Halloween Jack posted:

Hallelujah, I'm a ghost
Hallelujah, ghost again
Hallelujah, give us some Plasm to revive us again

Halloween Jack posted:

Gamma World is a good example of what I mean when I say that TSR needed more unified design. Design was improving at TSR...everywhere but AD&D. Gamma World 3e, Marvel Super Heroes, and The Conan Role-Playing Game were designed by Zeb Cook according to the current trend of having a unified mechanic with a single Master Action Chart for task resolution. Star Frontiers had a simple intuitive percentile system.

Gamma World 4e was a cleaned-up AD&D, and so was Buck Rogers, I believe.

BECMI/Rules Cyclopedia was still D&D, but its rules additions managed to rise above the level of cruft. It had skills and Weapon Masteries that were also a proto-feat system, and I'll take it over AD&D any day.

Halloween Jack posted:

It's a breath of fresh air.

Like, one of the main playable races is amoeba people who form limbs as needed, and another is quadrupedal insects. Most games during that time would have given them their own hit location charts and a bunch of other stupid rules. In Star Frontiers, they just have a couple of racial abilities and they have HP and stuff like everyone else.

Only problem is it's kind of plain. It needs something like the skill system from BECMI to spice it up.

Dave Brookshaw posted:

It's Charles Darwin and other early scientists - Clade, Variation, adaption, etc. Origins are called Origins because it's an Origin of Species reference.

More thought goes into these vocab choices than you think. Mage's Greek words for Indian concepts and Indian words for Greek ones lexicon can stun a horse if you print it out and has to be kept in a spreadsheet so editors can look up things like obscure plurals, but it's exceptionally complicated (and mages are the sort to invent all kinds of technical language for phenomena only they can sense let alone care about). Demon had "just use plain loving English" as it's vocab "thing", based on the characters being able to perfectly translate anything.

Deviants use "Born", "Volunteered", "Mutant", "Cyborg", etc for themselves. And its lexicon is one of the shorter ones.

IshmaelZarkov posted:

For years, everytime I've asked online about ways to run WoD games in a way to freshen things up for jaded veteran players, I've had people scream Monsterhearts at me.

Now I'm getting a look at it, I've come to the realisation it is the game I want to run least of every game I've read or conceptualised. I can imagine people enjoying it, but jsut reading the F&F review is running nails down the chalkboard of my soul.

Libertad! posted:

1. Well I'm considering reviewing SIGMATA, as the last reviewer abandoned it early.

2. Another idea was to do a review of the Ravenloft adventure's evolution through editions: the original AD&D I6, 3.5's Expedition to Castle Ravenloft, and 5th Edition's Curse of Strahd.

3. Al-Qadim setting. It has both an Arabian Adventures and Land of Fate as its two main products, the former covering the more game mechanics side of things and the latter a more bird's eye view of the setting. I've played and read 1st Edition AD&D, but not so much 2nd so I'm thinking of reviewing the latter.

4. 3rd Edition's Book of Vile Darkness, both for its controversy at the time and also Monte Cook's puritan hang-ups and juvenile mindset at the time.

5. The Red Hand of Doom, an incredibly popular adventure for 3rd Edition.

6. This is more something I would immediately review given that it's more of a backburner for a book I haven't read in like...forever, but the Midnight Campaign Setting by Fantasy Flight Games doesn't look like it's ever gotten the FATAL & Friends treatment.

If I had to rank them based on how I'm feeling right now, I'd be the most game for SIGMATA, Ravenloft, and/or al-Qadim. Ravenloft can be an interesting case study of an iconic adventure's evolution plus the whole Gothic goodness really tickles my fancy. SIGMATA because I figure a thorough rundown of the game's politics can be good to examine. Al-Qadim because it's a pretty neat and innovative setting which despite being in the Forgotten Realms has some new things to contribute besides "D&D but Arabian Nights."

Book of Vile Darkness may end up being a mock or hateview, which I fear may be draining.

Red Hand of Doom is shorter than the others I have lined up, but the plot is rather straightforward so it may be more of an analysis review. "Okay, it's the classic 'fight the invading army, but HOW does it do things right?"

I'll put up a Strawpoll to more accurately judge audience enthusiasm than last time where I tallied up individual posts.

Hostile V posted:

The STEM education is not tempered with liberal arts, sociological and philosophical courses as it should be, leading people with a limited skill-set to discover and invent their own language for concepts like "religion" and "Hell" and "ethics".

Mr. Sunshine posted:

Mutant Chronicles
Part 1 – A Swedish game company fumbles their way to an international hit franchise

DigitalRaven posted:

The Dishonored Roleplaying Game

Conclusion

Despite my gripes, I want to play this game. Let me be very clear about that. This isn't a hate-read, this is what stood out to me as I went through it. If someone proposed running it straight from the book, I'd happily sit down and enjoy it. Dishonored TRG has enough potential that I want to run it, and I have friends who are familiar enough with the video games to want to play. That's why I've noted what I'd change throughout, along with my gripes.

As I said near the start, it feels like a hybrid of FAE, 2d20, and Blades in the Dark. and that's a good thing. I really enjoy it as a system! But someone who really should have known better has glued in some of the worse bits of Shadowrun: Anarchy, and that's gonna have to be excised before I can run the game.

Is it disappointing? Yeah, kinda. I'm sad that it isn't better, but that's because there's so much potential. I pretty much want to turn what's in the book into a finished product.

