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mllaneza posted:Shadowrun hacks of better games: These are all pretty good but I would like to see a Shadowrun hack that has more complexity to it. There's interesting aspects and gameplay tied to the mechanics, even Shadowrun has done a poor job with them overall.
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Nov 4, 2020 11:31
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Wrestlepig posted:These are all pretty good but I would like to see a Shadowrun hack that has more complexity to it. There's interesting aspects and gameplay tied to the mechanics, even Shadowrun has done a poor job with them overall. I think we already established that "good Shadowrun hack of a crunchy game" doesn't exist.
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Nov 4, 2020 18:12
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Wrestlepig posted:These are all pretty good but I would like to see a Shadowrun hack that has more complexity to it. There's interesting aspects and gameplay tied to the mechanics, even Shadowrun has done a poor job with them overall. I think something good could be done with Modiphius's 2d20 system, Infinity has it like 2/3rds of the way there already.
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Nov 4, 2020 20:57
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Mors Rattus posted:Age of Sigmar Lore Chat: Ossiarch Bonereapers Good to see you back.
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Nov 4, 2020 22:03
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Age of Sigmar Lore Chat: Ossiarch Bonereapers Wait, Why Are We The Bomb  The Null Myriad, also called the Legion Inimical, the Magic-Eater and the Mortoi Auroris, are the eldest of the Ossiarchs. They were the prototype for all the others, with the first of their number actually constructed in the Age of Myth as an experiment. They are also some of the most resilient of the lot, able to absorb and dissipate magical energies that would tear others apart. The Shyishian power that suffuses their bones is said to be enough to survive the Realm of Chaos itself, and even the living spells avoid the greatest of their number, for fear of being devoured in turn. Corpses rise as mindless undead in their wake. And yet, despite their age, they have only recently emerged to fight in the days after the Necroquake, for only then was their original purpose completed. The first of the Null Myriad were exiled in the Age of Myth by the Pantheon of Order, who considered them too sinister to be allowed to remain in Nagash's presence. They had to live in the Perimeter Inimical, the area at the edge of the Realm of Death where the magic grew so strong as to snuff out any mortal garrison, aging them to dust in mere days. The Null Myriad absorbed this power into themselves, developing the ability to subsist off it and endure the worst that Shyish could throw at them. They were time and again struck by waves of magical storms and tides of power, but they withstood it all and fought off the primal monsters of Amethyst that make their homes in those barren lands as well as the Daemons that sometimes tried to invade via the chaotic maelstrom of magical energies touching the Realm of Chaos on occasion. They served an important goal: buying time for Nagash's undead minions to retrieve grave-sand grain by grain, that the Shyish Nadir might be completed. Now that it has been, the Perimeter Inimical no longer exists. The magical polarity of Shyish has reversed, and the magic is weakest at the edge now. The Null Myriad have returned home after long centuries, and they have been given a new purpose. Arkhan the Black has made a pact with Katakros, handing over thousands of his Deathrattle skeletons to become material with which to construct more magically resistant Ossiarchs. In return, he has asked only for alliance. So far, the two Mortarchs maintain respect, if not quite friendsip, and the Null Myriad have been turned into an invasion force against other realms. Their ability to withstand the magical dangers at the edge of the Mortal Realms allows them to attack from vectors that no invader before them has ever considered, and it makes their defensive necropoli hard to assault. Katakros intends to use the Null Myriad to take over the areas of the Mortal Realms considered barren, turning them from useless land to a strategic strength - as well as granting Nagash the chance to gain greater control over magic itself.  The Crematorians are called the Levellers of Cities, the Wrath of Nagash Incarnate and the Ygnimortoi. Their purpose is simple: they're siege wepaonry. They are sent to attack enemy cities and destroy them mercilessly. Fire burns within the bones of each Crematorian, and to stand near one is to stand next to a furnace armed with deadly blades, hot enough to set hair on fire if they get too close. That's the least of your worries, of course. Even stone and metal blacken and flake near them, and when they fall in battle, they explode. This is by design - Nagash doesn't particularly care how many of the Crematorians die because each one is a fire-and-forget weapon. They sack a city and when they fall, they continue their work by detonating, because the fire they burn with is not wielded by them but bound inside their hearts. Once a city falls, the Crematorians begin the next stage of their work. From the ashes of the inferno, they sift out the phylactery gems of their fallen and gather up as many bone splinters as they can, bringing them back to the Mortisans. The Crematorians that were lost are rebuilt, to burn and die again. The magic within them is too volatile to survive for long - if their conquest is delayed, the worst made of them begin to burn up from within, unable to contain the magical energies that empower them. They were always meant to be disposable. They're very unhappy about that. Crematorian leadership is better built, designed to survive for centuries before they too burn out, but they're deeply concerned for the state of their soldiers. Many of them have sworn eternal pacts to each other to ensure they will always be repaired, that no member of the officer cadre wil; be allowed to wink out of existence unless the whole lot does. The Boneshapers of the Crematorians have become experts in delaying and preventing magical consumption long enough for the Soulmasons to repair any damage to the soul-mass that animates each Ossiarch. The field commander of the legion, Ygnopatris Xaranos, is the most dedicated to prolonging the unlife of his men. He often forbids the destruction of libraries and magical storehouses until his Mortisans have a chance to scour them for any knowledge that might help preserve the Crematorians from their ordained destruction. So far, he has found nothing that he considers worth risking revelation to Katakros or the other Mortarchs, and a deep depression lives within his fiery heart. Still, he takes solace in one thing: the Necroquake has proven that Nagash's magic is not perfect, that Nagash himself is not infallible. That is a shining beacon of hope for him: he may yet save the Crematorians, because Nagash may have left a flaw in their explosive design. I kinda love these guys because of all the Ossiarchs, you wouldn't expect the ones that explode to be the sympathetic ones. Next time: Lords of the Legions
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Nov 5, 2020 02:27
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Ahahaha, once again Nagash sets up people without ever actually thinking it through and his siege troops are now all looking at each other going "errrrr" and planning on stabbing the boss the first chance they get.
