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Golden Bee posted:MH has a core move called "Turn Someone On". Which is about attraction, not necessarily physical. From my experience with MH so far, reading intimacy simply in terms of physical sexuality is only the crudest and least interesting lens to dwell on.
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# ? Oct 11, 2014 19:19 |
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# ? Dec 11, 2024 23:30 |
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Cythereal posted:Which is about attraction, not necessarily physical. From my experience with MH so far, reading intimacy simply in terms of physical sexuality is only the crudest and least interesting lens to dwell on. Turn Someone On is not about intimacy. Like, that's sort of the point -- you can loving hate the person, or theoretically be repulsed by them, but oh no now I'm "Turned On" what do I do about that? That's the interesting part -- how the individual feels about it and how they react, not the attraction itself. Trying to argue that somehow physical attraction creates less interesting circumstances is silly. It's also kind of largely out of your hands whether or not the attraction is physical, because what exactly you're finding so attractive is decided by the person making the roll. Midjack posted:Not coincidentally, neither of those games have love and sex as their main point. AW is not really about sexuality, but trying to argue that MH is not kind of requires some serious pretzel logic that ignores both what the mechanics say and what the game is literally billing itself as. Sexuality, sex and how the characters relate to them are major themes. Emotional intimacy is something that the MC is literally meant to deny you or make come conditionally. Gazetteer fucked around with this message at 19:36 on Oct 11, 2014 |
# ? Oct 11, 2014 19:34 |
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PurpleXVI posted:In short: because they deal with the EMOTIONAL and SOCIAL aspects of sex, while giving basically no screentime to the actual squishy organic parts which, frankly, are less interesting than the former when it come to a story. I always figured the whole "sex" thing in AW was more like "be intimate with another PC", like your Faceless and another PC's Gunlugger share war stories over the campfire or a Skinner is invited into a Hardholder's private quarters to share some rare liquor instead of actually knocking boots.
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# ? Oct 11, 2014 21:58 |
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No, I think Vincent Baker has come right out and said that AW's sex moves are just that, things that happen as a result of sex and not just any sort of moment of intimacy.
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# ? Oct 11, 2014 22:06 |
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They have to be grounded in sex or similar, because there are sex moves like the Battlebabe's which is entirely "there is no intimacy here, this means nothing, negate how this would be meaningful to either person involved".
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# ? Oct 11, 2014 22:35 |
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Lynx Winters posted:The entire podcast could just be a dramatic reading of the setting background in the first chapter. A reading at dramatic pace took approximately 11 minutes. I am strongly considering adding sound effects and bumpers and just making that the intro.
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# ? Oct 11, 2014 22:37 |
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Anyway, I'm doing an alternate thing for the disciplines: I make a post as soon as I finish a discipline. For this post, we have Golden Lion. Golden Lion is the White Raven of Path of War, meaning that its true effectiveness is greatest when you have fighting alongside you. A good portion of the maneuvers are predicated around granting additional actions and special abilities, bonuses based on adjacent allies, stuff like that. Low-level maneuvers (1 to 3) include Demoralizing Roar (boost which imposes the shaken condition on one target), Hunting Party (strike which grants an adjacent ally an attack of opportunity to target you just hit), Tactical Strike (strike which grants free 10 foot movement to ally within 10 feet), Defending the Pride (boost which grants +4 morale bonus to AC to allies within 60 feet), Warning Roar (counter which negates an attack on an ally by Diplomacy vs. attack roll, very useful maneuver!), and Pack Pounce (strike deals +5 bonus damage for every adjacent ally, +15 max). Stances include Pride Leader's Stance (by acting like a proud lion you grant allies +4 on saves vs. fear and demoralization) and Golden Commander Stance (can grant flanking benefits to opponents engaged in melee with the same opponent, perfect for Sneak Attackers). Mid-level maneuvers (4 to 6) include Charge of the Battle Cat (charge attack deals 4d6 additional damage and knocks foe prone on failed save), Direct the Pride (boost allows a single ally to act immediately as though their initiative was 1 lower than user, then reverts back on following round), Golden Swipe (strike deals 6d6 damage and forces target to move 10 feet, can provoke attacks of