FATAL & Friends 2014-15: The Neverending Storygame

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Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

Ah yes, snakes, noted for their association with music and - oh god they're a snake charming gag, aren't they.

e: whoa this was about the changing breeds thing, I see this thread was not in fact eight pages long

# ¿ Mar 31, 2015 06:23

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 09:28

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

Evil Mastermind posted:

That was the one that repurposed the Street Fighter RPG system to WoD, in case you wanted to have your werewolf enter a martial arts tournament or something.

The 1e Vampire Player's Guide was the one that added all the heavy weaponry.

I'd play the poo poo out of Tenkaichi Garoudokai. I don't even mean that ironically; I played the SF RPG at a con and it was fluid, easy, fun and flavorful. You might have to rework how Rage works...

# ¿ Apr 6, 2015 18:19

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Kurieg posted:

I have some good news and bad news for you.
Good news: Bloody Roar Exists
Bad News: It's not particularly exceptional beyond the fact that it's a fighting game where you're a were-whatever
Worse News: There hasn't been a game in this series since 2003 and there probably won't be a new one since Hudson Soft was absorbed into Konami before they could get funding for it.

I meant as a tabletop but that's cool to know.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2015 21:36

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

Why can't these people just play M:tA and be Sons of Ether? Is there some law passed preventing that?

# ¿ Apr 7, 2015 23:45

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

I remember reading a fan-splat for Scanners once. It was quite sensible and mercifully brief, and probably at least as well play-tested as Changelings. Hell, it probably worked better than whatever hedge-mage/psychic-numena system they had in oWoD did... but I never quite could tell what was up with that, just that almost everything published after about '95 kept making irritating reference to how you could totally play a hedge-witch or psychic who was affiliated with (whatever was actually on the front of the book).

# ¿ Apr 8, 2015 00:26

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NGDBSS posted:

It sounds like all the axioms have ludicrous narrative capabilities, which makes me wonder what you're actually supposed to be doing as a character beyond "I dunno, CRAZY poo poo!" (Perhaps the game will say/will put some restrictions on the axioms, but I ain't holding my breath.)

To play Girl Genius: Modern.

# ¿ Apr 8, 2015 06:19

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

Halloween Jack posted:

Insisting on splats as a jumping-on point is stupid and boring, and squeezing every WoD product, let alone every fan supplement, into splats was the worst thing about WoD and its worst contribution to gaming in general.

Like, seriously. Fanbooks for Immortals and Scanners that divided them up into tribes or philosophies or whatever. gently caress that. Hunter: The Reckoning's splats sucked too. Mummy was splatless, it just had a few factions that didn't automatically determine how many points you got in snake-charming or whatever, and then they remade it as Mummy: the Resurrection which was dumb and had dumb splats and undid literally every single interesting thing about Mummy. I'm ranting now.

Scanners didn't do it, as I recall. There was a note that some Scanners work for companies or whatever, while some Scanners are indie rock, but that's not a splat.

Highlanders probably did. Boy, that TV show sure had a real loving big impact on WoD, didn't it.

# ¿ Apr 8, 2015 18:47

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Night10194 posted:

Only War would be vastly improved by being about a bunch of fuckups navigating bureaucracy and trying not to die while seeking to get whatever booze, drugs, and real food they can.

I'm imagining something in between Paranoia and Warhams now.

# ¿ Apr 15, 2015 21:07

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Mors Rattus posted:

In case you're wondering, by the way, the actual written symbol for a tongue-click is the exclamation mark. If you see that in a word, it means 'click your tongue'. It is found mostly in the !Kung language, but a few others. (There are a few other symbols, but ! is the big one.) An apostrophe usually means a glottal stop.

I remember that was a thing in Uplift. 1-9 were musical tones.

# ¿ Apr 20, 2015 01:50

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

The one AD&D ism that always stuck with me was that making a permanent magic item cost the creator a point of Constitution. I believe this was explicitly not temporary. (Resurrection also required one, and your roll for 'coming back from the dead' was also related to your Constitution.)

