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t3isukone posted:The way the mechanics work is that each player/facet of the Bride's personality has a Trauma track. When spoooky things happen in the rooms or the Bride decides Bluebeard is to blame for something, it causes trauma. Some of the player moves can heal trauma, as does remaining faithful to Bluebeard. When Trauma gets to 5, the facet of the bride's personality 'shatters' and the player effectively becomes a co-GM-they can no longer dictate the Bride's actions, but they can add details to the house and what's going on and they can say what happens when the Bride fucks up a roll. So I was pretty much on board the "gently caress this game to death with its own rape sofa" with Humbug Scoobus and Luxbourne, but now I'm not so sure after this post. I mean, looking at those Moves, the Bride can clearly be something of a scary monster herself. Underneath all the sexual trigger warning poo poo, there's at least the possibility of an interesting game. The problem is that right now it's too limited in its focus. The only questions to be resolved within the "classic" game are: Does the Bride Trust or Distrust Bluebeard and Which one of two options does she choose based on her Trust/Distrust? As is Bluebeard is a static element and the Bride is something of an irrelevant cipher. So right now what we have is a game designed pretty exclusively for one-shot RPs that has a very low repeat play factor. In the old AD&D module Ravenloft the PCs encounter a not-Romani fortune teller and get their collective fortunes told. In reality, the cards drawn during the reading helped determine the nature of the adventure: where certain very useful magic items would be, where the vampire Strahd would be located, what Strahd's goal was, like that. The game could do something like that with Bluebeard. Maybe some randomized table to determine BBs history and goals. Maybe he's not a serial rapist/murderer. Maybe he's possessed. Or it's one of his servants. Or the house itself. Also, who exactly is the Bride as a person. If the idea is to play different aspects of her personality, then who she actually turns out to be seems like it should be extremely important to the game. And it seems like the best way to determine who she is to observe and "score" the Moves and decisions that she makes.
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Jul 24, 2022 22:01
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I mean, the game does observe and score, on the axis of 'loyal or disloyal' - which determines the final outcome of the game. It's clearly meant to be a one-shot horror game, rather than a campaign. If the Bride is loyal, then she and Bluebeard live together in some kind of marriage, happy or unhappy depending on how the players understand the situation, until he kills her. Probably. If the Bride is disloyal, then she confronts him/opens his forbidden room, and he comes to kill her - she is forced to flee, and will either someday be killed by him or else live her life on the run or as a social outcast. But she stood up for herself. There is also the third option: Peek through the keyhole. The Bride will know that Bluebeard killed his previous wives, but will not herself immediately come into conflict with him. The Bride is a cipher at first, but the whole structure of the game is about the players collectively deciding whether the Bride is loyal or disloyal and what kind of person she is, and how she handles this situation and this marriage. E: Apparently, in an early draft they considered the possibility that Bluebeard might not be a murderer, but misunderstood or redeemable, but decided that this was contra the core ideas of the game and would too easily lend itself to a kind of soft revisionism of the core Bluebeard story. Having him be set in stone serves to anchor the story to a particular moral perspective about the Bride's situation. I'm honestly not positive where I fall on that question, since I do see the easy pitfalls of allowing Bluebeard to Not Be So Bad (More of a 'beauty and the beast' than 'bluebeard' story), in terms of how they frame the Bride's perspective - but it would give the game more potential outcomes. EE: Basically, as I see it, the horror component of Bluebeard's Bride is at its heart 'you are seeing every red flag that could possibly exist, but if you insist they're there you may die or go mad, so you're forced to control your own perceptions to make it through this.' You are being encouraged to gaslight yourself, because you married a very bad man, and admitting it is dangerous. The game wants you to experience this as a form of horror, and coats it with horror imagery. (This is also why it begins immediately after the wedding with Bluebeard gone - before, he was charming and present and controlling, and suddenly you're left alone with all the red flags flapping in the wind.) Joe Slowboat fucked around with this message at 22:20 on Jul 24, 2022 |
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Jul 24, 2022 22:07
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Joe Slowboat posted:I mean, the game does observe and score, on the axis of 'loyal or disloyal' - which determines the final outcome of the game. It's clearly meant to be a one-shot horror game, rather than a campaign. I get all that. My biggest thing is that this isn't some 5.99 .pdf supplement. It's an entire game with its own supplements (Book of Rooms/Mirrrors/Lore) that all seem to be dedicated to this one fairly specific story. It'd be like buying the various D&D rulebooks and being told that the only adventure you could run is The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh. And not the fuckoff big expansion. The little 30 page pissant module from the early 80s. If you want to run the classic Bluebeard story, nothing is stopping you. But why not also include a toolkit for running variants and for making the Bride more of a focal point. Like in every room she enters, she potentially learns something about Bluebeard but also reveals something about herself. Like in that Rapier room, depending on the actions she took or the Moves she made something like: As the older, larger figure stabs the young boy, a memory comes to the front of the Bride's mind. Her own younger brother, Damien, who liked to steal her dollhouse to use as a "castle" in his stupid toy soldier games. The young boy in the room reminded her of him. Of course that boy had gotten off lightly. A swift, sharp prick and done. Poor Damien had fallen into an old mine shaft, broken his legs and eventually died of thirst, his pitiful cries for help unheard. Mostly. So sad. Still, he'd never stolen her dollhouse again, had he? So it worked out.
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Jul 24, 2022 23:43
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I can see the appeal of that (my game that uses some of BBB's structure does something quite similar), but I don't think you're really crediting the scope of the game. It's like horror movies - the atmosphere and core theme are consistent, but the specific forms and fears can differentiate pretty widely. And, frankly, I think that the space it plays in - complicity, agency, marriage, and basically relationship horror - is a pretty broad and meaningful category. This is a focused game, but the thing it's focusing on is something you can in fact dig into plenty of times and get different variations. Now, would I want to run this game once a month for a year? No, that would be utterly soul-destroying. But I can imagine running it as like, a maybe yearly halloween event, about the same frequency I watch scary movie marathons. E: Also, I think it's important to note that the Bride is not required or compelled to be cruel or underhanded - but those increase her chances of survival. I would personally be a bit disappointed if the game assumed the Bride started off as a gothic horror murderess herself, since the entire point is 'how does this Bride, with this personal bundle of impulses/player archetypes, handle this situation that sits between commonplace and impossibly alien.' Joe Slowboat fucked around with this message at 00:20 on Jul 25, 2022 |
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Jul 25, 2022 00:18
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I totally get how it would be an awesome structure for character driven one-shot horror But jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesus, this specific character driven one-shot horror.
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Jul 25, 2022 00:35
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sasha_d3ath posted:I totally get how it would be an awesome structure for character driven one-shot horror I mean, I think the game isn't perfect - but the grindhouse aesthetic doesn't really eclipse the core idea, from my perspective. It certainly did choose a topic that is, at base, upsetting and uncomfortable, but I genuinely think that its specific focus (while definitely narrowing the scope of the audience for good reason, since there's definitely people who will have no desire whatsoever to go through this kind of game for catharsis or excitement, no matter how tastefully run) is one of its strengths. There's not a lot of horror games that can touch the kind of horror it's built for, because most horror games tend towards the players being the monsters or the players fighting back against the monsters with a risky but real chance of success - your Chronicles of Darkness in the former, your Calls of Cthulhus in the latter. Dread gets closer, but the specific psychological horror model of BBB is one that can't really be done with most other systems - it puts the premises out there on the table but still keeps it upsetting. Again, none of this is to say 'everyone who likes horror games should play this.' But I do think that seeing how it does the thing it does - rather than, as some posters do, writing it off as wank material - is pretty useful, and I would be super interested in anyone's attempt to replace the Socially Enforced Marriage Horror of BBB with a different driving force. My BBB-driven game design has pretty universally entirely moved away from horror, since I'm not good at designing horror.
