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I found my first ever box of old RPG stuff. There was a single dog-eared copy of a Bruce Cordell level 15 3.0 adventure, 10 copies of d20 Modern Apocalypse, 10 copies of d20 Modern Past, and 10 copies of d20 Modern Cyberscape.
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Feb 19, 2017 11:55
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| # ? May 15, 2024 18:07 |
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Flavivirus posted:I'm running a horror one-shot for my wife's birthday set in an arctic research station. There's some standard things to bring in - The Thing, At The Mountains of Madness, etc - but I was wondering if people here had any ideas for awful things that might be happening in an isolated, freezing research station? If it's during the winter, then you could go all 30 Days of Night. Vampires who don't have to worry about the sun for weeks or months...
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Feb 19, 2017 13:34
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Flavivirus posted:I'm running a horror one-shot for my wife's birthday set in an arctic research station. There's some standard things to bring in - The Thing, At The Mountains of Madness, etc - but I was wondering if people here had any ideas for awful things that might be happening in an isolated, freezing research station? Honestly you don't even need to start with the supernatural. I think there's something to be said about the slow breakdown of trust and morale that can happen to any group of people stuck with each other for a long period of time. Things might go missing, accusations get thrown around, arguments get heated. It doesn't take long before people are locking their doors and sleeping with ice picks under their pillows. It might be made worse if the things people use to relax are sabotaged or stolen. A person's books go missing and the communal TV has stopped working giving them little else to do but work and stew in their own paranoia. Think of the Shining but there are a lot of jacks running around.
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Feb 19, 2017 13:34
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Flavivirus posted:I'm running a horror one-shot for my wife's birthday set in an arctic research station. There's some standard things to bring in - The Thing, At The Mountains of Madness, etc - but I was wondering if people here had any ideas for awful things that might be happening in an isolated, freezing research station? penguin uprising. against who I and maybe even they do not know but the south pole will rise again
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Feb 19, 2017 13:34
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unzealous posted:Honestly you don't even need to start with the supernatural. I think there's something to be said about the slow breakdown of trust and morale that can happen to any group of people stuck with each other for a long period of time. Things might go missing, accusations get thrown around, arguments get heated. It doesn't take long before people are locking their doors and sleeping with ice picks under their pillows. It might be made worse if the things people use to relax are sabotaged or stolen. A person's books go missing and the communal TV has stopped working giving them little else to do but work and stew in their own paranoia. Think of the Shining but there are a lot of jacks running around. Building on that, think of how dependent these people are on supply routes that can only be run at certain times of the year. Like last year when those researchers were stuck at a smaller outpost that was surrounded by hungry polar bears and they'd run out of flares to scare them off. Or when it takes like military precision to get someone in to evacuate a person with an otherwise terminal disease. People could live and die on the basis of a single hosed up resupply. It makes the consequences of sabotage a lot more dire.
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Feb 19, 2017 15:51
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Feb 19, 2017 16:17
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gradenko_2000 posted:Leverage would seem to be appropriate, given how the premise of the show is counter-cons on archconservative assholes. I think the 4e one went over my head. I've only ever played a couple games of it. What about Red Markets? Too focused on grinding down the players?
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Feb 19, 2017 17:12
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Rockopolis posted:I think the 4e one went over my head. I've only ever played a couple games of it. It's a joke about how people who like to mix ideology with their gaming* like to stake out 4e as being part of some kind of pinko conspiracy to overturn the good and true D&D. * I haven't checked in a while, but last time I looked RPGPundit literally became a low-rent far-right pundit. Red Markets could work insofar as it has a lot of capitalist overtones - running it as gritty as possible (and with the right flavor of opponent) is going to be a reflection of the kind of free market hell that's going to descend upon the US as this administration strips the gently caress out of regulations and consumer protections, but the default setting doesn't exactly line up with reality, since even the world of Liberal Crime Squad doesn't have a literal zombie apocalypse. A zombie apocalypse is a great metaphor for the unholy goddamned recession that's about to hit, though. Maybe replace them with the Trumpstaffel.
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Feb 19, 2017 17:59
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Flavivirus posted:I'm running a horror one-shot for my wife's birthday set in an arctic research station. There's some standard things to bring in - The Thing, At The Mountains of Madness, etc - but I was wondering if people here had any ideas for awful things that might be happening in an isolated, freezing research station? Bioweapon research is one option, experimenting on the (not necessarily dead) alien bodies is another.
