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Foglet posted:Something something ludonarrative dissonance That can be forgiven, but this also hits class balance, which is a much bigger deal. It’s like if spell components were the major balancer for mages in D&D. Given jimbo’s mathematical background it would be much nicer if there was an added note on that ability saying “playtesting found this ability to be best balanced if / the combat numbers were calculated on that basis that the player can get their arrows back after X time” or something similar. hyphz fucked around with this message at 21:06 on Dec 24, 2018 |
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Dec 24, 2018 21:04
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Just make it so that the supplies you use for your special ammo are supplies they use for something else, and you have to repurpose it. It's hard to find the right kind of dildo, because most enemy troopers are into sounding, and it takes time and skill to drain the fluid reservoir from one when you do.
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Dec 24, 2018 21:05
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remusclaw posted:Just like a class being named archer doesn't mean that your character is literally an archer, "run out" doesn't need to literally mean run out. Being an Archer means you use projectiles. You could be a dude who fights with two swords but sometimes a bow or just shoot weapons from a dimensional rift or just use a gun and be one.
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Dec 24, 2018 21:09
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DID SOMEBODY SAY DISSOCIATED MECHANICS???
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Dec 24, 2018 21:10
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Andrast posted:You are giving a lot of credit to rpg players here Not really; the giving too much credit assumption is that they actually play the game instead of just reading the book on the shitter and then complaining online, frankly.
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Dec 24, 2018 21:56
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It would be good if there was some Dev text about optimal class balance for the archer power but there's no meaningful distinction between "be stingy for this arrow guys powers and "be stingy for this gun guy's powers' and your insistence on beating this particular drum makes you come across as a pedant with no experience actually running, or playing, the game you're discussing. You're asking the game to more tightly codify the player gm contract but get this: strike is already one of the games with the tightest gm player contracts on the fighting system level because of its insistence on describing effects in terms of mathematical effect, and there are incredibly few other games that bother to do this with any meaningful attention to the actual balance if characters at all. In an incredibly narrow sense the crticism is valid, but only in a way few people bother to deal with Because it's an indie game published by one guy in his spare time with no connections to the rest of the industry, doing something the entire rest of the industry is basically incapable of given their own dysfunction. There are other games coming out now attempting to change cleave closer to the 4e model, but they're not exactly thick on the ground. Maybe we need a megathread for 4e-likes. They don't really get discussed much in the retro game thread.
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Dec 24, 2018 22:36
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Impermanent posted:There are other games coming out now attempting to change cleave closer to the 4e model, but they're not exactly thick on the ground. Maybe we need a megathread for 4e-likes. They don't really get discussed much in the retro game thread. A megathread for "setting agnostic" systems might be better. Then people could discuss Savage Worlds or Hero System (which I love the concept of but utterly loathe playing) and find the right glove to fit the story they want to tell?
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Dec 24, 2018 22:53
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I'd be pretty curious to hear more about Unity RPG as a 4e successor - I remember it came out but even the pdf was expensive and I didn't see many impressions here of the released product.
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Dec 24, 2018 22:54
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theironjef posted:Not that I do this especially often often: They got rid of the warlord in 5th? Wtf
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Dec 24, 2018 23:00
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Impermanent posted:It would be good if there was some Dev text about optimal class balance for the archer power but there's no meaningful distinction between "be stingy for this arrow guys powers and "be stingy for this gun guy's powers' and your insistence on beating this particular drum makes you come across as a pedant with no experience actually running, or playing, the game you're discussing. This is partly true - I'm a BNG stuck on Xmas Eve after all - but at the same time, it takes a lot of time and effort and not a little luck to actually find a game of an indie system like Strike, and so saying someone has to do all that for a game they don't like just in order to have their opinion trusted is a bit much. (Although actually, I do like Strike very much, but it's not perfect!) I do know of a group playing Unity, but they haven't played very far yet so I haven't seen how it's gone.
