A long time ago, I spent the money to acquire the 'new' version of Albedo basic rulebook, and have since ... "acquired" .pdfs of modules for the original version of the game.
But I've never talked to anyone who played the game. I saw it done, once -- the one time I went to a furry 'con I saw some old, bearded guys carefully reach for a few dice, calmly explain what they were rolling for.
Anybody here played it? What can you tell me? I've DM'd before -- mostly because without that, there wouldn't be a game (and I was really excited about 4E, the first DnD system I could make sense of)
What kind of things do you try to put in front of your players? I think I suck at creating intrigue, but it seems that it resembles CoC in that your best bet to further the plot is to spend your time in the library. (and unlike CoC, it's okay if you read the books. Probably.)
Get the fuck out
>>46723064
There was a recent Ironclaw discussion where Albedo came up.
The thread is here: >>46619283
I've not played the game before and hadn't even heard about it before that, so no clue about it.
>>46723846
Thank you, Anon. I've heard of Ironclaw, but it advertises as pure-intrigue.
Which makes sense, but by & large I suck at it, so ...
Still, yes there's a lot of overlap between Albedo and Ironclaw because they were developed by the same people, mostly for the same players.
>>46724085
Nice. Well the thread also mentioned Urban Jungle, which is apparently a noir setting along the same lines, which recently had a successful Kickstarter from the same people. So it looks like we're looking at a third game along the same style.
As for stuff for players... I'm probably not the best of GMs, but I try to focus on my descriptions. Make sure to engage more than just visual senses, and try to keep all the things you mention relevant. (Thanks to Fate Core for that one.)
>>46723064
Weird to see people interested but sure.
Read the comic:furaffinity.net/gallery/stevegallacci/Yes I know. Fur affinity. Oh no.
Uploading pages every week.
>What kind of things do you try to put in front of your players?
The comic helps a lot.
Examples:
A shot barely misses. You whip around gun drawn. A kid is standing there with a gun drawn. You aim, but a sharp mind wins out and you hold. The kid drops the gun and tries to explain it was a prank. The gun is fake. Movement catches your eye in the upper windows of the building from the direction of the shot. The kid is arrested, and the officer comments he knows this kid who should have a long criminal record but the record comes up clean.
Whether or not the kid was shot of course matters in the events to follow. It was a setup to discredit the EDF presence.
>overlap between Albedo and Ironclaw because they were developed by the same people
No they weren't. Steve hates the 2004 version, although he collaborated on writing fluff.
>>46723064
I've heard this game has pretty great rules if you can avoid getting triggered by anthropomorphic sci-fi animals.
>>46723064
>>46724317
More comic material:
A bomb threat is called in. Nuclear briefcase in downtown. How to diffuse the bomb? Eventually they settle for destroying it using charges, two-fold using a shaped charge and a quick-filling foam to help contain the radioactive debris. It's not a perfect solution, the block will be shutdown for decontamination but at least the whole downtown wasn't destroyed.
Later analysis shows the bomb wasn't built to work at all. The worst case was more or less what you'd managed. Regardless, it was just a prop. Public becomes inflamed regarding EDF presence since the attack was declared to be in protest of ConFed presence.
Rumor mills and media continue to spin. The media is getting targeted information leaks which helps this greatly. Popular conspiracy has it the EDF themselves planted it to justify their own continued presence. Some officers get dragged down alleyways and beaten.
An angry mob protests outside of the local outpost and threatens to overrun the few guards there. There is no non-lethal riot-gear at this military outpost. Can you really defend yourself or do your job of defending the outpost without further enraging the locals?
One quick thinking pilot flies a lowpass with a VTOL and the exhaust and dust disperses the crowd, but not before someone in the crowd opens fire and shoots the local commander.
>>46724457
>detonating a nuclear bomb
Do you mean a bomb with radioactive material, perhaps? Because that would make a bit more sense. Using a charge to set off a nuclear bomb is like using a blowtorch to set off a stick of dynamite in your mouth. Sure, it would work, but the results would be predictably disastrous.
