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Maybe they have learned the deep truths of Juche as being the true nature of communism.
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Sep 10, 2019 15:35
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I'm pretty sure those aren't genders, but orientations? Well, most of them? ...Yeah, the more I think of that table, the more I am "Confused."
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Oct 14, 2019 13:21
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All this discussion about things named the same thing but are different and also related to a bunch of similar things that are the same but also not I think is a very strong indication that an editor needs to take a chainsaw to the setting and just tear most of it up. It just doesn't work.
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Oct 16, 2019 12:51
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Monsterhearts is one of those games I've heard of and have been curious about. The whole idea sounds like it could go terribly wrong, yet be enthralling in a trashy, YA literature sort of way. I've always wondered if I should inflict it on my players and see what happens.
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Oct 30, 2019 03:14
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Green Intern posted:Well if you are considering “inflicting” it on them, I imagine it won’t go very well. Inflicting hardships on player characters is the job. They should be interesting hardships. They should be surmountable hardships. But they are hardships that are inflicted upon them by the GM.
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Oct 30, 2019 04:26
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I absolutely adore that “aelfir” gets autocorrected to “selfie.” They’re amazing antagonists on many levels.
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Nov 25, 2019 16:01
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There was a difference between them? What was it, out of curiosity?
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Jan 24, 2020 23:13
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I like that the author of Chikin Attack says to completely skip his chapter as it is completely pointless. Big points for honesty.
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Apr 14, 2020 20:48
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Poor Rose. This is her first adventure.
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Apr 18, 2020 16:29
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That monetary system sounds awful. A liquid currency creates all sorts of nightmares. I mean, just imagine what happens if you drop a handful of change. Your coins might bounce a little, but you can go pick them up. Drop your liquid life water and it's gone unless it's a water proof surface. Save maybe you have a nice flower growing there to commemorate your losing your lunch money. And then there's the manner of keeping it clean and pure enough. And then there's the special nightmare of storing large volumes of it... Water is *heavy* and awkward to store. And using a fairly complex device to measure out change is a pain. Do you just keep a pipette on your belt beside your 'sphere' of magic water? What if the sphere has ten 'drops' removed? How does a seller know it's full or not? Do they have to whip out graduated cylinders and check the total volumes for every purchase? And then carefully pour back 100 drops into every Sphere and 10 into every phial? And when you're working with liquids, what happens to the stuff that inevitably clings to the insides of measuring devices and empty containers? And this is assuming a 'drop' is a standardized unit of volume here. And the liquid doesn't change density, but at least that's a safe assumption. Usually. Oh, goodness. Does it freeze? Boil? Now I'm imagining walking through a blizzard, going into an inn, and trying to melt your wallet. Or finding out it evaporated in the summer. But I suppose it might've just leaked out, instead.
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May 11, 2020 02:48
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MonsterEnvy posted:Yeah it's not a super effective currency, but it's really valuable and useful, which is why it has become a sort of one. You do know that describes things like gasoline, right? We never use oil as a currency for a reason. It's a commodity. Healing potions as money is like using antibiotics or remdisivir or morphine as currency. Things people find actually useful and consumable rarely work as currencies and so we used useless (but durable) things like gold instead. Before moving on to socially agreed upon made-up stores of value. It's just... bad for a host of reasons, but it's one of those bad ideas that people find appealing, like the gold standard or future dystopias using bullets or water or toilet paper for money.
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May 11, 2020 03:14
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Froghammer posted:Sigmarbux Sigmarks
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May 12, 2020 00:52
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Idealistic but disposable MPs from an idealistic world that is a prosperous federation of people’s. They use pistols primarily and wear red shirts.
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May 18, 2020 15:39
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He's not even against evil. I mean, between palling around with a death god and murder god, he seems to only be against evil when that evil is labeled as Chaos. It's just so... shockingly empty of any sort of moral stands, philosophy, or actual ethics. It's the morality and divinity of spreadsheet software.
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May 22, 2020 01:40
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Night10194 posted:Given what actually high grade dwarfen beer can do, I'd be terrified of what they'd call rotgut. I presume it is a hypergolic oxidizing alcohol typically used by dwarfs for etching metal and getting rid of those extremely stubborn memories/brain cells.
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May 27, 2020 00:30
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I am definitely interested in a deep look at Keep on the Borderlands, OtspIII. A close reading of this sounds like it'll be extremely interesting. A 'sandbox' approach for one of the first modules is a bit of a surprise to me and it's one of the few cases I'd use a pre-made for GMing.
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Jul 29, 2020 01:58
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What even is the rationale for Seduction being a distinct skill apart from Persuasion or Charm or whatever? Is this Pickup Artist thinking?
