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I can see videomancy being a dying/dead school, like cinemamancy was hinted at being in the beginning of the core book.
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Oct 31, 2014 15:40
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Evil Mastermind posted:I can see videomancy being a dying/dead school, like cinemamancy was hinted at being in the beginning of the core book. Pornomancy as written would still arguably work, but it's a school that's basically time-limited anyways and its cultural position is dead in the age of high-speed internet porn.
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Oct 31, 2014 15:42
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Effectronica posted:Pornomancy as written would still arguably work, but it's a school that's basically time-limited anyways and its cultural position is dead in the age of high-speed internet porn. Not really; I mean, the school isn't based around porn in general, it's based around the works of one specific porn actress.
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Oct 31, 2014 15:45
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Evil Mastermind posted:Not really; I mean, the school isn't based around porn in general, it's based around the works of one specific porn actress. The cultural position that made "pornomancy" a thing in the first two editions is gone, and the school itself is solvable in that eventually its adepts will reenact every part of the life of the Naked Goddess and all the major charges will be gone. It's the opposite problem to narco-alchemy.
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Oct 31, 2014 15:48
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Ah, good point. I forgot all about the major charge thing, too.
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Oct 31, 2014 16:45
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Videomancy I can see being gone, or at least diminished. The entry for it does state that recordings do nothing, so I figured that might cover streaming, as it is a recording. Mostly the sheer number of channels on cable now would be a big hindrance. Is YouTube big and obsessable enough to spawn a school? It seems it might be a modern videomancer thing, with popular YouTube shows or LPers, though without the standard repeats Idk how compatible it'd be. Definitely time for some new schools and archetypes, a lot can/has changed in 10-20 years.
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Oct 31, 2014 17:34
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Ironically Mechanomancy, previously considered a school on its last legs being stubbornly clung to by holdouts refusing to move on, has probably experienced a shot in the arm thanks to the increasing popularity of steampunk kitsch.
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Oct 31, 2014 17:55
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And 3d printing.
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Oct 31, 2014 18:12
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I'd love to see the new mechanomancy variant powered by the fetishization of science as a route to power that simultaneously exalts and denigrates the object of fetishization. Gluing gears on to a tophat demonstrates simultaneously an overwhelming love for Progress while also understanding approximately zero of the social or scientific relevance of the industrial age.
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Oct 31, 2014 20:43
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Afriscipio posted:And 3d printing. I'd kind of see 3d printing as influencing it's own school. The interesting thing about 3d printing isn't that a innovative wrench-monkey can make a revolutionary device, it's that any idiot with a 3d printer can download and make things. There'd probably be a spell all about making a perfect working forgery of something that eventually breaks because, c'mon, feedstock.
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Nov 2, 2014 15:35
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Videomancy's probably a dying art, but I'd be shocked if there wasn't some kind of Netomancy that covers internet addiction. The paradox is right there; spending all day in front of a screen connects you with the world but isolates you from everyone you know.
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Nov 2, 2014 16:38
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Froghammer posted:Videomancy's probably a dying art, but I'd be shocked if there wasn't some kind of Netomancy that covers internet addiction. The paradox is right there; spending all day in front of a screen connects you with the world but isolates you from everyone you know. Considering that's the exact paradox that powers Videomancy, I'd wager the not-relevant art has transformed into a more modern, internet based one.
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Nov 3, 2014 12:14
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bonus points for being always always always connected via mobile phone/tablet/etc, totally not speaking from experience oh god i'm a shell of a human being
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Nov 3, 2014 13:38
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Froghammer posted:Videomancy's probably a dying art, but I'd be shocked if there wasn't some kind of Netomancy that covers internet addiction. The paradox is right there; spending all day in front of a screen connects you with the world but isolates you from everyone you know. Doodmons posted:Considering that's the exact paradox that powers Videomancy, I'd wager the not-relevant art has transformed into a more modern, internet based one. Might have undergone a schism, with the traditionalists sticking with older technology and becoming more like Bibliomancers where the focus is on rare media rather than specific. I know that in real life there are video archivists who are insanely dedicated to uncovering and preserving "lost" works from earlier eras of video, flying to eastern europe on the rumor that some guy has a grainy home recording of a fifteen minute children's program that ran once in the late 70s on Bulgarian state TV.