Intentionally trying to detonate a dirty bomb/radioactive explosive makes a bit more sense, because that would give them the opportunity to contain the explosion the way they want.
>>46724324
as a furry myself (that's why I bought the book) I think I can manage.
>>46723064
>>46724457
More comic material:
Contact has been lost with the local mining asteroid station. You are the response and rescue team. When you arrive, the ship departing the asteroid intentionally fires it's jump drive to self-destruct, leaving no one to capture or interrogate. You must clear the mining station, which of course has been heavily rigged with booby traps. Numerous casualties. The surviving persons were corralled deep into the station and all kept on emergency lifesupport packs in a vacuum. These are only designed for short term use. Some of them are rigged with explosives, and inspection shows trace amounts of toxins in the packs. The survivors rescued are taken into medical care. The survivors are euthanized due to heavy brain damage.
Upon return an investigation is launched into the incident. The only witnesses are the crew of your ship. Fabricated and tampered evidence is used in the trial. Slowly members are being framed that their response was too slow, and medical care too incompetent to save the miners. More horrendous things are fabricated. Another member of the crew contacts you to inform you that the captain has been forced to suicide, there are agents of these events about, and advises to flee before the focus swings to you.
Can you escape to the outer rim?
>>46724317
A coworker (not a furry; his dad and himself were both in the military, so he bought the comics for that reason) offered to let me read what he had (which amounts to most of it) and I was fascinated.
Also repulsed by the "You stupid IDIOT" aspect but that was the whole point of the series -- what do you do, when you don't know but must act anyway? Thus the intrigue that worked against the various factions -- if they collaborated openly, 9/10ths of what went on in that comic, wouldn't happen.
Hit close to home, /k/?
>>46724680
Also, Gallaci hates everything. Especially his fans.
From everything I've heard. That's why you haven't heard of Albedo -- it's like firewire vs. USB -- one was held in secret so no one knew you could just _buy_ it ... the other was made available for every idiot designer to make bad mods for.
Although magical-realm Albedo would trigger me, too. Just, in a positive sense, is all.
>>46724598
A nuclear bomb requires reaching critical mass to actually go nuclear. VERY CAREFULLY calibrated explosives surrounding a core can achieve this.
If it's not blown exactly right, it won't actually go nuclear. Just spray radioactive crap everywhere.
A prop would just be a "dirty" bomb made to look like the real thing.
I remember reading a comment from Steve about some response team actually taking this approach AFTER he'd written this part of the comic, as the first time it had been done in practice. I'll see if I can find it.
>>46724761
Fair enough. I'm no nuclear scientist and so my knowledge of critical systems in nuclear reactions only involve runaway overheating in reactors; I'm not 100% clear on how a nuclear bomb is assembled or goes off.
>>46724803
You know how you can beat C4 with a hammer while it's on fire and it still won't go off?
It's REALLY hard to get a runaway nuclear reaction. Runaway reactors don't actually explode, the famous example was actually water vapor pressure because it heated up too fast and lol ruskie engineering. Even when you do get a nuke to go critical, only a small fraction of the material actually "goes off".
>>46724734
>Also, Gallaci hates everything. Especially his fans.
THIS.
The ONLY reason he's FINALLY doing ANYTHING with the comic after abandoning it for a decade is because he's retired and has debt.
>>46724851
>You know how you can beat C4 with a hammer while it's on fire and it still won't go off?
Really? Because I thought it was heat + pressure which set it off. I know you can burn C4 and it is perfectly safe, but I've heard a story of someone stomping on C4 in a fire which did set it off. But perhaps that is a story.
>Runaway reactors don't actually explode
Oh, I am aware of that. Most reactors just have meltdown, where the core overheats and causes structural damage. The danger of a runaway reactor isn't an explosion; it is the cement cracking open from the heat and the steam (carrying radioactive material) escaping into the atmosphere.
Which is why I know that a nuclear reactor and a nuclear bomb are very different things.
