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So I wanna start my group's nMage game back up after a hiatus, but I'd like to curtail some of their powergaming this time around. Anyone wanna have a rundown of some simple fixes for the more blatant system flaws? I recall extended rituals especially with Fate's dice affecting powers being a problem. Anything that sticks out including silly base things like Fighting Styles (which I plan to remove)!
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Sep 8, 2012 08:03
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Oh, that's excellent. I think I should be able to find an interested ST for such a game.
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Sep 8, 2012 08:41
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Unoriginal Name posted:So I wanna start my group's nMage game back up after a hiatus, but I'd like to curtail some of their powergaming this time around. Cap the number of rolls they're allowed for ritual magic (maybe a number of rolls equal to Gnosis + 1 or 2?) if you're worried about them abusing it. Maybe make soaking Paradox successes deal Resistant Lethal damage rather than Resistant Bashing, to make the choice actually have some teeth, and get them to be careful with magic usage?
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Sep 8, 2012 10:43
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Randalor posted:I had a couple of questions about WoD. 1) It depends. The main problem with Hunter is that some of their stuff might be stuff you would let anybody do, and then for similar pricing you get rayguns. As Dave said, it's all about Tiers. 2) Neither. The first has some rules problems and the second is too complex for casual games unless you know it pretty well. I would probably adapt some kind of path-based magic system to NWoD for a quick and easy game.
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Sep 8, 2012 10:50
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Unoriginal Name posted:So I wanna start my group's nMage game back up after a hiatus, but I'd like to curtail some of their powergaming this time around. 1) Idiots forget that other wizards can use the same exploits at the PCs. In general, lots of WoDgrog boils down to STs who are incompetent NPC handlers. Pick a streamlining system for NPC design and put some thought into their capabilities. 2) Reduce the duration of spells that stack with Legacy Attainments as per the Perfected Adept in almost all cases.
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Sep 8, 2012 10:54
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Unoriginal Name posted:So I wanna start my group's nMage game back up after a hiatus, but I'd like to curtail some of their powergaming this time around. For rituals I've had MAJOR success making the cost of buying extra Potency for spells scale exponentially. This means instead of ritual successes increasing the Potency of a spell 1-1, each level of Potency costs its level in successes. Potency 1 is 1 success, Potency 2 is 3 (1 + 2), 3 is 6 (1 + 2 + 3) and so on. For powers that grant spirits or ghosts extra attributes, I make it half the new dots in cost (so Power 4 would be 2 successes). It seems like it'd take some bookkeeping, but there's always inherent bookkeeping with ritual spells anyway and it really does cut down on the blatant abuse of the ritual system. I'd also be tempted to go with "you can't pre-prepare an attack power using Time 2," but I'm not sure about that one.
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Sep 8, 2012 16:30
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Waaaah the Christians are out to get me
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Make all spells last for one scene at maximum. Rituals are things you do to keep a spell going without having to pay the spell's cost anew each hour - when your ritual ends, so does the spell. Mages use soul stones, artifacts, or imbued items to set up situations where a magical effect persists indefinitely without there being an awakened soul around to power it. (Under such a scheme, you'd probably want a lot of the standard "walking around" spells like mage sight or mage armor to be castable reflexively.) On another note, I've been thinking that it'd be cool if most (all?) Skills were, in fact, Merits, or written up like Merits in that they're concrete powers your character has. So, instead of having Computers 3, which, like, what does that actually even mean, there's a really cheap "Computer Literate" trait which means you can easily use computers for extensive research or communication, a more expensive "Computer Hacker" trait which lets you actually break into databases or sabotage people, "Computer Expert" for in-depth knowledge, and so on. You'd roll dicepools composed of two of your attributes whenever it matters how well you can apply your merits, especially if you're trying to outdo other characters, so for instance two people with the "Hacker" trait might roll Int + Wits to break into each other's systems.
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Sep 8, 2012 18:23
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Thinking of Computer 3 being vague, I really liked how the skill section in Dark Ages: Vampire lays out what you can do and what kind of person you are at each level of a given skill.