opportunity), Discipline of the Pride (grant combat feat user knows to an ally within 30 feet for 3 rounds, can only benefit 1 at a time), Strategic Blow (strike deals 8d6 damage, ally within 10 feet may make a move action as though it were a free action), and Endurance of the Strong (counter which restores 2x initiator level in hit points to ally just struck in combat). Stances include Golden Lion Charger (+2 on attacks when charging does not provoke attack of opportunity when charging) and Golden General's Attitude (grants allies +1 attack and damage rolls and saves vs. fear per 4 initiator levels). High-level maneuvers (7 and 8) include Orichalcum Swipe (much like the other mineral swipe maneuvers, strike inflicts 12d6 damage and target must move up to twice base speed and provokes attacks of opportunity), War Lion's Charge (strike deals 14d6 bonus damage on a charge and stuns opponent on failed save), Alpha's Roar (boost is an awesome cry for victory which grant allies +4 morale bonus on saves and an equal increase to the save DC of their special attacks and spells), and Lion Lord's Agony (strike does not deal standard damage, but instead damage equal to initiator's max hit points minus their current hit points, plus foe is shaken for 1 round on a failed save). The stance includes Triumphant Lion's Leadership (initiator and any allies gain +1d6 damage for every foe initiator has slain while the stance is in effect, maximum +5d6). The ultimate 9th-level maneuver is Lord of the Pridelands, a boost which grants the initiator and all his allies within 60 feet a +2 morale bonus on attack, damage, Armor Class, and saving throws for one round (maximum +10 bonus). Libertad's Thoughts: I can see a lot of powerful combinations and uses for a Golden Lion user in just about any party. It's a really good discipline.
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# ? Oct 11, 2014 23:59 |
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theironjef posted:A reading at dramatic pace took approximately 11 minutes. I am strongly considering adding sound effects and bumpers and just making that the intro. Yeah, now that I think about it, reading it to my friends took about an hour because we couldn't stop laughing at poo poo like "were-storms." When the full moon comes out, he turns into vicious precipitation!
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# ? Oct 12, 2014 00:20 |
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Lynx Winters posted:Yeah, now that I think about it, reading it to my friends took about an hour because we couldn't stop laughing at poo poo like "were-storms." When the full moon comes out, he turns into vicious precipitation! Are they vulnerable to silver iodide?
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# ? Oct 12, 2014 00:28 |
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Worse. When the were-storms come, it starts raining men.
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# ? Oct 12, 2014 00:45 |
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Bieeardo posted:Worse. When the were-storms come, it starts raining men. Worse? I'd be crying Hallelujah if that happens.
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# ? Oct 12, 2014 00:52 |
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Sure, but think of the poor SOB who has to calculate all that falling damage! (A surprisingly simple job, that, especially for Synnibar.)
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# ? Oct 12, 2014 01:18 |
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Midjack posted:For any game, has there ever been a game or supplement focused on love/romance/sex that hasn't been completely loving terrible? Does Pendragon have mechanics for courtly love or getting married or anything like that? I'd think if any game could do an awesome job of setting-space+mechanics for love, it'd be Pendragon.
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# ? Oct 12, 2014 02:46 |
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Gazetteer posted:AW is not really about sexuality, but trying to argue that MH is not kind of requires some serious pretzel logic that ignores both what the mechanics say and what the game is literally billing itself as. Sexuality, sex and how the characters relate to them are major themes. Emotional intimacy is something that the MC is literally meant to deny you or make come conditionally. It seemed to me that Monsterhearts was focused more on adolescent emotional turmoil and growing up than it was boning ghosts. Admittedly sex and emotional intimacy are major parts of that, but getting your dick out doesn't appear to be the game's point. Running Monsterhearts as Twilight is lazy and shallow.
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# ? Oct 12, 2014 15:53 |
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Midjack posted:It seemed to me that Monsterhearts was focused more on adolescent emotional turmoil and growing up than it was boning ghosts. Admittedly sex and emotional intimacy are major parts of that, but getting your dick out doesn't appear to be the game's point. Running Monsterhearts as Twilight is lazy and shallow. Ooh sweet, maybe when this argument is over in a few pages we can do the one about whether Monsterhearts is gothic or southern gothic again.
