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Who is this Office of Expectation Management, and how do we stop them from ruining our rampant speculation? ;)
It's Me!
You can't stop me!
And that's the scoop!
Fawesome!! I haven't seen Tom Rex in forever.
There is in fact a pretty detailed story to Dark Souls... but like the actual game play, it's not something you learn from the manual. It's something you learn by playing the game, and in fact, you are unlikely to learn the whole backstory on only one playthrough. The backstory to Dark Souls is infused into the world itself; not only in how the NPCs talk, but the tiny tidbits of lore associated with each item, or the nature of the quests you go on, or the architectural styles of the buildings, etc. It's a really immersive and evocative way to get the world's story across. There's not really a super complex story plot your character follows, but the rest of the game is so compelling that it doesn't matter, to me at least.
I much preferred having my protagonist be voiced. It makes a huge difference for the storyline. For a video game, I honestly really DO prefer if the character you play has some assumptions made about them, like how Commander Shepard was set up, since once you let the game designer have some of those assumptions, however small, they can create a MUCH more compelling story for the character to explore.
I picked up Dark Souls for like 20 bucks, love getting games cheap. And it's new. I love immersion so I'm excited to start the game.
I definitely agree that voicing Shepard let them do way more to create a great story and give you some really great moments like some of the renegade actions I had to do even while playing my Paragon.
On the other hand, Skyrim let me play 3 entirely different characters and feel incredibly immersed in the game. I feel like ME was Shepard's story, and he's a great character, but Skyrim let me experience it as close to first hand as I can get. When I'm playing single player, I'd rather be the protagonist, not watching him.
Or maybe it's just the fact that Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2 are my favorite bioware games and I wish they had made 3 instead of the MMO!
Who are you favorite Bioware companions? From any of the games.
Some say he's been busy punching Jaegers in the nads.
Others say he's been going door to door, teaching the under-privileged about the Oxford Comma.
Others still that he's the sole reason the Vancouver Stanley Cup riots didn't spread to Seattle.
All we know for certain is that he's Tom Rex.
Creative Director
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On the other hand, Skyrim let me play 3 entirely different characters and feel incredibly immersed in the game. I feel like ME was Shepard's story, and he's a great character, but Skyrim let me experience it as close to first hand as I can get. When I'm playing single player, I'd rather be the protagonist, not watching him.
Or maybe it's just the fact that Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2 are my favorite bioware games and I wish they had made 3 instead of the MMO!
Who are you favorite Bioware companions? From any of the games.
Skyrim and the Fallout games by Bethesda are unarguably awesome, and are some of the best games of the current generation. But the idea of something that plays like Skyrim but has the story and character elements of Mass Effect or Dragon Age? That sounds just about perfect.
Favorite companions from Bioware games? Hmmm...
Jaheria
Viconia
Minsc
Silk Fox
Liara
Urdnot Wrex (Tyrannosaurus Wrex!)
Tali'Zorah
Leliana
Morrigan
Isabela
James,
what would the offspring of a Tiefling and Dhampir be?
what sort of treasure could people expect to find in a Sky Citadel, particularly the one in the Worldwound (or is that going to be shown in WotR)?
James we recently finished a PF game based on modules by Paizo, so our gaming group is left with a vacant slot, but to complicate matters half our group wants to try something other than pathfinder, so any recommendations on what we should play next?Not knowing what your group's tastes are like... I have only my own tastes.
My favorite other RPG is Call of Cthulhu. In a lot of ways, its play experience is the opposite what you get with a game like Pathfinder where so much of the focus is on tactical combats and the increasing power of your character. Which means that Call of Cthulhu is very likely to NOT be enjoyable to a group that loves leveling characters and revels in the details of tactical round-by-round combat... but if your'e looking for a change of pace, it's perfect.
Another option is the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game. I finally got a chance to play it for real (not with demo cards or playtest stuff) last night, and it's really really really fun!
