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For a low-powered, street-level, 90s, espionage-themed supers game, AMP seems like it would make it pretty hard to build a lot of the Marvel and DC superheroes that fit into that category. There seems to be a paucity of powers that would just make you super-talented like Captain America, instead of throwing cars or shooting lasers. Nicest thing I can say is that it's very easy to build Squirrel Girl. Also, for a game implied to have serious themes, the art is consistently silly.
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Jun 8, 2016 14:03
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the zeky are by far the best prometheans. thematically prometheans are similar to the way most people think about nuclear waste anyways: something extremely dangerous and unnatural that we made tinkering around with something we didn't fully understand. they warp the landscape and scare people and their life goal is to safely defuse themselves. Of course their signature pandoran is Pyramid Head.
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Jun 8, 2016 14:16
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Whoops, forgot to post this in here on Monday, here's System Mastery's Rifts Part 2 episode. It's a surprisingly straightforward show, as we race to get to the majority of the playable stuff in the core book along with the magic and psionics in there.
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Jun 8, 2016 15:40
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Werewolf: the Forsaken, 2nd Edition The final example idigam is Gagh-Azur, the Mouth of the Depths. In spiritual form, it appears as an evil whirlpool or a maw swallowing everything. Materialized, it is a misshapen mass of dark flesh and parts of various ancient, slimy animals. It oozes green liquid from ugly orifices, and it has an immense, toothless maw to swallow...well, everything. It grabs stuff with tentacles and shoves it into the maw, using razor-edged fins to weaken its prey. It secrets paralytic venom, as well, because this wasn't monstrous enough. It spends its time at sea, deep in the dark, where it feeds on things and experiments, as it has done since prehistory. It consumes, and within its gigantic stomach, it reshapes Essence and flesh into new forms. In prehistoric times, some of its creaitons were recorded in fossils like the Burgess Shale. The Mouth of the Depths envies normal life. They have color, symmetry, variety - everything it lacks. Its own body is imperfect, no matter how much it changes. Life continues to create new things, and all it can do is steal the traits of what it consumes. Perhaps in mockery of this or perhaps in search of its secret, Gagh-Azure consumes and creates. When the moon grows full, it rises to the surface and spits out its new creations - fishmen, squid creatures, horrible amphibian monsters. They crawl from the sea to the beach and beyondd. Most die in short order, but not before they get to kill and eat some people or drag them back to their creator. None last more than a month, though, as the Mouth of the Depths has not mastered creation of life and can only give them its own insatiable hunger. It prefers humans as prey, because while their forms are fixed, they reshape the world around them. By devouring them, it hopes to learn how to make true life. Its origins lie in the oceanic depths of Shadow, in a time before even Wolf. Its original form, if it ever had one, is lost. It might have been one of the first magath, or perhaps it was always a hungry maw. When it rose into the waters, it ate everything it found, converting flesh, inanimate matter and Essence into new forms within itself. Its goal was simple: make the perfect life. No one knows why - it hardly bothers to talk to people, after all. Maybe it wants to end its hunger or create a perfected form for itself. By making something permanent and pure, maybe it can learn to make itself a better form. Or maybe it just wants new things to eat. Its early works are some of the weirdest animals in the fossil record, and many never ended up there, eaten by their creator. It drew Wolf's attention with its mad creation and destruction, and Wolf stalked and fought it for many days before hurling it to the moon. Gagh-Azur returned to Earth on Apollo 11. At first it fled to the depths, to escape Wolf. Eventually, it rose again in hunger and learned of Wolf's death and the raising of the Gauntlet. It took form and fed on the Gauntlet itself, so it could eat both flesh and spirit. Every full moon it rises again, to feast on anything it can catch and then reshape it. It makes sea monsters and bizarre things as the ride rises, drawing attention. Coastal people notice a rise in rogue waves and 'shark' attacks, as well. The entire ecosystem is the prey of the Mouth of the Depths, and it spreads ecological disaster on both sides of the Gauntlet. Its creations are no better - horrific Claimed and other monsters follow it about, with forms of all kinds, each more disgusting than the last. Fish whose eye sockets absorb light, jellyfish with distended maws and giant tentacles. They kill out of pain and fury, not hunger - and they are the simple ones, the onesl eft to guard Gagh-Azur as it creates its next generation of new, monstrous ideas. When it awakens, it takes out entire populations of sea life and sends its creations onto land to catch prey there and bring it home. Preferably, human prey. It is extremely creative when it comes to horrible ocean-creature monsters. Kelp-humanoids with horrible sphincter-mouths, octopi covered in suckers that drag themselves along with human hands, flying jellyfish with human faces and electric tentacles. It especially loves the many ways living things kill and eat each other, and it has begun to hunger for a new prey: werewolves. Its fear of Wolf keeps it at sea, even now that Wolf is dead, for it also fears Wolf's children. However, it wants to use them, making use of their flesh and spirit to make something new and worthy - and to take revenge on Wolf. Gagh-Azur is not an easy idigam to take on. Its natural environment is one that is largely foreign to werewolves, and it is extremely well-adapted to the sea and commands a horde of killing monstrosities. Brute force will not be enough. However, it cannot hide forever, given its urge to take form and feed. It's pretty easy to notice when it's around - the coastal spirits begin to fear the high tide under the full moon, rumors of magaths spread and the spirits may even ask werewolves for protection. Maybe you run into one of the idigam's creations at night. Tracking it from there isn't hard - it moves up and down coastlines, spreading devastation in its wake. Easy enough to spot. Catching it is the hard part. It's not a subtle creature, but it spends much of its time sleeping in the depths, and oceanic spirits are often hard to bargain with for aid. You can hurt it when it comes to the beach to send forth its monsters, but it'll flee any losing battle. And once you do manage to corner it...well, if you can keep it beached and in Flesh, you have a chance, because it was not made to survive well on land. But it's still dangerous there, and it will absolutely send forth its spawn to fight for it and try to eat you whole. It can manifest almost any natural trait that helps eat things, and it will. The good news is, it fights in a way you can understand. It fights like an animal, not something entirely foreign. If you can keep it from the sea and handle its creations, you can win, with help from allies. The spirits name its creations Mawspawn. Tehy come in many ways, but a few shapes repeat themselves. The Ge'endumun, or Brine Walkers, are...well, they're the Weird Claimed that it creates. It likes to shove aquatic spirits into landbound bodies, and they tend to be poorly suited to land hunting, but are very dangerous. They also don't live very long, and all inherit a terrible hunger and a desire to attack anything they see. Humans are the preferred host body. Some of the more common are the Ig'amargha, or Suckling Face, which are humanoid forms with squidlike faces, covered in tentacles that drip ink and slime. They tend to eat themselves to death and don't survive well on land. There's also the Mur'hal Gushu, or Shelled Crawler, which are basically giant crab centaurs, except the human part of the body just kind of slumps over uselessly and moans in constant pain. They have an unfortunate tendency to split and rupture after a while, but while they survive they are insane berserkers. Its greatest creations, though, are the Has'bar'dumu - the true Mawspawn. They are neither spirit nor Claimed nor normal flesh. None has a soul or spiritual reflection, and none lives more than a month. Each is unique, a new creation in an attempt to create a perfect predatory life, and each tends to be equally good at fighting on land and water. They aren't stupid, but lack human intellect - they instead operate on a raw, bestial cunning. Gagh'Azur itself is a rank 5 spirit of immense size and power, especially in the water. It is, frankly, probably the toughest idigam in terms of raw defenses in the entire book. However, it does have weaknesses. Its ban is that it must rise to the shallows and remain there for at least a week at the end of each lunar month, if it wishes to retain its Essence...and while there, it must eat at least five spirits and living beings. Its bane is coral, and weapons made of coral penetrate its otherwise immense Armor. Next time: Locations
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Jun 8, 2016 16:16
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Regarding Beast, I think the writers made a pretty unfortunate target demographic choice for what is essentially Trigger: The Warning o_Otheironjef posted:Whoops, forgot to post this in here on Monday, here's System Mastery's Rifts Part 2 episode. It's a surprisingly straightforward show, as we race to get to the majority of the playable stuff in the core book along with the magic and psionics in there. I'm kind of shocked by the massive retcons done in the World Books. I thought Rifts is this holy grail you never, ever tinker with! Everything I know is a lie!
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Jun 8, 2016 16:32
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Doresh posted:I'm kind of shocked by the massive retcons done in the World Books. I thought Rifts is this holy grail you never, ever tinker with! Everything I know is a lie! It's not even so much retcons as oversights, of course. Retcons implies some level of deliberate choice or competence that just isn't present there.  I was just writing up a future review today for another World Book, and there's a new class that says it's only for NPCs. However, a paragraph later it specifically refers to different options the class has for players (and then later to special leveling options that would be meaningless to NPCs). It turns out they can't keep poo poo straight across a single page, much less multiple books.
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Jun 8, 2016 18:09
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Yeah, does Palladium ever actually retcon stuff, or is it more like they just keep rambling on with no regard for consistency? (And to be fair to their writers, their best-regarded writers like Carella and Coffin were aware of the many inconsistencies and tried to work within and around them.)
