TG Chat Thread 2017

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Plutonis: Mar 25, 2011

fool_of_sound posted:

My middle school (11-12 yo) friends and I learned tabletop gaming on 3.5; we taught ourselves. I wouldn't call it a good system for kids, but people in TG often radically underestimate how much kids can understand, and overestimate how much they want to actually roleplay, rather than basically play a cooperative video game made by their friend.

3.5 was my second system when I was 13 too but for a toddler that's an incredibly lovely idea lol

# ? Sep 22, 2017 23:46

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# ? May 13, 2024 22:22

fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

Oh yeah don't try to actually teach a 5yo a system Jesus

# ? Sep 23, 2017 00:03

Yawgmoth: Sep 10, 2003; This post is cursed!

fool_of_sound posted:

My middle school (11-12 yo) friends and I learned tabletop gaming on 3.5; we taught ourselves. I wouldn't call it a good system for kids, but people in TG often radically underestimate how much kids can understand, and overestimate how much they want to actually roleplay, rather than basically play a cooperative video game made by their friend.

12 year olds and 5 year olds have vastly different capabilities re: everything, hth

edit:oh, there's a new page I see

# ? Sep 23, 2017 00:32

Kestral: Nov 24, 2000; Forum Veteran

Cicero, given the experience you've cited, you may find this article useful: "Journey to Justinia", or How I got my 5 y/o son to sit still and concentrate for almost 4 hours. Even if you don't use his game, the guy really gets how to teach a system to little kids and get them to engage in a structured fictional space.

Once your little guy is slightly older, I can heartily recommend The Princes' Kingdom.

fool_of_sound posted:

Oh yeah don't try to actually teach a 5yo a system Jesus

This. The attention span and cognitive tools are not there. Even with a bright and enthusiastic five year old, you're not looking for engagement with a roleplaying game the way you might get from adults or older kids. On the other hand...

fool_of_sound posted:

My middle school (11-12 yo) friends and I learned tabletop gaming on 3.5; we taught ourselves. I wouldn't call it a good system for kids, but people in TG often radically underestimate how much kids can understand, and overestimate how much they want to actually roleplay, rather than basically play a cooperative video game made by their friend.

... this is also true, in every particular. Kids that age are little sponges for mechanics, if they actually care. One of the kids in my 5e group has literally read the Terraria wiki from one end to the other multiple times, for fun, and will happily recite large portions of it to you from memory, but he frequently can't remember what dice his weapons use after over a year of play. Another one has essentially memorized the Player's Handbook and is starting on the DMG. I still maintain that neither 5e nor Pathfinder are actually good systems for kids (or adults), but they're certainly comprehensible and enjoyable if the engagement is there.

The "cooperative video game made by their friend" part is also worth noting. My kids quickly realized that RPGs were an opportunity to essentially play their favorite League of Legends / anime characters with the serial numbers filed off and do Cool Hero poo poo (and later, as they got a bit braver and more comfortable, Spooky Grimdark poo poo) with their friends. The roleplaying that occurs is secondary, an emergent property of making decisions in play rather than something to strive for. It's a game style you couldn't pay me to play with adults, but with tweens and young teens it's hilarious and kind of adorable.

# ? Sep 23, 2017 00:33

Blockhouse: Sep 7, 2014; You Win!

The mechanics sponge thing is absolutely true. Little yen year old Blockhouse totally accepted THAC0 as a totally reasonable thing that made sense and it wasn't till 3e came out that I realized "Oh, THAC0 is stupid."

You also have to be open to letting your kid players just do poo poo if they want to. My GM/dad let my dwarf fighter cause a loving Hulk-style landslide with his hammer, my only reasoning being "Well I have 18/00 strength so I'm the strongest". Saying no is, to a point, a good way to put a kid off at first. Give them some time before you start introducing "reality" into things.

# ? Sep 23, 2017 00:39

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

Arivia posted:

There's a third-party publisher that does kid-appropriate Pathfinder adventures. It's good to get them started with the usual that way they know what's up with gaming.

