|
Joe Slowboat posted:Remind me how the Nazi post office weapons program was going? I've heard the story but don't recall it well enough to enthrall my friends with the Reich's sheer dumbfuckery.
|
#
?
Jun 15, 2021 11:36
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 09:42 |
|
|
They were dependent on heavy water for their experiments and so the allies launched a badass commando mission to destroy the factory*, which slowed the atomic project considerably. *Look it up on YouTube plenty of people made short documentaries on this.
|
|
#
?
Jun 15, 2021 11:58
|
|
|
I know it's a real thing involving hydrogen isotopes, but the term Heavy Water always sound to me like some made up sci-fi bullshit.
|
|
#
?
Jun 15, 2021 17:20
|
|
|
Eh, I hate to defend Degenerate but "the demon monster thing lays waste to the land" seems pretty on point for this kind of poo poo. You said it yourself, people can track them by following the blighted lands. The clone power seems like a way for them to cheat death a la a dnd clone spell. That said, it's Degenerate, so I'm sure there's something dumb and rapey I'm missing.
|
|
#
?
Jun 15, 2021 17:28
|
|
|
PeterWeller posted:I know it's a real thing involving hydrogen isotopes, but the term Heavy Water always sound to me like some made up sci-fi bullshit. Mine is Beryllium Sphere.
|
|
#
?
Jun 15, 2021 17:28
|
|
|
Red Mercury.
|
|
#
?
Jun 15, 2021 17:33
|
|
|
TheGreatEvilKing posted:Eh, I hate to defend Degenerate but "the demon monster thing lays waste to the land" seems pretty on point for this kind of poo poo. You said it yourself, people can track them by following the blighted lands. The weird thing is, on a massive scale all of the various types of Psychonauts are transforming Earth. It is a little weird seeing them outright blighting it. I think the clone thing is in there because the Czar cloned a Spitalian by the name of Vasco and set them out into the world to further it's goals. I should have a Symbaroum update by tomorrow-ish as well.
|
|
#
?
Jun 15, 2021 17:49
|
|
|
Nessus posted:I'm basically imagining that on a 3-4 on their encounter dice, this shows up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUtrwfY2pSA This is basically 3d metal slug.
|
|
#
?
Jun 15, 2021 20:15
|
|
|
 Update 9: Enemies Everywhen – The Cabal, Other Hazards Centrum, Reich-5, and Homeline are the only crosstime-capable societies in the known quanta, but there IS one other group known to travel across timelines: the Cabal. Apparently derived from an eponymous GURPS sourcebook (GURPS has a sourcebook for everything), the Cabal is a network of sorcerers, cultists, and occultists that gather lost or magical artifacts from across timelines. Well, I say “a” network, but there’s no proof that the various parts of the Cabal are connected; they may not all even originate in the same timeline. Infinity knows they exist for a fact, they have extensive records of encounters with them, but even Patrolmen who were former members (one of whom, a vampire business magnate, is one of the corebook’s sample characters) don’t have any evidence of a guiding intelligence or group of masterminds that run the whole thing. Instead, it functions as a system of “lodges”, networks of 10 to 20 members characterized by complicated networks of people sworn to avenge each other when one of them dies, usually with some connections to other lodges in other places. Some lodges belong to a Grand Lodge, an overarching organization run by some particularly powerful Cabal leading light(s) with a coherent recruitment or geographical base and an agenda; the book gives a half-dozen examples ranging from occult artifact dealers to British demon hunters to Lovecraftian cultists. They spend more time squabbling with other lodges then trying to sabotage anything important, but individual Cabal members tend to be either potent threats themselves or have two people that can call on to back them up – who each also have two people to back them up, who each also have two people to back them up, indefinitely.  I just realized I can select the images as objects in the PDF and copy them, so no more cut corners! The Cabal serves as a randomizing force in a campaign. As it stands, though it may be a massive cross-dimensional conspiracy, it’s too disorganized and back-biting to focus on any goals bigger than keeping magic a secret on timelines where it isn’t common knowledge (it protects their monopoly). However, it also contains everything from occasional dabblers to cackling evil sorcerers to shifty procurers to dedicated scholars, and the book encourages GMs to mix and match those elements with the needs of their games. Want to introduce magic to spice something up? Have the PCs run into a Cabal member. Want to complicate a retrieval mission? Also introduce a Cabal member. Potential allies against Centrum or Reich-5? There’s a lodge for that – several, even. A power or artifacts supplier, a sponsor for some double agent, the instigator of whatever crime the GM needs committed, basically anything that the GM needs done secretly and mysteriously can be linked to the Cabal somehow, which is thematically appropriate. It doesn’t hurt that they have plenty of ways to slip between timelines that Infinity doesn’t have control over, even using a special kind of cross-time transport called the Gates of Thoth that comes up later in this chapter. This section also contains a passage on how apparently, despite identifying as the ideological descendants of an ancient Egyptian Pharaoh-wizard, they all believe in a distilled version of Qabala metaphysics, plus the sidebar on how Infinity (and the Cabal) have encountered several beings that are more or less gods running around the quanta, but most of them like to screw with people before leaving unless they’re the extremely rare crosstime conquerer god for ISWAT to fight. The rest of the chapter covers a grab bag of minor threats from crosstime criminals to timejumping animals to parachronic disasters, plus a few oddities that don’t fit well in any other section. It kicks off its Minor Threats section, mostly talking about organized crime – it’s the same groups you’re familiar with on earth, they just have branches in other worlds – and three brand-new breeds of criminal unique to the setting: scavengers, who buy items with value on Homeline (rare stamps, coins, autographs) on the cheap inappropriate timelines and pass them off as Homeline originals; looters, who go after specific items like famous paintings or artifacts and sell them off to interested buyers; and timenappers, who conduct human trafficking either of people who can’t be tracked or of famous people to sell for ransom, or even genetic material for people who really want their sperm donor to be Julius Caesar. On the other side, you have the swagmen, a loose fraternity of conmen with a decidedly philanthropic flair. Think Robin Hood if he got the Sheriff of Nottingham to invest in his bridge sales business. Though they started out as a gang of grifters that stole a CMU conveyor and a book of coordinates, they quickly expanded and incorporated other groups, including  enough Irish Travelers and Romany to borrow their cultural outlook. I know you’re trying to portray them sympathetically here, but turning those groups into transdimensional conmen still isn’t a good look. Check the logo on the bags. Also, inexplicably, this section contains a sidebar about why the setting has no known faster-than-light travel. Watsonian explanation: no one knows for sure, but it’s entirely possible nobody’s lucked into finding out yet, especially because very few timelines are even capable of rudimentary space travel at this point. Either that, or, as some Infinity scientists suggest, space-time can only be distorted in the space- or -time direction; since parachronics came before FTL, it locked Homeline into the latter category. Doesn’t explain if that principle applies to worlds reached by world-jumpers or other crosstime travel methods, though. Doylist explanation: space travel introduces too many headaches to an already-complicated setting. Plus, any civilization advanced enough to travel the stars is probably advanced enough to catch the signature quantum radiation omissions parachronic travel releases and snap them up in moments. The book doesn’t touch on using some interstellar empire’s discovery of parachronics as a driving threat to bring Centrum and Homeline together or applying the lens to a science-fiction setting the players are intimately familiar with (Firefly? 40k?), but you can’t anticipate everything. Next up are “parachronozoids”, natural world-jumpers of various descriptions; alongside rules on how to construct them (which Advantages to use, traits that set them apart), it lists a couple examples like parachronic traveler-hunting gargoyles and the White Stag. It’s pretty short. Next up, cosmic travel hazards! Most parachronic travel is pretty safe (especially the forms people use intentionally), but there is a factor called the Current that pops up occasionally. Consisting of flows of “oz particles” that can both carry people with them and cause radiation poisoning, it manifests in localized typhoons called banestorms that can throw people across timelines at random. Nobody knows how to predict them, but they might show up more often in areas that have grim reputations (i.e. the Bermuda triangle), and they can show up chronically: GURPS’s canned fantasy setting, in fact, is the product of one particular banestorm periodically sweeping up peasants from medieval Europe and West Asia. Banestorms aren’t as important or common as reality quakes, inexplicable crosstime natural disasters that alter history and physics in the same way that earthquakes alter geography. Like, they create and destroy pantheons. From a GM’s perspective, reality quakes excuse whatever ahistorical nonsense they want in their games, and it vaguely implies they’re behind all the various timelines with magic or clearly impossible pasts. It also gives the better part of a page of rules on randomly generating them based on how much stress is being put on reality in a certain area (how many cults are trying to revive their God, how many eclipses are happening at the same time) and how they work mechanically: they take a few days to shake out, revolve around epicenters called fracture zones (the book names Troy and the founding of Rome as frequent fracture zones), and are usually localized to them, though they can cover an entire timeline or even destroy one, throwing bits and pieces of it across the multiverse. This, by the way, is part of why Centrum fears Homeline. Apparently they rarely ran across reality quakes until the late 90s, and when they found out that’s when Homeline discovered parachronics upon first contact 15 years later, they concluded that the quakes are Homeline’s fault and decided to stop them before they destroyed the multiverse. The book doesn’t commit on whether they’re right.  