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Xiahou Dun posted:Is there not a Burning Wheel thread? There was a fair amount of BW talk in the indie rpg thread, but that's locked for archiving now. I'd love a thread for BW/MG/Torchbearer, but I doubt it could keep from falling into archives.
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Mar 21, 2015 22:45
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There's no way to know except to make a thread! 
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Mar 21, 2015 22:51
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I would certainly post in such a thing, but I'd feel weird starting a thread with "Wait so can we go over how orc magic works again? How am I supposed to integrate orcs in a party anyway?" P.S. This book is really, really pretty. Plus I like most of the writing, although it looks like it's not super stream-lined as a reference.
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Mar 21, 2015 22:58
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Mouse Guard is getting a new edition/reprint soon so a BW/Torchbearer/MG thread would be nice. I'd post it but I have very little interest in the system outside of MG, but I can throw together an OP for someone else to post if you want; it's not very hard.
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Mar 22, 2015 00:30
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I know MG and Torchbearer okay, so if it's a mixed thread and people don't mind me being clueless about BW I'm down. Also it's pretty weird to go at these games in backwards order.
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Mar 22, 2015 01:20
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I mean, all you need to do is put together an OP that's just a blurb about BWG (with maybe a little about previous editions), a blurb about Mouse Guard with whatever the latest news about the new edition is, and a blurb about Torchbearer, with a nice banner per title. Here you go, here are your three banners:   
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Mar 22, 2015 01:59
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Lemon Curdistan posted:I mean, all you need to do is put together an OP that's just a blurb about BWG (with maybe a little about previous editions), a blurb about Mouse Guard with whatever the latest news about the new edition is, and a blurb about Torchbearer, with a nice banner per title. I feel really really dumb right now for never before noticing how Apoc World took the BW logo to use as the Harm clock.
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Mar 22, 2015 02:27
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I think that was more coincidence than intentional.
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Mar 22, 2015 03:00
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Error 404 posted:I feel really really dumb right now for never before noticing how Apoc World took the BW logo to use as the Harm clock. uh It didn't, it's pretty clearly a circle with lines corresponding to the hours of harm
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Mar 22, 2015 04:47
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Captain Foo posted:uh Indeed
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Mar 22, 2015 04:48
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Well, there is the fact that the segments are all the same size because the harm clock groups hours together. It might not be an homage (I don't see why it couldn't, though), but it's clearly the same shape.
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Mar 22, 2015 05:47
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Loki_XLII posted:Well, there is the fact that the segments are all the same size because the harm clock groups hours together. It might not be an homage (I don't see why it couldn't, though), but it's clearly the same shape. For one thing, the harm clock has six sections, not five...
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Mar 22, 2015 05:51
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Isn't the harm clock mean to be a call back to the Doomsday clock?
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Mar 22, 2015 06:24
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Effectronica posted:For one thing, the harm clock has six sections, not five... You know what, you're right. My bad.
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Mar 22, 2015 06:40
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neonchameleon posted:Not quite. It was written because Ernie Gygax and Rob Kuntz were complaining that everything in Greyhawk was too easy so Gygax decided to write the hardest fair dungeon he possibly could to prove them wrong. They cleaned it out on the first attempt because they knew what Gygax was like and how he thought (and there's a basic algorithm that will get you through all the traps). Gygax then introduced it to the rest of the world as a tournament module - and the rest of the world wasn't used to Gygax' more tortuous inventions.
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Mar 22, 2015 07:02
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unseenlibrarian posted:Isn't the harm clock mean to be a call back to the Doomsday clock? Yep! It's even explained in the back of the book. The Doomsday Clock doesn't have any notation until the last quarter, which is why the Countdown Clock has three separate segments in the last quarter of it. The fact that it works so well as a visual pacing mechanism and as a metaphor makes it one of my favorite mechanics in RPGs.
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Mar 22, 2015 07:38
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unseenlibrarian posted:Isn't the harm clock mean to be a call back to the Doomsday clock? Yes.
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Mar 22, 2015 15:18
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Xiahou Dun posted:I would certainly post in such a thing, but I'd feel weird starting a thread with "Wait so can we go over how orc magic works again? How am I supposed to integrate orcs in a party anyway?" I'll post in such a thread. To answer your question, integrating orcs into a party with like a human and an elf is going to be rough. I mean, these aren't just green-skinned buff humans we're talking about. Having a party with a couple of orcs and a great wolf (from the monster burner) and one rear end in a top hat of a human would work great, though. A party like that could bring misery to an entire nation.
