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Rifts is cool in the "oh man, 12-year-old-me would have loving loved this" way, but since I'm not 12 anymore you really do see the huge "so what the hell am I supposed to do with all this random crap?" question.
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Apr 26, 2016 19:01
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What always sold Rifts to me was what I considered decent and interesting art in 1993. In retrospect a lot of it is Kevin Long ripping off other IP, but it made an impression on middle school me.
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Apr 26, 2016 19:10
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Rifts is basically just your standard murderhobo game. You're expected to wander from town to town, and the town either has some shenanigans to ensnare the PCs in adventure (probably with a monster behind it all), and there just might be some treasure at the end to keep you stocked on mini-missiles. They always tease more interesting ideas (usually involving working for one faction or another) but the default you see in adventures is that you're mercs fighting for money and justice, in just about that order. Oh, and being a skull Nazi, that's popular because self-awareness is troublingly rare sometimes. 
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Apr 26, 2016 19:41
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Putting Rifts in SW is like taking the moldy bun off of a wrinkly old 7/11 hot dog and putting it in a soggy new bun. Is it an upgrade? Yes. Is it more edible now? Definitely. But it's still gross.
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Apr 26, 2016 19:46
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RIFTS is the hand-painted heavy metal dragon and naked lady van of RPGs.
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Apr 26, 2016 19:56
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Yeah, the best way I can describe Savage Worlds is "servicable". It functions, but there's nothing about it that draws me to it.
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Apr 26, 2016 19:58
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I've played SW a few times, and while I enjoyed it, "serviceable generic system" is about right; it doesn't do one thing well but is good at handling a fairly diverse set of genres. It's about as crunchy as I'd like a generic system to be nowadays. Really, its main strength is the low price point combined with the large amount of official support it gets.
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Apr 26, 2016 20:08
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Jimbozig posted:Putting Rifts in SW is like taking the moldy bun off of a wrinkly old 7/11 hot dog and putting it in a soggy new bun. Rifts would, however, be excellent for Strike!. 
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Apr 26, 2016 20:20
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Evil Mastermind posted:I've played SW a few times, and while I enjoyed it, "serviceable generic system" is about right; it doesn't do one thing well but is good at handling a fairly diverse set of genres. It's about as crunchy as I'd like a generic system to be nowadays. I can't imagine Deadlands without it. 
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Apr 26, 2016 20:29
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Rifts has also always been weirdly Midwestern. There's tons of in-game detail about everything from the Missouri River to Ohio, but almost nothing about either coast, and the rest of the world is a patchwork of poorly-researched stereotypes. I honestly wonder if it ever caught on much outside of the Midwest US or if it's just another locally dominant phenomena like Mountain Dew and Juggalos.
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Apr 26, 2016 20:59
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EverettLO posted:Rifts has also always been weirdly Midwestern. There's tons of in-game detail about everything from the Missouri River to Ohio, but almost nothing about either coast, and the rest of the world is a patchwork of poorly-researched stereotypes. I honestly wonder if it ever caught on much outside of the Midwest US or if it's just another locally dominant phenomena like Mountain Dew and Juggalos. What? Peas and Rice posted:RIFTS is the hand-painted heavy metal dragon and naked lady van of RPGs. I thought that was OSR. RIFTS is more the broken down station wagon with the faux wood paneling and the Ham radio license plate.
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Apr 26, 2016 21:15
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homullus posted:Rifts would, however, be excellent for Strike!. I think Atomic Robo FATE is a perfect fit. Keep the madness, ditch all the fiddly bullshit. I was a fan back in University, and I think a settings update would be interesting.
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Apr 26, 2016 21:18
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EverettLO posted:Rifts has also always been weirdly Midwestern. There's tons of in-game detail about everything from the Missouri River to Ohio, but almost nothing about either coast, and the rest of the world is a patchwork of poorly-researched stereotypes. I honestly wonder if it ever caught on much outside of the Midwest US or if it's just another locally dominant phenomena like Mountain Dew and Juggalos. No. Very much not the case. Iirc the West Coast was left undetailed so that GMs could fill whatever they wanted. Manhattan in haunted and has a sourcebook. Florida has dinos and has two sourcebooks. There is the New West, Magic of the West or something, vampire nations south of the border, and more recently a city book focused on a border town close to the vampire wars. The "main metaplot" of Rifts, the coalition vs Tolkeen (vs empire of magic vs psyscape?) happens somewhere in the middle of the country. Rifts is well known by California gamers.
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Apr 26, 2016 21:26
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Helical Nightmares posted:No. Very much not the case. I hadn't heard that the West Coast was intentionally left undefined. That's actually a decent design decision. As for Madhaven, yeah, they detailed NYC eventually but it always struck me as odd that the largest city in the US was left basically untouched for 15 years and 40 books. I haven't bought a Rifts book since the 1990s, though, so I couldn't say how they've changed the setting since then. Back when I still bought the books nearly everything of consequence took place in a swath of land between northern Mexico and the Great Lakes. It felt oddly local.
