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megane posted:It's fine to have a bunch of guns if they're actually different. The opposition to gunporn isn't that they put fifteen light pistols on the list, it's that 12 of them are just straight-up numerically inferior to the remaining three, and those three are functionally interchangeable, meaning that the fun of shopping immediately boils down to "pick one of these three, and no, it doesn't matter which." If you can only think of one statline that makes sense for a light pistol, then you should just use it, instead of nudging the numbers around a bit and pretending it makes a difference. Yeah if there are cool, meaningful trade-offs so that it turns into a fun mini-game in itself I'm super down. But a lot of games with heavy gear porn it's basically just a short piece of homework to find the best gun of [type] and you're an idiot if you pick anything else after that. Because yay you found the heavy pistol with the largest magazine and the most damage or whatever, you totally can recognize high numbers versus lower numbers. Hu-god drat-zzah.
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# ? Nov 29, 2020 02:41 |
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# ? Mar 29, 2024 02:14 |
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megane posted:It's fine to have a bunch of guns if they're actually different. The opposition to gunporn isn't that they put fifteen light pistols on the list, it's that 12 of them are just straight-up numerically inferior to the remaining three, and those three are functionally interchangeable, meaning that the fun of shopping immediately boils down to "pick one of these three, and no, it doesn't matter which." If you can only think of one statline that makes sense for a light pistol, then you should just use it, instead of nudging the numbers around a bit and pretending it makes a difference. God, the worst example I've ever seen of this is the atrocious "Ops And Tactics" homebrew that started off as a D20 Modern mutant and then just sort of became its own hideous beast. At the point where I got tired of counting, and at that point there were still multiple whole-page tables to go, we were well over 630 guns, in part because the exact same gun, but chambered for two different calibers, were noted as separate weapons, even if the only thing that changed was a minor bit of range or weight. It's a work of complete and utter insanity and the author is a huge fuckface. It's a game he actually requested that I review at one point, but I refused because it was just so loving boring. There was nothing but tables upon tables upon tables of guns and guns and guns. It felt like an extremely niche form of pornography to someone.
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# ? Nov 29, 2020 03:28 |
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Basically all of base 40kRP is a matter of 'There are 4 guns that matter and a couple melee weapons, use these and throw out the other hundreds of pages of identically expensive/difficult to use weapons that are strictly worse.'
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# ? Nov 29, 2020 03:30 |
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Night10194 posted:Basically all of base 40kRP is a matter of 'There are 4 guns that matter and a couple melee weapons, use these and throw out the other hundreds of pages of identically expensive/difficult to use weapons that are strictly worse.' To be fair many editions of mainline 40k also had this problem.
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# ? Nov 29, 2020 03:51 |
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PurpleXVI posted:God, the worst example I've ever seen of this is the atrocious "Ops And Tactics" homebrew that started off as a D20 Modern mutant and then just sort of became its own hideous beast. People converting the Jane’s Weapons Infantry and Ammunition yearbooks into their game system of choice are always exceptionally tedious. There’s no need for it in a game.
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# ? Nov 29, 2020 03:57 |
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Midjack posted:People converting the Jane’s Weapons Infantry and Ammunition yearbooks into their game system of choice are always exceptionally tedious. There’s no need for it in a game. I rather liked the AFMBE solution which was that a given caliber of ammo always did the same damage, and you had a few generic statlines for assault rifles, machine guns, etc. of varied calibers(so you had a baseline for ammo capacity, weight, ranges, etc.), this meant that unless you were into some severe gunwank, you could pretty much always go: "Ah, yes, you pick up the MP5, which is a 9mm SMG so... yeah, buddy, it has the same statline as any other 9mm SMG." But you'd never really have anything you couldn't drop in there if you needed to.
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# ? Nov 29, 2020 04:01 |
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It's fine if you do something like 'This weapon type is especially good against this kind of target, this is good against another, etc etc' but that requires setting out a limited number of possible weapon types, having the granularity to do that kind of thing, and having enough mechanical levers/traits to make it matter, which can be a lot of work.
