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In other news, Darker Hue Studios (creators of recently Kickstarted Harlem Unbound) are putting out a call for RPG creators of colour for a nebulous maybe-maybe-not project that Chris Spivey's thinking about putting together. If you're a GoC and you're interested, here's the form to fill in.
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Jul 10, 2017 08:43
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Halloween Jack posted:OSR authors putting their Interweb grievances in their work is so loving sad, considering the number of people who will actually get the reference and give a poo poo. I once tried reading Zak Smith's Maze of the Blue Medusa to evaluate his skills strictly as a game designer and one of the first things in the book are the Cannibal Critics, who stand around asking questions like "But is it problematic?". Then I stopped reading and figured that I'd probably be better off just not spending the mental energy necessary to read the whole thing.
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Jul 10, 2017 09:38
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LatwPIAT posted:I once tried reading Zak Smith's Maze of the Blue Medusa to evaluate his skills strictly as a game designer and one of the first things in the book are the Cannibal Critics, who stand around asking questions like "But is it problematic?". Then I stopped reading and figured that I'd probably be better off just not spending the mental energy necessary to read the whole thing. ahaha holy poo poo that's pathetic
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Jul 10, 2017 09:43
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Siivola posted:Okay but what do you actually do with all that? Good question. Those Atomic Bees sound lame. It's basically just The Jetsons Effect - you take a normal thing and slap prefixes on it ("space" in the case of The Jetsons). So first you have some kind of bees, which live in hives and make honey. They pollinate flowers and if they sting you, you die. Now they're some kind of atomic bees, which live in nuclear hives and make atomic honey or whatever. There's also super-flowers and super-death if you get stung. This is basically the very lowest kind of "creativity" you can get. Here, watch. I'll do it right now. I'll make uh... lunar bees. Sure. So the moon itself is a giant hive, alright? And every full moon the lunar bees descend from heaven at night to drink deeply from the uh... I dunno, the night orchids which only bloom under the full moon? Sure. And their sting mutates you into a raging werewolf until the next dawn, so people think that it's some curse that repeats once a month and then they hang a guy and the problem doesn't repeat itself. Which is tragic because it was just an insect sting and nobody would've transformed next month (unless they got stung again of course) so the "solution" was just post-hoc correlation, lending my setting irony and pathos. There. Am I creative enough yet? Do I get money now? Wait. gently caress, I forgot about the honey. Uh... it's like this stuff which looks like molten silver and it's really great in some unspecified way. Cool, saved it. Not convinced yet? Ok, volcano-bees. They're these little obsidian bastards who fly out of the volcano once a century to drink up entire forests (they inhale the smoke, so it does involve burning the surrounding earth for miles around). Lava is actually volcano-honey. Your adventure is to rush into an evacuated town and steal all of its treasure while the volcano-bees get ever closes, a glittering swarm of roiling sparks. But be careful, besides the bees there's plenty of Bigger Animals and Quirky NPCs on your journey to contend with! On drivethru now for $5.99! There's really nothing to this. Hoplite-bees, dragon-bees, nano-bees, junkyard-bees, chrono-bees, a child could do this stuff.
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Jul 10, 2017 13:55
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Both of those sound really cool though actually? I'm putting volcano bees in my next game for sure.
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Jul 10, 2017 13:58
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Mr. Maltose posted:Both of those sound really cool though actually? I'm putting volcano bees in my next game for sure. Oh, sure, the bees are perfectly usable game elements. I just often see this high praise for "normal thing with a theme slapped on it" and I just... don't really get it? It doesn't sound hard to come up with this stuff, IMO. Edit: Ok, reading back I see I'm not expressing myself clearly and coming across as a bit of a dick. So let me try that again. Neat concepts are cool, absolutely. I'm not trying to poo poo on atomic bees or volcano bees or whatever. My thing is, I think that concepts and stories are way easier to do than mechanics. (Or at least easier to do well.) So the idea of atomic bees is fine but I also heard they have a save-or-die and are worth the same xp as a ferret which is just bigger than normal? My reaction to that is: "Great so you gave me a concept but not the right mechanics. That's not all that useful, I could've done that concept myself." Sage Genesis fucked around with this message at 14:16 on Jul 10, 2017 |
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Jul 10, 2017 14:02
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Sage Genesis posted:It doesn't sound hard to come up with this stuff, IMO.
