Greg Stolze (Unknown Armies, One Roll Engine) Appreciation Station

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Greg Stolze (Unknown Armies, One Roll Engine) Appreciation Station

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Hugoon Chavez: Nov 4, 2011; THUNDERDOME LOSER

Evil Mastermind posted:

Soon...

https://twitter.com/GregStolze/status/699593846993321985?s=09

I'm going to put down so much money for this game I'll never play I am ashamed of myself.

# ? Feb 24, 2016 13:59

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# ? Jun 4, 2024 19:35

Kibner: Oct 21, 2008; Acguy Supremacy

Hugoon Chavez posted:

I'm going to put down so much money for this game I'll never play I am ashamed of myself.

It's ok. I'm sure you won't be alone in that.

# ? Feb 24, 2016 15:50

Doc Hawkins: Jun 15, 2010; Dashing? But I'm not even moving!

As rpgmancers we get minor charges by collecting game books without collecting friends to play them with.

# ? Feb 24, 2016 16:01

inklesspen: Oct 17, 2007; Here I am coming, with the good news of me, and you hate it. You can think only of the bell and how much I have it, and you are never the goose. I will run around with my bell as much as I want and you will make despair.; Buglord

So the Reign Enchiridion explains how to build new Esoteric Disciplines, Spells and Spell Schools, and monsters. But try as I might, I can't find any guidance on building new Martial Disciplines/Paths. Has anyone seen anything like this?

# ? Feb 24, 2016 16:16

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

Either it's in one of the free First/Second/Third Year of our Reign supplements, or Stolze said that he mostly made them by eyeballing it and trying to apply the same logic from Esoteric Disciplines...I'm honestly not sure which.

Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 16:41 on Feb 24, 2016

# ? Feb 24, 2016 16:38

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

No, Greg pretty much admits that there's no rules for martial paths beyond "eyeball it". I think it's because the utility of combat moves is more situational than non-combat skills.

# ? Feb 24, 2016 16:42

Strange Matter: Oct 6, 2009; Ask me about Genocide

inklesspen posted:

So the Reign Enchiridion explains how to build new Esoteric Disciplines, Spells and Spell Schools, and monsters. But try as I might, I can't find any guidance on building new Martial Disciplines/Paths. Has anyone seen anything like this?

Unfortunately not. If you study the Paths in Reign and in the supplements there isn't really a cohesive strategy behind them as there is with the Esoteric Disciplines, apart from the "Spread vs Stack" idea that Stolze rights about in the Reign corebook. It's pretty much "Does this seem cool and flavorful? Is it not too terribly overpowered? Great!"

I'm sure that you could reverse engineer a Build Your Own Martial Paths system but it wouldn't be easy.

I've cranked out 7 Martial Paths for the ORE Homebrew I'm working on, and they're all pretty much based around the idea of "do these at least seem like they are relatively balanced against the core Paths?"

# ? Feb 24, 2016 16:47

inklesspen: Oct 17, 2007; Here I am coming, with the good news of me, and you hate it. You can think only of the bell and how much I have it, and you are never the goose. I will run around with my bell as much as I want and you will make despair.; Buglord

Ok, sounds good. I'm going to have to make some wushu martial paths shortly, so I wanted to gather all available guidance on doing so. Thanks!

# ? Feb 24, 2016 17:52

Strange Matter: Oct 6, 2009; Ask me about Genocide

inklesspen posted:

Ok, sounds good. I'm going to have to make some wushu martial paths shortly, so I wanted to gather all available guidance on doing so. Thanks!

Would you be interested in sharing? I've been hammering away at some Paths (for a space-oriented adventure), and I'd love to compare notes with someone.

# ? Feb 24, 2016 18:37

inklesspen: Oct 17, 2007; Here I am coming, with the good news of me, and you hate it. You can think only of the bell and how much I have it, and you are never the goose. I will run around with my bell as much as I want and you will make despair.; Buglord

Here's one I just finished, by which I mean I have five discipline abilities which have had absolutely no playtesting and need to have costs assigned. Currently codenamed "serpent style"; it's based loosely on Sky (from Hero, played by Donnie Yen) and is designed to be used with Coordination + Weapon: Spear.

A skilled spear-warrior can effortlessly block the attacks of mooks with her spear: When fighting unworthy opponents, you may use Coordination + Spear to generate gobble dice as if you had rolled Body+Parry. The gobble dice is treated as having +1 Width for timing purposes.
By interposing your spear, you can keep all but the swiftest warrior from escaping your fury: If you attack someone, his free movement is reduced by 5 feet and his Body + Run rolls are treated as having -1 Width for timing purposes. Moreover, if your attack hits and causes your opponent to lose a die, at your option the opponent must select a Body + Run set. (This has no effect if the opponent makes only one action or has no Body + Run sets.)
The horse-hair tassel mounted just behind the blade of your spear is an excellent tool for distracting your enemy. You may ignore up to 1 die penalty for feinting as part of a multiple action.
You can act with amazing speed. all your coordination+weapon rolls are treated as +1 Width for timing purposes. (This does not stack with the special-case timing adjustments in any other ability granted by this path.)
By twisting the blade just so, you can pry away armor. If you use this and successfully attack, all killing damage which would be dealt by this attack is shock damage instead, but you permanently (until it can be repaired, anyway) remove 1 point of armor from the hit location. (This does not apply to discipline-granted armor such as from "Drunken Monkey", only to actual armor.)

The precise wording is a work in progress; feel free to suggest improvements if you want, but know that I know it needs improvement. Also feel free to suggest names for any of the techniques.

# ? Mar 6, 2016 23:15

Strange Matter: Oct 6, 2009; Ask me about Genocide

I think the second and third techniques could be switched, as the second power is actually pretty powerful in that you can pretty much shut down a fighter's ability to escape a fight completely; especially when combined with the fourth technique, where you can do it with extra speed.

The path itself is good, though. It's definitely capturing a the wuxia style that you're going for, where it's all about speed and flashy movements, with the fifth technique representing extreme precision. I can actually picture a kung-fu film where the spear fighter is gradually stripping away his enemy's armor as it goes on. Very evocative. I wonder though if that last skill is a little underpowered. There are plenty of lower-level techniques in other paths can ignore or negate armor and deal full damage. You could instead make it like Shield Riving, the 3-Point technique for the Broadcutter's Path in the firsts Reign supplement. That deals no damage but destroys Width in armor. Since this is a 5-Point technique, you could probably get away with it dealing Shock as well as Width in armor destruction. That's just my thought process though.

How about instead of Serpent Style you go with something like Scorpion Style? The techniques you've made to me might evoke a scorpion's tale striking rapidly better.

# ? Mar 8, 2016 04:17

inklesspen: Oct 17, 2007; Here I am coming, with the good news of me, and you hate it. You can think only of the bell and how much I have it, and you are never the goose. I will run around with my bell as much as I want and you will make despair.; Buglord

Well, that's why it's a codename. (I have another style codenamed "scorpion"; it dual-wields jian and revolver.)

Also, like I said, they don't yet have costs assigned so they're not yet in order. (Also the fourth technique explicitly doesn't stack with the second one; how can I make that more clear?) I do think the feinting one ought to be on the cheaper side.

# ? Mar 8, 2016 04:59

Strange Matter: Oct 6, 2009; Ask me about Genocide

I'd say go Feint, Mook Blocking, Interpose, +Speed and Armor Stripping.

As far as language for +Speed, all you need to say is "This technique doesn't affect the speed of any other martial techniques along this path", in the same way that you largely already have.

Here's a Path I've put together that I'm somewhat uncertain about. It's a path for heavy or great weapons that isn't particularly picky about what kind of weapon you use, as long as it's real big. As a result it uses Body + Weapon instead of Coordination, as strength is as important if not more so than dexterity.

I'm just wondering here if I'm making this path too damaging. It's mitigated somewhat in that most of the techniques have a -1 Width for timing purposes penalty, but it may be overpowered still.

Full Swing (1 Point): A Full Swing attack trades speed for damage. During the Resolve phase, your attack acts as if it has one less Width for speed purposes, but one more Width for damage.

Unstoppable Cleaving (2 Points): As Full Swing. In addition, you won�t lose a die from your Set when you�re hit by an enemy attack.

Follow Through (3 Points): As Full Swing. You can Declare two targets for your attack. This differs from performing Multiple Actions because you use the same set for both victims. You need to specify who gets hit first: if the first target successfully Blocks your attack, the attack will fail against both foes.

Giant Impact (4 Points): Any attack you make with your heavy weapon penetrates up to AR1. If your attack is successfully Blocked, your opponent will take 1 Shock to the hit location that sustained the block.

When using Full Swing, you can penetrate up to AR3, and inflict Width in Shock when your attack is Blocked. This technique�s penetration only affects armor provided by equipment. It�s not effective against armor granted by Martial Techniques.

Cut Them Down to Size (5 Points): As Full Swing. As long as you�re facing a foe of equal or greater size to yourself, you can squish your Body + Weapon Set�s Height downwards, at a rate of 2 Height for 1 Width.

This has the effect of allowing you to turn any attack (against a foe with conventional hit locations, at any rate) that would normally hit an enemy in the torso or head into an even more powerful attack against their arms or legs. Since this technique can only be used when you�re Full Swinging, it will resolve one Width slower than it normally would, but it allows you to rack up truly immense sums of damage.

Here's the fluff:

quote:

Titanomachy
This extreme form of combat training has its roots in the Quarantine Fleet that stands between civilized space and the wild onslaught of Metacoral-born monstrosities that dwell within the Reef. Anthogens, the half-plant, half-animal footsoldiers of the Metacoral, are highly resistant to most forms of ranged attack, including directed energy, guided explosives and even old-fashioned projectile guns. Quarantine hunters therefore engage their quarry at close quarters. This became increasingly difficult as whatever intelligence guides the Metacoral adapted its approach and began engineering anthogens of immense size, against which an entire battalion of hunters were risked.

In response, inventive hunters lacking in self-preservation instincts came up with a straightforward solution to the problem of bigger foes: bigger weapons. Man-sized swords, axes, spears and hammers that before seemed like gimmicks or showpieces suddenly filled, or rather smashed into, a vital niche. The techniques and arduous training needed to master these otherwise impractical arms became Titanomachy, the school of giant slaying. Though these techniques were invented for use against adversaries much larger than the user, there�s nothing to stop a hunter from employing them against foes his own size-- to devastating effect.

Titanomachy uses Body + Weapon Skill, and can be used with any kind of heavy or great weapon. Hunters in the Quarantine Fleet prefer massive swords and axes, but some have found use for immense clubs and hammers, and the techniques of Titanomachy are just as useful. Since Titanomachy uses such weapons, it�s impossible to make use of these techniques with less than 4d in Body.

Unless otherwise stated, Titanomachy technique can�t be used with multiple actions, only as single attacks.

# ? Mar 8, 2016 20:49

Strange Matter: Oct 6, 2009; Ask me about Genocide

Sorry for the double posting:

I'm really looking for some input on these rules I wrote for Spacecraft Construction in REIGN. Dropbox Link.

The overall idea is actually a mix between REIGN and Monsters and Other Childish Things. You start with drawing or choosing a picture of your ship and figuring out its hit locations, then how well built, big, and crewed it is and how far it can go, and then what each of its locations does. Beyond that, a Craft is built like a character: they don't have Stats but they do have Systems (Skills), which you roll along with a character's Flight Skills (like Pilot, Engineering and Combat). They also have Features (Advantages) and their own Problems, which I'm currently working on.

Thoughts? Input? I definitely need to flesh out the Problems some more but I'm pretty happy with what I have.

# ? Mar 16, 2016 19:27

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

The Unknown Armies 3e Kickstarter is live. $100 gets you all three books in physical and digital format. The drafts are available in the first update.

Evil Mastermind fucked around with this message at 21:17 on Mar 30, 2016

# ? Mar 30, 2016 21:13

long-ass nips Diane: Dec 13, 2010; Breathe.

The same admonishing text at the beginning of the combat rules, I can't wait to see a whole new generation of people complaining about it.

# ? Mar 30, 2016 21:41

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

Swagger Dagger posted:

The same admonishing text at the beginning of the combat rules, I can't wait to see a whole new generation of people complaining about it.

Oh, they're gonna have something even "worse" to complain about.

quote:

<hs1>The Trigger Warning</hs1>
When I was first getting started, some books had boilerplate alerts��it�s all fiction, mature audiences, for entertainment purposes only��but �trigger warning� hadn�t yet entered the national lexicon. This is, among other things, a horror game. Obviously, it has horrifying material in it. At one point, it�s got overt cultural imperialism and ghosts and class warfare and cannibalism all bundled together. (That�s in book two.) It�s a horror game about people, so we touch on a lot of the vileness people do.

That almost sounds like bragging, doesn�t it? �Our horror is SOOOO horrible it�s, like, double horror.� I don�t want to exploit human evil for profit and entertainment, but there is something in me that craves these stories. Something that feels like a balance is redressed when a plot says �No, sometimes the wolf wins, people are capable of the utmost evil, there is darkness and it looks like this.�

It�s not universal, but I find that a lot of horror fans are people whose lives haven�t been all sweetness and light and net positive outcomes. We relish this material because it takes our trepidation seriously. �Yes, you should be scared! The world is scary! Anyone who tells you different probably wants to get you!� If you�re in that category, I wish your life had been easier. Then again, the old saying goes �poo poo in one hand and wish in the other: See which fills up first!� Instead of impotently wishing the past wasn�t the past, I�m offering an engine for telling stories, because sometimes telling a story about our hurts and regrets and fears makes them more manageable and less immediate. But if you fear that the foulness we deliberately engage on these pages is going to make your pain less manageable and more immediate, do what you have to do. Give it a miss, or read it alone first, or whatever.

Tabletop roleplaying has a dimension beyond a simple text though. If you play Unknown Armies, there are also the other people at the table, and they may bring in thorny issues that aren�t in this book. Maybe they�re grappling with something on their own, maybe they don�t understand what it means to someone else, or maybe they just like shock value.

Sometimes, I like shock value. As a horror writer, sometimes you just want to gross people out. If things at the table overwhelm you, excuse yourself and either make an excuse or tell the other people �I can�t face _______. Didn�t want to interrupt the game, but there it is. Can�t do it.� If you can go forward and get things back to where you�re glad to participate, good on you, but no game is worth any participant�s misery. This isn�t Omelas.

If things at the table overwhelm someone else, be cool. The point of the game is to be interesting and involving and dramatic and (yes) fun, so if someone is actually suffering because of the game, it�s off the rails. Don�t blame the passenger for the train wreck, and don�t blame me�I just lay track. Do, however, try to get it back on course. Maybe build in a detour, or maybe give the distressed player a little time to get it together and see if you can find a way forward and through.

Some of UA�s scary stuff is made up from whole cloth, which is no doubt part of the appeal. You can get your frisson on and then, when it�s over, put it in the box labeled �Not Real� and go on with your day. But some of the stuff in here happens all the time. For some people, human trafficking and murder and racism are way too real. Treating real tragedies the same way one treats imaginary monsters can rub people the wrong way, hard, if they�ve got personal history with those tragedies. In many ways, horror monsters stand in for real traumas we can�t touch and confront and stake through the heart. Know who you�re playing with to get the balance between the realistic and the fantastic right.

That said, if someone chooses to play this game, triggers and all, they�re indicating a willingness to engage the unexpected. Respect that. If they warn you off a particular topic, (�No rape for me, thanks!�) respect that. Get on the same page.

If someone tells you they don�t want X and you decide to give them extra X? Put this book down and get a therapist, you�ve got bad issues.

Even the simplest RPGs can veer into dark territory unexpectedly, and Unknown Armies wasn�t designed for clear, straightforward Good Vs. Eeevil. That puts it at particular risk of disturbing people. But I think the intensity and depth of its stories are worth it. I hope you agree.

# ? Mar 30, 2016 21:49

fez_machine: Nov 27, 2004

Oh boy just from reading a few the first pages, anybody who has a stick up their butt about tone, or being 'talked down to', is going to have a major problem with one.

"If you don�t want to play a game about supernatural assassins trying to hunt down the
Secret King of the CIA, don�t pick that. I know people are going to pick bad objectives and then
whine about it like it�s the game�s fault they couldn�t commit to anything worthy of sustained attention.
You don�t have to be one of them."

# ? Mar 30, 2016 22:11

Jenx: Oct 17, 2012; Behold the Bull of Heaven!

To be fair - none of these are wrong. UA is, in fact, quite disturbing at times. It's what makes it stand out and be memorable - it's a horror game of actual, genuine horror. Not "ooh skeletons!" or "Boo, it's a thing with tentacles on it!". It's "You know that guy down the street from you? He actually raped, murdered and ritually devoured three high school kids." Which, unfortunately, does happen sometimes.

# ? Mar 30, 2016 23:39

Capntastic: Jan 13, 2005; A dog begins eating a dusty old coil of rope but there's a nail in it.

Swagger Dagger posted:

The same admonishing text at the beginning of the combat rules, I can't wait to see a whole new generation of people complaining about it.

Does it still have the "before murdering other humans, have you considered (talking to them, calling the cops, running away)"?

Also backed it for the books because I gotta have my Compleat Stolze

# ? Mar 31, 2016 00:14

Kai Tave: Jul 2, 2012; Fallen Rib

Jenx posted:

To be fair - none of these are wrong. UA is, in fact, quite disturbing at times. It's what makes it stand out and be memorable - it's a horror game of actual, genuine horror. Not "ooh skeletons!" or "Boo, it's a thing with tentacles on it!". It's "You know that guy down the street from you? He actually raped, murdered and ritually devoured three high school kids." Which, unfortunately, does happen sometimes.

Of course it's not wrong to have a thing in your game stating "hey, sometimes people get uncomfortable about certain disturbing subjects, if the game is making them uncomfortable they're free to say so and you should try to keep things fun and comfortable for everyone" but you know this is going to result in a million snide blog posts about "Ugh, now RPGs have to come with trigger warnings for the tumblrinas."

# ? Mar 31, 2016 00:22

Echophonic: Sep 16, 2005; ha;lp; Gun Saliva

Evil Mastermind posted:

The Unknown Armies 3e Kickstarter is live. $100 gets you all three books in physical and digital format. The drafts are available in the first update.

52k and a Kickstarter "projects we love" badge. Not too shabby.

I'm getting it all. :getin:

Echophonic fucked around with this message at 00:27 on Mar 31, 2016

# ? Mar 31, 2016 00:23

SunAndSpring: Dec 4, 2013

So how are the mechanics changing in this edition?

# ? Mar 31, 2016 02:29

Echophonic: Sep 16, 2005; ha;lp; Gun Saliva

SunAndSpring posted:

So how are the mechanics changing in this edition?

The one that jumps out at me is that the core stuff seems more like FATE or 13th Age approaches and stunts/aspects than a normal crunchy percentile skill system. So you have your UA stress tracks (Violence, Helplessness, Self, Isolation, and Unnatural) and your fallback 'skills' are based on your open and hard marks in said tracks. Each has an upbeat and a downbeat ability. Violence, for example, has Connect based on open marks and Struggle for hardened. So you get worse at dealing with people like a normal person as you get more inured to violence and savagery.

At the same time, you have 2-4 identities that can be used in place of a specific ability and grant other perks, like protecting gauges and knowing how to shoot/forge/electrician your way out of problems. Like, if you're a Lawyer, you can use that to obfuscate, inveigle, and deceive instead of Lie (which is based on hardened notches in Self). Or you can say "of course I can fast-talk my way through this, I'm a lawyer" and just get away with it for more basic stuff.

In addition to your basic abilities and identities, you have relationships with people and organizations. These are typed (mentor, guru, favorite, etc) and can be used to protect gauges and the like. This also includes most interaction rolls with said person.

I'm not as deep into UA as a lot of folks to talk about the real deep differences, but this definitely seems like a much cleaner system.

Echophonic fucked around with this message at 03:02 on Mar 31, 2016

# ? Mar 31, 2016 02:59

long-ass nips Diane: Dec 13, 2010; Breathe.

Kai Tave posted:

Of course it's not wrong to have a thing in your game stating "hey, sometimes people get uncomfortable about certain disturbing subjects, if the game is making them uncomfortable they're free to say so and you should try to keep things fun and comfortable for everyone" but you know this is going to result in a million snide blog posts about "Ugh, now RPGs have to come with trigger warnings for the tumblrinas."

What's funny is that I've seen this advice in several games already and nobody complains, this is just the first time I've seen it explicitly use the term "trigger warning," which is what's going to bring out the crazies.

# ? Mar 31, 2016 03:35

Mr. Belding: May 19, 2006; ^
|
<- IS LAME-O PHOBE ->
|
V

Maybe it's sacrilege but I kind of wish he'd just ditch the ORE for this and do the damned thing in FATE.

Then again, perhaps if the best setting of all time and the best system of all time were to collide the universe would hit peak fun. Future fun would be harder and harder to get at, as all of the easy to reach would have already been had. The price of fun would skyrocket and the world's poor would have to choose between fun and dinner on the table. Oh well.

# ? Mar 31, 2016 03:58

inklesspen: Oct 17, 2007; Here I am coming, with the good news of me, and you hate it. You can think only of the bell and how much I have it, and you are never the goose. I will run around with my bell as much as I want and you will make despair.; Buglord

Unknown Armies is a percentile dice system; the only thing it has in common with ORE is that they both use d10.

# ? Mar 31, 2016 03:59

Mr. Belding: May 19, 2006; ^
|
<- IS LAME-O PHOBE ->
|
V

inklesspen posted:

Unknown Armies is a percentile dice system; the only thing it has in common with ORE is that they both use d10.

Ahh, it's been ages sense I read it. I was really taken with the ideas of lunatic wizards and incorporated a lot of it into my own games but never properly played it.

# ? Mar 31, 2016 04:05

Elfgames: Sep 11, 2011; Fun Shoe

Swagger Dagger posted:

The same admonishing text at the beginning of the combat rules, I can't wait to see a whole new generation of people complaining about it.

Anyone complaining about a paragraph of text talking about the consequences of combat in a game subtitled "A game of power and consequences" is an actual idiot.

also seven ways to stop a fight is legitimately one of the best sections in any rpg.

# ? Mar 31, 2016 06:43

Goa Tse-tung: Feb 11, 2008; ;3; Yams Fan

Echophonic posted:

52k and a Kickstarter "projects we love" badge. Not too shabby.

I'm getting it all.

77k already and same

I think I'll update to the deluxe once they add the reward level (I guess they got funded too quickly lol)

# ? Mar 31, 2016 08:27

oriongates: Mar 14, 2013; Validate Me!

Elfgames posted:

Anyone complaining about a paragraph of text talking about the consequences of combat in a game subtitled "A game of power and consequences" is an actual idiot.

also seven ways to stop a fight is legitimately one of the best sections in any rpg.

I admit the very first time I read it, it came on a little strong for me...but when I reread UA for my F&F entry on it I really came to appreciate what that entry was trying to express and how well done it was. It was trying to point out the many ways that UA is not your typical RPG (and not in the "oh, we're so innovative and creative, it's not for you sheeple" way) and that this was not the game for playing Ash, or Buffy or even superheroes with fangs. It was a game about human beings...just human beings. Not humans fighting monsters, not monsters fighting worse monsters. It was all about humans...and if you make a habit of killing other human beings there are consequences: physical, psychological and social.

That said, I think that the last sentence may have come on a tad strong and perhaps is where a good deal of the "Don't you judge me Stolze!" stuff comes from.

In many ways, I think UA is a game that benefits a lot from reading it, then putting it down for a while and then reading it again. The tone and themes of the game became so much clearer to me on a second reading and I began to understand that many things I initially took as odd clashes were not. For instance, my first reaction to adepts like the Pornomancer or the Dipsomancer was "hah, look at this weird magic!
Drunken master wizards!"

On a second reading it really became very clear to me just how deeply hosed up the material being presented was (in a good way, if that can be said) and that none of it was meant as wacky or goofy. Maybe I just grew up a bit between the first time I read it and the second, or maybe the second reading really hit me a bit stronger. Not sure.

# ? Mar 31, 2016 09:16

Lichtenstein: May 31, 2012; It'll make sense, eventually.

Anything known about magick schools/bringing the setting out of 90s?

# ? Mar 31, 2016 09:18

inklesspen: Oct 17, 2007; Here I am coming, with the good news of me, and you hate it. You can think only of the bell and how much I have it, and you are never the goose. I will run around with my bell as much as I want and you will make despair.; Buglord

Yeah, they look pretty sweet. There's GNOMON, the adept school based on being Anonymous; Fulminaturgy, which is based on 2nd Amendment gun fondling; Cameraturgy, aka "you idiots with your digital cameras don't know what photography is really about"; Cinemancy, aka "This Troper". You get the picture.

(Edit: There's also guidance for constructing your own adept schools.)

inklesspen fucked around with this message at 13:33 on Mar 31, 2016

# ? Mar 31, 2016 13:28

Flavivirus: Dec 14, 2011; The next stage of evolution.

Lichtenstein posted:

Anything known about magick schools/bringing the setting out of 90s?

So every magick school is completely new, and most of the avatar paths are also new - for example there's no Pornomancer in the book but you can be a full-fledged avatar of the Naked Goddess instead. Here's the new schools:

GNOMON: Starting off with a weird one! GNOMON is some kind of hidden intelligence accessible only on certain websites. You feed it information about you in the form of personality quizzes, social security numbers, letting it use your body for its needs. In exchange it gives you information and correlations about things, allows you to swap places with any other GNOMON operative, and does all kinds of weird stuff with information and identity. Taboo when you have a moment of genuine emotion or passion.
Fulminaturgy: the magic of firearms. They either use firearms as a signifier of civilisation, tabooing if they actually shoot anyone, or use them as signifiers of individual power vs encroaching authority and taboo if they are ever disarmed or leave a house or vehicle unarmed. Either way, they also taboo if someone takes their totem gun. They gain minor charges for open carrying, significant charges for secretly carrying, and major charges by making a gun completely from scratch or designing a gun that shapes civilisation - e.g. AK-47, Gatling gun, Winchester lever-action. Their magick is all about individual authority and independence - people must take you seriously, you can threaten people, you can resist panic. They can turn themselves into a gun, shooting by pointing at people, though this taboos them.
Motumancy: flag burners and anarchists trying to free by force and bring happiness to the populace they despise. They charge by testing their limits, taking stress checks themselves or forcing them on others. They taboo by participating in any activity that would create a lasting structure or order. For magick, you get abilities to break down systems, stir up trouble, and generally make things nasty for people - most spells revolve around understanding the labels people have for their beliefs, editing or revoking those labels and causing them to broadcast their labels subconsciously. Pretty nasty - it's the school for internet harassment and hate groups.
Viaturgy: road magick. Where the rubber meets the road, where freedom calls out over the horizon, where a beaten-up junker can still change your life if you could just get it running. They charge by travel - going long distances in a single sitting, sleeping somewhere they've never been before, performing mind-bogglingly dangerous stunts. They're the masters of their own travel, though, and taboo if they're ever in a motor vehicle being driven or piloted by someone else. Spells involve summoning passengers, getting your passengers to behave, causing cars to stop or go, and turning onto the ghost roads and allowing you to drive on the astral plane. Higher-level effects include cursing someone to be hit by traffic, teleporting to somewhere that's drivable from where you are, and magickally restoring a car to health.
Cameraturgy: the power of the film camera to cage light, freeze time and alchemize memories into paper, and in so doing make the image that tells whatever truth you want. Charge by taking and developing good photos - on film, not on digital - and taboo by going a day without taking photos, having your gallery be burgled, or using a digital camera of any sort. Use spells to make people revisit moments of pain they were photographed in the middle of, make instant photo ID, cut out a photo's eyes to cause major damage, or even steal souls.
Cinemancy: technically film magic, but really it's magic. Charge by acting out stock characters, getting others to reenact cliches, and so on. Taboo by seeing the beginning of a cliche and not finishing it - you must ram fruit carts in car chases, pursue a romcom plot if you have a meet cute with someone, etc. Spells are pretty powerful to compensate, mostly by making movie cliches real - knock out someone instantly with chloroform, keep shooting without having to worry about how many bullets you have left, ignore non-lethal injuries (so long as you make a pun or joke about the injury), perform hollywood hacking, etc.
Sociomancy: members of a subculture (trekkies, neo-nazis, evangelicals, whatever) who believe that the subculture itself exists as a meta-organism composed out of its adherents. They try to manipulate this group consciousness and draw power from it - charge by obsessing over the subculture, whether that's by binging Lost or speaking in Klingon, and taboo by being alone for more than one hour (except while sleeping). Their magic brings the tools of the subculture to you (example is a Juggalo summoning face paint), blending into a crowd, ostracising someone, downloading knowledge from the group conciousness or swapping places with other members of the group.
Vestimancy: clothing magick! Counter to Fulminancy, they'd say it's clothes that make civilisation, not guns. Garments are symbols of our role in society and are thick with meaning - this school revolves around creating them or buying particularly meaningful clothing, and it's noted they spend a lot of time hunting for the clothes people died in and surfing eBay for wedding dresses. Their taboo is that they can't be seen naked by anyone - even wearing a single garment violates taboo, but socks and briefs would be ok. Their magick boosts the power of protective clothing, curses a garmet to hurt the next person who wears it, use your magick skill in place of a job you're wearing the uniform for, and learn things about people and places from the memories of the garment. At higher levels you can make invisibility cloaks, wolfskin coats that turn you into a wolf, wings that turn you into a swan, and so on.
Agrimancy: landbreakers who fetishize mankind's ability to tame the natural world, making it serve them and reap what they sow. To charge you have to reap - slaughter something you raised from infancy, getting more power from a steer than from a dog and getting most from an adult child. You taboo if nature fights back - any weather bad enough to make you roll or any harm from a wild animal will do it. Their magick protects people from harm, halts aging, predicts the future from nature, and domesticates and boosts animals.

Agrimancy's really cool to me, although I can imagine its effectiveness really varies depending on campaign pace. Overall I think the power of adepts to get ridiculous levels of mojo by risking everything has been somewhat toned down, and where it does occur it does so in interesting rather than game-derailing ways. I like a lot of the new schools and it's interesting to see the similarities between these and the old ones - Cameraturgy's very similar to bibliomancy, Sociomancy takes a few cues from Personamancy and Cliomancy, and Cinemancy is in many ways a 'fixed' version of Videomancy - they explicitly call out why TV shows don't work for this school.

Flavivirus fucked around with this message at 14:16 on Mar 31, 2016

# ? Mar 31, 2016 14:12

long-ass nips Diane: Dec 13, 2010; Breathe.

Lichtenstein posted:

Anything known about magick schools/bringing the setting out of 90s?

All of the flavor text reads like it was written last week, so in a decade it's going to be dated to right now just as hard as 2e is dated to the early 00's. The "GM Secrets" book has an entry on ASMR, of all things.

Also, all of the old adept schools are referenced in the book, and the text implies that they wouldn't need much converting or anything, although I haven't taken a close look to see if that's actually the case.

# ? Mar 31, 2016 14:31

Flavivirus: Dec 14, 2011; The next stage of evolution.

Swagger Dagger posted:

All of the flavor text reads like it was written last week, so in a decade it's going to be dated to right now just as hard as 2e is dated to the early 00's. The "GM Secrets" book has an entry on ASMR, of all things.

Yeah, I'd definitely agree with this - the setting and the magick has definitely been updated to modern culture, which is awesome but comes with significant drawbacks. On the other hand the system's a lot more flexible and customisable now, and the system for building your own magick school looks pretty robust. The actual mechanics of how adepts and avatars work seem pretty identical to 2e and 1e, so I'd imagine that they could be ported across with only the balance problems they had already.

# ? Mar 31, 2016 14:36

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

I actually kinda love Cinemancy, because yeah it's TVTropes: The Magic School, but at the same time it's a brilliant idea to have a school of magic based around exploiting how everyone "knows" things work because "that's how it works in movies".

It's like that old saw about how people in car accidents getting injured worse because people pull them from the wreck, because everyone knows that cars that crash can catch fire and blow up.

e: and the whole "hacking is just typing really hard" thing reminds me of one of my favorite Onion articles.

# ? Mar 31, 2016 14:39

Jenx: Oct 17, 2012; Behold the Bull of Heaven!

I remember QI discussed this in one episode - the main reason people fall down when they are shot? Because they've seen it on TV, in movies and everywhere else. They just know that when you're shot you fall over, because that's what happens. And in a lot of cases, people who have been shot (and it hasn't killed them on the spot, obviously), but don't know it yet remain standing...until they notice they've been shot, and fall over.

# ? Mar 31, 2016 14:45

Strange Matter: Oct 6, 2009; Ask me about Genocide

Flavivirus posted:

So every magick school is completely new, and most of the avatar paths are also new - for example there's no Pornomancer in the book but you can be a full-fledged avatar of the Naked Goddess instead. Here's the new schools:

Viaturgy: road magick. Where the rubber meets the road, where freedom calls out over the horizon, where a beaten-up junker can still change your life if you could just get it running. They charge by travel - going long distances in a single sitting, sleeping somewhere they've never been before, performing mind-bogglingly dangerous stunts. They're the masters of their own travel, though, and taboo if they're ever in a motor vehicle being driven or piloted by someone else. Spells involve summoning passengers, getting your passengers to behave, causing cars to stop or go, and turning onto the ghost roads and allowing you to drive on the astral plane. Higher-level effects include cursing someone to be hit by traffic, teleporting to somewhere that's drivable from where you are, and magickally restoring a car to health.

Holy crap, it's real

# ? Mar 31, 2016 14:50

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# ? Jun 4, 2024 19:35

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

Evil Mastermind posted:

I actually kinda love Cinemancy, because yeah it's TVTropes: The Magic School, but at the same time it's a brilliant idea to have a school of magic based around exploiting how everyone "knows" things work because "that's how it works in movies".

...

e: and the whole "hacking is just typing really hard" thing reminds me of one of my favorite Onion articles.

Being an adept would be worth it just to get the microfiche to stop exactly where you want it to. Do you know how hard that is?!

# ? Mar 31, 2016 15:00

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Greg Stolze (Unknown Armies, One Roll Engine) Appreciation Station

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