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Doresh posted:"I need five Armour Riders with attitude Fates!" They're releasing a TBZ supplement? Since when?
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Dec 13, 2015 21:57
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Kurieg posted:Kubo needs to be stopped for his own good. Nah. It's become an unintentional performance art piece on dragging a story out much longer than it had any right to be. I say let it continue on for as long as this trainwreck is so terrible that it's amazing to read, in the worst way.
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Dec 14, 2015 05:57
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That little diatribe against reviews really speaks ill of his ability to take criticism. As if that wasn't already apparent...
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Dec 20, 2015 22:49
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It just sounds to me that John Wick really wants to play Torchbearer and doesn't realize it. Torchbearer has the feel he's going for, gives a reason for why people adventure (you are all poor with no other options), puts in a mechanic for what happens if people lose their nerv and quit or become too attached to their cultures and quit, and has rules for holding torches that aren't obtrusive and dumb (hence the name).
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Dec 22, 2015 06:46
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Alien Rope Burn posted:So Wick has this idea for a Star Trek game where the players discover a plot to blow up the Earth, but the Fed doesn't believe them, and the Earth is blown up, and somehow that disables all Federation ships, and then the Cardassians and Romulans invade and the Klingons have a civil war and the Vulcans surrender to the invading forces and can the plucky players forge a rebellion to rebuild the Galactic Republic because this sounds a lot like some other franchise. Wick, that's Star Wars, not Star Trek. Alien Rope Burn posted:[*]What if all the PCs are just different personalities in one person's head? No actual advice on how to make it work, but is your mind blown yet?! Is it?![/list] Wick, that's called Everyone Is John and is its own game. Wick is really bad at labeling things right. Also, and I'm risking getting too personal here, but Wick's friend sounds like a piece of poo poo. Like, a sexist, misogynist douche.
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Dec 27, 2015 08:50
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I really don't get that "their sheets cannot save them" mentality. Like, does he literally mean "their main form of agency and interacting with mechanics mean nothing in the way of my desire to control everything"? Or is there more nuance to it that I'm missing?
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Dec 28, 2015 18:40
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Traveller posted:I was gonna say he actually wants to write a story, but well... The Last Paladin. What's that? A novel he wrote?
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Dec 28, 2015 18:57
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Yeah, going to back up LornMarkus on this. The first time I ever ran a game, I didn't read some little, tiny bits that revealed the game was creepy. Like, on the surface, it seemed like a decent, free rpg and I was new and didn't know what was good and bad yet. If you looked a bit in, you'd see the creepy bits. Got me a bad rap for a while with people at my college gaming club and a running joke my friends still bring up from time to time. So, I generally try to make sure there isn't hidden creep in any game I am going to pick up because of that.
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Dec 29, 2015 03:03
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Kumaton posted:Can someone expound on this? I listened to the Witch Girls Adventures episode and I thought the whole brutalness of the opening comic was kinda off for an otherwise light game. Basically, the rpg was made by someone with a transformation feitsh and the black haired witch (Luceria?) is from his feitsh comic. This is why so much transformation occurs in the game: because the author (or was it the artist?) gets off to it. You can read more about it here!
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Dec 29, 2015 04:05
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Alien Rope Burn posted:which is a good way to annoy a lot of artists, since it often makes flaws in the art more obvious. How does it do that, exactly?
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Jan 1, 2016 21:56
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On the subject of the name, what does Hc Svnt Dracones mean? Is it some bastardization of latin?
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Jan 1, 2016 22:41
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Kurieg posted:Thank you, that gave me enough to do a proper reverse image search It's best not to ask questions that one would not want to know the answers to.