Speaking of which, once a reality quakes shakes up a timeline, it retroactively erases its previous history outside of a few scattered impressions or cultural memories (stories of King Arthur, say) and items called reality shards. Reality shards are legendary relics, out of place artifacts, and other oddities with properties inconsistent with their apparent origin; most of them baffle dating techniques, but even ones that seem like obvious forgeries tend to give people various Advantages and almost always boost their ability to use magic. This is how you get random weird poo poo to give your players, and it’s also how you explain stuff like the Turin Shroud (which the book uses as an example reality shard). Of course, artifacts can have a perfectly mundane explanation (as much as the word applies), but reality shards offer you an easy way out if you can’t explain something or can’t be bothered. Patrolmen are supposed to bring reality shards they find back with them for analysis, but since they tend to screw with parachronic equipment and/or are worth keeping for personal use, they only rarely make it back to Records and Research. At this point we leave the chapter title’s conceit behind entirely and move on to natural parachronic travel methods. Natural crosstime portals, called nexuses, are relatively common – according to the book Infinity’s found at least one on every timeline except for their prison timeline, Coventry, which is only accessible in a few very specific ways, which is the whole point. Most of them have specific conditions that they only open unde, and there’s an entire Patrol department dedicated to cataloguing them and those methods. Unfortunately for them, Infinity policy lets Patrolmen decide what to do whenever they find a nexus, and since many Patrolmen don’t like having backdoors around as security risks and most nexuses can be destroyed with a sufficient amount of energy release (dynamite), they don’t always last long. Dimensional highways are a lot harder to destroy but works similarly; these include everything from the Chronobahn (the only known highway with no entry requirements) to one that winds through Britains and can only be crossed by women to I-776: GURPS Infinite Worlds posted:“This psionic construct was built by the subconscious will of the United States just before the Great Awakening of July 4, 2076.” That’s what the Roadside Historical Marker says, anyway… Love it. The Cabal’s Gates of Thoth kind of fit under this category; floating triangles attributed to the Cabal’s founder that appear semi-randomly in timelines where magic is possible, using one can let you travel back in time, usually a couple centuries or so. They can also take you forward in time, back in time anything from a couple minutes to thousands of years, or to other timelines, but those are rarer. The book gives GMs these whenever they want a one-shot bit of time travel to spice things up. Finally, we cover shiftrealms, locations or people carriers that shift between worlds on a mostly regular schedule. Unlike parachronozoids, they don’t move under their own power and their contents either contain or can contain people; unlike dimensional highways or nexus, they have a clearly defined internal space and don’t fade in and out depending on the circumstances, existing continuously as they hop from place to place. Examples include everything from rotating cities to a subway car that takes you where you need to go to timeless Faërie. It doesn’t spend much time describing how they work in general, which is kind of unlike this book, but it looks like they ran out of at the end of this chapter and may have cut it for room. And that’s chapter 2. I kind of rushed through the end there, but it wasn’t the most complicated of chapters. Next up, though, is my favorite part of the book: the nature of timelines, and how to randomly generate them.
|
|
#
?
Jun 15, 2021 23:07
|
|
|
The scale on that spaceship picture seems off, as if they oversized the ship by a factor of two. Or it's manned by halflings. 
|
|
#
?
Jun 15, 2021 23:28
|
|
|
Cooked Auto posted:The scale on that spaceship picture seems off, as if they oversized the ship by a factor of two. Halflings steal a Trek shuttle to transport their brand name cocaine is a pretty excellent adventure hook.
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2021 00:11
|
|
|
PeterWeller posted:Halflings steal a Trek shuttle to transport their brand name cocaine is a pretty excellent adventure hook. The Shire decided to diversify from pipe-weed.
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2021 00:14
|
|
|
Cooked Auto posted:The scale on that spaceship picture seems off, as if they oversized the ship by a factor of two. Sir, that is not a spaceship, that is a conveyor. It’s a storeroom that can cross dimensions, it doesn’t need to limit its dimensions like spaceships do. It’s like you didn’t even read the review 
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2021 00:32
|
|
|
Falconier111 posted:Sir, that is not a spaceship, that is a conveyor. It’s a storeroom that can cross dimensions, it doesn’t need to limit its dimensions like spaceships do. It’s like you didn’t even read the review I admit I skimmed through it because I'm not for GURPS in all honesty. I just thought the weird dimensions going on in the picture was funny.
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2021 00:43
|
|
|
The Lone Badger posted:The Shire decided to diversify from pipe-weed. Oh poo poo, Baggins coming
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2021 03:17
|
|
|
  Chapter 5, Part 5: Haenamguk Our final region in Jeosung, Haenamguk is an island nation off the southern peninsular coasts. The terrain fared far worse during the Winds of Darkness than other regions, and the devastation wrought by Yun Sepyeong’s fall and the monsters that spilled out into the world turned much of the land into a burning ruin. But the realm of Haenamguk managed to recover, and its people are proud of how they managed to build a nation out of what seemed to be unlivable conditions. Ever since the Retaking of the Lands, Haenamguk has been a military dictatorship. Like Daewanguk it is a single nation with a centralized government employing the Yangban system. Unlike Daewanguk and the other kingdoms of Jeosung, the primary hierarchy is between civilian and soldier, not nobleman and peasant. Haenamguk officially defines itself as a civilian Directorship with armed forces, and the two branches of government have their own roles and functions in theory. In reality, the military government has legal authority to overturn any actions undertaken by the Directorship. In practice, the army doesn’t invoke this right frequently save during times of crisis or when an example needs to be made, as much of the bureaucratic minutia is better handled by civic administrators than warriors. As a result, the Directorship plays a careful balancing act, prizing what autonomy they can take and doing their part not to antagonize the power behind the throne too much. The military isn’t just for show; while not omnipresent there are various Open Wounds scattered about the country, from which demons and other foul monsters climb out to menace the countryside. A constant military presence is required to keep them in check, and many criminals are conscripted for the front lines here. By Haenamguk’s reasoning, they’re given a chance to make up for themselves by defending the country from danger. And for naval defenses, legions of heavily-armed dragonships are a constant presence around and between Haenamguk’s major island and smaller chains. Beyond these power structures, there are other notable groups. Haenamguk is home to the Hwasanyong dragonborn and the Hwasan dwarves, who for generations have been racial enemies. During the Winds of Darkness they united in common cause against the dokkaebis and other forces of evil, and now the dragonborn serve as soldiers while the dwarves devote their lives to engineering and construction projects. There’s still simmering resentment between the groups, although the dictatorship does its best to put a clamp on things from evolving into all-out war. There are also three prominent families of Haenamguk: the Chloe clan, made up of bureaucrats related to the current Director; the Kim clan, a prosperous farming and fishing family who fastened a strong economy by opening up economic ties with foreign lands, especially with the Gaya Confederacy and Gomnaru Port Authorities; and the Yi clan, a family of wizards and information brokers who run the Chenju College of Wizardry. Many of the Yi’s members secretly belong to the Sect of Changjo in hopes that the return of the gods would usher in a new world order with them as rulers. Chaandö and Haemadö comprise the northermost island chains off Haenamguk’s coast. It is here most foreigners make entry into the kingdom, where they must register with a local government office and be within the presence of a guide at all times. Said guide is actually a soldier in civilian clothes in charge of keeping tabs on visitors, ensuring that they don’t wander into restricted areas. Nobody needs to register in Haemadö, but the major population centers are crawling with plainclothes police. The town of Haemasijang is the primary port foreigners come to, and from which goods from the rest of Jeosung are imported. It’s also the least orderly place in Haenamguk, filled with petty thieves, rival schools of Shamanist and Purist monks jockeying for followers and coin, occasional brawls between buyers and merchants of magic items of questionable quality, the nearby community of Eastend which has the biggest black market in Jeosung and also an open Sect of Changjo temple that most people stay away from due to the creepy black-cloaked figures keeping tabs on passersby. Sodihodö is home to a shrine of the same name, containing tombs of thousands of soldiers of those who fell during the Wars between the Dragon Kings of the Second Age. There are no records of this one’s construction, leading many to debate its origins, but people still visit during the local Festival of the Hidden Path to honor the fallen with jesa.  