There's a child-friendly Phoenix Command module that updates the gun tables to account for nerf ammunition and guns, and modifies the wound tables to boo-boos and scrapes.

# ? Sep 23, 2017 01:37

Nuns with Guns: Jul 23, 2010; It's fine.
Don't worry about it.

Countblanc posted:

nooooooo

Do you think kids would bounce hard off of the setting, or is someone involved actually a child molester or something?

Nuns with Guns fucked around with this message at 02:28 on Sep 23, 2017

# ? Sep 23, 2017 01:38

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

gradenko_2000 posted:

There's a child-friendly Phoenix Command module that updates the gun tables to account for nerf ammunition and guns, and modifies the wound tables to boo-boos and scrapes.

Someone finally gets the joke. Don't play Pathfinder with your five year old, come the gently caress on. (I'd play that Phoenix Command module though.)

# ? Sep 23, 2017 01:42

Kestral: Nov 24, 2000; Forum Veteran

Blockhouse posted:

The mechanics sponge thing is absolutely true. Little yen year old Blockhouse totally accepted THAC0 as a totally reasonable thing that made sense and it wasn't till 3e came out that I realized "Oh, THAC0 is stupid."

This is actually one of the reasons why I don't like using D&D or its variants to introduce kids to RPGs. Their GM is their teacher (and quite possibly also a parent or older sibling or what-have-you), an authority figure they've been conditioned to absorb information from without questioning it too much. When the first RPG system they learn connects so readily to concepts in Every Other Game They Play - hit points, class names, archetype roles, etc. - it's very easy for them to go "Oh, yes, of course, this is how roleplaying games are supposed to work, I can see the connections." They absorb not just the rules, but the implied settings and arrangements of concepts, and you can watch their horizons narrow in real time. The same thing happens with adults who didn't grow up nerdy / as gamers, but with kids it's much faster, in part because imposing their understanding of "the way it's supposed to be" on other kids who aren't conforming as closely is something they intuitively understand as a way toward social power, and demonstrating conformity is a path toward social acceptance. When you're playing with tweens and teens, those things become even more charged than with adults.

quote:

You also have to be open to letting your kid players just do poo poo if they want to. My GM/dad let my dwarf fighter cause a loving Hulk-style landslide with his hammer, my only reasoning being "Well I have 18/00 strength so I'm the strongest". Saying no is, to a point, a good way to put a kid off at first. Give them some time before you start introducing "reality" into things.

Oh my god yes, give them the opportunity to do their crazy poo poo. And boy will there be some crazy poo poo, and to your cynical, internet-hardened soul it will look ridiculous and imbalanced and whatever else. Let them do it, or some compromise based on it. Their buy-in will skyrocket.

Here's a non-obvious thing about roleplaying: the concept of "tone" is actually a fairly advanced thing that is difficult to articulate. Kids may understand it on some some level, but they simply have not had enough media exposure or life experience to be able to consciously maintain a tone other than "whatever they feel like at that moment." With a group of adults, you can have a conversation at the beginning of a campaign that sets an agreed-upon tone like, "The Witcher, but with less / more sex" and everyone who's playing in good faith will attempt to adhere to that and draw play back toward that tone when digressions happen. But that requires a surprisingly advanced set of tools to do, and most kids don't have them well-developed yet. As a result, when you're playing in a game with children, your ability to set or regulate the tone is very limited. Recognizing where to actually enforce tone with kids is tricky, and has a lot of overlap with the use of RPGs as tools for teaching social skills.

All of which is to say, sometimes your kids' plan for getting into the quarantined city is "illusion the party into five copies of the same distraught peasant woman and have them walk up to the increasingly puzzled guards with five related yet increasingly implausible sob stories, which they will somehow back up with amazing rolls and banked 20s from Divination," and you're just gonna have to roll with it.

# ? Sep 23, 2017 01:57

Tuxedo Catfish: Mar 17, 2007; You've got guts! Come to my village, I'll buy you lunch.

How quickly does combat resolve in Fragged Empire? A friend is picking out systems to run, and one of their potential players has a disability that makes playing for long periods of time difficult. I don't want to advocate for a system that results in, like, pre-MM3 4E quagmires or something (but it's also something I can't really judge without playing it.)

# ? Sep 23, 2017 02:37

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

Kestral posted:

Oh my god yes, give them the opportunity to do their crazy poo poo. And boy will there be some crazy poo poo, and to your cynical, internet-hardened soul it will look ridiculous and imbalanced and whatever else. Let them do it, or some compromise based on it. Their buy-in will skyrocket.

Here's a non-obvious thing about roleplaying: the concept of "tone" is actually a fairly advanced thing that is difficult to articulate. Kids may understand it on some some level, but they simply have not had enough media exposure or life experience to be able to consciously maintain a tone other than "whatever they feel like at that moment." With a group of adults, you can have a conversation at the beginning of a campaign that sets an agreed-upon tone like, "The Witcher, but with less / more sex" and everyone who's playing in good faith will attempt to adhere to that and draw play back toward that tone when digressions happen. But that requires a surprisingly advanced set of tools to do, and most kids don't have them well-developed yet. As a result, when you're playing in a game with children, your ability to set or regulate the tone is very limited. Recognizing where to actually enforce tone with kids is tricky, and has a lot of overlap with the use of RPGs as tools for teaching social skills.

All of which is to say, sometimes your kids' plan for getting into the quarantined city is "illusion the party into five copies of the same distraught peasant woman and have them walk up to the increasingly puzzled guards with five related yet increasingly implausible sob stories, which they will somehow back up with amazing rolls and banked 20s from Divination," and you're just gonna have to roll with it.

Yeah, there's something of a balancing act. You don't want to squelch creativity. But role-playing games are a collaborative group activity, so it's valuable to teach them about shared make-believe and cooperation. Kids are used to just imagining their own stuff; they aren't used to sharing that imagination space with other people and a friendly referee.

I ran No Thank You Evil for a bunch of kids a few weeks back. It was awesome. But you need to have a solution if one kid decides they want to go off and find concrete to build a car ramp, while everyone else wants to engage with the quest to find the queen bee's best friend.

# ? Sep 23, 2017 05:17

Lightning Lord: Feb 21, 2013; $200 a day, plus expenses

Cicero posted:

I have a 5 year old son (6 in October) that I think would get a kick out of the role-playing in tabletop RPGs. But I have zero experience with tabletop RPGs (although I have tons of experience with video games, and a fair amount with modern board games). Is there an RPG that would work well for a family like this (my kid, me, my wife)?

The Prince Valiant RPG is a good choice. It uses a coin-based resolution mechanic. I'm sure most 5 year olds would find the subject matter boring, but you can easily use it for something else.

# ? Sep 23, 2017 06:40

Kestral: Nov 24, 2000; Forum Veteran

dwarf74 posted:

I ran No Thank You Evil for a bunch of kids a few weeks back. It was awesome. But you need to have a solution if one kid decides they want to go off and find concrete to build a car ramp, while everyone else wants to engage with the quest to find the queen bee's best friend.

With that particular situation and ones like it, that's a great opportunity to demonstrate that RPGs are in fact games with rules, and some of those rules are about how the players are supposed to act, not just the characters. In this way, you can sneakily introduce the idea of premise to kids who can't yet do long division.

I'm curious though, how'd you resolve that?

# ? Sep 23, 2017 06:50

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

Kestral posted:

With that particular situation and ones like it, that's a great opportunity to demonstrate that RPGs are in fact games with rules, and some of those rules are about how the players are supposed to act, not just the characters. In this way, you can sneakily introduce the idea of premise to kids who can't yet do long division.

I'm curious though, how'd you resolve that?

I used timing tricks that would never work with grown-ups.

He quickly found some concrete, and then when he made some rolls later I flavored it as awesome car jumps. That happened to bring him back in the direction of the rest of the party.

It was a great time, but these four kids exhausted me more in an hour than my normal group does in 3-1/2.

# ? Sep 23, 2017 07:05

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

There's also the Horse Magica fan conversion that ports Ars Magica over to My Little Pony to make it more appealing to kids.

