Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Locked thread
long-ass nips Diane
Dec 13, 2010

Breathe.

You should just run AD&D then, I don't think it's the quality of the system that accounts for the lack of PBP for it around here, just not many people who want to DM it over something else. You running it would solve that problem.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009

Splicer posted:

You can't say something like this and then just leave it there.

homerlaw posted:

Lemme guess, It's like House of Leaves?

For more Ruin talk, check out the Gencon Game Designer Workshop podcast : http://slangdesign.com/rppr/2015/08/game-designer-workshop/game-designer-workshop-live-at-gen-con-2015/#comments

Here is a thread where people have compiled interesting/spooky architectural stuff : http://slangdesign.com/forums/index.php/topic,1870.0.html

-------

drrockso20 posted:

Bunch of links to homebrew RPG settings

Thanks for taking the time to gather and post these drrockso!

-------

News about the upcoming Delta Green book!

http://theunspeakableoath.com/home/2015/08/unspeakable-episode-21-delta-green-seminar-at-gen-con-2015/

Featuring:
-Less math in rolls!
-Fewer skills and a concomitant shift to using basic stats! For example: Want to take a picture under duress? Might take a Dex x5 roll rather than the Photography skill.
-Your skill level actually matters more than a roll! Have a 50 in Archaeology? You may get further insight into a scene automatically without rolling Spot Hidden!
-Combat is more lethal! Introducing Kill Chances! Grenades and mortars are loving deadly!
-Combat is more dangerous! You can be shaken and lose sanity!
-Gun fondling!
-Greg Stolze! Integrating the Sanity mechanics from Unknown Armies into Cthulhu!
-Bonds as sources of stability! Be like Martin Hart and take out your frustrations on your family to gain a small respite from the horrors of the Mythos! Who is the real monster now!?!


-------

Ratpick posted:

Hey, I just got the weirdest idea and I'd like to see if this gets any traction. There might be a homebrew in this:

So, John Harper's Lasers & Feelings is pretty much the best rules right Star Trek RPG out there, and the best thing about it is that it converts to almost any genre where you can easily see two poles that are used to define characters, right? So, you could probably use it for, say, the Cthulhu Mythos as Sanity (traditional investigative techniques) & Sorcery (knowledge of how things work under the rules of the Mythos and how to use it).

What if your character's place on this scale wasn't static but it was used more as a sliding scale? What if events in the game could push your character towards the Sorcery end of the scale
(as your character experiences the mythos they lose sight of reality and start to lose their mind, which also grants insight into how magic works)? Strangely enough, it produces an effect that emulates the way Call of Cthulhu is traditionally played but also reinforces the narrative of going slowly insane until the only sensible thing to do seems to be to cast that spell you found in one of the old dusty tomes, because as your character slowly loses their mind and moves towards the Sorcery end of the scale traditional investigative techniques become much less reliable and characters need to rely more on supernatural tools.

I don't know anything about the Lasers & Feelings system, but the first thing I thought of when I read your post was Bloodborn and how some of the lore suggests how the Insight works in the world.

The two poles for a Bloodborne character could be Insight (high "madness"/low sanity/ability to do "magic") and Beasthood (low "madness"/low sanity/no "magic").

A normal human (and arguably the "best" place to be) would be on the middle of this continuum; balanced between Insight and Beasthood.

Bloodborne characters start with an Insight of zero. During gameplay Insight can be gained by consuming a Madman's Knowledge/Great One's Wisdom item, encountering a boss (A being associated with the Eldritch Truth), defeating a boss, opening up/discovering a new gameplay area (Eldritch location), discovering the truth about some NPC, being witness to an unnatural event, or killing another hunter associated with the Hunter's Dream (PvP).

As Insight increases, the player begins to observe hidden things (a doll comes to life, invisible creatures become visible), some monsters become more dangerous, and the player begins to have audio and visual hallucinations/visions that are relevant to the plot. This suggests as Insight increases the Bloodborn character is beginning to uncover the Eldritch Truth, go mad, or both.

