Been discussed, apparently the good folks over at Paizos like the name and wont budge. I think it terrible.
I totally agree. It's very a B-movie fantasy name. "Fear, they name is... BLOODRAGER!"
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Know I'm in the minority, but I gotta say I don't like the monthly shipping. The reason I was really able to add it to my budget was the bi-monthly schedule. Guess I'll see how things are looking come August, cause I do want them sharks....
As a GM who probably won't get his players to play RotR until... maybe 2018 but is much more likely to get them to play a card game from time to time, how spoilerific will this be for the actual AP?
Mark me down as someone else who really doesn't like this concept. I mean, I'm holding onto a slim hope that the execution will somehow save it for me, but I sincerely hope that they never do anything like this again.
Oddly enough, I think that's pretty much the same process they used when designing it.
Samuel is a human Gunslinger with maybe a couple of levels in Rogue. Samuel Denath:
Samuel Denath comes from small fishing village of Cag's Rock a few weeks journey south of Coran. Although Cag's Rock had cold winters and was prone to terrible storms, Samuel was content with his life. For while other children were off fighting imaginary sea creatures, Samuel was learning his father's trade: Gunplay.
Samuel was raised on stories of his Leetin's heroism and was taught form an early age that true justice required courage, sacrifice, and a perfect aim. Any doubt Samuel had about his father exploits were laid to rest the first time he laid eyes upon Leetin's famous pistol "Amaranth". From that moment on, Samuel knew he had to follow in his father's footsteps. It took Samuel months to prepare his body and mind before Leestin would allow Amaranth to be fired, but by 19 years of age his father gave him his first mission: Travel to Coran and kill Steward Pengrath, the Butcher of Lianna Field. For years, this father had told Samuel of Pengrath, of how he'd ordered the massacre an entire village if Lianna Field because the village elder refused to allow Pengrath to lie with his daughter. Because of Steward Pengrath's position in the military, his crime went unpunished. Until now. For three weeks Samuel watched Pengrath's moments as his father taught him. Looking for the pattern, the moment when he'd be the most off his guard. The perfect moment to strike. The moment, poetically enough Samuel decided, would come in a graveyard. Never would two full days pass without his target visiting the estate's cemetery. Always the same grave, and always Pengrath wept, oblivious to his surroundings. Late one night, Samuel reconned the graveyard, trying to locate the best hiding places and the quickest methods of ingress and egress. Though he told himself he didn't care who a beast of a man like Pengrath would shed tears over, curiosity got the better of him. He looked at the tombstone, expecting to see a mother or a brother. Instead he saw a son. A son named Samuel Pengrath. It had to be coincidence, but the birth date marked on the stone was the same as his and he felt a sickening certainty in the pit of his stomach.
In the letter Leestin reveal it all. How, years ago, he was a high ranking officer serving under Steward Pengrath. One day though, Pengrath discovered Leestin had been selling information about troop moments and other sensitive information to the enemy. Leestin escaped before he could be tried and was left fuming and bitter over the loss of his station It was in this state that an organization (which he left conspicuously unnamed), offered to help him take his revenge. Leestin gloated about how faked the death of Pengrath's two year old son and how he was raised to be the instrument of his own father's death. The letter made it clear that Leestin thought he had succeeded, and he very nearly had. Samuel was nothing more than a bullet to discarded after it'd had served its purpose. Now though, that bullet was pointing directly hat Leestin's head, and nothing was going to prevent it from exploding out the other side. NPC:
Stewart Pengrath, is of course, my NPC of choice. I know he's not a commoner, but I envision him to be pretty much a broken man after his son's "death". He has no more political pull (any allies he may have had are dead-probably due to some of Leestin's machinations- or have totally given up on him), and just enough money to keep his mostly dilapidated estate from falling apart any further. If that doesn't work, I'm totally good with saying that Leestin killed Stewart after he discovered Samuel didn't, but Samuel has some cousins, who are very much commoners, and Samuel will go to any lengths to protect them. They're all his has left. Description:
He's just shy of six feet, wiry body, dark hair. He accustomed to being out in the sun, so he tends to be pretty tanned. Goals: As for why he's working for the Mageocracy: Simply put, he needs backing to help take down Leestin and whatever mysterious organization he works for. Samuel knows that he can't do it by himself, he needs allies and the Mages seem to a good place to start. (I was also toying with the idea that he's heard of a mystical bullet that will kill someone who's name has been properly engraved on it, although it costs the life of the gunman. He would be _very_ interested in this if were true...)
