Disney


For the premiere of Pinocchio Walt hired 11 midgets, dressed them up like the little puppet and put them on top of Radio City Music Hall in New York with a full day’s supply of food and wine. The idea was they would wave hello to the little children entering into the theater. By the middle of the hot afternoon, there were 11 drunken naked midgets running around the top of the marquee, screaming obscenities at the crowd below. The most embarrassed people were the police who had to climb up ladders and take the little fellows off in pillowcases.

Atomic Robo character #2: Tessai

U mad?

Having fun with the “Weird” character builder.  Like Kerberos Club, Atomic Robo allows custom skills and modes, so you can conceivably build just about any type of character, and so here we go with one of the greatest anime villains there is: Tessai from Ninja Scroll.  This is not even in the wheelhouse of what Atomic robo is about, but here we go.

Tessai

Organization: 8 Devils of Kimon!

Modes and Skills

Good (+3)
Ninja (9 points for mode) (3 Skill point upgrades)

Athletics (+4)^
Combat (+4)^
Intimidation (+4)^
Physique (+5)^*
Stealth (+4)^
Will (+4)^
Fair (+2) (9 Points)
ACTION

Average (+1) (9 Points)
INTRIGUE

^ upgraded by cross skills
* upgraded with points

Aspects
Contept: Stone bodied Ninja

NINJA: Trained by Gemma

ACTION: All strategy is deception

INTRIGUE: A dead girl might be an interesting lay

Open: I am the strongest of the Devils of Kimon
Stunts:
Signature aspect: Stone Bodied Ninja

Weapon return: Always have thrown weapons made of metal return by next action.
Extras:
Immune to normal weapons (Armor 4, At a Cost)

Stronger than Normal humans (At a cost)

Equipment Extra:

Double Edge sword
Function: Slice!
Flaw: Huge

Weapon Stunts:
Spinning Death: Attack Effects everyone in a zone either current or one zone away (at a cost)

Massive Weapon: Weapon 4
Stress Boxes
Physical: XXXX

Mental: XX

So  Tessai  is a typical Brick with invulnerability to normal weapons and some armor against abnormal attacks.  Both are “At a Cost” which creates a narrative difficulty or aspect when it’s used.   I built a custom mode (NINJA) for him but no custom skills (didn’t seem necessary to get him to where he should be).   As one of his extras, he has his double sided sword that he can throw to hit everyone within his zone or one away and does a lot of damage.  One way to do the Brick style is to create a stunt where he can defend with his physique.  Since it’s only +5 (nothing super human there) I wanted to go with the invulnerability extra instead.

Next up, I’m going to try something really odd, like Arakune from Blazblue and the like

Almost made it!

I put myself on two weeks away from video games (not non video games, that would be preposterous) and the personal ban ends tonight at midnight.   I usually get to play stuff a few hours at night at the most and a bit on the weekends here and there.  So what did I accomplish instead?  Seems like there would be a huge list right?  uhhhh….not really.

1) Reading the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd edition rules and first campaign

2) Reading and prepping for a session with the Atomic Robo RPG beta

3) A game of 40K 2nd edition (!?)

4) Painting 3 bestigor and getting a long way on three more.  20 more after that is still pretty daunting..

5) Finishing Undaunted Courage (biography of Louis of Louis and Clark).  It’s great but the end is very sad indeed.

So during the two weeks, what game was I joneseing for the most?  the new Xcom was up there– I really wanted to play that more after losing my first campaign game embarassingly.  Torchlight 2 of course, but the one I really really wanted to play was Dark Souls…I’m stuck at the Capra Demon– I know HOW to beat him but I just haven’t executed properly to do it yet and this is gnawing at me something fierce!

Now however, look what’s out?  Hotline Miami, Blood Bowl Chaos Edition and a Steam version of Conquest of Elysium 3 from Illwinter– all ripe and ready for the nerdery action but Dark Souls is going to be the first taste…

40K second edition!

While a huge proponent of Warhammer Fantasy Battle 8th edition, I am not and have not been a fan of the rules for 40K for a long time– since 1996 or so actually.  The last edition I played was 4th–just a one off, but the last edition I played a LOT was 2nd edition from back in 1993.   This is the edition that spawned GW’s new style of boxed games rather than just the big hardback books and miniatures.  The plastics were crap, but the rules are IMO the best and were used in both 40K, Necromunda and Gorkamorka: at testament to the strength of the platform.  Subsequent versions of 40K, while solving the “herohammer” problem 2nd edition definitely has, added in the less desirable ” every game is just a mob of infantry in close combat in the middle” and “my entire army was destroyed by ordinance because I didn’t roll well for the first turn” issues that I just couldn’t abide.

