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Doresh posted:I bit like with 4e's Warlordgate, when people complained about how some dude could just shout meat back onto someone, when Hit Points have always been much more than just meat. People just have a perception of how things should work, but they don't think about why they are like that.
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Oct 18, 2016 16:24
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theironjef posted:Best example of playtime penalties like that is in Continuum. The leveling requirements involved include getting a letter of recommendation from NPCs, a mandatory minimum number of months of play, and contained therein a second mandatory minimum number of sessions of play that occur during those months (thinking you spotted a loophole where you just play in five minute sessions? Not so fast there's also a mandatory minimum session length). I just want to give a shoutout to this book's downright creepy advancement mechanics. You're not even advancing terribly much in terms of in-game power, either (mostly the amount of time you jump by). The sheer degree of control-freakery and life-replacement in Continuum is shudder-inducing. Forget a group of friends, this is an RPG for cults. I know the idea is to simulate the PC slowly coming to terms with an inherently somewhat alien civilisation, with the option of saying "gently caress it" and switching sides if it gets too creepy, but there are social limits and Continuum tramples them. I wonder if anyone has ever played it entirely RAW?
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Oct 18, 2016 16:25
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Evil Mastermind posted:That wasn't so much people not thinking about how things worked, but as thinking of game rules as a reality simulator rather than an abstraction. Which becomes quite hilarious if these simulationists see nothing wrong with someone being able to take a dozen crossbow bolts to the face after a couple weeks of adventuring.
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Oct 18, 2016 16:38
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Nuns with Guns posted:You're right btw, the in-setting explanation is that recursions aren't fully-realized realities so the people in them aren't fully-realized either. This is incredibly dumb and leads to things like the Plane of Crows having more beings with free will than the Plane of Amrican Indian Appropriation. I'm gonna hold off really tearing into it until we get more into the recursions and sparks tho  this is the dumbest thing.And yes, that's including the Beaner fiasco in Numenera. If there's some horribly insensitive material in Ptolus, please don't tell me.
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Oct 18, 2016 16:53
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Nuns with Guns posted:if you're talking about the "beaners" in that last bit, those are in Numenera, fyi Whoops. It's hard to keep the bizarrely bad things from these games straight.
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Oct 18, 2016 17:21
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You know, why not. I got time and the last update was a little short. Time for more Ironclaw! What you have to understand, to understand Bisclavret social structure, is that they're still unsettled despite the tremendous power of the Duke/King. Up until recently, they lived by Phelan law, and Phelan law has much more porous social classes than much of the rest of Calabria. In principle, the Bisclavret are supposed to hold to the normal feudal hierarchy, but in practice the main thing that determines social standing is wealth. Acquiring more wealth and more acclaim will let just about anyone find a way to a title and a way to legitimacy, and conspicuous consumption is common to try to prove to one's peers that one is more successful. Imagine a much less religiously motivated form of the protestant work ethic and you'll have the Bisclavret. The uniting drive among the wolves, though, is Modernity. Modernity is worshiped almost to the extent of being a state religion, and patronage of 'new' artists, scientists, styles, wizards, and fashions is a constant competition among the court at Harrowgate. Nothing in Bisclavret is forbidden out of hand except for looking back to the Old Ways; almost any idea can find a patron for a short time, no matter how insane or radical. The aggressive, constant competition leads to widespread corruption, however. Officials, lords, and excisemen are constantly engaged in intrigue against one another, leading the tax code to be even more complicated than any other aspect of Bisclavret politics. Bribery is almost more common than actual, measured taxation. The huge influx of mercenaries, which has not abated one whit since Riddock used them to outnumber and overwhelm the Rinaldi 180 years ago, leads to a tremendous risk of highwaymen and robbers. Technically one has to be a noble or in noble service to carry a 'true' weapon like a gun or a sword, but this law is never enforced, especially among the mercenary regiments. Among all the houses, the Bisclavret are the only ones who see absolutely no dishonor in paying a man to fight for them. After all, it's an expression of one's wealth and one's worth to be able to hire others to labor, and what's battle but another form of labor? Bisclavret mercenaries come from many lands and many places, though the majority are sons and daughters of freemen who want something more than farming to fill their lives, and others are criminals offered a choice between extended 'trial by combat' or slavery in the mines. This disorganized riot of professional soldiers means that in times of extended peace without skirmish between houses, crime gets even worse. The Duke's office has recently reminded the nobility that Guns are not appropriate arms for hired hands, but this has had little to no effect on the desires of the nobility to