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Into the Odd [Tabletop Roleplaying] Appreciation Zone

Endless_SerpentsEndless_Serpents Registered User regular
edited February 2023 in Social Entropy++
In this thread we will discuss roleplaying games: hosting them, playing them, designing them. If I can suggest something, tell us a game you love, one you’re looking forward to, or the kind of game you wish existed. There’s enough crap out there without giving it air time.

Consider:
Dreams Askew. A ‘no dice, no masters’ game about a queer apocalypse—a world that didn’t end all at once, but is ending, and the fierce love unleashed by those exiled from a failing society that cannot face its own demise.
https://buriedwithoutceremony.com/dream-askew

LANCER. Humanity brought itself to the brink a dozen times, but at last, they have spread across the stars and finally achieved its goal: 3D printing giant robots and piloting them in skirmishes using theoretical, impossible guns that designed themselves, if at all.
https://massif-press.itch.io/

Blades in the Dark. Smooth, streamlined, sexy, haunted, electroplasmic heist action. Eat, Stress, Vice repeat.
https://bladesinthedark.com/

HC SVNT DRACONES. Honestly, this was posted at the back end of the last thread and all I can say is “Is that eagle wearing a leather jacket?”.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/270161/HC-SVNT-DRACONES-Second-Edition

Coyote & Crow. Science fiction in an uncolonised future. Coyote & Crow answers questions we can never truly know the answers to, but the dream lives on regardless.
https://coyoteandcrow.net/

MORK BÖRG. One day all will blacken and burn—soon too, it’s not an idle threat. But for now, you live, so be metal as Hell until you die.
https://morkborg.com/





I know a lot of you are into your high fantasy lately so here’s some characters so you feel included.

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DJ Eebs on
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Posts

  • DarmakDarmak RAGE vympyvvhyc vyctyvyRegistered User regular
    Time to shit up this thread with nonsense

    JtgVX0H.png
  • Endless_SerpentsEndless_Serpents Registered User regular
    Also this is my thread this time so I get to talk about all the stuff I’m not finishing designing whenever I want.

  • ChicoBlueChicoBlue Registered User regular
    I'm a naughty little halfling and I steal your goblin goblet from which I will quaff the murkiest of last year's vintage

  • DracomicronDracomicron Registered User regular
    I bought the core book for an ex who is super involved with her local GLBT and drag communities. Should show her this as well.xbyqbv4ds38z.jpg

  • InquisitorInquisitor Registered User regular
    That’s a pretty dope Zweihander but uh…

    NO CAPES!!

  • BahamutZEROBahamutZERO Registered User regular
    edited July 2022
    but it looks coooool
    realistically speaking I imagine you'd wear a cloak to stay dry and warm over the pauldrons where you can take it off quickly for freedom of movement, because how are the pauldrons even staying on over the cloak

    but IT LOOKS COOOOOOL

    BahamutZERO on
    BahamutZERO.gif
  • InquisitorInquisitor Registered User regular
    but it looks coooool
    realistically speaking I imagine you'd wear a cloak to stay dry and warm over the pauldrons where you can take it off quickly for freedom of movement, because how are the pauldrons even staying on over the cloak

    but IT LOOKS COOOOOOL

    NO

    CAPES

  • RanlinRanlin Oh gosh Registered User regular
    You'll have to take my Cape of Billowing from my cold, dead hands.

  • DJ EebsDJ Eebs Moderator, Administrator admin
    capes are cool as shit, I'd like Brad Bird to answer for that scene more than I want him to answer for his weird Randian undertones

  • GlaziusGlazius Registered User regular
    Ranlin wrote: »
    You'll have to take my Cape of Billowing from my cold, dead hands.

    When you gather the Zephyr Cloak and try to jump somewhere in Near range, roll +Dex. On a hit, you made it; choose 2 on a 10+ or 1 on a 7-9:
    • You don't draw attention or open yourself up to danger
    • You don't land awkwardly or off-balance
    • You knock something or someone out of position with the force of your passage

  • StraightziStraightzi Here we may reign secure, and in my choice, To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered User regular
    DJ Eebs wrote: »
    capes are cool as shit, I'd like Brad Bird to answer for that scene more than I want him to answer for his weird Randian undertones

    Yeah that one scene turns the movie from a pretty decent one into a reviled personal nemesis for me

  • asofyeunasofyeun Registered User regular
    i don't really care for capes but i'll defend a cloak

  • DarmakDarmak RAGE vympyvvhyc vyctyvyRegistered User regular
    Straightzi wrote: »
    DJ Eebs wrote: »
    capes are cool as shit, I'd like Brad Bird to answer for that scene more than I want him to answer for his weird Randian undertones

    Yeah that one scene turns the movie from a pretty decent one into a reviled personal nemesis for me

    Now I'm curious, what are y'all talking about?

