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ProfessorProf posted:Once upon a time, a guy named Junichi Inoue sat down, took a long, hard look at all of the world's anime, and decided that it just wasn't anime enough for him. This was the result. It's not far off- as I understand it, the basic idea was that most tabletop Fantasy RPGs coming out in Japan at the time generally relied on the same school of Tolkienesque Western Fantasy as D&D with maybe some cosmetic differences here and there. So he sat down and made the most Japanese fantasy RPG he could, with an extra side order of all the anime.
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# ? Mar 27, 2014 10:57 |
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# ? Dec 13, 2024 04:56 |
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ProfessorProf posted:Contained in this game, among other things: You forgot to mention the Illuminati shrine maidens/Shinto priests that can ask the gods above to laser entire towns off the map. InfiniteJesters fucked around with this message at 11:33 on Mar 27, 2014 |
# ? Mar 27, 2014 11:24 |
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This is soundingmore and more funny the more spoilers people give. I can't wait!
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# ? Mar 27, 2014 12:23 |
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Then let's not waste any time! Tenra Bansho Zero, Worldbook 1: Tenra, the Great Land The Worldbook opens up with a high-level overview of the game's world, Tenra. Fairly homogenous in climate and people - no Frozen North, everyone speaks the same language. Five main regions, laid out as such: From west to east:
Stop! Zoom in! Enhance! Yashima is the main hotspot of political action, so let's take a close look! This is what Yashima used to look like. Notice how it's a lot less In Pieces than it is now. Region rundown:
Now, that was way long ago. These days, due to an event called the Fall of the Phantom Star, it looks more like this: Looks a little different! The Cradle was totally annihilated as most of it sank into the ocean. The remains of the Cradle are the seat of power of the Priesthood's Southern Court, and the Dragonscale Territories are the seat of the Northern Court, with the islands in between being constantly contested between them. The Oni are in charge of Ki-shu now, and Tou-shu has been taken over by Buddhists. So that's a high-level overview of the least insane parts of the world of Tenra. In a fairly odd move, the section ends with this: It goes on for three pages, just dates and events with no context. At first, this seems totally insane and pointless, but according to a note at the end, these are intentionally vague because they're here as adventure hooks. An interesting idea, at least. NEXT TIME: The first bit of the actual rulebook!
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# ? Mar 27, 2014 12:38 |
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The way it starts out the section with all these setting details and then literally blows them up always confused me. Most of it is more coherent, though!
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# ? Mar 27, 2014 14:02 |
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Alien Rope Burn posted:The way it starts out the section with all these setting details and then literally blows them up always confused me. I wonder if that was supposed to basically be a first ed/second ed transition. So all the stuff about the pre-explosion times was backstory for folks not familiar with the first edition that we never got. Or something.
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# ? Mar 27, 2014 14:31 |
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InfiniteJesters posted:And did I mention you can make MOTHERFUCKING KENSHIRO using TBZ's rules? You can build him in lots of games. Is he effective is the question. If the answer is yes my group has no hope, they're already playing this game.
