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Synthbuttrange
May 6, 2007

DX looks interesting but there's a hell of a lot of high-school CEOs and Branch Heads runnning around.

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Apple Mummy
Oct 11, 2012

Alien Rope Burn posted:

Those who order the game now are lucky, and get to miss out on the heavy errata the first printing had!

Seriously? Cyphoderus' first post got me interested enough in the game that I considered ordering it, but then decided not to when they went on to say how many errors the book had. Are you saying that more recent printings are fine for the most part?

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!

SynthOrange posted:

DX looks interesting but there's a hell of a lot of high-school CEOs and Branch Heads runnning around.

ANIME! :black101:

Apple Mummy posted:

Seriously? Cyphoderus' first post got me interested enough in the game that I considered ordering it, but then decided not to when they went on to say how many errors the book had. Are you saying that more recent printings are fine for the most part?

As far as I'm aware the first printing (with all the errors) sold out, and the second printing fixes them, but I can't find a definitive statement in that regard. You could always bug them directly.

Also there's going to be a supplement, good to see! :D

Mr. Maltose
Feb 16, 2011

The Guffless Girlverine
Add 5~10 years add replace any reference to highschool into college. Voila, you've removed the onerous anime.

unseenlibrarian
Jun 4, 2012

There's only one thing in the mountains that leaves a track like this. The creature of legend that roams the Timberline. My people named him Sasquatch. You call him... Bigfoot.

Alien Rope Burn posted:

ANIME! :black101:


As far as I'm aware the first printing (with all the errors) sold out, and the second printing fixes them, but I can't find a definitive statement in that regard. You could always bug them directly.

Also there's going to be a supplement, good to see! :D

Yeah, and anyone who ordered the first printing is apparently getting the supplement free, which is an 'extra mile' level of cool.

Speaking of cool, I am cool with my not-yet-completed and ever dragging onwards Reign review being posted to whatever site.

AccidentalHipster
Jul 5, 2013

Whadda ya MEAN ya never heard of Dan Brereton?

Traveller posted:

Bellfahle Magic Academy (jRPG, looks cute)

I'm going to be a hipster here and vote for this one.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!

Mr. Maltose posted:

Add 5~10 years add replace any reference to highschool into college. Voila, you've removed the onerous anime.

I don't find it onerous myself, I just find it amusing. If there's a virus that makes teenagers shoot lightning, I'm sure it can make them CEOs, too.

unseenlibrarian posted:

Yeah, and anyone who ordered the first printing is apparently getting the supplement free, which is an 'extra mile' level of cool.

I couldn't track down an original statement on that but the rpg.net post that mentions that specifies "international" customers for that offer, apparently on account of having some crazy export / import costs.

wdarkk
Oct 26, 2007

Friends: Protected
World: Saved
Crablettes: Eaten
I'm wondering if the teenage CEO is a reference to Persona 3. It sure sounded like Mitsuru there.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!

wdarkk posted:

I'm wondering if the teenage CEO is a reference to Persona 3. It sure sounded like Mitsuru there.

Well. It might help for me to connect two dots for one of the sample characters.


Cyphoderus posted:

Noble Blood
You have a duty, and a fate: you are in this world to protect those weaker than you. That's what you've been taught and what you have always believed. When the Renegade awoke in you, well... let's say your sense of duty only grew stronger. You were recruited by the UGN, but you are so competent and loyal that you quickly rose through the ranks and became a branch chief, despite your age. You'll do whatever it takes to defend the innocent.
Work: UGN Branch Chief; Cover: High-school student
Cross-breed Bram Stoker and Exile.

:ssh:

Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 04:38 on Nov 8, 2013

FourmyleCircus
Sep 15, 2013

Plague of Hats posted:

Hey so I made a site to put F&F reviews on both in case of thread archiving, to make them a bit easier to read (site formatting aside) and to allow them to be read despite the paywall. It is currently sparse, but I can copy-paste with the best of them. I am interested in getting permission from reviewers, though I can also abandon all my heroic work in the face of stern disapproval. Suggestions and pointers on how to make things look better or more readable are also a plus.
You can put my stuff up too.

MadScientistWorking posted:

This kind of predates Fatal and Friends as a lot of talk about John Wick being a horrible person used to occur back in grognards.txt. Its kind of hilarious too because apparently the discussion that happened in that thread apparently involved stuff in Play Dirty. And man if he is like anything like how he presents himself in Play Dirty a huge manchild is the only thing you can get out of that.
EDIT:
And you're right too a lot of his ideas aren't bad but you have to strip the smug assholish nature from them before you can even begin to use them.

Part of me wants to argue about the whole Play Dirty thing because once I choked my way through, and I took it with the salt due a guy who was making his fortune on being an rear end in a top hat, I actually thought some of it was pretty good. But yeah, you need to take away the Jefferson Carter bullshit to have even the smallest chance of it being... Readable? Reasonable? I mean, knowing that they signed on knowing he was going to pull this poo poo makes me dislike him less. But...

Traveller posted:

I dig you idea for The Nanny! Training minispies all over the cosmos.

Thanks Traveller, I really didn't have to do much with Mary Poppins, after all, she did teach the kids psychology tricks in order to make the whole house better. Though it hurt to give her Scholar: Teacher for reasons that are about to become clear.

AccidentalHipster posted:

Joseph really is the best Jojo. And I'm surprised that this character concept worked out so well! If it's not too much of a spoiler, can The Psi-Rat actually do Joseph's "The next thing you're going to say is" trick and if so, how?

Actually, he can do it two ways. The first is that skill Trick, which lets you briefly wrong foot someone by misdirection, bluster, deception, what have you. As someone who does the "Your Next Line Is" thing to people in real life... no, you don't need to be precognitive. You just need to have an idea of the sorts of things they say and be able to talk really fast.

Something I enjoy doing to my SO, actually. My record is not only predicting that first sentence, but speaking in exact unison with them for nearly a full minute as they tried desperately to find something to trip me up. I left it at four rather than making it, say, Trick 2 (Bluster 4) or (Bluster 2 Misdirection 2) simply because of how often he switches between that and doing stuff like unraveling his clothes to make a ripple net.



Alright, as trying to follow the actual structure of the book is becoming too much of a pain(as the first chapter is pretty much just See Page XX), I'm going to go through the chapters and pop back to One whenever it actually has something useful to say. I really don't want to have to do this, but it forced my hand. And I suppose it's my one complaint about the Reprint PDF I'm using(aside from the simple fact that it's ever so slightly rotated)... it doesn't have PDF links. It's got bookmarks though, so that's good.

So, Attributes And Skills. You already know a lot of this being long time gamers, but Attributes are Raw Ability, where as Skill Adds are knowledge and expertise. If you want to dodge something, it's Agility, unless you have Dodge, in which case it's Agility plus Dodge.

Now, there are Four types of Skill Adds(which will never stop sounding clumsy to me, even in Masterbook). Trained, Untrained, and Macro skills, as well as Specializations. Untrained skills are skills you can use untrained, and, in play, only cost one Skill Point per level. Which is to say that if The Nanny wanted to boost her Stealth from Two to Three, it would cost her Three points. With Trained Skills, it costs Ten Skill points to bring it up to level One... unless you can find a Teacher, in which case it costs five. From there on, it costs double the Skill Rank you're going for, so to raise it from One to Two, it costs four... Unless you can find a teacher, in which case the cost is the same as for Untrained skills.

So, For The Psi-Rat to raise his Psionic Manipulation from 3 to 4, it would cost him Eight Points, unless he found The Shadow or someone, in which case it's four. You got that?

Macro Skills follow the Trained and Untrained pricing scheme, but they have to have a focus. This is how they get around needing to put Riding Horses, Riding Dolphins, Piloting VTOL, Driving Tanks, and Knowledge Toes in the skill list.

