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pseudosavior posted:If you're talking about A Hunger Like Fire and A Marriage of Virtue and Viciousness, I recommend them. If you liked his short stories in the NWoD books, the novels are on par with them, if not better. All the characters are interesting, but Solomon Birch stands out as a complete bastard and I absolutely love him as an antagonist. I finally tracked down and finished these two books, and I have to say, I found the experience incredibly frustrating. A Hunger Like Fire is pretty solid, with a great deal of setup and some interesting takes on the vampire mythos. I'm not familiar with the WoD setting at all, so I'm not sure if the various religious sects featured were Stolze-created or not, but I quite liked the ideas behind them - they seemed very human, somehow. But Marriage of Virture and Viciousness left me in a rage. It was well written, good characters, but it is 99% tense buildup to a climax that does not actually happen! The climactic event of the book, the night in which every Vampire can kill or Embrace to their dark heart's content, is literally recapped in a spreadsheet a character reads in the epilogue. As I got closer to the end, I figured okay, all this buildup is leading up to the fourth book - except there is no fourth book. This was supposed to be the climax of the trilogy! Now, I knew going in that this was a World of Darkness book in the vampire line, where vampires are the very loving bee's knees of sparkly undead glamour, but holy gently caress, I want every single undead creature in these books to get the poo poo killed out of them. Am I supposed to hate everybody? I would really have loved it if the books had a few more of it's dozens of reprehensible vampires getting dusted, you know, here and there. Edit: ( Bishop related )And the fact that no one kills off the Bishop is a loving crime. Seriously, gently caress that guy. Great villain, well written, but gently caress that guy.
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Oct 16, 2011 07:54
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Evil Mastermind posted:Greg's making another new system. In the description Greg says the goal of the system is to create a "where it's desirable for characters to succeed a lot against inanimate stuff but have more trouble with each other." Doesn't Reign already do that? The mechanics for unworthy enemies already allow you to throw hordes of monsters at a few PCs and have them come out okay, while the same group might have trouble with one or two properly statted NPCs. I take advantage of that aspect of the system all the time.
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Oct 16, 2011 08:38
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Evil Mastermind posted:Greg's making another new system. Splicer fucked around with this message at 16:51 on Oct 17, 2011 |
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Oct 17, 2011 16:48
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God damnit Greg Stolze why do you love making players choose between buying temporary and permanent advantages with XP so much
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Oct 17, 2011 19:36
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Squidster posted:I finally tracked down and finished these two books, and I have to say, I found the experience incredibly frustrating. A Hunger Like Fire is pretty solid, with a great deal of setup and some interesting takes on the vampire mythos. I'm not familiar with the WoD setting at all, so I'm not sure if the various religious sects featured were Stolze-created or not, but I quite liked the ideas behind them - they seemed very human, somehow. I might have been one of the people who recommended these, and I can't disagree with a lot of your comments. If you read the Demon: the Fallen trilogy he wrote for the old World of Darkness, it becomes clear that Stolze isn't so good at middle acts - book 2 there was a bit meandering and really, really weird. Still better than a lot of RPG based fiction, though. MoVaV was sort of a middle act, too - I guess he'd been planning another novel with Scratch, but WW pulled the plug on their fiction offerings. Maybe that would have covered the after-effects of the big night, but the ending we got was more than a bit frustrating. It would have been really cool to get a montage of sorts across the city when the normal rules are relaxed and the vampires cut loose, but no such luck. As for the characters, I didn't mind Bruise, but most of the other vampires are just awful people, yeah. That, more than being sparkly and perfect, is the key trait of WW vampires: they're all awful, sometimes ridiculously so. (As for vampires you'd like to see dusted, Earth Baines was my choice. I'm still not sure if he was supposed to be funny, or what..) There is a bit - just a bit - more resolution for some characters in the fiction bits for the vampire gamebook "Danse Macabre" but that doesn't help you so much, especially if you don't play Vampire. If you want, I could explain what happens in it. I can say right off, Solomon Birch does get taken down a couple pegs, though. Sionak fucked around with this message at 17:12 on Oct 18, 2011 |
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Oct 18, 2011 17:04