The gameplay benefit to having Insight is access to a shop where the Bloodborne character can buy weapons, armor and items he has unlocked, by spending Insight as currency. Insight is also spent to call another player into the gameworld for Coop mode.

The downside to Insight is that each point reduces your resistance to Frenzy, and reduces the Beasthood stat.

This indicates that Insight is antithetical to Beasthood.

http://bloodborne.wiki.fextralife.com/Insight

Frenzy in Bloodborne:

quote:

Frenzy is a mechanic of Bloodborne. It fills up like a bleed or poison meter, and it lowers both your damage intake and output.

Frenzy works similarly to bleed in Dark Souls. When the Frenzy meter is filled, a large amount of the player's health is lost instantly. However, unlike the Bleed status, Frenzy will continue building up once you receive it. Because of this, you don't necessarily need to keep getting hit to Frenzy; simply getting hit once or twice can cause it. It will eventually cap and stop building up.

Extremely alien and unnatural creatures in Bloodborne induce Frenzy.

http://bloodborne.wiki.fextralife.com/Frenzy

In a tabletop Lasers and Feelings Bloodborne hack, we could interpret Frenzy as the physical damage a high Insight/madness stat does to the body.



In game, Sedatives can reduce Frenzy at the cost of Insight. The above description also states "Blood serves to calm the frayed nerves" and "Naturally this leads to a reliance on Blood Ministration".

So on the other end of the spectrum, a character with a high Beasthood stat would behave like a beast, being faster and stronger than a character at the middle of the Insight/Beasthood spectrum, and craving blood to the point where they are feral.

The lore and plot suggests that individuals with high Insight have the ability to call/influence/transcend the Great Ones as well as possibly having greater facility with magic.

As far as I know there is no gameplay mechanic where a high Insight increases the amount of Arcane damage a Bloodborne character does; but in a tabletop hack, you could require certain thresholds of Insight for learning spells or simply make the roll to cast a spell additive with a character's Insight score to indicate higher Insight translates to greater facility with magic.









The thing I'm unsure of is how would you incorporate a shop where a character can spend Insight into this tabletop hack? Would you incorporate it at all? What would the justification be?

In terms of Beasthood, the gameplay mechanic is described as follows:

quote:

Beasthood is a stat in Bloodborne that determines your maximum damage multiplier while using the Beast Claw or after using a Beast Blood Pellet. A higher value in this stat determines how high you can push your attack damage while these effects are active, but also reduces your defense by an equal amount.

Details
Beasthood has inverse scaling with how much Insight is currently held by the character. The higher your insight the lower your Beasthood will be, and less Insight gives more Beasthood.
Equipping one or more Beast Runes will increase the Beasthood stat.
Attire will also increase Beasthood, the Ashen Hunter Set have the highest stat increase.

Equipping the Beast Claw and pressing L1 to transform it will give your character giant werewolf claws and activates the Beasthood state, indicated by a light brown smoke effect coming off your character. This effect lasts until the weapon is transformed back or switched out. Every attack made while the weapon is transformed will fill your Beasthood gauge by a little bit, which increases the damage you deal with each attack but also increases the damage you take by an equal amount. R2 attacks and L2 attacks will fill the meter faster than R1 attacks.

Using a Beast Blood Pellet will allow you to temporarily access the Beasthood meter with any weapon instead of just the Beast Claw. Note that most weapons have a hard time filling the Beasthood gauge because they cannot attack fast enough with R1s to keep it from emptying, forcing them to rely on R2 attacks instead.

Filling the meter does not have any effect aside from giving a limit on how high your damage increase can go.

http://bloodborne.wiki.fextralife.com/Beasthood

So perhaps the benefit of a high Beasthood stat would be transforming into a werewolf(beast), berserker rage, increased damage, feral senses (increased observation) to stalk prey or the like.

