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megane posted:i-it's like you made an rpg out of my life I work in an academic-adjacent field, and many of my friends are in academia. It's very much first-hand cynicism.  And yes, if you want to PbP it please go ahead!
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Apr 13, 2016 21:28
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potatocubed posted:That's the one. Latest version. This is really, really cool. I lost it at "Obdurate (impulse: to get everything wrong)".
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Apr 13, 2016 21:43
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potatocubed posted:I work in an academic-adjacent field, and many of my friends are in academia. It's very much first-hand cynicism. My wife is about academia, and I'm fuckin rolling at this thing.
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Apr 13, 2016 21:47
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potatocubed posted:That's the one. Latest version. If you can find a free Saturday I can get you a playtest group, no problem. This is real good stuff and the playbooks generate so many ideas it's uncanny. Edit: You should make a Role based on Richard Feynmann, where you court controversy within your department by being too public-facing. Moves that let you indulge quirks, attain fame, and play the bongos make sense. Edit #2: An additional Role would be great if it was based on Jaime Escalante "Inspirational Teacher" who will make a difference in his students lives, or else. Golden Bee fucked around with this message at 01:13 on Apr 14, 2016 |
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Apr 13, 2016 22:52
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Covok posted: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? Ultimately Fronts might be perfectly fine, I'm just wondering if any games have tried something different that might be worth checking out.
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Apr 14, 2016 01:17
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potatocubed posted:Pigsmoke (time-consuming) When you take it easy for a week, roll +Bureaucracy. On a 10+, pick two; on a 7-9, pick one:
In particular, none of the choices contribute to the Slacker actually, like, accomplishing anything. She can coast by and dump her problems on everyone else (until she flubs the roll and gets eaten by the Dean). megane fucked around with this message at 02:04 on Apr 14, 2016 |
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Apr 14, 2016 01:57
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Covok posted:
I'd love to start or get involved in a regular community playtest/game design skype or discord chat and roll20 thing where we help each other test systems and talk about design in general. I created a Discord Server where folks can join and hang out, organize games, promote and discuss their games, and talk about design in general. You can log on to discord using a browser or get the app for pretty much any device.
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Apr 14, 2016 01:59
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madadric posted:I'd love to start or get involved in a regular community playtest/game design skype or discord chat and roll20 thing where we help each other test systems and talk about design in general. Are you sure you linked the invite link? That just opens discord in general.
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Apr 14, 2016 02:04
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Covok posted:Are you sure you linked the invite link? That just opens discord in general. Yep I'm a dummy. Try this link to the welcome channel, which will give links to the other channels while I learn about global permissions. Welcome to hack attack
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Apr 14, 2016 04:07
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Golden Bee posted:If you can find a free Saturday I can get you a playtest group, no problem. This is real good stuff and the playbooks generate so many ideas it's uncanny. What time zone is that? If you're in the US it might be easier for me to run a playtest in the middle of the night and just prop myself up with energy drinks the next day. Golden Bee posted:Edit: You should make a Role based on Richard Feynmann, where you court controversy within your department by being too public-facing. Moves that let you indulge quirks, attain fame, and play the bongos make sense. These are good ideas! *scribbles notes* I find making playbooks is the most difficult part of PBTA hacks, since they're basically the meat of the whole thing, but you've neatly identified two areas that the existing roles don't cover. megane posted:Actually, in reading over it, I had one bit of feedback, specifically on the Slacker move Busy Doing Nothing. You get to do two time-consuming things per week, so you're effectively faster and more productive than everyone else? That seems to me like the opposite of what a Slacker should be, they should be phoning it in instead of doing research or whatever. This is a good point. megane posted:I'd suggest instead a time-consuming move for them to waste their time with, maybe something like this: And this is a great replacement for it. Mind if I basically steal this in its entirety?
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Apr 14, 2016 11:46
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poo poo, I really need to find my notes for the Blood Bowl-as-a-sports-movie hack I've doodled a million years ago.
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Apr 14, 2016 12:20
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potatocubed posted:What time zone is that? If you're in the US it might be easier for me to run a playtest in the middle of the night and just prop myself up with energy drinks the next day.
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Apr 15, 2016 04:29
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potatocubed posted:And this is a great replacement for it. Mind if I basically steal this in its entirety?
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Apr 15, 2016 05:11
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When you say Roll20, you have a mic, right? Otherwise you can grab one for $8 off amazon.
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Apr 15, 2016 05:41
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Lichtenstein posted:poo poo, I really need to find my notes for the Blood Bowl-as-a-sports-movie hack I've doodled a million years ago. I thought of pretty much the same idea earlier. Weird.
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Apr 15, 2016 08:02
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Golden Bee posted:PST is GMT-8 basically. Set up a Doodle.com sched for days next weekend and I'll find peeps. The 23rd is a good day, yes -- I just need to know if I'm going to be free after the kid's gone to bed (8 pm GMT, give or take) or after my dad's gone to bed (midnight). And yes, I'll need to score a mic for roll20.
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Apr 15, 2016 09:19
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I'd love to play if you're still looking for players.
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Apr 15, 2016 14:21
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Alright, I'll be good to run a Pigsmoke playtest at ~8 pm British Summer Time (UTC +1) next Saturday. I'll run it via Roll20 assuming the mic I ordered arrives before then (it should). Capfalcon, if you want in that's fine. Golden Bee, you said you could round up some other testers? I'll be looking for 3-4 players total for a ~4 hour game; we'll do chargen and kick the tyres of the first session advice, and fingers crossed there will be both useful feedback for me and fun for the participants.
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Apr 16, 2016 14:40
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Covok posted: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. I gave it a proper read through today and there's a few things that jumped out at me: 1. "What's your story?" being angst based. This feels really weird to me, because I associate angsty types with cynicism, and overwhelmingly picture characters like Nanoha or Hibiki when I think of people who begin fights by asking people what their deal is. I'm struggling to think of angsty characters who nonetheless question every enemy they run into for their tragic backstory. 2. +cool's fight is "If you nimbly demonstrate how dexterous you are, spout out something shocking, or use your signature technique, roll 2d6 + Cool". This is mostly fine, and might be a reading comprehension thing, but what's "something shocking" meant to be? In my head, the first things that came to mind were "Hitler did nothing wrong" or "Luke, I am your father!", neither of which seem particularly cool. Is the intent more Jojos style baffling statements like "We used stone masks to turn these horses into vampires"? Also, I do tend to think of cool characters in shonen as having a bit of arrogance, perhaps good naturedly; +cool feels like it should be the one that lets you go "You're a thousand years too early!" and stuff. 3. Ties feel really weird. At present they basically work like strings, but is that really appropriate for a game based around Friendship as such a central conceit? I can see why villains need to be able to use their bonds with people to be able to mock them and make it hurtful, and I can also see the utility of battling your friends and going "Master wouldn't have wanted this!" or whatever, but it feels like you need some capacity to go "No, if I give up, Weiss will die!" or whatever, and use them for personal benefit or collaboration bonuses. To a degree, this is aided by friendship moves later, but it still feels off to me. But this ties in a little to #4: 4. Playbooks are probably the weaker end of things at present. There's several problems with them, as I see it, so I'll go over them in rough order of how they occurred to me: Forever Young seems to have many moves which feel like they should be things people are just able to do generally. Nakama and Disarmingly Charming feel like core moves, or at least core-like moves. There is conversely definite material in the other Forever Young moves (I especially love the super-eating one). Host also feels weird, though that might be related to the core moves thing; a superpowered evil side feels like something you staple onto existing characters of other archetypes, rather than it's own thing. It also felt weird that one of the results of the finale move can be that you die; I'm aware of plenty of characters who spent periods of time evil or uncontrollable, but being irrevocably evil seems off-kilter, though maybe that's just generally part of "RPGs have TPKs, comics don't". Inventor isn't bad or anything but what's a shonen inventor? Bulma was suggested but I don't think of her primarily as a fighter. I realise Jobber got taken out but it doesn't feel like a particularly fun role to play. Maybe that's me. When I hit the Rival, and later Straight Man, I realised that I felt like I was seeing similar, overlapping archetypes showing up together. Rival, Avenger and Straight Man seem like they're overlapping concepts. Later with Tireless, I felt there was overlap between Tireless and Straight man and Forever Young and Tireless. In general, there was a feeling that the books were all very narrow concepts. Straight Man's Unthreatening felt like it'd be a good move for Jobber, and Friendship Speech also feels weird there. Tireless also has some moves that feel like core: "Training for stuff" seems a genre conceit that shows up semi-regularly for most characters. That said, there's a lot of good stuff in the playbooks too. Mentor feels great, as does Guardian, and there's enough good ideas between the various shades of lancer and hero archetype in there I understand why it might be hard to condense them. But I feel cutting down on the number of books and making them broader might be a good idea generally; also moving some of the moves in the books to core. Please don't take this as absolute criticism, though; techniques are cool, and I loved how the tension system works. There's definitely a lot there worth working on. spectralent fucked around with this message at 15:44 on Apr 16, 2016 |
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Apr 16, 2016 15:41
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I think that was my note for the playbooks; there are a lot of similar ground to play "A Serious Guy who's avenging the death of his master." The Discord chat got into this at length; it's interesting to hear that from elsewhere. There's a playtest today so I'm sure Covok will learn a lot.
