Mors Rattus posted:

In Nomine: Everything Under Heaven
<Dissonance and Discord>

Nessus posted:

I think it wasn't really planned as a "line" at all, and has only become one because there was somewhat more demand than expected.

Asimo posted:

The In Nomine writeup reminds me that while I never minded Dan Smith's B&W art in like the thousand different GURPS books he did, his color art was really bad. Or at least whoever colored over his silhouette work did a lovely job of it.

LatwPIAT posted:

I've been under the impression that the World of Darkness games sold themselves on their simplicity and elegance, but this is detail and fidelity that competes with GURPS.

Alien Rope Burn posted:

All the same, by the time they got to Mage there's zero excuse not to have some sort of coherent style guide for the line, or at very least for an editor to lean over and manage compatibility.

Kavak posted:

Reading this, I'm starting to think that Beast was not some huge misstep and that Onyx Path is slipping back into White Wolf's lovely old ways.

Kavak posted:

"Editor", is that some type of minor character template from a supplement they forgot to include?

Reading this, I'm starting to think that Beast was not some huge misstep and that Onyx Path is slipping back into White Wolf's lovely old ways.

Kurieg posted:

Demon recently had a new release with it's Storytellers Guide and it's apparently a return to form.

Alien Rope Burn posted:

It just feels like there's just no strong editorial direction. Even in a generally solid book like Werewolf: the Forsaken 2e I had to go back to the previous edition to try and figure out how / why a werewolf is a member of a tribe. It seems to be more on the quality of the writers involved to make sure things come together well.

LatwPIAT posted:

They seem to offload a lot of the development and even quality control on the STs, rather than providing rigorous and elegant mechanics

Grnegsnspm posted:

It was also our Second Episode of System Mastery. Which we only did because I was super interested to see what the hell you would do in a Buffy RPG.

Count Chocula posted:

Slay vampires?
Buffy's the show that made research look fun.

quote:

Legend: You can channel the essence of a legend of pop-culture icon. This lets you, once per story, roll [Legend] to get Quintessence back. The difficulty of this roll is based on how well-known the legend is. The more dots you have, the less obscure the legend is, so having few dots in Legend makes it pretty useless... though 1 dot gives you access to pop-culture icons like Grumpy Cat. On the legend side of things, for 1 dot you can channel the legend of Abou Hassan. For 2 dots, you can channel a significant pop-culture figure like Janis Joplin (...who?), while 3 dots lets you channel Batman and Elvis. At 4 dots you can channel a major legend like Geronimo (...uh, who?) or Red Riding Hood, while 5 dots are "A universally popular legend" like Cinderella or King Arthur. Does anyone else think this is a bit patronizing and culturally provincial? This Abou Hassan guy, who apparently has a million restaurants named after him is a 1-dot Legend, while obscure figures from US history like Geronimo are 4-dot Legends and western fairy tales and literary canon like Cinderella and King Arthur are 5 dots. Frankly, Batman is probably more well-known than Cinderella.

Kavak posted:

Reading this, I'm starting to think that Beast was not some huge misstep and that Onyx Path is slipping back into White Wolf's lovely old ways.

LatwPIAT posted:

I was somewhat horrified to read the writer's guide for nChangeling 2E and discover that it included things like "don't care too much about edge cases, we expect the STs to handle that" (paraphrased) and "I don't want more than 300 words on specific Tilts - instead there'll be a system for making Tilts" (paraphrased, but with less uncharitable interpretation this time). They seem to offload a lot of the development and even quality control on the STs, rather than providing rigorous and elegant mechanics - and I know they can do better; the WoD games have often been full of interesting emergent mechanics that help to create stories from simple interactions. One of my favourite examples is how Willpower and Vice interact in World of Darkness, where you need to spend Willpower to do difficult ~stuff~ and the best way to regain Willpower is to invoke your Vice. The result is that characters who face adversity get stressed and are tempted to succumb to their vices a lot, because investigating the supernatural is stressful and going out and getting drunk, starting a fight, or having a one-night stand is tempting.

