Lloyd Dupont

Daring to share a possibly unpopular opinion I am willing to claim, I find the universal bad rep of Necromancer a bit over the top and irrational.

I mean adventurers have been killing people since forever and it's fine. But raising a skeleton cow suddenly make you a mad sickening despicable individual?
Nope, I  dare say! The necromancer is the doctor of the magic world! (who were shunned for digging body for "scientific" research)

I will argue no further and leave each one one to their own conscience on the necromancer guilt, or lack of there of.

However, I understand that a good RPG story might need some villains. A Necromancer ring seem the ideal typical villainous faction (augmented by numerous undead folklore stories all around).
But, playing Assassin Creed Odyssey, watching some of the statues in The Underworld and also thinking of some creative spell I read elsewhere... I am thinking of a new, novel, perhaps even more entertaining villain. For lack of a better word I would call them, the Fleshomancers!

Mad Wizard (let me tell you, those are definitely mad and psychopathic!) who merge multiple living creature's body to create some monstrous chimera. Merging their flesh into some unholy construct and, most verily, shattering their mind in the process!
They shall forever be marked with the sign of inexpiable shame!

Oh you can whine, don't worry!   
I am past all the grievance stage to acceptance by now!.. (plus finally got better too! 😮 ) 

I know that, I have been sick all the time for the last 47 years! 😮  😕 
Luckily I finally found out the problem!  

Good on you mate for your recovery! Tiger Bill is back!

Wow.. I have to share...

I dunno about other Assassin Creed game. Odyssey is my first one. In this game there is a hint of surnatural, just a hint. Like the hero can jump from any height without damage.. And sometimes NPC mention "how does she do that", but it's mostly mundane otherwise...

So, when after like 120 hours I discover the gate of Atlantis, I was thrilled! 😮
But it was just the gate of a dead city then....

80 hours later in the game I... went into Elysium, and The Underworld! This was magical! 😮 The Gods are real, let me tell you! And they are spiteful and nothing to like about them...
Anyway, the underworld is amazing, so well rendered, I can help but gaze in wonder at the despair around me, and marvel! 😮 

(FYI this does require the "Fate of Atlantis" DLC, it's an humongously big DLC of incredible quality! 😮 ) 

Ha yes, that's Cerberus. We have to fight it to get in....

Anyway I can say my purpose in life is to become a traveller of the planes of existence! 😮   😛 

Using luck point can increase tension has they go down, and also reduce the need to fudge..

But of course, fudging is good when you misjudge the situation...  It's just called, rectifying the odds!  

Well, the easiest thing to do, I guess, since we can't all agree, is to go explore this forbidding aliens ruin at night in separate group! This way no argument and w can cover more ground quickly!  

When I look at people around me it remind me that we are not very rationale... And I suddenly remember my younger years at school, I should have understod that watching my school mate completely fail at Maths, haha

Mmm.. Isn't it a bit early for Canada to relax thing?! 😮
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/canada/#graph-active-cases-total

Also, there are many factor, some quite simple that can affect the virus...
According to stats many African country have very low rate of infection, which I found odd and doubtful, maybe they simply have bad stats?
It seems, though, that it's somewhat true, they have, I guess less travel and much younger average population age.. but also, surprisingly, much more common mask manufacture and usage! Simple helpful measure! 😮 

Wow, that was an exhaustive answer! Thanks hey!  

Err.. silly question here, but it looks like some D&D spec... what is this doing there? Is there level and class in 13th Age Glorantha?! 😮 

(I am not not playing that, just watching what's new in Chaosium forums)

Hey I think it's a great opportunity to share my thoughts (I changed my mind a lot, I have to confess) on the state of magic in the various D100 products... so far....

What I have to say below... will be controversial. I caveat by saying it can be argued it's largely a matter of taste, and this is my taste. So, well... you might or might not have the same problem... Lots of people don't, apparently. But i think I can summarise my thoughts nicely anyway. So here we go:

My comparison points (the rules I know) RuneQuest 3 (in 1995), Mythras 2 (the latest), Revolution D100, BRP (4, the latest)
(i.e. I dunno if RuneQuest in Glorantha has changed that)

In those system you general have a divine magic, a common magic and a specialised magic (often call sorcery). And sorcery is problematic.

Make a beginner wizard and your character is right away overpowered.
The way GM combat that (and you should for the party's sake) is by restricting spell access "those spells are are" (or forbidding player to play a sorcerer). But this doesn't make sense (and is frustrating for the player). If I am a rich noble trying to make an army, a sorcerous army will give me the best result by far with the lowest investment (why buy an expensive metal armor when a beginner sorceror can protect 5 people with the equivalent of a plate mail for almost nothing for days)

I think only BRP (almost) nailed it (add idea from Classic Fantasy), here is why.
In BRP, the flexible discipline is called Magic.
They vaguely suggest to restrict magic to "wizard" but who care about that hey? Anyway you have to level each spell independently (take time, particularly if you use XP instead of skill check mark), then each spell has a very modest effect (a single near by target for a short while) for usual 4~5MP. Result in about 2 or 3 spell per day. Magic is not that good an investment, but it has cool effect. 
Good start! But what about making, you know, a "real" Wizard?
Here comes CF (Classic Fantasy) to the rescue. In BRP there are some suggestion to get additional MP to Wizard (average suggestion, yes more MP is good, but there is more to be an arch wizard that owning a cool staff). IN CF, after spending a phenomenal effort (XP/skill check), you get spell cost reduction (increase slowly with Knowledge Arcane beyond 100%, -1/10%, you can see the effort required here) enable the character to cast more powerful spell more often. 
I think this exactly what I wanted!

