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Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

Davin Valkri posted:

I wonder if British tankers using that tank would wonder why the 18th U.S. President was screaming in their ears.

(It is a Lee/Grant joke)



(Same tank, except the one with the rounder turret on the left was used by the British and called the "Grant", while the one on the right used an American turret and was called the "Lee".)

They were both lovely tanks compared to the Sherman :colbert:

Which is saying a lot.

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Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006


Gerry Anderson presents Jack Kirby's Doctor Strange.

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

I've been rereading some of the TORG books and the whole reality transformation process seems cooler than it could have been. Especially from a roleplaying aspect: you still remember your mom and dad, but you can't remember how to operate a car while in the Living Land because the transformation is making you forget. And there's the great idea that the Cyberpapacy essentially brute forced their way into uplifting their technology of their reality, but they since copied and conjured up this tech from another reality and they weren't born with the Renaissance or the foundations from a millennium of scientific thought, they're really this giant cargo cult where there cybernetic cargo planes work but they have little idea why they work.

I can also see why they had those reality rules, because if you didn't, everything would have defaulted to the highest Axiom (genre aspect, like Tech, Magic, Social or Spiritual) value and the whole game would become Rifts. But then again, the game almost became that, with the Living Land and Asyle being slowly brushed away for Cyberpapacy, Tharkold, Orrosh, Space Gods, and Terra/Nile Empire stuff adventures while the Core Earth setting became more and more like Nippon Tech. In the end, they so had no idea what to do with the Living Land that it evolved into the Land Above and the Land Below and further disintegrated.

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

Evil Mastermind posted:

I'd say they didn't have a lot of ideas with what to do with most of the content. If you read the cosm books, there's very little there about the tone of the realms. Instead, it was all locations and NPCs and equipment and mechanics.

I mean, the Living Land should be scary as hell. It's an alien landscape, where technology just does not work. Even simple things like matches can't work there, because it's not a case of the reality not having developed that technology yet, is that the Living Land's reality doesn't support that level of "technology". In fact, non-natural items will decay rapidly to the point where a car will reduce to a pile of rust in a matter of days.

Not only that but their reality only supports a tribal level of social connections. An army going into that mess will soon find their unit cohesion disintegrate the further longer they stay there as the soldiers start forgetting the names of officers, then the rank structure entirely, then even the entire idea of what America and what a "nation" is. And this is as their high-tech equipment fails and even small arms begin to break and rust.

But nope, I think the idea that WEG had was that it's supposed to be an Edgar Rice Burroughs' "Lost World" type setting and couldn't keep playing like that with how they built it. Hence the Land Below and the Land Above that came later.

I think I agree with you about how the splats were arranged. I love Tharkold (I used to call it the future war of The Terminator-meets-Hellraiser, but I think I like it more now as Terminator-meets-Wayne Barlowe's Inferno, which might be overselling it) enough to buy that book twice over, but going through a reread, I like Tharkold as a world instead of as a Realm (what they call in TORG to separate the invading reality areas from the worlds they come from). Los Angeles is kinda boring and I really wish they had gone and dropped the Tharkold bridge in Russia. I'm sure that if it was made today, it would be in Russia to capitalize on STALKER and Metro 2033 fans.

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

Ataxerxes posted:

Indeed. Not only do they have the Cyberpope, they also have cyberwhales. Those fire torpedoes. And are awesome.

I was going to correct you but then I remembered the book that the Leviathan, as it's called, appears in. It's not the Cyberpapacy book but one of the bestiaries for Asyle, the generic fantasy cosm.

Looking through that book again, I find there's a reference to the Killer Rabbit of Caerbannong in the Necrolepus.

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

Evil Mastermind posted:

Life, the Mutliverse, and Everything - Let's Read TORG


I'm a little disappointed you didn't go for the more evocative tag line: "The storm has a name..."

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

Humbug Scoolbus posted:

You had better cover High Lord of Earth :colbert:

The Delphi Council probably needs to be mentioned, since it's the Core Earth splatbook.

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

dwarf74 posted:

I would never, ever suggest you actually try to make a spell. I'm not cruel.

20 years later, and that's still the one of the :catstare:est things I've seen in an RPG book.

I'm fairly certain that they reprinted a version of those rules in the D6 Adventure, WEG's last gasp at the Open Gaming License market, so it's likely those rules survived not only the end of the line that spawned them but the company itself, since the OpenD6 are now widely available.