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Sep 8, 2012 19:22
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I haven't been paying attention to the WoD threads in TG very much. Are people unhappy with the Onyx Path developments? Last time I check most posters here seem to prefer the new WoD over classic.
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Sep 8, 2012 19:44
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Ferrinus posted:So, instead of having Computers 3, which, like, what does that actually even mean I think the core book explicitly says that Computers 3 is equivalent to being able to program computers, though it doesn't give examples like that for other skills. Congrats, your example was the one instance where a skill level is actually defined.
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Sep 8, 2012 19:50
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Maximo Roboto posted:I haven't been paying attention to the WoD threads in TG very much. Are people unhappy with the Onyx Path developments? Last time I check most posters here seem to prefer the new WoD over classic. And for those that do, we're busily writing the fullest nWoD schedule since... I dunno. 2008? Including near-new editions of the core and Requiem? I'm waiting for two books I worked on to come out over the next few weeks. Both are nWoD. One's even a new gameline, for chrissakes. It's just that the cWoD fans get their fun too.
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Sep 8, 2012 20:47
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Dave Brookshaw posted:And for those that do, we're busily writing the fullest nWoD schedule since... I dunno. 2008? Including near-new editions of the core and Requiem? While I very much prefer nWoD, I'd be lying if I said I never had any fun ever back in the old days so I'll be definitely checking out some of the New/Old stuff. But I have to say calling it "Classic WoD" Just seems...I dunno...dumb.
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Sep 8, 2012 20:56
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Error 404 posted:While I very much prefer nWoD, I'd be lying if I said I never had any fun ever back in the old days so I'll be definitely checking out some of the New/Old stuff. But I have to say calling it "Classic WoD" Just seems...I dunno...dumb. All I can think of is relating it to the New Coke/Classic Coke thing, a comparision which does not favor the New.
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Sep 8, 2012 20:59
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So... theorycrafting on how much yiffy creepshow stuff is in WtA20, and just how terrible it will be in general? I'm betting not too much, but what will be there will be  in the worst ways possible.
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Sep 8, 2012 21:07
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Ferrinus posted:On another note, I've been thinking that it'd be cool if most (all?) Skills were, in fact, Merits, or written up like Merits in that they're concrete powers your character has. So, instead of having Computers 3, which, like, what does that actually even mean, there's a really cheap "Computer Literate" trait which means you can easily use computers for extensive research or communication, a more expensive "Computer Hacker" trait which lets you actually break into databases or sabotage people, "Computer Expert" for in-depth knowledge, and so on. You'd roll dicepools composed of two of your attributes whenever it matters how well you can apply your merits, especially if you're trying to outdo other characters, so for instance two people with the "Hacker" trait might roll Int + Wits to break into each other's systems. I personally prefer the latitude built into the Att + Skill system, but that's not a bad idea you've got.
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Sep 8, 2012 21:10
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Fuzz posted:So... theorycrafting on how much yiffy creepshow stuff is in WtA20, and just how terrible it will be in general? For me, the twitchy thing is the use of the word "Metis," which was an innocent choice but also happens to be incredibly offensive if you're Canadian. I personally think WtA rocks socks because you get to murder executives.
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Sep 8, 2012 21:13
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MalcolmSheppard posted:For me, the twitchy thing is the use of the word "Metis," which was an innocent choice but also happens to be incredibly offensive if you're Canadian. I personally think WtA rocks socks because you get to murder executives. http://forums.somethingawful.com/dictionary.php?act=3&topicid=559
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Sep 8, 2012 21:27
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I had no idea there was some kind of Goon thing. But seriously, Metis is like saying when two wizards have a child, that child possesses the powers and strange deformities of the legendary Chassidim -- by which I mean an odd fictional bloodline that I just borrowed an obscure evocative word for. How could *that* be taken the wrong way?
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Sep 8, 2012 21:34
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Started a new Hunter game two nights ago, was a bit nervous as I haven't run a game in a couple of years. Everyone seemed to have a good time though, they have yet to encounter a single supernatural being but the cell has already had a three way fist fight over the ethics of taking kirilian photos without permission.