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Jul 10, 2017 14:11
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Give a GM a silly monster and you will supply them for an adventure; teach a GM to build silly monsters and you will supply them for a lifetime.
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Jul 10, 2017 14:17
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The moon as a hive is a great idea even if "space bees" is pretty basic.
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Jul 10, 2017 14:22
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Give me the atomic bees and the space bees and whatever other cool bees you got. Bee me.
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Jul 10, 2017 14:26
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Fallen London has the best bees, I have to say.
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Jul 10, 2017 14:29
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Ettin posted:Give me the atomic bees and the space bees and whatever other cool bees you got. Bee me. Clockwork bees emerge from their copper chrysalis with exactly 180 rotations left on their minute mainspring hearts. Every day the bees work on their hives of iron and bronze, go out to gather crude oil, and assemble new larvae from the tiny gearworks their queen produces. And every day their mainsprings make one rotation. The advanced human empires employ veritable armies of beekeepers, harvesting their essential petrochem-honey. You think the steampunk world is a bleak and smoky one? Naw, think again son. Go outside of the city and you'll see fields of oilslick-iridescent flowers as far as the eye can see, where the air is abuzz with the sound of springs and gears, ticking down.
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Jul 10, 2017 14:43
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Ettin posted:Give me the atomic bees and the space bees and whatever other cool bees you got. Bee me. Mind bees. They don't exist in the physical world; they make their hives in the shared culture of communities, hollowing out a society and leaving nothing human in their wake. First people start to become more charitable. More organised. Their emotions are dulled, preventing outbursts and easing co-operation. It all seems fine and good, until it isn't. The infested lose their identities without even noticing. They will fight you to keep you from helping them, and the sting of the mind bee is every terrible thing you've ever done. In the end, the community just becomes a vehicle for the production of honey, oozing in thick rivulets from the eyes and ears of senseless hosts. It tastes pretty good.
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Jul 10, 2017 15:01
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D-bees. "By this time, most of the disasters have quieted down, though Earth is still bathed in the released PPE. The planet's mystical energy has added untold numbers of alien beings from other dimensions, who continue to arrive through the Rifts both accidentally and deliberately. The humanoid creatures that arrive on earth are referred to as Dimensional Beings (called D-Bees). Some are familiar fantasy races, such as elves and dwarfs, while others have never been seen before (created specifically for the game setting). Non-humanoid creatures are have also arrived, including monstrous creatures and mystical demons with hides as strong as tank armor. The most powerful (and a common theme in the Palladium Megaverse) are the Lovecraftian Alien Intelligences, living mountains of flesh with lidless eyes, wriggling tentacles, and great supernatural powers. In some rare cases, even the ancient gods of mythology have returned to reclaim their former lands."
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Jul 10, 2017 15:11
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Enjoy the latest in Corporate Security: Ares Macrotech Cyberbees Cyberbees are semiautonomous drones operating from a central hive, covering up to 500x500x500m area with you choice of camera and sensor options* Featuring options for a state of the art Rigging system for the Cyberhive, a combination garbage recycling/Cyberbee-battery power generator, or EM hardening for the Hive** New in the 2.0 Cyberbee models: The Ares Cyberstinger, a built-in one-shot Ares Stungun, get your upgrade today!***
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Jul 10, 2017 15:11
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Halloween Jack posted:Fallen London has the best bees, I have to say. Wrong. The Secret World does.