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# ? Oct 12, 2014 16:24 |
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Midjack posted:It seemed to me that Monsterhearts was focused more on adolescent emotional turmoil and growing up than it was boning ghosts. Admittedly sex and emotional intimacy are major parts of that, but getting your dick out doesn't appear to be the game's point. Running Monsterhearts as Twilight is lazy and shallow. And of course it's about adolescent turmoil and growing up. Why do you think that that is separate or mutually exclusive from sexual confusion and discovery? The game has a huge focus on those things. Literally the first move the game tells you about is Turn Someone On. SEX MOVE is written in bold letters right on every single character sheet. This is explicitly a game about boning ghosts. It is also a game about plotting petty social machinations to steal ghost's boyfriends, and about how ghosts feel really confused and alienated from the people around them. This is a supernatural romance game. Like, in the words of Avery McDaldno, written at the beginning of the book: Monsterhearts Pages 4-5 posted:You play because the characters are sexy and broken. You play because teen sexuality is awkward and magnetic, which means it makes for brilliant stories. You play because despite themselves, despite the world they live in, despite their fangs and their bartered souls and their boiling cauldrons, these aren’t just monsters. They’re burgeoning adults, trying to meet their needs. They’re who we used to be - who we still are sometimes. You play to get lost, and to remember. theironjef posted:Ooh sweet, maybe when this argument is over in a few pages we can do the one about whether Monsterhearts is gothic or southern gothic again. Gazetteer fucked around with this message at 17:03 on Oct 12, 2014 |
# ? Oct 12, 2014 16:43 |
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nomadotto posted:
Mr. Tumnus or whatever our intrepid halfling is named is from a Wizzard's Tower. He is a Master Orator, who specializes in being a Criminal. Our Warrior is from a Religious Bastion and is quite a good Haggler. Our warrior is, on top of it all, an excellent Cook. They may yet be bad enough dudes to rescue the President.
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# ? Oct 12, 2014 16:55 |
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Gazetteer posted:You know, at least that discussion is like... an area with a degree of subjectivity involved? Like at this point we are arguing that no, man, this game is not literally about the things it deliberately states it is at the beginning of the book. Welp, looks like I am in fact full of poo poo and had the wrong idea. Sorry folks!
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# ? Oct 12, 2014 17:11 |
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Gazetteer posted:You know, at least that discussion is like... an area with a degree of subjectivity involved? Like at this point we are arguing that no, man, this game is not literally about the things it deliberately states it is at the beginning of the book. I actually don't know the difference since I haven't read MH. My derived impressions about it are "Nerds sure love arguing about what Monsterhearts is" and that is solely derived from this forum. I am glad to see this one blew right on past though.
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# ? Oct 12, 2014 17:32 |
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DH1e always made me wonder how it'd operate if you basically cut a 0 off of just about every single number except Fate and Wounds and used d10s instead of d100s.
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# ? Oct 12, 2014 17:58 |
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Poison Mushroom posted:DH1e always made me wonder how it'd operate if you basically cut a 0 off of just about every single number except Fate and Wounds and used d10s instead of d100s. Doesn't DH have critical failure on a roll of 100? Would you make critical failures 10x as likely, or do something else?
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# ? Oct 12, 2014 18:01 |
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Could they roll a second d10, and have critical failure if that comes up 10 as well?
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# ? Oct 12, 2014 18:19 |
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DH also has a really nifty hit location mechanic. you reverse the d100 roll to determine hit location. d100 roll 41. hit location 14 left arm
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# ? Oct 12, 2014 18:26 |
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Midjack posted:Welp, looks like I am in fact full of poo poo and had the wrong idea. Sorry folks! Ultimately, though, you can always make the game what you want and interpret it in ways that are more comfortable for you or your group.
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# ? Oct 12, 2014 18:58 |
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nomadotto posted:Our Halfling will be named Mr. Tumnus Mr. Tumnus shall be from the Dwarven Halls and is a Manipulator with a specialty in being a Dungeoneer Brad is from a Busy Crossroads and is an Orator with a specialty in being a Cook
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# ? Oct 12, 2014 21:24 |
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Kai Tave posted:To be fair you've just described like 98% of all RPGs and a huge swathe of other games as well. Poison Mushroom posted:DH1e always made me wonder how it'd operate if you basically cut a 0 off of just about every single number except Fate and Wounds and used d10s instead of d100s. MartianAgitator posted:Does Pendragon have mechanics for courtly love or getting married or anything like that? I'd think if any game could do an awesome job of setting-space+mechanics for love, it'd be Pendragon.
