|
Well, yeah, I just meant in general, the Tritonian guns suck above or below water. Ion guns probably wouldn't work either, but those are closer to pure fantasy technology (as far as a weaponized use goes) and it's not clear what Rifts is referring to with them, especially with particle beams being a separate weapon type.
|
#
?
Nov 21, 2015 22:24
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 28, 2024 04:48 |
|
|
Hostile V posted:Oh goodness, Normality. A RPG I liked the idea behind but it's incredibly dense and hard to make sense of outside of the GM guide and an article on TVTropes that explains the setting. I kind of wanted to cover it for this thread because it's very unique (nor necessarily in a good way, I'll admit). I'll write up a quick thing for it later that explains what the hell it is you're looking at, but I will say this: the game guide for players is written completely in-universe. That stuff there is how people in that world think and behave. So. Yeah. If you know anything about Nine Inch Nails' Year Zero, think along those lines. Is this some new edition of the Timecube RPG o_O ? The Lone Badger posted:Railguns won't work underwater either - the slug will tear itself apart almost instantaneously. Considering that Rifts usually puts micro-missiles on everything, I'm surprised these boats, subs and armors aren't armed to the teeth with torpedo-equivalents. Or you know, they could just copy from a pistol shrimp to create vacuum implosion shockwave guns. If that was too obscure for the time this was written, they could've also just gone "sound carriers better in water, let's make crazy sonic weapons". Doresh fucked around with this message at 22:36 on Nov 21, 2015 |
|
#
?
Nov 21, 2015 22:34
|
|
|
The Lone Badger posted:Railguns won't work underwater either - the slug will tear itself apart almost instantaneously. Supercavitating railgun slugs. 
|
|
#
?
Nov 21, 2015 23:03
|
|
|
That's an even more obscure RPG conversion than Duckman.
|
|
#
?
Nov 22, 2015 02:54
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:That's an even more obscure RPG conversion than Duckman. Someone should mix the two to create an ultimate obscure rpg. It would be glorious. Release it into the wild. Watch rpg.net break apart due to people trying to defend itīs unique snowflakeness.
|
|
#
?
Nov 22, 2015 03:10
|
|
|
Is there a The Neverhood RPG? Or a BloodNet RPG? Or a Loom RPG? I need to know these things.
|
|
#
?
Nov 22, 2015 03:19
|
|
|
I actually took a poke at making a Loom RPG once, but real life and the fact that no one had any real interest in the thing to help me with playtesting or critique kind of prevented me from ever doing much with it.
|
|
#
?
Nov 22, 2015 04:04
|
|
|
We're totally copying a fan suggestion of making a Sifl and Olly deck building game. Obscurity ho!
|
|
#
?
Nov 22, 2015 04:59
|
|
|
theironjef posted:We're totally copying a fan suggestion of making a Sifl and Olly deck building game. Obscurity ho! You thieving bastards better at least make the Precious Roy Pirate Cripplers a strong defensive card or so help me I will never let you hear the end of it until I get bored.
|
|
#
?
Nov 22, 2015 05:02
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:That's an even more obscure RPG conversion than Duckman. When I listened to the April Fools' Duckman RPG review, I thought that it was based on an entirely made-up 90's cartoon, mixing all the tropes of low-budget "underground" animation into one parody that then was the basis for an entirely fictional RPG; one of those completely forgotten shows that occasionally gets mentioned by someone who was a fan, but has otherwise been so forgotten that basically only IMDB and a fansite from the 90's remembers it exists. I only learned today that Duckman was an actual cartoon.
|
|
#
?
Nov 22, 2015 05:09
|
|
|
LatwPIAT posted:When I listened to the April Fools' Duckman RPG review, I thought that it was based on an entirely made-up 90's cartoon, mixing all the tropes of low-budget "underground" animation into one parody that then was the basis for an entirely fictional RPG; one of those completely forgotten shows that occasionally gets mentioned by someone who was a fan, but has otherwise been so forgotten that basically only IMDB and a fansite from the 90's remembers it exists. I only learned today that Duckman was an actual cartoon. This is the perfect punchline to the Duckman saga.
|
|
#
?