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Dec 24, 2018 23:04
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StuG Jeebus posted:They got rid of the warlord in 5th? Wtf doubly funny when one of the early things wotc were saying about 5th was that all classes from previous phb1s would be in the 5e phb1, obviously done as a response to grogs complaining that 4e's phb1 didn't have bards or gnomes
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Dec 24, 2018 23:05
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Mearls actually personally hates the warlord so it's not surprising they did whatever they could to kill it.
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Dec 24, 2018 23:18
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I vaguely remember a point where they were asking for feedback irt them saying giving the fighter a healing ability was the 5e incarnation of the warlord where it was absolutely clear they had no idea why people liked the class.
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Dec 24, 2018 23:22
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hyphz posted:All of these are quite reasonable adjustments for other situations but here's the actual rules text of Trick Arrow: see the bad part of that rule to me is that it's very "DM may I?" and the dm seems encouraged to screw you a bit.
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Dec 24, 2018 23:37
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Elfgames posted:see the bad part of that rule to me is that it's very "DM may I?" and the dm seems encouraged to screw you a bit. Yeah, I've been reading this and the Strike! rule generally feels like it begs a lot of questions the second you're not making simple missiles. It's not so much that it's game breaking but the rules assume a lot of setting-specific information and the further you get from that the more questions you're gonna end up having to answer to retain verisimilitude.
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Dec 24, 2018 23:44
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:I'd be pretty curious to hear more about Unity RPG as a 4e successor - I remember it came out but even the pdf was expensive and I didn't see many impressions here of the released product. Unity is interesting. It doesn't do grid-based combat which takes away somewhat from what's fun about 4e. On the other hand, every class has some kind of unique resource mechanic and lots of fun abilities to play with. The setting is completely forgettable and it has some horny art but it's beautifully-produced. Worth a look I'd say, just expect to have to reskin things if you don't want to set a game in the World of Tel'Marije (not the actual setting name but who could possibly remember).
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Dec 25, 2018 00:17
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Der Waffle Mous posted:I vaguely remember a point where they were asking for feedback irt them saying giving the fighter a healing ability was the 5e incarnation of the warlord where it was absolutely clear they had no idea why people liked the class. Remember when they invented out of whole cloth something called "passive perception"
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Dec 25, 2018 01:06
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Piell posted:Remember when they invented out of whole cloth something called "passive perception" Monte Cook being brought on board to great fanfare then unceremoniously chucked off the bus will always be one of the weirdest and funniest moments of Next's desultory development process.
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Dec 25, 2018 01:13
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ProfessorCirno posted:Mearls actually personally hates the warlord so it's not surprising they did whatever they could to kill it. Well it is a fun class with a lot of utility.
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Dec 25, 2018 01:14
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Luarien posted:Yeah, I've been reading this and the Strike! rule generally feels like it begs a lot of questions the second you're not making simple missiles. Which is a real weird design decision in a setting agnostic rulebook.
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Dec 25, 2018 01:24
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Kai Tave posted:Monte Cook being brought on board to great fanfare then unceremoniously chucked off the bus will always be one of the weirdest and funniest moments of Next's desultory development process. it gave me a very brief moment where I went "wait... is Monte Cook the good guy in this scenario?"
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Dec 25, 2018 02:11
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Sometimes there are no good guys.
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Dec 25, 2018 02:15
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The Trick arrow thing is not a numbers thing. Each of those abilities is balanced for their level. It's that I want you to be able to play a Hawkeye type of character with this class, so you get access to all of the powers but can only use one per encounter. You get all that versatility, but I think it's interesting if you sometimes lose your favourite and have to fall back on your less-used powers. I really don't care if you change the mechanics of how exactly the power is regained as long as you keep the losing and regaining thing. In fact, there is an alternate version of it which might be easier to reskin on the same page! I might do it a little differently now if I were to do a second edition, but I like trick arrow and I'm overall happy with it. I'd probably rewrite the little warning because it gets a bit misunderstood - the "powerful ability" is turning a miss into a hit, not trick arrow itself. The thing I wanted to do when I wrote that warning is to let players know that if they choose that option, they might be without their favourite arrow for a couple of sessions and that their GM wasn't supposed to just give it back right away. Anyway, for a sci-fi example, Samus loses abilities and then gets them back all the time - like in every game.
