Murphy's Rules: Your Favorite Game Is Weird

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Murphy's Rules: Your Favorite Game Is Weird

Alien Rope Burn: Dec 5, 2004; _{I wanna be a saikyo HERO!}

In GURPS Third Edition, the amount that telekinesis can move in the original core rules doubles with every rank. You can guess what's coming next.

It is possible to build a character on 75 points that has enough telekinesis ranks to move the moon. (Most characters start with 100 points.) Sadly, my copy got destroyed, or I'd lay out the math - it involved buying "telekinesis only" to reduce the cost and then taking enough negative attributes and drawbacks to have over 140 or so points to play with. Somewhere around rank 25-35 the game's power levels snap.

This flaw was fixed in later printings.

Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 02:23 on Feb 13, 2013

# ¿ Feb 13, 2013 02:15

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 23:05

Alien Rope Burn: Dec 5, 2004; _{I wanna be a saikyo HERO!}

Facts about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, taken from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness...

A ninja turtle can leap on a exploding grenade to little or no harm.
You only have a 2% chance of spotting a sneaking ninja turtle (except Donatello, who gives a 14% chance). This is regardless of your experience, occupation, infrared goggles, whatever.
It takes 20-30 knife stabs to seriously injure a ninja turtle. These numbers assume you're not hitting their shell...
You cannot create the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles using the system presented in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness. You don't get enough points.
Nearly all the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have skills no PC can purchase and that are not detailed in the system. Splinter too.
Michaelangelo has perfect skill (98%) at driving a car. He has never taken driving lessons, nor driven with any regularity.
Michaelangelo, despite having a lower level, is a more skilled and talented combatant than the Shredder, with higher attack and defense.
Raphael is a skilled bomb disposal expert. I wouldn't rely on him, though, because...
Raphael goes into murderous rampages 75% of the time when agitated.

# ¿ Feb 13, 2013 07:37

Alien Rope Burn: Dec 5, 2004; _{I wanna be a saikyo HERO!}

Mr. Maltose posted:

To be fair, the Other Strangeness book is based on the comic, in which Michelangelo and any other turtle is demonstrably better at fighting then Shredder. Dude is not a serious threat in the original comics.

Not really. They originally beat him by ganging up on him - the only turtle to beat him one-on-one is Leonardo, twenty issues later, though that's well after the end of the game line. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness does address his ability to fumble a grenade, however! Even though Shredder is skilled with every modern and ancient weapon, there is no Weapon Proficiency skill for grenades. (The weapon proficiency for thrown weapons explicitly does not include grenades, so presumably nobody on Earth has learned how to use one.)

Mors Rattus posted:

In Legend of the Burning Sands, there is an Advantage, Blessing of the Elements.

Nowhere in the book does it ever tell you what an Affinity for an element is, or how you might get one.

Yeah, it's a holdover from Legend of the Five Rings (it's a trait shugenja / spellcasters often have).

# ¿ Feb 13, 2013 14:44

Alien Rope Burn: Dec 5, 2004; _{I wanna be a saikyo HERO!}

Bedlamdan posted:

These are all 100% accurate and I've decided that this is without a doubt the best game ever.

Bonus Turtle Factoid:

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, working together and using only their ninja weapons and martial arts, can destroy a cargo freighter in under a half-hour. Not "shut down" or "cripple". They can destroy it, only leaving a pile of scrap that vaguely may have been a ship.

# ¿ Feb 13, 2013 20:07

Alien Rope Burn: Dec 5, 2004; _{I wanna be a saikyo HERO!}

Mors Rattus posted:

So they read the comic, is what you are saying.

The funny thing is that only about a half-dozen or so issues were out when the RPG got licensed. (It also does a lot to explain how Palladium got the license on their budget - they beat the cartoon to the punch by two years.)

But to keep this on Murphy's Rules, there's always the infamous first printing of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness, which included some... questionable results on the insanity tables. For example, a near-death experience from a car accident could make you a pedophile if you rolled badly enough. Being possessed by a demon could make you homosexual.

Or you could just choose pedophilia for your mutant animal, which makes it hopefully the only game with mechanical support for pedobears.

The parental backlash was one of the few times Palladium has altered their rules based on reader feedback. :rimshot:

# ¿ Feb 13, 2013 21:35

Alien Rope Burn: Dec 5, 2004; _{I wanna be a saikyo HERO!}

In the first edition of Legend of the Five Rings, Shinjo bushi were cavalry troopers famous for their horsemanship.

