File: 1386109219851.pdf-(6.8 MB, PDF, The_Void_Core_PDF.pdf)

6.8 MB PDF

>>28638902
Open Source The Void book. Very nicely made, slightly hard sci-fi (if you ignore the whole elderitch horrors bit). Kick Wildfire a few bucks through Drivethrurpg if you like it.

Reading through The Void now to understand some things. Guessing the attribute names change to the Void version.

Some thoughts:
Should we focus on keeping maths to a minimum? I don't know how I feel about Tagers having two pools of Orgone, how to calculate those pools, or adding more booking to Dhons. If we want them more human-level, we can probably use Tests or action economy (Limit takes all actions and a Test already)

Anyone has read parapsychics or magic fully? Since they will be balanced rather than ported like weapons and mechs, it's one of the biggest endeavors.

Drama/Fate Points, yay or nay? Drama is more plot oriented (only Tests), while Fate is survival oriented.

>>28638902
I had this idea a while ago, and was converting to Only War with mixed results (i have since discarded it). There was a bit of a fluff overhaul that went with it, mostly in the way of taking out things that were utterly retarded or sabotaged the themes of the game. How do you feel about fluff overhauls?

>>28639972
I have read a bit of magic, what I can say is that in can be ported easily to the void, the problem is actually making it useful against the other guys, What I can notice about the wizard is that they need prep time, they can have a really neat defense, they can summon critters (And get on the nerves of the NEG) and make magical items which is pretty neat..

>>28638902
Those integrity rules are awful. Why even bother doing that?

>>28640640
I agree that we should remove the integrity rules but what should we replace it with?

>>28640757
A flat DR mechanic. All successful damage to Integrity is halved after armor. Alternatively, you could just give them more health and not sweat the small stuff.

>>28640640
Why are they awful? They kinda do what it is supposed to do... or atleast I think it does.

>>28640832
It adds an extra layer of complication to no particularly useful end. Integrity adds little to the game except to mark certain creatures or things as being "beyond anyone but power armor", which is a level of complication that's was never needed.

>>28640757
>>28640832
>>28640903
>>28640640

Here's what you do. Scrap fucking integrity. It's adding nothing of value anymore.

>>28640791
>>28640903
Right now is just a staggered DR, tied to failing systems. About the complication, well, the objective is to port it almost whole.

>>28640962
But as most people pointed out in original Ctech, Integrity was a fucking awful idea. Do not port it.

>>28640918
Well, it adds something, instead of having 50 boxes, you have 10 boxes, I know it is not much, but it is a bit less annoying to fill

>>28640962
Or you could just say "These are vehicles and cannot be damaged by weapons not noted as anti-vehicle"

>>28640985
Or you could just do what most games do: If something is too large or massive to be bothered by what the player's or doing, just be honest and say so. Otherwise, just make the individual creatures and such appropriately tougher or don't sweat the small stuff.

>>28641015
Well, it removing integrity helps at blurring the line between Mechas and Human beings, which is something the project is looking for.

>>28641531
Good, then let's consider integrity removed.

>>28640985
It adds 5 boxes currently.

>>28641543
I'm not so sure we should.

I think it works very well for it's purpose, but we could always do what the Void does for ship combat.

Give them fuck huge amounts of HP and armor, and make it so weapon deal massive dice worth of damage.

Frankly I like integrity and how it works for mechs with their system failure stuff, I don't think we should remove it entirely.

For the magic versus parapsychics debate. I think we can just reduce how long parapsychic powers last before needing more orgone to activate them, and that SHOULD reduce their phenomenal levels of power.

>>28641843
I'm for just treating vehicles like larger, tougher creatures and adding system failures to various wound levels.

Well, we should work on Races, For what I can see, Humans should not be separated into several kinds of humans, the same with Nazzadi, the 3 skill points that appear in Void Char gen, should be chosen by the player, kinda like Background skills.
Looking at the Humans in Ctech, I can say, they are your avarage human in every setting, the everyman, the guys that can be everything,

So the same with them, In the Void they should get:
+1 to one attribute
+2 To Primary skills
+2 To Secondary Skills (As skills cost less in The void)

The Nazzadi being Space Drow, lets see

+1 To agility
Quality Night Vision (As the void, Night Vision is a 2 Dot Quality, So we either Make night Vision of the Nazzadi Stronger, Or add a little something.)

>>28641915
That could work.

>>28641976
Grace forgot the name change

>>28641976
I actually rather like the backgrounds packages, as well as the basic stat packages. It makes it much easier to construct characters out of various bits, even though we could go full customization.

>>28641976
Agreed on that front. But I think being able to choose an "origin" with 3 predefined skills based on that would work.

>>28642018
>>28642032
I will try making something later

Well, I think that the Nazzadi Night Vision instead of Halving the environmental penalties of no being able to see shit, it just ignores it.

Anyway, Half Drow, Aka Xenomixes:
+1 To Primary Skills
+1 To Secondary Skills
Normal Night Vision.
Quality: Sexy , Misfit (1) (There is nothing like this in the Void, So I will just Port it.)
+1 to either Grace or Perseverance

White Xenomix:
Yeah, it is actually almost the same than in the Ctech book, They have more things because you have to actually buy it. by buying the "White" Quality

So the suggested skills by profession would become Primary, then there should be Secondary suggestions?

With all the professions in CTech, maybe a few can be distinguished by something like Authority or certain skills (like say, being an Intelligence Agent, Fed or Private Eye)

>>28643671
Well for secondary for solider I'd imagine would be:

1st War Veteran

Coastal Escapee

Extended Volunteer (for people tricked into extended service)

and some others.

>>28640100
I do agree that CTech needs a few major fluff overhauls. In many respects, it fails on its basic premise

>>28644922
This isn't the project for that. The goal is to leave the lore intact as much as possible. No major overhauls, not even minor alterations except where absolutely necessary to explain changes in the crunch.

>>28645019
I'm not sure why you would want to save the lore of CTech. It's very constraining and that comes at the expense of exploring the territories it claims to cover. I'm going to drop out of this if we're not going to bother trying to address how the predilections of the developers ended up hamstringing the game in fluff as well as in crunch.

>>28645088
The goal of the project was never to change the lore.

Expand it? Yes. Filling in the gaps not described by the books? Sure.

But we're not here to change it.

That said, what did you have in mind for what needed to be changed exactly?

>>28645144
Not him, but every mayor player has some seriously dumb shit that needs explaining or changing. The Rapine Storm, for example, has close to zero aerial forces or counter measures as written. There is no reason for the NEG not to bomb every single army of theirs to smithereens.

Chrysalid Corp is also mustache twirlingly cartoon evil. They're a Lovecraftian version of a Captain Planet villain.

No reason to rewrite a ton of fluff. At most only a post-it version of the setting is planned (major plot events, background, possibly hooks). People will tend to mess with fluff anyway, to play in their own terms.

>>28645144
There are definite problems with how everything was constructed in regards to playability and simple common sense. The restrictions upon restrictions for character concepts means that parties tend to be fairly homogenized, keeping players from exploring new or interesting concepts or even exploring different ideas within the same campaign. For example, the isolation of the Tagers and the eldritch society means that you have no reason to include them in anything but a group that directly references them. Additionally, what was added gratuitously is extremely gratuitous. Ex: The Nazzadi are nothing but exotic space elves, complete with a reason to wear skimpy clothing. They don't realize any of the potential that could have been, and furthermore because they're already friendly, there's no aura of mystery to them.

>>28645243
Yes, this. God, so much this.

>>28645243
>>28645316
>implying the rapine storm doesn't have cultist magics and crazy flying abominations keeping the skies clear for them
>implying anything flying isn't at the mercy of the Migou's orbital dominance

>>28645345
Except we know there are aircraft that fly elsewhere and the Migo have no reason to help the Rapine Storm.

>>28645272
The fluff of baseline CTech is awful and poisonous to the game. this has been explained at length elsewhere.

>>28645364
still
>implying the rapine storm doesn't have cultist magics and crazy flying abominations keeping the skies clear for them

>>28645442
CTech Sorcery generally is not full of things which can shoot aircraft out of the sky, and furthermore, assault craft are often on par or better than a crazy abomination.

>>28645345
>crazy flying abominations
The one statted cannot measure up to fighter jets. The only things in the Rapine Storms actually mentioned that could theoretically cause an issue for aerial attacks are their integrity scale wizard dudes, and even them only when they band together and make big ass storms or something (they are supposed to be rare and only involved in bigger assaults) and tunneling, which the metaplot made sure was first used at the fall of China, ergo would not be a counter to bombing etc. before.

Ok, so the skill list of The Void covers almost all the bases for CTech, with the exception of Arcanotech, Security, Munitions and trivia like History, Culture, etc which could all be thrown as a Hobby skill or just use Void's Quirks.

>>28645409
Which is why 1st step is making a simplified, non-dumb version, instead of tackling everything head on.

>>28645647
I'm all for making a simplified version, but even that would need to be significantly different from what exists.

>>28645284
These are pretty much the two biggest root problems with Ctech. The exclusiveness and the mindless addition of elements that serve no purpose.

>>28645672
I haven't read CTech extensively, but I guess it would be only the major stuff in 1-2 page each.

- Major history points (Nazzadi, Rapine, Migo ship, etc)
- Main players (NEG, OIS, Chrysalis, cults)
- Life (Arcologies, lax laws, psychology, sorcery/parapsychics)

>>28645825
1 to 2 pages a topic is probably good enough to start.
>>28645243
>Chrysalid Corp is also mustache twirlingly cartoon evil.
They are extremely evil. I always think of Nyarl-chan as more of an amazing troll, simultaneously helping and hurting humanity, all to create a more amusing situation.

>>28645647
>Which is why 1st step is making a simplified, non-dumb version, instead of tackling everything head on.
This so much. Small steps.

From what I can tell, very little needs to be done in terms of basic rules.

Tagers, Psychics, and Sorcerers all need to be addressed, but I'm for keeping them as close to a standard human as possible. Alternatively, I propose adding things to basic humans that special groups can't get, like specialized nanotech and the like. The important part is keeping PCs on the same level, so you can have varied and interesting parties.

>>28646037
It seems that is the direction it needs to go to help the baseline human investigator to do things other than cower under a desk.

>>28646037
Tagers are our main issue. Their powerlevels don't mix with anything else in the game.

>>28646150
How about Tagers are instead represented by Talents or a series of Talent like rules elements? The bonuses will be lesser than in the default game, but they have the benefit of being permanently active instead of needing to hulk out all the time.

