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Leraika posted:According to the wiki, tldr NISA is really good at localization and blanked out the code block relating to one of the boss's skills. I think they assigned it a name that's longer than the maximum length of the display window or something dumb. The real question is, since it happens 100% of the time and is difficult to avoid, why did they not catch it? The answer is that they did all testing with full devhacked stats. wdarkk fucked around with this message at 03:40 on Feb 9, 2018 |
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Feb 9, 2018 03:35
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wdarkk posted:I think they assigned it a name that's longer than the maximum length of the display window or something dumb. yeah, around the same time, Mana Khemia 2 had similar game-crashing bugs, and the first had sections of the optional dungeon that freeze - NISA did not have a quality team then.
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Feb 9, 2018 03:47
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Sony missed it too, because they were also devhacking.
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Feb 9, 2018 04:02
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Yeah I'm going to assume some of it is the same problem that came up a bunch in the PS3 era, that the devkit doesn't actually handle some subtle things identically to a real system depending on the mode.
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Feb 9, 2018 12:43
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Sounds like a similar but less-damaging problem with Shin Megami Tensei IV Final-- the final boss in that has two untranslated lines of dialogue because the playtesters were too good at the game.
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Feb 9, 2018 20:11
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Snorb posted:Sounds like a similar but less-damaging problem with Shin Megami Tensei IV Final-- the final boss in that has two untranslated lines of dialogue because the playtesters were too good at the game. AT2 did that, too. There's a sidequest where you basically recruit girls for the fan club of one of your characters, and they'll greet her when she comes into town. The greeting text, the one that shows up 100 times if you recruit everyone, was not translated.
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Feb 9, 2018 22:09
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Does anyone have any idea if it's still possible to acquire a copy of SenZar anywhere? I've hit a brick wall trying to dig one up. Though I did manage to locate something called the "Spawn of Fashan" which looks densely written and completely incomprehensible in a really groggy, old school way.
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Feb 10, 2018 18:26
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Spawn of Fashan was another legendarily bad game ala Senzar/Synnibar in the pre-FATAL era, but not in the same way, it's more 'thing wanders all over the garden path, has no organization and doesn't even commit to being a heavy metal album cover like the other two.
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Feb 10, 2018 18:38
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PurpleXVI posted:Does anyone have any idea if it's still possible to acquire a copy of SenZar anywhere? I've hit a brick wall trying to dig one up. Though I did manage to locate something called the "Spawn of Fashan" which looks densely written and completely incomprehensible in a really groggy, old school way. I’ve been trying to find Senzar for a long time. It is very expensive.
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Feb 10, 2018 19:59
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I think my old FLGS might have one. I can ask.
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Feb 10, 2018 22:03
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Angrymog posted:I think my old FLGS might have one. I can ask. If my current attempt at scoring SenZar fails or turns out to be a mirage, I'd appreciate that. Frankly, it's both a shame that this thread doesn't have it, and it's a shame that no one's turned it into a .PDF yet. I mean, sure, it's a bad game, but it's also basically a piece of RPG history.
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Feb 10, 2018 22:09
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SenZar is the Plan 9 From Outer Space of RPGs, it's technically very inept but has a certain charm (and would be way easier to actually play than Synnibarr.) I've got a copy somewhere. Will try to dig it up.
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Feb 10, 2018 22:39
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God, I wish it was a PDF. I've had a burning desire to see how playable it actually is for years.
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Feb 10, 2018 23:35
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Maxwell Lord posted:SenZar is the Plan 9 From Outer Space of RPGs, it's technically very inept but has a certain charm (and would be way easier to actually play than Synnibarr.) What's the equivalent of wobbly spacecraft and tombstones?
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Feb 10, 2018 23:35
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Maxwell Lord posted:SenZar is the Plan 9 From Outer Space of RPGs, it's technically very inept but has a certain charm (and would be way easier to actually play than Synnibarr.)