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Nov 5, 2020 19:03
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Age of Sigmar Lore Chat: Ossiarch Bonereapers Great General, Phobic Of Horseys We get restatements of Arkhan the Black and Nagash but they're pretty much identical to the last time I discussed 'em. We do get some more about Orpheon Katakros, however. He refuses to get on any steed whatsoever these days, having originally died in a chariot charge. He goes in entirely on foot, surrounded by his finest soldiers. He prefers not to actually fight personally, relying on them to do it for him. They're good at it, too. Katakros is never seen without his Liege-Immortis, who is noted for his high helm and his stout arm, and his Prime Necrophoros, who bears the sacred banner of the Legions. He oversees multiple wars at once, coordinating them via birdy messengers from his Aviarch Spymaster. He never writes, either - he spends a lot of time composing books by dictation to his Gnosis Scrollbearers. Also contracts. He likes the dictate contracts of surrender for his enemies, which mystically bind them if they accept. (Katakros is actually quite happy to accept surrenders, as he sees the ultimate victory of undeath happening either way.) On to people we haven't talked about yet! Arch-Kavalos Zandtos (proper name: Patru Zandtos) is the only Ossiarch general who knew Katakros in life and was left wholly intact. Largely, this is because Zandtos is obsessed with a single pure idea, and has no ambitions to surpass Katakros to begin with. All he cares about is total extermination of all life, to achieve total perfection in death. Even as a mortal, Zandtos was obsessed with death. He was an assassin-mortician who worked for sixty years to perfect the art of murder, and he quite literally worshipped death. He killed with a sense of love and care, seeing it as a blessing he granted to his followers. He never fled the scene of the crime, but personally ensured each was buried with honor, no matter how hard it was to dig the grave, clean the body or make it presentable for a funeral. On death, Zandtos joined the afterlife of Ossia, just as Katakros had. He thrived on its order and neatness...until Sigmar came. When Sigmar's people settled in Shyish, they brought barbaric noise, chaos and mess to Ossia. They disrespected the dead, leaving corpses to be picked apart by birds after their battles. Zandtos was infuriated by their refusal to honor the perfect order that ended life, and he began a personal war of genocide against the tribes of Sigmar. Over time, other ghosts joined his cause. When Katakros took over Ossia and Necros, Zandtos approached him with a plan. They made an alliance, and Zandtos was able to use the Ossian army to achieve a goal he now expanded: wipe out all of the savage living in Shyish, to bring sterility back to the dead lands. Zandtos' original desire for order devolved into an obsession with death, hastened by the Dark Lance granted to him by Katakros as his signature tool. He wields it even now, and its magic empowers him. It reinforces his conviction, and each kill wipes his soul free of doubt. It has magnified Zandtos' death-lust massively - and it has weakened his desire for perfect order. At this point, revived as an Ossiarch, Zandtos has forgotten his desire to bring dignity to the dead and ensure their peaceful rest. Now, he cares only for the extinction of all that lives. He has become the monstrous slaughterer that he hated the barbarians of Sigmar for being, even as he continues his original campaign of death.  Vokmortian, Master of the Bone-Tithe, oversees much of the Ossiarch Empire. He is the leader of the Mortisan Order, given total freedom to destroy anyone he deems in defiance of Nagash. His orders have seen entire civilizations crushed to dust because he doubted the loyalty of their surrender. When he arrives at a city to demand their tribute in bone for his masters, he is always surrounded by elite soldiers. He always reads aloud the Decree of Nagash in a deliberately dramatic voice, and if he received a sufficient offering, he allows the city to live another season. If he is attacked, he simply gestures and his men slaughter the offending mortals to a man. Few mortals, however, are brave enough to assault Vokmortian himself, and he makes a point of gathering the skulls of leaders that resist him and hanging them in eternal torment from his staff. Vokmortian channels a fragment of Nagash's power through himself, and what he sees, so sees Nagash. Indeed, the connection is so strong that Nagash's face, when enraged, sometimes appears in Vokmortian's hollow chest to glare people literally to death. Vokmortian is also able to unleash the magical might of the Shyish Nadir at his foes, in case he needed more ways to kill people. Vokmortian mostly uses this to seize the free will of vampires, wights and necromancers that don't feel like doing what he tells them to, and the Decree of Nagash forces them to obey. Next time: Legionnaires
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Nov 5, 2020 19:04
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#1 rule for smart bombs is not to make them smart enough to object.
