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I'll get on that when I get a chance, before the game starts in January. For what it's worth, the setting is a prog-rock inspired psychedelic omniverse. I asked the players to get as surreal as possible, and the current characters are a sentient mindwrecking fractal guy that houses seven distinct personalities, a wishgranter that makes deals on behalf of the cosmos, a sorcerer whose hands morph into a variety of predatorial beasties, a human cultist that was glad to be overtaken by the seed of your typical elder god horror being from the stars, and a gunslinging, rocket launching arena fighter that is a mix of American Gladiators, Tron, and Chev Chelios, but with rocket boots.
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Dec 22, 2010 11:30
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Capntastic posted:...and a gunslinging, rocket launching arena fighter that is a mix of American Gladiators, Tron, and Chev Chelios, but with rocket boots. That's the elevator pitch for Crank 17: Still Cranky. Coming to brain-theaters in your skull, July 2104. Out of the Violent Planet sounds right up my alley. Backing it counts as my good deed for the holiday season.
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Dec 22, 2010 17:00
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One of my players (a Dipsomancer) wants to start making artifacts, because magic artifacts are hella sweet. But when I looked at the mechanics for artifact creation, they seem to allow such cheap artifacts as to render normal magick casting redundant. For example: to fire a significant blast, a Dipsomancer normally has to burn two significant charges. However, if he wanted to enchant a tear-gas launcher to fire Coors cans that had the same effect, he spends only one extra significant charge, and then he can use it 2d10 times. Why under heaven would he ever need to get drunk in combat again? The basic mechanic to create an artifact is: 1 use: spell cost + 1 minor charge 2d10 uses: spell cost + 1 significant charge This seems dangerously vulnerable to powergaming. Here's another example: Fleshworkers have an ability to permanently pump their own stats. Normally, the cost of building up that many charges would render this a rare affair, but if they cast an artifact, they can game the hell out of things. User casts on self: stat increase of 2d10. User uses artifact: stat increase of 3 * 2d10. ( they could only raise their stats by 3 each time because artifact creation count as weak successes, which would cap this ability to that number. ) Am I misunderstanding the rules, or are there house rules that you guys could suggest to help me balance this? Squidster fucked around with this message at 07:30 on Jan 7, 2011 |
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Jan 7, 2011 07:12
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Without having the rules here in front of me, my initial assumption is that you trade the liquidity of the charge for locking it into combat. It's like the difference between having a thousand dollars in your pocket, or a gun that costs a thousand dollars- one's going to be more useful in case something unexpected shows up, but one is going to be more useful if you really need to shoot something. And combat in UA never struck me as core to the game, and the sort of thing you want to avoid altogether if possible.
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Jan 7, 2011 09:29
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Reviewing the rules, any formula spell an Artifact casts succeeds with only a 12, so I guess for significant blasts it would be pretty useless compared to firing a gun. But take something like the Entropomancer's 'I Win' ability - where no matter the roll, their last roll was a success. Having the ability to do that 1d20 times makes a character an unstoppable juggernaut.
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Jan 7, 2011 18:23
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I feel that UA is one of the settings and systems that, should you be confronted with someone abusing the rules, you could be perfectly justified to have something backfire in a horrifying way, or have some NPC who abuses the rules in a worse way.
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Jan 8, 2011 11:27
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It's interesting, because when I was confronted with the rules themselves, I realized that they had backfired in a few horrifying ways.
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Jan 8, 2011 16:34
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Capntastic posted:I feel that UA is one of the settings and systems that, should you be confronted with someone abusing the rules, you could be perfectly justified to have something backfire in a horrifying way, or have some NPC who abuses the rules in a worse way. Hm, like the 'I Win' device being a global effect - so once activated, *everyone* on both sides of a combat can't fail until the artifact sputters out. Thankfully, I don't have any players abusing the rules, but I want to be prepared for when these issues come up. For now, I'm thinking of creating a faction that would build artifacts on behalf of the players, at some absurd cost. That way, the players have someone to trade and curry favour with, and can't just spam out buckets of artifacts every night. Doc Hawkins, can you give me an example of horrifying backfire? I know there's issues with some adept/avatar combos that can be drat ridiculous.