# ? Sep 23, 2017 07:10

Blockhouse: Sep 7, 2014; You Win!

gradenko_2000 posted:

There's also the Horse Magica fan conversion that ports Ars Magica over to My Little Pony to make it more appealing to kids.

Man, I want to believe that's for kids but you know it's not.

# ? Sep 23, 2017 07:48

Plutonis: Mar 25, 2011

gradenko_2000 posted:

There's also the Horse Magica fan conversion that ports Ars Magica over to My Little Pony to make it more appealing to kids.

Weak troll.

# ? Sep 23, 2017 11:57

LongDarkNight: Oct 25, 2010; It's like watching the collapse of Western civilization in fast forward.; Oven Wrangler

Game recognizes game or lack thereof.

# ? Sep 23, 2017 13:09

Blockhouse: Sep 7, 2014; You Win!

Thinking of running something quick and fun for a session every week next month. I did this like almost ten years ago with an All Flesh Must Be Eaten game where a small northeastern town's Halloween festival awakening an ancient zombie curse, but I'm not sure if I want to do something that silly this year or like Delta Green or something.

# ? Sep 23, 2017 13:26

hyphz: Aug 5, 2003; Number 1 Nerd Tear Farmer 2022.

Keep it up, champ.

Also you're a skeleton warrior now. Kree.; Unlockable Ben

There is a legit kids MLP game, isn't there?

Although based on doing crazy poo poo maybe have them play Mythender where they can do the craziest poo poo and throw buckets of d6s. You might want to be on hand to help them count though..

# ? Sep 23, 2017 14:01

Plutonis: Mar 25, 2011

LongDarkNight posted:

Game recognizes game or lack thereof.

STFU little bitch.

# ? Sep 23, 2017 14:11

PoontifexMacksimus: Feb 14, 2012

So I was reading Luke Crane's Burning Wheel for the first time, and it seemed pretty reasonable, if unremarkable. Then I reached the combat action scripting chapter and holy poo poo. Has anyone actually run this rules as written?

For anyone who doesn't know, you're supposed to script out each combat turn in advance, but you don't just pick a thing to do. Depending on your action economy stat you can have up to 9 actions per turn, and everything you do takes a different number of actions. To shoot an arrow you spend 3 actions to nock an arrow, 2 actions to draw the bow and 1 action to release the arrow. Reloading a crossbow takes 16 actions (32 for a heavy crossbow!). "Speech: Only two syllables may be spoken per action."

# ? Sep 23, 2017 16:45

Yawgmoth: Sep 10, 2003; This post is cursed!

anti_strunt posted:

"Speech: Only two syllables may be spoken per action."

This alone makes me laugh so hard because I remember playing with a rule like that in very early 3.0 D&D; you could only speak 6 words as a free action, any more and it was progressively a move, standard, or full-round action. So what ended up happening was spending ten loving minutes to laboriously plan out which six words you were going to say whenever anything needed to be said in combat. It also meant that combat was dry as gently caress because no one was allowed to make any witty retorts in-character,including the BBEG. I think our DM got the hint after the second time we got to yell out "aha! he said seven words, he loses a move action!! :haw:

# ? Sep 23, 2017 17:21

PoontifexMacksimus: Feb 14, 2012

hyphz posted:

There is a legit kids MLP game, isn't there?

Although based on doing crazy poo poo maybe have them play Mythender where they can do the craziest poo poo and throw buckets of d6s. You might want to be on hand to help them count though..

Here's one at least:
http://projects.inklesspen.com/fatal-and-friends/punting/my-little-pony-roleplaying-is-magic/

# ? Sep 23, 2017 18:03

Kestral: Nov 24, 2000; Forum Veteran

anti_strunt posted:

So I was reading Luke Crane's Burning Wheel for the first time, and it seemed pretty reasonable, if unremarkable. Then I reached the combat action scripting chapter and holy poo poo. Has anyone actually run this rules as written?

