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theironjef
Aug 11, 2009

The archmage of unexpected stinks.

Alien Rope Burn posted:

Save vs. Pedophila. :(



I do like that they at least have "well I guess if you were already gay this insanity would turn you straight." That could have gone worse, like "You become super-ultra double gay like Carl in 5th period history!"

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hectorgrey
Oct 14, 2011
Interesting how specific the berserk percentage is - why 72% rather than a more round number?

Kai Tave
Jul 2, 2012
Fallen Rib
Once you start asking why something's the way it is in a Rifts book, that's a rabbit hole with no end in sight.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 4, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!

hectorgrey posted:

Interesting how specific the berserk percentage is - why 72% rather than a more round number?

What amazes me is how unplayable a lot of characters become after a single roll on these charts, and crazies are expected to a few to a half-dozen. Bear in mind the only change that newer games had was a removal of the sexual deviation section, so even without that, the first result is that loud noises cause a character to pee themselves and go into a fetal position. A character can end up blind 89% of the time they're under pressure. And then there's being in a homicidal rage 24/6.

Oh, and that "save vs. insanity"? It's 12 or higher on a d20 unless your class or high Mental Endurance gives you bonuses, which means most characters will have a worse than even chance of failing it!

Rulebook Heavily
Sep 18, 2010

by FactsAreUseless
It's telling that you could actually become a necrophiliac from looking at zombies in D&D in 2004 but even RIFTS had abandoned that poo poo for decades.

(Bonus awful points for D&D: it can also make you transsexual.)

Halloween Jack
Sep 11, 2003

La morte non ha sesso
I'm still waiting for my tongue piercing to give me all sorts of evil wizard powers.

MadScientistWorking
Jun 23, 2010

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

Rulebook Heavily posted:

It's telling that you could actually become a necrophiliac from looking at zombies in D&D in 2004 but even RIFTS had abandoned that poo poo for decades.

(Bonus awful points for D&D: it can also make you transsexual.)
You just keep on telling yourself that to make you feel better.
EDIT:
To clarify Alien Rope Burn is missing a ton of the weirder stuff from the Palladium system like the autistic magic class.

MadScientistWorking fucked around with this message at 19:51 on May 19, 2014

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 4, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!

Halloween Jack posted:

I'm still waiting for my tongue piercing to give me all sorts of evil wizard powers.

I have to wonder how Monte's magnum opus hasn't gotten clamped onto the very nipples of this thread.

Rulebook Heavily
Sep 18, 2010

by FactsAreUseless
The real joke is that the bit I quoted isn't even from the Book of Vile Darkness but Unearthed Arcana.

It's open source.

Green Intern
Dec 29, 2008

Loon, Crazy and Laughable

Alien Rope Burn posted:

Save vs. Pedophila. :(



Being a psychiatrist is apparently on par with inescapable berserker rage! Who knew?

theironjef
Aug 11, 2009

The archmage of unexpected stinks.

Green Intern posted:

Being a psychiatrist is apparently on par with inescapable berserker rage! Who knew?

It's so tongue in cheek that they forgot to include any line that says "hahaha don't we have fun here? No look the character only thinks they are a psychiatrist and is actually crazy."

Strength of Many
Jan 12, 2012

The butthurt is the life... and it shall be mine.
I have a friend who wants to play Mekton Zeta and i'm trying to dissuade them from doing so. I could have sworn there was a Mekton Zeta review in here explaining why its awful. Am I looking in the wrong spot??

ThisIsNoZaku
Apr 22, 2013

Pew Pew Pew!

Strength of Many posted:

I have a friend who wants to play Mekton Zeta and i'm trying to dissuade them from doing so. I could have sworn there was a Mekton Zeta review in here explaining why its awful. Am I looking in the wrong spot??

Someone started and abandoned one in the previous thread, but it was lost with the archives server.

Strength of Many
Jan 12, 2012

The butthurt is the life... and it shall be mine.

ThisIsNoZaku posted:

Someone started and abandoned one in the previous thread, but it was lost with the archives server.

Well poo poo. Now i'll have to actually learn the mechanics to explain why its a bad game.

