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DigitalRaven posted:Mark's alter-ego didn't get mentioned much, but he is there: Günter Häagen•Däaz. All the Black Dog names are plays on White Wolf staffers' names, but most people were never that far down the rabbit-hole of internal references. Charlie Bates the Managing editor and creator of Aeon did that comic. His first pro work was the art for the RTG Dream Park game actually.
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Jan 6, 2015 00:26
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Yup, though pretty much all of the RPG work he did for WW (eg. Trinity) was under his middle name as Andrew Bates.
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Jan 6, 2015 00:47
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Kai Tave posted:Nah, I'm inclined to think it's more I think it's both, honestly.
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Jan 6, 2015 00:50
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Young Freud posted:I remembering coming up with a 15-second game idea off some fanbook based off the Prototype games that came up in one of the early FATAL and Friends threads which was essentially, "Thing: The Invasion". I do think one of the other fan games, Leviathan: The Tempest, is pretty cool. But it's mostly the subject matter. I'm not the biggest fan of the WoD system.
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Jan 6, 2015 01:21
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Golden Bee posted:The idea of a party constructed only of succubi is hilarious. Given the starry tales of love and whimsy that were oWoD's stock in trade, I'm guessing Monster Hearts: the College Years.
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Jan 6, 2015 01:23
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Bieeardo posted:Given the starry tales of love and whimsy that were oWoD's stock in trade, I'm guessing Monster Hearts: the College Years. That or most of them start channeling Fall-From-Grace and specializing in slaking needs and lusts that aren't sexual.
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Jan 6, 2015 02:56
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Cythereal posted:That or most of them start channeling Fall-From-Grace and specializing in slaking needs and lusts that aren't sexual. Can I play Old Eastern European Mother Succubus, whose specific need is for filling, beet-based cooking?
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Jan 6, 2015 03:09
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Cythereal posted:That or most of them start channeling Fall-From-Grace and specializing in slaking needs and lusts that aren't sexual. So... Demon: The Fallen? That would be some delicious irony, R*H ripping off the one White Wolf line he had no part in.
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Jan 6, 2015 03:24
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Kurieg posted:So... Demon: The Fallen? That would be some delicious irony, R*H ripping off the one White Wolf line he had no part in. Not familiar with Demon: The Fallen. Fall-From-Grace is a succubus in Planescape: Torment who's entirely chaste and specializes in slaking intellectual lusts - she and her peers at their brothel provide stimulating intellectual conversation, play chess and other games of strategy, and the like.
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Jan 6, 2015 03:32
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 I don't remember if anyone here has covered this thing yet, but we just did! Here's Fantasy Imperium, and it's a hot wet fart in a crowded room. I hated this goddamn book.
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Jan 6, 2015 05:40
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theironjef posted:
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Jan 6, 2015 06:05
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The storm has a name... - Let's Read TORG Part 4: Interactions, violent and otherwise This post is going to cover a couple of chapters of the GM's section, since they're all related. We start with a full chapter on "Attributes and Skills", which is something you'd expect to be in the player's section but whatever. Really there's very little about attributes, though, apart from the fact that every skill is tied to a specific attribute, and if you try to use a skill without any adds you just use the base stat value (assuming it's something you can do unskilled). Before we go any further, there are two things I'd like to point out:
Needless to say, Torg has a fairly granular skill list. There's a space vehicles skill, for instance, because that's a thing you'll be doing a lot. There are four separate skills for magic, and two for miracles (which is divine magic as opposed to wizard-style magic, and of course has completely different rules). Acrobatics, running, and long jump are all separate skills. And again, that's not including the skills that are cosm-specific or added in later books. It's not as bad as, say, BESM (where you had to buy every possible type of attack and defense separately), but given how few skill adds you start out with, you have to be pretty focused to be effective. The skill list also has that old design mindset of making everything a character might want to do as its own skill, regardless of how rarely the skill would have to be rolled, or how unlikely it'd be to have to know a degree of success with said skill. For example, there's an artist skill that lets you paint/sculpt/compose/etc, but the only thing the skill determines is the quality of the created work, which has no mechanical use. Nothing about how much it'd cost to make, how much you could sell it for, or why you'd want to spend your hard-to-come-by skill adds in it. It's a point sink. It's just a skill for the sake of having a skill, because back in the 90's (and sadly, up to the 3.X era) you couldn't just let people do hobby/background stuff because of balance or some poo poo. There are optional rules for narrowing skills down if you don't think the list is granular enough, or broadening the scope if you don't like having so many skills. You can also get a "trademark item" for a skill by spending three possibilities; when you use your trademark item your effective skill increases by 2. This is not the current-RPG-style "you will always have this item" deal where the trademark item has a level of plot immunity, however. quote:The item cannot be replaced. If it is permanently lost or destroyed, the specialization is lost, and must be bought again for another such item. Only one "trademark" item may be specialized per skill, and if the character has a type specialization as well, the trademark must be of that type. Anyway this chapter is a detailed run-down of how to use the skills that don't get chapters to themselves (like the combat or magic skills), but there are some...interesting quirks here. There's a flight skill, which determines your ability to fly under your own power (flying a plane uses air vehicles). Note that the only way you can fly is to 1) have a spell that lets you fly, 2) have a special power that allows you to fly, or 3) be of a non-human race with flight (which isn't possible in the core set). In other words, only two archetypes in the core set will get any use out of this skill, and even once things expand it's not going to get used that much. There's rules to determine how long it took you to get somewhere with your running or climbing skill. There's no pickpocket skill; instead we have prestidigitation, which is the ability to pick pockets. And then there's the language skill. Torg is, unsurprisingly, intended to be a globetrotting game. Which can cause a problem when you have people from different parts of the world on the same team, who probably wouldn't all be able to speak the same languages. There are a few ways that RPGs deal with this:
The language skill doesn't determine how many languages you know, or how well you know the ones you do. It determines your ability to understand a language or dialect you, and I quote, do not speak and have never heard before. It's only difficulty 12 to recognize a completely foreign language, and the quality of the success determines how much of the language you just happen to know. A "minimal" success (the best you can get unskilled) lets you communicate using pigdin "slowly and loudly" methods, whereas a "good" or better success gives you complete understanding of the language. So let's say I'm Joe American, skilled in languages at 11 (slightly-above-average Intelligence and one add) and I find myself talking to a Chinese speaker for the first time in my life. I make a skill roll, and if I generate a bonus value of +1 or better (a roll of 13+) then that's a minimal success and I can roughly understand what he's saying and can get basic ideas across. If I get a good success (which means beating the difficulty by 3, which means a final total of 15, which will require a roll of 16+) then I magically know Chinese. That's a 25% chance to just happen to speak a completely foreign language the first time I encounter it. If it's a similar language base to mine (such as Spanish to French) then it's easier. No, I have no idea why they did it that way. The next chapter is "Using the Drama Deck". This is more GM advice on how to expand on the things the card will tell you (like what it means when the villains get an Up result) and work it into the overall story, both mechanically and narratively. One new thing here is Dramatic Skill Resolution, which is for those moments where you want to expand the resolution of an important action to more than just the result of one single skill roll. This is for things like trying to beat a timer or reach someone before they accomplish their own task, and it uses the middle row of the Drama Deck cards.  