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Mmm, rat. Onna stick.
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Jun 11, 2015 17:57
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Bieeardo posted:Mmm, rat. Onna stick. The saddest thing for me is my Raptoran bird-man in an old D&D game never actually found the rat onna stick vendor. It was a campaign-long personal sidequest in between saving the world, this wizard school dropout archer bird trying and failing to find this fabled food cart in the main city. I mean, he was part falcon. He had to love rats. Spiced rat on a stick would've been the best thing. Also, those dwarves are cute as hell.
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Jun 11, 2015 18:00
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Dwarf women and their facial hair status is ultimately best left to personal preference and not enforced on people.
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Jun 11, 2015 18:01
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I have to say, reading Heinsoo's comments on race development goes a long way to explain why 13th Age's default setting is still sort of depressingly played straight on the whole 'racially evil' thing that plagues fantasy, though. Actually, has anyone reviewed 13th Age? It's not enormously obscure, I think, but I could do that.
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Jun 11, 2015 18:03
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BTW, was "Drow as a player race" ever discussed in the creation of 4th edition? It seems that given how popular they are that they'd just go ahead and make them a PC player race, along with just as supposedly evil tieflings.
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Jun 11, 2015 18:13
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One thing I appreciated about the Eladrin is that it separated the two Elven archtypes inherited from LotR rather than having both in the same package. Sort of a late apology for "The Complete Book of Elves".
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Jun 11, 2015 18:55
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Young Freud posted:BTW, was "Drow as a player race" ever discussed in the creation of 4th edition? It seems that given how popular they are that they'd just go ahead and make them a PC player race, along with just as supposedly evil tieflings. Yes, the preview I'm reading discusses them a little.
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Jun 11, 2015 18:58
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Bieeardo posted:Not a hill I'm willing to die on, but 'dwarven women have (shorter) beards' is one of the things that's always stuck with me from the Basic Set. I always thought it was neat: halflings have hairy feet, dwarves have hairy faces, just another way they veer off from the human defaults. I would say the only reason I never liked it was because it's a pretty nasty thing to deal with if your table is kids learning to play D&D and they lack emotional maturity. Bearded women was basically saying "We put these trans punchlines in your game, go nuts everybody" at my childhood table. Lord forbid you actually wanted to play a dwarf woman, basically.
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Jun 11, 2015 19:08
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Compacts and Conspiracies Null Mysteriis are hobbyists. They're academics, paid often quite well to do work entirely unrelated to their hunting. They often at least start fless attached to the Vigil - they may grow to obsession, sure, may let it ruin their day jobs, but most ease into it. Of course, even as a hobby, monster science is dangerous and expensive. Over time, most of them do get obsessed, chasing after dragons. Each answered question opens ten more. Once you begin to look, all sorts of problems start. Unlike most hobbyists, however, Null Mysteriis is exceptionally organized and built around their organization. You usually get in by running into something weird, try to expose it to others, try to prove it was real. Or maybe you quite your job, your certainty in science shaken. These red flags draw the compact's attention, and they try to intervene, if the person involves seems like they could bring something to the table. Nit, mind you, that it's about exposing the supernatural. They know that's pointless and just spooks people and clouds the minds of the all too many who are less rational than they are. They need evideence first. And, really, it's quite competitive. So many committees and ranks and bickering over status and elections, so many journals to apply to and fill...and the data gathering, well, often it isn't new. Often it's just the same stuff that keeps getting found over and over. Oh, and of course there's the thousand-a-year dues. Many of the members of Null Mysteriis are entirely rational, but in recent years there's been a bloom of psuedoscientific research among them. It's easy to see how. Scientists want rational explanations and rigorous testing, but not all of the horrors they run into can be explained rationally. The truly diligent accept that this is not a failure, that the explanation is there, deeper. Others are less diligent. Their minds become damaged by their