Topics

46

RPGs / Possibly offensive ideas to use in your horror games

« on: November 30, 2010, 07:15:26 PM »

I was just letting my mind wander back to high school during anti-drug mind cleansing. We did an "experiment" with little cups of water. Some had a chemical in them that was normally clear but changed to pink when you added something to it. So, everybody wandered around the class and "exchanged liquids" with the others for awhile and them we added the reagent to see who would be pink. Whole thing was supposed to show how fast STDs and junk can spread.

So, just now, it occured to me that while those with the potentially pink juice might infect other people, they couldn't do much of anything to each other. If they knew about their potential pinkness than they might have the opinion of only mixing juices with other pinks.

And that's when the idea for putting an "All HIV Sex Party" into a horror game popped into my head.

It seems like a really frightening concept to a "normal", by which I mean uninfected, person. If you replace "HIV" with whatever strange condition or disease you use in your horror game than it makes for an interesting scene. Give the players someone they have to meet or something they have to get that's located at the party/event and make sure they are made aware of the exact circumstances of the party.

On the one hand, their surrounded by potential enemies, the threat of infestion literally surrounding them. On the other hand, the people involved appear to be actively making an effort not to inject others.

It's a chance to creep your PCs out on more than one level.

I think it'd work best with a horror-investigation game but with a few tweaks the entire thing could be used in alot of different settings. Imagine the party acting as a sort of forced peace agreement between the villain and extremely violence inclined PCs in an action game. The villain will meet them but only at this party, where the people are not only innocent of any crime aside from being ill (and his own guards can hide easily). Any killing will be not only be possibly killing innocent people but also result in the nearly assured infection of the PCs.

So, anyway, I put like five minutes of thought into that. Might be a horrible idea, might offend everyone in the world. If you have offensive ideas for game scenes I urge you to share them as well.

47

General Chaos / Equipment Handling

« on: October 12, 2010, 02:13:36 PM »

Just got my Zoom H2 today.

I have a history of being rough on my electronics products with only the most basic materials surviving with me for more than a few months. Any of you Zoom H2 owners out there have any advise on how not to destory this handy little device?

48

RPGs / Mutants and Masterminds

« on: September 10, 2010, 02:44:46 PM »

DC Heroes hit the street at GenCon but the underlying game, Mutants and Masterminds, isn't going to have the new edition out until December.

Don't buy it yet! Wait until Ross links to it so he can get a nickle.

So, who's looking to upgrade to Third Edition Mutants and Masterminds and more importantly, will Tom buy it?

49

RPGs / Character Bad Ideas

« on: August 31, 2010, 07:07:01 PM »

Episode 48's story about Aaron's original character concept for Dark Sun (a warforged) got me thinking about fun ideas with major holes in them.

Post characters who seemed good but had major flaws in their design, either mechnical or story, and either how to fix them or just rip on them.

I see a huge hole with a warforged in the Dark Sun setting but it isn't the one Tom, Cody, and Ross picked out. Warforged are designed with little metal in their bodies (their natural armor bonus is +2 in 3.5, it's not even as high a bonus as studded leather). Warforged are mostly wood and leather with stone and metal elements holding them together. Eliminating the metal elements is a pretty minor narrative adjustment (though it does still leave the problem of wood). And using the materials Athas has on hand for warforged sounded awesome. Bone-forged would be fucking metal and I don't care what you guys say.

The hole I wanted to jump on was that warforged are alive and self aware because of complexly webbed enchantments, which makes them walking active spells. A warforged on Athas should be drawing energy all the time, it'd be like a Defiler who wanders around casting small spells constantly.

You totally should've made Aaron play a warforged and forced him watch as his mere presence blighted the world around him.

50

Role Playing Public Radio Podcast / Aaron's First Time GMing DVD

« on: August 31, 2010, 06:45:15 PM »

The official thread to pester Aaron about the DVD and buttons and anything else you can imagine.

I'm a patient man. I can wait for a good thing. Way I figure it, Ross and Tom where able to put together the GenCon episode in about three weeks. Assuming that making a DVD is a little more than two times as hard, that'd give Aaron like seven to eight weeks, four to five of which remain.

So, I won't really start to complain until the end of September. But after that...