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# ? Mar 27, 2014 14:32 |
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Dune: Chronicles of the Imperium or, A Brief Exegesis on Why I Am Sad Dune: Chronicles of the Imperium is a roleplaying game set in the universe of Frank Herbert’s groundbreaking science-fiction novel Dune. It was published by Last Unicorn Games, a small company with a short list of properties that included some very well-known licenses and some very unique original works. LUG produced the Dune CCG and a uniquely weird CCG titled Heresy: Kingdom Come. On the roleplaying front, they were the publishers of Aria: Canticle of the Monomyth and a series of licensed Star Trek games. Dune: Chronicles of the Imperium would ultimately be the last gasp of Last Unicorn. The game was designed primarily by Owen Seyler, with Christian Moore and Matthew Colville. (Seyler and Moore worked on Aria and Star Trek, and would later be involved in Decipher’s Lord of the Rings game.) They were still developing Dune when the company was bought out by Wizards of the Coast in 2000. Wizards allowed a “limited edition” of less than 2000 copies to be printed and sold at GenCon, and had big plans for a D20 version of the game. Matthew Colville discusses these plans in an amazing blog post which even has his outline for the game and the default campaign that would accompany it! Matthew Colville posted:WotC had this incredible mound of market data. They spent a lot of time and energy figuring out what people wanted to do in different universes. So they’d mention a property, like Dune and ask them to rate these statements: According to Colville, one of principal reasons for the demise of Dune was an executive order for Hasbro not to make any licensed games. As for those “contractual issues,” I can only speculate, and speculate I will. Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson are not only listed as “creative consultants” on Dune: Chronicles of the Imperium, an interior title credits them as editors. I’m sure they would have prevented anything that conflicted with their own plans for the Dune universe. Now, if you’re not a Dune fan, let me explain something quickly: Frank Herbert wrote six Dune novels (the last ending on a bit of a cliffhanger) and had plans for a seventh when he died. His son, Brian Herbert, supposedly discovered these notes on two floppy disks and some printed pages in a safe deposit box. Stories about the notes vary wildly, from “a 3-page outline” to “hundreds of pages of notes for future stories.” In any case, Brian partnered with noted space opera author Kevin J. Anderson to release “Dune 7” in two books, and have since gone on to release over a dozen prequels and sequels to the original series. They are, to say the least, not critically acclaimed. Here’s what I think of the “Dune 7” notes and all the sequels and prequels based on them: Kevin J. Anderson offloads all the ideas that the Bantam editors considered too dumb for Star Wars, Brian Herbert puts his name on them, and the floppy disks were copies of Dig Dug and Centipede all along. The failure to capitalize on the Dune franchise is almost a tragedy. Hell, Dune’s failures are more interesting than many other artists’ successes. You see...let me explain something else about Dune. There’s a whole lot in the history of the setting, or happening far away from the main characters, which is never exactly defined. It’s one of the things that kept fans coming back for more. For example, we know that a civilization-spanning jihad occurs between the first and second books, but because of the weird, baroque nature of technology in the Dune setting, we can only imagine how a full-scale war plays out. We also know that computers, robots, and AI are forbidden because of a long-ago “Butlerian Jihad” against “thinking machines,” but Herbert repeatedly declined to describe exactly what happened and how. When Anderson wrote Dune: The Butlerian Jihad, he made it about swashbucklers with “pulse-swords” fighting cyborgs called “cymeks.” This, I think, is why the Dune property is so underused, with the last attempt at a movie dying in development hell and no games of any kind since 2001. Nobody wants to publish a Dune title that is really just a Star Wars novel that is really just a rip-off of Battlestar Galactica. I can only berate Brian Herbert and KJH so much, because I’ve only read synopses of their books. Perhaps this is still hypocritical, but that is preferable to being the kind of nerd who reads an entire series of novels just to feel justified in hating them. As an aside, the only Kevin J. Anderson I’ve ever read was Jedi Search, a book I picked up in middle school. It features a barren planet where giant underground creatures create a substance which is mined for its ability to give people psychic powers. Dune: Chronicles of the Imperium is not legally available in digital form, and remains one of the rarest and most expensive roleplaying games. Used copies, when they become available, go for $200-300 depending on their condition. There are some fanmade Dune games out there, including Dune: A Dream of Rain, a d20 fan supplement, Houses of the Landsraad, which uses Greg Stolze’s One Roll Engine, and a French game called Imperium, which has several supplements. I don’t know anything about it except that the PDFs are a) quite professional looking and b) only available in French, a language in which I only know words for weapons and brands of liquor. Luke Crane wrote Burning Jihad, a supplement for his game Burning Wheel. In true Luke Crane fashion, Burning Jihad is set during Paul’s Great Jihad, and specifically set up as a war between a group of Fremen jihadi and a rebellious Noble House, with the PCs playing as one of the sides. The jihad wins. Long story short, this is the only official Dune roleplaying game that ever was or will be. Is it any good? Let’s find out. Next time, on Chronicles of the Imperium: Introductions and a history of the Imperium. Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 14:47 on Mar 27, 2014 |
