|
Halloween Jack posted:Uh...hasn't it all been crunch up until now? I don't think I know anything about the setting besides "there are space stations and cybernetics." Even the Traveller style lifepath system doesn't give you much implied setting. Oh you're not wrong about that. But it's at this point the crunch gets a lot more intense, because now we're delving into combat rules and later on this game's damage system. A precursor I can say that the best way to use that expensive assault rifle you got at character creation is just use it as a club. Halloween Jack posted:I assume Neotech is either a game that buries all the real setting detail in the back half of the book, or one of those games that's a genre toolkit with some baseline assumptions built into the rules, like GoO's Ex Machina. (And D&D, of course.) Bingo, despite prewriting a whole bunch of updates I'm still six chapters away from where the book starts talking about the setting it has.
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2019 01:20
|
|
|
|
| # ? Dec 14, 2024 15:35 |
|
|
wiegieman posted:If the world is a flat disc of indeterminate size ruled by dynasties of magic elemental warriors, why would minor peasant rituals not be all over the place? It seems like exactly the sort of thing that fits Exalted. Nessus posted:Sure you can, bake a challah-style loaf, give it to one guy with the charm - he doubles it - he passes it to his student - she doubles it - she passes it to both of her students - they both double it...
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2019 01:33
|
|
|
Tibalt posted:You couldn't put it into widespread use though. Not enough to feed an army, for example. I'm not sure why an army would be any different to any other group of people? If everybody knew how to literally double all bread you'd need half as much supply to feed the same amount of people. Pretty much everything would completely change. Distances you can travel? Doubled. One loaf of bread gets you twice as far as it currently does, suddenly 90% of the population don't stay in their village for their entire life because they actually carry enough food to just gently caress off somewhere else. That also means that the space between villages can be doubled which instantly fucks a whole bunch of factors by itself. Whoever came up with original set up for Creation was a huge history nerd and could probably tell us a thousand ways everyone knowing Second Bread would gently caress everything up.
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2019 01:36
|
|
|
EthanSteele posted:I'm not sure why an army would be any different to any other group of people? If everybody knew how to literally double all bread you'd need half as much supply to feed the same amount of people. Pretty much everything would completely change. Ah, the kind of "ruin the setting" that is incredibly unlikely to actually come up in play but breaks a bunch of underpinnings in that view. Why is Second Bread a thing? (Besides the oh-so-witty Jesus joke they wanted to put in.) That said, Exalted's map is hilariously large by its scale anyway.
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2019 02:15
|
|
|
Nessus posted:It would be one of those low key profound transformations. Something comparable happened in Europe with the adoption of the potato and the resulting increase in available calories. It would also be similar to the output of the Green Revolution. The Willpower cost quickly becomes prohibitive though. A normal mortal might get three points or so per week.
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2019 02:42
|
|
|
The Lone Badger posted:The Willpower cost quickly becomes prohibitive though. A normal mortal might get three points or so per week.
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2019 02:55
|
|
|
The Lone Badger posted:The Willpower cost quickly becomes prohibitive though. A normal mortal might get three points or so per week. So they can only do it half of the time. Twice the food half of the time is still a huge change.
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2019 04:23
|
|
|
Is "a loaf of bread" an object with defined size and food content? Because if not my local village is absolutely pooling their resources to create industrial size loaves full of egg and veggies and then doubling those.
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2019 05:23
|
|
|
SunAndSpring posted:It's a political maneuver either way, considering the Immaculate Dragons all are mythical figures spread by Sidereals long ago after everybody who participated in the actual Usurpation died. I dunno, I think I just dislike the way they did it simply because it kinda reminds me of how people conflate representation in media with getting LGBT people normalized. Just makes me really sad when people give poo poo like Will & Grace and Orange is the New Black more credit for advancing positive behaviors towards LGBT people than the actual activists who did poo poo. My problem will always be the fact when you do this poo poo, it leads to fascist apologia because then people like the Scarlet Empress become cool 'pragmatists'; you can't lean into poo poo like 'I guess the Scarlet Empire is full of misandrists' to fix it or stop it. You really do a Grail Knights like book going 'this is poo poo we don't agree with and are actually highlighting this fact, this is why it won't effect your PCS and for the love of god disregard it if it makes anyone uncomfortable.' type book, but not make it about LGBT but a more frank book about classism and imperialism. Like maybe lean on while Trans people are accepted and transphobia/homophobia is heavily discouraged, all men and women are expected to pop out heirs, so either transition or make that baby tree now! (which is in there but actually stress it!) and maybe even make gay marriage a thing, but you are still expected to be to have a wife/husband to produce heirs with, or once again pay out for baby trees) I just don't trust White Wolf to loving do it though in a respectable way that doesn't involve Rape Ghosts or the community to just shift it over to what Alien Rope Fire said
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2019 05:48
|
|
|
I think the Realm's evil is fairly well presented in the DB's book (the Empress is never really portrayed as pragmatic, more just incredibly self-centered and willing to sabotage her offspring to prevent herself from ever being challenged, and the Great House entries all paint the picture of a bunch of incredibly selfish assholes abandoning places they've conquered and set up to be dependent on them to whatever comes), but yeah, I guess it's an odd situation to be in because while I think most of the fans are just big leftist/liberal leaning people who got into it because it lets them do anime bullshit in a setting with lots of LGBT representation, there are still huge weirdos on the fringes interested in organizing Dragon-blood eugenics programs and complaining that 3e will no longer have sex charms under Vance and Minton. I suppose the book could have big sections where they turn to the camera and say "THE SCARLET EMPRESS IS A BAD PERSON AND HER CHILDREN ARE AWFUL PEOPLE", but don't the other books already do that? The core certainly doesn't paint a rosy picture of them, and Lunars takes pains to tell you how loving wretched the Realm can get.
|
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2019 06:46
|
|
|
There's a difference between "Everybody can learn" and "Everybody knows". Barring rare mental or physical conditions, everyone can learn how to make nails and horseshoes. It's even super useful to be able to do that! But most people aren't blacksmiths. Sure, a farmer in a typical village probably knows some basic metalworking, because you can't afford to spend a day going into town and waiting to get your plow fixed, but that doesn't mean they can create something entirely from scratch. In much the same way, you'd expect most people to have some basic grasp of a ritual or two. Maybe they know how to keep pixies out of the fields, or they can whisper to a grain of wheat to convince it to point north. If you think Second Bread being widespread causes too much issue, just say it's something that most people never have the time or inclination to learn, much like being able to weave a high quality cloak or cobble shoes. Barudak posted:Is "a loaf of bread" an object with defined size and food content? Because if not my local village is absolutely pooling their resources to create industrial size loaves full of egg and veggies and then doubling those. I think that would be a genuinely interesting side story about the setting. Someone who knows thaumaturgy learns Second Bread and spends time carefully experimenting with size, shape, quality, ingredients etc. to determine what exactly constitutes "bread". Figuring out how magic works is not a bad thing, and more settings should have people who are willing and able to do it.
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2019 06:58
|
|
|
SunAndSpring posted:I think the Realm's evil is fairly well presented in the DB's book (the Empress is never really portrayed as pragmatic, more just incredibly self-centered and willing to sabotage her offspring to prevent herself from ever being challenged, and the Great House entries all paint the picture of a bunch of incredibly selfish assholes abandoning places they've conquered and set up to be dependent on them to whatever comes), but yeah, I guess it's an odd situation to be in because while I think most of the fans are just big leftist/liberal leaning people who got into it because it lets them do anime bullshit in a setting with lots of LGBT representation, there are still huge weirdos on the fringes interested in organizing Dragon-blood eugenics programs and complaining that 3e will no longer have sex charms under Vance and Minton. I suppose the book could have big sections where they turn to the camera and say "THE SCARLET EMPRESS IS A BAD PERSON AND HER CHILDREN ARE AWFUL PEOPLE", but don't the other books already do that? The core certainly doesn't paint a rosy picture of them, and Lunars takes pains to tell you how loving wretched the Realm can get. It seems like a lot of this ends up rooting in the setting conceit that Terrestrial Exaltation is connected to biological inheritance. I'm surprised I've never heard of someone making a setting hack where actually Terrestrials are just ten thousand Exaltations and the Dynasty is, I don't know, getting fate-hacked to give the impression (combined with the god-blooded effect on some Dynasts) that it's a bloodline thing. You'd have the added advantage of making them look like dummies who believe their stupid religion even harder than is already the case!
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2019 07:15
|
|
|
Kaza42 posted:There's a difference between "Everybody can learn" and "Everybody knows". Barring rare mental or physical conditions, everyone can learn how to make nails and horseshoes. It's even super useful to be able to do that! But most people aren't blacksmiths. You need a limited number of nails in your life but most people would really like to have food every day. If everybody could learn it, they would. And even if they didn't, your Solar could teach everyone and now your society has twice as much food as everyone else. It's pretty much "do we want magic tricks that the supernal Lore master can teach literally everyone in the setting?" and the answer is definitely yes.
