|
Down With People posted:NOTE FOR NOTE – PART 2 I think you could fix involving the investigators by having the maid ask them for help, but that doesn't fix the sheer volume of railroading. I really don't understand why there's absolutely no new material or suggestions for this scenario out of all of them. Was "Make Note for Note not suck" an unreached Kickstarter goal?
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2017 11:54
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jan 22, 2025 11:24 |
|
|
Never underestimate the power and obsessiveness of nerd nostalgia. An untouched Note for Note exactly as the backers remembered it might have been a selling point.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2017 12:27
|
|
|
The functional absence of the Dreamlands from CthulhuTech is something I see brought up as a flaw of the writing with some frequency, but I think it's mostly incidental. The Dream Cycle and the Mountains of Madness/Shadow out of Time/over Innsmouth/Whisperer in Darkness combination (the ISO-standard Cthulhu Mythos setting pioneered by Chaosium) are pretty tonaly dissonant and when adapting loosely a work there's nothing really wrong with excising elements that don't fit the tone you're going for. Though with CthulhuTech there's always something of a question of which tone they were going for anyway...
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2017 13:23
|
|
|
RPG products become more powerful the older they get. Case in point: The Deck of Encounters Set One Part 63: The Deck of Dracoliches and Dragons 356: The Mission A powerful wizard in a secluded tower, who I assume has retired from society to post on nerdy wizard forums full-time and cannot possibly deal with this stuff themselves, hires the PCs to take out an ex-black dragon dracolich. The card describes the dracolich’s tactics (pretty normal) and lair (a small cave with treasure inside - inspiring! Also the treasure is all coins). On the one hand, I appreciate that the problem is (somewhat) open-ended and the PCs can take the initiative. On the other hand, none of the details are interesting. Powerful wizard. Treasure cave. On the third hand, this is a mini-quest, not an encounter. Save it for the “Deck of Things Posted to the Adventurer’s Guild Bulletin Board.” And then spice it up a little. Pass. 357: Trespassing In a bleak desert plain, the PCs have wandered into a venerable blue dragon’s territory. It starts circling them overhead, taunting them and offering to exchange their lives for treasure. “Each time the party accepts the dragon’s demands, the beast increases the ransom, until it finally exceeds what the party members possess.” It’s just to test the party’s bravery and wealth. Cute, but this is a high-level encounter. More than likely, the number of times the party accepts the dragon’s demands is going to equal zero. The number of times the blue dragon is going to be hit with a delayed blast fireball or some such in the middle of its speech is greater or equal to 1. The dragon’s tactics are obviously to breathe lightning from a safe distance, but if it doesn’t feel like it’s in danger, it’ll specifically come in to fight closer “to better see the fear in its victim’s eyes.” That’s a nice touch. Obviously it’s got an underground lair somewhere, and “amid the collection of copper and gold” is a coffer with the dragons’ beloved eight sapphires worth 1500 gp each. Cool horde, man. No wonder you have a crappy territory. In practice this is puh-rih-tee close to rolling “1 venerable blue dragon” on a wilderness random encounter table. But the dragon does have a little personality, and I was willing to take the all-around worse aboleth encounter a little while ago, so… keep. 358: Aiding the Unknown The PCs find a wounded old man atop a plateau in the wilderness. (What wounds? Unspecified.) Actually it’s a silver dragon, who once they heal him up, says he doesn’t remember how he got there, but asks them to escort him to his family in a nearby village. It's actually a test of character, and he’s actually “leading the party to his dragon children.” (Because the first thing I would do with people whose character I have not yet determined is… lead them to my children?) Most intelligent creatures don’t mess with them along the way, because they all know this dude is a dragon. He “tests the party a final time” before they arrive with a spectral force illusion of an angry mob. Why is the mob angry? Also unspecified, but if the party doesn’t protect him, he’ll revert to his normal form and command the PCs to depart. “If the PCs work to discourage the mob,” however, the man leads them to his home, reverting to his true form only when he is reunited with his children. He’ll reward the PCs with gold and jewelry. It’s oddly vague on a lot of important details. Not just the wounds and the mob… What’s with this village that the dragons live in - apparently they’re out publicly as dragons? How much is the gold and jewelry worth? What’s the dragon’s name? How many children? Are they old enough to be recruited as, say, paladin mounts? 359: A Trusty Hound The PCs are in a coastal city, and a stray dog starts following them around. (It’s So clearly it will take the PCs no time at all to figure out that the dog is an old bronze dragon who protects the city. She’s following around the PCs to make sure they don’t cause any damage, a perfectly valid concern that I applaud her for having. If she approves of them, she’ll reveal her nature to them before they depart, and tell them to return any time; if they cause trouble, she’ll kick them out. Keep. Dallbun fucked around with this message at 14:26 on Dec 20, 2017 |