    JtgVX0H.png
  • mrpakumrpaku Registered User regular
    Darmak wrote: »
    Straightzi wrote: »
    DJ Eebs wrote: »
    capes are cool as shit, I'd like Brad Bird to answer for that scene more than I want him to answer for his weird Randian undertones

    Yeah that one scene turns the movie from a pretty decent one into a reviled personal nemesis for me

    Now I'm curious, what are y'all talking about?

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=M68ndaZSKa8

    Skip to about 1:58 for the relevant bit

  • DarmakDarmak RAGE vympyvvhyc vyctyvyRegistered User regular
    mrpaku wrote: »
    Darmak wrote: »
    Straightzi wrote: »
    DJ Eebs wrote: »
    capes are cool as shit, I'd like Brad Bird to answer for that scene more than I want him to answer for his weird Randian undertones

    Yeah that one scene turns the movie from a pretty decent one into a reviled personal nemesis for me

    Now I'm curious, what are y'all talking about?

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=M68ndaZSKa8

    Skip to about 1:58 for the relevant bit

    I mean, she's got a point (I should get around to watching that film)

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  • A duck!A duck! Moderator, ClubPA mod
    I always figured that whole thing was out of practicality for the studio. They probably didn't want to have to animate capes for the whole movie and decided to lampshade it.

    It's cool that it still makes people angry after all this time.

  • InquisitorInquisitor Registered User regular
    asofyeun wrote: »
    i don't really care for capes but i'll defend a cloak

    Cloaks let you do one of my favorite dual wields, cloak and rapier:

    3jyf6dd17dzf.jpeg

  • BahamutZEROBahamutZERO Registered User regular
    That's a cutting critique

    BahamutZERO.gif
  • DarmakDarmak RAGE vympyvvhyc vyctyvyRegistered User regular
    That looks painful

    JtgVX0H.png
  • InquisitorInquisitor Registered User regular
    Dude forgot the first rule of rapiers:

    Don’t get stabbed.

  • DarmakDarmak RAGE vympyvvhyc vyctyvyRegistered User regular
    Inquisitor wrote: »
    Dude forgot the first rule of rapiers:

    Don’t get stabbed.

    I thought "Stick em with the pointy end" was the first rule? Shit, no wonder I keep getting stabbed

    JtgVX0H.png
  • GlalGlal AiredaleRegistered User regular
    edited July 2022
    A duck! wrote: »
    I always figured that whole thing was out of practicality for the studio. They probably didn't want to have to animate capes for the whole movie and decided to lampshade it.

    It's cool that it still makes people angry after all this time.
    I was working on the assumption that people were just running with the joke.

    I suspect the reason they didn't include capes (aside from that scene and with the villain) was because they were animated with physics simulation and that's aaaaaaaalways a huge pain in the ass when it comes to interacting with hand animated actors. Hey look, you animated a really excellent swing, it had the perfect amount of anticipation and snap! But whoops, that actually results in much faster acceleration that you'd get with a real person, imparting a large amount of energy on the cape that's now swinging around and wrapping around their head, enjoy spending hours manually tweaking it.

    If you watch the making of Finding Nemo, the scene where Marlin and Dory are hanging inside the whale's mouth with water pouring down over them was a nightmare to get right so the water looked like water, but also didn't completely obscure their faces or do anything else stupid (like pool inside their mouths as they spoke).

    Glal on
  • InquisitorInquisitor Registered User regular
    Darmak wrote: »
    Inquisitor wrote: »
    Dude forgot the first rule of rapiers:

    Don’t get stabbed.

    I thought "Stick em with the pointy end" was the first rule? Shit, no wonder I keep getting stabbed

    Haha, that’s actually why most tournaments have rules that heavily penalize doubles (both fighters hit one another).

    It’s very easy for two people to stab one another if they both don’t care about getting stabbed back, but it’s not a good simulation of life or death combat.

