|
PoontifexMacksimus posted:I wish there were more late medieval period pieces, so we could see stuff like the puffy technicolor Landsknechts The Empire's troops were inspired by. Giant prestige production covering The Italian Wars, please make it happen! A lot of it plays into attitudes of modern "weakness" and the idea that color must equal wealth and softness, which you can trace back at least to Conan stuff.
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2020 17:48
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 7, 2024 20:09 |
|
|
Not to mention I assume it's also stemming from a notion of things having to be utilitarian and functional and thusly very boring in appearance. I assume a lot of that mindset stems from looking at modern warfare instead of acknowledging things such as red coats and so on.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2020 17:57
|
|
|
PoontifexMacksimus posted:It'd be interesting to know where this bizarre idea that "grey-brown = authentic" originated; we've seen the same thing taken to absurd desaturated extremes in FPS games... but it goes back to old school fantasy were you'd have characters walking around covered in naked brown leather and furs like a medieval gutter punk (or literal murder hobo??). There's obviously some through line of unhappy attitudes towards anything "fancy".
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2020 17:58
|
|
|
Cooked Auto posted:
Did you mean "can't" ?
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2020 18:18
|
|
|
PoontifexMacksimus posted:Did you mean "can't" ? I do yes.  Thanks for catching it.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2020 18:33
|
|
|
FMguru posted:There was this big "Well, actually" movement in fantasy fiction in the 1970s which tried to make things more "realistic" (a good artifact of this is the Poul Anderson essay On Thud And Blunder) which went along with a similar trend in pop history (getting away from the Ivanhoe and Robin Hood notion of knights and chivalry and beautiful princesses and shining armor and jolly peasants). It overshot its mark so we've been stuck the awful ugly Dung Ages as our baseline for understanding medieval times for the last several decades. Ha, funny that even back in the 70s fantasy fans were contrasting the obviously superior Katana to the "crude" blades of Europe. Makes you wonder if Gygax was taking a specific stance in the fandom discourse of the time by not including them? Poul Anderson, 1978 posted:True, primary sources can’t always be trusted. Thus, in the generally realistic Icelandic sagas, you find a few references to somebody cutting a head or limb off somebody else with a single stroke. Try this on a pork roast, suspended without a chopping block, and see how far you get. PoontifexMacksimus fucked around with this message at 18:56 on Jun 2, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2020 18:52
|
|
|
That just reeks of another case of "I'm an expert at swords because I spent a couple of minutes swinging one around at a RenFaire".
Cooked Auto fucked around with this message at 18:58 on Jun 2, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2020 18:56
|
|
|
Cooked Auto posted:That just reeks of another case of "I'm an expert at swords because I spent a couple of minutes swinging one around at a RenFaire". He does indeed tout his SCA credentials  https://www.sfwa.org/2005/01/04/on-thud-and-blunder/
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2020 18:57
|
|
|
PoontifexMacksimus posted:He does indeed tout his SCA credentials Ah, that's the one I was thinking of before but forgot the name of.  The part about touching a katana could induce corrosion is loving hilarious in particular.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2020 18:57
|
|
|
You know a sword is good when its blade corrodes on contact with human bodily fluids.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2020 19:53
|
|
|
Technically, it's true, insofar as literally any carbon steel object can corrode from fingerprint oils if it isn't protected from it, such as with oil and regular cleaning.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2020 20:43
|
|
|
Ratoslov posted:Technically, it's true, insofar as literally any carbon steel object can corrode from fingerprint oils if it isn't protected from it, such as with oil and regular cleaning. That makes sense, even if the phrasing there implies that outright touching it will make it corrode. Not to mention seemingly implies that they didn't actually clean their weapons at any point either.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2020 21:00
|
|
|
PoontifexMacksimus posted:Ha, funny that even back in the 70s fantasy fans were contrasting the obviously superior Katana to the "crude" blades of Europe. Makes you wonder if Gygax was taking a specific stance in the fandom discourse of the time by not including them? The very first edition of Dungeons & Dragons just doesn't have enough fidelity: it has "Sword" and "Sword, Two-Handed" and in combat all weapons do 1d6 damage. Going back to Chainmail (Gygax' contributions are often overstated) it's even simpler with a single entry for "Sword". However, if we look to the rules on Japanese troops, their basic foot soldiers have superior morale and the samurai are considered to have a morale of 9, among the highest in the game. By AD&D 1e, the 2-3 foot wakizashi does d8/d8 damage, while the 2 foot sword, short does d6/d8 damage, and the 3 foot katana does d10/d12 damage while the standard 3.5 foot sword, long does d8/d12 damage.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2020 21:28
|
|
|
Hand Weapon/Great Weapon was a genius move that lets me say my PC is killing people with a shovel and nobody can stop me. 
