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PublicOpinion posted:Looking at the Shaman, it would sort of work, but it'd need to be rejiggered to focus on the Shadows instead of ghosts, and so would sort of overlap with a reskinned Druid. My idea for the Tower and related cosmologies is that the souls of the dead very quickly get consumed by the world unless you make specific ritual preparations before the person actually dies--this was actually the basis for my Monster Ecology things, which mostly all have "Dead person gets eaten by world -> to protect itself, the world spits out the bad parts of their soul as a monster" theme. How about "a dangerously long moment" - it makes it much more apparent that you're going to be going "aaaaahhhhh gently caress, come on, clear already" while bullets whiz around you.
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Apr 29, 2013 08:16
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Doodmons posted:How about "a dangerously long moment" - it makes it much more apparent that you're going to be going "aaaaahhhhh gently caress, come on, clear already" while bullets whiz around you. That might work. The major utility of adding the extra volley move, as I see it, is that you can choose it and not spend resources, put yourself in danger, or reduce your damage, but suddenly your team is left without supporting fire--looking out for number one is a big part of the setting, plus the fact that your gun could theoretically be breaking down after every shot reinforces the "everything is junk" theme.
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Apr 29, 2013 08:29
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Lemon Curdistan posted:Exact same reason why giving everyone flight doesn't really work in Dungeon World base - it's Dungeon World, and while there are dungeons that aren't structures built to human scale, it is still a setting assumption that you'll end up in caves or castles or an actual dungeon, with mechanics built accordingly. Being any taller than that would break those assumptions, and could only properly work in a non-core setting. Yeah, I still don't agree with this. Only one of the monster chapters focuses on cave dwellers, the moves like Perilous Journey can be used equally well for outdoor or dungeon travel, the only assumptions it would be breaking are from any D&D baggage you're carrying. I'd actually argue Dungeon World handles giant characters (the kind we've seen available as a player option since practically Basic) better than D&D ever did. edit: Gnome just pointed out that it would work especially well with GM moves like Show an Underside of their Class/Gear/Abilities Mikan fucked around with this message at 08:36 on Apr 29, 2013 |
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Apr 29, 2013 08:34
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Mikan posted:Yeah, I still don't agree with this. Only one of the monster chapters focuses on cave dwellers, the moves like Perilous Journey can be used equally well for outdoor or dungeon travel, the only assumptions it would be breaking are from any D&D baggage you're carrying. I'd still not want to be running a game where most of the players are man-sized and one of them is 30 feet high and capable of simply kicking over anything the party runs into. The discrepancy is too large.
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Apr 29, 2013 08:42
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Mikan posted:Yeah, I still don't agree with this. Only one of the monster chapters focuses on cave dwellers, the moves like Perilous Journey can be used equally well for outdoor or dungeon travel, the only assumptions it would be breaking are from any D&D baggage you're carrying. It's 2:30am, I'm just gonna dump the conversation in question: [02:35] Gnome I think being "ridiculously huge" works fine in normal Dungeon World. The GM moves are even based around it - Show an Underside of their Class/Gear/Abilities especially [02:36] Gnome Oh no, you can't fit through the door! That's a GM move. Now what do you do? [02:36] Gnome And there's gameplay. You can build a story out of that. [02:36] Gnome "I rip open the wall." And then consequences happen! [02:36] Gnome Or maybe "I sit outside and wait, keeping watch." [02:37] Gnome Well now the party's surely safe if anyone was following them, the Giant is on watch [02:37] Gnome and he can see over the treeline!
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Apr 29, 2013 08:42
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Yeah, to me "Dungeon" is just shorthand for hostile environment. I mean, that's not to say there's some campaigns where it wouldn't fit, and it would require some tailoring to the PCs, but you're going to be doing that anyway. That said, the best thing for the playbook is probably to just leave it vague, since then people can make their giants as big or as little as they want.
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Apr 29, 2013 08:44
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gnome7 posted:It's 2:30am, I'm just gonna dump the conversation in question: I'd worry about that turning into "The Giant and Friends Show", where everything has to be bent around the giant. If all the PCs were giants or otherwise some kind of monster who has to make a real effort to get along in society it'd be rad, though.
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Apr 29, 2013 08:45
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I dunno, I don't see "literally a" Giant as being any more or less defining and spotlight-stealing than "I can turn into every animal ever" Druids and "watch me reshape reality with minor effort" Wizards.
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Apr 29, 2013 08:48
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Lemon Curdistan posted:I'd still not want to be running a game where most of the players are man-sized and one of them is 30 feet high and capable of simply kicking over anything the party runs into. The discrepancy is too large. Fighters can already just break anything they want to over their knee, it's not that big a deal if you're flexible while DMing.