They got a bonus to all rolls when mounted. Which, when trying to leap off a horse or swing a sword, makes some sense.

But they were also better at poetry and art.

It was odd to see mounted folk at court, but they were more polite on horseback.

Calligraphy, identifying goldfish, you know what...

... all better on a horse.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2013 13:54

Alien Rope Burn: Dec 5, 2004; _{I wanna be a saikyo HERO!}

FactsAreUseless posted:

Similarly, the Boar clan (iirc) once had an ability that allowed them to replace any attribute with Strength for any rolled skill. Courtier? Lift your host over your head to persuade them to do stuff. Tea Ceremony? You have a larger teacup than anyone else, and are therefore more enlightened. Stealth? You store extra shadows in your muscles and can create hiding places like a squid's ink cloud. Divination? You're so swole you can see the future.

The Boar clan worked with using (what else?) the boar spear as a weapon, but didn't have a technique like that I can find.

You might be thinking of the Badger clan, which is pretty much the swolenest folks in Rokugan, but I can't find a technique like that for them, either. :raise:

I remember that they had one of the absolute worst schools in the first edition, and in 3rd edition were pretty much Clan Rocket Tag.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2013 19:26

Alien Rope Burn: Dec 5, 2004; _{I wanna be a saikyo HERO!}

FactsAreUseless posted:

Similarly, the Boar clan (iirc) once had an ability that allowed them to replace any attribute with Strength for any rolled skill.

Now that I am home and can read through my Legend of the Five Rings shelf (a whole shelf unto itself).

I couldn't find anything like that for Boar. Or Badger. I even looked at Ox!

Explain yourself, sir. J'accuse.

# ¿ Feb 15, 2013 01:45

Alien Rope Burn: Dec 5, 2004; _{I wanna be a saikyo HERO!}

Fantasy Craft has a similar issue where weapons can have upgrades crafted on to them, which increase the weight, cost, difficulty to craft, etc. But even clubs have a cost, so though those upgrades may be cheap, you're at least paying something for them. Well, there's still one loophole.

Behold the best large weapon you can get for free.

It's a superior armor-piercing cavalry finesse large-scale large rock with a grip handle, poison reservoir, and a retrieval cord and lure attached, bearing the fine craftsmanship of elves ¹.

Cost: 0 silver pieces

¹ An elf-made weapon conveys the deft majesty of the race, its subtle grace aiding with negotiations and other �soft� efforts. Like a rock.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2013 19:17

Alien Rope Burn: Dec 5, 2004; _{I wanna be a saikyo HERO!}

In its attempt to simulate every human frailty ever (so you could be better with swords), GURPS 3rd Edition had rules for back pain, aka the "Bad Back" disadvantage.

If you have a bad back, attempting to exert Strength in any way gives a 50% chance of throwing your back out, for the average person. If you have a severe condition, that increases to roughly 75%.

Also if you're using the Bad Back rules, any character making any type of Strength check has roughly a 0.002% chance of throwing out their back, regardless of their Strength or Health, whenever they make any Strength check.

Thankfully, I believe this is a ruling 0.000% of players actually used.

# ¿ Feb 25, 2013 01:15

Alien Rope Burn: Dec 5, 2004; _{I wanna be a saikyo HERO!}

Gau posted:

The design was abysmal, too, in keeping with all nineties TCGs. The first set had an infinite fetch loop AND a way to win the game and lose the game at the same time. There was no costing mechanic - you played one card a turn irrelevant of power level, so there was literally no incentive to not play all of the best cards (and there was no limit to number of duplicate cards per deck, although most of the good personnel and ships were Unique).

It's particularly abysmal.

I seem to recall those early sets being very much "you'd better collect the the (rare) Enterprise crew or gently caress you", since the lack of play costs meaning you were punished for having anything other than the best and brightest cards in the set, which was generally Picard & Co. And I recall there being some ridiculously powerful one-episode neutral ship that, since there's no casting costs, everybody used religiously.

It may be one of the worst TCGs I had the opportunity to play aside from Ani-Mayhem.

Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 22:09 on Feb 27, 2013

# ¿ Feb 27, 2013 14:35

Alien Rope Burn: Dec 5, 2004; _{I wanna be a saikyo HERO!}

I mainly just recall that the initial set of rules was literally unplayable, which puts it into "worst" for me, even though it was probably more fun for me that the Star Trek CCG; the rules do not function to create a coherent game. Later they issued rules at at least made it into a game somebody other than the designers could play. There was also an insane amount of errata for a game its size.