Also, Sorcery in BRP is different form RuneQuest sorcery (more like Spirit Magic in RQ, but from Demon and Gods instead of spirit) and it has a cool feel too.

Mm.. sorry to intrude...
I am not much into CoC verily.... (more like BRP), just following the conversations here...

But it suddenly struck me... Why take great pain and incur great cost to steal a book from a library?
You could just get a member card and check it out!  

One question for Savant though.. I noticed some Talent are Professional Talent, i.e. you need the profession to acquire the talent...

how does one acquire a new profession?!

Haha.. as I am making a Bookmark table to more easily navigate the book I notice a funny thing: What Sabre calls Attribute are what all Chaosium games call Characteristics, and what Sabre calls Characteristics are what all Chaosium games calls Attribute! 😮 😅

Other than that the list is similar... but different.. For example Sabre "Attributes" are Strength, Agility, Constitution, Intellect, Charisma. i.e. all 5 of them!

Just a quick summary of my first impression of a quick 3 hours read of 800 pages of sourcebooks 

- for the low price tag it's a lot of material: each rule book (fantasy and scifi) is about 400 pages...
- (PDF) pagination is gorgeous, though no bookmark  but lots of links inside each sections from summary table to detailed descriptions back and forth
- it hits the uncanny valley, it's like BRP, but it's not. It's like D&D but it's not.. I will need a lot more reading to have any sort of authoritative opinion 
- no class, no level, no humongous HP (nor no weakass location HP neither), yeah!
- HP, magic cost and mechanic, combat mechanic have much more of a D&D feels to it than BRP... (at least it seems at first glance) (since there is no class no level and no HP explosions, I consider that a plus) (though it depends on skill% which increase way too easily under default rules, i think). I guess it's an interestingly fresh take that I will ponder whether I can use instead of the BRP one
- talents, feats, stunts, whatyouhaveit (additional bonus that uniquely tailor and describe your character), so many special talents (you get a few, as you start in life and level up to personalise your character) that can be learned, just the summary list of talents is 15 pages long! (for the fantasy book) most of them seems a little weak.. but they pile up for devastating effect as you learn more of them
- everything talent (from magic to combat effect) (seems to) cost like 1 spirit point and you have a few of them, say 10 (from a cursory look), the power increase (moderately) with your talent and skill% not really with the spirit cost. the economic of that seems appealing...
- available player races, while loosely inspired from common literature, are mostly new creation from Dragonsbane Entertainment
- sometimes I look at D&D spell list and i think "wow there are too many spells! :O", in those books there are... "too many of everything" (you can feel the 7 years of creative work)
- "levelling up ", apart from slowly increasing your skill, about every 5 session (or less in case of earlier adventure success) one can buy a talent. The accumulation of which differentiate the beginner from the journeyman. But one start relatively good in his profession, as expected

Mmm... anyway, that's very preliminary and barely informed feedback, for those of you that might be curious... I think that needs more reading...




 

Dang!
Aussie unite!  
 

4 hours to go.... Before I can be home and have a look too... 😮 🙄😅

Just a matter of curiosity.. Is it hard to publish hard copies?
I noticed many RPG supplement advertise here are PDF only.... 😕 
 

Well.. I did ponder that a bit.. (after seeing a scifi setting with demons and sorcery) but, for now, I don't think I am going that route... my scifi would be more or less atheistic... (so am I and my players..)

Although... I got another idea while googling (at work, oops)

- many could be lied too...
- but a few powerful member will need more than simple lies.. (like head of industries..) but come to think of it.. the head of the cult can do more than simple lie.. (he has Antarian tech, including communication devices to Antarian planet, it can polymorph)...

Hey, you're an Aussie too!
So.. when are you moving to Brisbane?

Looking for a GM doing D100 and something else than fantasy!  

For my Master of Orion setting I plan to have some cultist that want to summon Antarian to rain fire and destruction on their world...

Now I was wondering, this seem nihilistic, self destructive, doomed and pointless... I know why the head of the cult want to do it.. but I am not sure it makes sense it gather many followers...
Antarians don't distribute favor much if at all.... 

Then I thought, I know who to ask about this conundrum! Our Cult specialist CoC GMs!
So, what's the point of being a cultist? Why are there cultists at all?! 😮 

OMG! Now, too, I have seen the sign! 😮

Only $5, yeah!
I might buy the scifi book for inspiration!  

Working on a (semi original) scifi setting meself atm, with not much hurry, and looking for inspirations sources!

That's what I realise afterwards indeed!

Mmm... while we are at it.. I think you have an opinion on that topic..
Do you think 200% is a good maximum skill value?
It's just that otherwise, creating a NPC god seems a bit arbitrary otherwise...
 

True, I didn't see that coming! 😮
Praise our lord and savior John Cleese!