So we got a game in of 2nd edition last night and it was good fun, while I prefer EPIC from this era, 40k is much faster to set up and play than the 6mm behemoth.  Thousand points of Marines vs Eldar (and there weren’t many marines for that point value for sure).   The game played fast and the rules, dusty as they were, played SOLID.   It mattered where the individual models were on the table and what weapons they had and what sort of cover they had– and while there was some close combat, it was not the defining factor of the game.   Here’s a shot of the predator vs Avatar with Blind grenade spots roaming around.  Needless to say, with tons of chances to hurt the Avatar with shooting, the Predator did not hold up once the king of the Eldar got into close combat with it.

note the beaky marines from 1987 ladies!

Atomic Robo RPG – first character: BIG JIM

Snazzy spy suit to boot!

I (which means in some cases WE) got into the third round of beta testing for Atomic Robo RPG/FATE core 3.0 (Huzzah!), and the first thing I did was spew out a character using the no math version of character creation.  FATE usually takes a bit of time to make characters, and Atomic solves this pretty well with a fast method and less aspects (Dresden and Spirit of the Century require TEN for each character).   There are two types of characters– simple and complex (or weird).   The simple method is pretty streamlined and gets you into the action fast, but it’s not possible to make a human blob or batwinged prehistoric monstrosity that way.  For starters I chose and icon from the mid 70’s: BIG JIM.  His aspects are ripped from Wikipedia and various commercials from the early 70’s where he had a backpack that talked.   I think with a GM at your side, one could probably make a character like this in less than 15 minutes, even if you didn’t know FATE well.  The only tough part are the Stunts, which can be filled in during play.  The complex character generation will take a bit more doing, as it allows similar skill creation as Strange Fate/Kerberos Club.I’ll post something created via that method next.
Big Jim

Organization: Big Jim’s P.A.C.K.

Modes and Skills

Good (+3)
BANTER

  • Intimidation (+4)
  • Contacts (+4)
  • Deceit (+4)
  • Will (+5)*
  • Rapport (+4)*

Fair (+2)
ACTION

  • Athletics (+3)
  • Notice (+3)
  • Combat (+4)*
  • Physique (+4)**
  • Vehicles (+3)*

Average (+1)
INTRIGUE
Aspects
CONCEPT:  Basic good guy leader of the P.A.C.K.

INTRIGUE: Average Caucasian Male with no other distinguishable characteristic

ACTION: I’m going in for a look!

BANTER: Permanent good attitude

Open Aspect: a Joy for Life
Stunts

Look out sir! : When hit, put a minor consequence on any of your teammates or friendly NPC’s rather than yourself

Give me the keys: +2 to drive any vehicle type never driven before

I’ve got the tools: +2 to Declarations regarding having the right tool for the job

Signature Aspect: Permanent good attitude

Call the P.A.C.K.: Spend a fate point to steal the iniative and choose who it goes to.

 

So he’s a natural leader and has some skills there but the meat of this guy are his stunts.  He can have his teammates take consequences for him and control the pace of a fight with his Call the PACK stunt.  While not a heavyweight fighting, he can hold his own against normal foes.  His science is REAL weak so that’s a gaping hole that will need to be filled by team mates.   I started it as a joke/test, but this is a character I’d actually dig playing.

Exalted 3rd Edition!

How I missed this announcement during the summer I’ll never know, but it’s actually official. Exalted 3rd edition is in development (and has been for quite awhile now) and will be out next year some time.  This is great but stunning news.  Stunning because both 1st and 2nd edition have TONS of books (most of which I purchased) and will have to again with 3rd edition.  It’s great because as awesome as the backstory of Exalted is, as cool as the 2nd edition combat system seemed to be at the beginnings of play (with basic, unoptimized Solars vs Dragon Blooded or Mortals) it seriously needs a rework to the combat system all the way through.  First, because it’s a very difficult game for a GM to plan and run without a lot of handwaving to speed up play that does not do justice to the system and second because the combat is both narratively and systematically broken.  There are a lot of people that did not (and do not) want this to be true.  For years Exalted discussion has dominated the RPG forums, and for good reason, there is a massive amount to discuss and argue over– the main thing here is as many issues as the system has people really care about it a lot.

