FATAL & Friends 2: Let's Keep Talking About Notably Awful/Awesome TG Stuff

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Humbug Scoolbus: Apr 25, 2008; The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.; Clapping Larry

I want to see a real Yokai based game now...Fields is making cool concepts awful. :smith:

# ¿ Apr 4, 2013 14:53

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# ¿ Nov 30, 2023 11:27

Humbug Scoolbus: Apr 25, 2008; The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.; Clapping Larry

Mikan posted:

Yeah, Changeling: The Lost is great at presentation and the nWoD in general isn't nearly as bad as the oWoD used to be about ridiculous opening fiction.

My Castle Falkenstein book is back in my collection while we're talking about games with lengthy openings. Someone else will have to chime in about some of the historical stuff because who cares but I am ready to write all about its literary influences and awesome design.

Ready to assist! (I also have all the supplements)

# ¿ Apr 9, 2013 00:26

Humbug Scoolbus: Apr 25, 2008; The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.; Clapping Larry

WEG produced TORG which was an amazing game, with an incredible setting. For that I forgive them a lot.

Humbug Scoolbus fucked around with this message at 16:52 on Apr 12, 2013

# ¿ Apr 12, 2013 16:50

Humbug Scoolbus: Apr 25, 2008; The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.; Clapping Larry

Alien Rope Burn posted:

My big issue with TORG was an issue with how crossing over the worlds worked, where certain PC abilities just stopped working from world to world depending on the metaphysics there. It seemed like the most unfun mechanic, and it's the main reason I never got into it. I don't want to be told I can't be a werewolf during some adventures! Yeesh.

Changing Breeds is a perfectly written book given its intended audience.

Actually PCs were the few that KEPT their powers/gear across the various realities. They were stores of what was called 'Possibility Energy' which kept them connected to their home reality. This meant that 99.999999% of the time they could shoot dinosaur men in a Lost Worldish reality, with a laser rifle and not 'disconnect' and become bound to the new reality. And even if they did 'disconnect', there were a few ways they could fix that.

I'm starting to think I should do TORG...

# ¿ Apr 13, 2013 18:12

Humbug Scoolbus: Apr 25, 2008; The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.; Clapping Larry

Hey mll! Want me to start running TORG on Saturdays? :getin:

I love TORG and was getting ready to do an F&F before I was beaten like a craven dog...I have all the books and was at the GENCON where it was released. West End Games had a huge booth that year and there were lines or game nerds stretching around the main hall in Milwaukee wanting to get their hands on a copy of this wild rear end game. TSR's booth looked empty in comparison.

# ¿ Apr 16, 2013 01:57

Humbug Scoolbus: Apr 25, 2008; The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.; Clapping Larry

Evil Mastermind posted:

Sorry, man. I needed to get back into reviewing after a long pause, plus I had to justify buying all the setting books in the past two weeks.

That's cool. I can cover any stuff you don't have though.

# ¿ Apr 16, 2013 02:34

Humbug Scoolbus: Apr 25, 2008; The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.; Clapping Larry

You had better cover High Lord of Earth :colbert:

# ¿ Apr 16, 2013 04:05

Humbug Scoolbus: Apr 25, 2008; The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.; Clapping Larry

Building Weird Science Gimmicks is easier even...Doctor Mobius is not amused.

# ¿ Apr 16, 2013 12:33

Humbug Scoolbus: Apr 25, 2008; The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.; Clapping Larry

TORG is a game that deserves a lot of bashing, but god I love the setting.

Also, I did not know that MAOCT was a One-Roll System game.

# ¿ Apr 18, 2013 05:00

Humbug Scoolbus: Apr 25, 2008; The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.; Clapping Larry

Majuju posted:

Along the World's Largest Dungeon lines, anyone have a copy of Ptolus and feel up to digging through it?

I have Ptolus...

# ¿ Apr 20, 2013 04:45

Humbug Scoolbus: Apr 25, 2008; The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.; Clapping Larry

Kellsterik posted:

All the Werewolf related writeups so far are making me really sympathetic to Pentex's case.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPGK5nUjlyg

# ¿ Apr 28, 2013 15:55

Humbug Scoolbus: Apr 25, 2008; The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.; Clapping Larry

GimpInBlack posted:

Well, what the hell, time to throw my hat into this ring. It's time for....

