Quote from: CRKrueger;619641Hmm I had one of the early printings and in the "Trappings" sections of the spells there were a host of definitely non-Hellfrost Trappings there, as if the spells were simply cut and pasted from the Core.  Raygun and Handcuffs were definitely in there as Trappings.  Maybe that got revised out?

I have the very first printing of all the books, including the Player's Guide. There's nothing like that in there, and nothing cut and pasted from any version of the rules. I think you're misremembering and confusing Hellfrost with another product. The explicitly listed trappings in Hellfrost are Acid, Air, Cold, Coldfire, Darkness, Light, Earth, Water, Electricity, Fire, Heat, Ice, Necromancy, Sound. There is no reference to rayguns anywhere in the book.

Quote from: Doctor Jest;619797I have the very first printing of all the books, including the Player's Guide. There's nothing like that in there, and nothing cut and pasted from any version of the rules. I think you're misremembering and confusing Hellfrost with another product. The explicitly listed trappings in Hellfrost are Acid, Air, Cold, Coldfire, Darkness, Light, Earth, Water, Electricity, Fire, Heat, Ice, Necromancy, Sound. There is no reference to rayguns anywhere in the book.

See my exact page numbers up thread.

Quote from: Simlasa;619435Yeah, Eclipse Phase blew my mind a little the first time I played it. While I was horrified by many of the implications/assumptions it was just so... not what I was expecting, in a good way. I think I spent most of that first session a little bit stoned on its concepts (the same thing happened to me when I went to see The Matrix without ANY idea what it was about).

I bought EP in 2009 because the Manhattan Compleat Strategist guys were nice to my foreign-accented, disheveled after-work suit-and-tie self, and because the book looked pretty, without knowing the first thing about transhuman SF, and having read only vague blurbs over at RPGnet. Boy, was I in for a treat.

And I too went to see The Matrix without knowing WTF it was about. Which brings us to...

Quote from: GrimGent;619391Mage: The Ascension (2e) comes to mind, and especially its Book of Worlds supplement which details the different realms of the Umbra.

In the non-WoD department, I (of course) find Nobilis good for evocative beyond-the-fields-we-know weirdness.

...Mage. I remember being awed by a beautiful eight-page spread inside an old Dragon magazine (late 100s to early 200s) which was a fancy ad for Mage: The Ascension 1e. It detailed each of the Traditions and specified two spheres for each (Hermetics got Force and Prime, Etherites hadMatter and Forces, Euthanatoi got Entropy and Spirit, etc.) and featured a lush color painting of Tradition mages in motorcycles and dragons and shit attacking a Technocracy spaceship on whose deck stood a shirtless, trenchcoated guy with a ponytail and an eyepatch and a cigarette in hand, the other hand draped over a child's shoulder, and a look of "I'm gonna corrupt the shit out of this kid" on his face.

Really. I actually had to Google it to make sure I wasn't hallucinating the whole thing.

A few months later I spotted Mage: The Ascension 1e at a local bookstore (yeah, a normal bookstore, lost in a shopping mall. Those were the days) and I got it, without quite knowing what I was getting. I couldn't make head or tails of the game, though, and didn't really run it until 2e came out. Ascension is actually the only White Wolf game of which I own all three editions, though it's not even my favorite oWoD line.

The Matrix actually went a long way in making me "get" Mage, and the Guide to the Technocracy did wonders (no pun intended) to allay my feelings about the ham-handed portrayal of science and technology as soul-crushing oppression. I still think it's a bold and beautiful game and I'll still play it if someone's running. But for the most part, I've shifted my attentions over to the uncharted waters of the nWoD, and I'm dying for an opportunity to run Awakening, a game which I feel touches on many of the same themes as Ascension, albeit in a far subtler manner.

Quote from: Drohem;6195243e RuneQuest:  Alright, Butcher's description is near poetry and I feel that my words would be a distracting mumble in comparison...

Thanks for the kind words, and for sharing this with us. I hope one of the Runequest guys gets to read this.

Quote from: Zachary The First;619629That's actually why I mentioned Rifts. Especially before the World Book bloat, there were moments of real immersion and wonder.

Oh God yes. If I was running Rifts today (in North America or Mexico) I'd be using World Books 1-2, Conversion Book 1, Sourcebooks 1-3, Mercenaries, and maybe select material from FoM and Psyscape. I'd also gladly run a NGR & Central Europe crawl campaign again (adding World Books 3-5 and Sourcebook 3 to the mix), and I'm told the Russia books are bitchin'.

Quote from: Doctor Jest;619797I have the very first printing of all the books, including the Player's Guide. There's nothing like that in there, and nothing cut and pasted from any version of the rules. I think you're misremembering and confusing Hellfrost with another product. The explicitly listed trappings in Hellfrost are Acid, Air, Cold, Coldfire, Darkness, Light, Earth, Water, Electricity, Fire, Heat, Ice, Necromancy, Sound. There is no reference to rayguns anywhere in the book.

He is right.

While no mention of rayguns, a dog can wield a shotgun with penalty according to the text. Sounds like sloppy copy-paste.  I'm sure it was an oversight, as it is only an example of play. If you change shotgun to crossbow, you have the same result.

