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Capntastic posted:Adepts headbutt reality into getting what they want from their personal obsessions. They don't care about the zeitgeist at all. You can be the only person in the world who cares about pogs and still have one hell of a Slammer whammy. I don't think any adepts could weather society changing in such a way as to make their school irrelevant without having a breakdown. It would just be a lot harder for some schools than others. (For example, how could the precepts of Epideromancy or Entropomancy be made irrelevant, barring some transhuman singularity?) oriongates posted:Of course, with videomancers the death of the school is largely just a matter of the mechanics of their school screwing them over. It was pointed out in Fatal and Friends that in modern broadcast TV you easily get screwed on the whole "miss no reruns" part of their Taboo. There's just too many shows being broadcast on too many channels for many of them to keep up, getting them trapped by their own obsession and then helpless due to constantly breaking taboo. GimpInBlack posted:At a guess? A series of cascading Self tests every time they have to violate their taboo because the zeitgeist no longer supports their idiom.
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Apr 5, 2016 03:55
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Goddamn, I love the new ed more and more each day I think about it. Stuff I wasn't fully convinced about initially seems smarter and better once I got over it just being different. The new adept schools are good and fun, but feel more like a supplement bundle than a new baseline - apart from the brilliant GNOMON they lack the true  factor, erring on the side of easy come easy go variety. Thankfully the evergreen oldies are portable with little to no effort, so there's little to complain here. And GNOMON is really, really baller.Similarly, the Whisper War and March 3 2003 changes feel like interesting shake-ups of status quo for UA veterans, but not as cool on their own like the OG versions of the factions. If I ever get to run this (ha, ha, ha) I'd probably want to start with the factions as they were and break them down sometime along the campaign - but then again, 2003 and 2008 are so darn good milestones for shakeups. Then again, Comte/Freak switcheroo is a great unexpected twist to drop to challenge what the players were told all along and the Panama Papers affair could also work as a final nail in TNI's coffin (especially given the motif of major breach of trust). I hope Atlas drops some character sheets/cheat sheets soon after kickstarter closes, because gamma version document having no table of contents and poo poo makes it kinda clunky to try and work in practice. Lichtenstein fucked around with this message at 08:14 on Apr 5, 2016 |
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Apr 5, 2016 08:07
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Lichtenstein posted:I hope Atlas drops some character sheets/cheat sheets soon after kickstarter closes, because gamma version document having no table of contents and poo poo makes it kinda clunky to try and work in practice. Supposedly the character sheets are coming today. One for adepts, one for avatars, and one for everyone else.
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Apr 5, 2016 22:04
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Swagger Dagger posted:Supposedly the character sheets are coming today. One for adepts, one for avatars, and one for everyone else. Character sheets just dropped--they're in the same backer folder as the playtest drafts. Maybe I'm just undercaffeinated, but the shock gauge/abilities section took me a while to parse, though once I got my head around it it works pretty well. The avatar/adept sections feel like they're trading usability for flavor--I don't see how you can fit useful information about taboos or spell/channel effects in those tiny-rear end boxes. Granted my handwriting is poo poo, but still. A second page for adept and avatar stuff would probably be more helpful. That said, the sheets look really cool.
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Apr 6, 2016 16:46
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Holy poo poo those charsheets 
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Apr 6, 2016 16:49
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Yeah those character sheets...I don't like them. Like, not at all. So much space is wasted on useless stuff, there's basically no space to write anything relevant, unless you have very small and tiny handwriting. I dunno, I suspect it's just me and my love for minimalism, but these are basically useless for me.
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Apr 6, 2016 18:34
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Oh wow, you aren't kidding at all. Those are straight up hideous examples of design over function. I would definitely hack together my own sheet to display that data.
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Apr 6, 2016 18:49
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Old UA was amazing because you could fit your character sheet on a cocktail napkin. Does the new edition change things up enough that you now need a whole 8 & 1/2 x 11?
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Apr 6, 2016 19:27
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I always thought that the whole thing about magick schools "Dying" wasn't that the adepts themselves would lose power but that they aren't getting much new blood and would die out that way.