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Feb 11, 2018 05:17
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Robindaybird 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. And don't forget Alan Dean Foster's "Spellsinger" series; it's a portal fantasy where the protagonist, an amateur guitarist, is transported to a fantasy world and discovers he can do magic by performing Earth music. unseenlibrarian posted:Spawn of Fashan was another legendarily bad game ala Senzar/Synnibar in the pre-FATAL era, but not in the same way, it's more 'thing wanders all over the garden path, has no organization and doesn't even commit to being a heavy metal album cover like the other two. I can still remember the review in The Dragon, where the reviewer (I think it was Lawrence Schick?) was convinced Spawn of Fashan was meant to be a parody of RPGs.
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Feb 11, 2018 05:40
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Selachian posted:And don't forget Alan Dean Foster's "Spellsinger" series; it's a portal fantasy where the protagonist, an amateur guitarist, is transported to a fantasy world and discovers he can do magic by performing Earth music. No, absolutely do forget them if you can. Save yourselves.
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Feb 11, 2018 17:43
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Yeah, I read one of those at random that I found on a bus, was it just me or was it sort of political and more than a little about using animals to thinly disguise some racial stereotype shakeouts?
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Feb 11, 2018 20:49
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I mostly recall it being extremely lame with the music magic. Like at least half the time it seemed like it was just "I need a thing to happen, let's look for a song title that's relevant and not actually check what the song is about".
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Feb 11, 2018 21:49
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Well, unless I've been on the end of an extremely elaborate scam to acquire a piddling amount of money from me, I'll likely have a physical copy of SenZar before the month is out. It'll go real nice on the shelf next to the Wraeththu RPG.
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Feb 11, 2018 22:31
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Rainbow Rowell's Carry On had a magic system where wizards make their spells out of words and phrases that have resonance with normal people, so that all spells were things like "sticks and stones will break your bones" or "born this way," and lasted as long as non-magical people were still invested in the phrase. It led to a lot of wizards having to keep up with muggle pop music even if they would have rather not.
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Feb 11, 2018 23:39
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PurpleXVI posted:Well, unless I've been on the end of an extremely elaborate scam to acquire a piddling amount of money from me, I'll likely have a physical copy of SenZar before the month is out. Careful, they might mate.
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Feb 11, 2018 23:43
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Rand Brittain posted:Rainbow Rowell's Carry On had a magic system where wizards make their spells out of words and phrases that have resonance with normal people, so that all spells were things like "sticks and stones will break your bones" or "born this way," and lasted as long as non-magical people were still invested in the phrase. I remember reading the Wizard In Rhyme books (or at least some of them) where rhymes provide the structure that helps magic work and always being confused why none of them seemed to use musical or lyrical effects, especially the main character who was pulled in from the (then) modern world.
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Feb 12, 2018 00:09
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Looks like System Mastery will be running two games during GenCon this year, in case you're a listener who wants to hang. We'll be doing a Blimpleggers game using the Strike! engine with pre-gen characters, and a Gamma Crawl X game, Return to the Truckusseum, with random character creation on site, still using Gamma World 7e.
