Messages

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Role Playing Public Radio Podcast / Re: B-Sides 2!

« on: December 19, 2014, 03:44:27 PM »

yaaay they work~ that Cthulhu Dark scenario still makes no goddamn sense at all but I'm p sure that was the intent. and this is the first new thing I've heard from Thad since...well, since he commented on a comment of mine on a Cracked article, I guess? but the voice is key! the Chet voice!

thanks for getting to this so quickly, Ross! sell us more things! I'm always happy for an excuse to give RPPR money.

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Role Playing Public Radio Podcast / Re: B-Sides 2!

« on: December 18, 2014, 09:20:26 PM »

Zombie Cinema breaks about 90 seconds in as David's introducing his character. Haven't tried it in VLC, in iTunes it just jumps to the next track.

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Role Playing Public Radio Podcast / Re: B-Sides 2!

« on: December 18, 2014, 05:22:51 PM »

All right list every file you find with a problem and where it first occurs. I'll just copy every episode I can straight from the SD card and redo the entire fucking thing.

Sorry/thanks! They're worth it, listeners, even with audio flaws! Fall Without End breaks up around 1 hour 14 minutes, I think? and then shrieks for a few seconds/crashes iTunes occasionally after that, but there's never more than a couple seconds lost. And I think I said in my first post that the Cthulhu Dark Miskatonic game breaks up at around 40 seconds and then...errr...the time-to-end counter on VLC starts to count up? seriously the playback starts to act like a Cthulhu Dark scenario itself if I hadn't heard problems in Fall Without End I mighta thought it was deliberate

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Role Playing Public Radio Podcast / Re: The Mitchum Cleary Time Loop?

« on: December 18, 2014, 12:10:24 PM »

but it goes so much deeper than that.

remember that in Think Before Asking Caleb panic-recycled his confusing Chinese name "ka le xi xi" (the basic function of my education in Mandarin is less to be useful, more to spend the rest of my life pointing out syllables that don't work in white guys trying to say Chinese names, you have no idea how hard Iron Heroes was for me) as the name of...like, a noodle joint or something, which suggests it either a) takes place in the same universe as Bryson Springs or b) even weirder, takes place in a world where RPPR actual plays have become the pop culture classics they deserve to be to the extent you might name your noodle-joint-or-whatever after something Caleb made up in his first CoC game.

there's no direct evidence I can think of that Think Before Asking takes place in the Know Evilverse, but Know Evil definitely takes place in the same continuity as Duality. there's even direct continuity to Ragnerdrok's Eclipse Phase campaign through Vicar and PCs jokingly watching Release the Kraken, too, so they're caught in the extended remixed loop as well. but given that all EP games recorded seem to be in the same continuity, I prefer to subscribe to the hilarious fanon that Know Evil and Duality exist within the Clearyverse, as proven by the name of that noodle hut.

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Role Playing Public Radio Podcast / Re: B-Sides 2!

« on: December 18, 2014, 12:14:21 AM »

I do notice some of the files seem badly damaged, though--Fall Without End actually crashed iTunes, although VLC could handle it with various shrieks and beeps, and the Cthulhu Dark game cuts out about 40 seconds in. VLC jumps it ahead and its tracking goes crazy, but played in the web player on gumroad it just blows up.

Edit: Holy shit, Cthulhu Dark: Miskatonic University is severely damaged but in a way that almost sounds intentional, the recording is cutting out into bleeps and when it comes back there are giant flaming skulls and and I don't even know how much is missing

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Role Playing Public Radio Podcast / B-Sides 2!

« on: December 17, 2014, 11:59:46 PM »

Because I wanna rave about em!

I like B-Sides 1, but I could see why the games in there were in there, rather than on the main podcast. So far, though, the B-Sides 2s I've listened to have been totally worthy of the main show, and I imagine they're only in there because a lot are noisy con games and playtests of adventures we've already heard with other people. They are still totally fucking excellent.

The first two I listened to were No Soul Left Behind playtests from Gencon and Fear the Con, which replicate the second adventure in NS. Both go craaazy differently, and I think both have been mentioned on the talk podcast--Fear the Con's involves self-kidnapping and the body control of Non-ye West, and Gencon's was the gold-to-sponges story and involves a life-expanding crossover with Tribes of Tokyo.

