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Nuns with Guns posted:Ah fair enough. And to be fair it has been talked about that Friends at the Table would continue playing Technoir if they were just playing as a group instead of playing for an actual play cast. Mr. Maltose fucked around with this message at 04:52 on Nov 10, 2019 |
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Nov 10, 2019 04:50
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Mr. Prokosch posted:I really have no idea what this system is, but this makes perfect sense to me along with the "refuse to roll initiative" example. Like, what's going on if it's a fight scene and people aren't using the mechanics designed to resolve fight scenes? I think I'd flavor that not as "these tough goons just can't hurt you! Every strike is a slapstick bit!" but rather, "Ok, you tuck yourselves into a corner and wave your weapons threateningly whenever they get too close. You two hurl insults back and forth. They are calling reinforcements. What do you do?" Technoir's base system is pretty straightforward: you roll a number of dice equal to a Verb (skill) rating and the enemy rolls a reaction, whoever has the highest single number gets to apply an adjective. You get 3 Push Dice at the start of each roll, and you can add them into a roll if various character traits or item tags would be relevant to the Verb being rolled. The adjectives you're usually applying to enemies are things like "dazed" or "blind" to debilitate them. There are 3 types of adjectives: fleeting, sticky, and locked. Negative fleeting adjectives last until the situation changes or they do a quick recovery (so like "floored" or "distracted.") Sticky adjectives last until they can be treated (like "cut" or "burned.") Locked adjectives are mostly permanent (so "dead" or "comatose" or "severed.") Adjectives you'd apply in an exchange like that are fleeting unless you spend Push Dice from the pool you rolled. You can spend 1 Push Die to make an adjective sticky, or 2 to make it locked. If you spend Push Dice this way, they go into the GM's pool of Push Dice and then the GM can start applying sticky or locked adjectives back at the PCs, who get the Push Dice back like that. There's a few other small mechanics involved but that's the bit that's relevant to resolving a conflict. Mr. Maltose posted:And to be fair it has been talked about that Friends at the Table would continue playing Technoir if they were just playing as a group instead of playing for an actual play cast. Right, they liked the game but they weren't comfortable enough running it for the entertainment of others.
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Nov 10, 2019 05:23
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Can we have a discussion without it involving two people at each other's front?
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Nov 10, 2019 05:32
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Technoir does seem like a game that could use some steering mechanics baked into the system as well as a social contract of like “if I use these push dice, you’re not gonna straight up kill my character.” These sorts of things can go unspoken, but I feel like making them more explicit in this case might be helpful.
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Nov 10, 2019 05:32
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Covok posted:Can we have a discussion without it involving two people at each other's front? No, probably not.
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Nov 10, 2019 05:33
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Covok posted:Can we have a discussion without it involving two people at each other's front? No because fronts are an essential part of PbtA and if you don’t understand that you are wrong and must ritually flagellate yourself in order to make penance.
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Nov 10, 2019 05:34
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Meinberg posted:Technoir does seem like a game that could use some steering mechanics baked into the system as well as a social contract of like “if I use these push dice, you’re not gonna straight up kill my character.” These sorts of things can go unspoken, but I feel like making them more explicit in this case might be helpful. There is one note that adjectives can't be something that removes a target's agency in one hit like "dead" unless the target is a henchman (henchman and heavies are the two categories of enemies in the game, while the other character designations are protagonist and connections), but having that in guiding GM principles would be great.
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Nov 10, 2019 05:37
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As the resident skeptic of rules-light games in general, fronts are one of the most brilliant and fundamental aspects of campaign design I've ever encountered and they should just be standard in any TRPG (unless it has a wildly non-traditional structure, and even in that case it should actively justify why it doesn't use them).
