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It is cool and you can't beat that price for the zine.

I just got The House of the Hollow adventure/zine pdf from the latest Zinequest KS.

So quick fulfillment.

It looks nice now to dig in and see what I make of it.

The House of the Hollow, via @Kickstarter
 
I have read the corebook, and I can't put my finger on why just yet, but it feels a bit sanitized given the content and ideas it's trying to portray.
 
There's definitey more extreme stuff, as far as grimdark goes.

The appeal for me is more in the visual design.
 
The design is quite solid. Maybe I was just expecting more.
 
No, but I'd be glad to explain my preferences.

I think DR is how a lot of people intuitively feel like armor should be represented. The problem for me with a fixed DR (and I think other people have observed this as well) is that you can get into too many situations where a character in armor just can't be hurt at all in certain fights. The only way to avoid that is to keep DR very low except for truly exceptional armor, but then it never feels protective enough to matter as much as armor should.

My problem with AC isn't the all-or-nothing aspect. I think AC (along with HP) is reasonable for simulating combat between, say, human beings outfitted with medieval arms and armor. I can quibble about the numbers, but those can be adjusted, anyway. My objection to AC is that it fails to provide the same verisimilitude for combat with monsters.

For instance, plate armor is pretty much impenetrable to sword slashes, extremely difficult to circumvent with the points of spears and swords, and still pretty damn tough against maces and axes. But against a giant's club? A bullette's bite? A purple worm's stinger? Armor would provide a lot less protective value.

So for me, constant DR doesn't scale well to low-damage opponents, while AC doesn't scale well (for me, anyway) with high-damage opponents. The DR die does a better job at both ends of the spectrum. Armor can be really useful without ever being perfect. Likewise, it's value is reduced against big damage attacks, but not eliminated. It's a simple mechanic that's scalable while providing verisimilitude and tactical depth. Dare I say it? Yes...the DR die is elegant.
Ken St. Andre's Stormbringer brought that in first I think?
 
Ken St. Andre's Stormbringer brought that in first I think?
For sure, variable armor was an early innovation found in Stormbringer. The main drawback of it is the extra die rolling - one extra die roll never sounds like much, but that's the kind of thinking that drives you down the path to unplayable messes that make you stop and fiddle around with some rule 19 times per combat turn.

As for how armor should be treated, I have always felt like one of the key ironies in our hobby is that Chainmail and 1E AD&D presented one of the most realistic (if abstract) mechanics with the weapon vs armor type tables, but everyone hated it because it was too much work to implement in the flow of play. The diversity of armors and weapons are about an arms race of matchups, in a way that is not easily captured by game mechanics that treat each as having simply more or less damage or protection. It is unfortunate that no well designed major game system ever really got this to work right. Perhaps GURPS did it best, though that comes with a lot of extra rules cruft that isn't to everyone's taste. I had some brief hopes that the GURPS approach to armor and weapon types would get ported over to the new edition of TFT, but that wasn't part of the design philosophy for that game (perhaps wisely, though that's a different discussion)
 
So Mork Borg arrived at my local game store on Friday. I had already acquired the PDF and it didn't really make sense when I skimmed through it, but I figured I would buy the paper rulebook to see if it makes more sense in person and I grabbed my copy before the store guy even got his sticker printed to slap on the book. Not so much understanding as of yet, but I find myself strangely drawn to the thing. (Same thing for the Sin City movies. They are strange and creepy and disturbing, but somehow I am drawn to them.)

The artwork is really cool but I think that the strange fonts are very distracting. My thought is to go through the rulebook and type up the important stuff in a font I can read, then do a cover-to-cover re-read to see if I can figure it out better. I think that my brain isn't wired to do "heavy metal RPG" but I'm still willing to plow through the thing and see what cool ideas can be found therein. :grin:
 
I am waiting for the Icelandic varient Björk Morgue. Björk Morgue is an electro-synth pop art installation that you can play. The Kickstarter will be an mid fidelity technicolor electro ice tome. You get one session in and it melts. This reflects the ephemeral transience of the role play experience. Björk Morgue. ;)
 
I got the core book and agree with all the positive reviews of its appearance and general vibe - super creative. But as a game i don't get it; this just doesn't seem to me to be complete or innovative. I'd rather play almost any old-fashioned, simple version of D&D. Perhaps this should have been pitched as a setting or supplement rather than a game.
 
