I was just going to comment the exact same thing!

That's a dark but 100% accurate way of putting things...

Maxim 11: Everything is air-droppable at least once

I took a sky-diving course one where one of the students critically failed his roll to get out of the airplane, managing to fall over when he stood up to jump and break his arm and two fingers and sprain his ankle all at the same time. So, not quite 100% for that part of the process.

@@richmcgee434 Before he even exited the plane? Ouch, that is harsh.

@@ProfBoggs Oh yes, he never did actually jump, the instructor vetoed it the moment he saw his fingers. He didn't get off the plane until it had landed and the ambulance crew that had been called carried him off. There was some question about whether he'd hit his head falling over and suffered a concussion as well so they decided to play it safe. Turned out it was "just" his radius, two fingers and the ankle sprain. Never saw the guy again, but we only had another week of class and he would've taken longer than that to heal up so I don't know if he ever did get to jump in some future class. Me, I think I might have taken it as a bad sign and just found something else to do.

And it was quite common for British officers to refuse to do any jump training. Idk why they gave Swann an automatic pass lol he's historically the most likely to beef it and break both his legs

Same here

It is surprisingly easy to find or create a gaming group online these days. It isn't quite the same of course, but tools like Tabletop Simulator on Steam come darn close.

Really it all depends on what the module gives me to work with. This one did most of the work for me, as the image was a seperate layer in the PDF, so I just used that. Then I cut out and blended in the compass and distance measurements from the module's map (no clue how to get those layers out by themselves) and simply wrote the village name in the top corner using the same Font. Someone who has had training in Photoshop could probably do it a helluva lot fast and better than me.

Having spent time in Paris, I would have to agree; but the people of the French countryside are wonderful people.

Thx for the explanation. Made me click after I was a bit confused. Ran it the first time and didn’t really know on what to spend the threat.

@@boxmanderkistenmensch2268 it is a very meta game. Seth kind of doomed his players to fail the end because he was building Threat as well as having them lose weapons in the jump and getting into fights and such. If you want to throw in more baddies, it costs the gm Threat, which you can do to any scene, but it is costing the GM that threat as you go. Ie, adding the nazi soldiers after they dropped should have cost Threat that was raised from some of the PC's failing their Parachute jump; they got blown off course and ran into a patrol. Seth is talking about adding opposition without costing Threat, which really unbalanced this scenario; not to down him as a GM; I just do not think he understood. This is not a simulationist game like Cyberpunk.

Thanks for the explanation. Even though I still don’t know what ‘grok’ means.

@@--enyo-- means "to understand and unable to apply." Slang named for a caveman who could repeat what was said to them but did not understand the language. Ie, someone who has read the rules and can quote them reliably but still does not understand them can't grok the rules.

@@Svenne-man-1880 not my favorite system, but it is just another meta mechanic once you get used to it. Not that different than retreating in D&D/Cyberpunk because you are tracking hp or know that there is something supernatural in the cultist's room in CoC. Just a tool to keep pace. To each their own, though.

I was an all-in backer in both of the Never Going Home Kickstarters. I even snagged one of the amazing "Soldier's Journal" deluxe, custom, leather-bound rulebooks too. Such an amazing setting and very interesting system.

Well, to be fair, getting an info dump is just boring, but getting it in the form of a old letter with a wax seal, or something like a mission briefing with an projector clicking away is alot cooler, and more immersion

My high-school German teacher told me to really chew into it, like you're clearing your throat, but just shy of actually doing it.

He's doing a good job.

The weird thing is that Modiphius is obviously willing to spend big on artwork, but then they inevitably go short on cartography. This isn't their only product that skimps in that regard, and I really don't understand it.

It's perfectly okay to label the maps with numbers & then describe the locations in the text by number. Many of them will just be “ruined house” or “empty barn”.

Some companies do, but it is weird that not all do, indeed.

