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Lemon-Lime posted:They're still working on it, it's just taken longer than they initially estimated. How is it? I looked at a sample character and I can't understand it at all.
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# ? Apr 27, 2019 11:44 |
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# ? Jun 11, 2024 12:08 |
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Dr. Quarex posted:Black August, I have little of substance to say (other than "this subforum existed that long ago?"), but I wanted to say that sounds rad. My own longest-lasting campaign is a Cthulhu/TORG-inspired nightmare and it sounds like you pulled off an infinitely more intriguing version of metaverse apocalypse funtimes. Thanks. I know, it's weird. Pretty sure TG was around for at least a year before we joined, I'm not 100% sure of how long. I wanted a game with limited Mythos elements (ADOM the roguelike has corruption as a driving mechanic and story focus, represented by a blend of D&D alignment, Mythos horror, and evil-from-Hell), and focus less on people going crazy with mutation and cosmic despair, and more a melancholy Dreamlands / Dream Quest feeling. I didn't even intend for the game to be some huge grand deal; the primary focus was the politics of a colony in Fae-infested lands with dozens of weird locales and cultists to keep things interesting. The game diverged massively about a year into it due to three things - the players had spent a lot of time at the colony without exploring the surrounding lands, one of the players had to leave (coming back for the ending) replaced by another, which I worked in narratively, and the last divergence was an event we coined the 'Sunsplit'. During the prequel game years prior, one of the original three characters took a Trait. I run GURPS, but like tinkering it and hacked in a bunch of subsystems to emulate ADOM, with classes and special free Traits that everyone could pick one of at the start of play. This character was an inventor type with a very low skill, making them disaster prone. They took this Trait- 1,000,000 to 1 posted:‘Fair Odds?’ -and not ONCE did they roll a 3 or an 18 during the 6-month prequel game. They rolled their first critical, an 18, for an invention roll for a weapon another character used with a Sun/Light element theme. This happened on the back of multiple other 18s happening during a fight involving that weapon's activation, so close together that after the event ended, we did the math and figured out that the sequence of rolls made had a literal one in a million chance of happening. I decided to ride off of that and the sheer improbability of circumstance, and used it as an excuse to start messing with time and alternates, working off the supposition that time itself was collapsing into a chronological black hole, modified by the game concept of a negative overflow error, with so many 18s happening that it wrapped back around into an infinite-positive. It's really fun when game mechanics meta can work into the plot itself, and allow you as a GM to execute extreme changes that are easy to accept when they originate from player rolls and decisions! I really played up the feeling of finding a hidden ending in some old SNES game, buried under inscrutable criteria and a %0.000001 chance of an event. How'd your game end?
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# ? Apr 27, 2019 17:53 |
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Covok posted:How is it? I looked at a sample character and I can't understand it at all. Last time I looked at it, a mess. Instead of having to change your attributes every time you sleeve into a new morph, morphs now add points to pools (Insight, Moxie, Vigor). Each pool is associated with two Aptitudes, and you can spend points from a pool to boost rolls or gain additional advantages, ranging from increasing your number of actions in a turn to retroactivrly declaring you had a piece of gear all along to Fate-style changes to the narrative. The skill system runs on d100 (still completely unnecessary because all skills and aptitude bonuses happen in chunks of 5 or 10) with a bewildering number of graduations in the successes: there's three levels of failure and three levels of success, and each success and failure can also be critical. It seems to take inspiration from PbtA without truly understanding how PbtA works, so high levels of success let you pick advantages from a list, but the list is incredibly short, not specific to any skill, heavily combat-focused, and contains items like "you perform the action 10% faster. It feels like a game made by bolting together parts of other, better games without understanding how those parts work or what tone is: there's exacting rules for which kind of actions and how many in which combat ion you can make ala Shadowrun or D&D next to PbtA and Fate-style player participation next to the Sanity system from Delta Green RPG (but without understanding how DGRPG's Sanity system works, so several rules break). Yes, switching morphs is now easier. It also seems kind of dull, since all morphs are now just lists of gear and a very limited number of pool points. At the same time the game now needs an entire page to explain how different motive systems work in combat and lengthy rules for how six levels of graduated failures and successes and critical failures and successes work in opposed rolls - it's maybe one step forwards but definitely two steps back.
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# ? Apr 27, 2019 21:26 |
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LatwPIAT posted:Last time I looked at it, a mess. So...the only good version of Eclipse Phase remains the FATE Core port?
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# ? Apr 27, 2019 21:36 |
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Eclipse Phase has always been a nightmare that ripped off the worst mechanics from shadowrun and I'm not super clear on why anyone liked it other than it being kinda surface level cool to be able to switch bodies.
