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I think Wick may be the only person I trust less than GW with Africa and colonialism. Also, seeing Double Cross reviewed again has convinced me to get the PDF of it. Parasite Eve Times will be coming for my players.
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Dec 23, 2015 20:32
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Something I've long since learned as a DM is never to give out 'good roleplaying' awards. They're insanely subjective, they can make things uneven, but the worst part is I noticed they often discouraged shyer players from participating. They were afraid to 'mess up' and that's not conducive to getting everyone around the table to relax, have fun, and pretend to be elves/french/doomed anime viral superbeings. They can work okay if the bonus is for the whole group, but on the whole I prefer to avoid them outright. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 09:58 on Dec 24, 2015 |
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Dec 24, 2015 09:54
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unseenlibrarian posted:The best Bram Stoker item is that coffin full of roses that you can just pull out of nowhere whenever badly injured to heal yourself. As one does. I can't tell what I'm hoping my players make more but the one PC to already make a Double Cross character so far is a senator's daughter who was killed along with him by the False Hearts, rezzed with superpowers, and whose entire Chimera build is built towards hitting people with a truck. By swinging it at them. I really look forward to the rest of them.
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Dec 24, 2015 23:46
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Evil Mastermind posted:You know, it's not just the smug satisfaction. It's not just the plan. It's not just the plan against his own (or his friend's) daughter. It's that he's smuggly satisfied about the plan against his own (or his friend's) daughter and that he draws it out sadistically. It's not really sadistic, it's just an idiot being unable to talk things out like an adult and instead going for the 'clever' in-game plan that has never, ever worked without pissing people off. Wick is still a 14 year old agonizing about how to deal with the new girl's 'OP' Paladin who doesn't fit the game. HE'LL SHOW HER! HE'LL STEAL HER HOLY AVENGER WITH HIS THIEF! That'll fix everything! Like, once again, the simple, adult solution is 'Hey, I know you're really enjoying this new power you have, but I'm afraid it might be unbalancing the game and hurting the tone we're going for. Why don't we talk about some complications or changes and try to find something that'll let you be a berserking badass but maybe make it a little less insurmountable?' Night10194 fucked around with this message at 18:09 on Dec 26, 2015 |
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Dec 26, 2015 18:06
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One of the most memorable things to happen to me in a D&D game was when I ended up working with the goblin tribes my guy had been fighting against a much more existential threat and we pretty much realized we were fighting for the same reasons, they just got stuck living in the lovely swampland and wanted my peoples' good farmland. We made peace, worked together, everything, but a few generations down the line, they eventually managed to drive the humans north and take the land they'd wanted, because just understanding and making peace for the moment didn't actually solve the fact that they really wanted farmland that was less infested with giant centipedes. Neither side in that fight was inherently evil, both committed atrocities and acts of mercy, both were portrayed as mostly reasonable people fighting an on and off again war. That was when I was in high school. My DM got across what Wick is smugging it up about in a much more nuanced way, as a high schooler.
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Dec 26, 2015 22:40
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I DMed a lot like Wick when I was 14 and just starting to DM, and I thought I was clever as hell for it too. Even down to making baby's first Not D&D full of mechanical holes and bad ideas. The thing is, Wick never grew out of it.
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Dec 27, 2015 09:32
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Josef bugman posted:I really want to see Wick try and flail about in Glorantha. This would make my day, yes.
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Dec 27, 2015 19:30
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Of course he does! See if you can spot one in the next chapter. I mean they were all over Voddace (that NOM guy who's supposed to be Wick's general 'Oh I'm so above the morals of the setting and so clever and I've read the evil overlord list' dude from 7th Sea) and the Scorpion book. That WAS him with the Voddace, right? I mean they were basically Doomed Highborn Manchildren The Country, so I may've just been reading him into them and it's been ages since I actually played 7th Sea. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 23:06 on Dec 27, 2015 |
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Dec 27, 2015 23:03
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You know, if Wick has such a consistent problem with people not paying attention, it might be because his games sound aggressively uninteresting.
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Dec 28, 2015 04:53
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Wick is the kind of guy who would see a PC dump a ton of points into 'I am one of the best swordfighters in the world.' and go 'Aha! I should have someone shoot her! That'll learn her!' instead of 'Oh, she really wants to have exciting swordfights.'
