Trad Games Chat: squabbled over drafts, forked, and disbanded

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UnCO3: Feb 11, 2010; Ye gods!; College Slice

Chiming in with my own Creator Day stuff! Here's my sale (10% off or $50 for everything in the bundle) and here's a twitter thread where I run through everything in the sale:

6 games (and 1 playset for one of those games) that run from gonzo journalism to pastoral sci-fi to found-footage weird horror,
4 Trophy Dark incursions (dark fantasy/psychological horror scenarios about treasure hunters seeking mellified men in eldritch flower meadows, a font of truth in a metastatic labyrinth, fabulous wealth through mountain sacrifice, or glory as they re-tell the tale of killing the Devil of High Rock), and
2 typeface expansions: one (timeTo) that makes analog and countdown/progress clocks (useful for PbtA or FitD games) and another (LilMrkr) that does chunky marker-pen writing with randomised characters so you don't see the same letter-shapes as often.

# ? Jul 23, 2021 13:59

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# ? May 24, 2024 22:23

JMBosch: May 28, 2006; You're dead.
That's your greatest weapon.

I'll chime in with my Creator Day sale too: 20% discount on all my stuff or 40% off if you buy everything together in a bundle.

2 Trophy Dark incursions (One is a mid-20th century psychedelic, cosmic body horror one-shot about ego murder, and the other is a sci-fi contemplative existential horror one-shot about whether to fight the end of everything you know.)
1 solo comedy journaling game about absurd and ridiculous opinion columnists revealing way too much about their weird, sad lives instead of what their articles are supposed to be out as they fade into irrelevance. (One commenter called it "NYT Simulator.")
1 supplement for a post-apocalyptic/weird anti-western game ([BXLLET>) that has 10 NPC types that are generic enough to use in any western genre game that has some new tech sprinkled about but unique enough to be memorable and reusable.

# ? Jul 23, 2021 15:12

drrockso20: May 6, 2013; Has Not Actually Done Cocaine

potatocubed posted:

Let me tell you the good word about Gubat Banwa, the extremely Filipino game of tactical combat and downtime drama. It has about 300 classes and one of them is an archer who rides a flying swordfish. Another is a gun wizard. Another is a sipa player, who puts their angry ball game skills to use in fights. It's amazing.

Neat

# ? Jul 23, 2021 18:13

CitizenKeen: Nov 13, 2003; easygoing pedant

Are there any examples of metaplot in RPGs that people want to defend? Or is all metaplot 100% garbage?

# ? Jul 23, 2021 23:07

LatwPIAT: Jun 6, 2011

CitizenKeen posted:

Are there any examples of metaplot in RPGs that people want to defend? Or is all metaplot 100% garbage?

Several of Delta Green�s metaplot events were set up such that they made the necessary changes to the setting to keep it sensibly playable in the 00s and 10s.

# ? Jul 23, 2021 23:09

Haystack: Jan 23, 2005

I'm generally ok with the Hero Wars metaplot in Glorantha, such as is.

# ? Jul 23, 2021 23:10

Vox Valentine: May 31, 2013; Solving all of life's problems through enhanced casting of Occam's Razor. Reward yourself with an imaginary chalice.

CitizenKeen posted:

Are there any examples of metaplot in RPGs that people want to defend? Or is all metaplot 100% garbage?

Metaplot is most enjoyable when it's building things up to a singular point where the PCs will start play and then start loving ruining everything. An Exalted AP I follow has more or less taken the basic framework of where Exalted begins and just uses all of the various political factions' past histories as where they would start leaning when the wind blows and the PCs nudge and push things in a variety of directions. Basically as long as it's flexible and is set dressing but the PCs can start decorating and making their own changes.

# ? Jul 23, 2021 23:20

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

CitizenKeen posted:

Are there any examples of metaplot in RPGs that people want to defend? Or is all metaplot 100% garbage?

Games where the metaplot so to speak is 'where is everyone at this exact moment before poo poo really kicks off' can do okay but I'm not sure that counts as actual metaplot.

# ? Jul 24, 2021 00:31

Leperflesh: May 17, 2007

There's plenty to disagree with in the particulars, but I think most Battletech fans are fine with the general idea that the game is played in a sequence of eras/dates, all connected by a background metaplot. The scope of most roleplaying campaigns set within battletech are limited to: being battlemech pilots who can affect the outcome of a few battles but probably not a war; or (rarely, but supported by certain game supplements) commanding whole companies or even armies and perhaps affecting the map in one of the wars, but probably not significantly altering the long-term plot.

