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Simian_Prime posted:The last MU episode of DS9’s main feature is mostly Rom commenting about how none of this makes any sense. It’s great! That's the bit where Vic Fontaine turns out to be real. Apparently some novel had it that he was an android, which takes the place of holodeck technology in the Mirror Universe. Of course, that episode has the cloaking device be a new thing never invented in the Mirror Universe, yet Mirror!Worf's first appearance was decloaking. I like to think of it this way; who says it's the same Mirror Universe they visit every time?
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Feb 3, 2018 09:20
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Kavak posted:Pretty much. It's Star Trek, it's not meant to stand up to serious scientific analysis. Yeah, which is something that really annoys me lately. This isn't directed at anyone in the thread but Trekkies will drone on endlessly online about "Gene's vision" and how Discovery is bad because of [tech reason]. It's a TV show that had both a Roman and gangster planet because they had to reuse sets from other shows. The Roman one even had Jesus as the end twist. Also, Spock's Brain. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LyFYv35ANw I love Star Trek but people need to stop applying hard science to a show that's never had hard science in it. The TOS show bible expressly states that it's not hard science scifi and science should only be a vague vehicle for the narrative and not dominate it.
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Feb 3, 2018 17:59
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I agree that looking for scientific "realism" is silly. For the sake of drama, though, it's good to at least follow some kind of consistent internal logic. There's no wetter fart than the big twist or solution to a problem being some unearned technobabble thing that comes totally out of left field, and that's something that Trek is guilty of sometimes (especially on Voyager). Establishing some ground rules and taking the audience along as you build on it is pretty key to keep things feeling "real" in the dramatic sense. This applies equally to running a game; when the players have been piecing together a mystery and trying to use their own abilities to reason it out, it can really suck to just invalidate it all with some deus ex machina. Unless it's something totally awesome or hilarious. Speaking of Discovery, I think it's all fitting together pretty well. Things that may have seemed silly at first are paying off as it gets near the end of the season and we get to see the bigger picture.
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Feb 3, 2018 18:49
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Discovery is bad, but that means nothing because every Star trek has a lovely first season. 1st Season TNG and DS9 where both way worse that what comes later. I'd say wait till season 2 to see the real quality.
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Feb 3, 2018 18:59
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I'd play a character from the gangster planet.
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Feb 4, 2018 04:02
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TOS had a good first season and a terrible third season
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Feb 4, 2018 04:11
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And Deep Space 9's first season, while including a lot of stumbling and feeling out what the show was going to be, was not the unwatchable smugfire of TNG Season 1.
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Feb 4, 2018 04:16
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Not long ago I tried rewatching TNG and while I can be forgiving of the pilot, literally the first two post-pilot episodes are "people get space drunk and gently caress robots" and "tribal black planet tries to steal a white woman" so I threw my hands up and just watched whatever episodes in whatever order. Mostly the Q ones and the one where Picard gets his flute.
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Feb 4, 2018 04:22
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I'll defend "Fully functional with multiple techniques" until the day I die but even Roddenberry thought the guy behind Code of Honor was a racist fuckup and fired him.
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Feb 4, 2018 04:25
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I almost gave up on Discovery because the pilot was super-predictable, but the rest of the season has turned out well.
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Feb 4, 2018 04:27
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Inescapable Duck posted:I'd play a character from the gangster planet. You are in luck. http://enklave-23.de/STA_Sheets/Species/STA_Species_Iotians.pdf
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Feb 4, 2018 04:44
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Wapole Languray posted:Discovery is bad, but that means nothing because every Star trek has a lovely first season. 1st Season TNG and DS9 where both way worse that what comes later. I'd say wait till season 2 to see the real quality. pretty much. TOS not counted every Trek takes a whole season to find its footing for some reason. Discovery is fine but I'm not gonna ding it super hard when DS9 and TNG were loving clunkers at first too aside from a few stand outs. Kavak posted:And Deep Space 9's first season, while including a lot of stumbling and feeling out what the show was going to be, was not the unwatchable smugfire of TNG Season 1. DS9's greatest sin in its first season is just how plodding and dull it is. It has some good episodes, but it always comes between gulfs of 'we're just gonna fart around until something just kinda happens and gets resolved maybe with us being around it?' It took them a bit to really get their grip on telling 'frontier stories' in space.