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Dec 28, 2015 19:39
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Like, I'm all for occasionally fudging stuff. If a player's having a really bad streak with dice and getting visibly frustrated, we'll give them a pity reroll or sometimes let them do something their PC is good at without rolling to give them a moment to show off and get back in the game, that kind of thing. But just flat-out ignoring the rules to run whatever, PC permission or not, is kind of defeating the point of playing an RPG with a group.
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Dec 28, 2015 19:46
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fool_of_sound posted:Yes, but on the other hand Wick is a massive sack of poo poo. John Wick has done more to improve my DMing than any other writer I've read, though. Because when I was a teenager and just starting I basically DMed like he did, until I had it happen to me while playing 7th Sea and realized running games that way made you an rear end in a top hat.
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Dec 28, 2015 19:49
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Kellsterik posted:I think his reasoning is that he wants the game to be a purely mental battle of wills with the players themselves trying to outwit him/his NPCs, rather than their formal game mechanics doing the work of engaging with the game. But when he has exclusive control over the rest of the game world, their only victories are the ones he decides to give them- it isn't really a competition in a meaningful way. This, incidentally, will always be the main problem with genuine antagonistic GMing. It's really never a fair fight.
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Dec 28, 2015 20:30
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Midjack posted:Don't feel too bad about that one. CTech had a bunch of weird stuff going on and, while there was some gross stuff in the core book, they didn't start raping at maximum efficiency [0] until a few books in, if I remember correctly. Also, the elevator pitch for CTech sounds really goddamn awesome: Giant robots vs. horrible eldritch alien invaders? Hell yeah. Shame about absolutely everything about the game, mechanically and writing wise.
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Dec 29, 2015 04:31
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FMguru posted:What makes it even funnier is just how limited Wick's palate of Stories that he's trying to tell is. They are all some variant of: The saddest part is how shallow all three of these are, too. Especially the last one. Wick will forever be a 14 year old edgelord making his first homebrew after getting disillusioned with D&D.
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Dec 29, 2015 09:16
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theironjef posted:Here is an Afterthought for you guys, hopefully you want to discuss favorite campaign settings with us. I love Feng Shui's setting, albeit with a fair bit of changing about to it. The basic concept of a bunch of time-traveling action heroes having insane adventures throughout time while a massive (and hilarious) left wing dystopia looms in the Bad Future just appeals to me. Shame about the game's actual system, but I can just run it in something else.
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Dec 29, 2015 21:49
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Everything about this is redeemed by hive-mind penguins, immediately.
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Dec 29, 2015 23:41
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PurpleXVI posted:So, Hc Svnt Dracones had its first expansion officially launched today. Is everyone tired of it or does anyone want to hear what 200 pages and 14 dollars gets you? How did that game get an expansion. I mean, I was surprised when Albedo did, too, but at least Albedo was an interestingly weird game.
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Dec 31, 2015 19:54
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Nuns with Guns posted:Is this guy really bad at selling the adventure? Because a near-constant march from fight to fight, sideways swarm mechanics that somehow reduce the number of rolls even though all the individual soldiers act on their own initiative, and a final fight vs an 18th-level full caster that you have to kill three times doesn't sound very fun Welcome to Pathfinder, enjoy your stay.
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Jan 1, 2016 20:27
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Comrade Koba posted:
I've run this kind of thing before and I can say it is Good Times.
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Jan 2, 2016 09:23
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D&D Wizards make great antagonists because they're really used to reflexively being on top...so when something changes up the dynamic the schadenfreude is wonderful.
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Jan 2, 2016 10:06
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The thing is none of these props are *interesting*. Like, they have AIs, custom-made organisms, etc. Do they use these to examine their own idea of sapience or do these shape their society? Not at all. By the book's own words, they're not allowed to exceed the 'normal' furries. All they really do is make the society look more pathetic and transparently false. Which I suppose could be a jumping off point ("Oh sure, you know what they SAY about themselves, but see how they treat the Blips!") but the book can't see it at all. They're props that exist solely to have sparkledogs and the most groan-worthy parts of EDI from Mass Effect 3.
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Jan 2, 2016 16:33
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You'd think in a transhumanist setting you'd want to explore the social and psychological implications of genetics and form becoming genuinely malleable. People being able to make 'designer' organisms or AI entities would only be the tip of that iceburg, and it'd be cool to write a game about changeable shells and what it does to the sense of self and community. I know Eclipse Phase already does that some, but I'd actually prefer it without some weird cthulu motherfuckers lurking in the background for once. Just a game that focuses on 'This is what technology has allowed, and this is what it has done.'
