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I know I'm a couple-few days late to comment on Bellum Maga, but I have to say I did really enjoy the part where the book said "Killing innocents is bad. Here's all the ways you can turn slaughtering children into magical power for your own use. Wink."
PoptartsNinja fucked around with this message at 16:19 on Apr 13, 2016 |
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Apr 13, 2016 16:17
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 01:51 |
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Alien Rope Burn posted:The Shadow: it's spooky and you lose. Did they name the Darkness 月 子 ?
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Sep 14, 2016 03:16
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I'm glad someone did!
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Sep 14, 2016 16:16
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occamsnailfile posted:the marvelous new “Eta/D-Bees” category. Eugh. Throwing around the term "Eta" like it's nothing is something I'm not particularly fond of seeing in BattleTech either.
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Feb 2, 2017 02:57
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occamsnailfile posted:Yeah, when this book was published I don't think it was really common knowledge that 'eta' is a slur, though the research done for this book is not...great. Lumping them together with 'literally not human' is pretty mean no matter what though. I swear there must have been something in the late 80s / early 90s that "popularized" the usage. My suspicion is an English to Japanese dictionary in common use at the time, just because of the propensity of game writers at the time to throw it around. I do admit it's possible Siembieda saw it used in a BattleTech novel and 'borrowed' something he probably shouldn't have, but at the same time I haven't seen a faction that's a direct analogue to the Draconis Combine's "1940s Imperial Japan with Samurai" gimmick, so I'm thinking it's more an extremely unfortunate coincidence made by two different nerds using the same sources. Edit: Although I suppose if Siembieda was stealing from BattleTech wholesale there'd be more Yakuza fetishization. PoptartsNinja fucked around with this message at 19:30 on Feb 2, 2017 |
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Feb 2, 2017 19:23
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Halloween Jack posted:The Japanese Talent Hoshi (“Star”) debuted in the attack on the landing force in what was the first organized kamikaze (“divine wind”) attack of the war. His 24-Zero squadron attacked American escort carriers, inflicting heavy damage and sinking the St. Lô with 100 men aboard. Hoshi’s defensive teleportation power returned him to the Yamato, and he led two more waves of kamikaze attacks. Why would it return him to Yamato and not his carrier? I doubt very much the Japanese would've bothered to return a single pilot that failed to properly die for his country to a carrier during the middle of a pitched battle. I can only assume they did so after every attempt to execute him for cowardice saw him reflexively teleport right back to the Yamato's deck.
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Mar 5, 2017 13:39
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Nessus posted:At this point in general I imagine they knew what Talents were, and there was probably a short line in training: "If you or your buddy get a super-power, finish your encounter and then report back to HQ ASAP." Especially in the Japanese navy, which was significantly less "ra ra charge the Marines for victory" in any event. I don't feel I'm mischaracterizing Imperial Japan. They did not understand the real importance of training (as evidenced by a common sentiment among the airmen at Midway that the only way they'd set foot on the home islands again was in body bags), their battle plans tended to discount the possibility that they would take losses, and if the Navy was less "Banzai Charge" than the Japanese Army it's only because ships are expensive and a sunk ship can't shoot Americans. Their oxygen torpedoes are pretty much emblematic of the Navy as a whole. They're fast, hit hard, and incredibly dangerous to their own ships and crews. PoptartsNinja fucked around with this message at 00:33 on Mar 6, 2017 |
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Mar 6, 2017 00:22
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Cythereal posted:notably the military history thread in A/T's perennial favorite Shattered Sword (seriously, if you're interested in WW2 in the Pacific, check it out from your local library) I second this read, it's fantastic. If you know of any in a similar vein I'd love to be pointed at them. Ratoslov posted:From what I recall, the Imperial Army's infighting and C&C issues were epic. The young officer core was a bunch of psychos who'd often completely ignore their orders in order to get some kills, and there were a few cases of older officers getting assassinated by their subordinates because they weren't being aggressive enough. I'm not as read as I'd like to be on this, but "those below rising up and deposing those above" was a thing in Japan until very recently (even in the post-war period, there's a reason why "someone murders the old boss and takes over, necessitating revenge" is a theme of Yakuza films / games). Japan went from an agrarian society to an industrial one in less than a hundred years.
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Mar 6, 2017 03:30
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The Lone Badger posted:But you could start as a Glitter Boy then get a drug harness installed. But then you'd wind up with a Dreadknight!
