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Harrow posted:Speaking of the "GM intrusions" thing, I'm wondering if there's a way to do that well. ImpactVector posted:Plus you have character options like "Wields Two Weapons at Once" competing with "Controls Gravity". That's not even an exaggeration.
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May 31, 2016 17:46
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Can I create a character with an array of BMX-based skills?
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May 31, 2016 17:48
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Y'know, I've never actually played Fate. For some reason I have a tough time wrapping my head around it, even though PbtA makes perfect sense to me.Gravy Train Robber posted:Can I create a character with an array of BMX-based skills? Yeah man! I'm just going to go ahead and make a character who really complements yours then. I'll pick the Summons All-Powerful Angels focus.
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May 31, 2016 17:51
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Harrow posted:Y'know, I've never actually played Fate. For some reason I have a tough time wrapping my head around it, even though PbtA makes perfect sense to me. FWIW I can't wrap my head around Fate either. Compels as a concept I understand, but I try thinking about setting target numbers in the system and my brain just shuts down.
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May 31, 2016 18:04
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Gravy Train Robber posted:Can I create a character with an array of BMX-based skills? quote:Tier 1: Life Lessons. Choose any two noncombat skills. You are trained in those skills. Enabler. Harrow posted:Yeah man! I'm just going to go ahead and make a character who really complements yours then. I'll pick the Summons All-Powerful Angels focus. quote:Tier 1: Robot Assistant. A level 2 robot of your size or smaller (built by you) accompanies you and follows your instructions. You and the GM must work out the details of your robot. You’ll probably make rolls for your robot when it takes actions. An assistant robot in combat usually doesn’t make separate attacks but helps with yours. On your action, if the artificial assistant is next to you, it serves as an asset for one attack you make on your turn. If the robot is destroyed, you can repair the original with a few days’ worth of tinkering, or build a new one with a week’s worth of half-time labor. Enabler. At level 4, the Doesn't Do Much guy is trained in another four things (one of which is a combat skill) and can take his ten-minute recovery in a round. Meanwhile, at level 4, the Builds Robots guy can trick out his now higher level robot with some kewl extras like wings or a force field projector, as well as control other robots. At level 6 one person has a fleet of five robots, two of which are tricked out, and the other is trained in a lot of skills, has a few extra points in his stat pools, and can ask the GM a question and get an answer if he makes a skill roll.
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May 31, 2016 18:09
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gradenko_2000 posted:FWIW I can't wrap my head around Fate either. Compels as a concept I understand, but I try thinking about setting target numbers in the system and my brain just shuts down. In Fate, rolls tend towards neutral with a pretty strong curve. So a target 2 above a player's skill is actually pretty tough and odds are will require at least one invoke.
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May 31, 2016 18:09
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You know, it's funny. Now that y'all are talking about difficulty numbers in Fate, I have no idea how I assign them. I just generally have people roll and use their result to see how well they did at a task instead of telling them to beat a number.
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May 31, 2016 18:13
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Evil Mastermind posted:You know, it's funny. Now that y'all are talking about difficulty numbers in Fate, I have no idea how I assign them. I just generally have people roll and use their result to see how well they did at a task instead of telling them to beat a number. That's honestly how I thought it worked at first, especially since there's a "ladder" to describe what every level of result means. But how do you get players to make spends without a target to hit?
