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Strange Matter posted:Is Rifts actually mechanically broken though, or just conceptually broken? The lunacy of MDC damage coupled with Simbeida's complete lack of understanding of real-world numbers and statistics is such that what you're doing makes hardly any sense, but is it still playable? If you're willing to engage with the madness does it result in a fun experience? Rifts is an AD&D heartbreaker that tries to be able to model absolutely anything. That's why so much Palladium material is paper-thin ripoffs of other stuff, it's a bucket of stuff homebrewed into AD&D.
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Dec 27, 2018 02:13
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Well, like most heartbreakers and OSR games, the Palladium system is more about the received wisdom method of playing D&D than the actual mechanics thereof. But yes, he's said that it was based on his houserules for the game, if not very often.
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Dec 27, 2018 02:58
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I’ve gotta ask. We’ve heard that Kev likes big parties, and that he doesn’t really use the Palladium system as written. Has anybody here ever played with him, and can they explain how he makes his gloriously crapulent system even run?
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Dec 27, 2018 03:18
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Oberndorf posted:I’ve gotta ask. We’ve heard that Kev likes big parties, and that he doesn’t really use the Palladium system as written. Has anybody here ever played with him, and can they explain how he makes his gloriously crapulent system even run? I haven't played with him, but from what I hear it's pretty close to freeform peppered with "that sounds like a roll, try to get a high number!"
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Dec 27, 2018 03:38
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Based on the Palladium adventure write-ups here and other places, games GM'ed by Kevin sound like they would be the RPG equivalent of the Extended Driving Scene in so many bad movies, except you're also listening to someone do a bad Robin Williams impression the entire time. I could be wrong, but that's the sense I get.
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Dec 27, 2018 03:39
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 Rifts World Book 21: Splynn Dimension Market, Part 3: "This nation is a dream come true for an opportunist and feline slaver like myself." Notable Splynn Merchants Moving on the specific businesses, this introduces shops PCs can visit. While many struggle with loans from the Splugorth or general bad businessing, these are supposed to be the more successful ones that have got and maintained prime locations. There are a lot more than these, mind; this is just a small sampling. Each of these comes with a fairly long fiction chunk introducing the proprietor and a possible quest PCs can undertake for them, giving them a means to earn what they want without necessarily having to pay Rifts' oft-inflated price tags. I'll add those under "What They Want" and "The Catch". Because there's almost always a catch, of course. We can't have any simple, straightforward employment. This is Atlantis.  Thirsty as gently caress. The Water Merchant is a mysterious "sub-demon" that deals in magical and enchanted waters, but also in a variety of other potions and drinks. He also has a seemingly exclusive specialty in selling water charged with magical energy that recharges Potential Psychic Energy to mages, though drinking too much causes hangover-like irritation. What He Wants: Healing water from the well in Chichen Itza (from way back in Rifts World Book 1: Vampire Kingdoms). The Catch: It's under the control of a vampire intelligence (the blobby Lovecraftian creatures behind vampirism), the evil bat god Camazotz, and is also surrounded by monsters and vampires. And none of them know how to share.  "Gun safety? You sure have some weird traditions on your world!" The Antique Weapons Dealer goes by the name of "Old West", and is a Sowki (the three-eyed schemer demons from Rifts Conversion Book) who dresses and talks like an old-fashioned movie cowboy to be less off-putting. He deals in weapons of all sorts, from the practical (mega-damage) to the collectible (normal damage). What He Wants: A legitimate antique daisho from Japan (we're told he'll recognize a fake, for the record). The Catch: Getting to Japan is tricky, though he'll offer to book passage with Horune pirates (the five-eyed monster pirates from Rifts World Book 7: Underseas), who are pretty shady characters in the extreme. In addition, most of the samurai swords in Japan are newly minted and most outsiders won't know the difference.  