Specializations are pretty much as you'd expect, they're restrictions on skills that cost exactly the same as getting a new level in the regular skill, except that the first one costs half. So, they're only really a bargain at character generation, or if you really suck. If you have a Let's say the Nanny wanted to get a new specialization Stealth. She's at Two now, so a new level would cost three points. she doesn't Hide, but she does sneak. So, she decides to take three specialization points. The first one costs her 2 points(half of three, rounded up), the second and third cost three each. For thes same eight points, she could have improved the base skill only twice. There is a little side bar on How Special Does a Specialization have to be, stating that Rifles is a good specialization, AK47s are not.

Attributes can also be increased with skill points, but it costs three times the target attribute in skill points. If you wanted to raise an eight to a nine, it'd cost you twenty seven skill points.

You can get Skill Points in three ways. Sacrifice a Life Point(fate point, whatever) to get three skill points, you can turn in certain Drama cards(this'll be covered in the rule book), or the Gm may(but is under no obligation to) hand them out at the end of an adventure.

Skills may be learned whenever there is down time(between adventures, during transit) at normal costs. If you need to learn a skill mid adventure, it costs double and you can only get one add per skill per adventure. Teachers, as always, halve this cost.

Now that we have all of that out of the way, it's time to go over the skills. I'll be keeping it short and sweet because I'd like to get done with the Shatterzone core-book before the Alien Rope Burn finishes Rifts.

Agility

Acrobatics is an untrained skill that does what you'd expect it to do. You can tumble about, do circus stuff, and reduce damage from falls. The Specializations given are Tightrope Walking, Combat Acrobatics, and reducing damage from falls.

Beast Riding is an untrained Macro skill that lets you ride animals. You can use it to get the animal to go faster, to dodge, and to use the animal's attacks.

Climbing is an untrained skill that lets you climb. Specializations are Rope, Wall, and Mountain. The rules are about as complex as you'd expect, with a chart for the varying difficulties and bit on how to determine terminal velocity. Due to a type on the chart, it is easier to climb a smooth stone or metal wall than a tree. The tree has a difficulty of 5, where as the metal wall has a difficulty of .15. It's pretty clear that it's just supposed to be 15 so don't try to pull one over on the GM. YEs, the falling rules are in the climb skill. We're walking.

Dodge is an untrained skill, and it's exactly what you think it is. Your passive dodge score would pretty much be your Armor Class in Dungeons and Dragons. Active dodge is what you roll to get out of the way, although it takes up a whole action. This, however, increase your dodge score for the whole round. Or decreases it. You can, in fact, accidentally throw yourself into a bullet this way. Specializations are Active Dodge, Passive Dodge, Missile weapons, energy Weapons, and Traps.

Flight is a trained skill with the specializations mechanical, and whatever other type of flight your character may have avaliable. Jetpacks, flying squirrel suits, wings. Whatever. Usually a Special OPs thing, or an alien thing. There aren't any alien races that can fly be default, but hey. You never know, they might add one. So, if I really wanted to have that magic umbrella, The Nanny would need this. As would the Psi-Rat if he decided to take telekinetic flight. If you're forced to use Flight Untrained(Like being cut loose in Zero Grav... yes, that also uses the flight skill), the GM is told to up the difficulty a lot.

Long Jumping is an untrained skill with the specializations of Broad Jumping and Running Long Jump. Long Jump is really just used to push past the normal limits. It's not the only skill like that.

Maneuver is an untrained skill with the specializations: Combat, trecherous terrain, and EVA. Basically, this skill lets you flank and go across unever terrain.

Martial arts is a trained Macro skill, with specializations being the style of martial arts. Long story short, martial arts work like normal unarmed strikes, except they give you a further +2 to other skill rolls. In the case of the Psi Rat, his Ti Chi adds to his Psionic Manipulation.

Mechanical Manuever is a trained skill with the specializations of Power Suit and servowalker units. Basically, it's a tax skill. If you don't have the skill, whatever you do in an exoskeleton has a -8 applied to it. If you have the skill, you add the skill adds to what you're trying to do.

Melee Combat is an untrained skill with the specializations of Sword, knife, axe, powered blade, cybernetic slashers, and table legs. You know what this does.

Running is an untrained skill with the specializations of Long Distance, Sprint, Over Rough Terrain, and Encumbered. I almost wish I'd taken that specialization for someone. "Hurry, jump on my back! I'm not as fast if I'm not carrying a sweaty old man!"

Stealth is Untrained, and you've got Hiding, Stalking, and Sneaking. There's also(OF COURSE!) a special difficulty chart so your GM doesn't have to wing it.

You know what? I'm not even out of Athletics, I need to speed this up. From now I'm going to us (U) for Untrained skills, (T) for trained skills, and just go Specializations: like the book.

Swimming(U) is like running. But in water. There are two difficulty numbers for it, and you have to make two rolls. One to see if you actually went anywhere, ne one to see how fast you went. You can fail the speed roll. Specializations: Long Distance; sprint; underwater; scuba

Unarmed Combat(U) is exactly what it says on the tin. Specializations: Boxing; kickboxing; "barroom" brawling; fighting armed attackers.

Dexterity

Energy weapons(u) let you use energy weapons, which are clean and slightly less lethal than projectile weapons. It also lets you clean, maintain, and reload. Specializations: Laser pistol; plasma rifle; laser rifle; blaster; blaster rifle; pulse cannon.

Fire Combat(U) is using normal projectile weapons. Specializations: Rifle, pistol, shotgun, submachine gun, gyrojet.

Gunnery(T) is for ship mounted weapons. They all work alike anyway. Specializations: Laser weapons; missiles; blaster cannon; mass drivers

Heavy Energy weapons(T) lets you use big honking guns. And maintain them. If you don't have the skill, it's +8 points harder to use and reload. If you roll a 2, you break the weapon. Specializations: Heavy Blater Rifle; Plasma cannon; Pulse cannon; flamethrower. As an aside, I'm glad to see flamethrowers listed along side the other plasma weapons. I mean, yeah, most people don't consider fire to be Plasma, or vice versa, but I was taught in chemistry that Fire is Plasma, dammit.

Heavy weapons(T) is for heavy projectile weapons. As above. Specializations: Mortar; heavy machine gun; heavy needler; catapult; ballista(!); personal rockets; bazookas.

Lock Picking(T) is what it does. There's a chart for this too, and if you want to be able to pick a regular padlock, you need to be able to hit 12 on a regular basis. Assuming it isn't a well constructed padlock, in which case it's a 14. If you're doing it untrained, you're doing it with a minus eight. Having the right tools will drop the difficulty by five, so be sure to keep a locksmith's kit on hand. Specializations: Door Opening; Safe cracking.

Missile Weapons(U) lets you use 'muscle assisted projectile weapons.' Strength determines the damage, Dex determines if you hit. Specializations: Bow & arrow; sling; slingshot; crossbow.

Prestidigitation(U) is a slight of hand and has a little chart for how obvious things are. Welcome to the 90's, we like charts. Specializations: Stage magic; card dealing; pick pocketing; concealing items

Thrown Weapons(U) determine how well you can play baseball. No, seriously, it's mentioned in here. Aside from that, it's exactly what it says on the tin. There's again, notes as to how atomosphere effects the flight of things, and that balanced items may fly further, but really, if we want to know how thrown weapons work, we're supposed to put down the Players' Guide and take the Rule Book from the DM. Specializations: Throwing knife; Glahn throwing stick; axe; rock; baseball; bola; lasso; grenade

Vehicle piloting is a macro headache. So, okay, you have to choose a type of vehicle to have the Vehicle Piloting skill in. Wheeled; tracked; spaceship; winged plane; rotary engine; hovercraft; sailboat; motorboat... Which is fine, but it's either a Trained or an Untrained skill according to the DM's will. And, the DM is encouraged to tack on penalties for forgien manufacture, which is fine and all, but not exactly fun. "Oh, it's a Toyota? You usually drive a BMW right? Difficulty jump!"

Endurance thankfully only has two skills.