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2017 13:24
|
|
|
I choose to imagine that Dog Dragon here spends all her time as a dog not to better spy on people but because she likes belly rubs and ear scratches and playing fetch with children.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2017 13:42
|
|
|
Dallbun posted:
the weird idiosyncrasies of D&D dragons were always off-putting for me. they're nearly-all-powerful, colossal monsters but they're also able to cast spells like a 9th level caster and they can also change shapes at will and like to pretend to be regular dudes/dudettes to gently caress with adventurers and and and. like, any one of those things could be a compelling monster/encounter on its own. having one creature do all of those things, and more, just dilutes the whole purpose of dragons in the first place IMO.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2017 14:27
|
|
|
Mors Rattus posted:I choose to imagine that Dog Dragon here spends all her time as a dog not to better spy on people but because she likes belly rubs and ear scratches and playing fetch with children. The dragon suddenly and very saltily ends its tenure as local dog when a kid pulls off one too many fake throws, and the dragon fell for it.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2017 14:32
|
|
|
Freaking Crumbum posted:the weird idiosyncrasies of D&D dragons were always off-putting for me. they're nearly-all-powerful, colossal monsters but they're also able to cast spells like a 9th level caster and they can also change shapes at will and like to pretend to be regular dudes/dudettes to gently caress with adventurers and and and. like, any one of those things could be a compelling monster/encounter on its own. having one creature do all of those things, and more, just dilutes the whole purpose of dragons in the first place IMO. Elminster with psoriasis.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2017 14:45
|
|
|
The D&D Heartbreaker of psoriasis
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2017 14:47
|
|
|
Loxbourne posted:Never underestimate the power and obsessiveness of nerd nostalgia. An untouched Note for Note exactly as the backers remembered it might have been a selling point. It was designed to be run and played, Note for Note dammit! 
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2017 16:35
|
|
|
inklesspen posted:You magnificent bastard! I found this book on Steve Jackson Games’s website literally days after you made that post and I’ve been keeping it under wraps ever since. GURPS Zombieland, USA PART 1 – BLACK LAKE I’m flying completely blind here. I’ve never read this book before, and I don’t know what I’m in for. I also have a (relatively minor) case of PTSD that this might set off! Probably not, though, from a light perusal it looks more than bearable. Ah well. I promised myself I’d do this years ago, so, here we go!  So, this is a weird one. For those unfamiliar, GURPS Autoduel is GURPS’s post-apocalyptic car battle setting; players drive their vehicles around trying to blow other vehicles up. Apparently, this book is written with both horror and exploding cars in mind. Thematic! The book is designed around the assumption that the GM will choose between running the scenario in the present day or in the far off future of 2038. This was published in 88, so, drat, we’re closer to the first date than the second. Author Barry Link, whoever that is (I can’t find anything about him on the Internet) wants to use this thing as a mixture of setting and adventure; the town has too much for one adventure to cover and can be revisited after the book’s core adventure has been exhausted. He also introduces an interesting concept; GMs are supposed to choose between characters that the book presents and use certain ones as “stars” that shape the narrative around them. Sounds a bit rickety, but I guess we’ll see.  