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Kurieg posted:Well to be fair, as far as their kickstarters tend to go they peaked early and not as high as other games before went. And I imagine OPP in general and Matt in specific have lost some goodwill with the community. Scion 2e seems to have gotten through okay (Mostly because it's rather open and inclusive without denigrating anyone and they seem to be earnestly trying to represent various mythologies in a positive but realistic light), but I'm somewhat worried about the backlash that might hit Deviant. Deviant is being managed by a Good Writer who does Good Things, so.
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Nov 4, 2016 21:39
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Get ready to sling some serious bullshit around because we’re diving back into… Part 5: Character Types- the Spinner is the Moon! So we've had the fighter archetype and the wizard archetype. That leaves us with.... the book posted:Spinners are striking individuals, and they possess a personality that allows them to spin tales, spin lies, or spin a version of the truth that makes others see things in a whole new way. Cyphers spinners like: since spinners are already masters of persuasion, they like anything that fills in weak points they have, such as some armor or a weapon. Wait… that’s the same thing the other two character types like? Why even bother distinguishing which cyphers are important for combat in this game of mystery and revelations?   But just three shots from Kitchen Gun and it sparkles like new! The Might and Speed Pools start at 9 for a spinner. The Intellect Pool starts at 10. As before, spinners also get 6 more points they can spread between the three Pools. Let’s take a gander at their abilities! First-Tier Spinners Spinners at this tier have an Effort of 1, an Intellect Edge of 1, a Might Edge of 0, and a Speed Edge of 1. They can carry two cyphers at a time. Their other abilities are: Practiced with Light and Medium Weapons: You can use light and medium weapons without penalty. If you want to attack with a heavy weapon, the difficulty goes up by one step. Translation: You can participate in the process of traveling to another recursion. Spinners are most effective at hastening a translation. Starting spinners also get to choose two of the following twists: Enthrall (1 Intellect): Hypnotize people with your voice. You don’t have to share a language to do this; all you have to do is talk and talk and talk. You can’t take move or take a potty break, either. As long as you drone on, the other creature can’t take any actions other than to defend itself. The effect breaks when the creature is attacked. (Action) Fast Talk (1 Intellect): When you chat up a non-hostile, intelligent creature, you can persuade them to take a single reasonable action in the next round. The GM gets to determine what is “reasonable” in this context, but it definitely shouldn’t put the creature or any allies of the creature in obvious danger or be wildly out-of-character. (Action) Sleight of Hand (1 Speed): You can do minor stage magician-type tricks like make an object in your hand disappear and move to a designated spot within your reach. You can trick someone into believing they have something in their possession that they don’t/don’t have something in their possession that they actually do. Alternatively, you can switch similar objects right in front of someone. (Action) Spin Encouragement (1 Intellect): Give a constant feed of encouraging words and allies within a short range of you. You can choose to modify the difficulty on one of the following task types to their benefit: defense tasks, attack tasks, or tasks related to any skill you are trained/specialized in. (Action) Spin Identity (2+ Intellect): You can convince all intelligent creatures who can see, hear, and understand you that you are someone or something else. You can’t use this to pose as a specific person the targets know, but you can pose as someone the targets don’t know from a certain category of people. This can let you pose as an “agent of the government” or a “farmer from the next town over” or maybe as “a messenger sent by your commander.” A disguise to go along with this twist helps, too. It doesn’t define how, but I’d guess it could be applied as an Asset to bump the difficulty down a step. The intellect cost increases by 1 point for each additional target. Affected targets remain tricked for up to an hour, unless you do something that obviously blows your cover. (Action) Understanding (2 Intellect): You can hide in some bushes and study a creature or object (doesn’t say for how long). The next time you interact with your target, the difficulty of any related task is reduced by one step. (Action) Second-Tier Spinners Spinners of this tier automatically get the following new abilities: Skills: Become trained in one task of your choosing (other than attacks or defense). You can also bump something you’re trained in up to specialized. You can’t extra-train a skill you’re already specialized in. Reach Beyond (3 Intellect): This works just like the Reach Beyond ability the vector and paradox get. Pull training in a skill provided by a focus in another recursion to this one, etc. Second-Tier spinners also get to pick one of the following twists, or a twist from a lower tier. In addition, they can replace one of the first-tier twists with a different first-tier twist. Babel: You can rapidly learn a new language after a few minutes of listening to someone speaking. When you pick up a language this way you can quickly speak it and make yourself understood. If you keep using the language with native speakers, then you’ll rapidly improve to the point of being mistaken for a native speaker in “a few hours.” (Enabler) Efficiency (2 Intellect): You can mess with an object to give yourself a little more of an edge: coax a bit