Nov 22, 2015 05:11
|
|
|
LatwPIAT posted:When I listened to the April Fools' Duckman RPG review, I thought that it was based on an entirely made-up 90's cartoon, mixing all the tropes of low-budget "underground" animation into one parody that then was the basis for an entirely fictional RPG; one of those completely forgotten shows that occasionally gets mentioned by someone who was a fan, but has otherwise been so forgotten that basically only IMDB and a fansite from the 90's remembers it exists. I only learned today that Duckman was an actual cartoon. Double April Fools!
|
|
#
?
Nov 22, 2015 05:34
|
|
|
The Lone Badger posted:Railguns won't work underwater either - the slug will tear itself apart almost instantaneously. Terror from the deep disagrees. Of course, Terror From the Deep also hates you and everything you stand for, so, who knows.
|
|
#
?
Nov 22, 2015 07:53
|
|
|
theironjef posted:We're totally copying a fan suggestion of making a Sifl and Olly deck building game. Obscurity ho! This is amazing and you are amazing, I used to love Sifl & Olly though I don't feel it aged well. We used to game late, often through midnight, so we would actually pause to watch the weird puppets. occamsnailfile fucked around with this message at 10:34 on Nov 22, 2015 |
|
#
?
Nov 22, 2015 10:28
|
|
|
Lynx Winters posted:You thieving bastards better at least make the Precious Roy Pirate Cripplers a strong defensive card or so help me I will never let you hear the end of it until I get bored. Buy my creamed fats! occamsnailfile posted:This is amazing and you are amazing, I used to love Sifl & Olly though I don't feel it aged well. We used to game late, often through midnight, so we would actually pause to watch the weird puppets. Sadly it's neither our idea nor something we're actually doing. However I can tell you a similar anecdote about late night weirdness, in that I was hanging around with a friend one night playing SNES Biker Mice from Mars when Adult Swim first launched an unannounced pilot of the first Adult Swim lineup. Sealab 2021, Harvey Birdman, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, The Brak Show. We were 100% gobsmacked and spent a week trying to figure out what the hell we had just encountered. theironjef fucked around with this message at 11:08 on Nov 22, 2015 |
|
#
?
Nov 22, 2015 11:05
|
|
|
LatwPIAT posted:When I listened to the April Fools' Duckman RPG review, I thought that it was based on an entirely made-up 90's cartoon, mixing all the tropes of low-budget "underground" animation into one parody that then was the basis for an entirely fictional RPG; one of those completely forgotten shows that occasionally gets mentioned by someone who was a fan, but has otherwise been so forgotten that basically only IMDB and a fansite from the 90's remembers it exists. I only learned today that Duckman was an actual cartoon. I can vaguely remember having watched a few episodes, though I can't tell many details aside from Duckan talking a lot. theironjef posted:Sadly it's neither our idea nor something we're actually doing. However I can tell you a similar anecdote about late night weirdness, in that I was hanging around with a friend one night playing SNES Biker Mice from Mars when Adult Swim first launched an unannounced pilot of the first Adult Swim lineup. Sealab 2021, Harvey Birdman, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, The Brak Show. We were 100% gobsmacked and spent a week trying to figure out what the hell we had just encountered. This reminds me of my first episode of Ren & Stimpy. Tenra Bansho Zero  Now lets look at some cybernetics. Kijin  Talk to the gatling Kijin (aka "machine men") are a fairly old technology used by the Priesthood for some time. But it was only after the schism and the Northern Court's more open policy regarding that the rest of Tenra gained the necessary surgical knowledge and tools to create Kijin with a worthwhile success rate. Kijin are the magitek cyborgs of Tenra, with the magic part mostly limited to allowing the Mechanica aka cybernetics to use ki in order to integrate themselves into the Kijin's nervous system. Mechanica can replace entire limbs, eyes and in extreme cases even the entire head and torso. Internal organs can't be replaced though, making the last two modifications tricky. As creating a Kijin is relatively easy and results in a [markable] boost in speed and combat prowess, the lords of Tenra are more than willing to not only give their crippled soldiers free medical treatment, but also make them better in the process - whether they want to or not. As any single battle on Tenra creates a lot more Kijin candidates than it kills off existing ones - not to mention the amount of soldiers who replace their normal limbs willingly in order to gain power - , the Northern Court has started a rather disturbing trend of armies having an ever-increasing contingent of cybernetic freaks. The big problem with this development (which again is purely for roleplaying purposes and has no actual rules attached to it) is that the more you become a machine, the less you are a human in both body and spirit. It is only a matter of time till one turns into an inhuman monster. Even before this could happen, many Kijin refuse to go back to their families. It's probably pretty hard to fit back in society if your head looks like this:  Now this is a lot more like a diaper. Also, Vajra Claws are awesome. Mechanica Rules Mechanica replacements for the various body parts come in three classes of quality (Hei, Otsu and Kou), each granting a better passive bonus and offering more slots to put neat stuff into. If the Mechanica of your chosen class doesn't have enough slots, you can generally cram more stuff into it by reducing the passive bonus. All but the head-based Mechanica also let you turn slots into storage compartments. The downside to all of this is that each Mechanica gives you a penalty to your starting Attribute pool (most likely put into the mental Attributes to represent the cybernetics eating at your soul). The higher the class, the more severe the penalty. If you want to become a Kijin after chargen, this penalty translates into a heft cost in Kiai points, which ultimately boosts your Karma. Aside from these slot-based mechanica, there are also smaller additional mechanica or big ones that replace the entire limb without room for slots. They also have Attribute penalties. It should be noted that all of these mechanica can also be used by Armours. Their Attribute penalty always applies to the Rider, and it can be reduced by increasing the Armour's Karma cost. Some of the most powerful Mechanica require a Heart Engine to operate, which in turn requires a Mechanica torso. This can only be done at character creation. Eyes and Heads The standard Mechanica Sensor replaces one of the Kijin's eyes and the surrounding area (usually the right one). They provide a nice HUD for a bonus to Notice checks. Aside from the three standard mechanica classes, you can give yourself a Rotating Visor that is a swiss army knife of various different eyes. This only offers a moderate Notice bonus, but boasts the greatest amount of slots. The slots can naturally be filled with all sorts of stuff to improve your senses and also includes the Eyes of Distant Death which like the Armour-version are great for ranged attacks. Offensive options come in the form of the Flash Burs which blinds people and Eye-needles that hits people with most likely poisonous needles. For a somewhat 40k-ish flair, you can get yoursel a Floating Eye that can detach from you (though it has to stay connected to you via wire). Aside from those slots, there are Lightning Bolt Eyes that require a Heart Engine and do exactly what they sound like. A Heart Engine also lets you have a Mechanica Kabuto that replaces your entire head and offers magical ECM capabilities. Armour Riders can benefit from an Interface Helm Implant, and any fighter would likely want a Supreme Nervous System for a nice initiative bonus. Unlike a lot of other RPGs that include magic and cybernetics, Kijin aren gimped when it comes to using magic in any ways. As long as they can still draw / make gestures and chant incantations, they are totally fine. If anything, they can be made better at this stuff. A Brain Enhancement boosts their Soul pool, and the Renju Voice is a pair of magical spinning disks in your lower jaw that help you with gathering Sha energy, adding a dice bonus to magic skills. Arms The standard Mechanica arms naturally boost the damage you deal with melee and thrown weapons. Unsurprisingly, most slots are dedicated to built-in weapons. Hightlights aside from the always rad Vajra Claws include the White Heat Palm that allows you