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2020 21:30
|
|
|
Night10194 posted:Hand Weapon/Great Weapon was a genius move that lets me say my PC is killing people with a shovel and nobody can stop me. One that I've adopted for all my homebrew games, if not by those exact terms.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2020 21:54
|
|
|
 Mutant 2089 I'm a cybernetic organism. Living tissue over a metal endoskeleton. As mentioned before, all player characters belong to one out of four races, either a NOM, PSI, ROB or MUT. The book encourages you to consider getting cyberware early on if you’re playing a NOM. Or as it puts it “If you want to play with the tough guys”. Neither of the mutants can grab any during character creation but can do so during later on. Robots can obviously not get anything like that but they have plenty of toys of their own.  NOM’s are your baseline human, no mutations or defects but you don’t get any special powers or anything. But on the plus side you have cool cyberware. That’s neat. The book's description of humans seems to be completely lifted from the previous edition without afterthought as it talks about the Catastrophe as having happened several hundred years in the past instead of about a decade and mentions that you’ve managed to rebuild society and most of the old technology. As well as taking over the world after the short lived and infertile mutants died off. Which, okay? So outside of the cyberware mentioned at the end the whole thing is just a lazy copy and paste job. Well done. PSI’s are humans who have unlocked the other 40% of their brain. (Or was it 60%? I can never remember.) As a result they’re smarter than your average mutant and intelligence vastly superior than that of the “stupid nomies”. Yes it totally says that. As a result your body has weakened so you’re often weaker than the ‘normal’ humans. You’re very quiet about your powers as normal humans fear you and your powers like the plague. Which is usually why you try to pose as a Nom. PSI gets 1d4+1 mental mutations, but can also have various defects or negative mutations. For which I assume there is some kind of minor benefit for but the game is mum about that until we reach the relevant chapter. And as previously mentioned they can’t get cyberware at character creation.  A ROB is a robot, or an android, or a replicant or even just a droid. They all look identical to a human and the only way to tell that you really are a cybernetic organism is through advanced metal detectors. While you are programmed to function more or less like a human you also possess something that overrides all your other abilities, namely obedience. All robots have a specific owner that’s been programmed into their brain who they all obey without question. And then the game hand waves away all that by saying that PC robots might just have had their owner go missing without leaving any directives and they’re left to fend for themselves until they return. Robots are hardy fellow which allows them to soak up four points of damage, but they also weigh twice as much as anyone else. They also don’t need to breathe and vakuum doesn’t affect them either for that part. Beyond that they also come equipped with a complete digestive system that lets them eat food, even if their only sustenance are energy packs. This to avoid being detected as a robot just because you don’t eat. Doesn’t say anything about needing to go to the bathroom though so I guess that’s one way to spot if someone is a robot. 99% of all robots in the setting are Calvin Standard Droids (CSD) and are constructed by Sirius RoboTechnics and made by Cybab. It’s a really weird detail to mention all of a sudden. There is also a weird phrasing in the sentence after that mentions that their special equipment is limited but however they have less starting funds. No idea why they’re trying to make that sound positive even if it’s not true. There was no mention of race specific starting funds in the previous section. Everyone rolls on the same table regardless. Robots may also gain gear from their careers beyond the standard equipment. All CSD robots are powered by their own small fusion reaction in their chest which needs to be recharged once a month or else you’ll be ‘dead’ until someone gets you more juice. Which involves sticking ten energy packets through a flap on your chest. It’s obvious that robots were the big thing for this game and it shows as they get the longest and most detailed description out of all four races. While you could play a robot in the first edition I haven’t looked back at the rules to really see how they worked there. But it feels to me this was an excuse to expand their role significantly. And they’re probably a bit of an author favourite as well considering they can only be found through very special equipment. And not to mention they can also eat to remain undercover so they can’t be spotted that way either. The whole obedience thing seems like a weak drawback considering the book outright states that PC robots most likely are without a master anyway. But I could see a malicious GM using that to screw with robot players and be forced to say attack the other players. But if that happens I suggest booting them out a window and finding someone else.  MUT, or mutants, are the children of the Catastrophe, or of the Forbidden Zones. High levels of radiation has given them several physical mutations and defects that have made their bodies into something extra. But as a result they’re shunned by other humans and they spend most of their life in the twilight lands. The ones lucky to live in the city have usually lived in ‘maridd-blocks’ amongst other Mutants. I have no idea what that means right now. In a worst case scenario they’ve had to make their living in the sewers or subways underneath the cities. Of course if fortune has favoured them they may just have succeeded at becoming a regular citizen and lived life like everyone else. Mutants get 1d4+1 physical mutations as well as 1d2 physical defects. Although unlike PSI the book says that these should be decided randomly instead of picked. And they also can’t start with any cyberware but can pick it up later. There are two kinds of mutants: mutated humans and mutated animals. Mutated humans are nothing special in this case, you are mutated but at the same time you look like a human. Mutated animals on the other hand are animals with human characteristics. In this case any front paws/claws/hooves/legs have transformed into a pair of hands and they walk upright on two legs. The player decides what animal they look like, but the book encourages you to pick something that fits your attributes. “A bear with SMI 18 and FYS 4 is for example just silly” as it puts it. All mutated animals are of human size and can talk like humans, their only difference is their appearance. Some might come with special abilities, such as a tail or venomous fangs. At which point the GM decides what is fair for these abilities and recommends that they can be picked instead of a mutation. Funny enough this is the first time I even knew there were mutated animals in the game. Admittedly it’s been at least a decade if not more since I played it and no one in the group actually picked one to play. Even then I think most places I read about Mutant 2089 never really made mention of them or said they had been removed. It is clearly a remnant of the previous edition and everyone just quietly shoved them aside. Because I’m not sure if they show in the rest of the book beyond the fact they’re playable. There are mutated critters obviously. But they’re monsters and not of the “I can talk, I can walk, I can siiiiiiiing~” player character type. In fact I’m not even sure if they show up in any of the prewritten adventures for the game. Next Time: When you're a professional mutant, You're always in the best of company
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2020 22:52
|
|
|
Night10194 posted:Hand Weapon/Great Weapon was a genius move that lets me say my PC is killing people with a shovel and nobody can stop me. I've always really, really liked that about Warhammer Fantasy. It's simple, effective, and it lets your character use whatever the hell you want without worrying about mechanical fiddly bits making it sub-optimal. Your brutish thug can be just as good at cracking skulls with a spiked club as the elf is at skewering them with a fancy sword or spear. It also lets you shift emphasis away from what the weapon is, per se, and more towards how the character is using it and their skill. I feel like it helps draw attention away from shiny gear and more towards the badass holding it and what THEY can do with it, not what IT can do.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2020 22:52
|
|
|
Speleothing posted:Personally, I don't like the ten thousand word reviews that only talk about fluff.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2020 22:58
|
|
|
And as I mentioned, as it doesn't have a "Need another +1" treadmill like D&D, you can really use the flavor text of "This sword belonged to my mother and the only thing I have left of her", or "This shield and the charge on it is proof of my character" or hell newlyweds with matching daggers instead of candlesticks.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2020 23:00
|
|
|
Robindaybird posted:And as I mentioned, as it doesn't have a "Need another +1" treadmill like D&D, you can really use the flavor text of "This sword belonged to my mother and the only thing I have left of her", or "This shield and the charge on it is proof of my character" or hell newlyweds with matching daggers instead of candlesticks. Elegant, AND practical!
