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There are better ways of giving sweet magical weapons to your players than introducing rape monsters into your game, though.
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Jul 30, 2020 18:27
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Like having a normal encounter with a minotaur where he's sending his minions into the town to steal their food and ravage their flocks. Or perhaps with his incredible axe of total silence, he's begun a side career as the world's most inexplicable jewel thief. Slipping into homes, silently hacking through wooden doors and chests, making not a whisper as his giant axe replaces his inability to pick locks and he slips away with another fine necklace or stolen bauble.
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Jul 30, 2020 18:29
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Night10194 posted:Like having a normal encounter with a minotaur where he's sending his minions into the town to steal their food and ravage their flocks. Minotaur Gear Solid would be a pretty great hook.
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Jul 30, 2020 18:55
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Cool wrinkle : The minotaur has actually gone deaf and has no idea that they can't be heard. But seriously, just don't have rape in your happy fun elfgames. What is wrong with you why do I have to say that.
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Jul 30, 2020 19:00
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Xiahou Dun posted:But seriously, just don't have rape in your happy fun elfgames. What is wrong with you why do I have to say that. This. Even if it's all antagonistic forces and off-screen, it sets a bad precedent. There's almost no story or tabletop setting where rape actually adds something.
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Jul 30, 2020 19:39
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A silent Minotaur in a labyrinth sounds like a great combat scene though, very good twist on the classic. Really it’s impressive how badly and quickly they managed to gently caress up the inherently good idea of ‘giant axe-wielding Minotaur who is also completely silent.’
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Jul 30, 2020 21:21
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OtspIII posted:B2: Keep on the Borderlands -- Part 2: The Keep In the reincarnated version we get names and some extra character details for some of the notable NPCs.
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Jul 30, 2020 21:30
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 Chapter 5: The Known Universe (The Terran Neighborhood: Vilani Space)  This chapter we’ll cover the area campaigns will use (at least until relatively late in the period): nine subsectors spanning the Imperium-Terran sphere of influence that would take even jump-2 ships about a year to cross from end to end. The book assumes you’ll get everything you need to play a full campaign out of these subsectors, probably correctly. Each subsector gets its own subsection with a few important worlds picked out and described; since I’ll be covering how a lot of this changed in Rim of Fire, I’ll go ahead and just list it out here. Also, you will note I include four numbers after every world; those are coordinates that the book doesn’t explain. They do come up in later versions of the setting, though, so, eh. Later.  Shululsish Subsector is kind of boring. It contains the oldest Vilani worlds in the region, though a few were settled as late as 900 by various Dissidents; despite that, it’s rather lightly populated by Terran standards (the average garden world population sits in the hundreds of millions). The local government’s been used as a dumping ground for exiled nobles for generations, periodically interrupted by puppets of local nobility (the current governor is a complete idiot). Local society has decayed so far locals have started engaging in petty wars with mercenaries with each other under the Imperium’s nose. Naturally, Terrans looking to undermine the Imperial government a bit behind the front lines (or its markets, since it’s the furthest subsector in the play area away from Terra by jump) tend to show up here quite a bit.
 The Urima subsector is at once less politically important and far wealthier than Shululsish; most of its worlds sit in a tight cluster that borders Vegan space and they produce plenty goods of their own. While a bit away from Terran borders, it’s a trade hotspot for free traders and a place characters looking to make a killing once they’ve got their feet under them will likely head to.
 Duusirka Subsector contains Vega (Duusirka in Vilani), a star that has nothing to do with alien race of the same name; the Terrans just call them that because they live nearby it. It’s the heart of the pre-Consolidation Wars Vegan Polity and still contains their richest worlds – as well as the capital for this entire swathe of the Imperium, the center of power for the most important Vilani rulers Terrans deal with until very late in the period. It’s the better part of a year away from Earth along most transit lines, but it sees many Terrans willing to make the journey for substantial political or monetary gain.
 Apishulun Subsector was settled by Dissidents almost exclusively and never fully embraced Imperial rule; while the Vilani social structure does hold sway, the local nobility pays very little attention to the greater Imperium and focuses more on their neighborhood – especially since almost every world in the subsector can be reached with a jump-1 engine. The combination of wealth and isolation that characterizes the subsector makes it a key target for Terran adventurers looking to make a buck or cause some damage without butting heads with anyone important.
