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sebmojo posted:get X points of chase bonus for using an X level spell, fluff it appropriately, if it's a damaging spell then when they catch him he's down some HP. Is that in the system already or are you saying they should have put something like that in?
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Feb 15, 2022 23:34
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For another perspective, in my opinion the key aspect of a chase scene is how much scenery gets destroyed. Secondarily, how many civilians just barely leap out of the way, and how destroyed the various chase vehicles are at the end. Lastly is who won the chase, which is always the heroes in the first act, the villains in the second or third act, and the heroes in the fourth act (there's never a chase scene in the fifth act, that'd be silly).
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Feb 15, 2022 23:37
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I reject "acts".
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Feb 15, 2022 23:37
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That's OK. You can houserule that there are no acts, the constraints of reductive narrative structure aren't necessary and like I said, the important part is making sure lots of scenery gets entertainingly smashed
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Feb 15, 2022 23:40
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That I approve of. 
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Feb 15, 2022 23:47
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Jimbozig posted:But you can see where that has issues within the context of the broader system, right? quote:On a character’s turn, they describe what they do to help the group get past the obstacle. They then attempt any required roll, or perform the required action for a choice without a check. If they attempt a roll, the result determines how many Chase Points the character gains. So the advantage of hucking a fireball at them vs shooting at them is that you get a flat 1 chase point with no chance of failing the roll or risking a crit fail. If it's an especially appropriate spell then you get 2. How big an advantage that is I don't know, I don't play pathfinder. It's fuzzier but you could argue "We already have haste cast" is worth the GM going "That's fair you get a free Chase point to start with". Like I'm no pathfinder fan and if Arivia is reading this she's probably flicking back and forth between my posts and my avatar in abject confusion but almost all of Hyphz' specific examples of issues are addressed in the rules I found with literally seconds of googling. Splicer fucked around with this message at 23:57 on Feb 15, 2022 |
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Feb 15, 2022 23:53
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Jimbozig posted:Is that in the system already or are you saying they should have put something like that in? i'm assuming that is what the system says, and if not that's how i would run it. e: oh wow it does, imagine that lol
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Feb 16, 2022 00:01
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theironjef posted:I base all my chase sessions on TMNT Turtles in Time's Sewer Surfin' level. In that they aren't actual skill challenges, they're just setpieces. Mostly because it's a lot easier than writing a story where the enemy might get away and that's just the end of that conflict all of a sudden. So instead you get to use your character tools to blast mooks for a while, then Rat King comes in and you do a fight between people on flying platforms that match speed, which is silly in real life but super cool in a fake fight. I've been noodling about porting Icon to supers, and how would you do really tactical supers, and I've been struggling to think about how to handle mobility - really tactical games don't usually afford the mobility common in comic books. I had the idea last night in a fever dream to handle it like stages in a fighting game, and your post just made it click. Thank you, this is awesome.
