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Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:
Any time Brucato has a character that's very obviously a self insert show up in a game there's about a 75% chance that it will be a mystical hermpahrodite. And about a 50% chance it will be a transgressive wiccan and/or satanist.

Daeren posted:

That one was entirely possible to just be me reading too much into it because this book basically has me on edge at all times now.


More accurately he's the sort that believes that gender essentialism is real, that gender essentialism is often a fundamental part of magic, and therefore transpeople are mystically empowered superbeings that can access the magical affinity of Both And Sometimes Neither, mumble mumble sacred transgressions mumble mumble 3.x gestalt multiclassing but irl

No comment on my portrait of Ravenwolf Grigori?
:negative:

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Daeren
Aug 17, 2009

YER MUSTACHE IS CROOKED

Nuns with Guns posted:

When will you youngsters learn that mass market appeal is killing your soul, unlike my heroes Bruce Springsteen, Rick James, the Ramones, Judas Priest, Prince, Frank Zappa, Patti Smith, and the B-52s!

This is only going to get funnier the more he hero worships KISS and Gene Simmons.

e:

Kurieg posted:

No comment on my portrait of Ravenwolf Grigori?
:negative:

thanks_i_hate_it.jpg

Kavak
Aug 23, 2009


How mass market was Frank Zappa? Genuine question.

Nuns with Guns
Jul 23, 2010

It's fine.
Don't worry about it.

Kavak posted:

How mass market was Frank Zappa? Genuine question.

Pretty sure the minute you get inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame your soul is eaten by the slumbering Old One beneath Wall Street.

wiegieman
Apr 22, 2010

Royalty is a continuous cutting motion


My world is a darker place, because I have just beheld a man get paid to write something and the best Cool Rocker Stage Name he could come up with was Ravenwolf Grigori.

Daeren
Aug 17, 2009

YER MUSTACHE IS CROOKED

Kavak posted:

How mass market was Frank Zappa? Genuine question.

He was always far, far more a critical darling than he was a Top of the Pops sorta guy. Dude has classical orchestras that point to him as a significant influence on their compositions.

But like, dude was still famous and got a few huge singles like Valley Girl. Zappa may have been considered weird (dude named his daughter Moon Unit), but liking Zappa was not weird.

Kavak
Aug 23, 2009


Daeren posted:

But like, dude was still famous and got a few huge singles like Valley Girl. Zappa may have been considered weird (dude named his daughter Moon Unit), but liking Zappa was not weird.

That makes sense, thank you.

EDIT: I hope Brucato brings up Valley Girl, because Zappa detested it and its effect on popular language.

Down With People
Oct 31, 2012

The child delights in violence.

Kurieg posted:

No comment on my portrait of Ravenwolf Grigori?
:negative:

I pinned it to my twitter

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:

Daeren posted:

thanks_i_hate_it.jpg

Then it has succeeded beyond my wildest dreams.

Down With People posted:

I pinned it to my twitter

Oh my.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Scion: Origin: I Want to Break Free

The universe is a violent place, born in chaos. Some say it's an eternal cycle, others a linear path. But one thing is clear: the imprisoning of the Titans was violent...and often a one-time event. Many pantheons have no idea how to imprison a Titan. Some forgot, others relied on magic that could only be used once, or the Titans weren't really imprisoned anyway. The Shen, for example, chose to not imprison their Titans but rather to give them jobs in the Celestial Bureaucracy as part of a rehab programs, and the Orisha and Loa do not believe that Titan is anything more than a political title - everything is just an aspect of the World to greater or lesser degree. And now, the Titans strain at their prisons. The Titan Wars have begun. It's still a cold war, but the Titan Wars or Second Titanomachy sound cooler, so that's what people use rather than the Cold War of the Gods or whatever. Now, strange cults arise, ancient omens reappear, and the grand battles surface on the horizon. No one doubts the Titan Wars will grow hot, and not far in the future at that. For centuries, the pantheons have largely focused on inter- and intra-pantheon rivalries, pushing their pet causes and so on. But now, the ancient enemies are beginning to return.