Also, making a magic item was a sixth level spell. How many motherfuckers could've been doing this? Obviously the intention was probably to keep PCs from just cranking out +5 swords and +5 armor of the relevant sort for the entire party, but it just didn't add up with having even the odds of a PC having ONE permanent magic item by the time they got to 9th level or so.

I'm sure the solution is feats, though.

# ¿ Apr 25, 2015 00:11

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wdarkk posted:

Well if magic items last indefinitely, then it sort of makes sense that there's a huge pile of them, even if they are difficult to make. On the other hand, you'd expect to see a huge variety of styles since you could easily see magic armors made hundreds of years ago.

Yeah but how many thirteenth level wizards (or whatever) are there?

Now I'm tempted to go through all these things and break them down into effects and relative costs in some general storygame term. But this at least has probably already been done.

# ¿ Apr 25, 2015 00:18

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ThisIsNoZaku posted:

I think you mean totally rad. Turns out DeBeers is run by a cabal of magic users!

But who the hell are they raising?

# ¿ Apr 25, 2015 00:22

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

How do you maintain a patron relationship then? It seems 'unbelief' is hard to accomplish in a setting where the history books did in fact say 'Baal came down and killed that valley a few hundred years back, and that's why the ground is as ashes and the skeletons still walk.'

# ¿ Apr 25, 2015 02:24

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

Bieeardo posted:

The wording on Permanency in 2E is really awkward. First it lists a short number of spells that can be made permanent on the caster, then mentions the inescapable CON cost... and then mentions spells that can be made permanent on others, or on objects. We always assumed that the CON cost applied to all of them (which is bloody stupid, and which we worked around with rare components), but the manner in which it's written suggests that permanent buffs on the caster are the only things that eat CON.

Oh, that's tremendously more reasonable. Losing a CON point for 'the power of flight forever' is probably rather reasonable.

# ¿ Apr 25, 2015 06:22

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

I think AD&D and 3E both kind of modelled Gandalf with wizards.

In AD&D, you had great power but it was limited and you had to use it carefully, and you were often better off supporting non-magicians in various ways and working closely with them in order to further your ends.
In 3E, you were an angelic being whose powers mortals could barely conceive, and were able to rouse and replace major political figures - often in the span of several weeks!

# ¿ Apr 25, 2015 22:31

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FMguru posted:

Glen Cook's Black Company books are unusual in that they have several high-power protagonist-wizards, and they bring the magical thunder early and often.

Even there, most of the company's wizards are portrayed as significantly weaker than the people with spooky names, aren't they? The Company just greatly benefits from having them - there were like, two, and that was exceptional.

# ¿ Apr 25, 2015 22:52

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Plague of Hats posted:

That's part of the reason they got rid of it. The thrust is, you can see all these things that reined in wizards just falling away over the editions, replaced with nothing, while stealth (and not-so-stealth) restrictions were continually piled onto the stuff more grounded heroes would attempt.

I remember that clerics had bonus spell slots if they had high Wisdom, which could lead to a first level cleric having like four first level spells. (It was ambiguous if you got ALL your bonus spell slots at once or not - but you'd certainly have the first level ones.) It seems as though this, or allowing wizards to use small bows or some crap, would've addressed the issue (in the specific AD&D ambiance, of course).

# ¿ Apr 26, 2015 18:47

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Halloween Jack posted:

I think it was GURPS, actually.

GURPS is the Tiger-force at the core of the TGD universe. When you cry out in your sleep, it is GURPS that you see!

It will foul the fields of Gen-Con beyond repair.

# ¿ Apr 28, 2015 03:56

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

I also remember where every son of a bitch and his mother were releasing D20 poo poo. Why did people fall in love with that so much? Was it just because it was all (vaguely) interconnectable with what was, at the time, D&D?

# ¿ May 1, 2015 18:58

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Young Freud posted:

It would be really nice to just retcon all of Rifts technology to be something like this. The Coalition having poo poo that can go Mach 2 for 12 hours should mean they would have the continent secured within a few years. Now, even with just battery powered mecha and fusion reactors being kinda rare, it would explain why they haven't advanced far beyond the Mississippi basin for five decades.

