Messages

46

General Chaos / Re: Steam Holiday Sale 2012

« on: December 27, 2012, 08:59:13 PM »

Binding of Isaac plus its expansion for $2.  I can't stress enough how great this game is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhmUDqURYkc

47

General Chaos / Re: Best Internet Vidyas

« on: November 30, 2012, 08:12:06 PM »

I'm used to movie trailers using soundtracks from other movies.  But the effect in this case is really surreal:

<a href="" target="_blank" class="aeva_link bbc_link new_win"></a>

I have a feeling that this ad campaign will be disappointingly devoid of flesh-eating zombies, no matter how much the music promises otherwise.

48

RPGs / Re: Game Fodder / Story Fodder

« on: November 19, 2012, 07:44:55 PM »

I'm watching

Norwegian Ninja

right now.  It's incredible.  It's part Chuck Norris movie, part Team America: World Police, part I DON'T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK.  Why aren't you watching it yet?  Do you want the Americans and Soviets to destroy the Norwegian way of life?

49

Role Playing Public Radio Podcast / Re: What have you bought because of the podcast?

« on: October 16, 2012, 06:43:40 PM »

I have bought and played Call of Cthulhu pretty much entirely because of RPPR.  The Actual Plays changed my impression of it from "Paranoia with evil monsters" to something interesting and compelling.

50

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

« on: October 16, 2012, 06:37:43 PM »

Really, I just like the idea of the 40k version of a Green Box.  With the blinded servo-skull whose only purpose is to list the contents of the various vaults without actually being able to sense or interact with them in any way.

If you ran Lover in the Ice as a Dark Heresy game, not much changes at all.  The biggest concern would be the fact that aliens--xenos--aren't some hidden secret thing in 40k.  You aren't breaking opsec if you say to someone, "hey, ever heard rumors of xenos around here?" 

In Deathwatch, you're almost certain to lose the entire undercover concept of the scenario.  The best you could do would be to have the Space Marines there under some sort of pretext that they're not supposed to divulge.  In any event, the best way to keep them from going all nuke-it-from-orbit in Deathwatch is to make the potential infestation happen among people who are relatively important, in the middle of infrastructure that is really valuable.  So for instance, if the aliens are getting lose on a hive-city, the Space Marines might be able to do relatively straightforward search-and-destroy missions in the underhive areas, but if they then discover that the infested brothel they just purged had serviced a couple slumming nobles, or some officers from a Navy cruiser in orbit, then the Marines won't necessarily be well-served by just kicking in the door and mowing down everyone in sight.  They still won't be undercover, but they might actually have to employ some diplomacy and caution.

Having not actually run a Deathwatch game, however, I imagine one of the biggest challenges in those games is to construct any scenario in which "we walk in the door and shoot everyone" isn't the optimal solution for the players.

51

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

« on: October 15, 2012, 08:06:21 PM »

Dark Heresy: I have no idea but I'd like to run it

Rogue Trader: Same

Dark Heresy is pretty much just space-opera Call of Cthulhu.  You can take damn near any scenario and transplant it to 40k and it will work.

I remain convinced that a person could totally run "Lover in the Ice" with Space Marines.  Everything just gets bigger is all.

52

RPGs / Re: Game Fodder / Story Fodder

« on: September 29, 2012, 04:58:20 PM »

Not much to this, just an amusing "crazy person" paint job.

http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_3_4/585873_My_project___Camothulu___WARNING___Picture__and_INSANITY_heavy__.html

53

General Chaos / Recommend me some good horror books

« on: September 21, 2012, 08:42:40 PM »

Aside from a whole lot of Stephen King, I haven't read much horror in my life.  A year or so ago I got around to reading some Lovecraft, which is a really mixed bag--a lot of his story construction tends to irritate me.

So I'd like to hear some examples of what you guys consider to be really good horror novels/collections.  "Lovecraftian" horror would be cool, but I'm casting a wide net here.

I'm also rather interested in the Dreamlands/Hastur mythos stuff for gaming purposes, so works with an interesting take on that would be appreciated.

54

RPGs / Re: Eclipse Phase

« on: September 12, 2012, 08:37:18 PM »

Bahala Na!

doot deeeee do deedo

Bahala Na!

doot dee dee doo

Bahala Na!

doot deeeee do deedo
do deedo
do deedo
doot dee dee doot

55

RPGs / Re: Anecdote Megathread

« on: September 03, 2012, 08:17:08 PM »

I just ran a reverse-engineered version of "Lover in the Ice" for a Skype game.  I love the scenario and have wanted to run it for a while (though I was too po' broke to buy into the Kickstarter, more's the pity). 

