FATAL & Friends 2016-19: Bad Rules and Hidden Jewels

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Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

Alien Rope Burn posted:

What's really wrong is that it's a game where intelligent dinosaurs have their land invaded by Confederate slavers and are somehow not the PCs.

Count Chocula posted:

Here's how to redeem Dinosaur Planet - make it so that the South uses some BS technology to enslave the sentient dinosaurs. Your PCs go around freeing them, so that they can rampage through the Southern plantations and eat slaveowners. Sherman's Dino-March to the Sea. Djdinosaur Unchained. Etc

(In my version the South are the bad guys).

Fossilized Rappy posted:

Listening to your podcast and reminiscing about Broncosaurus Rex has made me really wish that someone would do a cowboys and dinosaurs game that didn't have any awkward sapience issues or Confederate apologia. Get someone to sit down, watch Valley of Gwangi, and then write a roleplaying game that replicates the feel of that.

I think a takeaway from all of this (beyond 'what the gently caress') is that if your game is 'X plus dinosaurs' you should probably treat the 'dinosaurs' half as something more than window dressing for cool stunts with the former. Doing otherwise just makes it really obvious that you're trying to make your 'X' more interesting in the laziest way possible, like drowning a bland (or in this case, slave-owning) salad in dressing.
"Man, nobody wants to play my RPG about how great the Confederate States of America were and how they definitely would've ended slavery. I know - what if I made Robert E. Lee end slavery? While riding a Tyrannosaurus? In the future? ON ANOTHER PLANET? "

# ¿ Feb 3, 2016 22:24

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 06:06

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

Young Freud posted:

Nah, cassowary henge.

I want to help you with your problems.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2016 20:24

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

Fossilized Rappy posted:

Megaloceros (CR 4 Large Animal)
Megaloceros, also known as the Irish elk, was a large deer with ridiculously huge antlers that existed in northern Europe alongside woolly mammoths and other Pleistocene standbys. We aren't told anything about them besides their name and size by the absolutely miniscule flavor text provided, but I'd like to think that they are ridden into battle for no real reason other than that it looks cool and I remember the Megaloceros being a combat unit in some prehistoric animal-themed RTS whose name I forget.

Paraworld, by chance?

# ¿ Jun 28, 2016 17:19

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

I think a major handicap the Living Land had from the start is that if you're going to make a setting that's almost entirely focused on the landscape, you have to make the landscape interesting. Whether that means inventing an intensely detailed but interestingly insane monster-based ecology or putting crystal caves and giant glowing dinosaur ghost graveyards every four feet, it's up to you, but you have to make it interesting because almost all the politics and factions in the Living Land are either really simple (the edeinos you encounter are/are not assholes) or brought in from outside, and that means the cosm itself has to provide a lot of the fascination. And the best they can do is make it inconvenient in a very restrictive and dull way ('things a, b, and c do not work here and will never be permitted' - I guess that's a TORG problem in general, but nowhere gets it like here) and fill it with a bunch of creature cruft that could be D&D leftovers for all I can tell. So all you can really do in there is the oldest lost world plot imaginable: escape it, sometimes with refugees/a generic shiny. And there aren't even that many things that can BE the shiny, because the cosm prohibits dead stuff/worked objects.

Evil Mastermind posted:

The Edeinos Gone Native is a reminder that transformation works both ways; this is actually a Core Earth template and operates under those axioms. He left his tribe to learn more about the humans, but somehow lost his connection to Lanala (and the Living Land in general), but the trade-off is an increased understanding of "dead things". These devices no longer seem evil, and in fact are capable of providing excitement and sensations beyond anything he ever dreamed of. He's a "noble savage in a strange land" , and starts with a long bow, some grenades and a loving minigun. His tag skill is fire weapons.

That weapon loudout seems vaguely familiar.

# ¿ Feb 8, 2017 01:40

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

ZorajitZorajit posted:

I want to get really mad about the biology going on here. Multiple offspring make no sense for Dragons. They're long lived, intelligent, apex predators. They should need an enormous range to support any population. Having half a dozen whelps might make sense if they were pack hunters, but they largely ignore or fight with other like cats.