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Jan 8, 2011 19:47
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Squidster posted:Doc Hawkins, can you give me an example of horrifying backfire? I know there's issues with some adept/avatar combos that can be drat ridiculous. They are, but the rules are pretty explicit about how badly being an avatar and an adept fucks you up: you might have almighty cosmic power, but you're going to be hitting notches on the Madness Meter until you're an utter freak who's completely detached from reality.
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Jan 8, 2011 20:05
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Everyone knows that UA is about attaining real magic power that pretty much only leads to your own horrible fate. I think Hawkins was hinting at some sort of bad-rules situation, which I'd be glad to hear because I've only looked into the setting of UA, which I find feel are more interesting than the rules could be.
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Jan 8, 2011 23:05
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I should rename myself ElitistRPGJerk or something. The setting is full of great ideas, but I am not crazy about any part of the system except the insanity meters. I am a lazy and unoriginal idiot, and the design asks waaay too much of a GM for my taste. I don't like capricious and arbitrary stats, powers, calls for rolls, creation of opposition etc. This is actually a common complaint I have of Greg Stolze designs. I mean, it's 2011! Why am I still handing out 1-3xp a session to all players across the board, plus "good roleplaying" bonuses?! We have better ways now! Essentially, I would play or run the crap out of a game of Solar System or Dogs in the Vineyard or HeroQuest or any number of other semi-generic systems, but with the Unknown Armies setting. It's one of those systems that is no longer best-of-breed for its stated mood and purpose.
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Jan 8, 2011 23:14
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Doc Hawkins posted:This is actually a common complaint I have of Greg Stolze designs. I mean, it's 2011! Why am I still handing out 1-3xp a session to all players across the board, plus "good roleplaying" bonuses?! We have better ways now! Can you elaborate on this? Er... when you get back.
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Jan 9, 2011 05:31
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Squidster posted:Can you elaborate on this? Er... when you get back. Sounds like he'd rather play Hackmaster
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Jan 9, 2011 20:09
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PlaneGuy posted:Sounds like he'd rather play Hackmaster "Doc Hawkins came over to my house with a gallon bucket full of dice, glossy kinko copies of only the twenty most necessary charts, and a smile. It was going to be a Hackmaster night."
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Jan 9, 2011 20:58
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Doc Hawkins posted:I should rename myself ElitistRPGJerk or something. Handing out 1-3 xp a session like the world of darkness? Hell, Stolze's games have the advantage in that xp equals character creation points throughout the game. I hate how WoD made XP scale differently than freebie points. Dogs is not a semi-generic system - it has a very specific setting. You can ignore the setting but you can do that with every game. Anyway I started a Wild Talents campaign. I'm liking WT more than Mutants and Masterminds so far. Defining power sources and permissions is great - makes it easier as a GM to lock down things you don't want in a campaign that way - want a batman esque street level game? Only allow a few permissions like peak performer or hypertrained! Want cosmic craziness? Give everyone Super permission.
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Jan 9, 2011 22:22
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Would anyone here be interested if I were to run a game of Godlike?
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Jan 10, 2011 02:30
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clockwork joe posted:Dogs is not a semi-generic system - it has a very specific setting. You can ignore the setting but you can do that with every game. There are a million hacks of Dogs with extremely similar themes ("You are a Team of X who are obliged to travel around policing Y who are generally okay but at constant risk of falling into Z"), with correspondingly few or more changes to the system. The conflict resolution system (which is what I meant by "system", which was inaccurate of me, I agree) corresponds to a theme of "What are you willing to do, and to risk suffering, to get what you want." There are many settings to which this can apply quite well, and Unknown Armies, as I perceive it, is one of these. Remember the part of the text where Vincent says that you can dial up or down the gonzo-ness or subtility of the supernatural in your game, just by changing your narration, and not by making any mechanical changes? By the exact same token, you could make the game feature cybernetics, or zeppelins, or take place on mars, or whatever you want. That's preeeetty generic, but I don't at all mean it as an insult. Really, there should be another word that means what I'm talking about, without the negative connotation of "generic". Squidster posted:Can you elaborate on this? Er... when you get back. Back! A glaring lack in the ORE games is the absence of experience reward loops that directly and immediately incentivize entertaining yourself and others. Lone Wolf's Spiritual Attributes are what, 12 years old? Shadow of Yesterday's Keys have become my default drop-in subsystem for games that don't have a modern experience system. I think that Wild Talents is pretty fantastic (can't wait to run that redone Marvel Universe in Anachronistic Period Japan game someday  ), but I would neither play nor run it without Keys.Another thing that bothers me is Stolze's weird proscriptions against social combat. I've seen good arguments for it not being included in a given game because "that's not what the game is about," but his "you can't control your friend's characters because that's bad" argument is ancient low-grade grognardistic silliness. I think the games are great, but small parts of them are based in an unimaginativeness that rubs me the wrong way. It's like finding a game with a points-based character creation with disadvantages that have costs in precise ratios ("This one is worth 10 points, but this one is only worth 6!"), but effects in imprecise ratios ("The GM can decide when this affects you!"). As CJ points out, even Storyteller fixed that poo poo.
