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FMguru posted:The AD&D 1E PHB had a great Gygax vocabulary flub in describing the Monk. Can you spot it? Found it! quote:Gary motherfucking Gygax posted:
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Feb 21, 2017 12:26
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Simian_Prime posted:Have to be honest, all the political drama involved in the industry now is just filling me with outrage fatigue over people behind games I barely get the chance to even play anymore. And what is it all worth? All I know is you're playing Elves wrong. 
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Feb 22, 2017 01:26
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I ran Deathwatch one time. Turns out a system designed to handle rat-catchers with a small (but vicious) dog doesn't handle power-armoured post-humans with Plasma Guns very well. The Heavy Bolter on the Devastator was especially, ludicrously, over-powered.
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Mar 13, 2017 16:00
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They're the militant arm of the Ordo Xenos. The part of the Inquisition that deals with Alien threats. When they have a Space Marine level threat, the Deathwatch is where they get them from. Similarly, the Ordo Malleus, the Daemonhunters get access to the Grey Knights. And the Ordo Hereticus, the Witchfinders, can call upon the Sisters of Battle.
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Mar 13, 2017 20:38
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The Heavy Bolter has been mentioned by myself and others, as being broken. For those who've never played Deathwatch allow me to illustrate in the spirit of the Thread. N.b. This is rules as written in the book. There was later optional errata for it, and FFG changed the combat rules in every subsequent book (Black Crusade, Only War etc.) Brother Sebastian is a novice Devastator Marine. He has a BS of 50. He opens up full-auto, which he has to with a Heavy Bolter, on his target. He gets +20 to hit for his mandatory full-auto attack giving him a BS of 70. He rolls a good but not spectacular 29. This gives him one hit, and an additional hit for every degree of success, which is to say every 10 points, he beats his target by. So 70 a hit, then +1 for 60, 50, 40, 30, 4 additional successes. So he's hit 5 times. Each Bolt does 2d10+10 damage. Heavy bolter also has the 'tearing' quality, which means you roll an extra d10, discard the lowest. So with a slight buff for discarding the lowest, on average you'd expect each Bolt to do say 23-24 damage. In addition each Bolt has 6 points of penetration, so ignores 6 points of Armour. So against a decently armoured target, each Bolt will average around 30 points of damage. For reference a Standard Marine, loyalist or traitor, has 8 points of Armour and a toughness bonus of 8, which act as a soak against damage. Then he'll have about 30 actual wounds he can take. So effectivly, knocking off 16 points from each attack, he'll take 14 from each, 70 damage with average rolls. Now a Heavy Bolter is a literally classed as a Heavy Weapon, and it's supposed to be a dedicated Marine Killing weapon. So YMMV but arguably that's fair enough. But here is where it get's crazy. Righteous Fury. Righteous Fury is the Critical Hit mechanism for Deathwatch and it's actually pretty straight-forward. If you roll a '10' on any of your damage dice, it's a potential critical. Roll under your hit chance (still 70) again and you do your weapon damage again and it stacks with the first hit. So you're rolling 15d10, that is 3d10 (discarding the lowest) five times. You're going to roll at least one critical, there's an excellent chance you'll get multiple. It gets worse. So one of your attacks critted, when you rolled the second set of damage, if you roll any 10's on that attack, it's an automatic further level of critical. Doesn't need confirming, it's automatic, roll an additional set of damage dice, and keep adding another set every time you roll a 10. And that is how at the climax of my one and only mini-campaign I attempted to run of Deathwatch my groups Devastator marine blew away a Hive Tyrant in the first round of combat when he did something like 150 wounds to it in one attack after what took literally several minutes of rolling to resolve.
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Mar 13, 2017 21:30
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Note that was just a novice as well. More experienced characters get not just a higher ballistic score but Skills, Talents, and access to special equipment which would buff that damage output even higher.
