Basements & Beards- Analogue Gaming Thread

[ebin namefag]

Super bad legal news = the hard drives were seized.

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

Ruh-roh. Vague dramaposting ensues.

One does not write about the Elder Gods without the Elder Gods taking notice.

[Kugelfisch]

Imagine getting offended on behalf of fictional races.

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

Ah hell yeah! Time for another anti-authoritarian resistance tabletop bundle! On Bundle of Holding instead of itch.io this time around.
Probably for the better. Those itch.io bundles are usually cluttered with hundreds of shit you never end up touching. This BoH you get a much saner number of products.

Punch Nazis!
[Archive]

Apocalypse Frame

Oh great, it's Bootleg Lancer - using the LUMEN system no less, so you're missing out on the one good thing about Lancer (tactical mech customization & combat using some hybrid of D&D 4e and Shadow of the Demon Lord).

Ranting about LUMENShow

It's a paper-thin rules system popular on itch.io (so you know it's shit ). It's a similar kind of nonsense as Powered by the Apocalypse, except it has actual combat rules, so it's used by a bunch of terminal itch.io nimrods who want to make their own action/tactical game.

Its biggest claim to fame was when the system's creator got laughed out of Kickstarter for trying to crowd-fund a painfully obvious Warframe rip-off with not enough numbers filed off.
He eventually released a tweaked version of this game which pretends to be a mecha game now, but the art makes it painfully obvious that the mechs were originally supposed to be power armor.

Ranting about the bad parts of Lancer for good measureShow

The non-mecha-combat portion of the game is trash, and any time they try to add more meat to it they just turn it into Powered by the Apocalypse with d20 rolls. No, thank you.
Really, there's a reason why all the 3rd party stuff is all about giving you more mecha. That's the only bit that people care about.

The setting itself is pretty schizo. One one hand it tries to be hard sci-fi (spaceship travel with time dilation, hyper-realistic space combat where you shoot at each other from millions of kilometers away and tactical maneuvering doesn't really exist because the ships are glorified rockets flying at each other at relativistic speeds, and really a good chunk of your fleet is bound to get blown the fuck up in a split second), but on the other hand you can make your custom mecha in a fucking 3D printer, and both ships and mecha make ample use of technology invented by Literal Insane Ai Space Gods that breaks every single law of physics (and reality in general) known to man and is effectively magic.

Also no PvP rules. You can't even use the player mech creation rules to make bad guys. You have to use the more generic NPC rules because PCs and NPCs have a completely different focus on offense and defense (NPC dish out a lot more, whereas PCs are tankier). Having to PCs fight each other is like padded sumo wrestling.
This is even true for the space battle spin-off game. You'd think you could pit player fleets against each other like in every other space combat game, but no, this is a cooperative space combat experience.

Galactic 2E

It's like Star Wars, but with tumblrtrash art and of course it's Powered by the Apocalypse.
Really sounds perfect for Disney Wars. For the real Star Wars experience you probably want the classic Star Wars d6 RPG, or better yet Savage Worlds (the new Sci-Fi Companion does most of the work for you).

Grey Ranks

Play as young Polish soldiers during the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. There's a good chance this is also Powered by the Apocalypse.
Also probably has more troons and gay people than Current Year Poland.

Misspent Youth

The RPG about teenage revolutionaries (or "Youthful Offenders", as the game calls them). It's like Antifa meets Fridays for Future. Because idiot teens always think they can change the world

Eat the Reich

Hey, we talked about that. Play as premade vampire characters who want to drink the Führers blood. And start their quest in Paris for some reason.
Having recently found out more about the game, you indeed power/level up by drinking Übermenschen blood
The book also presents alternative scenarios where you try to kill other world leaders - including all the ones for the Allies exception the commie ones. HMMM...

No God's Country

It's basically Misspent Youth, but the evil regime are aliens/angels. Think Half-Life 2 or XCOM 2, but a lot gayer and lamer.

Moonpunk

Great. Lead the glorious revolution on a fucking moon base. It's not like these are by design at the mercy of outside supplies. Really, if they piss off the Powers that Be too much they'll just pause supply ships for a month or two, and then send a cleaning crew to pick up all the corpses and toss them in the airlock.

>Use subversive real-world techniques
Great. Reminds me of the writer of Sigmata (which is suspiciously absent from this bundle, much like Extreme Meatpunks Forever), aka some "intellectual" nimrod who unironically believes in "ethical terrorism" and will tell you all about the masterful strategies and tactics that will ensure a glorious future for all comrades.

Bonus Feature: the other bundlesShow

A neat feature of Bundle of Holding is that you always the the other bundles that are currently running, and I dare say this time around they all look more attractive.

Dusky City Outlaws

"Lord of the Rings meets Leverage and Ocean's Eleven."