>>28646140
I do like the idea of basic humans being able to get nanomachine augments that others can't get (possibly due to cosmic energy fucking them up).

>>28645889
Yeah, but they are, as written, rather dumb. They leave pretty obvious clues, there's the whole iFetus debacle, and in general, the only reason a number of organizations haven't found out that they're the evils is because everyone who aren't the Eldritch Society go 'nananana' with their eyes closed and ears plugged in whenever the Corp comes up.

>>28646305
Yeah, that's definitely gonna be rewritten. CC is just too balls out crazy evil and everyone's too retarded to catch on.

I want to keep mechs in, but as they are, you're either in an all mech game or you're not. Not to mention the problems in balancing mechs.

>>28646417
How about we just make them smaller? 3 to 10 meter mechs are still pretty cool, but not so large you can't occasionally bring them out in a non-mech game. They're just bigger power armors that way as well.

Ok, so skills to modify to The Void list

Munitions - for anything beyond personal weapon systems

Engineering: Arcanotech - this replaces Basic Drive, since they power major stuff. For the rest, there's Power Systems

Pilot: Mech/Engel - To allow the professions. Alternatively, Engel pilots also need their implant Quality.

Pilot:A-Pod - Not know if this is necessary, but the category seemed particular enough.

There are a lot of overlapping skills, although with different names. Sensors=Security, Drones=Pilot:Drones, etc.

>>28646417
If you have heavy or mounted weapons, you can fight/assist the big war mechs. You'll still need a pilot buddy, mostly to tank.

The reworked Integrity should have no problems allowing power armor along with vehicles and people carrying special weapons. Though maybe custom systems should be considered to add more variety.

>>28646716
>Reworked integrity
Fuck integrity.

>>28646716
Nah, I'd rather go with >>28646450 and downsize them so that they can always appear instead of trying to work around the dumb Integrity system. I hope we don't port that shit.

>>28646929
I still don't understand the vehemence against the integrity system. Especially once it's been reworked as stated on the 1d4chan wikipage.

>>28646990
It's unnecessary and still requires extra steps when comparing standard damage to it. Just make them tougher instead of coming up with ridiculous damage conversions. Or better yet, if you don't want your PCs to actually hurt this, just don't bother tracking damage.

Integrity is a crappy system that puts up more barriers to play.

>>28646990
You need to do fucking 6d6 damage to even have a chance of dealing 1 Integrity Damage? This new system is as bad as the old one. That 1d4 solution isn't a solution at all, and I'd rather just give them a little more armor and health and be done with it.

>>28646545
sounds good.

>>28646202
That might work... definitely on the nanomachines front. Maybe nanomachines just don't mix well with anything that isn't human baseline, even if for tagers their genes SHOULDN'T show up as anything but baseline.

And to explain why tagers still can't be turned up by genescans and injecting them with nanites. Maybe it's that tagers can get the whole nanite thing, but they just degrade so quickly they're not worth keeping. Long enough that they'll pass through a testing center type deal, not so long that they'll get any use out of them. Tager symbiotes are jealous like that.

>>28645500
Then we just increase the power of the crazy abominations?

>>28647090
since that's as much damage as a sniper rifle (something with a chance of actually hurting a mech) does? Yeah. Seems reasonable to me.

And as the mech is damaged, it becomes easier to damage more.

How about this. Can we leave the revised system in as optional rules? It wouldn't be hard to slip in a separate table involving them for people who want that.

>>28647101
>Then we just increase the power of the crazy abominations?
I'd rather just rewrite the entire situation with the Rapine Storm to be less blatantly retarded. Hell, you can say something like dimensional interference or something. Even that makes more sense.

>>28646450
>>28646929
Their size is just fluff, stats/crunch matter more. Right now Integrity is basically depleting armor and SF codes. The damage dice is to avoid swinging damage from other guns but keep them as an option.

Personally, I don't want to erase anything yet. Would rather have options open. For the smaller mechs idea, maybe their armor knocks out damage dice instead of results, so rolls are less swingy.

>>28647133
Maybe in the back of the document or something, but Integrity should not be the baseline. Just adding more Health and Armor (not enough to make them immune to regular PCs) should be the normal method.

>>28647174
for power armor maybe, but not for full blown mechs.

Otherwise why the fuck are they using mechs instead of normal soldiers?

>>28647147
wait, dimensional interference makes more sense than "the flying abominations from beyond the mortal ken of human beings are stronger than assault aircraft"?

>>28647162
Integrity isn't saving anything at the moment, and is just giving them extremely huge pools of HP, making it a dull grind.

>>28647193
Because Mechs come with things like unique weapons, jump jets, and other hardware. You know, interesting stuff instead of just huge numbers.

>>28647215
Yes it does, actually, because when you start to fill a space with dangerous monsters in order to keep people out, you run into the logical issue of "why are they not using these extremely powerful, plentiful monsters to win forever"? And then you start making more and more excuses about it until it is a convoluted mess.

>>28647193
Making them have oceans of health is not making mechs cool or particularly useful, and that's all that Integrity does.

>>28647193
If you make mechs smaller, than they really are just more elaborate pieces of powered armor and makes it totally justifiable.

>>28647224
Mostly it is saving work balancing in DCS/regen, heavy weapons, wide d6 damage rolls, and actually using huge numbers for HP & Armor.

I'd rather just lift mech stats mostly as-is and not have to fiddle with everything.

>>28647363
That's just being lazy at the expense of better design, and I can't condone that. Integrity is nothing but huge numbers, and huge numbers need to be filed down in almost every case. This does mean more work redesigning mechs and weapons, but that's just part of doing a good job.

>>28647438
Which is what the redone system we came up with last thread did just fine.

I'm sorry, I'm with >>28647363 on this one. Keeping the integrity system mostly intact and altering numbers is just better design in this case.

If you want to rip it entirely out, you might as well just be playing base line The Void and ignore mechs entirely.

>>28647474
And I'm against you. Integrity, even those reworked values, do nothing but add speedbumps to the game in order to have big numbers. It's stupid and I can't support it.

>>28647474
>>28647363
I'm against anything with the Integrity system, mostly because I hate what it stands for: A big fat "You can't mess with this" in terms of gameplay, requiring annoying workarounds if you can even access those.

>>28647474
>If you don't want to use this alternate HP system to cover up that we're literally giving something hundreds of Health, you might as well play another system.
Allow me to politely disagree

>>28647474
The redone system is shit and is, in effect, very nearly as prohibitive. Just treat mechs like power armor, adding a little more armor and health.

>>28647555
Hundreds of health? I guess? Except that the new system doesn't.

1 Int =/= 50 vit.

1 Int =/= 5 vit when undamaged, 4 vit at light damage, 3 vit at medium damage, 2 vit at serious damage.

so on a 10 integrity mech, that's
50 vit, 40 vit, 30 vit, 20 vit. So yeah, we get into the triple digits, but that's all.

Why not just toss a few hybrid damage weapons the way of the PC's like man portable RPGs and lasers?

Then we should stuff this discussion until the end, since it halts progress. We should work in how exactly is human-level chargen to be approached, then sorcery/psychics.

So we use the Void, then adapt lists for Primary/Secondary in each profession? I believe some profession could be merely differentiated by their Secondary choices.

>>28647611
and what about system failure? How do we get that going? Because that was one of the cool things integrity simulated.

>>28647632
Best thing said all day. Let's figure out the stuff we CAN agree on and table the rest for later.

Okay, can somebody list the professions from Cthulhu tech in full? All of them except Mech/Engel Pilot and Parapsychic, Occult Scholar can still be in there for the moment.

>>28647625
Oh god, excuse me, it's "only" over 100 health. I have slandered your good name.

>>28647654
Tie system failures to the standard Wound Penalties that everyone has when they are hurt. They get those instead of dice penalties. Simple as that, and didn't require an entirely new HP system that gets into the triple digits.

>>28647632
I think we should use the basic archetypes they have in the void, then add more as we need to.

>>28647654
Archanotech
Int Agent
Occult Scholar
Soldier
Tager
Arcane Investigator
Ashcroft Advisor
Fed Agent

Soldier certainly has chances to specialize, but all the investigators may be coalesced into one archetype.

>>28647632
I'm concerned mostly with making useful chargen choices more than flavorful ones. Why don't we see just how much we can make it stretch rather than making new stuff right away?

>>28647738
The primary archetypes can stay, since those are still very useful to us. Birthplace can be re-purposed to represent other things, maybe early life?

>>28647738
That's easy. We can just make them as

Soldier,
Int Agent
Occult Scholar.

Boom. Done. Might want to give the Occult Scholar some choice of qualities for making magic happen.

>>28647798
Optional packages, at the least. Otherwise ust fork the points over to the Primary.

I remember a... Quality? for zero-G Tests, that would fit for ship-born or the like.

>>28647798
That's a good idea. Make it restricted to race perhaps? Fleet Born would be Nazadi exclusive for example.

>>28647848
We can make a sorcery talent or something if we need to, then make that easily available to the Scholar

>>28647873
Sounds good.

>>28647872
Yeah, just need to think up useful early lives to slot those backgrounds into. Shouldn't be too hard since they're just 3 rank 1 skills.

>>28647894
Yep. So we need to make them race specific for the most part.

But for Xenomix, we can just say "any human or nazadi background that is based on earth" (eg: No fleet born).

So where do we start? With stating up the classes? or with figuring out what talents and qualities we need to take out or insert into The Void's rules? or with stating up the racial background options? or with stating up the classes?

>>28647697
As long as we can make it a system where Mechs are still reasonably the kings of the battlefield and not reasonably taken down by a pile of mooks with ak-47s, I got no complaints.

>As long as we can make it a system where Mechs are still reasonably the kings of the battlefield and not reasonably taken down by a pile of mooks with ak-47s, I got no complaints.

Some vehicles or creatures possess the "Reinforced" Trait. No matter how much damage is rolled against a target that possesses the Reinforced trait, they only suffer 1 Damage from a single attack or 2 if a Trigger occurred. If a target with the Reinforced trait is attacked by another creature or object with the Reinforced trait, damage is resolved as per the standard rules.

Trying to come up with relevant skills for the "origins" in 1d4chan. What is the Nazza-Duhni, exactly?

>>28647995
I'd rather we all sketch up what we can and then bring it back to the thread and present it once we've gotten a relatively finished product, instead of barking back and forth before we get anything done. Same goes for potential fluff changes as well as minor mechanics. Let's take a day or so to prepare our stuff then present them all at once so we can compare more fairly.