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Nov 6, 2020 07:31
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JcDent posted:#1 rule for smart bombs is not to make them smart enough to object.
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Nov 6, 2020 09:25
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NGDBSS posted:Wasn't that the premise of Dark Star? Even then they worked fine as long as they didn’t get stuck in the launcher.
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Nov 6, 2020 10:04
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Arguably the issue was one of personality, but that comes along with intelligence.
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Nov 6, 2020 10:17
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I'm pretty sure the problem in Dark Star was the space lightning.
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Nov 6, 2020 10:20
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JcDent posted:#1 rule for smart bombs is not to make them smart enough to object. Or make them really, really want to explode. But that has its own problems.
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Nov 6, 2020 10:43
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Or make them really, really want to explode. But that has its own problems. Ahhh artillery explosion Wednesdays. But yeah, I do like that at least some members of the Ossiarch are basically looking at what's become of them and starting to ask "errr, guys... is this a good idea?"
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Nov 6, 2020 16:34
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"Are we the baddies?"
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Nov 6, 2020 16:36
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Josef bugman posted:Ahhh artillery explosion Wednesdays. Turn them against Nagash would be pretty cool. I also wonder how hard it would be to convince Zandtos that undeath was itself a kind of life that needed to be ended.
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Nov 6, 2020 16:42
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I don't think they can't actually turn against Nagash. I don't think they have enough free will to actually disobey him or anyone higher on the ladder. It's why they don't tell the higher up about the attempts to make themselves work better, so they won't be told to stop. Also I really like the Color schemes for the Null Myriad and Crematorians  
MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 19:03 on Nov 6, 2020 |
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Nov 6, 2020 19:00
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MonsterEnvy posted:I don't think they can't actually turn against Nagash. I don't think they have enough free will to actually disobey him or anyone higher on the ladder. It's why they don't tell the higher up about the attempts to make themselves work better, so they won't be told to stop. I feel like, if you put 'slave-creations of an evil god begin to question their purpose and how that evil god has treated them' in a game, you had drat well better understand that the best story that can tell is a revolt against Nagash. In general, 'Nagash thinks he has total control over his minions but actually he's about to learn otherwise' is the only good Nagash story one can tell, in the same way that Chaos being an undifferentiated wall of hand puppets for the dark gods is exactly the problem that makes chaos boring. Let the bonesploding faction start the Skeleton War in earnest!
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Nov 6, 2020 19:33
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Joe Slowboat posted:I feel like, if you put 'slave-creations of an evil god begin to question their purpose and how that evil god has treated them' in a game, you had drat well better understand that the best story that can tell is a revolt against Nagash. In general, 'Nagash thinks he has total control over his minions but actually he's about to learn otherwise' is the only good Nagash story one can tell, in the same way that Chaos being an undifferentiated wall of hand puppets for the dark gods is exactly the problem that makes chaos boring. Maybe not immediately, but as a campaign subplot leading PCs to get involved in loving over Nagash by helping the bone-sploders become free beings, I want it.
