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Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Cassa posted:

All I took from that chapter entire review was don't have magic in your TORG games.

TORG angers me on a deep level.

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Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

It's not doing wonders for me, either.

Speaking of which, Ulisses Spiele did the first preview for Torg Eternity today.

They're keeping the roll-and-look-up-your-roll and log scaling. :sigh:

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Evil Mastermind posted:

It's not doing wonders for me, either.

Speaking of which, Ulisses Spiele did the first preview for Torg Eternity today.

They're keeping the roll-and-look-up-your-roll and log scaling. :sigh:

Now you know how I felt when I found out Feng Shui 2 was keeping d6-d6 and immediately cancelled my kickstarter pledge. :sigh:

What up, game you really liked that had outdated design and then didn't update it in its 21st century remake buddy?

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

What gets me is how there are people who are going "wait, you're changing the mechanics? I don't like that."

Like, if you don't want new mechanics why bother with a new version of the game? Just keep playing the original and let the rest of us have something newer.

e: I really gotta work on my Fate Core version.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Evil Mastermind posted:

What gets me is how there are people who are going "wait, you're changing the mechanics? I don't like that."

Like, if you don't want new mechanics why bother with a new version of the game? Just keep playing the original and let the rest of us have something newer.

e: I really gotta work on my Fate Core version.

The biggest thing to remember is that most fans of an RPG don't actually get to play it very often, and get to DM it even less, so most won't have that much experience with the mechanical flaws of the system they love. If you never actually get to play TORG, then I imagine the fact that the mechanics that make it unplayable are staying in is going to annoy a fan less.

FMguru
Sep 10, 2003

peed on;
sexually

Night10194 posted:

The biggest thing to remember is that most fans of an RPG don't actually get to play it very often, and get to DM it even less, so most won't have that much experience with the mechanical flaws of the system they love. If you never actually get to play TORG, then I imagine the fact that the mechanics that make it unplayable are staying in is going to annoy a fan less.
This goes doubly so for 1990s Supplement Treadmill line games, in which the biggest fans don't actually play it much or at all but instead read the sourcebooks and tie-in fiction and have very very strong feelings about setting details and metaplot elements and largely ignore the actual system. Even the overheated edition wars are done is the context of changes to the setting rather than changes to the system.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Kaza42 posted:

I did like how they still clearly spelled out how a lot of the theories and magic function so that if you did care about it you could learn it. Someone who just wants to be A Wizard just knows Art+Technique and they're fine. Someone interested in the research and theory behind magic knows all about the Limits and the various theories on how and why they work and their interconnectedness, and you can plausibly come up with unified magical theories.

Ars Magica is Sandersonian magic in an rpg done right. There's enough rules and explanation so that magic isn't just the "Do Anything" button and you get a good feel for its powers and limitations, but it's abstracted and modular enough that you don't have to personally study for years to play it. drat, Ars Magica is a great game.

It is my absolute favorite game and the only megacrunchy game I have ever truly loved. I really wish they had decided to redo the tribunals from 3e in 5e, though, because while 4e fluff is perfectly usable, 3e fluff is a steaming pile.

wiegieman
Apr 22, 2010

Royalty is a continuous cutting motion


The fact that the Ars Magica campaign didn't meet its goal and loving Double Fine did was proof that Kickstarter was a failure from the start.

Count Chocula
Dec 25, 2011

WE HAVE TO CONTROL OUR ENVIRONMENT
IF YOU SEE ME POSTING OUTSIDE OF THE AUSPOL THREAD PLEASE TELL ME THAT I'M MISSED AND TO START POSTING AGAIN

Hostile V posted:

I was gonna say that Vincent Moon's name was familiar but could only think about it in the context of The Mighty Boosh. Night Stalkers has The Master of Drachenstein, a 1930s pulp story adapted from 12th century events set in the UK. Spirit Slayers has Wolfshead, same hero from the previous story, same setting, same adaptation from the same period released in the 1920s. No story for Witch Finders though, those were the only two I could find.

There's a character with a similar name in the Illuminatus! Trilogy too. I dunno why he's teaming up with a gender swapped Frank Black from the Pixies/Millennium, though.