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# ? Oct 12, 2014 22:00 |
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Well, thank you to whoever did the write-up on Spears of the Dawn - I just finished running my first session of what should turn in to quite an interesting campaign. I started with the adventure from the back of the book, because unlike most introductory adventures, it actually has hooks for future adventures.
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# ? Oct 12, 2014 22:20 |
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Just listened to the Horrortoberfest review of The Rage: Carrie 2. ...Is... Is that just somebody's game of Monsterhearts?
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# ? Oct 16, 2014 06:48 |
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ZorajitZorajit posted:Just listened to the Horrortoberfest review of The Rage: Carrie 2. ...Is... Is that just somebody's game of Monsterhearts? I haven't seen it, but the Carrie films (and the books) in general are perfect Monsterhearts material. Supernatural powers as a metaphor for puberty? Check. High school setting? Check. Generally nasty atmosphere of intolerance and an undercurrent of "the humans are the worst monsters?" Check. Speaking of which, I'm just going to try and finish this writeup real quick so I can move on to something else. Chapter Six Real Monsters The penultimate chapter of Monsterhearts is about the villains, menaces and dangers of the setting, as can be surmised from its title. You know, all the stuff that gives a context to the game beyond the characters trying to awkwardly sex each other up. Villains First of all, there's a short discussion on what makes a good Monsterhearts villain. The main idea boils down to this: villains should be simple, with clear goals that either conflict or go hand in hand with the PCs' motivations. Secondly, while villains should be formidable, the PCs in general should be stronger than them, going from the principle of treating your NPCs like stolen cars. The job of villains isn't to block the PCs' actions, but to give new opportunities for the drama and story to move towards. Secondly, there's some discussion on how to make the villains seem monstrous: the idea is that while the PCs are monsters, they're also teenagers. Villains should be real monsters. The difference is that real monsters kill people, eat babies, that sort of thing. Also, if you're taking your principles to heart, your villains might not even need to be literal monsters: because making humans seem monstrous is one of your principles, a skilled MC can probably concoct a villain that is a human but is really monstrous because of their actions. There's also a short discussion on Darkest Selves and how they allow players to be villains in their own right. If you've got a player who's constantly going into their Darkest Self, you can use your villains to offer to work with them to sate their unnatural urges. Or alternately, if you've got the traditional situation of say a Werewolf terrorizing the town in their Darkest Self, you can probably introduce a werewolf hunter as a villain. Basically, you've then got a villain that the other PCs have good reason to work with (if they want to do something about the Werewolf murdering people in town) but can also drive the drama forward (say, the Werewolf happens to have a love interest in the group, the werewolf hunter can easily become a wedge in their relationship, or even try to use the love interest against the Werewolf). Menaces Menaces are basically Monsterhearts' version of Fronts. They're a neat package of information to help the MC keep a track of all the potential dangers and villains in the game and to allow them to codify them with actual rules to an extent. A Menace is composed of three parts:
So, we've got the outline "Werewolf pack menacing the town." Our Stakes include stuff like "Will the werewolf hunter be able to stop the pack before they rip the town to shreds? Will Jason [name I just came up with for the Werewolf PC] side with his pack or work against them? Who will Robin [the Mortal love interest of the werewolf hunter] side with?" and so on. Then we go on to making our Threats. Each Threat has a Craving, Offering and a Capacity, describing what they want, what they have to give to their allies, and what they're ultimately capable of. Each of these gives the Threat a custom hard move. The Cravings, and their moves, are as follows:
Going back to the above example, we've got the following threats: Threat: Werewolf Pack Craving: Notoriety (lash out and provoke reaction) Offering: Inclusion (show them what they're missing) [I'm thinking "You could be one of us cool werewolves!" here] Capacity: Sudden Violence (outright kill someone they love) Threat: Werewolf Hunter Craving: Transcendence (enlist others to do unethical bidding) [What I'm imagining here is a religious zealot type of slayer.] Offering: Support (save their skin at a vital moment) Capacity: Calculated Sacrifice (lose an eye to gouge an eye) [So, this guy is more than happy to send those he's allied with to their deaths if it means taking out a few werewolves.] Finally, if you want, you can write a Custom Move for your Threats. These follow the standard formula of Moves in the game. Since we've got a religious zealot werewolf hunter here, he's probably more than happy to offer support to those who also have interests in fighting against werewolves, but this support comes at a price. So, we give him the following custom move: Whenever the Werewolf Hunter offers you support (soldiers, weapons, money, whatever) and you accept, he gains a String on you. Finally, we get to the last chapter! "About loving time!" Chapter Seven Utterly Malleable The last chapter of Monsterhearts is about hacking the game. The first and most important part of this is Shifting the Action. Shifting the Action is about altering the assumptions of the game by making an all new Basic Move. The anatomy of the Basic Moves is pretty simple: When you do [something], roll with [a stat]. On a 10 up, [a good result]. On a 7-9, [a mixed result or hard choice]. The example given is about traveling between dimensions, but that's just one possibility. You could make your game about sports and cheerleading, adding new moves to fit that idea, you could write moves relevant to certain places in the town to accentuate their weirdness, and so on. Modifying Skins is the second least intensive way to modify the game. Say you'd rather have the Mortal be about friendship instead of love (if you're a boring person) you could easily modify the Mortal's moves to refer to their best friend instead of their lover, change a few of the moves a bit, and you've got a different kind of Mortal. If you've got a player who's really into the Werewolf but also likes the Skin-walker angle of needing an animal pelt to transform, hell, steal a few moves from the Selkie (a third party Skin and one of the best I've seen, actually) and you've got a Werewolf type of character whose big dramatic arc is obviously about someone stealing their animal pelt. Changing the MC Toolkit is also pretty straightforward: if you don't like the list of Cravings, add a new one and come up with a hard move related to it! Finally, there's Creating New Skins. The list of things you need to create a new Skin is a bit too exhaustive for me to list here, so yeah. The book finishes with The Long Example, an example of play showing how the game works both on the player and MC side, Mediography, a list of media that inspired Monsterhearts (and yes, Carrie is there, but I'm kind of surprised at the omission of Nine Inch Nails from the music section given that one of the Mortal's Moves is named after a NIN song), and finally, A Perfect Moment, a scene from Jennifer's Body that is too good for me to not post here: A Perfect Moment posted:Let's say you don't have time to watch all the same movies and television shows that I did, but you still want to understand this teen monster genre. So, that's it. I think it goes without saying that I love Monsterhearts. As far as RPGs go it's pretty much in a genre of its own where there's not a lot of competition and it manages to perfectly emulate and encapsulate said genre. However, even if you've no interest in running a game of teenage supernatural sexytimes, it's really worth reading simply from a game design point of view, because it's probably one of the best examples of genre emulation in the RPG scene. Anyway, I'm probably going to be taking a break from writing F&F for a while, but in the meantime I'm open to suggestions about what I should do next. I've got Golden Sky Stories, a game of cute magical anime animals helping people, 3:16: Carnage Among The Stars, a game about badass space marines that kill aliens simply because all non-human life in the universe is a potential threat to Earth's well-being, or I guess I could do Rookvale, another game by Avery McDaldno, this one a hack of the Anima Prime system that could be best described as "grimdark weird fantasy Pokemon".
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# ? Oct 16, 2014 12:17 |
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My vote is for Golden Sky Stories, but take a break! You earned it. Also holy poo poo maybe I should find the time to write up Noir.
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# ? Oct 16, 2014 12:38 |
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Golden Sky Stories deserves the love.