to turn your Soul points into damage, the Five-barrel Gatling that make you like Aigis from Persona 3 in that your fingertips double as a galting, the retractable Grudgle Blade for your simple arm blade needs, and the pretty cool Omega Snake Blades that are wrist-mounted spikes that spin around at high speeds. Oh, and there are also Projectile Fists if you want to be Mazinger. For a defensive option, you can get yourself a Steel War Fan which is basically a shield. And to further improve your Kijin sorcery, you can install multi-jointed Kairen Fingers like some guy from Ghost in the Shell. For fun, you can have a Lizard Bomb Arm to not only detach the arm, but let it explode as well. Full arm replacements without slots include the Demonic Lightning Cannon which shoots lightning bolts, the Cyclone Gatling Repeater that replaces an entire arm for a gatling with a ridiculous ROF, the Kaminari Fist Thunderburst that is essentially a Power Fist with huge spike damage potential (that unfortunately destroys the hand in the process). With a Heart Engine installed, you can also have Crab Claws, which are not only nifty melee weapons but can also double as a friggin' Wave Motion Gun. Torso A Mechanica torso increases your Vitality and allows you to put a bunch of armour-style cannons and mortars into its slots. A Heart Engine also goes here, as does a Kimenkyo (which allows you use your Interface skill in place of a general skill, kind of like how a Armour Rider does it). If you want more arm weapons, you can get yourself an Extra Arm Attachment. Other weapon systems include the nasty Rib Cage Spider which lets you impale people after grappling them, the Glorious Death Bomb for a self-destruct device, and the always popular Flame Caster to burn people. For support needs, you can get yourself improved lungs for underwater acction, flight and a smoke screen. Other Mechanica for this torso mainly deal with skin replacement, like the Zero-type Reflective Armor for resitance against energy and magic attacks, or the Type 3 Chameleon Flesh Dragon Scale which uses the power of a Heart Engine to turn you into the Predator. Legs Mechanica legs boost movement speed, and you can fill the slots to give yourself rollerblades, fins or jump jets. Shock Absorbers let you half falling damage, and you can also have Lizard Bomb Legs for the same trick as the arm version. For weapons, you have the Leg Incinerator (which is just a White Heat Palm for your foot), Dragon Claws (which also double as climbing aids) and the Supreme Howler Mortar Cannon which is a Heart-Engine-fueled mortar. Other Mechanica The "Explosive Corpse" Skull Bomb is a bomb implanted into your skull that acts like a kill switch (though you can actually surive this thing going off, even if it forces you to check your Dead Box). A Weapon Interface links a built-in weapon directly into your nervous system for a damage bonus, and Weapon Attachment lets you attach any normal weapon to your mechanica. Twin Dragon Arms are actually arm Mechanica, but they are installed in such a way that they don't get in the way of any other arm Mechanica, though it requires a Mechanica torso slot for ammo. It's a gunpowder-based machine gun with a blade. Homeopathic Bullet Skin is an odd little Mechancia that uses skin replacement and gunpowder charges to create a kind of reactive armor. It lets you negatve incoming damage once at the costs of having to fill one of your wound tracks. Next Time: Kongohki - Ghost in the Mirror. Doresh fucked around with this message at 17:37 on Nov 22, 2015 |
|
#
?
Nov 22, 2015 11:53
|
|
|
I would unironically love a Sealab 2021 game. Make it like Paranoia or Fiasco, where something bad or out of the usual is happening but it's your bickering and jackassery that cause the place to explode again.
|
|
#
?
Nov 22, 2015 13:57
|
|
|
Hostile V posted:I would unironically love a Sealab 2021 game. Make it like Paranoia or Fiasco, where something bad or out of the usual is happening but it's your bickering and jackassery that cause the place to explode again. That seems like a prime candidate for a Duckman game. Some other listener apparently used it to run Medieval Fun-Time Land. You'd just need to reskin the races into personality types (and shark hybrids and evil universe guys), and rename a few of the classes into stuff like scientist and jerk from pod 6.
|
|
#
?