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Nov 6, 2020 20:21
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Age of Sigmar Lore Chat: Ossiarch Bonereapers GREAT BONE HORSE The most frequent martial leaders among the Ossiarchs are the Lieges-Kavaloi, powerful warrior-princes atop massive Kavalos skeleton-steeds. Each of their soul-slurries is formed from a composite of those heroes in life who inspired loyalty and devotion, ensuring they have the charisma and majesty needed to guide their subordinates. Their duty is relatively simple, as most administrating is handled by the Mortisans - they are to ride down and destroy all who cheat or reject the bone-tithe. This may mean destroying a simple town in a night or conquering an entire nation. The Lieges-Kavaloi are especially fond of using their Kavalos Deathriders, as they intimately understand cavalry battle and how to use overlapping cavalry attacks to decimate enemy armies step by step. The cavalry charge of a Liege-Kavalos is feared across the Prime Innerlands, especially when supported by the Mortisan priests refilling the numbers of their forces at the end of each battle. It is said that as long as they keep being rebuilt, it would be impossible to stop a Liege-Kavalos from winning any war, though it might take years of effort. They are dedicated and patient beings, after all, who see themselves as weapons in the hands of their masters. They never stop working and never give up on an assigned task. Few of them consider the death of their enemies to be even a notable feat - it's merely inevitable. The Mortisan Boneshapers see themselves as the perfect craftsmen, both in life and death. Each was built from the bones of artisans, and many of them are from the artistic paradise-underworld of Anadiria, whose inhabitants create art for the sake of art for all eternity. Sadly, after its conquest by Nagash, that art is required to be focused on the glorification of the God of Death or on the aiding of his war on all things living. The Boneshapers are drawn from sculptors primarily, and their new medium is bone. Each one can build a new Bonereaper body in minutes with their boneshaping magic and carving tools, forging mere bone into flexible but durable material. They repair damaged legionnaires and oversee the Gothizzar Harvesters that bring back more raw material after battle. when a Boneshaper is not serving on the front to repair soldiers in mid-battle and support them with osseous magic, they are typically found working as architects. Their duty is not only to oversee the armies but also to raise the massive forts and monuments of Nagash. This is the art most of them see as their true outlet for creativity, and the Boneshapers often work to outdo each other in creating buildings of terrible beauty. Of course, this art is morbid and horrific at best to those outside their sphere, but that's the style of Death. The Mortisan Soulreapers are the opposite of the Boneshapers: they d estroy, rather than build. Their task is to sever the souls of the living from their bodies, to create the motive force that powers a Bonereaper's shell. While they are themselves built from the souls of necromancers and wizards, many Mortisans consider the Soulreapers the least worthy of their order, as they cannot create art. In the past, the Soulmasons and Boneshapers looked down upon them even more. Legend among the Mortisans is that the first Soulreaper, a witch named Tomar Venta Kheph, screamed so loud on discovering her new purpose that the shadeglass windows of Nagash's own sanctum cracked, and he has never forgiven the Soulreapers for that. War, however, has shown the true value of the Soulreaper subcaste. Their magic is deadly in battle, able to tear the spirit out of enemies in an amethyst storm. They then capture the stolen soul in a trap for processing. Of course, the theft of souls in battle isn't easy, and powerful souls add to the risk. It is known that once, a Soulreaper's body was actually possessed by the soul of an aelf mage he tried to harvest, forcing him to rain down spells on his own allies. Ever since that, to prevent future problems of that kind, many Soulreapers are constructed without mouths, so that they cannot speak the words of spells and can only wield the magic intended for them. They are even more dangerous in close combat, thanks to their killing scythes. Most fight in total silence, even those that actually are capable of speech to begin with.  The Mprtisan Soulmasons are the highest rank subcaste of the Mortisan Order, given the task of evaluating and recombining souls and interring them into the gem-phylacteries of the Ossiarchs. They are masters of soul alchemy, able to rebuild a working personality out of the shards of many souls. They also serve as the spiritual heart of the Ossiarch Empire, the wisest of its priests. They have authority over what gets used to replenish the ranks of the soldiers and how souls should be divided up or used or even stored for later. They often carve out the choicest soul-shards for personal projects before rendering the rest down for more general usage. Often, Soulmasons appear to be moving about in a slow daze, as their work requires total concentration to prevent the soul they are working on from escaping and forming a screaming, maddened gheist. This concentration comes naturally to them, and many are able to casually summon up ghostly shades to aid them in their work. By tradition, thery ride to war atop walking bipedal thrones of bone, which once surrounded the Grand Audience Hall of Gothizzar. These are empowered by the radiant energy of the souls the rider found to be lacking. These tormented souls are full of rage and reflexively kick out at anyone that seems to be distrubing the work of the rider, and the legs of these thrones are strong enough to smash gates. Despite their power, the thrones never fall over from their attacks, as they are carved to move with amazing precision. By relying on the throne itself to fight, the Soulmason rider can ensure their concentration will not slip mid-battle. Next time: The Rank and File
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Nov 6, 2020 20:43
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Joe Slowboat posted:Let the bonesploding faction start the Skeleton War in earnest! I think one of my favourite things in the world is "evil sorcerer suddenly realising that 1) They have been betrayed and 2) That they are betrayed even though they expected it". Just the idea of Nagash getting so pissed at the fact that all his supposed puppets have started to ignore him is just wonderful.