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# ? Nov 29, 2020 04:03 |
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I thought I remembered this conversation recently and it turns out we said almost exactly the same things in late October during the Shadowrun review!
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# ? Nov 29, 2020 04:35 |
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Night10194 posted:Basically all of base 40kRP is a matter of 'There are 4 guns that matter and a couple melee weapons, use these and throw out the other hundreds of pages of identically expensive/difficult to use weapons that are strictly worse.' But yes, there's so much wasted space in the armory. If I'm going to be tasked with pushing around numbers, keep me doing it and engaged with it. I'm playing a game here, not moonlighting as an unpaid tax accountant.
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# ? Nov 29, 2020 05:12 |
Midjack posted:People converting the Jane’s Weapons Infantry and Ammunition yearbooks into their game system of choice are always exceptionally tedious. There’s no need for it in a game. I remember once I bought a d20 modern or something supplement of guns. Every pistol was 2d6 damage except the Five-seveN which was 2d8.
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# ? Nov 29, 2020 14:01 |
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Even competently designed games often have a problem where the gear list is balanced along axes that don't really matter. IE you have a gun that does more damage, and a gun that does less damage but has a bigger magazine. Which is a realistic tradeoff (larger cartridge means fewer of them fit in the same size package) but totally irrelevant in actual play, because the average fight only lasts a couple turns. Not nearly long enough for the capacity disadvantage to come into play. Unless the game system goes out of its way to emphasize concealability, weight, recoil and other factors, nothing will ever be as important as "more damage".
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# ? Nov 29, 2020 23:09 |
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Age of Sigmar Lore Chat: Hedonites of Slaanesh Arguing Over Who God Is The Pretenders are warlord-daemons of Slaanesh that are utterly obsessed with themselves. They are entirely certain of their own authority, power and nature, and in fact, they consider themselves to be more than merely the greatest of their breed of daemon, more than a demigod in service to Slaanesh, but in truth, as gods waiting to be born. Because Slaanesh is missing, they see themselves as potential candidates for his place among the Dark Gods. Thus the name - pretenders to the throne. Pretty much none of them have any realistic chance of actually pulling off the stunt, though. If Slaanesh were to escape, it is likely that his first act would be consume every mortal or daemon that claims his position for themselves. Further, should any of these daemons actually become potent enough to somehow pose a threat to one of the non-captive Chaos Gods, they'd find themselves the target of concerted efforts to destroy them. Only by already having that power was Slaanesh able to maintain his position, after all. This doesn't stop any of them from trying, however. The Pretenders will do anything they can to play at godhood, and their egos are as big as their ambitions. They collect cultists and worshippers as a matter of course, surrounding themselves with people that will offer them nothing but praise and devotion. Their vice is simple egomania, obviously. They treat battle as simply one more chance to prove themselves superior to all others. They posture even there, parading about the battlefield and offering up their benedictions to their followers. Their armies cheer for them and pray to be blessed with some casual glance from their idol. They frequently use their worshippers as bait, slaves, living shields or even sacrifices to themselves. These cultists are worth nothing, after all. There will always be more, and an ego-obsessed daemon is nothing if not callous. That said, the wiser daemons know their power is linked to the strength of their forces, and tend to aim for quickly and brutally killing enemy leaders in hopes of inspiring some of the enemy to join their cause out of fear. They do accept surrender, but the choices they offer to prisoners are simple - worship or be tortured to death. Each Pretender warlord has many sycophants and followers that accept their every word unquestioningly. Typically, they keep their cults in a state of rapturous joy by offering them the chance to look upon their god and worship directly at their feet. These Hedonites, truly believing their daemonic master to be Slaanesh reborn or the true inheritor of Slaanesh's throne, want nothing more than to gaze upon what they think is the ultimate in beauty and grace, perhaps even to be touched and given the gift of perfect sensation. For this, they offer themselves in body