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Man, I can't wait for the fluff. This looks more and more interesting by the minute  CommissarMega posted:Contents: Napoleon's ancestor was pretty badass.
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Feb 1, 2015 10:48
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NutritiousSnack posted:I always wanted to play Ironclaw but was afraid my gaming group friends would think I was doing it for fetish purposes or if doing it with random people get perverts. Maybe go with the Disney angle? Like "It's like Disney's Robin Hood, but set in the Renaissance era" Do they even know what a komodo dragon looks like? They certainly don't have dinosaur legs. Also: slime monster bestiality encasement ecchi fetish. Didn't know that was a thing  And bloody hell, these magic implants are like injecting pieces of the Tomb of Horror into your system o_O Well, at least Scrooge's pretty spot on. Money rules.
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Feb 2, 2015 20:30
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"Who needs balance in a point-buy system?!" Well, I certainly hope none of the stronger races can get their physical stats high enough to invokve the Wookie syndrome where they become so durable as to barely suffer any wounds. It's definitely a strength of the d6 system how few rules there actually are. It only really gets complicated if you want to make your own spells / jedi powers / whatever, but even that isn't too involved. And I personally liked the way the d6 version before MiniSix handled sizes. There weren't strict size categories, but rather a size modifier. This allowed for more granular size differences, as opposed to Star Wars d6' big jumps from one scale to the next, which let to a bit of wonkiness with starships that are just slightly below or above one scale. Still, it makes for faster gaming. Doresh fucked around with this message at 20:38 on Feb 3, 2015 |
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Feb 3, 2015 20:36
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Evil Mastermind posted:God, I'd kill for a good Fate-powered Rifts/Torg/multiverse-hopping game. Seeing Torg's mad science creation rules in FATE would be glorious
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Feb 3, 2015 21:52
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EverettLO posted:It’s…uh, actually a lot worse than I remembered from my own blasterproof Wookie experiences. I can’t believe I forgot to mention it. The Tusk might be the worst offender. If you put the character up to the maximum Might of 6D and include their racial perk of “Heavy Armor” you’ll be sitting on a soak score of 24. A shotgun does 5D+1 damage, which averages out to 18.5 damage per shot. Not even close to enough to bother the Tusk. You’ll be able to scratch it with that shotgun around 6% of the time, and actually do more than stun it less than 0.3%. Since Tusks are totally immune to stunning, 0.3% is your number. Let's grab my copy of D6 Space... well, you could get similarily beefy if you max Strength at 5D and get yourself Increased Attribute (though none of the official d6 Space racial templates use Increased Attribute, so good luck convincing your GM). Shotguns also deal 5D+1 damage, though the double-barreled variety can get that to 6D+1 damage by firing both barrels. You can further increase the damage by using an optional rule that gives you bonus damage based on the margin of success of your to-hit roll, which you may or may not want to combine with the hit location rules (aka heat shots). If anthing else fails, get a couple buddies together to group attack (pooling all the damage together before soaking). Probably manageable unless the target uses ceramic armor (+3D+1 soak) and your buddies are bad shots. Then you probably need assault rifles (6D damage, 8D with full auto, maybe up to 9D if you interpret the "single fire as multi" rule for an assault rifle as referring to its single-fire mode or its standard burst fire mode; the book can be a bit vague). Did either MiniSix or Breachworld revert to Star Wars d6 standards where you add your entire physical attribute to melee damage, instead of only half of that like in d6 Space ? They did that to avoid situations like this o_O D6 Space and its sisters actually had a way out of that trench: the optional hit point rules. With those, your Might/Strength only increases your hit points, not your soak, making it massed fire of weaker attacks much more lethal. Minions might become less likely to be one-shotted, but you can always adjust their hit points accordingly. Doresh fucked around with this message at 18:51 on Feb 4, 2015 |
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Feb 4, 2015 17:51
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Halloween Jack posted:Will any of you admit to being hardcore simulationists, if that's the correct term? FMguru posted:The big problem I have with sim-style games is that all these complicated rules are based on...what, exactly? When I got far enough in college and grad school to understand the sources that so many complicated games are based on, I discovered that there's no scholarly consensus on how medieval warfare worked or how medieval economies functioned, and that what consensus existed was forever shifting based on new research. Even Gary Gygax included historical armor types in AD&D that appear to have never existed in real life. A great example is SLA Marshall's research in how modern soldiers fight, which was tremendously influential in the design of many crunchy wargames (including my beloved ASL). Except later scholars went through his findings carefully and found that a lot of what he was saying was incorrect or disproven by later studies (it is very much not the case that most soldiers just fall to the ground uselessly and only two of three men in a ten-man squad actual fire their weapons to any effect in a given engagement). So that means my ASL rulebooks, all 300 pages of densely-written legal case rules, are based on very shaky assumptions. Ranting about supposed realism or lack thereof in a RPG is always futile, as our culture's fiction has brainwashed us with with action/combat tropes that just plain don't work that way in real-life, going from gun lethality to "you just don't parry stuff with your sword's blade". Jovian Chronicles Second Edition RPG Player's Handbook  Chapter 2: The Solar Nations This chapter starts wiht a brief overview of the solar system. This is also where the crazy goose chase (based on the homebrew Mekton campaign with which Jovian Chronicles got started) from last time is explained to be collectively known as the "Odyssey". It served as a wake-up call for the human colonists, who suddenly realized that Earth has not only recovered, but also meant business. Everyone's cranking up his military production for the poo-poo that will undoubtedly hit the fan sooner or later. The two main players in this game are of course CEGA and the Jovian Confederation, who are both busy puzzling together just who was behind the whole Odyssey mess and playing the arms race game. The other solar nations aren't quite sure which side to pick when this Cold War should turn hot - except for the Venusians, who are suspiciously sitting back and twirling their mustaches. The Solar Nations are presented in order of their distance to the sun: Mercury Thanks to its close proximity to the sun and with no proper atmosphere to speak of, Mercury's surface experiences some of the most extreme temperature shifts you can find in the whole solar system, with days that would roast you alive and nights so cold they make wandering naked through Antarctica sound like a nice jog over a tropical beach. Therefore, Mercurians primarily live on various orbital stations that always hide in Mercury's shadow to avoid boiling the inhabitants, with a couple others living in underground facilities. Mercury's main shtick is being the trade nation, with their merchants steeled by living in and around on of the most hostile planets. Having a sort of "merchan conscription" going on also helps raising those trade skills. There's really no civilized place in the whole solar system where you can't find these guys. Culture: The typical Mercurian is a smooth salesman, but they are a bit vary of strangers on their home turf, as they hate espionage. As things are naturally a bit cramped underground and in orbital stations, Mercurians value privacy very highly. Just about everyone owns a "haven", a small room where nobody else is allowed to enter. Naturally, some Mercurians become merchants just so they can hang around in much more open locations. Politics: Mercury is ruled by a democratically-elected Administrator who was usually a merchants because those guys can prove that they can get things done. They have a neutral stance towards everyone, as taking sides is bad for business. They are however a bit suspicous of Venus, as several Mercurian citizens hail from Venusian refugees (more on that in a moment). Science & Military: As they live so close to the sun, it's only natural that Mercury has created the best in heat resistance and solar power. As space pirates aren't really a thing in most regions, they never really had to have any kind of military aside from a small token force. Nevertheless, they have recently started to invest heavily in bolstering their defenses in case any of the other nations wants to try something funny, including making their own Exo-Armor in the form of the Brimstone. Guilds: Instead of your typical modern corporations, Mercury has oldschool merchant guilds, open only to fellow Mercurians. Pretty much every Mercurian is part of a guild thanks to the above merchant conscription, but they don't really have to be a merchant to keep the memberhsip. Venus Venus was terraformed by corporations who foresaw Earth's collapse and decided to leave ASAP and take most of their assets and cash with them. Not really affected by the collapse, they are now the richest of all the solar nations. If Mercurians are merchants, these guys are capitalists through and through. Venus' terraforming is not perfect, and it will probably still take decades if not centuries before the planet looks anything like Earth. Currently, only the poles offer somewhat acceptable temperatures (60° C to be exact), and the atmosphere is too toxic to allow anything but dome cities. Culture: Venus is a bit like a more realistic version of HSD's capitalistic furry wonderland (minus the furries, of course). The corporation you're working for provides you with everything from housing and entertainment, but thinks can understandably feel a bit oppressive. And don't even think about leaving Venus a whole lot. Still, every Venusian thrives to work hard to climb up the social ladder, on top of which the elite plays their subtle Game of Seats. The official Venusian language and writing system is an insane mixture between English and Japanese everyone else can't really wrap their head around - which is exactly why they came up with it. They're that dickish. Another oddity is Venus' education system, which separates student by their performance and not their age, with classes and college being rated in a Dan system not unlike what you see in Judo or Karate. Suffice to say, not everyone is happy with having their corporation constantly looking over their shoulder, but these guys are currently just a small minority. Most of the people who didn't approve of the direction Venus was going (what with everyone being forced to talk like a deranged weeaboo) have already left the planet for Mercury decades ago. Politics: As mentioned before, Venus is all about capitalism. The population is split up into city-states that are owned and run by a single corporation. If the inhabitant of the city-state has a problem with how things are being run, he can start a petition. Foreign affairs are handled by a council consisting of representatives of each corporation. The more a corporation is worth, the more seats in the council it gets. To the outside, they like to be seen as just as neutral as Mercury. The Odyssey incident however as made the other nations suspect their in league with CEGA, despite Venus' official denials. Science & Military: Venusian science is (almost) the best there is. What they can't do themselves, they buy or steal. But like everyone else, they have yet to figure out what the deal with those Jovian lifeforms - the Jovian Floaters - is. The Venusian HDF (Home Defense Force) might first come across as a bunch of buffoons performing air shows and parades, but that's just an act. They are well-trained and have a state-of-the-art fleet that is probably way bigger than they like to show. More dickish behavior: Venus loves importing lots of stuff from other nations just so they think Venus depends on them. This helps them greatly in tricking foreign corporations, which among other things lead to the Venusian Bank slowly becoming the biggest there is. Did I mention they're a bit dickish? Earth As already mentioned a couple times, Earth has recovered from a great social and economic collpase, whose exact reasons and timeline have proven to be pretty hard to puzzle together, but it seems to have involved a global blackout, the mother of all Black Fridays and a plague on top of it (I'm pretty sure the Venusian ancestors had nothing at all to do with any of this). From the other planet's perspective, all contact with Earth was just gone in a moment, with all hell seeming to break loose on goold ol' Terra. Suffice to say, none of the other solar nations expected Earth to come back with such a force as it did under CEGA rule. Culture: Well, pretty much all the old cultures you know of are still going strong, with the people in orbit of course being a bit different because space does that to people. As the mankind's homeland, is leading in exporting works of art, usually bought for some Earth nostalgia. All the major religions also come from Earth, so the planet has all the artifacts and holy