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Barklistic missile.
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Jan 28, 2016 05:55
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q9GfwGNM1k
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Jan 28, 2016 11:20
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HatfulOfHollow posted:People get upset because they've invested a lot of time in developing their character. There has to be a risk of death though or it's not fun. But when you're playing as imaginary superhero magic blasters dying in a dumb random encounter or in a hand-wavey fashion just sucks. I can see being bummed out about that. I want my character death to mean something or be memorable in some way. My favorite was Clink, a halfling rogue in a homebrew campaign who managed to get hit with a heavy pick for a critical hit in a random skirmish. Clink's death wouldn't have been that noteworthy except for the fact that the party's necromancer was like "Guys, I've got this. I can bring him back." You already know where this is going. I stood up as a mindless zombie and the party instantly turned on the necromancer. There was no bloodshed but the RP fallout was hilarious. We still talk about that scene. this situation seems a little different at least because for some reason the PC decided to intentionally kill himself and then stir up drama about a killer GM on a random D&D forum. like, if you're going to take the death of your PC so badly, why say your character dies at all? I do still like games where PCs have to consent to a character death instead of dying in some chump way, like in FATE, or Tenra Bansho Zero, where the game explicitly says that a PC can fall from the upper atmosphere and if the PC doesn't check the Death box on their sheet, they survive the impact somehow. it seems absurd on some level, but having to think of how that could happen actually could actually lead to more interesting twists in the story than "you die"
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Jan 28, 2016 14:08
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EP delightfully solves it by having you die, resleeved and then investigating your own murder,which may or may not have been suicide to save sanity. I had a 3.5e Paladin die in some back end of nowhere goblin land somewhere in Ebberon fulfilling a personal back story quest, doing something inglorious. The cohort considered retrieving the body and taking it back to civilisation for resurrection but then realised there was no reason to be in this region other than the dead guy, let's leave. He can't complain about it.  Trent the Paladin of the Silver Flameoverall I'm not bitter about it because I then got to roll up the greatest character I'd ever had. Thorkas Aranun, Dwarven Psion Telepath. 
Negative Entropy fucked around with this message at 14:31 on Jan 28, 2016 |
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Jan 28, 2016 14:23
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And then there's Paranoia.  Every game's a little different, but I'm going to say that, yes, while the GM side of things could have been handled better, who the hell flubs the numbers in favor of their own death while the GM is pretty clearly arguing in favor of their survival AFTER doing something suicidally stupid, and THEN pitches a MONTHS-LONG shitfit over it? Most people have a little more social intelligence than that, but the cat-piss stories do serve as a reminder that 'most' is not 'all'.
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Jan 28, 2016 14:28
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Nuns with Guns posted:this situation seems a little different at least because for some reason the PC decided to intentionally kill himself and then stir up drama about a killer GM on a random D&D forum. like, if you're going to take the death of your PC so badly, why say your character dies at all? Yeah my comment wasn't in regards to that obviously dumb player who decided to be a giant baby when he did something dumb. I was just commenting on the previous post. People get attached to their characters. I've seen people flip out more than a few times when a character died. Living Greyhawk was really bad about this. People played those characters for years and traveled all over the country to play at weekend long Cons with them. When they died it could get ugly. I personally don't mind when a character dies as long as we get a good story out of it. Even in the quoted story where the dude triggered the trap, that could have been an awesome background RP element for the character's brother when he was introduced: fear of lightning or something along those lines because of how his brother died. The cat piss is that the dude couldn't just let it go. He needed to be dealt with immediately rather than let it linger for months.
