Author Topic: Better Angels Campaign: The Spared and the Spoiled  (Read 67283 times)

Teuthic

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Re: Better Angels Campaign: The Spared and the Spoiled
« Reply #45 on: January 31, 2014, 11:42:09 AM »
Every superhero begins with everyone running around like chickens with their heads cut off. I'm glad to see the same goes for supervillains!
« Last Edit: January 31, 2014, 11:49:10 AM by Teuthic »

Jace911

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Re: Better Angels Campaign: The Spared and the Spoiled
« Reply #46 on: January 31, 2014, 11:44:58 AM »
Bravo to Tom for his peanut gallery quips. I did a spittake at his sing-song "swear to meeee!"

Tadanori Oyama

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Re: Better Angels Campaign: The Spared and the Spoiled
« Reply #47 on: January 31, 2014, 01:21:29 PM »
I don't know what it is about Better Angels that turns otherwise perfectly normal players into insane dervishes. Every game I've run (home and convention) ends up not too dissimilar from this. However, the effects do seem to compound in a campaign so I can only assume it gets way "worse" from here.

Vivax

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Re: Better Angels Campaign: The Spared and the Spoiled
« Reply #48 on: January 31, 2014, 09:53:41 PM »
Holy shit. That was some inspired madness right there. Ross did literally the last thing he should do and then told the government about it. Amazing. Simply amazing.

Flawless P

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Re: Better Angels Campaign: The Spared and the Spoiled
« Reply #49 on: March 03, 2014, 01:39:29 PM »
The Horse was in on it.

*whispers* It was an inside job!
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Cthuluzord

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Re: Better Angels Campaign: The Spared and the Spoiled
« Reply #50 on: March 03, 2014, 05:32:59 PM »


DUN-DUN-DUUUUUNNNNNN!

Jace911

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Re: Better Angels Campaign: The Spared and the Spoiled
« Reply #51 on: March 03, 2014, 11:30:48 PM »
This is quickly turning into the funniest RPPR campaign by far. Know Evil and HONA are still my favorites plot-wise, but Spared and the Spoiled is definitely the most lolworthy.

Tonpa

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Re: Better Angels Campaign: The Spared and the Spoiled
« Reply #52 on: March 10, 2014, 05:00:00 AM »
When this gem turn into product (No Soul Left Behind) how easy it would be to run it with regular Wild Talent? My regular group doesn't sound too excited about the demonic supervillain premise, though I might try it out as one-shot before committing into full campaign so they might be converted...

Wooberman

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Re: Better Angels Campaign: The Spared and the Spoiled
« Reply #53 on: March 23, 2014, 02:54:26 PM »
Every session all I can think of is


Review Cultist

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Re: Better Angels Campaign: The Spared and the Spoiled
« Reply #54 on: March 24, 2014, 10:24:54 PM »
This is only partially related to the Better Angels campaign, more an inspiration from two of Ross's characters from this campaign and The Unspeakable Oath AP of Nazi's in Cthulhu America.

A Weird Kid skill idea Inspired by Ross's character choices:
 
Relationship: Ig-Keli (An Eldritch Horror) x3
HANDS: "Radioactive Snake Arm" (Defense:[Shielded Containment Glove] Tough x2, Attack:[Radiation] Awesome x2, Area x1, Burn, Gnarly x1)
=2d
Liquid Water?

Kamen

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Re: Better Angels Campaign: The Spared and the Spoiled
« Reply #55 on: April 01, 2014, 10:26:05 PM »
Whenever I hear "Sparkly Wizard Vampire Deathmatch" mentioned I can't help but imagine Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. I mean technically Dio is a vampire and the Stands and stuff are pretty magical, plus it is incredibly FABULOUS!

Gorkamorka

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Re: Better Angels Campaign: The Spared and the Spoiled
« Reply #56 on: April 04, 2014, 09:24:21 AM »
I'm just listening to the zombie episode. 

Someone with artistic skills.
Can you please, please please draw Ronald posing on top of the zombie horde?

Do it for the keedz !
Gorkamorka (Fridrik)

Flawless P

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Re: Better Angels Campaign: The Spared and the Spoiled
« Reply #57 on: April 08, 2014, 12:02:21 PM »
Can someone give me a quick explanation of how combat works in this system.

I keep hearing things about sliding and obliterating.

Relating it back to Wild Talents I feel like its a stat/skill thing and you can either take damage to your stat or skill, skill first then stat.

I'm sure I'm over simplifying or misunderstanding.

