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Halloween Jack posted:The Garou are the least sympathetic protagonists in the oWoD. Their stance on every other supernatural race is "Kill them" or "dunno, might as well kill them, better safe than sorry y'know." quote:The dumbest thing in Werewolf was the Seventh Generation, a Wyrm-worshiping cult of evil Republican lobbyists who are extra evil because they run child pornography ring, and was run by an evil Mountie. To quote one of the WW editors, "This is the World of Darkness, not the World of Liberalism," and they were quietly killed off with the justification that King Albrecht wiped them all out in a crusade. Halloween Jack posted:How did they deal with the True Black Hand, anyway? Did they say that they had always just been one faction within the Sabbat, then destroy their ghost castle and kill most of them off? I'm not sure if their level of control within the Sabbat was ever really defined, but they got rid of them in a way that made sure that no author could bring them back, ever. See, when something in the physical world is destroyed, it can show up in the afterlife if it has enough resonance with something else that's died there, this is known as a relic. Dude gets stabbed with a knife, he has a relic knife in the afterlife. The main base of the "True" black hand was Enoch, the first city. Caine's first city, which was a ridiculously powerful relic because of all of the people that died there. So when the wraiths found out about it, they did the only sensible thing, they used an even more powerful relic on it. Fat Man. The resulting explosion destroyed Enoch, broke the prison holding the Demons at bay, and (I think) created the avatar storm somehow.
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Oct 29, 2013 07:05
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My group tried to play Naruto D20 but it was so clunky we just got Ninja Crusade instead.
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Oct 29, 2013 07:46
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Kurieg posted:I'm not sure if their level of control within the Sabbat was ever really defined The Nagaraja were pretty cool, though, once they got the Revised treatment and actually became playable*. *IIRC they had the bizarrely-common problem in Vampire of "is supposed to have cool abilities, but they're on page XX and don't actually appear in this book"
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Oct 29, 2013 08:13
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The ghost if Fat Man or Little Boy can take care of a hell of a lot.
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Oct 29, 2013 13:04
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 An October's Ending The Everlasting is a modern fantasy game published in the late 90s, so it must convey its setting through fiction. The preview from my last post is a direct quote from the opening story, "An October's Ending." I wish I could tell you that the story was crammed with such self-ignorant excess all the way through, because that would have made for a so-bad-it's-awesome read. Instead, the story is plagued with all the common diseases of amateur fantasy writers, including awkward sentence construction, telling instead of showing, lingering on descriptions of characters' possessions, tedious infodumps about why these people have superpowers, narrating fight scenes as a sequence of turns in a game instead of people trying not to die, and introducing every character by describing them in terms of their hair and eyes and clothes. The story is fairly boring considering its body count, racked up with kung fu, gun fu, sword-fu, knife-fu, machete-fu, and lightning-fu. The opening paragraph makes it clear that the Secret World is a Dark Fantasy 1990s where every major city has Seattle's weather and Mogadishu's crime rate. We are introduced to Marshall, a centuries-old immortal who is planning to kill an even older immortal named Josiff. Marshall breaks into Josiff's mansion (which is stuffed with priceless artifacts just like Duncan MacLeod's house in Highlander), murders all his domestic servants, hack'n'slashes his ghost guardians, and saves his game before the Boss Battle with Josiff. The fight is like something out of a Star Wars video game, with Marshall using his pearl-handled-knife-fu while Josiff prefers floating around the room shooting lightning and telekinetically throwing his very sharp antiques collection at Marshall. Marshall finally prevails when he stabs Josiff with knives made of gold, which are poisonous to Josiff. He reveals that a demon extorted him into killing Josiff under threat of eternal torture, and finishes him off. Aaand cut. The next scene features Tom and Jennifer, a young couple on a road trip in Thomas' fully-restored candy-red GTO with white drag strips. Tom is a younger immortal on his way to a meeting of "the fellowship" in the wake of Josiff's death. He's just asked Jennifer to leave her life beyond and move across the country with him, but he hasn't told her he's an immortal yet. He decides that this is the time, and proves it to her by pulling off the road, leading her into a cow pasture, pulling out a handgun, and blowing out his brains--which he quickly regrows, such as they are. He then treats Jennifer, and us, to a long boring infodump about how he's one of the daeva, a race of immortals who were worshiped as pagan gods. Aaand cut. Scene three is about Luther de Fontaine, who is just leaving his girlfriend's house when a mob of demon-possessed derelicts drag him into an alley and attack him with bricks and bats and brickbats and whatnot. Just when he's on the verge of death, he tears off his shirt, flexes, and starts hitting demons with the Atomic Leg Drop and such. The author interrupts this fight scene to explain that Luther is a quester, who joined a secret order in the 1800s and became immortal when he found and drank from the Holy Grail. After his Duncan MacLeod style flashback, Luther beats all the demons to a pulp with his bare hands. Then he goes home, calls his girlfriend, and eats leftover Chinese food. That's right. Our last protagonist is Margaret the vampire, who has demon problems of her own. Specifically, a mob of them just burnt down her antebellum mansion and she's running for dear unlife. She flees into her ghul catacombs and sets some Indiana Jones style traps behind her, then runs through the catacombs to a room filled with roses to mask the stench of undead dudes, and asks sanctuary from a scabby gross ghul named Revis Frome. She spends the next day chilling out in the Class, can you see what's wrong with this story? There are four vignettes, and only one of them concerns the characters covered in this loving book! Not only that, but it's the least eventful and informative out of all of them; a vampire asks a ghoul if she can crash at his pad for awhile, and we don't learn much about either of them or their kewl p0warz. This does not bode well for our heroes.  Welcome to the Secret World Not a White Wolf game We got elves and gargoyles Plus we changed the name Welcome to the Secret World Of elegant decay If you want some mysteries Use Tarot cards to play Next time, on The Everlasting: An overview of the setting, with so many sidebars and jargon words you'll think you're reading Immortal.