 The Dingir Subsector is the closest part of the Imperium to Terran space. Having started life as a kimashargur pocket empire, its conquest rendered it irrelevant for centuries – until the Terran Confederation took off and brought Imperial attention to the area. The locals hate that the Imperium’s started actually monitoring them. Dingir is a trader’s dream; the locals are more than willing to cut deals under the government’s nose, the markets are developed enough to make serious money off without worrying about outside competition, and the region’s military bases are new and fragile enough that they can be avoided with agility and cunning or treated as juicy targets. Free traders call it “Smuggler’s Heaven”.
And that’s the bulk of the region down. There are plenty of other planets with unusual characteristics that might draw interested parties, but none of them get writeups. Next time, we cover the rest of the region: Terran space, and the un-colonized systems beyond it. E: I just discovered the Sumerian word “Dingir” is a term that describes a divinity. Neat! Falconier111 fucked around with this message at 00:21 on Aug 1, 2020 |
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Jul 31, 2020 01:12
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Everyone posted:gently caress that. That's a Keep. We get to kill a rapey monster,
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Jul 31, 2020 09:37
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Robindaybird posted:This. Even if it's all antagonistic forces and off-screen, it sets a bad precedent. There's almost no story or tabletop setting where rape actually adds something.
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Jul 31, 2020 13:44
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Robindaybird posted:This. Even if it's all antagonistic forces and off-screen, it sets a bad precedent. There's almost no story or tabletop setting where rape actually adds something.
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Jul 31, 2020 13:48
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A Wisdom of 19 confers complete immunity to cause fear, charm person, command, friends, hypnotism, and The Deck of Encounters Set Two Part 23: The Deck of Nymphs, Ogres, and Oddballs 116: Old Rations The PCs find an old storeroom in a dungeon, slightly cold and filled with the smell of rotten food. Not from the food - that’s long gone. From the brown mold growing all over one of the old crates. If they’re not cautious, the mold will absorb their heat or that from their torches, and grow/cause damage appropriately. Nothing of value in there. Nothing much happens here, but it’s so quick and inoffensive that I’ll keep. If nothing else, “brown mold room” is potential fuel for PC shenanigans in the dungeon. 117: Beauty and Death In the woods. The PCs hear beautiful singing in an unknown language. It’s a nymph by a pool, just about to disrobe and enter… so if you make your save vs. blindness and are dumb enough to keep staring silently, it’s save or die time. If startled, she dimension doors out but leaves behind a silk robe worth 50 gp, “a gift from an admirer.” How much of an rear end in a top hat do you have to be to pawn someone’s bathing robe that you stole? 100% straightforward nymph encounter, straight off the random encounter table. Which is to say, weird old D&D sex monster. Meh. Pass. 118: Chain Gang The PCs hear distant struggles, and arguing in Ogrish. It’s six ogres chained together. They’ve clearly escaped from somewhere that is not specified, and can’t agree on where to go from here. The card says it’s “a rather humorous scene.” If they notice the PCs they’ll gesture for help, but the card says that if the ogres are freed, they’ll “attack them in vengeance for what was done to them by other demihumans. Yet, if the characters do not help, the ogres will attack in vengeance for what was not done!” Haha, those funny evil ogres nursing their unreasonable grudges! Better to just kill them all, amirite? Obviously, I’d play these ogres as not automatically murderous. And then if I’m willing to introduce ogre slavery or prison labor exploitation as a lovely-rear end thing going on in my setting… then sure, keep. But for personal comfort reasons, I’m probably not doing that, so pass. 119: New Taste The PCs have been hired to get piercer corpses by a “local eccentric” who… wants to use them to make an awesome wine sauce. Tracking them down in the nearby natural caverns takes several weeks (!), but they finally find one in a very normal piercer environment. Once they get back, their patron has been forbidden by the city from messing around with monster corpses without a license, and “without the funds from her research,” she cannot afford to pay the party. Wait, who’s her patron? Take or leave the end twist, but it’s amusing to have a Dungeon Meshi-style quest. 120: The Pet The PCs visit an old friend for dinner. The friend invites the PCs to their home afterwards to show off a stirge that they’re keeping in a cage. It was a “humorous gift from an eccentric associate.” Does this eccentric associate… regularly send thinly-veiled assassination attempts by post? Afterwards they hang out and talk about adventures and play music, and a servant eventually knocks over the cage accidentally while bringing drinks. “The friend quickly relates that his attachment to the pet is far weaker than the attachment to his own life,” and doesn’t get upset at the servant for freeing it or the PCs for killing it. So you know, don’t make things too dramatic or interesting or anything. Now, a stirge in a cage as a ill-considered rich-person novelty is a great idea, but you want it in a crowded dinner party where the PCs need to pull a heist, or where you intend things to descend into chaos for some other reason. I’m not sure it carries the encounter by itself. Jury, how would you spin this?