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Mar 22, 2015 17:59
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Lemon Curdistan posted:I mean, all you need to do is put together an OP that's just a blurb about BWG (with maybe a little about previous editions), a blurb about Mouse Guard with whatever the latest news about the new edition is, and a blurb about Torchbearer, with a nice banner per title. Thanks! I'll try to make a thread when I get to my office tomorrow. And I was semi-joking about integrating orcs. He acknowledges it's hard/weird but also says to "knock the Tolkein out of your head" and monkey with the fluff. I'd actually be more worried about an all orc party because that seems like it either is gonna become the stereotypical Eeeeevvviiilllll  campaign or just turn into Kobolds Ate My Baby. But I still have no clue what "tax" is vis a vis orc magic except that Void Embrace mitigates it. Whatever it is. Also comparing elves in Burning Wheel and Torchbearer is hilarious ; it's a perfect case study in gimping the hell out of something to make it fit the theme of a game. That or an elf hosed with Luke Crane somewhere in the interim.
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Mar 22, 2015 18:18
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Just sort of curious but is there any good Earthbound-esque settings?
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Mar 22, 2015 18:22
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Mr Tastee posted:Just sort of curious but is there any good Earthbound-esque settings? Players can role play exactly the characters and stories they want to play. Any genre, any character type, anything players can imagine.
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Mar 22, 2015 18:27
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O holy gently caress the combat rules are SO much more complicated than MG/Torchbearer. I honestly don't know if I'm smart enough to run a fight in this system jesus.
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Mar 22, 2015 19:10
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Xiahou Dun posted:But I still have no clue what "tax" is vis a vis orc magic except that Void Embrace mitigates it. Whatever it is. Tax is a temporary penalty to a stat. Burning Wheel sorcery is in non-Vancian, with unlimited spells per day, but casting a spell forces you to test your Forte against the obstacle of the spell, and temporarily reduces ("taxes") your Forte by the margin of failure. If you go into negative Forte, you take damage instead - a lot of damage. Orc sorcerers with Void Embrace turns their Hatred - their stock's emotional attribute, like Elven Grief or Dwarven Greed - into a source of magic, and allows them to test their Void Embrace against tax instead of Forte. In short, orc sorcery doesn't require the orc to be physically tough to cast a lot spells: they just have to annihilate their sense of self and let the winds of darkness, madness, and destruction howl their hollowed-out souls so they can blot out the sun or tear gaping wounds in the earth. Xiahou Dun posted:O holy gently caress the combat rules are SO much more complicated than MG/Torchbearer. The thing to keep in mind about Fight is that most of what's in that chapter is optional and will never be used in any given game. You can get along perfectly well just using Strike, Charge, Block, and Feint. Maneuvers like Beat or stances are there for people who want to engage in system mastery, which BW does encourage but doesn't require. It's a good idea for a new Burning Wheel GM to set up a practice Fight with some of the NPCs at the back of the book to get a handle on how things work - getting your head around Engagement and Vie for Position will make the rest of it click. That said, the advice the book gives early on about not using everything to start is good advice. Start your game off with the hub and spokes only, and introduce the 'rim' rules in bite-sized portions at a pace your group can digest.
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Mar 22, 2015 19:39
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Xiahou Dun posted:Thanks! I made one quite a while ago but it's long since hit archives. If you can find it feel free to scavenge the OP.
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Mar 23, 2015 03:56
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Been reading A Red and Pleasant Land for LotFP, and I really enjoy the setting (basically an Alice-in-Wonderland-style fantasy world ruled by bizarre vampires ala-Legacy of Kain). It tears me up because I know that Zak S is an enormous douchebag, but I really like the elements of the setting and the artwork (I'd like to see more modern, abstract, and Expressionist-style art in RPGs in general). I want to run a game in PbP (or any LotFP game), but I'm not sure I'd even find anybody willing to play (Even talk about LotFP is outright banned in the retroclone games forum). Frustrating! Pretty sure this book will just end up in the category of "Games I like but will never run/play."
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Mar 23, 2015 04:19
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scavenge the elements you like, i guess?
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Mar 23, 2015 04:27
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From what i've seen in FATAL & Friends, there are a lot of legitimately great modules for LotFP if you don't dig too deep into the mechanics or the uglier details. Better Than Any Man is a standout. Death Frost Doom, not so much.