Occasionally, someone like PoptartsNinja comes along and stars from clan invasion and lets the participants radically alter the entire course of the history of the inner sphere, creating a spin-off metaplot, but that does involve a shitload of work.

I think accepting the background metaplot as it exists in established canon is also common in media-derived games, like Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, etc; the canonincal metaplot is half the reason players wanted to explore those settings in the first place.

# ? Jul 24, 2021 00:43

Imagined: Feb 2, 2007

Yeah Battletech is a cool example of metaplot. Star Wars too, I guess, in the sense that most of games take place at a specific period within the larger story.

# ? Jul 24, 2021 02:05

Coolness Averted: Feb 20, 2007; oh don't worry, I can't smell asparagus piss, it's in my DNA

GO HOGG WILD!
🐗🐗🐗🐗🐗

Hostile V posted:

Metaplot is most enjoyable when it's building things up to a singular point where the PCs will start play and then start loving ruining everything. An Exalted AP I follow has more or less taken the basic framework of where Exalted begins and just uses all of the various political factions' past histories as where they would start leaning when the wind blows and the PCs nudge and push things in a variety of directions. Basically as long as it's flexible and is set dressing but the PCs can start decorating and making their own changes.

Yeah Exalted's metaplot seemed okay when I saw books that interacted with it, though then again it was also at the very beginning and very end, so it was all about setting up where those actors were, with a few variants and sidebars on stuff like "here's what we suggest if you wanna build up the Scarlet Empress as the one true big bad, here's if you want her to be tragic and redeemable. Here's hooks for how [faction] can oppose or ally with the PC's and here's a story justification or two for why the PCs are the catalyst for big things and not them"

# ? Jul 24, 2021 04:31

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸

Metaplot is great when it gives the GM and PCs a big old sandbox full of cool toys to play with

Metaplot is bad when it gives the authors a big old sandbox full of cool toys to play with while the GM and players sit nearby rolling the truck with a broken wheel back and forth

# ? Jul 24, 2021 09:43

GetDunked: Dec 16, 2011; respectfully

Splicer posted:

Metaplot is great when it gives the GM and PCs a big old sandbox full of cool toys to play with

Metaplot is bad when it gives the authors a big old sandbox full of cool toys to play with while the GM and players sit nearby rolling the truck with a broken wheel back and forth

World of Warcraft syndrome, where you nominally do all the hard hero work and then the important characters go on to have a cutscene without you.

# ? Jul 24, 2021 12:48

CitizenKeen: Nov 13, 2003; easygoing pedant

If it exclusively happens before the campaign starts, is it still metaplot?

# ? Jul 24, 2021 13:25

GetDunked: Dec 16, 2011; respectfully

Pathfinder 2E's setting material incorporates the canon endings of 1E's adventure paths (e.g. the closure of the Worldwound, the independence of Ravounel, the foundation of the hobgoblin nation of Oprak) into its baseline setting, which I thought was a cool touch; usually crediting the deeds to "a group of adventurers".

# ? Jul 24, 2021 13:45

Yawgmoth: Sep 10, 2003; This post is cursed!

GetDunked posted:

World of Warcraft syndrome, where you nominally do all the hard hero work and then the important characters go on to have a cutscene without you.

In RPGs I think oWoD is the biggest offender. They loved having Huge Important Events� happen involving NPCs with stat blocks that would give high level 3.5e D&D monsters a run for their word count, and if you wanted to use anything except the newest Thaumaturgy powers out of the new book you were stuck forcing these events to happen in your game by characters that your players either don't know/care about, or have possibly killed.

# ? Jul 24, 2021 15:17

fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

Iirc legend of the five rings wrote up like five different eras you can play in, depending on where in the metaplot you want to be, and has sections of "this is what canonically happens next, or you can do your own thing".

# ? Jul 24, 2021 15:35

Coolness Averted: Feb 20, 2007; oh don't worry, I can't smell asparagus piss, it's in my DNA

GO HOGG WILD!
🐗🐗🐗🐗🐗

Yawgmoth posted:

In RPGs I think oWoD is the biggest offender. They loved having Huge Important Events™ happen involving NPCs with stat blocks that would give high level 3.5e D&D monsters a run for their word count, and if you wanted to use anything except the newest Thaumaturgy powers out of the new book you were stuck forcing these events to happen in your game by characters that your players either don't know/care about, or have possibly killed.