Resist Pain(T) lets you use it instead of Willpower to resist the effects of torture. And anyone who's deal with kids pulling their hair and trying to shove toy trucks up their nose knows how to resist torture.

Resist Shock(T) works differently from every other skill in the game. Instead of having unlimited adds like anything else, your skill adds for Resist Shock are limited by your endurance. Each add of Resist Shock lets you take an extra box of shock before going unconsious. Great for if you want to have people ask "How is that guy still standing?"

Strength

Damage Increase(T) is a metal... er... macro skill that lets you add damage, but for particular types of weapon, unarmed combat, martial arts, whatever. It's still limited by the maximum damage the weapon can do. Unarmed combat and Martial arts stuff is limited to 13 for Human Unarmed Strikes and 13 plus your martial arts adds for Martial arts.

Lifting(U) lets you lift more. You roll it on a round by round basis to figure out how much you can actually lift this second, instead of using your Strength value. The difficuly number of the Lifting skill your character's natural strength.

Intellect

Camoflage(U) is for hiding things that can't use stealth on their own. Trucks, wallets, whatever. Use the Stealth chart. Specializations: Natural; using man-made tools.

Compture Ops(U) Is suprisingly not(for a nineties game) a tax on knowing how you use your E-mail. If you know what a computer is, you can use it for all basic tasks. Like posting game reviews in forums. You just need it to use it really well. Trying to get unusual information is a DN 8, so... there you go. It has it's own chart, and trying to actually hack with a computer requires that you get at least an 18. Specializations: Accessing information; programming; breaking into secure files

Oh boy! Cyberdeck Ops(T)! If you've played any 90's game, you know that decking was always the way of the future with it's own complicated system. I mean, if the decker wanted something in shadowrun, it was time for the rest of you to run to the Seven Eleven... for a few hours. So let's see how Shatterzone handled it!



Yeah, you read that right. "We'll wank later. Right now, just treat it as a much better computer."

Demolitions(T) is two wonderfully handy skills in one. It lets you figure out how much boom you need, and makes the boom of your Demobricks bigger. For the first bit, you just tell the GM what you want to destroy, and what other effects you want. Then you roll. For the second, you have to make a roll vs half of the damage value of the explosives and if you make it, check the result on the General Push Results Table. Which is something we'll be hearing from a lot. Technically, I should have mentioned it back at lifting. But hey. Anyway, the difficulty for figuring out how much explosives you need has it's own chart, that splits things up by familiarity. Specializations: Bridges; buildings; armor.

Forgery(U) also has it's own chart. It's just for Licenses and Receipts and other text documents, though. If you want to be an art forget, you have to use the artist skill. You'll also have to use other skills for things like DNA-samples and holographs and security strips. Specializations: Licenses; receipts.

I'm halfway though this infernal section. I've been typing for what feels like days. This is all you guys get today. I'll try to have another one up Sunday.

GimmickMan
Dec 27, 2011

Plague of Hats posted:

Hey so I made a site to put F&F reviews on both in case of thread archiving, to make them a bit easier to read (site formatting aside) and to allow them to be read despite the paywall. It is currently sparse, but I can copy-paste with the best of them. I am interested in getting permission from reviewers, though I can also abandon all my heroic work in the face of stern disapproval. Suggestions and pointers on how to make things look better or more readable are also a plus.

The Wick must be preserved! You're clear for archiving Aegis Project with the others. And Mecha, too.

Traveller
Jan 6, 2012

WHIM AND FOPPERY

Almogavers it is!

Almogavers

Desperta ferro!


dig the sword hilt "e"

Almogavers is a 1995 "epic medieval" roleplaying game by Enric Grau and published by Joc Internacional. If you're familiar with Spanish games, you might notice the name of Ricard Ibáñez in the credits page: Ibáñez is the creator of Aquelarre, the seminal Spanish role playing game. Almogavers in freaking Catalan, which is close enough to Spanish that I can make it out with a dictionary and Wikipedia at hand. So what's it about?

Back cover posted:

"It is the year 1303. Our army heads to central Anatolia to face the Turks. The march is hard, but we believe in victory and our leaders. Such is our life, battle after battle, village after village, never stopping anywhere. We are... Almogàvers."

The Almogavers were a type of mercenary shock trooper that served the Crown of Aragon and other kingdoms during the Middle Ages. The game focuses on the Catalan Company, a mercenary company that fought for the Byzantine Empire and others during the 14th Century. The book begins with a small introduction to role playing games (as all good games do), what PCs and NPCs and GMs and those funky dice are, and then drops us straight into the historical background of the game. Have a seat, it's going to take a while.

It starts in Sicily. After the death of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, the Papacy (a rival of Frederick's) grants right of conquest over Sicily, until then Germanic territory, to Charles of Anjou. By the year 1266, the island is in the French sphere of influence, and thus allied with the Papal State. The new King of Sicily is not well received by the Sicilians, though. All public posts are given to Frenchmen and the provincial capital is moved to Naples. In 1282, a revolt against the French takes place, the Sicilian Vespers, and Sicilian nobles offer the crown to Peter III of Aragon, who was married to Constance of Sicily and thus had a claim to Sicily. Peter invades the island, takes over as King, and from then on a long conflict between Sicilians/Catalans and French/Papacy forces takes place.

Peter dies in 1285 and leaves the Catalan-Aragonese crown to his eldest son, Alphonse, and the Sicilian crown to his second son James. But Alphonse dies an early death, forcing James to take over in Aragon and leave Peter's third son, Frederick, as regent in Sicily. With the international situation taking dire turns, James sees as the only way out to give up any claim to Sicily, but the people don't accept it and proclaim Frederick as their king. James can either accept the terms of the treaty he signed and help the French capture Sicily or support his own brother, and after reconsideration (which included the Pope trying to bribe him with sovereignty over Sardinia and Corsica) he leaves Sicily to its own devices. The Almogavers brought by Aragon to Sicily fight for Frederick against the French and the Pope, and it is here that one captain starts making a name for himself, former Templar Roger de Flor. By the year 1300, the fight is going well for Frederick, but general attrition and exhaustion makes all parties sue for peace at Caltabellotta. The Almogavers are suddenly out of a job, and led by Roger de Flor they leave Sicily for the Byzantine Empire: this is the beginning of the Catalan Company.

The following period is divided in three stages:
  • First era: Emperor Andronicus II Palaelogus of Byzantium is in dire straits, with Turkish forces advancing from the East and Frankish remains of Crusader empires South and West. Byzantium's Alan and Turcopole mercenaries cannot hold... and that's where the Catalan Company steps in, with support of the King of Sicily (only too happy to get rid of mercenaries with far too much free time on his doorstep). Roger made some heavy demands of the Emperor, including marrying into the Imperial family and the title of Megaduke :stare: The Emperor agrees to everything, and in 1303 6,500 men make their way from Sicily to Constantinople. Everyone's happy except for the Genoese, until then the Empire's strongest allies. So while Roger is marrying himself a princess, Genoese and Catalan troops duke it out for the first time. The Emperor is quick to send his new, dangerous allies against the Ottomans, with their first victory being the liberation of Philadelphia (180 Almogaver casualties, over 18,000 Turkish dead - or so Catalan chroniclers claim :smug:) With a string of victories and new reinforcements, Roger is acclaimed as a hero, and forces the Emperor to make him Ceasar and second on the line of succession, over his own son Michael - who soon begins plotting Roger's death. The commander is invited to a meeting at Adrianopolis, where he is murdered, and the Almogavers are purged from the Empire, with barely 3,000 men resisting in Gallipoli.

  • Second era: Megaduke Berenguer d'Entença is the Company's new leader. He sends an embassy to Constantinople to sever any bonds to the Empire that betrayed them, but the Company envoys are killed by Michael. Berenguer is later captured by a Genoese captain, who inexplicably does not collect the bounty the Empire offers for him or the ransom offered by one of Berenguer's seconds, Ramon Muntaner. The remaining Almogavers led by Bernat de Rocafort go on a rampage through the Empire, raiding and pillaging everything they find along the way: their battlecry, desperta ferro!, goes down in history at this point.