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Apr 29, 2013 08:49
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Mikan posted:I dunno, I don't see "literally a" Giant as being any more or less defining and spotlight-stealing than "I can turn into every animal ever" Druids and "watch me reshape reality with minor effort" Wizards. The difference for me there is that the wizard can choose not to reshape reality, and the druid can choose to be a guy with weird growths on his head, but the giant can never not be giant. I'm less worried about the giant doing things beyond the capabilities of the other characters, and more about not being able to do the things every other character can.
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Apr 29, 2013 08:54
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It's the Aquaman conundrum, but much worse. When Aquaman isn't near water, he's still a buff superhuman telepath king. But stories with Aquaman ought to feature some amount of swimming and animal-handling, or he's less-than-optimal. When a Giant needs to be in a hut, he just can't get in that hut. His power is Big.
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Apr 29, 2013 09:06
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Ergonomix has given me permission to post a major update I've been working on to The Mastermind (mediafire link here). Came about because I'm getting close to Level 10 with his original Mastermind in a long-running campaign and started running out of moves. There's a new starting move called Headquarters that lets you live in a house-sized bomb, chasing away the neighborhood kids who keep trying to light the fuse on top, or a gold-plated submarine that's impossible to spot, or the mechanical spider from Wild Wild West, to name a few combinations. And a bunch of new or improved advanced moves including self-destruct sequences, a mutable multiclass, and tripping over your own cloak when you try to dramatically reveal yourself from disguise. Some examples of the new advanced moves: quote:Hero Of 1000 Faces Credit to Ergonomix for letting me muck around with his class, and to Mikan and Gnome7 for the Drive & racial-replacement idea from their Inverse World classes, and to Asininecurist and Gnome7 for the shared HP mechanic from The Noble. Looking for some feedback & proofreading. Headquarters is pretty rough right now. The idea is what I want, but the phrasing and the tag system reads kind of clunky. And of course I'd love more ideas for interesting tags. The multiclass moves look ok to me, but I'd like one or several second opinions? Is 3/session too arbitrary? And are there any potential problems I've missed? TheDemon fucked around with this message at 12:37 on Apr 29, 2013 |
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Apr 29, 2013 09:59
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DW thread posted:Giants A big concern for me with this play book is that a player may be excluded from something because of the character they chose. I've been toying with an idea of a move or blurb suggesting discussion= between players and GM about the big guy's size, and how this will impact the game and the player. Perhaps something to note about all play books is that the players' choices can say a lot about the kinds of adventures they want to have, not just how they deal with the adventures. If the adventure goes underground, there should be times where it's a tight fit for the giant, but generally they should fit. Size compatability and integration is the main thing holding this class back from being completed
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Apr 29, 2013 10:14
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PublicOpinion posted:The difference for me there is that the wizard can choose not to reshape reality, and the druid can choose to be a guy with weird growths on his head, but the giant can never not be giant. I'm less worried about the giant doing things beyond the capabilities of the other characters, and more about not being able to do the things every other character can. The obvious solution would be an Apache Chief class. e: When you Speak your Sacred Phrase to grow, roll +con Mr. Maltose fucked around with this message at 11:06 on Apr 29, 2013 |
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Apr 29, 2013 11:02
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In the interest of making The Giant more compatible with most groups, I've added a couple of moves in:The Giant posted:Talisman I'm thinking of either straight up making Talisman a starting move, or having it as a choose 1 option at 1st level with another move. I'm also not sure whether I like the options you can choose from yet. I want the duration one to be a temporary stability, so the Gm can use you suddenly growing as a soft or hard move later.
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Apr 29, 2013 14:24
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madadric posted:In the interest of making The Giant more compatible with most groups, I've added a couple of moves in: Maybe have a choice between Talisman and an animal companion-like move, so you can either shrink yourself down temporarily or send your Jiminy Cricket dude off with the party to help them out where you cannot follow?
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Apr 29, 2013 14:42
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gnome7 posted:And the Inverse World Kickstarter is live! On that note if there's three other Australians wanting in on the physical copy, get in touch!
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Apr 29, 2013 14:44
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Flavivirus posted:Maybe have a choice between Talisman and an animal companion-like move, so you can either shrink yourself down temporarily or send your Jiminy Cricket dude off with the party to help them out where you cannot follow? There's already a set of moves that's about having a giant, innapropriately named pet. Currently, I have the choice sitting between these two, since both a useful and colorful: quote:
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Apr 29, 2013 14:45
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Regarding giants, I think part of the problem is scale. 30' tall is four to five times as big as a human. Halflings as a different size than humans work because they're only half as big (naturally). A creature who was 12" to 18" tall would also be problematic, as there would be so much they couldn't do. I have giants as playable races in my homebrew non-DW setting, and it works easily because they're 10' to 15' in height. How necessary is it that the giants in your playbook be 30' tall? Could you leave their size vague, and up to the group?