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Feb 13, 2018 23:32
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 SANGUIS OMNIA VINCET – PART ONE A detachment of Constantine’s veterans undertake one last mission to investigate a terrible plague in the province of Lydia, and experience betrayal that reaches beyond death itself. Background The year is 330 AD. Three years ago the Gothic barbarian, slave and absolute madman Unwen made his escape by murdering his owner's children and fleeing into the mountains. Already a few sandwiches short of a picnic, he followed a voice in his head that eventually lead him to a Voorish temple, abandoned and forgotten for millenia. The magic of that place infected Unwen and gave him the ability to read Voor, letting him decipher the inscriptions on the walls and teaching him dark eldritch rituals. At the feet of a statue of the Skinless One he found a beautiful knife, a holy weapon, and named it the Mims Sahis. In a month-long ritual Unwen mutilated himself for the glory of the Skinless One, who answered his prayers and made him something no longer human. When he emerged from the cave he was Unwen Ga-Walith, the Chosen, a demigod on a mission. He returned to civilisation to free his fellow Goths and bring them to the temple, converting them to worship of the new god. They became the first human cult of the Skinless One, the Flayed. In addition, Unwen used his powers to enchant the flayed skin of his lower jaw, transforming it into a bat-like undead creature. Named Mustrigg, it became the first of the Un-Rinna Dauthi, the Risen Dead. It flew back to civilisation and bit people in their sleep, infecting them with a deadly supernatural virus that the terrified villagers are calling the Valerian Plague. As Unwen continues his diabolical machinations, word of the plague has reached the new city of Constantinople, soon to become the capital of a new Rome. Constantine's best, the elite scouts of the Fortes Falcones Auxiliary Unit, are sent out to the provinces to investigate.  So this is another pretty rad scenario, thematically very similar to The Dark Crusader. Much like that scenario, there's comparatively little actual investigation in the modern CoC sense but a whole lot of fighting. The premade characters this time around are all old soldiers, a few short weeks away from retirement. They are: - Asinius Savila, Roman citizen from the province of Hispania, who initially joined the Fortes Falcones as a Medicus and is an expert on disease. He hopes to use his commission to buy a house in the new capital and become a doctor, but he fears that the money will not be enough. - Belasir of Tihama, formerly an Arabian pickpocket who enlisted to avoid jail time. Twenty years in the Fortes Falcones has made him a scout par excellence and a crackshot with the manuballista. He wasn't looking forward to retirement until he met the local butcher's daughter. - Damanais of Savaria, a Thracian who lied to join the military at 14. He is a model soldier. He wants to stay on in the military as logistics personnel, but such positions are in high demand and the son of a former slave might not have the breeding or the clout to get the job. - Emeric of the Suevi, the son of a Germanic barbarian who pushed him into joining the army to get Roman citizenship. Emeric loves being a soldier almost as much as he loves God. He idolises Constantine and has a Chi-Rho painted on his shield. He plans to go home to preach to the Suevi. - Milonius of Kanmi, born in Carthage to a family of fishmongers. He has had a decorated military career and loves his fellow soldiers as brothers, but he looks forward to retirement. His soul has grown weary of bloodshed. He wants to marry and become a fisherman in the new capital, but lacks the funds. - Galerius Evodis, an older soldier who was drill instructor for most of the scouts, earning him the nickname Senilis. He is the second in command of the Fortes Falcones and has been dodging retirement for years. He would love to buy a tavern in the new capital, but again, he lacks the funds to do so.  They are led by Tribuni Comites Tilius Corvus, a heroic soldier and a father to his men. He has always treated the scouts well and fought alongside them through thick and thin. He's been spending time with the wealthy Lady Eudocia lately, and plans to marry her as soon as his commission comes through. He is also, in case you forgot, fated to become Fenalik, that vampire that we all love and cherish. That's right, Sanguis Omnia Vincet is really Comte Fenalik's origin story. So a happy ending is distinctly unlikely for the characters this time around – how tragically ironic, when they were so close to retirement! That said, though Corvus plays a pivotal role in the story, it's never in an annoying way and there's plenty of opportunity for the players here to kick rear end and take names. Sanguis Omnia Vincet is activated by finding the documents from the Crusader's Tomb in Vinkovci. If you don't run that scenario, you're probably not running this one either – but since Bread And Stone is so good, why would you skip it? If you do play through this, your players will have some very useful knowledge on their side when the time comes to throw down with Fenalik. Next time: what have the Romans ever done for us?
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Feb 13, 2018 23:51
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Let's get Pious Augustus all up in this business. I am as on board for Roman Times as I was for Crusader Times. I think I'd actually enjoy running Mythos adventures a lot more in past eras rather than the 20s or modern day.