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Dec 25, 2018 03:41
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StuG Jeebus posted:They got rid of the warlord in 5th? Wtf The spirit of the warlord lives on in the commander class of 13th Age
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Dec 25, 2018 03:43
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Jimbozig posted:Anyway, for a sci-fi example, Samus loses abilities and then gets them back all the time - like in every game. Samus loses abilities on a campaign by campaign basis, not on an encounter by encounter basis. That's a poor comparison.
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Dec 25, 2018 04:04
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I mean, if you're making a character for which it would be tough to reskin Trick Arrow, you could always just... not take it. It's an optional power choice, the other power (use Aim for free) is much more "generic ranged attacker". I don't think every choice you can make for a class necessarily needs to fit every concept it covers.
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Dec 25, 2018 04:09
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Jimbozig posted:You get all that versatility, but I think it's interesting if you sometimes lose your favourite and have to fall back on your less-used powers. I really don't care if you change the mechanics of how exactly the power is regained as long as you keep the losing and regaining thing. [...] The thing I wanted to do when I wrote that warning is to let players know that if they choose that option, they might be without their favourite arrow for a couple of sessions and that their GM wasn't supposed to just give it back right away. ...why? Like, seriously, does anyone’s fun get improved by losing their favorite power for arbitrary amounts of time and with no real guidelines on getting it back besides ‘it should take an annoyingly long time’?
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Dec 25, 2018 04:12
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Kai Tave posted:Monte Cook being brought on board to great fanfare then unceremoniously chucked off the bus will always be one of the weirdest and funniest moments of Next's desultory development process. As far as I know, what happened is way more gross, because it was Monte Cook being brought on board and then basically chased and harassed out by Mearls. Reminder that Mearls was Cook's protoge and basically got hired into WotC by Cook.
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Dec 25, 2018 04:22
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ProfessorCirno posted:As far as I know, what happened is way more gross, because it was Monte Cook being brought on board and then basically chased and harassed out by Mearls. Reminder that Mearls was Cook's protoge and basically got hired into WotC by Cook. Less by Mearls, more "By Pundit" or at least Pundit took all credit for it.
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Dec 25, 2018 04:27
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Mors Rattus posted:...why?
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Dec 25, 2018 04:51
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ProfessorCirno posted:As far as I know, what happened is way more gross, because it was Monte Cook being brought on board and then basically chased and harassed out by Mearls. Reminder that Mearls was Cook's protoge and basically got hired into WotC by Cook. RPGPundit published an "open letter" to Mike Mearls about wanting to cut Monte Cook's vocal cords and comparing him to Hitler for the temerity of suggesting design goals that included feats, and basically put Mearls in a spot where he had to choose between whatever OSR fanbase Pundit claimed to represent, and Cook. And then Cook was let go
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Dec 25, 2018 05:00
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I mean, let's not set aside Mearls' agency and history of antagonism towards the non-wizard underclass. He and Cook are perfectly capable of having differences of opinion a lot stronger than some internet blowhard's conspiracy theories. And then there's the wildly inconsistent levels of "ownership" of 5E's successes or failures Pundit has claimed depending on whether it was before or after its transformation from Savior of the True Spirit of Roleplaying to Pandering Storygamey SJW Garbage-pail. While he might have egged Mearls on, Pundit is not an actual boogeyman haunting the High Halls of RPGs (that's clearly Ettin).
