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I love the snake being horrified by the prospect of its impending doom.
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Jan 18, 2022 12:24
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Calico Heart posted:In this example, the player character was a very ornery, anti-social snake-breeder who didn't actually know very much about snakes. An Ability she got was "Serpentine Surprise", which let her surprise enemies with snakes in combat. The Ability was more about creating chaos than causing damage, and I let her know that the snakes will try to escape whenever she used it. I just started an Out of the Abyss game in 5e and the random item my character rolled to start with was a friendly tarantula, so I might try this
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Jan 18, 2022 15:57
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My Lovely Horse posted:I have some questions I like how the second snake is looking at the arrows, like, hey why don't you just use the arrows?
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Jan 18, 2022 17:21
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Artwork is by a talented artist I know called Patsy McDowell, who did a lot of the art for the book. There are a lot of great images by a bunch of talented people in there, though! Found the text for Serptentine Surprise (forgive chopping it up, as it spans two columns):  And if you'd like to be snake-slingin' Cowpoke in the Mythic West, please consider giving the game a download here, or picking up a copy of the massive 300-page hardcover! Once again use "goonsgowest" for a discount on either. If you're curious and want to know more, please check out the thread I made for DEAD IN THE WEST! I am super proud of my little game, and folks seem to have been really enjoying it.
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Jan 18, 2022 17:51
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Poor sneks didn't sign up for this. 
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Jan 18, 2022 19:03
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Anyone purchased Ascendant? Supposed to be a new retooling of the old DC/Marvel TTRPGs into a more modern superhero rpg. Aside from some from hilarious tables that make you question what world the writers are from, I don't see much written about it.
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Jan 18, 2022 19:25
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ninjoatse.cx posted:Anyone purchased Ascendant? I was under the impression the author was a bit of a bad seed. Or am I misremembering?
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Jan 18, 2022 20:00
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Yup, Alexander Macris, owner of the Escapist, Gamergater and all-round shitbag. Oh, and creator of Adventurer, Conquerer, King (ACKS) which was pretty well-regarded as I recall until his overwhelming chudliness came to light. E: I almost had it confused with Ascendancy which is another super-ish game built on the Resistance system, but I've not heard anything bad about the author of that one. potatocubed fucked around with this message at 20:08 on Jan 18, 2022 |
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Jan 18, 2022 20:04
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potatocubed posted:E: I almost had it confused with Ascendancy which is another super-ish game built on the Resistance system, but I've not heard anything bad about the author of that one. Ascendancy rules.
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Jan 18, 2022 20:12
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Poor sneks didn't sign up for this. We don't know that
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Jan 18, 2022 22:32
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Found some art from Macris' superhero gem. https://twitter.com/open_sketchbook/status/1479499912266010629 Good lord.
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Jan 19, 2022 01:24
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Dawgstar posted:Good lord. Wait until they find her character sheet.  Yep, that's her highest level power. Still, it just like makes people fall in love with her when she needs to be incognito, right? Nope.  hyphz fucked around with this message at 02:16 on Jan 19, 2022 |
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Jan 19, 2022 02:11
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Dawgstar posted:Found some art from Macris' superhero gem. It's not just the artwork. The authors' politics bleeds into the work, particularly the in-universe news articles near the beginning of the book (which you can all see in the free preview). Liberal and left-leaning groups tend to be anti-superhero, whereas the American right-wing is "small government" and wants more permissive superhero vigilante laws which critics say "will bring back lynching." There's also an inspirational article by the fictional Epoch news site calling upon a new generation of superheroes to replace the ones slain in a recent battle. Epoch has a very similar logo to the Epoch Times, which is a far-right newspaper run by the Falun Gong cult. COVID is still a thing, although it's referred to as "coronaviral pneumonia" and the Chinese government is granting awards to scientists researching vaccines for it. It's rather amusing given my current review in FATAL & Friends of Freedom City, which pretty much takes the opposite approach when it comes to in-universe right-wing perceptions of superheroes.
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Jan 19, 2022 02:57
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Libertad! posted:Epoch has a very similar logo to the Epoch Times, which is a far-right newspaper run by the Falun Gong cult. COVID is still a thing, although it's referred to as "coronaviral pneumonia" and the Chinese government is granting awards to scientists researching vaccines for it. Whoah that was a different kind of right wing crazy than I was expecting. I didn't actually know that those two streams got crossed, even though it seems natural in retrospect. Is there somewhere you'd recommend to read-up on this further? (Also, am I going crazy or what's this about raunchy images in Flying Circus? I don't exactly remember it as a chaste book, but I don't remember anything that'd really make you bat an eye if you're an adult who'd been exposed to media in general.)
