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wdarkk posted:There's a ton of board games, but I can't offhand think of an RPG where that's the case.
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Nov 28, 2018 18:15
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I just want to play Spice and Wolf, basically. I'd love to see an RPG where interacting with loans, market fluctuations, currency exchange rates and market manias are core, fun pieces of the game.
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Nov 28, 2018 18:20
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Supposedly, there's a long-deleted interview with Joss Whedon wherein he admits that Firefly was based on a Traveller campaign. The trade system is definitely just an excuse to get into adventures--you're basically playing the crew of the Millennium Falcon--but it's weird. Because Traveller is incredibly tedious and nerdy and appears to be built for people who actually want to spend hours calculating all the ins and outs of transporting X tons of self-sealing stem bolts across Y light-years. Edit: Which is fine, if that's your thing. I don't judge. I just know I'd prefer it if the GM said "it's time to sell your stuff. Take this claw hammer and hit yourself with it a few times, then I'll tell you how much money you made." Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 19:00 on Nov 28, 2018 |
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Nov 28, 2018 18:25
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 Arianda vs. Vedic Turn 2  At the beginning of Ariadna’s second round, it’s time once again for impetuous orders. The Desperado drives back up, looking to save face, and chain rifles the Deva link team, this time without the hindrance of smoke. The cowboy manages to wound one of the Devas, but gets shot in the neck for his trouble.  The surviving Irmandinho bravely/stupidly charges the Asura, firing his own chain rifle over the Mk 3’s unconscious body. This isn’t necessarily to Ariadna’s benefit, since the Chasseur can score the classified point by observing the Mk 3’s corpse. The Asura fires back in reply, rather than dodge, but all three units pass their armor rolls and keep on fighting/bleeding to death.  The party officially starts as Margot and Duroc walk on to the ALEPH deployment zone. This is also a major fuckup, as I forgot which level of Airborne Deployment they actually had - they shouldn’t be able to use the enemy DZ to walk in, just the strip between that and the exclusion zone. Infinity is a complex game, and sometimes it’s too complex for its own good. Still, I made it this far without falling completely on my face, so that’s something. Anyway, the results ended up being the same as if they’d deployed in their proper place, to the side of the table behind the Mk 5.  Which is to say that Margot shoots the Mk 5 in the back and Duroc starts jumping across scenery. Keep in mind, these two are not a fireteam - they’re two independent units with their own orders. They’re more flexible, but they burn more fuel as a result. I remember that I have Command Tokens left to spend, so I use one to coordinate an order - Margot, Duroc, the Scout and the remaining Foxtrot all move up to get into attack ranges. The Devas have line of sight on the Scout, up there on the corner perch, and the Foxtrot as she moves across to the armory; they ARO by attempting to discover the two camo markers and pass, but can’t shoot just yet. That’s unfortunate for ALEPH, as the Scout spends his LT order, revealing his status and putting a couple of hunting rifle shots into the MSV2 Deva, who’s armed with the same LMG the Mk 3 and the Asura have been putting to great use. With that hit and another from a second order, the Scout manages to take out the main hitting unit from the Deva fireteam, breaking their link and robbing them of a lot of firepower. With the primary Deva threat taken out, Duroc is free to do his thing. He super-jumps to a position behind the Asura; he tries and fails to drop a smoke grenade between him and the remaining Devas, so he’s wounded going in. However, Stealth is one of the skills nested in Martial Arts, which Duroc has, so a few hundred pounds of werewolf hitting the ground behind the Asura go unnoticed until he sticks a giant knife in her back. The Asura is wounded, but gets to react and turn around as a result. Duroc’s second attack doesn’t fair as well, and he’s crit down by the ALEPH tank. Infinity lends itself really well to impromptu cinematic moments, and doubly so around important pieces of scenery or units. I can imagine the cheesy 80s action movie strings swelling as Margot blasts away at the Asura that killed her partner, dumping shot after shot into the villain that just won’t quite die. Eventually she does manage to take it back down, after two orders and five hits. Keep in mind, this is after the Asura was already wounded by Duroc; they’re really tough. With the final Ariadnan order for this round spend, neither side is any closer to victory, but ALEPH is a mere 44 points away from Retreat. That’s maybe two models from what’s left on the table. ALEPH’s turn begins with the newly-minted Shukra lieutenant spending his LT order to move-move up the field; with the Asura and the Mk 3 down, it’s going to be hard to cram a lot of points into the armory before the end of game. The Sophotect and one of her helper bots move up as well, though the Yudbot’s path takes it into line of sight of the Irmandinho lurking in the armory and the Foxtrot just outside.  It’s kinda neat to get a model’s-eye view from time to time. Unfortunately for the sake of cinema, the Irmandinho completely whiffs with his pistol shot. The Foxtrot discreetly places a mine, then whistles innocently to herself. Sophie and her nursebot get into reach of the Devas and work some repairs. ALEPH spends another command token to reform the fireteam, which broke when the team leader was KO’d. The LMG Deva, who can see through the Foxtrot’s camo with MSV, steps out around cover and dumps five dice worth of bullets into the Ariadnan. She neatly dodges, while the Deva eats a mine for his troubles.  