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Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

I mean the game gets some slack for being, I think, the first RPG that FFG ever tried to make.

One really legit good idea it had was flashbacks. You'd be wandering around Wizard poo poo Coming Back London and find something weird and suddenly find your mind hurled back and play a mega-badass dragon in the mythic past as you do a short 'Oh yeah that's that thing I hid for 10,000 years and why' story and kick rear end at your absolute full power, then snap back to the future and be like 'Oh yeah, that was my old wizarding sword. We gotta go ram this into something to close a portal.'

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unseenlibrarian
Jun 4, 2012

There's only one thing in the mountains that leaves a track like this. The creature of legend that roams the Timberline. My people named him Sasquatch. You call him... Bigfoot.
My general impression of Fireborn is that they -really- wanted to be Highlander except you're a dragon. The fighting stuff, the flashbacks...it's probably a better Highlander game that Legacy: War of Ages, at least.

(One of the various WOD fansplats is a better Highlander game than Legacy: War of Ages.)

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003

La morte non ha sesso

Kai Tave posted:

Fireborn had a neat but fiddly system where you had four "stat pools" for your attributes/skills and you could shift dice from one to another to boost one at the cost of temporarily being weaker in another, so you could put some mental focus dice into your physical pools to give you a combat buff but it meant you were temporarily vulnerable to being blindsided.
I'm seeing shades of Immortal here... :ohdear:

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

Fireborn was a great concept kneecapped by a poorly explained middling system. The whole idea of playing a character that was a superpowered badass in Suddenly Magic Modern London and a huge-rear end dragon dragoning around the landscape of our forgotten generic fantasy past is pretty awesome.

MadScientistWorking
Jun 23, 2010

"I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

Night10194 posted:

I mean the game gets some slack for being, I think, the first RPG that FFG ever tried to make.
Its not their first and having played their first game it seems like its a step backwards. Admittedly, Blue Planet 2nd edition was pretty threadbare mechanically at least the system doesn't get in the way

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

MadScientistWorking posted:

Its not their first and having played their first game it seems like its a step backwards. Admittedly, Blue Planet 2nd edition was pretty threadbare mechanically at least the system doesn't get in the way

I should cover Blue Planet 2ed sometime. It's a genuinely interesting game, and the mechanics are definitely early 2000s vintage, but not total crap. I did generate a character for for the 'Make Character for a System' thread (archives needed) http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3609987&userid=135246#post426295653

theironjef
Aug 11, 2009

The archmage of unexpected stinks.

Everything said so far is basically 100% on point with what we thought. When I first saw that transferable die pool system I was thinking this is neat and probably going to be a good time. I could see myself buying little stacks of elementally-colored D6s, keeping them out in a little square... but then the book sort of descends into a pool of overthinking and gimmickry. There's more misses than hits and there's so many little loopholes and caveats and things that are buried in a badly sprawling layout. The concept is pretty solid.

fool of sound
Oct 10, 2012

theironjef posted:

a pool of overthinking and gimmickry

That's a pretty solid summation of basically every problem in an FFG rpg.

Cooked Auto
Aug 4, 2007

If you will not serve in combat, you will serve on the firing line!




So when are you going to start make "Why aren't you in London" shirts? Lost opportunity otherwise.

Hyper Crab Tank
Feb 10, 2014

The 16-bit retro-future of crustacean-based transportation
Put a silhouette of a dragon perched on top of Big Ben on there. Would be perfect.

Seriously, this game sounds pretty badass except for all the cruft and weirdness around the edges that sound like they make the thing unpalatable to actually play. I'm sure you could clean it up into something workable, even.

Count Chocula
Dec 25, 2011

WE HAVE TO CONTROL OUR ENVIRONMENT
IF YOU SEE ME POSTING OUTSIDE OF THE AUSPOL THREAD PLEASE TELL ME THAT I'M MISSED AND TO START POSTING AGAIN
It sounds like the whole thing could just be a Feng Shui splatbook.

Doresh
Jan 7, 2015

theironjef posted:



It's really great to see you guys geeking out over the awesome output of Fantasy Flight Games. We want to get in on that over here at System Mastery. So we covered Fireborn, the game where you play as otherkin dragons except you're right and you really are a dragon on the inside.