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Jan 28, 2016 14:38
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Someone in FATAL & Friends reviewed a Japanese RPG where you could set a death flag for a scene and risk dying in return for a power up, otherwise you could only be knocked out. This is a great solution for the heroic games because you never risk dying on some pointless random encounter, and at dramatic moments the players are incentivised to up the stakes - and if they DO die it will be at a climatic moment
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Jan 28, 2016 14:39
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Cthulhu Dreams posted:Someone in FATAL & Friends reviewed a Japanese RPG where you could set a death flag for a scene and risk dying in return for a power up, otherwise you could only be knocked out. that's Tenra Bansho Zero, the one I mentioned above. it further incentivizes the Dead box by giving the PC that checks it three extra dice with every roll. it's a system where you roll a fistful of d6s based on one of your stats, and most characters won't have much more than an 8 their best stat, so that's a very nice boost. it's also not a 100% instant doom, either. if the PC survives the fight without running out of Vitality (one of the two HP systems in the game) the Dead box can be treated without the PC actually dying Nuns with Guns fucked around with this message at 16:13 on Jan 28, 2016 |
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Jan 28, 2016 16:10
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Any game that involves setting the stakes before rolling is going to do this by default. If the stakes aren't "you die," then it's not going to happen regardless of the outcome of the roll.
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Jan 28, 2016 16:12
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Ilor posted:Any game that involves setting the stakes before rolling is going to do this by default. If the stakes aren't "you die," then it's not going to happen regardless of the outcome of the roll. That's true, but it's hard to express how viscerally awesome checking the death box feels - "I give a poo poo about this so hard I'm willing to die". It's a really simple mechanic, but it does have a huge emotion effect on play. It's similar in tone I think to the way that Dogs in the Vineyard does ramping up the stakes, but because checking the death box in Tenra Bansho Zero happens so rarely, it feels a lot more impactful. There's a difference between something being implicitly true, and something being made explicit, at least in how it feels to play.
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Jan 28, 2016 16:25
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That sounds like a really cool system, but all I can think is that most groups I've played with would keep the flag up on everything except tense situations as a way to get bonuses with no drawbacks. 
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Jan 28, 2016 17:46
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Hermetic posted:That sounds like a really cool system, but all I can think is that most groups I've played with would keep the flag up on everything except tense situations as a way to get bonuses with no drawbacks. The drawback is you can kill them
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Jan 28, 2016 17:53
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Golden Bee posted:The drawback is you can kill them I just mean they'd do things like "OK, so I'm going to attempt a computer roll from my fortified bunker. Turning on the death flag." Then turn it off when actually out in the open with a reasonable chance of engagement. I see your point, though. If they abuse it, just have kill teams show up out of nowhere.
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Jan 28, 2016 21:43
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Hermetic posted:I just mean they'd do things like "OK, so I'm going to attempt a computer roll from my fortified bunker. Turning on the death flag."
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Jan 28, 2016 22:29
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"You hear someone firing at the walls of the bunker. Because the death flag is on, Star Trek rules apply and your console explodes in your face."
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Jan 28, 2016 22:30
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Hermetic posted:I just mean they'd do things like "OK, so I'm going to attempt a computer roll from my fortified bunker. Turning on the death flag." Then turn it off when actually out in the open with a reasonable chance of engagement. You need to take damage before you can check the dead box, and it will absorb all the damage from that single attack. On top of that, once the dead box is checked you need time to heal it. It would need to wait until the end of a scene when you can find someone to roll a first aid check, then you'd need at least 3 successes to clear the dead box. This check can be done once per scene, so if you have a lot of wound boxes checked then you'll need a bit of time to recuperate. It's meant to be an "oh poo poo final showdown" panic button for incredibly tense situations where you need that final kick to push through. I don't remember if the game explicitly states, or if it's just implied, that abuse of it should really be handled by explaining to the character that it's really only meant for suitably dramatic moments when death is a serious possibility. Like Golden Bee said though, checking it means that the PC is consenting to very real and very permanent death. And in TBZ there's no easy access to resurrection spells Nuns with Guns fucked around with this message at 22:42 on Jan 28, 2016 |
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Jan 28, 2016 22:31
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I like that you can take the Death Wish archetype at chargen, which permanently ticks your Dead box and gives you the Fate of 'Death Wish'. It's like 5 karma as well, it's really cheap.