places, making it the solar system's spiritual capital of sorts. The collapse and being largely forgotten by the other nations had a noticable impact on the Earthlings' overall attitude. They've become rather imperialistic and would really like to rule over all those space hillbillies. They also like pulling a Venusian, speaking to visitors only in their mother tongue, which has a good chance of not being spoken outside of Earth (unless your mother tongue is English, Japanese, Cantonese, French or German). Arrogance aside, the large majority of Earth's population is pretty poor an uneducated, with most countries still not having fully recovered. The only places with wealth and higher education are the various arcologies. Politics: CEGA is a power-houngry, imperialistic government out to get all the other solar nations under its control. After all, everyone's from Earth, and it was Earth who made all these colonizations possible in the first place. Unfortunately for them, the other nations are not willing to just give up their independence. Heck, even the Venusians are a bit freaked out, fearing that all their bribed CEGA councillors might not help ensure their influence in the long run. After the Odyssey incident, several council members are demanding proper investigations to be performed, while the propaganda machinery is busy blaming the popular rebel group STRIKE for what happened on Mars and the Moon. It must be noted that CEGA does not speak for the entire Earth. Asia, South America and Africa are independent from CEGA (though at least South America is a good trading buddy). Tensions with CEGA are generally high, and skirmishes often break out at the borders. CEGA themselves is also a bit torn, as the orbital stations and the Moon population is a lot more moderate than the guys on Earth. Science & Military: With Earth itself having collapsed, it's the Moon and the orbital colonies who provide CEGA with new toys and technology. They're a bit behind the Jovians and Venusians though, and their spies kinda blow. As with every imperialistic regime worth its salt, CEGA's pretty big in the military business. They've only recently started making Exo-Armor (albeit with very promising results), but they have more than enough warships to make up for this. Their military is split into two branches: The Naval Forces handle space stuff, whereas the normal Army keeps Earth under control. Commerce & Industry: The corporations who stayed on Earth (or preferrably fled to the orbital stations) where hit pretty hard by the collapse, but most make a swift recovery after contact with the other solar nations had been re-established. They haven't made many friends however as they tend to demand special treatments. Something that annoys Earthlings to no end is their dependence on importing terranforming equipment from Mars to get their own atmosphere and soil back in shape. At least pollution ain't really a problem anymore as you can now do everything in space. Orbitals This is the catch-all term for all the people living in the orbital stations around Earth, most iconic of which are the giant O'Neill cylinders. When all hell broke loose on Earth, the Orbitals and the Moon where too busy having to survive on their own to help their big brother. The money from the refugee corporations certainly helped here. Culture: Orbital stations are a sort of melting pot, but they do tend to have one main culture, after whose homeland the station's day-night-cycles and climate is adjusted. Once they became self-sufficient, things went pretty cozy for them. They're definitely a lot more easy-going than Earthlings. This also explains why they didn't have much trouble falling under CEGA's rule, as CEGA's just protecting them from potential outside trouble. To CEGA's dismay, the Orbitals don't take their propaganda very seriously. Politics: The Orbitals have their own council consisting of members from every station (or at least the stations that want to to). They're a bit at odds with CEGA as they're way more peaceful, with their own military having noticably less influence. Science & Military: The orbitals deliver live support and ship design know-how to CEGA. Their own fleet is just as big as it needs to be. Luna Luna aka the Moon was home to some of the first human colonies outside of Earth. There are also a lot of CEGA military bases on moon, making the whole place a bit militaristic. Culture: Having been cut off from Earth, the people of the Moon (called the "Selenites") had to learn to survive and follow strictly organized schedules, which has made them a bit serious and stiff. Things are however slowly relaxing in recent times. Politics: They're similar to the Orbitals here. Most of them are pretty okay with having CEGA around as long as they ensure their safety. Resistence against CEGA can be found, however. Tensions are especially high between the civilian population and the CEGA military presences after the Odyssey incident, with the rebels who died during it being seen as heroes. Science & Military: The Moon offers many raw materials, which made the Selenites some of the finest miners around. They're pretty integral to CEGA's efforts. They don't really have much in terms of their own military, and what little there is only serves to defend them. Mars Mars' independence from Earth went much less smooth as on other planets, with one part of the population being glad to be free from Earth's shackles, while the ohers don't quite agreed on that. The end result was a civil war that split Mars in two factions: The free-spirited Martian Free Republic and the "order above else" Martian Federation. The relationship between those two is somewhat stable, if tense. Culture: The Martian Federation has a bit of an East Germany vibe going on, what with a huge German influence, totalitarian rule trying to pass itself off as being democratic (with the Federation having a "Democratic Party" as opposed to East Germany being a "Democratic Republic") and the propaganda machinery twisting things around to make the Free Republic look inferior. There's also lots of bureacracy, and of course does Big Brother always watch you. Unlike East Germany, this system actually kinda works in keeping things prosperous and stable. The Free Republic are your pioneers / space cowboys, valuing personal freedom over everything. They make great BFFs. They even give out friendship bracelets! Politics: The Martian Federation covers 2/3 of Mars' surface, ruled by a Prime Minister, the current one being Klaus von Braun (because this is an anime-ish setting and anime Germans like puttin the nobility in places of power empire-style). The Free Republic has a convulted system involving four different councils. Skirmishes on the borders are frequent, but both governments used to just ignore that, as they had to share Mars' orbital assets. This can however start to change after the space elevator went kablooie. The Free Republic is obviously pro-Jovian. The Federation is on kinda good terms with CEGA, but they're suspecting that they are behind the destruction of the orbital elevator. Science & Military: With Mars being an early target for terraforming (now having around 2/3 of Earth's atmospheric pressure), the Martians are quite big in bioengineering, exporting it all over the place. On the military side, things look a bit grim. Both factions use outdated Jovian Exo-Armors, along with their own Exo-Suits and hovertanks, with the Free Republic using swift guerilla tactics to counter the much larger but less flexible Federation army. Neither of them has much of a fleet aside from some patrol crafts. The Belt This is the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, first colonized for mining purposes and now being a safe haven for refugees from the inner planets, with bases and colonies being built on top and inside of the various asteroids. As you can slap thrusters on those asteroids to get around, Belter lifestyle is highly nomadic. Survival: Survival ain't easy out here. You gotta get things done and work together here. If you don't pay attention, you won't live for long. Their main language of choice is "Spacer's Runic", the common tongue of this setting (though the book doesn't really get into more details on the language). Being more isolated than everyone else, they live in clan/tribal structures and don't really want to have anything to do with the other nations' Cold War going on. Politics: Nothing general, really. Every asteroid does its own thing. Though they agree in that they neither want to meddle in other people's business, nor to they want the other people to meddle in their's. Some of the larger colonies have a loose unnion going on for negotiations with the United Space Nations. Science & Military: Engineers from the belt are highly valued in most nations (safe for Venus and Earth because those are dicks) because they really know how to keep things running. They don't really care much about scientific research, though. It goes without saying that most colonies in the Belt don't have military at all. If things go sour, they just surrender. The larger ones have some outdated Exo-Suits and fighters to handle pirates, but that's about it. Claims: Belters still mine a lot, and they get quite mad if you want to take their claim. Not that they could do much if an outside nation would just waltz in and mine stuff, though. And this could very well happen, as CEGA, Mars and Jupiter and pestering them more and more about becoming mining buddies. They really don't want to take sides in this conflict, but a refusal could result in persuasion by force. Jupiter Originally only meant to house mining personell, the Jovian orbital stations became a fully-fledged solar nation after Earth's collapse resulted in a large influx of refugees. They had it pretty well out there, as Jupiter's various moons offered enough resources for everyone. The Jovian Confederation consists of three states: Olympus (aka "everything around Jupiter itself") as well as Vanguard Mountain and Newhome from the Trojans, an asteroid field located at two of Jupiter's Lagrange Points which are quite far off (800 million km behind Jupiter, which is slightly more than the average distance between Jupiter and the sun). Culture: The the Olympians tend to view the Trojans as hillbillies, who in turn poke fun of the fact that "Olympus" does sound a bit preposterous. Still, they're overall pretty similar and get along fine, so it's all in good fun. As they've never really had to fight as hard for survival as most of the other solar nations, the Jovians don't quite get the other guys' issues, making them seem arrogant at first glance. Politics: Seeing the distances involved with this Confederation, it comes to now surprise that each state has its own government, with a council known as the Agora speaking for the entire Confederation. The Agora is supervised by a president, with the current one drawing a fine line between being power-hungry and actually showing results. Science & Military: The Jovians are at least as good as Venus, probably even more advanced. Their Exo-Armors are top-notch. The Jovian Armed Forces (JAF) are one of the largest forces around, thanks to the huge area they need to control and because the Jovians took precautions after losing contact with Earth. CEGA's shenanigans only fuel their desire for more protection. Military training is harsh, but soldiers do enjoy a lot of freedom and flexibility in turn. Should a war break out, it would be pretty easy for someone like CEGA to isolate the three sates from each other. As a preparation, the JAF is split in three independend branches (one for each state), and and they have an invasion fleet ready because they figured it's better to attack first than wait for the enemy to come to them. The Jovian Floaters: These critters are large jellyfish living in Jupiter's atmosphere. They confuse the crap out of scientists because they couldn't have evolved on Jupiter and contain a protein that keeps their cell's DNA in top shape regardless of damage, granting them eternal life. Naturally, everyone's eager to find out how to apply those proteins to humans. Saturn & Titan Living on Titan is not easy, what with Saturn blocking most of the sunlight. Still there are lots of resources to be found (especially ethane), so of course you can expect humans to settle there. Titan is not a really a solar nation and "just" a mining colony, with the Jovians having the biggest influence around here. Culture: Working on Titans puts you about as far away form human civilization as possible, so things are a bit isolated around here. The Titanians therefore like to stick together, identifying more with fellow workers instead of their homeland. They don't even so much as raised an eyebrow over the whole Cold War situation. Politics: Titan is officially international territory, but that doesn't stop the already very influencial Jovians from treating it as their own property, trying to drive off rival mining companies from other solar nations. Suffice to say, the others are a bit pissed off - which might just explain the large increase in pirate attacks... Science & Military: Titan's pretty well into chemical engineering and pharameutics. There's no real military here aside from some Exo-Suit-based security. Phew, that was a lot to cover. Personally, I can imaging playing as a stereotypical Venusian to be rather lulzy - though I'm not sure if the other players would have as much fun. Probably safer to pick a Mercurian or something. They're like the Hanseatic League if the Hanseatic League was located next to a volcano. Next Time: Organizations - including some weird hairstyles! Doresh fucked around with this message at 17:18 on Feb 5, 2015 |
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Feb 4, 2015 20:41
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CISscum posted:I don't get it. Is Solar System in Jovian Chronicles the size of Australia? Whoops. It's of course supposed to be 800 million km. Now that was slightly embarassing o_O PurpleXVI posted:Hc Svnt Dracones Anyone imagining Deathclaw Chainsawleg here to you just walk into a store to order more Vitae? And again with the weird slime monster fetish. This game makes my brain bleed