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Jan 2, 2016 08:01
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In the darkest corners of our globe... ...things the gods fear dwell without shame. Those who venture to such places... ...do not lack fear, only sense. He who seeks coin and fortune... ...would be better served in any other means. But, if this is what you wish... ...then, it's time to enter...  What is this? Back in 2010, Vincent D. Baker released Apocalypse World. It introduced the world to a dark, depressing world that was lingering on after its timed departure. It's engine, the Powered By The Apocalypse, engine was put out on an open license for anyone who wanted to use it. Cue Sage LaTorra and Adam Koebel. Besides having names that sound fake yet are, somehow, actually their names, they both had the idea to take this engine and use it to make a generic fantasy title. While this title has been considered to not have aged well, it did do a lot to bring people to this engine and show how fun and hackable it could be. Basically, Apocalypse World's implied setting tended to turn people away (myself included) where this safe, though generic, option gave me a chance to play with the engine. We'll be going through the title and commenting on it as it goes along. Hopefully, I won't just quit and vanish out of boredom like I did the last time I tried to do a Fatal and Friends. Pre-Introduction I bought this off the original website so my copy hasn't been updated since release. I don't know if a bookmarked version has been released. I bring this up as it is weird that there is a hyperlinked Table of Contents, but not PDF bookmarks. Bookmarks are easier to implement and more useful so I wonder why they didn't go that route. It's a bit odd. Chapter 1: Introduction We open to chapter 1 and are immediately greeted by an introduction that is meant to get us into the right mindset. Unlike Apocalypse World before it, Dungeon World is not to be written in a voice. However, it does go the route of having an implied setting. There is no section detailing their Not-Forgotten Realms world like in some fantasy books. While some would find this as lacking, Dungeon World, like Apocalypse World and other PbtA titles, encourages players to create their own setting from the prompts presented here:
Overall, it's hard to say if this succeeds as, well, I've been playing D&D for a while. I know what they want this game to be because I've played other games like it. If this was my first exposure, it might not be enough. Thankfully, they delve into a brief description of every class. I mentioned earlier that it uses the "classic" classes, but some here -- though I doubt it -- might not know what those are. To be fair, there are some variants in what is considered classic. The classes in this book are:
In addition to this, there was a Kickstarter-only Barbarian and, for a charity, there was an Immolator (a fire-bender). As those two are not in this book, they won't be discussed here. Now, some of you may have noticed something missing: the Monk. Or the mystic, depending on if you want to use the old school name. In a way, this is reinforcing their view on a fantasy world (medieval-only), but it does feel as an odd exclusion as the class was just as common as the Druid in older games and this title does, as we will see, borrow a lot from older tiles. I like martial artists, what can I say? Moving along, the class descriptions do a better job of describing the intended world.
These class descriptions do give me a better idea of what kind of world that Dungeon World is expected to be: a world on the brink, full of monsters and heroes, where the gods are far but their present felt, where nature holds force and people can command it, and one where a dangerous force lies in the shadows for the educated to manipulate and control (or be controlled by). In many ways, it's familiar. As a matter of fact, it's basically D&D. But, in others, it does feel darker. It reminds me of how Torchbearer described its setting. It feels like Apocalypse World's desolation and desperation, but with some more civilization: not just towns, but cities. A dangerous, violent place filled with horror, but one with safe places and majesty. Not to be a broken record, but, despite its familiarity, it strangely feels fresh. Though, that could be me liking my own interpretation. Moving along, we see an odd, odd thing that they did with the book: side-margin quotes. Throughout the book, there are quotes from many sources in the side-margins. Sometimes they are jokes and sometimes they are just "cool" lines. It's not like they aren't funny at time, but I usually find them distracting. If they were consistent, I'd say it better informs us of the setting, but, instead, they just serve to be an odd distraction. In this case, the quote is useful as it gives a grim and unflattering opinion on heroes. The most telling thing is it doesn't call them Heroes, it calls them adventurers. Furthermore, it says they are sometimes helpful, but usually just fools who find themselves dead in a ditch. If everything before was what heroes think of themselves, this is what the world thinks of them and it isn't flattering. Yes, I do know it's from another work, but it's inclusion does suggest that the writers considered it to enhance the book's ability to communicate the game to the players. So, it's worth analyzing. Dungeon World takes this moment to list out why one should play it:
The first reason tells us that adventures shouldn't be mundane. They should travel to the darkest depths and the highest peaks: this is game should be cranked up to 11. In some ways, this contradicts some of the gritters elements introduced earlier, but only if you're the type who doesn't feel that "grit" and "amazing feats" go together. I feel those elements go together well, personally. The second reasons brings us back to grit. This should not be an easy adventure nor should the party be united. They should argue, but grow into a group. They should struggle, but overcome: this isn't a meatgrinder. In other words, people shouldn't be buddy-buddy and things should be dangerous, but it isn't MonsterHearts and it isn't Dungeon Crawl Classics, so to speak (it isn't a relationship game built on messy ties and it isn't a game where character death is a part of chargen, to clarify). The last reason gives us a more "game-able" goal. The other goals were more narrative, but this one is more of how to structure adventures. The world is big and wide and should be explored. And that's always a reason to go out. You may have other reasons, but exploration underlies it all. What this tells me is that the game should be one where the players get to feel like they are somewhere different every few sessions: places shouldn't feel the same, ya know? The book goes through the standard, but necessary, explanation on how to read the book and how to setup for the game. It's pretty standard and not worth discussing. The first chapter ends on a brief explanation on what's it like to play Dungeon World. This brings together a lot of what was said before on how the game should be played. It doesn't bring up anything new on that front except for bringing up this element of self-improvement. That heroes should grow in power as the game progressing and seek out such improvement. It's funny this only now gets brought up since it seems to be a very important element to the game. Perhaps it was because of the rule of 3, but it should have been listed as one of the "Why"s. Very interestingly, while dice have been brought up before, this is the first time moves are brought up as well as what Vincent D Baker calls "The Conversation." Moves will be brought up later, but I don't know if the conversation is ever brought up again, which is a shame. The Conversation is the back-and-forth that exists between players and the GM, the one running the game. It's a very, very important concept to get down for a PbtA game to work so bringing it up so briefly is problematic. The last paragraph of this chapter establishes that Dungeon World can be played for long campaigns. Campaigns is a loosely defined terms, but it's questionable if PbtA game can last that long for certain definitions. While DW is different from other PbtA titles, it can be sometimes hard to run long-term PbtA games. I've run very long term PbtA games and I find that they have trouble in that environment. That said, one element that might save DW in this field its encouragement of exploration. Apocalypse World was big on using a very small cast of reoccurring characters as was the PbtA title that I was running when I noticed these problems. A game focusing on exploration could keep the element of "running out of ideas" and "overusing elements" from occurring. But, who knows? I've only ran DW once and it wasn't for that long. Anyway, that's the end of Chapter 1. See you all in Chapter 2: Next Time: Pretty much all the fuckin' rules. Oui Vey!
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Jan 2, 2016 09:11
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Hostile V posted:One of the main original developers of the Cogs was a 57 year old mouse schoolteacher who figured out this one weird trick to power a robot with nothing but ambient air. She was shunned by the scientific community, a lot of them hated her, but she got a patent and funding and later went into production and that's where air-powered robots come from. Are you sure? I heard it was janitor who walked in on a chalkboard full of equations trying to solve the energy problem. He decided to erase one line and fixed the entire equation. The scientists involved, of course, had him killed and buried without rites then used his work to revolutionize the world.
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Jan 3, 2016 00:41
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PurpleXVI posted:The funny thing is that in the corporate dystopia that HSD should be, despite the author's protestations to the opposite, this is really what they'd do. Well, I'm just making a reference to Hitcherhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but you make a point: intellectual rights laws are rough so it's "easier" if the person can't "bring up a suit" for using his ideas.
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Jan 3, 2016 01:00
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FATAL & Friends: Let's Face It, You're A Loser If You Write One, You're A Loser If You Read One, You're A Loser If You're Here At All FATAL & Friends: I Know I Sound Crazy, But My Roleplaying Game Is The True Word Of God FATAL & Friends: People Desperately Trying To Avoid Facing Reality FATAL & Friends: Rip-Offs, Crazy, And Crap FATAL & Friends: If You Make Homebrew For My Game, I'll Sue Your Pants Off! FATAL & Friends: Like, Really, When Was The Last Time Anyone Talked About FATAL FATAL & Friends: Beating A Dead Horse, 1d6 Damage At A Time FATAL & Friends: Running This Train Straight Into The Ground FATAL & Friends: Deriving Enjoyment From The Unejoyable
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Jan 5, 2016 22:58
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