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FMguru posted:I imagine a lot of pornomancers get into the field because it seems so appealing on the surface: have crazy sex all the time and get magical reality-warping powers? Sign me up! It's only once they're in that the emotional downside becomes clear and by then it's too late: they're hooked on the power and obsessed with the practice. Well, a lot of them also become pornomancers because if you watch the Naked Goddess tape you automatically convert to the religion/cult/whatever it is. Some people just fall deeper into the well than others.
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Jun 18, 2015 16:13
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Traveller posted:This stuff is good. drat, I wish it could be acquired without getting a full new copy of the corebook. You can get the core PDF for free.
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Jun 21, 2015 21:13
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theironjef posted:Best kind of garbage. No one likes cold garbage. We will look forward to it! Also, we're so looking forward to this question we got for the next Afterthought: I always love questions like this, because they really boil down to "I do not understand why people have different tastes than myself."
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Jun 23, 2015 00:53
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I would just like to go on record and say that I have actually, successfully played HoL. Twice.
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Jul 23, 2015 15:28
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Yes, I know I am ridiculously behind on the Torg review again. But for those who weren't following last month's chat thread: Ulisses Spiele (the current license holders) have officially announced a new edition of Torg for 2016. It'll be called "Torg Eternity", will have a streamlined system, and very few new facts are forthcoming. That being said, there was a post-GenCon update today on the G+ group: quote:The cosms will be updated to account for new geopolitical realities. Nippon Tech will be getting a new name. The Living Land IMO is freaking awesome. Baruk Kaah is badass...he's not going to be the Jar Jar of Torg anymore.
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Aug 3, 2015 18:29
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Ulisses Spiele is making a pretty spirited push into the States. They've got Shave Hensley leading up their US branch, they're doing Torg, and they're releasing an English translation of The Dark Eye, which is like the top German fantasy RPG, I guess? Just looking at the free preview for that, it's pretty clear they put a lot of effort into art and production values. I gotta say, the two pieces of art they released are light-years better than the old stuff.  
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Aug 3, 2015 19:25
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Halloween Jack posted:Okay, that Nile Empire art owns. It's amazing; no matter what I can never get Shane Hensley's name right the first time.
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Aug 3, 2015 20:42
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:Jailbreak and In Media Res are two the best one-shots I've ever played in. Absolutely mindbending and terrifying. What's In Media Res? I don't think I've heard of that one. I'd love to run Jailbreak but I feel like you really need the right group.
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Aug 10, 2015 02:09
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Fireborn was a great concept kneecapped by a poorly explained middling system. The whole idea of playing a character that was a superpowered badass in Suddenly Magic Modern London and a huge-rear end dragon dragoning around the landscape of our forgotten generic fantasy past is pretty awesome.
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Sep 29, 2015 15:02
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WaywardWoodwose posted:Rosemont Bay Like, I get that social media posting and work are not mutually exclusive and that sickness can really be a problem when you're self-employed, but if you have time to play FF14 and post about Monster High dolls you can probably post a loving KS update once in a while.
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Oct 1, 2015 16:06
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Lynx Winters posted:Didn't Witch Girl Adventures turn out to be made by some transformation fetishists or something? I remember there was something weird to it if you knew that was a thing, but if you didn't then it never really came up.
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Oct 6, 2015 17:53
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Halloween Jack posted:Masterbook is a pretty fiddly loving system derived from TORG, though thankfully not nearly as fiddly as TORG itself. The only thing it really has going for it is a unified action resolution chart that actually handles different kinds of damage and advantage/disadvantage in action scenes in a pretty elegant way. I might do a brief review of it on the way to reviewing one or two of the games that used it, but it's a pretty boring set of rules. Man, I really need to get back to the Torg review...
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Oct 31, 2015 18:33
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Hey, if you want to possibly get something F&F-worthy or give your favorite reviewer something, why not sign up for the TradGames Secret Santa?
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Nov 21, 2015 03:12
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Halloween Jack posted:Here's the problem: A lot of games, especially ones with rich settings, indulge in the vice of giving you the entire history in one massive chapter at the beginning of the book. This is only a good idea in a game like Eclipse Phase where all of that history is relevant to the PCs and possibly all of them lived through all of it. In other games you get tedious tangents about great disasters, wars between the gods, personal conflicts between NPCs, etc. that happened centuries ago and are largely irrelevant to the PCs and what they do. Fading Suns did it, SLA Industries is the most egregious example I can think of at the moment. I love L5R but oh God is it ever guilty of this too. This is one of the main reasons why I burned out on the TORG review (again); there are a bunch of sub-setting books and drat near every one gives you way too much historical background and/or gets into too much detail about what's happening in every prefecture, territory, or city on the map. They're trying to dill up 120-or-so page books about each realm, but since the page count is so high then end up having to get into insane detail. The Nippon Tech/Japan sourcebook tells you what's going on in the various districts of Tokyo, for Pete's sake. The biggest problem with that kind of detail is that it's ultimately pointless. The players will probably never learn most of it (or won't care), and it's not stuff the GM can get a ton of use out of.
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Nov 23, 2015 18:41
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unseenlibrarian posted:Regarding the LSH tangent:  big enough for that.
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Nov 24, 2015 22:19
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Halloween Jack posted:If there is such a thing as the Siembieda Method, it's this. See also Torg. Even "generic" NPCs baddies have like half a page's worth of stats. I don't think it's a page count thing as much as a consequence of having an inherently crunchy-as-gently caress system (because verisimilitude) and the belief that NPCs have to use the same ruleset as PCs.
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Nov 29, 2015 19:10
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Evil Mastermind posted:I think this may be the first time something like this has been asked in F&F history, but...
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Dec 21, 2015 18:08
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I didn't want Jimmy D either! 