# ? Mar 27, 2014 14:44 |
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Halloween Jack posted:As an aside, the only Kevin J. Anderson I’ve ever read was Jedi Search, a book I picked up in middle school. It features a barren planet where giant underground creatures create a substance which is mined for its ability to give people psychic powers. As a child, I was burdened with such great love for Star Wars that I voraciously devoured any and all literature with the logo on it. And for this reason, I have read Anderson. While he committed many offenses on Star Wars, I'd say a critical examination would start at the very beginning, with the "Jedi Academy" trilogy, which finds Luke attempting to build a Jedi school on Yavin 4. Here's the summing up. Kevin J. Anderson writes as if he is a seven-year old boy having an imaginary superhero fight with Star Wars. "I have a Death Star," he imagines Star Wars to boast, "and it can destroy a planet!" "Well well, I have a Sun Crusher, and it's like a million Death Stars because it can destroy a whole sun!" replies Anderson, whipping his imaginary saber around in a brilliant display of one-upsmanship. Star Wars counters: "I have lightsabers, they are laser swords that are the iconic emblem of a knightly order, and they come in a few light colors that help visually identify the affiliation of the wielder." Anderson, undaunted: "Nuh uh because saber crystals are mined... they're mined on... on a dark planet and there's a million kinds and my lightsaber is rainbow colored and clear in the middle and has a switch that can make it 3 times longer than a regular lightsaber because it has extra crystals in it!" Repeat as needed. If Luke is a cool Jedi Knight who's an amazing pilot due to limited desert flight experience, then Kyp Durron is a crazy ultra super Jedi who can move planets around and is an ace of space despite growing up in a mining prison. He even takes potshots at the other expanded fiction writers. Is Thrawn cool because he's an Imperial Admiral and an alien? Well Daala is way cooler because she's an Imperial Admiral and a WOMAN so nurrrrr!
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# ? Mar 27, 2014 15:55 |
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theironjef posted:Star Wars counters: "I have lightsabers, they are laser swords that are the iconic emblem of a knightly order, and they come in a few light colors that help visually identify the affiliation of the wielder." Well, this is the guy who came up with the "darksaber", which you'd think is some kind of saber, or dark, but it's not really either, it's a giant beam cannon that sort of looks like a lightsaber hilt. That's the level of braining going on there.
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# ? Mar 27, 2014 16:32 |
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Halloween Jack posted:and a French game called Imperium, which has several supplements. I don’t know anything about it except that the PDFs are a) quite professional looking and b) only available in French, a language in which I only know words for weapons and brands of liquor.
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# ? Mar 27, 2014 16:45 |
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Well, this is the guy who came up with the "darksaber", which you'd think is some kind of saber, or dark, but it's not really either, it's a giant beam cannon that sort of looks like a lightsaber hilt. Oh, the Darksaber's worse than that. It's a Hutt-built giant beam canon that has a main battery as powerful as the first Death Star but it has literally nothing else; no defences and can't do anything except occasionally shoot at planets. The bad guys spend chapters on chapters building this thing and it's set up to be at least the B Plot threat. How effective is it? They subcontracted to the lowest bidder. So all it does is blow a fuse when they attempt to fire it. Now I'm not saying that the idea isn't entertaining. But brevity is the soul of wit. You don't need a quarter of the book to tell that joke.
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# ? Mar 27, 2014 16:45 |
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I have to say, I will never stop being in love with the story of the villainous Hutt who subcontracts his superweapon to the lowest bidder and creates the crappiest doomsday device in galactic history.
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# ? Mar 27, 2014 16:47 |
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I'll still never forget reading KJA's deep, loving appreciation of the training of storm troopers. The dipshit mooks of the sci fi canon being given the same hallowed tones reserved for the least self-aware WH40k Space Marine fan-fiction.
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# ? Mar 27, 2014 16:54 |
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Having read two of the prequels before I read Dune, I kind of liked them. And having only read Dune so far, I don't know where they clash. That being said, how close does Fading Suns come to replicating the feeling of Dune? That's another setting that seems like it shares similar concepts. And Legends of the Undying or whatever seemed like it could really use a group of players cleaning house between all the warring factions.
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# ? Mar 27, 2014 16:54 |
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Rand Brittain posted:I have to say, I will never stop being in love with the story of the villainous Hutt who subcontracts his superweapon to the lowest bidder and creates the crappiest doomsday device in galactic history. Permission to quote this in my sig on other message boards? I'll give you credit.