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May 31, 2016 18:17
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Let's play a little game called "Numenera Game Balance", which is pretty easy. In Nomenara there aren't levels per se, instead relying on tiers to denote your character's abilities. I've selected two fifth-tier abilities from the core book, which represent characters that are almost at the peak of their power (sixth tier is the highest tier). To start off, let's see what the game has in the fifth tier for Nanos (that's Nomenura words for "wizard")  Not so bad I guess. Teleportation is a mainstay of wizardly powers. Note that This allows you to go loving anywhere so long as you've been there. It costs an Action, but for a single level of Effort you can take the average-sized adventuring party with you. So now let's see what Glaives (again, Numanero for "fighter") gets at the fifth tier.  Oh, what's that? You can jump and attack? Holy balls! You have to succeed at a not-insignificant check to do so, and in return you get a whopping 3 extra points of damage, but it's not like we can let fighters get too crazy. And look, even if you fail the check you still get to do the damage! You should be glad! Monte could've had you fall down and break your legs but he didn't. See? That's balance! Since Numanuma is such a well-balanced game, let's just take a look at the ultimate-tier Glaive skills.  I know, sick right? If you're hitting a helpless opponent you do more damage! But only if you hit, so you still have to roll it. But hey, if you just want to kill a guy, all you gotta do is hit them, then roll again and boom you've just insta-gibbed the opponent for the price of just two successful rolls? Remember confirmed crits? It's like that but even shittier! Oh and let's make sure we codify some rules for PvP in there, we wouldn't want players to not have ways to dick each other over. You could also become a spinny top of attacks (but be sure to roll each one!) or holy tapdancing christ you can punch/kick after attacking?? And you could punch/kick a totally different guy? This ain't your daddy's D&D clone! And now, presented without comment, is this fourth-tier Nano ability. 
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May 31, 2016 18:27
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gradenko_2000 posted:That's honestly how I thought it worked at first, especially since there's a "ladder" to describe what every level of result means. The thing is that it's really more of an art than a science; the best I can tell you about when I do it is that I eyeball it for what would be most dramatically appropriate. The SRD has a lot of stuff to say about setting difficulties, but it's more about how setting difficulties sets the mood of a scene. e: poo poo, I really need to sit down and think about this.
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May 31, 2016 18:29
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Evil Mastermind posted:Well, most of the time they're making opposed rolls, so in those cases they know what they're trying to beat. For non-contested rolls, I'll usually try to keep things in the +3 to +5 range. I think of it in terms of "You'd have to be Good/Great/Superb to pull that off". It really is tough though, and I didn't always succeed either. More often than not at least a few of my players ended a session maxed out on fate points, which is a good indicator that they were never challenged.
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May 31, 2016 18:46
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Evil Mastermind posted:You know, it's funny. Now that y'all are talking about difficulty numbers in Fate, I have no idea how I assign them. adventure fractaaaaaal quote:I just generally have people roll and use their result to see how well they did at a task instead of telling them to beat a number. adventure fractaaaaaal
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May 31, 2016 19:27
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homullus posted:there are very few times when a GM actually couldn't make a thing happen using partial success/complications that he could with "intrusions." That said, it's still a useful trick in the bag to say e.g. "the spirit will demand something of you in return. I'll just put this token in an obvious place so I can manipulate it meaningfully when that time comes." But it helps not to structure things entirely around that kind of delayed payoff, since every one adds something new to keep track of.
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May 31, 2016 19:42
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Glazius posted:adventure fractaaaaaal
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May 31, 2016 19:44
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Glazius posted:That said, it's still a useful trick in the bag to say e.g. "the spirit will demand something of you in return. I'll just put this token in an obvious place so I can manipulate it meaningfully when that time comes."
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May 31, 2016 19:45
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Setting target numbers is the worst. Doing it and then having your players say "oh, why bother even rolling, then?" is the worst of the worst. Play Strike! and never set a target number again.
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May 31, 2016 19:53
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Jimbozig posted:Play Strike! and never set a target number again. And the Angel Summoner is probably just a Summoner/Leader.
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May 31, 2016 20:01
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The other problem with intrusions is that in Fate, Compels are part of the "fate point economy," wherein players spent fate points to invoke aspects for a benefit, and get those points back when the GM uses compels against them. In Numenera, intrusions give the players XP. XP does double duty as points you can spend for rerolls, so players have the incentive to hoard them instead of spending them to do cool things. This is a once-common game design fuckup I haven't seen since Open D6.
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May 31, 2016 20:03
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Bennies Should Not Be Used As Experience Points That is all.