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Apr 16, 2017 13:25
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Mors Rattus posted:half-gold, half-silver and half-bronzes. (No other half-dragons exist, apparently.) Coppers, Brasses, and the Gem Dragons can't polymorph innately in AD&D IIRC, only Golds, Silvers, Bronzes, Reds, Greens, and (maybe?) Blues could. Assuming my vague memories of looking over old AD&D monsters' manuals are correct, which they may not be. lifg posted:If anyone has an actual trip report I would love to hear it. Back in highschool we played a game of it over lunch breaks for like, 3 weeks? A friend of a friend was really obsessed with playing it. We all randomly rolled for dragons and I wound up a Copper. So I built a maze while the DM focused on whatever the two Gold Dragons were doing to the exclusion of everyone else, because the gold dragons were Important and the rest of us were meat shields. Eventually the whole thing fell apart because none of the party members had any reason to interact with each other. Years later I used that experience to run my own dragon-themed game, except I let the players run as Chromatic dragons in a world where dragons had completely disappeared (so they had two mysteries to solve: why am I here, and where did the dragons go?). Everyone split up to do their own thing (because five dragons showing up anywhere is sort-of overkill) and they wound up dividing a greenland-sized island up while they investigated (if they cared to) and otherwise amused themselves. And hoo-boy did they amuse themselves. The party's white dragon built himself an iceberg fortress/dungeon filled with specially-bred icewalking Kobolds. The thing could only be entered from the top via a frozen waterslide that wound around the inside branching and separating and recombining and dropping the riders into traps while kobold bobsled teams rode down after any intruders and tried to run them down or drive them into traps. The water was there mostly to slowly cripple any would-be invaders with fatigue and to wash their treasure into the dragon's horde chamber. The White Dragon player eventually got so rich he paid for an enchantment to let his iceberg fly and never melt, and eventually built a giant series of ice mirrors and flew around the countryside incinerating cows and peasants from his frigid death star. The party's green dragon became a pirate queen, posing as a druid with a 'dangerous sea monster' and taking ships. She built up a small island into an impregnable fortress of pirate servants and Sahuagan with undersea torpedo launchers and kept a Dragon Turtle around to take the heat for her in case the worst ever happened. All the sea-faring nations paid her tribute or else she'd absolutely take their ships (rather than simply possibly doing so). The blue dragon set up shop in the central desert between two mountain ranges and destroyed every oasis save one, becoming master of overland trade. He trained up a bunch of kobold priests to create water and worship him. Of course, he wouldn't have gotten that rich if it weren't for one of the Red Dragon players, who spent the entire game convincing adventurers to take suicidal quests to the others' trap lairs, misdirecting actual threats, and otherwise just enjoying himself posing as an adventuring bard, joining "PC" adventuring parties, visiting actual ancient ruins looking for clues as to what happened to dragonkind, doing bardic things, and then betraying his adventuring "comrades" at inopportune times. The last red dragon built an army and did the burning-pillaging-looting thing. He was the only publicly-known dragon who They eventually (through cooperation) managed to piece together what had happened to the other dragons: they formed a Council of Wyrms  and decided to leave en mass to split up and seek out other planets to It was a fun short campaign they still reminisce about from time to time. So yeah, that's my story of how much playing the Council of Wyrms sucked and why playing it once was still a worthwhile experience in the end. PoptartsNinja fucked around with this message at 21:17 on Apr 17, 2017 |
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Apr 17, 2017 20:38
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Dareon posted:Regarding the Draconomicon cover and the horse, there's a simpler explanation. Look at the shield in the lower right corner. That's Tordek's shield, so it's probably his horse. If you look closer still, the horse still has a rider. Now we know what happened to Redgar!  There's also Doomguy's helmet alongside the eggs.
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Apr 19, 2017 04:44
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LatwPIAT posted:Actually you just want mages and clerics. That's a weird way to spell "All Druids"
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May 10, 2017 00:40
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Alien Rope Burn posted:CTX-50 "Line Backer" Coalition Heavy Assault Tank Nah, see. It backs up a line of infantry therefore it's a Linebacker!  
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May 14, 2017 02:30
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 01:51 |
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Alien Rope Burn posted:
Basically just a traced Luggun. 
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May 17, 2017 01:55
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