Note that this looks worse than it is, though it’s still bad. You have to be able to draw at least partial LoS to that black dot at the template’s origin to affect a target under said template; while this technically gets two Devas and the Yudbot in the blast, only the LMGer and the helperbot are hit. The Yudbot goes out, and the Deva is killed outright. Since ALEPH has a desperately short amount of time to get to the objective, it’s time for another coordinated order. The Sophotect, Shukra and the remaining Deva pair all move and shoot. The Shukra can’t actually see anyone, so that just fizzles. Sophie takes on the Foxtrot performs predictably. She manages to hit, but the Foxtrot dodges back into the armory, making ALEPH’s job just a little bit harder.   Next order, the Deva gets paid back for all that bad luck earlier, tagging Margot with two regular hits and one crit. Margot can really only hope to dodge, and fails on a 20, as hard as possible. She goes straight to dead, which sorta spoiled the moment from earlier. Right now, there are three Ariadnans in the armory, and the entirety of ALEPH’s mobile units clustered up behind a wall. In a mission with more options for AD, that’d be a pretty terrible position. As is, ALEPH can be reasonably confident that a Tomcat won’t show up and flamethrower what’s left of their army.  ALEPH runs up again, and this time Sophie manages to knock out that Foxtrot. Another nasty decision, as the Foxtrot has to decide between keeping potential points alive in the scoring zone, or dropping a mine to make ALEPH’s life harder. On the balance, the mine was probably the smarter choice, and that explains why I didn’t make it.  Here’s the situation. Ariadna has 28 points inside the armory, and no real chance at AROs from its support troops. It’s going to come down to this part of the board. ALEPH, meanwhile, has 80 points poised to bust through the doors, albeit into the teeth of prepared defenders. To say things are tense at the moment is a bit of an understatement. The rifle Deva to the south of the above image peeks around the door just far enough to see the Irmandinho. The rifle-droid takes out the scavenger with two shots, then swings into the room in one continuous move. The Chasseur fires his flamethrower. More rifle rounds burst from the flames, hitting the skirmisher three times. When the fire cuts off, the Deva is totally unscathed. After that moment of action movie badassery, the Deva saunters over to the panoply and picks up a glue gun. End of turn! Also, end of the game. Arianda’s turn three starts with the army in retreat after their losses in the armory; everyone left alive fends for themselves, and they don’t have enough orders left to get over there, let alone to push the ALEPH troops out. One Volunteer is still on the table edge and slips off into the night, which might help in a proper tournament to determine victory points. Not so relevant here. ALEPH remains in the armory for turn three, accruing another point on top of the one they got for holding the building at the end of turn two. The game officially ends. Neither side accomplished their classified objective, despite being in good positions to do so; the Chasseur could have observed the Mk 3 without an opposed roll, and likewise the Asura could have hackerman-ed at Uxia in the same conditions. Those orders were just that necessary to accomplish the big part of the mission. A better, more efficient player probably could have pulled it off, and by such details are tournaments won. As is, Arianda held the armory for a turn. ALEPH held it for two turns, and at the end of the game. Neither side pulled more items from the panoplies, with one each. Final score is 6-1 to ALEPH. While Ariadna took the lead and gained the momentum early on, they just couldn’t stand up to the AI’s posthuman nightmares. If I had it to do over again, I’d reposition the Ariadna ARO pieces under the assumption those forward skirmishers are going to screw up and crash their Infiltration rolls. Having a bigger, badder version of Margot’s gun keeping ALEPH’s movement options locked down would really make a difference. Also, pay attention to the AD levels, dummy. ALEPH played well and were carried by their excellent units, which is about how I expect things to go on that side. I feel like this game was a pretty good example of what you get with Infinity. There were a lot of tense moments, places where efficiency and skill make or break a game, some dice shenanigans, and a whole lot of cool setpiece fights. There was a lot more murder going on than your typical game, owing to the nature of the mission, but it makes for a more interesting demo instead of hunting a dude cowering behind a dumpster with a supply box. (Supplies is actually a really fun mission where you’re fighting over three mobile objectives, so it gets frantic fast, but duking it out over supply crates is way less cinematic than this mission.) That about wraps it up for Infinity in the immediate future. If there’s interesting content in the new book, I’ll write that up once it arrives. In the course of this writeup, I’ve definitely cooled on the fluff for this game, but drat if it’s not a fun time. I strongly suggest you check it out. You can also drop by the Infinity thread for more info and game chat; Genghis Cohen does some particularly good writeups of his tournament games, and the rest of us mostly shitpost.
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Nov 28, 2018 18:51
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My own personal heartbreaker is a game about being scheming opportunists in a medieval environment chasing after an army to profit off the dead and the war. Weapons dealing, rag trade, grave robbing, bone-picking, mudlarking, peddling smut and vice, etc.
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Nov 28, 2018 19:03
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You can certainly play that in WFRP2e and some other games, though there's not a ton of mechanical support for the trading-and-looting part. You might also want to check out the review of Almogavers ITT.