Nov 22, 2015 19:10
|
|
|
Pod 6 is jerks. Total suck pod.
|
|
#
?
Nov 22, 2015 19:22
|
|
|
Hostile V posted:I would unironically love a Sealab 2021 game. Make it like Paranoia or Fiasco, where something bad or out of the usual is happening but it's your bickering and jackassery that cause the place to explode again. Lasers & Feelings would work well for this, too. When One Shot did their L&F podcast, the game felt very much like an episode of Star Trek by way of Archer, or Frisky Dingo.
|
|
#
?
Nov 22, 2015 20:32
|
|
|
I'm on a roll right now. Let's tackle the most metal player option: Tenra Bansho Zero Kongohki  Part blades, part guns, all metal. The battlefields of Tenra are filled with lots of scary opponents to face, be it giant robots, samurais hulking out, or freaky cyborgs. But nothing is quite as pantsshittingly scary as the Kongohki - aka "The Unbreakable Ones", aka "The Machines of Vajra", aka "surprise magitek killdroid that move faster than your eyes can follow". Kongohki are the result of trying to figure out a way to miniaturize Armours. Power-armor-sized Suit Armours took a while to take off is because the more you miniaturize, the more the Rider's body gets in the way. Sometime in the past, someone apparently went "If Riders transfer their soul into the meikyo mirror when piloting their Armour, can't we just get rid off their bodies somehow?". And that's the whole trick: Summon the spirit of a dead Asura, put him into a meikyo mirror (out of which he can't escape thanks to his Karma), mindwipe him and violā. You've got yourself an obedient magitek robot. Alternatively, you can just yank out the meikyo mirror out of an Armour whose Rider went Asura. Then you just have to mindwipe it. Thanks to them not having to store the useless fleshy body of a pilot, they are comparatively lightweight and effectively designed (to the point some of them look like skeletons). This helps them with their Overdrive ability that lets them move at blinding speeds, allowing them to add an exploding die mechanic to their physical checks. A Kongohki with high skill ratings is pretty darn scary. Like Armours, they gain bonus die based on how much Karma they have. Unlike meikyo Armours, they don't have to keep track of two Karma scores or have to worry about instantly turning Asura when they reach 108 Karma. This gives the mass-produced Kimen Kongohki less advantages compared to a Kimen Armour, but having easier access to replacement and alternative parts is still nifty. The big roleplaying gimmick of the Kongohki (which actually has rules and is tied to a mandatory Fate) is that their mindwipe seal will start to weaken, resulting in confusing flashbacks of their former life (which you can just come up with on the fly unless you / the GM actually want to plan this out from the beginning) until they finally remember everything. When a Kongohki uncovers his former self, one of three things happens: Either they go "Screw old me!" and move on, they start liking their past and essentially continue were they left off, or they just go insane and go on a rampage. The latter is the most common outcome. It can also happen that the new personality is so strong that it erases the old memories before they can completely surface. Alternative Kongohki types Aside from the the meikyo/kimenkyo mirror divide like with Armour, there exist a few special types of Kongohki:  Classy. Heavy Assault Units are the result of reversing the miniaturization process, creating Kongohki that can reach the height of a medium Armour while still retaining their Overdrive ability. Similar to Great Armours, they have several "pilots" in the form of additional mirrors with Asuras bound into them. Heavy Assault Units tend to have one or two primary mirrors, with any additional mirrors being mindwiped so hard they barely have any sentience left and just act as gunners. The big problem that makes these units so rare is that the high amount of bound souls in close proximity makes it very easy for one of them to go crazy. Kongohki Servants are soulless Kimeno Kongohki that are controlled by a Shinto agent - the Puppeteer - interfacing with them and taking over the body. This removes the whole "bound Asura remembering his past" business, but it comes with the drawback that the Shinto agent's own body will fall into a trance and be an easy target.  