|
Small news for UA (though not to anyone who's been to the fan-site): UA is getting three new PDF-only releases. No idea when they're going to be released, but they've been in development since October.
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2010 02:58
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 23, 2024 15:45 |
|
|
Totally minor thing I was reminded of reading the Bill in Three Parts writeup- Greg Stolze loves using moms as NPCs or pre-gen PCs. It's about the most anti-barbarian-chick thing.
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2010 05:30
|
|
|
Mechanics question for you guys - when it comes to Adepts, how many formulas do they start off with? As best I understand it, they start off at character creation with none, and then have to spend 10xp for each minor formula, and more for significant formulas - is that correct?
|
|
#
?
Jun 17, 2010 17:23
|
|
|
Squidster posted:Mechanics question for you guys - when it comes to Adepts, how many formulas do they start off with? I thought that generally speaking, adepts start with the minor/sig spells in the book. Also, bought Reign:Enchiridion and it is drat good. I'm probably going to bolt on the Companies rules to my DnD game, and I'm definitely tempted to try and play something with the ruleset as a whole.
|
|
#
?
Jun 18, 2010 04:12
|
|
|
Squidster posted:Mechanics question for you guys - when it comes to Adepts, how many formulas do they start off with? It costs 5 xp/10 xp (Minor/Significant) to create a new spell that isn't one of the ones listed. From the stories in the books I don't think all adepts know all about their own school. It's reasonable to not know how to get a Significant or Major charge although the character might have some inkling of what is involved. You're the GM, you decide. If you want them to start out with every spell then go for it. If you want to give them one minor formula spell and random magic. Give them hints at what a significant charge might require. You might even let them discover a significant formula before they even know how to obtain a significant charge.
|
|
#
?
Jun 18, 2010 17:32
|
|
|
I've always played with adepts knowing their entire lists of spells. Charges are a good enough limiter that it's never struck me as important to limit spell selection.
|
|
#
?
Jun 18, 2010 21:45
|
|
|
Dr. Arbitrary posted:It costs 5 xp/10 xp (Minor/Significant) to create a new spell that isn't one of the ones listed. Well, yes, but generally. I'm not going to pull the books now, but the rule seems to be that if they're using a book-school, not knowing something out of the book would be A Thing. That said, there are pretty good guidelines on what each adept has as far as charge-sources and held charges go.
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2010 00:33
|
|
|
Just bumping to let everyone know that NAIN is up. https://www.fromthedragonsmouth.com/REIGN_Nain.zip
|
|
#
?
Jun 24, 2010 14:07
|
|
|
Evil Mastermind posted:Just bumping to let everyone know that NAIN is up. What the hell is NAIN?  e; VVV thanks for the answer. Lemon-Lime fucked around with this message at 16:51 on Jun 24, 2010 |
|
#
?
Jun 24, 2010 14:58
|
|
|
Ansob. posted:What the hell is NAIN? quote:NAIN is a complete, fully laid out miniature setting for the REIGN roleplaying game ( http://www.gregstolze.com/reign/ ). If the ransom is met, I'll release the PDFs onto the internet, for free, in perpetuity. I'm still reading through it, but the two mechanical highlights so far are One-Roll Monsters, and a free-form verb/noun magic system for Reign, along the same rough lines as Ars Magica.
|
|
#
?
Jun 24, 2010 16:14
|
|
|
Seems cool, but whenever I've run Reign, I tend to use 'generic tolkien-esque fantasy world' as a setting because complex and unfamiliar settings aren't popular with my group.
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2010 03:45
|
|
|
clockworkjoe posted:Seems cool, but whenever I've run Reign, I tend to use 'generic tolkien-esque fantasy world' as a setting because complex and unfamiliar settings aren't popular with my group. "Harry Potter but kinda serious" is neither complex or mysterious.
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2010 06:10
|
|
|
Plus the actual magic mechanics are generic enough to slot into any setting.
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2010 17:06
|
|
|
This is only tangentially Greg Stolze related (though he is still Awesome), but anyone have an opinion on Wild Talents?
|
|
#
?
Jun 29, 2010 20:16
|
|
|
I've only played a couple one-shots and read through the book, so grain of salt. It's surprisingly fast and fluid, and combat is as lethal as the rest of the ORE ruleset (very). The power system seems like it would be a pain to create powers, but they are fairly intuitive in actual play.
|
|
#
?
Jun 29, 2010 21:26
|
|
|
Xand_Man posted:I've only played a couple one-shots and read through the book, so grain of salt. I'm guessing you didn't do character/power creation for the one-shots?
|
|
#
?
Jun 29, 2010 21:38
|
|
|
Yeah, pre-generated characters.
|
|
#
?
Jun 30, 2010 06:29
|
|
|
Xand_Man posted:Yeah, pre-generated characters. Cool. Thanks for the response.
|
|
#
?