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Apr 29, 2013 16:04
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I like the new mastermind. I actually have a player in my group who's been playing one so far and loving it, I'm sure he'll get a kick out of the lair mechanics. Also, sorry to sort of keep harping on it, but I would really appreciate some feedback before I start finalizing and formatting it. Androc fucked around with this message at 08:03 on Aug 10, 2017 |
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Apr 29, 2013 16:22
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The more I think about it the more I figure that there's not much of a reason for a notably large Giant to be excluded from things. The old Gargantuan was straight up overkill and really where the problem was, but a big cave troll works just fine. The 'dungeons' you're going to are just as abstracted as any other place you visit, it's not a huge leap for a GM to just say "yeah you can fit in". Maybe there's a tight space that you have to smash open or squeeze through because you're a giant, but if there's a distinctly man-sized dungeon that the Giant is just stuck out of maybe that's not a thing your group should encounter. It's not like making it big enough to accommodate the troll is going to ruin everyone else's immersion, and the Giant isn't incapable of joining in the conversation from outside the village chief's hut. I don't really like the Talisman because, at least from what I remember last time I looked at the Giant, that leaves them with "can use their ancient magics" and I guess "can eat rocks". The Giant's thing is, understandably, being a Giant, so a move that lets them follow the rest of the party into the kobold cave with the caveat that you aren't allowed to be a Giant feels kinda lovely, though suddenly becoming a giant again inside the cave could be cool. Also, if I had to choose between the two I'd totally pick "can literally lift mountains" over "can be stuck with basic moves". If the campaign is really gonna revolve around going through small tunnels and the like but a player really wants to use the Giant, I think an extra page about "The Giant in Small Spaces" could help. Maybe the Giant could be someone with big badass power armor, but they're bulky as poo poo and keep knocking stuff over and falling down stairs. Maybe they could just straight up be a golem. Hell, maybe they're Hercules. All of these options could totally work with the Giant's moveset while shifting the size down and keeping the "way too big and strong, knocks everything over on accident" downside that makes the Giant fun.
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Apr 29, 2013 16:27
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So one thing I was unsure of. When you take a compendium class starting move, does it take place of your advancement? And what do you think of this? (I've been playing a lot of Punch Quest). THE PUNCHER (compendium class) When you achieve something incredible using only your fists, you can take this move the next time you level: PUNCHES MAKE PERFECT Whenever you overcome a danger using only your fists, hold 1 punchergy. You may spend your punchergy to achieve a cool effect. You can spend up 1,2, or 3 punchergy, the more you spend, the more awesome it is. Following is a list of examples, you're punches are way too awesome to be confined to just this list. - Your fists are surrounded by a whirlwind each time you sling them forward. Add Forceful to your fists. - The power of a bull drives through you. You can dash forward an incredibly long distance as you punch. - Punch in defense. A wave of energy washes out from you as you punch your fists together, acting as a barrier to incoming attacks. Take half damage. - Energy explodes from your fist. Like a fireball. Your fisted fireballs won't hurt you, though, because your fists love you. Roll your damage twice and add together. Once you've taken PUNCHES MAKE PERFECT, the following moves may be taken when you level. I'LL PUNCH HIS SKULL AT THAT ONE When you punch a creature so hard that their skull goes flying, deal half damage to another creature nearby. PUNITIVE PUNCHES When you defend by punching, you always deal damage equal to your level if you select other options on your Defend roll. PROFOUND PUNCHING When you make a point by punching in your thoughts about something, you take +1 forward to Parley against any who saw you make your argument. EDIT: I also want to pitch in on the giants in dungeons discussion. If the dungeon is big enough for the giant to fit in, that means other large monsters can fit in as well. If you begin and end with the fiction of why the cave or fortification is large enough, you can reveal an unwelcome truth or show signs of an approaching threat. "The cave is unusually smooth and its walls incredibly clean. It's large enough that even Jimbo the Giant can enter without crouching." RSIxidor fucked around with this message at 16:33 on Apr 29, 2013 |
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Apr 29, 2013 16:28
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sentrygun posted:The more I think about it the more I figure that there's not much of a reason for a notably large Giant to be excluded from things. The old Gargantuan was straight up overkill and really where the problem was, but a big cave troll works just fine. The 'dungeons' you're going to are just as abstracted as any other place you visit, it's not a huge leap for a GM to just say "yeah you can fit in". Maybe there's a tight space that you have to smash open or squeeze through because you're a giant, but if there's a distinctly man-sized dungeon that the Giant is just stuck out of maybe that's not a thing your group should encounter. It's not like making it big enough to accommodate the troll is going to ruin everyone else's immersion, and the Giant isn't incapable of joining in the conversation from outside the village chief's hut. This is the other angle I'm thinking of, a third page pretty much titled "So how big are you anyway?" that gives the GM and player some questions to ask before play so that everybody can have fun. I also like the idea of writing up that when you roll+Str, it's not really working on the same scale as "How strong is a human" but more "How much effort does it take? How much control?" The Giant in a smallfolk world is always trying to manage their strength and size. They can step on the kobolds, that's not a feat of strength for the Giant. The feat, the challend is not also squishing your buddies.