Man, I find it hard to imagine FFG ever made something that is not a licensed game o_O

And Fireborn totally needed a Fictionkin splat. Become the reincarnation of the mighty alien warrior who lived on in humanity's racial memory and would eventually surface back into public conscience as Son Goku.

Hyper Crab Tank posted:

Put a silhouette of a dragon perched on top of Big Ben on there. Would be perfect.

That dragon better wear a top or bowler hat.

Grnegsnspm
Oct 20, 2003

This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarian 2: Electric Boogaloo

Hyper Crab Tank posted:

Seriously, this game sounds pretty badass except for all the cruft and weirdness around the edges that sound like they make the thing unpalatable to actually play. I'm sure you could clean it up into something workable, even.

Yeah. I had much the same reaction to this as I did to Scion when I first read it. On the surface it seems like this great idea. Both of them play with the blending of myth and modern day while also being about turning into what amounts to a super hero. You have an endgame that is "Become your own God" for Scion and "Being a motherfucking dragon" for Fireborn. All of it makes me want to like Fireborn so much and yet the game constantly get in the way with overly intricate rules, poor editing, and a strange level of vagueness that makes it so you have to buy multiple books to even start play. I know that D&D gets away with that poo poo every edition but they are the big boys on the block and can bully nerds into buying 3 books just to play their game. A company's sophomore RPG attempt with an original, unknown IP does not have the luxury of forcing people to buy 2 books because they couldn't be arsed to include a bestiary and a "What's really going on" sidebar in the main book.

theironjef
Aug 11, 2009

The archmage of unexpected stinks.

Doresh posted:

Man, I find it hard to imagine FFG ever made something that is not a licensed game o_O

And Fireborn totally needed a Fictionkin splat. Become the reincarnation of the mighty alien warrior who lived on in humanity's racial memory and would eventually surface back into public conscience as Son Goku.

They already recast a West African non-dragon god as a dragon, I figure they'd just say that your sire is the legendary monkey dragon Son Wukong and call it a day. After all, having a soul that isn't a dragon wouldn't be cool. I'm sure this was made during one of those long periods where cartoon weren't cool. Making this game now would be impossible without also including that your soul might be that of a mythic pony.

That being said, one of the weird things about the way this book was written was that it kept saying stuff like "Out of all the characters you can play in Fireborn, the Scion has the highest Karma levels" or whatever. There weren't rules for creating anything but scions and their past selves, so I assume that's just yet more White Wolfery, and they had plans to introduce splats with other sorts of denizens of magic London you could play as.

theironjef fucked around with this message at 20:55 on Sep 30, 2015

Hyper Crab Tank
Feb 10, 2014

The 16-bit retro-future of crustacean-based transportation
Does the book come with a introductory module or something, at least? It strikes me that I'm not really sure what you do with your newfound dragon powers. Do you go out and have turf wars with other dragons? I can't imagine plugging the hole would be very high on your list of priorities since you'd go back to being a boring old raver or something then.

NGDBSS
Dec 30, 2009






Doresh posted:

Man, I find it hard to imagine FFG ever made something that is not a licensed game o_O
They also made a Twilight Imperium RPG back in the 90's, back when the first edition of the board game was current. (The third and current edition of the board game came out in 2005, for reference.) Since then the game has aged incredibly poorly.

NGDBSS fucked around with this message at 21:22 on Sep 30, 2015

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Hyper Crab Tank posted:

Does the book come with a introductory module or something, at least? It strikes me that I'm not really sure what you do with your newfound dragon powers. Do you go out and have turf wars with other dragons? I can't imagine plugging the hole would be very high on your list of priorities since you'd go back to being a boring old raver or something then.

When I played we stabbed weird shadow beasts made of corrupted tar in an abandoned water treatment plant.

We only got through like 2-3 sessions before we all just went 'Man these rules don't work well', though.

theironjef
Aug 11, 2009

The archmage of unexpected stinks.

Hyper Crab Tank posted:

Does the book come with a introductory module or something, at least? It strikes me that I'm not really sure what you do with your newfound dragon powers. Do you go out and have turf wars with other dragons? I can't imagine plugging the hole would be very high on your list of priorities since you'd go back to being a boring old raver or something then.