Christ this book is full of maps The first chapter is entirely maps, location descriptions, and little biographies/character sheets in the sidebars, all describing the almost stereotypically small-town American Black Lake, California. Well, stereotypical in theory. The very first sidebar in the book lays out the three primary rules of a visitor’s social life in Black Lake: take things slow and steady, people are friendly to strangers but frown on bad behavior and snobbery, and any action outsiders take, positive or negative, will spread down the grapevine to the rest of the town and affect how people judge them. This is one of the few settings in which reaction roles are useful in GURPS; how people approach you, and how you react to them, will shape how your adventure plays out. Fourth rule, for Autoduel games only? Irritating outsiders won’t live to see the sunrise   Good Lord is that a lot of people to sift through. Yes, every one of those people has a little stat block squirreled away in the sidebars, and maybe a quarter of them have paragraph-long biographies to boot. No, that’s not a lot of information to sort through. Why do you ask? Black Lake is actually pretty comfortable, no matter which time period you visit it in. Most buildings detailed in the book exist intact in oth Autoduel and out of it, with the same people running them (just with the addition of lots of guns in the former). In lieu of writing out every single building description and biography I’ll cover a few of the most important/interesting people in the town. Wow, the  factor really starts out strong in this book! The very second person with a sidebar profile is one Mrs. Agatha Brown, an attractive (the book emphasizes this) middle-aged woman running a local boarding house who’s actually a “demented psi” who psychically enslaves the “troubled teenagers” who work there as maids. They are actually kidnapped teenagers she “gets secretly from area cycle gangs and rogues.” She doesn’t do anything with them; she’s just a sadistic rear end in a top hat who gets her jollies from making these girls miserable by stripping their agency away from them. Once she’s done breaking them, she sells them off to anyone who will pay. The townsfolk don’t know about this and think she’s a wonderful woman for working with all these troubled youth. Jesus Christ what the gently caress, Link! Yeah, she’s a pretty obvious villain for PCs to try to take down. I want to take her down.Next, Jerry Low, owner of the Pinetree Pub! He runs the town bar, a pretty quiet and civilized place – no brawls or roughhousing allowed. He’s an, and I quote, “Oriental” man who prides himself on his orderly establishment and also plays his tuba during happy hour. Badly. His stat block even includes “One badly-tuned tuba” under equipment and an atrociously low Musical Instrument (tuba) skill  With Autoduel active, he’s the president of the local chapter of the AADA (American Autoduel Association), the setting’s car dueling organization, and also the de facto leader of the town militia. The truckers plot zombie murder. Ben McKinley, a cowardly, scimitar-owning (even though he can’t use it) Scotsman and hipster runs a little café literally called the Granola which serves East Asian, vegetarian, and horrifyingly enough, Scottish food. He has no major plot significance, but I couldn’t skip over him. Instead, Vic the Knife! He a greasy, cantankerous man who runs the Cave Bar, the local dive, as well as the local biker gang, the Shards. Thing is, well, he’s also an artist, in a “cynical, self-destructive outcast” sort of way. He’s a nationally published poet (albeit one who writes things like A Field Guide to Women’s Breasts) whose nickname comes from his sharp writing style. He even knows Latin well enough to speak it  Likewise, the Shards are more a “show up and look tough” gang of three disenfranchised youth than any kind of social threat; in Autoduel, they don’t fight other townsfolk, they just sort of hang out.Fuzzy Dent is the town mayor, a rather amicable older fellow who has a habit of trying to mediate any argument he comes across; unfortunately, he’s also hard of hearing and frequently screws it up. At town meetings people just shout to make sure he hears them. He’s universally well-liked, visiting every business in town on the regular (including the Cave Bar, he thinks incognito), greets people on the street, and owns Black Lake’s general store – he manages to walk the fine line between running the town’s biggest store with pay and bonuses for his staff and not driving any of the specialist stores out of business. An all-around nice guy. Among those specialist stores is the flower shop run by Simpson Godot, the town’s most famous resident, an artist who does something with videos. The book straight up hints it might be hentai, which, okay. A few unremarkable food shops until we hit  He’s a Polish immigrant with some kind of abusive relationship with his wife (one probably beats the other). Still, his pastries are popular all over town so he sees a lot of business. In Autoduel, he’s one of the vanishingly few people who knows how to get real wheat instead of post-apocalyptic algae, so he’s both one of the world’s few bakers and vigorously watched by the FBI. What’s this about that whole Zombie Father thing? Nothing in the text in this part of the book hints at it! Stop slandering this poor man! Next time: more people!