Medicine Worker Short Fiction posted:

Those who had seen them together in the casinos and the clubs assumed from their appearance that Thunder was either a john or a sugar-daddy. He appeared to be a Native American in his 80s. She appeared to be a Black woman half his age. She wore a tank-top and jeans that showed off her curviness. He has a tailored suit and thick money-roll. There were few other conclusions anyone could reach.

Fingernails scraped his skin savagely. Thunder let out a cry of pain and surprise, but it was not loud enough to wake the woman next to him. Thunder scrambled out of bed and stumbled to the bathroom as fingers pulled on his shoulder-length grey hair and a thumb poked into his eye. Thunder got into the bathroom, turned on the lights and the loud fan and locked the door. Then he commanded, in his native tongue, “stop.”

“Avenge me,” hissed an angry voice, coming from the air in front of him, also speaking in his native tongue. There was no other visage in the room to look at, so Thunder stared at his own ancient-looking face in the mirror. “Avenge me,” the voice hissed again. “You are my kin, you are honorbound to avenge me. She is a member of the Owl clan, you must kill her, not have sex with her. You should be castrated!”

Thunder sighed. “She’s not a member of the Owl clan. Most of her ancestors were African. She’s barely even aware that she has our people in her blood. She has absolutely nothing to do with the people who killed you.”

“I can’t rest until my death is avenged, and I won’t let you have a moment’s peace.”

Thunder punched the mirror and it cracked. “I’ve done terrible things,” he growled. “The things I’ve done… to the White man, to the Black man, to my own people. I’ve done things so terrible you would never have dreamed of them when you were alive. So many souls would love to drag me to the world below. And you are what haunts me? A cousin I can barely even remember? This is a loving joke.”

Voodoo Short Fiction posted:

“Those of us with actual pride in our actual heritage don’t pick and choose, we’re proud of the bits we brought over from Africa, we’re proud of the bits we stole form the Indians and we’re even proud of the bits imposed on us by the White man. We don’t need to dress our religion up as something it ain’t or censor the bits that aren’t currently politically correct.”

Cal continued “This dance is a farce. No Saints are gonna visit us while you’re leading us, and anyone who acts like they’re being ridden will be just pretending. You’re as bad as those drat New Agers always coming around here with their crystals and their Yoga, trying to add bits of our religion into their play-religion. You, sir, are a god-drat Oreo cookie with a New Age middle.”

Fossilized Rappy posted:

I'm not exactly sure why there's such a disconnect between the actual game text and the short fiction, but it's really jarring every time.

Kavak posted:

You ever read the Vampire the Requiem source book Damnation City? Same thing- fantastic city-building tools on the crunch side, B vs. D on the fluff.

senrath posted:

You mean what's coming this year?

chiasaur11 posted:

I can believe it.

I mean, don't get me wrong. The narration is dire, and the dialog is nowhere near good. But some of Mobius's dialog works, in a mad science pulp villain way, and the bit about how he can afford to miss watching the hero die... since he'll be dying for all eternity! is prime evil megalomaniac. It's bad writing in a subgenre where a little bad writing can actually help the atmosphere.

Actually, given some of what you've said about Torg, I wouldn't be surprised if that was on the better end of the spectrum. If that's the case, I'm very grateful you haven't been touching on the fiction, and would prefer it if you continued to do so.

LatwPIAT posted:

I was somewhat horrified to read the writer's guide for nChangeling 2E and discover that it included things like "don't care too much about edge cases, we expect the STs to handle that" (paraphrased) and "I don't want more than 300 words on specific Tilts - instead there'll be a system for making Tilts" (paraphrased, but with less uncharitable interpretation this time). They seem to offload a lot of the development and even quality control on the STs, rather than providing rigorous and elegant mechanics - and I know they can do better; the WoD games have often been full of interesting emergent mechanics that help to create stories from simple interactions. One of my favourite examples is how Willpower and Vice interact in World of Darkness, where you need to spend Willpower to do difficult ~stuff~ and the best way to regain Willpower is to invoke your Vice. The result is that characters who face adversity get stressed and are tempted to succumb to their vices a lot, because investigating the supernatural is stressful and going out and getting drunk, starting a fight, or having a one-night stand is tempting.