Official Website
PDF on DriveThruRPG

Part 1: Jason Bourne Versus Dracula

Night's Black Agents is an espionage thriller game which, as the banner on its website is very keen to tell you, was written by ENnie Award winner Kenneth Hite. Ken is perhaps best-known for his Lovecraft-related works--in fact, this is his second game using Robin D. Laws' GUMSHOE System, after 2008's Trail of Cthulhu. Night's Black Agents takes the action from the Mythos-infested 1930s to the seamy criminal underworld of present-day Europe. It's a world of organized crime, of burned ex-intelligence agents and of vampires.

Yeah, that's right. Vampires. And no, not the metaphorical kind. The secretive, blood-drinking, secret-masters-of-a-vast-conspiracy, really-don't-like-it-when-ex-spies-poke-into-their-business kind. You poked your nose into their business, and now you know they're out there. Oh, and they know you know.

One note before we begin: General Ironicus is already doing a great job writing up Ashen Stars, which also uses the GUMSHOE System, so I'm going to try not to get too redundant with his review. As such, while I still plan to go chapter-by-chapter through the game, I'm mostly going to focus on the differences between Night's Black Agents and other GUMSHOE games. I'm also going to be aiming for major audience participation, if there's enough interest: we'll be doing examples of character creation, vampire creation, and conspiracy mapping all driven by goon consensus.

I really love the settings for the GUMSHOE games (especially Night's Black Agents). I hate the rules however.

# ¿ May 4, 2013 21:16

Humbug Scoolbus: Apr 25, 2008; The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.; Clapping Larry

GimpInBlack posted:

There are definitely a few odd bits I'm not a huge fan of. What in particular do you hate about it?

An investigation based RPG is a great idea, but the way GUMSHOE has obsessive focus on it, doesn't look like much fun. The game feels more experimental, much like a Warhol movie, than enjoyable (also like a Warhol movie).

# ¿ May 5, 2013 17:16

Humbug Scoolbus: Apr 25, 2008; The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.; Clapping Larry

Alien Rope Burn posted:

I much prefer the idea of presenting clues without making the PCs roll to spot them (in one sense or another), but the issue with Gumshoe is once I nab that idea there's not much left to the game itself.

Exactly! I have run non- or minimal dice roll investigations in other systems and it worked great. GUMSHOE doesn't bring anything else except some seriously clunky mechanics.

# ¿ May 5, 2013 17:28

Humbug Scoolbus: Apr 25, 2008; The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.; Clapping Larry

Kurieg posted:

What does the "Fight As" column on the table mean? It seems annotated rather oddly.

I love the rather bizarre distinction that she can seduce a werewolf pretending to be a wolf, but not a werebear pretending to be a bear.

Original D&D used the combat system from Chainmail when it first was released. The d20 syetem did not appear until Supplement I GryHawk. Many of the early Dragon articles were written for backwards compatibility because finding copies of the supplements was not very easy for the average player.

Also that article was written by Len Lakofka (Leomund of Leomund's Tiny Hut) and illustrated by Paul (now Jennell) Jaquays (did level design and art for Quake 2 and 3 and Halo Wars among other things).

Humbug Scoolbus fucked around with this message at 13:32 on May 6, 2013

# ¿ May 6, 2013 13:29

Humbug Scoolbus: Apr 25, 2008; The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.; Clapping Larry

Hedningen posted:

This is just making my day.

I guess in terms of contribution, I notice that the project to explain Mutant: Underg�ngens Arvtagare died an unseemly death and no one seems to have spoken of the wonderful classic Drakar och Demoner; I figure those are some gems that need to be brought up. Any overarching interest in one or the other? I figure DoD might be a little faster, because let's face it, I'm not going through as much, but for some reason, people seem to think Mutant:UA (or even classic Mutant) is the Bee's Knees.

Then again, the option for installing Eye-Lasers on your post-apocalyptic robo-butler while hanging out with your mutated badger friends in what once was the Archipelago seems to really tickle people. I need to work on my speed-translation anyway, so I'm willing to tackle whichever one people are more interested in, because there are some seriously entertaining write-ups, and I feel the need to contribute what people might enjoy.

I am a huge Mutant Chronicles fan, so Mutant is my choice.

# ¿ May 7, 2013 04:49

Humbug Scoolbus: Apr 25, 2008; The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.; Clapping Larry

Mutant Swedish Bears too!!!

# ¿ May 7, 2013 18:23

Humbug Scoolbus: Apr 25, 2008; The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.; Clapping Larry

VacuumJockey posted:

I like your style, man!

