|
Twilight 2000 was incredibly popular when I was at Ft. Bragg in the mid to late 80s.
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2016 20:31
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 19, 2024 22:51 |
|
|
To be fair, milwank RPGs have largely been on the outs for the past two decades or so? I mean, the last one I can think of is Spycraft 2.0, and even that's a bit of a stretch.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2016 20:35
|
|
|
Alien Rope Burn posted:To be fair, milwank RPGs have largely been on the outs for the past two decades or so? I mean, the last one I can think of is Spycraft 2.0, and even that's a bit of a stretch.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2016 20:44
|
|
|
We'll see who's laughing last when I finish and release my Phoenix Command retroclone! ...probably still you guys. I have no delusions it'll have broad appeal.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2016 20:55
|
|
|
Alien Rope Burn posted:To be fair, milwank RPGs have largely been on the outs for the past two decades or so? I mean, the last one I can think of is Spycraft 2.0, and even that's a bit of a stretch. I'm not as well acquainted with Traveller as I'd like, but my initial impression is that all the stuff your characters do is a pretty simple Stat+Skill 2d6 mechanic system, and then it gets incredibly, incredibly complicated when you're dealing with vehicles and space travel and everything beyond the shoot-mans-with-guns level. LatwPIAT posted:We'll see who's laughing last when I finish and release my Phoenix Command retroclone!
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2016 21:08
|
|
|
Now I'm imagining a milspec game where all rolls are dictated by an enormously complicated Bop-It that just tells you what and how many dice to roll before the GM just consults a chart for the result. "Select it!" *Twist* "Target it!" *squeeze* "Viewfinder it!" *zip* "Range it!" *beep* "Roll it!"
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2016 21:26
|
|
|
BTRC did release CORPS which is actually a pretty neat design.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2016 21:37
|
|
|
Alien Rope Burn posted:To be fair, milwank RPGs have largely been on the outs for the past two decades or so? I mean, the last one I can think of is Spycraft 2.0, and even that's a bit of a stretch. I'm guessing that's because military themed video games have been on the ups for the past two decades. Or maybe "military" themed, depending on how charitable you feel.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2016 21:43
|
|
|
Adnachiel posted:Verlina is the daughter of a Baptist minister and a choir director. Naturally, they weren’t really big on the whole witch school thing when Calypso and Autumn came around to tell them their daughter was a witch when she was 10. (Until then, she just kept her powers a secret and tried to control them as best she could.) But they came around when they visited the school and saw that witches weren’t all evil or aligned with Christian beliefs. Verlina took to the school incredibly well, eventually becoming the Neophyte teacher (she’ll gently caress you up if you mess with the kids) and Kay’s bestie. She’s a friendly bundle of sunshine and goodness and sings her spells’s incantations. Because choir director mother. 
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2016 21:58
|
|
|
 SETTING SECRETS  The Truth of Evil Unlimited, AKA "gently caress you the majority of what we told you about recruitment was a lie": How do you get your standard person/Delta (Primer or Defiance) on the side of Evil Unlimited? Good ol' fashioned debt. Introduce a guy that your PCs know who is willing to lend them money, and when they can't pay it back recruit them to a front company that staffs Deltas or offer them the chance to come along on a job. Then you should make things go pear-shaped. Make the job go wrong. Make the PCs accomplices in crimes. Make their jobs be something bad and when they try to pull back out, lean on the fact that they were going to do something bad to make them go through with it. Make their secret identity be blown. And now that the PCs are in bigger debt, have Evil Unlimited clean up their messes and grab them by the short-hairs. Assign more jobs to them to make them work off the debt while collecting the details of their crimes to keep them in line with a rap sheet and evidence. Then actually bring them into Evil Unlimited. This is actually how Evil Unlimited recruits the majorities of its members and agents: blackmail and debt. Or don't do any of this because this sounds loving awful in every way. If I was a player, I would be loving gone the moment I realized that this was going to become a snowball of debt and railroading.  Beating a man to death as he eats spaghetti and meatballs. gently caress it, let's see how cliche we can get. Who is Mr. C? It's Al Capone. Capone was a Changeling Delta after a hit in 1933 put some bullets in him and he ended up having a look-alike sent to Alcatraz. When the guy in Alcatraz felt like breaking their agreement, Capone had him killed in prison during a riot. After the hit, Capone decided that being public and flashy was a bad way to go about crime so he started Evil Unlimited and became Mr. C full time after the look-alike went to prison. Along the line he became an Alpha and ended up avoiding the Vanishing by accident (visiting a criminal in a prison with a suppression field). These days Mr. C. is mostly retired, letting Marks conduct the majority of the upper business for the last eight years. He's over 100 and I guess becoming an Alpha cures syphilis. Lee Harvey Oswald: So Oswald and three other guys (including Jack Ruby attack the President in Dallas. Oswald and Jack Ruby survive Superior's attack (the other two are DOA at a nearby hospital) but get arrested by the Secret Service, Ruby kills himself before he gets out of critical care in the hospital and Oswald wakes up one night in the hospital to find Superior beating him to death in his sleep.  "*sighs* It's a living." But Oswald lives and gains Delta powers as a Sneak. He escapes custody and continues to accrue the money and technology to assemble a new team of Dreadnauts. The US government couldn't figure out who was bankrolling him. It wasn't the Soviets (though Castro would let Oswald live in Cuba in a farm off the grid). His benefactor? J. Edgar Hoover. Facade wasn't JFK and didn't have anything against Hoover like JFK did but when Facade-as-JFK starts turning things towards martial law, Hoover completely dropped his grudge against JFK. So Hoover starts funneling money to Oswald in Cuba and starts a sponsorship with him: every now and again he pulls him out of Cuba and lets him run around in the US to scare the American people and cement martial law. The JFK assassination was completely bankrolled by Oswald's old savings but this is all funded by the government. You know, false flag poo poo. But then Hoover dies in 1972 and Oswald is without a patron until he meets the Devastator and they become BFFs. The Bicentennial Battle was a joint effort between the two to kill Superior and the machine was supposed to freeze the city in a time bubble so the Devastators could take their time killing every Primer. In the end, the only person left in this dimension is Lee Harvey Oswald whose current location is unknown. Yet another reason to hate the Sneak.  "I MAY HAVE MISCALCULATED THIS PROTECTIVE DIVE" Patriot's Rescue: Oh yeah and Evil Unlimited was responsible for rescuing Patriot for Truth. A lot of guards were paid off or persuaded to look the other way and the two guards who were supposed to execute Patriot were EU thugs who snuck onto the island disguised as prisoners. Oh also it's briefly touched on that Truth got arrested and the Primers know that she's a head figure in Defiance but. That's all that's said about that.  