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Jan 2, 2016 23:55
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I'd really enjoy watching a libertarian group try to get its head around a society that has genuinely gone post-scarcity. The insane contortions would be wonderful.
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Jan 3, 2016 01:28
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Kurieg posted:Now I'm imagining that forcing robots to breathe was actually part of a conspiracy by the Spacesuit creation industry ensuring that they'd always have a market. You could explain a lot of weird tech quirks in a terrible corporate dystopia this way. "Why do we do the less efficient thing? Because those people have a private army and a massive legal department and advertising budget."
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Jan 3, 2016 02:18
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Badass hummingbird people should be great, goddamnit! Not a racist murder cult! This should be like the killer penguins, not...whatever the gently caress I just read.
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Jan 3, 2016 08:26
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The brain-eating bugmen feel like proof that Vectors are dumb as poo poo. Which would ALSO have been an actually interesting hook: The playthings and created slave labor force of a weird corporate separatist state outliving them due to catastrophe and struggling to find ways to go beyond their programming and build a society on Mars would be awesome as a sci-fi concept.
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Jan 3, 2016 17:45
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Why the hell would anyone hire this author ever again for anything!?  A book like Changing Breeds should be career ender.
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Jan 3, 2016 21:23
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Cythereal posted:I thought it was a more or less overt theme to all of the World of Darkness that no matter which line you're playing, you are playing one of the monsters, a bad guy. Unless you're VASCU, at which point you're just Francis York Morgan and obviously the best.
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Jan 5, 2016 19:51
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Oh, Torg. But then, massively overcomplicated martial arts systems are about as 90s game as metaplot and god NPCs.
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Jan 5, 2016 20:19
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Evil Mastermind posted:Two of the hallmarks of Torg! I've said it before and I'll say it again: I never thought I'd see something more 90s than oWoD, but here's Torg.
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Jan 5, 2016 20:38
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So, what the hell are you supposed to be doing in HSD? I mean, the corporations are all moral agents who have everything on lockdown, they have world peace, they know where they come from, and somehow despite being a setup for a situation where almost everyone should be at everyone's throats, there's no goddamn conflict anywhere.
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Jan 5, 2016 23:21
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Like, because I reviewed it way back when entirely in reaction to HSD, let's take a look at the situation in the most conflict-free zone of Albedo: Platinum Catalyst. In the Core Systems, where the worlds are heavily developed, environmentally sound, managed by a friendly and omnipresent AI that personally has time to try to help out every citizen, there is still poo poo To Do as a soldier! First, there's all the political intrigue, corruption, and investigation play you can do with EDF high command; there are definite conspiracies among command, especially the people who have learned to deceive the Net and change public record through it (which takes people off guard as almost everyone is used to the Net being a pretty objective source of facts). From what a friend who is a fan of the comics tells me, the failure to STOP these conspiracies actually brings down the entire system and crashes the Net in the comics, because it can't manage the economy without accurate info and their planned economy is basically impossible without a hyper-efficient AI managing it. But say you want combat. Terrorism is unfortunately common, because it's possible for people to slip entirely through the world's cracks. Someone with a bad SPI score might find themselves socially isolated, with few friends (who wants to associate with someone who might hurt their own prospects?) and no job. Sure, they survive, the system will take care of them, but the crippling boredom and the existential emptiness common to the settings' knowledge that its people are a created people drives some folks insane and into nihilism. Radical movements spring up among people who have to live less on-the-grid. The Net is always watching you, assessors are always taking your measure, news from the colonies is often depressing and terrible, and it's possible for people to snap under the constant pressure of the surveillance state. At other times, terrorist organizations spring up around the grievances of the colonies or as plants from the ILR. Legitimate protests and conflict abound, too, as people advocate for policy change or risk their political capital to speak out against the system. At every stage, what looks like a paradise on the surface is full of opportunities for counter-terrorist tactical missions, intrigue, politics, and spying. There's poo poo To Do! And that's in the safest part of known space, where everyone is automatically fed, monitored, and tended to! HSD is too afraid to admit it's built on a house of cards and too uncomfortable with its own premise to ever have self-reflection like that.
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Jan 5, 2016 23:37
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