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Feb 13, 2018 23:57
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Man this just reinforces my belief that Fenalik should be the BBEG if he's actually a Roman vampire that has existed since the rise of Constantinople. Kick-rear end. Also the new System Mastery is all about Brave New World and I'm excited to give that poo poo a listen. https://systemmasterypodcast.com/2018/02/13/brave-new-world-system-mastery-115/amp/
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Feb 14, 2018 00:25
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Hostile V posted:Man this just reinforces my belief that Fenalik should be the BBEG if he's actually a Roman vampire that has existed since the rise of Constantinople. Kick-rear end. I've had a tough time with this one. Worried that it's a generally well-liked RPG and my immediate distaste for the tone and the lack of content is gonna anger the ardent fans.
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Feb 14, 2018 00:40
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theironjef posted:I've had a tough time with this one. Worried that it's a generally well-liked RPG and my immediate distaste for the tone and the lack of content is gonna anger the ardent fans. It got well-received in the beginning, but by now it’s clearly a product of its time, and even as a supers RPG fan in the 90s you could see the flaws and over-reliance on metaplot. Since you only reviewed the corebook, you didn’t have to see how truly batshit and off the rails it got. You know why they do so much about the Bargainers and deals with demons? Because the entire setting takes a left turn into supers being the product of war between literal Heaven and Hell and Vatican vampire-hunters becoming the only group who knows the “truth” of the setting
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Feb 14, 2018 00:51
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Yeah disregarding my own biases and my F&F of the whole series, I have never heard anyone refer to BNW positively or generally at all out in the online tabletop scene. Like I was honestly a little surprised that some folks here remembered the line enough to have any sort of opinion on any of it because the whole series felt just abandoned and forgotten every time I remembered it existed (before running the series and realizing "yeah okay this is fine if everyone forgets it"). I think y'all will be fine and won't get much anger if it all.
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Feb 14, 2018 01:21
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Cross posting from the chat thread regarding some of the numbers involved in the Green Ronin A Song of Ice and Fire RPGXelkelvos posted:Someone with good Warfare can direct everything or a 1 die bonus, but everyone else may as well just make sure to put their characters out of harm's way. Combat focused characters are really good at combat and Marksman type characters can really trivialize combat while everyone else just twiddles their thumbs a little. The corollary to that is Social focused characters presumably dominate the entire thing while those not quite as adept just get led around. I've only played it once and one of the players who made an apothecary-type character basically checked out because they were absolutely useless while the low to no armor Ranger types pretty much shot holes into just about every threat. Ostensibly, the ideal is to make a game that's less combat heavy than a typical fantasy RPG and much more politics heavy, but I don't think it works well, even then. Agility is basically the god stat for Combat since it factors into Defense, damage dealt from certain weapons, movement and Initiative. Athletics and Fighting is the melee corollary.
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Feb 14, 2018 02:24
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  Gonna reiterate this warning for this post. Track III: Doch Nur Ein Tier quote:Depending on the game you’re running and the setting you prefer, music might be a passionate hobby, a beloved past, an unfulfilled longing, or the center of your character’s world. She might be a struggling street busker, a gifted guitar craftsman, or a talent agent with an ear for The Next Big Thing. He could be the assassin who whistles a “special” tune as his target comes into view, or the superhero whose secret identity manages a record shop. That tone-deaf bartender might be an aspiring Lestat; the mountain of muscle hefting gear could be an ogre in disguise. Most folks love music; in Powerchords, however, that love becomes an active force in their lives. So now we reach the character creation segment of Powerchords, and this is where one of the core conceits of the book starts to get strange. See, as mentioned, it's designed to be run on top of any other system (though Vampire and Shadowrun being the two examples given later in the book paints a certain picture of 'any other system'), but it also comes packaged with a trimmed down version of a system designed for one of Brucato's other independent games, Deliria. It's referred to as the Compact system, and