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Nov 28, 2018 19:09
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Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2e: WHFRP Companion 'Realism' is code for 'gently caress your players' If I had to pick a single article that encapsulates everything wrong with WHFRP Companion, it'd be this one, so congratulations, Steve Darlington; you wrote the worst article in a generally bad book! Excellent work. So, medicine in the Empire has traditionally had an undercurrent of snakeoil and scam artists mixed with surgeons who actually know enough to at least disinfect your wound, dress it, and keep it clean well enough that you'll eventually heal up with a nice scar to make you look a little more grim and perilous. The Heal skill and Surgery talent have both been genuinely useful things for characters; starting out with a Barber-Surgeon or Student on your team who has a good bit of Int and Heal has been a boon to a lot of parties. Getting back d10 Wounds after a fight is a big deal, especially as the healing supplies necessary to restore that to heavily wounded characters cost mere pennies. You can get a Heal check after each encounter and every day; a Barber Surgeon with Surgery healing you 2 points of damage each day that you're heavily wounded will have you back to a full healing rate in 2 days of treatment instead of 3 weeks you'd need on your own. Medics and doctors are extremely useful in Fantasy, by default; having a Shallyan around is helpful even before she can throw down half-action d10+2 superheal spells every turn. But there's also always been a bit of an undercurrent in bits and pieces of the line where people seem to think 'getting wounded PCs back into the action quickly' ruins the 'grim and perilous' atmosphere. Our good buddy Steve is one of those people, and wants to give us lots of rules to make healing more 'realistic', by which I mean wants to make things gently caress your players as hard as possible. While having some really cringe-worthy fluff. So early Imperial medicine was all based on the ancient treatise of the elven doctor Gaelen, who is an obvious standin for Galen, because gently caress, you named him GAELEN. Now the real Galen was a greek physician living in Rome who was highly influential after his reintroduction by renaissance scholars. You can't just name the elf Gaelen and have him used exactly like the historical Galen. Look, I know Fantasy does the 'fantasy counterpart culture' dance all the time, but it usually puts a twist on it instead of being so blatant. Anyway, Gaelen the elf wrote of the body as an ecosystem that needs nurturing in the whole of it and denied the efficacy of surgery. Imperials used his herbal remedies until they failed completely in 1111, when the plague killed much of the Empire. Next, necromancers made significant advances in the study of the body, through raising it from the dead and observing how the muscles and things worked directly. Later scholars would use this information but obscure its origins. This is fine, that's the good sort of warhams stuff there. Then they talk about a 'Tilean Renaissance' which has never been referenced anywhere else because Steve's stuck on 'exactly like Earth' historical references. This leads to a rise in seeing the body as a machine, to be taken apart and fixed by purely mechanical means, inspiring modern surgery. The Gaelenic-Mechanical split defines medicine, we're told, despite every competent doctor practicing both. To do this, they have to break the law to get corpses for dissection and study. This leads to a brisk trade in graverobbing, even more than the usual necromantic clientele (much better to work for rich doctors, less likely to cause you trouble) and again, this part is fine. Then we get into the bit where Marienburgers are paying for poor people to be delivered to them for vivisection from various shady hostels and flophouses and I can buy that because you can't trust the libertarian fantasy dutch. We get a bunch on a dumb trinary model of the universe that is the latest 'scientific' craze among doctors, where there's a Realm of Law (Gods, elfs), a Realm of Chaos (kahyoss), and a Realm of Men (mans) and that all disease comes at some point from Chaos and must be treated by the balancing of the Law and Men to blah blah blah blah. It's basically all just a minor variation on the Humours. It's dull. Physicians and Surgeons work in separate guilds, with Physicians trying to protect themselves from malpractice accusations by linking their guild to important potentates in the region they operate in. This, however, means those potentates can direct medical practice an awful lot, which doesn't help with the general distrust of doctors among the common man. If the Emperor reads that wearing a duck on your head is good for you, the Altdorf Physician's guild will be buying ducks by morning (the book's example) and writing treatises on why they ought to be on your head, right the gently caress now. Herbal apothecaries try to discredit physicians so people will keep coming to them rather than using science. Which is funny, because in most of the rest of the line, the joke is the physician's guild is constantly trying to poo poo on the Shallyans and other sources of healing so they can keep charging huge prices and not get their business stolen by charity. And that leads into my 'favorite' bit of all this. The section on Shallyans as 'alternative medicine'. Our author's thesis is essentially that Shallyans are incompetent healers who only get their reputation because some of them can touch an eviscerated guy, pray a little, and put his guts back in. Also, soldiers don't trust them because they're female (remember, there are male Shallyans, who are wandering doctors). 'Shallyans rarely have a Heal skill that goes over 50%', says our author; this is mechanically incorrect. The average Shallyan Initiate, at Heal+10 (their Initiate skill) and +10 Int from Initiate, will have a 51% skill. As a full priestess, she'd have a 61%. Also Initiate can go into Barber-Surgeon as a side-path and that's hardly difficult to do if you want to pick up Surgery, the thing Shallyans 'never' learn (there are ongoing theological debates in setting about surgical intervention in the church of Shallya). Only doctors can treat serious illness, while the best the Shallyan order does is provide hospice and care for you while you're dying, unless you happen upon one who has magic. Again, not actually accurate to the game's rules or the rest of the setting's fluff, though in fairness this was written before you could have a Shallyan Priestess with two Divine Marks that provides +3 Wounds healed per use of the Heal skill since ToS came out a year later. Yeah, this is partly me going to bat for the Shallyans because I like them, but it's also just weird; he's completely missed the joke in the rest of the setting that it's mostly the snake-oil salesmen who poo poo on the order of kindly, professional healers because they're cutting into their business. Okay, the fluff's out of the way, let's get to the REAL meat of why this article sucks: The lovely, lovely rules. So now we get rules for hiring a doctor, and they introduce two new ways to get hosed over: One, the better the doctor is, the higher the chance (up to 40% for a Best doctor) they're a quack and their skill is half what's listed and they have a good chance of killing you. Two, the shittier the doctor is, the higher the chance (up to 30%) they use dirty tools and infect your wound. So you can work hard to find a Best doctor, pay your 10 crowns for a single 90% Heal check, and then wham, 40% quack. If a doctor who is a quack treats your wounds or sickness, the wounds or sickness 'return' in a couple hours unless they succeeded their check by 1/2 their skill or better. So your player could get 