I just wasn't aware how a nuke bomb worked. The first impression I had was that exploding one would cause it to explode as well, which is obviously a bad idea. Thanks for the clarification and information, in that case.
>>46724920
OP here, I haven't researched but ... my understanding is a bomb has a two pieces of non-critical matter placed next to each other, and a boat load of conventional explosives on either side -- with enough velocity, as you smack the two halves together, you get a runaway reaction -- at least for the primary material.
Fortunately it doesn't continue past the provided fuel of a rare material, or every bomb could potentially convert the planet into a second sun.
The coworker (different from comic collecting one, above) was eternally impressed that, despite not knowing IF or NOT this would happen, they went ahead and built those first bombs.
>>46724920
Mythbusters
>Jamie added that stomping on burning C-4 is still a bad idea, but more because it burns at a very high temperature and tends to stick to the bottom of shoes, rather than any risk of it exploding.
Bootcamp perpetrates the "don't do this" myth IIRC on purpose.
>>46725006
>>46724920
>smack to parts together hard enough
"Little boy" used this principal, literally shot a bullet of uranium into a larger piece. "Critical mass" is like in a Havok physics engine game when two objects occupy the same space, it quickly destabilizes everything around it (although by sufficiently large radiation burst to accelerate the radioactive decay process into the blink of an eye... not shitty programming)
"Fat man" used the calibrated explosives.
>>46724324
I'm not a furry, and I can confirm it's an excellent military sci-fi system. Very pleasant rules, and amazing char creation and evolution with personality and stats tied together.
>>46723064
Getting off topic:
More comic material:
Typical conversation, pic related.
No really. Half the time I felt this stuff would fit into DS9 episode.
>>46725177
>>46723064
Typical space encounter.
They have orders.
Their charter conflicts with orders.
Resolve the scenario.
>>46723064
Played it, mentioned my experience in the other thread, really fucking enjoyed it.
Use the Platinum Catalyst rules, try and ignore the straight up cartoony art for a game about the grimdarkness of a future where the species were all manufactured, and generally left to their own devices with only a sentient STC to guide them.
That the damage tracks are Health, Emotions, and Clout is fantastic for the kind of shit the games should focus around.
That each player gets a full squad of puds to play with can make for some great tactical gaming.
There's some rough patches in the rules, of course, but it works.
Our game had our unit dispatched to put down an insurgency on some colony world. We found out, after a few engagements, that the insurgency we were fighting weren't some political terrorists from off-world like we were told but rather some very angry people displaced by corporate interests outside the major population centers (where the only important folks lived).
In the course of trying to figure out who was arming these rebels, and maybe open a line of negotiation to their leaders, the real political terrorists struck. By bombing an art museum where one of the PCs was at. It was an attempt to frame us for stirring up shit, but the PC found the bomb ahead of time and managed to start an evacuation before dying in the blast, going down as a hero.
Where it left off, as I recall, was that we were trying to explain to command why this situation wasn't a "just kill everyone who has a gun" kind of scenario, and generally trying to get around the fact that our CO was a man ten minutes from a promotion who didn't want to have to file any extra paperwork that might draw attention to his sometimes questionable activities.
Honorable mention: an armor piercing rocket bounced off the pecs of my grizzly bear heavy gunner, doing no lasting damage.
>>46725280
>platinum catalyst
No idea, but thank you I'll look for that
>the damage tracks are Health, Emotions, and Clout
Sounds like Call of Cthulhu in Space to me.
> armor piercing rocket bounced off the pecs
That's why you choose bears, for sure.
Thank you, Anon.
>>46725177
>half the time [..] this would fit into a DS9 Ep
Ah, that gives me the kind of context I need.
Except that I've forgotten every DS9 Ep I've watched. But still.
>>46723064
Erma a best. Gallacci made such a great setting. I've owned each of the RPG versions, but never actually played it with anyone.
Anyone that looks at Albedo and goes "ugh fur trash" but likes TMNT is fugging retarded.