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Sionak posted:As for the characters, I didn't mind Bruise, but most of the other vampires are just awful people, yeah. That, more than being sparkly and perfect, is the key trait of WW vampires: they're all awful, sometimes ridiculously so. (As for vampires you'd like to see dusted, Earth Baines was my choice. I'm still not sure if he was supposed to be funny, or what..) Bruise didn't bother me too much, as at least he was aware how terrible a human being he was. He didn't idly destroy innocents to pass the time, which is always a nice feature in a protagonist. Earth Baines made a fun antagonist, and it would have been meaningful if someone had actually killed him. He's a perfect example of a character who has 'douchey protagonist miniboss' written all over him, and if Aurora had just killed his rear end in the alley, I wouldn't have had a problem with him. As it was, he just kinda... status quo'd and stuck around after his welcome wore off. Sionak posted:There is a bit - just a bit - more resolution for some characters in the fiction bits for the vampire gamebook "Danse Macabre" but that doesn't help you so much, especially if you don't play Vampire. If you want, I could explain what happens in it. At the end of MVaV, in Stolze's bio, he mentions that he's never missed a deadline in ten years, and to me it feels like he just cuts himself free of a job once he hits that deadline. His work is full of incredibly ingenious ideas, solid characters, and consistently weak endings. Switchflipped is the same way - there's no real resolution, just a 'read the next book for the ending! If I write one!" It's incredibly frustrating, but the man is talented enough that I'll still keep on reading.
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Oct 18, 2011 17:39
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I completely agree - the only books I've read of his where I really liked the endings were A Hunger like Fire, which was sort of a set of connected vignettes anyways, and the first Demon the Fallen book, which was clearly planned out in a way the others weren't. But the characters and the sheer weirdness gets me to read more. The stuff in Danse Macabre seemed a little over-the-top, but maybe that came from the shorter format. Anyways, the Danse Macabre fluff spoilers: Norris, Maxwell's spymaster, has been a traitor the whole time. Maxwell knows, but finally gets tired of his crap and diablerizes him. This means that he eats Norris' soul in addition to getting a hit of vampire blood. Maxwell is also dealing with a mage, I think trying to find another way to get vampire blood, but things go bad and the mage gets killed. Baines is then given the job of getting rid of the body, which he tries to feed to a pack of werewolves, which pisses them off. (Eating people is a pretty major werewolf taboo.) Baines is not good at jobs. Later, Bruise gets a meeting with Maxwell at the Chicago vampire bar. Solomon Birch rushes in to tell Maxwell that he figured it out, that Norris was a traitor the whole time!! Then he realizes that Maxwell knew but never bothered to tell him, and Birch breaks down a little with bloody tears. Bruise snaps a cell phone picture, the whole bar laughs, and Birch runs out of the bar crying. Seriously. Then they all have actual alcoholic drinks as a toast. The picture, though blurry, is super popular with the vampires of Chicago for a while. Because no one really likes Birch. After this, Maxwell kinda disappears from the local politics and Bruise starts getting special treatment, because Maxwell is using him as a source of vampire blood. Persephone and Birch realize that Maxwell is diablerizing other vampires and form an unlikely partnership to help him somehow. Birch has to use a Lancea Sanctum discipline that makes him vomit up beetles when he lies to convince Persephone that he really is telling the truth about wanting to help Maxwell. And then at the end, Maxwell reappears at the kindred gathering to tell everyone (more eloquently), "Yeah, I ate Norris. Who's going to do anything about it? They're my laws and I'll break them if I want. I'm tired of everyone's lack of respect. And none of you could keep things running without me anyways." I think that's it, though I may have forgot some details.
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Oct 18, 2011 18:25
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Bruise and Birch: Sionak posted:
Seriously? That's so... highschool. Anything ever get revealed about Marjory and the dude Birch had chained to a swastika? I was really, really hoping she would be the one to wreak awesome mortal revenge. If the characters in the novels are all important NPCs to the Chicago rpg setting, that might explain why the status quo is preserved at all cost, but it doesn't make it any less frustrating.
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Oct 18, 2011 18:54
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Seriously. They even paste the blurry picture up around town with a snarky caption. Between that and humbling himself to get Persephone on board, Birch is pretty well emasculated in the book. I guess it's due to the blood bond from the MoVaV. ..I did say it was over the top. Marjory and the ghoul family were not mentioned, or the guy in the cross. I was also hoping something cool would come of that, instead of just being a weird eugenics side note. Most of the Chicago vampires are statted out in the Chicago book from a while back, but I don't think WW is planning to do much else with that, so you'd think the novels or fluff could progress a little more. No such luck so far, though.
