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Evil science teachers who throw books at you with magical magnetism powers. Now I'm interested.
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Jan 13, 2017 23:15
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I posted this a page before you! Disappear!
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Jan 13, 2017 23:18
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Robot Style posted:Does anyone have any experience with the fanmade Mass Effect D20 system? I'm currently playing a campaign with some friends, and our hacker party member seems way too OP. At level 2, he was able to open all the holding cells on a military flagship through an air conditioner control inside his cell, which seems a little ridiculous. Re: Mass Effect adaptations Other than the 500+ page d20 Juggernaut you linked to, I've uploaded: - a 66 page Mass Effect system floating around /tg/ - a 200+ page Mass Effect FATE system https://www.mediafire.com/folder/cc1msshan3cfy/Best_of_tg Enjoy! By the way I know there are a bunch of XCOM hacks out there. Please post them so I can collect and organize. Helical Nightmares fucked around with this message at 23:57 on Jan 13, 2017 |
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Jan 13, 2017 23:52
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There's also this old hack on the TG Wiki. I think it predates the sequels, though.
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Jan 14, 2017 00:46
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I'm on a bit of a SotDL kick at the moment, and was wondering if anyone could tell me if the Forbidden Rules book was good//what the "guidelines for running abstract combats" entails and whether that would be a good thing for PbP games.
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Jan 14, 2017 01:52
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Question for the thread, I've asked it elsewhere but figure this might be a good place. I have a shitload of plastic sprues. I know people use them for basing and terrain, is there any possibility of selling them? Or chopping them up into tiny "bricks" to sell as basing material?
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Jan 14, 2017 05:33
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Cinnamon Bear posted:I haven't found the small but vicious dog yet The last item on Interesting Things Table 3 on page 26 is: "A small dog with a tendency toward viciousness."
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Jan 14, 2017 07:35
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Cinnamon Bear posted:I'm on a bit of a SotDL kick at the moment, and was wondering if anyone could tell me if the Forbidden Rules book was good//what the "guidelines for running abstract combats" entails and whether that would be a good thing for PbP games. I love Forbidden Rules. There are lots of variant things that make healing easier/harder, simplify weapons and armor, expand the social conflict system into full blown social combat, give you random stats at character generation, bring in skills and power points. etc. It is a fantastic book for hacking SotDL. Abstract Combat is very clearly based on Fate's system, with zones replacing terrain, abstracting out ranged attacks to either the zone you're in, an adjacent zone, or any zone. Free attacks are handled well, only triggering when you leave a zone without using a retreat action, and only from 1d3 creatures. AoE spells and abilities are changed to mimic the ranged attacks system. I think you could use it for PBP pretty easily, sacrificing crunchiness for speed and ease of use. The core book says things can be played out theater of the mind style, but when everything is measured in yards and has precise ranges, that doesn't seem true. Forbidden Rules delivers a system that can accomplish that.
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Jan 14, 2017 13:40
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Serf posted:I love Forbidden Rules. There are lots of variant things that make healing easier/harder, simplify weapons and armor, expand the social conflict system into full blown social combat, give you random stats at character generation, bring in skills and power points. etc. It is a fantastic book for hacking SotDL. That sounds pretty great, I feel like I'm going to wind up picking up everything in the line, I've been really impressed. Between Godbound and SotDL this week I'm really excited to try something new.
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Jan 14, 2017 14:13
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Helical Nightmares posted:Re: Mass Effect adaptations Fuego Fish posted:There's also this old hack on the TG Wiki. I think it predates the sequels, though. (Looks like Eric Gibson was good for something after all!)
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Jan 14, 2017 14:46
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On the subject of combat in PbP's, what I've been doing in a D&D 3rd edition game I've been running is to squash it into two-dimensions:quote:0 feet - Entrance of the room. Michael the Cleric, Rul the Targeteer, Prae Poi the Duelist If Prae Poi charges right into the melee, the situation then changes to: quote:0 feet - Entrance of the room. Michael the Cleric, Rul the Targeteer And then you would need Tumble checks to get past the overturned tables and chairs at the 40 foot mark, and you can push targets into the roaring campfire at the 50 foot mark. It saves me the trouble of going full battle map, but keeps distance measurements precise. It also allows me to create "interactive terrain" for the players to use, just by dropping a short phrase of a thing somewhere in the room. I'm thinking it might break down as far as people trying to set-up flanking, but that really hasn't come up yet. Credit to P.d0t for giving me the original idea.