Zereth
Jul 8, 2003



Alien Rope Burn posted:

Save vs. Pedophila. :(


Wait this makes the second thing I've seen where you can end up gettng sexually aroused by heights/open spaces/poo poo like that because of a reused phobia table. :confused:

The other one being Central Casting.

Strength of Many posted:

Well poo poo. Now i'll have to actually learn the mechanics to explain why its a bad game.
The only viable defense is not getting hit. Armor makes you heavier which makes you more likely to get hit which makes you more likely to get crit and your armor ignored.

EDIT: Or your mech just being completely disabled. Or destroyed. And unless you're massively better than the enemies you're facing, you WILL get crit eventually.

Zereth fucked around with this message at 01:36 on May 20, 2014

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 4, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!
I've heard rumors that Siembieda was cribbing from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for his insanity lists, but after further research, I realised the DSM removed homosexuality as a "mental disorder" back in the early seventies, so that'd have to be a dusty-rear end copy he'd have been hanging onto if that's the case.

Either way, I'm pretty sure Palladium has attempted to avoid further blunders by choosing to ignore that homosexuality exists entirely. I'm trying to remember if it's ever come up in one of their books, and I don't think it has. Central Casting's author, on the other hand, came out as a transsexual, and presumably her thoughts on the matter have changed.

As for Mekton, yeah, I remember "winning" by building a comparatively cheap mech-murdering helicopter with a rapid-firing gun and taking all the points I had saved (by not worrying about arms, legs, expensive power sources, etc.) and just putting them into maneuverability and speed. Building a rad mech was a horrible trap when I could dance out of their range and had a +20 to dodge on a d10 when they though they were hot stuff with a 1d10+10 or the like. It'd work better if you ban personal mecha construction and just have setting-based designs, but it's still just a "Dex supremacy" combat system.

FMguru
Sep 10, 2003
Probation
Can't post for 23 minutes!

Alien Rope Burn posted:

Central Casting's author, on the other hand, came out as a transsexual, and presumably her thoughts on the matter have changed.
Weirdly, and depressingly, her thoughts haven't changed.

Asimo
Sep 23, 2007


Alien Rope Burn posted:

so that'd have to be a dusty-rear end copy he'd have been hanging onto if that's the case.
Knowing Siembieda, this is perfectly plausible.

Zereth
Jul 8, 2003



Alien Rope Burn posted:

As for Mekton, yeah, I remember "winning" by building a comparatively cheap mech-murdering helicopter with a rapid-firing gun and taking all the points I had saved (by not worrying about arms, legs, expensive power sources, etc.) and just putting them into maneuverability and speed. Building a rad mech was a horrible trap when I could dance out of their range and had a +20 to dodge on a d10 when they though they were hot stuff with a 1d10+10 or the like. It'd work better if you ban personal mecha construction and just have setting-based designs, but it's still just a "Dex supremacy" combat system.
Yeah, the roguelike Gearhead has some heavy Mekton Z influences in its systems, and in it (at least in 1, I think things were adjusted in 2) you're universally better off ripping off the legs of humanoid-type mechs and installing a lot of hoverjets instead. Point budgets are more of a concern in Mekton but the most important thing is having your MV as high as possible.

And the same stat applies to every single attack of defense you can do in a mech/vehicle, so you want to max that.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 4, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!
Rifts Sourcebook Three: Mindwerks - Part Four: "The panther gets its name from the fact that it is comparatively small, fast and silent — an excellent prowler and stalker."

Mindwerks Robots

Wait, wasn't Mindwerks into implants, cybernetics, and cameras, in about that order? How did they design a bunch of military war robots? Well, there's no explanation, but here's the Mechanoid rejects robots they use!

M-1000 Panther


All thruster, no engine.

Looks nothing like a cat. It's a floating defense robot, and not terribly smart. Most are used to guard the Mindwerks facility, a few are used for abduction and extermination, and a few are used to aid with repairs and similar tasks. Its optics have a range of 2000 feet, worse than human sight, but it can record information. It's mildly tough, has weaksauce head lasers, mini-missiles, lugs around handheld weapons, and can rocket around at 400 MPH. Oh, and it's ridiculously sneaky, despite being a gleaming bulbous robot with jets coming out of its rear end.

M-1200 Lion Assault Robot


The platypus of robot design.

