Making less-terrible Cthulhutech-esque RPG

[Avoraciopoctules]

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.

[RadiantPhoenix]

Motels in the future don't have magic fingers beds, they have magic tongue beds.

:razz:

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."

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?

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 it's my pet..."

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.

But to the Union, Lemurian tech seems inhuman, because it doesn't even have anything resembling human in it.

That 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.

Tentacle rape monster exercise machine

EDIT:

I don't think we want to position the Lemurians as being significantly more human/sympathetic than the Union.

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.

[Chamomile]

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.

[hyzmarca]

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."

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?

Burrowing their own port is creepier, but it isn't practical if you want them easily detached.

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.

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.

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.

EDIT:

I don't think we want to position the Lemurians as being significantly more human/sympathetic than the Union.

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.

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.

They're iNazis.

[RiotGearEpsilon]

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.

[RadiantPhoenix]

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.

Sounds good so far.

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'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.

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 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.

They're iNazis.

I like this.

EDIT: Question: do we have a name for this?

Howsabout, "Eldritch Mecha Heartmender"?

[hyzmarca]

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'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.

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.

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 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.

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.

They're iNazis.

I like this.

EDIT: Question: do we have a name for this?

Howsabout, "Eldritch Mecha Heartmender"?

Ia Ia Mahou Sentai Fhtagn

[RadiantPhoenix]

Howsabout, "Eldritch Mecha Heartmender"?

Ia Ia Mahou Sentai Fhtagn

"Call of Cthumanity"

"Guardians of the Union"

"Warning: Objects in hyperbolic space are probably more distant than they appear"

"Deep Ones and Humans and Ghouls, oh my!"

[Username17]

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.

Cyborgs can go to Highschool.

Particularly if it's 2097 and people know about aliens, then cyborgs can go to highschool.

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.

-Username17

[Chamomile]

Ia Ia Mahou Sentai Fhtagn

I propose we shorten this to Sentai Fhtagn and use that.

[Username17]

One of the things that is going to want to happen is to differentiate between Armor Piercing and Armor Repulsed weapons. My suggestion would be to have a part of the soak of armored targets be composed of armor-based automatic successes and part of the soak be composed of armor-based extra soak dice. Then, a specifically Armor Piercing weapon can convert the armor based auto-hits into bonus dice, 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)

Thus, if the base TN is 4, an attack with the armor piercing quality gains .5 effective damage for every AV the target has; and an armor repulsed weapon loses .5 effective damage for every SV the target has. This also has the advantage that weapons that hit multiple hit locations (explosives and shot guns for the most part) could be made to resolve quicker by making them armor repulsed weapons. You'd skip rolling the armor dice for the soaks on each location, so it would go quicker and you'd have enough auto-hits that you could probably skip well armored locations in many instances.

It also gives you a simple comparison rubric for situations where you get offered a "manstopper" weapon or an "anti-armor" weapon. An anti-armor weapon that does one less damage is good if the target has an AV of 3 or more. A monstopper weapon that does one more damage is shitty if the target has an SV of 3 or more.

Finally, this also allows us to have location damage results on mechs that reduce their SV, which in turn leaves them vulnerable to explosives and scatter guns in those locations.

Now I know what you're thinking: wouldn't it be a fuck tonne simpler if Armor just came with SV, and AP weapons just ignored all of it? Well, yes. But that would make wearing armor "do nothing" as opposed to "become less effective", which would harm WSoD. But also, we need ways to keep the number of rolled soak dice down, especially on armored vehicles. And having a reservoir of auto-hits does that well.

-Special Duty Combat Unit Shinesman-
-Username17

[RadiantPhoenix]

One of the things that is going to want to happen is to differentiate between Armor Piercing and Armor Repulsed weapons.

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.

[Mask_De_H]

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.

Cyborgs can go to Highschool.

Particularly if it's 2097 and people know about aliens, then cyborgs can go to highschool.

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.

-Username17

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.