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Jul 25, 2022 01:09
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I think I’m with Joe on this so far. I’m not convinced yet that BBB is doing a particularly good job at being agency-denial sex/relationship horror, but a lot of the reactions in this thread read less like identifying and trying to fix those problems and a lot more like people just don’t dig the premise. Like, don’t get me wrong, gothic marital Home Alone sounds pretty rad ; it’s called Ready Or Not and it’s a pretty sweet movie. But it’d also just be noping out on the premise of the game, like running D&D as an agrarian village crop-rotation sim. Do you also judge The Thing for not having musical numbers? Personally, not very sold so far, but it’s got big ol’ capital-T Themes its pursuing, and purposeful, temporary, willing lack of agency is a design space I’m really interested in (mostly because holy poo poo that’s a difficult tightrope to walk), so I at least think we should give it enough of a day in court to not dismiss the creative goal a priori.
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Jul 25, 2022 03:31
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Joe Slowboat posted:I can see the appeal of that (my game that uses some of BBB's structure does something quite similar), but I don't think you're really crediting the scope of the game. It's like horror movies - the atmosphere and core theme are consistent, but the specific forms and fears can differentiate pretty widely. I think we might want similar things out of the game. I'm okay playing it straight (well, not really, but I could see myself maybe wanting to run it after watching Crimson Peak (which features Tom Hiddleston in a sibling relationship that makes Thor and Loki's look like that of the Hardy Boys). My thing is that I also want the game to give me some extra tools to adjust/alter it as I wish. To my way the Bride wouldn't "start" as a psycho killer. Remember that the players aren't really playing the Bride. They're playing psychological/emotional aspects of the Bride. Within that think there's room to explore the idea that along with the Bride encountering Bluebeard's secrets that she has secrets of her own. And in my way of thinking, this is not going to like Kult where you're straight up told "Hey, guess what, you're playing a child killer!" What kind of person the Bride is would get revealed by what she does and how she does it. I mean, if a Bride's go-to Move keeps coming up Caress a Horror (AKA toss some innocent into the jaws of fear), doesn't that indicate that she's a bit of a horror herself? Basically since the game is about a reduction in one kind of agency (no "gently caress this psycho Bluebeard, I'm outta here" or Home Alone traps), I kind of want open the door to a different kind of agency - establishing the Bride's history and character and the effect that has on the outcome (maybe the Bride is as psycho as Bluebeard is and they end up as the Regency Gothic Horror version of Mickey and Mallory from Natural Born Killers). Or maybe she turns out to be a person who sees Bluebeard's evil but thinks she can "save" him - and gets used/murdered. Plus her history. If the Bride is a daughter of a powerful noble or lord, there's a decent chance her situation will be a little different than if she's a peasant girl BB decided to "collect." But none of this should be decided from the start, they should all by potential options that are triggered by the Rooms the Bride enters and the Moves she makes (or tries to make) in them.
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Jul 25, 2022 04:32
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Xiahou Dun posted:and a lot more like people just don’t dig the premise. …not liking the premise is ok, though; de gustibus and all that. I’m sure there are any number of movie and musical genres that you nope out on. And yes, people said from the beginning that this is a terrible premise and they hate this book existing. Much like FATAL tbh.
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Jul 25, 2022 04:34
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Xiahou Dun posted:I think I’m with Joe on this so far. I’m not convinced yet that BBB is doing a particularly good job at being agency-denial sex/relationship horror, but a lot of the reactions in this thread read less like identifying and trying to fix those problems and a lot more like people just don’t dig the premise. Yeah, this is overall my POV too. I think it's very valid to not dig the premise because, well, it's a pretty alienating premise, but a lot of the judgement is kind of OTT. It's a very flawed game, but I think there's a lot of genuine potential and I wouldn't even say it's bad, even if I do mock it. With this discussion, maybe we should give the corebook a try? Because Book of Rooms is...well, it's a supplement and not a very good one. It doesn't exactly engage with the themes of the game. Though it's not all bad-and the art is gorgeous-it's not exactly the best way to make an opinion about the game.
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Jul 25, 2022 04:34
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Yeah the Book of Rooms is very 'we needed a supplement to help people run this really specific and personal game, so we generated a bunch of horror-y scenario rooms, and we clearly ran out of ideas pretty quickly' from my perspective. The core has its own significant flaws, mind you, but the Book of Rooms just wasn't a fantastic idea for a supplement.
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Jul 25, 2022 04:38
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ulmont posted:…not liking the premise is ok, though; de gustibus and all that. I’m sure there are any number of movie and musical genres that you nope out on. Comparing it to FATAL is more than a bit much. I don't think it's doing a good job with its premise, but it's at least trying something new and interesting. And sure? Say you don't like it. Just like I'm responding back because that's how talking works. Going to a bluegrass show and then whining about all the mandolins and fiddles is facile and dumb, just like "the horror game about a loss of agency and sex has no agency but lots of spooky sex stuff eeewwwww!" t3isukone posted:Yeah, this is overall my POV too. I think it's very valid to not dig the premise because, well, it's a pretty alienating premise, but a lot of the judgement is kind of OTT. I'd gladly read and discuss it at least, assuming you (or someone else) doesn't mind posting. Big, brave swings that fall over are some of the most interesting parts of this thread.
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Jul 25, 2022 04:45
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How good is the book (I guess either core or Book of Rooms) at explicit guidance on GM Moves? My read on this definitely moved through three main stages, reading through all this. First, the room descriptions did just come off like obnoxious edgy setpieces you steer the player through one after another--a bunch of descriptions of bad things happening to you one after another that you mostly just sit there and listen to. Then, with the move descriptions, it became clear that that's really not the case--the player moves sound pretty strong at, if not letting the player make their situation better, at least choosing which way it'll get worse. Which seems like it would actually do a pretty okay job at the whole "build the Bride's personality through play" thing people are saying they'd want. But now I'm just at the stage of wondering what the point of Book of Rooms is. Like, you said. . . Joe Slowboat posted:I think the woman in bondage (who shows up in some Actual Plays of the game with one of the authors playing the part of the GM is a good example of like, the point of that room is to ask 'was this an accident or did he kill his previous wife? Did she genuinely enjoy this intense fetish poo poo or was this coerced? What does being married to this man mean?' And that's a pretty clear and direct bit of guidance on how to run the scene, but if I tried to run the game without having read your posts I feel like I'd have had a really hard time coming up with how to present the scene, which then makes it sort of fall back towards a default edgy grindhouse style that feels like it would actively fight against the game's intended themes. Does the game give explicit help in understanding how to run rooms and what questions you're trying to get the players to answer (beyond just a big old binary 'do you trust or not')? Like, Dungeon World has its whole Instincts deal, which feels like a good way of letting the GM have a fall-back "if I don't know what a monster or faction would do, I can just fall back on this and it'll probably be interesting". Is there anything like this in BBB, or are they really just dropping some spooky imagery on you and hoping you can puzzle out the themes they wanted to explore with them through reverse engineering?
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Jul 25, 2022 05:53
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OtspIII posted:How good is the book (I guess either core or Book of Rooms) at explicit guidance on GM Moves? My read on this definitely moved through three main stages, reading through all this. The main book, as I remember it, is mixed. It has some very good rundowns of what the game's themes and goals are, and discusses the question of the Bride's interpretation of her situation. So far, so good. However, it also has a lot of that grindhouse content, and it can be a bit edgy - the text is written as 'advice' to the 'young bride' at times, so that the GM is advised to 'help her understand her place' and such. If you've read the theme sections and really see how it fits together, then this is just presenting the same information in a somewhat more interesting way, but if that hasn't landed it's probably not as good at giving advice as it could be. Bluebeard's Bride suffers from an excess of style, both good and bad, in presenting the game. It can obscure the core of the game's structure, and if they could have broken kayfabe and just spelled it out, that might have been to everyone's advantage. As for the point of the Book of Rooms... I genuinely think it was a moderately bad idea. Like, it's a supplement that contains examples of one of the things GMs will need to rapidly generate in order to run Bluebeard's Bride, so in that sense it looks a lot like a monster manual or another useful game supplement, but BBB doesn't benefit from having a huge collection of rooms like this. Instead, it should have been a smaller but more detailed, thematically elucidated set of rooms, and guidance for constructing your own that play to the themes of the game. I know some rooms are referencing specific mythological figures (particular women who suffer violence in myth) but the book doesn't explain the background, so they're more or less just weird and awkward if you don't know the story in question. E: Which is to say yeah, Book of Rooms does feel like it expects you to reverse-engineer the thematic content or complexities the room has to offer, which I suspect also corresponds to some of them just being spooky bullshit the authors wrote when they ran out of ideas and they're hoping that you'll figure out your own thematic answers for it. Book of Rooms would be so much better if every room had like, a core question along the lines of 'this wife died because X, do you blame Bluebeard for that?' Because like... organize each of them explicitly around the questions that go into loyalty/disloyalty, and suddenly example rooms would be way more illustrative. Joe Slowboat fucked around with this message at 07:37 on Jul 25, 2022 |
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Jul 25, 2022 07:30
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t3isukone posted:Yeah, this is overall my POV too. I think it's very valid to not dig the premise because, well, it's a pretty alienating premise, but a lot of the judgement is kind of OTT. I wouldn't mind you taking us through the rest of the Book of Rooms, but I think it'd be better to do the Core rules first to understand the rules/Moves/options. I mean right now we have Sofa Rape and... how is this supposed to work in the game? Is it just maybe me as the (theoretical) GM (uncomfortably) trying to describe the Bride getting raped by a sofa while the (theoretical) players (probably also uncomfortably) sit there and listen? Xiahou Dun posted:Going to a bluegrass show and then whining about all the mandolins and fiddles is facile and dumb, just like "the horror game about a loss of agency and sex has no agency but lots of spooky sex stuff eeewwwww!" For me it's not that it's a "bluegrass show" so much as it's a show where the band is apparently just going to play slightly different versions of the same loving song. That said, the operative word here is "apparently." I think if the OP gets into the Core rules a little that might clear some things up for me.