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Feb 4, 2018 05:30
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sexpig by night posted:DS9's greatest sin in its first season is just how plodding and dull it is. It has some good episodes, but it always comes between gulfs of 'we're just gonna fart around until something just kinda happens and gets resolved maybe with us being around it?' It took them a bit to really get their grip on telling 'frontier stories' in space. Roddenberry stroking out and losing control to people who were willing to shake things up and put some conflict and action in the show literally saved the franchise. e: We called the first couple of seasons of DS9 "Deep Sleep Nine". It was basically 'Gunsmoke in Space' - little frontier town, stranger shows up at the start of the episode, trouble follows, it gets resolved in the final act, rinse and repeat next week. When O'Brien's wife started working as a teacher it made the parallels obvious - what's a western frontier town without a pretty schoolmarm? FMguru fucked around with this message at 05:51 on Feb 4, 2018 |
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Feb 4, 2018 05:40
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FMguru posted:Yeah TNG season 1/2 are these airless little morality plays in space, and most of their running time is taken up with...meetings. I just went for a rewatch and it wasn't long before I was skipping all the LaForge and Troi episodes. My favorite so far is the one where there's some super dangerous prisoner with wicked 80s facepaint in the brig (who has just killed five people), and Deanna just walks in(not with any sort of assignment), sort of half-philosophize/half-flirts with him for a few minutes, then heads straight to the ready room to tell Picard he's a cool guy and they should let him out. theironjef fucked around with this message at 05:48 on Feb 4, 2018 |
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Feb 4, 2018 05:44
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"My name is Murder McKillface and I ate five vulcan babies" "Hey there big boy, I like the tattoo on your face of you eating vulcan babies." "I absolutely will eat a vulcan baby if released." "Hey captain, let's let this dude out, and leave the door unlocked to the vulcan baby nursery, after all who am I to judge his desires to eat them, everyone must choose their own moral code." e: note all this is thrown out if our Klingon crew member and friend wants to die with, in his culture's perspective, dignity and honor. Then we call him a stupid savage and force him to do experimental and dangerous treatments.
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Feb 4, 2018 06:19
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theironjef posted:My favorite so far is the one where there's some super dangerous prisoner with wicked 80s facepaint in the brig (who has just killed five people), and Deanna just walks in(not with any sort of assignment), sort of half-philosophize/half-flirts with him for a few minutes, then heads straight to the ready room to tell Picard he's a cool guy and they should let him out. My wife's theory is that Troi doesn't actually have any empathic powers and that her role on the Federation flagship is a way of buying favour with her influential diplomat mother. Hence why she gets a seat on the bridge and doesn't have to wear the uniform despite being wrong about basically everything all of the time.
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Feb 4, 2018 08:45
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Now that opens up a whole new way of playing, the federation has this strict facade everyone maintains and like in WH Brettonia things are constantly fixed up behind the scenes. E: it even explains why everyone tolerated the doctor's brat loving about the place, they knew he would eventually develop those strange powers and be taken for training by that alien. By popular demand fucked around with this message at 09:05 on Feb 4, 2018 |
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Feb 4, 2018 08:55
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RocknRollaAyatollah posted:Yeah, which is something that really annoys me lately. This isn't directed at anyone in the thread but Trekkies will drone on endlessly online about "Gene's vision" and how Discovery is bad because of [tech reason]. It's a TV show that had both a Roman and gangster planet because they had to reuse sets from other shows. The Roman one even had Jesus as the end twist. You're forgetting about one episode, an unfortunately conceived episode.  RocknRollaAyatollah posted:Also, Spock's Brain. Actually, a very convincing bit of acting on Shatner's part, since I also mouthed "what" in response to that.