is not really fully explained until a sidebar a third of the way into the book. The full system isnt included (since, again, this is meant to be stapled Frankenstein style on oWoD - and let's be frank, it's always gonna be oWoD), but enough is to describe some of the basic mechanics. You determine how difficult the task you are doing is with a Challenge Level, how you're trying to do it by combining traits into a pool, whether or not luck goes with you via the draw (explained at the front of the book as being synonymous with rolling dice, as Deliria's resolution mechanic relies on a deck of playing cards), and narrating the results based on what you get. If you'll note, that's indeed just how Shadowrun and oWoD do things. I can't help but think he's spinning an intensely derivative system here to be compatible rather than a knockoff. Theres the occasional mechanic as well where shifting from a specifically stacked deck of cards to a dice roll of anything from a d4 to a d100 rather dramatically changes the probability involved, but hey, who's counting, right? Additionally, I have to reiterate, the game doesn't give you enough information on how Deleria's resolution mechanics work to let you play the game at all without stapling it to something else. You want to run it with the example mechanics and terms given in the book itself? Go buy Deliria. I know it's an "open source sourcebook" but Jesus, at least tell people how the Compact system works. I had to look up a review to find the answer: you take your ability score, and if it isn't enough to immediately succeed, draw a card from a deck that has both jokers and the King of Clubs and King of Diamonds removed. If the card's red, it's positive, if the card's black, it's negative. Either add or subtract the number on the card to your result if it's got one. If it's a Jack, it counts as zero; if it's a Queen, it's an instant success or failure; if it's one of the Kings, it's an instant Triumph or Disaster, which are synonymous with exceptional success and botch/dramatic failure. Seriously, he didn't put the resolution mechanic in. If you expect anything but broad advice and system-agnostic suggestions you'll have to crowbar into place, you're about to be real disappointed. Anyway, we get to the step by step process for making a character. Step one is, and I quote, "Literally write a short story about your character." Yeah. I'm serious. Not "come up with an idea in the first place," no, go write 5,000 words about them! You've got to be artistic about this! Before picking any traits or anything, you're explicitly expected to have a character idea, have a conflict in mind for them to encounter, know how they would approach and deal with that conflict, and then present a short story about that to your group. I guarantee you that if any of my groups had told me that was a necessary part of the process of making a character I'd have bounced on the spot. Not only is this ridiculous to demand (prose is not the same skill as roleplaying you jackwagon), some of my best characters have come entirely from stupid ideas with little backing beyond a name, a face, and a vague concept. One of the best ways to flesh out a character is to have a strong core, throw them into a roleplaying environment, and have them get characterization by reacting to the world around them. Additionally, drat near every Chronicles of Darkness book I have is completely down with your character concept being "yo, this power here kicks rear end, I want this to be my signature move." Here, you're told not to touch them. What the hell happens if I build a character concept around jamming so hard that I make people compulsively do the Thriller dance, then I go over to the powers and whoops I can't do that, or it's prohibitively expensive, or whatever? From there, Step 2 is doing the things you should have done first: answering a bunch of questions about the character that spark ideas. They're structured as the "Powerchords Top Ten," and are as follows: Motif: What's your archetype? Who are you, what do you do, what are you like? Are you a musician yourself, or someone related to the biz that doesn't play? There are a lot of examples given, with larger writeups after this chapter, but you're encouraged to make up your own or mix and match elements as you like, and despite all the wordcount none of them have any suggested mechanical impact or build advice beyond generalizations. Chord: How'd you get started? What made music so important to you? quote:"For most folks, it starts with a defining moment where a kid (it’s almost always a kid) realizes Holy crap – I wanna do THAT! A chord is struck in that kid’s soul, and the echo reverberates throughout his or her life." Was it a specific moment, like Wendy O Williams blowing up a car on the Tomorrow show, or Storm Large playing at Rock Star Supernova? Ah, I should mention here Storm Large is one of the small circle of characters and bands as a part of the default Powerchords setting that's used as an example from time to time. They have this funny habit of showing up in the same breath as bands that Brucato adores. Can't figure out why. At least "I had a religious