Posted: Tue Jan 29, 2013 6:21 am
Some pretty cool setting ideas here. It'd be fairly amusing if players ended up gravitating towards Toth Amon's people just because their society looked most like one in the modern day.
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hyzmarca wrote:Motels in the future don't have magic fingers beds, they have magic tongue beds.
The question is, does it fit our design goals better if everyone has a dataport installed as soon as it's medically viable, or does it fit better if the creature's tentacles burrow their own port?Those are very good reasons. I just wanted to be able to type "her computer slithered up her arm and slid itself into her dataport."
"But it's my pet..."Planned obsolesce is still a thing, and you wouldn't want to be caught with last year's squidputer. You'd never live it down.
But to the Union, Lemurian tech seems inhuman, because it doesn't even have anything resembling human in it.Yeah. The Lemurians should have the clean and sterile ipod look in their tech, and should be a lot more like us, though with heavy emphasis on AI drones. The Union should be just gross enough to seem almost inhuman.
Tentacle rape monster exercise machineThat sounds good.
You might also have an engineered heartworm that scrubs cholesterol out of your arteries. There's plenty of room for gross medical tech.
Why would the Lemurians be more sympathetic? They already have, "exterminate several friendly races," as one of their primary goals.zeruslord wrote:I don't think we want to position the Lemurians as being significantly more human/sympathetic than the Union.
Burrowing their own port is creepier, but it isn't practical if you want them easily detached.RadiantPhoenix wrote:The question is, does it fit our design goals better if everyone has a dataport installed as soon as it's medically viable, or does it fit better if the creature's tentacles burrow their own port?Those are very good reasons. I just wanted to be able to type "her computer slithered up her arm and slid itself into her dataport."
EDIT:Why would the Lemurians be more sympathetic? They already have, "exterminate several friendly races," as one of their primary goals.zeruslord wrote:I don't think we want to position the Lemurians as being significantly more human/sympathetic than the Union.
For comparison, the Union just looks weird.
They're iNazis.Chamomile wrote:I actually like the idea of the Lemurians looking like what our vision of the future is. Glossy Apple aesthetics dominate and all the technology is clean, sterile, and safe-looking...But that's because the Lemurians put all their effort into being what humans think advanced technology should look like, rather than what it actually is. The Lemurians are all form over function, rejecting things that look creepy or provoke existential panic as automatically evil regardless of what the actual effects of the technology are.
I adore this.Chamomile wrote:I actually like the idea of the Lemurians looking like what our vision of the future is. Glossy Apple aesthetics dominate and all the technology is clean, sterile, and safe-looking...But that's because the Lemurians put all their effort into being what humans think advanced technology should look like, rather than what it actually is. The Lemurians are all form over function, rejecting things that look creepy or provoke existential panic as automatically evil regardless of what the actual effects of the technology are.
Sounds good so far.hyzmarca wrote:The way I see it, first and second gen neural nets were your standard chrome cyberpunk datajacks and were abysmally unpopular because they required major brain surgery to install and didn't provide much extra functionality. Third generation neural nets were developed after the Yith Incursion and include mindshield technology, which prevents people from remotely ripping your consciousness out and replacing you (it is less effective against face-to-face bodyswaping). Fourth Generation was a complete redesign from the ground up intended to be installed by synthetic bacteria.
I'm not sure about the requiring boosters or the growing with the child. While the 'boosters' thing is just a feeling, I would presume it would be more convenient to just make the orifice the 'right size' to begin with as soon as it's feasible, and leave it at that size.Instillation is relatively simple. You get an injection, take a few nutritional supplements, and the bacteria build it over the course of a month. This can be done immediately after birth or even pre-natal, and is treated like a standard vaccine. Annual booster shots ensure that it continues to grow with the child.
I was going to ask why behind the ear instead of on the back of the neck or something symmetrical, but then I thought about it -- It's practical, because there's already a hole there, and it's a bit creepy, which is appropriate, without doing anything to make the main protagonists any less of, "the good guys," which is nice, and you get to joke about, "ear worms," which is funny.Rather than a cyberpunk chrome jack, the dataport is a biological orifice seamlessly grown into the head, usually behind the right ear.