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Apr 26, 2016 21:36
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This just cropped up on my radar - only 4 days to go but well over target and a decent price for an adventuring band: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1997544829/dungeon-explorers-28mm-miniatures-for-gamers-and-r My RPG group is just wrapping up a big campaign and we're doing a bunch of one-shots so I may have to pick up these guys as a surprise and have them fight Reaper Bones not-Tiamat when that shows up 
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Apr 26, 2016 22:32
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Zark the Damned posted:This just cropped up on my radar - only 4 days to go but well over target and a decent price for an adventuring band: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1997544829/dungeon-explorers-28mm-miniatures-for-gamers-and-r Now that's a nostalgia trigger 
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Apr 26, 2016 22:44
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Evil Mastermind posted:Rifts is cool in the "oh man, 12-year-old-me would have loving loved this" way, but since I'm not 12 anymore you really do see the huge "so what the hell am I supposed to do with all this random crap?" question.
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Apr 26, 2016 22:47
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Zark the Damned posted:This just cropped up on my radar - only 4 days to go but well over target and a decent price for an adventuring band: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1997544829/dungeon-explorers-28mm-miniatures-for-gamers-and-r But there's already at least a dozen cheap Reaper Bones minis to represent every single one of the totally uninspired generic adventurers in that kickstarter. Like, I don't think I could imagine a more generic version of each adventurer type then they've managed to produce. And thirty quid for six miniatures is way more than Bones cost. What am I missing here?
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Apr 26, 2016 22:54
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Leperflesh posted:But there's already at least a dozen cheap Reaper Bones minis to represent every single one of the totally uninspired generic adventurers in that kickstarter. Dungeons & Dragons TV Series 
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Apr 26, 2016 23:19
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Zark the Damned posted:This just cropped up on my radar - only 4 days to go but well over target and a decent price for an adventuring band: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1997544829/dungeon-explorers-28mm-miniatures-for-gamers-and-r She was an Acrobat, not an Amazon. 
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Apr 26, 2016 23:27
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Leperflesh posted:But there's already at least a dozen cheap Reaper Bones minis to represent every single one of the totally uninspired generic adventurers in that kickstarter. In addition to the aforementioned nostalgia, there are the advantages of not being in bonesium (and therefore not having melty details and floppy swords) and being local to the UK so I'm not paying ludicrous amounts for shipping and customs. homullus posted:She was an Acrobat, not an Amazon. And he was a Cavalier, not a Knight.
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Apr 26, 2016 23:57
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Leperflesh posted:totally uninspired generic adventurers gently caress dude, you really know how to twist the "moths is turning 40" knife. It's also goddamn fantastic that they aged up the characters to about where they'd be today.
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Apr 27, 2016 00:40
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Oh. I was vaguely aware of that cartoon, but couldn't watch it when I was a kid, so I didn't recognize it at all. Carry on, then.
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Apr 27, 2016 01:02
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With the Rum and Bones: Second Tide kickstarter ending soon, does anyone have any experience with the game? Is it good?
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Apr 27, 2016 01:05
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Arleneth posted:With the Rum and Bones: Second Tide kickstarter ending soon, does anyone have any experience with the game? Is it good? I'd say so. The new edition comes with new rules that fix up a lot of the issues that people had.
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Apr 27, 2016 02:57
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clockworkjoe posted:Not sure if this has been posted, but there's a new cyberpunk PBTA game called The Veil on KS right now: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/samjokopublishing/the-veil-cyberpunk-rpg/description This looks pretty neat from the preview. Anyone played Worlds in Peril or the Magicians for some idea of their track record?
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Apr 27, 2016 03:19
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Alien Rope Burn posted:From all appearances Pinnacle outlined the project and had a lot of input, though the actual penning seems to be through Evil Beagle Games- the authors I mentioned earlier. Fannon, the main writer, is an industry schmoozer mainly known for Shaintar, his high fantasy setting for Savage Worlds. Watson is probably be best known for his work on the Warhammer lines for Fantasy Flight, but he also worked on Accursed along with goon author CroatianAlzheimers.
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Apr 27, 2016 03:41
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One would hope that a contract was laid out and agreed upon that Siembieda only gets a licensing fee and percent of the net in exchange for use of his IP and marketing materials with maybe a direct endorsement. However, knowing the tradgames industry the way I do at this point, it's more likely something disastrously not that.
