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The fact that Wick has kickstartered a second book of this poo poo proves everything ARB said in the first post wrong. Jesus Chist, if you are writing a second book on how to make your players absolutely loving miserable and "win" at a role meant to enable them, you haven't "grown," you're shooting backwards in time like Benjamin Button.
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Dec 3, 2014 08:39
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Literally the only good idea in those pages is the "stop quoting Monty Python you goddamned nerds" rule, because Appcalypse World does the same thing with letting players contribute to world building without also telling them to die in a fire
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Dec 3, 2014 09:37
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"I hate games where people are sidekicks to GMPCs." "I make games where people are sidekicks to GMPCs so I can kill them off easier. Life Ain't Fair!" If Wick did as much physical gymastics as he did mental ones, he would have been an Olympic athlete and he wouldn't have written this poison. Why the gently caress would you try and put such abject shite forwards as good GMing ideas? Go gently caress yourself, John Wick.
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Dec 3, 2014 15:03
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Alien Rope Burn posted:I considered including an animated gif of somebody flipping the bird here but I think I'll restrain myself, it might look like I'm flipping the reader off. The book already flips the reader off so it's not an issue.
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Dec 3, 2014 19:49
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Evil Mastermind posted:Please stop posting Play Dirty.
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Dec 3, 2014 22:28
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Yeah, there's plenty of reasons to hate the guy already, let's not make any up. I mean the Happy Fun Ball poo poo is gross and the Villain Point stuff sounds like Fate's crippled cousin but we don't need to go that far.
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Dec 4, 2014 00:18
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ARB, I'm saying this as someone who really likes ypur GMing and roleplaying. Your comments and reviews are in no way going to really hurt someone who is worth paying attention to. John Wick does not sound like the kind of person who would lose sleep over one person's review of his product, for better or worse, and nobody with a hint of sense is going to do that either. If people got upset because one person thought something they did was poo poo we'd never get out of bed in the morning. We all laugh when an rpg designer gets mad at us for making fun of their product, because they're clearly not mature enough to handle critique. As for the con, it's likely that designer was tired and had a long day of talking to nerds and so he just dealt with you quickly. I highly doubt that he snubbed you personally, and I doubt he even remembers you. Obviously you've had more contact with John, but that doesn't mean you need to handle him with kid gloves. His opinions are poo poo and he clearly plays rpgs like a bully. I'm honestly glad you broke away from his style, because Wick-style DMing sounds miserable to be on the recieving end of. This should probably go into another thread or somewhere more private, but in summary, people who get upset at others making fun of them on a comedy forum are dumb, and you don't need to feel sorry for them. Just write what you think. The Deleter fucked around with this message at 01:31 on Dec 4, 2014 |
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Dec 4, 2014 01:29
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Thanks for the compliments. I'm not sure how to respond to this. You start the review by saying that you don't want us to judge John Wick too harshly, and that you've talked to him for hours about things and that he's grown as a person. I find that hard to believe when he's successfully kickstartered a second book that's presumably full of the same stupid, poisonous advice and smug attitude as this one. I agree that you show off the dumb stuff he wrote, but at the same time you did hold back, especially compared to your Way of the Scorpion review. Now that's fine, because god knows we've had enough super-angry reviews of bad RPGs in this thread already. But when Ettin did his Cthulhutech reviews, he didn't let the fact that there were interesting ideas in there stop him from deriding it as the piece of poo poo it was. I'm not privy to what your personal experience with John Wick actually entailed, but it shouldn't stop you from saying that what's in Play Dirty and Way of the Scorpion creates a picture that Wick is a spergy rear end in a top hat with the same "we do this MY WAY" delusions of any low-rate bad GM. On a side note, trying to parcel people into things like "Wick the writer" and "Wick the person" has always been dumb to me, because he's clearly put himself into his writing and this is actually what he does when he plays games. He's inserted himself and his (ex?)wife into Legend of the Five Rings, and this book is his drat manifesto of roleplaying. It's not like he has dissociative identity disorder or something. The Pathfinder comment doesn't work. I agree it's a dumb product, but people are entitled to like it - hell, I used to play it a lot when I was younger. But Play Dirty is not a dumb product, it's a harmful product. It advocates that GMs should bully their players, present them with unwinnable situations, corral them into acts that make them feel lovely and stop playing, and to be proud of it. This is literally advocating the stupid behavior that people see when they imagine roleplaying games. The "interesting ideas" are either not original in the slightest, or have been done better by games written by people who don't take it as a point of pride that they're miserable to play with, or aren't miserable to play with full stop. You could time travel to any point in RPG history and find something John Wick has talked about being done better. It angers me that people not only like Play Dirty, but wanted a sequel so much they gave him the money to do it. People deserve better than that. Edit: I'm not trying to tell you to hate John Wick. That's up to you. But he's doing more harm than good. The Deleter fucked around with this message at 12:15 on Dec 4, 2014 |
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Dec 4, 2014 11:53
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Alien Rope Burn posted:*many words* I would respond here, but I think it would be better if we talked about this elsewhere, on irc or something, so we don't swallow the thread with John Wick chat. I'm interested in debating more with you, though. That said, people who say Pathfinder is actually harmful are wrong - it's bad, but it doesn't encourage GMs to literally ruin games for players. I might give them the tools to do that, but doesn't explicitly tell them to. The Deleter fucked around with this message at 15:49 on Dec 4, 2014 |
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Dec 4, 2014 15:23
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If I have learned anything from Fatal and Friends today, it's that we really hate games designers.
