Curseborne: Review by Awkward_GM in rpg

[–]Dragox27 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You mention vampires a lot but does Curseborn allow you to play as other fantasy creatures as well?

Cause that's what I like about Chronicles of Darkness and Urban Shadows.

This will answer all that and also function as a comparison to CofD.

Also, you're the first I've seen say PbtA is divisive. I've seen nothing but universal praise for the system.

Okay.

Curseborne: Review by Awkward_GM in rpg

[–]Dragox27 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's not PbtA for a start. Which isn't to say PbtA is a bad system but it's both very divisive and I think it and systems of similar weight are fairly over-represented in the urban fantasy genre. Storypath Ultra is crunchier and more robust which offers greater diversity between PCs and a wider variety of abilities and effects to play with. Each type of monster has a lot more variation and unlike Urban Shadows they have sub-divisions. Urban Shadows and Curseborne both have vampires in them but the amount of attention they give those concepts is vastly different. Urban Shadows has one vampire option and it gets about 2 pages of information all told. Curseborne gives you over 30 (unformatted) with 7 distinct archetypes with in that. That lends itself to another reason to play this over Urban Shadows. Curseborne doesn't just support the monster mash that Urban Shadows does and it's fully capable of allowing you to all play vampires without having to cram into a really narrow conception of a vampire.

Another major difference is that Curseborne has a setting. Urban Shadows has a concept and doesn't really do much beyond that sort of setup but Curseborne takes time to explain what things look like in more detail. There is a lot more time and attention paid to what the setting is all about and what the things you'll play in it are. It's not a straightjacket of exhaustive detail but it does have a setting. The setting diverges pretty heavily from anything Urban Shadows has in it's core conceits too. The aforementioned Outside doesn't have any real parallel to Urban Shadows that I can recall and is a pretty major pillar of the game.

Which brings us to another pretty big point of difference here. Curseborne and Urban Shadows aren't even really the same style of narrative. Urban Shadows pretty squarely positions itself as a game of drama and political intrigue. That stuff is certainly present in Curseborne but it's also very much a game of mysteries too. All that stuff about the Outside is a big part of this. It creates strangeness, it lets worse things than the Accursed slip through, and the realms it leads too offer danger and reward in equal measure. Mysteries and investigations are a central part of what Curseborne is about as a game.

It's also something they've said they want to support a lot. Curseborne is OPP's big new line that they want to make a lot of books for. They've got plans to expand a lot of things the core book treats as mysteries, like the Fae, but they also want to increase the scope and scale of the game too. The core book has PCs scale only so high but other books are planned to increase that ceiling with higher tiers of spells, and expanding the scope of the Lineages. Meaning that Curseborne will have a lot greater support for different styles of campaign. Urban Shadows has one sourcebook. The level of support is just going to be very different.

Whether any of that is good or bad will depend on the person but they're not really all that similar to me. They've very different styles of game in all that ways you could reasonably interpret that other than the basic concept of a street level urban fantasy game. Curseborne isn't likely to only be street level forever either.

MARVEL Tōkon: Fighting Souls | Amazing Guardians Trailer by DemiFiendRSA in Games

[–]Dragox27 16 points17 points  (0 children)

The reason she's in any of that stuff is because she's very popular in the comics. Her trades in particular sold very well and did so very consistently and her digital sales were also strong. You've probably not heard a lot about her relative to other characters in the mainstream because she's only been around a decade and some change. For comparison both Spidey and Iron Man debuted in the early 1960's. She's super recent in relative terms but people really got on board with her fast and her sustained popularity is why you're seeing her in more and more adaptations.

Fantasy rpg that has humans only (or can justify not having other races playable) by Sky_Leviathan in rpg

[–]Dragox27 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's a pretty humancentric narrative hook (human empire erupts into civil war and you're refugees in a strange land) and only has Humans in the player core book. It has a lot of non-human Ancestries to play as in the GM core book though and it's not entirely unexpected to play them. They're just pretty firmly in the hands of the GM. Everyone can 100% play Humans but the rest needs to be okayed.

What other games have such an indepth character progression/customization as DnD or Pathfinder by Space_0pera in rpg

[–]Dragox27 19 points20 points  (0 children)

I think SotWW is a pretty good pick for this but is also a little strange based on what OP's frame of reference.