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Nov 10, 2019 05:38
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Mr. Prokosch posted:I really have no idea what this system is, but this makes perfect sense to me along with the "refuse to roll initiative" example. Like, what's going on if it's a fight scene and people aren't using the mechanics designed to resolve fight scenes? I think I'd flavor that not as "these tough goons just can't hurt you! Every strike is a slapstick bit!" but rather, "Ok, you tuck yourselves into a corner and wave your weapons threateningly whenever they get too close. You two hurl insults back and forth. They are calling reinforcements. What do you do?" It's easier to explain by digging into your second scenario. As the GM, I can't actually say he's getting away. Or, I can say it but then I can't actually back that up. To fully lose the tail would be a sticky adjective and I can't use those unless I have points to spend and I don't unless the players spend them to me. That kind of stake-setting that you suggest is something I'm totally familiar with and comfortable with - tell them the risks and then let them roll to see what happens is how Burning Wheel works, and how Strike works, and how many moves in PbtA games work. Technoir doesn't work like that. You don't set stakes for the roll. You apply an adjective after the roll, with its effect depending on how much you spend. Hopefully that sort of explains the first, too? Like the player would describe their action - say they throw a goon headfirst into the wall. They'd roll and succeed and ask if they could knock him out and I'd say "yeah if you spend" and they'd say "oh nah, can we just go with dazed or woozy instead?" I don't get to frame their actions or set stakes in the same way I could in a lot of other games. The stakes are up to how much the players spend. If you are familiar with Blades in the Dark, imagine if Blades was set up so that every roll in the game defaults to having limited effect unless the player spend points for effect, and the GM could only use Soft Moves until the players spent points. The lack of "deal harm as established" means that if you establish harm and you don't have the points to back it up, then you can't deal it. A bad guy could have a gun to the hostage's back and if the players don't spend a point, the bad guy cannot shoot the hostage no matter what the players elect to do or how badly they flub their rolls. You can respond by bringing in 6 more bad guys all pointing guns, but none of them can shoot anyone if the players won't spend. So if the economy is flowing well and players are spending, then it all works, but if players aren't spending enough, it all kind of goes to poo poo as your big scary threats turn out to be kind of embarrassing let-downs. Which, again, leads me to say why not just have a rule saying that at least 2 dice are going to the GM from each player in the scene? So you might as well spend them on something good because the GM is going to be able to hit back and follow through on their threats even if you decide to fool around. Isn't that way more in line with the fiction we're supposed to be emulating? In a cyberpunk dystopia if you go up to some geared up corporate cops and start slapping them around, what are they going to do? Are they going to respond by getting in a slapfight? Or are they going to pull guns and escalate? It's obviously the latter, isn't it? Simply giving the GM the ability to establish danger and then to deal harm as established would mean that players would have to spend their points if they want to avoid the harm, which would make the economy run properly, which would lead to better genre emulation. I'm not at all coming at this from a point of trying to poo poo on Technoir, and neither was Rob Donoghue. Both of us liked it and saw the potential and wanted to fix it and maybe run it again. Some people don't have NVIDIA graphics cards, so if your game has a bug that occurs for everyone with a NVIDIA card, you could change the minimum requirements to say that NVIDIA cards won't work, but really you should just fix the bug. Technoir has a bug. The bug doesn't show up for all groups, but it shows up for enough groups that it's worth fixing. And let me come out and say that I can be hard on my own games, too. Sometimes when running Strike! I really want to be able to "deal harm as established" but the dice keep coming up with Twists instead of Costs and since Injured is a Cost, it can be a bit hinky. It still works, but the Twists can get kind of weird. (And sometimes the reverse - it can be hard to come up with a good Cost). I had only played a little bit of Apocalypse World when I wrote Strike! and I didn't yet know just how important harm as established was. When I ever get enough time to write a second edition or put together a big expansion, I'm going to make some tweaks in that area. I see totally where Luke Crane was coming from in Mouse Guard leaving that 100% up to GM fiat on a failed roll. I still prefer to have it not be 100% up to the GM, but I've been thinking of some minor tweaks that will help. Jimbozig fucked around with this message at 05:54 on Nov 10, 2019 |
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Nov 10, 2019 05:44