Maybe in the DM book? We have it, we just didn't cover it. In the player's guide, there is nothing like that. There's examples of combat, and the listed villains are generally either small-fry mythical monsters (harpies and stuff), one against a human that hates dragons (order of St. George), and in the one mythic example, a "Tanthem Guard" or something, apparently big enough to chase a dragon around.

Grnegsnspm
Oct 20, 2003

This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarian 2: Electric Boogaloo

Hyper Crab Tank posted:

Does the book come with a introductory module or something, at least? It strikes me that I'm not really sure what you do with your newfound dragon powers. Do you go out and have turf wars with other dragons? I can't imagine plugging the hole would be very high on your list of priorities since you'd go back to being a boring old raver or something then.

The DM book comes with your standard bestiary, a bunch of magic and mundane factions that exist in London, and a bunch of things like maps and places of interest. As far as actual adventures go, there is a page and a half that includes 9 adventure hook ideas that are things like "Maybe someone from Faction X broke into a museum and stole an item with a bunch of karma" and "A biology teacher summons a creature so he can study it's physiology but that was incredibly stupid and it murders him". Ultimately you are supposed to be fighting against Those Who Dwell Bellow and their attempt to corrupt the world but you would never know that unless you also had the DM book.

Gazetteer
Nov 22, 2011

"You're talking to cats."
"And you eat ghosts, so shut the fuck up."


So, my last post in this series was the better part of a year ago. I kind of burnt myself out on negativity and just… couldn’t bring myself to keep going after my last post, which was about The Proxy -- just rereading it, I can see how frustrated I was with the whole thing. And so, the write up might have stayed unfinished forever, until, while searching for an up-to-date Skins for the Skinless PDF for unrelated reasons the other night, I made the following discovery:



Skins for the Skinless: A Collection of New Monsterhearts Skins, by Topher Gerkey, is now up for sale on DriveThru RPG for like, Actual Money. It’s pay what you want, and I’m aware that there are far worse products up for sale on DriveThru, but still! I suddenly feel newly compelled to at least complete this loving thing, because this isn’t even just some completely free fanwork he’s posting on Google Plus and his public Patreon posts anymore, it is more or less being published and sold on the largest platform for buying RPG ebooks on the English speaking Internet. I’ve only got two skins to go here, so… I’m going to try and power on through and finish them up, while we’re still using the same thread.

If you weren’t reading at the time, and have no idea what I’m talking about : Skins for the Skinless is a popular collection of third party Monsterhearts skins of questionable quality. My review of them starts here, with this introduction post.



The Unchained

The Unchained is a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde skin. You are a repressed, angsty teenager who always does what they’re supposed to, but your life feels constraining and viscerally wrong to you. All you can think about is doing things that you really want to do, but can’t, because they will ruin your life and make everyone hate you. But oh hey you’ve discovered a magical way to transform into another person, who can do all the poo poo you wish you could, without hurting your reputation or exposing you to all those terrible consequences.

So, I initially took this to be a bipolar disorder skin, because it uses language like “dysphoria/euphoria”, but to be fair, that’s not really what’s going on here. It’s not even a metaphor for Hollywood style “split personality.” But, with the multiple uses of the word “dysphoria”, and the fact that your alter ego can be a completely different person, and the explicit worries about sacrificing your own comfort and wellbeing in order to not destroy your relationship with family and friends, it starts to sound like…something else which I would personally am not super comfortable making into a Jekyll and Hyde analogy. Topher, fortunately, has at least noticed what I’m talking about, and pays some lip service to it:

The Unchained posted:

Your Other Self can be as different from your Normal Self as you like, from minor changes like hair style and color to bigger shifts like changing your height or ethnicity, to major alterations like changing your sex (the Unchained lends itself to an exploration of trans issues, but BE CAREFUL - don’t fall into the hazard of conflating trans-ness itself with monstrosity).

