TG February Chat Thread: Dank Rollman's Halal Hotbox

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > TG February Chat Thread: Dank Rollman's Halal Hotbox

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DAD LOST MY IPOD: Feb 3, 2012; Fats Dominar is on the case

i want to play elfgames but i also want to burnish my leftist cred, this is my dilemma

# ? Feb 12, 2015 15:29

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# ? Jun 10, 2024 22:10

Galaga Galaxian: Apr 23, 2009; What a childish tactic!
Don't you think you should put more thought into your battleplan?!

Mors Rattus posted:

The robber baron must be a cat.

Rakshasa Robber Baron? Hmmm.

# ? Feb 12, 2015 15:30

unseenlibrarian: Jun 4, 2012; There's only one thing in the mountains that leaves a track like this. The creature of legend that roams the Timberline. My people named him Sasquatch. You call him... Bigfoot.

Man, the last time I played Changeling: The Lost my Keeper's home territory was "The Dark Satanic Mills" and my PC was literally Joe Hill, having been kidnapped and replaced just before he was executed for a murder he didn't commit. He didn't so much escape Arcadia as get kicked out for unionizing the workers.

# ? Feb 12, 2015 15:32

Bob Quixote: Jul 7, 2006; This post has been inspected and certified by the Dino-Sorcerer; Grimey Drawer

DAD LOST MY IPOD posted:

i want to play elfgames but i also want to burnish my leftist cred, this is my dilemma

While wandering through the abandoned ruins your party encounters a pack of 3d6 Bourgeois toadies led by a 4hd Fatcat. In the surprise round he casts Invisible Hand and crushes anyone with less than 200 gold on their person to the ground.

Roll for initiative.

# ? Feb 12, 2015 15:33

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

moths posted:

You do run into a lot of extremely right-wing nonsense in wargaming. I think some folks mostly play to trap someone at a table while they evangelize against gay socialist abortions, illegals, and THE TAKERS.

Funny you mentions this, I'm currently reading The Myth of the Eastern Front, which does have a chapter about wargaming and the effect that it has on 'romancers' of the Wehrmacht. I'd like to think that modern wargames have managed to subdue or at least diminish this slant, although one thing of note (the black counters used for SS units to mark them as elite) is still prominent. At least there are more games that showcase the strategical/operational aptitude of the Russians nowadays :shrug:

# ? Feb 12, 2015 15:33

Terrible Opinions: Oct 18, 2013

I have run into a few Soviet apologists while historical wargaming but they are nothing compared to the legions of wehraboo fascists.

# ? Feb 12, 2015 15:45

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

Until reading the book I linked I never really knew the size and the extent of the Wehrmacht apologist circle, so I was quite shocked to find out that it was that extensive. I'm glad I've managed to gain an interest in history without being shaped by that kind of stuff in my youth, although there were a few things in the book that I remember learning about when I was a teenager simply because the 'myth' had become so mainstream.

# ? Feb 12, 2015 15:59

Davin Valkri: Apr 8, 2011; Maybe you're weighing the moral pros and cons but let me assure you that OH MY GOD
SHOOT ME IN THE GODDAMNED FACE
WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!

Aaaaaah, it's so unfair, those wehraboo jerks mean that I can't like the Stug III without seeming suspect! :qq:

On another note if you want a game that downplays right wing nonsense, could you, I dunno, adapt The Quiet Year to the day before the Battle of the Somme, or the themes of doomed nobility in Polaris or Thou Art But A Warrior to the Hungarian Revolution?

# ? Feb 12, 2015 16:06

Galaga Galaxian: Apr 23, 2009; What a childish tactic!
Don't you think you should put more thought into your battleplan?!

Adapting The Quiet Year to tell a different kind if story would be cool. The Quiet Year is awesome and always needs more love and attention.