51

General Chaos / Zombie Web Comic

« on: August 16, 2010, 01:24:00 AM »

Found a pretty cool new comic: Zombie Ranch.

52

General Chaos / Query of Podcasting

« on: August 13, 2010, 06:39:12 PM »

I'm changing the focus of the podcast I've been trying to put together for the last year because I recently discovered I don't have enough strong, individual opinions to make a consistant podcast about gaming in general.

However, I discovered I have very definite information on a wide range of specific games. So, I'm going forward with the notion of advising on specific games in each podcast episode.

What I want to know is if something like this already exists. So far I haven't turned one up but I just started looking. I'm playing around with the name "So you want to play...", titling each episode "...[Insert Game Here]" and having two main segements: so you want to play and so you want to run, and filling the pre-show, between segements, and post-show with various oddities and humors.

So, I appeal to those who listen to more podcasts than I do: is there such a podcast already in existance?

53

General Chaos / The DnD Pirates Game

« on: July 30, 2010, 02:13:07 PM »

Hey, I was just cruising around DriveThruRPG and discovered this little collection of books for 3rd Edition DnD that focused on various reigons on the world. One of them was a Caribbean book for pirates and I thought to myself "Hey, that book has a hot pirate chick on the cover, just like Andy mentioned in his letter. I wonder if it is the same book."

So, Ross, was this your pirate sourcebook: http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=2323&it=1

54

Recruitment Board / Case of the Mongabay [Shadowrun 4th Edition: 3-5 Players]

« on: June 02, 2010, 02:22:39 PM »

Game Title: The Case of the Mongabay.

System: Shadowrun, 4th Edition.

Players Wanted: 3 to 5 players.

Posting Rate: Once every two days.

Special Rules:
Specialist Qualities (Magician, Adept, Mystical Adept, and Technomancer) do not count against the Positive Quality point cap (35 points).
Experience in Shadowrun is not required.

Advancement Rules: Players will be given Karma each time the story hits a high point (a climax) or a low point (a conclusion).

55

White Council Dossiers / Peter Barak, Geomancer and Treasure Hunter

« on: May 20, 2010, 05:20:45 PM »

Peter Barak
Daring adventurer, ladies man, and personal rights advocate

Template: Focused Practitioner

High Concept:
Earth Shaking Treasure Seeker

Trouble:
Balanced on the Razor Edge of Neutrality

Aspects:
Earth Shaking Treasure Seeker
Balanced on the Razor Edge of Neutrality
"Never forget the past!"
Lure of the Unknown
Never live it down...
Things are Better Cold
Friends Under the Arch

Phase 1, Where did you come from?
Peter wasn't raised in a broken home because he made the early life choice to leave it. By the time he was in middle school his parents hated one another. Why? He doesn't know, but it wasn't fun to be around. Things spiral downward while mom drank and dad stayed out of the house as long as humanly possible, leaving Peter, his brother and his sister to fend for themselves. Social services eventually got involved and removed the children from their parent's home. In a group home Peter firmly positioned himself in the pecking order but when it came time for an actual placement he found himself disgusted by his foster parents and especially by his siblings apparent acceptance of their new life. First day of high school, Peter didn't go home on the bus, he just vanished into the New York inner city.
Aspect- "Never forget the past!"

Phase 2, What Shaped You?
Life became a long running action packed adventure of Peter as his high school years unfolded. Getting what he needed and learning the ways of the real world. He spent a lot of his time in the tunnels and passages cut under the city, using them to avoid harsh weather, social workers, and law enforcement. Down in the dark was where he met Edward Fargo, a city sewer worker and developing magician. Edward had been involved with water function in the city for decades and felt that a hands on effort was the best way to go. Recognizing the talent in the young man Edward began making the effort to bring Peter under control and prevent his magical abilities from doing him harm. As it turned out Peter's abilities where narrowly focused and vastly different than Edward's own specializations. The boy described himself "hearing the walls" and with effort could force the ground to move. By and large Peter found the White Council's "rules" easy enough to live by because they didn't forbid anything he wanted to do... with the possible exception of the Seventh Law.
Study with Edward provided Peter with previously unknown focus and direction, both mystically and in morally. Though he never completed high school, Peter did find it in his heart to forgive his brother and sister for their efforts to move past the childhood they had experienced, even if he couldn't do the same.
Aspect- Lure of the Unknown