Also, if the rumors are true, there will be a third edition of Mutant Chronicles out sometime this year. Your write-up has certainly raised my interest in MC; back then I thought it was a cheap Warhammer rip-off. Clearly it has a lot more going for it than that.

I hope to god Matt Forbeck is involved with the new edition. He did most of the English editing and fluff work for the 1st edition and did a great job.

# ¿ May 11, 2013 14:48

Humbug Scoolbus: Apr 25, 2008; The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.; Clapping Larry

Evil Mastermind posted:

Oh, I wouldn't get rid of things like axioms or world laws either. I'd just simplify the implementation of them.

I'd forgotten all about Underground. Makes me wonder now how many 90's games had "giving hope back to people" as a major theme.

DC Heroes (Mayfair) created the logarithmic stat/power system that Underground used. When they lost the DC license they changed it to 'Blood of Heroes' right?

# ¿ May 21, 2013 15:43

Humbug Scoolbus: Apr 25, 2008; The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.; Clapping Larry

Evil Mastermind posted:

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

The magic...it burns...

The thing is, I can see what the designers were trying to do and why they did it that way.

They wanted a modular system (easier to build spells (HA!)).
They wanted to use the base game mechanics.
They wanted to establish a system in which the wildest imaginations of players (due to the flexibility of the spell creation system(HA!)) would be balanced against the other types of 'powers'.

On the first one they definitely succeeded. It is not easy or conprehensible to any mortal mind, but it is modular. On the second one they pretty much succeeded. Yes it's stupidly long, but it does pretty much use all the same rules as any other attack or skill (except backlash of course). On the third goal I honestly don't know because most people I played TORG with were not insane enough to want to play a caster (which means however that there definitely wasn't any caster supremacy seen in the party :psyduck:

)

# ¿ May 21, 2013 23:44

Humbug Scoolbus: Apr 25, 2008; The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.; Clapping Larry

Moebius, the Pharoah commands it!

# ¿ May 24, 2013 19:54

Humbug Scoolbus: Apr 25, 2008; The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.; Clapping Larry

Terror Australis for Vall of Cthulhu existed...

It had a collection of adventures including the Australia section of Masks of Nyarlahotep which had been cut for size.

# ¿ May 28, 2013 14:29

Humbug Scoolbus: Apr 25, 2008; The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.; Clapping Larry

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).

I have this game!

# ¿ May 28, 2013 18:18

Humbug Scoolbus: Apr 25, 2008; The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.; Clapping Larry

Day After Ragnarok is a K.Hite project...and it is unbelievably cool. I think it's one of his best settings.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2013 04:28

Humbug Scoolbus: Apr 25, 2008; The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.; Clapping Larry

goatface posted:

Hahahaha, flying a B29 loaded with an a-bomb through the pupil of Jormungandr. That is absurdly

You just think that's :black101:

...It gets more :rock:

as it goes on!

# ¿ Jun 3, 2013 20:14

Humbug Scoolbus: Apr 25, 2008; The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.; Clapping Larry

Pththya-lyi posted:

Nope, sorry: there are a lot of things in this setting, but flying a nuke into a 1,500 quintillion ton-snake�s eye has yet to be equaled. Consider the scale of the aftermath and tell me it�s not as anything.

What I meant was that just flying the nuke in is :black101:

, what happens immediately afterward is :rock:

# ¿ Jun 5, 2013 03:09

Humbug Scoolbus: Apr 25, 2008; The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.; Clapping Larry

occamsnailfile posted:

Having people who are (or claim to be) actual descendants of British nobility would be kind of interesting, plus there seem to be some people claiming noble heritage who are not from Earth at all and Arr'thuu is going around calling himself a king but he's just this random kid Mrrlyn found and conflicts between Old Blood and New Money could actually be cool and--no, we're not doing that? Okay Rifts, I'll go back to listing off what PCs can buy in individual cities like you said.

(Also one of the other 'kingdoms' that gets detailed ahead is a 'freedom-loving democracy' that gives a stat writeup for their...king. I wish there was a Gerard Butler shouting emoticon.)

I really dislike the 'alien sockpuppet' Camelot thing in general but there is a lot of wasted potential in Mrrlyn's faux-goodness being actual goodness. One could just chuck the Lady in the Lake and Guinevere and Nexus Knights out, or partially out and stick with just him being a secret evil or something but honestly it's way more effort than it's worth, if you run a Rifts game, just basically don't set it in England. Or uh, Africa, spoiler warning.