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Sep 9, 2012 00:26
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Maximo Roboto posted:I haven't been paying attention to the WoD threads in TG very much. Are people unhappy with the Onyx Path developments? Last time I check most posters here seem to prefer the new WoD over classic. I remain a very strong fan of the original Vampire. oMage, oWerewolf, much less so. As such I'm entirely pleased by Onxy Path except for how drat long they take and also that they're spending precious vampire-time on werewolves and magicians. Dave Brookshaw posted:
It's oWoD, drat it, oWoD.
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Sep 9, 2012 04:11
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Nicolae Carpathia posted:I think the core book explicitly says that Computers 3 is equivalent to being able to program computers, though it doesn't give examples like that for other skills. Congrats, your example was the one instance where a skill level is actually defined. Except, you can make a "program computers" roll with any level of Computer skill, so in practice your character is possessed of abstract Computerness to a different degree that other characters are. I'm talking about the kind of explicit distinctions in capability most merits (and e.g. Nobilis trait levels, D&D feats) draw. An extra dot of Contacts or Haven Size or Order Status have built-in meaning that an extra dot of Brawl doesn't. Malcolm Sheppard posted:I personally prefer the latitude built into the Att + Skill system, but that's not a bad idea you've got. I have the intuitive feeling that some skills should remain vague measurements of abstract, game-mechanical Dicepower, particularly the combat skills, but then that might be a sign that combat skills as a whole should be implemented differently. Because, like, your character definitely benefits from every last dot of Weaponry, since almost any use of Weaponry has an explicit per-success effect that you always want to amp up. But how much do you benefit from having every last dot of Politics? And yet both things appear in the same list, scale to the same value, and cost the same amount to boost. Of course, the advantage of a merit-style system is that you could make some quote unquote "Skills" simply allow more buy-in than others, so there are multiple tiers of fencing skill you can buy that add directly to your ability to fight, whereas You-Can-Do-This-Or-You-Can't skill tricks could just have fewer or no tiers to purchase. Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 04:29 on Sep 9, 2012 |
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Sep 9, 2012 04:16
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Loomer posted:I remain a very strong fan of the original Vampire. oMage, oWerewolf, much less so. As such I'm entirely pleased by Onxy Path except for how drat long they take and also that they're spending precious vampire-time on werewolves and magicians. Be prepared for everyone in this thread to hate you and your lovely taste.
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Sep 9, 2012 04:27
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More on the merits thing: one of the reasons it feels totally natural to boil "Good at computers" into a small list of cheap, distinct traits, but weird to do the same with "Good at punching" is because I'm very used to thinking of the WoD combat stats as so intrinsically valuable/powerful that they're supposed to take a lot of XP and effort, both in and out of character, to max out. But, in a All-Skills-Are-Merits game that's supposed to even ostensibly resemble the World of Darkness, you sort of can't decide to make all the combat stats really expensive and complicated compared to the noncombat stats, because that seriously undermines your ability to claim that you're running a game in which social or investigative capability is as at least as important as filling-health-tracks-with-asterisks capability. Part of the intuition that combat's big and weighty and would somehow "break the game" if you could master it really cheaply (but that being able to trivially declare your character is a master scientist simply doesn't present such problems) is definitely on me, but on the other hand I don't think it's that rare of a thing to think - how many stories can you remember of WoD storytellers archly demanding that someone explain, through at least three pages of backstory, their five dots in Science as opposed to their five dots in Firearms? Of course, a lot of that flowed out of the affectation that, wow, what do you think this is, D&D, where we engage in combat, like peasants?! This is personal horror, buddy! Emotions! Tragedy! Even now that we're mostly beyond that, though, I find myself tripping over the idea that it might be as easy as buying, like, one trait to declare that your character is a world-class martial artist, because if it only costs 5xp (or something), how come everyone isn't breaking through boards with their forehead? It's so easy to buy! And while we're at it, how come every NPC in Exalted doesn't have five points in Dexterity, five points in Dodge and at least one