    :black101: posted:

    Listen! listen! Wake up, O iron! / Help us God! / [...] / Just seeing us coming the villages are already ablaze. / Just seeing us passing the crows are wiping their beaks. / War and plunder, there are no greater pleasures. / Forward Almogavars! Let them call the gravediggers! / The voice of the Somatent is calling us to war. / Weariness, rains, snow and heat we shall endure. / And if sleep overtakes us, / we will use the earth as our bed. / And if we get hungry, we shall eat raw meat! / Wake up, O iron! Forward! / Fast as the lightning / let us fall over their camp! / Forward Almogavars! Let us go there to make flesh, / the wild beasts are hungry!
    The Company zeroes on Constantinople, and Michael gathers a formidable army of Alans, Turcopoles, Greeks and other mercenaries to stop them. The Almogavers' sheer :black101: sends the Byzantine army packing and Michael himself barely survives the battle. The Emperor desperately tries to negotiate a truce with the Almogavers while trying to get the Genoese to support him, but the Almogavers consider the lesson of blood learned and the Genoese dare not get involved. The Company scatters and spends the following years devastating Thrace, while a crack force is sent to Bulgaria to take out the material culprits of Roger's death, leaving Muntaner in Gallipoli with a few hundred men. Of course, the Byzantines and Genoese siege the city. Lacking men, Muntaner arms the city's women, and wisely waits until the enemy exhaust itself against the fortifications before sortieing and eliminating the Genoese commander. By 1306, Berenguer is finally released, but Rocafort refuses to relinquish command: while open civil war is avoided, the Company is fractured, with both sides taking over different headquarters. Due to a treaty with Sicily, Prince Ferdinand of Majorca arrives to take command of the Company, a move welcomed by everyone but Rocafort. The Company heads to Macedonia, but due to confusion - or treason - the vanguard of the army ends up fighting its rear guard and Berenguer dies, leaving Rocafort in charge of the Company, and eventually making Ferdinand and Muntaner part ways with him.

    A little map to break up the wall of text

    Rocafort's growing tyranny is seized by Thibaut of Chepoy, a servant of Charles of Valois, with whom Rocafort had signed a contract. Disgruntled Company leaders eventually relieve Rocafort from command and hand him over to Thibaut, who puts him at the mercy of an old enemy of his. The Company under Thibaut marches on the Duchy of Athens, an anarchic land nominally ruled by the dying Duke Guy II de la Roche. In 1310, Thibaut abandons the Company, fearing a sudden case of sword in the gut, and the enraged Almogavers turn on the leaders that had removed Rocafort from command. The Company becomes a military republic, ruled by a Council of Twelve and a quadrumvirate of two horse officers, a captain and an infantry Almogaver. A stepbrother of the now dead Duke, Walter of Brienne, hires the Company to clear the Duchy of his enemies, and pays two months' worth of wages in advance. The Company does its work too well, with over thirty castles falling to Walter in less than the two months he paid for, so he seeks to discharge the Company while keeping its best soldiers. Then he makes the mistake of threatening force if they don't comply. :thumbsup: The following Battle of the Cephissus sees the end of French presence in Greece. With the Duchy under their control, the Company writes to Frederick of Sicily to make one of his sons claim it; Manfred of Sicily is chosen.

  • Third era: by the year 1318, the Almogavers extend their territories, founding the Duchy of Neopatria. Both duchies are ruled by Catalan feudal law. In 1357 Frederick III of Sicily gives away his rights over the duchies to his sister Eleanor and, by virtue of her marriage to Peter IV, to the Aragonian crown. In 1380 Peter IV becomes the direct ruler of the Company territories, but it would be short-lived: the Duchy of Athens is occupied in 1388 by the lord of Corinth, and in 1390 Neopatria suffers a similar fate.

The tl;dr of it:

the Wiki, unsourced but I buy it posted:

In the regions of Attica and Boeotia, a popular saying included: may the revenge of the Catalans fall on you. In Bulgaria, the expressions "Catalan" and "Son of Catalan" mean "wicked man, soulless, torturer". This negative connotation reached beyond the boundaries of folklore to influence poets such as Ivan M. Vazov in the poem Pirates, first published in 1915. Vazov includes the Catalans with the Turks as the greatest oppressors of the Bulgarian nation. In the region of Parnassus, the following saying is popularised: "I will flee from the Turks to fall into the hands of the Catalans".

Currently, in Albania the word "Catalan" means "ugly and wicked man." Likewise, "Catalan" or "Katallani" is designated in Albanian folklore as a monster with one eye, reminiscent in many ways the Cyclops Polyphemus. This cyclops is represented by a wild blacksmith who feeds on human flesh. He also has no knees, so he can not bend, and long legs like masts of a ship. He faces a young hero named Dedaliya. This tradition, in various versions, is usually called by the title of Daedalus dhe Katallani, Daedalus and Catalan.

Next: on a roll of 96+, you're Jewish.

Traveller fucked around with this message at 01:33 on Nov 9, 2013

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003

La morte non ha sesso


Now hold on a minute, before we go much further
Give me a buck, so I can buy a rubber
--Revolting Cocks, “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?”

Before we go any further, a brief aside for a comment I neglected in my last updates.

I want to give The Everlasting credit where credit is due. Although I haven’t even read their book yet, I’m glad that this setting has immortal grail knights, fate-spinning demigod Highlanders, sin-eating gargoyles, people possessed by animal totems, and dream wizards. That’s more original than the progression of Hammer Horror monsters that every other White Wolf ripoff slogged through. I like the fact that the game states from the outside that all the Everlasting are part of a larger community; that’s actually better than what White Wolf did, where every “race” got a discrete game, then they crossed them over hurly-burly to compete with each other in all their awfully-balanced glory.

That being said, do you get the impression that this book about the undead is...not? The undead characters hardly feature in the opening fiction, and outside of the glossary, they don’t feature at all in the setting metaplot, which is far more enamored with demons and daevas. This being a White Wolf heartbreaker, I expected the author to be totally high on vampires, with everything else shoveled in as an afterthought. Instead I get the impression that he can’t wait to dispense with this vampire crap so he can tell us about the daevas, who are all black belts in karate and have uncles who work for Nintendo.

Moving along.

Chapter 2: Protagonist Creation:

I am picky when it comes to how books are organized. I get really mad at games--including a lot of games you guys love--for trying to walk me through the “C’mon, create a character, it’ll be great!” like I’ve never picked up a RPG before, and before I know anything about the character traits or the basic die mechanic.

The Everlasting is certainly guilty of that offense. The first thing it asks us to do is pick our genos (plural gentes), your monstrous race. Wow. White Wolf and most of its ripoffs at least paid lip service to the idea that you should come up with a character concept before you pick your flavour of Dracula, but not here.

About that “genos” thing: Like Immortal, whenever The Everlasting needs a jargon word, it misappropriates either mythology or Latin.


Do you believe he’s wearing that to the mall? It’s 100 degrees outside.

Step 1: Genos

This book covers three gentes: Ghuls, Revenants, and Vampires. Each has subtypes for you to pick, and in some cases, factions. The entries also tell you what bonuses and penalties you get to your traits--but we haven’t even seen a sample character sheet yet.

Ghuls are humans who consumed an “elixir of life” called Anecro, which grants immortality but curses you to sustain yourself by eating dead human flesh.Ghuls control vast networks of underground tunnels--caverns, catacombs, and sewers--and live in packs ruled by the strongest and fiercest, like wild dogs. Many ghouls are corpselike and deformed, and what’s worse, most of them will eventually degenerate into mindless pack animals. Ghuls are physically powerful, and their magic combines alchemy, shapeshifting, and animal control, among other things.