Stats and details for all of the important movers and shakers of Evil Unlimited. EVIL IS AS EVIL DOES Backstory: Okay, so. Last book's premade mission was a little story about how a lady went crazy after she got hit by a truck. This story is way more complicated. The backstory is stupidly complicated. Once upon a time there was a 20ish guy named Kyle Garrigan, AKA the Technomancer. Kyle loved computers, loved hacking and programming, so when he drove off a bridge into a frozen lake in a suicide attempt, he got Delta powers as...a Bargainer. His Bargaining teacher, Ms. Ariana Bihani, takes him under her wing and explains that the voices in his head are demons and teaches him how to make contracts. However, Kyle wants loving none of that. He takes a look at the contracts and basically says "pffft I bet I can write a program that will basically function better and cleaner than contract and create an unbreakable contract that will force the demons to do what I want". "That's not really how it works, they're sapient beings," says Bihani and Kyle responds with "yeah so gently caress being a Bargainer I'm gonna write a computer program to get powers in exchange for stuff whenever I want instead of needing totems". So he quit his Bargainer training.  This but with THE INTERNET But, uh. That's way easier said than done. Kyle can't find a single programming language suitable for anything related to controlling demons (HMM I WONDER WHY) but he gets interested in Sailmaker, the new web browser by Webhead. He can't find a cracked version or a beta or even an alpha so in order to get a look at it (again, to program a language to control demons for power) he decides to break into Webhead to get at it. A patient person would probe Webhead and figure out where the program was being held then make a copy. Naturally Kyle just grabs his Phaser totem and breaks into the CEO's office, Oliver Megopolus. Oliver/Mr. C is surprisingly still in the office, but in the form of Nicollette Marks. Why? gently caress you. What happens next is complicated. Basically, he recognizes Marks from a bunch of newspaper articles accusing her of being the head of Evil Unlimited and when he's caught he sees C-as-Marks shift into Mr. C form. In custody, he comes to the conclusion that he just figured out a dangerous secret about Evil Unlimited and he will die in a regular jail. His next move is to admit to being an unregistered Delta so they'll take him to New Alcatraz, where he thinks he'll be safe from Evil Unlimited and can figure out what to do with this secret. Here is where the mission stars. Mr. C wants Garrigan dead and has Marks have an employee named Aric Koffler recruit a team to kill Garrigan on the way to New Alcatraz. How do you get the PCs involved? Please, uh, please read the following paragraphs.  Koffler meets the PCs at a Spanish restaurant and they'll be embarking on the mission when dinner is done. Bring your equipment to the table except for the fact that no you're...not going anywhere immediately, it's tomorrow. Also you should probably figure out why the hell the PCs know Koffler.  Also you're going to straight-up just lie to your players to get stuff done. Only the GM is going to know the entire metaplot laid bare. Spoilers: the subplot about using a computer to Bargain with demons never comes to fruition or comes up again.  CHAPTER ONE: THE RESCUE ATTEMPT The boat has ponchos for hiding costumes of the PCs and life vests. Koffler drives the boat. If nobody has a plan, the plan is to get close enough to the prison boat to get their attention and then attack. The prison boat has a skeleton crew of important NPCs: two generic cops, Agent Anderson, Chang and Garrigan. Koffler will get close to the boat, listen to their warnings not to get too close...then immediately get too close and start Blasting while driving. Fighting the NPCs should be easy because they're regular cops. So Anderson takes a chance and stops Snuffing Chang, who immediately rips free from her cuffs and starts punching people into the bay to get herself to free. Chang will jump to the PC's boat if she realizes they're attacking and start beating on them. Chang's ultimate plan is to steal either of the boats and drive it to shore to escape.  WHAT IS THIS THING YOU CALL SCALE AND PERSPECTIVE Of course, while this is going on, Garrigan (who is loving handcuffed and in shackles) pulls out the goddamn Totem he's got hidden on him. Okay, so. All of the Bargainer rules state that a Totem basically has to be visible or the size of a wand or something sizable, like a necklace or a mask. The mission throws that completely out the window because Garrigan's Aquarian Totem is a fishhook on a bit of line wrapped around a molar in his mouth and taped there. Which the police somehow did not see and he just has taped to his loving teeth for no good reason. Like I don't think he expected to ever use it to steal some loving software but it's still there. He grabs the totem and turns into a fishman and jumps off the boat. The entire thing takes around five minutes before reinforcements come. It's TN 10 Perception to notice him jump in during the chaos followed by a TN 15 Perception roll to realize that it was actually him. Otherwise, Koffler isn't able to find him on the boat and everyone comes to the conclusion that Bertha knocked him over and he drowned because he's all shackled up. Also the entire rest of the mission hinges on Garrigan escaping. If he is caught, uh. Hooray. Mission over. You're now accessories to murder and in deeper debt to Evil Unlimited. The book's words, not mine. Catch Garrigan: 1 EXP. Don't kill anyone: 1 EXP. Defeat Bertha Chang: 1 EXP. CHAPTER TWO: MAN ON THE RUN Garrigan will use the sewers of Crescent City and an access hatch to get to his basement. Garrigan lives in a basement one-room apartment where everything is lovely and there's lots of leftover food and snacks. It also has his computer. He will change into this Bargaining tuxedo, get his Bomber, Changeling and Teleporter Totems (stick of dynamite, a cane with an orb containing a drop of blood from a friend before he killed her, a garage door remote control) and teleport away from the cops that come. The PCs get to see none of this, this all happens offscreen.  What should the PCs do now? Uhhhhhh. Uhhhhhhhhhhh. Well they can investigate the apartment, where a TN 5 Academia: Occult/TN 10 Computing roll/PCs figuring stuff out will explain Garrigan's plan. Then it's a TN 5 Smarts roll will remind them that Webhead is coming out with a new browser. You should tell this to Koffler who is like "oh. Okay." And then comes the sinking realization that what I just described to you is the only playable part of Chapter 2 and it's basically a single setpiece in between two cutscenes to watch that only the GM is privy to. Garrigan goes back to Webhead and uses his Teleporter totem to go back up to Megopolus' office. Why? Because he wants his Phaser totem back because he had to kill his dad to make it and, I quote, "it's not like he has another father to dispose of, let alone another demon to bargain with". This time, Marks is there. The real Marks, who hits the security button and is sitting in for Mr. C to help protect him. She remains Phased the whole time he threatens her with his Bomber totem and laughs in his face when he explodes an arm and she's unharmed. The guards come, Garrigan threatens her with "NOBODY MOCKS ME! I'LL KILL YOU ALL!" and Teleports back the way he came. Then comes the next morning.  Figure out Garrigan's plan: 1 EXP. Figure out the Webhead connection and tell Koffler: 1 EXP  This may just me being a little too sensitive but oh my god "man declares revenge, goes on rampage because woman laughs at him" has not aged well in the year of 2016. CHAPTER THREE: JOIN THE PARTY The reception is being held in the Superior ballroom of the Marc Plaza Hotel of Downtown. The hotel is a an entire block and there's strict gun checks. Webhead, being actually run by Mr. C, doesn't like using police security or Primer security so they hire from within or hire private security. Unfortunately, JFK doesn't go anywhere with without his Secret Security agents. So how are they going to balance the two security teams? Well basically JFK is just like "meh, not gonna go" so he doesn't. Nobody knows he's going to do this so everyone's basically waiting for the man of the hour who isn't going to come. The PCs get invitations so they can mingle and provide secret security for the event, but they have to pass through metal detectors. They can either go gun-less or just sneak into the event another way and then mingle. There should be plenty of red herrings or false alarms before JFK shows up.  Except it's not JFK, it's Garrigan holding the Changeling cane. Remember how I mentioned how it's not really possible for a Changeling to mimic JFK because the rules for Changelings dictate that they need to be acknowledged by the person they're copying? Well JFK ISN'T THERE. He walks through the front door of the ballroom to "Hail to the Chief" after Teleporting into a bathroom and Changing, shakes hands, waves and walks to the stage. Then he shakes Oliver Megopolus/Mr. C's hand, drops the cane, grabs the Bomber totem and explodes his arm.  This never happens unless you want it to. The PCs don't have much time to spot that something's wrong. It's a loving TN 15 Perception check to notice that JFK is walking with a cane and TN 10 Perception to realize there's no Secret Service agents with him. It's recommended that no rolls be necessary for this, that the PCs should just puzzle it out on their own and intervene. Side note: how the gently caress does the Bomber totem work with a Bargainer? If they explode their whole body, how do they hold the totem to reform? There are numerous unanswered questions. Endgame Conditions:
Capture Garrigan: 2 EXP Kill Garrigan: 1 EXP Capture Garrigan: 100K to split. Payment: 5K+4.5K (because Koffler took a cut of 10%). Thoughts: Uhhhh. So who is this mission written for? A big loving chunk of this entire premade is just only info the GM is allowed to know or just a loving ridiculous premise. Garrigan uses copious amounts of idiot logic that escalates into a stupid direction, the main plot to get him off the boat is stupid and the entire premise hinges on abuse and violation of game mechanics to work in a contrived way. Yeah, thank god it’s shorter than the last adventure but it’s still just as railroad-y and badly written shuffling the PCs from one point to another. Here’s what I think is the biggest thing wrong with the mission and the book in general: this stinks of “who gives a gently caress?”. This is the second to last book and AEG is working on these books more than Forbeck is, and it just feels like there’s no cohesion or revision to it. It feels like this is a beta draft they just shoved out; it’s disorganized and just plain uninteresting. There’s no hook to the book and the only hook to the mission is just stupid and there’s nothing in any of the text that supports being able to enslave demons with a computer. So how would this look in execution? HYPOTHETICAL PLAY SCENARIO Cast of Characters
“You said we threw that bomb in the bay and all it did was launch water into the air” says Eric. Jeremy ignores this and goes into Koffler’s speech. Eric makes constant Perception checks and Jeremy tells him that Koffler is telling the truth to shut him up. When the speech is done, they all contemplate the plan.
They race up to the prison boat in the speedboat and Dan comments that this is woefully underguarded for a drat prisoner transport to a loving supermax. Jeremy ignores Dan and has Koffler start opening fire on the boat while Pete and Rough Rider teleport onto the boat. The moment Pete and RR port onto the boat, Anderson drops her hold on Chang who immediately Hulks out and punches Anderson into the bay, swinging her fists wildly and clobbering guards and other prisoners alike. Pete immediately teleports back to the speedboat and grabs Flak and teleports back. While this is happening, Rough Rider is actually having a difficult fight for once and having the time of her life literally catching Chang’s punches and completely negating the attack. This moment of glory unfortunately ends with Flak climbing onto Chang’s back, Snuffing her and then pinning her in a chokehold. Pete and RR are unable to find Garrigan but RR makes the rolls to figure out he went overboard. The three get back to the speedboat, bringing Chang along and letting her go free on the shore once she apologizes for trying to beat the tar out of them. “Well I guess that’s it” says Catie with a shrug. “That was oddly anticlimactic.” The team splits with Koffler and they meet up again to find out they’re not getting paid and that Garrigan is still alive. “How.” Says Dan. “Aquarian totem” says Jeremy. “What.” Says Amanda. “He pulled it out and turned into an Aquarian and jumped overboard when you were fighting the Goliath” says Jeremy. “Where the hell was the totem.” Says Brian. “Wrapped around one of his molars” says Jeremy. There’s a moment of very angry silence before Eric interjects with a sigh. “Alright what are we supposed to do now?” “Go investigate Garrigan’s place?” offers Jeremy. Everyone piles into a taxi and they ride to the shithole basement apartment in sullen silence. They push past the cops and start asking what they roll. Jeremy tells them what they see. There’s an audible sigh as Catie asks “alright cool but what do we roll”. When Jeremy says Computing and Smarts, everyone looks at Brian who sheepishly rolls. They figure out that the plan is to summon demons using programming and that he’s targeting Webhead to get at their browser. Amanda, who is actually a computer sciences major, interrupts with “wait so why does he want a browser for this, does he really think that a demon is like a web server and he can just put in a URL to get a power from a demon? None of this makes sense.” Her complaint is ignored by Jeremy who recommends calling Koffler. They do, he’s like “cool whatever” and then they’re told to leave the crime scene by the cops. “So we go to Webhead next?” asks Eric. “No,” says Jeremy, “just split up and wait for more information.” The sighing gets louder and turns into full-on groaning when they get more info from Koffler. “So what’s your plan?” asks Jeremy. “Give all of our guns to Brian so he can teleport them past the metal detectors” says Catie. “Look guys are you sure? It doesn’t have to be me” says Brian. “Brian I love you and I don’t hold anything against you for doing, like, everything,” says Catie, “but for the love of god just teleport the gun bag.” Everyone (but Pete) goes through the metal detectors at the reception. Pete teleports into a bathroom and exits, the guns hidden beneath his formal jacket. They regroup and equip themselves with guns and tasers and wait. And wait. And wait. They split into two teams: Plus Ultra and Wonderbolt and everyone else. There’s a lot of buffoonery and distractions but they’re all woefully unimaginative and nobody is really fooled by the false leads Jeremy is laying. Then “Hail to the Chief” kicks off and Garrigan-as-JFK starts walking through the crowd. Eric, who has been making Perception checks like they’re going out of style, immediately points out that something’s up with JFK. Plus Ultra pokes Wonderbolt who immediately shoots a boosted blast into JFK’s chest. Pete teleports RR over and they just start kicking the poo poo out of JFK as Flak runs over and starts waving a fake Primer badge at the crowd. JFK drops the cane, turns into Garrigan and curls up, trying to protect his stomach from the kicking as Plus Ultra tases him. The team rushes Garrigan out the door and into Koffler's waiting arms, whereupon the game briskly wraps up with Garrigan getting carted off to his certain death and everyone getting paid. "Good job, you saved Mr. C. Now he can continue running Evil Unlimited!" Jeremy says with a poo poo-eating grin. Dan stands up, places both hands on the edge of the table and [SCENE MISSING] It's decided that the next game night is definitely not going to be Brave New World after heads are cooled and words are had with Jeremy about the quality of the premade mission and his general attitude. Nobody goes home happy. AFTERWORD   Final thoughts on Evil Unlimited: Reading and reviewing this book has made me feel like reviewing this whole series was like eating three sleeves of Saltines with nothing to drink. It's dry, it's bland, it's a goddamn slog to get through. The book just feels unpolished and half-baked, barely engaging me except for the light curveball of MR. C IS AL CAPONE, a baffling idea that briefly caught my attention before I continued eating crackers. The only high point of this book is how lovely the premade mission is. It is relentlessly awful from its premise and backstory to its execution and GM-specific info. This book too felt like an absolute waste of time. It is not getting better. It is circling the drain. A reckoning shall not be postponed indefinitely. Would I recommend Evil Unlimited: Man I don't have anything pithy or funny to say. No. Don't read this book, don't play Brave New World. It might be this fatigue that's wearing on me, but I won't lie: if I experienced these books in real release order, time between them and everything, I feel like I would forget these books. I would forget everything in them like a mediocre movie I've blown off hours later. EIGHT DOWN, ONE TO GO! We're in absolute freefall, hitting the ground screaming. NEXT TIME get prepared to go to hell with me for BRAVE NEW WORLD: COVENANT so we can put this series to rest. 