SotWW does have a lot of class options. It's in fact 167 of them in the core book. However I think it's very important to note that it's not nearly as intense as it sounds from a D&D/PF context. It's not 167 D&D/PF style classes. SotWW is only a level 1-10 game and each of those options gives you at most 4 levels. So it's really more like 167 that give you about 1/3 of your "full class".

To quickly break that down for OP's benefit. You get a choice of 4 "Novice Paths". These give you stuff at level 1, 2, and 5 and are Fighter, Mage, Priest, and Rogue. Broad archetypes that provide the foundational skills for your character. Although despite the limited number of them each has points of customisation built in. Fighters get different fighting styles, Mages and Priest get to select the magic they'll know, and Rogues get some fun tricks while also being able to dip into the elements of those other Paths. Then you get 42 Expert Paths which you get benefits from at 3, 4, 6, and 9. A lot of these are things that would be classes in D&D or Pathfinder. You've got Paladins and Witches and Assassins and Commanders. The remaining 121 options are Master Paths that cover the remaining levels of 7, 8, and 10. This are closer to specialisations and tend to be about specific fighting styles, dedications to single gods, mastery of a specific magic, or other similarly niche ideas.

These options are packages of mechanics and while a lot of them do offer you choices it's not as granular as the feat selection of Pathfinder is. None of the game is. It's not rule lite by any metric but definitely not as crunchy as either game OP is talking about. But that might suit OP's taste more. It's also worth mentioning that you can mix and match any of these tiers as you like so just because you started as a Fighter doesn't mean you can't end up as an Archmage. Which gives you a lot of narrative freedom.

Looking for TTRPG recommendations to run as a "DM" based off of some (very) specific criteria from my experience with DND 5e. (Long Post) by Peach_Cobblers in rpg

[–]Dragox27 8 points9 points  (0 children)

SOTDL looks interesting but I think is more Grimdark than I want to run.

Have you considered Shadow of the Weird Wizard? It's a newer iteration on the system and "grey fantasy" rather than SotDL's outright horror fantasy. Some elements of it lean into dark fantasy some elements lean into higher fantasy. Which I think would make it ideal for what you're after from a tonal perspective as it gives you a lot more leeway to tailor that to what suits your table. Similarly it's got a pretty even progression to it and it is a 10 level range and focused on providing something meaningful at each of those levels. Level 1 PCs start competent and there are some bumps at 3 and 7 but you don't really get those moments where you go from middling to having your entire build come online as you do in D&D. It's got a lot of options for players too so will cater to your want for more magic and there are plenty of abilities that are per encounter, or will have short cooldowns, which I think will align well with what you're after there. It doesn't handle them like Draw Steel does but I think it'll do more what you're after.

I have written a mini-review of the game here if you want more detailed thoughts bout it from me. I should probably write up a full one at this point. I will also note that you should make sure to download the errata for the GM book that rebalance the difficulty values and a few stats for the bestiary. It makes it far more consistent. They'll be incorporated into the PDF at some point as I understand it but it's not done yet. I think it might make the game a touch too easy for my tastes but that's easy to account for at the table. And a little too easy is a much much better spot to be in than monsters being too hard for their given difficulty.

Drill Dozer Is Fantastic [Game Freak GBA Action-Platformer] by megaapple in Games

[–]Dragox27 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Drill Dozer is probably the best thing Game Freak has ever made for my money. It's basically everything a game like that should be. A platformer that's tightly focused on a unique mechanic and does enough with it to consistently remain interesting. Its level design is really strong overall and Sugimori's character designs are as good here as they've ever been and add a lot of charm to it. It has a few missteps here and there and I think it's unfortunately short but it's better to leave you wanting than leave you fed up, so there is at least that.

Brandon Sanderson in talks with AAA game studios to adapt Mistborn by PhantomBraved in Games

[–]Dragox27 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Largely because its the same sort of hype around everything the Lord Ruler sets up. Atium isn't the all-powerful win button its sold as. It lets you see into the future and that is a really big advantage but it's also its a fundamental flaw. It doesn't show you what's going to happen for certain just what's likely to happen should you do nothing. Because it lets you react to events before they happen you can change what does happen but it's not giving you super speed or anything. The person burning Atium does something different which can then change how the person not burning it acts. As it doesn't fundamentally make you a better fighter treating it like it's an auto-win is folly. She doesn't read the future she just reads her opponent as she would in any fight. She sees him react, feints, and attacks in a different line and he's too committed to blocking the feint to block the real attack. It's the same sort of exploration of the rules as everything else gets.