  • MechMantisMechMantis Registered User regular
    edited July 2022
    To continue some Skittermander love from last thread

    Near the untimely end of the Starfinder campaign I played in, we brought some Skittermander volunteers aboard our ship that had previously been pressed into service by some mean as fuck pirates. One of our party members already had a Skittermander companion who was pretty fuckin chill for a Skittermander so we figured that these cute little guys would be the same.

    We made a very large error.

    We did not Skittermander-proof our damage control lockers. Most especially, the welding equipment.

    We returned to our ship after about twelve hours away finding it had a very different layout than how we left it.


    EDIT: The moral of the story is do not leave 10 Skittermanders unattended with loose instructions to keep an eye on the ship.

    MechMantis on
  • InquisitorInquisitor Registered User regular
    So, all this Skittermander talk…. I have to ask….

    Is… is Starfinder actually good?

  • DracomicronDracomicron Registered User regular
    edited July 2022
    Inquisitor wrote: »
    So, all this Skittermander talk…. I have to ask….

    Is… is Starfinder actually good?

    Yes. The lore is top notch, the company is responsive and inclusive, the art is insanely good, and the math is wayyy better than PF1.

    Caveat: the editing is terrible, and it's pretty obvious that it isn't Paizo's priority, so you see some corners being cut in favor of PF2.


    EDIT: I would also add that it's pretty much the first d20 spinoff that includes casters where said casters aren't strictly superior to everyone else. Playing a Soldier is damn satisfying, Envoys are excellent space bards, and Operatives are a little over-tuned.

    Dracomicron on
  • PolaritiePolaritie Sleepy Registered User regular
    Inquisitor wrote: »
    So, all this Skittermander talk…. I have to ask….

    Is… is Starfinder actually good?

    Yes. The lore is top notch, the company is responsive and inclusive, the art is insanely good, and the math is wayyy better than PF1.

    Caveat: the editing is terrible, and it's pretty obvious that it isn't Paizo's priority, so you see some corners being cut in favor of PF2.

    It is very much descended from D&D though, which isn't everyone's preference.

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  • InquisitorInquisitor Registered User regular
    edited July 2022
    Inquisitor wrote: »
    So, all this Skittermander talk…. I have to ask….

    Is… is Starfinder actually good?

    Yes. The lore is top notch, the company is responsive and inclusive, the art is insanely good, and the math is wayyy better than PF1.

    Caveat: the editing is terrible, and it's pretty obvious that it isn't Paizo's priority, so you see some corners being cut in favor of PF2.

    If I can survive Shadowrun’s editing I can survive anything.

    I thought Starfinder was the game with the really borked DCs that made flying a ship like impossible as you leveled up but, maybe I am getting my wires crossed.

    All the setting stuff sounds great through.

    Inquisitor on
  • Albino BunnyAlbino Bunny Jackie Registered User regular
    No that's still Starfinder. Thankfully space ship combat is rarely important to being D&D in space.

  • DracomicronDracomicron Registered User regular
    Inquisitor wrote: »
    Inquisitor wrote: »
    So, all this Skittermander talk…. I have to ask….

    Is… is Starfinder actually good?

    Yes. The lore is top notch, the company is responsive and inclusive, the art is insanely good, and the math is wayyy better than PF1.

    Caveat: the editing is terrible, and it's pretty obvious that it isn't Paizo's priority, so you see some corners being cut in favor of PF2.

    If I can survive Shadowrun’s editing I can survive anything.

    I thought Starfinder was the game with the really borked DCs that made flying a ship like impossible as you leveled up but, maybe I am getting my wires crossed.

    All the setting stuff sounds great through.

    Oh no you are correct. They had to (ahem) course correct the ship combat DCs in the first year. They're still a little screwy at super high levels that nobody ever plays at.

  • GlalGlal AiredaleRegistered User regular
    edited July 2022
    How much you enjoy Starfinder mechanically very much depends on how much you enjoy D&D 3.5/Paizo, really. There's a lot there, but also a lot of it feels poorly thought out or overly complicated. Our group didn't much care for it since, despite having a bunch of older players, no one is actually nostalgic for pre 4th Ed stuff.

