Messages

376

Role Playing Public Radio Podcast / Re: Ideas for quick games to design

« on: January 13, 2015, 11:12:11 PM »

I like #2 but I am also a Cthulhu fan so I am in your target demographic.  I like the idea because as a GM who hasn't looked over the lightning gun and mi-go living armor in the Call of Cthulhu main book and said "these are really cool pieces of technology, it would be neat to play with them" but you can't give them out willy nilly in a Lovecraftian purist (or even shotguns and dynamite) Cthulhu game.

So you are shooting for a humor-pulp game that is basically Base Raiders and a sprinkling of Red Market's apocalypse-economics on top in the Cthulhu world.  Lovecraft would spin in his grave. Sounds cool.  Maybe even compare with the (excellent and too short) Day After Ragnarok.

Also I am thinking of rail guns with Shining Trapezohedron sliver ammunition.

Ruin is the architectural horror gumshoe engine rpg I plan to make.

The back story of game idea #2 would be roughly "Cthulhu woke up. Everyone who made their sanity check pulled together and kept civilization together, somehow. The survivors all have hypergraphia
though, so everyone keeps a journal.

I laughed. That is terrible, but it makes a kind of sense. I think its a LITTLE corny unless you justify it further, like alienists in the setting have noticed that hypergraphia is the last stage of insanity before heartattack/being eaten by a grue.

Now, mythos threats are a way to make lots of money and power. High level investigators ram a boat into Cthulhu every hour of every day to keep him in check.

Cool. I imagine Cthulhu Splat (patent pending) tours of cruse ships (piloted and voiced by the Payton drunk ferryman from the Dream Factory) taking war tourist gawkers by R'lyeh every hour on the hour. Don't forget your Deep One merchandise from the squamous bulging eyes fellow at the kiosk!  Now instead of trying to fit into society, Deep One hybrids spend their human years as salesmen or celebrity entertainers before they take to the water.  I am envisioning a Deep One Kim Kardashian but perhaps those butt pics are too terrifying.  Also they are banned from Olympic swimming.

If Cthulhu is being kept in check then I imagine R'lyeh itself is an eternal battle ground with boatloads of adventurers arriving continuously like Einherjar.  Perhaps with every "death" of Cthulhu parts or all of R'lyeh sinks and the adventurers have to scramble back to their boats with as much loot as they can carry. Every time Cthulhu reforms, R'lyeh rises again, fresh with Star Spawn and Deep Ones.  It is touted that one Christmas the adventures and Star Spawn played a game of soccer on an unusual cease fire.  Cthulhu's Cephalopods (registered by FIFA) were disqualified for non-Euclidean penalty kicks.

You go to the bar to find a job from old professors in the corner and then go to the general store and buy tommy guns and dynamite. Complete the job to get paid and maybe a chance to level up. Die and someone else will find your journal and pick up where you left off."

Classes:

Detective - rogue
Soldier - fighter
Reporter - bard
Dilettante - wizard
Priest - cleric
Tribal Fisherman - ranger
Hitman - Assassin

Tribal Fisherman better have Favored Enemy : Deep One 

I'd argue that Reporter fits better as wizard since they will be writing down everything with hypergraphia.

I like the Dark Souls-style "save point" element of finding the character journals. 

This is a good comparison and maybe a good advertising point?  Like DarkSouls, my game is.... Buy my book!

377

Role Playing Public Radio Podcast / Re: Ideas for quick games to design

« on: January 13, 2015, 05:02:39 PM »

1) What is Ruin?

2) #2 interests me the most.  You could run with a Conan setting or mildly tongue and cheek modern day or full on Call of Cthulhu Munchkin.  It would be interesting if you had some sort of sanity mechanic as well as health, basically two resources you have to balance but I'm just spitballing. I do like the "picking up from where you left off" legacy mechanic you are suggesting with the metagame journals.  It feels like a roguelike and I love those.

The idea (#2) very loosely reminds me of the roguelike Occult Chronicles. Programmed by the same guy (one man team) who created the excellent Armageddon Empires.   

http://www.crypticcomet.com/games/OC/Occult_Chronicles.html

It would also be interesting if the team that writes the metagame journal suffers from an insanity that dictates how the metagame journal is deciphered by a subsequent team.  For example your team 1 professor suffers from paranoia and writes a metagame journal just before being eaten.  Team 2 must solve a paranoia puzzle (or make skill check X) to obtain the metagame data from the journal.  And naturally there would be a different skill check or gimmick or puzzle to solve for paranoia, schizophrenia, delusions, etc.

3) Why not Fight Promoter?      I want you and Caleb to write a program where you scream into a microphone and your success as a Fight Promoter is measured by how much you sound like MachoMan Randy Savage or Hulk Hogan.  Compare those waveforms, brother. Aaron can be Paul Bearer and Tom the Undertaker.