But as a game i don't get it; this just doesn't seem to me to be complete or innovative.
It's pretty much in the same vein as Knave or Maze Rats. A very simple D&D-ish game – regarding what you do, not necessarily how you do it – with magic based on items (scrolls, in this case). Even the classes are optional. You could probably boil it down to a handful of pages if you eliminate the aesthetics.
The setting itself is regular Scandipression, reminds me a lot of a hand-camera version of Gemini

But it's well-presented, and mood matters a lot. For the right kind of people, this will garner more interest than just throwing the barebones tables of Knave at them.
 
I have issues with Knave, several of the mechanics seem different for not much purpose, I much prefer Mork Borg or Into the Odd for a more stipped down B/X.
 
I'm seeing a lot of games that combine similar simple rules – quite often using or mixing a few of the aforementioned systems – with more non-traditional graphic styles. Pixel art, zine or "pocketbook" formats, faux-distressed layouts, lots of bullet points and bold.
OSE is part of that continuum, too, both because B/X is used as a system often enough and because of its layout. Lot of that happening on itch.io, which generally seems more in line with that style of art, compared to drivethru or even lulu.

I'm a bit torn about the rule systems, as I tend to be a bit more into crunch, but within the "D&D-ish" space, I prefer mine with as few rules as possible, as most of the added ones are going really against my grain. And I'm especially fond of the way some new adventures are presented. The Mörk Borg example adventure deviates from the "graphic designer burning churches" style of the rest of the book and actually works very well. Similar to the Necrotic Gnome adventures. Hope this style sticks.
 
But what music do I listen to for this? Too harsh visuals for synthwave, not enough dark age for black metal.
 
Perturbator came to mind given its synthwave by a black metal guitarist.

My first and favorite Synthwave artist! I bought some of his albums from Bandcamp or wherever when he still had album covers with ripped off Luis Royo airbrush art.

Puts on hipster sunglasses.

This one is what I had in mind:

 
So I could listen to Wayne June read a phone book but this is one better. They've gotten him to read the setting section of the core rulebook.

 
I snagged a copy of MB cheap, but I haven't used it. Thought about the CB KS, but odds are I'll never use it either. Guess I'll wait to find it used as well.
 
I have Mörk Borg and also the vinyl record - Putrescence Regnant.

Like the record, it has to be noted that the game is almost purely style over substance, which is not to say that this is a bad thing. It is just I don’t really expect to play it - maybe a one shot or two on occasion - and it’s really more like HŌL where is occupies an ‘ain’t it cool’ niche to show your gamer friends. When it says ‘rules lite’ they aren’t kidding!

I expect that CY_BORG is exactly the same, but futuristic rather than fantasy. It flickers on the interest radar, but I’ve kinda already got Mörk Borg.
 
My enjoyment from Mork Borg has been from reading/listening to the material released and running a bunch of one offs. It’s been great for both of those. I am looking for more of the same from Cy Borg and expecting it from I have seen.
 
I bought Mork Borg more as a fluke thing that looked cool yet creepy. Didn't think too much about it. Then my son saw it and was intrigued, so I bought him a copy. (Game store got a total of three -- the manager bought one and I ended up buying the other two.) Now his friend saw the game and was floored by it and wants to run a campaign! I told him that I'm in!

Now I need to get the SciFi and Cyborg versions if/when I can find them. (KS or otherwise.) Oh, and they have t-shirts! :grin:
 
Cy Borg looks cool, but not $50 worth of cool. Judging by the immediate success of the Kickstarter, though, I may be in the minority in thinking that.
 
Mörk Borg I originally thought would just be "cool", but I ended up really enjoying it's rules and default playstyle, so I'm quite looking forward to this.
 
Cy Borg KS is up tomorrow.

Inspirational music list is up too:

Wow. Lots of industrial/noise stuff I haven’t heard of in a long time.

Never could get into Merzbow though. The people that I personally knew who were super into Noise in general seemed pretentious. Like, listening to a guy smack a rusty wood saw with a hammer for 8 minutes makes you wonder if anyone ACTUALLY enjoys it or is just trying to appear super avant-garde to impress the other people at the goth club.

to each their own, of course
 
Wow. Lots of industrial/noise stuff I haven’t heard of in a long time.

Never could get into Merzbow though. The people that I personally knew who were super into Noise in general seemed pretentious. Like, listening to a guy smack a rusty wood saw with a hammer for 8 minutes makes you wonder if anyone ACTUALLY enjoys it or is just trying to appear super avant-garde to impress the other people at the goth club.

to each their own, of course

I can dig some noise music, kinda the other end of ambient music.
 
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