more speed out of a motorcycle, jury-rig a light to be brighter, download porn off the internet faster, etc. The object’s level is increased by 2 for one minute, or treat the object as an Asset that reduces a task’s difficulty by two steps for one minute. (Action to initiate) Escape (2 Speed): You become as slippery as a greased Scotsman. You can slip out of any restraints, grapples, traps, or barred prison doors. (Action) Hand to Eye (2 Speed): You can find an Asset for any task involving manual dexterity. This asset lasts for up to a minute. If you use this twist a second time, the new Asset replaces the first one. (Action to initiate) Pierce (1 Speed): A ranged attack that deals 1 additional point of damage. (Action) Spin Ideal (3 Intellect): Interact with another creature who can hear and understand you for one minute and temporarily inception an ideal into a target you normally couldn’t make them believe. And what is an ideal, exactly? the book posted:An ideal is different than a specific suggestion or command; an ideal is an overarching value such as, “all life is sacred,” “my political party is the best,” “children should be seen, not heard,” and so on. An ideal influences a creature’s behavior but doesn’t control it.  "No, Gary, you loving cannot bring your Pimp: The Backhanding character to my game." Third-Tier Spinners Spinners of this tier get some new abilities: Expert Cypher Use: You can carry three cyphers now. Skill: Same as before. Spinners at this tier can pick one of the following twists, or add another twist from a lower level. They can also replace one of the lower-tier twists with a different twist from a tier lower than third. Blend In (4 Intellect): When you activate this twist, people will see you but don’t register as important or relevant for “about a minute”. When you blend in this way, you’re treated as Specialized in stealth as well as Speed defense tasks. This effect stops when you attack, perform a twist move a large object, or anything else that would make people detect your presence. If you’re noticed but duration of the effect hasn’t expired, you can regain the effect by spending an action to focus on being as innocuous as possible. (Action to initiate or reinitiate) Grand Deception (3 Intellect): You can lie your sweet moon rear end off to a non-hostile, intelligent creature who understands you and they’ll buy it. (Action) Mind Reading (4 Intellect): You can read the surface thoughts of a targeted creature within short range, even if against their will. This effect lasts for up to one minute, so long as the target remains in range. (Action to initiate) Oratory (4 Intellect): The Mass Suggestion to Fast Talk’s Suggestion. You can speak to a group of non-hostile, intelligent creatures that can understand you and convince them to take one reasonable action on the next round. The GM gets to decide if the action is reasonable and in-character for the group of creatures affected. The suggestion shouldn’t put the group or allies of it in obvious danger. (Action) Spray (2 Speed): This is a copy/paste of the Spray ability the vector has. Telling (2 Intellect): Get an Asset for any task related to deceiving, persuading, or intimidating a target. This Asset lasts for one minute. If you use this twist a second time, the new Asset replaces the first one. (Action to initiate) Fourth-Tier Spinners Spinners at this level automatically get the Skill ability again. They also choose a new twist from the following list, or a lower-tier list, and may replace a lower-tier twist with a different twist from a tier lower than fourth. Anticipate Attack (4 Intellect): Activate this twist to sense when and how a foe will attack you. The difficulty of Speed defense rolls are reduced by one step for one minute. (Action) Feint (2 Speed): This is a copy/paste of the vector ability. Quick Wits: You can burn points from your Speed Pool on tasks that normally require points from your Intellect Pool. (Enabler) Read the Signs (4 Intellect): Sweep an area and you can learn precise, useful, details about stuff that happened here in the past. “If any exist” that is, god wouldn’t it suck to spend 4 Intellect and get provided absolutely nothing? You can ask the GM up to four questions, but each area requires its own roll. Have fun! (Action) Suggestion (4 Intellect): This is Fast Talk but with a one-minute duration and a level cap of 2. You can also increase the level cap by applying Effort to that instead of applying it to reduce the difficulty of the roll. Each level of Effort applied increases the level cap by 1. You automatically know the level of the target. Also when the effect ends, the target remembers following it but believes it willingly chose the action. (Action to initiate) Fifth-Tier Spinners Spinners at this tier automatically get two abilities: Adept Cypher Use: You can carry four cyphers. Skill: the skill thing again. Spinners also pick one of the following twists, or a twist of a lower tier, and can replace a twist of a lower tier with another twist of a tier below fifth. The new twists are: Arc Spray (3 Speed): Another copy/paste of a vector ability. Energy Protection (4+ Intellect): Woahhh a copy/paste of a paradox spell! Only with a higher based cost, haha suck it shifty guy! Jury-Rig (5 Intellect): MacGyver together an object out of the crap you have around you. The book says the appropriateness of the materials and the level of the item determines the difficulty of the task. I’m guessing this based on the Crafting Difficulty table, because generic items don’t have a level outside of that. It doesn’t show up for another 77 pages, but it seems like an important thing for me to copy here.  Also, those sidebars on every page that are supposed to provide helpful citations are completely blank on this page, so that’s super helpful!  