hire new shot-and-pike square regiments and formations of dragoons with advanced and flashy carbines. There is a very real risk that the endemic banditry could turn to revolt or overthrow of the royal army if the mercenaries get too much more numerous. Bisclavret Nobles are split into two groups: Those who come from Harrowgate and the urban areas are the aggressive patrons of science and art, obsessed with proving their devotion to modern ideas and progress. Those from the country tend to be plain-spoken, plain-dressing, hard-working warriors in a more conventional mold. At every level, and in every house, the Nobles suspect they are watched by the Duke's spies; paranoia runs rampant and some grow completely obsessed with discovering who in their household is reporting them to Harrowgate. Much like the nobility of other lands, Bisclavret nobles are expected to be ready to lead troops in war. They are also expected to be willing to lead from the front, risking injury among their soldiers; to do otherwise would be like being one of those lily-livered foxes from down south. Unlike the cavalrymen of Avoirdupois, Bisclavret lords usually enter combat on foot, marching with their troops with an officer's claymore and a musket of their own. The priesthood of Bisclavret is new. Very new. Many of the priests and high officials are foreigners, as the Bisclavret themselves prefer simpler vicars and friars for their spiritual needs. Bisclavret tastes for churches run small, a counter to their usual emphasis on conspicuous displays of wealth. Plain speech and plain dress are expected from their clergy, and a cleric is more likely to find acclaim in a community by helping raise a barn or tend a sick pup than from any fine stained glass. In essence, the Bisclavret tend to expect (and respect) their priests for being embodiment of the self-effacing and communal ideals of S'Allumerite worship, and want them to be an active and involved member of the community. This is (in my opinion) probably a reaction against the very secretive and mystic nature of their prior religious professionals, the Druids, who mostly held themselves aloof from the day to day workings of the communities they served to practice their secret rites and knowledge. Meanwhile, of course, there remain hidden Druids among the clergy and among the communities of the Bisclvaret, working to undermine S'Allumerite religious domination and what they see as the blasphemy of the Dukes and their 'broken' rule. The laborers of Bislcavret are interesting, because it's a case whereby a massive injustice creates opportunity. The Bisclavret nobles do not enserf their peasantry quite the way other houses do, because they have no need: Instead, there is a large slave population of prisoners, criminals, and debtors that do most of the most terrible and backbreaking work. Any man or woman who falls too far behind in their debts or who can be arrested on some trumped up charge can find themselves breaking stones in the darkness of the deepest mines, likely dying in months or weeks. Captured soldiers or convicted criminals often find their only options are to take up the sword and die for their masters in a penal mercenary company on the battlefield, or to spend the rest of their days laboring in chains. This frees up the larger free population to avoid serfdom, and it is Bisclavret law that at the age of eighteen, any man or woman may strike out from home and seek their fortune. If they do not, they will be enserfed and bound to the land their parents worked. If they do, they no longer have the protection of their lord or the defense against debt and enslavement that they did prior, but they are now a free person. Many of these come to the city to become burghers, and only Triskellian boasts a larger professional class than the Bisclavret. Of course, part of the problem for a culture that tries to forbid no idea and no new concept, and that promotes aggressive and constant competition, is that they'll never really be stable. Also, they have to struggle with the fact that younger generations have begun to question why all the Old Ways had to be exterminated, rather than just turned away from. Young Bislcavret are starting to examine the Phelan past to see if maybe there are good ideas that could be taken into a brighter future, things they could rescue from the 'savages'. The mercenaries are always a destabilizing influence and could turn on the Bisclavret at any minute; they haven't been seriously tested in long wars in a very long time with the current deadlock in Great House powers. Soldiers who were content to take their Denarii, guard the borders, and maybe rob a little on the side might not stay loyal when the Bisclavret finally complete their plans to build an armada and invade the Avoirdupois. The young Duke could provoke a succession crisis if he reaches majority and the Regent refuses to stand aside. And of course, the wolves are always watching their northern borders, preparing to 'educate' their savage cousins and bring them into the fold with fire and sword, if the opportunity should arise. Bisclavret seems like a really great place for an adventuring party. There's social mobility, a ready-made excuse for a bunch of armed PCs to be running around, plenty of room for escalation of conflict, and a lot of plot hooks. I think my next campaign, after I complete the first one, will probably center around the tutors and bodyguards of the young Duke trying to shape him into a decent ruler, keep him from getting murdered in a tower and find some way to profit off eventually playing kingmaker. Next up: Celtwolves or Italian Foxes! I'm almost done describing Calabria! It's kind of a detailed place, though I feel it isn't *too* detailed to be fun playing in and thankfully, it's pretty free of actual metaplot. It's all hooks, and less 'signature characters' (except Anime Foxboy and His Evil Mother, but they're easy to ignore or write out. I'll get to them when I get to Triskellian).