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Jul 25, 2022 07:36
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Honestly, I think the Book of Rooms deserves a good roasting from the position of, 'Bluebeard's Bride is a well-constructed game built around a specific theme and horror atmosphere, weakened by an over-reliance on grindhouse imagery' because Book of Rooms is basically a monster manual. Nothing about that game wanted a monster manual. Hell, I think they did even write a monster manual as well, a book of Servants. Which feels like it must suffer from the same failings, but I didn't actually flip through that one. "The supplement treadmill, but for an intense psychological horror PBTA game about coercive femininity, spousal abuse, and trauma" is like a bad joke about indie ttrpgs.
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Jul 25, 2022 07:42
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Using Bluebeard's Bride's structure to represent an early-to-mid Sierra game where you enter a screen and either fulfill a deeply specific puzzle element or die a wryly-commented-upon death and have to reload. Every reload puts you on another screen you don't remember being at. You have to decide if the death was your fault and you'll solve the next puzzle smarter, or if you're thinking gently caress This Game and considering taking it back to Babbage's.
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Jul 25, 2022 08:01
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sasha_d3ath posted:Using Bluebeard's Bride's structure to represent an early-to-mid Sierra game where you enter a screen and either fulfill a deeply specific puzzle element or die a wryly-commented-upon death and have to reload. Every reload puts you on another screen you don't remember being at. You have to decide if the death was your fault and you'll solve the next puzzle smarter, or if you're thinking gently caress This Game and considering taking it back to Babbage's. The only win condition is just buying the hint book like their games were designed for. You can write a review criticizing the difficulty but then Ken Williams shows up at your house and asks if you have a problem with his wife's writing. 
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Jul 25, 2022 08:32
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Bluebeard's Bride reminds me greatly of The Path, a video game that similarly concerns itself with metaphor-laden depictions of feminine horror. The idea is definitely not without merit (in either case) but The Path is a single player moody adventure game that gives the player time to reflect on what's occurring, while Bride is best played with 2-4 people, all who have to take it seriously as a horror exercise and also be the kind of person to value the experience. I can really only speak for myself here but even in my TTRPG circles where players might be conceivably down for something grind/arthouse-y I feel like I'd struggle to sell that. Also yeah, like someone said up thread, turning out supplements for this sort of thing seems comically off base. Book of Rooms so far feels like a book of +1 swords, except the swords are all Masterwork Bastard Swords of Troubling Sexual Imagery.
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Jul 25, 2022 17:01
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sasha_d3ath posted:Using Bluebeard's Bride's structure to represent an early-to-mid Sierra game where you enter a screen and either fulfill a deeply specific puzzle element or die a wryly-commented-upon death and have to reload. Every reload puts you on another screen you don't remember being at. You have to decide if the death was your fault and you'll solve the next puzzle smarter, or if you're thinking gently caress This Game and considering taking it back to Babbage's. This is actually really good and funny
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Jul 25, 2022 17:05
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Everyone posted:
Sure, but keeping this dumb metaphor I made up in mind, that's also what ignorant people say about genres of music they've never really tried. Like, people who've never really listened to bluegrass get it confused with country and old time and say it all sounds the same constantly.
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Jul 25, 2022 17:12
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Xiahou Dun posted:Sure, but keeping this dumb metaphor I made up in mind, that's also what ignorant people say about genres of music they've never really tried. I get that. My even dumber part of your dumb metaphor was being literal. Like the band plays "Rocky Top." Then an instrumental version of "Rocky Top." And an a capella version of "Rocky Top." And so on.
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Jul 25, 2022 17:46
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Everyone posted:I get that. My even dumber part of your dumb metaphor was being literal. Like the band plays "Rocky Top." Then an instrumental version of "Rocky Top." And an a capella version of "Rocky Top." And so on. That's literally just taking my metaphor about how there's possibly more depth to this and saying, "No there isn't because I say so."
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Jul 25, 2022 19:37
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Joe Slowboat posted:E: Which is to say yeah, Book of Rooms does feel like it expects you to reverse-engineer the thematic content or complexities the room has to offer, which I suspect also corresponds to some of them just being spooky bullshit the authors wrote when they ran out of ideas and they're hoping that you'll figure out your own thematic answers for it. Book of Rooms would be so much better if every room had like, a core question along the lines of 'this wife died because X, do you blame Bluebeard for that?' Because like... organize each of them explicitly around the questions that go into loyalty/disloyalty, and suddenly example rooms would be way more illustrative. This is a really good idea of how to fix Book of Rooms, Everyone posted:I wouldn't mind you taking us through the rest of the Book of Rooms, but I think it'd be better to do the Core rules first to understand the rules/Moves/options. I mean right now we have Sofa Rape and... how is this supposed to work in the game? Is it just maybe me as the (theoretical) GM (uncomfortably) trying to describe the Bride getting raped by a sofa while the (theoretical) players (probably also uncomfortably) sit there and listen? The thing about Book of Rooms is that the 'themes' are the only gameplay guidance. Even the descriptions of what horrors the room is hiding aren't actual answers about what answers you'll get from certain moves. I'm fairly sure I'll do the core now, because as a lot of people have said it does seem to be the foundations for a lot. Book of Rooms is however a genuinely bad supplement-I think Tarot of Servants was vaguely useful and the Book of Mirrors supplement was actually cool because of the new settings it introduced. But....Book of Rooms was a mistake. But yeah. Core before we finish the North Wing, probably.
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Jul 25, 2022 20:35
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BLUEBEARD'S BRIDE CORE-INTRODUCTION Bluebeard’s Bride begins with a brief ‘what is this’ explanation. This is a retelling of the story of Bluebeard, where the players each take the role of a ‘Sister’, an aspect of the Bride’s psyche, which you roleplay as to decide what actions the Bride takes and direct her through the house. The players are expected to disagree and have their own agendas-after all, difficult choices cause a lot of inner conflict. The GM plays the horrors and the servants, and mostly does the house but the players take their own roles in defining that as well. quote:The rules of this game involve some negotiation and a bit of chance. Sometimes you wear Bluebeard’s wedding ring and directly control the Bride’s actions; other times youroll dice to determine what happens next. It then begins with what you need. The game is usually a one-shot and the core recommends you set away three or four hours. It also suggests you have spooky music and dim the lights and do a whisper. The list of absolute necessities: Players-one Groundskeeper(GM) and three to five Sisters; playbooks for the Sisters; the ring the Sisters will pass around; the play materials printed out; pencils; an X-Card; and….for some reason d6s are requested even though this is a PBTA game and uses d10s? The next bit of the introduction is what everyone is wondering. Why play this game? On the subject of why this is a TTRPG-which many people have asked here-the authors have this to say: quote:Tabletop roleplaying games allow you to explore horror directly, and to collaborate on a terrifying tale with your friends. Watching a movie allows you to passively engage with monstrosity—the storyline is fixed and unmoving, not tailored to you or your Bluebeard’s Bride is collaborative horror, and that makes it unique. There’s also a lot about unleashing the dark parts of your imagination. The last section of the introduction is on playing safely. It clarifies that this is a game you very much need to clear with your group beforehand: first, the atmosphere requires at least some amount of buy-in from the players, and second…it’s Bluebeard’s Bride. A lot of people might not want to play a game all about violence against women and a lack of agency. This game doesn’t work for every group, and that’s fine. It then discusses tools for dealing with upsetting content, like the X-Card-the next section is entirely about the X-Card(tinyurl.com/x-card-rpg). quote:We have found that anything that gets X-Carded during play can be replaced by something equally horrific, twisted, and troubling that does not push our group to bad places. The introduction ends with some pretty, pretty art. Seriously, the art for this game is amazing. 