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Jan 10, 2011 03:23
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Care to elaborate a little on what irks about social combat? I don't think its unreasonable to have "The GM is not going to take control away of your character from you, and neither are the other players" as a basic rule. It's also setting relevant since Free Will is a big theme of the game. Feeding back on a earlier point, I always found the underlying idea of the magic system in UA to be an interesting bit of Design Judo. Rather then go with a rigorous system to eliminate the capricious whims of the GM from the system, just say that magic is capricious and wierd and symbolic and just because something worked yesterday doesn't mean it will work today. Little system flips like that are classic Stolze.
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Jan 10, 2011 04:14
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What's the difference between the GM saying "Your character agrees to the treaty, having been convinced by the diplomat's passionate arguments" and "Your character agrees to be dead, having been convinced by the diplomat's passionate swordplay"?Xand_Man posted:Feeding back on a earlier point, I always found the underlying idea of the magic system in UA to be an interesting bit of Design Judo. Rather then go with a rigorous system to eliminate the capricious whims of the GM from the system, just say that magic is capricious and wierd and symbolic and just because something worked yesterday doesn't mean it will work today. It seems that we like different things, perhaps even opposite ones. I don't think there's an easy way to reconcile this. I mean, I might be able to show you that you were wrong ( ) with a few weeks of playing and discussing games together, but I despair of doing it by post, because I'm not great at explaining things.My tired attempt at it right now is: "An explicit and balanced system can give the impression of a capricious fictional reality, while meaning less work for, and dependance on, the GM." Doc Hawkins fucked around with this message at 04:53 on Jan 10, 2011 |
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Jan 10, 2011 04:51
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Doc Hawkins posted:A glaring lack in the ORE games is the absence of experience reward loops that directly and immediately incentivize entertaining yourself and others. Lone Wolf's Spiritual Attributes are what, 12 years old? Shadow of Yesterday's Keys have become my default drop-in subsystem for games that don't have a modern experience system. I read through the Keys/Experience link you posted, and I think it's a cool idea, but it seems difficult to keep track of for a half-dozen NPCs. Doc Hawkins posted:Another thing that bothers me is Stolze's weird proscriptions against social combat. I've seen good arguments for it not being included in a given game because "that's not what the game is about," but his "you can't control your friend's characters because that's bad" argument is ancient low-grade grognardistic silliness. When Player A takes control away from Player B, 99% of the time they're taking Player B's fun with them. That seems a legitimate reason to prescribe that. As Xand_Man, posted, if You Did It is the theme of the game, You Forced Me To Do That goes against the heavy emphasis on free will and consequences. I've had PCs roll lie and charm skills against each other, but always as an aid to roleplaying and rationalizations - the dice rolling is just an exclamation point for extra flavour, and I leave it up to the two players as to how effective those rolls are. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ EDIT: Doc Hawkins posted:What's the difference between the GM saying "Your character agrees to the treaty, having been convinced by the diplomat's passionate arguments" and "Your character agrees to be dead, having been convinced by the diplomat's passionate swordplay"? I would do my best to have the diplomat NPC give a legitimately convincing argument, and express with narrative how confident and well meaning they are. There's no need for an NPC to roll at all for that. I wouldn't want to tell a PC what they believe, unless it's a magickal mind-control effect. Squidster fucked around with this message at 05:08 on Jan 10, 2011 |
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Jan 10, 2011 05:06
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Squidster posted:I read through the Keys/Experience link you posted, and I think it's a cool idea, but it seems difficult to keep track of for a half-dozen NPCs. Keys are pretty much a PC only thing. I wouldn't want to run them for every NPC either. Doc, I'm pretty down with indie games as well, but I think you criticizing a hammer for not being a screwdriver.