Yeah, but it was a different era for RPGs. I don't recall ever seeing people call out metaplot and PCs playing second fiddle to the writers and their inserts until much later, hell and just looking at backlash from when new editions of popular games threw away or shook up stuff shows at least last decade there were was at least a vocal minority that really liked that style.
At the time I genuinely thought Ends of Empire for Wraith had a very well written adventure to close out the product line, but it pretty much boiled down to "Here's a way for the PCs to be there when all of the important stuff we described in this book with NPCs goes down," with key parts for the PCs being "the most important NPC is depowered and you need to eecort him to the final battle/get repowered up."
I remember it specifically even had an assassination plot and just flat out said if the PCs don't keep the dude alive it's just game over, no hooks for the PCs winning without him, or how the remaining story and fall of wraith society can go down with the PCs at least fighting heroically until the end. Just you as the Storyteller were supposed to shrug and say "Welp, that's it! Now let's roll up vampire 3rd edition characters instead."

fool of sound posted:

Iirc legend of the five rings wrote up like five different eras you can play in, depending on where in the metaplot you want to be, and has sections of "this is what canonically happens next, or you can do your own thing".

Wasn't that later though? Like after the major eras had played out. So originally you hewed to the lore, but later on they were open to personal games playing in alternate histories. I only knew like 2 people really into L5R and they were very into the lore, so I'm sure hearing how things worked/playing once with them certainly colored my perception.

Coolness Averted fucked around with this message at 16:30 on Jul 24, 2021

# ? Jul 24, 2021 16:27

fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

Coolness Averted posted:

Wasn't that later though? Like after the major eras had played out. So originally you hewed to the lore, but later on they were open to personal games playing in alternate histories. I only knew like 2 people really into L5R and they were very into the lore, so I'm sure hearing how things worked/playing once with them certainly colored my perception.

Possibly! This is half remembered from books I used playing in a campaign like 10 years ago.

# ? Jul 24, 2021 17:16

Yawgmoth: Sep 10, 2003; This post is cursed!

Coolness Averted posted:

Yeah, but it was a different era for RPGs. I don't recall ever seeing people call out metaplot and PCs playing second fiddle to the writers and their inserts until much later, hell and just looking at backlash from when new editions of popular games threw away or shook up stuff shows at least last decade there were was at least a vocal minority that really liked that style.
At the time I genuinely thought Ends of Empire for Wraith had a very well written adventure to close out the product line, but it pretty much boiled down to "Here's a way for the PCs to be there when all of the important stuff we described in this book with NPCs goes down," with key parts for the PCs being "the most important NPC is depowered and you need to eecort him to the final battle/get repowered up."
I remember it specifically even had an assassination plot and just flat out said if the PCs don't keep the dude alive it's just game over, no hooks for the PCs winning without him, or how the remaining story and fall of wraith society can go down with the PCs at least fighting heroically until the end. Just you as the Storyteller were supposed to shrug and say "Welp, that's it! Now let's roll up vampire 3rd edition characters instead."

It was definitely a different time, but there's a reason we got away from that kind of thing. The "time of judgment" runs for each line were especially hilarious for this, because they assumed that the PCs were both important enough to have around at Giant Event X but too weak to actually step up and do anything to influence said event. Vampire in particular has a couple that are quite literally "the PCs stand off to the side and provide color commentary; any attempt to alter the way events progress should result in immediate death."

I specifically remember a ton of people saying "oh thank loving god" when they heard that WW was getting rid of metaplot bullshit for nWoD, either because they were tired of spending money on books that were >50% content they'd never use, or because they were tired of needing to do homework just to play in a drat game, or because they were tired of having to explain "no, xyz did not happen in this game" to every new player. Out of all the people I knew who played WoD, I'd say only two actually legitimately enjoyed the metaplot.

Coolness Averted posted:

Wasn't that later though? Like after the major eras had played out. So originally you hewed to the lore, but later on they were open to personal games playing in alternate histories. I only knew like 2 people really into L5R and they were very into the lore, so I'm sure hearing how things worked/playing once with them certainly colored my perception.