as seen here When you're doing a dramatic skill resolution, you break the single use of a skill (like science to shut down a missile launch console) down into a maximum of four separate steps labeled A, B, C, and D, and assign a single difficulty for the overall challenge. You can assign one task to more than one letter. Let's take the "disarm the launch console" example. I could say that step A is figuring out the password, step B is finding the launch control part of the software, step C is disarming the missile warhead, and step D is cancelling the launch. I could also say that getting into the system is both steps A and B if I wanted, but let's stay with the four-step setup and say that the difficulty is 10. A character can only attempt to do one step per round, and can only perform steps that are showing on the top card of the Action Stack (i.e., the card that is currently being used for initiative). Not only that, but steps have to be performed in order. You can't disarm the warhead until after you get into the system. On the plus side, if the card shows more than one sequential step, you can try to multi-action your way through them in one round. As cards get flipped, you can run into setbacks. Drawing a "possible setback" moves you back one step ("oops, looks like the computer locked you out of the system"), while a "complication" card increases the difficulty of the remaining steps by 1. If you fail a skill roll during a challenge, then there's no problem beyond wasted time...unless a "critical problem" card is in play. If you fail with that card in play, you have two options: either start over from step A ("dammit, this must be the wrong login. Now I gotta start again"), or start using a different skill ("The computer's locked up hard, but I think I can get under the controls and rewire things"). If the player can't complete all the steps before whatever timer he's trying to beat runs out, he can attempt a Last Ditch Effort succeed; he attempts to perform all the remaining steps with a One-On-Many skill use with +4 to the difficulty. Now, that's all well and good, but the problem is that you're at the mercy of the card flips for determining what steps you can try to accomplish. Which means it can be a little tricky for the GM to work out how much time to give the players. quote:To have a good chance of having the sequence A,B,C, and D appear in order requires 14 cards to be flipped if the character is going do the steps one at a time, or about 10 cards if the character is skilled enough to attempt two when the opportunity presents itself. If your characters have high skill levels (larger than the difficulty number), good cards, and no other pressing business, five flips is fine; otherwise we recommend giving them seven to 10 flips before disaster strikes. There is one card I forgot to mention before, and that's the Glory card. Playing a Glory card actually requires you to roll a 60 or more on an action that has a direct important impact on the scene. If you manage to pull that off, then every character gets an additional 3 possibilities at the end of the adventure. There's also another effect, but I'll get to that later. The next chapter is about Character Interaction, which is an expansion of the charm, persuasion, and intimidation skills that already had a bunch of text back in the player's chapter. Charm has the most mechanics, because it has the most conditions (charming someone "requires five minutes at the minimum", by the way). Ultimately, charm is used to move people's attitudes up the Interaction Results Table. You roll against the target's willpower (which is a skill, based off Mind), and if you succeed their attitude towards you improves a bit. If you do well, you can even get a permanent effect out of it. If you fail, then you can't charm them anymore that scene unless you attempt to press the issue. If you press things and succeed, it's a normal success. If you fail, though, then the target's attitude drops one step. Persuasion is also a roll against Willpower, and is more about getting people to do what you want rather than making them like you. Again, there's a chart you move up and down to determine the target's overall reaction. You can also use it for haggling. quote:Haggling takes place in alternating rounds, usually using the drama deck to determine initiative and advantages. quote:Example: The usual market price for a stereo is 250 dollars. This measure has a value of 12. If the offer was 101-250 dollars (value of 11-12), the merchant's attitude would be neutral. If the offer was 61-100 dollars, the merchant would be hostile, at 41-60 he would be enemy; the offer could not be less than 41. If the offer was 251+ dollars, the merchant would be friendly. Yeah, in case you were wondering why I'm rushing through these sections? That's why. These chapters are crunchy as hell, and it's not even entertaining crunch. On the plus side, there's a lot of examples, but you have to ask why the hell you need this level of complication to use a simple social skill. The only social skill that doesn't need a lot of space is intimidation, and that's because it really only has two uses: to awe someone to get them to freeze and miss an action in combat, or to interrogate someone, which is like persuasion but meaner. But enough about talking to people! It's time for the "Combat and Chases" chapter! And again, this is mostly a rehashing of the player's chapter on combat, only with more detail and a few more rules that the GM is supposed to be the custodian of, like range modifiers. Remember, the player just rolls a result on his skill and the GM is expected to add all the modifiers and determine the result. Just as a refresher, there's nine possible actions you can take during your turn, and you get one action per turn:
You'll notice that some of these actions look a little repetitious. That's because they're all basically the same skill; the only differences is what attribute they use, what skill you roll against, and which column of the Interaction Results table you use. Really, that's it. The only difference between taunt and trick in combat is that the first is based off Charisma and is resisted with the taunt skill, whereas the second is based off Mind and is resisted with test. I feel like this is an attempt to solve the old "the guy with Str 18 and Cha 9 is less intimidating than the Str 9/Cha 18 guy" problem, but it's probably the dumbest way to go about it. We also get a rundown of the various "effects" that can come up in combat, either through the Drama Deck or through skill use:
There are a few things here that I don't think we covered before, like aiming (+3 attack value for each round you aim) or called shots (-8 to the final value of the attack, but +4 damage value), but ultimately they boil down to "take -X to attack to get +Y to something else". There's also a little more about armor; specifically how armor increases Toughness, but only up to a certain point (bolding mine): quote:Armor absorbs much of the punishment meant for characters. Armor increases the character's Toughness for purposes of resisting damage, up to a maximum value as listed in the equipment section (Gamemaster Chapter Twelve). The amount of increase is called the armor add. The maximum value is necessary for realism, to prevent wrapping a battleship in leather to make it tougher, when the leather would be completely ineffective against the attack forms against which a battleship is armored. That's some grogs.txt poo poo right there.Moving on, we learn of the two types of surprise: complete (where the attacked party wasn't expecting it at all) and normal (where the attacked party was expecting something, but didn't know what or from where). Complete surprise lets the attackers play two cards into their hands before combat, normal only gets you one. There's also some rules for movement (base movement is 10 meters/round) and explosives (they always hit if you're in the blast radius) before we close out with the Chase rules. Basically, when you're chasing someone, you need two totals. First, each side rolls their appropriate skills (like The second total is used to determine how far everyone's going in the round. You take bonus number of the first roll and add it to your movement value, and then use that total on the Push Results Table to determine how far you moved this round. Interestingly for a high-action game, there's more rules for haggling than there are for car chases. Okay, I know that was rushed. I did that for two reasons. First, I don't think anyone's paying attention to the preliminary rules chapters because you only care about the setting stuff. Second, it's because the rules, while complicated, aren't that interesting. Really, everything in the skill and combat chapters more or less boils down to "roll this skill, add a number, and look it up on one of the dozen GM tables". It's just dull, in the way that only something needlessly complex can be dull. But look at the bright side! Next post will be about possibilities, axioms, world laws, realms, cosms, and High Lords! You know, the part you've all been waiting for! NEXT TIME: The metaphysics of the multiverse! Narrative physics! More useless numbers!
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Jan 6, 2015 16:21
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Torg's "don't get too attached to your character concept" mindset reminds me of Monte Cook's The Strange, where two-thirds of your character's descriptors can completely change when they travel from one world to another. If your mystical dino-shaman gets turned into a tommy-gun-toting pulp adventurer in Torg, is that just what the game expects or do you have a chance to get back to the original concept at some point?
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Jan 6, 2015 17:18
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Just Dan Again posted:Torg's "don't get too attached to your character concept" mindset reminds me of Monte Cook's The Strange, where two-thirds of your character's descriptors can completely change when they travel from one world to another. See, if it was just a case of your hell-on-wheels-with-a-rifle guy going to the fantasy world and becoming hell-on-wheels-with-a-crossbow or magic wand, then I'm actually okay with that. But in Torg, you can change into something utterly different. I already mentioned how in one game I was in, our super-spy became a hotheaded tribal warrior, and my two-fisted private eye became a grimdark soldier of a grimdark world. quote:If your mystical dino-shaman gets turned into a tommy-gun-toting pulp adventurer in Torg, is that just what the game expects or do you have a chance to get back to the original concept at some point?
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Jan 6, 2015 17:50
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Evil Mastermind posted:The Strange may be the world's first Torg Heartbreaker. I was so disappointed when I found out it was just another d20 game. I'd kill a man (or at least wound one) for a Fate-powered version of Torg. Nah, it's Numenera (with all its stupidities). I oughta do a quick runthrough of it, though. There is some stupid poo poo in there.