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Jimbozig posted:Yeah, Technoir doesn't work like that. Its resolution is very different from basically any game you've probably played. When Arivia talks about it as narrative, that's correct, but it's also nothing like PbtA games which are also very narrative. I'm not certain how losing a tail would be a sticky adjective in and of itself. Like in theory, if the PC was undetected they'd be rolling Prowl or something. On a fleeting adjective they might apply "distracted" to the guy because he hasn't spotted them yet, but it would be better to push it up to a sticky "tracked" or something similar to document that the PC was able to trail after him. The henchman would be doing a reaction Detect roll with "glimpsed" as a potential fleeting outcome, or perhaps "alerted" as a sticky one. And an alert would maybe lead into him calling in the PC's description, so now all the other goons know what the PC looks like and are probably closing in! Or at the very least the guy would bolt at that point and now the game's afoot. If this is a chase and the henchman is trying to shake the PC, they'd both be rolling Move and trying to apply a sticky adjective. The PC probably wants "caught" as the sticky one, or something similar that'd stop a movement forward, while the henchman wants "trapped" or "debilitated" or "stunned" as a signifier that something blocked the PC's progress in the pursuit. If the henchman doesn't have any push dice, well then maybe it's time to stop running and turn around and fight because they're clearly not outpacing the PC. Really at this point I think anyone that wants clarification on how the system works could look at GimpInBlack's F&F writeup on it: https://projects.inklesspen.com/fatal-and-friends/gimpinblack/technoir/ Nuns with Guns fucked around with this message at 06:06 on Nov 10, 2019 |
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Nov 10, 2019 06:01
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Technoir sounds neat but a physical copy is only available from one store it seems and they're sold out.
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Nov 10, 2019 06:21
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Admiral Joeslop posted:Technoir sounds neat but a physical copy is only available from one store it seems and they're sold out. Yeah, the creator abandoned the project a few years ago, and I guess sold the license to The Alexandrian because the PDF is available through his company's DriveThru storefront.
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Nov 10, 2019 06:30
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:As the resident skeptic of rules-light games in general, fronts are one of the most brilliant and fundamental aspects of campaign design I've ever encountered and they should just be standard in any TRPG (unless it has a wildly non-traditional structure, and even in that case it should actively justify why it doesn't use them). Agreed, really one of the big successes of Apocalypse World isn't even mechanical so much as the way it formulates how to establish and design a campaign.
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Nov 10, 2019 06:35
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Those rules definitely sound like they need some kind of time limit mechanic, or clear statement that the GM can impose one, to stop indefinite slap fights and sieges. Is there one somewhere?
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Nov 10, 2019 06:50
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hyphz posted:Those rules definitely sound like they need some kind of time limit mechanic, or clear statement that the GM can impose one, to stop indefinite slap fights and sieges. Is there one somewhere? No, there is none, but I don't think that a hard time limit or a turn limit is the right sort of fix for this. Again, why can't you just keep slapping a cop in this setting? Because even if they just slap you back the first time or two, eventually they are going to pull their gun and escalate. So my proposed house rule is certainly not the only way to get that outcome. But I picked it because it is minimally intrusive. Any group that is playing as intended will not see any consequences from the rule because they are already playing that way. Only the groups that are getting it wrong will be affected and will then hopefully get it right. It might even be like a training wheels thing where once the group gets used to playing it right they won't need the houserule anymore.
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Nov 10, 2019 07:45
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Jimbozig posted:No, there is none, but I don't think that a hard time limit or a turn limit is the right sort of fix for this. Again, why can't you just keep slapping a cop in this setting? Because even if they just slap you back the first time or two, eventually they are going to pull their gun and escalate. c'mon even you have to realize this is a frank trollman question
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Nov 10, 2019 08:19
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Jimbozig posted:No, there is none, but I don't think that a hard time limit or a turn limit is the right sort of fix for this. Again, why can't you just keep slapping a cop in this setting? Because even if they just slap you back the first time or two, eventually they are going to pull their gun and escalate. That would be getting into a prolonged standoff with the cops where they aren't bringing you down but you're not getting away. Even putting aside "they can't hurt you", the PCs should have plenty of reasons not to want to be in that situation.
