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Pakxos fucked around with this message at 01:26 on Jul 3, 2023 |
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Jul 3, 2023 01:19
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The bit where it gets murky is that Bob's aware they're distinct, but then uses the specific term anarch interchangeably and has 'anarchs' shout 'Sabbat forever'. I think its probably a combo of a hazy understanding of how and why they split and, potentially, some influence from his son's read of the setting and his game. In the postscript for the third book he gives his special thanks to various folks - plenty of White Wolf staffers for answering so many questions, but also his son Matt, who's enthusiasm and knowledge of the setting was a big help. I don't know how old his kid was at the time but since Bob turned 25 in '71 I'd be surprised if he was older than twenty-one or so, and possibly quite a bit younger. Some of the breathless teenage nonsense might literally be his son's game sneaking into the books, which is sort of sweet.
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Jul 3, 2023 01:42
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Pakxos posted:Most likely in Freak Legions. I would like to think most of that was yeeted with revised, but with WW who knows. The closest analog to a current Freak Legion/fomori game (without the edgelord stuff) would be Deviant for CofD. Almost the same premise (you are a poor sucker turned into a monster by the unethical experiments of a Conspiracy), but you're not Always Chaotic Evil by default. In fact, your purpose as a Renegade Deviant is to use your powers to get revenge on the institutions ruining the world. (in WoD terms, imagine a fomori game where you all fight against Pentex. For the werewolves, it's a sacred duty. For you, it's personal...)
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Jul 3, 2023 20:50
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Gatto Grigio posted:The closest analog to a current Freak Legion/fomori game (without the edgelord stuff) would be Deviant for CofD. Ha - I never thought about Deviant in those terms, but yeah it works well. But tbh I wouldn't ever use something like Freak Legions in my game, even as antagonists - my comment was more hoping WW didn't just repeat the same junk for the later Wyrm books.
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Jul 3, 2023 21:32
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By popular demand posted:Glad to have you back Mors. Yeah, I was holding my breath as I caught up on the thread. Thanks for your contributions, Mors!
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Jul 4, 2023 00:32
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 Pathfinder Core Rulebook, Second Edition, part Nineteen, Spells Magic has been a part of D&D from the start, with magic-users and clerics providing spells, the magic-user/wizard stuff often leaning toward damage, the cleric doing healing/buffs, and both having a fair amount of utility, which could more or less eclipse other classes (Do you want to trust the and their 40% trap detection, or have the cleric burn a 2nd level spell and be able to see any traps in front of them for 30 rounds?). While spells range from 1st to 9th level (1st to 7th for cleric in early editions), and new spell levels arriving on most odd levels, your lower level spells often gained potency as you gained levels. Magic Missile sends out an unerring bolt that strikes for 1d4+1, but you add a missile every odd level (capping at 5d4+5 in 2nd and later). Fireball starts at 5d6 damage, but that's because it does 1d6 per level and you learn it at 5th level; your 10th level and above self get to enjoy 10d6 of fiery death. Or maybe the effect doesn't increase, like Sleep, which is going to affect the same number of targets, but duration is 5 rounds/level (sleep was the MVP of AD&D 1st level spells. 4-16 orcs, goblins, kobolds, just lay down in combat, won't rise without damage or serious effort to shake them. Or kill them at a rate of 1/round. Utility drops off, I think hobgoblins were big enough you'd only get 2-8, with numbers dropping, but a 1st level spell that had a 50% chance to take down an ogre?). Ah, but right away we see this is not the way of Pathfinder 2e. You want a bigger effect, you need to cast a Heightened version of the spell. Prepared casters (what we once called memorized) can prepare spells in a higher slot: you want a 5th level fireball, you put it in a 5th level slot. Spontaneous casters need to learn the spell at the higher level. If they want a 5th level fireball, they need to learn 5th level fireball, but they can't cast a 4th level fireball because they didn't learn those. This is where the signature spell feature comes in, letting you cast some spells at higher level when you only know the lower level spell. Cantrips are still around, "weaker" spells but you can cast them as much as you want. Cantrips first showed up in AD&D 1E's Unearthed Arcana, pretty minor effects, the sort of thing a magic-user might learn in their beginning studies. I believe you could substitute four cantrips for one 1st level spell slot, though it'd be rare that you'd want to. In 3E, cantrips became part of the standard loadout, though the benefits were such that you were only using them when everything else was exhausted. Is it worth your action to give a creature -1 on its attack? One of the few direct damage cantrips, Ray of Frost, did all of 1d3 damage on a ranged touch attack. Not surprising that wizards/sorcerers brought crossbows for when the real spells were used up. 5E would furnish each class with some choices for cantrips as basic attacks, on par with a weapon attack, and improving over levels. PF2 might be doing something similar with cantrips, as they are