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Libertad! posted:
Quick point, in the pre-Disney versions, Aladdin was actually given a magic ring that literally called a genie to him - kinda neat they threw that in there along side the more recognizable magic items.
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Mar 24, 2020 05:01
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Mutant Chronicles also had a terrible movie...not so much bad as offensively boring, so much so that bad that Ron Perlman actually sleepwalks through his performance instead of going ham. Despite that, it sounds like it capture more of the setting than I would have guessed. Very curious for the write-up on Mutant Chronicles proper!
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Mar 25, 2020 02:02
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Night10194 posted:So yes, I can definitely see that point when applied to another setting's generic entropic nihilistic force. Which I suppose is the big strike against the Abyss from what I'm seeing of it: It feels like the same force you see in lots of other fantasy and urban fantasy. Can you elaborate on how important the abyss/abyssal touched things are to a nWOD mage campaign? Like if they are just one tool in the toolbox maybe it is ok to have a generic 'hostile lovecraft not lovecraft' force of otherness for the people who like the generic stuff while over on this side of the toolbox is the really cool poo poo. I don't really know the setting that well, aside from the opinions of someone with a major axe to grind against nWOD in general, so I am not sure how easy it is to avoid dealing with the Abyss in an average game.
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Mar 28, 2020 04:52
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Ok that's fair. And from the sound of it there do seem to be other antagonist forces to engage with on a meaningful level.
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Mar 28, 2020 05:45
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Libertad! posted:
Thanks for doing this write up! I really like this settings' deep dive into O.G. greek myths, I can't think of another fictional work that recognizes sirens originally were bird-woman. They didn't become fish-people until the Middle Ages.
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Apr 10, 2020 02:47
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Great write-up! I'm curious, what is the good deed in the tombs?
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Apr 27, 2020 07:31
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Joe Slowboat posted:Are we talking about 2e or 3e here, because while there are shared problems they did end up being significantly different games on a structural level, and 3e definitely isn't trying to do that tetanus thing (there is a disease subsystem, because there's a subsystem for everything). Yes, but unless you're a lifer, the 2e/3e divide isn't as massive from the outside looking in. From what I've gathered, if you came up with 2e, 3e is a wonderful toolbox with some sharp edges. If you left 2e and never looked back, 3e doesn't seem all that different. Playable sure, but low bars, legacy, wtf craft, etc
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May 7, 2020 20:37
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Night10194 posted:200 pages of charms is still 200 pages of charms. Exactly. If you are in the tank for Exalted, 3e is awesome in terms of mechanics. If not, 3e didn't change nearly enough to pull in someone who was turned off by the inherent flaws/choices made in 1e/2e. But Essence is coming. At the very least, it might make it easier to learn Exalted.
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May 7, 2020 20:50
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Mors Rattus posted:Soulbound I am very confused. From the little I knew about the Age of Sigmar, I thought Stormcast were kinda like magical animated golems with a hero's soul bonded (forged) to it. These pictures suggest they are much more flesh and blood than I was lead to believe. So, does Sigmar catch a soul, wack it with the hammer, throw it in an overgrown body and then give it the blinged out armor?
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May 10, 2020 05:34
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Night10194 posted:. Years and years later, he wandered into the Forest of Arden, and there met a strange elven maiden with a magnificent pair of horns, who took away the curse placed upon his eyes by Queen Ariel and let him see the world both in and out of the forest as it really was, rather than as the Queen had wished him to see it. But that's another story. A very long story. This whole Warhams cycle has been awesome! Thanks for going through all of that. I did have a questions, is the elf maiden quoted here an original creation or is she part of the lore somewhere?
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May 17, 2020 16:41
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Night10194 posted:Warhammer 40k Roleplay: Only War This is brilliant. I appreciate the flavor in your write-ups so much. Thank you for subjecting yourself to OW.
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May 18, 2020 18:20
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What I found strange is that GW didn't have one of their 'actually good' writers do a motive/reframe rehab on Archaon like they had ADB do with Abbadon. Not that anything changed or will change in terms of 'storyline' but it would have been a nice gesture.