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2017 17:18
|
|
|
Man, some of those characters sure do have names.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2017 17:34
|
|
|
I think my copy of Zombietown is still kicking around. Vaguely recall going through it as being weirdly dreamlike or disjointed, though that could have just been the GM.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2017 17:36
|
|
|
I think what I don't get is why it's good dragons doing these dumb pranky polymorphy things. Like, I think it'd be funnier to me if it was a Red or Blue dragon who was loving with the PC's for his own entertainment, that'd explain the weird, arbitrary tasks. If the players are funny, they might get some minor reward and the dragon doesn't set them on fire. If the players ruin the dragon's fun, they make an enemy. And if they're really clever and figure out the ruse in good time, they might take the chance to ambush the dragon while it's in non-dragon form. Some of the locals are gonna know the dragon's scheme and start running the instant they see the adventuring group dragging around an apparently-harmless civilian, prompting the players to wonder what the hell is going on.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2017 18:28
|
|
|
I am imagining a town where some young evil dragons keep polymorphing into random people, and if anyone makes them for any reason, they resume dragon form and reward the the community painfully. But they keep coming back around as different people all the time so everyone is paranoid that whoever they just met is a dragon prankster-terrorist but knows if they let on that they think that person is a dragon and that person notices then that may be curtains, so everyone has elaborate ways of divining who is not a dragon while trying to play dumb. And then of course you have people pretending to be dragons-pretending-not-to-be-dragons so they can get in on the benefit of a doubt treatment and get away with whatever they normally couldn't. marshmallow creep fucked around with this message at 19:46 on Dec 20, 2017 |
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2017 19:42
|
|
|
PurpleXVI posted:I think what I don't get is why it's good dragons doing these dumb pranky polymorphy things. Like, I think it'd be funnier to me if it was a Red or Blue dragon who was loving with the PC's for his own entertainment, that'd explain the weird, arbitrary tasks. That's a great idea. I can just imagine this theoretical chromatic dragon being unduly self-satisfied and smug that it was able to trick a group of human adventurers into doing things, even if there was really no point. "Take this trinket, that you may always remember that you walked for a time alongside the infamous Ubaraxys the Blue... and were none the wiser!"
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2017 19:51
|
|
|
LatwPIAT posted:The functional absence of the Dreamlands from CthulhuTech is something I see brought up as a flaw of the writing with some frequency, but I think it's mostly incidental. The Dream Cycle and the Mountains of Madness/Shadow out of Time/over Innsmouth/Whisperer in Darkness combination (the ISO-standard Cthulhu Mythos setting pioneered by Chaosium) are pretty tonaly dissonant and when adapting loosely a work there's nothing really wrong with excising elements that don't fit the tone you're going for.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2017 20:19
|
|
|
Most evil dragons can't polymorph. In fact, IIRC, it's just gold, bronze, silver, red, blue and...maybe green?
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2017 20:27
|
|
|
I always assumed that dragons shapeshifting into humans existed for no other reason than A) What ho, adventurers! You think you have defeated me, but I am...a dragon! and B) turns out your deadbeat dad was Kurt Russell, and a dragon!