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Feb 4, 2018 10:38
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 THE DARK CRUSADER – PART TWO A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum The knights mount up and head off to the basilica. Along the way, they can witness any number of wild war crimes; the crusaders have been ordered to pass loot along to the common purse and not to harm the local women, two orders they are studiously ignoring. The crusaders seemed to be whipped into a frenzy, far beyond anything the knights saw at the breaking of Zara. Seeing the men of God at work calls for SAN 0/1. Along the way, they pass the entrance to one of Constantinople's many underground cisterns. As they do, they see what appears to be another Frankish knight dragged away down the cistern stairs. Anyone who follows will see him getting stabbed – but if they go down in the cistern proper, they will realise too late that it was a trap. Warriors of the dreaded Varangian Guard leap out from their hiding places and attack the knights! This encounter is designed to introduce the players to fighting with their new characters and to foreshadow the cisterns. If the Varangians find themselves over-matched, they soon flee deeper into the cistern system. Just south of the cistern, the knights run into a pack of drunken Frankish men-at-arms. They're raving about a monster that allegedly attacked them, destroying the house they had claimed and eating three of their fellows. Afterwards, it either flew away or just totally vanished. None of them can agree on what it looked like.  What An Eyesore The priest Padre Agostino is being kept in a cage in the basilica's crypt, guarded by four knights. None of them are particularly enjoying this job, since they believe that the priest is cursed. If asked, they describe the rescue of the priest from the heretics; one of them was killed and was found to have a tattoo on his left bicep depicting a whip with five tails and quirts. Agostino isn't in a good way. He's wearing an eye patch and ragged ceremonial garb. He's clutching his head and rocking back and forth in the corner, chanting that he 'must keep them back'. He appears to be in quite a lot of pain. Fortunately, he's lucid enough that he can tell the party what happened to him. He knows that the men who attacked him are cultists of the Unburdened Flesh, and that they may have influenced the Doge's decision to attack Constantinople. They are seeking the Devil's Simulare, an ancient satanic artefact that allows its owner to wear the skins of others as disguises, as well as summon a powerful devil from Hell. Agostino had heard of the cult but was shocked to find them at work here. A Venetian knight by the name of Ramardi had the priests scouring the city in search of an artefact supposedly resembling a suit of armour made of ceramic. He was also looking for a Latin ritual that he believed the Byzantines owned, as ancient enemies of the cult's forebears. Agostino did find a copy of the ritual in a hidden chest in the Church of St. Mokius, but knowing that the cult would have him searched, he hid it in a recess beneath a statue of the Virgin – surely no Christian would be able to bring themselves to destroy such a thing. Unfortunately, the cult found out, torturing him and taking one of his eyes before the Franks drove them off. Not knowing who to trust, he's sided with Baldwin. He believes the cult is probably still hanging around the church waiting for someone to come for the ritual. After he's finished his speech, he announces that he is done and has no more energy to hold them back. He commends them on their holy mission and begs them to destroy this terrible evil. Suddenly, he tears off his eyepatch, revealing a swollen red eye bulging out of the socket. He gibbers, 'I see you' before howling with laughter. The eye explodes and takes much of his head with it, showing everything nearby with yellow slime (SAN 0/1D4). This is, of course, The Accursed Eye from the Repossession scenario. This means that yes, the High Priest of the Unburdened Flesh now knows the faces of the knights, though the spell does not allow the caster to eavesdrop conversations. In addition, anyone who was close enough to get slimed gets a Hard CON roll in secret – failing means that their eye becomes itchy and inflamed, 24 short hours before it explodes out of their head. Even worse, anyone who fails an opposed POW roll against the sorcerer will find the effects of the spell to be contagious. Better find him quick!  