Of course, I've always figured that Rifts' reactors were heavy water fusion reactors, so it's more about building the reactor than mining uranium, plutonium, or other isotopes.

I figure the big issue would be that you're wading into a giant forest of murderous lunatics of various kinds, drug-addled super soldiers, various different forms of demons and trained magicians, dragons, Juggalos, etc. - even the most fervent production of skull-themed warmachines can only make so much headway.

# ¿ May 4, 2015 22:52

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Kurieg posted:

I agree so much. I love the idea of a modern pantheon, and Scion seems good as long as you don't look at it too closely. Unfortunately when you do you find all sorts of poo poo seeping out from the cracks.

What seemed really gross to me was how Greek gods were explicitly and literally better at every possible field of humanoid endeavour. I wonder if this was because their playtest drafts were only using Greek gods, if it was because they wanted to push some kind of wacky pro-Greco agenda, or if they were just that dopey.

But it was like: Everyone else, get a power which is possibly kind of themely for your pantheon or possibly sort of gross and offensive! Greeks, get out your dice buckets from Exalted.

# ¿ May 8, 2015 17:32

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I thought the highlander mythos was adequately represented by Katanas and Trenchcoats. (e: to repair dishonorable misnaming.)

Nessus fucked around with this message at 20:30 on May 16, 2015

# ¿ May 16, 2015 20:27

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Tasoth posted:

Playing the first generation of magical girls having grown into adults and still fighting for hope and love on the streets against people who have bent the big bads to their pursuits would be an interesting concept. Princess Streetfight wouldn't even have to be grimdark, just bare knuckle brawls in back alleys to protect your city and neighborhood.

I think that at a certain point here you're just playing a superheroes game with an explicitly all female/spangly cast, and are reinventing the same tropes.

Not that that's like, bad or anything.

Nessus fucked around with this message at 03:42 on May 18, 2015

# ¿ May 18, 2015 03:39

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Kai Tave posted:

This must be one of those monkey's paw wishes I've heard so much about.

I'm old enough to remember people gloating about the prospect of this crossover, which usually went along the lines of "the Solar Exalted return, and like, BAM! So much for the vampires, am I right? And from there--"

And you know, it probably would be better.

At first.

# ¿ May 18, 2015 06:37

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

Kai Tave posted:

So basically "Exalted only with cars and poo poo I guess." I mean, there's Shards of the Exalted Dream which is actually not terrible and has a couple "Exalted only in the modern day" setting spinoffs. It still uses the 2E Exalted system as a baseline so, y'know, have fun with that, but the actual settings themselves aren't bad.

People have seemed perpetually fascinated with "modern Exalted," which I never really got. My uncharitable guess was that it was really more "Exalted, but everyone looks cool like the people I see on TV" than anything.

# ¿ May 18, 2015 08:17

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

Kai Tave posted:

Well it's not like "the modern day, but there are superpowered demigods about" is untrodden ground. Generally, to western audiences anyway, it's less incredible kung fu and the divine mandate of heaven and more x-genes and alien physiology. I can see the appeal of a game like that, but speaking personally I don't get the appeal of trying to shoehorn Exalted into any version of the World of Darkness given that the pitches typically presented for that mashup begin and end with "the Solar Exalted totally lord it up over everyone with their incredible anime superpowers haha yeah that would be rad, take that Caine."

The kicker is that White Wolf actually did set out to make a modern day game of high-powered mythic figures in Scion and they hosed it up six ways from Sunday.

edit; really, I can't entirely dislike the idea of an "Exalted Modern" because done right it would essentially be "Platinum Games: the RPG."

Yeah, I just never got excited by any of their modern things. I was in a Scion game and it was OK but we sort of had to edge around the busted-up rules. Aberrant and Trinity or whatever, it was just never much of a thing. However, if someone could split the atom and go for a Platinum Games-style RPG that would be, mathematically speaking, the sweetest thing ever.