cast at half your level. Focus spells were found in some of the classes. These are almost like limited spell-like abilities. They stand apart from your spell slots, use focus points to cast (which can be regained by refocusing). Your focus pool does start at just 1, though often gaining new focus spells gives another focus pool point. The pool has a hard cap of 3, so that's your limit for casting focus spells in a round. Biggest change to casting spells is, while you have some that have longer cast times (like, it takes 10 minutes to cast this), most of the spells use up 1-3 of your 3 actions, and it's based on spell components. Verbal spell? That's 1 action. Adding Material or Somatic (gestures and movement) takes another action. So VMF will use up your entire turn. I guess it makes sense, not sure if good or bad or just there. Spells take up over 100 pages, running from 307 to 414. I'm not going to get deep into them. I'll highlight a few before moving on. If anyone has requests, sure, I can look at those. First, looking at Finger of Death, because I noticed the effect, "you deal 70 negative damage to the target." I get why D&D switched to necrotic damage with 4E, as that looks like I'm subtracting -70. The 3E spell killed outright on a failed save, while Pathfinder 1 did 10 damage/caster level. A critical failure here would be 140 damage, still likely behind PF1's damage, though half damage on a successful save of 35 is better than you'd expect with the earlier editions. Fireball starts at 6d6, a slight boost for the 5th level caster. Each spell level increase adds another 2d6, pretty standard stuff. Components are somatic and verbal, and wtf, Paizo? Think you're too good for sulfur and bat guano, as was handed down to us from the days of yore? Cure/Cause Wounds are gone, subsumed under Heal/Harm. The basic version is 1d8, with an increase of the same each spell level. You get to choose how many actions to spend. One component/action is a touch spell, two gives it a range of 30 feet and an extra 8 HP restored (+8 per spell level), and three has it affecting all creatures and undead within 30 feet. Provides some versatility to the healer, and for fixing up the party after a fight. Sleep is one of the biggest downgrades, now targeting a 5 foot burst. A creature that fails the save is unconscious for a minute (though doesn't fall prone or drop its weapon). However, a successful Perception check will have the target wake up; it's specifically called out that because of this, the spell is limited in utility in combat.
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Jul 4, 2023 09:30
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srhall79 posted:Sleep is one of the biggest downgrades, now targeting a 5 foot burst. A creature that fails the save is unconscious for a minute (though doesn't fall prone or drop its weapon). However, a successful Perception check will have the target wake up; it's specifically called out that because of this, the spell is limited in utility in combat. The Unconscious Condition automatically causes creatures to fall prone and drop anything they're carrying, so sleep doesn't need to call that out separately.
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Jul 4, 2023 09:37
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The Masquerade of the Red Death - Book 1: Blood War - Part Nine, Chapters 31 to 34 Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five Part Six Part Seven Part Eight Chapter 31 Continuing the trend of jumping around largely unnecessarily, we’re back to Sicily on the night of March 21 (I’ll just note that I’m not sure Bob took into account timezones with his scheduling), with the POV of… Not Don Caravelli, now, but his assistant, Don Nicko Lazarri. Sigh. These names, man. They’re about to have a blood feast, eating ‘soldiers sent by the Italian government to annoy the[ mafia]’ (world is a gently caress, etc), because a fax came in from the States revealing Madeleine Giovanni is in the states, and thus, vulnerable to an attack by the Mafia. Who tipped them off? Why, Darrow – the guy we were told was a spy in his very first PoV character! At least he isn’t working for the Red Death. Caravelli sends Lazarri to America to place a secret ‘blood bounty’ on Madeleine, because it isn’t VTM if you don’t slap the word blood in front of various words. Whoever takes the kill will be given a chance at diablerie and… made capo of America. He also has instructions to ‘solve it’ if the ‘Camarilla Justicar of North America’ objects to Caravelli calling a blood hunt over a personal vendetta. To this I have only one word: ‘what.’ None of this is how literally any of this works! I’ll hold off on a big rant about mafia structures unless people want it, but basically – there simply isn’t that level of organization and control. The chapter as a whole is more of the same Bob. We’re given names and generations – Luigi, the big goon we met in the first Sicily chapter, is 10th generation Brujah; Nicko is 8th, etc. The dialogue is a bad pastiche of mafia movies that lacks any real substance or flavour, and just spells things out. Anarchs and Sabbat get mixed up even more, and Lazarri also has to kill McCann because why not? The only standout part is this:  There’s two things about this that irritate me. First – this gives the Mafia and its sibling organizations way too much credit. Their codes are rarely difficult to break. But second? This is basically a really lovely way to produce a one-time pad that, even then, wouldn’t hold up terribly well to any kind of serious scrutiny because you’re doing it over and over using the exact same method, which will produce a range of predictable outcomes with distinct seasonal variations. Its not even just using a random selection of days in cities across a random period to generate the