>>46725371
>>46725280
>fighting insurgencies and RPGs bouncing off epic pecs
See, this is partly why Steve didn't like the 2004 Platinum edition since it focused heavily on combat and action. In the comic, they don't actually shoot a lot of people. In fact, they go through great lengths to avoid that or any violation of their moral codes.
In the old RPG, half the mechanics just revolved around character development which the 2004 stripped out.
Now in the sequel comic, they did do a lot of shooting and action which the 2004 RPG seemed to be based around.
>>46725355
>Ah, that gives me the kind of context I need.
It's a lot of diplomacy and philosophy.
ALL RPG BOOKS:
https://mega.nz/#F!L51xGQTL!E27uv-SOKUvs8M2bHU8Hxg
Read the fluff sections.
>>46725388
>>46725399
Aerofoils, man.
Sorry to interrupt storytime with images
>>46725355
More context on the theme of the setting.
>>46725398
War happens, and it's a setting with multiple polities and an active focus on the military and how it interacts with society. The tabletop has always drawn tactical games, and the 2004 edition still addresses the moral and social aspect of things.
Granted, yes, there's less character development things.
But Steve is a touchy prick.
A solid two thirds of the time I spent with the game was done talking, either investigating, or addressing the public, or trying to set up some kind of agreement with local factions.
That we responded to an attack on the EDF base with eventually lethal force, preventing the fuel stockpile from being ruptured by some kind of strike team, was just another step in the intrigue.
>>46724317
>No they weren't. Steve hates the 2004 version, although he collaborated on writing fluff.
Steve hates a lot of things.
2004? That would be the third edition?
>>46725451
>Steve is a touchy prick.
Pretty much. His sequel was action-adventure straight up and violated some of his own established canon, but he badmouths everything all of the time and shut down a semi-official continuation of the comic nearly a decade after dropping it.
On the other hand, some of his rants are interesting, like he was picking apart The Expanse just recently.
Also thanks for the adventure write-up. You can't even find campaign stories on actual furry sites.
>>46725501
>can't find campaign stories on furry sites
Too busy yiffing. Speaking of which, I promised
>>46690331
I'd ask how much time your games spent yiffing NPCs or PCs or what have you.
>>46722948
Right there, I promised that other thread.
I might or might not be drunk. You can't tell, can you? Yet you're forced to respond, in the lack of this knowledge. Seems apropos, doesn't it?
>>46725499
Platinum Catalyst. There was also a supplement for that with vehicles.
"3rd edition" is misleading since it has nothing to do with the prior RPGs. Basically there's two editions: Original and Platinum.
>Steve hates a lot of things.
His own words:
"It seemed like they wanted to do their own thing with it."
His own words regarding the animated adpatation offer that he turned down and doomed himself to obscurity:
"It seemed like they wanted to do their own thing with it."
His own words regarding people trying to continue the comic long after he abandoned it and he shut it down by publishing two new issues as a fuck you then dropping it again:
"It seemed like they wanted to do their own thing with it."
Etc, etc, etc.
He intentionally strangled it to death by sitting on it and doing nothing but couldn't stand to see anybody else do anything with it.
>>46725355
Also on context:
>>46725398
Under that link read: Zho-Chaka and The Drift.
Only two campaigns printed for the game.
Apparently the guy who wrote them actually intended on a novel but settled for an RPG campaign instead.
>>46725565
> zho-chaka & the drift
I have those PDFs. Don't ask why. Or where.
Your life will be longer for the questioning.
>>46725501
>thanks for the adventure write-up
S'why I'm here. I wish I could remember specifics, but it was years ago now that I played, and it's trickling back in pieces.
I recall that after a couple months onsite we were supposed to train up a militia in the city to help suppress the rebellion in the rural areas. Or maybe they were EDF recruits from the locality?
Some locals ended up training under me, after I had caught them a week earlier doing... something. I think it involved abusing poor people. I trained them, let's say, hard.
The bear was also not actually cut our for battlefield deployment. He was a big guy, and had something of an anxiety complex from always being the biggest guy in the room. It didn't help that every time he did see fighting, he was always the first to get shot at. Very low morale, this bear.