Hacking the catabase. The Feline Cages is an slaving establishment run by Rassa. He's described as a "boar-like humanoid with bright yellow fur" despite looking like his typical rakshasha self in the art; why he'd even bother with the deception while in Atlantis is even less clear. He specializes in various feline species, sentient and non-sentient, including wuzzles like gryphons and chimera. "Buyers are warned that all cat-like creatures are fierce, agile, and cunning enough to escape even the strictest confinement." What He Wants: Information on Omagua and its mutant cat inhabitants (from Rifts World Book 6: South America). He'd be particularly delighted if the gods who run the city could be defeated or driven out. The Catch: You'd be working for a slaver? It notes that good PCs won't likely become involved with this, but that it might still serve as a hook if they get caught up in stopping Rassa's agents in Omagua. Also, it's just a hard place to find, and hardly a welcoming one.  I want your skulls, I need your skulls. The Bone Merchant is K'Rynn Katar, a c'ro m'age fr'om R'fts Sourceb'k 3: M'ndwerk's. Y'p. (They're evil wizard demons with stingers coming out of their back.) He deals in bones, which is only of practical interest to Necromancers for the most part, but everybody in this setting seems to like skulls, so presumably he deals pretty well in those. It doesn't really deal with his business too much, though, only the story hook. Why are the PCs here, again? Oh, right, skulls, I guess? What He Wants: The Skull of Osiris. The Catch: Set (as in the god) apparently sent the skull to his earthly servant, Pharaoh Rama-Set (of the Phoenix Empire in Rifts World Book 4: Africa), but it was intercepted by a nameless necromancer who bonded with it and went generically insane. In addition, they'll have to deal with disease, "wild beasts", "hostile D-Bees and natives", and agents of Rama-Set.  Your guess is as good as mine. At this point the whole adventure hook idea is dropped and the other entries are more easily summarized:
 "That'll be 20 million credits."
 Nothing hotter than a pair of sweet turtle pauldrons, I tell you.
 "I have made the human porn!" Next: Selling Glitter Boys out of the back of a truck, totally legit.
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Dec 27, 2018 06:40
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Kevin would like you to know that all the ladies in his setting are, indeed, hot. Strange how a man like that could come up with such a wicket power armor name like Glitter Boy.
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Dec 27, 2018 08:15
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When Breaux is given a chance to be creative, his work's kinda engaging. Not that he isn't always at least competent, but it's hard to tart up countless drawings of fake space-magic revolvers.
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Dec 27, 2018 14:51
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Halloween Jack posted:Rifts is an AD&D heartbreaker that tries to be able to model absolutely anything. That's why so much Palladium material is paper-thin ripoffs of other stuff, it's a bucket of stuff homebrewed into AD&D. JcDent posted:Kevin would like you to know that all the ladies in his setting are, indeed, hot.
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Dec 27, 2018 15:10
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JcDent posted:Kevin would like you to know that all the ladies in his setting are, indeed, hot. Once again, I'll note Sumimoto's name is on the cover. Granted, during this period it can be hard to tell when Siembieda's rewritten something (see his meddling in Australia as noted in the conclusion for that). But stuff like the fiction bits and adventure hooks in this section don't feel like Siembieda's writing style at all. Granted, Siembieda has his own issues in regard to casual sexism, too - The Rifter swimsuit issues are... definitely a thing. Also, naming things "Boy" seems like a thing with him - Dead Boy, Dog Boy, Glitter Boy... okay, that's pretty much all I got, but hey. The Glitter Boy was originally named the "Boomer", but the name was changed when somebody pointed out that was a term in the popular-anime-at-the-time Bubblegum Crisis.