This is good advice in general! You should BE CAREFUL. My main problem is that it feels like -- accidentally or not -- that’s already what this skin is doing. It goes on at some length about how your “Normal Self” makes you feel awful and dysphoric, but then trying to address that dysphoria is treated as bad because it means you’re hurting people. It’s bad to be “normal”, because you’re miserable. But it’s bad to be your “other” self, because it means you’re making everyone else miserable. The Unchained is subverting the source material enough to cast Jekyll part of your identity as being less than healthy, but not enough to give the Hyde part any redeeming qualities, or hint at a viable compromise beyond the two extremes. If this is being used to explore trans themes, then all you’re doing is depicting the very act of transitioning as being something selfish and wrong.

Mechanically, you don’t get nearly enough to do when you’re not transformed, and there’s only one regular skin moves and like, half of the sex move that even begins to take advantage of switching in and out of your alter-ego. In fact, there is not a hugely compelling mechanical reason for why you’d want to spend any great length of time as your “Normal Self” at all. This is a shame, because your stats shifting up and down is actually an interesting concept, but not much is done with it here. It’s not as bad as the Gargoyle literally not being able to do anything unless they take a certain move, but it’s still not ideal. Overall, this is probably one of the more playable skins in this collection, though, if you’re careful enough about the gender identity subtext, but I feel like most of what it’s dealing with can be handled better by The Cuckoo from Second Skins -- there, you’re turning into other characters, so there’s a lot more potential to stir poo poo up, and it’s mechanically a lot more sophisticated. I’ll get into that more when I cover the moves.

So, like I alluded to, this skin does some unorthodox stuff with its stat spread. It only has the four base stats, without throwing in something different like the Angel or the Unicorn does, but its stats change around depending on what form you’re in. When you’re in your normal form, your good stats are Cold and Dark at +1, with Hot and Volatile at -1. As part of your transformation, your Cold and Dark stats go down by two, and your Hot and Volatile stats go up by 2. So… if your stat spread while normal looks like Hot -1, Cold +1, Volatile 0, Dark +1, it’ll turn into Hot +1, Cold -1, volatile +2, Dark -1. You are, in effect, veering from heavily defencive stats to heavily offencive stats -- when you’re high Cold/Dark, you’re not good at proactively doing stuff to other characters, and when you’re high Hot/Volatile, that’s all you’re good at. On this level, it theoretically works, and should give you the feeling of veering between two very different playstyles, and it’s a bit disappointing that the skin moves don’t really support doing that beyond the base stats.

The origins deal with how your transformation works. You’ve got “chemical concoction”, for your classic brand Mr. Hyde transformation, weirdly-mundane stuff like “mathematical formula”, and my favourite, “invocation of Janus”, which makes it more explicitly magical. There’s also “radiation exposure”, which I am 100% sure is meant to be an Incredible Hulk reference. So, it at least gives you a few interesting options to play around with. Your backgrounds ask you to name someone who is important to your Normal Self (give them a string), someone who is important to your Other Self (they give you a string), and someone who has seen you transform before (you each get a string on one another). I like the idea of trying to make your two halves have different friends, at least.

Skin Moves

You start with The Formula, and only one other Unchained move. Which is pretty stingey, all considered.

The Formula
This is what lets you transform into someone else. How exactly it works is up to you, and relates to your origin. But, you can transform into your “Other Self” with preparation. In order to transform back, you either need to go unconscious, or else go through similar preparations. When you’re your Other Self, you look and act different -- how different is entirely up to you, and there’s no real limit to that. Transforming into your Other Self does the stat switching thing I described above, and changing back reversing it.

There would be nothing to stop you from basically staying as your Other Self more or less all the time. There’s no limit to how many times you can change back and forth per scene, no built in way for you to get temporarily trapped in one form or another, nothing to prevent you from transforming again as soon as you regain consciousness if you get knocked out. Strings and conditions are both constant between your two selves, too, so it’s not as if this is actually shielding you from social consequences in a mechanical sense, despite that being the whole concept.

Compare this to the Cuckoo’s Feathers move -- there, you transform by putting on someone else’s clothes, and any character in the scene with you always has the option of noticing something’s off and breaking the illusion -- but that does harm to them, because, essentially, the transformation spell rebounds back at them if they break it.. So, there’s a constant tension between characters not wanting to take damage, but also being able to mess things up for you once it eventually becomes worth it. There’s multiple layers there, with enough depth to have really interesting applications. The Formula, by comparison, is honestly just too reliable to be remotely interesting. It always works, because there’s not enough done to establish what “preparation” entails.