Generally objects made this way are things you can hold in your hand and have a one-off or limited use before falling apart. If you spend at least 10 minutes on the task, you can make up to a level 5 item. You can’t change the material of the item, so no alchemy shenanigans here. (Action)Skill with Attacks: It’s yet another copy/pasted vector ability. Sixth-Tier Spinners Spinners automatically get the Skills ability one more time. They also get to pick one of the following twists or a twist of a lower tier and they can swap out a lower-tier twist for another twist below sixth tier. Battle Management (4 Intellect): As long as your spend your action each round giving orders or advice everyone else, the difficulty of all attack and defense tasks taken by your allies within short range are decreased by one step. (Action) Skill with Attacks: Excellent, a double copy/paste of another character type’s ability. True Senses: Another goddamn copy/paste job, this time another of the paradox’s powers. Word of Command (6 Intellect & a level 6 cypher): You say a word so powerful that you need to drain the energy from a level 6 or higher cypher to power your attack. You issue a Word of Command to a targeted creature who you can see within long range. The creature doesn’t have to hear you to be affected. If the target is native to Earth, you have to succeed on an Intellect attack. Natives of recursions and The Strange are automatically hit. The affected creature must obey the word of command you give them for “several hours” before it wears off. Targets that are attacked while under this affect can defend themselves. The examples of the word you can command them to act on are: “Retreat,” “Calm,” “Come,” and “Stay.” The GM decides how the target acts. Hey, there’s no clause in this twist saying that commanded target cannot endanger itself... see if your GM will let you tell someone to “Die!” (Action) And that’s all for spinner! Wait, seriously? Half of their capstone powers aren’t even unique to the character type! Well, here’s a table of random spinner connections:  Thoughts on the Spinner: Well, this is certainly an improvement over the Jack character type from Numenera. In that slightly fewer of the spinner’s twists are dull copy jobs! It’s a lovely move to frontload this class with original abilities; I love party-face characters and the spinner was getting my hopes up for a bit there! Then it ends on the extended wet farts that are the sixth-tier twists. This character type definitely has a leg-up on the vector in terms of out-of-combat utility, but in terms of sheer scale, the paradox is absolutely the king poo poo in this game.  "Keith, don't be a fool! We're all sick of the paradox's powers, but that moron can toss your rear end to Hell in seconds." Next: A lesson on adjectives! Nuns with Guns fucked around with this message at 00:23 on Nov 5, 2016 |
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Nov 4, 2016 21:48
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I'd heard of Simbieda's reputation but never until now realised he actually put little "I had to rewrite your pathetic scribblings, bask in the glory of having your credit taken by THE SIMBIEDA" screeds actually in the books themselves.
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Nov 4, 2016 22:03
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Rand Brittain posted:At the person who actually handed out all those bans, this is also bullshit. I don't even like 4e that much. I don't want to continue this derail on other forum drama, but since you directly answered me here goes: posts that were pretty much exactly the same except for the edition of D&D being spoken about got treated differently: posts bashing 4E didn't get poo poo, and posts bashing 3E and 5E got mod attention. I spent something like 10 years on rpg.net before my perma-ban, and it's not my personality that suddenly shifted and got meaner. The moderation changed and went from going after group attacks and personal attacks to going after anything remotely negative being said about anything for any reason.
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Nov 4, 2016 22:15
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Mors Rattus posted:Deviant is being managed by a Good Writer who does Good Things, so. Wasn't the Dev Team behind Beast also the ones behind Demon?
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Nov 4, 2016 22:17
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MonsieurChoc posted:I don't want to continue this derail on other forum drama, but since you directly answered me here goes: posts that were pretty much exactly the same except for the edition of D&D being spoken about got treated differently: posts bashing 4E didn't get poo poo, and posts bashing 3E and 5E got mod attention. Like, in a stickied thread.
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Nov 4, 2016 22:19
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Bedlamdan posted:Wasn't the Dev Team behind Beast also the ones behind Demon? Sort of. Different people in different levels of in charge, less balancing factors, more David Hill, less Rose Bailey.
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Nov 4, 2016 22:20
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Zereth posted:I recall the D&D subforum they made having the a mod state that calling 4e an "mmo on paper" and similar wasn't edition warring. I've come around on that: I think 4E does have MMO-style elements, and that that's a good thing. But usually when people use those terms, they don't mean it positively.
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Nov 4, 2016 22:22
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Bedlamdan posted:Wasn't the Dev Team behind Beast also the ones behind Demon? Like Mors said, Beast has a dearth of Rose's influence. The fact that you can basically see her fingerprints on everything that came out of Scion 2e is one of the reasons I backed it as highly as I did.