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Apr 29, 2013 16:43
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RSIxidor posted:So one thing I was unsure of. When you take a compendium class starting move, does it take place of your advancement? Yes, it's a move. That's why CCs say "when you do X, you may take this move when level up." You have to actually take it as an advancement.
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Apr 29, 2013 16:48
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Androc posted:Also, sorry to sort of keep harping on it, but I would really appreciate some feedback on the cursed knight before I start finalizing and formatting it. Rip and Tear is kind of awful. It wagers Urge gain for a benefit which is a fine base idea, but the benefit is just forceful or messy, not even both. The benefit doesn't outweigh the negative at all, so I'd much rather just use Hack and Slash and never have to worry about Urge until I start getting advanced moves that generate it. Scatter Before Me makes it a lot better, but it almost feels like a tax to make risking Urge gain worthwhile. I don't exactly understand why Charisma is Knight's secondary stat. It otherwise applies when trying to talk up people or trying to manipulate people with leverage, but the Cursed Knight doesn't really seem to be the charming sort of person and the latter seems like it should be a thing you can do Force Choke style. The holy paladin seems like a charismatic and nice fellow, but the antipaladin only ever had charisma as a main stat because it was weirdly associated with the divine in D&D. That's probably a thing the Cursed Knight shouldn't have. Bloodthirst seems annoying to track because its presence forces days to be considered, is a thing you have to specially mark on your sheet, and in a Cursed Knight's usual circumstances might not ever be a problem. It could be interesting to force the Knight into a blood frenzy when he's cooped up long enough, but -1 HP/day that all comes back as soon as you stab a chicken isn't a very threatening way to scare the Knight into going on a rampage. As an option it seems like an excellent out from having to suffer the more notable effects in the other downsides, and that's not a good thing. I don't really like Quell the Spark. 1d8 health is unreliable and low so the hit effect feels lame and if you miss you get a bunch of Urge dumped on you and something else bad happens. It's fine having scary and dangerous negatives, but the positives have to be worth the risk and 1d8 HP is not worth the risk. There are some cases where taking the risk is worthwhile or even not significant enough to call it a risk (which is fine, not everything has to be super dangerous to use), but a big issue I'm seeing throughout the Knight is risks that aren't worth taking. Gaining Urge is easy and losing it is hard, but having max Urge is rarely worth it and risking Urge gain isn't often worth it either. A class that holds as much risk as the Cursed Knight probably shouldn't be about as useful or less useful as other classes. I'm also not a big fan of all the replacement moves. I understand that they're being used to give one choice out of several within advances, but this both limits the number of choices you can actually make and ends up creating things like Rip and Tear's advances where you effectively need them to make the Urge risk worth taking.
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Apr 29, 2013 17:36
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Quasi-Xpost from Story-Games. Obviously, one of the great beauties of Apocalypse World and its derivatives is that most, if not all, of the character can be contained on the character sheet. (I’m not saying that AW is unique in this respect.) Everything you need to know about your character is contained on the sheet. However. I have a long running campaign setting that involves magic and technology and weird races and all kinds of crazy bat-poo poo kitchen sink bullshit. (Rifts in Space would not be the wrong way to describe it.) My players, and more importantly, I am/are incredibly invested in the setting. Once my players get into the system (I am reasonably confident they will do so), we’ll want to shift gears to my setting. And so I’ve started thinking about custom playbooks, taking into account a lot of the great design advice I’ve gotten from here and other threads. However. My players are big fans of the word “but.” I want to play a guy like this but I want to have that. I want to play a badass dame who can do this but has that. I want to be a cross between this and that but with undertones of this other thing. Creating “archetypes” for them is going to be a disaster of custom moves. They’ll love the Starship Captain class I created, but wonder why they can’t also have a magic tattoo. They’ll look at the Golemancer class and say “gently caress yes, but I want cyborg eyes.” So, as discussed above about three pages back, I’ve started with tinkering with the idea of hybrid classes, akin to Legend or Danger Patrol. For those not familiar, “classes” are made up of modular parts. In Legend, for example, a barbarian is actually a hybrid of three classes, and if you want to be 2/3 barbarian and 1/3 monk, you just swap out any given modular part of the barbarian for any part of the monk. And I’m curious – how would you design a character sheet, or like a character sheet designed, that would incorporate moves from more than one source? Imagine if you could only choose moves from DW’s Compendium Classes. If you have more sources for moves, the AW playbook design begins to strain. Is there any other option than the traditional blank character sheet write-in-your-own-moves option, with three pages of spells/moves stapled behind it?