Side note on the Cold War: explicitly, neither the Titans nor the gods were behind the Warsaw Pact. They don't think that way. The Titans see the world in terms of places and characteristics. The gods see it in terms of cultures and traditions. Power groups exist in those terms, but they don't always map well to nations and even less so to global ideologies. Now, yes, in the last century, the Titans found that humans had gained the means to destroy themselves. At the time, the Titans were weaker than they were today, more tightly chained, but many encouraged mortals to do it, to break the world with nuclear weapons. They didn't care which side struck first - they supported provocateurs on both sides of the Cold War. However, not all Titans supported this, particularly those whose nature drew them to a world with an unsullied environment. These Titans helped the gods prevent nuclear flashpoints, and we survived the Cold War. Fringe books and websites do say that some gods still want to see the missiles fly, their solar fire cleansing the land, to remove people and technology from the World. No well-regarded cult would ever admit their god wanted an apocalypse, though, and the accusation is seen as little but slander.

So, the Titans. They're returning. And another sense, they never went away, because they are of the essence of the World, and their purviews will continue until the World ends. The actual beings that are the Titans are growing more active, however. They are able to send ever stronger pieces and aspects of themselves through the cracks in their prisons, they awaken sleeping monsters. Not all titanspawn are literally born of the Titans, and some are even nominal allies of the gods, but they are all becoming more active. No one truly understands why - the scholarly gods have enforced limits on what mortals may know, and the priests say that the ebb and flow of Titanic power is not for humans to understand.

Gods anchor themselves via worship. Titans don't. Sure, some Titans present a persona of hate and genocide...but in reality, humans don't matter to them. Or rather, humans shouldn't matter to them. At heart, what the Titans want is to express their natures at the fullest, and they have no need of mortal prayer. They would end civilization by earthquake and flood not out of hate, but because they would glory in the elements unleashed. In the past, humans achieved Titanic attention via worship of the gods. If the humans were wiped out, then, the gods might be defeated. But really, it's only in the past century that most Titans have considered humans an actual threat. They can sense the increased background radiation, feel climate change, see the ecosystems reshaped, hear the cries of extinction. Humanity is reshaping the World slowly but with the force of nature itself, and that means they are as mighty as any Titan. The lowliest beings in reality are stealing and corrupting the World of the Titans.

As the Titans find loopholes and weaknesses in their prisons, they are now more able to call on their old servants, make new ones and even recruit mortals. However, the gods also have access to more worshippers than ever before, thanks to spreading communities and new technology. The two sides are preparing for war. However, there's problems. Titans don't care about mortals and as a result rarely understand them. Even without gods, humanity just isn't easily cowed by elemental power any more - not when they command the power of life, nuclear fire and the internet. When the Titans attack the interests of the gods, they often fail to notice key details about mortals, and when they don't, it's generally because a mortal or titanspawn informant has warned them, for example telling them that just sending giants to knock over a building in Manhattan means getting past layers of security and will just piss off the USA rather than strike fear in them. This means the informants of the Titans have a lot of power in their relationships, power they can use to pursue their own interests.

The gods both generate and react to the currents of mortal culture, and on a level beyond reason, people react intuitively to the myths they make. When Scions act, they make new myths, which can influence entire nations. The example the book uses is the Shen. So, let's say a Shen Scion defeats a bunch of titanspawn on a small island off Africa, and decides that she's going to forcibly convert the locals from their fearful worship of a Titan to worship of the Shen. On the surface, that seems like a smart strategy - the enemy loses a source of aid. However, the Shen are not normally expansionist in that particular manner. They prefer to form tributary relationships with outsiders, seeking wealth and respect rather than territory or exclusive worship. They support the Chinese diaspora but are not agents of conversion. So, assume our Scion succeeds. Now she's changed the nature of the Shen in a small way. Other Shen start to proselytize. The people of China now find that their gods are okay with them expanding their rule by force. And if that's fine, why not us? And so, China's foreign policy shifts to a more aggressive one.

The Titans don't care or worry about geopolitics. They barely notice the games of mortal ants. Sure, they'll send minions out to go cause chaos and gently caress things up in mortal politics, but that's only because they know the gods can be distracted by threats to their worshippers and social stability in general. That's all it's about - knock the gods off-balance, so that the Titans have more chance to escape. Some say the bonds holding the Titans harness the relationship between god and mortal. Certainly it seems like the gods must have had some resource the Titans lack to be able to defeat them the first time - but since more people now honor the gods than ever, why are the Titans' prisons weakening? Others claim that the gods used the power of the Primordials to bind the Titans, by negotiation or by force. And perhaps that power is weakening, as the Primordials in general have turned their attentions away from the World.

