KingKalamari posted:

Where we’re going you don’t need Gods...Except when you do. It’s...



The Wilderlands of High Fantasy Part XII: The Gods of the Wilderlands is a Land of Contrasts

DalaranJ posted:

Imagine how bad of a bartender you would have to be to not be able to come with an answer to "where can someone find a little adventure around here". That's not a dumb question. It's a question that thousands of bartenders doubtlessly answer every day, because that's part of their job.

Nessus posted:

e: So it's really more that people WANT to play Persona/Jojo, or at least something resembling those sources without being heavily authored by a guy with weird phobic opinions/a vampire from space, respectively

Robindaybird posted:

yeah, it's especially glaring in P5 where the themes would be against such things, but it's clear the director Hoshimoto still clung to homophobic and sexist jokes that other anime and video games had abandoned a decade ago.

Thankfully a different director will be helming the series.

Neopie posted:

Persona is homophobic just, all over the place, constantly, and often kind of weird and sexist too.

MinistryofLard posted:

There's generally a few "equivalent' statlines of strength and toughness that doesn't vary as much across factions and units. A Marine equivalent ("MEQ") generally has a toughness of 4, a strength of 4, and a 3+ save. By contrast, a Guard Equivalent ("GEQ") has a a toughness of 3, a strength of 3 and a 3+ save. Marines are 8 foot tall genetically engineered killing machines, whereas a guardsman is a regular human being, which is an indicator of what those stats mean.

Flail Snail posted:

New Horizon Part 4: History and a bit of adventuring

So, a question to the peanut gallery. There are thirteen free supplemental items for this game and more are coming out all the time. Do you want to hear about ezo-latin food? How about stealing breastmilk from babies? The author's apotheosis? They're all one page, I believe, so there might be one more update in me if people want more.

quote:

Expect more haters to rise along the way, it comes with inevitable success. NH is a premium product without a label, not your typical Indie TRPG. And like previously mentioned, some will stop at nothing to stain its image. You who possess thy book, must spread its message to your fellow brothers because this is our only true outer haven.

PurpleXVI posted:

I think it's just that there's plain more easily accessible gameplay depth in a fight than there is in a conversation, like... it's easier to mechanically stat a ballista bolt, a sword and shield or a lightning bolt than is to stat a cunning argument.

If you wanted to adapt the same sort of gameplay depth as you can get in strategic/tactical combat. Supply lines, positioning, status effects, different types of weaponry... to social or intellectual interactions. You'd either need to abstract it so much that it would no longer bear any resemblance to that original social interaction, or you'd need to melt it down into such easily-interchangable pieces that instead of the level 10 wizard yelling "I CAST MAGIC MISSILE!" you get the level 10 philosopher yelling "I PROCLAIM LOGICAL FALLACY FOR 5D6 INTELLECT POINTS."

[...]

So I think it's less of a cultural matter, more just that there are some very simple forces that make violence easier to work with both mechanically and presentation-wise than arguments or investigation.

OvermanXAN posted:

Uh, nothing to do with Jackson. I have a 1965 edition of the book, it's Celeborn there.

PurpleXVI posted:

Young Freud posted:

Oh hell, is this something topical? 'Cuz, along with J.K. Rowling, Richard Morgan of "Altered Carbon" fame (and basically the uncredited writer of Eclipse Phase, since a lot of the game's concepts came from his novel series) outed himself as a transphobe, claiming to be a "bio-materialist" or some poo poo.

Libertad! posted:

This appendix is a thing of beauty: 43 new monster stat blocks, 9 new generic NPC types, and 28 pieces of full-page artwork. Odyssey has some great art, but this section is an anomaly by the sheer number and size of them. It’s a shame that I cannot show them all, otherwise this section would be a little too image-heavy.

Night10194 posted:

Though the armor will get taken away almost no matter what. The game suggests an entire sub-campaign about smuggling it out, keeping hold of it somehow, and either finding ways to keep using it or find a way to sell it for anything close to what it's worth (a kingdom's ransom) so you can retire. Also you have to (re)kill the guy wearing it, which is not easy.

Night10194 posted:

My gang tang should definitely tell people I agree that yes, everyone should play Disco Elysium.

You can become some kind of hyper star!

PurpleXVI posted:

Playing Disco Elysium is a very good decision.

Cooked Auto posted:

Let's not forget insanely ostentatious and lavish Japanese helmets. If you've been watching the Nioh LP you've seen at least a couple of really wild ones.

