Things I May No Longer Do While Playing XII: A Thousand-Yard Stare is not Permission

[Spore]

Seriously any eldritch horror with a decent size and tentacles should be allowed to attack, especially if the heroes are close enough to actually endanger its body. I know they prefer to send mind slaves after you keeping their body hidden and safe but when heroes come to IT, it may just go full on attack mode.

[danielxcutter]

Seriously any eldritch horror with a decent size and tentacles should be allowed to attack, especially if the heroes are close enough to actually endanger its body. I know they prefer to send mind slaves after you keeping their body hidden and safe but when heroes come to IT, it may just go full on attack mode.

Aboleths are actually one of the prime examples for just that in most editions of D&D, I believe. Mind Flayers, on the other hand, are strictly more of the "caster" type of enemy, if you get what I mean.

[JAL_1138]

whatever edition that is(guessing 5e?)..

Wouldn’t be 5e. Sounds like some kind of dice-pool variant of Warhammer or Warhammer40K, which is the only thing I know of to have a mechanic called “perils of the warp.” But WFRPG is a percentile-dice system, not a dice pool, and I think most of the 40K RPGs are also. Maybe somebody ported it into One Roll Engine?

[Anonymouswizard]

Wouldn’t be 5e. Sounds like some kind of dice-pool variant of Warhammer or Warhammer40K, which is the only thing I know of to have a mechanic called “perils of the warp.” But WFRPG is a percentile-dice system, not a dice pool, and I think most of the 40K RPGs are also. Maybe somebody ported it into One Roll Engine?

Although I don't own it I believe the new 40k RPG, Wrath and Glory, is dice pool based, so likely either that or WFRP3e with FFG's funky dice.

[Personification]

I think the main issue is that a giant wannabbe Cthulhu whale is making precision strikes and balancing on catwalks, not that it doesn't have the skills or attack power.

[JAL_1138]

I think the main issue is that a giant wannabbe Cthulhu whale is making precision strikes and balancing on catwalks, not that it doesn't have the skills or attack power.

If an eldritch abomination doesn’t do improbable physics-defying things instead of what you expect, is it really eldritch?

[Telok]

Ok, it's in a game of Dungeons the Dragoning 40,000 7th Edition version 1.6 which is a fan-made mashup of d&d, exalted, vampire, werewolf, wh, wh40k, and other bits & bobs. It's not a beginner or intro game, has occasional editing errors, and is vague or odd in a couple places. Yet for something made years ago, on a dare, in 4chan, it's quite good and we're having much more fun with it than with pazio's Starfinder.

An Atlantean halfling with a chain axe captains a kilometer long starship to Baator in order to engage in orbital bombardment is a legit first level character concept.

The aboleth snuck up on them by swimming up a steel pipe, ripping the pipe open with pure strength, and jumped 20ish meters onto a catwalk. It did this because the encounter started at about 100 meters and most of it's spells range under 30 meters. Divination turns out to be a pretty strong combat magic school.

[Rater202]

*In a party including a literal God, a centuries-old Vampire who has devoured the souls of countless other vampires, an atomic-powered superman created to compete with the othertwo using everything humanity knows about cybernetics, genetic engineering, and nuclear power, an Immortal Sorcerer who was literally every wize od wizard in every myth in the world, a literal living star with infinite cosmic power, and an alien best described as "What if The Great Gazoo was The Punisher," the strongest caracter should not be a the year old girl who likes hugs.
**Nor should she be the most terrifying.

[Personification]

*In a party including a literal God, a centuries-old Vampire who has devoured the souls of countless other vampires, an atomic-powered superman created to compete with the othertwo using everything humanity knows about cybernetics, genetic engineering, and nuclear power, an Immortal Sorcerer who was literally every wize od wizard in every myth in the world, a literal living star with infinite cosmic power, and an alien best described as "What if The Great Gazoo was The Punisher," the strongest caracter should not be a the year old girl who likes hugs.
**Nor should she be the most terrifying.

Counterpoint:

Spoiler: Sabrina the teenage Psion

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[danielxcutter]

*In a party including a literal God, a centuries-old Vampire who has devoured the souls of countless other vampires, an atomic-powered superman created to compete with the othertwo using everything humanity knows about cybernetics, genetic engineering, and nuclear power, an Immortal Sorcerer who was literally every wize od wizard in every myth in the world, a literal living star with infinite cosmic power, and an alien best described as "What if The Great Gazoo was The Punisher," the strongest caracter should not be a the year old girl who likes hugs.
**Nor should she be the most terrifying.

If that is the case, chances are that the description is vastly oversimplified methinks.

[Rater202]

If that is the case, chances are that the description is vastly oversimplified methinks.

Notas much as you'd think.

Unrelated:

*I don't care that its rules legal, you can't make modern Molecule Man at Char-Gen.

[Spore]

I think the main issue is that a giant wannabbe Cthulhu whale is making precision strikes and balancing on catwalks, not that it doesn't have the skills or attack power.