9 wounds back, leave the office, and then 12 hours later, you reveal they're actually still down 9 wounds and shouldn't have paid for such a good doctor. Yay! Fun and engaging! Wound Infection is new. If you don't get treatment for your injuries and try to heal naturally, you have to make a +30 Toughness test EVERY DAY you haven't gotten a Heal test (or an Agi+20 test from an ally with some bandages and soap) or your wounds get infected. You get a -10 per crit you've taken, a -10 if you got hit by Skaven or Nurglites, a -10 to -30 for taking hits in a filthy environment, and a further cumulative -10 per day your wounds haven't been treated. If infected, you get a disease that causes a Tough test each day or lose -5% to all stats, until 14 days pass, you get your wounds treated properly (and without the doctor rolling Infection, which all but a Best doctor can do), or you die from your Toughness reaching 0. Fun! So the solution is have a PC with Heal, which was something you wanted anyway. You need your wounds treated or cleaned again every 3 days, unless you cauterize them with gunpowder, taking a Damage 3 hit but instantly clearing any chance of infection. If your Tough gets down to 1/2 max from sickness, you have gangrene. Losing any further characteristics to the infection if it's become gangrenous is a permanent loss and the infection will not stop until you get surgery. So if you get gangrene you're hosed. Next, we have rules for making the Surgery Talent no longer automatically grant its bonuses. Now it can infect you, too, based on where it's performed and with what tools. A Heal-10 test can help save a badly damaged limb or bodypart by providing the normal +20 Toughness to the test to keep it that you get if you have an ally with Surgery (so it's literally just 'that thing you bought, now you have to roll to see if it happens it all'). If you are trying to save a gangrenous limb, you roll Heal at a penalty equal to the Infection Check difficulty that caused the gangrene, instead, to cut away the damaged and ruined parts but let the rest heal. There's no anesthesia in the Empire, so a character under treatment needs a -20 WP test or to be tied down tightly, or else they throw off a surgeon's Heal test from screaming and writhing in agony (-5% to the Heal test per minute the surgery was going to take, no rules for determining how long surgery is BTW). If the Heal-10 to help the patient fails, there's a chance you infect them. Yay! Removing gangrene just turns the infection into a normal infection and requires another Heal test to heal it or for the patient to wait it out. Oh, and we get a 'further reading' section after all this if you want, to show Steve read some books about medical history at some point. You know, though, the key question: What the gently caress does any of this add? It's all just a random gently caress you to players who take hits, in a system that can already be pretty dangerous early on. This is the worst sort of 'I added a bunch of subsystems that exist solely to slow the game down and make things worse.' A medic was already really useful to a party. This just makes their abilities less reliable for no reason. And the bit with the Shallyans is still pretty loving weird. Who are these rules for!? Little things like 'oh the more resources you spent on a doctor the more likely you are to get screwed' are A: Mechanically incoherent even if you think they'd be thematic (from 'great' doctors being likely to be a sham) because generally spending more effort and resources on a thing gets you a better return on them and B: All it effectively does is make it even more necessary for a party to have someone with Heal rather than hiring outsiders, since a PC doesn't interact with either the Base Infection Chance or Quack rule. Get a Shallyan and ignore this stupid poo poo even if your GM is somehow insisting on using it for 'realism'. Next Time: 'Advanced social rules' Night10194 fucked around with this message at 19:20 on Nov 28, 2018 |
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Nov 28, 2018 19:12
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Robindaybird posted:great, with YT's algorithms, I'm going to get a bunch of garbage incel takes recommended to me. I highly recommend Hbomberguy's YouTube Censorship Addon. It's a free extension for Google Chrome which blocks a variety of far-right shitbag channels from showing up in your Recommended. Thanks to it, I haven't seen a Sargon video even peripherally in months.
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Nov 28, 2018 19:43
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Ryuutama has a merchant class that deals with trading bulk goods. Burning Wheel crossbows kill you every time, just annihilate anyone not in the heaviest armour, and even then its close.
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Nov 28, 2018 19:45
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In the original Al-Qadim book, one of the potential kits for rogues was the merchant-rogue. Not much support for actual merchanting, though.
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Nov 28, 2018 20:04
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Night10194 posted:Get a Shallyan and ignore this stupid poo poo even if your GM is somehow insisting on using it for 'realism'. Ever have a suspicion that someone has written an article just because some horrible Shallyan (or person quoting Shallyan fluff) ruined his planned gently caress-you to a bunch of PCs? This drips with "in my campaign we don't have such namby-pamby healers", said in a nasal voice by a acne-ridden teenage GM who is upset his players all passed their save-or-dies for his wonderful new pet disease. Hostile V posted:My own personal heartbreaker is a game about being scheming opportunists in a medieval environment chasing after an army to profit off the dead and the war. Weapons dealing, rag trade, grave robbing, bone-picking, mudlarking, peddling smut and vice, etc. A Bertold Brecht simulator! With rules for randomly breaking into song and/or dialectical materialism, I hope.
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Nov 28, 2018 20:27
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Loxbourne posted:Ever have a suspicion that someone has written an article just because some horrible Shallyan (or person quoting Shallyan fluff) ruined his planned gently caress-you to a bunch of PCs? This drips with "in my campaign we don't have such namby-pamby healers", said in a nasal voice by a acne-ridden teenage GM who is upset his players all passed their save-or-dies for his wonderful new pet disease. I think some people just hate them because they're generally nice people who are what they appear to be. Like, there's usually no sinister twist on them, they're usually just reasonably nice, overworked doctors, some of whom have healing powers, or community charity organizers. They're neither dicks nor incompetent, just they don't try to fix systemic issues in favor of continuing to treat symptoms. That's it. E: Also yes they can completely negate the Disease rules but that's at like Career 3; everyone's impressive at Career 3. Everyone.
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Nov 28, 2018 20:35
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EthanSteele posted:Burning Wheel crossbows kill you every time, just annihilate anyone not in the heaviest armour, and even then its close. Like, I've never played in a D&D game where anyone cared about how easy it is to gently caress up a bow so that it can't fire. Sure, it could be interesting to play with, but in practice it's No Fun if your archer steps in a water trap and becomes almost useless for the rest of the adventure. Loxbourne posted:A Bertold Brecht simulator! With rules for randomly breaking into song and/or dialectical materialism, I hope.