I wish I could remember enough to go into details worthy of Murphy's Rules, maybe if I'm feeling super-bored at some point I'll dig out my cards and have a look.

# ¿ Feb 28, 2013 06:22

Alien Rope Burn: Dec 5, 2004; _{I wanna be a saikyo HERO!}

Pathfinder gives us the wall of iron spell. It has this stipulation:

quote:

If you desire, the wall can be created vertically resting on a flat surface but not attached to the surface, so that it can be tipped over to fall on and crush creatures beneath it. The wall is 50% likely to tip in either direction if left unpushed. Creatures can push the wall in one direction rather than letting it fall randomly. A creature must make a DC 40 Strength check to push the wall over. Creatures with room to flee the falling wall may do so by making successful Reflex saves. Any Large or smaller creature that fails takes 10d6 points of damage while fleeing from the wall. The wall cannot crush Huge and larger creatures.

DC 40? What kind of creature can make that kind of Strength check?

An ancient red dragon has a Strength of 39, or +14. It can't push a wall of iron over.

A tarrasque has 41, or +15. It can't push a wall of iron over.

How about a hekatonkheires titan, with its hundred hands? Well, it has a strength of 48, or +19. It can't push a wall of iron over.

No creature, barring magical enhancement, can defeat the wall of iron. Thankfully, it only does 10d6 damage regardless of its actual weight (which can vary from 10 to 40 tons or so, based on caster level), so any uninjured adventurers can survive getting crushed at its caster levels.

Yes, a 50 lb. halfling can survive getting crushed by over 50,000 lbs without falling unconscious. They do not get pinned. They aren't even knocked off their feet. Technically, they don't even move from their square. Presumably the damage is caused by the molecules of the wall scraping against theirs as they pass through it.

Also, it turns out you can rend a iron wall in half with your bare hands! Boy, that must be harder than tipping a unbalanced wall over, right? Wrong. It's a DC 27-35 (depending on caster level) Strength check. It turns out it's easier to rend iron with your bare hands than to tip over an already wobbly wall.

Maybe it's not really iron? All I can guess is that instead, this spell summons a particularly porous, floppy sponge of some sort. :raise:

Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 20:58 on Mar 1, 2013

# ¿ Mar 1, 2013 20:54

Alien Rope Burn: Dec 5, 2004; _{I wanna be a saikyo HERO!}

Zemyla posted:

Aid Another. 16 1st level human commoners with Strength 10 can take 10 and push it over. It's still funny that they can do it and a dragon can't, though.

Well, only if the wall is cast by a spellcaster of 16th level or higher, otherwise they won't fit on the wall together to shove it. Yes, if it's small enough, they can't shove it.

But if you want to be an utter stickler, you might not be able to do it that way, since aid another only aids skill checks, AC, or attacks, not ability checks, but Pathfinder doesn't really define ability checks well, so I can see ruling either way. Either a sufficient amount of commoners can lift anything, or two commoners working together can't heft logs any better than either of them alone.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2013 21:33

Alien Rope Burn: Dec 5, 2004; _{I wanna be a saikyo HERO!}

Rexides posted:

What if there is someone who wants to buy a wall made out of iron, is it still impossible to sell it? Is this a union thing or something?

It can cause a wizard to fall and lose their class abilities until redeemed by... oh, let's say a bartender.

Next, a trolling tip for wizards: prepare wall of iron as many times as you can. Once the party enters a dungeon room with only one exit, hang back, then amontillado the gently caress out of them.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2013 23:28

Alien Rope Burn: Dec 5, 2004; _{I wanna be a saikyo HERO!}

Rulebook Heavily posted:

Let us celebrate Ben Sargent.

Yeah, he was the most talented artist to work on Murphy's Rules with a bullet. I hadn't gotten to see his political cartoons, but they're similarly fantastic and I need more.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2013 19:24

Alien Rope Burn: Dec 5, 2004; _{I wanna be a saikyo HERO!}

Pathfinder Murphy's Rules grab bag!

Did you know...

