OSSR Request Thread

TheFlatline · Post by **TheFlatline** » Tue Jan 21, 2014 8:30 am

Considering Forgotten Realms was Ed Greenwood's campaign, I'd suggest that there never was a point where there *wasn't* Mary Sue NPCs.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Tue Jan 21, 2014 8:41 pm

So, anyone wants to review Adventure!, Aberrant or what's_the_third_book's_name?

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Jan 25, 2014 1:00 am

Ancient History wrote:Make you a deal: do a full review of Farcast and I'll review Weapons of Legacy.

Just out of curiosity, what was the big problem with Weapons of Legacy? I'm not saying it was in any way good, mechanically, but the concept is promising, at least.

Seerow · Post by **Seerow** » Sat Jan 25, 2014 1:34 am

Prak_Anima wrote:
Ancient History wrote:Make you a deal: do a full review of Farcast and I'll review Weapons of Legacy.
Just out of curiosity, what was the big problem with Weapons of Legacy? I'm not saying it was in any way good, mechanically, but the concept is promising, at least.

Review Farcast and find out!

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Jan 25, 2014 1:41 am

There are 365 posts... hence why I just asked what was the big problem, not for a review.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Sat Jan 25, 2014 3:58 am

Review a single post of Farcast and perhaps someone will tell you a single problem about Weapons of Legacy!

... Perhaps if it's as bad as I can remember we can produce 365 individual objections.

sake · Post by **sake** » Sat Jan 25, 2014 4:22 am

I could swear I saw Frank do a review of Weapons of Legacy a long time ago.

If I can recall it had the same problems most of 3/3.5's non caster stuff has, fighters have to run naked through a corn field backwards just to get a few shitty SLA's, like seven levels after casters got them, and with DC's that would never hit a level appropriate creature, and the item might randomly just decide "fuck you! I'm not feeling it today!" and decide not to work at all leaving you shit up a creak if that was your main weapon.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Sat Jan 25, 2014 6:27 pm

Prak_Anima wrote:There are 365 posts... hence why I just asked what was the big problem, not for a review.

366. I started at 000. 'cause I'm an engineer.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Sat Jan 25, 2014 6:35 pm

Prak_Anima wrote:
Ancient History wrote:Make you a deal: do a full review of Farcast and I'll review Weapons of Legacy.
Just out of curiosity, what was the big problem with Weapons of Legacy? I'm not saying it was in any way good, mechanically, but the concept is promising, at least.

In a nutshell, Weapons of Legacy was another attempt to try and address the wealth-by-level problem of D&D3.x. See, in AD&D it was assumed that magic items were relatively rare scarce, and a PC could not count on having any given magic item - so a legendary +3 sword at 18th level wasn't particularly out of character or unusual. D&D3.x got it in its head that higher levels should correspond to commensurate equipment - I kinda blame JRPGs and WarCraft for this - where you're supposed to be more or less constantly swapping out equipment as better stuff comes along. There are some inherent problems in the whole thing, because it means a low-level character with higher-level equipment can stomp his challenges, and higher-level threats need commensurate equipment/boosts to keep up...which is why Bastion of Broken Souls consists of like half a dozen combats where everybody has their own power-up suite.

ANyway, long story short, Weapons of Legacy looks like it wants to be threaded items from Earthdawn - i.e. awesome weapons that level up as you do and get awesomer - but they're really more similar to the Soulknife or Incarnum classes in purpose, and mechanically no-one is going to take a level just to level-up their Legacy item anymore than someone is going to drop three levels on Drow Paragon or something.

darkmaster · Post by **darkmaster** » Sat Jan 25, 2014 7:01 pm

Your italics tag is broken.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Sat Jan 25, 2014 7:12 pm

Don't care!

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sun Jan 26, 2014 4:19 am

Anyone here have Torchbearer?

I'm extremely tempted to buy it myself because the promotional material and promised experience does appeal to me (and hey, I do like Mouse Guard), but if you think I'm going to drop down $15.00 for a fucking pdf without some rock-solid credentials you're out of your fucking mind.

Seerow · Post by **Seerow** » Sun Jan 26, 2014 4:49 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Anyone here have Torchbearer?

I'm extremely tempted to buy it myself because the promotional material and promised experience does appeal to me (and hey, I do like Mouse Guard), but if you think I'm going to drop down $15.00 for a fucking pdf without some rock-solid credentials you're out of your fucking mind.