Phase 3, What was your first adventure?
Leaving New York for the first time was exciting beyond measure for Peter. He was eighteen, certified as stable by Old Ed, and clear on his path in life: discovering what was lost within the earth's embrace. Of course, the state of New York referred to it as "grave robbing" and "illegal trafficking in historical artifacts". Peter liked "treasure hunter". It was as much about knowledge was about making a living and whatever human authority might say about it, knowledge was meant to be discovered.
Upstate New York seemed like a good place to field test everything he'd put together in the last few years. Peter ended up using everything he'd learned and making up some fresh stuff on the fly to boot when he discovered he wasn't the only one hunting for relics around the Catskill Mountains. A faerie creature wearing the human guise of Klimov Aurelius, a Georgian Archaeologist, played a week long cat and mouse game with Peter through cities and wilderness as the two traded possession of a sealed mystical tome. In the end, Klimov claimed the artifact after a show down on the outskirts of Albany by revealing his true from in the fight. The conflict did not go unnoticed by the local magicians of the White Council, likely the only reason Peter escape without serious harm. However, it also meant there where witnesses for the young Practitioner getting his ass handed to him by a unicorn.
Aspect- Never Live it Down...

Phase 4, Whose path have you crossed?
While camping in the woods and seeking old cult idols, Peter encountered a strange man looking for a missing girl. At night the two heard distant music and chanting, eventually discovering both a cult and the girl. Combining their magicial abilities the two ruined the cult's ceramony and rescused the innoccent.
Aspect- Things are Better Cold.

Phase 5, Who else's path have you crossed?
A display of relics at the St. Louis musem wasn't something to pass up. Plenty of interesting people turned up for the display, a creature of darkness among them. Thinking quickly, Peter assisted a White Council magician and a strange spear wielding warrior in the destruction of the foul creature.
Aspect- Friends Under the Arch


Skills-

Great-
Craftsmanship
Lore
Discipline

Good-
Conviction
Scholarship
Investigation

Fair-
Rapport
Weapons
Presence

Average-
Stealth
Endurance
Survival
Driving
Burglary
Alertness
Might
Deceit

Languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Latin, Akkadian, and Old Norse.

Powers (Refresh)
Base for Submerged- 10
Template Requirements:
Channeling (-2), Geomancery
Ritual (-2), Divination
Refinement (-1), Geomancery (Items)
Linguist (Scholarship) (-1)
Sex Appeal (Rapport) (-1)
Final Refresh: 3

Magic Items:
Basalt Ring: +2 Control to Geomancery
Granite Ring: +2 Offensive to Geomancery
Split Pipe Divining Necklace: +1 Offensive, +1 Control to Divination

56

Recruitment Board / Song and Stage [Changeling: The Lost for 2-4 Players]

« on: May 08, 2010, 02:58:48 AM »

Game Title: Song and Stage.
System: New World of Darkness, Changeling: The Lost.
Players Wanted: I'm looking for between two and four players.
Posting Rate: Every other day at minimum.
Special Rules: In addition to normal starting assignment of resources, players begin with 20 XP to spend on their character.
Advancement Rules: Any official supplimental materials are exceptable provided you cite your sources if they come from outside the core manual.

Song and Stage is a Chronicle set in fictionalized Seattle, Washington focusing around the efforts of the PC's Changelings to unravel world shaking events occuring in the Emerald City. Game play focuses on investigation. Combat is as common as players wish to make it (if they pick fights than they can expect to get into fights). However, most Changelings of power in the city came up through the system the hard way as well and are unlikely to be easily beaten. A balanced party of mental, social, and physical abilities is advised.

Seattle's positioning along the I-5 Corridor is reflected in the Hedge by many more passages to the Realm than would normally be found in a single freehold. With so many Trods allowing access to the Faerie World the barriers between this world and the other feel quick thin. The freehold is threatened with open warfare and the Gentry's land seems to grow closer to the human world by the day.

The Hedge feels less like a wall and more like a curtain, which may soon part.

Lights.

Music.

Let the show begin.

