The Gaming Den

So.

I have a martini, I have a link to this thing Ancient history desperately wants reviewed, and I am completely unencumbered by any context.

I'm going in!

First look:

Apparently, this is set on some sort of brain-planet. I gather that from the background, which is always a reliable source.

The most recent post is titled "Finis." I guess this is over now? Cool. That will make it easier to get through. It's always easier to outrun someone who is asleep.

Bobby says some nice, inspiring circumlocution and thanks the Eclipse Phase folks. Classy.

I guess this is material for Eclipse Phase? Neat. I know nothing about that, except that it's transhumanisim... IN SPAAAACE!

Found a synopsis. Cool stuff.

I generically approve of CC By-SA, so it's nice that everything here is that. Background is apparently from "Kunstformen der Natur", which I translate as "natural aesthetics". So, I guess that's tone.

Fortunately, B has decided to use "they" for genderqueer references. That is much better than weird conlang pronouns. Unfortunately, he will be using it for indeterminate pronouns also, ticking one of my pet peeve boxes: in English, the indeterminate has the same form as masculine.

(yes, I recognize that making masculine generic is discriminatory against men. I don't care.)

next: trying to find content!

Try "List." Also: glee!

Okay. Found the archive, hiding in plain sight on the right sidebar.

000 is labeled "Test Item". Unsure if meta.

It's about a thing. So, not-meta.

Writing appears to borrow heavily from Lain M Banks.

Kind of a neat idea, but too encapsulated. This one has no real hooks; as a MacGuffin it reads approximately, "feel free to build your own MacGuffin!"

In a break from western convention, "Newer Post" (aka 'Next') is on the left side. Unsure if deliberate mindfuck, deliberate mod/multi textualism, or just weird blog artifact.

001 Void station: is a little odd. In concept it's great, but it's not really fleshed out.

Basically a hypercapitalist socialized research lab network with physical proximity. Unclear why the labs stay near the spindle, how they can do that and still be usefully zero-gee, etc.

Consensus-based social structures are really, really weird when they aren't also capitalist though, and this seems to drift that direction. Similar things I recall include the weird trading consortium from Exalted's western splat, Lain M Banks (again), and Cambias' Sholan (Hipster Powers Activate: What's that? You haven't read all of those? Well, they're pretty obscure, I'm not surprised you haven't heard of them)

First hook is oddly deep: "ERR NERR! A probe is returning that we never launched!" But Bobby saves it by mentioning social aspects first.

Second is a go-kill quest: better than a fetch quest, but only just.

In both cases, the hooks suffer from a description which is too cursory to support deep plots. You could totally build a whole game around this setting, but three paragraphs is just a concept.

Rimwalkers!

They are transhumanist romanticized hobos.

Recommend reading Heinlein's Green Hills of Earth instead. No idea how to evaluate the mechanics.

Overall concept is A++; originality C-.

The hook is good though. Again, AH focuses on social dynamics instead of cliches.

003 is a character. I don't know how well Stacks Staxon would drop into a game; his backstory is more compelling than most PCs, though simple enough.

Probably deserves his own fiction. Something hardboiled, and a little noir.

(Still no idea how to handle mechanics.)

004 Jellybone Suit

Good, good, good, plausible all the way... wait, WHAT?

Suit is basically an amoeba-space suit, for "flats". (guessing that's un-augmented humans?) I was nodding along until I hit the lungs part, where A) flowing into your lungs is unnecessary and weird, and B) super-saturating your lungs with oxygen actually kills a small but significant fraction of users.

Definitely needs don/doff times.

Overall though, looks a lot like a good, generic enviro suit. If it doesn't overlap with existing material, this fills a key niche; if it does it's nice flavor.

005 Kirby: generically weird gravity anomaly. First hook is a Macguffin, second is "resolve $GENERIC_CONFLICT. Not bad, but not AH's A-game.

006 Xin Nix: Barry from Burn Notice. As such, description and motivation are what makes him interesting, but that is described only as "a smooth-talking intersex splicer sealed in a plastic shell." Not bad, but also not A-game. I assume the mechanics are good, so it's probably very hand as a drop-in character. Second hook is deal-gone-wrong, but the first is odd: "Xin Nix has arrived and requires some assistance getting to their target—a child-ego kept away from contact with transhumanity by her extended family." I honestly have no idea how to interpret those words. Xin Nix is supposed to be somewhere between a banker and an info broker (I think), so what does it mean to have a 'target' in that case?