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Nov 4, 2016 22:34
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MonsieurChoc posted:I don't want to continue this derail on other forum drama, but since you directly answered me here goes: posts that were pretty much exactly the same except for the edition of D&D being spoken about got treated differently: posts bashing 4E didn't get poo poo, and posts bashing 3E and 5E got mod attention. Well, gee, I guess maybe I did secretly hate you and just didn't know about it. Zereth posted:I recall the D&D subforum they made having the a mod state that calling 4e an "mmo on paper" and similar wasn't edition warring. That's the opposite of what our policy was at the time, as I recall.
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Nov 4, 2016 22:37
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can someone make a post about a game now please otherwise i'll have to figure out where i left off in a review just so this forums drama bullshit will stop
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Nov 4, 2016 22:38
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Kurieg posted:Like Mors said, Beast has a dearth of Rose's influence. The fact that you can basically see her fingerprints on everything that came out of Scion 2e is one of the reasons I backed it as highly as I did. I hear good things about Bailey. I don't know if I heard of McFarland or Hill did anything dumb prior to Beast though.
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Nov 4, 2016 22:44
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Bedlamdan posted:I hear good things about Bailey. I don't know if I heard of McFarland or Hill did anything dumb prior to Beast though. David Hill's the dude who keeps writing the increasingly bad Tokyo segments in every core book.
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Nov 4, 2016 22:58
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Rand Brittain posted:That's the opposite of what our policy was at the time, as I recall.
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Nov 4, 2016 23:08
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Mors Rattus posted:David Hill's the dude who keeps writing the increasingly bad Tokyo segments in every core book. Didn't the dude live in Japan?  I worry about him handling nChangeling a little.
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Nov 4, 2016 23:21
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Bedlamdan posted:Didn't the dude live in Japan? Lives. Currently. Present tense. Yes. Yes.
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Nov 4, 2016 23:31
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So how are they getting worse, then? Weeb poo poo, racism, or just uninspired and boring?
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Nov 4, 2016 23:38
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Kavak posted:So how are they getting worse, then? Weeb poo poo, racism, or just uninspired and boring? The anime industry is like 100% run by splats. At least I hope so. (Starts writing notes about Weeabo: The Otaku)
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Nov 4, 2016 23:38
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Doresh posted:The anime industry is like 100% run by splats. At least I hope so. Werewolves. They're getting worse because it is becoming progressively more and more clear that David Hill knows very little either about Japan or the games he writes about, despite being a paid Onyx Path freelancer that lives in Japan. The werewolf one had the secret conspiracy of werewolves running the entertainment industry, and also had werewolves performing rakugo in their Gauru forms.
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Nov 4, 2016 23:41
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Mors Rattus posted:Werewolves. So you're telling me someone finally invented a hypothetically enjoyable form of rakugo???
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Nov 5, 2016 01:01
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Barudak posted:So you're telling me someone finally invented a hypothetically enjoyable form of rakugo??? The new Phoenix Wright game has an entire case revolve around rakugo
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Nov 5, 2016 01:20
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quote:Horsemanship Skills (3 skills): What used to be "Cowboy Skills" in Rifts, because once there was a supplement with cowboys in it. We get rules for horses slapped into here, and you can get melee bonuses and special attacks while on horseback (but not motorcycleback, you can only do charge attacks from a horse). The various uses of the Cowboy skill (herding, roping, lassoing) take up a half-page. There's also a skill for Exotic Animals, in case you want to ride a llama or elephant against the zombie horde. It helpfully gives the penalties for riding demonic horses should, you know, be playing a different game. This just screams out for a Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare thing.
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Nov 5, 2016 01:53
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Alien Rope Burn posted:
From what I remember of trying to play Palladium games a quarter century ago, 98% is the highest it gets after all the bonuses and penalties are applied; you always have that 2% chance of failure on a roll. There was a single skill somewhere, I want to say it was one of the Pilot Aircraft skills, that could be boosted over 100%, and the rationale was that it would be heavily penalized fairly often. Like to the tune of 30-40% in most cases when you would want to use it, so it was OK to have a crazy high skill to offset the crazy big penalty. I think both the 98% max explanation and the skill > 100% were in Ninjas and Superspies 1E. I never did find a Palladium book that stated what the Transient Movement Factor of a vehicle did, though you could infer what it was from some close reading of other rules and examples. Midjack fucked around with this message at 01:56 on Nov 5, 2016 |
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Nov 5, 2016 01:54
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Mors Rattus posted:The werewolf one had the secret conspiracy of werewolves running the entertainment industry, and also had werewolves performing rakugo in their Gauru forms. Uhhh.... Barudak posted:So you're telling me someone finally invented a hypothetically enjoyable form of rakugo??? In the sense that it would basically just be a timer until the "poet" fails a willpower role and sends the entire audience into the hard rage. Yes.
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Nov 5, 2016 01:57
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Kurieg posted:Uhhh.... Yep.