My second was an officer who never left the ship, and generally had the job of playing nice with the chain of command and the demands of bureaucracy while my main PC and his squad did work on the ground. She coordinated during fights, but typically ended up spending half the time in an any given battle talking the bear through things, keeping him calm and providing justifications.
>>46725565
>"3rd edition" is misleading since it has nothing to do with the prior RPGs. Basically there's two editions: Original and Platinum.
Wouldn't be the first time there was such a disconnect. Heck, the first two editions are different mechanics and different publishers. 1e was pretty looking but missing enough to be casually playable. 2e was better written but since that meant either getting someone else to write it or editing Steve, it didn't last long.
>>46725560
>Seems apropos, doesn't it?
HUE
There's:
Minor nudity in a few scenes, breastfeeding, and a ton of Henlein-grade sci-fi alternative social structure stuff like professional midwifes raising your kid with others during active military duty, and straight up polygamy harems.
In one minor aside story which I'm not 100% sure was in the main publication, a background story of Erma back in basic training where her roommate fucks somebody on the bunk below her while they think she's asleep.
Oh hey, found my minor side stories folder. Might as well post shit.
Here's character background.
>>46725787
>>46725804
>>46725813
>>46725836
>>46725853
>>46725864
>>46725877
>>46725887
>>46725887
>electro-chemical abuse simulation
For what purpose.
>>46725979
to destroy a soon-to-be-returned combatant. Just like injuring a soldier with an IED takes two soldiers out of combat, brain washing one takes out his/her significant other out, and possibly every close friend as they try to re-integrate the damaged individual back into functional society.
Or you can let them rot while you attack.
Your choice, player.
Meh, I can't stay up this late. I'll see you guys next time this crops up.
>>46725979
1: Same reasons we interrogate officer POW or terrorists.
2:War crimes on both sides one-upping each other towards the end of the first war. When the ILR was cornered, most moral restrictions went out the window. Kanoc was an EDF pilot and officer who crashed (was shot down and intentionally kamikaze'd an important building IIRC) and was captured then interrogated.
The war was initiated by the ILR, they planned and developed everything ahead of time and their armed occupations just flew along like they'd planned.
The defensive confederation was slow as expected, but when they finally caught up in response the sheer manufacturing bulk capabilities of the core worlds in ConFed wore the ILR back. The ILR was now forced to take a more defensive strategy and the EDF was then forced to resort to planetary bombardment which devastated the crap out of the ILR. The ILR sued for peace after this went down a few times and command finally accepted they'd started a war they couldn't win.
>>46726086
Also sheer spite kind of like
>>46726074
implies.
The ILR came out of a xenophobic pocket of colonies of a single species with a unified culture. Their government drummed up a lot of nationalism and promoted dehumanization of non-ILR.
>>46726086
Sounds like furry version of the Alliance-Syndics war in Lost Fleet, I can dig that.
>>46725787
Are these Galacci's early works?
>OP picture deleted
Weak
>>46726780
>Lost Fleet
The description I'm reading on wikipedia has a few overlaps, yeah. The key things about the Albedo setting though are that the ILR did and does what they do because they developed the first military industrial complex that arose out of their specifically consumerist/xenophobic culture, which then also had a grip on government, media, etc. Life isn't bad and the government itself isn't necessarily evil within the ILR, they're just not super socialist like the homeworld and believe in unsustainable consumerism which justified social inequality which opened the door for lots of nasty stuff. The "good guys", EDF, are the socialists but their upper workings become corrupt as the ILR, and their catalyst for this was the war. Both are intentionally a mirror of aspects of the America that Eisenhower warned about.
There ARE aliens too, but their interest is to save lives and slow conflict without being detected. The only thing left of them is their monitoring AI though. Near the outbreak of the second/final war, recovery of a few creator artifacts removes the last operational restrictions from the AI and it begins to interfere directly.
A hero/martyr situation crops up in the sequel, where the psionics breeding program the monitoring AI has been running since the awakening has been paying off with descendants of the famous martyr it creates at the end of the first comic, and it uses them primarch style to unite shattered colonies. It got weird.
