Quote from: Skywalker;856882Even though there are issues that are in need of addressing in CTech, I am doubtful of design by committee and public opinion and I am not confident that any change will really satisfy the critics regardless.

I am also kind of unimpressed by the number of people who rant rabid to stop any kind of discussion on CTech occur over there, suddenly taking a moderate view and saying things like "I never really had a problem with X".

I received a PM from Martian_bob that was reassuring. The capitulation in the thread isn't as absolute as it seems. Or he was diplomatic. I guess we'll see. In any case no one has to use a new edition just means going without mechanical support.

But I agree the sudden surge of "reasonableness" is, well, its something.

Cool. I have had dealings with Matt, Bob and Mike before and they are good guys that are often dealt with a bad hand. I am pretty confident that they won't bow down to the pressure altogether, but that could end up backfiring them too.

Quote from: Nexus;855958No big surprise...

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?765942-Infraction-for-Celestial-Lord-1%29-One-Day-Ban&p=19385734#post19385734

Oh yeah, I knew that would very likely be the result of my post over there.  But I don't really care about TBP and very rarely post there, so I posted it anyway.

Quote from: Celestial;857671Oh yeah, I knew that would very likely be the result of my post over there.  But I don't really care about TBP and very rarely post there, so I posted it anyway.

The infractions are getting more ridiculous everyday. Allot of them read as "You said something I don't like so I'm going to cram it sideways into some increasingly vague "infraction category (Threadcrapping, PA/GA, wrong "tone", etc).

For example...

What has always frustrated me is that Cthulhutech is built on a foundation of good ideas.

Tagers and the Eldritch Society are pretty awesome.  Engels are big too Eva for my taste, but I can see the appeal.  I mean, mixing Cthulhu with cyberpunk and mecha?  Sounds like a winning recipe to me.

However, upon the foundation is piled one of the most broken, poorly designed, blatantly un-playtested messes of RPG "design" I have ever seen.  The dice poker mechanic sounds cool on paper, but it actual practice, it's over-complicated and bogs down dice roles in the middle of what should be fast-paced parts of the game.  Not to mention the broken health mechanics.  Do basic mooks really need to have over 50 total hit points?  Then, when I thought things couldn't get any worse, they dragged Mega-Damage back from the deepest pits of hell whence it had been banished.

The "adventures" that were shipped with this game?  They were literally just one page, bullet point summaries of things the PCs watch and cannot get involved it.

Don't even get me started on the more cringe-worthy parts of the background.  I won't dwell on this too long, but when I got to the section in Damnation View on the Horned Ones, I was so horrified by out and out stupidity of the concept that I stapled the page shut.

I just don't see how, at this point, anything of value can be salvaged from this mess, but I will remain cautiously optimistic.   The bits about customizable Tagers sound awesome, and mixing Cthulhu with Cyberpunk and Mecha has just enough appeal to keep me interested.

Quote from: Torque2100;858419I won't dwell on this too long, but when I got to the section in Damnation View on the Horned Ones, I was so horrified by out and out stupidity of the concept that I stapled the page shut.

Horrified?  What exactly did you think...The time would be easy to know, for then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom....means?

A whole lot of killing, and a whole lot of fucking, both in ways you'd get thrown in jail or the asylum for even talking about in polite society.

Shub-Niggurath, The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young, the Lord of the Wood - it's a dark fertility god, tied in with the concept of a pagan earth mother and satyrs, satan, etc...

Lovecraft wrote Hentai before there was Hentai.  What were you expecting when you cross that with Anime?  You get furries going around seducing people and bringing them into the cult for orgiastic worship and sacrifice.  

Would it be better or worse if instead they tossed people into a pool to be dissolved and reshaped slowly into something else?

Stapled the pages closed...:rolleyes:

Quote from: CRKrueger;858469Horrified?  What exactly did you think...*snip*

All totally valid observations, the problem is that the writers of Cthulhutech were doing sexual horror completely wrong. The Horned Ones are just STUPID.  Who, in their right mind, would ever introduce such a thing to their gaming table. A race of sexy furries whose only attack is "save vs. sex?"  Sexual horror should be twisted and unsettling, not feel like Matthew Grau is shoving his favorite masturbation fantasies into our game.  I was horrified.  Horrified at the prospect of forever being "THAT GM" a pervert who introduced sexy furries in to his game.

Alien is good sexual horror, this isn't.

I did go back at a later date and re-design the Horned Ones to be hideous, mis-shapen monsters, whose pheromones make humans docile and obedient, but not necessarily a "save vs sex" situation.  In my humble opinion, a creature of Shubb-Niggurath should look like  a monstrous version of The Venus of Willendorf not Jenna Jameson.

Quote from: CRKrueger;858469Horrified?  What exactly did you think...The time would be easy to know, for then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom....means?

A whole lot of killing, and a whole lot of fucking, both in ways you'd get thrown in jail or the asylum for even talking about in polite society.

Shub-Niggurath, The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young, the Lord of the Wood - it's a dark fertility god, tied in with the concept of a pagan earth mother and satyrs, satan, etc...

Lovecraft wrote Hentai before there was Hentai.  What were you expecting when you cross that with Anime?  You get furries going around seducing people and bringing them into the cult for orgiastic worship and sacrifice.  

Would it be better or worse if instead they tossed people into a pool to be dissolved and reshaped slowly into something else?
https://investigationsandfantasies.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/erol-otus-shub-niggurath-ddg.jpg

Stapled the pages closed...:rolleyes:

I see the Horned Ones as more a force of corruption and madness than destruction. And the idea of losing your will, not only being controlled but enjoying it has a creep factor and draws on some of the erotic horror elements in the source material. And really having sex with some half animal mutant isn't high on allot of people ideas of a good time, furry fetishists aside. Though I like Cthullutech more as a horror game with a sci-fi twist than a straight up combat game but as far as straight up combat goes they aren't bad but its not their purpose.

I do think that before using something like the Horned Ones its best to talk it out with the group and see if their comfortable with that degree of sexuality in their role playing even if its mostly going to be implied and Fade to Black.

Loss of control can be very effective from frightening and disturbing Players as well as their characters but it has to be handled with a careful touch. And some Players just aren't going to like it all.

Quote from: Torque2100;858494Alien is good sexual horror, this isn't.

I did go back at a later date and re-design the Horned Ones to be hideous, mis-shapen monsters, whose pheromones make humans docile and obedient, but not necessarily a "save vs sex" situation.  In my humble opinion, a creature of Shubb-Niggurath should look like  a monstrous version of The Venus of Willendorf not Jenna Jameson.

If you're going into Lovecraftian roleplay through an Anime lens...and you don't think the fertility monsters should be sexy...

Than brother, I don't think this game is right for you.

Which is fine, there are plenty of other games out there you can play without demanding the games other people like to change for you!