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MonsieurChoc
Oct 12, 2013

Every species can smell its own extinction.
Someone did a version of Land of Confusion perfect for lovely modern trailers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=je3w9o7SJZ4

It hits all the clichés.

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FMguru
Sep 10, 2003

peed on;
sexually

REIGNING YOSPOS COSTCO KING
Needs more ominous plinky piano.

MonsieurChoc
Oct 12, 2013

Every species can smell its own extinction.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAOdjqyG37A

Halloween Jack
Sep 11, 2003

La morte non ha sesso

PurpleXVI posted:

Splitting Dex starts up all those arguments about when one type of Dex applies and when another does.
This is easily fixed by having a broad, bounded skill system.

quote:

I'd say... combine Str and Con, and then make Dex not the ruling stat for all combat skills. Toss a bunch of ranged combat over to perception(or wisdom or whatever the local equivalent is), and toss big, hulking two-handed weapons over to the Str/Con combined stat. Leave Dex for finesse weapons and defense.
There are plenty of ways to divvy it up so that it suits your game, it just needs to be balanced.

This reminds me of a unique issue in 4e: Strength is the least visible trait. Because you can make a character with attacks based on any ability score, to the vast majority of characters STR is a nearly invisible part of the game, only meaningful to the Athletics skill, and you're rarely in a situation where Athletics is the only skill you can use to deal with a particular challenge.

Nuns with Guns
Jul 23, 2010

It's fine.
Don't worry about it.
The Wildfire devs showed up on RPGnet back when Ctech 2.0 was announced and swore up and down that they were trying to distance themselves from all the rape in the first edition. I think they also said they were hoping to split up the five different and mutually-incompatible playstyles (street-level normals, not-guyvers, regular mechas, eldritch wizards, and not-eva mechas) into multiple books to give all the concepts more breathing room. I can only imagine that would mean devoting several extra long essays to how NO TEENAGERS WILL NEVER BE MECH PILOTS IN OUR EVANGELION MEETS CTHULHU GAME IT'S SO UNREALISTIC!!!

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Nuns with Guns posted:

The Wildfire devs showed up on RPGnet back when Ctech 2.0 was announced and swore up and down that they were trying to distance themselves from all the rape in the first edition. I think they also said they were hoping to split up the five different and mutually-incompatible playstyles (street-level normals, not-guyvers, regular mechas, eldritch wizards, and not-eva mechas) into multiple books to give all the concepts more breathing room. I can only imagine that would mean devoting several extra long essays to how NO TEENAGERS WILL NEVER BE MECH PILOTS IN OUR EVANGELION MEETS CTHULHU GAME IT'S SO UNREALISTIC!!!

Which is hilarious, because 'Things are so bad that we're using a weapon we absolutely don't understand outside of the mysterious assholes who are probably trying to spike the project, and it demands that we use children and throw them into horrible danger or it won't work' is grim as gently caress.

unseenlibrarian
Jun 4, 2012

There's only one thing in the mountains that leaves a track like this. The creature of legend that roams the Timberline. My people named him Sasquatch. You call him... Bigfoot.
Hey let's be fair. I'm sure they'll have room for essays about how you're not allowed to play characters that explicitly show up in the game fiction, too.

Nuns with Guns
Jul 23, 2010

It's fine.
Don't worry about it.
Maybe we'll even get an essay about how awesome and sexy their anime drow are, too!

potatocubed
Jul 26, 2012

*rathian noises*
I looked into the CTech 2 playtest when it first showed up -- I've said before that I'm all about Cthulhu vs Mecha as a concept -- but they only wanted feedback delivered through a very specific means (a subreddit, I think?) and worse they only wanted positive feedback.

Disclaimer: I don't remember the exact details, but that was the thrust of it.

So it was pretty obvious from the word go it was going to go nowhere.

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

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

Nuns with Guns posted:

Maybe we'll even get an essay about how awesome and sexy their anime drow are, too!