Jun 30, 2010 06:39
|
|
|
clockworkjoe posted:Seems cool, but whenever I've run Reign, I tend to use 'generic tolkien-esque fantasy world' as a setting because complex and unfamiliar settings aren't popular with my group. If people-shaped continents and oceans at right angles to the land is wrong, then I don't want to be right. quote:This is only tangentially Greg Stolze related (though he is still Awesome), but anyone have an opinion on Wild Talents? It's the best generic "do what-the-gently caress-ever" system yet made. It's exactly what I wanted GURPS to be when I was a stupid kid. You can use it to play a wind-spirit ninja, a time-traveling dinosaur with an underground monster-making laboratory, or even, as the sidebar says, a guy who can turn off the sun (or other instances of nuclear fusion). My favored approach: come up with a simple premise ("You are all children of various deities, in 1880s New York" or "it's Aberrant, but less full of itself" or "The Marvel Mangaverse, made un-retarded and period-piece"), make a few copies of the character creation rules, bring the players together, let them make up a completely ridiculous group with an impossible goal or bailiwick, and tell them you'll need a few months to make the world implied by the cool stuff they've come up with (Ninja clan for the Kazkami Kyoko, other time-travelers for Doctor Utahraptor, amoral hard-physics alien supers and sweating heads of state for The Apocalypse Man, general threats to the group). I only own the little book so far, because premade settings are of limited use to me, but the discussions on genre and form in the big book are definitely fantastic. One thing: I don't recommend the game if you don't want to stat out almost everything yourself, and get creative with it. For example, to my knowledge, there are no mook rules, so I make usually give the villains attack attributes like "My Vast Armies" or "Kill Team Alpha", with limited "ammo" representing how long they can last against Protagonists before being dead/escaped/etc. But that's just At My Table, so who knows how you'll do it.
|
|
#
?
Jul 1, 2010 05:14
|
|
|
Doc Hawkins posted:One thing: I don't recommend the game if you don't want to stat out almost everything yourself, and get creative with it. For example, to my knowledge, there are no mook rules, so I make usually give the villains attack attributes like "My Vast Armies" or "Kill Team Alpha", with limited "ammo" representing how long they can last against Protagonists before being dead/escaped/etc. But that's just At My Table, so who knows how you'll do it.
|
|
#
?
Jul 1, 2010 16:09
|
|
|
Does anyone have a good system for one roll characters in Nain?
|
|
#
?
Jul 1, 2010 16:27
|
|
|
Evil Mastermind posted:The 2nd edition book does have "Minion" rules, which were adapted from Reign. The new supplement for Monsters and Other Childish Things, Bigger Bads (another ORE game that is awesome and brilliant) has rules for threats, which can be mooks or things like a fire or a trap. Basically a threat is a dice pool that can harm the PCs through attacks and loses dice when it is successfully countered or attacked. For example, a 10d mook threat can be beaten up with standard attacks. An attack that does 3 damage reduces the pool to 7d. It only has 1 hit location basically. However, if the PCs are in a burning building then they can't shoot or punch their way through it. So it's still a 10d (or whatever) threat but only actions that would logically contain a fire would reduce its dice pool.
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2010 07:59
|
|
|
With the release of Nain. I can't stop thinking about if Harry Potter had been written with Unknown Armies magic instead. "You're a Dipsomancer, Harry"
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2010 15:48
|
|
|
Dumbledore's a cutter, Hagrid's an alcoholic, and Harry steps in front of traffic.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2010 17:40
|
|
|
Just jumped on the UA bandwagon and plan on running Jailbreak with my group as a first intro to the system for all of us. Anybody happen to have the character sheets for Jailbreak in PDF form? My obsession of hard copy books doesn't work out well with my entirely online group 
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2010 04:03
|
|
|
Does UA have a type of magic that relies on sticking it to the odds? i.e. the worse off you are and the least likely you are to survive/win, the more powerful your magic actually is. Getting killed generates a major charge, and the trick would be finding a way of using that charge and living. Failing that, can anyone think of a name for it? "Paradoxomancers" sounds poo poo.
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2010 10:55
|
|
|
Ansob. posted:Does UA have a type of magic that relies on sticking it to the odds? i.e. the worse off you are and the least likely you are to survive/win, the more powerful your magic actually is. Getting killed generates a major charge, and the trick would be finding a way of using that charge and living. Entropomancers work like that basically. They generate a major charge by risking their own lives and the lives of at least 10 others on something that will probably kill them all, if I remember right.
