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Halloween Jack posted:Nonetheless, I was right about you being more qualified to figure this poo poo out than I am You probably have like, an actual job and responsibilities and stuff. I, meanwhile, am disabled and have time to tabulate AnyDice outputs and make actual charts:  (Sometimes an Unskilled dot is missing: that's because it's hidden under the corresponding Skilled dot.)
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Jun 23, 2022 20:01
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LatwPIAT posted:You probably have like, an actual job and responsibilities and stuff. I, meanwhile, am disabled and have time to tabulate AnyDice outputs and make actual charts: [PitchMeeting]Disabled posters are tight![/PitchMeeting] Seriously, excellent job on that chart.
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Jun 23, 2022 21:09
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You did that, while I gave short shrift to the Push Column on the Success Chart because I'm too lazy to model a single die roll. I knew you were more qualified to do this than I am But I'm gonna do that now. Russ Neibler, Dark Warrior from the Future, has a Strength of 13 and 3 skill adds in the lifting skill, for a total of 16. Masterbook characters have a Lifting Capacity, which is their STR-3 on the Value Chart. Neibler's LC is 10, which translates to 100 kilograms on the Value Chart. That means Russ can lift 100 kilos (about 220 lbs.) without rolling. But what if he needs to lift more? Like, maybe a girl is watching. The DN is based on the value of how much weight you're trying to lift. Let's say he's trying to lift a dead robot that weighs ton, which rounds to a value of 15 on the Value Chart. He rolls his skill 16 and gets a +2 on the Bonus Chart, for a total of 18. That beats the DN by 3 Result Points. Reading this on the Push Column of the Success Chart, Russ gets 2 (4). That means he can increase his Lifting Capacity by 2, but suffers 4 Shock Points. Going back to the Value Chart, an LC of 12 equals 250 kilos, or 551 lbs. Russ fails to lift the dead robot into the dark future. That's how you lift a heavy weight in Masterbook. You only need three charts! Which are actually tables!
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Jun 23, 2022 21:21
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Soulbound: Champions of Destruction Investing In Waaagh! Futures So, while Endeavors still exist for Destruction characters, many of them are by default unwelcome in the cities of Order, much as Death-aligned characters are. The exception to this is Ogors, who can operate in Order cities normally. Destruction characters also tend not to be the sort of people interested in most of the core book Endeavors anyway, and...well, by default the game forbids Destruction PCs from taking any Endeavor it wouldn't make sense for them to be able to do, either because of personal temperament or because no one is willing to deal with them in the local city. The exceptions are Create Spell and Train Companion - you can do those as longas you have magic or a companion respectively. (And Ogors, of course, get the whole list, assuming they want it and have a city to visit.) However, the book also helpfully provides new, Destruction-flavored Endeavors that are easier for the peoples of Gorkamorka to access and take part in. It is also noted that downtime isn't fun for most Destruction PCs, and any Binding that uses Waaagh! Energy loses 1 point of it each downtime as everyone calms down unless someone specifically works to to prevent this, either via the Rile Up Endeavor (more on which later) or by challging the Boss of the Binding, which also prevents Energy loss. Remember, every Destruction Binding has a Boss. Before anyone takes Endeavors in downtime, the GM asks the party if anyone plans to challenge the Boss for leadership. If anyone does, they and the current Boss have to make an extended test over three rolls, with whoever gets the most successes at the end becoming the new Boss (or retaining the title). The first roll represents the challenge - every challenger must declare why they deserve to be the Boss, with the other PCs free to cheer, mock or otherwise interject. Any PCs not involved in a Boss challenge may vote to give Advantage or Disadvantage to any of the challengers based on how much they like the challenge. The challenger then rolls using a skill that matches whatever they boasted about to prove they should be the Boss. The current Boss rolls a skill appropriate to getting everyone back in line. The second roll's skill is chosen by the current Boss, who decides how everyone's going to challenge them - a brawl, say, or hunting down beasts competitively. Finally, the third roll can use any skill, and represents whatever brutal or cunning method each PC involved uses to get an advantage over the others. Whoever ends up with the most successes at the end of it all becomes the Boss, and everyone else who took part gets a Lasting Wound. The current Boss decides who wins ties - which is usually themself if they were part of the tie, but also means they pick their successor if two challengers tie and both beat them. If the current Boss retains their position after a challenge, they get a surge of charismatic leadership power. Until the next downtime period, the Boss can yell something at another party member as an Action to remove one Condition from them. The Boss may also choose, during the initial challenge, to voluntarily step down if swayed by the challenger's arguments. If this happens, no one takes any Lasting Wound from the shift of leadership. Either way, no matter how a challenge ends, Endeavors can be done once it's over. Amuse the Bad Moon: Gloomspite only. Basically, every grot and trogg knows that the Bad Moon gets bored easily and loves mayhem, violence and treachery. If you perform a sufficiently big act of treachery and mischief, you can try to earn its favor. You pick an allied NPC to backstab in an entertaining way, making an extended Entertain test over a week, aiming for 8 successes. You make three rolls to prepare and execute your plan, and if you succeed, the Bad Moon appears on the horizon to leer cheerfully at your antics. Until the next downtime period, all grots get a bonus die on Mind rolls and all troggoths get a bonus die on Soul rolls. If you fail, your efforts disappoint and the Bad Moon ignores you. No matter what happens, the ally you betrayed is now an enemy. Barter: You start trying to trade goods for other goods in order to eventually get something you want. Hobgrots are famously skilled barterers, but every Destruction culture takes part in it. This is an extended Guile or Determination test over a week, aiming for 8 successes. If you would have Advantage on opposed rolls when bartering due to, say, the Savvy Talent, you get a reduced success requirement. You make three rolls, and if you succeed, you pick one item of your choice that you own and trade it away over a series of deals, eventually receiving something worth 50% more than what you started with that is of the same or higher rarity. This might not be a standard piece of gear - it could be some kind of luxury item that you'll be able to make future trades with. You and the GM work together to figure out what you end up with. Alternatively, you may use this Endeavor to seek a specific piece of equipment, functioning identically to the corebook Shopping Endeavor, save that you treat all item rarities as one step higher, as you're not dealing with established business networks. Create Fungus Brew: You must have Training 1 in both Crafting and Nature. You gather up mushrooms to make a potion, which is an extended Crafting roll over a week with the number of successes needed varying by potion, each of which also has specific ingredients needed as noted last chapter. You get three rolls, and if you succeed, you create doses equal to your Crafting Training. If you don't finish by the end of the week, you can keep going if you have another week of downtime, can give up and try again from scratch later, or if you have a secure location to store the brew in progress, you can stash it and come back next time to however many successes you got this time. If you finish after only one or two rolls, you can pick a different brew to spend the remainder of your rolls on, tracking any partly finished results as above. (This is explicitly a simplified version of Steam and Steel's alchemy, which you can use to invent new brews.) Da Waitin' Game: Patience is a virtue of the Kruleboyz, and you can follow their methods to plan out a strike on a foe that exploits their weakness by carefully studying them. You pick a city, camp or stronghold and make an extended Awareness or Stealth roll over a week, requiring 8 successes and getting three rolls. If you succeed, at the end of downtime, your target makes themselves vulnerable somehow - maybe they send their army out to do something, maybe they make a big costly new project that opens holes in their defenses. You and the GM figure out what the new way in to attack is. If you fail, the target notices something's off and entrenches themselves more securely. Dankhold Nap: You must be a troggoth and have an empty dankhold to nap in. Troggs love dark, gloomy places and will often gorge themselves and then sleep, possibly even for years or decades if allowed. Soulbound troggs usually get poked awake once everyone's ready to head out, mind, but the point of this whole process is transformation into a larger, more powerful and more magically resistant form, known as a Dankhold