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

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

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ninjoatse.cx: Apr 9, 2005; Fun Shoe

Covok posted:

I feel this is an uncharitable take. I mean, if it helps illustrate it, the book is basically asking you not to do the equivalent of playing a Japanese game where everyone is constantly talking about tea, always talking about their honor, and everyone is a Samurai or a ninja. It might sound like an extreme example, but I take this as "a lot of our media portrayals are not accurate or flattering so please refrain from it. Also, don't be THAT GUY who thinks he knows everything about Japan because he watches anime, if you get what I mean."

I can get what he's doing, but I still feel it was written from a place of fear. He's afraid of giving people an excuse to engage in redface tropes / dress up, and he's afraid of putting down specific beliefs, superstitions, philosophies, or mythic history, because not all tribes share them. You need to really nail down what your setting is and make it interesting. The elevator pitch of a AI themed game sounds awesome, but none of it really materializes in the book. Instead he gives suggestions of what the setting could be like. There are villages in the Forgotten Realms that have been given more detailed descriptions.

As for game itself...

quote:

This could have been a GURPS supplement

# ? Oct 13, 2023 03:29

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# ? May 25, 2024 13:54

bewilderment: Nov 22, 2007; man what

Megazver posted:

you are a powerful galaxybrain

shockingly, not everyone is good at headturning

I mean I would also go "hm, 60... 07? O? oh I'm doing it backwards" and go look at it the other way, seems clear.

# ? Oct 13, 2023 13:01

BigRed0427: Mar 23, 2007; There's no one I'd rather be than me.

What good Cyberpunk systems or 5E conversions are out there? I know about Shadowrun and Cyberpunk RED, but what else is out there?

# ? Oct 13, 2023 21:01

disposablewords: Sep 12, 2021

I haven't read or played either, but Hard Wired Island gets talked up occasionally and Technoir seems to be well-reviewed.

# ? Oct 13, 2023 21:05

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

Leperflesh posted:

I get (foolishly) stuck on verisimilitude with that sort of puzzle, because to me, while we're all speaking english (or whatever) at the game table, of course the characters in the game aren't. Nor would they be using arabic numerals. We're translating, right? So then, puzzles based on english-spelled words or arabic numerals kind of break that wall a little.

I don't know how to do it a different way though.

They're "actually" speaking the Frump dialect of Argellian, which derived from a trade-pidgin between the old elvish Lethlorrial and dwarvish Krogth around four hundred years ago, and since both of those cultures used base-12, the numbering system is base-ten (to accommodate the local human and halfling populations) but uses the single-glyph notations for 11, 12, 21, 22, etc....

Now, make a puzzle that is somehow solvable by the players at the table using these facts, which I guess they'd all sort of inherently understand and the ones with knowledge: history would have details of? Do I expect them to puzzle over written references I've made, just to try and figure out how to rearrange some letters to make an anagram of one phrase that is another phrase in that language and then just tell them their characters know what each phrase means?

The result is I don't put many puzzles in my non-modern games, which is a shame.

one option I've thought of borrows from that scene in raiders where the old guy in egypt translates the mcguffin, you need a staff so long, but then flips it over but subtract one etc. But that's still not really the players solving things, it's the characters going to the trouble to find a source and the source gives them the right info.

I got stuck on "Yes of course there exist idiots who would carve (clues to, I didn't get the thing lol) the keypad code above the keypad but it's a publicly visible keypad, all it takes is one not idiot to walk past, see what has happened, scrub it out and get the code changed, and probably pull whatever security footage etc. is available to have whatever loving idiot thought it was a good idea to carve the loving key above the loving keypad fired or executed depending on social context."
followed by
"Oh lol it's obviously a trap, that's probably not even a real keypad. Press a button and poison shoots out or something. Because the alternative, where you have a situation where a keypad exists and also a solveable riddle to get the code to the keypad carved out in plain site, is clearly nonsense."

What? Don't be silly, I have no problem leaving my work in the home office.