Also, that dragon brought back a whole horse like a cat with a mouse. But that dragon is probably hundreds of years old and as intelligent as any sapient creature. I'll grant that they just prefer not wearing clothes, and prefer living in caves, that's fine. But unless those dragons live so far from civilization that they have to butcher their own kills, that horse should be neatly packaged steaks and sausages wrapped and tied and left out weekly by the cowering locals.

At the ~~risk~~ absolute assurance of ~~sounding like~~ being a pedantic nitpicky twit, I'd argue that the cat-and-(horse)mouse meal illustrated makes sense because it's depicting red dragons, which basically ARE giant cats. They really do love hunting, murdering, and consuming tiny things that are utterly terrified of them. I wouldn't say their farming out the effort of killing or even food prep to vassals would be unheard of, or even unlikely, but if there's one D&D dragon that dearly loves playing the part of an uber-apex predator, it's them.
As to the tastiness of whole raw horse vs prepared sausages, I'd say that the example of gold dragons enjoying snacking on gems pretty much puts the entirety of the dragon palate question into 'who knows what the hell' territory. They're sapient, but they're also weird as hell. Besides, there's no guarantee that having a brain as big as a human's has to come packaged with human dietary preferences or tastebuds.

Your point on ecology I've got no beef with, but I think it's possible to draw some interesting parallels with dinosaurs in general and theropod dinosaurs* in specific: you have animals growing twenty, thirty, forty feet long that produce clutches of young. I mean, T. rex wasn't living for centuries (two to three decades max I think?) but you've got a similar situation in that your apex predator produces a surprising volume of young for its size. Of course, its prey did the same thing, while dragons wouldn't be so lucky - that's where the hyperomnivority would probably help.
What makes me unable to fully buy my own argument here is that there's basically no ecological info for immature dragons, just the species as a whole, so there's no way of knowing for sure how the immature ones would avoid being direct competition for their parents' favourite foods and living space. With stuff like Komodo dragons and great white sharks (and hypothetically, T. rex), the juveniles go after entirely different prey from the adults until they're big enough to sit at the grown-up table.
*_{the extinct landbound ones, not the flying ones on your feeder}

# ¿ Apr 17, 2017 23:56

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

Night10194 posted:

Tzeentch is the worst.

I'm incredibly disappointed anew every time you say this, because the core idea of 'this particular god of evil is fueled by hope' is so outstandingly weird. I mean, look at them! You've got your traditional (with various twists) evil gods with their traditional evil god emotional affiliates of despair, rage and lust, and then 'oh yeah and this one runs on the purely positive force that traditionally saves the heroes in every fantasy story.' It's one of those ideas that cries for a good execution just because it exists, and it's really a shame to hear that by and large this doesn't happen.

# ¿ Aug 17, 2017 23:27

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

I realize this is at this point very tangential to the actual goal of the thread, but my own personal favorite 'how aliens see humans' bit of backdrop is the almost-entirely-incidental universe backstory in Hunter's Run. Basically, humanity finally ventures out of the solar system, meets alien life and....!
....realizes that actually interstellar civilization is very common and a ton of other people did that first and the good seats all over the entire galaxy have already been taken for like, ever. To rub it in farther, humans aren't even noteworthy for being the last guy to the table - they're just the latest faceless schmucks for a little while before someone else pops up to take the booby prize. Their unique, special thing is being Background Extra #040039A, like almost everyone.
And since nobody's willing to give a bunch of nobodies something for nothing, least of all tech, the glorious human colonization effort to seize the stars is facilitated by the daring, dashing strategy of 'humanity rents cheap cargo space in interstellar shipping arks to hitch rides to colonize shitworlds nobody wanted. Which they must rent.'
I swear, I need to reread that book some day to make sure I didn't imagine that stuff. It's possible my mind's playing tricks on me because the entire setup is too close to what I'd consider perfect.

