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One of the interesting things about the adept schools is that the more profoundly nonfunctional the school makes you, the more overt the power. Bibliomancers and Cliomancers can, for the most part, function in society (even if they come off as weird) and their magic's mostly fairly subtle. The next three schools are actively, deeply self-destructive, and the magic poo poo they can get up to is accordingly much more strikingly nasty and obvious.
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Jun 7, 2015 16:11
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Bear in mind that only the first Cliomancer to a site gets the charge. This leads to a number of turf wars, many of which probably end with a body turning up somewhere.
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Jun 7, 2015 19:59
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darthbob88 posted:Yeah, I'm pretty sure you only get charges from old historic events and places, not just famous ones. Although now I'm curious what the cutoff is; if you can find it in a history textbook, it's probably important enough, or if there's a plaque saying "Jethro McSheepshagger slept here July 1873", but what about events from last year/month/week's newspapers? Could you go to Glendale Stadium and harvest a charge from the exact location Richard Sherman's heart ripped in half? Or would this be a GM decision that the book takes no particular stance on? IIRC if nobody visits a place for its history, it's probably not building up Cliomantic charges. Double Plus Undead posted:So could a Cliomancer get some non-famous property and then get charges by making it famous (through, I don't know, gruesome murders or something), or does that violate the law of transaction? That sounds like a really good way to get a visit from angry Sleepers.
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Jun 8, 2015 01:46
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Here's the interesting thing about Major charges and Cliomancers: Back when the school was founded, the earliest Cliomancers found themselves in a world covered in landmarks no Cliomancer had ever visited. Dozens of Major charges were just a series of plane tickets away, available freely to a tiny group of first-generation initiates, all obsessed with History having been a lie. What on earth did they spend those dozens of earth-shaking Major charges on? What do you know about history? Once you know Cliomancers exist, how do you believe anything about history?
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Jun 9, 2015 01:41
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Cythereal posted:By believing they're full of poo poo is the most obvious answer to me, or as a historian I'd ask why it matters. History is an intensely subjective discipline to begin with, and if Cliomancers were real I doubt it would actually impact the field to any serious degree. Weirdos obsessed with historical revisionism who will fight to the death rather than admit they're wrong or even worse, irrelevant, don't need magic to exist. I'd say that even the greatest Cliomancer just doesn't matter as much as she thinks she does. You're thinking as a historian, and Cliomancers aren't historians. A Cliomancer with a Major charge doesn't need to fight to the death or even argue- they can simply edit what you (and the rest of the world) believe happened without even touching the academic process. Imagine the damage that, say, a Holocaust revisionist or Armenian genocide denier with Major charges could do. Cliomancy was founded by wealthy Brits in the 40's- what sort of self-flattering ideas about history did they insert into the historical record? What historical events or trends didn't actually go the way Dugan Forsythe and his circle of acolytes wanted them to have gone? That's the horror of Cliomancy- the sure knowledge that some of what you think you know about history is a pack of lies designed to suit some jackass seventy years ago, and the inability to tell the difference. Tasoth posted:That's a philosophical thing, though. If you know someone has dicked around with history, but the history you know is true, does it matter? What makes you think the history you know, in this scenario, is true? Cliomancers don't actually edit history, only what humanity believes about history.
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Jun 9, 2015 02:11
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Cythereal posted:You're missing the point. From the perspective of historians, not Cliomancers, Cliomancers really don't do anything. So what if they change what the academic world thinks? The academic world revises itself and reexamines evidence all the time. It's fully expected that what's currently believed will be discredited in time. Cliomancers wouldn't be a blip in the academic world at all. They affect popular history, sure, but their abilities really aren't very profound or meaningful. Meanwhile the rest of the world forgets the destruction of some ethnic group one of the early Cliomancers didn't like. Academic historians are a small group and not really relevant to Cliomancy, is my point here. Sure, eventually somebody probably finds evidence of the atrocity and goes "holy poo poo, how did we forget this happened?" but a) there's no guarantee this happens, b) even realizing that the evidence means something has the barrier of already believing it doesn't, c) presenting the evidence is up against even academic historians not knowing about the atrocity and a certain amount of skepticism that something as horrifying as a modern genocide could have happened without historians knowing about it, and d) in the meantime the entire world is going to be operating on the idea that it didn't happen and once you 1) figure out that something happened, 2) figure out what happened, and 3) convince other historians what happened, there's still 4) convincing the rest of the world that it happened. This is not insignificant, is what I'm getting at, and the horror of Cliomancy, especially Major charge-level Cliomancy, is that they don't have any need to engage with historians or make their case to the public- they simply decide to change what humanity believes about history, and humanity has no choice but to agree. Historians are mostly irrelevant to the process.
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Jun 9, 2015 02:27
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Doresh posted:That's some pretty neat magic system. Just think about the horrors a fandomancer could unleash. Nonsensical pairings become accepted, and original characters (do not steal) are not seen as ripoffs and/or Mary Sues. You're going to dig Videomancers.