About 60% of ghouls are bhutas. They are “typical ghouls,” which we won’t really understand until we read Chapter 4. Most of them retain self-control for a long time, but only the most willful and intelligent avoid eventual degeneration. Faitours are ghouls who received exactly the right dosage of Anecro, so they retain their human appearance. Grotesqueries, on the other hand, got an overdose, and their bodies are bestial and deformed. Vetala are ghouls who got an especially good batch of Anecro, making them smarter and stronger. The downside is that they can’t eat fresh corpses, only rotten bodies. Ghouls who have mentally degenerated into animals are called mindless ones. You can't play one. Unlike revenants and vampires, ghouls don’t have political factions.

Revenants are dead souls--ghosts and other underworld spirits--who have taken up permanent residence in a body. (That rules out Frankenstein’s monsters, I suppose.) They feed on the living by draining their life force, which induces premature aging. In contrast to the Crow ripoffs you might expect, revenants are secretive and spend most of their time manipulating mortals through organizations called “Kingdoms of Night.” Their powers include necromancy, telepathy, and superhuman toughness.

There are two types of revenant. Sarkomenos are dead souls who possess corpses--not necessarily their own. They get a bonus to socializing with dead spirits, and a penalty to socializing with mortals. They can also spend 3 animus (which I gather is the “mana points” stat) to shift between any of four “shrouds of death,” corresponding to a time in their body’s life. There’s the breathing form (lifelike), death form (time of death), burial form (when buried), and ashen form (what your body would look like if it had been rotting all this time). Gross. The ekimmu are much simpler--they’re living bodies possessed by ghosts, forcing the original owner’s soul to take the ekimmu’s place in the Underworld. Besides being a dick move, this means ekimmu still have to eat, breathe, and sleep, and take a penalty to socializing with spirits.

Revenants have three factions. The Salariati are members of the Salariat, the collective name for the Courts of Night. Wait...Courts of Night? Didn’t you just call them Kingdoms of Night, on the same page? gently caress you, Everlasting. Anyway, about half of the revenants are members of the Salariat, and they do stuff. Secretive, manipulative, kingly courtly stuff. Another third of revenants are renunciates, who refuse to join the Salariat. They can still play politics or control a mortal cult, but they don’t need none a your tight rear end country club, ya freak bitch. Less than a tenth of revenants are Abaddon, the title they take when they join the Ankou, or grim reapers. Besides having three different loving titles, these revenants serve Death. They can sense mortals on the verge of death, and seek them out to drain their last bit of life. They’re all Sarkomenos, and they also have the power to appear as traditional grim reapers. They dislike other Un-dead, and actively try to destroy other revenants for the crime of cheating Death.

Hm, Salariati, a bit over 50 percent, renunciates, something over 33 percent, Ankou, less than 10 percent...math is hard when you’re dead, guys.


There are two full moons in this scene.

Vampires! They call themselves “dark angels, for many possess a dark, immortal beauty that lures mortals to their deaths.” Okay. Most vampires live in small covens. They don’t all have the same strengths and weaknesses, but their powers include shapeshifting, weather control, mind control, and superhuman strength and toughness. They drink blood.

There are three forms of vampire. Founders are Draculas, mortals who committed such unforgivable sins in life that they can’t rest in death. Many of them were pious in life; if so, they’re vulnerable to sunlight and holy symbols. Most of them are old and powerful. Scions are your standard vampire, created by another vampire. They share their creator’s strengths and weaknesses. Last are the dhampirs, humans who drank so much vampire blood they became blood-drinking immortals. They have to sleep, breathe, and eat normal food, but they’re immune to sunlight.

Scions and dhampir have to pick a consanguinity, a bloodline. There are so many of these, I’m making a list.

Bathora: Descended from Elizabeth Bathory. “They are among the most hip and seductive of the vampires.” They’re sunlight immune and know blood magic, but have no fangs.
Cihuateteo: They’re descended from the Peruvian Moche god, Ai Apaec, a seriously scary motherfucker who was usually depicted as a spider or a dude cutting people’s heads off. Go look it up. Anyway, they have spider-powers and illusion-powers, and prefer bleeding victims with their knives. They get a free Magickal Path.
Dakinis: From the Indian god Kali, most of them are assassins who can shapeshift into an eight-armed form resembling their progenitor.
Dracul: Dracula’s descendants share his array of powers, and they were responsible for the Age of Lamentations, the Blood Wars among vampirekind. (Goddammit, why does every loving thing in this game have two names?)
Kingu: Descendants of the Babylonian god, these guys are either grotesque carnival freaks or incredibly beautiful. (Mechanically, they all get a physical deformity or a mental illness.) They’re really good wizards.
Lamiae: Descended from an ancient Libyan queen, most of them are female and they can transform into, you guessed it, great white worms.
Lilim: Possibly the oldest bloodline. They can command spirits and birds of prey, and have demonic features like strange eyes, tails, little horns, and bat wings. They go as “slutty devil” for Halloween every year.
Nosferatu: Spawn of Czarnobog, the Black God of Slavonic myth, these fuckers look like, y’know, Orlok from Nosferatu. They’re immune to disease, masters of vermin, and have a power to make their face temporarily human.
Obayifo: North African zombie-masters who wear metal mouthpieces since they don’t have fangs. Is that cool? I think that’s cool. Like HHH in Blade: Trinity, but black.
Penanggalans: Malaysian wizards who can detach their heads and limbs and send them flying around. Other vampires consider them insane, because they are jealous.
Tantalusi: Greek vampires descended from the mythical Tantalus, they are honor-bound peacekeepers of the vampire world.
Xiang Shi: Descended from a Chinese warrior-king, they’re immune to many traditional vampire weaknesses. They also get a bonus to Martial Arts. Seriously. Because they’re Asian. Seriously.

The bonuses and flaws of the different consanguini--gently caress it, bloodlines don’t appear particularly well-balanced. I didn’t list them all here, both because it would be tedious and because sometimes the fluff description doesn’t match. For example, Kingu are called master magicians, but in parenthesis it says they just get a deformity and Supernature +1. The Bathora’s reputation for blood magic isn’t represented here; they just get Presence +1. And so on.

Overall, the selection of character types is...so-so. Ghuls and revenants got short shrift compared to vampires. The selection of vampire bloodlines is broad and frankly less Eurocentric than Vampire: the Masquerade. On the other hand, unless they do a good job developing them in the vampire-specific chapter, anybody could have done the same by picking blurbs out of a “vampire encyclopedia” like the one I bought from the Green Valley Book Fair...around the time this book was published.

Moving along.

Step 2: Concept (Twenty Questions)

We’re instructed to flesh out our character concept by answering 20 questions. I won’t listen them all here. They range from shallow, no-brainer stuff like your sex, age, and appearance, to more meaningful stuff like your character’s hobbies, religious beliefs, cultural background. There are some good ephemeral questions that you don’t see in many other games, like your characters major successes and failures, virtues and character flaws, how you make a living, and specifically, what evils have you committed, or turned a blind eye toward?

Step 3: Ethos (Optional)

This is what you want, this is what you get.
This is what you want, this is what you get.
--Public Image Ltd., “Order of Death”

This is the part you were waiting for. “In order to have real legendmaking, a protagonist must undertake a Hero’s Journey.” Everlasting asks you to choose an ethos for your character, representing the character arc of their Hero’s Journey. To be honest, deciding what sort of character arc you’re looking to create with your character, and sharing that with the GM--that’s good advice. The game also says that it’s optional. However, as you’ll soon see, there’s no reason to believe that this isn’t going to be a central feature of the rules. It also suggests that you choose an archetype that represents your own Hero’s Journey, lived vicariously through your character. Why take your meds when you’ve got Legendmaking?

Here is a heroic list of heroically journeying archetypes for you to legendmake your heroic journey legend, with a very brief description of the expected character arc.