key, its doing it live daily! You might notice I’m a little terse on the mafia chapters. Its because I hate them. They’re simultaneously bland, tedious, and offensively ignorant, which is almost impressive. Chapter 32 Another jump, this time back to Phantomas in Paris. What’s Phantomas up to? About what you’d expect: skulking in Notre Dame. He hasn’t been out of the house since the Red Death surfaced, and now he’s braving the outside world for essential information. Again – relatable. This is also one of the times where Bob engages with a discipline in a fairly neat way:  This is, as they go, a nice limitation to slap on Phantomas – and for Bob to limit his dolls in any way is pretty rare, too. To top it off, this isn’t straight from the rulebook, so either Bob or one of his sources spent some time thinking on it in the context of the story. In Weinberg’s take, Notre Dame is a repository of some of the most important secrets of the world, hidden away in the sacristy. Phantomas simply walks in, summons the guards elsewhere with his will (which is to say: presence or dominate), and examines an ancient manuscript. I mentioned we’d be getting more of Bob’s dabbles with the Kabbalah, and here we go:  This all gets built up further through the three books, and as they go, isn’t a particularly terrible interpretation of some strains of Kabbalistic thought, especially the forms adopted by culturally Christian left-hand-path groups that put considerable emphasis on דַּעַת and the Qlippoth. In digging into this ancient manuscript, Phantomas discovers the source of the Red Death’s power, which is for now left unsaid. Its an infernal pact with Bob’s cosmic horror version of the Shedim. They’re beings left behind in the broken worlds – a theme that recurs throughout White Wolf’s more mystical texts, particularly Revelations of the Dark Mother – who hate our world for supplanting theirs and wish to restore their own. There’s only one mystery left – who the gently caress is the Red Death? Phantomas has the sudden realization that he saw TRD’s face despite his attempts to distract from it, and better still, that he knows it from somewhere. That somewhere is the Louvre, where he returns – with considerable apprehension – to let his subconscious memories guide him, because he despises having incomplete records (that, and the only way to avoid being killed now is to get an edge, and TRD’s identity offers one.) And sure enough, there it is. TRD is Seker, a methuselah worshipped as the god of the same name in the First Kingdom of Egypt some 5000 years previously. Phantomas has no record at all of Seker, and the only two figures powerful enough in his records were – naturally – Lameth and Anis. His reaction is again very relatable to me – he’s just going to have to hit the books and puzzle out Seker’s lineage, and that’s all there is to it and the chapter’s done… Except. Bob wants get in one more bit about the most unnecessary aspect of the entire trilogy:   Now, you’d think the twins were going to be important with all this build up, right? They keep reappearing and doing stuff, they have weird powers, one is literally the Pharaoh Khufu – surely they must be important? They must play some crucial role in the storyline? Well, they don’t. They exist to be special, infodump, and be deus ex machina tools. Chapter 33 Our exodus from the main characters continues with a return to Vienna and Etrius. He’s in a bad mood – he has six letters confirming that none of the other Councillors, the ruling body of the Tremere, remember St. Germain’s presence at the Tremere embrace. As a brief side note, this shouldn’t be a surprise on at least one front – half the original Seven are dead, and this info (or at least, that a couple had died/disappeared) was already available at the time Bob would’ve been writing this trilogy. Bob takes the chance to restate that for a thousand years, some impossibly powerful force has been manipulating the House of Tremere. Who could it be? How can it be? This could be good material in the right hands, but… Well, its Bob:  Another example of good – if pulpy and gonzo – material with execution that can’t quite meet the very low bar. This continues for a while. All Etrius’s painstakingly handwritten records contain no mention of St. Germain. At this point, you’d expect a moment of ‘wait, what if someone is planting a false memory’, right? Naturally, that doesn’t happen. Etrius simply accepts that St. Germain exists and is the secret master, and must be stopped. Tremere’s no help, and Etrius, as the gatekeeper to the founder’s tomb, must act alone. Again: Etrius is an idiot because at this point anyone in this kind of position not under intense domination should be pausing and going ‘why am I so sure these memories are real?’ Instead, he goes down to Tremere’s crypt, and we get some not-so-subtle foreshadowing of later events:   Then its on to meet Tremere himself, at the heart of a warren of tunnels of mysterious origin none dare fully explore. There’s even – and as memory serves this is not just Bob – a mysterious black stair leading into the deep no one has ever ventured down. Creepy poo poo, and actually pretty neat. I’ve always wondered personally if they weren’t trying to build up a plotline involving either the Black Labyrinth or even Stygia with it, but that’s just my own brainworms and I will spare people the details of what I’d do with the idea. We don’t actually meet Tremere, though. He’s in torpor. Etrius just hovers over his enormous sarcophagus and looks inside. Bob borrows from existing material here for one of the more effective pieces of his writing:  Still not great, but at least its something. Now, is Tremere a giant white worm? No. Its just Tremere, dozing away the centuries. The entire interlude is more or less pointless: all it accomplishes is to show us