# ? Feb 12, 2015 16:09

Rockopolis: Dec 21, 2012; I MAKE FUN OF QUEER STORYGAMES BECAUSE I HAVE NOTHING BETTER TO DO WITH MY LIFE THAN MAKE OTHER PEOPLE CRY

I can't understand these kinds of games, and not getting it bugs me almost as much as me being weird

The policy of letting a hundred games bloom and a hundred systems contend is designed to promote the flourishing of the arts and the progress of gaming?

Speaking of McDaldno, someone last thread mentioned she was going to put up an interesting presention on Imperialism in tradgames. Did that come out yet? I'm kind of curious about that, especially since the only thing that comes to mind are glaringly obvious examples like, Space 1889 or like, a Drow campaign where you're all diamond mercenaries.

# ? Feb 12, 2015 16:11

Davin Valkri: Apr 8, 2011; Maybe you're weighing the moral pros and cons but let me assure you that OH MY GOD
SHOOT ME IN THE GODDAMNED FACE
WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!

Rockopolis posted:

The policy of letting a hundred games bloom and a hundred systems contend is designed to promote the flourishing of the arts and the progress of gaming?

Didn't the Maoists end up using that to target their political opposition and attack them?

# ? Feb 12, 2015 16:17

BrainParasite: Jan 24, 2003

Nancy_Noxious posted:

Thank you, nice people, I'm truly a bad person that should be killed.

I'm going to count this as volunteering for my playtest of Steamtunnels and Stabbings.

# ? Feb 12, 2015 16:28

Bendigeidfran: Dec 17, 2013; Wait a minute...

IIRC China Mi�ville bases a lot of his novels on his D&D campaigns so don't knock Marxist elfgames till you've tried 'em.

# ? Feb 12, 2015 16:31

Rockopolis: Dec 21, 2012; I MAKE FUN OF QUEER STORYGAMES BECAUSE I HAVE NOTHING BETTER TO DO WITH MY LIFE THAN MAKE OTHER PEOPLE CRY

I can't understand these kinds of games, and not getting it bugs me almost as much as me being weird

Davin Valkri posted:

Didn't the Maoists end up using that to target their political opposition and attack them?

Don't know if it was planned that way or it just ended up that way, but I always wonder why anyone went for it, considering "hundred schools" is basically the start of a historical idiom that ends with "bury the scholars and burn their books".

# ? Feb 12, 2015 16:35

Bendigeidfran: Dec 17, 2013; Wait a minute...

Rockopolis posted:

Don't know if it was planned that way or it just ended up that way, but I always wonder why anyone went for it, considering "hundred schools" is basically the start of a historical idiom that ends with "bury the scholars and burn their books".

Not quite? The Hundred Schools were the philosophies that developed in the Warring States period (so 6th century B.C -3rd century B.C), which included stuff like Confucianism, Daoism, Mohism, and Legalism. Legalism, the authoritarian rear end in a top hat philosophy, did win out and burned up the others in the Qin dynasty.

But it's generally considered a good thing because the others (namely Confucianism and Daoism) survived and shaped the rest of Chinese history in relatively better ways. Though Mao, for better or worse, explicitly sympathized with the Qin emperor so idk what people were expecting from him.

# ? Feb 12, 2015 16:43

RocknRollaAyatollah: Nov 26, 2008; Lipstick Apathy

Most evidence I've seen seems to point to the Hundred Flowers campaign originally being sincere but because popular opinion was not unanimously in Mao's favor, he turned against it. He was not expecting legitimate criticism, if any, because he bought into his own cult of personality.

Also, since Mao was from the Stalinist camp he wouldn't need a campaign like that to target his perceived enemies. He would have just made something up and jailed or executed them like he did in the lead up to the Cultural Revolution.