# ? Oct 13, 2023 21:23

Kestral: Nov 24, 2000; Forum Veteran

BigRed0427 posted:

What good Cyberpunk systems or 5E conversions are out there? I know about Shadowrun and Cyberpunk RED, but what else is out there?

The answer depends strongly on what you mean by cyberpunk, and what sort of stories you want that system to generate. Cyberpunk has the same problem in the RPG space as "sci-fi," where it means wildly different things to different people. Gibsonian literary cyberpunk has had a few respectable attempts made at it; there are various attempts at "Shadowrun but not a mechanical dumpster fire" that have mostly failed; then you've got most of the cyberpunk stuff made in the last 5-6 years which are basically the authors' political manifestos.

# ? Oct 13, 2023 21:25

Mirage: Oct 27, 2000; All is for the best, in this, the best of all possible worlds

Hard Wired Island is great, and probably the most Actually Cyberpunk setting in the past 20 years, but it's not "people in black leather jackets shooting corpos for company scrip on a rain-slick street lit only by neon" type cyberpunk either.

If you like asymmetrical guerilla warfare and thumbing your nose at encroaching capitalism, it's perfect. If you just like using nano-cyber-techno-gadgets with vaguely Japanese names, it may not be your bag.

# ? Oct 13, 2023 21:33

Leperflesh: May 17, 2007

Splicer posted:

I got stuck on "Yes of course there exist idiots who would carve (clues to, I didn't get the thing lol) the keypad code above the keypad but it's a publicly visible keypad, all it takes is one not idiot to walk past, see what has happened, scrub it out and get the code changed, and probably pull whatever security footage etc. is available to have whatever loving idiot thought it was a good idea to carve the loving key above the loving keypad fired or executed depending on social context."
followed by
"Oh lol it's obviously a trap, that's probably not even a real keypad. Press a button and poison shoots out or something. Because the alternative, where you have a situation where a keypad exists and also a solveable riddle to get the code to the keypad carved out in plain site, is clearly nonsense."

What? Don't be silly, I have no problem leaving my work in the home office.

well sure but to put it another way:

Indy remembers, belatedly, that he has to step on the letter I first not J, because "in laten, Jehova starts with an I." This is great, Indy is showing off first that it's a clever trap (because there's a J there, even though there is no capital letter J in ancient or medieval Latin, which presumably the makers of the puzzle knew and intentionally exploited), and second that he knows the answer, because he knows Latin and also has solved the clue (only in the footsteps of God will he proceed).

This is a puzzle that, if we translate it to D&D-land or whatever, the character might solve but the player shouldn't be expected to. How would a player even guess that the antiquated language in use at the time this trap was built had a letter introduced gradually during its middle-ages equivalent (lower-case only), such that it would be both familiar to the reader and visitor then and now, but not correct as the first letter since that letter has to be capitalized as a proper noun and also because we always capitalize the name of God?

Well, with a dice roll, I guess. If they roll well on their Religion or History skill check they remember and if they roll badly maybe they screw up and step on the j. It works but solving a puzzle with a dice roll isn't satisfactory.

The way I deal with this is by using puzzles (when I use them, which was rare) that rely on nonlinguistic clues. Like, shapes, or pictograms or something.

Obviously it's OK to just use english and if someone complains, say "well the puzzle they're actually solving is just analogous to this puzzle you're solving at the table" and this is more of a personal issue than a real problem for most people.

# ? Oct 13, 2023 21:43

Subjunctive: Sep 12, 2006; ✨sparkle and shine✨

Splicer posted:

"Oh lol it's obviously a trap, that's probably not even a real keypad. Press a button and poison shoots out or something. Because the alternative, where you have a situation where a keypad exists and also a solveable riddle to get the code to the keypad carved out in plain site, is clearly nonsense."

at homes for people with dementia or memory issues, I have seen many a locked door with a keypad and a sign above it that says something like �enter current date ddmm to unlock�or even just �current year�

I guess it depends on who the lock is supposed to keep out, and who it is it supposed to be letting in. having the answer be a shibboleth of sorts could result in exactly what the designers wanted

# ? Oct 13, 2023 21:50

Megazver: Jan 13, 2006

BigRed0427 posted:

What good Cyberpunk systems or 5E conversions are out there? I know about Shadowrun and Cyberpunk RED, but what else is out there?