You can also go retro, and play Star Frontiers or Gamma World, or try out one of the newer retro games like Lamentations of the Flame Princess or Dungeon Crawl Classics.
I would agree with James on Call of Cthulhu, you can also pick up the core book for BRP, CoC uses BRP btw. the core book has things for variant magic systems and IIRC non-humans.
A few other systems I recommend are:
Savage worlds: this is an awesome system. quick and easy. Also it is not to different from dnd/pathfinder, though the magic system is not vancian((thank th gods)) It has bennies, which is something I love
Fate: if you want something really different, give fate a shot. Fate by evil hat studios is awesome. Now it is a bit different from your dnd/pathfinder, but particularly for those that love narratives in game this is just awesome.
Ubiquity: Ubiquity is a fun system. It is what powers Hollowed earth expedition and All for one. If you like fast cinematic games try this out :)
Some say he's been busy punching Jaegers in the nads.
Others say he's been going door to door, teaching the under-privileged about the Oxford Comma.
Others still that he's the sole reason the Vancouver Stanley Cup riots didn't spread to Seattle.
All we know for certain is that he's Tom Rex.
Yup.
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James,
what would the offspring of a Tiefling and Dhampir be?
what sort of treasure could people expect to find in a Sky Citadel, particularly the one in the Worldwound (or is that going to be shown in WotR)?
Nothing, since they can't crossbreed. If they COULD the result would either be:
1) A tiefling
2) A dhampir
3) A new race that someone built using the Advanced Race Guide's race builder
As for the type of treasure one can find in a Sky Citadel? Same as in any other megadungeon throughout the world, but with more dwarf flavors.
whoops, was not aware they couldn't interbreed ^^;;
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whoops, was not aware they couldn't interbreed ^^;;
yesh IIRC its because there's people debating if "Dhampir" is an actual unique race or simply a state of being since the spawn of Dhampir's seen till now have all been one of the parent races with a high chance of being a sorcerer with the undead bloodline.
From Blood of the Night I'm pretty sure.
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What would you say your opinions of Josepth Campbell's Monomyth, or Hero's Journey, are? I think I recall that it was involved in the writing of Wrath of the Righteous, and I think I can see the patterns it describes in Rise of the Runelords. The attack on Sandpoint's the Call to Adventure, Skinsaw Murders are the "Refusal of the Call" in the sense that the PCs are now thoroughly involved in fighting Karzoug's minions, Ascension in Sins of the Saviors where their spiritual strengths and shortcomings influence the weapons they gain to defeat Karzoug, etc.
I think it's pretty cool!
I know about the monomyth, and I know that Jason used it to help guide the development of Mythic Adventures, but I've not glanced at it and did not use it to build Wrath of the Righteous or ANY of my adventures.
That said, when you read and study and write genre literature for decades, even if you never touch Campbell's work, you're going to learn what he's talking about anyway.
Pretty interesting. It IS just a tool after all, not the end-all-be-all of literature.
So...what are the Velashu Horse Riders of northwest Varisia like? Mongols? The Riders of Rohan? How do they dress and what weapons do they favor? What deities do they venerate? After reading in Varisia: Birthplace of Legends that they, along with the Noland Raiders they fight and the Order of the Nail Hellknights, are some of the greatest warriors and soldiers in all Varisia, I have a desperate desire to play one!
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Why no love for my class?
Two big reasons.
1) It's an archetype and as such isn't part of the core assumptions of the game.
2) It's a chaotic evil archetype and as such isn't really appropriate for most campaigns as a PC option.
In any event... I'm not the right one to talk to about getting more antipaladin options for players. That'd be either Jason/Sean/Stephen (the guys who work on the rulebooks) or Patrick (the guy who works on the Player Companions).
That said, it's really not all that a big deal to adjust paladin archetypes and spells and stuff to be used by antipaladins if you ask your GM nicely.
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whoops, was not aware they couldn't interbreed ^^;;yesh IIRC its because there's people debating if "Dhampir" is an actual unique race or simply a state of being since the spawn of Dhampir's seen till now have all been one of the parent races with a high chance of being a sorcerer with the undead bloodline.