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Mar 13, 2017 21:47
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Night10194 posted:Righteous Fury was 100% fine when it was in WHFRP because nothing there does multiple d10s of damage and Impact is relatively rare and comes with drawbacks like no shield or 'this is a gun'. It fell down quite a bit in a setting with full auto and where you can't sneeze without hitting something with Tearing (Impact but for 40k) or 2d10 or more base damage. Right, the problem with Deathwatch and Dark Heresy, which is all I own, so I can't really speak to the later systems*, is that they tried to backport the rules for WHFRP second edition (which I love) into a setting that's completely inappropriate. FFG needed to start their design document with a blank sheet of paper and build something that worked from scratch *Anecdotally, I've heard they're improved but still have flaws in the rules you could drive a truck through.
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Mar 13, 2017 22:47
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Nessus posted:I preferred the abridged version. "Chentlemen...! We....! are Nazis...!!!!" Incidentally if you haven't seen it. Even a non-anime fan like myself can strongly recommend Hellsing Ultimate Abridged. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgnIjJexut4&list=PLADA20FD34120A912 'Get down on your knees!' 'I'm not your mother last night.' Deptfordx fucked around with this message at 14:27 on Mar 22, 2017 |
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Mar 22, 2017 14:24
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I'm really looking forward to seeing the 13th Age Glorantha when it comes out. I love me some Glorantha as a setting but I'm not a huge fan of the systems. I find Heroquest to abstract and Runequest not Heroic enough. 4th edition Dnd wuxia classes might just be the middle ground I'm looking for.
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Mar 25, 2017 15:32
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I can't remember ever using those weapon type tables back in the day. Do any of the recent OSR retro-clones use that table or similar? Material Components is another one I never remember seeing used, except for a one-off with a clearly OCD GM who had carefully worked out in advance on a seperate sheet all the Material Components for the pre-gen'ed Druid he gave me to play.
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Apr 3, 2017 22:10
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gradenko_2000 posted:
The need for a grid killed 4ed dead for my group. We've always played Gridless and it's never been a problem. Clear description, good will, and hit rolls for fancy aiming of that fireball etc and it's always been fine. We couldn't even play any game with a Grid these days anyway, as our player situation has evolved. We now have a couple of people physically present in the room, and a couple more skyping in on the big screen TV. It sounds odd, but it works suprisingly well. Also for the record I like 5ed and a lot of the changes they made for it from 3.5.
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Apr 4, 2017 09:17
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There's no evidence of 'Ronson' being used for Shermans in WW2. The whole 'Lights first every time' wasn't even coined till WW2 is over. Also I don't want to derail the thread with a point by point rebuttal but I can't let this... Halloween Jack posted:
..... stand. German tanks were inferior in both numbers and capabilities at the begining of the war. Especially when compared to French Armour. 2/3rds of the Panzers that composed the Blitzkreig were still Panzer I/II's or converted Czech Pz 38's. Small, lightly armoured and with unimpressive firepower. The Panzer 1 literally only has Machine Guns. One other thing I wanted to point out. The T34. When you're talking about that remember there's a huge difference between the original T34 and the T34/85, which is different enought that a lot of armies would have renamed it.
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Apr 7, 2017 13:27
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Cythereal posted:One little note before I leave for work: American tanks were actually quite well regarded during the war, just for reasons that aren't sexy: American tanks were reliable, fuel-efficient, and comfortable to drive and fight in. They didn't have the best armor or hardest-hitting gun, but more than any other nation's armor you could count on American tanks to actually get where they needed to be, and they were easy to keep running. One of the biggest problems for Soviet and especially German tanks was their mechanical unreliability. Having the biggest gun and thickest armor doesn't do you much good if the tank can't be relied on to move for more than thirty minutes at a time before something breaks and needs to be replaced. GIS a Sherman tank. Anyone will do. See those hooks on the hull.They're lifting hooks for 40's era dockyard cranes. Remember this is pre-containerisation. The only way to get your shiny new tank to the battlefield across thousands of miles of ocean is on a ship and that means the tank has to be liftable by Cranes on both ends. 30-40 tons was pretty much the standard for Crane lifting capacity at that time. The Sherman was designed with these considerations in mind.