Cooked Auto posted:

To determine if your character is left or right handed you need to roll a 2D10. Here the game makes a weird distinction between things. If you roll 19 it means that the character is double handed, which the book describes like ambidextrous but you can use both hands at the same time. And then if you manage to roll 20 you’re properly ambidextrous.

FMguru posted:

There was this big "Well, actually" movement in fantasy fiction in the 1970s which tried to make things more "realistic" (a good artifact of this is the Poul Anderson essay On Thud And Blunder) which went along with a similar trend in pop history (getting away from the Ivanhoe and Robin Hood notion of knights and chivalry and beautiful princesses and shining armor and jolly peasants). It overshot its mark so we've been stuck the awful ugly Dung Ages as our baseline for understanding medieval times for the last several decades.

Poul Anderson, 1978 posted:

True, primary sources can’t always be trusted. Thus, in the generally realistic Icelandic sagas, you find a few references to somebody cutting a head or limb off somebody else with a single stroke. Try this on a pork roast, suspended without a chopping block, and see how far you get.

It could be done with the best of the classic Japanese swords, which are marvels of metallurgy. However, one of these must be treated very carefully if it isn’t to be ruined. The mere touch of a finger can induce corrosion.

The cruder blades of Europe demanded still closer attention. Edged weapons are more fragile than one might think, especially if they are bronze or medieval-type steel. Those quickly go blunt and become simple clubs; ofttimes they bend and must be more or less straightened with a foot and an oath; they can break. Not even with a samurai sword do you cut through armor.

Cooked Auto posted:

That just reeks of another case of "I'm an expert at swords because I spent a couple of minutes swinging one around at a RenFaire".

Cooked Auto posted:

There’s a table reminding us how many mutations and defects bout Mutants and Psi ones get. But also specifically mentioning that Psi-mutants get 1d2 mental defects as well as 1d4-3 mental defects.

Falconier111 posted:

I… I have no idea . They always use 10+ when writing this stuff out, whether there is a 12+ in the picture or not, and that implies 10+ means 10 or 11. If the crazy good result only comes on a 13 or more, the math balances out a bit, but I think that's just a leftover either from an earlier draft or from the basic PbtA template they used. I don't know what to make of that.

Night10194 posted:

A Wizard

The Abyss is fine on its own but I think it's overall a weakness in the module and I'm glad I cut it out. If you want more weird horror fantasy feel free to use it, or to use it as a sequel or something, but I really think it messes up the relatively tight plotting and pacing of the Tower on the Hill. Horror works best when it's relatively concise, it's not a tone you can easily sustain for hours and hours of play at a time. The baffling, terrible tower gives you just enough time to get used to its awfulness and have some idea what's coming even as it keeps throwing curve balls at you. I also think the system agnostic element adds more than the OSR stuff. The OSR stuff is so, so basic that it might as well not be there. I don't think Old School Renaissance really defines this product so much as it's defined by being a tight, efficient, well-written horror story about an outside context problem.

The End

Cythereal posted:

At the peak of Yetsira is the Bridge of al-Sihal, a pathway into the brilliant light of Chronias, the Illuminated Heaven and the peak of Mount Celestia. None who have crossed the bridge have ever been seen again, and there is no power or magic in all the planes that can reveal anything of Chronias or what happens to those who cross the bridge. The DM is strongly encouraged to keep Chronias a mystery, as explaining it is not the philosophical point here.


Next time, Bytopia!

Falconier111 posted:

lunar settlements - one of which produced limited granitic manipulation techniques

Epicurius posted:

Planescape itself put the Greek gods in there, and made Mt. Olympus part of the realm. They share Arborea with the elves (and apparently enjoy partying together). The place used to be the home of the giant gods and the titans, but the elvish pantheon drove off the giants and the Greek pantheon imprisoned the Titans. Also, in Planescape, the third level used to be the home of the Egyptian gods, but they wandered off, except for Nephythys. It also used to be the home of the Beast Lords, but they moved to the Beastlands.

mellonbread posted:

CASTLE GARGANTUA PART 12: THE FALL OF THE MESEMBRINE


We’re in the home stretch of Castle Gargantua

OtspIII posted:

B2: Keep on the Borderlands -- Part 2: The Keep



No NPC within the Keep has a name. Some people praise this decision, because it means the Keep is generic enough that you can really run it in any kind of setting--it’d be trivially easy to drop this into a European, Arabic, East-Asian, etc themed setting. I’m not a fan, personally--it’s extremely easy to just ignore given names if they don’t fit the setting, and in practice this just leads to my brain seizing up periodically when my players ask what someone’s name is.

quote:

Inner Bailey Entrance: The Keep is in two big segments--the Inner and Outer Bailey. The Outer Bailey is full of civilians, adventurers, merchants, and so on, while the Inner Bailey is where the Castilian and the guards operate from.

Mors Rattus posted:

Yes. First and second have a very, very different setting from third, which has a very, very different setting from 4th and 5th.

Dallbun posted:

Thieves begin with a base 20% chance to decipher

The Deck of Encounters Set Two Part 25: The Deck of Even More Thief Kits

juggalo baby coffin posted:

degenesis seems like it suffers from having a whole shitload of ideas that it does nothing with. theres really cool poo poo like the palers and a bunch of the backstory, but they're underdeveloped mechanically because they're sharing space with dogshit like the apocalyptics. I don't understand why. if it was focused on the palers you could have a really neat game that was a combo of fallout and paranoia with weird psychic alien fungus stuff to fight.

Dallbun posted:

The demonic stone idol clutches

The Deck of Encounters Set Two Part 34: The Deck of Fish and Gargoyles

PurpleXVI posted:

The Illithiad

That Illithid is Strom Wakeman, THE ADVERSARY. Turns out the Illithids were right, he has been loving up their plans all these years, working with Githyanki, Githzerai, Us and others. Apparently a special combination of herbs and spices allowed him to survive ceremorphosis with his personality intact, and he developed a psionic discipline to keep himself from starving without consuming brains.

quote:

Nessus posted:

Alexis Kennedy (though he is a bad person) wrote a consonant chord,

senrath posted:

He's a sex pest.

Joe Slowboat posted:

Also it’s about Modernist Literature. I wrote an essay about it before we found out what Kennedy had been up to re: dating his employees and being a sex pest, I’m still proud of the essay but don’t give AK your money.

Night10194 posted:

Considering the bit about how Lesser Outer Gods are genuinely mindless and can be exploited and controlled by understanding what autonomous response they have to stimuli, the fact that Cthulhutech had you piloting boring mecha and not riding goddamn Lesser Outer Gods was sign 1 that it wasn't going to do anything cool.

Young Freud posted:

Guess what? Outside of lore and stuff, a lot of it is incompatible now. Like they complete redid the weapons so that they're genericized in a bad way. They turned them into D&D "Longsword +1" with a brand name for roleplaying purposes and no longer have an unique stat line.

Wapole Languray posted:

Third, you'll prepare your character with special abilities and equipment.

"Leadership" is another really useful support path, this time focusing on being a cunning tactician instead of inspirational leader. The first ability "Size Up" is 0 AP and when used lets you evaluate a nearby creature or group of creatures. The Guide will give you information about their abilities, strength, and any vulnerabilities or resistances they may have. This is delivered narratively, but should be accurate and effective if used. The capstone, Recruit, costs a whopping 7AP but gives you an entire second Fighter to follow you around! They have 10HP and the Counter Attack, Wild Attack, and Provoke abilities, making them effective combatants! This Attendant is controlled by the Guide and will loyally perform any tasks you ask as long as they are not suicidal or morally repugnant.

[...]

"Champion" has you be recognized as a famous hero who's reputation is greatly known especially among authoritarian minded people who look to strength for leadership, letting you gain both the Recruit and Attendant ability if not already had, with Recruit being free and Attendant costing only 4AP.

Panzeh posted:

Vietnam: Rumor of War, Page 1: A Wargame's Thesis Statement



So, at first, this cardboard chit depiction for units is rather normal for wargames but Starkweather has decided to be very clever and try to find a way to depict units on the counter while having very little game information about the different kind of units on the counter.

Normally, the advantage of a wargame chit over a miniature or say, a cube or disc is that you can put a bunch of information on a counter like this:



_{Depicted: A much older and better game about the war.}

Starkweather has decided to aesthetically improve his counters by having unit emblems on them... except this has a great many implications on the design. By not putting any information on the counters, this imposes many mechanical limitations, some of which are really crippling in trying to show land warfare in any kind of detail at this scale. The implications will come fairly clearly in the next few pages, but i'll give a little tease of one of them.

The 11th Armored Cavalry regiment was one of the last US units withdrawn from the theater. While the Pentagon at first thought that armor would not be of much use for US operations and adjusted the composition of divisions it sent to Vietnam with this in mind, they learned after a year or so that armor was useful as the roads proved to be conduits for both sides, and armor was quite useful when fighting along these paths. The 11th ACR proved to be a valuable reserve rolling column during the 1972 NVA offensive. It does not exist in this game. It could not exist in this system, because it really has no way to differentiate an armored regiment from any other regiment or unit. Armor is ephemeral and vague in OSS. Much like much of the rest of this system, especially when it comes to ground combat.