Two things are clear, though. First, the Titans grow stronger when the gods weaken. It appears to be related to the individual mythic ties of god and Titan - the death of Zeus, say, might free Cronus from his prison in Tartarus. Second, when Titans exercise their purviews in a realm, whether via a titanspawn proxy or mythic event, their presence in that realm is strengthened. This may be why they intentionally breed titanspawn rather than just corrupting legendary critters. Sometimes, powerful natural events help the Titans, too. The 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajokull allowed Surtr to send forth newly spawned fire giants...but the Aesir and their Scions went immediately to go fight, so maybe it wasn't as helpful to him as it might have been. It is also said that some rare and ancient rituals can give the Titans more freedom, but these all require skilled sorcerers and special circumstances. Either way - the more freedom a Titan has, the more it can act on the World or realms beyond. The most successful Titans can even create minor manifestations, to act directly, but if such a manifestation is destroyed, it generally costs the Titan far more dearly than the loss of an Incarnation does a god. Titans just aren't as good at being in multiple places at once.

It's not as easy to pick a side as you might think, either. On the face of it, yes, it looks obvious. However, the difference between Titan and god is degree, not kind, and it can be made complex by the individuals involved. The Titan Prometheus gave his purview (fire) to humanity and accepted his punishment, but he is still a Titan, for two main reasons. First, he angered the gods and second, he wanted to watch the World burn. Some gods don't really like humans, and accept only the minimum of worship required to convince their allies they're on the same side. The god/Titan divide is at least partially political - but the politics do have magic behind them. As you go further down the ladder, it becomes far more about social role than supernatural implications, however. Some titanspawn are monsters, yes, but others can only be told from a Scion by their parentage. Hell, what about the children of Aesir and jotnar? The mixing of human and gorgon? The Orisha don't even recognize the distinction, saying that the greatest evil comes from humanity. They are the ones that hate, after all, that oppress each other not from mythic logic but petty desire. Not, mind you, that the gods and Titans are without personal rivalries. Far from it. They are the best and worst of us, after all. This is not just some war of ideals, made of logic and treaty. It's personal, very deeply personal, about greed and rage and hunger and hate.

Next time: Divine conflict.

Dawgstar
Jul 15, 2017

So Phil's musical hill to die on is KISS, huh? Wow. Just... wow.

MightyMatilda
Sep 2, 2015

Dawgstar posted:

So Phil's musical hill to die on is KISS, huh? Wow. Just... wow.

The band that's the paragon of "look far more menacing than their music actually is"? Seems that way.

I don't know why he spelled Chaim as "Heimie", though. It's too different to simply be an alternate romanization.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

MightyMatilda posted:

The band that's the paragon of "look far more menacing than their music actually is"? Seems that way.

I don't know why he spelled Chaim as "Heimie", though. It's too different to simply be an alternate romanization.

It's an actual nickname you get sometimes for Chaim. I knew a kid whose cousin went by it.

It was just as stupid when we were ten.

Robindaybird
Aug 21, 2007

Neat. Sweet. Petite.

As someone whose taste in music does lean heavily into metal (more power and thrash style), it's kind of hysterical how Brucato treats KISS like some kind of great - KISS isn't bad, but their claim to fame has less to do with their compositions and more that they knew how the hell to market themselves.

But honestly, the more you see from this guy, the more and worse he comes off as the sad, lonely creep that he is.

Daeren
Aug 17, 2009

YER MUSTACHE IS CROOKED

Robindaybird posted:

As someone whose taste in music does lean heavily into metal (more power and thrash style), it's kind of hysterical how Brucato treats KISS like some kind of great - KISS isn't bad, but their claim to fame has less to do with their compositions and more that they knew how the hell to market themselves.

But honestly, the more you see from this guy, the more and worse he comes off as the sad, lonely creep that he is.

To discuss something way later in the book, one thing I'll give him is that when discussing things like gimmicks and stunts to get a bonus during a performance, he calls out the fact that KISS was a great example of doing it so often that eventually it was just assumed to be a given at their shows, and pyrotechnics and crazy stunts didn't get any real pop anymore, so mechanically they wouldn't have used the rules for stunts for most of their career...until they did KISS Unplugged, and played in street clothes without makeup with the original members of the band, and that would have counted as a gigantic stunt bonus in a game. That's legit a pretty good example of the concept.