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Apr 7, 2017 13:44
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Hunt11 posted:And the Germans only achieved that by taking basically this http://www.awkwardzombie.com/index.php?page=0&comic=010509 approach to weapon building. 10,000 man hours to build a Sherman. 30,000 man hours to build a T34 300,000 man hours to build a Tiger.
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Apr 7, 2017 14:41
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Well if you're going to tell that one, I'm going to tell the other famous WW2 joke. 'Popular', amongst late war Western Front German soldiers. Hans, how can you tell if a plane is a friendly? That's easy Siegfried, just take a good look at it. If it's white, it's American. If it's black, it's British. If it's not there, it's the Luftwaffe.
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Apr 8, 2017 00:02
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Take some mind control magic and roleplay as Gorilla Grodd.
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May 5, 2017 15:59
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Weirdly, I'm fine with the ridiculous overgunning of the cyborgs, and power armour suits etc. But the same thing with all those Coalition vehicles really annoys me. All these weapons just pasted on every available surface with no allowance given for all the internal space they would require and they're still supposed to have room for full squads of troops.
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May 14, 2017 10:53
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wiegieman posted:No, the 229 was real concept plane. It partly inspired the B-2 spirit, and was an attempt to solve the problems the Germans were facing when putting planes up against the allied radar network -- mostly by using a low drag frame to fly very fast, long, and low, and possibly keep fighters from scrambling on the bomber. Of course, their industry was hopelessly overloaded, so the idea of them successfully mass producing a jet-engine powered flying wing is ludicrous (the 229 was on version 3 of its prototype while the allies were crossing the Rhine.) Also I believe you need to have on-board computerised flight control or else these designs are hopelessly unstable to fly.
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May 17, 2017 10:30
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Halloween Jack posted:
The whole Soviet's sending penal legions into mine fields is almost certainly a myth. It's possible, accounts differ, that this tactic, or what observers *believed* was a deliberate tactic may have occured once or twice, but in no way was it a standard practise. Moral considerations aside, it's just not an effective tactic. It does nothing to clear the way for heavier vehicles, anti-tank mines won't be triggered by a persons weight, and you can't guarantee to get every mine, so it's too risky for follow-up units you do care about. You need to clear the field or find(if there is one, it depends) / clear a safe path through it.
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May 25, 2017 17:04
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Cythereal posted:There's also at least one case where the Germans claimed the Soviets were sending penal legions to clear minefields when the truth was it was just a penal legion advancing into a minefield it didn't know was there - and when the penal legion realized they had walked into a minefield, they promptly withdrew and the Soviets brought up proper mine-clearing equipment. Deptfordx posted:or what observers *believed* was a deliberate tactic may have occured once or twice
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May 25, 2017 17:29
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Cythereal posted:Sorry, didn't register that's what you were trying to say. It's fine, I could have been clearer.
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May 25, 2017 18:06
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It's not just anti-Russian stuff, the post war German Generals were equally keen on saying nice things about the allies. Take (the safely dead in 1945) Patton. There's a lot of stuff said about how much they respected him as a General, his being put in charge of fake army before Normandy convinced them it was real etc, etc. The whole "considered him their most dangerous adversary in the field'' thing. Historical reality. Not so much. The Germans, as usual kept records meticuously, and the records, reports, and mention in intelligence made at the time are clear. Just another Allied General, no more notable than any other, certainly not seen as a Superman. They didn't even notice Patton was in charge of the fictional 1st Army Group until all the double agents in the UK had persuaded them the Calais Landings were real. Deptfordx fucked around with this message at 18:59 on May 25, 2017 |
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May 25, 2017 18:26
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Alien Rope Burn posted:
'Hows the stealth testing going?' 'Not good Bob. Much to our surprise, it seems the human eye is somehow drawn to giant metal spiders'
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Jul 16, 2017 10:16
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The d1000 chaos mutation table is my favourite thing in all RPG's and I will drag it out to use it in any system I'm running if given even a ghost of an excuse.
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Aug 10, 2017 10:54
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I am genuinally unclear what point you're trying to make with this?
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Aug 10, 2017 21:25
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I actually just recently finished running a WFRP game set during the English Civil War (with more magic) and that table is how one of my players, playing a violent Welsh alcoholic mercenary, ended up becoming the exact physical double of King Charles II and the hijinks and confusion that followed.