Trogg. You gorge yourself on magical fungi and take a nap for a whole week, making an extended Fortitude roll. Your target is 30 successes...eventually. You get three rolls each week, representing your ability to find magical mushrooms, rocks and other poo poo to eat first to fuel your change. Successes persist between endeavors, so you just keep adding them to your total. No matter what, until your next downtime, your magic-rich diet causes spells to slide off you, doubling your dicepool for any rolls to resist spell effects and doubling Armor against spell-based damage. Once you hit 30 total successes, this bonus becomes permanent. Further, your Size gradually adjusts to match the dankhold you've been napping in, like a goldfish to a bowl. A few months is generally enough to reach the upper bounds of Large, though it usually takes centuries to become Enormous. Alternatively, if you shove yourself into tiny caves, you might shrink to Medium or even Small. Encourage Imitators: The forces of Destruction are very quick to start imitating folk heroes among their cultures. Charismatic bosses will quickly find they have a large number of other would-be leaders pulling similar stunts as they do in hopes of replicating their successes. These fads can last quite a while, too, especially if the leader being emulated retains power and keeps succeeding. You can encourage people to do as you do with an extended Entertain roll (or other appropriate skill) over the course of a week, aiming for 8 successes. You get three rolls, and if you succeed, your admirers attempt to replicate the last Goal you completed - the book's example is if you slew a Khornate warlord by beheading, your followers may attempt to head out into the wasts to fight Khornates as well, though they'll often be happy just beheading a simple warrior or even perhaps someone just dressed in red, depending on how skilled or lazy they are. This has no strict benefits exactly, but the GM may choose to restore 1 Soulfire or Waaagh! Energy, improve (or hurt) your standing with an NPC group or alter the spread of Rumors, Fears or Threats based on what your admirers end up doing. Enlist Gargant: You're going to need 500D worth of food and drink to pull this off. The Gargants are a people of Destruction, but rather more distant from the others due to their size and tendency to accidentally step on people while looking for something to eat. Many are highly independent and solitary sorts with a penchant for mercenary work, and while you can use violence to convince them to obey, that's more a mid-adventure thing. In downtime, you need to pay them. This requires an extended Fortitude roll, aiming for 10 successes over a week as you wine and dine them with vast quantities of food and liquor. You get three rolls, and if you succeed, you stay sober enough to remember why you're doing it and ask the gargant for a favor. They will try to do what you ask as best they can, but will not risk their life or prized possessions to do so. If you fail, you end up blackout drunk, throw up in a corner and get laughed at by the gargant, who then wanders off. Feed Spiders: You need spiders to feed to do this. The Spiderfang have learned that spiders will eat nearly anything - at least, the right kinds will. Glintfangs, for example, feast on metal once their venom dissolves it, and the spiders raised by the Frazzleshun love nothing more than processed falsestone. The spiders you feed need not be loyal to you or even especially like you,as long as you can give them food. This is an extended roll over a week, aiming for 8 successes on three rolls. The first is a Nature roll, and the last two are Beast Handling. If you succeed, the spiders accept your offering and produce for you enough silk to make a net or cloak, with special properties based on what you fed them. Aqshian coals might get you silk that is always warm, for example. If you fail, the spiders also snack on you, causing a Lasting Wound, and you get no silk. Grow Fungus: You must have Training or Focus 1 in Nature. Fungal fields are rarely as neat or tidy as farms or greenhouses, and Gloomspite gardens especially tend to be chaotic, messy and covered in all sorts of mushrooms. You spend a week tending a fungal garden like this and avoiding allowing the fungus to feed on you. This is an extended Nature roll over a week consisting of three rolls, and you grow (10*successes)D worth of whatever mushroom you're growing. You must have a fungal sample to start from, which you're trying to grow more of - ingredients for a fungal brew, for example, or one of a number of listed useful mushrooms: Badloon Bossfungus: This only grows around grots touched by the clammy hand of the Bad Moon. If you wear at least 100D of Bossfungus, you get a bonus on opposed rolls to convince others you have the