Then I went over to Fall Without End. I think the original never did get posted to the main podcast? It was already great, a sort of harrowing mountain adventure with monsters. You can really see the refinement in this B-Sides version--there's more background in the beginning, Caleb's more willing to show off the DyE Fantasy-style final revelation, and it's the perfect game to run in Trail of Cthulhu 'cause it's all about -getting tired.- Ultimately the structure didn't change much from the original, but if you missed the original or are interested in the iterative side of game design, it's super cool.

And just now I've started a game of Cthulhu Dark that it sounds liiike was run after that one game Drew ran? It features both Caleb and Thad, which should be enough to make anyone buy anything instantly.

Just in case there were any fence-sitters out there, and in case the people involved wanted to hear the typical glowing feedback =D YOU SHOULD GET IT IMMEDIATELY. Just don't eat for a few days, c'mon, you'll be fine. Will pry post more here as I get through more, I'm super excited for all the ones I recognize. There are still TWO Bryson Springs conplays in my future, and there's an adventure that RPPR's PCs, bless them, could not have fucked up more. I bet all three will be way different from one another, so excite.

BUY THIS DOWNLOAD: https://gumroad.com/l/NkgSI

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

« on: December 14, 2014, 08:36:35 PM »

I'm kind of curious if RPPR has ever considered Shadowrun.

I'm not exactly recommending it. I've been trying to find an actual play of Shadowrun I can listen to that actually sounds like the kind of game I'd like to run, and I really can't. I've tried the Arcology podcast, Fistful of Misanthropes, Geek the Mage First, and more. The closest anyone gets is Gamer's Tavern, and that's because there's one player making it fun by playing a minmaxed yet personality-rich character who's sort of a meta-joke and pokes fun at all the tropes of the game - sort of gaming against the system rather than within it. If I could hear RPPR tackle it the same way they did Eclipse Phase or Wild Talents, I think I could use that to actually run an enjoyable game of Shadowrun.

On the other hand, it's a beast of a system. It's no Synnibar or RIFTS, but it's unnecessarily complicated and fiddly, with tons of stacking modifiers. Chargen takes hours unless you're very, very familiar with the rules. There are a whole lot of traps (like skills that no character should ever take) and broken things (like the rules for creating Free Spirits or AI characters in 4e - sorry, Aaron). I don't really want the RPPR crew I know and love to have to suffer through that.

So...yeah, I'm curious if anyone at RPPR has ever thought about trying Shadowrun.

The guys at Fandible have an absolutely stellar, if somewhat occasional, Shadowrun campaign going. I think there are...seven-ish episodes of it out now? Very much worth a listen, the GM's got his teeth deep in the absurd commercialist grimdark future. Constantly hilarious.

http://www.fandible.com/category/shadowrun/

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Role Playing Public Radio Podcast / Re: Timeline of Eclipse Phase

« on: August 18, 2014, 02:22:53 PM »

what the hell, extrapolating from celestial bodies' positions is brilliant. and you know that the Transhuman guys would actually have paid attention to that detail, too.

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

« on: July 31, 2014, 12:56:54 PM »

I'm one of the three-star reviews of The Rhesus Chart on Amazon. I still feel bad, but I didn't really like it. =< With the death of Iain Banks and the living death of Pratchett, Stross has basically ascended to my favorite living author, so it makes me sad when he doesn't wow or at least baffle (Neptune's Brood) me. Case Nightmare Green has been stalled for too long! I want more metaplot!

Edit: Oooh, I actually read a DIFFERENT rewriting of The Night Lands. A free one on somebody's website. I wonder if this one's related.

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

« on: July 30, 2014, 11:10:04 PM »

BTW, I read The Night Land, Retold instead of the standard text: http://www.amazon.com/The-Night-Land-Story-Retold-ebook/dp/B004GKNM3W

Basically it updates the prose of the story so that it doesn't suck and adds dialogue between the man and woman, while still leaving in all the weirdness of the Night Land.