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Nov 3, 2014 14:21
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also what about like, streamers and stuff? they can record their stuff i guess but it's not a given anymore than a show being taped was a given back then (and watching a recording is probably just not valid in the same sense anyway)
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Nov 3, 2014 14:48
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Dammit Who? posted:Might have undergone a schism, with the traditionalists sticking with older technology and becoming more like Bibliomancers where the focus is on rare media rather than specific. I know that in real life there are video archivists who are insanely dedicated to uncovering and preserving "lost" works from earlier eras of video, flying to eastern europe on the rumor that some guy has a grainy home recording of a fifteen minute children's program that ran once in the late 70s on Bulgarian state TV. The guy with my recording would be me, actually. At least I think the show is from the 70s, I have to check on that.
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Nov 3, 2014 15:00
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Tollymain posted:also what about like, streamers and stuff? they can record their stuff i guess but it's not a given anymore than a show being taped was a given back then (and watching a recording is probably just not valid in the same sense anyway) As an example, there's big chunks of the original Dr. Who shows that were thought lost for decades until tapes were found in rural PBS stations, simply because the idea of archiving mass-produced video content is such a shockingly new concept.
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Nov 3, 2014 15:50
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I could have sworn I read somewhere that a lot of old BBC shows are lost forever because they were taped over with "newer" shows. You could probably come up with a whole bibliomancy offshoot with this stuff.
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Nov 3, 2014 15:53
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Evil Mastermind posted:I could have sworn I read somewhere that a lot of old BBC shows are lost forever because they were taped over with "newer" shows. What a pity that they can't uncover the lost shows with X-rays like they can painted-over paintings.
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Nov 3, 2014 15:55
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Doodmons posted:Considering that's the exact paradox that powers Videomancy, I'd wager the not-relevant art has transformed into a more modern, internet based one. Hunting for a seed for a rare torrent should be worth something.
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Nov 3, 2014 15:56
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Evil Mastermind posted:I could have sworn I read somewhere that a lot of old BBC shows are lost forever because they were taped over with "newer" shows. BBC radio has a little celebration whenever they discover "illegal" copies of certain radio comedy and drama. They've re-recorded certain episodes where they have the scripts but no recordings.
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Nov 3, 2014 16:13
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I just watched Point Break for the first time and, aside from being one of the most 90s things I've ever seen, it made me think that the whole thing would be a great origin story for an entropomancer.
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Nov 3, 2014 19:56
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Is it worth upgrading to the full 2nd Edition Wild Talents book if the campaign that I'm running is 100% original? Does the 2nd Edition book have anything particularly crucial in it for the experience?
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Nov 4, 2014 00:38
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Pope Guilty posted:As an example, there's big chunks of the original Dr. Who shows that were thought lost for decades until tapes were found in rural PBS stations, simply because the idea of archiving mass-produced video content is such a shockingly new concept. They're still finding ones on occasion even today. Just last year, they found nine Doctor Who episodes in a Nigerian TV studio that had been thought lost.
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Nov 4, 2014 01:03
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I toyed briefly with hacking UA into the Apocalypse engine and determined that with minimal stretching you could collapse all the adept schools into one of three categories. While UA3 shouldn't go that far, I would like it a lot if they had fewer schools with a couple different takeoffs available (eg Bibliomancy also works for collecting wine with only minor shifts to taboo, random magick, and charging).
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Nov 4, 2014 01:10
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Effectronica posted:I toyed briefly with hacking UA into the Apocalypse engine and determined that with minimal stretching you could collapse all the adept schools into one of three categories. While UA3 shouldn't go that far, I would like it a lot if they had fewer schools with a couple different takeoffs available (eg Bibliomancy also works for collecting wine with only minor shifts to taboo, random magick, and charging). You should probably take a look at this. The guy here has done something that I think is vital in a *World hack of UA which is to make the playbooks about your damage and not focus on making distinct adept and non-adept classes. So if you pick the Addict, your addiction can be sex, heroin or cutting your flesh to let the divine light in your blood out into the world. That's actually always been one of my main hang-ups with UA. Adepts and Avatars aren't really unbalanced next to a guy with a gun and a cellphone that can dial 911. At least not mechanically. But in terms of narrative and the amount of the game system itself that they interact with, they get kinda left out. It's the Wizard Problem where half the book is for what the wizard can do but then there's all these other character types that just don't get to access those pages of rules.
