Messages

121

General Chaos / Re: HAY GUYS HAVE YOU SEEN THIS THING (Forum Shout Out Thread Thing)

« on: March 06, 2016, 07:08:18 PM »

At the True/False documentary film festival in Columbia MO today, I saw a doc called Tickled. It begins as a New Zealand journalist's exploration of the funny world of "competitive endurance tickling" and evolve into something a bit more...well, let's say "A Dirty World"-esque, or possibly "Unknown Armies" material. It ended up being not so much about the tickle fetish community, but more about one very rich guy with a destroying-people's-lives-with-blackmail fetish.

The filmmaker was on hand for Q&A. Yesterday he got served with legal papers on the sidewalk outside the theater. Also the police threw two people out of the screening for videotaping it, possibly private investigators.

At Sundance it got bought by HBO and Magnolia Pictures, so I suspect it will be widely available soon.

122

General Chaos / Re: HAY GUYS HAVE YOU SEEN THIS THING (Forum Shout Out Thread Thing)

« on: February 29, 2016, 08:47:53 PM »

Shared this with Ross, Caleb and Tim on Twitter. Thought the rest of you deserved to see that this is an actual thing.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19557898-booty-call-of-cthulhu

Joanne Lagrasse is a newly graduated college student living the life. Well, if the life is sitting in your apartment all day trying to research monsters for a novel.

When she decides to not heed her professor's warning and reads a chant out loud, she finds herself faced with a giant monster and its lewd tentacles, each one eager to fill her holes.

This sounds like awful one-shot material.

Isn't that basically the backstory for Lover in the Ice?

Sorry Caleb. I'm really sorry.

123

RPGs / Re: Red Markets Beta Listener Campaign: The Reformers

« on: February 24, 2016, 03:29:26 PM »

This planning session was super fun and really has me hyped for the big operation. I also have the added fun of being personally acquainted with the real-world building we're using for the assault. Can't wait.

Also, the final dependent vignettes were really touching. Freebird and Davion carved each others' names into the two 8-balls I found during the last mission, so that we can find each other again if we're separated in the Recession.

124

Role Playing Public Radio Podcast / Re: Ten Money Units! (Ahead of the game this year.)

« on: February 24, 2016, 03:22:10 PM »

Ha! Is that Ross the Moon Man from Monster of the Week? Classic.

125

RPGs / Re: Hacking Red Market question.

« on: February 23, 2016, 05:25:15 PM »

Not entirely sure how much work would be involved or if it would be worth it, but what about using the system for a Stone Age period campaign? Based on my recent discovery of the genre of "Stonepunk" (they will slap -punk on anything) and what Glancy had talk about the Obsidian industry in prehistory.

Needs currency, not just bartering, but I guess you could fake it - history of money is kind of vague https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_money#Emergence_of_money

That's where the obsidian shards come in -- it's a currency and a weapon at the same time!

That's what I was thinking, though I don't know what I'd call this obsidian shard currency?

I'd just call it "knives".

126

General Chaos / Re: What are you reading?

« on: February 22, 2016, 11:25:08 AM »

Right now I'm reading The Black Death: A Personal History by John Hatcher. And it's really bumming me out.

127

General Chaos / Re: What Vidja games are you playing?

« on: February 22, 2016, 11:23:22 AM »

I hadn't played Darkest Dungeon since it was still in early access. At first I was afraid of the updates, but I feel they're balanced so that it adds more strategy. Glad I came back.

I've been enjoying the new content, too. It does require a bit more strategy than it did earlier. My stun-focused teamcomp still works great, though.  Plague Doctors are amazing now.

128

RPGs / Re: Eclipse Phase

« on: February 22, 2016, 11:19:32 AM »

I feel like space whales should've been used as something like ships pilots or something. I mean it makes *near total sense* for there to be whale uplifts, given all the other types of uplifts, but 'eh just throw them in the sun' seems kinda stupid.
If they were the minds which piloted ships, I could imagine all sorts of interesting uses for them. Plus, I remember reading this article many years ago about the limits of the human mind in terms of piloting in space. Not necessarily that whales would be better, but you could probably bullshit something up about how whales are the best spaceships ever a little more easily than WHALES SWIM IN THE SUN

There actually are some cool telemetry/navigation-focused whale uplifts in the EP canon: Deep Current Black Killer of Squid, for example, is the best hunter of lost objects in the solar system, and consequently one of the richest uplifts in the system as well (he funded the construction of Atlantica, a neo-cetacean-focused habitat). Stuff like that makes perfect sense within the setting.