57

Role Playing Public Radio Podcast / New World Setting Wiki

« on: April 15, 2010, 12:59:35 PM »

I made one. If there already was one, mine is now better by default.

http://dndnewworld.wikia.com/wiki/The_New_World_Campaign_Setting_Wiki

This is a place holding wiki on a public server for use while I get a private user hosted one established.

So fill the fucker up.

58

RPGs / Morality Systems

« on: April 08, 2010, 06:13:58 PM »

So I've been writting a Scion game for GenCon and in so doing noticed that the game, like most of the others I've been playing lately, has no mechanical alignment system to speak of. There is also no system of morality which paints a character as either good or evil. Since a fair chuck of the gods in the game are pro-human sacrific I think a conventional system would, indeed, be a challenge for Scion.

Then I noticed that most things I've grabbed recently (Scion, Exalted, Mouse Guard, Candewick) don't feature alignment or morality either, leaving the players with no mechanical counter push to any actions they take (beyond the results of their actions that is).

This is in fairly sharp contrast with the World of Darkness game I'm planning, which has a very definite morality system which has major mechanically effects (social penalities and insanities as well as weakened resistance to "evil") and the definite mechanical effects of alignment in D&D (circles of ward, etc).

And then I have games without a moral judgement system that still offer a mechanic able to punish "immoral" behavior in characters if the GM so chooses (CoC SAN, Dark Heresy Corruption/Insanity).

I like the World of Darkness system and I'm beginning to see that, out of the games I play and own, it's the only one with a black and white system of morals that acts as an active part of the game.

Do you guys prefer games with a morality and/or alignment system or one without? Oh, and also feel free to tell me I'm wrong about WoD being the only one with a black and white system.

59

General Chaos / Fuck Monopoly

« on: April 02, 2010, 06:53:51 PM »

This was posted on Irregular Webcomic and I thought it was too damn awesome not to share.

Monopoly is the most stupid, stupid, stupid game ever invented.

It should go curl up and die in a corner and rid the world of its presence. Parker Brothers/Hasbro have caused more harm to the world of family entertainment and fun than pretty much any other thing in the entire history of the world.

It's a stupid, idiotic, brainless, un-fun, stupid, ridiculous, tedious, boring, stupid game. All copies of it should be burnt. The guy who invented it should be brought back to life just so he can be shot.

The idiot marketing brainless idiots who keep promoting the stupid game and making endless "editions" that are just the same stupid tired old formula wrapped in shiny wastes of packaging are responsible for causing untold damage to countless minds across the entire planet. And wasting millions of hours of people's time with this completely pointless and ridiculous excuse for something that's apparently meant to be fun, but is actually a form of psychological torture. They should all be dragged out and ... treated really badly until they realise the error of their evil, evil, evil ways.

These people are torturing thousands, if not millions, of people across the planet, turning their brains into jelly, wasting their time, promising them an entertaining experience and delivering, time and again, nothing but pain and misery and suffering and boredom.

Why can't we do something about this crime against humanity? These evil, evil, nasty, evil people cannot be allowed to get away with this stupid bloody torture of innocent people. I want to burn down their houses, kill their dogs, smash their cars, and force them to play Monopoly for the rest of the lives they are unworthy to continue.

Stupid fricking excuse for a game. It gives the word "game" a bad name. There are kids out there whose parents or other family members have given them a Monopoly set, and whose path to the true horror has just begun. Those poor children. Can't something be done about the poor children??

Monopoly should be declared an inhuman form of punishment and banned by an international treaty, and those who promote and purvey it tried as the criminals against humanity they are.

There are very, very few things in this world that I hate. I'm a very mild-mannered person for the most part. But I hate, hate, hate, detest, loathe, despise, hate, hate, hate this fricking stupid bloody game.

Do want to ruin your family? Do you? Do you want to try to have a fun afternoon of togetherness and entertainment, that devolves into mindless stupidity and tedium, tempered with nastiness, back-biting, bitching, invective, people getting upset, people getting angry at one another, and people getting bored out of their skulls just trying to finish this bloody stupid ridiculous fricking game??? Do you want something that will turn a nice day of family togetherness into the most painful thing since having wisdom teeth extracted without anaesthetic?

No? Well then for god's sake, do not even think about Monopoly.

