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wdarkk posted:
Bedlam's Bard by Mercedes Lackey, as the main character is literally what every D&D bard wants to be, stringing spells by music. It's got some fairly side-eye moments since it's a Lackey novel that started in the 80s. It's kind of funny as she does go heavy on 'elves are awesome' and also point out they're an extremely flawed group of people with some serious weaknesses. While on games, you got Brutal Legend were Guitarists are wizards, and to a lesser extent Guilty Gear is not explicitly about the power of rock, but it's channeled through music, character design and movelist so it has a very strong metal vibe.
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Feb 6, 2018 19:59
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wdarkk posted:There's a real wrong turn between the first two and the second two games. It goes from "more or less fine" to "you can't show your friends this." Which is a shame, because I love the music, and how they play with the music within the narrative. But if someone asks me why I like EXSPHERE_NOSURGE I can't actually explain it to them without sounding like an insane maniac around the point that I explain that the dueling singers are actually the half-animal mind-child of the two main characters that's also a clone of their childhood friend that they can't remember, and an evil 13 year old from another universe that's trying to kill everyone for achievement points. Robindaybird posted:While on games, you got Brutal Legend were Guitarists are wizards, and to a lesser extent Guilty Gear is not explicitly about the power of rock, but it's channeled through music, character design and movelist so it has a very strong metal vibe. Brutal Legend leans a bit too hard on "Metal is the only music that matters" for my tastes, also it turns into a half-finished RTS 1/3rd of the way through.
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Feb 6, 2018 20:10
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Kurieg posted:
unfortunately from what it sounds like, they had a lot of meddling and couldn't finish the game as they wanted to - the publisher was advertising a very different game than what they were actually working on. I still got a soft spot for it, janky as it is. and yeah, it's a shame Ar Tonelico just completely upped the creep factor after the 2nd game pandering to the creepy otakus they claim to be taking the piss out of.
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Feb 6, 2018 20:21
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^^^^ Having played the first Ar Tonelico game: it was always about shoving crystals into holes of girls and then diving into their minds with a very, very solid overtone of 'actually it's your dick, this is sex' It was never actually taking the piss It just got worse Kurieg posted:"Your Waifu Is Real And She Wants Your Dick." That's just Ar Tonelico, the entire series.
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Feb 6, 2018 20:49
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Mors Rattus posted:That's just Ar Tonelico, the entire series. No, in Ar Nosurge you find out that Ion is actually from Earth, as in The Earth Of You The Person Who Is Playing This Game, and one of the endings is sacrificing Prim to send Ion and Nelo back to their home universes, with Ion's explicit goal being to find you, the player, because she has fallen in love with you.
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Feb 6, 2018 21:00
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Kurieg posted:No, in Ar Nosurge you find out that Ion is actually from Earth, as in The Earth Of You The Person Who Is Playing This Game, and one of the endings is sacrificing Prim to send Ion and Nelo back to their home universes, with Ion's explicit goal being to find you, the player, because she has fallen in love with you. ....wait, what? Really? Like - how is she supposed to interact with The Player to fall in love with them rather than the character you control, how does what
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Feb 6, 2018 21:09
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Mors Rattus posted:....wait, what? Earthes isn't a character, he's a robot built around one of the two interfaces you use to interact with their world, the other one is installed inside Delta. And whoever had the "controller" before you used the link with Delta to gently caress up the barrier keeping the city safe which is why everyone keeps him at arms length. He's decidedly unhappy about the situation and halfway through the game both Delta and Cass call you out and try to renegotiate things on their terms. So Earthes isn't taking Ion out on a date, you are.
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Feb 6, 2018 21:21
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Huh, sounds a lot like OMICRONe THE NOMAD SOUL but, like, weeb
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Feb 6, 2018 21:40
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Given we have a game in the review pipe right now that's borrowing inspiration from indie comic Wicked + Divine in the review, it's too bad another game couldn't take inspiration from Phonogram.