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Oct 29, 2013 18:24
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Houses of the Blooded In case I’m being too subtle, let me be perfectly clear about one thing. The only way to maintain a Romance at its potential is with sex. This is the Romance chapter. Still your hearts, we're in for a ride. The chapter opens with this quote from one of Wick's doomed highborn manchildren:
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Oct 29, 2013 21:09
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Why in the name of Ormagoden's red hot tailpipe did Wick think that these rules would be a good idea for adapting into a grimderp Harry Potter game? And make it have pretty much zero player input when he did so?
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Oct 29, 2013 22:22
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Traveller posted:having Romances with your wife/husband is almost on the level of munchkining as far as Wick is concerned. Okay, it can happen, but it must be ~*special*~ and the exception to the rule. Romance in marriages is alien to the Wick. It's kind of funny how the guy who rails against the concepts of honor and chivalry and etc seems to be totally onboard with the idea of courtly love.
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Oct 29, 2013 22:27
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AccidentalHipster posted:grimderp
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Oct 29, 2013 22:29
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Cardiovorax posted:That's a really great word for anything Wick-made. I just remembered Wick's avatar on the RPG.net forums is a chibi anime version of himself making what's basically a huge  face.
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Oct 29, 2013 22:46
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Separated at Birth? 
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Oct 29, 2013 23:03
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We should get a Wick thread because this is getting loving ridiculous.
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Oct 29, 2013 23:04
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It was inevitable that a thread (partly) devoted to incredibly lovely games would have a lot of John Wick content. No different from the ongoing Rifts chronicles.
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Oct 30, 2013 00:04
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Serious lack of Kev pics here. What I'm saying is post your Palladium-est Siembieda pictures.
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Oct 30, 2013 00:07
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Mr. Maltose posted:Serious lack of Kev pics here. Okay... 
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Oct 30, 2013 00:28
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Seen there outside of his native habitat, small-town Corvette club car shows.
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Oct 30, 2013 00:30
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That is not at all what I expected Siembieda to look like.
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Oct 30, 2013 00:31
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Punting posted:That is not at all what I expected Siembieda to look like. He's had more facial hair in the past. I've never seen him during Rifts' heydey, though.
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Oct 30, 2013 00:41
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:Okay... He looks like a Tim & Eric character.
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Oct 30, 2013 00:42
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Kevin after reading one of my reviews- - if he ever read my reviews.
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Oct 30, 2013 00:53
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Kevin after reading one of my reviews- It's hard to tell if he's shaking his fist in impotent fury or fist pumping in triumph.
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Oct 30, 2013 00:57
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Mr. Maltose posted:Serious lack of Kev pics here.  Kevin seen chillin' and thrillin' with fellow F&F luminary Eric Wuijzykjzyik. Want to step through the door into the convention hall? You can't, it's protected by an invincible invisible forcefield and guarded by invisible invincible ninjas. But for $1000 Kevin will piss in that water bottle and sign it for you.
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Oct 30, 2013 01:00
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AccidentalHipster posted:It's hard to tell if he's shaking his fist in impotent fury or fist pumping in triumph. One and the same in the Megaverse©
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Oct 30, 2013 01:00
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Traveller posted:You can lie on your rolls. You can LIE ON YOUR ROLLS. This is lifted directly from Vampire/MET LARP. It's the same rule. You don't have to declare all the traits you can use, and you can always choose to fail tests. Basically, you can lie as long as it reduces the bonuses you can bring to bear. (You can't lie and say you have better abilities, just worse, and you can't pretend to have any trait you don't possess.) This works in adversarial play because you're hiding your powers from another player. In MET it's so you can pretend to be a weasel until it's time to mug an important vampire and then go WELL ACTUALLY I HAVE 15 PHYSICAL TRAITS after leading him to a quiet spot. So it's a valid thing for PvP. It serves no purpose against GM-controlled stuff except as a signal that you're pretending to be weaker, which you can replace by saying, "I'm pretending to be weaker."
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Oct 30, 2013 03:43
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The problem is that HOTB is not an adversarial LARP game where you can take people in private to shank them in the face, it's a tabletop game of quote-unquote cooperative storytelling with everyone's character sheets in the clear. Except, again, for the GM's NPCs. Have a :wick:  before we go on.Houses of the Blooded Break out the party hats The following chapter is the Seasons chapter, the longest crunch section in the book. quote:Unlike other games — where the characters are perpetually stuck at the vague age of “about 25,” never growing older, the passage of time never ravaging their youth — in Houses of the Blooded, days, months, and years click by. Sure whatever. The ven measure time just as we do, with four seasons per year. I guess Wick doesn't need to write those volumes on ven timekeeping after all! The ven year begins in Spring rather than Winter. One season lasts around 90 days. For each Season, characters can get involved in up to three Stories (adventures). More than that and the Narrator may judge they can't spend time handling other important stuff. Each Season also has a modifier of its own: Spring adds +1 to any Romance that begins in the season, or +1 to the potential of any Art created during it; Summer lets one region per Province make an additional Resource; Autumn gives all PC nobles one extra action; and Winter makes all regions roll one extra Trouble die because Winter sucks. Let's talk about Regions! They're the building block of the Provinces ven own. Ten Regions to one Province. Regions are an abstract, unspecified amount of land. quote:(I like abstract. Gives players room to be creative with their stuff. If you want to be more precise, there are a ton of other games with similar systems that deal with specifics. Use those.) You copied the same line and pasted it in Blood and Honor, jerk. Bad form! Regions can be civilized (there are roads, tax collectors, some population and a measure of protection) or wild (still ork-held); they have a type and rank, as we saw during chargen; and they're rated by Loyalty and Security. As a Baron/Baroness, starting characters have one Province mostly under their command, and to rise in noble rank they need more Provinces. Three Provinces for a Count, nine for a Marquis, eighteen for a Duke! You also need nobles of lesser to help you rule your lands, and apparently Barons need three Knights to rule their barony? Could've mentioned that in chargen, Mr. Wick. Could've also mentioned chargen characters start with one Resource from each Region they begin with. Seasons go by in order, with four Phases per Season:
The Resources are:
So what can we build? Holdings! That's a Season Action to begin building, and two Seasons to complete. And you need to spend another Season Action to continue building during the second Season, so 2 actions total. A region can only have one Holding building at a time and can support one Holding per rank, and you can only use one action for building. So if you're building two things at a time, you have to choose what progresses that Season.