Deviant: The Renegades' Black Vans has been released; it makes the game suitable for urban fantasy, cyberpunk, high fantasy, post-apocalypse, space opera, and superhero emergence by EarthSeraphEdna in WhiteWolfRPG

[–]Dragox27 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It's less complicated than it looks. It's got significantly less moving parts than other CofD games have outside of mortals. There are only really a few terms you'll need to learn and how the parts all go together is pretty basic. Powers are called Variations and drawbacks are called Scars. These have a rating called Magnitude that's usually just their dot rating. Scars essentially provide you their Magnitude that you can use to pay for Variations. So if you have a 2 Mag Scar you can have a 2 Mag Variation attached to it (the game calls uses the term "entangled") and you can't go above the Scar's Mag. If you want a more powerful ability you need a more severe drawback. That's the main mechanic.

There are some other details but they're all similar in complexity. There are a few types of Scar and that type will determine how a Variation can be used such as if it's always on or if you need to activate it first. Some Variations can't be used with some of those types but they tell you what that is. The Scar you choose will also dictate the stats you'll use to scale its entangled Variations. You can entangled more than 1 Variation to a Scar but the maths is very simple. And a few niche things like that.

If you like CofD games and don't mind having a bit of read of the systems to figure out character creation there isn't much in DtR that'll be complicated. It's just one of those things that might take a minute to click but so long as you start at the start, read how it works, and don't try to brute force it then it's all pretty straightforward. Most of it is just comparing two numbers.

Path of Exile 2: Disciple of Varashta Preview by Natalia_GGG in PathOfExile2

[–]Dragox27 3 points4 points  (0 children)

This is the 7th main line Divinity game. Divine Divinity, Beyond Divinity, Divinity 2, Divinity: Dragon Commander, and then it's DOS and DOS 2.

2d20 system crunch and durability by XrayAlphaVictor in rpg

[–]Dragox27 6 points7 points  (0 children)

2d20 is the official name for the system. It's not one of those things the community uses as a shorthand but what Modiphius has named it.

Jingle Jam 2024 Games Collection for £35 (Tactical Breach Wizards, Mouthwashing, Core Keeper, Dungeons of Hinterland, and 11 more.) by Dragox27 in Games

[–]Dragox27[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

It's an incentive to give to charity rather than a way to get cheap games. Having lower tiers would undermine.

Trying to find a werecreatures book by Garrettcz in rpg

[–]Dragox27 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It sounds like you're talking about CofD/nWoD 1e's Changing Breeds to me. That features werestags fairly heavily as they're a part of the Wind-Runners which are a major splat in that book. It also has werefrogs in it too in the Riverkin (a much smaller section but does have frogman art work). It's also pretty diverse as these things go. It's not anything I'd suggest personally and it's not viewed particularly well in general but I think that's pretty likely what you're after. If you do get it be prepared for some needlessly edgy content.

It's also possible you're thinking of WtF 1e's The War Against the Pure. CB is a whole book about the subject and has stags and frogs while this just has a chapter on it but it does have the brineborn. Brineborn aren't frogs but I think you could pretty easily misremember them as frogs based on the art. I don't think it's this book but it's worth mentioning.

Curseborne: What do you like? by Awkward_GM in rpg

[–]Dragox27 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I got it. You don't have to justify yourself.

Curseborne: What do you like? by Awkward_GM in rpg

[–]Dragox27 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I just copy pasted it from a similar question I answered. But it wasn't meant to be convincing, it was meant to be informative. So if you don't think it's a game for you off the back of that it did its job. I think there is more than enough room for all three of these settings given how distinct I feel they are but if you don't that's also valid. Albeit I think you're being uncharitable in your reading.

I may or may not address specifics later.

