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Post by Kainguru on Sept 25, 2012 23:41:19 GMT -8
You should try reading Thomas Covenant. Fuck me what an arse hat Stephen Donaldson is : there's a third and final chronicle of FOUR books . . . I read them because I must, I've come this far and deserve to know how it finally fucking ends.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 26, 2012 4:12:23 GMT -8
I am currently running a Dresden Files game. It's set where the RPG set itself... just after Small Favor. It's set in a city with no known Red Court vamps in it, and only one White Council wizard. Mostly, it's got a lot of faeries to deal with. None of the stuff that happens after Small Favor will necessarily ever happen. It'll only happen if it works well with my game. And most likely, none of my characters will ever meet up with any heavy hitters from the books. They might encounter smaller entities... the Archive, some faerie nobles/queens... Ramirez may show up (it's his territory, after all). But no Harry, no senior council, most likely no Raithe family... And they're dealing with plenty big stuff. Currently, they're actually dealing with some mistakes on their part, and some Law Breaking they did. But after that, they've got faeries who started a cult to suck the life from humans, and they've got a surprise coming in the form of an exiled Sidhe who is planning to create her own Court. So yeah... plenty to do in an existing setting, that doesn't have to mess with the stories already told. --Pukka Tukka
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Post by malifer on Sept 26, 2012 5:29:18 GMT -8
You should try reading Thomas Covenant. Fuck me what an arse hat Stephen Donaldson is : there's a third and final chronicle of FOUR books . . . I read them because I must, I've come this far and deserve to know how it finally fucking ends. I read the first book until the point when he rapes the first girl because he still thinks he's dreaming. I said WTF okay I'm done.
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Post by kaitoujuliet on Sept 26, 2012 7:40:59 GMT -8
The funny thing is, I was just thinking about how the upcoming Star Wars game is going to be my first foray into tabletop gaming in an established world ... and then I remembered that I've been playing in a Buffyverse campaign for almost a year now! But that game takes place in Cleveland and hasn't intersected with canon at all, really (no canon characters or events have appeared thus far, AFAIK). Also, I'm actually not very familiar with Buffy at all, so it feels quite similar to a GM-created universe to me, which is an excellent illustration of rickno7's point!
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Post by Kainguru on Sept 26, 2012 8:03:10 GMT -8
You should try reading Thomas Covenant. Fuck me what an arse hat Stephen Donaldson is : there's a third and final chronicle of FOUR books . . . I read them because I must, I've come this far and deserve to know how it finally fucking ends. I read the first book until the point when he rapes the first girl because he still thinks he's dreaming. I said WTF okay I'm done. To be fair to Donaldson most of it a redemption tale . . . about things that cannot be forgiven and because they cannot be undone either how the guilt has to be endured . . . rah rah rah . . . good deeds having evil consequences and vice versa. By the second and third chronicles most of it is from the viewpoint of a female protagonist called Linden who meets Covenant at the request of a college and, yep you guessed it, get sucked into the land to and spends at least one book going "fuck off no it's not real its just a psychotic episode because I watched my daddy commit suicide when I was a little girl and I've never forgiven myself" . . . Its the fucking chapters of navel gazing that get me . . . in one book they spend almost six chapters fucking arguing and debating and being reflective etc etc and never move more than 20yrds from where they are . . . yet everything is urgent?
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Post by shadrack on Sept 26, 2012 11:23:52 GMT -8
Quick weigh-in on IP: I don't have a problem with it. I like using them to quickly impart the 'flavor' of game I'm shooting for. Such as: I am interested in running a game like the SyFy show 'Alphas'. (basically low power superhuman one-trick ponies). Now anyone who has seen alphas has an idea what they would be in for. I essentially use it as my elevator pitch. If I get sufficient buy-in, we can go from there. On to the Savage Worlds zombies question: I agree that you don't need a lot more than the explorers edition or the deluxe and you're good to go. If you want some more references along with infection rules / scavaging rules and some other zombie types go check out => wrathofzombie.wordpress.com/ he's got a whole pdf of rules, different zombies, sample PC's, just a lot of work there, that you can take advantage of. There are some 'premium' offerings on drivethrurpg.com or rpgnow.com (yeah, yeah, same site, I know). Like War of the dead and Zombacalypse I haven't seen those, I thought the free stuff was fine. You could also check the savageheroes.com website to see if they have some other zombie stuff. Oh, and in Deadlands you can have just run of the mill zombies. They make great bad-guy cannon-fodder. Not everyone is sharing headspace with a manitou (like Mr. Lincoln)
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Post by jazzisblues on Sept 26, 2012 11:48:30 GMT -8
How you do zombies in Savage Worlds depends on what kind of zombies you want.