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Apr 16, 2016 17:11
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I got to join the play test today, and it was a lot of fun! There's a lot in there that's working really well, and we got to have a great post-game discussion about the game, the genre of fiction, and design in general.
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Apr 17, 2016 08:07
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spectralent posted:I gave it a proper read through today and there's a few things that jumped out at me: Sorry, I saw this earlier today, but didn't get a chance to respond. It's been really, really busy. 1. Yeah, that got brought up today after the playtest. It's because the Angst stat covers empathy because the choice of wording was a bit thematic and a lot modern shonen do have a lot of emotions handled in an angsty way because the series are about teenagers: if they're having emotions, they're overblowing them. That said, I get it, the word feels dissonant with the move. We didn't come up with a good new word to handle it and I'm working on that. 2. Huh? I'm not sure. I wrote that so long ago that I don't remember. Something shocking could literally just mean a strong one-liner, but that isn't the best wording. Maybe I should update that. 3. You're completely right. I was lazy about that and that is something I will be putting more attention on. 4. This got brought up recently, both pre- and post playtest. After a lot of thinking it over, I'm thinking of seeing if a split playbook system might fix this because, as pointed out during the post-playtest discussion, some playbooks are why your fight and some are how you fight. I don't want that to be the split playbook dichotomy, per say, but it does need to be addressed: it just doesn't add up, ya know, if I keep the playbooks like that and splitting them may allow me to make a nice dynamic that is consistent. Cutting them down is another option, but I fear that might limit the game a bit: an issue an unreleased PbtA game had in the eyes of some due to not having enough playbooks. I might try it if split playbooks turn out to be a wet fart. Also, as for the Inventor thing, while I know it isn't Shuesiha, I imagine Stein from Soul Eater when I think a fighting Inventor. It's a battle manga, it counts. "RPGs have TPKs, comics don't" Hmm, good point. It is dissonant from the source material for it to end in player loss, but it does need a failure state to be a game. I'll think that over. Jobber was put back in because the only person, who up to that point, was willing to do a playtest without me involved (which is great for evaluating rules clarity) liked it alot and told me "hey, if you put it in, and people don't like it, only people who do like it, like me, will use it." It was sound enough logic and he was being very nice for running these playtests for me so it went back in. Also, truth be told, I like it personally as something you don't often seen in RPGs: playing the guy who makes others look good, not yourself. Also, you can be surprisingly competent as the Jobber as failure is encourage, but you have control over it. Also, I just remembered why I was big on specific move advances in FEV which other PbtA hackers might want to know. I thought it was because of niche protection during our post-game discussion, but that wasn't it: I was running a Mask game IRL and found out that, when you only have physical handouts, pick a move from any playbook advances actually slow things down and hurt mid-session advances a lot as players will look through every playbook and stop paying attention. I thought this would stop that and allow for mid-session advances to not bog down live games -- something I wanted in FEV -- and also realized it had the benefit of niche protection and decided to go forward with putting it in FEV.
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Apr 17, 2016 08:43
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potatocubed posted:Alright, I'll be good to run a Pigsmoke playtest at ~8 pm British Summer Time (UTC +1) next Saturday. I'll run it via Roll20 assuming the mic I ordered arrives before then (it should). If you still need playtesters, I´d be interested in trying this game out too. I should be available then, but I´ll let you know if something comes up.
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Apr 17, 2016 08:51
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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. quote:The trigger is an event in the fiction. When it comes up, you take a quick break from the fiction to make the move. This is extremely well phrased, and now I need to make another pass on a few chapters in Spinward Worlds.
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Apr 17, 2016 11:07
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Covok posted:Sorry, I saw this earlier today, but didn't get a chance to respond. It's been really, really busy. How about Emotion? That sounds like it covers the necessary space without being tied down to the connotations of a specific emotion.
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Apr 17, 2016 14:29
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Covok posted:Sorry, I saw this earlier today, but didn't get a chance to respond. It's been really, really busy. That's true. I suppose my primary point of reference for "why are we fighting?" is Nanoha, who admittedly isn't shuesha, but "good guys" are people I classically associate the fighting-therapist with. Angsty characters, by reverse, tend to make me think of characters like Sasuke who're ambiguously heroic at best. quote:2. Huh? I'm not sure. I wrote that so long ago that I don't remember. Something shocking could literally just mean a strong one-liner, but that isn't the best wording. Maybe I should update that. Yeah, it's definitely not a problem, just we got "Hitler did nothing wrong, BELIEVE IT!", and were subsequently laughing so hard we decided that probably wasn't the intent of the cool move  quote:3. You're completely right. I was lazy about that and that is something I will be putting more attention on. Cool  I think having ties being mixed bags is probably fine, if that helps; I can absolutely see people fighting bringing up their pasts with each other to create openings or make people hesitate. Just it feels like they should also let you support people and inspire yourself. "I have to keep fighting for my friends!" is practically a genre staple. Also, it probably is appropriate that strongly-tied characters transfer ties fairly directly between opposition and alliance; it mimicks that thing where post-catharsis-moment, the hero and their nemesis team up and have an equally strong relationship, just with a positive disposition instead of negative. quote:4. This got brought up recently, both pre- and post playtest. After a lot of thinking it over, I'm thinking of seeing if a split playbook system might fix this because, as pointed out during the post-playtest discussion, some playbooks are why your fight and some are how you fight. I don't want that to be the split playbook dichotomy, per say, but it does need to be addressed: it just doesn't add up, ya know, if I keep the playbooks like that and splitting them may allow me to make a nice dynamic that is consistent. Cutting them down is another option, but I fear that might limit the game a bit: an issue an unreleased PbtA game had in the eyes of some due to not having enough playbooks. I might try it if split playbooks turn out to be a wet fart. A split playbook idea sounds great, IMO; as I said, the host feels very strongly like an element other characters have. I can easily picture Host/Forever Youngs, Host/Avengers, Host/Masters, etc. "Just the host" seems like a weird niche. quote:Also, as for the Inventor thing, while I know it isn't Shuesiha, I imagine Stein from Soul Eater when I think a fighting Inventor. It's a battle manga, it counts. Huh, that's fair. I've admittedly not strongly associated his inventing with things he does in the field; he's definitely technologically inclined, but he seems to fight with soul wavelength like everyone else, but it's been a while since I've followed Soul Eater. quote:"RPGs have TPKs, comics don't" Hmm, good point. It is dissonant from the source material for it to end in player loss, but it does need a failure state to be a game. I'll think that over. Yeah; another thing that's possibly just an aesthetic mismatch. quote:Jobber was put back in because the only person, who up to that point, was willing to do a playtest without me involved (which is great for evaluating rules clarity) liked it alot and told me "hey, if you put it in, and people don't like it, only people who do like it, like me, will use it." It was sound enough logic and he was being very nice for running these playtests for me so it went back in. Also, truth be told, I like it personally as something you don't often seen in RPGs: playing the guy who makes others look good, not yourself. Also, you can be surprisingly competent as the Jobber as failure is encourage, but you have control over it. That's fair. quote:Also, I just remembered why I was big on specific move advances in FEV which other PbtA hackers might want to know. I thought it was because of niche protection during our post-game discussion, but that wasn't it: I was running a Mask game IRL and found out that, when you only have physical handouts, pick a move from any playbook advances actually slow things down and hurt mid-session advances a lot as players will look through every playbook and stop paying attention. I thought this would stop that and allow for mid-session advances to not bog down live games -- something I wanted in FEV -- and also realized it had the benefit of niche protection and decided to go forward with putting it in FEV. Interesting!
