
Orthos |
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I can’t do CoCT because of the RP requirements – too many NPCs to track and I can’t RP them to my satisfaction. Which makes me generally only stuck with dungeon crawl types of APs. Kingmaker would kill me with the accounting part of kingdom building…and Iron Gods – the less I have to deal with mechs, robots, the happier I’d be.
Yeah, this just comes down to a fundamental difference in our GMing styles. I've already run KM to completion and had a lot of fun with it, and am eagerly eagerly eagerly looking forward to CT after our current Savage Tide campaign ends, as we're going to run it with the players building a Thieves' Guild a la Gentleman Bastards. I have no trouble with handling large amounts of NPCs (though I will admittedly make forum threads to help keep track of them) and my players loved the heck out of the kingdom building stuff - admittedly because a few of them are Civilization game fans, and Kingmaker is basically Civ: Pathfinder Edition.
As for IG, I understand that people exist that don't like sci-fi in their fantasy and vice-versa, but I won't pretent to understand why they think that. Techno-fantasy is how I got introduced to fantasy fiction and to RPGs. I came into the genre from video games - primarily Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy 6, 4, and 9, and Secret of Mana - and thus having tech in my magic and magic in my tech is a plus to me, not a problem. Viva la Magitek!

NobodysHome |
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(1) I really loved running Crimson Throne the first time, but that was with a group of Good-aligned, cooperative players who engaged the NPCs and really made it a joy to play. The second time through, I had one player who entertained himself by pointing out every logical inconsistency in the plot, and another who wanted to screw over and/or alienate every NPC. The updated Scarwall is a crowded mess, and so it kind of ruined the AP for me. If I run it again, it's back to the "classic" version.
(2) Kingmaker gave me the exact same issues as JaM - too much paperwork for me to deal with
(3) Haven't run Iron Gods; none of us like mixing sci fi with fantasy.
(4) Yeah, Strange Aeons has major issues in, "We expect the players to do xxx because we mentioned it on page 38. What do you mean, we should provide some kind of motivation?" It's only going so-so for me so far.
But it's all in personal tastes and how the APs play out for you.

NobodysHome |
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The group is finally almost ready to play, but typically scenarios that readily mix sci-fi with fantasy commit the ultimate sin of, "If this tech is readily available, then why would anyone, anywhere still do xxx?"
It's pervasive throughout the genre, and my suspension of disbelief isn't that powerful. I like my universes to be consistent.
Iron Gods seems to avoid that pitfall by, "We've found this tech we don't understand and we're trying to salvage stuff that we can't reproduce in order to sell it for a mint."
That kind of sci-fi mix in doesn't appeal to me, but doesn't bother me all that much either.
But when in the same scene you see a farmer with an ox and plow and a hovercraft driving by, I get uppity.
EDIT: Was it Well World? I think it was. THAT was a book that made it really easy to mix sci-fi and fantasy well.

Freehold DM |
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I can’t do CoCT because of the RP requirements – too many NPCs to track and I can’t RP them to my satisfaction. Which makes me generally only stuck with dungeon crawl types of APs. Kingmaker would kill me with the accounting part of kingdom building…and Iron Gods – the less I have to deal with mechs, robots, the happier I’d be.
-_-
exchanges mort train for horse and cart

Orthos |
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Iron Gods is one of my favorite too.
If I had to pick a top five off the top of my head.
1. Iron Gods
2. Skull And Shackles
3. Ironfang Invasion
4. Reign Of Winter
5. Hell's Rebels.
1. Curse of the Crimson Throne
2. Iron Gods3. Kingmaker
4. Strange Aeons
5. Rise of the Runelords
Honorable mention: Reign of Winter, for Rasputin Must Die!. The rest of the campaign isn't quite as interesting to me, though.

Orthos |
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The group is finally almost ready to play, but typically scenarios that readily mix sci-fi with fantasy commit the ultimate sin of, "If this tech is readily available, then why would anyone, anywhere still do xxx?"
It's pervasive throughout the genre, and my suspension of disbelief isn't that powerful. I like my universes to be consistent.
Iron Gods seems to avoid that pitfall by, "We've found this tech we don't understand and we're trying to salvage stuff that we can't reproduce in order to sell it for a mint."
That kind of sci-fi mix in doesn't appeal to me, but doesn't bother me all that much either.
But when in the same scene you see a farmer with an ox and plow and a hovercraft driving by, I get uppity.
EDIT: Was it Well World? I think it was. THAT was a book that made it really easy to mix sci-fi and fantasy well.
That makes a bit of sense. It doesn't bother me near as much as it apparently does you, but I could see Scint getting in a twist because of that kind of inconsistency, since she's the type to obsess over the minutaea of the setting. (Such as the time she sent me charts and graphs and lists of countries' exports and imports and general economic data.)
Not ever heard of Well World before. May need to look into that.