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Jul 31, 2020 15:08
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Zereth posted:Or, and here's another suggestion, you pass, and get to not have a rapey monster in the game at all. As a player, if a rapey monster shows up, I'm happy to kill the poo poo out it to prevent the rapes. As a GM, I'd tweak the hell out this card to make the minotaur a stranded traveler from Krynn. And that the whole thing is more of a "Beauty and the Beast" situation in which the girl is gleefully happy to be leaving her stifling village life for one of high seas adventure with her new minotaur pirate captain boyfriend.
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Jul 31, 2020 15:13
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Rape doesn’t just “show up” is the thing. Anything put in a game is inserted there. It’s not just naturally a thing that exists. So if a rape monster shows up it’s because the GM is deciding “I need to put a rape monster in.”
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Jul 31, 2020 15:49
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Mors Rattus posted:Rape doesn’t just “show up” is the thing. Anything put in a game is inserted there. It’s not just naturally a thing that exists. So if a rape monster shows up it’s because the GM is deciding “I need to put a rape monster in.” In all things, fiction exists because someone sat down and put a thing in there. There is no 'well that's just the way things would be', only 'that's the way I wrote things to be'.
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Jul 31, 2020 15:55
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Let's switch tracks. Chapter 5: The Known Universe (The Terran Neighborhood: Terran Space)  Sol Subsector contains exactly what you think it does. The only substantial Vilani settlement in the region was Nusku, the last kimashargur-settled planet; everything beyond it was only visited by Vilani asteroid miners until the Terrans burst onto the scene. You know what happened next if you read the rest of this review. Today this subsector contains almost all of the Terran pocket and the vast majority of the Confederation’s worlds and population. Practically every world here gets an extensive writeup. Seriously, it’s like any three other subsectors combined.
 The three rimward subsectors in the play area were never touched by the Vilani; if for some reason you want to use a setting and a system tailored towards trading runs in a decaying Empire to do some generic space exploration and colonization, you use these. The Thalassa Subsector is the furthest from Terra, but it’s also the only point where Terran explorers can easily access the worlds beyond; by jumping from the farthest spinward Terran system through a couple of bridging systems you can access the planets beyond. As such it sees settlement by Terrans interested in fascinating new frontiers and unafraid of being cut off from the home world and wartime. Also look out for pirates.
 The Capella Subsector contains a massive network of garden worlds well outside the reach of current Terran control but within extended jumping distance. For now, relatively few people come through here outside of colonists or traders using the bridge to get at the Imperium from another angle. However, before the invention of the jump drive, Earth launched several colony ships into the area, so in theory you could hope to stumble across them and have weird adventures I guess.
 Gemini Subsector contains the outermost parts of the Terran pocket on one end and a few scattered worlds only accessible by jumping all the way to Thalassa and jumping all the way back on the other. It’s the “here be dragons” part of the play area; the book gives a variety of wild rumors the follow up on and little else.
And that’s it for the play area. I skipped over a LOT of images and quotes here, so I’m glad to know I’ll have stuff to draw on if things get wordy later on. I like this, for the most part; each subsector has its own flavor, there’s plenty to discover and make money off, and you have enough room to run exploration, trading, or military campaigns at your pleasure. I do wish they’d given us a bit more on some of these areas, but the chapter’s fat enough that skipping more description was probably the right idea. Anyway, next time we leave all this behind and cover how you generate your own subsector with GURPS Space: Light Edition. At least you don’t have to use third roots!
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Aug 1, 2020 00:32
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Everyone posted:As a player, if a rapey monster shows up, I'm happy to kill the poo poo out it to prevent the rapes. Please god just stop. Both posting and doing this.