experiences, and it's a lot easier to find answers if you loosen your standards...so they do. Eventually, they give way to psuedoscience. It's a slippery slope from there, and it's causing schisms in the compact. The current, rationalist General Secretary Alexander Watt has been winning elections for years, but each year by less of a margin, while the provost and treasurer, Vincent Fielding, is leading the psuedoscientific group that is growing. A third contender, IRanian-American Mahasti Jalili, has a guru-like standing, with few but zealous adherenets who advocate outright quakcery, mixing science and miracles into something she calls 'Spiritual Science.' The Rationalists get Science (Experimentation). They are academics who believe that the supernatural is really just the undiscovered natural. To many outsiders, it's a lot of borign work, mostly seen through a microscope...but to them, it's exciting - every clue and detail are answers to a mystery. Sure, most of them don't really know how to use weapons very well, but they're still doing their work. They know that the compact is under siege by people they see as crazy, and they want to get rid of them, leave them to some other group to deal with. A darker trend among the higher-ups, including Alexander Watt, are contemplating getting rid of the competing leaders by force. The Open Minds get Expression (Argument). They range from psuedoscience like Kirlian photography or Zener cards to quackery like hollow earth theory and theosophy. They don't want to close the door on anything, because they're too afraid that strictly rigorous standards damage their progress. They lump their beliefs with the monsters - if vampires are real, who says psuedoscience can't become science? Among them, secretly, is Jim Taylor, though he goes by the Contactee. He's in his mid-50s, an ex-researcher for pharmaceutical companies, but lately, he believes he's been inhabited by another consciousness, an underworld-spirit known as the Taker of Children. He claims it came to him when he fell through a frozen lake and nearly died of hypothermia. He believes it is an ancient spirit, able to answer many questions. Mahasti Jalili is keeping him hidden in secret, interrogating him and the spirit. She thinks the Rationalists want him dead. (They don't; they want her dead.) The Cataclysmicists get Investigation (Paranormal). They're what you get when scientists fear the world is ending, noting all the critical systems that are subject to cascade failures. More and more, the world is bound up in those, so more and more of the world is in danger when one big failure comes. The rise of the paranormal is a warning sign. Sure, some of them believe the 2012 end of the world thing or Nostradamus, but most of them are actual scientists who just think it's all going to break down, unheralded by any angels. The secret? The Human Preservation Project has entered full swing. It's an unforuntate alliance with some other end-of-the-world types, even strictly religious ones, to fund underground shelters to protect humanity from the end of days. There are seven of these shelters now, built in mountain ranges around the world.  Science: not always wrong. Or right. The endowment is I'm Doing Science. It's less social and more built on your approach and equipment. Basically, it assumes you have access to certain tools and approaches and know how to use them in the hunt - pH strips, microscopes, maybe PKE meters or Kirlian cameras. At the start of any hunt-related scene, you roll some dice representing five minutes or so of examination. Successes are spent to track monsters that left behind evidence, or to learn critical details on the monster that could discerned by scientific examination, or to gain a bonus to attacking a monster once, finding some trace of weakness that could be taken advantage of - a bad leg, maybe, or proof that magic is born from the palm and fingers.  Yeah, it works because it works. The bonus matyerial is just examples of what scientific evidence of monsters might look like. Changeling cells may have their DNA replaced by those of plants or animals, or stranger material yet, like stone or water. Reanimated flesh comes to life briefly when electricity is run through it - or not so briefly. If it's bigger than a fist, it might grow legs and a mouth and try to eat people. Vampire blood can be tested to identify the victims the vampire has fed on. Next time: The Union
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Jun 11, 2015 19:28
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Null Mysteriis just feels like a great concept (academics trying to study and understand the WoD) done really cringingly badly as a pack of Hollywood Rationalists and psuedoscientists.
Night10194 fucked around with this message at 19:43 on Jun 11, 2015 |
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Jun 11, 2015 19:40
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The thing that strikes me as most depressing in that Wizards Presents talking about choosing the player races for 4E is that they axed playable talking animals because they thought too many people would consider it a "bad joke." The sadder part is they're probably right, which is why we can't have nice things. God forbid D&D get too wacky or something.