Child: Personal growth from naivete and weakness to maturity and power.
Craven: Facing your fears and going from a reluctant hero to someone willing to risk himself for others.
Crusader: Championing an ideal. The crusader will either defeat their foes once and for all, or realize their crusade was wrong.
Enigma: Amnesia plot. You don’t know who you are. You have to find out the good, and the bad.
Explorer: Exploring new things, acquiring power and knowledge, taking a stand for or against what you’ve found.
Fatebound: A D&D 3rd edition prestige class. No, wait, it means you’re bound to a terrible destiny which you must embrace or escape.
Gloryseeker: You want to be The Best. If you do, you’ll either revel in it or move past it to be part of something bigger than yourself.
Healer: Your goal is to help others. You can also be a “dark healer” who exacts vengeance on behalf of the wronged.
Lover: Nothing will stop you from finding and protecting your true love.
Martyr: Sacrificing yourself for the greater good.
Outsider: Going from being one of those Dark Loner types to becoming a valued member of a group or society.
Penitent: You did something terrible, you have to make up for it. Then you and the Outsider form a Dark 90s Antihero squad.
Progenitor: You feel the need to create something great. If you do, you might preside over the period when your creation passes out of “childhood” and your control.
Promethean: You have to adventure to find something of great value which you will bring back and share with society. Then the Vault Overseer exiles you and you shoot him in the face.
Prophet: You know that something terrible is coming. It’s not enough to oppose it yourself, you have to convince others.
Schemer: Your life revolves around creating and bringing about some Master Plan. Your life is full of ridiculous, improbable events, and the name “J.J. Abrams” is tattooed on your rear end.
Scourge: You want to destroy something. Very likely you were wronged, and you want revenge. You may or may not be a half-Dracula.
Trickster: You survive by taking advantage of the naivete and conformity of others.
Wisdomseeker: You must overcome challenges and temptations to gain knowledge that will enlighten the world.

Overall, these aren’t bad. Some of them, like the Schemer, state outright that they’re best used for antagonist NPCs.


I do not eat...rice cakes.

Step 4: Persona (Optional)

Okay, this is where the Heroic Legendmaking Journey crap gets annoying as gently caress. Everlasting wants you to pick Persona traits to represent your character’s personality. You must have a minimum of 4 (one for each category), a maximum of 9, and they’re rated 1-6. Remember, we haven’t even been told about the ratings for Strength and Dexterity and Underwater Basketweaving yet!

There are three recommended methods for assigning points to your Persona traits. You can allocate 15 points, roll 2d12, or draw two cards--jacks are 11, queens are 12, kings are a re-draw. (This is the most insight we’ve received into the basic mechanic so far.) Having zero in a trait means indifference or average; you don’t write down traits with zero. A rating of 6 means you’re a fanatic. I don’t know why I want more points in my persona traits; being a fanatic for multiple beliefs and personality traits would make life difficult for me and everyone around me. Anyway, like I said, there are four categories of Persona traits.

Beliefs are political, religious, and moral opinions. Examples: Christianity, Islam, must protect innocents, not bound my mortal laws, filial piety, belief in aliens.

Outlooks are personality or behavioral traits. Examples: hedonistic, depressed, generous, level-headed, scatter-brained, angry.

Passions are your motivations and goals. Examples: Control Chicago, collect ancient manuscripts, play football, gambling, find a worthy pupil.

Relations are your attitudes toward other people, whether individuals, groups, or categorical prejudices. Examples: love sister, treat mortals as children, fear of the opposite sex, harm the weak, fear sorcerers.

If you wind up with a mental illness, these are called Dementia and treated as persona traits. If you get too many, the young vampires will put you in an assisted unliving facility.

Okay! This is already a long, long update, and we still have to do Steps 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9--the part where you actually create a character with stats for doing stuff more concrete than “like football” and “be Christian.” (Tim Tebow would make a terrible vampire.)

Next time, on The Everlasting: Character creation more or less as it exists in normal, sane roleplaying games.

Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 02:35 on Nov 9, 2013

GorfZaplen
Jan 20, 2012

Plague of Hats posted:

Hey so I made a site to put F&F reviews on both in case of thread archiving, to make them a bit easier to read (site formatting aside) and to allow them to be read despite the paywall. It is currently sparse, but I can copy-paste with the best of them. I am interested in getting permission from reviewers, though I can also abandon all my heroic work in the face of stern disapproval. Suggestions and pointers on how to make things look better or more readable are also a plus.

In case you don't check your PMs often (I have this problem) you have permission to put all my stuff up there.

Qwo
Sep 27, 2011

Traveller posted:

Almogavers it is!

Almogavers
This is really, really incredibly cool. I can't wait for more! :allears:

Tasoth
Dec 13, 2011
Almogavers gets my approval. That's some awesome history.

Are the ghuls are riff on Lovecraft's ghouls? It sure seems like it.

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003

La morte non ha sesso
Ghuls aren't described in detail until Chapter 4. You know as much as I do.

You're pretty much right, though, except the thing about ghuls having their origin in a magic potion. That's original and interesting, but dividing them into subtypes based on which flavour of Ghoul-Aid they drank is goofy and incredibly lazy.

But how would ghouls even have a culture? It's not like Lovecraft or any of his contemporaries wrote a story you could mine for ideas, nope nope.

Bieeanshee
Aug 21, 2000

Not keen on keening.


Grimey Drawer
While I am by no means a fan of Campbell, the Hero's Journey is nonetheless a pretty good starting point for building legendry in a basic narrative like your average RPG campaign. Assuming you can keep the PCs from sidejacking their descent into darkness, or whatever. That noted, those 'optional' bits look like a huge puddle of wank, some crappy slamming together of oWoD's Nature, Demeanor and Virtues.

The ghuls though? As presented so far, I kind of like them... but I'm imagining this potion they've taken as the end result of the alchemical Magnum Opus, transforming the imbiber not into a transcendent, divine entity, but rather into something inextricably linked to the rot end of the cycle of death and rebirth.

devilmaydry
Sep 3, 2012

I only take special jobs, if you know what I mean.
So I have a Double Cross question. How many sessions make up a campaign, and how long is a session supposed to be?

I know that Japanese RPGs tend to be very differently paced compared to western ones but I was thinking of running this at some point so I need to know how it's paced while I'm waiting for my book to arrive.

Count Chocula
Dec 25, 2011

WE HAVE TO CONTROL OUR ENVIRONMENT
IF YOU SEE ME POSTING OUTSIDE OF THE AUSPOL THREAD PLEASE TELL ME THAT I'M MISSED AND TO START POSTING AGAIN
The Hero's Journey is so overuse I saw it applied to Annie Hall in one book.

I know I'm like a broken record with 'Unknown Armies did it better', but that game also has clear rules for playing an archetypical figure and gaining power through adherence to that archetype.

Fossilized Rappy posted:

As pretty much everyone else has stated, I'm down with it.



Falstaff: Definitely one of the weirder prestige classes I've seen, the Faltstaff is a prestige class dedicated to making your character a fat oaf. Not only do they automatically become 30% heavier upon the first level of the class, but also have class features that include a bonus to attack rolls when they are eating or drinking while they fight, a collection of first level Commoners as an entourage, and the ability to deal collateral damage with a melee or ranged attack a number of times per day that increases the less Dexterity the character has. Similarly, while most of the prestige class's numbers are pretty average, with d6 hit die, average progression for Base Attack Bonus and Reflex saves, and good Fortitude save progression,the class actually gives you a penalty to Will saves that increases the more levels you have in the class. It would certainly be an interesting character to play, to say the least. :psyduck:



Falstaff is so popular he's appeared in about 10 other operas and plays since his appearance in Henry IV; the production I saw had him as sort of a fat old punk/biker type. It's a weird prestige class, but now I sorta want to write up other Shakespere characters as D&D classes.

Count Chocula fucked around with this message at 06:43 on Nov 9, 2013

jadarx
May 25, 2012

devilmaydry posted:

So I have a Double Cross question. How many sessions make up a campaign, and how long is a session supposed to be?

