Nephilim, Superworld - Does Anyone Still Play These RPGs?

[Ian Absentia]

Bleah, yes, you're right. Reversed those two. That's what I get for waxing poetic. Regardless, it's on an upswing again, and it's pretty stuff.

!I!

[umlauthuth]

I have a weird urge to run a kind of reverse-Nephilim game where the PCs are working for the Fraternitas Saturnii or the like, hunting Nephilim. Really hit the gnostic themes. 

[Ian Absentia]

2 hours ago, umlauthuth said:

I have a weird urge to run a kind of reverse-Nephilim game where the PCs are working for the Fraternitas Saturnii or the like, hunting Nephilim. Really hit the gnostic themes. 

*cough* Call of Cthulhu *cough* Lloigor *cough*

!i!

[Qizilbashwoman]

1 hour ago, Ian Absentia said:

*cough* Call of Cthulhu *cough* Lloigor *cough*

Lloegr is Welsh for "England", and appears in Medieval Welsh as Lloigor, which never ceases to amuse me

[SDLeary]

58 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

Lloegr is Welsh for "England", and appears in Medieval Welsh as Lloigor, which never ceases to amuse me

Lloegyr is Welsh for "The Foreign Lands". If you look at a map, its generally equated to the area southeast of the Fosse Way, and equates to the area most heavily Romanized. Oddly, its also the area the Welsh thought was most English, and today is the area that considers itself British as opposed to Welsh, English, or Scottish. In other words it really translates to "Them odd folk who don't think like us proper folk". 😉

I have never seen it spelled Lloigor though. Would you have a source?

And the Lloigor that I know should be hunted, lest they regain a foothold and enslave us!

SDLeary

Edited September 15, 2019 by SDLeary

[Qizilbashwoman]

30 minutes ago, SDLeary said:

I have never seen it spelled Lloigor though. Would you have a source?

Oh my books are so buried, but it's middle welsh for sure. lloegr is singular and appears in words like lloegr newydd "new england"

https://cy.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lloegr_Newydd

[umlauthuth]

On 9/14/2019 at 10:25 PM, Ian Absentia said:

*cough* Call of Cthulhu *cough* Lloigor *cough*

!i!

If I were to make a specific CoC connection, I’d probably take the Nephilim to be offspring of Yog-Sothoth a la Dunwich Horror. 

[Ian Absentia]

15 hours ago, umlauthuth said:

If I were to make a specific CoC connection, I’d probably take the Nephilim to be offspring of Yog-Sothoth a la Dunwich Horror. 

Or perhaps the Great Race of Yith from "Shadow Out of Time" -- there are several potential angles.  (And speaking of angles and trans-temporal adventure, how 'bout them Hounds of Tindalos?)

So how would your campaign compare with a Call of Cthulhu adventure?  In CoC, the action is typically Thwart & Destroy, where the monsters are categorically unsympathetic.  In a Nephilim campaign, or even a counter-Nephilim game, the "monsters" may actually have humanity's best interests at heart, even if it may not be immediately evident.  Taking the whole body possession issue off the table, how would your Fraternitas Saturnii players react to a potentially sympathetic adversary?

!i!

[umlauthuth]

The Yithians lack the “literally they’re just nephilim tho” angle that Dunwich Horror has. 

Are the nephilim sympathetic, or is the game material just written from a nephilim-centric viewpoint?

Edited September 25, 2019 by umlauthuth

[Ian Absentia]

You'd have to play the game to find out.  That's where the adventure lies.

As I suggested above, though, it sounds like you're interested in playing Call of Cthulhu, not Nephilim.  Which is fine -- I played a Call of Cthulhu campaign from the POV of the monsters a good half-decade before the publication of Vampire: the Masquerade.  Shine on.

!i!

Edited September 25, 2019 by Ian Absentia

[lawrence.whitaker]

The Mythras Matters podcast (http://www.buzzsprout.com/266482/1783405-1-6-super-powers-and-fluttering-capes?play=true) deals specifically with our forthcoming Superheroes game for Mythras. It features a detailed interview with Brian Pivik and Mike Larrimore, the dynamic duo behind the new rules. It offers a great insight into the design process and the approach we're taking to the superhero genre.

