison modern western consumer culture; fitting, as EP is the TT ambassador of the anarcho version of such. Also, I'm pretty sure that spacers would be the most frugal, stick up the rear end fuckers imaginable - space has no room for profligacy or irregularity; even with the tech of EP, the culture would take a long drat time to change; and that's before the fact that you can download The Beast off dodgy websites.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2019 18:20
|
|
|
"4chan, the nation state" was a concept that seemed funnier back in 2009, I agree. I guess it would be "funnier" if the space fash faction was a split off of the scum, and not GOP members that managed to make it to an escape ship and then mellow out slightly about catholicism.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2019 18:24
|
|
|
Ronwayne posted:"4chan, the nation state" was a concept that seemed funnier back in 2009, I agree. I guess it would be "funnier" if the space fash faction was a split off of the scum, and not GOP members that managed to make it to an escape ship and then mellow out slightly about catholicism. The Exsurgent virus basically kills any concept of the AA dead, as literally no one is gonna tolerate that kind of potential growth culture running around unchecked; both the PC and the TC would have brought AT LEAST the Scum to heel fairly quickly, if only after the first time this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDcELUCroDs happened to a swarm. Granted, I suspect the only reason the TC didn't is so the TC can use the rest of the AA as geopolitical pawn/useful idiot/distraction to offset the PC and keep them busy... which may kind of another example of things Not Being Thought through by the authors. StratGoatCom fucked around with this message at 18:36 on Aug 13, 2019 |
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2019 18:34
|
|
|
Okay this is going to be a stream of consciousness thing as I go through the actual post. I’m too lazy to make it interstitial, so it’s probably easier to read this if you have them both open in different tabs and can hop back and forth. Sorry, mobile users. I’m also going to swear even more than I usually do (a lot), because O MY GOD THIS IS SUCH loving HORSESHIT. First, this font. This loving font. Yeah I get they were trying to look like brush strokes, but they apparently don’t know how brushes work, or understand anything about how Chinese is written. That initial “c” is clearly from a Gothic batard hand and the inexplicable double lines on the “t” break all the rules on how to write a horizontal stroke. My calligraphy teacher would be summoned like some kind of vengeful spirit if she saw it. It’s like replacing Arabic with a toddler’s scribbling. It’s just garbage. Starting right in, the book doesn’t seem to understand that Confucianism, Buddhism, Daoism and ancestral worship/nature uh worship for lack of a better word are in fact distinct religious traditions. They’re not distinct in that one person can do all of them, unlike say being Christian or Jewish, but they would know they’re combining them. So as just a general thing, a lot of this comes off like if you called Joseph Smith a Catholic Saint ; you, uh, know those are like different things, right? Right? The Celestial Bureaucracy is real and modeled after Confucianism and was totally a thing and this isn’t an insane portrayal. A racist clock is right twice a day, I guess. WHAT THE gently caress THAT’S NOT HOW THE AFTERLIFE WORKS IT WAS A MAJORITY BUDDHIST COUNTRY THEY BELIEVE IN REINCARNATION. Do you mean the loving Bardo? Ughh. That’s not at all how yin and yang work. No they aren’t bad and good. It’s about the nature of opposites and they even thought through it enough that each one contains its opposite. It’s even right there if you look at a taiji! (Actual name for that symbol ; it means “ultimate end”.) The Yi Jing is literally “the change classic” so CANON OF CHANGES is I guess fair? But it’s not a loving Book of Shadows. Half of the other items I could probably associate with an actual thing in Chinese myth, but they’re so generic that I wouldn’t be certain. Like the Iron Wand could be The Monkey King’s staff, but I might also be trying to make this make sense and making patterns out of madness. I have low faith at this point and we’re only just beginning. That’s… Not a Chinese sword. What the gently caress. How do you gently caress up this badly. Shang di, literally, “high god” is uh complicated because it was kind of used as a general term and then it got conflated with Christianity and it’s not 100% certain it ever referred to a single, discrete entity historically. But if it did it’s an ephemeral being basically beyond human comprehension. Also