Komundö is home to the capital city of Sejong, a relatively new metropolis whose foundations are built from grey volcanic rock but whose architecture is graceful and aesthetically pleasing. Neighborhoods are segregated into living quarters for civilians and the military, and the bureaucracy is obsessed with ensuring that the capital remains as perfect-looking and orderly as possible. Civil servants regularly visit shops and residences to ensure that everything is up to par and nobody is engaging in immoral behavior. Administrative buildings, offices, and halls are built to impress, from miniature constructions of the kingdom’s most famous inventions to a main thoroughfare full of candle-lit statues of famous scholars and soldiers who made their mark in Haenamguk’s history. The Broken Cliffs of Chimultoji are the fabled birthplace of the chollima, a species of legendary yet sadly extinct winged horse. The sheer cliffs are unnatural, with formations indicative of being ripped apart by a sudden massive force, causing some to theorize that the gods once fought here. Ulyongdö is home to two interesting features. The first is a floating island hovering high above Lake Boseok, containing ruins of unknown origin but all attempts at magical flight have been mysteriously dispelled. The second is the city of Chenju, stronghold of the Yi clan and home to a famed magical academy. The settlement’s entire economy revolves around aiding magical research, and the populace have to endure indignities such as sudden changes in weather and food ruined by ambient magic. Although open to foreigners, most outsiders give up, either due to the lack of privacy from military inspectors or weird vibes from the college’s values. Many mages have a feeling that every aspect of education is subtle propaganda for being groomed to “take part in a world-shattering event.” The Yi clan’s family estate is notable for having shrines and statues of the gods Ylryeo and Mago, which have brought increased scrutiny on them from the other families and Haenamguk’s factions. Sajidö is home to Asan, a farming town which recruits outside labor to supplement its fieldwork. It’s rather multicultural as a result, and surprisingly there’s little conflict between citizens and foreigners. The island also houses Kilsangsa Temple, a multiple-purpose Purist temple and brothel designed to cater to both physical and spiritual needs. The kilseang* and monks operate more or less independently of one another, with the building’s layout designed so that there’s little overlap between the two. *a special type of performer and entertainer who may also do sex work. Imjadö houses the largest number of soldiers in Haenamguk thanks to the military training center of Hatong Gundabae. All those wishing to join the army must go here for basic training, and facilities and communities are built to aid and help in this endeavor. It’s also home to magical training centers where civilians learn from a list of authorized cantrips. The teaching of cantrips is still universal in Haenamguk, although only a pre-approved list of spells are taught. Predictably, damaging cantrips are not on the approved list, and only light, mage hand, mending, and spare the dying are taught to civilians. Udö is an island containing a secret base where major military research projects are undertaken. It’s much more heavily guarded than usual, and the dragonships are prone to attack and sink any unidentified ships that so much as get a little bit close to the coast. Gamangsupdö is our last detailed island before hitting the mainland. Its only notable feature is the Shrine of Kae, portraying a giant sculpture of a dog that towers over the forest. The whole island is woodlands, and the military’s attempts at scouting the place ended in failure: ships sunk for no reasons, while the trees were impervious to being cut or burned down. There are rumors that the island is guarded by dokkaebis and suhosins,* and strange flashes of blue spiritual energy rise from the forest every so often. *The rarest race in Jeosung, direct descendents of the Heavenly People who live in their own private demiplanes.  Chhilsandö is the name of Haenamguk’s main landmass and home to most of its population. There are many interesting places to explore, such as the giant Donuimum Gate that marks the major passing of ships to the mainland amid ruined fortifications of prior eras; the town of Kapsang which is home to the Fisher’s Guild headquarters and the Kim family’s private estate; Shipwrecked Ruins of unknown origin whose technology indicates it once possessed flying capabilities and is now watched over by the military; the town of Chungwha, which decided to placate the monsters coming out of the nearby Open Wound by sacrificing criminals to the monsters as food; Camp 13, a secret prison deep in a bamboo forest whose prisoners are subject to experiments turning them into warbeast abominations; and the Great Forges, a network of factories built into the Hwasan Volcano, taking advantage of geothermal energy to craft Hwasan weapons, specially-inscribed magical tools of war with a seal marking its origin (화산); and the village of Dongji, a cluster of simple druids and shamans who manage to live free of Haenamguk’s government due to natural magical defenses. Dongji houses a Chilseong Gate that has so far been kept secret from the Directorship. If its existence was found out, the military very well may invade again. The GM Tips section predictably emphasizes the authoritarian nature of Haenamguk. Even if the PCs manage to infiltrate and/or shake off their guide-handler, the ever-present nature of the military dictatorship is a constant reminder, from regular check-points along the roads to army barracks in every city. There’s hardly an opportunity to let one's guard down, as outsiders are looked askance if they don’t have a guide present and local soldiers and officials need no excuse to stop people they deem suspicious. There’s surprisingly few sample deeds for a section this size, with only 6 quest hooks. One deed for heroes involves investigating the Sangincheong Agency of Haemasijang, which is suspected of making forbidden magic items. Two deeds for scoundrels involve stealing a Hwasan sword out of the country and stealing military secrets from Udö. Ones for those of all moralities include mercenary work fighting monsters emerging from Open Wounds, a Desperate Measure involving exorcising spirits disrupting Asan’s harvests, and catching mulyong* fish for the Chenju College of Wizardry. I have noticed that every Desperate Measure sample mission involved hostile spirits menacing communities, often putting their local economy under threat. While not bad hooks per se, it is a bit monotonous. *A species of horned flying fish whose scales and organs are valued for magical research.  For notable NPCs, we have 3 major characters and 24 minor ones. Interestingly the Director of Haenamguk is but a minor character, a passionate scholar who resents the fact that any decision she makes can be overturned by the military. The three major character descriptions include the Head of the Fisher’s Guild retiring for some delicious soup after a hard day’s work, a dwarven soldier in charge of keeping illegal and counterfeit weapons from being smuggled out of the county by catching a thief in the act, and the head of the Sangincheong agency in an argument with her aging father’s smoking habit. Thoughts So Far: It would be easy to label Haenamguk as the “evil country” of Koryo Hall of Adventures. And in several cases this would be right; the dictatorship is harsher than its needs to be and is up to a lot of unethical things. However, there are many people in the nation who merely seek to get by and live lives similar to that of others in Jeosung. Beyond aligning with the Gaya Confederacy and a potential civil war in Mudangguk that would come from that, Haewanguk isn’t interested in invading and taking over the rest of the setting, meaning that it’s mostly a threat to those within their borders more than anything. The most obvious “bad guy faction,” the Yi clan who venerates the Sect of Changjo, aren’t universally beloved for this decision, and there is still tension and dissension behind the scenes of the otherwise unified front that Daewanguk’s propaganda espouses. Although Daewanguk does have adventuring potential, I feel that risks becoming a bit one-note. “Confounding the military dictatorship” may get a bit old as an adventure style, and quite a few of the locales don’t have much variety in terms of adventure material, with some exceptions like the Open Wounds and the northern ‘gateway’ islands being the more rough and tumble places. There’s still interesting ruins, untouched wilderness, and fortresses and estates whose inhabitants are up to no good, although the low number of sample deeds reinforces the feeling of being less adventurer-friendly than prior sections of the worldbook chapter. Join us next time as we cover the rules-based sections of the book in 5th Edition Options...along with Pathfinder and OSR Conversions!
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2021 07:00
|
|
|
Libertad! posted:Unlike Daewanguk and the other kingdoms of Jeosung, the primary hierarchy is between civilian and soldier, not nobleman and peasant. So why is this supposed to be worse and more oppressive than the inherited-aristocracy places? Seems like it offers more social mobility and opportunities for systemic improvement.
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2021 08:28
|
|
|
PeterWeller posted:Halflings steal a Trek shuttle to transport their brand name cocaine is a pretty excellent adventure hook. Pretty sure this was a Ferengi episode.
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2021 08:45
|
|
|
FMguru posted:Red Mercury. Bloodstone.
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2021 11:27
|
|
|
Falconier111 posted:Also, inexplicably, this section contains a sidebar about why the setting has no known faster-than-light travel. Watsonian explanation: no one knows for sure, but it’s entirely possible nobody’s lucked into finding out yet, especially because very few timelines are even capable of rudimentary space travel at this point. Either that, or, as some Infinity scientists suggest, space-time can only be distorted in the space- or -time direction; since parachronics came before FTL, it locked Homeline into the latter category. Doesn’t explain if that principle applies to worlds reached by world-jumpers or other crosstime travel methods, though. Doylist explanation: space travel introduces too many headaches to an already-complicated setting. Plus, any civilization advanced enough to travel the stars is probably advanced enough to catch the signature quantum radiation omissions parachronic travel releases and snap them up in moments. The book doesn’t touch on using some interstellar empire’s discovery of parachronics as a driving threat to bring Centrum and Homeline together or applying the lens to a science-fiction setting the players are intimately familiar with (Firefly? 40k?), but you can’t anticipate everything. Enter a threat of an empire using time travel for interstellar travel: slowboat stasis ships that hop back in time so they approach the destination at about the same time they left their point of origin, using time travel to compensate for the centuries or millenia it took to actually get there.
