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Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry
I was in one of the original Champions playtest groups and ran it for years and year. HERO is a special demonic snowflake when it come to character creation but my god battles can be insane. I love the system. GURPS does low power well, but HERO lets you throw an aircraft carrier.

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Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry

Alien Rope Burn posted:

Honestly I think, like GURPS, it actually works better as a fantasy system or the like, since a lot of the things that bog it down (high Speed, layered defenses, complicated power sets) are greatly reduced. If you limit the scope it becomes a lot more functional, though it's still more complex than it needs to be for most games.

Bite your tongue, complexity is fun! (for some of us)

Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry

Alien Rope Burn posted:

I don't think you don't really need it for supers, it's just RPG tradition, set by games like Champions. There are plenty of simple superhero systems that work just fine. Having really detailed superhero stats strikes me as more of an aesthetic choice, for folks who want to know exactly how many tons their character could lift or exactly how many minds you can fry or whatever, and tweaking everything from their psychology to their salary. But it's not like comic superheroes were ever so tightly defined in the comics themselves, even when Mark Gruenwald & co. were trying to nail down the exact bench capacity of Rom the Space-Knight.

I started with Superhero:2044 then moved to Villains and Vigilantes (which really needs an F&F actually), then Champions, Superworld (Call of Cth-superhero), Marvel Superheroes, GURPS, Golden Heroes, Brave New World, DC Heroes (all editions including Underground and Blood of Heroes), Mutants and Masterminds, and probably a couple I can't remember off the top of my head...I may have a genre compulsion.

Anyway, of all of those, I like Champs/HERO the best, followed by M&M, Brave New World, and scarily enough, Villains and Vigilantes 2nd edition (That's mainly nostalgia talking on V&V however).

I enjoy complex rulesets a great deal, but for some reason I can not stand GURPS except as reference material. Granted, I am an engineer by training (chemical not railroad) so fiddly rules must be calming to me.

Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry

Rockopolis posted:

Kuro from the Bundle of holding sounds like STALKER; Shadow of Japan. It's by the team that did Qin.

I've been running Kuro. It's like Ghost in the Shell meets J-Horror. Really awesome game.

Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry

LashLightning posted:

The annual New Year, New Game sale is up on DriveThruRPG - a selection of Core(ish, 2300AD requires the Mongoose Traveller core book, there's at least one dungeon crawl campaign there but you could always get Dungeon Crawl Classics with it!) Rulebook games. There are some interesting ones, like Numenera, Call of Cthulhu (Got the Cthulhu Bag of Holding? Well now you can get the core rulebook for under £6) and... a german translation of a Black Crusade book?

Comedy Option: Cybergeneration 2ed

Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry

KirbyJ posted:

Current Bundle of Holding is Over The Edge!

I find myself out of my depth on this one. I've barely heard of it, so how do you guys feel about it?

OTE is William S. Burroughs' Interzone the RPG. It has a ridiculously simple aspect based system and is populated with clones of a middle-aged Vietnamese man.

Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry
The Dying Earth is fantastic. Robin Laws before he went completely into the story-games spiral he's in now. (Yes I know TDE is story-games as gently caress.) I loved the original stories and I love the RPG.

Humbug Scoolbus fucked around with this message at 20:30 on Jan 18, 2014

Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry

Swagger Dagger posted:

Don't let it being an old traveller edition stop you, it's still good for the only thing Traveller is good for: rolling up way too detailed planetary systems to play in a different system.

It is REALLY GOOD at getting you super detailed planets and economies.

Only system that was better at system and planet generation was SPI's Universe.

Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry
Masks is the best.

Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry
I still think In Media Res is the best horror adventure ever written, but Jailbreak is really close.

Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry

Evil Mastermind posted:

I haven't heard of that one. What's it for?

Here's the very basic set up:
Plot: Four inmates have been visited by a recurrent dream. In the dream, a shadowy being, who calls himself "the Opener of the Way" (Nyarlathotep) promises freedom if the men choose to join him. Extensive flooding reaches the Liberty Center for the Criminally Insane, where the prisoners are incarcerated. As they are transported to another location, a hunting horror tears the bus apart. The prisoners escape along with a guard. They then hijack the car of Linda and Susan Olcott. One of the prisoners shoots them both and stashes the bodies in the trunk. The inmates sacrifice the guard and complete the ritual, but something goes wrong. Now all of the characters have no memory of who they are or why they are there. All of it revolves around an ink blot on the wall that each prisoner interprets differently.

It was written by Tynes and it is scary as gently caress.

Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry
It was also the only LARP I've ever enjoyed.

Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry
Baron Munchausen is the absolute best of that list.

Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry

Evil Mastermind posted:

This week's Bundle of Holding is Monte Cook's 800-page brick of a setting Ptolus: City by the Spire.