Anyone who wants can feel free to jump in with corrections/explanations/clarifications. I assume that's a given, but now it's explicit too.

007 is a memetic (I think?) paranoia. Interesting, especially with regard to the physical/mental psuedodichotomy, but it depends heavily on system conceits that are not explained here. Unless Eclipse Phase is far, far better than I've heard, it's not explained anywhere else either. This seems like it's begging and pleading for an implementation, but is still an interesting concept.

(A quick note - it's iain banks, not Lain banks. The capital I must have looked like an L wherever you saw it. I only mention it as given the source material the reference may come up again.)

I checked out a few of the Farcast entries and always found them interesting and well written. I'm not playing or planning a Sci-fi game and I've never read Eclipse Phase though, which was what stopped me checking them all out.

"Sacrophage" is built from roots meaning either 'sacred-' or 'immortality-' and 'eater'. That sounds like a bad thing, but apparently it's space-buddhism.

Cool, believable, desperately needs expansion to a full write-up.

009 Titan's Shoals: Oooh, super-plausible! coral which builds itself from valuable minerals. Clever. It's also proprietary to a certain company. Desperately needs the implications explored in more detail, but a nice foundation. Hooks are okay, but generic.

This really wanted to be about ruthless scheming megacorps doing hardcore environmentalism for profit, but wasn't.

010 Ceresian is neat, but has no hooks. Again, potentially useful as a drop-in, but a writeup that included actual goals or conflicts would be much better.

I have moved to scotch.

You realize Mr.D stopped doing these because he is finished with his one year project making this a 365 piece review you are trying to do?
i wonder who will hold out longer, you, farcast, or the alcohol o.O


i have no idea about the eclipse phase mechanis or universe at all, but the corals from valuable minerals remind me of tiberium from command and conquer fame. and if the valuable minerals are not created on the spot somehow, then that means they are drawn out of the surrounding environment. non invasive mining tech. well, non invasive aside from the minerals then being missing afterwards of course.

fectin wrote:007 is a memetic (I think?) paranoia. Interesting, especially with regard to the physical/mental psuedodichotomy, but it depends heavily on system conceits that are not explained here. Unless Eclipse Phase is far, far better than I've heard, it's not explained anywhere else either. This seems like it's begging and pleading for an implementation, but is still an interesting concept.

It's an exsurgent virus. An artificial and arguably intelligent disease apparently created by post-human alien AIs to convert people into post-human aliens. Because it was created by super AIs, it can spread as a biological virus, computer virus, nano-machine swarm or persistent thought pattern and translate itself between those forms.

Stahlseele wrote:You realize Mr.D stopped doing these because he is finished with his one year project making this a 365 piece review you are trying to do?
i wonder who will hold out longer, you, farcast, or the alcohol o.O

366, and I think fectin will have to pace himself.

Briefly distracted by wine, fiancee, and anime, I return!

That explanation of exsurgent virii is interesting (really), but makes me more confused. How does making people afraid all the time make them into aliens?

011: Uhhh... sure, why not? Sounds like that drug from one of Piers Anthony's more obscure novels (Tarot), and in practice probably has the same drawbacks (incoherency). Pretty neat metagame though. Hook one is an unspecified MacGuffin, but hook 2 is pretty cool.

012 is a sculpted comet. Really neat setpiece, but hard to say that it's good for a game. Hooks are generic, but better than usual because the source is colorful.

013 A crazy AI offers intermittent wisdom. Not bad, but ultimately plauged by "so what?"

fectin wrote: How does making people afraid all the time make them into aliens?

Turning people into monsters is the apparent ultimate goal. It can do other stuff (like cripple a populace with paranoia) too, though. Reasons for why vary from GM to GM; it's either part of some long term strategy to defeat humanity or some sort of weird post-human art project/science experiment.

014 Same problem - a nice setpiece with no larger impact. Like having a detailed description of a painting on the wall, which the PCs walk past. Nice for mood, and the painting is nice, but needs a "so what?"

15 is almost the same, but for me, dodges that with the throwaway line, " Rumors continue of combat sat macromorphs inhabited by paranoid survivalists and soldiers still fighting old wars."

016 builds on 015, and is a thumbnail of a setting. the Semek Constellation is a good, original idea, but to use it you would have to do all of the fleshing out. Hooks for this one are both crisp, but generic.