Tremere is down there, which – though it becomes important later – probably didn’t need to be done in the last fifty pages of book 1, as we hurtle towards the conclusion. Again, Bob’s efforts at his clever-clever structure impose limitations on his writing he can’t really meet, and it throws off the pacing terribly. We now come to the real meat of the chapter – Peter Spizzo, one of the few Tremere Etrius trusts. He has him bloodbound, for a start (I’m sure its fine), and also knows what motivates him: the lust for a position on the Council. So, naturally, he sets Spizzo the task of finding and destroying St. Germain. The reward: a seat on the Council. The way he’s going to get it is really loving funny to me though – not murder, which would be crass. They’ll just make Abetorius, the loser on the council no one likes, resign! I love this. It feels like high school poo poo in a deeply amusing way. But, Bob’s gonna bob:  Golly gee I wonder what that could mean. That’s the end of the chapter. Chapter 34 We’re back on the main story now that we’ve been robbed of any sense of momentum. McCann is hanging at the Lincoln Memorial at Midnight on the 21st, and as always, world is gently caress:  A most unfair assessment of anarchism if you ask me, but the image of Mr. Lincoln with GD graffiti on his tophat really amuses me. And speaking of ol’ Abe…  You heard it here: Vampires assassinated Abraham Lincoln. This isn’t the only time White Wolf put this in print, either! Dark Destiny III specified that it was in fact [/i]Dracula himself[/i] who ordered it, specifically in retaliation for loving up his plans to emigrate to the slave south and live out his unlife in ease and comfort. Bob segues into a lament for American democracy – doomed by the exploitation of the military-industrial complex and literal bloodsuckers – but then moves back to the actual story pretty quickly. Flavia is late, and McCann is worried that Makish or Anis got her. Naturally, he’s certain only she could be responsible for having used Temporis the night before and discounts the possibility anyone else could’ve. But then – Flavia appears at the start of the next paragraph. Again, Bob goes with ‘tension; immediate resolution’ quite a lot. He knows a good story has tense moments of anxiety and puts them in, but can never resist immediately writing them back out again. She’s back in her white leather, because why bother with disguises when the city is burning? Well, the reason she’s late is she had to kill a bunch of people who thought it was a license to get grabby:  This is another of those lines that almost works but doesn’t quite land. It doesn’t quite have a comic punch, which – if used properly and with more delay – could have functioned neatly as the counterpoint to the anxiety of ‘she’s late’. There’s nothing to worry about, though. The death toll from the blood war is at five hundred with thousands wounded, all mortal, with hundreds more dead vampires. Bob here labours under a common misunderstanding of non-staff VtM writers and thinks that all vampire bodies rot away immediately on death – they don’t, they just rapidly decay to the same point they’d have been if they weren’t a vampire, so those hundreds of shovelheads that’ve died means hundreds of relatively fresh corpses or even half-mummified skeletons suddenly littering the streets. But, that’s a relatively minor nitpick, I suppose, and the important part is five more bodies won’t make much difference. At this point, Bob pulls the telepathy card to move the plot along. McCann, a potent magus (of whatever form), has no idea how to find the Red Death. Does he do some magic? Does he use his PI skills? Nah. TRD just whispers telepathically to him:  The ensuing dialogue is the usual. All Methuselahs are telepaths capable of speaking at great distance so don’t bother looking around nearby, Seker assumes Lameth is like him and Lameth is insulted, etc, etc. TRD/Seker wants to talk parley for an alliance, but its obviously a trap. The one interesting bit is the answer he gives to why they should meet:  For all the over-the-top nonsense of it, I genuinely like how Weinberg used the Nictuku in these books. Having a literal existential threat actively returning is a strong motive to take big risks, and while it didn’t need to be quite so physical and the execution is botched, it gives one of the few genuine motives you could get to slam all these action figures together like he does. McCann and Seker agree to meet alone at the Washington Naval Yards at midnight the next day. Everyone involved is aware it’s a trap. This chapter’s end is pretty standard stuff, and on the whole its largely unobjectionable without much to distinguish it except for the bit about Lincoln. Next time: Varney gets an invitation, more of the wonder twins, The Washington Naval Yard Incident, and those two words Madeleine Giovanni was told are finally revealed.
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Jul 4, 2023 13:06
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I almost enjoy Bob's "my only knowledge of the Mob is from The Godfather and not even really Goodfellas" La Cosa Nostra.
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Jul 4, 2023 13:31
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GimpInBlack posted:The Unconscious Condition automatically causes creatures to fall prone and drop anything they're carrying, so sleep doesn't need to call that out separately. sleep specifically says that creatures don't fall prone or drop their stuff
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Jul 4, 2023 15:10
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Yeah, Sleep at level 1 is pretty bad, and isn't that great even at 4th where it goes back to being a combat spell (drops items, doesn't get a perception check), because it's an Incapacitation spell.
