FATAL & Friends 2014-15: The Neverending Storygame

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NGDBSS: Dec 30, 2009

SirPhoebos posted:

Does anyone remember Dicefreaks' self-published supplement on the Nine Hells? It contains a lot of the terrible tendencies seen in other reviewed material (really broken mechanics, over-edgy 'GRIMDARK GRIMDARK' writing, a fair bit of ).

I recall it being even less self-aware on how the game just breaks down than the Immortals Handbook. And considering that the latter is basically Hardcore Number Porn I & II...

# ¿ Jan 8, 2014 06:06

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 00:03

NGDBSS: Dec 30, 2009

Kurieg posted:

I just remember the one game of besm d20 I played where someone made a pokémon trainer except his pokémon was a mech pilot and he could end any combat in the first turn with the massive amounts of damage he could throw out.

Any power in any RPG that gives you minions is ripe for abuse. How ripe, mind you, is based on how much ethylene the designers huffed in the process.

# ¿ May 10, 2014 06:26

NGDBSS: Dec 30, 2009

Some of those dates are in the late 1900's - is this intended or a typo?

# ¿ Aug 14, 2014 18:44

NGDBSS: Dec 30, 2009

Galaga Galaxian posted:

I'll take a closer look when I get home, but it should be correct. The Resource War was in 1982 and the "Present Day" is 2039. From a technological stand point Azure in 2039 is roughly equivalent to the 1930s of Earth, though The Guild possess some aeronautical technology not seen until the mid/late 1940s on Earth. One good example is that they use significant amounts of titanium structural reinforcement in their planes, which is a major contributor to the legendary durability of Warbirds and their ability to pull significant Gs during maneuvers.

~~That's an oddly large gap from the perspective of scientific/industrial innovation. Given how OTL history went I imagine that you could cut fifty years off those numbers with no problem.~~

Edit: Somehow I managed to gloss over the bit about geographical isolation. :downs:

NGDBSS fucked around with this message at 21:10 on Aug 14, 2014

# ¿ Aug 14, 2014 20:01

NGDBSS: Dec 30, 2009

MadScientistWorking posted:

Every single story I've ever heard about Call of Cthulhu that makes it sound interesting involves murderhoboing.

Common wisdom in Call of Cthulhu seems to be "burn the books, keep your eyes shut as long as feasible, and run from monsters". But the one time I played it, the group's deal was about investigating legends of Prestor John in 16th-century Europe/Africa/Asia. And when we found out that the mythos was actually A Thing (the legends of Prestor John turned out to be a hidden cult of Glaaki), we sprinted in the complete opposite direction of common wisdom.

By the end:

We kept (and read) all the Mythos-related books we could find.
Half of us knew magical spells.
My character had kept detailed journals of everything that had occurred and was shipping them back to his family in Adana.
Two of the others started a syncretic cult linking the Mythos and Catholicism.
We nearly killed a shoggoth with judicious use of gunpowder. (And then the survivors ran for it.)
All of us willingly became cultists of Tsathoggua.
All but my character were dead and stuck in the Dreamlands.
Oh yeah, we kinda banished Glaaki.

# ¿ Aug 22, 2014 23:58

NGDBSS: Dec 30, 2009

Mimir posted:

Y'know I might be remembering wrong, but isn't Tsathoggua a pretty good deal all things considered compared to the majority of Mythos entities other than, like Nodens?

You're correct, and in fact this made the concept of conversion a titch less difficult. (Tsathoggua is the most chill of Elder Gods, and that's also why he's such an rear end in a top hat in Arkham Horror - since he tries to make the players chill just like himself.)

NGDBSS fucked around with this message at 04:51 on Aug 23, 2014

# ¿ Aug 23, 2014 04:48

NGDBSS: Dec 30, 2009

Humbug Scoolbus posted:

I love this setting and have been running a campaign of it for the last two years. The biggest problem I have with it one of the classes in particular(which I'm sure will be coveredOathbound).

Even the fan community acknowledged how many problems that class had. Funny enough, they tended to refer to its 15th-level ability as "Eschew Sucking".

# ¿ Aug 27, 2014 04:10

NGDBSS: Dec 30, 2009

Anyone have opinions on Tribe 8? One of my roommates acquired the first edition sourcebook at a secondhand shop and the system sounds interesting (if gritty and 90's). That said, I've not delved into the setting (which takes up the first half of the book) so I'm not certain if anything weird came up there.