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Aug 1, 2020 00:43
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The something awful pen and paper rpg community has a reputation for being fans of lighter, modern games, and rejecting the grognardy tendencies for percieved realism, a fetishisation of how much early medival life sucked, and really powerful wizards being the best at things, in favor of being a cool competent person with clearly designed mechanics and modern, friendly design. But I know better. Deep at the heart of every goon, past the lancers and legends of 5 rings is a desire to play a weird middle ages rear end in a top hat and gently caress with customisable magic systems through characters who got their hair cut by putting a big bowl over their heads and scissoring off everything outside, and die from a combat with absolutely no balance considerations. For all you cryptogrogs, I bring you https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xlt0cNnd_c reccomended listening for this post Ars Magica is a series of psuedo spinoffs of Mage the Awakening set in Mythic Europe, 1220 AD where you play as powerful Magi, their Companions and a pool of minor Grogs dealing with all sorts of magical, divine and mundane circumstances. It was originally written by Jonathan Tweet and Mark Rein-Hagen, which should set off some loving alarm bells in your brain for what this is going to be like, although this is going to be about the 5th edition and will be a lot more reasonable. I should admit I haven't actually played it, this is mostly getting done so I get get a better handle on the rules, and I figure if I get things blatantly wrong it will actually provoke discussion. The book starts with the standard Whats an RPG paragraph, but it does point out 3 very unusual features of the game. 1. The game doesn't balance the different sorts of characters. Magi are extremely more powerful, and companions beneath them get more stuff than Grogs. We'll get into the specifics of how they work later, but it's all ok because 2. You'll probably have more than 1 character. The game ideally works off a 'Troupe' player group structure where people rotate storytellers and who plays what in each adventure. So it might be one player breaking out their wizard, another plays their companion, and another takes a couple grogs for flavor, and the next time the GM swaps to something else. This was definitely super innovative only really coming up a bit now with Blades in the Dark, and leads to a great episodic structure alongside the downtime mechanics. 3. The game centers around a specific organisation/place called a Covenant, a shared space for wizards to hang out, do weird magic experiments, and live. This leads to strong sense of community and driver of narratives compared to wandering murderhobos. The core mechanics are fortunately simple enough, although there's a bunch of special rolls built as variants that seem a little overwhelming. Simple rolls are just Stat+Skill+d10, a standard modernisation of BRP-derivatives or Storyteller. If there's an actual risk or pressure involved (which should be everything you roll for except wizards researching in the library or something esoteric, my modern rpg brain tries to scream past the Grog Lizard parts of me) if you get a 1, roll again and double it, increasing exponentially if you get more doubles. If you get a zero, though, it's not great. Depending on how much things can go badly, you then roll a number of Botch Dice, and if those get zero as well, you critically fail. Definitely a lot more friendly than World of Darkness's take, and gives a little more granularity. Plus with the different sorts of characters, things going very badly can have a little more nuance. If a grog dies, laugh it off and grab another, and Wizards have their own specific catastrophes that they can mostly deal with.  honestly a lot of the art is pretty bad so I'm only going to post the cool stuff that's either public domain medival artworks or from earlier editions that had a lot more white wolf steeze Next Time: An overview of the Order of Hermes, the broader sect of Magi the game revolves around. Wrestlepig fucked around with this message at 09:10 on Aug 1, 2020 |
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Aug 1, 2020 01:14
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Let the previous conversation die, folks. Instead, wizards. I remember reading about Arse Magica years ago, but I have no idea how the system actually works. Looking forward to this. Falconier111 fucked around with this message at 01:16 on Aug 1, 2020 |
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Aug 1, 2020 01:14
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Ars Magica is one of the games I would like to sit down, read very carefully, and run one day. I love the idea of being a grumpy academic pulled between heaven, hell, knowledge, and feudal obligation and forever scheming to get my mundane companions to do things so I can get back to reading and pondering the nature of magic.
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Aug 1, 2020 01:16
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quote:percieved realism, a fetishisation of how much early medival life sucked, and really powerful wizards being the best at things l5r is at least two of those things, maybe three depending on how charitable you are in your thoughts about how it handles honor. edit to actually provide helpful commentary: ars magica is one of those games I've heard about and been vaguely interested in reading about, but not enough to do it because I've heard it's a bit too complex.