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Jul 25, 2022 20:53
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sasha_d3ath posted:"The sky is green." "Hey, did you ever play Anatomy by Kitty Horrorshow? I contend that this whole house is, from a certain point of view, the servant of that blue boy, that it is capable of ingesting or inhaling in some sense, and furthermore that it is not an unbelievably tedious waste of my valuable Witch Time." The house quivers, and begins crumbling to ashes. Witch personality cackles, taunting the next personality in line that they are about to have a bad day if they aren't a fan of inhaling carcinogens.
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Jul 25, 2022 21:24
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avoraciopoctules posted:"Hey, did you ever play Anatomy by Kitty Horrorshow? I contend that this whole house is, from a certain point of view, the servant of that blue boy, that it is capable of ingesting or inhaling in some sense, and furthermore that it is not an unbelievably tedious waste of my valuable Witch Time." I feel like the only correct next beat if a player insists on this is for Bluebeard to immediately sweep in to take the Bride on honeymoon to the Overlook Hotel while the manor is repaired.
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Jul 25, 2022 22:57
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The Shining would make an incredible a book scenario to run in Bluebeard's Bride holy poo poo. Instead of the room The bride can't enter without confronting the truth she is not ready for, it's the Manuscript Bluebeard is working on. I mean heck, that movie is full of really dark sexual undertones and questions about the physical abuse Jack did to his family.
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Jul 25, 2022 23:13
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Bluebeard’s Bride begins with a brief ‘what is this’ explanation. This is a retelling of the story of Bluebeard, where the players each take the role of a ‘Sister’, an aspect of the Bride’s psyche, which you roleplay as to decide what actions the Bride takes and direct her through the house. The players are expected to disagree and have their own agendas-after all, difficult choices cause a lot of inner conflict. The GM plays the horrors and the servants, and mostly does the house but the players take their own roles in defining that as well.quote:The rules of this game involve some negotiation and a bit of chance. Sometimes you wear Bluebeard’s wedding ring and directly control the Bride’s actions; other times you It then begins with what you need. The game is usually a one-shot and the core recommends you set away three or four hours. It also suggests you have spooky music and dim the lights and do a whisper. The list of absolute necessities: Players-one Groundskeeper(GM) and three to five Sisters; playbooks for the Sisters; the ring the Sisters will pass around; the play materials printed out; pencils; an X-Card; and….for some reason d6s are requested even though this is a PBTA game and uses d10s? The next bit of the introduction is what everyone is wondering. Why play this game? On the subject of why this is a TTRPG-which many people have asked here-the authors have this to say: quote:Tabletop roleplaying games allow you to explore horror directly, and to collaborate on a terrifying tale with your friends. Watching a movie allows you to passively engage with monstrosity—the storyline is fixed and unmoving, not tailored to you or your Bluebeard’s Bride is collaborative horror, and that makes it unique. There’s also a lot about unleashing the dark parts of your imagination. The last section of the introduction is on playing safely. It clarifies that this is a game you very much need to clear with your group beforehand: first, the atmosphere requires at least some amount of buy-in from the players, and second…it’s Bluebeard’s Bride. A lot of people might not want to play a game all about violence against women and a lack of agency. This game doesn’t work for every group, and that’s fine. It then discusses tools for dealing with upsetting content, like the X-Card-the next section is entirely about the X-Card(tinyurl.com/x-card-rpg). quote:We have found that anything that gets X-Carded during play can be replaced by something equally horrific, twisted, and troubling that does not push our group to bad places. Some notes on the X-card: the X-Card is just drawing an X on an index card and presenting it if things get uncomfortable. No judgement. When the X-Card is presented, whatever was objectionable will be 'edited out' and the game will continue as if it never happened. This ends the introduction. Next update, we'll begin Chapter 1.
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Jul 26, 2022 14:45
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Infinity RPG: Tohaa Prong Is A Weird Word By galactic alien standards, the Tohaa are generally considered peaceful, turning to a war footing for good only relatively recently, and that only to fight the Combined Army. However, no one can deny that they are extremely good at fighting for such a peaceful species. In truth, they have always believed that it is their duty as Heralds to bring peace to a dangerous galaxy, and so they have always focused on having the capability to fight even if they did not have much inclination. The other reason is that the Triumvirate has been working secretly within the Tohaa Trinomial to ensure that a weapon is always at hand when needed, diverting funding to the military and ensuring it is always ready. Most Tohaa believe them to be a myth, but they descend philosophically from a collection of industrialists and leaders during Unification who desired to maintain their power over others, "for the benefit of the Tohaa." They are now a secretive conspiracy of spymasters, financial experts and businesselves who covertly attempt to ensure the Tohaa survive, no matter what the cost to others. The Triumvirate fully support the Exaltation initiative - but as we've discussed, not because of any benevolence. They're behind the eugenics programs that are enacted secretly in the Exalted, working to turn them into buffer species that will fight and die so Tohaa do not have to and who will do manual labor to support the Tohaa empire. They believe in uplifting other species, yes, but only because it's easier than enslaving them by force, and they work hard to reinforce Tohaa prejudices so that the Exalted will never be deemed ready for freedom. And, of course, they're behind the vivisection of the Digester on Paradiso and all the horrors that came of that, from a zombie outbreak to the destruction of their own and a human colony there, and behind much of the Tohaa plot to bring humanity into the war with the EI. Some Tohaa do suspect the existence of the conspiracy and work to reveal it, but as yet, they have always been foiled. The Triumvirate works to ensure all official investigations into their existence are quickly quashed and anyone that gets too suspicious gets arrested or recruited. They've survived centuries through patience, ruthlessness and cunning, but as they begin to try and control humanity similarly, their work grows ever more dangerous and likely to backfire on them. Still, it'd take some kind of disaster to reveal their existence. Now, let's talk about the Tohaa Trident, the standing military of the Trinomial. They were formed to fight the Fenrig and succeeded at that, but have for too long been locked in a brutal, bloody conflict with the Combined Army. They have lost countless soldiers, and the war has gone on for nearly two centuries. Many Exalted species have been driven near to extinction in the conflict, and the Triden have been forced to reexamine the tactics that had won the day against the Fenrig. They are outnumbered, and that is what has forced them to turn to humanity for support. They don't particularly enjoy relying on numbers to carry the day, preferring teams of three known as combat triads, which operate in tight bonds that rely on Corahtaa for extremely close battlefield coordination without need for verbalization. That only Tohaa can truly comprehend the pheromonal messages also means it is, in most cases, a very secure form of communication to leave a scent-message for others to find later. When this is not enough, the Tohaa soldiers adopt a combat language developed based on the ancient Vaarso dialect, which relies heavily on context, metaphors and tonality to convey meaning - the same words can mean drastically different things depending on inflection. (Tohaa diplomats dealing with humanity often also rely on Vaarso battlespeak, which makes the job of O-12's agents even harder.) The Tohaa war on the Combined Army is, unfortunately, going badly. Billions have died, either from direct attack, engineered bioweapons or infrastructural collapse. The Tohaa have been forced to abandon several colony worlds to consolidate their resources into more defensible positions. The Combined Army is a relentless foe, and while they can be defeated, there always seems to be another fleet coming. The Tohaa have resolved never to surrender, though - it would mean the end of the Heralds, and that cannot be allowed. Still, when they began the fight, they