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Jun 9, 2015 19:02
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GimpInBlack posted:Rat Queens has dwarf women with beards. Violet shaved her beard off as an act of rebellion and refuses to drink beer. She uses a designer sword, but only ironically. Now she's planning to grow her beard out again because now that beard shaving is trendy and popular, it doesn't mean anything anymore. Rat Queens: The loving best.
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Jun 11, 2015 17:46
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Mors Rattus posted: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. I love that this is literally Hunter-net from Reckoning, down to the username format, only without the Messengers keeping the monsters and regular humans off it.
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Jun 12, 2015 06:25
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Night10194 posted:Hunter-Net was the funniest thing. It'd also genuinely endearing how hard the Union are trying. One of my favorite things in H:tR is in Walking Dead where Maxwell Carpenter gets on Hunter-net and spends his time lecturing before the Messengers decide they're sick of his poo poo, and we get about a half-sentence of wraith language before the connection dies.
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Jun 12, 2015 06:39
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I just packed my copy of UA into a box and taped it shut, but I always found amusing the Videomancer who brings his favorite characters briefly to life for deviant pleasures turning the spell on an enemy and having his foe committed because he won't stop babbling about being beaten up by Mr. Clean and the Ti-D-Bowl Man. The secret to success is to commit crimes nobody in their right mind will believe possible.
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Jun 13, 2015 15:13
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Lurks With Wolves posted:I don't know. Could you make a school around the paradox that unironically using the term SJW just makes you look like the kind of weird jackass that justifies social justice's existence? The only eternal things in the universe are the Comte Saint-Germain and Lewis' Law.
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Jun 14, 2015 18:01
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Night10194 posted:No, the central taboo has to be admitting you're wrong, to get a properly mentally broken and unpleasant Adept. That's already an Avatar taboo.
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Jun 14, 2015 18:58
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MonsieurChoc posted:I feel like there was definitely some influence. Also, Greg Stolze wrote for both. John Tynes did most of the setting stuff, Greg Stolze did most of the mechanics, and they'll each tell you the other did all the hard parts.
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Jun 15, 2015 06:29
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Strange Matter posted:So I just finished writing up this UA Adept School. How'd I do? Any suggestions? I think the check for the Motor-Shaman's car being destroyed should be a Self check, rather than a Violence check, to reflect the extent to which the Motor-Shaman identifies with their car.
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Jun 15, 2015 17:59
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quote:Generate a Significant Charge: Drive a vehicle without heeding any rules of the road for thirty minutes or 10 miles, whichever comes first. Break the speed limit, change lanes without signalling, run red lights and stop signs, and don’t for any reason pull over for the cops. You are the unfettered master of the road, not the other way around. If you exit your vehicle or stop moving for more than thirty seconds, the charge fails. The Dead Kennedys' "Buzzbomb" just started playing in my head.
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Jun 15, 2015 18:45
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What are Fog Men? I don't know Geist that well.
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Jun 16, 2015 16:34
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pkfan2004 posted:It's just another name for the Sin Eaters. They're called Fog Men because when they're hurt, the wounds "leak Fog" before healing. I completely forgot about the plasm effect. Thought they were referring to some separate thing.
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Jun 16, 2015 16:48
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Sin-Eaters also don't have a big antagonist- ghosts don't make a very credible threat because just about any Sin-Eater can gently caress up ghosts pretty easily. There's some big bad things down in the Autocthonous Depths, but you mostly won't encounter them unless you go down there (which is a sin against your Morality equivalent) and only piss them off if you break the wrong laws in the wrong cavern. The corebook suggests that some Sin-Eaters go to war with each other, but not really why.
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Jun 17, 2015 08:17
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Rand Brittain posted:(Playable ghosts are even worse because it takes the personhood of ghosts, which is a big and important mystery in several other gamelines, and gives it a canonical answer, "ghosts are people if they take this merit, and if not, not.") But Wraith. 
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Jun 18, 2015 01:52
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wiegieman posted:I think one of Geist's big problems is that it's hard to have a big enemy for your group. You're just dealing with one-off ghosts. They can be big threats that take a lot of dealing with, but the kind of threat you're always used to. One of the Stygian Legions from Wraith makes its primary activity, aside from their duties to Stygia, murdering the people who murdered its members. That wouldn't make a bad purpose for a Sin-Eater group.
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Jun 18, 2015 03:11
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Terrible Opinions posted:Would slashers make good villains mechanically for geists? Thematically they seem like a fairly good fit. You could totally run a Hack/Slash style campaign, but without all the tone-deaf, needless fanservice!