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Jan 14, 2017 16:38
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gradenko_2000 posted:On the subject of combat in PbP's, what I've been doing in a D&D 3rd edition game I've been running is to squash it into two-dimensions: Maybe just let them flank unless there's terrain that would interfere. If there is terrain, then have them make an appropriate skill check as a free action to get into flanking position. Could do some kind of opposed check if that makes sense due to the situation, even. Perhaps fighter-types make it so there's always a check even if no terrain?
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Jan 14, 2017 17:09
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If you're in a row with enemies directly on each side, you're being flanked.quote:10 feet - Michael If you're in the same row as an enemy, you are also flanked if enemies in the same row outnumber you. Moving from one row to another if an enemy is present in either row provokes an opportunity attack, right? I like this, it has strong Final Fantasy vibes. Matter of fact if I ever do properly pick up designing a FFV-like tabletop (fat chance that means work  ) you may have just cracked one of my biggest problem issues.
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Jan 14, 2017 17:25
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The recent posts have given me an idea on using flanking in d20 while using somewhat more abstract positioning such as range bands or even full theatre of the mind. What do you think of simply attributing flanking to any enemy that has been attacked previously in the round? It would likely require rogue style characters to hold moves until later in the round rather than going first, but it would also allow for flanking bonuses from ranged attacks, and I cant remember if that was a thing you could do in the base rules. Obviously it would be more of a simulation of being overwhelmed than a simulation of being surrounded, but as those overlap I think its a good replacement, no? Alternatively, you could expand flanking to include attacks in the previous round as well, though that would likely result in permanent flanking effects. Perhaps also a out via movement, where the flanked creature re-positioning itself would result in the loss of the flanking bonuses? remusclaw fucked around with this message at 19:17 on Jan 14, 2017 |
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Jan 14, 2017 17:59
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remusclaw posted:Alternatively, you could expand flanking to include attacks in the previous round as well, though that would likely result in permanent flanking effects. Perhaps also a out via movement, where the flanked creature re-positioning itself would result in the loss of the flanking bonuses? Rogues are supposed to be opportunists, so it'd be nice if flanking encouraged switching your targets up instead of making focus fire (which is already good by default in almost any game) even better. Similarly, being flanked is at least nominally a failure state; it means you screwed up your positioning somehow and the enemy took advantage. It'd be good if that were modeled somehow. (Sorry I don't have more helpful suggestions, I was just immediately worried about the "attacked in the previous round" idea.)
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Jan 14, 2017 18:36
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Rogues are supposed to be opportunists, so it'd be nice if flanking encouraged switching your targets up instead of making focus fire (which is already good by default in almost any game) even better. Just throwing ideas out there. I don't particularly like attacks from the previous round activating flanking but also know that Skirmisher types like the rogue are also likely to be high on the initiative order and don't really like the idea of them having to delay actions every combat. I am also loath to gimp any thoughts I might have on Rogues in a D20 style system as it is unlikely even a big boost will make them particularly great as compared to playing other classes. Also, flanking is pretty much how focus fire works in 3. games isn't it? Everyone gets the flanking bonus, Rogues just get more on top of it. Switching up targets sounds interesting, but really doesn't work with flanking as we know it because flanking is for everyone, the rogue just boosts it with their sneak attack ability. remusclaw fucked around with this message at 19:01 on Jan 14, 2017 |
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Jan 14, 2017 18:52
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you're not wrong, i'm just disappointed that of all the ways WotC could have modeled "i sneak up behind guy and stab him for lots of damage" they chose the one that has almost no relation to stealth and incentivizes what was already the dominant mode of combat e: this is more of a rogue thing rather than a "how do you model what happens when someone gets surrounded" thing; i'm drifting off-topic. haven't had breakfast yet
Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 19:02 on Jan 14, 2017 |
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Jan 14, 2017 18:59
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It's both really. The intent was to model flanking better for non mini's play, but also in a slightly less in depth way than the previous poster did. The rogue just comes into it because it is the class that most relies on it, and as such would need the most thought for how the new system effects it.
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Jan 14, 2017 19:05
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The proposed systems so far have made flanking and positioning more difficult, with stuff like checks being required to get where you want instead of simply being able to walk around terrain or enemies. I can't help but feel this disproportionately benefits characters who are more comfortable rarely moving, such as spellcasters, in a system that already loves spellcasters.