378

Role Playing Public Radio Podcast / Re: Caleb is a mad genius (or Yet Another Fan Club Thread)

« on: November 24, 2014, 09:17:22 PM »

I enjoyed playing old World of Darkness with my friends and I think the backstory of Mage and Vampire make for great dramatic backdrops.  I unabashedly love most of the setting and I think the simplicity of the system has value.

Whenever I say this, someone inevitably drops a hair raising story about roleplaying with some nest of what can be charitably be called people who were far too into WoD.  These stories make me grateful that I grew up on the west coast and played with rational people even though we were teenagers.   Also I never went to Cons or Larps. That may have something to do with my favorable experiences as well.

When I heard Caleb would never play World of Darkness I was all prepared to write a persuasive post about how the system is actually very good for narrative combat that would complement the Stokesian GMing style and the setting has a lot of dramatic depth that he could plunder, etc. etc.

Then I listened to Caleb's story about the Fun Factory and World of Darkness. http://slangdesign.com/rppr/2013/01/podcast-episode/rppr-episode-82-back-that-story-up/

Hear that? That's the sound of me crumpling up all my arguments and throwing them in the trash.

(Seriously from ribbing Ross about Cinnabar to that story at the end, I was howling with laughter)

379

Role Playing Public Radio Podcast / Re: Upcoming RPPR One Shot games

« on: November 03, 2014, 07:59:58 PM »

Coincidence! The Civil War CoC scenario that I ran for Caleb and Ross at Fear the Con in June (and again for Aaron, Jason, and David among others at Springfield G.A.M.E. a few weeks ago) features an Indian mound rather prominently. And it should be hitting the Actual Play site pretty soon!

Excellent! Can't wait.

And I do have to recommend Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology again for any gamemaster looking for adventure seeds.  Great layout, and it goes over several occult theories and proven frauds associated with each supernatural topic. 

Since it is a text book, the most recent edition is obscenely expensive as expected.  Grab an older used version for as little as four bucks http://www.amazon.com/Frauds-Myths-Mysteries-Pseudoscience-Archaeology/dp/007811697X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1415062724&sr=8-1&keywords=Frauds%2C+Myths%2C+and+Mysteries%3A+Science+and+Pseudoscience.

380

Role Playing Public Radio Podcast / Re: Upcoming RPPR One Shot games

« on: October 31, 2014, 09:56:15 PM »

Moar Delta Green- one shot, mini- to full campaign. Don't care which.

Thirded.

Ross & Co. I was curious why you guys haven't had a game based around the Moundbuilder culture.

I recently stumbled across Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology by Kenneth Feder in a used book store and I was shocked that I was never informed of these sites in university undergrad archeology or anthropology breadth classes.

Have you gents ever been to the Cahokia site or the mounds in Missouri?

381

Role Playing Public Radio Podcast / Re: Red Markets Alpha Playtest

« on: April 12, 2014, 01:00:30 AM »

Character Background Ideas.

I’m terrible with names so if you use anything please make it sound cooler.

I’ve always favored White Wolf splats, so here goes:

Mary Bomb, Saint Mary (Vengeful Latent)

Inspiration:

Latents are infection
carriers, able to spread the Blight by all the same means of a Casualty, but
they retain their mental faculties and life. The Blight amplifies in the system
without attacking the brain, entering a dormant state. The only sign of Latency
is persistent necrosis around the bite area, caused during the transition from
active Blight to its dormant/reproductive state.

Players weaponize everything

Concept: Vengeful Latent

Quote: Remember me? Never forgot you.

Description:

Survival situations reveal a lot about people.  It strips the burial shroud of civilization we’ve been carrying all along and reveals the pure unadulterated flesh of our personal morality underneath. 

Often, it is writhing with maggots.

The stink says it’s been rotting for quite a while.

Maybe your lover put a bullet in your knee to escape a hungry horde.  Maybe you were military, covering the angles for your unit when your CO thought it was better to cut and run.  Maybe you were just the runt of the human litter and your neighbors let you know that in a big way when they took from you, suburbia shifting to gangland tribalism in a heartbeat as they trussed you up and left you for the elements and the darkness, laughter ringing in your ears to keep you company.

Maybe you were one of those sick fucks that got bitten on purpose seeking an opportunity to right a wrong back in the Enclave. 

Not many of those 'round, I can assure you.

Whatever the case, you got ‘lucky’.  You are a Latent. Fuck the powerball, you won the only lottery that matters.  You treasure that itchy, leaky patch on your skin like the devil’s own mark and you work every day to improve yourself physically, build resources, and bide your time.

All the while you are remembering and chanting those names like a mantra.  Dead men walking you tell yourself as you practice sneaking through the shadows and applying facepaint looted from the community college drama department.  Aria Stark has nothing on you.