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Jun 8, 2016 19:14
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With the world descriptions in the core book the retcons all appear to be in the same flavor of writing out egalitarian multi-racial societies in favor of various factions of white humans with fun to draw robots. I don't think that's a racism thing mind you, I just think the art team was pretty limited early on. Ramon Perez was such a great addition to this staff. theironjef fucked around with this message at 19:59 on Jun 8, 2016 |
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Jun 8, 2016 19:55
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Werewolf: the Forsaken, 2nd Edition The first example location in Forsaken 2e is probably not one you expect: Basra, Iraq. Tehre is only one tribe in Basra: the Blood Talons. Werewolves lived in Iraq, of course, and others came to Basra out of inspiration by the tenacity of the local humans, working to cull the local despair spirits. They came also because they were called. They feel the urge to build - something unfamiliar to the children of Fenris-Ur. Fenris-Ur demanded the Blood Talons come and had them drive out all other tribes - but no the Ghost Wolves, whom they allowed to stay. They cleanse the Shadow to make way for something they don't understand. Now that the Blood Talons have driven away the other tribes, they are arrogant and overconfident - and several have died in crossfire or to IEDs as a result of that. After all, heavily humans are everywhere, even if the Blood Talons think they're beneath notice. The Uratha of Basra do not understand how deeply ancient history is guiding them. In a lesser-known legend Fenris-Ur had a counterpart - Dana-Ur, the Creator Wolf, the other half of his duality. The Destroyer Wolf tore down the old and the Creator Wolf filled the void with the new. Some stories claim they were mates, others siblings. The details don't matter. What is true is that Fenris-Ur left Dana-Ur behind when he gave the Blood Talons his patronage. He is not a spirit prone to introspection, but he is not stupid, and he has relaized something is missing, has been missing so long he does not remmeber what it is. He isn't sure what made him remember it now - that was lost in the chaos of the Iraq War. The moment was some time after the American invasion, but was not tied to any major event of the war. Fenris-Ur does not especially care why he remembers - only that he feels empty now, and the answer lies in Iraq. Destroyer Wolf's first instinct was to revel in the destruction in Iraq, feasting on the spirits of violence there, but it didn't help. His second instinct was to call the Blood Talons to him. Across the globe, Blood Talon Cahaliths awoke, knowing that they should go to Iraq. This happened night after night. Not all came - not all could come. They contributed to the terror and destruction of the war as they came, however. Many cities were laid waste to, and after nearly a decade, most of them left. The urgency of the clal had faded. Those who stayed watched for more signs - and they came in 2009, when huge projects began rebuilding Basra. The new dreams were felt by every Blood Talon in Iraq, not just the Cahalith, and the message this time was clear: take Basra, drive out the other tribes. The Blood Talons did, driven by the proximity of the Firstborn, first wiping out the Pure and then turning on the other Forsaken tribes - and even those Blood Talons who refused to take part, few as they were. After years of battle, they finally drove the last of the tribes out of Basra, allowing only the Ghost Wolves to stay at Fenris-Ur's instruction. However, the tribe is beginning to crack under the strain. Fenris-Ur's attention to the area makes the Blood Talons more bloodthirsty, closer to frenzy. Most revel in this primal nature, though ti does not excuse the terrible things they have done. Fenris-Ur himself is said to stalk the Shadow of Basra, but even his children give him a wide berth - he cannot contain his destructive nature, even for them, after all. Even the non-Blood Talon wolves have trouble with compassion or tolerance in Basra, thanks to his presence. However, with the other tribes gone, the spirits mostly beaten into submission and no other eal threats, there's little left for them to fight. Small disagreements among the Blood Talons are growing into duels and battles. And even without that, they're burning themselves out. Even the Blood Talons can't sustain the bloodlust and adrenaline of Destroyer Wolf indefinitely. Either they or Fenris-Ur will need to leave, soon, but neither will. That would be an unacceptable surrender for the Blood Talons, and Fenris-Ur does not have it in his nature to stop. The Ghost Wolves of Basra are terrified thanks to the Blood Talons and the presence of Destroyer Wolf. Some have tried to flee, but the Blood Talons force them to stay. There are three main types of spirits still in Basra: those too weak to be a problem, those that are nominal allies to the Blood Talons and those who were strong or clever enough to fight back effectively. The Blood Talons mistakenly believe only the last are a threat to them. They don't realize that the biggest threat is actually Vahestabad, spirit of Basra itself. It doesn't claim the entier Shadow of the city, but is patron to lesser city spirits. Its nature has changed with that of the city - whenever the city changes, it discards its old self. It has been soldier, imam, storyteller, merchant, tyrant and terrorist by turns. As the spirit a crumbling city of war it welcomed the Blood Talons. Now, it has changed again and seeks regrowth. The Blood Talons are incompatible with that - but it is not stupid enough to challenge Fenris-Ur and his brood directly. Rather, it draws on its surviving followers and its own power to obstruct the Blood Talons subtly. The humans of Basra, meanwhile, have started to realize there are monsters around. Luna smiles on the armed, coordinated groups of the city, who remind her of the Uratha, and so sometimes they are given immunity to Lunacy for a period. Most of them still suffer it, but enough are putting together their memories and their knowledge of horror movies to begin stocking up on silver to make into bullets, though they've yet to speak the word 'werewolf' aloud to others. The Blood Talons have yet to face hunters armed with silver in Basra, and they're not ready for it. Basra's Shatt-al-Arab River is also full of shipwrecks which are becoming hives of angry, hungry ghosts that have, in places, grown very powerful - powerful enough to kill. The Blood Talons have yet to notice them and are not exactly good at handling ghosts even when they do. Outside the city is the werewolf Hassan ibn al-Ab al-Dh'ib, leader of the Betrayed - the survivors of the tribes cast out of Basra. The pack is huge, and only together until the Blood Talons are dealt with. Hassan knows that, but likes being in charge, so he is trying to arrange it so when the city is retaken, each of the new packs that form will be indebted to him. The nominal leader of the Blood Talons is Fatima 'Ahlaam al-Dam - Fatima Dreams of Blood. She is a Cahalith who foresaw Fenris-Ur's arrival before he'd even decided to come. She has built a cult of personality around herself in Basra, speaking and dreaming of a healed wound she doesn't quite undertand, and her presence is basically the only thing keeping the Blood Talons from going into civil war over their own petty arguments. Nat Dory is a British Ithaeur of the Iron Masters who believes he knows what the Blood Talons want, but not why. He found a hidden place in the Hisil full of half-finished construction and strange chimeric spirits. He's in Basra for the Lodge of Scrolls, trying to recover lore before it's destroyed, and he's calling home for help right now in hopes of finding that pocket again before it's destroyed by the Blood Talons. Last, there's Abdul Rahman bin Ishaq, one of the Ghost Wolves of Basra who has been found by...something, and now sees the Basra that could be, if rebuilding was allowed. He's an engineer and architect by trade, and he's what's keeping the Ghost Wolves of the city from going mad with fear, with his words of renewal and protection for the local humans. So yeah, while the game never straight up says it: Basra's where an ancient Firstborn is lying in slumber, and Fenris-Ur is apparently planning on waking her and getting a new Forsaken tribe started...except he's no good at doing that or at explaining to the Blood Talons what's going on, and everyone involved is only good at violence, when the new Firstborn is a creator. Next time: Belfast
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Jun 8, 2016 22:19
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theironjef posted:With the world descriptions in the core book the retcons all appear to be in the same flavor of writing out egalitarian multi-racial societies in favor of various factions of white humans with fun to draw robots. It was a bit surprising to find that the Coalition is fairly multi-ethnic, with Director Bradford in Lone Star and the field general leading the forces against Tolkeen (whose name eludes me now) being African- Americans.
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Jun 8, 2016 23:05
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theironjef posted:With the world descriptions in the core book the retcons all appear to be in the same flavor of writing out egalitarian multi-racial societies in favor of various factions of white humans with fun to draw robots. And yet the skull-loving faction with policies of xenophobia, conquest, and extermination of the "impure" gradually morph over time from clear-cut antagonists to hard men making hard decisions that would bring a tear to John Ringo's eye so I dunno.
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Jun 8, 2016 23:20
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Halloween Jack posted:their best-regarded writers like Carella Strangely, reading through a couple a Palladium and Rifts forums gave me the impression that most people hated C. J. Carella for creating overpowered classes and weapons with obscene damage potential (at least according to them).
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Jun 8, 2016 23:21
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Kai Tave posted:And yet the skull-loving faction with policies of xenophobia, conquest, and extermination of the "impure" gradually morph over time from clear-cut antagonists to hard men making hard decisions that would bring a tear to John Ringo's eye so I dunno. I really don't get the love people have for the Coalition. Even in the early days, the only time you played Coalition was if you wanted to be a Dog Boy, a "civilized" Psi-Stalker, or a rogue SAMAS pilot because everything else was largely illegal in the Coalition States. Juicer and Crazy augmentation was a capital offense, 'Borgs were either in forced labor camps or registered solely with the military, there was "shoot on sight" orders for Glitter Boys, Cyber-Knights or anyone who had serious hardware like the Operator, and we're not getting into the magic users like the Techno-Wizard and the Ley Line Walker. Then, the Coalition started bringing in 'Borgs, Juicers and, to a degree, Glitter Boys. I'm guessing it's not just some sort of latent love of fascism in the user base, but also a combination of the CSA being heavily detailed and a lack of direction on part of the game line. I've called RIFTS before as a very murderhobo-y game, and usually any game I've been in has been that way just to justify why a bunch of people from diverse backgrounds would join together. Playing Coalition at least provides the GM with some direction by giving the players someone to receive orders from instead of being listless mercenaries and vagabonds: a superior officer tells the party to go out into the wilderness to blow up some Federation of Magic outpost, or arrest some dude, or stop some guys from attack something, string those together and you have a quick campaign. I'm guessing this is why I like the Savage Worlds' adaptation introducing the Tomorrow Legion, which will hopefully be a "good guy" faction that can give some goals and direction in their games.
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Jun 9, 2016 00:13
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DAD LOST MY IPOD posted:the zeky are by far the best prometheans. thematically prometheans are similar to the way most people think about nuclear waste anyways: something extremely dangerous and unnatural that we made tinkering around with something we didn't fully understand. they warp the landscape and scare people and their life goal is to safely defuse themselves. I love the Zeky, and I was very disappointed that they weren't making it into the 2e corebook. Matt McFarland heading that project means I'm not buying it anyway, mind, but still, it's strange they wanted the Unfleshed and Extempore in the main book but cut the Zeky until an expansion if at all.