# ¿ May 18, 2015 08:37

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Halloween Jack posted:

The more I think about it, the more I find that sunlight-death is the least plausible part of Vampire. You pretty much can't do anything if you can't do business during the day. A network of ghoul servants and fake documents is a lot harder to establish and a lot more fragile than it sounds. Vampire: the Requiem and its supplements dig deep into the subject of how vampires get a steady supply of blood and make their haven. But in the end I find that Kindred would have to either live like homeless people or have a miniature empire built around themselves, with no in-between.

What's funny is that it all comes from a dramatic moment in a 20s film. Dracula was IMPAIRED by sunlight - he probably wouldn't have wanted to go walking in full noon, and he couldn't change shape or do various other vampire tricks - but he could go out during the day. The fact that owod vampires would literally cringe hissing from you lighting your cigarette, and (barring Fortitude) would basically just catch fire and die in a sunbeam, took a lot of the oomph out of them.

What I'd do is have reinforcing subtle impacts from daytime poo poo. Maybe you are at a dice penalty (if not a huge one) to do things during the day - you can, but it's an effort. Maybe most of your disciplines are weaker during the day or in sunlight, even cloudy-day sunlight. But you CAN show up in traffic court if you HAVE to.

# ¿ May 18, 2015 19:10

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

Also I'm gonna post about NIGHTBANE, the Palladium RPG, later. Believe that.

# ¿ May 18, 2015 19:13

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I think what Mors is communicating here is that while the tokusatsu link is real clear for Sailor Moon, Sailor Moon is not the be-all end-all of magical girl shows in all their various forms.

It'd be sort of like taking Shadowrun (which I imagine is the most successful cyberpunk TT RPG setting in this century) and going, well, cyberpunk's gotta have elves and orks and so on, I mean otherwise it's not cyberpunk, right?

# ¿ May 18, 2015 20:58

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Mors Rattus posted:

It hasn't, actually. If you want to talk the biggest magical girl show ever? It's Pretty Cure. Pretty Cure is massive. It is bigger than Sailor Moon, bigger than Cardcaptor Sakura, bigger than Nanoha, bigger than anything. The year there is no new Precure is the year Japan's economy has collapsed.

Yeah, Sailor Moon has gotten over big here in America, sort of (at least, I mean, apparently). I imagine outside of the anime doom-murder head community it's the only possible magical girl show an average American might have seen. But there are greater depths to the candy-colored wand worlds......

Maybe someone should do a writeup of that old Guardians of Order Sailor Moon RPG guide.

# ¿ May 18, 2015 21:13

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

Yeah, doing an initial review of the first, uh, twenty pages, this book is amazing.

# ¿ May 18, 2015 22:51

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Nightbane - The Introductioning

I was introduced to Nightbane by a friend of mine who got me a copy of it for some holiday or other. I'd enjoyed the concept of RIFTS in general and he was himself a fan of the system - it had been his own first game. At first I thought this was just some gag that he was sharing with me, but as time has gone on, I've come to appreciate...

on its own merits.

Come with me, and let us explore this world... of Nightbanes.

Nightbane was first published in 1995, which may help you contextualize it. The physical copy I have was printed in 2006 so there may be minor discrepancies. I don't know, and judging from how Simbieda lives his life, that may not actually be the case.

But before we get started...

Warning! posted:

The fictional World of Nightbane � is one of horror, violence, and brutality as well as heroics and triumph. It is filled with supernatural monsters and other dimensional beings, often referred to as "demons," many of whom torment, stalk and prey on humans. Other alien life forms, monsters, angels, gods and demigods, as well as magic, the paranormal, insanity, and war are all elements in this book.

Some parents may find the violence and supernatural elements of the game inappropriate for young readers/players. We suggest parental discretion.

Please note that none of us at Palladium Books condone nor encourage the occult, the practice of magic, the use of drugs, or violence.

Just so we're all clear.

Also, we're going to be in this introduction for a while. This... is merely... a beginning.

# ¿ May 19, 2015 05:06

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

Nightbane - The settening

quote:

What We Are
(First published on May 8th, 2001)

It's been a year and a day since Dark Day, the coming of the Night into this world. Before then, our kind were few and far between, hiding in the shadows, or in plain sight, hiding our True Form from the eyes of unsuspecting mortals. A Neophyte could expect to be recognized and helped by an older Nightbane. Not any longer. So many of us have now appeared that there is little hope to educate them personally; not like the old days. For this reason, I am consigning these documents to the wondrous electronic network where information flows as freely as water. My younger friends will make copies everywhere, hoping that they will reach those in need.

