|
Lightning Lord posted:I just actually read that post and it's one of the most "my hat of d02 know no limit" things I've ever seen.
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2015 02:21
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 2, 2024 20:30 |
|
|
Littlefinger posted:If you think calling something (mistakenly, in ASoIaF's case) a D&D lookalike is a sign of visceral hate, that says more about your preferences than mine, sorry. Well your implication was that Green Ronin is inherently an incompetent or bad company because they were founded during the beginning of the d20 boom and have done a lot of work with d20, but maybe I read more vitriol into that post than was meant.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2015 02:26
|
|
|
Lightning Lord posted:Yeah, the Tor Appendix N series was great. I especially liked how often they came to totally different conclusions about the same book. My reaction to Three Hearts and Three Lions for example, was way more in line with Mordicai's than Tim's. In retrospect, Tim was generally the much less interesting critic of the pair. He wasn't a very careful reader, as can be demonstrated by his Zelazny review. He even gets confused by one of the most basic elements of the setting, thinking that the Earth we know is real and the other planes are illusions. Granted, Amber is teen reading with some I can get why Bellairs's children's novels weren't included in Appendix N: After the first couple, they're just not great. Perfectly readable but very formulaic. Compared to The Face In The Frost, which was thumbing its nose at formula before the formula for high fantasy was even firmly established.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2015 02:46
|
|
|
Lightning Lord posted:Well your implication was that Green Ronin is inherently an incompetent or bad company because they were founded during the beginning of the d20 boom and have done a lot of work with d20, but maybe I read more vitriol into that post than was meant. Uh, I guess it was too snarky/badly worded then. I was just speculating that since most of their work had stayed within arms reach of D&D, perhaps they were uncomfortable straying too far from it, you know, something about Wellingtons. Which turned out to be all wrong, DA was done the way it was mostly due to licensing shenanigans and an actual design decision by Bioware to have them create Yet Another Old-School Not-D&D. So mission competently accomplished, I guess?  I actually kinda like most of their stuff, even Blue Rose, at least something like that came out. I just think it was a missed opportunity, nothing says accessible romantic fantasy make-believe more than binary pass/fail, polyhedral dice, SDCIWC and feat chains. 
Littlefinger fucked around with this message at 03:15 on Jan 17, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2015 03:10
|
|
|
Echophonic posted:I've seen a few AW hacks for Mass Effect, but this is by far the best and most complete. There is also a FATE hack based on Diaspora. It's really good and absolutely nails all the characters from the series when it stats them out. http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?ytztnyj4zjn
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2015 03:36
|
|
|
So, apropos of nothing, you goons need to watch the Amazon pilot for The Man in the High Castle like, loving, now. http://www.amazon.com/Man-High-Castle/dp/B00RSGFRY8/
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2015 07:35
|
|
|
dwarf74 posted:So, apropos of nothing, you goons need to watch the Amazon pilot for The Man in the High Castle like, loving, now. I know this was written in the 1960s before a lot of the research came out, but this and Wolfenstein: The New Order keep making me wonder--how the devil do the authors of these sorts of "Fascism Wins!" alternate histories have the Axis Powers win without straight up flipping the U.S. to their side? I mean, starting from the European side, the USSR was flipping huge in territory, resources, and manpower, and Operation Sealion was never going to pan out thanks to Kriegsmarine weakness and the inability of the Luftwaffe to make any sort of headway securing air dominance. And even if we magically teleport Fallshirmjaegers onto British soil, they'd have to deal with big portions of the government and high ranking military being evacuated to Canada, an invasion of which from continental Europe would only magnify the Sealion issue even further. And in the Pacific, the Japanese government was hilariously dysfunctional, its equipment was outdated and rickety (look at its machine guns and pistols! Never mind its heavier guns, its fighters, its "tanks"...), its doctrine seemed to emphasize brutality and zeal over actual military effectiveness, and that's not even getting into its own resource woes. There's a reason the Japanese war machine largely switched over to the defensive about 6-8 months after the Pearl Harbor attack. And let's not get into the  that is the Italian military, they of Operation Compass and the botched invasion of Greece. I know this is me overthinking this but...how? And why, for that matter?
