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Ran the second of what seems likely to end up being three sessions for (a modified version of) Trouble In Hogtown today. It ended with the phrase "Roll to see how many doves fly out as you John Woo the Vampire Bat," a player rolling two sixes with advantage, and me deciding that this meant at least half of the doves the player saw during his slow-mo flip were actual doves from a nearby grove and not just frog-hallucinogen-induced illusions. I am counting today as at least a partial success.
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Jun 27, 2016 03:04
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There was an update on the Strike blog today:quote:Hey, I haven’t updated in a while, but that doesn’t mean that nothing is going on with Strike! Well, to be honest, nothing was going on in April - I was incredibly busy with my “real” jobs, and I did zero work on Strike! However, May and June have been a different story. I’m working on a major project. Two major projects, really: a “Player options” book with new classes, roles, and a whole lot of items and equipment, and a book of pre-written monsters. I’ve already written about eighty monsters. I’ve got beta versions of five new classes, and Gabriel Butche, who wrote The Psion has written beta versions of four new classes and a new Role. While I'm not really up to date on the Survival Strike expansion, I can definitely attest to lots of cool stuff in the other two, and more than is even listed there (though it isn't nearly as far along as those things are).
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Jun 27, 2016 03:37
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What are the new classes?!? Give them to meeeee
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Jun 27, 2016 04:32
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Superstring posted:What are the new classes?!? Give them to meeeee They're badass, is what they are.
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Jun 27, 2016 04:40
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They are quite cool, though at least one is such a huge mess right now that I'm almost ashamed to have other people look at it, haha. Jim's classes on the other hand are sincerely badass and I tweeted a while back about how seeing them in their early drafts made me realize how far I had to go as a game designer. Hopefully the Kickstarter (I thiiiink we're doing KS again) will be opening up in the not-too-distant future because I'm very excited to share stuff.
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Jun 27, 2016 05:51
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Countblanc posted:They are quite cool, though at least one is such a huge mess right now that I'm almost ashamed to have other people look at it, haha. Jim's classes on the other hand are sincerely badass and I tweeted a while back about how seeing them in their early drafts made me realize how far I had to go as a game designer. Hopefully the Kickstarter (I thiiiink we're doing KS again) will be opening up in the not-too-distant future because I'm very excited to share stuff. Do you know if you'll be able to grab the core book etc through the kickstarter? I'm debating buying it but might wait for the KS.
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Jun 27, 2016 06:22
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Cthulhu Dreams posted:Do you know if you'll be able to grab the core book etc through the kickstarter? I'm debating buying it but might wait for the KS. Yup. Jim made a post here confirming as much.
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Jun 27, 2016 07:58
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I want traps and treasure (plus the monster book I know you're already doing) I know they're hard but that's what we have professional game designers for
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Jun 27, 2016 20:06
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Updated the deployed version at http://hyphz.github.io/StrikeGen.html and the source at http://github.com/hyphz/StrikeGen - now can save and load from files and the URL, and can also export Roll20 macros although I don't use Roll20 that much - I've tested them briefly, can someone check they're alright?
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Jun 27, 2016 20:06
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Gort posted:I want traps and treasure (plus the monster book I know you're already doing) Treasure yes, I'm on it. Traps... I don't know! I don't know what people want from traps. Non-monster combat hazards? Dungeon puzzles? Can you refer me to a book from another game that has really good traps?
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Jun 27, 2016 20:12
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Jimbozig posted:Can you refer me to a book from another game that has really good traps? This is the trouble - I don't actually know any. I'm after the sort of trap-room you get in films, like the garbage compactor in Star Wars, or a crushing spike ceiling or rolling boulder like in Indiana Jones, or the bus in Speed...
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Jun 27, 2016 20:38
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hyphz posted:Updated the deployed version at http://hyphz.github.io/StrikeGen.html and the source at http://github.com/hyphz/StrikeGen - now can save and load from files and the URL, and can also export Roll20 macros although I don't use Roll20 that much - I've tested them briefly, can someone check they're alright?  Seems good to me! The large text dump powers aren't really formatted but that's pretty much nitpicking and is easily done user-side. Good job.
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Jun 27, 2016 20:46
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Jimbozig posted:Traps... I don't know! I don't know what people want from traps. Non-monster combat hazards? Dungeon puzzles? The only way I've ever had fun running traps was 'you have two minutes to talk out/describe a creative solution or cool scene for avoiding/disabling this trap'. I'd ask them to roll the relevant skill if I didn't think the solution/scene was good enough. If they took too long or failed the roll, they took damage/poison/whatever.