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2021 12:43
|
|
|
There's also the fact that if you have parachronic travel then there's no point going FTL. You've got an almost unlimited number of already-habitable worlds on tap, easy to get to.
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2021 13:58
|
|
|
Habitable Earths in timelines have to outnumber vaguely-habitable-and-up worlds in the galaxy by several orders of magnitude.
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2021 14:44
|
|
|
Also, at least this form of reality jumping seems fast and safe, unlike space travel, which is perilous even if interstellar space isn't chockfull of monsters waiting to eat you or you're not taking shortcuts via Hell.
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2021 16:00
|
|
|
As soon as SG1 found the dimensional travel mirror, the entire series should have immediately shifted to 'Star Gates are cool but let's create an alliance of Earths that can (or already has) solve every problem". Which the writers immediately recognized and solved with GRENADES.
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2021 17:08
|
|
|
Update 10 – Present at the Creation: World Classes (Empty, Challenge, Close, High-Inertia, and Myth Parallels) Everything up to this point has covered stuff that happens inside or outside of timelines. Now we get to take a look at the timelines themselves. Not specific timelines, that happens later, but classifications and structures.  Structures which, this being GURPS, are expressible in Xd6 random roll tables. This chapter is chock-full of different random tables that do different things, though, surprisingly, they don’t actually go that in depth as far as results. The tables are set up to provide GMs with outlines for them to fill in as much as they like, something they do pretty well – and they advise GMs to alter rolls as necessary or ignore them entirely if they want, which always has me  when I find it in a game.Anyway, world types. Empty worlds are empty of humans  . They’re also relatively common – if the ratio from that table holds true, since Infinity opens up about 10 new timelines a year, that means they have one or two new entire Earths to exploit per annum, which means there’s a lot of land to go around. The Lone Badger posted:There's also the fact that if you have parachronic travel then there's no point going FTL. You've got an almost unlimited number of already-habitable worlds on tap, easy to get to. Yep. The vast majority of empty worlds with Homeliner populations are sparsely settled; even the biggest colonies have a couple hundred thousand people, with the average orders of magnitude lower. While the book doesn’t make it explicit, it implies the bulk of economic activity on empty worlds revolves around resource extraction somehow, and the bulk of those enterprises revolve around mining. It gives us a whole page of metals, prices, and locations for aspiring entrepreneurs to find them. No mention of seeking rare plants, agriculture or aquaculture, or even animal husbandry or hunting (outside of a sidebar on dinosaur hunting; it’s dangerous and prohibited, but that’s never stopped rich people). Those settled timelines that don’t focus on mining usually have colonies in their own right; they range from Homeline powers dumping their excess population somewhere to members of religious, ethnic, or ideological subcultures striking out on their own to secret bases to rich people’s summer homes. And since Earth is so large, those colony types aren’t mutually exclusive. It’s entirely possible to, say, have a timeline with a CMU operation in South Africa (and drat, I had no idea how resource-rich South Africa was until this book laid it out – 50% of the world’s gold, 90% of its platinum, and that’s on top of diamond and uranium deposits), a bunch of vacation homes in the Caribbean, a hippie commune in California, and a Russian advance base in Siberia. That’s pretty rare, though. Usually, given just how many timelines there are, a given world will have maybe one proper colony.  A few empty worlds are called disaster worlds, a category that overlaps with the challenge worlds in that table above (I’m rearranging how the book presents things since it lists things out in category order, meaning one section that takes up half the chapter sits awkwardly partway through). Challenge worlds, in general, are worlds that went through a serious catastrophe that rendered them too dangerous to visit much. If that catastrophe wiped out all human life, it qualifies as a disaster world; this includes everything from those lifeless earths where they dump toxic waste to worlds where a bioweapon ended humanity. Those worlds tend to get it under quarantine the moment Infinity figures out what happened. Some challenge worlds still have human life, but either won’t in the near future or where all the inhabitants will wish that’s the case; like, another of the corebook’s sample characters comes from a timeline where nuclear war caused ecological collapse and human life probably has a few more generations before it dies out. That counts as a challenge world, and in 50 years or so it will count as a disaster world, too. The book doesn’t go into much on how to use empty worlds in your campaigns, probably because it’s pretty obvious; they’re places for characters to visit in any story that touches on some aspect of untouched or barely touched worlds. Challenge worlds, though, exist as plot devices. The book advises you against lighting players spend much time in them; they’re very inhospitable, and that’s the point. They remind players how high the stakes can be and provide them with something to grapple with on a philosophical level. Next up, echoes. I’ve already talked about echoes a bit, but not in enough detail to know that, for instance, you’re not supposed to capitalize the word. No known echo (before it’s shifted, at least) has deviated significantly from Homeline history. In fact, any discrepancies investigators find usually turn out to be flaws in Homeline’s historical records, which Infinity researchers go bananas over given how important accurate historical analysis can be to their jobs. Under most conditions, the butterfly effect is not in effect. Your average Infinity agent can go in a coffee shop and order a latte without shaking things up; it all seems to fade into the background. But if they got in line before somebody famous and interrupted their schedule, preventing them from making some meeting on time, then they might change things. Echoes are inherently unstable and unpredictable. It usually takes some real force to knock it off balance, but the longer outtimers interact with it the more changes accumulate. Given their value to researchers and how Infinity and Centrum constantly fight over them, it’s not surprising they almost always end up changing and jumping quanta.   The book recommends the GM chooses an echo’s local year based on their campaign’s needs and what era players most want to see, but if inspiration just isn’t striking, it provides a random roll table. A table that’s heavily biased towards ancient timelines; rolling on it three times, I got 1661 BC, 3175 BC, and 925 AD. The book comments that all these ancient timelines fit sword and sorcery campaigns pretty well but offer no justification on why they designed the table that way. After that, we get a bunch of mechanics on how to measure timeline shifts that abruptly cuts off (they continue it later) before more GM advice. Echoes are really good for intrigue campaigns. They force PCs to both minimize their footprint AND counter everything Centrum does, with the threat of being stranded behind enemy lines once the timeline shifts keeping everyone on their toes. We also learn a few echoes don’t shift once the changes lock in; those are called anchors, and once a timeline’s anchor status is confirmed Infinity and Centrum agents tend to go loud and try to take each other out. The book doesn’t explain why they’d invest even more resources in a timeline that suddenly isn’t very important, but I guess there’s no reason to not burn their assets  ?Anyway, the meat of the chapter covers parallels, occupied timelines that diverged from Homeline history at some point. You’d think that by sheer random chance Infinity might have stumbled onto a parallel before it diverged due to getting there too early, but echoes only exist on Quantum 6. Maybe all timelines used to be echoes? The book doesn’t say. Parallels come in close, farther, high-inertia, and myth flavors. Close parallels are Earth with a few differences; remember that book list I posted earlier? Most of those came from close parallels. Think Puerto Rico gaining statehood in the 70s or Jane Austen mostly writing about vampires; stuff that’s clearly different, but which only has so much effect on broader society. Close parallels mostly serve as sources of background color, but they can also host struggles to catch scavengers or excuses to explore a world that looks more like ours than parachronics-dominated Homeline. High-inertia parallels feature elements that resemble parts of Homeline history that should have been obliterated by butterflies after an earlier point of divergence; the book lists two timelines we’ll cover later, one featuring a global bloodthirsty Aztec empire in the 2000s and one that looks like modern Earth except everyone is dinosaurs, as good examples. The book says even Infinity has no idea how they work and that they exist for GMs to make parallels they like without bothering to justify them. Myth parallels contain real-life versions of legends or pieces of fiction, obviously so you can have your characters go and screw around with King Arthur or whatever in your pseudo-time travel adventure. Nobody knows how they happen either, though some scientists theorize famous writers might be secretly psychic. The book encourages you to put together these parallel classes’ details yourself; it provides a single table for the general structure of close parallels and otherwise tells you to go for broke. There’s no point trying to randomize stuff that should be drawn up by the GM to make it fit together. The same goes for empty and challenge worlds, by the way; you can roll for what the dominant kind of activity on an empty world is or why a challenge world went down the drain, but you get no more detail than that.  The last timeline variety, though? That’s different. Farther parallels are the meat and potatoes of the setting, the most common single subtype in both in the timeline creation section and the timeline catalog later in the book. They encompass everything from Reich-5 to Centrum and most of the most interesting timelines besides, and the next section tells you how to randomly generate them. For real this time.