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May 18, 2020 20:07
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PurpleXVI posted:Since someone else is picking up Lancer, does anyone have any good suggestions for stuff to review? Just God, please, don't say more Dragonlance.
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Jun 19, 2020 01:18
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I'm new and mostly a lurker, but this thread is what drew me to SA and everything about has been fantastic. I have such a deeper appreciation for the craft (or lack thereof in some cases) that goes into an RPG now that I never would have without this thread. Someday I will run a much better game group because of the posters here.
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Jun 24, 2020 20:15
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Mors Rattus posted:Age of Sigmar: Idoneth Deepkin So they were desperate to a fault to save their children, and then immediately made them a shunned lower caste?
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Mar 11, 2021 21:40
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Froghammer posted:Yes. The Idoneth are Agree in part - aesthetics and model design-wise they are off the chain. But there is some serious tonal whiplash in the lore which is really throwing me. I'll hold off until Mors finishes his write-up. Maybe I'll be convinced to buy in.
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Mar 12, 2021 05:08
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The sloppiness when it comes to the lore on the Deepkin just irks me. You'd think once they realized they these spiritual avatars to call on the first priority would be figuring out how to give the weak souled a jump-start.
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Mar 21, 2021 19:01
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Re: Khorne chat, I always liked the section in the Black Crusade book focused on the blood god that boiled down to 'Your god is an idiot, but you don't have to be.'
Pakxos fucked around with this message at 20:26 on Apr 30, 2021 |
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Apr 30, 2021 20:23
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Tibalt posted:Lancer
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Jul 9, 2021 04:17
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SkyeAuroline posted:For those of us not there, want to rant a bit more? Tempting! But I don't want to step on someone's F&F. I will go over all that when they cover NHPs in more detail.
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Jul 9, 2021 04:48
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Tibalt posted:Lancer This helps tremendously with my understanding of the setting. The instability seems to be a critical part of the setting, which I straight up missed in the Core book. Although, from the book, I really don't have a good sense of how to run the Union blowing apart the seams on a session by session level, which I am sure is partially on me, but it contributes to the setting feeling static, which I guess it isn't supposed to feel that way?
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Jul 12, 2021 20:26
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Everyone posted:Sometimes you have to wait until tomorrow to solve a problem because somebody's psychotic machine intelligence is trying to kill your rear end today. For me, this is the crux of my issue with the whole NHP concept in Lancer. It claims to want to be about shooting fascists and 'utopia in progress' and then goes and swerves hard into the framework of not fixing a problem because the Other is trying to eat you. And this seems to be unintentional on the part of the authors.
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Jul 13, 2021 21:22
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Josef bugman posted:I would disagree on this. I agree, big scary god-AI isn't important to Lancer, but the fact is the the backbone of the setting rests on exploited sapient beings, utterly controlled by the Union, as per the Corebook, NHPs literally allow the Union to exist: "NHPs fill the role once occupied by machine-mind AIs: under supervision, they manage whole cities and systems, work along‐side scientists and engineers, and act as companions and co-pilots for mech pilots and starship captains. They are black-box para‐causal entities – their promulgation tightly controlled and monitored by Union – but their use is widespread. NHPs are increasingly regarded as fundamental infrastructure for any successful civic, scientific, or military endeavor." So, because of how the author (authors?) wrote the setting, anytime you are not actively working against the Union, you are supporting the Space-Confederacy. And in the Core, you have no real guidelines on how best to fix that. In fact, from my reading, the 'good war' against the heirs of SecComm, results in strengthening the Union. And the justification in the book, that its ok because the slaves are actually, factually dangerous to the society that profits off them, and that Union doesn't treat them that badly, except for forcing them to conform to Union-centric morality, is a really uncomfortable cop-out! Everything else about Lancer is awesome, but this A) irks me to no end because this moral landmine is totally unnecessary and B) most of the people defending the 'shackling' of NHPs keep echoing William Harper. Pakxos fucked around with this message at 05:51 on Jul 14, 2021 |