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Nov 4, 2014 02:24
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rex monday posted:You should probably take a look at this. The guy here has done something that I think is vital in a *World hack of UA which is to make the playbooks about your damage and not focus on making distinct adept and non-adept classes. So if you pick the Addict, your addiction can be sex, heroin or cutting your flesh to let the divine light in your blood out into the world. I don't like this, because it's ignoring one of the things that's supposed to be thematic about Unknown Armies, and also because I like the fiddly stuff, which is why I only played with hacking. As for your second paragraph, that's not the Wizard Problem, because it's an essential conceit of the setting that anybody really powerful within the gamespace has mystic jojo backing them up. Alexander Abel isn't an adept or an avatar with a functioning set of channels, but he does have adepts, avatars, ritualists, and artifacts to protect him and act as his long arms. Even just plain ol' psychic powers are a thing that any character can, RAW, have. Purely mundane characters just aren't really equipped to be dukes, let alone act on the cosmic scale.
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Nov 4, 2014 02:50
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Effectronica posted:I don't like this, because it's ignoring one of the things that's supposed to be thematic about Unknown Armies, and also because I like the fiddly stuff, which is why I only played with hacking. I may not be making myself clear. I understand that not everyone should have magic. But on the level of the game we are playing, i don't like it when half of the book can only be used by the people that write "wizard" at the top of their character sheet. It's a design issue, not a setting issue. I love UA beyond belief. It opened my eyes to a lot of amazing rpg stuff. But over time, I've grown impatient with games that save all the cool parts of the rules for half the party. I'm totally ok with only some folks being magick. Most of my favorite UA characters have been mundanes. But it's frustrating that that locks you out of all the fun subsystems.
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Nov 4, 2014 16:54
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rex monday posted:I may not be making myself clear. I understand that not everyone should have magic. But on the level of the game we are playing, i don't like it when half of the book can only be used by the people that write "wizard" at the top of their character sheet. It's a design issue, not a setting issue. I love UA beyond belief. It opened my eyes to a lot of amazing rpg stuff. But over time, I've grown impatient with games that save all the cool parts of the rules for half the party. I'm totally ok with only some folks being magick. Most of my favorite UA characters have been mundanes. But it's frustrating that that locks you out of all the fun subsystems.
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Nov 4, 2014 19:48
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A nonmagic person in UA can easily be more powerful and have more spotlight time solely from being sane.
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Nov 4, 2014 19:51
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Capntastic posted:A nonmagic person in UA can easily be more powerful and have more spotlight time solely from being sane. Yeah, magical folks are not only remarkably susceptible to the madness meter, but have all sorts of perverse incentives to gently caress up their life and the lives of those around them. Being a adept is like having a crippling addiction that occasionally pays off in magic powers, and being a adept is like pretending to have a crippling mental illness that occassionally pays off in magic powers. Simply not being a nutcase is a drat near superpower in UA.
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Nov 4, 2014 20:32
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Splicer posted:I think you have Effectronica's post backwards. They're saying that it's not the wizard problem because everyone is supposed to be a wizard. Not quite. Everyone is supposed to be interacting with the subsystems in the higher tiers, whether they're an adept/avatar/ritualist, or whether they have an artifact, or psychic powers, or something. Street-level games not so much, but in those you aren't even supposed to have playable avatars or adepts, RAW. Capntastic posted:A nonmagic person in UA can easily be more powerful and have more spotlight time solely from being sane. Adepts don't have to be muttering craziness to themselves, even if you have to go completely insane to become one, and avatars are about as likely to be sane as anyone else.
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Nov 4, 2014 21:12
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Strange Matter posted:Is it worth upgrading to the full 2nd Edition Wild Talents book if the campaign that I'm running is 100% original? Does the 2nd Edition book have anything particularly crucial in it for the experience? Ken Hite's "Changing the Course of Mighty Rivers" chapter on superhero setting worldbuilding is really fantastic, but it IS only one chapter, and outside of that there's nothing else in there you need if you're not using the Godlike/Wild Talents setting or want some premade NPCs. I ended up getting a cheap copy of WT1 off eBay just to read Hite's material (it didn't change between editions), but Arc Dream's store actually links to a nifty campaign worksheet drawing on it. Mess around with that for a bit, and if the core ideas seem cool and you want another thirty pages or so expanding on them, look into eBay or maybe get the PDF-- it's definitely not worth fifty bucks just for the one chapter.