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If I may, the Integrity v. Vitality scale can be resolved by adding hardened targets. I'm going to attach a section from Myriad that explains how hardened targets and WMDs work.

The great thing is that different sized weapons can cause different amounts of damage but also have the same destruction rating (x NUMBER).

>>28648114
Oh that could work. We'd just slap the reinforced trait on weapons. Good show!

Then we just have system failure as a thing on the side for mechs and vehicles only, rather than living things.

Boom. Problem solved.

Okay, I'm alright with dropping the integrity system under this.

>>28648161
Nazza-Duhni is the caribean and cuba and such. The Nazadi were given it after the 1st arcanotech war ended. It's pretty much their homelands right now.

>>28648163
Sure, that works I guess. You can also put it in the discussion section of the wiki.

And as I said before, I -really- don't like the idea of editing the lore significantly. Some minor alterations (like the arcologies in China BARELY holding out while there's a fucking 3 way war banging at their doors, cut off entirely and barely surviving, the 2nd hive ship busy hunting colonials while still coming ever closer, things like that)

We need to figure out ways of keeping the lore as intact as possible imo.

Or at the very least, we need to decide, RIGHT NOW, what things we are NOT going to alter about the setting. What are the things CORE to the setting.

>>28648251
>Or at the very least, we need to decide, RIGHT NOW, what things we are NOT going to alter about the setting. What are the things CORE to the setting.
I consider very little to be absolutely core to the setting besides a few key points.

>Earth is under attack by Outsiders, which are Lovecraftian monsters or old gods.
>There is currently a war going on with at least one spacefaring, extraterrestial race
>Advances in technology have made fantastic weapons and vehicles such as mechs possible
>A global organization exists to combat these horrors, but it is often ill-advised and undermanned.
>The Outsiders have done significant damage on a global scale, forcing humanity to live in arcologies.
>Psychics and Sorcerers exist in some fashion.

>>28648361
I would add certain life facts to it, like:

- Medicine and psych therapy are commonplace, even mandatory
- Laws on vice are lax, but occultism and arms are regulated with an iron hand

>>28648361
Some ideas I had, tying into some ideas I've had previously and some put forward here.

>Para-Psychics: Those who can instinctually manipulate cosmic energies with willpower alone, thought to be the same sort of effect which fuels most Outsider abilities. An inborn talent in all Nazzadi, humans and Xenomixes must be fitted with special cybernetic implants to control their powers.
>Sorcery: The practice of manipulating cosmic energies through ritual, thought to be a small scale application of the effect which allows greater Outsiders to manifest. Without proper inhibitors, even knowing Sorcery quickly drives its users into insanity, let alone practicing it.
>Cyber-Sorcerer: A human or Xenomix who has been fitted with cybernetic implants which process Sorcery. Cyber-Sorcery reduces the mental strain on the Sorcerer by containing the forbidden knowledge within normally inaccessible databases, but this consumes nearly all of the power of their Nanomachines.
>Cyber-Psychic: A human or Xenomix who has been fitted with cybernetic implants which allow them to control their para-psychic powers. Like Cyber-Sorcerers, the process of restraining such cosmic power requires the devotion of nearly all the Cyber-Psychic's Nanomachines. Despite these inhibitors, Cyber-Psychics invariably have or develop psychological disorders.

>>28648690
>Mi-Go: Hostile and imperialistic Outsiders who invaded from a colony on Pluto. Mi-Go appear as vaguely crustacean-like creatures, but in actuality are simply fungus colonies that have commandeered a completely different species as vessels. They have since been driven back.
>Mi-Go Invasion: Incident where the Mi-Go made first contact with humanity. Turned much of Australia into a massive alien spore colony. The main thrust of the invasion was eventually repelled but many parts of Australia are still alien habitats.
>Nazzadi: The curious humanoid servants of the Mi-Go. Nazzadi appear mostly human, but have jet-black skin, crimson eyes, and white hair. Every last specimen has been a Para-Psychic and they possess an unnatural hatred of the human race. Specifics about their culture or their reasons for serving the Mi-Go are unknown. They are the primary warriors in the Mi-Go's colonization efforts.
>Xenomixes: The result of a government project meant to weaponize the Nazzadi. They are the vat-grown human-nazzadi hybrids that are currently undergoing testing as potential pilots, soldiers, and other military staff. Curiously, a small amount has been released to mingle among normal humans. Most Xenomixes have been engineered to appear as human as possible, but usually show traces of their heritage in small features such as their eyes, hair, or ears.

>>28648690
>>28648725
So the Nazzadi are still hostile? I could get behind that.

>>28648782
Ehn, I can't. I rather liked the whole 'we're all human for a given value of human in this'

the implants thing might be interesting though.

>>28648926
I think we should try to stick to the core lore and metaplot as closely as possible for the moment.

Then afterwards we can go in and make a Cthulhu Void Tech setting.

But the project was started with the intent to allow people to play the core setting of Cthulhutech without the stupidity of the Framewerk system.

We can do the lore changes after we're done with the crunch.

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The explanation for why sorcerers and psychics don't get high level nanotech works as much as any other explanation.

>>28648926
They still might be human enough. They're only still hostile to give them and Xenomixes an air of mystery, and keep them an unknown.

>>28648947
CTech is already written, and nothing is really going to be so far off that you can't just past the old setting over it.

>>28649185
I guess? But still.

>>28649232
I say let us write zany shit for now. If it comes down to it, we'll just write a conversion guide at the end. For now, let's focus on fixing this as much as we can.

>>28648926
I kind of like the setup. I want Nazzadi to still be strange bad guys who might be closer to us than we think instead of stupid sexy black elves.

>>28648690
>Parapsychics require implants.
Feels like you've been playing too much Mass Effect.
Does this also add anything mechanically? Because there's always the option of saying that the cybernetics are nothing more than a disguised killswitches designed to additionally interfere with nanomachines to ensure the user doesn't become incredibly powerful.

>>28648690
>>28648725
This shit is totally out there.

>>28649313
>>28649272

Here's my issue.

The goal is to make an accurate conversion for the base game over to The Void's rules.

To me, that means making sure that it's a fluff accurate conversion.

Writing crazy shit is all well and good, but justifying a lot of it like the whole trying to find their own culture and such is going to be lost if we make them evil space invaders serving the Mi-Go.

I think the crazy writing should come -after- the first set of conversion crunch is done.

>>28649321
It adds shit like, for instance, explaining why not all para-psychics and sorcerers are slavering psychopaths, what good any sort of government oversight does, and finally reinforces the idea that you have to be protected by your own power.

>>28649351
In fact. I really LIKe the ideas you're putting out too. I really do, but I want to make cthulhutech we all know and see the potential in to be cool translated over FIRST.

Then we do the crazy writing stuff afterwards. I think having it so that nazzadi and humans are on the same side is important simply for keeping fluff accuracy in the crunch. What's the point of statting up Nazzadi characters as a playable race when they're meant to be evil boogity-boo space men? making them playable divests them of that in the first place, thus fluff conversion is lost and, once again, you might as well just be playing The Void core with some lore alterations.

>>28649351
But CTech's setting so soooo bad. Who in their right mind honestly likes it for what it is? Whoever those guys are should be rather low in the list of people-to-please.

>>28649414
Considering it was those guys like myself who started this fucking project I'd argue we're fairly -high- on the people-to-please list?

>>28649427
You like CTech as it is? What's wrong with you, dude? It's a rapey, restrictive as fuck, promise-one-thing-and-do-another clusterfuck of a setting that was not fully thought out. I like CTech for its basic premise which it then shat all over.

>>28649392
Ehn, nah. That's what psychiatric counciling is for. The point is that parapsychics and mages are supposed to be a little off the deep end.

>>28649458
Oh you'll still need counciling. You just won't need to be committed within a few weeks. Unprotected sorcery and para-psychics go nutso extremely quickly, whereas someone with implants degrades much more slowly and recovers faster.

>>28649414
The entire point is that we like the setting, just not it's garbage rules. If you don't like the setting, why are you here?

>>28649492
Because I, personally, like the *idea* of CTech. I find its execution in every area to be lacking. Bad Mechanics are only one part of what makes Cthulhutech so bad.

>>28649457
I don't like it as it is. But I don't mind the rape since it's played as horrifying rather than fetishy, and I have yet to see the 'promise to do one thing then do another' that you're talking about.

I like giant fucking mechs messing with each other with evangelions being the primary front liners.

I like that humanity and their clone-alien brothers figured out what was going on and teamed up against the elderitch horrors.

I like that the elder gods are ripping into us with their cults because we're blind sided by the the alien threat that we refuse to acknowledge them as the real threat.

I like the idea of the deep ones stopping with the secret cults and going army building in the horrifying and sickening way that they are. It makes them more vile and a better narrative tool.

Do I like the adventures they made for us? No.

Do I like that the various classes are mechanically too obtuse to fit together easily?

No.

That's what I'm trying to fix while leaving the core lore intact.

>>28649492
Here here to that.

If I didn't like the setting.

>>28649527
And that's fine. And if you want to take the rules we made and then start in on a "Cthulhu Void Tech" specific setting? That's fantastic. I'll even help you do it once the core crunch has been figured out and applied to CthulhuTech's lore and metaplot as it is. But to start, I want to leave the fluff untouched and focus on the crunch to the best of my ability.

>>28649491
Maybe, this falls into the category of 'not wanting to mess with the fluff' too.

>>28649555
>I like giant fucking mechs...
Those are all things I like too, but I absolutely despise CTech's fluff because everything was of piss poor quality. I intend to still have all those things, but done in a way that isn't inherently shitty, which is the CTech standard fluff.

>>28649491
So if we take away the cybernetics and just make it "you slowly go insane", there's really no difference. If it doesn't add anything to the mechanics or tone of the game why put it in?

>>28649492
Because the core premise of "Giant robots fighting alien invaders while a shadow war with the Cthulhu mythos goes on" is still interesting, despite how much of a shitheap the CTech fluff is.

I get /tg/ likes to fluff over crunch, but this isn't the place to keep on shitting over CTech lore. Everyone will drop or adapt it as they see fit in the end, because that's what people do. Legitimizing an all-new fluff is bordering on magical realm right now.

>>28649637
I would increase the rate at which unprotected people go insane, but the primary purpose is to justify why they cannot get advanced cybernetics in a way that isn't stupid red tape. If they really can't get better nanoware, and it's not just us telling them they can't have it, it's much more palatable and it's more consistent to keep them out of their hands.

>>28649673
Don't use magical realm if you don't know what it means.