Yes, this designer wants to make the system depict the Arab-Israeli wars and a 1985 World War III but has no way to have armored divisions or brigades running around. Good luck.

By popular demand posted:

If a game about an ogur restaurant critic wondering the realms in search of that new taste sensation does not exist then this year is not any improvement over the last.

I must believe that Flavour Town is real

Panzeh posted:

Also the game incorrectly puts both Giap and An as leaders of the North Vietnamese war effort- Giap was a figurehead at this point, mostly marginalized from real power. An seemed picked out of a hat because he was present at Ia Drang and got a corps command for the 1975 offensive.

SkyeAuroline posted:

I'll see what I can do to recover it, a few other goons were present and might have it saved or searchable.
/tg/ occasionally had good insights (the faction analyses that I moved over to 1d4 before the threads disappeared are still some of the better breakdowns out there) but /pol/ took those threads over far too quickly for comfort. Unsurprisingly, really.
I guess it's a game I shouldn't even look at through the lens of "how to fix it" any more. Just scrape the good ideas and move along.

SkyeAuroline posted:

Pre-2016 was something of a different beast.


Turns out the whole writeup was in a Steam chat over a year ago, so lmao, that's gone. The highlights pretty much all circled around SMV portraying Borca and particularly the Spitalians as the bastion of civilizaton and heroism, while reducing every other region and ethnicity to its stereotypes; France just rolled over and surrendered and lets foreigners pillage it minus the totally-not-French-Resistance, Poland and Eastern Europe are backwater messes running on caveman logic (right up until the clanner hordes start gathering), Italy... has already been covered, the Balkans get the usual, and Spain is the most transparent by way of its Reconquista (and crusade) analogues combined with "modern" approaches.
Meanwhile the Degenesis version of Romani are literally a memetically-programmed cult that prostitutes out their children, are effectively incapable of not committing crimes against others, and are near singlehandedly responsible for preventing the world from recovering before Primer really got its hooks in for the sole sake of pleasure. And then Africa, most of all, catches the double barrel of ignorance and racist treatment - instead of doing even the tiniest shred of research, SMV's answer to "how do we respectfully portray African people" is "uh... Mind virus wipes out all linguistic and cultural barriers so they all unify into a monoculture instead!" The biggest distinctions of that monoculture from the others being "uhh, lion headdresses and tribal hunting packs as a method of war" combined with "Africa's raiding and enslaving Europe out of jealousy for their success and revenge because they're white, how dreadful, it's morally good and right to exterminate them with no questions asked at all". Reduced from the entire northern half of a continent with hundreds (at least) of distinct cultures with deep histories to pull on, to a caricaturized mirror of colonialism (while ignoring all the actual drives of colonialism in favor of "uh, greed and racism so they want our stuff") behind a veneer of "stereotypical Africa aesthetic, let's get some furs and spears in with our combat armor".

Degenesis tries to play the 40k game of "fascism and genocide are justified when the whole world is out to get you", completely missed the satirical elements of 40k, and actually thinks that genocidal scientists/doctors, corrupt authoritarians, and pesudochristian Crusaders are the paragons of morality. It falls flat with satire and it falls even flatter when taken dead seriously. It's just a vehicle for the authors' unsubtle messaging at some point, and all of that messaging points right back to SMV's home country (and immediate neighbors) as a beacon of civilization in a savage world, full of (white Germanic) heroes protecting (white Germanic) people from the ravening (nonwhite or non-Germanic) hordes of tribes, monstrosities, and colonialist bastards.
I wouldn't be surprised if SMV's physical studio was in Justitian's footprint.

Kind of stream of consciousness summarizing what I remember writing, and doing so from a poor platform for editing. Happy to go into more depth but may need to actually revisit my books for that. It's been quite some time since that deep dive amd I had sourced a lot of it back then.

This setting aside taking several steps past Koebel directly into "play out a sexual assault with one of your players in private, with no warning and no safety measures, and prevent them from telling their friends what happened", which... I'm pretty sure is well into the legal definition of sexual harassment. A whole separate barrel of fun from the racism.

Hipster Occultist posted:

And that’s basically it, there’s some lead stuff for Black Atlantic, but I’m not going to cover that.

Hipster Occultist posted:

Black Atlantic, Part 0: The Metaplot!