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May 31, 2016 20:08
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Jimbozig posted:Play Strike! and never set a target number again. Oh, and I run Games on Demand once a year. But still. e: Also Kurieg posted:Bennies Should Not Be Used As Experience Points
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May 31, 2016 20:08
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I have to admit that it's tempting from a design perspective to look at a desirable resource like XP and try to think of ways to force the players to think about it in ways beyond "I want to get more of it." XP as bennies is a really hamfisted way to do it, though. In my own system, I'm considering doing the same with currency, not XP. The setting uses glowing crystals of hard light called "shine" as currency, and shine is valuable because it's also a power source for various scavenged and reverse-engineered ancient tech. I'm toying with the idea of having certain devices require PCs to spend some of their shine to power them for a scene to work in a sort of resource management: will you spend some of your treasure to use this powerful device to get you out of a jam, or are you going to hang onto your glow-money and try to get by on your skills alone? Then comes the other question: if I give a technologically-oriented character type a mid- to high-level ability that lets them spend momentum (basically fate points) instead of shine, one-for-one, to power machines, is that going to break the economy wide open? Will non-machinist players feel punished? Or am I actually over-valuing shine vs. momentum? This'll be interesting to play-test at least. Harrow fucked around with this message at 20:20 on May 31, 2016 |
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May 31, 2016 20:09
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Kurieg posted:Bennies Should Not Be Used As Experience Points
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May 31, 2016 21:12
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I thought the adjective ladder was useful in Fate. "He's a GREAT race car driver. This place was looted by SUPERB ninjas, so it'll be hard to find a clue. They're AVERAGE security guards, but there are two of them, and they're ON ALERT [--]..."
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May 31, 2016 21:18
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Zereth posted:I've suggested in the past rather than having bennies be bennies OR experience points, they're bennies until used, at which point they become experience points. So rather than needing to hoard them to avoid crippling your growth, you need to not hoard them. good ideas are happening in this thread
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May 31, 2016 21:19
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Zereth posted:I've suggested in the past rather than having bennies be bennies OR experience points, they're bennies until used, at which point they become experience points. So rather than needing to hoard them to avoid crippling your growth, you need to not hoard them. There's a system called Old School Hack that does just that. In fact, spending Awesome Points (what the system calls bennies) is the only way to gain XP, and you're encouraged to do it so thoroughly that the entire party levels up together when everyone has spent enough Awesome Points.
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May 31, 2016 21:19
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ImpactVector posted:As a bonus I think you could do a pretty sweet BMX Bandit with a Duelist/Controller. Someone in my current game is playing a cyclist as a single-form Shapechanger (Bull Form) to represent getting on his bike and running into things.
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May 31, 2016 21:19
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Golden Bee posted:I thought the adjective ladder was useful in Fate. "He's a GREAT race car driver. This place was looted by SUPERB ninjas, so it'll be hard to find a clue. They're AVERAGE security guards, but there are two of them, and they're ON ALERT [--]..."
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May 31, 2016 21:27
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Basically, the natural instinct most people have when given something that has a limited supply is to hoard it. It's why video games are rife with jokes about "but I might NEED one of these 99 potions later..." Even before you hit on the psychology behind known and easily understood long term returns disassociated from your person vs short term gamble that are guaranteed to lose, trying to mix xp with bennies isn't going to work - people are GOING TO HOARD THEM. That's not even touching on people wanting their victories to be based on character talent rather then outside influences. Congrats, I just thought more about the subject in that tiny paragraph then anyone who's actually developed a game that makes you choose between the two.
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May 31, 2016 21:53
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This whole discussion is making me want to ditch the system I'm trying to build and just use Fate Core, because it seems to do like 80% of what I want to accomplish in the first place. But I'm weirdly stubborn about wanting to do ~*~my own thing~*~ for some reason.
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May 31, 2016 21:56
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What exactly is a bennie?
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May 31, 2016 22:03
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Shorthand for Benefit Point, something you're given that you can spend to gain a one-time or temporary bonus or some other kind of control over the system Sometimes you get bennies or XP for allowing something bad to happen to your character in systems like CofD or *World, but sometimes the points you get count as both bennies and XP and people hoard them until it's a literal life or death situation because being able to improve your character is so much better than any kind of short term benefit would be unless the short term benefit is "I don't die now."