Don't forget that miscegenation is super sexy and sometimes makes hyper sexy albino psychic drow!

LatwPIAT
Jun 6, 2011

One of my problems - aside from being prejudiced against it because 1e was so disappointing and aggravating - was that the beta focused on the Tagers and Dhoanoids, which I think is the least interesting part of the setting. And it's still full of dumb stuff like how Nazzadi get +1 to Stealth at night because they have dark skin, a bonus black humans don't get because all humans are white or Japanese, right?

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

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

let's be honest

if black people got +1 Stealth at night due to skin color, we'd all rightfully go 'what the gently caress is wrong with you'

which is to say: it's stupid for Space Drow too because of the implications

Bieeanshee
Aug 21, 2000

Not keen on keening.


Grimey Drawer
What, do Space Drow perform night operations in the nu--uuu, don't answer that. :(

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

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

Bieeardo posted:

What, do Space Drow perform night operations in the nu--uuu, don't answer that. :(

The book does rather explicitly state that the Nazzadi don't have a nudity taboo. Yes.

AmiYumi
Oct 10, 2005

I FORGOT TO HAIL KING TORG
At least in 1e the bonus was actually +2; the +1 bonus was for Nazzadi with too many sick glow-in-the-dark tribal tats which still gave you a bonus rather than penalty somehow??

Also the core book said Nazzadi didn't bother with camo because their mechs were too fast

Bieeanshee
Aug 21, 2000

Not keen on keening.


Grimey Drawer

Kurieg posted:

The book does rather explicitly state that the Nazzadi don't have a nudity taboo. Yes.

Oh god, it's all coming back like a sewer drain in reverse.

AmiYumi
Oct 10, 2005

I FORGOT TO HAIL KING TORG

LatwPIAT posted:

the beta focused on the Tagers and Dhoanoids, which I think is the least interesting part of the setting.
Counterpoint: guyver suits are rad, and for all the "guys stop you are having fun WRONG" that the books were full of, one of the basic Tager options was still literally a Laser Shark (that evolved into a Laser Squark)

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

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

AmiYumi posted:

Counterpoint: guyver suits are rad, and for all the "guys stop you are having fun WRONG" that the books were full of, one of the basic Tager options was still literally a Laser Shark (that evolved into a Laser Squark)

Don't forget the magma paladin that evolved into a volcano paladin.

Halloween Jack
Sep 11, 2003

La morte non ha sesso
Speaking as a Lovecraft nerd, I don't mind at all that the Cthulhutech developers are having BadWrongFun with Lovecraft. More games should have BadWrongFun with Lovecraft! (Actually, wait, no, there are too many Lovecraft games in general.) I don't even mind that they mash it up with thinly-veiled anime references! But I do mind how little the Lovecraft influences really mean to the game, when all is said and done.

So, the Nazzadi are basically the Zentraedi from Macross. That's fine; their story works well in a Lovecraftian context, seeing how Lovecraft was obsessed with race and "At the Mountains of Madness" was about discovering that humans were created by an alien empire. But they don't actually put the Nazzadi into that context at all! The mi-go created the Nazzadi as a clone army, and that's it. And when they wanted to add more playable races, did they consider Lovecraftian demihumans like the tcho-tcho, or voormis, or ghouls, or Innsmouth folk, like Eldritch Skies did? No, they just made offshoots of the Nazzadi with no connection to the source material whatsoever.

(All the details ring false, as well. The mi-go are unknowable, but they programmed a fake culture into their creations? The mi-go are just terribly written antagonists.)

Hastur, based on a read of the corebook, is also frankly lame. Rather than being a god of madness and corruption, he controls a huge army of monsters that's just stomping across the world. It's boring. You could replace Hastur with Shub-Niggurath or literally any other entity. There's not even any interesting visual design on the Rapine Storm (holy poo poo what a stupid name) like there is on any given faction in any given wargame.