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Feb 16, 2022 00:13
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CitizenKeen posted:I've been noodling about porting Icon to supers, and how would you do really tactical supers, and I've been struggling to think about how to handle mobility - really tactical games don't usually afford the mobility common in comic books. I had the idea last night in a fever dream to handle it like stages in a fighting game, and your post just made it click. Thank you, this is awesome. The 80s approach to supers was very tactical and fine-grained, very much not icon, but it was weird, often having things like Starfleet Battles-style initiatives so that, for example, you could make the Flash and he really would punch 16 times per second, rather than trying to work that into some kind of abstract thing. It came with an enormous amount of rules overhead, though, like pretty much everything else crunchy and 80s. GURPS came from those old superhero systems which, to try to handle the wide breadth of superheroes made the accountancy-style char creation where characters are just bundles of things you can spend points on various aspects of and beleagured game designers try to point out an ice ray that comes from your hands as opposed to your eyes. Panzeh fucked around with this message at 00:24 on Feb 16, 2022 |
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Feb 16, 2022 00:19
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I should also say that in Hyphz original post the other day he made a bunch of excellent on the fly (heh) adjudications and did an excellent job of improv to bring the chase to a satisfactory conclusion, and it sounds like his players agreed. Witht he funny thing being that he ended up running the chase basically according to the rules, just he was making them up as he went along. I should also say the chase rules proper as opposed to the abbreviated ones the module seemed to be pushing him toward are a bit more visually coherent. You don't just have generic chase points, you have specific obstacles and setpieces you're trying to overcome. Like you round the corner and see him sprinting up the steps at the other side of the square and in between there is A Crowd. You need (party member) chase points to pass A Crowd, so you all take your turns and if you succeed before you run out of turns then congrats, you catch up with him in the alley and combat starts or whatever. If you didn't then he moves one obstacle ahead on his turn and when you do escape A Crowd you reach the top of the steps to encounter his hastily erected Magical Barrier. You lose the target if they pass their Escape Obstacle (jumping onto a passing train or diving into a portal or running into their extremely well defended hideout or whatever) or if they get a certain number of obstacles ahead of the players (you just lose him). So a properly set up chase between two flying parties would involve obstacles that make sense in that context. He might Sing Up Turbulance or SUmmon Bats(rolls to control the flying chariot or magically counter his spell), or fly through the upper floors of An Office Building, or try to lose you in A Crowd (of local quidditch supporters). sebmojo posted:i'm assuming that is what the system says, and if not that's how i would run it.
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Feb 16, 2022 00:27
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Splicer posted:I should also say that in Hyphz original post the other day he made a bunch of excellent on the fly (heh) adjudications and did an excellent job of improv to bring the chase to a satisfactory conclusion, and it sounds like his players agreed. Witht he funny thing being that he ended up running the chase basically according to the rules, just he was making them up as he went along. I was just meaning that you need to translate from one system to another, but hyphz complaint was that you couldn't use one system in another. I agree that they did a perfectly cromulent job of running the chase. the main thing is to convey action and excitement and constantly bounce off players suggestions and responses, the resolution mechanic couild be a coin flip (it already seems extremely simple).
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Feb 16, 2022 00:32
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Panzeh posted:The 80s approach to supers was very tactical and fine-grained, very much not icon, but it was weird, often having things like Starfleet Battles-style initiatives so that, for example, you could make the Flash and he really would punch 16 times per second, rather than trying to work that into some kind of abstract thing. It came with an enormous amount of rules overhead, though, like pretty much everything else crunchy and 80s.
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Feb 16, 2022 00:39
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sebmojo posted:I was just meaning that you need to translate from one system to another, but hyphz complaint was that you couldn't use one system in another. I agree that they did a perfectly cromulent job of running the chase. I can see a bunch of issues not covered by the rules. like, RAW a level 10 (PF2E caps out at 10 spell tiers yes?) spell will, at most, grant you 2 chase points, the same as a level 1 spell. Now this is a bit like the grog complaint of "Ice getting slippier as you level" in 4E's skill challenges in that if you have level 10 spells and you're chasing a guy then obviously you're chasing a guy in a situation where level 10 spells are worth 1 to 2 chase points. But take a party with level 4 spells and there's kind of a meta-incentive to cast the lowest 2pointer spell you can justify even if a higher level spell would make much more narrative sense. Like if I have a level 2 "makes me jump real good spell" and a level 3 "Make the party jump real good spell", then if the level 2 spell would get me 1 point then the level 3 would obviously get me 2. But if I have a level 4 "Make the whole party jump really drat good and also we're fast and have long grabby arms" spell then that's not really worth spending since it's not mechanically more useful than jumpgood, even though it's obviously narratively a slam dunk. And there's no real good solution to that within the existing framework that doesn't end in "I cast End Chase, ending the chase". But you absolutely can shoot bullets at the flying guy, that is absolutely covered.