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Feb 19, 2017 18:09
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Flavivirus posted:I'm running a horror one-shot for my wife's birthday set in an arctic research station. There's some standard things to bring in - The Thing, At The Mountains of Madness, etc - but I was wondering if people here had any ideas for awful things that might be happening in an isolated, freezing research station? The station slowly begins bleeding into different realities after the station links up with an unidentified satellite. It starts with simple things, like a TAB cola machine appearing (or disappearing) in the mess hall, the PA system is only good for playing Soviet-era elevator music, the beds in the bunkhouse being replaced with office desks. Then rooms begin changing layout, seemingly at random; the same door you just walked through won't take you back to the room you were previously in. Shambling piles of flesh that look like half-formed crew members (PCs) start appearing, followed by impossibly flat carnivorous beings who look like manta rays that just seem to appear out of nothing. The crew needs to figure out that they need to get outside and disable the satellite uplink before the station is completely pulled into another dimension.
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Feb 19, 2017 18:37
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Father Wendigo posted:The station slowly begins bleeding into different realities after the station links up with an unidentified satellite. It starts with simple things, like a TAB cola machine appearing (or disappearing) in the mess hall, the PA system is only good for playing Soviet-era elevator music, the beds in the bunkhouse being replaced with office desks. Then rooms begin changing layout, seemingly at random; the same door you just walked through won't take you back to the room you were previously in. Shambling piles of flesh that look like half-formed crew members (PCs) start appearing, followed by impossibly flat carnivorous beings who look like manta rays that just seem to appear out of nothing. The crew needs to figure out that they need to get outside and disable the satellite uplink before the station is completely pulled into another dimension. Ooh I like this one. Not that I'm not in favour of the slow burn style too, but I have a strict time limit thanks to baby so need something that can escalate quickly!
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Feb 19, 2017 18:46
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Flavivirus posted:Ooh I like this one. Not that I'm not in favour of the slow burn style too, but I have a strict time limit thanks to baby so need something that can escalate quickly! If anyone dies, you can have a slightly different version of them show up in the next few rooms escaping from whatever killed the rest of the party in their slightly different reality. They can have completely different skills and gear (just write random skills and gear on a couple of dozen 3x5 cards). The Thin mantarays completely envelope pray like a sheet, wrapping tighter and getting smaller until they phase out of existence. If one manages to kill a PC, two more pop up somewhere else in the facility. A legitimate tactic is to kite them into one of the shambling flesh mounds, which only creates a single Thintaray somewhere else. Killing a Thintaray through conventional means (no idea what you wanna stat 'em as) kills it... and another takes its place after a few minutes in in-game time.
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Feb 19, 2017 19:06
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Outside the supernatural, there used to be a great blog "Big Dead Place" about life at McMurdo Station in Antarctica. Most of the bad poo poo that happened there was from alcohol, love triangles, and operating heavy machinery(usually while drunk).
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Feb 19, 2017 19:19
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gradenko_2000 posted:It's a joke about how people who like to mix ideology with their gaming* like to stake out 4e as being part of some kind of pinko conspiracy to overturn the good and true D&D.
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Feb 19, 2017 19:33
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Countblanc posted:now to be fair everyone I play 4e with IS a leftist and communist, so maybe they were right after all Or you just have good friends
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Feb 19, 2017 19:50
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4e is the edition most in keeping with leftist ideology. That's just a fact.
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Feb 19, 2017 21:09
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This includes its ultimate repudiation and defeat in favor of focus-grouped reactionary quisling trash whose only firm commitment is to greater quality-of-life for the pre-existing elite.
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Feb 19, 2017 21:10
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Feb 19, 2017 21:14
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Flavivirus posted:I'm running a horror one-shot for my wife's birthday set in an arctic research station. There's some standard things to bring in - The Thing, At The Mountains of Madness, etc - but I was wondering if people here had any ideas for awful things that might be happening in an isolated, freezing research station? Assault on Precinct 13 might have some ideas to mine.
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Feb 19, 2017 21:19
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Ferrinus posted:4e is the edition most in keeping with leftist ideology. That's just a fact. it features the working class (martial) being gifted equality to the capitalists (arcane/divine) by the government (wizards of the coast)
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Feb 19, 2017 21:31
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Attorney at Funk posted:This includes its ultimate repudiation and defeat in favor of focus-grouped reactionary quisling trash whose only firm commitment is to greater quality-of-life for the pre-existing elite. Wow. That was too real, man. God drat. God loving drat.
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Feb 19, 2017 21:35
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Countblanc posted:it features the working class (martial) being gifted equality to the capitalists (arcane/divine) by the government (wizards of the coast) it features guidelines for a guaranteed minimum income so no one falls dramatically behind on wealth
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Feb 19, 2017 21:40
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Ferrinus posted:4e is the edition most in keeping with leftist ideology. That's just a fact. Even if you, as an individual fail at producing anything of value (ie, hitting), you're still awarded something by the system so you can continue to be nothing but a drag to your group. sounds about right 
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Feb 19, 2017 21:42
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im proud of the martials finally developing Role Consciousness
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Feb 19, 2017 21:44
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[in the tone of chastising someone buying potato chips on ebt] why is that martial restoring someone's hp? if they want that they should have to earn it by getting a class with some spell slots like the rest of us
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Feb 19, 2017 21:48
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The way things are going, maybe Twilight 2000. They did push the Doomsday Clock forward, after all. Or I could always dust off Merc 2000 for an eighties retro kick. Economy's tanked, hope the Democrats are recruiting mercenaries to serve in the armed wing of the party.