The handcuffs example I can be a little more forgiving. Instead of handguns, I can change the idea into binding ropes or manacles.

Quote from: CRKrueger;619817See my exact page numbers up thread.

Those are the few modified powers I mentioned. They only changed them to make them fit the mechanics for Hellfrost magic. They tell you this explcitly in the beginning of the section on spells that this is what they were doing. It is probably a licensing thing. You'd obviously use the trappings listed for Hellfrost, especially since for each Arcane Background the trappings available for them are explicitly stated.

The overwhelming majority of spells in Hellfrost are entirely new (or were.. SWD added some that look to have originated in Hellfrost), around two dozen of them.  They explicitly list the trappings in Hellfrost at the very beginning of the section. There's a ton of setting rules and edges.

So I'm just not seeing your original point here, the spells and powers aren't all lifted from Savage Worlds, most of the spells are brand new to Hellfrost. A few that needed to be changed from power points to Hellfrost mechanics were re-printed with the rule changes. Ones that remained unchanged were not even listed in spell section (which is why I think it's licensing).

Every RPG I play does this, or I find another game. I wouldn't say any do it better than others, its just different flavours, like icecream.

Quote from: Crabbyapples;619834He is right.

While no mention of rayguns, a dog can wield a shotgun with penalty according to the text. Sounds like sloppy copy-paste.  I'm sure it was an oversight, as it is only an example of play. If you change shotgun to crossbow, you have the same result.

it's one thing to criticize poor editing. It's another to say that it doesn't have anything unique about it to evoke the setting because of a few editing errors. Hellfrost is one of the best done settings I've seen for Savage Worlds and most of the powers listed by a wide margin are brand new, unique to the setting, and aren't in Savage Worlds, only the ones reprinted are those that had their mechanics changed because Hellfrost doesn't use power points. I figured they couldn't change the text beyond mechanics due to licensing restrictions, but even if it's just a bad editing job, it's a bit hyperbolic to condemn over a hundred pages of great ideas because of a half dozen words out of place.

Quote from: The Butcher;619824...Mage. I remember being awed by a beautiful eight-page spread inside an old Dragon magazine (late 100s to early 200s) which was a fancy ad for Mage: The Ascension 1e. It detailed each of the Traditions and specified two spheres for each (Hermetics got Force and Prime, Etherites hadMatter and Forces, Euthanatoi got Entropy and Spirit, etc.) and featured a lush color painting of Tradition mages in motorcycles and dragons and shit attacking a Technocracy spaceship on whose deck stood a shirtless, trenchcoated guy with a ponytail and an eyepatch and a cigarette in hand, the other hand draped over a child's shoulder, and a look of "I'm gonna corrupt the shit out of this kid" on his face.

That same (hilariously over-the-top) artwork actually appeared on the 1e Storyteller's Screen. The illustration's been known to cause some serious mood whiplash with folks who came in with Revised later on. It's all very... "Whee!!!"

My original post and point was, that SW is a game IMO, that like any other generic toolkit, needs setting specific rules to reskin the toolkit into something resembling a system written for that purpose.  

In a dark Nordic setting, expecting a list of dark Nordic spells, I really didn't expect to see ray guns, handcuffs, glue bombs and dogs with shotguns listed as acceptable trappings for my dark Nordic magic.  I understand your licensing argument, but in that case, they should have developed new spells instead of cut-and-pasting.

I was hoping to use Hellfrost as is, when I found out I would have to edit the normal SW-gonzo out of the dark Nordic book I lost interest.

This was a chance to convert a SW skeptic, and by instead of delivering my hope (a complete reskin), they delivered my fear(a thin coat of paint over the mechanics).

Now not being a SW guru, I fully accept that there may be very deep changes which are not readily apparent to one who does not have system mastery of SW.  Unfortunately, seeing the cut and paste on the spells left the impression that this was a game that did not sufficiently change core SW for a dark Nordic setting.

Further expansions may have ended this trend, but I wasn't going to spend more money on a hope.

Quote from: GrimGent;619888That same (hilariously over-the-top) artwork actually appeared on the 1e Storyteller's Screen. The illustration's been known to cause some serious mood whiplash with folks who came in with Revised later on. It's all very... "Whee!!!"

Oh God, I totally forgot about machine-gun dinosaur in suit and tie.

Thank you for linking this. You made my day!

We should totally embed this here, BTW:

Original D&D, for sure. Why? It was the first RPG I ever saw or played, and the impression I had from playing was that it was both familiar and mysterious--like The Hobbit, which I'd probably read a year or so before, it simultaneously created a lifelike and fully-realized vision of fantasy (unlike "fairy tales" or tersely-narrated myths or biblical stories), while promising new things to explore just beyond the horizon. That's how it seemed when I played D&D with some older kids, and when I got my hands on the books & supplements, after I absorbed everything in them, I was starving for more. There were small allusions to things from the Greyhawk campaign which simultaneously hinted at a wider world--if only I could get find a proper reference--and suggested that it was up to me to create it.