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Nov 5, 2016 01:58
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 More Sample Zombies Trogdead the Zombienator (because if we're doing zombie stuff, why not just bring back other stuff from the mid 2000s?) STR: 1 DEX: 3 CON: 5 INT: 1 PER: 1 WILL: 3 DP: 34 Speed: 18 Flight Speed: 25 Essence: 14 Skills: Biting Clawing Weak Spot: All (0) Speed: The Quick Dead (+10) Strength: Ninety-Pound Weakling (-3), Flame Resistant (+3), Claws (+8) Senses: Like the Dead (0), Scent Tracking (+1), Infravision (+2) Need to Feed: Weekly (+4), All Flesh Must Be Eaten (0) Intelligence: Animal Cunning 2 (+4), Long Term Memory (+5) Spreading the Love: One Bite and You're Hooked (+2) Special Abilities: Spew Flame (+15) Stolen from Another Book: Flight (+6, wings) Attribute Adjustments: +4 Con, +2 Will. Points: 63 This was really fun to stat out and design. These zombies require the players to remain vigilant and alert in open areas because they'll have to watch the skies for hit-and-runs. The other way to avoid getting attacked is to learn how to work around its limited perceptive abilities. I definitely made the fire breath way too strong but it can only use the fire every six hours. The real way to make this zombie crazy overpowered would be to remove the Anywhere weak point. This zombie would make a really good recurring encounter/boss fight because it would throw the players into a scenario where most of the time their only advantage is how soon they can get a bead on it and shoot. SAMPLE ZOMBIES FOR AN INCREDIBLY STUPID AND HACKY CAMPAIGN IDEA Jerry Seinfeld's Zee Movie In the quest to survive without bees having to do poo poo because Bee Movie makes no sense, the harmony between Man and Bee is bolstered when both species dedicate their scientific prowess to creating a new species to work instead of bees. Okay let's be honest, it's mostly humans doing the work and then comparing it to Bee society and Bee biology. The replacement species ended up becoming as large as the Asian Giant Hornet, a non-sapient insect designed to do everything bees to and not complain or feel pain. Nothing will stop this new species from doing its job, not even wanting to gently caress human women. They called these new insects Zees. This, of course, backfired hilariously. Buzzby, Queen of the Zees, may not be sapient but that doesn't mean she's stupid. She came to realize that mankind and its world were a threat to nature and their primary goal of pollinating all flora everywhere. To that end, she started pumping out more and more drones and workers, sending them out in large groups while letting one or two of them slip away to assimilate themselves into human hosts. After a year of work, the Zees struck back against their creators, having turned their hosts into mobile beehives to carry them through the world and provide nesting grounds for the army of gigantic bees. Now the Zee menace is spreading worldwide and it's up to brave soldiers to prevent the destruction of mankind. Drone STR: 1 DEX: 3 CON: 2 INT: 0 PER: 3 WILL: 1 DP: 22 Speed: 18 Essence: 10 Skills: Brawling Biting Weak Spot: Fire (-5) Speed: The Quick Dead (+10) Strength: Ninety-Pound Weakling (-3), Damage Resistant (+5), The Hug of Death (+8) Senses: Like a Hawk (+2), Scent Tracking (+3) Need to Feed: Who Needs Food? (+8, food source is nourishment from the hive) Intelligence: Animal Cunning 1 (+2), Teamwork (+4) Spreading the Love: Bury the Body (-2, human corpses must be brought back to the hive for a controlling Zee) Points: 32 Drones are made of human corpses (or living humans) who've been entombed in the combs of the hive and emerged transformed. They're controlled by Zees working in tandem to manipulate the limbs, their bodies a horrific patchwork of flesh and wax. The original Drones were made by infesting people allergic to bee stings, but the most recent Drones are essentially human candles, the flesh preserved beneath a thick layer of wax. Consequentially, they're incredibly flammable and tend to burn out in minutes when lit on fire. Drones hunt in packs and generally have to rely on surprise or ambush to squeeze prey to death. When not hunting, they're often helping build the hive or dancing to communicate. The Pained STR: 2 DEX: 2 CON: 2 INT: 2 PER: 2 WILL: 2 DP: 15 in the heart Speed: 18 Essence: 14 Skills: Firearms Melee Weapons Weak Spot: The Heart (+7) Speed: Life-Like (+3), Leaping (+3) Strength: Dead Joe Average (0), Iron Grip (+1) Senses: Like the Living (+1) Need to Feed: Who Needs Food? (+8, Zee venom from their symbiotic relationship) Intelligence: Problem Solving (+15), Long Term Memory (+5), Teamwork (+4) Spreading the Love: One Bite and You're Hooked (+2) Special Features: Nest (+6, infested with Zees), Spitter (+3) Points: 55 The Pained are the praetorian guard of the hive, humanoid soldiers armed with guns and hand weapons to help defend the queen and the land. The Pained were originally made from human captives given a taste of venom that slowed their hearts to a crawl and put them in a state of docility while Buzzby laid her eggs into them. They're both incubators and foot soldiers, kept close to the heart of the hive to ensure that the new Zees are born safely and kept alive on a steady diet of venom injections that preserve their bodies and their abilities. The upside of seeing them is knowing you're close enough to the Queen to make an attempt to kill her. The downside is that not all of them are wearing pants. Buzzby, Queen of the Zees She doesn't get stats, mostly because I imagine that she's just a much bigger Zee because she's constantly laid low with giving birth to more Zees. It's easy to just say "burn the hive to the ground" but you can't guarantee the Pained won't get away with a jar of royal jelly and start the whole thing over again a few years later. So it's up to the players to break into the hive and make sure she's put down for good and there's no threat of the Zees coming back. NEXT TIME: my favorite fluff part of the book, the Deadworlds, a collection of premade scenarios to run.