Addiction
You don’t need to prepare anything to become your Other Self. Instead, you can transform at any time, but can only change back if you get knocked out. When you transform, you carry one forward -- not to anything in particular, you just do. There’s no clarification if it’s a permanent bonus, like The Mortal has to curry the favour of their True Love, or if it’s just a one-time thing for whatever your first roll after transforming is. If you go an entire day without becoming your Other Self, you have to hold steady. On anything but a 10+, you get the condition Need a Fix. Presumably, this is in addition to all the normal results of a Hold Steady roll. Notably, transforming into your Other Self does not actually clear up Need a Fix, despite it literally being the fix that you needed.

There’s more than one move here that basically just drastically changes how The Formula works. It would have been better to just pick one, and have it bundled in to begin with. The addiction thing doesn’t feel particularly compelling to me, because I don’t imagine that someone playing this skin is ever going to go that long without a transformation, since all their moves assume they’re transforming pretty regularly. It also trivialises an already overly simplistic transformation mechanic and further exacerbates the potential for a character to never turn back to their Normal Self.

Animal Magnetism
While you’re your Other Self, if you’ve previously Lashed Out Physically against someone, then you get a plus 1 to Turn Someoen On and Manipulate an NPC rolls against them. Forever, I guess. When you use this, you get the condition Bestial.

This is pretty much a much more situational and frankly overpowered version of the Werewolf’s Scent of Blood, which gives them a bonus to rolls against characters who have taken damage in a scene. If the Unchained punches someone even once, then they get a bonus forever, and a slap on the wrist condition doesn’t really fix that as an issue.

Dysphoria/Euphoria
You can’t use Turn Someone On or Manipulate an NPC while you’re your Normal Self. Like, at all. But when you’re your Other Self, you get to roll Volatile instead of Cold to Shut Someone Down and Hold Steady.

Well, on one hand, it’s not just another straight “use one stat instead of another with no restrictions” move. On the other, what it’s actually doing is making your Normal Self even more useless than it already was -- you were probably bad at Turn On and Manipulate rolls, but at least you had the option, and this doesn’t even let you bomb a roll for the sake of experience. And when you are transformed… it functionally is just a straight “use one stat instead of another with no restrictions” move. It lets you replace all normal Cold rolls with Volatile -- that’s just going way too far with a single move.

Freedom from Consequence
When you transform (either way), remove “half” of your conditions, rounding up -- I can only assume the player selects which ones. You also heal 1 harm.

Oh hey, freedom from the consequences of living out your secret desires. You know, that thing you’re supposed to be granted just from transforming because it is the entire point of the skin. Better make that an optional move, right?

It’s also not even freedom from social consequences; it’s freedom from half of your social consequences. To go back to the comparison with The Cuckoo, there, all non-physical conditions apply to the person you’re posing as rather than you, which provides a lot of interesting mechanical opportunities, and there’s a move they can take that makes this be the case for strings as well. By comparison, this isn’t as liberating and doesn’t have a lot of interesting synergy with other moves the way Feathers does. And with the ability to get rid of physical conditions and the harm reduction, it’s technically more powerful too.

Unholy Glee
This is legit the only skin move that gives you a new ability while you’re in your Normal Self.

While you’re your Normal Self, when you overhear a third party talking about some “shameful or violent incident your Other Self was involved in”, you may give yourself a +1 to Gaze Into the Abyss about the incident or the people involved in it. If you take this bonus, give yourself the condition seduced by the darkness.

This is legit also probably the best move this skin has, in concept. It actually does something with the gimmick of switching back and forth between your two selves, and gives you a reason to go back to your Normal Self. That said, it’s not perfect. For one thing, seduced by the darkness is not a particularly evocative condition on its own, nor does the rest of the skin ever do anything with it. So… it doesn’t really function that well as a drawback to using the move. Also, due to the wording, this needs to be a third party you overhear. You cannot be in conversation with someone and hear them say “HEY DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THAT MYSTERY DUDE WHO MADE OUT WITH JIMMY IN FRONT OF THE WHOLE CAFETERIA YESTERDAY?” Instead, you need to wait until they tell someone else while you’re just hanging around.

