Is Cthulhutech any good? give me the quick rundown

The game is garbage and the fluff is kinda shit as-is but has enough good concepts going for it that you can mine the setting books for ideas.

Y'know, like Exalted.

They adopted scenarios from japanese porn cartoons into their universe.

It started with a foundation of good ideas, but then Matthew Grau buried it under a MOUNTAIN of shit.

The system is a broken, unbalanced mess that is basically unplayable. It tries to have both a Hit Point system and a Wound Level system and utterly fails at both. The Dice Poker rolling mechanic means that you get a really weird probability curve that actually penalizes you for improving your skills

The core book was at least passable, but as the supplements came out, the quality dropped precipitously. The "adventures" so far are all railroads through and Edgelordy masturbation fantasy and worse many of them are literally just 1 page of bullet points of events that MUST Happen in that order and suggests raping the PCs if they attempt to jump the rails.

Again, the sad part about this game is that it actually had a foundation of good ideas. Mecha wars against Mi-Go mecha, Biomecha vs giant Monsters, hell even the idea of a futuristic horror setting with strong Sexual Horror elements has potential.

If Grau had done just a few things differently, like basing the sexual horror elements on Alien rather than hentai, like re-designing his system to be less shit, CthulhuTech would have been a decent enough setting maybe worth salvaging.

Unfortunately, the way it's written as is; it's unplayable. Even if it was playable, your players would never be able to look you in the face if you ever tried to run it.

If you want good Manga-flavored Sci-Fi; pre-order the Infinity RPG from Modiphius.

The new edition is vaporware. Seriously, hasn't it been in development for 5 fucking years or something with no progress to show for it?

Does anyone have the link from that one guy's blog or somethimg telling about his game of chthulutech with a that guy GM that eventually grew to encompass every single piece of science and fantasy fiction ever written, it was hillarious

As someone who was excited for Cthulhutech, the fluff was awful. Especially everything involving the Chrysalis corp. What a fucking shitshow.

All the adventures contain some flavor of rape for some reason.

The setting have a lot of potential at a first glance, the writers did a good job fucking it up beyond salvation though when you look deeper into it though. It might be possible to homebrew it into some sort of functionable state, but it'll probably take a lot of work.

The rules are barely a few steps above FATAL on the ladder, lets leave it at that. Just pick up GURPS or whatever system of choice and it will serve you infinitely better.

The setting's okay; it's the actual mechanics of the game that's pure, undiluted trash.

Cthulufags like to sperg about it
Edgemasters like to call it too edgy
Some of Veeky Forums has a hateboner for it

From there, the dice rolling probabilities are kind of jank (can be replaced with cards), the list of skills is a bit bloated (not really bad), and you cannot combine mechas with people

>you cannot combine mechas with people
I'm pretty meh on Cthulhutech but I've never been given a good enough reason why this here is a bad thing.

The bas thing is that the game presents a bunch of character options alongside each other that are clearly meant dor different kinds of games but doesn't distinguish properly so you get the next pilot archetype right next to the psychics.

And the Psychics are more useful.

>NGE for the 40K setting.
Adeptus Evangelion is just a ruleset. Its never been set in 40k unless some GM decided to do that. Only reason for the "Adeptus" part is that the original ruleset was based heavily on Dark Heresy.

Because unlike videogames focusing on only one person for extended period of time doesn't make for universal enjoyment for everyone.

drivethrurpg.com/product/156677/CthulhuTech-V2-The-Shadow-War-Open-Beta

We got this open beta, but I haven't heard anything since its release. At the very least even if it is dead there's still something that came out of it.

Tagers were the best thing about this game. They actually had cool powers and forms and a nice upgrade path.

EVIL SPACE VD SEDUCTION FURRIES

Veeky Forums hates it because it hates it.
There is no balance, it's really 3 different games with the dividers removed: street-level play, Tager play and Mecha play. If you focus on one of those areas, the game is playable. It's mechanics are interesting, but not usually intuitive. There are tons of good or interesting ideas that a competent GM can make work, but are not made to do so in the official games.
It's worth a read and a play, but unless you fall in love with it there are probably better systems to run the ideas of CthulhuTech in.
Lots of people like to bitch about the Deep One breeding camps, the death-by-rape devices, the psychic box that kills infants, and the railroad adventure of furry rape. But they are either optional or easily not included. The pre-published adventures are all terrible, by the way.
With the right group, it would work really well, with some homebrew rules adjustments.