for the record the “shang” in Shang Di and Shang Dynasty are totally different. They only look the same because I’ve already typed Chinese all day and I’m too lazy for tone marks. You’re lucky I’m wearing pants. gently caress I’m already on page 2 of this google doc. You do a great job on talking about Zhao Gongming and whatever the hell they did with Hou Yi. I have nothing to contribute except a good hearty ??????????????????????????????? Actually you did a really good job on most of the “gods” (still hate that phrasing) so I’m gonna start hopping around. If I don’t bring it up, you already tore it to pieces appropriately. Good job, A+, Jerik. That sounds sarcastic but it’s not. “Kuel” might be allowed in Cantonese? I don’t know. My Canto is garbo. It still doesn’t make sense why they’d switch languages for no reason and I don’t know why I’m being nice to the dumb racists and giving them a counter-argument. Feilian and Fengbo have “to fly” and “wind” in their names and it’s a reference. It’s more like saying “The West Wind” in a Chinese language context. GUANDI. O you did not just gently caress with my homeboy. He looks loving nothing like that picture. His beard is one of his signatures, as is the weapon that was named after him, the guandoa, which ain’t a loving halberd. And he’s the “god” of war, retribution and tofu (he was a tofu merchant). He also owns every single one of the bones. Despite this being the area where I’m most angry and passionate, I’m actually backing off quickly cause I will get too angry and just rant. Guandi is my loving bro for life (seriously still debating a big rear end tattoo of him), I went out of my way to go to all his temples, and this is like if you gave a description of Zeus but you just talked about Spiderman. It’s just totally wrong. Gets to Ma Yuan and just needs to loving lie down. gently caress! If this wasn’t too annoying I’ll try to come back and do more, but this is exhausting and bad for my blood pressure.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2019 18:48
|
|
|
Joe Slowboat posted:I mean, the way EP has always been sold to me is precisely as a horror setting where the giant AI monsters are basically just setting dressing and the real horror is the absolute alienation between human experience before and after the fall? That's sort of the point of the setting, that Earth died screaming and as a result you live as an algorithm in lawless space habitats. It just doesn't go the route of loudly declaring everything to be awful because a large part of the setting is that life goes on, as I understand it - people are still (weird, posthuman) people, and post-Fall society seems a lot like it's a thin tissue of people pretending things can be stable and Earthlike again despite that being a ludicrous fantasy. Yes! This is exactly it as far as I'm aware. The authors know its horrific. It's a horror game.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2019 19:22
|
|
|
EthanSteele posted:Yes! This is exactly it as far as I'm aware. The authors know its horrific. It's a horror game. So far the most horrifying thing about EP2 is the terrible editing.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2019 19:38
|
|
|
EthanSteele posted:Yes! This is exactly it as far as I'm aware. The authors know its horrific. It's a horror game. Looking at the art and quoted text, I’m not so sure the authors think it is a horror game.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2019 20:09
|
|
|
I think they think the Cosmic Horror element is the horror element, primarily. That Day In The Life thing just drips with 'God I wish this was my life'.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2019 20:12
|
|
|
They changed the tag line from "game of transhuman conspiracy and horror" to "game of transhuman conspiracy and survival", so in on regard they clearly wanted to get away from the horror but also they decided to copy the sanity system from Delta Green RPG, maintain the Exsurgents as an existential threat hanging over everything, and have characters being taken over by alien otherness as an inherent playable archetype so clearly they didn't want to get away from the horror.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2019 20:22
|
|
|
I guess we're the only geniuses that see the horror of capitalism in the game where capitalism is explicitly said to be an existential threat to humanity.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2019 20:33
|
|
|
EthanSteele posted:I guess we're the only geniuses that see the horror of capitalism in the game where capitalism is explicitly said to be an existential threat to humanity. We're already living that horror show, so... well, kind of already numb to it.  (  )