It may or may not have one more sheet of tokens—we're not sure yet. Awesome. Thanks for the quick reply!
Cool. Is this set bigger then the previous AP pawn sets?
Thanks for the extra info guys!
Cool! I've been eyeballing it for a couple of weeks now but I haven't decided if I'm going to back it yet. What else makes you excited about it? Admittedly, I've only looked into Numenera just a little bit, but so far I haven't seen anything for it that hooks me or gives it as much character as Fading Suns (for example).
I know I sound all curmudgeonly but that's honestly not my intent. Everyone else is really exited about it and I sincerely would like to share in that. So please, go crazy and totally sell me on it!
PF is my "other" game. WoD (all flavors) is first and foremost in my heart. That being said, Earthdawn, Deadlands, 7th Sea, CoC, and Torg are all near and dear to me. However, aside from the protagonists, Supernatural really doesn't have anything that distinguishes it from the norm. So... do you mean you'd want to play as one of the Winchesters? Because, if not, how would it be any different from a generic HtV game? I guess you could include some of the signature characters (Crowley, Meg, Castiel, etc.). Hmmmm... I think the Supernatural mythology is different enough then H:TV that you can build on it without using much in the way of signature cast. After all: Spoiler: If Sam are Dean are Michael and Lucifer and Chuck is a prophet then it's not a far stretch to say that there's some "apostles" out there they may have a part to play outside of events of the series.
This has to be the best thread I've ever seen on these forums, hands down.
So it's not negative, and it doesn't feel negative, because the criticism is mixed with the best praise there is... "Keep". Congratulations on that by the way! I feel bad, because I co-oped the OP's thread for my own grindstone: That I felt like the feedback that was given while the first round entries were still coming in were sometimes too caustic. (Basically, I feel like a lot of them boiled down to: "We keep getting entries where [X] has been done wrong! Why can't you people be smarter?"). Which pretty much turned me off to the entire process. As I said above though, it's probably just a me thing.
Remember, we are tough because we HAVE to be--this is RPG-freaking-SUPERSTAR!!! This is not "RPG Good enough to make a book of magic items-star". I try to chalk it up to the fact that there's no inflection when reading something on the internet- I can't read a person's face or judge intentions through body language- but read straight out, statements like that are incredibly condescending. It's an attitude I felt like I kept running into throughout the entire first round. Of course we know it's RPG Superstar. We wouldn't have entered otherwise. Of course everyone who was serious about it tried to bring their A-game, and of course some A-games are better then others. There's nothing wrong with that. I just feel it's completely dismissive of the those that didn't make the first cut. It heavily insinuates that they didn't make it, not because there were better entries, but because they suck. I felt this way through out the entire process this year. This isn't the first time I've entered a my work into a contest, but this is the first time that I felt like the people in charge of it were actively waiting for me to fail. It wasn't a good feeling. I've never understood the use of negative feedback to inspire someone to do better (maybe because I've never watched America Idol). I admit that I'm probably in the vast minority (if not the sole person) who feels this way about how it was handled. It's your guys' show, and you're welcome to run it anyway you want. If this is what it takes to allow you all to keep making a great product, then I support it. Regardless of my sour taste on this, I want you to know that I really do appreciate Paizo for giving everyone the opportunity to grab the gold ring, and for all of the judges for taking the time and effort to look through all those crazy entries. Please don't let my mini-rant give the illusion that I have anything but respect for you all.
I agree with the OP. Even prior to the final 32, the judges comments about the items they saw coming in seemed aggressively critical to me.
Here's how much having an OGL will influence me purchasing 5th Ed: None. What. So. Ever. An OGL doesn't make a game great. Doesn't make it good. Doesn't even make it tolerable. The setting and the rules are what I care about. Graphic design, the price point, support of pdfs. These are factors for me to consider, but not any one by itself will make it or break it for me. OGL? 3PP? Nice to have 'em, but I won't even notice them if they're not around.