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Oct 18, 2016 17:44
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gradenko_2000 posted:Traveller (and any number of other games) have damage models where the damage is applied directly against your "Strength" or "Constitution" score, effectively making it the same as your HP, but off-hand I can't think of a game where it's also the stuff that you spend. occamsnailfile posted:Having not read whatever rationalization is in the book, I would almost 100% assume it is to make NPCs that are disposable. I mean the level of amoral behavior that some PC parties engage in is staggering at times and this setup pretty much just completely enables it. Monte & friends probably weren't looking at 'war crime fun time' but were thinking of how their world-hopping heroes would meddle in basically everything they encountered and tried to make it less terrible/consequence-laden/butterfly-effecty Alien Rope Burn posted:For all my issues with the Amber followup Lords of Gossamer and Shadow, it at least goes with "all worlds are more or less equal" which was enormously refreshing in comparison. Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 18:52 on Oct 18, 2016 |
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Oct 18, 2016 18:40
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Loxbourne posted:I just want to give a shoutout to this book's downright creepy advancement mechanics. You're not even advancing terribly much in terms of in-game power, either (mostly the amount of time you jump by). The sheer degree of control-freakery and life-replacement in Continuum is shudder-inducing. Forget a group of friends, this is an RPG for cults. I doubt it. Even advancing beyond the low Spans would create so much scope creep as to make the game unplayable. Plus, remember that it does specifically say you can Bill and Ted all your skills up to max anytime you like, so advancement becomes kind of bizarre anyway.
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Oct 18, 2016 18:55
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I really want to like Continuum. It's got really great ideas behind it, and it's probably the most complete look at how to make time travel work I've ever seen. It's just... it's so bad. Why did it have to be so bad?
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Oct 18, 2016 18:58
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hyphz posted:I doubt it. Even advancing beyond the low Spans would create so much scope creep as to make the game unplayable. Plus, remember that it does specifically say you can Bill and Ted all your skills up to max anytime you like, so advancement becomes kind of bizarre anyway. CLOCKS god, that game that game was so fuckin' bizarre
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Oct 18, 2016 18:59
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Kaza42 posted:I really want to like Continuum. It's got really great ideas behind it, and it's probably the most complete look at how to make time travel work I've ever seen. It's just... it's so bad. Why did it have to be so bad?
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Oct 18, 2016 19:07
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Kaza42 posted:I really want to like Continuum. It's got really great ideas behind it, and it's probably the most complete look at how to make time travel work I've ever seen. It's just... it's so bad. Why did it have to be so bad? The main plot turns out to be a lesson on why time travel doesn't work in RPGs. Either you have what the narcissists believe, that there are multiple timelines, so that anything you do doesn't actually change anything other than which timeline you perceive and morality and consequence are meaningless; or what the continuum believe, which is that there's one timeline and you can never change anything because the history you know is what happened after all time travellers - including you - already made their attempts (and because the Inheritors just override anything by fiat)
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Oct 18, 2016 19:29
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Kaza42 posted:I really want to like Continuum. It's got really great ideas behind it, and it's probably the most complete look at how to make time travel work I've ever seen. It's just... it's so bad. Why did it have to be so bad? The ultimate problem is that it held a promise of being a game that would actually make time travel make sense, and make it easy to track. It falls down very hard on the second part. I can't remember, but I swear I remember reading somewhere, that the game grew out of this one guy's time-traveling PC that he played in multiple games run by other people. He kept it all straight by keeping a copiously detailed journal--and that's the way this game expects each and every player to keep track of their own PC.
