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JamieTheD posted:Also, as far as C:TL goes, always up for some C:TL, I found it a decided improvement on the previous edition. After watching Changeling: the Dreaming go from a kind of fun, if awkward allegory for high school, to an embarrassing paean to the SCA, Changeling: the Lost was the most pleasant surprise I've ever got from White Wolf.
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Apr 2, 2013 01:42
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Green Intern posted:I have a copy of Inspectres sitting around my apartment. It's a sort of "Discount Ghostbusters" RPG, with a focus on player narration driving the plot of the current mission. The creator touts that the GM never has to do any prep, but I'm not so sure. Ran it once, and I might be able to put together a critique of it. Would the thread be interested in hearing about surprisingly unforgiving damage systems and unclear rules mixed together with a Second String Ghost Hunter flavor? And there's a Franchise Management aspect too, oddly enough. I'd like to see this. It sounds like someone started with a basic 'serious' RPG and tried to go from there to Ghostbusters.
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Apr 2, 2013 03:16
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I think the most hosed up thing about all of this is how Fields just kind of shrugs at the ability to permanently brand someone as part of the sex act. gently caress the wrong person, and get a big 'ol red A somewhere on your body.
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Apr 5, 2013 11:29
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Claydonia Conquers the World! is probably my favourite Dragon article, ever.
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Apr 7, 2013 15:37
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El Estrago Bonito posted:And while this game was super fun, and they did stop the evil reptile men who were trying to steal their Goodwill store it did clue me in to the fact that MaM is really broken when people pour all their points into certain things. Mainly the gadgets thing, gadgets is waaaaaaaaaaaaay too vague about what it can and cant do. The anime source book is actually really awesome, and the rules for being able to summon environmental effects (like falling cherry blossoms) that give you bonuses are awesome. There's like three different sets of rules for equipment and gadgets, which doesn't help matters either. The Inventing feat requires either a lot of time or a fistful of points dumped into Quickness to be effective. Using the Variable power with the Removable flaw is scarily effective, but gives the GM carte blanche to take your toys away without so much as a consolatory Hero Point. Equipment complicates things further by letting you spend Power Points to buy Equipment Points, which allows you give me enough of a headache to go back and just get a rank of Variable to simulate a utility belt.
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Apr 11, 2013 13:47
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I keep seeing 'sentai' and thinking 'furry Power Rangers'.
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Apr 11, 2013 20:48
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Halloween Jack posted:All the "World of" books were like that. I don't think Tank Girl or Species were available as boxed sets with the Masterbook included, but Tales from the Crypt definitely was. My box is long gone, sadly, as is one of the awesome blood-spatter d10s that came with it. I've got a Tank Girl boxed set sandwiched between Downtown Militarized Zone and The Awful Green Things from Outer Space. Came with the Masterbook book and the deck of cards. pospysyl posted:Back with Helena, it turns out that the mother is possessed (or at least influenced) by a Wyrm spirit! This. This is something that's always annoyed the unholy gently caress out of me about White Wolf. This... hate-on the writers and the lore have for human achievements and the human condition. This woman isn't abusing her children because they're an inescapable reminder of their deadbeat father, and it's the only form of control she's found in this tragedy that's her life, she's possessed. Every important person in history has belonged to some splat or another. Technology is evil, and really distributed by a ridiculous Illuminati of wizards. Psychiatry is horrible, because crazy people are glamourous enough to see changelings, and it kills changelings! Right now I'm cringing at the thought of whatever shambling horror of Steinem-misquoting 'feminism' might be lurking around the corner.