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2017 20:31
|
|
|
Zereth posted:If that was their goal they should have just gone "nope, dreamlands aren't a thing" rather than "The dreamlands got eaten and if you try to go there or use basically any spell related to them, your soul is eaten and you die instantly". The latter just feels spiteful. There's very little in CthulhuTech that isn't spiteful. The only question is who or what they're spiting.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2017 20:33
|
|
|
Halloween Jack posted:I always assumed that dragons shapeshifting into humans existed for no other reason than A) What ho, adventurers! You think you have defeated me, but I am...a dragon! and B) turns out your deadbeat dad was Kurt Russell, and a dragon!
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2017 20:33
|
|
|
As someone who lived in Blue Lake, California for years, Black Lake is pretty weird.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2017 22:40
|
|
|
FMguru posted:The canonical use is from the Dragonlance modules, where the cute elf who helps the heroes is actually a polymorphed silver dragon And now we wrap back around to the thread title.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2017 22:48
|
|
|
Falconier111 posted:GURPS Zombieland, USA Well, at least you have a GURPS Autoduel review you can reference, which I mention for no reason. 
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2017 23:05
|
|
|
Kavak posted:I think you could fix involving the investigators by having the maid ask them for help, but that doesn't fix the sheer volume of railroading. I really don't understand why there's absolutely no new material or suggestions for this scenario out of all of them. Was "Make Note for Note not suck" an unreached Kickstarter goal? Loxbourne posted:Never underestimate the power and obsessiveness of nerd nostalgia. An untouched Note for Note exactly as the backers remembered it might have been a selling point. It's weird because there's other scenarios where they've actually made the effort to furnish the keeper with suggestions for how you can things up, but Note For Note just...continues to be Note For Note. I don't think it's a nostalgia thing because I've never seen someone express fondness for the Milan scenario, but then again I've had trouble finding discussion on Horrient in general.  NOTE FOR NOTE – PART 3 this was agonising to write One last update and we're done with Milan forever. Following the scenario, the investigators spend three days in Milan and leave on the fourth. This schedule assumes that they take an interest in Cavollaro, Spinolo and sightseeing and do all of those things exactly as described. No provision is made for investigators who don't care about any of those things and instead focus all of their efforts on trying to find the Torso. In addition, at no point in any of their investigations does the Brotherhood of Skin make any substantial attempt to thwart them – the worst that can happen is Faccia's bodyguard follows them into La Scala's backstage and tries to fling prop spears at them. The Brothers will have to wait until Trieste to make a proper debut.  All of this is to have the big climax at the opera's opening night. Thanks to Cavollaro, the investigators have tickets and the scenario assumes they're interested in using them. If not, suck poo poo. Alternatively, one or more investigators might decide to sneak backstage and get in as extras – the tenor playing Radames immediately warms up to a male investigator in this role, seeing him as a 'man of action'.  (Wait, could they not have done that on an earlier day?) Anyway, the investigators have front row seats that just so happen to be across the aisle from Faccia. Aida begins and plays out as it should up to the Ritorna Vincitor aria. At this point, the entire theatre seems to sing along with Cavollaro's understudy. Gradually, the investigators realise they can hear Cavollaro's voice singing. Listen pinpoints as coming from Faccia. Realising that he's singing with her voice costs 1/1D6 SAN.Next to him is a woman old enough to be his mother, listening to the aria slack-jawed as if trying to remember something. Towards the end she starts to weep. Spot Hidden reveals that her and Faccia have similar scars around their necks. She also bears a resemblance to Cavollaro because of course, she is the amnesiac Cavollaro. Another 1/1D4 SAN for anyone who realises that.  