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2020 23:14
|
|
|
-edit- WRONG POST!
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2020 23:29
|
|
|
Leraika posted:Elegant, AND practical! The Couple who stabs together stays together.
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2020 00:47
|
|
|
Robindaybird posted:The Couple who stabs together stays together. And the couple who épées together touchés together!
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2020 01:03
|
|
|
 Chapter 3 (We Have Always Been at War): Nurad Every nation up to this point has had a real-life culture it roughly maps to. Claslat was fantasy America, Yugash was fantasy revolutionary France, and Estasia was the fantasy British Empire. Nurad used to be fantasy Arabia. These days it’s not fantasy anything anymore. I’ve said other nations live in caverns, but Nurad really is a cave, complete with stalagmites, stalactites, and columns. It’s tall enough that the city embedded in the ceiling, Wissant, simulates a day and night cycle to mark the shifts. It’s close to the Pole of Steam at every point of its wanderings, meaning it’s always hot and prone to intermittent monsoons; its terrain consists of the metal equivalents of rolling hills and empty planes punctuated by seasonal rivers. When Nurad’s followers entered the area, they split in two groups. One, composed of former nomads, split off into tribes of their own which still wander the safe parts of Nurad as the gateway people, much more respectable than tunnel folk but still religiously and politically separate from the Tripartite. The second followed their founder, already the sort of coldly efficient person Clarity tends to produce even before she became Perfected Hydraulic Grace. After her rebirth she most of her time developing Charms and factories before she retreated into the math dreams really high Clarity gives you a few hundred years later as the city of Perygra. She left her buddies in the Sodalities in charge, and it took them until the Great Conclave to have their power reigned in. Ever since Nurad has swung between progressive and conservative phases, with the progressive phases seeing some of the craziest advances in Autochthonian history (regrown limbs? Proper AIs? You bet!) and the conservative phases hosting extensive cultural developments. The nation entered its current conservative phase after a particularly apocalyptic ideological civil war about 1000 years ago. You know, I’ve been wondering why the nations seem so chill about Kerok violently overthrowing the Yugashi Tripartite, but given how many civil wars break out in the history of other nations it makes a lot more sense. Nurad is currently less than a decade away from hitting the mother of all blight zones, one so big it’s metastasized and is regularly sending invasion forces into nearby areas. As Nurad draws closer it faces a massive and growing stream of gremlins and Apostates that’s driven the country to the brink. The Tripartite keeps stripping down nonessentials and forcing more and more labor out of an exhausted populace; in a rare violation of standard operating procedures for fictional governments the Nuradi government has made the threat of the oncoming light clear and the population has responded by completely mobilizing itself and accepting greater and greater restrictions without too much complaining (though dissent is rising as conditions decline). Given just how much effort went into cultural developments before, it means a lot of art and history is getting recycled or sold off to keep the country afloat. Like a third of this chapter is dedicated to mourning the various things destroyed in the name of keeping the nation alive; it gets pretty repetitive, and my desire not to have to restate all of it (out of character, I know) is the reason why this section isn’t much longer. A few of the highlights:
 The bulk of the remainder covers the cities and inhabitants of Nurad in greater detail than the previous chapters. The city of Shastar, a rather miserable port next to an oil ocean, houses the Grand Assembly; the book takes time to note its economic inequality and general unpleasantness, as well as how the Grand Autocrat is a former cop and thinks like one without taking economics into account and for some reason talks about one foreman who keeps productivity up by brewing toilet wine. Wisant, on the other hand, is a glorious city hanging from the ceiling that periodically lights the cavern and builds airships; she led the losing side in the last Civil War and she still houses the biggest Sodality research centers in the nation. Its setting NPCs include the Luminor Counselor, who made a deal with a Gamma-class direct subordinate of the Divine Ministers to create God-blooded children to back up Alchemical forces, and a hanging judge who sentences anyone in front of him to exile. Xefin’s different, though, and much more interesting. She’s turned herself into a giant prison full of Lumpen and potential slaves (all of whom volunteered to go there instead of getting typical punishment), Regulator prison guards, the usual gaggle of Sodality maintenance workers, and Surgeons trying to get their mad scientist on by developing questionable psychiatric treatments. Xefin is active everywhere, regularly interacting with prisoners and coordinating with staff; I’m not sure how she manages to get around the prohibition on Alchemical leadership, but no one seems to have a problem with it. What no one in her city knows is that she considers individuality a flaw in human nature and she set up the prison to experiment on people no one will miss to find out how to safely remove it. While her robot communist Third Impact scenario is still a long way off, she’s started releasing inmates rewired Manchurian Candidate-style to activate if the Void draws closer. There’s more to this chapter, a few sample Alchemicals (there’s no time left for them to do anything but fight), some Apostates (they suck), a research outpost in the ceiling, a mining town on the rim dealing with the occasional half-gremlinized worker stumbling out of the dark and get treated like the ex-Borg in Star Trek. Nothing too notable. The exception is the ruins of Perygra, magic crystal Pompeii. Originally the greatest research center in Autochthonia (just as Nurad would’ve wanted), it died when it developed a special charm designed to directly tap into Autochthon’s mind. It worked, and Autochthon’s body responded to a well-meaning attempt to better learn his will by instantly freezing the entire city in crystal. Ever since people have avoided and treated the ruins like a monument to hubris (which it is, this is Exalted), especially since the only thing that the crystal didn’t smash was the hundreds of thousands of people it trapped screaming at the moment of their death. Very creepy, good for setting the mood if/when players investigate. The only creature in the ruins is the god of Memorials of Dreadful Events and Forbidden Knowledge, who camps in his little lab in the depths of the city and does his forbidden research thing. He does occasionally slip out of the city, but he mostly hangs out at home and doesn’t go outside like the nerd he is. As Perygra was at the time of its destruction the most technologically advanced city in the Octet, it’s packed to the gills with potentially invaluable artifacts, resources, and raw magical materials in a region constantly short of resources. Nurad has set up a mining effort to drill into the city through the remaining exterior infrastructure (they’re afraid breaking the crystal will reactivate the autoimmune response) to try and salvage everything they can. Though the only enemy to fight in there would be a powerful spirit, it sounds like the set up for a nice dungeon-equivalent or horror-themed break from the nonstop action likely to characterize a Nurad campaign. As far as campaign settings go I really like Nurad; it has a morally ambiguous lesser evil villain in Xefin, a few tones you can take (melancholy, desperation, hopeful), and a big, evil horde for characters to fight while trying to fix serious problems in their downtime. Next up is Sova, what happens when overpopulation gets REALLY out of hand. Falconier111 fucked around with this message at 02:26 on Jun 3, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2020 02:22
|
|
|
The creative goal for Nurad was basically "Make a place players want to invest in, even though they know it's going to be totally hosed very soon," based on observation of audience response to other places in Exalted with a looming doom, of which there are many -- unless a place with a hanging dark fate is super-compelling, most players seem to react to it with "Pfft, why should I let myself care about this? I'll just go somewhere else."
