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Also, I just wanna note, Damocles owns and his desperate attempt to trade on the entirely fictional legacy of an angel that got made up as anti demon propaganda is hilarious.
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Oct 4, 2019 20:16
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Night10194 posted:Also, it's always funny to me that sci-fi/modern games tend towards 'how do we give players armor without putting armor on them' in later game design while fantasy games still assume you wear 50 pounds of steel and padding all the time. It's a stylistic thing, I think, and a thing with how much more familiar we are with violence and contextualizing it in the modern (1st) world. I think it's partly that in space opera flicks (mostly, Star Wars, but also your Flash Gordons and incarnations of Buck himself) you don't see lots of people wearing armor. (But there are SOME characters in armor in those things, so it has to have some effect, etc.) Whereas fantasy is associated with "knights in shining armor" and poo poo so that's sort of ingrained into our perception of it. Putting most characters in Spacesuits is a good compromise, you can mentally imagine that as looking like whatever. Maxwell Lord fucked around with this message at 21:15 on Oct 4, 2019 |
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Oct 4, 2019 20:20
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There's also the fact that a lot of modern and action hero stuff comes from a milieu where it's normal for lots and lots of gunfire to miss the characters until they suddenly and dramatically take a bullet (or get hit in the shoulder and have a moment to wince in pain and have blood run down their arm, but then keep going), with armor either being treated as useless or as signifying someone who is almost immune to direct action and who needs a special trick or action sequence to deal with (depending on how plot important they are). So I can certainly understand the desire to simulate that. Still, I'd rather stuff based on D&D stick to equipment based AC and just take the Schlock Mercenary approach where you're wearing spandex uniforms like proper space opera people but there's fluff that they're bulletproof carbon nanotube fibers or something. Unless someone wants to be General Schenkopp and the Rosenritter. Then they get armor and space axes. So many space axes.
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Oct 4, 2019 20:25
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Maxwell Lord posted:I think it's party that in space opera flicks (mostly, Star Wars, but also your Flash Gordons and incarnations of Buck himself) you don't see lots of people wearing armor. (But there are SOME characters in armor in those things, so it has to have some effect, etc.) Whereas fantasy is associated with "knights in shining armor" and poo poo so that's sort of ingrained into our perception of it.
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Oct 4, 2019 20:59
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Mors Rattus posted:Also, I just wanna note, Damocles owns and his desperate attempt to trade on the entirely fictional legacy of an angel that got made up as anti demon propaganda is hilarious. Hard agree. These all sound like great characters to have in a semi-noir angel game.
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Oct 4, 2019 21:48
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Man I wish Demon were attached to a less-lovely system.
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Oct 5, 2019 00:18
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FMguru posted:The other thing about armor in pulpy SF is that it often doesn't seem to have any effect (Stormtroopers might as well have been wearing Speedos for all the good their armor did them against a handful of stone-age teddy bears) You do get some power armor fetish stuff in super light sci-fantasy as well, but yeah.
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Oct 5, 2019 01:49
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My take on the monosword in Buck Rogers XXVc is that it's just a crystalline blade, and the laser emitter in there just gives it color, like some kind of futuristic neon lighted sculpture you could get at, say, Hot Topic. Except for the "it's a three-foot long monomolecular razor blade with a handle and a cool scabbard" part. And I think the PC version of Countdown to Doomsday gives you different starter gear; everyone in the Genesis version starts with one laser pistol and one spacesuit. Weirdly enough, hex editing the ROM has references to laser rifles and rocket rifles (which are in the pen and paper game; they do 1d12 and 2d8 damage, respectively) but none seem to be available. Weirdly, cutlasses are also in the game, and because you never need to worry about power cells or ammo, they're utterly outclassed by monoswords (mostly because Tycho Spaceport sells Lunarian Monoswords, which are +4 to hit and damage. Give that to a Desert Runner who lucked out on his Strength roll and took a few Weapon Specialization (Monoswords) picks, and you've got a warrior that can rip things apart with a couple swings!)
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Oct 5, 2019 03:00
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Does nDemon have any support for playing Exiles? Or only actual demons? Because the Exiles seem interesting as sort of a mirror to Prometheans, they're at risk of becoming more human, and want to desperately not be, while Prometheans are at risk of becoming inhuman and wish to become more human.