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Apr 6, 2016 19:34
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Elfgames posted:I always thought that the whole thing about magick schools "Dying" wasn't that the adepts themselves would lose power but that they aren't getting much new blood and would die out that way. I imagine that for practical purposes that probably kills most, if not all, dying schools. Cryptomancy is such a small school anyway that it'll likely lose all its active adepts due to death or madness before it actually becomes completely powerless...but the loss of power is certainly going to help them die off faster.
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Apr 6, 2016 19:37
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GladRagKraken posted:Old UA was amazing because you could fit your character sheet on a cocktail napkin. Does the new edition change things up enough that you now need a whole 8 & 1/2 x 11? The new version is even more compact than the old, but is different enough that you do need a new sheet.
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Apr 6, 2016 19:52
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Australia would still have a ton of Videomancers. We recently went from 7 to 15 broadcast channels, everyone gets together to watch (and tweet about) MasterChef and soap operas, barely anyone has 'FOXTEL' (cable), Netflix just got started and is cracking down on VPNs... I mean it's a living nightmare for real people, but for Adepts obsessed with cooking shows, home renovation shows and soap operas it must be heaven. Wouldn't sports-obsessed Videomancers still work fine? Or could they just switch to watching the same viral video/Netflix binge as everyone else the second it drops? Count Chocula fucked around with this message at 03:39 on Apr 7, 2016 |
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Apr 7, 2016 03:37
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Count Chocula posted:Australia would still have a ton of Videomancers. We recently went from 7 to 15 broadcast channels, everyone gets together to watch (and tweet about) MasterChef and soap operas, barely anyone has 'FOXTEL' (cable), Netflix just got started and is cracking down on VPNs... From a mechanical perspective there are still charging sources for Videomancers (especially, as you say, internationally). Things like news shows don't really have re-runs which means no minor charges but a safe, reliable shot of significant charges. Sports much the same. From a thematic perspective they're in trouble. As their theme has always revolved around Television as a link to the collective unconsciousness, gaining power from the resonance of so many other people "tuned in" to the same thing they are, at the same time. As broadcast TV dies so does that shared audience, even things like news and sports are losing more and more of their audience to online or on-demand entertainment. Now, as far as international stuff...presumably in countries where broadcast TV is still going strong and on-demand entertainment isn't nearly as prevalent, Videomancy could still find a niche. It's unclear exactly what the "minimum threshold" would be...UA has always been a little bit US-centric and even Global and Cosmic games don't really involve much international cultural thought outside of North America and Western Europe (for example, the fact that Asia dominates the world population but isn't really mentioned much in things like Ascension struggles).
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Apr 7, 2016 03:58
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I want to write up some Australia-specific schools. I had an idea for a coffee-snob Adept, which I guess would be a variant of Dipsomancy, that was half-done. Their big victory was kicking Starbucks out of the country. I remember the Savage apparently lived in the Outback. The most powerful artifact in the country is the schooner that former Prime Minister Bob Hawke drank out of when he won the Guiness World Record for drinking beer the fastest. We're also home to the most UA person who ever lived, a homeless guy who wandered around writing 'Eternity' on sidewalks and somehow had that immortalized during the 2000 New Year's Eve celebrations: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Stace Maybe there could be a conflict between working class Videomancers who just watch free-to-air TV and the newer Adepts with their Netflixes and stuff. The ageless golems who host variety and morning shows could be a reliable source of horror.
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Apr 7, 2016 04:11
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Count Chocula posted:Wouldn't sports-obsessed Videomancers still work fine? Or could they just switch to watching the same viral video/Netflix binge as everyone else the second it drops? I wonder if you could make a school out of people who are obsessed with watching viral videos before they go viral? Not trendsetters because they're still just consuming media and not creating it but like "I saw Gangnam Style when it only had 500 views" sort of thing.
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Apr 7, 2016 04:47
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You can make a school out of almost anything, thanks to the new advice on making schools up front in in the first book. That's one of my favorite improvements to the system in the new edition. The emphasis on rolling your own schticks will make new schools easier to balance. I think a major school that hasn't been touched on yet is the YouTuber adept that gains charges from posting entirely inane bullshit to social media websites.
