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I legitimately enjoyed the bits of the WLD my group played. Region K or L sounds about where we stopped (due to scheduling conflicts rather than frustration). Only now am I beginning to realize just how much our DM edited, tweaked or just removed altogether. It sounds like running this as written will kill 3/4s of the PCs before they clear region A, if not more. You can't really excuse this poo poo as an attempt to make a new Tomb of Horrors. First, because all the stupid deathtraps in that adventure exist to stifle parties who aren't weighed down under the horde of arbitrary restrictions imposed by the WLD. Second--more importantly--it wasn't bloody marketed that way. I remember the ads for this thing. They didn't say '16 modules to use as convention meat grinders (which are also loosely connected if you want to make it a last team to fall thing).' They said 'we made the world's largest dungeon, containing every entry in the Monstrous Manual, and it's all one big campaign for your group!' In retrospect it all comes off as remarkably disingenuous, doubly so at the price they were asking. A lot of the regions smell like they started life as independent adventure, later combined to make them easier to market. (Which makes the lack of playtesting even more egregious.)
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Jan 26, 2014 02:25
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Not coincidentally, Region I was also my favorite of the areas our group explored. It actually works thematically: you are basically in a Resident Evil game with the D&D equivalent of the Tyrant on your rear end 24/7. Your best hope of shaking it off, should it catch your scent, is to make a break for the territory of the other unfathomable horror wandering the halls. Also your party members are slowly mutating and the only clues you have to the solution are the scattered notes of a madman. It still has a ton of pointless dead ends, needless amounts of WLD-standard 'because "gently caress you," that's why,' and its continued existence makes no sense with a small army of epic celestials to the South who could easy purge the place. But it is, at its heart, a strong setting for an adventure. I think it was Region N or O that sounded good too, but we never got there.
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Jan 31, 2014 07:04
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It is, but I've read this adventure and I am at a loss as to how you accomplish anything meaningful. Not even heroic, mind; meaningful, either to the players or their characters. The way it's written seems designed to frustrate any attempt to make a profit or any control over the course of events. Raggi reminds me of the kind of GM who claims he's against hand-holding or railroading his players then throws up tedious and arbitrary roadblocks whenever they try to accomplish something outside his narrow definition of what's 'realistic for the setting.' Credit where it's due, I do like the Seven's monsters/pets. They're weird, dangerous and otherworldly without turning them into big stompy city wreckers the way D&D threat levels seem to trend. But man that smarmy little parting shot about inventing your own reason for their existence is just a perfect goddamn snapshot of his attitude.
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Mar 20, 2014 04:29
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Hell, you could make one of the things they dredge up in the drowned capital motherfucking Godzilla if you wanted. Whatever else you might say about the setting, it practically bristles with fun plot hooks.
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Mar 30, 2014 19:47
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That's a good arc for a campaign, but it's difficult to force that kind of progression into a tight schedule, and the system sounds a little lightweight to sustain a long-term campaign where it could happen naturally.
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Feb 6, 2015 17:44
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I don't think it would even be that hard: D&D (especially 3.5) is already kitchen sink-y enough to support the vast array of weird poo poo Disgaea throws at you. Mostly you just need to take all numerical values and multiply them by x1000. ....And add an extra '0' every 5 levels or so.
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Feb 7, 2015 20:40
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All this talk of adapting video game systems makes me wonder if anyone's ever done a hack for Monster Hunter. D&D4e would be near perfect for it out of the box--combat already revolves around tactical positioning, and there's an entire class of enemies designed to be a challenge for a full party by themselves. All it really needs is a system for called shots and location damage. Though you'd want to restrict it to Martial characters or it becomes a Dragon's Dogma hack instead. edit: actually, some of the arcane strikers would fit pretty well as bowgun users with some reflavoring. Rangpur fucked around with this message at 21:31 on Feb 7, 2015 |
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Feb 7, 2015 21:24
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In this case? High enough gravity to produce super strong, stocky humans, based on what I think they're referencing.
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Feb 9, 2015 01:19
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A Buck Godot RPG would loving rule. GURPS could probably do the job the easiest, but I'm not familiar enough with the state of the rules. Along similar lines, did the Foglios ever put out that GURPs sourcebook for Girl Genius?
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Feb 10, 2015 02:04
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Pussy Cartel posted:I think it was about a year or so before DP9 decided to drop games altogether and become a movie production company(?).
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Feb 18, 2015 01:30
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My understanding of Williams' tenure is that--aside from the Buck Rogers license thing, which was genuinely greed-driven corruption--most of the nerd resentment was driven by Gygax himself, and his circle of friends. The cold and unfeeling avatar of Big Business who took control of the company they built and treated it as a source of profit to be squeezed instead of the precious hand-crafted treasure it was meant to be! The craftsman versus the accountant is a real common story in business. Problem is that you can be a genre-defining pioneer and still not be qualified to run the company. Hell, same thing happened to Osamu Tezuka. I'll be fair though and say I don't think Gygax and the rest were trashing her because of her gender specifically--I think they would have hated her regardless. But once you send it out into the wilds of comic shops and game nights it gets filtered through all the weird baggage the hobby seems to carry about women.
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Mar 13, 2015 17:45
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Xelkelvos posted:
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Mar 16, 2015 02:36
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I think 'trapped in an MMO' would be an interesting setting, but only under the assumption that the characters are aware of it and want to escape. Otherwise it's just begging the question 'why not just play any other generic fantasy RPG?' What I saw of the Log Horizon anime kind of does that, but the RPG mechanics don't seem to support it all that well so far. In the show, revival at the nearest Cathedral actually does carry a cost--you slowly lose your memories of the real world. If you were to run with that, it gives you some wriggle room when it comes to accidentally wiping out the party while still maintaining a certain amount of tension. For example, lose all your memories of the real world and you effectively become an NPC. In other words, I feel like there are dramatic hooks to sink your teeth into but they all come from interacting with the metagame rather than anything inherent to the in-game setting.
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Mar 16, 2015 20:13
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Doresh posted:
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Dec 13, 2015 03:22
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theironjef posted:Here's a non-anime thing you can enjoy if you want something less anime and more rambling podcast full of listener questions! The clans/tribes/spheres/Nilknarfs are Passionate Youth, Dark Revenger, Natural Prodigy, Gag Magnet and Harem Potentate.
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Dec 16, 2015 03:30
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Natural Prodigy (at punching). Cursed by Frequent Hiatus.
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Dec 16, 2015 05:12
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"Toolbag" seems like a very apt description of John Wick, in that he contains many useful tools but also several loose screws that unfailingly scratch & annoy when all you want is a goodamn hammer.
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Dec 27, 2015 01:02
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LornMarkus posted:FATAL and Friends 2016: A Lamentable Pile of System Mastery e: drat too late, but without seeing the other thread I still claim my title was better
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Jan 6, 2016 04:57
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