and soul, doing whatever they are told and offering up inventive compliments and flattery in hopes of attracting favor. They will go to any end to gain their leader's eye for a time - sacrifices, artistic performances, anything they think might earn some approval. In the field, they tend to aim for extreme violence in hopes of earning praise or a chance to fight alongside their deity. Pretender cult forces frequently carry mirrors into battle, and some of them are quite powerful, such as the tools of the Contorted Epitomes, or the magically summoned Mesmerising Mirrors that are kept in Slaanesh's temples to imprison souls. If their leaders are slain, the cults go mad. They wail and weep in anguish, and frequently they go into a frenzy to destroy everything nearby in mourning, for they truly believe that Slaanesh has fallen, and thus there is nothing left in the world for them but oblivion. These cultists often become suicidal, at least until another Pretender shows up and informs that actually, this one is Slaanesh, giving them a new idol to focus every aspect of their self-worth on. Obviously, the Pretenders don't get on with each other. They are exceptionally jealous beings and assume anyone else of the same rank wants to tear them down out of envy and spite. On the rare occasions that two Pretender warlords meet, they invariably attack each other and fight to the death. There can only be one Slaanesh, after all, and any other claimant to the name is a puncture in their walls of delusion. Once one falls, the other will slaughter any followers that do not immediately swear allegiance to them and find a way to ingratiate themselves to their new master. Next time: Wait, Didn't We Have A Boss Already
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# ? Nov 30, 2020 02:24 |
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mellonbread posted:Even competently designed games often have a problem where the gear list is balanced along axes that don't really matter. IE you have a gun that does more damage, and a gun that does less damage but has a bigger magazine. Which is a realistic tradeoff (larger cartridge means fewer of them fit in the same size package) but totally irrelevant in actual play, because the average fight only lasts a couple turns. Not nearly long enough for the capacity disadvantage to come into play. Unless the game system goes out of its way to emphasize concealability, weight, recoil and other factors, nothing will ever be as important as "more damage". This is a maybe accidental reflection of the real world. Most gunfights that aren’t military engagements are over in a really small number of shots, far less than the capacity of a subcompact semiautomatic or even a revolver. If I can find the reference I’ll edit it in, it was a class I took many years ago.
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# ? Nov 30, 2020 04:27 |
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Midjack posted:This is a maybe accidental reflection of the real world. Most gunfights that aren’t military engagements are over in a really small number of shots, far less than the capacity of a subcompact semiautomatic or even a revolver. If I can find the reference I’ll edit it in, it was a class I took many years ago. This reminds me of one of the weirder things from Shadowrun 4e's epistolary chatter bits in the gun books. Like, they'd introduce a gun that would be pretty lovely for a Shadowrunner to carry because it'd have low ammo capacity and maybe be magazine fed and so forth and the ad copy would mention that it got a award for being a good civilian self-defense weapon. The runners would say that this was obvious evidence of the police departments encouraging bad weapons for civilians so they couldn't fight back. But with a few exceptions these weapons would be perfectly good everyday carry weapons for normal people. It was kinda bizarre.
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# ? Nov 30, 2020 05:07 |
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Ratoslov posted:This reminds me of one of the weirder things from Shadowrun 4e's epistolary chatter bits in the gun books. Like, they'd introduce a gun that would be pretty lovely for a Shadowrunner to carry because it'd have low ammo capacity and maybe be magazine fed and so forth and the ad copy would mention that it got a award for being a good civilian self-defense weapon. The runners would say that this was obvious evidence of the police departments encouraging bad weapons for civilians so they couldn't fight back. But with a few exceptions these weapons would be perfectly good everyday carry weapons for normal people. It was kinda bizarre. Found it, a study of 2010-2014 in Boston and the average number of shots was 5. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2688536 I expect RPG sessions in Shadowrun and Cyberpunk will play out more like The Matrix than Strange Days if guns get involved, but there's definitely a place for seemingly low-powered weapons in a game.
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# ? Nov 30, 2020 05:29 |
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Ratoslov posted:This reminds me of one of the weirder things from Shadowrun 4e's epistolary chatter bits in the gun books. Like, they'd introduce a gun that would be pretty lovely for a Shadowrunner to carry because it'd have low ammo capacity and maybe be magazine fed and so forth and the ad copy would mention that it got a award for being a good civilian self-defense weapon. The runners would say that this was obvious evidence of the police departments encouraging bad weapons for civilians so they couldn't fight back. But with a few exceptions these weapons would be perfectly good everyday carry weapons for normal people. It was kinda bizarre. Runners are strange people. They don't think it's a real gun unless it has integrated gas vent recoil compensators.
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# ? Nov 30, 2020 07:15 |
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Ratoslov posted:This reminds me of one of the weirder things from Shadowrun 4e's epistolary chatter bits in the gun books. Like, they'd introduce a gun that would be pretty lovely for a Shadowrunner to carry because it'd have low ammo capacity and maybe be magazine fed and so forth and the ad copy would mention that it got a award for being a good civilian self-defense weapon. The runners would say that this was obvious evidence of the police departments encouraging bad weapons for civilians so they couldn't fight back. But with a few exceptions these weapons would be perfectly good everyday carry weapons for normal people. It was kinda bizarre. I mean, is it that far off from fudds complaining about how 9mm doesn't have enough "stopping power" for a self defense pistol and saying to not trust anything under a .45? Some groups of people have weird ideas about how guns work with limited basis in reality, based on a specific (imagined or real) niche.
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# ? Nov 30, 2020 07:24 |
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SkyeAuroline posted:I mean, is it that far off from fudds complaining about how 9mm doesn't have enough "stopping power" for a self defense pistol and saying to not trust anything under a .45? Some groups of people have weird ideas about how guns work with limited basis in reality, based on a specific (imagined or real) niche. You're probably meant to believe the runners' assessment, as a worldbuilding element emphasizing how dystopian the setting is.
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# ? Nov 30, 2020 12:44 |
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Ratoslov posted:This reminds me of one of the weirder things from Shadowrun 4e's epistolary chatter bits in the gun books. Like, they'd introduce a gun that would be pretty lovely for a Shadowrunner to carry because it'd have low ammo capacity and maybe be magazine fed and so forth and the ad copy would mention that it got a award for being a good civilian self-defense weapon. The runners would say that this was obvious evidence of the police departments encouraging bad weapons for civilians so they couldn't fight back. But with a few exceptions these weapons would be perfectly good everyday carry weapons for normal people. It was kinda bizarre.
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# ? Nov 30, 2020 12:48 |
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Wait, so the the beings in Carnality are fuckdemons or something else? Mors Rattus posted:the ultimate end of all who fall into the promises of physical pleasure, for eventually, that sweet release can be found only in death. "Nothing small about death here, mon cherie" - Slaanesh
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# ? Nov 30, 2020 14:56 |
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"Ma cherie." It's feminine. Or "mon cheri" if you meant it masculine. Yes, I really just did that. I'll be over in my shamehole.
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# ? Nov 30, 2020 15:30 |
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Xiahou Dun posted:"Ma cherie." It's feminine. Or "mon cheri" if you meant it masculine. For you - of the people on the thread - to do THIS... actually makes a lot of sense.
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# ? Nov 30, 2020 15:40 |
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The inhabitants of Carnality are apparently both gently caress demons and murder demons.
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# ? Nov 30, 2020 15:52 |
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So probably just run of the mill daemonettes
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# ? Nov 30, 2020 15:57 |
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It’s unclear if they’re daemons or manifestations of the landscape itself in the text. I’m not sure there’s even a difference between those, practically speaking, tho.