You can also conquer a Region owned by the enemy. First, you have to spy on them: your Spy Network can look at as many Regions as ranks it has. That tells you the Region's rank, improvements and the presence or absence of enemy vassals. You still have to burn an action to do this even if you find out about the region through a story. The following season, you spend an action to send your Personal Guard in. The region's Loyalty goes down a number of ranks equivalent to the Guard's rank. The region is useless when occupied, and once it hits zero it's yours with a new Loyalty equivalent to the Guard's rank. Of course the enemy can send in their own Guard to kick out yours: rank vs rank rolls, the winner stays, the loser leaves with one Rank less. You can only send one Personal Guard at any single region, but Secret Armies can do everything Guard can and they don't count as Guard for this. You can Create Art as a Season Action. First, gather one Resource appropriate to the Art (Food counts for banquets, and Wick chides us for thinking otherwise as the dumb McDonalds-eating Americans we are), with Luxury substituting if you can't come up with anything. Then, a Beauty risk, with wagers. You fail the risk, the muse has failed you. You make it, you make a Rank 1 Art. Any wagers go into the Art's Potential, which means we can spend one action per season to improve the Art's Rank up to its Potential. So if Dio makes a 2-wager Risk to build a sculpture of The World, he can spend the next two Seasons perfecting the statue until it's a Rank 3 Art. This also requires one extra Resource per Season. Finally, you can show off the Art at any social event, but you want to do it at a Party. When you show off the Art, you get Style equivalent to its rank + the Party's rank. You can bank Style on it too, up to its rank. The artist can give it a positive Aspect: any ven that looks upon the Art and spends one Style can acquire the Aspect, which has a rank equivalent to the Art's rank. This aspect has only an invoke that gives dice relevant to what the Art is meant to inspire: let's say The World is meant to inspire Ambition, then any ven inspired by it can roll 3 extra dice for risks involving climbing in station. The Aspect loses one rank per Season, and you can't be inspired by the same Art twice. Finally, the artist gets the Art's rank in bonus dice for any risk involving their fame or reputation. As before, one die is gone per Season. You can't upgrade Art, that's "Lucasism." Opera is a special Art, requiring both a Luxury and another Resource. It must be based on one or more of the Seven Fools we saw earlier, and ven watching the Opera can spend a Style to get a Free Aspect related to the Fool(s) in the Opera. Theater plays are... uh. No rules for them at all!  You can also explore the archipelagos of Shanri in order to expand your Domain. This requires that your starting Province be explored in full. Spend a season action to go down to one of your wild regions with a band of guards: this lets you determine what the wild region actually is. The exploring and developing of the region only finishes during the Harvest phase, though. Once your first ten regions are civilized, you can go outside! You can explore additional regions the same way, but they only count as a Province when you have another ten, with at least one of them a Castle. Building a Castle is done the same way as exploring a region, but it costs three Lumber and three Stone on top of the action. You can also explore forgotten sorcerer-king Ruins... but that comes later. PCs have to do their exploring themselves. You can make new Contacts. Just pick any ven you know (vassals don't count) and spend an action. You get one free action in a Contact's domain, you can spend a Style for two bonus dice to protect a Contact, and you can spend Style to refresh their Aspects. Personal training! You can use an action to learn an Advanced Maneuver for dueling (rather, the instructor spends an Action on you), or to add an Aspect to your Sheet. Unless Wisdom is your weakness! Remember the limits on Aspects at chargen? Dio is boned in this regard. You can also train your Vassals to upgrade their rank, spending as many actions as the vassal's new rank to do so. But you can only use one vassal training action per Season. You can quell Trouble in a region. Just spend an action and all the Trouble there is gone. You can develop a Region, which repeats the exploring regions rules for extra confusion. You can also increase a region's Rank in one per Season. Urban regions have special rules! Building a Village costs an additional 1 Lumber and 1 Stone, and improving its rank costs more Lumber and Stone. The Village cannot produce anything if it's being improved. If you improve a Village region up to 3 and spend three Lumber, three Stone and three Luxury, it becomes a City at Rank 4. There's a mention of a Town region in the Holdings list but it doesn't show here or anywhere else. Villages and Cities have Craftsmen that turn your Resources into stylish Goods. The Craftsman has a rank equal to the Village, and can make up to their Rank in Goods, so a Village 3 Craftsman can make three Rank 1 hats, one rank 1 hat and one rank 2 cloak, etc. Only one Craftsman per Village, but a City can have up to four of them - one rank 4, one rank 3, one rank 2, one rank 1. The exact Resource that is turned into Goods depends on the nature of the object being built. Guidelines? Industry for clothes, Metals for weapons, you figure it out.You can research Sorcery rituals, with one action and one Herbs.  You can transport Resources from a Province to another Province or to another Domain. It costs one action to do so, and as a free action you can transfer one Resource or Goods to a Contact. You can hire a Vassal. They start service at rank 1, and you can improve them in turn. They need at least one Food per Year as payment, and they can be paid more in other Resources to keep them from getting bribed. Vassals also get fancy titles if you want - ven like pleasant sounding stuff. Master of Flowers instead of Master Poisoner, etc. quote:(I’m personally fond of “High Lord Protector” myself.) Cromwellian jerk! Anyway, there are regular Vassals, Vassal Bands (groups of men, ten per rank) and Master Vassals (actual NPCs). As a rule, Vassal Bands cannot be Assassinated and Master Vassals cannot be Bribed. Vassals have one Aspect per rank as well because we're not doing enough bookkeeping. Most Vassals get one Season Action per rank relevant to their role. You can even name other PCs as Vassals, but if they have prerequisites you must fulfill them all the same (so, Rank 3 Personal Guard before Al can name Dio his Swordsman).