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Jul 4, 2023 18:21
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srhall79 posted:Cure/Cause Wounds are gone, subsumed under Heal/Harm. The basic version is 1d8, with an increase of the same each spell level. You get to choose how many actions to spend. One component/action is a touch spell, two gives it a range of 30 feet and an extra 8 HP restored (+8 per spell level), and three has it affecting all creatures and undead within 30 feet. Provides some versatility to the healer, and for fixing up the party after a fight. I want to call this one out especially. In 3.X and 5e, healing is bad and a waste of time. Unless you literally have to do so to stop someone from dying, you are always better off doing something else. This is because a 5th level character casting a heal spell would heal 3d8+5 health (ish, 5e and 3.X have slightly different options), for about 19 health. A typical enemy of this level would deal mid 20s or so, and you're frequently outnumbered by them. The math has extensively been done elsewhere, but suffice to say that it's a losing proposition. In Pathfinder 2e, a 2 action heal is 1d8+8 health at 1st level (1d10+8 if you take a common cleric feat), scaling up to 3d8+24 at 5th level (healing for 38 average), and enemies are hitting for about 15 damage. An average Heal can erase a critical hit, or multiple normal hits. Suddenly, the action economy is working in your favor. AND clerics get multiple free automatically Heightened Heal spells per day, so the opportunity cost is effectively 0. (Assuming you're a cleric with a Heal font, which you should be because Harm is bad unless you're using it to heal undead). Even the 3 action version comes in absolute clutch, able to spend a single low level spell slot to save people from Dying. The Wounded system means this isn't a costless plan, but I've seen many encounters go from "hosed" to "in the bag" by a well timed Heal.
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Jul 4, 2023 18:38
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Infinity RPG: PanOceania Quantity Over Quality PanOceanian military doctrine is pretty dang advanced and its upper tiers focus on not putting their skilled operators in danger by using remotes and remote-operated TAGs...but no matter what, even in this grand space future, war depends on infantry to hold territory. For PanOceania, this infantry role is filled largely bt the Fusiliers, the light infantry corps that make up the majority of the army. Fusilier units can be found anywhere PanOceanian territory exists, generally working closely with heavy support units and special ops. When a new soldier joins up, they always begin as a fusilier trainee. It's quite easy to join, too, with recruiters spread throughout PanO and the only tests to pass a basic identity check and a similarly fairly basic fitness test. From there, it's off to 14 to 16 weeks of basic training, with further specialized training available to focus on a specific role, like the Rifleman Corps for frontline troops or the Support Corps for manning crewed weapons. Once training is complete, the recruit is now a private, and can be promoted in the field all the way up to warrant officer; above that is commissioned officer ranks and further training is required for those. Fusilier units are known for strong camaraderie, instilling a sense of fraternity in the troops. Their training intends to instil courage and teamwork more than anything else, taking a mix of patriots, gloryseekers, adventurous types, people seeking a good paycheck and similar and turning them into a hardened group that can serve as the core of any military action, who will not break or flee. Typically, a fusilier unit is all from the same planet, often from the same province, and serve in their planet's Planetary Army. They are stationed at various locations throughout the Human Sphere, sometimes at an orbital or shop close to a conflict center, but more often on a planet and near a training base or in one of PanO's many cities. Wherever they are, their area of operation will be managed by the local Military Complex Strategic Arm's operational parameters as managed by their base's CO. The commanding officer assigns the units to teams as required for a given operation, briefing them onb their roles, and sends them out. Typically, the teams used for smaller operations are kept together for multiple operations to build unit cohesion and trust, which the Military Complex considers a very useful asset when things get difficult. Fusiliers are expected to remain in readiness for transport at all times, as while command prefers giving missions with a lead time, it's not always possible. We oddly don't really get an overview of most of the rest of the army - just a specific new special ops team. Special operations teams are a big deal for PanO, and the agents of the Hexahedron are known for their brutal efficiency. The army's top special ops team, the Locusts, have no such reputation, as they go out of their way to not develop one. Being invisible is their goal and their motto - Vis Invisibilis, the Invisible Power. They are Hexas agents still, but the division they operate out of is so heavily classified that it has no official name, only a nickname: the Big Nothing. Only the Inner Hexahedron is permitted to know of their existence, and outside PanO, they are generally known only to intelligence agencies that have actually run into them on the job. Locusts operate far outside the lines of conflict as agents of PanOceanian power, behind enemy lines and in deep cover. They are trained to alter their own identities and swap covers at the drop of hat, relying on a mix of surgical modifications and support from Hexas hackers to make their cover identities appear bulletproof. Locusts are recruited almost exclusively from active military personnel, and specifically from Hexas agents, though rarely they've also extended the invitation to mercenaries or civilians that seem appropriately talented. The Big Nothing basically uses the data farming that PanO does so much of to identify candidates who are skilled at deception and lies, have strong instincts for combat and show psychological markers for psychopathic or sociopathic tendencies, as this semi-reliably indicates people who won't worry about moral or legal issues in pursuit of goals. Skill at weapons helps but is not strictly required, because this can be provided much more easily by training than psychological reshaping can. Locusts generally are not people who enjoy killing or causing chaos, however - they're people who can kill without remorse and are willing to cause mayhem to achieve goals, not for its own sake, and they generally are not very concerned with the consequences of their actions on others. Locust candidates are observed for months before they are contacted by the Hexahedron. Typically, they are brought on by a mix of patriotism and the exceptional