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# ? Mar 27, 2014 17:03 |
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The Avalon Hill Dune board game is actually pretty great, though it's nigh-impossible to find everything for it (outside of France). I really enjoyed playing a translation of the French edition, even though I'm a pleb with no appreciation for the novels (I've only read the first, admittedly).
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# ? Mar 27, 2014 17:05 |
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Gerund posted:I'll still never forget reading KJA's deep, loving appreciation of the training of storm troopers. The dipshit mooks of the sci fi canon being given the same hallowed tones reserved for the least self-aware WH40k Space Marine fan-fiction. Actually, one of the better practical jokes in Star Wars happened because Galaxies took that sort of stuff completely seriously. Storm Troopers in that game were pretty monstrous, especially at low levels, so you had all these new players who would bumrush the first one they saw and just get stomped. Also it amuses me that I distinctly recall reading KJA's work and Darksaber too, but could not tell you a thing about them that I wasn't reminded of by the thread so far. On the other hand, I could probably quote chapter and verse from Timothy Zahn's.
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# ? Mar 27, 2014 17:06 |
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Zahn was the best of a bad thing, basically. Oh man, remember Vonda McIntyre, and her book Crystal Star which was basically her way of introducing a Mary-Suevian race of golden-skinned, cat-eyed people with naturally two-tone hair, called the Firerreo? Leia is all getting seduced by them and poo poo, and meanwhile Luke is off on Crseih station being intrigued by the mystery of a giant, magical, armor-plated fart.
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# ? Mar 27, 2014 17:17 |
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The only Anderson I've read was the first four books of the Saga of Seven Suns series, which was alright IIRC. Then again I read those in high school so it's entirely possible they're actually monstrously bad or something.
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# ? Mar 27, 2014 17:23 |
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I'm pretty sure Stormtroopers being the Emperor's elite forces dates back at least to the WEG Star Wars RPG supplement Imperial Sourcebook (if not the first edition corebook) from '91, and KJA didn't get piblished until three years later.
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# ? Mar 27, 2014 17:23 |
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Stormtroopers were always relatively good soldiers, it's just that training doesn't do dick against lightsaber wielding magicians.
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# ? Mar 27, 2014 17:24 |
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Forums Terrorist posted:Stormtroopers were always relatively good soldiers, it's just that training doesn't do dick against lightsaber wielding magicians. Or the main characters of the story. See Kirk v. Anything.
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# ? Mar 27, 2014 17:40 |
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What's funny is that I always saw Thrawn as an enormously back-patty character that's pretty much defined by How Much Smarter He Is Than Darth Vader And Everybody Else Really But Mostly Darth Vader, and it turns out he's one of the better new characters compared to a lot of self-congratulatory EU introductions. Go figure.
Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 18:20 on Mar 27, 2014 |
# ? Mar 27, 2014 18:07 |
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Alien Rope Burn posted:What's funny is that's always saw Thrawn as an enormously back-patty character that's pretty much defined by How Much Smarter He Is Than Darth Vader And Everybody Else Really But Mostly Darth Vader, and it turns out he's one of the better new characters compared to a lot of self-congratulatory EU introductions. Go figure. Good things to come out of EU: Admiral Pellaeon. Maybe Talon Karrde if you change his dumb name. Maybe the Noghri. Maybe Thrawn. The end? Okay, maybe the Drall. Oh poo poo nearly forgot the complete bonkers insanity of the "Tales of Lando Calrissian" stuff. I am 100% on-board with Vuffi Raa the starfish robot, and their battles against a space wizard that is in fact a tiny toad monster masquerading as a space wizard.
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# ? Mar 27, 2014 18:10 |
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All I know about the Noghri is that Leia had a team of Noghri bodyguards and I think they went toe-to-toe with a space cenobite hit squad. Not even sure how that one went.
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# ? Mar 27, 2014 18:23 |
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Gerund posted:I'll still never forget reading KJA's deep, loving appreciation of the training of storm troopers. The dipshit mooks of the sci fi canon being given the same hallowed tones reserved for the least self-aware WH40k Space Marine fan-fiction. Rand Brittain posted:I have to say, I will never stop being in love with the story of the villainous Hutt who subcontracts his superweapon to the lowest bidder and creates the crappiest doomsday device in galactic history. Well hell, I know what novel I'm writing next. Only, you know, with enough self awareness to realize exactly what I'm doing.