With a bit of tidying up, and some other moves that work with it, this could be a pretty good move. Like, maybe having it so Gazing Into the Abyss about someone as your Normal Self gives you a bonus against them when you’re your Other Self -- that kind of thing is what turns a skin from a list of thematically relevant powers into something that comes together to form an interconnected whole.

You’re Not Me!
Your two selves are completely separate identities, and neither remember what happened to you while the other one is active. “Although you can communicate via leaving messages for one one another.” You track strings separately for both selves, although not conditions. Your Normal Self and your Other Self each get a string on one another when you take this move. Nothing in particular is told to you about what you can do with that string, so presumably you’d spend it on yourself through a letter you left for yourself to read or something?

This is like Addiction. Either it should have been part of The Formula, or it shouldn’t be here. It fundamentally changes the play experience in ways that the other moves don’t really take advantage of. Tracking and spending strings for two different different characters isn’t something you should just throw in in the last move in the playbook; there’s not even a modified Strings field present to accommodate it.

Sex Move
When your Normal Self has sex with someone, your Other Self carries 1 forward to harming them. When your Other Self has sex with someone, you take a string on them.

The first sex move there is something this skin really should do more of, as in Unholy Glee. It’s frustrating that it’s relegated to a sex move for what is, while you’re your Normal Self, a low Hot skin. The second is… let’s be honest, probably the most utterly generic sex move you could come up with.

Darkest Self
Your Other Self stops having any semblance of self control or consideration for others, and just does whatever they want all the time wherever and whenever they want. “Use and abuse everyone who crosses your path. Nothing is as important as satisfying your every whim, and no-one really matters except for you.” You come out of your Darkest Self when you do something unforgivable to someone your Normal Self cares for.

About what you’d expect, to be honest. Except, Topher forgot to include any language here describing how your Normal Self responds to any of this. And it doesn’t actually force you to transform. So this does nothing until you turn into your Other Self, and just stops taking effect if you transform back to your Normal Self. Which you can still do as per normal. This is effectively half a Darkest Self.

Other Stuff
The Unchained’s gang advancement is being part of an Underground Club, which: “may be a sex club, a fight club, a drug den, or whatever other seedy location your Other Self uses to unwind”, Topher writes. Honestly, I like this one -- there’s a lot of built in flavour with it.

You all know the drill by now. Literally all of these moves require The Formula to function. Which is at least better than all of them requiring things specific to your background strings or sex move or whatever, the way these skins have done previously, but is a significant barrier to any other skin taking them..

Next Time: The Unseen -- “I’ve got a great idea for what I want to do this scene!” “Great, Debbie. now roll to check if you can have any impact whatsoever in it!”

Bieeanshee
Aug 21, 2000

Not keen on keening.


Grimey Drawer
This reminds me way too much of that autistic trans-person who claimed they needed Beast because it mirrored their struggle with transition.

Kavak
Aug 23, 2009


Bieeardo posted:

This reminds me way too much of that autistic trans-person who claimed they needed Beast because it mirrored their struggle with transition.

It's kind of telling that one of the few people the game really appealed to was someone whose self-esteem was so low they believed it was best for everyone else that they were dead. "The suicidal" should not be your target audience.

Anticheese
Feb 13, 2008

$60,000,000 sexbot
:rodimus:

Well. That was oddly uncomfortable to read.

RocknRollaAyatollah
Nov 26, 2008

Lipstick Apathy

theironjef posted:

They already recast a West African non-dragon god as a dragon, I figure they'd just say that your sire is the legendary monkey dragon Son Wukong and call it a day. After all, having a soul that isn't a dragon wouldn't be cool. I'm sure this was made during one of those long periods where cartoon weren't cool. Making this game now would be impossible without also including that your soul might be that of a mythic pony.

That would be pretty funny because the Dragon of the East Sea is a major character in Sun Wukong's early adventures.

