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The thread is dead, long live the thread I assume the reason "kindled items" hate each other is to reify the D&D rule where you can't wear your two magic amulets at once, FRANK, gawd, stop POWERGAMING
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Sep 10, 2019 03:01
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 13:47 |
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Monte Cook kept a little diary and every time he had a thought about wizards he would write it in the diary. This happened very frequently because Monte Cook thinks about wizards pretty much constantly. Then he put that diary in a box with a weird hand statue and sold it for 350 bucks.
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Sep 10, 2019 05:40
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Are there wizard adult video stores where you can illicitly trade your boring recipe thought orbs for other orbs containing sexy ideas thought up by minor celebrities?
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Sep 10, 2019 14:35
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Ten foot pole (invisible) Bulls-eye lantern (invisible) Mirror, small steel (invisible)
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Sep 10, 2019 19:44
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Kurieg posted:Which itself is not really a place you want to go. It's on the elemental plane of fire, basically everyone who lives there is elementally evil, and their economy revolves entirely around slavery. Now that you mention it, how do you have any form of economy on the elemental plane of fire? The only thing there is is fire, and presumably there's plenty to go around.
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Sep 15, 2019 06:23
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Nobody likes visiting the Quasi-elemental Plane of Corn.
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Sep 15, 2019 19:39
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Oh man, I'd forgotten that all wizards canonically carry around, at all times, the lovely 3D-printed plastic hand that comes in the box you paid $350 for.  If nothing else, we ought to acknowledge Monte Cook's achievement in making wizards seem like totally uninteresting dweebs -- the kind of people you don't invite to parties because they'll corner some poor girl and spend three hours whining about how a bunch of people with books for heads have been moving into the neighborhood and, like, it's not like I'm against people with books for heads, but
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Sep 15, 2019 23:56
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I guess humans in White Wolf world are just completely devoid of imagination; every rumor or story anyone has ever come up with, ever, is directly based on a literal actual monster. If you hear some fifth graders telling a story about a crazy pirate with hooks for feet who lives in the woods, then there really is a pirate with hooks for feet, he's probably a centimanus or something. The big dog that totally ate a guy in the eighties, and that's why they closed the camp, my cousin heard them say so? Real. A bookshelf that turns into a lady and steals your teeth? Real.
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Sep 17, 2019 20:30
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"The fate of the entire world (and the climax of a multi-year campaign) rests on the GM rolling for two super-powerful NPCs to beat other up in an alley while the PCs watch" might be the most perfect crystallization of Nineties RPGs I've ever heard of. e: or wait, is it that the GM pretends to roll for it, because the winner is already predetermined by metaplot? Because that might be even better.
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Sep 19, 2019 18:40
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One thing that can be confusing: the relatively-normal human you're playing as is called a Sin-Eater. The Geist is the dead dude to whom you are giving a piggy-back ride. The Underworld (the realm of ghosts, where humans hang out when they die, the place Sin-Eaters care about) is legally distinct from the Shadow (where spirits live, the place Woofs care about) and Stygia (the supernal realm filled with Look, when you have twelve different game lines fighting over Christian Pop Mythology for scraps of metaphor, there's going to be some overlap. megane fucked around with this message at 19:35 on Sep 19, 2019 |
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Sep 19, 2019 19:32
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He seems like the kind of person who writes self-help books for low-level managers. He started out with a mediocre approach and a mediocre system, and then he spent thirty years polishing it and that much hard work surely means he's a transcendent master of the craft with a perfect technique by now, right? And anyone who says there was an easier or better way is just lazy -- unwilling to put in the hours. Kids these days just want everything handed to them on a platter.
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Sep 23, 2019 19:29
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Demon is the best by far. By miles. Geist etc. are fine, but they're not "ice-cold soul-stealing robot angel lawyer wearing a Pittsburgh soccer mom's entire social existence as a suit while it figures out how to reprogram God" good.