Though the OP is on Windows, just to let iPad people know, GoodReader will do all that. In my humble opinion, GoodReader should be the first thing a new iPad user downloads.
Totally off topic, so I'm encasing in spoiler
The second printing of the Core rules uses "-" for the slot in Apparatus of the Crab. I don't have the time to look through every item, but taking a quick glance through the 5th printing it seems they did a universal change from "-" to "none".
Thank you very much for doing this!
Yes.
I buy a small amount of 3PP material ($15-20ish a month), but I've only ever used the Swashbuckler class from Adamant Entertainment's Tome of Secrets and a single feat from Rite Publishing's Feats 101 since Pathfinder came out. The reason for this is simply that none of my players have ever asked if they can use something from a 3PP source. I'm the really only one that buys (and usually reads) anything for the my game to begin with. Compound that with the fact that vast majority of 3PP material I buy is on PDF, my players don't physically see a stack of books and it's out of sight out of mind. (Tangentially since I'm now using Hero Labs and D20Pro to run my Pathfinder games, I need to enter any 3PP material in by hand. While I'm more then willing to do that if one of my players asked for something, I don't have the time to put the info in there myself so I'm not actively pushing my players to look though my 3PP stuff.)
The top cover is the Advanced Races Guide, the second is the Core Rules. I'm guessing it's just the artwork that Dynamite was using for their press release.
It seems like Golarion will soon be showing up in sequential art form.
Or he could pop in here and confirm that the capital of the Keleshite Empire... or even if there IS a single capital of the Kelehite Empire... has not yet been published. Naw, I don't think he'd ever do that....
You may also want to check out Cooking With Class. While I own it, I haven't had a chance to read it yet. Still though, there's probably something in there that you may find useful for your concept.
I'm male, nearly 36, started playing when I was 7 and I've never served.
The key to a successful evil game is that it must be the Party vs the World not PC vs PC. You are evil to the "others" and others being defined as anyone not afflicted with the Party's wants and goals. I've ran a few and I firmly believe that Dorje is correct here. Well, unless of course the entire point of the game to have the PC's set against each other. I ran Vampire game once where each player was an Elder out to get each other. I didn't have much fun. I was always paranoid that one little slip would cause the in-game animosity to spill over into the real world. Although the players seemed to like it, I don't think I'd ever run something like that again.
Yep. Just replace the word "flip" with an entirely more vulgar chain of expletives though in my case.
I keep getting tempted to try running a pbp, but I've never ran or played in one before and I feel hopelessly clueless about how to go about it.
That's never bugged me and I've once had another player complain about that situation either. So I suppose that I just don't have a personal context for why I'd say that. Let me clear here, I don't begrudge you for that, or think that you're wrong. I just doubt I'd ever tell someone that.
If a player has a rules question, I tend to prefer if they look it up themselves. It beats slowing down their turn to ask me, or worse yet, interrupting another player's turn. Of course I don't mind answering questions, but I think hands on experience with the books gains an advantage of speeding everything up in the long run. Also, I don't think I've had a problem with someone getting distracted by a rulebook since I was 12, but I've heard about it enough times to believe I've just been lucky that way.The reason that I rank PF as a 7 isn't so much because of time spent looking up rules. It's because overall, in my experience, hit point and level based systems are inherently slow. This gets compounded by iterative attacks and less often used spell/abilities that do need to be looked up and adjudicated which come along with mid to high level play.