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

Night10194 posted:

The biggest thing to remember is that most fans of an RPG don't actually get to play it very often, and get to DM it even less, so most won't have that much experience with the mechanical flaws of the system they love. If you never actually get to play TORG, then I imagine the fact that the mechanics that make it unplayable are staying in is going to annoy a fan less.

Oh, people are playing the old system. I've seen people saying that they don't like the changes and will keep using the old rules.

MJ12
Apr 8, 2009

Evil Mastermind posted:

Oh, people are playing the old system. I've seen people saying that they don't like the changes and will keep using the old rules.

Wait. What. How.

LongDarkNight
Oct 25, 2010

It's like watching the collapse of Western civilization in fast forward.
Oven Wrangler

Nuns with Guns posted:

this is neat! Do you have a write up of how your party played through it anywhere?

This is from memory since I'm a lovely note take.

My players still had the murderhobo mindset and went loud their first night in Aldencross. The PCs arrival was uneventful; some went shopping, a few went closer to Castle Balentyne to scope it out. The group got a room at the Lord's Dalliance (poor Grumblejack being forced to hide in the woods for most of this act) and fished for rumors. Someone rolled a '20' on the chart and learned about the legend of the passage in the basement. Not long after closing the Ninja and another PC snuck into the basement to search for it. They found the secret door and opened the passage when they hear someone coming down the stairs into the basement, so they hide in the passage and shut the door behind themselves. A few moments later Bellam Barhold, the innkeep, opens the secret door coming face to face with the PCs. There were a few moments of awkwardness before the PCs murdered him, stashing the corpse a few hundred feet down the tunnel. Realizing that this is a problem they get the other PCs and decide to head into the castle. Up through the Vault and smithy the first room they come across is Captain Samual Barhold's. They find him sleeping and defenseless and murderize him as well. He does manage to cause a ruckus before dying so the retreat back into the tunnel. This first night sets up a hobby for the PCs, for the rest of the AP anytime they come to a new place they would also seek out any Barholds living there to murder them, by the end of the AP when they were running the kingdom their secret police tracked down and executed any remaining Barholds. Their justification was that Bellam overcharged them for their rooms. I had to invent more members of the family to satisfy their bloodlust since they don't actually appear again in the AP.

Meanwhile back at the Dalliance the PCs decide that with the death of a Watch Captain and the disappearance of his brother they may draw some unwanted attention so they head south in the forest leaving behind Aldencross with the intention of hiding out for a few days. After a days hard riding they come on an isolated farm. The Cleric uses his iron circlet to disguise himself as an old priest of Mitra while the other PCs remain hidden. The kindly old priest is invited in by the farmer and his family and asked to join them for dinner. Father, mother, children, grandparents are all gathered around the table for dinner and ask the priest to say grace, he hits them with "HAIL ASMODEUS" and channels negative energy killing them all where they sit. The PCs now have a place to hide out for a few days while things blow over in Aldencross.

Keep in mind that Sakkarot told them his army won't be ready and in position for two weeks and they have already done all this nonsense. After a few days down on the farm the PCs split into two groups and return to Aldencross at different times of the day to avert any suspicion, they have used the iron circlets to assume new identities. Some more dicking around leads them back to the Dalliance where Bellam's wife is barely holding things together working on the theory that her husband is alive and has been abducted by the mysterious strangers that fled town the night he disappeared. The PCs fish for more rumors and learn about the dwarven engineers reinforcing the castle defenses and the map of the fortifications. The Wizard, Witch and Ninja sneak upstairs to break into the room belonging to Barnabus, The two casters use their familiars to keep an eye on the stairs while the Ninja picks the locked door. The Ninja completely fails to pick the lock and we get the absurd scene of the Wizard teleporting into the room and unlocking the door from the other side to let in the Ninja.