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# ? Nov 30, 2020 16:10 |
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I like that the Slaaneshi are probably the most dangerous of the various Chaos beings because of their approach. Murder, disease and change are things that you can easily rally opposition against, but Slaaneshi destroy you by giving you what you want - and then making you want more of it.
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# ? Nov 30, 2020 16:37 |
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JcDent posted:For you - of the people on the thread - to do THIS... actually makes a lot of sense. I never said I was a role model.
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# ? Nov 30, 2020 17:03 |
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Xiahou Dun posted:"Ma cherie." It's feminine. Or "mon cheri" if you meant it masculine. If anyone is going to mix gendered words willy-nilly, it'd be Slaanesh.
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# ? Nov 30, 2020 17:06 |
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Tsilkani posted:If anyone is going to mix gendered words willy-nilly, it'd be Slaanesh. That was an excellent joke and you should feel very proud of yourself.
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# ? Nov 30, 2020 17:59 |
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Tsilkani posted:If anyone is going to mix gendered words willy-nilly, it'd be Slaanesh. Once the topic of discussion moves to the domain of Slaanesh the only answer to queries of gender is "Yes!"
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# ? Nov 30, 2020 18:01 |
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By popular demand posted:Once the topic of discussion moves to the domain of Slaanesh the only answer to queries of gender is "Yes!" I spent a minute trying to come up with some joke juxtaposing "query" and "queer" but I can't come up with something that couldn't be read as me being anti-LGBTQ rather than just doing dumb wordplay so I gave up.
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# ? Nov 30, 2020 18:10 |
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Everyone posted:I like that the Slaaneshi are probably the most dangerous of the various Chaos beings because of their approach. Murder, disease and change are things that you can easily rally opposition against, but Slaaneshi destroy you by giving you what you want - and then making you want more of it. Which also makes sense that Slaanesh is the one god being held under lock and key. They're the most dangerous by any metric, and at least some people in-setting, mainly elves, are going to realise that. I do like that they emphasise Slaanesh isn't just the murderfucking, and the first layer of their fortress is basically their own Money Bin.
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# ? Nov 30, 2020 18:15 |
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Yup, Ol's Slaashi is about excess in anything and everything all vices included, I'm sure in his realm you'd find cultists addicted to the strangest things, maybe some guy who wanted to eat rocks so bad it worth his soul or someone who needed 1000 tailors to quilt his skin with silk strings.
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# ? Nov 30, 2020 18:22 |
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The world's most absolutely dedicated lepidopterist.
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# ? Nov 30, 2020 18:24 |
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Definitely, and since Slaanesh is a total dick that person would be driven against their will to eat the entire collection and start over all the time.
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# ? Nov 30, 2020 18:30 |
Now I'm imagining a cultist of Slaanesh that's basically a Ned Flanders type because their idea of obsessive unshackled depravity is, like, a warm glass of milk and a garishly festive necktie. "Oh no, I'm not a fan of all the murder-orgies and such. Now, how about some...mmm...rice crackers...or dare I even suggest, a game of checkers...mwahahahaaa"
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# ? Nov 30, 2020 22:47 |
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Asterite34 posted:Now I'm imagining a cultist of Slaanesh that's basically a Ned Flanders type because their idea of obsessive unshackled depravity is, like, a warm glass of milk and a garishly festive necktie. God drat it now I want to write a game a la Nice Marines but it's like Mormon Slaaneshi.
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# ? Nov 30, 2020 22:51 |
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That's not the worst way to imagine Sisyphus happy.