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Aug 11, 2017 01:11
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Joe Slowboat posted:We all know an orangutan is a straight upgrade for wizards. More the former level. More atmospheric than Dragonball. So for the Fire Wizard marks are stuff like. Hyperactive - fidget constantly Aura of Brimstone - You have a constant smell of Brimstone drifting around you. Hot Skin - You have a constant feverish and flushed appearance. Some give minor bonus and penalties. For example. Jade Wizards can get Great Constitution - Gain resistance to disease. Shadow Wizards can get Shrouded - Shadows are drawn to you. Get +10% to concealment. or Aura of Death for Amethyst Wizards - Plant life and materials made from it wither and rot within 4 yards of you. Celestial Wizards can get Disturbing Visions - You start to perceive distracting portents wherever you look gives you -5% on Perception tests. Edit: And yes, till you get used to it remembering Amethyst Wizards are the Death magic guys and Amber Wizards are the Beast magic guys etc etc is a little confusing. It's another thematic hold-over from the wargame Warhammer Wizards. Deptfordx fucked around with this message at 12:53 on Aug 11, 2017 |
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Aug 11, 2017 09:46
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marshmallow creep posted:
For books may I recommend A Spell of Empire https://www.amazon.co.uk/Spell-Empi...spell+of+empire Which is the best non-warhammer Warhammer novel I've ever read. Nb. It's only technically a non-warhammer novel. It was supposed to be a Warhammer Fantasy novel. But the contract fell throught, after they'd already written the book. So they did the barest cut and replace job of the Empire with a legally defensible Germanic Mittleuropa expy and published it anyway. It's great. Some fantastic action scenes, great characters and with a solid tinge of black humour. I'd give it 4 and a half out of a possible 5 Zweihanders. Deptfordx fucked around with this message at 19:54 on Aug 11, 2017 |
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Aug 11, 2017 19:48
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So I see Thread favourite 'Blood in the Chocolate'. http://projects.inklesspen.com/fatal-and-friends/hyphz/blood-in-the-chocolate/ Won the Gold Ennie award for best adventure. http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2017/08/rpg-gen-con-ennie-goes.html
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Aug 20, 2017 10:07
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Halloween Jack posted:Why do people care about the ENnies? It's small beer in the greater scheme of things because RPG's are such a relatively niche thing, but it's the biggest fish in RPG Awards and the closest the industry has to say the Hugo.
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Aug 20, 2017 20:58
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Horrible Lurkbeast posted:Since we talk about WFRP a lot, did anyone in thread review or know of someone who reviewed ZWEIHÄNDER GRIM & PERILOUS RPG? Been multiple 'sell me on' and discussion threads on Rpgnet. https://forum.rpg.net/tags.php?tag=zweihander I've got my own copy, which I've skimmed, but not deep-dived. From that it's basically a re-skinned WFRP 2nd edition, not one-to-one, but broadly similar. I'm not doing much with myself, as it's so close to WFRP2 I don't see any point in moving over to it. If you don't own WFRP2 however, it's a cheap alternative to buying all the seperate PDF's for it as Zweihander is, at over 600 pages, effectively all the WFRP2 core books in one for $27. Plus it goes on sale all the time. Edit: Just checked on drivethru, it is in fact on sale for $13 at this very moment. http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/210516/ZWEIHANDER-Grim--Perilous-RPG?src=hottest Deptfordx fucked around with this message at 20:30 on Aug 21, 2017 |
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Aug 21, 2017 20:27
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Freaking Crumbum posted:tbh I'm blown away that neither of these guys looks like a real-life version of the comic book guy from the simpsons. any time I ever imagine what somebody involved in trad games as a business looks like, it's always comic book guy. or maybe the guy that does the art for penny arcade because I recall seeing him on some old 4E D&D webisode thing and he also looked like he was wider than he was tall. Strange Matter posted:I think you're thinking of the writer. The artist is a reedy dude with too many teeth in his mouth. The writer is a stout bald feller. From the 'wider than he was tall' bit, it's more likely he's thinking of Scott Kurtz of PvP comic fame, who also appeared with the Penny Arcade guys in those things back in the day.