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Jul 10, 2017 15:47
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The Word of the Hive This word covers all eusocial creatures with a central queen- bees, ants, termites, naked mole rats and so on, granting miracles based on collective effort, honey, flowers, and poison. Heroes with the Word of the Hive can communicate with and are treated as the queen of any non-magical colony they encounter, and have an invincible defense against poison. Lesser gifts: DEFEND THE ROYALTY Action A small mob of whatever eusocial animals are present within ten miles can be made to swarm into an area to protect the godbound, obeying their orders and acting in their defense. They cannot be summoned to a location they could not practically reach, but will appear in the closest location they -could- reach: for example- for example, if the hero with the Word of the Hive summoned bees while fighting a monster under a lake, the bees would hover over the surface and wait for a chance to sting a surfacing enemy. WHERE IS THY STING? On Turn Commit Effort. You have or can instantly manifest a natural weapon that does 1d10 damage and counts as a magic weapon. Lesser foes who might be affected by poison read the damage as straight. MANY HANDS MAKE LIGHT WORK: Constant When working on a project with followers, whether eusocial creature or human, your collective labor counts for 10 times as much per character level of the character with the gift. Greater Gifts: HAIL TO THE QUEEN Constant: Any human community that has sworn to follow you, up to 100 people per character level, counts as as a eusocial creature for purposes of this Word.
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Jul 10, 2017 15:57
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The industry thread but every time
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Jul 10, 2017 15:57
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unseenlibrarian posted:The Word of the Hive This system sounds fascinating. What is it?
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Jul 10, 2017 17:11
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paradoxGentleman posted:This system sounds fascinating. What is it? Godbound. As I understand it, it's roughly the flavor of Exalted with the mechanics of Mentzer BECMI D&D. Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 17:14 on Jul 10, 2017 |
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Jul 10, 2017 17:11
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potatocubed posted:The industry thread but every time At least this is a relatively inoffensive "wow, the Industry thread suddenly exploded! I wonder what happ... huh."
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Jul 10, 2017 17:21
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Incidentally, there's a good thread on bees over in TFR, of all places: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3826172
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Jul 10, 2017 17:23
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Dr. Quarex posted::nod: Welcome to TG, your forum for discussing bears and bees.
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Jul 10, 2017 19:00
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There is also this longstanding bee thread in DIY: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3091681
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Jul 10, 2017 19:21
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Ettin posted:Give me the atomic bees and the space bees and whatever other cool bees you got. Bee me. Waterfall Bees These bees were created by the Foreseen Yonticla to pollinate the cliff-side jungles of Jahl, known to explorers as the Vertical Cities. Their hives take advantage of crude, waxen water-wheel technology to power their Hive-heart, which allows for their drones to fly for longer distances and serves as a sort of rudimentary intelligence, more akin to the modern Friend-or-Foe computer system. A hive can be bribed with flowers from foreign lands, as the customs of Jahl are hard-wired into their colonies. However, should to betray or show disdain to the Hive, you will be stung with a poison of restless, tossing sleep- something that would not be half as dangerous if the cliff-sides were not a promise of instant death to any who either rolled out of their encampment or was to groggy to properly hold on. Beware the Waterfall Bees that have had their hive-heart stolen; not only are they a curse upon the one who defiled them, they enact their rage on any who they come across between them and their target in a constant, homing swarm.
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Jul 10, 2017 19:56
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Siivola posted:Okay but what do you actually do with all that? Sage Genesis posted:Neat concepts are cool, absolutely. I'm not trying to poo poo on atomic bees or volcano bees or whatever. My thing is, I think that concepts and stories are way easier to do than mechanics. (Or at least easier to do well.) So the idea of atomic bees is fine but I also heard they have a save-or-die and are worth the same xp as a ferret which is just bigger than normal? My reaction to that is: "Great so you gave me a concept but not the right mechanics. That's not all that useful, I could've done that concept myself." I've been doing this GMing thing a long time. I have full confidence in my abilities to create setting elements and write or adapt mechanics. But people have different creative backgrounds, and sometimes they pour their aesthetic into a thing and present it to the world so that other people who don't think the way they do, or haven't read a dozen books on supercaves or had formative spelunking experiences or what-have-you, can just pick up their work and run with it. It's worth my dollars to be able to essentially download the brain of Patrick Stuart for this very specific thing ("Weird Horrifying Internally-Consistent Underdark"), and spend a trivial amount of effort converting it to whatever system I want to use it for; as mentioned, I'm using its content in a Burning Wheel game, of all things, so it would be substantially easier to do so with any d20-based system.