Doresh fucked around with this message at 18:45 on Feb 5, 2015 |
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Feb 5, 2015 17:21
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LornMarkus posted:Nope, that's the one. I'd be thinking 3rd edition as that was a little cleaner and less broken than 2nd, which is what I think most goons are familiar with. I'm actually more familiar with 3rd edition. It might be cleaner, but there's still a lot of problematic stuff. Like how a good chunk of the monk's and ninja's abilities are like spells (aka they don't scale with your level all that much) and would require MAD to be useful. Not that you'd want to be MAD with those two as they can dual wield, with especially the ninja racking up lots of damage thanks to having access to katana blades. There's also the inherent flaw of having a strict class system (without class change or anything) that makes it impossible to adapt a lot of characters from the games. Maybe except for Cyan, who basically is the Swordmaster class. Oh, and there's that silly bit of making wolfmen a core player race because FF5 and 6 had that one wolf dude you saw in like one scene. Bieeardo posted:loving gazebos. I wonder how much it would cost to make a Catapult of Gazebo Bane. BatteredFeltFedora posted:I love the idea of a character finding this spear, taking up the mission, and succeeding, never finding out the spear was mundane until the end of the campaign. "The spear was normal all along?! I deserved at least a +1 morale bonus to attack rolls because I believed so hard in it!" Jovian Chronicles Second Edition RPG Player's Handbook Chapter 3: Organizations A look at the various organizations of the Jovian Chronicles setting - aka "Hopefully more Venusian hijinks"! Venusian Bank The Venusian Bank is the wealthiest legal entity mankind has every created. The Bank pretty much owns Venus, and CEGA ain't that far behind. It would be even scarier if the Bank didn't suffer from in-house rivalries. The Bank's HQ is located in a Venusian arcology called New Tokyo. Everything about their executive structure is kept so secret that nobody outside the Bank knows who or how many actually run the place. Not even their powerful chairman is known by name, yet his arms reach far. It's a bit like the capitalistic cousin of SEELE from Neon Genesis Evangelion. Or exactly like SEELE, if it turns out they want to turn everyone into jellyfish or something. Who knows. The Bank's currently busy getting some Jovian Floaters for research and consolidating its power back on Venus after the blunder that was the Odyssey brought them some unwanted attention, with even CEGA maybe having invasion plans. Mercurian Merchant Guild The Hanseatic League in space. We also find out that one of the main reasons Mercurian merchants are everywhere in the solar system is because Mercury itself makes for a very poor trading point. You pretty much have to stay in Mercury's shadow if you want to get to the planet, otherwise the sun will most likely roast you. At least it makes potential attack vectors of other nations rather obvious. The Merchant Guild is Mercury's biggest money-maker and by its nature absolutely dependent on having good relations with the other solar nations. That's why they're so keen on staying neutral. The Guild is run by the so-called Merchant Princes. To keep their plans secret despite their public exposure, they use the Merchant's Tongue, a secret language that is frequently updated to keep others guessing. Currently, they're vary of the Venusian Bank after the Odyssey, and have become increasingly upset over CEGA and the Jovian Confederation halting their ships for inspections. United Space Nations The United Nations in space. With far less solar nations than old Earth nations, things are a bit easier to overview. If something needs to be voted on, the USN tends to be split in two: The Jovians, Mercurians and the cowboy half of Mars on one and the CEGA, Venusians and German Martians one the other side. The Belters and non-CEGA Earthlings vote for whatever they want, but they are voting more and more in the Jovians' favor. The USN is located in a neutral section of the Pyrea Orbital Station set around Earth. WIth the tension growing between CEGA and the Jovian Confederation, many fear that the USN will eventually break apart. SolaPol InterPol in space. The SolaPol aka the Solar Police is the USN's intelligence agency whose main mission is to ensure peace in the solar system. Not an easy task by a long shot, and not made easier by being rather unpopular among the solar nations. Solar Cross The Red Cross in space. No acts of violence are allowed in and around their ships. Things are currently a bit tense with CEGA since they busted open the full magnitude of the moon colony desctruction. IGS The Inter-settlement Geographic Society is the National Geographics Society in space. They're busy exploring the solar system and finding unique cultural quirks in the Belt. It's like a miniature version of Star Trek's Federation. Nothing beats these guys when it comes to mapping. They're also no longer on good terms with CEGA due to their interest in that new moon crater, and IGS members stationed close to Earth are starting to become a bit paranoid. ZONet Zenith Orbital Network is the solar system's primary news network. Their pimped out satellite network allows broadcasting all the way to Titan. Rivals like Jovian Public Access Network and Luna's OmniNews seem to slowly turn ZONet into Fox News. STRIKE STRIKE is often seen as a terrorist group, but not even the various intelligence agencies know all that much about them. It consists of several independent cells that have seemingly nothing to do with each other, and that's not even going into all the other terrorist groups that like to pretend their part of the club. Those are not nearly as well equipped or organized, though. They're main goal is freeing CEGA from Venusian influence - which may or may not mean they want to bring down CEGA as well because CEGA is bribed up the whazoo. After the Odyssey, the various STRIKE cells seem to show more and more coordinated actions. The chapter ends with four group shots. Two of those show Jovian and CEGA military dudes in uniforms (both pretty standard as far as anime go) - but that's not what I'm here for, so let's enjoy some funny hairstyles:   So anime. Next Time: Character Creations - aka human sub-races and archetypes! Doresh fucked around with this message at 20:40 on Feb 6, 2015 |
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Feb 6, 2015 20:33
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theironjef posted:That happens in the future, this is 6 and back. They instead don't explain why Locke can't just save Rachel with a Fenix Down. It's weird how we can't have more death scenes like in FF5 were the party threw everything they had at Galuf, but failed because the old guy just god-moded himself to death to save everyone.
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Feb 6, 2015 20:58
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LornMarkus posted:Oh yeah, not trying to claim it's not a broken as hell and in several ways just bad system. Just that it's a little better than 2e and it's Weapon Masteries, among other things. Also 3rd is the one I actually played a bit, so hearing them take it to the woodshed would be way more interesting to me than the edition I never even fully read. I think we had 2nd edition before. I also don't think they only wanted to cover pre-FF6 games now that I think about it. I mean, the game does differentiate between Callers (oldschool Summoners) and Summoners (Yuna). Young Freud posted:Sounds like Gundam, except that the Zeons are the good guys and the Federation is the bad guys and don't have the Gundam. Exactly - except the Gundam is also the Zaku because it's mass-produced. You can tell the different versions apart by how many missiles they carry. I know this wasn't planned that way, but Jovian Chronicles is the second DP9 setting where Earth collapses (both times in part due to environmental issues), leaves its space colonies alone for a while and then comes back as an imperialistic bunch of jerks. Doresh fucked around with this message at 23:18 on Feb 6, 2015 |
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Feb 6, 2015 21:59
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Tsilkani posted:So, I've found my stack of JC 1st Edition. I'm leaning towards the Companion (to see how the vehicle creation rules have changed since then) and the Spacer's Guide (so I finally know what Spacer's Runic actually is). If i had to pick only one, I'd go for the Spacer's Guide. gradenko_2000 posted:This was from a couple pages back, but I don't think it got answered. Looking at my copy of Mini Six: So they did revert the Strength bonus rules. Weird. Standard soak score works a lot like in normal d6, except in normal d6, you roll dice instead of taking a sub-average score for simplicity (3 instead ofa d6 is often used for quick averaging in the system). Hyper Crab Tank posted:The only Final Fantasy class I can recall missing from that list would be Viking (a.k.a. Pirate). Given that they dug deep enough to have Black/White Callers (which are from FF3, the Japanese one - well, actually, in that game there's one class that has both black and white versions of summons, but whatever - and if this came out before FF7, then there was no translation of that game into English yet), you'd think that would be in there. I think the Fighter class could be used to represent a Viking. They're the more "brutal" warrior class, with the highest hit die and access to just about every weapon (including axes) and the heaviest armor. Though it's the Swordmaster class who has the Provoke ability the Viking uses in the remakes. As the name suggest, they have no access to axes, but you can fix that with an advantage. Or just ask the GM nicely to swap one of the Fighter abilities for Provoke. Black/White Callers exist in that form solely so they can do something other than casting a summon spell, as their summoning is not as in-depth as the summoner's wdarkk posted:That actually sounds kind of cool. I liked Yuna and how summons worked in FFX. Just don't pick the Magus Trio as your final summon. Just like in the game, you can only give them vague commands they may or may not follow, forcing you to run down a script and do rolls for all three members. PurpleXVI posted:One of the problems with an FF RPG is that the settings are kind of like Dragonlance, each setting, and its components(possibly excepting the FF:Tactics setting), are pretty much made for one story and rarely have the content needed to weave another story out of. The mechanics are, mathematically, a pain in the rear end to replicate with dice and paper, and when they're not a pain in the rear end(and sometimes when they are), they require huge suspensions of disbelief and really treating the thing like a game(see: phoenix down mechanics, abilities that only work in combat, etc.). This reminds me of that one FFX d20 game where they turned every protagonist into a class (sure, they have generic names like "Lancer" or "Black Mage", but that wouldn't stop me from saying "My character has 5 levels in Tidus and 6 levels in Wakka!"). And for some strange reasons, they had prestige classes for the various Blitzball teams. Scrap Dragon posted:Was that the one by Dust? Because I haven't had a chance to try it out yet, but it certainly seems less janky... It certainly gives you a lot more freedom, though it has some oddities. You can easily create a character that relies on just one stat for almost everything, and it's a bit weird how the game has a special attack creation system that is only really used for monster attacks and limit breaks. Still, it's a big improvement. And is anyone familiar with ZODIAC, the level-based point-buy game that is based more on Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy Tactics than normal Final Fantasy, and is generic enough to be used for other JRPGs? It's the FFRPG I'm most fond of (with Dust's game a close second), though I do admit it's a bit of a hassle to update your various derived attributes after every level-up. Then again, I'm kind of a math freak. Doresh fucked around with this message at 13:06 on Feb 7, 2015 |
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Feb 7, 2015 12:55
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A roleplaying system supporting the kind of in-depth monster slaying like Monster Hunter (and to a lesser extend Shadow of the Colossus, seeing how Monster Hunter 4 seems to pick up the "Climb on monsters" idea) would be amazingRangpur posted:I don't think it would even be that hard: D&D (especially 3.5) is already kitchen sink-y enough to support the vast array of weird poo poo Disgaea throws at you. Mostly you just need to take all numerical values and multiply them by x1000. ....And add an extra '0' every 5 levels or so. It's not a proper Disgaea roleplaying game unless it has full epic-level support all the way to level 9.999  LornMarkus posted:You're thinking of Returns, yup. Daggers are d6s up to Greatswords at d12. Interestingly, despite being one-handed (and thus dual-wieldable) standard Swords were a d10 and thus the destination for munchkins that wanted the insane starting punch of dual-wielding without losing in the long run on their ability damage. That's why Ninja are overpowered. They can dual-wield d10 katanas right out the gate without having to pour skill points into the dual-wield skill. (Yes the game has a skill system with weapon skills increasing your accuracy. Guess what everyone will keep maxed out) Two-handed weapons really blow a bit in Returner. Their little extra damage is not worth the loss of a shield slot. Legendary-tier weapons can be a bit OP, but that's true for pretty much all weapon types.