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Jun 9, 2016 00:58
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Werewolf: the Forsaken, 2nd Edition Belfast, Ireland has had werewolves for years - and while the Troubles have calmed now, friction remains between packs, who give up grudges with somewhat less ease than most. Ireland also has no wolves - they're extinct there, since 1786. Fortunately, there are wolf spirits left in the Hisil, but many have become magath in order to survive. Many others are sought as pack totems. Anyway, back to the Troubles. They started in the 20s when Northern Ireland was made part of the UK, and factions rose to oppose or support the decision, largely along religious lines. Belfast was a warzone, and areas known as the 'peace lines' were made to try to reduce bloodshed - walls of iron or brick, 25 feet high in places. Werewolves, too, understand territory, and their turf wars often mirrored the Loyalist and Republican ones. It's only increased the violence of Belfast, and while the Troubles officially ended in 1998, the werewolves haven't really forgotten, even if other violence has mostly ceased.  Factional loyalties remain among Belfast's people, particularly the werewolves. Blood Talons and Hunters in Darkness both tend to be more distrustful of those on the opposite side of the Loyalist/Republican divide, given their tendency to fight over talking. They're less numerous but quite paranoid. Iron Masters and Storm Lords tend to cooperate more easily, however. The decline of the semi-organized militias on either side of the conflict have left a lot of trained fighters with little to do, and the Iron Masters and Storm Lords feel that recruiting these new armed gangs can be useful. The Bone Shadows tend to ignore the conflict entirely in favor of dealing with spirits and other Shadow threats - including the Shartha, given the Hunters in Darkness tend to be rather distracted by the Troubles-based conflict. Most of those uninterested in the conflict besides them are Ghost Wolves - they tend to see tribal allegiance as similar to the sectarian ways of the past. Belfast does have one side benefit - there's no Pure. Their last attempt to settle a pack in the area ended when they died in the crossfire of a turf war between two Forsaken pacts. There are other problems, however - spirits have been taking the form of selkies to prey on men, hiding in the River Fast under the city. Largely, they are river spirits turned magath by devouring anger and lust spirits, luring men into the waters and drowning them. There's also the occasional exotic animal loose in the streets - see, for a while, local laws let anyone keep any kind of animal they wanted as a pet, and sometimes those pets get loose, or the Bellevue Zoo has an escape. Perhaps the most dangerous problem, though, are the Azlu - something about Belfast draws them to the area, and even the humans have noticed the desiccated corpses they leave. (Some blame vampires.) The Azlu are very hard to defeat in total, and some wonder if they have a tie to the Peace Lines. Some of the more notable packs include the Irregulars, in an old Republican neighborhood called New Lodge. They're led by an Iron Master named Nathan Herron who is waging a quiet war against drug dealers, no matter what side of the Troubles they used to be on. See, the IRA's ex-members often turned to crime, as did some Loyalist thugs, and they formed the Brigade, a sort of criminal network of drug dealers. Nathan really doesn't like them. Then there's the Blood Oath, led by a Wolf-Blooded woman named Laura Fitzpatrick. The pack is mostly Wolf-Bloods and their werewolf children. They live out of West Belfast, and most of their adult Uratha were killed in truf wars. They're seen as weak, but Laura's protected her kids so far by being very good at turning packs against each other. Belfast otherwise apparently has little of interest. So we hop just a little ways east to Bristol, UK! Bristol's built on the River Avon and the Forsaken Protectorate there is one of the longest-lasting in the world. However, there's problems. The Protectorate of Bristol is a good 250 years old, having first begun when a Bone Shadow named Thomas Carr came forward and sold his own life to the twin spirit of the River Avon for her protection - Jenny Greenteeth, the Lady Avona. Bristol's a very traditional town, and the Protectorate has held ever since...not least because those who push for change get slapped down hard. They're very organized for a werewolf community, assigning territory to packs and allocating ritual duties. They expect werewolves to listen to them. This doesn't exactly please most Forsaken, but it works. The thing is, Thomas Carr never told the other Uratha his full plan. Well before the Protectorate sought her blessing, Carr sought out the river spirit to make his own pact at the cost of his life. The rituals of the Protectorate are a symbolic act that gives power to Lady Avona, and Jenny Greenteeth gains power when werewolves shed blood in the city. In exchange, they leech away the rage of the Uratha, allowing their community to last with less argument. The Forsaken know the river spirit is potent if volatile protector, but do not realize she's the only reason the Protectorate has been able to exist without blazing into civil war at least once over the centuries. The Blood Talons are largely the ones in charge. They're the Protectorate council's favorite thugs and first line against the Pure. They also allow Wolf-Bloods to fight for them - and any Wolf-Blood that can take down a werewolf is, to them, an honorary werewolf. The Bone Shadow are not numerous in Bristol, and they tend to be very busy, as most other tribes assume the spirit world will just be kept in line by the rituals. It is, for the most part, but the Bone Shadows are always running around doing maintenance, and they've begun to notice more problems lately. The Hunters in Darkness, meanwhile, specialize in dealing with Beshilu - the Rat Hosts are a major problem for the city, as are the Drowned - a sort of undersea zombie that they believe to be a form of sea-dwelling Host. The Iron Masters have become complacent under the weight of tradition, and their last big risk was during the iindustrial revolution, when they secretly chained and trapped a spirit of industry in order to control the impact of industrial change on Bristol. The Storm Lords, meanwhile, live mostly on past glories - Claimed are quite rare in Bristol, and they crave the day that they can actually take charge in a Crusade against the Pure and Claimed. (They tend to be very deeply Christian, in a uniquely Forsaken way). Jenny Greenteeth/Lady Avona is a single spirit with two faces, shifting and flowing with the tide. She is the only spirit with true freedom in Bristol, thanks to the pact. Jenny Greenteeth is a bloodthirsty water spirit, feared even by the Pure, but she's disturbingly friendly with werewolves when in a good mood. They kill people, and that blood feeds the river. Lady Avona, meanwhile, is a cold but serene spirit, who treats everything as something to be traded. None have yet realized that her lantern contains the soul of Thomas Carr. The Beshilu in the warrens under Bristol arem uch more numerous than the Hunters in Darkness realize. They've grown fat and overconfident in their seasonal culls, and do not treat their task seriously. The Drowned are equally a problem - shambling corpses from the sea, always missing a body part but otherwise appearently normal humans until you get close. They've shown up for centuries, but their numbers are rising now, and no one's sure why. If they are a sort of fish-host, then there's going to be bigger problems soon. Meanwhile, the Gull are a group of slavers and vampires that operate out of the underbelly of Bristol, led by an old sea captain named August Selsby, who is cursed to sail a rotting hulk of a ship, attended by ghosts slaved to his will. And while the Forsaken believe Bristol is safe from the Pure, and the local Ivory Claws and Fire-Touched keep their distance, it's largely out of fear of the spirit patron of the Protectorate. The Ivory Claws, however, are starting to realize that the city is a vast bounty of Loci, and may be worth going to war over. The strangest place in the city is a Locus called the Bear Pit, a sunken area at the center of Bristol whose resonance is a swirling mix of...well, everything around it. Something's infected the stone and concrete it's made of - it's full of entirely unplanned hexagonal patterns that ended up built into the design somehow, and the place is far quieter than it should be, at the center of a roundabout. Some Uratha claim they've seen something scuttling about at night, but no trace has ever been found of it in the Shadow, despite it appearing to flee there when chased. There's also an ancient power in Temple Meads, a rail station built near a bombed-out church. The place is still haunted by ghosts from the Blitz, but the real problem is that something ancient there causes spontaneous possession of humans by spirits apparently summoned outside. Oh, and the big problem? There's an Earth-Bound idigam living in the middle of the Bristol Channel: Afzu'Umm'Ia. It is a patient but vengeful creature that once walked the boundary of land and sea, hiding underwater form Wolf. It became a fishlike being that would emerge to be worshipped by humans in return for teaching them to hunt, fish or do magic. It is the source of some stories of Oannes, the Fomori, Atlanteans and other sea-people, but over time, it fell into slumber. Now, it has awakened and gone back to its old territories, looking for the civilizations it believes it built. Bristol is its first target - it wants to destroy the river-spirit and let them tear themselves apart so that they stop mocking it by playing at the civilization it considers to belong to it. Then it will remind humans of their debt in blood that they owe it. The Drowned? They're its creations, and it has worse waiting in the wings. Next time: Detroit Werewolf City
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Jun 9, 2016 01:27
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 Planescape: Planes of Chaos - Arborea (part 1)  Arborea is a universe of deep emotions and violent moods. What this means is that while most of the denizens are Good-aligned, an adventurer here can still find enough to fight without looking all that hard. And it’s not just the current residents a cutter needs to worry about. There are a bunch of pantheons that had been violently displaced from Arborea in the distant past-Giants, Titans, and the Drow are the best known. All three want payback for getting evicted and frequently send minions to Arborea to mess poo poo up. Xenophon of the Sensates posted:I’d rather come home without my shield than on it. Arborea’s environment is idealistically wild, if that makes any sense. There are few cities, even within the realms, but they really aren’t necessary. Instead, the earth just seems to offer up what a berk needs to survive. That doesn’t mean there aren’t natural hazards, but you have to deliberately be provoking the land spirits or Powers to fall victim to those.  Arborea’s charged environment extends beyond just frequent lightning storms. It’s emotionally charged, and that charge infects everyone that comes to Arborea. Here the booklet gives some great advice, telling the DM to encourage players to start hamming things up even more while in Arborea. Then it has the not-so-good advice of requiring a save versus paralyzation to not react strongly, but at least it says this should only be done as a last resort, and “failing a saving throw shouldn’t always be a bad thing for the characters.” It even says to give extra xp to players that that get melodramatic. Wow, I almost forgot I’m reading 2nd edition D&D. While the wilderness will go easy on a respectful berk, but it’s drat near impassable. While the terrain isn’t obviously supernatural, it is massive, well beyond the scale of any Prime Material world. It’s fortunate that both the Greeks and Elves love ridable flying creatures, because you’ll need one to travel the plane. Nature spirits range from sylvan creatures like dryads or sylphs, while others are guardians of a mountain, river, cloud, etc. And every mountain has a guardian spirit, even Olympus itself. How do you avoid pissing off the nature spirits, then? Dumping refuse, cutting a path through an unspoiled forest, or basically just doing an impression of a Captain Planet villain will piss off these spirits immediately, so for starters just don’t do those things.. But not being an rear end in a top hat is just the bare minimum of decorum. The best way to picture it is to see yourself as a guest in the spirit’s home. If you’re just visiting for a few hour, you’ll be fine as long as you don’t start smashing dishes and drinking all the beer. But if you’re staying for any length of time, you might want to offer to do a couple of chores or make dinner one night. Mirocollo the Satyr posted:Nature spirits are like anyone else. They hate to be ignored and they won’t let you ignore them. The bounty of Arborea also extends to its farms and ranches, and this is the booklet’s queue to start a loving two paragraph tangent on the agricultural economy of the Outer Planes! Ugh, this sort of thing was super prevalent in 2nd edition. I don’t mind taking some time to describe details most players wouldn’t care about. But paragraphs like this, and dedicated sections to describing what sort of mundane goods are made well in a town leads me to believe there had to be someone at TSR thought that players really wanted to run a trading company in D&D. Not only is this dumb padding, but often it ignores the implications of the setting when these tangents include lines like “‘Course, as long as a basher’s bread isn’t made from poison grain from the Grey Wastes, it doesn’t matter.” What if I’m a Pit Fiend and like to eat poison food because everything else takes like cardboard to me? And if no one in the Multiverse would ever eat poison bread knowingly, who the hell would grow it, or is cheating food inspections the best idea that dark gods and fiends can come up with? (And in case anyone is wondering, the reason I liked the economic stuff about Night Hags was because Planescape took a rather niche monster and said “actually, these creatures are important in this setting because they trade evil souls that are morphed into grub worms with faces”. It’s a fantastic concept that supports the idea of the realms of the afterlife having a unique society with concerns you’d find in this setting and no other. Food items that I can go and get from the grocery store right now does nothing for me.) I’m being harsh of course, it’s just something I had to point this out and rant about after having to go through all the towns in The Abyss and read like 10 different variations of “normal rations and equipment are more expensive here”. Let’s move onto stuff players and DMs care about, Magical Conditions. This was where I had to stop myself and go back over the general rules from campaign setting box because I was sure I was missing something. What specifically tripped me up was the changes to divination in Arborea. Divinations spells don’t work without “entrails to read, omens to interpret, or signs or portents drawn from the stars”, which adds 1 round per spell level to the casting time. Now, reading signs and such sounded to me like what a Spell Key would be. But flip the page for the section on Spell Keys, and the ones for Divination are totally different. After thinking about it, I think I figured out what the intent was. A caster can either take the slow method of casting a divination spell or with a spell key cast the spell like he normally would but pay up a lot either in the form of gold or magic items.  