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Jun 11, 2015 19:46
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Kai Tave posted:The thing that strikes me as most depressing in that Wizards Presents talking about choosing the player races for 4E is that they axed playable talking animals because they thought too many people would consider it a "bad joke." The sadder part is they're probably right, which is why we can't have nice things. God forbid D&D get too wacky or something.
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Jun 11, 2015 19:48
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FMguru posted:Pretending to be a dwarf is Serious. loving. Business. What is that, a not-scottish accent? You some kinda non-union dwarf scab? Get outta here with that! Come back with three axes and a keg of ale goddamnit.
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Jun 11, 2015 19:50
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Kai Tave posted:The thing that strikes me as most depressing in that Wizards Presents talking about choosing the player races for 4E is that they axed playable talking animals because they thought too many people would consider it a "bad joke." The sadder part is they're probably right, which is why we can't have nice things. God forbid D&D get too wacky or something. c.f. people flipping their poo poo because of tieflings and dragonborn becoming core races. God forfend we have fantastical elements in our fantasy game.
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Jun 11, 2015 19:57
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Evil Mastermind posted:c.f. people flipping their poo poo because of tieflings and dragonborn becoming core races. God forfend we have fantastical elements in our fantasy game. God dammit you will be a human, a pointy eared human, or some variety of short human as god and Tolkien intended. Seriously though the 13th Age bard with "Former Bird" as a background is one of the best things.
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Jun 11, 2015 20:11
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Mors Rattus posted:Next time: The Union I'm looking forward to hearing about them in more depth. The Union is the only group I can think of that's been presented as unambiguously being in the right at all times, which is really unusual for Hunter. It's not clear to me how I would use the group in an antagonistic role or suggest they don't have it all right, and I count that as a negative. Maybe the focus on "keeping my neighborhood safe" could lead to issues with other compacts when the local werewolf pack they've reached an agreement with kills someone across town and they don't care because their problems stop at 12th Street, buddy.
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Jun 11, 2015 20:13
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Or you can focus on the Politicals faction, who "hate anyone that exploits people", which I suspect would cause friction with Ashwood Abbey. Or the fact that they don't believe in OPSEC, but that's not really antagonistic.
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Jun 11, 2015 20:31
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Is I'M DOING SCIENCE basically "CSI: Labwork Montage" in splat power form? Cause I really can't hate that.
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Jun 11, 2015 20:50
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Yes.
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Jun 11, 2015 20:51
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Kai Tave posted:The thing that strikes me as most depressing in that Wizards Presents talking about choosing the player races for 4E is that they axed playable talking animals because they thought too many people would consider it a "bad joke." The sadder part is they're probably right, which is why we can't have nice things. God forbid D&D get too wacky or something. The really depressing part is that by the time they added kinda-sorta-vaguely animal-people with the Hengeyokai, the "maybe we should make things roughly balanced" viewpoint was in Mearls' wastebin and they just suck mechanically. ----- So, I've read and (tried to) run Unknown Armies in the past, but that was before System Mastery. Now I look at write-up and instantly come up with a "villain" (quotes because half my players would agree with him): Jeff the Mechanomancer, a new-generation adept who unleashes his murderous constructs to kill anyone wearing lovely victorian clothes with pointless cogs on it, because "there's nothing punk about what you're doing!" Apologies to theironjef. (Double apologies if I'm getting confused and John is the one who hates steampunk more)
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Jun 11, 2015 21:06
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Pieces of Peace posted:The really depressing part is that by the time they added kinda-sorta-vaguely animal-people with the Hengeyokai, the "maybe we should make things roughly balanced" viewpoint was in Mearls' wastebin and they just suck mechanically. Well, the main thing about races is the feat support they bring, and Hengeyokai have none. On top of the fact that they are yet another Dex/Cha race to go along with the other 13. Where as if you needed a Str/Cha race before Heroes of Shadow came out, the only option you had was Dragonborn. And there are a bunch of Dex/Con races and only one and a half classes that actually use that pairing. Basically DTAS, or use something like "Class brings one stat, race brings another, different one."