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Feb 16, 2022 00:57
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Splicer posted:So the advantage of hucking a fireball at them vs shooting at them is that you get a flat 1 chase point with no chance of failing the roll or risking a crit fail. If it's an especially appropriate spell then you get 2. How big an advantage that is I don't know, I don't play pathfinder. It's fuzzier but you could argue "We already have haste cast" is worth the GM going "That's fair you get a free Chase point to start with". Nah it's fine. We usually disagree but you're pretty good about actually looking at sources and stuff and treating them critically. KingKalamari posted:Again, as others have pointed out, it seems like the big problem you're grappling with is assuming that the usual rules of engagement for combat apply during a chase - When you pull out the chase system you're essentially plopping the characters down into a separate little subsystem and all actions they could take need to be adjudicated in that subsystem. If a player wants to burn a spell slot to cast fireball during the chase then they can do that, but the results will be adjudicated within the chase subsystem (ie, the fireball will result in either the players gaining additional chase points or the enemy gaining fewer chase points). This is correct and is an important part of the chase subsystem discussion. The way the actual rules are structured, Pathfinder 2e explicitly has you playing the game in one of three modes: encounter, exploration, or downtime, and there are explicit moves (in the AW sense, if you'd like, even) for moving from one mode to another. Then the subsystem rules say "these are special systems for handling these ideas in specific modes and they do not follow the standard rules for those modes" and THEN the chase subsystem says "this uses the encounter mode and actions work like this inside the subsystem." If you read the core rulebook and then the gamemastery guide (where the chase rules are) this is clearly laid out. Hyphz didn't read it or misinterpreted it, same old story. Arivia fucked around with this message at 01:21 on Feb 16, 2022 |
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Feb 16, 2022 01:16
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I don't think there's any scene in a tabletop game that is not improved with some light scenery destruction.
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Feb 16, 2022 01:24
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Leraika posted:I don't think there's any scene in a tabletop game that is not improved with some light scenery destruction. Looks up from reading Brindlewood Bay, does a spit take, and throws tea cup against the wall. It shatters loudly. How dare you.
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Feb 16, 2022 01:38
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if you haven't at least toppled a cart of produce or driven right through a big pane of glass being carried across a street by two people, you have not actually chased. Go back to the beginning and do it over.
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Feb 16, 2022 01:44
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"I roll animal handling to make sure the broken cages full of chickens go absolutely everywhere" "How does this help you catch up exactly?" *stares blankly back in confusion*
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Feb 16, 2022 02:02
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Leperflesh posted:if you haven't at least toppled a cart of produce or driven right through a big pane of glass being carried across a street by two people, you have not actually chased. Go back to the beginning and do it over. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpIlZFkJ3Q8
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Feb 16, 2022 02:08
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Splicer posted:"I roll animal handling to make sure the broken cages full of chickens go absolutely everywhere" I have the deck of chase cards Paizo created for the subsystem with a bunch of prewritten hazards and they're full of stuff like this. Get chase points for feeding the rampaging bear, making the wandering monster go after someone else, etc.
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Feb 16, 2022 02:28
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Panzeh posted:The 80s approach to supers was very tactical and fine-grained, very much not icon, but it was weird, often having things like Starfleet Battles-style initiatives so that, for example, you could make the Flash and he really would punch 16 times per second, rather than trying to work that into some kind of abstract thing. It came with an enormous amount of rules overhead, though, like pretty much everything else crunchy and 80s. I once ordered a copy of HERO System thinking that even if it was slightly like its reputation, it'd be good to have around for a lark, even if I'd never run it. This was back in college when my discretionary spending was on the order of a few tens of dollars a month, if that. Eventually I got the call that my book was in at the shop. I picked it up, flipped through it, and immediately sold it back to the store at a loss, because they refused to give me a refund. Not even as a joke.
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Feb 16, 2022 02:34
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I haven't learned the system yet, but Double Cross does tactical combat with abstract engagements instead of a map.