With the aria finished, a new backdrop unfurls as Radames strides in with his priests, who then begin presenting him with his armour. A spotlight lands on the clothes dummy that's being used to hold the armour - the Torso. The investigators recognise it from its opalescent sheen, Faccia recognises it by pure conviction. There'll be significant commotion as both Faccia and the investigators try to get backstage first. This is even better if someone snuck on stage as an extra, since for them the Torso is right loving there – they just have to hope no one notices them wheeling away a piece of opera property. There's almost no support for what happens next. The investigators will probably get to the Torso first (the visit to the costume department reveals a faulty fire escape door they can enter through), but there'll be a slapfight when they run into the Brothers of Skin. There's six of them along with Faccia, sturdy boys but not much more than hired goons with billy clubs; if the investigators got chrome the Torso is theirs. Coupled with Faccia hysterically shrieking in Cavollaro's voice and the goons' total lack of comprehension of what's happening and this final encounter will probably degenerate into slapstick. In addition, Cavollaro shakes off the fog of amnesia and remembers what Faccia did to her. Her response is, somewhat understandably, to try and tear her voice back out through his throat. I can't think of a worse way to introduce the group that's supposed to be the primary antagonist in your campaign. As soon as they have the Torso and possibly Cavollaro secured, the investigators will probably want to call a cab and make their getaway. Faccia sends his Brothers after them, leaving himself unprotected. Fenalik kills him – he doesn't need more competition for the Simulacrum.  It's finally over Investigators get 1D4 SAN for having the Torso ignominiously dumped into their laps by GM fiat. If they have Cavollaro, they can return her to Ysabel and her friends – she proves her identity to them by saying things only she would know. 1D4 SAN for that. If any of the investigators learn Control Skin, restoring Cavollaro's body nets 1D8 SAN, but this is unlikely to happen in the campaign unless you drop the spell somewhere earlier. It's insulting that the book would imply this is even a vaguely satisfying resolution; however you slice it, Cavollaro's life is over. The only thing the investigators could do was be there to witness it. Also, what was the point of aging Cavollaro exactly? Did Faccia really need to bring the woman he kidnapped to the place where she was most likely to be recognised? loving whatever. Oh, and they've also got the Torso. Milan breathes easier with it gone. That's this lovely loving scenario done. It might be the worst scenario in the campaign and I couldn't imagine running it without uh, totally rewriting it. So let me open the floor here: do you guys want to move on to Venice, or should we pick up where we left off in the Dreamlands?
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2017 23:08
|
|
|
More cattes.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2017 23:11
|
|
|
Mors Rattus posted:Most evil dragons can't polymorph. In fact, IIRC, it's just gold, bronze, silver, red, blue and...maybe green? Well, it's not a canonical baked-in power of theirs, but nothing's stopping them from casting spells or using magical items to achieve the same ends. Which, mind you, would actually make it more effective for them, since less people would expect to see it coming like they would with a metallic dragon.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2017 23:14
|
|
|
Get drunk in the dining car, Dreamlands or otherwise. EDIT: Is it just me, or did the villain's plan not actually do anything? Does the book say the torso was drawn out by the Aria? It reads like the author wanted to do an Opera-based scenario but was made to bolt on the Simulacrum plot to it. Kavak fucked around with this message at 23:59 on Dec 20, 2017 |
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2017 23:18
|
|
|
Opera deserves better than this garbage. I mean, there's got to be eighty thousand superior methods for mixing opera and Lovecraft, starting with an atonal Thomas Adès adaptation of the King in Yellow and proceeding through a production of the Ring cycle where Nyarlathotep shows up to play Loge and when Brunnhild sings her immolation aria to end the world the world goddamn ends.
|
|
#
?
Dec 21, 2017 00:33
|
|
|
Fallen London managed to do it better in a storyline: In order to get someone to get back to a game of soul-betting cards, you have to put on an opera that uses the forbidden language (Which has a tendency to set one's hair on fire), extremely specified instruments, and the result was a theater full of people going mad and either having an orgy or trying to attack others. Honestly, music is pretty dangerous in that setting, given a popular children's song can cause your weasels to explode.
|
|
#
?