Something About This Guy Seems So Familiar If the knights go back to Baldwin, he tells them to pass their findings along to Brother Merovac to see what he makes of it. Merovac is a leper, AKA a sufferer of Hansen's disease in modern parlance, and like others who suffer the disease is more or less totally outcast from society. He can be found aboard the cargo ship Pestis, crewed entirely by lepers and slaves. No free sailors are willing to go anywhere near it, and the whole thing has a menacing aura as it sits alone in the water – it is not allowed to dock and the knights will have to take a rowboat out to it if they're feeling brave. Merovac is a member of the Order of Saint Bartholomew, who was skinned in Turkey. Despite his appearance, he is unfalteringly courteous towards the knights and is eager to assist them however he can. He is familiar with the Unburdened Flesh, who worship the pagan deity called the Skinless One, but he insists that they're small potatoes compared to the real threat, Sedefkar. Sedefkar is a mad Seljuk Turk who is the current owner of the Simulare and who is hiding out somewhere in the city. Dealing with the Venetian cult is one thing, but Sedefkar must be found and killed to save the city. Merovac also gives advice on fighting someone who wears the Simulare: in a certain light and at a certain angle, the surface of the armour can be seen on the wearer. If struck with sufficient force, it will fall off and render that part of the wearer vulnerable. Merovac is happy to translate any documents the knights bring him and just in general be a really useful guy. Next time: slaying a loving dragon!
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Feb 4, 2018 11:03
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theironjef posted:I just went for a rewatch and it wasn't long before I was skipping all the LaForge and Troi episodes. My favorite so far is the one where there's some super dangerous prisoner with wicked 80s facepaint in the brig (who has just killed five people), and Deanna just walks in(not with any sort of assignment), sort of half-philosophize/half-flirts with him for a few minutes, then heads straight to the ready room to tell Picard he's a cool guy and they should let him out. Poor Levar Burton. He didn't deserve to have to play a character who crushed on a hologram and then thought that meant he should date the real woman.
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Feb 4, 2018 15:38
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sexpig by night posted:DS9's greatest sin in its first season is just how plodding and dull it is. It has some good episodes, but it always comes between gulfs of 'we're just gonna fart around until something just kinda happens and gets resolved maybe with us being around it?' It took them a bit to really get their grip on telling 'frontier stories' in space. Season one has Duet, so all else is forgiven. Morally speaking, I think it's one of the ballsiest epsidoes Star Trek has ever done, and it's a drat compelling story.
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Feb 4, 2018 15:50
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Dawgstar posted:Poor Levar Burton. He didn't deserve to have to play a character who crushed on a hologram and then thought that meant he should date the real woman. What really, really grosses me out about that whole thing is that they ended up marrying in canon. Thanks for validating an entire generation of Nice Guys, TNG writers.
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Feb 4, 2018 16:38
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Bieeardo posted:What really, really grosses me out about that whole thing is that they ended up marrying in canon. In a "the universe conspired to kill her husband so she'd be free to remarry" way too.
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Feb 4, 2018 16:41
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Cythereal posted:Season one has Duet, so all else is forgiven. Morally speaking, I think it's one of the ballsiest epsidoes Star Trek has ever done, and it's a drat compelling story. Duet is a loving masterpiece.
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Feb 4, 2018 16:42
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Kurieg posted:In a "the universe conspired to kill her husband so she'd be free to remarry" way too. I'm suddenly glad I haven't had breakfast yet. Christ.
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Feb 4, 2018 17:06
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Bieeardo posted:I'm suddenly glad I haven't had breakfast yet. Christ. To be fair the "Genesis wave wipes out her husband and crew while she happens to be wearing a genesis-wave-immune-suit" only happens in one of the side books. All we know in "canon" is that he's married to a Leah.
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Feb 4, 2018 17:30
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Young Freud posted:You're forgetting about one episode, an unfortunately conceived episode. In defense of that episode, at least the premise was that a Federation scientist whacked out on drugs thought the solution to that planet's problems was national socialism. Yeah, it's a terrible premise but at least it explains why they're using sets and costumes from another show/movie. Dawgstar posted:Poor Levar Burton. He didn't deserve to have to play a character who crushed on a hologram and then thought that meant he should date the real woman. Not only that but one that he programmed to like him. Data is written as having a better handle on romance and love than Geordi as a character.