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Jan 6, 2015 17:53
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Cythereal posted:Not familiar with Demon: The Fallen. Fall-From-Grace is a succubus in Planescape: Torment who's entirely chaste and specializes in slaking intellectual lusts - she and her peers at their brothel provide stimulating intellectual conversation, play chess and other games of strategy, and the like. The Brothel of Slaking Intellectual Lusts is one of the (many) things that makes Torment so goddamn great.
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Jan 6, 2015 18:00
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TORG is a very Buddhist roleplaying game.
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Jan 6, 2015 18:12
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Kellsterik posted:TORG is a very Buddhist roleplaying game. How do you mean?
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Jan 6, 2015 18:21
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inklesspen posted:Nah, it's Numenera (with all its stupidities). I oughta do a quick runthrough of it, though. There is some stupid poo poo in there. Tulul started one but the last post he made on it was over a year ago.
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Jan 6, 2015 18:24
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The Bundle of Holding just posted this:quote:And on Thursday we present an all-new offer featuring one of the classic multi-genre RPGs of the past. Dare I hope? 
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Jan 6, 2015 19:15
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It'll be GURPS.
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Jan 6, 2015 19:21
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Evil Mastermind posted:How do you mean? I was mostly joking, but the idea of not being able to stick with your original character concept because you change so radically in different cosms, plus not being able to hold onto your trademark items from skills, really plays into the idea of nonattachment. It would actually be very interesting if it were intentional 
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Jan 6, 2015 19:21
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inklesspen posted:It'll be GURPS.  Kellsterik posted:I was mostly joking, but the idea of not being able to stick with your original character concept because you change so radically in different cosms, plus not being able to hold onto your trademark items from skills, really plays into the idea of nonattachment. It would actually be very interesting if it were intentional To be fair, transformation isn't that common, but it's still something that can be forced on your character. What's more commonplace is just kind of getting "desynched" from your reality, which has its own problems. I'm rewriting the next post now about the reality mechanics and holy poo poo this is the most confusing thing I've ever written in my life. I don't even think I can follow it, and I wrote it.
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Jan 6, 2015 19:29
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Evil Mastermind posted:How do you mean? If you meet the designer on the road, kill him. inklesspen posted:It'll be GURPS. Amazing Engine.
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Jan 6, 2015 19:35
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Amazing Engine had some great ideas bizarrely executed. Bughunters, Galactos Barrier, and Kromosome were kind of generic. But the rest, especially Tabloid and Once and Future King (Camelot 3000, the RPG!), were actually pretty cool.
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Jan 6, 2015 19:52
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TORG sounds more like Sucker Punch, and I call dibs on playing Rocket. The multi-genre game? Crowdfunded game bundles sounds like something Kevin Siembieda could have discovered yesterday...
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Jan 6, 2015 19:58
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:Amazing Engine had some great ideas bizarrely executed. Bughunters, Galactos Barrier, and Kromosome were kind of generic. But the rest, especially Tabloid and Once and Future King (Camelot 3000, the RPG!), were actually pretty cool. I would honestly love to get my hands on AE. It came out when I was a snotty little grogling, and I think I missed some neat settings and mechanics.
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Jan 6, 2015 21:39
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Bieeardo posted:I would honestly love to get my hands on AE. It came out when I was a snotty little grogling, and I think I missed some neat settings and mechanics.
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Jan 6, 2015 21:53
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Midjack posted:Tulul started one but the last post he made on it was over a year ago. I think about restarting that occasionally, but I was in the middle of the rules chapter when I left off, and every time I go back to look at it it's just uuuuuugh. Maybe I'll skim ahead and get to the interesting/mockable stuff. Or  You might look at HERE ARE DRAGONS and think, "terrible furry Eclipse Phase knock-off", and you would be wrong. Because this is someone's lovely furry libertarian Eclipse Phase knock-off!