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Jan 14, 2017 19:19
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:you're not wrong, i'm just disappointed that of all the ways WotC could have modeled "i sneak up behind guy and stab him for lots of damage" they chose the one that has almost no relation to stealth and incentivizes what was already the dominant mode of combat
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Jan 14, 2017 19:43
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Yawgmoth posted:On the one hand, I agree. On the other hand, sneak attacking with a ballista is hilarious. 
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Jan 14, 2017 20:00
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Countblanc posted:The proposed systems so far have made flanking and positioning more difficult, with stuff like checks being required to get where you want instead of simply being able to walk around terrain or enemies. I can't help but feel this disproportionately benefits characters who are more comfortable rarely moving, such as spellcasters, in a system that already loves spellcasters. I was suggesting checks when it was appropriate and thematic, like acrobatics to move through a rubble field or something like that. If there's nothing stopping you, you can just flank. This was for an abstract system gradenko was thinking about using, where there wasn't a grid to regulate your position. So the free checks would emulate the otherwise missing effect of the terrain on the combat space. If you're not going to gate flanking at all, you might as well just give everyone a +2 or ignore it, because why wouldn't you always be flanking?
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Jan 14, 2017 20:21
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Thanks for the feedback, all. As I said, in the particular game I'm running, flanking hasn't come up very much because the party is a Human Cleric, a Halfling Targeteer-Fighter that hurls harpoons from a distance, and a Human sword-and-board Fighter, which means we rarely get more than one person up in melee, but I was thinking that, barring any special terrain, to just allow any two people to flank a target by declaring it to be so, as long as the three of you (two flankers and the target) are all in melee range of each other.
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Jan 15, 2017 04:24
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:you're not wrong, i'm just disappointed that of all the ways WotC could have modeled "i sneak up behind guy and stab him for lots of damage" they chose the one that has almost no relation to stealth and incentivizes what was already the dominant mode of combat They sort of had that going in 3e with the Scout class, where skirmish damage dice only kicked off if a scout moved 10 feet in a round. You could even use feats to stack skirmish dice growth with sneak attack growth, but that's not quite the same I know.
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Jan 15, 2017 06:39
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I know we don't discuss setting here much, but a buddy of mine got me a copy of the setting book for the newest version of Runequest that I've started reading through. How the hell is this not something that people reference and play more often? I mean, the rules for BRP were a hot mess from what I recall, but this setting is most bizarre and interesting fantasy I've seen in forever. It's taking a dump on Tolkien, but doing it in a completely different way than Japanese fantasy (like FF or Exalted) does. I'm only 15 or 20 pages into the book, and I already have 4 or 5 big interesting plot ideas that are so different from standard fair that I'm not sure they even register on the way the ye olde renn faire style of setting at all. "We need to change some stuff, so let's punch a god in the dick to change mythology-- What could go wrong?" and "Let's turn the world into a giant dragon and return everything to some crazy cosmic infinity" are just such bizarre motivations that I can't really compare to anything except maybe the Deathlords from Exalted. Is it just not looked at because the game has gone through a bunch of owners and has had the most consistent print editions for awhile, or does the setting fall apart if you look too deeply at it?
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Jan 16, 2017 04:14
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If you're talking bout Glorantha, there's a thread for that! Archived unfortunately, but still a good read. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3577837
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Jan 16, 2017 04:17
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remusclaw posted:If you're talking bout Glorantha, there's a thread for that! Yeah, Glorantha is what I'm talking about. Just so crazy and interesting that even if I never use the setting, I can see taking parts of it for use in a homegrown campaign because the stuff is so wild that it needs to rammed into other fantasy settings to make them squirm a bit. One big question, though. The megathread is talking about something called the Lunar Empire, and for the life of me I can't find a reference to it in the book I have (Glorantha the Second Age 2E from Mongoose) Did they call it something different in that book-- the thing about invading the dragon pass sounds like it could be the EWF or God Learners with a name change.
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Jan 16, 2017 04:30
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What you have is something of a prequel setting to classic Glorantha. The Lunar Empire is a 3rd age thing. From what I understand, 2nd age is good, but there is a lot more content for the Third age, which has existed in gaming form since the 70's. Really cool stuff, but has a rep as being very dense and hard to get into. Had a huge two volume Guide to Glorantha Kickstarted a few years back.