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2010 12:14
|
|
|
Major Charges need you to risk the life of both yourself and someone you actually care about (whereas risking your own life just gets you a medium charge, because magic in UA is awesome). You may be thinking of the Entropomancy rule of thumb: "risk" means you have at least a one in ten chance of losing. May I just take this opportunity to recommend Roll Your Bones, a free pdf of an Entropomancer's Tarantino-esque story? (Warning: it opens with a guy jerking it, but he's just trying to do magic so it's not weird or anything) edit: oh right link hurrr Doc Hawkins fucked around with this message at 14:49 on Jul 25, 2010 |
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2010 14:47
|
|
|
Doc Hawkins posted:May I just take this opportunity to recommend Roll Your Bones Will check that out, ta. I thought Entropomancy was just based on taking risks rather than specifically you being more powerful the less likely it is for you to survive? Admittedly the two are rather related, but I don't think Entropomancy would reward you for just being nearly dead. This is more what I had in mind: You have two broken kneecaps and three bullets in your lungs so the odds of you surviving this are really, really small; your powers are proportional to how slim the odds of you surviving are; so you get a significant charge out of you being so damage you can't function anymore. Ultimate power (a major charge) comes when the odds of you surviving are infinitely close to 0, i.e. you are dead. If you're smart enough to harvest that major charge in the moment between your actual death and the obliteration/ascension/pick-belief-ation of your soul, you could do some serious magic - but most people aren't Or you could just use the major charge to stick around as what basically amounts to a Force ghost from Star Wars. Lemon-Lime fucked around with this message at 15:27 on Jul 26, 2010 |
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2010 15:23
|
|
|
Ansob. posted:
That also sounds like Epideromancy, where you injury yourself in order to gain charges. If you really hurt yourself (drink acid, shoot yourself in the head, etc.) you get the major. Yours might work as a variant of that school. Also: the sweet thing about Entropomancers is that they basically are incentivized for acting like a PC. My players do dumb poo poo that might get them killed all the time; entropomancers get ultimate magical power out of it.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2010 15:37
|
|
|
Xand_Man posted:That also sounds like Epideromancy, where you injury yourself in order to gain charges. If you really hurt yourself (drink acid, shoot yourself in the head, etc.) you get the major. Yours might work as a variant of that school. That being said, a magic school based around the moment between life and death is very UA.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2010 16:02
|
|
|
There are rules for this in the book. Start with Entropomancy, change the charge structure around a little bit, something like gaining a minor charge every time you, through intentional action, do something that results in a penalty to your rolls like with dipsomancy. Your taboo would to ever be in a situation where you aren't handicapped in some manner. Bowling against a professional bowler when you're only an amateur wouldn't count, but being a rather talented bowler going against a first time bowler would work if you blindfolded yourself or ripped your fingernails out beforehand. Now you've got a big advantage. While you might appear to be just like any other bodybag, charging into a gunfight with your legs manacled together, your charge structure and taboo are going to really throw your enemies off. A normal entropomancer wouldn't be able to hang out on the roof of the building next door to the big fight taking shots with a rifle from a position of safety. If you're wearing a painful cilice you'll be charged and ready to go.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2010 16:16
|
|
|
Ansob seems to be describing a guy who runs into a fight with both arms tied behind is back and is more likely to win than if he had his arms free. If so, the issue with this would be that (ok I've rewritten this five times, can't get it right) to my understanding, you can't get a charge for magic if you use the magic to remove the cause of the charge generation. Entropomancers can't use the charge generated by risking their own lives to mitigate the risk used to generate the charge, because that would reduce the odds such that they no longer make the prereqs for generating the charge that would save them. If it's only "fake risk" (I'm in so much trouble! haha no I have magic) you get no charge because you're going against the spirit of your path. Jumping off a building thinking "I will use the charge I get from nearly killing myself here to cause me to land safely" is a one-way trip to splatterville. Similarly Epideromancer's can't remove an eye to grow back their eye and hand, it doesn't count. You have to hurt yourself to do stuff because that's how epideromancers work, cutting off your hand when you know you're just going to grow it back later is going to do jack all beyond the standard "I hurt myself" minor charge. You can't fool the magic. So a guy who gets charges from being the underdog, as it were, wouldn't be able to use his charges to make himself less of an underdog for the situation where he is being the underdog. Running into a fight with one arm broken and your hair on fire doesn't count as making you the underdog if doing so actually makes you more powerful, any more than an Entropomancer risking his life and someone he cares about on a 1/10 chance would count if he was planning to use the generated magic to actually make that a 100% chance of surviving. It's not a complete loss though, while you couldn't get more powerful for a fight by loving yourself up just before or during the fight, you could do something like Dr. Arbitrary said where previous self-induced failure gets you charges (and ridicule). Edit: Now I'm thinking about an epideromancer variant who gets charges from other people hurting him, who's ultimate goal is pretty much suicide by cop. Getting someone else to hurt you to generate a charge would obviously be a no-no, generally you charge up by wandering into the street and insulting people's wives until somebody slugs you. Splicer fucked around with this message at 17:16 on Jul 26, 2010 |