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Jul 10, 2017 19:57
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Ettin posted:Give me the atomic bees and the space bees and whatever other cool bees you got. Bee me. One of my notes for a gamma world adventure is just 'A spooky ghost, except it's actually a swarm of glowing bees in a sheet'
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Jul 10, 2017 20:53
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UrbanLabyrinth posted:Wrong. The Secret World does. Sex Bees.
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Jul 10, 2017 22:13
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Bebe bees: they're exactly like normal bees, but they've been genetically modified to look exactly like Bebe Neuwirth.
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Jul 10, 2017 22:38
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I get Sage Genesis' complaint: a lot of times I'll read a review of some "Weird Fantasy" or OSR product that's basically "It sure is weird! 10/10!" Like this was the thing about Carcosa, apart from the really sick stuff it's "this hex has 3d10 shoggoths ridden by Purple Men" and this very dry presentation, but the content was strange so it could not be questioned. There's a lot of words-not-the-music in RPG writing.
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Jul 10, 2017 23:57
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:Sex Bees. Beads?
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Jul 11, 2017 00:13
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BrainParasite posted:Bebe bees: they're exactly like normal bees, but they've been genetically modified to look exactly like Bebe Neuwirth.  (Pretend I photoshopped this to say "Bebe's Bees" and maybe put some stingers or something in there)
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Jul 11, 2017 00:17
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The Beefolk of the Fragrant Valley are said to have been created by an ancient wizard, in the days when wizards made peoples as easily as a weaver makes cloth. Their resemblance to bees is often overstated; they look human, save for the diaphanous (and useless) wings on their backs and the iridescence of their eyes. It is their way of life that is most bee-like: orderly and segmented, based on their caste system and the mysterious "clock" in their souls. The Beefolk's soul-clocks tell them what work they must do, what role they must fill in their society, in a set pattern dictated by their caste. They wake in the morning full of certainty, performing the tasks which they have been given, until the day their soul-clock tells them otherwise; then they change their place in the world, smoothly and without opposition from those they replace, who have new tasks of their own. It is said that each phase of the soul-clock lasts seven years, through 14 years of childhood to retirement at 70 and death at 77, but the Beefolk do not readily reveal such things to outsiders. Many speculate that, based on what they see of Beefolk families, the soul-clock dictates matters of the heart as well: when to court, when to marry, when to conceive. Many who hear of the soul-clock cycle assume the Beefolk mindless, but they are as intelligent as any other people. Their greatest societal virtue is performing one's role well, whatever it may be; there is no shame or merit conveyed by simply possessing a given role, because all roles are given by the soul-clocks and the circumstances of one's birth. A diligent and clever rag-picker is esteemed far more highly than a lazy, thoughtless member of the Council of Lords. The Beefolk have both art and leisure, although their preferences often change with their phase, as they remake themselves for a new role. There is little room in Beefolk society for immigrants, but they welcome visitors. (It is said there is an entire caste of Beefolk dedicated to working with the outside world, moving from mercenaries to innkeepers to diplomats.) They are kind to us, but they pity us, for we never really know who we are. (The Beefolk do count beekeepers among their numbers, but their honey is not particularly well-regarded; the flowers of the Fragrant Valley produce odd-tasting honey suitable only for specialist tastes, and so their honey export market is limited. The Beefolk understand the irony but do not appreciate comments upon it.)