Dec 21, 2017 00:47
|
|
|
Robindaybird posted:Fallen London managed to do it better in a storyline: In order to get someone to get back to a game of soul-betting cards, you have to put on an opera that uses the forbidden language (Which has a tendency to set one's hair on fire), extremely specified instruments, and the result was a theater full of people going mad and either having an orgy or trying to attack others. So it's OK if I don't have any weasels?
|
|
#
?
Dec 21, 2017 00:48
|
|
|
Prism posted:So it's OK if I don't have any weasels? Long as you don't sing it around other people's weasels, people get quite miffed when their pets blow up and stain their evening coats.
|
|
#
?
Dec 21, 2017 00:50
|
|
|
Robindaybird posted:Fallen London managed to do it better in a storyline: In order to get someone to get back to a game of soul-betting cards, you have to put on an opera that uses the forbidden language (Which has a tendency to set one's hair on fire), extremely specified instruments, and the result was a theater full of people going mad and either having an orgy or trying to attack others.
|
|
#
?
Dec 21, 2017 00:54
|
|
|
Kavak posted:Get drunk in the dining car, Dreamlands or otherwise. The book does not say that the Torso was actually drawn out by the aria - as far as it matters to anyone except Faccia, the Torso appeared on stage by pure coincidence. The idea that this old Milanese legend somehow carries real weight to it in a world dominated by the Mythos seems far less likely to me than Old Man Finds One Weird Trick To Waste Everyone's loving Time. I absolutely think that Caleo is really into Milan and opera and really wanted to make his scenario about that first and foremost, but even if you got rid of the Simulacrum angle it's still bad. There's like a whole thing you should be doing in this kind of story where all the exciting adventure stuff is happening backstage while the opera goes on. If this scenario was better all of the action should have been happening in La Scala from day one but instead there's all this superfluous poo poo about sightseeing and the unionist getting killed and the only real way for the players to interact with it is to sit down and watch the opera. Nessus posted:There's an opera that if properly staged and performed, summons Azathoth midway through the third act. That's canon. Massa di Requiem per Shaggai. I like the references to it in Delta Green where it's yet another abysmal failure project of the Shan. It'll absolutely summon Azathoth, but it's never been successfully performed to completion.
|
|
#
?
Dec 21, 2017 00:58
|
|
|
Oh god I am sick of Milan, let's hang out with some cats and ugly dudes that make me puke.
|
|
#
?
Dec 21, 2017 01:20
|
|
|
Down With People posted:Massa di Requiem per Shaggai. I like the references to it in Delta Green where it's yet another abysmal failure project of the Shan. It'll absolutely summon Azathoth, but it's never been successfully performed to completion.
|
|
#
?
Dec 21, 2017 01:24
|
|
|
Nessus posted:Well yeah, Azathoth appears in the third act, of course you can't finish it. Not with that attitude.
|
|
#
?
Dec 21, 2017 01:28
|
|
|
On Evil Dragons using shape shifting to mess with people. I am reminded of Firkraag from Baldur's Gate 2. A Dragon that tended to go for more subtle stuff then you would expect from a Red Dragon. Like pretending to be a noble and financially ruining another noble over time so he could steal his land legally. Then filling the estate with monsters before heading over to the Player Character in his noble disguise to hire them to get rid of the monsters with a large reward promised. (While also hiring a paladin and some other adventures for the same thing) Then when the two groups get close to each other using illusion magic to make the groups think each other were monsters so they would kill each other. He also screws with you a few other ways. Before revealing the motive was that your foster father had wounded him in the past so he was taking revenge on his child before getting bored. He also refuses to pay you for getting rid of the monsters.
|
|
#
?
Dec 21, 2017 02:13
|
|
|
1: more cats 2: the art for the torso is actually pretty cool 3: Les Miserables except it's performed by shoggoths with other shoggoths dressed up as the oppressive French aristocracy and French army quashing the rebels.
|
|
#
?
Dec 21, 2017 02:28
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jan 22, 2025 11:24 |
|
|
Hostile V posted:1: more cats Fixed that for you.
|
|
#
?
Dec 21, 2017 03:14
|
|