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Sep 19, 2017 21:01
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Kurieg posted:I still remember the 5e preview stream where Mearls personally DMed a game for the PA/PVP crew, and Kurtz's hopes being dashed against the rocks once he discovered he could no longer be a 4e style cleric and spending the rest of the game despondently doodling on a notepad. Was there really that much difference in cleric gameplay? You're still hitting stuff and casting spells right? I would have thought gameplay for both editions, I'm talking specifically for clerics here, was quite similar. N.b. I'm spitballing here because we skipped 4e as we have a weird setup where half of us are in the room and half of us skype in over the internet. It works suprisingly well, but it does make battlemap and/or figure use impossible, which is kinda a dealbreaker for 4e.
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Sep 19, 2017 21:42
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Wapole Languray posted:I'm amazed there's no mention of Lord of Light for Starfinder. Heck that it's not a bigger thing in RPGs period! You'd figure the concept of posthuman psychics using advanced technology to mimic mythology would be a big thing. Incidentally, if you haven't read it. That is a great book.
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Oct 25, 2017 12:58
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The one time we tried a brief Vtm campaign back in the 90's we couldn't take it seriously. Not helped by one of the players being a total fuckup generally, and somehow not just bringing that to his character in the game, but the dice seemingly to be actively co-operating in ensuring maximum gently caress-ups from him. E.g. "I'm going to kick the door down". *Botches* Foot goes right though door and gets stuck. Vampire Hunter on the other side blows foot off with shotgun. or "No, see. She'll stop thinking we're working togethor if you hit me. But it has to look real so make a proper attack." Said to the massive Brujah with the multiple levels of Potence.*Rolls maximum damage* Instantly knocked unconcious. to name but a few of numerous incidents. It was fun, kinda, but the whole thing started to feel like we were in a 60's style Carry on Vampires! film.
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Nov 1, 2017 11:07
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Mors Rattus posted:Found it. The Elven cat has 3+6 Hit dice. Which means it can take as much damage as an Ogre (4+1HD.) More like a cat-roach.
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Nov 3, 2017 11:30
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Mr.Misfit posted:Really? Where? I´m currently running the campaign for a group of players in the first of three books (german edition, it´s basically part 1, on their way to Antarctica still) and having not yet read ahead, I´m kinda bitchy about the campaign already (the entire layout is poo poo, the material is unwieldy and it´s generally in dire need of an editor). Come to think of it, that campaigns actually kinda worth an F&F writeup. I ran about 2 sessions of that before I went to my group and was. "Say, you know that classic campaign that we all chipped in to buy off ebay because it was super-expensive (this was years ago, before the PDF's/reissues.). Turns out it's a boring railroady piece of crap, and I hate it". So I ran my own Coc game instead, and we were all much happier.
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Nov 17, 2017 20:32
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wiegieman posted:One of the better things about Known Space stories (the good ones, remember the 80% rule) is the kind of heroes in them. They're usually not the toughest or fastest or even the smartest person in the room, but they are the wiliest. This is all really making me want to go back to read all my old Niven paperbacks I've got tucked away in my bookshelves. Deptfordx fucked around with this message at 17:34 on Nov 20, 2017 |
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Nov 20, 2017 17:23
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:Mt. Lookatthat is still my favorite. The backstory is pretty good for those who don't know Known Space. Plateau is a Venus like world, completely uninhabitable. Except it has one giant Olympic Mons like part so elevated that the pressure and atmosphere drop to human tolerable. The name comes from the Captains interjection when they first reached orbit and were just begining to despair at the death world they'd come to when it suddenly hove into view.
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Nov 21, 2017 13:31
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MightyMatilda posted:And this is an official product? Third Edition had an open license. As long as you respected it's terms you could publish whatever third party stuff you wanted. It led to a vast metastasis of independant companies publishing sourcebooks, 99% of which weren't very good. Hence 'D20 shovelware' as quoted earlier becoming a thing.
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Nov 23, 2017 10:43
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