It could be compared to a vagina if you wanted to be puerile, as it bears some resemblance due to form following function, but there's really nothing sexual about it and it lacks the sensory nerves necessary to provide pleasure. It's self-lubricating for easy computer insertion, highly acidic to kill most microorganisms, and has an elastic membrane to keep dirt out when not in use.
I like this.They're iNazis.
The port being a standard size is a given. However, it isn't just the opening. It's also a network of artificial nerves that are tied directly into the brain. They have to be adjusted as the brain grows. Requiring boosters isn't necessary for flavor, though. We can just say that the bacteria continue to reproduce inside the brain and remain there forever, constantly maintaining the artificial nerves. Boosters wouldn't be a requirement so much as it's good practice to make sure that your brain bacteria colony is in working order and topped off.RadiantPhoenix wrote:I'm not sure about the requiring boosters or the growing with the child. While the 'boosters' thing is just a feeling, I would presume it would be more convenient to just make the orifice the 'right size' to begin with as soon as it's feasible, and leave it at that size.Instillation is relatively simple. You get an injection, take a few nutritional supplements, and the bacteria build it over the course of a month. This can be done immediately after birth or even pre-natal, and is treated like a standard vaccine. Annual booster shots ensure that it continues to grow with the child.
It's a convenient spot, too. Assuming that you have a right hand you can easily reach it. If you only have a left hand reaching it becomes moderately more difficult, but still possible. Back of the neck is symmetrical but it requires some contortions and would be more difficult to locate one-handed. So it's out of the way, partially hidden, but easily accessible.I was going to ask why behind the ear instead of on the back of the neck or something symmetrical, but then I thought about it -- It's practical, because there's already a hole there, and it's a bit creepy, which is appropriate, without doing anything to make the main protagonists any less of, "the good guys," which is nice, and you get to joke about, "ear worms," which is funny.Rather than a cyberpunk chrome jack, the dataport is a biological orifice seamlessly grown into the head, usually behind the right ear.
It could be compared to a vagina if you wanted to be puerile, as it bears some resemblance due to form following function, but there's really nothing sexual about it and it lacks the sensory nerves necessary to provide pleasure. It's self-lubricating for easy computer insertion, highly acidic to kill most microorganisms, and has an elastic membrane to keep dirt out when not in use.
Ia Ia Mahou Sentai FhtagnI like this.They're iNazis.
EDIT: Question: do we have a name for this?
Howsabout, "Eldritch Mecha Heartmender"?
"Call of Cthumanity"hyzmarca wrote:Ia Ia Mahou Sentai FhtagnRadiantPhoenix wrote:Howsabout, "Eldritch Mecha Heartmender"?
Sure. But they can't go to highschool if they are adult military-grade cyborg police like RoboCop. One of the things that is desirable is to make characters who actually don't go to highschool for those crazy games where highschool isn't supposed to be a thing. Just like there are available characters who don't interact with the Police Procedural Game if you don't want to do it and characters who don't do the Giant Mecha Fighting Monsters portion of the game if you don't want to do that.Lokathor wrote:Cyborgs can go to Highschool.FrankTrollman wrote:There is a fourth important minigame: Highschool. The Majokko and Pilots and Summoners and such are all in Highschool, and they have to survive in that environment.
Particularly if it's 2097 and people know about aliens, then cyborgs can go to highschool.
I propose we shorten this to Sentai Fhtagn and use that.hyzmarca wrote: Ia Ia Mahou Sentai Fhtagn
Would there also exist, "normal," weapons that used the stats as printed? If not, it would be 'simpler', because you'd just need one armor value, and P weapons would roll it, while R weapons treated it as auto-success.FrankTrollman wrote:One of the things that is going to want to happen is to differentiate between Armor Piercing and Armor Repulsed weapons.
