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Pollyanna posted:Ask the fighter what kind of move they do to attack the enemy, describe the move and the effect it has on the enemy, then the enemy’s reaction and fallout from the move Blowing smoke up someone's rear end doesn't stop them from noticing when a game significantly favors someone else's decisions over theirs. Like it's not even remotely controversial that in 3E D&D Fighters were basically vestigial because anything they could do a Cleric or Druid could do better no matter how lovingly you described the blood spray whenever the Fighter did 5 hitpoints of damage to an orc and meanwhile the Druid summons a bear that hits harder and has more HP than the Fighter and things only get worse from there.
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Aug 7, 2018 14:36
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Make them feel as cool and badass as the wizard. Also 10 spells in a turn da fuk???????
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Ghost Leviathan posted:If you want to go for cyberpunk fantasy setting then mix it up while you're there. I suggest a fantasy setting that developed into cyberpunk rather than the 'real life but suddenly elves' thing. My initial thoughts were "Cabal of Wizards or whatever sealed up the magic in the world for the good of all after some great war or something and climate change or whatever broke that seal, letting all the magic and stuff back into the world" but again, I am flying by the seat of my pants here so anything goes. I will note, setting it in the real world has the benefit of my not needing to create a bunch of culturally insensitive rippoff cultures. Also, magic will not be tied to any sort of real world cultural magic system for similar reasons. Also it allows me to get away with not writing a grand history of the world beyond how we got from the here and now to the there and then. There is merit in your approach however for the sheer sake of changing it up. I do love me some Phantasy Star.
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Aug 7, 2018 14:43
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JRPG magitek settings are cool
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Aug 7, 2018 14:45
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Plutonis posted:JRPG magitek settings are cool Right! They took the best stuff from early D&D. Screw the magical middle ages if there aren't going to be ray guns and space ships!
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Aug 7, 2018 14:50
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Pollyanna posted:Ask the fighter what kind of move they do to attack the enemy, describe the move and the effect it has on the enemy, then the enemy’s reaction and fallout from the move I mean you COULD give the Fighters new abilities so that they are (or they feel) badass, but this goes back to the issue of "what did I pay the developers for" if you have to apply so much elbow grease to the game compared to just running it out of the box.
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Aug 7, 2018 14:55
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Lupercalcalcal posted:A good example of the kind of thing I really think the author of those tweets should try because she dismisses everything rules lighter than D&D as not for her. I don’t know, reading those tweets resonated a lot with me. We know PbtA is based on the conversation. So what if someone in your group dominates all the conversations? (I also found S&Vs examples much clearer than BitDs. But they both really do need to clarify what happens if a roll in a flashback fails.)
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Aug 7, 2018 14:58
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hyphz posted:I don’t know, reading those tweets resonated a lot with me. We know PbtA is based on the conversation. So what if someone in your group dominates all the conversations? gradenko_2000 posted:To be fair, there is A Thing with PBTA where the game tells you to "follow the fiction", rather than setting up a more prescriptive set of rules that will mechanically create these scenarios for you. in a similar vein, PBTA simply tells the GM that they need to make sure everyone gets screen time, and trusts them to do it, as opposed to a more prescriptive set of rules (such as a direct initiative order) that will force screen to be distributed across the players. And, to be clear, I did say that I thought PBTA captured the essence of the "tight, focused class design" that I was talking about, but in the context of that tweet's desire for rigid rules to prevent players from upending narratives, you do want "crunchy" games like the aforementioned D&D 3e.
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Aug 7, 2018 15:04
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remusclaw posted:My initial thoughts were "Cabal of Wizards or whatever sealed up the magic in the world for the good of all after some great war or something and climate change or whatever broke that seal, letting all the magic and stuff back into the world" but again, I am flying by the seat of my pants here so anything goes. Splicer fucked around with this message at 15:09 on Aug 7, 2018 |
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Aug 7, 2018 15:04
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I wish more D&D products proceeded from its origins as a weird stew of fantasy, weird fiction, planetary romance, and early post-apocalypse fiction. Even the OSR has too little Vance and Moorcock and way too much Cthulhu death metal zombie titties. As a consequence I'm more inspired by early JRPGs for the Famicom/NES and Master System.
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Aug 7, 2018 15:09
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Splicer posted:Did you ever read the magic goes away? I've been sitting on a campaign idea that there's a few big magic wasters scattered around the globe sucking up all the magic, with <something> causing one or more of them to fail and cause a massive hole in the unmagic coverage. I was going to have the <something> be player action, but a drowned world catastrophe combined with the north magic sucker falling off its melting glacier would be a hell of a setting hook. I didn't but it is now going in my list. There are a lot of really cool ways a setting could go based on whether I kept it in the real world or made up my own. I have to admit, the latter sounds good just for how crazy you can go with the aesthetic of a less tied to reality world, but the former has a lot going for it, not the least of which is that it is a relate-able setting. I love me some alien world building, but the crazier it gets, the harder it gets to draw people in.
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Aug 7, 2018 15:10
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hyphz posted:I don’t know, reading those tweets resonated a lot with me. We know PbtA is based on the conversation. So what if someone in your group dominates all the conversations? I've never played Apocalypse World so I don't know how well that works in practice. But I'm one of those shy players the twitter thread mentions and honestly, AW's well-defined gameplay loop sounds much more easy to approach than any number of "do whatever you want be awesome =)" rules-light games. Edit: But honestly, right now? I could go for some AD&D dungeon-crawling where I don't have to verbally interact with a single NPC.
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Aug 7, 2018 15:20
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One other thing I notice as odd in this context is that RPGers seem to find trying new games a lot more effort than other gamers. Most board game groups I’ve seen think nothing of trying a new game every week, even if it means a rules explanation and board setup time. Yet RPGers seem to refuse to even consider this even if the setup time is shorter and the rules simpler.
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Aug 7, 2018 15:34
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remusclaw posted:Right! They took the best stuff from early D&D. Screw the magical middle ages if there aren't going to be ray guns and space ships! This is actually one of the advantages of Golarion IMO, there's that area that's got Barbarians and Aliens. I'd also love to run a game that starts in Athas and has players get to a point where they are able to restore a Spelljammer and defile their way off planet. hyphz posted:I don’t know, reading those tweets resonated a lot with me. We know PbtA is based on the conversation. So what if someone in your group dominates all the conversations? As someone who is regularly this guy, I do prefer a more ordered turn structure or more clear limitations on my character specifically for this reason.
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Aug 7, 2018 15:55
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hyphz posted:We know PbtA is based on the conversation. So what if someone in your group dominates all the conversations? It is explicitly the MC's job in PbtA to regulate when players get their turn to talk by singling out players and going "what do you do?"
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Aug 7, 2018 16:01
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I just like more structured/crunchy systems in generals. More fate/pbta style stuff is fine but they are rarely my first choice.
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Aug 7, 2018 16:03
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Lemon-Lime posted:It is explicitly the MC's job in PbtA to regulate when players get their turn to talk by singling out players and going "what do you do?" a) that’s an excellent way to get a deer in the headlights, which then cements the dominant player’s position; b) it doesn’t address other aspects, like the expectation of the players correcting mistakes in partial success costs.
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Aug 7, 2018 16:26
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hyphz posted:a) that’s an excellent way to get a deer in the headlights, which then cements the dominant player’s position; its not hard to gently encourage people to engage more, start off with prompting them or suggesting things and that gets the ball rolling. b is gibberish
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Aug 7, 2018 16:30
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Serf posted:its not hard to gently encourage people to engage more, start off with prompting them or suggesting things and that gets the ball rolling. That’s not what they said, though, and it brings its own awkwardness as the player becomes conscious that the table momentum slows down on their turn. quote:b is gibberish There is an example in AW where it states that a player may disagree with or want to clarify the interpretation of a “success with a cost” result on a roll. This is important because it allows the context and intent of the action to be allowed for in the cost. But it also skews a core game mechanic in the direction of players who are more dominant, especially if they are dominant over the MC.
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Aug 7, 2018 16:36
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hyphz posted:That’s not what they said, though, and it brings its own awkwardness as the player becomes conscious that the table momentum slows down on their turn. i'm not talking about what they said, i'm talking about what you said. if the player starts to feel like they're slowing things down that's okay and i'll tell them that. we're all adults here and we can wait a minute so that everyone gets their turn. pretty basic poo poo i don't really go in for this weird hierarchy you seem to think exists. i, as the gm, will always listen to the players, and if we can't agree on something i throw it to the table. starts off slow at first but after a few sessions people seem to get the hang of it.
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Aug 7, 2018 16:40
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Ghost Leviathan posted:It seems like a long way of saying 'Some people are more confident in the dice-rolling part of the game than the improv part of the game, and roleplay-focused systems can be intimidating and aren't for everybody'. I've been arguing this since coming to SA.
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Aug 7, 2018 16:47
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hyphz posted:One other thing I notice as odd in this context is that RPGers seem to find trying new games a lot more effort than other gamers. RPG are a bigger commitment. You play a board game for 45 minutes or a few hours and then you're done with it. RPGs you could play for months, and while one-shots are a thing they're not really the standard. You build fictional characters that you're invested in, both narratively and mechanically, often looking ahead to future events or future powers. Now, personally, I haven't run the same game twice since I started GMing again a few years ago. I like trying new systems. But at the same time I've had two games fall apart because at least one player wasn't having fun with the system once they got used to it (one of my players for Strike!, and myself for Blades in the Dark) and my most dedicated long-term player has talked about wanting to find one or two systems to focus on going forward.
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Aug 7, 2018 16:48
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I would kill for a group that’s up for a long term campaign and doesn’t flake out a bunch.
