Making less-terrible Cthulhutech-esque RPG

[RadiantPhoenix]

I'd very much suggest making yellow hacking short range. Being able to unlock a door by looking at it is cool. Being about to unlock a door in China from your basement in New Jersey just means that no one you care about hacking would ever use electronic locks, ever.

You can unlock a door in China from your basement in New Jersey... if someone brings back something that touched the lock.

[Username17]

I'd very much suggest making yellow hacking short range. Being able to unlock a door by looking at it is cool. Being about to unlock a door in China from your basement in New Jersey just means that no one you care about hacking would ever use electronic locks, ever.

You can unlock a door in China from your basement in New Jersey... if someone brings back something that touched the lock.

The law of contagion is probably pretty much ideal for this. You can open it by getting your hands on something that has touched it. The traditional thing to use would be a laser, which works out to having direct line of sight open sesame beams (like a Dr. Who sonic screwdriver). But you could also do Shadowrun style ritual sorcery.

Anyway, Green tech also does illusions and fluid dynamics.
Blue tech does preservation, force fields, and luck manipulation. It's what the Elder Things used.

-Username17

[RadiantPhoenix]

So:

Orange Commontech
"Normal" Physics

Used by real-world people.

Uses:

• Computers
• Guns
• Cars

Red Arcanotech
"Curved Spacetime"

Used by the nomadic Shaggai and the subterranean Cthonians

Uses:

• Portals
• Warp-drives
• Gravity control

Yellow Arcanotech
Quantum Bullshit

Used by the Mi-Go of Yuggoth

Uses:

• Entanglement-based voodoo (law of contagion?)
• Unbreakable codes
• Oracle computing
• Teleportation-with-a-chance-of-blenderizing
• Jamming systems and fucking with tech

Green Arcanotech
Dream Magic[/b]

Used by Cthulhu of R'lyeh, who got it from the Xoth, as well as the Moon Beast resistance.

Uses:

• Dream travel
• Decryption
• Illusions
• "Fluid dynamics"; presumably airbending, but for any fluid

Blue Arcanotech
"Angular Spacetime"

Used by the Great Race of Yith and the Elder Things.

• Intangibility
• Luck
• Force-fields
• Preservation

Purple Arcanotech
"Organic" Technology; Chemistry and Biology

Used by Shub-Niggurath of The Abyss, as well as the Tcho-Tcho and Yeti

Uses:

• Emotion manipulation
• Shapeshifting and polymorphing
• "Things which don't even exist but are merely the defined absence of something else.", e.g. cold and darkness

[name_here]

Blue also has temporal manipulation. Great Race Of Yith send their minds across time, and Hounds Of Tindalos come out of angles to murder you if you screw with time enough. Which incidentally provides an explanation for why the Union has not/will not revert all of their defeats even though they have some Blue archanotech and magic.

[hyzmarca]

Blue tech does preservation, force fields, and luck manipulation. It's what the Elder Things used.

-Username17

The Elder things were also heavy into biotech, what with the Shogoths and everything. There's even some evidence that they created most of Earth's ecosystem.

[RadiantPhoenix]

Blue also has temporal manipulation. Great Race Of Yith send their minds across time, and Hounds Of Tindalos come out of angles to murder you if you screw with time enough. Which incidentally provides an explanation for why the Union has not/will not revert all of their defeats even though they have some Blue archanotech and magic.

Red Arcanotech does time shenanigans too.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive ... chine.html

[Username17]

The Elder things were also heavy into biotech, what with the Shogoths and everything. There's even some evidence that they created most of Earth's ecosystem.

Call of Cthulhu and CthulhuPunk both spend a lot of wordcount and not a small amount of page space on blathering timelines attempting to put together a timeline of billions of years ago and figure out when the Flying Polyps made war with the Elder Things and when Yithians created a temporal beachhead in the form of the library city of Pnakotus and when that got overrun by Flying Polyps and shit. And you know what? None of that shit matters.