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2020 02:45
|
|
|
Nurad sounds very melancholy. I like it.
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2020 03:24
|
|
|
IthilionTheBrave posted:I've always really, really liked that about Warhammer Fantasy. It's simple, effective, and it lets your character use whatever the hell you want without worrying about mechanical fiddly bits making it sub-optimal. Your brutish thug can be just as good at cracking skulls with a spiked club as the elf is at skewering them with a fancy sword or spear. It also lets you shift emphasis away from what the weapon is, per se, and more towards how the character is using it and their skill. I feel like it helps draw attention away from shiny gear and more towards the badass holding it and what THEY can do with it, not what IT can do. Exactly! Some stories are much improved for being of the 'Heroes make Swords' style rather than the inverse.
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2020 05:57
|
|
|
Ghal Maraz is the most magical weapon in the world and even it isn't very magical.
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2020 14:16
|
|
|
Ghal Maraz is pretty loving obscene on the tabletop game and if it were converted to the Roleplaying game it would be absolutely absurd, given it was gifted by a Dwarven High King in exchange for being rescued it fits anyway. E: Checking the stats again the RPG equivalent would probably pierce armor, have impact and just outright ignore toughness bonus damage reduction. It would be absolutely absurd to even stat given any combat with Karl Franz would basically be you lose unless you ambushed him and were absurdly lucky even with fate. ChaseSP fucked around with this message at 18:06 on Jun 3, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2020 17:43
|
|
|
ChaseSP posted:Ghal Maraz is pretty loving obscene on the tabletop game and if it were converted to the Roleplaying game it would be absolutely absurd, given it was gifted by a Dwarven High King in exchange for being rescued it fits anyway. Well Franz himself is still a fairly normal dude. (Though a good warrior.) Honestly I would be more afraid of Deathclaw.
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2020 18:56
|
|
|
'A regular dude who is a good warrior with plenty of training' is already one of the most dangerous enemies you can fight in pretty much every edition of the RPG already. Give that guy God's own hammer and you're dead as hell. It's part of the reason they don't do much with magic items; the game isn't really balanced for major ones. Something with the Rune of Skalf Blackhammer in 2e (+3 Damage, gain Impact) is instantly 'oh god how do we deal with this' level of dangerous, same with Rune of Gromril or Spite (or goodness help you, both of those). E: And the reason they're not really balanced around those kinds of items is because as said, there aren't many and PCs are unlikely to ever see them. So why balance the PC rules around them? Also I believe Ghal Maraz's whole thing was having multiple Master Runes so I'd say probably give it Skalf Blackhammer's Rune and Alaric the Mad's: +3 Damage, Impact, Magical, and Ignores All Armor. That kind of poo poo lets someone potentially one or two round a dragon without needing to have Heroism, which is pretty TT accurate. It's basically a weapon good enough to let someone who is at least competent with a hammer kill an Everchosen or a Chaos Dragon or whatever single-handed. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 19:13 on Jun 3, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2020 19:04
|
|
|
Don't forget that is JUSt the magical weapon and not the inherent warding Karl Franz gets from armor/other magical artifacts he can carry. The weapon is just the thing he's bashing you over the head with and making you into chunky salsa. Dude is geared in the e2quivalant of a dnd party in a setting where stuff is extremely difficult to make and even rich nobles likely can't afford.
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2020 19:45
|
|
|
It's another reason the RPG just doesn't really try to model Lord level gear much. It isn't just that it won't come up, but look at how much something like 'this magic gives you AV 7 vs. 5' can already swing things into crazy town. The designers in both 2e and 4e just didn't want to deal with it much because trying to accommodate those edge cases could gently caress the system math the way the Lascannon did in 40kRP.
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2020 19:48
|
|
|
It's a ogod idea from both a balancing and a lore perspective, magical items are extremely rare, but of course the absurdly rich can get absurd poo poo that nobody else could even dream of owning.
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2020 20:00
|
|
|
PoontifexMacksimus posted:He does indeed tout his SCA credentials Part of me wishes I could have been in the SCA back in the Seventies. I've heard stories of some really, really stupid nonsense that beggars the nonsense I saw back in the early oughts.