If an eldritch abomination doesn’t do improbable physics-defying things instead of what you expect, is it really eldritch?

* It was all just in your heads.... is a poor copout of a story.
** Yes, even if the monster is a eldritch horror that has the ability to mesh dream and reality.
*** Tap dancing fish people are sweet and all but not really what a nightmare creature such as an aboleth woult think up.

[danielxcutter]

* It was all just in your heads.... is a poor copout of a story.
** Yes, even if the monster is a eldritch horror that has the ability to mesh dream and reality.
*** Tap dancing fish people are sweet and all but not really what a nightmare creature such as an aboleth would think up.

****Fish people tap-dancing badly is only slightly more likely.

[Lord Raziere]

* The Scarlet Dynasty is not comprised of Magical Girl squads of all five elements
** No, not even if it is a matriarchal society of Dragon-Blooded
*** who have sworn kinships of five
**** who use teamwork to defeat their foes
***** and wield magical artifacts to do so
****** while having a religion and martial arts to help them destroy evil with teamwork
******* the Dragon-Blooded are not Power Rangers, The Ginyu Force, the Xiaolin Warriors, or any of the Joestars either

[danielxcutter]

* The Scarlet Dynasty is not comprised of Magical Girl squads of all five elements
** No, not even if it is a matriarchal society of Dragon-Blooded
*** who have sworn kinships of five
**** who use teamwork to defeat their foes
***** and wield magical artifacts to do so
****** while having a religion and martial arts to help them destroy evil with teamwork
******* the Dragon-Blooded are not Power Rangers, The Ginyu Force, the Xiaolin Warriors, or any of the Joestars either

********They do not have gigantic robots that combine into an even more gigantic robot, either.

Where is this from, BTW?

[Rater202]

* #ScrewYouDad is not and never will trend among Scions of the Theoi.
** Nor is it appropriate to use it when tweeting @TheRealLoki, even if he's your father and sent you on a #WildGooseChase.

[Lord Raziere]

********They do not have gigantic robots that combine into an even more gigantic robot, either.

Where is this from, BTW?

Exalted, but no actually they totally do have that particular part, ancient magical giant robots you pilot are an actual part of Exalted's setting, and Dragon-Blooded have them as apart of their empire they use when they need to take out really big threats, them combining together would actually be a thing that can happen in exalted, if in the more over the top kinds of games you can do with it.

* Yes DB's have giant robots, but dammit they are not the TTGL!
** Evangelions or Gundams on the other hand are totally fine.

[danielxcutter]

Exalted, but no actually they totally do have that particular part, ancient magical giant robots you pilot are an actual part of Exalted's setting, and Dragon-Blooded have them as apart of their empire they use when they need to take out really big threats, them combining together would actually be a thing that can happen in exalted, if in the more over the top kinds of games you can do with it.

* Yes DB's have giant robots, but dammit they are not the TTGL!
** Evangelions or Gundams on the other hand are totally fine.

I was going to say something on the lines of "wut", but then I remembered we're talking about Exalted.

[-̗̀ (ↀωↀ) -̖́]

* The first plan of action when dealing with will-o-wisps is not to crush them in between your bare hands
** because they looked like fireflies is not a valid excuse, even with 5 intelligence
*** applying this logic to every encounter afterwords is right out

[Rater202]

*I need to stop playing creepy little kids.
**Because I do it too well.

[Braininthejar2]

* The Scarlet Dynasty is not comprised of Magical Girl squads of all five elements

Isn't it pretty close to a standard Wyld Hunt setup though?

[Lord Raziere]

Isn't it pretty close to a standard Wyld Hunt setup though?

* I am not to clarify that I mean "sailor moon style magical girls in sailor fukus and shouting attack names while waving wands" rather than "game of thrones nobility with avatar bender powers in jade shardplate"

*I am not to use esperanto as a code to hide meaning as a form of ironic parody of the fact that its a failed attempt at a universal language.
** Precipe en ĉi tiu tre fadeno por ŝraŭbi kun ĉiuj mensoj

[Personification]

* I am not to clarify that I mean "sailor moon style magical girls in sailor fukus and shouting attack names while waving wands" rather than "game of thrones nobility with avatar bender powers in jade shardplate"

Ooh, Sanderfan! *Hogh Five*

[danielxcutter]

Ooh, Sanderfan! *Hogh Five*

...Context, please?

[Lord Raziere]

Ooh, Sanderfan! *Hogh Five*

*returns high five lazily and casually, as if no big deal* context: Brandon Sanderson is good author, find his books, read them.