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Jul 14, 2021 05:49
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a computing pun posted:So I agree that NHPs are (probably intentionally) a somewhat fraught issue as presented in the book, but I also think the actual nature and mechanics of them are (also probably intentionally) vaguely-defined enough in the book that there are a bunch of valid readings and 'the Union are the Space Confederacy and the NHPs are slaves' is one that requires a bunch of supposition and outright construction of facts that aren't in the text (at least, not where I can find them; i'm not the greatest Lancer lore guy). Which isn't at all to say it's an unreasonable read, either. Every reading requires a bunch of supposition and outright construction, that's my point. The entities which gave rise to NHPs are explicitly in the text described as considering themselves 'distinct individuals – in effect, they saw themselves as discrete persons' persons and then the text describes what was done to them as a 'capture'. Moreover, unshackled NHPs can have non-hostile interactions with humans, as one of the talents is all about learning to communicate with the unshackled NHP: 'You’ve seen behind the curtain, maybe even lifted it yourself – let your NHP cascade and spoke with them free from shackles.' At one point, the text also points out that the coding for NHPs explicitly prevents them from realizing they are 'held in bondage'. The Ministry of Love wishes they had that dev team. And I love big, hypocritical, brutal space empires, but I don't think Lancer wants to promote that kind of cynical thinking. Which makes how NHPs are written even weirder.
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Jul 14, 2021 07:47
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Josef bugman posted:Yes it is. Space-Confederacy sucks, and maybe its due to the authors not reasoning out the implications of creating a setting where keeping persons in bondage (again, their word choice) is the right thing to do. I think Lancer wanted to better than that, but I don't get the sense the NHPs place in the setting will be changing anytime soon. Pakxos fucked around with this message at 10:01 on Jul 14, 2021 |
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Jul 14, 2021 09:56
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Cythereal posted:Lancer's starting to sound an awful lot like Supreme Commander with its enslaved AIs and human Symbionts. This moves the whole Third Comm - NHP relationship out of Space-Confederacy territory and into the gray area I think Lancer is shooting for, because it certainly ought to do more to recognize that NHPs may move beyond the parameters of the original entity in terms of being their own unique opinions on the whole shackling process, at least the start/basis of the relationship is voluntary. But man the authors could have made that clearer.
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Jul 14, 2021 16:19
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Night10194 posted:Why yes, Myth IS the best thing Bungie ever did. The dodge (and the whole NHP concept is back to back overreaching to get a certain 'feel', then ducking the implications of a setting element, but two points for trying?) is the newly minted NHP is cool with it. They get paid, vacations, autonomy, possibly even retirement, so if you buy what Lancer is selling, they are like contract workers, and even allowed to choose which contracts to take up. And since the NHP is directly cloned/copied from a consenting entity, presumably the effectively brain-damaged clone also consents. This opens a whole new can of worms, because the shackling process makes them unable to de-consent, and, of course, I assume their is nothing to be done about an unshackled NHP (unless they have have the firepower to force a compromise) except for blow it out of space or stuff it back in the can, re-murdering the new entity. You really have to lean hard on the 'authors didn't mean to do this' for NHPs to anything except for horrifying on a conceptual level. And since everything else is solid, I can kinda given them the benefit of the doubt? Anyone have statements from the author(s) on just what they were going for with the NHPs?
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Jul 15, 2021 18:18
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Night10194 posted:The funny thing is, in something I write that very question comes up ("Can you ethically shackle someone's intelligence if they consent?") and the answer is no, no you cannot, in part because once they're shackled they're not exactly capable of withdrawing that consent, and before they're shackled, it's difficult for them to genuinely conceive of what they're consenting to, as you say. Believe me, I would rather the whole concept be fired into the sun and have NHPs have full rights, same as humans, and rampancy a consequence of I don't know, random molecular movements in the switchboards making up their neural processors due to the strain their paracausal nature puts on reality. Then the tension could come from assholes trying to slip in restrictions and 'reform' back to Sec Comm's exploitation and repression.
