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Powerful username/post synergy
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Aug 19, 2019 14:59
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Please include the original fishmalk pic somewhere, plz.
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Aug 19, 2019 15:16
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Cyber Dracula is probably the coolest illustration EP, most of the rest is just generic space fitemans doing generic space fiteman.
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Aug 19, 2019 15:23
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Bieeanshee posted:Please include the original fishmalk pic somewhere, plz. That's from Dark Ages.
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Aug 19, 2019 15:35
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hyphz posted:
To be slightly fair to this book, there is a weird impulse for GMs sometimes that if you ever roll a 20 on a die, you do something stupendously over the top, and if you roll a 1, you poo poo your pants and fall in it because you're a lovely poopy pants. Not rolling dice all the time for no reason is a thing people should be reminded of. juggalo baby coffin posted:its very important to have your gm pc dominate What if it's that kinda game though? Don't kinkshame.
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Aug 19, 2019 16:04
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Mors Rattus posted:That's from Dark Ages. I'm actively sorting old boxes of poo poo and saw that one. Don't make me post it.
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Aug 19, 2019 16:28
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Xiahou Dun posted:I'm actively sorting old boxes of poo poo and saw that one. Don't make me post it.  Despite having read people referring to it for many years, I have never actually seen the original picture.
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Aug 19, 2019 16:31
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It was easier to google than get a phone pic :
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Aug 19, 2019 16:35
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Xiahou Dun posted:It was easier to google than get a phone pic :  Seems relevant. StratGoatCom posted:And they want to great lengths to show how much of a hell on Chiron things descended into. I look at the denizens of EP and think 'Y'all need to read some Miram Godwinson.'
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Aug 19, 2019 16:48
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Xiahou Dun posted:It was easier to google than get a phone pic : I don't know what I was expecting but this wasn't it. Thanks! I've always been kind of curious.
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Aug 19, 2019 17:14
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Yeah I remember when I first encountered the term I suddenly remembered that picture and was like, "Wait, really? That's what you're referencing?"
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Aug 19, 2019 17:52
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Kurieg posted:Even 1st edition CofD books lean pretty hard on "You're cool and that's literally the worst thing to happen to you except for potentially getting cooler." 2nd edition is better about it. I've been re-reading Requiem 2E and one of the first things they tell you is 'be a superhero if you want.' It's more about 'how do you make your now day-less, potentially eternal existence bearable.' Which can lead to a lot of brooding on rooftops if you reach into your bag and find that's your thing, but it's not mandated.
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Aug 19, 2019 17:55
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It definitely seems odd to me that power tripping would be so discouraged when "to be strong and cool and hot and immortal" would be like the #1 reason anyone would be a vampire
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Aug 19, 2019 18:02
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Prism posted:I don't know what I was expecting but this wasn't it. Never seen that pic before either. I always thought "fishmalk" was a reference to the old joke: "How many surrealists does it take to change a light bulb? Fish!"
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Aug 19, 2019 18:03
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Glagha posted:It definitely seems odd to me that power tripping would be so discouraged when "to be strong and cool and hot and immortal" would be like the #1 reason anyone would be a vampire We can blame Anne Rice, I suppose. Also Lost Boys to an extent, which had the vampires like being strong and cool, etc. but they were also the bad guys. Cool stylish undead person went hand in hand with 'also deeply tortured' for along time.
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Aug 19, 2019 18:05
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Isn't the Street Fighter Storyteller game really emblematic of why "Roleplaying, not Rollplaying" is bullshit? I've never played it, but everything I've been told gives me the impression that starting character simply does not have enough resources to be effective in actual combat situations, know the fundamentals of their martial arts and have (or at least had) a life outside of Street Fighting. Because those all cost resources.
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Aug 19, 2019 18:06
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Sometimes it's fun to face a vampire who is cool/stylish but who is also really in love with how cool/stylish they are and really enjoys being a vampire. I suspect some of it is just the need to have the modern world look anything like the modern world, though. Hams Fantasy can have The Count giving monologues to his enormous army of skeletons because it doesn't have to give a gently caress about the consequences of LA getting overrun by a skeleton army, for instance. Whereas tortured vampires hiding in the shadows and having political struggles over feeding lets Chicago still look like Chicago.