*My Air aspect Dragon-Blooded cannot be named "Sasuke Iselsi"
** My older brother is not named Itachi and he did not murder my entire family
*** Itachi Iselsi is not a Solar Anathema who I trying to kill to get my revenge
**** Mostly because its all the other Houses that killed my family, not an Anathema.
***** Madara Iselsi is not the mastermind of my House's downfall by encouraging that failed assassination attempt on the Empress.
****** The reason for this assassination cannot be "House put into certain neighborhood in the Imperial City" if anything having your own district of a city to rule is giving you more power
******* The Iselsi most certainly do not get special eye-based awareness charms that screw with reality in various ways, these charms do not get stronger if you see one of your Sworn Brothers die, and no you can't project whatever illusions you want into peoples minds.
******** An Iselsi Dragon-Blooded who is so devoted to the Vendetta that they join up with Solar Anathema to take down all the Houses of the Realm is perfectly in character and acceptable.

[Anonymouswizard]

...Context, please?

Shadeplate is essentially magical power armour from Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive series. It's probably tied with the first Mistborn trilogy for his most boring series, he's no Peter F. Hamilton and his long books tend to suffer from having a fairly lengthy dull bit right before the end. However, he is very, very good at writing hard magic systems, I recommend Warbreaker as probably his best which didn't require slogging through another series.

[iceman10058]

Shadeplate is essentially magical power armour from Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive series. It's probably tied with the first Mistborn trilogy for his most boring series, he's no Peter F. Hamilton and his long books tend to suffer from having a fairly lengthy dull bit right before the end. However, he is very, very good at writing hard magic systems, I recommend Warbreaker as probably his best which didn't require slogging through another series.

to be fair, he is also doing a ton of character and world building to set up a huge amount of books. Stormlight is set to be a 10 book series alone i believe?

[PhoenixPhyre]

to be fair, he is also doing a ton of character and world building to set up a huge amount of books. Stormlight is set to be a 10 book series alone i believe?

Which doesn't excuse slow and boring plotting. I'm not opposed to people putting the EPIC in epic fantasy, but at some point you need to stop writing 600+ page tomes and get on with it. It's the Robert Jordan problem--too many subplots/details so you lose track of what's important and miss things that really do matter in the blizzard of words.

For all that people talk up Sanderson's writing, I've never been that enthralled. It doesn't grab me and keep me going. :shrug:

[Anonymouswizard]

Which doesn't excuse slow and boring plotting. I'm not opposed to people putting the EPIC in epic fantasy, but at some point you need to stop writing 600+ page tomes and get on with it. It's the Robert Jordan problem--too many subplots/details so you lose track of what's important and miss things that really do matter in the blizzard of words.

For all that people talk up Sanderson's writing, I've never been that enthralled. It doesn't grab me and keep me going. :shrug:

This.

Sanderson is okay, and I enjoy him when he sticks to shorter books. But unlike Peter F. Hamilton, who I can read a 1000 page book from without looking for something to break the boredom (although I do need to read something else in between times) I've not yet been able to read Sanderson's long books in one go. Although Hamilton is the very specific style of writing that I adore, and always has something happening in at least one of his main plots, and very few subplots (trending towards having seven or so major plot threads that doesn't converge). I wouldn't recommend Hamilton for everybody, but he's very good of you can grok his style.

I'm starting to feel like SF&F needs to go back to shorter books. A series of 300 page books is easier to get into then a series of 1000 page books (my younger brother was convinced that the Stormlight Archive had to be a trilogy, after discovering that it's meant to be ten books he understood exactly why I'd decided to stop reading it).

[PhoenixPhyre]

Spoiler: off topic response to Anonymouswizard

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This.

Sanderson is okay, and I enjoy him when he sticks to shorter books. But unlike Peter F. Hamilton, who I can read a 1000 page book from without looking for something to break the boredom (although I do need to read something else in between times) I've not yet been able to read Sanderson's long books in one go. Although Hamilton is the very specific style of writing that I adore, and always has something happening in at least one of his main plots, and very few subplots (trending towards having seven or so major plot threads that doesn't converge). I wouldn't recommend Hamilton for everybody, but he's very good of you can grok his style.

I'm starting to feel like SF&F needs to go back to shorter books. A series of 300 page books is easier to get into then a series of 1000 page books (my younger brother was convinced that the Stormlight Archive had to be a trilogy, after discovering that it's meant to be ten books he understood exactly why I'd decided to stop reading it).

I'm not personally fond of Hamilton, but that's more for content than for style.

I read fast (for fiction at least). I read Harry Potter 6 (~600 pages) in a couple hours straight and retained enough to answer questions about it. But that's if I don't get bored or lost. Having to go back and re-read passages to figure out what's important and what's just fluff is a good way of losing me fast. And Sanderson's series usually require me to go back and re-read the whole set of previous books each time a new one comes out. Too many threads, too many details, too many characters with unpronounceable names.

Personally (and this is YMMV territory), I'm not to enthralled with the "hard magic" approach. It ends up feeling (to me) like "look at my fancy magic system!" rather than telling a gripping story. It puts the emphasis on the wrong thing (for me). Same with hard science fiction or military tech fiction--too much focus on things or equations and not enough on events or people.