>>28649673
Yea. We're not going there or it becomes a free-for-all shitfest that just can't support itself and collapses.

>>28649604
>>28649637
And both of that is fine.

And I agree with >>28649673
If we make all new fluff, we have to make all new mechanics for the most part. For example, if we make Nazzadi still serving the Migou, then there is no reason to make them a playable race, cause that would ruin their mystique.

>>28649682
easy. Cybernetics and such interfere quite heavily with occult practices. They probably all operate on arcanotech principles, and thus, having a bunch of arcanotech floating around in your body leads to bad shit happening.

>>28649682
>increase the rate at which unprotected people go insane
See, if witnessing parapsy or sorcery did make people go insane, this would be a nice addition, but as it is.
>the primary purpose is to justify why they cannot get advanced cybernetics in a way that isn't stupid red tape
Then just say nanomachines are calibrated to human baselines and don't work on outsider tainted people.

>>28649718
>>28649673
>>28649723
Agreed with all 3 here.

We want a framework to focus our crunch building upon.

If we make more lore, then we have to redistribute how we're going to build our crunch.

If we focus primarily upon the crunch, and leave the fluff untouched, that's going to give us a skeleton upon which to hang our crunch making.

After the initial redoing of the crunch has finished. THEN we shall begin making a new setting for it.

Only then.

Can we agree on THIS point at least. Before we can begin fixing the fluff, we have to fix the crunch.

>>28649723
> For example, if we make Nazzadi still serving the Migou, then there is no reason to make them a playable race, cause that would ruin their mystique.
You still need to make their stats so that you can create adversaries.

>easy. Cybernetics and such interfere quite heavily with occult practices. They probably all operate on arcanotech principles, and thus, having a bunch of arcanotech floating around in your body leads to bad shit happening
See, making all nanoware arcanotech isn't somewhere I want to go because then we have to answer why regular cybernetics don't carry the normal risk that most arcanotech does when exposed.

>>28649754
If it's just a calibration problem, then it would be easy to just have someone make new nanoware that works with outsiders. Governments would totally do this for their own people, as well as anyone with the expertise and cash.

>>28649792
Because clearly outsider taint manifests in the same way with everyone affected.

>>28649818
Even if every case needed fine tuning, it's still a problem you could solve with money instead of an innate barrier-to-entry.

>>28649765
But not a player race stats. You'd just have stats as you would any monster.

Also for nanotech, why doesn't driving an arcaotech car drive you nuts?

No, the nanites only react badly when you're trying to combine them with tager symbiotes, casting ritual spells, or using parapsychic abilities.

>>28649637
How about that the implants let you load up spells into your nanomachines, so you can cast those specific ones safely and quickly when compared to an unaugmented sorcerer? Similarly, why don't para-psychic implants also let you perform some psychic talents with less strain in addition to protecting you?

That enough differentiation? Because I like the idea of humanity taking these cosmic forces and filtering them through something they can understand.

>>28649897
that's what arcanotech is for. You shoot elderitch forces out of guns rather than spell casting.

Spell casting is the raw, unfiltered stuff.

>>28649849
Humanoid opponents get humanoid stats unless they are significantly different to warrant otherwise. Nazzadi would require basic stats because they are very close to human, instead of monster specific stats.

>>28649915
Remind me if I missed it, but Arcanotech guns don't shoot "summon familiar" nor do they shoot "enter dreams". Different things entirely.

Sadly, it's bloody late. I'll sleep and try to adapt the Pri/Sec list for the main archetypes.

About origins, I wonder how much are they needed. In Void they mostly provide background and 1 utility skill. Race choice already comes with extra points and abilities fir CTech.

>>28649897
Again. It's a cool idea. It really is. And I even like the idea of including rules for nanotech (which are in The Void as I recall) and denying them to people who use spells, psychic abilities, or other outsider powers.

But can we please not try to slap on additional stuff to the existing stuff more than absolutely necessary.

>>28649921
Still running into the above point pointed out by >>28649755

If we open the door to fluff changes -now- we are going to end up with a clusterfuck that will hamper our ability to mess with the crunch.

Leave the fluff rearrangement until AFTER we are done with the crunch. Then we will all whole heartedly help with redoing the fluff. But first. The crunch.

>>28649937
I think it'd be interesting, but hey, it's not absolutely necessary to stick them in since we're keeping races.

>>28649754
>See, if witnessing parapsy or sorcery did make people go insane
Dude, there are totally insanity tests for at least some applications of sorcery and parapsych

>>28649964
What extensive crunch could you possibly need for baseline CTech which isn't just slapping monster abilities on someone or renaming shit? I have zero interest in salvaging the original CTech. Burn it down and make something from its ashes, I say.

>>28649975
yep, there are. But the point is to keep people from being exposed.

Why would they censor and keep such a tight restriction on magic if they had nanites they could just push a button and kill whoever was misusing it.

>>28650002
For a couple reasons. 1. People don't always go in to get themselves registered, just like they don't in regular CTech. 2. It's expensive to get yourself outfitted with the protective cyberware. 3. I never suggested any killswitch and I would say such a thing is not only impossible, but impractical even if it was true.

>>28649996
Then come back later when we're done with the crunch. we'll have use for you then.

>>28650038
This all sounds really cool, but it seems convoluted and forced for the base CTech setting, for the revised one you guys who like the idea of making the Nazzadi still badguys it could work.

Simply stating "nanotech reacts badly with cosmic forces" is enough I think.

>>28649755
100% behind this.

>>28650102
>We'll have use for you then
Or, I could just do what I want. I've already contributed several mechanical things so far, I guess I'll just work on my own thing if you want to keep after the shitty core setting.

I never thought I'd see the day someone wanted to help that fucking trainwreck.

>>28650155
Sure then.

>>28650264
Heading to bed for the night, keep the thread alive guys, I'll be back in the morning.

Anyone who likes CTech's fluff for what it is either hasn't read it very well or is exactly the kind of person you don't want to play with ever.

In before a schism like there was between the AdEva mainline devs and AdEva Borderline devs.

God, I can only hope.

>>28651146
What's this about?

>>28651189
It was a huge (read as: very small and insignificant) scandal.

>>28651189
during the AdEva process, there was a disagreement with the dev team over what should happen and the system used.

It was a debate over crunch, not fluff though, so not sure this can happen here since the guys against the fluff changes don't seem to be against them in the long term. They just want to hold off on them until the crunch is done.

>>28651406
But what if the crunch guy is the alternative fluff guy?

>>28651448
how do you mean?

As far as I can tell, one side just wants to hold off on the alternative fluff until after the crunch is done. Once the crunch is done, they said they'd help out with changing the fluff.

>>28651406
It was as much about crunch as what direction to take things, source material, player agency, etc. and personal differences.

>>28651498
I mean what if a good crunch contributor doesn't want to fix the system for the old fluff?

>>28651570
Then I don't know? I guess they can work with us while also smithing their own fluff for the setting as long as they don't try and stop those of us who want to say, give player stats to Nazzadi and such?

>>28651679
Agreed.

Most of us have no problem changing the fluff in the long term. I personally think the vast majority of it could have been handled far better.

But I just think now isn't the time for it. We can do that once the crunch changes have been made.

>>28651725
My reasoning for keeping the fluff changing discussion to a minimum for these threads, until the crunch discussion is done, is that inevitably people will want to stat the new fluff stuff, they'll want to make changes to the crunch when the primary focus should be on making the crunch for the original setting, and then making alterations after that is done.

It's a priorities thing. The goal of the project isn't a fluff change, it's a crunch change. Fluff changes are secondary to that goal.

>>28651773
Actually?

Question?

Could we have two sides of the project running side by side? Agreeing not to interfere with one another but to meet up at the end?

One side will work on new crunch for the unmodified fluff.

One side will work on new fluff regardless of the crunch.

At the ending, we'll work together to make something new using both?

Are there any objections to this?

>>28652114
Called it, just like AdEva.

So which of you will be the mainline devs and start all the drama?

>>28652114
It's a worse idea than working with neckbeards already is. How do you think any sort of agreement is going to be reached?

>>28652114
Division fosters disunity. I can't support this.

>>28647873
Yeah, Still, we need to make sorcerors to be equal to the guy that can just shoot them, or the guy that can burn their faces.

>>28652516

Go check the archives, mate. Borderline fired first when one of their big devs started shitting up a release thread for the 2.5 beta, and then when told to knock it off went and made his own thread to talk about how his incomplete version was so much better.

Would making new spells be acceptable?

>>28654752
Making new spells is vital, since the ones in CTech border from crap you will never get mileage out of, spells that are for the most part background fluff (if not fetish fuel, hey there gender change spell that can explicitly be used to make futas), spells that are useful but either cost too much or mostly only benefit evil spellcasters, and spells that are hax, like the invincibility (Yog-Shothot something) and zap orbs ones that every semi-important antagonist ever gets in the adventures to give them a get out of jail free card to lord over the PCs.

>>28654896
> make someone a futa
Fetish fuel or not that seems kind of useless…

So Integrity aside the main building sites are
-Tagers
-Magic
-Psychic powers
With most other things being sliiiightly less borked?

>>28655007
More or less, yes. I'd suggest against taking over equipment wholesale as well, since CTech's list is a combination of bad, weird, or just plain boring (the extended gun list in...whichever the equipment book was is mostly minute differences that no one will give a shit about, on top of terribly off in regards to the corps that produce them).

I actually kinda like that gender change spell, since it hints at a fairly mayor sociological change. Mages can freely use those spells in private practices, IIRC, as long as they are licensed. Of course, the books utterly fail to do anything vaguely interesting with it, but it's still one of the more decent fluff pieces.

>>28655064
I think the gender change spell is a shit spell that only invites fetishists. Excise it. Any use you could get out of it could be done better with a general purpose disguise spell

On the subject of Fluff, I was seriously disappointed that the Dreamlands aren't a part of the Cthulhutech setting.

I mean, how can you NOT put in the Dreamlands?

>>28655111
Hokay. That is also an opinion. I personally can see it do some work on the 'This ain't yo daddy's sci-fi!' side of things and be a part of why the NEG is a weird, semi-alien society, but I can see why people'd rather avoid it.

Then again, if you can't handle gender change and such maturely, I'm not sure I'd trust you with the two Rape Armies of Doom and the Hidden Rape Cult Of The Orient.

>>28655141
And after cutting out the Dreamlands, they introduced dream mages. I can see why you'd cut it out, since it layers on a whole 'nother level of complications and they were trying to juggle multiple balls already, but then don't shove pieces back in.

