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I Am Just a Box posted:On the smaller point: you get two Rite dots, enough for the Sacred Hunt, free, though? On top of your starting 10 Merits. Honestly, I make just about every merit that isn't an intrinsic part of a person pool-able by the group. I don't like not charging XP for things like Sanctum (even if I did rewrite the prereqs because mundane security for a sanctum, huh?) and Resources because they're getting XP and beats for setting up their little fiefdom anyway. It's just a way to represent that time and effort spent on their sheet. I've always felt bad for werewolf sheets because that's just too many things to sink XP into (this coming from a mage-centric player should really say something).
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Jun 12, 2017 20:53
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Rubix Squid posted:The best solution of the Crafts problem is to restrict to general handicraft and the like unless the character has specialty, professional training, or any other similarly strong reason to do things like making robots and cooking meth. Yeah, if I had to do formal design I'd make Crafts cover jury-rigging and similar informal cleverness and just have a "take as many times as you want" Merit that lets you make really complicated stuff. Maybe have an in-between zone where you cross-reference Craft with your other skills so that if you have Computers you can roll to install a motherboard and if you have Firearms you can take a rifle apart and such.
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Jun 12, 2017 21:00
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Ferrinus posted:Maybe have an in-between zone where you cross-reference Craft with your other skills so that if you have Computers you can roll to install a motherboard and if you have Firearms you can take a rifle apart and such. Those really just sound like INT+Computers and INT+Firearms to me.
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Jun 12, 2017 22:00
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LatwPIAT posted:Those really just sound like INT+Computers and INT+Firearms to me. Agreed here. I use Crafts as a catch-all for anything that doesn't look like it fits under another skill first. Painting is Expression, building computers is Computer, that sort of thing. It makes those other skills have more uses in an appropriate way, and leaves crafts as a skill that ends up getting used to do impromptu things that don't fall immediately into other categories. It's really not the best skill to dump 5 dots into, but it could really be a lot worse. It's a mediocre skill at best. I just flat out recommend not dumping dots into it to my players because I can make their other skills come up, but Crafts is less useful than all the other mental skills while we're sitting at the table. It's the Animal Ken of the mental skills. (Yes, I realize some splats use that skill frequently, but I've asked someone to use it all of once in memory and only because they decided to not use magic to capture a feral cat. I don't know why, it was a thyrsus even with 4-dots in Life.)
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Jun 12, 2017 23:02
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I'm currently playing a sin eater mechanic with high crafts and it has been pretty great. I can build pretty much anything I want, I've had a bunch of situations to use it because I told the DM that I was planning on this character, and have had a lot of fun with a different type of character.
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Jun 12, 2017 23:28
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One of the few places where I like Shadowrun's character generation over other systems is being able to take, for example, 3 levels in something and have it be either for example "Firearms 3" or "Firearms 2 (Pistols 4)", or IIRC even in edge cases poo poo like "Firearms 1 [Pistols 3 (Beretta 92A1 5)]". Which would fit Crafts pretty well here: Maybe you have Crafts 3 because you're just pretty dang good with your hands in general, or you have Crafts 1 [Repair 3 (Vehicle Repair 5)]. Or even Crafts 3 vs Crafts 2 (Art 4) as something where, yeah you'd be Above Average at putting stuff together in general, or you can be average at putting stuff together, and you've got knowledge enough of composition and design that you could probably paint a decent picture even if you're really a sculptor at heart. But then you do run into the "why not just take Specialties" issue, which, yeah good point.
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Jun 12, 2017 23:42
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Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:One of the few places where I like Shadowrun's character generation[...] Every discussion of Shadowrun is eventually going to run into its problem with throwing 37 dice at shooting people with a Serbian knockoff of a Czech clone of a future AK-47 because that's the one with the best stats this edition and being completely incapable at everything else. Games don't have specialization like that when they're actively trying not to be Shadowrun.
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Jun 13, 2017 00:30
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So for those interested in something approaching Bloodlines 2 that new Vampyr game trailer gave me some serious Lancea et Sanctum vibes at the end. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riQ692rbs-E The combat and animations in the current alpha version they're showing off are just as janky as Bloodlines but the storytelling seems to be pretty good and drat did they hit the mood right at a few points.