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Dec 27, 2018 15:39
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Double Cross Pace Yourself So, I'm going to first describe the Encroachment system in detail, and then we're going to talk about why it's the core of Double Cross and why it's so mechanically interesting to me. So, Encroachment's come up a lot. You can call it whatever you want, but this is your standard 'your magical anime powers come with a price and it's coming due' sort of deal. You start with high twenties, low thirties generally. Your powers cost points to activate, meaning your Encroachment goes up. Encountering monsters and entering dramatic scenes makes your Encroachment go up, though full disclosure this is another rule I missed (Where 'entering a scene', any scene, makes Encroach go up d10 points) and just decided not to re-implement in my games when running them. Failing an Impulse check and giving in to your power source's dark impulse raises Encroachment. You can even choose to reach deep inside yourself and draw on more power, intentionally raising your own Encroachment by a number of d10s you choose as a minor action. Why would you do that? The key to Encroachment is that it's a corruption bar and mana bar at the same time, but it's also an escalation mechanic. As your Encroachment goes up, you get a boost to all stats. All of 'em. At 60, it's +1. At 80, it's +2. At 100, it's +3. At 130, +4. At 160, +5. At 200, +6. At 240, +7. At 300, +8. That's a really significant boost. But that's not all! You also get Level bonuses to ALL your powers, except a few (like permanent stat buffs) that say they cannot receive a bonus from Encroachment. At 100, all your powers get +1 Levels. At 160, +2. +2 to all power levels, with the ability to break your level cap, is an absolute nuts power boost to a character. Not to mention all your ultimate techniques unlock at 80, 100, and 120 Encroachment. So as a fight or session goes on, your power level increases. Encroach going up gives you immediate, significant gameplay benefits. Similarly, enemies, who tend to have irresponsible Encroachment rates because they're demons/heavily infected/crazy False Hearts operatives, get all of these bonuses. The big bad anime villain Professor Caudwell or whoever gets to swagger out onto screen at 240% Encroach, throwing around ultimate techniques and not caring about the narrative consequences because he's already a lunatic. Your PCs have a grace period where they can get their asses kicked around a bit (remember that you can't be permanently put down as long as you can Res, and you can do so as long as you aren't over 100 Encroach yet) while they try to figure out what the hell to do about the guy and he makes some kind of speech about the future of the Renegade Virus and its plans for humanity and threatens to unleash THE INFINITY DEVICE. Then, through fighting, Resing, etc, they reach deep and hit levels of power where they can gang up and beat the guy silly. But they have to be careful or they'll go too deep and won't be able to come back to being human. The gameplay element, solely through its mechanics, creates the kind of pacing and dramatic moment that you'd expect in the kind of superhero story it's trying to emulate. Now, what's the danger of Encroachment? If you're over 100 at the end of a session, you're going to turn into a monster, or be possessed by demons, or join the False Hearts, or have your wisdom clouded by pride and declare yourself greater than the Lord of Hosts or whatever the consequence is in your version of 'dangerous superpowers anime'. The key is your PC will be lost to the party and you'll have to make a new one. If your GM is charitable, you might get an arc about finding and beating the evil out of your old PC and getting them back; I like to have that option open when I'm running. Still, the consequences for going nuts on Encroachment are entirely narrative; you aren't weakened (and are, in fact, massively empowered) in gameplay by Encroachment danger. In the normal game, you pull yourself back from Encroach at the end of each session by rolling 1d10 per Lois, using your 3 Lasting Loises (those important NPCs for your character who remind them they're human) and then adding up to 4 important characters you've rescued or interacted with or whatever during the adventure, for a max of 7 when you put the 3 lasting and 4 scenario Loises together. The closer you are to 100% Encroachment after Backtrack, the more EXP you get, as I mentioned when I talked about EXP briefly. It's a difference of 3 points between 'almost backtracked to 0' and 'in the 90s', though. It's not a huge amount. The biggest source of EXP is the 1-10 for 'completing the mission' and the 5 'participated in the session' points. You can choose to set your Backtrack Bonus EXP to 3 points (maximum would be 5) to roll double your Loises in Backtrack dice instead if you ended really hot. If, after rolling your Backtrack you're still over 100, you can let it stand and go nuts (you still get 3 Backtrack EXP in this case) or you can give up all your Backtrack EXP to roll the dice again and add the result. So this means you can, if you knew you'd need it, roll up to 4xLoises backtrack dice. You can conceivably get back from some really high risk heat with that. So, the Encroachment system is one of the biggest reasons I wanted to do up this game. Encroachment is a genuinely excellent mechanic that paces out a session really well. It creates tension as it goes higher, but it also creates