Do you know what you are? Allow me to tell you.

We're plunged into an introductory piece of fiction which, as you can no doubt tell from this excerpt, is drawing heavily from the World of Darkness mythopoetic pool, such as it is.

Nightbane (singular and plural both) are apparently humans who are seized around their Puberty Time by the pressure of becoming something powerful and monstrous which gives them terrible abilities, changes their appearance, and generally serves as an extended metaphor for puberty... if puberty kicked rear end!

Much like puberty, the young Nightbane who reaches his First Change, er, BECOMING, often reacts poorly, as the physical transformation is profound. If he does not freak out completely, he regains the ability to turn back into human form. Human form is called the "Facade," whereas the form in which you are a really sick practical movie effect is called the Morphus.

Balthios here (he's not actually named Balthios but I have to call him something) discusses some details here. Nightbane in their Facade are tough but are like 'main character in a realistic work of fiction' tough - they can take more than the average but aren't invincible. In Morphus they are not necessarily invincible but are real tough, strong, et cetera - and they get their own unique powers of various sorts. He also establishes that Nightbane are semi-immortal - Balthios here says when he "Became," a Pharaoh ruled Egypt and his people hunted pigs with wooden spears. Now he looks like a man in his sixties. However, they can be killed by violence and accident... or by the INQUISITION. (Never again the Burning Times, folks!)

Fun Fact: If you die in your Facade your carcass rots normally. If you die as your Morphus, you dissolve into nothinginess after a while.

But that's not all. There's another world out there, on the other side of the mirror. When one crosses through the "mirror wall," there's a world where no sun or stars ever shine. Brutal. This planet, the Nightlands, however - sucks. It's not some steampunk gothique Neathy delight festival, it's ruled by the Ba'al, the Lords of Night! The Ba'al hate humans and Nightbane, have a bunch of sick-rear end minions (the Dopplegangers, doubles of mortals in Earth! the Hounds and the Hunters, merciless metal-clad warriors!) as well as a bunch of other awesome crap.

Oh yeah, and in 2000 AD they invaded Earth.

On Dark Day, March 6th 2000 e.v., at exactly 6:02 AM Eastern, the entire planet was plunged into night-time darkness for 24 hours. There was mass hysteria... monster sightings, suicide epidemics, riots and so on and so forth. After this, the Sun came back, thank God.

HOWEVER... all the latent Nightbane on Earth (all apparently orphans) underwent their first change here. They called themselves the Nightbane because it was at night that they were transformed-- reborn!

Meanwhile, the "Preserver Party," whose platform seems to be the usual It Can't Happen Here line of platitudes, swept the elections, helped by a mysterious rash of scandals, suicides, and so forth on Republican and Democrat sides.

I'll just do another quoteblock here because this really is something else.

NIGHTBANE posted:

Political analysts predicted that the government would become frozen by "gridlock" as the three parties all pulled in different directions. However, shortly after the new government got underway, many Republican and Democratic members of Congress and the Senate fell into line with uncharacteristic meekness, voting the way President Carson wanted them to vote, time after time. Rumors of blackmail, bribery and corruption soon swept the Capital. Reporters who tried to investigate the matter were frustrated by a lack of any evidence to support any such claims of impropriety. However, the situation became increasingly troubling when a number of investigative reporters met with accidents, madness or simply disappeared; more strange coincidences in a long string of unlikely happenstance.

Meanwhile, the new Congress started passing a number of laws designed to "reestablish order." The new laws greatly reduced individual rights and included expanding police discretion to conduct searches without a warrant, a national ID card, gun registration and ownership restrictions. The new Congress also restructured the Secret Service, disbanded the NSA, and created a new security agency, the National Security Bureau (NSB), with extremely broad powers and expansive jurisdiction. Less than a year later, the NSB "discovered" a massive plot by the FBI, CIA, and DBA to overthrow the U.S. government. The National Security Bureau's probing investigations indicated that Dark Day and the growing crime-rate around the country was also part of the same plot. They also uncovered acts of alleged insurrection by, or corruption within, other government agencies.