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2019 07:24
|
|
|
I'm still 400 posts in the past since I can't ignore reading posts about social mechanics and how they're bad. So while I'm delving into part 4 of the Chromebook FnF, you all get to experience Cults: Scourgers  Degenesis Rebirth Primal Punk Chapter 3: Cults  SCOURGERS Broken Wings This fluff piece actually starts describing double towers, one of which is the Voivode's domain. You can guess that this place in Beogorad. Empty cages hang from the bridge connecting the towers – they're empty, since the slaves have been sold. After all, we're talking about Scourgers here. Chuma, a Scourger, feels a hand on his shoulder and turns to strike – and is immediately thrown to the ground. This is male bonding, you see, and he was just bested by his Dumisai (I read ahead, it means “super unit champion”) Kabaila. Chuma feels good about this fast fight, because this shows that The Scourgers remain strong even in the land of the Crow.   Other Scourgers gather and the book mentions that they wear helmets of blue steel, which irritates me mildly: the illustration shows some sort of PASGT helmet (made of kevlar IRL) and the African-UN in 2070 would have had helmets that are made from some futuretech spacematerial. The Scourgers, armed only with their Scourges (as per the deal the Voivode struck with their Neolibyan), approach the slaves. One of them is obviously a former Spitalian. Chuma doesn't understand what he's saying, but he takes the hook from the windlass on his Kom and attaches it to the chain of the first slave in line. They ride out slowly, so that the slaves can keep up. The Scourgers laugh when they notice a child in the city mimicking a demon: apparently, this display of childish tomfoolery shows that the locals fear them. When they leave Beogorad, Kijani and Taye, pack's Simba (a low sort of champion) are jogging alongside. There's someone on the road and the guy in the lead Kom gets owned immediately. The convoy is under attack by the Spitalians (described via pale skulls and weird, tripple-bladed spears). Chuma sends the Kom to the side as a distraction (no mention of what happens to the slaves) and jumps out. The book describes Spitalians as afraid or child-like, so he and his friends defeat them easily. Taya is then allowed to go for a duel with a huge Spitalian with a tattooed face and a black sword.  Note that I'm whiter than a Paler and don't know much about African culture. Do tell me if I make fun of something that's a real thing and not just Degenesis doing "ooh, Africa"  Me, irl, is the exact opposite of that  Drawings This section describes an abandoned city where the walls of the ruins are painted with depictions of post-Eschaton African history. There's nothing new here, I'm just quoting this so you could get a taste: quote:Drawings can be seen around the window cases. Here, Africa’s history has been recorded with colorful earth pigments, blood and spittle: black areas dotted with red, fragile figures, broken bodies. Bullet holes. Legions of white chalk lines advance unstoppably, cut through the great waters and color the rivers red with the blood of their enemies whom they slaughter like animals. Dark streaks disappear in the oceans. So that's Spaniards stealing oil, yadda yadda.  Tempest The frescoes continue into the present in the same style, telling about the Scourgers driving Europeans back and striking at Europe itself. We find out that there's a solitary old man doing these paintings. Glad we wasted so much space retelling the history of Spanish colonist adventures in a stylized fashion. The Lion's Claws quote:If the African people are the Lion, the Scourgers are its paws. It's literally the first sentence after the title of the section and they still felt it necessary to call Scourgers paws instead of claws. What the gently caress.  Anyways, fighting the Crow (white people) is the only thing that honors the ancestors. Subsequently, Scourgers train a lot in the mountains, Psychovore jungles and generally don't conform to any sort of organized military drill. quote:In the settlements, young women adore them. Children come running, laughing and admiring the muscles, pulling the girls’ hair: “Eke loves a Scourger!” If a Neolibyan walks by or is even carried past in a palanquin by slaves, the Scourgers strike a pose in front of him and denounce him as a weakling. If they get the chance, they grab the merchant’s garments and tear them off him. Scourgers hate fat people, since “predilection for greasy meat and alcohol that enabled the white man to conquer proud Africa.” This lead the people to renounce the ancestors and to embrace capitalism, which lead to the continent’s downfall (well, they're right about one thing…). People respect Scourgers since they bleed and die for Africa while Neolibyans are just fat cats. The Crow quote:The ancestors had chosen them to push back the conquerors and destroyers. And then what? Wait until the white man has recovered? Scourgers see Europeans as born oppressors who need to be chained in order to avoid them causing damage. Don't worry, we'll get even more stuff about ancestors! In Hybrispania, the Scourgers push the Guerreros into the Warpage (what an inelegant word) and burn down their hideouts. They drive the Scrappers out of the ruins in Purgare and Borca. They fight in the Balkhan. quote:Prisoners are enslaved so they can work off their centuries-old debts on Africa’s fields. They call this balancing, not injustice. The overview of Scourger activities by cultural region is probably one of the shortest ones yet.  Scourgers look cooler than Hellvetics by the simple virtue of not having stupid three-barrel rifles Living history The city ruin where the history of Africa is recorder in wall murals? That's Agadez and it actually exists in the game world. However, the Scourgers don't go there: they learn history from storytellers. Which means a party where everyone gets high. quote:The rhythm leads the way into the depths of their souls. Their pupils widen; their breath slows down. They gather around the oldest Scourger present. He sways back and forth. His teeth are blackened from the concoction of the intoxicating plants; the gates to his mind are wide open. An ancestral wind blows through. He raves incoherently like an oracle, speaks in tongues or starts some weird chant. But something happens to those gathered around him, who keep moving closer to him. He leads them down to the sea of collective memories, pulling them with him into the absolute blackness. Afterwards, some lie passed out, other chug water from gourds, etc..  Guardians of Tradition The world is full of spirits and they inhabit every last thing. That's why Africans apologize for the stones they remove from the fields and thank a game antelope (notify me if I used “game” wrong) for agreeing to become food. Spirits don't interfere in human problems... except for when Hybris attacked. Then poo poo got weird. quote:The power of the eight ancestors flowed through young warriors throughout Africa – they had been chosen to repel the Europeans as champions of the eight. Years later, these warriors were only known by the name Scourgers. Therefore, Scourgers are also super important spiritually and as guardians of tradition. Apparently, one is required when an African is caught lying or doing harm to another African or needs to move a rock to build his hut (what is it with rock moving). The Scourger then consults the traditions and the spiritual world to set the course of action. This can get a little silly: quote:The rock may only be moved if no one in the village opposes the idea and the spirit inhabiting the rock has been pacified with sacrifices for a whole month. It's a wonder they have any time for training or slaving. Next time: alien Esperanto
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2019 07:28
|
|
|
 The Rifter 9½, part 8: "Potty humor (and giggling about it) is high on his list of favorite things, as is writing in the snow with one's bodily fluids ('yellow snow, says hello'), sexual innuendos, spreadying rumors (even when he knows they aren't true), telling white-lies, false implications (I never 'said' that), using semantics, and parks like switching sugar with salt, or adding hot spices to sauces, surprising people with joy buzzers, whoopi cushions (makes a farting noise), burps, farts, spit balls, pulling down somebody's pants, putting a bug (snake, ice cube or other icky thing) down a victim's pants or shirt, putting ants in the sugar bowl, making mud pies mixed with doggie-doodoo, food fights, shooing a mouse into a crowd of women, serving chocolate covered insects, lighting smoke bombs and shouting fire, using stink bombs, and similarly disruptive and vulgar jokes are right up Backsmack's alley (along with some surprisingly clever and sophisticated ones)." I guess Siembieda couldn't think of anything for the latter. Also, seriously, "shooing a mouse...?" What is this, a fifties Tom 'n Jerry short? Unlikely Gods By These are gods that are funny! This is largely intended for the Palladium Fantasy RPG®, but you know, Palladium doesn't care where you stick their crunch.  The Kent Burles art in here is wonderful, have him draw gods 24/7. The first is Geshbourn, The God of Lost Causes, a guy who became a god... because, y'know, that's something guys do, I guess. Anyway, he decided he wanted to become a god of war, and went around picking fights with other war gods. The problem is, he's actually a lousy warrior (for a god) and makes excuses for his incompetence rather than learn from them. Instead, he thinks that bravery and determination should win the day. For him, it didn't. And so, the gods of war, pretty much just fed up with this guy tilting at their windmills literally thousands upon thousands of times, declared he would be named the God of Lost Causes and the Underdog. I think Geshbourn is probably the better example of how to do humor in RPGs- he's the setup for the joke, not the punchline. Though the actual text is overdone by half, there's a hook in players feeling sorry for him or otherwise getting caught up in shenanigans that are at his expense rather than theirs. So, good job, Rosenstein. You did it, you aikido-flipping maniac. You did something funny. Geshbourn would go on to a different sort of infamy as the name of an rpg.net poster who took to chronicling Palladium's frequent book cancellations and delays.  He actually has a surprising talent for humor.. Telthi, Goddess of Cooking, opted to take up her domain due to a lack of competition. In general, she's a very competent cook, but has a tendency to create unpalatable experiments. However, she's dedicated to feeding the poor and it's only her occasional test dish that really seems potentially humorous. I guess food is funny? She mostly seems pretty straightforward, outside of her occasionally trying a disastrous dish on somebody.  I'm not a fan of the description but I am a fan of the expression. Backsmack, God of wisecracking, backstabbing, and teenagers (by Well, that'd... you know, that'd be perfectly in line with the wit we've usually seen on display in The Rifter 9½. Still, this is probably the best article in the issue, even with the usual overwrought deity statblocks. Next: Humorist supremacy. Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 08:43 on Apr 8, 2019 |