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Feb 6, 2018 21:51
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Kurieg posted:No, in Ar Nosurge you find out that Ion is actually from Earth, as in The Earth Of You The Person Who Is Playing This Game, and one of the endings is sacrificing Prim to send Ion and Nelo back to their home universes, with Ion's explicit goal being to find you, the player, because she has fallen in love with you. Kurieg posted:Earthes isn't a character, he's a robot built around one of the two interfaces you use to interact with their world, the other one is installed inside Delta. And whoever had the "controller" before you used the link with Delta to gently caress up the barrier keeping the city safe which is why everyone keeps him at arms length. He's decidedly unhappy about the situation and halfway through the game both Delta and Cass call you out and try to renegotiate things on their terms. 
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Feb 6, 2018 22:06
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Well that expresses my feelings rather well, I wish I'd had posted that.
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Feb 6, 2018 23:10
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The worst part is that there's some really solid worldbuilding in at least the tonelico games but it gets buried under a metric ton of the worst sort of waifu pandering. I've just been recommending that people listen to the music and nothing else for a while now.
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Feb 6, 2018 23:41
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Leraika posted:The worst part is that there's some really solid worldbuilding in at least the tonelico games but it gets buried under a metric ton of the worst sort of waifu pandering. Yeah, it's kind of a pity that the whole 'music is magic, and also its syntax is literally SQL' is a cool setup, because it is spot-welded to 'and now, shove your
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Feb 6, 2018 23:50
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and the cosmodive in theory is cool, but in reality it's an excuse to put girls in increasingly improbable outfits. It's more accurate to say the first two you can ignore the pandering, but the rest they won't let you.
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Feb 7, 2018 00:07
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Cythereal posted:I'm also noting a complete absence of religious music - be it traditional choral style or modern Gospel. Especially in America, that's a rather significant oversight, and music has been intimately associated with religion throughout the world for a long, long time. Brucato has issues when it comes to religion. I've always taken him as the neo-pagan version of those kids raised in super-religious, possibly outright abusive, households who became athiests in high school or college but kept the same worldview and prejudices. Like, in Mage he talked a big social justice game, then turned into a loving robber baron when talking about the poor. Also, how often are Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and Genesis and its ex-members brought up in the book?
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Feb 7, 2018 01:33
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Kavak posted:Brucato has issues when it comes to religion. I've always taken him as the neo-pagan version of those kids raised in super-religious, possibly outright abusive, households who became athiests in high school or college but kept the same worldview and prejudices. Like, in Mage he talked a big social justice game, then turned into a loving robber baron when talking about the poor. After reading Changing Breeds I can state with some certainty that something happened to Brucato growing up, i'm not sure what. But it sure loving did.     
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Feb 7, 2018 02:11
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Kurieg posted:After reading Changing Breeds I can state with some certainty that something happened to Brucato growing up, i'm not sure what. But it sure loving did. I am considering doing a post primarily of excerpts of things like this from things he's written, primarily because Powerchords, on its own, doesn't necessarily fully justify the level of extreme discomfort it's given me. However, in combination with his parts on Changing Breeds, some of Mage20, certain things revealed in the wicca sex book, and scattered things he probably did across oWoD, it makes things that would be clunky, weird, awkward, and suspect on their own into red flags so huge they could convey semaphore from space.
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Feb 7, 2018 02:27
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It doesn't excuse a lot of what he's written, but it would explain and cast things in a new light if his childhood was as hosed as his favorite topics are implying.
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Feb 7, 2018 02:47
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Kavak posted:It doesn't excuse a lot of what he's written, but it would explain and cast things in a new light if his childhood was as hosed as his favorite topics are implying. On the one hand, sort of. On the other hand Brucato straight up resents not being born in an age when he would be properly revered as a Shaman. And hates that religion and modernity have made it this way.
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Feb 7, 2018 03:14
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On the other hand, distaste and hate don't always have a dramatic origin story.
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Feb 7, 2018 03:21
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Kurieg posted:On the one hand, sort of. On the other hand Brucato straight up resents not being born in an age when he would be properly revered as a Shaman. And hates that religion and modernity have made it this way. He could be if he just set up a drat tent at Burning Man and the many dozens of smaller Burning Men that happen all over the dang place so Burning Man weirdos never have to stop doing Burning Mans.