Vox Valentine fucked around with this message at 04:55 on Jul 16, 2016 |
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2016 04:06
|
|
|
So what are the odds Covenant contains terrible metaplot? 110%?
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2016 04:21
|
|
|
Spoilers: you have to save Truth in the premade mission. So. Cryptic statement: you are not saving her from Delta Prime.
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2016 04:26
|
|
|
I like how her description calls attention to the fact that Chang is going to incredible hulk her way out of her uniform the instant that she's not being Snuffed.
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2016 05:31
|
|
|
Crasical posted:I like how her description calls attention to the fact that Chang is going to incredible hulk her way out of her uniform the instant that she's not being Snuffed. The illustration, of course, does not show this.
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2016 05:39
|
|
|
Davin Valkri posted:I'm guessing that's because military themed video games have been on the ups for the past two decades. Or maybe "military" themed, depending on how charitable you feel. Even then, video games haven't really flirted with serious crunchy strategic/tactical milsim stuff for a good long while, most of the military-themed games you get these days are bombastic first-person shooters about Tier Beyond One Operators operating operations on terrorists and/or Russian ultranationalists (or in one case the People's Republic of North Korea).
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2016 06:01
|
|
|
Why does this setting need Evil Inc, again? It already has a massive evil organization which can put the screws on the PCs. It's called loving Delta Prime. It's not even like Evil Inc is a third party, guys Defiance doesn't like but they help with the whole evil government thing. They work for both sides, because when you're a totalitarian government, of course you want to keep a private army that can and does undermine your authority at every turn around. Cripes, this setting started in the sewers and just keeps digging.
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2016 07:19
|
|
|
Yeah it's actually kind of amazing how unnecessary Evil Unlimited and this entire book is, in the long run.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2016 01:33
|
|
|
Kai Tave posted:Even then, video games haven't really flirted with serious crunchy strategic/tactical milsim stuff for a good long while, most of the military-themed games you get these days are bombastic first-person shooters about Tier Beyond One Operators operating operations on terrorists and/or Russian ultranationalists (or in one case the People's Republic of North Korea). That's what I meant by "military" themed.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2016 04:35
|
|
|
 Part Two: Characters, skills, and getting stuff A QUICK NOTE: Unlike my other reviews, I'm not going to describe every system in full detail. I'm going to skip things like general modifiers or the specifics of character abilities. The reason being that, unlike stuff like the Torg review, this is a "current" RPG and one I want people to go out and get if they like it. As such, I'm trying to not just transcribe the rules, but instead I'm just going to hit the main points. I don't think anyone's going to mind, but I just wanted to put that out there. Fragged Empires starts with a quick run-down of the game's mechanical concepts (which I'll be covering in a bit), and goes right into character creation. I know it's usually not a good idea to leap right into character generation before rules concepts, but I can forgive the book because the core system is incredibly basic and (again) everything is cross-referenced to where you can get more detail. But just to save some time: Fragged Empire works off a 3d6-plus-skill-beat-a-number system. When you use a skill, you roll 3d6, modify it based on your skill and possibly good description of your action, and roll to beat a target number. Any sixes rolled on the dice are considered Strong Hits, which can trigger special effects based on your character's abilities and gear. So anyway, FE is a level-based with non-lineal character progression. Level is a representation of your available skills and resources, and leveling happens by default every three sessions. When you make a character, you start at level 1 and pick your race. Each race gives you the expected modifiers to your Attributes and skills and such. It's interesting to point out that there's no "baseline" race in the game; every race gets bonuses or penalties to something. Which is nice; I like the idea that we always have to have a race that everyone else is measured in relation to. Then you assign 18 points among your six Attributes: Strength, Reflexes, Movement, Focus, Intelligence, and Perception. Stats will range from 0 to 5, with a 2 being average. Attributes also tie into the game's damage system. Once you do that, you pick which skills you're trained in. You're either Trained +1 to your roll) or Untrained (-2 to your roll) in any given skill, and skills are divided into four categories: Everyday, Professional, Personal Combat, and Vehicle Systems. There's 24 skills all told, and they're designed to be rather broad. You get eight Primary (Everyday or Professional), two Personal Combat, and two Vehicle System skills to start with. FE doesn't use a "normal" monetary system, instead using special stats to track your available resources. You have a Resources stat and an Influence stat, each of which start at your level+2. Resources represents your ability to aquire and maintain personal gear, and Influence does the same for spaceships. Note that you don't just have to buy gear, you have to be able to afford to keep it running. Guns need ammo, armor needs repair, spaceships need fuel. On the plus side, you don't spend your Resources/Influence, but instead allocate points to your gear to represent the financial investment. Each character also gets Spare Time Points equal to their level+2. Spare Time Points are spent to get more expensive gear, or to do fun stuff like mod your gear. Spare Time Points are spent, but you get a point per session and they can be saved up to a max of 10. Each character also starts with a Trait, which are your feats/stunts and are generally tied to specific stats or skills. These can give you bonuses to skill rolls, stat bonuses, free rerolls, all that kind of thing. There are also Traits that will give you Attribute increases Oh, you do get some languages based on your race, but I'm not going to get into that save to say there's a "language relationship" flowchart that shows which languages you can kinda understand based on what you know. Although I do like that the Legion have a whole language based solely on hand signals designed for combat use. Lastly, everyone starts with two Fate points, which are your standard save-your-rear end points. You spend them to either reroll all your dice, or reduce your max Fate to keep yourself from dying. Some Traits also require you to spend a point to activate. Fate points reset to your max value every session so smoke 'em if you got 'em. It's also possible to start with Complications, which are your character drawbacks. Most races have to take a "Prejudice: <other race>" complication during chargen, but you have the option to take another if you want. Complications get you Fate points when they actively work against you, but what's nice about this system (unlike most drawback systems) is that complications have mechanical points they have to hit in order to count as actually being a complication. For Prejudice, for example, you get a permanent -2 penalty to social or shopping rolls when dealing with whatever race hates you. If you take Enemy, then it's not enough for the Enemy to show up to get the point; he has to actually do a certain amount of