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Nov 28, 2018 20:40
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Actual merchanting would just be social combat rules, methinks. I'm also of the belief that yeah, injury is really easy to shrug off if you survive combat in hams game (I don't recall ever entering combat not fully healed in any of the ffg rpgs), but these rules just suck.
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Nov 28, 2018 20:40
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Halloween Jack posted:I think the problem with crossbows is that it's hard to make them distinct from bows without making the differences a chore to keep track of in the rules. It wouldn't really be that hard, sure, give them a slower fire rate, but compensate it with a higher damage per shot and a bonus to hit. It wouldn't be some sort of highly complex parallel system to keep track of, just a simple stat boost that'd give them a niche among less-trained combatants as something to start a fight or ambush off with before busting out other weapons.
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Nov 28, 2018 20:45
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Well, in the FFG games, if you take significant damage you're probably dead because every character is made of tissue paper next to the weapons and damage powers, so it's dodge tank or die most of the time. What little damage PCs take without exploding tends to be scratch damage that Medicae can heal easily. The key to damage and healing in 2e is that healing during combat is limited. You can get that one Heal check for the encounter during the encounter, yeah, but most of your best healing still takes a couple days if you don't have a powerful priest with you. It's usually enough to be a factor and to bring in some resource management without having the same binary 'full health' and 'Haha Classic Lascannon' states as in 40kRP, but a good medic will be able to put you back together quick enough. I think what really gets me is the screed about Shallyans, then in the next bit, loving over mundane medics and surgeons once you get to the rules. Nothing in them makes magical healing harder, and instead it pulls dumb poo poo like 'hey you know the benefits of that Surgery talent that only a few classes get and you kind of had to go for specifically? Yeah, roll Skill-10 or you don't get to apply them and also maybe kill your mate'. All it does is gently caress mundane medics and their teammates. The Shallyan is still over here, ignoring this subsystem and happily taping your arm back on.
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Nov 28, 2018 20:46
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I really appreciate the 4e disease rolls basically just laying everything out upfront and making it clear that, actually, yeah, having Heal and ideally a Shallyan is important and will actually help a lot, while still providing the snake oil quackery in the form of 'and if all else fails for this very minor symptom, you can roll a 10% chance to see if you find an actual medicine that will get rid of it for a while.'
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Nov 28, 2018 20:51
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And just as importantly, it's not just Shallyans who can heal people. The game of WHFRP I was in had an Ulrican priest who was a genuinely accomplished healer and surgeon, on the basis that what Ulric cares about is whether you can survive - you clearly survived, so it's good to get you back up to speed as soon as possible so you're at your best for the next fight, dying of injuries or disease after the battle is just not fit for a warrior.
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Nov 28, 2018 21:00
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PurpleXVI posted:It wouldn't really be that hard, sure, give them a slower fire rate, but compensate it with a higher damage per shot and a bonus to hit. It wouldn't be some sort of highly complex parallel system to keep track of, just a simple stat boost that'd give them a niche among less-trained combatants as something to start a fight or ambush off with before busting out other weapons.
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Nov 28, 2018 21:02
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Yeah, all Priests have Heal as a skill (and most will invest in +10 and +20 as they go up, because Heal's loving useful) and any Initiate could've done the Barber-Surgeon dip. Sigmarites and Shallyans just have actual healing spells, and only the Shallyan one goes off fast enough to be useful for in combat healing (Sigmarite one takes 1.5 full actions and only ever heals d10). E: Also the Diseases in 4e being much more of a collection of symptoms/traits is a much better idea than the way they're handled in 2e, where they come in 3 flavors: Minor debuff for a few days, serious illness that requires Tough tests each day or lose stats that kills you if you run out of Tough, and Everything Inflicts loving Neglish Rot, Get A Shallyan Or You're Dead. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 21:07 on Nov 28, 2018 |
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Nov 28, 2018 21:04
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Stars Without Number has a semu-abstract merchanting system in the Suns of Gold book.
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Nov 28, 2018 21:20
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Just Dan Again posted:I know that people have lives and families (and holidays to celebrate), but man I have a hankering for some Rifts. Don't get me wrong, I'm loving all of the content that's rolling through the thread right now! It just doesn't seem like FATAL & Friends without a Rifts review churning away. I've been writing a lot on stuff that's generally more positive if somewhat less nerdy lately. Coincidentally, I just started writing on them again this week, though. The major issue is that I'm looking to get 3-4 books ready to go in a row, because World Books 20, 22, and 23 are all on the same subject - Canada. So I'd like to be able to just fire off that whole lot at once (like I did for Russia), and that'll take awhile. In the meantime, I'd recommend podcasts like System Mastery, who just did reviews of Beyond the Supernatural and Nightbane for October, or MegaDumbCast, which is doing the deepest dive on Heroes Unlimited. It's not Rifts, of course, but there are good people mucking about in the poo poo mines while I'm busy hauling up a new load.
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Nov 28, 2018 23:58
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Alien Rope Burn posted:I've been writing a lot on stuff that's generally more positive if somewhat less nerdy lately. Coincidentally, I just started writing on them again this week, though. The major issue is that I'm looking to get 3-4 books ready to go in a row, because World Books 20, 22, and 23 are all on the same subject - Canada. So I'd like to be able to just fire off that whole lot at once (like I did for Russia), and that'll take awhile. Huh. They finally did an Iron Heart book, I'm guessing?
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Nov 29, 2018 00:31
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There was some support for trading characters in Elves of Athas, and Dune Trader from the same setting, but I can't remember for the life of me if they were worth a drat or not.