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# ? Apr 27, 2019 21:45 |
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fool_of_sound posted:Eclipse Phase has always been a nightmare that ripped off the worst mechanics from shadowrun and I'm not super clear on why anyone liked it other than it being kinda surface level cool to be able to switch bodies. Ding-ding-ding
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# ? Apr 27, 2019 21:49 |
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Eclipse Phase 2e is Eclipse Phase 1e but slightly streamlined and with less action economy shenanigans, so if you were expecting it to suddenly be a PbtA game, that's not going to happen. It is, however, a less bad system than the first edition.
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# ? Apr 27, 2019 22:05 |
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Lemon-Lime posted:Eclipse Phase 2e is Eclipse Phase 1e but slightly streamlined and with less action economy shenanigans, so if you were expecting it to suddenly be a PbtA game, that's not going to happen. I wasn't expecting or looking for a PbtA game. I'm just looking for a good game.
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# ? Apr 27, 2019 22:15 |
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Slimnoid posted:It seems like they're only really concerning themselves with the first 3 movies. The art in that trailer does raise a couple of red flags there but it could also mean nothing, so I'm hoping it just ignores everything after 3. quote:“We’re focusing more on certain aspects of the universe than others. I think the key thing there is we’ve set our game in the year 2183, that’s a very conscious choice,” he said. “The more recent prequel movies, Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, those are part of the canon, part of the story and universe. But as they take place in a much earlier era, that era is not where our focus lies.” To me reads like "Well under the terms of the licence we can't say that covenant was trash and completely ruins 90% of possible RPG game seeds and we're going to pretend it doesn't exist nudge nudge wink wink" But that's probably wishful thinking
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# ? Apr 27, 2019 23:36 |
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I'd like a game that mashes Alien 1-3, Predator 1&2 , Terminator 1&2, and Event Horizon into one setting. Personally I'd let AvP: Requiem tag along too but I understand I am a minority.
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# ? Apr 27, 2019 23:45 |
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The ideal Alien/The Thing/etc. RPG would be rules-light, built for one-shots, and include the ability to randomly generate the premise as well as plot twist events that occur throughout the course of the game. So basically Dread with d66 tables and a plot twist mechanic of some kind. Since this is very different from what the ideal Aliens RPG would be, on top of the Mutant Y0 system being neither rules-light nor built for one-shots, I'm not convinced this new game will be any good if it doesn't limit itself to one of the three films. (Well, Alien 3 is just A Very British Alien so something that does Alien would work just fine for that. Aliens is really the problem here. ) Lemon-Lime fucked around with this message at 00:40 on Apr 28, 2019 |
# ? Apr 28, 2019 00:34 |
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I feel like a proper The Thing RPG is just a Fiasco module played straight and grim.
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# ? Apr 28, 2019 01:54 |
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Splicer posted:I'd like a game that mashes Alien 1-3, Predator 1&2 , Terminator 1&2, and Event Horizon into one setting. Look up The Moontrap Timeline, it has what you want and so much more
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# ? Apr 28, 2019 02:56 |
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Covok posted:So...the only good version of Eclipse Phase remains the FATE Core port? No. That one is a FATE Core game, and therefore not good either.
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# ? Apr 28, 2019 03:13 |
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Lemon-Lime posted:The ideal Alien/The Thing/etc. RPG would be rules-light, built for one-shots, and include the ability to randomly generate the premise as well as plot twist events that occur throughout the course of the game. TG goons say this about literally every premise, franchise, and game in existence
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# ? Apr 28, 2019 03:13 |
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:TG goons say this about literally every premise, franchise, and game in existence Also, they're just describing Fiasco.
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# ? Apr 28, 2019 03:44 |
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Did somebody say Fiasco? I love that game!
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# ? Apr 28, 2019 03:47 |
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:TG goons say this about literally every premise, franchise, and game in existence I will admit, the idea of an ongoing campaign in the Aliens universe does sort of make me scratch my head a bit for reasons I haven't been entirely able to articulate. I guess in practice it's not really more contrived than Ellen Ripley somehow always winding up in yet another xenomorph-related disaster as she goes from movie to movie to movie, there's just something a little odd to me about a campaign that basically works the same way, I dunno why.
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# ? Apr 28, 2019 05:00 |
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I don't really "get" the appeal of an Alien RPG quite so much; it just doesn't seem that robust of a world, unless you fold in secondary material of questionable quality. I didn't particularly like Prometheus (I felt it was a very pretty but ultimately flawed and hollow film), but if you told me I was making an Alien RPG, I sure as hell would want to use Prometheus because I need all the bones I can get to scrape meat off of. I mean, the alien is a great monster and that's why every other RPG rips it off at some point, and it feels like it'd be fine for a Dread scenario, but I'm not sure as to how much you could do with a dedicated RPG unless you find ways to expand the scope radically.