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Apr 7, 2016 05:05
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Impermanent posted:You can make a school out of almost anything, thanks to the new advice on making schools up front in in the first book. That's one of my favorite improvements to the system in the new edition. The emphasis on rolling your own schticks will make new schools easier to balance. Time to make an LA Beast school of putting up videos of self-destructive acts.
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Apr 7, 2016 05:11
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Impermanent posted:You can make a school out of almost anything, thanks to the new advice on making schools up front in in the first book. That's one of my favorite improvements to the system in the new edition. The emphasis on rolling your own schticks will make new schools easier to balance. I think a social media mancer is one potential evolution of the Videomancer concept, shifting from isolated communion through the shared experience of watching network television to the paradoxical notion of having thousands of "Friends" that you barely even know, communing through retweets and upvotes. I would make it less about posting inane stuff and more about cultivating an online following comprised of faceless pseudonyms watching and following you at a distance, like the leader of an invisible and intangible cult. Breaking taboo would probably involve something along the lines of actually coming into contact with one of your followers in the real world. Posting inane stuff might allow you to cultivate the following you need, but as long as it generates likes and subscribes anything goes.
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Apr 7, 2016 05:14
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The Max Attax seemed to fulfill the role of Anonymous in the setting before Anonymous was even a thing. Most Adepts strike me as the kind of people who aren't on Facebook for vague and confusing reasons. Besides the big changes, I'd add fun things like every other Narco-Alchemist brewing up a batch of Blue Meth, but they all do different and contradictory things. Count Chocula fucked around with this message at 06:27 on Apr 7, 2016 |
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Apr 7, 2016 06:24
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Well by the sounds of things GNOMON is more or less Anonymous: the Adept School, and Sociomancy can easily plug in to any one of dozens of online social cliques from fandoms to chans to whatever. Most adepts weren't on Facebook back in UA2 because UA2 was published in 1998 and Facebook wasn't even founded until 2004.
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Apr 7, 2016 06:41
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I mean that even now and through the past 10 years Adepts would be those 'I don't trust social media/Facebook' people who you can only contact through e-mail or carrier pigeon or somethings. Or they're 20 irony layers deep on Weird Facebook.
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Apr 7, 2016 06:47
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Count Chocula posted:We're also home to the most UA person who ever lived, a homeless guy who wandered around writing 'Eternity' on sidewalks and somehow had that immortalized during the 2000 New Year's Eve celebrations: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Stace quote:In 1963, photographer Trevor Dallen cornered Arthur and asked to take a few pictures of him writing his famous phrase. After four photos, Trevor ran out of film and asked for Stace to stay put while he got more film. Upon Trevor's return, Stace was gone.
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Apr 7, 2016 06:50
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quote:Inside the bell in the Sydney General Post Office clock tower, which had been dismantled during World War II. When the clock tower was rebuilt in the 1960s, the bell was brought out of storage and as the workmen were installing it they noticed, inside, the word "Eternity" in Stace's chalk. This is the only surviving "Eternity" by Stace's own hand in Sydney. (No one ever found out how Stace had been able to get to the bell, which had been sealed up).[citation needed] The opera based on his life is pretty good (http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oNEVwP-Xc0I), but playing a fictional urbanomancer in Sydney is pointless. He's better than anything I could make up. Count Chocula fucked around with this message at 08:27 on Apr 7, 2016 |
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Apr 7, 2016 08:25
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The vestimancy taboo seems a little wimpy. How often does getting naked come up realistically in a game? You figure it should be like bibliomancy where you store charges in your bought or made clothes, and them getting ruined makes you lose a charge.
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Apr 7, 2016 19:04
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SunAndSpring posted:The vestimancy taboo seems a little wimpy. How often does getting naked come up realistically in a game? You figure it should be like bibliomancy where you store charges in your bought or made clothes, and them getting ruined makes you lose a charge. Maybe, though I kinda feel vestimancy is less about clothes and more about being clothed - see the intro text for the school where it discusses the symbolic nature of outfits. I'd assume the weak nature of their taboo has been factored into the costs and abilities of their formulae or charging ability, though I'd only be slightly surprised if a few schools in the book hadn't been written according to the build-a-school rules.