Slendergohki? Aside from these Servants, there are the Priesthood- and NPC-exclusive Priesthooh Kongohki who are only used as guards for the two Court's HQs and the occasional assassination mission. They are extremely powerful (with physical attributes in the 20s), not powered by Heart Engines and apparently not made or run with any kind of magic. They're totally actual robots, or drones depending on whether or not they are remotely controlled. They have no visible weaponry, and their statblock just calls their weapons "Left Arm" and "Right Arm". One of these is a ranged weapon, and I like to imagine that they shoot laser beams. Kongohki Construction This is a quick one: Kongohki are created just like Armour with the addition of mental attributes and can also take advantage of all the nifty Kijin armour. This lets you get pretty crazy with the design, be it a spider Kongohki or a multi-armed wizardbot.  This is what happens if a crazy onmyojutsu sorcerer turns Asura for the sole purpose of getting a rad Kongohki body optimized for spellcasting. Can't blame him. Though Kongohki do have somewhat different options: They can have a beast-like head and don't have miniature versions of some of the really big Armour cannons. Bottom Line Kongohki are probably the most badass alternative to a resurrection spell. Who wants to go back in his old body that failed you before if you can start a new life as a speedster death robot? Sure, you won't remember anything from your previous life, but that will just make it easier to come up with flashbacks. Next Time: Ninja - can TBZ grimdark them up? Doresh fucked around with this message at 21:56 on Nov 22, 2015 |
|
#
?
Nov 22, 2015 21:52
|
|
|
 The ninja in TBZ are great. I can't wait for you to cover them.
|
|
#
?
Nov 23, 2015 00:35
|
|
|
Alien Rope Burn posted:Well, yeah, I just meant in general, the Tritonian guns suck above or below water. Ion Guns might be electrolasers, since as you mentioned particle beams are a completely different thing. But yeah, most projectile weaponry operate on the assumption that whatever is in front of them will get out of the damned way. Water is notably non-compressible.
|
|
#
?
Nov 23, 2015 01:43
|
|
|
Doresh posted:Is this some new edition of the Timecube RPG o_O ? Not quite. Normality is the same breed of RPG as Power Kill, just executed differently. It's presented as a document from the game world with absolutely no voice stepping out to explain the rules in italicized font or differentiating itself from the rest of the incomprehensible babble. It's like if your GM said "hey, we're running a House of Leaves RPG" and gave you the book House of Leaves and told you to pick a passage or scene or bit that best represented how you think your character would act in House of Leaves. The idea the developers have is an immersive mindfuck where you put yourself in an irrational mindset and just do whatever your id demands. The game has no resolution mechanics, it's just the GM expanding on whatever it is your characters decide to do and balancing whether or not it's actually happening or if your characters are just insane. There's no metagame because the whole game is meta. You're controlling a character in a broken world and you're just letting yourself careen towards disaster hoping you can actually survive it. Is this for everyone? God no. Is the main book readable? gently caress no. Are the devs kinda up their own rear end about it? Yes. The game is asking you to read this thing and pick and choose like you're doing a critical reading and creating your own thesis, citations and conclusion then bouncing off the rest of the class for a discussion lead by a teacher who can just pick at random what is and isn't canon. It is remarkably like most of my college career in literary criticism. Wrap that in a weird sheen of edgelord insanity and you have a rather unpalatable mess that I may like the idea of but dear god the execution, not to mention the idea of "getting into a hosed up mindset to play a hosed up character". It could be better if it was coherent. Okay, that's not right. It would be more interesting if it was coherent. But they lobotomized Jesus and here we are.
|
|
#
?
Nov 23, 2015 05:53
|
|
|
Clearly the answer here is to slather it in Powered by the Apocalypse, call it a "hack" and let it be crowned high-prince indie darling.
|
|
#
?