I'm still pissed the tabletop mecha game never happened. That could have been cool.

>I haven't heard anything since its release
It got updated twice.

>it's really 3 different games with the dividers removed: street-level play, Tager play and Mecha play. If you focus on one of those areas, the game is playable.
This. The problem there seems to be that the game wasn't up-front about it. If the devs had realized this and had just explained that there were 3 different ways to play and warned against mixing, this wouldn't have been such a glaring problem.

I think they realised it, given that the 2e beta is Tagers only.

Too much edge in this game. Way too edgy for anyone approaching normalcy, and even a diehard edgelord would have to admit that some of the stuff is a little out there.

l5r actually succeed at the hit point/wound level thing

Honestly, the hate's mostly a meme.

Setting's kinda neat and lets you play a few types of game. Be it a WoD style secret investigation game as mundanes, a mecha military game, or a superhero game. Metaplot is take it or leave it, as far as metaplot stuff goes.

The mechanics are weak, that's true.

IMO, the art and scifi-ness is pretty good. It's Grimbright, to use an overused TG term.

Lore is so-so, ranging from "kind of fun" to "boring" to "seriously, what the fuck?"

Setting has some neat ideas - Tagers, Mechs and Engels are all pretty awesome.

Rule system is oh-gods-burn-it-alive fucking awful.

Fuck the rules but there is some stuff in the lore that one can cannibalize

It has enough neat bits that you should pirate a pdf, read it, copy paste the art into your "rpg flavour" folder, then create your own version of it that works.
That's what I'm doing at least. Using a modified and whittled down version of SR4. Changing up chunks of the lore:
>Nazzadi are isolationist and live on artificial islands made out of their old ships. They are the descendants of abducted humans who lived for generations in a dungeon inside jupiter
>The Chrysalis Corp. is now the Chrysalis Initiative. Originally a collective of rich industrialists devoted to transhumnist ideals that underwent great changes when one of it's members went to see the seminar in Nyarlethotep(the poem) It's also represents minor corps and keeps Ashcroft from monopolising everything. Still evil but more quietly
>Ashcroft is more NERV-like, runs an academy for gifted youngsters. Operates outside of the NEG
>NEG is more rife with internal conflict, each region of earth is like its own fiefdom.
>Humanity is centred around large fortified, self-sustaining mega-cities, small towns are left largely unsupervised.
>For the past 15 years wireless communication has been getting more difficult
>An underfunded division of the NEG military is charged with patrolling areas outside the cities. They enforce the law and root out rebels.
>The Mi-Go are now the "Alien Menace" the average soldier will only ever see their mechs and human minions.
>The Rampine Storm is officially just a rebel uprising according to the NEG
>For the last generation shit has been relatively OK, humanity has sort of gotten used to being under siege by aliens. Magic is still obscure, D-cells are taken for granted, the government has been fighting with itself. The old people however, remember a strange time when a dark man travelled the earth, they claim that no time is past and the world has always been on the brink.
>The game takes place just as shit is getting real

I like the idea of Hentai in my cosmic horror mecha RPGs, and even I was dissapointed by C-tech.

Continued homebrew lore.
>The Alien Menace has been quiet for the past generation, it has beach-heads in the north and south poles with northern canada being a no-mans land.
>South America has it's its own Ashcroft like conglomerate that runs the continent and opposes the NEG. They are in a sort of cold war with the rest of the world. Open conflict would weaken everyone and the give the Aliens an opening.
>The ESO is a secret unofficial ally of the NEG or more specifically the OIS, the Rangers don't know that and will likely be the ones fighting them.
>The Eldritch Society never totally broke away form Chrysalis. They very much like the Culter and Jians, with a much quieter hate towards each other. However they both believe the transformation of humanity through science and the occult. They both oppose the OIS for keeping humanity ignorant and the followers of the King in Yellow who would have humanity serving the Old Ones.
>There is no metaplot, as the true Aeon War draws closer time starts to bend and slip, ala Dark Souls or the Dark Tower.
>The Dreamlands are still a thing. the NEG are trying to build bases there with limited success.
>There are loads of outdated mechs just lying around, most of them have been altered for labour.
>D-cells are used exclusively as power-plants for cities and in military equipment. Civilians use more conventional batteries charged off the grid.
>Nano-tech isn't super common. However most city areas have Public Fabricators which are like very fancy 3D printers. PFab software is a huge industry. Most people are unemployed.