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Feb 7, 2018 03:25
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Maybe he thinks that it's too much effort and resents the fact that you and I would still not give him the respect that a shaman deserves.
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Feb 7, 2018 06:51
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Kurieg posted:After reading Changing Breeds I can state with some certainty that something happened to Brucato growing up, i'm not sure what. But it sure loving did. Oh, I hope not. I put up with religious fuckery as a kid, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. No one deserves it. Some religions should be classified as loving abuse.
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Feb 7, 2018 07:19
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After reading the Kayfabe and Powerchords reviews, is there an RPG that treats being a musician like Kayfabe treats being a wrestler? No magic or anything like that, just the players being members of a band trying to climb their way to the top all while dealing with record labels, rival bands, changing musical tastes, and personal problems.
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Feb 7, 2018 07:30
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 THE DARK CRUSADER – PART THREE You're On The Brute Squad Before heading to the church, the knights have the opportunity to put a team together. They have enough clout that they can make Status rolls to try and round up some of Baldwin's men to help them – no easy feat, considering the general state of discipline among the crusaders at this point. 1D6 knights and 2D6 men-at-arms will tag along if preparations are made before sunset. After sunset, well, everyone's had a rich full day of looting and no-one's really in the mood for more fighting; a paltry 1D6 men-at-arms are all the knights can get. The Church of St. Mokius is on the western side of the city by the outer wall, a part of town that's just been totally hosed by successive fires over the course of the siege. As they climb the Seventh Hill, the knights run into a pair of wild-eyed Frankish priests and a drunken prostitute. They're guarding an Orthodox priest who's hanging upside-down from the balcony of a burnt ruin by his heel. Several bodies, crusaders and Greeks, are strewn around the street. The priests explain that the man is actually a Byzantine sorcerer who has summoned a monster into the city that lusts for Latin blood. The crusaders were about to torture him when they were ambushed by his Greek allies; would the knights please protect the priests until reinforcements arrive? The Orthodox priest is totally mad. He screams in Greek about 'the dragon' he summoned, which will rise from the water and devour the crusaders. The Frankish priests cite the fact that his beard hasn't fallen down as evidence that he's a sorcerer, but it's just matted with dried blood from the beating he got. The prostitute says that she did see the dragon, which looked like a giant snake crossed with a pony, but she is very drunk. The priests claim that they've never met her before, honest. The knights can do what they want, but no reinforcements are on the way. As the knights approach the church, Listen detects someone sobbing nearby. A couple of Greek families are cowering in a nearby pile of rubble. The crying is coming from a little girl, who is injured. If the knights help them, her mother speaks a little Frankish and warns them that she's seen a large group of men swathed in black prowling around the church.  You Are The Brute Squad Hiding in the ruins of a collapsed building next to the church are ten cultists of the Unburdened Flesh, led by High Priest Zorzi. He can be identified by the metal eyepatch he wears, behind which is Agostino's rotting eye. The cultists are looking for the ritual when the knights roll up; Zorzi recognises them from his visions and promises them a lifetime in Hell if they don't surrender. He casts Skinless Stigmata on one of the knights, a particularly blasphemous spell that tears a strip of flesh off the target at one of the sites of the Stigmata before sending the cultists to attack. He plans to take one knight prisoner and kill the rest. The cultists open up with a volley of crossbow fire before charging, but if the knights brought backup they'll try and hang back and stick to crossbows. The best place to go is straight into the church; though it's been damaged, the heavy doors can still be sealed and the only other entrance is a narrow gap in the wall that their attackers can only trickle through. After a few cultists have been killed, they stop attacking, instead looking for a way to collapse the weakened wall. The knights now have five minutes before Ramardi turns up with reinforcements and ten before they collapse the wall and poo poo hits the fan. Regrettably, there are no less than ten statues of the Virgin Mary in the church and moving them all takes at least three minutes. Spot Hidden detects the statue they're actually looking for, a tiny one that's part