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Jan 10, 2011 06:42
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Doc Hawkins posted:What's the difference between the GM saying "Your character agrees to the treaty, having been convinced by the diplomat's passionate arguments" and "Your character agrees to be dead, having been convinced by the diplomat's passionate swordplay"? In a game where You Did It, social combat is the exact opposite of what you want, though. --- There is two ways to take your quote: a more literalist tautology "you can't fix Paranoia because then it wouldn't be Paranoia, maaaaaan" and an impression that you somewhat would more prefer if the magic system was like the workings of Changeling: The Lost, wherein the powers are explicit (enough) and balanced (enhhhh) that also gives a large sense of being metaphorical and symbolic and weird. Half the fun running C:tL for a while was thinking up new Goblin spells like: This spell allows you to bypass any physical mental or metaphorical blockade of a possible pathway. Catch; it can only get you in, it cannot get you out!
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Jan 10, 2011 07:19
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UA isn't ORE. In ORE, especially in Progenitor, which had a ton of hyper-charming and hyper-persuasive people in it, as well as a focus on mind-changing memetic bombs and similar, it'd be pretty impossible to play without 'social combat'. When a character's power is to literally be a 10 for charisma and force of will on a scale where 5 is the theoretical human maximum, it just makes sense for them to be able to change people's mind, even if only temporarily. Of course, in Wild Talents and Progenitor, you can use willpower points to lessen or negate these effects. Furthermore, in Progenitor specifically, there's not much mechanical progression at all since you can't spend XP on new powers; just on improving your normal human skills. Edit: For Unknown Armies, the setting is pretty solidly built around mind control being a no-no, thematically, of course. But Wild Talents has Mind Control as a power. Capntastic fucked around with this message at 09:14 on Jan 10, 2011 |
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Jan 10, 2011 09:11
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Gerund posted:In a game where You Did It, social combat is the exact opposite of what you want, though. Why is that, exactly? It would be otherwise impossible for a player to play a character more charismatic than himself. That is a huge limitation for a role-playing game, in my opinion. I can think of an elegant solution for this in FATE. Someone convinces your character of something and your character gains an Aspect, for instance, "swayed by Someone's word". Then, as you go take an action that goes against that, the GM can make a deal with you: "I think that you being swayed by Someone's words makes you act in a different way" and he offers you a Fate Point. You can just say no, I wanna do what I was going to do, but then you pay yourself a Fate Point. Or you can agree with the GM and get one Fate Point. I'm curious as how the You Did It theme shows up in the games. In practical terms. Is it just a matter of incorporating "consequences for things in the past come back to bite you in the rear end" in the story as much as you can?
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Jan 10, 2011 17:39
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In UA "You Did It" is both a tenet of the magic system and a tenet of the setting. Within the magic system, there are various control effects, but they either hijack your body (very) short-term (plutomancy), blatantly manipulate your emotions (pornomancy), or change what you know (cliomancy). Nothing can hijack your free will and make it stick. In the setting, the cosmology is entirely human created. The gods? Human creations. Demons? Yep. The Agents of Renuncuation? Weird and powerful, sure, but still fundamentally human. Wanna know why the universe is as hosed up as it is? Well, you did it. Not you personally, but you as part of a herd of a billion other people each as equally culpable. Wanna change the world? Change people. Change public opinion. Change the gods. You can because after all You Did It. It's as much about good things happening as bad things happening, but it's fundamentally that there are only humans and fundamentally everyone has a chance to change the world or by complicity keep it the way it is.
