Messages

46

Role Playing Public Radio Podcast / Re: Better Angels Campaign: The Spared and the Spoiled

« 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.

47

RPGs / Re: Lost: A tenative idea for an Eclipse Phase campaign

« on: November 21, 2013, 12:35:15 PM »

This is an interesting idea! I have a suggestion for a bit of reading that could help you. It's something I kept going back to when I worked on my own Lost character: Can you call a 9-year-old a psychopath?

I'm honestly not sure how comfortable I am with the material in this article as applied to the Lost. There's something in one of the sourcebooks about children raised in synthmorphs having abnormal, autistic developmental disorders (please don't ask me where). The egos of the kids weren't able to develop normally within the confines of the cyberbrain. I see the Lost as something similar, broken by their exposure to simulspace and the exsurgent virus. I'm not going to RP out the kids as broken sociopaths from the onset.

48

RPGs / Re: Lost: A tenative idea for an Eclipse Phase campaign

« on: November 14, 2013, 12:16:02 PM »

I was actually thinking of using the "Preemptive Revenge" format in terms of structure. I think it lends the players an opportunity to build some really memorable characters and have some character moments. It would probably be a longer term thing though, each session of the "Simulspace/School" tier encompassing one of the equivalent scenes from "Revenge".

The thing I'm stuck on is the worldbuilding aspect of the school/server. I like the idea of the server emulating an exoplanet with some kind of English boarding school vibe to clash with the alien landscape. I'm brain-farting on how the schooling would actually work or what kind of people Cognite would employ. I could see them using tons of nanny AGI or teacher AGI or indentures. They may even use uplifts to normalize that part of the Transhuman community for the kids. I have this inkling of an idea for a neo-dolphin gym teacher...

In terms of power balance...this is Eclipse Phase. Balance is not really a thing for the system. That being said psi-slights make you vulnerable to stress, TITANs and many of them damage you when you use them. Similar in-game effects can be achieved with tech or implants at moderate cost. Sure they don't go with you when you backup or farcast but they also don't make you insane. I'm not concerned with my players powergaming or going uber. I think I can handle them.

49

RPGs / Lost: A tenative idea for an Eclipse Phase campaign

« on: November 12, 2013, 03:36:15 PM »

I had this crazy idea to run an Eclipse Phase campaign where all of the player characters are children (or teachers) within the Lost Project. The game would open on their "first mesh insert day" when the kid's implants are "activated" and they get to design their muses. The campaign would follow the kids as they aged within the program and follow them after their escape.

General ideas:

• Tiered structure: Child Teir, Escape Tier, etc to space out the early lives of the characters
• Discovery: Discovering that home was never real, infection, psi, the real world, self-discovery etc
• Fucked up little family: All the characters have the same terrible background and can really only rely on each other.
• Escape: Escaping from the Project, Cognite, Ego Hunters, Ozma, Firewall... the characters have limitless options for who to run from.
• Growing up strange

My main problem is that I don't know how to piece together what the interior of the Lost Project was like. I'd like to think that Cognite tried to keep the simulspace as real as possible or as, you know, normal as possible but who's normal are we talking about? A public school in an inner city district? A private school in the country? A tiny one-room affair in a rural village? Attempted home school? I'm fairly sure that Cognite would tailor the lessons to be...er...conducive to their aims but I don't know how blatant the propaganda would be.

Basically I'm looking for some assists on the world-building of the early adventures.

50

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

« on: November 12, 2013, 03:14:31 PM »

Were you the guy who skipped directly to the end scenario by accident?

Yeah. Dunno how spoiler heavy we want to get, but yeah, I just got that idea stuck in my head and turns out I went straight to the end-game, pretty much. *shrug* But I do hope everybody enjoyed it!

It wasn't spoilery at all. The scenario is designed to be a confusing sandbox with no explicit "go here" plot. That you walked to the endgame immediately didn't ruin anything, it just emphasized the dominant "shit is crazy" theme that Caleb wrote in.

51

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

« on: November 08, 2013, 03:59:52 PM »

Were you the guy who skipped directly to the end scenario by accident?

52

RPGs / Re: "Real" D&D Alignments

« on: September 29, 2013, 04:32:03 PM »

Why is hedonism shunted into CE? Hedonistic thought isn't just limited to pleasure as the highest good. Epicurians and Cyrenaics were hedonists but didn't run around pursuing the reducio-ad-absurdum version of hedonism. The argument could be made that Utilitarianism is partially founded on Hedonistic thought.

See this is why the DnD alignments make no sense. You really can't align real-world philosophies onto an absolute moral judgement system with dubious criteria.

53

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

« on: September 29, 2013, 04:20:08 PM »

Number Stations do seem to generate fear for some reason.

as for one shots, I want to see a Polybius-style game with the "NES Godzilla", it was mentioned in the comments for "Polybius" and after reading the blog, Hell Yes! I cant wait to hear that scenario. Also Ross should also do up a Carcosa game based on "The Room".

"Why don't you take that mask off, hah?"

The first SAN check should be when the player characters "get the results of the test back".

54

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

« on: September 29, 2013, 04:15:56 PM »

The Wives of March...I just...you...


...


...

...

Magnificent.

55

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

« on: September 29, 2013, 04:12:20 PM »

Oh god, you guys have been terrible for my bank account

Wild Talents
Eclipse Phase (Kickstarter //and// core book)
No Security
Base Raiders
A Dirty World

And I'm sure that there are more...you horrible monsters.

56

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

« on: August 07, 2013, 05:48:37 PM »

I'm not sure if you were aware of this but another RP podcast, "Fist Full of Misanthropes" is running the "No Security" games. They just posted their run of "Revelations".

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/a-fistful-of-misanthropes/id400112025

57

General Chaos / Re: Introduction

« on: August 07, 2013, 01:40:11 PM »

Hey guys I'm Vivax. I started listening to the podcast during the summer of 2010 when I found myself in a laboratory identifying insect specimens down to genus for hours on end (long story...). In no small part to the influence of the show I started reaching out to RP groups and have tried my hand GMing several times. I'm so fond of No Evil that I've listened to the campaign in full at least thrice. And...well...that's it.