The Tagers are my favourite part of the game, but the material is weak in a different way from the Nazzadi. The idea of a cult digging up ancient tablets, learning the awful truth, and going "This is hosed, Cthulhu doesn't love us and we should be fighting him," and using their powers for good--that's an awesome twist. But the Ta'Ge Fragments are just something they made up and which is never elaborated upon. They are, again, not connected to any existing Lovecraft entities except Nyarlathotep, and their monster forms are wholly original. I want to play a loving Nightgaunt.

Engels! Same problem! You should be riding around in a fuckin' Star-Spawn of Cthulhu or a giant cute Tsathogghua fur-frog with a cockpit where its brain used to be! But you're not.


Aside from all the creepy poo poo, and the very very thinly veiled swipes from classic anime, the big problem is that you could remove the Lovecraft stuff and replace it with any other handy public domain franchise. Change it Barsoomtech or Wonderlandtech and it makes little difference.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Warhammer Fantasy: Realm of the Ice Queen

A general increase in the esteem of elfs

The High City of Erengard is literally the high-city. Being located on the hilly banks and cliffs overlooking the Lynsk, it doesn't flood and it lets the rich merchants and Boyars look down upon the people below. While it was damaged in the sack, the stone buildings were harder to burn down or demolish than the wooden houses and shanty-towns in the lower areas, and it's considered a mark of character to have a few char-marks and scars of dark sorcery showing your estate saw some combat. The High City is also a mess right now, because the Boyars and the Guilds are both pouring huge amounts of money into the general rebuilding of Erengard as they try to compete for the prestige of fixing the place up. In most places, this translates into bidding wars of charity that aid the public rebuilding. In the High City, where they both actually live? It's made the whole area a zoning nightmare. Parts of both plans have been implemented, and of course the merchants want to establish their reputations as fixing the city to justify the authority and power the Tsarina has given them, while the Boyars want to prove to everyone that their families are still the most powerful and richest people in the city, and meanwhile other people from foreign lands are just trying to rebuild their trading outposts and offices and everything is a wonderful goddamn mess. The central bank, for instance, is actually blocking the gates of the city's main keep and estate to the point that they can't open them all the way anymore and have to march the Streltsi in double file. Buildings are backwards, their facade accidentally facing a tiny alley while the blank walls face a glorious public square with a statue that got half built before someone else bought the land and put up a *different* statue and then accidentally blocked another thoroughfare and...you get the idea.

The Elven Quarter is one of the largest Ulthuan outposts of its kind in the Old World. The elves find it a convenient place to buy Norse silver and amber (Erengard is one of the only places in Kislev that will tolerate Norse traders, as long as they arrive under the harbor guns and are clear they mean no trouble) as well as products from the entire Northern Empire and Kislev, and so they established a large Elven Quarter to hold the trading offices and employees for the merchant houses. Only the great trading city of Marienburg hosts a larger number of High Elves. The great merchant houses ordered their employees to leave the city ahead of Archaon's army, but most decided to send their dependents and non-combatants off, then took up bow and sword to fight in defense of their livelihood and city. Most died bravely, taking plenty of the invaders with them, and in doing greatly raised Kislevite esteem for Ulthuan and their elven trading partners. Ever since the survivors returned to rebuild, the elves have built a thirty foot wall around their warehouses and offices, ostensibly in case of a future invasion. No non-elf has been allowed inside the quarter since it went up, but as the elves fought hard to defend the city (and continue to move their goods into Erengrad), their neighbors are more curious than suspicious about what's happening in there.