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# ? Apr 28, 2019 05:01 |
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Alien Rope Burn posted:I don't really "get" the appeal of an Alien RPG quite so much; it just doesn't seem that robust of a world, unless you fold in secondary material of questionable quality. I didn't particularly like Prometheus (I felt it was a very pretty but ultimately flawed and hollow film), but if you told me I was making an Alien RPG, I sure as hell would want to use Prometheus because I need all the bones I can get to scrape meat off of. Yeah this is kind of where I'm at with it. The Alien universe is not particularly robust without drawing on a bunch of EU stuff and even then it's just basically "space truckers, marines, evil corporations, and xenomorphs." What's a campaign arc look like? Just bouncing from one horror movie setup to the next? What's the endgame? Etc. Like, the other hangup I can see is it's a game largely based on a monster that there's virtually no chance the people around the table haven't heard of. Nobody's going to be surprised by eggs, facehuggers, acid blood, etc. Maybe there's going to be some sort of "Create An Alien" thing where you can make weird xenomorph mutations or something but otherwise I feel like the average GM is going to be hard-pressed to derive the same tension and stress from a familiar concept as something like Alien: Isolation did.
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# ? Apr 28, 2019 05:07 |
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If you want an improv-heavy Fiasco-ish horror game, Lovecraftesque fits the bill, although I can't say how good it is.
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# ? Apr 28, 2019 05:21 |
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An Ars Magica-esque Alien universe game where you play a Weyland-Yutani corporate middle manager sending expendable teams to capture a xenomorph for your weapons research division.
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# ? Apr 28, 2019 05:24 |
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You know, while looking into Eclipse Phase, I found out that someone else made a transhuman roleplaying game using fate core called Nova Praxis. Does anyone know if it's any good? How does it compare to EP?
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# ? Apr 28, 2019 05:26 |
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:An Ars Magica-esque Alien universe game where you play a Weyland-Yutani corporate middle manager sending expendable teams to capture a xenomorph for your weapons research division. I mean that could honestly be really cool, but it doesn't seem like that's the sort of thing this game is going to be aiming for, hence my vague "okay but what do you do?" confusion.
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# ? Apr 28, 2019 05:39 |
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There's definitely a real tendency in sci-fi and contemporary set conspiracy themed games to basically be built around the authors starting to write a setting and never really stopping, let alone to think about what you're actually supposed to do in the game. Usually forgetting that most successful games along those lines, like Shadowrun and WoD games, generally have very specific ideas about who the PCs actually are and what they do.
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# ? Apr 28, 2019 05:43 |
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Covok posted:You know, while looking into Eclipse Phase, I found out that someone else made a transhuman roleplaying game using fate core called Nova Praxis. Does anyone know if it's any good? How does it compare to EP? Iirc it actually predates Core and is really too crunchy for a Fate game.
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# ? Apr 28, 2019 06:10 |
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Covok posted:You know, while looking into Eclipse Phase, I found out that someone else made a transhuman roleplaying game using fate core called Nova Praxis. Does anyone know if it's any good? How does it compare to EP? It's Eclipse Phase but libertarian goldbug without any of the world building depth, written by an author completely unwilling to contemplate any form of transhumanism that actually changes anything.
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# ? Apr 28, 2019 06:24 |
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Ghost Leviathan posted:There's definitely a real tendency in sci-fi and contemporary set conspiracy themed games to basically be built around the authors starting to write a setting and never really stopping, let alone to think about what you're actually supposed to do in the game. Usually forgetting that most successful games along those lines, like Shadowrun and WoD games, generally have very specific ideas about who the PCs actually are and what they do. Yeah it's one reason Eclipse Phase worked despite the heavily flawed system - it had a really strong place in the setting for for PCs as Firewall operatives and a really strong default adventure of 'firewall tells you about some spooky AI / exurgent / otherwise weird threat, go investigate'. And you could make any kind of wacky combination of PCs and still have them work together as a coherent group because Firewall explicitly recruited weird troubleshooters for weird problems and was stretched thin. We had a really hard time with Transhuman Space because it didn't have a solid default Thing that you Do in This Game.