I know that Japanese RPGs tend to be very differently paced compared to western ones but I was thinking of running this at some point so I need to know how it's paced while I'm waiting for my book to arrive.

The three scenarios they include in the corebook have play times of 3-4 hours. Campaign play gets a little blurb about how you are just stringing scenarios together. At a glance, there really isn't any advice on running campaigns.

The scenarios seem to be paced pretty similar to something in a western rpg. From what I've heard from AndyK and Ewen, japanese rpg players don't have the weekly rpg group that you see here, so a lot of the games are setup to play all in one sitting. Quick chargen, scenario and wrap-up in one night.

GorfZaplen
Jan 20, 2012

:getin:

Black Tokyo: The Races of Black Japan

quote:

The delightful monsters described in Black Tokyo Legends: Races of the Tatakama aren’t the only character options for the players in the setting. The Tatakama is an endlessly changing, ever-new realm of wonders, and in the Black Else, the only way to survive is to mutate and evolve. And in the Earth realm, greed and lust have combined to breed entirely new species of submissive sex-pets that blend human, animal and robotic traits into a seductive whole.
I'd like to point out that in Chris Field's new setting, Heavy Future, there is to be an ero-bot source book soon, not that this robot fetish is surprising to begin with. I'm going to review Heavy Future and it's parent setting, Galaxy Command, after this.

quote:

New species emerge with alarming regularity; some temple maidens claim that there is an oni for every lustful thought ever shared by a human. If that’s true, the Black Else is home to an endless array of monsters. And some of these monsters venture into the Earth Realm, to protect or plague humanity…

These new races spend the majority of their existences in the Earth Realm, and even though they are creatures of magic themselves, are strangely uncomfortable in the Tatakama, for one reason or another.

The book wastes no time and gets straight to the races.

The Doujinshi

quote:

In Black Tokyo, ordinary mortals may be creatures of magic and not even realize it. Doujinishi is a term for fan created, often erotic parodies and homages of pop culture phenomena. In Black Tokyo, the love, lust and obsession needed to create a Doujinishi artwork can also create a soul.


Doujinishi are literally wank fantasies brought to life. You can actually skip over the rest of this section and not miss a thing because it all points to this.

Doujinishi aren't created on purpose. They just show up in the wild, brought forth by those with the potential to become Harem Mages. They are the product of "wet dreams and Bristol-board fantasies." Most of them don't even know that they're actually fictional, thinking that they're normal men and women instead. When they appear, the universe creates whole fictional histories, their school and work history, and even memories to accomodate the Doujinishi. Their lives are "governed by the logic of hentai, pornography and adventure." :stonk: "Lustful predators are drawn to the Doujinishi as a favorite prey, because they enjoy feeding on such an unabasadely erotic being" :stonk:

They look like people, but like a 15-year-old's definition of hot. The women have "fabulous, perfectly spherical breasts that defy gravity". The dudes are either "willowy, adnrogynous bishonen" or muscular manly men, depending on the fantasy that spawned them. All Doujinishi have naturally colorful hair that "seems to writhe and coil and billow in non-existent winds." Their hair is more likely to be colored green or yellow or blue than normal colors. Ordinary people seem to ignore their insane hair color and awful styles, it's as though they see it while simultaneaously not seeing it. Speaking of styles, Doujinishi wear as little as they can get away with, unless it's expensive or fashionable. They favor designer clothes, hand sewn kimonos and "tiny little tops that seem poised on the verge of falling right off."

We are then treated to a poorly-drawn picture of a blue-haired, dark skinned naked woman riding cowgirl on a guy in a red shirt. The woman appears fierce and angered. The man appears to either be confused or fearful, or high as hell. None of their hands are actually touching anything in particular.

Doujinishi are sexually compatible wiht humans and most other forms of life. They like sex and give no shits about social taboos. They "gently caress often, they gently caress noisily, and they gently caress anywhere they want." Their charm and force of personality lets them get away with it. However, they can't become pregnant!!! The only way they can crate more life is to become a Harem Mage.

They love the city. They thrive on "karoke, alcohol and pounding dubstep". They loving love Shinjuku, they loving hate the country.

quote:

The absolutely only reason a Doujinishi would ever willingly live in a rural area is if they were created from a bestiality fan-fic.

Oh, Jesus, I forgot Chris used Pathfinder as his base system. Okay, they're outsiders with the native subtype. They can be resurrected in the Earth Realm, but if they die in Tatakama they're done for.

They have +2 CON and +2 CHA because they are good at loving and are sexy, respectively. Their focus on sex makes them dumber, however. Because they are living fiction, they have perfect awareness of our entertainment. They automatically succeed on all Knowledge(pop culture) checks. They are all bisexual by nature and receve +2 racial bonus on sexually oriented Bluff and Diplomacy checks made against members of their own gender because that is how fanfiction works. Because they are "imbued with the soul of a great artist hidden beneath a hyper-sexualized facade" they get one ponus skill point per level if they take the Personality or Harem Mage advanced class.

This is actually a pretty cool idea: the fact that they're living fiction makes them weak against the will of artists and dreamers, so enemies with 5 or more ranks in Craft (writing or visual arts) gain a +1 on attack rolls, saving throws and opposed skill checks against a Doujinishi. Since this is Pathfinder that is basically useless, but it's a cool idea.

Doujinishi get something called the "Pink Zone", which I refuse to read. which is completely loving awful and negates anything cool that came before it. Basically they can easily convince people into having sex if they're friendly or better, and it makes reference to a book called Sex & Story, so gently caress me I guess I have something else to review. Three times a day, a player can dictate the sexual behavior of a Friendly NPC for a single encounter. If it dramatically violates their code of ethics or is extremely taboo, they get a will save to resist :stonk: Otherwise, "those around you throw themselves into bizarre orgies and random hook-ups with joyous abandon."

They are immune to sleep, fatigue,sickened and nauseated conditions.



Nope. Next one.

Lucky Drop gives them a +1 luck bonus to all saving throws and Profession and Perform checks in exchange for the sleep/fatigue/sickness resistance.

In exchange for bonus skill points in certain Advanced Classes (it's worse than Pathfinder, it's loving d20 Modern) they get a bonus spell point for each level they gain in the Modern Spellcaster Basic Class and get a +3 bonus on WILL against Illusion.

If you want to get rid of the PINK ZONE you can receive lowlight vision and Darkvision with a range of 60 ft. They also get +2 on Stealth and Intimidate checks made in conditions of dim illumination or worse.

Another thing you can replace Pink Zone with is the ability to have a latex nurse uniform. You receive "Lemon-Pink Hospital" as a racial bonus feat, and I have no loving idea what that does and have no urge to find out.

NEXT TIME: these schoolgirl undead ensure their bodies will never change, their breasts will never sag,

GorfZaplen fucked around with this message at 08:28 on Nov 9, 2013

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!

Now you know my pain, Graf. Have fun suffering.

GimmickMan
Dec 27, 2011

Semi-interesting ideas buried under a bunch of excuses to have all sorts of hosed up pretend sex with dice rolls and bad math in the middle. Yep, that's Fields alright. Cue laugh track.

AmiYumi
Oct 10, 2005

I FORGOT TO HAIL KING TORG

Halloween Jack posted:

Kingu: Descendants of the Babylonian god, these guys are either grotesque carnival freaks or incredibly beautiful. (Mechanically, they all get a physical deformity or a mental illness.) They’re really good wizards.

So beautiful.

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003

La morte non ha sesso

GorfZaplen posted:

:getin:

Black Tokyo: The Races of Black Japan

I'm going to be blunt: Are we still doing this poo poo? Can we start reviewing slashfic in the Book Barn, then?