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2019 08:40
|
|
|
 Neotech 2 Part 10: Combat is Stressful.  This represent more or less what the art for this whole section will be. Lots of guys pointing guns at things. So combat then, this might just take a while because this is the first out of three combat chapters in this book. This one in particular is about basic combat rules while the second and third ones deal with ranged and close combat respectively. Right of the bat the book says that a lot of the combat rules are optional and should only be used after the basic system has been mastered. The GM is free to choice what optional rules are being used but it's also a good idea to inform the players which ones to avoid issues. This whole sidebar, which goes on a bit more about using common sense to decide the outcome if things get complicated, is perhaps the most sensible part of the whole book so far. Starting with the basics, one combat round lasts 4 seconds. 15 rounds is then one minute. During which characters can do one or several actions. There are two kinds of actions, active and responsive ones. Initiative, as we’ve talked about before, is RÖR+SYN/2 + Cool + Combat Experience x2. This value can go up or down depending if the character has cybertech or is injured. Any negative or positive modifications are to be applied before you multiply or divide for modification calculations. The one with the highest initiative goes first, no real surprise there. If there is a tie, then combatant with the highest Combat Experience goes first. If that also turns out to lead to a tie then Cool is used and if that doesn’t work then use RÖR or ultimately roll a die until someone gets a higher result. If a character’s Initiative ever reaches 0 or below that means they can’t do active actions but can do responsive ones. Neotech has stackable actions during combat. There is no maximum number of actions that a character can do during each round, but this is offset by the fact that each subsequent action comes with a penalty. 2 actions on the same round incurs adds Ob1D6 to the roll while 6 adds Ob5D6 to the roll. So it pays off to be mindful of how much you want to do during one specific round. There are a few exceptions to this rule, in this case drawing or reloading a weapon will not incur stacking penalties despite being active actions. If you do a responsive action before an active one those actions stack. Lifting the example from the book in this case: If you first do a responsive action and then proceed to shoot twice with your weapon it means you have done three actions. That increases the difficulty with +Ob1D6 for each shot to a total of +Ob2D6. If you then do another responsive action after that it counts as a fourth action which increases the difficulty to +Ob3D6. Active actions are things a character can do when their turn comes up. Responsive actions on the other hand are done as reactions to other actions and allow characters to act outside of their turn. Only one responsive action for each active action is allowed, this is regardless of who it’s aimed at. The only valid target is the one who performed the active action, even if there are exceptions to this such as fleeing. You can’t do a responsive action against another one. The difficulty for these increase with one level for each action that has been done before, regardless if they were responsive or active ones. Once more I’ll pull the example from the book to showcase how it works because there is a lot of elements to it: Neotech posted:Jason Carn is fighting a mugger in an alleyway. Carn has higher initiative and thusly gets to go first. He decides to punch the mugger twice, which translates to two active actions. The mugger now has the opportunity to do two responsive actions, one for each punch, because they’re affecting him. Carn manages to get one hit but the second blow is dodged. Carn’s turn ends because he only chose to do two actions. The mugger decides to stop messing around and pulls a knife and goes in to stab Carn, which is an active action. But because he has already done a responsive action beforehand the difficulty modification of the attack goes up by one. In return Carn gets to do a responsive action and decides to dodge the attack. The difficulty modification for this action increases because he did two actions previously. As you might see it’s rather easy to stack the difficulty modifications to the rolls. Those modifications are then added on top of the standard difficulty of the action. For example the last action in that example would be an Ob5D6 check because first there is the normal difficulty level of Ob3D6 and then the +Ob2D6 modification from multiple actions is added to that. So the described combat flow is as follows: Your combat turn has come up:
I’m divided about this notion. One side it doesn’t really matter since the PC’s are obviously working together on taking out their targets so obfuscating who they are shooting is counter-intuitive. On the flipside it feels mean spirited to do if the PC’s are the targets which means they will all spend valuable actions to avoid getting shot which will make subsequent actions harder. Far better in my meaning to just declare who is being shot and have them spend responsive actions. All of that doesn’t count when we’re talking about melee combat. There’s a table detailing what kind of active actions exists and which ones that can cause a responsive action and which doesn’t. Another one details what kind of responsive actions there are. For the latter you can either shoot back, dive for cover, defend yourself or flee. A sidebar offers a ‘brief’ refresher course in what the various weapon skills do. Rifle and Pistol skills are only for single shot and burst attacks. Automatic Fire skill is for when you want to rock and roll or use an actual machine gun. And so on. Then we come to maybe the cringiest bit of this chapter. Titled “Combat is Stressful” it starts in a rather special way. Neotech posted:Have you ever tried to conduct a good battle plan in five seconds? No? Okay, try it. You can start...NOW! Neotech posted:“In a real fight you have at most half a second on you to decide, so the game master is really nice to let you think for several seconds.” The book then goes on to say that if you take too long to decide the GM will then proceed to stress you and if you still are unable to decide then the GM is going to assume that you’ve hesitated during the whole round. The book example ends with the player suddenly having to roll a Death check after the GM declaring they’ve been hit. Ending with “Suit yourself. You were hesitating all the time.” Well gently caress you too GM. That whole example is awful and a massive dick movie since you know multiple GM’s have used it as justification over the years. “It’s mentioned in the books so I can totally do that.” I really was mostly chuckling at this section until that last bit where I just turned sour on it. Ugh. Next time: There was a fire fiiiiiiiight!
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2019 09:47
|
|
|
Barudak posted:Is "a loaf of bread" an object with defined size and food content? Because if not my local village is absolutely pooling their resources to create industrial size loaves full of egg and veggies and then doubling those. Bake a bread golem, double it. Create an army of infinite, delicious soldiers. #noloafrules
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2019 10:43
|
|
|
PurpleXVI posted:Bake a bread golem, double it. Create an army of infinite, delicious soldiers. #noloafrules Run, run, as fast as you can You can't stop me, I'm the endless bread man
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2019 12:09
|
|
|
The Realm is both an imperialist villain of a nation that does terrible things and also full of absolutely heroic Dragon-Blooded who legitimately are good people. This dichotomy is what the DBs book is going to present, and I feel it does it fairly well. (One major way it does it is that the heroic DBs tend to operate on a personal scale, while the Realm's evils are generally on a more institutional scale.)
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2019 12:34
|
|
|
Mors Rattus posted:The Realm is both an imperialist villain of a nation that does terrible things and also full of absolutely heroic Dragon-Blooded who legitimately are good people. This dichotomy is what the DBs book is going to present, and I feel it does it fairly well. (One major way it does it is that the heroic DBs tend to operate on a personal scale, while the Realm's evils are generally on a more institutional scale.) Taking peoples' food on tax day at spearpoint seems pretty personal to me.