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Jun 27, 2016 20:53
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Jimbozig posted:Treasure yes, I'm on it. Traps are resolvable by Skill Rolls, Team Conflict, and even Tactical Combat. Skill Rolls are single-actor and best suited for single narrative obstacles. Tactical Combat only makes sense where the trap elements can be damaged. Team Conflict is pretty great and captures the rest adequately, but is still expansive narratively and maybe a little too abstract for some traps. For the middle ground (if you want to go there) I would most welcome a minigame midway between Chase and Team Conflict. With Chase, as GM, I get to play too, which I love, but only one net player choice happens there. With Team Conflict, I don't play after I have chosen the Traits, but all the PCs get to do things for several rounds. Can you come up with something where the GM gets to make one decision per round, and all the players get to play? Maybe it also uses space (i.e. a 2x2 or 3x3 grid), to give the skill-less some options or to differentiate it further from the game's other subsystems? That's a tall order, but on top of traps it could be used for other group-oriented dangerous things that don't merit a battle map, such as working out how to pilot the flying saucer or fighting off various attacks on their raft as it floats down the river, and where the players' individual choices affect their individual fates a little more. Edit: another option is that the GM programs the trap's actions in advance, and in essence the players have some choices and/or deductions to make about them. It's not the same as a round-by-round choice, but the GM has some up-front input into its narrative. homullus fucked around with this message at 21:01 on Jun 27, 2016 |
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Jun 27, 2016 20:55
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Will this upcoming KS have the Monster Hunter system plug-in I seem to remember someone saying was coming?Jimbozig posted:Treasure yes, I'm on it.
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Jun 27, 2016 21:11
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You can also have the "room fills up with water" trap be the terrain for a fight.
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Jun 27, 2016 21:18
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Evil Mastermind posted:Will this upcoming KS have the Monster Hunter system plug-in I seem to remember someone saying was coming? The book with prewritten monsters/encounters has that, yes. We're still working out the kinks of how item crafting will work but the actual encounters/drops/etc. are mostly built (though many require testing still). As-is the system assumes you want some amount of "gear grind" - not a lot, but basically there's a system involved that makes you deal more/less damage or take more/less damage from monsters depending on how up-to-date your drops are. Which imo is a pretty important part of lootgames like MonHun. Countblanc fucked around with this message at 21:25 on Jun 27, 2016 |
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Jun 27, 2016 21:23
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Hey, i have a rules question. Does the Magician's Excellent Prismatic Spray work with the striker power Wind up strike? I'm guessing no, but I'm not sure.
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Jun 30, 2016 22:15
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gnapo posted:Hey, i have a rules question. Does the Magician's Excellent Prismatic Spray work with the striker power Wind up strike? I'm guessing no, but I'm not sure. No because you don't "hit" - you just deal damage. You get your Role Boost, but nothing else that would trigger on a hit.
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Jul 1, 2016 02:06
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A trap idea I've been turning over in my head lately is the Trap Filled Corridor. Individually the traps aren't too hard to avoid completely, but there's so many of them that you have to choose between a slow, methodical approach or fast, reckless one. Fast and reckless is straightforward, if you get a twist you trigger the traps and get injured or set off alarms or whatever, the consequences are usually pretty bad. Slow and methodical is lower risk but it comes at the cost of consuming time resources even if you're successful, and a possible Cost could be Trap Paranoid, which forces you to spend more time looking for traps throughout the location. An appropriate tool (eg 10-foot pole for a pyramid heist, laser-revealing smoke for a high-tech infiltration) would help in either approach. Obviously this requires some sort of time pressure mechanic in the scene, whether wandering monster/guard rolls, or a simple countdown, or something else. In any case, there's a billion different ways you could vary it and you could even omit rolling completely, but the basic idea is the same as traps in real life, like caltrops: force them to slow down and buy their opponents time, or pay the consequences.
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Jul 2, 2016 06:04
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Whoever mentioned the idea of making like, a 5x5 grid that becomes some sort of group mini-game to represent puzzles/traps had a super cool idea but I'm absolutely not the person who should tackle such a concept because my ideal adventure is just constant fighting and maybe smashing a trap by punching it really hard.