Yes, "L5R your way" was the marketing campaign for L5R 4e and was a pretty big departure from previous editions. I remember being in some IRC server for RPGs and hearing all of the L5R players gripe incessantly about 4e being the "mary sue edition" because it encouraged people to run games where the PCs could/would be the big drat heroes for once. I don't know if that's how it was for in-person groups (since everyone I knew at the time played either D&D or vampire, that's it) but all of the internet places I found with people who played L5R were huge on the "cool things are for the author self-inserts, not PCs" wagon.

# ? Jul 24, 2021 21:56

Tuxedo Catfish: Mar 17, 2007; You've got guts! Come to my village, I'll buy you lunch.

fool of sound posted:

Iirc legend of the five rings wrote up like five different eras you can play in, depending on where in the metaplot you want to be, and has sections of "this is what canonically happens next, or you can do your own thing".

This is my favorite approach. It's like the fight in Baldur's Gate 2 where you can kill Drizzt Do'Urden and take his stuff, it's great.

Or I guess if you're a fan you can just meet and exchange words and be all "hey I know who that is." I don't get it but I won't knock it per se. :v:

e: or in the World of Darkness: the existence of Cain isn't a pointless conceit, it's step one of a plan to attack and diablerize God

# ? Jul 25, 2021 00:11

Coolness Averted: Feb 20, 2007; oh don't worry, I can't smell asparagus piss, it's in my DNA

GO HOGG WILD!
🐗🐗🐗🐗🐗

Yawgmoth posted:

It was definitely a different time, but there's a reason we got away from that kind of thing. The "time of judgment" runs for each line were especially hilarious for this, because they assumed that the PCs were both important enough to have around at Giant Event X but too weak to actually step up and do anything to influence said event. Vampire in particular has a couple that are quite literally "the PCs stand off to the side and provide color commentary; any attempt to alter the way events progress should result in immediate death."

I specifically remember a ton of people saying "oh thank loving god" when they heard that WW was getting rid of metaplot bullshit for nWoD, either because they were tired of spending money on books that were >50% content they'd never use, or because they were tired of needing to do homework just to play in a drat game, or because they were tired of having to explain "no, xyz did not happen in this game" to every new player. Out of all the people I knew who played WoD, I'd say only two actually legitimately enjoyed the metaplot.

Oh it absolutely is something I'm glad is gone, but I'm not gonna pretend as a teen I didn't have more White Wolf books than real play sessions. Metaplot wank had a target audience, it just wasn't people who were playing the games much.
WoD's metaplot is nowhere near as hobbling and absurd when you're not actually playing the game, so you aren't being told "ok if you want to use the modern rules, Dick's character died (sorry mate, they wrote out your entire clan) and Jane's character left our faction (maybe we can think up a justification for her sticking around, but she's gonna be an outcast her clan hates now if we do)."

# ? Jul 25, 2021 01:16

Covok: May 27, 2013; Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

Yo!

Who here has ever played...the Sly Cooper Trilogy? Sly Cooper and the Theivus Raccoonus? Sly 2 Band of Thieves? Sly 3 Honor Among Thieves? If not, they're cartoonish thief games where you play a band of thieves pulling off a series of heists to rob bigger thieves.

What game would work well for a Sly Cooper game? Perhaps Blades In The Dark?

# ? Jul 25, 2021 02:05

Mr. Maltose: Feb 16, 2011; The Guffless Girlverine

Leverage, mostly because Blades has a focus on controlling territory that isn�t really in the games. But it�s certainly not unworkable to have a reason to engage with all the various holding mechanics if you don�t want to keep the sort of globetrotting the games work with.

# ? Jul 25, 2021 02:13

Rand Brittain: Mar 25, 2013; "Go on until you're stopped."

I think people enjoyed metaplot and were excited by it but also hated it. It really made the game feel like a living world where things happened, even if you frequently hated what was happening.

I can see why people hated it because it was not ideal for actual gaming but I can also see why people miss it, the same way I miss the emotional experience of being in Homestuck.

# ? Jul 25, 2021 02:44

CitizenKeen: Nov 13, 2003; easygoing pedant

Yeah, I'm trying to think about how I'd want to read a fifth or sixth book set in a universe, that wasn't "And here's more info about this moment frozen in time".

Rather, "In book 1, war was brewing. Here is book 3, about the war and the players playing during the war." Et cetera.

# ? Jul 25, 2021 04:09

Covok: May 27, 2013; Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

Mr. Maltose posted:

Leverage, mostly because Blades has a focus on controlling territory that isn�t really in the games. But it�s certainly not unworkable to have a reason to engage with all the various holding mechanics if you don�t want to keep the sort of globetrotting the games work with.