Call Lightning can pass from the sky through a mountain to hit its target, but is stopped if the target is "underwater". Yes, you are safer in a bathtub if hiding from lightning.
Holy word targets "nongood" creatures. Most commoners are neutral. It will kill them dead. Nonetheless, holy word is a "good" spell.
A monk's Vow of Poverty bans them from using more than 50gp of equipment. This keeps them from using any magic items. The balancing factor? +1 ki point. That's all.
A spyglass, by a literal reading of the rules, provides a penalty in addition to the increased Perception DC due to range. This means using a spyglass makes it harder to see at a distance. Maybe they're holding it the wrong way...
Ultimate Magic has a spell called unnatural lust that can make somebody grope or kiss somebody else. Acting against your sexuality gives a +4 bonus on the saving throw. This was written unironically.

# ¿ Mar 4, 2013 14:37

Alien Rope Burn: Dec 5, 2004; _{I wanna be a saikyo HERO!}

LightWarden posted:

Actually, the monk gets one ki point every other level as a balancing factor. And the restriction is even funnier.

It turns out it's every level. Whups.

It's still terrible, mind.

# ¿ Mar 5, 2013 20:11

Alien Rope Burn: Dec 5, 2004; _{I wanna be a saikyo HERO!}

Ettin posted:

Courtesy of a friend: the Demoniac.

I just want to say James Jacobs wrote this.

James Jacobs.

I'm not saying he's a bad writer.

But he wrote this. :ssh:

# ¿ Mar 6, 2013 13:54

Alien Rope Burn: Dec 5, 2004; _{I wanna be a saikyo HERO!}

A preview of my Way of the Scorpion F&F writeup...

The 1st edition of Legend of the Five Rings had an advantage called Blackmail, where you have blackmail on somebody. The cost in CP (character points) for Scorpions is equal to the Glory value of the individual you have blackmailed minus 1.

There is no minimum cost. So. :smuggo:

A starting Scorpion character can have Blackmailed everybody in Rokugan of Glory value of 1 or less (that's all the peasants (0 Glory), and all the novice samurai (1 Glory), including your fellow PCs) for 0 CP. You'll have a really long character sheet, since you'll have to document your 1 million+ targets, but it's a small price to become the Shadow Emperor during character generation.

Alternately, on the other end of the scale, it only costs 9 CP for a Scorpion to Blackmail the Emperor (he has 10 Glory). A comparative bargain, really. Or a Clan Champion for 7 CP (8 Glory).

_{Bonus objective: try and argue that Blackmailing a peasant is actually worth one point, since the advantage value becomes -1, thus giving you over a million points to spend on your character.}

Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 18:09 on Mar 6, 2013

# ¿ Mar 6, 2013 18:06

Alien Rope Burn: Dec 5, 2004; _{I wanna be a saikyo HERO!}

A little side thought stemming from my ongoing F&F writeup of Way of the Scorpion.

The original set of Legend of the Five Rings CCG had this card: Bayushi Kachiko.

Kachiko is a "seductress" and has the ability to seduce (and poison) any personality in the game. Most of the time, this is samurai and wizards, and makes some sense. Other times...

Kachiko can seduce this vampire ghost and poison it.

Okay, not too weird, though?

Let's move to the next stage.

Here's a god-dragon made entirely of fire. Kachiko can seduce it, too! And poison it!

We can get weirder, though.

See this immense siege weapon covered in spikes? Kachiko can seduce that.

Kachiko can seduce herself. Not a copy of herself - she's unique - but literally seduce and murder her own person. But as a final footnote...

Alternately, you can use Shuten Doji (above) to have Bayushi Kachiko seduce and poison herself to create a feedback loop where the Shuten Doji can eat the poison, becoming infinitely strong given an infinite number of turns and keeping her from dying.

And this is just using cards from the original set and promos. :shobon:

# ¿ Mar 12, 2013 18:54

Alien Rope Burn: Dec 5, 2004; _{I wanna be a saikyo HERO!}

Fallorn posted:

You only need the doji and the seductress.

Yeah, that's what I meant, though I probably wasn't as clear as I could have been.

# ¿ Mar 13, 2013 00:29

Alien Rope Burn: Dec 5, 2004; _{I wanna be a saikyo HERO!}

Here's another fun Legend of the Five Rings card for romantic shenanigans: Political Marriage.

Wow. The possibilities. Bear in mind the catch: only one of the personalities has to be human or Naga. The person playing the card doesn't have to play a human personality. Gender is not a factor.

"Suana, I know you're a monk and that you've sworn to a life in service of the fortunes, but it's important you marry..."