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2020 22:29
|
|
|
Mutant 2089 Be all you can be. The career/profession part of character creation reflects what life your character lived before they became suddenly an adventurer. Once again I like that Mutant has a clearly stated intention for what your characters are meant to be. Something I also like is that the book deals with the special circumstances that led you to becoming an adventurer. This is fully up to the player, but the GM is advised to make sure things do not become unbalanced and that you give yourself too many benefits and not enough drawbacks. Which is one thing the text lifts up, becoming an adventurer has its price. The book offers four different suggestions as to why you’ve suddenly turned to a life of adventuring. The first option is that you’re still employed, or directly part of your profession. This means you’re free of any debts but at the same time you are doing this as part of a mission and at the same time act under strict rules. Breaking any of these means you’re fired and there’s plenty of people that can fill your spot. You can obviously quit by your own volition, that means you have more freedom but at the same time you’re probably laden with debt. Or you could’ve deserted from your job at some point. You’re free from any debt but at the same time you’re now wanted by the law so if you get arrested you’re screwed. But as long as you avoid getting into trouble with the law, or don’t return to the city where you worked in, there shouldn’t be too many issues. And if you keep doing that for about ten years you’re a free person. Finally you could’ve also screwed up at some point and gotten fired, which means you’re also free from debt. But on the other hand it means you don’t have any cyberware, or any robot parts either. I wonder if that means they’ll just rip out any cyberlimbs or cybereyes and just leave you armless or half blind as they fire you. Each profession comes with a number of cyberware choices that represent the most common options for that particular type of profession. Even if there are some that come with no options at all. Rolling for these are voluntarily and your PER score determines how many times you can do it as well. The book even stresses that this is completely voluntary and you the player should not be forced to have cyberware at the start of the game. Of course there are downsides with having it. First you run the risk of suffering from Cybernetic Overreaction Syndrome or COS. What that actually entails we’ll find out later on. Not to mention you’ll be indebted to your employer. Here the book pulls another on us and mentions that there is also cosmetic cyberware outside of the more functional ones. And then says that everyone, including MUT and PSI, can have these without being in debt. Makes you wonder why not everyone grabs them in that case but I guess we’ll find out once we reach the cyberware section. If you decide to have cyberware you automatically become indebted to a creditor. Which is either a person or company/entity that financed them for you. This debt has to be paid back but while the book says it has to be done within a year it also goes on to say it’s ultimately up to GM to decide how much time the player has. Failure to repay their debts means that they’re wanted by the law and if caught gets put in a work camp. Or worse if they get the money from less than reputable groups. The average sum that the players debt is half that of the cyberware they have. Once again cosmetic cyberware doesn’t count because it’s assumed the characters paid that out of their own pocket. All professions come with their own set of related skills, during character generation you’ll spend background points to increase ranks in them beyond the base ones you get. The book emphasizes that these are just meant to be a framework for the character and not a limitation and you’re obviously free to pick other skills as you play. As mentioned before some professions come with attribute requirements in order to be able to pick them. For example a physically weak person won’t be able to pass the SWOT school aptitude tests. Even if it also says that an ugly or boring person can’t get a job as a reporter, which is a rather dubious stance to have and also enforces the idea that PER is directly linked to appearance. The characters attributes must be either equal or higher than these requirements in order to be able to pick the profession. Of course you should also remember the suggestion to ignore these when needed as mentioned in the character creation chapter. While not mentioned explicitly in the text I’d assume that also comes with the suggestion that the player should maybe come up with an explanation why they got accepted. After all, they’re hardy adventurers marked for greatness. Street Kids or BRAT’s are those who struggle against Society and the Corporations and everything that they represent. They shun the idea of being an accepted member of society, making their dues through petty crimes, racketeering and minor side jobs. They’re usually members of various gangs that rule the blocks they live in. Some might even have contacts with the criminal underworld. The police generally don't care about them unless they pull off something big. BRAT’s start with no available options for cyberware or any creditors. They also have no attribute requirements as well. Their career skills are: Dexterity, Fixer, Forgery, First Aid, Hide, Perception, Maneuvers, Swimming, Throwing weapons, Knife, Unarmed combat, Dodge.  Criminals or KRIM’s are the scum and villainy of the underworld. They know all the tips and tricks to get just what the Society doesn’t want you to have. Need someone taken out? Maybe get ahold of some heavy firepower? Need a place to hide? A new faked ID? They’re the ones to talk to. KRIM’s can roll 1D10 + 1D20 for cyberware options. Creditor suggestions are mafia boss, companion and corrupt corper. They have no attribute requirements as well. Their career skills are: Dexterity, Fixer, Forgery, First Aid, Hide, Perception, Maneuvers, Rifle, Knife, Unarmed combat, Pistol, Dodge.  The MERC loves to fight and loves to get paid for doing it. They’re ruthless and uncompromising and do what their employer tells them to do. And take plenty of cash in return. Over the years they’ve managed to get equipped with cyberware that makes them more effective but at the same time gotten them in debt. The only thing holy for a MERC is loyalty. They all know that they’ll never get employed again if they betray their employers. And will most likely spend the rest of their life on the run. MERC’s can roll 1D10 + 1D20 for cyberware options. Creditor suggestions are previous employers. While they have no attribute requirements. But they have a special rule that instead of using PER to determine how much cyberware they use their lowest attribute to determine how much ware they can start with. Their career skills are: Dexterity, Fixer, First Aid, Hide, Perception, Maneuvers, Swim, Tracking, Survival, Persuade and All combat skills.  