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Jan 10, 2011 19:23
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There is no system to change public opinion though. Such a system might be what I would call social combat. There's all sorts of things I don't like about Burning Wheel, but Duel of Wits (the 'social combat' mechanic) is pretty great. It represents an argument, and the winner does not (necessarily) convince the loser that they were wrong, but they do convince everyone else listening of that very thing. The loser's player can always say "Okay, my character is convinced", for whatever reason he wants. He can also say "I do not give you the chance to turn these people against me, get ready to be shot in the face." Or take the Conflicts in Solar System (I should put ASK ME HOW GAY I AM FOR SOLAR SYSTEM in my title): Normally, everything is settled in one roll, unless a player who is not the GM wants to drag it out in the full conflict system. If the GM says "Okay, the preacher rolls his Preachin' skill to get you to confess your sins...and beats your roll!", then you can say "Not so fast! I start up a fight and begin denouncing his philandering ways to the town. How much does he really want this from me? In fact, I take a turn to switch my goal to 'Run Him out of Town!'" Polaris is essentially one continuous calm negotiation of what happens to your character, with the person across the table from you having equal power of narration, each of you constrained only by your goals for the character, your friendship for eachother...and a flowchart of ritual phrases that let you signal under what conditions you'll be okay with what they just said, with limitations on the case of "Never". And the fact that you get to do it to them when it's their turn. So you see, good systems have all sorts of ways to bank the pain of "losing control." Though really, such concerns are still strange to me because: A) Losing control is only bad if it leads to something you feel really uncomfortable with (which your friends which you play with will not do), and B) You are at no more risk of loss of control as with any game with physical combat (you can fight hard and smart, avoid conflict with stronger foes, etc) C) Roleplaying is a group creative activity that requires cooperation and give-and-take, so suck it up, nancy. HOWEVER: It's a very good point that glibly convincing the strangely driven principle characters of Unknown Armies of different things is a bit out-of-genre. So what I'd do is make every important character have several needs/obsessions (people, substances, codes of ethics, social positions) that they can use to resist blandishment ("I can't join your chastity cult, I need to follow the path of Pornomancy!"), and that other people can use to manipulate them ("I have in my hand a third-generation bootleg of the Goddess' fourth film. The second-gen copy is in a safe place. Now, let's do some business."). Duel of Wits does something like that with beliefs and instincts, IIRC.
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Jan 11, 2011 02:30
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Doc Hawkins posted:What's the difference between the GM saying "Your character agrees to the treaty, having been convinced by the diplomat's passionate arguments" and "Your character agrees to be dead, having been convinced by the diplomat's passionate swordplay"? You can't see the difference? For me, separating the external physical universe of a game and the internal mental/moral universe of each character is a sacrosanct foundation of RPGs. If you can't make the important decisions for your character, what the gently caress is the point of playing? I want characters to decide I keep thinking of this quote from 1984: quote:He took a twenty-five cent piece out of his pocket. There, too, in tiny clear lettering, the same slogans were inscribed, and on the other face of the coin the head of Big Brother. Even from the coin the eyes pursued you. On coins, on stamps, on the covers of books, on banners, on posters, and on the wrappings of a cigarette packet - everywhere. Always the eyes watching you and the voice enveloping you. Asleep or awake, working or eating, indoors or out of doors, in the bath or in bed - no escape. Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimetres inside your skull. As a GM, I control virtually every aspect of the universe in game. If I take away their ability to at least make decisions, those last few cubic centimeters, then how are they even playing the game? Now if there's some prearranged system that players agree upon, then I suppose it's okay but still - I think these indie social combat systems are set up to support railroading more than anything else. Also if there's a supernatural mind control ability - that's part of the physical universe - no different than a laser gun or fireball spell. clockworkjoe fucked around with this message at 09:09 on Jan 11, 2011 |
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Jan 11, 2011 09:06