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Sep 10, 2020 16:34
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Mors Rattus posted:...in the RPG materials. This being the RPG review thread, I feel focusing on the RPG book line is fair and appropriate as a basis of comparison.
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Sep 14, 2020 16:17
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And the two that weren't are... fine. There's nothing wrong with them. This was a good draw from the deck, all things considered.
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Sep 25, 2020 18:34
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I also love this Magical Industrial Revolution. A setting to designed to change around the characters with innovations and improvements but with hidden dangers is a good story beat to investigate. I wish it wasn't so strictly magical, but that's fine for what it is trying to represent in Standard D&D settings. Exploring how the world changes around you and how you respond and heed potential dangers is lovely to me. It may also be used to provide a side adventure in a Standard D&D campaign by playing out a bit of the history of the Standard Golden Age Magical Utopia. I also agree with Loxbourne that this would probably be best if you narrowed the focus slightly when actually running it, but providing a wide range of paths of change is definitely a good use for this book. They're also correct in that Arcanum was amazing. I'd like to see more details of how things go in this book and if it goes into sociological/political advancement as well.
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Oct 12, 2020 13:47
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As a GM I hate that attitude. If I have to suffer through a miserable, fiddly rule set, I want my players to suffer with me.
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Oct 29, 2020 16:46
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Those are certainly some choices in designing a game to encapsulate the Vietnam War. Is this about the war McNamara thought he was fighting rather than what actually happened? Do you count bodies?
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Feb 8, 2021 00:51
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So, what I am gathering here is that 'literary fiction' is the written form of 'Oscar Bait'. Does that kind of sum it up? Literary fiction also sounds like it has an additional layer of pretension, but that might be reading too much into it.
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Apr 9, 2021 23:34
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I think the disagreement and multiple (perfectly justifiable) interpretations of the Warhammer Fantasy Empire is kind of what "nuance" actually is.
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Apr 11, 2021 02:43
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About Blue Rose sorcery, I am a little leery about all the domination and editing an NPC antagonist may inflict on the players. What do the rules say about all this magic being used to take characters away from their players?
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Apr 12, 2021 18:33
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I have no idea how any writer can expect a GM to buy their book, read it, have a friend of the GM roleplay a character, and read explicit porn of that friend's character being taken. Oh, and show them the illustrations of it happening. It is demanded by the author that this sequence of events must happen. And they apparently expect this to happen many times over, with many GMs and many players. What kind of madness could possibly explain such behavior? Can you possibly imagine this happening? How many GMs have tried this? How many players have been put through it? How much money has the author gotten for encouraging it? ...I am not sure I want those questions answered, but they should be.
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Apr 17, 2021 15:16
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While on this digression, I don't suppose anyone might recommend military sci-fi that is not... fascist adjacent? I absolutely adore the Lost Fleet series by Jack Campbell. I don't suppose you know anything like that? Military sci-fi that actually likes liberalism, democracy, and/or humanism?
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Apr 20, 2021 21:50
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Horror always seems like one of those things that usually struggles to work in a group game. If the GM and players aren't on the same page, it can go really wrong. And that's not counting the ease with which that scenario can be purposely used to abuse and browbeat a group into suffering. That GM advice from Never Going Home just really sticks in my craw of making those bad situations more likely. I kind of suspect horror as a genre, in the sense of trying to instill horror or fear into the audience, should generally not be something pulled out as a first choice and probably best saved for groups that have built up a lot of trust and good mutual understanding.
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May 15, 2021 15:01
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With the talk of horniness and sex in RPGs, I feel compelled to point out the complete lack of discussion about romance in RPGs and that the vast majority of examples being bandied about are very casual and gratuitous. Are love stories and romantic relationships even less common in RPGs than sex? Intense friendships that can lapse into physical affection, perhaps? Do your GMs or players ever have plots centering around romantic relationships? I have no idea how common that is, but this dearth seems kinda related to how badly sex is handled in RPGs.
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May 19, 2021 23:53
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It's not the presence or absence of dedicated romance mechanics that I think is contributing to a relative lack of romance or love stories. All the anecdata here seems to be pointing to players and GMs just refusing to do it. And if people are even more unwilling of writing/participating in a love story than of including sex, it's kind of little wonder that sex in RPGs often comes out so weird and bad. It's kind of purposely separating out the emotional underpinnings that make those things healthier, I believe. It's even strangely rare to see NPCs in healthy relationships in a lot of settings. It seems to therefore push any sex into being like... well, Degenesis. Abusive or exploitative or cynical. Things only bad people get involved in and bringing in the rape and Magical Realm stuff. Emotionally fulfilling narrative that can drive such stories and plots is a big ask, I suppose. Mechanics can only nudge it in the right way, at best. A lot falls into the laps of the GM and players at the table if romance or non-creepy sex is to be a thing in their game. In my experience, it generally requires a GM paying extremely close attention to what players would find compelling and being open with experimenting with it.