This is all pretty ok, by account of not being the official material crap. I still have some objections with it though:

Nazzadi in general being more cut off from human society is kinda ok, they should be "outsiders" with only handfuls of individuals making the effort and succeeding in truly integrating. The "government relationships" between Nazz and humans should be vary but agreeing that there's no need for open hostilities. Albeit the general opinion in the populaces are still very suspicious and uninformed.

Didn't Rapine Storm zergrush the larger part of Asia though? Hard to handwave that as a local uprising. I actually like RS being sort of mega-Godzilla and turning a whole continent into an occult wasteland...

Having a scifi setting tie in with the Dark Tower vibe would be kinda neat! Dunno if the time fuckery angle would really work though?

Nope, it's needlessly complex, tries to crunch three utterly incompatible forms of role play to no useful purpose and the character sheets are an utter mess. Tagers can't play with mechs, which can't play with soldiers which can play with investigators but struggle to.

Seconded. Setting idea should get you dick hard as a nerd. Mechanics should make your balls shrivel as a nerd.

Some of the handling of the rape in the setting went edgy.

Wasn't Deep Ones mating / raping (well, while debatable) human already on original Mythos? How the hell did the book worsen it?

They should have just went with that in the first place. The designs were wierd, but cool, and there's zero competition in the big mecha market.

...

>Lots of people like to bitch about the Deep One breeding camps, the death-by-rape devices, the psychic box that kills infants, and the railroad adventure of furry rape.

That actually picked my interest. What are are these actually?

I don't mind the different power levels per se; it's clear that your group should be all infantry grunts, or all mecha pilots, or whatever else to keep it on the same level (though iirc the alien-based mechs are all way better than the human-made ones, so why you would pick a human one is a question left unanswered).

The Magic system is NPC only, because it takes so fucking long to do anything. Makes sense for Cthulhu.

I have the Rapine Storm be more sporadic in when they appear. They are more of a phenomenon than a faction and aren't limited to Asia. Their first appearance was in Asia, fucked a lot of shit up and then disappeared mostly, leaving everyone confused as to what the fuck just happened. The Storm is the end result of the machination of most KiY cults.

I'm trying to keep most of the setting from being escalated right away. The Storm isn't anything the world has gotten used to. Each time they rear their heads it's a terrifying and potentially apocalyptic scenario.

The NEG pull a big brother media spin and for most of the world and definitely anyone living in a city, it looks like a very destructive rebel attack, likely funded by the South American alliance. A lot of people are still not cool with the one world government so it isn't extremely crazy to believe. The people who lived in the country side remember what happened though.

The Dark Tower time thing is mostly a flavourful hand wave for multiple outcomes. The game starts where the world has grown confident and idle in the face of a lot of omens. Shit will escalate quickly and should eventually get to the point where the Players failure will means humanity straight up losses. The time bending thing, gives a lore friendly reason to go back to start, maybe even with similar characters, and see how the world ends this time.
It's gives a reason to have callbacks to previous games in current ones, allows characters to peer into other possible 'nows' and soons' and allows for changes to the setting without seeming out of place. Maybe the Mi-Go aren't the invaders, maybe the cults are a red herring, maybe the NEG was the demons along and needs to be destroyed. That also makes it so that at any given time the world isn't dealing with multiple apocalyptic threats at once but rather the rumours and fear of these threats.

Also the Dark Tower thing is for the Ranger and Soldiers wandering around a vast spooky world. It gives the GM an okay to play around with distances. There is also the general theme that everything outside the cities has already begun wearing away. You never know if the next town will be friendly or if they taken to worshipping the old gods. There are odd building and artefacts that appear, unrecorded and remains of battles no one remembers fighting.
Also the radio doesn't work too good.