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Jan 16, 2017 04:43
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remusclaw posted:What you have is something of a prequel setting to classic Glorantha. The Lunar Empire is a 3rd age thing. From what I understand, 2nd age is good, but there is a lot more content for the Third age, which has existed in gaming form since the 70's. Really cool stuff, but has a rep as being very dense and hard to get into. Had a huge two volume Guide to Glorantha Kickstarted a few years back. OK, that really makes some sense then, especially with some of the comments about the God Learners (i.e. their awesome plan of punching myths in the dick is thought to be safe currently, but apparently has a big drawback later) lead me to think there might have been more going on. What would be the best book to look into about the 3rd Age that is available on PDF or the like-- this seems like the kind of thing to put on a tablet and read when you have some excess time on a flight or the like. I couldn't find a Guide to Glorantha in DriveThruRPG's store, but I did find some old Runequest stuff, which is probably mostly clunky rules instead of setting.
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Jan 16, 2017 04:55
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rkajdi posted:OK, that really makes some sense then, especially with some of the comments about the God Learners (i.e. their awesome plan of punching myths in the dick is thought to be safe currently, but apparently has a big drawback later) lead me to think there might have been more going on. What would be the best book to look into about the 3rd Age that is available on PDF or the like-- this seems like the kind of thing to put on a tablet and read when you have some excess time on a flight or the like. I couldn't find a Guide to Glorantha in DriveThruRPG's store, but I did find some old Runequest stuff, which is probably mostly clunky rules instead of setting. The PDF is sold through the Chaosium store here: http://www.chaosium.com/the-guide-to-glorantha-pdf/ It's like 928 pages though, so it's not exactly light reading. Comprehensive as gently caress though. There's also a kickstarter for a 13th age Glorantha game, which should come with a more condensed setting overview http://www.13thageinglorantha.com/
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Jan 16, 2017 05:05
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rkajdi posted:OK, that really makes some sense then, especially with some of the comments about the God Learners (i.e. their awesome plan of punching myths in the dick is thought to be safe currently, but apparently has a big drawback later) lead me to think there might have been more going on. What would be the best book to look into about the 3rd Age that is available on PDF or the like-- this seems like the kind of thing to put on a tablet and read when you have some excess time on a flight or the like. I couldn't find a Guide to Glorantha in DriveThruRPG's store, but I did find some old Runequest stuff, which is probably mostly clunky rules instead of setting. The best places to start with Glorantha, in order: 1) HeroQuest Voices: a free 70 page supplement where fifteen Glorantha cultures describe themselves in-character. Not quite canonical any more, but still a great starting point. Download it. 2) Glorantha: Introduction to the Hero Wars: a 256 page digest-sized overview of the entire setting, for an earlier version of the game. Some parts of it are obsolete, and it has really bad editing, but the PDF is only $5 and there's a lot of really good stuff in there. 3) HeroQuest Glorantha: The narrative-rules RPG for the world with a lot of introductory setting information. $40 for the book or $20 for the PDF 4) The Glorantha Sourcebook: A big mechanics-free introductory overview of the setting, written to accompany the 13th Age Glorantha RPG rules. Probably the best intro source, which suffers from the slight disadvantage of not actually existing. Should be available Real Soon, though! I'll also recommend the King of Dragon Pass computer game (on Steam or through your nearest mobile app store) which lets you play as one of the tribes in the Dragon Pass, dealing with abstracted 4X gameplay and tons of Gloranthan events. It's probably the single best individual way to get into the 'feel' of the setting.