Wars that happened one hundred million years ago or more basically don't matter. There's no reason to commit one way or the other to their outcomes, their participants, or their timing. Flying Polyps, Elder Things, and Yithians all have Blue tech and none of them seem to like each other very much. That's really all we have to say.

The timeline we actually care about starts in 1928 when Calvin Coolidge ordered Y'ha-Nthlei bombed and illegally put a bunch of civilians from the Marsh clan into internment camps.

-Username17

[Lokathor]

Given that some factions are waging war through time, the general outline of the timeline does at least matter as far as it can have an effect on the temporal war.

[Ancient History]

The Temporal War only matters as far as the human race are players in it; given human arcanotech that's probably fairly minimal, restricted to a handful of sites with possibly-active temporal gates, some artifacts too dangerous to fuck with, and a few drugs that allow for scrying. Even then, the only race that's mastered time travel to any real degree are the Yithians; the Hounds of Tindalos are sort of a native lifeform that lives in imaginary time.

[Whipstitch]

I'd go the other way and argue that the possibility of time travel is one of the best reasons to make MCs hash out which details they care about their own damn selves. Setting materials should remain relatively punchy and crazy Marvel timelines need to be something groups can opt in or out of at their own discretion.

[Occluded Sun]

Also time travel is the most efficient way to make the stars right.

[kzt]

Physical line of sight, or physical contact? Not that you have to see the lock, but you have to see the door with the lock. Which means throwing a black bag over your head does in fact block you from popping the lock to your cell open unless you can touch the door. Also, don't use the fancy electronic cuffs on the yellow hackers. Padlock their ankles to the wall with a chain and a good mechanical lock.

[RadiantPhoenix]

More on Arcanotech:

[Username17]

So let's talk about the Union Races. Races that aren't Human have an affinity for a kind of tech. Deep Ones obviously favor Green Techs. Goat Spawn favor Purple Techs, for equally obvious reasons. Serpentfolk and Ghouls are less obvious. I would put the Serpentfolk in at favoring Red Techs, because Yoth glows Red and is part of the Cthonian empire.

At one point we were talking about having anime devil girls called Akuma who were refugees from the destruction of Ghroth. If we keep them, we could have five Union races that each had a tendency towards one tech type. That would be Deep Ones: Green; Goat Spawn: Purple; Serpentfolk: Red; Ghouls: Blue; Akuma: Yellow (possibly switch those last two because it's kind of arbitrary).

That brings us back to the question of whether people want to play non-Hero tier Goat Spawns. The original concept was that those guys got Eldritch Fields by default and were basically the equal of a Byakhee just getting out of bed. But it occurs to me that people might want to play Goat Spawn and Akuma and such who were Summoners or even just Sorcerers instead. It would be nicely symmetrical if there were five non-human Union races and they were all roughly equal in power. On the other hand, if there were five non-human races and they were all different in power and cost to your department, that would be interesting as well.

---

The Cthonians have an underground empire, with several cavern cities (such as Tsath) and people who are under them. Cultist level minions include the Serpentfolk of Yoth, the Humans of K'n-yan, the Bolgani of Central Africa, and the Voormis of N'Kai. From these places, they mount offensives that threaten America Ward, Valusia, Africa Ward, and America Ward some more, respectively.

The Cthonians have Formless Spawn and Gyaa as Yaoguai. And the Cthonians themselves are Giants. Especially large Cthonians are Kaiju, and they have named Kaiju of Shudde M'elle and Tasthoggua.


The Gyaa of K'n-yan.

We could easily declare that the Voormis are simply a tribe of Humans who aren't part of the Union and worship Tsathoggua, like the K'n-yanians.

-Username17

[Korgan0]

I just want to say that despite having very little engagment with either anime or Cthulhu, this is totally dope and I'd throw down a good chunk of change and badger all my friends to do the same thing.