did not expect the tenacity or vastness of the enemy. They had been warned of the EI, but their scouts could not find its planets nor much in the way of records in the Digesters outside of some scattered tales they didn't really take seriously. They'd been certain they were strong enough to win. The Tohaa were wrong. The Combined Army's invasion of their space took them entirely off-guard, as thousands of ships appeared from the wormholes along the frontier. The Tohaa scrambled to organize the Errant Fleet to defend, but many colonies fell quickly. The Combined Army slowed over time, and many Tohaa were sure they'd take back all they lost, as they had fighting the Shawoke and the Fenrig. They did reclaim a few worlds, but it has been decades since there were any major shifts in the battle lines. It seems now that the Combined Army slowed down not because the Tohaa forced them to but because the EI was focusing elsewhere for its own reasons. The war is at stalemate, with the Tohaa turning to covert insertions and infiltrations to weaken their foe, using their ships to keep the main forces contained as best they can. The Exalted have been called on en masse to aid in the fight. They have determined that the main goal of the Combined Army is to claim Digesters and territory, and while they have rescued several Digesters from the EI's clutches, they can only estimate at how much irreplaceable knowledge has been lost to the EI in its mad quest for Transcendence. Tohaa media, the Viseraa, attempts to portray the war as going well and the Errant Fleet as having continuous success. Many Tohaa are optimistic still, but it is clear that they have fewer resources now than they did a century ago, and those who pay attention know the Combined Army has not been losing all the time. They have counted the deaths, and they know terrible acts have been needed to survive. Some species were Exalted solely to become soldiers, and often these have gone entirely extinct without ever knowing the true gifts of Exaltation - or worse, they were conquered and absorbed by the Combined Army. That has been the fate of too many - and even of some of the Tohaa themselves. The areas of Tohaa space conquered by the Combined Army were not cleansed of life, after all. Hundreds of colony worlds were taken by the enemy, trapped outside the Trinomial. The Tohaa tried to keep these colonies supplied by blockade runners, arming them and hurling propaganda broadcasts in their direction to bolster their spirits. The citizens of these worlds rose up by the millions toi fight the Combined Army - and they lost, outnumbered and outgunned. The Combined Army answered their attacks with reprisals, but little else, and it didn't take too long for the colonial governments to question their loyalties to the Trinomial. Eventually, they decided to view their conquerors as liberators, for they had not engaged in the genocide that the Trinomial propaganda said they would. The sector has become known as the Sygmaa Trihedron, and it is now a valued member of the Combined Army, offering them access to biotech and Tohaa tactics. In doing so, they have changed. Where the Trinomial is united, the Sygmaa are fractured, though they agree on the basic goal of overthrowing the Trinomial and 'liberating' their fellow Tohaa. They believe the Trident is an oppressive weapon of the regime, and the Sygmaa have developed a number of independent governments allied against it, known as the Hedronic Councils. Their makeup shifts yearly, with new factions rising and falling quickly, as the Sygmaa love nothing more than exercising their freedoms of thought and argument, even to no purpose. They consider obedience to the EI to be a relatively small price to pay for what they see as self-determination. That said, not all Sygmaa Tohaa are devout followers of the EI. There is a rebellion movement, the Trigon, who secretly exist throughout Sygmaa space. They continue to fight against the EI through sabotage and rare but brutal terror attacks. They use a variant of Vaarso battlespeak to communicate, as they know that their main enemy is other Tohaa, who can understand the Corahtaa. Trigon agents are strictly conditioned and trained to suppress emotion, allowing them to communicate through the Corahtaa things they don't actually feel while suppressing their actual intent. It is an exhausting and mentally draining practice, but essential to their survival. Despite the best efforts of the Trigon, the Sygmaa and Trinomial are frequently in direct conflict. The Trinomial want to rescue their lost brethren, but the Sygmaa have no desire to return to the fold and what they see as blind following. The Tohaa Trinomial consider the Sygmaa foolishly and dangerously individualistic, while the Sygmaa see their foes as oppressive and stagnant. Captive Sygmaa often refuse to cooperate and are forced into solitary confinement - a truly brutal punishment for a social species like the Tohaa. Tohaa captives of the Sygmaa are in for worse - they are always handed over to the Combined Army for interrogation. Now, let's talk about the Paradiso Wormhole Fleet. The Errant Ships of the Paradiso Fleet are living things, constructed with biotech, and they're the main way humans get to see Tohaa vessels. The Paradiso Wormhole Fleet is organized as part of the Acheron Blockade to lock the Combined Army out of the rest of human space. Tohaa ships are partially organic, and all of them begin with a relatively similar build pattern (at least, within each ship class). They take a silicone superstructure and reinforce it with carbon nanotubing and specialized amina acid chains, which are constantly being pumped in during the build as fuel for special nanobots that manipulate the ship's growth. Armor is grown across the superstructure in overlapping patterns, and all ports and hatches are a mix of reinforced silicone and organics, as are all weapons. (Indeed, they're basically just Tohaa infantry gear scaled upwards.) Ships can seal any opening, and typically hatches are constructed to self-seal if the ship senses any reason to do so. Weapons are able to operate independently of any command, controlled through the ship's nerve clusters. The crew is symbiotic to the ship itself, tapping into it to expand their awareness and abilities. The ships' capacity for independent reactions make them very dangerous in a fight, as the crew can focus on active tasks while the ship handles point defense. The organic structures of the vessel can absorb and transmit pheromones, allowing use of Corahtaa speech across the entire crew regardless of physical location in the ship. The ship can also generate pheromones to serve as warnings, alarms, signals or orders as needed. The ship's nervous system is tapped into a web of complex sensors, and its memory banks are actual neuron clusters linked into hard storage. In theory, anything that ever passes through ship neural storage is accessible by any Tohaa vessel using the marks it left through the neural structure, though it's probably best not to try to get at really old stuff if you want accurate memories. Security systems are typically designed to register crew pheromonal signatures and activate against anyone that doesn't match them, and those same signatures are used to determine what data is accessible to who. It is nearly impossible to falsify a Tohaa pheromonal signature (a 'baade' in their language) so Tohaa data security is extremely good. Each Errant Ship develops its own eccentricities, but they tend to be capable of a wide variety of missions due to the flexibility of organic design. Most contain large hangar bays of small fighters and transports that can link into the ship's neural net and serve as extensions of it, operating autonomously or with a Tohaa pilot tapped in. The ships manufacture their own food and supplies using green decks dedicated to food production and organic manufacturing labs to grow and print what's necessary with a mix of biotech and hardware. Crew are housed near the hull walls, so that rotating the ship can give them gravity. Most Errant Ships are equipped to mine asteroid for raw materials, which the biofactories within break down quickly. Each is also home to schools, universities, businesses and entertainment areas, as the Errant Ships are designed for longterm habitation by generational crew. They are meant to ensure that no matter what happens, some of the Tohaa will escape and be able to repopulate. The culture of the Errant Ships tends to the reckless, and most Tohaa that live aboard them are prone to wanderlust, curiosity or a strong desire to serve in the military. Others stay because their family line always has, sure, but to want to be on the Errant Ships, you need to desire a life that won't ever really be routine. To become crew if you aren't born aboard requires extensive testing to show what you'll add to the ship, then a trial period to prove you can fit in. Not all Tohaa can get along on every ship, and it is entirely possible to fail out because you can't mesh socially with the ship or its crew or your pheromones don't work out there. For the incompatible, it's easy to get a trial aboard another ship, however, until you find the one you fit on, which may take years. Even the Tohaa bioengineers don't fully understand why a ship may reject