The public, long-accustomed to stories of government abuse and desperate to find somebody to blame for the Dark Day, believed the story. The NSB purged those agencies of "conspirators," with scores of (innocent) government agents convicted of terrible crimes and executed as traitors or imprisoned. Others resigned and many vanished � fleeing justice and evidence of their guilt, according to the NSB. Some really did "vanish," whereabouts unknown even to old allies and loved ones (presumed dead or imprisoned somewhere), but several hundred went underground, to be later featured on America's Most Wanted as "Enemies of Society."

In the year 2004, President Carson was re-elected with an amazing 76% majority of the popular vote. A number of newspapers and news agencies claimed that the elections had been rigged. Civil liberties continued to be restricted. Gangs of Preserver Activists (later known as "Preeverts") started acting as unofficial terror squads, bullying and sometimes attacking people who made too much noise against the government. The National Rifle Association was one of the organizations to fall. The NSB continued making arrests left and right.

By 2006, President Carson announced he'd be seeking a third term in office, claiming that the current situation needed stable leadership, and drawing comparisons between him and Roosevelt in the 1930s and 40s. Reports continued pouring in about strange goings on in the White House and the Capital, despite increased repression and news control.

And monsters continued to walk the streets after dark.

I actually think this is kind of clever because not only does it present the "normal" view of events - you can sort of buy that after some kind of really weird poo poo like this, there would be a lot of rallying around the flag - it also carefully takes care, not to offend nobody, but to kick both sides in the neck here. Are you running Nightbane(tm) for your local Young Democrats? Fine! Are you running it down at the Cato Institute Youth Nights, as a compromise choice between GURPS and Pathfinder? Dandy! And by being vague, why, you can pick your favorite candidate and lead them to power with your dark and unholy powers... if you dare.

You may be asking what's going on here, and in a shocking twist of events, the Preserver Party here is being run by a bunch of people working for the Ba'al in the Mirrorlands to stage a huge invasion! Sort of like the Reptilians, but unlike the Reptilians, made up - and significantly less charming. The Ba'al apparently cooperated to break down the ~~Gauntlet~~ barriers between worlds enough to get in, but now that they're in they have no real interest in cooperating with each other.

And hey: Remember those Dopplegangers? Well, this Carson dude is one! Many people are. It's unclear if Dopplegangers exist for every Earth human or if they only exist for some - the Mirrorlands are kind of lovely. However, they've replaced many people in high positions of police, military and government offices - so if nothing else, you don't have to feel bad about waxing evil cops.

Next up, the Nightbane factions. Oh yeah - you know they're there. However, a quick summary: Nightbane seem to have appeared occasionally throughout history, and there were a lot of "potential" Nightbane who never "hatched." This is connected to legends of demons, changelings, and so on. Every potential Nightbane DID hatch during or after the Dark Day, though, so there's a huge population increase, even if a whole bunch of them shot themselves and what-not.

I have reached Page 16 in this book so far. It's pretty wild.

# ¿ May 19, 2015 06:13

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

Alien Rope Burn posted:

You may want to explain Nightbreed for babies who haven't seen it.

I'm not familiar, actually! Isn't it a Clive Barker book? You may well be better equipped than I.

# ¿ May 19, 2015 18:00

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

Fsmhunk posted:

Where the hell did the 'orcs do lots of rape' thing come from anyway? At least Warhammer is free of such taint.

I think the REAL root, other than the general "savage brutes" business, is a throwaway remark in Tolkien where Elrond's wife got captured by orcs and tormented in some way that made her decide to bail from Middle Earth very shortly after being freed.

# ¿ May 25, 2015 04:43

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Evil Mastermind posted:

That's one of the things I love about Eberron. Orcs are considered "just another race", and in areas where orcs and humans co-mingle, half-orcs are considered a blessing because they have the best elements of both races.