That sounds like the perfect suggestion. I actually remember hearing Leverage has great pacing mechanics for heists. I forgot that game existed. Thanks, stranger.

# ? Jul 25, 2021 05:15

TheDiceMustRoll: Jul 23, 2018

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

This is my favorite approach. It's like the fight in Baldur's Gate 2 where you can kill Drizzt Do'Urden and take his stuff, it's great.

Or I guess if you're a fan you can just meet and exchange words and be all "hey I know who that is." I don't get it but I won't knock it per se.

e: or in the World of Darkness: the existence of Cain isn't a pointless conceit, it's step one of a plan to attack and diablerize God

IIRC its extremely challenging to actually pull off killing him, and you can again try in BG1, where it's even harder unless you know where he is and do a lot of prep work. I do wish rpgs would let you kill guys more.

# ? Jul 25, 2021 11:47

Lemon-Lime: Aug 6, 2009

TheDiceMustRoll posted:

IIRC its extremely challenging to actually pull off killing him, and you can again try in BG1, where it's even harder unless you know where he is and do a lot of prep work. I do wish rpgs would let you kill guys more.

"A lot of prep work" being "surround him with summoned creatures, attack him from range, spam cancel action on the summoned creatures so they stay neutral to him and he can't get to melee range." :v:

# ? Jul 25, 2021 12:40

mllaneza: Apr 28, 2007; Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1993-1952

Traveler had some of the first metaplot in RPGs. The quarterly magazine, Journal of the Traveller's Aid Society (JTAS), started out with in-universe news items with dates given. Those built up until a major event the Fifth Frontier War happened. They were light on detail and had very few NPCs mentioned by name, so GMs got a sense of what was going on in the larger setting, but with no railroad in sight. Some of the published adventures also hinted that something big was coming. This set up three periods within the timeline, pre-, during-, and post-.

The post period went on for about a decade in-game time, and then they shook things up again with a civil war in the Megatraveller edition. If the PCs weren't at the Imperial capitol then they'd just be hearing about the really big events when everyone else they know does. They just have to help deal with the fallout.

The civil war had one unexpected outcome: an AI scourge breaks out and effectively breaks the setting and wipes everything out. Jump forward a century or so and start a new campaign where you try and put the pieces back together. This was not well-received, despite the post-Skynet campaign setting being really well supported, with a lot of scope for the PCs to be the people making big things happen. There are more NPCs described in this part of the setting than in all the others, but more in the context of "this is your briefing officer, now go get the job done", or "who's in command of this op ? Uh..."

One of the current time periods for Traveller material is a "no civil war" setting where the old setting (post-5FW) continues on. I'm pretty sure Mongoose is heading in this direction - nobody wants all of their home brew stuff wiped out without mercy or remorse, or worse - left to wait until the life support system fails due to a loss of imported parts.

# ? Jul 25, 2021 13:11

Ghost Leviathan: Mar 2, 2017; Exploration is ill-advised.

Publishers never seem to realise that when you have a big fantasy setting you encourage people to create characters for and get invested in, burning the whole thing down because you want to sell new books and toys isn't going to go over well.

# ? Jul 25, 2021 15:16

90s Cringe Rock: Nov 29, 2006

Lemon-Lime posted:

"A lot of prep work" being "surround him with summoned creatures, attack him from range, spam cancel action on the summoned creatures so they stay neutral to him and he can't get to melee range."

You just get close enough to trigger the hobgoblins he's fighting without activating him, and then wait for them to roll enough 20s.

# ? Jul 25, 2021 15:50

Nuns with Guns: Jul 23, 2010; It's fine.
Don't worry about it.

Kaiju15 posted:

Do the western vibes in Mad Max count? Society on the brink of ruin (or well past in the rest of the series) with a lone lawman (or all your PCs I guess) out to keep a small spark of order alive.

Samurai narratives lend themselves pretty well to the tone as well. A Fistful of Dollars and The Magnificent Seven are just blatant ripoffs of Yojimbo and Seven Samurai respectively.

I know the Western discussion has moved on now, but I wanted to jump off this point because yeah I saw some people saying you need to do Scifi or whatever to do an "acceptable" western nowadays, and I don't that's necessarily true. Post-apocalypse and scifi settings are certainly appropriate as western analogs, because you can get the same basic setup of open frontier lightly populated with limited law enforcement and lots of fringe/shady work going on.