FMguru
Sep 10, 2003

peed on;
sexually

Grnegsnspm posted:

Ultimately you are supposed to be fighting against Those Who Dwell Bellow and their attempt to corrupt the world but you would never know that unless you also had the DM book.
That's such a wonderful hallmark of 90s-inspired RPG design - a big, complicated, detailed world with tons of splats and factions, but no real clear idea of what player groups actually do or why a mixed bunch of whatevers would form an adventuring group in the first place.

Green Intern
Dec 29, 2008

Loon, Crazy and Laughable

"Be careful about sensitive issues, players! Now, here's how your Other Self gets bonuses from hurting people. "

Kai Tave
Jul 2, 2012
Fallen Rib

FMguru posted:

That's such a wonderful hallmark of 90s-inspired RPG design - a big, complicated, detailed world with tons of splats and factions, but no real clear idea of what player groups actually do or why a mixed bunch of whatevers would form an adventuring group in the first place.

The game that exemplifies this in my mind is Zero, an obscure RPG by a one-and-done indie publisher way back when (I first read of it in InQuest Magazine to give an idea of what particular "when" we're talking about) with the premise that player characters were all members of a Borg-like biomechanical collective that one day spontaneously disconnected from the collective and discovered, much to their surprise and confusion, that they had acquired individuality.

"You play as refugees from a collective hive-mind that now wants you dead, struggling to cope with your newfound individuality in the apocalyptic, far-future weirdness of Earth" is, on the surface at least, a pretty compelling hook for an RPG. But then you actually read the game and it's painfully obvious that the designers' interesting ideas stopped there, because the rest of the book just sort of assumes that players will spend all their time fighting the collective's endless legions of drones come to kill them for being dangerously individual. I remember the book had stats for the "Queen" who ran the collective and it was the dumbest oWoD poo poo where her stats were all some ludicrous, impossible to reach number, and also she had her personal retinue of 25 incredibly overpowered bodyguards for you to fight first, and it was like man, who even gives a poo poo by this point?

Bieeanshee
Aug 21, 2000

Not keen on keening.


Grimey Drawer
Terrible YA Fiction: the RPG.

WaywardWoodwose
May 19, 2008

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
I really wish i had read up on Topher Gerkey a while back. He is so far the only person to really burn me on a kickstarter.

Kavak
Aug 23, 2009


First clue: His name is Topher.

Seriously, which kickstarter?

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Gazetteer posted:

Next Time: The Unseen -- “I’ve got a great idea for what I want to do this scene!” “Great, Debbie. now roll to check if you can have any impact whatsoever in it!”

Even if this were somehow done well, isn't 'no one pays attention to you or your needs' part of the Ghost's whole gimmick?

WaywardWoodwose
May 19, 2008

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Rosemont Bay
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/topherg/rosemont-bay-a-gothic-horror-soap-opera-roleplayin

Seriously, go look at the update history. I know it's not as severe as some, but there are some huge gaps before he disappeared. The real killer though, before he was finally kicked off rpg.net, he was constantly trying to get other people to let him work on their kickstarters.

Kavak
Aug 23, 2009


Why'd he get kicked off RPG.net? And do you think it was always a scam, or did he decided he didn't want to work on it anymore and tried to weasel his way out?

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

WaywardWoodwose posted:

Rosemont Bay
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/topherg/rosemont-bay-a-gothic-horror-soap-opera-roleplayin

Seriously, go look at the update history. I know it's not as severe as some, but there are some huge gaps before he disappeared. The real killer though, before he was finally kicked off rpg.net, he was constantly trying to get other people to let him work on their kickstarters.
He also pulled a "I was really sick for the better part of a year and couldn't work on the game" while still managing to post a ton on Google+.

Like, I get that social media posting and work are not mutually exclusive and that sickness can really be a problem when you're self-employed, but if you have time to play FF14 and post about Monster High dolls you can probably post a loving KS update once in a while.

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:

Bieeardo posted:

This reminds me way too much of that autistic trans-person who claimed they needed Beast because it mirrored their struggle with transition.

Yeah there was a rather heavy undercurrent of "YOUR OTHER SELF CAN BE THE OPPOSITE GENDER IN FACT PROBABLY DO THAT" in what I read.


