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I backed Uncharted Worlds, I have the book but it's not really doing it for me. It feels like even more a D&D kludge than people complain Dungeon World is. I mean your stats are the standard pbta +2 through -1, but you've got skill lists, A LOT of basic moves. I hesitate to say it's bad, from what I can see, plenty of people like it well enough it's just not grabbing me at all.
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Mar 16, 2016 19:05
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Error 404 posted:I backed Uncharted Worlds, I have the book but it's not really doing it for me. It feels like even more a D&D kludge than people complain Dungeon World is. I mean your stats are the standard pbta +2 through -1, but you've got skill lists, A LOT of basic moves. I hesitate to say it's bad, from what I can see, plenty of people like it well enough it's just not grabbing me at all. What it feels like to me is that they decided that that one mix and match playbook sourcebook for Dungeon World was a good idea- most of the skills are just themed moves or specialized equipment for assemble-your-own playbooks. I like the split playbooks you get in Spirit of '77, but this comes off way less coherent.
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Mar 16, 2016 19:28
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unseenlibrarian posted:What it feels like to me is that they decided that that one mix and match playbook sourcebook for Dungeon World was a good idea- most of the skills are just themed moves or specialized equipment for assemble-your-own playbooks. Yeah. S77 does it way better. Playbooks should have a solid theme, and S77 gets it.
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Mar 16, 2016 20:15
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Ilor posted:Dungeon World definitely falls in the "meh" category for me. It's novel for what it is (an attempt to get grognards who will only play D&D to try something different), but the kludgy D&D crunchiness it incorporates makes it way less hot and awesome than AW itself. Are there any good fantasy hacks out there? The D&D stats and rolling damage and replacing the harm clocks with standard HP never sat well with me.
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Mar 17, 2016 18:37
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Demon_Corsair posted:Are there any good fantasy hacks out there? The D&D stats and rolling damage and replacing the harm clocks with standard HP never sat well with me. Fellowship. I've been having fun running it. Still want to play in a game of it sometime.
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Mar 17, 2016 18:47
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I'm having a lot of fun with the fellowship game I'm running although we've added a house rule move as follows to be 'the thing you do before finish them': HOUSE RULE/MOVE: "Take On!" Roll appropriate stat to your action as with Finish Them! But for the purpose of mixing it up and getting the upper hand: On a 10+ You deal damage and create an advantage. On a 7 to 9: Choose two of: a) You create an advantage. b) You deal damage. c) You do this without complications. On 6-: Complications. Also, I am running a Sprawl game via discord and can't wait to play in one. It's been a lot of fun, but has had a few hiccups pertaining to when the legwork phase ends and the action phase begins, so at least with this first mission, I've made it rather fluid. Also, it can take a bit of time for people to grok just how much freedom they have, but I guess that's true with most PBTA stuff. I can't wait to run a second game using Austin Walker's house rules for giant robots. I see the sprawl as something I'm gonna run over and over. I've really loved all the guidance the MC gets in it. The rules click for me in a way that most games don't. And would love to play in a game -- be it pbp/discord or Roll20 -- however given my schedule it would probably have to be pbp. So somebody run a sprawl game!!!
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Mar 17, 2016 19:52
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Kaja Rainbow posted:Fellowship. I've been having fun running it. Still want to play in a game of it sometime. I thought fellowship was pretty LOTR based.
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Mar 17, 2016 21:08
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Demon_Corsair posted:I thought fellowship was pretty LOTR based. It is very much based around the structure of LOTR, but not the fantasy. It's kind of a "find-and-replace" LOTR adventure where you replace the Lore and elements, but keep the idea of a group of people from different backgrounds versus a seemingly insurmountable evil. If by fantasy you mean "D&D Dungeon Crawl," though, then it doesn't really provide that. A lot more emphasis is on social elements and bonds. Battles are quick and to the point with some rare exceptions.
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Mar 17, 2016 21:18
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Demon_Corsair posted:Are there any good fantasy hacks out there? The D&D stats and rolling damage and replacing the harm clocks with standard HP never sat well with me.
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Mar 17, 2016 22:49
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Ilor posted:Honestly, you can pretty much use AW as-is for fantasy. You can re-skin the playbooks with very few changes, and simply assign damage and tags to weapons or armor as you see fit. I do it to run Viking-themed games using the HarnWorld setting. If any of you Goon nerds are coming to GenCon and want to try it, I'll run it for you so you can see how it works. I mean, there is already AW: Fallen Empires, which is a fantasy reskining of AW with some 2e mechanics.
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Mar 17, 2016 22:56
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xian posted:I'm having a lot of fun with the fellowship game I'm running although we've added a house rule move as follows to be 'the thing you do before finish them': I don't really see the need for this. Every character has ways of making advantages with all their powers and friends, as well as basic moves like keep them busy. An all-stat generic fight move makes everything similar and makes core moves like Don't trifle with Wizards or Orc Weapon smashing redundant. This also doesn't fit with the emphasis on teamwork, since it reads like you can create the advantage for yourself.
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Mar 18, 2016 00:02
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Isn't that the great thing about house rules though? What works for me and my group doesn't necessarily need to work for yours. Some things were falling through the cracks in my game-- What move do I use if I want to do this unexpected and awesome thing that makes sense narratively but doesn't fit a move? I wanted to formalize it. It hasn't impeded teamwork or niche protection in any measurable way.
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Mar 18, 2016 01:48
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If the thing really does make sense narratively, I'd say it just happens without anybody having to roll for it. You are right that you and your group should be the ones to decide what's best for you and your group, but the book does recommend that you roll with most of the suggestions the PCs make.
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Mar 18, 2016 05:48
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There are certainly times where I think its best to roll with what they suggest. The rule of cool and all that. But we were looking for a mechanism to determine whether a character trying something outside their moves in a high pressure situation would work, which is why it's an all-stat move. Having people succeed with no complications is boring, especially if it's a risky or dangerous thing they're trying to do. So this formalized it in a way that opens the player up to complications and allows them to have more breadth in narrative positioning on a success. As I'm writing this I'm realizing why the sprawl appeals to me so much.
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Mar 18, 2016 06:03
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Fellowship's combat rules are how they are because I want the players to generally succeed well and succeed quickly when they get the chance. So if they have the opportunity to roll Finish Them they might just end the whole encounter right there, and you move on to the next thing. A move like your house rule is not in the core rules because I think it would drag things out more and I wanted the journey to be more grand/overarching story stuff, where the individual battles and pieces aren't so important as the big picture is. But if you want to give individual encounters more fidelity/more tactics, then your house rule sounds like a solid way to do it. I have no complaints. If it works for you, then have fun! That's cool and I am glad it works out.
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Mar 18, 2016 06:54
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So I was playing World Wide Wrestling recently, and I made a short list of good and bad things about it. GOOD STUFF - It comes with a list of example wrestling moves with graphs, which is cool for getting ideas if you've never seen a wrestling show. - The playbooks are absolutely great. When I played Apocalypse World the first time, I couldn't fathom why you'd want to play the Operator or the Driver if everything else seems so much more interesting. Here, every playbook provides exciting, interesting challenges and hooks and whatnot. When we played our first Episode, I had a clear picture of the character I wanted to play, yet when shown the playbooks, I wanted to pick pretty much any single one. - Getting into character is super easy when you know from the start it's going to be a little silly, and you can't really have wrestling any other way. - Its PvP nature means you get really, really involved in other players' characters, and start playing to their strengths as well, you want to see what you can do together, or you start to really get pissed off by how they play the game. That's just great. - It facilitates building story arcs so much, it's incredible. It just happens, it takes barely any pushing. You get a set of plot hooks right at the start, and the driving motivation for exploring them is so incredibly obvious (get that belt! don't get fired! kick their rear end!) they get to work right away. And you do grow attached to them, and to your characters. I started off as a cartoonish Soviet villain who couldn't wrestle a drat and resorted to throwing people around instead. I did not treat this thing seriously at all, it was all supposed to be Hulk Hogan jokes and John Cena memes and 80s to the limit. His off-ring backstory was that he was actually a dude from Minnesota who had to pay off his student loans and couldn't get a real job, and he knew three words in Russian he just yelled when it felt appropriate. This was my entrance theme, dammit. Then he became top of the card, because it turned out he was good on the mic and his feuds lended to some spectacular matches. Now, I'm completely revamping the character into a serious real-deal veteran who wants to use the trust he got from the management after he agreed to play a retirement arc just before the championship title was to be put on the line and put over a new wrestler for it to position himself as the middle man between the boss (Creative Director Vince McGator) and the locker room, then whip the promotion into professional shape. BAD STUFF - I don't think it would work well as a PbP. Tevery Best fucked around with this message at 20:54 on Mar 21, 2016 |
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Mar 21, 2016 20:49
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Glad you love WWWRPG...hope you backed the last Kickstarter! There's a specific "Guy from Another Country" gimmick that has a move where you admit you're not actually from there. If there's one flaw in WWWRPG, it's the "use one momentum to get 2 momentum" system, but in a game where you're not "taking risks" in the ring as often as "trying to do the perfect match," it works as a building-up mechanic.
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Mar 21, 2016 21:27
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So today I learned there's a Cryptid musical called "Hot drat, it's the Loveland Frog!" about the humanoid frog-monster of the same name and if there's not a monster of the week game in a group of hunters having to infiltrate the local little theater I'll eat my hat.
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Mar 22, 2016 13:48
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Got a question for anyone else who's picked up The Sprawl. I'm loving it so far, especially the more granular countdown clocks. The only one that perplexes me a bit is the effects on Corporate Clocks. I feel like from examples and descriptions I've got a good idea of what goes down on Legwork, Missions, Threats, etc. but the book seems to avoid anything but "poo poo gets bad" for the Corps. This is especially important as they started the game with one clock at 00:00, meaning they are immediately on someone's poo poo list. I like how the book encourages a Cortex Bomb, but getting those installed is generally something that happens after they screw up as opposed to getting right up in their faces with kidnapper squads. Basically any examples would be the best for me if anyone wants to share Corporate Clocks they've written.
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Apr 3, 2016 01:07
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unseenlibrarian posted:So today I learned there's a Cryptid musical called "Hot drat, it's the Loveland Frog!" about the humanoid frog-monster of the same name and if there's not a monster of the week game in a group of hunters having to infiltrate the local little theater I'll eat my hat. Does the Loony Tunes Hello My Baby frog count as a cryptid? It does drive a man insane. E:holy gently caress I gotta run this Wrestlepig fucked around with this message at 07:37 on Apr 3, 2016 |
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Apr 3, 2016 01:38
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I would have their first mission be complicated by that Clock/Threat Clock it creates, and have their second mission be one for themselves where they have to hit the Corp to wipe their info, or have it be for the Corp in exchange for their lives.
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Apr 3, 2016 02:43
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xian posted:I would have their first mission be complicated by that Clock/Threat Clock it creates, and have their second mission be one for themselves where they have to hit the Corp to wipe their info, or have it be for the Corp in exchange for their lives. Yeah that's a smart idea. My default plan for now is to the job be a bit of a "milk run" both as a tutorial and as fictional positioning for it to be too easy, a setup to get them all in once place when they get paid where the Corp can get their hits in.
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Apr 3, 2016 02:47
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As it's just come up, if you have more than 1 person with the most strings on someone, who picks the player-allocated stat highlight? Further things that came up: If you've turned-on someone in the scene, does this prohibit you from getting strings off other people(1)? Do moves like Mixed Messages count as Turn On, or are they a different move that resolves the same(2)? If you used Turn On to get a string, can you use it again to fish for the "give themselves" etc results, and if you can, can they duck it by opting to give you the string you already took(3)? 1. Bob turns on Peter. Can Bob subsequently turn on Dave, or is he all outta sexy? 2. Bob uses Mixed Messages on Dave. Can he then Turn On Dave? 3. Bob uses Turn On on Peter and gets a 10+, for a string. Can he use Turn On again and hope for a 7-9, and if he gets that, is Peter at liberty to select the "give a string", and if he is, can he give the string if Peter already took one? spectralent fucked around with this message at 00:37 on Apr 4, 2016 |
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Apr 3, 2016 21:11
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Firstly, Mixed Messages and similar things are just one move triggering another, so Mixed Messages causes you to roll Turn On. They're separate moves, so you resolve them separately. Secondly, as written, the only relevant limit on spamming moves is the Singleton Rule, which says that you can only gain one string per move per scene. So you can use Turn On as much as you like until you luck into a String. However, once you've gotten a string on anyone, further uses read "...on a 10+, nothing; on a 7-9, your target chooses: give themselves, promise something, or nothing." It's kind of silly, and punishes Turn On disproportionately to every other move -- you can deal as much harm in a scene as you like, so rolling Lash Out over and over is perfectly effective. So the answers to your three situations are all "yes," but in no case will anyone get a second string -- if Peter picks to give Bob a string, and Bob already got one this scene, nothing happens. Personally, I would try to fix this by replacing the Singleton Rule with a house rule: "You can only use a given move once per scene." The rationale, beyond fixing the above weird situation, is that rolling to turn someone on represents all your efforts towards that end throughout the scene; you can't kiss them twice and expect to roll twice. Or, indeed, beat someone up, and then immediately beat them up again. It's all one big fight. As a GM I might occasionally allow exceptions when using the same move on two different people (in which case you can end up getting two strings in a scene), but that'd be pretty rare and require extenuating circumstances. If I beat up Joe, and then want to beat up Sally too, I should pick who I'm really trying to hurt, or we should make a new scene out of the second fight. That's just my feelings on it, though. megane fucked around with this message at 20:26 on Apr 4, 2016 |
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Apr 4, 2016 20:17
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megane posted:Secondly, as written, the only relevant limit on spamming moves is the Singleton Rule, which says that you can only gain one string per move per scene. So you can use Turn On as much as you like until you luck into a String. However, once you've gotten a string on anyone, further uses read "...on a 10+, nothing; on a 7-9, your target chooses: give themselves, promise something, or nothing." It's kind of silly, and punishes Turn On disproportionately to every other move -- you can deal as much harm in a scene as you like, so rolling Lash Out over and over is perfectly effective. Not quite. It's kind of hidden, but in the Long Example of play there's a part where a PC tries to see if they can use Turn On again and the MC says no: quote:Vanessa’s player marks the String down, and narrates returning with a bag of peas. “I sit uncomfortably close to him, and hold the bag of peas to his head. I coo some sympathetic words at him. Is that turning him on?” I think the reason Turn On gets the short end of the Singleton rule is because unlike other moves that gives you Strings, it can be a passive action your character doesn't even realize they're doing. Shutting Someone Down or Lashing Out require you to insult or attack people, and moves that gives you Strings require you to take some sort of action or have something happen. So without that, it could result in people just rolling Turn On over and over again in a way that wouldn't happen with the other moves. That being said, I think it's fine to make the Singleton rule apply per person as long you make sure things keep being interesting.
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Apr 4, 2016 20:39
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I love the Singleton rule, b/c I game with ~sexy people~ who love staring ~deeply into each other's eyes~. The reason you can only turn someone on a limited amount is because the string economy is an economy; only letting you gain 1 per thing means variety. Remember, you can gain strings with Shut Someone Down on a 10+ or Lashing out Physically on a 10+. You can even gain it, incidentally, via Run Away! The reason you can lash out infinitely (while you can't really shut down or turn on infinitely) is that Lash Out has a normal resolve function: when someone gets wounded or dies. If the Werewolf wants to beat down the Witch AND the Ghost, that's high drama. She'll probably get got (due to the 2 on 1 nature of it), but with a high enough volatile, Primal Dominance and some good string usage, she could come out victorious. (Especially if she triggers the Ghost's darkest self, which is "you can't really interact with people.") So I'd rule: uphold the Singleton and follow the fiction. quote:1. Bob turns on Petra. Can Bob subsequently turn on Dave, or is he all outta sexy? 1. Why is Bob doing such a thing? Is it active (flirting, touching, bending?) Is it passive (Bob sitting pretty in a sunbeam in homeroom, Petra stares whistfully and wishes she was brave enough to talk to him? Then Bob's jerk boyfriend, Dave, comes in and Bob kisses him? Sounds like a teen drama to me! That'll drive the fiction.) If it's active (Bob's at a party and flirting up a storm), I'd allow it too, with the caveat that it's not hard for Petra or Dave to find out about each other. If Bob's really smart, he'll wait til Petra's wolfing it up in the woods outside and THEN flirt with Dave. 2. No; Mixed Messages explicitly triggers Turn Someone On. 3. Agreed with Megane (no more strings) but I'd argue that he'd have to pick another 7-9. I'd probably make a soft move as GM to get the story more feral and less slap-n-tickley. quote:As it's just come up, if you have more than 1 person with the most strings on someone, who picks the player-allocated stat highlight?
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Apr 4, 2016 20:40
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Yeah, that's a good way to handle it too. I mean, our solutions are pretty similar, you're just doing it via fictional means rather than a hard-and-fast rule.Golden Bee posted:3. Agreed with Megane (no more strings) but I'd argue that he'd have to pick another 7-9. I'd probably make a soft move as GM to get the story more feral and less slap-n-tickley. It's fine if your players don't mind getting restricted like that, but I dislike it when it happens to my characters, so I try to avoid it as a GM. Heliotrope posted:Not quite. It's kind of hidden, but in the Long Example of play there's a part where a PC tries to see if they can use Turn On again and the MC says no: megane fucked around with this message at 22:38 on Apr 4, 2016 |
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Apr 4, 2016 21:33
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Are there any wuxia hacks? Looking over the big lists I see a couple Avatar inspired games, but I mean like The 36th Chamber of Shaolin.
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Apr 10, 2016 00:57
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To those interested, I wrote the seventh draft of Friendship, Effort, Victory. It's worth noting that I took a long break in the middle of writing this draft so I might have missed something that needed fixing. I gave it a few once-overs, but I bet I missed something big: I got that feeling, ya know? If you notice anything wrong, please, please, point it out. As for what changed:
Friendship, Effort, Victory is a Powered By The Apocalpyse game focusing on Shueisha battle comics. In other words, titles like One Piece, Naruto, and Bleach. Any feedback and criticism is appreciated. Comments are enabled on the doc or you can post here. Covok fucked around with this message at 03:33 on Apr 11, 2016 |
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Apr 11, 2016 03:19
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Tevery Best posted:BAD STUFF I think one thing it could use is a bunch of bullet point-prompts for the 7-9 and maybe 6- results of the wrestling move. Just to push a little of gentle guidance. Tevery Best posted:It facilitates building story arcs so much, it's incredible. It just happens, it takes barely any pushing. I love the fact that in the god-knows-how-many sessions we've had, nobody ever really looked at and/or resolved any of the 'starting questions to other players' thingies, because poo poo just keeps happening spontaneously all the time.
