General Category > Role Playing Public Radio Podcast
RPPR general chat
Twisting H:
In which we ask random questions of the RPPR crew or just chat.
----------------------------------
http://www.amazon.com/Gurps-Fantasy-II-Adventures-Lands/dp/1556342640
Hey Ross. Have you heard of the worldbook Gurps Fantasy II: Adventures in the Mad Lands?
Written by Robin Laws and released in '93 it is has impressed everyone who has read it. However no one has run an adventure in this totally unique weird world.
Summary by Babylon Astronaut from the Something Awful forums:
"Everything in the world is insane and powerful beyond imagination and you're an early bronze age hunter or fisher. Like the characters from winnie the pooh can stomp your village into dirt and make everyone into a skinless zombie, or maybe a wizard on holiday will nuke you for sport while on a drug bender. Almost every interaction with the things that make the setting end in madness, death, or both. The only pursuit you're capable of tackling, outside of subsistence, is I don't know, learning magic from talking seals and then being shunned by society or raiding the Inuits, which accomplishes nothing. All of this sounds fun as hell, but if you invested any time or effort into your character, you will be sorely disappointed when you become a giant foot with eyeballs or kidnapped by a feudal knight."
I'd like to point out every word in that paragraph is completely accurate. Thanks to Robin Law's imagination there is no exaggeration.
Ross, since RPPR is made of roleplaying professionals I'd love to hear an attempt at this truly unique game world from you guys. I know learning a new system, let alone a new world book is a major hurdle.
I recommend you just ditch the GURPS mechanics and adapt it to a system you guys know well. Fiasco maybe. Call of Cthulhu could definitely work (sanity matters). Hillfolk may also work.
If RPPR produced a podcast in this setting it would be the only podcast on the internet as far as I know that has worked with this much loved setting.
Alternatively, perhaps a Patron reward for a certain tier would be recommending a game book or system to run an adventure in.
Anyway, cheers.
----
I was looking for links to some of the Delta Green RPPR podcasts to recommend them the other day and I noticed not all of the DG podcasts were under the Call of Cthulhu > Delta Green header.
Maybe this changed in the migration to a new host?
Anyway, if it helps, here is a list of the older Delta Green games not tagged with Delta Green:
http://actualplay.roleplayingpublicradio.com/2009/11/systems/call-of-cthulhu/call-of-cthulhu-delta-green-night-shift-playtest/
http://actualplay.roleplayingpublicradio.com/2010/03/systems/call-of-cthulhu/call-of-cthulhu-delta-green-operation-obsidian-at-fear-the-con-3/
http://actualplay.roleplayingpublicradio.com/2010/04/systems/call-of-cthulhu/call-of-cthulhu-prototype-a-town-called-hope/
http://actualplay.roleplayingpublicradio.com/2010/06/systems/call-of-cthulhu/call-of-cthulhu-delta-green-convergence/
http://actualplay.roleplayingpublicradio.com/2011/05/systems/call-of-cthulhu/call-of-cthulhu-delta-green-lover-in-the-ice/
http://actualplay.roleplayingpublicradio.com/2012/08/systems/call-of-cthulhu/call-of-cthulhu-delta-green-a-victim-of-the-art/
http://actualplay.roleplayingpublicradio.com/2012/05/systems/call-of-cthulhu/call-of-cthulhu-delta-green-operation-eyes-down/
http://actualplay.roleplayingpublicradio.com/2013/03/systems/call-of-cthulhu/call-of-cthulhu-delta-green-tiamat/
http://actualplay.roleplayingpublicradio.com/2015/07/systems/call-of-cthulhu/call-of-cthulhu-delta-green-cascadia/
http://actualplay.roleplayingpublicradio.com/2015/08/systems/call-of-cthulhu/call-of-cthulhu-iconoclasts/
NB: Finding Iconoclasts and Lover in the Ice to recommend I always forget they are not under the DG tag.