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Aug 1, 2020 01:16
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Wrestlepig posted:The something awful pen and paper rpg community has a reputation for being fans of lighter, modern games, and rejecting the grognardy tendencies for percieved realism, a fetishisation of how much early medival life sucked, and really powerful wizards being the best at things, in favor of being a cool competent person with clearly designed mechanics and modern, friendly design. Ek-loving-scuse me?
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Aug 1, 2020 01:18
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Leraika posted:edit to actually provide helpful commentary: ars magica is one of those games I've heard about and been vaguely interested in reading about, but not enough to do it because I've heard it's a bit too complex. it's relatively simple at it's core. Those dice mechanics are basically everything for non-wizards. Combat has opposed rolls, character generation is a little involved and there's downtime periods for sorting xp, but that's basically it. Wizards are more complex but not really that much more, so you'd probably be fine leaving them in the laboratory doing their thing while you figure things out through the grogs and companions until you're ready.
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Aug 1, 2020 01:33
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Complexity in Ars is heavily frontloaded into chargen. Actual play isn’t that bad, but first you have to assign a giant pile of XP.
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Aug 1, 2020 01:40
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Mors Rattus posted:Complexity in Ars is heavily frontloaded into chargen. Actual play isn’t that bad, but first you have to assign a giant pile of XP. it's going to take like 3 posts, it's very extensive and there's a lot of things to comment on.
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Aug 1, 2020 01:41
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Also, being fair, isn't Ars 5th Edition really far off the original fluff/setting written by Tweet and Hagen?
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Aug 1, 2020 01:49
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Night10194 posted:Also, being fair, isn't Ars 5th Edition really far off the original fluff/setting written by Tweet and Hagen? Yes. First and second have a very, very different setting from third, which has a very, very different setting from 4th and 5th.
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Aug 1, 2020 02:01
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Oh poo poo I'm going to go see if I can dig up my copy of Ars Magica from way back when. The game doesn't balance the character types because it assumes that you're using troupe style play so it's like every adventure is a compromise where you only take exactly the people you need because although magi are capable of being stupidly powerful they are also incredibly weak outside of their narrow skill sets and actually need a guy with a shield hanging around them. Or a bard with the Satan's fingers. Or something like that. I think the recommendation was that everyone gets 1 magi level character, 1 companion level character, and then there are some grogs who are like normal people who have to interact with weird poo poo every now and again because your boss is a wizard who takes you on adventures. The game really does do lengthy campaigns well and has a lot of support for it. Also, I think it predates Mage by some degree but I'll have to check dates. Yup it predates Mage which came out in 1993 and Ars magica was before that because my 3rd edition is 1992. edit: They're not kidding about the game being front-loaded because as a kid I used to love just making characters in this game for hours on end and then playing through just random covenant stuff. So I guess Ars magica is a fun solitaire game for socially inept ten year olds, but it can also be played with other people so I'm told. Ithle01 fucked around with this message at 02:27 on Aug 1, 2020 |
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Aug 1, 2020 02:20
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ARS MAGICA 5E Part 2: The Order of Hermes Even with all the extra characters and stuff, the game revolves around Wizards, who at least in the core rules are members of the preeminent Wizard Society of Europe called the Order of Hermes, following their rules and teachings to a greater or lesser extent. This chapter goes over a lot of how they operate and their history, which is very useful for establishing a lot of game concepts and how to play as a wizard.  theres no art and a lot of words so here's a woodcut Historically speaking, there's always been people with the Gift of magic, although it was rare for them to organise. One effect of the gift is a serious case of Bad Vibes that provokes negative reactions to you in other people, so that alongside with the inevitable megalomania led to most wizards getting murdered or isolated. It also affected other wizards, so most mages that met each other just nuked each other or got ready to betray the other, and because knowledge wasn't standardised, mostly stemming from individual research that they weren't willing to share. The only group of wizards that really got off the ground early was the roman Mystery Cult of Mercury, the god of messengers, and that was because they mostly just sent letters. When the western roman empire fell, the Cult of Mercury disintegrated in magical violence, and nothing took it's place until 3 centuries after. At that time, a very clever mage named Bonisagus