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Dec 5, 2014 00:49
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Would anyone be interested in me looking at some third-party playbooks for Apocalypse World? There's a whole bevy of them out there, some pretty good and some really dumb, and I think it'd be interesting to go through some of them and see which is which and where the failures are. I'd do about ten or so because there's so many of them, but that number can change depending on interest.
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Dec 12, 2014 13:55
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Speaking of bad playbooks, it's time for the Apocalypse World Third-Party Playbook Party The simplicity, clarity and theme of Apocalypse World have inspired many people to make their own playbooks, spinoffs and variants on the game. Hell, when the game has a chapter exclusively dedicated to teaching you how to “hack” the game, its practically expected. And some of those hacks are great and successful - look at Dungeon World or Monsterhearts for proof. Some, however, suck. The old 90% adage rings true when you look through the reams of fan-made playbooks for any of these games. People with more enthusiasm than design sense plug a bunch of ideas into the existing playbooks and call it a day, without thinking about how to tie things together or how it would play in context. We’ve seen his problem already with Skins for the Skinless, where the authors seem to have confused Monsterhearts with Dungeon World. There’s plenty for Apocalypse World, and some are completely bonkers. I intend to go through a selection of them and talk about whether or not they work, and if I’d play with someone using them. I’ll go until either the forums or I get bored of it. A couple of caveats:
Let’s jump straight in! I’ll provide links to the playbooks, so you can read along. We’ll begin straight away with: THE AGENT Have a look here. The Agent is an outsider. They come from another world, where they are employed by a shadow organisation to do spy things, and have ended up in the apocalypse by accident. It’s also a reference to the discontinued weird-spy RPG Lacuna from Paizo, but I don’t know poo poo about it. Sadly, without knowing what the reference is, I’m going to have to approach this in a bubble, but that’s fine. One thing you’ll notice is that some words in the playbook are censored out. I assume this is part of the reference, but this also works on it’s own to allow the players to make something up, or be classified secrets that mean a shitload. Stats The Agent’s spread of stats are themed on what kind of Agent you are. You can take one focused on Hard and shooting stuff, one better at acting under fire and reading the situation, or one on using Hot and Weird to get access to what you want. The “Balanced” one looks boring as hell, so don’t pick that. Moves: You start with Lacuna Device and a new stat : Clearance. Clearance represents your privilege level in your agency - it’s measured at Blue (+1), Deep Blue (+2) and Black (which grants augury and can only be taken as a end of session advance) Here’s one problem I have with the skin - this is the only spot where what your Clearance is is told to you. They don’t really explain the concept or tie it into anything really narrative - it’s just another +stat you can roll. You know all those dumb garbage characters under the Agent’s description? Why not use that to elaborate on what each clearance level means, and what you’re allowed to know, and what that means for your character? That could be awesome? Instead, we get this. Boring. Okay, let’s carry on. The Lacuna Device is a weird badge thing that you can put on someone, at which point it sends them to an alternate dimension for a bit. You roll Clearance to get hold, which you can spend on stuff like dealing harm, making the target drop or forget something important, or dealing psi-damage what the gently caress. For those not in the know, psi-damage is included in the supplements of the Limited Edition AW playbooks. It's a type of damage that represents a powerful, often madness-inducing psychic attack or incursion. It doesn't deal Harm because its effects are devastating - it turns NPCs into insane lunatics, and royally fucks up player characters too. It’s bad news, and there are very few instances of it in the books - mostly being inflicted on the players in actions such as the Quarantine getting people out of cryo, or the Space Marine Mammal trying to exit their walking suit. The Agent, meanwhile, can hand out this poo poo on a whim like it's psychosis Halloween. What a clusterfuck this could be in the wrong hands - every bad guy or problem zapped into madness and effectively dealt with. A good MC can offset this by having a psi-mad victim immediately gently caress the Agent up, or by dealing the appropriate social repercussions of driving someone bugfuck insane with the push of a button. There’s also a very interesting censored-out option, where you could, for example, dislocate a dude's face. Or something. Thanks, censor bars! Deep Blue Clearance has two effects. It raises your Clearance to +2 (yawn) and allows you to target an NPC as a Hostile Personality. You get +1 ongoing against them until they die, you revoke the designation or something else happens. Those censor bars are actually really cool, come to think of it. This move makes the Agent a great NPC bully, enabling them to manipulate, attack and gently caress with their chosen victim. It's certaintly a lot more interesting than the usual +stat moves. Good Cardio gives you hold, which can be spent on rerolling Agent moves, or Going Aggro or Seize by Force. I am not a fan of this move, because one of the things that I like about Apocalypse World is if you gently caress up, you've hosed up. You don't get many second chances, and no take-backs. This breaks that rule, and a lucky Agent that rolled well can mitigate disaster. Aggression is a harm boost, and also allows you to instantly break any small item you seize by