Loyalty! It's how much your people care about you. The more Loyalty, the better. Your Domain (Province/individual Regions) has a starting Loyalty of 1. You can increase Loyalty by giving Luxuries (Spices or Wine) to either a single region, raising its Loyalty in three, or to an entire Province, raising it in one. If any region hits 5+ Loyalty, they produce one extra Resource that doesn't need to be the one they're already tasked to produce. If at least half the regions in one Province have 5+ Loyalty, the Province's Security increases in 1. If a region hits 10+ Loyalty, it produces two extra Resources, and if at least half the regions in one Province have 10+ Loyalty its Security increases in 2. Vassals also have a Loyalty score (but not NPC Vassals), which is equivalent to their Rank and can increase by gifting them Luxuries. Espionage! You need at least a Spy Network to get up on shinobi shenanigans. An espionage action has a rank, equivalent to the rank of the Spy Network + the Cunning of any PC or NPC helping the spies. To spy on an enemy Province, the action must defeat the Security of the target Province, which is equivalent to the Spy Network present there (or zero if there's no Spy Network opposing espionage.) Spy Networks can also use an action to add their rank to a Province's Security. Spies can:
And at the end of the Year, characters Age. Roll 1d6 at the end of the Year. These are your Age Points. Once you get 60 of them, you progress to the next Phase of your life. When you do, erase all Age points. As mentioned during the Blood and Honor review, this may mean ending up with some highly wonky ages for your characters (codgers over 200 years old, or 69-year old Spring children) If you hit 60 Age Points at the Winter of your life, you enter Solace. There are also pregnancy rules because who doesn't love making random rolls when two ven bump uglies  but the most side of this is that ven pregnancies last one Season and children mature at double the age of human children, so an eight-year old ven sprout is basically 16 years old. Maybe it's the literature cheating to get more characters on stage sooner, or maybe the sorcerer-kings wanted their servitors to grow up that fast. A 16 years old ven becomes a Rank 1 Child Vassal, equivalent to a Spouse. They can train just like other Vassals and eventually become NPCs. If you move to another Phase at the end of the year, you can change around your name, gain new Aspects, a new contact, or turn the contact into a Friend. A Friend gets three bonus dice to put you or your relationship into danger, but you and your friend get to keep all wagers in a contested roll (remember, even helping each other is a contested roll in HOTB) All your Provinces lose 1d3 Loyalty at the end of the Year, and all unused Resources not moved into storage spoil. Winter is also when you throw Parties! 
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Oct 30, 2013 23:58
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Traveller posted:The following chapter is the Seasons chapter, the longest crunch section in the book. All of this sounds nearly fun, sort of like a more , landed gentry version of Ryuutama. I think if someone else re-wrote this without the focus on You are always one roll away from death!  and Everything must be regimented! Especially sex! There is no such thing as love!, this could be a pretty fun game.That's one of the frustrating things about Wick's game design oeuvre. He's got some good game design ideas, but he doesn't give a crap about mechanical balance and he gets all over everything.
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Oct 31, 2013 00:32
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You know, the accelerated aging explains a lot about the Ven.
