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Mors Rattus posted:Latest Beast update is up. It's the chargen/mechanics chapter and it is the least changed yet. In fairness, "disappointing" is better than what it was.
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Jun 27, 2015 20:06
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The fact that they're calling the candy thief from the feeding example "a frat boy" and changing nothing else (except that he's being strangled with a plastic bag instead of Mrs. Winters's hands) leads me to believe that we're supposed to be rooting for Mrs. Winters and her vastly disproportionate punishment, and that, in fact, we were always supposed to be rooting for her. I am struggling with maintaining benefit of the doubt for Beast here.
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Jun 27, 2015 20:38
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Poltergrift posted:The fact that they're calling the candy thief from the feeding example "a frat boy" and changing nothing else (except that he's being strangled with a plastic bag instead of Mrs. Winters's hands) leads me to believe that we're supposed to be rooting for Mrs. Winters and her vastly disproportionate punishment, and that, in fact, we were always supposed to be rooting for her.
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Jun 27, 2015 20:45
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Yeah, the response to "Beasts are vile and I don't want to play them and I would never allow anyone to play as one in a crossover game" seems to be "working as intended." I have no idea why they decided to make the darkest and most unpleasant splat also be the crossover game.
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Jun 27, 2015 20:48
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Goddamn, Beast is some stupid poo poo. I appreciate that they're trying to make it less celebratory of child-molesters/date-rapists, but it's clearly still a turd on the dancefloor that everybody (minus a couple of weirdos) will dance around and ignore forever. Why not just re-create Black Dog Games 2.0? Embrace Beast as tongue-in-cheek torture-porn parody, and be done with it. There's no core genius concept to salvage from it, it's not really compatible with nWoD in any meaningful way. And efforts to fix it are doomed because it's ultimately a mosaic of tropes and "inverted tropes" anchored to some seven-year-old's paradigm shift that Geston is actually the bad guy aha moment.
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Jun 27, 2015 20:52
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Gaston isn't even the Beast's antagonist! He's Belle's antagonist! Why does no one see this!!!
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Jun 27, 2015 22:01
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Ferrinus posted:Gaston isn't even the Beast's antagonist! He's Belle's antagonist! Why does no one see this!!!
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Jun 27, 2015 22:21
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Ferrinus posted:Gaston isn't even the Beast's antagonist! He's Belle's antagonist! Why does no one see this!!! Now that I think of it, they are kind of opposite principles defined by their relationships to Belle. Gaston's antagonism to the Beast is based on his desired relationship to the object of their mutual weird affections, and vice-versa. Maybe if Beast had been about how both parties are forced into unpalatable narrative roles and how that affects innocents, then we wouldn't have... Beast. Instead, we might have something somewhat-to-much better, like Leviathan or Vampire.
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Jun 27, 2015 22:47
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Well, you could make an argument that since Gaston opposes both Beast and Belle, although for different reasons and in different ways, he could be considered the antagonist of both.
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Jun 27, 2015 23:10
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The feeding example is unchanged except to specify that the bully is a frat bro. The section that identifies "Descended from the Dark Mother" as a mechanical category is unchanged, but now followed by a paragraph asking "...but does that really mean they're descended from the Dark Mother?" Would have had the same effect and been so much simpler to just rename that category. The automatic good impression has lengthy "clarifications" that don't actually clarify anything that wasn't already clear because it still does exactly the same thing it did before. The silly front-off with demons where either the demon gets scared or the beast gets universe-blackmailed by the demon, without any conscious effort on either part, is unchanged right down to still implying that demons know why it happens and just won't say. You Are Meat is unchanged and can still strip the magic from a wizard and remove the soul of a demon who doesn't have a soul to remove. As the Beast revisions march on, they're looking more and more like they're not at all the foundational overhaul that the Introduction looked like, but just a fresh coat of paint on the fluff text in the front of the book and little else. I'm kind of not even convinced the oogy root problem with Beast is addressed, let alone all the big secondary problems we knew were probably going to stick around. Ferrinus posted:Gaston isn't even the Beast's antagonist! He's Belle's antagonist! Why does no one see this!!! This is another of those big secondary problems! Beast also does not see this. If Beasts are, uh, the Beast, and Heroes are Gaston, then Belle's central role in the story as a normal human who matters is completely elided. Humans are mostly just juiceboxes for Hunger. Belle is there to be kidnapped and kept in the Beast's basement until he's not hungry anymore, and there's no acknowledgment I can see that Belle might actually connect with the Beast and talk some loving sense into him and make him grow up.