I know the system is based in rhetoric so you can fight with words or powers similarly to Dirty World but I never 100%  understood the sliding mechanics in that either.
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Cthuluzord

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Re: Better Angels Campaign: The Spared and the Spoiled
« Reply #58 on: April 08, 2014, 12:27:33 PM »
It is very much Dirty World with superpowers. It's pretty much the exact character mechanics with new names and superpowers tacked on.

So everything is paired. Strategies are the equivalent of stats. Each Strategy can be paired with four Tactics (like skills). There are three of these groups, each roughly addressing Mental, Physical, and Social actions. Certain powers allow you to pair Strategies from different areas with Tactics from another area.

Every Strategy and Tactic has an opposite. So if Insightful is the Virtuous Strategy, Deceit is the Sinister. A slide means one dot from the Sinister side moves to the Virtuous side (Deceit to Insightful, in this example) or vice versa. Tactics work the same way.

When you roll, you use the dice pool of your combined Strategy and Tactic for that option. The tricky part about BA is that these are expressed in moralistic terms, but the only person that really needs to know what dice pool to use is the GM. So, to punch somebody stronger than you, roll Open (Virtuous) Courage (Virtuous Tactic). To hit an unarmed person, roll Open (still Virtuous because he aren't trying to hide your actions, at least) Cruelty (Sinister Tactic because you're being an asshole). Shooting a puppy would be Sly (Sinister, because the gun is doing the dirty work for you) Cruelty (again, for being a bastard).

You roll your pool. There's also possible bonuses for weapons (in physical actions), surprise (combat and mental actions), and knowing secrets (social interactions). Bonuses are between 1-3 dice, and the player gets to choose when to use them. They can use them for extra dice BEFORE the roll, making a 5d pool into an 8d pool. Or they can roll their unaltered pool and take the bonus as extra width. To return to the previous example, the 5d pool with a +3 bonus rolls 2x3, but that becomes 5x3.

Width is important because it determines speed and damage (in ORE and real life, speed kills). This is where sliding and obliterating comes in. For rolls of 2 or 3 width, the targeted tactic slide to its opposite. So if I guilt trip your character with Devious Nurture (persuade with decency), I declare an attack on your Corruption. If I get a 3x4 and you get nothing to defend, your Corruption die SLIDES over to Nurture. I've made you a better person, or at least made it harder for you to be a shitty person.

For rolls of 4 width, serious damage starts. At 4 width, I don't slide the dot; I remove it. You don't reallocate your character's dice pool, you lose one from it permanently and have to perform sin/repentance to level it back up. If you are already down to zero in a Tactic, I remove a die from the Strategy attached to it and it has negative effects on all four Tactics linked to it.

At 5 width, I skip the targeted Tactic altogether and remove a Strategy attached to it. It doesn't matter if there's Tactics left in the target, the damage jumps up and does damage to every other Tactic as well by attacking the attached Strategy.

To provide an example from the game, David's Grackle Cannon was a great weapon. The birds it fired attacked Generosity by stealing money and things with their beaks. Now, what David would do, he'd forgo the weapon bonus to hit and use it for damage. He'd get this paltry 2x5 set or something, but then he'd boost it with his bonus dice. A 5x5 hits the attached Virtuous Strategy (Patient) and wipes out the dice. This would take the target's Patient down to zero really quick, and a character with no Patient left either goes completely berserk or runs away. Essentially, his plan for every fight was to annoy his enemies so much with birds that they made stupid choices.

Does that make sense? It's easier to get the weird moralistic expressions of every action if you're already familiar with ORE, I'll admit, but once you play a few sessions its easy to get the hang of. And it's a fun system. There are multiple solutions for ever problem. You can talk down the big bad or sucker punch your allies. It makes for unpredictable, fun roleplaying.

Flawless P

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Re: Better Angels Campaign: The Spared and the Spoiled
« Reply #59 on: April 08, 2014, 12:46:38 PM »
Thanks a ton! It makes a lot more sense now.

I've played quite a bit of Wild Talents at this point so luckily ORE isn't completely foreign to me.

I was just having trouble with how some of it works and since the newest session was so combat heavy I wanted to make sure I was understanding everything.

So when you talk about sliding, does it work like WT where you have up to a 5d in each stat(ie strategy) so you can have something like 3 open and 2 sly?  Or does having one stat preclude having the other completely.
42.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
If you can't fix it with duck tape you haven't used enough.
I intend to live forever -- so far, so good.