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

SynthOrange posted:

Oh yeah.... now I remember why TORG never really took off in my group. :v:

I might be getting ahead of Evil Mastermind, but you should look into the Revised and Expanded rule book WEG released a few years ago. I believe they were interested in doing a TORG 2.0 and came up with R&E instead to blow out their backcatalogue of adventure books and splats. They try and present solutions to stuff like the Glass Ninja problem. But, the best idea is to just use OpenD6 and convert the values to dice and pips.

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

Evil Mastermind posted:

It is, at least at the start. That's because, unlike Rifts, they actually stopped and thought about how all this stuff would interact with each other and tried to keep things balanced. You can't have a group of starting characters with both a Glitter Boy and a hobo, for instance.

One of the best was with armor. Armor had a maximum efficiency, so those armor adds could only go so far. A guy in plate mail could have the same armor adds as a guy in wearing a Kevlar vest as does a guy in light power armor, but the guy in the high-tech light power armor is able to get more out of his armor than the guy in plate mail as well as have lessening fatigue and DEX penalties. But, in the end, he's likely not going to use that max armor value unless he's really buff to begin with.

BTW, I once wrote up a Rifts conversion for TORG/OpenD6, where I did just that. All that "mega-damage" personal armor has the potential of stopping tank and heavy weapon rounds, but most characters aren't going to reach that.

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

Selachian posted:

In many ways, TORG feels like a reflection of DC Heroes, probably because Greg Gorden and Ray Winninger were leading designers on both. Both games try to measure everything in game units (APs in DCH, "values" in TORG) and use a logarithmic scale. Both games use exploding dice, although DCH uses acting stat vs. resistance on a chart instead of stat+skill. Both games use a Subplot system. And unfortunately, both have a system of bennies that can be used for either in-game bonuses or character advancement (Hero Points vs. Possibilities).

Winninger's Underground is the same way: values and measures, logarithmic scale, exploding dice, stat+skill, burning XP to change the world around you.

That reminds me, I need to get back on that horse, soon.

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

Oh come on, me and my friends boffered each other with PVC pipes occasionally wrapped in foam and covered with stretched socks or duct tape. We did thrusts all the time.

Even with the weird corkscrew rapier one we derisively called the Dildo, which was just built for thrusts (because it was covered in at least three or four layers of duct tape, except the end which had seven or eight layers and the only foam was on the handguard and the pommel).

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

Alien Rope Burn posted:

Of course, here in the states, the chances of getting shot by an overzealous cop or citizen for waving around a more realistic weapon around is higher. It's not likely, but it's a potential concern.

Yeah, back when we was boffering with our sock-and-tape-covered, foam-wrapped, PVC-core weapons, the neighbors called the cops on us all the time, thinking it was some sort of gang activity in the apartment complex. The cops would come out, ask some questions about what they're made of, residency, stuff like that, then get back in their cars. I don't even think they interrupted all of us.

The only time I ever got nervous about it was one the cops came by while we were boffering, while one of my friends was cleaning his guns inside the apartment. But then he was owned them legally, none of us had felony convictions and the police were more concerned outside than inside, because that's what brought the call in.

Young Freud fucked around with this message at 08:26 on Apr 23, 2013

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

Hedningen posted:

For those worrying - I intend to go through the various Mutant games in order, mostly concentrating on where things change, what sort of fluff comes up in this game, and the other awesomely neat stuff. There's also the reference to Roy Batty above - I swear to Satan that the guys who wrote Mutant had this really weird obsession with Blade Runner. Don't believe me? Here's a picture from Mutant 2:



Awesome.

I can't read Swedish, but I can make out at least a few of those words and the grammar structure. It says "Where you can play Roy Batty, "Snake" Plissken or Mximilian Rockatansky", doesn't it?

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

Leliel the 12th posted:

Frankly, I would suggest a full rewrite, but at this point, it's better just to scrap the setting and create a better one with the same premise of Giant Robots in the Lovecraft verse. Maybe advance the tech and power levels of Eldritch Skies a bit, include asides about how cults of hyperspatial entities dream of arcane mecha designs that they may manufacture with an extreme minimum amount of needed resources, and pull out the old "how to construct a gameline in the Unisystem" instruction booklet. Hell, the cults would even be better antagonists: Just imagine the creepy factor of Yellow Signers greeting you over the intercom not with warcries and threats, but lullabies and reassurances. They're not here to kill you, after all-they're here to save you. From the pain of living, yes, but still.