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Jun 27, 2015 23:12
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From the rpg.net thread:BlackHat_Matt posted:Why in the world would the Beast condition need a "cure"? Is there anything in the text that suggests that Beasts want to be "cured?" This is almost surreal.
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Jun 27, 2015 23:43
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That's some pretty intense self-parody right there.
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Jun 27, 2015 23:47
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Well, given that the endgame "good" goal for a lot of the splats is returning to/becoming human and even among the ones who don't actively pursue that it's frequently seen as a good or desirable thing by many of the less-evil members of these groups, Beasts lacking that is yet another thing that highlights just how alien and unpleasant they are. Even Demons, who never were human at all, frequently end up trying to live as "normal" lives as they can, and a good many would become fully human if they could.
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Jun 27, 2015 23:56
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Beasts live normal lives except with the added perk of incredible power and influence, sooo.
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Jun 27, 2015 23:56
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Ferrinus posted:Beasts live normal lives except with the added perk of incredible power and influence, sooo. I was going to say "moral concerns," but... yeah. I guess feeding on trauma isn't that terrible when you think you're basically justified in doing so as long as it teaches valuable moral lessons. Although there is the whole "people in fedoras will attempt to murder you" aspect to it.
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Jun 28, 2015 00:09
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Being attacked by a lameo in a fedora and getting to do a Righteous Kill is one of the perks!
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Jun 28, 2015 00:12
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Yeah, these edits aren't really pulling it away from its problematic territory. That the authors still seem to be in denial about the whole thing is funny, in a sad way. It's like they're writing For Satan: The Puppy-Killing, but without the sense of nuance or irony that you'll find in Vincent Baker's parody game. And they don't even realize when it's pointed out to them.
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Jun 28, 2015 01:04
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I'm just waiting this out to next month when this drat kickstarter will be over and we can move on to better things. Like Changeling 20th Anniversary 
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Jun 28, 2015 01:35
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Kavak posted:I'm just waiting this out to next month when this drat kickstarter will be over and we can move on to better things.
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Jun 28, 2015 01:41
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Beast is awful and I can't even pretend to care about it anymore. They wrote a lovely book, they got feedback telling them it was terrible, they took that feedback and wrote another terrible book. Bye, Felicia. edit: who wants to play in my Requiem for Rome game stretching from the establishment of the Republic to the fall of the Empire? long-ass nips Diane fucked around with this message at 01:47 on Jun 28, 2015 |
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Jun 28, 2015 01:42
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Kavak posted:I'm just waiting this out to next month when this drat kickstarter will be over and we can move on to better things. At least if C20 is bad we can all shrug and go "well of course it is", and if it's good we'll all be too busy babbling in confusion to even remember Beast.
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Jun 28, 2015 01:44
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If we're lucky it'll veer away from the loving annoying way it handled (well, everything, but especially) the nobility. "Hey guys let's do a thing with fairies who won't shut the gently caress up about their Celtic roots but let's not actually approach their things like they're in any way, shape or form a reflection of Celtic ideals! It'll be just like going to an 'Irish Pub' in New York!" EDIT: Seriously, who made that call? I've said it before, but the unconquered Irish and Welsh approaches to the idea of nobility are much more fluid, more dynamic, and better suited to a game because there's a lot more potential for change, growth, decline, etc. You can even work in the three stages of changeling life into it with ease. I can understand not going there for American, English, or other Fae, but not for the actual Irish and Welsh ones? Come on! Letting some of the Sidhe and Commoners embrace more modern Chivalric ideals is itself not a bad idea, especially if you can contrast it against 'traditionalist' factions - Chivalric Fae in conflict with Traditionalist Fae, usually but not always fought with debates and a war of the heart, sometimes with cold iron swords in the dead of night. Throw in the Three Courts and the Commoner v Noble element and you've got a hell of a dynamic, volatile setting that practically screams to be played. Loomer fucked around with this message at 02:58 on Jun 28, 2015 |
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Jun 28, 2015 02:52
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If Beast wanted to play up the "doing terrible things to terrible people" angle, I'd have rather we gotten a game based on the Fury proposal that was posted a while back. The universe punishing you for not punishing others is a pretty compelling hook.