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Feb 19, 2017 21:58
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OpenlyEvilJello posted:Is there a thread that talks about Mouse Guard, or alternatively anything good offsite? My partner got it (largely on the grounds that mice are cute) and she wants to run it for her D&D group with a little help from me, so I'd like to read up on it. It might have hit archives by now, but there was a Mouse Guard/Burning Wheel/Torchbearer thread up for a while. The Mouse Guard book is pretty good at telling you what the game's about and how to run it, though. There aren't really any mechanics-related traps or anything.
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Feb 20, 2017 00:06
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Sorry to interrupt a bit but I had a minor question and a few ideas that I wanted to have an ask about. I am planning on running (in Real Life) a Game of Heroquest: Glorantha. I have been looking over the rules and it is one of a very small number of games that I think I understand competently enough to be able to GM. But is it considered "too simple?" as it were? I mean no-one is holding a fistful of dice to roll and I am worried people are going to show up expecting a game with more I dunno "obfuscation" between rolling and result? I mean I see boardgames with more dice and I got a bit worried, am I being daft about this? Plus anyone else whose played it with any ideas/ what most people think about it would be awesome. Thanks!
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Feb 20, 2017 00:07
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well first off if a board game has a lot of dice it's probably poo poo with few exceptions so that's a pretty bad metric.
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Feb 20, 2017 00:10
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P.d0t posted:Seems a little bit hair-splitty. But, "Combat Medicine" in place of First Aid and "_____ Medicine" in place of just 'Medical' probably has some merit. I'd say so. With the caveat that I don't know how I could improve it as it is currently. The "Medical" skill is a distinct knowledge or investigation check. As such it fits in with every skill on the list with the exception of "First Aid". "First Aid" is the odd man out because you use it actively to stabilize a dying character (I'm assuming) or heal another. That's not a bad thing, just an observation. You also specifically stated you could use "First Aid" as a knowledge/investigation check. For completion's sake I'm assuming your persuade/deceive skills (NPC interaction) are (primarily): Local, Streetwise, Royalty & Nobility, Arcana, and Religion. quote:
You've made it explicit that Knowledge Skills are roleplaying and character defining aids/tools so the somewhat nebulous definition of "Medical" fits for the purpose of narrative roleplay. A doctor and a poisoner or martial artist or even a chef could all take "Medical" and justify it differently. I'll also suggest using the ancient word "Physic" for Medicine. Last time I saw the word used was in the Elric! rpg as a medical skill. "Physic & Forensics" maybe, depending on what tone you are going for.
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Feb 20, 2017 03:17
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Attorney at Funk posted:This includes its ultimate repudiation and defeat in favor of focus-grouped reactionary quisling trash whose only firm commitment is to greater quality-of-life for the pre-existing elite. Rockopolis posted:The way things are going, maybe Twilight 2000. They did push the Doomsday Clock forward, after all. Josef bugman posted:Sorry to interrupt a bit but I had a minor question and a few ideas that I wanted to have an ask about. I am planning on running (in Real Life) a Game of Heroquest: Glorantha. I have been looking over the rules and it is one of a very small number of games that I think I understand competently enough to be able to GM. But is it considered "too simple?" as it were? I mean no-one is holding a fistful of dice to roll and I am worried people are going to show up expecting a game with more I dunno "obfuscation" between rolling and result? I mean I see boardgames with more dice and I got a bit worried, am I being daft about this?
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Feb 20, 2017 04:24
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gradenko_2000 posted:Paging Serf, Serf please pick up the white courtesy phone. we are all going to die 
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Feb 20, 2017 04:40
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Kestral posted:The definitive place for Mouse Guard discussion is the Burning Wheel forums. I would be genuinely surprised if there were any questions you had about it that haven't already received detailed answers - it's that kind of place. Glazius posted:It might have hit archives by now, but there was a Mouse Guard/Burning Wheel/Torchbearer thread up for a while. Thanks, folks.
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Feb 20, 2017 04:42
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Flavivirus posted:I'm running a horror one-shot for my wife's birthday set in an arctic research station. There's some standard things to bring in - The Thing, At The Mountains of Madness, etc - but I was wondering if people here had any ideas for awful things that might be happening in an isolated, freezing research station? Frankenstein ended with he monster and Dr Frankenstein in the Arctic. What if "Adam" was found and some idiot shocked him back to life?