of a frieze of saints recessed in a wall. Underneath that one is the package left by Agostino. The package is wrapped in waxy paper which has a cryptic quarto written on it: He will come by the bloody tower at the behest of his favorite son and supplicant. And the city will run red with fire and blood. Then there's three folio pages on which, when studied, teaches the spell Detect Skinless One. There's also a small wax-sealed clay case which has very strong warnings against opening it written all over it. Inside the case is a sliver of rice paper-looking material about the size of a human head. This is a product of the spell Skin of the Skinless One and will immediately try to stick onto someone; unless cut from the body, this will turn the poor idiot into a thrall of the Skinless One in 12 hours. As mentioned, Ramardi rolls up after five minutes with 20 more cultists. He's a violent and sadistic bully but tries to negotiate a surrender out of the knights. They're not so different, you know. They both want to find Sedefkar and end the madness. Why not work together? Ramardi makes some spectacular promises for anyone who sides with him which are of course all bullshit. More cultists (up to 50) are turning up every minute, so fighting them is certain death. Instead, there's a flight of stairs in the knave that lead down to the crypt. There's a hole in one of the walls here that opens into a long tunnel. The feel of airflow and the sound of lapping water in the distance suggest a much better escape route than fighting through an army of cultists. Before they head underground, knights might notice the other significant frieze in the church, one that depicts St. George slaying the dragon.  Oh poo poo! That crazy priest from before? Really was a sorcerer, really did help summon a dragon. It is the Anatolian Dragon, brought back into this world through dark magic, and it's set up shop in the cisterns. It was summoned to fight the crusaders but it's totally out of control; aside from that one dude, everyone else who summoned it has been eaten. Stat-wise, it's about as scary as you would expect a dragon to be, flying and well-armoured and fire-breathing and capable of killing two knights per round. In fact, it's probably a little too hardcore, especially if your players gently caress around and don't make a concerted effort to kill it. But anyway. The dragon is currently chilling in the cistern, hiding under the water like a crocodile. It will probably hear the knights coming down the tunnel or smell the blood on them, if they've been injured. If it does, it will immediately go on the attack when they get out of the tunnel. It prefers to keep a distance from the knights and fight partially in the water. Its physical attacks have a relatively low chance to hit, but it gets two per round and they come with a nasty +3D6DB. Its fire breath also does 3D6 damage, but knights can halve that by hiding behind a shield. There's a shore along the outside edge of the cistern and if the knights make a break for it, they can get to a boat. There's a flight of stairs leading out of the cistern right across the other side from the tunnel entrance. The knights can flee, but the dragon will come for them later if it got a taste of their blood – not to mention running away from this fight just isn't very knightly, is it? Goading the dragon into fighting out of the water is the best approach, and it has a soft underbelly that makes it vulnerable to attacks from below. In fact, if it comes down on a knight from above and they make a stab with a sword, it turns the dragon's damage bonus back on itself. The dragon flees when reduced to half-HP. If killed, it quickly turns disintegrates into a scorched mess but knights who roll Luck can swipe a dragon bone before that happens, a very suitable and potent relic. Next time: the big man Sedefkar himself!
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Feb 7, 2018 07:51
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White Coke posted:After reading the Kayfabe and Powerchords reviews, is there an RPG that treats being a musician like Kayfabe treats being a wrestler? No magic or anything like that, just the players being members of a band trying to climb their way to the top all while dealing with record labels, rival bands, changing musical tastes, and personal problems. Be right back, gonna write a Bands in the Dark hack.
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Feb 7, 2018 09:17
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For some reason I was expecting the "dragon" to be a Shantak or something similarly dragon-esque, not an actual dragon. Also if the team have 1d6 knights and 2d6 men at arms for backup, why would they run from Zorzi and his goons? It sounds like there's a good chance they'd be evenly matched, numbers-wise, but it sounds like the assumption is that they'll retreat rather than beat his head in. I would also expect players to open ANYTHING with "do not open" written on it, so having a "you due within 12 hours lol"-effect inside without even any save, it sounds like, is a bit harsh.