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2019 12:42
|
|
|
wiegieman posted:Taking peoples' food on tax day at spearpoint seems pretty personal to me. You'd be shocked how few Dragon-Bloods are actually involved in that part of things. (Mind you, many also don't care. There may be many heroes, but there's just as many villains.) e: though it should be clear, the way the Realm tends to tax people is it turns to whoever is in charge of that area, sets a quota, and then turns away. Whatever that person does to meet the quota, they don't ask questions. e2: which is, yes, an absolutely terrible way to do it if they don't feel like oppressing people. As I said, systemic villainy is kind of their deal. Just, you are also able to play a heroic DB member of the Realm who loves their family and not be an immediate and complete hypocrite and horrible person. Mors Rattus fucked around with this message at 12:58 on Apr 8, 2019 |
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2019 12:55
|
|
|
Exalted 3rd Edition: Actual Working Antagonist Rules Quick Characters are a new (and very good) concept this edition – basically, that not everyone has to have a full character sheet, particularly NPCs. The game does say that you may want a full sheet for any NPC intended to stick around for an extended period, but honestly? Quick Characters can do pretty well even for that, especially since you can add stuff to them as needed for new situations. And they’re much, much faster to make than an actual character. You start by assigning them an Essence value and Willpower value, then determine their Essence pool, Join Battle dicepool and HP bar. Quick Characters, or QCs, do not have normal dicepools, having neither attributes nor abilities. Instead, they will have dicepools for broad actions such as ‘archery’ or ‘combat movement’ or ‘climbing.’ A QC’s dicepool for an action will be based on how good they’re meant to be at it, and it’s usually safe to default to 3 dice for anything they don’t have listed. A dicepool of 1-2 is meant to note a specific lack of skill in an area. 3-6 is a pool for something to rival a well-trained mortal or low-power Exalt in an area that’s not their focus. 7-10 dice is a master of some mortal skill or an area of an Exalt’s main competence. 11-14 dice in a pool is extremely good, on par even with specialized PC Exalts before magic comes into play. Combat actions will also come with a damage bonus for Withering attacks, to represent the weapon the QC is wielding, plus any Parry or Evasion ratings, Soak and Hardness. We get another chart to determine what defenses are meant to represent what skill level of foe, and what armor gives what ratings. Lastly, a QC will also have a list of powers or Charms. These will almost always be simplified mechanics designed to make the QC easier to run, and will be looser and more ballpark-y than if you wrote up the character entirely. It’s not vital that all modifiers match up perfectly, after all. Generally speaking, these won’t represent all of the abilities an Exalt might have – just the ones likely to come up when dealing with them in a scene. Thus, the GM can add some if the situation requires. There aren’t great guidelines for making new QC powers that aren’t based on existing Charms, but hopefully the QC examples will help with that. First we get mortal stats, ranging from random brigands to nomadic archers or cavalry to elite troops. They’re mostly for armies and battle groups – they have no special powers and can be beaten pretty easily by Exalts. Then we get into the somewhat magical mortals. Brides of Ahlat, say, who are the royal guards of Harborhead and the warrior-nuns of Ahlat, the Bull God. The Brides are skilled warrior with sling, firewand and spear, and can sacrifice a bull before a fight to get double 9s for some rolls and, if a whole battle group does it, Might 1. However, if they are not brave after calling on Ahlat’s power, he strikes them with disease. We get a Sijanese Deadspeaker that is also usable as a generic shaman or exorcist, who’s not much of a fighter but can do exorcisms and has some minor magic items – a silver staff that can strike ghosts and a talisman that can ward off possession. From here, it’s into generic Weird Folks – beastmen, golems (which aren’t super accurate but are skilled fighters that are quite tough and can hit super hard if they’re okay with a defense penalty), fogsharks (which are magic sharks that can swim through fog as if it was water), and Mist, the Eternal Revolutionary. Mist was once a farmer who led a rebellion in the city of Kahla against the tyrant Storm Hawk, who went into the Wyld to gain the power to free his people. When Mist returned, he was taller, more handsome, and he raised an army and slew Storm Hawk in single combat. He chose not to rule, instead moving on to other lands, always fighting against rulers – good and bad alike. While he has sometimes been defeated, he has never been slain, and he always seems to escape any confinement and recover from any injury. While it has been decades since he freed Kahla, he has not aged a day, and he now wields the sword Interregnum in his eternal quest to overthrow all rulers. He has a Defining Principle of “Overthrow all tyrants” that can never be weakened, and if he ever dies but his body can’t be found, he somehow survives. He’s able to curse rulers whom he slaps to be seen as cruel and domineering and can make successes into 1s when a ruler or their direct agent acts against him or in his presence. Then we get undead, which range from mindless zombies (who cause nausea due to their stench and have diseased bites) to hungry ghosts (which can track blood by scent and automatically materialize when they smell it) to more intelligent examples such as ancestral ghosts (who typically have small cults and can occasionally prophecy the destruction of others to give them a chance to prepare, can bless their descendants and can curse people with nightmares), war ghosts (who can possess suits of armor) mortwights (oblivion-tainted ghosts consumed by hate or fear that can blind the living and do poltergeist antics). On the weirder end you have Bonesiders (evil black skeletons that spread the Puppeteer’s Plague and feed on the pain of mortals) and Nephwracks (ghosts tainted by the ancient Neverborn, who can do sorcery, have cults, seek out forbidden lore and are utterly nuts due to having seen the void of Oblivion, which they can use to buff their troops or curse foes, and can eat mortal souls and possess corpses). We also get introduced to the Eclipse keyword, which denotes a Charm Eclipses can learn in a QC statblock. Here, one of those is the Honored Ancestor’s Curse of the Dead, which lets you curse someone to nightmares that prevent Willpower recovery and cause paranoia until they get an occultist to break the curse or you remove it. The other is the Mortwight’s Black Breath of the Abyss, which summons a cloud of darkness that the living are entirely blind in barring use of Charms, but which is banished by a bonfire-level Solar anima. Then we’ve got spirits, which covers ghosts technically but is usually used to refer to gods, elementals and demons. Most can assume material form, though ghosts and lesser spirits may need to possess something instead. All spirits except elementals are naturally immaterial in their normal state; elementals are naturally material, and cannot usually dematerialize at all, though they remain able to do things like enter spirit sanctums, which material beings usually can’t do. Slain spirits are usually not permanently dead, instead reforming from their Essence over several weeks, months or years, weakened but not dead. Gods tend to reform in their sanctums (or Yu-Shan), but can be threatened with true death if their domain is destroyed or taken from them, forcing them to rely on their cult’s worship to stay alive if defeated. Slain elementals disperse back into the world unless they have a cult worshipping them or a patron potent enough to prevent their dissolution by willingly sacrificing of their own Essence. Second and Third Circle demons reform in Malfeas if slain, while First Circle demons die unless they have a cult worshipping them or a patron willing to save them, as with elementals. Ghosts may occasionally survive their own destruction and reform at the site of their death or another meaningful location to them, but often they are unable to maintain the sheer stubborn will this requires and instead pass into the cycle of reincarnation. The GM can decide if a spirit reforms or not, and can if they like roll Willpower or Willpower+Cult to see how long a reformation takes, but there’s not actually rules for how that roll works. Next time: Gods
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2019 14:09
|
|
|
Hey. Sorry for the delay. Short version : depression sucks. Anyway, let’s get back to talking about Torchbearer and give the last bits of character creation that I skipped last time. Starting Gear and Spells I know I keep kicking the can down the road and saying that I’m doing brief intros to things that then get their own chapter later, but well. Guess what I’m gonna do now. A brief intro but I promise both of these topics get their own chapter that I’ll get to later! I swearsies! First let’s talk magic, by which I mean if you are a spell-casting class (Magician, Ranger or Cleric) you roll on a random table to see what spells you get. All of the spells have their own new names but roughly correspond to D&D spells on a thematic if not mechanical level so I’m going to be giving translations. Cleric : ha ha I lied you don’t get spells until 2nd level. You start with Fury of the Lords of Life and Death, a.k.a. Turn Undead. Magician : You get three spells, and you have them in your traveling spellbook. One is automatically Wisdom of the Sages, a.k.a Read/Comprehend Languages, and then you roll 2d6 (my god we’re not using the normal dice system!!!!). The actual mechanics are, you guessed it, crunchy abstractions (drink, drink!) rather than D&D’s “Hi I’d like to totally circumvent the rules of the game and just make narrative declarations k thnx” ; you’ll see when we get to the Magic and Miracles section : 2 : Thread of Friendship (Charm Person) 3 : Celestial Music (Ghost Sound I think it’s called? It makes fake sounds.) 4 : Arcane Semblance (Disguise Self) 5 : Dance of the Fireflies (Dancing Lights/Faerie Fire) 6 : Supernal Vision (Various divination spells) 7 : Eldritch Darts (Magic Missile) 8 : Wizard’s Aegis (Shield) 9 : Mystic Porter (Unseen Servant/Tenser’s Floating Disk ; this is one of the best spells in the game, as you’ll see when we get to the inventory mini-game. Carrying poo poo is awesome!) 10 : Word of Binding (Hold Portal) 11 : Lightness of Being (Levitate) 12 : Destiny of Heroes (Generic buffing spell) If you are very lucky little dude in a bathrobe and you roll the same spell on your second try, you get the choice of picking whatever spell you want, you decadent slut. (I pray to god someone gets my HBomberguy reference.) If you’re new to Torchbearer but played some D&D you’ll probably pick Eldritch Darts. You are also wrong and the game will punish you. (Haha it was going to do that anyway.) You pick Mystic Porter. Always Mystic Porter. Because carrying poo poo is the best thing you can do in this game. You can’t shoot magic bolts at treasure. Or well you can but it’s not productive. Elves : You only get one spell, it can’t be Wisdom of the Sages so uh I hope you like your starting languages, and you can’t choose it and have to roll on the same table as the Magician. This is the beginning of the game telling you to go gently caress yourself for being an elf. Starting Gear So I don’t have a good scan of the character sheet that I can upload through some combo of it being a something they want you to download, not finding a good quality image, not having good access to a scanner, and me being a terrible hack and a fraud. But here’s a link to the free download from DriveThruRPG if you wanna play along at home. On that character sheet, on the second page, taking up almost half the page is the inventory system for this game. It’s a super abstract (drink!) pseudo-paper doll kind of thing with little slotty-do’s for all the poo poo you can carry. Want to carry an axe? Great, that’s either your dominant hand, one of your 2 belt slots or a slot in your pack/satchel/whatever. Then there’s a little table like you’ve seen in every RPG ever, pretty much, with possible starting gear with how much space it takes up on the aforementioned abstract (drink!) paper doll. The catch : you don’t have to pay for any of it. Take as much as you want, the game says. O yeah, go hog wild. You want shoes (yes, you have to pick if you want shoes), have some shoes. What about Stakes (3) and a mallet (pack 1)? gently caress yeah, what if you run into some draculas or something. There’s garlic too if you want! (hand/carried 1 or neck/worn 1) (There are no rules for vampires to my knowledge. At least not in the base game.) Torches (4)? Yeah you want some loving torches. (Hand/carried 1 or pack 1). Maybe get the value pack, you’re gonna want a lot of loving torches, my dude. Oo, maybe a jug? (pack 3 ; I guess you can’t hold jugs…?) This has been the game baiting you into a trap. Yeah you can have all that poo poo, go to god drat town. But. YOU NEED TO CARRY ALL OF THAT poo poo WHILE YOU’RE BASICALLY GOING SPELUNKING AND ALSO FIGHTING ORCS And if you’re successful you probably are carrying a bunch of treasure back out with you and fffffuuuuuuuuuck... The Real Torchbearer Experience Starts Here. We’ll get into the full song and dance about inventory management when we get to that chapter (yeah, I know I keep doing this, the game is very dense, sue me), but I wanted to give you all a taste for how a big part of the central concept of the game is no bullshit inventory management. This is part of why one of my go to descriptions when I do the elevator pitch for this game is : The Things They Carried but with goblins. Every single choice you make in what to carry could save your life, or kill everybody because why did you bring 7 things of wolfsbane, Todd. Personally, I find it perfectly blends being crunchy enough (drink!) to make all of these decision seem worthwhile, but abstract enough (another drink!) to where you don’t feel burdened like you’re counting every bit of bullshit. I really love it as a bit of design. Last we get a thing on what starting weapons you can possibly use/have : Cleric : You can use a flail, mace, sling or warhammer and get one. You can never use any weapon with an edge because Gary read a thing about a medieval bishop once and thus it is canon like it was a loving papal bull. But you can also have a shield. Magician : Gonna quote this verbatim cause I find it delightfully terse “You start with a dagger as a weapon. You may only use daggers.” Something about breaking that up into two short sentences just makes me chuckle. But I’m also that jerk who thought a PhD in Linguistics would be a good idea so maybe I pay too much attention to language. Elf : You may use a sword, bow or dagger. But you only can start with a dagger. Because go fuckyourself, pointy-ears, that’s why. Warrior : You can use anything, and you start with one [anything] and a shield, if you want it. Halfling : You can use every weapon besides crossbows, two-handed swords, halberds, polearms and lances. Start with one of whatever isn’t one of those. But no shield for you, small fry. Soapwart McFuggletoes ain’t carrying no shield, don’t be ridiculous. Dwarf : You can use anything except bows, two-handed swords and lances. Start with whatever, and you can have a shield. Nice beard, by the way. Everybody but magicians and elves can start with leather armor and a helmet. Magicians get nothing because tradition and elves because I think Thor Olavsrud's girlfriend left him for Orlando Bloom or something. Also, that wasn’t my gently caress up and I just started using the race names for convenience instead of the class names. That’s straight from the book. The veil on this whole Race as Class ruse slipped away already in the character creation chapter. So that was character creation wrapped up! Next time, let’s get all sly and talk about Wises.
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2019 15:04
|
|
|
Here is the Torchbearer Inventory System:
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2019 15:23
|
|
|
Thank you! I am very bad at images!
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2019 15:36
|
|
|
Exalted 3rd Edition: Divine Powers Gods have very large Essence pools, but also tend to have expensive Charms. Almost all of them share three Charms, though these Charms are highly variable in cost and usage. Hurry Home lets them teleport back to their sanctum, a sort of tiny pocket dimension with a fixed entrance somewhere in the world that only spirits can see and access (well, spirits and Exalts with appropriate magic). Materialize lets them become material. Measure the Wind lets them sense the nature of another being, which tells them broadly what the target is. Mortal, demon, god, Wyld denizen, etc. If used on an Exalt, the Charm gives a strong sense of the Exalt’s patron, letting them sense a Solar and tell them apart from an Earth Aspect DB or a Lunar. (DBs and Sidereals, they can tell what specific subtype you are; other Exalts, no.) However, while it can pierce mundane disguise, Measure the Wind can’t beat any kind of magical deception, such as shapeshifting. Disease Spirits are the gods that Heaven has set to overseeing the spread of disease, ensuring that neither too many nor too few people get sick, or to ensure that specific people get sick or do not. However, few disease gods remain in contact with their bosses or listen much to them these days, and most run protection rackets, spreading disease to keep people praying to them to be spared or cured. Their priests typically propitiate them rather than worship them directly and work with such plans, but a rare few actually do collaborate with the disease gods to spread the illness. Disease gods usually appear as people afflicted with the worst form of the disease they command, and their size and power is usually directly tied to the virulence and lethality of their illness. They tend to have cults of up to middling size and can easily spread their diseases just with their presence, inspire people to act in ways that make them vulnerable to the illness, and can weaken their disease (though they rarely do). Dogs of the Unbroken Earth are gods the size of tigers, with green or red-glowing eyes. They are the gods of the wild lands, those areas uninhabited by mortals for over a century, and they are jealous guardians. Their sanctums even resemble the wild places they rule, full of trophies of their prey. They demand regular sacrifices of meat, alcohol and grain from those that would build homes, farms or roads through their domains – but if your work is too great or your sacrifices too little, they will attack instead, and you probably need to find other gods to defend you. The dogs especially hate roads and travelers, and will eagerly attack them if they aren’t protected by the power of a road or caravan god. However, the dogs don’t hate humans in general, and will be fine allies to tribes that do not build structures in their lands. The dogs rarely have large cults, but do have them, and are extremely skilled hunters, able to cripple foes with their magically charged bites and able to travel the wilderness at great speeds, track by scent and sense the rough power of those they smell, and are very good at breaking things. Eclipses may learn their Broken Earth’s Anguish, which allows them to sense trespassers in their domain or if their allies are attacked. (The dogs are limited to their personal domains; an Eclipse can use it in any dog’s domain.) Field Guardians are the gods of cultivated land. They are mostly notable for sending dreams to farmers to tell them how to improve crop yield and ward off blights, in exchange for being granted a small portion of the field that will go unharvested and serve as their sanctum, and a promise that no structure will be built in their field without an offering of animal blood and alcohol. Violating these rules risks death, however, for the field guardians are skilled warriors with their scythes. They appear as strong people touched by the nature of their field – green or wheat-gold hair, peach or eggplant-colored skin, that kind of thing. All wear farmer’s garb and carry farming tools. They tend to have small cults and are able to take strength from their fields while in them, do terrible damage to foes in their field in order to fertilize it, and cause plants to attack their foes. They can send dreams to their farmers and are able to harvest an entire field in a day, but generally don’t like to do so without a serious bribe. The harvest is the work of their farmers, not themselves, after all. Eclipses can learn their Legendary Reaper, the Charm that lets them harvest an entire field in a single day, or their Towering Wheat Blessing, which causes plants to grow massively, enough to feed a dozen people for a day If harvested, or cause plants to turn into Difficult Terrain by attacking foes. Storm Mothers are ugly, monstrous goddesses that have scaly, greenish skin, balding hair and clouded eyes. Some even have hunchbacks and jagged teeth. They love storms, coming out of the sea on foggy nights to call down the storms for their own joy or at a mortal’s behest. When passing through their territory, which is usually several days’ sailing wide, it is wise to pray to them for safe passage or to pray for them to go after an enemy vessel (which they are more likely to answer, as it lets them call a storm). Experienced sailors know what makes a storm mother angry: failure to offer a sacrifice or harming a mortal they like, yes. (Though the storm mothers hate any mortal who won’t defend themselves, for they despisze the weak.) They also like ravens and black dogs, so don’t hurt them, either. Most become jealous and enraged at the site of beautiful women, and they all hate the sound of a crying child. It is said that the storm mothers have no power over red-haired women, and so many lady sailors dye their hair red, and red-haired women are common figureheads. Storm Mothers rarely have formal cults but are usually worshipped by many, many sailors, and will almost always have a familiar spirit in the form or a raven or black dog. They can call up storms and command them, and can bless sailors or ships with good weather or curse them to terrible seas. Eclipses may learn their Wrath From the Sky, which summons a lightning bolt out of a stormy sky to serve as an environmental hazard and sets things on fire, or their Storm-Stirring Lash, which summons storms around them. Ahlat, Southern God of War and Cattle, is worshipped throughout the South, but his chief cult is in the nation Harborhead, where cattle raiding is a part of life and battle skill is required as part of becoming an adult. He sees those warriors that serve him as his children, and takes virgin girls into his service as the royal guards of Harborhead, the Brides of Ahlat. He has no pity for weakness, and will happily curse his worshippers if they disobey orders or show cowardice in battle, but those who die heroically he offers a form of immortality to, sending his spirit cattle to devour their corpses and draw forth their ghosts to be woven into tassels for his cloak. Worshippers may undertake great quests for Ahlat in exchange for a gift of a tassel, which allows them to call forth the spirit and power of the warrior within it. Otherwise, he does little to interfere with wars except to counter the meddling of other gods. He is an immense man with the head of a bull, dark skin, red eyes and golden horns, and he wears nothing but a kilt and his red-and-black cloak. He wields a spear of black ebony and blood-red metal, and a lion-bone bow inlaid with gold. He lives in Yu-Shan proper, in a massive stepped palace guarded by spirit aurochs and full of trophies. Ahlat has a gigantic cult across the entire South. He can tap the blood sacrifices offered to him to improve his speed and skill in battle, even if he’s in Crash, though he needs more sacrifices to do it more than once, and he can cause terrible, endlessly bleeding wounds with his horns, though none wounded this way will die of blood loss, because he prefers to kill personally. He can boost literally anything he does in battle, increase his bow’s damage and range, boost his Decisive attacks, or double pretty much anything he does on a Withering attack. He can call on the spirits in his tassels for speed or to call on their martial arts knowledge or Evocations or otherwise gain benefit from their skills. He’s super hard to hurt, can call up an aura of fear, can boost his defenses, and can clash with all attackers when outnumbered. He heals himself when recovering from Crash, too, and can bless armies with great power (while cursing any traitors or deserters in it) or he can hand out his tassels as blessings. Good news: your Eclipse can’t learn any of these. Next time: Elementals
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2019 16:15
|
|
|