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Oct 18, 2011 21:02
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Squidster posted:Seriously? That's so... highschool. You just summed up nVampire and oVampire politics in a single sentence.
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Oct 23, 2011 03:46
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Unknown Armies: Bad news, we hospitalised an old lady. Good news, we managed to stop the skinner from killing her and I'm pretty sure we got away with it too.
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Oct 28, 2011 01:02
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Are there enough Reign folks to get a PBP game together? My schedule's been freed up a fair bit and I'm thinking of running a game set in a frontier town on the border of the savage Truil Darklands.
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Nov 9, 2011 13:34
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children overboard posted:Are there enough Reign folks to get a PBP game together? Tempting! I'd love a chance to get to play REIGN, though I am most enamored of the Deathforgers.
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Nov 9, 2011 15:51
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Dude, I would be Down for that.
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Nov 9, 2011 16:05
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Well the PCs could be from anywhere (except it would be hard to be a Truil, because everyone's so mean to Truils  ). My idea was to set the game in a newly established frontier town just on the border of where it's dark all the time. The town has seen something of a 'gold rush' lately, except instead of gold it's 'priceless ancient artefacts from a dead civilisation buried under the ground. Also that ground is sacred to the Truils and they hate when you dig in it.' Everyone's got artefact fever, and the nobles back east are paying thousands of pounds for big finds! So of course every shady character for miles around has turned up in this new lawless town hoping to strike it rich, including your rag-tag company with your gaggle of threat 1 followers armed with picks and shovels.(and now that I've typed it out I can't help but acknowledge how much of a Deadwood ripoff it is.)
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Nov 9, 2011 16:13
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Yes please.
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Nov 9, 2011 16:17
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You say deadwood ripoff like it's a problem.
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Nov 9, 2011 17:58
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That could potentially be really super fun, were I more familiar with the setting. I just have the Enchiridion though, which lacks the Heluso & Milonda info.
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Nov 10, 2011 10:18
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Good, good, I've put up a topic, come here and make characters: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3448354 Capntastic: I think this'll be a good game for a setting-newbie to get in to, since it's set outside the major countries. The main thing to know is that Truils are basically savages who live in the dark lands (and are the centre of contention in this case, since you'll be invading their lands to dig up artefacts). The other major nationalities are described on the wiki, I'd recommend reading up on: Uldholm The Empire Dindavara Opetka Oblobs all here: https://www.gregstolze.com/REIGNwiki.html (thing is hard to navigate, just click on the Heluso link on the left menu to bring most of those groups up)
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Nov 10, 2011 11:17
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Also the setting has a few cool twists: -ghosts are real. If someone begs for mercy and you kill them anyway, they come back as a ghost to haunt you until your dying days. This has led each nation to come up with interesting workarounds for the death penalty (eg: putting the condemned on top of tall stone towers with no way to get down. They can starve or jump, but since it's their own choice they don't become a ghost). Designed to lead to lots of elaborate James Bond villain executions and subsequent daring escapes. -all cavalry are female. Men believe riding horses makes you sterile (unless you ride sidesaddle, but that's no good for war or speed). -the writing system is really obtuse and takes a long time to read and must be read out loud to be comprehended (don't know what the design justification is for this one) -demons are fuckin' weird
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Nov 10, 2011 12:46
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Made a dude. drat, do I love the ORE random character maker.
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Nov 10, 2011 13:33
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children overboard posted:
They don't just believe it, it's actually true!
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Nov 10, 2011 16:41
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The writing system thing may just be a little bit of historical detail, since reading without moving your lips is a comparatively recent invention that dove tailed with punctuation and the use of upper and lower case letters. The tech level that REIGN is at they haven't really nailed that down.
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Nov 10, 2011 17:06
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:They don't just believe it, it's actually true!
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Nov 10, 2011 21:49
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Zereth posted:Isn't the accuracy of that superstition not stated? Default is true, but there's a sidebar on how it does not have to be, as I recall.