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Apr 27, 2016 03:49
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Terrible Opinions posted:Until we have some proof of a legally binding document preventing Siembieda from interacting with the project in any way it is an 100% realistic worry That's not really a realistic expectation. I think the fact that they noted that the book has completed review with Palladium is about the best reassurance they can offer without being unprofessional about the whole thing. And honestly, most of Palladium's crowdfunding projects may have run horribly late but they did come out; Robotech RPG Tactics is the big budget black stain in their book, of course, and is absolutely cause for concern, but all of the other Rifts books they crowdfunded through their own site are now available. Of course, Palladium isn't even running the thing. Mind, we've got a over a month to evaluate this, things could change, but this has been a long time coming and I get the impression Pinnacle has tried to head off any potential drama. I would be very surprised if the currently promised material shitbombed based on what I've seen and heard - now, if they promise additional books as stretch goals (which seems very possible), that's where I'd expect complications with Palladium to arise in the future. I don't think anybody actually needs to back the thing at this point, it's going to be a big success barring an asteroid impact, and there's no need to take the risk unless you're really enthusiastic about it already. Right now I'm in for $1, obviously I want to see where this goes, but I'm always hesitant to put money in Palladium's pocket if I can help it. Here's hoping it turns out rad.
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Apr 27, 2016 04:01
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Yeah, $45 is to high for my risk/reward ratio threshold, given :simbieda:. With enough gnarly stretch goals I might change my mind... I might go in for $1, too. Speaking of $1 pledges... I've gone in for $1 on several kickstarters - usually when I want to follow them and forget to cancel. And very often, the project creators send all kinds of rpgnow product links to those comments instead of using messages. By definition, these weren't things I wanted, so I don't even bother with the links, but it makes me wonder why creators do this instead of using messages. EN Publishing is particularly bad, here. I think I have links to all of OLD/NEW at this point hanging out in my inbox.
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Apr 27, 2016 04:18
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dwarf74 posted:Yeah, $45 is to high for my risk/reward ratio threshold, given :simbieda:. I think because Kickstarter doesn't let you select multiple groups to send messages to and makes you send the same message to each group individually. It's enough of a pain in the butt that you might not mind giving out a handful of free PDFs. Or maybe I'm misremembering and that was backer surveys I am thinking about. Also having a comment makes it easy to just link a person to the comment page when they ask "where is my link?" Jimbozig fucked around with this message at 05:15 on Apr 27, 2016 |
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Apr 27, 2016 05:13
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dwarf74 posted:Speaking of $1 pledges... What's the 'remind me' button do? Just send you an email the last day of a campaign? Maybe it would help with this. Or maybe it doesn't send you a message if you've already pledged.
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Apr 27, 2016 06:13
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Jimbozig posted:I think because Kickstarter doesn't let you select multiple groups to send messages to and makes you send the same message to each group individually. It's enough of a pain in the butt that you might not mind giving out a handful of free PDFs. Or maybe I'm misremembering and that was backer surveys I am thinking about. DalaranJ posted:What's the 'remind me' button do? Just send you an email the last day of a campaign?
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Apr 27, 2016 06:27
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DalaranJ posted:What's the 'remind me' button do? Just send you an email the last day of a campaign?
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Apr 27, 2016 16:14
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So, here's a thing, uh. You all know Mafia and Werewolf, I'm sure? There's an online game called Town of Salem that's basically the same thing. They had a successful kickstarter, yada yada yada. Well now they're bringing it back to card game form, it's come full circle  https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/blankmediagames/town-of-salem-the-card-game Their goal is $10k, they're over 900% funded already. It's literally just Mafia as far as I can tell. Don't get me wrong, I don't care who copies Mafia or whatever, but I do find it a bit disingenuous that the kickstarter page only makes very scant mention of the fact that someone has to be a moderator, and completely neglects to mention that the game is for all intents and purposes a copy of a game that's been around since the 80s. I suppose I'm also slightly disappointed that people who don't know any better are now going to be fed yet another Mafia variant that is in my opinion completely obsoleted by games like Resistance and the One Night series, which of course those people are going to be completely unaware of, and think Town of Salem is a completely original concept. Oh and it has a NSFW pack option. Of course.
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Apr 27, 2016 17:15
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What could possibly be NSFW in that godawful art style?
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Apr 27, 2016 19:20
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moths posted:What could possibly be NSFW in that godawful art style? It's too edgy and offensive for you, that's why they have to keep the Social Justice Warrior role card (power: complain when someone accusing the werewolf, telling them to check their cis-shape privilege) and the Lieberal Commie role card (power: steal someone else's power, claiming you are giving it to the needy) and the Good Guy With A Gun role card (power: any time anyone targets you at night, good or bad, kill them) out of the mainstream card set.
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Apr 27, 2016 20:42
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moths posted:What could possibly be NSFW in that godawful art style? And no noses! How do they smell???
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Apr 27, 2016 20:45
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Terrible!
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Apr 27, 2016 21:07
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neaden posted:This looks pretty neat from the preview. Anyone played Worlds in Peril or the Magicians for some idea of their track record? I've heard Worlds in Peril is pretty good. I also heard it started off pretty bad before the writer got the feedback on it they needed, which makes me think I might back this at the PDF level just in case, despite there being a few parts lifted almost word-for-word from other games, like the Giri rules looking an awful lot like Urban Shadows' debts and one playbook straight-up lifting the Child-Thing's lair from AW2. Like, hopefully those are just placeholders that'll get sorted out, and the final hack will have it together more.
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