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Jan 29, 2016 00:11
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Doodmons posted:I like that you can take the Death Wish archetype at chargen, which permanently ticks your Dead box and gives you the Fate of 'Death Wish'. It's like 5 karma as well, it's really cheap. And you can sublimate that Fate by finding a reason to live 
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Jan 29, 2016 00:34
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Not a huge story, it's from a few years back in highschool. We were playing a D20 game whose name I can't remember - it was set in like, a semi-modern [like, 1920s] era, but I'm not sure if that was the default game setting or not. It wasn't plain D20 Modern but it was a pretty similar setting to it and Shadowrun - magic comes back, people have powers. My character was a weird dragon-like which was a class that was basically the Dragon Disciple or Dragonfire shaman or some other 3.5 class - you emulate dragons, get dragon like abilities. She slowly turned from normal human looking to more and more draconic. Mostly it meant she punched really good, but she could also breath fire and stuff which was mechanically not great because while it did a lot of damage from what I remember, it also took multiple turns and did damage to yourself unless you were a high enough level to be immune to it. So stuff goes down, my gal ends up being threatened with the R word by this magical FBI agent who wants her to sleep with him, or she's going to be 'strung up like a freak', because society didn't really like overt magic or people who looked freaky. My gal punched him in the jaw and broke it, then broke the cuffs she was in and escaped to find her party. They went on the lam from the law, and were traveling across the country, on the run from this evil FBI that turns out to be actively hunting down and killing more overt magical creatures - the reason why we have orcs but no unicorns or pixies is because this organization decided that they were Bad. My character eventually gets caught because So she replied with 'You're right, I shouldn't have hit you...' trailed off for a second as he was being smug, and then was like 'I SHOULD HAVE KILLED YOU' while breathing fire. Literally melted the guy, and three others. And then the rest of the party broke in through the ceiling, and finished off the rest of the agents while she was still locked to an unbreakable, adamantine chair. It wasn't actually a well designed game, it might have even been something the guy running it made up himself - it was my best friend's older brother who was like 29~, but I liked the story at least. Ended with us toppling the evil FBI, and then my girl becoming President of the USA somehow, and turning it into a pro magic paradise on earth, that accepted any and all magic beings that were disliked in their homes.
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Jan 29, 2016 00:53
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Poison Mushroom posted:Barklistic missile. I hate you now. Let's hang out.
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Jan 29, 2016 02:08
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Nuns with Guns posted:And you can sublimate that Fate by finding a reason to live I have to try this system now. 
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Jan 29, 2016 02:31
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TheRagamuffin posted:I have to try this system now. you can get the print and PDF bundle for $50 or the PDF for $14.00 on Indie Press Revolution. There's also a couple nice overviews of it up in the FATAL & Friends archives here and here which might be easier to browse. converting the game to english was the passion project for this one weeaboo over god knows how long, so the rulebooks have some strange layout choices and odd translation hiccups in places. Warning: it's super 80s/90s anime
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Jan 29, 2016 06:53
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Nuns with Guns posted:Warning: it's super 80s/90s anime It is, but I've played it with people who detest anime and they still thought it was a rock solid system that made for awesome gaming. Hell, I am basically totally ignorant of anime in almost every way, but I still think it's one of, if not the best RPG I've ever played. I cannot froth about Tenra Bansho Zero enough. It's just a drat fine game in every way. Lupercalcalcal fucked around with this message at 13:43 on Jan 29, 2016 |
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Jan 29, 2016 10:22
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I did once work out how to make the entire cast of Metal Gear Rising in TBZ - it's not even difficult, considering Cyborg and Ninja are both archetypes (archetypes in TBZ can be literally mashed together, with very few exceptions. I think the grossest thing I've ever seen in TBZ was something like a cyborg samurai oni buddhist monk war droid martial artist.) In the end I elected to make Armstrong a samurai rather than a cyborg just so he can have a transformation sequence. I never could decide whether to give him Immortality Worms just to make him as hard to kill as he is in MGR or to spend those points on making him more ripped.