>>28655151
Isn't the NEG pretty down on spellcasting?

>>28655141
> opening weapon and drug factories in Kadath in order to terrorize the living world
Now that's just disrespectful.
>>28655111
I'd tentatively vote to wait till things are canned wholesale.
>>28655064
Eh, maybe but I still consider it a bit useless to actually have it on the list. Guns? Ask /k/ for what makes them moist and crank it up?

>>28655214
It's a little bit confused and contradictory. On one hand, yes, they do, on the other, non-dangerous or evil spells are sorta legal, and then they go and mention something along the lines of the gender change spell being a popular-ish college prank, so yeah.

>>28655217
>be a NGE trooper on a hearts and minds mission to Ulthar
>squadmate steps on a cat's tail
>oh shi

>>28655217
As an actual player available spell, I'd definitely not include it, yeah. It's borderline useless. At most it'd be a part of the background.

>>28655217
> taking over a sacred city for terrorist purposes
Now you're thinking CTech, son.

>>28655235
What I think is weird about that spell is that is a third Sphere spell, I mean, Really powerful thing

>>28654896
But what kind of spells can we put in?, there are almost no spells that actually work for a PC, maybe some protection Spells, and some enchantment spells from the unveiled threats book

>>28655507
Maybe look at CoC? I recall that having a decent variety of spells.

>>28655610
Rip CoC and Unknown Armies mercilessly.

>>28655245
Feed him to the ghouls.

Just casting my vote towards NOT changing the fluff (beyond any necessary to make mechanics work, like new spells and such.)

I get that Cthulhutech has a lot of stupid shit in its fluff, but the goal here shouldn't be to make our own version of the setting. If you want to do that, do that yourself when you're setting up a game, AFTER the mechanical work has been done.

>>28658000
The main issue with that is a lot of the basic assumptions toward mechanics carry over from the stupid shit in the fluff. See: Tagers and orgone, spellcasting costs, the tiers of psychic powers, relative capabilities of Tagers and PA, Dhonanoid power levels etc.

>>28658046
Right, and that's the stuff that that's necessary to change to make the mechanics not stupid. I'm not against changing that.

Its the "hey lets have Nazzadi still be the bad guys!" or "let's throw a bunch of nanomachine/cybernetic stuff in there just because I think it's cool!" stuff that I think we should hold off on.

>>28656001
>>28655610
Agreed here.

Also, the way we make it work for mages being in line with other people, is we can put in a "maintenance" cost for spells that are maintained, like magical artefacts and shit.

You can either just give this away (someone else supplies the orgone, giving up 1 point of it from their pool as long as they use the artefact) or supply it yourself for as long as you possess it.

This orgone point is automatically taken or recieved back when ownership is passed, so it's always draining you, no having a fuck ton of artefacts and just not using them while you use your orgone on other rituals?

Just a thought personally, but probably not a good one. Might be easier just to have it that if you want to 'equip' an artefact, you have to spend time meditating to atune yourself too it and spend that orgone point waking it up?

>>28658000
I'm with this guy for the most part. Except that once the mechanical work is done, we can then go and make a Cthulhu Void Tech setting AFTER that. But not before.

Anyway.

>>28658046
Some of those can be handled with MINOR alterations to the fluff. Making tagers and dhonoids less show stopping in the lore but maintaining their over all purpose. Being able to transform into a wrecking ball of cosmic power who is superior in melee than just about any body else (but can still be gunned down if you maintain your cool) is hardly going to change the big lore stuff.

What we're against is MASSIVE lore alterations. Like changing the fact that china was eaten, or the hive ship turning back, or getting rid of chrysallis corp, or making it so that parapsychics and mages have to use implants like bionics in mass effect to control their powers. Or removing the deep one rape camps (one I'm actually sorta for...). Or making the Nazzadi enemies again.

You see what we're getting at?

The tager/Dhoahnoid lore does need changing in SMALL ways to account for the fact that we're lower their power levels.

>>28658138
>cont.

But there's a difference between a MINOR fluff alteration to account for new crunch, and completely overhauling the fluff because we don't like it.

Again, I want to emphasize, I am -all for doing that-

But only once the mechanical aspects have been done -first-

Our priorities are:

1) Making the game playable for nonoccult/nonintegrity scale characters using The Void's mechanics. (Skills and equipment overhauls)

2) Making the Game Playable for Occult (but nonintegrity scale) characters. (Spells, Parapsychic Powers, and Tager Abilities overhaul)

3) Making the game playable for integrity scale characters. (Overhauling mechs, engels, and large monsters)

4) Making new fluff from the ground up. (making a new setting specifically for Cthulhu Void Tech)

So do you see -now- what the priority list is? We start at the top, we finish things on that list, and work our way down.

>>28658138
I get what you're saying, don't think I don't, I just probably see more to be changed than you.

For example, I don't see the need for rape camps. Breeding camps I can see, especially with the creepy indoctrinating church thing they have going. Think about what seems more insidious, fishmen kidnapping people to rape, or people, the cute neighbor girl, that friend you had in high school looking for spiritual fulfillment, the older, motherly lady from the market, willingly becoming happy breeding cattle for them?

I'm all for boosting Tagers and Dhonanoids in melee. As they were, very few of them aside from the specials could lay a scratch on powered armor in any way, and the nightmare, vampire etc. could only really do it with limit breaks. Making it so a powered armor squad would suddenly be in deep shit if they suddenly find one of those monsters dropping into the middle of their formation appeals to me. As for Dhonanoids being weaker, I personally see it more interesting to have the run of the mill ones cheap, 'mass produced' versions instead of 'the real deal'. That way you have both the somewhat weaker footsoldier types, and pants-shitting big leagues enemies.

As for spellcasters, the main issue is that their provided spells are pretty crappy for games, mostly, since they require a lot of investment, a whole lot of downtime, and some unsavory stuff to even be remotely worth it, all at the cost of making the character kinda suck at the rest of the game, or being okay at some other areas but not so hot at spells, and there's really no middle ground between useful but overspecialized and weaksauce but vaguely useful elsewhere.

I'm fine with China being eaten, the NEG being a vast monoculture of 100% westernness, less so.

>>28658244
>For example, I don't see the need for rape camps. Breeding camps I can see, especially with the creepy indoctrinating church thing they have going. Think about what seems more insidious, fishmen kidnapping people to rape, or people, the cute neighbor girl, that friend you had in high school looking for spiritual fulfillment, the older, motherly lady from the market, willingly becoming happy breeding cattle for them?
Actually, I'm not entirely sure the camps WEREN'T this, and they were just making a broad definition of rape. After all, legally, any form of coercion is rape, period. Just because I brainwashed you into liking it doesn't mean it's not rape.

>As for Dhonanoids being weaker, I personally see it more interesting to have the run of the mill ones cheap, 'mass produced' versions instead of 'the real deal'. That way you have both the somewhat weaker footsoldier types, and pants-shitting big leagues enemies.
This I like. I like your style sir. And it makes sense. The Chrysallis corporation would mass produce the weak ones, but the powerful ones want to keep their edge and their positions of authority, so they're going to limit access to the powerful symbiotes for those they KNOW they can trust, and are worthy of them.

>>28658244
The thing is, I agree completely that the fluff needs changing to run a good campaign. Cthulhutech is a huge example of great concept, horrible execution--most of the structural ideas in the setting are awesome in theory, but the way they're presented (and the details given) are juvenile, "edgy", and just plain poorly done most of the time.

The thing is, that's the kind of stuff I want to do myself, as a GM, when I decide to run a Cthulutech game. We don't need some people in a thread on /tg/ to decide what should be "canon" or not in that regard. If you really want to discuss that sort of thing thats fine, but it shouldn't require us to heel to YOUR vision of the setting in just to use these rules. I don't want to have to do more homebrewing to take your ideas out if I don't like them. You see what I mean?

Save the refluffing for things that specifically must be refluffed to make the mechanics work at all.

>>28658368

>As for spellcasters, the main issue is that their provided spells are pretty crappy for games, mostly, since they require a lot of investment, a whole lot of downtime, and some unsavory stuff to even be remotely worth it, all at the cost of making the character kinda suck at the rest of the game, or being okay at some other areas but not so hot at spells, and there's really no middle ground between useful but overspecialized and weaksauce but vaguely useful elsewhere.

My thing is that we need to up the vareity of spells, but keep the down time necessary to cast them for the most part, but make them easier to gain access to on the fly. That's how magic, historically, is supposed to have worked. You do a big ass ritual to bind a spirit to your will or an object, then you do that ritual in minature (usually just a few words form it) to activate the spirit to push around shit, or light things on fire, etc.

Parapsychics though needed to be toned down in how often they needed to call on their upkeep cost. A lot of their powers could be kept going for long minutes or hours without needing to use more orgone to do it. Combat rounds are fast, and so some guy with parapsychic abilities could literally just level the playing field with only one activation of his ability and never have to pay the upkeep costs. We change that, and we will actually make parapsychics a lot more balanced.

Basically.
Magic: A lot of time and investment and preparedness, and you get a nice grab bag of skills to call upon later. But god help you if your rituals are interrupted.

Psychic powers: No rituals necessary, but you use up power much faster, and don't have the staying power.

So magic might take a full action to turn on, but you can do it a bunch of times before you need a new ritual to activate it again. Where as Parapsychics can just snap a finger and make shit happen without any rituals, but they use up their mojo faster.

>>28658368
Pretty sure they were meant to be literal rape camps. The adventure concerning Iceland, I think, has rather firm encouragement that the GM should throw all kinds of horrible stuff at the players, showcase atrocities all over. That, and there being a sort of specific mention of breeding facilities for cultists signifies a difference between the two.

The former is double hilarious considering that the adventure is supposed to have predominantly migou PCs, who by all rights should not give the smallest fuck about it.

>>28658386
I can respect that. Still, I'd rather err on the side of caution than get stuck with mechanically stupid stuff because it was handled sacred cow style.

>>28658414
Also, I've always imagined the rituals as a kind of buffer for sanity. You preform a bunch of odd things and symbolistic actions to create metaphores that your monkey brain subconciously understands without your concious mind being fully aware of it. The sanity risks are far lower, because your hind brain, which already understands the truths of reality because instinct is BUILT to do that (you instinctively know how to move your arm to catch an object thrown at you slowly, yet you'd never be able to work out the mathematics for that action conciously). The ritual isn't ACTUALLY necessary to preform the magic in any real sense, but it IS necessary to preform it if you want to come out of it with even a modicum of your sanity intact. In fact, you couldn't POSSIBLY preform the magic conciously if you were anywhere close to sane in the first place.