combat skill, and a perfect defense? Have you seen the freebie point costs on those things, they're practically nonexistent! I think the takeaway is that it works best (at least, under such a system) to explicitly categorize experience points as totally OOC character-editing-power, rather than any kind of representation of how much your character is learning and growing on a personal level. Maybe even start calling them Advancement Points or Character Points instead of Experience Points. This also makes the system cooperate a little better in terms of letting different characters play differently-skilled characters; the WoD already allows you to play a game where one character's "Mathematical genius" trait is balanced out by another character's "Trust fund" trait, but spending Character Points instead of Experience Points to buy yourself a trust fund creates less of an expectation that someone should be jumping through hoops to explain how their character makes all that money, and more of an expectation that you should be cool with someone saying "Well, I thought it'd be cool if my character fell into a lot of money all of a sudden." (On the other hand, it's often fun to have to work on stuff in character before you can buy a trait out of character, so idk) Obviously, you'd still want to think long and hard about what exactly the game mechanical difference between a master fighter, a decent fighter, and a total bystander ought to be, and how to construct a system that doesn't encourage each and every character's backstory to include a line like "And then she studied kung fu for several years," because it's just so cheap to buy and it comes up so drat much that you'd be a moron to ignore it. Fuzz posted:Be prepared for everyone in this thread to hate you and your lovely taste. What? Good lord, no, that's just you. Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 05:30 on Sep 9, 2012 |
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Sep 9, 2012 05:26
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Ferrinus posted:Except, you can make a "program computers" roll with any level of Computer skill, so in practice your character is possessed of abstract Computerness to a different degree that other characters are. I'm talking about the kind of explicit distinctions in capability most merits (and e.g. Nobilis trait levels, D&D feats) draw. An extra dot of Contacts or Haven Size or Order Status have built-in meaning that an extra dot of Brawl doesn't. I think your main problem is that it adds to the load of the ST in a bad way. S/he now needs to track what s/he can't let people do because they didn't buy the Merit-Skill-thing. So if I'm a generous ST (as I actually am) I risk screwing over people who paid for stuff by saying yes. The alternative is to make Skillmerits provide an advantage to a given task. So even if I let someone program a computer, Computer Programming Guy will always be better, and Computer Programming Guy always has permission to program computers.
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Sep 9, 2012 09:59
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As someone who works with computers for a living, it seems awfully silly to draw a thick black line between "oh god how do I internet?" and "brb rewriting my computer's networking stack". There's definitely grades of skill involved with every, well, skill and requiring a character to have a merit for any non-trivial action they want to take seems like it would needlessly restrict players' choices. I mean, if a dude with crazy eyes and bulging, black veins kicks down my door, I can't even attempt to grab a baseball bat and defend myself with Strength ****, Dexterity *** and Stamina *** because I spent 6xp on No Touching ** instead of Close Quarters Baseball ** ?
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Sep 9, 2012 10:14
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MalcolmSheppard posted:The alternative is to make Skillmerits provide an advantage to a given task. So even if I let someone program a computer, Computer Programming Guy will always be better, and Computer Programming Guy always has permission to program computers. Graphics Expert: Character can automatically and always recognize when something's been shopped. No Internet Footprint: Subtract the character's Computer skill from all efforts to research her, find her via computer, or hack into her stuff. Scammer: Add Computer skill to all social tests involving online communication. Super Surfer: Just going to quote it in its entirety: "The character spends a few moments online, and learns a relevant fact about whatever the characters are presently looking into. This "fact" might not be true in the strictest sense, but it definitely takes the characters in a direction that will pay off." Web Presence: The character can dox anyone without a roll as long as they've got a little bit to go on (name and birth date is sufficient).
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Sep 9, 2012 11:20
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Loomer posted:It's oWoD, drat it, oWoD. Maybe now that Onyx Path is a thing they can officially call it OWoD.