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Nov 10, 2011 21:51
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Mors Rattus posted:Default is true, but there's a sidebar on how it does not have to be, as I recall.
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Nov 11, 2011 19:48
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The important part is that mounted knight-ery is seen as woman's work and your male character will be treated like a transgressing freak if they try to be one.
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Nov 12, 2011 00:38
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Doc Hawkins posted:The important part is that mounted knight-ery is seen as woman's work and your male character will be treated like a crossdressing freak if they try to be one.
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Nov 12, 2011 00:55
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I got my physical copy of Dinosaurs... IN SPACE! today along with my origamiraptor. I can't wait to read the hell out of this.
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Nov 12, 2011 01:15
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Wait, what? I haven't even seen the "send me your mailing address" email.
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Nov 12, 2011 01:51
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Evil Mastermind posted:Wait, what? I haven't even seen the "send me your mailing address" email. I think if you've ever had it listed in Kickstarter he can get it that way, though he did send me an email asking for my address and how I'd like to be listed in the book.
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Nov 12, 2011 02:03
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Zereth posted:Isn't the accuracy of that superstition not stated? Mors Rattus posted:Default is true, but there's a sidebar on how it does not have to be, as I recall. Splicer posted:By default it it true, but deliberately not specified if it's psychosomatic or not. It doesn't say anything about whether it actually does iirc, just that it's an article of faith that it does. e: Yeah, I just checked. The only definite statements are that people believe it. Dammit Who? fucked around with this message at 02:18 on Nov 12, 2011 |
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Nov 12, 2011 02:10
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Dammit Who? posted:It doesn't say anything about whether it actually does iirc, just that it's an article of faith that it does. Not quite: Reign page 289 posted:It is an article of absolute faith, everywhere in the world that riding astride makes men impotent...Unless a man is castrated, he doesn't ride astride. Not horses, not other animals, not anything. It's completely beyond the pale, socially - about as bad as a man rearing lipstick and a bra and nothing else running down the street in our modern world. Furthermore, that business about impotence is true. From our superior 21st century vantage point we may dismiss it as psychology making a prophecy fulfill itself, but to the people of Heluso and Milonda this is as iron a fact as the immobility of the sky. page 316 posted:With [horses] has come, as an article of absolute faith, the idea that riding astride makes men sexually impotent. It is up to individual GMs to decide whether this belief is factually true in this setting (for some mystically symbolic reason) or whether it's just a psychological belief so deeply ingrained that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. On Heluso and Milonda, a man who rides astride will become impotent. What's left up to the GM is whether this is it's an article of faith because it's true, or whether it's true because it's an article of faith. But either way, it's true on Heluso and Milonda.
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Nov 12, 2011 11:04
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Well shut my mouth.
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Nov 12, 2011 11:22
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There's nothing to prevent you playing a fully potent man who rides astride, but a) it's up to the GM whether this is due to your iron will or your iron weiner, b) it rather goes against the spirit of the thing, and c) everyone will think you're a girly weirdo with flopdick.
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Nov 12, 2011 16:22
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Are there rules for riding sidesaddle in the book somewhere? I have a vague memory that it means you can't gallop at full tilt but can't find that outside one of the fictions.
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Nov 13, 2011 01:39
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So for instance, any group that looks for heirs from their leaders as a form of stability between generations is not going to have much time for a leader that keeps trying to render himself infertile.Dammit Who? posted:Well shut my legs.
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Nov 13, 2011 05:05
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I'm wondering if the "you can't read except by speaking it aloud" is a clever way of getting around the problem where if a player has a secret letter, the GM has to take them out of the room to tell them what it says.
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Nov 13, 2011 12:25
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Interesting book review on the whole punctuation enables silent reading in modern times thing here, which points out that being able to read silently was a mark of great intelligence in the early days of scriptua continua, and that doing so wouldn't be as immediate as modern sight reading, it'd be more like a musician being able to work out how a piece should sound in their head.
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Nov 24, 2011 22:13
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So, I just started flipping through my copy of Dinosaurs in Space today. It is everything I could have hoped for. Which is to say that it's basically X-Com the RPG, only turned up to 11. The only thing that seems to stop it from replicating the X-Com experience is the apparent lack of frequent horrible death. Still, totally worth the money.
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Nov 27, 2011 05:55
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