Overall, Arborea is pretty easy on casters. Conjuration has all the normal rules regarding summoning, but apparently just even thinking about summoning a fiend will cause the Furies to appear and mess your poo poo up. Spells that affect emotions are especially potent but have a chance to backfire. Necromancy spells that do damage, level drain or create undead don’t work. Healing spells (which are technically in the Necromancy School in 2nd Edition) normally work, but in Arvandor and Olympus they are the purview of the Powers. Unfortunately on Olympus that Power is Hecate, and she’s generally a bitch about granting access. So I guess that means healing magic doesn’t work on Olympus? That’s sort of lame, but OTOH it’s a pretty unique obstacle on the Upper Planes. One final note is that air spells in Arvandor and water spells in Ossa work without the usual Spell Keys. Spell Keys in Arborea are offerings to the Nature Spirits. This is more involved than just forking over gp. Summoning spells require offerings of food at low levels, and requires the caster speak the creatures language at high level. Enchantment spells range from telling a joke to offering something the target desires. For elemental spells you have to offer a quantity of the opposite element proportionate to the spell level being cast. In a lot of cases, a caster may just want to deal with the changes. Arborean Powers are pretty generous with Spell Keys, but they also revoke them on a whim. The Olympians give Power Keys that are pretty obvious and anyone with a passing knowledge of Greek Mythology could guess who handed it out, while the Seldarine are more subtle with theirs and tend to be nature-themed. Even though it’s on the Chaos side of the Outer Planes Arborea is steeped in tradition and superstitions (but in a belief-shaped reality, would superstition technically be a thing?  ) The Powers engage in frequent dick-waving contests, and aren’t ashamed in involving their followers in them. The purpose of the rituals and traditions, then, is to distract the Powers as much as it is to appease them. The inhabitants from the Powers to Petitioners live and party hard, so it’s little wonder why the Sensates have a huge presence here. It’s a universe that eggs everyone on to greater acts of bravery and revelry, but when a cutter crosses the line into hubris the blowback is harsh.As mentioned earlier, Arborea is home to the Greek and Elven Powers. They both make their primary home on the first layer, and their respective water-bros live in the second layer. The Seldarine pushed out the Giants to Ysgard, and the Greeks banished the Titans (save a few they like) to Carceri. The ruins of the former residents can be found throughout Arborea. Now the Rule of Three suggests that there would be another big Pantheon, but Rof3 is more of a trend than a hard law. In truth there isn’t a third Pantheon, at least not one commonly known. There are several individual Powers that live in Arborea, such as the Egyptian Goddess Nephythys, the Chinese deity Chih-Nii, the Aarakocra Goddess Syranita. Finally three Forgotten Realms deities share a party house on the first layer. For Proxies, the Olympians either use the Furies, heroic demigods, and creatures associated with their myths. The Seldarine contract out their proxies from the Seelie Court. The Petitioners are varied, but are either and demihuman or sylvan. One phenomenon that occurs to Petitioners of Arborea is that they can turn into Bacchae. Where the Bacchae originated from is unknown-some blame Dionysus or Pan. The scholars of Arborea and Sigil have done a lot of theorycrafting about how Bacchae mobs form, but whatever the case they’re a rather unique danger on Arborea. Bacchae are the platonic ideal of the obnoxious drunk, so travellers are advice to avoid them (and for Powers sake don’t provoke them). Annonymous Bacchae posted:If they let you do it, it isn’t worth doing. The Sensates love Arborea for its natural beauty and for the constant partying. The Factol Erin Darkflame Montgomery (that name is still dumb) frequently stops by the Guilded Hall to keep her position secure. When not partying or sightseeing the Sensates work as artisans and merchants. Arborea is also home to an offshoot of the Sensates known as the Children of the Vine. This group has abandoned the finer points of the Sensates beliefs and have indulged in full-on binging. The remaining inhabitants of Arborea include all the creatures of Greek and Elven mythology, including ones with evil alignments. There are also giant versions of more common species, though they are no more aggressive than usual. Some regions are controlled by rare and powerful creatures, and there are a few Greater Titans living on the outskirts of Arborea. Balaena, Asura, Baruq, Foo Creatures, and Aasimon round out the list of inhabitants on this Plane. Ephesia of the Children of the Vine posted:I want it, and I want it now. Most of the general descriptions in the first part of the chapter apply to the first layer. I think that even TSR knew that few D&D groups were chomping on the bit for underwater adventures. And while the third layer isn’t going to constantly attacking adventurers, it also is really empty and doesn’t have much to offer save for a specific range of adventure ideas. The truth is when you mention Arborea to Planescape fans, I’d bet that it’s the first layer that comes to mind. Next time: My Big Fat Elf-Greek Wedding
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Jun 9, 2016 02:23
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MightyMatilda posted:Strangely, reading through a couple a Palladium and Rifts forums gave me the impression that most people hated C. J. Carella for creating overpowered classes and weapons with obscene damage potential (at least according to them). I've never understood that. RIFTS lends itself to stacking stupid poo poo from the word 'go' (hi, physical skills) and building on that only seems logical. For my part, CJ seemed like the only one who realized how silly and toyetic the setting was and ran with that, throwing in all kinds of goofy kit that horked up swarms of missiles or laser beams inches in diameter. When Coalition War Campaign hit (shortly after Carella left the company?), it felt like Siembieda trying to outdo him and missing the point of it entirely.
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Jun 9, 2016 03:07
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Is there mention in Werewolf 2e of what happens with werewolves in cultures that don't really have any kind of wolf association? I'm thinking many island cultures where the closest thing is wild dogs that aren't native. Australia in particular has the closest things be the extinct thylacine (which is about as genetically related to wolves as cats are, i.e. not very) and the dingo, which might have originated from semi-domesticated Asian dogs over 10,000 years ago.
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Jun 9, 2016 03:45
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Easiest thing (And what I'd do) would be to have Uratha be able to take the shape of every wild member of the canis genus depending on the region in which they Change. Coyotes, dingoes, and jackals open up basically the entire world except the 'nesias and the farthest southern parts of South America, if you count the extinct dire wolf.
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Jun 9, 2016 03:58
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Australia has a write up coming. Short version: their werewolves are normal, but the Aborigines had way more wolf bloods than full Uratha. No thylacine ties, really, just lack of wolf-kin.
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Jun 9, 2016 04:01
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Bieeardo posted:I've never understood that. RIFTS lends itself to stacking stupid poo poo from the word 'go' (hi, physical skills) and building on that only seems logical. Anyway, from what I recall the other writers like CJ realized that most people played instead in groups of 3 to 6 and actually used the written rules (for the most part), so in order to deal with the Souped-Up Monster of the Week the PCs had to be at a similar power level.
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Jun 9, 2016 04:17
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 THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER Full disclosure: I skipped over a lot of in-setting nonsense in the process of writing the first part. All of these facts are initially presented as matching the chronology of the statements in the first chapter and it doesn’t make much sense. So I’m going to try and arrange them into groups that should make sense. PRIMERS AND DEFIANTS
 "Look I don't trust him. The guy is on fire constantly and he keeps destroying my pens when he 'borrows' them. Hell I think he's a Communist. We should kill Terry." LAW AND ORDER
 I...I don't know what this picture is or what it's trying to say here. What was the prompt, "lady in a hallway looks like she smelled someone farting"? SECRETS OF DELTA PRIME
 Leather and tight pants: the story of 90s America. Thoughts on the secrets: The views on the American justice system are unsurprising. I feel the same way towards the politics of Primers and Defiants. Turning Delta Prime into Paranoia is immensely dumb because Paranoia can do all this poo poo better and we get it, they’re corrupt. It’s just blatantly unnecessary. Speaking of unnecessary! Is it out of character for Ronald Wilson Reagan to have a secret team of black ops guys working for him? Historically, no. I don’t want to do a whole political derail but the guy probably would. However. Does Reagan need a loyal murderteam of Deltas doing political poo poo for him? gently caress no. Just gently caress right off with that. This game is hinting the plot seed that Reagan is now subverting Delta Prime from beneath JFK and he’s got this team that nobody really knows about. It’s dumb and stupid and I hate it. It makes me childishly angry with how bad it is. DELTA PRIME’S MOST WANTED     Syphon: Y’know I expected this to be a Hacker. It’s a neat thing that their intelligence and hacking is all them. Bad Habit: Whistling Dixie is probably the funniest thing I’ve seen in this entire series. It’s A: silly and B: the dumbest example I’ve seen of “shapeshifter has a tell/tic”. This is up there with Zartan in the GI Joe movies loving to whistle “For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow”. Bullet: Okay so you don’t have any guns or armor. All you have is a money sack. That’s great and that’s funny, keep doing that. Arquebus: So what exactly is this guy’s crime, illegal weapons ownership, destruction? This just sounds like Delta Prime is jealous of his shoulder-cannon and wants it. Which is probably true. Still, pretty thin characterization. El Cucui: Aaaand this ends on a government-murdering serial killer. With teleportation. Welp. You’re never capturing that guy. ADVERSARIES THE RED BRIGADE The Red Brigade is the Soviet equivalent of Delta Prime divided into Hammers (national defense) and Sickles (internal matters). Neither side knows exactly what the other is doing which is exacerbated because they hate each other. The sample Red Brigade enemy here is a Crimson Pride pilot, the USSR equivalent of an Armorgeddon pilot in a big bulky suit that is less stable because it’s heavily armored and clunky.  Something tells me that if I was to see this picture in color, it would be a multi-colored nightmare judging by that outfit's composition. Thoughts on the Red Brigade: These were referenced back in Ravaged Planet and they get as much depth here as they did then. It’s just…we get it, they’re Delta Prime But Worse. Their suits explode and Tretyak is a monster and blah blah blah. MILITIA Historically, the Homegrown American Militia was a big thing in the 90s up until 2001. People were wary of militias and American terrorists like Timothy McVeigh. As a result, they’re included as an enemy in this book. Defiance is counted as a militia (especially the Delta Warriors) but there are lesser known groups. Most of these other groups are anti-Delta hate groups, Freeman-on-the-Land “overthrow and reform the government” types, Bunker Jerks and the kind of people who run a camp in the woods where they drill every day and teach the kids how to shoot.  I had to do some editing to cut the art out of the text and move the stat box from the next page to make it...tighter. It looks much better this way, doesn't it? Anyway, snarky comment: I prefer the Stuntman skin for Soldier: 76 more. Thoughts on the Militia: They’re sort of mediocre when it comes to everything, the threat comes from their numbers and their fanaticism. I don’t…dislike the idea of making militiamen enemies. It could work. If only this game had an actual example besides throwaway ideas and blaming Defiance. PROTESTORS Here at my Brave New World reviews, I like to make a joke that Patriot’s catchphrase is “eat [word], hippies!”. I didn’t entirely expect this to be a real thing. Use your own discretion when it comes to fighting protestors (I’m of the opinion that you shouldn’t). The main example of the Protestors is the Rainbow Coalition, MLK’s civil/equal rights movement (currently lead by Jesse Jackson). The police hate them and use riots at their marches as an excuse to crack down on future protests.  As a favor to one of my friends, I'm including this link of a snippet from a Sword of Truth book; http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?/topic/9254-goodkind-iii/&page=32#comment-342387 Thoughts on the Protestors: Uhh. Yeah. These guys are pacifists. Do you get that Delta Prime is evil yet? DAY KILLER In modern parlance, we’d know them as a spree shooter, spree killer or mass shooter. The inclusion of this section is definitely informed by the movie Falling Down and the Columbine shootings. Y’know I’m going to include this entire section in the review so you can get the author’s take on spree killers.   Literally D-FENS and a whole lotta ruminating. Thoughts on Day Killers: I do appreciate that the Day Killer is an average-rear end person with no real skills beyond having a lot of weapons. The guy doesn’t even have any Tricks. That’s a nice touch. This is thematically appropriate, I guess, but I absolutely would not include this type of character because it’s touchy subject matter. This is something that hasn’t really gotten better in our day and age. SERIAL KILLER Welp. Most of the time dealing with a serial killer requires profiling and investigation. Primers automatically get called in when they have the suspect narrowed down because they don’t want to risk any more danger to civilians or law enforcement. Or maybe the Primers are the ones who have to profile, I dunno. These are, like, Criminal Minds-style serial killers. They don’t mention Delta serial killers (as in a serial killer with powers) but you really only need to look at El Cucui to know how dangerous that would be.  I should seriously save this image in lieu of making jokes about poo poo being edgy. Thoughts on the Serial Killer: Again, it’s a normal-rear end guy with a Buffalo Bill loadout. And again, this really isn’t that thematically appropriate. I’m not saying that I don’t think a spree killer or a serial killer could work in a tabletop RPG; it just only works under the right circumstances. Including these pretty mundane sorts of the worst of mankind’s crimes just makes this game dour. You turned “superheroes vs. a corrupt government through underground resistance” into “Everything is hosed: The Superhero RPG” in the book where you’re playing Corrupt Fascist Super Cops. ERRATA CHANGES
FINAL THOUGHTS ON DELTA PRIME: With some exceptions, I don’t think I’ve disliked any of the other books as much as this one. I hated the Historical Person Insertion by way of Heston and Reagan. I hated how this book’s initial premise is “official rules for playing the other side!’ and instead it turns into “everything is hosed, this machine is fascist and inefficient, don’t loving bother”. You really might as well just go the gently caress to jail if you get captured by the Primers because the equivalent is not worth it a little. The new Gadget rules blow, Delta Prime sucks, I hate the very notion of the Black Primers, Hounds suck, Interrogators suck, and most of these sample enemies are bad ideas. There is just so much crap to this book. WOULD I RECOMMEND THIS BOOK FOR THE GAME LINE? Noooooope. Keep the Booster, Charger and Copycat, take or leave the Watcher, maybe hold onto some of the new gadgets or just the Hand Blaster. Throw everything else out, it just doesn’t add much good in my opinion. Don’t play Brave New World. Four down, five to go. The fifth book in the entire line is a wild divergence from the four previous books. We’ve had the core book, the world book, the good guy book and the bad guy book. Are you ready for new lore, new abilities, a new cultural scene and a new war behind the scenes? Are you ready for sights unseen, fantastic new beings and a different type of power? If you said yes, I’m so sorry because NEXT TIME I will be digging into the introductory fluff of BRAVE NEW WORLD: BARGAINERS! God have mercy on us all because The Covenant won’t. 