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2021 18:03
|
|
|
SkyeAuroline posted:Funny you mention Weaver, considering part of what prompted asking (alongside thread commentary) was "okay, I'm trying to port Tribe 8 without getting sued if I ever make this freely available, but do I keep the pretentious poo poo like "Weaver"?" What happened to the Tribe 8 review someone was starting? Was looking forward to it...
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2021 21:49
|
|
|
PoontifexMacksimus posted:What happened to the Tribe 8 review someone was starting? Was looking forward to it...
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2021 22:00
|
|
|
The Lone Badger posted:So why is this supposed to be worse and more oppressive than the inherited-aristocracy places? Seems like it offers more social mobility and opportunities for systemic improvement. I don't think I nor the text explicitly says that Haenamguk is worse due to this reason. The former sections highlighted how the Yangban system is quite exploitative. Yangbans still exist in Haenamguk, although I'm unsure to what extent they're a mostly-civilian class of the Directorship vs. military officers who get promoted to said ranks because of who their parents are. Given that the Yi clan is made up of skilled wizards, and civilians are only allowed to learn and cast simple non-offensive cantrips, it sounds like there's still a bit of hereditary nepotism going on.
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2021 22:03
|
|
|
It would make sense to have more parallels pop up in historical periods than in more recent times, because as much as we may slap ourselves on the back for being the peak and/or end point of history in some way or another, there were about four or five thousand years of what we would recognize as "modern" civilization beforehand (as in, towns, religion, some kind of civil structure, at least in some regions) and doubtless longer periods before then to go with it. Meanwhile, the period of greatest concern to a GURPS author - namely, "when can you get a gun?" - is much less than a thousand years, depending on when you want to slice it.
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2021 22:10
|
|
|
Ghost Leviathan posted:Got bad news about the phrenology. Wasn't that the one program where it was basically a paper program actually meant to keep their Jewish members from getting deported to a death camp?
|
|
#
?
Jun 17, 2021 00:21
|
|
|
Young Freud posted:Wasn't that the one program where it was basically a paper program actually meant to keep their Jewish members from getting deported to a death camp? I don't think so, although I'm willing to be corrected. The thing is, people hear that it was run by the Post Office and dismiss it, but while that's true, it's misleading. There was a German applied physicist named Manfred von Ardenne, who ran an independent laboratory called the Laboratory for Electron Physics. It's big work was on radio waves, and they were largely funded by private radio companies to find ways to improve radio signals. Enter a guy named Wilhelm Ohnesorge, a Nazi politician who was personally close to Hitler and who was named head of the German Postal Ministry in 1937. One of Ohnesorge's big interests was the use of radio in propaganda, and he hired Ardenne's laboratory to work on radio research for the Nazis. Jump forward a few years, and the Germans started their bomb project. Atom bombs (or at least the kind the Germans were interested in) use Uranium, but the problem is, the usual isotope of Uranium, U-238, won't start a chain reaction. It just sits there being radioactive and not doing much. However, 1% of Uranium is U-235, which can be used in a bomb. So how do you separate them? Well, one of the ways is called electromagnetic isotope separation, which is basically using electromagnetic fields to separate the two. It's not really an effective way if you're trying to get enough U-235 to make a nuclear bomb....it's expensive, and it's slow. (When the US was building its bomb, it mostly used what's called gaseous diffusion). So, Ohnesorge found out about the bomb thing, knew that you could use electromagnetic isotope separation to purify Uranium, knew a guy he trusted and who he had worked with who specialized in electromagnetism, and so he got hold of Hitler, and convinced him to pay Ardenne's lab to do this, and since it was a secret project, the money got laundered through the Post Office. BTW, even though Ardenne was ultimately unsuccessful in producing enough U-235 for Hitler, he succeeded for Stalin. He was one of the German scientists who was taken by the Soviets to the USSR after the war and put on their bomb project, and actually won a Stalin Prize for his contributions.
|
|
#
?
Jun 17, 2021 01:58
|
|
|
Shout-out to Mors Rattus for showing off some Age of Sigmar stuff, I got a link in the AOS thread of your breakdown for the chaos gods and I'm just reading through the rest of your breakdowns, it's good stuff!
|
|
#
?
Jun 17, 2021 06:05
|
|
|
Epicurius posted:I don't think so, although I'm willing to be corrected. The thing is, people hear that it was run by the Post Office and dismiss it, but while that's true, it's misleading. There was a German applied physicist named Manfred von Ardenne, who ran an independent laboratory called the Laboratory for Electron Physics. It's big work was on radio waves, and they were largely funded by private radio companies to find ways to improve radio signals. Ah, the program I was thinking was the Röntgenkanone, which was basically a weaponized particle accelerator that was developed to bring down Allied bombers from beyond flak altitude. In reality, the radiation produced by the cyclotron was stronger on the ground than could be projected into the air.
|
|
#
?
Jun 17, 2021 06:36
|
|
|
Symbaroum: The Wrath of the Warden, Part Two Chapter 3: Before our adventure begins, Chapter 3 starts with a background section for said adventure. Then we get a brief outline of the structure, and some other notes like how to motivate your PCst to actually do the thing. Thistle Hold is a hotbed of cultist activity, what with it being so close to the darkness within Davokar and all. One such cult is the not-so-subtly named Midnight Cult. Formed by a former Ambrian nobleman who admired the dark magics of the Dark Lords of Lyastra, Erlaber Ambreagos seeks to ally with and gain strength over the dark, and to ideally establish a new noble house of power that harkens back an ancient Symbarian bloodline. A mysterious figure known only as the Prince contacted Erlaber, and said he saw the potential for an alliance with him and his cult. The Prince provided Erlaber with an ancient Symbarian ritual designed to “Exalt'' its caster. Erlaber thinks this will make him powerful and one with the dark, he’s not aware it’ll turn him into an insane and ravenous abomination. You see, back in the Empire’s latter days a bunch of dumbass mystics got it in their heads that corruption itself was divine, and that it offered a way to transcend mortal limits and concerns. Abominations were worshiped as gods, well before everything went tits up anyways. This ritual was the primary method they used to ascend. The Prince also offered Erlaber and his cult enough resources to launch an expedition into Davokar. A key component of the ritual was the skull of a living forest god, an immortal ox-creature named Eox. While they were able to put down the peaceful creature, killing an immortal god proved far more difficult. They eventually gave up and just stuffed the still moo-ing skull into a chest, and then hid said chest with a ritual. Also, we’re told that the Prince is Agramai Kalfas, the leader of the Sacred of the Old Blood cult in Thistle Hold. However, the book tells use the PCs will never find this out, which kinda rubs me the wrong way. Ayways, unfortunately for said cult, an Elf found out they killed her favourite god. The autumn elf Teara-Téana is one of the more reasonable elves in the Iron Pact, she’s part of the faction that believes in order to prevent poo poo from going south yet again they have to convince the Ambrians to cut the poo poo. Anyways, after an argument with Prince Eneano (leader of the Iron Pact) she returned to Eox’s grove to rest and be comforted in his presence, she found his butchered body. She is able to speak with his spirit via magic, and essentially figures out what happens. If Eox is to be restored, she’s kind of on the clock. She had two agents in Thistle Hold, but the senior one recently got himself killed. Thus she’s forced to turn to her very green agent, a human woman known as Anadea. She tasks Anadea with putting together a group capable of find Eox’s head and bringing it back to her. Anadea is a little too keen to prove herself though, and she scouts some cultist hotspots on her own initiative. Unfortunately, the cult discovers they’re being watched and thus the PCs will have to deal with cultists shadowing them and causing problems. So that’s the stage set. Like I mentioned in my character creation post, Wrath of the Warden recommends 3 things for PCs starting it. That they have at least 50xp and are skilled in combat, that they are (rightly or wrongly) known for being capable and daring, and they are (rightly or wrongly) known for having confronted and battled the corrupt forces of Davokar. We are also told that while fresh characters can begin this adventure, the best way to start it is with characters that have completed The Mark of the Beast. That’s the second part of what is essentially a 3-part short-ish adventure trilogy meant for new characters. In it you end up investigating the death of Teara-Téana’s senior agent, through which Anadea becomes aware of the PCs. It’d make sense that when she was told to put together a group of PCs, she’d reach out to you. Fair enough. It’s not necessary really