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Feb 7, 2015 21:09
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There's also Super Console, which is probably the silliest of the bunch.Babe Magnet posted:D&D is better, in that you can even get to level 10. Dammit, I forgot. We Germans use commas for decimals and dots to format large integers >_<
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Feb 8, 2015 00:28
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Kurieg posted:And that's everything that's worth talking about in the book. The next chapter is just a 'where are they now' describing what the various factions were doing during The Frozen Throne, and the chapter after that is all about mass Combat. Wow, I think that's a record when it comes to d20 mass combat addons. I think there are a couple proper tabletop wargames that use fewer tables o_O I think that's because they use the Cry Havoc rules, which have you create a "Damage dealt based on unit members left and margin of success"-table for every unit. kaynorr posted:I've been of the opinion that GURPS would be a great system for Monster Hunter, because of the crunchy combat and fairly detailed hit location and wounding rules. Called shots, disabling a giant spider one leg at a time, that kind of thing. Hero System could also work. You could probabl come pretty close to emulate the various weapon types, the Bestiary has expanded rules for creature hit locations and climbing on big critters, and there's a lot you can do with those martial maneuvers. Most likely more crunchy than GURPS, though. Kurieg posted:Taunt: Lets you spend a full round action taunting a target within 30 feet with an intelligence of at least 6. You must also not have more than half concealment and cover. You and the target make opposed charisma checks, and if you succeed the target spends his next turn doing everything in his power to kill you. If you fail he becomes immune to your taunts entirely for one day. Why the gently caress would you ever take this feat. I dunno, I've read several complaints regarding d20 about how tanks don't work because they have no real way of raising their threat/priority/whatever, or really anything that stops the enemies from just rushing past them, eating an AoE and murdering the squishy wizard who's actually dishing out the damage. And then Pathfinder released a similar feat that apparently nobody uses because it's broken. Weird. Mind you, this whole problem seems to be largely based around both the players and the GM treating RPG combat very video-gamey, or at least the GM ignoring stuff like the opponents intelligence, morale or general unwillingness to just run past the overmuscled freak wearing a ton of plate armor and wielding a giant sword that's on fire. Jovian Chronicles Second Edition RPG Player's Handbook Now it's time to find out how to create our very own Amuros and Chars! (I'll only go over the OGL stuff if it's weird or funky.) Chapter 4: Character Creation This chapter doesn't have the full SilCORE chargen rules, since those ar ein the core rules book. This chapter does however do things differently than in the core rules, to give Jovian Chronicles are more of an anime feeling. There also seem to be some expanded carryover from JC's Mekton days, where your character was either a talented, but inexperienced rookie or a seasoned veteran who will probably get killed off at the halfway point of the campaign. SilCORE is a point-buy roleplaying game whose chargen uses two separate point pools (one for the 10 attributes, one for skills). Attributes act as a modifier to skill rolls and range from -3 to +3 for humans (with one exception). The attributes are:
(Quite a lot to pick from, huh?) Jovian Chronicles hands out 50 Character and 70 Skill Points, placing it firmly in SilCORE's "Cinematic Game" power level, the highest of the three available. This helps simulating how guys like Amuro Ray can just sit inside a mech and curbstomp enemy grunt pilots who actually had years of training and experience. Though if you like, you can always downgrade PCs down to Heavy Gear levels of grittiness, or even lower than that. The first step of JC chargen involves picking a concept, with a couple helpful question to flesh the character out. The 2nd step involves picking your "race", which in JC means "In what kind of gravitational environment did you grow up?". I'll be noting the nations/places where each race can be found, because the book doesn't really do that for you. Grounder/Colonist: In places between 0.8 and 1.2 G, you're an ordinary human. This includes Earth (of course), Venus and those big O'Neill Cylinder stations who can create their own gravitation through rotation. Lightworlder: These guys come from places that have fewer than 0.8 G. This includes the Moon, Mars, Mercury (for those guys who live underground), Titan and those smaller orbital stations that can't quite reach higher Gs. Lightworlders are pretty tall (with an average of 1.8 to 1.9 meters), but have a much lighter muscle and bone structure, gimping their max BLD and allowing their FIT to go all the way down to -5. On the plus side, they're can be more agile than normal humans and get the first level of the Survival (Space) skill for free because that one's kinda important for them. The OGL conversion gives them +2 Dex and -2 Con. ZeeGees: Being raised in a gravity below 0.05 G makes you a "ZeeGee". This includes everyone from an non-rotating orbital station or asteroid with little to no gravity. ZeeGees are like Lightworlders, except their max BLD is even lower. They also have higher PER due to being used to 360° awareness. They get the Zero-G and Survival (Space) skills for free. Under the OGL, they have +2 Dex, +2 Wis and -4 Con. Ouch. Overall, nothing too fancy. The OGL conversion stats are a bit overkill, as SilCORE races just adjust your minimum and maximum attribute score. Most of the time, these 3 sub-races will fall within the same attribute range - especially since low BLD makes you very squishy and attributes beyond +3 are pretty darn expensive. Though I guess you could make a min-maxed ZeeGee mecha pilot who looks about as fit as Oetzi if you really want to. There is however a slight change from the SilCORE rules where I don't know whether this was an oversight or a deliberate choice: As you modify a race's attribute limits, you can end up with races that don't cancel out their limit shifts (as it is the case with Lightworlders and ZeeGees, whose decrease in BLD and FIT outweights what their benefits). In this case, you are supposed to transfer points from your Attribute pool to the Skill pool or vice versa, depending on whether you get a net loss or gain (to encourage you to actually have a lower/higher attribute average). This isn't actually the case here. I suppose this was done on purpose to note that these are all still normal humans (and future medicine keeps those low Gs from having too big of an impact on their body), though I'm not entirely sure. Next up, it's time to pick your stereotype, which is something normal SilCORE doesn't have. This is the most Mekton-ish part of chargen. You don't have to pick a stereotype, but they're quite interesting, giving you unique benefits and limitations, as well as a unique "anime power", most of which can only be used once per session and cost an Emergency Die (which are similar to Action/Hero/Fate points and are most often used to get additional dice during a skill roll, hence their name). Not picking a Stereotype has you start the game with 5 additional Emergency Dice. (The OGL stuff only does a bit of prebuild stuff using 2 levels of a d20 Modern base class)
Next up, it's Archetypes. They're templates representing typical members of a certain profession, though they still leave some unspent Character and Skill Points for customization. They also come with starting equipment and salary, possible variations and some subplot ideas. They also give you another anime power, this one being generic enough to be used as-is for both SilCORE and OGL. As with Stereotypes, you can choose not to pick an Archetype and get yourself 5 Emergency Dice instead.  The Pilot: The default mecha anime archetype. They pilot either fighters, spaceships or exo-armor and like getting into rivalries. Their anime power is "Sixth Sense", which allows you to negate a surprise attack and get an opponent off your tail.  The Soldier: Apart from the typical soldier, this is also for guards and the police. Their anime power is "Bruiser", which allows them to completey ignore damage from a single attack.  The Technician: These are you computer specialists, engineers and whatnot who keep everything running. Their anime power "Miracle Worker" is like the Soldier's "Bruiser" except it only affect vehicles and equipment and only last for the duration of the scene or combat.  The Scientist/Medic: These guys come up with new toys and keep everyone in shape. Their "Startling Discovery" allows them to accumulate "Research Points", which they can spend to make important discoveries or pimp out vehicles or equipment.  The Reporter: These are always out for a good scoop. By "Just Askin' Questions", they can blend into the crowd and ask people with drawin suspicion, which is handy in restricted areas.  The Official: Your diplomats, business personell and spies. They can use "Distract" to draw attention to or away from them.  The Spacer: Nomads, scouts and similar persons. "Spatial Awareness" allows them to ignore penalties related to bad lighting conditions, and they always know where they are instide an installation, building etc.  The Supplier: Merchants, basically. With "Requisition", they can use their connections to get just about any non-military item. With that, you spend the rest of your remaining points, note down your equipment and flesh out the character's backstory. Next time: Living in Space, aka lots and lots of technological stuff. Oh boy, this will probably be a long one. (And I don't know how much of it is a reprint of the 1st edition Spacer's Guide) Doresh fucked around with this message at 14:51 on Feb 8, 2015 |
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Feb 8, 2015 13:35
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Siivola posted:Ignoring the doof with the sword is, I think, fairly reasonable considering that the old lady behind him can plausibly kill everyone in the room with a handful of bat poo poo and some arcane gestures. All the more reason to try arrows and stuff. You don't wanna get to close to the big guy and the crazy witch. quote:Come to think of it, many games spend basically zero time talking about how this or that enemy behaves in combat, beyond vague generalizations like "ettins pick on the weak" or "kobolds are cowards". An adventure module might lay out some guidelines, but people who prefer to make their own or roll random encounters are kind of on their own. A lot of games drop a pile of guns and bombs and voulge-guisarmes on the players and the special abilities to go with them, but I haven't really seen a whole lot of support for the GM to make really interesting tactical scenarios around those tools. Most of the stuff is just boilerplate "oh just put in some environmental gimmicks like lava or something" when you could spend pages and pages on how different monsters' abilites combo in interesting ways, how to design good battlemaps and all that sort of miniatures gamey crap. I think someone made variant monster moves for Dungeon World that followed the pattern "when X, do Y". Those were pretty cool, and I'd love to see that sort of design space explored more in games that want to include that tactical combat element. A shame. It's mostly about buffing up and optimizing your DPS. Or if you're really lazy, have the caster alpha strike everything and then rest. Glazius posted:Huh. No Hoffmanites? I suppose tech isn't yet advanced far enough for colonizing a heavy-G world. wdarkk posted:I'm not sure where you'd find a heavy-g solid world in our solar system.
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Feb 8, 2015 17:06
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True, that is worse than Pathfinder's Antagonize which, at least in its original incarnation, could force casters into melee attacking you. Much fun to be had.neonchameleon posted:Second, the threatening guy isn't the guy weighed down by plate armour. It;s the guy able to obliterate all of you in six seconds by wielding the forces of creation. And due to the way full round attacks work, the guy in plate armour is only really threatening if you give him a full round to tear you to shreds because you are stupid enough to stand there rather than run past them. It's only GMs who ignore the opponent's intelligence that have the enemies go mano-a-mano with the guy in the tin suit while there is a wizard on the field who is remotely accessible. (And that includes carnivorous animal intelligence - if the animals are intelligent at all they should know better than to try to bite through plate armour). It's only GMs who treat RPGs as video-gamy that have enemies who will do what the PCs want them to rather than what is actually in their best interests. Admittedly you are right that arrows should be preferable - but once again you shoot the caster - they are both an easier target and significantly more dangerous than the guy slowed down by wearing a lot of metal. Oh, that "I become kinda useless if I take more than one step"-part. I must admit that I might be a bit biased towards dirty non-caster peasants. Don't want them to feel too useless. Ningyou posted:Next time: character creation, themes, Roll +Triggered By The Horrifying Memory Of My Friend Pleading For Me To Save Him As He Slowly Burned To Death This sounds like fun. Doresh fucked around with this message at 18:22 on Feb 8, 2015 |
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Feb 8, 2015 18:17
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PurpleXVI posted:I think the issue when dealing with psychology and trauma isn't having it as part of a world or setting, but when systems start assigning them stats and point values, trivializing them by simply making them something you roll for to avoid doing something crazy/wacky or whatever. I think it's really impossible to convey a lot of the terror and hopelessness of mental illness that way Maybe they're just following the psychological leader that is Call of Cthulhu, which came out back in the days roleplaying games wanted to quantify everything.
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Feb 8, 2015 20:07
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LatwPIAT posted:That said, how to handle playing the enemy as a referee, outside of the logistics of keeping track of them, is something that very few RPGs provide support for. Even scaling combat encounters is usually not supported by the rulebooks. I think it would be interesting to treat the opposition has something that is larger than the sum of its parts. Something that is almost a creature in its own right and reflects the enemy's coherence, giving them an initial edge that starts to break apart as the PCs defeat and isolate them.