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Jun 13, 2017 19:50
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Archonex posted:So for those interested in something approaching Bloodlines 2 that new Vampyr game trailer gave me some serious Lancea et Sanctum vibes at the end. I saw some of the first news on that, and I was a little concerned that the whole "As a vampire, you are cursed to feed on those you vowed to heal" thing was going to manifest as binary good/evil choices, perhaps even a morality meter. Based on the conversation with the priest at the end of the video it thankfully seems a lot more nuanced than that, and I am now cautiously optimistic.
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Jun 13, 2017 20:06
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That game is poo poo unless it lets you grow claws and turn into a bat.
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Jun 13, 2017 20:18
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"You've set the table for a snake and wonder why there's venom in your food" That's... not how snakes work
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Jun 13, 2017 20:28
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Basic Chunnel posted:"You've set the table for a snake and wonder why there's venom in your food" Biting food is the snake version of licking it to claim ownership. The snake in this scenario is kind of an rear end in a top hat.
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Jun 13, 2017 20:32
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He's Irish, they don't really know how snakes work.
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Jun 13, 2017 20:39
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We do too! When they see prey, their neck frills fan out, they screech, then they spit venom on Newman from Seinfeld.
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Jun 13, 2017 20:48
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This week I'm sending my Mage players on a Mysterium expedition to unearth some old Time Before Ruins. They're watching the Mummy in-character to prep. I think this bodes well.
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Jun 13, 2017 23:51
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The good mummy or the new one?
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Jun 14, 2017 00:38
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The good one.
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Jun 14, 2017 00:51
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I like the Brendan Fraser Mummy well enough but y'all are being awfully cold to the Hammer and Universal Pictures Mummy movies.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6hA6Hx8PIg
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Jun 14, 2017 06:13
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Since you lot can appreciate a good conspiracy, Midnight in the Desert are claiming to have new, authentic MJ12 documents in their possession and have uploaded them for public viewing. http://midnightinthedesert.com/exclusive-ultra-top-secret-assessment-situation-statement-position-ufos/
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Jun 14, 2017 07:40
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Crashing thru Werewoof 2E in about the span of three weeks' spare time to prep a game. Any good Woof 2E PBPs or Actual Play audio I can listen to, so's to get a feel for the game?
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Jun 14, 2017 08:51
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Does "authentic MJ12 document" mean it was written by the original MJ12 hoaxer?
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Jun 14, 2017 12:49
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Pope Guilty posted:Does "authentic MJ12 document" mean it was written by the original MJ12 hoaxer? Don't be silly, everyone knows MJ12 was real and that the attempts to claim otherwise are pure disinformation smear campaigns. That's why renowned international document analyst Stanton Friedman will put his name next to these being real!
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Jun 14, 2017 12:55
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Ferrinus posted:Yeah, if I had to do formal design I'd make Crafts cover jury-rigging and similar informal cleverness and just have a "take as many times as you want" Merit that lets you make really complicated stuff. Maybe have an in-between zone where you cross-reference Craft with your other skills so that if you have Computers you can roll to install a motherboard and if you have Firearms you can take a rifle apart and such. I thought something similar where a typical Craft roll, but anything more technical or specific would require a Specialty in Crafts or some other Skill. Anything in-between is player's choice so long as they have both available (i.e. jury rigging a computer needs at least a dot in Computer to do, but can be substituted for Craft at some penalty). Extended rolls would be recalculated and scaled such that it's either Craft*2+Attribute or Craft+other Skill+Attribute.
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Jun 14, 2017 13:03
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Basic Chunnel posted:Crashing thru Werewoof 2E in about the span of three weeks' spare time to prep a game. Any good Woof 2E PBPs or Actual Play audio I can listen to, so's to get a feel for the game? Me and some friends have a mixed splat game that we played terribly but have the audio up on youtube, if you like. Two of the four party members are werewolves. We probably didn't play the game how it was meant to be played, but, oh well. Our youtube playlist It was our first time with 2e and with these splats. Also, our first time recording anything. Adjust expectations accordingly.