damage to you to qualify for the payoff. And...that's it, really. All of the core concepts are presented in much more detail after this. But one thing I do want to point out is how the book dedicates a page to adjusting character creation and leveling to suit different playstyles or campaign types. What's described above is the "default" campaign, but there are adjustments for a more casual game (more resources, PCs get an armor bonus), something more survival-based (no starting resource, reloads and such are more expensive, more tracking of food and water in space travel, damage is nastier), or story-focused (ignores most of the gear rules crunchiness). It's a nice addition that shows how you can use easy tweaks to adjust the feel of a campaign. Now the book starts getting into the specifics of the above mechanics. We start with Attributes, which were Strength, Reflexes, Movement, Focus, Intelligence, and Perception. These do what you'd expect, but it's nice to note that your melee effectiveness is based off Reflex, not Strength, while your ranged attacks tend to use Focus or Perception. That said, it's worth noting that your stats don't have a direct effect on your skills, but still have mechanical uses. Traits don't get a lot of space in the chapter itself, instead just getting a high-level discussion of the lists in the back of the book and defining what the prerequisites used in Trait descriptions mean. Which is fine; there's a lot of them available and I don't need a lot of fluff to tell me what the "Intimidating", "Negotiator", or "Tracker" Traits mean. I think I can figure that out on my own. I'd rather the book dedicate that space to more examples or content (which it does) and just keep the details in easy-to-grasp tables out of the way in the back of the book.  The joys of leadership. Oh, it's also possible to play a robot or a psionic, which are really just traits that give you some tweaks on what your character can or can't do, and opens up access to special Traits. These work pretty much how you'd expect them to. When you level up, you get a new Trait, and increase your max Resources and Influence by 1. You can also "Retro" and change one of your Traits, trained Skills, or Attribute points. The only real limitation is that you can't change a trained skill if you've bought a Trait for it, or change your Attributes in a way that would violate something's stat requirements. The next chapter focuses on the Skills themselves, and this is where we learn the basic die-rolling mechanic in detail. As stated before, using a skill is a base 3d6 roll, getting +1 if you're trained or -2 if you're not. You can get a +2 bonus or -2 penalty based on how you describe what you're trying to do (if you've got a 3+ in a relevant Attribute, then you can bring that into play for the +2 Description bonus but you still need to describe it). Once you roll and add all your modifiers, then you compare that to a difficulty number. 8 is "easy", 12 is "average", and so on. If you beat the DC, then you do what you wanted to do. If you fail, you can try again, but at a cumulative -4 penalty for each attempt. But here, as they say, is the twist. Any 6's you roll are called Strong Hits, and are the game's critting mechanic. Whenever you get a Strong Hit, you can "cash it in" for benefits. There are some combat-specific Strong Hit effects that I'll talk about when we get there, and your gear or Traits can give you other things you can buy. The one Strong Hit effect everyone has access to on every roll regardless of if it's a combat use or not is Effort. Effort lets you use a Strong Hit to reroll one of your other dice. So if you roll a 6-4-1, then you can use the Strong Hit to reroll the 1. And if that one comes up a 6, then you get another Strong Hit to spend.  A example of using a Strong Hit, and a nice example of failing forward to boot. Also, sometimes trying to use a skill will require special gear; you can't pick a lock without lockpicks. Every non-combat skill in the game has a type of toolbox or toolkit, and a Workshop. These are basically just things you need to perform more complex actions with said skill. And yes, every skill. For instance, the Conversation skill can be used as-is to gather rumors, lie to someone, or get someone to answer a question. But if you have access to the Conversation toolbox (a suitcase of clothes and accessories) then you can do things like get a gang to help you by wearing their colors, put on a disguise, or make a good impression at a formal occasion. And if you have a Conversation Workshop (an event hall), then you can host a conference, hold a fancy party, or set the seeds for an alternate identity. Without access to the right tools for the job, you can't even roll in the first place. Non-combat Skills have broad application. The Astronomy skill covers navigation, cosmology, stellar science, and gravitation, all of which are useful for getting around the galaxy. As long as you're trained in a skill, then you can do stuff related to those fields. And again...a nice, clear, one-page summary. Why can't more games do this? Combat and Vehicle System skills work a little differently, in that they just let you use weapons or systems that fall under that skill's purview. So the Small Arms skill covers pistols, SMGs, rifles, assault rifles, and shotguns. As long as you have the Small Arms skill you know how to use and maintain all that stuff. There are four Combat skills: Small Arms, Heavy Arms (grenades, explosives, mounted weapons), Tactical (using targeting systems and personal combat drones, as well as stealth), and Exotic (everything else, including melee weapons). It's worth pointing out that one of the weapons listed under Tactical is "Your Mind". In this game your mind is a weapon.  That's about it for the skills chapter; really there's not a lot to really dig into because it's such a straightforward setup. It's a nice, easy-to-grasp deal which I appreciate. The next chapter is Acquisitions, and covers how you get and maintain your equipment. As stated before, getting (and keeping) stuff primarily revolves around three stats: Resources, Influence, and Spare Time. Resources and Influence are allocated to your various items or to your ship respectively, whereas Spare Time is spent. Your Resources/Influence are generally your level+2, but you can get boosts through Traits or as a reward from NPCs for doing missions for them. Likewise, you can lose Resources/Influence by screwing up badly, so it's possible to have a max Resources of 10 but only 7 available Resources due to some bad luck. Resources are the simplest management method. Every piece of significant gear has a Resource cost, which you have to allocate from your Resource pool in order to keep it. This represents not just cash-on-hand, but items you can just go out and buy without a hassle. Resources also represent the upkeep of an item; guns need ammo, armor needs repairs, electronics need battery packs. At the end of a session, you can't have more gear "equipped" than you can handle with your max Resources. quote:For example, I have a character with 5 max Resources, and I've allocated two points to a "Little Friend" SMG, and two points to a set of Legion Assault Armor. I want to get a tactical computer, but that has a Resource cost of two. That means that if I want the computer, I either need to sell off one of the other items (since they'd be too expensive to maintain) or figure out a way to increase my max Resources.  Now, if I happen to be on a mission and kill someone who has a tactical computer, I can pick it up and use it for the rest of the session. But once things settle down, if I still can't afford to maintain it I can't keep using it.