    The issues off the top of my head we had were that all classes used Dex to hit regardless of what their core stats were, Combat Maneuvers are completely useless despite the book bigging them up, starship combat splits one player's worth of decisions across the entire group (are you not the captain? Prepare... for boredom!), the gear progression was basically "buy new gear every level, not because the new stuff opens up new options but because otherwise you fall behind number-wise", most of the feats didn't really do much on their own and needed to be taken multiple times before they actually became good...
    Basically, if you're playing a low level campaign that's not going to rush through levels the game feels both very fiddly and very basic at the same time.

    [edit] On the plus side, the lore stuff is fantastic, I love how many alien races they added, complete with player versions. Yes, more of this please!

    Glal on
  • MaddocMaddoc I'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother? Registered User regular
    Also leveling didn't make flying ships easier due to the way it scaled, if anything leveling made it harder to do stuff on a ship

  • webguy20webguy20 I spend too much time on the Internet Registered User regular
    Another plus is that Paizo is unionized.

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  • DracomicronDracomicron Registered User regular
    Polaritie wrote: »
    Inquisitor wrote: »
    So, all this Skittermander talk…. I have to ask….

    Is… is Starfinder actually good?

    Yes. The lore is top notch, the company is responsive and inclusive, the art is insanely good, and the math is wayyy better than PF1.

    Caveat: the editing is terrible, and it's pretty obvious that it isn't Paizo's priority, so you see some corners being cut in favor of PF2.

    It is very much descended from D&D though, which isn't everyone's preference.

    Yes, it's clearly a d20 product, but that's it's niche.
    No that's still Starfinder. Thankfully space ship combat is rarely important to being D&D in space.

    Exactly. Ship combats are fairly rare in Society play these days. Though I had my first mech combat last night. Mechs have been a thing for the past few months.

  • DracomicronDracomicron Registered User regular
    Glal wrote: »
    The issues off the top of my head we had were that all classes used Dex to hit regardless of what their core stats were,
    Well, Strength is for melee and some spells use the casting stat. But yes, Dex is the most powerful stat, and it isn't ideal.
    Combat Maneuvers are completely useless despite the book bigging them up,
    They're bigged up because they are very strong, and even in the core book it's possible to do a reliable maneuver build with feats.
    starship combat splits one player's worth of decisions across the entire group (are you not the captain? Prepare... for boredom!),
    the Pilot is actually (🤓) the only one with agency, but yes.
    the the gear progression was basically "buy new gear every level, not because the new stuff opens up new options but because otherwise you fall behind number-wise",
    it isn't that bad. Armor is the worst case and you can usually get by with looted suits or buying new suits every three to five levels. Enemy attack bonuses are very high and some people rock level 1 suits with a DR upgrade because they figure they're going to get hit anyway (the math there doesn't quite hold up). Weapons you really don't need to upgrade until level 7 or so, though it gets pretty weird after 11th level and dice keep stacking ar a rate higher than HP growth. Until then your bonus specialization damage is going to be the more important number.
    most of the feats didn't really do much on their own and needed to be taken multiple times before they actually became good...

    Somewhat true in the core book, though the maneuver boosts can have surprising returns (with Improved Bull Rush, juggernaut boosters, a tower shield, and the Armor Storm fighting style, you can actually bull rush for damage with a better chance to hit than just attacking). Later feats are better.

    And I'm not just trying to defend my current go-to game; I think a lot of beliefs about SF (quite reasonably) come from the flawed state on release. It's now a game that is at least halfway through its life cycle now and a lot of those old issues have been addressed.

  • InquisitorInquisitor Registered User regular
    Hm, tempted to just rip all the Starfinder lore out and drop it into something like Scum and Villainy instead.

  • admanbadmanb unionize your workplace Seattle, WARegistered User regular
    Inquisitor wrote: »
    Hm, tempted to just rip all the Starfinder lore out and drop it into something like Scum and Villainy instead.

    We call that the Shadowrun Doctrine.

  • TomantaTomanta Registered User regular
    Starfinder's lore is amazing. Starship combat is pretty god awful. The rest is a form of D&D for better or worse.

  • InquisitorInquisitor Registered User regular
    admanb wrote: »
    Inquisitor wrote: »
    Hm, tempted to just rip all the Starfinder lore out and drop it into something like Scum and Villainy instead.

    We call that the Shadowrun Doctrine.

    Is there actually a good FitD engine to drop Shadowrun lore into these days? Because… that would be rad too.

This discussion has been closed.