Divine Fire
http://actualplay.roleplayingpublicradio.com/2010/08/systems/call-of-cthulhu/call-of-cthulhu-divine-fire-at-gencon-2010/
http://actualplay.roleplayingpublicradio.com/2011/01/systems/call-of-cthulhu/call-of-cthulhu-divine-fire-the-kgb-files-part-1/
http://actualplay.roleplayingpublicradio.com/2011/01/systems/call-of-cthulhu/call-of-cthulhu-divine-fire-%E2%80%93-the-kgb-files-part-2/
http://actualplay.roleplayingpublicradio.com/2012/03/systems/call-of-cthulhu/call-of-cthulhu-divine-fire-at-pax-2011/
clockworkjoe:
Adventures in the Mad Lands sounds kind of too random to be fun? I mean, I'm sure Laws wrote an interesting book, but that bit does not sell it to me. I'll order a copy since it's cheap but I am skeptical right now, I have to admit.
Oh and you are referring to categories, not tags, which threw me off at first. I used the Delta Green category to sort games run in the Delta Green system, which is a standalone RPG and different than CoC games run in the DG setting. I do need add DG tags to God's Teeth, so thanks for reminding me.
Twisting H:
First off, thanks for ever considering it.
Part of the enthusiasm might be my (and others) nostalgia. Nostalgia is always a detriment to objective judgement so I'm interested in what you think.
Also I think the argument among gamers that "well this can't be played" are in general, spurious. Heard this argument repeatedly about Changeling the Dreaming* and Mage the Ascension, and from my experience there is a compelling and fulfilling way to do it. By extension the same principle would apply to a Mad Lands game. If Hite can do it, it can be done.
*PS: I disagree strongly with some of your interpretations about Changeling The Dreaming including the 'changlings could be like anti-vaxxers' but I have yet to opine with quotes from the core book on Patreon. Someday. Not soon.
--- Quote from: clockworkjoe on August 18, 2016, 01:18:49 AM ---Oh and you are referring to categories, not tags, which threw me off at first. I used the Delta Green category to sort games run in the Delta Green system, which is a standalone RPG and different than CoC games run in the DG setting. I do need add DG tags to God's Teeth, so thanks for reminding me.
--- End quote ---
The imprecision is mine. Thank you for the correction. The DG category makes perfect sense now that it is it's own system.
Cheers!
Twisting H:
Alright. I'm going to gush a bit more about the Mad Lands because I found a review that sells it better than I have.
Excerpts from angelfromanotherpin from The Gaming Den
http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=55775&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
--- Quote ---A Conan knock-off fighting two flayed horrors in the snow? Fuck yes! The tagline this time is 'Adventures in the Mad Lands,' so you know already that this is just someone else's campaign world. Well, as it happens, that someone else is Robin Laws, or more specifically, Robin Laws after taking the brown acid.
So saddle up, kids. We are going for a ride.
--- End quote ---
Hey look at that lovely tribal pastoral setting. So peaceful. So idyllic.
--- Quote ---It's not until the third paragraph that the game mentions that the whole experience of life in the Mad Lands is shaped by living under the shadow of insane and monstrous gods who can strip the humanity from their victims.
And when the hypothetical reader gets to this: 'But despite it all, the Madlanders keep their nobility, courage, and a fatalistic sense of humor. This is a land where simple survival takes heroism.' Well, then they know what the beast is: a semi-Lovecraftian survival horror fantasy.
But even that doesn't prepare them for what's to come.
--- End quote ---
--- Quote ---Gods
The Mad Lands have a specific pantheon of ten gods, and I'm not going to jerk you around: they are a grimderp interpretation of the cast of Winnie-the-Pooh.
That is how good Robin Laws' drugs are.
Eeyore Bax Powu Kag
Quote:
Bax Powu Kag is an odd sort of moose, with stubby legs, gray fur, and (usually) no antlers. His face is long,his saucer-sized, staring eyes deep and mournful. He's fatter than a normal moose, lacks its characteristic goatee and doesn't seem to like swamps very much.
Bax Powu Kag is very sad, and that sadness seeps out of him and permeates his surroundings and infects anyone who gets too close, becoming pessimistic, depressive, even suicidal. He's not particularly active or hostile, but people who stumble across him can be in serious trouble.
--- End quote ---
Yes. The rabbit is going to fuck you up.