John Napier 698 |
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WWE Champion and Pittsburgh Wrestling legend Bruno Sanmartino died today at the age of 82 from heart problems.

captain yesterday |
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captain yesterday wrote:Iron Gods is one of my favorite too.
If I had to pick a top five off the top of my head.
1. Iron Gods
2. Skull And Shackles
3. Ironfang Invasion
4. Reign Of Winter
5. Hell's Rebels.1. Curse of the Crimson Throne
2. Iron Gods
3. Kingmaker
4. Strange Aeons
5. Rise of the Runelords
Honorable mention: Reign of Winter, for Rasputin Must Die!. The rest of the campaign isn't quite as interesting to me, though.
You should check out Ironfang Invasion.

captain yesterday |
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WWE Champion and Pittsburgh Wrestling legend Bruno Sanmartino died today at the age of 82 from heart problems.
82 for a wrestler, isn't that like 150 for the rest of us.

John Napier 698 |
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John Napier 698 wrote:WWE Champion and Pittsburgh Wrestling legend Bruno Sanmartino died today at the age of 82 from heart problems.82 for a wrestler, isn't that like 150 for the rest of us.
Actually, he looked rather fit for 82.

Sharoth |
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Jack L. Chalker has a lot of good books. The Well World series is pretty good, but my favorite of his was the The Quintara Marathon series.
Midnight at the Well of Souls is the first book in the Well World series.
NH, it was probably the Quintara Marathon Series that had the mix between low tech and high tech. Got to keep those masses of people busy and under control.

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Steak is around 6 for Feed conversion ratio, while chicken is 1.8.
Farmed catfish goes to 1.
So not all the meats have that trouble. Pork is around 4.5.
My family doesn't take beef much. Only my Dad and I are outliers.
And at the end of the day you could feed me vegetables. I eat my greens, OK?
I generally start craving steaks only when I get stressed.

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Of course if you want to get to the debatable point of it, there are some lands that can be used for cattle rearing but are utterly useless at growing grain.(Like the mongolian deserts)
Then there's also the other side on how much of an environmental footprint you're leaving producing the feed for Farmed animals(etc, are you turning scrap fish(fish too small to be sold for market value), into fish feed)?
Because those fish that were denied a chance to ever get bigger would mean fish stocks decline.
Again those would really require some serious calculations which I'm not equipped to do. But I do have a bit of tree hugger in me.
But if you ate everything up today, you'd have nothing to eat tomorrow.

Limeylongears |
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Sir Limey De Longears wrote:Lucerne hammer and pick can only be used before they get close right? Since they're two handed weapons. And what's a gape?Just a Mort wrote:If thou wouldst like to borrow an lucerne hammer, military pick, or tripping device (bill, perhaps), together with an rondel dagger to stick in ye gappes, lettest thou me know and I shall sort thee out.Full plate?!
To deal with kitty me?
Though I suspect it wouldn't really work...since technically the big cats, grizzlies etc could probably just break through the armor in question. Or you die of blunt force trauma.
Lucerne hammers are two handed; all of the military picks I've seen have been one-handed, but that doesn't mean that two-handed ones didn't exist. A 'gape', in this context, is how SLdL spells 'gap'.

Vidmaster7 |
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Of course if you want to get to the debatable point of it, there are some lands that can be used for cattle rearing but are utterly useless at growing grain.(Like the mongolian deserts)
Then there's also the other side on how much of an environmental footprint you're leaving producing the feed for Farmed animals(etc, are you turning scrap fish(fish too small to be sold for market value), into fish feed)?
Because those fish that were denied a chance to ever get bigger would mean fish stocks decline.
Again those would really require some serious calculations which I'm not equipped to do. But I do have a bit of tree hugger in me.
But if you ate everything up today, you'd have nothing to eat tomorrow.
I was going to say something that we might end up having to eat cats then I realized that might be taken a very specific way and i'll just move along now nothing to see here.

Scintillae |
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NobodysHome wrote:That makes a bit of sense. It doesn't bother me near as much as it apparently does you, but I could see Scint getting in a twist because of that kind of inconsistency, since she's the type to obsess over the minutaea of the setting. (Such as the time she sent me charts and graphs and lists of countries' exports and imports and general economic data.)The group is finally almost ready to play, but typically scenarios that readily mix sci-fi with fantasy commit the ultimate sin of, "If this tech is readily available, then why would anyone, anywhere still do xxx?"
It's pervasive throughout the genre, and my suspension of disbelief isn't that powerful. I like my universes to be consistent.
Iron Gods seems to avoid that pitfall by, "We've found this tech we don't understand and we're trying to salvage stuff that we can't reproduce in order to sell it for a mint."
That kind of sci-fi mix in doesn't appeal to me, but doesn't bother me all that much either.
But when in the same scene you see a farmer with an ox and plow and a hovercraft driving by, I get uppity.
EDIT: Was it Well World? I think it was. THAT was a book that made it really easy to mix sci-fi and fantasy well.
Okay, first - I did that once. Second, it was just lists. I hadn't gone to the minutia of actually making up numbers and prices per volume to calculate elasticity and such. I'm not that far gone.
I can easily rationalize disparate tech in a setting - make the tech prohibitively expensive, a clear sine of a caste divide. The corrupt elites are too far advanced for the lower orders to hope to overthrow, and they keep them that way by cruelly stamping out any sign of technological innovation in the groundlings. Could be an excellent dystopia.
There's also real-world examples of extreme tech-aversion - we have the Amish, and history is fraught with Luddites doing all they can to resist the spread of these machines that would render their traditional employment obsolete. Orthos and I had actually been playing with a setting working with just that - a rudimentary factory harming the viability of local town mages who made their living through crafting household goods.
The setting needs to actually go to the effort of crafting the setup of the hovercraft by the ox and plow, but I can see multiple ways to make it sensical and viable.