Given the source material, highschool is less a power tier as it is a setting and superstructure. It's like making a fantasy heartbreaker and saying people don't want to play adventurers.

[Grek]

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*. Also I think you got the math wrong. If 4+ is a hit and AM weapons add AV to their attack pool and AP take SV as automatic hits, then SV is 0.5 ahead for every point of SV, not 0.5 behind. And frankly, it would probably be better to have the soak roll be reduced by AV against an AM weapon, rather than the AM weapon getting the AV as bonus dice. That reduces the dice rolled by 2 for every point of AV something has.

*I'm assuming that vehicles get high AV and soldiers get high SV so that it makes mechanical sense to take cover behind a vehicle when someone throws a grenade rather than trying to bounce the shrapnel off your chest like Superman.

[RadiantPhoenix]

My understanding was that you would have soak that went something like, "Xd + Y", where Xd is a dicepool of X that is rolled (1d6 TN 4), and Y is a number of successes added to the result of that.

An extra-piercy weapon would turn "Xd + Y" into "(X+Y)d", and an extra-blunt weapon would turn "Xd + Y" into "0d + (X+Y)".

[zeruslord]

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.

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.

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.

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.

[OgreBattle]

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.

Make the antagonists all blonde, all dudes, with german names. Now you aren't allowed to empathize with them.

[OgreBattle]

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)

"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.

[Chamomile]

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.

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.

[Whipstitch]

"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.

I don't really think so, plus I'd rather avoid situations where people might consider blunting their weapon because it turns out the stuff they're fighting has a ton of soak and few autohits. But more than anything, this is a mythos game and I totally expect things to be spitting supersonic clumps of writhing acidic spores at people and other shit out of the tyranid playbook and blunt isn't a very good descriptor for that. Honestly, we might be better off designating armor-repulsed weapons by omission: that is, if it's not Armor-Piercing, it doesn't get a tag at all and is assumed to use Frank's armor-repulsed rules. I'd expect that players would probably start calling such attacks normal or standard on their own anyway, but at least you wouldn't be calling getting screamed to death "normal" in the rules itself.

[kzt]

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.

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.

In the US military AP pretty much always means armor piercing. The M829 120mm APFSDS-T round is not an anti-personnel round.

Anti-personnel is usually abreviated as APERS in the US military. Though the only place I can think of this actually being used is for flechettes rounds.

[Username17]

Yeah, the more I think about it, the more I think just having a single armor value and treating it as auto-hits unless the weapon is armor piercing (in which case it turns into dice) is a good idea. If it turns out we want an intermediate level of armor penetration, we can always make one that forces the target to roll half of their armor value.

We're still going to want a "Size" value that reduces damage and isn't affected by armor penetration values. That's just so that rail guns and tesseract cannons can be scaled to giant monsters without the giant monsters having to have stupidly titanic soak pools.

-Username17

[kzt]

The solution used in multiple games, in which you have "megascale damage" (or some other such word) used for anti-tank weapons and tanks have "megascale armor", might work. A normal critter hit by a megascale weapon is just dead. A vehicle or monster with megascale armor hit by a normal weapon ignores it.

This pretty much simulates a person hit by an anti-tank rocket or a tank hit by machinegun fire.

Conversion between them is possible, something like 100 points of regular damage per point of megascale damage?

[name_here]

Uh, the original Cthulhutech does that sort of thing. It works poorly. The big problem is that it falls apart on edge cases like power armor, which you want to take damage from heavy machine guns and maybe survive an AT rocket. Consult the review chapter entitled"my health is the scale that will pierce the heavens" for more info.

[kzt]

If you can survive an AT rocket you will laugh at heavy machine gun fire.

The lightest AT rocket I can think of is the M72 LAW. It will put a dime sized hole in about 300mm of steel. The heaviest HMG I can think of is the KPV-14.5, which will go through 32mm of armor. The M903 SLAP round on a .50 BMG will penetrate about 34mm of armor.