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I love Mutants and Masterminds because it let me run a game with three of my favorite PC's ever: Black Belt: 70's Blacksploitation Martial Arts superstar who got thrown into a time portal by his nemesis Doctor Disco and ended up in the year 2020. Doctor Disco's fame was short lived so now they work at the same Thrift Store along with the other PCs. Alan Smith: A method actor who was given super powers by aliens, now he gets super powers from whatever costume he wears. Silver Fox: A semi-senile Solid Snake-like retired secret agent who put all his points into the gadgets power. 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.
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Apr 11, 2013 04:54
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Halloween Jack posted:In Okinawan kobudo, using a turtle shell shield and a spear is actually A Thing, but Idunno about horseshoe crabs. I think the guy is supposed to be some kind of Aquahoplite. Specifically I think he's supposed to be a sort of Hoplomachus, which were Roman Gladiators based loosely on Hoplites. At least I think that's what they're going for, he certainly has his hair sculpted like their helmets and he's wearing the distinctive arm guard and small shield. He doesn't however have his short sword and his spear doesn't really look like it'd be that good for throwing. So maybe he's a really broke Hoplomachus.
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Apr 11, 2013 05:14
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I sort of prefer Werewolves to be a mishmash of different totally random tribes. I like that they range from barely distinguishable to extremely radical and crazy. It sort of reminds me of how Motorcycle gangs or white supremacists are organized. They all believe some different totally batshit insane doctrines they have made up and then cling together based on really tenuous idealogical claims. They aren't nice people or even for the most part good or decent people. They are radical extremists and terrorists and the books reflect that pretty well. Furies were always one of those tribes that were saddled with being in a very beige place story wise. They are on pretty good terms with everyone, have few long time enemies, accept people from large varieties of backgrounds and have a sort of take it or leave it overarching goal (some kind of loose matriarchal feminist agenda). This makes them a good tribe for NPC allies and for players who don't really have a strong character idea and those kinds of groups are nice to have in an RPG but tend to be a little boring as a sacrifice (see: Greeks in Scion, Bruja in VtM, Hermes in Mage, Zenith in Exalted and even Legion in Wraith to some degree) and never have enough really cool stuff to fill a whole splat. Thankfully with their other lines WW tended to jam large amounts of meta plot into those books but Werewolf was never a game that was as meta heavy as the other OWoD games.
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Apr 11, 2013 22:55
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Tech isn't evil in oWoD it's just the natural opposing force to change. The technocracy might be evil in some ways but in the end they are just extremists and the Order of Hermes that they fought so hard to destroy was probably more evil and bad for humanity in general than they are. It's just by the time we reach the final nights in Mage they have become so singularly obsessed with making everything predictable and sterile that they are generally unlikable assholes. But the again all mages are assholes, they are normal humans who have the ability to pretty much gently caress around and do whatever they want and the technocracy was probably correct when they decided they all needed to be killed or pacified. The thing OWoD really needed to focus more on was their idea of "lost history". The whole setting is basically set up so that everything important or noteworthy has some supernatural force behind it. What the setting then implies heavily in many books is that this is mainly because the supernatural forces are repressing the actual history of human accomplishment. They sort of started to get into this with the introduction of Hunters Hunted and the Arcanum but then they went a totally different direction with that poo poo and hunters turned into just another different kind of supernatural (or more precisely, they turned into Exalts from Exalted but that's a whole other can of worms, the history of Age of Sorrows could fill an entire post in this thread) instead of being truly special and important humans that had managed to see beyond all the bullshit and to attempt to claim some sort of destiny for themselves. Hunters Hunted even contains the idea for the Chronicle of Vengeance which is one of the coolest campaign ideas ever (you play an order of vampire hunters throughout the ages advancing to the next "generation" every time you complete a major storyline) but is relegated to a simple sidebar and gets less backround dedicated to it than the fact that vampires control the FBI and CDC (a forgone conclusion that didn't need any book space devoted to it).
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Apr 12, 2013 22:17
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Bieeardo posted:Even claiming that technology is the natural opposing force to change is pretty ridiculous-- they call it the Industrial Revolution for a reason. Change was a bad way to phrase it. Its the opposing force to randomness and improbable outcomes. Tradition mages are all about breaking the rules of reality by forcing them to act in abberant or different ways, the technos are all about creating rules of reality that allow people to control and alter it without magic. Hence technology and science places control over primal forces into the hands of lay people and makes reality obey one set of defined rules that anyone can learn and use as they see fit. The Technocracy was a terribly written bad guy faction. They couldn't have any kind of grey morality because if you did that they would be instantly the good guys and totally reasonable people. I find it remarkable that White Wolf ever managed to handle the subject of the Holocaust and Genocides with tact and skill.
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Apr 12, 2013 23:05
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Guide to Technocracy mystifies me because its a great book written by the guy who wrote Changing Breeds. But the design team was headed by Jesse Heinig who is one of the better dudes working at WW during that period. And I guess it also had the dude who wrote Transylvania by Night which is a pretty popular book but I didn't like it all that much.
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Apr 13, 2013 06:08
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It's also a very "realistic" look at magic, one of the only good ones. If magic were real it would probably end up like UA, a bunch of weirdos doin' pornomancy.
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Apr 13, 2013 11:37
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Tatum Girlparts posted:Yea Dragons is seen as one of the best 'it's like (game) BUT WITH ASIA' because the people, you know, researched the cultures a decent amount and made a strong effort to show that the 'Asia' we think of is actually a combination of generations of vastly different people developing right in eachother's back yards, for better or for worse. It's one of those things where liberties are taken, but the core history and culture is respected, and that's what's important. My friend is getting his degree in a religious history field and wants to become a Rabbi. He claims that Demon: The Fallen is actually exceptionally well researched when it comes to Jewish demonology and angels. Also I remember the Old West version of Werewolf being pretty well researched as well.
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Apr 17, 2013 03:57
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