# ? Feb 12, 2015 16:48

Rockopolis: Dec 21, 2012; I MAKE FUN OF QUEER STORYGAMES BECAUSE I HAVE NOTHING BETTER TO DO WITH MY LIFE THAN MAKE OTHER PEOPLE CRY

I can't understand these kinds of games, and not getting it bugs me almost as much as me being weird

I always though Mohism was pretty rad; math, universal brotherhood, and the greatest siege engineers of the age.

Legalism, I go back and forth on. If nothing else, it's very much a product of its crazy times. Like, now, I'm not sure about it, but if I lived back then I'd probably be like "holy poo poo, yes, sign me up".
In the grim darkness of the distant past, there are only the Warring States.
Besides, anything that pisses off the aristocracy so much can't be all bad.

# ? Feb 12, 2015 17:03

palecur: Nov 3, 2002; not too simple and not too kind; Fallen Rib

gradenko_2000 posted:

None of the players have caught on yet that all of my plots are about toppling the monarchy and introducing ... Syndicalism?

My Eberron game has a long running plot background where the Blood of Vol is the only organization working to destroy the prophecy-driven tyranny of the authoritarian dragons. That's more libertarian/anti-authoritarian, though.

# ? Feb 12, 2015 17:05

Mors Rattus: Oct 25, 2007; FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Mohism was indeed pretty rad, but didn't survive the Qin purges.

Qin Shi Huangdi is a really interesting guy and did quite a lot of good for what would become China, but also was a terrible person who did absolutely awful things. That Legalism was his legacy shows very clearly. It exists to justify the state and the Emperor doing whatever they drat well please, and is more of a practical guide to ruthless leadership than an actual moral philosophy of any sort.

# ? Feb 12, 2015 17:06

Xiahou Dun: Jul 16, 2009; We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.

Bendigeidfran posted:

IIRC China Mi�ville bases a lot of his novels on his D&D campaigns so don't knock Marxist elfgames till you've tried 'em.

I would kill to play in whatever campaign ended up with Railsea being a thing.

God I love that book.

# ? Feb 12, 2015 17:39

Mr. Maltose: Feb 16, 2011; The Guffless Girlverine

Nancy_Noxious posted:

Thank you, nice people, I'm truly a bad person that should be killed.

Pretty intolerant to other views for someone so progressive. Considering opposition as a signifier of violence is rather regressive itself.

# ? Feb 12, 2015 17:52

The Vosgian Beast: Aug 13, 2011; Business is slow

Lynx Winters posted:

So okay, it's DBZ, it's about zwee fighting and fireballs. You can spend your energy points to create a force field called a Deflection that acts like armor against energy attacks. The main problem is that Deflections are not ablative, so you either have to overwhelm it by attacking it with more dice of damage than the defender put up, or it stays up forever (or until you go in and punch them). However, if you hit a Deflection with an energy attack and the Deflection has more points in it than the incoming attack, the difference is automatically reflected back at the attacker. No roll to hit, no roll to dodge, they just take it. However, if the attacker still has their Deflection up, it applies against the reflected attack.

Here's the problem, in the form of an example that could easily come up. Noku and Bullgeta are about to fight. Both of them, over the course of some flexing and yelling, have raised 2000 point Deflections. However, since it's the core book, there's no actual way to sense power levels other than a scouter, so Noku doesn't know how strong Bullgeta's Deflection is. He decides to test the waters and throws a 1000 point energy blast. Bullgeta, with his advanced Google Glass, knows that this attack couldn't possibly hurt him and just stands there, thinking he looks cool. The energy blast slams into his force field, fails to do damage, and then the difference between Deflection and attack (1000 points) is reflected back at Noku. Because it's automatic, that reflected attack slams back into Noku's Deflection, which will take all of it and reflect 1000 back at Bullgeta.