Just a couple quick questions; are blue and green and purple the actual names that are going to end up in the final book?

Also, how does the mission/agency structure work? Is it like Ars Magica where everyone has a couple PC's that together cover all the tiers, and then a bunch of NPC's you collaboratively control? At the start of the adventure does the GM (you might want a fun little name like Nobilis had) say "this is an Agent adventure, grab your agents for this session," or do you swap out during the session depending on how things go? It might be cool to have your Deep One Dick Tracy batphone Usagi and Hellboy when a Hound comes calling, and then the relevant players swap over and you cut to a different scene.

edit: I also think it's a very good idea that we don't do what Shadowrun did and totally write off everywhere that isn't Eastern US and bits of Europe. Out of the three or so default campaign locations, at least one should be somewhere that these kinds of RPG's don't usually cover. Tokyo and Denver/Portland are shoe-ins, so Cairo might not be a horrible idea, or maybe Islamabad.

[Artless]

I voice support for letting Goat Spawn and the like to get materials for fielding non-heroic members of their respective races. While exceptional individuals of one race or another might be capable of matching a Yaoguai without a career kitting on top, I'd still like to see a model that can spit out BPRD teams with representative members of each race that still have to run away once one of the Ogdru Hem come out.

And Lum would be an Akuma exemplar, right? (Can't recall if she got put under a different race or if she was even kept in mind. I recall seeing discussion concerning her...) If Akuma are using her and Morrigan or the like as the anime-side source material Yellow works well for them.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Also, how does the mission/agency structure work? Is it like Ars Magica where everyone has a couple PC's that together cover all the tiers, and then a bunch of NPC's you collaboratively control? At the start of the adventure does the GM (you might want a fun little name like Nobilis had) say "this is an Agent adventure, grab your agents for this session," or do you swap out during the session depending on how things go? It might be cool to have your Deep One Dick Tracy batphone Usagi and Hellboy when a Hound comes calling, and then the relevant players swap over and you cut to a different scene.

Mix and match. I think the intention is to be able to do an Agent campaign and play the Lovecraftian tropes fairly straight, or an Evangelion campaign and ignore everything but High School and Kaiju tiers (with a real downer vibe), or a Power Rangers campaign where you surf through all the tiers (and stay mostly upbeat). Or indeed do the Ars Magica thing and have a rotating stable of characters, who can have all kinds of different tones going on.

I don't know if there's an intended default, though.

[hyzmarca]

So let's talk about the Union Races. Races that aren't Human have an affinity for a kind of tech. Deep Ones obviously favor Green Techs. Goat Spawn favor Purple Techs, for equally obvious reasons. Serpentfolk and Ghouls are less obvious. I would put the Serpentfolk in at favoring Red Techs, because Yoth glows Red and is part of the Cthonian empire.

At one point we were talking about having anime devil girls called Akuma who were refugees from the destruction of Ghroth. If we keep them, we could have five Union races that each had a tendency towards one tech type. That would be Deep Ones: Green; Goat Spawn: Purple; Serpentfolk: Red; Ghouls: Blue; Akuma: Yellow (possibly switch those last two because it's kind of arbitrary).

That brings us back to the question of whether people want to play non-Hero tier Goat Spawns.

I would suggest that goat-spawn be diverse. Some of them are basically human whose (grand)parent happens to be a Shubby. Some are giant monsters the size of trees. Some are other things. The thing about Shubby's is that she spawns all sorts of stuff. There's no need to tie them down.

In fact, I'd suggest that certain races get certain access to certain optional traits that they can choose to buy.

Deep Ones get access to Kaiju-aized trait, though most Deep-Ones aren't Kaiju-sized, because they keep growing as they grow older. So if you play an etremely old Deep One he'll be huge.

Goat-Spawn, likewise, might get access to traits that give them eldritch fields, but they don't have to take those traits.