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Jun 11, 2015 21:25
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There are several things wrong with 4e, but maybe the biggest was that they had a great platform to new content for roles that needed filling, and fixes for stuff that was underpowered. And without too much difficulty, either! If a class or subclass is underpowered, you add good feats and powers, problem solved. Instead they tried their damndest to clog the character builder with even more useless bullshit options than 3e had.
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Jun 11, 2015 21:29
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Pieces of Peace posted:Apologies to theironjef. (Double apologies if I'm getting confused and John is the one who hates steampunk more) We both do. It's terrible. Jef probably has more hate in his black heart, though.
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Jun 11, 2015 21:30
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Kurieg posted:"Class brings one stat, race brings another, different one." Exactly the thing 13th Age does. Race and class both give you +2 to a choice of two stats, but you can't double up if there's overlap.
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Jun 11, 2015 21:35
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God, it's just so true that every time you take a look at Unknown Armies you start seeing everything in that vein. RPGPundit is fighting Frank Trollman for the viewpoint of The Grognard: is it entitled swine players or magic tea party DMs that are the true evil? Meanwhile LogicNinja prevented the invention of the Simulationomancer school (the central paradox is that you're using a finite system, which you insist perfectly maps to the infinitely more complex reality) by destroying their math, for his own insidious purpose. And there is a last secret truth not known to anyone but a lone Touhou-avatared professor: we are all Red_Mage. I think i need to put the book or the forums down for a while.
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Jun 11, 2015 21:43
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Pieces of Peace posted:God, it's just so true that every time you take a look at Unknown Armies you start seeing everything in that vein Isn't that because the point of Unknown Armies is that it adds wizard poo poo to stuff that basically actually happens all the time in the modern world to put it in sharper focus, while having a strong emphasis on the fact that wizards are so crazy they kind of balance themselves out off in their own little fringe underground? It seems like it's a genuine attempt at an Urban Fantasy setting that would realistically still resemble our world.
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Jun 11, 2015 21:46
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Speaking of which, is there like a Matrixmancer adept that, like, believes the world is a computer simulation and that therefore whoever can see/controls the Code can control reality, because reality is the code?
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Jun 11, 2015 21:46
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Pieces of Peace posted:God, it's just so true that every time you take a look at Unknown Armies you start seeing everything in that vein. Unknown Armies is one of those games that makes me come up with bad guys I'm not sure I'd trust myself to actually use in a game.
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Jun 11, 2015 21:47
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Given the importance of historically significant <item type>, I wonder if Museum Security in UA is a little more hardcore. Or if museums are Adept warzones.
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Jun 11, 2015 21:52
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Pieces of Peace posted:I think i need to put the book or the forums down for a while. Wow, there's a few forum legends I haven't thought about in a while. Ceterum autem censeo Trollman esse delendum.
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Jun 11, 2015 21:52
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Hyper Crab Tank posted:Speaking of which, is there like a Matrixmancer adept that, like, believes the world is a computer simulation and that therefore whoever can see/controls the Code can control reality, because reality is the code? There's the Infomancer from one of the supplements, who are a computer/hacking based school deeply rooted in 1998. I remember them having some Matrix stuff going on.
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Jun 11, 2015 21:53
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Hyper Crab Tank posted:Speaking of which, is there like a Matrixmancer adept that, like, believes the world is a computer simulation and that therefore whoever can see/controls the Code can control reality, because reality is the code? The closest would the the Infomancy, which certainly has a "hacker" appeal to it, but is ultimately about screwing around with the media in general... ...of course the infomancer could certainly believe that they are "reality hackers" and their actions help to disrupt the control of the Agents/Users/whatever The infomancer is in the Postmodern Magick sourcebook, which I may cover after I finish with the main one.