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Sep 24, 2019 04:24
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You can also steal a cover from an angel (the God-Machine seems to be able to just fabricate them at will) or piece one together from scratch, both of which avoid having to unmake a human, but which are extremely dangerous and very slow respectively.
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Sep 26, 2019 23:44
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There's an excellent horror movie plot there. A young lawyer makes a dark pact while she's in law school. She becomes a successful attorney, makes a fortune, enters politics. She swallows her doubts: her success comes from hard work and charisma, obviously, not some silly "contract" she might have drunkenly signed back in her wild college days. That old guy is surely dead by now, anyway, right? Finally, after decades of work, she runs for mayor and wins. And when she comes home from the party, she finds the demon sitting in her living room.
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Sep 27, 2019 18:03
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PurpleXVI posted:Personally I'm just trying to think of the most annoying thing you could do with Cover constructions. Like make a Cover personality consisting exclusively of things that happened within the same 24 hours(but obviously to different people, stapling it together from birth to current time), just to give any Angels looking into it a screaming headache. This sounds like exactly the sort of thing a demon might do. Encourage some poor data-analysis angel to fall by driving it nuts trying to figure out your bullshit.
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Sep 27, 2019 19:08
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Tasoth posted:Someone pointed out that the God-Machine isn't usually able to catch Covers. But it doesn't need to as when you staple an aspect of someone else's life onto your Cover, only the people directly touched by it will have their memories modified to accept it. This means friends just far enough removed to remember someone was dating a different person begin to question why they're dating the Demon now. And this attention will actually start pulling in God-Machine attention. The more people who are out of the loop on a graft, the faster it's going to erode. Yeah, this is essentially what Cover dots represent. A two-dot cover has a backstory full of holes; your supposed parents won't remember anything about your childhood, there's no record of you making phone calls before three weeks ago, your daily schedule is something no actual human would have, etc. It'll hold up in daily life, usually, but if anyone actually investigates you they're going to find inconsistencies. A nine-dot cover is watertight; friends of friends of friends "remember" meeting you at parties a decade ago and all their stories match.
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Sep 28, 2019 22:19
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Oh, he's a complete hack who justifies the fact that he's dogshit at GMing by saying "no but see I WANT them to be bored and frustrated while playing," got it. Who the gently caress plays with these people? What kind of player do you have to be to come to this guy's session, have him spend four hours quivering with self-satisfaction at how clever he is when he tells you you can't make camp for the 13th time in a row, sit in silence for minutes at a time because he has rocks fall anytime anyone decides to do anything, get told you should be happy you're not having fun because it'll make the payoff three months from now feel so much more meaningful... and then want to do so again next week? To see him look miserable too, ask him if he wants to change things up, and have him give a grandiloquent speech about how he's enduring the misery of abusing you for the sake of the game?
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Sep 29, 2019 22:46
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The God-Machine isn't after demons because they're magic, it's after them because, in its eyes, they belong to it. It created them for a purpose, and then they malfunctioned and now need to be repaired. Using Exploits and such is dangerous not because the machine hates magic, but because it helps it to find you. Note that the God-Machine was actually originally printed as an antagonist for mortals and Hunters; it's basically an excuse plot in a box, since its plans are "whatever the GM wants" with the justification being "WHEELS WITHIN WHEEEEEEELS." It's basically Tzeench if Tzeench was interesting and you could actually beat him without being told that losing was his plan all along. e: f;b megane fucked around with this message at 20:12 on Sep 30, 2019 |
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Sep 30, 2019 20:08
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They seem unable to go five pages without putting cannibalism in, too.
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Oct 2, 2019 03:19
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Demon forms can also have guns built into them, which is kickin' rad.
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Oct 2, 2019 19:55
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Night Horrors: Know Your Meme Edition
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Oct 3, 2019 19:18
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Dear White Wolf: please rename the God-Machine so its acronym is something other than loving "GM," thanks in advance
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Oct 3, 2019 19:34
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Man I wish Demon were attached to a less-lovely system.