Drakyn fucked around with this message at 04:25 on Nov 14, 2017

# ¿ Nov 14, 2017 04:22

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

Dallbun posted:

348: Meteor Shower

The stars are plainly visible. One of them starts to flare and grow. It is literally a huge meteor that is headed right to them, and they have 2 rounds to run, teleport or fly outside the 1,000 yard blast zone. It advises the DM to �keep careful track of the time the PCs spend talking about what to do.� Damage is 10d6 within 1000 yards, 15d6 within 500 yards, 30d6 at the point of impact (which is, on average, 105 damage; Orga the Barbarian could tank it). After the meteor cools off, it cracks open and two pit fiends emerge, dispatched from the lower planes to kill the PCs.

This certainly is a high-level random encounter! I wasn�t big on �random meteor is going to hit you!� but it makes sense as a targeted attack, and given that a AD&D round a whole minute, at least the DM doesn�t have to be too harsh in punishing the players spending some time discussing what to do. They can talk a little while and still only waste half a round. Finally, I like the idea that this is how demons get to the mortal world. Much better than plane shift.

Assuming the PCs have pissed off Hell (a safe bet), it�s fine. Keep.

Blizzzard Entertainment owes someone some money.

# ¿ Dec 19, 2017 02:40

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

slap me and kiss me posted:

Orcs as captains of industry. Savages? No, they've just eschewed traditional magic in favour of iron, steel, and coal.

'Loincloths to loincloths in three generations' - Blackhand the Destroyer.

theironjef posted:

Isn't "militaristic orcs that like some technology and aren't evil" what WOW orcs are after their curse is broken?

WoW orcs post-curse-breaking are (these are the manual's exact words) 'noble savage[s]'. Halfway into WoW's runtime they turbo-industralized and fell in love with Orc Hitler. Then everyone killed him, and then they travelled through time and killed alternate-universe-versions of a lot of other orcs that didn't have demon curses but were huge jerks anyways.
So, WoW orcs, like anything else in WoW, are exactly what the plot wants this week. I.e., whatever the lead designer thinks would look good on a t-shirt next to either two wolves howling or a big demon made of beyblade parts.

EDIT: dangit, offtopic'd for nothing.

# ¿ Jan 3, 2018 01:37

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

Selachian posted:

I actually copyedited the YA books and wrote up a "Dinotopia Encyclopedia" of people, places, and things for our writers to reference. (James Gurney liked the idea and was talking about actually getting it published, but it never happened. Oh well.)

Selachian posted:

As for the encyclopedia, I may still have it buried somewhere on my computer, but even if it's still there I wrote it in ClarisWorks (this was, uh, a while ago), which Apple no longer supports, so I may not be able to even open it.

Robindaybird posted:

Looks like LibreOffice and Open Office can convert ClarisWorks

I've got to say, even if I'd ever wondered if this sort of thing existed, this isn't where I'd expect to discover it.

(do it do it do it)
(unless it'd get you legally gutted, then don't do it)

Drakyn fucked around with this message at 23:00 on Jan 19, 2018

# ¿ Jan 19, 2018 22:56

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

Selachian posted:

I found the Dinotopia encyclopedia and I can open it with TextEdit, although the formatting is a bit wonky. And I doubt there's any legal issues -- there was no NDA involved, it's been at least a couple decades, and it's just a summary of stuff from the books anyway. I'm very busy this weekend but I will see if I can clean it up and put it up somewhere for those who are interested.

Hey, like everyone said, we could think of it as a quasi-unofficial Ryuutama sourcebook. No pressure though, just do it whenever you feel li

Daeren posted:

Yeah no you've all lost the bet. Brucato technically had an editor here but it sure doesnt feel like it.

Actually we may need extra Ryuutama very quickly.
_{seriously though thanks}

# ¿ Jan 20, 2018 04:53

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

Selachian posted:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yb1MVNxhvLscjK5VX8j9NgO3SCDe18rqH0TW148hA0k/edit?usp=sharing

Herewith the Dinotopia Encyclopedia. Enjoy.