The game is evil. I'm sure Satan himself invented it and is sitting back laughing at how much misery it causes. If there's a Monopoly set in your house now, go call a priest and have an exorcism performed. Burn the wretched thing.

Do not expose your kids to Monopoly. You will ruin their lives. And the lives of their families when they grow up and have kids. Break the vicious cycle now. Do not inflict this evil on future generations.

What's that? Tell you how I really feel? You want me stop holding back and to tell you how I really feel??

I can't, because the English language does not have the words to describe how much deeper and more intense is my loathing and hatred for this evil stupid thing than I have been able to express so far.

And don't make excuses like, "Oh, if you play by the proper rules, it's a good game." It isn't. I agree that putting money on "Free Parking" and not using the auction rules makes the game worse, but it was already terrible to begin with. Simply removing the common house rules does nothing to alleviate the fundamental problems of the game that make it so broken and pointless to begin with.

Monopoly does not survive in the present day because it's a good game. There are tons of much better games out there. Games that have been designed with principles of play and good game design, that have been developed over the decades since Monopoly was released. Monopoly may have been state-of-the-art when it was invented, but games have evolved a lot since then. Pretty much any modern game with a modicum of thought behind it has better gameplay, player interaction, decision-making, game balance, theme integration, playing time, pace of action, and basic down-to-earth fun than Monopoly.

The reason Monopoly maintains dominant market status is purely due to marketing and inertia. Hasbro continues to market it like the cash cow it is, not because it's a good game, but because it's a cash cow. And parents buy it for their kids because when they go looking for a game they see a few unrecognisable titles on the shelves and they see dozens of boxes of Monopoly, and they go, "Hey! I know that! I'll get that!" They forget how miserable an experience it is to actually sit down and play the game. Retailers stock it because it sells, and it sells because retailers keep stocking it.

Department stores and generic toy stores don't bother stocking many game titles, so they pick the biggest sellers and most recognised names - which usually means games that were designed 50 or more years ago. To find modern games - better designed games, since yes, we have learnt a lot about how to design a fun game in 50 years - you need to go to specialty game stores that stock your roleplaying games and stuff. These are stores that most people never go into, and if they do, they look around bewildered at the 300 game titles they've never heard of, give up on trying to pick something new, and ask where the Monopoly sets are.

I've literally seen this happen in a game store. And I've seen the owner, eager to serve a new customer, go from bright and keen to help, to dejected and slumped a second later.

Look, sure, if you get a group of people who genuinely like Monopoly and set them going, they might actually have a good time. But you get a typical family together and set them playing Monopoly, the typical outcome consists of: complaining about bad dice rolls, someone getting upset because they're obviously losing, someone getting bored, someone accusing someone of cheating, arguments about rules, someone losing interest but having to keep playing because "you can't quit now!", somebody getting bankrupted and going into a sulk, everyone who's been knocked out sitting around complaining or going off and doing something else, and eventually one player obviously going to lose and the other obviously going to win, but the actual victory takes another hour or more to play out to the bitter end. By the time it's over, the family has been fractured, half of them are off doing something else, and someone's had their feelings hurt. Believe it or not, this is not indicative of a well designed game!

A well-designed game has rules simple enough for everyone to follow without arguments, keeps everyone engaged to the end, and encourages positive rather than negative social interaction. Such games exist. Why are they not mainstream? Why do parents everywhere not play them with their kids?

Because Monopoly is marketed so aggressively, and because so many people are poisoned against the idea that games can actually be fun by their experiences with Monopoly.

60

General Chaos / How I've used of my time

« on: March 26, 2010, 02:53:14 PM »

I noticed that I registered with the forum on the 11th last year, so it's been just over a year. Hurray, I thought. So I wondered how much of that year had actually been on the forums. My counter says my total time logged into the forums is just shy of 24 days, roughly 574 hours.

So I did a little math, accounted for the two weeks over a full year, and discovered that I've spent 6% of the last 12 months on this forum. That seems a little insane.

Now I'm curious about how much time I spend actually playing RPGs.

52 weeks in a year and I play two games a week (104 games) each of which is normally between 3 and 5 hours (312 to 520 hours). I have to miss or cancel at least once a month (lowers numbers to 286 to 476 hours). Even accounting for longer running games, I've probably spent more time on the forum than actually playing.