Image macros that make you laugh, cry, or both.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Sun Jan 20, 2013 10:28 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:If you really want, we can put up reviews of other books in the CthulhuTech series. They are... not good.

-Username17

I got a chance to skim a Burning Horizons pdf a while back, and it was so lame it crossed from offensive to funny. I especially liked how a new good-guy faction gets introduced whose achievements utterly dwarf those of the people you've been reading about for the last half-dozen books.

I don't remember as much fetishy creepiness as in the last metaplot book, but I generally skim over and repress memories of that stuff, so I might be misremembering.

Red_Rob · Post by **Red_Rob** » Mon Jan 21, 2013 1:00 am

I had high hopes for Cthulhutech and stilll think the idea sounds cool, so a detailed analysis of what went wrong would be both informative and amusing.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Mon Jan 21, 2013 1:22 am

Red_Rob wrote:I had high hopes for Cthulhutech and stilll think the idea sounds cool, so a detailed analysis of what went wrong would be both informative and amusing.

There are 4 finished and 1 unfinished detailed reviews linked here:
http://tradwiki.foxxtrot.net/index.php/ ... iends:_B-C

Finished:
CthulhuTech
Cthulhutech: Dark Passions
Cthulhutech: Vade Mecum
Cthulhutech: Damnation View

Unfinished:
Cthulhutech: Mortal Remains

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Mon Jan 21, 2013 8:58 pm

forget caltrops, i'll be using these from now on!

and another huge one

because of OMG IT'S HUEG! i'll also be using Spoiler-Tags from now on <.<

Blasted · Post by **Blasted** » Mon Jan 21, 2013 9:57 pm

Avoraciopoctules wrote: There are 4 finished and 1 unfinished detailed reviews linked here:
http://tradwiki.foxxtrot.net/index.php/ ... iends:_B-C

The response to the reviews seems to be a universal "Ctech would be good if only had another system and fixed up the fluff." At which point you surely say "Ctech would be good, if it were completely redone."
I think that there's some pent up demand for a scifi mythos RPG which isn't too creepy and the mechanics work.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Jan 21, 2013 10:17 pm

Blasted wrote:I think that there's some pent up demand for a scifi mythos RPG which isn't too creepy and the mechanics work.

Yeah. Actually I'd go even farther and say that there is demand for a scifi mythos/anime mashup which is either not too creepy or is creepy in a "this is really spooky" sort of way and not a "I think the authors like to talk about rape too much" sort of way, and where the mechanics work.

When you say "It's totally Anime ripoffs and you play Evangelion pilots who fight Mythos monsters" people (myself included) pretty much say:

And then you read it. And it's incoherent shit fuckery. And the Animes they ripped off are ripped off so closely that it doesn't feel like a shout-out so much as an actual rip-off. And the Animes they chose to rip off don't even make any sense together and they don't come up with a dynamic whereby all the player characters can even be in the same fucking room as each other. And all told, it's like...

But yeah. I really wish someone would go back and do the exact thought processes that gave us CthulhuTech, and then make an actual game that isn't ass. Something that had some fucking Zords for the superhero characters so that your man-sized heroes could actually fucking do something when the giant robots fight it out.

-Username17

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Mon Jan 21, 2013 10:30 pm

I suppose I could try expanding the old notes I used for the quote below into a full design flowsheet. We'll see.

Avoraciopoctules wrote:When I was thinking about how I'd make a non-terrible game inspired by Cthulhutech, I tried drafting a list of classes something like this:

- Supersoldier: a cyborg who can take light tank rounds and keep moving. Tiny reactor inside of body powers regenerating plasma shields and can also be used to power stuff that fits the Supersoldier's spinal USB ports. The Supersoldier is really good at demolition, piloting vehicles, and resisting mental trauma/psychic attack. Can wield heavy weapons without setting them up in place, but that's inaccurate enough that it's only good against stuff tank-size and up.
- Wizard: is kind of squishy, but has a bunch of funky rituals that do specific things, some of which are assumed to have modern improvements. As example, the wizard can throw a spear that never misses, and usually duct-tapes a C4 charge to it. Can raise the dead, and automatically comes back as a ghost capable of rezzing himself with a little help. Restocks on prepared magic (including no-miss javelins) between missions.
- Nano-engineer: Great at hacking, can instantly assemble equipment off of a list at the cost of nano-juice that gets replenished. Moderately easy to take out, but hard to finish off because the brain is stored in The Cloud and the body can repair itself.
- Psychic: Telekinetically block bullets, perform martial arts at range, flip switches behind shields or bulletproof glass. Mess with people's brains more effectively than many Mythos monsters. Telepathically attack monsters too, but less effectively. Set things on fire with your brain. If critically injured or crippled, transfer your mind into a clean clone between missions.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Mon Jan 21, 2013 10:45 pm

Yeah, the sense I get from the reviews is that what makes it horribly, painfully bad is that it really should be awesome.