figured out a very clever spell known as the Parma Magica, which granted protection from other mage's magic and from their magical Bad Vibes. Wizards could finally talk with each other without getting on each other's nerves, and couldn't just fireball each other when an argument started. Bonisagus's student, a sorceress named Trianomma, realised the political possibilites this created, and went around Europe encouraging the mages there to meet with Bonisagus and work together. She also destroyed a lot of those who didn't. Bonisagus talked and dealt with the mages Triannoma brought back, and incorporated a lot of their knowledge into the theories of the Cult of Mercury while teaching the Parma Magica. From this, he was able to develop the theory of Hermetic Magic, and the wizards met at a great tribunal and formed the Order of Hermes. From there, they spread out across Europe, recruiting apprentices, organising and threatening people until they basically controlled the magical side of Europe. The order has weathered multiple crises as it grew and changed. Early on, they had to deal with a guerilla war from an evil (or just protecting the isles from the continental invasion) british wizard named Damhan-Allaidh. He was defeated by an apprentice of one founder by the name of Pralix, who copied Damhan-Allaidh's tactics and formed her own order from the converted survivors. That order got incorporated as a new house in the Order of Hermes named the Ordo Ex Miscellanea, a grab bag of individuals and traditions outside of standard Hermetic branches. Later, House Tremere tried to entrench themselves as the leaders of their order through political alliances and duelling really well, until suddenly a huge chunk of their leadership went mad shortly after Tremere himself was left as the last living founder of the order. When they went, so did everyone's obligations to them, and Tremere decided to cut their poo poo out. In earlier editions, this clan turned themselves into Vampires, although this edition cuts out the ties to the World of Darkness. After that, House Tytalus started loving around with Demonology, always a bad idea, and their leadership got decapitated by the Quasitores, who are the wizard judge dredds. This got everyone even more paranoid and exploded when the House Tremere declared war on House Deidne, a sect of druidic pagans none of the other christian-influenced groups liked very much. After a Grand Tribunal to figure poo poo out, the Deidne got kicked out of the order and ordered exterminated. Finally having just one enemy led to stability, and the arcane disruption led most wizards to prefer peace. Nobody really seems to comment on that whole thing being pretty hosed up.  thats a lot of lore that probably won't impact much, although theres a few campaign hooks for people The rules of the Hermetic Order are relatively simple, although it gets complicated because Wizards love arguing and there's lots of Legal precedent. Its worth going over them, since Wizard Politics is a big driver of what goes on. No Depriving a Member of the Order of their Magical Power. This also gets expanded to doing things that would indirectly reduce a Magi's magical power, like loving with their stuff and forcing them to deal with mundane problems, but mainly it's no removal of other's magical power. No Slaying of other Hermetic Magi outside of Justly executed Wizard's War. Wizards War lets two mages temporarily go outside of the regular rules and break out the fireballs until the next full moon, as long as it's organised properly with a proper declaration of War. Abide by Decisions of the Tribunal. Tribunals are wizard senates that get called occassionally, where they vote on certain things. Do not interfere with the Mundanes. Wizards unfortunately have to interfere all the time so mostly this is fine unless it causes problems or puts you into positions of mundane political power, like being a court wizard. Do Not Deal with Demons This is the only rule they don't gently caress around with. Hell is real. Don't annoy the Faeries. This one isn't enforced much since they have such nice Vis, a magical fuel, so the precedents are kind of a mess. It's totally ok to deal with faeries normally, unlike demons. The book notes here there's no rules about any other sort of magical creatures. No Scrying on other Magi. This also includes stuff like turning invisible and hanging around nearby, or scrying their servants and getting it indirectly. Wizards really dont want you scooping up their manuscripts. Next Time: The Houses of the Order of Hermes.
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Aug 1, 2020 03:08
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Does anyone actually obey that "no demons" rule?
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Aug 1, 2020 04:53
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The Lone Badger posted:Does anyone actually obey that "no demons" rule? Yes. Demons in Ars Magica are best not hosed with.
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Aug 1, 2020 04:58
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The Lone Badger posted:Does anyone actually obey that "no demons" rule? it is an incredibly bad idea, and you're a wizard so you don't really need them. That said, you can do it, and demons can be persuasive.
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Aug 1, 2020 05:16
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Ars Magica is a really neat game, but every time I see the history of the Hermetics they really come off as enormous assholes. It's one of the things that's prevented me from running-....well...buying the game and never actually running the game for my group of tired adults.