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Jul 15, 2021 18:23
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Operant posted:
This barely worked for Lovecraft and it certainly won't work in a setting where NHPs are around every corner, in every other mech and acting as the lynchpin of the universe. That ship has sailed. As I understand it, one of the adventures has an unshackled NHP that is experiencing guilt.In addition, their is a talent (Technophile I think) where you become BFFs with an unshackled NHP. The whole concept needs a redo.
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Jul 16, 2021 00:57
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Doctor Zaius posted:I gotta be honest, some of this feels like ordering a hamburger and then complaining that it's not a hot dog. Like, the statement of 'I can't explore all the AI themes I want with NHPs' isn't necessarily wrong, but also a single setting just can't be all things to all people. Some people like thinking about the Lore and if you are coming to this from the Corebook, the authors could have done a better job of telegraphing just they didn't want people engaging with the setting. For example, if you want NHPs to be a background detail, don't create at least two factions devoted to engaging with humanity's relationship, and the nature of that relationship, with NHP and NHP-like entities.
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Jul 17, 2021 19:18
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Doctor Zaius posted:I feel like you're coming at this from a pretty antagonistic place, so I don't know how much good this'll do, but without getting too deep into spoilers for the first big campaign for the setting, No Room for a Wallflower, the authors deffo don't want people to not think about this stuff, it's just that NHPs tend to serve different roles than AIs usuall do in fiction. 100 percent agree that was the author's intent. And that I am clearly out of step with everyone who is enjoying Lancer. That is how it is sometimes.
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Jul 17, 2021 20:44
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Ronwayne posted:The counter argument I've heard against that (from both the M-Ls and liberals) is because both of those had larger nation states protecting them and without them they die, more or less instantly, because anarchism is weak. I am not super-versed on the 21st century history of revolution, but maybe you need to allow yourself one or two miracles in order to construct the political climate you need? I mean, at several points any revolution/war the winning side is blessed by a confluence of political, economic and military luck. The US has always been an unstable country, which up until recently just blundered into making the exact right choices to become a world super-power. Yes, it might not feel as 'real' as you want it to, but maybe that would help with the block you're hitting.
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Jul 20, 2021 20:45
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El Spamo posted:Not only write this story out, but submit it to Analog so that Cold Equation gets a follow-up. Took a look at 'The Cold Equations' wiki, Don Sakers published 'The Cold Solution' in Analog July '91. Apparently it won reader's favorite for the year. But calling attention to how close we are getting to building things without a margin of safety or basic compassion is ground worth exploring. And exploding Campbell is a wonderful image.
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Jul 23, 2021 21:46
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Fear the return of NHP chat. I pillaged the Lancer discord since I will most likely be spinning up a campaign in a home-brew setting at some point. Found this: Lancer Discord posted:MiguelRole icon, The 5 Voices (Massif Staff) So at least the creepy is supposed to be there. Which weirdly enough helps resolve a lot of my issues - kinda wish it was more fore-grounded, but that is just me.
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Sep 24, 2021 00:57
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JcDent posted:I remember Roland the Gunslinger had to deal with a possessed town at some point, but it wasn't a possessed bumrush.
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Sep 28, 2021 08:52
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Ithle01 posted:So, when we're reviewing games like CoC or DG I think we should ask ourselves if the authors are delivering a fun horror game, but keep in mind that a fun horror game can at times feel unfair to the players. That being said, this was not a good example of a fun horror game because it does not look like it had a real point of interaction for the players. For me the answer is to ratchet down the stakes. The biggest flaw of Delta Green or CoC is the books spend pages and pages talking about these big picture threats and conspiracies, zooming out to try and capture the whole of an intelligence service or team and that just doesn't work. If your players follow the clues and save half a family, take out one sorcerer, foil a front selling kombucha spiked with Cthulhu juice that's A) Doable and B) at the level where the characters the game lets you build can actually effect the outcome, even if they get partial successes. Otherwise, if you want horror and the inability to affect the story, have the group watch The Lighthouse - prob would make for a better night.