Increasing Beasthood/reducing Insight in the tabletop hack could be governed by overindulgence in blood, imbibing a potent beast's blood, or relentless killing perhaps.

Galaga Galaxian
Apr 23, 2009

What a childish tactic!
Don't you think you should put more thought into your battleplan?!


Here



You now know everything about Lasers & Feelings, for that is all of it.

long-ass nips Diane
Dec 13, 2010

Breathe.

Helical Nightmares posted:


News about the upcoming Delta Green book!

http://theunspeakableoath.com/home/2015/08/unspeakable-episode-21-delta-green-seminar-at-gen-con-2015/

Featuring:
-Less math in rolls!
-Fewer skills and a concomitant shift to using basic stats! For example: Want to take a picture under duress? Might take a Dex x5 roll rather than the Photography skill.
-Your skill level actually matters more than a roll! Have a 50 in Archaeology? You may get further insight into a scene automatically without rolling Spot Hidden!
-Combat is more lethal! Introducing Kill Chances! Grenades and mortars are loving deadly!
-Combat is more dangerous! You can be shaken and lose sanity!
-Gun fondling!
-Greg Stolze! Integrating the Sanity mechanics from Unknown Armies into Cthulhu!
-Bonds as sources of stability! Be like Martin Hart and take out your frustrations on your family to gain a small respite from the horrors of the Mythos! Who is the real monster now!?!


Take All My Money

They're also doing a standalone Gumshoe game about Delta Green from 1961-1971, written by Kenneth Hite, as an add-on for the Delta Green proper kickstarter next month. They're going to get however much it takes to get both of those in print out of me, at least.

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy

I'm pretty excited for Red Markets just by listening to it being talked about in RPPR. Lot of great ideas there.

bunnielab posted:

I had forgotten how polarizing D&D is. I have looked at some of the other games you guys suggested, but I don't see a lot of PBP games for them, and that will have to be how I play. I understand 4th ed is super polarizing, but honestly I cannot get past the minis/grid focus. It seems to be if I want something like that I might as well play a wargame or a skirmish mini game. Maybe I am overreacting though, which is why I am looking for a game to read. On that note:


Thanks!


And oddly enough, actual old D&D never appealed to me. It was 1st ed AD&D that won my heart. I keep finding stuff that I had completely forgotten about. Just the other day I bought the PDF for this old favorite:


So many tables :allears:

There's at least two AD&D PbP's going on in the game room so people are definitely down to play it if it ever comes up.

Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009

gradenko_2000 posted:

I'm pretty excited for Red Markets just by listening to it being talked about in RPPR. Lot of great ideas there.

The bits of Red Markets podcasts I have had the privilege of listening to as part of the Beta are just goddamn wonderful. I had to turn the podcast off when I realized it was 1 in the morning and I was laughing way to loud.

Elector_Nerdlingen
Sep 27, 2004



Swagger Dagger posted:

You should just run AD&D then.

Pretty much this. I was a big fan of AD&D in the early 90s and while I wouldn't want to try to run it RAW I'd definitely play again. You could also pick up Hackmaster 4th edition, which runs nearly the same if you ignore the parody aspects. For all its compleexity, the non-hosed layout makes it somewhat easier to run than AD&D.

The thing with modern games that try to capture the vibe of AD&D is that they tend to focus on one or two aspects instead of being a big rambling collection of weird poo poo. I found that Torchbearer plays very differently but produces the same kind of stories that my AD&D games used to produce - where somewhat competent people go into a dungeon, get hurt, get lost, get trapped, get scared, eventually try to run away, and then some of them make it back tot he surface wtih loot and the whole thing's really tense.

Covok
May 27, 2013

Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

AlphaDog posted:

Pretty much this. I was a big fan of AD&D in the early 90s and while I wouldn't want to try to run it RAW I'd definitely play again. You could also pick up Hackmaster 4th edition, which runs nearly the same if you ignore the parody aspects. For all its compleexity, the non-hosed layout makes it somewhat easier to run than AD&D.

The thing with modern games that try to capture the vibe of AD&D is that they tend to focus on one or two aspects instead of being a big rambling collection of weird poo poo. I found that Torchbearer plays very differently but produces the same kind of stories that my AD&D games used to produce - where somewhat competent people go into a dungeon, get hurt, get lost, get trapped, get scared, eventually try to run away, and then some of them make it back tot he surface wtih loot and the whole thing's really tense.

I think a big reason for this is that most modern games try to have a clear focus nowadays. Even generic system. What I mean is that a lot of well-made modern games can have the author's intent summed up in a simple sentence and you can work back from that to see where the ideas came from. Likely, it's a backlash against the 90s and early 00s where the idea of rules as physics were a thing and now designers go for a "fruitful void" mentality where they don't have a rule for everything, but enough to cover what's important and have it push its intent and goal forward.

Elector_Nerdlingen
Sep 27, 2004



Covok posted:

I think a big reason for this is that most modern games try to have a clear focus nowadays.

Yeah, for sure, and I like that sort of thing a lot more. That said, I do like AD&D the only thing stopping me from running it again is the fact that Hackmaster exists and does almost the same thing while being better laid out.

Like I said before, Torchebearer "feels like" AD&D in the sense of the same kinds of things happening in the world and to the characters. It captures my favorite part of the AD&D vibe. I'm a huge fan of Torchbearer but it doesn't "feel like" playing AD&D/Hackmaster in the sense of me, the player, doing similar sorts of things at the table.

bewilderment
Nov 22, 2007
man what



Galaga Galaxian posted:

Here



You now know everything about Lasers & Feelings, for that is all of it.

And in that sense, a Bloodborne hack for Lasers and Feelings because easy - Beasthood and Insight!
Roll beasthood when you're doing violent or instinctual things. Roll insight when you're doing high-minded or calmer things. Roll your number exactly and you have beastly insight!

LuiCypher
Apr 24, 2010

Today I'm... amped up!

bunnielab posted:

I had forgotten how polarizing D&D is. I have looked at some of the other games you guys suggested, but I don't see a lot of PBP games for them, and that will have to be how I play. I understand 4th ed is super polarizing, but honestly I cannot get past the minis/grid focus. It seems to be if I want something like that I might as well play a wargame or a skirmish mini game. Maybe I am overreacting though, which is why I am looking for a game to read. On that note:

More power to you for wanting to run 2nd edition - if you like it, you know your players like it, and you know that's the kind of game you want to run then it's the right system for you and your group. Full stop.

The only thing that confuses me are complaints about the minis/grids focus. D&D has always had that there lurking in the wings. Spell effects have a given range in feet/meters. Characters travel a certain number of feet/meters in a round. Where you are in the initiative order and where you are located is important, etc. Even a large number of 2nd edition adventures gave out a lot of maps with grids as well as precise measurements for things (which might necessitate a grid to resolve). Heck, even basic dungeon generation wants graph paper and squares for measurement. 4th edition just made it impossible to hand-wave and oddly enough, went back to the very origins of D&D (which was Chainmail and yes, a miniatures wargame) and modernized it.

LuiCypher fucked around with this message at 02:01 on Aug 17, 2015

Haystack
Jan 23, 2005





Spiderfist Island posted:

Also regarding PbPs: I'm considering getting Heroquest Glorantha 2E, but I want to see how it actually plays. Are there any PbPs or podcasts of gameplay sessions out there on the internet for it?

There's a reasonably long-running pbp on this very forum: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3653887

There's also a few pbps on rpggeek: here and here

If you have specific questions you can bother the resident glorantha nerds at #cowgame on synirc.net

shades of eternity
Nov 9, 2013

Where kitties raise dragons in the world's largest mall.


http://www.catthulhu.com/

my copy just arrived. :)

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

The 2014 Indie RPG Awards nominees have been announced. It's a pretty eclectic mix, but there's some cool stuff in there.

That Old Tree
Jun 24, 2012

nah


quote:

I'd just like to take this opportunity to say that what's been said about CthulhuTech in this thread is a) absolutely correct, and b) indefensible. My previous statements on the subject are similarly indefensible. All I can say is, going forward, we're going to do better. Don't take my word for it. We're developing a second edition now. The core book will be pay-what-you-want and/or Creative Commons, so you won't have to spend a dime to see for yourself. For those whose trust we've irrevocably lost, all I can say is I'm sorry. I look back on some of the things I said and some of the things we published, and I seriously don't know what I/we were thinking.

Well…huh. :unsmith:

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy
Some nice nominees in there. Schoolgirl RPG, Base Raiders, Blueholme I'm all familiar with.

potatocubed
Jul 26, 2012

*rathian noises*

I'll believe it when I see it, but if they do manage to create a new version that avoids all the pitfalls of the old more power to them.

LongDarkNight
Oct 25, 2010

It's like watching the collapse of Western civilization in fast forward.
Oven Wrangler

gradenko_2000 posted:

Some nice nominees in there. Schoolgirl RPG, Base Raiders, Blueholme I'm all familiar with.

Is SchoolgirlRPG like Maid without the rapeyness?

Plutonis
Mar 25, 2011

LongDarkNight posted:

Is SchoolgirlRPG like Maid without the rapeyness?

Maid is a lot of thing but it's not loving rapey.

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy

LongDarkNight posted:

Is SchoolgirlRPG like Maid without the rapeyness?

Yes, it's my understanding that that was its point.

gnome7
Oct 21, 2010

Who's this Little
Spaghetti?? ??

Evil Mastermind posted:

The 2014 Indie RPG Awards nominees have been announced. It's a pretty eclectic mix, but there's some cool stuff in there.

Oh hey, a game I wrote is on there! Nice. I'm a little surprised, Law's Out has had less than 100 sales, but thankfully "good sales" are not a requirement for a nomination.

Shoombo
Jan 1, 2013

gnome7 posted:

Oh hey, a game I wrote is on there! Nice. I'm a little surprised, Law's Out has had less than 100 sales, but thankfully "good sales" are not a requirement for a nomination.

I'm one of those sales, and it's a real shame more people haven't gotten it.

Everyone go buy Law's Out, it's a real good game.

Yawgmoth
Sep 10, 2003

This post is cursed!
Well, here's hoping. I'll probably give it a read to kill the mid-week doldrums if nothing else.

Flame112
Apr 21, 2011

TheLovablePlutonis posted:

Maid is a lot of thing but it's not loving rapey.

My only Maid experience is limited to the listening to the RPPR podcast where they read through the book but I'm pretty sure one of the examples of play in the book was a bunch of maids removing their (underage) master's clothes. Or maybe vice versa. Either way it's real weird and gross.

Plutonis
Mar 25, 2011

Flame112 posted:

My only Maid experience is limited to the listening to the RPPR podcast where they read through the book but I'm pretty sure one of the examples of play in the book was a bunch of maids removing their (underage) master's clothes. Or maybe vice versa. Either way it's real weird and gross.

Thats not weird at all you loving freak. The maid who worked on my home irl took my clothes off to bath all the time when I was a kid but the only one who porked her was dad which is why he got a divorce.

Splicer
Oct 16, 2006

from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸

TheLovablePlutonis posted:

Thats not weird at all you loving freak. The maid who worked on my home irl took my clothes off to bath all the time when I was a kid but the only one who porked her was dad which is why he got a divorce.
Well this was a post. Plutonis Explained.

