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Kurieg posted:In Beast the mechanical bits, such as they are, are somewhat well put together. The Atavisms and Nightmares are really good and evocative. But the fluff put together around those mechanics is what kills it. It's one of those things where you think a competent writer could probably come in and salvage it given the opportunity, except a competent writer was given that opportunity, If the color choices for the text/backgrounds in the book itself didn't make huge sections borderline-to-actually-illegible, it'd make for a pretty good write-up candidate for this thread.
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# ¿ Jan 15, 2016 17:12 |
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# ¿ Mar 19, 2024 04:58 |
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The most important thing to ever remember about oWoD's dice pool mechanics (splitting, changing TN, changing # of dice) is Greg Stolze's anecdote about working on some mechanics for a book and asking the line developer "what's better, +X dice or -Y difficulty?" and being told basically "do whatever feels right, man." It's not even lunatics running the asylum, it's lunatics squatting in an open field and insisting that theirs is a fine institution that serves the needs of the population.
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# ¿ Jan 18, 2016 16:36 |
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Count Chocula posted:Supernatural just claims that all 'pagan' gods are demons, which lets them kill them easily. It's pretty lame. Chernobyl Peace Prize fucked around with this message at 14:17 on Jan 21, 2016 |
# ¿ Jan 21, 2016 14:15 |
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MonsieurChoc posted:Wow. This is way worse than I remember. Setting aside the racism of making Half-Gypsy a loving race option, it's a terrible one mechanically! None of those tiny bonuses are worth giving up the bonus feat and skill points of being human! Even the one that gives a bonus to Initiative is super random and can actually give you a negative one! Also, Disguise checks use Charisma as the base modifier, don't they? So not only is their OR worse than half-elves, their mitigation of it is hamstrung inherently?
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# ¿ Feb 12, 2016 18:40 |
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Count Chocula posted:And if you don't like it, why treat it like it's WRONG somehow? It's just a setting element. I think elves and orcs and Medieval Europe are overdone, but I don't get annoyed at every D&D heartbreaker. Accept that, yes, Mage is a 90s game about Chaos Magick. There aren't many of them. Whether it's because back then he was actually tempered by editorial oversight, or had yet to go Full Satyros in print, Phil Brucato Presents Mage is only really a 90s game about Chaos Magick when being rewritten in 2015. If you don't like the review in this thread rightly laughing at it, you could always take some of your own advice and not read something if you disagree with it.
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# ¿ Mar 28, 2016 03:57 |
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Daeren posted:You are a comic book supervillain doing comic book supervillain things, like making giant death rays powered by diamonds and puppy tears, in order to threaten to BLOW UP THE OCEAN unless the UN gives you one billion dollars in bitcoins.
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# ¿ Apr 11, 2016 23:23 |
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Daeren posted:It should also be noted that it does Wraith's Shadowguiding correctly. Another player plays your demon, and you play someone else's. There is a looot of wordspace and mechanics devoted to minimizing the risk of it turning into the Shadowguiding problem - that is to say, the game either goes nowhere because there's no conflict because nobody wants to be mean, or it immediately devolves into a daisy chain of spite-fueled backstabs that completely derail the game.
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# ¿ Apr 11, 2016 23:29 |
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Spellbound Kingdoms sounds like it gives a mechanical reason for you to go all Iago on the guy you hate instead of trying to stab him outright, which seems pretty cool, to me.
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# ¿ Apr 15, 2016 21:04 |
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Rand Brittain posted:Anytime I hear the suggestion that anybody in this industry is motivated by greed, I laugh until the tears come.
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# ¿ Apr 25, 2016 22:35 |
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Kurieg posted:Having people be born the way they are kind of goes against the grain of the CofD. Werewolf is pretty clear on the fact that Luna's just doing whatever the gently caress she wants, and Mage states that anyone can awaken it just requires the correct kind of push.
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# ¿ Apr 27, 2016 15:18 |
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Nessus posted:I have legit thought a lot about what kind of system you would use to represent Jojo's Stand Adventure Time. It is hard because Stands are both in no way balanced against each other, but also explicitly are not necessarily "stronger" or "weaker" in any kind of obvious way. I feel like some kind of PBTA could be done for it, with perhaps advances involving more involved specification on the tricks of your Stand.
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# ¿ May 25, 2016 00:39 |
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Yeah, things like Rifts are reviews that I appreciate and cherish, just time-offset until I have a lazy Saturday afternoon to read about DBees and South American vampirostates and stuff for few long hours.