Yeah, I remember! I actually looked it up and did think it flowed a lot better, but it takes a lot of caring to get me to read something with my eyes. I might have to check it out, though. After I slog through my backlog of EP stuff I never bothered to reeead.

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

« on: July 30, 2014, 01:02:00 PM »

Hard copy of Eclipse Phase (which is almost unheard of for me, physical is backsliding!), every Kickstarter siiince, uh, Killsplosion, I think? And I've bought a couple of Greg Stolze's things--mostly fiction, I think?--because RPPR's reminded me to look him up. I grabbed Sense of the Sleight of Hand Man I thhhink after it was discussed on the talk podcast. Was it RPPR that talked about De Profundis, the epistolary Mythos game? That was a recent buy, too. And The Devotees, of course, instantly. I thought about backing the latest Transhuman kickstarter, but Ross and Caleb said they'd already gotten their freelancer bonus, so I was frugal for once instead. And looking at my DriveThruRPG...hey, I bought Better Angels, I'd forgotten. I'm kinda curious to read the book just to see how the setting's presented, and I generally just have an absurd love for Stolze anyway, so I throw down to support sometimes even when I don't think I'm gonna get around to reading what I grab.

I got Tales from Failed Anatomies after the last podcast and have kinda mixed feelings about it. Don't hate it, don't love it, haven't finished it, might like it more once I do. I finally listened to Audible's version of Day Z 'cause Caleb recommended it and I aaabsolutely loved it, which is weird, 'cause zombies usually leave me totally cold. Loved that it was more of a "pandemic" story than a zombie story. I also got The Night Lands not on RPPR's recommendation but after being reminded that it exists, and mygod is it unreadable. Some really cool proto-cosmic horrory imagery, but the style is just appalling. There've been quite a few novels and short story collections mentioned on the talk podcast I've meant to pick up and forgotten about.

So "a lot," basically. The financial hardship of the RPG producer seems very real, and I'm proud to participate in alleviating it, however slightly. I just wish I knew more nerds generally to turn them onto this stuff. I'm sure that a huge audience would love the kind of radio RPPR puts out, if only people didn't have such extraordinary format bias. They'll pay $12 to sit through blunt, blinkard three-hour movies over and over, but hand them a hilarious and cunningly-wrought three-hour AP podcast for free and they shut down. They'd be such great sales tools if people'd just give em a shot.

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General Chaos / Re: Join the RPPR social media army and spread the word about 'No Soul Left Behind'

« on: July 24, 2014, 08:31:13 AM »

upvoted and threw in my vapid fanboyism on reddit! that post needs moar upvotes right now. I shared it on Facebook immediately, but sadly basically no one I know is into our corner of geekdom, so I dunno if I'm going to entice more than maybe one or two people in that direction to give it a look.

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

« on: April 13, 2014, 02:02:33 PM »

yeah, I read Ligotti because of Caleb's recommendations back in the No Security era and love-hated him the same way I do Lovecraft originals. great ideas, fucknoxious prose. I laughed and laughed and laughed when Matthew McConaughey went on an anti-natalist rant in True Detective that could've been lifted straight from a Ligotti interview except that the dialogue sounded like it might've been spoken by a human.

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Role Playing Public Radio Podcast / Re: Dungeon World Campaign: The Colossus Archipelago

« on: March 11, 2014, 11:43:06 AM »

so is it actually completely skeletonized? it's not covered in hideous withered giant flesh? or does that vary from place to place? the whole idea is just so gloriously grotesque that I've been making a deliberate effort to visualize everything.

and are there other landmasses? does society consider them mythical? I so long to know about this vile world

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

« on: March 11, 2014, 11:41:23 AM »

I just put in another I'm-sure-you've-already-talked-to-him-about-it-but-for-serious-you-should-get-Caleb +1 on that Unknown Armies thread Greg started over on forum.rpg.net! Because seriously. The sooner we can get Caleb on postmodern corebooks the better it'll be for all concerned.

Although of course this would mandate that you start running UA for the podcast. There'd be no other option. Your art would require it.

definitely don't have an agenda here

(make Tom play a dipsomancer)

(oh man make Aaron play a pornomancer)