I also appreciate the games which include pages of condensed tables and cheat sheets of the most used stuff at the back of the book/pdf, or for free download. I think indie developers tend to do this more often than the larger ones. Guess the GM screen sales are more a priority for some. Although those don't always include what you need in their limited space. Thankfully the community does the work with some of them but it just indicates, to me, those probably should've been included in the first place.

I think it might have something to do with the zone-thing, seeing the zones laid out on a map might make them easily nonsensical.

Got it

Oh wow. Thank you very much.

Have fun stormin the castle.

@@SSkorkowsky man...our game ended very differently from how your game did. One of my players played Sven and just nuked Jans and his goon with Thor's Lightning in two rounds... it was wild. Fun but not at all how I expected it to go.

Alright, Seth, I see the heart, and now I have my original comment done and ready, here Goes Ol' Citcoin's Game Corner Storytime. This is going to have to be in multiple parts because long comments lag hard. This is a story about my Problem players of Yesteryear, in particular the 'terrible, horrible, truly awful, no good TPK' Featuring one of the worst groups I've ever had to run for. Now As you know I am a Game Master and have been countless times, but my players come and go. It's basically a shuffle of the deck every time I say 'I've got a Game idea, it's [Idea goes here] who's in?" Now there are some Good shuffles and some BAD shuffles. Then there's the Rollercoaster-that-only-goes-down that was this particular player group. No real names of course, I like that my head is on my shoulders and would Prefer it stays that way. All of them seemed acceptable at first, but cracks quickly started to show that lead to their ridiculous final adventure. First we have Murderhobo 'Mike', playing a generic edgy assassin (I think he was an Ice Elementite, which are almost exactly what they sound like) , who's problems wouldn't be so bad if the rest of the group weren't making him worse. You see, Mike was a fan of inciting inter-party combat if there was any sort of provocation or tension between Pcs, and for killing just about any Npc that his character wouldn't see as critically beneficial. Mike was reasonable, fun and manageable at a good table, but with this group- you'll see. Then we have Powder Keg "Pete", who was playing a Gnome Wizard. Pete wasn't just any powder keg, he could be set off by just general rage, but he's also where half of my term for players who aggressively insert their politics into the game. Yes, This is the Nazi Gnome. It's important to mention that Pete is not a Nazi in real life, and he claimed his Nazi Gnome was only a joke, but it wasn't funny and dragged on far too long. For our third -issue- Player, we have 'Joe'. Joe was an Anti-mage/Storybender, a Problem player type I described better over on Seth's "13th warriors suck" video. Joe was playing a Serpen (Snake person, more on them later.) Warlock who's deal was with a celestial, but he kept trying to fight with a bow, ignoring his class role as a spellcaster and constantly proclaiming that he was going to complete his deal with his Angel GF without ever 'wasting her energy' by using his warlock powers. He did use his cantrips but made a point to explain them away with some Hawkeye style special arrow. We'll get to when this goes from annoying but 'cute' character concept and dips into problem territory later. And for our final player in the hall of shame, We have "Kara". I'll call her Kara because that was her character's name. I can reveal her character name because I am no longer in contact with them. Her character will also sound familiar if you've seen my comment about problem player types over on 13th warriors suck. She was playing an Ichthioid (fish person, more human than fish but they have scales. Think Dragonborn but they're a Shark) Barbarian, her strength and constitution were maxed out, her dexterity was dumped, wisdom and intelligence were decent, and Charisma was also particularly high. This isn't a red flag by itself though it's a bit of an odd build. Strength and Con being high is normal, but dumping Dex is asking to get hit, and there's not much reason for a Full Barbarian to take particularly high charisma over any of the other Soft stats. What should have tipped me off was how She Explained this character: They were "10ft 4in" which while not impossible for the race is right on the upper limit, they also described her as both "strikingly beautiful" and "hyper-muscular" went on to describe that She fought completely naked, and was absolutely adamant about her truly enormous- shall we say 'Bust'. It also became noticeable that they considered this