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clockworkjoe posted:As a GM, I control virtually every aspect of the universe in game. If I take away their ability to at least make decisions, those last few cubic centimeters, then how are they even playing the game? First, the GM doesn't control every aspect of the universe, because your power is not arbitrarily exercised. You wouldn't just kill the PCs without giving them a fair fight, because it would be boring and annoying to your friends the players (and because a good game would literally not give you the explicit or implicit power to do such a thing), and the same is true even if you do not kill them but turn the Grand War Council against them, or turn them against each other (except, again, they can keep playing if they are not killed), so you are just as much restricted by mechanical and social restraint as ever (though I am confused by you saying that mind-control magic is okay at the end of your post, because Charm pisses me off royally). Second, the GM doesn't control every aspect of the universe, because the existence significance of everything in the universe is determined by what the players are interested in. "Players" includes the GM, but the players-who-who-are-not-the-GM play the protagonists of the game. That is way more control than just over the character's decisions! Their character's skills and relationships and choices must have significance and relevance, as a law of the universe, and a consequence of a shared activity among friends. If you decide to play a "Colovian Ranger," Colovian Rangers not only suddenly exist (because you made them up) but are suddenly important; they play a major role in society or prophecy, or else are unknown, but have a culture which contrasts significantly and interestingly with the major ones encountered in play, or etc etc. Third, social combat primarily extends what PCs can do, not what they can suffer. In the first two sub-systems I mentioned, PCs have advantages when it comes to beginning, continuing, or ending the fight. Creating mechanical support for an act guarantees the players can attempt that act. When I say I am annoyed by the absence of such things, I was thinking of all the times when GMs told me that as a player, I couldn't influence their perfect little murderous NPCs; the idea of using it as a tool of GM control is ludicrous, because it "The PCs Are The Protagonists: Whatever They Choose To Do Is The Story." But let me say more! quote:Now if there's some prearranged system that players agree upon, then I suppose it's okay but still - I think these indie social combat systems are set up to support railroading more than anything else. That's a sad thing to think, but if you have not tried the games in question, and you've had bad experiences with games that require "railroading", I can see why you'd be worried about this. Let me do my level best to reassure you: the GM forcing PCs to do certain things so that they encounter "the adventure" or "the story" is 100% pointless in all three systems I mention. Every game I can think of that has a universal conflict system either:
As a GM, I "socially attack" PCs for the same reasons I "regular attack" them: I either think that's what the acting NPC(s) would do, or I think it will turn out to be interesting to everyone, or both. "Control" is a self-defeating principle. I do not like running games that seem to require or encourage it.
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Jan 11, 2011 16:11
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Doc Hawkins posted:"Control" is a self-defeating principle. I do not like running games that seem to require or encourage it. That's why I made the Hackmaster crack. UA is designed with player control in its core mechanics and theme. If you don't like that in general, you can't trust your GM to not railroad the players, or you can't trust the players to not Mary Sue themselves to victory, put UA back on the shelf. It's not the game for youTM.
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Jan 11, 2011 20:03
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You're being too clever for me: I don't understand what you mean here. One theme of UA is "You Did It", but another theme is "The GM Determines What You Do, To A Fair Amount"? Hackmaster is a really great example of exactly the kind of game that I am very bad at running and playing. I really don't see what part of UA precludes a player-driven campaign.
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Jan 11, 2011 20:08
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Doc Hawkins posted:You're being too clever for me: I don't understand what you mean here. One theme of UA is "You Did It", but another theme is "The GM Determines What You Do, To A Fair Amount"? To be honest I've reread that longer post of yours I quoted 3 times, and I get more and more confused each time, especially when I try and combine it with other replies, so before I say more, tell me if I got it right or not: All players, including the GM, cannot be trusted to have enough fun role-playing in a true-to-character fashion without resorting to Mary Sue-ing themselves, therefore it is a good idea to supplement (or replace) such role-play with a mechanical system. GMs cannot be trusted to let players try to role-play socializing their way into or out of situations in the first place (possibly because the GM is Mary Sue-ing his NPCs), therefore a mechanical system should exist to bypass the GM and allow for it. In general, the GM cannot be trusted at being a good GM, therefore RPGs should have mechanical systems to prevent him from doing something obviously terrible.
