AmiYumi posted:

Okay, are we sure Monte Cook's Magical Realm isn't "subjecting people to ideas so terrible they have an aneurysm"?

People paid $300 and up for this. Actual real-life money that could have gone anywhere else.

I'm sad now.

quote:

Pledge $5,912 or more
Merge With the Black Cube

I summon and merge with the infamous Black Cube from the void. I become one with it. I receive a unique copy of the Invisible Sun game.

The box of this unique copy of the game includes my name in red foil and a special foil symbol found nowhere else—one of the Invisible Sun artists designs it just for me. It includes a personalized note that Monte writes to me, including a singular secret of the setting that only I will ever have access to. The box is signed and personalized, and also includes a unique, secret element that will be true only for my copy.

I also gain access to the Directed Campaign run by Monte, including direct contact with Monte to gain advice and suggestions just for me. I receive all the stretch goal rewards unlocked in this campaign, including new hardbound supplements, additions to the box, and more.

My conjuration includes special bronze versions of all eight sun medallions and the Invisible Sun medallion. No more than 3 (plus one that Monte will have) of these special medallion sets will be made. I also gain all the sun-based secrets of the setting, regardless of when I make my pledge.

I get early access to the game’s rules and can be a part of the playtest, providing feedback. During this process, I’ll provide a character name that will be incorporated into the setting (probably with a spell named after me).

With the power of this spell I will meet with Monte and the entire Monte Cook Games design team for an in-person game session in Seattle. (Travel expenses to Seattle not included.) After this game, Monte will reveal secrets of the setting and game available nowhere else.
Includes

• Unique copy of the game signed and personalized by Monte
• Special access version of the Directed Campaign
• All Stretch Goal books and other items unlocked
• Character/spell named after me
• Early playtest access
• Special bronze medallions (x9)
• Game with the MCG design team
• All Sun-based secrets

JcDent posted:

Ladies and gentlemen, I regret to inform you that the Euros are at it again:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dracostudios/eldritchcenturycorebook/description

It's like they took a look at the more... colorful choices in world-building in Infinity and Degenesis, and said "hold my cerveza"

Night10194 posted:

By god it's Slamwise Gamgee's music!

lofi posted:

so far I'd say the monsters are 50/50 between usable and dick moves by the gm - those tree stumps? a monster. pile of books? monster.

Like, they seem to exist just to be a gently caress you to players, just a combat that PCs can't do poo poo to avoid.

Libertad! posted:

If true, this is one of the few things V5 did right. Several of the Gehennan prophecies are quite explicitly the types of things regressive undead fossils would create as scapegoats for Camarilla problems:

1.) Chinese vampires invading the West, basically Yellow Peril tropes.

2.) Thin-bloods as the harbinger of the apocalypse, aka maligning a social group which has zero institutional power to actually fight back.

3.) Mortal wizards becoming the Tremere and the Anarch Revolt, aka any change in the status quo will DESTROY US ALL.

Mors Rattus posted:

e: for the latter, Beasts in general are up there with their soul-theft Nightmare which is broken as gently caress, but...ugh, I'd have to think about it.

8one6 posted:

Beast is almost literally "Justifying Abuse: The RPG" and was written by Matt McFarland, who, after Beast was published, was accused of sexual assault and statutory rape.

rodbeard posted:

I don't know with how overwrought and angsty ever other WoD book is I'm glad there's one that's just gently caress it I'm going to eat this guy and call it an ironic punishment. I would love to be running around as a slasher movie villian while everyone else is trying out their Anne Rice rollplay.

Halloween Jack posted:

Dawgstar posted:

NuWoof even encourages different tribes in a pack for a variety of Sacred Hunts.

Freaking Crumbum posted:

i don't know if it was canon but my high school group explained it like "woofs don't go into cities because of the wyrm, and woofs will straight clown on your average blood sucker, so the blood suckers learned to stay in cities as a natural defense against having to deal with woofs."

also it seemed like the city dwelling tribes tended to be the ones that were maybe the bad guys, or at least not as opposed to working with the wyrm, so they're traitors anyway and you're totally justified tearing them apart

Gerund posted:

Tremere had the most lore-central position because being the Wizard-like clan in a roleplaying game gave them huge appeal for writers and readers, and the 'history' (as was told to me) was that all Tremere were actually just Tzimisce that ate their way up to Saulot so all three clans get circled around.

The body-hopping part mostly feels like a way to keep the players from just offing the physical body with numberwang before going through the riddle of how to 'kill the soul'.

Night10194 posted:

This seems very unusual for a vampire. I thought all the ancient ones were supposed to be bugfuck crazy abominations from beyond on some level.

Halloween Jack posted:

It's like the opposite of oWoD metaplot! Confronting it and making it relevant to your game requires going out of your way to do so.

Whereas oWoD wrote stuff into the metaplot like "Your Clan left the Camarilla. And you over there? You're dead."