Evil Mastermind posted:

The Asyle sourcebook has a fiction piece that is eight page long that describes how magic works.

Eight. Pages.

Eight.

unseenlibrarian posted:

I didn't know Brandon Sanderson worked on TORG before starting his regular writing career.

quote:

The brass hinges on the door squeaked loudly, announcing Mathea’s entrance into the classroom. The murmur of conversation died the instant she crossed the threshold, her appearance as effective as any silence spell ever cast. She moved quietly to the podium, setting down her notes and her hindsight bowl. She unstoppered her flask, emptied water into the bowl, and uttered a spell. She faced the class, looked sideways at the bowl, and an image of a whiteboard appeared behind her. Another spell, and a colored marker began to write for all to see:

Mistress Magister Mathea of the Two Towers, First Arcanum, First Division.

She turned over the first page of her notes as she absently pushed back strands of gray-streaked hair to a comfortable resting place above her spectacles. The notes were familiar; the students before her were not.

For one thing, they were all human. Not a dwarf, elf or giant among them. For another, they were clothed strangely; many wore tight-fitting straight pants, shirts with peculiar angular collars, or more comfortable looking woolen overshirts called “sweaters.” The women wore similar outfits, or skirts which would be completely useless in the field, having no pouches or pockets sewn into them.

What was truly strange was not their appearance, but their attitudes, their patterns of knowing, their view of reality. These students had been selected by Core Earth officials and approved by Pella Ardinay. They had an aptitude for magic. But they had no conception of how magic worked, no experience with its day-to-day uses. One of Mathea’s favorite examples of theorem application and restrictions, the breakfast brownie, would be meaningless to these students. They had probably never seen a brownie — at breakfast or any other meal.

Mathea cleared her throat. “Good evening. This is First Arcanum. I am Mathea, Mistress Magister from the Arcane Academy of the Two Towers. I am here through the graces of Lady Ardinay to further her efforts in helping the people of your land adjust to the reality it now holds. In Aysle, magic is pervasive; trying to adapt to Aysle without an understanding of magic is futile … ah, yes?” questioned Mathea, indicating a frantically waving youth garbed in black leather. His hair was thin, vertical and tricolored. He lowered his hand when Mathea acknowledged him.

“When I’m done with this, can I make the bullets in my Uzi explode on target?” he asked. There was a titter from one of the other students. The rest waited quietly for an answer.

Mathea took a deep breath. “Combining magical principles from Aysle with the technical artifacts from your Britain is a subject considerably more advanced than what we must cover here. Should you fail to learn — and learn completely — what I have to teach, magic will be of little use to you. Once you have mastered the knowledge I present to you, then perhaps you can experiment with the possibility of exploding bullets.”

Mathea waited a heartbeat for her words to sink in, then plunged ahead. “I have a question for you. What is magic?”

Count Chocula posted:

I dunno if you can get annoyed at RPGs for referencing things you don't know - it could be a good jumping-off point to learn about things like The Comte De St Germain and glaive-guissarmes, and popular 60s singers.

Kurieg posted:

In Beast the mechanical bits, such as they are, are somewhat well put together. The Atavisms and Nightmares are really good and evocative. But the fluff put together around those mechanics is what kills it. It's one of those things where you think a competent writer could probably come in and salvage it given the opportunity, except a competent writer was given that opportunity, and he was forced to take it by the Kickstarter Backers. He just didn't change anything that mattered, it still has vile enemies such as "Pick Up Artist" and "Conservative Mother" and goes on at length about how everybody loves you because you're so perfect and special and anyone who says otherwise deserves to die.

LatwPIAT posted:

I don't, by itself, mind that the book references things I don't know. I just find the examples used to be particularly striking in their obscurity; a "significant pop-culture figure" is someone who until reading M20 I had never heard of. Geronimo is rated above Elvis and Batman. These examples are supposed to provide context and guidelines, but to me they fail to do so. I know who Grumpy Cat is, I don't know who Janis Joplin is. I know more about Elvis than Geronimo. This makes it very hard for me - and I reckon I'm not alone in this - to determine where on this scale something falls. Is Fritiof Nansen an obscure 1-dot legend, or a major 4-dot legend?