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Jan 16, 2017 05:09
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rkajdi posted:OK, that really makes some sense then, especially with some of the comments about the God Learners (i.e. their awesome plan of punching myths in the dick is thought to be safe currently, but apparently has a big drawback later) lead me to think there might have been more going on. What would be the best book to look into about the 3rd Age that is available on PDF or the like-- this seems like the kind of thing to put on a tablet and read when you have some excess time on a flight or the like. I couldn't find a Guide to Glorantha in DriveThruRPG's store, but I did find some old Runequest stuff, which is probably mostly clunky rules instead of setting. Just do what I did, and smile and nod through incomprehensible discussions, read random entries on the now-defunct http://glorantha.tumblr.com and play King of Dragon Pass until you achieve A minor aside about the Lunars and God Learners– the three ages of Glorantha that we have historical details about all involve a world superpower finding a new way to exploit the universe's metaphysics to gain phenomenal cosmic power. At first it's for good intentions, but they all devolve into cruel dickhead empires. The First Age had the Bright Empire, which created a living god of enlightenment to rule them within Time, but it (probably?) was corrupted and became an avatar of Gbaji, the Chaos God of lies. You already know about the Second Age and how the God Learners are wizard colonialists who exploit the Otherworlds of their subjects like a Belgian in the Congo, and the about the Empire of Wyrms Friends who are running a massive karmic pyramid scheme to become true dragons. The Third Age has the Lunar Empire, which is more subtle and devious in their exploitation of Gloranthan reality: they're religious syncretists. Their state religion exists consciously within Time, and so they can continually create new demigods through their sainted mystics and absorb the gods of other faiths. Got a problem with steppe nomads? The demigod-emperor can go to the underworld on a quest to sleep with an ancient goddess of horror and fear: congratulations, the Emperor is now a proud father of the Lunar Goddess of Killing Steppe Nomads. The real problem starts when the enemies of these empires start exploiting reality back at them, which generally results in the near-destruction of all reality and the end of the given age. And, of course, you can argue that even this pattern of imperialism-opposition-near destruction-rebirth is just an echo of the mythic conflict between Yelm/The Bad Emperor/SKY_STASIS and Orlanth/Rebellis Terminus/STORM_MOVEMENT. Maybe it's like any other Heroquest, and following these well-worn mythic paths within Time will unlock phenomenal power, even if the reenactment is on a societal scale. It's like poetry, sort of. They rhyme.
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Jan 16, 2017 05:37
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If you don't have the time to play a game, there's two Lets Plays of King of Dragons Pass, too: here and here. Glorantha is a great, massive setting that is doubly interesting for having so many unique cultures that don't fall back on real world analogues for easy shorthand
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Jan 16, 2017 06:00
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My latest blogpost for The Next Project is up. Today's post: basically working to whittle down all the character classes to a fine point. One class has been renamed! Click to find out which one! 
P.d0t fucked around with this message at 06:23 on Jan 16, 2017 |
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Jan 16, 2017 06:20
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Just got into dicemasters, but it seems the thread is closed. Is there another thread around or did the goon hivemind decide the game wasn't good enough to deserve one? Can't seem to find any, seems surprising since it looks like the game is doing well.
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Jan 16, 2017 08:19
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remusclaw posted:The recent posts have given me an idea on using flanking in d20 while using somewhat more abstract positioning such as range bands or even full theatre of the mind. A dumb idea I had with regards to flanking in abstract combat a long while back was to make flanking rely on outnumbering the enemy and then giving other means to setting up a flank. So a Fighter and a Rogue can't set up a flank while fighting against ten goblins unless they work for it through making appropriate skill checks. Rogues would have the ability to make the appropriate skill checks as a Minor Action while for other characters it'd be a Move Action, meaning that on a round which they started already engaged with the enemy they would potentially be able to try setting up a flank twice in case they happened to fail their first attempt. Fighters and other defendery characters would act as a number of combatants equal to 1+their level for the purposes of flanking and outnumbering enemies.
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Jan 16, 2017 10:29
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Hugoon Chavez posted:
Just make it yourself, you aren't seperate from the hivemind.
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Jan 16, 2017 13:24
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Does anyone know a method for contacting Uwe Rosenberg, designer of Agricola? Can't seem to find an email adress for him.
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Jan 16, 2017 15:43
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Spiderfist Island posted:Just do what I did, and smile and nod through incomprehensible discussions, read random entries on the now-defunct http://glorantha.tumblr.com and play King of Dragon Pass until you achieve I thought sort of the point of Glorantha was that, at least for the non-Chaos parts of civilization, the setting really didn't set up a good guy/bad guy kind of children's morality. So the antagonists are based on who is chosen as the protagonists for a campaign, rather than the IMO stupid "They are evil and I am good, so I get to murder their children and still be just" that D&D seems to fall into a lot. The whole Arkat thing seem to support that, since he's both the hero and villain in each culture as he joins, uses, and then leaves the culture on the way to killing Gbaji. One other thing-- Does the Third Age hold up on the same level of insane stuff happening that the Second Age has? Because there's this disturbing trend in fantasy settings to put the cool stuff in the past, and only have boring renn faire bullshit in the present. I mean, there's this whole machine god city that can gently caress with stuff, plus the two major empires and the idea that Chaos is outside civilization waiting for its turn to gently caress things up (kind of like the Fair Folk in that way) I wouldn't want to dump that for stupid crown games and the other standard fantasy tropes.
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Jan 16, 2017 16:20
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Let me put it this way, the hero wars start with a contested magic ritual that accidentally carves a giant air rune into the stars, among other things.
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Jan 16, 2017 16:38
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