Evil Mastermind posted:

He also pulled a "I was really sick for the better part of a year and couldn't work on the game" while still managing to post a ton on Google+.

Like, I get that social media posting and work are not mutually exclusive and that sickness can really be a problem when you're self-employed, but if you have time to play FF14 and post about Monster High dolls you can probably post a loving KS update once in a while.

So.. he's the RPG equivalent of Aaron Diaz?

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003

La morte non ha sesso

Kai Tave posted:

The game that exemplifies this in my mind is Zero, an obscure RPG by a one-and-done indie publisher way back when (I first read of it in InQuest Magazine to give an idea of what particular "when" we're talking about)
I remember that review! I'm still looking for the InQuest issues where they did an article on "Worst RPGs ever" and then actually got aggrieved letters to the editor from Raven c.s. McCracken and Precedence Publishing (publishers of Immortal) which they published in the next issue. McCracken, of course, took the opportunity to brag about being a polymath martial arts master.

WaywardWoodwose posted:

Rosemont Bay
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/topherg/rosemont-bay-a-gothic-horror-soap-opera-roleplayin

Seriously, go look at the update history. I know it's not as severe as some, but there are some huge gaps before he disappeared. The real killer though, before he was finally kicked off rpg.net, he was constantly trying to get other people to let him work on their kickstarters.
Oh my God. A monster-soap-opera game by a guy who did mediocre-at-best homebrew for someone else's game? I want this to come out just for the trainwreck value.

Imagine if Kickstarter and digital publishing had been around in the days when people were just posting their crappy homebrews on BJ Zanzibar's site. This is the closest we'll ever get to that.

Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 16:46 on Oct 1, 2015

NGDBSS
Dec 30, 2009






Kurieg posted:

So.. he's the RPG equivalent of Aaron Diaz?
What recent shenanigans happened with him and/or Dresden Codak? I've not bothered to keep up with the webcomic for a few years, but I do recall that despite trying to make DC his full time job Mr. Diaz had issues with keeping a schedule.

That Old Tree
Jun 24, 2012

nah


Kavak posted:

Why'd he get kicked off RPG.net? And do you think it was always a scam, or did he decided he didn't want to work on it anymore and tried to weasel his way out?

He got kicked off RPGnet for posting, I think on Facebook, stuff like "you guys are complaining about RPGnet moderation but I was briefly a moderator there and I know ~juicy details~" more than once. I don't think he ever actually spilled any beans, but that's still pretty poo poo.

He's still suffering his literally mysterious illness, which I can sympathize with, but in an not-at-all ironic twist his total lack of communication is digging him a hole just as much as GMS' constant stream of dumb poo poo. Somehow this is a substantial enough difference to me to not sneer at him.

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:

NGDBSS posted:

What recent shenanigans happened with him and/or Dresden Codak? I've not bothered to keep up with the webcomic for a few years, but I do recall that despite trying to make DC his full time job Mr. Diaz had issues with keeping a schedule.

He discovered Patreon, and of course went with the monthly schedule rather than the "per comic produced" Schedule.

One of his goals was "To hire a peon to handle the non-comic making parts of my empire", said peon turned out to be his girlfriend. And once he realized he could put a price tag on "putting out comics on a schedule" his productivity backslid until he reached that milestone, and then continually missed his schedule. And then took a month off while still raking in patreon money.

His twitter and Tumblr are also populated alternately with him lusting after well muscled women/amputees and him lamenting that he doesn't make enough money as a full time artist, even though just from his patreon alone (not including his ad and store revenue) he's making 66,000 a year. And how much it physically pains him to produce comics as fast as he does and that people should really be nicer to him. Etc. Etc.

Kurieg fucked around with this message at 17:21 on Oct 1, 2015

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Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003

La morte non ha sesso

NGDBSS posted:

What recent shenanigans happened with him and/or Dresden Codak? I've not bothered to keep up with the webcomic for a few years, but I do recall that despite trying to make DC his full time job Mr. Diaz had issues with keeping a schedule.
To be fair, some of the highest-regarded people in the comics industry have trouble producing work on time, or have gone through a long period of such.

Someone once asked Bendis how, love him or hate him, he was managing to write multiple monthly books. His reply was "I don't own a Playstation."

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