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Oct 31, 2013 01:04
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Part 3 An Antechamber of the Damned: The Theresienstadt Ghetto  Wikipedia Article for people who want to be depressed.  In 1944, an International Red Cross delegation arrived at the Theresienstadt Ghetto, worried by the rumors of something horrible happening in central and eastern Europe. They went away satisfied that the rumors were unfounded: what they saw there was a perfect "model ghetto", with well-maintained streets, a flourishing artistic community, children playing in a park, with good food and all run competently by a council of Jewish Elders, the Judenrat. This was all, of course, a big lie. As soon as the Red Cross left, the living conditions became as terrible as they were before and it resumed it's true purpose: a waypoint on the railroad leading to Auschwitz, Dachau and other Death Camps. All in all, 35 000 died in the camp, due to disease, hunger and mistreatment. Of the 15 000 children who passed through Theresienstadt, only 100 survived. What remains in the Shadowlands is a phantom copy of the camp, looking like a wound in the surrounding country, complete with bleeding walls. The wraiths who live there, calling themselves the Ghetto Circle, have decided to transform the place into a site of healing for the dead, not an easy task. The nearby Small Fortress, used by the SS for torture and execution, is the site of a Nihil, a hole in the Shadowland leading to the Tempest and serving as a gateway to the Spectres who live there. Thanks to the work of the Ghetto Circle, it is much smaller than before, but it remains a constant threat. Here's a map of the camp:  Town meetings take place in the Church. The Hospital house those who died of disease, with Doctor Holvenbach acting as their spokesperson, a responsibility he takes very seriously. The old Judenrat quarters host what passes for city administration. There's a few factions in the camp: the largest are the patients, led by Doctor Holvenbach. They often dictate policy because of that. Some resent the majority for their power,e specially since their leader is German. There is also fear of the Doctor's Redemption program, his still unsuccessful attempts to redeem people who became Spectres. The smallest and most hated group are the Red Cross wraith, members of the IRC who visited Theresienstadt and are now Fettered there. Their inability to see what was really happening has not be forgiven by many. Some of the most important NPCs are described, with stat blocs. Butterfly is the ghost of a young street painter who died after her drawing of what was going on in the camps was discovered during the lead-up to the Red Cross visit. Her nickname came from the children living in the camp, for whom she would draw butterflies and other happy things. Now, she mostly stays silent, and draws constantly. She draws strange murals, sometimes hopeful, sometimes full of despair, reflecting her deep connection with the Haunt. Her passions include convincing people of her connection with the spirit of the camp and helping others with her drawings, as well as finding the children she used to watch over. Her Shadow, however, tells her no one cares about her "special connection" and wants to convince her she should sacrifice herself for the good of the camp. Solomon Eisenfeld is the leader of the camp, and a Rabbi who was on the Judenrat when alive. Sent to Theresienstadt because of his fiery sermons contesting the Nazi regime, he put in charge of selecting who would be sent east to the death camps. This job destroyed him inside, until he found himself deported in 1944. Now, he seeks to earn forgiveness and does his best to protect the ghetto wraiths, despite many still hating him for what he did. His Shadow, on the other hand, wants to rule with an iron fist and break the covenant with Stygia, as well as convince him that he is a horrible leader. Dr. Richard Holvenbach was a proud german, born during the Second Empire under Bismarck. His brother died during WWI and he found himself on the wrong side of the Versailles Treaty frontiers, but he never stopped hoping that the land would return to Germany. When it happened, he was initially quite happy and enrolled as an army Doctor. His whole world crashed when he was affected as camp doctor to Theresienstadt. Seeing the horrors perpetrated by his countrymen, he did his best for the prisoners of the camp, even trying to talk to one of the Red Cross diplomat who did not believe him, until he died of cholera in 1944. He now represents a large group of wraiths who look up to him, remembering the good things he did in life, and leads the camp's Redemption program. His passions are to redeem Mortwights (wraiths who became spectre instantly upon reaching the Shadowlands) and represent his constituents. His Shadow passions are to sabotage the Redemption Program and sow dissension within the Ghetto Circle. Jean-Claude Leclerc is the Red Cross diplomat who didn't believe Dr. Holvenbach. Such horrors could not be possible! He died in 1947 of intense alcoholism, and joined the Ghetto Circle soon afterward. His passions are to Gain acceptance in the Ghetto, find the SS who lied to him and get even, and to help his fellow IRC wraith. His Shadow Passions are to Find the SS ghost and lead them to the camp, discredit Holvenbach and bring Spectre into the Ghetto. Aaron Dahlcek was one of the carpenters who originally built the camp, lured there by the false promises of the "model ghetto". That illusion did not last long, and he soon saw the camp he had helped build become a house of horrors. He died during an escape attempts, two weeks after the Red Cross visit. While he hates the camp for the memories it brings, he is helped by the friednship he has formed with Butterfly. His passions are to protect Butterfly and help Holvenbach with the Redemption program. His Shadow wants to abandon Butterfly and to convince Aaron that by helping build the camp he is responsible for what happened in it. The chapter ends with three story ideas: - The characters are part of an attempted redemption of a Mortwright that goes horribly wrong, causing the subject's destruction. They are now accused of sabotage, and must clear their name by finding out what went wrong. - Eisenfeld tells the characters of his suspicion that there is a mole in the camp working with SS ghosts. He cannot help the players in their investigation, however, as suspicions about his dealings with the Stygian representative are on the rise. - The situation blows up between holvenbach and Leclerc, causing the Red Cross wraiths to leave. Eisenberg and Dahlcek are worried they might do something self-destructive and send the characters to find them, but even if they do they must deal with holvenbach and Leclerc... and their Shadows. Next: Behind the Wall
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Oct 31, 2013 04:07
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Traveller posted:Houses of the Blooded So I'm guessing Dio is the most boned due to the stupid Wisdom cap on Aspects. Speaking of Dio, I didn't see him "kick the puppy factory" like you said he would.