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Jun 28, 2015 03:24
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Poltergrift posted:Now that I think of it, they are kind of opposite principles defined by their relationships to Belle. Gaston's antagonism to the Beast is based on his desired relationship to the object of their mutual weird affections, and vice-versa. CommissarMega posted:You know, the game could be much better, both in quality and potential sales potential if they made the narrative itself the villain. Beasts and Heroes create each other, and it's useless to say which came first (think 'chicken or the egg'). Under normal circumstances, a Beast comes along, does nasty poo poo, and is slain by a Hero. Okay, cool- but it's a lovely deal for Beasts, since they were regular, normal working Joes and Janes who've suddenly been conscripted into some kind of crazy metaplot for unknown reasons (maybe the God-Machine likes lovely fantasy, who knew), and at the end, they have to die. And I'm sure I wasn't the only one to think along those lines earlier. It's a real contrast, reading Beast stuff and comparing it to Demon, which to me is somehow even more superhero-themed than Mage. I mean, what are Beast's protagonists? An old lady who strangles kids (oh, wait, frat boys) because they stole candy and a hermit who goes after loving couples to 'make the rest value their relationships better' (probably through frantic fearsex or something?). Meanwhile I'm counting at least 2 characters in the Demon books (one in the irto fiction, even) who fell because they fell in love with a human, and one more who fell because they loved their adopted family. And then Heirs to Hell has perhaps the most touching piece of writing the WoD has to offer: Demon: The Fallen posted:A Fractal child isn’t afraid of her father’s red skin and metal eyes. A Fractal child doesn’t care how many scales made out of pennies her mother has instead of hair. That’s just mom and dad, and they are, to the Fractal, perfect.
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Jun 28, 2015 05:21
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what's a fractal child, the result of two demons having a kid?
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Jun 28, 2015 06:16
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Ferrinus posted:Gaston isn't even the Beast's antagonist! He's Belle's antagonist! Why does no one see this!!! The antagonist is Gaston, but the real villain of the movie is the enchantress. She curses an entire mansion's worth of people for the gut reaction of an improperly socialized parentless 8 year old child.
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Jun 28, 2015 06:29
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Kurieg posted:The antagonist is Gaston, but the real villain of the movie is the enchantress. She curses an entire mansion's worth of people for the gut reaction of an improperly socialized parentless 8 year old child. So she's the Beast?
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Jun 28, 2015 06:31
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Tollymain posted:what's a fractal child, the result of two demons having a kid? Pretty much, yeah. Heirs to Hell covers them and a few other kinds of demon-blooded. Offspring are what happens most of the time a demon has kids with a normal human, and are more or less stigmatics that can use a few Embeds. Their kids tend to be Latents, who are ordinary people who have a slightly higher chance of manifesting stuff like supernatural merits, and get Offspring powers if they'd become stigmatic. Fractals are when demons have kids with other demons, or more rarely, demon-blooded people, and they are like Offspring who can see through the Covers of their parents and get some unique tricks. The book goes into quite some detail to describe how growing up being able to instinctively gently caress with reality the same way a demon does tends to screw with little kids' heads. Activating their powers is as natural and reasonable to them as unfocusing their eyes to stare at something in the distance, and if they're not raised with a demonic parent (usually because their parent ditched the family for their own good) they get confused or frustrated when nobody around them seems to be able to do the same thing and thinks they're weird/terrifying for it. Meanwhile, kids raised by a demon (or two) have to deal with the God-Machine's shenanigans if the parent's not using an absolutely bulletproof Cover, and one sidebar brings up an eight year old who already knows how to identify and subtly evade cultists hunting for her and her mother. It also notes that even though these kids have a pretty hosed up life, most demons would move Heaven and Earth for their children, because if they had children, they either did it to shore up their Cover, or they did it because they truly wanted a family, and love them as powerfully as any parent - see the quote above. It's actually rather heartwarming stuff. Oh, yeah, and the God-Machine sometimes exploits Fractals for its own schemes, which is properly fine and spooky, but one of the insinuations - that it lets angels fall just to make demons who have Fractal children - seems rather like saying that the God-Machine decided to chug a punch bowl full of cyanide because it got kinda thirsty. Rest of the mini-book is real good though.
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Jun 28, 2015 06:37
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Can I just say I love how creative they got with Demon: The Descent? Like, the fact that if you take over someone's life, their kids retroactively become your kids because you're wearing their parent's Cover.