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Apr 12, 2013 21:32
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Even claiming that technology is the natural opposing force to change is pretty ridiculous-- they call it the Industrial Revolution for a reason. The problem is-- yeah. White Wolf writers are utterly poo poo with subtext. References to important person as a particular splat should have led into the implication that all of them were acting as conspiratorial groups, but the result is almost always more 'This guy is a foozle! Isn't that cool?!' They even parody it with everyone laying claim to Rasputin, and one Changeling book takes it even further by laying claim to living, real-world people. Edit: I think my blood sugar's low. Edit: And that Hark! A Vagrant comic is awesome. And while I love urban fantasy and related genres, I just get ludicrously frustrated when that aspect of my elfgames takes a big dump on the human part of the equation. Bieeanshee fucked around with this message at 22:42 on Apr 12, 2013 |
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Apr 12, 2013 22:37
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Okay, I can understand that association with technology (and the Technocracy) and the Weaver. That works for me. The rest of it still really, really bothers the heck out of me. It's lazy conspiracy writing in the service of making a modern Earth setting where your group can still rise from striplings to kings and king makers... only nobody knows, because that would necessitate sweeping changes to the setting's backdrop. And occasionally they did break out of the rut of mawkish Romanticism, and there's a glimmer of something clever, or a theme that they should have printed somewhere in bold letters, both in the books and the setting bibles because it would have been so much cooler... aaaand then some other horribly researched book comes out and gets its Orientalism on. I really do like the NWoD settings and rules, but I still have a soft spot for the old stuff and it never stops getting to me just how awful the books could get.
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Apr 12, 2013 23:53
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I only ever found the boxed set and a couple of supplements, so I thought TORG's metaplot, tie-in novels and stuff were supposed to be setup for out of the box campaigns, and thought it was really refreshing. It's really disappointing to hear otherwise. 
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Apr 13, 2013 01:52
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Mutants and Masterminds has done that a lot.
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Apr 13, 2013 23:18
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The ad campaign for TORG was clever, full-page pictures of a brick wall with eerie light leaking through the mortar, with a cryptic quote and the WEG logo at the bottom, spaced out over a period of months. By the time they got to 'The storm has a name...' I was hooked. ...but nobody in my loving city carried the drat game.
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Apr 15, 2013 22:49
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I thought the Talislanta stuff was a little dry, but still interesting. I don't think I actually said that during the last thread, probably out of sheer laziness, so I'm sorry for not being encouraging, but it's definitely better to write about something you're interested in. Honestly, I had the same trouble with Lancer's Rockers.
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Apr 17, 2013 02:28
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Ooh, Candlewick Manor! I've always meant to get my hands on that, after delighting myself with Doctor Jester's Phantasmagorical Automatic Freak Machine.
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Apr 17, 2013 03:15
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Almost makes me want to dig Ruins of Undermountain out. Almost.
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Apr 19, 2013 18:54
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I remember, or more than likely just 'remember', that Greyhawk was supposed to be the default, no-supplements-added setting for 3.0. I remember that feeling weird because, aside from deities that weren't stock Realms in earlier editions, there wasn't anything else to really support that or any big setting splats to give Greyhawk a new-edition renaissance.
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Apr 20, 2013 19:13
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Aw man, I forgot about St. Cuthbert. His church in Hommlet had the best truisms. 'THICK HEADS ARE NOT MADE OF GLASS.' 'PREACH SOFTLY AND KEEP A LARGE CUDGEL HANDY.' 'SALVATION IS BETTER THAN SMART ANSWERS.'
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Apr 20, 2013 20:01
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Arivia posted:Oh god psionic attack/defense modes, the worst 1e relic to keep existing into 3.0. No, this was the first run through. The Will and the Way came out... a year, two years into Dark Sun's run? I think it was just an expansion on the Handbook rules, with new powers and kits and stuff for making your own powers. The Skills and Powers psionics... holy poo poo, now that was a breathtaking boning of an already lovely class.