$20 for the PDF and the 32-page player's guide, BTA to get all five of his d20 Books of ______ Might.

e: Apparently the PDF for the core book is normally $60.

I have that book...in hard copy. It is pretty amazing and is suitable for killing barbarians and fracturing toes.

Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry
M&M 2e is really good. (3e, as mentioned, backslid), but 2e still can't handle mega-powerful heroes (Champions for all its flaws still is the best at that).

Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry
Jonathan Thompson is a really great guy and it sucks that this happened. Also his company, Battlefield Press, has a non skeevy Cthulhu in a high-tech society game that's worth picking up anyway. Eldritch Skies.

Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry
I backed Hillfolk just to encourage Laws to put out Feng Shui 2 to be honest. I don't like the game at all. It feels like a rules system for a pretty boring creative writing class. Of course I don't like games like Fiasco so my opinion is immediately suspect on this forum.

Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry
I prefer GM driven plot so :shrug:

Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry
Feng Shui has sort of a scene framing.

Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry
Pre Order On sale NOW!

On a more serious note, R.Talsorian has most of the Castle Falkenstein line on sale. http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/rpg_gmsday.php?manufacturers_id=13&filters=0_0_0_0_0_31817#selectpub

Humbug Scoolbus fucked around with this message at 18:47 on Mar 3, 2015

Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry
But...But... It's now ON SALE for GM's Day! It's discounted vaporware!

Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry

Foglet posted:

And the next Bundle of Holding presents to us The Dying Earth, yet another product designed by Robin Laws.
Which brings before me the traditional question of whether it's any good.

I think it's his best game design since the original Feng Shui.

Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry
Best Traveller version for rules is Mllaneza' s PbtA version, which he needs to finish instead of faffing around with Ad Astra

Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry
I love Champions. Yes I know it's really a superhero wargame, but goddamn, battles can be fun! (and also take forever)

Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry
I hate GURPS rules and love its source books. I feel the opposite about Hero System.

Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry

Evil Mastermind posted:

Amazon is having a big one-day sale on a bunch of top-rated board games and (for some reason) Fate Core.

I'll admit I'm not wise in the ways of board games, but RoboRally for $30 and Tokaido for $25 are really good deals.

Is Roll for the Galaxy any good?

Rivet Wars is a fun minis game.

Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry
DTRPG is having a sale on all Savage World stuff...

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/rpg_systemsale.php?&filters=0_0_0_0_0_45278&manufacturers_id=62

Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry

Evil Mastermind posted:

New BoH is up: "Fantastic Asia".

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/AsiaFantastic

Has anyone tried Qin? I've heard good things in the past.

I've run it. It's a very good game.

Here's the Demo kit for it. http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/11926/Qin-The-Warring-States-free-demo-kit?it=1

Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry

RedMagus posted:

So far the original Bundle of Nerves is the only way to legit buy a copy of "The Final Girl", which is an awesome and quick little game that lets you recreate your favorite 80s slasher flicks. It's definitely worth picking up this bundle though for that, Dread, and Don't Rest Your Head

Deep 7's Shriek is ls also a pretty good slasher flick RPG with ridiculously simple rules.

Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry

Evil Mastermind posted:

New BoH is Esoterrorists; anyone know anything about it?

If you like the Gumshoe System (I hate it) you'll probably like it. The setting is cool as hell (much like Night's Black Agents), but I absolutely hate Gumshoe.

Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry
Absolutely fantastic game. I should roll20 a campaign of it again.

Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry

Helical Nightmares posted:

Some free deals from Modiphius


Hi DriveThru-ers

We've just uploaded some of our new releases as free PDF downloads, including rules for Thunderbirds Co-operative Board Game, Airfix Battles, as well as the Quick-start guide to Mutant Year Zero!

Mutant Year Zero - Starter Booklet

She had wondered too far into the Zone. Tula had walked through the dark forest, followed the old rail tracks between crumbling ruins and rusting train wrecks, towards the glimmering silver disks by the horizon. She wanted to reach them so bad. Become a hero of the Ark. A famous stalker. Now, she would be a dead stalker. If the thirst didn't kill her, zone ghouls or the rot would. That's when she saw them. Scattered across the ground like metallic rag dolls. Machine beings. Dead for decades.Tula had heard stories of them. What had happened here? Suddenly she heard a noise. Growls. Voices. Tula drew her scrap pistol and got ready to fight for her life.