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Nov 29, 2018 02:15
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FMguru posted:Keeping the bills paid on a beat-up tramp freighter by trying to buy and sell high was a core (arguably, the core) campaign style for Traveller, going back to the original 1977 little black books. The catch was that the trade system was designed to make it almost possible to make a living by engaging with it, so when things got tight you had to take on dangerous side work (i.e, adventures) to keep the bank from repo-ing your ride. The trade system was an excuse to get your players to travel around and get caught up in adventures. It assumes several rather dated things tho, like pensions, middle aged people having accumulated some sort of still-relevant marketable job skill, and assuming dying at age 18 was a failure, instead of a massive success. Ronwayne fucked around with this message at 06:13 on Nov 29, 2018 |
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Nov 29, 2018 04:30
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Dawgstar posted:Huh. They finally did an Iron Heart book, I'm guessing? Hahahahaha- No.
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Nov 29, 2018 06:20
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You could probably use the more-detailed trading/travel/piracy stuff from Fragged Seas, along with the resource sub-game from Fragged Kingdoms as the basis for a trading game in any of the three really. In fact, I suspect someone's done precisely this...
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Nov 29, 2018 09:23
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Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2e: WHFRP Companion Advanced Torture Table Errrrgh. It's not worse than the medicine chapter, but look, it's our buddy Jude Hornborg (from the Merchants chapter) back to try to add mechanical complexity to a non-combat subsystem in Advanced Social Rules. I honestly appreciate the sentiment and the design goal and it makes sense it's the same guy, it just doesn't work great. I appreciate pushing back against the tide of 'don't actually roll social skills! Talk it out with ROLEPLAYING and gently caress the player who spent points on Fel' in the pre-made adventures but this chapter does a really bad job of trying to do so. So the first thing it adds is Disposition. NPCs will now have a Disposition based on their past dealings with the players and how much they like or hate them. These range from -3 (Enemy) to +3 (Ally) and provide a -30 to +30 to Fel if you're trying normal social interaction tests with that character. Notably, they do NOT apply to Intimidate, making it more useful in hostile encounters. Disposition starts at a level set by the adventure and the GM and goes up or down as players either gently caress up or succeed at social interactions with the character, or do quests for them or whatever. These are only for major NPCs the players will be dealing with a long time. Also, despite these affecting the difficulty of player rolls and skills, 'the GM should never tell a player an NPC's Disposition and should instead strive to convey it through ROLEPLAYING' (sigh). Look, it's fine to not have a sign on everyone saying 'HOW DOES THIS GUY FEEL ABOUT YOU', but you sort of need to tell a player their TN, or else you'll run into 'I rolled 20 under my Fel+Charm Skill, how the gently caress did I fail?'. Disposition can also be used for groups of NPCs; say your players have done a lot of good for the Knights of the White Wolf, or one of your PCs is a Sigmarite priest in good standing at their temple. Those people would get positive Disposition with members of those groups. Disposition as a tracking 'reputation' bonus or malus isn't the worst idea in the world, even if it's a little awkward; the normal adventures and books suggest doing this kind of thing (like the huge Fel bonus for giving groups back their relics rather than selling them in Ashes of Middenheim) and codifying it more directly and tracking it isn't terrible. Next we get more of 'what Charm, Gossip, and Intimidate do', splitting them each into two test types. Lying vs. Charming for Charm, Gossiping vs. Investigating for Gossip (Gossip is actually a tremendously important skill in Fantasy, because 'I go ask around for a couple hours' is an important thing to be good at), and Intimidate (which can use Fel) vs. Scare (which only uses Str) for Intimidate. We get 'expanded tables' for success or failure on social skills, with only successes of 3+ DoS actually guaranteeing someone buys your lie (otherwise they get an opposed WP test) while low failures on Charm actually open the door to making another offer or trying another angle if you can think of one quick (which isn't a bad idea). Failing social skills by a lot naturally lowers Disposition, while succeeding them by a lot raises it. This is the part where I kind of don't like the Disposition rules, because they threaten to become spirals. If succeeding well at Fel gets you more Fel in the future with that character, you've just given players a gameable system and if you do that, players will game that system. I'd rather keep it as a simple reputation tracker based on campaign events, letters of recommendation, etc; reputation is a good reward for players and giving them contacts and fame for their adventures is a good option to have. The general idea of 'If you only fail by a little, someone's suspicious of you or you need to make another offer or an NPC only answers a single question to get you off their back' is actually good, though. Making narrow failures into complications or ways to continue negotiations is a good idea in a system where early characters have a 30-50% success chance (not counting Fortune). A hint of movement towards a 'fail forward' mechanic is something the game system needed and especially something the pre-made adventure authors needed hammered into their skulls. A low failure being an opportunity to offer to trade favors instead of just getting what you want is a good idea. Also, while a huge success requires 3 DoS, a catastrophic failure requires a full 6 DoF. We also get 'special social actions', which