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Apr 21, 2013 03:51
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Ooh, I've got one from a game I played in TG a while back! His 'Kid' was a pretty-much grown up urban fairy princess, so I don't think she really counts, so I'll leave him Kidless. Mister Bubkes looks like a big, humped up pile of clothes, with pant cuffs for eyes and a white gym sock for a nose. It's bent at the heel, which makes it look like he got in a fight, but Mister Bubkes doesn't much like to fight. He likes to hide in plain sight, under the bed, which is where he gets his name from. ("Honey, there's bubkes under your bed!") He's a wise, weary-sounding old monster, with a voice like an elderly TV jewish gentleman, who loves eating dust bunnies (his Kid's room is spotless!) and trying to cheer his Kid up when they're upset or worried. They might go back to wetting the bed if they get too bad, and he can't fit an umbrella under there.
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Apr 21, 2013 17:22
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The Mental AC/THAC0 system was Skills and Powers, but it made its way into the later Dark Sun stuff as an optional rule. One of the Monstrous Compendium supplements I have had MAC and MTHAC0 marked in blue for all of the critters. While the concept behind that was good, the execution... Oh, Jesus.PurpleXVI posted:RE, the Forgotten Realms review: All I have to say is that canonically Elminster has a magical space station and hangs out with Ed Greenwood on Earth. I think anything beyond that kind of pales in comparison. Elminster loves Earth beer, though I think it's mostly because bottling is such a marvelous convenience. Ilmater is Finnish too; I think he originally showed up in Deities and Demigods. Bieeanshee fucked around with this message at 17:45 on Apr 21, 2013 |
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Apr 21, 2013 17:39
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Arivia posted:Honestly, I think FR continuity is trying to forget Dale "Slade" Henson's work at all. (He wrote Realmspace, which includes all this stuff about Elminster's space station. Also, his space station includes a Frigidaire air conditioner. Sooo, yeah. He messed up something very very important to Realms continuity, too. I thought there was a clear mention of it in Forgotten Realms Adventures, but the entry for Elminster's Evasion mentions his 'Safehold' as a dimensional bolthole. Much as I do like Spelljammer, I'm much happier imagining the old goatherd making his own pocket plane or repurposing one that's even older.
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Apr 21, 2013 18:17
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dwarf74 posted:It was mostly beating on each other with padded weapons. (Really, that's it - none of this class or level or magic stuff. It was all about hitting the other person in the right way before they hit you. Full force swings, padded weapons, shield bashing, wrestling, etc.) And several weekends a year, we'd go camping with 500 other people doing the same thing, only with a lot more beer, pot, and sex. Were you in the SCA too, or was this one of the other groups? 
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Apr 22, 2013 02:46
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dwarf74 posted:It was called Belegarth. It's closely related to Dagorhir if you know of that. Oh, cool! I know what you mean. It's been a long, long time since I last went to an event.
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Apr 22, 2013 11:12
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Those are some seriously awesome-looking monsters.
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Apr 23, 2013 02:20
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Just to add insult to injury on the Power Score/20/1 system, a bit of errata in one of the Dark Sun books states that if your PS is 20 or above you no longer have a chance at even that minor benefit. Things will still go awry on a 20 or 1 though!
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Apr 23, 2013 22:34
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quote:He's always pushing Madison to think in new ways, particularly about herself and what she really wants out of life. "Madison. Dear Madison. You have to think outside the trapezohedron."
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Apr 24, 2013 01:06
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Okay! That was a good folding together of Werewolf cosmology and real-world myth cycles. The Triat was probably built on those but, still, a very solid effort. Were those bits about kykeon and ergot mentioned in the book? I ask because while it has been used as a childbirth aid, it's also been used as an abortifacient... which I imagine might have been a sticky wicket for the Furies and the rest of the Changing Breeds given their steady drift toward extinction. Moreso for the Furies, because they seem to be positioned as the line's nod to women's issues, and since reproductive rights have always been a central issue in the fight for female autonomy. I'm imagining this, because I'm afraid reading the Kileys take on Roe vs Werewade might give me an aneurysm, and I may skip it just to be safe.