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Oct 5, 2019 03:03
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If Angels use Essence, does that mean bad things could potentially happen if an angel came into contact with a void spirit?
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Oct 5, 2019 03:23
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PurpleXVI posted:Does nDemon have any support for playing Exiles? Or only actual demons? Because the Exiles seem interesting as sort of a mirror to Prometheans, they're at risk of becoming more human, and want to desperately not be, while Prometheans are at risk of becoming inhuman and wish to become more human. They wouldn't necessarily make good characters, since NPC powers are extremely limited and general compared to PC abilities, but there are enough rules you could do it, strictly speaking.
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Oct 5, 2019 03:54
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PoontifexMacksimus posted:5+, surely? Good catch, thanks. Yeah, guardsmen are on a 5+ armour save. Ironically, despite being the standard plenty of GEQ don't actually have a 5+ save - Chaos' equivalent, cultists, are on a 6+ (because they're even more expendable than the highly expendable imperial guard) and Tau get a 4+.
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Oct 5, 2019 05:58
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megane posted:Man I wish Demon were attached to a less-lovely system. Hard agree. Like, this would be such a cool setting and world but it's attached to something that is a bit too complex and hard to utilise for most casual DM's and players.
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Oct 5, 2019 08:32
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Josef bugman posted:Hard agree. Like, this would be such a cool setting and world but it's attached to something that is a bit too complex and hard to utilise for most casual DM's and players. While I certainly would like CoD to be much lighter in general, I think Demon contrasts to most of the other game lines in that it has more of an Exalted-style problem. Its powers are mostly a giant laundry list of highly idiosyncratic tricks with insufficient siloing. It suffers from "widget paralysis" in a way most of the other CoD games don't. This is a hurdle that plenty of people are willing to overcome who don't even like that they have to, but it's not all that fun unless it is specifically your jam, and it's a hard roadblock for a lot of other people. Despite my ridiculous 50-page Mage cheat "sheet" I just don't have the patience I once did to extensively coach someone through the weeds to get them into an especially complex game, and in all the CoD games I've run Demon is the one that stumbled the most because of this problem. (Mage has a similar but distinct problem that I find less onerous, though that has at least somewhat to do with my Mage bias.)
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Oct 5, 2019 08:52
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That Old Tree posted:While I certainly would like CoD to be much lighter in general, I think Demon contrasts to most of the other game lines in that it has more of an Exalted-style problem. Its powers are mostly a giant laundry list of highly idiosyncratic tricks with insufficient siloing. It suffers from "widget paralysis" in a way most of the other CoD games don't. This is a hurdle that plenty of people are willing to overcome who don't even like that they have to, but it's not all that fun unless it is specifically your jam, and it's a hard roadblock for a lot of other people. Despite my ridiculous 50-page Mage cheat "sheet" I just don't have the patience I once did to extensively coach someone through the weeds to get them into an especially complex game, and in all the CoD games I've run Demon is the one that stumbled the most because of this problem. (Mage has a similar but distinct problem that I find less onerous, though that has at least somewhat to do with my Mage bias.) I don't know about y'all but very rarely have I been a renegade piece of unthinkably powerful computer equipment or whatever, piecing together things out of stuff I half-stole half-cribbed from others - ah, poo poo, there it is, I figured out the sadbrains analogy at the root of Demon, god dammit. Anyway, Demon doesn't really have many pop-culture things to use as touchstones, even approximately or vaguely.
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Oct 5, 2019 09:09
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Snorb posted:My take on the monosword in Buck Rogers XXVc is that it's just a crystalline blade, and the laser emitter in there just gives it color, like some kind of futuristic neon lighted sculpture you could get at, say, Hot Topic. Except for the "it's a three-foot long monomolecular razor blade with a handle and a cool scabbard" part Yeah, especially since the concept is largely recycled in Cyberpunk 2020: the blade is so transparent that a laser or LED is needed to help the user know where the loving thing is when being handled. 