It's that or I go back and write a not-Dishonored supplement for BLACK SEVEN.

Xiahou Dun posted:

ElfI6.

Also with all the Imperium chat : I stand-by the idea that everyone in the setting are basically assholes and the real protagonists are the Tyranids. Everyone else is evil, they're just hungry. Embrace your fate as just food for the chitinous horde purging the world.

Cooked Auto posted:

I tried playing and ended up absolutely hating the hacking minigame to the point it made me rather unenthused at playing the rest of it.

wiegieman posted:

I genuinely, to this day, do not understand the problem people have with AP hacking.

Night10194 posted:

Though I did add a few additional named rats. Tyl Ratger and his Tuberats (modified, improve-improved Clanrats with claws, come out of tubes).

The Skeep posted:

the latest System Mastery covers Alma Mater a high school rpg by a author with the weirdest axe to grind I've ever seen.

GimpInBlack posted:

Halloween Jack posted:

I'm curious about the Mutant series. Is there an English version of the original? Is there anything that sums up Chronicles and what differentiates it from 40K?

Cooked Auto posted:

I like the idea of mankind actually fighting back at the cosmic horrors for once.
And mechs are cool as well.
But beyond that point? Nah, I'll just go back dream. (Unintentional pun totally intended. )

Halloween Jack posted:

I will go back and finish my F&F sooner or later. It was released at a time (which I suppose never really ended) where there was a huge glut of stuff using the Lovecraft mythos for stuff other than CoC, and people didn't take as much interest in it since it didn't have the same production values as e.g. Cthulhutech.

Epicurius posted:

This might be too "evil murder death psycho" for you, but in Alan Dean Foster's "The Damned" trilogy, humanity is one of the few species which is psychologically capable of fighting in combat (which makes us really useful for the galactic federation which discovers us, as they're under attack from theocratic psychic giant space squids).

Epicurius posted:

You've just described every John Ringo book ever. That's the series that has a book where the SS are the good guys, right?

Shadowrun 6e Street Wyrd posted:

Romani Tradition
The Romani have their own practices. We won’t go too deep here, since trying too hard to describe their abilities without being immersed in that culture is, well, a fool’s game.

Let’s not do that.

Froghammer posted:

Depicting Roma or Roma-inspired culture without giving in to stereotypes in RPGs isn't that loving hard. 5th Edition Ravenloft managed to make the Vistani managed to nail the tone of "they don't talk much about their culture or what they believe to outsiders, which makes some people hate and fear them, which reinforces the need to not talk about their culture or what they believe to outsiders" without implying they have evil curse magic or whatever.

Ghost Leviathan posted:

Isn't that basically the Anti-Life Equation?

Cooked Auto posted:

Yeeaaaah, I stopped finding grimdark interesting a long time ago. I still like 40k, but more as military sci-fi than "In the grim darkness of the dark grimness there is only grimdark".
Also why I kinda dislike the basic conceit of Shadowrun, or the Cyberpunk genre to an extent, with "Everything is poo poo and you can't do anything about it". gently caress that poo poo honestly, that's just tiring.

One reason I enjoy Age of Sigmar, there is a undercurrent of hope and heroism in there. There is a feeling of striking back at the darkness everywhere instead of just revelling in it.

Robindaybird posted:

White Wolf, especially 90s White Wolf should never be used as a positive example of meta plot any writing.

mellonbread posted:

I wasn't impressed with the GURPS New Sun book. It has a lot of advice for recreating the exact things that appears in the novels, but very little original content or tools for creating your own. The whole reason Solar Cycle, Dying Earth and other stories are fun is the mix of the familiar and unexpected.

IMO GURPS Chtorr is the gold standard for adapting and expanding a published setting, with a mix of canonical content and stuff made up for the sourcebook.

I believe the GURPS Hellboy was written very early in the comic's run, and doesn't have most of the plot beats or lore elements from Plague of Frogs, Hell on Earth, or anything after the first few years.

Tibalt posted:

The GURPS original settings are also refreshingly original, in my opinion. For example, while GURPS Voodoo aged pretty poorly, the result was more grounded, more coherent, and a lot more original than World of Darkness.

Edit: THS and Fantasy II (aka The Madlands) also have some problem areas but are also pretty great.

Everyone posted:

Probably. But figure the other reason to use GURPS is if you don't have copies of every game ever written.

For my part I liked Powered by the Apocalypse systems like Dungeon World, Monster of the Week and Worlds in Peril.

The only game I've had experience with that was more teeth-shatteringly crunchy than GURPS was JAGS.

SkyeAuroline posted:

I don't feel as strongly about it as Purple does but I broadly agree with this, with the exception of Godbound because the alternative is loving Exalted.

Fivemarks posted:

I don't understand the idea of Sci-fi nerds wanting Engineers to be these HARD MEN who make stuff with NO SAFETY MARGINS for OPTIMUM PERFORMANCE. You always put a comfortable safety margin into things, because otherwise you get, well, the Tesla Death Factory.

Halloween Jack posted:

Halloween Jack posted:

I have so many questions, but I'll stick to one for now: did you dungeoncrawl in the Wormholes a lot? Always wondered how that aspect of the game butted up against the "Being cool in a nightclub" aspect.

PurpleXVI posted:

Nightlife's art is a treasure.

Though I gotta admit, one thing it's got over Vampire is not having 100 sub-splats for each type of supernatural creature.