Zereth posted:

Doesn't being in torpor for an extended period of time mess up your memories, and any ancient vampire has either spent a lot of time in torpor or is somehow feeding entirely on other high-power-stat vampires exclusively?

Froghammer posted:

Also even though we've established in canon that under certain circumstances Werewolves can, in fact, become Vampires, we're not going to tell you how that works because then you'll want to play one and we don't want you to want that.

LatwPIAT posted:

I think Vampire actually knew exactly what it wanted to be, which is basically late Revised oVampire without the metaplot, Elders, and unnecessary cruft. It's a very streamlined Vampire experience, which makes it a bit unremarkable compared to oVampire, but it's very clear about what it wants to be: you play a sexual assault metaphor who's part of a secret organization in conflict with other secret organizations.

Whereas nWerewolf doesn't know what it's about at all, except that it's not oWerewolf. Hanging around in war form all the time so you can be a big furry? Not allowed. Having sex in werewolf form? Not allowed. it tries to curtail the excesses of oWerewolf but it doesn't have much to replace them with, in part because it doesn't seem to have much pop-cultural material about werewolves to draw on. The WoD werewolf is a unique take, whereas the WoD vampire is refined from the ore of pop culture.

Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:

I would argue the reason is very scrutable

I Am Just a Box posted:

Now, if you want to use Demon: the Descent to play somebody who suddenly manifests bizarre occult physical superpowers, without necessarily knowing why, and who is then pursued, seemingly unprovoked, by unknown inhuman entities under the guise of corporate conspirators or government spooks? Well, a demon in Cover has human physiology. They are sexually compatible with ordinary humans. Their children are more human than demon, but their heritage can show through, sometimes even three or four generations deep...

Cythereal posted:

Hell, even Mass Effect does that from 3 onwards with its omni-weapons. Be they blades or the weirder stuff other specialists use, the weapons are almost totally invisible so the soldier's omni-tool lights it up with a holographic display just so the user can see where the drat thing is.

Halloween Jack posted:

In theory--and yes, the game lays out its setting's theories--magick is balanced by having hard limits on what it is and isn't, and what it can and can't do, unlike D&D. In practice, they ignore it all the time, and magick can do really powerful stuff anyway.

The "Analyze Device" spell in particular grinds my gears. It's less offensive than a 1st edition spell called Fix, which fixes broken things.

According to the way magick works in Shadowrun, a gadget-fixing spell or even a lockpicking spell should be impossible. Because spells manipulate energy. Magick itself isn't intelligent and doesn't know things or solve problems. It can't give you skills you don't have, or perform technical work that you don't know how to do. Now, you could maybe summon an urban spirit that knows how to do it for you, because spirits are sentient creatures.

MadScientistWorking posted:

No. That's what Covok mentioned with her comment about Ziggy and Tommy who are both green rangers. Tommy is kind of a serious brooding loner who has trouble adjusting to the team. Ziggy is a comedic ranger who only became one to prevent the bad guys from winning. To give context to how much of a stark difference it is Ziggy's first lines as a Power Ranger was," Im a Power Ranger!!!! Noo.... I don't want to be a Power Ranger anymore I don't want to be a Power Ranger anymore." The closest analog to Tommy in Power Rangers RPM is Ziggy's friend the black ranger.

Everyone posted:

Who's the person the Blue Ranger is fighting who sounds a lot like Karen Gillan but who probably isn't Karen Gillan?

PurpleXVI posted:

Not gonna lie, I hope they make another Shadowrun game, and let HBG write it, and then repeatedly hit them with a rock whenever they try to touch the gameplay. Outsource that poo poo to some people who know what the gently caress they're doing.

I'm amused that COOL and EMPathy are two separate stats. Like the idea that you can apparently dunk on people with STYLE and COOLNESS while also being completely unable to fit a room. On the one hand it sounds stupid, because if you're trying to impress or intimidate people, you need to understand them to some extent. On the other hand it sounds hilarious, the idea that you have this SUPER BADASS STAGE PERSONA and then the moment someone actually talks to you off-stage you're a mumbling socially awkward wreck.

SkyeAuroline posted:

Assuming I caught everything (I don't have my book on my phone, just my game notes), the skills tied to COOL in RED are Persuasion, Bribery, and Interrogation, while EMP has Conversation, Human Perception, and Play Instrument. So the RPG divides somewhat differently from how 2077 does, but not that far off I guess?

Fivemarks posted:

Imagine if Shadowrun was the kind of setting were writers were like "You see how poo poo things are? You can CHANGE IT. You see those dragons making things worse? You can slay them" instead of it being some of the worst of the 90's metaplot driven "no players can't do anything ever" RPGs. Like Forgotten Realms and Elminster, except Shadowrun is worse about it than Greenwood's Magical Realm.

Libertad! posted: