FATAL & Friends 2016-19: Bad Rules and Hidden Jewels

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Doresh: Jan 7, 2015

theironjef posted:

This week System Mastery is covering Dinosaur Planet, a book that took us by surprise. With a name that cool, we figured we'd just be generally researching how yet another small print house mucked up the OGL, but what we got instead was some good old down-home whitewashing of the big fence of the Confederate States of America. If you ever wanted to read a book where the Union are rapacious space-conquerors and President Robert E. Lee magnanimously freed the slaves in 1881 because it was the right thing to do, here it is.

Man, I was already coming up with stuff for the Godwin version of this strange setting (which will be about Mammoths instead of dinosaurs):

"And then in 1948, Chancellor Rommel ended the Holocaust."

Though i think a more historically accurate version of this alternate history (if that even makes sense) would pit East and West Germany against each other on a faraway planet, with the book lavishly fellating East Germany's joke of a planned economy.

# ¿ Feb 2, 2016 20:39

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# ¿ May 12, 2024 02:24

Doresh: Jan 7, 2015

Mors Rattus posted:

So, quick question, you do know there's an actual sci fi series out there that stars a band of Nazis as the heroes, who remain Nazis but at one point end up taking in some Jewish members to help fight aliens?

Now I do o_O

# ¿ Feb 2, 2016 21:21

Doresh: Jan 7, 2015

LatwPIAT posted:

Watch on the Rhine by Tom Kratman, writing for John Ringo's Porsleen series. It's about Germany resurrecting the Waffen-SS to fight against invading aliens because the Waffen-SS are the only ones tough enough to fight the aliens. Modern Germany's military is weak because of liberals. And the liberals are the true antagonist, not the aliens. In other words, a bog-standard Kratman novel. You can put it on the shelf next to the one where Hillary Clinton's election to POTUS leads to civil war with Texas, and the one where ~~Kratman~~Kratman's author avatar kills his gay cousin so he can use the inheritance to personally hunt down Osama Bin Laden and sell all the children of Osama's village into child sex slavery.

And here I though Dinosaur Planet was crazy.

quote:

(Also, yes, at one point the Waffen-SS recruit some Jews into their unit to fight the aliens.)

"Let's not have any arguments about who tried to genocide who. We have a planet to save!"

(That is assuming they aren't recruited to be part of Operation Human Shield)

# ¿ Feb 2, 2016 22:17

Doresh: Jan 7, 2015

Nessus posted:

Speaking of ol' , didn't the In Nomine commentary on him say that his Destiny was to become a great artist and his Fate was... well...

e: FATAL and Friends 2016: It Always Comes Back To Hitler

That title reminds me that D20 Modern would've worked much better if they'd replace the Good/Neutral/Evil axis with Mother Theresa, Swiss, and Hitler. That aught to keep dickish players from taking an evil alignment. I mean, who wants to be Hitler?

Nessus posted:

I want to see one of these settings that has the cojones to make the Commies the good guys. With heavy veiling if necessary, of course.

Dunno if it counts, but BattleTech has the Capellan Confederation (aka oldschool Commie China with the intelligence agency of oldschool Commie Russia), and to a lesser extent the Clans (who have planned economy, and for the most part don't give a drat about the worker class, just like communism in practise; though they are also pretty keen on making Ubermenschen...). Then again BattleTech doesn't really have definite good guys. Everyone's more or less dickish and ruled by elitists.

Young Freud posted:

That reminds me of one of those game setting ideas I've had was an '80s retrofuture alternate history where space exploration in the '60s and '70s didn't get curtailed and, with a little help from extraterrestrial MacGuffins, the 1980s and 1990s has the U.S./NATO fighting Russians in an interstellar Cold War, with both sides banning WMDs from being employed on Earth, but going hog wild in the Off-World Colonies.

Of course, that's also pretty much the premise of William Gibson's script for Alien 3.

This would work swell with the aesthetics of Space Patrol Orion.

LuiCypher posted:

I am seriously going to regret doing this, but since it's been abandoned previously and a fellow goon is doing a write-up on Black Crusade, I feel obliged to revive...

DEATHWATCH

Funny, I just got that recently to complement Only War. I even have Rites of Battle, which lets you roll up custom chapter names like "Steel Blood".

# ¿ Feb 3, 2016 18:09

Doresh: Jan 7, 2015

LuiCypher posted:

Consider me jealous. Rites of Battle is easily the best splatbook for Deathwatch because it has the best character and gear options of any of the books. You can even roll as a freaking Dreadnought Librarian at some point, which is all sorts of awesome. Predictably, it is very out-of-print and hard to find in physical form. It's been awaiting reprint for over a year at Fantasy Flight and I suspect that it will never actually get reprinted, meaning that it will be a while before I get my copy.