paycheck they're going to receive. They are usually led to believe they will simply be Hexas agents of the sort that the public is generally aware of - special ops agents, yes, but not ultraclassified deniable operatives. If they make it through training, they are told about the Locusts and what they'll be expected to do - but that's a big if. Locust training is grueling, and mental or physical breakdowns in those not able to handle it are not uncommon. Death is a possibility, though the trainers prefer to avoid it. The training is even tougher than on normal Hexas agents, though Locusts undergo standard Hexas training as well, and at the end, the Locust will be a master of several languages and fully conversant with the customs of a number of foreign cultures, to better blend with them. They will also be an adept killer. After that, they will be given a mentor and sent on a series of missions within PanOceanian space to get them more black ops experience before their eventual assignment to deep cover in a foreign land. Locusts on operation are referred to as "sleep walking," and they are expected to cease contact and maintain cover completely until they are triggered, traveling and acting as a member of the nation they have infiltrated. Their covers are chosen to get them access to useful social groups, sometimes as hackers or infowarriors, sometimes criminals, sometimes politicians or mercenaries or enemy military. They are given initial support to build the groundwork of their role, then expected to maintain it on their own, operating autonomously. Each agent is given a specific trigger key, which can range from something subtle like a specific pattern of interference in a Mayacast, a keyed phrase, or a physical meeting with a specific person. This informs the Locust to go into active behavior. They seek out their mission parameter, usually via dead drop or encrypted quantronic briefing. Locusts do not ever meet directly with their Big Nothing bosses, as they are meant to be wholly deniable assets and intended to be mistaken for criminals or dissidents if captured. Most Locusts operate alone or in only small teams for years on end, identifying each other with subtle hand signals or coded phrases that otherwise come off as just minor tics in normal conversation. When active, they attempt to finish their missions as efficiently as possible, then move into new cover identities and return to sleep walking until their next activation. Finally, we get a brief look at the Knightly Orders, the Neovatican Church's contribution to the Military Complex. No other religion in PanO maintains such a group, and it's made the Catholics very popular throughout PanO, even among those who don't follow the religion. The Knights are iconic heroes, famous and adored for their gallantry. They are commonly shown in Maya dramas as heroic figures...and for the most part, they live up to the hype, which can easily surprise outsiders. They aren't just symbols - they are often at the peak of human physical ability, feared warriors whose skill and faith are famous across the Human Sphere. Most Knights operate only within their own Order, but this is not always the case. The Confrere Knights are those who belong to one Order but fight under the direction of another. These groups are usually organized into Companies, groups of at least one dozen knights, usually operating alongside a small team of Order Sergeants from their home Order, and they are typically found in conflict zones like Paradiso, where maintaining single-Order units is less possible. Sometimes they operate as smaller teams, called Sects, who are usually formed up for very specific missions which they are expected to pursue autonomously. Regardless of size, they are formed at the request of whatever Order is leading an operation, at the order of the Papal curia, or at the request of PanO's government. (Or, as it happens, private organizations that convince the government to request it, but this is only possible when the company or private citizen involved is a major Church patron.) Typically, the Church itself rules on whether a request for Confrere intervention is needed, then sends it out as a general call to the Orders, who will either hand-select Father-Knights to join or allow for volunteers. The Order-Sergeants that go with them are selected by the knights after this. The Confrere group, whether Company or Sect, then musters at a meeting point that is usually a training facility of the host Order and spends a while getting to know each other, both as people and as warriors. This is because the Orders know that interpersonal relations on a team are super important, and multi-Order Companies and Sects have to be able to trust each other closely. The knight named Master and Commander of the operation will typically run several training sessions alongside the briefings of the knights, focused on the likely conditions and opposition of the operation. Sects are generally given less in the way of formal training time and more time for informal socialization and planning, due to the smaller team involved, and often are given greater access to hackers and spies to help them prepare for the operational conditions. Confrere Knight groups are sent on a wide range of different missions, but often they expect to face skilled and implacable opposition. They prefer to operate openly under the banner of the Cross, but they can't always, and using Knights on covert ops is not unknown, especially when dealing with threats like 'exorcism' of potential rogue AIs or when investigating criminal corruption within the church or the PanO government itself. Next time: The Ateks
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Jul 4, 2023 19:23
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Also small PanO addendum, Aleph did one of its 'recreate an AI based on a famous figure' tricks to help guide the Orders and in this case it was the Maid of Orleans herself. Jeanne has worked out... pretty well, as far as I understand.
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Jul 4, 2023 22:12
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Mors, your writeups have convinced me to get the Infinity RPG, and it is wild. Considering my friends have to be dragged kicking and screaming into playing anything other than DnD I'll doubt I'll ever actually get to run it, but it sure is worth perusing for it's own sake. It doesn't just bug the hell out of me like Eclipse Phase, although it seems to be just as weird. sleepy.eyes fucked around with this message at 03:35 on Jul 5, 2023 |
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Jul 4, 2023 22:59
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sleepy.eyes posted:It doesn't just bug the hell out of me like Eclipse Phase too, although it seems to be just as weird, too. The hard libertarian stuff is generally confined to a splinter of a single faction rather than being strongly peppered through the entire setting.