potential crewmembers, and the trial period aboard is often seen as a rite of passage in the Colonial Forces. This also means individual ships get a reputation for the specific tendencies they and their crew are pushed towards - some are known to be aggressive, while others are musical. Ship decor also gradually shifts to match the demeanor of those aboard, with the ship's bioluminescent lighting shifting in shade and color as the culture changes. Errant Ships each house many smaller assault and transport vessels, and the pilots of these must bond with them just as they bond with the greater ship as crew. While hardtech pilots often refer to themselves as the master or commander of a fighter, Tohaa biotech ships are symbiotic with the pilot, and tend to be seen as partners that help contribute to the greater whole in battle. Most crew on an Errant Ship would never consider working on any other, and when a ship is destroyed, the loss is often felt as keenly as the death of a loved one. Crew that die of old age, illness or whose bodies are recovered in battle are used as organic fuel for the vessel itself, recycled to keep the ship going. A Tohaa's baade is altered over time by living on one of these vessels, and eventually their status as a crew member can be told by scent alone - a design specifically engaged in by the Tohaa to encourage a stronger sense of community. Errant Ships are large, but they usually don't operate independently. Rather, like most things Tohaa, they tend to move in threes. Three ships traditionally are assigned to explore specific sectors, working together to chart them and gather information. In times past, they would meet regularly to share their discoveries, ensuring that the data they gathered was hard to destroy. Even so, losing a single ship could set studies back a decade or more. Tohaa trio meetups would typically last for a month or so before the ships broke up again to go back to exploring. Things changed after the Fenrig war, when most of the Errant Fleet was recalled for reorganization and military service. Now, especially with the battles against the Combined Army, the days of lackadaisical exploration are mostly over. The Tohaa are no longer expanding, but defending. Now, Errant Ships always operate in dedicated triads, building strong bonds and dividing up the work of battle. Typically, this means one ship leads the offense, a second serves as reinforcements, and the third takes on a support role. They usually operate seamlessly, with each ship's fighters working as a force multiplier for the others, screening larger ships or sharing scanner readouts. The Combined Army has lost multiple space battles due to underestimating the teamwork of an Errant Fleet triad - or the willingness of the fighters to sacrifice themselves to lock down a capital ship until one of the big guns has a firing solution. The Paradiso Blockade Fleet is actually just a single triad - Kiinote Triad. The three ships tend not to stay very close to each other in the system, as each focuses on a specialized defensive role. They're also currently repairing damage from a major Combined Army attack, so they aren't really operating at peak efficiency, but they've been a vital part of the defensive line. The flagship and leader of the triad is Kiitu Kiinote Gael, AKA Kiinote-1. It typically sits in orbit around Paradiso, moving diplomats and troops around the planet or heading to the Tohaa's Maante Sael shipyards at irvana. When not busy moving people around, it heads to the orbital blockade to assist them. Noore Kiinote Tael, AKA Kiinote-2, usually stands guard at Acheron Gate. When it isn't required there, it sweeps the Intermediate Blockade for problems, aggressively taking on any enemies it finds, especially stealth vessels. It prefers not to destroy them but instead to cripple them, leaving them to be dealt with by other ships. It remains in constant communication with Kiinote-1 and serves as the other chief contact vessel for humanity. In theory, Teeqa Kiinote Wael, AKA Kiinote-3, is meant to defend Daedalus Gate. However, the damage dealt to it in the EveningStar orbital attack has never really healed right, and it is forced to make regular trips to Maante Sael for repairs. In fact, it was so heavily damaged that in the last attack on Daedalus Gate, it was unable to participate at all and Kiinote-1 had to take its place. The Tohaa have at least confirmed that the ship's ability to breed new vessels has not been lost permanently, and Kiinote-3 has returned to its post to oversee construction of a new defensive network. (Incidentally, Kiinote-1's commander, Guurun Diiror, is probably part of the Triumvirate.) The Kiinote Triad is assisted in its work by the Toomaros, three smaller cruisers that are biological clones of the Kiinote ships that are currently growing into full size. Occasionally, the Toomaros are left in defensive position while the Kiinotes are busy, but they still require relatively frequent rotation and repair. A Toomaro has firepower on par with a full Errant Ship but is much smaller and less durable. As Daedalus Gate nears full repair, other Tohaa ships have begun to gather near it to help construct a series of defensive monitoring platforms. The Kiinote Triad has standing orders to collapse the Daedalus wormhole if the Combined Army ever seems likely to break through the Acheron Blockade, however. A second Errant Triad guards the Tohaa side of the Daedalus Gate, and if the position were ever to come under serious threat, bombs on both ends would be detonated, causing massive harm to everything in both systems but locking out the wormhole entirely. Mechanics are provided for Tohaa ships in the space combat rules; their main unique tricks are Idiosyncracy and Competencies. Each ship has an Idiosyncracy, a keyword representing its broad culture and its preferred tactics, such as Aggression, Protection, Exploration or Exaltation. This is shared by all smaller vessels that are part of the Errant Ship's network. Mechanically, it functions as a Trait like characters have, following all the rules for that, but shared over the entire party. Competencies are stats representing the ship itself and its ability to help people out, rather like a Geist. Each ship has a default rating for all its PC-scale stats, plus a small pool of points that can be spent raising individual attributes, and it gets a small pool of points to buy skills with. (Tohaa ships kind of take on the job geists have with normal PCs, as Tohaa don't generally have geists.) Tohaa civilian ships are noted to exist and get one statline; however, they rarely show up outside Tohaa space. Civilian vessels for police or security use stats similar to Tohaa Raalo fighters, and no civilian ship has Idiosyncracies. Next time: Tohaa worlds
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Jul 28, 2022 00:10
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joylessdivision posted:Speaking strictly from the perspective of only having read 1st edition, my feeling on trying to run Ascension is "Good god there are so many different rules I have to remember It's just an onslaught of systems and subsystems, half of which I'd forget immediately. Heck, even the main magic stuff with Avatars and Aretes and stuff makes me go crazy.
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Jul 29, 2022 16:42
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Question: what's the source of the thread title?
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Jul 29, 2022 17:21
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SirPhoebos posted:Question: what's the source of the thread title? Discussion about Dune, I think specifically the galactic jihad or whatever. A lot of people died, apparently.
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Jul 29, 2022 17:24
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SirPhoebos posted:Question: what's the source of the thread title? I think it was from a 40K thing and while I had moderator powers it entertained me to arbitrarily change thread titles now and again.
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Jul 29, 2022 20:25
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potatocubed posted:I think it was from a 40K thing and while I had moderator powers it entertained me to arbitrarily change thread titles now and again. Aren't mods basically paid in ability to cause capricious, whimsical changes? It's why I still have redtext that just says "BUTTS"
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Jul 29, 2022 21:50
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Xiahou Dun posted:Aren't mods basically paid in ability to cause capricious, whimsical changes? Well, they aren't paid.
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Jul 29, 2022 22:03
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Pvt.Scott posted:Discussion about Dune, I think specifically the galactic jihad or whatever. A lot of people died, apparently. Stilgar presents a report to Paul and reports on how a specific campaign killed 61 billion people. It causes one of those weird situations where Stilgar is the only normal person in the room concerned with logistics, resupply, human casualties, waking up in the morning, and Paul is rambling off on some philosophical tangent about Hitler.