There are plenty of Imperials in Erengrad, due to all the trade and its position fairly close to the border, but the actual Empire Quarter is small. Most of the local Imperial expats are happy to live elsewhere in the city, near their business, or can't afford to live in the High City (unlike elfs, who are almost uniformly upper class). The local temple of Sigmar is the center of the Imperial Quarter, and it went down hard during the fighting. While preparing to reinforce the foundations so they could build a more defensible structure for the new temple, the locals accidentally unearthed a series of strange catacombs full of Sigmarite iconography beneath the old site. The first group of explorers sent in didn't come out, and now the High Priest is looking for qualified freebooters to do a dungeon crawl and make sure there's nothing horrifying hiding down there while the Warrior Priests who survived the sack watch the hole around the clock. This quarter also has the Imperial Consulate, where the local chief clerk takes advantage of the current lack of an Imperial consul to indulge in corruption, hoping to become rich enough to bribe the eventual consul to overlook his actions.

The Carrier's Guildhall houses the most powerful guild in all of Erengrad, as they have the right to regulate who can and cannot consider themselves an approved carrier of cargo. In a city that relies on river and water trade, these people are obviously important. With the Tsarina having recently given them the right to run courts and issue legal permits, the Carriers have embraced this more than any of the other guilds, and are now the main employer of legal experts in all of the city. Their lawyers and trade-courts have added an entire wing to the guildhall, and their guild's court has become more popular than the Boyar's courts; you can bribe the Carriers, while a Boyar will always rule in favor of increasing the authority of the Boyars. Erengard is 'the one place in all of Kislev where a rich common man can throw a noble out of his home for insulting him and then expect he might win the court case about it'. The current Carrier's guildmaster is a popular, longtime guildsman named Mitri Illchenko, who is mostly honest. In his restraint, he has only used his power as guildmaster to pursue a single petty grudge, and he feels he is a very noble soul for this. The woman he ruined for spurning his advances 20 years ago in their youth does not agree with him about his nobility, and Natalya Dochviktoria has a lot of old friends and contacts still. Some of them might be PCs...

The Goldsmith's Hall is where the city mints its coins and keeps the weights and measures. The Goldsmiths are also the primary bankers and creditors, as well as running the moneychanging and insurance businesses in the city. They do still *occasionally* take in actual goldsmiths and tradesmen, and it remains an obscure guild law that the Guildmaster must be one of those. They neglected to tell the Tsarina they had just approved one such trader, a gifted 30 year old goldsmith named Ursola Ovinko, just moments before they signed the agreement with her allowing her to appoint their Guildmasters in return for increasing the power of the Guilds. She is not happy about getting swindled by a bunch of bankers, and if PCs are loyal agents of the Tsarina, Ursola might find herself accused of being a Slaaneshi or something to get her out of her position as figurehead of the guild (I mean she's an artist, what other false charge do you trump up against artists). The man heading the actual board of the bankers, Valantyri Synmishki, believes he is a very wise man who understands that the city's prosperity is his prosperity, as he is one of the richest men in Kislev. However, he will absolutely crush anyone who gets close to equaling his wealth. He mostly contents himself with making his peers richer and trying to decrease the authority of the Boyars, but if anyone ever threatens his position at the top he will do anything to maintain it. Short of working with Chaos. The general attitude of gently caress Chaos remains in all of Erengrad.

The Shipwright's Guild handles all craftsmen in Erengrad who do not work with precious metal, making them the most populated guild in Erengrad. They do not currently have able leadership, as the man put in charge by the Tsarina has proven exactly able enough to keep himself from getting deposed but not quite up to the task of increasing his guild's power. If they did, and if they could direct their enormous number of members, they could easily be the most powerful people in the city. The guild is currently treading water while discontent grows and the members watch the Carriers take over the legal system and the Goldsmiths becoming incredibly wealthy, and meanwhile their Guildmaster can't even get their new Guildhall built yet. Sooner or later, something is going to give.