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Jan 29, 2016 10:59
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he's not some BELTWAY PANSY
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Jan 29, 2016 12:16
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Nifara posted:It is, but I've played it with people who detest anime and they still thought it was a rock solid system that made for awesome gaming. I agree that it's a great, over-the-top cinematic system Doodmons posted:I did once work out how to make the entire cast of Metal Gear Rising in TBZ - it's not even difficult, considering Cyborg and Ninja are both archetypes (archetypes in TBZ can be literally mashed together, with very few exceptions. I love that the x-men exist as a faction in TBZ    I can also contribute some catpiss to the thread as an apology for the derail. I have no idea why my first D&D group didn't drive me away from the game entirely. I was about 12-13 to start with and it was a game dm'ed by my friend's stepdad or one of his adult friends, depending. it was a mix of people my age and the adult friends of the stepdad. they would do weird poo poo like steal magic artifacts from us if we misunderstood how they worked and "abused" them, rp going to brothels (nothing explicit but it's still loving weird to rp in front of young teens), and argue with me over rules. the worst arguments I remember were the time I pointed out that you don't roll a d12 for initiative in 3e, you roll a d20, and the time I pointed out that the mage armor spell and bracers of armor couldn't stack for an ac bonus. they said I was too "by the book". 
Nuns with Guns fucked around with this message at 14:03 on Jan 29, 2016 |
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Jan 29, 2016 13:54
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Jintor posted:he's not some BELTWAY PANSY 
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Jan 29, 2016 14:00
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The big issuse with TBZ that can ruin a gaming night is it does look intimidating, looks rules heavy, and can be a litttle awkward to explain rules-wise and culture-wise. As for the culture-wise issuses, it kind of asks you to run the game in a Japanese way (one shot of about 6 hrs, pregens as a default, and not everyone in a scene by design) and some gamers may not like that even with forewarning. As for rules, they aren't much in play, but they can take a while if no one knows anything. Everything is really interconnected, which makes it harder. Tried to run it with some people from the group and it did not get off the ground from session start. It became clear it was too much and too long to learn for a oneshot I think a lot of people also downplay the kabuki theather elements which leads to some rules being confusing for an anime game. I still think I'll never get to run/play TBZ.
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Jan 29, 2016 14:04
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Covok posted:The big issuse with TBZ that can ruin a gaming night is it does look intimidating, looks rules heavy, and can be a litttle awkward to explain rules-wise and culture-wise. didn't you say that your one-shot group didn't read any of the rules even though you gave them out a week beforehand? granted, if I ever run TBZ, I'd write out the basics of combat, the karma cycle/aiki chits, and how scenes work in a word doc for easy reference. the game has a bad habit of nesting rules in paragraphs of natural language Nuns with Guns fucked around with this message at 14:25 on Jan 29, 2016 |
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Jan 29, 2016 14:21
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Nuns with Guns posted:didn't you say that your one-shot group didn't read any of the rules even though you gave them out a week beforehand? Well, sort of. That all sounded super hype for TBZ and repeatdly said they liked it. That's what prompted me suggesting the one shot. I assumed they had all read at least some of the book before. They had not I might have given them the books to skim via skype, but I don't remember. I'd like to say yes, but it was quite a while ago.
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Jan 29, 2016 14:34
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Nuns with Guns posted:You need to take damage before you can check the dead box, and it will absorb all the damage from that single attack. On top of that, once the dead box is checked you need time to heal it. It would need to wait until the end of a scene when you can find someone to roll a first aid check, then you'd need at least 3 successes to clear the dead box. This check can be done once per scene, so if you have a lot of wound boxes checked then you'll need a bit of time to recuperate. I assumed that there were rues preventing its abuse. Glad to see I was right.
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Jan 31, 2016 15:56
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Hermetic posted:I assumed that there were rues preventing its abuse. Glad to see I was right. Better to say that it's designed to only be abuseable in a single specific way. The rules actually call out that it's valid to declare a karmic strike (attacking into an attack, where you both eat a crit) and then check your death box to ignore their damage.
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Jan 31, 2016 16:19
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NinjaDebugger posted:Better to say that it's designed to only be abuseable in a single specific way. The rules actually call out that it's valid to declare a karmic strike (attacking into an attack, where you both eat a crit) and then check your death box to ignore their damage. That seems less abuse and more dramatically appropriate, like using a Destiny Point in Saga Edition with your best attack. This system sounds awesome enough to make Mr wish that I had the time and energy to RP.