I'll probably write up a recommended list of splatbooks towards the end of the review, but for now I'd say that the top three go like this:
1. Rites of Battle
2. Honour the Chapter or First Founding
3. Mark of the Xenos

I throw Mark in there mainly because the core rulebook could probably suffer to have a more diverse range of enemies for the Kill-team to encounter and Mark fixes that nicely. Honour the Chapter/First Founding mainly depends on which fluff you like better - do you like the fluff for the remaining founding chapters (Iron Hands, Salamanders, White Scars, Raven Guard) or do you want more on the successor chapters?

If it doesn't have to be a physical copy, the entire range can be bought as PDF on DriveThruRPG and possible other shops.

Who doesn't want to play as a Dreadnought? You might even talk the GM into giving you easier diplomacy checks because of your poker face. Or rather lack of face.

The Outer Reach might also be interesting for essentialy being the Necron Bestiary, and I love my Terminators on steroids almost as much as my brainwashing space commies.

And I'm leaning towards First Founding. How can you go wrong with black pyromaniacs and space huns/mongols?

Robindaybird posted:

This is why when I did my own weird west take that while the Confederates are responsible for elemental-infused bullets (a more accidental discovery due to desperation in scrounging up raw materials for ammo), it came far too little, too late to save them. Speaking as someone that grew up in Mississippi, anyone that romanticizes the "Rebels of the south" is a loving idiot.

It seems people interesting in Alternate Western History stuff rarely go beyond "The South lost the war, so what if they didn't?!". They don't seem to grasp the nuances of what can happen after a war.

# ¿ Feb 3, 2016 21:17

Doresh: Jan 7, 2015

Double Cross - Infinity Code

Game Master Section

Progressive Checks

Progressive Checks are the DX version of Skill Challenges, allowing the GM to break down long and complex situations like infilatration or chase scenes in an abstract manner. It's a bit fancier and involved than the D&D 4e Skill Challenges, and do in fact kinda look like a draft for a Eurogame:

_{I imagine an actual boardgame for this not looking much different.}

The general idea is to take the initiative and action economy of the combat rules (which has the side effect of allowing the GM to have both going on at the same time) and the Investigation mechanics from the Random Scenarios, aka having the PCs perform Checks whose scores are then translated into points (up to a certain maximum to enforce a minimum number of checks to be made). The Progressive Checks ends either when enough points are amassed, or if the End Condition is triggered. The latter is usually not recommended as that's pretty much the loss condition.

If a PC is particularly bad at the required Check (or just wants to help a fellow teammate to beat a particularly nasty Difficulty), he can opt for a Support Roll, which doesn't generate any points, but grants a target a bonus to his roll.

The really fancy part are the Progression Events: Once the point total reaches certain milestones, the conditions of the Progressive Check chance for better or worse: The Difficulty can go up or down, or an entirely new Check might suddenly be required.
In addition to that, the GM rolls a random even on the Situation Chart each round that will further makes things easier or harder for the players.

Overall, the system is quite nifty. It has some meat to it, and even recommends you to reward players for using their Simple Powers for once.

Aside from the bomb diffusal above, other example Progressive Chceks include stuff like "Close the Deal", "Sneak into the FH Base" and "Follow the Target", all for the GM to tweak or use as inspiration for his own Progressive Checks. Some of these examples also come with their own Situation Charts for better flavoring.

Enemy Powers

Man, the stuff here is fun: Angel Halo NPCs can snipe at you from a different Scene. Balor NPCs can mess up your gravity pull so you can't slow down and will crash into stuff whenever you try to move. Black Dogs can make program a Firewall or other security program that physically hurts the hacker. Bram Stoker NPCs can now spam their Powers without having to worry about paying HP. Chimaera NPCs get absurd [Armor] for as long as the PCs don't hit their weak spot. Exile NPCs can no play as Mystique from the X-Men. Hanuman NPCs move so fast they're treated as multiple characters. Morpheus NPCs boost the crap out of weapons and create fake money out of nothing. Neumann NPCs are so good at multi-tasking that they gain an extra turn. Orcus NPCs turn the entire area into a labyrinth, allowing only those characters to enter the Scene he wants to be there. Slamandra NPCs can cover entire citie sin a blizzard or tropical heat. Solaris NPCs can release an Anti-Renegade poison that hurts anyone who wants to use Powers.