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Feb 7, 2018 12:32
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PurpleXVI posted:For some reason I was expecting the "dragon" to be a Shantak or something similarly dragon-esque, not an actual dragon. I'm a big fan of the dragon just being an actual no-poo poo dragon rather than a Mythos beastie, it's  The encounter with Zorzi would definitely benefit from a map of the area to justify the situation - I think the idea is that the cultists are starting off in an elevated semi-fortified position where they can take potshots at the team, but it's really not clear from the text. Also, to be fair with the Skin, knights do get a Dodge roll to knock it aside. But otherwise I do agree, it's a cheap trick and literally its only purpose in the scenario is an AD&D-style save-or-die trap for the unwary.
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Feb 7, 2018 12:45
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Down With People posted:I'm a big fan of the dragon just being an actual no-poo poo dragon rather than a Mythos beastie, it's I love it too. I think that's mostly because it'll totally blindside players who are playing Call of Cthulhu expecting everything to be a Cthulhu beastie. Nope! Actual dragon!
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Feb 7, 2018 12:54
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Down With People posted:The dragon flees when reduced to half-HP. If killed, it quickly turns disintegrates into a scorched mess but knights who roll Luck can swipe a dragon bone before that happens, a very suitable and potent relic. SOUL ABSORBED
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Feb 7, 2018 13:32
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The By which I mean just a cool bone. E: For reference, how badass are the knights, spy, and sorcerer-monk compared to an average CoC team? Is their armor actually useful, etc? Night10194 fucked around with this message at 14:18 on Feb 7, 2018 |
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Feb 7, 2018 14:15
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Scion: Origin: Genre Convention Scion defines scenes in broad categories - action-adventure, procedural and intrigue. They do overlap, but each area covers a set of systems that'll be in play. And yes, you can have multiple in play at once. Action-adventure scenes will typically focus on the physical, and have rules for violence, racing, exploration and infilitration. Procedurals focus on the mental, and will have rules on finding clues, discovering secrets, tracking suspects, making plans or crafting items. Intrigue focuses on the social, with rules for managining groups, building relationships and dealing with people. Scion divides time into a number of increments. You got your turn, which is anywhere from a few seconds to a minute. During a turn, you can perform a single instant action. Turns basically only matter in combat or other highly dramatic situations. Rounds are a snapshot of those situations - the length of time it takes all participants to have a turn in initiative order. Scenes are the whole sequence of events. A fight, an inspection. A scene takes as long as the story requires or as short. The ST decides when the scene ends and moves to the next one. And Act is a game session. Acts consist of scenes that represent a segment of a larger story, and an act can end early if you complete the episode mid-session. Which brings us to Episode - an Episode is a single story, which gives the PCs a bit of time to breath when it finishes. An episode might be one long session or it might take multiple acts. An arc is a full storyline, start to finish, but it still has loose ends, uncompleted tasks or successor stories. Most arcs take two to five episodes. A Season is a complete, conclusive story, generally driven by some great threat or climactic goal. When a season ends, there's usually some downtime until the next one starts. A Series is the campaign. For purposes of figuring out if a magic power is still active when it feels like 'it lasts a scene' is too short, it can be estimated that a round takes about four seconds in combat, a scene is usually around an hour or two, an act is usually a day, an episode is usually a week and an arc is a month while a season is a year. Generally. Action-Adventure rules cover physical peril, dramatic movement, initiative and combat; combat will come up later. It has its own chapter. Here, though, we get Initiative. At the start of a fight or other situation requiring time tracking, each character rolls a dicepool of (most appropriate Skill+Cunning), though NPCs with similar stats can just share one roll. In a fight, the skill is usually your best combat-related skill, while a race might use Athletics. Most successes goes first, least goes last, in order, with PCs trumping NPCs...sort of. See, at this point, you erase the names of the characters in that order. Any slot that had been occupied by a PC is now a PC slot, while the ones occupied by NPCs are NPC slots. The players choose who gets what PC slot, and the ST dertermines who gets what NPC slot. Then you go down the list in order. Once slots are assigned, that's set initiative until you don't need it any more. Generally speaking, movement is not really tracked in the specific. Over most terrain, characters can just move freely. Maneuvers, chasing and fleeing are