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Jun 28, 2015 08:57
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CommissarMega posted:a hermit who goes after loving couples to 'make the rest value their relationships better' (probably through frantic fearsex or something?). Hey now, let's be honest: there's nothing in the block of text talking about the serial-murderer that says that he murders both members of a loving couple to make other people value their relationships more. It just says that he targets people who are part of happy couples, and that other people value their relationships more as a result of his actions. The "to teach them a lesson" is purely an interpretation of his actions through the new lens of interpreting Beasts as "out to teach the lessons and wisdom of the Primordial Dream" created by OPP to act as both cover and motive for Beasts to victimize baseline humans. While it's entirely possible that he's just some Beast who's given in fully to his horror and goes totally nuts once every three or so years, that sort of outlier (according to the preceding setting information about Beasts) probably shouldn't be mentioned in the listing of example characters unless that sort of behavior is both common and normal for that archetype. Oh, and the Heroes serial killer dude generates are all horrible people because they don't want him to ~be himself~ so maybe humans are the real monsters???? makes u think
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Jun 28, 2015 11:05
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Daeren posted:Oh, yeah, and the God-Machine sometimes exploits Fractals for its own schemes, which is properly fine and spooky, but one of the insinuations - that it lets angels fall just to make demons who have Fractal children - seems rather like saying that the God-Machine decided to chug a punch bowl full of cyanide because it got kinda thirsty. Rest of the mini-book is real good though. Worth noting that this is the same God-Machine that possibly created humanity solely to mine uranium. "Simple and direct" is a phrase that seems to be anathema to it. Honestly, I think that idea makes me love it even more; it adds a whole new level of paranoia to Demon, simply because it suggests that the God-Machine might have built certain angels specifically to fall, and every bit of rebellion and seeking their own little dominions or escapes could be parts of its grand master plan. When even rebellion serves The Man, how do you set yourself free?
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Jun 28, 2015 17:15
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YOU WILL NOT BE SAVED BY THE HOLY GHOST. YOU WILL NOT BE SAVED BY THE GOD PLUTONIUM. IN FACT, YOU WILL NOT BE SAVED!
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Jun 28, 2015 18:28
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Wasn't Red List supposed to be a bonus for KS backers of something or other?
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Jun 28, 2015 20:06
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It was, and we got it free if we backed Children of the Revolution.
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Jun 29, 2015 03:44
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poo poo, time to wade through Yahoo! mail. e:  Well, found it. My two favorite Red Listers Genina and Angelo both got killed in a throwaway sentence... I feel like I knew it was coming but ugh lazy.
moths fucked around with this message at 05:11 on Jun 29, 2015 |
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Jun 29, 2015 04:07
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Axelgear posted:Worth noting that this is the same God-Machine that possibly created humanity solely to mine uranium. "Simple and direct" is a phrase that seems to be anathema to it. Personally, I think the G-M's basically broken at this point, a more sinister Friend Computer. It's got all these directives, but thanks to the WoD being the WoD, now they're all clashing against each other and what passes for intelligence in the G-M is like a druggie on a rollacoaster in an earthquake- hanging on for dear life and going "Wheeee!" while everything dies. Yeah, your rebellion may serve the Master Plan, but the Master Plan serves nobody, so might as well take care of your wife and kids while waiting for the whole rotten superstructure to fall down.
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Jun 29, 2015 06:59
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Axelgear posted:Worth noting that this is the same God-Machine that possibly created humanity solely to mine uranium. "Simple and direct" is a phrase that seems to be anathema to it. https://youtu.be/gViHCSApQu0?t=2m27s
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Jun 29, 2015 07:10
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CommissarMega posted:Personally, I think the G-M's basically broken at this point, a more sinister Friend Computer. It's got all these directives, but thanks to the WoD being the WoD, now they're all clashing against each other and what passes for intelligence in the G-M is like a druggie on a rollacoaster in an earthquake- hanging on for dear life and going "Wheeee!" while everything dies. Personally, I think of the G-M as a paperclip maximizer -- there's an end goal, but it's utterly banal. All Infrastructure is a means to the end of "making more paperclips," using ephemera, the matter constituting humans, the matter constituting the planet, and the matter constituting literally everything that has ever existed in the Shadow, Twilight, the Supernal Realms, the Hedge, etc. etc. etc. Once the universe, material and metaphysical, is entirely composed of paperclips, the G-M will dismantle its own Infrastructure for raw materials, secure in the knowledge that it has done the job it was assigned to do -- make paperclips.
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Jun 29, 2015 07:11
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Oh hey look, Beast posted up the new Heroes chapter!Sidebar posted:What, then, about the Hero that listens to reason? What about the Hero that chooses to follow her better angels, as it were, trying to soothe the Primordial Dream by providing therapy to troubled individuals, by hunting down violent or destructive supernatural creatures, or by taking on an advisory role such as clergy? Surely these Heroes exist? Of course. Any Hero that might be sympathetic and have non-murder desires simply never meets Beasts, ever.
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Jun 29, 2015 16:57
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Mors Rattus posted:Oh hey look, Beast posted up the new Heroes chapter! Man, Beast's devs are completely opposed to the idea of antagonists who are sympathetic or have a point in any way, huh?
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Jun 29, 2015 17:03
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