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Mar 23, 2015 04:30
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Anyone play any of the goofy spinoffs of Burning Wheel/Torchbearer? Like Burning Jihad or Colonial Marines? I can't find Under a Serpent Sun anymore, which is probably for the best; that one gave me nightmares, not that that's a hard thing to do.
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Mar 23, 2015 04:30
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I thought that game wasn't Zak S
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Mar 23, 2015 04:30
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Kellsterik posted:From what i've seen in FATAL & Friends, there are a lot of legitimately great modules for LotFP if you don't dig too deep into the mechanics or the uglier details. Better Than Any Man is a standout. Death Frost Doom, not so much. Qelong is fantastic, but that's because it's by Ken Hite.
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Mar 23, 2015 04:33
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TheLovablePlutonis posted:I thought that game wasn't Zak S The base system is by Raggi whatshisface, another similarly upstanding member of the rpg developer community
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Mar 23, 2015 04:37
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Rockopolis posted:Anyone play any of the goofy spinoffs of Burning Wheel/Torchbearer? Like Burning Jihad or Colonial Marines? I can't find Under a Serpent Sun anymore, which is probably for the best; that one gave me nightmares, not that that's a hard thing to do. I've always wanted to check those out, but I've never been able to find the PDFs anywhere.
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Mar 23, 2015 04:46
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To revisit the discussion about RPG card games a while back: There were two RPG collectable card games that came out in '96. You likely haven't heard of them because they were as commercially successful as you would expect. However, they were interesting experiments. I will be describing both games mostly from memory, so expect errors. Dragon Storm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Storm_(game) Wikipedia posted:Dragon Storm is a role-playing game about shape shifters: human werewolves, dwarven gargoyles, human dragons and elven unicorns. As a reminder these were the halycon days of the 90s where a "furry" was an alien concept to most gamers. Wikipedia posted:These characters live in an area known as the Stormlands. They use supernatural powers to battle powerful enemies, and to save the world from Dragon Storms. Most Stormlanders live like peasants of the European Middle Ages. They are ruled by nobles, who spend their time fighting for control of Stormland city-states. These struggles mean little to most people, who live in isolated villages scattered throughout the land. Magic is more important to stormlanders. They respect Od, the force of pure magic, used by wizards, witches and shamans to heal and protect. They fear Warp, corrupt magic used by necromancers to debase and destroy. Warp can blight a land, poisoning water and tainting the soil. It twists living things into warpspawn and plague beasts, insane monsters who kill for pleasure. According to one of the only working links I can find left for Dragon Storm (below), it appears the world was written by Tim Kennard and Susan Van Camp. https://squareup.com/market/the-guild-for-ds I managed to find a dusty deck and a couple of boosters in a local game store and I roped a buddy of mine into playing a couple games. Some of the shortcomings of a CCG RPG were immediately obvious. The range of equipment available to a character was determined only by what equipment cards you were lucky enough to find in your deck. The equipment available was a dagger (very basic +1 to attack or something weapon), a helmet and shield (decent defensive gear) and some ungodly magical enchanted sword which so happened to be a rare in the deck. The magic sword rarely saw play since it's initial cost was much greater than a player's starting funds and it would have trivialized most of the encounters. As a result, the player wielding a dagger was quickly out classed by medium tier enemies unless he shapeshifted and activated beast form. I think you made a map of 3x3 cards by placing random terrain face down. Several antagonists of varying strength (like taking a Monstrous Manual, shuffling it and drawing 10 or so random enemies) were included in the deck. I think the instruction book that came with the primary deck suggested you used enemy and trap cards as suggestions to weave a narrative around. The human/dragon shapeshifter player card was decently balanced and had some interesting abilities. I think I pulled an elf/unicorn player card too. I was hoping for a dwarf/gargoyle. Arcadia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcadia_(card_game) This was actually a decent example of a CCG RPG. I could see someone making a successful mobile game out of this as well. Arcadia was produced by White Wolf and based in the World of Darkness and Changeling the Dreaming but it was a very different animal than its progenitors. Changeling the Dreaming revolves around a player having one foot in two worlds; the normal every day, and the faerie land "Dreaming" that overlaps the mundane world like wallpaper. Arcadia is based purely in some fantasy land where player choose a character card and move around a map of cards (3x3, 9x9, or whatever grid of terrain cards) rolling dice to pass challenges and try to finish their quest and collect more treasures before the opposing player does. Example of character cards:   How character cards folded:  Characters from King Ironheart's Madness:  As I recall you get one Character card per Player booster back. Anyway, characters had three attributes: might, savvy and intelligence. The fourth attribute, combat, was the might attribute plus whatever combat bonuses your gear gave you. You built your character from a certain number of points and the merits, flaws, treasures, arts (magic) and abilities you owned.  