Since Deflections aren't ablative and don't get knocked down until a superior attack overcomes it, we enter a state I call Infinite Death Tennis. 1000 dice of damage will bounce back and forth between the two fighters forever. If two characters of roughly equal Deflections are fighting, and one hits the other with an energy attack that won't overcome the other's Deflection, congrats, you've just made a tabletop game freeze until someone house-rules it in a million ways that should have been thought of in playtesting because I refuse to believe this situation never happened when they were designing the game. The game has two sourcebooks and a third was in the works until R. Talsorian lost the license (but it can be found online with the names changed by the main writer) and none of them address this issue at all.

To be fair, this does accurately reflect the pace of DBZ.

# ? Feb 12, 2015 18:02

Ningyou: Aug 14, 2005; we aaaaare
not your kind of pearls
you seem kind of pho~ny
everything's a liiiiie

we aaaare
not your kind of pearls
something in your make~up
don't see eye to e~y~e

christ i'm envious of you nerds who actually find changeling games to play

also plague of hats sierra mist isn't that bad FOR AN INFERIOR WEEKEND-WOBBLY DRINK UGH

LIKE GOD LOOK AT THIS DUDE IT'S LIKE THE BEVERAGE BOURGEOISIE ON PARADE JUST WITH A FEW MORE PANGS OF GUILT AND MAYBE HALF A SPLASH OF CLASS-CONSCIOUSNESS

also speaking of changeling i guess i've got a Gat Out of Hell key for someone who comes up with a Changeling-themed pun that makes me giggle

_{guess who bought it when it was $5 'cos gifting only to find SURPRISE most of her interested friends bought it in the same sale and wants to get rid of it sooner rather than later bluhbluh and doesn't want to toss it into Games proper bc that place is a g a r b a g e p i l e}

# ? Feb 12, 2015 18:04

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

Wait it was $5? gently caress.

# ? Feb 12, 2015 18:06

Impermanent: Apr 1, 2010

Mr. Maltose posted:

Pretty intolerant to other views for someone so progressive. Considering opposition as a signifier of violence is rather regressive itself.

We all want new exciting directions in the world of elfgames but not quite as much as we want to make fun of rambling rants.

FYI you should try to track down a link to Last Stand if you want another seedling of New Ideas In Games Also Leftist that was unfortunately unable to find roots.

# ? Feb 12, 2015 18:06

Ningyou: Aug 14, 2005; we aaaaare
not your kind of pearls
you seem kind of pho~ny
everything's a liiiiie

we aaaare
not your kind of pearls
something in your make~up
don't see eye to e~y~e

there was a price glitch the weekend before it came out :o

# ? Feb 12, 2015 18:07

Mors Rattus: Oct 25, 2007; FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Ningyou posted:

also speaking of changeling i guess i've got a Gat Out of Hell key for someone who comes up with a Changeling-themed pun that makes me giggle

_{guess who bought it when it was $5 'cos gifting only to find SURPRISE most of her interested friends bought it in the same sale and wants to get rid of it sooner rather than later bluhbluh and doesn't want to toss it into Games proper bc that place is a g a r b a g e p i l e}

Sounds like a Keeper to me, really.

# ? Feb 12, 2015 18:10

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

Ningyou posted:

there was a price glitch the weekend before it came out :o

Oh well.

# ? Feb 12, 2015 18:12

100 degrees Calcium: Jan 23, 2011

13th Age and Strike are hallmarks of reactionary politics. Those games, their players, and their designers should be purged for the glory of the Worker's Republic of Gaming.

# ? Feb 12, 2015 18:26

BrainParasite: Jan 24, 2003

Mors Rattus posted:

Sounds like a Keeper to me, really.

That's what Sidhe said.

# ? Feb 12, 2015 18:28

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
sexually

There's always this: http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/12246/against-wall-motherer

BGG posted:

Up Against The Wall, Motherfucker!

This game took as its subject the student demonstrations at Columbia University and was originally published in the 11 March 1969 number of the Connection, a supplement to the Columbia Daily Spectator, near the date of the first anniversary of the riots. Jim Dunnigan, then aged 25 and described in the game's "designer's notes" as a history major in the School of General Studies, had already designed 1914 and was at the time working on Origins of World War II, but was asked to take time out to work on this design.