Davin Valkri fucked around with this message at 08:15 on Jan 17, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2015 07:52
|
|
|
In the case of Wolfenstein: the New Order the answer to how the Nazis achieve victory is "stolen ancient Jewish supertechnology." No, really. Geopolitical realities can take a seat next to giant robots, supersoldiers, and a Reich capable of beating the Manhattan Project to the punch. Like, please don't confuse Wolfenstein with an attempt to produce a realistic and painstakingly-researched alternate history scenario. The premise is that a guy named "Deathshead" finds sufficiently advanced technology secreted away by an ancient order of Jewish technotheosophists and uses it to conquer the world. Then BJ Blaskowicz takes a chunk of shrapnel to the head and spends 14 years in a coma before coming to none the worse for wear, then proceeds to tear-rear end across the world dual-wielding semi-automatic shotguns and a stolen Nazi laser rifle before traveling to the Nazi moon base to steal nuclear launch codes for the U-boat/aircraft carrier he stole earlier by hiding in a torpedo casing. Later he will fight even more robots.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2015 08:03
|
|
|
Kai Tave posted:In the case of Wolfenstein: the New Order the answer to how the Nazis achieve victory is "stolen ancient Jewish supertechnology." No, really. Geopolitical realities can take a seat next to giant robots, supersoldiers, and a Reich capable of beating the Manhattan Project to the punch. You have, incidentally, just described exactly why Wolfenstein: The New Order is a goddamn triumph in every way.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2015 08:05
|
|
|
I mean I'm just saying, Wolfenstein bears at most a passing resemblance to reality. Return to Castle Wolfenstein revolved around a secret Nazi plot to reanimate the dead. Wolf 2009 had BJ Blazkowicz using a crystal-powered magical medallion to battle Nazi science-mystics as they attempted to weaponize an alternate dimension. If you're looking to Wolfenstein to provide you with a plausible alternate history scenario you are, I would posit, looking in entirely the wrong place.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2015 08:08
|
|
|
Davin Valkri posted:I know this is me overthinking this but...how? And why, for that matter? I'm pretty sure Philip K. Dick decided he wanted to tell a story in a setting where the Axis won, and then consulted the I Ching for the details.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2015 08:33
|
|
|
Kellsterik posted:I'm pretty sure Philip K. Dick decided he wanted to tell a story in a setting where the Axis won, and then consulted the I Ching for the details. There's an interview where he said he really did. That's a good adaption. They changed up a bunch of stuff ump from tot play with expectations, then referenced a bunch of stuff from the novel. I'm pretty happy. Except with the script. the story is fine, the screenplay is fine, but the script has long stretches and entire scenes where it just really sucks. The direction is brilliant though. About half of the scenes shouldn't work at all, but they do because the actors sell really terrible lines delivered at the wrong time and in the wrong context. It's better than it should be, and I'm keen to see where they go with it. it's very possible that the big metaphysical twist in the book was set up in this episode. Oh, and the visuals and background "oh hey, nazis" stuff is great. You should all read the book, it's probably Phillip K. Dick's best novel. I doubt this will be the best adaption of one of his stories, but it should be at least competent overall, and for a book I didn't think would ever get filmed. The show is trying hard to play with expectations, and god drat am I looking forward to the hotel scene now more than ever. http://www.amazon.com/High-Castle-P...the+high+castle Read it and watch it.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2015 10:25
|
|
|
Echophonic posted:I've seen a few AW hacks for Mass Effect, but this is by far the best and most complete. It is pretty great, but I wish Geth, Hanar, and Elcor were playable. I can understand skipping Protheans, Levithans, and Yahgs as they are few in number, not a part of galactic civilization, and would draw too much attention and be general Mary Sues, but the others were disappointing exclusions. mllaneza posted:There is also a FATE hack based on Diaspora. It's really good and absolutely nails all the characters from the series when it stats them out. I have Diaspora from an old Bundle Of Holding. Is it any good? Because I'm interested in playing this Hack now. Covok fucked around with this message at 12:23 on Jan 17, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2015 12:15
|
|
|
Man in the High Castle (the book) didn't wow me that much- the premise was neat (albeit overdone since), and the ending's great, but Do Androids... and A Scanner Darkly both had more emotional oomph.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2015 16:03
|
|
|
mllaneza posted:Read it and watch it. 