The storm has a name... - Let's Read TORG Part 22e: The mind is the limit Now that the setting details are out of the way, we can talk about the much more interesting mechanical side of things. As I always do, I'm going to quote myself on the axioms and World Laws. quote:The Akashan axioms are: Aka adherents get a +3 bonus to various athletics-style skills like climbing, running, and acrobatics. They also get the bonus to disguise and charm for some reason, as well as to combat skills when they do an all-out defense. Aka followers heal more damage when spending a Possibility, but can't recieve, trade, or give cards through the use of other cards. Coar followers get +3 to all their combat skills, plus a few others. It's a smaller list than the aka folks get, but ultimately more useful in an rpg sense. They also heal less when spending a Possibility, but can "buy" cards off other characters by paying them Possibilities. People who've achieved the state of zinatt only get the +3 to a handful of knowledge-based skills, but get an ability called "restore the balance" that lets them get a +3 bonus to any action that falls under one of the other two alignments when that action is taken to counter an action from the other alignment. On top of that, if their skill total is higher than the other person's, they use the taunt/trick result table instead of whatever else they'd use because they're so ~above it all~. quote:Example: Atalpa is a Zinatt-aligned character. A Coar-aligned character blazes away with an energy weapon. Atalpa could dodge, which is an Aka-aligned action, but his willpower value is much higher. The gamemaster considers, and then agrees that using willpower to suppress the pain of a shot does count as an Aka action. First, c&ping that text out of the PDF made Atalpa's name "AtalfXl", which I thought was funny. Second, this is straight-up "Mother May I" mechanics, especially in this example because I don't know what the character was trying to do here apart from just taking the hit to intimidate his foe, I guess? Why was that a better idea than not getting hit? Just a free intimidation check, I guess? God, how can this game still shock me with how bad its examples are? Anyway, you're probably wondering now how you determine which of the three alignments your character would fall under when they come to Akashan territory. Thankfully, the book gives examples for most of the major belief systems in the game. However, they tend to fall into "Aka = good, Coar = evil", which doesn't make sense based on the way they were presented. People who believe in Cybercatholicism, people who are "Evil" in the Nile Empire, and people with the corruption skill from Aysle are all assigned Coar, because Coar is about asserting your will on others and the idea that the "superior guide the inferior". But if you have the honor skill, follow Lanala, or willingly support the Kanawa Corporation, you're Aka, which means that supporting an evil megacorp is on the same moral level as worshiping a goddess of life. In short: alignments are dumb. Moving on to skills. There's only six new skills in this book:
And with all that out of the way, we get to the part you've all been waiting for: the Psionics chapter! Shocking exactly nobody, psionics have axiom requirements in order to determine if you can use them without disconnecting. The minimum axiom levels are Social 21 (the idea that We Live In A Society and your mind is connected on some level with others), Spiritual 9 (the concept of people coming together to perform a "miraculous" effect from nothing), and Tech 15 (the acceptance of abstract scientific processes). So yeah the Star Sphere hits those limits, but these values mean that the only other cosm that can handle psionics is Core Earth. Nippon Tech and Tharkold come close, but their Spirit and Social axioms respectively are one point shy. Anyway, acutally using psionic powers requires having both the psionic manipulation and psionic resistance skills. Akashan and Core Earth characters can buy these skills as normal during character creation, but getting them later has a higher Possibility cost for the first rank in the skill (5 points rather than 2). Once you have the skills, you have to buy at least one power group, which cost either one Possibility or skill add, which I think means you can spend your actual skill level (which might cost more than one Possibility) to buy a group. Power groups are Kinesis (the power to move things), Psionic Defense (which also includes healing), Psyichic Senses, Telepathy (all forms of mind reading/projecting), as well as one group for each alignment. Buying a group gets you one of its powers for free, and after that they cost one Possibility each. Buying a new power group after character creation costs 5 Possibilities.  Nope, not going for the easy joke. Just a sample stat block. So now you've got your spiffy new powers; how do you actually use them? Hoo boy. At the start, it's easy; you make a psionic manipulation roll against the difficulty of the power. Simple enough. Then you compare the final difficulty of the power (after modifiers and such) to your psionic resistance skill level. You then look the difference up on the ol' Torg damage chart to see how much mental damage you take. Mental damage has the same types as physical damage does (shock, K's, O's, and wounds), and all stack with normal damage except maybe for wounds because the book is unclear on this. Mental wounds can only be healed via the psychology skill, which just gives me a mental image of someone in the party holding a therapy session for another in the middle of a session after a combat. Now all that would be fine, if we didn't have to start worrying about modifiers. For instance, what if you wanted to use multiple powers in the same round? That's possible, you can always do split actions in Torg. What you do in this case is determine which power will be the "primary" power, then "secondary", and so on. You then use the One-on-Many table (a.k.a., the table you use to determine multitasking penalties for pretty much anything) to get the new difficulty numbers for the powers. The reason you have to determine the "priority" of the powers is because that's the order they'll go off. That's important, because in Torg, when you try to do a multi-action you roll once and apply the bonus to all the actions you're taking. So it's possible to line up three powers to use and only have two of them go off. You can also increase a power's stats by increasing the difficulty by an equal amount. Note that there's no way to decrease a power's stats to lower the difficulty. Lastly, you can try to actively resist the strain of using a power rather than just passively using your psionic resistance base skill. Doing so requires a multi-action (so back to the One-on-Many chart), which makes your attempt to use the power itself harder. On the plus side, you'll always generate a bonus of at least +1 on the psionic resistance. So let's put that all together! quote:Example: Karin is playing an Akashan psionic named Torinka, who unwisely parked her flying transport in a swamp. When she got back, it had sunk into the mire. Since Torinka possesses the telekinesis power, she believes that she can lift the vehicle In addition to all that crap, we have to worry about maintaining powers. By default, a psionic power lasts for one round (10 seconds) unless the power specifies that the generated bonus applies to the duration (by looking it up on the Value Chart to get a duration, because Torg). Attempting to keep a power going longer than that that requires:
Simple!  Or you could just use guns. After about a page of stuff on how to learn psionics if you're from another reality (it involves finding teachers and the right "psychic retreats"), we finally get to the powers. In the interest of not boring people to death, I'll just hit the highlights of each of the power groups. Kinesis abilities involve moving things around. The old standby telekinesis is in here and is surprisingly simple (the item's mass determines the DC, using it on unwilling subjects is a resisted roll), but you can also create force domes, create tk blasts, do the "create a storm of small objects" trick, all the stuff you'd expect. The one new idea here is energy conduit, which lets the user take "the thermal or light energy produced by a fire, the fusion or fission energy of an energy weapon, or any number of kinetic energy types that she is aware of, and send it in a specified direction." This is...confusing. I think the idea is that you can take the energy from a weapon and send it elsewhere, like back at the attacker, but the text isn't worded well. The Psychic Defense group has the defensive and sort-of-healing powers. The basic ones are general defense (self) and general defense (group), which increase the effective defense values of the targets' psychic defenses. There's also psychic aid, which is the equivalent of a first-aid skill, and diagnostic probe, which gives the user a bonus on the psychology skill when treating mental damage. I'd also like to call out telepathic repulsion solely because the name makes me smile. It just makes it harder for people to read your mind, but still. Psychic Senses powers do what you'd expect. Awareness lets you potentially detect danger by rolling against someone's stealth score, there's various "extend a sense out to a certain range" abilities, and so on. One interesting power is implanted perceptions, which lets you see through an object like it's a 360 degree camera. Of slightly less use is psychic infravision, which lets you see heat/cold sources. The last general power set is the Telepathy group. Again, these are powers that do what you'd expect: straight mental communication ("mind meld"), sensing emotions, confuse people, and such. You can also pull the Jedi mind trick with perception distraction, which is always fun. Now we get to the groups that are specific to each of the three religious alignments. There's not many of these, but they start getting more complex. Aka powers revolve around internalizing power, and using your psi energy to improve your body's abilities. They have access to two powers that boost physical and social abilities (Enhanced Adrenalin and Charisma Control, respectively) as well as other ways of increasing their stats. They also have the very odd Mind Seal power. This lets the caster seal off part of their Mind stat for a short period of time, rendering the target effectively mindless and can only perform simple actions (i.e. nothing that'd require a roll normally), and even then still have to make rolls. When the power ends, the target "wakes up" and gets a big bonus to resisting or throwing off mind control powers. Which...okay? That seems useful, but the way it's designed seems incredibly situational. Coar powers are more aggressive, as befits the "impose your will on others" stance they have. They don't have any real "attack" powers apart from Psychic Assault and Telekinetic Attack, but they still have ways of dicking with people like Ego Strike, which lets you taunt someone psychically, or Project Emotion, which lets them implant emotions in people. Their biggest trick is Domination, which is the only real direct "mind control" power in the game. Using this power requires that your Mind stat is two points higher than your target's, your Perception is four points higher, and your Spirit is six points higher. Which...is all pretty unlikely, since NPCs in Torg are stated up like PCs and as such would have similar stats. I feel like having only one of those stats be higher would be enough. Anyway, using Dominate requires a multi-action because you're trying to attack all three of those stats at once. If you succeed, though, you get total control of the target. They will follow your every order, no matter how dangerous, and cannot take any action unless ordered by the person using the power or "misinterpret" an order until the caster drops the power. The caster can even see through the target's perceptions. I guess the high requirements are because it's so powerful, but still, like Mind Seal it seems to be too much work for what it is. Especially given how stats work; it seems unlikely you'd be able to cast this on anyone who's not a mook-ish NPC. Finally, we have the Zinatt powers. Oddly, there's no real central theme to these powers, despite the whole idea of Zinatt being balance. There's a power called Living Harmony, but all it does is increase your Toughness for the purposes of resisting rough environments. There's an okay healing power in Accelerate Healing, but at the end of the day it's a stat-swap for the basic medicine skill. There's also clairvoyance and sense past for time wonkery stuff, which are useful. On the flip side are the reality probe and skill search powers, which let you tell if someone is Possibility-rated and what skills someone has ranks in, respectively. Which are useful, I guess, but seem rather outdated now that Torg Eternity has a "full mechanical transparency" thing going on.  They have these types of illustrations all through the book. The next chapter is Miracles, and in keeping with Torg's usual stance that belief-based powers are pretty much an afterthought, this chapter is literally four pages long and only has eleven powers. Admittedly, part of this is because of the Law of Acceptance. quote:Because of the law of Acceptance, characters have access to miracles from other cosms. As all cosms are part of creation, followers of the paths of Zinatt, Aka,or Coor may use any miracle from any other realm. To accomplish this, the character must have at least one add in faith (Akasha). He must also have seen the miracle performed before attempting to invoke it. Anyway, since there's only a dozen of these and this is the end of the post, I'll just list them all out.