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Jun 11, 2015 22:01
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Compacts and Conspiracies The Union are, essentially, tier 1 hunters with tier 2 organization. They're quite a young group, and have a philosophy essentially identical to most basic cells: there's bad poo poo going down on your patch, and you need to keep it safe. They care about their neighborhoods, their friends and little else. They don't want to control or destroy all monsters - just the ones threatening them. Recruitment's pretty simple. Occasionally you might have to prove your dedication, but even that's uncommon. Ultimately, you're just a guy in trouble, a mother overwhelmed by something you don't understand. And someone you know - a friend, a local veteran maybe, a neighbor - tells you that someone can help. You get a user name and a password. See, the thing is, people know. They know the world is a dark place, where strange things happen. They suspect monsters are real. But it's easier to pretend everything is normal. They're scared and alone. But that forced ignorance changes when the Union is around. It's not that everyone becomes Hunters - they don't. But maybe a Union hunter ends up on a doorstep, bloody and ragged. Sometimes, that door will open, and someone will toss a handgun out before ducking back inside. People know that weird things happen, and when the Union's around, they know who to call when they have a special problem. Mind you, that doesn't always mean monsters - the Union don't limit themselves. Pedophiles, drug dealers, mobsters, serial killers - they're all open to hunt. Not every cell, mind - hunting humans takes more than monsters. But it happens, and it happens a lot. Of course, that can get out of hand pretty quickly. The forum address, by the way? Collective-bargaining.org. You get a logon and a password. Password changes weekly. It's not very secure, but there are a few safeguards. No real names, ever. All code name plus a number. Lower the number, earlier you joined, so it's an easy way to tell how new someone is. Second, you never discuss exact locations. Not on the board. Go to email for that. You might mention a geographic region ('the northeast') or even a really big city, like NYC, but never more than that. Third, all posts are moderated. They don't go live until the mods at least verify the post's probably not a monster or a spammer. The mods are always one of six cells, one of which is Holly Ramirez's. They rotate regularly. If, after all of that, the monsters end up on the site...well, so be it. They won't see anything incriminating, really. And if they do anything to stand out, it might draw hunters down on them. The site can sometimes be bait. The Union also helps its members with more than hunting. They may talk to banks about mortgages. (Or 'talk' to banks about mortgages.) They take up collections, help avoid foreclosure. They send food to members that need it, find places to stay. They look out for each other. Cell phone replacement, doctors that don't ask questions. You pay it forward, though. Someone else needs help, you're the one that helps them. If you get helped, doubly so. You better be always ready to have guests at any time, to put some money in the tin, or maybe go break a guy's finger to let a hunter keep their house. It's usually just a local thing, but if the compact's doing really well, they may send money cross-country, or even come visiting to help out - even if it's just to repair a leaky roof. And, of course, they help hunt. Union resources are pooled, not dedicated to individual hunters. If you have ten bullets and someone else has none? Better give up five bullets. Some Union cells work to 'liberate' resources from monsters to help with that.  Not that they're all blue collar. Home Firsters get Streetwise (Names and Faces). They're a solid majority of the Union, and all they care about is taking care of their patch. It's not about killing monsters - it's making sure they get out of town. Same with drug dealers, sex offenders and...well, anybody they don't really like. They've actually turned this into a working grassroots campaign outside the Vigil, with the basic idea that taking care of your neighborhood will take care of the world. Secretly? Well, it doesn't always work well. It's not that far for them to go into xenophobia and moral crusading. Sometimes, they just end up another group of thugs and gangsters. The General Strike get Politics (Campaigning). They're more proactive. Yeah, they claim territory, but it's usually not physical - it's abstract. Abused women, healthcare, local politics. They go out and protect those domains from monstrous corruption. Sometimes that's infiltration or grassroots campaigns. Sometimes it's vigilantism and assassination and sabotage. They've got a secret plan - the New Year's Revolution. It's ready. See, they've put themselves near a bunch of monsters infiltrating the upper echelons of society, along with humans that are slaves to monsters. Next year, New Year's Eve? Those people are getting assassinated. Especially the monsters. No one'll be able to cover it all up. It'll send a clear message against monstrous corruption...as long as they don't find out about it before it goes off.  