From Blood of the Night I'm pretty sure.
It's an actual unique race as far as I'm concerned.
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So...what are the Velashu Horse Riders of northwest Varisia like? Mongols? The Riders of Rohan? How do they dress and what weapons do they favor? What deities do they venerate? After reading in Varisia: Birthplace of Legends that they, along with the Noland Raiders they fight and the Order of the Nail Hellknights, are some of the greatest warriors and soldiers in all Varisia, I have a desperate desire to play one!
They're like rustic versions of the Riders of Rohan, I guess. But without the infrastructure to support them. It's not something we've done much with at all yet.
James a few qustions!
1.) have you looked at Shadows of Esteren? if so thoughts on it?
2.) what do you think of fate points, bennies, style points and similar mechanics that reward you for roleplaying and allowing you to do cinamatic cool stuff? :)
-vyshan
What size category is the typical size for something like a Demon Lord or an Empyreal Lord?
Is there a Demon Lord / Empyreal Lord subtype?
Do Demon Lords / Empyreal Lords have the mythic subtype?
I ask because I'm working on stating up some Kami Lords that will be important in my campaign soon.
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One can say pretty much the same thing about Lovecraft, my favorite author. The difference there (in my opinion, of course) is that Lovecraft kicks Tolkein's ass in pretty much every category to do with writing and storytelling, with the exception of "inventing entire languages."One can call out Tolkien for being a racist and a chauvinist. (although not to the degree of misogyny of Victorian Britain), but one also must remember that the first tales of Middle Earth were being written in the 1910's. He hardly stands out in his attitudes compared to his contemporaries though. Although he does stand out as an English author for his intense Catholicism.
I do like Tolkein's works, but he's kinda like George Lucas in that his REAL talent lies in world creation, not in storytelling. He's a VASTLY better storyteller than Lucas, but still... his novels' strengths lie in the details of his imagination, not his ability to tell a gripping tale. The lack of any real role for female characters and his often dry academic style really detracts from the experience of reading his stuff for me. I think that Peter Jackson's changes to the stories in his movies are mostly quite excellent improvements, in other words. Tolkien is probably in my top 100, but not in my top 50... purely talking about works that influenced me, again.
I'm very very very much more a horror fan than a fantasy fan.
Wouldn't you say "Nyarlathotep" IS an entire language the Lovecraft made up? there are alphabets shorter than this name...
So I have this "Call of Cthulhu RPG" book slumbering beneath the pile of books I now affectionately call "r'lyeh" in my room. I had it for a lot of time, but alas, I'm not big on writing my own adventures (they always feel inferior to content made by actual professionals). As such, I never played a game of it in my life.
What adventures can you recommend for this game? I know there's one called "beyond the mountains of madness" which sounds intriguing. Is it any good? are there better? One of the fun things about the Lovecraftian mythos is that it can be inserted into any other tale - "Mi Go in the wild west", or something similar to "the keep" where the horror happens in a historical period other than Victorian. Are there any good published adventures of that type?
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What adventures can you recommend for this game?
It very much depends what style of game you want to run, whether that be 'low-key, everyday investigators', or 'globe-trotting gun-toting pulp hero archeologists'. There are vastly more examples of the latter than the former. And of the investigative scenarios that are out there, most are by third party publishers.
Games Workshop had the UK licence in the 1980s, and produced several atmospheric adventures, as well as frequent articles and scenarios in the pages of White Dwarf (back when it was an RPG magazine), which supported the former style, if you wanted to play Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, Lord Peter Whimsy, Nayland Smith, or Campion, rather than 'Doc Savage on Steroids'.You need to be sure your whole group is on the same page, because players who want one style of play, will hate the other.
I've always considered Chaosium's writers to be utterly schizophrenic on the adventure department, because despite the rules beating you over the head, that this is a different kind of game than all those macho, kick in the door games out there, they then publish adventures that completely undermine that mission statement.