Nov 23, 2015 16:00
|
|
|
ZorajitZorajit posted:I don't read many books cover-to-cover, but the books that I really enjoy I will end up reading the whole contents thereof. I just tend to flip around the setting and fluff stuff ala encyclopedia research more than read it straight through like a novel. Bieeardo posted:I try to read them cover to cover, because let's face it: most of the people writing these books wouldn't know good layout if it flew up their asses and arranged their organs in alphabetical order. Bieeardo posted:I'm a player, and I get really uncomfortable when it turns out that I've missed something important, be it mechanics or lore. My RL experiences with players or GMs who cherry-pick through the books has been pretty lousy-- stock settings tend to turn into cardboard backdrops, set pieces drop without context, and even if the first month doesn't end up being hijacked for tutorial play and remedial mechanics, really important things tend to get missed, only to pop up when someone's skimming the book.
|
|
#
?
Nov 23, 2015 16:21
|
|
|
NachtSieger posted:
Hope I can do it justice. Hostile V posted:Not quite. Normality is the same breed of RPG as Power Kill, just executed differently. It's presented as a document from the game world with absolutely no voice stepping out to explain the rules in italicized font or differentiating itself from the rest of the incomprehensible babble. It's like if your GM said "hey, we're running a House of Leaves RPG" and gave you the book House of Leaves and told you to pick a passage or scene or bit that best represented how you think your character would act in House of Leaves. The idea the developers have is an immersive mindfuck where you put yourself in an irrational mindset and just do whatever your id demands. The game has no resolution mechanics, it's just the GM expanding on whatever it is your characters decide to do and balancing whether or not it's actually happening or if your characters are just insane. There's no metagame because the whole game is meta. You're controlling a character in a broken world and you're just letting yourself careen towards disaster hoping you can actually survive it. Now it kinda sorta makes more sense. Thanks. And sometimes, you just want to lobotomize Jesus to see what happens. Halloween Jack posted:Here's the problem: A lot of games, especially ones with rich settings, indulge in the vice of giving you the entire history in one massive chapter at the beginning of the book. This is only a good idea in a game like Eclipse Phase where all of that history is relevant to the PCs and possibly all of them lived through all of it. In other games you get tedious tangents about great disasters, wars between the gods, personal conflicts between NPCs, etc. that happened centuries ago and are largely irrelevant to the PCs and what they do. Fading Suns did it, SLA Industries is the most egregious example I can think of at the moment. I love L5R but oh God is it ever guilty of this too. Another point for Doule Cross. The whole "history" only really starts 20 years ago, an most of that is painted with broad strokes. And let's not forget World of Synnibarr, whose big ol' timeline of irrelevancy is so insane that it becomes awesome.
|
|
#
?
Nov 23, 2015 18:33
|
|
|
I don't trust the writers not to slip important information into their pud-pulling over playtest characters, or not to misplace rules. I hope that the other players will read cover-to-cover too, but I realize that poring through reams of nerd notes isn't a priority for most people. Honestly, while I'm really leery about official tie-in games, I feel that settings based on media that the players have already absorbed, or are creating themselves, dodge a lot of that issue. Everyone knows who Batman is. Very few people need statblocks for Azoun IV's by-blows. Games with big, sweeping histories and/or metaplots, or over-complicated systems, don't even register as games to me any more. I read Eclipse Phase and Shadowrun the same way as I might the Orion's Arm project or SCP creepypasta. They're engaging reads, but there's just too much stuff to deal with.
|
|
#
?