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Oct 5, 2019 13:04
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Young Freud posted:Yeah, especially since the concept is largely recycled in Cyberpunk 2020: the blade is so transparent that a laser or LED is needed to help the user know where the loving thing is when being handled. Hell, even Mass Effect does that from 3 onwards with its omni-weapons. Be they blades or the weirder stuff other specialists use, the weapons are almost totally invisible so the soldier's omni-tool lights it up with a holographic display just so the user can see where the drat thing is.
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Oct 5, 2019 14:10
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poo poo, Niven did that with his Known Worlds monowire sword back in the day. Sure, his had a physical clown nose adhered to the tip, but the effect is the same.
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Oct 5, 2019 14:19
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Nessus posted:I don't know about y'all but very rarely have I been a renegade piece of unthinkably powerful computer equipment or whatever, piecing together things out of stuff I half-stole half-cribbed from others - ah, poo poo, there it is, I figured out the sadbrains analogy at the root of Demon, god dammit. You joke, but as a high-functioning autistic person who's uncomfortably familiar with masking, Demon is surprisingly relatable.  Nessus posted:Anyway, Demon doesn't really have many pop-culture things to use as touchstones, even approximately or vaguely. Control Person of Interest The Matrix Atomic Blonde Southern Reach Trilogy (more "mortals dealing with God-Machine" but still on-point) this Panic at the Disco music video there's probably a bunch of anime that goes to the right aesthetic too but i'd have to dig to find / remember it Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 17:09 on Oct 5, 2019 |
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Oct 5, 2019 17:05
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Atomic Blonde It's expressly about the Demons being a way to tell a spy novel story, so there's so many spy novels and thrillers you can use. LatwPIAT fucked around with this message at 18:04 on Oct 5, 2019 |
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Oct 5, 2019 17:16
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:The Matrix This is definitely the one for me. This is exactly what the Fall looks like in my mind. "It's the smell!" megane fucked around with this message at 19:24 on Oct 5, 2019 |
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Oct 5, 2019 19:20
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Mage and Demon are both the Matrix, but in vastly different ways, which is fun.
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Oct 5, 2019 19:35
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Joe Slowboat posted:Mage and Demon are both the Matrix, but in vastly different ways, which is fun. Mage is very proto-The Matrix, that I still wonder if Virtual Adepts were something the Wachowskis used as inspiration.
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Oct 5, 2019 20:00
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Young Freud posted:Mage is very proto-The Matrix, that I still wonder if Virtual Adepts were something the Wachowskis used as inspiration. NMage is more the Platonist influences in the Matrix, while Demon is more the techgnosticism of it.
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Oct 5, 2019 20:35
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Joe Slowboat posted:Mage and Demon are both the Matrix, but in vastly different ways, which is fun. Changeling is also The Matrix, of course. Like, in so many way.
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Oct 5, 2019 22:53
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The Matrix is really just an expression of the hidden world of special people who Know Secrets that exploded in the 90s that the WoD itself is another expression of.
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Oct 5, 2019 23:46
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:You joke, but as a high-functioning autistic person who's uncomfortably familiar with masking, Demon is surprisingly relatable. On the second, totally-- but the big thing is like, when I hear "Demon," I don't think "techno-gnostic crime thriller," I think "I am some kind of creature from Hell who works for the Devil." It would be like if Vampire had like four or five different sub-splats all trying to withdraw Essence and only one of the sub-splats was particularly focused on drinking blood and the others were like Changeling ravagers, psychic vampires that stole Willpower points, and shitposters who are required to force mundanes to share their emotional state. It would make sense but it would be a major divergence from the folk idiom at its core, not the construction of additional space branching out from that. e: In a sense the metaphor would probably be stronger if you didn't have "going loud" at all and just had Matrix Agent powers. To be clear this might not make for a better game, but you'd have less of an involved on-ramping.
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Oct 6, 2019 00:01
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LatwPIAT posted:The Matrix is really just an expression of the hidden world of special people who Know Secrets that exploded in the 90s that the WoD itself is another expression of. Only with a lot of trans symbolism.
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Oct 6, 2019 00:44
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Cythereal posted:Only with a lot of trans symbolism. The LGBT/queer metaphors of the hidden world of special people predates the first edition of Vampire.
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Oct 6, 2019 00:52
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I wonder how well The Invisibles holds up under that lens today.