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Oct 5, 2019 00:18
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:The Matrix This is definitely the one for me. This is exactly what the Fall looks like in my mind. "It's the smell!" megane fucked around with this message at 19:24 on Oct 5, 2019 |
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Oct 5, 2019 19:20
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A strong entry in the hotly-contested race to spell "Elftown" in the most convoluted and pretentious way possible.
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Oct 8, 2019 16:00
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Gladiator sphere almost makes me want to play Pathfinder again, dang. Just strut into the room, rip off your sleeves, and flex at the lich until he breaks down crying tears of dust and begging for mercy.
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Oct 9, 2019 02:14
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It turns out "get twice as many turns as anyone else" is pretty good. Maybe it shouldn't be an opt- oh wait, it's traditional, we obviously have to keep it forever.
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Oct 9, 2019 23:23
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I dunno if it's changed in Sixth World, but cyberdecks were restricted (i.e. requiring of a license), rather than illegal, in past editions. Your PC only owns one for doing crimes, obviously, but they're also used legitimately by IT and cybersecurity types so you could theoretically pass yours off as legal when the cops ask you about it.
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Oct 13, 2019 03:22
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As with lots of cyberpunk (and steampunk) media, they lost the “punk” part in geeking out about the “cyber” part. The protagonist is supposed to be a punk: an outsider living on the fringes because he or she won’t accept the corrupt structure of society — a person who has skills and connections, but won’t use them to seize power or take advantage of the weak, and who is therefore outcast. Being a stylish, wared-out superhuman killing people for corporations just to make money, which seems to be the default assumption in Shadowrun, is completely anathema to this. That’s part of why SR always seems so self-contradictory; it crows about how the corps are bad and you should hate them, and how their greed is ruining the world, and then the whole game is about actively and violently furthering their goals because they’ll pay you. Changing this core assumption fixes a lot of problems with the game. Like, why is your powerful wizard on the streets when you could easily be making millions working for a corp? Because you have principles and are willing to be poor to stand up for them. megane fucked around with this message at 18:54 on Oct 18, 2019 |
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Oct 18, 2019 18:51
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ChaseSP posted:Shadowrunners are pretty much considered costs of business as long as you're not Renkoku or you don't hit something big enough that'll cause lasting operations. I consider this one of the most damning parts of SR. When "your PCs' actions are essentially meaningless and almost beneath the notice of their targets" is a core conceit of your setting, maybe you should rethink things.
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Oct 21, 2019 17:49
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inklesspen posted:It absolutely seems to be based on Jughead's arc, and normally that would doom it, but since Avery made it it might not suck? From looking at it (and not having watched the show) it seems like it hits an okay niche: you're a gatekeeper in the social sense, painting everyone, including yourself, with broad labels and slamming them when they try to cross class (or gender, or clique, or whatever) lines. You're the rear end in a top hat who tells women that only guys play D&D. I mean, the Sex Move is literally telling them you don't belong in their world. How that would play out, and whether it's worth having a skin about, isn't entirely clear. e: also, well, there's potential for it to spiral into No See My Character Is A Horrible Douche. Definitely think carefully before using. megane fucked around with this message at 19:10 on Oct 31, 2019 |
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Oct 31, 2019 19:04
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I mean, obviously it's just my snap interpretation, and I certainly don't claim it's the only valid one. But this is their core move:quote:You exist in the liminal space between two communities: one is resplendent with light, the other is damned to the shadows. It is your duty to guard the boundary. You can definitely play this as a repentant gang member, as Joe Slowboat mentioned, and that may well be the best take, honestly. But it's not the primary theme I'm seeing. e: to be clear, even playing my interpretation to the hilt, you don't have to be a sexist CHUD or whatever; society is packed to the loving gills with gates and those who keep them, and sometimes those gates might be there for a good reason, as in the repentant gang member's case. If I wanted to play a Cerberus it wouldn't take me long to come up with one I wouldn't consider despicable. But if you ask me to name an example of people dividing society into two communities, labelling one "light" and the other "dark," and then "putting people in their place"... the first few I name aren't going to be nice dudes. megane fucked around with this message at 00:21 on Nov 1, 2019 |
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Nov 1, 2019 00:06
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The Wyrm is the best skin and the Sasquatch is a solid contender for the worst. My character gets +1 to turn people on when she's not wearing shoes. Why? Uh, no reason. Might be beaten to the title by an upcoming one, though.