"... the Goblin Warmonger."

"Dear god, get it off me! Get it off!"

"May your marriage honor all of Rokugan."

"Aaaaaa! Its teeth have tinier teeth make it stop make it stop-"

# ¿ Mar 13, 2013 20:53

Alien Rope Burn: Dec 5, 2004; _{I wanna be a saikyo HERO!}

No fancy card combination here, I just think this Legend of the Five Rings promo card from the olden days speaks for itself, for those who haven't seen it.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2013 10:35

Alien Rope Burn: Dec 5, 2004; _{I wanna be a saikyo HERO!}

Winson_Paine posted:

Hey guys, at the request of a couple people and a couple odd reports, if we could get back to more interesting/inexplicable rules or seemingly curious gaps in logic, that would rule. Like card combos are neat, but that is sorta what the game is supposed to do? If there is some whacky infinite loop or whatever or a weird situation, sure.

I think the main issue with M:tG and Murphy's Rules is that the creatures / effects depicted in the game are basically just personifications for one big math problem. You can't really "break" the setting or rules, because breaking it is part and parcel with the essential concept of the game. Some of the Chaos Confetti shenanigans and other stuff with RL effects is probably the Murphiest Rules thing you can do with it, I think.

# ¿ Mar 20, 2013 13:29

Alien Rope Burn: Dec 5, 2004; _{I wanna be a saikyo HERO!}

Splicer posted:

e: As in, Magic's groundstate is weird even by TcG standards. In order to get something that counts as Magic Weird you pretty much have to start messing with the rules of the game itself, such as forcing your opponent to rip up all their cards.

Yeah, that's the thing. Like, if I have a Hoobajoob Elf "attack", I'm not sure what that represents. If I tap my elf, is my elf firing arrows to hurt my opposing wizard? Is it casting an elfy ritual to curse him? Is it hacking away with a magical wall with a sword? Magic isn't worried about actually detailing any sort of narrative; it's entirely abstracted from it. You could construct a narrative from a game of Magic, but a lot of it would be from whole cloth.

Other games are better for narratives. Take, like, Doomtown, the Deadlands CCG, which has a card called Election Day.

Doomtown posted:

4♥ Election Day (On This Day... � All Dudes are candidates for the office of Mayor. Each player, as a Noon action, may either 1) pay 3 gold to buy one vote for any candidate; or 2) select and tucker one of his or her Dudes to give any candidate an amount of votes equal to the selected Dude's Influence. � This action can be performed any number of times. If, at the start of Nightfall, any candidate has more votes than all others then he or she becomes Mayor, gains 1 Influence, and becomes worth 1 Control Point, until the next Election Day. Hit this card.)

See, you can build a narrative off that, since your literal characters have to vote, or your faction has to buy votes with actual currency. It's not terribly vague. It just can get... weird.

Do you know what's a dude? Devil Bats are dudes. Hangin' Judges are dudes. Maze Dragons are dudes. Or would that be "Mayor" Dragon? If you have the most votes, you can vote in any monster or freak you like. Vote in Suzy 309, a robot. Vote in Lucifer Whateley - who is a baby. A devil baby, of course. This is Deadlands, after all.

"I like his stand on the issues. Well. Not that he can stand or walk yet, but you git my drift?"

# ¿ Mar 20, 2013 16:02

Alien Rope Burn: Dec 5, 2004; _{I wanna be a saikyo HERO!}

Bieeardo posted:

I remember that anecdote being printed in the Pocket Player's Guide from like 1996. It's also where I learned that the Prodigal Enchanter's unofficial name was Tim.

Somehow that nickname actually filtered all the way down to my High School playing group years before that was even out. No idea how it did, it just did.

So, yeah, I've got another Legend of the Five Rings bit. See, in 1e the rolling convention is as such: roll d10s equal to your Trait + Skill, then keep a number of them equal to your Trait. You add those up, you get your result. Traits and Skills are roughly rated from 1-5 (at least, in the course of most games), with 2 being average. Dice can "explode" on a 10, so if you roll a 10, roll again and add that to the total. If you keep rolling 10s, a die can explode forever, but it still just counts as one die for the purposes of the amount of dice you can keep. Anyway, you take your total, compare it to the Target Number, and if you equal or exceed it, you win.

Legend of the Five Rings 2e changed this. Instead of rolling Trait + Skill, you roll Skill and keep equal to Trait. Now, you may notice that this is a severe effectiveness downgrade. This has some weird effects.