character to be a version of themselves. Now again, this isn't a completely unsalvageable Pc, Part of the fun of gaming is imagining yourself as an Epic hero, and sometimes part of power fantasy is giving your character some impossible ideal physique. So none of these players, are even in the top ten worst players I've had Individually. By themselves they're all manageable, if infuriating or unsettling, but together they were a Nightmare combination. The Game itself, The closest I can get to describing it is that it was to D&D 5th edition what a five-layered sundae is to an Ice cube. That is to say Homebrewed and adapted to hell and back. The Adventure I planned to run on the day my patience died was not important, it was some quest to stop a Lich lord or a Ghost Dragon, but what ended up happening was that Pete's character had an argument with the dwarf innkeeper, which he started by calling the dwarf 'impure' in a very backhanded compliment. The innkeeper refused them and essentially black balled the Gnome from the whole town, Pete noticed Joe's Warlock had several charm spells which could have smoothed things over; and started going off on him for not using them. Joe argued that his character wouldn't use his spells for something so petty, because it drained his Angel girlfriend's power and "she needs her strength more than you do". Pete, at the table, is about to blow, because of how stupid that is. Mike intervenes and suggests they fight it out in character, which I prefer to a brawl at my table, and I had half-party encounters ready in case this happened. Because Joe's warlock wasn't fighting like a warlock, the Wizard Nazi Gnome was winning but that isn't important, just keep in mind I'm running their fight. While I'm doing that, Kara and Mike are actually trying to prepare to fight the Enemy, and advance the plot. Mike and Kara fail a series of checks to get away from the other two without being noticed, so out of the crowd a group of thugs appear, Six of them. At the party's level this wasn't a hard fight, but they made it one, because on his first turn, rather than attack a thug, Mike backstabbed the innkeeper for snubing them. He then diverted blame to one of the drunks betting on the fight, and Kara yelled "everyone attack!", she rolled well and as I said her charisma was high, but Nobody knew *who* to attack, so the whole thing turned into a brawl. Being a Barbarian with low Dexterity who used reckless attack at every opportunity, Kara took a lot of damage, when she was hit and on her every turn, she described in graphic detail how she'd been injured, whether it was a cut, a stab or a bruise, and often asked me where attacks hit, I'd just say 'high' 'middle' or 'low' and she'd interpret that as slashes on her neck and stomach, stabs to her Legs and arms, a bloodied nose and black eyes. But Kara (the character) was an extreme masochist, and was described as having a wide smile and letting out 'pleasured sighs' even as her scales were slicked with her own blood. Kara's player seemed to be enjoying it too, though I thought that was just her having fun getting into character. At the end of the brawl, things looked like they might get back on track. The Citizens of townsville prevailed and only one thug survived. It was a snake person, and in the party's experience they could be cracked for information. So they left the snake person with the Charismatic Character: Kara, who should also have been capable of taking him out if it came to that. She did manage to intimidate him, and I told her that he'd answer any one question she asked, or follow any one reasonable order. Kara however gave a stupid order. She ordered the *Snake Person* to *lick* her wounds. Now I did utter the great and terrible warning before I let her make this mistake: "Are you sure?" But she was adamant, She apparently wanted to let the Snake guy know that Kara was so sure he had no chance, that 'she can let him get in striking distance, even put his fangs near her skin, while still having him in her power' And it would force the snake to 'appreciate her sheer beauty from up close, which will help completely break his will to resist.' Now that's not entirely stupid, Serpens are snake people, they're physically very snakelike, but emotionally and mentally more humanoid. However they have almost as much venom in their mouths as in their fangs. Kara got her wounds licked, and rolled some more checks for both seduction and intimidation on this Serpen henchman, and again rolled well. He fell head over heels (or head over tail at least) for her, which made him really upset, because he'd just poisoned her. By all known laws of probability, with a maxed out Con and proficiency in Con saves, Poison should have been no issue. Unfortunately Nat 1s don't care about what players think is improbable.