[/quote] Now, I know you're looking at this and thinking "wait, so what can I do with the stuff I loot but can't use? That seems unfair." Well, when it comes to loot you have two options: just keep stuff aside and unused until you can afford the upkeep, or take everything and pack them into Trade Boxes. Trade Boxes are a way of abstracting all the random loot and gear you find as you're out murderhoboing across the galaxy. So if you kill a bunch of mercs and now have a bunch of spare rifles and armor you don't need, you can pack those into a few crates and sell them down the line for a profit. The general rule of thumb is that you can turn 4 Weight of one type of "stuff" into 1 Trade Box. Trade Box items are generally kept broad ("guns", "food", etc.) or can be as specific as needed ("prefab colonization buildings", "untested biomatter"). Trade Boxes are stored in your ship and can be sold off with Spare Time rolls. Anyway, that pretty much covers Resources. Influence is very similar to Resources, only on a larger scale and with a few more systems in play. Influence represents your overall reputation or standing in various organizations. It's used for spaceship systems and maintence, and since the whole party is assumed to be using one ship it's possible for characters to pool Influence to get more expensive starship systems.  "Good news! I talked to my manager and he's willing to drop it down to only 120% interest!" What makes Influence different from Resources is that, as your Influence grows, you'll get Perks and Complications. Perks come in three "tiers", Minor, Moderate, and Major. You get Minor Perks at Influence 5, 10, and 20; Moderate at 15 and 25, and one Major at 30. Perks represent contacts, sidekicks, ranks in organizations, or extra storage spaces for trade goods (as in you own your own warehouse). Each type of perk can only be taken once, but you can upgrade a perk to the next tier. So if you have a Minor Contact, you can upgrade him to a Moderate Contact that's more useful, but you couldn't get two Minor Contacts. Complications happen at Influence 9, 19, and 29. I discussed these before in character creation; they're ways to get more Fate points by having bad things happen to you. What's interesting is that Complications aren't things you really want because the mechanical penalty (such as getting -2 to all your social skills for any roll involving a race that is prejudiced against you) tends to outweigh the benefit. This isn't a Fate Core situation where you're using Complications as part of a dramatic back-and-forth, these are severe problems that bite you in the rear end. Now we come to Spare Time. Spare Time represents your ability to go out and, uh, spend time trying to perform more involved deals. Generally speaking, things bought with Spare Time are the kinds of things that don't need any form of maintenance and thus don't need to have Resources dedicated to them. Characters get one Spare Time point at the start of a session, and can gain more by looting small items (like jewelry and such). Buying this kind of thing requires you to spend a Spare Time point and make a skill roll based on how you're trying to acquire the item. Spare Time costs are listed as "<number>t", which is the target number of the roll. If you fail the roll, you can try again; this doesn't get the -4 penalty but does require you to spend another Spare Time point. For example, let's say I have three Spare Time points and want to get a headset (12t). I try to go buy one, but I'm not trained in the Wealth skill so I roll at -2. I fail the roll, but since I'm trained in Electronics I decide to build one instead. I roll my Electronics at +1 and spend my point, and this time I make the roll. I now have a working headset, but I'm down two Spare Time points. I probably should have just tried to make one to begin with but then this example wouldn't have been as good. Spare Time points can be used for a bunch of other things such as modding your gear or paying for services (like medical treatment). Those will be covered later, but for now I'm just going to go over the two listed in this chapter: Trade Goods and Research. Trade Goods are pretty straightforward. You can make Spare Time rolls to acquire Trade Boxes of goods, and also spend Spare Time to sell them. The thing is, you have to have a lot of goods to generate a profit: 12 Boxes of the same good net you 1 Resource, 16 boxes will get you 2 Resources. There are optional rules for different types of Trade Goods, such as dangerous goods that might damage your ship but sell for twice the price. Research is how you can learn secret knowledge, develop new technologies, and gain Influence through your scientific discoveries. You have Research a specific subject, such as "Legion codebreaking", "the structure of Geoff's crime family", "the lower lifeforms of Eris-7", or "that Mechonid doodad we found last week", and Researching does require a workshop or workstation of some sort. Performing research works like buying stuff: pick your skill, spend a Spare Time point, and make a 12t roll. Success nets you a Research point towards that subject. When you hit 12 and 16 points, you earn either a Minor Perk, or some sort of special knowledge as granted by the GM. But that's not the best part: the best part is that you can actually publish your findings. If you choose to share your findings with an organization (scientific or otherwise), you can make a Spare Time roll to gain Influence points. Yes, Fragged Empire may be the first sci-fi game where you can be a space-traveling murderhobo and be a published scientific author with a paper on the aquatic life of a planet with methane seas that you discovered when your ship got lost that one time. How loving cool is that? NEXT TIME: The building blocks of violence.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2016 05:15
|
|
|
Hostile V posted:Yeah it's actually kind of amazing how unnecessary Evil Unlimited and this entire book is, in the long run. It's also amazing how they suggest starting an Evil Inc campaign. First, assume the players will take loans without checking for strings, because of course they haven't learned insane levels of paranoia from years of the kind of gotcha DMing Brave New World encourages. Then assume that PCs, a group collectively known for showing less restraint than Detective Sledge Hammer, will just nod and go along with increasingly deep levels of blackmail which show no signs of being relieved, because they fear consequences. They're PCs. If they're good guys, they'll baulk at doing villain dirty work. If they're murderhobos, they want to get paid, and would probably recruit easier if you just went "Hey, we're a morally shady group of terrorists for hire. How many trucks worth of money you want?" over "Haha! We'll release these pictures to the police and... what are you doing with that steamroller?" Even aside from being bad etiquette, it seems remarkably unlikely to achieve its desired objectives.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2016 05:18
|
|
|
I mean, trying to entrap a bunch of good guys in debt or whatever is a sure way to convince the players the whole goal is to turn the tables on the fuckers that tried to chain them into doing evil, while doing as little evil as possible when looking for a chance. Which would be a fine plot! If you told the players that's what you were going for and they agreed to it.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2016 05:21
|
|
|
Hey guys, I didn't forget Beast, I'll try to hammer out some stuff tomorrow. Just been a little distracted with a combination of work being just busy enough that I can't work on write-ups during downtime, but still so mind numbing that the last thing I want to do when I get home is type.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2016 07:10
|
|
|
Evil Mastermind posted:Yes, Fragged Empire may be the first sci-fi game where you can be a space-traveling murderhobo and be a published scientific author with a paper on the aquatic life of a planet with methane seas that you discovered when your ship got lost that one time. How loving cool is that?  I must play this!