This is not going to be easy to do.  Exalted combat, as it stands, takes a long time, is intensely engaging for the players that get to act often (sorry archers) and involves tons of dice rolls. Your characters are rarely dealing with mooks or even mortals most of the time so the antagonists are as detailed and complicated as the player characters.  In terms of bosses, much more so.  This is rough on the GM who has to remember all the stunts for his antagonists AND the stunts the players have in their arsenal.  It’s quite daunting to try to run a  Dragon Blooded Solar hunt team and they are the weakest of the Exalts!  The  part that broke it for me personally is the stunt to mote engine.  In order to keep going in a fight, Exalts (all of them) have to use a narrative stunt every single action they take, whether offensively or defensively.  Every time they succeed, they get motes back.  This makes combat drag terribly, even though the idea of narrative during fights is key and throwing out stunts is a huge no no going forward.  However when you have players that are hoping that they get attacked by the mooks (who can’t hurt them anyway) so they can stunt to get their two motes back in order to fuel their perfect defenses when getting attacked by the big bad is just not a fun situation to be in as the GM.   The initiative system, Perfect Attacks, Perfect defenses, Soak, Armor, Ping damage, and the total invincibility of the (updated!) version of Mask of Winters– the list of issues is long and tangled for 3rd edition to work out.

This is stuff I’d like to see (and Matt too):

No movement measure in yards – FATE uses ZONES rather than yards, etc. and it works awesome.  This should be stolen.  I hate Exalted chase scenes and combats where people are trying to stay just out of reach by a ‘square’ and such.

Not too many charms! – Kerberos Club allows characters to create Skills with trappings that allowed lots of stuff to be done with a single ‘power.’ even for magic users, the ability to create trappings (a trapping would be like “Strike” or “Climb”) during a session.  This is cooking good if your players can grok it.

Charm cards – let’s have some official ones that players can use.

Let my character get hit! – Perfect defenses are OK in theory, but when you MUST use one to not die, it’s a problem.

Limit stunting to once per turn – either offensive stunt or defensive stunt.

That said, there has been enormous amounts of discussion around the Exalted combat system since 2nd edition came out and tons of ideas on how to fix it from some really brilliant minds (who started with the errata bringing it to 2.5).  Many of these brains are working on third edition and know exactly what the system needs so I have great hope that the game will be essentially playable while holding on to that special magic that Exalted certainly has.  Beyond the metaplot, which is incredible, to me it represents, along with FATE (Kerberos Club especially), the evolution of truly narrative focus for everything in an RPG (including and especially combat)  that started (for me at least) with Robin Law’s FENG SHUI, so that we are not simply clearing out a room of 66 Gnolls after clearing out two rooms of 25 Gnolls, our characters are fighting for reasons and take consequences for STAKES.  It’s possible in both Exalted and FATE for your character to be fundamentally changed by the outcome (other than, you know, croaking) of a single combat.  As we push forward in RPG design, there are three systems that I am really looking at that I feel are carrying the torch of Feng Shui.  Obviously FATE Core 3 that will come out with Atomic Robo RPG, Legends of the Wulin (which I know I will never likely PLAY outside of a con setting, but I want to absorb the system) and now, of course, Exalted 3.

And of course, I wonder what the Exalted world will look like after the events of The Return of the Scarlet Empress…

When Hardcore is too Hardcore!

In explanation of the previous post: a few days ago, our brave hardcore, elite, blind heroes had still not made it to Act 2 of Torchlight.  The first 20 levels or so were manageable  but after that, they found constant permadeath in the dungeons and regions of the second half of act 1 (the ice region!).  One fateful night, three of us decided to make a run on the final Act 1 dungeon, but had to level up one of our fellows in the process so running around the ice region was in order.  Much to our surprise, a random boss not even in a dungeon fired off an attack that killed both the level 25 Engineer (with a LOT of hit points) and the level 17 Berserker.  My character, Blactaculus 2, was hit about as hard as possible, but managed to survive.  After all the deaths, this was the final straw for Elite hardcore blind.

What caused both characters to die in one attack we cannot determine.  The attack itself was an ice shot that hit multiple times along a straight line.  Chillhoof has this same attack and I have lost at least one character to it– but he’s a major boss. This ice guy was just a dude running around.  Were there criticals rolled at this time?  Multiple criticals?  We can’t be sure.

That said, we’re putting away the hardcore mode for awhile to see the rest of the game together.  We will be back to Hardcore Elite, but as of now, the blind run is over and we— we failed!   This is a testament to the difficulty of Torchlight 2 on the higher levels for anyone stating that the game is too easy: be more ELITE.