In one story, and from what I remember the only specific examples where men having sex with pure fish monsters, or involved hybrids which are basically humans until middle age when the transformation starts. It's also didn't seem like anyone was really forced into it (as evidenced by the old homeless guy who knew but was left alone until he blabbed to an outsider about), and intact those that engaged in it where rewarded with gold and shit.

If I'm remembering correctly it was usually worked out as part of a bargain with a coastal community. Generally in the form of 'take a fishwife make some half-breeds with her and we'll herd fish towards your nets.'

CTech is basically Lovecraft magic and horrors no longer being secret and invading Earth. Surprise, humanity just becomes very jaded, build hive cities and makes technological gizmos out of it (this makes some HPfags reeee)

Spread through the book there are examples of horror gone full anime like those mentioned. Setting also mentions stuff like openly available drugs and lowered AoC to display how deep humanity has gone (this makes some ironic MURICANS reeeee)

I love all of this.

It's simultaneously mechanically complex and not even good at simulating anything. It's bad.

Eclipse phase is bad, your option are either ridiculous moustache twirling capitalists from a 19th century melodrama, obvious author insert wank fantasies about how anarchism would totally work in space, literal fascists who name their moons after late 20th century republican presidents and various different kinds of total psychopaths. Wow, what great choices.

>like they say that Rifts and Eclipse phase are bad

Good settings with bad mechanics seems to be a recurrent theme in RPGs.

irolledazero.blogspot.com/p/properly-ordered-posts.html

Thanks
Cont...
>The entire NEG vs Alien conflict is aesthetically inspired by Second Renaissance. NEG mechs stay the same but Alien mechs are masses of tendrils, sensors, weapons and legs. They could even be called bugs. They aren't manned by aliens themselves but by computer systems made of harvested brains.
>Psychics, just like sorcerers have always been around but recent events have given them the opportunity to hone their abilities. All registered psychics in the NEG have implanted tracking devices. Psychics can be sorcerers, tagers and engel(nephilim) pilots.
>tagers can be sorcerers
>The Engel Project is now called Nephilim due to the use of human and outsider DNA. The Nephilim in the orginal books might still be a thing but I haven't bothered touching that yet.
>The OIS inner circle probably has a pact with Yog-Sothoth. Despite being on the side of humanity they are virtually a cult at higher levels and fetishize surveillance and information control. Omnipotence through omnipresence. They have several fully consciousness AI working for them. Serial Expiriments Lain is the style guide for the OIS.
>Fleshform AI are AIs who have imprinted themselves into the mind of human, overwriting the original consciousness with their own.
>Suppressed Deep One or Shallower is playable race. The OIS has developed a drug that can partially halt the transformation process in deep-one hybrids. It's not perfect but it can halt the more obvious traits as well as the psychological racial connection. This is mostly a large scale field experiment. Some of these shallowers work for OIS and are aware of their nature acting as go between for the office and the ESO. Others are clueless civilians that have been discovered and secretly been prescribed the suppression medication under the guise as treatment for some phoney condition, they are monitored closely.

2sa****

Tagers are great, we need a game with just tagers and no poker dice

They specifically say in the core book that the three campaigns are separate.

Ok here's the rundown. You can do the delta green thing where you're operators working for the government, you can summon ghosts to wear as power armor for a cult turned good, or you can be mech suit pilots which is where the really complex rules come in. In my opinion, it's GOOD that the mech suits are complex. Mech games SHOULD be about simulating the complexities of something extremely powerful.

The metaplot is pretty garbage (ooh the mi-go make big ole big mechs), but if you scrap most of that and build your own reasons for the setting, it's pretty cool.

I did a short campaign where the PCs were operators, and after a few sessions getting their feet wet horribly injured by a bomb. Turned out they were all viable mech pilots. Thing is, it's very NGE because you start taking sanity points pretty quickly, so the game goes into the "endgame" as soon as you get them into the suits.

TL;DR, shitty story as written, keep the mechanical spaghetti and meatballs and sauce separate

Except that their limit breaks are almost never worth using, and a few of the Tagers were just outright shit.

Wait, death by rape devices? I don't remember THAT.

To be fair, though, I always got the vibe that the Deep Ones were just going along with it because it was the easiest and safest way to go about it. When the time is right and their day has come again, I'd have expected them to lose all shits and subjugate what they see to be little more than cattle.

The way it's presented in the lore is still shit, of course.