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Jun 14, 2017 15:50
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M20 Book of Secrets dropped for backers. Apparently one of the punishments endorsed by the chosen good guys of the new setting, the Disparate Alliance, is horrific torture, including execution-by-torture. If you rape someone, you get castrated, but if you falsely accuse someone of rape you also get castrated - and it doesn't seem to include a common sense exemption for if you reasonably believed the charge was an accurate one, so... Not, uh, not sure what to make of that.
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Jun 14, 2017 16:52
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Loomer posted:Not, uh, not sure what to make of that. Who could've expected that after the goodness that is the M20 corebook 
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Jun 14, 2017 17:12
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Loomer posted:Not, uh, not sure what to make of that. You can expect that group to not be reproducing and leaving their genetics with the rest of humanity.
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Jun 14, 2017 17:56
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Loomer posted:M20 Book of Secrets dropped for backers. Apparently one of the punishments endorsed by the chosen good guys of the new setting, the Disparate Alliance, is horrific torture, including execution-by-torture. If you rape someone, you get castrated, but if you falsely accuse someone of rape you also get castrated - and it doesn't seem to include a common sense exemption for if you reasonably believed the charge was an accurate one, so... I love the discourse.
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Jun 14, 2017 19:23
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Loomer posted:M20 Book of Secrets dropped for backers. Apparently one of the punishments endorsed by the chosen good guys of the new setting, the Disparate Alliance, is horrific torture, including execution-by-torture. If you rape someone, you get castrated, but if you falsely accuse someone of rape you also get castrated - and it doesn't seem to include a common sense exemption for if you reasonably believed the charge was an accurate one, so... I look forward to my Acharne gleefully running in to one of their meetings and volunteering as a practice subject, only to be confused why everyone's getting weirded out by him offering suggestions to improve their technique when they get to work.
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Jun 14, 2017 19:51
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I feel like castration is a fairly chickenshit punishment for a group that can trivially, in the grand scheme of things, regrow genitals. Also the chosen good guys are the Void Engineers, not sure if you knew that.
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Jun 14, 2017 21:13
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Mulva posted:I feel like castration is a fairly chickenshit punishment for a group that can trivially, in the grand scheme of things, regrow genitals. Also the chosen good guys are the There's that too. Hell, in some of them it's a foci.
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Jun 14, 2017 21:55
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Hey, Mage chat time! My Cabal is in a Shifting Sands time loop. It all started when we discovered collection of soul jars via a scrying window and opted to bust them open. We failed to do so because the enemy immediately warded them up when they sensed our scrying window. We figured that our Time mage could go back to right before we discovered them and tell us to bust them straight away instead. It got complicated when the enemy had their own time mage who went back in time in order to warn his buddies to defend against the incoming attack, so our mage considered going back further to tell us to attack earlier. We were trying to figure out how the loop play out and figured it'd be something like the MSPaint diagram below. Basically, the attacker is at a disadvantage because he is travelling from the present, while the defender would be travelling back from the moment of what he thinks is the first successful attack.  That infinite loop though, we're not sure if that's a real thing. It seems to allow people to get around the 1 reach per scene travelled limit in the write up of Shifting Sands. Basically, instead of using multiple reaches to go could back multiple hours you go back a single hour to leave instructions for your past self to a go back another hour and so on until a past iteration of yourself Shifting Sands himself back to the moment you want changed. While mechanically dubious, this might make a fun Acanthus plot hook where you are the last in a chain of Shifting Sands but you are missing parts of your instructions.
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Jun 14, 2017 21:58
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Don't you retain all your injuries, mana expenditure, and Conditions when you use Shifting Sands? If I'm getting the mechanism right. It's more like Primer than most time loops - the Abyss and general wear and tear mean infinite loops pass unpleasantness back in time, leading to an eventual breakdown of the time-traveler. (Especially since you appear in your own Pattern back in time, so each further push back will be more prematurely exhausted, drained, and potentially injured, and definitely more Paradoxical. You can't 'leave yourself a note' because you've replaced yourself - you've Woven or Patterned, I can't remember which, your current time-state onto your previous time-state.)