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Jul 2, 2016 08:12
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It might've been me. I was just ripping off the puzzle mechanics from the board game Mansions of Madness. The puzzle rules are in this PDF starting on page 17. The short version is that in that game a player might choose to spend his turn attempting to solve a puzzle (which might be a magic thing, or rewiring something, or picking a lock, and so on) and the puzzle is represented by a sliding-tile puzzle of actual physical cardboard squares. There are a number of different kinds (like for tumbler locks there are a number of cylinders whose sides need to match up with each other so you rotate them) but the basics are that you get an end state you're trying to work towards, and each action you spend on the puzzle gives you a number of moves equal to some stat (I believe in MoM it's intelligence, but you can easily make a puzzle that revolves around strength since you're moving boulders about or something). Mansions of Madness is very much a race-against-time game, so the puzzles in it weren't exactly hard, but you were trying to find the way to solve the puzzle in the fewest actions, which added a bit of nuance. I also liked how using the character's stat but the player's brain engaged both the character and player in the puzzle.
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Jul 2, 2016 10:13
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Countblanc posted:Whoever mentioned the idea of making like, a 5x5 grid that becomes some sort of group mini-game to represent puzzles/traps had a super cool idea but I'm absolutely not the person who should tackle such a concept because my ideal adventure is just constant fighting and maybe smashing a trap by punching it really hard. I also suggested it on this page. I was imagining a small (e.g. maybe 5x5) grid, and the players position themselves. The "trap" (which might be an ambush, or a bar fight, or anything else where something is potentially coming at the party in a small space from multiple directions) either has a limited number of different options (e.g. it either needs to be X or T pattern), or it has a wider range of options, but they need to follow logically from each other (e.g. an I pattern can only become L or T). What happens if the players get hit in the pattern? It should vary according to the narrative and what, exactly, the GM chose in advance (a la Team Conflict). It might mean they can't move, or get force-moved on the board, or take Hits/Strikes. How do they solve it? Perhaps half the PCs need to be on the right squares and make a roll? I dunno, I didn't get that far.
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Jul 2, 2016 14:45
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Another half-baked trap idea: the location is loaded with traps and you need to clear a path through them to some destination. Put the players on a combat map and they have a limited number of turns to explore the location and disable the traps guarding some prize. But beware! Just like with combat, you'll be earning Strikes as you fail to disarm traps, with similar consequences. Some possible basic rules:
Some ways this could play out: You're infiltrating the presidential palace and clearing a path so the safecracker can find the war plans (and maybe the jewel cache while you're at it), you're clearing a path through the technocultists' compound so the hacker can get physical access to the mainframe, you need to get the priest through Dracula's castle to exorcise his coffin. Earn too many strikes and even if you get the objective, it might be a Pyrrhic victory! I originally thought of it as an escort mission thing, but it works just as well if not better as a "get in, get the job done, get out" thing too. (Btw I just bought the game but haven't played it yet, so I get the mechanics but don't have a feel for how they interact. Excited to get a chance to run a game though!)
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Jul 2, 2016 17:22
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homullus posted:I also suggested it on this page. I was imagining a small (e.g. maybe 5x5) grid, and the players position themselves. The "trap" (which might be an ambush, or a bar fight, or anything else where something is potentially coming at the party in a small space from multiple directions) either has a limited number of different options (e.g. it either needs to be X or T pattern), or it has a wider range of options, but they need to follow logically from each other (e.g. an I pattern can only become L or T). Chase on the other hand is basically a two player game, but it works because the RPS aspect enables discussion. Honestly I like the guessing/RPS aspects of Chase a lot more. It seems less easy to solve. Even if there's a "best" action, you never know what the GM is going to pick. We've gotten into a bit of a rut where in every Team Conflict we just stack on defense until we have enough scouting and advantages to have a solid chance of winning (usually only a round or two).