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Dec 21, 2015 18:17
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Play Dirty 2: Even Dirtier Part 4: "Psychopath." (walks up to a podium, takes a sip of water, adjusts his notes, takes a deep breath) Ahem. John Wick, just after the initial 3e release posted:Hi guys. Been a while, eh? Yeah. I know. Trust me, I know.
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Dec 22, 2015 18:29
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Play Dirty 2: Even Dirtier Part 7: "They were all written almost half a century ago, we’ve all heard them, and John Cleese is a lot funnier than you." quote:He has some advice for players. First, don't make him correct your behavior, because he'll get so mad at you. Yosemite mad, perhaps. Oooooooooooo. The other is "no segues", so no Monty Python, no talking about recent TV shows, and no- Never once have I ever felt the need to cut off war stories, or glare at someone checking their phone when it's not their turn, or throw something at a player who's not "doing it right". I guess I'm just not as...dedicated a GM as Wick. e: of course, if the players are invested enough in what's happening, they'll stay focused. Maybe Wick's not as engaging as he thinks. quote:Let's see, he advises games being less than three hours to make sure you don't lose people's attention. Also to end on a cliffhanger. That seems like a jerk move. quote:That's cool, I'm good, tho. He then brings up using tokens to reward good roleplaying, like that hasn't been in every game for the past twenty years. Only he suggests making Hershey's kisses instead and people can eat them (he mentions using these as tokens repeatedly).
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Dec 24, 2015 18:00
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gradenko_2000 posted:I see this kind of thing repeated a lot in this hobby: "no gadgets at the table!", and so on. What I hear from actual (board)game designers is that the latter (using the cellphone) is the benchmark for when the former (losing peoples' attention) is occurring. If I'm running a game and I see people checking their phones, it's not necessarily a sign that I should tell them to put it away so much as it is a sign for me to try to look at why they might be disengaged at the moment.
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Dec 24, 2015 19:12
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unseenlibrarian posted:The best Bram Stoker item is that coffin full of roses that you can just pull out of nowhere whenever badly injured to heal yourself. As one does. Makes sense to me. 
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Dec 24, 2015 23:35
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You know, it's not just the smug satisfaction. It's not just the plan. It's not just the plan against his own (or his friend's) daughter. It's that he's smuggly satisfied about the plan against his own (or his friend's) daughter and that he draws it out sadistically.gradenko_2000 posted:It's poo poo all the way down: the DM gives a player a really powerful ability, then gets surprised when the person acts in a manner congruent with what they'd conceive of if they had that power themselves (roleplaying!). Don't give someone something that you don't expect them to use, and if you feel like it's breaking the game, just talk to the player about it. It's the diametric opposite of Wick's bullshit. The girl basically made Deadpool because she wanted to play Deadpool, and Wick's upset that she's not playing Batman instead.
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Dec 26, 2015 18:01
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Also when people started pointing out how bad The Last Paladin was, Jared Sorrenson got all pissy and demanded that people show off what they've written so people could make fun of it in a two-piece "you can't criticize if you don't create"/"let's see how YOU like people being critical of your work" combo.
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Dec 28, 2015 20:22
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WaywardWoodwose posted:You don't have to be a cook to tell if you're eating poo poo. Also, if someone can't tell you that your game is poo poo because they've never written one, then they shouldn't be able to tell you it's good either.
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Dec 28, 2015 22:56
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Settings that I love but want to fix, you say?  Good lord I haven't touched this since May. The storm has a name... - Let's Read TORG  Part 12d: Welcome to the Kanawa Corporate family! So last time way the gently caress back here, I covered half of the chapter on the current situation in Japan. To wit, the high-level, social view. The next part of the chapter is about the Kanawa Corporation itself. Like all the other invaders, 3327 had to send operatives ahead of time to scout locations, set up stelae, all that fun stuff. But unlike the other High Lords, 3327's agents had a larger purpose: to find companies that he could buy out to serve as shell corporations. The "lucky" company was a small electronics firm called Hechiro Electronics of Osaka, a manufacturer of high-tech mutinions. The company was taken over thanks to the standard economic practice of "use ninjas to kill the current owners", and 3327 assumed the position of CEO through his persona of "Ryuchi Kanawa". Renaming the place to "The Kanawa Corporation", 3327 began expanding his empire. By moving in the higher-tech Marketplace manufacturing technologies (which were faster and cheaper than what Core Earth could do), Kanawa was able to undercut his competition and rocket the company to the largest arms manufacturer in the world. From there, Kanawa started buying out other corportations in other fields. Then he'd set those companies up with the new manufacturing technolgies, undercut that field's competion, and so on. Within a month, the Kanawa Corporation had positioned itself as a major economic power. It wasn't long before the secrets of Kanawa's "new" technologies leaked out to Core Earth companies (good ol' Law of Treachery!), and Kanawa managed to stay ahead at first by manufacturing the cheapest consumer goods possible at as much of a profit as he can. But now that the cat is out of the bag (so to speak), he's relying on a good old-fashioned junk bond Ponzi scheme. There's a few paragraphs about that a junk bond is, given that this was written in the early 90's and most people didn't know what they were since the high-profile stateside schemes hadn't happened yet. That said, the explanation here isn't that great and you're better off reading the entry on Wikipedia. quote:The reasoning goes something like this: suppose you were to invest ¥1 million in bonds with a 10 percent yield issued by Toyota, which for all practical purposes has no chance of going bankrupt in the six-month term covered by the bond. At the end of six months, your return would be ¥1,050,000 (¥1 million + ¥1 million x 5 percent - the 10 percent is an annual rate and you have only invested for 6 months) for a profit of ¥50,000. Now suppose you invested the same ¥1 million in 20-percent yield junk bonds issued by 100 separate companies. Right now, the failure without return rate (the percentage of junk bond issuers that go belly up without being able to honor their bonds issued to the public) of such companies in Nippon is roughly three percent, meaning that three of the companies in which you invested will go bankrupt and that you will lose three percent of the money you invested (or ¥30,000). But your return on the remaining ¥970,000 is 20 percent giving you a total return of ¥1,067,000 for a profit of ¥67,000, or approximately ¥17,000 more than you would have made dealing in "blue chip" issues. 