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Jun 9, 2016 04:22
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It will likely be the weekend before I get the next post of Reign of Winter up, in case anyone was wondering. (Nobody was.)
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Jun 9, 2016 04:28
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Actually I was looking forward to it, based on a system mastery recommendation. Pathfinder's interesting because it goes in directions you wouldn't expect constantly.
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Jun 9, 2016 04:42
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bewilderment posted:Is there mention in Werewolf 2e of what happens with werewolves in cultures that don't really have any kind of wolf association? I'm thinking many island cultures where the closest thing is wild dogs that aren't native. Australia in particular has the closest things be the extinct thylacine (which is about as genetically related to wolves as cats are, i.e. not very) and the dingo, which might have originated from semi-domesticated Asian dogs over 10,000 years ago. I'd run Australia with weresharks modeled after surfie gangs like the Bra Boys. Territory is beaches and even specific surf breaks, main antagonist is that eldritch sea monstrosity Idigam from a few posts up. You could probably do something with Indigenous beliefs around the Land and Songlines and the Dreamtime, but you'd need more cultural sensitivity than I or anyone at WW possesses. Comedy option: Howling IV: The Marsupials. You could run a terrifying campaign set in the Outback, Wake in Fright style. 'Feral' is already a common Australian adjective applied to HUMANS... adding were-creatures into the mix would be HORRIFIC.
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Jun 9, 2016 04:48
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theironjef posted:With the world descriptions in the core book the retcons all appear to be in the same flavor of writing out egalitarian multi-racial societies in favor of various factions of white humans with fun to draw robots. Now you had me wondering, and here's how it all shakes out as far as I can see:
Now, the main places that added human supremacists were Germany (the NGR), Russia (Sovietski), and Japan (well, everybody there). South America added some human supremacist nations too, but they''re definitely the exception and not the rule there, so I'm willing to discount them, and Columbia is crazy liberal compared to the Coalition. The New Navy isn't racist that I can tell; they haven't brought in any D-Bees to their ranks, but they really haven't brought in any outsiders to their ranks. Tritonia is easygoing and accepts aliens pretty freely (hell, they let squid-face refugees in). Most people in space are anti D-Bee, anti-Earth, anti-anybody, so there's that if you want to include it. The Coalition remain the kings of intolerance and repression, though - even brutal Cordoba in South America tolerates millions of rural D-Bees. While there are human nations that treat D-Bees fairly, most of them are magical (or, uh, created by CJ Carella). It seems for Siembieda, mecha and racism go hand in hand.
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Jun 9, 2016 05:04
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 The Whispering Vault: Part 5 Skills Skills, in case you've forgotten, work as a bonus to your final roll. Given that even the lowest difficulty rank requires multiple matching dice to achieve without a bonus, skills are pretty drat important. I'm still not very good at figuring out the probabilities behind Whispering Vault's dice but from what I can tell it's going to be drat hard to succeed at much above an "easy" roll without a Skill bonus of some kind. In fact, your skill bonus has a much more dramatic effect on your odds of success than your attribute.  As a break from the otherwise high quality WV art, here's a skull with a "twirl" filter First, let's talk about Focus Skills, this was something very vaguely defined back in character creation but it's given better definition here. Focus Skills are player-created skills that are usually meant to represent elements of your human life that are still a part of you (except when they don't). Sadly, they're better defined but not much better. The impression I get is that they're meant to be "professional" skills that you've carried over, things like "Doctor" or "Hacker" or "Homicide Detective" and so on. However, only one example is provided of a Focus skill: Sniper, which the game mentions is redundant compared to the basic Attack skill and so it suggests providing a +3 bonus when firing small arms (small arms? since when do snipers use small arms?) from a concealed location. It seems like anyone should really get a bonus under those circumstances but I guess I see the intent. One significant benefit of Focus Skills isn't actually mentioned here but is found back in the combat chapter: an appropriate Focus Skill lets you ignore the -2 die penalty for using a mortal weapon. You still suffer a die-cap penalty but considering the fact that using a weapon lets you ignore your strength and obviates the need for the Rend power to make ranged attacks it's definitely worthwhile for the right character. My first thought was a character with a Focus Skill like "Soldier" and the Conjuration discipline walking around with a machine gun and a vest-full of grenades and putting everyone else to shame. In the character creation section it is also mentioned that Focus Skills could be used as "Discipline Skills" but this is not mentioned here at all. Which is unfortunate, because as I mentioned it's extremely difficult to pull off any unskilled rolls. Anyway, onto the normal skills:  Attack: Guess what this does. This covers every single attack method and you are in the "hunting-evil-gods" line of work so there's literally no reason for every character not to crank this up as high as possible, unless they're using a Focus Skill instead. Otherwise every character pretty much needs to take this as a primary skill, especially because literally no sample character (including "ordinary joe" mortals) has a Defend score below a 10. Banish: This lets you banish awakened Shadows back into the Rift. The basic method is a Presence-vs-Resolve Challenge (plus skill bonus) but with vaguely defined modifiers...banishing a "wounded or outnumbered" Shadow is Easy (i.e. a -2 to their Resolve) but banishing a "healthy creature encountered in its lair is much harder". If you are using this against a Minion (as opposed to a "wild" shadow) the difficulty is against the Unbidden master's Resolve, modified by the creature's proximity to its master. No it doesn't tell you how the thing's proximity modifies the difficulty. Each banishing costs a point of vitality, making it a very poor choice compared to just killing the thing. Bind : The Unbidden apparently have to be Bound before stalkers can pass judgement, of course we don't know what this means yet. But first you've got to destroy the Unbidden's Vessel so you can Bind its Avatar. This is a Presence-vs-Resolve roll "modified by morale" (no, it doesn't tell us anything more than that). If successful this creates a Radiant Orb to contain the Unbidden. Here's the real bitch...Binding is only used to trap the Unbidden in a pokeball and it's a strenuous action taking a point of vitality to even attempt. Since the Unbidden have massive Resolve scores you pretty much have to have a single character who has maxed out Binding and hoards all their Karma until the very end of an encounter with the Unbidden to keep trying to Bind them. If your "designated Binder" gets KO'd (or just fails too many Binding attempts) then your Hunt is literally unwinnable....because this is the only way to get an Unbidden back to the Realm of Essence. Charm: About as self-explanatory as "Attack". This skill covers all pleasant interactions with Mortals. Deduction: This is a skill that starts off seeming self-explanatory but gets maddeningly vague. The assumption would be that this is your general "figure things out" skill (basically replacing the otherwise standard "intelligence check") but the text seems to imply that it serves a more mystical role of understanding the alien minds of the Unbidden. Not really clear. Defend: The opposite of Attack and possibly more important. Since everyone has such a small pool of Vitality it's essential that everyone have a good Defend score. It's kind of hard to justify not taking Attack and Defend as both Primary skills since every single storyline is going to end in a throw-down with a shoggoth. Even if you aren't going to be involved in combat (say the team's designated Binder) defend is so essential because otherwise it only takes a few lucky shots to take you down. Stalkers aren't nearly as tough as they seem to think they are. Evoke This is the skill for summoning a Servitor.  History: In most games this would be kind of a throwaway knowledge skill, but in Whispering Vault it's somewhat essential since games involve jaunting around to different times and places like a lovecraftian doctor who. Intimidate: Charm's flip-side, when you want to spook or freak out mortals without using the Terrify discipline. Mask: This conceals your true features and the use of supernatural powers "when the Veil fails to do so" (no we still don't know what the Veil is). What requires Masking is pretty vague, it says Masking the Whispers discipline is an example of something Easy...but why should you have to? Whispers is a telepathic message, the entire point of the Discipline is that you can send a message without being seen or heard to do so...but apparently we've got to make a Masking roll or...what? what happens if you fail to Mask whispers? It then goes on to say Masking something like Translocation is Hard...how would you Mask straight-up teleportation? Is this a UA style "everyone just happened to blink and when they opened their eyes you were gone" or does it create an actual illusion? Also apparently Masking is done against all observers, if you're being seen by more than one person at once then you've got to make two rolls at a +2 penalty (well, I assume its a penalty...it says "+2 modifier" which could mean a penalty of +2 to the difficulty level or a bonus of +2 to your skill) and if either roll fails then at least some of the observers have seen you. Mending: Another highly specialized but absolutely essential skill like Binding. You see, when an Aesthetic abandons its post it creates a wound in the world called an Enigma which can be healed if you can find the Focus of the Corruption (If I've got to deal with all this jargon so do you). This is an Awareness vs Resolve (the resolve of the Unbidden) roll and costs a point of vitality...and if you fail trying again costs double the vitality and takes hours. A third attempt is impossible by the same character....and yes you have to mend Enigmas to successfully complete a Hunt. Basically every party has to have a single character with maxed out fortitude, Defend, Binding and Mending skills who does absolutely nothing of any interest and is just there to tote around so they can patch things up while the other characters actually do poo poo. Occultism: This lets you recognize the use of magic (or its signs) when you see it, mortal magic specifically, not Disciplines or the like. Kind of useless. Perception: You can guess what this does I'm sure. Sensitivity: This lets you detect traces of supernatural crap. It's not really very helpful as it is active only, requires you to sacrifice a point of vitality and only provides a confirmation that yes, something spooky happened and how spooky it was on a scale of 1-3. It explicitly cannot be used to track the Unseen forces to their source or even identify if the particular spooky poo poo you detect is the the sort of spooky poo poo you're looking for. Stealth: Again, pretty self-explanatory.  And that's the Skills section. Pretty bland for the most part other than some vague-as-hell skill descriptions here and there and the continued insistence that it's a great idea to use your Vitality as a source of "MP" when you're likely to have only about 10 vitality points and no source of good healing. Next is "The Hunt" where we actually start explaining all the Capitalized Jargon Bullshit that litters the book.