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2010 17:07
|
|
|
Splicer posted:Ansob seems to be describing a guy who runs into a fight with both arms tied behind is back and is more likely to win than if he had his arms free. If so, the issue with this would be that (ok I've rewritten this five times, can't get it right) to my understanding, you can't get a charge for magic if you use the magic to remove the cause of the charge generation. Well, the way I imagine it, you can't do either of those things. You can take the charge you get from getting beaten up/shot up/dying and use it to your own ends - just that none of those ends can be "prevent me from ever having gotten hurt in the first place." Obviously, all of this is based on whatever way I come up of using those charges, and I haven't really given this any thought beyond "hey, wouldn't it be a cool idea to have a school based on..." but I'd probably imagine something where getting unintentionally hurt lets you strike back and protect your friends - literally taking a bullet for them in order to hit back at the bad guy. You don't get anything if you deliberately just go up to a guy and get him to beat you up - you have to actively fight back and actually lose and suffer some form of physical injury to get anything out of it. Yes, you could run into a fight with both arms tied behind your back as long as you were still able to fight back, get the poo poo beaten out of you or get shot once or twice, then cast a spell. However, to do that, you'd have to be suicidally stupid, and it still hurts. It's interesting as a character attribute for the same reason Entropomancy is interesting: practising that kind of magic is the domain of those whose mental integrity is questionable, and those who are very, very desperate. Basically, it only works if you're not trying to gently caress up and you gently caress up. It's magic based on spiting your enemies when you gently caress up. If all goes well at the end of the day you didn't get to stop that drug deal and you've ended up in hospital with five cracked ribs and a bullet in your shoulder but at least one of the drug dealers' legs is going to get loving gangrene and rot off. Lemon-Lime fucked around with this message at 18:00 on Jul 26, 2010 |
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2010 17:37
|
|
|
Ansob. posted:Basically, it only works if you're not trying to gently caress up and you gently caress up. It's magic based on spiting your enemies when you gently caress up. If all goes well at the end of the day you didn't get to stop that drug deal and you've ended up in hospital with five cracked ribs and a bullet in your shoulder but at least one of the drug dealers' legs is going to get loving gangrene and rot off.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2010 20:15
|
|
|
Splicer posted:Well that's completely different and awesome. Yeah I like that it has this very UA cross between gypsy curse and christian martyrdom
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2010 20:46
|
|
|
Mr. Stolze just put out a new superhero setting for Wild Talents: Progenitor. http://www.arcdream.com/zencart/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=5&products_id=30 Progenitor is a superhero setting about big ideas. A single woman gains inconceivable power then unwittingly passes it on to a handful of people. They pass it along to others in turn, and so on, and soon thousands of men and women around the world share that strange power in different forms. Some of them use their powers for their own personal gain or gratification. Others try to help those around them. Others change the world itself. What will your characters do with that kind of power? from a rpg.net thread http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=526628 (Greg posts in that thread) a rpg.net fan posted:I was invited by Shane to not be silent anymore, so I won't. My group loved playtesting Progenitor and I loved running it. The game is a gem and will be the center piece of a large superhero RPG collection.
|
|
#
?
Jul 27, 2010 07:25
|
|
|
Progenitor sounds like that PS3 game inFamous, in terms of the "normal people end up with superpowers and some use it for their own games" angle. Dare I ask how the original woman passed the powers on, though? It sounds dirty. Also, thinking of going ahead and writing up that fuckingupomancy into a school, but it still needs a name and some spells. I'm thinking the taboo would be not trying; you lose your charges if at any time you deliberately fail without fighting tooth and nails against the odds.
|
|
#
?
Jul 27, 2010 08:46
|
|
|
If you want it to be very restrictive, why not go all out and say 'any time they are on the winning side of a conflict' it's a violation of the taboo? It means that, if you're going up against thugs with guns who want to kill you, you've got to either run away to keep your charges, or win, losing all your charges (presuming the third option is 'lose, and die').
|
|
#
?
Jul 27, 2010 09:03
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 23, 2024 15:45 |
|
|
UrbanLabyrinth posted:If you want it to be very restrictive, why not go all out and say 'any time they are on the winning side of a conflict' it's a violation of the taboo? I'm not sure. Doing that would encourage players to put themselves in positions where they deliberately lose, and part of the point of putting in a "you can only get charges if you're trying not to lose" rule is so the best solution isn't to run into combat with a ridiculous handicap. A "you can't not try" taboo reinforces that, whereas if winning full stop is taboo players are never going to be able to accomplish anything and it encourages deliberately loving up instead of just being really reckless and trying to stick it to the odds.
|
|
#
?
Jul 27, 2010 09:15
|
|