Thank you very, very, very much. This is exactly the sort of thing that makes me forgive the internet. Here are some things that due entirely to you I have either learned or remembered:

-Lee Crabb acquires a giant mechanical crab. For the second time.
-The vast, vast majority of James Gurney notes are just him creating/adapting something like ~40 colloquialisms ('getting up with the struthies' 'talking like a windmill' 'smoke salesman' 'in the horsetails').
-The best name is probably Grokle or Mujo Doon. Unless it's Stinktooth _{actually it's Lee Crabb.} For geographic locations: Wimple Springs.
-I vaguely recalled Outer Island being home to one of the later books that was probably the closest thing Dinotopia could get to a juvenile-fiction horror story/Jurassic Park homage, and now it turns out there was a whole other earlier book set there that I never heard of.
-Lee Crabb goes from being a villain in a children's book to helpfully pretending to be a villain in a children's book.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2018 18:48

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

Evil Mastermind posted:

That said, Kaah is still twisting the Keta Kalles religion to his own ends, to the point where the definition of "dead things" has been tweaked a bit. Now, things that were once alive aren't anathema, which means that the edenios are using bone, leather, and such to make weapons and armor. This has the nice side-effect of allowing different edenios tribes to have their own distinct shticks based on their individual styles. For instance, there's the Ghost Clan that specializes in camoflague and stealth, or the Whitespear clan that's actively fighting back against Kaah.

This is such a good yet amazingly obvious thing to do. 'No dead stuff' is a neat way to differentiate Lost World #3232 from all the others...until you think about the implications for like half a second and realize you just obsoleted 9/10ths of the stereotyped trappings of the setting and replaced them with, uh, 'they have magic treespears that they can safely replant after use no this isn't contrived SHUT UP.'
(seriously, who puts dinosaurs in a setting and then makes it impossible to use dinosaur skeletons as weapons, armour, vehicles, etc.)

quote:

On top of that, Malraux has figured out how to gameify faith. Every citizen of the Cyberpapacy has a "piety score" that tracks how loyal they are to the Church. The better your score, the more favored you are, and the easier your access to legal cybertech.

This, on the other hand, is amusingly horrible. The inquisition, downloadable on iPhone and Android.

Ratoslov posted:

Werewolf Buisnessman is the CEO of my heart.

The only good CEO is a lunatic CEO.

Drakyn fucked around with this message at 15:54 on Feb 27, 2018

# ¿ Feb 27, 2018 15:47

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

Mors Rattus posted:

7th Sea 2 - Pirate Nations: Pirate Don Quixote
And then Gatto vanished in the dog.

_{(I'm enjoying this review; also the others)}

# ¿ Jun 30, 2018 23:26

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

Night10194 posted:

quote:
One day, I would love to see Night compile a History of the Old World including crap like the Slann/Old Ones that doesn�t get explained in the WHFRP books directly.
This is basically what my GM is doing (albeit with a lot of additions, changes, etc) over the course of our games and what made me love the setting. I actually don't know much about the official Slaan but I make note of all the Old One stuff because it's where my GM got the seeds of his ideas; there's just enough on them to come up with enough of a picture to go in a bunch of different directions.

I realize that Lizardmen gossip is second only to rat antics when it comes to Warhammer factoids that get repeated in here, but if it's no trouble is there anyplace I could read more about whatever you guys have got going on here? You're making me curious.

# ¿ Dec 5, 2018 23:43

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

Night10194 posted:

I try to avoid talking about our home games too much because again, they diverged a lot from the canon setting (even if they're inspired by material in these books, like the Shaper being both a renegade and the creator of the Skaven). I'd prefer to mostly stick to the material I'm reviewing mostly because this thread is more for that sort of stuff than several years of metaplot established over a bunch of campaigns.

E: I mostly use home-game stuff as examples of having directly seen the mechanics in motion, like playing a Heroism knight after doing the Bret book and now realizing that Heroism is not just a little busted, but insanely broken (but amazing if you're playing a solo game and so don't have anyone to overshadow).

Oh, no, I wasn't going to ask you to put it into the thread, I was just wondering if there was somewhere else on the internet you/anyone in your group was writing up info on your campaign. Sorry about that.