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Aug 1, 2020 05:17
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ARS MAGICA 5E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZS19DslkgQ Houses of Hermes. There's 12 different Houses inside the order of Hermes, made of a mixture of lineages, mystery cults and general traditions. The mechanical impact of these (mandatory free virtues and flaws) is listed later, and what those actually mean is listed later than that. Still we're just in the fluff zone. These aren't the limits of what magic can be, its just the sorts inside the order that follow their understanding of things. Pagans, non-europeans and individual weirdos do exist and follow different Rules, but this book keeps a focus on the Hermetics, even while admitting their philosophy of magic is limited. House Bjornaer are an unusual house focused on the animal and bestial. They have a very non-hermetic style power where they can take on the form of their 'Heartbeast', essentially a totem animal (or plant). Changing shape isn't that crazy, you can take it in a few ways at character generation, but the Bjornaer have it run deep and can cast while transformed at an extreme penalty, and it doesn't count as a magical effect, and spells that affect that sort of animal effect the wizard as well. You can't get familiars for some reason. House Bonisagus are directly descended from the father of the order, and either specialise in magical theory or Hermetic politics. They tend to be well respected and influential in the order. House Criamon is an esoteric mystery cult focused on searching after the 'Enigma' and understanding magic and the Gift itself. They get a special Enigmatic Wisdom skill that helps when they go into Twilight, but makes it more likely. What's Twilight? We'll get to that later. Also they tend to cover themselves in mystic markings which I always think is cool, so I'd probably play one of these. House Ex Miscellanea are a group of loosely affiliated minor traditions and independents, often barely hermetic. You some free virtues and a flaw of your choosing, so a lot of room to customise things if nothing else works for you. House Flambeau are good at Burning and Destroying things. Thats basically it House Guernicus are enforcers, judges and cops for inside the order. They have the most Quasitores (judge, jury and executioner for the order) even if anyone can join. They believe the order would collapse without their strict stewardship, and they're probably right. House Jerbiton are much more focused on the mundane world than other mages, and focus on arts, aesthetics and culture to prevent the order from isolating itself too much. They tend to have a pretty aristocratic background. House Mercere, known as redcaps, are messengers between wizards, and tend to be very important with how isolated magi tend to be. Un-gifted people can be a part of this house, although they don't get to vote at tribunal. House Merinita is a mystery cult tied to the Fae, and draw a lot of magical secrets from that. They rule a lot, getting new conditions and targets for magic like casting on an entire road or bloodline, tying spells to a bargain, or making the duration of a spell until a fire goes out or for a year and a day. You do have to have some tie to the fae, whether a virtue, flaw or initiation ritual. House Tremere, at least the new non-vampiric house of this edition, are political schemers who emphasise sensibility, planning and heirarchy. They tend to be experts in Certamen (Wizard Duelling) and unusually, hold back the voting sigils of their apprentices until they die or lose to them in a wizard duel. This means that there's a relatively small number of decision makers at tribunal with a lot of political power. House Tytalus seek to master Conflict, and love to innovate, change and struggle until they win, which must get really annoying. In the past this lead them to trying to pull that poo poo with demons, which lead to their leadership getting exterminated and the survivors not trusted. House Verditius are expert crafters and enchanters, but can't cast without the assistance of tools, which leads to people thinking less of them despite it not really being a big deal. It's an odd group of houses without clear specialists in many sorts of magic, which is interesting. Some things have an expert but few houses are going to be better at different sorts of magic, so there's a lot of room for self-definition. I think all the Mage players will see things I don't, though. Next time: Roundup of other Magi stuff before character creation
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Aug 1, 2020 05:21
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Rand Brittain posted:Yes. Demons in Ars Magica are best not hosed with. What's the point of being a wizard if I can't Meddle With Things Man Was Not Meant To Know?
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Aug 1, 2020 05:40
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The Lone Badger posted:What's the point of being a wizard if I can't Meddle With Things Man Was Not Meant To Know? You can, totally, but the rest of the wizards will murder the gently caress out of you because it is legit Things Man Was Not Meant To Know. Also if they don't the Church will get all up in their tits.