force. This is a pretty flavorful move where the applications are few but cool - disarming foes is probably the most typical use you'll get out of it, but you could, say crush the antidote in your hands and let the gang leader die from toxins! It's a neat move, and I'm not sure quite why it has the harm boost tacked on. Intuition adds your clearance to either Reading a Stitch or Reading a Person. If someone picks this, Deep Blue Clearance, and has a base of Sharp +2, slap them. Logistics is probably the coolest move on the playbook - you can request your superiors send you gadgets and weapons through the psychic maelstrom. There's comedic potential on a 7-9 where you don't get quite what you wanted, and misses cause your requests to come through all hosed up. Imagine a knife that sang sweet nothings when it got covered in blood, or a watch that counted down the life of the oldest person present. Special: When you have sex with someone, you become less of a spy and more like an Apocalypse World misfit. You swap an Agent move for another move from another playbook, and "are stuck with that playbook until you are fully assimilated." I think this means you can only take advances from that playbook until you get over your sudden genre shift - the wording is a bit ambiguous. It does evoke the idea of you being a weird outsider not native to the genre of Apoc World, which is pretty cool and could potentially be used in other things. Extra bits: Your Hx notes state that one person knows some redacted stuff which will redacted when you redacted, another person sends your paranoia alarm ringing, and one completely overrides a Hx for that person and gives them Hx +2 because they look like Morpheus or whatever. I'll let you lot be the judge of that one. I like how your sunglasses are listed as gear. Your "leave the game" advance has you wake up on the "Slab" and literally exit AW, which is cool as gently caress. To quickly sum up, err... The Agent has a lot of good ideas, but some fall flat, and others it doesn't communicate effectively. It seems to convey a very specific idea of dimension-hopping secret agents, which kinda bounces off of me because I don't know poo poo about Lacuna. The censor bars are a cool way of saying "make something up!" and Logistics owns bones, but the Clearance mechanic doesn't even try to be interesting, and dealing Psi-damage out easily is something I'm pretty hesitant on. The rerolls of Good Cardio are my biggest bugbear - there's no other move like that in the game! No other class gets take-backs, and I feel that having take-backs kills some of the narrative tension. I'd say, in fact, I'd say it's worse than the Psi-damage thing, because at least an MC can rub his hands together and figure out just how wrong this is going to go. Would I play with an Agent? As long as they stayed away from that dumb Sharp-stacking trick, and treated dealing psi-damage as the very serious thing it is, I probably would. This isn't a terrible playbook, in my opinion, but it could do a lot better. A reworked, more indepth Clearance mechanic, with details of you finding out things you aren't meant to know, and keeping secrets from others, would probably inject some extra life into it. And redo Good Cardio, even if it's just a boring "+1 Hard" or something. Rerolls suck. Next time: Don't you know who I am? The Deleter fucked around with this message at 22:33 on Dec 12, 2014 |
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Dec 12, 2014 22:22
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Apocalypse World Third Party Playbook Party THE JUGGERNAUT The Juggernaut is an option for people who want to play the Space Marine Mammal but their dumb friends won’t let them. It’s a guy in a powered suit, who is strong in the comforting metal and invasive brain needles of said suit but just a regular chump whilst outside it. It’s written by Mike Sands, the author of the PtbA game Monster of the Week, who generally creates pretty decent playbooks. You’ll see quite a few more come from him as we go. Thankfully, there’s no X-Men references in this playbook. Stats: You may notice that all of the Juggernaut’s possible stat lines have Sharp +2, and the rest range from +1 to -1. You’re really good at noticing and analyzing people and situations, but a bit bad at everything else. There’s a reason for this. Moves: You start with Beast of War, which allows you to roll +Sharp instead of +Hard when you Go Aggro or Sieze by Force, and count as a small Gang in battle, as long as you are in your suit. Your ability to calculate what is happening around you is translated into combat action, which makes sense for someone augmented by a powered suit. Additionally, your spread of stats outside of Sharp is never very high, so it encourages you to use your suit and exposes you as a bit of a chump otherwise. Gazetteer moans occasionally about stat swap moves in Monsterhearts, where you use a different stat for a move instead of the default. In Monsterhearts, it’s more of a big deal because you usually only have 4 stats, but the main reason it’s not a good idea on its own is that it’s often done as a patch to try and cover what should be an intentional weakness. Beast of War doesn’t do this - it only helps the Juggernaut in smashing things up, and only when in his suit. At everything else, he’s either a chump or only kinda good. The suit can’t make you sexier! (unless you’re into that) Let’s talk about your suit! You can name it, if the names section is anything to go by. It also has 3 armor and mounts for a weapon or two. It doesn’t count as a vehicle for the No poo poo Driver move which makes sense because it’s not a car. You can give it a Look, a Strength , a Weakness (“loving heavy” is pretty delightful) and then pick a bunch of weapons. You’re basically a 40k Terminator in this getup. 