With the stolen plans they use the passage to sneak into the castle again to cause some more damage. They kill a few more guards and destroy the rookery before escaping down the passage once again. Afterwards the castle is on full lockdown so the PCs spend another few days dicking around town. They catch the play by "Ye Merrie Men"in a field outside town before getting the brilliant idea to sneak back across the river and attack the gatehouse. Under the cover of fog cloud they moved in on a moonless night and tried to sabotage the gate and portcullis with stone shape. The gatehouse guards notice them and the PCs retreat under a barrage of arrows and siege weapons, Grumblejack almost dies. Now Castle Balentyne is on the highest alert, good job guys. Fortunately the first two weeks had elapsed at this point. It was also now that the PCs decided to try more stealthy approaches; these fail since the Castle is at DEFCON 1. They wait a few more days to see if the alert level comes down, which it doesn't. At this point they go back thru the tunnel at night, sneak into the main keep and slaughter their way up to Sir Thomas, the Paladin dealt with they make their way out to the gate destroying the defenses and fire off the signal rocket. Enter Sakkarot and horde stage right.

I think their success and failure in this part of the AP taught them the value of more clever puzzle solving rather than just killed first, loot the bodies later.

MonsieurChoc
Oct 12, 2013

Every species can smell its own extinction.

wiegieman posted:

The fact that the Ars Magica campaign didn't meet its goal and loving Double Fine did was proof that Kickstarter was a failure from the start.

:smith:

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

MJ12 posted:

Wait. What. How.
Probably because That's How Torg Always Worked, and as we all know with a not-insignificant portion of an old game's fanbase they just want what they've always had.

I played Torg not too long ago with a guy who hated the idea of using Fate for Torg because "but then how would you get the feeling of rolling an exploding 20?"

Like, I love Torg. Really. I wouldn't have spent over three years talking about it if I didn't love the setting. But while the rules were fine back in 1990, nowadays "rules technology" has changed and evolved. We understand games better now. We get how we can use rules to reinforce a theme or a playstyle.

Torg's rules don't do that.

Torg thinks it's a fast-paced cinematic game. It's not. I mean, in motion it moves okay but there's no mook rules, there's unnecessary subsystems, ridiculous "balancing" mechanics, and any attempts to reinforce tone through the rules just make things more complicated for no real gain.

But that's not the point. The point is that the Torg rules are the Torg rules, even though Torg's best selling points are in the setting itself. If you don't use a d20 and exploding dice and the logarithmic scale then no matter how the setting is presented it wouldn't "be Torg".

bewilderment
Nov 22, 2007
man what



Looking at the discussion of the TORG 'update', I'm interested to see the writeup of Godbound come back because especially going into the GM sections, it's amazing that an 'OSR' game how modern it is. The reason for it being OSR besides "I already had some of the framework done" were basically that the DnD stats felt good enough, and it made it easy to just have a ready-made bestiary of monsters and only having to write up some setting-specific monsters.

Godbound has:
- Mook/mob rules
- Rules for casually knocking over a bunch of little enemies not worth your time while you fight one big guy (in case you're fighting, like, four guys, but not a mob)
- 13th Age style backgrounds in lieu of skills
- Explicitly telling the GM not to make players roll for petty poo poo like balancing on a log over a river, only for things that would realistically challenge a demigod with a power level somewhere between Hercules and Super-Saiyan Goku
- General guidelines for how strong an enemy should be for a tough challenge
- Abstracted rules for enacting long term change over an area
- Abstract faction rules, and guides and random tables in case you quickly need to make up a faction
- Literally no encumbrance or wealth rules on the character level scale because it doesn't matter

wiegieman
Apr 22, 2010

Royalty is a continuous cutting motion


Consider that even 7th sea, yes, Wick 7th sea, has now switched to a narrative mechanic implementation which explicitly tells you to only require rolls if there's actual dramatic risk.

Daeren
Aug 18, 2009

YER MUSTACHE IS CROOKED

bewilderment posted:

Looking at the discussion of the TORG 'update', I'm interested to see the writeup of Godbound come back because especially going into the GM sections, it's amazing that an 'OSR' game how modern it is. The reason for it being OSR besides "I already had some of the framework done" were basically that the DnD stats felt good enough, and it made it easy to just have a ready-made bestiary of monsters and only having to write up some setting-specific monsters.

I actually heard enough about Godbound to get really interested in it before anyone I knew mentioned it was OSR, so hearing that was a moment of profound confusion. If I'd heard "OSR Exalted" as the very first pitch I'd have hissed and recoiled like Dracula seeing a crucifix.

wiegieman posted:

Consider that even 7th sea, yes, Wick 7th sea, has now switched to a narrative mechanic implementation which explicitly tells you to only require rolls if there's actual dramatic risk.