experience in Sunday choir" is another example. I suppose. Backstory: Were you raised by musicians, magicians, or fundies that hated music like hit movie Tenacious D: Pick of Destiny? How'd you get trained? How did growing up affect you? What was your family like, your first boyfriend, your neighborhood? Image: Musical genres and styles are often intertwined with culture, attitude, and fashion. What's your look? What's your sound? What do people think of you when they meet you? How do you come across to people when they get to know you more? Are you a poseur, or were you born to be a rock star? What kinda clothes do you wear? Ambitions: What do you want? Do you want to "make Eric Clapton cry, out-mope Morrisey, or freeze dry both Ice-T and Ice Cube? white boy spotted" What's your deepest passion, your driving obsession, what's "stiffening your steel?" What is greatness to you, and how are you gonna get it? Obstacles: What's in your way? How does the world, or other people, make things difficult for you? How do you make things difficult for yourself? Did you practice guitar scales while your friends O.D.ed on World of Warcraft? Lose your job or get bad grades over your passion? Wear corpse paint to Grandma's funeral? quote:On a similar note (so to speak), what musical quirks do you display? Do you drum your fingers on every flat surface, or scribble new raps on napkins at your fast-food gig? Are you that guy who can list the instruments Geddy Lee played on Hemispheres? (Sadly, this author is...) Oh, Brucato, you are That Guy in more ways than I think you like to admit to yourself. Territory: Like most other wild beasts, Brucato writes with palpable self-satisfied smirk at turn of phrase, musicians tend to have territories. Is yours your favorite bar on Friday nights? The corner club where you play gigs? The place right next to your fireplace, or on the corner, where the acoustics are just right? Do you jealously guard your spaces? Is someone trying to fight you over them? Company: So, are you in a band? If not, who do you jam with, and who has your back? Fans, groupies, your long-suffering parents or friends? Do the cops roll their eyes and sigh when they get noise complaints from your neighbors at 1 in the morning, again? Is your lover paying your rent for you? Goodies: What's your stuff? A fancy software suite, a battered thrift store guitar, a family heirloom, a $900 microphone? Most musicians, Brucato says, have one or two pieces of significant gear that is practically a part of them, like Gene Simmons' face paint (natch), Michael Jackson's glove, Van Halen's Gibson, Flava Flav's clock, Brian May's homemade guitar, "the flute your late Mama gave you in fourth grade", and the crosses that Ozzy Osbourne started wearing "when things started to get weird for Black Sabbath." What's your personal item, the thing that speaks volumes about you? Magic: Finally, we get to the goddamn magic part of the magic music game. I'm just going to post this bit verbatim. quote:Intentionally or not, a Powerchords character weaves magic with his music. This could take the form of elaborate rituals (like the Black Mass on Coven’s album Witchcraft Destroys Minds and Reaps Souls); shamanic invocations (Jim Morrison’s lyrics); mystic undercurrents (Led Zeppelin’s fourth album); occult posturing (Black Sabbath’s entire career); metaphysical subversion (Killing Joke’s entire career); psychotropic ragas (Hossein Alizadeh); hypnotic soundscapes (Soriah); instrumental prayers (Moby); lyrical enchantments (Loreena McKennitt); conspiratorial revelations (Canibus); psychic noise terror (Throbbing Gristle); spiritual purgation (Johnny Cash); heart-bursting praise (gospel music) or oblivion (black metal)... the possibilities of musical magic are almost literally endless. How, then, does your character employ them? As a priest? A seer? An enchanter? A destroyer? I leave it as an exercise to the reader to parse what the hell is going on in that list of examples. After that, it's suggested that your character, once a song, now becomes an instrument in the band that is your group, yadda yadda, work together. And now, we reach the part I've been dreading: the intro text I skipped.  The following spoilered section is a barely veiled description via music-as-metaphor of father-daughter incest that set off a flashback in a child sex abuse survivor I ran it past to make sure it wasn't just me who thought it was skeevy. Later context, and phrasing, indicate this is meant to be viewed as a wistful happy memory than something horrifying. Sections after the spoilered blocks will contain repeated mention of rape, endangerment, and examples of Brucato's personal interests that align uncomfortably over the text.quote:I knew I had a gift for this the day I climbed up in Dad’s lap and started banging on the keys. He was playing something and I liked the sound and I was just a little kid so what the hell did Iknow, right? He was kinda annoyed and all like, Come on, Meghan, Daddy’s working and all this but I reached up past him and just...I don’t really know how to describe this but I could see the sounds floating over the keys when I looked at all those black and white