FATAL & Friends 2020: 61 billion casualties

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > FATAL & Friends 2020: 61 billion casualties

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Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

Deadlands having to resort to "actually, it feeds the mega demons from double hell if you go stomp out the Confederacy or if someone else does so it's bad if you do" really does show their whole rear end, politically.

# ¿ Jan 1, 2021 01:10

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 00:12

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

The Lone Badger posted:

Why is anti-zombie-juice worth so much moolah if all it does is turn you into a universally-despised underclass in constant searing pain?

Beats being dead

# ¿ Jan 6, 2021 04:30

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

Redeye Flight posted:

FUNCTIONALLY, however, paracausality is, basically, magic. It's also surprisingly easy to tolerate, in my experience, because even in real life we're constantly running into poo poo in physics that tells us to take our generalizations and assumptions and ram them where Metat Aun's light cannot reach.

The way I like to think of paracausality is through two different, old (if you're old like me) TV show references, the South Park Underpants Gnomes and Seinfeld's "yada yada" bit.
The Gnomes' plan is, Phase 1: Steal underwear. Phase 2: ??? Phase 3: Profit. If stealing underpants generates profit successfully, as in LANCER, that's a paracausal relationship (in the sense that it's causal but with an undefined governing law bridging the gap). Phase 1: Worship Metat Aun. Phase 2: ??? Phase 3: Solid light weapons.
Yada yada is a shorthand to cut out the boring part (or elide the part you don't want to tell) of a story. My ex came over last night, yada yada yada, I'm really tired today. Paracausality in the sense that you're just cutting out the less-relevant part of the story (for purposes of narrative satisfaction, or less charitably, because you don't feel like writing up the middle part). That glowing orb on the back of that mech turned black, yada yada yada, my universe is screaming fire now.

e: Also Tibalt, loving the write-ups so far, please keep them coming.

Chernobyl Peace Prize fucked around with this message at 01:43 on Jul 9, 2021

# ¿ Jul 9, 2021 01:40

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

Josef bugman posted:

Did you consent to be born?

What if you did and don't remember it because the entity that did so is a distinct version of you, post- that decision, that you will never communicate with? It's impossible to know without having the actual reality setting bible to go off, so it's hard to apply to Lancer directly.

The whole conversation around NHPs, consent, shackling, homunculi and all that remind me of Ted Chiang's "The Lifecycle of Software Objects," which I have to imagine informed some of the writing (the story came out in 2010). I'd summarize it but it's really good, go read it if you're interested in AI Fiction Thoughts, I doubt I'd do it justice anyway.

# ¿ Jul 15, 2021 21:35

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

PurpleXVI posted:

As it is, going "they're mysteeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerious, too mysterious to understaaaaaaaaaaaaaand" frankly just makes them... incredibly hard to use for anything, rather than an intriguing mystery.

On the contrary, that means you can use them for anything you want, and the reason they did that thing is because you wanted them to do it (like literally every entity in any game anyone runs ever), and the reason is: well, they did it, you (the players) figure out why, if it matters to you.

# ¿ Jul 16, 2021 00:41

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

Mork Borg whips rear end, if for no other reason than it should also tee you up to review Dukk Borg

# ¿ Aug 20, 2021 22:21

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

I dunno 14th level paladin with a +5 Holy Avenger, maybe you are the fabled hero of legend because you seem to have all the trappings, and stats, for it.

# ¿ Sep 8, 2021 14:34

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

PurpleXVI posted:

Everyone else is left to pick up the pieces, but at least Midnight-as-Mystra shows up to reward the PC's with a free Wish and a free level-up! If, you know, they properly listened to her every time she said something loving dumbshit stupid like "GUYS, I'M SURE CYRIC ISN'T REALLY AN EVIL rear end in a top hat!!!!!!" If they disagreed with her too much, she stiffs them no matter how big a part they were of trying to save the world.

"Characters who did not try to protect Midnight, or disregarded her importance, receive no wish and also are not rewarded as described below."

Impossible to imagine a party coming out of this adventure and having that happen to anyone, and the rest of their campaign not being about dethroning the gods or at least stealing their power outright. It just happened in front of them and the person doing it got super-rewarded!

# ¿ Sep 8, 2021 22:56

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

Gatto Grigio posted:

Still enjoying Nightlife. It�s goofy but in a way that�s charming, like a 90s Saturday morning cartoon, in contrast to World of Darkness goofiness that tends to be pure cringe.

Nightlife feels like it�s aware of how silly the urban fantasy genre can be but isn�t afraid to lean into it. �Sure, this world is filled with greasers with zipper eyes as a mook monster, why not?�

One thing I really appreciate about Nightlife is that the goofiness and willingness to just fully Go For It on the weirder poo poo (and then half the time say, "oh and here's how this is playable, it's bad but whatever") like "laughter vampire" and stuff actually makes it feel a lot more evocative of that feeling of reading through whatever horror anthologies your local library had on hand as a teen.

Sometimes the material is ever-so-serious, oooo spooooky, sometimes you've just got dudes who have no skin because something else stole it and now they need your warmth to survive. It's something that the WoD games of the era (which would've been what, just the really early ones, VtM, maybe WtA 1e?) whiff on by taking themselves a bit too seriously (or at least trying to) on a consistent basis, so it's really nice to see it represented here.

# ¿ Sep 21, 2021 02:32

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

Maxwell Lord posted:

On top of everything else wrong with him Zak S. sucks at drawing maps. This is a boring bunch of blocks that doesn't suggest kingdoms at war or exciting places full of danger. It's mostly blank. Maze of the Blue Medusa just looked like a bunch of shapes. Like they're not useful nor do they inspire much. I love a good fantasy map, I don't even care if the geography makes no sense and you've got rivers going uphill or deserts next to swamps or whatever. Just give me cool places.