3327 has sold literally trillions of yen in junk bonds in the 15% to 20% interest rate category, creating new dummy corporations as needed to get the bonds out there in the first place and lining his pockets the whole time. On top of that, the Kanawa corporate structure is one large pyramid scheme. 3327 creates new corporations so he can sell junk bonds. But because most of the companies' initial profits are owed to the investors at insane interest, these companies have to come out of the gate earning somewhere in the vicinity of 130% profit. Obviously that's pretty unlikely, so 3327 sets up these corporations in a sort of pyramid scheme. When a corporation's bonds become due, 3327 has a different corporate entity issue its own set of junk bonds, then uses that money to pay off the bonds from the company that's about to default. And where does the money come from in the first place? From the Japanese citizenry, of course. 3327 has used both the rapid growth of the Kanawa Corporation and the current world situation to send people into an investment frenzy: you're not just earning a profit, you're helping Japan stay an economic power in the post-invasion world! By investing in these corporations, you're helping the fight against the High Lords! Through all this, 3327 now effectively owns about half of Japan. Like, literally owns. His biggest coup was managing to take over the Bank of Japan and its subidiary lending houses, giving him an even tighter control over Japan's (and, by extention, Core Earth's) economy. There are a few groups that are starting to notice that something's up, and there's a hacker group that is trying to get Kanawa's pyramid to collapse now before it's too late, but unfortunately these groups aren't powerful enough to be anything but a nuisance. What's even better about this (for 3327 anyway) is that because everyone's so focused on the obvious invaders and scrambling to try and get things back to a stable global position, the rest of the world isn't paying close attention to what's going on in Japan. After all, with most of North America and Europe under new reality management, of course the remaining major economic power would have to step up and fill in the gap! In fact, foreign investors see the current situation in Japan as a huge "get rich quick" scene and are pumping more cash into Kanawa's money engine. The practical upshot of all this is that Japan's economy is in a very slow, very carefully managed downward spiral that leads right into 3327's bank account. And once the whole system reaches the point where it all has to fall apart, all he has to do is jump ship back to his home reality and start looking for a new world to plunder. To 3327, becoming Torg is secondary to earning profit, so as far as he's concerned Core Earth and the other High Lords can go gently caress themselves once he's bled them for everything he can make a dime off of. That's not to say that he's not thinking long-term. 3327 has a lot of plans in place to take advantage of what would happen if the other Possibility Raiders were defeated before Japan's economy collapses under its own weight. The main plan involves, believe it or not, land ownership. Through his numerous dummy corporations, 3327 has been buying territory that has been taken over by the other High Lords. There's a lot of very valuable territory out there that the owners can't use because it currently has dinosaurs, Egyptian cultists, vampires, or God-knows-what on it. 3327 has been buying that land up for a pitance from their owners, and when/if the other High Lords get kicked off-planet, everyone is going to be rather shocked to find out that the Kanawa Corporation owns a sizable chunk of the oil fields in Africa and almost all the mining industry in the States.  "I don't know, I can't read English." The next part of this chapter is about the The Structure of Kanawa, and is a general overview of Kanawa and its subsidiaries. 3327 is the CEO of Kanawa, of course, but he has three board members that are on board with the overall plan and help him keep control of the whole set-up. The first is "Murasaki Yamato", a.k.a. 7710 and 3327's right-hand man. The second is a Core Earther, Saito Horyu. Saito was a board member of Hechiro, and was tapped by 3327 because he wanted a "familiar face" on the board through all the changes. For his part, Saito is more than happy to sell out his company and planet; he's greedy and incredibly bitter due to years of being passed over for promotion in the original company. Saito suspects that 3327 may be a High Lord, but even if he figured it out he'd still be willing to serve. Partially because he's a greedy amoral gently caress, but also because of the third important board member, Isei Sagato. Isei is a highly-placed board member, and is rumored to be the head of the Yakuza. And in this case, the rumors are true. Isei is quite comfortable with the rest of the board being terrified of him, and while he also suspects there's more to Ryuchi Kanawa than meets the eye, he's not going to rock the boat as long as the money keeps rolling in. The rest of the board are basically chair-warmers that the above people don't give a single poo poo about. Next up is a list of the various Kanawa subsidiaries, but for the sake of not boring you all to death I'll just post the structure PowerPoint.  That's not every company under 3327's control, of course. He's taken over other megacorporations, kept them separate from Kanawa on paper, and used them to start new corporate structures in order to keep his eggs in multiple baskets. So far the only real resistance 3327 has come across (apart from the usual array of Storm Knights) comes in the form of the Rauru Block. The Block was formed by the heads of two corporations who found the Kanawa Corporation's meteoric rise and constant new technological advances rather suspicious. Originally, the Block's purpose was to investigate Kanawa and see what the hell was going on, because clearly something illegal had to be happening. Unfortunately for them, by the time they really started digging in 3327 already had control of the government and a large chunk of the Yakuza. Unable to bring evidence to any sort of authorative body, the Block has had to shift their operations from investigation to stopping the Kanawa Corporation by any means. Well, not any means just yet. Right now they're focused on corporate espionage and hacking. Once 3327 caught wind of the Block and their activities, he sicced the ninjas on them. The Block wasn't wiped out completely, but now they realize that they need to start working on a more physical level and has begun hiring mercs and related operatives for protection and sabotage. quote:Currently, the officials of the Rauru Block know that there is a conspiracy involving big business, the Yakuza, and the government in Japan. They know that the Kanawa Corporation is involved in the conspiracy, and they know that other mega-corporations are cooperating with Kanawa (Block members are aware of the identities of the other firms discussed above that make up 3327's empire). Just FYI, both the above two plot devices are never seen again in the rest of the line. Or this book.  