Yep, many, many times. It is far and away the crunchiest, most player-skill-reliant part of the game, while my group loves it, it is emphatically not for everyone, and not even something you want to bring out every time someone draws a sword. Fight!, Duel of Wits, and Range & Cover should be deployed only when the stakes really matter, which is usually determined by whether the action is tied directly into a Belief. It's also best for one-on-one duels or duos, where the "mind-games" aspect of the scripting system can really come into play.

Don't use Fight! for taking on a couple of guards, because it is Way Too Much - use a versus test or Bloody Versus for that. Use Fight! to take on the old knight who once trained you and now stands in your way at the foot of the throne, who knows you're coming because you swore to his face that you would cut out the Duke-Regent's heart yourself for what he did to the Queen-Dowager.

quote:

For anyone who doesn't know, you're supposed to script out each combat turn in advance, but you don't just pick a thing to do. Depending on your action economy stat you can have up to 9 actions per turn, and everything you do takes a different number of actions. To shoot an arrow you spend 3 actions to nock an arrow, 2 actions to draw the bow and 1 action to release the arrow. Reloading a crossbow takes 16 actions (32 for a heavy crossbow!). "Speech: Only two syllables may be spoken per action."

There's a few things to note about Fight and the things you've focused on specifically (ranged weapons). Fight is incredibly deadly, and ranged weapons in BW are easily capable of dropping someone in one hit, especially crossbows, so lengthy load-and-shoot times are a balancing mechanism to prevent archers from mowing down the entire enemy team. But it's also a way of enforcing the kind of fiction BW wants to create, in which the final dramatic confrontation between old foes gets resolved by the clash of sword on sword "you killed my father, prepare to die" style, rather than one guy sprouting an arrow in the head and dying on round one.

The syllables thing seems goofy, but it's there for a reason: you can make social actions in Fight just like you can anywhere else, and they are potentially more powerful than arrows if you can hit the Obstacle. Also, at least one ungodly powerful sorcery spell (essentially the Dominate Person of Burning Wheel) and all Faith magic require incantations created by the player, and these are likewise capable of instantly ending a fight if they go off, so you end up having to protect the mage while they recite their words of power or what-have-you.

# ? Sep 23, 2017 18:28

SirPhoebos: Dec 10, 2007; WELL THAT JUST HAPPENED!

I got a 60 Amazon Gift Card as a parting gift from my old job. What's a good rpg I can buy with that?

# ? Sep 23, 2017 20:21

drrockso20: May 6, 2013; Has Not Actually Done Cocaine

SirPhoebos posted:

I got a 60 Amazon Gift Card as a parting gift from my old job. What's a good rpg I can buy with that?

Dungeon Crawl Classics is a good one, although you might have to spend a little extra to get the necessary dice

# ? Sep 23, 2017 20:36

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone! Looks like I have a bunch of systems to read about before my next trip to the states.

# ? Sep 23, 2017 20:57

Josef bugman: Nov 17, 2011; Pictured: Poster prepares to celebrate Holy Communion (probablY)

This avatar made possible by a gift from the Religionthread Posters Relief Fund

Heya everyone, I had a quick thing to ask.

See I set up a game with my friends from work of Heroquest. We set up an Orlanthi Clan in Dragon Pass just after the resettlement, eveything is a bit up for grabs and loads of people are playing along and everyone is having a good time.

Only problem is that the characters are very diverse and I don't know how to include all of them in 1) A singular party, 2) A coheseive narrative.

I don't mind giving people individual moments to shine (for obvious reasons) but wanted to ask what you guys think would be good story ideas for some of the characters.

They are as follows:

Vigilant Herder
Vengeful Priestess of Issaries
Charismatic Weaver
Eccentric Guide/hunter
Empathetic/seductive juggler
Creative Redsmith
Decietful (probably due to change) Mercenary
Misanthropic Skinner

I thought a good first adventure would be suffering some sort of set back in the Springtime fertility rites and needing people to go into the wilderness and find the [macguffin] that is causing the problems out there. That means that the Herder, Priestess, guide and merc are accounted for, but the others are a bit difficult to include. I also wanted to ask how to include cool things for people who build/make stuff to be put into storylines other than "competition about [skill]" and "Make [item] to help the tribe fight [thing]"

# ? Sep 23, 2017 21:18

PoontifexMacksimus: Feb 14, 2012

Kestral posted:

Yep, many, many times. It is far and away the crunchiest, most player-skill-reliant part of the game, while my group loves it, it is emphatically not for everyone, and not even something you want to bring out every time someone draws a sword. Fight!, Duel of Wits, and Range & Cover should be deployed only when the stakes really matter, which is usually determined by whether the action is tied directly into a Belief. It's also best for one-on-one duels or duos, where the "mind-games" aspect of the scripting system can really come into play.