Know your rep. The Politicals get Persuasion (Recruiment). They're not really that political, mind. They're the lunatic fringe. They believe the world is under siege by oppressors - and they see it everywhere. Everything is a conspiracy to keep people fat, dumb and ignorant. The Politicals want war. Tear it all down - every corrupt system, every company, every government. Rise up. Everyone in power is equivalent to Hitler or Stalin. Secretly? Well, they have small militia compounds across the country. When the time comes, they will be ready for war. The Union endowment is Your Friends and Neighbors. Their weapons aren't guns or bats. They're people. Each session, you get one benefit from the following. You can get a temporary Safehouse worth (Your Friends and Neighbors dots) dots, divided as you like. Maybe it's a neighbors house or shut down business. You can get a bonus to social rolls with any one local resident, as long as you're willing to help them out somehow afterwards (or face an equivalent penalty with them). You can turn those dots into Allies dots from some aspect of local life. Or you can use them as a bonus to any Drive rolls made in the neighborhood, because you know it so well. The extra content for them is basically 'make a neighborhood map, use the stuff from Block by Bloody Block.' Focus on the local area. Next time: The Aegis Kai Doru in Three Parts
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Jun 11, 2015 22:15
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The Union are kind of how I imagined Hunter when I first saw the Reckoning and before I realized it was about magic wizard angel Exalted giving people powers that don't help much. I had assumed it was a game about terrified normal people banding together to be less terrified, which is pretty much what's going on here. I think the ambiguity in the Union is that they're amateurs. They'll solve a couple problems, maybe, but even the General Strike aren't really getting at the roots of any of the problems. They're more of a general reaction to the existence of the World of Darkness than a possible solution.
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Jun 11, 2015 22:20
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One thing I love about the Union is that they make it clear that the Masquerades and Veils supernaturals put up don't hide the existence of monsters from people - they just make them too much effort to think about, so that most people push the weird things they saw out of mind. When someone's in your neighbourhood pushing back word gets out and people start fighting. It's a much more plausible than oWoD's 'everything is covered up from the norms' idea.
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Jun 11, 2015 22:26
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Flavivirus posted:One thing I love about the Union is that they make it clear that the Masquerades and Veils supernaturals put up don't hide the existence of monsters from people - they just make them too much effort to think about, so that most people push the weird things they saw out of mind. When someone's in your neighbourhood pushing back word gets out and people start fighting. It's a much more plausible than oWoD's 'everything is covered up from the norms' idea. Like I said, the thing I'm taking away from Hunter and that I'm really liking about it is, you're both the reason the creatures need to hide (because if they make too much trouble, yes the government, the church, and the man on the street are all going to gun for them) and the reason they can't. You're playing as the consequences of their actions, which also makes their game better for them, because it gives their actions more heft to have badass conspiracies and brave normal people alike opposing them. A character is only as interesting as their antagonists, often, and the Hunters both have and make good antagonists.
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Jun 11, 2015 22:29
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Grnegsnspm posted:We both do. It's terrible. Jef probably has more hate in his black heart, though. Really it's just because I like more steampunk stuff from before it became Diet Goth than Jon does, so seeing all those morons with their deconstructed Ghostbuster backpacks covered in coils and sprockets hurts me more.
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Jun 11, 2015 23:26
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The only cool steampunk I can think of recently is Through the Breach (and by extension Malifaux) because it keeps in mind that the wealthy and powerful imperialists are the bad guys.
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Jun 11, 2015 23:27
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Mors Rattus posted:The only cool steampunk I can think of recently is Through the Breach (and by extension Malifaux) because it keeps in mind that the wealthy and powerful imperialists are the bad guys. Airship Pirates does this too; the default is that you're rebels against a repressive neo-Victorian regime. The fact that this regime is explicitly the result of a Steampunk band (the creators/sponsors of the RPG, Abney Park) getting a time machine and using it while drunk in an effort to make Steampunk a dominant mainstream fashion trend is honestly kind of the best part, since it at least means they're self-aware about the whole thing.
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Jun 11, 2015 23:42
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Mors Rattus posted:The only cool steampunk I can think of recently is Through the Breach (and by extension Malifaux) because it keeps in mind that the wealthy and powerful imperialists are the bad guys. Yeah, I actually kinda like the Malifaux aesthetic. Been thinking about getting some and painting them, right after I finish thinking about getting a job.
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Jun 11, 2015 23:42
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