Subtle, guys. The book now begins spending a large amount of time and pagecount talking about the Yakuza, but forgive me for not including the stuff you can look up on Wikipedia or in John Woo movies. One of the first things 3327 did when he came to Core Earth was send his agents to inflitrate the Yakuza and bring the whole shebang under his control. Normally this would be rather difficult, but one of the advantages of being a High Lord is access to non-standard methods of persuasion. Such as, for instance, armies of gospogs you can sic on the Yakuza leader when he says he's not interested in cutting a deal. Once the former head of the Yakuza was cut to pieces by unhuman monsters, the new head of the Yakuza (the aforementioned Isei Sagato) was more than willing to join up. Of course, not all the families under him were as willing, and this kicked off the most violent gang war in Japan's history. 3327 and Sagato came out on top, of course, and the surviving Yakuza families were restructured from 20+ separate families down to five large conglomerates. For the most part, the new "families" are kept in line through a combination of the threat of another gospog massacre and the largest profits they've ever made in their lives. There's always a downside, though, and the public perception of the Yakuza has gone down post-Invasion. You see, back before everything went to hell the Yakuza took it upon themselves to stamp down on non-Yakuza crime through the good old-fashioned protection setups. On top of that, it wasn't uncommon for people to go to the Yakuza for a little off-the-record "justice for hire" for things you didn't want to trouble the cops with. Now, the Yakuza are becoming more...well, thuggish. They're not policing their territories, they're not helping people who come hat in hand, and they're dealing more in things like hard drugs and human trafficking.  Lllladies... What's more, the changes are causing a lot of tension within the families themselves. A lot of operatives, enforcers, and lower-tier members don't like how the new restructuing has affected their lives. quote:murai. And now, finally, we get to talk about ninjas! For a page.  quote:Ninja are highly trained warriors who use their knowledge of the martial arts for assassination. In contrast to many other masters of these disciplines, the ninja have involved themselves in the affairs of the outside world for centuries. Japanese history is filled with colorful incidents of assassinations and spying missions carried out by distinctly garbed ninja warriors, though few realize that the legends of the seemingly "magical" powers of the ninja are all true. For centuries, a combination of greed and pure enjoyment of the sport of assassination led the various heads of the ninja temple to accept these missions and conceal them from the membership of the Sons of the Wind. Anyway, one important thing about ninjas is that they know martial arts powers that'll come up later, but (of course!) with one important downside: because ninjitsu is a "perversion" of martial arts, their Spirit stat suffers (not that they say how), and ninjas cannot spend Possibilities on uses of the reality skill, even when attempting to reconnect. Why? Because gently caress you, that's why. And yes, "ninja" is one of the available character templates, and suffers from this penalty. Anyway, 3327 controls the ninja (all the ninja) through an alliance their leader Gazokai. Yes, there's one leader of the ninja. quote:The temple of the ninja is the only domain oftheart which has its own fully functional FAX machine. The next part is about the Sons of the Wind. In keeping with the terrible organization and misunderstanding of the interesting parts of the setting that are endemic to Torg, more space is given to the history of the Sons than to the entiretly of the sections on ninja. Because I care about the schism between two guys 500 years ago to the point where I need a page of history. The Sons of the Wind are basically an organization of good-guy freelance martial arts heroes. They have a very loose organization, being more like a kung-fu version of the National Guard than an army. They've come out of centuries of hiding due to, and I quote, "various martial artists inJapan began to feel a disturbance in the very reality of things." There are only three main rules: 1. Any member of the Sons may call a meeting of the whole organization in order to vote on important matters, or to determine if they should get involved in global affairs. 2. The Sons cannot reveal the existence of the group to the world. 3. Conflicts between members would be settled through one-on-one martial arts duels. Good lord we're still not done with this chapter! Now it's time to talk about Nippon Tech stelae. As stated before, stelae in Nippon Tech take two different forms: as either telephone exchange boxes in the country, or as functioning ATMs in the cities. Because 3327 takes new territory via buyouts rather than comquest, it's ridiculously easy to set up stelae boundaries in preparation for dropping a bridge inside some empty skyscraper under the pretense of normal corporate expansion.  Pictured: reality expansion 3327 is also always on the lookout for eternity shards, and tends to have more success than the other High Lords because, again, nobody knows he's looking. Instead of sitting on them, he sells them to other High Lords at a substatial profit. 3327 employs gospog just like the other High Lords, but initially had a problem where he couldn't figure out the best way to use the giant rampaging plant zombies while keeping a low profile. He solved the problem by converting a Japanese hydroponic plant into a gospog field, and "growing" the monsters into specially-prepared suits of high-tech samurai armor. The armor is completely sealed and very strong, leaving no evidence that there's not a human in there. As an added bonus, gospog are pretty mindless and as a result aren't subject to the Law of Intrigue. 3327 keeps a few near him at all times to serve as bodyguards.  Ew. And except for some small adventures, that's it for the chapter. Finally. Good loving lord this was rough to get through. it's only 30 pages, but as always it bounces from topic to topic, giving too much detail on poo poo I don't care about or don't need. I don't need a province-by-province breakdown of what's going on in Japan. I don't need the history of the Yakuza over the past 100 years. I don't need the 500 year history of a group whose sole purpose is...to be where PC martial artists come from I guess? At the risk of being a broken record, Torg has no idea what the end-user needs to know or cares about. It's just a pile of ideas you're expected to sift through to find the bits that are actually usable. Can you imagine what this game could have been if the writers were more focused? NEXT TIME: Axioms and World Rules revisited!