The old Castle was destroyed in the sack, and worse, it was shattered by dark sorcery that ruined the old plot. Casting about for the most defensible position, the Boyars just so happened to decide it was located in the land that would best ruin the entire Guild plan for urban renewal, and pooled their resources to rebuild the city's most important fortification as quickly as possible. They had originally hoped to make it impossible to easily enter the Goldsmith's Hall, but were foiled by the main doors of the bank swinging *inward*, while their own castle can't open its gates all the way and can be difficult to get into and out of. Boyar Elena Yevchenko rules the castle, and is head of the most powerful Boyar family in Erengrad. She is a young woman, and originally a commoner; she married into the nobility, but she lost her husband and her left arm fighting side by side with him during the sack. As a result, she has an iron-clad reputation among the nobility and respect with the soldiery, and the Boyars hope this young heroine can help turn their fortunes around and bring them back to being the preeminent social class in the city yet again.

Next: More High City, it's kind of big.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 4, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!

Nuns with Guns posted:

The Wildfire devs showed up on RPGnet back when Ctech 2.0 was announced and swore up and down that they were trying to distance themselves from all the rape in the first edition.

They also said a similar thing before publishing The Void, which opens up with a woman being groped at by tentacles and discussing her tentacle-related phobia and trauma which her peers mock and torment her over which I guess is supposed to be played for laughs?

So I'd maintain healthy skepticism.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!

The Erengard Urban Chaos is loving hilarious.

On the bright side, any future Chaos invasion is gonna charge in there and promptly get lost in the completely tangled geography.

By popular demand
Jul 17, 2007

IT *BZZT* WASP ME--
IT WASP ME ALL *BZZT* ALONG!


Has there ever been a chaos champion innovative and charismatic enough to get the Skaven to sneak his army into a capitol city?
I mean obviously you can't rely on the rats anywhere near long term, but one massive operation?

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

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

I love the detail of poor urban planning and bad architects means that the castle gates can't open all the way.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Warhammer Fantasy: Realm of the Ice Queen

Tor stands!

The Temple of Tor is the only temple that the invaders didn't tear down. This is because it's a single empty stone tower on top of a large hill with nothing valuable around it and nothing to mark it out as a temple. Also because of Tor's special protection, obviously. Some jerks think this may be a sign that Tor is secretly Khorne or something, but most citizens are happy to accept the explanation that Tor and his faithful protected their home as a sign that the city has his favor. Why not let a God be happy? There's no great High Priest or anything, given how the Tor worshipers do, and so there's no-one trying to use this for political leverage or anything. It's just taken as more evidence that Tor is a cool guy.

The Temple of Dazh used to be spectacular to rival any and all real Russian Orthodox churches, resplendent with gold and flame to show the glory of the God. As you might imagine, the angry hell vikings who *weren't* yet empty shells wearing 8 feet of divine plate seized this as an opportunity to loot the poo poo out of the wealthy temple and then burn it to the ground, because why wouldn't you? The current Watcher, Gaspar Synpavla, claims he kept the eternal flame alive during the sack and most people are happy to believe that (even though it probably isn't true). Synpalva is a veritable bounty for PCs: The temple still has plenty of money, and wants its icons back. It will happily sponsor PC parties to raid Norsca to steal holy icons back from Norse kings or to hunt down pieces that somehow made their way into the pawn-shops and art collections of the rest of the Old World. Similarly, he sees an opportunity to rebuild the temple by offering its support much more directly to the Tsarina, in hopes of receiving patronage. Even if PCs aren't agents of the Ice Queen, he has need of brave and trustworthy folk who could carry confidential messages to the Bohka Palaces.

The Garden of Ursun is a public park with its own little waterfall and persistent claims that actual bears live among its greenery and caves. The invaders didn't sack the temple because it's a park, a garden, and some caves; there was nothing to steal. There's plenty of fish living in the big pond the waterfall empties into, though, and that's enough for any self-respecting priest of Ursun. The high priest, Uika Boyozi, who lives in the caves, has become popular by throwing his every effort into organizing the proper festivals for the first Waking Day (the big holiday to celebrate bears waking up for spring) since the sack. The people need some fun and it honors the Gods, and he argues that the big Waking Day ceremonies represent the city re-awakening from the Chaos attack just as much as they do the bears sleepily getting up from their caves. As a result, the main square near the Garden has become a popular marketplace and place to hold festivals, and people call it Awakening Square or Ursun Square. This annoys the Guildsmen who spent thousands of Crowns making sure that specific square would be pristine and well-planned, because they wanted to call it Guild Square, and now everyone associates it with bears, fish, and pancakes. You can't just tell the Bear God he can't have his festival square, either, you'd just look petty.