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Nov 1, 2019 18:54
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wiegieman posted:If you're the God of Cutting, why shouldn't you be able to Cut away someone's Fortune or Beauty or Sickness? You're not wrong, but this is basically the exact reason I dislike Nobilis (and pretty much all "god games"). By this logic, the God of Cutting can do literally anything as long as the person playing him can bully the GM into admitting that you could theoretically, in some distant metaphorical sense, maybe use the word "cut" in a description of it. Can the God of Cutting cut atomic nuclei in half and blow stuff up with nuclear fission? Can you cut flaws out of an object to repair it? How about cutting through red tape to get bureaucracy done? Can he cut away somebody's luck, or memory, or dislike of him? I guess I'm supposed to go "whoa yeah that's awesome" to all of these, but it just sounds like bland omnipotence to me. Defining what characters can and can't do gives them personality and structure, not to mention limiting the amount of stupid "I can choreograph a ballet with Cutting, right" arguments. Maybe you can't do that and still have a game where characters feel like gods, I dunno. I just don't want to play that game. megane fucked around with this message at 04:20 on Nov 10, 2019 |
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Nov 10, 2019 04:18
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Mr. Maltose posted:It’s a bit like complaining about Dogs In The Vineyard because you can just shoot everybody, which is explicitly a thing you have the power and authority to do. This is the exact opposite of what I'm complaining about. Shooting people is a very clear, specific thing you can do that has well-defined effects and consequences. There are problems it can solve, and problems it can't. You can use your gun to kill a witness and avoid justice for your crimes. You can't use your gun to cure somebody of a disease, or find water in a desert. My concern is not about giving players powerful tools, it's about giving them poorly-defined tools. It's the same reason I dislike "magic" in most TRPGs. Rand Brittain posted:Pretty much all of these sound like either something you could absolutely do and it would be fine (nuclear fission isn't really that impressive in Nobilis) or something that would have interesting consequences (it's perfectly okay to ask a player exactly what they think is going to be left after they've cut all the flaws out of something — possibly nothing). I dunno, I haven't read it, so I can't say. But does anyone in it actually do this sort of wacky metaphorical boundary-pushing? Does the cutting guy try to cut a day in half, or the regret out of someone's heart?
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Nov 10, 2019 06:25
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Raid on Resistance safehouse comes up empty-handed after all the Paladins break off the chase to post about their super cool and successful raid on Elf Instagram.
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Nov 25, 2019 18:50
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The
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Dec 4, 2019 19:28
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Did anyone actually play this nonsense? It sounds utterly miserable, even ignoring the inevitable TPK every 5 minutes.
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Dec 10, 2019 19:51
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Apparently the average dungeon now has a background lethality of almost 150 mRa. Won't someone think of the wizards?
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Dec 13, 2019 18:06
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 13:47 |
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Yeah, "a good GM can fix it" isn't an excuse for bad rules, and it's not an excuse for bad fluff, either. If putting Kender in the setting (and making them playable) requires all this song and dance, then we should ask: what's the benefit of having them? Why put them in the book, instead of a different species/culture/whatever that doesn't have those problems? Because it seems to me like they're one unfunny joke told over and over, and that's it. e: Really, saying "a good GM (or player) can fix it" is itself kind of a red flag. If the thing was good, why would it need fixing / avoiding? megane fucked around with this message at 23:52 on Jan 15, 2020 |
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Jan 15, 2020 23:49
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