[seneschal]

A nice POD edition of Superworld would would be a good option.  It would help keep the product alive as a physical thing without burdening Chaosium with inventory.  I’d combine it with the Companion for completeness and playability.  While I agree with others that Champions is the better rules set, Chaosium is currently in a stronger position to promote its product than Hero Games.  And Superworld remains a historically significant game.  Take full advantage!  I’d have a terrible time getting my hands on Champions 3rd edition if I ever lost my copy.  Why let the V&V folks have all the fun and profits?

[General Kong]

On 9/9/2019 at 11:19 AM, Kloster said:

"Bad Medicine for Dr Drugs" was not that bad.

Yeah. Ok, it was!!

Hmmm, I totally disagree. My group hat a lot of fun with it in our Dark Champions campaign. I considered it THE BEST Module for Superworld!

Not that there were that many ...

[Kloster]

45 minutes ago, Der Rote Baron said:

I considered it THE BEST Module for Superworld!

You were probably right.

45 minutes ago, Der Rote Baron said:

Not that there were that many ..

This is probably the reason why it can be highly ranked.

[General Kong]

Thta is true but even though it sounded as I wanted to say "Sweetesr of a all the sour grapes" I really like it and would recommende it for low-powered  street level vigilantes, teen supers or four-coloured superheroes looking for something different.

I think it is a good adventure. Sad that there weren't more like "Bad Medicine"!

[Ian Absentia]

29 minutes ago, Der Rote Baron said:

I think it is a good adventure. Sad that there weren't more like "Bad Medicine"!

Given the spotty quality of most monthly comics that the game attempted to emulate, it's sad that there weren't just more adventures of any kind.

!i!

[seneschal]

I always ripped off adventures from multiple games, regardless of who published them.  I can get the gist of a villain from one game system and create a reasonable facsimile in another:  in fact, several supplements from that era actually included stats for 2-4 different games.

[ORtrail]

On 10/1/2019 at 6:25 AM, lawrence.whitaker said:

The Mythras Matters podcast (http://www.buzzsprout.com/266482/1783405-1-6-super-powers-and-fluttering-capes?play=true) deals specifically with our forthcoming Superheroes game for Mythras. It features a detailed interview with Brian Pivik and Mike Larrimore, the dynamic duo behind the new rules. It offers a great insight into the design process and the approach we're taking to the superhero genre.

I'm always up for adding another super hero RPG to my collection.  Superworld was my  go to game for a couple decades, before Supers! Revised took its place, but I'd like to see another take on supers using a BRP type system. 

[MoonRightRomantic]

On 9/25/2019 at 9:00 AM, umlauthuth said:

The Yithians lack the “literally they’re just nephilim tho” angle that Dunwich Horror has. 

Are the nephilim sympathetic, or is the game material just written from a nephilim-centric viewpoint?

The English adaptation was not a faithful translation. It made a bunch of changes to the lore and replaced core mechanics in supplements. About a decade ago some of the freelancers and other Nephilim fans from the mailing list drafted plans for a new edition tentatively named Ex Oculus. In this setting, the nephilim were changed to reincarnating human souls with elemental powers. It paid lip-service to the prior edition by claiming there was evidence to the contrary without ever showing any and letting PCs choose their own POV. 

The English adaptation’s awakened human concept appears loosely in the French third edition as the character type Ar-Kaïm. They are awakened humans with elemental powers, but no past lives or ancient identity. They deal primarily with mundane concerns over occult.

I would really like to see the English adaptation get a chance to explore its nascent ideas. Concepts like selenim, xian-ren, shamanism, revised summoning, and so forth never got explored in the new lore and rules context. I have no idea how ar-kaïm would be handled therein.

With the yahoo group shuttering, the English mailing list archives are being deleted forever and the few people who posted recently have moved to a new list on groups.io opened by Shannon Patrick. Sadly the cost to easy import the yahoo archives is too high ($200 last I checked) so it never sent out a message to the whole member list. Until December this is your last chance to archive anything.

[Superworld for Adults]

I am currently running a Supetwprld campaign, st in the turn if thr 19th to 20th century. Its kind nf of a Tesla punk setting. It has been real interesring. So far its been Hellboy , Deadlanfs ,Cthulu , and a little DC anf Marcel Universe shaken up with a Michael Moorcock , Alan Moore flare  Its like a Star Wars Penny Dreadfyl . But uts fun and the game mechanics are easy and can be manipukated . We play by Zoom because of Covid. Its my turn to be Ref , and I found premade adventure / Scenaruos pretty packed ng . So I have created most my self and borrowed from different games and classic novels erc. 