I got it during the Kickstarter. I actually only read the first few chapters before something else came up, and haven't gotten around to finishing it.

I could probably do a review of it if nobody else happened to grab it (especially since I never did the Mouse Guard review everyone recommended last time I asked. Mostly because I couldn't find a physical copy of Mouse Guard for under 100 bucks), but it won't be for a couple weeks at least.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sun Jan 26, 2014 4:25 pm

Well, if anyone does a review of a BW system (especially Torchbearer or Mouseguard) someone has to do some kind of analysis as to why those systems throw OSR grognards into a tizzy. Something about Luke Crane or whoever being the biggest hipster who ever hipstered.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sun Jan 26, 2014 4:25 pm

Well, if anyone does a review of a BW system (especially Torchbearer or Mouseguard) someone has to do some kind of analysis as to why those systems throw OSR grognards into a tizzy. Something about Luke Crane or whoever being the biggest hipster who ever hipstered.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Thu Jan 30, 2014 1:09 pm

So there were some postal delays at my end, but my books arrive tomorrow. There was a phone call and everything. When that happens, I think I'll flip through them to see which is most worthy of an alcohol-inducing review.

I mean, SLA is awesome, but that's kind of why I don't want to review it yet: the most entertaining ones are the ones where you need to resort to swearing and image macros. And I'm 293% certain that White Wolf can deliver when it comes to that!

But one day in the future, SLA will get a solid review, and I'll try to find things that are worth pointing out as particularly good design, things that are worth pointing out as being bad and I just didn't remember them, and generally interesting stuff. And then others can go "Woah, wait a minute, that book had ____, how the fuck did you not mention that? That completely [makes/ruins] the game!"

talozin · Post by **talozin** » Thu Jan 30, 2014 5:52 pm

That took way too damn long. I was starting to wonder if you moved to Coober Pedy or something and left no forwarding address.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Fri Jan 31, 2014 1:04 am

Link to farcast?
(because lazy)

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Fri Jan 31, 2014 1:12 am

http://farcastblog.com

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Fri Jan 31, 2014 1:27 am

It's been way too long since we've had some elven hate.

Which Shadowrun books have copious amounts of elf fappery in them, such that we can mock them?

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Fri Jan 31, 2014 1:39 am

Tir Tairngire and Tir na nOg. Also the London Sourcebook, but that would require copious mead to get through properly.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Fri Jan 31, 2014 2:06 am

Do go on.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Fri Jan 31, 2014 2:17 am

Tir Tairngire came first, and was almost unplayable. It was like Nazi Rivindell, except there was even less reason to go there. It wasn't the start of the Immortal Elf fappery, but it was probably the early high point and it was so bad that the setting really didn't revisit it for entire editions.

The London Sourcebook was a bizarre hate crime against the United Kingdom and all surrounding areas, and yes there is elf fappery (in Wales!) if you can sort through the rest of the crap that gave us four of the five or six different flavors of Druids in SR.

Tir na nOg was written by the same perpetrators, and is the proper SR equivalent to the Master Race's Handbook. There's so much fappery there I'm amazed people didn't go blind...but then there is the fact that whathisname disappeared off the face of the planet not long after, so that might be something.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Fri Jan 31, 2014 2:32 am

Was The London Sourcebook a figurative hate crime or a literal hate crime? I don't like to have to make that kind of distinction, but...

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Fri Jan 31, 2014 2:57 am

talozin wrote:That took way too damn long. I was starting to wonder if you moved to Coober Pedy or something and left no forwarding address.

Basically, I live in a podunk shithole town (it calls itself a city, but there is a cow paddock just a two-minute walk from my house), and a lot of people know each other, at least in regards to the over-40 crowd. So the postal guy knows my stepdad* and probably knows my mum too. Now, my mother changed her name when she remarried. They have a daughter together, same last name as them. I did not change my last name.

So basically, and this is pretty unprofessional, he went "Huh? I know that address, no-one by that name lives there!" and then wondered "What if they meant unit 157 at Bay Village?" (the nearest retirement home... at which my mum works). So it was by sheer chance that they eventually called to ask if they had a resident by that name and she answered the phone.

Granted, they probably would have just tried again otherwise, actually checking rather than going by what they totally know is the case.

*If someone has ever been to high school, my stepdad taught them at some point.