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Feb 4, 2018 17:34
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I wish I could remember which webcomic it was, but someone pointed out that Troi's super-power is understanding people. And Worf's is getting the Hell beaten out of him.
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Feb 4, 2018 17:45
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RocknRollaAyatollah posted:Not only that but one that he programmed to like him. Data is written as having a better handle on romance and love than Geordi as a character. Geordi's luck with women was so bad they made Harry Kim inherit it as a character trait.
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Feb 4, 2018 17:48
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Kurieg posted:Geordi's luck with women was so bad they made Harry Kim inherit it as a character trait. The clear hate that the Voyager execs had for Garrett Wang is baffling. You CAN write people off the show if you loathe them so much.
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Feb 4, 2018 18:45
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Bieeardo posted:I wish I could remember which webcomic it was, but someone pointed out that Troi's super-power is understanding people. Worf got beaten so regularly that he must have insisted on it when he signed up. "Security is actually a lot safer than you've been told..." -"that will not do, a mighty warrior such as I needs to be beaten to submission on a regular basis. " "Ahh sure... well we do need more diversity in the ranks so welcome. "
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Feb 4, 2018 18:47
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Dawgstar posted:The clear hate that the Voyager execs had for Garrett Wang is baffling. You CAN write people off the show if you loathe them so much. Which is astonishing because he's an incredibly nice person and the second biggest trek nerd on that show. And the only reason he's second is because Tim Russ is a Massive nerd.
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Feb 4, 2018 18:57
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Geordi was weird and he was generally an accessory to letting people do weird stuff. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdRput-yVCk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UO5ThFd5qas (note: I have never seen the show)
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Feb 4, 2018 19:18
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Scion: Origin: Stunt Man So, once you manage to make your roll, you count up your successes and spend as many as you need to meet the Difficulty. What's left over are Threshold Successes, which can be spent to overcome Complications or to achieve Stunts, extra bonus effects. Any threshold successes you don't end up using for anything just indicate how cool you look while doing it - one means it's done with a flair, three is dazzling, and more than that is, quote, "bound to win you honor, glory, and millions of YouTube views." Practically speaking, however, Stunts are where it's at. They will give you chances to shift the scene in your favor or do stuff you wouldn't normally be able to do. There are a few limits, however. A stunt must somehow link back to your success at the action, it must affect a skill or attribute combo that is not the one you used, and it must be narrated out. Basically, you have to say how you did whatever. Typically, Stunts come in three types: Complicated Stunts make a Complication for someone else, at a level equal to the successes spent on it. Enhanced Stunts give an Enhancement for another action, whether your own or someone else's, based on the successes spent on it. Difficult Stunts make it harder for others to target you, adding t the Difficulty of actions against you based on the successes spent. Twists of Fate are a special form of Stunt that can only be used if you used a Path to enhance a roll. (We'll get to that.) Essentially, this lets you dictate a twist in the story, because unlikely coincidence followers Scions around. Each success spent lets you add or remove one detail from the scene, like 'this room has a door over on that end that we hadn't seen before' or 'there is convenient a gun on the table for me.' This represents Fate intervening to make your story more interesting. Twists of Fate cannot undo anything already established, but they can change the context or introduce new facts. Maybe there's an open window, or maybe every fire alarm system in the building is linked to a central sensor like the one right here, or even something bigger, with enough success - maybe your character understood the Eddas well enough to know the villain was a frost giant this whole time, so you brought flamethrowers along. The whole party and the ST must agree to a Twist, and it can't be overtly supernatural. It can, however, be really convenient - the mook firing at you runs out of ammo, the cops show up, you've had a gun