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2015 16:08
|
|
|
So hey, here's a thing. Apparently a few years ago I wrote a super-simple vampire rpg thing? I think it might have been for a contest on here I never entered or something. Anyway, it's never been played, is formatted weirdly, and I haven't really looked at it since wrote it, but I figured someone in here might want to look at it.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2015 17:27
|
|
|
Is there an application that'll let you merge PDFs together? Or perhaps it's an option in Foxit/Adobe that I just haven't discovered yet.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2015 18:22
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:Is there an application that'll let you merge PDFs together? Or perhaps it's an option in Foxit/Adobe that I just haven't discovered yet. I haven't looked much at it since, though.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2015 18:25
|
|
|
Covok posted:I have Diaspora from an old Bundle Of Holding. Is it any good? Because I'm interested in playing this Hack now. Pretty much an attempt at emulating the feel of Traveller.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2015 18:53
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:Is there an application that'll let you merge PDFs together? Or perhaps it's an option in Foxit/Adobe that I just haven't discovered yet. There's a decent freeware program called PDF Split and Merge. It worked okay for me when I had to break up a bunch of PDFs for a job about a year back.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2015 19:15
|
|
|
Davin Valkri posted:I know this was written in the 1960s before a lot of the research came out, but this and Wolfenstein: The New Order keep making me wonder--how the devil do the authors of these sorts of "Fascism Wins!" alternate histories have the Axis Powers win without straight up flipping the U.S. to their side? I mean, starting from the European side, the USSR was flipping huge in territory, resources, and manpower, and Operation Sealion was never going to pan out thanks to Kriegsmarine weakness and the inability of the Luftwaffe to make any sort of headway securing air dominance. And even if we magically teleport Fallshirmjaegers onto British soil, they'd have to deal with big portions of the government and high ranking military being evacuated to Canada, an invasion of which from continental Europe would only magnify the Sealion issue even further. And in the Pacific, the Japanese government was hilariously dysfunctional, its equipment was outdated and rickety (look at its machine guns and pistols! Never mind its heavier guns, its fighters, its "tanks"...), its doctrine seemed to emphasize brutality and zeal over actual military effectiveness, and that's not even getting into its own resource woes. There's a reason the Japanese war machine largely switched over to the defensive about 6-8 months after the Pearl Harbor attack. And let's not get into the This is why Fatherland is the best alternate history book with the premise, "What if the Nazis won?" D-Day fails, Britain falls but the government flees to Canada, Japan loses to the US, and fascist Europe is fighting a constant war with the the Soviets who have been pushed to the Urals. It's pretty much a Cold War between the democratic and fascist blocs with cracks beginning to appear in the Nazi regime and President Joe Kennedy, JFK's father, embarking on a mission of detente with the Nazis. EDIT: If anyone is interested in it, it's not a Turtledove-esque venture where all these historical figures are the key characters. It's a novel involving a German police officer investigating the deaths of high ranking Nazi officials and a conspiracy that could end the Nazi regime. RocknRollaAyatollah fucked around with this message at 19:45 on Jan 17, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2015 19:39
|
|
|
gently caress alt-history nazi germany, i want alt-history Red Europe where Patton picked his dream fight with Zhukov and got his poo poo ruined.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2015 21:05
|
|
|
I'm gonna buy an antique copy of D&D 3.5 and take it back to the 70s so Gygax will make the D&D that I want. Just saw part 2.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2015 21:17
|
|
|
Forums Terrorist posted:gently caress alt-history nazi germany, i want alt-history Red Europe where Patton picked his dream fight with Zhukov and got his poo poo ruined. gently caress, when I saw "Patton" my mind immediately sprung to "Patton Oswalt" even though I knew exactly who you meant and now I just want to see Patton Oswalt play Patton in a movie.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2015 21:31
|
|
|
mllaneza, have you seen this thread? http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3692085
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2015 21:42
|
|
|
Waffleman_ posted:I'm gonna buy an antique copy of D&D 3.5 and take it back to the 70s so Gygax will make the D&D that I want. No, no, no, no, no, Gary. Both you and Dave turn out fine. It's your grogs, Gary. Something's gotta be done about your grogs!