[RadiantPhoenix]

That brings us back to the question of whether people want to play non-Hero tier Goat Spawns. The original concept was that those guys got Eldritch Fields by default and were basically the equal of a Byakhee just getting out of bed. But it occurs to me that people might want to play Goat Spawn and Akuma and such who were Summoners or even just Sorcerers instead. It would be nicely symmetrical if there were five non-human Union races and they were all roughly equal in power. On the other hand, if there were five non-human races and they were all different in power and cost to your department, that would be interesting as well.

After doing some research and discovering that Goat Spawn are supposed to look Satyr-like, I don't see much reason for them to be automatically Hero-tier, other than maybe first-generation.

---

Also, I think we should start setting out a somewhat clear vision of what we want our various non-human races to look like.

Deep One



Goat Spawn
The creature was at once terrible and graceful, the result of blasphemous trafficks with some otherworldly horror.



Ghoul
Most of the bodies, while roughly bipedal, had a forward slumping, and vaguely canine cast. The texture of the majority was a kind of unpleasant rubberiness.



Serpentfolk

We have a decision to make here: do we go with the canonical appearance of serpent folk:


Or switch to the alternate version that has over 9000 times more art?



Akuma

???

[Korgan0]

One thing that popped up in my mind- In Ars Magica, covenant managment and expansion is as big a part of the game as everything else; while it varies from campaign to campaign, getting peasants to give you crops and trading shit for books and building magical brooms is a recognizable Part Of The Game. So, does the same idea apply to Sentai Fhtagn? Since we're already juggling 3.5 levels of individual play (agent, hero, kaiju, HS) as opposed to Ars Magica's two (mundanes and low-level critters, big critters and wizards), it seems like adding an Agency with stats to keep track of/manipulate would be a bit too much, even if you stayed short of adding the Bureaucrat tier of play alongside Kaiju. At most, I think, the Agency should be a set of fixed bonuses and line-up of opponents/plot hooks. Maybe in a splatbook you can add Resource Availability guidelines and stats to keep track of, but that's a separate thing.

Another quibble; what's the tagline? If you go for a baseline of "A Roleplaying Game of [] and []," possibly with an "in the []" thrown in for good measure, what's Sentai Fhtagn's? Arcane Technology and Eldritch Horror? Horrific Sacrifice and Unimaginable Adversaries? This ties into the Theme discussion that Lokathor had above, which recieved precious little attention.

One last thing: is anyone using the githhub that Lokator set up? It seems reasonble to have a centralized something-or-other, even if it's just a Google Drive folder.

[Grek]

Surely Ghouls should be the ones getting Green techs, what with being the actual Dreamlands natives? I mean, yes, Deep Ones obviously should have the ability to breathe water, but that's not particularly a magical ability so much as a reflection of the fact that they have gills. Further, Cthulhu is supposed to to have learned Green Arcanotech from Xoth, not having invented it himself. That doesn't sound like an innate affinity so much as something Cthulhu is personally interested in. Certainly, regular Deep Ones don't have any particular dream magic powers. I think you want to go with their other big mythos power as being more important: They're immortal and can come back from being killed. Which means Blue Arcanotech, not Green. That means:

Goat Spawn: Purple
Ghouls: Green
Deep One: Blue
Serpentfolk: Red
Akuma: Yellow

[angelfromanotherpin]

One thing that popped up in my mind- In Ars Magica, covenant managment and expansion is as big a part of the game as everything else; while it varies from campaign to campaign, getting peasants to give you crops and trading shit for books and building magical brooms is a recognizable Part Of The Game. So, does the same idea apply to Sentai Fhtagn?

I think you could get a lot of mileage out of mimicking the X-Com model: missions get you research mats get you tech upgrades. But I also think that's an expansion book.