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Nov 6, 2020 23:07
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Age of Sigmar Lore Chat: Ossiarch Bonereapers Minor Correction  I accidentally skipped a legion! Whoops. The Ivory Host are also known as the Ghur-Tamers, the Scrimshawed Legion and the Teratomortoi. They sail about in bone ships and take pride in their orderly nature, beautiful bone carving and fastidious neatness. Most are polished to a reflective sheen, and many spend hours inscribing artistic designs into their own bones. They make all effort to appear as civilized paragons...largely to try and control the rage that now lives within their bones, which was never intended. See, their task is near impossible but very simple: Conquer Ghur. The Monarch of Tusks, formerly known as Ghuri-Xza, Drakeslayer Queen, has devoted every bit of her obsessive personality and extensive naval experience to doing so. When the Ivory Host are damaged, they rely on the bones of their foes as any Ossiarchs might. The difference is that most of the foes the Ivory Host face are giant monsters. Thus, their bodies are made from behemoth tusks and skeletons, redolent with Ghurish energies. Whenever a new beast is slain and its territory conquered, the Host build a necropolis on its lair and deck it out in furs, leather and other trophies of their battles against the Realm of Beasts. It is, in theory, a proof that military order will defeat any monster. In practice, however, the bestial fury within those bones is undeniable. It's worsened by the Host's trophy-taking tradition of coating their phylactery-gems in amberstone, the realmstone of Ghur. Every single member of the Host has within them the nature of Ghur's magic, the hunger and rage and fury of the beasts. When they unleash it, the berserker frenzy passes through them virally, leading to a total abandonment of their civilized nature and an embrace of wanton rage and bloodycombat. The Ossiarchs of the legion try to make excuses for themselves by citing their victories over monsters, and claim that the fury of Ghur is necessary to defeat these creatures. The truth is simpler, however: they have become little different than the beasts they hunt, and at heart, they know it.  Anyway, let's talk soldiers. The Mortek Guard are each made from hundreds of different bone sources and the fractured mix of dozens of souls of warriors, rebuilt for maximum combat efficiency. They retain enough instinct to act on their own, but are able to obey the orders of their Hekatos commander in perfect unison as required, obeying orders implicitly. Their weapons are made from nadirite, a powerful material that holds amethyst magic well. Despite their obedience, they are not unthinking creatures. They are fully capable of independent thought, though the scope of it is limited largely to battle. They are essentially given just enough autonomy that they can continue fighting well even if their leaders or generals are slain, but not enough to question their place in the hierarchy. A Mortek unit never breaks ranks for any reason except specific orders to do so. They move as a unit, cutting down the foe and marching over them with ease. Their grip on their weapons cannot be broken without destroying their hands, and even a minor wound from their weapons can kill as the necrotic energies within their blades try to drink in souls. Despite this, the Mortek are seen largely as a defensive unit for their leaders. The Mortisans, especially, are considered far less expendable than any lesser Ossiarchs, and the Mortek must keep them "alive" to ensure that they can always be reinforced. Their signature maneuver is the itnerlocking of shields into a wall that is nearly impenetrable, but they are more than willing to use their own bodies to protect their leadership if that's what's called for. The Morghasts have been reassigned to their proper place among the Ossiarchs, revealed as the prototypes for their creation. Each is a necromantic mockery of a Hyshian angel-eidolon, a winged monstrosity of bone and hatred impervious to most weapons. They do not rely on the phylactery-gems of true Ossiarchs, however, but are instead powered by the magical energies bound within the skulls of dead wizards, which are stored inside their chest cavities. The more frequently seen are the Morghast Archai, who serve as bodyguards for key targets. The Archai move only when absolutely required to by their duties, but they memorize everything they see, reporting any disloyalty back to Nagash via his telepathic connection to them. He need only will it to have them turn on a treacherous vassal. There are also the Morghast Harbingers, who are scouts and destroyers that fly ahead of the Ossiarch forces to spread the terror of Nagash. They wield spirit halberds or spirit blades, cutting through souls rather than flesh with their attacks, and they love nothing more than the screams of the living.  The Kavalos Deathriders are the cavalry forces of the legions, and they are almost never seen in peaceful times or regions. A Kavalos force is only sent out to kill, usually to crush rebels or attack enemy fortresses rather than merely collecting the Bone-Tithe. They especially love to chase down fleeing foes, and will even give them a head start so they can dramatically swoop in atop the Kavaloi steeds. They don't ride as fast as some beasts run...but they never rest, eat or drink. They never stop. They will, eventually, track down their prey and kill them, regardless of how far they run. They are aided in this by small, skeletal carrion birds that contain a fragment of a Mortisan's witchsight, allowing them to see the trail of a soul in movement. By following the bone ravens, the Deathriders can track a foe for days on end, and they ride at a gallop only once they catch sight of their victim. Their mounts are no less dangerous. Each Kavalos is wrought from the bone and spirits of several creatures, just as their rider is. They are built from the souls of stallions for loyalty, carthorses for stamina, rhinoxen for fury and things like crocodiles or dyatri birds for savage violence. Some of them also contain human souls - usually former Ossiarchs who angered Nagash somehow and were rendered down to become part of a Kavalos. While these souls are overwhelmed by the animals within their mixture, they retain just enough sentience to be furiously angry at their existence, enhancing the beast's attacks with their rage. These mounts are able to do things that would kill any normal horse, moving with perfect synchrony in numbers and running across terrain with a speed that would break the legs of lesser steeds. Thus, the Deathriders know they can trust their mount to handle anything they want to do without much worry. Kavaloi are treated excellently by their riders, who clean and care for them after each battle and work to ensure that any damage is repaired as soon as possible. It's partially pride as the elite knights of Nagash, and partially practicality in wanting to ensure the deathly magic inside their steeds is always ready to be called on in battle. Much of it is stored inside skulls that hang from the saddles, using a technique known as skull-sowing. It's also seen on some of the larger constructs and is the necromantic power that keeps the Morghasts moving. Trophy skulls thus serve a useful purpose as well as being displays of skill and martial prowess. Besides these skulls, each Kavalos has fanged jaws to attack with and a prehensile tail that ends in jagged barbs, which it can bring forward to sting foes with. If necessary, the Kavaloi also kick things to death with enough strength to smash ribcages, but any horse can do that. Next time: Ossian Giants
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Nov 7, 2020 20:15
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So Nagash is a weeb who made his elite undead cavalry into samurai. Okay then.