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Aug 1, 2020 05:51
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Falconier111 posted:E: I just discovered the Sumerian word “Dingir” is a term that describes a divinity. Neat! Centuries later, the Dingir class destroyers were the mainstay of Solomani escort squadrons during the Solomani Rim War. And a popular ship in playtests of Squadron Strike: Traveller Fleet Book 2. If you want to get in on the Rim War, we teach (and play) Squadron Strike online here: https://vtt.mikezekim.com/learn
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Aug 1, 2020 05:51
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ARS MAGICA 5e The order of Hermes and Society https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch1aVmjvYTI The Order of Hermes, despite wizards generally being assholes and weirdos, is about as democratic as it could be. It mostly organises in Tribunals where at least 12 magi meet, presided over by a Quasitores and run by the oldest mage present, and they all cast their vote. On a larger level there are regional tribunals that cover rough geographic areas and boundaries, and a grand tribunal every 33 years where representatives of each region converge to discuss matters affecting the entire order. Most wizards would prefer to do their own thing, but politicking is necessary sometimes. The book then goes over a few aspects of the wider world, and how the wizards interact with middle ages Europe. Peasants generally stay away from wizards because they'd have to interact with magical bullshit and maybe get turned into frogs. Wizards still have to eat and profit, so they commonly do have peasants farm the land around them and manage affairs. Wizards tend to be hands off about the whole thing because they radiate antipathy, but they're often much better than regular lords or clergy because they can actually do things about plagues, disasters and dragons. Importantly, Magi covenants are good places for misfits: They don't care about gender restrictions, criminal status or social class. This game is groggy, but has plenty of room for lady knights and political outcasts. Wizards try to keep themselves away from the Church, because it could absolutely kick their rear end. God is real and can manifest with miracles and just say No to magic. The church doesn't take an official stance or anything, since plenty of wizards are fine upstanding christians and dealing with others would get messy, even if they harbour heretics and don't follow the rules. So long as they don't get in each others way, they're fine. Individual religious people cross the whole gamut, from Burn the Witch to friendly relations with fellow scholars.  sourced from @ebooks_goetia on twitter, a bot that generates sigils. this is for elanel, a demon of judo and warmness Nobles usually try to get along with wizards, since they're powerful neighbours who they don't directly control. Often wizards do a bit of work for the local aristocracy, and as long as it isn't permanent or involved the Order doesn't mind. Cities aren't great places for Wizards: The gift tends to make getting along with close neighbours hard, and there tends to be a strong Divine aura from all the christians that can interfere with lab work. However there's a lot of handy resources and skilled people there, so some wizards stick there.  The book has an interesting of Magical Items and trade. As of 1061 AD, it's illegal to 'Accept Money or Mundane Goods from anyone other than a member of the Order of Hermes or a Hermetic Covenant' and it's heavily encouraged not to give out anything Permanent. This does have obvious loopholes: If they get you something magical as a trade, or you go through a mundane middleman. This is probably a gameplay concession so you get the companions off, although itd happen anyway since wizards are terrible with resources. Other magical people do exist, either as those with supernatural talents or people with the Gift who aren't inside the order. The Official Hermetic stance is everyone has to join, although it's not often enforced, especially if the person's weak, noble or in the church. There are some powerful non-hermetic wizards around, although without the Parma Magica, they don't stand much of a chance. The Order often leaves them alone unless they cause problems or learn the Parma Magica, in which case they gotta join or die. Next time: Characters, part 1 of ????
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Aug 1, 2020 07:25
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A bit of quick commentary on demons in Ars Magica: I was curious to see how jewish beliefs are represented so I had a quick browse through "Realms Of Power - The Infernal" the 5th edition supplement while the take on jewish beliefs is a valid one I didn't see it mentioned that judaism does not have as much of a consensus as christianity: while every sect would agree that demons are liars and you should reject them entirely, the origin of demons does not necessarily correspond to a singular Samael-like devil figure. for example: many believe that demons and other evil spirits are God's earlier creation that he abandoned on the sabbath and left around as a reminder that even the highest of crafts are subject to the rules of sabbath. It's not a big thing against Ars Magica but if I were to run it I'd definitely do a deeper research on jewish beliefs in the middle ages.
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Aug 1, 2020 07:29
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| # ? Apr 26, 2024 02:21 |
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Wrestlepig posted:
I think you've missed a bit at the bolded section, because it doesn't make any sense; if you get a 1 on what? the d10? Where do doubles come into if you're just rolling 1 die?
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Aug 1, 2020 08:48
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