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Jun 9, 2016 05:20
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Count Chocula posted:I'd run Australia with weresharks modeled after surfie gangs like the Bra Boys. Territory is beaches and even specific surf breaks, main antagonist is that eldritch sea monstrosity Idigam from a few posts up. IIRC Australian werewolves turn into ridiculously feral dingo-looking things, your wolf form is a function of where you were born and where mother moon first decided she loving hates you in particular.
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Jun 9, 2016 05:26
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Hostile V posted:DAY KILLER Why would these even be a thing? First, your oppressive government dystopia can easily restrict firearms, so if this is starting to become a major problem, guess what, ban guns. Secondly, I'd imagine a squad of Delta Primers or Armorgeddon suits would make short work of a guy with no real combat skills and small arms. The serial killer who stalks in the night is more of a threat, because there's not a whole lot to help detect him (this would be great if the Hound could detect things other than other Deltas), but the moment an active shooter appears, he would likely get fisted by a Delta with 30 inch arms going Mach 1 before he emptied his first magazine. On a side note, why did Forbeck call them Delta Prime instead of just going all out and calling them Delta Force? I mean, it would be wholly appropriate.
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Jun 9, 2016 05:45
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Fun fact: the much better superhero setting Progenitor also has a teleporting serial killer supervillain called El Cucuy, which I assume is drawing on the same mythology source.
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Jun 9, 2016 06:49
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Progenitor has a really well detailed history from the late sixties to 2000 and it's repeatedly stated that this is only the shape of things if the PC's don't interfere.
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Jun 9, 2016 07:08
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TWERPS, The World's Easiest Roleplaying System TWERPS is a game written by Jeff and Amanda Lee, and published for Reindeer Games by Gamescience. The first edition of the game dates back to 1987, with later editions available as PDF scans from DriveThruRPG. Character Generation A player rolls a d10. On a roll of 1, the character's Strength is 3 On a roll of 2 to 3, the character's Strength is 4 On a roll of 4 to 7, the character's Strength is 5 On a roll of 8 to 9, the character's Strength is 6 On a roll of 10, the character's Strength is 7 That's the one stat that any character has. Basic Resolution Mechanic Whenever a character wants to do something "too difficult to be a sure thing", they must make a Saving Roll. They roll a d10, and add their Strength. If the result is higher than a target number set by the GM, the character succeeds. Combat - Initiative Whoever has the highest Strength goes first. On a tie between players and NPCs, the players always goes first. Combat - Movement The system assumes a hex-based map, with each hex representing 10 feet, and one round representing 10 seconds. Each hex can fit up to two characters friendly to each other, and up to four characters total. A character can move a number of spaces equal to their Strength. They can move up to twice that speed if they give up their attack (or other action) for the round. Engaging an enemy in hand-to-hand combat means entering the same hex as them, and entering a hex with an enemy in it completely stops movement. You cannot leave the hex unless you have hit the enemy on the previous round, but were not hit back. If that happened, you can move out of the hex up to your normal speed, but you give your attack/action for the round. Combat - Attacking and Damage To attack a target, roll a d10 and add your Strength. The defender does the same. If your result is higher than the defender's you score a hit. A normal, bare-handed attack deals 1 damage, which reduces the defender's Strength by 1. When a character reaches 1 Strength, they are unconscious and cannot fight, unless someone uses their action to awaken them. When a character reaches 0 Strength, they are dead. Equipment Weapons can increase your chance to hit and your damage dealt. Examples from the book include a club for +1 to attack rolls and +1 to (Strength) damage, a sword for +1 to attack rolls and +2 to damage, and two-handed swords for +2 to attack rolls and +2 to damage. Armor provides a bonus to the Strength rolls you make when defending, making you harder to hit. Examples from the book include Leather armor for +1 to defense rolls, Chainmail for +2 and Platemail for +3. Ranged weapons are also available: a bow would have a +1 to attack rolls, +2 to damage, and a maximum range of 7 hexes (70 feet). A dagger would have no attack bonus, +2 to damage, and a maximum range of 4 hexes. A rifle might have a +1 to attack rolls, +3 to damage, and a maximum range of 10 hexes. You cannot shoot a ranged weapon at a target in the same hex as you, and you take an attack roll penalty equal to [range to target / 3], rounded down. Healing After combat, any characters who are still alive may restore their Strength scores back to full. The book alludes to how you might prefer to impose some distinctions between character that have taken major wounds/injuries versus lesser ones, implying that the former should take longer to recover from and therefore longer for full Strength to come back. Advancement After every battle, each surviving character gains one Victory Point. A character's Strength can be increased by 1, at a cost of a number of VPs equal to the character's current Strength. Character Customization This is not explicitly mentioned in the book, but based on my research, most players assume that their characters have a class/profession/job, and that they are conferred a bonus on their rolls whenever that descriptor comes into play. A game set in a Traveller-like sci-fi setting might, for example, have a Diplomat character with a +2 to all Saving Rolls involving talking to and persuading people, or an Army serviceman with a +1 to unarmed combat and physical prowess rolls, or a Pilot character with a +2 when driving a plane/spacecraft, and so on.
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Jun 9, 2016 07:18
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Kurieg posted:IIRC Australian werewolves turn into ridiculously feral dingo-looking things, your wolf form is a function of where you were born and where mother moon first decided she loving hates you in particular. I mean if you want to play a game about absurdly hyper-masculine Australians roaming around in packs and fighting anyone that pisses them off you can just play rugby. Count Chocula fucked around with this message at 07:51 on Jun 9, 2016 |
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Jun 9, 2016 07:44
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Count Chocula posted:You could run a terrifying campaign set in the Outback, Wake in Fright style. 'Feral' is already a common Australian adjective applied to HUMANS... adding were-creatures into the mix would be HORRIFIC. No Australian born in the past 40 years will ever treat anything labelled as 'The Ferals' seriously.  All thanks to the above cuddly fellows, present for a long time on children's TV. The rabbit was named Mixy. myxomatosis
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Jun 9, 2016 09:00
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Look at that stoned cat. He's high as face.
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Jun 9, 2016 09:35
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Simian_Prime posted:Look at that stoned cat. He's high as face. In personality, Modigliana the cat was closer to being an Australian Miss Piggy. Derryn the dog was the more stoned. Overall, they were somewhat of a pastiche of Australian lower-class culture - as Count Chocula pointed out, 'feral' was a semi-popular insult among that crowd, which is why it was combined literally with the concept of Australia's feral animals. bewilderment fucked around with this message at 09:47 on Jun 9, 2016 |
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Jun 9, 2016 09:44
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Werewolf: the Forsaken, 2nd Edition Detroit, Michigan is not a happy place right now. But you knew that. Its founding in the early 1700s was just a tiny little town, but by the 1770s it was over 2000 people, and in 1796 it was given to the US by treaty with France. The Uratha came around then, with the city's first pack arriving in 1800 - and, to their surprise, it seemed as though no werewolves had ever been there before them in the memory of any spirit they found. Five years later, the city catches fire due to, according to history, a man smoking his pipe and accidentally lighting up a nearby barn. The Uratha remember slightly different events - the fire, they believe, could have been contained if not for spirits attracted to the excitement. The founding pack tried fight back both spirit and fire, but were losing until they made a hasty deal with the spirits of the Detroit River. With their protection, the werewolves beat back the fire spirits and managed to keep the blaze from lighting up the local forest as well. Since then, the fire spirits have longed to set the city on fire a second time. Jump forward to 1903 and Henry Ford's factory in Detroit. He never knew that he profited from the employment of several memebrs of a local werewolf pack. To help the manufacturing, the pack made a deal with the fire spirits, and the Ford plant's fires burned hotter and purer than their competitors. The cost? Every year, for one night, the fire spirits are allowed into ther world of Flesh - October 30, from dusk to dawn, they are allowd to burn any building neither owned nor occupied by a resident of the city of Detroit. But hey, good times can't last. They waned after WW2, especially suffering from white flight in the 70s, which removed most of the city tax base. In the 80s, the Pure showed up - especially the Predator Kings. The rise in gang violence in the 90s helped hide the shadow war between the Predator Kings and the Detroit Forsaken - and the Predator Kings won. If it hadn't been for a chance meeting with some local hunters and one of the surviving Forsaken packs, the Forsaken might have been driven out entirely - but instead, the Forsaken and the Hunters made an alliance against the Pure, and even now, they work together to try to reclaim Detroit. Few Forsaken remain in the city, and they're still under siege by the Pure. The largest pack is Cadillac's Company, which claims descent from the original Detroit pack. Working with them is the Rock City compact, which has many cells and greater numbers than the werewolves. Cadillac's Company, or just the Company, is at constant war. They never stay in one place long and are always alert for the Pure and the human gangs that run with them. They claim all of Detroit as their nominal territory, and so far, smaller packs have yet to make an issue of it, since dealing with the Pure is more important than arguing over who theoretically controls what turf. Their leader is an Irraka Blood Talon named LeShawn White, who leads them on nightly raids against the Pure. He knows he can't win a straight fight, but he believes a guerrilla war of attrition will work, especially if he goes after the Wolf-Blood families of the Pure. The Company is especially good at drive-bys, poison and other nasty tricks. The Rock City compact, meanwhile, began as something of a neighborhood watch following budget cuts to the police. They took up patrolling in groups, armed with baseball bats, tasers and a few guns. It didn't take long to drive out addicts and drug dealers, and the cops turned a blind eye to their work. Eventually, however, the Predator Kings got annoyed with them. They sent a pair of werewolves to take on the group...and it ended with two dead werewolves, at the cost of several dead humans and several more hospitalized. The leader of the group, Rafeeq Jackson, remembered enough of the fight to realize something was weird, and his digging taught him more about werewolves, especially after he hooked up with Network Zero. Armed with the information they gave him, he mobilized the watch and taught them to fight werewolves The group renamed itself Rock City, largely to confuse eavesdroppers and spies, and when a cell led by Rafeeq found the Company fighting the Predator Kings, it didn't take much for him to help. While Rock City knows that hunting werewolves isn't easy, even with the info from the Company and NetZo, they have figured out some useful tactics. For example, weed or other low-grade downers mixed with terrified survival instinct actually helps protect against Lunacy and