Anyway, after the characters took out Skip and encountered the first monster in the college-students' house, they decided that what they should do was shut down the power grid for the rest of the town to freeze out any other creatures.

Welp.

They call a power-company engineer in the middle of the night and get him to come down to the station for some kind of emergency, then try to force him at gunpoint to help them shut down all the power.  (I didn't think shutting down a city-wide power grid should be a matter of hacking the gibson from the admin-building computers; any power-company employees out there can correct me if I'm wrong.)  I make a couple sanity/willpower type rolls for the engineer guy, and he basically drives the PC past a police station at night, tucks and rolls out of the truck, and runs for the station yelling for help.  PC tackles and shoots the engineer, then calls up the other PC and shoots himself as policemen start coming out of the station.

The other PC goes back to the HOMEPLATE computer, and informs A-cell that uncontrolled vectors are out there and everything is fucked.  He then grabs a truck and tries to get out of town before Lafontaine blows up, presumably to live out his life in an off-the-grid cabin somewhere.

An interesting case of players sticking to player-logic to the bitter end.  I had only two players, though, and both of them were new to Call of Cthulhu.

Edit:  when the PCs came out of Skip's house, I had Roslin step out of the truck and say "what's going on?"   Because they'd gunned him down in the back yard and set the place on fire--which I'm pretty sure is the only way anyone will ever play that encounter.  So the PCs then shot HER.  Those monsters.

 I blame it on the fact that I'm not as good at playing adorably-sassy black women as Caleb.

56

RPGs / Re: Eclipse Phase - Steam Punk

« on: June 30, 2012, 10:39:24 AM »

http://steampunkscholar.blogspot.com/2009/09/diamond-age-by-neal-stephenson.html

Except The Diamond Age isn't steampunk.  It's just sci-fi where a bunch of people like dressing up anachronistically.

...oh, right.  Steampunk.

57

General Chaos / Re: The RPPR radio.

« on: June 29, 2012, 11:52:08 PM »

<a href="" target="_blank" class="aeva_link bbc_link new_win"></a>

<a href="" target="_blank" class="aeva_link bbc_link new_win"></a>

<a href="" target="_blank" class="aeva_link bbc_link new_win"></a>

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cH9EJg4o9-s (Embedding disabled, limit reached)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIBJMV9bc80 (Embedding disabled, limit reached)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXYAYZCI4t4 (Embedding disabled, limit reached)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOYdQOLkqf4 (Embedding disabled, limit reached)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arEpXY6BYyw (Embedding disabled, limit reached)

58

RPGs / Re: Game Fodder / Story Fodder

« on: April 17, 2012, 07:25:05 PM »

I watched a low-budget sci-fi/horror flick called Alien Raiders, and was honestly surprised at how good it was.  Admittedly, I'm no aficionado of the b-movie world, but I think it deserves watching. 

Could make for a pretty good game scenario too.  You're down at the local grocery store when what seems to be a gang of criminals barges in and takes everyone hostage.  But instead of robbing the place or making demands, they start "testing" people...

59

RPGs / Re: Fleshing out my 1960s Delta Green plot

« on: April 14, 2012, 11:22:46 AM »

The Mi-Go in Delta Green experiment on humanity. They don't want to kill us all. We make good lab rats.

  The point is a good one, though I suppose using phrases like "apocalyptic event" oversimplified things.  I'm not going for a "and then they killed us all" kind of plot, just some kind of really big event that nobody wants to see happen.  Like all of America getting stuffed into Matrix-tubes to serve as a giant intuition-computer for the Mi-go, or Missouri getting turned into one big, festering portal/spawning pit.  Stepford towns filled with telepathic grub-parasite victims.  Or something.

As to whether that's too overt for the Mi-Go...well, fuggit.  Nobody in my group is so in-depth to the mythos that they're going to start shouting THEY WOULDN'T DO THAT.  And besides, this is the 60s rather than the 90s--plenty of rationalizations to be made for the Mi-Go having attempted a more big-picture project back then.  Maybe its potential failure is what causes them to tighten up security and go deeper underground, etc.

For this game, I'm a bit attached to the Mi-Go and MJ-12 because I want the players to have that moment where they realize (even though they're still "legal") that they are not the big boys from the government, here to kick ass and call in an airstrike.  The big boys are actively working for the other side.

60

RPGs / Re: Fleshing out my 1960s Delta Green plot

« on: April 13, 2012, 11:37:19 PM »

Hmm, I've already got fungal mind-control grubs...