I actually played old 7th Sea in high school and man oh man were the mechanical weird spots apparent even back then.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!

wiegieman posted:

Consider that even 7th sea, yes, Wick 7th sea, has now switched to a narrative mechanic implementation which explicitly tells you to only require rolls if there's actual dramatic risk.

Man, someday Exalted will catch up with this notion. Roll to lift that bale of hay, Exalt! Roll those dice!

Oh well, maybe by the time they do a 4th edition in 2056.

bewilderment
Nov 22, 2007
man what



Daeren posted:

I actually heard enough about Godbound to get really interested in it before anyone I knew mentioned it was OSR, so hearing that was a moment of profound confusion. If I'd heard "OSR Exalted" as the very first pitch I'd have hissed and recoiled like Dracula seeing a crucifix.

Yeah, my reactions to it went like this over time.

1. "Ugh, more OSR fantasy heartbreaker crap."
2. "Huh, it actually looks kinda interesting..."
3. "Wait, it's actually 90% text complete? This actually looks good!"
4. "Hell, I might as well back it!"
5. "What the gently caress, the kickstarter delivered not just on time, but over a month early?!"

Wapole Languray
Jul 4, 2012

wiegieman posted:

Consider that even 7th sea, yes, Wick 7th sea, has now switched to a narrative mechanic implementation which explicitly tells you to only require rolls if there's actual dramatic risk.

That's not surprising. Wick has never really been bad about rules or being a grog, his issues are more he's kind of an egotistical dick. He makes really solid games that are ruined because he writes like an rear end in a top hat.

Also it's hilarious seeing this thread's reaction to Kevin Crawford. Stars Without Numbers and Other Dust are rock solid, then when he wanted to make a non-western fantasy game he converted them into Spears of the Dawn, Silent Legions is basically OSR Delta Green, Scarlet Heroes is D&D but designed around super-fast solo gameplay with 2 people or a GM Oracle if you want. Then he made Godbound extrapolated from Scarlet Heroes rules. He's not some nobody, he's got a solid track record of really good games with lots of support (Stars Without Numbers has TONS of supplements) and a rock solid release and work ethic. The OSR label doesn't apply to mechanics so much as it's a compatibility layer (Just take any D&D dungeon and find-replace SWORD with LASER) and is familiar to most people who play RPG's.

Wapole Languray fucked around with this message at 05:44 on Dec 16, 2016

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Wapole Languray posted:

That's not surprising. Wick has never really been bad about rules

Have you played L5R or the old 7th Sea?

Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry

Night10194 posted:

Now you know how I felt when I found out Feng Shui 2 was keeping d6-d6 and immediately cancelled my kickstarter pledge. :sigh:

What up, game you really liked that had outdated design and then didn't update it in its 21st century remake buddy?

Keeping that mechanic was fine. Getting rid of the Architects though was harsh.

Lynx Winters
May 1, 2003

Borderlawns: The Treehouse of Pandora
Nah, dude just has a real weird bug up his rear end about intentionally swingy dice and will never shut the gently caress up about it.

Wapole Languray
Jul 4, 2012

Night10194 posted:

Have you played L5R or the old 7th Sea?

Yeah, but lets be fair: drat near every game back then was poo poo and had hosed up rules because we were still in the post AD&D Wild West of game design that spawned poo poo like TORG and Palladium. It was contemporary with OG Deadlands and Feng Shui and in the heart of the oWoD supremacy and D20 glut.

Nuns with Guns
Jul 23, 2010

It's fine.
Don't worry about it.

LongDarkNight posted:

This first night sets up a hobby for the PCs, for the rest of the AP anytime they come to a new place they would also seek out any Barholds living there to murder them, by the end of the AP when they were running the kingdom their secret police tracked down and executed any remaining Barholds. Their justification was that Bellam overcharged them for their rooms. I had to invent more members of the family to satisfy their bloodlust since they don't actually appear again in the AP.