But, yeah, no. You haven't seen anything yet when it comes to creepy.

DicktheCat
Feb 15, 2011

So, uh. Yeah. Brucato is really gross. Now I know.

FMguru
Sep 10, 2003

peed on;
sexually

REIGNING YOSPOS COSTCO KING
KISS is hilarious because they were a mediocre bunch of crowd-pleasers, led by one of the most mercenary and bottom-line focused bandleaders in the history of music - which you'd think would be the opposite of a game that's seemingly all about when music meant something and wasn't just a bunch of watered down corporate crap, maaaaan.

Down With People
Oct 31, 2012

The child delights in violence.


THE BLOOD RED FEZ – PART FOUR

Bob Dylan – Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat


The book assumes Menkaph already knows about the investigators and their Fez, though there's no mention of how he might discover that if they get the drop on Burnham early. Having the investigators on the train is perfect for him; if he can somehow find a way to get rid of them, he'll have several Fezzes and The Whispering Fez. All he has to do is get to Constantinople in one piece. However, he's also kind of a dope; he's operating under the assumption that the team won't be willing to go ham on him but if they do he's not even remotely as strong as Mehmet. The team might tear him a new rear end in a top hat long before Constantinople but that's fine, really. He's just a miniboss.

The book provides a comprehensive timetable of events for the trip.

Day One

The book assumes that the investigators take the next Orient Express departure on the Wednesday. They board the Paris-Strasbourg train at about 10:30PM. If they swing by the salon car before going to sleep, they can meet the other passengers. They'll also find Menkaph holding a furtive discussion with Burnham while Kapok glowers menacingly nearby.

At midnight, Scott Myers slips into the second stage of Fez degeneration and unconsciously summons Shadow Spawn of the Blood Red Fez. These look like vaguely humanoid shadows with distended limps, ragged wings and toothy maws. They stalk the length of the train and attack if provoked (SAN 1D3/1D8). They're immune to regular weapons but shining a lantern at them hurts them. Any injured Shadow Spawn can be followed back to the Myers' compartment.



Day Two

If he's still alive, Burnham fucks off when the train stops at Stuttgart. At breakfast this morning, the investigators will see Menkaph wearing a Blood Red Fez but suffering none of the ill-effects they would expect. Him and Kapok sit with Mrs. Myers, who weeps the entire time. Menkaph will get quite defensive and protective if anyone tries to interfere with Myers, but he'll try not to make a scene. Myers flees back to her compartment before breakfast ends; anyone who follows her will see a couple more of Menkaph's thugs, one of them wearing yet another Fez and looking fine.

At lunch, Macgregor corners the investigators and asks for their thoughts on the Armenian Question. If they seem sympathetic she'll mention that she's concerned about Mrs. Myers and plans to check up on her; she'll be happy if they want to offer their support. They'll get a chance to speak to Mrs. Myers that afternoon in the salon car, who will tearfully explain her whole miserable experience and beg the team to help her husband. Kapok watches this all play out from the door to the salon car; smart investigators will switch to speaking French or communicate through writing to throw him off.

The best time to check Mr. Myers is during dinner that night, when Menkaph will be busy watching Mrs. Myers. Investigators will find the poor bastard laid up in bed and guarded by a Shadow Spawn, well on his way to the next stage of Fez degeneration. Casting Arrest Fez Decline is the only thing that can help him. If they think to look, investigators will find The Whispering Fez hidden under his pillow because as mentioned, Menkaph is a dope. Losing the tome at this point is disastrous for Menkaph and he will try to arrange negotiations for its return, probably using either of the Myers' as a hostage. The Whispering Fez is written in Persian and hieroglyphics and takes only 24 hours to study. It teaches a bevy of cool hat-based spells, letting the sorcerer use the Fez to control other Fez-wearers, tap them for magic or spawn entirely new Fezzes. It also teaches the ritual to destroy the Fez permanently, but more on that later.