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2016 13:36
|
|
|
More games--like, a LOT of games--need a Free Time rule to actually measure and moderate stuff like "this is powerful but takes several hours to prepare" or "I should be able to make any gear I want and then mod it."Kai Tave posted:Even then, video games haven't really flirted with serious crunchy strategic/tactical milsim stuff for a good long while, most of the military-themed games you get these days are bombastic first-person shooters about Tier Beyond One Operators operating operations on terrorists and/or Russian ultranationalists (or in one case the People's Republic of North Korea). The thing I find funny about these games is that in the multiplayer, they're always rebalancing poo poo, so you end up in scenarios where people in this REALISTIC MILITARY TACTICAL SIMULATOR are running around battlefields with Desert Eagle .50s and throwing knives. That goes down a lot better in, say, Mass Effect multiplayer where a shotgun on a battlefield makes perfect sense for all I know; it's a plasma shotgun and the guy wielding it is a psychic teleporter.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2016 16:45
|
|
|
Adnachiel posted:
Does nobody in the Sotoverse ever strike a natural-looking pose o_O ? Kai Tave posted:Even then, video games haven't really flirted with serious crunchy strategic/tactical milsim stuff for a good long while, most of the military-themed games you get these days are bombastic first-person shooters about Tier Beyond One Operators operating operations on terrorists and/or Russian ultranationalists (or in one case the People's Republic of North Korea). We need ARMA d20.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2016 16:49
|
|
|
Doresh posted:Does nobody in the Sotoverse ever strike a natural-looking pose o_O ? Soto pretty much traces all her art (usually from Poser which is basically Uncanny Valley: The Renderer) rather shoddily, make a few ill-placed modifications such as putting in wands without changing how the hands are positioned, and then color over it. While Craft's Nancy was obvious, I'm a little surprised no one has pointed out Malicieux is basically Christina Rucci's Wednesday Addams made even paler. Robindaybird fucked around with this message at 16:57 on Jul 17, 2016 |
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2016 16:53
|
|
|
Robindaybird posted:Soto pretty much traces all her art (usually from Poser which is basically Uncanny Valley: The Renderer) rather shoddily, make a few ill-placed modifications such as putting in wands without changing how the hands are positioned, and then color over it. You'd think with her talent to rip off facial features of other people, she might rip off entire poses. Like that one time the Dante from the DMC3 Cover became White Wolf artwork. Seeing how Soto is way more obscure, she is even more likely to get away from. And man. Uncanny Valley: The Renderer sounds rad. Are you a Textura, Polygonne, or Wireframm?
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2016 20:15
|
|
|
Halloween Jack posted:More games--like, a LOT of games--need a Free Time rule to actually measure and moderate stuff like "this is powerful but takes several hours to prepare" or "I should be able to make any gear I want and then mod it." The alternative is the Russian approach where you claim to balance things off "secret documents" and then just make whatever changes you want because it's illegal to portray Russian equipment as inferior in any way in your shithole country.  Also, people tend to get really heated about this sort of thing, whether out of nationalism or whatever. Which is better, the M16 or the AK-47? The Gripen, Rafale, or Eurofighter? The T-34 or the Sherman?
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2016 22:20
|
|
|
ask me about how incredibly, incredibly upset people get that AMRAAMs aren't silver bullets in DCS
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2016 22:21
|
|
|
INTRODUCTION The year is 1950 and the place is Berlin. World War II has been over for five years. Europe is rebuilding with the help of the Allies: Britain, France, America and the USSR. Britain and France are mostly focused on fixing their own infrastructure from the bombings and occupations, so the lion's share of work belongs to America and Russia. Now that the threat of the Axis is gone, the two nations no longer have to pretend they get along; the Cold War is in the first few years of its infancy. The Marshall Plan is a few years in and there's an East and West Germany, but it will be eleven years before the Wall is built. The war was not exactly the war we knew and rebuilding Germany is not the same as it was in our time. They're 90% similar, but that remaining 10% is the killer. Five years after the war, the aftermath is not entirely dealt with in Berlin. The Nazis had experiments, horrible experiments, that only saw the light of day in the death throes of the Third Reich. Their use and deployment didn't mean a drat thing, the war played out exactly as it normally did and barely anyone noticed something different. But now Russia, America, Britain and France have inherited a half-sealed box of things they don't entirely comprehend. The question is what to do with it. Everyone has their own answer, their own agenda. For the good of the public, and to keep it quiet and help continue rebuilding Berlin and Germany, the four nations (and the new German government) have assembled a task force to operate in the shadows of reconstruction. They are the Reserve Police Agency and their job is to contain the horrors, protect the populace and dismantle anything the Nazis left behind that might still be in operation. And if it should end up extracted during PAPERCLIP, or end up in a French laboratory, or on a workbench in Sheffield or a Russian ZATO, well. Sometimes things get lost or moved when you clean house.  Hi and welcome to Cold City! Cold City is a game about hunting monsters, espionage, betrayal and learning to trust strangers. The creators of the game themselves describe the core content as a mix of Hellboy, The Third Man and The Manchurian Candidate. The surface conflict is RPA officers versus the remnants of sinister Nazi experiments and things beyond space and time. Beneath that, the conflict is a lot more human. The central conflict of the game is one of Tension and Trust: tension between you and your government, between you and your duties, between you and the locals of this city you're trying to fix, between you and your teammates, between what you can do and doing the right thing. I like this game quite a bit! It's pretty rules light and it's rather aware of the sensitivity of its subject matter. I'll be including art when it appears (most of it is in the cryptic "you can use this as a plot idea!) sense but here's one thing I won't really be including: the in-character documents. This game (and its sister game, who I'd like to cover when this one is done) has some quite excellent documents that help set the tone and build the world. The documents are a lot more necessary to the sister game, but I feel like I can't give you everything Cold City offers because I do sincerely think this game is worth buying or picking up in a bundle. It's a ten dollar game and it's a good ten dollar game.     CHAPTER ONE Let's get to the elephant in the room: what did the Nazis do in World War II? In a nutshell, the scientists of the Third Reich did find...something. That other 10%. It wasn't a perfect Aryan race, or the Spear of Destiny, or a book clad in human skin. What the Nazis came up with was called Twisted Technology, machines that grabbed reality and squeezed until things happened that shouldn't. Twisted Technology only exists because it's a conglomeration of three things: technology, occultism and needless, cruel suffering. Most of the scientists involved are dead or in government captivity and each have their own story to tell. Some of them ignore the occult trappings, the rituals, the invocations of power. Some ignore the machinery, the chemicals, the experimental serums and radio emitters. Ultimately, Twisted Technology that still exists in Berlin comes down to three categories: Die Veranderten: The Alternatives. The Alternatives are people who were subjected to experiments and rites and managed to survive intact. A lot of them are mentally impaired or damaged as a result of what happened to them, possessing abilities beyond human capability. Die Eindringlinge: The Incursors. The Incursors are things not of our world or our time, dragged from their realms or invoked by Twisted Technology. Some of them are now trapped in our world or the machinery simply acts as a key to a door. The Dead: The Spezialeinsatztruppen (Special Purpose Troops, STs for short) are re-animated corpses, sometimes soldiers, sometimes civilians killed in bombing raids. To be undead is to exist in a state of constant suffering.  Whatever this thing is, it could either be a category one or a category two. All three categories still exist in Berlin in one form or another, haunting the shadows and sewers and abandoned facilities. Dealing with them falls to the RPA. The Americans are officially busy with Paperclip and Alsos, relocating German scientists and securing German atomic/chemical/rocketry research respectively. Soviet agents are doing the same thing. Beneath the veneer of official business are the national initiatives to seize Twisted Technology. Operation Strangle is a joint initiative between Britain and the USA while Projekt-303 is the Soviet equivalent. Unfortunately, a lot of these initiatives trickle down through the RPA. The Reserve Police Agency is a complete misnomer to throw off anyone poking around. They are neither reserve or a real police agency. Founded in 1945 and funded by all four countries rebuilding Germany, the RPA has a couple hundred operatives of various nationalities and backgrounds. Agents travel in groups of three or four and new agents have to learn to work with their allies and stand up to the monsters in the darkness. The RPA isn't corrupt, but it is suspicious. Agents of different countries might not trust each other or turn on their own country. The RPA as a whole does not officially condone agents operating for their own country's benefits but that just inspires caution and care when doing it. The big question is who you're loyal to. Powers of the RPA:
 NATIONAL INTERESTS Britain lost its empire in the war and had to deal with the German bombing campaign targeting industry and infrastructure. Britain's interests in Twisted Technology are twofold: prevent it from being used in a military capacity, disassemble it to understand it and attempt to adapt it for peaceful purposes. Porton Down is the big facility investigating what the British government can find and its scientists are performing experiments, toeing the line between caution and exploration. France doesn't really care much for Twisted Technology. They're helping in Germany over a sense of duty and obligation and this extends to the RPA. The sooner it all gets cleared and settled, the sooner it's over. Germany backs the RPA wholeheartedly to put the last of the ghosts of Nazi Germany to rest. They fear that public knowledge of Twisted Technology will result in Germany's political death, so the best way to do that is to help the RPA. America wants to profit from the rebuilding of Germany and Twisted Technology is part of it. The US Army has never seen anything like it before and are taking as much of it as they can to reverse-engineer and experiment. There's probably peaceful applications but for now an edge over the USSR is appealing. Russia wants its own edge and the Stalin regime is more than willing to experiment and explore the "science" behind Twisted Technology. Projekt-303 has full Kremlin backing and want to add weaponized Twisted Technology to their atomic arsenal. NEXT TIME: character creation in Chapter 2.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2016 22:48
|
|
|
I actually like Twilight 2k and enjoy it in all its milwankiness. Sometimes you want to play STALKER but with survival rules and no spooky monsters.