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Aug 19, 2019 18:07
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Night10194 posted:Sometimes it's fun to face a vampire who is cool/stylish but who is also really in love with how cool/stylish they are and really enjoys being a vampire. Except then you have to make the vampires and every other monster more powerful (both magically and politically) in order to explain how they keep up the facade, to the point where it becomes pointless for there to be a facade to begin with.
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Aug 19, 2019 18:17
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Just wanted to pop in and say that I'm intrigued by ^PM AGEStOrm Age Master® and looking forward to more of... whatever it is.
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Aug 19, 2019 18:19
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SirPhoebos posted:Except then you have to make the vampires and every other monster more powerful (both magically and politically) in order to explain how they keep up the facade, to the point where it becomes pointless for there to be a facade to begin with. Or alternatively make them weak enough that they really have to hide and don't have much of a society. Or if you're mad with power you could pull a Charles Stross and double down on vampires really, really, really wanting to stay hidden. gently caress I just remembered he actually used to write for TSR and now I want to see his take on Vampire the Requiem. That sure would be uh a thing.
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Aug 19, 2019 18:33
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Dawgstar posted:We can blame Anne Rice, I suppose. Also Lost Boys to an extent, which had the vampires like being strong and cool, etc. but they were also the bad guys. Cool stylish undead person went hand in hand with 'also deeply tortured' for along time. I mean it's not even so much that they're deeply tortured. I can see having superpowers at a steep cost as being a thing to be sad about but I still think that every vampire would love to flex a little. Otherwise what's even the point? Just go sunbathing at that point. Actually, real question, for how sad vampires are sometimes, how much does the lore touch on vampire suicide? I feel like immortality being a curse is less of a thing when you have an extremely accessible cause of death to turn to.
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Aug 19, 2019 18:47
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SirPhoebos posted:Isn't the Street Fighter Storyteller game really emblematic of why "Roleplaying, not Rollplaying" is bullshit? I've never played it, but everything I've been told gives me the impression that starting character simply does not have enough resources to be effective in actual combat situations, know the fundamentals of their martial arts and have (or at least had) a life outside of Street Fighting. Because those all cost resources. With regard to the martial arts, a beginning Street Fighter party is more than capable of wiping the floor with a gang of gun-toting Mafia hoods or even a circle of ninjas. However, you don't get the Special Moves associated with your martial art out of the gate. (If you played a Shotokan Karate guy and started with Fireball, Dragon Punch, and Hurricane Kick, there wouldn't be anything to aspire towards. Just more pluses, and some extra moves that would mostly be gilding the lily.) At character creation, your PC's best moves will probably be...you know how Street Fighter characters have unique moves that aren't their Special Moves, like how several characters have some kind of sliding sweep kick? That stuff. It's enough to have tactically interesting combat out of the gate. SF might be the best-designed White Wolf game, from a mechanics POV.
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Aug 19, 2019 18:47
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If the Rotschreck is any indication, the Beast has a very strong survival impulse. It'd probably take some serious Willpower, and possibly a highish Humanity, to stay up to greet the sun.
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Aug 19, 2019 18:49
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Xiahou Dun posted:gently caress I just remembered he actually used to write for TSR and now I want to see his take on Vampire the Requiem. That sure would be uh a thing. Huh, learn something new every day. What did he write?
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Aug 19, 2019 19:04
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PoontifexMacksimus posted:Huh, learn something new every day. What did he write? IIRC, Stross contributed some monsters to the original Fiend Folio, via contributions to White Dwarf. He created the githyanki and githzerai, the death knight, and the slaadi.
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Aug 19, 2019 19:12
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Night10194 posted:Also that a lot of transhuman thinking is again, along the same contours as eugenics. 'There is a superior state that exists, and has more value, based on its power/intelligence/strength of 5 gorillas robot body' isn't that different from 'If the right people and only the right people are allowed to have children there will be a better humanity' because they both proceed from the idea that an increase in power is desirable rather than focusing on the idea that personhood itself is the undiminished value of a human being. Well, there's a lot of really smart people who end up not "doing" much. Indeed I think they could get more done trying to figure out some genetic basis for focus or determination or stability and splicing up that, but most of these people think it's just a matter of finding the INT stat and slapping some positive modifiers on it.