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Nov 7, 2020 21:29
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MARIA IN THREE PARTS - Part 1: Introduction Hey gang, let’s read Maria in Three Parts, a quick start scenario for Unknown Armies 3E. UNKNOWN ARMIES Unknown Armies is an urban fantasy/personal horror game. Like Tim Powers’ Fault Lines or China Meiville’s Kraken, it presents an occult underworld filled with low rent sorcerers, cultists, supernatural petty criminals, and monsters sprung from humanity’s collective imagination - all held together by a web of conspiracies that underpin the true history of the world. The first and second editions of Unknown Armies had a huge body of lore, with a cosmology of cults, cabals and godlings bouncing off one another like pool balls through innumerable sourcebooks and modules. 3E edition pared this back significantly, in favor of a collaborative worldbuilding approach where the GM and players generate a shared fictional world. The catch is that the initial “corkboarding” exercise demands a high level of engagement and knowledge from the players - both of the system, the setting’s tone, and the game’s metaphysics. The process is not helped by the prose style of the rules text. Stolze’s tone ranges from “reproachful insolence” to “spiteful indifference” and he does not lay out the system in an easily referenced format. It’s a lot of fun once you know what you’re doing, but until you do, it’s a significant barrier to entry. Enter Maria in Three Parts. MARIA IN THREE PARTS Maria in Three Parts is the 2018 Free RPG Day adventure for Unknown Armies. The game store I used to live next to had a whole stack of these left over in 2019, and let people take as many as they wanted. I gave away my spare copies at Gencon, and I wish I’d taken more. This module does a better job than any of the 3rd edition corebooks at teaching new players what to expect from Unknown Armies, and teaching the GM how to run it. It dispenses with the collaborative character and world creation, and gives you a more conventional RPG scenario with a few pregens. It teaches the game’s mechanics, but also the style and tone the group should be shooting for when they go on to create their own world. It’s far from a perfect product, but I still recommend it for people curious about the game. PRESENTATION I have a paper copy of the book, but after this post I’ll be using the PDF, so that I can copy images and text. Here’s what you get from the physical product:    The text is given in the usual double column format. Distinct rules concepts are bolded and given different colors from the rest of the text. Images are photographs with filters thrown over them. Some are poorly upscaled, but the result looks like a deliberate lo-fi aesthetic rather than a graphic designer’s mistake. It’s not a work of art, but it works. There are character sheets in the back of the book. They’re double sided, with one character per-side, so you have to photocopy them rather than just tear them out. And that’s all we need to cover right now. In the next post, we’ll dig into the book’s explanation of the setting and rules.
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Nov 7, 2020 23:28
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Ooo this should be a good one. Looking forward to the review.
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Nov 7, 2020 23:33
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Wrestlepig posted:These are all pretty good but I would like to see a Shadowrun hack that has more complexity to it. There's interesting aspects and gameplay tied to the mechanics, even Shadowrun has done a poor job with them overall. I created a fairly elaborate Shadowrun hack of Savage Worlds Adventure Edition. It's not without flaws, but I feel like it works better than the base material at least. Gear porn is still there, but it's downgraded from hardcore to softcore. A lot of ideas are taken from 3rd edition which is kind of my personal favorite edition, so you get greater distinctions between shamans and mages and an emphasis on wired hacking (although wireless is an option). It's here if you're interested: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1N_MH4OzHMQOVsVDA-JcLkdrLCcF4eqdb/view?usp=sharing
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Nov 8, 2020 00:51
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Cythereal posted:So Nagash is a weeb who made his elite undead cavalry into samurai. Okay then. Just like at the guy to Katakros's right to see them get really samurai like. 