...am I the only GM that would say "alright Ted, you have 3 more sessions - either get it together with knowing how your character works, or you can't play this (whatever element keeps requiring looking up rules) anymore." That's something I could never see myself doing. At least not the way you worded it. And as a GM, if I don't know exactly where to look to find the ruling I need in the book - I make a call on how it works for now and make a note to look it up after the session so I'll know it if it comes up again. Yeah, I totally do that all the time. ...and I also only ever answer a request someone makes to hand them a book with one word "Why?" Players shouldn't have to crack a single book during a session, at least not without already knowing exactly which page they are flipping to and why. I would never do this either. My list:
That was some great advice Matthew! Because I can't sleep, I'm going to add a few things I usually do for a game. It's mostly rudimentary type stuff, but typing is better then lying in bed staring at the ceiling. I tend to do most (but no means all) of my WoD stuff as sandbox games. I usually pick a city and populate it with some kindred. Unless I'm using one of the By Night books I focus on the main power players, the ones that want to be the power players, and those stuck at the bottom. I then do a quick relationship chart for them. (Pretty much all of the By Night books use these, and I've found them quite helpful. In case you're not familiar with them it's just a simple flowchart that says things like: Vampire A fears Vampire B. Vampire B took Vampire C's place in the Primogen, and Vampire C knows Vampire A's dirty secret). Of course not every vampire in the city feels strongly enough about every other vampire in the city to warrant this. Just stick to the ones that you think would play well off each other. Once I get a good idea of the climate of the city, I come up with at least one big event to use as a backdrop for the game (For example, A Justicar has come to the city for a "vacation" after a particular difficult hunt. Is he really there to rest, or is it just part of a bigger plot? Either way, his presence throws the entire politics of the city into chaos as half the kindred try to curry his favor, and the other half avoid him like the plague. Meanwhile everyone is trying to bury their secrets deep) I don't always introduce this from the start, and sometimes I never use it at all if the players are having fun and keeping me busy with their character's actions. They're just good to have to shake things up if you feel like it or to use as an unexpected monkey wrench. (and they're just tons of fun to think up) You'll probably want to put social, political, and combat types of characters/events into the city, so you can plan for what the players want once they're are done creating their characters. (That being said, if you have specific type of game in mind, but sure to let the players know before they start making characters) Once I get all of that lined up, I get my players together and make characters. It's nice to have all of these ducks lined up in a row before character creation, because then you're prepared to say to someone who wants to play a Nos, "Sure, but just to warn you because they lack a Primogen member, they've gone on "strike". They're not dealing any information, regardless of payment. So they're not very well liked right now. Even more the usual."
Really focus these questions on Backgrounds and Merits & Flaws (if you use them) because this is where a lot of your story seeds are going to come from. The character has a Contact that's a lawyer in the DA's office. How did they meet? What deals have they already done for each other? How can you use the Contact in a story, what use does she have for the character?
Finally after character creation is done, have a list of Twenty Questions. The rule books lists a bunch of these, but you don't need to ask all of those ones. Tailor a few of them to your chronicle. If you're feeling really ambitious and can think fast on the fly, you can replace a few of your original questions with new ones based off the info you just got. Pretty much the one question I recommend always asking is "What is your character's goals?" It's a simple and blatant way to get an upfront answer as to what each player wants out of your game. The players are choose to answer you questions the way they did, picked their Backgrounds, Merits and Flaws for a reason. Once you find out those reasons and learn the story behind each choice, and you start to find the threads the players are giving you to weave into the stuff you've already set up. You find the place where their police contact fits into your Prince's hold on the Commissioner. Where your missing Harpy intersects with their Infamous Sire. You find out if they want a gritty street level drama, a cinematic ride with bullets and fangs, or a dark slide from man into beast. And that's where you start to find your story.
Is mirrors any good? one of the recent releases I haven't had a chance to check out. I really like Mirrors. The first section of the book is a bunch of ways to mess with rules concerning characters and character creation. Things like different ways to handle the dot spreads for Attributes/Skills during character creation. Messing with Virtues/Vices & Natures/Demeanors. A "Cthulhu Mythos" way of letting mortals learn different powers of supernatural beings (meaning the more you know, the crazier you get). Ways to mess with Merits and Morality. Oh, and Skill Tricks, which are pretty fun. Basically they're abilities a character can pick up during creation that can let them do cool little cinematic things. There's at least 5 per skill, and each one also gives an example plot hook the Storyteller can use. For example, Web Presence lets the character come up with a composite of a target using information found online (habits, likes/dislikes. Basically the type of thing you see on TV procedurals), even if they only have a name and place of birth. The plot hook is that the character finds three different obituaries for target, from three different sources, each three years apart. The second section of the book is rules hacks. Tons of alternate ways to handle combat: Diceless, miniatures (which is new for White Wolf...), on second rounds, simultaneous actions. It also has Social and Mental combat, The third section are different setting hacks, they call Shards. Basically they're alternate ways to handle the WoD setting as a whole. The present three in the book. The first is one where there is no Masquerade, no Lunacy. The different supernatural species are known to the world at large. They also give different takes on it, like what if everyone knew Mages exist, but Vampires are still secret.