It's always great finding out what things PCs latch onto in a module. D&D does set up people with the expectation that beating their faces into a problem will make it go away, so the times when it doesn't does lead to.... interesting places

bewilderment posted:

Looking at the discussion of the TORG 'update', I'm interested to see the writeup of Godbound come back because especially going into the GM sections, it's amazing that an 'OSR' game how modern it is. The reason for it being OSR besides "I already had some of the framework done" were basically that the DnD stats felt good enough, and it made it easy to just have a ready-made bestiary of monsters and only having to write up some setting-specific monsters.

Godbound has:
- Mook/mob rules
- Rules for casually knocking over a bunch of little enemies not worth your time while you fight one big guy (in case you're fighting, like, four guys, but not a mob)
- 13th Age style backgrounds in lieu of skills
- Explicitly telling the GM not to make players roll for petty poo poo like balancing on a log over a river, only for things that would realistically challenge a demigod with a power level somewhere between Hercules and Super-Saiyan Goku
- General guidelines for how strong an enemy should be for a tough challenge
- Abstracted rules for enacting long term change over an area
- Abstract faction rules, and guides and random tables in case you quickly need to make up a faction
- Literally no encumbrance or wealth rules on the character level scale because it doesn't matter

there is a healthy vein of OSR designers that are interested in building around the lighter rules of early D&D and implementing modern design concepts. Krawford is the biggest one, and he's a fantastic machine too. Beyond the Wall borrowed the playbook concept for classes from Apocalypse World and its ilk. There was recently an OSR Samurai rpg from a guy who did L5R work that promised light, simple rules, which might be worth looking into when the finalized book comes out.

Nuns with Guns fucked around with this message at 13:48 on Dec 16, 2016

The Lore Bear
Jan 21, 2014

I don't know what to put here. Guys? GUYS?!

Lynx Winters posted:

Nah, dude just has a real weird bug up his rear end about intentionally swingy dice and will never shut the gently caress up about it.

I was going to make a serious post about how they did modernize Feng Shui 2 within the confines of "we want this range of results", but then saw who was posting and remembered I was at work. It's a mediocre example of modernizing an old system (gun lists still exist, there are still some mild issues with there being good and bad shtick trees, etc), but they didn't just toss it out the door without thinking of the consequences of the dice, the mechanics, etc.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Vampire: the Requiem, 2nd Edition

The power of the Blood is not static, for all that the Carthians would say vampiric society is. It evolved over time, creating new breeds of monster. Clans rise and fall with history. Some clans have been lost to time, and it is unclear if some ever even existed. Only stories remain.

The Akhud, according to vampiric legend, date back to the time of Abraham. Five kings ruled the cities of Sodom, Gomorroh, Admah, Zeboim and Bela, but they themselves were ruled by the men of Elam. They rose in rebellion, but were crushed easily. And yet they rose again, and the second time, their elite forces utterly destroyed the Elamite armies. Some Kindred historians claim this was because the kings became vampires. It is unclear how - speculation ranges from dark ritual to a gift from a stranger to the sheer power of toxic hate poisoning their souls. What happened next? Well, the Curse corrupted the kings and their cities. They led their people into sin and slaughter, and their peace was worse than their war. The river Jordan ran red with blood.

Two visitors come and sty with Lot, you know that whole story. Lot offers up his own daughters to the mob to protect his guests, and the guests curse the names of the five kings. The guests send Lot and his family to flee, his wife turns to stone. Sodom and Gomorrah fall. Some say fire from the heavens, others say that the kings spread their Curse too wide, until more vampires than men lived in the five cities. The tensions of hunger and overcrowded predators, this theory says, started a communal frenzy, so feral that it spread to all five cities and destroyed them utterly, until only a few remained. Through an incestuous cycle of Embrace and Amaranth - that is, diablerie, the consumption of another vampire's soul - each became a walking grave, containing multitudes of souls.

This was the clan Akhud. They sought to restore the five cities, it's said, and the only way they could was to destroy every other vampire. None know where they got the idea from. It's said that they were bound blood-deep by a promise to never betray any other Akhud in word or deed. It is unclear if the Akhud ever existed, and if they did, whether they still do. They make for good bogeymen, though many would prefer the stories faded. It's dangerous to tell people that redemption might be possible by destroying vampires.

