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I know Greg's always been very into interesting game mechanics. Which of the systems he's written is he most proud of, game mechanics wise? Which does he most enjoy playing? Also, he might not want to answer this one, but I'd love to know what the deal is with why he won't work with Arc Dream again.
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Apr 15, 2016 12:31
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I'm sure he could expand on it, but his page on Godlike and Wild Talents answers part of that question.
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Apr 15, 2016 12:37
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Doodmons posted:Also, he might not want to answer this one, but I'd love to know what the deal is with why he won't work with Arc Dream again. Huh, he worked on the new Delta Green rpg by Arc Dream, as well as a bunch of Wild Talents stuff like Better Angels. I haven't heard about any kind of disagreement between them. Heck he still follows the principles on twitter. fez_machine fucked around with this message at 12:47 on Apr 15, 2016 |
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Apr 15, 2016 12:43
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That was written a very long time ago, considering how it talks about Reign as something he hopes sees the light of day at some point, so I'm going to assume they made up or at least cleared up the money end of things.
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Apr 15, 2016 12:51
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Ask him about the new UA magick schools. Specifically, that on the whole they seem to be less self-destructive and more of an "easy come easy go" variety of getting and losing charges. Was that planned on purpose for the new era and tone of 3rd ed UA, or did it just happen to turn out that way while he was simply thinking of suitably XXI century ideas?
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Apr 15, 2016 13:04
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Swagger Dagger posted:That was written a very long time ago, considering how it talks about Reign as something he hopes sees the light of day at some point, so I'm going to assume they made up or at least cleared up the money end of things. Yeah, I bought a copy of Dirty World from him at the ArcDream booth last year at GenCon. I think whatever the problem was, back then, it has apparently been worked out. For the interview, as someone who loved Godwalker and Switchflipped, are there any more UA type fiction/novels coming? I really like the idea of picking the group goal and then adding percent to it, in play. I am curious about any design inspirations for that, too.
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Apr 15, 2016 14:13
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Halloween Jack posted:I'm sure he could expand on it, but his page on Godlike and Wild Talents answers part of that question. Nah, that article is (obliquely) referring to the publisher before Arc Dream, Hawthorne Hobgoblin. I don't know exactly what went on there, but the principal behind HH went on to apparently embezzle funds from the Chuubo Kickstarter. If anything went down between Stolze and Arc Dream, I've never heard about it.
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Apr 15, 2016 21:55
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So apparently the Planned Parenthood shooter was wearing a homemade bullet-proof vest made out of silver dollars and duct-tape. Unfortunately, since guns resonant with America in the Statosphere more strongly then saving the unborn, it probably ended up attracting bullets. Asking him if he got any pushback over including a school based around guns in the new edition. I can imagine his publisher being nervous after the 9/11
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Apr 15, 2016 23:43
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The magic schools have always been weird and weak, at least for minors and sigs. Of course, compared to Archetype channels, they're great -- I never really got Archetypes, since all they do is get you 1 to 3 janky powers and a fourth if you manage to become Godwalker somehow.
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Apr 18, 2016 00:46
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palecur posted:The magic schools have always been weird and weak, at least for minors and sigs. Of course, compared to Archetype channels, they're great -- I never really got Archetypes, since all they do is get you 1 to 3 janky powers and a fourth if you manage to become Godwalker somehow. It really depends on the archetype. Some are really strong, others are quite effective in certain situations. In the right circumstances an Avatar/Archetype combo is extraordinarily powerful. The Trickster archetype in particular is insane, like unbelievably overpowered. You have to be able to push through to 50% or more, but once you're over 70% its pretty easy to start toppling entire governments. But largely most Archetypes are worth the points you put into the skill once you reach 50% or more and they don't demand the same level of commitment as an Adept so they're generally quite worthwhile if you just remember that largely what they cost you is purely skill points.
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Apr 18, 2016 00:59
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oriongates posted:It really depends on the archetype. Some are really strong, others are quite effective in certain situations. In the right circumstances an Avatar/Archetype combo is extraordinarily powerful. Kind of explains a lot about our world though, doesn't it? The inmates are running the asylum.
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Apr 18, 2016 03:54
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Interview here: http://slangdesign.com/rppr/2016/04/interview/interview-with-greg-stolze-on-the-unknown-armies-kickstarter/ Google Hangouts got weird about 40 minutes in so my questions had an echo. Greg's voice is fine throughout though.
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Apr 18, 2016 04:33
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Nice interview! No comic? Boo! New book? YAY!
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Apr 18, 2016 08:21
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Given that you don't have to be insane to use them, Archetypes almost have to be mostly weak. The Flying Woman is cool, but if every feminist can fly, or even every serious and dedicated feminist, or even just every radical feminist... well, you're going to have so many women flying around that the setting rapidly stops looking normal on the surface.