Don't use Fight! for taking on a couple of guards, because it is Way Too Much - use a versus test or Bloody Versus for that. Use Fight! to take on the old knight who once trained you and now stands in your way at the foot of the throne, who knows you're coming because you swore to his face that you would cut out the Duke-Regent's heart yourself for what he did to the Queen-Dowager.

There's a few things to note about Fight and the things you've focused on specifically (ranged weapons). Fight is incredibly deadly, and ranged weapons in BW are easily capable of dropping someone in one hit, especially crossbows, so lengthy load-and-shoot times are a balancing mechanism to prevent archers from mowing down the entire enemy team. But it's also a way of enforcing the kind of fiction BW wants to create, in which the final dramatic confrontation between old foes gets resolved by the clash of sword on sword "you killed my father, prepare to die" style, rather than one guy sprouting an arrow in the head and dying on round one.

The syllables thing seems goofy, but it's there for a reason: you can make social actions in Fight just like you can anywhere else, and they are potentially more powerful than arrows if you can hit the Obstacle. Also, at least one ungodly powerful sorcery spell (essentially the Dominate Person of Burning Wheel) and all Faith magic require incantations created by the player, and these are likewise capable of instantly ending a fight if they go off, so you end up having to protect the mage while they recite their words of power or what-have-you.

Well, it's not like I've played the game, so maybe it works well as a crunchy combat game in practice, but at first glance it was very overwhelming, especially compared to the very straightforward mechanics up to that point. Having to script your speech across multiple action tics syllable by syllable certainly feels like the kind of crazy you would expect in an 80's heartbreaker and "Incant Spell" is a different action from regular Speech as far as I can see, so they wouldn't have to operate by the same rules. But I'll certainly keep reading and try to run a few test combats with a group.

# ? Sep 23, 2017 21:26

Falstaff: Apr 27, 2008; I have a kind of alacrity in sinking.

When you're tackling Burning Wheel for the first time, you don't really want to try to tackle all the subsystems at once; generally, you want to try one new subsystem per session. Duel of Wits is the simplest, followed by Range and Cover, and then finally Fight! which, as mentioned, is far and away the most complex. I also happen to find it the most satisfying (plus it's great for racking up tests.)

Until you've got a handle on the other subsystems, it's better to use Bloody Versus or even just straight up versus tests to deal with any combat that crops up in the game.

# ? Sep 23, 2017 22:05

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

SirPhoebos posted:

I got a 60 Amazon Gift Card as a parting gift from my old job. What's a good rpg I can buy with that?

Fragged Empire if you want cool sci-fi and tactical combat.

Blades in the Dark if you want cool thieves and $20 left over.

# ? Sep 23, 2017 23:47

Ewen Cluney: May 8, 2012; Ask me about
Japanese elfgames!

hyphz posted:

There is a legit kids MLP game, isn't there?

That would be Tails of Equestria. It uses a very simple die step system with Friendship Points you can spend to boost rolls and whatnot. You could probably do better for an RPG for kids, but you could definitely do a lot worse.

# ? Sep 24, 2017 00:50

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

Completely serious: there is also the Ponyfinder series of Pathfinder third party supplements

# ? Sep 24, 2017 00:52

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

gradenko_2000 posted:

Completely serious: there is also the Ponyfinder series of Pathfinder third party supplements

I think there is actually a crossover module with those kids' adventures I mentioned before.

# ? Sep 24, 2017 00:54

TheSoundNinja: May 18, 2012

February Contest Judging Update: Only two games left, and I've posted all of the judging sessions so far in the thread. That means in three weeks, we'll finally have our winners!