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Feb 8, 2015 21:25
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Rangpur posted:In this case? High enough gravity to produce super strong, stocky humans, based on what I think they're referencing. You could certainly create such a race for a campaign set a bit more into the future by making what is essentially the opposite of a Lightworlder. I'm not really sure how likely it would be for humans to settle on sich a planet. I'd assume low-G planets are a bit more comfortable. Night10194 posted:I didn't go into it a lot, but the basic Order of Battle stuff on squad compositions and things in Albedo goes directly into 'This is how an ILR squad in this kind of section is trained to fight and how it tends to act once in combat.' I think my favorite little detail was that the ILR takes advantage of the uniformly amazing acrobatic/athletic leaping and sprinting of rabbits to cross obstacles and flank enemy positions in coordinated leaping advances. The image of Helghast-looking rabbits (I know their actual uniform was more Soviet, but I couldn't stop imagining them in glowy-eyed overcoats and gas-masks) basically doing tactical ballet towards you with SMGs will never stop being funny to me, even if in setting it was a good idea. Why isn't there a tabletop wargame about this? Something about a grim future where there is only bunny hopping? Simian_Prime posted:The Gaja Simha Obscure folk creatures are pretty stylish. Not really an Eldritch horror, but definitely weird.
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Feb 9, 2015 18:52
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Fossilized Rappy posted:The capstone ability for the Desert Ranger is Squad Leader, which makes party members and friendly NPCs within a 20 foot radius of the ranger gain a +1 morale bonus to attack rolls. This isn't exactly amazing on its own, especially compared to the things the Field Officer from d20 Future can do that could have been cribbed for this class, but what saves it from being useless is that it can stack with the Squad Leader ability of other level 10 Desert Rangers. Assuming your whole party is Desert Rangers, you can just have a big ol' attack buff circlejerk as long as you stay in formation. Man, just imagine a whole army of Desert Rangers... quote:
So you can spontaneously decide that your starting ghul was no "true" ghul all along? (Though I admit that would be kinda interesting for a Replicant advanced class) quote:Right Hand of the Devil at level 10 makes it so that there's a chance equal to the Made Man's Reputation percent with his Family that members of other gangs (including raiders and slavers) will either run away or grovel rather than fight. Are there any restrictions in terms of family size? I can see that one be a bit weird if their family is the biggest around, while yours basically consists of you and a few buddies. Tasoth posted:I'm going to go out on a limb and think that a high-grav world is going to have it's own problems. Life span would probably be shortened from stress on your cardiovascular and skeletal system, fluid pooling at the ends of the your extremities, etc. Low G is going to be easier to adapt to then walking around all day with it physiologically feeling like you have an olympic bar and some multiple of your weight on it. Plus low-G worlds have this "I can jump over my friggin' house!"-vibe going on possible colonists just can't resist. Doresh fucked around with this message at 19:09 on Feb 10, 2015 |
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Feb 10, 2015 18:53
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theironjef posted:The whole low-g, high-g thing reminds me of reading Heroes Unlimited where the Alien world table had both as options as the planet your character was from, and both resulted in a character that was stronger and tougher than an Earth character. I remember thinking that basically meant we Earthicans got a poo poo deal on planet selection. I think they just went with the comic book logic of "Every alien is a super hero". That's the only way the super strong Lightworlder makes sense. Though the most likely answer is probably ""There is no logic in Palladium. Only MDC.".
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Feb 10, 2015 19:13
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Fossilized Rappy posted:It doesn't specifically say, but I assume that you have to be part of one of the existing Families that gets listed in the Southwest Wasteland Guide. Phew, I was worried there for a sec. quote:Heartily agreed. I've usually seen cyperpunk only associated with the youthful, so I do love the idea of old man cyborgs fighting the good fight against tyranny.
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Feb 12, 2015 19:17
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Jovian Chronicles Second Edition RPG Player's Handbook Chapter 5: Living in Space Everyday Technology Thanks to the colony's temporary isolation and the now ongoing Cold War, technology advances in the last couple years have been mostly focused on the military side of things. Not only have things slowed down for normal people, but it has gotten very crowded for people living on orbital stations, easily eclipsing anything seen on Earth. We're talking about population densities of 7,500 to over 20,000 people per km². I hope claustrophobia has gone extinct in the future. With so many other people around, it has become mandatory for an orbital guy to stay clam and wait patiently in line as to not cause total chaos. Seasons and daylight cycles are still a thing in space, though they are artificially simulated and controlled to the inhabitant's liking. (He said, imagining a Goth station that is always cold and dark.) Living quarters are obviously pretty cramped, with a single 5x3 m room being the average (parking facilities are rented separately). The book explains that even with all sorts of foldable and multi-purpose furniture, there just isn't enough space for a laundry list of weapons, clothes and other stuff. Players need to put priorities on what their PC keeps stored away, unless he really likes sleeping on a stash of weapons, or a piano. If you're players like hoarding loot, they better have access to a merchant ship (or really any ship with a big enonugh cargo bay). The limited space also means that not everyone will own everything required for a proper household (like spices and stuff), making it pretty common to borrow things from neighbours. Those O'Neill Cylinders we've heard before are pretty nifty. They use rotational gravity to make the entire interior surface habitable - or rather half of it; the other half is used for windows. An artificial hollow world of sorts. Like the Not-Side-7 of this Not-Gundam. Asteroid colonies are kind of a mess, with random modules protruding all over the place, and nomads generally don't mind having the inside be full of wires. Most asteroid colonies try to have a gravity wheel or centrifuge to keep people in shape (which is why Lightworlders and ZeeGees can still reach normal physical values), but not every has one. Living there for too long makes it hard to impossible to adapt back to normal gravity. Smaller orbital stations usually do offer at least partial rotational gravity, but they just don't have the space for the kind of planet-like environments you can have with an O'Neill Cylinder. Their interior is a lot closer to the ship from 2001. Most of these smaller stations are not purely for living, but tend to serve military, trading and other purposes. Space Travel Flying a spaceship can be a bit hard to wrap your head around. Not only do you navigate in a 3-dimensional space, but everything inside that space is constantly moving and rotating around stuff. Flight computers are mandatory here. To make things easier to manage, things are generally parked in orbits around an interstellar body, be it a planet or the sun. The Mercurian stations for example have a synchronized orbit around the sun that ensures they're always in Mercury's shadow. To avoid collisions and general chaos, regions near a planet are designated as a space traffic control(STC) zone. Trying to enter such a zone requires the spaceship to call the nearest STC station and follow their instructions. A bit like air traffic on Earth, overseen by the United Solar Nations Space Navigation Authority (SpaceNav). Some regions are restricted, usually because of military testing (there be mecha prototypes), scientific research or natural hazards. Refueling is done at "cyclers", automated (though sometimes maintained by nomads) asteroid stations orbiting the sun or a planet. They require an access code to use. With their large territory, the Jovians have the largest amount of cyclers. The military version of the cycler also comes with ammo and supplies. Naturally, these ones also come with sensor and self-defense systems. Travelling as a passanger is a lot like buying a ticket for a airplane, except you also need medical documents to rpvoe that you're fit for low-G travel. Prices depend on the distance travelled, your cargo, your own mass if you're to fat and the class you like to use (they go from the First Class with its own private suit down to the Sleeper Class who spend the journey in a hibernation pod, kinda like in the 5th Element). This section of course comes with its own table and guidelines to figure everything out. Transporting cargo is very similar, with the cost depending on distance, the gargo's mass and its type. We also learn about the Hanson Circuit, and automated transit system using large booster sleds used for cheap travel between the Jovian states. There's also stuff about Extra-Vehicular Activity (EVA), which amounts to your usual airlock shenanigans (though it notes that space stations prefer a lower-than-Earth pressure to eliminate those decompression phases) and some general stuff about rescue and salvage missions. More interesting is the section of space racing, including exo-amors and solar sails. We also find out that ships can use laser cannons for emergency communications. Funky. And no space section in a hard sci-fi book would be complete without talk about the various ways you can die in space, with the main dangers being decompression, fire and radiation. There's also mention how the various nations deal with evacuations. O'Neill Cylinders are like the Titanic in that there aren't enough lifeboats for everyone. Should your cylinder need to be evacuated, you're probably boned. Economy The solar system's economy separates each solar nation into its own exchange region, largely due to the distances and time delay in communication. There are credits as the universal currency, but every nation has its own currency as well: Mercury has Ration Points, Venus, has Yen (of course), CEGA and the Moon has the Dollar, Orbitals use SHAREs, Jovians use the Franc (so they're French?), and the two Mars nations each have their own variation of the Mark (just like post-war Germany). Belters use whatever they like most, but they prefer bartering. There's an exchange rate table in case you don't just go with credits for everyone. A lot is done digitally, but there are still proper bills. In terms of stocks, Jupiter's the biggest one around. There's also some general stuff on manufactoring, resource collection and mining, but it's nothing too fancy. Law Space stations suck for criminals, as everyone is known by a lot of other people and there's little place to hide your activities. Every settlement and station has its own laws, and they generally don't use juries because those take too much time. I'll just summarize each nations' particular legal shtick:
There's a short section on black markets, but it's your usual affair. Same with piracy and smuggling. Well, this really wasn't as long as I feared. Some sections are very obvious, but there's some nice background information to be found. Next Time: Weapons & Equipment for everyone! How much do you wanna bet that the guns take a nosedive in lethality when converted to d20 stats?
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Feb 12, 2015 21:25
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Open D6 really needs more love, and this is a pretty nifty idea. And man, I hope you don't have that problem of delaying everything because you constantly come up with new/altered stuff. That's driving me nuts for my potential magical girl parody setting/story thing <_<
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Feb 14, 2015 14:52
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The last one definitely seems to have the strongest Shin Megami Tensei vibe going on.Young Freud posted:I think it's largely once I figured out the probability curve for Open D6, it appealed to my simulationist tendencies without getting bogged too heavily into Phoenix Command levels while still allowing for a lot of narrative input. Ironically, what got me into Open D6 was doing conversions from RIFTS into TORG (where the Revised & Expanded edition had conversions to Open D6) and liking what I came up with: stuff like the Glitter Boy ended up turning out as tough as an M1 Abrams tank (which considering it's a 9 foot humanoid robot, that's good enough), hand lasers were equivalent to .50 calibers MGs, and even if the maximum armor value for environmental armor was super high thanks to MDC, an average human could still be injured by normal assault rifles, just not as much. Everything was more powerful than normal weapons, but not immune or too devastating. Sometimes, it's the simpe dice pool mechanic that has the last laugh.
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Feb 15, 2015 10:20
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Young Freud posted:I'm about to start seeing "Jesus Christ" posts following this, or post questioning my sanity doing this. I see myself doing stuff like this when doing conversions.