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Aug 7, 2018 16:50
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Halloween Jack posted:way too much Cthulhu death metal zombie titties.
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Aug 7, 2018 16:52
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hyphz has admitted his group has a history of being weird and toxic and probably should come around to the idea that his experience is warped from that
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Aug 7, 2018 16:53
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fool_of_sound posted:hyphz has admitted his group has a history of being weird and toxic and probably should come around to the idea that his experience is warped from that This is correct but I think there are plenty of times where spotlighting a player doesn't work for a group.
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Aug 7, 2018 16:56
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fool_of_sound posted:hyphz has admitted his group has a history of being weird and toxic and probably should come around to the idea that his experience is warped from that That is true to some extent. But there is also a responsibility in game design to accommodate a less than perfect group. I mean, how many RPGs have the “this game has rules so that you don’t get into arguments like kids playing let’s pretend do” statement at the beginning? They forget that carries the implication that if your group is already too mature or integrated to get into such arguments, they don’t need any rules.
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Aug 7, 2018 16:57
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hyphz posted:I mean, how many RPGs have the “this game has rules so that you don’t get into arguments like kids playing let’s pretend do” statement at the beginning? They forget that carries the implication that if your group is already too mature or integrated to get into such arguments, they don’t need any rule. My group is perfectly mature but that doesn't mean we don't need or want rules.
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Aug 7, 2018 16:59
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hyphz posted:That is true to some extent. But there is also a responsibility in game design to accommodate a less than perfect group. there are no perfect groups. we're all just doing our best and hopefully improving you seem to live inside a cat-piss story. did you happen to solve any weird puzzle boxes as a kid? did a pale man with nails jammed into his head appear to you?
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Aug 7, 2018 16:59
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Andrast posted:My group is perfectly mature and has gamed for years but that doesn't mean we don't need or want rules My group has taken control of the means of gaming to the degree that the GM and the rulebooks have withered away. fool_of_sound posted:hyphz has a history of being weird and toxic and is warped fixed
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Aug 7, 2018 17:02
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some loving LIAR posted:fixed This is unwarranted
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Aug 7, 2018 17:04
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Plutonis posted:This is unwarranted Nah, I am pretty warped.
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Aug 7, 2018 17:07
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some loving LIAR posted:fixed Hyphz is fine but just had a hard time vocalizing what he didn't like about story games. Edit: very beaten.
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Aug 7, 2018 17:07
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i played tea dragon society yesterday evening and it's a relatively simple deckbuilding game but goddamn if it's not the cutest poo poo i've ever seen
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Aug 7, 2018 17:08
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Oh this is "carefully repeat the rules of Apocalypse World rules to hyphz while he talks about chaos magick" time again?
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Aug 7, 2018 17:09
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G-d, I just spent so much on board games at GenCon but damned if I don't want that one. Edit: cute tea game, not weird dogpiling on a dude who deosn't get storygames.
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Aug 7, 2018 17:09
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i know that when i get together with my buddies to play blades in the dark every week it is a fierce struggle for dominance and only one person will get to win
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Aug 7, 2018 17:10
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I think it's more important that rules fill in gaps in ability, not flaws of personality. Of course a good GM is going to pay attention to which of their players is speaking most and try to give everyone a time to shine. But a subjective standard for that requires a lot of judgment calls, a lot of self-knowledge, and a lot of communication. The player themselves needs to know if (and when) they're actually going to have more fun hanging back and letting others take the lead or when that's going to ruin the experience for them, you need to talk to them about it, and you need to decide where the line is. All of these points are skills you develop over time, and largely develop by a) occasionally getting it wrong and b) having players with enough insight into their own tastes and enough trust in you to talk about it. On the other hand, explicit rules about who gets a turn when skips past all of that. It's less flexible, obviously, but it puts less of an onus on everyone to have to manage themselves and each other. (Although I'm carefully not saying "none" because even the most combat-heavy version of D&D is going to have to some degree of freeform conversational stuff, even if it's just deciding which direction to go at a fork in the dungeon.)
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Aug 7, 2018 17:13
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I've had players who just couldn't wrap their heads around the idea of letting bad things happen to their character in narrative games, but in those cases the game really just isn't for them.
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Aug 7, 2018 17:14
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Serf posted:i know that when i get together with my buddies to play blades in the dark every week it is a fierce struggle for dominance and only one person will get to win Actually reading S&V made BitD much clearer, apart from flashback failures; and reading UHH made PbtA much clearer. But most of the time there isn’t a struggle for dominance but an established pecking order. Struggles tend to be disruptive.
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Aug 7, 2018 17:15
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hyphz posted:Actually reading S&V made BitD much clearer, apart from flashback failures; and reading UHH made PbtA much clearer. But most of the time there isn’t a struggle for dominance but an established pecking order. Struggles tend to be disruptive. kill your masters
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Aug 7, 2018 17:16
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