Like mechanically they need to:

1- Get rid of that poker dice thing. I don't really know how you'd even start calculating the odds of anything.
2- Change how their damage scaling works so that Power Armor and shapeshifting monster-people are actually threatened by similar things.
3- Make casting less pathetic, and maybe give a mechanical benefit for successfully reading the fucking Necronomicon.

And they could actually make Tager, Mecha, and Normal Guy into explicitly separate campaigns, because really it's pretty clear you aren't actually supposed to combine them (Taking Tager is worth a lot more stat boosts than it costs, and aside from the stat boosts, and in exchange you make a check or lose sanity once a month, but 8 is the minimum value you can have in that stat after taking Tager, and you need a total of 16 from attribute+weird poker dice result, and meanwhile each point of Mecha health is worth 50 human health points, and also mecha armor is worth 50 times as much as human armor) Or they could rework the rules so that being a 7-foot tall needle covered beast out of nightmare makes tearing into a mecha cockpit with your bare hands theoretically possible.

Also, some parts of the setting are poorly thought out, like where the NEG is trying to destroy the Migou while "containing" the cults, when the first one of those has flying capital ships and the second one does not but is trying to summon Great Old Ones. Also there's a lot of creepy sexual fetishes scattered throughout that need to go.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Jan 21, 2013 11:12 pm

The way I see it, you have a couple of ways to go:

Human sized investigators. Characters are basically Arkham Horror characters cranked up to the anime future. So you have nanotech engineers, student athletes, bookish wizards, and such.
Human sized super heroes. Characters are basically superheroes who happen to be fighting Mythos beasts. So you have super soldiers, guyvers, sailor scouts, and so on.
Giant monsters/robots. Characters fight building sized monsters, and so everyone has a human avatar (who is mostly there for drama) and a giant form (who does giant monster battles against star spawn and cthonians). So the human characters can be mech pilots, priestesses of Mothra, power rangers with zords, or dudes who grow to giant size like Ultraman - but in any case their human form is a high school student with emotional problems.
Total War. The players represent the Earth Self Defense Force as a whole, and like Ars Magica they rotate playing major and minor characters. in this setup, there are some characters who simply don't have giant robots to pilot or monsters to summon or transform into, and that's OK because not all scenarios involve giant monster battles. Some of them are cult investigations, and then the players play other characters.

CthulhuTech itself was totally incoherent as to what kind of game it wanted to be, but once you nailed that down it seems like it could be done. It also seemed totally weird to me to have two playable races and have them be Humans and Zentradi. Because it seems like once you've thrown open the floodgates of players playing non-humans, and you've brought Mythos on board, then people should be able to be Goat Spawn, Ghouls, and Deep Ones. And if people are in an Anime set in the magic-augmented future with giant robots and shit, they should be able to be Androids, Cat Girls, and probably standard order Demons. I just don't even understand the thought process of having more than one playable race and yet having less than five. Two seems like literally the worst possible number.

-Username17

angelfromanotherpin · Tue Jan 22, 2013 12:12 am

I think you'd want to go with something that incorporated both human sized super heroes and giant monsters. Total War could do that, but I see a situation where human sized super heroes also have giant monster resources, but whipping out the giant monster is something you only do in fairly limited circumstances, because giant monsters cause enough collateral damage (physical, psychic, whatever) that targeting even tank forces with them usually isn't worth the cost, plus that collateral damage tends to obliterate any clues you were trying to discover, and so forth.

Basically, giant monsters would be used freely for major offensive actions against the enemy and to repel attacking giant monsters, and any other situation would be a desperate last resort. The rest of your time you get to do special operations work as a super hero.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Tue Jan 22, 2013 12:24 am

Maybe we should take this to IMHO.

http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=304934

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Tue Jan 22, 2013 12:52 am

So, on a different note, I mentioned silly hats for the custom FE12 character in the Video Games thread. Behold.

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Marth speaks for us all.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Tue Jan 22, 2013 12:57 am

haha, nice. Maybe I should go looking for a ROM

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Tue Jan 22, 2013 1:32 am

I did laugh, but I felt kind of bad about it.[/list]

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Tue Jan 22, 2013 1:33 am

I don't.

name_here wrote:So, on a different note, I mentioned silly hats for the custom FE12 character in the Video Games thread. Behold.

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Marth speaks for us all.

That hat is awesome. I may have to get the game solely for it.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Tue Jan 22, 2013 1:52 am

Eclipse Phase dot jpeg

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Tue Jan 22, 2013 3:09 am

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Tue Jan 22, 2013 6:13 am

I linked the wrong image 2 posts back. Fixed now.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Tue Jan 22, 2013 6:24 am

(moved to CTech thread)

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Tue Jan 22, 2013 6:46 am

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Tue Jan 22, 2013 12:38 pm

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Tue Jan 22, 2013 6:08 pm

So...I have no words.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Tue Jan 22, 2013 6:19 pm

bwahaahahaha ^^

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Tue Jan 22, 2013 11:16 pm

Digital Logic has the best puns:

Essence · Post by **Essence** » Wed Jan 23, 2013 10:54 pm