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Nov 5, 2014 00:01
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 this just happened
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Nov 5, 2014 00:26
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Veritek83 posted:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xdzxjg_cakes_fun
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Nov 5, 2014 00:33
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Veritek83 posted:
I am honestly not sure how to feel about that.
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Nov 5, 2014 00:37
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Effectronica posted:Adepts don't have to be muttering craziness to themselves, even if you have to go completely insane to become one, and avatars are about as likely to be sane as anyone else. You don't have to be a caricature of an "insane person" to be an incredibly messed up individual that can't get along well in a normal society. UA's rules even state that acting like "a babbling insane person" probably isn't going to make for a fun game. The madness of UA's adepts was always about the fringes, while UA's avatars were about the core of the slots society at large puts people in. The "postmodern magick" aspect that serves as the foundation of UA is about the power of belief and social constructs. Ironically, non-adepts/non-avatars get to sidestep that whole trap entirely. A mundane person with a job and a cellphone has a much larger pool of resources to draw from than someone who only has (extremely limited) magic powers when drunk. It's just that you don't need rules for "what happens if I call the cops on my phone" and "can I sell my motorcycle to buy shotguns and grenades at a gun show?" or "can I call in an old army buddy to help me take out this rear end in a top hat that keeps trying to gently caress with me?"
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Nov 5, 2014 00:52
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For what it's worth, my character in the Cosmic level UA game I was in was just a guy who knew a few rituals and had 75% in Police Marksman. And he was in a Cabal with a pair of 80%+ adepts, the Godwalker of the Merchant and a 91%+ Masterless Man. The fact that he was a level headed person who didn't have a warped worldview or a deranged belief system came massively in handy on a regular basis. I was the go-between between the party and the Comte de Saint-Germain because I was the only one who wasn't too crazy to have a proper conversation. However, I sincerely hope that Stolze takes a long, hard look at the balance of UA in 2nd edition. The vast majority of avatar schools are utterly poo poo, mechanically and fluff wise. They're boring and don't do anything. Some of them are ludicrous. Adept schools have the same problem. Everyone always plays Dipsomancers, Entropomancers and Epideromancers because they are the three who are fun, powerful, get to actually use their powers and are still thematic. The rest either have crap powers, a crap charging mechanic, lovely fluff downsides or a combination of the above. I don't ask for pitch perfect balance, I ask that all the schools be playable and fun.
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Nov 5, 2014 01:21
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Doodmons posted:However, I sincerely hope that Stolze takes a long, hard look at the balance of UA in 2nd edition. The vast majority of avatar schools are utterly poo poo, mechanically and fluff wise. They're boring and don't do anything. Some of them are ludicrous. Adept schools have the same problem. Everyone always plays Dipsomancers, Entropomancers and Epideromancers because they are the three who are fun, powerful, get to actually use their powers and are still thematic. The rest either have crap powers, a crap charging mechanic, lovely fluff downsides or a combination of the above. As someone that is awful at evaluating balance, what's the problem with the other adept schools? I've always thought about playing a Bibliomancer or a Plutomancer just because thematically they seemed neat, and I've never noticed any glaring imbalances amongst the avatars and adepts (some of the avatars seem less interesting than others, but I have to admit that I never looked at any of them and thought "that seems boring"), but it's not honestly something I've ever looked for.
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Nov 5, 2014 02:03
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Mechanomancers should never have been allowed to be a PC class. Unless the DM artificially limits how much tech they can build, they crank out a free unkillable stab-bot every night. The Kleptomancer gains charges so easily that it might as well be free, and their breath-stealing spell ( 1 minor = stun oppponent for a round) simply aborts any possible dangers they might face. EDIT: And rules as written, any adept can mass-produce magick artifacts, some of which are more cost-effective than the spells that charge them. Squidster fucked around with this message at 03:45 on Nov 5, 2014 |
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Nov 5, 2014 03:43
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