Parapsychics don't need that, but they walk a razors edge that makes them a little more insane. They also are mostly using their hind brain to warp reality using cosmic forces, but they touch it much more directly and conciously, no buffer of ritual and metaphore to make their subconcious brain understand without their concious brain really getting it.

>>28658386
Exactly.

Mechanics first. Changes to fluff to suit the mechanics as necessary, but no more.

Also I think somebody earlier on figured out a nice way to sort integrity scale as higher HP, higher armor, and using the "reselient" stat, and having the system failure system work on the normal damage scales (systems fail instead of taking dice penalties). So we might consider goal 3 mostly finished.

>>28658456
>I can respect that. Still, I'd rather err on the side of caution than get stuck with mechanically stupid stuff because it was handled sacred cow style.
My advice is this.

We ignore the fluff almost entirely for making crunch. When we CANNOT ignore it (for example, with the tager thing) then, and ONLY then, do we make alterations to the fluff.

>>28658482
>We ignore the fluff almost entirely for making crunch. When we CANNOT ignore it (for example, with the tager thing) then, and ONLY then, do we make alterations to the fluff.
I'm behind that.

Anyway. So then. Here's what we have so far.

1) We up the power of the basic level classes (noncosmic, nonintegrity) by allowing them to use nanotech.
>Fluff justification: Nanotech is a form of arcanotech. It doesn't drive you mad as long as you're not designing it, just like driving a car doesn't drive you mad. But it reacts very badly, even lethally, when mixed with cosmic forces or other forms of implants such as the engel implant. The engel implant might even be a form of this nanotech.

2) Tagers and Dhoahnoids are severly stripped down in combat ability. They are utter monsters in close combat, to the point power armored soldiers should be utterly terrified if they manage to get inside the formation (and we should give them stealthy abilities to allow them to more reasonably do this, and that just makes sense, they already are kinda geared towards stealthy shit).
>Fluff justification: Tagers are powerful enough to take on normal Dhoahnoids, and even groups of the mook Dhoahnoids. The distribution in power and the reason behind the 'mass produced' weaker mooks, is that the guys in charge are pulling political bullshit wanting to keep themselves on top, so they deliberately cripple their underlings to have them remain subservient, also the fact that they are able to spread by breeding probably plays into it.

3) Spell casters and Parapsychics are both going to need some adjustments. Spell casters need to be less gimped, and parapsychics need to be more gimped.

Didn't have much time to check today, but it seems Secondaries can mostly stay as-is. Pilot and Engineer would need different skillsets, and probably add 1-2 more where archetypes need it.

If we use Void's Primaries we can cover most bases managing Secondaries, except for stuff like Tagers, Sorcerors & Para-psychic, which may need their own archetype and limited Secondaries. Any idea how to manage those?

>>28658482
While that's a pretty interesting take on magic that I can see myself backing, it does go against basic setting conceits, i. e. that these are very real forces, almost tangible, therefore making the ritual gibberish a metaphorical crutch somewhat undermines the idea.

I myself quite enjoy the Laundry approach to magic performed solely in your mind. It's possible for someone well versed enough to just fire off a spell through running it through a mental model, it will fuck your brain up.

>>28658578
>fluff justification for 3: None needed right now. We need to be more specific and it might not be even necessary.

4) Mechs and such will not use integrity scale, even the 1:5 system (though we'll keep that as an optional rule for people who REALLY want that). Instead, armor and health increases, and given mechs the resilience special rule which reduces all damage from non resilient sources to 1 damage (per die I think?) eg: if you don't have a weapon with the resilient quality, then you're not going to be doing a lot of damage. Further, their damage charts will be altered, rather than recieving smaller and smaller dice pools, they'll have system failure
>fluff justification: None necessary. They'll still outclass just about everyone else, but not so tremendously huge a difference that a mech pilot won't be able to pilot a small mech alongside the party.

Also, just a thought. What if we reduce Mech Pilot to just "Ace Pilot" they're the get away driver. They can be specialized to pilot mechs, jets, cars, whatever. But their speciality and role in the group is the getaway driver most of the time?

>>28658585
We'll need others as well, but yeah. I think we're mostly good. Though we probably are going to want to change some like "Sailor" because I was under the impression that the NED didn't have much of a navy presence any more?

>>28658590
I'm not sure it does undermine it? The idea is that the ritual is very real, what it's doing is REAL. But a lot of it is trappings and additional facets that help shield the mind (which is also part of the ritual). The reason why arcanotechnicians are actually in MORE danger of being driven insane than your average spell caster (at least on the scale of when they're working on entirely new devices like when the D-Engine was first invented), is that by and large, their job is stripping AWAY the majority of the ritual and distilling it down into an interface that can be preformed by a nonsapient object.

>>28658654
The thing there is that then all the trappings, the necronomicons, the rituals, the chanting lose their inherent power and sinisterness. They become things primitive people cobbled together to make magic work, while the NEG then, by stripping off the chaff, makes a better and more deeply understanding job of it. The theme is more 'dabbling in dangerous, ill-advised mysteries that taint you' than 'reverse-engineering magic for a better future', no? Becoming the monster, instead of beating them at their own game. Hell, the goddamn Migou use rituals, and they're advanced as shit.

To keep rituals form being time consuming, you could make spells lock&key, and resource consuming. The researcher does need the symbols, consecration, reagents and Orgone, but doesn't necessarily have to be present to cast them.

So your unregistered sorceror leaves an armoured box with all the elements ready, and spends Orgone to keep in "on hold", diminishing his pool. When he wants to cast, he just needs to lock on it and hope nothing distracts him while he channels the effect. As long as he has enough Orgone to keep the ritual running and doesn't fail the casting, he could reuse it later. Of course, keeping rituals running and hidden limits his ability to perform on site or to resist/unweave spells.

>>28658774
That reminds me: Migou. We plain have to use a different portrayal of them, be it EarthScoprion's, Delta Green's, whatever.

>>28658578
If I recall right, becoming a Dhonanoid kind of hollows out most people. I'd guess a workable take would be that instead of the head honchos making the footsoldiers weak Dhonanoids just to keep their power unchallenged, instead also do so to make their men into the perfect soldiers: obedient to a flaw, unfeeling monsters that can still pass for human but have little in terms of needs or compunctions. Hell, it even makes sense from a corporate standpoint. They're cheaper to keep than regular highly trained security soldiers because you don't have to pay benefits, give them leave, motivate them, etc.

>>28658774
True. Okay then, how do we change that then?

>>28658804
So we leave the ritual half finished and places a lock upon it to be activated in full later? I like that. It works. And makes Sorcerers needing places to hide their shit even more important.

>>28658827
Why? Again, that's fluff stuff. We aren't supposed to be taking it into account except where absolutely necessary to make the game more PLAYABLE.

>If I recall right, becoming a Dhonanoid kind of hollows out most people. I'd guess a workable take would be that instead of the head honchos making the footsoldiers weak Dhonanoids just to keep their power unchallenged, instead also do so to make their men into the perfect soldiers: obedient to a flaw, unfeeling monsters that can still pass for human but have little in terms of needs or compunctions. Hell, it even makes sense from a corporate standpoint. They're cheaper to keep than regular highly trained security soldiers because you don't have to pay benefits, give them leave, motivate them, etc.
One problem, Dhohanoids are supposed to be spreading themselves genetically through to other families and with Dhohanoid children and such. They're meant to be infiltrators. The low class ones need to fit that criteria too.

>>28658804
IDEA!

what if there's a kind of 'subritual' a 'metaritual' as it were that all casters start off with? (but are able to take a disadvantage to not know it starting off). You place it at the end of a ritual, a 'lock' on the ritual, that allows you to 'finish' it while not physically being present, and to channel the ritual elsewhere. Each lock uses up a miniscule amount of orgone or has some kind of other cost associated with it.

This ritual is pretty standard training for most spell casters since it gives them more utility in their spells. But people without formal educations might not have it in their repretoir and have to do the normal method of spell casting?

>>28658884
It also gives us the potential to introduce "metarituals" into the game play, which are like modifications to overall rituals, they have cost in materials and space and such, but not in orgone? So you can enhance your spells with other spells?

>>28658902
which would give people the ability to 'customize' their spells much as mechs can be customized? Making it less set in stone what you can do based upon your rituals and spells?

>>28658916
Can somebody lay down how spells work CURRENTLY so we can begin looking into that?

>>28658386
The problem with your interpretation is that nothing in CTech was designed to be fluff agnostic. Problems can and will occur and they will not be minor. Everything from the power of Tagers to the availability of the equipment was tailor crafted to support the fucked-up ness of the setting.

>>28658951
This. If it was easy to just use different mechanics and roll with CTech, it would be a common thing that people do, but like, say, Exalted, the mechanics very much support its thesis. And everyone knows CTech's thesis is juvenile as fuck.

>>28658578
No. No no no no no. This is not what WE have at all.

No. Nanotech. I will cease doing ANYTHING for this project if you shoehorn in nanotech just for the hell of it. It's unnecessary and out of theme.

>>28658951
>>28658986
I have to disagree with you both there. By that interpretation, this entire EFFORT is folly and we should just build an entirely DIFFERENT game period.

Since we are not GOING to do that, and since the entire point of the project is to repair the CRUNCH of cthulhutech to make it more playable. That point of view is just plain unhelpful.

We stick with the goal of flat out ignoring the fluff as much as possible, making the crunch playable and more balanced for party diversity, and making only MINOR alterations to fluff where absolutely necessary.

And obviously it's not as easy as just using different mechanics. The mechanics of one system have to be at least MOSTLY compatible (which The Voids are), and then you have to go in and make alterations at every level to bring the two together.

Do you think that it was as easy as just "taking Dark Heresy's Mechanics and slapping them onto the Evangelion setting"? Obviously not. The guys used the core rule set of Dark Heresy, and retooled it to make AdEva.

That's what we're doing now.

We're taking the fluff of Cthulhutech, and the crunch of The Void, and then fusing them together. It's not an easy process, but it's by no means futile.

>>28658175
Your priority list doesn't work because those are all interrelated issues. Mechanical representation is inspired by and tied to its fluff, and vice-versa.

>>28659028
Nanotech is pretty cool. I'd say get out if you don't like it.

>>28658855
The Migou I mentioned as something that desperately needs work, since they are a main antagonist, and they are quite possibly the worst written among them all. Not as a current priority, but something that will 100% definitely need work after the mechanics are set.