I'll focus on the 5E adaptations.

Carbon 2185 - CP2077-flavored cyberpunk.

Entromancy - Shadowrun-ish.

Genefunk 2090 - leans heavily into bioengineering theme.

Neurospasta, Hypercorps 2099 - two more cyberpunk-ish campaign settings.

Can't make any personal recommendations.

# ? Oct 13, 2023 21:55

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

Subjunctive posted:

at homes for people with dementia or memory issues, I have seen many a locked door with a keypad and a sign above it that says something like �enter current date ddmm to unlock�or even just �current year�

I guess it depends on who the lock is supposed to keep out, and who it is it supposed to be letting in. having the answer be a shibboleth of sorts could result in exactly what the designers wanted

OK followup question, why are the adventurers trying to break out of a dementia ward

# ? Oct 14, 2023 00:12

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

Splicer posted:

OK followup question, why are the adventurers trying to break out of a dementia ward

And now we're back to modules where you wake up with amnesia

# ? Oct 14, 2023 00:14

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

I'll plug Cy Borg. It's a rules-light cyberpunk game (d20, roll high) set in a post-apocalyptic, nyanomachine infested urban hellscape. The setting is fairly generic, but in a completely insane way. Most of the book is d100 tables for what the weirdo in the alley is doing and things like that. It's also an impeccable implementation of the Mork Borg style of design aesthetic. The visual language of the book can be summed up as "loud" and "busy", but it's done by someone who is actually good at that.

It's playable, but even as an art object it's worth your time.

I just couldn't make myself completely fix the typo.

# ? Oct 14, 2023 00:16

Youremother: Dec 26, 2011; MORT

I loving love Mork/Cy Borg but I don't know if I'll ever get around to playing it. The guys who wrote those books really understood the mentality of the sourcebook collector and made the ultimate shelf piece.

# ? Oct 14, 2023 00:30

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
sexually

Youremother posted:

I loving love Mork/Cy Borg but I don't know if I'll ever get around to playing it. The guys who wrote those books really understood the mentality of the sourcebook collector and made the ultimate shelf piece.

*sees Mork/Cy Borg book on the shelf of FLGS*
*begins sweating and scratching at arms*

It's me
:negative:

# ? Oct 14, 2023 00:47

Youremother: Dec 26, 2011; MORT

This is why I collect PDFs, I never run out of digital shelf space. Except when I do

# ? Oct 14, 2023 00:49

Tulip: Jun 3, 2008; yeah thats pretty good

Youremother posted:

This is why I collect PDFs, I never run out of digital shelf space. Except when I do

10tb drive of compressed PDFs of unread RPG rulebooks

# ? Oct 14, 2023 01:08

Subjunctive: Sep 12, 2006; ✨sparkle and shine✨

Splicer posted:

OK followup question, why are the adventurers trying to break out of a dementia ward

To get to the other side.

# ? Oct 14, 2023 01:13

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

Cities Without Numbers is pretty good, and is very customizable if you wanna do Shadowrun.

# ? Oct 14, 2023 01:32

hot cocoa on the couch: Dec 8, 2009

Youremother posted:

This is why I collect PDFs, I never run out of digital shelf space. Except when I do

i do this with tt wargames. some of them i eventually play. probably about 2% is my rate atm

# ? Oct 14, 2023 01:59

Well Played Mauer: Jun 1, 2003; We'll always have Cabo

The two modern games I�ve actually run are Cyberpunk RED and Carbon 2185. Short reviews of these two:

RED is cool - it�s got some crunch in the right places, like gun play and cyberware, but reduces the insane complexity of Cyberpunk 2020 in some good ways. Netrunning is much quicker and they have to be onsite to hack, damage is more general than before, etc. 2045 is less corporate dominated than 2020, but Night City is a very compelling setting nonetheless.