generally abstracted into Athletics rolls or range bands (which are covered in combat chapter). When relevant, though, assume an unimpeded human on foot can move (Athletics+highest Physical Attribute)*2 feet per turn. After this, we get movement-related actions. Move: Each round in combat (or other initiative-tracked scene), you may reflexively Move, an action that moves you one range band, though if fighting at close range you may need to Disengage. Barriers: Crossing a barrier takes an action. A barrier is any wall, gap or other feature that takes extra time or effort. Many times, this is only a roll when you're under pressure - it's easy to hop a fence...unless you're being shot at. Typically, you roll Might or Finesse + Athletics to get past a barrier. Disengage: You move one range band away from an attacker. If they allow it, you do this reflexively. If not, you make contested Athletics+(Dex or Might) vs Close Combat+Might rolls. If you fail, you can't disengage. You can use this even if you've already used your reflexive Move, but it is not a reflexive action if contested. Ties favor the Disengager, and Extras will never contest your disengagement. They're just mooks. Drop/Stand: You can fall prone reflexively. Standing from prone is reflexive but you can't Move in any round you do it in. Also, if an opponent chooses to threaten you while you rise, any attacks you make on the ac tion you get up are considered mixed, and use the lower of your Athletics+(Dex or Might) and your relevant combat pool. Rush: You charge one range band towards an opponent as a simple action, which you can do after using your Reflexive Move. If an opponent wants to keep you away, you must make contested Athletics+(Dex or Might) rolls, with ties favoring the Rusher. Use Cover: Getting behind cover in a fight takes an Athletics+Dex roll or a stunt. Cover comes in Expendable (chairs, knee-high crates, barstools), which can take one 1 Injury before being destroyed, Light (marble railings, pillars or other significant cover), which can take 4 Injuries before being destroyed (which must be split among players using the cover, if more than one), Heavy (cars, armored doors), which can absorb 10 Injuries (and must be split between players using the cover), and Full, which is identical to Heavy except it blocks line of sight completely and so usually means ranged attacks can't even be made. Withdraw: This is running away. First, you need to Disengage if you're in close combat, and then make an Athletics+(Dex or Might) roll to continue to cross range bands. If the enemies choose to pursue you, this is contested and treated as additional Disengages. Terrain can make movement more difficult. There are two types of terrain: Dangerous Terrain could hurt you. Pools of acid, fire, whatever. You can get past these, but it's a Complication. If you don't want the Complication's effects, you can roll Athletics to buy them off as normal. Difficult Terrain isn't necessarily harmful, but it's hard to cross - rotting floors, mud, loose rocks. When you are on difficult terrain, Move is no longer reflexive, and you must roll Athletics+Dexterity whenever you want to move one range band. All other movement actions get +1 Difficulty. Chases are often simple actions, abstracted down to a single opposed roll (especially in a chase between PCs, for brevity's sake). On foot, this is usually Athletics, and in a vehicle, usually Pilot. Might is for a full-on sprint, Dexterity for obstacle-laden or unstable courses, and endurance chases are Stamina. Mazes or puzzles might use Reason, while split-second reactions might use Cunning. Driving uses either Cunning or Dexterity. Longer or more varied chases are treated as complex actions, allowing for multiple rolls. Milestones in a complex action chase are referred to as laps. The number of laps you need are a representation of distance. Once you get them, you either catch the prey, escape the pursuer or finish the race. Interval limits depend on what you're doing. In fleeing form a foe, it's the point where you get stuck or otherwise unable to escape. When pursuing, it's the point where the quarry hits somewhere you can't follow easily, like an embassy. Chases between two significant parties are contests, with each side rolling to complete laps. For races, the interval limit is just how long the race lasts, with earned laps being successful stretches, in which one side pulls ahead or manages to conserve energy. Chase rules can also be used for long-distance travels, like a voyage to be the first to find a new island fished up by the god Maui. These will often have mor varied dicepools or interval lengths, but work as normal. A head start on a chase is worth 1-3e, depending on how far ahead you started. Road hazards are worth 1-3c - slick ice, minefields, whatever - with rating based on their danger. And in most races, you can make a 1s stunt to perform a snatch-and-grab - grabbing some useful piece of equipment appropriate to the interval, which will give 1e when used. This might be grabbing a branch for use as a club in a forest, or...well, a lot of things, in a street market. Next time: Procedurals and Intrigue
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Feb 7, 2018 14:19
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Oh, yeah, the dragon bone as a "suitable and potent relic" sounds awesome. But what can it actually do?  Can you use it as a mace to beat heads in?