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Apr 29, 2013 18:35
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CitizenKeen posted:And I’m curious – how would you design a character sheet, or like a character sheet designed, that would incorporate moves from more than one source? Imagine if you could only choose moves from DW’s Compendium Classes. If you have more sources for moves, the AW playbook design begins to strain. Is there any other option than the traditional blank character sheet write-in-your-own-moves option, with three pages of spells/moves stapled behind it? Smaller playbooks, where each player has three playbooks to choose moves from when they level. 1/2 starting moves for each, more like a compendium class. It takes away from some of the simplicity but I still think it's possible and still fairly straightforward. The difficulty I see here is straightening out what alignment/motivation sort of things to give the players in their hodgepodge classes. If bob is a captain/cleric/barbarian, what exactly is his motivation?
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Apr 29, 2013 19:05
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sentrygun posted:Rip and Tear is kind of awful. It wagers Urge gain for a benefit which is a fine base idea, but the benefit is just forceful or messy, not even both. The benefit doesn't outweigh the negative at all, so I'd much rather just use Hack and Slash and never have to worry about Urge until I start getting advanced moves that generate it. Scatter Before Me makes it a lot better, but it almost feels like a tax to make risking Urge gain worthwhile. New progression for rip and tear: 'two of: forceful, messy, area'/'three of: forceful, messy, area, +1d4 damage'/'all of: forceful, messy, area, +2d4 damage.' That might be too good, though. quote:I don't exactly understand why Charisma is Knight's secondary stat. It otherwise applies when trying to talk up people or trying to manipulate people with leverage, but the Cursed Knight doesn't really seem to be the charming sort of person and the latter seems like it should be a thing you can do Force Choke style. The holy paladin seems like a charismatic and nice fellow, but the antipaladin only ever had charisma as a main stat because it was weirdly associated with the divine in D&D. That's probably a thing the Cursed Knight shouldn't have. quote:Bloodthirst seems annoying to track because its presence forces days to be considered, is a thing you have to specially mark on your sheet, and in a Cursed Knight's usual circumstances might not ever be a problem. It could be interesting to force the Knight into a blood frenzy when he's cooped up long enough, but -1 HP/day that all comes back as soon as you stab a chicken isn't a very threatening way to scare the Knight into going on a rampage. As an option it seems like an excellent out from having to suffer the more notable effects in the other downsides, and that's not a good thing. quote:I don't really like Quell the Spark. 1d8 health is unreliable and low so the hit effect feels lame and if you miss you get a bunch of Urge dumped on you and something else bad happens. It's fine having scary and dangerous negatives, but the positives have to be worth the risk and 1d8 HP is not worth the risk. quote:I'm also not a big fan of all the replacement moves. I understand that they're being used to give one choice out of several within advances, but this both limits the number of choices you can actually make and ends up creating things like Rip and Tear's advances where you effectively need them to make the Urge risk worth taking. Thanks for the feedback, by the way, this is really helpful.