You know, writing this review has given me a fair bit more affection for the sleepy ways of the bear god and how he just kinda makes things work out for him.

The Temple of Salyak/Shallya is the richest temple to the Goddess in the Old World, even surpassing the main cathedral in Couronne. This is because one of the most acceptable ways to anonymously atone for going too far in crime and corruption is donating large amounts of money to the Shallyans. It may be a richly appointed noble manor and compound, but it is also a clean and friendly hospital that is very busy taking care of any sick or wounded in the city. The priests and priestesses there might eat well and own fine coats for the winter, but they stayed through the entire sack to take care of the wounded and save as many lives as they could, and they do as much as they can to feed and treat everyone in Erengrad. The current High Priestess, Svetlana Zakarova, is notable for never having been blessed by the Goddess. She cannot use Shallyan magic, despite her high station. However, she's an excellent doctor and risked her life repeatedly during the sack, despite her love of comfort and wealth, and so the people usually accept that the Goddess protects her even if she hasn't been gifted with healing miracles.

Frosthome is a huge tower of ice that houses the city's Ice Witches. It's a beautiful structure that never melts, no matter the temperature, and even the dark sorcerers of Chaos couldn't tear it down. They did kill quite a few of the local Witches, but their contributions to the city's defenses were considerable. Most visitors think the place is beautiful, unless they've been to Kislev and seen the Tsarina's handiwork on the winter palace, in which case it suddenly seems quite a bit less impressive. The Witches are currently disoriented and missing most of their senior members, waiting for new apprentices, maidens, and leadership to show up and give them their marching orders after most of their experienced and least-experienced members died in the battle. This is keeping them from their duties in local politics, for now.

The Temple of Morr is weird. Kislevites don't like Morr very much, or rather they don't like *worshiping* him. They acknowledge he's there, they're happy he protects the souls of the dead from Chaos, and there's a temple and plenty of Gardens of Morr (blessed graveyards) throughout the country, they just don't like the idea of venerating death. The temple here is especially strange, as the grounds around it are infected with powerful magic that slowly weakens living people but swiftly undoes and destroys the undead. Only those blessed with Morr's Lore or master necromancers can resist the place's strange leeching of their vital energy, but as humans can spend a couple hours there without serious effect (usually) it makes it the perfect place to safely bury the dead. After all, if anyone tries to reanimate them they just fall right over again. During the sack, the power here grew much stronger with the blowing of the winds of magic, and the temple grounds took out a few units of invaders before they managed to burn it to the ground. Rebuilding is going slowly, as people can't be on the grounds for very long without beginning to weaken. What, exactly, causes this weird Death Field is unknown and might be a good mystery for PCs.

And that's Erengrad! A vibrant, rebuilding, messy metropolis united around 'Money Please', 'Rampant Corruption', 'Cosmopolitanism' and 'gently caress Chaos'. Full of intrigues, corruption, possible employers, stuff to buy, places to go, and adventures for PCs to have. Next, we go to a city of clinical depression, cosmic horror, and an absolute refusal to give up with Praag the Cursed.

Next: Praag.

SirPhoebos
Dec 10, 2007

WELL THAT JUST HAPPENED!


:goonsay:"Hey goons I thought you'd like to see how that DIY city planning project was going. It's got a few quirks, but nothing that can't be grown in to."

Loxbourne
Apr 6, 2011

Tomorrow, doom!
But now, tea.
Would it be feasible in the chargen system to have the Tsarina send in a crack team of urban planners to restore order?