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Jul 11, 2017 00:20
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They're Just Bees, What's The Big Deal? The special ability of the They're Just Bees, What's The Big Deal? is that they're such an important part of agriculture that if they didn't exist, all of Generica would be plunged into famine. Apart from a handful of weirdo wizards and sages, nobody understands this. Something's been killing them, and the PCs have to find out what it is and stop it before it's too late. Their main obstacle is that when they try to explain the nature of their vital mission, practically everyone says something along the lines of "They're just bees, what's the big deal?" And on the surface, this appears to be true. Or is it?
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Jul 11, 2017 00:56
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Jul 11, 2017 01:41
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Jimbozig posted:the level of science you get is like someone who read the table of contents on a textbook. Okay, I can do this! Schrodinger's Bees Armour: As Plate Hit Dice (Points): 1/2 (2) Damage: 1d3 (see below) Number Apparent?: 3d6 Save: 10- (50%) Morale: Use Save 5 Sense: Strobing yellow and black spots fill your vision, auditory buzzing hallucinations, a strong sense that you do not have any need to sneeze Special Attack: Spread Antipollen To bee or not to bee, that is the question, whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the stings and buzzing of outrageous fortune, These bees exist. Unless they do not. Insects from a dimension where wave matter takes the place of particle matter, Schrodinger's bees find themselves alarmed at the lack of wave flowers and seem to bounce agitated from flower to flower confused as to why they are unable to gather wave pollen from them. Or maybe they don't. They react to other creatures with the inherent belief that their hive is under invasion. Which is true because their hive exists at every point in the entire universe simultaneously, except if it doesn't. When a Schrodinger's bee is hit or hits something the bee must roll a save. If it succeeds it permanently becomes a particle (normal) bee and deals or takes damage as normal. If it fails, it never actually existed. Spread Antipollen: A bee shakes itself off over a member of the party showering them in antipollen which cannot be sensed in any way. The next time the party member encounters normal pollen they take 1d6 damage as the pollen and antipollen annihilate each other. This ability may be used once for every 6 bees in the encounter group regardless of whether they exist. Note: Bees that don't exist do not provide experience or treasure to the party. DalaranJ fucked around with this message at 03:52 on Jul 11, 2017 |
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Jul 11, 2017 02:30
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Kestral posted:The book does a good job of making everything usable, but given that the entry for the bees is something like 500 words, I omitted that section out of respect for the author. But since this has become A Topic, here's the complete page, along with the entry preceding it for Archeans, which I love to death. Yeah, I want to actually defend the save-or-die bees here, even though I was the one who brought it up in the first place. My take was that it was just severely old-school, which I don't think is inherently a bad thing, just a thing that doesn't get much appreciation on these forums. Obviously there are other forums that think old schoolness is the sine qua non of RPG writing. The bees and the ferret are different types of monsters. The ferret is a Threat with a capital T. In a PbtA game you'd give it a countdown clock. First, you find corpses with this and that detail letting you know that there is danger, then you find spoor giving you a chance to learn more about what kind of predator's territory you are traveling in if you have the right skills, then you might see a flash of movement and become aware that you are being actively hunted, and then it attacks at an (in)opportune moment. The bees are not a threat - they don't want to sting you, and in fact are quite chill so long as you don't mess with them and their hive. If you just pick a fight with them, you will die - there are hundreds in a hive, and nobody will pass that many saving throws. But the little buggers are worth a lot to take alive and the stuff in their hive might be just what you need to complete a quest, which means that the players will have to use their skills to make a plan to collect what they need safely. It shouldn't come down to combat - the players' rolls will all be related to preparing a safe collection, and so failures will lead to complications and entanglements with the Archaeans or other suppliers, not to disintegrating beestings. It should be almost like a Gumshoe thing, where the question isn't whether they do it, but how and at what cost. If they gently caress up real bad, maybe one character has to roll a save. So why make combat stats for the bees if they're not for fighting? Well, if you're transporting live bees and get assaulted by brigands and in the melee a container breaks, having a save-or-die bee or two flying around threatening both sides will introduce a deadly and exciting dynamic to the fight, and old school games are supposed to be deadly. But fighting a whole hive? Never. What would even be the point? Of course, the book doesn't say any of this... A book that made this sort of thing explicit would be a better book, I think. Presenting them both side-by-side in the bestiary makes them seem like the same kind of game element, but I don't think they are at all. They are as different from one another as a magic item is from an NPC.