What designates an "adult" cyborg, then? Because in the fiction, you have B-ko and C-ko and Nuku Nuku and Aigis with enough raw power to take over a small town going to high school. You also have the pure machine transfer student from Assassination Classroom trying to kill a hyper-intelligent shoggoth teacher.FrankTrollman wrote:Sure. But they can't go to highschool if they are adult military-grade cyborg police like RoboCop. One of the things that is desirable is to make characters who actually don't go to highschool for those crazy games where highschool isn't supposed to be a thing. Just like there are available characters who don't interact with the Police Procedural Game if you don't want to do it and characters who don't do the Giant Mecha Fighting Monsters portion of the game if you don't want to do that.Lokathor wrote:Cyborgs can go to Highschool.FrankTrollman wrote:There is a fourth important minigame: Highschool. The Majokko and Pilots and Summoners and such are all in Highschool, and they have to survive in that environment.
Particularly if it's 2097 and people know about aliens, then cyborgs can go to highschool.
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If we were writing this for military personnel instead of, y'know, gamers, that would make some sense, but the majority of potential players associate AP with armor piercing. I don't think it's worth fighting against the tide on this one.Grek wrote:Let's use the actual terms the military uses: AM (anti-materiel) for things that you shoot at stuff with high AV and AP (anti-personnel) for thing you shoot at stuff with high SV.
The Lemurian's fundamental claim is that the "friendly" races they want to exterminate are just another symptom of the corruption of the Union by Mythos forces, and they've got a point. Unless the non-POV setting material is explicit about the Union being right and the Lemurians being wrong, people coming into this with more Mythos than anime or transhumanist background are gonna agree with them. The "good guys" are almost never the biotech faction in Western sci-fi, and even the transhumanists tend to timeskip from AR glasses and smartphone-as-exocortex to ubiquitous implants being a fait accompli. Selling the iPod-looking pure humans as antagonists when the protagonists are fishman-loving r'lyeh-harnessing alien-consorting mutants is gonna be tough unless you make the Lemurians about as twisted as the Union from a 2013 non-transhumanist perspective.RadiantPhoenix wrote:Why would the Lemurians be more sympathetic? They already have, "exterminate several friendly races," as one of their primary goals.
For comparison, the Union just looks weird.
Make the antagonists all blonde, all dudes, with german names. Now you aren't allowed to empathize with them.zeruslord wrote:Selling the iPod-looking pure humans as antagonists when the protagonists are fishman-loving r'lyeh-harnessing alien-consorting mutants is gonna be tough unless you make the Lemurians about as twisted as the Union from a 2013 non-transhumanist perspective.
"Blunt" weapon fits. It can also be a negative effect that happens to your giant monster cleaver that's overused without sharpening, or the special effect of a force field covering your giant robot.FrankTrollman wrote:while the specifically Armor Repulsed (really need a better name) weapons convert the extra dice into auto-hits. We could call these AV and SV (for Autoarmor Value and Soakarmor Value)
How the Hell do they have a point? These races totally signed up to defend everything we hold dear because they've got some common ground with us, and the Lemurians want to exterminate them because they look freaky. While I'm positive that some people will be stupid enough to buy into the Lemurian "it looks evil therefore it is evil" train of thought, I honestly don't care about those people. Particularly since the Union is unambiguously the default player faction, I don't have any problems with introducing the Lemurians by saying that their whole schtick is looking like the Federation from Star Trek while actually being literally Nazis who want to exterminate sentient races for making us humans uncomfortable. I imagine some people will be stupid enough to think they're the good guys anyway, just like there's some people stupid enough to believe that the Imperium of Man is actually well-run. I don't care. It is not the job of a TTRPG to educate or cater to stupid people.zeruslord wrote: The Lemurian's fundamental claim is that the "friendly" races they want to exterminate are just another symptom of the corruption of the Union by Mythos forces, and they've got a point.
OgreBattle wrote:"Blunt" weapon fits. It can also be a negative effect that happens to your giant monster cleaver that's overused without sharpening, or the special effect of a force field covering your giant robot.
In the US military AP pretty much always means armor piercing. The M829 120mm APFSDS-T round is not an anti-personnel round.zeruslord wrote:If we were writing this for military personnel instead of, y'know, gamers, that would make some sense, but the majority of potential players associate AP with armor piercing. I don't think it's worth fighting against the tide on this one.Grek wrote:Let's use the actual terms the military uses: AM (anti-materiel) for things that you shoot at stuff with high AV and AP (anti-personnel) for thing you shoot at stuff with high SV.