excitement because you actually build up to using your big ultimate powers and you get stronger to match the villains. When you finish a fight with a huge combo that included all your best moves and drags you into the danger zone just by paying for it, it feels like a satisfying finisher to a big fight. Important characters don't get knocked out in round 1, they have Res even if they get unlucky and 'one-shotted'. When you start charging up with that Genetic Shift move (the +Xd10 Encroach Minor action) you're making a risky narrative move that immediately speeds up the fight and gives you huge bonuses. It fits its genre and the exact sort of superhero anime story it's trying to get across, while providing interesting gameplay interactions; managing your Encroachment is a major resource management challenge. Similarly, if you decide you're okay with going crazy and shift yourself all the way to 300 because gently caress it, you HAVE to win this fight? You probably will. You'll get what you wanted at a great cost, because the consequences don't come due until the end of the session. You can turn yourself into a boss fight and then go at someone, with the understanding this is probably a preview for the players having to fight your old PC next week! As an added danger for power mechanic, you have Tituses, named for Titus Andronicus. These are where you A Titus gives you +10 dice to one check, +10 to a check's result after rolling, -1 Crit Value to a check (Stacked with other sources, up to Crit Value 2), the ability to get back up with 10+Body HP even if you were over 100 and out of Res powers because you hate that goddamn Titus or the ability to clear all Status Effects and dice penalties. gently caress YOU, DAD is a very powerful temporary buff, which you get at the cost of -1 Backtrack dice and the fact that a major character relationship that used to define you has broken down completely. You know, little things. Next Time: Items and 'money
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Dec 27, 2018 15:47
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Once again, I'll note Sumimoto's name is on the cover. Finally, some good came out of anime!
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Dec 27, 2018 15:50
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My sense for Siembieda is that he wouldn't bother telling you a lady is hot because it would not occur to him. He'd be too busy telling you how cool a mech or gun or plane is and how many hidden micromissiles it has.
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Dec 27, 2018 16:46
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I wish I could be as excited about anything as Kevin Siembieda is about hidden micromissiles.
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Dec 27, 2018 17:06
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Night10194 posted:gently caress YOU, DAD is a very powerful temporary buff
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Dec 27, 2018 17:31
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Find someone sees in you what Kevin Siembieda sees in a robot with hidden micromissiles.
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Dec 27, 2018 17:37
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Mors Rattus posted:My sense for Siembieda is that he wouldn't bother telling you a lady is hot because it would not occur to him. He'd be too busy telling you how cool a mech or gun or plane is and how many hidden micromissiles it has. I think you're mistaking "writing crutch" for "writing fetish".
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Dec 27, 2018 17:47
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Honestly Encroachment scares me as a mechanic because I'm generally afraid of "take away your character" mechanics but I'll be real and say I was loving blind to not expect it to go over 100% in this anime-rear end anime game.
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Dec 27, 2018 19:08
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Hostile V posted:Honestly Encroachment scares me as a mechanic because I'm generally afraid of "take away your character" mechanics but I'll be real and say I was loving blind to not expect it to go over 100% in this anime-rear end anime game. That's why for my own games we have an agreement that losing a PC to it gives you the right to ask to play as one of their buddies or Loises made a superhuman to go on a quest and get them back. 'An arc looking at how my PC would look as a monster or jerk until we rescue them with feelings and punches' is a legit way to handle it.
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Dec 27, 2018 19:12
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I mean, HP is functionally the same mechanic, just with death instead of insanity. Although I understand why it might feel different.
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Dec 27, 2018 19:30
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Also when you get downed and can't get up, an enemy has to actively choose to target and kill you. So you also have room to get the crap beaten out of you, then get captured and have to escape Professor Caudwell's doom dungeon. Or have your foe give a speech about how they want to fight you at full potential and walk off, etc.
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Dec 27, 2018 19:33
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Aaaand that is also why I am a huge nerd for narrative storygaming these days (with some exceptions).