The Julii certainly existed. Once, they did what few vampires can now even imagine: they built the Camarilla, uniting the entire vampiric might of the Romans into a single government on which, it is said, the sun never rose. Nothing has ever equaled it since. But even the Camarilla could not last. It fell, it broke, and the Julii are gone. Some say they were cousins or parent to the Ventrue, or that they were born from dark owls of the night, or that they were an infectious idea, a contagious madness pretending to be a clan. Others claim they were only a bloodline of the Daeva. And yet others say the Julii did not die, that they raised their own Masquerade from other vampires, hiding to build a new and greater Camarilla on the dark side of the moon with the aid of strange machines.

The details of the Julii and their death don't really matter. What does is this: they existed, changed the world and became something to aspire to - but they also are a cautionary tale. They are gone, forever. Vampires aren't immortal, just less mortal than the living. Something killed every member of clan Julii, to the last drop of tainted blood.

A particularly bizarre clan was known as the Pijavica. They were found largely in Eastern Europe, and once a new Pijavica was Embraced, their body died. The limbs withered, and the stomach turned black and swollen. Most villages knew to burn these, but as time went on, they often came to believe the changes were just the effects of decay. A corpse left to term would burst as a sentient mass of blood emerged from the guts, red and black, clotted and boiling. It was vulnerable, as any vampire, to light, and fire and starvation. It could not truly hunt, and had to draw sustenance from spilled blood or the wounds of the sleeping. Many died, unable to feed, but those that succeeded grew over forty nights. They formed a jelly-like body that grew into a boneless, shapeshifting mass that would eventually spliut and reveal a largely human form to hunt with.

It is agreed by vampires that knew of them that the Pijavica are extinct. They were too strange to survive. Consensus is that they died out some time in the late 1800s. A Slovakian Dragon claimed to have studied speciments of the Pijavica into the mid-1800s, capturing and raising them in her lab. She made sketches of their many shapes, observing how quantity and quality of absorbed blood affected them. She experimented with many stimuli, getting the most extreme results from werewolf blood, and hypothesized that the Pijavica life cycle was an accelerated yet stunted version of that of elder vampires. However, her studies are now lost - a few decades ago, a werewolf pack killed her and burned her lab to the ground. All that remains are a partial set of notes and sketches, and the shattered remained of specimen jars.

Next time: Covenants

Mors Rattus fucked around with this message at 20:57 on Dec 16, 2016

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

thelazyblank posted:

I was going to make a serious post about how they did modernize Feng Shui 2 within the confines of "we want this range of results", but then saw who was posting and remembered I was at work. It's a mediocre example of modernizing an old system (gun lists still exist, there are still some mild issues with there being good and bad shtick trees, etc), but they didn't just toss it out the door without thinking of the consequences of the dice, the mechanics, etc.

No, they didn't. They just didn't fix the things that caused me to stop playing it, so I didn't give them money, since I had originally planned to give them money in hopes that they would fix the things that stopped it being played at my table and that kept my friends from running it (or me wanting to run a fourth campaign).

I sincerely hope you're still enjoying your 2e game.

The Lore Bear
Jan 21, 2014

I don't know what to put here. Guys? GUYS?!

Night10194 posted:

No, they didn't. They just didn't fix the things that caused me to stop playing it, so I didn't give them money, since I had originally planned to give them money in hopes that they would fix the things that stopped it being played at my table and that kept my friends from running it (or me wanting to run a fourth campaign).

I sincerely hope you're still enjoying your 2e game.

They did. You not liking it doesn't make it more or less modernized.

Every time Feng Shui 2 comes up, you manage to bend and break language used to describe RPGs when it comes down to you not liking the choices they made. Just say you don't like it, or don't say anything at all. There's a reason I don't post about WoD, D&D 5e, etc etc. I don't like them and I don't have to act like me not liking them is some logical position based on common RPG language. I just don't like the choices they made in making a game. Hell, just post in the Feng Shui 2 thread once a month that you feel like everyone needs to know you still don't like it, or just let it the gently caress go.