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Jul 4, 2023 23:19
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Midjack posted:The hard libertarian stuff is generally confined to a splinter of a single faction rather than being strongly peppered through the entire setting. Also it doesn't feel like it's constantly presented as the Objectively Right option like in EP?
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Jul 5, 2023 00:08
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Yeah, I picked up Infinity because of your write-up, Mors. I had glanced at it at my FLGS and bounced, Your breakdowns made it a fuckton more comprehensible.
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Jul 5, 2023 01:48
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:Yeah, I picked up Infinity because of your write-up, Mors. I had glanced at it at my FLGS and bounced, Your breakdowns made it a fuckton more comprehensible. Also making sense out of the random chargen rolls was 
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Jul 5, 2023 01:49
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Kaza42 posted:I want to call this one out especially. In 3.X and 5e, healing is bad and a waste of time. Unless you literally have to do so to stop someone from dying, you are always better off doing something else. This is because a 5th level character casting a heal spell would heal 3d8+5 health (ish, 5e and 3.X have slightly different options), for about 19 health. A typical enemy of this level would deal mid 20s or so, and you're frequently outnumbered by them. The math has extensively been done elsewhere, but suffice to say that it's a losing proposition. Yeah, it's a little odd seeing the old Heal/Harm gone (heal all but 1d4 HP/deal all but 1d4 HP in damage), but, heal is a worthwhile thing. Two actions can heal enough that you're not just canceling out one attack. The area heal is better than zapping everyone with a cure light wand at the end (and becomes great in combat if you're fighting a group of undead).
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Jul 5, 2023 02:33
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Midjack posted:If there seems to be an oddly high number of Spanish language influences in a nation that got started in Asia-Pacific, remember that the company that makes Infinity is based in Spain. You’re almost certainly correct that it’s because it’s a game made by a Spanish company, but also I think you’re forgetting about the Philippines.
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Jul 5, 2023 03:16
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srhall79 posted:Yeah, it's a little odd seeing the old Heal/Harm gone (heal all but 1d4 HP/deal all but 1d4 HP in damage), but, heal is a worthwhile thing. Two actions can heal enough that you're not just canceling out one attack. The area heal is better than zapping everyone with a cure light wand at the end (and becomes great in combat if you're fighting a group of undead). Between treat wounds and lay on hands, you have infinite out of combat healing with enough time anyway.
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Jul 5, 2023 03:37
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Xiahou Dun posted:You’re almost certainly correct that it’s because it’s a game made by a Spanish company, but also I think you’re forgetting about the Philippines. Aren't there a ton of links between Asia and Central/South America? Peru has a (relatively) large Japanese population iirc.
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Jul 5, 2023 04:08
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Hypnobeard posted:Aren't there a ton of links between Asia and Central/South America? Peru has a (relatively) large Japanese population iirc. Brazil too.
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Jul 5, 2023 04:26
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I was considering getting into infinity rpg but for now shelved that side. Need to scratch that sf-cyberpunk scratch tho
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Jul 5, 2023 06:19
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Covermeinsunshine posted:I was considering getting into infinity rpg but for now shelved that side. Need to scratch that sf-cyberpunk scratch tho If you're into OSR-like stuff, Cities Without Number is going to be released soon. You'll be able to get a free version missing some optional rules (like magic, if you want to do Shadowrun but with a working system) left out for the paid version.
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Jul 5, 2023 07:24
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sleepy.eyes posted:Mors, your writeups have convinced me to get the Infinity RPG, and it is wild. Considering my friends have to be dragged kicking and screaming into playing anything other than DnD I'll doubt I'll ever actually get to run it, but it sure is worth perusing for it's own sake. It’s definitely just as weird, tho far more anime influenced. I appreciate a lot that the governments are hosed up about in par with ours but with a higher floor for care of the average person, rather than being a space hellzone, though. And I think the planet breakdowns will get more into the ethnic and religious splits. The Spanish stuff in PanO is heavily supposed to be drawn IC from South America rather than Spain, but, well, I don’t know how much that’s actually the case.
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Jul 5, 2023 12:04
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One kind of neat thing for Infinity to me is how they treat Aleph. It is not, I don't think, secretly planning to go Skynet on the known worlds and seems to genuinely want to help but at the same time is certainly not perfect and is invasive by design so I get why people would want Aleph at arm's length. Also sometimes its best idea to help is to make live action anime character versions of historical figures and I can appreciate that (especially because it sort of works).
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Jul 5, 2023 13:49
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Hypnobeard posted:Aren't there a ton of links between Asia and Central/South America? Peru has a (relatively) large Japanese population iirc.