This booklet is an introduction to Mutant: Year Zero, the award-winning RPG by Free League Publishing and Modiphius Entertainment. Mutant: Year Zero takes you to a world after the great apocalypse, inhabited by mutants, robots and mutant animals. Using this booklet alone, you can get a taste of the game, including:

Create a unique character in minutes: play an Enforcer, Gearhead, Fixer of Stalker
Push your character's skills to the limits, unleashing unstoppable mutant powers in the process
Fight fast and furious battles, making every bullet count and using a detailed list of gruesome injuries
Experience three exciting zone sectors, giving you the perfect introduction to the Mutant: Year Zero universe

Free starter: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/188014/MUTANT-Year-Zero--Starter-Booklet


Thunderbirds Co-operative Board Game

In the Thunderbirds Co-operative Board Game, 1-4 players act together as the International Rescue team against the Hood, represented by the game’s mechanics. To win the game you take command of the iconic Thunderbird machines and play together to avert deadly disasters in the nick of time and thwart The Hood’s plans for world domination.

Free rules: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/188106/Thunderbirds-Cooperative-Board-Game


Airfix Battles: The Introductory Game


A fast and fun introductory wargame playable with all your Airfix figures and vehicles. Airfix Battles comes with everything you need to play exciting World War Two battles straight out of the box including die cut cardboard counters for tanks, infantry and guns in case you don't have any figures to hand. Airfix Battles is on sale from the Modiphius store and all good local gaming stores! Get a taste for it with these rules.

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/188023/Airfix-Battles-The-Introductory-Wargame

Free Scenarios: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/188029/Airfix-Battles-Scenarios

Modiphus is also working on a Barsoom RPG now and just got the license for Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons

Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry
I backed Hillfolk for the sole purpose of helping to encourage Laws that a FS2 Kickstarter would be viable. I absolutely hate the system and the concept, but I am a diehard grog so that's probably expected. The book is very lovely and is well organized. There are plenty of clearly written examples and the the supplement has tons of alternative settings and 'dramatic' groups. All in all a good choice if you like creating interpersonal scenes rather than engaging in external conflict.

Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry
I really liked Feng Shui 1, the streamlining they did to 2 annoyed me.

I tried playing Hillfolk. I normally won't say I hate something unless I actually try it (Monsterhearts is one of the few exceptions to that. The whole concept is repellent to me). I like playing in games with a GM/DM/Ref running the show and setting the plot and controlling the NPCs. Games like Hillfolk are the antithesis of that style.

Humbug Scoolbus fucked around with this message at 06:37 on Jul 30, 2016

Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry
Oh absolutely. If that style of game is your bag the Bundle is completely worth it.

Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry

LatwPIAT posted:

A former Leading Edge Games employee came onto the Phoenix Command unofficial mailing list yesterday and said that he'd talked to Barry Nakazono (the owner of Leading Edge Games) and they were happily surprised at the still-existing Phoenix Command/Living Steel community. They're going to go through their remaining stock over the holidays and are willing to send it to fans at no cost except that of shipping.

He also claimed that Nakazono had given his permission to share LEG material on the mailing list, so Phoenix Command, Living Steel, Sword's Path: Glory, and Small Arms Spectrum just kind of went free-to-play...

What where how? I need Living Steel! Where is this list?

Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry
Free and seasonal

http://diegeticgames.com/maccabees-and-menorahs/

Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry
A!C and Mutant Chronicles 3rd are also fantastic.

Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry
People rag on Hero system combats taking forever, but that's not true. GURPS combat I always found to take longer. The OCV/DCV/ECV system is really fast and damage calculation is easy if you can add and subtract. The speed chart is the trickiest thing really and even it gets fast.

code:
Phases
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
S 1 - - - - - - - - - -- --  X
P 2 - - - - - X - - - -- --  X
E 3 - - - X - - - X - -- --  X
E 4 - - X - - X - - X -- --  X
D 5 - - X - X - - X -  X --  X
  6 - X - X - X - X -  X --  X
  7 - X - X - X X - X --  X  X
  8 - X X - X X - X X --  X  X
  9 - X X X - X X X -  X  X  X
 10 - X X X X X - X X  X  X  X
 11 - X X X X X X X X  X  X  X
 12 X X X X X X X X X  X  X  X
I haven't played Champions in 14 years or so and I still remember it. 4E also had that sweet George Perez cover art.

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Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry

Kwyndig posted:

I'm sorry Humbug but that chart looks like nonsense to me and "I never had problems with it" is not exactly a ringing endorsement of a combat system that is infamous for being fiddly and complicated.

Also you can run GURPS combat with three rolls: attack; active defense; if hit damage, with all the numbers being easily accessed as they're just precalculated. You can also turn GURPS into a nightmare of realism if you want, but the core combat system is three rolls and all derived values are determined during character creation.

I've never heard anybody say the same thing of Hero System, it's always "well my group never had problems" or "combat only took us thirty minutes" or, like now "here's this obtuse chart that's the hardest part but it's really simple guys".


That chart boils down to; Do I go on this phase? Yes/No If yes do stuff. Attack is one roll modified by attacker's offense and target's defense. Damage is just d6s. Armor is subtracted from damage. It looks complex as gently caress, but it's really not. I find the system way faster than GURPS for example. I

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