On something that is not just posting about posting, the write-up for the new Requiem stuff does make me want to rethink my WoD stances. Have they actually done anything with Vigil? I've been out of the loop, but Vigil and Requiem were sort of my big two games that I played back in the day.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Vigil 2e is in the works but is not out yet.

Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry
I hate all forms of WoD.

Okay now on to something interesting. Pinnacle just released 'Savaging Rifts Ideas' for the Savage Rifts line. This is a "Conversion Guide" but it really isn't. It doesn't have charts or tables but is more advice on how to bring various OCCs over. It also has some amazing things like:

Savaging Rifts Ideas posted:

Weapons

The vast array of weapons from Rifts®
is impressive. Outside of look-and-feel,
however, there comes a point of mostly
diminishing returns...

and

Savaging Rifts Ideas posted:

MORE VARIETY, NOT MORE POWER

Most gamers know the term “power
creep.” Newer material comes out for
a game of almost any kind, and there
is a righteous concern that the new
character type, weapon, armor, etc.
will be so much better than what’s
come before it makes the older release
obsolete. Designers of all forms
of games conscientiously struggle
to ensure new material makes the
game experience more dynamic and
interesting without creating an arms
race to acquire the new releases just
because it completely overpowers
anything else.
This is a concept you should keep
in the front of your mind as you go
through your own creation process
to add things to your Savage Rifts®
campaign. While the temptation
is strong to ensure your personal
favorite O.C.C. or power armor is as
awesome as you can possibly make it,
you will do better by your game and
your fellow players by working on
making it stand out creatively, rather
than in terms of raw power. Savage
Worlds is a game system which favors
a certain amount of balance among
roughly equivalent things, and the
game works best when honoring
this idea.
Look for what makes your favored
idea special and interesting, rather
than what makes it kick the stuffing
out of every other like it in the
setting. After all, it’s relatively easy
to just make something stronger,
tougher, and more damaging…but
that’s hardly exciting or intriguing.
It’s better to find the elements
which make it stand out in more
memorable ways.

It's like the antithesis of Siembada.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Are there any legit mechanically solid games from the early-mid nineties that people can think of? I'm curious.

FMguru
Sep 10, 2003

peed on;
sexually

Night10194 posted:

Are there any legit mechanically solid games from the early-mid nineties that people can think of? I'm curious.
I've heard good things (mechanically) about the Silhouette system that DP9 used for Heavy Gear, Jovian Chronicles, Tribe 8, and other games.

Mr. Maltose
Feb 16, 2011

The Guffless Girlverine

Night10194 posted:

Are there any legit mechanically solid games from the early-mid nineties that people can think of? I'm curious.

Castle Falkenstein.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Mr. Maltose posted:

Castle Falkenstein.

poo poo I forgot Castle Falkenstein.

I really need to actually play that some day.

Mr. Maltose
Feb 16, 2011

The Guffless Girlverine

Night10194 posted:

poo poo I forgot Castle Falkenstein.

I really need to actually play that some day.

You and nearly everybody else. It's yet another entry on the list of best games nobody plays.

Josef bugman
Nov 17, 2011

Pictured: Poster prepares to celebrate Holy Communion (probablY)

This avatar made possible by a gift from the Religionthread Posters Relief Fund

Night10194 posted:

poo poo I forgot Castle Falkenstein.

I really need to actually play that some day.

Was that the one with an actual Emperor Norton?

Also I am sorry to say this, but Torg seems dumb as hell. And I like Warhammer.

wiegieman
Apr 22, 2010

Royalty is a continuous cutting motion


Josef bugman posted:

Was that the one with an actual Emperor Norton?

Emperor Norton I rules the Bear Flag Empire, which covers the entire west coast.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Vampire: the Requiem, 2nd Edition

Covenants are how vampires organize themselves. Vampires can exist alone, but it's not healthy. Without regular social contact, they tend to devolve into insane monsters. The problem is, the times when vampires are active makes it hard to meet with humans - and even if you do, well, they look like food. And so vampires tend to be social monsters, organizing and meeting with each other. There's five covenants found most commonly, and a terrifying rumor of another group. The normal covenants are the Carthian Movement, the Circle of the Crone, the Invictus, the Lancea et Sanctum and the Ordo Dracul. The other group, which few know much about, is known only as VII.