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Dec 27, 2018 19:34
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One of the other things is DX's authors have the assumption that you won't play the same PC group the whole campaign. Sort of an idea of short term arcs but a long-term playgroup that switches characters sometimes anyway, and switches GMs fairly often. Thus earning EXP as a player so you can make new PCs at higher power levels, go back to and level up old ones, etc. I don't run like this, and it works fine, hence stuff like letting people rescue their insane PC or generally holding off on having enemies go for the kill, but those make more sense when the idea is to produce a sort of comic book series rather than a campaign about a single group. That there are ways to still run a long term one player plays one character thing is really nice. Also if someone goes nuts I will give them a lot of leeway in designing how their old character does and what lines they won't cross, etc, to still respect that player's 'ownership' of the PC. Because I believe breaking that sense is one of the reasons 'I take your sheet you're a VILLAIN NOW!' can be so upsetting; seeing your character that you liked and put a lot of effort into writing taken away and rewritten without your input in how any of it happens would piss me off, too.
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Dec 27, 2018 19:42
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Double Cross is a Japanese game, and designed around how the RPG subculture works there. Everything is more episodic, GM roles tend to rotate more, etc. That's why the GM gets XP, potentially more than the players do, in order to encourage more people to want to take the reins for a story or two. Losing your character due to encroachment isn't really meant to be a punishment like a lot of western games with corruption systems, it's more to encourage you to go hog wild because XP isn't linked to a specific character so if you want to try something new, you can just go out in a blaze of glory and come back next week with a new character that's on the same power level as the rest of the group.
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Dec 27, 2018 20:08
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Reading the scenario sections is really, really weird to me and not just due to the translation. It really is a lot of different assumptions about how play will go. It's just that the game also works fine in a more traditional Western playstyle, which is how I tend to play it. E: A good way to get the developer intent is to look at what they say 'winning' means in DX. Winning is getting a lot of EXP to try out cool new builds and toys with, while producing a memorable session, by word of the developers.
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Dec 27, 2018 20:13
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One thing I don't quite get about Double Cross is how it's implied a lot of the action is secret from the public. I don't know how that's possible given the scale of power involved. I know this is common in a lot of anime as well as in WoD and its followers.
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Dec 28, 2018 02:25
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Halloween Jack posted:One thing I don't quite get about Double Cross is how it's implied a lot of the action is secret from the public. I don't know how that's possible given the scale of power involved. I know this is common in a lot of anime as well as in WoD and its followers. It's a generic urban fantasy/anime thing. Though I suppose when your agency has mind control drug wizards it might be easier to cover things up. At the same time, the first really major outbreak/Parasite fight in the Parasite Eve game I ran immediately went into 'And now the public knows what happened, because this happened in 2014 and was on youtube by dinner' and the fallout of all of it.
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Dec 28, 2018 02:33
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Night10194 posted:It's a generic urban fantasy/anime thing. Doesn't one of the Common powers help with the cover up, too?
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Dec 28, 2018 02:48
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Dawgstar posted:Doesn't one of the Common powers help with the cover up, too? Warding generally knocks out witnesses, yes.
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Dec 28, 2018 02:53
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Night10194 posted:It's a generic urban fantasy/anime thing. It's a bit better explained in one of the other RPGs from the same authors (Which use mostly the same system with a few differences for tone), which just straight up have the magical girl "Oh we're fighting slightly phased out of reality because the monster of the week drag people into subspace to feed." excuse. I'll say that if anything DX is the LEAST over the top of these systems, for what it's worth, too. Sadly it's the only one with anything close to a full translation. Kamigakari (Basically the video game God Eater smooshed in with henshin hero stuff) is the next closest, in that it's somewhat playable. I believe it has an actual translation in the pipe. Night Wizard (Which is very similar to All of Their Strengths in that it's basically 'what if you took Blade and WoD to their logical conclusions' and also the proceeded to have some even more insane anime stuff on top of that) is basically untranslated, which is a pity because it's by far the most absolutely goddamn insane of the three and I love how crazy it is.
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Dec 28, 2018 03:00
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Yeah, Kamigakari got the base book and the first two expansions kickstartered recently. Here's hoping True Regalia of Chronos gets a translation at some point, too.
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Dec 28, 2018 03:18
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I assume Loises are named after Lois Lane, but is that an idiomatic re-rendering of the concept or were they actually called that in Japanese?