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Feb 15, 2015 19:15
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Why settle for the 90s? I certainly can't wait for that Avengers movie that comes out in a few years. Jovian Chronicles Second Edition RPG Player's Handbook Chapter 6: Weapons & Equipment Living This chapter starts of with something I think might've been better for the last chapter about living in space: taxe rates and the costs of a living quarter. The average taxe rate ranges from 5% for cowboy Mars and up to 50% for East Germany Mars. Earth and Jupiter are at 35% and 15%, respectively. Living quarters are pretty standardized, and the base "models" don't even have a bathroom or kitchen (you have common rooms for those). The absolute minimum you can get are "coffin rooms" (a tube just big enough to sleep in and store stuff) and "square holes" (just big enough for up to two people). Basic quarters are twice or four times as big and can be further pimped out with stuff like bathroom and storage areas (though that can get very expensive very fast). If you're really wealthy, you can get yourself fancy quarters big enough for proper couches and beds and all sorts of decorations. Food is processed and comes from optimized greenhouse modules on the station. "Normal" food can be found in restaurants and is quite expensive. We also find out that Mars is really big in wine. There's a bit on clothing and uniform colors for the various nations. Basically, natural fibers are only used on Earth. Everyone else makes clothes out of artificial carbon fabrics with traits similar to spider webbing. People in space also prefer form-fitting clothes because they are less prone to get stuck on things (not to mention that skirts, coats and robes don't really work at low Gs). Space Suits Since PCs will spend a good chunk of their time in space, space suits get their own section. They're a lot like current space suits, but of course more advanced, with improved self-sealing capabilities and a myomer layer to support the wearer's movement. They're still pretty stiff and uncomfortable, but its up to the GM whether to adress this or just treat it like normal clothing whre you can just slap the helmet on and be ready for space action. Space suits come in two general categories. The most common are "soft suits", which are your typical anime spacesuits that may or may not actually replace our current space suits in the near future. They're still a bit bulky, though, with the exception of pilot suits (which trade air supply and protection for flexibility) and mars suits (because Mars' atmosphere is pretty tame). Also included here are emergency space suits, which are very puffy suits with a plastic helmet that can be folded into a suitcase. Hard suits are more like what we're using today. They're big, bulky and stiff. They offer the best protection against radiation and possible damage, which comes in handy for construction workers and researchers. The military is also quite fond of armored suits, which is about the closest thing this book has to space marine armor. Space suits are also highly moddable, with every type coming with several slots. This includes stuff like a HUD display, a food dispenser, light sources, magnetic gravity boots and thrusters. Tools Nothing too out of the ordinary here. There are some tethers for quick travel in Zero-G, a couple sheets and nets to keep your stuff from floating around, and people in colony stations apparently prefer parafoils and bicycles for personal transportation. As Earthlings aren't as experienced in Zero-G environments as the other guys, they tend to use the "Abraham Microgravity Assistant", a spherical drone you hold on to. Some of the more playful models are apparently similar to Haro from Gundam. Medical Technology Just a bunch of medical kits, drugs and vaccines. Communications A list of various devices for communications and recording by various companies, with the most lightweight being a combination of a headsat and a wristcom-band. The most interesting is probably Masuo-PANet's VR goggles. They also have VR suits, though the tactile feedback hardware makes those quite heavy. No mention of any sort of game consoles though. There are also datapads, but unlike Star Trek PADDs or modern-day smartphones, these things are just glorified data storage devices that can't actually do anything unless linked to a proper computer. For all your espionage needs, there are microcameras, voice/signal scramblers, repeaters and boosters, as well as Subvocal Microphones that let you talk really, really quietly. If you're a bit paranoid, you can get yourself a "discretion device" used to disable various spy toys. Survival Gear Goggles, gas masks, ropes backpacks, and even some wannabe Capsule Corporation pods that fold out into small emergency shelters. There's also a bunch of survival suits for whatever environment you can think of, including desert and diving suits. Of particular note are vaccuum suits. These are different from space suits in that they only protect against vacuum. Good for ships and stations without life support, a bit risky for outer space, what with the lack of insulation. Since they're also skin-tight, I'm pretty sure they won't be used for some fanservice later in the book. Fire Fighting Fire's pretty darn dangerous in space, so if just cutting the burning section off of air is out of the question, you can use funny stuff like foam bombs. Structural Repair If your ship's hull is breached or otherwise damaged, you can go for a temporal fix, like a polymer sheet or some good old reinforcing beams. There are also "sealant bombs" that work a bit like foam bombs, just with some kind of polymer super glue instead of foam. Thankfully, there are solvents around for the hilarious case of someone getting hit by one and being sealed to the nearest wall. Search & Rescue Lots of neat stuff about docking onto and cutting into hulls, as well as getting people out of there ASAP. Of particular note is the "Emergency Amtosphere Generator" (fills a vacuum with a temporary atmosphere) and "Oxy-Life" (pumps oxygen directly into your blood stream, though usage for more than a couple minutes can get dangerous) Weapons Generally, everyone in the solar nation can get himself some personal sidearms, but most people are a bit wary of people parading weapons around (excluding military and law enforcement). The first list is all about archaic melee weapons, which still see use inside ships and stations because they are far less likely to cause hull breaches or system damage. Things start of a bit weird with the pictures used in this section:  Why did nobody notice the spelling error that is Nanginata? And what is an ASP? Though I guess these questions are superfluous as only the sword, axe, tonfa and knife actually appear on the weapons list (unless you treat the naginata as a pole axe). It appears this picture is from a more extensive book from the last edition. In fact the whole table might also be from said edition, as it doesn't list the parry modifier that I think was introduced in this edition of SilCORE. Since humanity never grows tired of making up new deadly weapons, we also have a couple hi-tech ones. These are "hummers" (vibro-weapons, available as knives, machetes and katana) and electric weapons, which are no new weapons but rather archaic melee weapons that shock their target on impact. The intensity is variable and can be set from "light tickle" to "pretty much guaranteed knockout with a good chance of frying". Pretty dangerous to an unprepared target. There's also this picture:  Why are the knife and axe "vibro-" if the JC term for this is "hummer-"? Why is there a Vibro Axe if there is no HummerAxe? What is a snap blade? Is this picture from a Heavy Gear book or something ?!(At least the stun stick is kinda obviously an electric tonfa, though those can do far more than just "stun" people.) Moving on, ranged weapons start of with bows (but no crossbows; you'd think they would be there if we go that oldschool) and goes through a lot of firearm variations. There are 10 different handguns, and most other kinds of firearms have at least 3. Might be a bit much for some, but I think SilCOREs Range Bands and Damage Multipliers allow for slight performance difference without bugging everything down with too many statistics to keep track of. Notable firearms include:
Beam weapons get their own table. They consist of lasers and masers (microwave guns), with a special police sidearm that combines a laser with a sonic stunner. All beam weapons have different settings like in Star Trek, and they all gain an accuracy bonus (because every beam weapon has a built-in laser targeting sight, which is just the normal fire mode on its lowest setting. Not quite sure how this works with masers, though.). They also have the advantage of most types of armor only offering partial protection against them. Non-lethal ranged weapons includes the classic taser and the sonic stunner, which shocks targets with subsonic waves. Heavy weapons are the big guns. They're only available to the military and help infantry deal with exo-suits and -armors (though the latter will probably still curbstomp the infantry). The list is pretty much what you expect: machine guns, chainguns, mortar, rocket launchers and of course heavy versions of those futuristic firearms (plus a particle cannon). Of particular note is the "Armageddon Gun", a CEGA favorite that is essentially a machinegune with a built-in grenade launcher (every action hero's wet dream). Explosives & Grenades list has all the usual suspects, with only maser grenades (aka microwave grenade), night glue grenades (blinds and is sticky) and glue solvent sticking out. The list of special ammunition also comes with a lot of expected stuff like armor-piercing and tracer rounds. More unusual ammo includes energy-homing and guided (both for missiles and mortars only), as well as recoilless rounds tha turn an ordinary firearm into a poor man's gyrocket weapon. For beam weapons, you can get military-grade high-capacity power cells, which provide more energy at the cost of a possible surge. Weapon accessories have a lot more interesting stuff. You got your silencers, optical and laser sights (the latter doing nothing for beam weapons as they already have that), but you also have smart sights (which display the exact point of impact after a proper calibration), stabiliziers (keeps the gun stable at all costs, which does make hitting mobile targets pretty hard) and a bunch of special holsters, including quickdraw holsters and snap draw holsters you hide in your sleeves. For fans of the movie Aliens, there's the harness system (essentially carries weapons for you) and the much more advanced Heavy Weapon Exo-Skeleton that doubles as armor and gives you an effective Strength of +2 (which in SilCORE is a secondary attribute, calculated by averaging your Build and Fitness), making this useful for all but the strongest soldiers.  Game over, man. Defensive Systems For protection against possible attacks, an increasing amount of ships and stations install defensive systems. These are anti-missile systems (shoots down missiles with automated guns or lasers) and anti-laser aerosol (covers the area with laser-disrupting gas). Also in this category is armor, which makes sense I guess. You've got your low tech armor like leather and composite armor, as well as hi-tech armor made up of various "dura-" materials. There's also reflec armor against lasers and an interference screen suit against masers. As these two only protect against these damage sources (with reflect providing partial protection against masers), you have the much better option of incorporating their benefits into normal armor. The armor is listed as a full set (without helmet), with a modifier depending on whether you only use part of the set or add a helmet. Simple and elegant. There's some pretty nifty stuff in terms of shields: the assault shield (a heavy SWAT shield big enough for two), the protective case (a suitcase that transforms into a shield; very popular with bodyguards) and the stun shield (a riot shield that can shock people). Similar to space suits, you can pimp your armor with electronic and stealth systems. Sadly, the armor section only comes with one picture, though that one manages to be both badass and kinda adorable:  I call her Stormtrooper-chan. The section ends with OGL stats for all the equipment (minus stuff you can already find in d20 Modern or Future). Seems to be basically taking OGL equipment as the base and scaling things around. Said scaling has been done linearly, as opposed to the "Damage and armor increases exponentially"-mantra used by SilCORE which doesn't really translate to actual in-game effects anyways, so it's fine. And of course, as soon as the players have more than a handful of levels, weapons will be significantly less lethal as in SilCORE, where not getting hit in the first place is the best option, as everything that can get through your armor will hurt. A lot. Next time: The heart of every mecha anime (sort of): Giant robots and spaceships!