MadScientistWorking
Jun 23, 2010

"I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

Halloween Jack posted:

I'm going to be blunt: Are we still doing this poo poo? Can we start reviewing slashfic in the Book Barn, then?
Actually if I remember correctly there is a book review going on that involves a character that the creator of Black Tokyo says would fit right into the setting. I really wish I could remember where I heard about it too.
EDIT:
Hahahaha.... Now I remember what Double Cross reminds me of. Its Wild Cards without the horrible slashfic tendencies.

MadScientistWorking fucked around with this message at 16:33 on Nov 9, 2013

Bitchtits McGee
Jul 1, 2011

Mr. Bones says, THE RIDE NEVER ENDS posted:

Black Tokyo: The Races of Black Japan

Oh thank God. I was just the other day starting to reconsider my decision not to give this sack of waste any more of my money, but now it turns out I don't have to after all.


FIIIIIIIEEEEEEEELLLLDS!! :doom:

yay I'm helping posted:

Another thing you can replace Pink Zone with is the ability to have a latex nurse uniform. You receive "Lemon-Pink Hospital" as a racial bonus feat, and I have no loving idea what that does and have no urge to find out.

Hey, I recognize that from Races of the Tatakama: "Your fluids- especially your urine and love juices- are potent magical panaceas. The messier your orgasm, the more healing fluids you produce." No need to thank me! :downs:

Halloween Jack posted:

I'm going to be blunt: Are we still doing this poo poo?

It's notably awful TG stuff, innit?

FourmyleCircus
Sep 15, 2013

GorfZaplen posted:

:getin:

Black Tokyo: The Races of Black Japan

I'd like to point out that in Chris Field's new setting, Heavy Future, there is to be an ero-bot source book soon, not that this robot fetish is surprising to begin with. I'm going to review Heavy Future and it's parent setting, Galaxy Command, after this.

Isn't that the one with the Bacta Hot Tub? Or did that not make it into the book? A "friend" of mine linked me to his blog a while back, which explained the new type of elemental damage he was adding in Heavy Future. Pleasure damage.

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003

La morte non ha sesso
Nope!

I reviewed Carcosa because it's a physically published book with high production values, and managed to get a lot of attention and not a few people singing its praises. Cthulhutech is a full game line with a lot of notable features besides the disturbing current of sexual violence running through it. James Desborough is at least notable for kicking up a tempest-in-a-teapot by being associated with and later dismissed by Mongoose.

The fact that everyone can now put their personal masturbation fantasies up on an online retailer's site with a PoD option does not make them notable published works. If we're going to review all this crap we might as well start reviewing every WoD fan supplement from BJ Zanzibar's site. With rape.

I'm sorry, I've just had my fill of Anime Death Tentacle Babyraper and could do without any more of that kind of thing in F&F unless it becomes a phenomenon in its own right.

MadScientistWorking
Jun 23, 2010

"I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

Halloween Jack posted:

I'm sorry, I've just had my fill of Anime Death Tentacle Babyraper and could do without any more of that kind of thing in F&F unless it becomes a phenomenon in its own right.
Ok. You've convinced me. I'm going to review something just as bad. :getin:

PleasingFungus
Oct 10, 2012
idiot asshole bitch who should fuck off

Halloween Jack posted:

Nope!

I reviewed Carcosa because it's a physically published book with high production values, and managed to get a lot of attention and not a few people singing its praises. Cthulhutech is a full game line with a lot of notable features besides the disturbing current of sexual violence running through it. James Desborough is at least notable for kicking up a tempest-in-a-teapot by being associated with and later dismissed by Mongoose.

The fact that everyone can now put their personal masturbation fantasies up on an online retailer's site with a PoD option does not make them notable published works. If we're going to review all this crap we might as well start reviewing every WoD fan supplement from BJ Zanzibar's site. With rape.

I'm sorry, I've just had my fill of Anime Death Tentacle Babyraper and could do without any more of that kind of thing in F&F unless it becomes a phenomenon in its own right.

I'm just going to add to this that this will be, I think, roughly the dozenth Fatal & Friends Fields review. If it's not quite, it's close.

Ariamaki
Jun 30, 2011

"I'm the most powerful
search engine in the world!"
-- The GoogleProg

Halloween Jack posted:

Nope!

The fact that everyone can now put their personal masturbation fantasies up on an online retailer's site with a PoD option does not make them notable published works.


NOPE!

This thread is literally named after FATAL. One of the least notable RPGs ever penned by "human" hands. If it were not for reviews of it, the game would likely have never so much as seen a printing press, once, ever. This thread is for things that are "notably awful or notably awesome", not "notable and then either awful or awesome". The game itself could be a one-man piece of work that has only ever been seen or played BY that one man, and if it was sufficiently horrifying or incredible? It would belong here.


Back on actual topics, and speaking of the notably awesome:

RISUS
IT'S COMING

A fun pair of highlights / factoids for those not familiar with the material:

The entire core rulebook is six pages long!
--- Over half of that is pictures!
------ A full page of it is legal text and a table of contents!
Across every single supplement ever published for Risus, there have only been two characters ever displayed in the art.
--- The same two.
------ Every time.

GimmickMan
Dec 27, 2011

I will say that lots and lots of the sameish material does get old, but it is pretty useful for when you want to point out to new players which 'authors' to avoid and why.

Also horrible things are entertaining.

ThisIsNoZaku
Apr 22, 2013

Pew Pew Pew!
The Fields stuff has lost it's novelty.

The shame-parade of CthuluTech works because it gets progressively weirder, more deranged and vile as the line progresses. The Fields stuff is just as bad as it's always been, so it feels like a lot of rehashing.

Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry
Hey everybody! My copy of DX is (according to USPS Tracking) out for delivery!

We now rejoin our tasteless gaming debate...

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003

La morte non ha sesso

Ariamaki posted:

This thread is literally named after FATAL. One of the least notable RPGs ever penned by "human" hands. If it were not for reviews of it, the game would likely have never so much as seen a printing press, once, ever.
FATAL had a years-long reputation before the thread was started, and to some extent Sartin and MacLennan's review started something that we're carrying on here. Games don't have to have a print run to be notable, but there should be something more to them than "Hey guys, did you know some people not only have gross fantasies, but post them to the Internet?" FATAL is unique in the way its grossness is conveyed through such an utterly spergy system.

I could knock Naruto D20 or WoD: Children of the Dollhouse for being non-notable fan supplements, but frankly, they're interesting. They're both charming in their earnestness, and as an added bonus, I don't have to read about puerile anime and rape. The Dollhouse creator is a complete mark for his Mary-Sue munchkin fantasies, and the Naruto D20 creator put a lot of work into wedging Naruto into the D20 system. These Black Tokyo supplements, on the other hand, put minimal work into wedging tentacles into toddlers. "Tentacle rape demons get +2 Con. Their death dicks do 1d8 damage." I get it. I'm jaded at this point.

But if I'm in the minority here, forget it. I've said my piece.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!
I certainly wouldn't review those books. It's fine if other people do, but I have no idea how you people stand it.

Hell, I don't know RPGNow puts up with it. Callousness? Ignorance? Hosting and collecting a percentage on this stuff is pretty gross.

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003

La morte non ha sesso
BTW, is Double Cross for sale in PDF form anywhere?

If anyone's planning to run it on the forums, how would you? I don't know how to run an online game of something not widely available and I wouldn't want to pirate a game that's not free or OOP.

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unseenlibrarian
Jun 4, 2012

There's only one thing in the mountains that leaves a track like this. The creature of legend that roams the Timberline. My people named him Sasquatch. You call him... Bigfoot.

Halloween Jack posted:

BTW, is Double Cross for sale in PDF form anywhere?

If anyone's planning to run it on the forums, how would you? I don't know how to run an online game of something not widely available and I wouldn't want to pirate a game that's not free or OOP.

Not legally- my understanding is that the licensing terms for the game prevent any kind of electronic release. Which suggests mainly that they need to get the TBZ guys to negotiate a license for them next time, since Tenra Bansho Zero is by the same publisher and a pdf version of it didn't have any issues.

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