A student (1 skill, 2 trait) aiming at another student (TN to hit: 10) has only a 10% chance of landing a hit on their fellow student. If the student is wearing armor or is from a family with a Reflexes bonus (in this edition the only one is the Shinjo) have a TN of 15, so their chances drop to 6%. Shinjo students wearing armor and trying to hit each other have only a 1% chance of hitting each other with their TNs of 20. The same is about true for two students trying to hit each other while wearing heavy armor. "Okay.", you may think. "This is dumb, but it's just an edge case." Well, yes and no. It is possible to graduate from the finest samurai schools in the country with only this level of competence. And bear in mind this is in a culture that explicitly does not parry. A student only has a 50% chance of hitting an unmoving dummy. Students need to perform Full Attacks - and become explicitly hittable by anyone - to actually demonstrate their skill, or blow Void Points (the equivalent of Hero or Fate points). Of course, the problem with that is that anybody can do that with a TN of 20 or lower - the skilled student only has about a 1% variance from an unskilled person, since the only difference is that the student's dice explode.

It gets worse. The average samurai only has a 64% chance of recognizing a friend. A skilled investigator (skill 3, trait 3) has only a 5% chance of finding a clue at a crime scene. A skilled archer (skill 3, trait 3) has only a 28% chance of hitting an unmoving target at 50 feet.

Gee, I wonder why my players hated it so much? :allears:

Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 06:13 on Apr 1, 2013

# ¿ Apr 1, 2013 06:11

Alien Rope Burn: Dec 5, 2004; _{I wanna be a saikyo HERO!}

Gau posted:

Wouldn't that be easy to fix by just errata-ing the TNs?

It would be, but I'm talking about RAW here. I did lower TNs when I ran it, though bear in mind 2e was made to be "compatible" with all the 1e books that were out, so it doesn't make any TN changes to any of the previous material, and the TNs in the core are the same as they ever were, even though characters are rolling considerably less dice.

It also doesn't change a lot of the weird effects of the system, like a skill of 1 being only marginally better (to the tune of about one or two percentage points) than a skill of 0. Or that somebody with a legendary trait of 6 and somebody with an good trait of 3 won't show any difference in capabilities until after weeks or months of training.

# ¿ Apr 1, 2013 06:30

Alien Rope Burn: Dec 5, 2004; _{I wanna be a saikyo HERO!}

hito posted:

I assume it's just Tim the Enchanter from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Yeah. Back before card limits, I had a 40-card deck that had 8 Samite Healers and 8 Prodigal Sorcerers, and I called it my "Sam & Tim" deck.

Could just be parallel nerd evolution.

# ¿ Apr 1, 2013 11:51

Alien Rope Burn: Dec 5, 2004; _{I wanna be a saikyo HERO!}

TombsGrave posted:

I'm legit curious about why parrying doesn't exist or isn't allowed, culturally, in Rokugan. That stuck out as much as the horrible success chances.

It's not really detailed that I'm aware. Either katanas are so special that you can't bear to see them nicked, or Rokugani folk have just never really picked up on the idea. The main reference that mentions it are the Unicorn techniques, where one of their special moves is the special "parry" trick they picked up from foreigners. The most succinct explanation is: John Wick.

Later editions resolved the issue by making samurai parry like any sane combatant and just forgot about the prohibition.

# ¿ Apr 1, 2013 17:07

Alien Rope Burn: Dec 5, 2004; _{I wanna be a saikyo HERO!}

Yeah, I always thought the Pun-Pun process was really dodgy, given it hinges on having knowledge of a secret lost race and the entirety of their abilities. It's just so clearly an ability not intended for PC use that it's a tremendous stretch to assume it could be obtained. It requires the sort of white-room design that may work in a metagame sense, but not in the sense of actual play.

I'm more interested in seeing game-breaking stuff that could actually be performed in a game. :raise:

# ¿ Apr 8, 2013 01:35

Alien Rope Burn: Dec 5, 2004; _{I wanna be a saikyo HERO!}

Thanks to EclecticTastes' Batman Country game, I rolled up a random character for Heroes Unlimited 2nd Edition. I got a Natural Genius from the Powers Unlimited 2 sourcebook, and during the process of character generation, made certain discoveries.