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Dec 30, 2015 17:26
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The Lone Badger posted:This makes no sense. So he owns a huge pile of Nuyen / other Earth currency - if he abandons Earth then he also abandons this currency. To actually keep the profit he'd need to be shipping stuff back to his home reality that he can keep. That's nothing. 3327 has done this whole song and dance on multiple worlds, but there's nothing about the sustainability of the project or if/how he alters economies to be compatible with Marketplace's. There's a lot of talk about how he sends things from Marketplace to Core Earth in order to build up the Kanawa empire, but nothing about bringing it back home or sending it somewhere else. And you know what? That'd be fine...if they didn't spend so much effort defining every little thing about 3327's plans. But, as I've said before, the more you define the more the holes start to show.
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Dec 30, 2015 21:34
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Midjack posted:is he maybe siphoning Possibility back to Marketplace, or is that not how it works (I don't know how TORG works at all)? The Lone Badger posted:He's almost certainly also doing that (all the Possibility Raiders do). But he doesn't need to make money to do that. I talked about this waaaaaay back at the beginning of all this, but normally the flow of P-energy goes from the cosm to the people then back to the cosm and so on. The reality and the people in it basically draw the P-energy from each other. This loop is what keeps realities "alive" and allows the reality to "advance" and grow. Axioms change by people unconsciously investing P-energy into their world. When a Darkness Device enters the equation, it breaks the cycle. People still invest P-energy into the realm, but the energy that would go from the realm back to the people is intercepted and stored in the Darkness Device instead.  That's why realities taken over by High Lords stagnate; the flow of P-energy is siphoned by the stelae, so the investment from inhabitant to cosm can't happen. So yes, while 3327 is stealing P-energy from Core Earth, he's not investing it in Marketplace. He's just banking it in his Darkness Device. e: Glazius posted:I went back and looked at the world maxims. Law of Profit -- just by having giant piles of money, 3327 can do everything cheaper. It doesn't matter if one pile is in nonconvertible currency, it's still a big pile of money.
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Dec 30, 2015 22:32
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Doresh posted:Maybe he invests in stuff of more universal value, like gold? Or interdimensional Bitcoins?
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Dec 30, 2015 23:22
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The storm has a name... - Let's Read TORG Part 12e: High-level Operational Procedures This chapter is the detailed information on Nippon Tech's axioms and World Laws. This is stuff I always put in the first post for each realm, but I always like to revisit. Plus, you know, it's been a while. Marketplace's Technological Axiom is 24, which is just above Core Earth's. Marketplace's extreme corporate culture has pushed technology at a rapid rate, and 3327 is bringing some of these technologies down the bridge to his realm. The trick is that he has to be careful what technology he lets out to the world at large; things that are above Core Earth's tech axiom would cause contradictions, but not spreading the tech around would result in a poor market. This isn't so much a problem in the realm since everything just seems like a natural extension of current technologies, but as the new stuff gets revealed, it's not hard for other companies to reverse-engineer things and make their own versions. This might lead to an increase of Core Earth's tech axiom if the technologies become too widespread. The book actually breaks down various fields of technology to show where they stand, which is nice because it's the only axiom you can really do that with. That said, remember that is all going to be "high tech" compared to 1990. Marketplace's Medical technologies are incredibly advanced compared to Core Earth, even today. Artificial organs have been pretty much perfected, and are affordable by the types of people who should be able to afford them (i.e., the upper classes). Artificial limbs are almost there, being about 85% functional compared to a normal human limb. As profitable as this field is, it's just a stepping stone on one of 3327's main targets: cybernetic technology. 3327 has a big problem with the fact that Malraux basically stumbled into the highest tech either one of them have ever seen. Cybernetics in Marketplace/Nippon Tech are still in their infancy, and are prohibitively expensive. In an attempt to co-opt Malraux's dumb luck, the Kanawa Corporation has begun purchasing factories and labs in France to take advantage of the higher Tech axiom, and the CyberPapacy corporate world is teeming with Kanawa operatives. It's also worth pointing out that cloning technology exists in Marketplace, but is not in widespread use. Almost nobody knows about 3327's five clone copies wandering around, but nonetheless corporate heads push for better cloning technology because it might prove to be a good solution to Japan's labor force problem. The tech field that's growing the fastest is, surprise surprise, the Military sector. Combat drones and self-controlling robots are starting to appear in modern combat forces. Laser weapons exist, but they're not compact or cheap enough to see real use outside of being mounted on robots defending vital locations. Plasma weapons are still in the prototype stage. It should be pointed out that the Kanawa Corporation sells weapons world-wide for use in the various realities. In order to prevent contradictions, weapons intended for a specific realm are made using materials and manufacturing practices appropriate to that realm. So a crossbow made by Kanawa for use in Asyle can be used without causing a contradiction. Transportation technology has been a boon to the automotive industry. Kanawa-manufactured cars are faster (top speed 280 kph/174 mph), have more features such as GPS and improved safety features, and are more affordable. Air travel in Japan has been improved by the development of "jump jets", which don't need as much space to take off and land, on top of being a lot quieter. This has caused modern airports to be capable of handling more traffic. Interestingly, the only transportation field that hasn't seen much improvement is in actual goods transport. It's just not profitable to try and improve what boils down to large portable boxes above what's available now. It's interesting to note that in terms of predictions, they actually got Communications about right. The "Sony Talkman" is a personal phone the size of an index card. It's not a smartphone, but you can't deny we're pretty close to getting phones to that size. But where they did okay with phones, the game's predictions for Computers are hilariously wrong. quote:Approximately 94 percent of Japanese homes are equipped with a personal computer. The typical home computer system features 32 megabytes of user memory as well as hard copy, communications, and storage peripherals. Almost all home systems have access to one or more computer information networks. Computers are used for shopping, banking and a host of other activities, as citizens try to spend as little time as possible out in the polluted atmosphere. That said, the summary of Daily Life in Japan is actually a bit predictive, if only by accident. The new industrial revolution has been a huge boom to the entertainment industry, with people able to access "thousands of recorded films and video programs via home computer". The video game industry has also advanced, with a lot of manufacturers making laser-disc based games based on the current world situation (like "Lizard-Hunt", a wargame based on the battles between the Living Land and America). quote:And the more traditional video games have maintained their own popularity, also, with complex home units and portable systems available from a wide variety of manufacturers. Zelda V, a video game for Nintendo's 32-bit home system, has sold more than 9 million copies in Japan alone.  There are also apparently flying cars, but they're not mentioned for some reason. The Social Axiom of Nippon Tech is 22, which is also just above Core Earth's. But despite the higher Social axiom, life in modern Japan is worse than it's been in a long, long time. Between the new corporate culture, increased Yakuza activity, and MarSec replacing the cops, the country is in the midst of a serious social crisis. In the months since the invasion, the unemployment, crime, infant mortality, and homelessness rates have more than tripled. The current workforce can't keep up with the accellerated corporate culture, and most workers' skills are becoming outdated practically overnight. And because 3327 has a very subtle control over the government, things aren't going to get any better anytime soon because spending money on social services isn't profitable. The upshot of all this is that the major cities like Tokyo and Osaka have become urban nightmares. Suicide rates, drug use, and crime have all skyrocketed with no relief in sight. The gap between the haves and have-nots widens daily, and the only people who could fix it are in 3327's pocket.   [sub]from Prez #3, a series y'all need to read. Also completely not relevant to Nippon Tech. Marketplace has the second-lowest Magic axiom at 2, just above the Living Land's 0. It also has a very low Spiritual axiom of 8. The world is focused on material gain, and as a result the spirit has suffered in oh so many ways. Magic is pretty much impossible, and miracles aren't much better off. A strange side-effect of the low Magic and Spirit axioms is the strange sense of...wrongness that permeates the realm. Core Earthers are attuned to slightly higher axioms, and don't notice the effect until it's gone. Deprived of the "ambient" magic and spiritual energy, everything feels off. Empty. There's always a feeling of being watched, of disconnection from everyone even in a crowd. People don't make eye contact, and often seem to just melt away into the shadows. You never feel in contol of anything. It's like the feeling of being in an abandoned house, the feel of nobody living there, just writ large. Another strange effect is that the contry is permeated with a thin, cloying fog. It's harmless (although attributed to the pollution now spreading across Japan), but just amplifies the disquieting feeling of the realm. There are three World Laws that drive and reinforce how Marketplace and Nippon Tech operate. As always, everyone in the realm is subject to these laws unless they form reality bubbles around themselves. The first is the Law of Intrigue, which states that deception, lies, and traitorous behavior is easier. The mechanical effects of this are:
Next up is the Law of Profit, which is a more passive law. It states that all goods and/or services bought by "those of means" will cost less and be of higher quality than the goods purchased by anyone else. Once again, I can't sum this up any better than Sir Terry Pratchett: quote:The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Lastly, there's the Law of Vengeance. This law states that revenge is a dish best served cold and fatally. If you take revenge on someone who has wronged you in a serious way, after waiting 48 hours to plan, you gain six possibilites at the end of the act. Ultimately, this all should lead to a world that's a mix of John Woo movies, Sleeping Dogs, Judge Dredd, and Demolition Man. Instead, we got what we got. Talk about wasted potential... NEXT TIME: The moment you've all been waiting for: everybody was kung-fu fighting!
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Jan 1, 2016 22:17
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inklesspen posted:My archive is now (to the best of my knowledge) completely caught up with all three threads, with two exceptions: at some point Evil Mastermind rebooted the TORG review and I skipped the reboot because I would like EM to tell me what to do about that (merge it with the previous one, delete the previous one, etc) e: Oh, and Apocalype World wasn't abandoned, it was finished. Misspent Youth was also finished.