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# ? Mar 27, 2014 19:00 |
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I had no idea what a can of worms I was opening just by invoking Anderson's name.Rockopolis posted:Please tell me more about this. I will learn French and then review this game. theironjef posted:Kevin J. Anderson writes as if he is a seven-year old boy having an imaginary superhero fight with Star Wars. "I have a Death Star," he imagines Star Wars to boast, "and it can destroy a planet!" For example, there's a bit in Dune where we learn that Paul's grandfather died in an ill-advised bullfight. The idea that a member of an advanced spacefaring empire is a feudal lord who died fighting a bull tells you something about this society. So of course, Anderson not only depicts that event in a prequel novel, the "bull" isn't a bull--it's a Denebian Slime Bull with six eyes and ten horns or something like that. For another example, the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, chief villain of the first book, is monstrously obese. Someone comments offhandedly that this was at first because of indolence, and later because he took a perverse pleasure in disgusting others. Of course, when Anderson makes him the focus of a prequel novel, he's obese because a Bene Gesserit infected him with a rare virus. Anderson's writing appears to be the exact opposite of, say, A Song of Ice and Fire where there are fantastical elements but the plot ultimately turns on human motivations. Everything meaningful in Anderson's books has to be an alien or robot or superweapon or cosmic cataclysm or some other sci-fi cliche. Dune is filled with truly weird poo poo, but it all exists to set up a story about a Byzantine society and explore questions about ecology, imperialism, and ideology. Anderson doesn't get that.
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# ? Mar 27, 2014 19:21 |
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InfiniteJesters posted:You forgot to mention the Illuminati shrine maidens/Shinto priests that can ask the gods above to laser entire towns off the map. MadScientistWorking fucked around with this message at 19:50 on Mar 27, 2014 |
# ? Mar 27, 2014 19:48 |
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MadScientistWorking posted:And the love dolls that the English Kickstarter made an overt effort completely scrub out of the setting. No, it didn't. If there were references to them being created for sex, that isn't apparent in the translated version (it can be seen as implied, but it's hardly overt from what I can recall), but it seems to treat them more as created companions / servants than sex dolls. If it's that way in the original, yuck.
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# ? Mar 27, 2014 19:53 |
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Gerund posted:I'll still never forget reading KJA's deep, loving appreciation of the training of storm troopers. The dipshit mooks of the sci fi canon being given the same hallowed tones reserved for the least self-aware WH40k Space Marine fan-fiction. This reminds me of being surprised in WEG Star Wars when stormtroopers kicked our asses because we didn't know they were scaled for the movie characters and not us--new characters who assumed we'd be like the movie characters. Silly us.
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# ? Mar 27, 2014 20:13 |
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Alien Rope Burn posted:No, it didn't. If there were references to them being created for sex, that isn't apparent in the translated version (it can be seen as implied, but it's hardly overt from what I can recall), but it seems to treat them more as created companions / servants than sex dolls. If it's that way in the original, yuck. MadScientistWorking fucked around with this message at 20:29 on Mar 27, 2014 |
# ? Mar 27, 2014 20:23 |
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MadScientistWorking posted:I'll have to actually check on this because it might have been scrubbed from the translation but someone who did work on the Kickstarter said that fluff wise they were dolls that were primarily women who would sleep with their masters. It's creepy even in the English version, mind, but the whole thing is supposed to be tragic and cruel. Like many things in Tenra, really.
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# ? Mar 27, 2014 20:32 |
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MalcolmSheppard posted:This reminds me of being surprised in WEG Star Wars when stormtroopers kicked our asses because we didn't know they were scaled for the movie characters and not us--new characters who assumed we'd be like the movie characters. Silly us. Movie characters is this case is assumed to include such luminaries as "Ewok with a rock." Return more or less scrubs the notion that stormtroopers would look super badass if they weren't always hunting the heroes.