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Nov 5, 2016 02:06
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Mors Rattus posted:The werewolf one had the secret conspiracy of werewolves running the entertainment industry, and also had werewolves performing rakugo in their Gauru forms. Werewolves doing rakugo? Fur real? That's the loopiest thing I've ever heard! I bet they really pack 'em in there, huh?
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Nov 5, 2016 02:10
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Hostile V posted:
Really looking forward to these. I used to have Terra Primate, which was the Planet of the Apes version of AFMBE, and some of the Apeworlds were pretty bonkers. The illustration of the Fellowship passing through the Ape Argonath always stuck in my head.
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Nov 5, 2016 03:56
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Here’s another quick update out so we can get to some fun things faster! Part 6: Character Descriptors While the book puts a lot of emphasis on the character types, it did try to sell us on how we could summarize our whole character concept in a basic sentence. We’ve finally made the jump to the second part: the Character Descriptor. If the Character Type were the noun in a sentence, the Character Descriptor would be the adjective. Indeed, that’s a very apt comparison, as the Character Descriptor modifies and adds flavor to the character type. There are thirteen descriptors provided in this chapter. the book posted:You can pick any descriptor you wish regardless of whether you’re a paradox, spinner, or vector Descriptors also have four initial links. Players must choose one of them at generation to explain how they became involved in their first adventure in The Strange. They remind me a bit of the Bonds from Dungeon World: they’re explicit ways to link the player characters together. The big difference is Initial Links fill in the background of the character group but nothing else. In Dungeon World, you’re incentivized to work through the initial tensions or obligations caused by Bonds and resolve them; you’re awarded XP when a Bond is resolved. You’ll also be forging new Bonds frequently, leading to a dynamic growth in the relationships between characters in a group.  This image is one Glitterboy away from a Rifts book cover Since the descriptors are self-explanatory, I’m going to lay out the mechanical bonuses/penalties for each descriptor without the flavor text. Appealing Stat Bonus: +2 to your Intellect Pool. Skill: Trained in pleasant social interactions. Additional Bonus: You know when people are manipulating or charming others, so you may be treated as trained in resisting any kind of persuasion or seduction. Initial Links: 1. You met one of the other PCs and were so darn charming they invited you along. 2. The PCs were trying to recruit someone else, but you convinced them to pick you instead. 3. You got involved entirely by chance, and since you’re so chill you just rolled with it. 4. Your charisma got another PC out of hot water a long while ago, so the PC asked you to join up. Brash Stat Bonus: +2 to your Speed Pool. Skill: Trained in initiative. Additional Bonus: You’re trained in all actions that involve overcoming or ignoring fear or intimidation. Initial Links: 1. You noticed a weird thing and jumped right in without thinking about it. 2. You showed up because someone dared you and you’re an 11 year old who can’t back down from dares. 3. Someone called you out, and instead of getting into a fight, you stepped into your current situation. 4. You told a friend that nothing could scare you, so she brought you to your current point. Clever Stat Bonus: +2 to your Intellect Pool. Skill: Trained in all interactions involving lies or trickery. Skill: Trained in defense rolls to resist mental effects. Skill: Trained in all tasks involving, identifying, or assessing danger, lies, quality, importance, function, or power. Inability: The difficulty of any task involving knowledge, lore, or understanding is increased by one step. Initial Links: 1. You convinced a PC to tell you what she was doing. 2. You spotted something interesting going on from a distance away. 3. You talked your way into joining because you thought you could get some money out of it. 4. You think the other PCs would fail without you. Fast Stat Bonus: +2 to your Speed Pool. Skill: Trained in running. Additional Bonus: You can move a short distance and still take another action in the same round, or you can move a long distance as your action without a roll. Inability: The difficulty of any Might defense roll is increased by one step because you have no endurance. Initial Links: 1. You jumped in to save another PC in dire trouble. 2. One of the other PCs recruited you because of your unique talents. 3. You’re impulsive and this seemed smart at the time. 4. This mission ties in with a personal goal of yours. Make on up, I guess. Graceful Stat Bonus: +2 to your Speed Pool. Skill: Trained in all tasks involving balance and careful movement. Skill: Trained in all tasks involving physical performing arts. Skill: Trained in all Speed defense tasks. Initial Links: 1. You joined the PCs (against your better judgment) because you saw they were in danger. 