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Jul 2, 2016 20:20
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Jim and I have been talking about at-wills. Specifically, if players currently have enough of them. In D&D 4e you only get 2 at-will powers but you also have significantly more other powers between having Dailies and various utilities, even just during Heroic tier. A lot of Strike's design was deliberately done to streamline 4e-style combat which meant both making math easier and limiting options. That said, I've talked to some people who fall into that "like-but-don't-love Strike" category and a constant complaint I hear is that player turns are often quite samey and that you're at the mercy of the GM to provide you with interesting power-granting items or combat setpiece gimmicks to alleviate that. Particularly at low levels a player's turn will often be blowing an Encounter power and then hitting the same at-will for another 3-4 rounds. It also makes it difficult to justify taking some of the more esoteric at-will powers as you're then limiting yourself to using one in most situations. Most of the classes I've designed for the upcoming release have three at-will powers (usually one granted by default or a class feature + "pick two from a list"), and while most of the "PHB2" classes are more complex than the default ones, I'm starting to think that it might be a decent idea to just say that everyone gets three at-will powers. How do people here feel about that? The main things that need considered as far as I see it are: 1) PCs possibly seeming less unique, particularly for classes who have a limited pool of at-wills (coughNecromancercough). This could be alleviated by writing an additional at-will or two for these classes for the upcoming book, but it'd still mean that, especially at lower levels, a Duelist in one game will look more like a Duelist in any other game. I personally don't think this is a big issue since between Encounter powers, Feats, Roles, and the fact that you still have a few at-will choices anyway, but I'd like to hear what others think. 2) Analysis paralysis. Again, limited choices were a design goal to keep games running quickly and smoothly. Most at-will powers are quite simple so this may not be too bad but it's worth keeping in mind. 3) Strength of PCs. Obviously at-wills are balanced against each other and at a particular tier of power, but versatility is a strength too. Do you think players would be able to cover too many situations if they had more at-wills available? Would this make monster design annoying for GMs, having to worry that the next 4-6 powers spread among the party might cover too many weaknesses (not in an adversarial way, just "now the party has 2-3 sources of at-will Slow instead of just 1 so my monsters are less mobile"), or would it not really shake out that differently? 4) Classes with weird at-will rules. Would Martial Artists now get 4 stances? What about Summoners, who are their own unique thing? Does every Shapechanger form get a third at-will? And any other thoughts people have are welcome! If you're currently running/participating a game and are comfortable seeing how it goes, we'd appreciate letting your players have an extra at-will where applicable (so not Shapechangers obviously) just to see how things feel and telling us about it. Even theorycraft/tummyfeels are welcome though.
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Jul 7, 2016 20:24
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A stance based class would be interesting, maybe make it like the 4e slayer who barely has encounter stuff and is mostly based on at-will stances that change his mobility and stuff?
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Jul 7, 2016 20:28
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Countblanc posted:Jim and I have been talking about at-wills. My table has just been using lots of Improvised Attacks. Keeps things interesting, narrative, and versatile. TheLovablePlutonis posted:A stance based class would be interesting, maybe make it like the 4e slayer who barely has encounter stuff and is mostly based on at-will stances that change his mobility and stuff? Isn't this the Martial Artist?
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Jul 7, 2016 20:33
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Generic Octopus posted:My table has just been using lots of Improvised Attacks. Keeps things interesting, narrative, and versatile. That's certainly an option, though it falls pretty firmly in that "putting responsibility on the GM [and/or player]" rather than the designer, and also is obviously not necessarily balanced properly (not aimed at you in particular, but there's specific formulas/etc which go on behind the scenes which might not be obvious). Would you say that your fights wouldn't be tactically satisfying if people weren't using those, leaving aside any possible meta-boringness of people not describing their actions as much or what have you? Do you have any examples of what sort of powers they have been using?
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Jul 7, 2016 20:44
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Countblanc posted:Would this make monster design annoying for GMs, having to worry that the next 4-6 powers spread among the party might cover too many weaknesses (not in an adversarial way, just "now the party has 2-3 sources of at-will Slow instead of just 1 so my monsters are less mobile"), or would it not really shake out that differently? Personally, I would rather have 'stronger' PCs who have more options, and just design encounters around that. I'd rather have my PCs be more versatile, especially if it means their players are having more fun.
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Jul 7, 2016 20:45
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Countblanc posted:Jim and I have been talking about at-wills. You could add an at-will to the kits, maybe. They're already an optional subsystem, so Analysis Paralysis is only there if you let it be. It also spreads the powers out even more so that two players with the same class and role could play pretty differently.
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Jul 7, 2016 20:56
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homullus posted:You could add an at-will to the kits, maybe. They're already an optional subsystem, so Analysis Paralysis is only there if you let it be. It also spreads the powers out even more so that two players with the same class and role could play pretty differently. But then you'd get that problem where your noncombat options have a major effect on your combat options. Could you make it work? Maybe, but you'll probably end up with a situation where you never see Scholars as melee classes because their at-will's bad at that range, and that's a problem.
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Jul 7, 2016 21:03
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Generic Octopus posted:Isn't this the Martial Artist? I remember looking at a draft where the MA had a few encounter powers and was not that reliant on the stances
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Jul 7, 2016 21:04
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Lurks With Wolves posted:But then you'd get that problem where your noncombat options have a major effect on your combat options. Could you make it work? Maybe, but you'll probably end up with a situation where you never see Scholars as melee classes because their at-will's bad at that range, and that's a problem. I don't understand what you are saying here. If the Scholar's at-will is not melee range and it's a melee character, doesn't that give a melee character something better to do than the RBA?
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Jul 7, 2016 21:05
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homullus posted:I don't understand what you are saying here. If the Scholar's at-will is not melee range and it's a melee character, doesn't that give a melee character something better to do than the RBA? I think this is a bad idea in general, it's going to play havoc with the Summoner and Martial Artist balance in particular I imagine. MA taking a melee at-will, that would then also benefit from stances, would basically be mandatory. The combat and non combat sides of characters are currently almost two separate characters, which is really cool and one of the big points of the system I think.
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Jul 7, 2016 21:12
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Countblanc posted:That's certainly an option, though it falls pretty firmly in that "putting responsibility on the GM [and/or player]" rather than the designer, and also is obviously not necessarily balanced properly (not aimed at you in particular, but there's specific formulas/etc which go on behind the scenes which might not be obvious). Would you say that your fights wouldn't be tactically satisfying if people weren't using those, leaving aside any possible meta-boringness of people not describing their actions as much or what have you? Do you have any examples of what sort of powers they have been using? It think if you fleshed out a more solid framework for improvised actions it'd roughly equate to what you're attempting with broadening the power base. You already have effects broken down into tiers for monster building purposes; what we usually do is gauge the situation and quickly figure out what kind of effect the Improv would have, and depending on its strength, deduct from the damage. Examples off my head include trying to momentarily stun a guy (no damage), using a smiting prayer to attack something normally beyond reach (3 damage), and trying to knock a guy away from a wounded ally (2 damage, pushed 3 squares). If the improvised attack rules didn't exist, sure, things would get stale...but they do. And perhaps if they were fleshed out more, with more codified structure, you could achieve your goal of making sure everyone has access to this sort of combat versatility in the RAW without going back and reconsidering every class and its options. On analysis paralysis though, I have 2 people in my group who've massively enjoyed having a small niche set of abilities (class & role powers) and then just tagging the improv option when they want to do a thing that isn't written.
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Jul 7, 2016 21:15
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re: Kits (or some non-class system) as a source for at-wills, an issue there is that many of the new classes are designed with three at-wills in mind. This would mean giving those characters 4 with the "bonus" at-will. I sorta like the idea of secondary sources for powers like how you get Skill Powers in 4e, but I don't think it's necessarily the right fix for this particular problem.
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Jul 7, 2016 21:19
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The Gate posted:I think this is a bad idea in general, it's going to play havoc with the Summoner and Martial Artist balance in particular I imagine. MA taking a melee at-will, that would then also benefit from stances, would basically be mandatory. The combat and non combat sides of characters are currently almost two separate characters, which is really cool and one of the big points of the system I think. I am not going to spend any more e-ink on the suggestion than this post -- I don't love it that much -- but if there are imbalances that arise with the Martial Artist because the At-Will would benefit unduly from stances, the obvious way to address that is to say "it doesn't benefit from the Martial Artist's stances." Roles already give additional powers and flavor to classes without imbalancing them. The Boss kit has a feat that gives him an in-combat aura already. There is ample precedent for introducing new powers to existing characters without mass hysteria.
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Jul 7, 2016 21:20
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Countblanc posted:And any other thoughts people have are welcome! If you're currently running/participating a game and are comfortable seeing how it goes, we'd appreciate letting your players have an extra at-will where applicable (so not Shapechangers obviously) just to see how things feel and telling us about it. Even theorycraft/tummyfeels are welcome though. I ran the first about 4 levels of a double-classed game, where each player got powers from two different classes, though could benefit from the passive of only one class, and still only got one encounter power use at each level slot per fight, to be used for either their of their class' encounter powers. It worked pretty well, and I only had to make encounters slightly harder to compensate.
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Jul 7, 2016 21:21
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How about giving everyone access to slightly weaker attacks that inflict minor status effects? Something like "m/r5 d2, e: Choose one of the following effects: target is grabbed (escape ends), target is knocked prone/distracted/harried (until end of their turn), target is pushed/pulled 1, or target's square becomes difficult terrain. Special: this attack does no damage unless you roll a 6." Most of the time players would be able to come up with some cool narration and turn it into an Improvised Attack anyway, but having it as an official option helps remind players what's on the table, and having it be weaker than a Basic Attack keeps it from stepping on any toes. It also avoids the problem D&D had where doing anything interesting often meant forgoing damage completely, and being specialized just meant it was possible for you to do the cool thing reliably. On the encounter powers side, giving everyone access to something similar to the Magician's no-reuse powers might be something. Everybody picks a encounter power out of a big list of all-class powers and they get access to a new one at the end of combat, for instance. e: or what Generic Octopus said while I got distracted. Abyssal Squid fucked around with this message at 22:36 on Jul 7, 2016 |
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Jul 7, 2016 22:34
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