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Oct 31, 2013 04:07
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 Hellcats and Hockeysticks: Skills and Skill Rolls: The prettiest player wins ties. Because I forgot them, Chapter 2’s Real Tales of Delinquency involve a girl and her friend starting a riot at her 6th form Christmas party while dressed as a devil and an angel, respectively, and another who got revenge on the guy who kept calling the cops on her and her friends when they were hanging out by the local fish and chip shop by tearing up his neighbor’s lawn and leaving the shears they did it with on his doorstep, which lead to the neighbor punching the guy in the face. Chapter 3… Winston Churchill posted:I am always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught. Queens of the Stone Age’s “No One Knows” posted:We get some rules to follow. That and this, these and those. No one knows.  …Brilliant. H&H uses D6s and only D6s. For skill rolls, the dice pool is whatever your rank in the applicable skill is + 1. Rolls will only ever use one skill, with the HM deciding or giving the player the choice of which to use if a task could feasibly fall under one or more skills. The book encourages players to be whiny rules lawyers about this. quote:You are also allowed to whine and cajole the Headmistress into letting you make use of one of your other skills, if you can make up a plausible reason why it might apply. In fact, instead of specifying a particular skill, the Headmistress might ask you to 'make her an offer' and suggest the skill you think suits the action best. Either way, most rolls are tested against this difficulty chart:  If one or more dice comes up equal to or higher than the difficulty of the roll, you win. To even have a chance at succeeding at an “Absurd” or “Impossible” task, players can trade in dice from their pool to add 1 to the result of every die that they roll at a rate of 3 to 1. (So 3 dice for a +1 bonus and 6 for +2.) You can also spend a Willpower point to add a die to the pool at a rate of 1 for 1, with a maximum of 3 on a single roll. So theoretically, assuming you have a 5 in the skill the roll is for, you burn all 3 Will points, and you spend the 6 dice to get the +2 for an Impossible roll, you still only have a 1 in 6 chance on 3 dice to succeed. I really don’t understand why those two difficulty ranks are there. They’re obviously for things that a character should not be able to do or that the HM does not want you doing. The book says that you can also use this mechanic to “perform easy and even tricky tasks with little difficulty", but I’m not sure how I’d feel taking from what is essentially my health bar to perform easy rolls. For non-combat opposed rolls, the appropriate skill or skills is decided, the difficulty is decided, and whoever has the most successes wins. Of course, if that doesn’t do it, there is a specific set of actions you can do to figure this out. quote:If you need to know who does best in a contest, you add up the amount of dice that count as a success for each contestant, and the highest wins. If there is a tie, the highest skilled character wins. If there is still a tie, the prettiest one wins (of course it isn't fair, but let's face it, that's what happens.) If you can't decide who is prettiest (character or player) then you can either call it a tie and roll again or just roll 1 die each and the highest wins. Of course, if one of you failed and the other succeeded, the result should be obvious. For some opposed rolls, the book points out that it would make more sense for one of the players to roll and set the difficulty. In this case, the number of dice that come up as a success for the defending player becomes the number to beat. If the opposing player rolls an equal amount, it’s an “almost” success. (e.g. They catch a glimpse of the hiding character.) If the roll comes up a draw, the HM just picks whoever they think has the most advantage. quote:We discovered in playtesting that sometimes both sides of an opposed roll might get the same number of successes reasonably often. When this happens a lot, it can drag on somewhat. So before the challenge commences the Headmistress should decide which side has 'the edge'. This edge might be because one side has better skill, or a home advantage or even better quality weapons. It might be anything that could give them the smallest advantage but isn't important enough to warrant extra dice. When a draw occurs the side who has 'the edge' wins that round. If all the dice come up as a 1 (which only happens if you have 1 or 2 dice), the roll is a botch and all manner of horrible poo poo that the HM can think off happens because “your character basically becomes the Headmistress's bitch.” For instances where the players want to attempt a failed roll again… the book just says that the HM can think of an appropriate penalty up. But the general accepted rule is to increase the roll difficulty by 1. Next is detailed explanation of the various skills and what they do. As it has been noted, St. Erisian’s is not a normal school. So they can learn things that are vaguely related to the subject of the class in question that help turn the game into a more traditional RPG. Art – Painting, sculpting, and making forgeries of paintings and sculptures that are much better than yours so you can sell them for money. Used by Fixers. Biology – Knowledge of the natural world and how to corrupt it by making frankensteinian monsters and the like. Also, first aid. Used by Scientists. Chemistry – Make drugs and explosives. Used by Scientists. Computer Science – Use computers and be a leet haxxor. Used by Nerds. There’s a massive sidebar after the description about how your players might use this skill to get really creative with in-game solutions, since a lot of stuff is run by computers, and that you should put a limit on it if you need to. Craft, Design, and Technology – Woodshop, autoshop, and anything involving mechanics skills. Used by Nerds and Scientists. Current Affairs – Info gathering on anything from actual global politics to what color clothing some rich shithead is fixating on this week. Used by Fixers and Coquettes. Drama – Acting and disguising one’s self. Used by Sweethearts. Economics - Shopping, selling, haggling. Used by Fixers and both sets of exchange students. Electronics – Used for repairing anything that it is not a computer or involves micro chips in some fashion, since the write up emphasizes the importance of knowing how they work. Used by Nerds. English –Persuation as well as lying. Used by Sweethearts, Prefects, and Coquettes. Games- Games is divided into 3 sub-skills: Team Sports, Track and Field, and Marksman. The first is the stat used for all forms of melee combat, including unarmed combat; the second is used for non-combat related physical abilities such as running, jumping, climbing, and stealth; and the last is used for ranged weapons, including thrown ones. All three are used by Hockeygirls, Track is used by Goths and Ninjas, and Team Sports is used by all exchange students. Geography – Wilderness survival skills and the ability to track others, as well as weather forecasting and the standard knowing the capitals of countries stuff. It mentions that St. Erisian’s likes all of their students to have such training, which is probably why all of the younger girls live