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# ¿ Jun 3, 2016 21:29 |
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MollyMetroid posted:Okay so do more people want to see a writeup of Iron Gods (which is a campaign about ascending an AI to godhood and includes a city built on top of a crashed starship) or Reign of Winter (which is about Baba Yaga but involves travel to another planet and a chapter called Rasputin Must Die, in which our heroes go to 1918 Russia and fight Rasputin in a Siberian fortress)? Also available are Wrath of the Righteous (fight demons become demigods), Mummy's Mask (NOT-EGYPT and flying sky pyramids), or Jade Regent (Go to not-Japan and help your friend become empress, also includes bioware style NPC relationship rules.) My personal preference would be one of the first two but if more people want to see one of the others I could be convinced.
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# ¿ Jun 4, 2016 04:40 |
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Yeah, some people lose their poo poo about the druid or monk or fighter being sub-op, or the barbarian or ranger being a bit dull. It's usually gripes over specific classes than anything to do with the rules in general.
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# ¿ Jun 4, 2016 17:20 |
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Nancy_Noxious posted:This thread is really great! Let us exacerbate 13th Age's flaws and stay mellow about Pathfinder's because Also Strike!'s art is great, the layout's fine, and I think this may just be a case of the ol' "~It's okay to like different things~", which you seem to not have cottoned to?
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# ¿ Jun 5, 2016 16:31 |
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Cythereal posted:I prefer Idigam Theory #4, for the effect of making the werewolves eventually realize that these mysterious, ineffable, extraordinarily dangerous entities are the spirits of the race most werewolves disregard as weak and unworthy prey.
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# ¿ Jun 7, 2016 02:57 |
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Nancy_Noxious posted:That one is easy. The Technocracy are STEMlords, so it's not like they're evil queer monsters or anything, so STEMlord nerds dig them. Take for instance that really unfair Mage20 review that was going on, it was a celebration of sciency nerd types. Fashionable tattooed characters were despicable, fugly characters wearing Darwin t-shirts and sweatpants were awesome! That having been said, I'm not sure we read the same M20 review---at no point does the "fugly characters wearing Darwin t-shirts and sweatpants were awesome" thing come up, unless you're thinking of this, which, what? That's a woman of color with a robo-pokemon consulting a clipboard. I don't know where you're reading "fugly" or "pro-STEMlord nerd" into that. The review does lean into making fun of how many of the sample splat characters are depicted as tattooed 20-somethings in trendy clothing but: there are a lot, and it also goes on to list all the ways the representation inclusive (by being non-white, non-male, and older, where applicable. I think you may just hate your version of this thread, which may or may not resemble the one being written. It may complicate people talking to you about it.
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# ¿ Jun 7, 2016 04:05 |
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Nessus posted:Does anyone give a poo poo if I picked up the W:TA20 thing in order to give some grounding for a bunch of Tribe and Breed books I just dug up? Or would it be better to forge ahead and
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# ¿ Jun 12, 2016 00:15 |
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Mors Rattus posted:That'd be the one where Integrators literally reprogram God. Until then, it will never consider humans to be more than stupid and expendable pawns. Basically: flat no, the Machine is not benevolent, at best it is not actively malevolent all the time.
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# ¿ Jun 15, 2016 04:41 |
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Count Chocula posted:I'd rather be a pawn than food or prey or a lesson to teach, especially if I'm being controlled by the one winning the game.
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# ¿ Jun 15, 2016 04:44 |
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Doresh posted:I think what this industry needs is a self-aware game like John: The Wickening, the suspenseful horror game of ordinary people or adventurers having to deal with an adversarial, evil presence that is both untouchable and omnipresent.
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# ¿ Aug 14, 2016 23:58 |
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Ahahahaha dwarves are coders who politicked their way into management and elves are investors running incubators. This game owns bones.
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# ¿ Aug 18, 2016 21:21 |
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Hostile V posted:Gentle Repose.
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# ¿ Aug 24, 2016 20:40 |
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Kurieg posted:Making Beasts a stand in for the LGBT community lends credence to their detractors because even if their actions are completely outside their control the argument is still "Gays are unfairly inflicting their beliefs and lifestyle upon young children".
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# ¿ Oct 3, 2016 18:06 |
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Daeren posted:I might actually do a review of the line, after years dormant in this thread. I was considering coming back with Beast, but that got taken, and Leviathan, but they're in the middle of compiling all their second edition drafts so I'll give them until that's done. Mummy certainly has enough to talk about in the terrible ideas department and "this is actually sick as poo poo" department.