# ¿ Sep 6, 2014 00:16

NGDBSS: Dec 30, 2009

Anyone familiar with the new Mindjammer book? I noticed it in my FLGS, and it seems to be promising (if somewhat crunchy for Fate). I'd have picked it up already if not for the variable nature of 3PP Fate books and the fact that my group is already running other stuff.

# ¿ Sep 21, 2014 02:09

NGDBSS: Dec 30, 2009

theironjef posted:

Dark Heresy is done and ready for listening! It's actually pretty darn neat!

The funny thing about DH1E was that it actually was still written in-house by GW's Black Industries. Since then they've gone under and FFG has made the other game lines (plus DH splatbooks).

Also Black Crusade is the best because it practically encourages you to go full-on murderhobo and/or over the top wild. The first time my players encountered a boss monster, they disabled its weapons and then asked if they could keep it. They've only gone up from there.

Edit: See if you can track down a copy of the Twilight Imperium RPG. Trust me, it exists - I've seen it exactly once in softcover and it seems to date from the late 90's.

# ¿ Oct 9, 2014 16:38

NGDBSS: Dec 30, 2009

Cooked Auto posted:

It should be noted that I agree with the state of the 40k universe with that it's trying to hard to be serious.

FFG on the other is great at injecting a lot of fun references in their 40k games. Such as the time they added a chapter quote from an assassin whose name was from a fan fic, in a later book there is a mention of a certain adept named Grendel who in turn isalso based on a web story of his exploits.
I think Only War has least one Team Fortress 2 reference as well in one splatbook.

Don't forget the reference to Doomrider, a Chaos Space Marine biker of some (silly) repute.

# ¿ Oct 9, 2014 23:31

NGDBSS: Dec 30, 2009

You also forgot to mention the fact that truenamers vault from "passable if you're busting your balls on Truespeak" to trivially overpowered at level 20, because at that point they can pick up the utterance to use Gate. And it's a place-based utterance (by the errata, those have fixed DCs rather than scaling ones) so you're going to be able to keep using it at least, what, eight times per day or something equally silly.

# ¿ Nov 6, 2014 05:10

NGDBSS: Dec 30, 2009

Lemon Curdistan posted:

There's a much easier way to make Truenamer work: fix the loving maths on the Truenaming check.

Get rid of the Truenaming skill, get rid of everything that boosts it, make it a simple d20+level check, and make the DC 10+HD instead of 15+2xHD. Suddenly, the maths no longer falls apart and the class actually works.

It also helps to make more of the abilities actually worth using, instead of the milquetoast garbage that many of the utterances fall into. It's as if WotC learned the exact opposite lesson from the Warlock than what they should have, that at-will abilities are a huge minefield (of course not with spells around) and should be tightly regulated (second verse, same as the first).

# ¿ Nov 6, 2014 17:21

NGDBSS: Dec 30, 2009

So about a week ago someone wrote an article on Beyond the Supernatural for the Escapist in rather a good light. I'm forgetting the issues specific to it as noted in the prior F&F review, but didn't it at the very least have the flaws endemic to all Palladium games (being stuck in the 80's, basically)?

# ¿ Nov 12, 2014 17:01

NGDBSS: Dec 30, 2009

_{Grabbed from FFG, so copyright GW and/or FFG.}

Warhammer Fantasy and 40,000 (�40K�) have been around as miniatures wargaming lines since the 80s, but oddly enough the futuristic (and notoriously �grimdark�) 40K line never received a tabletop roleplay option until relatively recently. So it was something of a surprise that in 2008, Games Workshop�s Black Industries label actually published Dark Heresy, wherein the player characters are henchmen of the Inquisition trying to stomp out heresy in the Imperium of Man. The system itself was based on the older editions of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (WFRP 3E is a wholly different beast) and received at least moderate success for a TRPG. Shortly after its publication Games Workshop decided to discontinue publishing the Dark Heresy line, but this wasn�t the end for the game itself as Fantasy Flight Games picked up the rights to publish it under a license they�ve held since then.

Considering how vast the 40K setting is, Dark Heresy wasn�t going to fit everyone�s game; thus Fantasy Flight decided to branch out and print additional game lines to focus on other aspects that�d make for interesting narratives.

Rogue Trader (2009): Fantastically wealthy space merchants/privateers ply the little-explored Koronus Expanse in search of high adventure.
Deathwatch (2010): Space Marines (ie, super-soldiers) in the Deathwatch act as an anti-alien strike team in the battlefields of the Jericho Reach.
Black Crusade (2011): Heretics of the Screaming Vortex try to impress the Ruinous Powers of Chaos with their deeds and devotion in order to become Daemon Princes and lead the titular action.
Only War (2012): Soldiers of the Imperial Guard fight the enemies of the Imperium on the Spinward Front of Dark Heresy�s Calixis Sector. (Unlike Deathwatch, such characters are more fragile but are also part of a much larger force.)
Dark Heresy Second Edition (2014): An update of the original Dark Heresy based on the changes begun in Black Crusade.