Also looks nothing like a cat. It's the fightier version of the M-1000. Is a little tougher and about half as fast as the M-1000. It has a dinky lasers, a passable ion cannon and railgun, mini-missiles, and hand-held weapons. It can also swim really well, since its hover jets are waterproof, I suppose.

M-1400 Tiger


Alternately, the "Shredderbot".

Looks only vaguely more like a cat than the rest. This is designed as a "hunter/killer" bot. Bear in mind Siembieda doesn't know what hunter/killer means in a military context, so it just means "aggressive soldier", really. It's actually kind of fragile, and is a slower runner than its hovering counterparts, but has head lasers and head ion cannon, mini-missiles, stretchy claws, and handheld weapons. Oh, and it can pick locks with its finger blades... somehow.

M-1600 Bear


More like a bulldog... or elephant...?

Doesn't look much like a bear. This is actually a giant robot piloted by a Mindwerks employee, and is actually really drat tough, but is slow for a robot. It can fire various grenades, mini-missiles, has lasers in its face, a "triple weapon" in its arm (laser/ion/particle), laser knuckles, smoke dispenser, and a vibro-blade in its arm. It doesn't deal out a lot of punishment for its size, outside of dumping mini-missiles at foes, but it's smaller counterparts can do the same thing.

And that's the last robot. You'd think with all the brodkil flunkies these would be superfluous... oh, wait. They are superfluous. I have to wonder, given the designs' Mechanoid-like appearance, if they're unused robot designs from Rifts Sourcebook Two: The Mechanoids.

Mindwerks Weapons


Bad guy guns.

Despite not having any weapon engineers of note, any background as arms manufacturers, or a particularly large staff in general, Mindwerks has its own line of weapons. They even have their own proprietary E-Clip standard, and their weapons can't use regular E-Clips without modifying the guns. :v:
  • M-12 Plasma Pistol: This is designed for Brodikil, so human-sized users can't use this without penalties... regardless of their Strength, for some reason. It's pretty much just a rifle converted to a handgun, and nothing particularly special.
  • M-25 Firebrand Giant Rifle: This is a giant-sized knock-off of the Coalition's C-14 rifle. Despite being over twice as large, it does no more damage, and can be wielded by human-sized characters normally, because gently caress it, who needs to adjust for facts? How did Mindwerks do a knockoff of a weapon located largely on the other side of the planet? :iiam:
  • M-30 Dual Energy Rifle: This has a laser that does crap damage and a particle beam that does solid damage. It's another oversized weapon, but human-size characters can use it if they're pretty buff.
  • M-40 Ion Rifle Tube: This is pretty much an ion shotgun (ha ha yeah I know) with two barrels, does the most damage of any weapon here, and human-size wielders get a penalty. Mindwerks robots can hook it up directly to their power supply.
  • M-120 Plasma Rifle: Another big gun that gives human-size users a penalty, and its damage is pretty crap despite having a three-digit designation. Apparently this is the weapon depicted with the M-1000, as Siembieda uses every part of the buffalo illustration.
And that's all for Mindwerks' equipment parade. Like many evil supervillainous organizations in fiction, they always seem to be well-funded and equipped even though there's no particular justification for it. Sure, they probably get tribute from the Brodkil, but even so, there's no indication they have any of the infrastructure needed to get all the supplies you'd need for arms manufacturing.

Next: How to play a buttpuppet of Mindwerks.

theironjef
Aug 11, 2009

The archmage of unexpected stinks.

We at System Mastery just finished reading and discussing Furry Pirates: Swashbuckling Adventure in the Furry Age of Piracy so we could bring it to you. Spoiler alert: The book sucks. Double secret spoiler alert: It's not because of furries.

theironjef fucked around with this message at 19:50 on May 20, 2014

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 4, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!
That subtitle seems suspiciously superfluous. "Just in case you missed the title, this is what the game is about."

FMguru
Sep 10, 2003
Probation
Can't post for 23 minutes!

Alien Rope Burn posted:

That subtitle seems suspiciously superfluous. "Just in case you missed the title, this is what the game is about."
It's approaching "The Japanese Ghost Story game about Japanese ghost stories" levels of redundancy and repetitiveness and redundancy.

theironjef
Aug 11, 2009

The archmage of unexpected stinks.