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2019 20:37
|
|
|
A lot of EP is 'What if Quantum Thief but set in the capitalist hellfuture rather than societies based on cults of personality and forking/gamer guilds gamifying everything/privacy keys/Some Finns Out In Space I Guess.' Quantum Thief is an adventure story but the setting is very steeped in identity horror. I can't help but see 'hellish capitalism vs. incompetent anarchism are the two major ideologies of identity-collapsed posthuman space, and Earth died screaming' as having a similar adventure horror vibe. I agree that the exsurgent stuff should take a back seat and just be an explanation for where cool little psi things come from and why systems keep going rogue, and bad human decisions should be the X-threats.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2019 21:22
|
|
|
SirPhoebos posted:Imagine what you'd get if you ran Christianity through the Deities & Demigods filter Imagine how many cleric levels god has.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2019 21:56
|
|
|
Wrestlepig posted:Imagine how many cleric levels god has. He still has to rest for eight hours a day so He can grant Himself all His spells, of course. Don't be ridiculous.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2019 21:58
|
|
|
StratGoatCom posted:The Exsurgent virus basically kills any concept of the AA dead, as literally no one is gonna tolerate that kind of potential growth culture running around unchecked; both the PC and the TC would have brought AT LEAST the Scum to heel fairly quickly, if only after the first time this Granted, its a scum vessel, so there's a higher than average chance Doom guy/girl is aboard. Which is also a recurring conversation with my EP GMs. "NO, YOUR FURY DOES NOT NEED MORE MODS." pointing lady/sneering cat meme.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2019 22:04
|
|
|
Wrestlepig posted:Imagine how many cleric levels god has. God was a Leo, and had the ability "operate as three independent figures"
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2019 22:06
|
|
|
The only other RPG I can think of that tried to mechanically define the Christian God so tightly was Fantasy Imperium. And it's medieval Christianity (and Islam, hoo boy) as interpreted by the kind of evangelical Protestant who believes in Pizzagate.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2019 22:11
|
|
|
FMguru posted:The weird early RPG "Fantasy Wargaming" actually had full stats for God, Lucifer, Mary, and other biblical figures. God may be a Leo, but Earth is a Libra
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2019 22:14
|
|
|
Y'all are forgetting Stats for Jesus. To be fair, I wish I could forget it too.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2019 22:14
|
|
|
Bible Fact: Abraham is able to take on five nation-state's armies at once with only the aid of, depending on interpretation, one guy or an army of like 600 guys. He's also dumb as a sack of hammers, but that's why Sarah's there. She has the evil eye, too.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2019 22:16
|
|
|
That's a real Bible fact btw. Genesis has a lot of crazy stories in it that barely get talked about. this one is Chapter 14, and it involves Nimrod the Hunter leading an alliance of nations against Sodom and Gomorrah. He and his team of kings (Arioch of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer of Elam and Tidal of Goyim) defeat Kings Bera of Sodom (named because he is evil to Heaven and people), Birsha of Gomorrah (who is elevated in wickedness), Shineab of Admah (who hates God), Shemeber of Zeboim (who made wings and flew to rebel against God; this is the only time he will ever be mentioned) and the possibly nameless King of Bela, which is Zoar. Abraham, who is still Abram at the time, gets involved because Og, King of Bashan and last survivor of the Nephilim, tells him that his nephew has been captured by Nimrod's forces (along with the entire population of Sodom), in an effort to get Abram killed so he can gently caress Sarai. Abram either leads 318 men to fight the entire gathered alliance of Nimrod and wins, or, because the word for men is written in the singular, it may be interpreted as only having aid from his servant Eliezer, who later goes on to find Isaac's wife. In this reading, Eliezer's name is numerically equivalent to 318 in Hebrew numerology. Either way this is insane. (Abram is an idiot, though, he repeatedly tells people his wife is his sister and every time he does it all that happens is everyone gets hosed up and upset and it never helps; everyone he deceives this way would not have harmed him or Sarai in the first place, and makes this clear.)