Just before 6:00PM, the train arrives in Vienna and the crew are to meet their contact, Baron von Hofler. They can see a young woman begging him not to get on the train, only to storm off when the Baron refuses. The Baron is a gaunt and serious man and an occultist of no small reputation. Regrettably, and unknown to almost everyone else, he's also going crazy. It's true that he wants to combat evil but thinks that studying the Mythos is the way to do it. To that end, he wants to understand the Fez and even experiment with its powers. He really does want to help the team, but sooner or later he's going to try and make someone wear the Fez.

Complicating this is his daughter Ilsa von Hofler, the woman who was arguing with him at the station. She knows that her father's starting to lose it and thinks that his research into the occult is to blame – which it kind of is, I guess. She disguises herself as an Oriental woman and immediately boards the train. She truly wants to save her father's life and to that end plans to knock him out with chloroform, drag him off the train and send him to get treated by Dr. Freud himself. She's not an ally of the team, at least initially; she suspects them to be yet more degenerate occultists and will not approach them unless they can prove otherwise.

There's about 12 hours between Vienna and Belgrade for all this poo poo to play out. If the investigators have given von Hofler The Whispering Fez, he'll try to get off here and make a break for Vienna. If he succeeds, it will be almost impossible to get it back. Alternatively, if Ilsa can knock him out before then, she slips away with him as soon as possible. Helping her is probably the best route for the investigators to get rid of the Baron, but she will not suffer any serious threats to her father's wellbeing.

At midnight, unless the investigators cast Arrest Fez Decline on him earlier, Mr. Myers slips into the third stage of Fez degeneration. The Shadow Spawn rise again and are more aggressive in their behaviour. As a Servant of the Fez, Mr. Myers is being controlled by Menkaph, who stops him from attacking Mrs. Myers but will happily turn him against the investigators. If he's killed, Menkaph will try to get a Fez on Mrs. Myers post-haste.

Next time: finally being done with trains for at least two scenarios!

Robindaybird
Aug 21, 2007

Neat. Sweet. Petite.

FMguru posted:

KISS is hilarious because they were a mediocre bunch of crowd-pleasers, led by one of the most mercenary and bottom-line focused bandleaders in the history of music - which you'd think would be the opposite of a game that's seemingly all about when music meant something and wasn't just a bunch of watered down corporate crap, maaaaan.

given Simmons has a lot of creepy stories about how he treated groupies, wouldn't be surprised if Brucato admired KISS just because of stuff like that.

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy
The latest System Mastery on Promised Sands was a real return-to-form for the podcast: a joyless, scolding Game-Master-as-Author, hosed-up dice mechanics, and an interminable slog of 400+ page book. You could feel how Jon and Jeff really disliked this game, which also makes it one of the most hilarious episodes they've done in a while because the thought of 250+ different skills, with VOICE MODULATION being a separate and distinct skill from OTHER MUSIC-RELATED ACTIVITIES is just wildly absurd.

It wasn't until the ending with the Uzmek (Ogres) that things got really uncomfortable and the book turned from schadenfunny to straight-up bad.

Daeren
Aug 17, 2009

YER MUSTACHE IS CROOKED

Robindaybird posted:

given Simmons has a lot of creepy stories about how he treated groupies, wouldn't be surprised if Brucato admired KISS just because of stuff like that.



hahahahhahahahahahahahah :unsmigghh:

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:
Wait


He actually includes that


As a quote


In the book









I...

Daeren
Aug 17, 2009

YER MUSTACHE IS CROOKED

Kurieg posted:

Wait


He actually includes that


As a quote


In the book









I...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9270u0MkI2w

wiegieman
Apr 22, 2010

Royalty is a continuous cutting motion


Kiss is famous for their live album, but not for a good reason. It was not, as you might expect, the best recording of each song from their live performances all cut together into the best thing they could produce. Kiss were such sloppy musicians that the whole thing had to be redone in the studio.

Comrade Gorbash
Jul 12, 2011

My paper soldiers form a wall, five paces thick and twice as tall.
The problem is that live albums suck for actually hearing the music. Frankly and ironically KISS’s approach captures the experience at the concert better than a “pure” live album.

It’s like how a photograph taken at the wrong angle can make even the best looking person look like some kind of creature from the Upsidedown. You’re taking a three-dimensional thing and squashing it down into a static two-dimensional form. Distortion is inevitable, and sometimes you have to go in and adjust to fix what the camera has misrepresented.