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Jan 11, 2011 23:55
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Woah! But okay, again, I can see how someone might see that. After all, I can trust the people I play with to not be jerks in a classically obvious way, enforcing un-fun dictates without mechanical weight (Which is, I think, what you mean by Mary-Sue-ing? But that's a big assumption so tell me if I'm off-base), but I've read enough Worst Experiences to know that I should not trust The Set Of All Possible Players to do the same. So from a design perspective, it seems like mistrust is a good default assumption for enforcing positive experiences, and so if you can find a just-so story for a given mechanic that explains it using mistrust, it can seem reasonable. For example, board games rarely tell you, "Put out a number of pieces that you think will challenge your opponent," they say "Put out this many pieces." But, I was still surprised to see it put that way; it's not how I see it at all. (Sorry, this will be another long post. I will try to keep it semi-consistent.) I think the shortest contravening summary is "It adds to the game." (It being both social combat and fiction-feedback character progression (probably needs a shorter name)) A slightly longer one, with bonus metaphor: "Some people can run faster than other people can ride on their bikes, but everyone moves faster with a bike than without it. By the same token, systematization of good practices make it easier for more people to get more mileage from their gaming time and effort. "Bad" players are less bad, and "good" players are even better." When I schedule an appointment in iCal, or a Daytimer, it's not because I can't be trusted to remember it. I remembered lots of things before I had externally supplied scheduling systems! But with those externally supplied systems, I can now schedule more things. It added to my game! I trust you to want to have fun with your friends. Designers should do too! You know your friends better than they do, but one advantage they may have over you is time: I think it's reasonable to say that good designers spend more hours making their game than most of their customers will spend playing it. Everyone can play a game however they like, but designers (optimally) know a lot more about how the results of their game are derived from the rules they supply. When they say "put out this many pieces," it shouldn't mean "this many, you cheating, grasping fucks," it should mean "this many, because after about 30 playtests with the other mechanics static, we settled on these values, and the next 20 playtests were consistently great." So that's why I think that these mechanics are good, and why their creators thought they were good; it's not a matter of trust, any more than when I give you a shovel, it's because I don't trust you to be able to scoop dirt with your hands.
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Jan 12, 2011 02:39
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Doc, the more you write, the less clear you're being. Let's use an example: Fantasy D&D type setting - PC 1 is a brash headstrong warrior. NPC Diplomat represents a kingdom PC 1 hates. The GM and PC 1 go through a social combat scene where the diplomat attempts to convince PC 1 to accept a peace treaty with his kingdom. The player wants to start a war. The GM rolls really well and uses the social combat system to say that PC 1 accepts the peace treaty. PC1 may get some kind of system benefit - bonus points or whatever - for not getting what he wanted - but the player wanted to define his character as a brash headstrong warrior by choosing war over peace. The social combat mechanics force the player to take a major choice he doesn't want. I say this isn't fun. The game has reduced the player to a passive viewer in the narrative. That is my opinion. Now, have I mischaracterized the kind of social combat you like? Would you support this kind of game system?
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Jan 12, 2011 05:09
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Chance II posted:I've been wanting to introduce my group to Unknown Armies and one of the players wants me to make a Legend of Zelda setting. I think I can swing it but I was wondering if a different ORE system would be a better idea. I want to use this game as a way of getting them used to the Unknown Armies system. I know this is from last month but I've been having a good time picturing a stinky man wearing tattered green clothing. He wanders down an alley, crawls under a fence to a small enclosed area where an old hobo warms his hands on a flaming barrel. The hobo looks up at the man in green and holds out a rusty pocketknife "It's dangerous to go alone! take this." The man in green takes the knife, stabs the old man and crawls out from where he entered. "Triangles, I have to find the triangles of power!"
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Jan 12, 2011 05:20
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He stumbles through the crowds like a tattered emerald scarecrow, pushing through the crowd, each breath harsh and sharp. "Hyah", he wheezes, "Hnah!" He clutches bandaged hands to his ears to shut out the high piping of the ringtones following him, each one crying "Hey! Listen!" But he can't stop now, because she's waiting for him. Somewhere, down one of these alleys, behind one of these castle windows, she's waiting for him to come and save her.
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Jan 12, 2011 05:30
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clockworkjoe posted:Doc, the more you write, the less clear you're being. Let's use an example: In Burning Wheel, you can just walk away from any argument - but if you do decide to get into it, you get to set the stakes for what happens if you win. And win or lose, the results are binding. So in your example, PC1 would just say "I'm not arguing with this guy - he can talk circles around me, so why bother? Lets go to war already!" Or he might have something to gain from this diplomat that he wants badly enough to risk losing and signing the peace treaty. If he doesn't want anything from the diplomat that badly, he'll just walk away. In FATE, Cyphoderus suggested above that losing the argument would get you the aspect "Swayed by the words of NPC Diplomat". Then when it comes time to sign the peace treaty, and PC1 says "No. I want war." The DM picks up an M&M (or whatever you use to represent Fate points) and says "But you've been swayed by the diplomat's words, so I'm compelling that aspect." Then PC1 can either take the delicious M&M and sign the treaty, or he can pay the GM one of his M&Ms and stick to his guns. In neither system is the player ever compelled to do something he's set against. I am sure that there are people out there who see nothing wrong with what went on in your example, but for what it's worth I agree with you that your example is not fun. I think that your example shows why you have to be careful with social combat mechanics - it's not hard for a stupid or inexperienced GM to make an unfun situation with them. That's true of physical combat too, of course. In many systems, a stupid or inexperienced GM can wind up inadvertently (or possibly intentionally if he's an rear end in a top hat) making an opponent who is effectively invincible. The key with both is to be shrewd enough to see ahead and avoid creating the unfun situation - and if you gently caress up and do it by accident, be prepared to fix it right away.