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2016 03:48
|
|
|
There is actually an official STALKER game, licensed from Boris Strugatsky.
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2016 04:03
|
|
|
Halloween Jack posted:More games--like, a LOT of games--need a Free Time rule to actually measure and moderate stuff like "this is powerful but takes several hours to prepare" or "I should be able to make any gear I want and then mod it." Blades in the Dark handles this fairly well: anything the player might want to do, no matter how "impossible", can simply be done as a "project clock". Take a circle, subdivide it into pie sections, and then fill it at whatever rate is appropriate for activity and the work needed to accomplish it, with in-game actions and investments either speeding up or slowing down the work. Davin Valkri posted:I'm guessing that's because military themed video games have been on the ups for the past two decades. Or maybe "military" themed, depending on how charitable you feel. Well, if you're going to make a game that simulates bullet drop and shotgun pellet spread and hit locations, etc etc, so much the better to handle it via a computer.
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2016 04:18
|
|
|
Cold City is actually a really neat little game. For one thing you don't really get too many "directly post WWII" RPGs, and for another thing while you might be inclined to think that oh, it's another alt-history game where the Nazis had super-science ho-hum, the game makes it abundantly clear at multiple points that not one bit of this super-science actually helped them in the slightest, and furthermore it's probably not going to be very helpful to any of the other world powers currently politicking and cloak-and-daggering each other over it. It's also a game where the more trust someone has in you, the harder you can betray them if (or when) you finally decide to, which is a neat little mechanical gimmick but at the same time makes for a bit of a balancing act as far as "how do I run this" goes because it's not quite to the levels of Paranoia where you're overtly trying to gently caress everyone else over, ostensibly you're all working together, but at the same time various pressures from home are strongly encouraging you to put your country and their cause above that of the RPA. With the right group this can be great, with the wrong group I can see it getting kind of messy in that way interparty conflict often gets.
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2016 09:30
|
|
|
If you wanted to run a Torchwood/UNIT game, Cold City seems like an interesting setting to do it in.
|
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2016 10:03
|
|
|
Kai Tave posted:Cold City is actually a really neat little game. For one thing you don't really get too many "directly post WWII" RPGs, and for another thing while you might be inclined to think that oh, it's another alt-history game where the Nazis had super-science ho-hum, the game makes it abundantly clear at multiple points that not one bit of this super-science actually helped them in the slightest, and furthermore it's probably not going to be very helpful to any of the other world powers currently politicking and cloak-and-daggering each other over it. It's also a game where the more trust someone has in you, the harder you can betray them if (or when) you finally decide to, which is a neat little mechanical gimmick but at the same time makes for a bit of a balancing act as far as "how do I run this" goes because it's not quite to the levels of Paranoia where you're overtly trying to gently caress everyone else over, ostensibly you're all working together, but at the same time various pressures from home are strongly encouraging you to put your country and their cause above that of the RPA. With the right group this can be great, with the wrong group I can see it getting kind of messy in that way interparty conflict often gets. I also applaud them for not going all "OMGWTF Nazi super weapons are AWESOME!". You'd think they would've actually won the war with all their UFOs powered by occult technobabble. (Man, I'll never get over that stupid Nazi UFO documentary I saw once...) Doresh fucked around with this message at 10:14 on Jul 18, 2016 |
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2016 10:06
|
|
|
Doresh posted:I also applaud them for not going all "OMGWTF Nazi super weapons are AWESOME!". You'd think they would've actually won the war with all their UFOs powered by occult technobabble. Well the various global powers certainly seem to think that the Nazi's many weird science experiments have the potential to be awesome, but the book goes to great pains to illustrate that no, it would be for the best if everybody just left that poo poo alone but the Cold War is in the process of ramping up so rational policy-making is going to go out the window because you can't let there be a shoggoth gap.
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2016 10:32
|
|
|
Someday, in some timeline, fascist Italy or facist Spain or fascist Chile will be the one to make the terrible discovery. Meanwhile, they'll just have to stare across universes and sigh. "Germany? Again?"
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2016 11:18
|
|
|
I'm telling you, one of those days I'm going to run that Inglorious Hasterds game where fascist France tries to conquer all Europe in the name of the King Whom Emperors Have Served. And there is Achtung! Cthulhu/Elder Godlike now.
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2016 13:48
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 19, 2024 22:51 |
|
|
Kai Tave posted:Well the various global powers certainly seem to think that the Nazi's many weird science experiments have the potential to be awesome, but the book goes to great pains to illustrate that no, it would be for the best if everybody just left that poo poo alone but the Cold War is in the process of ramping up so rational policy-making is going to go out the window because you can't let there be a shoggoth gap. Excellent. Consider one of many possible alternate history pitfalls avoided. Halloween Jack posted:I'm telling you, one of those days I'm going to run that Inglorious Hasterds game where fascist France tries to conquer all Europe in the name of the King Whom Emperors Have Served. Attack of the Uber-Shoggoths.
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2016 13:59
|
|