But if you're not going to set it in an American West or West-like setting, there are plenty of ways to set up a western in something approximating the real world. Japanese samurai stories, or even just using the general Warring States period is open to a similar setup. There are also a lot of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and even a few Bollywood westerns you can pull ideas from, some of which are set in an American West-like setting, but a lot of which are set somewhere in their country of origin in a time and place that's honestly pretty similar to the American West.

The real issue with westerns is that a black and white morality is wildly offensive to apply to it. It's a setting where a lot of crime and killing takes place, and trying to set up a reason for one side to be in the moral right most or even some of the time is just not possible without being reductive and degrading to some group of people.

Nuns with Guns fucked around with this message at 18:02 on Jul 25, 2021

# ? Jul 25, 2021 18:00

KingKalamari: Aug 24, 2007; Fuzzy dice, bongos in the back
My ship of love is ready to attack

Drakyn posted:

This is a few days old but I'd like to hear more details on the stealth stuff if that's possible? That seems like the kind of thing a LOT of fiction-influenced rpg setups could make good use of.

Alright, I've got some time now, so let's get to that effort-post I promised on the Stealth=Phase mechanics of the Alien RPG.

Now, first of all, I should clarify that while this is called the "Stealth Phase" it's scope is a bit broader than just handling characters skulking around and being sneaky. This is much more an aspect of play that emulates the scenes in the original Alien movie where the Nostromo Crew are trying to track down the xenomorph on the ship: It is a phase of play for when the players are hunting or being hunted by someone.

The big thing you need to understand about the system's mechanics for this to make sense is that it has a codified system for measuring time that varies based on what the players are doing, much like the earliest editions of D&D. Game time is broken up into three major categories in this system: Rounds, Turns and Shifts. Rounds are used in combat and are 5-10 second long, Turns are used in the stealth phase and are 5-10 minutes long and Shifts are used for recovery and downtime and are 5-10 hours long. So, with that in mind we can jump into how the Stealth Phase works.

As previously mentioned, the stealth phase is measured in Turns and each player needs to declare their actions on a turn-by turn basis. One turn is typically long enough for a character to move between two Zones (Which are the abstract units the game uses to measure distance. They're typically the size of a single room when the characters are in indoor settings, and are larger when the characters are outdoors) and quickly scan through them. If a character wants to more closely investigate or examine a zone, or interact with a feature within (Such as accessing a data terminal) they need to spend an entire turn doing so.

While this is going on the characters may have to deal with either Active or Passive Enemies. Passive Enemies are ones that are not immediately aware of the characters presence and are automatically detected by characters in the same zone or in line of sight of them. Unless a character tries to remain hidden or move stealthily Passive Enemies will automatically detect them. Get past Passive Enemies undetected or sneak attacking them is typically handled by an opposed Movement test against the Passive Enemy's Observation. More threatening are Active Enemies - These are enemies that are aware of the PCs presence and are typically actively hunting them. Active Enemies remain hidden from the PCs by default unless they attempt to attack the PCs, The PCs directly scrutinize the area that they are hiding in or the PCs detect them with a Motion Detector. If an Active Enemy wishes to attack a PC they make an opposed Movement test against the PCs Observation skill in much the same way as a PC sneak attacking a Passive Enemy.

The other big thing is that Active Enemies are not elements that the GM can just pull out of thin air: Once the Stealth Phase begins the GM starts controlling any active enemies, who must abide by the same general rules of movement as the PCs. NPCs like Xenomorphs might have slightly different capabilities than the PCs (For instance, there are several different types of xenos in the game that are capable of moving through more zones in a single turn than a PC), but their position is actively and concretely tracked by the GM throughout the stealth phase. The game recommends the GM have a separate copy of the map set up so they can use tokens to secretly track the positions and movements of Active Enemies.

This leads to a very tense, nerve-wracking game of cat and mouse between the PCs and the Active Enemies they're facing, where they know they're being hunted but don't necessarily have an idea of where the thing hunting them is. Trying to track the movement of active enemies, avoid crossing paths with them and predict where they're going to go becomes an integral part of the game during stealth mode.