Evil Mastermind posted:

LatwPIAT posted:

I don't, by itself, mind that the book references things I don't know. I just find the examples used to be particularly striking in their obscurity; a "significant pop-culture figure" is someone who until reading M20 I had never heard of. Geronimo is rated above Elvis and Batman. These examples are supposed to provide context and guidelines, but to me they fail to do so. I know who Grumpy Cat is, I don't know who Janis Joplin is. I know more about Elvis than Geronimo. This makes it very hard for me - and I reckon I'm not alone in this - to determine where on this scale something falls. Is Fritiof Nansen an obscure 1-dot legend, or a major 4-dot legend?

FMguru posted:

-
Man, TORG really was the ur-game of the 1990s, embodying all of that decade's design pathologies. Including, in this case, the tradition of soaking up pagecount and wordcount with bad, just-above-fanfic quality, in-universe fiction meant to illustrate some feature of the setting or rules.

Evil Mastermind posted:

You should have seen the novels. Sadly, the second and third novels of the original trilogy seem to have been lost to the ages, but a few of the other novels are available in PDF format. Like the one where the Gaunt Man tells his loving life story.

Kurieg posted:

In Beast the mechanical bits, such as they are, are somewhat well put together. The Atavisms and Nightmares are really good and evocative. But the fluff put together around those mechanics is what kills it. It's one of those things where you think a competent writer could probably come in and salvage it given the opportunity, except a competent writer was given that opportunity,

FMguru posted:

Bad tie-in novels were a 1980s thing (Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms) that stretched into later decades. Filling up game books with bad fiction was a 1990s thing, and TORG looks like it was a big innovator there, like it was for so many other terrible 1990s RPG design trends (metaplot, supplement treadmill, unkillable key NPCs, etc.)

unseenlibrarian posted:

Don't forget that the game designer of the "Five Realms" RPG-within-an-RPG that was based on TORG and TORG's game designer was actually the anti-Torg, Apeiros!

...Actually, do. Do forget that.

Young Freud posted:

You're a non-American citizen, aren't you?

Kurieg posted:

I think the issue is that Brucato is letting his prejudices show again. Geronimo is an Apache folk hero who resisted both the Mexicans and the Americans, of course he's more important than Elvis and Batman. But putting him on the same level as Red Riding Hood just seems... wrong somehow. Why are fictional characters even *on* that list?

FMguru posted:

Bad tie-in novels were a 1980s thing (Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms) that stretched into later decades. Filling up game books with bad fiction was a 1990s thing, and TORG looks like it was a big innovator there, like it was for so many other terrible 1990s RPG design trends (metaplot, supplement treadmill, unkillable key NPCs, etc.)

LatwPIAT posted:

Yup. It makes a lot of the references to American things as if they were universal stand out to me. I'm less good at picking up when Western things are referred to as if they were universal, of course. I know more about Shaka Zulu and Guy Fawkes (both examples of 3-dot Legends) than I knew about Geronimo. I knew that Geronimo was a real person, that he was Native American, and that in US culture people sometimes shout his name when throwing themselves into danger - but beyond that I was clueless. My point, and I apologise if I made this badly, is that there's a lot of presumptions in the book about the dominance of US culture; Geronimo, who probably is a big deal in the US, is treated as if he's some universal figure of greater repute than Elvis (which, although also American, is far, far more famous). To me the emphasis placed on US culture reads like a statement that all these pretty US-specific things are somehow important enough that they have immense metaphysical weight - which gets particularly weird when said weight is supposed to come from how well known they are in the first place.

LatwPIAT posted:

Bad tie-in novels were also massively more profitable than the RPGs they were based on, at least for D&D, where if I recall correctly, the Dragonlance novels completely eclipsed the actual RPG, and the Dragonlance RPG material basically became a way for TSR to get people to start buying the books. (I suspect this is why there's so much bad fiction in 1990's game books; it's an attempt to get people to want to read more about the characters, so you can start selling novels to them.)