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2015 22:34
|
|
|
I'm a crack shot at this game. *Rolls a natural 20* Wait, you have to use dice? It's like a baby's toy!
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2015 22:38
|
|
|
Waffleman_ posted:I'm a crack shot at this game. Error 404 posted:Wait, character gen is less complex than a differential equation? That's a baby's game!
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2015 22:49
|
|
|
Davin Valkri posted:I know this was written in the 1960s before a lot of the research came out, but this and Wolfenstein: The New Order keep making me wonder--how the devil do the authors of these sorts of "Fascism Wins!" alternate histories have the Axis Powers win without straight up flipping the U.S. to their side? I mean, starting from the European side, the USSR was flipping huge in territory, resources, and manpower, and Operation Sealion was never going to pan out thanks to Kriegsmarine weakness and the inability of the Luftwaffe to make any sort of headway securing air dominance. And even if we magically teleport Fallshirmjaegers onto British soil, they'd have to deal with big portions of the government and high ranking military being evacuated to Canada, an invasion of which from continental Europe would only magnify the Sealion issue even further. And in the Pacific, the Japanese government was hilariously dysfunctional, its equipment was outdated and rickety (look at its machine guns and pistols! Never mind its heavier guns, its fighters, its "tanks"...), its doctrine seemed to emphasize brutality and zeal over actual military effectiveness, and that's not even getting into its own resource woes. There's a reason the Japanese war machine largely switched over to the defensive about 6-8 months after the Pearl Harbor attack. And let's not get into the Zangara kills Roosevelt in 1933, leading to a depressed and isolationist US, unwilling to send aid to Europe. The implausibility of the Nazi victory is a key plot point in High Castle, actually- the last chapter explains perfectly why they live in a world like that. It's PKD, man. Also, within the setting they're reading alternate history fiction about a world where the Allies won WWII, and they're complaining about how implausible it is.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2015 23:00
|
|
|
If we're gonna talk about Alt history books, I feel the need to bring up the Iron Dream Yeah, you read that right. Adolf Hitler's best science fiction novel. Here's an explanation: Wikipedia posted:The Iron Dream is a metafictional 1972 alternate history novel by Norman Spinrad. The book has a nested narrative that tells a story within a story. On the surface, the novel presents an unexceptional pulp, post-apocalypse science fiction action tale entitled Lord of the Swastika. However, this is a pro-fascism narrative written by an alternate-history Adolf Hitler, who in this timeline emigrated from Germany to the United States in 1919 after the Great War, and used his modest artistic skills to become first a pulp–science fiction illustrator and later a successful science fiction writer, telling lurid, purple-prosed adventure stories under a thin SF-veneer.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2015 23:58
|
|
|
Homoerotic does not begin to describe it.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2015 00:09
|
|
|
Humbug Scoolbus posted:mllaneza, have you seen this thread? I can blow the dust off my extra set if you want a copy. I'm not sure what edition it is. No, i didn't see that one. I'm kind of curious how it's progressed in the decade or so since I looked at it last. I do love their naval mechanics though.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2015 00:11
|
|
|
I foresee two possibilities. One: playing the latest edition would put her into shock and she'd simply pass out. Or two: playing 5e could create a time paradox, the result of which could cause a chain reaction that would unravel the very fabric of the space-time continuum and destroy the entire universe! Granted, that's a worst-case scenario. The destruction might in fact be very localized, limited to merely our own galaxy. Be fair, he hadn't seen it at the time.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2015 00:19
|
|
|
mllaneza posted:I can blow the dust off my extra set if you want a copy. I'm not sure what edition it is. Oh hell no I don't need a copy. I finally got rid of all my Europa stuff and I now have space in one of my closets.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2015 00:54
|
|
|