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It's an actual unique race as far as I'm concerned.whoops, was not aware they couldn't interbreed ^^;;yesh IIRC its because there's people debating if "Dhampir" is an actual unique race or simply a state of being since the spawn of Dhampir's seen till now have all been one of the parent races with a high chance of being a sorcerer with the undead bloodline.
From Blood of the Night I'm pretty sure.
My apologies, I was referring to people in Golarion, not RL debating.
But now I can't seem to find where I read it at (just reread BotN and it doesn't mention it) and JJ says otherwise so Okies moving on.
Edit: ah found it, it mentions it in the ARG, which is world neutral. Hehe Rysky should really not be posting stuff when he's sleepy :3
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James a few qustions!
1.) have you looked at Shadows of Esteren? if so thoughts on it?
2.) what do you think of fate points, bennies, style points and similar mechanics that reward you for roleplaying and allowing you to do cinamatic cool stuff? :)
-vyshan
1) I pledged to their latest Kickstarter, but haven't had a chance to spend time looking at any of their books. They DO look beautiful from afar though!
2) They're good for any game. ANYTHING that rewards role-playing is good for any RPG.
Does that mean that shield spikes and lead blades don't stack?
Also, this is a question I've asked before on the rules forum, and there doesn't seem to anything preventing these effects (shield spikes, bashing, lead blades) from stacking. Is saying these effects are size bonuses (and therefore don't stack) a house rule?
Also also, if you consider these effects to be size bonuses, does that mean they don't stack with enlarge person?
Shield spikes are baseline weapons, so lead blades works fine on them. The bashing quality is NOT a baseline weapon, which is why that's a concern.
What prevents the bashing ability from applying to a shield spike is that bashing is something you put on a shield, NOT a shield spike.
If you had a bashing shield with shield spikes, you would have two options to attack when you attack with that shield—you could shield bash and get the benefit of the bashing enhancement, or you could use the shield spikes and NOT get the bashing enhancement (you could, however, put any of the weapon qualities like keen or flaming on those spikes).
They would stack with enlarge person, since that's a physical increase to the size of the weapon. Similar to how natural armor bonuses and enhancements to natural armor bonuses (AKA a monster's racial natural armor and the effects of barkskin) tack.
If all of that is confusing... that's because it IS. The honest truth is that I don't believe that the rules for shield spikes, lead blades, and the bashing quality were ever designed with the idea that they would all work together at once. The simplest solution may just be to pick which you like more and drop the rest.
Depends on the GM's whim, I guess.
A second question on that topic.
Would enlarge person and lead blades stack if we are talking about a monks unarmed strike?I’m aware this is actually two questions since Lead blades says: “All melee weapons you are carrying when the spell is cast deal damage as if one size category larger than they actually are.”
So I guess the questios are:
1) Does the monk count as carrying his unarmed strike?
1a) Does enlarge person and lead blades stack if we are talking about a monks unarmed strike?
BTW, I’m not going to pretend I don’t have an agenda, link
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What size category is the typical size for something like a Demon Lord or an Empyreal Lord?
Is there a Demon Lord / Empyreal Lord subtype?
Do Demon Lords / Empyreal Lords have the mythic subtype?
I ask because I'm working on stating up some Kami Lords that will be important in my campaign soon.
All demon lords and empyreal lords are unique creauters, and thus there isn't a "typical" size category. So far, I've stated up 8 demon lords for Pathfinder, with a 9th coming soon, and their sizes have ranged from Medium to Gargantuan. There are certainly larger and smaller ones.
No. "Demon Lord" and "Empyreal Lord" are a collection of traits that are treated like universal monster rules.
No. They are mythic equivalent on their Abyssal realms though, which means they function as MR 10 creatures with 10 uses of power per day and a d12 surge die. Off their Abyssal realm they are MERELY very very very high CR non-mythic monsters.