--- Quote ---Bett Agwo
Quote:
Unlike his fellows, Bett Agwo never appears as a giant; he always manifests as a normal-sized hare. His fur may be white, yellow, or brown; he always appears with a small dark brown patch at his throat.
Bett Agwo is a Dicko the Genie variant. He likes to grant wishes, and they always go all Monkey's Paw, not because Bett Agwo is malevolent (he's genuinely friendly and helpful), but because he's just not very bright or good at using his powers. He is the entire reason that Mad Lander society doesn't recognize good intentions as a mitigating factor for misdeeds.
--- End quote ---
--- Quote ---Bubzavuv
Quote:
Like many Madlander gods, Bubzavuv often appears in gigantic form. Sometimes he gets as small as an adult male grizzly. His fur is a very light brown, almost yellow, which distinguishes him from a normal grizzly at this size.
Bubszavuv is basically an ordinary bear with godly powers. Part of that is his frequently forgetting his powers and getting in troubles he could easily get out of if only he remembered he could e.g. change size. He juxtaposes a basically friendly and polite nature with matter-of-factly eating people and most anything else.
Dopod Abwep
Quote:
Dopod Abwep is the sole humanoid in a pantheon of animal gods. Although he's never less than twelve feet tall, his body is proportioned like that of a seven- or eight-year-old boy. He moves in the gawky, loose-limbed way of a young boy who's just had his first big growth spurt. The Child literally leaks divine power, his entire body glowing and giving off a constant halo of light.
Dopod Abwep is usually found killing time in childish ways. Where Bax Powu Kag is sad, Dopod Abwep is very lonely. He seems to want to make friends, but contact with him is invariably destructive - actually touching him melts human flesh, but just being in his presence damages human social and language skills. He also has a childish temper and throws disastrous tantrums when he doesn't get his way.
Gakox Pezep
Quote:
He's renowned for his unpredictable dual nature; when on the hunt, he's a mindless snarling beast, capable of nothing but destruction. At other times he appears as a normal-sized cougar who walks upright like a man.
The Cougar jumps miles at a time, and if he's chosen to be particularly big, he causes impact craters when he lands. He's completely unpredictable, switching between his vicious predator and friendlier cuddly form for any reason or no reason, but especially if he smells blood or fear. In particular, his predator aspect is
Kikavo Vo and Kikavo Dat
Quote:
Descriptions of them in village lore are precise: they have the heads of deer (without antlers) mounted on long thick necks. Their chests and torsos are like those of big potbellied grizzly bears. Their postures are upright, like a man's. Mounted on their shoulders are tiny arms like those of a small child. On the end of each arm are the sharp claws of a wolverine. Their powerful legs are designed like a toad's, but their huge feet resemble those of no known beat, long and flat like planks from a ship deck. With these fearsome appendages they bound across the landscape, leaping miles at a time, smashing anything they touch down on. They anchor these leaps with a thick tail, resembling a shortened squid's tentacle, protruding from their hindquarters. Their freakish bodies are covered from head to tow in thick brown hair like a moose's.
Kikavo Vo is K-Dat's mother and generally bad-tempered, but only gets truly hostile when she feels that her child is in danger, which happens a lot considering that he's divine and invulnerable; when not enraged, she radiates a bliss aura. Kikavo Dat has the mind of a hyperactive child, and plays with humans like human children play with flies and ants. His hyperactivity is infectious.
Vuvuti
A huge horned owl, Vuvuti is the only god who doesn't talk, he just shows disturbing visions in the reflections of his gigantic eyes and seems to enjoy showing people things that make a mockery of their values and beliefs.
Zewa Zab
Zewa Zab is an enormous gopher who single-mindedly makes tunnels and only harms people incidentally to that. But the tunnels themselves are dangerous, because inside them time and space are... different. Even collapsed, the tunnels don't renormalize; a river that has a collapsed tunnel for a bed may run uphill. Any ravine in the Mad Lands is suspect.