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Jul 11, 2017 02:41
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I think you're doing the heavy lifting with these plutonium bees, my friend. In fact that's a real complaint I have about every OSR game I've read - there's a huge gap between the information given and any kind of play, and since the text itself dwells on sudden PC death, the various things they definitely cannot do, and things which are very cool to look at but very abstruse to interact with, GMs are inevitably going to find it easier to go down those alleys than to try and interact with the players constructively (unless the players want the very specific flavor of sudden PC death amid lush lore and weird surroundings). Archaeans are similar, honestly: Extremely fun concept, florid description, evocative etc etc but the information you have available is about how to fight them and some fetch quests they might ask for, and what they could pay you in. There's not enough information to really generate Archaean plot points that aren't already on the page. You'll be doing all the heavy lifting to make them have a society or relationships with anything, and even more heavy lifting to turn that into something players can interact with outside the very OSR standards of fight and get paid to fight something else. My big examples of this would be The Crawling God and Tower of the Stargazer - two OSR adventures I got pointed to as great examples of the genre. The Crawling God has two modes of play in it, one of which is 'horror movie with a slime monster in a maze' which seems pretty cool but very limited (but, sure, it's what I was told I'd get) and a much, much more lavish section that's just 'here's a bunch of magic items that will probably kill the party, or at least make them very unhappy.' And then... that's it, that's the game. Tower of the Stargazer is even worse, since it's intentionally unfriendly to players and justifies it with 'well you're breaking into this guy's house, he wouldn't design it to be easy to break into!' - it's clear the writers expect 'the players lose one or two of their number, make a very powerful enemy, and get away with some cursed items and not much real treasure' to be the most likely outcome. There's precisely one mode of play OSR seems to want to support, as a rule, and it's a particularly odd one by my lights. Joe Slowboat fucked around with this message at 03:56 on Jul 11, 2017 |
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Jul 11, 2017 03:51
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Guys, everyone slow down, the moon bees don't make moon honey, they make what we all know the moon is made of. Cheese. That's right, moon bees produce wendslydale.
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Jul 11, 2017 04:13
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On each of the islands of the Oracles' Archipelago there is a temple, where acolytes dedicate abstemious lives to the preservation and exaltation of some secret technique or other of seeing that which is normally hidden to mortal sight. At each temple's inner sanctum, a sufficiently pious petitioner or sufficiently generous donor, after observing the proper rites, may be admitted in order to receive a glimpse of their destiny. Only a single plant is cultivated on the Island of Bees - a very specific strain of a flower known for its diverse magical and medicinal properties. Some other oracles use this flower, or a relative of it, in their own divination, and even a self-taught hedge wizard knows that in various forms it can be used to gain second sight temporarily. The island's namesakes feed exclusively on the pollen of this flower, carrying it into the deepest part of the temple, where every inch of the vast chamber is covered in honeycomb. The lower-ranking priests harvest their honey and sell it for the maintenance of the temple, although despite their insinuations to the contrary, its only special attribute is its exorbitant price. The bees themselves consume all the magic. When it is time to dispense otherworldly wisdom, they fill the temple with smoke, which calms the bees and renders them immobile. There are thirty-six sacred segmented stone pillars underneath the hive walls, and, with the utmost care and reverence, thirty-six priests enter the hive to count the bees that are resting in each segment of each pillar. These numbers they report to the high priest, who, drawing on a lifetime of training, interprets them. In this way they can read a single frozen thought from the clairvoyant hive mind. Bongo Bill fucked around with this message at 05:22 on Jul 11, 2017 |
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Jul 11, 2017 05:20
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