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Oct 6, 2019 01:17
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Tinker, Sailor, Soldier, Spy is also a very big one.
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Oct 6, 2019 01:28
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Dawgstar posted:I wonder how well The Invisibles holds up under that lens today. Isn't the latter half of the Invisibles a chaos spell cast by Grant Morrison to get laid?
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Oct 6, 2019 01:29
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Dawgstar posted:I wonder how well The Invisibles holds up under that lens today.
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Oct 6, 2019 01:37
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Cythereal posted:Hell, even Mass Effect does that from 3 onwards with its omni-weapons. Be they blades or the weirder stuff other specialists use, the weapons are almost totally invisible so the soldier's omni-tool lights it up with a holographic display just so the user can see where the drat thing is. The best part about the Omni-weapons is that the engineers (AKA: The tech nerd classes) create a giant flaming disc and swing it backhand, or fabricate a bunch of micro-grenades on their fists and punch with those.
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Oct 6, 2019 06:51
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Kurieg posted:The best part about the Omni-weapons is that the engineers (AKA: The tech nerd classes) create a giant flaming disc and swing it backhand, or fabricate a bunch of micro-grenades on their fists and punch with those. I still prefer the batarian omni-punch. Fabricate a giant spiked gauntlet that's used to transmit a concussive shockwave on impact, with the sum effect that it tends to punch people's heads into salsa.
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Oct 6, 2019 13:55
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Kurieg posted:The best part about the Omni-weapons is that the engineers (AKA: The tech nerd classes) create a giant flaming disc and swing it backhand, or fabricate a bunch of micro-grenades on their fists and punch with those. This reminds me of the time one of my friends streamed Countdown to Doomsday a few years ago. He took character ideas from the audience, and named them after their creators. Mine was a human warrior who preferred melee weapons thanks to having a high Strength. Early in the game, you can get some frag grenades, and he divvied them up as evenly as possible among both warriors in the party. Problem is, he set the game to run combat automatically, and the game picks what it feels is an optimal weapon for each character based on their stats. So lo and behold, my warrior decided that his frag grenade was an excellent melee weapon, and he charged a terrine and "threw" the grenade at him. As should be expected from such a stupid stunt, Snorb the warrior and the two terrines near him died instantly when the grenade exploded. Not much one can do about taking 4d10 damage at second level!
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Oct 6, 2019 14:01
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there was a post here, it’s gone now
SunAndSpring fucked around with this message at 07:48 on Oct 7, 2019 |
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Oct 6, 2019 16:29
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Do Deviant origins have any mechanical effect? Because... I dunno, that reads like someone just rattled off a list of basic superhero themes.
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Oct 6, 2019 17:32
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Bieeanshee posted:Do Deviant origins have any mechanical effect? Because... I dunno, that reads like someone just rattled off a list of basic superhero themes. Also they give you a dot of either Loyalty or Conviction, which is just, better described as 'when the write-up gets there.' Basically it breaks down as: Free Subtle, 1 Loyalty Free Overt, 1 Loyalty Free Subtle, 1 Conviction Free Overt, 1 Conviction (Mutant) - Pick 1 free of whatever and 1 Loyalty or Conviction, but also get a separate weakness for this versatility.
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Oct 6, 2019 17:40
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I think it is definitely a bit early to be writing up Deviant when even Kickstarter backers only have half the book yet. Not enough of Deviant has been released to even run the game properly, and not just because the chapter with the basic CofD ruleset isn't yet released. You could plug the ruleset in from another gameline and it still wouldn't be complete.Bieeanshee posted:Do Deviant origins have any mechanical effect? Because... I dunno, that reads like someone just rattled off a list of basic superhero themes. Tilts your starting powers a little more towards either Subtle or Overt (what they sound like, and conspiracies use Overt exposures to track you down according to Rules That Haven't Been Released Yet At This Stage of the Kickstarter Campaign). More importantly, tilts your starting Anchors towards either Conviction or Loyalty. Deviants obsess over their Anchors and suffer if they don't keep pursuing them, so the balance between Conviction and Loyalty determines how much time you spend Hunting Fuckers Down and Making Them Pay versus how much time you spend Actually Having Friends and Looking After Them.
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Oct 6, 2019 17:46
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