strips of stuff and I thought something like Hey I can do this too, and so I did. I really, really, really, really have tried to give this section the benefit of the doubt. I honest to God have. But there is no way in God's green earth you can write "He used to hold me in his lap and show me where to put my hands" without realizing you are using the exact same language children use when discussing their sexual abuse. This compounds with "stroking the keys", the time stop, the dismissal of youth meaning you don't know what you're doing, the emotions described on the father's face, and the mother - described as abandoning the family for unstated reasons - reacted to what is, textually, a father and daughter playing piano with numb shock and denial. If instead, say, she walked in on her husband fondling her daughter, the passage, and her leaving him, makes (horrible) sense. And then she gets a "real guitar", "harder than the keyboard," but she "practiced and he seemed happy" and that's what kept the two of them together. And it's capped off by her reflection that she was "Daddy's little girl," another phrase it should be impossible to write in TYOOLs 2010-2017 without realizing how loaded it makes the segment, especially with all the other poo poo in it. After reading this segment, every single mention of kids, youth, or growing up started to set off alarms in my head. And repeatedly, I feel like they're vindicated ones. Go reread that bit about kids going "I want to do that!" in Chords and see how it looks now, especially because Meghan's Chord in the character creation example is cited to be this bit of fiction. What's worse is this is not the last creepy thing we're gonna see relating to loving people under the age of consent, oh no. One of them is absolutely an in-character statement that it's part of the appeal of being a rock star. And then you remember poo poo like this, from Changing Breeds: or like this, from Mage 20th, written around the same time as Powerchords: LatwPIAT posted:There's some intro fiction. I guess I have to actually read this since I'm reviewing here. Sigh. And parts of the intro from Changing Breeds (which I'm not sure if he wrote or not but he sure had editorial power over it):  And these, from a Google books preview of a book he contributed to about sex and paganism, including one loving horrifying bit I can't decide if Google blessed or cursed me with seeing by breaking:  Keep that underlined sentence in mind.  CW: real-rear end admission he's been naked around the son of a woman he was dating because it was a nudist home And the fact that Meghan, the character in this bit, is from a webcomic called Arpeggio Brucato abandoned. Its url currently links here, screenshot included for posterity:  I'm honestly going to go over the lowlights of the character creation example, because gently caress the rest at this point.  Meghan is sixteen. Her fascination with music began with, that. Her father was a failed musician; her mother was an absent actress who divorced him and abandoned her when she was eight(, making her less than eight years old in that story.) Her father had to quit his up and coming band to care for her, but was a pretty mediocre father, who was obsessed with his past glory. She's surrounded by his friends - all failed or struggling musicians, or people he met in that time - and is thus surrounded by men in their late 30s and early 40s that both "nurture and infuriate her" with "neat toys and a genuine affection for the girl" (  count 1.) "Beneath the music lessons and encouragement they give her though, there's a nasty edge." ( count 2). "A few of Dad's buddies flirt with Meghan," (SIXTEEN YEAR OLD), "and while none have gone too far with that (yet...)," (gently caress you, count 3) "it's gotten uncomfortable now that she's past the cute-little-kid stage." (Thus insinuating they flirted with her when she was barely pubescent, and that this was more okay!? count ∞). Worse, some are noticing her talents are greater than theirs, and that there may be something unnatural to them, and they're growing increasingly bitter about this, "and in time, it may grow ugly..."Her guitar is named after Anne DiFranco and she likes punk music done by female singers and for fucks sakes we just had like three threats of impending rape of a teenager dropped like it's a normal way of raising the stakes I can't keep neutral about this y'all She's barefoot all the time because  And that Meghan, 16 year old threatened by gang rape that dreams of mysterious satyrs, looks like this?  Context is important. Context is what makes it really hard to think this is just a series of writing crutches and hackneyed tropes, or artistic flourishes. I cannot believe that I feel that I have to write this out, but one of the things an impartial editor is good for is cleaning up language and content choices that make you come across badly, and you were blind to that because, speaking as a writer myself, writers suck at analyzing our own text for typos, let alone tone and implication. It strikes me that it's been a pattern for over a decade that the less strict editorial oversight there is in the production of something Brucato writes, the more it includes weird sex poo poo that can be read, shall we say, uncharitably. I consider it another piece of evidence that Powerchords desperately needed an editor that wasn't the author's romantic partner that was also embroiled in his passion project for seven years. I'd be perfectly willing to believe she's a good editor who was just given a bear of a project - but part of project management for a book like this is minimizing what hits the editor's desk...and making sure you don't assign people to roles their personal biases and relationships are going to mess with. It just happens the evidence for that lesson was profoundly more unsettling than usual this time. Next time: Splats without number(s)