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Jul 29, 2022 23:39
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Infinity RPG: Tohaa Space Elf Planet Runohaa is the heart of the Tohaa Trinomial, the single most important system in the entirety of Tohaa space. Runohaa is both the planet and the system, and the system has no other habitable planets. Planet Runohaa is roughly the same size of Earth, with three large continents: Togaanu, Tehaanu and Luutena. The star it orbits is somewhat smaller than Sol, but the planet is somewhat closer to it, producing a warm and vibrant environment that has a somewhat higher than average amount of background solar radiation. This caused a thicker and more resistant skin to evolve on most life on Runohaa, which in the Tohaa had the side effect of stunted hearing. Tohaa that expect to interact with non-Tohaa typically get biomods augmenting their auditory systems. Togaanu is the biggest and most historically important continent, for it was home to the Neebab Numerologists, one of the most important Tohaa civilizations in the development of the Trihedron. However, modern Togaanu is partially uninhabited - about half its entire population had to be evacuated due to heavy seismic activity just before Unification. Ever since, all of the people on Togaanu have lived in megacities, away from the dangerous areas. The largest of these cities, Taalaria, was formed just after Unification, and became the planetary capital. It remains the capital of the entire Trihedron, an architectural masterpiece of curves and spires that brings the wild flora and fauna of Runohaa and seamlessly allows them to wander between pieces of high technology. The Tohaa value it for allowing unity witn nature without requiring them to harness nature, and most Tohaa compare the human settlements they find to Taalaria and are extremely upset by the conditions in the human cities. Taalaria houses millions of Tohaa, but most colonial Tohaa only see it and the planet it's on only a few times in their lives, typically as a vacation with their triad after completing their education. Tourism is a major industry in Taalaria, and it has a very robust public transport system designed to move tourists quickly and easily. The Modern Communal Museum, oldest public museum on Togaanu, is one of the big sights. It was recently reworked and celebrates the history of both Runohaa and the Colonial Tohaa. Tourists usually then move on to the Unification Monument, which memorializes both the time before the Tohaa nations came together and the boundless curiosity that led their scientists to meddle with the planet and its seismic activity, causing the terrible events that led to Unification. The monument is 70 feet tall, and it is considered to be a constant reminder that there is a cost to being Tohaa. Besides the tourist spots, Taalaria is home to the Colonial Exploration Academy HQ, aka the Higher Academy of Diplomatic Studies. It is the place where the best Tohaa students learn to deal with aliens, get their biomods to be able to actually hear speech clearly instead of relying on pheromones, and so on, having been founded once the Tohaa learned that most other species rely a lot more on sound than scent. Our last major location on the planet is Bireeta City Military Academy. Bireeta City is technically an independent polity on what was at one point the outskirts of Taalaria, though in practice it has now largely been absorbed. The Military Academy is the heart of Bireeta's central district, and it is the premier officer school of the Tohaa, housing a massive library that contains everything the species has learned about war in its existence. We now move on to colony worlds! Agreda used to be one of the most advanced and successful of the lot...until it was lost to the Combined Army. Agreda was the jewel of the Colonial Territories, one of the first planets the Tohaa settled, and in some ways it was even more advanced than Runohaa. It was a warm, mild place with few predators, a pristine and Edenic planet that the Tohaa used their biotech to make even lusher. It was also home to many Exalted, especially Chaksa. When Agreda fell, the Trinomial lost more than just an industrial center, more even than a cultural heart. They also lost access to ancient secrets, for they had not been the first to settle Agreda. They didn't name it, but instead found its name in the ancient ruins on the planet, which had once been inhabited by an indigenous species. Even now, the Tohaa scientific community isn't really sure what happened to the Agredans or why they vanished, and since the planet was lost to the Combined Army, no one's beenable to gather more evidence. Officially, the colonial authorities of Agreda surrendered to the Combined Army's Onyx Contact Force after the initial attacks. Unofficially, what actually happened is the Tohaa on Agreda descended into civil war, and the rebels seeking to surrender actually ended up winning. Before the Tohaa could come to reclaim the planet, however, the Combined Army descended in force, turning Agreda into a fortress-world that would become the heart of the Sygmaa. Perhaps more shocking, though, was that the entire Chaksa population sided with the rebels - or, at least, that's what seems to have happened. No one knows for sure because the entire Exalted population of Agreda is just...gone, nowhere to be seen. Romaanti is a jungle world with high temperatures and humidity. It was also a bustling trade hub and cultural nexus, despite being smaller than the nearby colonies of Ceenle and Dameega, and was home to several thriving megacorporations. In more peaceful times, it would have been a frontier hub. Now, though? Now, it's just one more conquest of the Combined Army in their expansion towards Ceenle. The Combined Army have left only token guards on the planet, as the Tohaa population evacuated early. Many of the civilians evacuated joined the Trident, forming the Nikoul Regiment, which now plans to liberate their homeworld. Ceenle is a larger planet but sparsely populated, serving mostly as farmland to feed the empire. The Tohaa have used their expansive biotech to terraform the planet and expand its agricultural capabilities. It is also the original homeworld of the Kotail, a specialist military unit of mobile fast attackers and ambushers who have proven to be one of the most important weapons against the Combined Army. Ceenle is currently still safe from attack, but everyone knows the Sygmaa are gathering for a push towards it. Utkino was a cold, mountainous backwater world, too dense and far from its system's sun to be a viable terraforming candidate. While it is beautiful and serene, being posted there has always been considered a punishment, and it's mostly been used to train soldiers for cold weather and polar conditions. The loss of the planet to the Combined Army was not hugely a problem in and of itself, but the loss of the training facilities has set the Trident scrambling to find another place to prepare for polar battle conditions. Dameega is another fallen world, once the third largest colonial world of the Tohaa. It was a tourist spot, famous for its crystal caverns, the ancient species that worshipped them, and its status as a retirement destination. After its conquest by the Combined Army, it is believed to be in an ongoing civil war. The Sygmaa allow no news out, but the residents of Dameega have refused to simply accept their rule, and have fled into the caverns to resist. Caaral is a small planet in the Ireeda system, relatively newly colonized, which once was ruled by the Shawoke Four Nations. As part of the peace treaty with the Shawoke, the Tohaa were given Caaral. Now, it is on the front lines, and the Combined Army are actively attempting to claim Caaral from its Tohaa defenders. The Trident forces that remain from Romaanti and Agreda have dedicated themselves to holding out on Caaral, and it has become a battle of attrition through Caaral's many cities. Tohaa High Command is considering an evacuation, as they have lost the capital, but has not given the order - they still hope they can push the Combined Army back first. Sareota is a major Tohaa planet for several reasons. It's the source of natural rubber and the Gnaasos insects that the Tohaa harvest to create powerful bioammunition, and it sites atop a wormhole leading into the heart of Tohaa space, but even more importantly, it was the site of the final battle with the Fenrig, giving it great historic and cultural value. Besides the Gnaasos, Sareota is also home to a species of reptilian predators, the Nutaeeni, who resemble dinosaurs and whose name means 'those who walk in the clouds.' (Of bugs, presumably.) Sareota's strategic import means it has its own code number in Vaarso Battlespeak, Ganataos, which translates to the Glaisher-Kinkelin Constant, approximately 1.2824271291. In theoretical math, this is used to refer to the limit of a sequence, but in this case it's a metaphor for being the limit of the enemy's advance, for no enemy has ever been able to get past Sareota. Garmaate is now dead, all life on the planet extinguished. It used to be a thriving world whose species were being evaluated for Exaltation, but that was before first contact with the Combined Army. Garmaate was where it happened, and the Tohaa of the planet were unprepared for the brutality employed by the Onyx Contact Force. By the time reinforcements arrived, only tiny clusters of survivors remained, fighting primarily to die on their own terms. Tohaa High Command evacuated all remaining life on the planet, which was then abandoned by the EI's forces as useless and barren. It now serves as a symbol of the injustices of the Combined Army for the Tohaa. Leivaa, meanwhile, was a dull and strategically worthless world until rethe Colonial Territories administrators sent a large financial boost to its technology sector startups. It became one of the most vital research planets in Tohaa space when it comes to biotech and aggressive terraforming...though when Sygmaa rebels took over, the terraforming process still had been completed. The Trinomial was forced to quickly relocate as many researchers as possible, and a lot of the work that was being done was lost or damaged in the process, trapped in the ruins of Leivaa's cities. Chakarah is the homeworld of the Chaksa and was easily one of the most promising worlds the Tohaa ever found. It has a similar climate to Runohaa, with nonaggressive planets and robust animals, including the species that would become the Chaksa. Having learned from earlier errors with the Badaja, the Tohaa researchers spent a lot of effort on removing barriers of communication with the proto-Chaksa. We'll get into the details of that Exaltation later, but the short version is the Chaksa have become the most iconically loyal of all Exalted. They were valued as soldiers in the early war against the EI, but as casualties have risen, some Tohaa accuse High Command of treating the Chaksa as mere cannon fodder. Not all Chaksa have been Exalted, and even among those that are, the process of Exaltation varies based on role, social