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Dec 28, 2018 05:18
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Earlier translations are the same and the translation of Double Cross is very much not localized, so I'd presume it's that way in the original, too.
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Dec 28, 2018 05:28
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Night10194 posted:It's a generic urban fantasy/anime thing. Soon video fabrication will reach the point where people will just go FAKE NEWS at stuff that's unlikely, so urban fantasy settings needed sweat it. When AR comes around and reality completely implodes, most folks will just ignore the blatant vampire/gribbly/whatever walking down the street as some weird outsider art/ad farm. The solution to all the bystanders having the information of the entire world in their pockets is to make them just not care about it.
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Dec 28, 2018 06:27
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In Doublecross and knocking out civilians, I vaguely recall one of the backgrounds is somebody tries to use the NPC knock-out power and it triggers in you your latent Overed response and thats how you find out you are about to be thrust into a world of very literal hot blooded action.
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Dec 28, 2018 06:29
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Barudak posted:In Doublecross and knocking out civilians, I vaguely recall one of the backgrounds is somebody tries to use the NPC knock-out power and it triggers in you your latent Overed response and thats how you find out you are about to be thrust into a world of very literal hot blooded action. Yep! There's also an Enemy Only power (I'll get to those, they're cool) for the crazy copy power syndrome in the expansion book that makes Warding stop working at all. So your bad guy can make sure there are plenty of witnesses.
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Dec 28, 2018 06:44
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Ronwayne posted:Soon video fabrication will reach the point where people will just go FAKE NEWS at stuff that's unlikely, so urban fantasy settings needed sweat it. When AR comes around and reality completely implodes, most folks will just ignore the blatant vampire/gribbly/whatever walking down the street as some weird outsider art/ad farm. that's something that came up in a game I was part of, that much of the magic gets written off as street performance.
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Dec 28, 2018 06:52
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Presuming it's an anime thing, where civilians just plain don't notice things and tend to be all off the streets at night, and are quite willing to accept something is just a guy in a suit or a fancy toy.
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Dec 28, 2018 07:36
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Cults: Clanners Degenesis Rebirth Primal Punk Chapter 3: Cults  CLANNERS Old Ways It starts off with a narrative bit about Chisulo, a Massai tribal meditating on a concrete pipeline: he’s thinking about taking his wife/girlfriends and running away from his clan to join either Neolybians or Annubites. We don't know why he wants to run away, but it would be very shameful, so he stays. He has a wooden spear and an AK-74. The sun is named Ahmahdee and is considered a god exactly in a way you'd imagine once you heard “post-Apocalyptic tribals.”  Probably not Chisulo Survivors After the Eschaton, only those that stayed together survived. Naturally, this lead to regression of civilized ways – apparently, a family that stays together, regresses together – and rise of Clans. quote:The individual lost ground and became one with the Clan. Everyone had a role to play: in the first years after the Eshaton worth was dictated by ability, later, when the cultural decline began, by birth and sex. Those who wanted to make an exception endangered the Clan. Apparently, the clanners love tradition! The book states that Clans basically degenerated to survivalist savagery, and only later got prosperous and cultural enough to allow for the survival of the old and the weak. Eventually, they developed cultures and theology and ideology. So families were the downfall of the Western Civilization after all  Contrast this to the other Cults that can almost trace their lineage back to Eschaton, didn't start banging rocks or worshiping the moon at any point and kept their asses clothed rather than bared. I don't know what excuse the Clanners have for falling that low. Eventually, clans gained names derived from where they lived or what they did, which is OK enough, I guess.  Every Cult-section has it's own art style. For Clanners, it's these neat cave drawings. Nomads Nomad lifestyle arose from the ecological disaster after the Eschaton and the need They still retain the lifestyle. However, while the strength of the clan first rested on the physical power, it later shifted to virility of the men and women (I think this is the second time its mentioned). They also know how to read the ground, the weather... and do haruspicy. Anything from the Begone era – including written word – is basically magic.  