I'd go ahead and replace the Mary Sue Not Drow with Deep Ones allied with humanity. The Deep Ones realized they were in the same pond as we are and made a deal with the governments of the Earth, exchanging tech for surrogate mothers for their offspring. And, of course, everyone's weirder out by the deal.

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

Evil Mastermind posted:

Actually, Shane doesn't appear in the Torg credits. I was going to mention the similarities but I forgot. What's more interesting is that Deadlands came out two years after Torg ended.

That maybe Ray Winninger's influence then, since he does appear in the TORG credits and wrote some of the mythos and system. Like values and measures, Underground has a "players give back to the people/change the world" mechanism in it as well.

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

HitTheTargets posted:

Well that's oddly specific.

Apparently, they're legit weapons. So, it's probably something that came up in playtesting by some "lol random" loony that drew the developers' ire.

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

Man, I want us to start talking about Cyberpapacy, but you know, I think we need to work our way into it. I'd go for Nile Empire.

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

ZeeToo posted:

Did I miss it, or did you skip the ongoing details of the Still World if that issue isn't resolved?

Also, next do Nippontech.

I think EM did, mostly because 1) we want to get to the Cosms as quickly as we can, 2) the Still World campaign is largely skippable since no one in their right mind would run it, and 3) no one wants to play The Road as a campaign.

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

Selachian posted:



I used to have a copy of this, but I got rid of it a long time ago. As I recall, you played alien tourists who'd come to Earth to bag a few of the local wildlife (i.e. humans).

So, is this Bad Taste: The Roleplaying Game, like how the game infers?

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

Pththya-lyi posted:

This letter establishes what we know scientifically about the Serpent. I’ll leave it to the boffins to interpret. There are also a couple of pop culture allusions in the letter as well, which I will also leave to the boffins. ;)

I got the Brigadier from Dr. Who reference, but had to look up the Professor Challenger one as I was unfamiliar with Arthur Conan Doyle's other detective character.

What happened to Japan? It's kinda weird to just hear America backs off and Britain lets them have the Pacific without finding out what did Japan do in the aftermath? Gobble up the rest of Asia?

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

Humbug Scoolbus posted:

Kevin Long has been working for Raven Software as a concept artist since at least 2002. He never told me why he left Palladium except a comment that Siembada is a complete and total douche.

I know he's done some pick-up work for Shadowrun as well.

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

Alien Rope Burn posted:

And that's all you get. No origin, no background, no details, just boring killamajigs that are out to murder everybody because that's what it says in the script. They are boss monsters that will take ages for your average party to kill - and take not heroism to defeat, but sheer force of numbers and dice. They have no weaknesses other than the order you're supposed to kill them in (Famine, Pestilence, War, Death) and the fact that Millennium Tree weapons do solid damage against them (ten times normal, or about that of a Boom Gun, so you can just use a bunch of rail guns instead). Of course, Pestilence can specifically destroy Millennium Tree components and does extra damage against them...

Of course, there's a reason why the Four Horsemen hang out in Africa and don't try to gently caress around with the Coalition or Triax...

Coalition Navy posted:

BGM-109 Tomahawk Cruise Missile - CSN Version

Mega-Damage: Everything within a 1000 foot (305 m) radius of ground zero suffers 3D4x100 M.D. (so it is likely that gods and alien intelligences would survive the blast — although wounded terribly)! Damage is 1D4x100 M.D. to everything in a 3 mile (4.8 km) radius immediately surrounding ground zero.

And that's just the intermediate range cruise missiles, with a 150 kiloton yield. You can kill an Apocalypse Horseman with about 10 of them. A full-on megaton would be something like 2D4x1000 at ground zero, which could single shot them on a lucky roll.

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

Evil Mastermind posted:

The storm has a name... - Let's Read TORG




Lastly, we learn how Mobius gets along with his Middle Eastern neighbors. Spoiler: not well.

Ethiopia has pretty much disintegrated under Mobius' assault. The only reason Mobius hasn't just taken over yet is because the terrain makes it difficult to move troops in easily since his war machine wasn't designed to work at high alitudes. As it stands right now, Mobius keeps a few battalions on the Ethiopian border to keep them boxed in and to keep control of the Ethiopian gold and diamond mines on the country's border.

Dr. Mobuis was smart enough to realize early on that Israel was going to be a major threat, so he made it a point to move into their territory as soon as he could before they had time to assemble an effective defense. The western half of Israel is now under the Empire's control, but he's been unable to get in any further due to the Israeli forces not only putting up a better defense than Mobius expected, but also raiding into Empire territory.