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Sep 9, 2012 11:36
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moths posted:Maybe now that Onyx Path is a thing they can officially call it OWoD. The reverse, actually. They only started calling it Classic when making more Masquerade books became a possibility, then a reality. Eh. My day-job is with a cell phone provider. I'm used to adapting quickly to branding decisions I don't understand. If they want to call it cWoD, cWoD it is.
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Sep 9, 2012 13:48
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MalcolmSheppard posted:I think your main problem is that it adds to the load of the ST in a bad way. S/he now needs to track what s/he can't let people do because they didn't buy the Merit-Skill-thing. So if I'm a generous ST (as I actually am) I risk screwing over people who paid for stuff by saying yes. Ooh, that's true. Having to track whether everyone's allowed to try to pick a lock is a lot more cumbersome than having to track whether everyone's allowed to read people's auras. I like binary permissions since it seems like more of a big deal to get them (imagine if all vampires could use all Auspex powers automatically, and buying ratings in the actual Auspex trait just gave you more dice), but you definitely wouldn't want to use them for anything that seems even vaguely half-assable. So, yeah, some sort of "Computer Search" power would have to be an assurance that you can do it more quickly and thoroughly than someone without the trait, and that you can use it to discover normally unavailable information, and that you know how not to leave your own online footprint, and so on. Presumably, the actual "have this or you can't even try" skill merits would only be there to cover things like heart surgery.
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Sep 9, 2012 14:42
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I guess I just don't get what problem you're trying to fix with skillmerits. Its not that its bad, I just don't see why its preferable to the way skills work now.
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Sep 9, 2012 21:44
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Baby Babbeh posted:I guess I just don't get what problem you're trying to fix with skillmerits. Its not that its bad, I just don't see why its preferable to the way skills work now. To quote myself: Your character definitely benefits from every last dot of Weaponry, since almost any use of Weaponry has an explicit per-success effect that you always want to amp up. But how much do you benefit from having every last dot of Politics? And yet both things appear in the same list, scale to the same value, and cost the same amount to boost. Plus, a lot of skills are really difficult to translate into the narrative. For instance, if my character has Intelligence 5 and Medicine 1, I'm as good at diagnosing and treating disease as your character with Intelligence 2 and Medicine 3. In real life, you'd basically never feel comfortable going to a med student, even a really bright med student, instead of a fully trained and experienced doctor, so we're forced to conclude that Medicine 3 does not actually represent more training than Medicine 1 in a concrete way, but rather a sort of nebulous ability-to-utilize-the-training-you've-had that's ultimately just a really specialized Intelligence trait. It's really only overcoming the hurdle between Medicine 0 and Medicine 1 that eliminates the untrained penalty and has a dramatic, noticeable difference on your character.
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Sep 10, 2012 00:38
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Per-success effects is one of the things I really miss from oWoD. Having a 12 dice pool average be the same thing as a 3 dice pool average is just wrong.
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Sep 10, 2012 01:08
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Ferrinus posted:Plus, a lot of skills are really difficult to translate into the narrative. For instance, if my character has Intelligence 5 and Medicine 1, I'm as good at diagnosing and treating disease as your character with Intelligence 2 and Medicine 3. In real life, you'd basically never feel comfortable going to a med student, even a really bright med student, instead of a fully trained and experienced doctor, so we're forced to conclude that Medicine 3 does not actually represent more training than Medicine 1 in a concrete way, but rather a sort of nebulous ability-to-utilize-the-training-you've-had that's ultimately just a really specialized Intelligence trait. It's really only overcoming the hurdle between Medicine 0 and Medicine 1 that eliminates the untrained penalty and has a dramatic, noticeable difference on your character. But if we get too specific, doesn't this just takes us in a very grognardy direction of "I need to know how many Medicine dots my character in this survival horror game has to have in order to perform The Wipple on a patient, or my verisimilitude is RUINED!!!!"? When the main focus of Medicine in a game involves patching stab wounds, or identifying strange diseases, does it really matter for a Medicine focused character to buy a Merit just to know where his training came from?
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Sep 10, 2012 03:22
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I always figured this existed, but I hadn't bothered to figure out where to get it. Thank you so much for linking this. I've heard glowing reviews of the nWoD mechanics but I much prefer the oWoD setting and clans.