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2019 22:26
|
|
|
Poor Nimrod. Destroyed forever by Bugs Bunny.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2019 22:29
|
|
|
Meanwhile, Jacob is significantly more clever, but kind of a dick.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2019 22:30
|
|
|
I have Dragonraid sitting on my desk...it is God-stats free.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2019 22:48
|
|
|
DalaranJ posted:Well, Gary’s St. Cuthbert is the god of beating you about the head with a stick. Ronwayne posted:"4chan, the nation state" was a concept that seemed funnier back in 2009, I agree. I guess it would be "funnier" if the space fash faction was a split off of the scum, and not GOP members that managed to make it to an escape ship and then mellow out slightly about catholicism. Mors Rattus posted:bible stuff Also I think it's pretty funny that God through Abram essentially punishes a king for defeating a force of evil, just because they happened to also capture Lot who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2019 23:57
|
|
|
Humbug Scoolbus posted:I have Dragonraid sitting on my desk...it is God-stats free.
|
|
#
?
Aug 14, 2019 00:18
|
|
|
Ronwayne posted:Granted, its a scum vessel, so there's a higher than average chance Doom guy/girl is aboard. Which is also a recurring conversation with my EP GMs. "NO, YOUR FURY DOES NOT NEED MORE MODS." pointing lady/sneering cat meme. That only works while a problem is small enough to be shot in the face; and it takes a lot of work to hit those things while they're that small. TBF, The Beast took over vaguely south of 565,000 metric tonnes of starship in less than a minute from probably a few kilos of infectious material at best, and 131,000 tonnes from what is at most a few grams of nanomachine (  ) , so it's a bit unfair to compare it.Overall, despite the Big E's predilection for vectoring up and down hierarchies, the anarchists are an extremely soft target - their bodymodding makes it very easy for exsurgents to assume comfortable forms while staying undetected, their often... outre... fads make excellent cultural cover for the subverted's often... odd... behaviors, or even vectors - called out in book as an entire swarm literally nearly got subverted by a multipart basilisk in the firewall book, and many live cheek to jowl, leading to quick spread (again, called out in universe) and I'm not even getting into how their multipartner, often open sexcapades are a perfect vector for a bionano/subtle nanoswarm version to spread wildly, though the mainstream society has the same weakness. I'm not sure how much damage a delayed action version of mindstealer, ala New Mumbai could do, just by that route. Frankly, societies that could survive that are going to be conformist, with heavy controls over bio, nano or computational tech, and willing to be vicious about any sign of trouble... Now, who fits that description perfectly? (frankly, the only bit I really like is the Exsurgent virus, as it's an interesting take on subversion entities. Granted, I am working toward epidemiology, so my standards are skewed) StratGoatCom fucked around with this message at 02:43 on Aug 14, 2019 |
|
#
?
Aug 14, 2019 00:30
|
|
|
Terrible Opinions posted:Where did all the parenthetical things come from, cause they don't appear in Genesis 14? Rabbinical commentary and Aggadic tradition. And yeah, Jacob is a giant dick who plays favorites with his wives and his children. Isaac is essentially a nonentity. Joseph is a super annoying dude most of the time but otherwise decent. The best son of Joseph is Reuben, however. Reuben, eldest son of Jacob, who got mad that after Rebecca died, Jacob disrespected Leah, and by rabbinic tradition went into the tent of Bilhah, Rebecca’s handmaiden and Jacob’s concubine, and grabbed the bed and hurled it out because Jacob was staying there rather than with Leah, the most virtuous of his wives. Reuben also ensures the brothers don’t kill Joseph and is super fun.
|
|
#
?
Aug 14, 2019 00:32
|
|
|
Also, in fairness, Nimrod is not actually morally better than his foes. He leads the construction of the Tower in an attempt to defeat God, and when that fails he moves on to trying to throw Abram into a fire. Also, as one of the post-Flood first generation, he lives a long loving time.
|
|
#
?