A cattle prod does 1d4 damage. That's all. An average nobody in Heroes Unlimited can take about a dozen shocks with a cattle prod before they go down, as a result...
Thanks to its sister game Ninjas & Superspies Revised, I learned any garment can be fitted with a pocket that can conceal something up to the size of a shotgun for $100. There is no limit to the number of pockets you can purchase, save for your budget. (I bought ten such pockets.)
A Natural Genius can take an ability called "Sexual Charisma". This gives them bonuses on skills like Intelligence and Interrogation. By RAW, they can never actually obtain Intelligence or Interrogation as skills.
Just because you have "Sexual Charisma" does not mean you can actually Charm, Impress, or Seduce other characters. You can have it and still have a 0% chance at all of the above.
They have another ability called "Combat Trance" that lets them go into a temporary zen combat mode that gives them sizable combat bonuses. Unfortunately, it halves all other combat bonuses while in use. This means if you're a highly skilled fighter, "Combat Trance" can actually make you worse at fighting...
"Odds Assessment" is another ability of theirs. It gives you combat bonuses "if the odds are good". If the odds are bad, you get combat penalties due to reduced confidence. Bear in mind Natural Geniuses are human combatants with middling combat ability in a game with supervillains with grandiose powers. That means most of the time, "Odds Assessment" will penalize them.
The Natural Genius' equipment package comes with a cell phone, described as "probably the latest Nokia N-Gage system with telephone, game and MP3 player all rolled into one".

Edit: Bonus Pre-Order Murphy's Rules:

"Sexual Charisma" does not consider sexual orientation, which means it gives bonuses only as per innie / outie.
The Robot Mechanics skill and Robot Electronics skills give a -40% penalty to anybody that does not have the "Hardware" power source. Since both skills start at 30% each, it is possible to be trained in either skill and have a negative chance to perform either task.

Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 02:45 on May 1, 2013

# ¿ May 1, 2013 02:33

Alien Rope Burn: Dec 5, 2004; _{I wanna be a saikyo HERO!}

Zereth posted:

Any garment?

Such as for example a bannana hammock thong swimsuit?

Sure, why not?

You could also armor that swimsuit up for better protection than a bulletproof vest. (Whether or not that's a bug or a feature I leave to your judgement.)

# ¿ May 1, 2013 02:58

Alien Rope Burn: Dec 5, 2004; _{I wanna be a saikyo HERO!}

yaoi prophet posted:

Jesus, people aren't kidding when they say Exalted is anime: the game. Not that that's a bad thing, mind.

It really isn't, though, it has a lot of influences from pulp fantasy novels, particularly from the 1970s. It's a real problem, because it does attract a lot of anime fans straight outta tvtropes who don't really know their Liebers or Wolfes from their Moorcocks, and just focus on the Kishimotos and Toriyamas. But anime is just one ingredient in the Exalted simmer sauce.

So what I'm saying is that they just need Moorcock, yes.

# ¿ May 16, 2013 17:47

Alien Rope Burn: Dec 5, 2004; _{I wanna be a saikyo HERO!}

axelsoar posted:

Distracting finger gesture comes from Ebon Shadow Style, which is essentially a style about being a ninja. This charm is used in response to an incoming attack, the martial artist "makes a complex, Essence-charged sign with her fingers" which I can only assume is a magically empowered middle finger, since this charm adds five ticks until the attacker gets to act again. The average action in combat takes five ticks, so the ninja just makes you loose a turn. Worse yet, due to something called onslaught, your defenses get worse the more you have been attacked (but only in regards to that one person attacking you... yeah, I don't know either) So the ninja could do something silly like make a 10 attack flurry with his hands and feet (rate 3 and 2 per limb respectively). These will all miss wildly, but now your defense is -10 (average defense for this essence will be like 8) for the next attack he makes, and you only recover from onslaught when it is your turn again (And mister ninja added 5 ticks until that happens, so he will get at least 2 turns to do this kind of bullshit in.)

Distracting Finger Gesture is wildly broken. It's Reflexive, which means you can combo it with anything else (and perform it simultaneously any old attack), and there's nothing to stop you from just using it over and over and over to delay somebody's turn indefinitely as long as the Speed of your attack is around 3 or 4 (a trivial notion to do in many builds). The only thing limiting you is its mote cost, which is already trivial at 2 motes. All you need to do is reliably stunt every turn and you can effectively do an infinite combo, forcing your enemy to spend on defensive powers until they're out of motes (power).