Okay, maybe not this one. Next!

FTL Nomad

A fork of the Cepheus Engine, which in turn is Traveller with the numbers filed off.
Long story short, all those 3rd party publishers for Traveller stuff love making their customized version of Cepheus Engine, and we recently got a new wave of that stuff because everyone was scrambling to make a new version of their products without the pesky OGL.

If you want sci-fi, you can probably do worse than something based on the most klessik sci-fi RPG on the market.

3 different bundles for Hero System 4e

Now mind you, this is far from the newest edition of Hero System (that would be 6e), and the system has always been clunky and frontloaded af because of the insane amount of character customization, but once you've figured it out it can be quite a smooth experience.
Plus though it originally started out as a capeshit RPG, it can really handle anything from Azumanga Daioh and Conan to Dragon Ball Z. Now there's an adventuring party if I've ever seen one.

[Kugelfisch]

Really seems like tRPGs today are nothing but pozzed garbage made by idiots.

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

It's 'cause every idiot can just cobble something together and throw it on itch.io, or Kickstarter if you can come up with enough progressive buzzwords.
It's even worse than the RPG Maker community, since at least RPG Maker has some kind of barrier of entry.

Really there's not a whole lot of peak these days, though I'd definitely recommend ACKS. At least its writers used their autism for D&D economics that make actual sense

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

You guys now the best thing about itch.io? The most retarded publishers offer a limited (but often refreshed) number of free community copies to help their downtrodden comrades who can't cough up 15+ dollars for a piece of shit PDF.

Naturally this all runs on the honor system.


Now who wants some Moonpunk?!

[Kugelfisch]

How much do you pay me?

[wulfenlord]

I dunno, does the game come with a preamble page about Yeah guys, we know about Iron Sky, so please don't make moon nutsees pretty please?

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

How much do you pay me?

I can give you exclusive first access to my upcoming fanfic Linkara x Lightbringer x Angel Armor: Great Hero Taisen.

Moonpunk

Best Picture In the Entire BookShow

That chick(?) in the lower right is peak avatar material.

Hey look, it's Powered by the Apocalypse. Imagine my shock.

The Authority can never be trusted. Every single person on The Moon has to deal with The Authority in some aspect of life—we can't survive without it. But that doesn't mean we have to like it, support it, or ever make it easy for The Authority. Fight back where you can, but pick your battles wisely. And watch out for those who say that you shouldn't rock the boat. Standing at a "neutral center" is cowardly and unethical in an oppressive society, and these so-called centrists are not your allies.

Suffer not the centrist to live.

What is Oppression?

Oppression is a systemic abuse of power. Sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism—these are only a few examples. There are too many systems of oppression that exist in the world to list here.

There are too many systems of oppression - which is why we've only highlighted the ones we care about.

Oppression is tricky. It fools people into believing in a hierarchy, that there are certain people who are better than others. This is a lie, but it’s a powerful one.

Dude, this isn't ancient Egypt where the Pharaoh was considered a literal god. Everyone konws that politicians and managers are idiots.

It’s a difficult cycle to break. The people who have the most power to disrupt the system have incentive not to, and the people who are hurt by it have little power.

You would do the same in their place.

But change is possible. That’s what we hope to demonstrate with this game. You can find some of these tools in this book, and we hope that playing MoonPunk will inspire you to fight oppression outside of the gaming table, too.

Oh, it's one of those itch.io games. The "We hope this elfgame will inspire change IRL". Sure, honey. Dream on.

What does it mean to be a Punk?

Metal studs and hair spikes. Lacing up big boots and sewing on patches. The smell of stale beer, not knowing where you’re sleeping tonight, getting so fucked up you can’t see straight. The B side to every Dead Kennedys album, not showering, breaking your nose on someone else's hand. The taste of pennies as you bare your teeth to the crowd to show you don’t give a fuck. That’s punk right?

Sounds retarded.

Maybe it’s what it often looks like, but here are 3 aspects of being punk we actually consider important:

Don't worry, I hope it gets even more retarded!

Wish a song went harder? Play it. Wish your clothes looked different? Cut em. Wish you didn’t have to take any shit? Don’t. DIY culture is the idea that in a world that is trying to sell you everything and treat you in a specific way. The easiest way to break the mold is to start creating for yourself.

You're not really creating anything yourself if you just make shitty cover songs and cut holes into your jeans, are you?
Just sew your own clothes like the fucking Amish, you posers.

This is an often misunderstood aspect of punk. Being punk is not saying you have to look different; it’s saying you don’t have to look like society tells you to. Nothing screams punk like a glam rocker, a denim vester, and a flannel wearer all sharing a beer at a show. Nonconformity must be upheld with violent rigor. Some will try to co-opt punk ideals and bend them to their own ends, but gatekeeping is a baby step toward authoritarianism.