are just terrible. Extremely bad. Let's use one as an example of why these are awful: Seduce: Costs you 2 Fortune points to *attempt*, improves NPC disposition towards the PC by one if you succeed a Fel vs. WP test, PC must be of a gender the NPC is sexually attracted to, must have 35+ Fel, must be wearing Good/Best Clothing or succeed a Perform test before even attempting the Fel vs. WP test if they don't have flashy enough pants, and can have 'awkward consequences' if the NPC becomes 'emotionally attached'. Can be used 'reactively' to attempt to turn a failed Charm, Gossip, or Inquire into a 'standard success'. Okay, that's a lot of bad ideas in one place! First, I generally prefer not to have explicit 'seduce' actions in games and prefer to leave that up to an individual table, but that isn't the biggest deal. The biggest deal is Costs 2 Fortune to attempt. Fortune points are loving valuable. Forcing a player to spend 2 to even attempt an action (which has an opposed component, no skill that players can use to have skill mastery or talents apply, etc) means players aren't going to use this option. Also, hilariously, this means a good portion of elves can't try to seduce people because they're not lucky enough to even attempt it. Also, what's this about flashy pants? Why are flashy pants a necessary component of seduction? Are the PCs some manner of fancy bird, who either needs nice enough plumage OR must do a ridiculous stampy-dance (the perform check) in order to attempt to be seductive? And that's not saying anything about the 'negative' of 'ugh, they might get clingy and care about you'. The 'reactive option' is also literally just spending 2 Fortune to try to do what you CAN NORMALLY JUST SPEND 1 FORTUNE TO DO GODDAMNIT. All the Social Actions are like this. They all cost 1-2 Fortune to even attempt, and they don't even do anything all that impressive. Giving someone +1 Dispo is effectively putting yourself through all that effort for a +10 to Fel checks in the future with that person. It's just not worth it! The entire Social Action subsystem is a bad idea. Toss the whole thing out a window. We also get a minor subsystem for demanding blackmail and bribery from NPCs, but ehh. Then we get the trial rules, which are just a worse, more complicated, and more likely to gently caress you version of the cursory trial rules from Sigmar's Heirs. This is also where we get the Advanced Torture Table, where if the trial ends up a trial by ordeal or the players are 'interrogated', you roll on a d10 table to see how they get tortured and they have to make a WP test or break and give evidence against themselves or get convicted. One of these options, Head Crushing, not only has a -30% WP save or give up the goods, but you also roll Tough or permanently lose d10 Int. Permanent stat penalties are a bad idea, Jude. But really, a table for torturing the PCs is a little in bad taste; just have someone roll Torture vs. their WP if you have to and leave how much detail people want to go into to their individual table. Also, according to this table, waterboarding is very minor interrogation that barely counts (+30% WP) and as this was written during the Bush Admin, I'm gonna say that's in pretty bad taste. The general gist of the trial is a bunch of 'roll for complications and then have an opposed test between the lawyers or judge' and then eventually 'roll completely randomly for sentencing, up to and including execution'. For any normal crime, you have a 10% chance of being executed. At the very least, a minor crime gets you +4 on the d10 table so you can't be executed for jaywalking, just displayed in the stocks or fined or whipped. Major crimes get you -4, so at best you'll be displayed in a gibbet for d10 days, with 50% chance of execution. Also lots about mutilation and long term imprisonment. The trial stuff is, again, the kind of overcomplex subsystem that still just boils down to RNG that never gets used in anyone's games. Jude at least identified a design idea (non-combat skills like trading and talking aren't as mechanically complex and don't have as much to them as fighting) and tried to fix it, but he didn't do a very good job. It's not as awful as the Medical chapter, but the 'Advanced Social Rules' don't add much to the game besides maybe a reputation tracker and the idea that social near-misses should at least open up the option to try different approaches or further negotiation. Still not much worth using here. Next Time: How do you make a city of pirates BORING!?
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Nov 29, 2018 16:09
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Has anyone had a chance to read through the free starter adventure that just came out for Warhammer FRP4e? https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/259270/WFRP-Ubersreik-Adventures--If-Looks-Could-Kill?src=newest I've read it once now and overall I like it, it has a good mix of social and combat plus some interesting twists on the genre. I'm a little concerned about the use of the Strigany (Warhammers NOT-romani ethnic group). While they seem to make a point of subverting Romani stereotypes I still feel a little anxious about it. Thoughts?
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Nov 29, 2018 20:15
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4e has made an effort to try and unfuck the Strigany. I haven't read through the adventure to see if they manage it, tho.
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Nov 29, 2018 20:21
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Mors Rattus posted:4e has made an effort to try and unfuck the Strigany. I haven't read through the adventure to see if they manage it, tho. I want to believe that they've done a good job here. One of the main themes of the scenario is about subverting stereotypes the steadfast dwarf turns out to be a charlatan, the Strigany are just a displaced people with what are actually very reasonable "superstitions" (that stelle which gives everyone bad dreams and is constantly surrounded by mist is haunted), etc. However, there is still an old Strigany mystic/fortune teller trope and as a white dude I'm not sure if that's offensive or not?