this entire time, your divine parent left a cache of passports for your team, your damaged car suddenly works again, the monk youre fighting once lost to you in a duel and owes you a debt of honor just this once. The ST can decide that some changes cost more than others, but generally speaking, one change costs one success, and nothing made or removed by Twist of Fate lasts for more than a scene. Heroes and above can have overtly supernatural Twists of Fate; that'll be in the Hero book. Some rolls are part of a set of separate tasks that come together to resolve one problem. This is called a complex action, a series of linked rolls known as intervals that each have their own dicepool and Difficulty. This could be, say, a race where you have to navigate teach stretch. It's basically like a movie montage. You beat a roll for an interval, you get a Milestone - a clue, an ingredient, a checkpoint, whatever fits the action. Once you get a set number of Milestones, you succeed at the complex action. If you aren't under any pressure, you can fail as many intervals as you like while you gather Milestones, but more urgent complex actions have a limit on the intervals you can attempt before the action fails. Complications might force you to skip an interval or even lose a Milestone. The ST can also give Milestones without a roll if you receive something that'd count as part of a narrative effect, such as getting a strand of Sif's golden hair as part of a complex action to craft a magic guitar. You can use the teamwork rules to work together on intervals, or you can try to get miltiple Milestones in one interval by working separately. Complex actions can be opposed - each group will be trying to earn Milestones, and whoever gets the requisite amount first wins. For contests with a limited set of intervals, like a race around a track, whoever gets the most Milestones by the end wins. Contests, as opposed complex actions are known, use initiative to determine order because the two (or more) sides can use Stunts to interfere with each other. A typical complex action might need up to 3 Milestones, with 2 being more easy and 4 being harder. 5 or more is epic in scale. As we've noted, failing rolls is not a dead end, because all failures grant a Consolation, a minor benefit that isn't quite what you wanted, but does advance your interests. The ST chooses what form it takes. The simplest method is just to gain 1 Momentum. However, other options include a Fateful Encounter - gaining new information as you fail at whatever you were doing, which reveals another approach you might take. A Chance Meeting, where your failure leads you to someone who can help you, though maybe at a price. An Unlooed-for Advantage is Enhancement 1 to a future challenge that cannot be a second try at the same goal. So what is Momentum? Momentum is a pool sharped by the entire party, which can hold up to twice the number of players in points at any time. Momentum can be spent to activate some knacks, to give bonus dice, or to enable individual attempts at complex actions. Specifically: You can spend 1 Momentum per die to add dice to a pool before it is rolled. This pool can belong to any character, even NPCs, but this requires the party to agree to the spend. You can spend 3 Momentum to add an interval to a complex action, again with party approval. And Knacks will say how much Momentum they cost, if they have a cost. Unlike the others, using Knacks does not need party approval. As a side note: botches exist. A Botch is when you roll no successes and at least one die is a 1. If you botch, you get an additional setback as well as failing your roll, and your only Consolation is Momentum. However, on top of hte Consolation, you receive an additional 2 Momentum - so any botch basically means you fail, bad things happen, but you get 3 Momentum to the pool. If you just fail, the ST can offer you 2 Momentum to turn your failure into a Botch. Next time: Special types of action.
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Feb 4, 2018 19:47
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theironjef posted:Ooh you got a portfolio somewhere? I like seeing what the listeners are doing while listening. I, ah, don't mix that life with my goon life, aside from admitting I draw things for money. I want to remain relatively anonymous in that particular area, so I'm sorry. I don't want them finding me here and vice versa. Just know I draw some hosed up poo poo while listening to your lovely lovely podcast. E: Also, rape ogres are common, what the gently caress? Is that like a mythology thing, or is that loving nerds being gross? DicktheCat fucked around with this message at 22:09 on Feb 4, 2018 |
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Feb 4, 2018 22:07
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theironjef posted:Ooh you got a portfolio somewhere? I like seeing what the listeners are doing while listening. I listen to you on my commute, an hour each way. Thanks for being part of my day.