Alien Rope Burn posted:

That subtitle seems suspiciously superfluous. "Just in case you missed the title, this is what the game is about."

I think it's overcompensation. Furries are largely an afterthought in this book. I never thought I'd want more furries.

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

theironjef posted:

I think it's overcompensation. Furries are largely an afterthought in this book. I never thought I'd want more furries.

Dear God...

theironjef
Aug 11, 2009

The archmage of unexpected stinks.

Right? We were so excited to crack this thing open and start making fun of furries like the major leagues. Then we get in there and it's just dry pirate information and terrible rules, except they did a Find & Replace to change all instances of "man" with "furry" and added species to most of the famous historical figures of the time. Like there is nothing to make fun of outside of sperginess and a lack of drat furries. There's so little dedication to the genre conceit that the word furry is the word they use for the whole group of species. Not anthro, not just "man" like you see sometimes, but furry. "10 furries are needed to operate this cannon" etc.

There's also like zero puns or jokes or plays on words and species. Nothing whatsoever about animal nature. The kings are all lions, but never once does he describe one as predatory, or mention that they are lions because lions are naturally kingly, or anything. They're all lions because there's no interracial breeding, so if one of the royals is a lion they have to all be, the end.

*Note that neither of us at System Mastery is down with the fur-l. We were just really hoping for something weirder to make fun of than what we got. Like I would personally hope for a better game for furries than this. Those goofballs in their big suits need good gaming books too.

theironjef fucked around with this message at 20:13 on May 20, 2014

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

FMguru posted:

It's approaching "The Japanese Ghost Story game about Japanese ghost stories" levels of redundancy and repetitiveness and redundancy.

Speaking of which, has anyone ever done Kaiden: A Japanese Ghost Story for these threads? Because I feel like it should be done even if it's not utterly terrible.

Covok
May 27, 2013

by Fluffdaddy

theironjef posted:

Right? We were so excited to crack this thing open and start making fun of furries like the major leagues. Then we get in there and it's just dry pirate information and terrible rules, except they did a Find & Replace to change all instances of "man" with "furry" and added species to most of the famous historical figures of the time. Like there is nothing to make fun of outside of sperginess and a lack of drat furries. There's so little dedication to the genre conceit that the word furry is the word they use for the whole group of species. Not anthro, not just "man" like you see sometimes, but furry. "10 furries are needed to operate this cannon" etc.

There's also like zero puns or jokes or plays on words and species. Nothing whatsoever about animal nature. The kings are all lions, but never once does he describe one as predatory, or mention that they are lions because lions are naturally kingly, or anything. They're all lions because there's no interracial breeding, so if one of the royals is a lion they have to all be, the end.

*Note that neither of us at System Mastery is down with the fur-l. We were just really hoping for something weirder to make fun of than what we got. Like I would personally hope for a better game for furries than this. Those goofballs in their big suits need good gaming books too.

Well, there is Iron Claw. I'm not a furry, but I remember some people bringing it up and saying it was a good game.

Asimo
Sep 23, 2007


:siren: Mark Rein·Hagen's Exile :siren:

Part One: An RPG history lesson

It's been a while since I've done an F&F review, and like my prior few I'm going to go into the history of roleplaying games. Before, this involved reviewing games and supplements from the early 80's that most people have long since forgotten, but this time we'll be traveling into the exciting 90's! There's just one small problem... the game I'm going to be talking about never actually got released.

To explain a bit, we'll need to give some history of White Wolf and Mark Rein·Hagen. Forgive me if this is incomplete, since I'm going off memory and what little remains on the web these days. Rein·Hagen and Jonathan Tweet (and later, Lisa Stevens) founded Lion Rampart in 1987, where they co-wrote and produced Ars Magica, a well-received game with several interesting game mechanics, such as players controlling multiple characters. Still, Lion Rampart struggled a bit like a lot of small RPG companies tend to and merged with Stewart Wieck's White Wolf Magazine, forming White Wolf Game Studio in 1990.