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Sep 10, 2012 03:31
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Simian_Prime posted:But if we get too specific, doesn't this just takes us in a very grognardy direction of "I need to know how many Medicine dots my character in this survival horror game has to have in order to perform The Wipple on a patient, or my verisimilitude is RUINED!!!!"? When the main focus of Medicine in a game involves patching stab wounds, or identifying strange diseases, does it really matter for a Medicine focused character to buy a Merit just to know where his training came from? That's why I'm saying you could replace Medicine with a simpler, cheaper merit, not add a simpler, cheaper Merit that's mandatory for anyone with Medicine to buy.
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Sep 10, 2012 03:37
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Ferrinus posted:That's why I'm saying you could replace Medicine with a simpler, cheaper merit, not add a simpler, cheaper Merit that's mandatory for anyone with Medicine to buy. Ah, then I misinterpreted your last post. My bad. Yeah, I can get behind the idea of a Medicine merit. On a side note, in the past White Wolf experimented with the World of Darkness using other systems, like GURPS or d20. Are there any plans for another system iteration? Because I would be thrilled with a FATE-based WoD game. (yeah I know there's Dresden Files, but that doesn't really appeal to me)
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Sep 10, 2012 03:49
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1993 is now properly finished, with some 1994 in the lists. Current Vampire count: 2435, estimate ~2600 - 2800 unique cainites and ghouls. Current Werewolf count: 1110 entries, estimate up to 1600 werewolves and kinfolk. Current Mage count: 848. Probably 900 odd total.
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Sep 10, 2012 08:36
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Loomer posted:...Current Mage count: 848. Probably 900 odd total. (Yes I know Resonance can be any adjective you like, I'm just a nut that way)
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Sep 10, 2012 09:52
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Ferrinus posted:To quote myself: For combat skillmerits I'd probably develop a number of weapon templates and provide dot bonuses and/or misc bennies. I was actually trying to push the system this way with Armory Reloaded, but we were constrained by compatibility issues. The basic idea is that a Merit would apply to groups like the following: Bow Thrown Knife Club/Light Sword Heavy Club/Sword Polearm Chain/Flexible Unarmed Striking Unarmed Grappling Pistol Carbine Longarm This somewhat resembles some of the backend stuff in A:R, though I am going on memory. You could do this in a pyramid style where two levels work the whole broad category, two work for specific weapons, and the two levels represent abstract specialities. So Weaponry Skillmerits would go: Weapon Combat (**) +1 die with melee weapons Advanced Weapon Combat (***) Prereq: Weapon combat, total +2 dice with melee weapons. Single Weapon Combat (**) +1 die with one Weapon type. NOTE: Buying Weapon Combat first is recommended. Advanced Single Weapon Combat (***) Prereq: Single Weapon combat, total +2 dice with melee weapons. NOTE: Buying Weapon Combat first is recommended. Weapon Speciality (**): +1 die with an ST-approved speciality. Advanced Weapon Speciality (***): Prereq: Weapon Speciality, total +2 dice with a speciality. Basically, the way this works is that at 30 XP you'll get +6 dice with a weapon you like, using your specialty. You can theoretically choose narrow stuff first if your character concept demands it, or a combination. Now the Skill, for +5 dice with any melee weapon, is 45 XP. The price difference is worth 7 dots of the above Merits, which equates to boosting a secondary weapon to +5 dice. Given that combat focused characters will typically use 1 primary and one backup weapon, this makes it functionally similar in value.
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Sep 10, 2012 10:37
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Grim posted:I'm interested in what information you're collecting about Mages - I once went through every book I could get my hands on and wrote down every Resonance I could find for quick reference when generating NPC personalities, if you were noting that stuff down I would be interested to see your results - I could never find many examples of Resonance pre-revised edition. Just tradition/convention, subfaction where applicable, time and locale, and any masteries. I'll probably end up going back over it eventually, but for the time being it's sufficient.
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Sep 10, 2012 11:06
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