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Jul 5, 2023 16:50
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Mors does not post reviews, they simply repost the entire book. Frankly it's shocking that there hasn't been a C&D filed against SA for posting copywrited material. Why would I need to buy a book from White Wolf or Cubicle 7 when all the details are in Mors Rattus posts? All of you who are saying that Mors makes good posts, ask yourself whether you really like reading the Mors content or you just like reading free RPG sourcebooks in an easy to scroll format? Edit: Frankly the entire thread, Purple included, needs to lay off reposting entire books and focus on actually offering reviews. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST) Speleothing fucked around with this message at 19:48 on Jul 5, 2023 |
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Jul 5, 2023 19:46
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Speleothing posted:Mors does not post reviews, they simply repost the entire book. Frankly it's shocking that there hasn't been a C&D filed against SA for posting copywrited material. Why would I need to buy a book from White Wolf or Cubicle 7 when all the details are in Mors Rattus posts? 
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Jul 5, 2023 19:52
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Speleothing posted:Frankly the entire thread, Purple included, needs to lay off reposting entire books and focus on actually offering reviews.
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Jul 5, 2023 20:05
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Speleothing posted:Mors does not post reviews, they simply repost the entire book. Frankly it's shocking that there hasn't been a C&D filed against SA for posting copywrited material. Why would I need to buy a book from White Wolf or Cubicle 7 when all the details are in Mors Rattus posts? Dude, let it go.
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Jul 5, 2023 20:05
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Speleothing posted:Frankly it's shocking that there hasn't been a C&D filed against SA for posting copywrited material. Mors does not post copyrighted material. As far as I can tell with the books I have that he's reviewed, he's been very careful to avoid that. I may not like his approach, but let's at least stick to reality. Also, we just had this discussion.
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Jul 5, 2023 20:08
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Warden posted:Dude, let it go.
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Jul 5, 2023 20:09
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Yeup. I knew there'd be a report on that post as soon as I saw it and sure enough, there it is. Let's leave this as one more "vote" or pretend it's a polite request for a different style of reviews, but Speleothing try not to be a jerk while asking for changes to the free content people are providing.
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Jul 5, 2023 20:45
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Speleothing posted:Edit: You don't actually understand what this thread is for if you think literally everyone writing up book breakdowns in it is doing it wrong. e- Like to extrapolate on this, chapter-by-chapter reviews are pretty standard in Let's Read formats here? TTRPG rulebooks are certainly in a unique place being part rulebook and part fiction, but I don't think any write ups done here are adequate replacements for the game books in whole. They're decent walkthroughs, but they'd be terrible to use as active game reference materials. It's also pretty rare to see people reproduce charts, enemy stats, characters sheets, etc in whole beyond a "get a load of this" at something really stupid or egregious. And as far as IP stuff goes, maybe there's some edge risk of using very unique terminology or game terms, but overall that's pretty hard to distinguish from wider game rules that can't be copyrighted. The biggest "risk" posed by what's shared here is probably the branded logos or rulebook art over anything else. And even that's not likely to get noticed. This is counterbalanced by the fact that even when I fall off reading this thread, I can tell when some new write up here has everyone fired up because suddenly everyone's buzzing with this cool new game they bought. Because with TTRPG rulebooks the ultimate purpose with one is to get excited about playing/running a game of your own with that book. It sounds kind of weaselly to say "actually these game devs should be grateful for this free publicity" but like... I certainly think people get more out of it and are more interested in picking up the good stuff that gets covered here than, say, someone picking up a random Star Wars EU or Warhammer Black Library book after one of those is summarized. Nuns with Guns fucked around with this message at 21:24 on Jul 5, 2023 |
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Jul 5, 2023 21:06
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I know nuanced, reality-based discussion of mental illness is nearly impossible to find in RPGs, but the PanO superspies who are people who don’t give a gently caress about morality but some of them are patriotic enough to go into deep cover for years is frustrating.
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Jul 5, 2023 21:18
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Deep-dive reviews have absolutely sold me on games here, both in specific and in general getting me to enjoy engaging with RPGs beyond something I just want to sit and play (or fantasize about playing). It's basically the same argument as streaming somehow impacting game sales - maybe, but in a way that seems to improve sales overall. Sure, a review of a poo poo RPG or a stream of a poo poo video game is going to turn me off of those poo poo titles, but as an aggregate practice it has definitely driven me towards things I'd never go for. This idea that anyone's giving away enough of the material to replace a book is laughable. Maybe in the same way that a Wikipedia article "replaces" needing to see a movie. No loving way the people making that hyperbolic claim have actually done it, though. Even a SRD is a bitch and a half to learn to play a game off of, let alone something posted here. Could I in theory do it? Yes, but I'd be putting way more effort in for something that's a shadow of what it would be if I got it from the source instead of someone posting it on a forum. The same way I could in theory take the game fluff from any review here and try to run it in d20 - maybe technically possible, but a lot of work to drastically miss the point.
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Jul 5, 2023 22:27
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Speleothing posted:
My dude you do realize that a brief summary of a book does not equal the book itself? Some Wikipedia articles go fairly in-depth into the content too and everyone is fine with this, not a new phenomenon. I'm off to consume the summary of everything Dostoevsky wrote which obviously will be just as informative and fulfilling as actually reading the books themselves.
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Jul 5, 2023 23:04
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