Carbon 2185 has two strengths: it�s based on 5E so your friends don�t have to be afraid of really trying something new/there�s a lot of familiarity in there. The other strength is its set farther in the future than most Cyberpunk, which gives it a little more novelty, but it�s still mostly chrome and poo poo.

I didn�t find the 5E mechanics deadly enough for the genre and the skill system outside of combat was � 5E.

The next one I�m excited to try is a|state, which is a FitD hack that makes your neighborhood the party character. It�s a lot more of a sandbox to define the setting so your group can define the flavor of cyberpunk it wants. The RED game I ran, the premise was they were trying to save their neighborhood from corporate and gang encroachment so the fact there�s an entire game system built around the concept is really exciting for me.

# ? Oct 14, 2023 02:19

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

mllaneza posted:

I'll plug Cy Borg. It's a rules-light cyberpunk game (d20, roll high) set in a post-apocalyptic, nyanomachine infested urban hellscape. The setting is fairly generic, but in a completely insane way. Most of the book is d100 tables for what the weirdo in the alley is doing and things like that. It's also an impeccable implementation of the Mork Borg style of design aesthetic. The visual language of the book can be summed up as "loud" and "busy", but it's done by someone who is actually good at that.

It's playable, but even as an art object it's worth your time.

I just couldn't make myself completely fix the typo.

It's also explicitly Anti-Cop which is a good thing for a Cyberpunk type game made in the present day

# ? Oct 14, 2023 02:34

Tulip: Jun 3, 2008; yeah thats pretty good

I've played the Shadowrun-in-BITD game (Runners in the Shadows) which is honestly a pretty good tonal match but its hard not to feel like you're just playing worse BITD. Which is more a testament to how good BITD is than anything else.

hot cocoa on the couch posted:

i do this with tt wargames. some of them i eventually play. probably about 2% is my rate atm

not bad not bad

# ? Oct 14, 2023 02:48

DalaranJ: Apr 15, 2008; Yosuke will now die for you.

Splicer posted:

OK followup question, why are the adventurers trying to break out of a dementia ward

Oh, are we talking about call of Cthulhu scenarios now?

# ? Oct 14, 2023 02:57

Helical Nightmares: Apr 30, 2009

hot cocoa on the couch posted:

i do this with tt wargames. some of them i eventually play. probably about 2% is my rate atm

Right there with you.

:negative:

Edit:

Well Played Mauer posted:

The next one I�m excited to try is a|state, which is a FitD hack that makes your neighborhood the party character.

I'd love for you to expand on this.

# ? Oct 14, 2023 04:15

Admiralty Flag: Jun 7, 2007; to ride eternal, shiny and chrome

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2022

Helical Nightmares posted:

Right there with you.

Edit:

I'd love for you to expand on this.

I'm assuming it's the shared 'character,' like the crew in BitD or the ship in S&V, that's the 'framework' for the team, in that no one player owns it, but it has upgrades/abilities/characteristics that feed into play and that have to be mutually decided upon by the group.

# ? Oct 14, 2023 05:49

ninjoatse.cx: Apr 9, 2005; Fun Shoe

Admiralty Flag posted:

I'm assuming it's the shared 'character,' like the crew in BitD or the ship in S&V, that's the 'framework' for the team, in that no one player owns it, but it has upgrades/abilities/characteristics that feed into play and that have to be mutually decided upon by the group.

oh, that's much less novel

# ? Oct 14, 2023 06:34

Xiahou Dun: Jul 16, 2009; We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.

It�s still an awesome mechanic and something more games should do.

# ? Oct 14, 2023 06:39

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

Got my third Borg game with Pirate Borg and it might be the best so far. I need to convince my friends to give one of them a shot.

I also wish I could get the japanes only one, Nobunaga�s Demon Castle.

# ? Oct 14, 2023 06:50

ninjoatse.cx: Apr 9, 2005; Fun Shoe

Xiahou Dun posted:

It�s still an awesome mechanic and something more games should do.

My favorite base advancement mechanic was the chancels in Nobilis. They were such a cool idea but my group was such a bunch of wieners that they never came up with anything cool.