The Carthian Movement are political radicals, for the most part. They see the way that most vampiric societies aer run and they believe things need to change. The elders gather at the top, controlling those beneath them in a feudal mockery of the world. Change must come. And that's what the Carthians are doing: they're changing things. They use living ideologies to revolutionize the dead, and tend to blow up detractors. According to the Carthians, the natural condition of the vampire is stasis - and stasis is death. Human political movements can rise swiftly and keep power well. Thus, they take their cues from those movements, offering a chance for the young and outcast, a way to govern vampires without the Invictus' static and selfish aristocracy. Some of them are violent, others genteel and diplomatic. They take all types, and recruit from just about any vampires that feel wronged or disenfranchised for any reason. Vampires have so many.

As for what the Carthians want to change things into? Well, that's...a difficult question. The Carthians change themselves constantly, altering their ideals whenever they see the need to. The need comes often, when all you want is, ultimately, something new. They can be fractious, but they're often surprisingly well-prepared for any situation as a result.

The Movement was born in 1779 when a Parisian vampire, a Lance apostate, published a pamphlet named Contre Les Vampires Patriarcals, which on the surface appeared to be an allegorical text comparing aristocrats to vampires. In truth, it was a call to arms for the neonates of the city to rise up against the elders. It was published under the name Emmanuel Baptiste Carth, but was actuallly written by a man named Eric Giraud, who was destroyed in the 1790s. E. B. Carth, however, lived on. As France became embroiled by revolution, the name took on its own life. Across Europe, pamphlets signed 'E. B. Carth' appeared, offering up coded political messages behind the obvious text. Neonates and reformers had existed before, but now, they had a name to rally behind, a banner to raise. By the mid-1800s, the word 'Carthian' was well in use. E. B. Carth is still publishing these days, primarily online. Everyone knows the name is fictional, but that's the point. Carth is an idea, and the Carthians will kill for an idea. It's the power of that idea which has created the bizarre phenomenon of Carthian Law, which forces the Blood itself to obey the ideology.

Carthian rhetoric is all about equality and justice, which can make the Movement seem benevolent, especially in comparison to other covenants. This would be a foolish view, however. The Carthian equality applies only to the dead. The living, well, Carthians are often very utilitarian about them. The living are the means of production, not the hands that seize it.

Carthian activity is dedicated to the rise of a new order. The traditions of vampiric society haveu ses, but the way they are enforced is fundamentally flawed. The Carthians hold that all vampires are equal - but it's clear to anyone that in today's nights, some are much more equal than others. Because Carthians adapt modern ideologies, it's unsurprising that they often resemble human radical groups - and, like them, split often. The Carthians know how to bring splinter groups back to the fold, though. It's easier, when you have magic powers in your blood. Besides, Carthians are very good at cooperation. They need to be, to get anywhere. They're very busy, always looking for a project to work on or an opening to exploit. They tend to be more open to negotiation than most other covenants, but they also tend to be better at it. Carthians also often serve in the governments run by other covenants - their open agendas makes them strangely honest. Other covenants see them as the devil they know, especially the Ordo and the Crones. Sure, the Carthians are in conflict with existing governments, but their ideological purity can make them useful - and that gives them a way to push their reforms from below.

A city run by Carthians tends to start with purges and executions of defeated enemies. Those that surrender and recant are watched closely, and the Carthians can be particularly nasty about thought policing. However, they do allow outsiders in - Carthian states are at their best when they can convince other vampires to join their ideas. However, in victory, the Carthians also tend to be at their most fractious. They know power corrupts, and are more than willing to rebel against other Carthians if they feel the need. They actually tend to get on best when they're the public enemy. Without the problems of power, the Movement works. They support each other, help each other, work hard to keep each other alive. In the minority, Carthians are excellent spies, recruiters and revolutionaries...but not suicidal idiots. Suicide doesn't help them.



Next time: The Circle of the Crone

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Asimo
Sep 23, 2007


Mr. Maltose posted:

You and nearly everybody else. It's yet another entry on the list of best games nobody plays.
This is your regular reminder that Mike Pondsmith is a goddamn game design genius and never gets any recognition for it.
We'll politely ignore Fuzion.

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