The Metropolis or MPOL represent THE LAW. They usually see themselves as lone crusaders in a city rife with crime, fighting to uphold the laws and regulations that have been agreed upon. Daily they are forced to witness the moral and physical decline of the city and its inhabitants. They are usually plagued with low resources and highly corrupted bosses which makes their struggle somewhat hopeless. Cyberware is rare, mainly due to lack of money. But they’ve received extensive training making them incredibly lethal weapons in their own right. MPOL’s can only roll 1d4 for cyberware options. Their creditor is the state. (Which apparently still exists despite the corps running everything.) Attribute requirements are STY 9, FYS 9 and STO 9. Their career skills are: Fixer, Drive Air vehicle, First Aid, Perception, Drive Ground vehicle, Tracking, All Combat Skills. Nomad’s or ZIGGY are the ones who live in the Twilight Lands. Fighting and ZIGGY’s start with no available options for cyberware or any creditors. They also have no attribute requirements as well. Their career skill choices are special as they can pick up to seven different ones to reflect their background as survivors.  Reporters or MUD’s are always found in the epicentre of the biggest news stories of the today. Where the misery is at its worst, where the luxury is the most grandest, where the really big news happens that’s where you’ll find them making a living. Either through diligent journalistic work or walraffing they bring the people what they want to have, the latest news and scandals. MUD’s can roll 1d6 for cyberware options. Their creditors are whatever media company they’re working for. Attribute requirements are PER 13 and MST 9. Their career skills are Fixer, Drive Air vehicle, Forgery, Hide, Perception, Drive Ground Vehicle, Maneuvers, Language, Persuade, One handed melee weapon, Unarmed combat, Pistol, Dodge. SVOT stands for Special Weapons and Techniques. They’re found either within the corporation's internal police or as part of SSSE (The State Special Forces against Socially Dangerous Elements). Doing all the jobs that someone might see in an action movie or see the consequences off in the media. Things like Counter-Terrorism and Hostage rescue among other things. The main job is to prevent and stop threats against your employers. The methods are indifferent, the payment high, the risks great and the price for success is high. SVOT can roll 1d10 for cyberware options. Their creditors are either the state or whatever company they worked for. Attribute requirements are STY 9, FYS 13, SMI 9 and MST 9. Their career skills are Electronics, Hide, Perception, Maneuvers, Technology, All Combat skills. Technicians or KORP’s are the sarariman of the Mutant world. Employed by the corporations in multitude of different roles such as programmer, doctor, electrician, engineer or just as your average office grunt. KORP’s can roll 1d8 for cyberware options. Their creditors are their previous employers. Attribute requirements are INT 13 and MST 9. Their career skills are: Computers, Electronics, Fixer, Drive Air vehicle, Perception, Drive Ground vehicle, Medicine, Language, Technology. Now some of you might be wondering, what about robots? Most of these professions don't seem to be fitting for a replicant. To which you are right because robots get their own special kind of professions they can choose from. Although if I were a GM I’d probably let them pick from the regular list too because they’re meant to be disguised as humans anyway so why not let them have human jobs? In general the three options work very much the same as the normal professions. They all come with their attribute requirements and they all have a list of robotics they can roll for. The book says that the only way for a robot to have become an adventurer is if their employer/master has suddenly disappeared and they’re not essentially a stray robot that has to make due on their own until they return. While you can just change that and say that you’re an escapee or something it still comes off as restrictive. Especially for a race that is obviously the big thing of the game. It feels like “You can play this but” caveats that crop up sometimes just players don’t automatically pick what can be seen as the best option available. It’s like saying that you can play as a drow, but you suffer penalties while in direct sunlight. Which was a thing in 3.5 as some might know. Much like with cyberware, robotics is an optional choice and then goes on to say that the rules for PER also decides how many times you get to roll for it. I double checked and that was not brought up in the description for the PER attribute during the character creation chapter. It only specifies regular humans for that rule. Which is a bit annoying. Worker robots are used everywhere. Either as technicians, scientists or workers in a position where normal people might’ve quickly perished or worn out. Usually those places are incredibly lethal, highly radioactive or toxic environments (Like forum admins?) where normals would die after a few hours. Workers can roll 1d10 for robotics options. They have no attribute requirements. Their career skills are: Computers, Electronics, Perception, Medicine, Language, Technology, Survival, One handed melee weapon, Dodge Combat robots are the perfect assassin or commando. Being able to pursue a target with single minded dedication and backed up by their robotic strength. The perfect tool for the poo poo jobs that are either too dangerous for humans or when someone wants to keep things hush-hush. Usually they come equipped with an internal explosive charge so they can’t be captured alive, or whole for that part. Successive memory wipes are also common. Combat bots can roll 1d10 for robotics options. Attribute requirements are STY 24 and FYS 18 Career skills are: Computers, Electronics, Maneuvers, Technology, All Combat skills. Security Robots has one job, and that is to guard the properties of their employers. Their cyberbrains have been crammed full of names and personal files of any employees and they watch everyone like hawks. Security bots can roll 1d10 for robotics options. Their attribute requirements are STY 23, FYS 18 and INT 10. Career skills are: Computers, Electronics, Fixer, Drive Air vehicle, Forgery, Hide, Perception, Drive Ground vehicle, Tracking, Technology, Persuade and all combat skills. If the requirements seem very high, remember that robots have noticeable larger bonuses to their attribute rolls during character generations. Lastly we get a sidebar notice regarding robots where it says that they might be hard to play because if they get revealed as a stray they might be captured or ‘deactivated’, destroyed in other words. This means that robot players need to be careful what they do and say. Yet another one of those caveats that keeps cropping up for the robots in particular. I’m sure it could’ve been fixed if they rethought the position of the robots in the game. But now it feels like a lot of awkward shuffling around to seemingly avoid issues that could’ve been fixed with some consideration or downtuning. The professions in Mutant is like if someone looked at the ones from Cyberpunk 2017 and then took a chainsaw to them to trim them down a bit. Which isn’t a bad idea because it removes decision paralysis and makes them all stand out to a certain extent. There’s something for everyone in there. Oddly enough only the merc and reporter start with persuasion as a skill but not the criminal. I think the biggest point of contention I have with them is SVOT. They have an air of being the mandatory “ex-special forces guy who is really good at fighting” choice that I’m sure plenty of people gravitated towards. Considering they have the highest requirements for normal professions it’s not surprising to see them being used as examples previously. It also wins the award for worst name because it’s just such an awkward rewrite of SWAT. You could’ve just used tactics instead of techniques you lazy bastards. But otherwise, it’s not a bad selection but at the same time feels slightly meagre in flavouring. And I feel I’ve complained enough about the weird design choices for robots as it is. Next time: The creation of a most unexpected duo.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2020 00:08