# ? Oct 14, 2023 06:57

trapstar: Jun 30, 2012; Yo tengo un par de ideas.

Just rewatched Honor Among Thieves. I hope they make a sequel.

# ? Oct 14, 2023 08:25

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

So Palladium just announced they're doing a Kickstarter for a new release of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness at the end of the month and I'll admit I am a little excited about that even if it is still Palladium

# ? Oct 14, 2023 09:26

Hel: Oct 9, 2012; Jokatgulm is tedium.
Jokatgulm is pain.
Jokatgulm is suffering.

drrockso20 posted:

So Palladium just announced they're doing a Kickstarter for a new release of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness at the end of the month and I'll admit I am a little excited about that even if it is still Palladium

Trying to get into that Mutants in the now money?

# ? Oct 14, 2023 09:36

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

Hel posted:

Trying to get into that Mutants in the now money?

Nickelodeon has been pushing TMNT as a franchise pretty hard lately so I imagine it's more on their end than Palladium's

# ? Oct 14, 2023 09:52

Vulpes Vulpes: Apr 28, 2013; "...for you, it is all over...!"

MonsieurChoc posted:

Got my third Borg game with Pirate Borg and it might be the best so far. I need to convince my friends to give one of them a shot.

I also wish I could get the japanes only one, Nobunaga�s Demon Castle.

There's a Pirate Borg!?!?

drrockso20 posted:

So Palladium just announced they're doing a Kickstarter for a new release of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness at the end of the month and I'll admit I am a little excited about that even if it is still Palladium

I wish I could get excited for this, but already owning the original, I can't see it being anything other than that but with newer, worse art.

# ? Oct 14, 2023 13:23

Well Played Mauer: Jun 1, 2003; We'll always have Cabo

Helical Nightmares posted:

I'd love for you to expand on this.

Pretty much what others described. Your neighborhood, or corner as the game calls it, is the shared sheet the crew builds together. The concept of the game is your crew is trying to protect and grow your corner in a sea of cyberpunk despair. Not revolutionary but a cool take on the shared character from FitD.

I like it because it�s more activist than what you get fresh out the R Talsorian/Shadowrun box and FitD is a system I really like. I�ll probably move my RED game over to this system and keep it in Night City next time my group drifts back to cyberpunk.

# ? Oct 14, 2023 13:38

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

Vulpes Vulpes posted:

There's a Pirate Borg!?!?

https://www.limithron.com/pirateborg

It's really good.

# ? Oct 14, 2023 14:52

Dawgstar: Jul 15, 2017

Vulpes Vulpes posted:

I wish I could get excited for this, but already owning the original, I can't see it being anything other than that but with newer, worse art.

Yeah, in theory they could in part be raising KS funds to get people like Jim Lawson or even Peter Laird back, to say nothing of new TMNT artists like the very talented Sophie Cambpell - even if Alien Rope Burn beat them to the punch with that one - but this is Kevin.

# ? Oct 14, 2023 15:00

ninjoatse.cx: Apr 9, 2005; Fun Shoe

drrockso20 posted:

So Palladium just announced they're doing a Kickstarter for a new release of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness at the end of the month and I'll admit I am a little excited about that even if it is still Palladium

TMNT&os was my first TTRPG :allears:

It was also my first disappointment because you could never be as cool or as good as the Ninja Turtles in the book. Like, not even close, by any stretch. You were pretty much malt-o-meal versions of the supporting cast.

# ? Oct 14, 2023 17:22

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# ? May 25, 2024 13:54

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

Dawgstar posted:

Yeah, in theory they could in part be raising KS funds to get people like Jim Lawson or even Peter Laird back, to say nothing of new TMNT artists like the very talented Sophie Cambpell - even if Alien Rope Burn beat them to the punch with that one - but this is Kevin.

That is actually what they are planning on doing, says so in the press release they put out yesterday;

https://palladiumbooks.com/about-palladium-2/weekly-updates/1342-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-other-strangeness-role-playing-game-is-back-2

# ? Oct 14, 2023 20:55

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

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