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So I have this "Call of Cthulhu RPG" book slumbering beneath the pile of books I now affectionately call "r'lyeh" in my room. I had it for a lot of time, but alas, I'm not big on writing my own adventures (they always feel inferior to content made by actual professionals). As such, I never played a game of it in my life.
What adventures can you recommend for this game? I know there's one called "beyond the mountains of madness" which sounds intriguing. Is it any good? are there better? One of the fun things about the Lovecraftian mythos is that it can be inserted into any other tale - "Mi Go in the wild west", or something similar to "the keep" where the horror happens in a historical period other than Victorian. Are there any good published adventures of that type?
The best 2 adventures for Call of Cthulhu are "Masks of Nyarlathotep" and "Beyond the Mountains of Madness." I actually prefer the 2nd one to the 1st... and the 1st has often been cited as the best adventure for any RPG anywhere ever.
Beyond those, there's a LOT of really quality adventures for the game. They've been publishing them for over 3 decades though... so there's a lot to choose from.
Other personal favorites:
At Your Door
The Great Old Ones
Escape From Innsmouth
Return to Dunwich
And pretty much anything by Pagan Publishing.
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Creative Director
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A second question on that topic.
Would enlarge person and lead blades stack if we are talking about a monks unarmed strike?
I’m aware this is actually two questions since Lead blades says: “All melee weapons you are carrying when the spell is cast deal damage as if one size category larger than they actually are.”So I guess the questios are:
1) Does the monk count as carrying his unarmed strike?
1a) Does enlarge person and lead blades stack if we are talking about a monks unarmed strike?BTW, I’m not going to pretend I don’t have an agenda, link
First off... admitting you have an agenda is basically telling me to reply to any question with:
Your GM gets to make the call, not me.
If I were your GM, I would rule the following on your two questions:
1) No.
1a) No.
I was thinking about "how to make a lycanthropes module", and it hit me, how would one make it challenging without every NPC and their mothers having either Magic, Silver Weapons, or both? Is that one of the reasons why paizo doesn't make one?
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phew, Rysky has been eaten alive by a T-rex before, didn't like it then, probably wouldn't like it now.
I dont know it there's name for something like this but I've read on a lot forums that when people meet in person they're surprised the other person doesn't look like their avatar, even if they have already seen a picture of what the other person looks like in real life, ehst do you think about this?
Also going off the above is it bad that even though I know what you look like my brain superimposes a T-rex image over what ever your doing when you talk about it (T-Rex GM, T-Rex writing stories, T-Rex reading Lovecraft, etc) ?
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I was thinking about "how to make a lycanthropes module", and it hit me, how would one make it challenging without every NPC and their mothers having either Magic, Silver Weapons, or both? Is that one of the reasons why paizo doesn't make one?
Have them not allowed silver weapons into a town because of superstitions, better yet have the ghosts of slain Lycanthropes rise up and continually attack those bearing any silver.
Have a druid with some Rusting spells memorized, or ya know Rust Monsters.
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I was thinking about "how to make a lycanthropes module", and it hit me, how would one make it challenging without every NPC and their mothers having either Magic, Silver Weapons, or both? Is that one of the reasons why paizo doesn't make one?
The reason we haven't done an adventure for lycanthropes is that lycanthropes aren't a core race. They change a LOT of assumptions about what PCs can do... between the damage reduction and the shapechanging and the like... that fundamentally changes the way adventures need to be designed, which would make those adventures less usable by normal humanoid adventurers.
Basically, the game we publish content for is for human and near-human characters, and we don't generally publish adventures that diverge from that since that is fundamentally a different game. It's an intriguing sounding game—don't get me wrong! But it's not Pathfinder.
I was thinking about "how to make a lycanthropes module", and it hit me, how would one make it challenging without every NPC and their mothers having either Magic, Silver Weapons, or both? Is that one of the reasons why paizo doesn't make one?
The reason we haven't done an adventure for lycanthropes is that lycanthropes aren't a core race. They change a LOT of assumptions about what PCs can do... between the damage reduction and the shapechanging and the like... that fundamentally changes the way adventures need to be designed, which would make those adventures less usable by normal humanoid adventurers.