The company still struggled for a bit until they released some small game that started a certain game line that apparently had some modest success. :v:

In 1998, after the World of Darkness was well-established, Rein·Hagen began work on a sci-fi RPG titled Exile. Here's where it... gets a bit strange. He actually started a non-profit organization called the Null Foundation to own the rights. To be honest I'm not... entirely sure what the point of it was, but at the time there was a bit of financial trouble at White Wolf and less than a year later Rein·Hagen left the company and took Exile and the Null Foundation with him*.
*If anyone does have more information/gossip about what was going on behind the scenes, please feel free to elaborate.

An interesting thing about the Null Foundation is that it had a rather large web presence for when it came out. For the kids in the audience here, 1996 was the era where you were probably connecting through dual-up to America Online or Compuserve, and the Google search engine wouldn't be released for another two years. So it was a pretty prominent presence! Of course, considering this was almost twenty years ago there's not much sign of it left, but archive.org still has a copy of the Null Foundation website if you want to give it look. In addition, the company had an official MUSH to RP in the setting (a text-based chat server, somewhere between a MUD and IRC chat), and in what's most important for this review, they actually put playtest rules up on their site to freely download.

For various reasons that are mostly lost to history, the Exile RPG never actually got released. My suspicion is that Rein·Hagen had big expectations that were impossible to meet, considering the website notes they were looking for partners for a "computer-generated animated series", there's constant mentions about a Null Cosm implying that they were hoping for a WoD-style success, and other such... poor business decisions. Despite the RPG never getting a release, the Null Foundation eventually got folded into Rein·Hagen's new company "Atomaton, Inc" and in 2001 they released Z-G (as in, "zero gravity"), a game very loosely based on the concepts and setting.

Specifically, a "collectible action figure game" which let you snap pieces onto the figures and collect... power cards and stuff to use them in not-quite-miniature gameplay.



Honestly, it wasn't a horrible idea... but considering it came out after the initial CCG rush when stores were already loaded with unsold merchandise it just didn't have a prayer. Not helping matters was the rise of collectible miniature games like Mage Knight that offered much more value for the money. To the best of my knowledge the company only ever released the initial two figures and the card booster pack, and Atomaton finally folded in 2003.

So what the hell was Exile?
Luckily, archive.org makes this part easy. :toot: Quoting the website...

null-f.org posted:

Design Precepts
We have a number of design precepts in ExileTM, which we have used to give us focus and direction. They describe what makes ExileTM different from TravelerTM, Star WarsTM, and any other Space Opera. This is a wild and crazy nearly endless series of worlds, where the imagination is the only real limit for what you might find. Here's how we're going to hold it all together.
  • Conspiracy. The mood of Exile TM is that of layers of conspiracy so thick the truth can never be known. The question that always arises is who is really in control, how much power do they really have, and what are they up to?
  • Suspense. More than anything else, this has a mood of film noir, shadows and fog. This is not clean-cut science fiction, ExileTM possesses the fuzziness of the unknown. The universe is vast and most of it is still a mystery to us.
  • hard-core Science Fiction. Though things get pretty far out, everything (in the end at least) makes sense, both scientifically and rationally. All explanations for scientific phenomena, when we provide one at all, must be presented in a logical formal manner and make coherent sense in terms of scientific principles.
  • Role-playing with an edge. Your character represents and must deal with issues fundamental to the human condition. Ultimately this game needs is about the Self, and the triumph over despair.
  • Unique Presentation. Whatever we do, this game cannot resemble any aspect of the Storyteller system. We want to reach a new audience, reminding them as little as possible of Vampire et al. The style and mood of the cover and graphics should be a something completely new in the industry. The art should be realistic looking, enigmatic, and perhaps use the medium of modified photographs (which can be created in-house).
  • Eerie Familiarity. In order to give this setting a contemporary and somewhat eerie feel, I want to make many aspects of it parallel things in our world.
  • Immortality. There are people in the Hegemony, powerful senators and such, who are effectively immortal. How this affects politics and intrigue can easily be seen in Vampire, from which we will take a few thematic elements (for later games at least, initially we won't focus much on Diadar or Trinary).
  • Clones. Cognates are a major political factor, and these clans of clones plan a major role in the society and political structure of the Hegemony.
  • Historical Connotations. The setting of the Hegemony is loosely based on that of the age of conquest mixed with the British Empire and a liberal dose of Asian cultures (mostly third dynasty China) mixed in. This multicultural mix should pull us away from the purely western POV so common to so many SF settings.
... or to put it simpler, something akin to Transhuman Space crossed with Vampire: The Masquerade's politics and aesthetics. There's also a fair bit of, well, anime throw in there as well. For example, the only art that was ever released for Exile (and Z-G) was by Joshua Gabriel Timbrook, perhaps best known here for the iconic splat characters in the first and second edition WoD games. I personally rather liked his work, but in some ways it was a poor fit for the WoD. Unfortunately, a lot of Exile's art has been lost to the barren craters of Geocities and its fallen free web hosting ilk, but a few pieces survive off archive.org.