though. If the PCs had been through those adventures, they’d have a bit more wealth (which means weapons and armor with qualities rather than their generic versions) plus a couple artifacts. Our party is fresh, but well optimized so I don’t think they’ll need those boosts. The book next does something I like, but they still kinda manage to cock it up. ”Wrath of the Warden” posted:Since Wrath of the Warden is the first episode of the chronicle and it is too early for the players to really know what conflicts and possible rewards are in play, you have to carefully consider the incentives of the player characters – that is, the motives they have for wanting to engage in the adventure and take on its challenges. Makes sense, they’re not yet invested in the plot so the characters need incentives to get involved. They offer several suggestions. Anadea claims to represent a very powerful organization and is very desperate, she’ll basically agree to anything. Thaler, artifacts, dirt on rivals, etc. The idea is that the PCs create their own incentive here. The first problem I see is that this will immediately raise the hackles of any cautious player, if someone promises me the moon I need to see the rocket ship. They don’t really provide any guidance for handling PCs that demand payment up front or other assurances, they seem to just kinda expect greedy PCs to accept that she can deliver. Hell, without some sort of assurances I’d probably tell her to go pound sand. The next one is a little better. Maybe some of the PCs have a family member or a friend in some deep trouble, the kind of trouble they can’t just fix themselves. Anadea will tell the PCs that her organization can absolutely help if they help her. It’s not the absolute truth, but she does believe that the Elves are capable and willing to do whatever it takes. The last option is that maybe the organizations that the PCs belong to (like perhaps the Ordo Magicia) want the situation dealt with and offer advancement as a carrot. This works well enough I guess. However, only some PCs are going to belong to hierarchies and then they’ll have to convince the others to come along. Honestly, it’d work a lot better if she just plunked a small bag of Thalers on the table along with a contract or something. Small bit up front, larger reward comes later. Act One: The adventure begins with a little goblin girl delivering a letter to the PCs. Said oblin only knows that the author was a human woman with her face obscured by her hood. The Letter” posted:Dear soon to be friend, It’s a public face, and the party is bored so they figure why not and go check things out. The tavern is empty, except for a lone human woman in her 30’s who looks like a low-resolution watercolor.  Anadea won’t say much until she thinks she can reach an agreement with the PCs, and will only say the following. “◆The reason why she contacted them is that credible sources have assured her that they are skilled and hold no love for the dark aspects of Davokar. She would like them to both confirm and exemplify this assumption. ◆ What she needs assistance with is highly dangerous and related to Davokar’s darkness. ◆ The situation is dire and requires haste. She estimates that she has got less than five days to sort out the mess. Failure will result in hundreds of dead in and around Thistle Hold, and quite probably doom the entire town. ◆ So far, she is the only one in town who knows about the threat, and so it must remain because of the particular nature of the crisis.” It just kinda seems to assume that the PCs are willing to trust this complete stranger, I mean I get that she has reasons to be cautious, but generally speaking I’d want to know more before I decide if I’m willing to sign onto a dangerous mission. That’s not all though, in order to reassure herself that she’s got the right sort of people, she asks the PCs to name their price, to judge what kinda of people they are. So long as they don’t publicly profess to being Sorcerers or corruption-loving lunatics, she’ll agree to said requests. If your PCs are that dumb, she’ll act noncommittal and then never make contact again. I should add that our undead wizard has drunk his dose of Twilight Tincture, so he looks like a relatively normal dude for the next week. After the last PCs name their demand, the town alarm bell begins to sound. Anadea whispers ”the elves…” under her breath, she fears that the more bellicose Elves have launched a retributive attack on Thistle Hold for the mutilation of Eox. If the PCs don’t leave of their own initiative, she’ll ask the PCs to check out what’s going on. She does promise to wait until they get back. As the PCs run through the city streets, they notice a decent amount of armed folk heading towards the North Gate. Their first rodeo this ain’t. Once they arrive at the gate, a large crowd has formed and is blocked off the view. We’re presented with two options for your PCs to get a better look. If you have a character with +13 Strong or a character with Acrobatics (who can climb the buildings and let down a rope) you can see what’s going on. Otherwise? Nada. Town Guard Captiain Morello is keeping the gates shut, and only letting through the few Queen’s Rangers that are stationed in Thistle Hold. Anyways, it’s pretty unlike that the PCs don’t have someone strong enough, and Big Guy casually parts the crowd like he’s an ugly version of Moses. Through the gates the PCs see the following sight.  Two barbarian Witches have arrived on the backs of Colossi (plant golems), and they stop about 50 meters from the gate. The Captain quickly determines they’re not here to attack, and starts putting a delegation together. Aside from a 10-guard escort, he’s looking for the following. “◆ A scholar or local who knows the barbarian tongue ◆ A prominent representative of Ordo Magica ◆ A prominent representative of the Sun Church ◆ A prominent representative of the town or the Ambrian realm” In a move that I swear wasn’t intentional, 4 out of 5 of our party members fit the bill. Scout is a barbarian, Ash is a Wizard, the Sister is a Therug, and Meat Shield is an Ambrian Nobleman. You do need to succeed on a persuasion roll to convince the captain that you actually do represent that faction, if you have loremaster adept or contacts you get a +5. Only one person needs to succeed to drag the party along, which is a good call. We’ll say that the Sister aces the roll, and the party ventures outside the gates with the guards. After some greetings (in which Scout acts as a translator) one of the Witches will identify himself as Gadramon, servant of the Huldra (head witch) of Kravosti (barbarian capital city basically). A character with Loremaster will recognize the name Gadramon as one of her servants. He will then ask if the well has spoken yet, he’ll take no answer as a no, it hasn’t. He’ll then ask for permission to enter the city, they believe a great source of corruption lies under Thistle Hold and they are here to help. Captain Morello will say he needs permission from Mayor Nightpitch to do so, and subsequently gets told to hurry the gently caress up as he runs off to the Mayor’s home. The group then heads back into the gates.  This image exists as a sidebar right after the PCs meet with the Witches. Honestly, I wish they’d just be honest with themselves about what this game is. They know it’s a railroad and admit it, but then try to preemptively deflect criticism by showing the PCs still have superficial choices. Once they get back inside, the well does speak. Apparently the Bronze well of Thistle Hold is an ancient artifact from Symbaroum, using mechanics (water and weights) and mystical power, it lets loose a thunderounds clang when a lot of corruption is near. It’s kinda leaky and has lost some power over time, hence why it’s just going off now. Anyone inside the walls needs to make a Strong test or suffer 1d4 damage from the sound, ignoring armor. I rolled for everyone, and ironically the only person to fail was Big Guy, who takes 2 damage. Just as folks start to recover from the blast, a more sinister collection of sounds is heard. Towards the center of town near the tavern where they met their contact, the ground tears apart and sends plumes of dust and smoke into the sky. The book just more or less assumes you run there. It does say that the PCs don’t have to head there in a breakout sprint, but then basically shrugs its shoulders and basically says nothing happens to them then. Shame on you for trying to be stealthy or clever! Once the PCs arrive at the “earthquake” site, all they see is widespread devastation. Unless the PCs specifically say that they’re staying out of it, they come under attack by various waves of Clan Beasts, barbarians that have corrupted themselves and their flesh with the ritual Flesh Craft. Some are more animal than man (think chaos marauders with bone sword arms and poo poo) and some are more lucid, carry weapons, and can speak (those are the Beast Clan Warriors). This next bit is going to be a bit dry, but I wanted to cover what a Symbaroum combat looks like, so ya’ll can get a decent picture of how the game actually plays. It’s uh, not great. Fortunately, once you get the handle on the PCs rolling for every The system has serious issues with scaling once your PCs get even a bit of xp, and it just gets worse from there. Later entries and books do make attempts to patch the holes in the system, but they don’t really go far enough. It’s the “band-aid ona gushing wound” type situation. Combat time! Initiative is static in Symbaroum. The highest Quick goes first (ties are broken by Vigilant). If you tie on Vigilant as well roll 1d20. I just decided that Big Guy goes second, Meat Shield goes third. Initiative looks like this. Patron Saint - 1st Big Guy - 2nd Meat Shield - 3rd Sister Heals a Lot - 4th Ash - 5th Clan Beasts - 6th Scout - 7th Rune Guardian 8th Flaming Servant - 9th Clan Beast Warriors - 10th There’s various little encounters scattered around the area.  