Basically, the game we publish content for is for human and near-human characters, and we don't generally publish adventures that diverge from that since that is fundamentally a different game. It's an intriguing sounding game—don't get me wrong! But it's not Pathfinder.
Sounds like a decent niche for a third party group to exploit.
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phew, Rysky has been eaten alive by a T-rex before, didn't like it then, probably wouldn't like it now.
I dont know it there's name for something like this but I've read on a lot forums that when people meet in person they're surprised the other person doesn't look like their avatar, even if they have already seen a picture of what the other person looks like in real life, ehst do you think about this?
Also going off the above is it bad that even though I know what you look like my brain superimposes a T-rex image over what ever your doing when you talk about it (T-Rex GM, T-Rex writing stories, T-Rex reading Lovecraft, etc) ?
It's certainly a weird disconnect to finally meet someone because in most cases, they don't look like their avatar. There are some exceptions, though!
Likewise... there are some folks who are really antagonistic trolls on these boards whose frustrating and annoying actions have more or less made me associate the art they use for their avatar with the same, and as a result there are some pieces of art we have that make me angry. Which is also weird!
I'm okay with you thinking I look like a T-Rex in any case... but it's an easy enough thing to find pictures of me on the internets or even here at Paizo if you do a little bit of research... although even then... having lost 105 pounds and counting... an increasing number of those pictures are getting retconned.
First, congrats on all the weight loss! Terrific achievement!
Secondly, no game has frustrated me as much as Dark Souls since Ninja Gaiden Black. Luckily I've matured some and hopefully won't need to buy 3 new controllers to finish the game.
Finding the blacksmith drastically simplified the game.
Did you start with Demon Souls or jump right into Dark?
Likewise... there are some folks who are really antagonistic trolls on these boards whose frustrating and annoying actions have more or less made me associate the art they use for their avatar with the same, and as a result there are some pieces of art we have that make me angry. Which is also weird!
Ha, I'm glad I'm not the only one :)
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I'm okay with you thinking I look like a T-Rex in any case... but it's an easy enough thing to find pictures of me on the internets or even here at Paizo if you do a little bit of research... although even then... having lost 105 pounds and counting... an increasing number of those pictures are getting retconned.
Woot! Keep it up ya sexy saurian :3
Wouldn't you say "Nyarlathotep" IS an entire language the Lovecraft made up? there are alphabets shorter than this name...
So I have this "Call of Cthulhu RPG" book slumbering beneath the pile of books I now affectionately call "r'lyeh" in my room. I had it for a lot of time, but alas, I'm not big on writing my own adventures (they always feel inferior to content made by actual professionals). As such, I never played a game of it in my life.
What adventures can you recommend for this game? I know there's one called "beyond the...
Well Tolkien is the far better, more erudite writer, with a much better handling of language and setting moods. Just MHO, but the man was a professor of Anglistics. While lovecrafts Horror is pretty stylized in its assumptions (he never actually describes something, but refers to most supernatural entities in term like blasphemous etc.; everything nonhumanoid is terrible...) He also utterly underrated the desentizing effect of non WASP life, especially of the Great War. Again that's just me.
Excellent adventures for Cthulhu include the fantastic "Walker in the Wastes" or "King in Yellow" campaign, "Strange Aeons" and the "Blood Brothers" compilations. There is some excellent stuff (unfortunately in German) by their German distributor (especially the moody "Auf den Inseln" short campaign. Yeah, brush up the German... ) and good stuff in the "Trails of Cthulhu" line from Gumshoe (personal favourite : "Bookhounds of London" ) which is more Lovecraftian then many recent tites by Chaosium, which are both not well edited and overly "aggressive" like the recent "Terror from the Skies". "Mountains of Madness" campaign ? - well very long, players need to read the riginal story beforehand and it demands huge roleplaying sacrifices from the players.