Kara's health dropped below half, I described how she'd feel extremely hot, her body getting noticeably heavier, her licked wounds burning with renewed pain. Her constitution was lowered because of the serpen venom, so her next saves would be harder to make, But being an Ichthioid, she could get Advantage on that Save if she was in water. Meanwhile, The Warlock and The Gnome had finished their fight and gone with Mike's Ice Assassin towards the actual dungeon. Pete decided to go first, because despite having beaten the Warlock he still thought his character would want to continue to prove Gnomish supremacy, and in so doing, became the first to actually Die. Yeah, it turns out running head first into countless traps set to kneecap people much taller than you without a lot of health and with low defences is an easy way to get decapitated. Pete had a real rage out, but to cut that short he calmed down towards Us when the next player fell, because he turned his fury towards the dice, and they were truly cursed that night. That next fallen hero was Mike, because they found a room of Furnace Golems, and Mike couldn't keep his hands off their treasure. Him being ice, not having stealth on his side and big old jets of flame meant that soon there was only a puddle of Mike. Meanwhile Kara was still trying to make her way to the river. On Kara's way to the river, she ended up failing another Con save (heavy wounds rather than poison) and dropping to very Low HP. As the river was finally in sight, she made one more heavy wounds con save and succeeded, but still dropping her HP to 0. Thanks to her particular Barbarian Subclass, she didn't fall unconscious because she was still raging. But Kara's player insisted that despite what the rules say, Kara would still *collapse* because she was at 0 Hp. She made a point of going on about precisely how "she dragged her battered, exhausted body towards the river, getting weaker by the second, her chest heaving, as she crawled towards the water." That's actually a heavily abridged version, with there being a bit more explicit detail on her 'heaving chest' and how her wounds reacted to being dragged across cobbles. With Mike and Pete down, Surely the Warlock who won't lock would flee? Wrong. Joe was so sure that this story was about His character that he stayed to fight the Golems. He plinked arrows off uselessly. He had a Flame Shield spell, but thanks again to "but my Celestial Girlfriend needs her energy!" He didn’t cast it. Four more rounds of combat and down he goes, I describe how his Archangel GF takes him into her Arms, facepalms at how much of an idiot he is, and lifts him from his charred, very dead physical body up into her realm. The last adventurer Kara, was by this point being helped to walk by the Henchman Serpen, Named Barrith, that she'd managed to seduce. As they were staggering and slithering down towards the lake, she failed two more poison con saves (and this was entering the realms of ridiculously unlucky) and because of how damage at 0 hit points works, that counted as two failed death saves. Because she didn't think Kara could survive long enough to make it to the river just by staggering, Kara's player asked if she could throw herself into the water. She finally got a good roll again, and she explained how as a desperate effort to stay alive, "Kara's muscles strained and tore, blood forced out of her many open wounds, as she put all of her remaining strength into diving into the river." Between the words 'remaining strength' and 'into diving' Kara's player loudly Moaned. She tried to pass it off as an imitation of a 'pained groan' but that's just not what it was. She had actually made a lot of odd sounds during battles, and I'd assumed she'd been just doing her character's voice, but no. Kara's player had been a One-hand player the entire time. Not literally; though, both her hands were above the table, she was just getting a very different kind of pleasure from the game and her character. That was my sign to break up this group after the session, see if I could retain Mike and maybe Pete. But I let it go on, because I wanted to finish. Kara landed in the river, and finally made her con save. Unfortunately that meant no more damage, which meant no more rage, which meant unconsciousness. She was about to make her last death saving throw, when I rolled a check for Barrith and told her there was no need. Kara was going to make it, because her freshly seduced Serpen had just rolled a natural 20, and stabilised her. Kara's player made her last description at one of my tables, talking about how "Kara, her mighty body sore, tired and so very weak, was completely overtaken by fatigue. her beauty tarnished by her venom-ravaged wound-covered condition, her little remaining strength fading , barely clung to consciousness just long enough to bury her head in Barrith's hood, the river supporting her as she finally gave in to her need to rest." After that I wrapped up by telling them we wouldn't be continuing, and I talked to each of them individually regarding their behaviour. I'm happy to say Pete and Mike still play, pete is still a bit hot tempered, Mike is working on toning down his chaos when I'm not ready for it, and I'm still friends with Joe. Kara's player however I am no longer in contact with. Ironic since her character was the parties only survivor in-game. A Few months later though, I start running a similar game with some less challenging players, and Mike. Mike's Character is a Serpen, a Paladin who was a former cultist, saved by his Ichthioid wife, and he now adventures to pay for her Healling expenses, so that one day they can take down his former master together. His name? Barrith.