And there we go. -- You can tell that by this point, the writers were really struggling to come up mechanical ideas for stuff. The whole alignments thing is interesting, but trying to give it its own subsystem while also trying to integrate it into multiple other subsystems is just...there's a lot of underwhelming powers, let's just put it that way. Part of that is because they didn't want to make powers "generic", and I get that. But to make powers thematic, you have to do more than just have them. You don't need to integrate them with everything, just have one system that builds off the central ideas and you're good. But as always, Torg didn't know when to stop. Thankfully, I do! Right here, with maybe one more post left for Space Gods! NEXT TIME: Biothings
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2019 17:17
|
|
|
Traveling via the Nazca Lines seems like it wouldn’t take you anywhere useful, given where they are.
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2019 17:40
|
|
|
Mors Rattus posted:Traveling via the Nazca Lines seems like it wouldn’t take you anywhere useful, given where they are. But it's thematic.
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2019 17:45
|
|
|
Ratoslov posted:Arguably, minor magic rituals should just use skills. Bind spirits with Bureaucracy, ensure good crops with Craft (Wood), get mad gains with Athletics. This is how Fragged Kingdom does a lot of its magic. If you take one of the "I'm a type of wizard" traits, you get "Magic" as a toolbox for relevant skills. So assuming a wizard and a normal dude are both trained in perception and examine a murder scene, the normal guy finds a clue, the wizard has a brief vision of the killer that provides the same amount of info, assuming all other things being equal.
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2019 18:01
|
|
|
Nessus posted:The entire thing is kind of weird to me because from a slightly external perspective (cuz I ain't going to let Exalted back into my heart until I hear Abyssals is coming), it seems like the objection is that the rear end in a top hat imperialists are not also trans/homophobic, or at least not in the same way that conservative social elements in real life are? And I've seen the White Wolf forums, or Onyx Path, now and there is apologia there for the Scarlet Empress big time. I've brought up in this thread before this, but it's only a minor thing and I'm just "mad" how they handle this poo poo (Scarlet Empress being behind trans acceptance somewhat, not stressing cultural components factors that she couldn't or wouldn't fight) because the Exalted Fanbase is infamous for said methods how they justify said lovely states. Nessus posted:It seems like a lot of this ends up rooting in the setting conceit that Terrestrial Exaltation is connected to biological inheritance. I'm surprised I've never heard of someone making a setting hack where actually Terrestrials are just ten thousand Exaltations and the Dynasty is, I don't know, getting fate-hacked to give the impression (combined with the god-blooded effect on some Dynasts) that it's a bloodline thing. You'd have the added advantage of making them look like dummies who believe their stupid religion even harder than is already the case! Because that would be smart, but also lean against the "DB are Rich SuccessDaughters and Solars are self made heroes" but even that can be overriden to be a AoT Eldrian thing were yeah, DBs born DBs lineage, but not actual genetics or direct parentage
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2019 21:29
|
|
|
NutritiousSnack posted:More like it's weird that the Scarlet Empire is just doing the "CLAP more female guards CLAP" poo poo, plus fictional misandry (that one I don't get, it really does only offend redditors) I never picked up meaningful amounts of misandry from anything in the Realm. I mean, like, is this misandry in the sense of "white guys perceive a mix of about 18% women to be gender-equal, and perceive actual numerical equality as a chick-town hen party"?
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2019 21:32
|
|
|
Exalted 3rd Edition: Elementalism Garda Birds are a form of immortal fire elemental, wise beyond time. When one dies, it is reborn in nine days in a burst of flame. The only time a garda bird truly ends is when two unite to become a new individual of the species - a rare, loving sacrifice of the parents. Garda birds are six feet long, with twenty-foot wingspans and indigo feathers. They can appear as male ('Emperor') or female ('Empress'). The Emperor form is a gold-andpurple peacock with a pheasant's head, but when tghreatened it will instead assume the Empress form, a silver pheasant with sharp claws. When truly enraged, they assume the Phoenix form, a many-headed humanoid figure with eagle head, wings, claws and tail. Garda birds have no real interest in mortals or mortal society, and prefer to live on isolated mountains, volcanos or desert plateaus, feeding on morning dew. They do not gather material things, and mortals approaching them for wisdom often gain little. They never lie, but they are proud and whimsical creatures who rarely respond at all to questions, and even the spirit courts don't see them often. They are immune to heat and fire-based environmental damage and very resilient to fire-based attacks, which cannot ever kill them or knock them out. They can fire burning feathers at foes, do massive fire-based damage, or explode. They can project a terrifying aura or change between their three forms easily. Eclipses may learn Immolating Pyre, the Charm they use to explode in flame. It makes a fiery environmental hazard that ignores allies and it does not hurt the user to activate; rather, it can be activated for free and reflexively when you become Incapacitated. Garda birds will arise from the ashes ten days later after doing that unless slain permanently with magic; Eclipses do not return from death but can still auto-activate it when they become Incapacitated. Greenmaws are elementals of the deep jungles of the East and Southwest. While they are plants, they feel an overwhelming hunge for flesh, and will eat any meat, living or dead. Most die at the hands of angry mortals or gods or against prey that proves too tough for them. However, as they grow older and bigger, their appetite fades away, and most elder greenmaws have not attacked mortal lands in millenia, preferring to tend to their wild forest gardens and think about philosophy. A greenmaw is as thick around as a tree trunk, but as flexible and green as a fine. Its tail is a mass of prehensile roots, and its head is a venus flytrap's great jaws with the honeyed tongue of a sundew, surrounded by a ruff of leaves. Galls of metal or stone can be found on older greenmaws - coins, weapons or jewelry that the creatures eat along with flesh but could neither digest nor remove from themselves. The very eldest, of immense size, may have treasures within them dating back to the First Age or earlier. Baby greenmaws are sometimes born of stray root fragments or flowers in forest Demesnes, but a dying elder Greenmaw may choose to give its life to birth dozens of new greenmaws, which will then plague the region. The oldest greenmaws have Legendary Size, which is a rule we'll get to in a bit, but you don't usually fight such high-Essence greenmaws, as they aren't aggressive. Greenmaws can grapple stuff with their adhesive, prehensile tongues, swallow people whole or crush them in their coils. They can dig into the ground to avoid being moved or hurt, and they heal by eating living flesh. They can easily sense living prey and are extremely good at feats of strength that take advantage of their coils or tongue. Tidemares are water elementals resembling gigantic seahorses, dozens of feet long, with prehensile tails. They have huge, bright-colored fins that shimmer brilliantly in the light and can stretch out behind them in miles-long rainbows if the tidemare wants to extend them. Tidemares are very vain about their fins and spend most of their time preening them. Large groups of tidemares usually hold big contests and games in which they intertwine their fins over miles of sea. Sorcerers and pearl divers often seek out tidemares for transportation, for they are able to distend their bellies large enough to hold a dozen people, and their belly flesh is a glass-like membrane that bodies can easily pass through. Within them, the air is always fresh and crisp, and they can speak to their passengers, though they tend to only talk about elemental gossip and the magnificence of their fins. They are tireless when swimming, as well, though vulnerable to attacks from within themselves. They can grapple with their tails or use their fins to distract attackers. They have two Charms that Eclipses can learn. Prismatic Sea-Spoor STreamers allows them to trail their fins for miles, which they may use to confuse enemy ships chasing them or to assist their allies' ships by laying a trail of light. Eclipses send the rainbow streamer out of their anima, but it is only visible in water. Racing Sailfish Surge allows the tidemare to command the water around it to move it very quickly, either in combat or out. Eclipses may only use this underwater. Vaktri are the emissaries of the earth elemental courts and the gods of the deep stone. They appear as statues of prismatic gems, each segment no bigger than a man's thigh bone. Rows of crystals slide in and out of them like pistons as they move, and they have three legs and five arms, though they can shift their crystals to allow them to flow snakelike around obstacles or