Aug 14, 2019 00:34
|
|
|
Yeah it's understandable that Nimrod ends up being the bad guy, but it's just really funny to me that even his first good act is punished.
|
|
#
?
Aug 14, 2019 00:38
|
|
|
It’s pretty great, yeah. I really endorse reading the Tanakh with Rashi commentary, you get a ton of fun stories referenced.
|
|
#
?
Aug 14, 2019 00:41
|
|
|
I got to write the mechanics for what could be counted as stereotypical-modern-American-idea-of-God in Exalted 2e and it was pretty fun. Some people thought it was an atheist "take that" at God* but you'd have to time travel back to 2000 and terminate Grabowski for "God in Exalted" to not be some kind of dick. My main guiding question within long-established constraints was "is this cool and fun?" That's why he's got Darkseid eyebeams and "you fail me yet again, Starscream" Charms. * And, you know. Exalted. So fair enough. That Old Tree fucked around with this message at 01:25 on Aug 14, 2019 |
|
#
?
Aug 14, 2019 01:20
|
|
|
That Old Tree posted:I got to write the mechanics for what could be counted as stereotypical-modern-American-idea-of-God in Exalted 2e and it was pretty fun. Some people thought it was an atheist "take that" at God* but you'd have to time travel back to 2000 and terminate Grabowski for "God in Exalted" to not be some kind of dick. My main guiding question within long-established constraints was "is this cool and fun?" That's why he's got Darkseid eyebeams and "you fail me yet again, Starscream" Charms. How can you post this tweet here without linking to your creation as well? Why would you deny us this? I beseech thee: 
|
|
#
?
Aug 14, 2019 02:13
|
|
|
megane posted:He still has to rest for eight hours a day so He can grant Himself all His spells, of course. Don't be ridiculous. Actually He can put off resting for up to 144 hours, but at that point has to rest for a full consecutive 24 hours.
|
|
#
?
Aug 14, 2019 02:45
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 23, 2024 13:49 |
|
|
StratGoatCom posted:That only works while a problem is small enough to be shot in the face; and it takes a lot of work to hit those things while they're that small. TBF, The Beast took over vaguely south of 565,000 metric tonnes of starship in less than a minute from probably a few kilos of infectious material at best, and 131,000 tonnes from what is at most a few grams of nanomachine ( I dunno, "can Doomperson kill it in the context they are familiar with, even if they have to run around doing things for researchers/restarting machines/collecting keycards or whatnot." is my standard for space/fantasy gribblies. Anything that just fucks you gets chucked out of a system I play in unless you can kill it with a sufficiently big gun*. I'll admit I kinda bullied my EP 1st ed gm to remove all the save-or-die stuff from exsurgents and make them the "They gotta outright kill you dealing by direct dealing HP damage" zombie, no "one-bite-you're-hooked stuff" kind of zombie. Scum are ridiculously over armed, so there's a good chance they could deal with this. Despite not liking the scum, I'm really hesistant to change the setting to one where the grim, serious assholes who hate doing anything adventurous are in control of the meta. Its kinda like that game Battle Brothers, where its just a bunch of dudes vs a variety of monsters, many magical. While terrifying, there's always a way to murder them via applying cold steel directly to forehead (or forehead equivilent), no squicky nastiness that's immune to unenchanted metal/fist/bullet/flame thrower/lazer beem while also loving you over. In a setting with replaceable bodies and real life respawning, a save-or-die attack basically makes exsurgents into rust monsters, and rust monsters loving suck. Its also means Jovians in flats but also in power armor with really big guns stand a solid chance against this bullshit along with all the transhuman goofballs. (*In 1st ed, the horrible nanite swarms were somehow vulnerable to the diamond shard shotgun thing, which is hilarious) Ronwayne fucked around with this message at 03:08 on Aug 14, 2019 |
|
#
?
Aug 14, 2019 02:56
|
|