Like I said, I don't have any problem with EP's space whales, just the sun whales.

129

RPGs / Re: Game Fodder / Story Fodder

« on: February 20, 2016, 11:21:13 PM »

Sweet ideas, Twisting H. We'll put the ARCHINT boys on it right away.

130

RPGs / Re: Hacking Red Market question.

« on: February 19, 2016, 06:25:08 PM »

Not entirely sure how much work would be involved or if it would be worth it, but what about using the system for a Stone Age period campaign? Based on my recent discovery of the genre of "Stonepunk" (they will slap -punk on anything) and what Glancy had talk about the Obsidian industry in prehistory.

Needs currency, not just bartering, but I guess you could fake it - history of money is kind of vague https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_money#Emergence_of_money

That's where the obsidian shards come in -- it's a currency and a weapon at the same time!

131

Role Playing Public Radio Podcast / Re: Red Markets Playtest Campaign: Fallen Flag

« on: February 15, 2016, 03:47:32 PM »

Random RM inspiration: http://elcomics.tumblr.com/post/54127537542/dead-planet-a-new-comics-drawn-by-the-amazing

Cross post this to the Red Markets Inspiration thread, dammit! Look at me, telling you how to post on your own forums.

Whatever, I did it for you.

132

RPGs / Re: Red Markets Inspiration

« on: February 15, 2016, 03:47:20 PM »

You're welcome, Ross: http://elcomics.tumblr.com/post/54127537542/dead-planet-a-new-comics-drawn-by-the-amazing

133

RPGs / Re: Geeks and Sundery do Paranoia

« on: February 11, 2016, 05:01:37 PM »

I am waiting - with bated breath - for the new edition to fulfill on the Kickstarter. Apparently it's getting close. I love the concept of Paranoia so much, but the last edition I found mentally painful to try to understand.

Meanwhile, my love for random, card-based character generation is well established. Believe you me I'll be running it once I get that sweet, sweet official forms pack into my hands.

I got to play Paranoia at Fear the Con two years back. Not sure what edition it was, but the basic mechanic was a d20 roll-under-stat thing. It seemed pretty straight-forward and didn't get in the way of roleplaying. The game was hilarious and amazing, and I think I only got executed twice.

134

RPGs / Re: Red Markets Beta Listener Campaign: The Reformers

« on: February 11, 2016, 04:57:48 PM »

It was fun. We're still using the beta rules straight as-written, so legs are still the primary form of armor. But the combat nonetheless felt dynamic and tactical. It was a good change of pace to be on the defensive rather than on the attack. And I felt that we worked a little bit harder to more fully employ the combat rules, using options like called shots and full offense to good effect. And I did get to scrounge together a Molotov and drop it on some zombies, which made me happy.

We had to improvise some rules for damaging vehicles, which I hope gets addressed in the final published rules. Sorry I sound like a broken record, but vehicles need their own section. Giving them Damage charges on one line and Fuel charges on another might be a good solution, and help make them more expensive to use too.

TLC, once we finish this job, I'll be very interested to discuss how the secret rolls during our Score design session influenced how you put together this job site. Assuming we survive whatever's down in the basement.

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Role Playing Public Radio Podcast / Re: Red Markets Rewards

« on: February 08, 2016, 05:53:06 PM »

I can see the wisdom of making sure that all of the Kickstarter's products are part of the same "production type" so to speak - i.e. making sure that everything for an RPG kickstarter is a written and published RPG supplement, not a physical item of some other type like a mini or a set of cardboard punchout tokens. That way you only have to manage one type of production, and don't have to figure out how to deal with boardgame publishers, sculptors, etc. just for one little fiddly thing.

I agree that the Delta Green Kickstarter looks like a model of successful practices (though the data isn't in yet on how well they'll hit their expected fulfillment dates). It was all written products that supplement the game, that I feel confident that Arc Dream can produce.

With that concept in mind, maybe one-time"experience" rewards like running games for folks or doing shout-outs/answered questions for them on the podcast is easier to swing. The game mats/GM screen seems to be sufficiently close t

I do still like the idea of dice, since the color coding is important for the gameplay. And they wouldn't have to be custom or anything, just straight red and black (and ideally high quality, to avoid those infuriating breakages of math).