The GW Stuff will be very hard to get a grip on, but is absolutely worth it, as previously mentioned.
Dropping Cthulhu into Fantasy ? yeah, great idea, been doing that for far too long now^^
And btw, JJ, will we see another Cthulhu meets Pathfinder adventure anytime soon ?
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First, congrats on all the weight loss! Terrific achievement!
Secondly, no game has frustrated me as much as Dark Souls since Ninja Gaiden Black. Luckily I've matured some and hopefully won't need to buy 3 new controllers to finish the game.
Finding the blacksmith drastically simplified the game.
Did you start with Demon Souls or jump right into Dark?
Thanks!
I played Dark Souls first, then tracked down Demons' Souls later.
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Well Tolkien is the far better, more erudite writer, with a much better handling of language and setting moods. Just MHO, but the man was a professor of Anglistics. While lovecrafts Horror is pretty stylized in its assumptions (he never actually describes something, but refers to most supernatural entities in term like blasphemous etc.; everything nonhumanoid is terrible...) He also utterly underrated the desentizing effect of non WASP life, especially of the Great War. Again that's just me.
Excellent adventures for Cthulhu include the fantastic "Walker in the Wastes" or "King in Yellow" campaign, "Strange Aeons" and the "Blood Brothers" compilations. There is some excellent stuff (unfortunately in German) by their German distributor (especially the moody "Auf den Inseln" short campaign. Yeah, brush up the German... ) and good stuff in the "Trails of Cthulhu" line from Gumshoe (personal favourite : "Bookhounds of London" ) which is more Lovecraftian then many recent tites by Chaosium, which are both not well edited and overly "aggressive" like the recent "Terror from the Skies". "Mountains of Madness" campaign ? - well very long, players need to read the story and it demands huge roleplaying sacrifices from the players.
The GW Stuff will be very hard to get a grip on, but is absolutely worth it, as previously mentioned.
Dropping Cthulhu into Fantasy ? yeah, great idea, been doing that for far too long now^^
And btw, JJ, will we see another Cthulhu meets Pathfinder adventure anytime soon ?
And I've made my opinion of Tolkien pretty clear as well. Let's leave it at that. I'm not interested in turning this thread into a "Convince James to change his opinion on things" thread at all.
Let's also keep the posts here to questions for me to stay on topic as well, if possible. If folks want to take their shots at answering questions asked of me, or if they want to drop their own two cents in on topics here, that's fine... but justify it with a question to me! :-)
On to said question...
Yes. There will be more Lovecraft elements in upcoming adventures. That's not something that'll go away as long as I'm here.
If a PC manages to pass the test of the starstone or in some other manner become a deity through mythic rules or events, would it be safe to say that when said PC becomes a true god the official stance from you developers would be that they can no longer be used by a player except in the case of being worshiped by later characters.
Continuing on an author/book tangent, Have you read any of Tad Williams books? If so what do you think of them?
"Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn" was the series that convinced George R.R. Martin that serious fantasy novels were possible and to make a go at A Song of Ice and Fire.
On top of that, his books have some of the best villains I have encountered in Fantasy. Johnny Dread, The Remover of Inconvenient Obstacles, Pyrates...all great antagonists. We seem to have mostly similar tastes in literature, so I think you would enjoy them.
How about John Bellairs? I, unlike you, am not a horror fan, but he writes spooky stuff that isn't just dark and icky all the time. He has a few adult fantasies, but The House with a Clock in its Walls and others in his YA series are fun reads.
I'm looking to give my Kami Lord the divine source mythic ability; by definition, a Kami Lord is basically a demigod, after all!
I ran into a problem rather quickly, however. Divine source grants the character the ability to cast one spell-like ability each day from any domains it possesses. How on earth do you write that on a stat block? 0_0
Would it be something like:
Spell-Like Abilities (20th; concentration +X)
1/day (cure light wounds, sun metal, or bless), (eagle's splendor, flaming sphere, or alter self), etc. etc.
That looks ... kind of messy.