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Jan 5, 2016 19:54
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The storm has a name... - Let's Read TORG Part 12f: Training retreats And now we get to the skills section. There are four Nippon Tech-specific skills. Disguise does what it says on the label, and was actually given in other realmbooks first because why on earth would you make that a skill in the core book, right? Business is your ability to navigate the corporate beuracracy. It's supposed to allow you to make shittons of money, but really its only use is in the corporate warfare mini-game that's coming up in the next chapter. Meditation is your ability to be zen. It's a Mind-based skill, and can't be used unskilled. You can try to meditate at pretty much any time, although the difficulty is higher if you're in a fight or something. That said, it takes 15 minutes to entere a meditative state so it's not something you're going to be doing on the fly. Once you've tranced, you get three benefits. First, you can substitute your meditation value for your Perception or Mind when attempting to solve a riddle or puzzle, unless it's science-based. Second, you heal faster; shock and KO heals twice as fast, and if you meditate for three hours you heal an extra wound level. Lastly, you can go without food and with minimal air for a number of days equal to the meditate total. But that's not why you're here. You're here because you want to learn about kung-fu, TORG style! And oh man is it Torged.  "Modern" Japan. Let's start with the basics. By which I mean unneeded backstory about the Power of Ki. Using "martial arts" (the skill) isn't the same as using "martial arts". Using hapkido or karate technically is considered using the unarmed combat skill. Martial arts is as much about the philosophy of fighting as fighting itself. quote:The martial arts are combat strategies and maneuvers which cannot be separated from the philosophy of the warrior who practices them. In Core Earth, the schools of thought which gave birth to these arts were founded by a group of Chinese monks known as the "Shao-Lin," just over 1000 years ago. It was the Shao-Lin who first theorized about the existence of an amazing store of energy within each human being (which Japanese masters later dubbed ki) and discovered rudimentary methods for tapping these energies and redirecting them into the material world. Which, of course, means we need to worry about axiom limits because God loving forbid we have something that you can just use without worrying about disconnection. Using martial arts requires a world with a Spiritual axiom of at least 7, because that's the minimum level where a spiritual ritual could generate an actual tangible effect. But since the lowest Spirit axiom out of all the available realities throughout the whole game line is Nippon Tech's at 8, it's a completely moot point. You also need a Social axiom of 21 ("Pluralism on a transnational scale is possible, balancing the needs and wants of nations against each other. The beginnings of a “global society” may take shape.") for some reason, and that's a problem because only three realities have a Social axiom of 21 or higher: Nippon Tech, Core Earth, and one more we haven't seen yet because spoilers. So unless you're in Core Earth or Nippon Tech, using your awesome kung-fu stunts can cause you disconnect if you're not careful. Martial Arts is keys off Dexterity, is only available to P-rated characters, and effectively replaces the unarmed combat skill. Base martial arts damage is STR+2, and can be used to defend against unarmed, martial arts, melee, and missile attacks. On top of that, if you're fighting someone who doesn't have martial arts training, you get a DEX+1 bonus to your attacks. You can also use the skill in place of melee weapons or missile weapons, but in those cases you use the weapon's base damage. Martial arts can't be used unskilled (duh), but costs more; the first add you buy, be it during character creation or during play, costs three times the normal cost. Now that's all fine. But that's not the real reason you want martial arts. I mean, we've got ninjas and a whole good-guy kung-fu secret order. What's the fun of those without awesome kung-fu powers? That's where styles, maneuvers, and training come into play. Every martial arts practitioner has a style, which is his or her specific fighting style. Tiger Fist is a style, ninjutsu is a style, jujutsu is a style despite the book stating that "mundane" fighting styles aren't really "martial arts" but whatever. Each style has eight maneuvers, which are basically like 3.Path feats or Fate stunts. If you have martial arts, you have to have at least one style. Once you start learning a style, you can't learn another until you master your current one by learning all the maneuvers it contains. Maneuvers come in three types: minor disciplines, which are your bread-and-butter moves; major disciplines, which are the things that require CG; and master disciplines, which is when you go full anime. Every style has five minor, two major, and one master discipline. On the plus side, the player can create their own style by just picking the moves off the provided lists. There are a handful of pre-made styles, but at least you can make your own. Minor and major disciplines can be used at any time, but master disciplines require spendng Possibilities to use. So let's look at some of the minor disciplines. There are more than these, of course, but let's cherry-pick. Block/Strike lets you, well, block an attack and hit back in the same round as one action. You roll both your defense and attack separately, but at least one isn't dependent on the other. Dagger Dance requires a dagger or sword, and lets you "leap, spin, and lands in a combat stance, all the while manipulating your blade so that light reflects off its surface." All this does is let you use your martial arts instead of your maneuver skill to make someone fatigued/stymied/unskilled for a round. Drop Kick actually isn't a drop kick where you leap up and plant both feet in someone's chest, it's a when you drop to the ground, kick up against a charging opponent, and flip him over you. You can fling someone up to 5 meters away with this. Heart Punch is a vital blow (-8 to hit, damage STR+6) that also forces the target to take a setback. Instant Up is just a kippup. Without this, it takes an action to stand. Ki Punch is useless. It's a punch that does STR+5 instead of STR+2 damage, but when you use it you can't make another attack for three loving rounds afterward because you have to restore your strength. Lightning Fist lets you attack twice as one action, rolling once for one target or separately for two targets. The downside is that you can't Lightning Fist two rounds in a row, and can't use it if you have a flurry bonus (which gives you two actions anyway). Sacrifice Kick isn't much better. This is an actual running dropkick, and is treated as an all-out attack. Since it's been a while since we covered the basics, that means that the attacker gets +3 to his attack total and +1 damage (making it STR+3), but everyone else gets +3 to hit him until his next action. In fact, it's worse than a normal all-out attack because on top of the normal penalty, attackers get +3 to their damage values and the user ends the round on his rear end, meaning he needs to use his next action to stand up unless he also knows Instant Up. I guess the advantage is that you can move and attack? Stone Fist is just a STR+4 damage strike with no downside. Which makes it better than a lot of the other damaging maneuvers, including Ki Punch. Strike does nothing. Like, literally nothing. quote:this is a basic maneuver, relatively easy to master. While it does not have the awe-inspiring appearance that a whirling attack or a leaping kick might have, it is a swift and efficient way of downing an opponent. Sweeping Kick just imposes the knocked down effect if it lands. So nothing really earth-shattering there, apart from how useless