Flaws gave you more points, but an opposing player could exhaust some of them at any time to trigger the effect and make your life more difficult. And yes, male and female characters had different stats and abilities.  I played Arcadia a handful of times. One that stands out is when I was introducing a friend of mine to play. He immediately grabbed the Treasure "Blow Dryer" or something which could forcibly move an opponent two map tiles in a specific direction if they failed a might test. I hadn't considered the utility of the card before then. 45 minutes later when I had spent the majority of the game boxed into the upper right hand corner of the map between him and his brothers, he announced his victory. King Ironheart's Madness was the only expansion, and as far as I know, not based on a canonical Changeling the Dreaming event. Ahead of its time, it was playing around with the Steampunk aesthetic in the mid-1990s. Overall, Arcadia was a decent card game (if slightly more complicated to set up than magic) and if it was in publication today I'd recommend it as an RPG for young kids. --------------------- I think a CCG RPG or even drawing random equipment/abilities from a deck in an RPG is fun because players are trying to solve a roleplaying problem with a different assortment of tools than they normally use. Something similar to Apollo 13; where there is a serious event that occurs that you do not have the perfect tool for, and you have to cobble together a solution from what you have at hand. The difficulty is that in a game like Arcada, where each terrain space you are landing on has a different adversarial encounter, it is hard to draw a common narrative through random events. Purely relying on random encounter draws does not create rising action, a climax and resolution. Maybe this could be solved with three decks: basic encounters, midtier encounters and climax encounters. Also, it works better if initial equipment/abilities available is found on a list that has been drawn up with some design considerations, rather than randomly drawn. Drawing randomly from treasure decks, however is always fun.  ---------------------- On the subject of RPGs that have "kitchen-sink" settings like Pathfinder: I've enjoyed the Dragon Age video games (1 and 3); but the setting is bland enough (with the exception of the Qun) that I would not find a table top Dragon Age rpg interesting or compelling to run a game in. Then I considered the Elder Scrolls world. If Morrowind, with all it's unique creativity, didn't exist, would the Elder Scrolls world be considered as bland as Pathfinder or Dragon Age? Helical Nightmares fucked around with this message at 04:52 on Mar 23, 2015 |
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Mar 23, 2015 04:49
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Echophonic posted:I've always wanted to check those out, but I've never been able to find the PDFs anywhere. I immediately found the Colonial Marines one using my rabad alien fan powers.
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Mar 23, 2015 04:49
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Tollymain posted:The base system is by Raggi whatshisface, another similarly upstanding member of the rpg developer community Yeah, I read a lot about Raggi, but I don't really get most of the hate; he doesn't start smear campaigns against people, or denigrate people who enjoy different types of games from him (as far as I've seen). The worst he seems to do is stir up poo poo to promote controversy (though publishing Carcosa was a stupid thing to do).
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Mar 23, 2015 04:57
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Joesky likes Carcosa and that's fine with me
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Mar 23, 2015 05:07
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Helical Nightmares posted:In Dragon Storm players role-play a shape shifter or an orc. That kind of came out of nowhere. Do orcs...shapeshift or anything?
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Mar 23, 2015 05:13
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Echophonic posted:I've always wanted to check those out, but I've never been able to find the PDFs anywhere. http://www.burningwheel.com/wiki/index.php?title=Downloads#Burning_Sands:_Jihad Welcome to the No-Fly List. (it's the Dune splat) I think Under a Serpent Sun was removed for being too suicidal.
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Mar 23, 2015 05:16
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Rockopolis posted:http://www.burningwheel.com/wiki/index.php?title=Downloads#Burning_Sands:_Jihad What do you mean by "too suicidal" exactly?
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Mar 23, 2015 05:17
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Kellsterik posted:That kind of came out of nowhere. Do orcs...shapeshift or anything? Huh. Didn't notice that until you pointed it out. Maybe orcs were introduced in one of the expansions?
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Mar 23, 2015 05:17
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