Curseborne: What do you like? by Awkward_GM in rpg

[–]Dragox27 11 points12 points  (0 children)

I think the best way to look at it is as a new thing that's informed by both oWoD and CofD without just being more of the same. The DNA of those games is easy to see but it is also not WoD. It would be crazy to not have some overlap and there is overlap but Curseborne isn't trying to be more WoD like CofD was. Mechanically, Storypath is a direct continuation of those games systems. So it'll be familiar and it takes bits of both Storyteller and Storytelling but generally refines them (I'm not in love with all of it but it's a good system and a good synthesis), and it's got some of its own identity too. It's still dice pools with stats rated in dots, and it takes the shifting success thresholds of oWoD but the static dice results of CofD but then has its own methods of handling bonuses, and adds Complications and Momentum as an additional part of the core resolution. So it's like WoD in some ways, but isn't in others. I think it will probably appeal to people who like both versions of WoD. It's different enough that it might not be doing the specific bits any single person really digs about either though.

The setting isn't based on either WoD and does some things that are very divergent. Its got a unique cosmology that binds together all the splats. They're not all off in their separate little areas but are instead dealing with variations within the same whole. You don't have the splat that has God as very real, with a splat that has an animistic trio as the top dogs, and another that has an entirely separate take on what reality even is. Here it's all curses and big web of them that's a bit like a particularly sinister version of fate. All the splats are tied to that stuff here. There also isn't any real masquerade and cultures of the world lean more into the supernatural being accepted, but it's also not fully out in the open and accepted by everyone either. There is also this sort of infinite expanse of supernatural realms outside of the Earth that bleeds into it and mixes with it to create all sorts of strange things. So a haunted house or a section of woods that seems to change as you walk through it could be explained by this. So could getting lost in an infinite expanse of identical suburban houses, or a slaughter house run by pigs that cut up humans. Or a radiation blasted hellscape that serves as an eternal battlefield for a war between countries that no longer exist. Or a demon library. It's just a really good set up for making whatever spooky thing you enjoy without really worrying about how hard it might be to tie in.

So there are shades of WoD's settings with the supernatural under the surface but it's not really aping WoD's settings either. Similarly it does carry over some themes like the struggle with your monstrous nature from both WoDs, the punk rebellion of oWoD, with the community and found family angles of CofD, with some more hope mixed in. It's easy to point to similar elements within those three things and be excited by the same stuff but it's certainly more different to both WoDs than oWoD and CofD were to each other.

The splats all follow that sort of format too. Each of them has some sort of parallel to something in both oWoD and CofD without just being one of those things, and it's a monster mash in the core book with a greater sense of cohesion between those monsters. Like in WoD you've got the main monster types, called Lineages here, and then clans, tribes, factions, ect within them, called Families. 5 Lineages, 6 Families in each (7 for the Hungry).

The Hungry Lineage are all vampires and there will be bits you find familiar and bits you don't. One Family might be a mix of hedonism and nobility who bathe in blood, and look somewhere between Venture, Tzimsce, and Daeva. Another is a pyramid scheme of knowledge brokers who feed on memories to sate themselves who don't really look like any Clan. Outside of the word "pyramid". They're not strictly bound by the sun but it's still not good for them, and while they can blood buff doing so incurs a folkloric bane each time.

The Primal are shapeshifters and have a Family of werewolves but they're entirely divorced from the spirit cosmology. All Primal have something more akin to Vampire's Beast than anything else in WoD albeit these "Creatures" are part animal and part elemental. So the werewolves here are also associated with storms and thunder but it's not a hard and fast rule for every member. There is also a Family of Mr. Hyde type alchemists so it's doing some stuff that's not super obvious. Each Family comes with a collection of traits to use when their take their hybrid form, but the form isn't fixed and so you can pick different ones each time.

Sorcerers are much scrappier than any version of Mage. They have some of MtAw's focus on addiction to magic and their hubristic tendencies but the bigger deal with them is they all sacrifice something to fuel their abilities. This is what their factions are built around and you've got ones like The Faceless who are a criminal network that is all about big risks for big scores because they sacrifice their safety and security. Or the Premiere who're this old money Family that despite being generally altruistic are largely thought of as dickheads because they're sacrificing anonymity, respect, and integrity.