some of those moves are. Maybe the major maneuvers will be better? Detect Lie gives you +4 to rolls to detect lies with the willpower skill. Hail of Blows gives you two actions for two consecutive rounds, but after the second round you're considered unskilled (no roll-agains on a natural 10) and fatigued for a round as you get your energy back. Flashback is... quote:when combined with the meditation skill, this discipline allows a martial artist to reflect back upon her training, looking for the solution to a current problem or dilemma. This doubles the contemplation bonus received from meditation, and at the gamemaster' s discretion, may or may not result in a cryptic hint regarding how to resolve the situation. Iron Fist is a no-frills no-downside STR+6 basic attack. Sadly, it doesn't stack with Stone Fist. Weapon Master gives you a whopping +2 to your martial arts skill with a specific melee or missile weapon. Whirling Attack lets you make a "whirling, flailing" attack against multiple targets with one action. You can strike all opponents within 4 meters (13 feet) for STR+2 damage, but only roll once without any penalties for multiple actions and apply the roll to each target. Sadly, you can't do this two rounds in a row, but still. Lastly, there are the master disciplines. Each style only gets one, so make sure you pick carefully. There are only seven, though, so we might as well touch on them all. Cyclone Attack is a stronger version of Whirling Attack with a +2 to hit and STR+4 damage that also imposes a -2 penalty on defense rolls. You can use this every round if you want, but each time costs you two possibilities. Death Touch costs four possibilities, and if it hits the target must make a Toughness check with the attack's final total as the difficulty. If he succeeds he's fine, but if he fails he takes a shitton of damage (Ords take 4Wnd KO 15, P-rated characters take 3Wnd KO 5) and even if they survive that. P-rated targets can reduce the damage, but regardless if they don't get medical treatment in 20 round they just flat-out die. Just as a reminder, characters have 4 Wounds total before they die, KO means they're knocked out, and the number is how much shock damage they take, so assuming the attack hits and the target fails the check they're hosed. Oh, and when you use this attack, the GM makes an attack roll against you to see how much shock damage you take from the "lethal vibrations". Long Life extends your natural lifespan to 20 times your martial arts skill value. It also gives you +10 to attempts to resist natural diseases, but doesn't negate the stat penalties for aging. In other words, it's the trap choice. Power Shout lets you focus you ki into a yell that hits everyone within 15 meters in front of you. It gets +5 to hit and does Spirit+5 damage. This costs two possibilities. Thunder Kick costs one possibility and just gives you a +5 bonus to your damage value when making a basic attack. True Invisibility gives you +5 to stealth checks for two possibilities, but you have to re-roll every five minutes to maintain your focus. Wind Running makes you super-fast (about 200 meters per hour, and gives you +2 to your dodge and maneuver skills. This costs one possibiltiy per 15 minutes of use.  The rarely seen "samurai spaz attack" maneuver It's worth pointing out that some of the higher-ranked disciplines are stronger versions of lower-ranked ones, but the benefits don't stack and there are no prerequisites. If you want your style to have Iron Fist, there's no reason to have Stone Fist too because once you learn Iron Fist there's no reason to use Stone Fist anymore. It's the 3.Path problem of abilities that don't scale with character growth; yeah that STR+4 damage ability looks cool when you start out, but after you get more powerful attacks that just becomes a dead pick. When defining your style, you pick five minors, two majors, and one master. Maneuvers have to be learned in a sequence, so you set up the sequence for the minors, then the majors, then the master one is the last one. So if I wanted to make "Roaring Tiger" style, I could set my maneuver list up like this: pre:1. Minor - Block/Strike 2. Minor - Crushing Block (does damage to attackers I defend against) 3. Minor - Instant Up 4. Minor - Feint 5. Minor - Stun Attack 6. Major - Iron Fist 7. Major - Whirling Attack 8. Master - Thunder Kick Anyway, now that you have the list of maneuvers, you can start learning them. You have to learn the maneuvers in order down the line, and you can't skip over any. And how do you learn your maneuvers? By training, of course! See, for every maneuver you put in your style, you have to give it a training exercise you have to complete (via skill roll) in order to learn said maneuver. If you fail the roll, you can't make another attempt until you put another point into martial arts and find a master of your style who's willing to teach you. When you make your character, you take six "years" of training. For each year, you can attempt to learn a new maneuver. If you make all six rolls, then you start the game knowing all your minor disciplines and the first major one. However, if you tank your rolls, it's possible to not know any of them. And what are these training exercises? Well...you ever see the old Kung Fu TV series? Yeah. Training exercises are also split into minor/major/master, and after you select the maneuvers for your style, the GM assigns them each a training requirement of the same rank. Ulitmately, they all boil down to skill rolls. Minor trainings include: quote:Board Break: to signal that he has learned the corresponding maneuver, the martial artist must break a wooden board in half with his fist or foot. To break the board, the student must generate a martial arts total of 9. A few major trainings: quote:Arrow in the Air: the martial artist must pluck from the air an arrow which has been fired at him. This requires a successful martial arts total of 13. Failure means the arrow strikes the martial artist (the arrow has a damage value of 12). And finally the zen-ness of master training: quote:Appreciate Sunrise: to complete this test, the master sits out and watches the sunrise every morning until she feels one with nature. This requires an ability to be at peace with one's self and the world around one, and a successful Spirit total of 13 to accomplish. Still, flubbed rolls can wind up costing you more possibilities as you try to not miss your once-per-skill-increase chance at learning a new move.  A sample martial arts style It's just amazing how they can take something so simple and make it so unappealing. Martial arts sound cool on paper, but like so many other things in Torg there's unnessesary subsystems and these ridiculous requirements that can result in you either not getting the power you want or rendering you useless. The idea that you can disconnect because you went to Asyle and punched a dude twice because magic exists but that level of physical ability apparently doesn't. On top of that, a lot of the maneuvers are useless or can be made useless by stuff you can get later. You can spend one of your eight maneuver picks on attacks that are worse than your generic skill-based attack. You can fail to learn anything about your style if you roll badly enough. But again, we don't want characters getting too powerful in our game about globetrotting cinematic heroes, do we? That'd just be silly. NEXT TIME: How to run your own megacorporation!
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Jan 5, 2016 20:13
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Night10194 posted:Oh, Torg.
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Jan 5, 2016 20:29
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I am rather proud that I'm going to be the only person who's doing a readthrough/review that spans three threads. (God why did I do this to myself I originally started Torg on April 15, 2013  )
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Jan 5, 2016 21:34
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