Xcom: Enemy Unknown demo ruminations

Confronting the walking buttocks circa 1994.

Woah. The new version of Xcom is coming REAL fast.  When it was announced, I thought we had a year or so before it was spewed out across all us gamers.  I was shocked to see the demo out last week and (nearly) immediately gave it a go.    I can’t make any type of post about a resurgence game like this without waxing on and on about how I feel about the old versions. Needless to say, emotions run strong with this series.  People loved it when it came out for a lot of reasons: the art, the sound, the affiliation with your kill team (that’s really all your guys were) as they got stronger and sometimes get the dirt nap and you cried softly in your dorm room.  While I liked Xcom, I think it was brilliant but I never wanted to go back to it once I played through a couple times, and never played the Terror from the Deep version.  The version I did get into and will still bust out form time to time is Xcom Apocalypse.  This was largely panned when it came out and definitely has it’s quirks, but the core gameplay– i.e.: the combat, has the ability to go real time and THIS is where Xcom Apocalypse shines.  You remember those hour long bug hunts trying to find that one last critter in turn based mode in the original Xcome?  In Apocalypse, you can send off a couple guys and find that bug without clicking through your whole team.  Whats more, Apocalypse’s environments, still all sprites mind you, were the most 3D I’ve ever seen in a game AND almost fully destructible.  While Jagged Alliance 2 is a superior game, Apocalypse’s environments  vastly surpassed JA’s always on the first floor style of play.

With all that history with the game, I was looking at the demo through the Apocalypse glasses and it didn’t disappoint.  While the first mission is 100% scripted, the second allows you to try out all the options for your kill team during turns.   One of the differences in the new Xcom from the old games (and Jagged Alliance) is that you don’t have action points that get spent by small pieces of actions: your squaddies are allowed to take two actions during their turn, either Move or Fire essentially (there is Overwatch and ‘Hull down’ mode” that you can choose).  This means if you are creeping up on an area of the map as players are wont to do, you have to take an entire move action to just move up a tiny bit.  At first I wasn’t too sure about this as precision movement is key in these games due to the need to be in cover all the time.  However, going back to Apocalypse, as much as I love the combat portion of the game, the original Xcom had some really long bug hunt missions.  These are missions where a single worm or alien is hiding in a closet somewhere on a 4-5 story space ship and you have to walk your team through the entire map to find it and kill it.  Since it’s much more important not to get your guys killed, this type of hunt is always slow as fuck so you don’t get bushwhacked.   The two turn action limit will make things go quicker.

As for aesthetics, the game looks eggcellente good, and should because it’s using the Unreal Engine.  The way Firaxis has handled the visuals of the Xcom base is amazing and the squaddies look superb (again, this is a turn based strategy game so aesthetics are secondary to everything else).  You get a choice in the game whether to help out the USA or China and I chose China in order to see if they had some localized environments and YES, there were a bunch of signs and stuff in Chinese, so you could definitely tell on the ground where you were at.  If you think about it, that’s a LOT of content for the developers to make.  A little touch that the original Xcom didn’t have at all.

The aliens that I saw looked good and definitely had some soul.  This is a FAR cry from the very stupid looking aliens from Xcom Apocalypse (a flying skellington and a blue ice beast or a running butt).

The interface– well this is going to be a console game as well as PC and we can see some problems arising for the PC player due to that choice.  While the base is amazing graphically, I was wondering how the fuck you were supposed to move from room to room and how to get to where there is an alert?  Hello? Can’t I just click the room I want with my mouse?    I don’t even know what I pressed to get to the ‘alert’ room: either enter or space or something.  This was annoying.

During missions, the firing interface, while pretty cool looking, is completely geared towards a console experience.  Your Squaddie goes into firing mode by pressing the space bar, then you scroll vertically through some options (using the mouse for this sucks) and then how do you select the option and execute?  You press the ENTER key?  What the hell is that shit?!  I’d like to just use my mouse please and SELECT the option I want.   Hotkey will make this moot however, so this is just a minor annoyance all round and will probably be just something to get used to.

Overall: Yes.  While the consolitis infecting the interface is annoying, and the tactical combat is different from what I expected in terms of squaddie control, this game has VAST potential for goodness.  We haven’t seen an A-class turn based strategy game for a very, very long time so I will be buying this as soon as it hits the streets. It’s alien depths must be plunged deeply.  Plus I was able to make the most bad-ass blaxploitation-style character I have ever been able to do in a video game.   The white and asian toons look good, but the black ones look simply amazing.