on the school grounds in tribes. No clique specializes in it. History – Military and political (Michiavelli is specifically mentioned) history, as well as legal tactics because again, as long as it’s even vaguely related to the subject, St. Erisian’s students can learn it. Used by Prefects and Samurai. Home Economics - "The kitchen is an underestimated place of wonder and delight to any girl. This is not because of the influence of Mrs. Beeton, but because kitchens contain both fire and knives." Covers the usual Home Ec. subjects plus potion and poison making. Used by Goths. Languages – Speaking languages other than English. Every point after the first lets the character speak an additional language, with no restriction on which languages the player can pick. (The book suggests Klingon, as it is easy to swear in and intimidate someone with.) There is a sidebar concerning foreign students and their mastery of English. One can either just assume they speak English fluently, or have them have 1 point for heavily accented and possibly broken, but passable English skill, and 2 for fluentcy. Used by no one. Leadership – Leadership skills as well as torture and interrogation tactics… and tying knots, because “we don’t want anyone getting away”. (This would work a lot better under Geography, but you know, game about girls being jerks…) The book recommends forcing players to spend Willpower if they ever get into performing “Jack Bauer’s fanatical little sister” levels of interrogation. Used by Prefects. Maths - Covers the usual math topics as well as investment and betting techniques. Fun Fact: The school is mostly funded by a stock portfolio run by the 6th form students. (It would probably also work better under Economics…) Used by Nerds. Music – Knowledge of music genres as well as composition. Also functions the same way as the Languages skill, except each point lets you play an instrument. Used by Goths. Needlework – Sewing, lockpicking, and knowledge of the fashion world. Used by Fixers. Observation – Not a class, but it’s here because Peregrine couldn’t think of a class subject to put this under. Used by Hockeygirls, Coquettes, and Exchange Students. Physics – Build traps and design things that fall under the CDT class, as well as gently caress with the laws of nature, including the Space-Time continuum. Used by Scientists. Religious Studies – Knowledge of the occult. (“Demon summoning is tricky, as Satan really doesn’t like his boys hanging out with ‘those bloody girls’.”) Want to play a magic user? Dump points into this skill. Used by Goths. Social Studies – Used to “read” people, as well as knowledge of psychology, detecting lies, and seducing people. Used by Sweethearts, Prefects, and Coquettes. Veterinary – Animal training and care, as well as actual veterinary skills. The book notes that this skill can be used to heal human targets in place of Biology, but that the difficulty rating should be higher. Used by Swethearts. Up next: Combat rules and taking damage.
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Oct 31, 2013 04:14
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MonsieurChoc posted:Part 3  gently caress everything.AccidentalHipster posted:So I'm guessing Dio is the most boned due to the stupid Wisdom cap on Aspects. Speaking of Dio, I didn't see him "kick the puppy factory" like you said he would. It was a long post! And he made a Za Warudo sculpture, what do you want from me? Also, the exact reason why Dio is boned is in the next chapter. It's the Wickest loving thing.
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Oct 31, 2013 04:33
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Traveller posted:
Cheer up, I haven't gotten to Auschwitz yet. ... 
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Oct 31, 2013 04:42
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Traveller posted:It was a long post! And he made a Za Warudo sculpture, what do you want from me? Kicked puppies of course! But the reason behind the boning will suffice if it's super . If it's not too big of a spoiler, if stripping all forms of player contribution from the Ven Romnance rules and then shoving them in to a magical high school drama like Eldritch High equals 1 , how many would you say this boning is?
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Oct 31, 2013 05:27
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I just read MonsieurChoc's post. All I can say is that I'm glad I'm not reviewing it; I'd be bawling like a baby at by the time I got to Theresienstadt.
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Oct 31, 2013 06:16
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Traveller posted:The problem is that HOTB is not an adversarial LARP game where you can take people in private to shank them in the face, it's a tabletop game of quote-unquote cooperative storytelling with everyone's character sheets in the clear. Except, again, for the GM's NPCs. Well no, not necessarily. The book explicitly discusses playing in "Diplomacy mode" where the game is VampLARPlike PVP. It's a useless rule for NPCs since it can be replaced with "make extra poo poo up to make the antagonist more challenging." But yeah, this seems to be a wacky design goal given the cooperative play language elsewhere, and not so much guidance along the lines of "use this for PVP play." The "you'll figure it out" bit is kind of irritating here, because if you don't play MET you probably have no idea what the hell this is for, and if you do play it, and know the section of Laws of the Night where they describe exactly the same rule and why you might use it, it's not an emergent discovery at all--it's kind of a "big ups to my LARPers!" in-joke thing.
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Oct 31, 2013 06:50
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MalcolmSheppard posted:Well no, not necessarily. The book explicitly discusses playing in "Diplomacy mode" where the game is VampLARPlike PVP. It's a useless rule for NPCs since it can be replaced with "make extra poo poo up to make the antagonist more challenging." But yeah, this seems to be a wacky design goal given the cooperative play language elsewhere, and not so much guidance along the lines of "use this for PVP play." The "you'll figure it out" bit is kind of irritating here, because if you don't play MET you probably have no idea what the hell this is for, and if you do play it, and know the section of Laws of the Night where they describe exactly the same rule and why you might use it, it's not an emergent discovery at all--it's kind of a "big ups to my LARPers!" in-joke thing. Blood and Honor also has a "we'll be utter dicks to each other, we won't be crybabies when we lose, etc." Cutthroat Mode, but that game still doesn't have the lying rule. Even Wick figured out it was not a good idea, shoutout to MET rules or not. Anyway! Houses of the Blooded At least Elric could handle himself in a mass brawl The Sorcery chapter! Yadda yadda, highly illegal, ven are still butt deep into magicks, the Serpent pushed to make it illegal to make themselves stronger, you know this already. Sorcery works with Rituals. To make one work, you just need knowledge of the ritual, sacred herbs and enough blood. In game terms, you take one Injury and spend 1 Herbs to use a ritual. To learn one, you spend one season action and 1 Herbs.