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Jan 19, 2022 03:13
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hyphz posted:Wait until they find her character sheet. it's a ...rapist ray...?
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Jan 19, 2022 03:16
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Xiahou Dun posted:(Also, am I going crazy or what's this about raunchy images in Flying Circus? I don't exactly remember it as a chaste book, but I don't remember anything that'd really make you bat an eye if you're an adult who'd been exposed to media in general.) It was nothing to do with raunchy images, there were a couple of pieces that were (extremely minor) Harry Potter references, drawn back in the early days of the game's development before Rowling went full mask-off, so Erika went back and made some edits to remove them.
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Jan 19, 2022 03:27
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GimpInBlack posted:It was nothing to do with raunchy images, there were a couple of pieces that were (extremely minor) Harry Potter references, drawn back in the early days of the game's development before Rowling went full mask-off, so Erika went back and made some edits to remove them. O so it's completely disingenuous grasping at straws even by chud standards? Cool. Er, well, "cool". Thanks. I was pretty confused, because I quite like Flying Circus. Really the only problems I have with it are getting other people to play it with me and that whenever I'm in front of that badass cockpit character sheet I wind up making vrrrroooom! noises, which is embarrassing.
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Jan 19, 2022 04:49
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Xiahou Dun posted:O so it's completely disingenuous grasping at straws even by chud standards? Cool. Er, well, "cool". Oh it's completely ridiculous, but we don't exactly live in an environment where you can be safe as a high-profile transwoman artist unless you go to ridiculous extremes to make sure that nobody can find the excuse they need to tear you down on Twitter.
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Jan 19, 2022 05:02
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Xiahou Dun posted:Whoah that was a different kind of right wing crazy than I was expecting. I didn't actually know that those two streams got crossed, even though it seems natural in retrospect. If I'm reading your question right, both of those dog-whistles are part of the mainstream Republican fearmongering. The Epoch Times ran a bunch of pro-Trump articles and anti-CCP stuff, so they make a good rhetorical flourish for Republicans positing China as an atheistic tyranny and how Trump is the best line of defense for East Asian freedom against them. As for the "China's behind the vaccines and COVID is just pneumonia," a quick Googling shown that the media site also promoted QAnon and anti-vaccine stuff, which seems a more recent development. So Epoch Times/Falun Gong basically acts like "one of the good ones" Republicans can trot out to make the claim that they're not racist against people of Chinese descent in general and are just angry at the mainland government. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/01/inside-the-epoch-times-a-mysterious-pro-trump-newspaper/617645/ https://www.axios.com/epoch-times-revenue-trump-conspiracies-f96418d6-b361-4686-8cf1-bf13d33e7460.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Epoch_Times#cite_note-30 Libertad! fucked around with this message at 05:59 on Jan 19, 2022 |
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Jan 19, 2022 05:56
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Libertad! posted:If I'm reading this right, both of those dog-whistles are part of the mainstream Republican fearmongering. If (soft if) they are a cult then they're a cult that hates the CCP for disliking them for being a cult and have allied themselves with the GOP and the American Right because they can have allies in the field of disliking China and also hating gay folks and also they're not going to question the religious movement too much because they're racists with poor comprehension/questioning skills.
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Jan 19, 2022 06:03
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Hostile V posted:Yeah the Epoch Times is a subsidiary establishment of the Falung Gong Religious Movement, a religious group who I can't specifically say is not a cult due to my own lacking knowledge of the religion but is absolutely a religious group the CCP dislikes and has definitely committed acts against in the past that have resulted in them having radical anti-government sentiment and caused them to make inroads into other countries such as the USA through things like those Shen Yun shows where every single dime they make goes to Falun Gong and every performer is a religious adherent, and also the religious group's headquarters are in a 400 acre guarded compound in upstate New York. At the very least the religion is homophobic and anti-queer which makes them trash in my eyes. Yeah, this is the wrinkle I was initially surprised by, and you've done an excellent job of showing why it seems pretty natural in retrospect.