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Apr 18, 2016 14:11
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Parkreiner posted:Nah, that article is (obliquely) referring to the publisher before Arc Dream, Hawthorne Hobgoblin. I don't know exactly what went on there, but the principal behind HH went on to apparently embezzle funds from the Chuubo Kickstarter. That was the thing I was thinking of. I'd forgotten he wasn't talking about Arc Dream. If any Arc Dream employees read this, apologies for unintentionally slandering you on the internet!
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Apr 19, 2016 13:27
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Rand Brittain posted:Given that you don't have to be insane to use them, Archetypes almost have to be mostly weak. The Flying Woman is cool, but if every feminist can fly, or even every serious and dedicated feminist, or even just every radical feminist... well, you're going to have so many women flying around that the setting rapidly stops looking normal on the surface. There's a couple good reasons why the Flying Woman's second channel isn't particularly common. By the book, not every feminist with an archetype may be a Flying Woman. They could be a Messenger, or Warrior, or by third edition a Firebrand or even a Captain depending on how they conduct themselves. A Flying Woman may not even be a feminist; their schtick is that they are their own authority above all and don't care about what others say about them or want them to do. You could have a Flying Woman who's extremely conservative or even brutally anti-feminist, and as long as it's her own personal beliefs she could be a candidate for Flying Woman. (If nobody else has named this, I'm calling that version the Gilded Birdcage Flying Woman, a la the Heisenberg Messenger or Devouring Mother. EDIT: Also known as the Flying Nun, of course.) Also, the Flying Woman does have one of the more restrictive taboos among avatars, so I would wager fewer unwitting avatars have hit the 51% magic line. TombsGrave fucked around with this message at 19:21 on Apr 24, 2016 |
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Apr 24, 2016 19:09
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http://gawker.com/man-in-animal-onesie-and-fake-bomb-vest-shot-by-police-1773714245quote:A man in hedgehog pajamas and a bomb vest made of chocolate bars was shot by police on Thursday after threatening to “blow up” a Baltimore news station, WBFF-TV reports. Police say the suspect is in serious but stable condition and is expected to survive. It's the bomb vest made of chocolate bars that tips it into UA territory.
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Apr 29, 2016 01:08
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I've only ever played Monsters and Other Childish Things from the One Roll Engine. (Using clockworkjoe's campaign book as a base, no less), but I really like the system. Unknown Armies always sounded interesting, but I just couldn't get into it enough to actually put together anything to run with it.
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May 1, 2016 15:35
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Dreadful Secrets of Candlewick Manor is probably the most pleasant to read TG book. Benjamin Baugh is a wizard of tone. There, here is my contribution to the game of the month.
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May 1, 2016 18:38
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Something posted in a different thread is making me wonder if there is a way to make a compelling class that gets its charges from things like public meltdowns (online or off).
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May 1, 2016 22:30
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Kibner posted:Something posted in a different thread is making me wonder if there is a way to make a compelling class that gets its charges from things like public meltdowns (online or off). You could probably do something like that for Irascimancy (anger magic) by changing the taboo. Instead of not being allowed to show anger, now you have to react to even the slightest irritation with a complete meltdown in order to hold your charges. It's possible, but I can't see the appeal of playing with such a character.
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May 1, 2016 23:11
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Just caught this in some of the chapter fiction in Book One:page 60 posted:But on March 3, 2003, something happened. Almost no one knows. But some of us—me, my little crew, who knows who else—remember a different history. One where only one of the 9/11 hijackings worked, because some rear end in a top hat had tried the same thing with the Sears Tower back when it was still the Sears Tower. One where Alex Abel was still one of Forbes’ richest Americans, and Dirk Allen wasn’t the surprising new face of recovery. One where Al Gore’s running mate in the 2000 election was John Edwards, not Joe Lieberman. One where I’d lost two fingers and had outstanding warrants for assault, grand theft, and misdemeanor brandishing of a firearm instead of a husband and (apparently) a thriving career in retirement income management. It makes me so happy that there's a callback to the weirdness of that Fly To Heaven adventure in light of 9/11.
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May 2, 2016 05:01
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Kellsterik posted:Just caught this in some of the chapter fiction in Book One: My gaming group sprung that on me, the only American in the group, in like 2004. It was memorable, at least. It gets mashed up in my head with the Lone Gunmen ep that predicted it.