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Jan 12, 2011 05:38
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If a player in FATE doesn't have M&Ms or whatever, would he be compelled to go along with the peace treaty then? Also why are we talking about this in a Greg Stolze thread? Shouldn't someone make a new thread about social combat and controlling PCs?
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Jan 12, 2011 09:19
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I've agreed to run a one-off of UA for some friends friday, I've never played myself either so I don't want a scenario thats too complex. Current plan is for 4 or maybe 5 players and I have the one shots book. Which scenario do you guys think? I was kinda hoping jailbreak but I think you'd need at least 6 to run it.
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Jan 12, 2011 09:19
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Little_wh0re posted:I've agreed to run a one-off of UA for some friends friday, I've never played myself either so I don't want a scenario thats too complex. Current plan is for 4 or maybe 5 players and I have the one shots book. I just ran the Bill in Three Persons scenario for a new group last night, and it seemed to go down pretty well. I'd been slightly concerned that no one would have any idea what was going or why they kept being shifted around to different places, but the group took to it quite well actually. As an added bonus, it gave them a set of characters with a connection to the Occult Underground when they all went "Woah, that was awesome, can we do a campaign?"
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Jan 12, 2011 10:46
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I will try again, and then start a new thread if I fail at explaining it.clockworkjoe posted:Doc, the more you write, the less clear you're being. Let's use an example: Let me stop you right there; players who want their characters to succeed should seek out contexts and conditions where they can use their best skills! If PC 1 is actually representing some other kingdom (Kingdom 1?), and his player wants the character to not concede to peace...then PC 1 would not meet with NPC 1, or at least not talk with him. He'd expel the Diplomat, or (brashly) put an axe through his head and trust that to send a sufficient message. Imagine the reverse scenario, where some angry guy attacks the Diplomat PC (PC 2) and tells them to get out of his kingdom. PC 2 would probably immediately surrender and agree to be escorted out of the country, not wanting a diplomatic incident. He would not agree to be engaged in...uhh, "combat combat," but he would try to angle for a chance to talk calmly with this guy while they were both riding to the border, or (again, if he was actually someone who could legally block a treaty) to meet with him in a neutral place the next time he attempted peace negotiations. Of course, if the original player was interested in PC 1 being a headstrong warrior who is manipulated and spun around by sophisticated and corrupt forces, then maybe he (again, the player) actually wants to start and lose a social combat, because he would be entertained by finding out just how the diplomat made the warrior's arguments sound hollow, and made the warrior agree that war was not in the countries' interests. (Speaking of which, I should re-iterate, social combat usually no more binds you to forever agree to the results than losing a physical combat binds you to never attack the victor again. Like I said, Duel of Wits lets you show your opponent up in front of others, not necessarily change their mind, and Solar System doesn't let you win things like "I convince you to agree with me forever," because that's not something that humans can do to each other (unless you're playing in a setting with psychic powers or Charm spells, I guess)) Extended conflicts, in my view, are a negotiation themselves, a discussion of "What would it take to convince you that $RESULT happens in the fiction?", where $RESULT is not perfectly clear before the conflict is finished. We've agreed to be bound by the rules, and to see where they take us. There's give-and-take, there's mistakes and clever strategies, there's choices made and resources spent and finally we find out "what really happened." The RPG just-so story about Cops and Robbers getting rules to prevent disagreement about who was shot is not true, but it's telling: mechanics exist to minimize confusion, disagreements and hurt feelings, as well as maximize enjoyment. This is true of social combat just as much as combat combat. Also, have you considered what happens in your scenario when both characters are PCs? Doc Hawkins fucked around with this message at 16:00 on Jan 12, 2011 |
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Jan 12, 2011 15:57
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