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# ? Nov 30, 2020 22:54 |
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The Smoking Ruin Part 5: Overview of Act 1: Curtain Up The adventure begins in Clearwine Fort, capital of the frequently-featured Colymar tribe of Sartar. Act 1 of 5 is mostly a low intensity investigation section where the PCs are introduced to Treya by attending one of her performances, learn about the Smoking Ruin from her and its backstory as an old site of Ernalda worship, and learn that the local Deputy Earth Priestess Daravala Chan is currently looking for ancient Ernalda artifacts. If the PCs can’t put two and two together, Treya outright tells them to go ask Daravala if she’ll pay the PCs to go check out the ruins. Before forking over the cash to sponsor a full expedition, Daravala will give the PCs a stipend and ask them to see if they can dig up anything else about the Smoking Ruins. The PCs are let loose on Clearwine to see what they can find. The most important and most frustrating clue for the PCs is their discovery of a map of the Smoking Ruins at the local lawspeaker’s. The map, drawn by an eccentric centauress named Makes Scratches while trying to teach herself how to read and write, is fully illustrated and meant to spark debate at the table as the players look it over and try to puzzle out the meaning of the different colors and shapes on it. The book itself even refers to different features on it later on, like the “reddish splotches” signifying the presence of ghosts. There’s just one big problem: I’ve stared at this thing for at least an hour and I still don’t see any reddish splotches or anything else that the book seems to think I should be seeing. I’m not colorblind, and neither are my players, and the only useful thing any of us could really get from the fragment was a general shape of the ruins. Luckily for the map fragment, it still has uses in the adventure beyond being a map, the centaurs of beast valley will reward the PCs for showing or giving it to them as they respect Makes Scratches. Other than the map and general info about the Ruins that the players dig up, the first act can have some important ramifications for the PCs standings in Clearwine. You see, Queen Leika Black-Spear believes (correctly) that Treya is a bit of a fool, and also believes (incorrectly) that Treya’s famous grandmother Thinala was a traitor. If she catches word that Treya is about to lead a bunch of adventurers off to a dangerous place like the Smoking Ruins, she’ll try to shut the whole thing down. If the PCs go anyways after getting a talking-to from Leika then she’ll also try to get the loot from the PCs upon their return, cutting Daravala out of the take. Queens, let me tell you. If you’re playing as a Colymar character you’ll probably have to deal with some conflicting loyalties. While Treya will tell people not to say anything to Leika, the matter is complicated by the fact that she’s currently in a romantic feud with Sora Goodseller, the main merchant for Clearwine. Sora will absolutely try to screw Treya over by reporting the whole adventure to Leika if she gets wind of it, and PCs are going to have to interact with her if they want to buy basically anything. Queen Leika is the sort that, when she gets the Adventurers event in King of Dragon Pass, kills the party and steals their stuff. Overall, act 1 takes about a session to run. It’s a pretty good low-stress, no-combat session that gets players used to the system and the setting while simultaneously having some long-term effects on the adventure, notably concerning Leika’s involvement. Since PCs all have character histories in the system they should be coming to the table with at least some investment already in either the character of Leika or the Clearwine Earth Temple that can either guide their actions or create a fun conflict. For all my earlier complaints about the character of Treya and the map fragment, the problems caused by those won’t show themselves just yet, and the first session runs pretty smoothly without any changes. Next: Our intrepid party steps up to the plate and tries to see what they can find out about the ruins. Nanomashoes fucked around with this message at 02:38 on Dec 1, 2020 |
# ? Dec 1, 2020 02:34 |
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# ? Mar 29, 2024 02:14 |
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Asterite34 posted:Now I'm imagining a cultist of Slaanesh that's basically a Ned Flanders type because their idea of obsessive unshackled depravity is, like, a warm glass of milk and a garishly festive necktie. Yeah, but for Slaaneshi, it has to be a destructive compulsion. Maybe you're ready to charge the Sigmarine line to be a good boy, and good boys get a glass of warm milk and cookies. Or maybe you're fixated on milk and cookies, so you're eventually leading a host of Slaanesh to bind the Azyrite Protocow for milking, and grinding up Phoenix Acorns of Oak of Ages to make cookie dough. It's like foot fetishist founding wikifeet and the moving onto spells that remove feet and animate them in their own dungeon, and that would make more sense than the hand fetish the dumb mirror dungeon had.
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# ? Dec 1, 2020 07:04 |