3 armor seems like a lot, and it’ll probably encourage MCs to chuck well-armed gangs and nasty traps at you, but that’s always interesting, right? I See It All improves your Sharp from 2 to 3. Makes you better at the combat and the noticing. Chaos Antenna is a rad name, and allows you to perform augury whilst in battle! This has quite a few applications, from protecting an ally to locating someone to opening hell portals inside people, and its why I recommend taking a statline with a positive Weird value. Of course, augury is shaky enough that no results are guaranteed, which makes using the Antenna pretty dicey in a life or death situation, but holy jeez this move is cool. Well Ventilated Brain is a stat replacement move - roll Sharp instead of Weird for Opening your brain. I’m not so sure about this - this makes the Juggernaut a little too good, and there’s no stipulation of him being in the suit to offset it. On the other hand, it works with the theme of his Sharp being his life-or-death stat. Spyfly gives you an adorable little drone to scout with! You roll Sharp, and ask the MC what you can see. On a miss, the poor thing gets bashed up. This is kind of like a long-range Read a Stitch, and it might be more elegant if it simply allowed your drone to let you Read a Stitch on something it can see, but the distinction is more flavourful. You don’t literally Walk through Walls, but you can Kool-Aid man your way through! Well, that’s the idea. However, it uses Hard in a situation where you can’t substitute it for Sharp, and the choices are weird. On a miss, you simply get stuck halfway through, whereas one of the choices on a 7-9 is to be buried under rubble! If you don’t want to be cockblocked with this move, you’d have to take “it just takes time” every time. Not so good. Heavy loving Armor allows you to stick +1 armor on some armor you already have. Not your suit, though. That’d be crazy. All Tuned Up rewards you for spending some time messing with your suit by giving you Hold you can spend for +1 bonuses in the upcoming mission. On a miss, however, something’s gonna break. This is a cool move, but I wish there was a little more margin for the “something going wrong” situation, so that there could be more chances for things going wrong. I don’t find Hold moves terribly interesting by themselves, but this one is pretty inoffensive and has a nice catch for a miss. Special: This is a pretty complicated sex move. First of all, if you have sex with a PC, their Hx with you goes up by +1. Fair enough. Secondly, no matter who it is, they own you. They get 1 hold over you, because you’re trying to work out what this all means. They can then spend that hold to influence a roll you make when not in your suit. You won’t hear me say this, because most third party playbooks have loving terrible sex moves, but holy poo poo this is a cool sex move. You risk yourself by leaving the suit and becoming intimate with someone, and you’ve laid yourself out for them. They decide what to do with it. They could loving destroy you, or help you out - but only when you’re at your most vulnerable. The way it marries the theme and the mechanics is the best attempt at a sex move I've seen from a third-party skin so far. Extras: One of your advances is to get a workshop and crew for your suit, which is cool. You have a small handy weapon, but its nowhere near as good as your suit guns. I’m pretty sure “Sarge” is a Red vs Blue reference and now I want someone to play this skin as that character. You’re assumed to wear a bodysuit of some sort, so I guess if you want your Juggernaut to be sexy you can do the obvious thing. You can choose to give either Hx +1 or Hx 0 to everyone depending on if you’re a party animal, and then you do large-scale modifications to what THEY tell you. Although it has some small missteps here and there (Walk through Walls is a worthless move), the Juggernaut is a drat cool skin that I’d be happy to play with. It’’s a cool alternative to the gonzo Space Marine Mammal, and incorporates a theme of being vulnerable outside your suit very drat well. I think Mike Sands did very well with this one, and I hope his other skins are just as good. Next time: Gladiators, ready?
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Dec 16, 2014 20:49
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Halloween Jack posted:The Juggernaut is a playbook that, it seems to me, a lot of people really like--and I hate it. The playbook is based around a) rolling Sharp for everything, and b) stealing the Gunlugger's poo poo and doing it better. Yes, the Juggernaut relies on his suit, but it's a lot more practical for the Juggernaut to spend the vast majority of the time suited up than it is for the Driver to sit in his car until he has bedsores. There's plenty of ways to curb the Juggernaut's effectiveness. A good MC will play off weaknesses - "Hey, those plutonium rods your suit needs are out, who's got some more and why do they hate you?" "The rat men swarm all over your and your suit's too loving cumbersome to shake them off, what do you do?" You can seperate the Juggernaut from his suit, or cause it to malfunction, or make him have to act under fire for some things because he can't roll Sharp for that. Other players can coax him out of the suit with seduction or bargaining. Maybe an area just can't fit the suit in. Sleeping in the suit can't be comfortable. This does sound like what Topher wrote about the Mummy, but it's a lot less effort to make a Juggernaut more reasonable to play with, and if an MC is looking through crosshairs then it's expected. I don't disagree that there's problems with it - one move is basically useless - but I don't think it's as bad as you make it out to be.
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Dec 16, 2014 22:16
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Hyper Crab Tank posted:Yeah, but then you're doing that thing where the DM goes "You know that gimmick you think is really cool and your entire character is focused on? I'm going to do everything in my power to deny you use of that gimmick." which does not make a game more fun. True. I concede the point, but I still like the concept of the skin and there's things it does that are cool without stepping on another playbook's toes.