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Feb 17, 2015 20:35
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theironjef posted:The Avengers came out in 2006. Remember, it had Uma Thurman and some sort of Fiennes. Oh, I of course meant "Avengers Assemble". Rumors say it has a flying aircraft carrier. Kai Tave posted:It's meant to be an collapsible baton, which are prominently manufactured and sold by Armament Systems & Procedures aka ASP. So the book provides pictures of two different extendo weapons without actually listing them anywhere ?And those snap blades sound pretty snikt. Doresh fucked around with this message at 21:16 on Feb 17, 2015 |
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Feb 17, 2015 21:12
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Kai Tave posted:My hazy memories of later Dream Pod 9 products is that the editing tended to suffer, especially since I believe it was around SilCORE that their staff and freelancer pool had shrunk rather significantly. Pussy Cartel posted:DP9's editing started out just fine, but around the early 2000s it went into a seriously sharp decline, and hit its low point around the time they started dual statting things for OGL, and Heavy Gear 3rd ed and Jovian Chronicles 2nd ed came out. I clearly remember Life on Utopia being full of references to page XX and contradicting itself multiple times throughout the book, not to mention referring to things it had never mentioned or explained with the assumption the reader already knew what was going on. Yeah, that "fun" is about to start with the next chapter. Suffice to say, it's good to have fan-made errata for the writeups around. And does anyone know how many errors the Gear Krieg Player's Handbook has? I can't find any errata for that one. Kai Tave posted:Even taken on its own merits the show wasn't all that good either, so there's that too! That's definitely the biggest draw of Heavy Gear. I like all sorts of giant robots, and it's good to know there's some down-to-Earth stuff around for when I've had enough of Super Robots. Not even Japan itself seems to have much love for these gritty mecha after that period of Real Robot shows that formed the design base for BattleTech. Code Geass kinda sorta started out grounded, but then you had flying mecha shenanigans everywhere. Kurieg posted:The animated series was.. bad. I'll let wikipedia explain If the kids where all busy watching Goku team up with a demon snail guy and a mass-murdering space invader, I think they can take having two arena groups join forces. And I guess this is a point for the BattleTech cartoon, which was about Mechwarriors form rivaling houses having to work together to fend off the Clan invasion. Pussy Cartel posted:Yeah, HG was crazily detailed, and they went all out in describing the cultures, histories, and societies of the different human colonies. They even had everyone's favorite 90s RPG feature, a metaplot, which was being covered by their storyline books. A bunch of changes in DP9's staff pretty much hosed over their metaplot, though, as a bunch of people left without ever telling anyone else how a number of plot threads were supposed to work out. When DP9 eventually released Heavy Gear Blitz they just rebooted the setting and rebuilt the metaplot from the ground up. At least the writers of Tribe 8 were kind enough to info dump the entire metaplot in the GM section. Doresh fucked around with this message at 17:31 on Feb 18, 2015 |
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Feb 18, 2015 17:25
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It's the final chapter, everyone! Let's go out with lots of pictures! Jovian Chronicles Second Edition RPG Player's Handbook Chapter 7: Mechanical Catalog Now on to one of the most important chapters for an RPG based on a vehicle-centric tabletop wargame: The vehicles! Exo-Armor and Spaceship Basics Things start off with a description of exo-armors. They originally started out as combat space suits and became gradually bigger as developers slapped more and more stuff on them. They exist in tandem with spacefighters, who play second fiddle because exo-armors are tougher and nimbler. You'd think this would be the other way around, what with fighters being more compact and all. Exo-armors have much fancier cockpits than you see in most Gundam continuities. The pilot is surrounded by screens giving him a full view of the surroundings (almost like in BattleTech), and the exo-armor is controlled through a combination of joystick input and the "linear frame", an exo-skeleton in which the pilot is suspended that allows the machine to mimic his every move. Mechanically, the typical exo-armor has a Size between 11 and 13, with a mass of 40 or more tons and a height of around 16 m. This puts them in about the same mass category as a light tank or a fighter plane, and slightly below most Mobile Suits Their movement modes are of course Walker and Space. Since Jovian Chronicles uses the realistic Space movement rules, they only have to use their thrusters to change velocity and facing, both of which drains their "Burn Points" (BPs), an abstracted value that keeps track of their space fuel. Though they don't have a dedicated amtospheric flight engine, they can still fly with their thrusters, though that's not very cost-efficient as they have to constantly cancel out the local gravity and burn their BP fast. They can also use it as a jumpjet, which probably gives them more distance for their BP, especially if they use it to boost their normal jumping distance. Spaceships range from robust and complex designs to simple modules slapped together with an engine at one end. To provide gravity with their fusion thrusters (aka "plasma drives"), they are rarely not accelerating or decelerating, with the switch happening at the half-way point of their journey. As this creates gravity towards the engine, the layout of a spaceship is closer to a building than a plane. Most spaceships are not built to enter or operate in an atmosphere. Everything bigger than a spacerfighter is built using the modular design approach, slapping together sections built separately, with at least one requiring the actual engine output to carry the rest. This requires more bookkeeping than just creating the ship as one vehicle (that may or may not be built on an entirelly different scale from everything else), but it makes for a much better integration with exo-armor and other smaller vehicles as those now actually stand a chance to damage it at least partially. Spacecraft Maneuvers These are a couple new rules for spaceships with realistic space movement (SilCORE also supports the cinematic "Thrust? What's that? Everything flies like a plane in space!"-route). Not inlcuded are JC's iconic Lightning Strike rules (the kind of split-second combat that occurs if two ships fly towards each other or one suddenly stops), as those are covered in the main SilCORE book.
Space Terrain Here are some rules about realistic space hazards and terrain. This includes planetary rings, radiation belts, shadows (anything blocked off from the sun is pretty darn cold and dark), extreme temperatures and vacuum. Lots of neat stuff. And now onto the actual vehicles! As exo-armors tend to have all weapons be either handheld or mounted on hardpoints, they can be easily customized. Some of the more iconic exo-armors come with a list of official variants. These writeups are also where you see the most errors in the entire book, which is a bit embarassing for a company that's all about vehicle-centric tabletop wargames. For starters, most exo-armors don't mention their sensor and ECM system's range and quality (though the range is listed under the OGL stats made with d20 Mecha). And the weapon lists seem to omit to not the "Hardpoint" and "Handheld" perks. The writers also didn't include the Threat Value aka point cost of the vehicles, deeming those unnecessary for the RPG part of JC. Admittedly, the main book tells you that you can just ignore the points and just build your vehicles, but then the OGL stats come with both point and credit costs Pathfinder  This is the poster mech of the entire franchise, making it the setting's Gundam - though it's also the setting's Zaku as it's one of the oldest designs, making up a good chunk of the Jovian exo-armor forces. After that surprise visit by an hostile invasion fleet, the Jovians decided to crank out their military production, resulting in the Pathfinder to get upgraded for better performance and easier mass-production. As a light exo-armor not meant to be a main combat unit, the Pathfinder is lightly armed and armored. Its main weapon is a particle cannon, and it has 2 missiles on its left shoulder for when you need a heavier punch. If things get desparate, it can use two plasma lances for close combat. For a better utility role, the Pathfinder has an advanced sensor system in its massive forehead (which kinda reminds me of an EVA-01 still growing up) and a radar dish on its right shoulder. Variations include:
Retaliator  The Retaliator is an interceptor exo-armor who packs quite a mean punch for its size, though it is comparatively lightly armored. Aside from 2 plasma lances, it carries a railgun and a total of 10 missiles. Vindicator  The strongest mass-produced exo-armor there is, and one of the newest models in the Jovian military. It's not very fast, but it is heavily armored, with an anti-missile system, a railgun/laser combination (though the lasers are weaksauce backup weapons) that is not shown on the picture and a crapton of missiles that are very spammable. (Though I'm starting to wonder why those shoulder-mounted missiles count as a single missile system with 10 shots. Looks more like 10 one-shot systems. Makes the missiles harder to take out, and the pilot could launch, something mecha pilots love doing. Or if you want to keep things simple, at least give that one missile weapon some ROF so you can launch multiple missiles.) Stormrider  This ridiculous fellow is based on a configuration (aka Mekton Command Armor) for the Prometheus prototype exo-armor. Still more or less a prototype itself, the Stormrider has nevertheless shown some promising results. If the huge particle cannons and the massive thrusters are any indication, the Stormrider's main purpose is that of a fast assault unit. It also comes with a chest-mounted scatter launcher aka shotgun, a ton of missiles (though I'm pretty sure that puny Damage Multiplier of 10 is an error; they typically have 16-30), and a point-defense laser system. Overall, it doesn't really hit harder than the Vindicator, but it does so faster. Though I was honestly expecting more oomph from those oversized guns (they actually just have improved range over the saner models). Lancer  The primary Jovian spacefighter, this interceptor carries a giant, rocket-shaped weapon pod around for quick and easy weapon swapping. The standard loadout consists of various missile types, with options for a laser, more missiles or rockets. It also comes with counter measures. It also has some weird antennae that give the whole design a rather alien/insectoid look. Syreen  This CEGA creation is the result of the Earthlings freaking out about all those fancy mecha used by everyone else, so they quickly cobbled together this slightly humanoid rocket. Still, despite its cheapness, it has some neat stuff, like a laser system that automatically hits any enemy that comes too close. Though since this was a rush job, the system has a tendency towards friendly fire. Other than using said laser system manually at range, it has a lot of missiles. Wyvern  Since the Syreen couldn't keep up with the lastest Jovian models, CEGA built a proper exo-armor (based on an older exo-armor model they got from Mars) in the form of the Wyvern, aiming to best the Jovians with superior firepower and armor. It comes with an anti-missile system and two head-mounted anti-infantry massdrivers (making it more Gundam-ish than the Pathfinder), along with a bazooka, shoulder-mounted missiles and leg-mounted rockets. Like the Pathfinder, it comes in several variants:
Cerberus  The newest CEGA model, created with Venusian help. Its name comes from the shoulder-mounted radar and ECM systems, which do look a bit like heads. The Cerberus combines high speed with very heavy armor, though that leaves very little in terms of weaponry: It carries an automatic sniper rifle, Gundam vulcans, a knife and a plasma lance. Fury  Taking a cue from the Dragonstriker prototype, this exo-armor is a straight upgrade of the Syreen. It comes with a more advanced laser system geared more towards missile defense than autonomous firing. The shoulders come with 8 hardpoints, making the design very flexible. Since the standard Fury has lots of empty hardpoints, they fall into one of 3 variants, which are named after the three furies of Greek mythology:
Wraith  CEGAs old interceptor fighter with a two-man crew. Has some flexible hardpoints, and the standard loadout consists of two particle cannons and a missle bay. Brimstone  The shiny new Mercurian exo-armor. Heat-resistnt, fast and maneuverable, it suffers from a lack of fuel and serious firepower. Nevertheless, it's popular for protecting merchant ships and helping out with the cargo. Ryu  The most recent Venusian toy, still kept very secret (the current Venusian main mech is the Oni, which is pretty much a Wyvern). It comes with two plasma lances, shoulder-mounted missiles and a rifle, with possible options including heavy missiles and particle cannons. It also has a sort of Gundam vulcan on its head, though this one fires laser beams. Minotaur  A goofy-looking CEGA exo-suit, with a height of 2.8 meters. It's pretty much oversized power armor, making boarding action in more cramped ships and stations pretty hard. It comes with a hummer blade, grenades and one of two rifles. As an exo-suit, it's not really a threat for exo-armor, but it makes short work of infantry. Falconer  The main Jovian exo-suit. It's smaller than the minotaur (2.2 meters) and more geared towards speed than endurance. It defends itself with a plasma lance, missiles and a rifle. Bricriu-Class Corvette  The Bricriu-class (a very hard to remember name) is quite old, but still servicable ship design in CEGA use. It's a bit cramped like a submarine, but you can't have everything, can you? The ship is made out of 6 sections in total: The main section with the point-defense systems, 4 turret sections (each with either 3 kinetic kill or beam cannons), and of course a drive section. Tengu-Class Escort Carrier  CEGA's main exo-armor carrier, and quite the succesful and spacious design. Aside from the main section, it has 2 missile tubes, 2 vehicle bays and 2 drive sections. Athena-Class Destroyer  The newest Jovian destroyer, quite fast and maneuverable for its size. Apart from its main section, it has 2 drive sections, 2 kinetic kill sections and 2 wing sections with oversized laser cannons. Valiant-Class Strike Carrier  Jovian's most recent carrier ship, this one has comes with a main section, 2 habitat sections (making it quite comfy), 2 kinetic kill cannon sections and 4 drive sections. And of course, it being a Not-Yamato of sorts, it has a spinal laser that takes a long while to charge up, but has a good chance of one-shotting just about everything it manages to hit. Ebiiru-Class Cargo Ship  A very old and pragmatic cargo ship, it's essentially a bunch of cargo pods stuck on some crew modules and an engine. Inari-Class Cargo/Liner Ship  A much nicer looking ship than the Ebiiru, this one carries both cargo and passangers, usually both at the same time because you gotta multitask to make profit in space. Mule-Class Bulk Tanker  Your standard tanker ship. They're mainly meant for the heroes to protect or destroy. And for some fanservice, here are female exo-suit pilots in vacuum suits:   Shouldn't the Jovian Falconer pilot have the white suit? That's kinda closer to their general color scheme. Generally, the designs aren't too shabby, especially the stylish Ryu, the Lancer fighters and those freakish CEGA rocket mechs that are probably some of the most sensible giant robot designs out there (who needs legs in space, anyways?). The Pathfinder is a simple and elegant design, but the Jovians seem to suffer from a serious lack of design variety, as all their exo-armors here look almost identical. And in the end, most exo-armors can't quite keep up with the more interesting/badass Gear aesthetics of DP9's main flagship setting. And of course, the error-prone writeups leave something to be desired. That's about all for the book. There's a short Appendix, but that's just a random adventure generator for stereotypical mecha anime episodes. Thankfully, the book is clever enough to note that these are just guidelines. Overall, the setting's rather servicable as a totally-not-Gundam setting. It however loses some points for painting the factions with too much black and white after starting off talking about grey areas, and Mars really doesn't sound too interesting as they're mainly concerned with their "Cowboys vs East Germans" sub-setting that doesn't offer much synergy with the rest as Mars doesn't have a real military presence in space. It looks like if this cold war turns hot, they'd be at the mercy of whoever has currently the most warships in orbit. Oh well, at least the Venusians are lulzy. Oh, and the quality of the scan is a bit meh. The pages apear bleached out, at almost every picture has some slight scanlines going on (or whatever you call that). So, what do you want to see next? Do you wanna see CORE Command, the result of DP9's last RPG staff trying to build a setting from the ground up (without previous editions to copy stuff from)? Or do you want to see something else?