Things are a little tenser with Libya. Remember, this game was written in the early 90’s, so Muammar Qaddafi was still in charge. The oil fields of Libya were an early target for Mobius, so Qaddafi made a bargain: if Mobius stopped trying to invade, accepted 45% of Libya's crude oil production, and give Qaddafi access to weird science weaponry, Qaddafi would not detonate the nuke he buried in the oil fields and irradiate the world’s main source of oil. Mobius has agreed, partially so he can concentrate on other battefronts, but also because he doesn’t know what a nuclear bomb is because they don’t exist in Terra or the Empire. Yet.

Lastly, there’s the Sudan. Sudanese forces have fallen back into a defensive position. Fortunately, they’re being supported by the Soviet Union’s “Soviet Psychic Group”, whose psychics have been able to predict attacks by Nile forces.

NEXT TIME: Pulp Powers and Gadgets...Torg style!

It's kinda weird, but the more I think about it, the Nile Empire really should have expanded more north and east. Mobius' reality bombs wouldn't have much of an effect on sub-Saharan Africa, since most of that region, especially at the time, was using about WW2 or early Soviet-era equipment, which, while not exactly a match for weird science, would be cutting-edge Tech axiom 21 stuff. That technical might change from a Toyota Hilux pick-up truck into a Studebaker, but that DShK or KPV in the bed isn't going to get any less effective. And the standard issue weapon for African warlords and militias around those parts is the AK-47, which is on the cusp of Tech axiom 21. Even if it wasn't, there's still plenty of StG-44s around there. WEG never stated out the RPG, but even it might fall on the same lines, since there's little difference between the RPG-7 and the RPG-2, which was originally a development off the German Panzerfaust. And there's always mortars and Katyushas, which seem to be the chosen artillery weapons in the Third World.

Meanwhile, Israel is probably the most technologically-advanced country in the region, followed by pre-invasion Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan, not just with all Tech axiom 23 military equipment, but technology pervasive in everyday life. Even places like Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq would have probably about Tech axiom 22 level equipment, thanks in part to the Soviets dumping their '70s surplus on them. Mobius suddenly wiping out their high-tech armed forces would probably give him an easy march up to the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf.

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

occamsnailfile posted:

Rifts very often gives population breakdowns of 'human' and 'various other forms of not-human' and it's very nice to think we're all over our racial hangups but the Coalition is sometimes accused of white supremacy since they're always drawn as such. From a country that had rapidly changing demographics before the Rifts came.

Isn't Director Bradford at the Lone Star complex, essentially the third most powerful man in the Coalition, an African-American? I seem to recall he's drawn like Terrence Howard.

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

Alien Rope Burn posted:

Bes the Depraved


Maybe it's the hat that turned him to evil.

Which is more interesting? You decide.

Bes RAW sounds like a forgettable mini-boss. Egyptian God Tyrion Lannister sounds like something everyone can work with.

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

Barudak posted:

I know I came in late but is there seriously a major Rifts character named after the character from Casablanca? To defeat Rama-Set do I need to convince Death to shoot him so we can start a beautiful friendship? What is the P.P.E necessary to only remember Paris? What is the damage roll for being shot in my least vulnerable spot?

If you end up rolling a Rogue Scholar, Vagabond or a Wilderness Scout, you'll regret it. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of the campaign.

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

ThisIsNoZaku posted:

Which of these games would people like to see:
Dresden Files RPG
Spycraft (So loving crunchy, like you won't believe)
A Song of Ice and Fire RPG
Iron Heroes (A "gritty" D&D variant from Mike Mearls back in the wild and wooly days of 2005)

I had a 3:16 write up going but I don't know where the hell it ended up and I, paradoxically, would rather do a much longer game than re-do part of the super short one.

I'm interested in Spycraft and Iron Heroes.

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

Bieeardo posted:

Someone else around here, possibly in another thread, pointed out that EP's cortical stacks were strikingly similar to another setting's tech. So yes, they definitely take cues from other sources. Hell, one variety of described exsurgent infection turns you into a spiral mat of flesh that came straight out of a Junji Ito manga.

Cortical stacks, as well as the concept of sleeving, are pretty much lifted wholesale from Richard K. Morgan's Takeshi Kovacs series.

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

HitTheTargets posted:

Tread carefully, for down this path lies the lesbian sex scene in the Ghost in the Shell manga.