To put it charitably, it's clear Rein·Hagen was going for what could be described as-

Art Guidelines posted:

Space Suits - Forget the bulky 'bubble head' space suits you always see. The Ulsters used in Exile are skin-tight, highly flexible and nearly untearable second skins. Think black latex fetish gear, painted with all sorts of wild and personalized designs.
... yeah, pretty much pure 90's technofetish, showing a bit more of that WoD influence. :whip: This will get even more obvious once we get into the game itself.


(These were huge images on an 800x600 CRT display, really)

You said something about a playtest draft?

quote:

*** Cover: Imagine a 7 X 10 spiral bound book book (sic) (bound on the short side) with a black plastic cover. Imprinted on it (or perhaps a holographic sticker attached to it) it the exile petroglyph and the word: ***
:allears:

As mentioned earlier, the Null Foundation had a fairly large web presence for the era, and they tried to take advantage of this by offloading editing and playtesting allowing fans access to the development process. I'm not sure how many iterations there were, but it wasn't... many, and they would have been lost to the aether if not for archive.org. If you want to get a look, go ahead and give the html draft a look. There's only one problem... the playtest drafts there are woefully incomplete. Luckily for you, I found a dusty CD-R when I was throwing things out bravely archived a PDF version of a different draft that has more of the setting information and rules in it, and I'm going to attempt to go through all these available sources and give as complete an overlook as I can manage.

Of course, it's important to keep in mind that the Exile playtest drafts can only be charitably be called a "complete game", and I'm pretty sure they're not actually playable as written. But this isn't a game review and it's something more of a history lesson, and as one of the handful of people who remembers this thing even existed I'm going to do my best here!

Asimo fucked around with this message at 20:34 on May 20, 2014

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Covok posted:

Well, there is Iron Claw. I'm not a furry, but I remember some people bringing it up and saying it was a good game.

I've literally never heard any real bad things about Ironclaw.

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:
Meanwhile on the other end of the spectrum...

:unsmigghh:

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 4, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!
To be fair, it'd be an easy way to handle the whole multi-species concept you see in a lot of fantasy worlds. Many fantasy games already have animal-based races, so as long as you avoid the worst excesses of the furry community, I can see some validity to the idea as long as it not a yiff parade. Hell, my first game was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness.

But yeah, Ironclaw is the emblematic furry RPG, but I recall it being more hifalutin' than you'd expect. But it's been so long since I looked at it I couldn't tell you if it's any good. There was a FATAL & Friends writeup, but it was abandoned, then left in the archives, and then I guess the archives were exploded or something. :(

Of course, a lot of folks have covered Werewolf: the Apocalypse, which is a pretty popular furry game that's actually had mainstream success.

Asimo
Sep 23, 2007


All I recall of Ironclaw was that it was a perfectly mediocre and completely forgettable fantasy heartbreaker... but with furry races and art. If it weren't for that latter part it would have been forgotten a decade ago.

Okay, and also the hilariously copyright-infringing original cover. That was hard to forget.

Man Dancer
Apr 22, 2008
I'm in a Myriad Song game, recently published by the Ironclaw creators with some of the same mechanical DNA (and at least one race of day-glo wolf people), and it is god-damned amazing. One of the better games I've played lately. Pretty much ideal for a Farscape-style campaign.

(For a Farscape-style one-shot, look to Vast and Starlit instead.)

theironjef
Aug 11, 2009

The archmage of unexpected stinks.

Alien Rope Burn posted:

To be fair, it'd be an easy way to handle the whole multi-species concept you see in a lot of fantasy worlds. Many fantasy games already have animal-based races, so as long as you avoid the worst excesses of the furry community, I can see some validity to the idea as long as it not a yiff parade. Hell, my first game was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness.