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Feb 20, 2017 04:48
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Josef bugman posted:Sorry to interrupt a bit but I had a minor question and a few ideas that I wanted to have an ask about. I am planning on running (in Real Life) a Game of Heroquest: Glorantha. I have been looking over the rules and it is one of a very small number of games that I think I understand competently enough to be able to GM. But is it considered "too simple?" as it were? I mean no-one is holding a fistful of dice to roll and I am worried people are going to show up expecting a game with more I dunno "obfuscation" between rolling and result? I mean I see boardgames with more dice and I got a bit worried, am I being daft about this? My experience with Heroquest Glorantha has been playing several one-shots of it at Gencon over the last few years. I had a blast every time (well, apart from one time when the table just didn't gel), and highly recommend it. I'd say that its strong suit is that it really enables creative play. For example, one of the games set our group of troubleshooters an open-ended mission to sneak into a competing city-state and steal some tablets. After some travel scenes and elaborate tomfoolery involving clever disguises and absolutely no escape plan, we found ourselves in the target library, tablets in hand... encircled by angry guards and a raging fire (that we had set ourselves, for some daft reason). Our solution? Well, it turns out that if you hand players tablets detailing the Lightbringer's quest, they will immediately embark on the Lightbringers quest at the slightest provocation. Some of us even survived it! All of this was handled seamlessly, and very satisfactorily. The loose structure of the rules combined with the deeply personalized abilities acted to encourage improvisation while still keeping things grounded and focused on the PCs. The climatic quest, for instance, was handled very quickly (due to time constraints), but didn't feel like a cop-out. All the players got to make a roll, and were either doomed in the underworld (in a way reflecting the ability they used), or emerged back into the world, safe but not unchanged. I wouldn't worry too much about your players' expectations. I mean, sure, it's entirely possible that they'll come in expecting a more structured, gamey experience, but all that mean is that you'll have to work to ease them into the new paradigm. Heroquest is a good game that's good at what it does, so don't worry on that point. Some of us gloranthaphiles still hang out on IRC at #cowgame (on synIRC), if you want to shoot the poo poo about it.
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Feb 20, 2017 05:07
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Josef bugman posted:Sorry to interrupt a bit but I had a minor question and a few ideas that I wanted to have an ask about. I am planning on running (in Real Life) a Game of Heroquest: Glorantha. I have been looking over the rules and it is one of a very small number of games that I think I understand competently enough to be able to GM. But is it considered "too simple?" as it were? I mean no-one is holding a fistful of dice to roll and I am worried people are going to show up expecting a game with more I dunno "obfuscation" between rolling and result? I mean I see boardgames with more dice and I got a bit worried, am I being daft about this? I always feel that it's important to clearly communicate with your players about everything. If you think they might be worried about how light HQ:G is, be sure to talk to your play group first, explain to them the general idea of the system and see if they are up for it. If your group prefers game systems with a bit more crunch and structure to them, then I am not sure if HeroQuest would be suitable or not. You are right that HQ:G can involve very little dice-rolling, but that's because it tends to lean on the design philosophy of "Roll the dice only if the chance of failure matters." So if your players want to do something small and failing it wouldn't really do much for the story beyond just waste everyone's (out of game) time, then just tell them they succeed and move on. In a one-shot I ran a few months ago the players, between all 3 of them, rolled the dice a total of 4 or 5 times in about a 6 hour game.
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Feb 20, 2017 08:49
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Attorney at Funk posted:This includes its ultimate repudiation and defeat in favor of focus-grouped reactionary quisling trash whose only firm commitment is to greater quality-of-life for the pre-existing elite. I warned about Bourgeoise Democracy bro. I told you dog.
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Feb 20, 2017 13:34
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Father Wendigo posted:If anyone dies, you can have a slightly different version of them show up in the next few rooms escaping from whatever killed the rest of the party in their slightly different reality. They can have completely different skills and gear (just write random skills and gear on a couple of dozen 3x5 cards). Get one or more of the players on board with you beforehand. Have them write up an alternate universe character sheet that's mostly the same but not quite. Have them switch between them discretely as possible (or blatantly as possible while refusing to admit having done so) any time they leave the group, or even in the middle of a scene).
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Feb 20, 2017 14:26
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In my current Strike game the PCs did a bad thing and caught the attention of some time gods that started summoning alternate universe versions of the PCs to fight them. I just statted them out as stooges, and after the fight went on longer than I anticipated and I ran out of standard alt-universe tropes the players started describing what each new version looked like. Can confirm that is way more fun for them.
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Feb 20, 2017 14:31
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It's such a fuzzy feeling to be offhandedly mentioned as a good GM (even if you know too well you're really more of a mixed bag). 
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Feb 20, 2017 15:16
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