Is it non-conformist to look like every other non-conformist?

This is the final, most important aspect of being punk. Nothing is more laughable than the attempts at racists, fascists, and nazis to infiltrate the punk scene. They are the antithesis of punk. You can’t believe in putting people down without believing in the power of the authority. As their beliefs are inherently violent towards a large group of people, the backlash against these hateful groups is morally just in being violent. Publicly denounce these people. Explain to others what they are doing. Tolerance does not extend to those who are intolerant of how people were born. Keep up the fight.

I thought this was about anti-authoritarianism? You're just whining about the fash.

Retrofuturism is an art style you may have seen on the cover of old sci-fi pulp books. In essence, it is what your grandparents or great-grandparents might have imagined the future to look like. It’s helpful to think of this retrofuturistic world as high tech, but they never made the switch to digital. It gives the players some leeway in describing their relationship with technology in a more abstract way. You can decide how the things you make work—don’t let any bullshit like physics get in your way.

Spoiler alert: You get no good idea about how the technology is supposed to look like. The closest is an ordinary cityscape under a dome - which I wouldn't call "retrofuturism" because those old pulp magazines actually had "futuristic" buildings under those domes.
I guess they think it counts because the book apparently assumes that the internet doesn't exist.

Wait, really? You don’t know? That’s absolutely wild.

Spoiler alert: It doesn't actually matter that this is set on the moon. You get like one page about the various domes on the moon, but that's it.

Moves and Shit

It's ApocalypseShit. You have stupid moves to affect the narrative.
The only one that stands out in my mind is TANSTAAFL aka Calling In Favors, But I Wanted To Shit On Libertarians, mostly because my Germanic mind keeps reading this acronym as "Tarnstaffel" ("stealth squadron"), which is a name I should keep in mind for a Weird War 2 setting.

Playbooks (aka classes for retards)

So, what is the wild punk shit you can play as?!

Duster: You're a glorified janitor on the moon.
Enforcer: You're an Antifa SS thug. I imagine most of the target audience wanna be this one, seeing how all the other Playbooks are normies.
Guildy: You're a simple worker - a unionized one of course. Better not ask why the evil Authority allows unions in the first place. This was written by privileged hobby-anarchists. They don't know any better.
Labcoat: Apparently even nerds count as punks.
Mutant: You're a special snowflake.
New Mooner: You're a n00b and everyone makes fun of you.
Old Timer: You're the one making fun of n00bs.
Pilot: You're a glorified Forklift Driver Klaus.
Politician: Apparently the Authority also allows opposition. Really the main danger appears to be that you might get corrupted, not that the elite tosses you out through an airlock.
Rocker: ROW ROW FIGHT DA POWAH
Techie: You're the other type of glorified janitor.
Vendor: You're fighting capitalism using capitalism.

Fuck me, this is about as lame as those fantasy heartbreakers that have you play as "historically accurate" medieval jobs (aka dirtfarmers and hobos).

Now for the main attraction advertized in the bundle, presented without comment because fuck this autism.

Real-world subversion techniques that totally workShow

Moonpunk Adventure Structure

So every adventure is supposed to have an evil "Authoritfy Figure", which come with an ethos that sumarizes their wicked belief system.

Here are a few example ethoses for real-life and fictional Authority Figures to inspire you.
× Jeff Bezos: “If I hoard wealth and monopolize power, I win.”
× King George III: “They should listen to me because I am king and I’m mandated by God to be right.”
× Joel Osteen: “As long as it benefits the church, it’s not wrong.”
× Cersei Lannister: “My family’s pride and name is more important than anything.”

You can tell this game is 4 years old because it doesn't include Elon Musk.

Exciting Example Adventures!

Buying in and selling out

An evil landord wants to raise rents to kick out undesirables.

There ain't no such thing as a free lunch

An evil Karen wants to kick undesirables out of her dome and takes offense at a group of Punks distributing food to hobos.

Welcome to Moontopia


The PCs end up in Lunar North Korea, where an evil Karen has been building up a glorified Potemkin village and wants to control every single aspect of her citizens' life.

Theatre of the oppressed

An evil Karen wants to control what kind of art is allowed to exist on the moon.

PAW-LAWS: a voice for the voiceless

Content warnings: food/nutrition

Okay.

Evil capitalists are cloning animals for profit. Some punks want to appropriate the technology to make a glorified zoo.

Okay. I guess one is sci-fi and another one vaguely sci-fi, but what the fuck is the point of the moon base if you want me to deal with fucking landlords, hobos and art Karens?

Oh, there were also community copies of this No God's Country, but fuck me is that book a dry read. Doesn't even have all that much funny art. And they still want 12 Dollars for it.