The popular senvu Swordsman ritual that binds sword and user as one? Nowhere in sight. Anyway, Artifacts! The doodads the sorcerer-kings left, they're powerful! And nasty! So nasty that most of them are traps. These are not your dad's magic items. This isn't Jack Vance or Harry Potter. These are Artifacts of doom! No, seriously, in literature carrying an Artifact is sign of certain doom. I hope you see where I'm going with this. First, you must raid sorcerer-king Ruins. Like the Tomb of Spooky that is conveniently in Al's Domain. Part of these rules is actually in the Seasons chapter but I chose to bring them up here, since Ruins matter more for magic purposes. Ven may explore a Ruin once per season with an action, giving it one rank per expedition. When it hits Rank 3, it's empty of any possible goodies and it can be replaced by a normal region, or it can be turned into a Puzzle House: essentially, a Ruin turned to ven habitation. They can hold any size of Party, even Rank 5 Parties (!) but they're difficult to navigate. Ven that enter a Puzzle House roll their Wisdom against the House's 6 dice. The ven uses their wagers to find their way around the House, while it uses its wagers to force the ven to get lost. While exploring a Ruin, the ven grab whatever looks shiny and/or powerful to bring back home. Most will be rubbish, but every now and then they find something good. Each Season, the Ruin produces Artifact Points equivalent to its rank. Going with a ven party into an adventure to explore a Ruin (dungeon crawl, woo!) doubles the Artifact Points. Players divvy up the points as they deem fit. While exploring the Ruin, spend a Style to "find" an object. Then, you can research it. Wisdom risk with wagers, with success indicating the Artifact has a Potential of 1 + wagers made. Then you may spend Artifact Points to give Values (special powers) to the Artifact, up to its potential. This is a one-time offer: once you've spent Artifact Points, the Artifact is set for good. So let's say Al raids the Tomb of Spooky-- nah, the Tomb of REAL Spooky, a Rank 2 Ruin. Because he's not an idiot, he sends in a bunch of disposable peasants first. Cunning! Al finds himself a weirdly shaped wand and brings it back home. Because he went in alone, he gets 2 Artifact Points as loot. He rolls a Wisdom risk and the GM decides to let him use one of his nerd Aspects for three bonus dice. He makes his roll with 4 wagers, so the wand has 5 Potential. Alas, he only has two points to spend. Looking over the Value list, he decides the wand is a Key to further sorcerer-king secrets, and it is a Leech, allowing him to steal Style from other ven. Cool!Except that it's not cool, because Al is now Doomed. If a ven owns an Artifact, the GM can at any time after they make a roll declare DOOM! by pointing and screaming at the player. The roll is considered to be 9, no matter what they rolled. Just short of the TN of 10. The Doom may only be invoked once per Phase, but still: the GM can, whenever they feel like it, declare the character to be hosed beyond help. And Blood Swords count as Artifacts. Hell, let's see what Wick has to say about it! quote:A skillful Narrator will wait for the right time to hit you with your DOOM! He’ll cultivate a villain for months. Picking away at your ambitions, your desires. He’ll screw with you and screw with you and screw with you until you can’t take it anymore and then you’ll challenge him to a duel. With your cool Blood Sword. Because you’ll want every advantage you can get. And then, you’ll know why having a slew of Artifact is a bad idea. I'll give it 4 of 5, Alex.And that is why Dio Brando is hosed. Not because he's a gigantic bastard, not because he's stepping on someone else's toes, but because he got a piece of gear that the fluff says every single duelist worth a drat in Shanri owns. Because he tried to measure up to the game's power level, the GM is specifically encouraged to gently caress him over. By the way, it's the GM that calls for DOOM. Not the players. Of course they would not be able to call Doom on the NPC duelists with their Blood Swords. That would be bad form.  Here's the Values list. I don't feel like writing more for tonight.
Next: Populous?
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Oct 31, 2013 07:09
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may enter!
, and if the sorcerer is pregnant then she will have twins. Twins have the Twin aspect: invoke for 3 bonus dice when protecting each other, tag for 2 dice to any social risk against the twins, and compel to act creepy and untrustworthy. They may also kibitz with each other without spending Style. You will not believe what kibitzing is.
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Kurieg posted:I'm not sure if their level of control within the Sabbat was ever really defined, but they got rid of them in a way that made sure that no author could bring them back, ever. 
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Oct 31, 2013 08:41
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I like the Artifact rules. They remind me of Elric, and the old stories. Just save the Doom for the end of a campaign or character. The 'lie about your strengths' thing is straight out of Princess Bride's "I'm not left handed" scene, and could lead to cool moments in games with lots of intra-party conflict. The Ven themselves, though, are obnoxious as hell. They remind me of post-TOS Klingons or the version of Arthurian legend presented in Pendragon.
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Oct 31, 2013 09:10
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Traveller posted:Houses of the Blooded Because this kind of stuff would make me want to punch the DM. Count Chocula posted:I like the Artifact rules. They remind me of Elric, and the old stories. Just save the Doom for the end of a campaign or character. The 'lie about your strengths' thing is straight out of Princess Bride's "I'm not left handed" scene, and could lead to cool moments in games with lots of intra-party conflict. The Ven themselves, though, are obnoxious as hell. They remind me of post-TOS Klingons or the version of Arthurian legend presented in Pendragon. Expect in those stories cursed artefacts are rare; here it sounds like DOOM is an everyday event. Does the book even tell you that you're doomed when allowing you to buy artefacts during character creation?
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Oct 31, 2013 09:20
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I just think 'every artifact carries power but also a terrible curse' is a perfect fit for a certain kind of story, and its one HOTB is trying to tell. You don't fill a setting with bloody operas, doomed romance and revenge if you want people wielding +3 Swords with no consequence. Epics work partly because of the doomed ending.
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Oct 31, 2013 09:25
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