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Feb 4, 2018 22:54
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Betrayal At House on the Hill, 13 Small Change Trigger: Get bitten in the Gymnasium, Master Bedroom, or Servants' Quarters. Whoever has the highest Knowledge is a mad scientist who has lured the others into the house to experiment on them. The experiment specifically consists of the question: "What happens if my cats eat a bunch of very small humans?" They've just dropped a beaker which shrinks everyone in the house, themselves including, down to mouse size. I'm sure there was a more scientific way of doing this. Bite? What bite? Everyone's now shrunk. Moving is now half speed - doorways count as taking up an extra space of movement. You can't pick up cards, so exploring new rooms just ends your turn, and climbing stairs requires Might rolls. On the other hand, rooms with hazards no longer bother you. 1-2 Cats are spawned in the house based on the number of players. They have the same half-speed rule as the characters do, but pretty huge stats in this form: Speed 6 and Might 7! However, being cats, they are sadistic bastards and like to play with their food. If a Cat defeats a hero, it spends a round torturing them, in which period the defeated hero can escape with an opposed roll on a trait of their choice, or another hero can defeat the Cat to free the captured one. If nobody does that, though, the Cat will chow down at the start of the next monster turn. The Traitor themselves can't attack any heroes - since the point of the experiment is that the cats eat them - so all they can do is to chase the heroes around and try to stop them escaping, as below. The heroes are trying to escape using, no kidding, a Toy Airplane. And it's quite the show. They have to find it by going to one of five rooms and making a Knowledge 3+ roll. Then they have to start it with a Knowledge 4+ roll. Once started, the Airplane carries the heroes inside with it and moves 5 squares a turn, still counting doorways as squares. Cats or the Traitor can bat the airplane out of the air with a Speed 7+ roll for a cat or 5+ for the traitor. The Toy Airplane can pick up heroes as it goes, requiring a Speed roll with the possibility of just plain missing or actually crashing the plane (which doesn't put it out of commission, but does mean it has to be started again and the heroes are considered on the ground). Amusingly, the text for the heroes does say "flying heroes can only attack or be attacked with the revolver, ring, or dynamite". This is presumably to avoid giving away to the heroes the fact that the traitor cannot actually attack them, only the cats can. It does however create the amusing image of a cat lobbing a stick of dynamite. Once all the heroes are picked up in the plane, it can fly through any outside-facing window to escape. If that happens before half or more of the heroes have been eaten by cats, the heroes win. So, I can sort of see where this is coming from, but the double movement thing does seem to be a potential major hazard. If the heroes are all together, they can all potentially just jump in the plane. If the player count is low enough that there's only 1 cat, then it spawns in the Entrance Hall, which could mean that the heroes have a decent chance of getting in the plane before it even gets to them. Also, once someone's piloting the plane, presumably all the other heroes riding it just have to effectively skip their turns? Finally, there's no mention of the possibility of the heroes killing the traitor, and there's no warning in the heroes' rules text that this won't actually do any good. Better With Friends Trigger: Find the Medallion in the Furnace Room, Gallery or Kitchen. The traitor, who is either the person with the highest Speed or Missy Dubourde if she's in the game (scary little girl count: 2) has actually been a ghost all along, who drowned years ago in the underground swamp below the mansion. (The reason Missy gets this honor is that her listed hobby is swimming. I'm not sure why she thought an underground swamp would be a nice place for a casual swim, but hey.) The medallion gave her the power to manifest in the living world, and she's now lured some of her friends back to drown them too, so that she can have them with her in death. Because they won't be hideously, horribly upset with her and hate her for all eternity for killing them or anything like that. The house is gradually flooding over the course of 6 turns - flooding at the even rate of half a floor per turn. Starting on a partially flooded floor means you move 2 less squares; starting on a fully flooded floor means moving 4 less squares and taking 2 points of damage. The heroes' book specifically says this affects the traitor too.. but the traitor's book specifically says it doesn't. Helpful. If a hero drops the Medallion, the counter stops for a turn, but it can be picked up again. The goal for the heroes is to go and get a wooden rowboat out of the Attic, then carry it