Covok posted:It is pretty great, but I wish Geth, Hanar, and Elcor were playable. I can understand skipping Protheans, Levithans, and Yahgs as they are few in number, not a part of galactic civilization, and would draw too much attention and be general Mary Sues, but the others were disappointing exclusions. Hanar racial move: Enkindle THIS! Diaspora is a bit too crunchy for my taste for actual play. The cluster generation is absolutely amazing, though. I ran a mini-campaign using it and FATE Core for the actual game. Here's Solomon's Folly, the cluster we came up with, to give you an idea of what it can do. Just a general idea (in our case, a sort of space western that ended up with something akin to the Gold Rush) and the cluster rules can get you a really cool setting that everyone buys into.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2015 01:49
|
|
|
dwarf74 posted:So, apropos of nothing, you goons need to watch the Amazon pilot for The Man in the High Castle like, loving, now. (Plus, if the Soviet-Nazi alliance had ACTUALLY held up, there is another major reason the Axis was doomed that is averted)
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2015 02:31
|
|
|
I got bailed on and have nothing better to do on a Saturday night than get hammered and watch X-files, so consider this some Phillip K. Dick-inspired collateral damage. The basics of MitHC are that Roosevelt is assassinated a year into his presidency and a series of do-nothings and incompetents take over, so the US never recovers from the Great Depression and never grows out of its post-WWI isolationism. As a result, there's not enough material support for the remaining allies, so the Soviets are defeated without a Western front to occupy the Germans or to diminish their own industry. With time on their side for a change, the Axis is able to finish conquering Eurasia and consolidate their industrial and resource bases. This version of Pearl Harbor catches the entire US Pacific fleet and destroys it, and thanks to the economic malaise, the Americans can't just build their way out of the hole like in our timeline. I know the show outright says it, but I think the novel just heavily implies that the US is nuked into submission by the Nazis, and the war is prolonged until 1947. So, there is your nerdy-nerd rationale as to why there are Nazis in New York and SFO is actually Hirohito International. This next bit is spoilers for the novel and presumably the series, so if you're going to be a schmuck and not read a decent novel, go ahead and mouse over this poo poo: The titular Man is an author who's written an alternate-history novel within the fictional framework of Dick's novel itself, which is called The Grasshopper Lies Heavy. In Grasshopper, Roosevelt serves out two terms, his successor removes the US fleet from Pearl and thus avoids the attack altogether, Rommel is defeated and the British sweep out of North Africa into the Caucasus to relieve Stalingrad, and Berlin falls to a Soviet-British force. The US and nationalist China versus Britain ends up being the two sides of the Cold War, with Britain becoming steadily more bigoted in its efforts to hold on to its empire while the US is progressive and desegregates in the early '50s. This is relevant because the whole point of the book is that the world of MitHC should not be, and because it's a Dick book, our timeline's outcome should not be. Also, this Kellsterik posted:I'm pretty sure Philip K. Dick decided he wanted to tell a story in a setting where the Axis won, and then consulted the I Ching for the details. is the literal truth of the matter, and I'm just elaborating because I'm bored and I know there's a bunch of fuckin' nerds in here just waiting to go "Well actually" about a theming device. Either read or watch Man in the High Castle, or better still do both. MitHC is a good jumping-on point for PKD novels; it's not like it's fuckin' VALIS or something. Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep is honestly not as good as Blade Runner. Like, literally the point of drat near everything PKD wrote is that reality as presented is not as it seems. Trust the text, only so you can then not trust the text.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2015 03:31
|
|
|
Humbug Scoolbus posted:Oh hell no I don't need a copy. I finally got rid of all my Europa stuff and I now have space in one of my closets. So you've got room for a copy of Squadron Strike: Traveller ! That's great. We're going to press next month. 
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2015 03:43
|
|
|
gently caress you gently caress you gently caress you...I am so weak.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2015 04:14
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 2, 2024 20:30 |
|
|
Humbug Scoolbus posted:gently caress you gently caress you gently caress you...I am so weak. I'll let you know when the boxed set is out.
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2015 04:43
|
|