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May 2, 2016 08:10
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Since it's Greg Month, I'd love to get some feedback on what I've been working on. Basically it's a sci-fi supplement for REIGN meant to provide rules for space travel, alien races and space ships built for the One Roll Engine. I've got it in a bunch of bits and pieces, but this here is one of the first semi-completed parts: Adventures in Space: Space Travel It's a fairly detailed rules system for working out interplanetary and interstellar spaceflight. My goal was to provide a variety of options, from real crunchy to real abstract, in order to suit the specific needs of the GM. It mostly covers how to deal with distances, velocity and modes of travel, and how to set up the rules for space travel in an original setting. I tried to stick fairly closely to Stolze's way of writing, in the sense of being to the point but never excessively dry. That's pretty hard when you're dealing with pure rules, but I made a go at it.
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May 3, 2016 00:15
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Since it is Greg Stolze month, I want to share one of my favorite supplements that he did: Out of a Violent Planet . While it uses the core REIGN rules, it is not at all set in a medieval fantasy environment. Rather, it is set in the near future, after we have made contact with aliens. The thing is, if you want to be a no poo poo galactic empire, you kinda need to get around that whole "speed of light" business. Fortunately, there's a relatively easy way to do this: Have psychic powers. Every major player in the galaxy has either developed psychic powers themselves or has learned to mind-control other beings to do the gruntwork of communicating and traveling across the interstellar void.. As far as they are concerned, being psychic is basically the same thing as being sentient. Then one day they discovered a grimy little species in some backwater planet that seemed to tick all the boxes for "sentient": They had language, art, technology, etc. Only problem was: they weren't psychic at all. The most powerful psychics on their planet could communicate with aliens at the level of Koko the Gorilla: simple concepts but that was it. At first the aliens tried to ask, "Where are your masters?". As it slowly dawned on them that we didn't have them, they switched over to either extermination or exploitation. Only problem was: Their toolkits were mostly a big hammer called "Psychic powers". They tried to puppet us: 1 in a 1000 earthlings might feel an urge to scratch their nose. Seize control of our bodies? Maybe a facial tremor if they were lucky. Simply will our hearts to stop? A minor drop in heart rate, like you stood up too fast. That's when we showed them our toolkit: It's filled with uniquely human inventions like shotguns and nerve gas and nuclear weapons. We very quickly were given a new nickname: Murder Apes.  We are the center of thriving black market: Mercenaries who are immune to the ingrained defense mechanisms of most of the cosmos and have access to a staggering variety of ways to ruin an alien's day. Do your PCs use this leverage to learn about alien cultures, acquire exotic technologies for their nation-state/corporation or simply "rock out with their glock out" on some smug bug-eyed motherfuckers? Out Of A Violent Planet is available for free at http://www.gregstolze.com/reign/REIGN_ViPlan.zip It contains the setting information, rules to handle modern weaponry, random alien generation tables and Company resources for the Age of Mass Communication.
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May 5, 2016 01:35
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Xand_Man posted:Since it is Greg Stolze month, I want to share one of my favorite supplements that he did: Out of a Violent Planet . Violent Planet is an amazing concept for a setting but I've yet to come up with a really solid idea of how a campaign should go. Even a one-shot would just be "go and be a murder ape". I spent a lot of time trying to think about the ramifications of your average human suddenly being the galactic equivalent of a tier-one operator mega-commando, and how buying a gun and filling a backpack with survival gear basically makes anyone a hot commodity on a galactic scale. I also sketched out some houserules for using REIGN's basic Wealth rules to allow for the idea of "Having credit cards", and how increasing the time of the task one step should allow you to get more money together to fill your disgusting bug-out bag (now, literally for getting bugs "out").
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May 5, 2016 05:00
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I loving love that OotVP has stats for NPR.
Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 05:47 on May 5, 2016 |
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May 5, 2016 05:28
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It always struck me as similar to oWoD Hunter, which I also love. You could play it as a straight horror experience with a bunch of poor saps that are out of their depth, or as a bunch of shotgun-toting crazy mofos who decide to take the top of the food chain down a peg or three.
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May 5, 2016 06:37
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The basic OoTVP campaign is "Rednecks in space" to me. You play a bunch of buddies on a hunting trip who got abducted by aliens to act as mercenaries. Their only means of coercion is "We have the only way to get you back home" because they aren't a physical or psychic threat to you. This will almost assuredly go just fine and not backfire on them in any way or be immediately massively derailed after the first time they drop you on the planet of their enemies.
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May 5, 2016 11:43
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Xand_Man posted:random alien generation tables
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May 5, 2016 15:29
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Capntastic posted:Violent Planet is an amazing concept for a setting but I've yet to come up with a really solid idea of how a campaign should go. Even a one-shot would just be "go and be a murder ape". Of course, I can hardly complain. It's free, and a flash of genius.