Robindaybird
Aug 21, 2007

Neat. Sweet. Petite.

wiegieman posted:

Kiss is famous for their live album, but not for a good reason. It was not, as you might expect, the best recording of each song from their live performances all cut together into the best thing they could produce. Kiss were such sloppy musicians that the whole thing had to be redone in the studio.

sloppy, and unlike other musicians that were known to be heavily binging on drugs (Bon Jovi were strung on all kinds of uppers by their manager to keep them on their insane touring schedules, Keith Moon being Keith Moon etc), those guys can't even string two words together when they're on something.

The Lone Badger
Sep 24, 2007

Down With People posted:

Professor Smith immediately calls for it to be destroyed, but nothing works; fires go out as soon as they touch the Fez and the freaky thing knits itself back together as the blade of a knife passes through it.

This seems like a fairly desultory set of attempts. "Matches and my penknife didn't work. That's exhausted the contents of my pockets, guess this thing's indestructible."

I mean, after those experiments the first two things I'd try are

* It extinguishes the flame, not just endures it. That must mean that it does fear flame. Well if we can't bring the fire to it, we'll have to bring it to the fire.
/chucks it into a superheated furnace. The fire may die out but the heat is still there.
(we're unfortunately just a handful of years too early for thermite)

* It can be cut. But we will need to instantly separate the pieces so that they cannot join together again. I think our friend Nitroglycerin may be able to assist here.
/soaks hat in nitro, then props it against a fencepost and shoots it with a bullet.

Otherkinsey Scale
Jul 17, 2012

Just a little bit of sunshine!

Down With People posted:

The Whispering Fez is written in Persian and hieroglyphics and takes only 24 hours to study. It teaches a bevy of cool hat-based spells, letting the sorcerer use the Fez to control other Fez-wearers, tap them for magic or spawn entirely new Fezzes. It also teaches the ritual to destroy the Fez permanently, but more on that later.

"Arrest Fez Decline" is still my favorite thing to come of this so far, but this is a close second. The secrets of darkest Fezomancy!

By popular demand
Jul 17, 2007

IT *BZZT* WASP ME--
IT WASP ME ALL *BZZT* ALONG!


A horde of zombies in traditional Cyprian clothing is the sort of thing that would work in a Saturday morning cartoon.

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!



Robindaybird posted:

sloppy, and unlike other musicians that were known to be heavily binging on drugs (Bon Jovi were strung on all kinds of uppers by their manager to keep them on their insane touring schedules, Keith Moon being Keith Moon etc), those guys can't even string two words together when they're on something.
Moon the Loon eclipses all of these people. Does Brucato favor the Stones, incidentally?

Shart Carbuncle
Aug 4, 2004

Star Trek:
The Motion Picture

Part 1

Hey, it’s Star Trek, a beloved, adventure-filled setting that has always seemed like a great place for gaming, yet it in practice, it appears to be notoriously difficult to make a game that really plays to the strengths of the franchise. Did the weirdos at Modiphius Entertainment pull it off?
Let’s find out!

Right off the bat, I appreciate their approach to short fiction. Rather than the customary introductory story that I’ll never read, the book is instead sprinkled with in-universe tidbits. These take various forms, such as captain’s logs, space emails, transcripts, intercepted intelligence, etc. I’ll read at least some of those! They’re brimming with references to Trek lore both major and obscure.

The earlier, scene-setting chapters are packed with them, and they taper off as you get into the more reference oriented material. (If you’re just trying to see how much latinum you can get for a Mugato horn on the black market, you’re probably not going to stop to read Geordie LaForge’s Myspace post about Hanzo steel.)



They went full LCARS, because of course they did.

We begin with a few generalities about the setting, and the usual “Game and game! What is game?!” discussion.



A default timeframe is generally assumed throughout, and I’ll quote the book here, because it does a good job of framing it (if you’re a nerd):

quote:

It is an exciting time in Starfleet’s history — Earth Year 2371. The U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D will be sent on a mission to the Amargosa observatory, U.S.S. Voyager NCC-74656 is about to be sent on a mission into the Badlands to search for a Maquis ship, and the U.S.S. Defiant NX-74205 has been assigned to Commander Sisko at Deep Space 9 to assist in the search for the Dominion in the Gamma Quadrant.

So, right around Star Trek: Generations, what a time to be alive.