Yeah the stupid stone skyscrapers with rooftop gardens design really confuses me for this supposedly being a setting of fantasy kingdoms at war. Are they conducting urban guerilla warfare on each other? Are they finding the largest roofs they can so they can line up all their guys on each side and smash them together? Why have they not begun the process of breaking down and leveling out some of those tiers and constructing new things on the surface themselves? Is this all as stupid as it looks? Yes?

# ¿ Sep 27, 2021 13:49

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

I've never heard of BrikWars but this looks like something that would've devoured my entire life if I'd run into it at the right time. Very excited to learn more.

# ¿ Oct 2, 2021 01:40

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

This TSATF writeup is fascinating.

# ¿ Mar 3, 2022 05:22

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

Nessus posted:

One of the things that has stood out to me about Forsaken is that the spirit world just sounds like a miserable source of trouble and problems and poo poo you have to fight, and every spirit seems to be some kind of horrible manifestation of negative human emotions, while Apocalypse at least refers to like tree spirits, frog spirits, and other things which are probably at least not lending themselves to a Kreia-like situation. Is this just because of online discourse? I have had genuine trouble reading the Forsaken books.

There are definitely non-antagonist spirits out there, it's just that for the things that turn into 8-foot-tall hammers, a lot of the stuff you run into is gonna end up looking like a nail. The core book talks about all these internecine squabbles and courtly intrigues for spirits and poo poo, and spirits trying to trick you into doing poo poo that empowers them indirectly. Like maybe a tree spirit points you in the direction of a traffic spirit trying to influence a mortal on the city council to commission a road expansion, and hey you know what'd be nice, is if they made it a park instead. Is it a net good for the neighborhood? Sure! But it's also going to make the area more reverential towards trees in a conscious and unconscious way, and that's going to give ol entfather there a nice boost.

# ¿ Aug 12, 2022 03:44

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

Some interesting things that build also highlights, that the DtR rules don't really address that well:
- Immunity is Perpetual and Reflexive. Perpetual means it's always on. Reflexive means it can be activated reflexively instead of with an instant action...but: always on. So ??? Also there are numerous powers with this pair of keywords, so they didn't just raise this issue with Immunity. However: if you took Dependency as your scar, you can be the cranberry sauce addict you always wanted to be, anyway. And it's still Physical!
- Christ, 1-dot Lash is weak. A funny thing that came up at my table is that RAW you can waste a Variation+Scar dot on "the ability to punch" (Bruising Brawl Lash, *, with the "Quick" effect (you can activate it reflexively; your hands are already in hand). On the other hand: 2-dot Lash, you just take Devastating as a +1 Magnitude modifier, for "the Lash now deals higher of Scar Power or Magnitude B/L" and you can pretty easily get a 4/5L weapon that's never more than an instant action (at worst) away.
- I would actually argue Acclimation is a garbage power stat, for everything except the Instability stuff you outlined (and which, to your point, you can mitigate the issues with by slamming through low-Magnitude Scars). It caps at 5, starts at 0 (instead of the free 1 everyone else gets), and if you aren't using Directed variations and thus rolling it a lot, it's only going to come up for flipping on your power suite...when you're already getting a couple free dice from your Scar Finesse and Magnitude of that Variation.

One small rules quibble on Alex Mack v2, if your Boneless is Magnitude 4 (3 base, +1 for the Defensive deviation you added to give it Reflexive) then the scar needs to be 4 overall as well, and currently your Involuntary Stimulus is 3 (2 base, +1 for Identifier). So you're looking at either making it Common for a +1 modifier (so like...any sound. Deviants!) Uncontrollable (you can ONLY go goo if someone's blowing an airhorn in your face), or Unpredictable (sound AND ST fiat 1/session). Any of which make for a really fun time, when having a 3-base Involuntary Stimulus means you get both "this always triggers the variation unless you succeed on Scar Resistance" and "you can't turn it off while the stimulus remains."

The good news is, if this character was built at just a sliiiiightly higher power level, you'd be able to take Monstrous Transformation, and either bundle Boneless with Immunity (at a higher level, no less!) under a single mega-scar with one activation, and still be able to squeeze in other things, since the rules only care that half your Variations are from either in-Clade or universal.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2023 05:38

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

Everyone posted:

Deviants feels like it could fill the spot by Beast filled in a much better way. I mean, you can do the "I'm a weird monster-gribbly-person" and not have the "who physically and emotionally abuses people (including/especially children) to get their power on." I mean right here you have "I'm a shark girl person" without "who bites little kids' limbs off to "teach them a lesson" about pool safety or some bullshit."

And if you wanted the only remotely interesting mechanical bit from Beast (the "pull chunks of your Lair into the real world" part), there's a Deviant power (called "Storm Caller" but nothing stopping you from making that storm an Inferno, with Low-Light, and dripping acid) that you can set up to let you throw some environmental tags of your choice onto the scene.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2023 21:01

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

PurpleXVI posted:

I just keep getting distracted by the art. Is this someone using an electrified fish as a weaponr?

Listen: Manticores help you how they can, not how you'd like.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2023 22:37

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 00:12

Chernobyl Peace Prize: May 7, 2007; Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

Falconier111 posted:

I�d have taken the manticore companion merit for an character and made one if the entry wasn�t just the book going �fuckin�� Have the storyteller make something up worth the points, I don�t care�.

Yeah that's one of those places I'm hoping the various companion-piece PDFs have additional rules, when they come out, roughly a million years from now. Kind of like how CtL's token creation rules in the core book are lackluster at best, and filled out years later. The classic of Onyx Path.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2023 00:35

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > FATAL & Friends 2020: 61 billion casualties

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