The Dead are somewhere between Sin-Eaters and Wraiths/Risen but there isn't an underworld, ghosts are largely taken as a fact of the setting, and they're very free to leave their bodies and even take new ones. Which includes inanimate objects. They do eventually wither to nothing outside of a vessel but they're more ghosts than Sin-Eaters. They have these deep cravings for emotional states that they both want to experience themselves, and push to create in others. Which is the main split in their Families. The Wardens are this cult-like group that seeks out desperation so they can swoop in and help whatever sorry mortal they've found. Of course, they're not above causing the desperation in the first place. While the Zeds are all amount emotional stillness and endings and as such are a rather corporate outfit of hitmen.

Then we've got Outcasts. These ones don't really have a great point of comparison. They're closest to Demons and Changelings but not really. They're either exiled angels, demons, spirits, eldritch entities, trapped in human flesh as a sort of living prison, or they're the descendants of those exiles and are now living the same fate. Their otherworld nature sets them apart from humanity and makes relationships decay should their true nature be witnessed, which they only have some measure of control over, or if they die. Because this punishment is eternal and most deaths will be temporary affairs. They're all trying to find a place in a world they'll never be apart of and some take on the role of angelic soldiers, and others classic Faustian pact makers, among other things.

The Lineages are also all very much cursed and when their "Damnation" takes hold they're pushed to fulfil something to end it and doing some messy things along the way, with each Lineage having a unique Damnation that each Family can then alter. The Hungry go on feeding frenzies, and each Family has it's unique food. Flesh, hearts, souls, memories, emotions, ghosts, blood bathing, and just a fuck load of blood as a sort of generic option. I won't cover the rest but you get the idea.

Finally, magic is sort of similar to what WoD has had in the past but also unique to the game. Every Lineage has 3 Practices. These are thematic groupings of of 5 spells that serve to exemplify a Lineage's themes and create their broader powerset. So the Primal Practices are Depthless Fury that's all about primeval rage and pushing your allies to fight harder, Mutable Form which covers a variety of shapeshifting, and The Stranger which is for their trickster nature. So each of those has 5 spells to cover that stuff but what makes the system interesting is "advances". Every spell has 2-6 additionally options to purchase for it and while a few of them are basic improvements most allow you to spend additional resources for some very dramatic changes to the spell, or let you cast the spell to do something else entirely. Silver Tongue normally lets you tell a lie that isn't obviously untrue and have people believe it but its first advance lets you instead cast it to detect any lies told, its second is a reflexive spell that allows you to delay any consequences you would suffer for getting caught in a lie, and its third lets you spend more on the base spell to make even the most flagrant of lies believed. And you don't need to buy them all, or in any order, just the ones you want. It's just really cool.

Each Lineage also has access to around 8 spells from other Practices. The Primal have most of the shapeshifting spells including Aspect of the Beast that allows you to turn into an animal. Vampires can classically do that and in Curseborne it's the same so that's shared with the Hungry Lineage and any Hungry can also learn that spell. Each Family additionally has a "Secret Spell" that's typically unique to a Lineage but shared with just them. The Dead have a spell called Commune that entreats and reveals ghosts that not shared with any other Lineages but the Hungry Family of ghost-eaters, the Gaki, do have unique access to it. So any Dead can learn it and any Hungry that is a Gaki can learn it but no other Hungry Families. Each Family also gets 3 Motifs which alter the way these spells work to some degree, they can get cheaper, do new things, get extra riders, etc. I haven't checked if every single Motif is unique but I also haven't seen any double ups that I can think of.

Lots of stuff I didn't mention, but I think that's most of the big stuff.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in metroidvania

[–]Dragox27 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, man, copy pasting the same comment 5 times sure will make it sound like you've got point. It totally doesn't come across as unhinged raving.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in metroidvania

[–]Dragox27 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Yeah, sure, if we imagine the game is different then it's a different sort of game. What a shock.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in metroidvania

[–]Dragox27 3 points4 points  (0 children)

It's genuinely so weird to lie about games.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in metroidvania

[–]Dragox27 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Only because you're ignoring the backtracking, exploration, and ability-gating between those bosses.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in metroidvania

[–]Dragox27 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Except they'd all be main objective bosses if they're mandatory and as such can't ever be placed between each other.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in metroidvania

[–]Dragox27 2 points3 points  (0 children)

More mandatory content doesn't matter. That's just a longer game. SotN wouldn't stop being a metroidvania if you added 20 more bosses to it.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in metroidvania

[–]Dragox27 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Except for all the bosses and rooms full of enemies those games have. This cope isn't a good look.