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Jan 6, 2015 21:55
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Tulul posted:I think about restarting that occasionally, but I was in the middle of the rules chapter when I left off, and every time I go back to look at it it's just uuuuuugh. Maybe I'll skim ahead and get to the interesting/mockable stuff. So much wrong in one character design. It's like a nexus of lovely character ideas.
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Jan 6, 2015 22:02
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Oh good, I was wondering when furry rpgs would show up again to ruin my worldview. How does that wrist mounted gatling even work, like where is the ammo feed, where is the ammo even? How is that going to fire anything of a calibre better than rimfire? If it's lasers, why not draw a less dumb-looking laser gun instead? I'm focusing on this one thing so I dont have to look at the creature it's attatched to because goddamn it.
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Jan 6, 2015 22:08
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Finally, I've been jonesing to play a Cyber Wemic ever since Rifts only had rules for Cyber Centaurs. Bastards. Also in the timg and with the headache I'm nursing, I swear that said "He poo poo dragons" at first.
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Jan 6, 2015 22:10
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It's sad that label something posthuman and all you can come up is furries? Not robots, not weird, twisted-looking humanoids, not biomechanicoids, but a lion-headed centaur.
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Jan 6, 2015 22:11
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Young Freud posted:It's sad that label something posthuman and all you can come up is furries? Not robots, not weird, twisted-looking humanoids, not biomechanicoids, but a lion-headed centaur. Let me tell you all about the Island of Terra Malatora...
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Jan 6, 2015 22:13
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Tulul posted:I think about restarting that occasionally, but I was in the middle of the rules chapter when I left off, and every time I go back to look at it it's just uuuuuugh. Maybe I'll skim ahead and get to the interesting/mockable stuff. The worst part is that I loving recognize that thing. I mean, not specifically, but I have run into the sci fi furry centaur people before and I have to ask: is that picture a picture of a stupid hermaphrodite thing? Because if so this rabbithole goes down, down, down.
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Jan 6, 2015 22:14
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theironjef posted:Let me tell you all about the Island of Terra Malatora... Oh, I know all about Malatora. I was one of the Dargon Slayers in that thread. And I'm not surprised that it got mentioned here, because it was what I was thinking as well. I pretty sure that they used "Here Are Dragons" and those centaur-tiger things. Edit: I would not be surprised if this game is somehow related to Malatora. What was Taygon's real name? Need to compare against the editorial staff of the game. Young Freud fucked around with this message at 22:27 on Jan 6, 2015 |
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Jan 6, 2015 22:17
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Mors Rattus posted:The worst part is that I loving recognize that thing. I mean, not specifically, but I have run into the sci fi furry centaur people before and I have to ask: is that picture a picture of a stupid hermaphrodite thing? Chakat, give me a moment to dig up a tumblr post that makes me laugh every time.   http://anfael.tumblr.com/post/96396986140/it-turns-out-chakat-society-has-adapted-and-solved Furry space RPG is fine by me, but what the gently caress do libertarians have to mess with transhumanism? homerlaw fucked around with this message at 22:26 on Jan 6, 2015 |
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Jan 6, 2015 22:23
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Mors Rattus posted:The worst part is that I loving recognize that thing. I mean, not specifically, but I have run into the sci fi furry centaur people before and I have to ask: is that picture a picture of a stupid hermaphrodite thing? Oh god, I think /tg/'s wiki has a page on those. God loving daaaaaaaaaaamn it.
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Jan 6, 2015 22:25
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homerlaw posted:Furry space RPG is fine by me, but what the gently caress do libertarians have to mess with transhumanism? Because Posthuman Studios, makers of Eclipse Phase, recently purged MRAs and MRA discussion on their forums within the last year. Also, game is lame because none of their uplifted races include octopii, the true posthuman uplift.
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Jan 6, 2015 22:28
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Young Freud posted:Because Posthuman Studios, makers of Eclipse Phase, recently purged MRAs and MRA discussion on their forums within the last year. Libertarian MRAs? That's the worst of all possible combinations, barring adding White Supremacists to the mix.
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Jan 6, 2015 22:35
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