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Loxbourne posted:

Would it be feasible in the chargen system to have the Tsarina send in a crack team of urban planners to restore order?

Guildmaster, Tradesman, and Engineer are all playable character classes.

E: Actually, a campaign about a bunch of urban planners trying to manage the city's craziness and getting dragged into adventure to get the funding and influence necessary to fix Erengard's High City would be hilarious.

Also, this is a good time to mention something else I appreciate. All the cities, like the provinces in Bretonnia, are filled with important flavor NPCs and stuff but they're very focused on being people the PCs can interact with. These aren't setting NPCs who are directing everything that's happening (the Tsarina is trying her damnedest) but are rather all set up as patrons, flavor characters, or little things to make the places feel alive or lived in. Almost everyone's ambition can be finished with 'Until/if the PCs come along!' if it looks fun.

Night10194 fucked around with this message at 20:59 on Sep 14, 2017

Ratoslov
Feb 15, 2012

Now prepare yourselves! You're the guests of honor at the Greatest Kung Fu Cannibal BBQ Ever!

Night10194 posted:

Also, this is a good time to mention something else I appreciate. All the cities, like the provinces in Bretonnia, are filled with important flavor NPCs and stuff but they're very focused on being people the PCs can interact with. These aren't setting NPCs who are directing everything that's happening (the Tsarina is trying her damnedest) but are rather all set up as patrons, flavor characters, or little things to make the places feel alive or lived in. Almost everyone's ambition can be finished with 'Until/if the PCs come along!' if it looks fun.

Yeah, I've noticed and appreciated this. I've seen so many setting books where there's whole pages devoted to NPCs that the GM can't use to cause fun because they'll instantly destroy the campaign on contact with the story. Like, what's the point?

By popular demand
Jul 17, 2007

IT *BZZT* WASP ME--
IT WASP ME ALL *BZZT* ALONG!


Not only that, lazy writers often forget about the whole bureaucratic and political structure and just have whole realms with literally a Load-bearing video game boss.

sexpig by night
Sep 8, 2011

by Azathoth
yea one really really good effect of WHFRP's whole aesthetic of 'you gotta spend some time as shitkickers who may get their heads cut off randomly before you earn your power fantasy' is that 99% of the world books had to be written with the understanding that the PCs could either be a group of mighty wizards and warriors rolling into town as hot poo poo mercenaries...or they could be five rat catchers and charcoal burners who's main goal is 'I'd like to have some food that doesn't suck today'. So for every great wizard in his tower aching for adventurers to help him slay the demon he locked in his basement by accident there has to be five innkeepers who are just REALLY spooked by the large rats eating their apples or fishermen who haven't heard from their brother in the next town over for a while.

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

Horrible Lurkbeast posted:

Not only that, lazy writers often forget about the whole bureaucratic and political structure and just have whole realms with literally a Load-bearing video game boss.

A question I like to ask with any authority figure PCs might run into is "What will happen if this person dies?" It's PCs, there's always a good chance the PCs will kill them or another NPC will as part of the plot.

WHFRP has been pretty good about answering that question.

Dareon
Apr 6, 2009

by vyelkin

Mors Rattus posted:

let's be honest

if black people got +1 Stealth at night due to skin color, we'd all rightfully go 'what the gently caress is wrong with you'

which is to say: it's stupid for Space Drow too because of the implications

Lobok posted:



Your dark skin may help you hide in the shadows Luke but maybe next time on your stealth mission you don't wear the yellow satin shirt.

Luke Cage, Power Man #17

The Lone Badger
Sep 24, 2007

Night10194 posted:

The invaders didn't sack the temple because it's a park, a garden, and some caves; there was nothing to steal.