[hyzmarca]

Another quibble; what's the tagline? If you go for a baseline of "A Roleplaying Game of [] and []," possibly with an "in the []" thrown in for good measure, what's Sentai Fhtagn's? Arcane Technology and Eldritch Horror? Horrific Sacrifice and Unimaginable Adversaries? This ties into the Theme discussion that Lokathor had above, which recieved precious little attention.

That's because we really don't have a theme yet. Or, more importantly, we're making space for multiple themes.

[Username17]

Serpentfolk are canonically Yuan-Ti. Or rather, D&D's Yuan-Ti are patterned exactly off of the Serpent Men of Yoth. So there are snake headed Serpentfolk, Snake Tailed Serpentfolk, Serpentfolk who can pass for human but have strange eyes and maybe extensible fangs, Serpentfolk who are snake monsters with other snakes sticking out of them, and so on. Thoth Amon himself looks pretty much like a human who happens to have yellow eyes and slit pupils. Then there's the Lamia, who appear as beautiful humans but their hair goes all snaky like a D&D Medusa.




All three of these are Serpentfolk from the Conan comic.

Bottom line is that if you want to be a "Mermaid" style Serpentfolk with a snake tail and human upper body, that's fine. And if you want to be a He-Man style Serpentfolk with a humanoid body and a snake head, that's fine too.

As for the Akuma, I think the prototype Akuma is Lum from Urusei Yatsura, with s secondary inspiration of Laharl and Etna from Disgaea.



Akuma are the pointy eared devil-children, not the bird-people standing next to them.

As for Deep Ones and Green Tech, most of what Green Tech does is based on the magic of the Marsh Clan.

-Username17

[Grek]

The Marsh Clan does not have water powers, illusion, telepathy or dream magic. They have magic rituals that give them fish and gold in exchange for human sacrifices, and they have magic blood that turns them into immortal fishmen. Mechanicly, that first one is represented by Friendly Currents and the second one is Breath of the Deep plus some sort of Blue preservation sorcery. It's early enough in the design process that we could move both into Blue Magic and write up a pair of replacements for Green. So let's:

Green Sorcerer Spells:

• Cloud Memory – Alter someone's memories of an event.
  Decipher Script – Divine the meaning of a text or computer archive.
  Dream Speaking – Send messages to or extract information from sleepers.
  Spell of Slumber - Cause a person to fall asleep.
  Phantasm – Create realistic but intangible illusions.

Green Summoner Spells

• Floating Dream - Let a target fly using dream logic.
  Dream Step – Travel to and from the Dreamlands.
  Find Weakness – Reduce a target's effective armor in a location.
  Mind Transfer – Shares senses with another creature.
  Visions of Akasha – View events from the past.

That lets us give the dream travel and illusion magic to the people who live in the Dreamlands.

E: Blue Techs

Blue Sorcerer Spells

• Deduce Origin - Learn where and when something began.
  Timely Currents – Travel quickly in water or attract fish.
  Ageless Body – Return a target to chosen younger age.
  Premonition – Foresee an expected event seconds in advance.
  Forecast – Accurately predict weather and natural disasters.

Blue Summoner Spells

• Breath of the Deep – Target supported in hostile environments.
  Body Swap – Switch your soul with a target, controlling their body.
  Timeless Step – Step sideways out of time for a span.
  Reek of Ages – Attract the Hounds of Tindalos to a target.
  Barrier of Aeons – Create wall to block inorganic matter.

Blue Witch Spells

• Curse of Chronos – Target becomes decrepit with age.
  Offer to Eternity – Object vanishes into distant future.
  Instant of Immunity – Become briefly invulnerable.
  Temporal Shift – Tilt a target briefly out of phase.
  History of Being - Examine targets past recollections.
  Oraclar Message – Receive cryptic message from future.
  Undo Wound – Heal injury by preventing its infliction.
  Call the Azure Flame – Destroy target with magic blue fire.
  Primordial Form – Transform into shapeless slime creature.
  Thing Out of Time – Receive small item from future self.