# ? Jul 25, 2021 19:18

Asterite34: May 19, 2009

Nuns with Guns posted:

I know the Western discussion has moved on now, but I wanted to jump off this point because yeah I saw some people saying you need to do Scifi or whatever to do an "acceptable" western nowadays, and I don't that's necessarily true. Post-apocalypse and scifi settings are certainly appropriate as western analogs, because you can get the same basic setup of open frontier lightly populated with limited law enforcement and lots of fringe/shady work going on.

But if you're not going to set it in an American West or West-like setting, there are plenty of ways to set up a western in something approximating the real world. Japanese samurai stories, or even just using the general Warring States period is open to a similar setup. There are also a lot of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and even a few Bollywood westerns you can pull ideas from, some of which are set in an American West-like setting, but a lot of which are set somewhere in their country of origin in a time and place that's honestly pretty similar to the American West.

The real issue with westerns is that a black and white morality is wildly offensive to apply to it. It's a setting where a lot of crime and killing takes place, and trying to set up a reason for one side to be in the moral right most or even some of the time is just not possible without being reductive and degrading to some group of people.

Yeah this, there's not a shortage of historical settings that have a similar sort of theme and aesthetic to the Wild West, totally amenable to parties of fortune-seeking adventurers, that don't have quite the same genocidal colonialist baggage papered over by Roy Rogers singing cowboy stuff.

Take this post from the Historical Facts thread about Early 20th Century Manchuria, which can be summed up as "The Wild West, only the bandits have full-on armies with real rear end guns"

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3749916&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=70#post466085395

# ? Jul 25, 2021 20:16

90s Cringe Rock: Nov 29, 2006

Asterite34 posted:

Take this post from the Historical Facts thread about Early 20th Century Manchuria, which can be summed up as "The Wild West, only the bandits have full-on armies with real rear end guns"

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3749916&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=70#post466085395

The Good, The Bad, The Weird is an excellent documentary on the period.

# ? Jul 25, 2021 20:37

Plutonis: Mar 25, 2011

It's a bit later period but there was a real good manga I'm reading recently called Manchuria Opium Squad which is basically Breaking Bad but with a Japanese deserter, the daughter of a triad boss, an orphan with photographic memory and a mongolian interpreter trying to control the opium trade in Manchukuo while avoiding the competition of the brutal IJA and the triads.

# ? Jul 25, 2021 20:55

remusclaw: Dec 8, 2009

If In the end, you release a western game, and its a straight up western game, i think as long as you acknowledge the issues of the genre, and present it not in good guy bad guy terms, i think you did what you need to do.

After that its on the groups that play it. Those who are not so into straight up westerns arent going to be into it. Thats a given. People who are willing to navigate the issues inherent to the genre will be. Finally, people who want their western games free of "sjw" sentiment are gonna be turned off by the acknowledgement that problems exist at all, so they will find some other grog game to do it.

Rpg�s are a small hobby, and its pretty much always being made for small groups of people who want your specific thing. I dont know whether there is a market for westerns in the first place. But that has never stopped people in this hobby.

Its not a big money business. Do your best ethically, and make the game you want to play. You cant really ask for more than that of people in 90 percent of this industry. The margins are thin as gently caress unless you are in one of the few big companies working in it.

# ? Jul 25, 2021 21:21

TheDiceMustRoll: Jul 23, 2018

90s Cringe Rock posted:

You just get close enough to trigger the hobgoblins he's fighting without activating him, and then wait for them to roll enough 20s.

This one was a really common tactic. I remember someone crying and crying about how I think the dragon fights in inquisition were bad because BG2s were better and then he had a small YT channel where he beat BGII and he used cloudkill and fired it where the dragon was while he was covered by the fog of war so he just stood there and choked and died. Not sure how the gently caress that was better than Inquisitions actual boss fights :shrug:

# ? Jul 25, 2021 23:20

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# ? May 24, 2024 22:23

Yawgmoth: Sep 10, 2003; This post is cursed!

TheDiceMustRoll posted:

This one was a really common tactic. I remember someone crying and crying about how I think the dragon fights in inquisition were bad because BG2s were better and then he had a small YT channel where he beat BGII and he used cloudkill and fired it where the dragon was while he was covered by the fog of war so he just stood there and choked and died. Not sure how the gently caress that was better than Inquisitions actual boss fights

Some people get all their pleasure from figuring out how to avoid actually playing the game.

# ? Jul 26, 2021 00:07

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Trad Games Chat: squabbled over drafts, forked, and disbanded

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