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Dec 16, 2014 22:53
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As a counterpoint, I think anyone who likes Maid RPG should be fired into the sun. Edit: like if you think the system is good mechanically then sure, it's possible, but I hope whoever said they have a soft spot for a creepy anime maid RPG realises what they just typed. The Deleter fucked around with this message at 09:51 on Dec 19, 2014 |
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Dec 19, 2014 09:08
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CommissarMega posted:Like I said, it depends on how much I disagree and I think the game is really creepy. Sorry! I was hoping to move on to things that weren’t creepy or weird, but fate conspires against me. Apocalypse World Third Party Playbook Party THE SPECTACLE We’ve had a playbook I like, so let’s have a playbook I don’t like. The Spectacle is basically a gladiator - they do performances, and they have a fanbase that they need to appease otherwise bad poo poo happens. This becomes a mess quite quickly, as you’ll soon see. Stats: The Spectacle's stats lean towards Hot and Hard. You're gonna be punching people and manipulating them in equal measure. The other stats are fairly low. Moves: So, the Spectacle's main gimmick is they have a big arena they perform in, and a crowd of fans. These fans have a bunch of tags that represent their surplus, for what they do when things are going well, and their wants, which kick in when things go bad. This ties into the first move, Showman, where you roll +Hot at the end of a performance. If you hit, their surplus kicks in, but also a want. If you fail, all of their wants kick in. The main problem with this move is that your fans have like a billion tags. They can have around 3-4 surplus and wants, and ALL of these trigger depending on the roll. How the gently caress do you resolve that narratively? If your fans have the wants savagery, anxiety and judgment, their entire world breaks down, they begin acting paranoid and hoarding poo poo and they blame you for it. All because you messed up a gladiator performance. That's some serious poo poo and it doesn't match up with what the Spectacle's actually doing. You could seriously divert a story with a bad roll for no real reason. There's also a tag that affects your barter, which means you can generate cash pretty easily. Let's carry on with the other moves. Hot Commodity is way too complicated. Someone else sets up a performance for you, and they roll.. juggling? So only an Operator can do anything with this move. Then the move doesn't really give success or fail states, only that the job can be weird and embarrassing, or dangerous, or whatever. Also there might be a prize? This move could have been really interesting, but it's a clusterfuck instead. Torrid allows you to give up dealing 1 harm in order to get a bonus to Hot. Harm isn't always a big deal, stat boosts are. And this lasts for the whole session. Haha, no. Tactical Mind and Showoff are stat swap moves. Showoff is slightly better but both are pretty boring. The world's a stage allows you to go aggro on people who aren't there via doing something violent, like breaking something. They can't back off from it. It's... okay? I keep seeing the s-harm term and I don't know what that means, but it's a pretty flavorful move. Moment of Clarity allows you to do a "ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED" speech and make your fans do something. This is a pretty powerful move, because in Apocalypse World, 50 people is a big deal. It's also cool. I now understand why people in this thread dig through a field of turds to look for pennies. Special: quote:“When you have sex with someone, roll +the number of people you have sex with beyond the first. On a hit, you all take +1 forward. On a miss, you’re too much, everyone takes -1 forward.” Um.  Okay, let’s break down why this move is bad.
This is basically a really clumsy and shallow way to try and introduce a multi-partner sex move. It doesn't do anything interesting with it, it's the RPG equivalent of reaching for the tissues. Extras: The art is cool. The names are kinda cool. The Hx are dumb. If you want to spin plates or deal with hard responsibilities, play a Hardholder or Operator. If you want to be super-hot, play the Skinner. The Spectacle tries for both and does neither well, and then throws in a bunch of complicated poo poo on top of that. Next time: kill all nerds. The Deleter fucked around with this message at 15:36 on Dec 19, 2014 |
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Dec 19, 2014 15:27
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you're willing to endure, and honestly, if you excise the romance chapters, it's no different than a regular anime-themed campaign. That's what I think, and I'm sticking with it
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Halloween Jack posted:"I saw Spartacus." I thought it was a reference to the rave orgy in Matrix Reloaded. Whoops! Still hate it. The Deleter fucked around with this message at 15:59 on Dec 19, 2014 |
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Dec 19, 2014 15:57
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Kurieg posted:Tenchi Muyo That'd be more of a system issue rather than anything a single move could/should solve. The thing is that AW assumes it's always between two people and so the moves are usually worded that way, which makes figuring out what happens in a situation like the Spectacle's a bit weird. It wouldn't take a genius to work out a method to fix it - hell, prioritise PCs over NPCs, pick who you have the highest Hx with. Battlebabe cancels moves aimed at her and not others. I think that'd work fine in most situations. I'm annoyed by how shallow and clumsy this move is, not the idea of multiple partners in AW.
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Dec 19, 2014 16:57
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Young Freud posted:The other thing is that the Battlebabe can be reskinned very easily into something like a Post-Apocalypse Connery-era James Bond, where you could be clad in nothing but a speedo and your obnoxious chest hair zapping bandits with your Magnums and your unbridled machismo. There's nothing in the playbook that states the 'babe has to be female. If you don't play the battlebabe as a smouldering sexy male that defeats enemies with a glance and a single bullet, I send you a dissapointed letter explaing your poor RPG choices. I'm not joking.  Mr. Maltose posted:The true archetype of the Battlebabe is Zardoz, actually. THE DICE IS GOOD THE ABILITY SCORE IS EVIL
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Dec 20, 2014 02:00
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Young Freud posted:I've got one and this sounds like the perfect dice bag substitute to make. Add a button to press that makes it spout the quotes and I'd buy it day one.