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May 20, 2021 02:56
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PurpleXVI posted:I think you're coming at this from the wrong angle. I don't think the "weird creepy sex" we get would be less weird if you grafted a romance to it, because I think that the people who do this just want the weird creepy sex, and I think that writers like Degenesis' aren't "forgetting the romance," but that they legitimately aren't interested in it. It wouldn't flip their weird, creepy switches if whatever sex the setting had was consensual and happy for everyone involved. They need it to be grim and dark and awful before they can properly crank one out. I'm not sure I'm coming at it from the wrong angle, I am just saying that if positive relationships just never appear and the only time sex comes up is when it's exploitive, then the only sex you'll see in the writing and games will be the unpleasant stuff we all know and hate coming from people that don't care or think it is 'adult.' I'm not saying romance stories would make Marko a better and less creepy person or fix Degenesis. I'm saying Marko is the only kind of writer you'll see when it comes to sex if there aren't people making other kinds of stories and settings. There's nothing wrong with not having romance, let alone sex, in a game and I'd never insist on a player or GM include either. But it feels like there is something wrong when love stories seem vastly more rare than works like Degenesis. And I wonder why that is.
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May 20, 2021 13:21
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PurpleXVI posted:This should be in every RPG. At least the last couple of sentences. Yeah. It's an unintuitive lesson in writing that often needs repeating. It is weirdly hard to write Nazis well and use them appropriately in a story or RPG. Most people, on seeing evil and villainy, want to know why. And so the GM or whoever else is writing instinctively wants to put in a tragic backstory or 'deep philosophy' or compelling motivations or tandem virtues to make their Nazi a deeper and more memorable character and try to explain why they do Nazi poo poo. But there is nothing there. There is no reasoning, no philosophy that withstands any scrutiny, no compassion or nobility. There is nothing. It's willful, blind hate and entitlement. And normal people struggle to understand that this is a real thing that happens with real people, not comprehending how you can have actual people acting in such ways for absolutely zero rational cause. The last couple years have been a pointed illustration in that this definitely can happen, sadly.
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May 28, 2021 13:26
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I'm still trying trying to figure out what Degenesis thinks memes are. They keep using that word and I don't think it means what Degenesis thinks it means.
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May 31, 2021 13:20
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Gonna have to echo that Dragon Union sounds like a great way to have some fun.
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Jun 8, 2021 22:58
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So we have Catholic Elves. Do we have Calvinist Dwarfs? Please tell me there are also Calvinist dwarfs.
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Jun 14, 2021 13:47
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I was going to suggest Thomas. A good hearted, scholarly guy who actually wants to see some proof about all this stuff people are spouting about the Overlord. I mean, maybe the sElfoes are right.
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Jun 14, 2021 19:56
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Got to agree with Night. The moral of the story is that you can be a bastard so long as you can get a lion to die for you. But I'd like other magical talking animals, just to change things up. Edit: The stats baffle me and trying to figure how how it works is hilarious. If I had max Love and min Gentleness, does that mean I am a big dom? How is someone both powerfully peaceful while not being gentle in the least? kommy5 fucked around with this message at 02:39 on Jun 20, 2021 |
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Jun 20, 2021 02:32
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Yeah, thanks for covering it, illhousen. It was definitely a trip and there was a fair bit to unpack there.
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Jun 28, 2021 02:58
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It’s perfectly reasonable that the two are bad for different reasons. AoS probably isn’t terrible as DragonRaid but it can still be bad. It’s just a mess and kinda dumb in a harmless way. It’s the writing equivalent of banging action figures together and making noises. They’ve gone out of their way to avoid anything as offensive or cringy as the Evangelical RPG. But by it’s very nature it will always be compared to Warhammer Fantasy. You just have to get used to it.
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Jul 2, 2021 20:37
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I own and have read Blue Rose 2E. It is such a weird example of RPG writing. You can't really see it from Night's review, since he is conveying the ideas and setting in his own style, but the original text is really... heavy and stodgy. It is a concerted attempt to be authoritative and magisterial about an intensely emotional and romantic setting. It can be a real slog to get through in places. I get the impression it is trying hard to sell this idea to RPG players of older, more groggy attitudes. Either that, or this is how the writers normally write. It is a bit of a miss, though. The tone of the writing doesn't do the concepts justice and it takes some work to see how to use the book in play.
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Jul 3, 2021 15:42
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