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Jan 31, 2016 16:25
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I had an idea a few years back re: character death that I've never got to actually test. The guy I was talking to was very keen on the idea of "letting the dice fall where they may" for combats, to keep that feeling that battle was dangerous and random (and because it was D&D3.5, very random), and that the choice to fight should be one not made lightly, with consequences always clear. The odd thing was that he was very keen on the narrative that was being built about the adventurers, and wanted heroic tales to come out of this. I explained that running out of combat resources before reaching the character's personal arch rival and then dying to a random goblin arrow outside the main throne room was not very supportive of that kind of game. I suggested that to try and keep both the threat of loss from a fight, but also maintain that epic story, he instead institute a "Next Episode" policy. If a non-climactic combat kills a character in a fight, they're out of the fight but miraculously survive at its conclusion. However, the player knows explicitly that their character must die at some point during the next session. They can arrange something beforehand with the GM, or the other players, or just pick a time to have their character die, but the idea is that it puts the agency back into the player's hands while still maintaining the possibility of a random roll having a fatal consequence. I have no idea if this would actually be any fun to use, especially as I normally play games where character death is a not very likely occurrence (although I admittedly have just started playing in a game of Shadow of the Demon Lord, and I am by far the squishiest character).
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Feb 1, 2016 02:37
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Next Episoding can be fun, but it's just a rigid version of "Non-deadly consequence." There are a lot of ways players can fail when they lose: someone or something they care about is destroyed/corrupted/betrays them. Their former misdeeds catch up with them. They bear a scar or a curse. --- Even though Masks hasn't come out yet, it's still evocative. I'll explain first the mechanics and then the fiction. My character (Citizen 1), AKA Una the Atlantean borrowed the I'll Save You! move from the Janus. The move lets succeed as if you rolled a 12+ as long as you mark a condition. You can also clear a condition if you act in a certain way for a scene. Citizen 1 marked the condition Hopeless. The clearing condition for Hopeless is "fling yourself into easy relief." In gameplay, these systems interacted BEAUTIFULLY. So what actually happened? Our team (the Disasters: Citizen 1, Panther, Justice and Rook) fought a Giant Robot Bull. Panther cut the thing open with her claws and found a bomb. Justice kept trying to defuse it through luck...Panther tried punching the wiring. Citizen 1 took the giant robot bull from her teammates it and flew it up to the skyline, defusing it with her powers. There, she defused it and realized that despite the fact her teammates were her best friends, they'd very easily die without her. And if she wanted to fight crime, she had to trust them with her life. She looked over the city, burning with the signs of other battles. She ordered one of her Atlantean contacts to salvage the bull and harvest its parts. After the contact left, she got drunk. Easy relief. Of course, the team called; they needed backup at the docks. There was a giant mechanical sea serpent... gently caress. It got more complicated from there; turns out the Disasters were backing up their rivals. Who Justice invited over to the base for a party. It ended badly. Golden Bee fucked around with this message at 05:57 on Oct 6, 2016 |
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Feb 1, 2016 03:06
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It's a strange game when the only part of the description that seems to make sense is "Giant Robot Bull"
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Feb 1, 2016 04:33
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Captain Bravo posted:It's a strange game when the only part of the description that seems to make sense is "Giant Robot Bull" Oh good; it's not just me that had no bloody clue what (s)he was on about.
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Feb 1, 2016 16:24
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I think, if you have to implement a "death comes when it comes" policy, that Next Episode thing is about the best way to do it. I still prefer TBZ's Death Box, though.
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Feb 1, 2016 16:29
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i like giving the "next episode" thing as an option if they wish to take it.
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Feb 1, 2016 16:42
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Nuns with Guns posted:I do still like games where PCs have to consent to a character death instead of dying in some chump way, like in FATE, or Tenra Bansho Zero, where the game explicitly says that a PC can fall from the upper atmosphere and if the PC doesn't check the Death box on their sheet, they survive the impact somehow. it seems absurd on some level, but having to think of how that could happen actually could actually lead to more interesting twists in the story than "you die"
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Feb 1, 2016 21:08
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