A sidebar explains that they intend for it to be easy to play in any era; when the book references technology, like a ship or gadget, it includes a relevant note. It also promises to go into more detail about running games in other times in the Gamemastering chapter, and then further in later supplements.

There is a roundup of the needed materials, followed by a very brief introduction to the basic 2d20 mechanic. It then jumps into a mechanically dense example of play that I found pretty confounding based on the cursory look at the game’s systems provided up to this point. People are gaining and spending Threat and Momentum and rolling Challenge Dice and all this crap, and I have no idea what it means.


what is all this poo poo? Also, it’s personnel file. (They got it right on the final character sheet.)

The system is derived from Mutant Chronicles, and used in a few other games like the Infinity RPG and some Conan thing, none of which I’ve played. If anyone has feelings about the system, I’d love for you to chime in!

Next: A ton more pages detailing the setting, which I'll mostly skip over, because it's Star Trek, duh.

Snorb
Nov 19, 2010
I'm playing in a biweekly Star Trek Adventures game; we're all agreed that it's much better than Decipher Inc's Star Trek RPG. (I mean, it wasn't *bad* per se, but it was literally possible to one-shot kill literally anything, and it was theoretically possible to use a Vulcan neck pinch on or take computer control of THE ENTIRE BORG COLLECTIVE.)

Bieeanshee
Aug 21, 2000

Not keen on keening.


Grimey Drawer
Oh god. This Whispering Fez thing is dredging up memories of a PVP Online comic arc where the snotty Mac addict becomes possessed by a magic fez that makes him a pro gamer.

RocknRollaAyatollah
Nov 26, 2008

Lipstick Apathy

Robindaybird posted:

given Simmons has a lot of creepy stories about how he treated groupies, wouldn't be surprised if Brucato admired KISS just because of stuff like that.

Gene Simmons both sexually harassed and attacked Terry Gross' Jewish heritage on Fresh Air. He's on a whole other level of skeezy that few "big name" musicians come close to from that era*.

KISS is ICP from the 70's without the messages of tolerance.

EDIT:

The bar from that era is pretty low but he's probably the worst outside of the pedophiles.

RocknRollaAyatollah fucked around with this message at 15:06 on Jan 31, 2018

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:

RocknRollaAyatollah posted:

Gene Simmons both sexually harassed and attacked Terry Gross' Jewish heritage on Fresh Air. He's to a whole other level of skeezy that few "big name" musicians come close to.

I...

His birth name is Chaim Witz, his mother and uncle survived the loving Holocaust, HE WAS BORN IN ISRAEL. He's as ethnically jewish as it is possible for someone to be, what the gently caress is wrong with him.

RocknRollaAyatollah
Nov 26, 2008

Lipstick Apathy

Kurieg posted:

I...

His birth name is Chaim Witz, his mother and uncle survived the loving Holocaust, HE WAS BORN IN ISRAEL. He's as ethnically jewish as it is possible for someone to be, what the gently caress is wrong with him.

He gave her poo poo for saying his birth name incorrectly and when she pointed out that she's Jewish he gave her even more poo poo. Which is ironic coming from "Gene Simmons".

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:
Oh, he attacked her for being insufficiently Jewish, of course.

:sigh:

Halloween Jack
Sep 11, 2003

La morte non ha sesso

gradenko_2000 posted:

The latest System Mastery on Promised Sands was a real return-to-form for the podcast: a joyless, scolding Game-Master-as-Author, hosed-up dice mechanics, and an interminable slog of 400+ page book. You could feel how Jon and Jeff really disliked this game, which also makes it one of the most hilarious episodes they've done in a while because the thought of 250+ different skills, with VOICE MODULATION being a separate and distinct skill from OTHER MUSIC-RELATED ACTIVITIES is just wildly absurd.

It wasn't until the ending with the Uzmek (Ogres) that things got really uncomfortable and the book turned from schadenfunny to straight-up bad.
That's a terrible title. Why would you promise someone sand.

LongDarkNight
Oct 25, 2010

It's like watching the collapse of Western civilization in fast forward.
Oven Wrangler
I think its a reference to "Promised Land".

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Halloween Jack
Sep 11, 2003

La morte non ha sesso
Yeah, but the land is sandy. No one wants sandy land unless it's well-irrigated. It's a bad title. A pun is no reason to give people crap land for growing food in.

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