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Feb 16, 2022 03:05
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Hero system is a beautiful attempt at a rules-as-physics engine superhero game. It's also often a proof that people don't enjoy playing such games.
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Feb 16, 2022 03:12
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Zorak of Michigan posted:Hero system is a beautiful attempt at a rules-as-physics engine superhero game. It's also often a proof that people don't enjoy playing such games. It's a tough design challenge as an actual crunchy game. The alternatives tend to be systems where an assault rifle and lasers from your eyes do the same thing.
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Feb 16, 2022 03:18
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Splicer posted:I should also say that in Hyphz original post the other day he made a bunch of excellent on the fly (heh) adjudications and did an excellent job of improv to bring the chase to a satisfactory conclusion, and it sounds like his players agreed. Witht he funny thing being that he ended up running the chase basically according to the rules, just he was making them up as he went along. I think I've mentioned it before, but a lot of Hyphz problems seem to come down to overthinking things, particularly his own choices as a GM. Like you say, it sounds like he handled things very well adjudicating the chase on the fly and I think if he could just find a way to turn off or ignore that voice in the back of his head that makes him doubt himself he'd be doing real good. Leperflesh posted:if you haven't at least toppled a cart of produce or driven right through a big pane of glass being carried across a street by two people, you have not actually chased. Go back to the beginning and do it over. Are you willing to accept an alternate scenario where the two men expertly maneuver the pane of glass around the chase participants, only to throw it in a dumpster when they reach the other side of the street?
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Feb 16, 2022 03:21
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Leperflesh posted:if you haven't at least toppled a cart of produce or driven right through a big pane of glass being carried across a street by two people, you have not actually chased. Go back to the beginning and do it over. The exception to this is if the chase took place exclusively in a long hallway with an equal number of doors on each side.
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Feb 16, 2022 03:28
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The James Bond 007 RPG from 1983 (which I really need to write up for F&F someday) had the first really workable chase system. Basically, there were five ranges (Close, Medium, Long, Distant, Extreme), which also roughly correspond to range in combat. Each chase round starts with a bidding war, with the side willing to bid down the ease of the chase winning, and choosing who will go first. The person going first decides what maneuver they want to pull (from a list of six), resolves it, and then conducts ranged combat. Then the side going second does the same, then another round of bidding and maneuvers and resolutions begins, until the chase ends. Each manuever has a safety level, which if you roll badly enough to exceed it, causes a mishap. This is modified by skill, circumstances (is it night, are you injured, is it raining, etc.), the performance of the vehicle (you are more likely to succeed in a tricky maneuver in a Ferrari than a panel van), and safety limits of a vehicle (trying to loop-the-loop in a Airbus is more likely to end badly than in a stunt plane). JB007 also has a metagame currency (called Hero Points) which you can spend to improve your die rolls. SIDENOTE 1: Despite being a game from 1983, JB007 does NOT force you choose between doing cool things and levelling up your character - the only cost for spending Hero Points is that you don't have them to spend later in the scenario. The currency for levelling up (Experience Points) is entirely determined by how well you succeeded in carrying out your mission (and what the stakes of the mission were, and how difficult the mission was). SIDENOTE 2: In a very fun example of designing for genre effect, the designer set the safety limit of a vehicle based on how often they exploded in the movies. Helicopters have a very, very low safety limit. The skill you use depends on the situation. On foot you use Evade, on a horse you use Riding, in a plane you use Piloting, and so on. The six maneuvers are: - Pursue: try to decrease the distance between the two sides. The safest maneuver, you roll and depending on the level of success, you reduce the range increment by one, two, three, or even four levels. Only possible for the pursuer. This can't be chosen only one party is in a vehicle, or if your vehicle's maximum speed is the less than the other side's cruising