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Jun 18, 2015 04:49
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There's not really an easy way to just look at a dude and know if he's a Demon or not because the whole point of Demon: the Descent is paranoia. Even demons can't tell each other from regular human beings without intense, scrutiny-inviting observation, and you have no idea, without espionage tradecraft like call and response passwords, if the guy you're talking to is the same Demon as the woman you talked to yesterday. Demon is the best. e: Also, Fist of Revelation is actually a really, really bad idea to use unless you've planned meticulously for it since it turns a Demon who has to hide behind their human cover into something with a maxed-out power stat, maxed-out fuel for its abilities, a whole bunch of abilities it would normally have to buy with XP, and a very, very good reason to kill the poo poo out of you. The only time it'd be a good idea would be as a last resort while losing a fight, but only if you were very, very sure that the demon's first response would be to run and hide rather than kill you first, because the hunter-killer angels who will be dispatched the instant you knock the demon's Cover off won't be much happier about you than the demon was. Pope Guilty fucked around with this message at 05:50 on Jun 20, 2015 |
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Jun 20, 2015 05:02
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Mors Rattus posted:It doesn't burn their cover, just locks them out of it for a scene. So, you know, not quite as bad as that. Ah, so they don't get the benefits of Going Loud, they just are locked out of their Covers? That's just evil. But still likely to attract angels, IIRC.
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Jun 20, 2015 06:42
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You can get used copies on Amazon. I don't think there's a legit PDF release.
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Jun 20, 2015 06:54
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Aren't there demons from Inferno (the original NWOD demons, from back when the Virtues and Vices system was dumber) that can possess a place and influence it and feed off their key Vice being done there?
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Jun 20, 2015 17:36
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oriongates posted:The Mother Leaving aside that Mother was an ecclesiastical title for her, she was a really terrible person with good PR and you have to actually do things to get the universe to reward you with Avatar status, not just have the media tell people you do good things.
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Jun 21, 2015 12:01
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Josef bugman posted:And eva Peron isn't? I don't actually know anything about the Perons other than that they were jerks, so I don't really feel comfortable having an opinion on the subject.
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Jun 21, 2015 16:43
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Hyper Crab Tank posted:That Merchant power reminds me an awful lot of an old Twilight Zone episode (the Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross) wherein a guy finds himself with the power to do just that - trade abstract things like diseases, age, and eventually compassion, which ends up getting him killed by the man whose compassion he buys. Interestingly, it didn't make me think of Faust at all... what Mephistopheles gives to Faust is his own servitude and use of his powers. You can't just not hurt children and watch your Avatar: the Mother score improve. You've still got to act as a caretaker to justify your xp expenditures.
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Jun 22, 2015 11:54
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If you're not actually doing anything to pursue the Avatar's path and the GM is letting you take points in it anyway, they're an idiot.
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Jun 22, 2015 13:26
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Kurieg posted:Don't forget the Reflex servitor which is a bomb with a spring powered IFF system, and also uses the potential energy of springs to explode, in a way that isn't just hurling springs everywhere. Reminds me of that Yahtzee line about Bioshock: “How exactly does a steam-powered gun turret differentiate between friend and foe? I wasn't aware that boiled water could form allegiances.”
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Jul 4, 2015 02:44
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Isn't there the suggestion that demons aren't the whole of the souls that they were, just the lovely, self-obsessed parts?
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Jul 7, 2015 21:22
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Strange Matter posted:So in other words, the Underground artifact market is like an early 2000s filesharing service, where half the stuff up for grabs is actually something horrible in disguise. Artifacts, hell, rituals are described as being like a piece of pizza in the gutter: are you hungry enough to eat it?
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Jul 8, 2015 01:12
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Night10194 posted:The manual for the game Arcanum has their world's Charles Darwin positing that the existence of Half Orcs and Half Elves means that humans and elfs/orcs are actually variants of the same species, to considerable academic consternation and censure from the elven community. It's also got a bread recipe.
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Jul 10, 2015 03:21
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Halloween Jack posted:My wife just rediscovered Monster Rancher in the bottom of a drawer a few weeks ago, and you wouldn't believe the weird poo poo we got out of my Skinny Puppy CDs. I'm imagining something like those skinned animal costumes Ogre used to wear in concerts, and I don't know Monster Rancher well enough to know that I'm wrong.
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Jul 16, 2015 08:33
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My ideal UA situation is Tynes and Stolze writing UA books forever. Then again, that would interfere with them making new awesome stuff, so nevermind.
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Jul 17, 2015 02:26
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Has somebody already done
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Jul 22, 2015 22:32
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So does Wraeththu count as romantic fantasy? Because there's already a Wraeththu rpg...
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Jul 23, 2015 02:25
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What does siloing abilities mean?Bacchante posted:So, from black and hateful sources of which I am forbidden to speak of I have acquired the original and revised PDFs of FATAL. Sadly, the excess splatbooks are lost to the decaying annals of history... for now. With that in mind, I'm going to attempt to usurp the poster formerly known as Syrg's position as 'Worlds most foremost expert on FATAL' and finish the work that he started so long again. Oh good, here we goooooo...
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Jul 24, 2015 04:28
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DNA Cowboys posted:I recently read Robin Laws' Dreamhounds of Paris. It's like Unknown Armies in that I'd be intimidated to run it. The game is filled with beautiful, disturbing ideas about art's interactions with dreams and society. It's also about socially awkward artists ruining everything, the Order/Freedom/Autocracy clash of the 20th century, and cosmic nihilism. Most relevant to the interests of this thread, perhaps, it also features this NPC: Riding (Shantak)? So this is Cthulhu?
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Aug 9, 2015 16:53
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