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Nov 8, 2020 01:10
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Cythereal posted:So Nagash is a weeb who made his elite undead cavalry into samurai. Okay then. You expect anything else from incel Skeletor? Inskeletor? Inceletor? One of those.
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Nov 8, 2020 01:36
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So having finally made it through the AoS lore, I think part of the issue with AoS as a setting is that it copies the superficial traits of 40k for the purposes of facilitating the wargame and customisation, but because the tone and themes are different it doesn't really land. 40k's setting is built to allow: 1. Any backstory you want is possible for your dudes. This allows you to build and paint your models how you want. 2. Everybody has a reason to fight everyone, including themselves. This allows you to set up whatever story you want for why your and your buddy's dudes are fighting. To make that possible, the Galaxy of WH40k is: A. Arbitrarily large. There are as many planets in the Imperium, exactly as many space marines, and as many chaos warbands or Eldar craftworlds as your narrative needs there to be, which allows lots of space for your planet of dudes to fit in (unless your space marines are girls for some reason). This is why the space marines are spread impossibly thin but also there's like a bajillion chapters of them. B. A place where everyone is everywhere. The imperium doesn't have a defined border or anything - you can absolutely have an imperial planet in the middle of T'au space which is also beset by a chaos space Pirate fleet, aeldari corsairs, and a Tyranid hive fleet, so all those guys can be their for a campaign. To facilitate that, the setting of 40k is one of eternal war, where am entire star system can fall at the drop of a hat without affecting the wider setting at large. This is part of the grimdark, because despite this the narrative still has stakes - yes, if the [Adjective] [Plural Noun] chapter fails to defend a planet from the [Bad Adjective] [Plural Noun] warband it doesn't change the state of the Imperium, but it's still a planet full of people who will die. That, and your dudes are fundamentally tied to a geographical location of a starship or something - there's something to lose (for most factions - Orks and daemons don't really care, Tyranids have a stake in biomass though). Age of Sigmar adopts those principles, but because it's deliberately a high concept power metal album cover and not grimdark, they end up manifesting differently. The mortal realms are also arbitrarily large, but because civilisation is expanding into them in a way to create "points of light" so everyone can be everywhere and next to everyone else, they're pretty sparse. Most of the mortal realms outside of the Cities of Sigmar are mostly wilderness inhabited by nomadic tribes and the occasional fortress city. So when they feel empty, it's because they kind of are. As a result there's no real stakes to anything. Okay, suppose the Storm [Nouns] fail to stop the [Bone theme] [Nouns]. They can't destroy any of the actual Cities of Sigmar, because that's an irrevocable loss to the faction and change the setting. So, uh, I guess they'll interrupt the trade of, uh, [Magical Adjective] [Common Noun] to uh, some people of indeterminate size and import? Or destroy a village of farmers? When something does fall, it's almost always a kingdom or city which isn't actually a City of Sigmar, it's one of the little places in the realms which are independent of both Sigmar's domains and Chaos - places like Hallost. It's actually unclear if Bataar and Lumnos are actually part of Sigmar's dominion anyway. (Interestingly enough, there's no way to play those kinds of "normal factions" in AoS currently, despite their conflicts being so much of the lore. I guess they're Cities of Sigmar, but the battletome is explicit that capital C Cities are built around Stormkeeps). Most of the antagonists are nomadic, fundamentally hate the concept of civilisation and don't value their lives and/or resources so there's nothing to really hurt - that's why there's brawls over random "sacred sites", so at least there's something for 3/4 factions to fight over. Even then, what happens if the Bonarch Bonebones steal the skulls from the Bloodblood's Skullpile? It doesn't materially hurt Khorne in any way, just makes him mad - which he is all the time anyway. I don't hate AoS or its setting and lore, and there's definitely interesting bits to it (notably the factions themselves), and I think it's the better for not being another grimdark setting, but the setting feels fundamentally empty and thin on stakes. MinistryofLard fucked around with this message at 11:17 on Nov 8, 2020 |
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Nov 8, 2020 10:59
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oriongates posted:I created a fairly elaborate Shadowrun hack of Savage Worlds Adventure Edition. It's not without flaws, but I feel like it works better than the base material at least. Gear porn is still there, but it's downgraded from hardcore to softcore. This is relevant to my interests.