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Nov 29, 2018 20:37
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Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2e: WHFRP Companion How do you gently caress up pirate town? So, this is another article that could conceivably be a very good idea. Sartosa is an infamous Tilean city-state on an island off the coast that has served as a pirate haven and lawless city of 'liberty'. A pirate city and a chance to have a look at Tilea? That sounds fun, right? But they don't do anything with it, and the information in the article is too thin to actually run piratical adventures with. It also leans a little too hard on just being a generic Golden Age of Piracy style den of scum and villainy. As you might expect from a lawless den of heavily armed outlaws and warlords who make their living by sword and pistol, the 'free city' is an awful lot freer the more you're able to bring to bear a bunch of armed mates. Sure, no-one has the right to give you orders based on title, but the Pirate Lords have an awful lot of men with guns. Those men with guns are a compelling argument that you ought to freely and rationally assess your situation and then do everything the Pirate Lord says you should, faster than you can say 'Non-Aggression Principle violation'. In theory, Sartosa is governed by the Pirate's Code, which is reprinted in entirety here. It's the usual stuff; everyone votes on important decisions, captain has final say, stealing from or killing your mates is punishable by walking the plank, etc, but it's got two weird problems with it. One, it says women aren't allowed on ships and anyone trying to bring one aboard in disguise will be shot. Two, no wizards. No wizards among pirates. Oh, also, everyone expects to make about 500 GC a voyage, so pirates are apparently rich as hell. Having a big 'any woman caught on ships gets shot' sort of deal is a littttttle limiting. Sartosa's only two exports are theft and mercenaries, with the mercenary houses setting up to sell their services to the pirates (who often need good soldiers) and being the usual colorful band of competing, large mercenary companies and regiments that each try to dominate the market. Similarly, the Pirate Lords are pirates who have done so well for themselves that they can afford to stop pirating. They try to keep their scuffles to skullduggery and assassination and spies rather than having their large private security forces shoot one another in the streets. The main thing Sartosa offers the pirates is a safe haven. The island is an old volcanic island, supposedly formed by Ranald to save the city's founder ages ago, which then annoyed Manaan enough that he demanded this first pirate be devoted to both of them or else he'd, uh, get Manaan on him. Sartosans love their volcano, because it's easy to spot from a long distance away and makes a great navigational landmark and conversation piece. The Sartosans are often patronized by nobles and wealthy merchants looking to hire them to get things done on the sea, but they love betraying these people. However, any time anyone tries to put a stop to their piracy, they apparently instantly drop everything to band together and are one of the strongest navies in the world, forming an 'invincible' wall of galleons around their island. They don't make anything, nor is there mention of anything besides aforementioned invincible navy (which seems a bit odd for pirates) that makes it difficult to attack or sail to their island. They are self-sufficient on food because of excellent fishing, apparently, but the pirates often attack the pearl-divers and fishermen around their shores and force them to give up their harvest. Most of the description of the city is the various generic pirate taverns within. The pirates are also known for having an awful lot of guns. Cannons, muskets, pistols, firearms are everywhere in Sartosa. That's about all you get. That's pirate town. Not really much on the sorts of adventures you could have there, and just...nothing. There's nothing. It's all the most generic possible pirate haven you could imagine. It's boring! They made a city of pirates BORING! Goddamnit, Eric Cagle, how did you make a city of pirates boring and incoherent! A pirate city of adventure is like, one of the easiest things to do in an RPG! It needed an actual hook besides 'the city is full of pirates and they steal'. There's just nothing beyond that. So let's take this as an opportunity to talk about why this is disappointing when so much of Hams starts from cliched points of view or fantasy tropes as is. One of the keys to the appeal of Hams Fantasy is that it is built on a bunch of recognizable fantasy cliches, but they tend to be taken a little further. Let's take the example of the elves: Warhammer elves act like the elves in every other fantasy setting on the surface. They're a bunch of very powerful, arrogant assholes who think they're aloof and sneer at everyone else while everyone tries to solve problems, with the pointy-eared dicks coming in at the last minute to act like heroes every goddamn time. Then, it posits that everyone loving hates them for this and that this arrogance is the single greatest threat to their civilization. They act exactly as you'd expect for elves, but things react to them more like you'd expect people to treat people like that. There's no twist or examination in the Sartosa write-up. It's just a bunch of pirate cliches without examination or any effort to make it feel like a 'real' place inhabited by people. Where do they get all the guns? I dunno, they have a single gunsmith on the island and somehow he does all of it. How do they trade their booty? Well, they're so rich people trade with them even though they love betraying and destroying the people who do. How do they survive all the people they piss off? Well...uh, they have a basically invincible navy somehow. The real reason they have the guns is because pirates have guns. They collect their booty and are able to sell it because pirates have booty. They survive because...well, if they didn't they couldn't be pirates. They don't go any deeper than the surface level cliches, and even then they're incoherent, with the bits like 'no women or wizards', which just seems unnecessarily limiting for a subsetting. There's none of the 'this is a goddamn mess that people actually live in' that sells the Empire, Kislev, and Bretonnia; everyone's a living cliche instead of living in a cliche, so to speak. So yeah, this book hosed up a city of pirates and made them a boring, thinly written cliche. Nice work. Next: Rumor persists that the pig was assassinated.
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Nov 29, 2018 21:50
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Night10194 posted:One, it says women aren't allowed on ships and anyone trying to bring one aboard in disguise will be shot. 
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Nov 29, 2018 23:11
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Man, the little pirate den where you get the sextant or whatever in Ultima IV has more going on.
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Nov 29, 2018 23:13
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If I ran WHF I would keep the "no women" clause in the code. I'd even have a very poorly disguised Mary Read explain to them how important the rule is.
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Nov 29, 2018 23:39
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Yeah, the women thing is weird, considering. It feels like someone was like "Well that's how pirates are!" and then didn't think about anything else because they don't get you need to do more than that. The lady pictured above is Arnassa Saltspite, one of the Pirate Lords of Sartosa and (according to her) the daughter of Manaan himself in Total Warhams (and originally, the terrible Dreadfleet boardgame). Tibalt posted:If I ran WHF I would keep the "no women" clause in the code. But we already have Bretonnia. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 23:52 on Nov 29, 2018 |
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Nov 29, 2018 23:48
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Just have everyone's interpretation of the law be that at the beginning of a voyage, everyone gets a ounce and a half of rum to celebrate. Pirates don't give a poo poo about the spirit of the law.
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Nov 29, 2018 23:59
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There's a ceremonious 'start' of the voyage where that ritually check that there are no women aboard Once this is done a rowboat pulls up and the rest of the crew get on board.
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Nov 30, 2018 00:22
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Strange because in real life women pirates were a well known thing during the golden age of piracy. It was considered unusual but not overly so.
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Nov 30, 2018 00:28
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Declare that in keeping to a oath sworn to some half forgotten Bretton there can be absolutely no women aboard, therefore any sailor counts as a man while serving and will be held to all the duties of a male sailor. "We pirates pride ourselves on never breaking a promise" Should someone even dare to imply that there are women serving as pirates 
By popular demand fucked around with this message at 00:45 on Nov 30, 2018 |
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Nov 30, 2018 00:42
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