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# ? Mar 27, 2014 20:46 |
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Didn't one of the books state that one of the reasons why the stormtroopers of the 4-6 era were so terrible is that they had to resort to less effective cloning methods, and that the aristocracy of the Empire paid extra to get their DNA used for clone lines for the prestige, completely discarding the fact that clones of aristocrats make for really really lovely soldiers? So the bulk of the Empire's army is made up of cheap expendable lovely clones that go insane after 2 years anyway. While all the Jango clones are kept in Vader's/Palpatines personal guard.
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# ? Mar 27, 2014 21:00 |
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Alien Rope Burn posted:It's creepy even in the English version, mind, but the whole thing is supposed to be tragic and cruel. Like many things in Tenra, really. Yeah. It's supposed to come off as being rather skeevy, so it's not nearly as bad as it seems from that remark. Really, all of Tenra-the-planet is like Japanese Warhammer 40K with mechs and without Chaos, so the Imperium (the Shinto Priesthood) come off as a bunch of tyrannical, secretive douchebags. Although I think the creator admitted that the dolls were actually a little too skeevy still. Don't quote me, but I think he did say there is also art in there he's embarrassed by. Erebro fucked around with this message at 21:54 on Mar 27, 2014 |
# ? Mar 27, 2014 21:52 |
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Alien Rope Burn posted:It's creepy even in the English version, mind, but the whole thing is supposed to be tragic and cruel. Like many things in Tenra, really. Really, I'm more concerned about the artwork indicating that the kid-piloted yoroi armors have...Squishy cockpits. On the plus side, the book also has artwork of a woman wielding that cut-down mecha shortsword mentioned in previous updates, and she's wearing sensible, unrevealing armor! (Unless having a visible full head of hair counts, but eh, have to save weight somewhere when you're carrying that blade.) Erebro posted:Yeah. It's supposed to come off as being rather skeevy, so it's not nearly as bad as it seems from that remark. Really, all of Tenra-the-planet is like Japanese Warhammer 40K with mechs and without Chaos, so the Imperium (the Shinto Priesthood) come off as a bunch of tyrannical douchebags.. Actually, the ayakashi kinda fill the horrible-alien-demon-monsters role in the setting that Chaos fills in 40k, it's just that in they aren't quite as unified or *central* to the setting as Chaos is to 40k. Given their array of powers and mysterious nature, I suppose a campaign where it's revealed that the Shinto Priesthood and other organizations have been fighting a shadow war against a very large and very subtle unified ayakashi front is a possibility, though. InfiniteJesters fucked around with this message at 21:56 on Mar 27, 2014 |
# ? Mar 27, 2014 21:53 |
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Kurieg posted:Didn't one of the books state that one of the reasons why the stormtroopers of the 4-6 era were so terrible is that they had to resort to less effective cloning methods, and that the aristocracy of the Empire paid extra to get their DNA used for clone lines for the prestige, completely discarding the fact that clones of aristocrats make for really really lovely soldiers? Man, why even clone, I wonder. Like... they control a vast imperium. Thousands of planets ending in "...ooine," just thousands. Training readily available chumps has got to be cheaper than growing them. Honestly, if Star Wars prefaced that there were like a grand total of six planets and soldiers were rare and difficult to come by, I could see the sense in a clone army. Oh well, wrong thread.
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# ? Mar 27, 2014 21:55 |
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Apparently they stop cloning dudes between movies, possibly because being a scary totalitarian state makes it cheaper to conscript than have your own locally grown artisanal clone jackboots.
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# ? Mar 27, 2014 22:02 |
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# ? Dec 13, 2024 04:56 |
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theironjef posted:Man, why even clone, I wonder. Like... they control a vast imperium. Thousands of planets ending in "...ooine," just thousands. Training readily available chumps has got to be cheaper than growing them. Honestly, if Star Wars prefaced that there were like a grand total of six planets and soldiers were rare and difficult to come by, I could see the sense in a clone army. Oh well, wrong thread. Apparently they stop cloning around 9 years before episode 4, which doesn't explain away the "Why the gently caress did they get destroyed by Ewoks" things. As for why they have lovely cloning technology? Because they're an evil empire! Why Else?
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# ? Mar 27, 2014 22:11 |