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Dec 20, 2014 02:16
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Davin Valkri posted:Oh, good, I'm not going to get a disappointed letter from The Deleter, then! You're safe as houses, mate. 
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Dec 20, 2014 02:30
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I was going to say "stop talking about games with underage sex you loving weirdos" but considering some of the playbooks I've got coming up... 
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Dec 22, 2014 21:58
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Merry loving Christmas. Apocalypse World Third Party Playbook Party THE MAN IN THE BOX This is a Doctor Who gag playbook. I like Doctor Who - it's a silly family program about an immortal alien who solves problems and saves the world. But the fandom of this show makes me cringe - partly because I used to be like them when I was in high school, and also partly because how the gently caress are you so invested in a low budget sci-fi/fantasy TV show? On top of that, Doctor Who and Apocalypse World don't work together full stop. One is a mostly light-hearted family show, the other is a gritty HBO-style slugfest. It's not peanut butter and jelly, it's peanut butter and hamburger meat. To make things worse, the version of the Doctor they've chosen is the one portrayed by Scottish actor David Tennant, whose performance consisted of a lot of catchphrases, jumping around and gurning with a face like elastic. I did not like Tennant's run. Whoever thought this skin was a good idea was an idiot. Stats You always have Sharp +2. Unlike the Juggernaut, the rest of your stats are pretty good except for your Weird. You always have positive Cool as well. So you can read people well, and act when the going gets tough. Moves Let's start with the Box. You have a Box and it's connected to the psychic maelstrom and you have a key. Well, it can be a barrel as well. It has a few special things about it, and it also has a Want. When it's in Want, you can't use any moves involving it. We'll see if that bites us in the rear end later on! Also, one of its Wants is "Sexual Energy." Vomit. Your first move is Allon-sy! (uuuuugh). You try to travel somewhere in time and space with your box. Roll to Sharp to not get into huge poo poo. Options include not going insane, not putting the Box in Want, not getting into huge poo poo, and actually getting where you need to go. I suppose if you roll well you can trivialize the issue of travelling to places, or if you want to get everyone killed or lost and then killed. Understanding weirdness lets you roll Sharp instead of Weird when you Open your Brain whilst in the Box. So Halloween Jack professed a dislike of the Juggernaut because they rolled Sharp for everything. I think I have the same problem with this skin. The Man in the Box rolls Sharp for nearly loving everything and there aren't many situations where he won't be in the Box. Nobody is going to put the Box in Want because then you lose access to the cool poo poo your Box does. So he's going to keep rolling Sharp. I keep wanting to go into a side rant about how to make the Juggernaut want to exit their suit sometimes just so I can escape the pain of reviewing this playbook. It wouldn't be hard. Make them unable to roll Hot or manipulate people effectively something. Come on! allows you to do augury whilst in the box. Unless you roll a ten, your Box goes into Want. Your Weird will usually be at -1 so you'll probably gently caress up and your Box will shut down. Nobody will take this move. Talk your way out continues the theme of rolling Sharp for everything. If I read the world Sharp again I'm going to apply Sharp to my eyeballs. Now's a good time to run is the Gunlugger's gently caress this poo poo, except you roll Sharp. It's the exact same move, they didn't even change the wording. Aren't I clever is the perfect oxymoron. When you spout technobabble you ROLL SHARP AGAIN FOR gently caress'S SAKE, and on average you get +1 forward but all your mates take -1 forward. If you fail the roll the MC makes a hard move, which is weird because I'm pretty sure the MC can make hard moves when someone fails anyway. I like how a move that is meant to help your friends fucks them over more often than not. Good poo poo. Special When you vicariously live out your fanfiction at the table, ostracizing yourself from human contact forever, that character gets access to your Box. Until you do it again with someone else. Extras Oh good, a weapon that does Psi-harm. Praise be. How the gently caress can someone have "kinky eyes"? Leather eyelashes? The Hx aren't bad, I guess. If anyone brings the Man in the Box to your game, laugh at them. It's the clumsiest, most ill-thought way of bringing in stupid nerd poo poo into AW. Next time: a good playbook! The Deleter fucked around with this message at 10:48 on Dec 23, 2014 |
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Dec 23, 2014 10:44
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neonchameleon posted:I can't agree here - the average episode of Dr. Who takes him out of the box for most of the episode. That's true. The premise of Dr Who episodes has him outside the box or often separated from it and unable to access it for periods of time. He's still rolling Sharp for everything though, which is incredibly boring, and some of his moves even stop the box from working which means the moves that DO involve the box have a chance of not working. I also admit writing this stream of consciousness style because time spent on a loving Doctor Who playbook is time wasted. The Deleter fucked around with this message at 12:29 on Dec 23, 2014 |
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Dec 23, 2014 12:22
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Kurieg posted:It's not what I am, but who I do that defines me This could be a tag-line for Monsterhearts, honestly.
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Dec 23, 2014 16:56
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This thread is just full of wrong opinions! 
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Dec 26, 2014 19:33
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I'm not aware of a Brony playbook, but rest assured if it exists, I won't touch the poop. That thing can stay buried.