Given the header image, I�ll be showing off Black Crusade for F&F for two reasons. First, out of all the 40K TRPG lines Black Crusade is probably the one that least bothers itself with the standard grimdark tone of the setting. Player characters are encouraged to be over-the-top :moreevil:

and revel in it in order to gain more precious Infamy. Second (and more personally), I�ve been GMing in-person for five people and I�ve felt obligated to share insights on the matter.

Next time: An introduction to the setting and to the basic mechanics.

# ¿ Nov 22, 2014 17:04

NGDBSS: Dec 30, 2009

Midjack posted:

The very first 40K rulebook, subtitled Rogue Trader, was in fact a RPG first with a miniatures rules module, but the miniatures system (and figures themselves) rapidly eclipsed the RPG. I don't know anyone who played 1E 40K as an RPG.

I'd never actually seen it and I wasn't certain how much was TRPG and how much was miniatures combat. Care to expand?

# ¿ Nov 22, 2014 20:29

NGDBSS: Dec 30, 2009

ascendance posted:

Ok, folks. I am howling with laughter looking at Machinations of the Space Princess. Anybody want to do a full read through of this piece of crap? It's from James Desborough. An OSR SF game sold as "sci fi, sex, and sleaze!"

Sounds like he'd decided to dig himself deeper. At this rate he needs to pause to think about where the mining equipment came from.

# ¿ Dec 31, 2014 18:35

NGDBSS: Dec 30, 2009

Every time I see a mention of the furry community I'm weirded out by how, well, mammal-centric it is. And how centered things are on specific orders of mammals.

For instance, why are cat-people and dog-people two distinct groups but reptile-people just one? Where are the lemur-people, the elephant-people, pig-people, or even (because genetics are supposedly plug-and-play!) uplifted primates? Where are the frog-people, gatormen, or lungfish-people? Hell, why aren't we seeing squid-people or insect-people? And where does all this human-style head hair come from, not only on most if not all of the mammals but also on some of the reptiles? (The real answer is that the furry community is more insular and anthropocentric than they'd like to admit.)

In full disclosure I have played two "anthro" characters in the past, but they were a bit...different. One was a snakeman much in the style of the Man-Serpents from Dark Souls 1, and the other was a fish-person intended as somewhere between Deep One and anglerfish.

NGDBSS fucked around with this message at 21:13 on Jan 16, 2015

# ¿ Jan 16, 2015 20:48

NGDBSS: Dec 30, 2009

The other notable thing about Stormbringer being a cursed runesword is that if it's right and hungry, it will drive him to kill people regardless of whether they were friends or enemies. Thus, in the novels at least, it's a device that pushes Elric towards tragedy (for obvious reasons) and keeps him moving (either because he's killed a whole town or to keep himself from doing just that). That said, Elric RPG sans Elric is still the best way to go for reasons that have already been stated by you guys and others.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2015 18:51

NGDBSS: Dec 30, 2009

How does Forsaken compare to Apocalypse 20th Anniversary, in your opinions? The question's moot at the moment but three folks in my group got into an argument over whether Forsaken was better than original Apocalypse, and I was wondering how much changed between editions of the latter.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2015 08:40

NGDBSS: Dec 30, 2009

It sounds like all the axioms have ludicrous narrative capabilities, which makes me wonder what you're actually supposed to be doing as a character beyond "I dunno, CRAZY poo poo!" (Perhaps the game will say/will put some restrictions on the axioms, but I ain't holding my breath.)

# ¿ Apr 8, 2015 05:47

NGDBSS: Dec 30, 2009

The Vosgian Beast posted:

The Bas-Lag books by China Mieville are much closer to punk than most steampunk books, to the point where the third book is entirely about a worker's revolution.

There's supposed to be an RPG based on them called Tales of New Crobuzon, but it's been perpetually delayed since 2008.

Mostly because Gareth "Far West is totally coming out next week!" Skarka currently has the license.

# ¿ May 5, 2015 15:55

NGDBSS: Dec 30, 2009

theironjef posted:

I only have the first book of it, but for that much, Scion's voodoo didn't bother me too much. It had the least hookerized goddesses out of the available pantheons, anyway.