2. One of the other PCs convinced you that joining was a good idea. 3. Your quick reflexes saved one of the PCs and they invited you into the party as a thank-you. 4. There’s a reward and you want the money. Intelligent Stat Bonus: +2 to your Intellect Pool. Skill: Trained in an area of knowledge of your choice. Skill: Trained in all actions involving memorization or remembering something you directly experienced. Initial Links: 1. One of the other PCs asked your opinion of the mission, knowing if you thought it was a good idea, then it probably was. 2. You saw value in what the other PCs were doing. 3. You believed that the task might lead to important and interesting discoveries. (Yeah? Isn’t that the point of this game?) 4. A colleague requested you take part in the mission as a favor. Lucky Luck Pool: You’re granted an extra Stat Pool called the Luck Pool. When you need to spend from any other Pool, you can take points from your Luck Pool first. When you make a recovery roll, your Luck Pool is one additional Pool to which you can add recovered points. The Luck Pool begins with 3 points. When the Luck Pool is at 0, it does not count against your damage track. Advantage: When you use 1 XP to reroll a d20 for any roll that affects you, add +3 to the reroll. (Well that might almost make using your XP for a reroll worthwhile!) Initial Links: 1. Knowing that lucky people notice and take active advantage of opportunities, you became involved in your first adventure by choice. (Haven’t most of these been by choice so far?) 2. You physically bumped into someone else on this adventure due to luck. 3. You found a briefcase lying along the road. It was battered, but inside were a lot of strange documents that led you here. 4. You were almost run over by a car when you fell into a manhole. Beneath the street, you found something you couldn’t ignore.  "drat! Another dickbutt." Sharp-Eyed Skill: Trained in initiative actions. Skill: Trained in perception actions. Additional Bonus: If an opponent has a straightforward weakness, the GM will tell you what it is. Initial Links: 1. You heard what was going on, saw a flaw in the other PCs’ plan, and joined up to help them out. 2. You noticed that a foe or a tail they weren’t aware of. 3. You saw the other PCs were up to something interesting and got involved. 4. You’ve been noticing some strange things going on, and this all seems related. Skeptical Stat Bonus: +2 to your Intellect Pool. Skill: Trained in identifying. Skill: Trained in all actions involving seeing through a trick, illusion, rhetorical ruse, etc. Initial Link: 1. You overheard other PCs talking about a topic with opinions you were quite skeptical of, so you decided to approach the PCs and ask for proof. 2. You were following another PC because you were suspicious, which pulled you into the action. 3. You think the supernatural is all bunk, so you set out on your first adventure to prove that. 4. You need money to fund your research. Stealth Stat Bonus: +2 to your Speed Pool. Skill:Trained in all stealth tasks. Skill: Trained in all interactions involving lies/trickery. Inability: The difficulty of all movement-related tasks is one step higher. (Wait… what if you’re trying to sneak across a room?) Initial Links: 1. You were trying to steal from another PC, but the other PC caught you and forced you to join them. 2. You were tailing another PC for your own reasons, which brought you into the action.’ 3. An employer secretly paid you to get involved. 4. You overheard the PCs talking about something interesting, so you approached the group. Strange Stat Bonuses: +2 to your Intellect Pool, +1 to your Speed Pool. Skill: Trained in all actions that involve recognizing and understanding the Strange. Alternatively, Trained in either fractal surfing or Chaosphere navigation. Whichever skill you choose, it grants a -1 buffer against positive factors of alienation for being exposed to The Strange. Additional Bonus: You can sense whether creatures of an alternative recursion, creatures of The Strange, Strange cyphers, or other related phenomena are active in situations where their presence is not obvious. You have to study the area for a minute. Inability: The difficulty of any task involving charm, persuasion, etiquette, or deception is increased by one step. Initial Links: 1. A dream guided you here. 2. You need money for your studies. 3. You thought this was a great way to learn more about The Strange. 4. A creature from another recursion came through a gate in front of you. Before dying, it told you where you could learn more. Strong Stat Bonus: +4 to your Might Pool. Skill: Trained in actions involving breaking inanimate objects. Skill: Trained in jumping actions. Additional Equipment: You have an extra medium or heavy melee weapon. Initial Links: 1. One of the PCs was kind to you in the past, so you offered to help the PC. 2. One other PC convinced you that joining up would be in your best interest. 3. You lost a bet and had to take someone’s place on this mission. 4. The PCs recruited you after hearing about how buff you are. Tough Resilient: +1 to Armor. Healthy Add 1 to the points you regain when you make a recovery roll. Skill: Trained in Might defense actions. Additional Equipment: You gain an extra light weapon whenever you translate to a different recursion. Initial Links: 1. You’re the bodyguard of another PC. 2. One of the other PCs is your sibling, you’re watching out for that PC. 3. You need money because your family is in debt. 4. You stepped in to defend one of the other PCs when the character was threatened. You heard about the mission when you talked to the PC afterwards.  Next: The triumphant return of everyone’s favorite Cypher System mechanic Nuns with Guns fucked around with this message at 05:28 on Nov 5, 2016 |