The game is for two players, Radicals and Administration. The map features eleven tracks for each of the political subgroups in the game (e.g. Black Students, Moderate Strikers, Alumni, Harlem Community). The objective for the players is to have the most influence, determined by the positions of markers on these tracks, for their side by the end of the twelfth turn. During a turn, players deploy abstracted units representing their political leverage onto the tracks to 'attack' the other player's units (as tokens, Dunnigan suggests small pieces of paper colored red or marijuana seeds for the Radicals, and blue bits of paper or capsules of Seconal for the Administration) and so move the markers towards their 'end' of the tracks. The 24 Contingency Cards add some randomness by taking or giving units of wherewithal to one player or another.

SPI sold photocopies of this game supplement for a couple of years after its start. They are hard to find now and command a high price.

# ? Feb 12, 2015 18:31

Davin Valkri: Apr 8, 2011; Maybe you're weighing the moral pros and cons but let me assure you that OH MY GOD
SHOOT ME IN THE GODDAMNED FACE
WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!

FMguru posted:

There's always this: http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/12246/against-wall-motherer

Huh, that almost sounds like a prototype of Twilight Struggle or 1989. Especially 1989. Odd, how some concepts are older than they seem.

# ? Feb 12, 2015 18:36

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

Good news! 5e is getting a bizarre PC game that will probably be awful!

http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/02/12/new-dungeons-and-dragons-game-sword-coast-legends-coming-in-2015

# ? Feb 12, 2015 18:38

Impermanent: Apr 1, 2010

Well any game that has to use 5e's mechanics will be awful.

# ? Feb 12, 2015 18:39

unseenlibrarian: Jun 4, 2012; There's only one thing in the mountains that leaves a track like this. The creature of legend that roams the Timberline. My people named him Sasquatch. You call him... Bigfoot.

The 4 vs 1 GM setup seems a little like what Bioware's now dead Shadow Realms was shooting for, which actually sounded interesting before it was killed.

# ? Feb 12, 2015 18:40

palecur: Nov 3, 2002; not too simple and not too kind; Fallen Rib

Impermanent posted:

Well any game that has to use 5e's mechanics will be awful.

Well, let's not also overlook that it's going to be set in the Forgotten loving Realms, because it's not enough to use a bad system -- you also have to have a bad, criminally boring setting too.

# ? Feb 12, 2015 18:45

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

palecur posted:

Well, let's not also overlook that it's going to be set in the Forgotten loving Realms, because it's not enough to use a bad system -- you also have to have a bad, criminally boring setting too.

Generic so as to offend as few people as possible.

5E.txt

# ? Feb 12, 2015 19:00

Lightning Lord: Feb 21, 2013; $200 a day, plus expenses

palecur posted:

Well, let's not also overlook that it's going to be set in the Forgotten loving Realms, because it's not enough to use a bad system -- you also have to have a bad, criminally boring setting too.

There are good things in the Realms, lord knows I've gone to the mat for the setting before but I doubt this game will embrace them.

# ? Feb 12, 2015 19:15

The Malthusian: Oct 30, 2012

dwarf74 posted:

Good news! 5e is getting a bizarre PC game that will probably be awful!

http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/02/12/new-dungeons-and-dragons-game-sword-coast-legends-coming-in-2015

It's hard to tell through all the marketing speak, but isn't this game just Neverwinter Nights?

# ? Feb 12, 2015 19:16

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# ? Jun 10, 2024 22:10

Lightning Lord: Feb 21, 2013; $200 a day, plus expenses

The Malthusian posted:

It's hard to tell through all the marketing speak, but isn't this game just Neverwinter Nights?

Isometric NWN, looks like it.

# ? Feb 12, 2015 19:17

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > TG February Chat Thread: Dank Rollman's Halal Hotbox

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