Fair point on Dhonanoids.

Magic wise the main issue is reconciling traditional magic and arcanotech. The former needs to keep it's scariness while allowing for the latter to exist without too much bending of the rules, so to speak.

That does remind me, though. Do we really want to keep nanotech? Considering that it barely appears in-setting, has very, very little impact on anything tangible, and mostly raises questions as to why it's not actually used, I'm not sure if more simple explanations like advanced robotics, cybernetics, manufacturing etc. wouldn't be less disruptive overall.

>>28659031
A lot of this effort is, in fact, folly because people are trying to view CTech's mechanics as if they are fluff agnostic when they just aren't. Changing CTech's rules will render its fluff nonsensical and, in many places, hollow.

>>28659053
Nanotech is cool in a setting about nanotech.

Nanotech is dumb in a setting where the most cutting edge technology is supposed to be weird technomagic that can drive you insane if you study how it works too hard. If you also have nanotech that can compete with arcanotech or magic, why the hell would you use arcanotech or magic at all?

>>28659053
Whoah there buddy. That's a pretty harsh, and let's be honest, short-sighted view. By that token, someone could say 'Mages working through cybernetics is pretty cool. I'd say get out if you don't like it.'

For starters, name three things of at least some importance in the setting that actually feature nanotech.

>>28659087
Because both are cool and love makes the world go round. Also, not everything good ever is arcanotech, even in crappy baseline CTech. With the things they've produced, Nanotech fits right in and there's no reason to be against it.

>>28659028
>>28659064
>>28659087

Alrighty, no nanotech then. Thought we were keeping that one. Ignore that statement then. It's not necessary to put it in really. We'll be keeping the base level humans as is. The way dice work now will make them stronger anyway overall.

>>28659053
That's too harsh by far my friend.

>>28659034
>>28659075
I have to politely disagree with you on that front.

>>28659114
>>28659106
Also. Just going to say this. It might be best to keep Nanotech out anyway.

The Void -does- mention nanotech wizardry and shit (eg: nanotech powers that look like magic), but it gives no RULES for it yet. Just like there are no rules for space ship combat as of yet.

Since introducing nanotech would require making an entirely new subsystem, best to just leave it out.

>>28659101
>Whoah there buddy.
I will not "whoah there" because I am posting on an image board and not a polite round table. Nanofabrication is, in fact, implied in many areas of Arcanotech due to the incredibly obtuse way things must be constructed (whole parts, no seals, etc). That alone justifies it.

>>28658935
Learn the spell (Time of study, take Horror Test)
Gather the components
Prep the ritual (Time)
Cast the ritual (Time, 1+Casting Tests, Spend Orgone)
Profit

Then there are expected costs for acquiring the components and hiring someone else to do it.

>>28659142
Yes, but not necessarily on the scale of those omnitool powers that the guys in Mass Effect have. Again, making an entirely new subsystem is probably not a good idea at this stage. If we include it, we push it to the back after the core systems have been revised.

>>28659148
Can you go into more detail? What are casting tests comprised of?

>3) We leave the lore of the game, even the bits we hate, intact. Minor alterations are allowed. Major overhauls are not. The metaplot remains intact.
>Project Goal 3 is going to sabotage this entire effort.
I motherfucking told you guys. This thing is going down in flames because people are too eager or too scared to change shit.

>>28659142
>not a polite round table
I'm sorry, what. Are you seriously trying to say that a collaborative effort toward making a game should not be civil and rational?

The reason for removing nanotech is to make things less convoluted. The only reason to not have it be widespread if available is it being prohibitively costly, which in turn, if tied to arcanotech, would make that rare and prohibitively costly as well.

>>28659179
Nanotech by nature is not prohibitively costly

>>28659188
Then we have an issue in that the whole setting needs reworking due to prevalent nanotech, which the original most assuredly does not have.

>>28659203
The original most assuredly has it by virtue of the technology they do have which would be impossible to construct on anything but a nanofabricatin scale, and that is some highly advanced applications of nanotechnology.

>>28659142
>>28659188
Look, man, if you really want to play Cthulhutech With Nanomachines then you can run a game of that all you want. But just because you think it's cool and can come up with a billion reasons it might make sense in the setting doesn't mean you need to force the rest of us to use it by making it "canon."

As I said before: its bad enough that we have to this much homebrew to make the game playable; I don't want to have to do MORE homebrew to remove things that other /tg/ers put in.

>>28659162
It is just an Occult Skill Test, sometimes more.

>nanotech
I remember it being mentioned for controlled machinery and industry. It should break beyond those conditions, otherwise we enter grey goo plots.

>>28659222
Nano-scale fabrication =/= nanomachines that give powers or implants or anything that has any actual effect on the abilities of PCs.

We can have the former, we just don't want the latter.

>>28659223
Look man, if you want to play CTech with retarded leaps of technology, lack of conclusions drawn to logical ends, and childishly understood ideologies and jump scares, by all means. But very advanced nanotech does, in fact, exist in CTech already. It is just conveniently ignored for some reason, much like anything else in the setting that makes a lick of sense.

>>28659203
>>28659222
You both have points. You're both right that there would need to be changes, but not that they'd be super extensive.

More importantly though, it would introduce a new subsystem that would have to be balanced against all the rest. We don't need to do that right now.

>>28659227
>>28659242
And yeah, they both have points.

Look. At the moment, the nanomachines thing falls into the category of scub, far beyond even changing the lore at all from what I can tell. We can at least agree that elements of the lore need to be changed, the argument there is over 'when do we change it, now or after the mechanics have been changed'.

The nanotech one is scub to the point of 'do we include it at all.'

I think we should table it until the core rules are worked out. Can we agree on this much?

>>28659242
The former is much harder than the latter. Do you have any idea what a massive leap in technology that nano-fabrication is?

>>28658986
I dunno, I take CTech's thesis as being a mixture of HP Lovecrafts idea of "someday humans might be able to compete with cosmic horrors, but in doing so they become more and more like the horrors themselves" and "awesome 80's cyberpunk/mecha anime with a Lovecrafitan twist."

>>28659258
Which is why we're talking about excluding it. Either we refit to include it, we keep the retarded handwave as to why it never happens on-screen, or we go for something else.

>>28659275
But CTech doesn't actually go down that route and settles for juvenile attempts at horror and sexuality at every single turn.

>>28659280
Everything needs refitting. Old CTech only worked in the intellectual vacuum it made for itself.

>>28659267
I agree on tabling it for the time being. It's a barely-mentioned part of the setting to begin with, in a setting filled with "shit that just kind of gets thrown in there without being thought out because an author thought it was cool, then forgot about it."

>>28659293
Well, yes, I never said it succeeded in either of those things. But those seem to me, at least, what it's going for.

Guys, can we please table this until later? Even if we DID decide to include it.

How are we going to crunch it? Is it just a special type of quality or talent? Is it an entirely new class of item equipment? Do we adjust the rules for rituals to include it?

The crunch questions on nanotech are massive to the point of silliness.

Instead. Can we get some discussion going on "How do we restat the various classes" for The Void's character building? What secondary professions (4-5 each) would they have?

We already have prebuilt redone professions for the Soldier (Warden Enforcer), Intelligence Agent (Warden Investigator), and Occult Scholar (Warden Researcher).

We need to stat for the Archanotechician, the Arcane Investigator, the Ashcroft Advisor, the Federal Agent, and the Tager.

To start with, that means we need to distribute 10 points amongst their 6 attributes, leaving 5 points for the players to spend.

So guys. Stats and secondary professions. What should they be?

>>28659339
No, we can't table it because these are issues that should have been worked out before the first mechanical idea was even discussed. In typical /tg/ fashion, we put the cart before the horse and started making mechanics at random before considering all possibilities and their viability first.

>Spells
We should potentially can Dream magic until we have worked over the extended list, and the magic mishaps.

Is the lock&key idea okay? One thing to consider is that even then, locking on your box may make it harder (so only low-danger things are recommended) and that one may need multiple rounds to cast.

>>28659339
What exists already:

Soldier (Warden Enforcer from The Void)
>Awareness 3
>Cleverness 2
>Demeanor 2
>Grace 3
>Perseverance 3
>Physique 2
>Secondary Professions
>>Checkered Past
>>Military Veteran
>>Pilot
>>Sailor
>>Social Butterfly

Intelligence Agent (Warden Investigator from The Void)
>Awareness 3
>Cleverness 2
>Demeanor 3
>Grace 2
>Perseverance 3
>Physique 2
>Secondary Professions
>>Corporate Sector
>>Former Cop
>>Pilot
>>Former Undercover Cop

Occult Scholar (or maybe Arcanotechnician?) (Warden Researcher from The Void)
>Awareness 3
>Cleverness 3
>Demeanor 2
>Grace 2
>Perseverance 3
>Physique 2
>Secondary Professions
>>Artist
>>Engineer
>>Physician
>>Social Butterfly

>>28659424
Agreed on dream magic front. We figure out base spells first.

I think the lock and key system is pretty neat, especially if we make it into some kind of metamagic thing, but we need to agree on the metamagic thing first. Otherwise having it as some sort of 'quality' or 'talent' could work out very well.

>>28659339
We take the Primaries as they are, I think. I'm fiddling with the secondaries a bit, but it takes reading back and forth the skill list.

Stuff like Feds would require forced spending on Duty and stuff.

>>28659467
Agreed. And if we leave them as they are for the most part, we probably want Warden Researcher to be the Arcanotechnician, not the occult scholar?

>>28659481
Could be. Then we'd need a new Archetype to hang scholar/sorceror, para-psychic and tager on? It is mostly a Quality thing for them, and then some reccomended skills (undercover for Tager, knowledge for sorceror, can't figure parapsy)

>>28659605
Parapsy would be a grab bag of normal skills, with most of their 'combat' skills coming from their secondary professions based upon who they did training with. Is it university education? Corporate? Military? Ashcroft foundation?

You see how that might work.

for Occult Scholar, it would be various backgrounds from "Homeschooled' to 'University' to 'Cultist runaway' etc.

Tager has super spy and occult knowledge skills, with some flavor based upon their background before becoming a tager (we could pick and choose from the other secondary professions from other classes).

Make sense?

Also, I remember reading something about occult skills being based around not only the circle but also specialization of certain things. Can somebody go into that more?

>>28659605
Also, there being no Quality for Duty in Void (everyone's a Warden already), we could base it on Ally. You tie yourself to any of the major orgs, and a higher degree implies your rank.