Zuutak
Quote:
Though he most often appears as a giant hog the size of a [longhouse], his physical size can vary radically. Sometimes he's merely the size of a grizzly bear; other times he's so huge that the tread of his hoof can crumble a hill into the sea. On the other hand, he sometimes appears as a normal-sized or even tiny pig; in this form he may seem harmless, but all of his destructive power remains intact. Usually his hide is a bright pink, a coloration not found in the boars of the Mad Lands.
Like Bubzavuv, Zuutak is motivated chiefly by hunger. He devours mostly plants, but is untroubled if a person is scooped up as well. Once or twice a year, he despoils a village's crops and is so feared for this act that his name contains a double-vowel sound unique in Mad Lander language – it represents a kind of screaming pronunciation.
All the info in this chapter is explicitly common knowledge for PCs, which is nice. Laws shows his genre savvy by never giving the gods any stats - thus, they are not killable. The fact that so many are described with goofy schticks and sharp mental limitations signals that they are not proper MC penis-extensions. Instead they are forces of nature to be survived, or mighty forces to be daringly manipulated. There's a lot of humor to be had with the gods, but the danger they present seasons that humor with fear, and the combination is an unusual one, at least in my RPG experiences.
Also, I feel kind of bad for the lonely kid. He just wants to hug someone who won't dissolve.
--- End quote ---
--- Quote ---Monsters and Beasts
Well, they told him not to take the brown acid, and here's where the bad trip starts. The gods have a certain amount of horror appeal – mostly because they're vast power attached to poor impulse control. The Monsters, on the other hand are almost entirely horror appeal. And one of the chief sources of that is their origin: all monsters are former humans, and that brings with it all the usual baggage for that trope, like the sympathy for someone forced to live a monstrous existence, and the anxiety that the same thing could happen to anyone, even you or your loved ones. They all have a 'psychological damage' section, noting the kind of symptoms that exposure to them will bring on in people they traumatize.
Most monster conversions are brought about by contact with the gods, although there are other ways – unrepentant murderers can spontaneously become Heightless, self-centered complainers can wake up as Skinless, and so on; naturally all the monster-generating behaviors are forbidden by Mad Lander society. All monsters are defined by their lack of something, defining them as less than human even though they may have great powers. All have a list of examples of how they could be generated: someone stamped flat by one of the Kikavos may become a Boneless, someone dismembered by a swipe of Gakox Pezep's paw may become a Soundless, and so on. A lot of monsters potentially have Shamanic powers (more on those later) which allows them to be a more customizable threat.
...
Bloodless
A lot like Daybreakers vampires: if they consume enough human blood, they're basically ageless humans. If they start to go hungry, they go emaciated and get a big boost to their physical stats (and some nice damage immunities). If they continue to go hungry, they're in agony and start to permanently lose their minds. Bloodless never really die; even chopped into chunks, their consciousness remains intact and starving forever after.
Boneless
A flying skin-blanket with eyes, something like a really disturbing airborne manta ray. They have animal intelligence and kill by smothering with their embrace while exuding digestive juices through their underside.
Faceless
Normal-looking except for their Question-like visage, the faceless are stalkers and jinxes. They imprint on people who come too close and follow them relentlessly, trying to cling to them in a pathetic embrace. All the while, dreadful bad luck affects anyone near the thing, the closer to the Faceless, the worse the luck. Fighting them is difficult because of the misfortune aura, and even dismembered they will continue to follow their target, severed fingers crawling like inchworms, eyeballs rolling through the dirt, intestines slithering like snakes.
--- End quote ---
Best enemy ever
--- Quote ---
Footless
An eight-foot long foot with proportional shin, with a mouth and a single giant eye on the shin. Completely insane, they mutter all time and seem to have access to all knowledge, in unorganized form, so if you can sneak up near them you can try to sift through their babble for actually useful info.
--- End quote ---
I'm not even covering all the monsters, the Hunter S Thompson ennui-riddled amoral sorcerer race, the four types of magic or the asshole Stygian-like slavers.
But I will leave you with this...
--- Quote ---Thousands of years ago, before the mad gods arrived, the Mad Lands were dominated by a race of 'malevolent jade trapezoids.'
--- End quote ---
MAD LANDS
clockworkjoe:
are the jade things supposed to be a reference to something or just a random crazy element?
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
Go to full version