# ? Sep 24, 2017 01:45

Plutonis: Mar 25, 2011

*counts with fingers* Wait a second here

# ? Sep 24, 2017 02:09

Kestral: Nov 24, 2000; Forum Veteran

Falstaff posted:

When you're tackling Burning Wheel for the first time, you don't really want to try to tackle all the subsystems at once; generally, you want to try one new subsystem per session. Duel of Wits is the simplest, followed by Range and Cover, and then finally Fight! which, as mentioned, is far and away the most complex. I also happen to find it the most satisfying (plus it's great for racking up tests.)

Until you've got a handle on the other subsystems, it's better to use Bloody Versus or even just straight up versus tests to deal with any combat that crops up in the game.

^^ This a thousand times. Burning Wheel is a system that runs quite well and is actually pretty straightforward as you mentioned, anti_strunt, but it takes a lot of actual play to master. The author recommends using only the "Hub of the Wheel" section to start, and I've seen full campaigns run on not much more than that.

Fight is easily the most complex thing BW will throw at you rules-wise, though, so you can take your time getting used to it. Those test combats are a good idea, too.

# ? Sep 24, 2017 02:20

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

anti_strunt posted:

Well, it's not like I've played the game, so maybe it works well as a crunchy combat game in practice, but at first glance it was very overwhelming, especially compared to the very straightforward mechanics up to that point. Having to script your speech across multiple action tics syllable by syllable certainly feels like the kind of crazy you would expect in an 80's heartbreaker and "Incant Spell" is a different action from regular Speech as far as I can see, so they wouldn't have to operate by the same rules. But I'll certainly keep reading and try to run a few test combats with a group.

A few things:

Nobody has 9 actions per round. You will have 3 or 4 unless you are playing an elf combat monster in which case you'll have 5.

If you have a bow in combat and a dude with a sword is engaged with you, you will not get a shot off before getting hit. So yeah, while you are nocking and drawing, he is beating your rear end. If you have a bow in combat and people are leaving you alone, you'll have the chance to wreck one enemy every round or round-and-a-half or so.

Here is how my first BW combat went.

- orc badguy scripts: agressive stance, intimidate, strike.
- dwarf scripts great strike, then some other stuff I don't remember because we didn't get that far.
- orc is one success short of succeeding on intimidate and having free actions to wreck that Dwarf's poo poo.
-so instead, the dwarf smashes him in the face and takes him out in one hit

It's fast and fun and not nearly as hard as it looks.

# ? Sep 24, 2017 02:23

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# ? May 13, 2024 22:22

Kibner: Oct 21, 2008; Acguy Supremacy

Josef bugman posted:

Heya everyone, I had a quick thing to ask.

See I set up a game with my friends from work of Heroquest. We set up an Orlanthi Clan in Dragon Pass just after the resettlement, eveything is a bit up for grabs and loads of people are playing along and everyone is having a good time.

Only problem is that the characters are very diverse and I don't know how to include all of them in 1) A singular party, 2) A coheseive narrative.

I don't mind giving people individual moments to shine (for obvious reasons) but wanted to ask what you guys think would be good story ideas for some of the characters.

They are as follows:

Vigilant Herder
Vengeful Priestess of Issaries
Charismatic Weaver
Eccentric Guide/hunter
Empathetic/seductive juggler
Creative Redsmith
Decietful (probably due to change) Mercenary
Misanthropic Skinner

I thought a good first adventure would be suffering some sort of set back in the Springtime fertility rites and needing people to go into the wilderness and find the [macguffin] that is causing the problems out there. That means that the Herder, Priestess, guide and merc are accounted for, but the others are a bit difficult to include. I also wanted to ask how to include cool things for people who build/make stuff to be put into storylines other than "competition about [skill]" and "Make [item] to help the tribe fight [thing]"

You might want to rely on relationships between characters to get them to help their friends that have a more straightforward reason to go. The players did think of reasons why their characters would be willing to work together, right?

# ? Sep 24, 2017 04:48

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > TG Chat Thread 2017

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