1. Fantasy undead zombies ... Use them straight from the book as extras.
2. Walking Dead undead zombies ... Make them extras but let them take wounds like a wild card unless it's a called shot to the head. Also make them suffer no ill effects from wounds until the last one.
3. Voodoo zombies ... Just like #2
The rest is really all in the descriptions of how things are represented.
JiB
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Post by savagedaddy on Sept 26, 2012 14:37:50 GMT -8
There is a complete, published plot point campaign available from Daring Entertainment. It's called War of the Dead and is available on Drive-Thru RPG. The setting also has paper minis and fan-made extras.
I'm a huge fan of Zombies and the Walking Dead and I have to say I would highly recommend it! In fact, I ran the first adventure in the setting at a local mini-con and got some great feedback.
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Post by henryhankovitch on Sept 26, 2012 18:33:44 GMT -8
Stu's last point about World War II struck a bit of a nerve.
Okay, so unless you're going the Inglourious Basterds route, we all "know" what the end of WWII is going to be. But "winning the war" is almost never the point of a WWII story, whether we're talking games, novels, or movies. When you watch Band of Brothers or The Pacific for the first time, you may know that the 'muricans are gonna win the war; but you don't know what's going to happen to any of the characters you're watching. And that's the interesting part of the story anyway. In The Pacific, the Iwo Jima sequence is all about watching Basilone go back to a war that he had a golden ticket out of. It's not about showing Iwo Jima being conquered.
Moreover, a certain level of potential counterfactualism has to be allowed whenever you play within a known timeline. For it to be interesting, you may have to imagine that things could go differently in your game's story. This is the most basic part of historical wargaming: you can't play Axis & Allies if the game forces a single outcome each time. The game uses the canonical timeline as the setting for the beginning of the game, not to determine the course of events throughout.
This means as well that you may have to imagine and play a character who does not actually have the historical perspective we do; that he will have to act as though the outcome of history was yet undecided. There's a term for this sort of imaginative play, but I can't quite put my finger on it...
Back to the broader point of established settings and canon, I think WWII works well as an example. The game needs to be about the characters, rather than a theme park where the characters go on pre-established thrill rides. They need to know that their actions affect the story, whatever its relationship to history or canon. Whether their story is "survive the Battle of Stalingrad" or "defeat the Werewolf Women of the SS," the greater course of the war isn't something they're going to be dealing with.
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Post by ericfromnj on Sept 27, 2012 5:02:19 GMT -8
You should try reading Thomas Covenant. Fuck me what an arse hat Stephen Donaldson is : there's a third and final chronicle of FOUR books . . . I read them because I must, I've come this far and deserve to know how it finally fucking ends. I read the first book until the point when he rapes the first girl because he still thinks he's dreaming. I said WTF okay I'm done. That was the exact point I stopped too. Thing was I started reading it because I had heard the series was an inspiration for Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved, which I enjoyed running greatly, and Monte's forums were a really nice place to be at the time, like how the SJ forums get talked about here, and then I read about this leper rapist and - yeah.
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kevinr
Journeyman Douchebag
Posts: 158
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Post by kevinr on Sept 27, 2012 6:26:44 GMT -8
Okay so who is running a Thomas Covenant game in F.A.T.A.L. system at the next con.
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Post by Kainguru on Sept 27, 2012 7:48:11 GMT -8
I read the first book until the point when he rapes the first girl because he still thinks he's dreaming. I said WTF okay I'm done. That was the exact point I stopped too. Thing was I started reading it because I had heard the series was an inspiration for Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved, which I enjoyed running greatly, and Monte's forums were a really nice place to be at the time, like how the SJ forums get talked about here, and then I read about this leper rapist and - yeah. Because ALL of Donaldson's characters are broken or damaged in some way . . . even the most noble and self sacrificing are seriously flawed. Lena's mother for refusing to confront Convenant about the rape of her daughter because she felt that her responsibility as a failed Lord (mage) was more important; Lena for later believing that Covenant's act of violence, because she believed he was a legendary figure reborn, was blessing bestowed upon her . . . despite Covenant's unremitting guilt and refusal to accept her forgivness; Saltheart Foamfollower for believing his people (the Giants) were immune to and beyond the touch of despair; Lord Mhoram for not believing in himself and frequently acting too late because of his self-doubt; The Bloodguard for swearing an oath that they had failed to keep from the outset but due to hubris couldn't see the fact until too late . . . What Covenant did was wrong . . . that's the whole impetus of the story . . . Lord Foul the Despiser believes he has already won because of it . . . yet Covenants guilt and regret and understanding that he can never forgive himself, let alone be forgiven, is the crux to Lord Foul's defeat . . . All through the books Donaldson's main and only consistent theme is the idea of paradox as having the power to change things. Unfortunately Donaldson is a one trick pony . . . and as I said, having got this far I deserve to know how it all finally ends (when he finishes the book)
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