That Old Tree fucked around with this message at 05:20 on Dec 25, 2018 |
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Dec 25, 2018 05:16
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Monte Cook presents Passive Perception was the moment when I thought that they were doing a straight Windows Mojave. Unfortunately, no. Mearls caught a lot of poo poo from the OSR crowd, and he desperately wanted / needed their approval. If you look back, the bulk of the 4e promotion was retro. So he spun hard when they threw it back in his face. And then he gave them as much as he could. Essentials backpedaled hard towards 3x, "shouting limbs back on" became his beef with the Warlord, and he cozied up with some really bad people. It's kind of sad, but it's also really frustrating that so much of what's wrong with D&D goes back to a guy who wants to be chief grognard but was accidently handed something good.
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Dec 25, 2018 05:19
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:Yes, if the ability is so strong that always having it would be gamebreaking. It's especially true if the move is more on the narrative control end of the spectrum than a simple combat trick. I forget what thread it was, but someone here posted about a game where characters could only die for good by choosing to escalate to that through an explicit mechanic, and their last stand would be immensely powerful. I think there's room for a spectrum of powers that are balanced by intermittency or consequences for use. (I can't speak for the strike usage.) I’m pretty sure that game is Tenra Bansho Zero, which has separate vitality and wounds. Get serious wounds and you actually get more dice to roll, but if you run out of vitality with your “dead” box ticked, that’s it. You’re dead
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Dec 25, 2018 05:19
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:Yes, if the ability is so strong that always having it would be gamebreaking. It's especially true if the move is more on the narrative control end of the spectrum than a simple combat trick. I forget what thread it was, but someone here posted about a game where characters could only die for good by choosing to escalate to that through an explicit mechanic, and their last stand would be immensely powerful. I think there's room for a spectrum of powers that are balanced by intermittency or consequences for use. (I can't speak for the strike usage.) i mean i kind of agree but there's no reason to make it arbitrarily controlled by the gm
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Dec 25, 2018 05:22
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Elfgames posted:i mean i kind of agree but there's no reason to make it arbitrarily controlled by the gm Everything is arbitrarily controlled by the GM. It's only a problem if your GM is an rear end in a top hat.
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Dec 25, 2018 05:46
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PoptartsNinja posted:Everything is arbitrarily controlled by the GM. There's an extremely meaningful difference between things controlled by rules and things controlled by fiat, and it's just as much of a problem if your GM gets the balance wrong by accident as it is on purpose. Maybe worse, because it's easy to just stop playing with an rear end in a top hat GM but really hard to intuitively understand a game well enough to hit an invisible target. Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 07:52 on Dec 25, 2018 |
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Dec 25, 2018 05:55
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PoptartsNinja posted:Everything is arbitrarily controlled by the GM. Not really. It's possible the GM reads "This is a powerful ability, so the GM should not let you off easy" and accidentally makes it hard in an unfun way - because the power says to not let them off easily. If there's advice on how to handle that then that's good and less likely to lead to that result, but if there isn't then the GM is being told to make something difficult without any guidelines on what that might entail and might make a mistake.
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Dec 25, 2018 05:56
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Heliotrope posted:Not really. It's possible the GM reads "This is a powerful ability, so the GM should not let you off easy" and accidentally makes it hard in an unfun way - because the power says to not let them off easily. If there's advice on how to handle that then that's good and less likely to lead to that result, but if there isn't then the GM is being told to make something difficult without any guidelines on what that might entail and might make a mistake. This is starting to remind me of a Paladin's Code situation.
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Dec 25, 2018 06:42
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"That's only a problem if your GM is a dick" is only a valid statement if the game actually does a good job at teaching the GM, and even then runs into issues where so much of the tabletop gaming hobby as a culture is still focused around and desperately trying to appeal to old shitlords who still whinge about the "proper way" to play D&D. Like, sure, there's a lot of stuff that's only a problem if your GM is a dick, but tabletop gaming culture really, really wants your GM to be a dick. Tabletop gaming memes are still full of poo poo like "keep a kill counter of PCs you've taken out!" and "make sure not to give your player too much leeway, because players are evil and want to ruin your game!"
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Dec 25, 2018 07:08
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