Purpose: Your character is angry and has decided hunt the humans they have a grievance against.  As a Latent they have decided to settle the score by infecting their target with the Blight they carry within them.  Would-be assassins with a bullet in their bloodstream, they focus on building physical and infiltration skills to carry out their goals.

Sampler (Scientist-Hunter)

Quote1: Andy Fire. Stanley Prusiner. Major advances in discovering fundamental processes in cell biology has always come from studying outliers.  If we are going to beat the Blight, the answers will come from samples of outliers. *racks shotgun* From Aberrants.

Alternate quote

Quote2: Back in the Good Times, before everything went to shit, I was sitting in lab late one night, reading this web comic.  It said when you are doing research you miss everything that goes on outside: a sunny day, the second coming of Jesus, a zombie outbreak.  Funny how you remember the little things that turned prophetic.

Maybe you were a scientist who was downsized from an Enclave research facility because of shortages.  Maybe you were a physician who was just fed up with degrading or contaminated samples crossing your microscope and you got fed up. Maybe you were really never very good at bench work but you had to do something and you had enough scientific training to take optimal samples.  Maybe you can’t sleep, always hearing your loved one screaming apologies as she rushed at the door, jaw distended.   Maybe you want to prove you are more than one of the “lazy booksmart” the Enclave citizens struggle to feed and despise. 

You have some or significant scientific training and you usually team up with another group of hunters to secure samples from an Aberrants.  All Samplers have a tendency to take risks however.  They may prioritize getting the biological sample over teammates’ wellbeing or even their lives.

In addition, some Samplers are commissioned by Enclaves or other groups to expose Vectors to certain conditions (usually dangerous) and obtain samples and take notes on the results.  Conditions like exposing Vectors to odd chemicals, trying to get a horde hit by lighting, exposing a bunch of Vectors to an engineered spore strain in an enclosed environment like a mine shaft or just having a horde chase you to a fallout area to get a dose of good ol’ radiation and report the results.

382

Role Playing Public Radio Podcast / Re: Red Markets Alpha Playtest

« on: April 12, 2014, 12:08:53 AM »

Caleb wrote
“Guidelines: Zombies have some limited climbing abilities, but unless they are
hunting they'll travel the path of least resistance and avoid steep slopes. They
cannot swim at all and sink like rocks, making oceans and rivers the primarily
defensive borders. They are much slower in cold weather, but they don't stop
completely.”

I just had a sinister thought.  Most zombies are not expert climbers/mountaineers as you said. What if the sasquatch/yeti was real?  And we only found that out when aberrant versions of the yeti took out supposedly safe mountain enclaves?

Imagine a “Come to Safeville” recorded radio announcement on repeat and players have heard of the impregnable mountain fortress located in a high elevated area. 

Imagine their horror as they trudge up the mountain pass, seeking shelter from a blizzard, and they find the fortress’s sheet metal walls have been rent apart by a force comparable to a bulldozer. 

The only greeting is silence and the falling snow.

Edit: Or what if the origin of these Aberrants is completely unknown?  Maybe the Blight just supercharged some animal with super strength, unholy mountaineering skills, and snow-stealth ...and the side effect is that it shuffles/lumbers like a hominid?  Maybe chimps escaped from a zoo...or that secretive "FEMA" research camp with all those biohazard signs and those aggressive snipers....

383

Role Playing Public Radio Podcast / Re: Caleb is a mad genius (or Yet Another Fan Club Thread)

« on: April 12, 2014, 12:07:04 AM »

Yeah! I love Teatro Grottesco! I actually give it a shout-out in the first RPPR episode in which I appear. And yes, The Red Tower was inspired by The Red Tower. The description of the final level is what I imagine the inside of Chambliss looks like after he's made his transformation.

Ah! I'm late to the party then.

Thanks for the reply.

384

Role Playing Public Radio Podcast / Re: Caleb is a mad genius (or Yet Another Fan Club Thread)

« on: April 06, 2014, 12:10:13 AM »

Hey Caleb,

Have you ever read Thomas Ligotti?  S. T. Joshi considers him one of Lovecraft's heirs and he is fantastic.

I ask specifically because I am working through Teatro Grottesco and one of Ligotti's short stories is "The Red Tower" which is superficially similar to your adventure "The Red Tower".

Did Ligotti inspire you or is this one of those strange coincidences of convergent evolution?

Even though Ligotti's "The Red Tower"...deals with a different topic I could see the story used wholecloth as a journal written by someone exposed to the horror within your "The Red Tower".

Edit: Ross if you are looking for inspiration for another Carcosa game, I couldn't recommend Teatro Grottesco more, specifically "The Town Manager" and "The Red Tower".

Edit 2:Have you guys talked about True Detective on one of your podcasts yet?