>>28659724
Or we just create the "Duty" one. There's no reason we can't translate some of the skills and qualities from Cthulhutech to The Void as and when necessary.

>>28659736
Same crunch practically, no problem.

>>28659872
Pretty much. For occult, I recall that it's broken down into 4 types, Enchantment, Summoning, Evocation, and something else I think.

So it would be Occult: Enchantment, Occult: Summoning, Occult: Evocation, etc. for skills, just like how fire arms are broken down into various types as well.

We should check on qualities and such and figure out which ones need to be translated over.

Para-psychic has 3 levels, Tager has two levels.

CTech supported mutiple specialization as an skill increased, while Void doesn't. Should the skill split like that for everyone? Probably can mange it like a Quirk or Talent otherwise.

>>28660225
How do you mean?

Sorry, little confused, what do you mean multiple specialization as skill increase?

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/28638902/
Suptg archive made.

>>28660406
Instead of increasing an skill, you could earn Focused or Specialist in a subset of it. The effect must be planted somewhere else in the book and I can't find it, fuck.

>>28660516
>Quote from the wildfire forums
As far as power levels people drastically underestimate the human infantry, especially with spell support, 5/5 armor is nothing to sneeze at, all but the strongest of tagers avoids heavy armor infantry because for all their speed and power a shot gun is still gonna rip great gaping holes in them, while a heavy armored soldier with a shield and ward of corporeal protection is gonna laugh at anything short of a head shot, even if they ditch the shield for a bit of extra fire power they're still tough, and they're got better weapons than anyone else. I mean yeah a night mare or especially a torment can probably come out ahead in melee, but that why the soldiers have rocket launchers, flame throwers (say good-bye to your regen), and grenades.

The problem comes from people comparing investigators with their 2-3 points in marksman and dodge, and dinky little civilian pistols to combat trained tagers, or powerful para-psychics, when the comparison needs to be between para-psy, tagers, and well equipped infantry with high grade weapons, plenty of ammo, and decent armor.

C-tech accepts that not everyone with interesting lives is fighting or acting on the same scale or stage, and as such it allows a much broader array of character control than say DnD does, however this does mean that it is important to run groups that are operating within a close enough framework that the game doesn't devolve to 2-3 separate stories entirely, or that parts of the party feel like they don't contribute.

Why would an engel pilot, a tager, an investigator, a ghoul, and sorceror hang out and go on adventures together? sure they can benefit from mutual alliance but the fact is that they operate on different stages and scales of the game world and would generally not be getting into fights together.

>>28660631
>continued quote from the wildfire forums

Think long and hard about how you wanna balance the various 'classes'. Para-psy and tager would both probably benefit from a more direct pay for play style of orgone expenditure, especially environmental para-psy being forced to use orgone directly for a power application rather than the current pay for time structure, which is probably somewhat appropriate for somas, albeit a duration chop is probably called for in their case. Sorcery on the other hand should not be turned into DnD-esque fireballing and and polymorph shenannigans. Keep the magic as a support skill, mages create magical objects and ward places and people to protect them, a battlefield mage doens't cast fireball, he infuses the power of fire into a few grenades and carries them around until he finds something he really wants to burn.

Futhermore many of these things don't need to be balanced. If you're playing a mecha game, you don't need to be balanced with tagers, if you're playing ES then you don't need to be balanced with heavy infantry.

The ES, the mecha branch of the military, the street level investigator, the government agency, the non-mechanized army, these are all essentially separate games and trying to make them play nice together at the same time doesn't seem like a good plan.

My rebuttal is here: http://wildfire-community.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1867&p=3238#p3238

>>28660631
>>28660653
Whoever this person happens to be is a tremendous faggot. Tell them that.

>>28660631
>>28660653
Since when did we agree that normal people can't CC? Jesus christ fuck off

>>28660631
>>28660653
It's good to be able to put a name to your faggotry, shadowclasper.

>>28660713
Do you think a normal person should be able to CC as well as a Tager? Cause I thought we were going on the lines of that a Tager could be gunned down at range but god help the power armored dudes if it managed to land inside their formation?

>>28660751
I was already in the 1d4chan history. You could have found me there. I out and out stated how to track me in the previous thread.

>>28660752
Yes, I think so, because everyone should be able to excel in the field they chose. I believe this because, you know, I'm not a colossal fag.

>>28660776
I only came in later. Let me tell you that I think the way you are handling this is hamstringing this entire effort.

>>28660803
I agree there, but considering how tagers work I was assuming that we were keeping the class system. A soldier can excel at CC, but he has to work harder at it than a tager would, for the same reason a wizard should in theory work harder to be as good at CC as a fighter.

>>28660836
Each to their own opinion. Considering I started this effort, it's always good to know what others think I'm doing to it. Please, make your opinion of what I'm doing known, and where exactly I'm fucking up.

Qualities already have examples of 1 free success. If we make Sorcery a Quality (to cast beyond first order), then each point could be tied to an specialization.

>>28660909
>I agree there, but considering how tagers work I was assuming that we were keeping the class system. A soldier can excel at CC, but he has to work harder at it than a tager would, for the same reason a wizard should in theory work harder to be as good at CC as a fighter.

What? No, that's stupid.

>>28660925
Sounds good.

>>28660933
Okay then. Explain how you see it working then? What does being a tager offer that being a soldier doesn't and vice versa?

>>28660909
>Please, make your opinion of what I'm doing known, and where exactly I'm fucking up.
Instead of getting a working, concrete vision, you insist on pushing aside every conflict. Furthermore even if you want to limit changes to the setting, the most vehement argument we've had, you don't define what is and isn't acceptable, instead giving a limp wristed excuse to get people back to their vaguely defined work.

You're a shit project lead

>>28660949
>What does being a tager offer that being a soldier doesn't and vice versa?

Tagers: Cool mutations
Humans: The coolest gear

It's not a choice based on mechanical power, but on what's cool to you. This is elementary shit, watson.

>>28661015
Alright then. I don't see it that way, but how about this.
The reason I'm tabling almost all conflicts is that we should be getting the base level game play, the game play meant for non cosmic-powered and non integrity scale characters, finished FIRST. They make up the vast majority of the character classes, and the vast majority of the crunch. And everything that applies to them applies to everyone else. They're the foundation and we should focus on them FIRST before everything else pretty much since everything else will build on that.

That is why I'm tabling pointless arguments for shit that can only be really and properly tackled once the base level normal human stuff has been dealt with.

As for why I'm against altering the lore? Because lore -does- fucking effect crunch. Why am I tabling nanotech until everything else is done? Because we have nothing to work with it crunch wise and we'd have to make an entirely new subsystem just to handle it, and god only knows how that would interact with everything else.

If we begin making major lore alterations, for example, making it so that Nazzadi are still servants of the Migou as was suggested early in the thread, then we're going to have to make crunch REPRESENTING that, which means more than just ALTERING existing crunch to fit the new core system, it means, once again, adding entirely new subsystems rather than altering existing ones.

Downgrading Integrity to be buckets of HP, Armor points, and altering the damage chart (so every one fourth leads to destroyed systems rather than degrading rolls) is an example of a system we're ripping out and downgrading to fit existing systems, rather than making entirely new ones.

If it can't be translated into an existing subsystem or into the core system, then it's going to add onto our workload and create project bloat, which will require MORE betatesting and problems.

There, do my reasons make sense even if you do not agree with them entirely?

>>28661306
No, your reasons don't make sense because your approach is literally backwards. Everything you've said to put off should come first and everything you want to come first should come later.

Your tabling policy is shitty, and reeks of someone who either doesn't have a vision or what they have is very weak.

>>28661040
So should we alter tagers to be more customizable? More mix and match stuff? I'm not entirely sure how we could do that except to break down the various tager upgrades and figure out some kind of point buy system based on whether you're a normal tager or an exceptional tager?

It'd need to fit fairly closely with the customization system for the mechs if it were to work that way. Or perhaps we make it so that it's like buying qualities? Not sure there.

Also, to address the whole 'lock & key' thing mentioned here >>28659424

If we do the meta ritual thing suggested here: >>28658884
then once again, has to be handled in such a way that it's broken down into existing systems rather than making entirely new ones to handle it.

>>28661340
Oh really? So you're saying that we should do the specialized stuff first? The things that will only apply to one place and not to the entire game and every single character?

I'm interested to hear how you think that will expedite the game design process when we're going to have to go back and change shit that we've already made once we start working on stuff that applies to everyone.

>>28661394
You propose all your ideas first, then you begin to stick them together, discarding what isn't working. That's how this shit works. Since the skeleton of the system already exists in the form of the Void, we absolutely must figure out all the ways we can add special subsystems and become comfortable with the things we like and the things we don't like. You don't understand this because you're coming at this like we don't already have the frame of the system already in place.

You are a terrible, terrible lead.

>>28661456
Granted. I'll admit that you are right there.

Fine then. What should we be tackling next?

>>28661470
There was an idea or two earlier about people getting the fuck out of this thread and writing shit for a few days on their own. I think that should be done, and everything brought back should be inspected equally, even if it brings fluff changes. Sticking to orthodoxy when we don't even have an idea of what the finished product is going to look like is curmudgeonly and short sighted, and this thread only serves to cut down ideas before they've been fully expressed.

>>28661533
Okay. Sounds good. We'll reconvene in a few days I guess then? Right now probably just make a list of things that need to be addressed?

We need to figure out how to fix parapsychics and mages to make them work better (which comes down to parapsychics being super powerful, and mages being too crippled)

and then there's tagers, who we agree need to be toned down, but how do we do so while not making them too weak?

How do we differentiate equipment focus and occult power focus? (As suggested by >>28661040 ) Do we figure out a system of mutations that function like equipment or qualities?

What else do we need to address?

>>28661578
Everybody will approach these issues in their own way. We shouldn't tell them how to do it. Maybe they will surprise us.

>>28660925
can we get some more about this before the thread closes? And how it would apply to magic?

Also, are we going to be doing sorcery as a quality and have the occult skill divided up into subbranches like they do for weapons in the void?

>>28661618
Alright. Shouldn't we at least list what the issues are?

>>28661645
Pretty sure most people know what those are, and if anything is neglected, we'll just adjourn again to take care of it.

>>28661691
alright then.

When should the next meeting be done?

>>28661802
Sunday. Give people working a chance to take a day off.

>>28661870
Sounds good. I'll put it up on the wiki discussion along with the archive of this thread.

>>28661887
Okay, added to the discussion section, and the archive of this thread to the front page.

And this furry rape issue, how do you deal with it?

>>28662308
Rape them back.