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Dec 26, 2014 22:57
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Count Chocula posted:The idea of The Doctor IS that he jumps between genres easily, and Apocolypse World sounds like a perfect place for him to show up as a guest star. The Psychic Maelstorm even sounds like something from the new series. Except he doesn't? There's many different interpretations and ways he's played by different actors, but the show is ostensibly kid-friendly despite all of the gruesome deaths and dark themes. It's a completely different kind of show than the ones Apocalypse World is based on, where death and sexuality is depicted more starkly and the outcome of an episode isn't 100% guaranteed to be a happy ending. He doesn't work in AW thematically, not without some serious changes. It's the complete opposite of "perfect" from him. Also, Glazius posted:Pretty sure The Quarantine is like, exactly this? Dude from a better time with a cleaner moral compass who might well be trying to fix things. If you want to play as a naive outsider trying to fix things, don't force your stupid nerd fantasy on the people at your table and play the well-written playbook instead. Apocalypse World Third Party Playbook Party THE BEAST MASTER The Beast Master has a monster pet, and spends much of their time trying to stop it from breaking poo poo. Ironically, after slagging off a Doctor Who playbook, I'm now looking at one that could basically be a Pokemon one. There's a lot of "boy and his monster" stuff to play on, though, and the artwork reminds me of Shadow of the Colossus, so you can basically play this any way you want to. Let's hope this is the good playbook I promised! Stats: You always have +2 in Hot. A quick look at the moves says that, sadly, you're rolling Hot for everything, mostly to manipulate your monster into doing stuff. The rest of your stats are below average. I wonder if people will realise it's okay for a playbook to do something with a stat that isn't its best one, or that not all of the moves have to involve a roll. The default playbooks have maybe two or three moves that use a roll, and the rest are changes in situation, or give armor, or even roll a stat that the character might suck balls in. It's okay to do that! Failure means interesting things happen! The MC isn't your adversary but they can make interesting stuff happen if you fail, and surely that's the point? Moves: Let's begin with your monster. It's a 2-harm small gang with 0 armor. If it ever gets out of control, you let it satisfy one of its Impulses to bring it back. I immediately like this more than the fans of the Spectacle, because despite having four or five Impulses at once, they don't all fire at once and cause a narrative headache, and you could even turn the monster's desires upon a foe or obstacle and help yourself out. There are, of course, still way too many Impulse tags - you even get one for choosing its shape, for goodness sake. Also there's another psi-harm atttack There is a way to remove Impulse tags! Your advances can remove Impulses instead of gaining new moves! Holy crap! That's a cool decision - do you try and teach your monster new commands and risk it going out of control, or make it tamer but less versatile? I wish there were less Impulses in the first place, but this seems to be a good halfway house. You also can get, as an advance, some kind of breeding pit or training ground - hopefully not the former because one monster is enough of a handful! This is basically "make a location" as a move. It's also a place where you train your beast, and it works kind of like a Ritual from Dungeon World, in that you can specify what you want to do, and you WILL accomplish that task, but the MC has a few caveats for you. I like this because the Ritual move owns for doing what you want, and it works well in Apoc World too because it follows the same sort of negotiation the MC and the players do. I'm not too happy about the outcome, where you can make up a new addon or move for your monster, because this and previous F&Fs show that people can't seem to come up with good moves when they have all the time in the world so I'm not sure they'd come up with something good at the table. Unless it was something simple, like a stat boost or something. It's also noted that you need 2-barter a month to look after and feed your monster. A 20-foot-tall ragebeast is for life, not just for Christmas! Your initial move is Fetch! and it's basically what you think it is. You roll to send your monster to do something or fetch something, and it could get distracted or come back harmed. You have a decent chance of succeeding here, which is good because on a miss its been completely diverted by an Impulse. I don't really have a lot to say about the move, to be honest, except it seems to be themed around your monster dropping out of sight so you don't see what happens to it. That doesn't preclude stuff where you're there, though. It'd be pretty funny to tell your monster to break down a wall and it stops halfway through to chase a butterfly or throw bricks at people. 8th Wonder of the Apocalypse is a really cool name. Your monster gets bigger, and it also gets the Impulse to crush stuff. I'm not 100% on gang mechanics, and I'm not sure it's worth taking this move to risk the added Impulse. Beast Rider is a stat replacement move, where if you're going into battle with your beast, you can roll Hot instead of Hard. I think there ought to be the additional caveat you having to order your beast to sic someone to get the roll, in order to separate you manipulating the monster from you attacking someone yourself. Law of the Wild does what I mentioned earlier! If you just say "gently caress it" and let your monster be a dickhole to everyone and follow its Impulses, you mark experience. It rewards you for doing something that's already mentioned - letting it satisfy an Impulse to get it under control. There's no mention of what to do when you want to get it under control more directly, but you could probably just roll to Manipulate for that. It does raise the question of why letting your monster run crazy for exp isn't baked in already, but I suppose not alienating all the npcs with your jerk monster from day one is a pretty good thing. Milking the Locals is a barter generating move - you take your monster on the road! You can either get 2 barter, nothing OR squeeze one barter but have to skip town, or get an angry mob coming to kill you! Since your Hot is +2 all the time, the number of mobs coming to kill you is pretty small. But you're not guaranteed to get to feed your monster this month either, so it's a pretty interesting move. Unleashed is, as far as I can tell, just Seizing by Force but with hold, and you roll Hot. There's the additional options of them running the gently caress away, and if you mess up your monster follows an Impulse. Not terribly interesting, but it's better than just saying "roll Hot when you Sieze by Force," plus Beast Rider does that already. Special: Anyone you have sex with gets +1 Hold with which to help or interfere with you when you're controlling your beast. I suspect a lot of these hold-based sex moves are the fault of the Faceless, the creepy brute from the Limited Edition playbooks. I'd have put something like "your monster won't ever hurt that person, and they can give it commands as per Fetch" or something not clumsily worded. Extras: The names are all references to "boy and his monster" stuff, and also Dr Dolittle for some reason. You can also call your monster Gidorah or "Good Jirra" which is a very mush-mouthed take on Gojira/Godzilla. Your Hx revolves around your beast liking or not liking people, which is pretty cool and focuses on the theme of you having to devote all of your time to this thing. I somewhat like the Beast Master, but it's not perfect. Its got elements of that cargo cult third party design - always rolling your one good stat, too many rolls, way too many tags/effects on things. Much like the Juggernaut, this could be a really good playbook with a bit of tinkering. I'd drop the impulses from the shape selection of the monster, and make 8th Wonder change an Impulse, to represent the monster getting bigger and clumsier/meaner. I'd also try and remove some of the rolls for moves or make ones where you roll a lesser stat, and fiddle with the stat choice so you don't get +2 Hot every drat time. Next time: And death followed with him!