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Apr 11, 2016 08:28
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I think that's because many of them do give off the impression of being backstage issues, while we mostly focus on the on-camera action. ALSO I got a chance to be the surprise Creative for a session and it was strange how on one hand I felt I needed more prep time while on the other I managed to do so much anyway and it all felt like good-or-at-least-not-horrible ideas, so maybe I didn't need it after all?
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Apr 11, 2016 08:51
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Wrestling solves a lot of the 5 W's (Where, What, How) and makes you ask WHO is wrestling, WHY?
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Apr 11, 2016 17:05
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So, how are everyone's hacks going? Like Blood & Iron and Malleus and all the others. It'd be cool seeing how all of our projects have been going.
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Apr 13, 2016 07:54
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I've expanded Pigsmoke into almost a full game (the file's still full of xxes and notes-to-self). I think it needs some playtesting before it goes any further though, which is an obstacle in its own right.
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Apr 13, 2016 10:12
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Covok posted:So, how are everyone's hacks going? Like Blood & Iron and Malleus and all the others. It'd be cool seeing how all of our projects have been going. Malleus is in playtesting. I have run three sessions, and played in one. There are a couple of people in Google+ land who are apparently going to run the game too, so hopefully I will get their feedback soon enough. I haven't really made any changes to the rules text since I last posted a draft. I have a few changes in mind, of bigger or smaller import, but I'm basically waiting for a critical mass of change so I can put a new version together. I have also been thinking about the game structure, and how GM prep should work. The session that I have one have been self-contained stuff and I want to find a way to promote an ongoing narrative. I've been thinking about shows like Buffy that incorporate a season long big bad with other self-contained episodes and I'm wondering if any PbtA games have used something like that? Edit: Also, unrelated, but it just occurred to me that it would be super trivial to reskin Malleus to do Dark Heresy. thefakenews fucked around with this message at 13:20 on Apr 13, 2016 |
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Apr 13, 2016 11:14
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potatocubed posted:I've expanded Pigsmoke into almost a full game (the file's still full of xxes and notes-to-self). I think it needs some playtesting before it goes any further though, which is an obstacle in its own right. That was the "Hogwarts from the perspective of the teachers and written by someone who knows how cynical and terrible academia is" game, right? I never actually saw that. Do you mind linking it? thefakenews posted:Malleus is in playtesting. I have run three sessions, and played in one. There are a couple of people in Google+ land who are apparently going to run the game too, so hopefully I will get their feedback soon enough. Hey, great to hear playtesting is going well. It can be rough, let me tell you that, to get people down for one. Trying to run one myself through the pick-up thread right now, for example. As for your question, why aren't Fronts sufficient? I use them to similar effect in Friendship, Effort, Victory albeit with the addition of dividing NPCs between generals and villains so as to prolong the villains' life (assuming it works, of course) In general, wouldn't having a few simultaneous fronts manage this?
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Apr 13, 2016 18:42
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I would play in a Pigsmoke playtest, were such a thing launched on Tradgames.
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Apr 13, 2016 18:56
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Covok posted:That was the "Hogwarts from the perspective of the teachers and written by someone who knows how cynical and terrible academia is" game, right? I never actually saw that. Do you mind linking it? That's the one. Latest version. I've thought about doing a PbP playtest of Pigsmoke here, but I've got one PbP on the go at the moment and that's my practical limit because I'm a terrible flake. Maybe if I catch a free evening somewhere I can try a one-shot version via IRC or roll20 or something.
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Apr 13, 2016 20:16
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potatocubed posted:That's the one. Latest version. i-it's like you made an rpg out of my life  I might run a PbP of this myself, if that's okay with you.
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Apr 13, 2016 20:42
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potatocubed posted:That's the one. Latest version. There's a lot of good luck with those sorts of things. After a while I just have a solid 10-12 people who are down to playtest something. (The amount of warning they need varies from a week to 30 seconds to take off their shoes.)
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Apr 13, 2016 21:01
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