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Apr 7, 2016 21:54
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Anyone else feeling a little underwhelmed with UA3? Love the new occult weirdness in book 3, but the system seems fiddly and the whole thing is kinda overwritten. I'm a huge Stolze fan but I'm probably going to end up running the new setting in some kind of Apoc World hack instead of using the stock rules. Maybe I just need to spend some more time rereading the rules stuff, but boy does it seem crufty as hell. (Also the new magic schools are laaaaaaaame).
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Apr 8, 2016 19:02
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Gun nut magic is pretty rad, I have to say. It's all about puffing yourself up and feeling important because of the power to commit violence you musn't actually use.
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Apr 8, 2016 20:21
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I really like most of the new schools. GNOMON will probably be a major component of my group's first game.
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Apr 8, 2016 20:57
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I quite like the new schools too. Honestly, I feel like they are what characters are more likely to encounter in a game, rather than the "big" ones from previous editions. I mean. yeah there's booze magic and sex magic and chaos magic and so on...but adepts are supposed to be loving weird, so it just seems natural that a lot of them would instead obsess about guns, or clothing, or movie tropes or whatever, or just be servants of a entity that lives on the internet. It's the kind of, almost nonsense, weirdness that you would expect to encounter when coming in contact with the underground.
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Apr 8, 2016 21:07
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Even "chaos mage" always seemed like a pretty fancy title for people who get off on playing in traffic.
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Apr 8, 2016 21:25
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Agree that the current system is still way too fiddly; it still has a lot of sacred cows of 90s game design, like extensive grapple rules, and protracted healing times. Like the game can't decide whether it wants to be playable game, or the physics engine of a fictional world.
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Apr 8, 2016 21:32
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I kind of want to go for one of the patron tiers. Maybe an avatar of The Storyteller?
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Apr 9, 2016 00:02
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Greg's social media betrays that he does Jujitsu; that may explain the detailed grappling rules.
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Apr 9, 2016 08:14
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RE: Character sheets. These are for the Gamma playtest, which means they're as ripe for feedback as anything else is. I have this plan where I want to get, like, five different graphic designers to create alternate versions. Minimalist, functional, handwritten, etc. I still really like the ones Thomas has made, though. Please note: I'm only really going to consider feedback about the game if you send it to me as part of playtest comments and notes. The internet is a big place full of people who love and hate everything, but I'm just one line developer with an inbox, so drop me a line there once the KS is done and you've tried the game out. Peace, Cam
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Apr 9, 2016 17:37
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boymonster posted:I still really like the ones Thomas has made, though. And that is a correct opinion, sir. I do hope there will be also an alternative for black and white printing, though! PS. It's nice to see a Cool RPG Dude here on this dead forum.
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Apr 9, 2016 18:20
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Hey, I'll be interviewing Greg tomorrow for RPPR - any questions you guys want answered?
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Apr 15, 2016 08:00
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clockworkjoe posted:Hey, I'll be interviewing Greg tomorrow for RPPR - any questions you guys want answered? For a UA question ask how Rooms of Renunciation are supposed to be used in a game, since "your character is totally different now" is bullshit for all sorts of reasons. They always came across more as a cosmic level punishment plot device more than like, a thing to interact with. For a general question it'd be neat to hear his thoughts on the whole self-publishing/crowdfunding flow he's been in for a few years now, in terms of its successes and drawbacks.
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Apr 15, 2016 08:13
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clockworkjoe posted:Hey, I'll be interviewing Greg tomorrow for RPPR - any questions you guys want answered? Is a hot dog a sandwich?
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Apr 15, 2016 08:15
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Ask him, as someone who's seriously into Aikido, what his thoughts are on grappling rules in RPGs.
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Apr 15, 2016 08:16
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Ask him if he and/or John Tynes have considered bringing Unknown Armies into it's (very very early) roots and making a comic set in the setting? And if yes - how many souls and human hearts do they need to get the project off the ground? Because I know a guy, who knows a guy who's married to this chick that has a line on someone who can hook them up.
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Apr 15, 2016 08:22
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