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Dec 27, 2014 11:08
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I hate you all.
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Dec 28, 2014 22:10
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So I was going to do a playbook but then it turns out it's, like, five or six playbooks woth a similar theme. So uh, this will be interesting!
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Dec 30, 2014 01:27
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Evil Mastermind posted:I actually played it quite a bit as recently as last year. That's not to say we didn't have trouble with the rules, but it is playable. This has to be a lie. Having to play this sounds like having a job. I can't concieve of a game where you have to look up a table for loving die bonuses, where the GM determines damage, and the very nature of the setting means my character's gun fails to work the majority of the time unless I spend proto-Fate points. I'd have an aneurysm. God speed, Evil Mastermind. You are stronger than I. The Deleter fucked around with this message at 20:34 on Jan 4, 2015 |
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Jan 4, 2015 20:30
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I want to say this looks like it was devised by a serial killer, but we've already seen worse, so the most I can say is at least they gave the confession of "gently caress numbers" even though they wrote like ten tables and tried to model every possible thing.
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Jan 5, 2015 18:23
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Oh good, I was wondering when furry rpgs would show up again to ruin my worldview. How does that wrist mounted gatling even work, like where is the ammo feed, where is the ammo even? How is that going to fire anything of a calibre better than rimfire? If it's lasers, why not draw a less dumb-looking laser gun instead? I'm focusing on this one thing so I dont have to look at the creature it's attatched to because goddamn it.
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Jan 6, 2015 23:08
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Mors Rattus posted:The worst part is that I loving recognize that thing. I mean, not specifically, but I have run into the sci fi furry centaur people before and I have to ask: is that picture a picture of a stupid hermaphrodite thing? Oh god, I think /tg/'s wiki has a page on those. God loving daaaaaaaaaaamn it.
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Jan 6, 2015 23:25
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If the system wasn't intent on simulating everything then it'd be possible to be a Dinoman in Cyberpunkia, but it is so you can't. If the system ignored the relative "power levels" (ugh) of the realities and put these things on an even keel (Evil Mastermind points to Fate a lot and I agree), then you could have stuff like a dwarf blocking lasers with his shield and a cyborg riding dinosaurs without worrying about either of them being pasted. There's also the problem that the way the axiom/reality system works is adversarial. Your characters have to spend their XP in order to avoid risking turning into cavemen and forgetting what they're doing, and the system doesn't care how irreverent your equipment is so you HAVE to do that constantly. Here's a better idea - this doesn't happen. You're the legendary Storm Knights, you can go where you want. OR, you turn into something that parallels what you are, but you keep your mind and knowledge and stuff. A cyberpunk sniper with an active camouflage system going to dinosaur world turns into a raptor-man with a longbow and chameleon skin, and then he whines about it. Maybe spending possibilities turns you back and gives you an advantage over the measly primitives!
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Jan 8, 2015 17:16
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Evil Mastermind posted:I'm guessing it's another "game balance" thing because if everyone can get cybernetics and implant a retractable magic sword then of course EVERYBODY would. And everybody should. 
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Jan 8, 2015 17:25
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It'll be either in character creation or whstever stunts/powers/skills this game has.
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Jan 10, 2015 23:03
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Young Freud posted:Extra Dong (+10CP) Compulsove Masturbation from Cthulhutech but as a character advantage.
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Jan 10, 2015 23:06
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Expecting furries to try and create a sensible timeline and build a world that doesn't take liberties with science and basic facts is like expecting the sun to turn blue. Ain't gonna happen. Honestly if I wanted to play s hosed-up furry in an RPG I'd wait for Eclipse Phase Fate Edition. Or reconsider my life choices. The Deleter fucked around with this message at 00:30 on Jan 11, 2015 |
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Jan 11, 2015 00:04
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