fear. They've also found that using an SUV with a silver-plated grille works really, really well. The Company goes out of their way on joint efforts to protect Rock City from friendly fire or extra Lunacy exposure. Usually, the Company is bait for the Pure to draw them into a Rock City ambush, as Rock City has assault rifles and those SUVs. This lets both sides fight without killing each other. The Predator Kings have run Detroit for 20 years, at least on the streets. They aren't the cause of its problems, but they're definitely a contributing factor. They control the largest territories and occasionally even fight the other Pure over it. They run a number of gangs, using them as spies and cannon fodder against the Forsaken and Rock City. Their leader, if any leader could be said to exist, is Enrique Lopez, or "Reek." He's a Mexican werewolf who brought his pack, El Muerto Negro, north when he heard about the opportunities in Detroit, and his arrival has made the Predator Kings even more brutal. He runs the worst slums in the city and is practically an open warlord. It also didn't take him and his boys long to learn about the pact with the fire spirits - which they then coopted, loosening the deal to increase the amount the spirits could burn. Devil's Night, as it has come to be called, is now associated with random acts of arson, and the fire spirits will go after any building that they can't obviously tell is inhabited or claimed. It never threatens the whole city, but each year so far has made it more expensive and gotten closer to the suburbs. The Forsaken still see firefighting on October 30 as part of their job, and have even turned to drawing on the old, near-forgotten pacts with the river spirits, while the Predator Kings just use the night to attack their foes when they know where they'll be. Michigan Central Station, a train station meant to help push Detroit's expansion, was closed down in 1988. However, it became a Locus of expectation based on the number of people moving through it before then, and it was one of the first places taken by the Pure from its original owners, a pack called the Movers. The Movers chose to utterly drain the Locus rather than let it fall into Predator King hands, and even now, the resulting Barren makes the Hisil of the MCS mirror its desolate ruins in the physical. Rock City uses the place as an ambush site, since the barrens make it slightly to their advantage. Also notable is Belle Isle, in the Detroit River. A number of imported European deer were brought in when it was opened to the public, and the place has largely become the favored rest area for the Company, given the cops actually patrol it fairly well due to its status as an entertainment hub and the limited approaches to it. A number of white deer were included in the herds, and they've bred true. While they died out in the 1950s in Flesh, the white stags remain in shadow, and when one is spotted every few months or so, the Company drops everything to hunt it. Success brings blessings from Luna. Let's head over to Ohio now. Holmes Coutny, Ohio. It's a rustic sorto f place, and it's got the largest population of Amish in the US - nearly half of the county is Amish. For the Uratha, the place is a deeply powerful environment - pure, simple, reminescent of Pangaea. The coutny started in 1824, cut up from the surrounding larger counties. It was mostly woodland, though somewhat cleared for farming, and even now, it's mostly woodland and farmland. The Uratha came with the Amish settlers, and they mostly coexisted without problem - or the Amish knowing about it. They only occasionally had to mess with the humans, because most of the Amis hwere deeply superstitious, distrustful of outsiders and unlikely to poke their noses into spirit affairs. While the population changed from being all Amish, most folks in Holmes County still just want to be left alone. They're deeply conservative and had little patience for troublemakers. Problems began in 1851, with the arrival of the Pure tribes. They loved the area, too, you see, and the two largest packs that moved in were Ivory Claws and Fire-Touched. The Ivory Claws actually weren't a problem - they were happy to run their isolated homesteads and maintain the purity of their blood. The Fire-Touched, however, liked the deep religiosity of the area and began to infiltrate the Amish, subtly altering their beliefs to better serve the will of the Pure. Disease inevitably followed - but never touched the families protected by the Fire-Touched, who claimed God was rewarding them. In truth, the Fire-Touched just inflicted disease on the others, and a war broke out between the Forsaken and the Fire-Touched, with both sides using human allies. The Pure poisoned wells, causes livestock disease, butchered the unwary. The Forsaken burned entire farmsteads and killed any human with Fire-Touched beliefs. Things threatened to get out of hand until the Ivory Claws decided out of nowhere to barter a peace between the two factions, to keep all werewolves from being driven out by human authorities. Since the time of hte Accord, the Pure and Forsaken of Holmes County have had a wary peace, with little more than a border skirmish for the past century.  Jump forward to 1863 and the Civil War draft. It was extremely unpopular in Holmes County - the Amish don't fight wars, even at gunpoint, and the Uratha and Wolf-Bloods didn't want to go to war, either. On July 5th of that year, a mob of Holmes County residents even attacked Elias Robinson, the local draft official. Whether or not this was orchestrated by werewolves is unknown. Things escalated to the point that 900 dissidents even got holed up in a fortified farmhouse and a squad of soldiers from the Ohio Volunteer Infantry came in to end the rebellion. It might've worked if the Uratha hadn't prepared an ambush for them - and that would've been a blodoy slaughter if not for the Ivory Claws, who threatened to end the Accord on the basis that the US government might be a little mad if they killed an entire infantry company. The dissidents scattered rather than face the soldiers and the entire incident became known as the Battle of Fort Fizzle and helped to cement the Ivory Claws as local authorities. While they may be the most powerful local tribe, they are generally happy to be left alone, and the Pure and Forsaken rarely mix. The Hunters in Darkness and Bone Shadows are most common of the Forsaken, watching the Gauntlet and ensuring the night is safe from spirits and Hosts. The Hunters in Darkness also keep an eye out for humans wandering where they don't belong, making heavy use of Private Property and Armed Response signs as well as threatening people with shotguns - they've learned to let them run away these days. The Bone Shadows keep watch over spirits and spiritual problems, and most of their work is in finding bans and enforcing centuries-old pacts with the ancient spirits of the land. The smallest Forsaken tribe in the area is the Blood Talons - the countryside's too quiet for them, and the Accord means they have less prey to go after regularly. The last real serious threat from other werewolves was caused by a transient pack hiding in the town of Charm and killing people - this brought even the Ivory Claws out to hunt down and deal with the problem. One werewolf, Steven Yoder, claimed a single member of the transient pack escaped, but died shortly after, and it's never been clear if he was right. The Accord still largely works, keeping the Pure and Forsaken peaceful. Leaders meet once a year to hash out grievances and threats, though they're not exactly friendly. Anyone caught trespassing on a pack's territory is fair game, and boundaries are very clear. The truth is, Yoder was right. One werewolf did escape Charm - Janice Haven, who'd been on a beer run when Holmes County's werewolves took out her pack. She and the rest of the pack were Bale Hounds, werewolves corrupted by the Maeljin, and she ran Yoder over with a truck, which is why he died. She fled afterwards, but is still very angry. She's rented an apartment in Millersburg, the largest city in the county, and has pretended to be a Ghost Wolf ever since. She's biding her time, trying to corrupt the other Ghost Wolves of Millersburg in an effort to get revenge on the local Uratha. As soon as she gets up enough strength to hunt werewolves, she's going to start. Another ongoing problem is that development of the county has pissed off the spirit of the Mohican River, and this spirit, Uru Kaith, has been causing more flooding lately and forcing some homes to be abandoned. So far, it's done so far away from most pack territory, but it's not content. It's begun thinning the Gauntlet in order to allow nasty spirits to invade the physical, which will devastate the area around the river and kill lots of people. Without interference, this is going to be a big problem. There are three major packs in Holmes County, plus two smaller ones. They generally get on fairly well with each other thanks to the Accord, with friction largely being interpersonal rather than interpack. The major Ivory Claw pack is called Absent the Father, based out of the wilderness south of Welcome. They're happy to just live as they always have, and while their leader, Larry Reber, is growing old, he's respected. He spends his time largely searching for more Wolf-Bloods to bring back to the pack in the Ivory Claw extended families and ensuring that inbreeding doesn't occur too much. Absent, as the pack is known, takes its duties of maintaining the Accords very seriously and make a big effort to keep the peace. Even when some young idiot Forsaken decides to go to war on the Pure and invades their territory, Larry just has them soundly beaten and returned home with an angry note. The next one is the Shadow Stalkers, a Hunter in Darkness pack out of Mt. Hope, which controls most of western Holmes County and largely works in jobs as county maintenance employees. They are fanatical about hunting down the shartha after an Azlu outbreak a few years back, and their leader is an Elodoth named Jenny Yurzy, who fears that others think she is weak because her mother was the last leader, dying in battle against the Azlu. She has strong ties to the local Sherriff's Department, which has several Wolf-Blooded members, and is thinking of running for office as long as she can find a way to do so that won't piss off the Pure. The last major pack is the Silver Scars, which runs southwestern Holmes County and is mostly Hunters in Darkness and Bone Shadows. Their leader is an Ithaeur Bone Shadow named Two Moon Smith, who indignantly claims Native American blood when asked about it. He is, hoever, quite good at managing spirits. The pack bans all humans from the Wolf Run locus they control, and are known to dump bodies in the local swamps when they have to. (The truth about Wolf Run is that Smith and his pack aren't the killers - normal humans attract attention from the local violent spirits, and tend to die as a result, as the Locus is a home of hunt, pain and fear spirits. Two Moon believes that humans high on drugs might be able to approach safely and act as hosts to the spirits, and that the Native Americans of the area, long since gone, may have once used the place for that purpose to get warriors of extreme strength, and he's occasionally thought about kidnapping humans to test this, but has not done so yet because he's afraid of being caught. Two Moon's kind of a weirdo.) Next time: Australian Werewolves
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Jun 9, 2016 17:25