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Jun 14, 2017 22:12
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^ You don't even need to use a note, you're taking your current self back with all knowledge of the situation. It's a possibly hubristic way to deal with avoiding the consequences of your actions.Further Reading posted:Hey, Mage chat time! Change the paradigm. Solano going back gives you the advantage again to try a different plan that allows you to trick the other time mage into not noticing anything has happened, or even better, gives you the opportunity to go and approach this from a different angle entirely. The only part that makes this a loop is by continuing to make the same decisions everytime (also, just increase the scale and take the whole cabal with so you don't have to worry about having to explain things every single time). There are a ton of ways to go about it, but they all start with your group going about the problem from a different way. Not knowing how experienced your mages are or what arcana you can use to what strength makes it difficult to give a bunch of ideas.
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Jun 14, 2017 22:22
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The Sons of Ether aren't scary enough to rank in the discussion. I feel like if you don't make everyone around you go "Yeah those guys are great, also if they ever defect they'll stone murder all of us and there's nothing we can do to stop it" you aren't really playing in the right arena, you know? Like the Technocracy looks at the Sons of Ether and the Virtual Adepts and goes "Eh, no big loss". They are an also ran in brass fetish gear.
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Jun 14, 2017 22:38
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Joe Slowboat posted:Don't you retain all your injuries, mana expenditure, and Conditions when you use Shifting Sands? If I'm getting the mechanism right. Kind of, what happens is you temporarily take the place of your past self at that time. However once the duration ends it reverts to past you. So basically the events should go like this: 4:00 - I realise that at around 2:30 I made a huge mistake. I cast Shifting Sands with 2 reach to go back 2 hours. 2:00 - 2:00 me is replaced by 4:00 me and makes the changes needed. But, what I am wondering is if they could go like this: 4:00 - I realise that at around 2:30 I made a huge mistake. I cast Shifting Sands with just 1 reach to go back 1 hour. 3:00 - 3:00 me is replaced by 4:00 me. 4:00 me writes a note explaining what needs to be changed at 2:00. 3:05 - 4:00 me snaps back to the present. 3:05 me reads the note left behind and casts Shifting Sands with 1 reach to go back 1 hour. 2:05 - 2:05 me is replaced by 3:05 me and makes the changes needed. FurtherReading fucked around with this message at 23:11 on Jun 14, 2017 |
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Jun 14, 2017 23:09
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Here's a fun question: What is Santa Claus? I flippantly responded to a time magic spell with "yes" when the question was "Will I meet Santa Claus?" This game was a couple years ago and I was only recently reminded of this happening and how said mage hasn't yet met Santa Claus. Obviously the answer to this is to run a game based around this because I'm insane and can't say no to a weird challenge to my consistency. So now I need to figure out just what Santa would be. The obvious answer is some sort of fae, but I've also considered ridiculous ideas such as "it's Caine, he's real and has decided to devote his life to delivering children presents for the past few centuries." I'm not going to run this game until it gets closer to Christmas this year but the sooner I figure this out, the sooner I can start planning a mage game around it.
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Jun 15, 2017 01:31
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Xinder posted:Here's a fun question: What is Santa Claus? On the same day every year, a fat man in a red suit defies all known laws of time and space to hand-deliver parcels to a large portion of the world's children based on arcane data about their religious and cultural affiliation, leaving the "gifts" under a specially prepared evergreen decorated with symbols relating to angels and celestial fire. If that's not an occult matrix, I don't know what is.
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Jun 15, 2017 01:52
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Xinder posted:Here's a fun question: What is Santa Claus? Samuel Haight.
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Jun 15, 2017 01:54
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Claus#Predecessor_figures Santa Fae is an amalgamation of his mythic sources. He's missing an eye, looks like a Greek man, is dressed like the Ghost of Christmas Present, and he's also the Christchild somehow.
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Jun 15, 2017 01:55
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