# ¿ Dec 6, 2018 00:26

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

Alien Rope Burn posted:

Rifts World Book 20: Canada, Part 13 - "Ogopogo is seen each year, but now by white men!"

_{Birdpoop is the sea serpent's mighty crown.}

In case sea nessies aren't enough for you, we have lake nessies, too. Ogopogo is a lake serpent that nests in Lake Ontario. Of course, it hid and only showed up in blurry photographs or Native American legends, but it turns out to be one of a species of interdimensional, scholarly dragons. (How do they learn a lot? They live in one lake.) Having come out of the shadows with the coming of the rifts because... I dunno, it was tuesday, they're helpful to locals and have helped people create safe communities around the lake. We get a whole family of them, most of which are decent except for the one bad seed who for some reason dreams of leaving to see her dreams of conquest and domination. Well, everybody has an edge teenager phase. Not playable despite hatchling rules and an easy story hook (one of the recent hatchlings has gone missing). It's not like they're particularly broken, at least by dragon standards...

How many rifts did it take to get a monster all the way from Okanagan Lake, BC, to Lake Ontario?

# ¿ Jan 28, 2019 04:05

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

Mors Rattus posted:

Exalted 3rd Edition: The Secret Power of Bears
Specific animals! Angler-Lizards are twenty-foot long lizards, about half of which is neck. They�re found along the rivers of the East and the shores of the West, using their long necks to hunt fish and other swimming things, steadied by strong hind legs and large butts. Their butt meat is a particular delicacy of the Serpoletic merchants and Vanehan princes. While they appear frightening, they are meek creatures, sometimes domesticated by islander or riverside peoples to help hunt fish. They�re not especially tough, but they are able to shed their tail to distract predators and withdraw from battle faster; it takes around a season to regrow, without magic. They are also able to make bites and grapples out to Short range, due to their long necks, which they mostly use to drag prey onto land. They are able to see clearly into water from the shore and can be trained as lookouts against underwater foes, screeching an agitated warning when they spot such dangers.

Oh hey it's Tanystropheus! One of those weird little prehistoric animals that sticks with you as 'what the hell was going on here.'

quote:

Armored Terrors are gigantic fish found through the West and even in the waters around the Blessed Isle. They can be over 30 feet long and four tons in weight, and while they primarily hunt smaller coastal fish, they�re plenty dangerous to fishing boats and shoreline peoples. Their scales are thicker than even steel armor, and their bony, beaklike fangs are strong enough to sever limbs easily. They are extremely tough, ferocious predators that will only flee when facing larger foes like a siaka or giant squid. Their Withering bites ignore a chunk of armor due to their ability to tear through shells and steel, and they are able to cause a brief whirlpool by snapping their mouth open quickly, drawing in foes. They can be trained to ram ships, as well, allowing them to tear through hulls with the same power as the Charm Sledgehammer Fist Attack, and familiars can learn the ability to cancel out non-permanent enemy Charms and other magic that grants soak or damage resistance, as long as they can do enough damage. Their armored skin is very strong, they have Legendary Size, and familiars can gain the magical ability to strengthen their bony shells significantly at the cost of their Initiative. (Yes, it is a giant coelacanth, and it is one of the scariest fish.)

At least by description, this sounds more like Dunkleosteus, and I firmly approve of including it in as many things as possible.

# ¿ Apr 10, 2019 16:31

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 06:06

Drakyn: Dec 26, 2012

juggalo baby coffin posted:

there's a lot of that sort of creature, and there's also a lot of VERY MYSTERIOUUUUS creatures who will literally attack you if you ask questions

'Wander 'neath the dying sun of my world of utmost exotic grandeur, gawping in awe at the many creatures the fancies of your mind could never conjure. What alien dreams lurk behind this one's many brows? What strange sapience pools inside its quasi-spine? What drives fuel it? What wants feed it? What do you do?.'
'I try to interact with it in any way at all.'
'It immediately tries to stab you for a presumably elaborate reason that I'm never telling you, begin rolling your 20 sided dice.'

# ¿ Aug 11, 2019 05:11

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