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Nov 5, 2016 05:24
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Midjack posted:From what I remember of trying to play Palladium games a quarter century ago, 98% is the highest it gets after all the bonuses and penalties are applied; you always have that 2% chance of failure on a roll. There was a single skill somewhere, I want to say it was one of the Pilot Aircraft skills, that could be boosted over 100%, and the rationale was that it would be heavily penalized fairly often. Like to the tune of 30-40% in most cases when you would want to use it, so it was OK to have a crazy high skill to offset the crazy big penalty. Yeah, that's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Guide to the Universe, and specifically Air-to-Air Combat is allowed to go above 100% to allow for the heavy penalties layered on it by the air and space combat rules. I think it's one of the most incoherent systems they ever did, since it relies a lot on knowing the relative positions of aircraft but not having a way to adjudicate that outside of the GM making subjective judgements, and having no clear combat order - and it's not even a Siembieda design! Erick Wujcik was responsible for that one. Of course, even getting above 100% in that skill is so rare (you probably won't see it until double-digit levels) it's almost not worth mentioning.
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Nov 5, 2016 05:46
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Count Chocula posted:Sweet, you can make Stubbs The Zombie. Wait till you see some of the new powers from Enter the Zombie.
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Nov 5, 2016 06:19
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Mors Rattus posted:Werewolves. Huh. Does Werewolf Japan also come with an wolfgirl form, which allows you to trade your absurd murder machine bonuses for equally absurd social bonuses?
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Nov 5, 2016 07:51
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Doresh posted:Huh. Yeah but they only apply as bonuses to otaku and other dregs of society.
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Nov 5, 2016 07:59
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Kavak posted:Yeah but they only apply as bonuses to otaku and other dregs of society. How hard is it for a Mage to transform a wolfgirl into a hugging pillow?
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Nov 5, 2016 08:00
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Killing thugs by moonlight Hunting Spirits by moonlight Really it's only just moonlight He is the one called sailor wolf.
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Nov 5, 2016 08:01
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Kurieg posted:Killing thugs by moonlight Tuxedo Garou.
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Nov 5, 2016 08:02
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Kurieg posted:Like Mors said, Beast has a dearth of Rose's influence. The fact that you can basically see her fingerprints on everything that came out of Scion 2e is one of the reasons I backed it as highly as I did. You have some very strange notions about who's written what. Rose Codeveloped Demon in so much as she invented the game and wrote the bible... And then was too busy Developing Requiem second edition to handle it, so didn't write any of the Demon Corebook and handed off actual redlining and such to Matt. Large portions of Beast are her writing. At this point, I think I'm edging close to having written more for Beast than I have for Demon. Mors Rattus posted:Deviant is being managed by a Good Writer who does Good Things, so. I'm certainly going to hit my writers with a plank inscribed "although the Remade link isolation with mutation as part of the Cronenburgian metaphor for the game, you should not imply that homeless people are literally monsters. Deviants have to find food and shelter like real rough sleepers, but they also have Men in Black searching for them, and superpowers that can help with both." It's a big plank.
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Nov 5, 2016 08:54
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Dave Brookshaw posted:Rose Codeveloped Demon in so much as she invented the game and wrote the bible... And then was too busy Developing Requiem second edition to handle it, so didn't write any of the Demon Corebook and handed off actual redlining and such to Matt. Large portions of Beast are her writing. I'm honestly not surprised. I don't know by what strange logic she imagined undead transwomen having magical menses was a good way to go on about trans representation in games, but here we are.
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Nov 5, 2016 10:30
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LatwPIAT posted:I'm honestly not surprised. I don't know by what strange logic she imagined undead transwomen having magical menses was a good way to go on about trans representation in games, but here we are.
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Nov 5, 2016 10:45
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LatwPIAT posted:I'm honestly not surprised. I don't know by what strange logic she imagined undead transwomen having magical menses was a good way to go on about trans representation in games, but here we are. The Merit from Clanbook Gangrel, which she did not write?
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Nov 5, 2016 10:58
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