|
|
|
Chapter 3 (We Have Always Been at War): Sova Unlike most nations, Sova wasn’t named after its founder. Sova isn’t a name at all; it’s a title, “Father” in High Holy Speech, adopted by a tribal leader of the era before Autochthon’s departure who united dozens of tribes in open defiance of the Directive. He adopted Autochthon as a patron since he was the only divinity who would recognize someone who rejected Solar leadership, and when his heir Exalted and drew the attention of the Solar Queen, he jumped at the opportunity to lead his people into exile. Unlike every other nation, Sova is entirely descended from one group of related cultures instead of mostly terrified randos that Autochthon kidnapped. That fact led to one of the two defining differences between Sovan and broader Autochthonian culture; they care about families. Unlike the rest of the Octet, Sovans only use the creche system for education. Children are raised by their nuclear families and taught to respect their parents and ancestors. While the caste system works as normal, castes are usually assigned without regard to a parent’s status, meaning you get a lot of Tripartite kids raised by Populat parents. These families belong to one of the surviving 59 tribes (the rest died off or were driven out) of the original federation of 86, the defining feature of Sovan social life over 5000 years later. Each tribe/family chooses a member to send it to a national body called the Caucus, which functions as a sort of second chamber to the Tripartite (which is supposed to be above dynastic issues); it holds a veto on any Grand Assembly decision not approved by unanimous vote while acting as a forum for working out family feuds. Its members (mostly Oglotary and Theomachracy members, though the occasional Populat or even Lumpen can make it in) periodically elects one of their number as Sova, a position which… soes something, I’m not sure if the book tells us anything. It might just be ceremonial. The current Sova is a former autocrat and firebrand who likes to kick the hornets nest that is Sovan politics to see what flies out, something Sova desperately doesn’t need. Whether in government, professional, or even personal life, Sovans are expected to put their family first. All Sovans are expected to show respect to their family elders and listen to their opinions, even those below them in the caste system, while parents and relatives are expected to arrange marriages for their children and direct their lives untill they die. If this seems like a great way to cultivate nepotism, you’d be right; positions can be and are delegated according to family loyalty. It doesn’t seem to hurt productivity too much, but it isn’t exactly the most efficient process for a society that values efficiency. The way in which families constantly enter and fight feuds doesn’t help efficiency either. In theory, the Caucus settles most disputes and those it can’t are solved by “duels” where one family member for each side competes in a sporting event and the winner is considered the victor. In practice, those duels rarely solve the issue, sometimes become straight up fights, and often descend into vendettas that can last generations. Only if the Caucus declares a solution does any peace agreement become binding.  Oh, speaking of generations, remember when the topic of turning dead people into delicious treats came up? That’s here. See, Sovan Harvesters have bred a special type of rat that goes deep into Autochthon’s body and taps slurry veins for survival. As they feed, they process some of the slurry into a sugar rich substance similar to honey that they store in their abdomen; they gradually swell up full of honey until they can't move anymore and just lie around, suffering. Eventually a Harvester comes along, harmlessly extracts all the honey, and releases the now much lighter and happier rat back into the wild to repeat the process. Most societies in Autochthonia recycle their dead by dumping their bodies in special apertures that process them back into slurry. Sovans only do that for dead small children and criminals. Everyone else goes into a family tomb where they shoot the corpses full of honey, leave them in a sarcophagus for a century, and pull out what is by then basically a giant morbid candy bar and split it between local members of the family in a mixture of family reunion and coming-of-age ceremony. In a golden example of the Autochthonian ethos, the rest of the Octet looks down on this practice, not because of the elaborate ritual cannibalism, but because the tradition wastes valuable slurry. Every family has a special shrine deep in the capital where they house a sort of primitive AI. Elders visit these Malki over the course of their lives and record aspects of their personality and values in them. They then synthesize these recordings into a sort of composite personality that advises elders and family members seeking the wisdom of their ancestors. Malki or the modern form of a tradition of ancestor worship that dates back to Creation (the previous method of communing with the ancestors, taking drugs and tripping out, is illegal but still practiced and mostly tolerated). Funnily enough, the division between honey corpses and Malki resembles the division between hun and po souls; the first contains the deepest emotions of the dead, while the second contains their intellect and knowledge. Each Malki forms the moral and spiritual heart of a family and the destruction of one usually results in the family leaving or dying out (several tribes that underwent this fate now live in Gulak, a country famous for accepting immigrants). Despite them not having any legal standing, families tend to see the words of their Malki as sacrosanct, and the fact that they’re the embodiment of millennia of curmudgeonly old people tends to prevent society from adapting. Man, writing this out makes their society look a bit dysfunctional compared to the rest of Autochthonia. I get the impression a lot of this stuff was kept under control by the Theomachracy before the second unique element of Sovan culture reared its head. Sova is the geographically smallest member of the Octet, crammed into a series of chambers next to several vats that (used to) contain molten magical metals. While ready access to those metals made Sova rich, they also make Sova’s environment the hottest in the Octet; citizens usually wear little more than a utility kilt and protective gear (by Autochthonian standards outright indecent), use specially-developed additives to make the usually-bland nutritional slurry they eat as spicy as anything you can find in Creation, and often replace the usual system of rank adornments on clothing with elaborate tattooing. The environment outside their climate-controlled cities is almost unlivablely hot, and while only the mining settlements set up around the vats had to rotate their population out every few months, the rest of the region wasn’t much better. The heat kept the citizens crammed tight in the cities, and