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Nov 10, 2019 08:29
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Honestly, I'm down for a game that encourages cop-slapping as a core mechanic.
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Nov 10, 2019 09:01
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Agent Rush posted:System: Fellowship It's something I've been thinking of running for a while. Mirrodin loosely following canon basically makes for a few Fellowship campaigns with different overlords for each. Just let players define/redefine whatever group of people their character emerges from.
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Nov 10, 2019 09:18
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Alaois posted:c'mon even you have to realize this is a frank trollman question I mean, yes and no. I'm being a bit silly with the word slapping. But basically my players got in a fistfight with armed corporate security goons and the goons couldn't really use their weapons because shooting someone and applying a fleeting adjective would be dumb. Trollman asks why can't the GM just use bears which is a stupid question because the rules don't require bears and that would be the GM being a dick. I ask why can't the cops shoot people, which I think is a good question because the rules really do say that the cops can't shoot people if I don't have points. And the point isn't really to fix the stupid degenerate case of no spending ever, but to fix the common complaint that not enough spending happens for things to work as intended. When you want to have a rule to fix an issue in a roleplaying game it's a good idea to look to the fiction for what that rule means. So a time limit is not really a good fix because what does that look like in the fiction? It looks like a slapfight with a time limit. That's still dumb and not what we want. The alternative is giving the GM points even when the players aren't spending enough, and what does that look like in the fiction? It looks like cops that are allowed to use their weapons and actually be threatening instead of just having a slapfight.
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Nov 10, 2019 15:58
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Jim everything you've talked about so far has either been an demonstration of why the players should be following the core principles of the game (which do advise the need to be aggressive and reckless for the game to work best) that I posted already, or it's been an issue with the application of adjectives, which I have been saying is a struggle for people. You could layer more rules on this but these problems with the Push Dice specifically sound like they're perfectly solvable with clear communication and a firm grasp on what "Shake the Trees and See What Falls Out" and "Get Hurt" mean to a gritty cyberpunk crime noir game. We've just been going in circles around this for like a day now though so it doesn't seem like there's any more to be said.
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Nov 10, 2019 16:58
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Look it could be worse, it could be a multi day argument about a hypothetical Pokémon role-playing system. I apologize for taking part in that.
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Nov 10, 2019 18:22
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The fact that there is a functioning one made it worse.
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Nov 10, 2019 18:26
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Digimon is still a more interesting premise for a roleplaying game. Hell, a story game based on Digimin would be grea...hmm. Should I make that? But I never released my other one for shounen battle comics. Well, it's available but I never did a Kickstarter and I never actually needed for sale. Should I start working on another one if I never going to probably sell it?
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Nov 10, 2019 18:32
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thetoughestbean posted:Look it could be worse, it could be a multi day argument about a hypothetical Pokémon role-playing system. I mean, I think it's important if you're talking about a crunchy pokemon RPG to explain just how much insane crunch and RNG bullshit is baked into a game series about pitching adorable monsters against the adorable monsters of gangsters and end-times ecoterrorists. I guess Pokemon is like D&D in that way, where it's impossible to make everybody happy with any individual execution of it because it's so pervasive and widespread that you can't possibly cater to every expectation someone has in one game. Now, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon? Totally doable as a concept and it's a sin and an outrage that nobody has made it.
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Nov 10, 2019 19:12
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Nuns with Guns posted:I mean, I think it's important if you're talking about a crunchy pokemon RPG to explain just how much insane crunch and RNG bullshit is baked into a game series about pitching adorable monsters against the adorable monsters of gangsters and end-times ecoterrorists. I guess Pokemon is like D&D in that way, where it's impossible to make everybody happy with any individual execution of it because it's so pervasive and widespread that you can't possibly cater to every expectation someone has in one game. Wizards of the Coast put out an extremely simple game where you play as a Pokemon back when they still had the license.