Yeah, I like this about the Iron Kingdoms too. Goblins just seem to be accepted in society, as are (some) trolls. I don't think IK quite has orcs, but the ogrun hanging out with the dwarves are also fully integrated, socially.

I also think Iron Kingdoms, for better or worse, just has them all be different species, avoiding the tragic-mulatto drama entirely. Maybe. I forget.

CommissarMega posted:

Isn't this explicitly spelled out in some D&D sourcebook? I could swear I read that, but that may just be my memory being crappy (I haven't played D&D in almost 20 years).

I think it's strongly suggested sometimes but one book I remember that in also said, "and the mother was not necessarily human, either." So at least there was equal opportunity grimness.

# ¿ May 25, 2015 05:16

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

It's time for more

NIGHTBANE

Nightbane - The Factioning

Previously on Nightbane, we discussed how Nightbane were things that had been around for a long time and were like, natural and stuff. But you see, Nightbane don't just hang loose, even though they're not really in competition for anything. You might think that the logical thing for Nightbane to do is, at most, kind of keep an eye on each other to make sure nobody's spilling the beans.

You would be wrong!

quote:

At first, the Nightbane were disorganized, traveling alone or in small groups, hiding from the authorities and giving little thought to anything other than their survival. Some of these independents are still out there, but they are the most vulnerable and short-lived, falling easy prey to the Nightlords and their minions. Eventually, however, the "newbies" or "nightbabies," as they are sometimes known, run into one of the larger groups of Nightbane . These groups, commonly called "the Factions," are loose organizations that operate on a regional, national, or even world-wide scale. The Factions vary widely in power, numbers, and goals. Some of them include humans, sorcerers and even vampires and other supernatural beings in addition to Nightbane.

Note to the G.M.: In a Nightbane campaign, the Factions can help provide focus and goals for the adventuring party. If all player characters belong to a Faction, they have a reason to work together and help each other. The Faction will provide the characters with a home, base of operation, allies, and missions. Of course, a particular Faction may have old enemies as well as acquire new foes, which may put the characters in danger because of their affiliation with the group. The Nightbane characters in the player group could also belong to different Factions as well, especially those who have a history of working together. They might even belong to competing or antagonistic groups, which may lead to some interesting role-playing, but also to back-stabbing and bickering, so the game master should decide whether the players' temperaments are up to such a situation.

Well that's remarkably logical advice, Palladium!

Let's take it to the threatdown.

LaThe Resistance - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6sTsKGgaQc

The Resistance is the largest Nightbane faction, growing out of the "Underground Railroad" (see below). The name does, in fact, come from the WWII french resistance, but there's no American army coming, folks... probably. Anyway, they recruited disaffected young Nightbane, supported by a few old Nightbane who had acquired large sums of currency. Cell organization, generally speaking; they also tend to distrust "norms" and other critters.

The Nocturnes

These people involve a lot of the deep lore on how vampires appear to work in this setting. This is complicated. Basically, they are like the Resistance, but vampires. The true face of vampire intelligences will come in the fulness of time.

The Underground Railroad

You remember how I talked about how there might be a kind of self-help group for Nightbane who don't really do much to boss people around? This is basically that group. They did in fact borrow their name from the abolitionists, rather than vice-versa, and their goal is to help young new Nightbane.

The Warlords

These folks are a gang. And I mean a gang.

quote:

The first Warlords were Nightbane who had grown up in the violent slums of the United States. Some of them were already gang members when Dark Day and the change came upon them. Using their supernatural powers, they quickly clawed their way to the top of their gangs, and formed a loose alliance of Nightbane ruling over humans. In two or three years, the Warlords had taken over the Bloods, Gangster Disciples, Latin Kings and other nationwide gangs, and absorbed most of the smaller ones. The Warlords have no racial bias: "You're all red inside," is the threatening motto of the Warlords' leaders.

These are portrayed as good antagonists, as well as being possible to use as heroic campaigns with PCs. Unstated, but implicit, is the possibility of becoming the Third Street Saints.

The Seekers

You ever play Call of Cthulhu? Your PC would be in this group.