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Feb 21, 2015 19:59
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Midjack posted:I guess their artist was a fan of Stardust Memory. The Stormrider up there reminds me of the Dendrobium: So that's why the Fury looked kinda familiar. I need to watch more Gundam. And it's a shame East Germany Mars doesn't have a bigger space presence. Every mecha setting can only be improved by grammatically dodgy German. Kai Tave posted:The reason that exo-armors are portrayed as "nimbler" is because the linear frame system allows them the pilot to adjust their facing without expending reaction mass by shifting their center of gravity. Like they do in Gundam? Sure, it saves fuel, but a fightercraft bound by neither humanoid nor aerodynamic design restrictions can be designed to optimize mass and thruster distribution. Doresh fucked around with this message at 23:12 on Feb 21, 2015 |
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Feb 21, 2015 23:10
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Super happy orbital bombardment time, I guess?Nullkigan posted:I believe that at one point the reasoning behind exo armour being superior to fighters is that, as a humanoid fighting machine, human reflexes and behaviour are better suited to take the machine to the limits. So crazy martial arts manoeuvres are actually expected of all pilots. You can't reflexively Char Kick in a fighter shuttle. But then there's a nod to harder sci-fi with the CEGA Syreen/Fury and Jovian-Trojan Hephaestus(?) which get rid of legs because legs are stupid in zero-g. In one of the books they explained (and alluded to in one of Doresh’s earlier posts) that the reason exos exist at all is that the Jovians had lots of the big worker suits and retrofitted them for military purposes (Zaku I stlye) when CEGA started to show up – not because the technology was actually any good, and it works only because CEGA’s pilots are mostly earthlings and not used to fighting in space. I would wager that adding more abstraction to the Linear Frame's movement data output can give you those human reflexes on a vehicle that does not have to be able to flip the bird and kick stuff. A bit like contemporary motion controls, only much more advanced.
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Feb 22, 2015 08:45
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Nullkigan posted:Core Command is the Gunbuster one, right? Where Heavy Gear = VOTOMS, Jovian Chronicles = Gundam. I've never seen Gunbuster so I'm guessing. Not really. Core Command doesn't have giant robots, just very, very oversized spaceships. (Then again I'm not too versed in Gunbuster, so maybe I'm missing a connection here.) Kai Tave posted:Ironically enough this is basically one of the lines of discussion that led to the Jovian Chronicles mailing list being 90% comprised of people working to "de-mechafy" the game. "This not!Gundam game would be even better/make much more sense without all the not!Gundams, just repurpose the technology and make better fighters." I really think they should've gone with a better excuse for why exo-armors are better than fighters. Without some kind of fantasy particles or materials (or downright magitek), it comes off as a bit questionable why anyone thought it was a good idea to keep making these power armors bigger and bigger. Or at the very least put them on a different scale than fighters so you don't even have to compare them directly. A bit like how Gundam does it with "Sure, you're smaller and faster than me, but my rifle can one-shot battleships" If I had to redesign the setting without introducing space magic, I guess it would make more sense to scale the exo-armors down to Gear-level and use them as super space marines for crazy boarding action. Imagine if Side 7 was attacked by swarm of space-capable Hunter Gears. And incidentally, that space train/sled system used by the Jovians takes years for a complete tour. That's nuts. Doresh fucked around with this message at 10:30 on Feb 22, 2015 |
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Feb 22, 2015 10:18
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"Everything is Steampunk if you just slap some gears and pipes on stuff and include lots of top hats  !"PurpleXVI posted:So firstly, we've got something massively ambitious, likely full of terribly loving written fiction since it needs to span 10,000 years, and secondly they think steampunk isn't a terrible idea. Already off to a great start for an F&F review. Any chances of this coming even somewhat close to the insanity that is World of Synnibarr's setting backstory?
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Feb 22, 2015 16:37
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Kai Tave posted:Okay, but by your own logic why not just put those battleship-busting guns onto fighters and etc. etc. True, that logic wasn't too well thought out. I'm generally willing to suspend my disbelief when it comes to mechs, but JC has this unfortunate combination between trying to be as hard-sci-fi-ish as possible while offering little justification for the mechs aside from "they're better than fighters because we said so". You don't just make a homage of a giant robot show using space magic without the space magic. It also doesn't help the suspension that exo-armor and fighters are so close to each other in terms of size and use. Things might probably work out better if this man/machine interface that started the whole Odyssey was a standard part of the exo-armor cockpit, allowing them to be piloted like one's own body at the cost of requiring a humanoid shape so the pilot's mind plays along nicely. A computer-assisted bullet time mode is optional. Combining this with Kromore, I incidentally have this homebrew setting in the back of my head about a fantasy world finally leaving behind the middle ages to build mechs that need to be humanoid so you can screw over physics with built-in magic (kinda like how giants and dragons laugh the square-cube-law in the face). Now I just need a RealmCore WorldEngine. I'm thinking about a pog-based resolution mechanic (the "Tower of Fate"). It has all the buzzwords you can imagine! Doresh fucked around with this message at 18:58 on Feb 22, 2015 |
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Feb 22, 2015 18:40
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JC exo-armors are sadly not nearly as ridiculous. I think none of them hold a candle to Heavy Gear's Aller main battle tank. (Now I'm thinking about tanks in space.) Bendigeidfran posted:When you get past Zeta Gundam mobile suits transform into supersonic jet-forms as a standard feature. I mean I agree that Gundams handwave the square-cube law and guided munitions tech we've had since the 1960s. But it's not like "heavy armor that flies as fast as a jet that also works in space" is something we wouldn't make if we had the chance. Didn't Tomino originally plan to have Mobile Suits be space only so he can avoid that pesky gravity, with Mobile Suits being essentially one-man humanoid battleships? And now I'm really curious how this "Active Mass Balance Auto-Control" fares compared to a say a space-only fightercraft that is essentially a miniature Death Star for optimal rotatability. Doresh fucked around with this message at 21:51 on Feb 23, 2015 |
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Feb 23, 2015 21:47
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Kurieg posted:08th MS team and war in the pocket are probably the best "war is hell" series we're going to get for a while. Cause they tried doing a little bit of that with 00 season one. Then Aeolia Schenberg happened and season 2 went completely off the rails. Don't mention 08th MS team. It irks me to no end that this series isn't distributed her in Germany - despite oldschool Gundam not even being released with a dub (as I think anything before Gundam Wing never aired here in the first place, or anything after Gundam Wing). Kai Tave posted:So everything that's in Gundam to justify the existence of giant dogfighting space robots is in JC too, save for the magic space particle that forces everyone to engage targets at visual range only. That last part is pretty important. Weapons can have ridiculous ranges in space, making those fancy melee weapons a bit useless aside from cutting open a station hull or something. I would also assume that the Linear Frame system works best when the pilot can react to stuff he can actually perceive, not just some blips on a radar. Halloween Jack posted:It's actually pretty difficult to dropkick people in real life, too. 90's it might be, but it is a progressive sort of 90's, as you don't need to translate the stats into bonuses. The Lone Badger posted:What's ridiculous about the Aller? Big slab of armor with a honking great gun strapped to the top. Do not confront directly. It's not the Aller that's ridiculous. It's the exo-armors that are not as ridiculous as Gundams because they don't outclass everything else by a long shot. Young Freud posted:As for effectiveness, I'd think something like a three-dimensional star fort would be an even better idea than mini Death Star. With guns mounted on the ends of the stars, you could concentrate fire of all or almost all your weapons in any direction, while a spherical shape would limit you to at most half your weapons. And Gundam has used that idea before, with the design of Solomon/Konpei Island and later with one of the major space battleships in the finale of Gundam Wing. That could work two, though the Death Star design has the advantage of having one big gun instead of several smaller ones. Young Freud posted:No loving kidding... If you can make headshots with a bazooka and speed up any vehicle by up to 300% through your sheer awesomeness, the sky's the limit. Green Intern posted:Does Jovian Chronicles have a mechanic for determining whether a name is for a boy or girl? Nope, no name lists anywhere to be found here. Then again, the largest concentration of Japanese names is likely to be found on Venus, and Venusians will probably pick the wrong names on purpose.
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Feb 24, 2015 18:28
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Has there ever been a meleemancer class that is all about turning on an offensive forcefield and becoming a sort of arcane pinball of death?Bendigeidfran posted:Quick unrelated question: are there any good systems that have rules for grabbing a sword's blade and smacking people with the pommel? Or like combines grappling rules with dagger fighting? Asking because there's a lot of cool medieval combat stuff that gets overlooked these days. Aside from the already mentioned Riddle of Steel, there's Blade of the Iron Throne. It's basically the same system, but with a few tweaks / house rules and generally tuned towards Sword & Sorcery (though there's little preventing it from being used in other archaic weapon genres). Both systems feature half-swording and the Mordhau, both of which being your primary combat option against opponents wearing plate armor (unless you play with an optional rule that can cause knockouts from head strikes even if the helmet prevents any damage. I call it the doinnnnng-rule) Doresh fucked around with this message at 18:22 on Feb 25, 2015 |
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Feb 25, 2015 18:19
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PurpleXVI posted:Then after that, the book dropkicks us into EXAMPLE COMBAT before we've even had a look at the rules basics. This practice was already pretty weird in Pathfinder, though Pathfinder can at least assume that most people already know how to play D&D. quote:Challenge loving accepted, this claim requires testing. Macross 7. Let's defeat the evil space vampires with giant robots using weaponized J-Rock!.
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Feb 27, 2015 22:33
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There are just a lot of Anime with a certain dosage of insanity that lends itself well to break systems.Omnicrom posted:I second this. If Kromore won't let me play a spaced out rock star who flies around in a transforming jet robot and yells at people to listen to his songs then what use is it? And while I'm at it try Super Robot Wars in general. Kromore better let Basara's friends in the Alpha Numbers or Z-Blue come along for the ride While we're at Super Robot Wars, why not try to adapt some of the more ridiculous attack animations, like...
If that's clearly out of the question, I'd be happy with Thrudgelmir's mile-long energy sword. Baofu posted:I almost drank myself into a coma because my friends put Kancolle into my watch history. Wut o_O ? Doresh fucked around with this message at 11:48 on Feb 28, 2015 |
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Feb 28, 2015 11:43
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