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# ? Oct 16, 2014 12:47 |
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Definitely go for Golden Sky Stories. Sooooo cute By the way, you people are doing great work, it has taken me the better part of the year to catch up but I have finally reached the current page after reading through both the very old and then the follow-up thread only to get here, and I have registered just for the FATAL & Friends. You are giants of reviewing! In the same vein, have any of you heard of DSA, the biggest rpg of Germany? If not, I call Dibs to bring you the messy complexity of the strangest fantasy rpg ever. It has to be. It is german
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# ? Oct 16, 2014 13:26 |
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Another vote for GSS! Edit: DSA? Mainly know it from a brush with Realms of Arkania: Star Trail back in the Nineties, personally. Bieeanshee fucked around with this message at 13:30 on Oct 16, 2014 |
# ? Oct 16, 2014 13:28 |
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Mr.Misfit posted:Definitely go for Golden Sky Stories. Sooooo cute Das Schwarze Auge? I'm aware of the game and know it was even translated into English at some point, but beyond that I don't really know much about it. I know that there have been a number of Dark Eye CRPGs and I recall watching my flatmate playing one of them. Wait, I just Googled it, and apparently there was a series of CRPGs based on the system, titled Realms of Arkania, and one of them (Shadows over Riva) was actually translated into Finnish for some unfathomable reason in the nineties. I remember playing that game as a kid and never really getting it, but some things just stuck to my mind about the game (like the Holberks, elf/orc hybrids who were being fiercely persecuted against because of the imminent orcish attack on the city the game was set in).
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# ? Oct 16, 2014 13:46 |
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ZorajitZorajit posted:Just listened to the Horrortoberfest review of The Rage: Carrie 2. ...Is... Is that just somebody's game of Monsterhearts? Man does that ever work. She spends the whole movie doing dumb poo poo and being horrible because it gains her ennui power or whatever to go all Super Sayainfreude all over the party at the end.
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# ? Oct 16, 2014 15:25 |
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Go for Golden Sky Stories, Ratpick. Give yourself a break from lovely people doing lovely things and tell us about the anime Care Bears RPG.ZorajitZorajit posted:Just listened to the Horrortoberfest review of The Rage: Carrie 2. ...Is... Is that just somebody's game of Monsterhearts? There is actually a third-party Carrie skin. It's called The Fury. But that's a Skins for the Skinless skin, which despite being a very popular third-party collection, kind of range from "wow this is a lot worse than it initially seemed" to "literally unplayable." Trying to explain what's wrong about Skins for the Skinless is kind of a writeup in of itself. There's an official bonus skin in the works for Monsterhearts Second Skins called the Firestarter which is supposed to also do the "angry psychic kid" thing, but we have no idea how long it's going to be before we have access to it at this point.
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# ? Oct 17, 2014 15:12 |
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ZorajitZorajit posted:Just listened to the Horrortoberfest review of The Rage: Carrie 2. ...Is... Is that just somebody's game of Monsterhearts? I remember being part of a character approval staff of a superhero MUSH at a young age and having somebody apply for a character that was obviously just Rachel (down to the insufferable background), only powerful enough to punch a hole in the Earth. There were some changes requested on that character.
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# ? Oct 17, 2014 15:29 |
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Alien Rope Burn posted:I remember being part of a character approval staff of a superhero MUSH at a young age and having somebody apply for a character that was obviously just Rachel (down to the insufferable background), only powerful enough to punch a hole in the Earth. Maybe she was just making Kirby? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lxNNlQYttU
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# ? Oct 17, 2014 16:03 |
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Gazetteer posted:Trying to explain what's wrong about Skins for the Skinless is kind of a writeup in of itself. This is actually a fairly common subject of post-game discussion among my skype MH group - one player has tried the Gargoyle and the Calaca, and the Beast and Fury have also been used in one-shots, and the most common complaints are: 1) Some moves are just too good - the Mummy being the worst offender, having the incredibly powerful Royal Decree and the almost-as-bad Cursed Idols. 2) Some moves should have been part of the "base" - has anyone ever tried to play a Gargoyle without Babewyn? 3) The moves are so tied into a "script" for the skin to play that they can't be poached. (Don't have the Beast's base move? Every single other Beast move depends on interactions with it) They all look really cool out of play, because just reading through the move lists, there's some very cool mechanical interactions there - the same kind of stuff from the Base Skins that got me really interested in MH in the first place. But they seem to fall apart when actually put into real-game conditions. The exception to this is the Minotaur, which everyone, myself included, just adores.
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# ? Oct 17, 2014 16:16 |
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# ? Dec 11, 2024 23:30 |
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Jolinaxas posted:3) The moves are so tied into a "script" for the skin to play that they can't be poached. (Don't have the Beast's base move? Every single other Beast move depends on interactions with it.
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# ? Oct 17, 2014 16:41 |