The Lightbringers

These mysterious angel-like beings appear and shoot bad people with radioactive holiness beams. They get called Guardians, and sometimes will work with Nightbane, who appear to not qualify as inherently evil. They shoot those who prey on humans, and have apparently been lurking in the shadows of history (presumably cast by all their lights, whe you think about it.)

You may ask, don't a bunch of holiness critters running around in a WoD-like setting kind of invalidate a lot of moral ambiguity potential, in much the same way that the direct intervention of God tends to end conversations about morality? Well, either way, they may also have something to do with UFOs, bringing up the exciting possibility that the Space Brothers are, in fact, here to help us out.

The Spook Squad

Agents of SHIELD or what have you, these are a bunch of people who used to work for the government but got fired because of President Ron Paul's "Kill You're Parents" initative, which sharply downsized the federal workforce that didn't originate in the mirror universe. Unlike most of these other factions, which are either dominated by a splat (usually Nightbane, but sometimes Guardians, vampires, scions of New-English blood, etc.) this one is bossed around by normal humans.

Anyway, having had that happy time, we go to the magic of Other Splats.

Vampires

Dammit, Bobby! They just couldn't wait. However, vampires have been around and fought by mortal wizards, etc. Vampires have at times lurked in the Nightlands, but they largely persist in Earth. The Ba'al invaded and hosed them up good, though not to the point of extinction. Vampires hate the Nightlords but also don't like Nightbane, who do things like interfere with blood orgies - and that's no fun, Johnny Joestar!!

Sorcerous Orders

There are wizards floating around. Some are good, and others, bad. The Nightlords were leaning on the bad ones for a while and it is theorized that the "Cults of Eternal Night" helped the Nightlords institute the Dark Day and rule Earth, which just stands to reason. Of note is that wizards can learn spells that let them go into the Nightlands, which is important as that is where you will probably want to shoot some fools.

The Guardians

This ancient mystery, which has lasted approximately 3 pages, is answered here. Nobody knows.

There are also some fun vocabulary words and glossary terms which I will leave alone.

We then receive some wise words...

Kevin Siembieda posted:

Role-playing games are really just an advanced form of regular board games. In fact, they are so advanced that they no longer use a board. Some of the elements are still the same; you still need paper and pencil, dice and players. But the main thing you need to play a role-playing game is IMAGINATION.
Let's take it a step at a time.

That's right, folks, we're at the Palladium Boilerplate sections! Do people want those to be discussed?

# ¿ May 26, 2015 07:29

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

Cythereal posted:

They've clearly never played Crusader Kings 2.

That could be an interesting point, that the nobility and kingdom that this Light of Hope thing draws on never existed and is a complete lie these empowered individuals tell themselves and others.

I actually think it would be more novel to think through the implications of having the presence of objective Good in a setting (if perhaps gnomic or somewhat fluid Good, just so you aren't playing DragonRaid). If Sailor Moon's magical crystal can actually, objectively tell Good from Evil, what do you do with that? Does this mean Sailor Moon will necessarily be the perfect queen? Does it mean that there is no real struggle in the universe? I imagine one argument would be to get like Kreia and try to destroy it, to remove that certainty from the cosmos.

Now I don't know how well these would translate into game mechanics but I think it would be more thought-provoking in a way.

# ¿ May 27, 2015 07:02

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

If a thing occurs repeatedly and provably then it is possible, and I want to see scientists in some setting who go with "Holy poo poo, we need to rewrite the books!" rather than "We must be hallucinating, this can't be possible!" when confronted with the supernatural.

As for the Nightbane powers, hoo boy. That's gonna be a couple more stops down the line, but poo poo gets goofy.

# ¿ May 27, 2015 20:29

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 09:28

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

I imagine the reason for having a global conspiracy for Slashers here is more to facilitate groups and so on, because writing a whole book about having one-on-one serial killer roleplaying seems like a recipe for a juicy headline in a couple of years.

From what Mors put down it seems to basically be 'we hunt the most dangerous game, and our ambitions begin and end with "protecting our hunting the most dangerous game."'

# ¿ May 30, 2015 20:25

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