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Oct 18, 2016 19:36
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theironjef posted:Best example of playtime penalties like that is in Continuum. The leveling requirements involved include getting a letter of recommendation from NPCs, a mandatory minimum number of months of play, and contained therein a second mandatory minimum number of sessions of play that occur during those months (thinking you spotted a loophole where you just play in five minute sessions? Not so fast there's also a mandatory minimum session length). Isn't Continuum the game where you have to recite the Time Maxims to level?
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Oct 18, 2016 20:09
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:Isn't Continuum the game where you have to recite the Time Maxims to level? Eyup. And that's just the start. Continuum has some truly wonderful ideas, but is best treated as a sort of highly dangerous idea-mine for other settings. Drop by, grab some concepts for a time travel plot in another RPG, and then flee. I've dearly wanted to see some of Continuum's stuff in, say, a Dr Who game ("yeah this is what Gallifreyan civilisation is like to live in. That's why we all run the gently caress away ASAP"), or even a Star Trek game ("this is what Temporal Investigations have to put up with. Pity them.") but I never, ever want to play the game as a whole. Loxbourne fucked around with this message at 20:20 on Oct 18, 2016 |
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Oct 18, 2016 20:17
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Did anyone F&F Continuum? I don't know anything about it, but now I kind of want to look at it. From a safe distance.
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Oct 18, 2016 20:24
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Prism posted:Did anyone F&F Continuum? I don't know anything about it, but now I kind of want to look at it. From a safe distance.
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Oct 18, 2016 20:28
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Yes, Mors didLoxbourne posted:or even a Star Trek game ("this is what Temporal Investigations have to put up with. Pity them.") but I never, ever want to play the game as a whole. Trials and Tribble-ations was such a great episode. The Voyager ones weren't too bad.
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Oct 18, 2016 20:29
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"Glassy-eyed time cops that deal with bullshit you can't even comprehend" is a favorite archetype of mine, but drat, Continuum models the bullshit too well. That and the mechanics are a mess even beyond what you'd expect.
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Oct 18, 2016 20:53
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CMark Rein•Hagenntinuum's stupid time maxims are great to contrast with the Jumpers rulebook, which is presented kind of as a survival handbook with handwritten notes from actual reality-jumpers scrawled in the margins. Edit: VVV drat Zeno's Paradox! Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 20:58 on Oct 18, 2016 |
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Oct 18, 2016 20:54
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My favorite Continuum rules SNAFU is that if you have 0 Running skill, you can run, and at 2 Running skill you can run faster, but at 1 Running skill you are incapable of motion via running.
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Oct 18, 2016 20:56
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Mors Rattus posted:My favorite Continuum rules SNAFU is that if you have 0 Running skill, you can run, and at 2 Running skill you can run faster, but at 1 Running skill you are incapable of motion via running. In order to run faster, you have to empty your mind and forget everything you've ever known about running.
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Oct 18, 2016 21:15
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Mors Rattus posted:My favorite Continuum rules SNAFU is that if you have 0 Running skill, you can run, and at 2 Running skill you can run faster, but at 1 Running skill you are incapable of motion via running. "I use my hypnotism to make the NPC to forget his skills." "Okay." "And I set his Running to 1."
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Oct 18, 2016 21:17
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Hostile V posted:http://projects.inklesspen.com/fatal-and-friends/mors-rattus/continuum-roleplaying-in-the-yet/ Thanks!
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Oct 18, 2016 21:21
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Reading this description makes me really, really want to destroy the Continuum. I'm not sure if that was intended.
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Oct 18, 2016 21:21
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Mors Rattus posted:My favorite Continuum rules SNAFU is that if you have 0 Running skill, you can run, and at 2 Running skill you can run faster, but at 1 Running skill you are incapable of motion via running. Makes sense. The man with Running 1 barely understands anything about running but he knows enough to know he's loving terrible at it and won't even try. Someone with Running 0 understands literally nothing of running and that includes the fact he shouldn't do it.
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Oct 18, 2016 21:21
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Halloween Jack posted:That Marvel Universe game that used token-spending, sort of? But it also had a Health track. Holy poo poo, we found an original bit of design by Monte Cook. Well, the Shin Megami Tensei/Persona series has been using HP to cast physical skills since at least SMT 3.