No psionics rules in the RPGs though.
>>46727056
>Are these Galacci's early works?
The artist of these was the guy who did Shanda the Panda.
>>46728614
Wanna bet if it was Usagi Yojimbo or Ninja turtles, it'd have been left alone?
>>46732912
I figure Ninja Turtles would of had 50/50 odds of getting the "It's not specificaly /tg/ related even though pic related and an upcoming heroclix set exists REEEEE!" treatment.
Also back when Usagi Yojimbo was getting storytimed iin /co/ it still gotat least a handful of people coming in the scream yiff and cry for Mods becasue anthropolmorphic characters trigger them, and that's on /co/, the board for Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny so I'm not sure if it'd be "safe" either.
>>46733540
Well, /co/ is filled with retards and /v/irgins so that's not surprising.
>file deleted
This is getting ridiculous.
>>46725673
IIRC, one module for the rpg has a crew member of a wrecked ship entering stress-induced heat, creating an artificial love-triangle. It's treated on par with the other traumatic events on board like people's parts floating around and diminishing water rations.
>>46725398
>See, this is partly why Steve didn't like the 2004 Platinum edition since it focused heavily on combat and action. In the comic, they don't actually shoot a lot of people. In fact, they go through great lengths to avoid that or any violation of their moral codes.
I'm going to put forward that the Illiad did a sound job of addressing all sides of war. Trying to skirt around the violence to just focus on the philosophy leaves something vital out.
>>46730097
>The artist of these was the guy who did Shanda the Panda.
Oh. That would explain why it looks a bit off. The last thing I read, I think, was Command Review 3 or 4 and it stopped on the cliffhanger discovery of a derelict.
>>46730097
>There ARE aliens too, but their interest is to save lives and slow conflict without being detected. The only thing left of them is their monitoring AI though. Near the outbreak of the second/final war, recovery of a few creator artifacts removes the last operational restrictions from the AI and it begins to interfere directly.
>A hero/martyr situation crops up in the sequel, where the psionics breeding program the monitoring AI has been running since the awakening has been paying off with descendants of the famous martyr it creates at the end of the first comic, and it uses them primarch style to unite shattered colonies. It got weird.
>No psionics rules in the RPGs though.
Holy crap, I missed a lot. Were those stories put to print or are they on the interwebs?
Looks like it could be pretty decent so long as you don't play with people who can't resist inserting their furfaggotry like OP.
Seriously, you're what has ruined anthropomorphic animals. Thank you for posting Albedo now please shut the fuck up about being a furry or kill yourself.
>>46737894
dude, calm your tits, you dedicated more words to furries than the OP did
>>46738149
You could've just reported him and saved us the trouble of having to deal with his anal blast, anon.
>>46734809
>/co/ is filled with retards and /v/irgins
Sounds like /tg/ these days, to be honest.
>>46737894
This is another thing I don't get about furs and Albedo. Anyone who actually takes one second to read the anatomy/psychology stuff will know just how incompatible it is. Like, sexual stuff isn't even a recreational thing for the species here. It's sort of like salarians from Mass Effect.
You're right though. I can't even say I enjoy things like Albedo or Usagi without getting instantly labeled a furry. It's fucking mental. People should blame Disney if anything, as they're the ones that were sexualizing animal people for decades.
>>46737773
>Holy crap, I missed a lot.
Not really?
Humans are the aliens, but this was revealed at the end of like volume 1, as was the monitor AI, and the psionics stuff first showed up by like volume 2 and was pivotal in the sequel.
Five volumes of the main comic.
Three (small) volumes of the sequel.
The sequel was a long while after the collapse following the 2nd war.
>>46740322
> isn't even a recreational thing for the species here
Actually one character's ethnicity is criticized as "sex crazed" in regards the to stereotypes of their colony.
But it does mean that was abnormal in the setting.
>>46733540
Can we get an Usagi Yojimbo thread?
It had an RPG and a LOT of material for it.