through narrow spaces. Their voice sounds like glass breaking, and their heart is a fist-sized gem. They have no faces. They are taciturn, infinitely patient beings who carry out their duties without a care, no matter what they are. At rest, they are prefectly still, as if they were unable to move at all. While their passions are not easily roused, once angered they are equally difficult to calm. The shining of their heart-jewel shows how strongly they feel, with the colors shifting based on their emotional state. They have no blood and cannot be poisoned or sickened, and they can neither see, hear, nor smell, instead perceiving the world through vibrations of the ground, which are extremely perceptive - enough to dodge an arrow by the vibration of an archer's feet or hear a whisper from the movements of a throat - but they need to have ground touching what they want to sense. They can fire gemstone needles or, if wounded, erupt into killing fragments, and they can easily harden themselves to reist attacks or reconfigure their shape to enter tiny spaces. They can also walk on stone or metal surfaces like a spider would climb, are extremely good at social influence when obeying orders from a greater spirit, and can become distractingly beautiful at the cost of revealing their own feelings. Fakharu, Lesser Elemental Dragon of Water and Censor of the West, is responsible for investigating misconduct among the spirit courts of the West. While once loyal to Heaven, the breakdown of the celestial hierarchy has allowed lesser spirits to bribe and corrupt him. Now, he dwells in a great golden palace on a distant isle, focusing on art and study rather than seeking out spiritual crimes among the Western spirits. While he is immense and potent, he is also graceful, with scales the green and silver of the sun on the ocean, and eyes the gold of a setting sun. His claws are delicate enough to produce elegant calligraphy, and he is a witty, thoughtful conversationalist. Besides his mortal lover, Amarel, and her handmaidens, he doesn't much care for humans. He is used to being treated well by lesser spirits and has no real reason to interact with his bosses back in Yu-Shan. The only people he tends to see as peers are the rare Lunars or Sidereals that visit him, whom he treats with hospitality. He would surely do the same for Solars. While Fakharu has no cult of his own, he is given a tithe of worship from all spirits in the West, alongside a number of bribes, which amounts to quite a bit of prayer, effectively a very large cult. He has Legendary Size, which means he ignores onslaught penalties from smaller foes unless inflcited by magic, he cannot be Crashed by the Withering attacks of smaller foes unless they have 10+ dice of post-soak damage, and he takes limited damage from Decisive attacks by smaller foes, not counting any damage added by Charms or other magic. Also, he can fly tirelessly at massive speed. He can perform a blur of claws and bites against multiple foes, can drown people by turning his coils into water when grappling, and can deal lots of damage if he feels like it. He also can shoot a blast of venom at foes nearby, turn his body into water to reduce damage or heal himself by draining water nearby. When invoking his authority, he is extremely persuasive, especially to any spirits subordinate to him - which is most of them in the West. He can turn into a human form if he feels like it, though it's not much for fighting, and he has immense strength when he chooses to perform Feats of Strength. Unlike most elementals, he can also dematerialize. Next time: Demons
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2019 21:40
|
|
|
Nessus posted:I never picked up meaningful amounts of misandry from anything in the Realm. I mean, like, is this misandry in the sense of "white guys perceive a mix of about 18% women to be gender-equal, and perceive actual numerical equality as a chick-town hen party"? By the text in the DB book, the Realm has matriarchy in the sense that the man is expected to join the woman's household and be the supporting partner. Men are overall viewed as less capable or reliable, but not to an overwhelming extent. And someone being Exalted trumps their sex, so a mortal woman is considered lower than an exalted man. It's less of a factor than sexism against women is in our modern society, let alone the more extreme patriarchy of bronze/medieval societies, and calling it "misandry" is probably not a good reading of it. "Matriarchy" is about right. It's still something rotten in Realm society to fight against, but it's not as bad as their slavery, colonialism, extreme class disparity, and other Imperial crimes.
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2019 21:41
|
|
|
Nessus posted:I never picked up meaningful amounts of misandry from anything in the Realm. I mean, like, is this misandry in the sense of "white guys perceive a mix of about 18% women to be gender-equal, and perceive actual numerical equality as a chick-town hen party"? It's actually organized discrimination, if somewhat minor. Men aren't allowed to be part of the admiralty board or similar high ranks in certain fields, in certain Houses (I forget the one) they don't want the House Husbands who married from other Houses to serve as officers any more and focuses on other fields (especially home making), along with stereotyped prejudices about how men are sluts and can't keep in their pants, but also women are allowed to have extra martial affairs with members of the opposite sex (men can have male concubines and lovers and women are still expected to turn a blind eye), because of how Essence and Dyanist marriages 'work', not that the former does that way. It wasn't entirely intended, the system in place is rear end backwards if you want to breed as many DBs as possible, because while Essence increases the chances of giving birth to a DB and you can 'exhaust' it during sex and need to recoup for a couple decades....but you can still produce DBs without it and women still have to go the trouble of giving birth to a baby if they get knocked up, while men can gently caress for a month an insane quantity of partners and at least one or two might end up being Dragon Blooded, even if they can't pass it on. The actual system in place, if this was actually practical, would be a reverse Spartan society were wives introduce younger, unmarried DB women or war widows to their husbands in case they died in battle themselves or couldn't perform their duties and salute both parties for their patroism in making more DB kids....but part of the Misandry is hinted at the Scarlet Empress being a jealous lover...and HEY THE NEGATIVES OF SOCIETY ARE ACTUALLY BEING SHOWN AS ILLOGICAL AND BASED ON PERSONAL, UNFAIR BASIS! Who would have thought it would leave a foul taste in your mouth when you read it, but not enough to offend anyone but Redditors and 4chan idiots? Kaza42 posted:By the text in the DB book, the Realm has matriarchy in the sense that the man is expected to join the woman's household and be the supporting partner. Men are overall viewed as less capable or reliable, but not to an overwhelming extent. And someone being Exalted trumps their sex, so a mortal woman is considered lower than an exalted man. I agree with everything else, but this because it seems heavily patterned a lot on what we expect and think of women now, but without rape culture (which the creators don't want to engage with a ten foot pole but is SOMEWHAT implied with the idea of men always being eager and the gay male NPCs thoughts about how women treat him, even with him married) or the fact DB women don't really have the desire to control men's bodies outside of what is already expected of child bearing women, and it's different then things how then things are with Lookshy, so this is clearly an organized structure set out by the Scarlet Empire and/or the Scarlet Empress. Would still call it Misandrist though! It isn't just that 'women are more equal men' but there are legal and social barriers men can't cross, if even they aren't large NutritiousSnack fucked around with this message at 01:28 on Apr 9, 2019 |
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2019 22:55
|
|
|
NutritiousSnack posted:MISANDRY WAAAH shut the gently caress up
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2019 23:15
|
|
|
MollyMetroid posted:ahhh Do you want to read a review of the Dragon Blooded book? Because this is the actual text in game and intended, like say Grail Knight, and not me getting mad that the leadership of the DBs are women. The Scarlet Empire is a sexist society who's prejudice is aimed at men, because the creators DID want to point out the the Dragon Blooded are in a broken society and it's a lot safer and kinder to everyone on the table to act out through play that way than a sexist society to women. NutritiousSnack fucked around with this message at 01:32 on Apr 9, 2019 |
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2019 23:18
|
|
|
I've read the text, thanks, and it sure as gently caress doesn't contain misandry. You're just a loving idiot.
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2019 23:22
|
|
|
I will be getting to DBs. It's one of the reasons I'm actually, y'know, reviewing Ex3 at all.
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2019 23:29
|
|
|
|
| # ? Dec 14, 2024 15:35 |
|
|
You wanna talk sexism though let's talk about your assumption up there, NutritiousSnack, that a woman (me) would need a man (you) to loving explain the text to understand it
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2019 23:30
|
|