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Oct 18, 2016 21:24
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Rand Brittain posted:Reading this description makes me really, really want to destroy the Continuum. I'm not sure if that was intended. The original book had an advert for Narcissist in the back with the note "or maybe you've figured out who the real good guys are..". So maybe it was semi-intended.
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Oct 18, 2016 21:25
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I'd like an RPG version of the card game Chrononauts where the premise was "Look, time travel works, but don't think to hard about how it or why. Just have fun stealing dinosaurs and killing Hitler."
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Oct 19, 2016 00:14
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Simian_Prime posted:I'd like an RPG version of the card game Chrononauts where the premise was "Look, time travel works, but don't think to hard about how it or why. Just have fun stealing dinosaurs and killing Hitler." Hello and welcome to Feng Shui.
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Oct 19, 2016 00:15
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Glazius posted:Well, the Shin Megami Tensei/Persona series has been using HP to cast physical skills since at least SMT 3. They stopped doing so, though.
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Oct 19, 2016 00:20
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Night10194 posted:Hello and welcome to Feng Shui. Maybe? I like Feng Shui, but I'm thinking of a set-up where you're more "time-traveling con-artist" than "time-traveling action hero." You all play characters from alternate timelines who technically work for a group that patches the timestream and prevents Paradoxes... but in reality you're finding ways to alter time in your favor and get rich, or rule your own personal universe, or Kill Hitler so that Germany hosts the 1940 Worlds Fair and you get to taste the Best Piece of Germany Chocolate Cakes Ever Made in The Universe. The game would have kind of a Rick and Morty vibe, now that I think of it.
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Oct 19, 2016 00:25
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Night10194 posted:Hello and welcome to Feng Shui. Feng Shui's time-travel rules are delightfully gameable. You can totally go back in time and kill Hitler and it won't change a god-damned thing in the present, because the only thing that matters is who controls geomantically-important locations in each time-region. In other words, victory points.
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Oct 19, 2016 00:30
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Ratoslov posted:Feng Shui's time-travel rules are delightfully gameable. You can totally go back in time and kill Hitler and it won't change a god-damned thing in the present, because the only thing that matters is who controls geomantically-important locations in each time-region. In other words, victory points.
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Oct 19, 2016 00:34
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Nessus posted:Are you telling me that in Feng Shui, the most important skill is to know how to cap the drat point? Yes, but we always ran it on Chrono Trigger rules: Did you do an important plot thing or have a boss fight? If yes, history changes.
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Oct 19, 2016 00:35
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Nessus posted:Are you telling me that in Feng Shui, the most important skill is to know how to cap the drat point?
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Oct 19, 2016 00:41
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Timemaster was a time travel RPG with a pretty fun, loose approach to time travel based on some simple laws. The adventures are based on aliens messing with the timeline and you trying to fix it. And there's no butterfly effect, so you have a lot of leeway to say, impersonate Napoleon. The system hasn't aged so well, though; it's a Pacesetter game and uses the same house system as Chill.
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Oct 19, 2016 00:47
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Halloween Jack posted:Dude you should cover that game. Eh, it's weird because I have a long history with Amber but I have no strong feelings about it, so. Lords of Gossamer and Shadow is a better Amber in terms of theme, and though it improves on the system it still is weighed down by a lot of the game's sacred cows. Got some attributes that are way better than others? Check. Do you still have to spend a third or half your points to have one of the major powers? Check. Is there still a laundry list of feature characters with more loving points than you'll ever earn in years of play? Oh, better loving check that box. But I don't know if I have a poo poo-ton to say about it.
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Oct 19, 2016 00:57
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That's a shame. I get that the Amber diehards love the bidding character creation, and have spent so much time figuring out ways around the balance issues that they're find with it, but presumably those same people have access to the original game. Is it true that Fate started as somebody's FUDGE variant for playing Amber? That just seems like a much less fussy platform for defining stuff like "Only one of you can be the strongest, most magickest, and so on." I also feel bad for the people who worked on the Amber ripoff Lords of Olympus without having any idea they were getting involved with Tarnowski and his shenanigans. Although his insistence on publishing under a username should probably have been a tipoff.
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Oct 19, 2016 01:01
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Halloween Jack posted:And there's no butterfly effect, so you have a lot of leeway to say, impersonate Napoleon. Did anyone ever make a Quantum Leap RPG? I guess the Tales from the Crypt Keeper RPG is a little like that
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Oct 19, 2016 01:02
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