the priesthood adapted by putting an even stronger emphasis on nobility through suffering then elsewhere in Autochthonia. Then, around a century ago, the Sovans developed a solution for the space problem; conurbation. They began development of a Charm that would extend the effective area of influence of a city and its Charms by an order of magnitude. The Theomachracy hated it; the whole heat-overpopulation-suffering complex was a key part of their worldview and they felt giving the bulk of the nation air-conditioning would inevitably lead them into sin. They lost the resulting political struggle and found themselves sidelined as the resulting suburbs stretched out between the cities. Though distant from the city proper, the suburbs combine something approaching the safety and comfort (by Autochthonian standards) of the city with a level of usable space no other nation can imagine. Today, even after the fall of Ixut killed as many as a million people and the Elemental War ravaged the country, Sova has the third largest population in the Octet; despite at least half the suburbs being severed from their patron cities by either Ixut’s destruction or the war, Sovan citizens have more living space on average than any other nation. The population explosion that accompanied conurbation, along with the resulting economic strain, left the whole country drained of resources. By the time the vats that Sova had relied on for millennia had run completely dry, the country had started extorting its neighbors and, well, digging too greedily and too deep. As tends to happen, that backfired.  Ixut was Sova’s second city, an 800,000-citizen-strong transportation hub planted between multiple vats that was the heart of the conurbation project. The way the book tells it, no one realized anything had happened to it until well after half the suburbs spontaneously dropped off the power grid; it was only after they managed to get the situation under control there that the capital put the pieces together. Something had destroyed Ixut. They couldn’t tell what or how, or even how long it took. They had plenty of eyewitnesses, but they couldn’t build a coherent timeline of events; even the people there couldn’t agree on anything but the broadest details. The resulting national backlash targeted Yugash, the only neighbor not to send Sova aid, and it declared war. The resulting Elemental War just hosed things even more. Sova today defines itself by its trauma and rage more than its past, achievements, or culture. While nationalism rarely helps anything in Autochthonia, Sova gets a special prize for how dramatically their national identity is screwing them over; despite just how badly overextended the conurbation system leaves them, any suggestions of abandoning or withdrawing from unsupported suburbs are treated as borderline treason, and the government focuses more on planning for the next war of revenge than actually fixing their problems. Like Nurad and Yugash, they are rapidly running out of resources, but unlike those two Sova’s collapse comes from its own cultural stasis. To me, the funny thing is the Elemental War seems to have hit Yugash harder than Sova, despite the former defeating the latter; Ixut already broke Sova's spirit and the destruction of the war barely compared. The obligatory gazetteer covers two locations: Imtu (the capital, home of all the family shrines and Malki, currently riven by constant protests for every political cause Then we have the standard end-of-the-chapter assortment. Sovan politics are so consumed by hatred and nationalism that “international relations” looks more like “who do we invade next” every day; they’ve drawn up plans to go to war with Gulak and Yugash (next time they can reach it), but the small nation of Kamak is on a course to intercept it within the next few years, and when Sova finds out it will inevitably take the opportunity. Likewise, even though they don’t know about Project Razor (unlike everyone else, apparently), the moment they find out they’ll probably try and replicate it just because gently caress those guys. Also, oddly, the last page includes a sidebar on town life in Autochthonia, the sort of thing that might’ve been useful in the chapter about general life in Autochthonia, but hey. Towns, builds on useful deposits or strategic junctions, function like tinier, shittier cities; they have access to most of the basic services city Autochthonians get, but without the Municipal Charms to provide them those services are measurably worse. They get even less free time than cityfolk. The only interesting thing about their lives is that they interact with spirits far more often than citydwellers and get to trade with the occasional pole mutants (something that comes up after the nation summaries). Sova… just doesn’t come together for me. “Clan system from Creation surviving into Autochthonia”, “revanchism as lifestyle”, and “gigantic city-dungeon” all work as separate concepts, but they don’t seem to mesh into a cohesive whole very well. And now we are halfway through the book. I’ll likely be too busy tomorrow to complete an update, but the day after we cover Kamak, the tiniest fantasy Russia you'll ever see.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2020 05:13
|
|
|
Night10194 posted:'A regular dude who is a good warrior with plenty of training' is already one of the most dangerous enemies you can fight in pretty much every edition of the RPG already. Well, Jesus, he's the emperor. Of The Empire. Forget Karl Franz and his super-hammer and other artifacts he has. Your rear end isn't even going to get close enough. It'd be like trying to take a run at the President of the United States with a dinky switchblade. Figure there's master wizard of all color types warding him against, well, drat near anything. And he so much as stubs his toe, figure there's a High Priest(ess) of Shallya right there all the time to heal him up. Figure attempting to assassinate Karl Franz would be the goal of a full campaign - with the idea that the PCs involved will not survive that campaign because even if they succeed, his security will murder the gently caress out of them right afterward.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2020 07:38
|
|
|
I figure he might not have all that stuff, at least visibly, because it risks making him seem weak. Which would be far deadlier than a mere stabbing.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2020 07:52
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 7, 2024 20:09 |
|
|
That just means he and his advisers need to get artful about how they conceal it (or spread rumours about how artfully concealed it is). That should be something the Grey Order are good at. A bunch of cloaked wizards standing around in the equivalent of dark sunglasses; who knows what they can do? But it's probably horrible. Even before the death wizard gets there. I like Warhammer being a setting where the Emperor of the fantasy Holy Roman Empire holds onto power by political and military skill and the ability to inspire loyalty rather than his magical hammer, even if it is a very good magical hammer. If the hammer is in the wash this week, you'd still expect Karl Franz to be perfectly capable of looking after himself because he wouldn't be emperor if he couldn't. The hammer is just a perk - the twenty thousand arquebuses and full artillery train do most of the actual work.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2020 10:38
|
|