Two Clan Beasts rush a lone woman with a broom. First up it’s Ash’s Patron Saint summoned pet. He charges one and rolls a 4, easily hitting. His Flail of Light does 1d6 damage, and rolls a 5! This is a great time to go over the Pain Threshold rules. It’s half your Strong rounded up. If you take damage equal or greater to that value from a single attack, the player gets to choose one of two outcomes (whether they’re doing the attacking or being attacked). They can take another free attack, or be knocked down. There’s a few more options in the advanced player's guide (stuff like disarming or imbolizing), but we’ll stick with these two from the core for now. I checked the book multiple times and their official subreddit, and I can see nothing that suggests these free attacks cannot also generate more free attacks, assuming you hit and do enough damage. Generally speaking you’re always going to choose knockdown unless you can soak all the damage if you’re on the wrong end of it, otherwise break that action economy and take those free attacks! Anyways, 5 is exactly a Clan Beast’s pain threshold so Ash’s player has his pet attack again. He hits (barely) with a 16, and does another 4 damage, killing the Clan Beast. Big Guy swings in action and charges the other one. Clan Beasts have a poo poo defense mod of +5, so Big Guy with his 15 Strong cannot miss. He rolls 1d12+1d6+1d4 because he’s raging, and does 13 damage. Clan beasts have 10 toughness, and even if they had armor (they don’t) Big Guy would ignore it. That’s one civilian saved. Sir Meat Shield goes third, and uses free actions to slap Bodyguard onto Ash. This requires a Resolute test, which he aces on a 13. He then moves into range of a couple Clan Beasts chasing an old man out of an alleyway. He needs to roll a 20 to miss, and does not. His 1d10 Polearm only rolls a three, so the Clan Beast is still alive with 7 Toughness. Oof. Next it’s Sister Heals a Lot, who casts Master-Rank Blessed Shield on herself and extends it to Sir Meat Shield and Big Guy. They now have +1d8 armor and reflect 1d8 damage to undead and Abominations, which Clan Beasts are. She takes 1 temporary corruption from using a spell within her mystical tradition. Ash is next. ”Nah” posted:From a distance, the characters see two youngsters surrounded by monsters. One of them is caught and dragged away. The other is tackled to the ground and a Clan Beast jumps onto his chest, stabbing him again and again. The characters cannot reach the fight in time to save his life Being told I can’t do something when it seems like I should be able to (in TT games) makes me angry, so my imaginary gm says “gently caress that noise.” Anyone who can attack at range can try to help. Ash reaches out and casts Bend Will on the one trying to flee with the boy. That’s a Resolute test, Clan Beasts have 7 Resolute which gives Ash a +3. He rolls a six, and mentally tells the monster to turn around and bring the boy safely to him. Now the Clan Beasts are up. One is rather confused as he ferries his prey to safety instead of the dinner table, while the other tries to stab a boy. There’s no stats for said kid, but I’ll rule he has the bare minimum. The Clan Beast hits with a 4, and does 6 damage (remember npcs do static damage). This triggers another attack, which puts the boy into the dying state. When you’re dying, you roll 1d20. A 1 means you get up with 1d4 Toughness, a 20 means you die, 2-10 means you don’t get worse, and 11-19 means you get worse, on the third 11-19 you die. The kid rolls a 13, oof. Now I’ll show you how broken polearm mastery is. Sir Meat Shield gets one free attack when the Clan Beasts move in his melee range, unless they too have long weapons. (They do not). He doesn’t miss, and does a whopping 10 to the guy he hurt previously. When the second Clan Beast moves (they’re not really intelligent opponents, they have corrupted smoothbrain) He attacks again, almost missing on a 19, and does 3 damage again heh. The Clan Beast is not dead, but thanks to Master Polearm he cannot attack our friend with melee attacks this turn, so it flails at the air a bit. The old man will quickly run up to a PC once he’s been saved and introduce himself as Master Erlaber. He’ll offer good prices on any artifacts you have for sale before getting out of dodge. I believe that this is the one instance in which you learn the name of the module’s villain, kinda. Scout is 7th. She takes aim and shoots 2 arrows at the clan beast that just killed a kid, and one at the guy still near Sir Meat Shield. She rolls 7+1 and 2+1, easily killing that one. She comes 1 damage short of killing the second-ast one. It’s okay though, because it has one toughness left so the Rune Guardian crushes his head with a stony fist. There’s still one Clan Beast left, but it’s mind controlled and Ash would have to roll a 19 or a 20 to fail to maintain his hold, plus the Flaming Servant has yet to act. He’s not going to make it to his turn and be able to act, is what I’m saying. Now, I should be clear that this first wave was meant to be easy. Clan Beasts have pretty bad stats (aside from their damage which is higher than average) and are rated as “Weak” enemies. After the First Wave, the PCs have one round to prepare for the second one. The Sister rushes over to the dying boy and casts Lay on Hands, healing 1d6 (4 in this case) and saving the boy’s life. They quickly pack him off with a nearby guard. After this round ends the second wave hits. This includes Clan Beasts equal to the PCs (it’s unclear if this math is meant to include PC pets like the Flaming Servant, but we’ll say it does), and Beast Clan Warriors equal to the PCs minus one. The book seems to think that this is too much for the PCs to handle on their own, so 3 Templars (Sun Church Paladins) show up to help kill these Abominations. However, our imaginary GM thinks the PCs can handle this one on their own, and leaves the NPCs in the background. Our new Initiative looks like this. Patron Saint - 1st Sir Meat Shield - 2nd Big Guy - 3rd Sister Heals a Lot - 4th Ash - 5th Templars 6th (They would go here if we weren;t adjusting the difficulty) Clan Beasts - 7th Scout - 8th Rune Guardian 9th Flaming Servant - 10th Beast Clan Warriors - 11th As you can see, due to the rather static nature of stats, taking a 14 in your Quick means you’ll beat most enemies to the punch, and it also helps your defense to boot. Once you’re past chargen you can only change a stat by buying the Exceptional Attribute ability, which can only be purchased 3 times per stat. Thus, the highest stat PCs generally see is an 18, and that’ll cost them 10+20+30xp for a +3. Anyways, there’s no civvies to rescue this time, just unambiguously evil monsters to kill. The Patron Saint goes first and charges a Clan Beast, rolls a 1 to hit, and does 1 damage. Some angelic paragon of war he is eh? Sir Meat Shield is next, he slaps bodyguard on Ash again and takes up a position in front of them. He then uses his polearm to reach out and touch a Clan Beast, he doesn’t roll a 20 so he hits and does 4 damage. One shy of triggering a free attack. However, depending on how the enemies move he has a large section of the battlefield locked down. Thanks to Bodyguard, if anyone wants to attack Ash they have their attacks directed towards him. If anyone moves into his melee range, he gets a free attack, and if that attack hits (it doesn’t need to do damage) they cannot target him with melee attacks. He’s got one quadrant locked down. Big Guy roars and also charges into battle, he’s going for a Warrior and those look bigger and tougher than the previous puny weaklings he just bisected. He actually can miss these guys, they only give him a +3 to hit. He rolls an 8, and then smokes him for 18 goddamn toughness. The Warrior only has 13 toughness. It does have 4 armor, but Big Guy ignores that thanks to Master rank Two-Handed Force. The Sister realizes that she has no offensive spells, and thus delays her initiative to the end of the turn in case someone needs healing. Blessed Shield lasts for a scene, so it’s still active. Ash is up next. The Warriors have a Resolute of 10, so Ash doesn’t get any positive modifiers to his roll, but he still needs to roll a 16+ to fail. He actually rolls a 15, right on the money. The now mind controlled Warrior turns around and stabs one of his buddies right in his goddamn face. After armor, he does 2 damage and applies a weak poison that does 2 toughness every round for 2 rounds (this ignores armor). Now, the book isn’t clear if something that you’ve used Bend Will on acts on your initiative or their original initiative, I’m assuming it acts on yours for now. Now the Clans Beasts get to go. 4 of them charge Big Guy since he’s out in front, we’ll handle those first. Two or more enemies can flank, granting each other Advantage. It’s the same thing as 5e, roll 2d20, take the better result. (You can also use backstab if you have ability). However, this isn’t super necessary as Big Guy is raging thanks to his Berserker Trait, they already get +5 to hit so they only really miss on a 16+. With higher ranks of Beserker Bug Guy gets his proper defense back during his rages. Anyways, they all hit and do 6 damage with each attack. Big Guy rolls 3d4+1d8 to soak these attacks, and does so easily. (he averages more than double that). 