Will remember that...

@@patrickbuckley7259 As Bugs Bunny used to say, it's not the fall that hurts, it's that sudden stop at the end.

I mean, landing is the easy part. You cant really miss the ground. Landing *safely* is the tricky part

@@oz_jones "I DEFY YOU GRAVITY!" *falls upward into space*

"Take-off is conditional, but landing is mandatory"

Glad you're enjoying it. There's a few playthroughs out there. Some are on a 'Seth Playing' playlist I started, though I need to locate and add some of the other games I did with Into the Darkness. kzfaq.info/sun/PL25p5gPY6qKXXXe25y-2rsSgmg8aJ8_GF

@@SSkorkowsky I wanted to echo the previous person's opinion. Voyagers of the Jump is amazing, and I am super excited to see where it goes! Your collaboration with GCP playing Intimate Encounters a few months back introduced me to their stuff, and i've been consuming it ravenously , so thank you for that. As always, awesome content, keep being amazing.

Haven't played it. Sorry.

It's a little below average, really. General RPG videos usually garner the most (last general topic vid had 25,000 views in 48 hours). The view numbers for Review videos vary system-to-system. D&D videos get the most, followed by Call of Cthulhu. Achtung! Cthulhu is far less popular, so less people click it.

@@SSkorkowsky Whoa! I only discovered your videos on KZfaq in the last 90 days, so I have some catching up to do. I never even heard of Achtung! Cthulhu before. Trying to get my group to try CoC after watching some of those videos!

Yeah, I actually wanna get my hands on the 7E version of Achtung Cthulhu, but they never made a physical copy, only PDF. (Modiphius still sells it, and I think it's on DriveThru RPG as well) I suppose it wouldn't be hard to convert the characters and monsters over and just run it as CoC.

Call of Cthulhu 7e is still my favorite system (though I think Pulp Cthulhu is amazing. But it's simply 7e with some extra bits). Converting it would be easier with Pulp, as the Pulp Talents would be handy and work a lot like some of the special abilities in this. But regular CoC is very possible. First, with things like the parachute jump, you'll need characters that have the appropriate skills. So some sort of "Basic Training" package should be added during character creation. Or give them minimums for Fighting, Stealth, Climb, etc.Tossing in a regular CoC character that's a normal Librarian would probably be funny at first, then frustrating. Basically, all the characters will need to be made with the type of game in mind. Things like the waves of Mythos Magic would probably require POW to resist. Stats for badguys and weapons would be pretty simple to roll over. There was quite a lot of Achtung! Cthulhu made for 6e CoC, and a flashing moment when there was a 7e version. So I'd hunt for some of that and steal cool ideas.

I agreed! I have only read the word "sneaked," but in real conversations I have only heard "snuck".

I don't remember which video it was, but there was one where there was some super-old booze in that flask and I got an outtake of me trying not to die. No clue what in the hell was in there originally, but I do know it had turned into something unholy and terrible.

After 2D20 Conan (which did have significantly better free starter adventures) and 2D20 Achtung! Cthulhu, I've no interest in checking out any more 2D20 games. Simply not my jam.

I've reviewed fan-made modules that were published through various self-publishing programs like Miskatonic Repository, or Travellers' Aid Society. I've no interest in reviewing non-published scenarios. Review Requirements for those are the same as they are for official scenarios. It has to hook me, look like something my players and I will enjoy, fit into any campaign we might be doing, and we have time for it. There might be a scenario of staggering genius, but if it doesn't look like a good fit for my players and I, or our schedule is filled with whatever our campaign is, I won't run it. Because of that, I don't take review requests.

Good to know, and thanks for the thorough reply!