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# ¿ Oct 13, 2016 21:29 |
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Kurieg posted:Well it's somewhat telling that 2e Uratha, who have a much more relaxed Oath and will take other supernaturals into their packs, will probably still not want to work with Beasts, except for maybe the Hunters in Darkness who absolutely love creating terrifying murder forests to keep people out. The Iron Masters, Blood Talons, and Storm Lords would make a habit of killing them on sight, and the Bone shadows would probably want to dissect them. unseenlibrarian posted:Basically the only Changelings that might get along with Beasts are the Scarecrow ministry, but the Ministry take the Beast's lessons gimmick and actually do it right: At their best, they are scooby doo ghosts who are scaring people away from legit supernatural dangers, like open doorways into the hedge leading to True Fae hunting grounds.
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# ¿ Oct 14, 2016 17:34 |
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Lynx Winters posted:jfc I know WW/OP books are long-winded as hell but that doesn't mean every review has to be.
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# ¿ Oct 19, 2016 05:10 |
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Kurieg posted:Do they also refuse help from outsiders out of matters of convenience or do they accept it because it would be rude otherwise.
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# ¿ Oct 28, 2016 23:05 |
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Evil Mastermind posted:Intrusions just aren't interesting. They're not really narrative drawbacks, they're just GM "gently caress you"s because you rolled a 1.
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# ¿ Nov 14, 2016 19:52 |
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I mean, you COULD use that sheep-shearing spell so you don't dull your existing pair, or if you've got a broken pair (it doesn't specify functioning shears). But you could probably also just sharpen a dull pair or fix a broken pair of shears (using spells that require a whetstone or a toolkit, respectively, and the appropriate hand gestures).
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# ¿ Jan 5, 2017 21:17 |
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Poland Spring posted:Holy poo poo a goblin but not just a goblin, the WORST goblin. Make the worst goblin.
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# ¿ Jan 6, 2017 04:33 |
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Queegol's obviously a Magician. You don't haul yourself up by your goblin bootstraps like that only to have to get your hands dirty later.
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# ¿ Jan 8, 2017 20:30 |
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Night10194 posted:There aren't any. The idea of being a mythmaker whose job is actually really complicated, sympathetic, or weird and getting inserted into a gothic crazytown is a neat idea, but that's never actually been what Beast is.
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# ¿ Jan 16, 2017 21:32 |
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Simian_Prime posted:It's ironic that D&D-based games that was laughed at in the 90's as "kid's stuff" is now seen as the innovative force and has the most mass-market appeal(even if just for Millennial nostalgia's sake), and WoD, once the hip, edgy alternative in 90's RPG's, seems like a stodgy company still trying to relive its glory days while not recognizing the basic flaws in its mechanics and fiction. e: Yeah that too
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# ¿ Jan 22, 2017 22:38 |
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Doresh posted:This almost sounds like a setting for Godbound. The world broke because too many people glitched through the floor. It also turned out that the Heaven raid dungeon was not particularly stable. Now a few of the players still bothering with this mess of a server have suddenly gained mod powers.
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# ¿ Jan 26, 2017 21:40 |
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Evil Mastermind posted:By the way, I'm actually pretty proud of the facts that a) I'm responsible for the newest thread title, and b) I seem to be becoming a go-to-guy for lovely metaplot-driven 90's RPGs. quote:With that, Hellstromme quickly steps into his spaceship, seals the door, and blasts off into the night sky. disappoints me only a tiny tiny bit.
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# ¿ Jan 30, 2017 19:51 |
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For Polaris, I want to see a lovely wizard so you can really dig into this whole quote:fugitive hedge mage(read: a Human who wasted a lot of feats on toys they can't use) thing.
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# ¿ Jan 31, 2017 21:09 |
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Crasical posted:Considering the amount of Shadowrun chatter, I'm not sure I need to be doing a F&F of the game...
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# ¿ Feb 5, 2017 23:43 |
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Evil Mastermind posted:You laugh, but some of the NPCs in Progenitor were basically Greg Stolze seeing how badly he could break the Wild Talents power system in terms of dealing damage in one capacity or another.
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# ¿ Feb 7, 2017 22:53 |
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# ¿ Mar 19, 2024 04:58 |
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The super chill part about Conquering Heroes being like half, two-thirds breathless hagiography of Beasts in the face of those icky mean man Heroes is that it undercuts the already flimsy-to-the-point-of-ethereality defense of Beast that "hey maybe it's being somehow written out of character as an unreliable narrator" unless that logic is just supposed to poison every book and line it touches. Which hey: Maybe.
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# ¿ Feb 8, 2017 16:41 |