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Feb 7, 2018 14:31
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 Part 3  OK, let's try to keep on (space) truckin' through this poo poo.  Starfleet's Purpose gives a basic rundown of what Starfleet is and how it's organized. You got your exploration and your science and your defense; it tries to make a the semi-militaristic and scientific natures of Starfleet meld together naturally, and I think it works. The idea is that we're flying around looking to meet new people and take selfies with space anomalies, but we know that there's danger out there, so we have to be prepared for the worst. Then there's a brief description of who's in charge of what, between the council, the CIC and the admirals, etc. The Prime Directive is not going to be news to any of you nerds, but they take a smart tack by emphasizing that there are often good reasons to go against it and intervene in various situations. Because, just like the show, that's obviously what you'll be doing in the game, unless you want to spend a session wringing your hands and then just flying off at the end. Through a boxout, they do acknowledge that some take the Prime Directive as gospel, but it's presented as an extreme view. Next is a section that reads like a college brochure, describing the goals and methodology of Starfleet Academy. It continues the trend of being well-written, if not revelatory. Another continuing trend is the frequency of fun nods to series continuity, like a brief discussion on the idea of unmanned exploration missions which namechecks the vessels involved in the events of “The Ultimate Computer.” I’d probably recommend that players read this section, because it gives a feel for how a cadet might be shaped by their experiences at the academy.  amusing Following graduation, the next step for a cadet is Assignment to one of the Starfleet divisions, and more specifically, a position somewhere, probably on a starship. That ship will have an ongoing mission, which will be broken down into smaller individual missions, which comprise the various Duties expected of a Starfleet ship, some of which may involve Away Teams. In these sections, we get kind of a cheat sheet of the kinds of poo poo you'll be sent off to do. Of course, in many episodes of televised trek, the stated mission is simply a way to get your ship headed somewhere for some unrelated bullshit to happen along the way, so if you're going for a TV feel, I personally wouldn't worry about the actual details of who you're supposed to be delivering supplies to or whatever. NEXT TIME, ON STAR TREK ADVENTURES we finally get into the actual game and see how task resolution works! It involves dice.
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Feb 7, 2018 15:59
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Wait, so the redshirts are now goldshirts?
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Feb 7, 2018 17:31
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Also in what century did they switch from shirts to onesies and not acknowledge that in the naming conventions?
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Feb 7, 2018 17:45
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JcDent posted:Wait, so the redshirts are now goldshirts? theironjef posted:Also in what century did they switch from shirts to onesies and not acknowledge that in the naming conventions? The redshirts thing is mostly a meme from TOS that this is a sly jab at, and yes security personnel are now goldshirts. That switch happened during the transition from TOS to TNG - from the 23rd century to the 24th. TNG, DS9, VOY, and ENT had significantly lower mortality rates among the grunts than TOS, fortunately. STD on the other hand...
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Feb 7, 2018 18:06
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theironjef posted:Also in what century did they switch from shirts to onesies and not acknowledge that in the naming conventions? “Goldskants” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
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Feb 7, 2018 18:12
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Cythereal posted:
I'm unsure if you're saying that the new series Discovery has more deaths, or that after the original series Starfleet has a sever sexually transmitted diseases problem.
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Feb 7, 2018 18:43
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They went back to being two-piece uniforms around Season 3 when they realized the onesies were giving the actors severe back pain.
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Feb 7, 2018 18:44
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