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Nov 8, 2020 11:54
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MinistryofLard posted:2. Everybody has a reason to fight everyone, including themselves. This allows you to set up whatever story you want for why your and your buddy's dudes are fighting. I'll rail against this nonsense forever. People playing Bolt Action and Flames of War (booo) can stomach Allies fighting Allies, your game doesn't need an internally consistent fluff justification for two factions to run into each other, especially when the tabletop is barely connected to the fluff anyways. MinistryofLard posted:A. Arbitrarily large. There are as many planets in the Imperium, exactly as many space marines, and as many chaos warbands or Eldar craftworlds as your narrative needs there to be, which allows lots of space for your planet of dudes to fit in (unless your space marines are girls for some reason). This is why the space marines are spread impossibly thin but also there's like a bajillion chapters of them. This gets all sorts of dumb with Ultramarines, as GW wants them to be everywhere in both art and events, but there's like a 1000 of them, tops. MinistryofLard posted:B. A place where everyone is everywhere. The imperium doesn't have a defined border or anything - you can absolutely have an imperial planet in the middle of T'au space which is also beset by a chaos space Pirate fleet, aeldari corsairs, and a Tyranid hive fleet, so all those guys can be their for a campaign. Well, akshalee, Tau space is a smoll backwater and shouldn't be appearing everywhere, and this is sometimes reflected in the fluff. Nids should MinistryofLard posted:for most factions - Orks and daemons don't really care, Tyranids have a stake in biomass though). Orks are criminally underutilized, and they definitely want to win, and Ork empires exist, it's just that GW is terminally non-interested in the Best Alien Faction Of Any Sci-Fi Franchise. quote:Age of Sigmar adopts those principles, but because it's deliberately a high concept power metal album cover and not grimdark, they end up manifesting differently. The mortal realms are also arbitrarily large, but because civilisation is expanding into them in a way to create "points of light" so everyone can be everywhere and next to everyone else, they're pretty sparse. I think you hit the nail on the head with this. The reality balls are functionally endless, so how much space can skeletons grab before anyone starts to care, esp. in such places like Ghur and Aqshy, which are sorta inimical to life? And boy, does the description of the Skelebots love to talk about them destroying CITIES and ENTIRE CIVILIZATIONS, but, ugh, why would we care? We've never heard about them, we can't even imagine them, so who gives a poo poo? (Kinda similar with various GW campaigns for Planet Nobody Has Ever Heard of Before - oh yeah, I totes care about what happens with Vigilus). MinistryofLard posted:I don't hate AoS or its setting and lore, and there's definitely interesting bits to it (notably the factions themselves), and I think it's the better for not being another grimdark setting, but the setting feels fundamentally empty and thin on stakes. I've slowly grown to only hate the rules and the names.
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Nov 8, 2020 12:07
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JcDent posted:This is relevant to my interests. It's more or less a rough prototype for one of my backburner RPG projects which is a full-fledged Savage Worlds cyberpunk/fantasy hybrid in the vein of shadowrun, but coming from the opposite direction (classic fantasy world that evolved futuristic tech).
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Nov 8, 2020 12:09
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Earthdawn 2077?
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Nov 8, 2020 13:48
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Plus those adorable military kobolds from d20 modern.  Although I admit I do like dog-headed kobolds and the idea of a cross-eyed pug commando is pretty tempting.
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Nov 8, 2020 14:01
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I should note: AoS is pretty okay with actually causing setting changes as part of its big events. For example, the upcoming one involves Morathi actually achieving apotheosis to start it off.
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Nov 8, 2020 14:47
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Also in the process she conquered one of the big deal order Cities that is a playable faction. No 40k stalemate. The book stating that the City faction is still playable, but it's either historical from before the fall, or some survivors that have regrouped. Like it surprised many people with how many changes it made that mattered to the setting. MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 15:05 on Nov 8, 2020 |
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Nov 8, 2020 15:02
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Is there a timeline for Age of Sigmar? Because I feel like it runs into the same issue that some rpgs do, where there's millions of years of stuff but it's all forgotten so it doesn't matter to the actual people in the world?
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Nov 8, 2020 17:22
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My first 40k product was battlefleet gothic. I was completely bewildered by the description of an empire where a) planets are entirely specialized for product types. So one world produces all the food for the hundreds of billions of people on a second world. But also b) It is literally impossible to construct a logistics chain because of the randomness of warp travel.
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Nov 8, 2020 17:51
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My favorite 40K setting quirk is that the Imperium has ruled 90% of the galaxy for 10,000 years, despite supposedly being in a constant death struggle against chaos, xenos, its own schismatic nature, and its own ramshackle incompetence. Chaos doesn't seem like much of a threat when it's had ten thousand years of constant raging against the Imperium and the Imperium still stands while Chaos is confined to a couple of of hot spots (Eye of Terror, etc.) that they can never seem to break out of. Orks have been WAAGHing all over the place since the start of time and they're still just a couple of green dots on the map. I was pleased that the recent big setting-changing metaplot event (cracking the galaxy in half with a giant warp rift) actually did put the Imperium at risk and gave chaos a long-overdue actual accomplishment.
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Nov 8, 2020 18:03
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Hel posted:Is there a timeline for Age of Sigmar? Because I feel like it runs into the same issue that some rpgs do, where there's millions of years of stuff but it's all forgotten so it doesn't matter to the actual people in the world? There is a timeline but the years stuff happened has been left intentionally vague to avoid writers contradicting each other.
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Nov 8, 2020 18:16
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