Really, a very powerful lesson in the importance of allusion in both fantasy literature and games. People are often more excited by the things you hint at than the things you spell out. (Star Wars serves as a massive negative example, IMO.)

I agree that Talislanta also provides a great sense of wonder even though, if you have ALL the books, you do get the answers to pretty much all the mysteries. It's just that it fits together pretty damn well, and it's so baroque, plus with the exception of a few ill-advised modules from the 3e era, there's very little metaplot--so it promises a toybox filled with cool stuff that you can play with any way you like.

Another game in the "allusive" category: Shades of Fantasy. It's got a more specific setting than D&D, but with the exception of a map that wasn't published in the book itself, one must again infer a great deal from a bunch of cool details found in the game system. (The piece of history or setting overview is an account of the main religion of the setting, a sort of mix of Zoroastrianism and Christianity.) Everything else is a wild mix of the strange and the familiar. To quote myself from elsewhere, when it comes to character races & classes, "the Fey Folk are much more like the diverse creatures found in the classic Faeries than Tolkienesque elves. There’s a strong high medieval feel, with chivalry and knightly orders, but also unique races and monsters—characters can be “banruks”, who look like a cross between a bear and giant sloth; they can be penitent angels, or devilkin bearing boons and curses, etc."

And then at the other end of the scale, I'd put The Shadow of Yesterday. Yeah, I know it's easy to slag on a story game, but the system in itself seems pretty cool. The setting, though, is just a sketchy patchwork of high fantasy tropes combined with some obvious borrowings such as ratkin (skaven), and what appears to be a pastiche of colonial Southeast Asia.  The parts don't really seem to connect or interact much other than abutting each other on the map. There's a difference between allusive and threadbare, and TSoY's world of Near falls on the wrong side of that line.

Empire of the Petal Throne
LBB OD&D
Eclipse Phase

D&D 3/3.5 in general
Planescape
GURPS - I remember seeing a copy of GURPS Cyberpunk and GURPS Horror on the shelf near each other, and I almost peed myself thinking of the possibilities.

Quote from: CRKrueger;619889My original post and point was, that SW is a game IMO, that like any other generic toolkit, needs setting specific rules to reskin the toolkit into something resembling a system written for that purpose.  

In a dark Nordic setting, expecting a list of dark Nordic spells, I really didn't expect to see ray guns, handcuffs, glue bombs and dogs with shotguns listed as acceptable trappings for my dark Nordic magic.  I understand your licensing argument, but in that case, they should have developed new spells instead of cut-and-pasting.

But that's the point. THEY DID DEVELOP NEW SPELLS. They just didn't eliminate the core spells; they only updated them to use the entirely new mechanics. They did provide new Trappings, on page 79. There are nearly THIRTY new spells in the book. There's a bunch of setting rules.

You're misrepresenting the book by a wide margin. I don't know WHY, you're either being dishonestly or ignorantly obtuse, and I'm not sure which.

QuoteI was hoping to use Hellfrost as is, when I found out I would have to edit the normal SW-gonzo out of the dark Nordic book I lost interest.

There's nothing to edit out. Until looking up the specific entries, I never even noticed them. They're not part of the main text. There's a handful of odd things, and they're minor, a half dozen words, out of a book that's 126 pages long.

You're talking like this is the way the whole book is. It isn't. It's literally a handful of words in the whole damn book.

QuoteThis was a chance to convert a SW skeptic, and by instead of delivering my hope (a complete reskin), they delivered my fear(a thin coat of paint over the mechanics).

Sorry, but that's entirely false. The magic system is wholly unique and works nothing like that in the core SWEX. There's more than 2 dozen entirely new spells. There's about 20 new edges, there's a whole section of Setting Rules for the game setting itself. There's the Glory System. There's the new environmental rules. The way magic works mechanically. Everything.

QuoteNow not being a SW guru, I fully accept that there may be very deep changes which are not readily apparent to one who does not have system mastery of SW.  Unfortunately, seeing the cut and paste on the spells left the impression that this was a game that did not sufficiently change core SW for a dark Nordic setting.

Count the number of so-called "cut and paste" spells, please. Then count the total number of spells in the book. Then compare to the list of trappings provided on pg. 74. Then compare how every Arcane Background works compared to the core. Then look at the chapter on general setting rules. Then look at the Glory system. Then the Edges in the character creation section, both new and modified. And how Skalds work. And Kennings. And the Religion. Then compare this to SWEX. Then come back and tell me how it didn't sufficiently change the core SW.

Because frankly, you're flatly wrong about this.

Quote from: The Butcher;619979Oh God, I totally forgot about machine-gun dinosaur in suit and tie.

Thank you for linking this. You made my day!

We should totally embed this here, BTW:

I would definitely have played a lot more Mage if I'd ever seen this picture back in the day...
I can't stop looking at that guy's chest though (is that an 8-pack?).

Quote from: Reckall;620072D&D 3/3.5 in general
Planescape
GURPS - I remember seeing a copy of GURPS Cyberpunk and GURPS Horror on the shelf near each other, and I almost peed myself thinking of the possibilities.

Hmm you're the first one to say D&D 3E so I'm curious about this one. How does it get your juices flowing?