to the Balcony or Tower. The Rowboat is heavy, so any movement while holding it is at half speed, and for another hilarious image, the game specifically tells players that "the Dog cannot carry the Rowboat." The traitor can also try to smash the rowboat by making Might 3 rolls against it, one per round; five successful rolls destroys the rowboat and the traitor immediately wins. This one just seems to be a complete railroad. The players are going to all get together, go up to the top floor, search the Attic and then move to one of the other two locations. Especially with the flooding restrictions there is little reason to ever do anything else, and dropping the amulet might as well be done instantly. The risk of things such as the boat being destroyed will all be determined in advance by where those rooms are on the map. Not a great one, I don't think. Checkmate Trigger: Find a Skull in the Catacombs, Dining Room, or Gallery. Well, we've nearly hit all the fantasy classics by now, so how about another great one: playing a game of Chess against Death. The only problem is how on earth we actually work this into the plot. Or maybe, we just don't bother? Essentially, as soon as the haunt is triggered, Death shows up in the room with one of the heroes and insists on a game of chess. We don't find out what the stakes are, but the ending text has it turn out that if the hero loses, all the heroes will die (even potentially ones who never encountered Death or even know that he's appeared), and if Death loses, he just leaves and the heroes get no benefit at all. Huh. Oh, but wait, there's a traitor. Why in the world would anyone want to help Death win in a game of Chess? Well, I'm just going to copy the betrayal motivation verbatim from the game for this one, because it's by far the most ridiculous one, and that's saying something: quote:After all, you can't stand the thought of anyone being smarter than you, and there's no way you could beat Death at chess! By the way, the traitor is the person with the lowest Might. There's a nerd joke here, I guess. Anyway, if Death does win the Chess game then.. somehow.. the traitor doesn't die because.. umm, no, I've got nothin'. Maybe Death just likes the kind of person who would get all their friends killed just to avoid being seen as dumb, or at least, maybe not quite the best out of the group at Chess? So. Death sits in the room where he spawned. He can't be attacked, and the traitor can't go into that room (Death doesn't appreciate being kibitzed). In the monster turn, someone must be in the room with Death to play chess; if there isn't, it's a forfeit and the traitor wins, but Death doesn't care if his opponent changes multiple times over the course of the game. The chess game is an opposed Knowledge roll. Death has Knowledge 8, and also gets a single re-roll of any blank dice he rolls. If he wins the roll, then depending on how much he wins by, the heroes take 1 damage to Sanity, Might, or both. If Death loses the roll, the hero immediately declares Checkmate and the heroes win. Beating Knowledge 8 is going to be mighty hard, but the heroes have some advantages. First of all, if they can find the Book and give it to the chess player, they get +1 to their rolls. Secondly, there are five Holy Seals in fixed rooms in the house; if the heroes find these, they can destroy them with a Sanity 4+ roll, and each one lowers Death's Knowledge score by one. As with many of these, there's the germ of a good idea here. There's a whole bunch of ways to raise stats, and adding the ability to lower Death's means that everyone can participate. The traitor can fight in all the regular ways, but killing them doesn't end the scenario, The main problem is that the hero with the best Knowledge stat is going to have a kind of boring game - they'll probably just be shunted off to play against Death and although technically there is nothing stopping them leaving the room and coming back in the same turn, there's also not a whole lot they can achieve by doing that.
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Feb 5, 2018 00:22
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Bieeardo posted:I wish I could remember which webcomic it was, but someone pointed out that Troi's super-power is understanding people. Picard's superpower is being volcel and Riker's is being a huge slut. That's why I shaved my head and grew a beard.
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Feb 5, 2018 01:17
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Bieeardo posted:I wish I could remember which webcomic it was, but someone pointed out that Troi's super-power is understanding people. 
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Feb 5, 2018 01:30
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Speaking as someone on the spectrum: jesus gently caress that's mean-spirited, what'd we ever do to you, comics guy
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Feb 5, 2018 02:45
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