Considering what I recall about Scion, that's not a high bar to clear. Plus apparently there exist several different forms of vodun/voodoo depending on where you're talking about. (I'd guess that Scion was specifically using Haitian vodun.)

# ¿ May 8, 2015 06:57

NGDBSS: Dec 30, 2009

Any specifics on how the presentation of Aztec pantheon was offensive? I'd gotten that sense from secondhand comments, but unlike with the Norse pantheon there was no one like Rulebook Heavily to delineate exactly why things were offensive.

# ¿ May 8, 2015 07:14

NGDBSS: Dec 30, 2009

Night10194 posted:

I really need to read China Mieville.

China Mieville has written some exceptionally weird stuff, so here's the teaser blurb for one of two novels he's expected to release next year:

quote:

THE LAST DAYS OF NEW PARIS is an intense and gripping tale set in an alternative universe: June 1940 following Paris� fall to the Germans, the villa of Air-Bel in Marsailles, is filled with Trotskyists, anti-fascists, exiled artists, and surrealists. One Air-Bel dissident decides the best way to fight the Nazis is to construct a surrealist bomb. When the bomb is accidentally detonated, surrealist Cataclysm sweeps Paris and transforms it according to a violent, weaponized dream logic.

There's a long-running thread about his works here, but yeah most of his stuff is pretty amazing. (King Rat was his first novel and is thus rather meh.)

# ¿ Aug 19, 2015 06:32

NGDBSS: Dec 30, 2009

quote:

Players need that kind of consistency, too. So when you assign a difficulty to a task, note that number and try to keep it consistent the next time the PCs try the same task. �Same� is the key word. Deciphering one code isn�t necessarily like deciphering another. Climbing one wall isn�t the same as climbing another.

Didn't Numenara immediately poo poo on this by telling the GM to hide the TN? Hopefully Cypher didn't keep that bullshit up...

# ¿ Sep 9, 2015 20:25

NGDBSS: Dec 30, 2009

theironjef posted:

At the risk of overt self-promotion

Voting for this.

# ¿ Sep 14, 2015 00:09

NGDBSS: Dec 30, 2009

Doresh posted:

Man, I find it hard to imagine FFG ever made something that is not a licensed game o_O

They also made a Twilight Imperium RPG back in the 90's, back when the first edition of the board game was current. (The third and current edition of the board game came out in 2005, for reference.) Since then the game has aged incredibly poorly.

NGDBSS fucked around with this message at 21:22 on Sep 30, 2015

# ¿ Sep 30, 2015 21:19

NGDBSS: Dec 30, 2009

Kurieg posted:

So.. he's the RPG equivalent of Aaron Diaz?

What recent shenanigans happened with him and/or Dresden Codak? I've not bothered to keep up with the webcomic for a few years, but I do recall that despite trying to make DC his full time job Mr. Diaz had issues with keeping a schedule.

# ¿ Oct 1, 2015 16:47

NGDBSS: Dec 30, 2009

Kurieg posted:

I can't remember which thread it came up in, it's probably archived now but I remember breaking down all of it's various abilities and figuring out how mathematically large it actually was when compared to the observable universe. I seem to remember it being able to move multiple light years as a move action, just via it's base speed.

Wasn't this the Mortiverse, or am I thinking of something else?

# ¿ Oct 27, 2015 19:09

NGDBSS: Dec 30, 2009

Kurieg posted:

Yeah I think it was the mortiverse. I couldn't remember the name.

Luckily ENWorld isn't deleting its archives like WotC, so digging up a nine-year-old post isn't so hard. There's nothing quite like utterly silly and insane number porn for its own sake.

# ¿ Oct 27, 2015 19:57

NGDBSS: Dec 30, 2009

Ningyou posted:

sometimes you need a rulebook so comically thick with systems and rules for every conceivable edge case that it can stop small arms fire okay

You can't say that and not post the (ancient) video where people actually tried that.

# ¿ Nov 2, 2015 22:15

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 00:03

NGDBSS: Dec 30, 2009

theironjef posted:

You guys are forgetting a side of Wick, where he gets all weird and possessive when his player is a cute ~~woman~~girl. Then it's "You want to play [thing]? Why sure and you're even more powerful, but I will leer at you constantly and make weird remarks every time you do anything!

When did he do this? I'm not doubting you given all the poo poo I've heard about him, but I don't happen to remember that amongst things like the player who came to sessions just to glower while his character was in prison/the hospital recuperating.

# ¿ Dec 29, 2015 20:40

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