Also I've been reading the Day after Ragnarok stuff and can't help sort of looking at it alongside Rifts as another post-apocalyptic setting, and crying a little inside. It seems like a neat book, I may have to pick it up.

Day After Ragnarok is so good even I like it, and I am known to despise fun. :colbert:

Oh Rifts, such a glorious bunch of half-baked ideas, such awful awful execution. :allears:

# ¿ Jun 6, 2013 01:57

Humbug Scoolbus: Apr 25, 2008; The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.; Clapping Larry

Africa is the crap champion of Rifts, along with possibly having the most overpowered NPCs next to the Alien Intelligences.

# ¿ Jun 7, 2013 05:16

Humbug Scoolbus: Apr 25, 2008; The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.; Clapping Larry

Everything Counts posted:

Well the CalTech physicist who dabbles in black magic would be [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Whiteside_Parsons]Jack Parsons, self-taught rocket scientist, co-founder of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, friend of L. Ron Hubbard, and student of Crowley.

Loving the DAR setting, I might have to introduce this to my group when the FATE rules come out.

Savage Worlds is a really good system too, so you don't need to wait for the FATE port.

# ¿ Jun 7, 2013 20:48

Humbug Scoolbus: Apr 25, 2008; The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.; Clapping Larry

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.

# ¿ Jun 9, 2013 13:48

Humbug Scoolbus: Apr 25, 2008; The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.; Clapping Larry

I actually ran ToH when it was first released. 2 page body count.

# ¿ Jul 10, 2013 05:52

Humbug Scoolbus: Apr 25, 2008; The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.; Clapping Larry

Young Freud posted:

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

Those are the best walkthough maps.

# ¿ Jul 11, 2013 21:54

Humbug Scoolbus: Apr 25, 2008; The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.; Clapping Larry

Kurieg posted:

I actually have the Alternity Starcraft book. I remember it being pretty incomprehensible when I was in high school, it's not much better now, most jarringly it seems to lack actual character creation rules, just a bunch of templates.

I have it too. It is a simplified yet more confusing version of Alternity.

# ¿ Jul 31, 2013 06:35

Humbug Scoolbus: Apr 25, 2008; The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.; Clapping Larry

InShaneee posted:

Countdown, Chapter 5 - Phenomen-X

Next time: TIGER TRANSIT

My favorite part of Delta Green. It is just so evil.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2013 00:09

Humbug Scoolbus: Apr 25, 2008; The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.; Clapping Larry

Humbug Scoolbus posted:

My favorite part of Delta Green. It is just so evil.

I have used variations on Tiger Transport in SpyCraft, Top Secret SI, and Alternity Dark Matter. It is such a wonderful plot device.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2013 00:05

Humbug Scoolbus: Apr 25, 2008; The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.; Clapping Larry

homeless poster posted:

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

I vote for Malraux and the Cyber-Papacy, but Orrorsh has the biggest High Lord dick move in it with the whole use of the Victorians.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2013 00:55

Humbug Scoolbus: Apr 25, 2008; The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.; Clapping Larry

Count Chocula posted:

Finally, a system to let me run Bucky O'hare!

Actually you probably want the Albedo system for that.

# ¿ Aug 25, 2013 23:51

Humbug Scoolbus: Apr 25, 2008; The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.; Clapping Larry

TORG so needs to be ported to something like Cinematic Unisystem. It really needs a semi-crunch system because of Probabilities and the concept of disconnect which is actually very important. What it does not need is eleventeen different magic systems.

# ¿ Aug 30, 2013 20:41

Humbug Scoolbus: Apr 25, 2008; The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.; Clapping Larry

The way TORG works requires a more structured system. The reason that I brought up Cinematic Unisystem was because the Drama Point rules would plug in very easily among other things.

Stuff like *World, FATE, and the like rely on a more freeform method, and one of the core frameworks of TORG is that the situation is structured by the rules that the High Lords have set up (World Laws and Realm Levels). To have things not feel stifled is against the tone of the game in a large part.

# ¿ Aug 31, 2013 18:40

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# ¿ Nov 30, 2023 11:27

Humbug Scoolbus: Apr 25, 2008; The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.; Clapping Larry

The original Seattle Sourcebook for Shadowrun 1e had a notorious lack of comprehension for just how hilly the place is among other problems.

# ¿ Sep 4, 2013 13:16

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