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Nov 10, 2019 20:32
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Argas posted:It's something I've been thinking of running for a while. Mirrodin loosely following canon basically makes for a few Fellowship campaigns with different overlords for each. Just let players define/redefine whatever group of people their character emerges from. I think most MtG blocks would fit Fellowship's setup pretty well, with a few minor adjustments depending on which framework you want to use. Covok posted:Digimon is still a more interesting premise for a roleplaying game. Hell, a story game based on Digimin would be grea...hmm. There's always the option of scrubbing the IP out and releasing it as its own thing. FEV had some pretty cool concepts, it definitely sparked ideas in my own work.
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Nov 10, 2019 21:56
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Covok posted:Digimon is still a more interesting premise for a roleplaying game. Hell, a story game based on Digimin would be grea...hmm. Digimon's way better for it of the two major Mon franchises. You get one monster and it's form and evolutions are based entirely on your PC's personality and development. Having power tiers where your Highest level form becomes a 1/day thing and the lower forms are encounter/etc. Oh you wanna push that roll? Okay but you get 3 points toward dark digivolution and that means OOPS you succceed but congrats you made a Satanmon 
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Nov 10, 2019 23:26
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Covok posted:Digimon is still a more interesting premise for a roleplaying game. Hell, a story game based on Digimin would be grea...hmm. Agreed, though personally I think the franchise needs something more crunchy and tactical than your average "story game" style RPG would have, though really the only aspect of that franchise that would be tricky to emulate is it's Evolution mechanics
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Nov 10, 2019 23:28
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Leraika posted:Wizards of the Coast put out an extremely simple game where you play as a Pokemon back when they still had the license. Welp now that I know this exists I won't be able to rest til I find a copy. You don't happen to remember the title do you?
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Nov 11, 2019 03:21
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-Fish- posted:Welp now that I know this exists I won't be able to rest til I find a copy. You don't happen to remember the title do you? I do! It's Pokemon Jr. Adventure (though it looks like I was mistaken; you actually do play as pokemon trainers, but since they don't have any stats or anything, you could just be a Pokemon, I guess).
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Nov 11, 2019 03:43
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 I've just published a new game called You in Me, a 2-player business card-sized epistolary game where you play soldiers in a terrible war, writing letters while you hear each other's voices in your heads. If anyone has any thoughts about it, let me know!
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Nov 11, 2019 04:15
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Leraika posted:I do! It's Pokemon Jr. Adventure (though it looks like I was mistaken; you actually do play as pokemon trainers, but since they don't have any stats or anything, you could just be a Pokemon, I guess). Thanks! Turns out there's a ton of copies available real cheap on eBay, my 7yo will be delighted at the stocking stuffer.
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Nov 11, 2019 04:58
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-Fish- posted:Thanks! Turns out there's a ton of copies available real cheap on eBay, my 7yo will be delighted at the stocking stuffer.  Glad to help!
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Nov 11, 2019 04:58
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It apparently sold well and there were plans for some kind of “advanced” version aimed at older players but it never happened for whatever reason.
