Cthulhu Tech gets second edition?

Huh. You guys think they will really manage to remove everything cringy about the first edition?

Since there was a lot to cringe at :P

Never played it but I was always interested. What was so wrong with it?

Nothing too much wrong with core rulebook(though it did kinda foreshadow problems), but from what I've gathered from my readings and other people's readings... A lot of skeevy in setting things that make it seem like writers were watching too much hentai, heavily railroaded adventures, mechanics that are kinda hard to fit together(so how exactly do you play a campaign if one player wants to be mecha pilot, one an investigator and one a tager? :P), few setting details that seem racist/USA wanking, and lot of other stupid writing things in later books like Migou's motivation.

Oh and devs on forums had "If you play game this way you are playing wrong" attitude instead of the healthy "Thats cool, but not what we are doing in our books" one.

Note that a lot of that is hearsay, for example I haven't seen first edition devs' forums, but I can attest that skeeviness and other things from paragraph is pretty accurate :P Its one of those bizarre cases where earlier books are good(with maybe few details that make you go what) and then level of whatness increases for later books.

edited 26th Jan '16 6:43:16 AM by SpookyMask

Not hearsay - I've read adventures like that.

For example, one adventure explicitly says "this NPC must become the love interest of one of your P Cs." (Said NPC is destined for refrigeration later.)

Anyway, one thing about the new edition that they're doing is splitting it into two games. Tagers and Mecha are now separate - the Shadow War and the Aeon War.

edited 2nd Feb '16 11:27:06 PM by Ramidel

I'm a little curious as to the skeeviness as well. I vaguely recall it got to a point where they had to lock the Trope page for it, and were considering removing it entirely. I never read the book myself, though I read a review that didn't seem to indicate anything immediately awful.

I suspect it has something to do with some of the sexual norms they applied to the setting, and especially the Nazzadi's no-nudity taboo.

I said "hearsay" because I haven't read them myself so I can't confirm :P But for example from what I heard, the adventure involving Shub Niggurath's spawn(the ones that look like anime petting zoo people at least in art) pretty much apparently railroad them to rape the player characters. And if character is female, they are going to die from giving birth(btw, on stupid factor, the they give birth to what looks outwardly like normal animals) or if they abort, they apparently die anyway.

Also, there is apparently literal rape machine(that fills every orifice) in later books that apparently looks like something from that... Was it called Overlord? Well anyway that tentacle hentai anime. And apparently there are rape camps.

Even the corerulebook isn't completely free from creepy shit, the book is rather quick to point out how Migo invasion has deroded humanity's morals(because facing extinction and yadda yadda) by it being legal for 12 year olds to have sex with each other.

Like I said, there is ton of creepy skeevy shit, I have no clue whether some writer had really creepy fetishes or if they were too hard trying to be dark and edgy.

edited 4th Feb '16 9:28:01 PM by SpookyMask

The way I see it said writer tried to one-up Lovecraft without reading/understanding his work and what makes it work as horror.

In-game it's just so hamfisted and cringeworthy that it becomes laughable. This is of course ignoring how inconsistent it is and contradcting stuff that the man himself established but that's okay because he's dead now or something.

Hopefully that shit is fixed by second edition, they're so self aware they listed "None of that stuff that made people cringe from the first edition" as a feature.

edited 6th Feb '16 7:40:25 AM by YoKab

Here is an index by a Something Awful user about the first edition, possible TW for indepth descriptions of the cringy parts

http://tradwiki.foxxtrot.net/index.php/FATAL_%26_Friends:_B-C#CthulhuTech:_Ancient_Enemies_.28by_Ettin.29

Yeah. After reading that, 2E seems like a vaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaast improvement.

EDIT:SA is currently under guest lockdown, however I have read these before it.

edited 9th Feb '16 3:08:30 AM by Kanonite

Eh, SA kinda worries me because they have tendency to be smug, but on other hand they do produce hilarious stuff so might as well check out that index.

...And I think I accidentally pressed vote button because I mistook it for page number button. *facepalm* I didn't even know guests vote threads on SA nowadays(or maybe always, I have never visited site actively, just occasionally)

I must mention that most of these readings have been archived and require a special function that makes it registered-user-only.

HOWEVER! I managed to locate a mirror that doesnt require registration.

http://projects.inklesspen.com/fatal-and-friends/

edited 10th Feb '16 2:20:13 PM by Kanonite

So...according to that link, Cthulhu Tech is garbage, disgusting, and the makers are assholes. Sad to hear.

My RPG group is basically stuck on D&D. I wasted far too much money on GURPS and have played it exactly once, for like one session. I mad the mistake of buying Dark Heresy for the sheer novelty of Warhammer 40,000 role playing, but don't overly care for the system or even understand how to properly GM, always my job, the setting.

This was a game I had passing interest in, if my group ever decided to try something new and I ever had the money, but I guess its little more than Weeaboo FATAL Light.

edited 12th Feb '16 9:58:11 AM by Rotpar

On the positive side, apparently they realized that since "read me" Cthulhutech beta note comments that they are going to focus on "being occult-superhero" and leave the skeevy stuff out of books to homegames for people who want that. Of course we can't know for sure yet since Beta thing is basically just rules, but I don't think it even mentioned no nudity taboo when it was giving description of what nazzidi are like. So who knows, maybe second edition will actually be good, even if sample adventures remain railroaded as hell.

But yeah, I just finished reading Ettin's notes on all books and... Wow, okay, seriously, what was wrong with them. I mean, they have setting that has you fight lovecraftian things in mechas and why the hell they waste that by including street level sex trafficing/rape adventure in every book. Not to mention the "kidnapped and tortured by serial killer pair while underaged girl is being molested" one. And thats not taking in account that they seem to really focus on sexual stuff on a lot of books, what the hell

Like, okay, I can get that rape thing is really bad "dark and edgyyyy" thing since writers suck, but I can't help but feel that at least one of them watched too much porn since they keep bringing sex up all the darn time.

Just to note further if you read all the link, worst thing is that setting's concept is actually good/interesting, but that gets buried under all the crap. At least that seemed to be writer's opinion as well

edited 13th Feb '16 12:15:03 AM by SpookyMask

As someone who likes the books despite the sleaze, I will have to agree that the sex stuff feels overused and a cheap way to create horror and drama. Which means its really good that their relegating such stuff to DM's choice.

edited 13th Feb '16 1:38:44 AM by Kanonite