[Warframe44]

Like Kloster I switched from Superworld to Champions in the 80's. Part of the attraction with HERO was how cleanly it scaled upward. It felt more like a comic book adventure. BRP remains my go-to for pretty much everything else. BRP is gritty, realistic, and easier to write for.

[RogerDee]

11 hours ago, Warframe44 said:

Like Kloster I switched from Superworld to Champions in the 80's. Part of the attraction with HERO was how cleanly it scaled upward. It felt more like a comic book adventure. BRP remains my go-to for pretty much everything else. BRP is gritty, realistic, and easier to write for.

I think the main issue with Hero, is that it is incredibly fiddly and maths orientated such that some find the level of crunch difficult (it makes many D100 systems look like child's play in comparison). The end result being that many go to M&M as it is far simpler - but can tend to create broken right out of the box if you are not very, very careful.

 

Edited December 17, 2020 by RogerDee

[Warframe44]

28 minutes ago, RogerDee said:

I think the main issue with Hero, is that it is incredibly fiddly and maths orientated such that some find the level of crunch difficult (it makes many D100 systems look like child's play in comparison). The end result being that many go to M&M as it is far simpler - but can tend to create broken right out of the box if you are not very, very careful.

 

M&M's DnD roots drive me crazy. I'm really not fond of that game, although M&M has some great parts to it (the wonky damage system notwithstanding).

You're on the money regarding Hero. It's much easier if you get hero Designer, which does the math for you. You just need to watch the point totals. HD is spendy though, considering it's age and clunkiness. You could be close to $100 US for the main books plus the software. and maybe the Powers book. Makes for a large buy in.

Where BRP nails it is the community. Us. The BRP community is very accepting of homebrews and variants on the system. I love that. I moderate the BRP reddit and see it all the time. People support Mythras, BRP, RQ, Pendragon, COC and other great games that aren't BRP "Vanilla" (BRP is anything but!). Using BRP as the base for my own work has been tremendously freeing as a result. Why? Because we're cool with doing things a little differently. With coming up with fresh new ways to do something.

There's a lot of value with BRP

 

[RogerDee]

11 hours ago, Warframe44 said:

M&M's DnD roots drive me crazy. I'm really not fond of that game, although M&M has some great parts to it (the wonky damage system notwithstanding).

You're on the money regarding Hero. It's much easier if you get hero Designer, which does the math for you. You just need to watch the point totals. HD is spendy though, considering it's age and clunkiness. You could be close to $100 US for the main books plus the software. and maybe the Powers book. Makes for a large buy in.

Where BRP nails it is the community. Us. The BRP community is very accepting of homebrews and variants on the system. I love that. I moderate the BRP reddit and see it all the time. People support Mythras, BRP, RQ, Pendragon, COC and other great games that aren't BRP "Vanilla" (BRP is anything but!). Using BRP as the base for my own work has been tremendously freeing as a result. Why? Because we're cool with doing things a little differently. With coming up with fresh new ways to do something.

There's a lot of value with BRP

You are right about Hero Designer, it is simply too expensive to shell out on a friggin' hobby, another example of overly expensive was Invisible Sun.

M&M does have some good parts in there, I do like the cosmology, in that it helped me put my own together following some of the ideas in their books. There is some good community in M&M Discord, one thing I do like is that one of the Power Level X villains is basically called Quirk, in essence their own Q Continuum expy (kind of made me chuckle).

My only gripe with BRP is lethality, such that I am tending to go freeform, and allow players a list of traits, etc that they can pick from to make them exceptional, kind of like in Pulp Cthulhu. I am not into games where players are ne'er do wells, I want them to be heroes and all the baggage that comes with that, no matter the setting.

 

 

[Chaot]

On 12/16/2020 at 10:38 PM, Superworld for Adults said:

I am currently running a Supetwprld campaign, st in the turn if thr 19th to 20th century. Its kind nf of a Tesla punk setting. It has been real interesring. So far its been Hellboy , Deadlanfs ,Cthulu , and a little DC anf Marcel Universe shaken up with a Michael Moorcock , Alan Moore flare  Its like a Star Wars Penny Dreadfyl . 

That sounds great! I ran a short campaign using SuperWorld a few years ago but it was kinda tongue in cheek. We set it in the '80s cause that's what it was written for. If I remember correctly we generated characters completely randomly, but I may be misremembering on that. It was a great time.

Anyway, welcome to the boards Superworld for Adults.