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Aug 19, 2019 19:34
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That's been conditioned by ages and ages of fiction (and games) where being really smart really is a massive superpower that leads to success in everything. Which is also why they're so loving terrified of evil AIs, because they will be smart on a scale hitherto unknown and thus must be omnipotent Gods. It's the same people who think just being intelligent enough means no-one can disagree with you anymore and everyone will be persuaded by your every argument, after all. If you're just Smart Enough you have all the powers ever. Mistaking, of course, that it's much easier to write a 'smart' character who predicts everything and knows exactly what to do when you're writing fiction and control exactly what happens. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 19:43 on Aug 19, 2019 |
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Aug 19, 2019 19:39
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Nessus posted:Yeah, to me the big thing is that most of it boils down to "but a gene-spliced superman will be able to do so much more! he'll be so powerful and smart!" 
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Aug 19, 2019 19:49
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We should just sic Terrance Howard on the LessWrong types and have them talk about math. They'd probably annihilate each other like matter and antimatter.
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Aug 19, 2019 19:54
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A vampire committing suicide by sun is a thing in one story I think but requires them to be tied down with rope strong enough that they couldn't just break it when The Beast takes over to desperately try to get away. Good luck doing this if you can shapeshift also. Although frankly staking would make it simple regardless. ChaseSP fucked around with this message at 20:03 on Aug 19, 2019 |
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Aug 19, 2019 19:59
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How often do the vampires actually think about that? 'Wow, something is controlling my actions so strongly that it won't even let me end my life, am I being parasitized by some other intelligence?'
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Aug 19, 2019 20:00
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Vampires as Gothy Cordyceps does give me a bit of a chuckle.
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Aug 19, 2019 20:02
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The Beast as a separate entity and not just a way of describing the fight-or-flight reflex you have that gets augmented by low-grade super-strength and durability is such an amazing abdication of responsibility by all parties. No see it's not my fault that I lost my temper and ripped that dude's head off! 'twas THE BEAST, stirred in its slumber, loose'd from its cage!
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Aug 19, 2019 20:08
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Night10194 posted:How often do the vampires actually think about that? 'Wow, something is controlling my actions so strongly that it won't even let me end my life, am I being parasitized by some other intelligence?'
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Aug 19, 2019 20:13
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In Requiem, there is a lot of question as to whether the Beast is an alien entity sharing your unlike, your own instincts ratcheted up to 1000 or the manifestation of evil within you. That detaching entirely from humanity makes it “take over” to the extent that you become a slavering monster and that loving up making a new vampire suggests to a lot of vamps that it’s A or C, but the fact that you can basically control and direct it really handily if you learn how suggests B. And yes, any number of vamps use it to disclaim responsibility for their own actions. A key thing of the Beast mechanically, tho, is that even when it takes over, it is doing something you wanted. You get to pick if it goes fight or flight, it just obsessively dies that one thing until it calms down. Or you’ve learned to “ride” it and it does something else you want, equally obsessively. There’s also variant rules for a more intelligent Beast that, rather than bestial savagery, focuses purely on survival and safety and fits better if you want an alien Hell demon riding your shoulder and giving you advice.
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Aug 19, 2019 20:16
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I'm quite fond of that setting/rule variant in the Requiem Chronicler's Guide wherein the Beast is replaced with the Other, and Humanity 0 vampires aren't mindless beasts but emotionless "snowmen."
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Aug 19, 2019 20:19
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I always figured the Beast was going to be different for different vampire bloodlines, but ultimately not a really distinct thing from the person- like goetic Vices in Mage, they're a part of you that's a monster, not a monster that's been stuck inside you. I wonder if a vampire has a daimon- I know they have a Beast in their oneiros, which has a lot of the powers of a daimon but is, yknow, a Beast.
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Aug 19, 2019 20:22
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I'm in this picture and I don't like it.
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Aug 19, 2019 20:25
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Selachian posted:IIRC, Stross contributed some monsters to the original Fiend Folio, via contributions to White Dwarf. He created the githyanki and githzerai, the death knight, and the slaadi. Did not know, that's some pretty core creations! Especially the slaad of course, as they (rebranded as slaan) would go on to create the Warhammer universe(s). Is Stross paid royalties from GW?
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Aug 19, 2019 20:37
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PoontifexMacksimus posted:Did not know, that's some pretty core creations! Much of the point of early Warhammer was to avoid just that!
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Aug 19, 2019 20:38
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