But yeah, Ironclaw is the emblematic furry RPG, but I recall it being more hifalutin' than you'd expect. But it's been so long since I looked at it I couldn't tell you if it's any good. There was a FATAL & Friends writeup, but it was abandoned, then left in the archives, and then I guess the archives were exploded or something. :(

Of course, a lot of folks have covered Werewolf: the Apocalypse, which is a pretty popular furry game that's actually had mainstream success.

I only count something as a furry product if it either says furry on or in it, or if it uses that very distinct cartoony art style with the giant flat eyes either touching or just almost connected over a muzzle for every character.

TMNT & Other Strangeness just has that picture of a hairy guy becoming a wolf in four easy steps, repeated in, what, like 15 books?

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 4, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!

theironjef posted:

I only count something as a furry product if it either says furry on or in it, or if it uses that very distinct cartoony art style with the giant flat eyes either touching or just almost connected over a muzzle for every character.

I bring up Werewolf mainly because AFAIK it was pretty big with the furry community. I don't think it was the designer's intention, of course, but it had a certain appeal. (See also: Breedbook: Bastet.)

(Once again, it was named Breedbook: Bastet.) :(

theironjef posted:

TMNT & Other Strangeness just has that picture of a hairy guy becoming a wolf in four easy steps, repeated in, what, like 15 books?

Yeah, I wouldn't really consider it a furry game, though the thing is that TMNT came out around the same time the anthropomorphic comic movement was really becoming a thing, so there is some shared heritage. The Turtles had an appearance in Albedo Anthropomorphics, the anthology comic that was a massive influence on birthing furry fandom. Usagi Yojimbo even got its start in Albedo, and I wouldn't necessarily call that conventionally furry. Mind, there are TMNT RPG supplements like Mutants Go Hollywood or After the Bomb that have saucy cats and bunnies tucked in there, so it's not exactly furry but it's not 100% fur-free. (See also: Archie's Teenage Mutant Ninja Adventures comic books.)

theironjef
Aug 11, 2009

The archmage of unexpected stinks.

Alien Rope Burn posted:

I bring up Werewolf mainly because AFAIK it was pretty big with the furry community. I don't think it was the designer's intention, of course, but it had a certain appeal. (See also: Breedbook: Bastet.)

(Once again, it was named Breedbook: Bastet.) :(

Heh, Breedbook. My knowledge of White Wolf stuff is just abysmal.

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:

Alien Rope Burn posted:

I bring up Werewolf mainly because AFAIK it was pretty big with the furry community. I don't think it was the designer's intention, of course, but it had a certain appeal. (See also: Breedbook: Bastet.)

(Once again, it was named Breedbook: Bastet.) :(
They were the Changing Breeds so obviously their splatbooks were called Breedbooks. What are you talking about that sounds weird? Shut up I'm going to lunch.

Their intent wasn't to pander to the Furry Community the problem is that apparently not everyone got that memo and some line editors decided to give the writers they didn't particularly like enough rope to hang themselves with, culminating in Tribebook: Children of Gaia (revised) and the Rite of Clouds and Rain. It was literally the last thing the Author would ever write for White Wolf.

Then in 2007 someone must have drunk all the drain cleaner in the building because they let Phil "Satyrblade" Brucato back in to write a NWoD Suppliment that panders to all those parts of the furry "culture" that we'd like to forget exist. Like hiding in plain sight at fur cons and taking 'feral lovers'.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 4, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!

Kurieg posted:

Their intent wasn't to pander to the Furry Community the problem is that apparently not everyone got that memo and some line editors decided to give the writers they didn't particularly like enough rope to hang themselves with, culminating in Tribebook: Children of Gaia (revised) and the Rite of Clouds and Rain. It was literally the last thing the Author would ever write for White Wolf.

Right, I'm not saying it was aimed at them, but something like Bastet pandered to people who like the idea of loving the wrong kind of pussy, and there's some unfortunate overlap in that regard.

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Asimo
Sep 23, 2007


Really, when you have a game that focuses around "and that spirit animal inside you is reeeeal (also bestiality is cool and natural)" it's kind of silly to think it wouldn't attract a certain... audience, regardless of whatever mythic themes you wanted to present.

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