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# ? Apr 28, 2019 06:26 |
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LatwPIAT posted:It's Eclipse Phase but libertarian goldbug without any of the world building depth, written by an author completely unwilling to contemplate any form of transhumanism that actually changes anything. To be fair, I stumbled across the thread on rpg.net where he was discussing his game and said that it was more of a transitory period. That they're on the cusp of things that aren't there yet. Like they have uplifted animals, but they're only as smart as children. They did build a super intelligent AI, but the Old Guard shut it down out of fear that could potentially turn on them. People can undergo transhuman surgery, but there is a old laws still on the books from anti-transhuman groups that restrict them. Like Society is almost there and the sentiment is growing, but they still have a lot of infighting to go before they hit that point. Also, I just realized you were in that thread because you're the exact same name of the first person to post and criticize the game. So nevermind. Edit: This is the thread, by the way. Covok fucked around with this message at 06:46 on Apr 28, 2019 |
# ? Apr 28, 2019 06:42 |
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Covok posted:To be fair, I stumbled across the thread on rpg.net where he was discussing his game and said that it was more of a transitory period. That they're on the cusp of things that aren't there yet. Like they have uplifted animals, but they're only as smart as children. They did build a super intelligent AI, but the Old Guard shut it down out of fear that could potentially turn on them. People can undergo transhuman surgery, but there is a old laws still on the books from anti-transhuman groups that restrict them. Like Society is almost there and the sentiment is growing, but they still have a lot of infighting to go before they hit that point. I mean, that's just cyberpunk. Transhumanism, only lovely and dystopian.
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# ? Apr 28, 2019 09:53 |
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Alien Rope Burn posted:I don't really "get" the appeal of an Alien RPG quite so much; it just doesn't seem that robust of a world, unless you fold in secondary material of questionable quality. I didn't particularly like Prometheus (I felt it was a very pretty but ultimately flawed and hollow film), but if you told me I was making an Alien RPG, I sure as hell would want to use Prometheus because I need all the bones I can get to scrape meat off of. It's Covenant that kills the Alien alien by making it a sad android's class project.
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# ? Apr 28, 2019 11:25 |
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Covok posted:Also, they're just describing Fiasco. No, I'm describing Dread with something vaguely like Fiasco's tables to randomise the setup and twists, which is why I specifically mentioned Dread. "Rules-light" does not mean "purely improv with no rules for adjudicating PC action at all." Lemon-Lime fucked around with this message at 11:30 on Apr 28, 2019 |
# ? Apr 28, 2019 11:25 |
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Spiteski posted:I didn't see that in the video, but yea, Prometheus taking the mystery out of them turned Aliens from the scariest to the most bleh. To follow up on this it just occurred to me that xenomorphs existed before Prometheus + Covenant so you can still keep whatever headcannon you want.
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# ? Apr 28, 2019 12:02 |
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Len posted:To follow up on this it just occurred to me that xenomorphs existed before Prometheus + Covenant so you can still keep whatever headcannon you want. *I'm not laying SICK BURNS I just legitimately cannot remember his name and can't be bothered checking.
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# ? Apr 28, 2019 13:00 |
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Covenant is both a bad Aliens movie, and just a straight up bad movie in it's own rights. It should be ignored not because it hurts the "Aliens lore" but because it's just kinda lovely. Thankfully, it's also extremely boring, making it eminently ignorable.
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# ? Apr 28, 2019 13:04 |
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Alien is a bad fit for an RPG because its defining feature is a single monster. Eventually the xenomorph's ecology and origins were filled in by supplemental films, but they genedally act predictably and do the same thing. They're giant wasps.
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# ? Apr 28, 2019 13:13 |
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Splicer posted:Do you mean in the series? Covenant explicitly states that daddy issues android* made them. Do you mean that as human beings with functional brains we are capable of ignoring those two films (and resurrection) and enjoying the previous films on their own merit? Yes but what's being discussed is it sounds like the RPG is going to/will be required to take them as canon which will negatively affect released modules and such, and "you can ignore it!" doesn't make a bad film suddenly gain merit. I mean that AvP and AvP:R both take place chronologically before these two movies so unless some eggs fell through a time vortex he didn't Len fucked around with this message at 13:28 on Apr 28, 2019 |
# ? Apr 28, 2019 13:21 |
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Len posted:I mean that AvP and AvP:R both take place chronologically before these two movies so unless some eggs fell through a time vortex he didn't Hell, doesn't the first AvP suggest that they existed pre-humans, or at least in prehistory?
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# ? Apr 28, 2019 13:34 |
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That Old Tree posted:Hell, doesn't the first AvP suggest that they existed pre-humans, or at least in prehistory? Seeded by the Ancient Alien Yautja on old rear end Earth
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# ? Apr 28, 2019 13:37 |
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# ? Jun 11, 2024 12:08 |
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The real success will be in the splat books. Alien v. Predator v. Terminator was already mentioned, but this also opens the door for Robocop v. The Terminator.
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# ? Apr 28, 2019 14:24 |