Also; it's full of bears.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

I've been rereading Sigmar's Heirs a couple times in preparation for doing it after Kislev, and I think I can see exactly what's wrong with it. You know how a lot of the Kislevite characters or Bretonnians are actually decent people or really good at their jobs? To balance out the villains, jackasses, and idiots (who are definitely present in both)? The Empire book doesn't have much of that. All the nobles are corrupt, all the merchants are greedy, and all the political radicals are Chaos tainted. It feels like Sigmar's Heirs was the last book that was kind of 'THIS IS GRIM AND DARK AND PERILOUS' whereas the later books are more 'This is a grim world of perilous ADVENTURE!' and focused more on giving players things to do and fight for.

The Empire just comes off as kind of full of stupid people in its own book, and there's nothing cool like the Knight track or the Bear Trainer or anything. There's no powerful or even cool new mechanics for players, all the history is mostly a restatement of what's in the core book, etc.

Also the Empire just comes off as lacking a theme in its own book. If Bretonnia has The Performative Nature of Gender and Class and Kislev has 'HAHA gently caress CHAOS', the Empire has...uh...it has judges who wear outrageous hats and conduct trials on top of giant books and get paid by the execution? Which just seems kinda dull and dumb? There's no awesome weird engineering toys or cool landschneckt tricks because they hadn't yet gotten the confidence to let that stuff creep into the game instead of 'oh woe is us we have been dealt a mortal blow by all the damage Archaon did oh no' whining.

E: It does redeem itself a little with the Verenan Investigator, which is just Eugene Vidocq as a PC, at least. One cool Tier 2 PC class does not a good sourcebook make.

Night10194 fucked around with this message at 04:22 on Sep 16, 2017

Kavak
Aug 23, 2009


GW probably wanted those books to hew close to the party line, while the Bretonnians are a minor army and Kislev doesn't even have one IIRC. If this had somehow been for 40K, the Imperium and Chaos books would have been maxigrim overdark and less used factions like the Tau could've gotten cool things.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

It also always feels like GW and others kinda intended Karl Franz to die, he just lived by surprise and now the Empire accidentally has a solid and stable Emperor.

Didn't 1e's big official campaign kill him off?

Joe Slowboat
Nov 9, 2016

Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements



Can I put in a request to F&F Spires of Altdorf?
I recognize it's a campaign book, and I'm not at all interested in the campaign, but I just bought the Humble Bundle of literally all of WHFRP2E and Spires looks like the best sourcebook for the capital of the Empire, complete with (from my skim) hilarious, Ankh-Morporkian levels of historical mercantile and legislative infighting between the colleges, the merchants, the nobles, and literally everyone else. Plus when the elfs dropped the Colleges of Magic into Altdorf it seems to have permanently broken the map, leaving the entire city borderline unnavigable.
In short, I feel like I could easily run the Unseen University staff as wizards in Altdorf with a Sam Vimes running around with the guards, and I want to know if that accords.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Sure, I intend to get to everything eventually and I've got Spires. Which is one of the other problems for the Empire: All its cool cities are in adventure/campaign books. Talabheim, Nuln, Altdorf, and Middenheim all get less space in Sigmar's Heirs than Vladimir's Dry Goods does in Erengrad.

When I get to the official campaign, I intend to try to handle them like Abandon All Hope, albeit with a better system and a campaign that is actually about accomplishing stuff, flawed as it can be. I'll make a party and they'll run through things.

E: I might use the official pre-made party Dorf, though, because his name is THRUNBOR GIMRIGSON and that's a proper dorfin' name if ever I heard one.

Night10194 fucked around with this message at 04:46 on Sep 16, 2017

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Loxbourne
Apr 6, 2011

Tomorrow, doom!
But now, tea.

Night10194 posted:

It also always feels like GW and others kinda intended Karl Franz to die, he just lived by surprise and now the Empire accidentally has a solid and stable Emperor.

Storm of Chaos was an utter disaster of a global campaign. GW expected a proto-End Times from their players with the world getting trashed and dozens of named characters being slaughtered by Archaeon. It didn't work out that way at all, and 1d4chan has the lowdown.

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