position and individual ability. Several groups of Chaksa have been left essentially unaltered and continue to live in their pre-uplift state in wilderness preserves, though there are fewer and fewer of these as the years go on. Most Chaksa cities, including thecapital, Chakarah Gael ('Chakarah-1'), resemble those of the Tohaa but with subtle differences. The Chaksa have a deep appreciation for Tohaa culture as a result of their Exaltation and education, and they have adopted a very similar architectural aesthetic. Originally, communication was difficulty due to the limited ability of the Chaksa to understand Corahtaa pheromones, but careful genetic modification and gene selection ensures that the top-level Exalted have rudimentary ability to sense pheromones enough to understand if not speak Corahtaa. Chaksa communicate to the Tohaa mostly through low grunts, inaudible to most others, which can make it seem as if they, too, communicate primarily through pheromones. There are two major cultural sites of relevance on Chakarah. First, there's the Meet, the original landing site of the Tohaa explorers. It has been turned into a museum documenting the pre-colonial period, including recordings of the oral history of the Chaksa before the Tohaa came and the records of Foretold Reunion, the Errant Ship that landed on Chakarah. The Chaksa do not have much in the way of religion, but the Meet is practically a holy site for them. The other major location is the Proving Grounds. See, in the ancient days of the Chaksa, there was a tradition that each village would send their strongest warrior to the Ichaktuur, the Glorious Earth, to compete in non-violent martial contests. The Tohaa saw great value in the tradition and turned it into a final test for new Exalted, a ritualized competition between Chaksa at the top of their classes. Performance at the Ichaktuur Proving Grounds has a great influence on a Chaksa's future career, and every year, the site is filled with recruiters and military commanders looking for the best candidates. Koldin is the homeworld of the Koldinuk, a dark and cold world. The Koldinuk are not natural warriors by any means, and most have settled into roles as bureaucrats, logistics experts or researchers for the Tohaa that Exalted them. Their history is relatively similar to that of the Chaksa: they were chosen for Exaltation and have proven themselves many times over. However, the Koldinuk were far more technologically advanced than the Chaksa when the Tohaa made contact with them. They were already beginning to explore their home system. As a result, they have been much less integrated into the Trident, having already formed their own spaceflight agencies and traditions. They are increasingly joining up, however, and frequently seen as logistics support near the front lines. The Koldinuk seem quite happy to try and reduce the burdens on their benefactors. We also get a few details about a planet called Yorua and the Fagore Jump Gate, but it's mostly 'wow, these places sure got messed up by the Combined Army and have been reinforced with heavy guns.' Next time: Subfactions, AKA Who Your PCs Work For
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Jul 30, 2022 17:44
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Bluebeard's Bride: CHAPTER ONE Bluebeard's Bride's first chapter begins with a discussion of the story itself. There are many variations, and there is no definitive version-fairy tales change with every telling. The narrator claims that the reason this story has such longevity is because of its themes of violence, sexuality, and death(all of these are repeated in CREEPY TEXT) in the background. The story, like most old stories-the narrator claims 'like any good story'-has a moral, but the exact nature of the moral is up for debate. Is it a story from women for women meant as a warning about abusive men, or is it about how women's curiosity is bad for them? quote:As you read and play out your own telling of this haunting story, allow yourself to connect to this feminine horror. It belongs to you, dear child. Your burden and your thrilling dare. There is no flinching away from it. The horror you unlock will be what it will be, and you must find your own meaning in respect to your own life. And ask yourself how that tale reconciles with your hopes, your dreams, and your darkest fears. We then spend the next few pages with the actual story of Bluebeard, which I assume everyone knows. If you don't, here it is, or at least this version: Once upon a time there was a lord named Bluebeard, who was rich beyond imagining and had a splendid palace, but his beard was a distinct blue, so much that everyone forgot his original title and called him Bluebeard. He had been married many times, though no one knew what exactly had become of his wives, since there never was a funeral-the wife would simply vanish and he would marry again. One day Bluebeard was out hunting, and at noon, tired and thirsty, he came across a poor farmstead. He entered to rest a while, and the farmers were eager to please the lord. They had their beautiful young daughter serve him tea and bread, and he was smitten with her beauty and decided to take her as his wife. For a week he entertained her and wooed her, dazzling her with his wealth and grandeur before proposing. The young woman was frightened of Bluebeard, but she didn't want her family to remain in poverty. They were married in a lavish ceremony. The next morning, the young woman awoke alone in her bed, with no sign that the marriage had been consummated, which both made her anxious and relieved her. A servant escorted her to the dining hall, where Bluebeard was eating breakfast. He told her that he had received urgent news and had to leave immediately, and he would likely be gone for some weeks. He kissed her goodbye and gave her the keys to every door in the house, telling her to amuse herself while he was gone-on one condition. She could open every door and go anywhere in the castle, except for the closet at the end of the grand gallery locked by the smallest key. He then left. Of course, the Bride was curious and wondered what could possibly be hidden behind that door. She strove to distract herself, and explored all of the magnificent palace. But she couldn't stop from being anxious-didn't her husband trust her with his secrets? In the dead of night, she finally gave in and went to the closet door in the gallery. She was frightened of what it might contain and what her husband would do if she disobeyed, but she was too curious to not give into it. When she opened the door, she saw that the floor was covered in blood and the room was lined with the headless bodies of Bluebeard's previous wives. She screamed and dropped the key in the floor in her fear, but picked it up and rushed out of the room, locking it behind her. The next day, she could have thought it was all a dream, except that the smallest key was still stained with blood. She washed it and cleaned it again and again, but the blood would not come off. That evening, Bluebeard returned and told her that he had received news that his business had already been dealt with. The Bride acted happy to welcome him back, but in her heart she was terrified because she knew he would ask for the keys back. The next day, he did, and saw that the smallest key was stained. Bluebeard asked his wife how the key had become bloody. She responded that she did not know, but he told her he did-she had done as he had forbidden, and now she would take her place in the room she had been so curious to see. The Bride pleaded with Bluebeard, but he showed no mercy. With no choice, she descended the tower to meet Bluebeard in the tiny room. He ordered her to kneel. She did so, and so Bluebeard chopped off her head and put her body in with the other wives. All right, that's over. The story is called Bluebeard, but this game is explicitly about the Bride. There is much at stake for her if she makes the marriage work and she may ignore warning signs to preserve a chance at a better life-just the same, she might try to resist the pretty lie and find evidence. This all depends on the players. quote:You may be wondering how all of you are supposed to play as the Bride at one time. Frankly, my dear girl, you are going to have to share. The psyche of any person is complex, and the Bride no less so. Think for a moment about all of your inner voices. Is there a part of you that may be a little naïve, maternal, or deeply sexual? In Bluebeard’s Bride each of these aspects are called Sisters. Some actions may lead the Bride to be harmed, which deals Trauma either to one Sister or to all the Sisters. If a Sister receives too much trauma, she Shatters and the Bride loses that part of herself to madness. Every Sister may view the evidence differently, and they probably will. The Bride has complex and contradictory feelings about what she encounters. The book informs us this will be explained in more detail later so don't get ahead of yourself, missy. (Exact words.) The last section of Chapter 1 is about the House itself. quote:The house doesn’t have to be a house at all. It can be a palace, a mansion, or an estate. It begins with something basic-Bluebeard's Servants. They are the NPCs you'll encounter in this game. The Bride is in name lady of the house, but many of the servants have served Bluebeard for a long time over many wives and will have little respect for her. Others, however, are victims trapped in the house just like she is. The next section, Keys and Doors, inexplicably discusses the supernatural elements of Bluebeard's house. You can enter a room on the first floor and exit on the third, a window may actually be a mirror, and many other strange things will happen. The keys to the doors are just as strange and fantastical. There is an example of play where a player describes an Aztec-themed key, and the GM describes the door it unlocks in response. The last is tokens of faithfulness or disloyalty. These are small mementos of what takes place in a room. This we've gone over in quite a bit of detail in the Book of Rooms review-there's an ambiguous story in each room, the Sister with the ring decides what the token she takes is and whether it supports Bluebeard as a killer or not. If you think Bluebeard is the killer, you take a token of disloyalty, if not, you take a token of faithfulness. There's an example of play about a kitchen with a Bride who gave birth to birds repeatedly and made them into pies which she served to guests, where the players debate what happened. The chapter finishes off with pretty, pretty art.  Next update, we get into Moves and more examples of play!
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Jul 30, 2022 19:07
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Does the author belittle the reader the whole way through? Being called "child", "my dear girl", and "missy" gets old pretty quick. Or does the author think domming their readers is part of the attempted feminine horror?
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Jul 30, 2022 19:57
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