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Nov 11, 2019 05:51
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Agent Rush posted:I think most MtG blocks would fit Fellowship's setup pretty well, with a few minor adjustments depending on which framework you want to use. Oh, what did you work on? I do vaguely remember you and me discussing things once. IIRC, I had to judge your work once. I did a playtest. That was a while back. Unfortunately, I couldn't use FEV for that contest so my contest entry in that thing was bad. drrockso20 posted:Agreed, though personally I think the franchise needs something more crunchy and tactical than your average "story game" style RPG would have, though really the only aspect of that franchise that would be tricky to emulate is it's Evolution mechanics ZenMasterBullshit posted:Digimon's way better for it of the two major Mon franchises. You get one monster and it's form and evolutions are based entirely on your PC's personality and development. Having power tiers where your Highest level form becomes a 1/day thing and the lower forms are encounter/etc. Oh you wanna push that roll? Okay but you get 3 points toward dark digivolution and that means OOPS you succceed but congrats you made a Satanmon I think both of you are going in different directions than I am thinking. I think step one is deciding if you're going to emulate the games or the shows.In the games, one person can have multiple digimon and the whole thing is basically a Shin Megami Tenshi game. In the shows, it's more like a mecha anime meets Pokemon meets coming of age story. I only like two or three Digimon games and like every season of the anime so that's easy. We ignore the motifs of season 4 because its too radical of a departure in that department. Its theme and structure is fine, though. What are we left with? We have to boil it down like British cooking to get all of the IP out. We need the basics, bland as they may be, to get a basis to work off of. I identify the following:
That is the core of a Digimon story to me. I think a few things are probably necessary to make a game like this work, regardless of structure
It's 12 am so I should stop. But that's what I got so far.
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Nov 11, 2019 06:11
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Late as gently caress (as usual) but: Favorite System: Cinematic Unisystem Favorite Setting: Theah (7th Sea)
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Nov 11, 2019 06:15
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Hey y'all, I take it most of you aren't Dragonlance fans, but one of the more novel ideas the setting had was alternate timelines due to River of Time shenanigans. One of the sourcebooks had an entire chapter on alt-Krynns based on major historical incidents changing. Like what if the Kingpriest prevented the Cataclysm, what if the Wizards of High Sorcery got more involved in politics and set up magocracies across Ansalon, etc. I was wondering if anything similar happened in What If? scenarios for other settings out there. Like Faerun, Eberron, Greyhawk, etc. Seems a cool idea
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Nov 11, 2019 07:07
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Libertad! posted:Hey y'all, I take it most of you aren't Dragonlance fans, but one of the more novel ideas the setting had was alternate timelines due to River of Time shenanigans. One of the sourcebooks had an entire chapter on alt-Krynns based on major historical incidents changing. Like what if the Kingpriest prevented the Cataclysm, what if the Wizards of High Sorcery got more involved in politics and set up magocracies across Ansalon, etc. Admittedly I've only read a couple books for the setting, but one of those books is still definitely my favorite official D&D novel Draconian Measures, partly because it's a rare example of a fantasy novel that takes place completely from the perspective of non-human characters(and indeed has only a single human character of importance in it) and does some interesting things with that, but also because it's just a fun book full of action and even a fair bit of humor Covok posted:Oh, what did you work on? I do vaguely remember you and me discussing things once. IIRC, I had to judge your work once. I did a playtest. That was a while back. Unfortunately, I couldn't use FEV for that contest so my contest entry in that thing was bad. On the matters of the franchise's main themes you definitely nailed it on the head, though at least from my perspective you're definitely leaning a tad too heavily towards story game territory, but then I'm the kind of person as both player and GM who is more interested in the ways a system works mechanically, rather than the story aspects, because how well the story stuff works is too subjective of a thing to be able to consistently nail(as it highly depends on both player and GM capabilities) while if the the actual game parts aren't done right than no one is going to have a good time* *basically I feel that when it comes to the term Role-Playing Game, that the Game part of the term is the more important half, cause honestly most people I've played with(counting myself here) are mediocre at best at the actual Role-Playing part
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Nov 11, 2019 09:55
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Libertad! posted:Hey y'all, I take it most of you aren't Dragonlance fans, but one of the more novel ideas the setting had was alternate timelines due to River of Time shenanigans. One of the sourcebooks had an entire chapter on alt-Krynns based on major historical incidents changing. Like what if the Kingpriest prevented the Cataclysm, what if the Wizards of High Sorcery got more involved in politics and set up magocracies across Ansalon, etc. L5R's Imperial Histories 1 &2 for had a lot of alt-Rokugans for had several alt-Rokugans. Sengoku-era Rokugan with guns, Space Rokugan, various "What if a different clan became the imperial clan instead of the Hantei" options, etc.
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Nov 11, 2019 11:52
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