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Apr 26, 2013 03:15
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Payndz posted:That horse's legs are giving me a serious MC Escher vibe. I was thinking Dali:
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Apr 28, 2013 17:44
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pospysyl posted:Mothers are, well, women who have had children (whether a miscarriage still counts is debatable). The Black Furies want every member of their tribe to proceed into this group, but more and more young Furies want to avoid it. This is a conflict that's always struck me as particularly awkward in Werewolf, the threat of impending extinction and the sometimes explicit demand that individual garou (and particularly kinfolk) breed for the war effort. While it's somewhat easily shrugged off by gaming's stereotypically lonely male demographic ("The book says the elder says you've gotta do a lot of girls, dude.") White Wolf has always had a lot of success drawing women in as well.
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Apr 28, 2013 19:45
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Funnily enough, Hathor was the first thing that sprang to mind while reading that boob vs. formula rant.
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Apr 28, 2013 22:06
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pospysyl posted:the Bacchanates hunt down rapists, domestic abusers, polluters, and those who clone humans(?). When you can clone people, you don't need mothers any more, do you? Edit: True, but this is wWhite Wolf. They're probably thinking pods and tanks and cadres of men wearing condoms on their head, celebrating their victory over the feminine principle. Bieeanshee fucked around with this message at 22:45 on Apr 28, 2013 |
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Apr 28, 2013 22:42
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pospysyl posted:
I'm more concerned about the heavily pregnant woman in Crinos form. dwarf74 posted:There are not kudos enough in the world to thank you for maintaining that. And yes, christ, this.
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Apr 30, 2013 13:31
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I'm beginning to think that there's something to that old canard about RPGs causing insanity, because every time Fields comes up I suffer the irrational desire to track him down and beat him to death with a golf club.
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May 2, 2013 13:36
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Tasoth posted:The Three A-Migous? "You thousand sons of a motherless black goat!"
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May 4, 2013 18:29
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:I really love the settings for the GUMSHOE games (especially Night's Black Agents). I hate the rules however. This is me. I like the critters they wrote up for Esoterrorists, Ashen Stars looks like a decent setting, and I can hardly say 'no' to anything Mr. Hite's written... but every time I've read the rules over, Gumshoe has come off as awkward as gently caress.
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May 4, 2013 21:57
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I can't get past the five hundred meter long spines poking out of that silly thing's back. It keeps making me think of Citizen Kabuto wearing a semen anemone.
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May 8, 2013 03:08
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ThisIsNoZaku posted:I bought the CthulhuTech core when it was new because of how kick rear end the preview art was. I helped keep these people in business. It's lurking. Waiting. Building a machine with nine chairs, all of them for you.
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May 12, 2013 12:56
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I've always felt that the rules forbidding changeling children, whether born to Returned ones or Returned themselves, was a shuddering response to their being such a huge influence in Changeling: the Dreaming. Not only were they the most magically powerful age of changeling, but they were often the worst played and a huge pain in the rear end when it came to dealing with the mundane world. Additionally, there developed a common theme of changeling lovers conceiving changeling children despite the rules and fluff stating that was vanishingly rare because of the dictates of theme.
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May 14, 2013 11:39
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Yeah, it makes me think of the Vertigo 'Uncle Sam' comic miniseries.
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May 14, 2013 14:20
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NorgLyle posted:This class has always bugged me for some reason. There's just something about telling the game 'I like figuring things out and solving mysteries' and having it come back with 'Oh great, here's a bunch of abilities that mean you now get to bypass all those boring figuring things out or solving mysteries parts'. I really like the idea of the contacts, though, and I'd just like to have a non-caster supremacy version of the class that maybe gets some other bonuses instead of the spell-like abilities. I don't necessarily disagree, but that does come back to the old argument about player ability vs. character ability. If you enjoy picking through clues and interrogating NPCs as a roleplaying exercise, there's really no need to take the class. If you want to be that good, but your group can't be arsed to play with riddles or can't pull off the Columbo they want to play, it's a perfectly useful tool.
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May 14, 2013 14:39
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