The Ouroboros Syndrome naturally gets the most stuff, as its new and all. And what stuff there is: Ouroboros NPCs can get the mother of all Renegade Killer Powers that makes all of their Ouroboros Powers AoE. They can also yank people around by controlling their shadows like Gekko Moria. They can also prevent the use of Warding Fields, which is especially handy if they have a gang of non-Overed thugs around.
The really big guns hower are <<Steal Ability>> and <<Banish Power>>. The former steals an Power from the target, while the latter drains so much Renegade viruses out of the target that he can no longer use any Powers. Both last for the entire Scenario, or either until the NPC dies or the target fulfills some condition decided by the GM.
Suffice to say, both are very dickish Powers that can make for some really scary situations. Suddenly, that group of Yakuza looks a lot more dangerous without access to claws, laser beams or Warding Fields.

Common Enemy Powers include buff for Troopers an nother dickish Powers. Remenmber <<Instant Retreat>>, the "Get out of Scene for Free" card that NPCs love to use? Well, now they can kick you out of a Scene instead. Luckily for the players, this only works on targets who agree or are unconscious (good job avoiding the "unconscious targets are always willing" formulation).

But not all Powers are actually beneficaly. There's in fact <<Superhuman Weakness I>>, which gives you a weakness against some source from which you will take additional damage. Why would you give that to an NPC? Well, there's the complementary Power <<Superhuman Weakness II>>, which makes you suffer less damage from anything until your weakness is hit. It more or less allows you to build a D&D troll in DX.

Exhausted Loises

The general E-Loises start right up with what is essentially the Anime Regium's major shtick: You die, you get to transfer your mind into another body. Gjaums can no also inflict targets with a death clock that counts down the number of Rounds until their HP drops to 0.

Gjaums with the Release Impulse can make a sort of thrall, giving him an E-Lois of his own. Bloodsucking Gjaums get similar team options by pumping an ally full of their own blood. Hunger Gjaums can swallow the entire Scene, moving everyone and everything into their belly for some sweet ongoing digestion damage. Slaughter Gjaums get a doomsday E-Lois that targets organizations instead of places. Destruction Gjaums can now blow upon death. Torture Gjaums regain health when they deal enough damage. Distaste Gjaums have access to what is essentially a mental force field that makes them completely immune from harm as long as the shield isn't broken. Battle Lust Gjaums can make themselves immune against specific damage sources. Delusion Gjaums gain mind control. Self-Mutilation Gjaums get to make people crazier with each hit against them because they enjoy it so much. Fear Gjaums can freeze people in place through fear. And Hatred Gjaum can now cause pedestrian riots for an easier escape.

Enemy Characters

A couple new enemy writeups, some of which - like the Apostle Agent - making use of the Ouroboros Syndrome. Highlgihts include EX Gjaums that are soldier ants or landmines. Boss-type characters include J�rmugandr (Ouroboros), Nue (Ouroboros/Chimaera/Solaris) and the Queen Ant (Morpheus/Ouroboros).

Next Time: Scenarios - meet Gjaumzilla.

# ¿ Feb 3, 2016 23:04

Doresh: Jan 7, 2015

Count Chocula posted:

So which writer's fantasy girlfriend is she? She does kinda pull off being a likeable Ayn Rand character.

Just add a note on how she's really into video games, anime and cosplaying, and you have Next Edtiion Lilith.

Fossilized Rappy posted:

Raw Head and Bloody Bones: Also known as Bloody Bones or Tommy Rawhead, this monster was once a large pig named Raw Head. Raw Head was owned by an elderly Conjure woman living out in the Ozarks, who treated the big boar as her only friend. While everyone in that wooded valley knew Raw Head belonged to the Conjure woman, a poacher from out of town came and slew the pig one day. The furious Conjure woman used necromantic power to resurrect Raw Head's blood-soaked bones into a horrific monster. The skeletal boar walked on his hind legs and gathered parts from other slain animals, taking the teeth of a panther, claws of a bear, and tail of a beaver, then took his time stalking and taunting the poacher with a raspy human voice in the dead of night. Eventually, after he was finally tired of playing with his prey, Raw Head and Bloody Bones killed and ate the poacher. If you're brave enough, you can summon him for yourself, presumably to utilize his 30 Endurance and Strength to rend your foes asunder.

...

Okwa Naholo ("White People of the Water"): Slender people with all black eyes and skin colored "the white of a trout's belly". No one's quite sure what these guys' deal is, as they typically hide by burrowing in mud or crawling into reeds whenever people are around, only coming out and doing whatever it is they do when they are alone. Okwa naholo have an extreme amount of hatred for fishermen, who they will attempt to drag under the water and drown. Being drowned by an okwa naholo causes you to become an okwa naholo yourself rather than die.

Man, Southern zombies and (kinda sorta) ghouls own. Raw Head really needs a mini or something.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2016 18:15

Doresh: Jan 7, 2015

Bieeardo posted:

Rawhead goes all the way back to Ireland. Clive Barker made a movie about one variation of him, way back in the day.