speed. - Flee: the mirror opposite of Pursue, where you try to increase the distance. - Force: use your vehicle to physically intimidate the other party into mishap. Only possible at Close range. A successful force attempt by one on-foot character against another end the chase and starts a hand-to-hand combat. Each vehicle has a force level that it uses as a modifier (a Mack truck has a rating of 9, a VW Beetle has a rating of 2). Safety level: medium. If you succeed, the other side has to roll to avoid a mishap. If you fail, YOU have to roll to avoid a mishap. - Quick Turn: try to end the chase by ducking and hiding. Only possible for the pursued, and only possible and Long or Extreme range. You need to beat the pursuer's Perception rating - if you succeed, the chase is over and you escape. If you fail, oops, you're now at Close range (nice try). Safety level: medium. - Double Back: make a sharp 180 and try to surprise your pursuer by running/driving/flying past them unexpectedly. It can only be performed by the pursued, and only at Close or Medium range. If successful, this makes the range Close for the next turn, and then the pursuer doesn't manage to successfully Double Back himself or pull off a Force maneuver as the pursued goes zooming by, the range becomes Extreme - Trick: the most dangerous maneuver. You pull some cinematic trick (grabbing someone's parachute off of them as you fall past, jump your car over the rising drawbridge, drive your motorcycle down the bobsled track, whatever) or try to invoke an obstacle (freeway lanes closed for construction, moving truck is backing into a driveway, etc.) and roll to see if you make it. If you do, the other side needs to roll (at the same difficulty level) to see if they manage to match the trick and stay at the same range. Otherwise, mishaps ensue. One nice touch: the barest level of success means you do succeed, but your character is stunned for the next turn. You just keep going through chase rounds until the pursued party escapes, the pursuer closes the range and catches the pursued, or damage (from ranged combats or mishaps) knocks one party out of the chase. Mishap rules determine how much damage your vehicle takes and how much damage your character takes when you blow a safety roll. Damaged vehicles and damaged characters experience have a tougher time with their various chase rolls. There are a bunch of special rules (like aircraft take an additional level of damage when damaged - again, reflecting their fragility in the films). There are also rules for using the chase system to tail a character (much more use of Perception rolls, much lower chances of exploding helicopters). It's a really great and flexible system, producing cinematic results and adapatable to any kind of chase from a Bond film (the sidebars give specific examples from the movies, like "During the boat chase in Live And Let Die, the henchmen are told 'the man who catches Bond lives'. In this case the pursuers, for fear of their lives, would consistently try to win the bidding no matter how low it goes. Without that threat over their heads, they would not bid lower than Ease Factor 4."). The whole game is like this. It's one of the true gems of RPG design, and it's stunning that is was released in 1983 (and by the Avalon Hill wargame company, at that).
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Feb 16, 2022 04:22
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JB007's chase system is great. After giving it some thought I also figured it can integrate well with a stealth system because the result of failing stealth is guards pursuing you, and ending a chance is one way to get back into stealth. Really, JB007 is just great: it correctly recognizes that in a spy game, being average and inconspicuous is worth more than people being able to pick you out of a crowd, so many features have pyramid-shaped costs, peaking in the middle. There's also a secondary progression system based on notoriety that makes enemy agents more likely to notice you the more missions you succeed at and the more scars you pick up in combat, because of course knowing people from the marks on their bodies and their reputation is peak spy fiction. There is no system for money in the game, because cool spies don't care about specific sums unless they're so big they're plot devices.
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Feb 16, 2022 04:47
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I already had a go at 007 a ways back: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3421366&pagenumber=371#post410136351 I just did a 007 one-shot with a few friends in late 2021, on a night when our normal group couldn't meet. I hadn't run the game since back when it was in print, and I didn't do a strong job of setting the toughness of the opposition. We had fun though.
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Feb 16, 2022 04:51
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That sounds amazing, thanks for the writeups!