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BattleTech - A Time of War Rules Overview AToW uses the classic BattleTech action resolution of "roll 2d6 and try to get equal or above the Target Number". Wheres BattleTech's Target Number is typically one of the pilot's various skills (aka the lower the skill, the better) with situational modifiers slapped onto, AtoW takes the more traditional roleplaying approach of applying skills and other modifiers to the roll (aka higher skills are better). Both approaches are equivalent and in fact the same formular with the numbers switched around. Aside from AtoW's version being the more standard one, the book also notes how this allows the characters to have far higher skill ratings than BattleTech allows (since you can't get negative skills there). Not that this will come up often seeing how character advancement is slow and most starting PCs are lucky to be even as good as the default BattleTech pilot, but I'm getting ahead of myself. The Stats - or in this case Attribtues - of the game are Strength (STR), Body (BOD), Reflexes (RFL), Dexterity (DEX), Intelligence (INT), Willpower (WIL), Charisma (CHA) and Edge (EDG). All of them are self-explanatory aside from EDG, which is actually your pool of not-Fate points. Attribtues range from 1 to 10 (with 4 being the average), and they work like in d20 systems in that they are mostly there to provide modifiers to skill rolls, though they don't provide as much of a bonus (an Attribute of 10 gives you a +2, for example). For you daily dose of Merits & Flaws, the game offers Traits. They are somewhat odd in that each has a level (which can be negative or positive depending on the Trait), but each Trait will only have certain thresholds that actually do anything. This is because levels cost the same for every Trait, but the Traits themselves are more or less powerful. Skills come with your typical stuff like subskills and specializations. Each Skill also comes with a Complexity Code which denotes the general difficulty to perform and learn the Skill, and it determines the Skill's default Target Number (which can range from 7 to 9). Yes, different Skills can have different Target Numbers. I guess its because some are more useful, but they all cost the same to learn and raise? Some skills are known as Tiered Skills which will upgrade themselves into a more advanced version once they hit a Threshold. This does bump up the Target Number, but lets you add modifiers from two Attributes to checks. These Tiered Skills let you differentiate between a guy who knows how to punch and a guy who knows Kung Fu, or your average computer user and your l33t haxx0r by walling off more advanced and sophisticated skill applications behind the tier wall. Though they aren't brought up properly until the combat chapter way later, the two derived stats of AtoW are your Damage and Fatigue boxes, equal to twice your BOD and WIL, respectively. The latter choice is particularly interesting as it means staying concious from non-lethal sources of harm is a matter of having balls of steel instead of high endurance. On the other hand, this makes BOD and WIL very clear candidates for the best stats. The game's a bit lethal to say the least, and every point in either stat is very handy. The Fires of Hell I'll mention this briefly. This is a little ongoing short story strewn throughout the book, with each section having more or less somewhat to do with the contents of the current chapter. It deals with a motley crew of Lyran soldiers preparing to investigate an outpost of the Word of Blake. Notable not-PCs of this not-party include Busby, the tough Russian guy, Ethan Naoko, a Japanese veteran who has seen it all, Grace, a pacifistic doctor who will totally not be forced to kill a guy later on, and Franz, the awkward 'Mech otaku who was too incompetent to finish MechWarrior academy and will totally not end up in the cockpit of a 'Mech anyways. If that cast doesn't sound more interesting than the guys from the actual BattleTech cartoon, I don't know what's going on anymore. Character Creation Stage 0: Affiliations And here's where the fun begin. You see, character creation in AToW is essentially point-buy, always using the same kind of XP you'll gain later on. Since characters in this game are very frontloaded, you start of with 5,000 XP. An Attribute or Trait level costs 100 XP, while Skills can be learned at 20 XP and go more expensive with each increase. AToW also has this odd thing where you don't have a general pool of unspend XP and must assign each point of XP to some Attribute, Trait or Skill, meaning almost everything on the character sheet has its own pool of XP. The standard way of creating a character involves going through different Modules, each representing a stage in your character's life. These are mostly just packages of pre-spent XP, but the higher education Modules actually give you a few extra XP. Once you've gone through this rather lenghty step and have added up a lot of XP for Skills and whatnot, you keep adding XP from your big starting pool to your Attributes, Traits and Skills till they hit their next full level (essentially "rounding up"), and then you are free to spend the remaining XP however you wish. I think AToW might just have one of the few character creation rules where your Attributes are the last thing to be determined. Sure, you get a few XP to some Attributes, and several Modules require a minimum in a certain Attribute you have to meet by the end, but Attributes are pretty much the last step here. A faster and more focused approach just has you spend those 5,000 XP however you wish. You don't get extra points from higher education, but it's easier to min-max. Lastly, you can just pick one of the example characters and tinker with it. Stage 0 of character creation is where you pick your character's Affiliation, aka where he comes from. this is a perfect excuse to talk about the factions of BattleTech, since this is what the Affiliations are. Each Inner Sphere Affiliation is a hodgepodge of at least a handful of cultures and their languages, but one of them - namely the one of the ruling House - is the primary one. (Many of the bigger factions also have you pick a Sub-Affiliation for the exact region you're from. You have to look at their bonuses to infer anything from these regions, as the book doesn't really cover them.) Capellan Confederation (House Liao)  Basically the grandson of Soviet Russia and China. Interestingly for a sci-fi setting from the 80s, the Chinese influence are by far the most dominant, with the only big trace of the Russian heritage being the fact that their Secret Service is called Maskirovka. Aside from being a bit oppressive, Capellans are big into ancient Chinese culture and are ruled by a Chancellor whose first name is Sun-Tzu. Of course. They are also the only major Inner Sphere faction where you actually have to buy full citizenship rights. Some people are just more equal than others. Draconis Combine (House Kurita)  Space Japan (except not everyone is Japanese). Since the setting is again from the 80s, the Draconisians/Combiners/whatever are of course space samurai, big into honour, seppuku and more honour. They also really, really hate outsiders. Federated Suns (House Davion  Medieval England/France in space. They're the default, kinda-sorta good guys. Free Worlds League (House Marik)  The United Nation in space. Easily the most democratic of all factions, but this also means lots of bureaucracy and bickering, which was certainly not helped when it turned out House Marik was ruled by an impostor for quite a while. Lyran Alliance (House Steiner)  Space Germans, of course culturally regressed a couple centuries like everyone else. They are the industrial powerhouse of the Inner Sphere with the highest concentration of heavy 'Mechs and other vehicles. They also really need this tonnage advantage because their officer ranks are mostly filled by "Social Generals", inept morons who solely got the position because of connections and/or cash. They are not easy to take seriously. Just before the Clan Invasion, the Houses Steiner and Davion formed an alliance to create the Federated Commonwealth. This little liaison turned into a civil war sometime after the Clan Invasion (the conflict of the MechWarrior 4 video games), but at least it lasted long enough to have the Lyrans adopt an officer recruitment policy that was actually sane. Free Rasalhague Republic The first faction that isn't run by a Great House. They are primarily Space Scandinavians with a track record of getting owned a lot, first by the Draconis Combine and then by the surprise Clan Invasion. At least they eventually fused with one of the raddest Clans out there. Minor Periphery Some of the smaller dirty Periphery peasants, ranging from a single to only a handful of worlds. Nothing to noteworthy here. Major Periphery State The big players in the Periphery, with some rather interesting fellows (which are sadly not fleshed out in this book itself):
Deep Periphery The most backwater non-Clan humans. The only noteworthy faction here is the Hanseatic League, which are unsurprisingly traders and merchants. The Clans  Sadly no Thunder Cats. These are divided into Invading Clans and Homeworld Clans. The latter does actually include Clans that were part of the invasion, but didn't actually take over Inner Sphere worlds to rule over. As mentioned earlier, the Clans are a caste-based society where the warriors rule unquestioned. This caste also deals heavily into genetic modifications, with most "proper" warriors being Trueborn, aka genetically enhanced humans grown in an artificial womb. Normal dudes exist in the warrior caste, but these Freeborn fellows have a very hard time. The Warrior caste likes indulging in honourable duels, often to fight for the right over a Bloodname, one of the surnames of the Clan's Star League ancestors. Some of these Bloodnames exist in multiple Clans, while the more prestigious are exclusive to a single Clan. Trueborn Clanners are also the only instance of a kind of "race" choice, or more specifically a Phenotype choice: a MechWarrior is your typical 'Mech pilot except with better reflexes. The Aerospace Phenotype has even better reflexes and is optimized for high-speed dogfights, but is oddly light and brittle for its size. Finally we have the Elementals, scary-looking poo poo brick houses who fight in Battle Armor aka heavy power armor that more often than not looks a bit fat and goofy, and reminds me of early Zeon Mobile Suits (especially the Z'Gok).   I love these guys. Another goodie these suped-up Clanners get is a Field Aptitude, a special Trait that reduces the Target Number for all Skills relating to their combat training by 1. This reflects their boardgame shtick of having lower (aka better) skill ratings by default. There's also a funny naming convention going on in that (almost) every Clan is named after some cool animal from their homeworld, which are all some funky variation of a normal Earth animal (BattleTech isn't too big on alien critters that actually are alien, but they do exist). I'l just offer some interesting titbits about a few of these Clans: Clan Diamond Shark probably has the most hilarious story regarding their name. They were originally known as Clan Sea Fox (with said sea foxes looking like lame animal hybrids from an uninspired D&D monster entry) until a rival Clan decided to piss them off by releasing their newly-created diamond sharks (literally described as a "white shark on steroids") into the Sea Fox's oceans, driving this weird D&D monster to extinction or at least near-extinctions. Instead of getting pissed off as planned, the Clan just went "Man, these sharks are awesome!" and rebranded themselves. Clan Ghost Bear is the above named raddest Clan. They actually give a drat about their normal citizens, so much so that nothing makes them go berserk quite like bombing their normies. They also integrated themselves quite well into the Inner Sphere, and they would later fuse with the Free Rasalhague Republic to create the Ghost Bear Dominion. Their titular ghost bear is a big, sneaky predator that looks something like a cross between a yeti and a polar bear. The Clan's warriors supposedly have to prove their worth by killing one of these critters on with a spear or something. I'm really looking forward to the Companion book that has actual stats for a ghost bear to see whether this is actually possible. Clan Wolf gets away with having a lame name by being Kerensky's Clan. Arguments on whether or not to invade or protect the Inner Sphere was especially fierce within this Clan, so much so that its protective members split into Clan Wolf-in-Exile. Others After this, the books goes back to the Inner Sphere again. Terrans are better (and more expensive) than everyone else, Comstar and the Word of Blake are more like a template you slap onto your actual origin, and we also get the Independent faction for all your mercenary and pirate needs. Example Character So the example character for this review will be Shunsui Hikari, a young MechWarrior from the Draconis Combine with daddy issues. Naturally, the Affiliation will be the Draconis Combine. For the Sub-Affiliation, I pick the Benjamin District. Its wiki entry is a wall of text lacking a kind of summary, but I'll just take it because every other Sub-Affiliation adds XP to Willpower (and we can't have that with our spineless pilot) and because the Benjamin District has the hilarious negative Trait Paranoid of Combine Government, which is just perfect. Characters of the Combine also get a bit of flexible XP to spend on an archaic weapon skill. The obvious choice is Melee Weapons so he can use the almighty katana, forged in blood and folded a million times. And with that, we have spen a mere 150 of his 5,000 XP. Next Time: More modules to flesh out Shunsui's miserable life.
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Jun 9, 2016 18:01
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Everything I know about Battletech I learned from Poptartsninja's insanely long-running 'let's play' of an alternate history.
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Jun 9, 2016 18:03
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bewilderment posted:No Australian born in the past 40 years will ever treat anything labelled as 'The Ferals' seriously.
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Jun 9, 2016 18:07
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