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Apr 29, 2013 19:07
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And Inverse World has already hit our first stretch goal! And with it, in case people are already going to hop into exploring Inverse World immediately, I've revealed the new Hireling for Inverse World, so you don't need to bring along a Captain with every group: New Hireling: The Pilot The Pilot has an airship or other vehicle, which they can use to fly the players from place to place. The players can find a Pilot to get them around in almost any city they find themselves stranded in. Guide — When the pilot flies you somewhere, you automatically succeed on any Perilous Journey of a distance (in rations) lower than the pilot’s skill. Down With the Ship — When the pilot's ship is damaged badly enough that it goes down in a fiery crash, the pilot ensures the safety of the crew first. A number of people equal to the pilot's skill will escape from the crash unharmed or mostly unharmed, using safety devices the pilot has provided for them. The pilot will always pick themselves last to save - if they don't have enough safety devices, they go down with the ship. gnome7 fucked around with this message at 19:13 on Apr 29, 2013 |
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Apr 29, 2013 19:11
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nome7 posted:And Inverse World has already hit our first stretch goal! Congratulations! That's amazing. I'll be backing come payday. RSIxidor posted:The difficulty I see here is straightening out what alignment/motivation sort of things to give the players in their hodgepodge classes. If bob is a captain/cleric/barbarian, what exactly is his motivation? I think I'm less concerned with this, though I'm aware of it. I think when groups start hacking the game, alignment and race are one of the first things to get touched. My plan is to create about four to six "archetypes" and offer alignment moves for each of them (so, for example, Defender-Good, Defender-Lawful, Slayer-Neutral, Controller-Chaotic, etc.). Same for races. And if the players want a racial move that keys off one of their class abilities, they can ask for it, not knowing what it is. So if Bob wants an elven racial move that really ties into his Captain/Cleric/Barbarian abilities, instead of taking the Elven Toolguy, Elven Leader, or Elven Savage moves (or whatever archetypes for race I run with), I'll say okay, and make him one, but he has no idea if it's a buffer turn undead, or a new option for appetites, or whatever.
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Apr 29, 2013 19:20
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CitizenKeen posted:Is there any other option than the traditional blank character sheet write-in-your-own-moves option, with three pages of spells/moves stapled behind it? Make a base class for them to represent their core 'thing', let them go nuts and describe their character however they want, add benefits to these things by making them gear if you want, and if it's really so crazy that they want to do a million things and demand solid moves for each thing, just have them tell you what they learn on an advance. Cut out the whole second page full of advances, scribble the gear on the back of the first sheet and scribble all your advances on a second sheet. You could even cut out XP if you wanted to go whole hog with it, making it so that characters just learn new moves when they learn them instead of taking until a new level to do so. That last bit breaks a pretty big part of classes in Dungeon World, but it's an option if your players don't need XP to feel better about 6- rolls. Advances give you the opportunity to expand on your class and make sort of sub-classes to build up a big complete thing, but that doesn't seem to be what your group cares about. Don't force them into it, just play the game you all enjoy. If you want to be a sharpshooting golemancer bank investor with robot eyes, just go for it Dredmor style. Your players seem like they want to be creative, you could just go ahead and tell them "write me the moves you want, that's your class". Maybe put some moves that are too powerful in check, but otherwise this seems to fit what you want while still being in a *World shell. This ends up as "traditional blank character sheet write-in-your-own-moves", but you won't have three or four classes stapled to the back and if your players don't go crazy and change their moves every session you can even Inkscape up sheets just for them. In the end it's just what each of your players wants to do in move form. You can make a system for handling hacking classes together, but I feel like at that point you're trying to take "game where you really can just write your own moves and make your own class and the book even has a whole chapter in the back talking about how to do this" and bend that all backwards until it snaps into a couple pieces that you can then arrange as you want. Maybe it's just that I don't like the idea, but for a group of players who seem to love making poo poo up and going crazy I don't see why you need to hand them puzzle pieces instead of letting them draw their own picture. Classes are definitely important for the game, but if you have the capacity to just make poo poo up and your group's cool with that there shouldn't be any problem with it. A modular thing could be nice for groups that aren't so comfortable with just diving in and going nuts, though. Androc posted:I want to make sure I'm understanding the second part correctly: you're saying that the replacement moves seem mandatory just for the class to function on a basic level? Yeah, there's definitely a worry about the Knight going crazy-go-nuts and becoming an unstoppable nuclear missile tank. I almost feel like making the risk proportional to the power you get could be a good way to fix this, though I'd have to see in practice to tell if it's really such a big issue. Same with Rip and Tear, it sounds better and now just depends on how it feels in-game. As for stat, I feel like CON's the best fit if you don't want to use STR. It's all about being strong enough to not be overcome by your darkness. Bloodthirst's change is a lot better, and Quell the Spark is more reliable and worth using. I feel like someone like the Cursed Knight should be able to just gobble down souls like no thing, so having the benefit be solid while the threat is eating a poison mushroom seems fine to me, but the actual value might depend on how it ends up in-game. As for feeling the replacement moves are mandatory, yes. They make my core things more interesting and useful by flat out replacing them. Rip and Tear matching its risk better makes me feel less like I need to grab its advances to make the move worth it, but the advances are still a flat out improved version of my old move which is effectively my class's bread and butter move. Break Free's advances feel a bit better in this regard because Ride the Wave just adds a new thing to the move and feels like it could be worded as an advance all on its own if you weren't trying to prevent people from taking both Break Free advances, though re-reading Bonds of Silver I notice that it has no 10+ line at all, not even to say "you're fine nothing happens".