The last little bit contains essays of a few of the developers house rules. Most of them are fun to read, just to get a peak in their heads if nothing else. EDIT: Oh, of course this book is for the New World of Darkness, but most of it can be pretty easily applied to the old stuff as well.
I totally misread this as "Where do you get your election cleavage and I was very confused. Right now I'm not paying too much attention to it, but most of what I hear also comes from Democracy Now and The Daily Show.
I hope we never see post-Gehenna material. Yeah, I pretty much I agree with that. Though I suppose if they did some kind of post-Gehenna section in a Mirrors-style book, I couldn't mind it. Though I wouldn't want to see a whole sourcebook dedicated to it.
Whoa, wait. They're going to put more Masquerade stuff out!? I thought that this was a one off. That is awesome news. Indeed they are. Not just V:TM but some other CWoD stuff also. You can see their release schedule here.
So how is the meta plot in this? Has it advanced any or regressed? Has it become focused at all or become more vague? The book is, for WWP, pretty setting-light. Basically, the metaplot has been moved backwards to just prior to Revised, though they do give you sidebars here in there in the book that tell you things like: "In Vampire continuity, the Assamites break their curse, and the Ravnos blow up. Here's how to handle that." It's honestly more of a rules update then a plot advancement, but it's got nearly ever single Clan, Bloodline, and Discipline all in one place. Including a bunch from The Dark Ages. IIRC, there really won't be any metaplot advancement until Children of the Revolution next year, and even then it'll be pre-Gehenna.
The production rate dropped because they don't feel the need to put out months books anymore- an attitude that I agree with. We'll just have to agree to disagree on the quality thing though. Not everything's for everyone, so it's cool.
As much as I wish we'd get a Wraith 20 and Changeling 20, I'm betting that we'll only get the big three.I think the best the others can hope for is a big book that kinda skims through the basics of the other seven games, and that's probably a remote possibility at best. Totally, though I do hold out hope they'll do translation guides for all of the cWoD at some point. The new rules work so much better for cross-over games. Even though I very rarely have the desire to run one, I'd like to have the option without fear of my head exploding.
Very true. I'm pretty excited to see that translation guide. I like the setting for Mage: Ascension better the Mage: The Awakening, but I like The Awakening's rules a little bit more then Ascension. As much as I wish we'd get a Wraith 20 and Changeling 20, I'm betting that we'll only get the big three.
It is kind of nice to see that White Wolf seems to be coming back to life. They never really died, they just switched to making the majority of their releases PDF/Print-on-Demand. If I understand it correctly, their plan is to have every single White Wolf product available through Print on Demand. Which makes me happy since there's there's still quite a number of books of theirs I'm missing. Sadly, it'll take a while before they get their catalog done. Though, they did just suffer some lay off due to some earnings loss from CCP. It's my understanding that a couple of people that worked full time for WWP are now freelancers under contract with them.
It sounds like it's very close to release- possibly even this month. Though to be honest I suspect that it'll be January (I hope I'm wrong though).
You can also get more details of their upcoming stuff here: White Wolf GenCon 2011 Promotional Materials
They are doing the missing convention books? Link? White Wolf 2011-2012 Release Schedule NWO and Progenitors are due up next summer, so sadly it's still a ways off.
Oh, yeah. can't wait for Mage 20th Anniversary. I hope that there is one. They haven't announced it yet, though I like to think that WWP doing the missing Convention books is a good sign.
While about the last thing I want is another fantasy MMO, I'm excited for you all nonetheless. It's a huge deal and I hope it's insanely successful!
I feel sad that I wasn't able to get a concept posted on here, work reared it's crunch-timed ladened head at me. *sigh* Have a good game everyone!
Very interested in this. Hopefully I can come up with a good concept before the slots get full.
It's been a very long time since I read either of those (especially Giant Sized X-Men), so I'll take your word on that. I do seem to remember that Authority #1 assumed some passing knowledge of Stormwatch, but either way I agree that Authority # 1 is a great example of a first issue.
None of the Giffen/DeMatteis team was around for the Jones' days. Well, expect L-Ron I think. He'd taken over Despero's body, iirc. But like I said, that's just stupid nit-picking on my part and really has nothing to do with anything. |