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Jan 19, 2022 06:25
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Xiahou Dun posted:O so it's completely disingenuous grasping at straws even by chud standards? Cool. Er, well, "cool". Well, that and, in Flying Circus, the PCs get laid - it can be an essential Stress relief mechanism. It's a remarkably sex positive RPG, without being explicit (the novel on the other hand...). So it gets tagged as horny by some folks despite a lack of raunch. Also, Vroooooom !
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Jan 19, 2022 06:35
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mllaneza posted:Well, that and, in Flying Circus, the PCs get laid - it can be an essential Stress relief mechanism. It's a remarkably sex positive RPG, without being explicit (the novel on the other hand...). So it gets tagged as horny by some folks despite a lack of raunch. I generally favor intimacy moves over sex moves in PbTA just because of narrative flexibility rather than prudishness, but Flying Circus is very much the exception that proves the rule in that it actually is appropriate that it's played as a trip to pound town. And seriously, I will never stop gushing about that god drat character sheet. Everyone involved should get covered in medals for how much that thing makes me melt into acting like a 6 year old going neeroooowwrrrrrrRATTTATATATATATkebloooooifwwwwooosh! When a random little peripheral from a game gets you that into something it's a real hoot.
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Jan 19, 2022 07:14
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I feel like the word "horny" has taken on a different, loaded meaning at some point when I wasn't looking.
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Jan 19, 2022 07:18
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Trying to reconnect the description on Drive Thru RPG as "Miyazaki-like" and Aviator fantasy with sex mechanics. When I'm watching Miyazaki movies, I don't usually think, "There needs to be more sex in this children's show." My Lovely Horse posted:I feel like the word "horny" has taken on a different, loaded meaning at some point when I wasn't looking. Old words are the new banned words.
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Jan 19, 2022 08:33
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Libertad! posted:It's rather amusing given my current review in FATAL & Friends of Freedom City, which pretty much takes the opposite approach when it comes to in-universe right-wing perceptions of superheroes. I find it hard to decide which is the more realistic perception. On the one hand, going by politics as-declared, right-wing movements should be pretty big fans of vigilante lawmen(often in some way rich or privileged), going around beating up poor people committing financial/property crime to try and survive. On the other hand, plenty of right-wing governments would be real worried about the existence of a left-leaning superhero that couldn't just be put down with water cannons, pepper spray and casual police violence. As heroes exist in most comics I've encountered, dealing entirely with symptoms and only rarely paying attention to systemic issues that drive people to crime, like poverty, lack of education, poor social safety nets, etc. and often cooperating to a lesser or greater extent with the police, it would feel like they'd generally be darlings of the right as opposed to friends of the left. Baked in there it also feels like most superhero stories are to some extent based around the idea that only these special empowered people can deal with the crises presented at all: Police, military, citizen militias or whatever group of normal people with training, experience and teamwork will never be able to do what one exceptional person with zero backup can do. Something in that also just feels inherently right-wing, both the idea that you don't need a team or a society to back you up to resolve big issues and also the idea of fundamental exceptionality.
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Jan 19, 2022 08:54
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ninjoatse.cx posted:Trying to reconnect the description on Drive Thru RPG as "Miyazaki-like" and Aviator fantasy with sex mechanics. Not every Miyazaki movie is for children. Like, Princess Mononoke literally has the women marksmen be former brothel workers. bewilderment fucked around with this message at 09:18 on Jan 19, 2022 |
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Jan 19, 2022 08:56
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Also I think it's that having sex can be a stress relief, not that there are mechanics for sex. You can relieve stress in other ways and I don't believe there's anything like AW's Specials.
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Jan 19, 2022 09:00
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Poor sneks didn't sign up for this. Don’t worry. As I said, Salome didn’t know much about handling snakes. They got even with her plenty of times.
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Jan 19, 2022 09:03
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Xiahou Dun posted:I generally favor intimacy moves over sex moves in PbTA just because of narrative flexibility rather than prudishness, but Flying Circus is very much the exception that proves the rule in that it actually is appropriate that it's played as a trip to pound town. Which is funny, because Flying Circus is one of the PbtA games with intimacy moves, not sex moves. quote:And seriously, I will never stop gushing about that god drat character sheet. Everyone involved should get covered in medals for how much that thing makes me melt into acting like a 6 year old going neeroooowwrrrrrrRATTTATATATATATkebloooooifwwwwooosh! When a random little peripheral from a game gets you that into something it's a real hoot. 100% this.