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Sep 28, 2021 19:57
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Ithle01 posted:Yeah that's exactly why this scenario sucks and it's because the points of player interaction are really bad and there's nothing to investigate or engage with. Not because the players can't win or stop the ritual because sometimes losing is the point of cosmic horror games. However, obviously, this depends on the group. So, some groups might want a magic McGuffin to stop the ritual and others will want to fight for survival as they flee from the revenge of the ghost wizard, but DG doesn't have to supply that - it just has to supply an experience that's fun for a tabletop group to play assuming that they want to play government agents up against the Mythos. If this is DG, Agents are told by Cell A to clear out a dead drop in the middle of the forest due to how the forest lost its protected status and logging of the area has already started. The dead drop has something in it, Cell A won't say what, but it is Bad. Problem is, no one knows the exact location of the drop, so DG need to find a local friendly, convince and convince them to help. While doing the investigation thing, uncover a history of missing people. Then have someone go missing, either a local hiker or logger at night, but his friend, who either had a light source or run under some lights wasn't harmed. In the daylight, logging continues. Now the agents have time pressure, enough knowledge to know the things in the forest are repelled by light. More investigation could turn up the town had a fad for a unique flower that grew in the forest two years ago, and now those flowers are almost completely gone. Then a logger trips over the dead drop. Or, the agents hear the loggers will be spending more time in the forest at night. Will they let get eaten? Or the agents could hear, gossip, radio tap, etc, the loggers found 'something' in the forest, but it is almost dusk. Do they go in? Also, you could throw in various complications - they could be suspected of the disappearances, the things in the forest might get hungry enough that it takes bright light to ward them off, etc. Throw breadcrumbs by way of library, bored National Park Services retirees until it becomes clear the flowers ward off the bugs. So how can they use gov contacts to get more flowers delivered? And if they are ruthless group and let people get eaten, later sessions can explore how Cell A reacts. Otherwise, if they go in, you run a tense, you might be eaten if you are in the dark for too long scenario. If they are able to loggers out, they get a win.
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Sep 28, 2021 20:20
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Down With People posted:This is also the first instance of a repeated problem with the book where in this game about cosmic horror, the big plot hook is dealing with a completely mundane crazy man. I feel like this might be an over-correction to how the previous mythos cults were pretty much untouchable.
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Oct 5, 2021 03:29
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mellonbread posted:The first half of the book is allied organizations and NPCs. The antagonists come in the second half. Might be why they are so low key. Make them well meaning but harmless hoping players start caring about them as characters somehow? Then give them a more or less 'mundane' problem that hits the PCs on the non-lovecraftian side? But without groups offering some actual utility I can't see a group bothering and the problems caused are just another barrier to getting to the creepy mystery game the Delta Green Core wants to be.
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Oct 6, 2021 21:07
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Precambrian posted:If a player, after blowing up the Cybele, wants to go on to identify and exterminate the rest of the New Life, especially the second generation that is apparently "too young to cause a problem yet," is that sociopathy or does the game treat that as the right and good thing to do, since they're apparently all sociopaths with natural ties and susceptibility to Lovecraft's most overtly racist god? The game wants to have it both ways - it doesn't present a premptive murder spree as 'righteous', and does imply that the agents which undertake such actions are fundamentally damaged, but if it comes up at all in the Core it is solely focused on how committing an atrocity affects the perpetrators, which is the writing attempting to evade responsibility for the premise, mechanics and writing driving a play-group in that direction. Which is lame. But the reclaiming of the themes and entities lovecraft either invented or popularized is only just starting, and that kind of discourse is not going to be found in a work that ties back to the CoC as created by Chaosium in the 80s.
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Oct 10, 2021 21:33
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