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May 31, 2016 22:08
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It's weirdly hard to come up with a catch-all definition, because different games use similar mechanics but they're all pretty different. Generally, though, they're tokens/points that players (and sometimes the GM) can use to swing the narrative or the odds one way or another, sometimes from a "metagame" perspective. In Savage Worlds, bennies are tokens that the players can earn for doing cool things, and they can spend them to do things like help them soak damage from an attack, or reroll a failed check. (The GM gets bennies, too, and can use them on behalf of NPCs.) In Fate, they're Fate Points and, even though I haven't played Fate, it looks like they're more integral than bennies are in Savage Worlds--you could easily play Savage Worlds and forget bennies exist, but I doubt you could do the same with Fate and Fate Points. Same for Cortex Plus and Plot Points. Some people hate them because of their "metagame" nature--the player basically gets to reach a hand in and go, "No, actually, this happens," for a reason that likely has no "realistic" explanation in-universe--but they've only ever lead to increased fun for me so I'm all about 'em.
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May 31, 2016 22:09
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On the really really bad side of the scale you have TORG where there's an entire class of powers that require you to both A: Set aside some of your xp/bennies every level just to keeping those powers on your character otherwise they go away forever and B: You need to use them all a certain number of times per story otherwise they atrophy from disuse.
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May 31, 2016 22:11
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I tend to call them Hero Points as a general term. D6 didn't handle XP-as-hero-points well, but I think Torg's is the worst I've ever seen. Especially when the various powers aren't balanced and many just aren't very good. For a company that eventually produced an official DC Comics RPG during the end of its lifespan, West End was not very good at handling superhero powers in particular.
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May 31, 2016 22:15
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Alright, thanks all. So basically a non-combat version of a 4e Action Point.
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May 31, 2016 22:17
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e: double
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May 31, 2016 22:17
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Countblanc posted:Alright, thanks all. So basically a non-combat version of a 4e Action Point. Action Points if combat was still balanced around you using them once every-other encounter, but unused points at the end of the day converted into extra XP. Cause who needs the party to level at the same rate?
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May 31, 2016 22:20
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On a related topic: are there any systems out there that have a sort of "escalating danger" mechanic? One thing I'm trying to do with my system is have a sort of escalating "Trouble" during each session/episode that represents the escalating danger that the adventurers are in. It goes up each time they have a really close scrape but make it, or really push their luck, but goes down when they suffer a setback. It's almost like how Resident Evil 4 does adaptive difficulty: the better the party does, the harder things get; when they start to fail, things ease off a bit until they start to do better. This is something that's pretty easy to do narratively, but I'm trying to think of a way to do it mechanically--not for the GM's sake, but so the players can interact with it, too (like, intentionally adding to the Trouble the party is in, in exchange for succeeding at a failed roll, or something like that). The main problem is that I'm not sure what Trouble should do mechanically and I'm curious if/how other systems have done something like that.
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May 31, 2016 22:21
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I could be wrong but I think HeroQuest has something like that going on. Cortex Plus, at least in the Marvel Heroic version of it has the Doom Pool.
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May 31, 2016 22:35
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Harrow posted:On a related topic: are there any systems out there that have a sort of "escalating danger" mechanic? One thing I'm trying to do with my system is have a sort of escalating "Trouble" during each session/episode that represents the escalating danger that the adventurers are in. It goes up each time they have a really close scrape but make it, or really push their luck. This is something that's pretty easy to do narratively, but I'm trying to think of a way to do it mechanically--not for the GM's sake, but so the players can interact with it, too (like, intentionally adding to the Trouble the party is in, in exchange for succeeding at a failed roll, or something like that). The main problem is that I'm not sure what Trouble should do mechanically and I'm curious if/how other systems have done something like that. Strike has, well, Strikes, which are things you get for lackluster results (taking too much damage in combat, messed up tasks, some other stuff) which will give players Conditions (things which affect an individual player until addressed, like being really angry, winded, or injured) and Concessions (affect the whole party/narrative, basically says "you didn't get all of what you wanted from a conflict, even if you partially won", ie. escaping prison cells but guards upstairs heard you). Depending on how often you give players opportunities to purge Conditions and address Concessions things can start to snowball until you let them rest.
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May 31, 2016 22:36
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