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Jan 19, 2022 09:27
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PurpleXVI posted:Baked in there it also feels like most superhero stories are to some extent based around the idea that only these special empowered people can deal with the crises presented at all: Police, military, citizen militias or whatever group of normal people with training, experience and teamwork will never be able to do what one exceptional person with zero backup can do. Something in that also just feels inherently right-wing, both the idea that you don't need a team or a society to back you up to resolve big issues and also the idea of fundamental exceptionality. Yes, a lot of superhero stories have to position the camera very carefully to explain how any sort of egalitarian politics can survive in a world where some people are obviously and significantly superior. Hell, we know where "superman" came from..
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Jan 19, 2022 11:43
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Superhero stories are usually inherently conservative because the entire narrative has to support the status quo. I say "usually inherently" to mean Marvel / DC. Mr. Fantastic can build pocket universes but can't solve world hunger, etc. Because that wouldn't look like our world and looking like our world is the whole pitch. Some settings, like Invincible, are willing to change the status quo so that our world is no longer recognizable, and the moment the status quo becomes the enemy, those stories get a lot more progressive.
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Jan 19, 2022 12:11
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CitizenKeen posted:Some settings, like Invincible, are willing to change the status quo so that our world is no longer recognizable, and the moment the status quo becomes the enemy, those stories get a lot more progressive. They try, but it has to be done very carefully to avoid replacing the status quo with one that is dependent on supers. Like, if a super can end world hunger, that sounds good at the first step but then you have to ask how Powerman can not be a dictator when a continent starves if he just flies away, or how anyone can argue that genetic differences are insignificent when it's his unique mutations that put him in that position. Doubly so if it's an Incredibles type setting where being a super is hereditory.
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Jan 19, 2022 13:01
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hyphz posted:They try, but it has to be done very carefully to avoid replacing the status quo with one that is dependent on supers. Yeah, honestly, trying to get into the realistic implications of superheroes is one of the story routes that i've gotten a little bit weary of. There is something in those stories for people of a lot of political stripes to make in interpretation and i don't think you can easily say 'superheroes are fash' vs 'superheroes are lefty stories'.
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Jan 19, 2022 13:07
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hyphz posted:Yes, a lot of superhero stories have to position the camera very carefully to explain how any sort of egalitarian politics can survive in a world where some people are obviously and significantly superior. Hell, we know where "superman" came from.. yeah, the planet Krypton.
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Jan 19, 2022 13:18
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fuckin' lex luthor-rear end takes in this thread, smdh.
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Jan 19, 2022 13:20
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CitizenKeen posted:Some settings, like Invincible, are willing to change the status quo so that our world is no longer recognizable, and the moment the status quo becomes the enemy, those stories get a lot more progressive. well, sort of. a significant portion of Invincible is still about honorable G-men doing what must be done to defend the planet. there are some late-run twists that add a little bit of a wrinkle but even then it's a comic with an awkward attitude towards government -- it's like at some point they realized "oh it's kind of weird if this hero specifically defined by his willingness to violently resist imperialism is comfortable having a working relationship with the loving CIA" but weren't willing to go any further than "huh, this one creepy-looking director is morally compromised on an individual level" e: to tie it back to the original conversation, what i'm saying is that a change in scope doesn't actually make up for a lack of imagination or for over-restrictive editorial oversight, and Invincible, if anything, is proof of that Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 13:30 on Jan 19, 2022 |
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Jan 19, 2022 13:25
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It's hard for me to believe in a truly compassionate and ethical superhero story that doesn't contain the line "..so that's when I printed off a list of the world's richest and started methodically hurling them into the sun"
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Jan 19, 2022 13:32
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:well, sort of. a significant portion of Invincible is still about honorable G-men doing what must be done to defend the planet. there are some late-run twists that add a little bit of a wrinkle but even then it's a comic with an awkward attitude towards government -- it's like at some point they realized "oh it's kind of weird if this hero specifically defined by his willingness to violently resist imperialism is comfortable having a working relationship with the loving CIA" but weren't willing to go any further than "huh, this one creepy-looking director is morally compromised on an individual level" Honestly, the problem is, if there are people like that running around in the world, you'd be justifying the CIA just to be some kind of check on their power.
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Jan 19, 2022 13:37
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Splicer posted:It's hard for me to believe in a truly compassionate and ethical superhero story that doesn't contain the line "..so that's when I printed off a list of the world's richest and started methodically hurling them into the sun" oh, so now you wanna kill batman?
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Jan 19, 2022 13:38
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