Nov 23, 2015 18:35
|
|
|
Halloween Jack posted:Here's the problem: A lot of games, especially ones with rich settings, indulge in the vice of giving you the entire history in one massive chapter at the beginning of the book. This is only a good idea in a game like Eclipse Phase where all of that history is relevant to the PCs and possibly all of them lived through all of it. In other games you get tedious tangents about great disasters, wars between the gods, personal conflicts between NPCs, etc. that happened centuries ago and are largely irrelevant to the PCs and what they do. Fading Suns did it, SLA Industries is the most egregious example I can think of at the moment. I love L5R but oh God is it ever guilty of this too. This is one of the main reasons why I burned out on the TORG review (again); there are a bunch of sub-setting books and drat near every one gives you way too much historical background and/or gets into too much detail about what's happening in every prefecture, territory, or city on the map. They're trying to dill up 120-or-so page books about each realm, but since the page count is so high then end up having to get into insane detail. The Nippon Tech/Japan sourcebook tells you what's going on in the various districts of Tokyo, for Pete's sake. The biggest problem with that kind of detail is that it's ultimately pointless. The players will probably never learn most of it (or won't care), and it's not stuff the GM can get a ton of use out of.
|
|
#
?
Nov 23, 2015 18:41
|
|
|
Evil Mastermind posted:This is one of the main reasons why I burned out on the TORG review (again); there are a bunch of sub-setting books and drat near every one gives you way too much historical background and/or gets into too much detail about what's happening in every prefecture, territory, or city on the map. They're trying to dill up 120-or-so page books about each realm, but since the page count is so high then end up having to get into insane detail. The Nippon Tech/Japan sourcebook tells you what's going on in the various districts of Tokyo, for Pete's sake. I think I might be able to top that: The worst supplement to the German grog classic The Dark Eye was a 160-page hardcover about trading and merchants. It didn't offer anything of worth to either the players or GM, but it spend several pages telling you all about different kinds of onions and stuff. Onions. Doresh fucked around with this message at 20:13 on Nov 23, 2015 |
|
#
?
Nov 23, 2015 20:09
|
|
|
On the other hand, Harnmaster players would probably buy a 40-page supplement devoted to onion crops.
|
|
#
?
Nov 23, 2015 20:43
|
|
|
Halloween Jack posted:On the other hand, Harnmaster players would probably buy a 40-page supplement devoted to onion crops. Isn't that actually genuinely relevant information and also pretty much what the game says it's about, though? I get the sense that kind of stuff in Harnmaster is like, say, buying a supplement about new kinds of wizards in a more standard game.
|
|
#
?
Nov 23, 2015 20:55
|
|
|
Halloween Jack posted:On the other hand, Harnmaster players would probably buy a 40-page supplement devoted to onion crops. You could also pull off an OGL product for the D&D player who already has everything: Onion-related feats. The Onion Master prestige class. The Onion domain. Onion familiars. The onion monster template. Half-Onions as a playable race. (And if you make this for Pathfinder, you can probably come up with at least one Onion-themed archetype for every class.)
|
|
#
?
Nov 23, 2015 21:11
|
|
|
Who doesn't want to play an Onion Knight?
|
|
#
?
Nov 23, 2015 21:17
|
|
|
Three onion rings for the elven-kings under the sky ...
|
|
#
?
Nov 23, 2015 21:21
|
|
|
The sad thing is I know I would be absolutely captivated by several pages of onion world-building. I have a problem.
|
|
#
?
Nov 23, 2015 21:32
|
|
|
Serf posted:The sad thing is I know I would be absolutely captivated by several pages of onion world-building. I have a problem. Your name is Serf. If you weren't excited about agriculture you'd be far more miserable already, considering how feudalism work.
|
|
#
?
Nov 23, 2015 21:53
|
|
|
Dude, didn't you hear? The reeve says we're planting turnips this season.
|
|
#
?
Nov 23, 2015 22:12
|
|
|
I'm glad the Tenra Bansho Zero write-up has been updating so fast. It's an interesting game, and those ink-brush illustrations are so cool.
|
|
#
?
Nov 23, 2015 22:49
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 28, 2024 04:48 |
|
|
mycot posted:I'm glad the Tenra Bansho Zero write-up has been updating so fast. It's an interesting game, and those ink-brush illustrations are so cool. I've meant to agree on this. Plus, it has built-in support for Jaegers if I want to do something Pacific Rim; always a plus.
|
|
#
?
Nov 24, 2015 00:12
|
|