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Apr 29, 2013 19:31
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CitizenKeen posted:However. Surely that's the exact thing that DW multiclassing is for? I actually love DW multiclassing, it's super flexible and lets you play a huge range of really cool concepts if you ever want to. I am planning on trying to start another DW game, but I've felt that the weakest part of introducing it to players has been the core classes. They just aren't very exciting. Instead of the Core classes I want a rounded set of more interesting ones: The Gladiator The Mage The Artificer The Mechanic (IW) The Druid (the core one, I think it's fine) Maybe The Psion Maybe The Spellslinger? (from GimpInBlack, megane, TheLoneAmigo, gnome7, Tombsgrave and madadric) To me, these are all really cool. They all have something really unique to them that makes them fun to play. I love some of the other really well-done classes, like The Noble and The Medic and The Mastermind and The Dashing Hero and the Augur and the Shaman, but I worry that they're a bit too plain compared to the ones above, who all have incredible abilities and plenty of opportunities to be really badass. I worry that the players might feel overshadowed by the other classes that have cool toys. But maybe I'm just thinking in terms of the classes that I'd like to play, and some people really might want to be a Noble instead of a Mechanic or a Psion or whatever. I feel that the strength of DW is in its big, fantastic, swashbuckling adventures where ridiculous things happen and everything is trying to kill you, so having really powerful classes with really cool moves feels very right. Am I missing any? The 6 above probably don't make enough of a balanced set. And 3 intelligence classes may be a bit too much. There's The Marksman, which I like the flavour of, but it may have overlap with The Spellslinger. I want my players to have fun but I also want niche protection and I don't want any of them to feel left out! Boing fucked around with this message at 19:38 on Apr 29, 2013 |
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Apr 29, 2013 19:35
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sentrygun posted:Hybrid class related stuff Limiting my veteran players to a select few archetypes will make them feel constrained. Offering my newer players carte blanche will result in a spellcasting shapechanger who has a disgusting amount of armor and a signature weapon by level three. My hope was that creating hybrid classes would allow for some balance between the two. Boing posted:Reponse They're the kind of people who would take a core Fighter, give him a 17 Int, suffer through the first level and then take multi-class spellcasting, because the fighter has enough other awesome moves to make it a great combat wizard (+4 Armor and so forth), and then at level 6 they take druid shapechange. I love my players, but they're creative geniuses when it comes to manipulating fluff to get the crunch they want.
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Apr 29, 2013 19:45
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Boing posted:Surely that's the exact thing that DW multiclassing is for? I actually love DW multiclassing, it's super flexible and lets you play a huge range of really cool concepts if you ever want to. If you're already taking from Inverse World, I think The Walker and The Lantern have a lot of really cool abilities that work well in standard dungeoning. Also, I don't know how you missed The Witch. Broomstick flight, black magic, potion brewing, ice sculptures on demand. How is that not cool? For classes that aren't mine, I will always suggest The Initiate as a cooler Fighter. Otherwise I think you've touched on all the best ones. gnome7 fucked around with this message at 19:49 on Apr 29, 2013 |
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Apr 29, 2013 19:47
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CitizenKeen posted:They're the kind of people who would take a core Fighter, give him a 17 Int, suffer through the first level and then take multi-class spellcasting, because the fighter has enough other awesome moves to make it a great combat wizard (+4 Armor and so forth), and then at level 6 they take druid shapechange. They'd also be bad at reading because there's only one multiclass slot for the Fighter in 2-5 so all they could take was a spellbook, not Ritual too. The Bard has two in 2-5, but that means making their base class the Bard and min-maxers would hate that poo poo. By level 6 there's a ton of other poo poo they could be taking instead of the highly narrative Shapeshift skill.
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Apr 29, 2013 19:48
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sentrygun posted:Yeah, there's definitely a worry about the Knight going crazy-go-nuts and becoming an unstoppable nuclear missile tank. I almost feel like making the risk proportional to the power you get could be a good way to fix this, though I'd have to see in practice to tell if it's really such a big issue. Same with Rip and Tear, it sounds better and now just depends on how it feels in-game. Changed all the cha checks to con, except for bloodhound and apex predator which I changed to wis since they're more about sensory perception. Bonds of silver's 10+ is still supposed to be choose one, and I changed its 7-9 to choose two instead of you choose one, gm chooses one. The main draw of the move is the expanded options and going unconscious on a miss, since those allow you to really mitigate the 'oh gently caress, we're in huge trouble' aspects of Break Free. I still feel strongly about keeping silver bonds and ride the wave separated due to the fact that they really represent diametrically opposed character approaches and attitudes towards the worst aspects of their condition. However, I'm thinking about baking sate/starve the beast into the basic purify move as an option that's chosen on character creation and can be changed on level up. I'm worried that that might be giving you too much power early on, though.