At least Shirow gave a reason for the lesbian sex: a lack of desire to draw men's butts unwanted feedback from phantom organs, so only same-sex experiences could be looped in that way.

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

I knew this sounded familiar. Jason Thompson did a one-page comic detailing a party's adventure through the Tomb of Horrors. I'll spoiler tag the image link, to not step on DAD's read-through.

http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/toon/TombHorrors

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

MalcolmSheppard posted:

But there's no mention of Guardians of Order's Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai RPG, and man , people should know that it got made.

Who the hell do you play? The RZA?

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

MinistryofLard posted:

Just as a note;

This;


is the flag of the Eureka Stockade. So, like, not just random geometrical shapes, and actually relevant to the accompanying chapter. Its meant to be a stylised Southern Cross, which is an Australian national symbol.



The Eureka Stockade wasn't actually that important to Australia's national formation or culture, it just gets played up a lot in our schools and media. Basically, a bunch of gold miners got pissed at the high cost of gold licenses in Ballarat and built a stockade in protest. The police attacked it, the miners shot back, and 27 people (police and miners) were killed.

It was one of maybe three rebellions (at most, depending on how you define 'rebellion') in Australian history and it gets played up a lot in the Australian national myth, but it is of questionable significance. Mostly it just gives nationalists a flag to organise around and get tattooed on themselves.

Honestly you just get the idea that the authors haven't really done a huge amount of research and have just grabbed a children's book on Australia and are going from there.

It would be like someone not American throwing a reference to the facade of the Alamo (which is a similar battle that the importance gets overplayed in both American and Texas history and culture) without understanding what it is.

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

InShaneee posted:

Yrjo's prior research into stress has been completely standardized into a series of general scenarios, rated from 1.0 to 10.0 correlated to increasing stress put on the subject. To name just a few:

You know, some of those stress scenarios seem to be misranked. I think the "experiencing your own autopsy" would rank higher "experiencing your legs being amputated" and especially higher than "dropped off on deserted island".

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

Drakyn posted:

Yeah, the deserted island doesn't even paralyze you or give you doctored photos. That sounds like a holiday.

Even number 10 doesn't sound that bad. In fact, it sounds like it should be number 2, but then I don't know where 10.1 would be placed after that.

Really, it should be ranked as facing the death of others, facing imminent death and dismemberment, and actually experiencing your own death and dismemberment.

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

Kurieg posted:

10.1 seems like one of those things that would get a 'psychiatrist' thrown in the loony bin.

Or killed themselves administering the test, when the subject turns the gun on them regardless if they shot their loved one or not.

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

One of the interesting things about one of those templates is that the image of the Tough Hero is actually a woman. Supposedly an Egyptian woman who has been transformed by the Nile reality into the Spirit.

Also, I vote Cyberpapacy.

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

Evil Mastermind posted:


You hit by...a smooth criminal. :smug:

She's not transformed though; her home cosm is the Nile Empire.

To be honest, a lot of the early books really didn't make that definition. I know in Cyberpapacy that a few of those templates are transformed Storm Knights, at least in the fluff, because that's the only they could get their cyberware (like, and I'm spoiler tagging this not to ruin the surprise, the Senior Citizen and the Cyberlegger).

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006


Yeah, I posted that Flickr when WTF D&D? did an article on TORG covers.

Since we're going to do Cyberpapacy, might as put up that (best) cover...



homeless poster posted:

Orrosh sounds sufficiently Ravenloft-esque, I'd love to hear that.

Orrorsh is great because it's an acronym for "Horrors".

But yeah, I'm not sure what we should do after Cyberpapacy. I love me some Orrorsh and I'd like Asyle because of that freaky loving world map. Asyle's interesting because you'd think it would be just a D&D rip, but it's not. The fact that everything is based off perception (which is why it has a freak loving world map), which makes the most powerful class of magic is illusions.

Nippon Tech would be cool because of :lol: racism.

Young Freud fucked around with this message at 20:49 on Aug 14, 2013

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Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

Evil Mastermind posted:

I'll admit that Nippon Tech is one of my favorite realms. Where the Cyberpapacy is basically Cyberpunk/Shadowrun except you replace megacorps with the 16th century Catholic Church, Nippon is Cyberpunk without the cybernetics.

Well, you still have megacorporations in Cyberpapacy but they exist (like God's Word Industries) or continue to exist at pretty much the whim of the theocracy. I do love that a corporation can openly commit crimes against the Church, but pay indulgences to be forgiven. It's so great.

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