Error 404
Jul 17, 2009


MAGE CURES PLOT

TheLovablePlutonis posted:

Thats not weird at all you loving freak. The maid who worked on my home irl took my clothes off to bath all the time when I was a kid but the only one who porked her was dad which is why he got a divorce.

If true, explains so much.

Reene
Aug 26, 2005

:justpost:

I didn't really get a rapey vibe from Maid at all when I played it. It was a lot of fun actually!

Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009
And they wonder why anime fans are socially shunned.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UUcGZ2u4Q1c

Countblanc
Apr 20, 2005

Help a hero out!

Helical Nightmares posted:

And they wonder why anime fans are socially shunned.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UUcGZ2u4Q1c

:shibe:

Plutonis
Mar 25, 2011

Yawgmoth
Sep 10, 2003

This post is cursed!

Helical Nightmares posted:

And they wonder why anime fans are socially shunned.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UUcGZ2u4Q1c
/click link
:wtc:
/close tab

Ewen Cluney
May 8, 2012

Ask me about
Japanese elfgames!

Helical Nightmares posted:

And they wonder why anime fans are socially shunned.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UUcGZ2u4Q1c
Even I don't know how to feel about the fact that Maid RPG got a huge boost in sales from that.

Retail Magic was the game that started as "let's do something non-pervy with the Maid RPG rules." Schoolgirl RPG started as an attempt to make the simplest Maid RPG variant possible, though I did make a point to keep it PG.

fool of sound
Oct 10, 2012

Helical Nightmares posted:

And they wonder why anime fans are socially shunned.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UUcGZ2u4Q1c

My surname irl is also Pantsu.

Effectronica
May 31, 2011
Fallen Rib

Error 404 posted:

If true, explains so much.

The fact that your parents apparently bathed you with clothes on is frightening to me.


theironjef
Aug 11, 2009

The archmage of unexpected stinks.

Reene posted:

I didn't really get a rapey vibe from Maid at all when I played it. It was a lot of fun actually!

It's super fun because it's fairly rules light and it's easy to ignore all the poo poo in it that's gross. If you dont, it's pretty easy to roll a character that's a Lolita-Lolita with a see-through uniform who "likes 'em young"

Plutonis
Mar 25, 2011

Ewen Cluney posted:

Even I don't know how to feel about the fact that Maid RPG got a huge boost in sales from that.

Retail Magic was the game that started as "let's do something non-pervy with the Maid RPG rules." Schoolgirl RPG started as an attempt to make the simplest Maid RPG variant possible, though I did make a point to keep it PG.

Ah that's cool man, its good that the game about pretending to be an underage schoolgirl is not sexual at all, otherwise it would be pretty weird haha

Reene
Aug 26, 2005

:justpost:

theironjef posted:

It's super fun because it's fairly rules light and it's easy to ignore all the poo poo in it that's gross. If you dont, it's pretty easy to roll a character that's a Lolita-Lolita with a see-through uniform who "likes 'em young"

IIRC in my playthrough Lolita was one of the things I got (we random rolled for it) and I just treated it like the Japanese fashion trend because that's probably what it's actually meant to be

There's some weird poo poo in there I guess, but nothing will save you from gross players.

theironjef
Aug 11, 2009

The archmage of unexpected stinks.

Reene posted:

IIRC in my playthrough Lolita was one of the things I got (we random rolled for it) and I just treated it like the Japanese fashion trend because that's probably what it's actually meant to be

That'd be nice, right? Except if you read the examples of play the Lolita character is like 9 and is obsessed with stealing the other example maid's panties.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Helical Nightmares
Apr 30, 2009

Ewen Cluney posted:

Even I don't know how to feel about the fact that Maid RPG got a huge boost in sales from that.

Retail Magic was the game that started as "let's do something non-pervy with the Maid RPG rules." Schoolgirl RPG started as an attempt to make the simplest Maid RPG variant possible, though I did make a point to keep it PG.

I thought Retail Magic was your take on a tabletop Recettear. Or was that something else?

  • Locked thread