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May 5, 2016 16:37
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Halloween Jack posted:OotVP has that one immediately identifiable hook: Be mercenaries (or poor kidnapped dupes) sent to kill aliens for scraps of alien biotech. But it also has Company rules for governments, economic coalitions, etc. figuring out how to deal with and profit from aliens, and it's not clear how to connect the dots between the two. Much like Unknown Armies, OOTVP kind of sketches out a setting seething with gonzo weirdness and opportunity and then just expects you to have at it. I've yet to run or play it myself, but between Tremors and Close Encounters of the Third Kind I have no shortage of ideas from the blue-collar end of things.
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May 6, 2016 00:18
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You also have to deal with the consequences when some foamy space aliens send you to kill some claymation alpaca space aliens and turns out the claymation alpacas hired the US Government to protect them, so you go up against Delta Force. If you kill them and make it back home, Obama's not going to be very happy that the reason the United States isn't getting cold fusion is because some rednecks killed all his specops - sorta legally, since they were way outside of jurisdiction. Also it has the martial path called Path of the Crazy Motherfucker, which is just the best thing.
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May 6, 2016 11:39
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Parkreiner posted:Much like seriously, i love the writing but i feel like all of his games could use more focus.
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May 7, 2016 10:31
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Elfgames posted:seriously, i love the writing but i feel like all of his games could use more focus. Stolze has been listening to his fans, that's why UA3e is so much more goal-oriented now. The goal of "what exactly do the characters want to accomplish?", and a mechanical system for charting progress towards that goal, is hammered in right alongside character creation. It's probably my favorite part of UA3.
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May 8, 2016 01:27
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So this is kinda Stolze-related: I've done principle writing work on a super low-fantasy setting (think like Game of Thrones or whatever the gently caress) with inspiration from the way magic and mysticism operate in Lovecraft mythos. I'm trying to make it as accessible as possible to a non-hardcore audience and I'm thinking NEMESIS/ORE is the right way to go. Does anyone have experience running the One-Roll Engine in a world of almost entirely melee combat and investigation? My previous NEMESIS campaigns have gone great, but I wonder if it can keep the players engaged without the promise of new guns and magic and poo poo.
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May 11, 2016 22:01
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You want to give a look at REIGN. It has the same basic mechanics and the magic is easily removed, but also has a more developed melee combat, including Martial Techniques (several hand-to-hand styles as well as specialized ones for different weapons) and Esoteric Disciplines (which are special abilities/modifiers for specific skills). There's a lot of flavour text in the description of both types, but that can be cleaned up easily and a lot of the Esoteric Disciplines work really well for an investigative game. There's also the great Company system that you can apply to pretty much any game and rules for epic beasts in case an Elder God's spawn wakes up one morning. You should grab one of the Year of Our Reign supplements for free from the offical page to see if it's something you'd like, then get the Enchiridion if you want the full rules.
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May 11, 2016 22:26
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Billy Bob FORTRAN posted:So this is kinda Stolze-related: Yeah, make it a Reign setting. It'll work perfectly - magic is built in heavily to the core setting of Reign but the system works perfectly without it. Aside from basic skill checks and stuff, the Company rules and Esoteric disciplines are the only real nods Reign has to proper investigation - it doesn't have a dedicated investigation subsystem or anything. If that's something you want to feature heavily, the investigation parts of GUMSHOE are relatively easy to rip out and put in other systems.
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May 11, 2016 23:22
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ZearothK posted:You want to give a look at REIGN. It has the same basic mechanics and the magic is easily removed, but also has a more developed melee combat, including Martial Techniques (several hand-to-hand styles as well as specialized ones for different weapons) and Esoteric Disciplines (which are special abilities/modifiers for specific skills). There's a lot of flavour text in the description of both types, but that can be cleaned up easily and a lot of the Esoteric Disciplines work really well for an investigative game. There's also the great Company system that you can apply to pretty much any game and rules for epic beasts in case an Elder God's spawn wakes up one morning. Doodmons posted:Yeah, make it a Reign setting. It'll work perfectly - magic is built in heavily to the core setting of Reign but the system works perfectly without it. Aside from basic skill checks and stuff, the Company rules and Esoteric disciplines are the only real nods Reign has to proper investigation - it doesn't have a dedicated investigation subsystem or anything. If that's something you want to feature heavily, the investigation parts of GUMSHOE are relatively easy to rip out and put in other systems. I never even thought about Reign. It's basically a perfect fit for what I want the campaign to eventually become. I wonder if it would be too cumbersome to transfer NEMESIS' sanity system into Reign.
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May 12, 2016 05:08
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It isn't, it is usually rather easy to plug and play parts of ORE into other ORE games, with the notable exception of Better Angels/A Dirty World. I've done it before and all you will need to do is to add a Stability skill or equivalent to the selection and the madness meters to the character sheet.
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May 12, 2016 12:18
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