The only reliable way to break it is to have a "flurry-breaker" charm that lets you leap away defensively from the Ebon Shadow martial artist in response to their attack, and hope you can actually get further away than the finger-fucker can chase.

Edit: Also, did I mention that DFG has near-minimal entrance requirements? It requires Essence 2 (almost all characters will have this), Martial Arts 3, and two other charms (you start with 10...)

Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 21:58 on May 16, 2013

# ¿ May 16, 2013 21:49

Alien Rope Burn: Dec 5, 2004; _{I wanna be a saikyo HERO!}

Plague of Hats posted:

It's also not Stackable, so its effects aren't cumulative. It's still bullshit, but not bullshit enough to stun-lock someone for an entire fight.

Ahhh, I see what you mean. It took me a moment, but even resetting the penalty isn't going to keep it from expiring, I suppose.

(Of course, given just how distracting it is as a finger gesture, now I can't think of it as anything other than kancho, now.)

# ¿ May 17, 2013 14:24

Alien Rope Burn: Dec 5, 2004; _{I wanna be a saikyo HERO!}

Thanks to a clarification on the Pathfinder boards, tracking is separated into two skills: Knowledge (nature) lets you identify tracks, while Survival lets you follow tracks.

Therefore, it is possible to identify a set of tracks but be completely unable to follow them, or follow a set of tracks and be completely clueless as to what left them!

Pathfinder: "I'm tracking the wild... um... I ain't got no fuckin' idea. But it went thataway!"

# ¿ May 31, 2013 20:29

Alien Rope Burn: Dec 5, 2004; _{I wanna be a saikyo HERO!}

Zemyla posted:

If I brought a snowmobile to Golarion, no ranger would have a clue what it was, but a blind man would be able to follow its trail.

And when Pathfinder publishes snowmobile rules, you may have a point. :rolleyes:

The real Murphy's here is that you can have a +20 or higher in Survival, you can be a master of hunting, gathering, finding your way... and be utterly unable to identify a set of deer tracks or even, in fact, struggle to identify an bear on sight.

You could be the most ignorant ranger.

# ¿ Jun 3, 2013 17:54

Alien Rope Burn: Dec 5, 2004; _{I wanna be a saikyo HERO!}

Splicer posted:

It's not that someone can have tracking without being able to identify what they're tracking that's funny, what's funny is that knowing what you're tracking makes you no more effective at tracking them than someone working entirely from base principles (bar some piddly +2 synergy bonus I assume exists somewhere).

Nope! Pathfinder nixed synergy bonuses because they were a bookkeeping pain in the butt. Granted, I think if two skills had a synergy bonus, that's a big flag they should have been one skill.

# ¿ Jun 3, 2013 21:56

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 23:05

Alien Rope Burn: Dec 5, 2004; _{I wanna be a saikyo HERO!}

Winson_Paine posted:

In Cyberpunk 2020, your capacity to load up on cyberware is directly limited by your Empathy, which is the social stat that lets you deal with other people. The higher it is, the more you can load up. This has the net effect of most Solos starting their career of being a murderous killing machine being a charmer in the league of Martin Luther King or Gandhi before they got rid of all that so they could have a machine gun in their head.

It gets stranger. In Chromebook 2, they had to cope with the issue that A) they wanted to have badass full conversion cyborgs you could play but B) replacing that much of yourself with metal was an easy route to a psychotic break. The solution?

Therapy! :engleft:

That aside, becoming a full cyborg required roughly eight months of surgery, followed by at roughly four months of therapy to cope with the change. That's right - if you want to go full conversion, be prepared to be out-of-game for a year. You may think "can't I adventure while I'm seeing my shrink?", and the answer is yes, if you want the shittiest treatment available (aside from "no treatment at all"), which stands a decent chance of putting you into cyberpsychosis. Otherwise you have to go into a total institution where they don't let you out and you get 168 hours of therapy a week. In other words: therapy all day, every day.

Where things get a little more murphy's rules, though, is with the costs. Becoming a full-conversion cyborg costs around 40,000 to 120,000. Getting good therapy will cost you 5,000-10,000 per week, and add up to 80,000-160,000 eurobux total. And the more expensive your conversion, the more of your humanity it's going to eat away, and the more you'll want to spend...

That's right. Becoming a military-class cyborg is comparatively cheap compared to your psychiatrist's bill. :v:

# ¿ Jun 26, 2013 22:55

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Murphy's Rules: Your Favorite Game Is Weird

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