quote:If a Chronicler would make St. Elmo’s fire burn across his pauldrons and preach the global conflagration to the Clans with his Vocoder turned up, theywould consider him a god. A reminder that Chroniclers are descended from a bunch of extremely online turbo nerds who only wanted to go back to posting, and still managed maintained a better tech base than the folks who banded together in tight-knit family groups to survive.  Despite clanners being unwashed and not-even-noble savages with no technological base, we get an illustration of Vostroyan Firstborn mammoth cavalry Settled It’s a little unclear, but apparently some of the clanners are nomads, while the others settle down. Why? Because a strain of wild wheat that's “highly resistant and undemanding, thrived in the cold close to the Ice Barrier just as in Pollen’s dry climate” started spreading from the North. Spitalians don't like it: it's similar to the Triticale of the Begone era, but only superficially. This hints at the work of Primer, but while the wheat can carry spores just like any organism, the base variety is free of taint. Also, for some reason, the wheat is called Rain. Go figure. Anyway, everyone loves it, and some Clanners are settling down to try their hand at farming and indoor plumbing. Some even start villages – villages, I tell you! quote:Rules of succession are devised, laws are made. Rules and prohibitions steer life. “You want to marry a Ferropolite? Forget it, son.“ Welcome to civilization. Savages However, “common decency is rare” and the only good Clanner is one that got civilized by Helvetics or Judges. Go beyond their territory, and hills start having eyes: quote:For centuries, Clans whose grasp of humanity has suffered dearly through ongoing incest have been living there. For the Spitalians, these Clans are an interesting field of research, for they still retain some Bygone blood undiluted by inbreeding with a large gene pool. I'm sure the second bolded word was meant to be “interbreeding,” but I can't be certain. So yeah, basically, gently caress your cousin for enough generations and you'll lose all sense of decency instead of becoming a post-apocalyptic Habsburg. However, your blood is untainted... despite the fact that you were exposed to the same conditions as everyone else and not exactly pure, Vault-born stock? Sure, book, sure. However, the Sisterfucker clans are really dangerous, as the book leans heavily on the image of savage hillbillies, starting by mentioning that “Their Shamans, Chieftains or Founders are hulking figures who can unite the whole incestuous Clan with one shout.” They're cannibals who live with rats, decide everything in bloody battles and raid the territories of civilized people. But then the book decides to throw shade on the settler's claim that the savages who attack them are baby-eating cannibals (despite dedicating a paragraph exactly for that). It's actually kind of a mishmash, and the book goes on to say that not all of the raiders are cannibals. Many supposedly spent a lot of time in their valleys without contact with other people; they're actually afraid of the civilized folk who they don't understand and who appear to be very jumpy. So they watch the cities and wait for their fear to turn to hate. Or something. I doubt this really applies to the African clanners, as mentioned in the opening. Next time: Clans-by-Region
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Dec 28, 2018 08:44
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Rifts World Book 21: Splynn Dimension Market, Part 4: "The truth is Crazy Al really is crazy!"   I realize they probably got two art pieces for the tattoo shop and probably just used them both. Semi-Regular Merchants These are merchants that do a multiversal circuit of venues that happens to include Splynn, and usually can only be found during certain times of the year. Others are just those that have other plots or occupations that take their time.
 "Hail to the armor! Hail!"
 I really do love this image. Transient Merchants Lastly, we have short-term merchants out to sell a specific lot of goods and get out. As you'd guess, this includes a fair number of criminals and cheats, but also includes a number of rarities not otherwise available as long as you're not picky where it comes from. Rifts World Book 21: Splynn Dimensional Market posted:One time they may be selling used weapons and the next, Tupperware! quote:Tracker-Woodsman O.C.C.: Wait, somebody's sellin' Tuppinware?! Rather than getting another laundry list of merchants, instead we get some rough suggestions for this kind of seller - antique and artifact merchants, one-off sellers with a tent and giant death machine to hawk, magic items (which may still be attuned to a former user), alchemists and snake oil sorts, techno-wizards (an art mostly just known to humans who get poor spaces due to racism), or mercenaries just looking to get hired on. And that's it! That's it for merchants! We are done, and this book is ov- ... okay, there's still a lot more. Next: Pyramid power, again.
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Dec 28, 2018 09:05
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