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Feb 14, 2018 02:52
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One of the redeeming features of lovely, vague writing is that I can live in an ignorant pseudo-bliss of not knowing whether this lady just had sex with her father or if these are memories of childhood sexual abuse, or some kind of metaphor.
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Well. Don't know about anyone else, but I certainly feel empty now.
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Feb 14, 2018 03:22
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You know, I'm just going to focus on the 5000 word story bullshit because I think Daeren addressed the more serious issues sufficiently already. Coming to an RPG *group* with a 5000 word backstory is going to end in sorrow. Writing that much background for your character after you've played them for a bit, in concert with your GM, for a *solo game* might be fine. Even then, you'd still want to have discussed what the game's about, come up with an elevator pitch, and probably played the character some before you start in on that. Otherwise, you're going to waste everyone's time, because if you're in a group game you're not going to be able to have time to address all those specific details you'll come up with (details you can play just as well keeping them in your head, anyway) especially if you (and everyone else) came up with them before any play actually happened. You know what I'm saying? You try showing up with 5 PCs with 10 page backstories before anyone has so much as talked in character and you're going to have a plot thread pileup of enormous proportions (or more likely just end up ignoring most of those details). Better to start simple and fill in as you play. But then, one of the consistent problems with a lot of WoD (especially oWoD) stuff is that it never seemed to concern itself with how you were going to get a group game out of it, so encouraging you to be 'artistic' like each PC is a NaNoWriMo entry (and about as forced, most likely) seems perfectly fitting to the 90s design he's stuck in. Plus, as Daeren pointed out, RPG writing is not prose writing. Your backstory and character details are there to be used and to provide a skeleton to spark improvisation and play, not to be a tear-jerking melodrama on their own. If it isn't in a form the GM and your fellow players (if you have fellow players) can use, it isn't in a form that does much for an RPG.
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Feb 14, 2018 03:35
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That spoilered section reads kinda weirdly the first time, why's the mum so jealous that she leaves, and then holy poo poo with the extra context.
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Feb 14, 2018 04:24
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I guess that is a good way to check if somebody is actually reading your 20 pages of backstory. Throw in some really creepy poo poo and see if they comment on it. Seriously though, 5000 words is insane, especially if you are in a group. As in I doubt there are many gms who want to read about 40 pages about the characters in the campaign before the first session.
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Feb 14, 2018 04:31
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On top of all the other problems, most people just are not good at writing, and giving them an assigned, rather high wordcount means you're about to encounter a whole loving bunch of filler.
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Feb 14, 2018 06:55
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Hot take: character backgrounds should fit into a tweet
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Feb 14, 2018 07:03
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gradenko_2000 posted:Hot take: character backgrounds should fit into a tweet You should, at least, be able to fit all the important stuff in a tweet. No pictures.
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Feb 14, 2018 07:14
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| # ? Apr 24, 2024 13:08 |
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gradenko_2000 posted:Hot take: character backgrounds should fit into a tweet Mine's 'th'.
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Feb 14, 2018 07:19
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