3 others try to close in with Sir Meat Shield. This triggers his free attacks, and he actually misses one! He cranks the one he previously wounded for 10 damage and kills it, while doing 3 damage to another. Because he hit it, it cannot attack him with melee attacks this turn. The one who he missed rushes up and takes a swipe, and hits with a 9 (he needed an 11). He does 6 damage, which Sir Meat Shield then attempts to soak with 1d10+1+1d8, and gets a 15. Sorry little buddy, no damage for you today. The last Beast tries to attack the angel-thing in melee with it, but Patron Saints are Quick as gently caress so our Accuracy 11 friend has to attack with a -5 to his stat, and he misses. Scout decides to help out Sir Meat Shield by finishing off the wounded Beast in melee with him, and tries to kill another one tying Big Guy up. There’s no penalties for shotting into melee so long as you can draw line of sight, you can’t do so if they’re directly in the way, but any other angle is fine. Thankfully she can’t miss these guys (she has 15 Accuracy and their poo poo defense gives her +5) because she rolled 2 20’s and a 14. On the first arrow she does 4 damage, 1 more than she needed to. Her second arrow does 7, which triggers a free Pain Threshold attack, which then kills the beast. Her third arrow (master rank Rapid Fire is way too good, and Scout only gets scarier with xp) hits another Beast in melee with Big guy, does 8 damage on the first, so the last arrow is both guaranteed to hit and kill. (It cannot miss, and does 1d10+1 damage, and the Beast has two toughness left). Just so you’re aware, there are no critical hit or critical miss rules, everything special happens when and if you beat their Pain Threshold. The Rune Guardian is up next. As a quick aside, this summoned pet is equivalent to a PC with 130xp if you had to buy its abilities as one. Anyways, it jogs up alongside the Patron Saint and smashes the Beast in melee with it, our golem friend cannot miss (15 Strong) and does 2d8+1d4, getting 10 exactly and killing it easily. Our Fire Elemental buddy is excited at the prospect of a combat not ending before his turn arrives, and runs in to support Sir Meat Shield. There’s still a fresh Beast in melee with the Ambrian nobleman after all. He could potentially miss on a 19-20, but does not and does 1d8 (6) damage with his flaming longsword. This triggers a free attack, which actually misses on a 19. Curses! Now the loving Warriors finally get a turn. The book does say that they like to let the Clan Beasts go in first, and then they poison their weapons and try to flank. I guess this is why the Beasts are faster than them, it’s a shame that they’re half-dead by the time the Warriors get to go. The Warrior who just got stabbed by his suddenly glassy-eyed clanmate yells in anger and stabs him right back with the same result. 2 damage and some poison. The other four split up, 2 go onto Big Guy and two try to approach Sir Meat Shield. They have 15 Accuracy so they cannot miss Big Guy, but unless our Ogre friend rolls absolutely poo poo on his armour roll they can’t hurt him. They could potentially poison him, except the book doesn’t seem to say when the poison takes effect. Is it on a hit? Or does it have to do damage (as in penetrate the skin or w/e)?  We’ll be generous to our corrupted barbarian enemies and assume the attack only needs to hit. Big Guy takes 2 damage.The other two try to close in with Sir Meat Shield. He doesn’t miss on either, and actually rolls a max 10 on damage. However, with the -4 from his armor he only does 6 damage, one shy of his pain threshold. His other free attack only does 3 damage, which gets soaked. However, both cannot attack him in melee and lack the ranged attacks or mystical powers they could otherwise use in this situation. The Sister is last, she’ll slide up and use Lay on Hands on our Ogre friend, healing his two lost Toughness in exchange for 1 temporary corruption. Round two! Just a recap. Big Guy is currently engaged by the two remaining Clan Beasts and 2 Beast Clan Warriors. Sir Meat Shield is being engaged by two Beast Clan Warriors, one of which is half-dead. And two Beast Clan Warriors are fighting each other because one got mind controlled. Everyone else is dead. The Patron Saint charges a clan beast engaging Big Guy (it only does 1d6 damage right now, so he’s best used on targets with 0 armour). He actually gets lucky and rolls just enough damage to trigger a free attack, and kills it on his second one. (5 and 6) Sir Meat Shield takes a swing at the wounded Warrior, he hits and does 3 damage after armour. It now has 4 Toughness left. Big Guy laughs at all this non-system mastery fuckers that can’t hurt him, and easily one-shots another warrior with 14 damage. He then takes 2 damage from the poison, which fades from his system because it only lasts 2 rounds. Ash is up next, and has to roll to Resolute vs Resolute to retain control of his Warrior. He does so with a 5, and said Warrior stabs his buddy again for another 2 damage, and also takes 2 from the poison working through its own viens. The Beasts go next, but once again they can’t get through Big Guy’s armor despite hitting quite easily. Scout decides to put them both out of their misery. The first one dies easily enough thanks to a good damage roll + a free attack, the second arrow only does 2 damage, but the third luckily cranks the damage back up again and kills it. Scout has 11 arrows left fyi, she can retrieve them from the corpses later but she might want to invest in a few more for the future. The Rune Guardian attacks one of the fresh clan warriors engaging Sir Meat Shield, and does 15 damage, 2 shy of killing it once armour is factored in. However that is enough for another free attack, which finishes it off. The one Warrior tries to knife the mind-controlled one again and does another two 2 damage, and then takes 2 damage from poison, which fades from his system. The Flaming servant goes in on the wounded Warrior engaging Sir Meat Shield, and misses with a 19! The other two would be shaking their heads at the sight if they weren’t quickly becoming aware that they picked the wrong time to ambush this town, but there’s no going back now. One swings on Big Guy and actually manages to do 1 damage because I rolled 3 1’s and a 2, and poisons him again. The other Warrior wants to attack Sir Meat Shield with his axe, but this triggers the free attack yet again, it hits and does enough damage to kill the wounded Warrior. The Sister heals Big Guy again for 2. Round 3 3 Warriors left, 2 of which are half-dead and poisoned, one of which is about to be turbomurdered by a pissed-off Ogre. The Patron Saint goes in on a wounded Warrior, but fails to get damage past its armour Our tank charges the same guy, and manages to put 3 damage on it. Big Guy is next, and big surprise the Warrior in front of him has about another second to or two to regret his choices before his head goes flying from his shoulders. Ash passes his test to retrain control, and orders his unwilling minion to stab itself in the gut. Thanks to the guaranteed six damage and the poison, this will kill it outright. Last but not least, our Archer fires three arrows into the wounded remaining Warrior. It takes all 3 arrows thanks to its armour, but she eventually brings it down. Combat over! (Kinda, there’s more to come shortly, although I won’t be doing it in great detail like this again.) Some thoughts on Symabroum’s combat. Generally, PCs can count on hitting. The worst penalty you’ll see to your hit roll is generally a -5, so if you took a 15 in your main combat stat (which you should) you’ll have at least a 50% chance to hit, which can be further mitigated with using flanking for advantage, weapon qualities like perscise, or hell just taking ranks of Exceptional Attribute. However, while some enemies are hard to hit, most aren’t. I took a quick skim through the various monster entries and penalties aren’t usually that severe (especially if that enemy is heavily armoured). Big Guy can basically say “You die” to one person a turn while soaking most damage he takes in return, while Sir Meat Shield can lock down huge sections of the battle while also protecting the squishy pet caster. With more xp Scout will be even scarier damage wise than our ogre, albeit far more squishy. Keep in mind, it is possible I cocked something up, but I did read the rules multiple times and I'm fairly certain this is all legit RAW combat. Anyways, that’s it for now, this post is already way too goddamn long. Next time, the aftermath of the sinkhole and a “boss battle”
|
|
#
?
Jun 18, 2021 11:19
|
|
|
Starting to feel like elfgames should generally push gamey grid square combat over trying to do verisimilitude.
|
|
#
?
Jun 18, 2021 12:55
|
|
|
JcDent posted:Starting to feel like elfgames should generally push gamey grid square combat over trying to do verisimilitude. You filthy gamist. What, is narrativist gameplay not good enough for you? E: why does GNS Theory have an extensive Wikipedia page 
Falconier111 fucked around with this message at 14:50 on Jun 18, 2021 |
|
#
?
Jun 18, 2021 14:44
|
|
|
I feel that this basic near/midrange/far zones thing that some systems do now is the best way to accommodate both approaches at the same time.
|
|
#
?
Jun 18, 2021 14:56
|
|
|
By popular demand posted:I feel that this basic near/midrange/far zones thing that some systems do now is the best way to accommodate both approaches at the same time. Agreed. More generally, "zones" let you play with ranges and positioning without having to track down every single square, so it's something I'm coming to appreciate. Something like what Hard Wired Island does with zones that have different tags to describe them seems like an ideal blend if you don't want to go full grid-square (or, like me, if you're allergic to drawing battlemaps - sorry LANCER, I want to play you but not to run you).
|
|
#
?
Jun 18, 2021 15:03
|
|
|
Here's how Symbaroum officially handles it's movement, for what it's worth It's kinda just a shrug, I'd really prefer something like the zones you see some newer games these days.
|
|
#
?
Jun 18, 2021 15:16
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 09:42 |
|
|
Double Cross also has a cool zone system I haven't quite figured out yet.
|
|
#
?
Jun 18, 2021 15:37
|
|