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Apr 17, 2016 15:47
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Heliotrope posted:If you still need playtesters, I´d be interested in trying this game out too. I should be available then, but I´ll let you know if something comes up. Sure thing. I'll post a reminder and a game link closer to the time. mllaneza posted:This is extremely well phrased, and now I need to make another pass on a few chapters in Spinward Worlds. Thank you. Now I feel like I've contributed something to the greater DNA of PBTA games.
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Apr 17, 2016 19:36
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Do people run Dungeon World here on the forums? For all the "play this instead of 5e" it gets around here, there seemed to be a long string of "MonsterHearts but in [place]" games as like, the only PbtA games I was seeing in the Recruitment Megathread.
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Apr 20, 2016 07:56
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I don't know about now, but Dungeon World PBPs used to swarm the Game Room a few years back. I think people are burned out on it.
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Apr 20, 2016 08:17
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PBTA games still get recruits every week or so, just not DW anymore. As a sidenote, I wish someone would run a PBTA Roll20 game in eurotime. Any of them. I just want to RP in real time with someone.
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Apr 20, 2016 08:29
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Megazver posted:PBTA games still get recruits every week or so, just not DW anymore. Yeah, we had two recruits for "the Sprawl" and "Apoc world" in the last 3 weeks at least. Join the club, I would love to be able to even do a PbP of any of the apoc world games.
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Apr 20, 2016 10:11
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I've started playing in a Dungeon World game recently, and it's going pretty well - I picked the druid, and shapeshifting is a real good way of getting my teeth into the system. I'm not really sold on how DW handles bonds, though - they feel a bit weird, especially the way they get consumed at the end of the session to gain xp. Gaining bonds also seems completely unregulated. Am I missing something?
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Apr 20, 2016 10:26
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You can only "consume" one bond at the end of each session to gain xp, and it's immediately replaced by a new one. Unless there's a rule I'm forgetting, you never actually end up with more or fewer bonds than you started with. Essentially, the bonds serve as a reminder to roleplay and explore specific topics with other party members, and a check at the end of a session whether your relationships changed. Admittedly, a lot of the starting bonds out of the box are poorly written because they feel like they can't go anywhere. Hence why "completely explored" can also resolve a bond.
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Apr 20, 2016 11:39
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Michael Sands is working on an new PbtA game called Heavy Metal Æons. He's got preview playbooks and stuff here, and it looks to be as   as possible.Playbooks include Berserker, Psychic Veteran, Star Trooper, Mystic Cat, and Sapient Weapon.
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Apr 20, 2016 16:01
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I appreciate how every archetype has an associated music video or song listed.
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Apr 20, 2016 16:22
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Is there a well regarded Western hack? The new magnificent seven trailer kind of has me in the mood.
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Apr 22, 2016 00:51
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I heard Vincent Baker is working on a semi pbta romance and giant robots hack? Anyone know about that?
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Apr 22, 2016 03:49
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thatbastardken posted:Is there a well regarded Western hack? The new magnificent seven trailer kind of has me in the mood. I don't know if anyone ever bothered to do a full Western hack 'cause the base game works pretty well for that out of the box with some renaming. At least, that's what people were doing back when AW was first released. Angel -> Doc, Battlebabe -> Gunslinger, Driver -> Horseman, Maestro D' -> Obviously Just Al Swearengen, etc.
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Apr 22, 2016 05:17
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Neopie posted:I heard Vincent Baker is working on a semi pbta romance and giant robots hack? Anyone know about that? Apparently you can get it at PAX East this weekend. So if anyone's there and interested, they might be able to get some more info. https://twitter.com/lumpleygames/status/723174553430581249 It appears to take place in the Solar Calendar setting shared with the other Mobile Frame games. I'm told it was developed as part of Baker's Patreon; there should be a preview available there for patrons.
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Apr 22, 2016 05:25
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Thanks, now I'm looking at Lego prices and despairing.
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