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Feb 16, 2022 05:20
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grassy gnoll posted:I once ordered a copy of HERO System thinking that even if it was slightly like its reputation, it'd be good to have around for a lark, even if I'd never run it. This was back in college when my discretionary spending was on the order of a few tens of dollars a month, if that. Eventually I got the call that my book was in at the shop. HERO and those old systems were very much about trying to make the player feel like the superhero through crunchy mechanics in combat. The example play adventure is literally "the heroes fight someone robbing a bank", and that's it. It may not have scaled, but it's an underlying good idea.
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Feb 16, 2022 11:56
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Is there an Austin Powers Heartbreaker for the JB007 system? Thinking of introducing a "mojo" resource.
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Feb 16, 2022 12:07
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grassy gnoll posted:I once ordered a copy of HERO System thinking that even if it was slightly like its reputation, it'd be good to have around for a lark, even if I'd never run it. This was back in college when my discretionary spending was on the order of a few tens of dollars a month, if that. Eventually I got the call that my book was in at the shop. I started playing Hero (original Champions) system back in the early 80s. I still love it, but I understand it is more of a tactical superhero wargame than an RPG with the majority of the RAW. It is a brutally crunchy game, in no way the worst culprit, but it's really numbers heavy. DISCLAIMER: I am an engineer, and numbers arouse me. For chase sequences, Spycraft 2e had a decent one and so did the original TSR Indiana Jones game.
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Feb 16, 2022 21:10
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I played so much Champions as a kid that I can't watch a superhero movie without reflexively building powers in Hero. Across multiple movies, the inconsistencies in power levels, as needed to make the story works, really highlight the way superhero stories aren't based on consistent physics. I love Champions but I cannot claim it's going to provide the experience people want in a superhero RPG today.
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Feb 16, 2022 22:41
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Zorak of Michigan posted:I played so much Champions as a kid that I can't watch a superhero movie without reflexively building powers in Hero. Across multiple movies, the inconsistencies in power levels, as needed to make the story works, really highlight the way superhero stories aren't based on consistent physics. I love Champions but I cannot claim it's going to provide the experience people want in a superhero RPG today. Oh absolutely, but I still play Champions 4e with a group of friends I've had over the last forty years.
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Feb 16, 2022 23:12
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Just started reading Wildsea, and I think this might be my new gold standard for presentation in an RPG. This is a book I'd leave on my coffee table if I had two.
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Feb 16, 2022 23:47
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CitizenKeen posted:Just started reading Wildsea, and I think this might be my new gold standard for presentation in an RPG. This is a book I'd leave on my coffee table if I had two. It's so pretty. I've had several physical books come in over the past couple weeks, but I still keep going back to the Wildsea pdf.
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Feb 17, 2022 18:43
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I've been looking for an RPG for my wife and I to get into. She doesn't really play games at all, but she has a really creative mind and emotional intelligence that I thought would lend itself well to a tabletop RPG. I like all kinds of gaming but I never really did RPGs. I tried Ironsworn since it was free and also open ended. We had a great time making our characters and backstories, and playing a couple of sessions. But we felt so mentally tired by the end because it's so open ended that we got creatively stuck sometimes. Maybe it's our lack of experience with RPGs, and we don't have a lot to draw upon. I've been looking at other Powered by the Apocalypse games but it all seems a little daunting and sandbox-y. Is there anything out there that's good for a GM and a single player that's a little more prescriptive? As beginners I think we need more written content. Could I just go with any mainstream game and play it one-on-one, with her being the single player? Or does that not tend to work? Zapf Dingbat fucked around with this message at 20:24 on Feb 17, 2022 |
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Feb 17, 2022 20:22
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There's a lot of Japanese games that are made to follow a pretty rigid structure; maybe looking at some of those? I'm specifically thinking of Floria right now, but I don't know how that works as a singleplayer game.
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Feb 17, 2022 20:23
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Pelgrane publishes Cthulhu Confidential and Night's Black Agents: Solo Ops specifically for one player and one GM.
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Feb 17, 2022 20:26
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