Freehold DM |
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Orthos wrote:NobodysHome wrote:That makes a bit of sense. It doesn't bother me near as much as it apparently does you, but I could see Scint getting in a twist because of that kind of inconsistency, since she's the type to obsess over the minutaea of the setting. (Such as the time she sent me charts and graphs and lists of countries' exports and imports and general economic data.)The group is finally almost ready to play, but typically scenarios that readily mix sci-fi with fantasy commit the ultimate sin of, "If this tech is readily available, then why would anyone, anywhere still do xxx?"
It's pervasive throughout the genre, and my suspension of disbelief isn't that powerful. I like my universes to be consistent.
Iron Gods seems to avoid that pitfall by, "We've found this tech we don't understand and we're trying to salvage stuff that we can't reproduce in order to sell it for a mint."
That kind of sci-fi mix in doesn't appeal to me, but doesn't bother me all that much either.
But when in the same scene you see a farmer with an ox and plow and a hovercraft driving by, I get uppity.
EDIT: Was it Well World? I think it was. THAT was a book that made it really easy to mix sci-fi and fantasy well.
Okay, first - I did that once. Second, it was just lists. I hadn't gone to the minutia of actually making up numbers and prices per volume to calculate elasticity and such. I'm not that far gone.
I can easily rationalize disparate tech in a setting - make the tech prohibitively expensive, a clear sine of a caste divide. The corrupt elites are too far advanced for the lower orders to hope to overthrow, and they keep them that way by cruelly stamping out any sign of technological innovation in the groundlings. Could be an excellent dystopia.
There's also real-world examples of extreme tech-aversion - we have the Amish, and history is fraught with Luddites doing all they can to resist the spread of these machines that would render their...
sounds alot like old school spelljammer.

NobodysHome |
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Okay, first - I did that once. Second, it was just lists. I hadn't gone to the minutia of actually making up numbers and prices per volume to calculate elasticity and such. I'm not that far gone.
I can easily rationalize disparate tech in a setting - make the tech prohibitively expensive, a clear sine of a caste divide. The corrupt elites are too far advanced for the lower orders to hope to overthrow, and they keep them that way by cruelly stamping out any sign of technological innovation in the groundlings. Could be an excellent dystopia.
here's also real-world examples of extreme tech-aversion - we have the Amish, and history is fraught with Luddites doing all they can to resist the spread of these machines that would render their traditional employment obsolete. Orthos and I had actually been playing with a setting working with just that - a rudimentary factory harming the viability of local town mages who made their living through crafting household goods.
The setting needs to actually go to the effort of crafting the setup of the hovercraft by the ox and plow, but I can see multiple ways to make it sensical and viable.
And that's the issue. I think it might be a generational thing. I grew up in the 70s, when none of the authors or screenwriters could be bothered with such trivia, so anachronistic, "John and Jeff grew up next door to each other in socially- and economically-identical situations, but John chooses to ride a horse and wield a regular broadsword, while Jeff has personal flying battle armor and a laser cannon" situations were commonplace.
It left a bad taste for sci-fi/fantasy crossovers for an entire generation...

Freehold DM |
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Scintillae wrote:Okay, first - I did that once. Second, it was just lists. I hadn't gone to the minutia of actually making up numbers and prices per volume to calculate elasticity and such. I'm not that far gone.
I can easily rationalize disparate tech in a setting - make the tech prohibitively expensive, a clear sine of a caste divide. The corrupt elites are too far advanced for the lower orders to hope to overthrow, and they keep them that way by cruelly stamping out any sign of technological innovation in the groundlings. Could be an excellent dystopia.
here's also real-world examples of extreme tech-aversion - we have the Amish, and history is fraught with Luddites doing all they can to resist the spread of these machines that would render their traditional employment obsolete. Orthos and I had actually been playing with a setting working with just that - a rudimentary factory harming the viability of local town mages who made their living through crafting household goods.
The setting needs to actually go to the effort of crafting the setup of the hovercraft by the ox and plow, but I can see multiple ways to make it sensical and viable.
And that's the issue. I think it might be a generational thing. I grew up in the 70s, when none of the authors or screenwriters could be bothered with such trivia, so anachronistic, "John and Jeff grew up next door to each other in socially- and economically-identical situations, but John chooses to ride a horse and wield a regular broadsword, while Jeff has personal flying battle armor and a laser cannon" situations were commonplace.
It left a bad taste for sci-fi/fantasy crossovers for an entire generation...
shadowrun pulled that off nicely but that setting is also quite devisive.