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Apr 29, 2013 19:49
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sentrygun posted:They'd also be bad at reading because there's only one multiclass slot for the Fighter in 2-5 so all they could take was a spellbook, not Ritual too. The Bard has two in 2-5, but that means making their base class the Bard and min-maxers would hate that poo poo. By level 6 there's a ton of other poo poo they could be taking instead of the highly narrative Shapeshift skill. Apologies, I was just pulling an example out of my rear end. I'm aware that a Fighter-base who multiclasses into Wizard doesn't get Ritual (if they take the spellcasting). I was just pointing out that they're the kind of people who will write a four page fluff backstory to justify taking moves from any class. Now, if a player writes four pages of fluff they should be able to do pretty much whatever they want, but with an emphasis on pretty much. I’m concerned that making DW classless could get dangerous and tricky from a balance perspective. But maybe I'm just approaching it wrong.
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Apr 29, 2013 19:58
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Something just struck me when looking at Clerics and Wizards. Do they lose the ability to cast the spell on a 6-? I wouldn't assume that all the bad stuff from 7-9 happens, and of course you do something important to the fiction, but should they still be able to cast the spell later?
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Apr 29, 2013 20:04
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CitizenKeen posted:Apologies, I was just pulling an example out of my rear end. I'm aware that a Fighter-base who multiclasses into Wizard doesn't get Ritual (if they take the spellcasting). I was just pointing out that they're the kind of people who will write a four page fluff backstory to justify taking moves from any class. Now, if a player writes four pages of fluff they should be able to do pretty much whatever they want, but with an emphasis on pretty much. I’m concerned that making DW classless could get dangerous and tricky from a balance perspective. I don't think balance really applies in a game like DW, to be honest. The only thing you should really keep an eye out for is niche protection. If there's no wizard or druid in the group, who cares if your fighter multiclasses into Wizard and Druid? Sure he's a special snowflake fighter who somehow can cast spells and transform into animals, but you're going to have ridiculous MAD with that build because you're gonna want high strength, wisdom, and intelligence, which means that the fighter's going to be bad at the other two physical stats (dexterity and constitution), which means he's going to have trouble dodging things and have lower HP than normal. Also don't forget that class moves with multiclassing means you can't grab the advanced moves that support them, so a fighter/wizard/druid can't do some of the cooler things basic wizards/druids can, like the weird Chimera shapeshifting of a high level druid or the wizard's augmented magic. I personally am a huge fan of DW multiclassing. My character in my real life game is Aubrey, the Improved Fighter who has dipped into Paladin for Quest and Ranger for Animal Companion....except my Animal companion is actually reskinned to be a fairy NPC I encounted in game who I made my squire. So I'm a female Halfling Knight who follows the deity of Strength and Tribulations with a fairy squire. We're the most adorable asskickers ever. RSIxidor posted:Something just struck me when looking at Clerics and Wizards. As usual, whenever a PC rolls a 6-, you are free to make as hard a move as you like, and one of the GM moves is "Take Away Their Resources." This means you do, in fact, have the option of revoking the spell if you choose, or something even more horrible if you'd like! EDIT: To clarify, I would either revoke the spell OR have something else happen. Their spell not working, taking it away, and having them get hit by a troll seems like a bit overkill except in the most extreme cases. Prowave Tierdash fucked around with this message at 20:15 on Apr 29, 2013 |
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Apr 29, 2013 20:10
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Prowave Tierdash posted:I don't think balance really applies in a game like DW, to be honest. This is bullshit. There's fictional balance (making sure that a given playbook doesn't grab the spotlight more than it should by virtue of its move scope - larger-scope moves ought to have restrictive triggers, and vice-versa) and mechanical balance (base damage, HP, Load, etc. should all be tailored according to what the class does; moves shouldn't give too many bonuses or allow a class to bypass stuff entirely). Balance always applies. RSIxidor posted:Something just struck me when looking at Clerics and Wizards. The GM gets to make a hard move. "Take away their stuff" is part of the GM's options; after that, table precedent and fiction will determine whether the spell is always forgotten in addition to the hard move or not. Lemon-Lime fucked around with this message at 20:26 on Apr 29, 2013 |
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Apr 29, 2013 20:19
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