favor of the Bad Moon. Grey Spattlethwappers: These are large fungal bulbs on long, thin stalks which explode when they touch other things. If you plant 50D of them in a Zone, it becomes a Major Hazard. Squig Eggs: This is a small puffball mushroom that grows around squig dens. Planting 100D of them in a Zone causes a squig to appear there whenever it is narratively least convenient for whoever lives nearby. Strinkcrannies: These wide, fan-shaped fungi with crinkled gills leak horrible, gross fluid. Planting 50D of them in a Zone makes it a Minor Hazard that ignores Armor, and anyone damaged by the Hazard must make a Fortitude roll or become Poisoned. (No indication of how long Poisoned lasts.) Stranglenekks: These are dangling cave mushrooms that attempt to grab and choke the unwary so as to feed on their corpses. Planting 50D of them in a Zone makes it Difficult Terrain. Gutbash: You must have the corpse of an Enormous or Monstrous creature for this. You hold a giant feast, calling on ogors and gnoblars from everywhere nearby to come and gather around the Mawpot for your cooking. This is an extended Crafting roll aiming for 10 successes over a week, with three rolls to marinate and prepare the meal and invite all the guests. If you succeed, you get a bonus to opposed rolls to ask for help from the local ogor mawtribes and the Binding recovers all Soulfire or Waaagh! Energy. If you fail, your feast is forgettable and all party members become Poisoned until they drink a phial of Aqua Ghyranis or equivalent medicine for indigestion. Next time: H through Z
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Jun 23, 2022 21:44
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Working on the Dune 2d20 corebook now. It'll be a more compact review than normal since if I do every chapter in depth I'll get bored and abandon it. It has some hits and some misses, and a lot of stuff that's just okay.
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Jun 24, 2022 21:30
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DUNE 2D20 PART 1: LORE, CHARGEN, SYSTEM Welcome to Dune 2d20, not to be confused with Dune 2019. This game was released by Modiphius in 2021, several months before the latest film adaptation. The game is officially called Dune, Adventures in the Imperium, which was a dumb idea because it’s very close to the abortive Last Unicorn Games Dune RPG Dune, Chronicles of the Imperium from 2000, and to Gale Force Nine’s present day Eurogame Dune Imperium. We’ll be calling it Dune 2d20 so that it’s totally unambiguous.  The cover included in the PDF is actually a full wraparound of the entire book This will be a condensed review of the corebook, without any reference to other Dune 2d20 books such as splats and adventure modules, or any other 2d20 books period. It’s going to be shorter than my other reviews because there’s a lot of exhaustive detail that’s just not that interesting to dive into. My opinion of Dune 2d20 is that this game is good enough that it’s worth using instead of hacking another system if you want to play Dune. It achieves a basic level of competence with the setting and mechanics, and does a couple novel and impressive things. Any praise beyond that has to be counterbalanced with the book’s shortcomings. THE BOOK There were a whole lot of special editions of this corebook released, both as pre-order bonuses and available for purchase on the developer’s website. I’ll be reviewing the plain vanilla version of the corebook.  The matte finish on the cover makes it appear washed out in the photos  Here are a couple other versions.  They use the house sigils from the 2021 movie. There’s a lot I like about that film’s aesthetic, but I don’t love the minimalist, abstract heraldry. The Atreides logo looks like the Justice Department logo from Judge Dredd, which is a franchise I like but doesn’t really fit in the Dune world. I think the Gale Force Nine 2019 Dune board game did the iconography better, although I don’t love that game’s art direction overall. The book is 328 pages plus appendices. About 50 of those pages are lore, 50 are NPC dossiers, 20 are gear lists, and 15 are a sample adventure. Here’s what a typical page of Dune 2d20 looks like.  The art ranges from acceptable to pretty drat good. The artists were clearly given access to preview materials of the 2021 film, a lot of the designs are riffs on the movie.    But there are other illustrations which depart from Villeneuve’s austere visual style, using brighter and more varied colors.    My main beef with the art is that a lot of the posing is bland.  LORE The book begins with a condensed walkthrough of the Dune setting, explaining the political setup, tech level, future feudalism, the Spice Melange et al. This is a decent summary for someone completely unfamiliar with Dune, although it’s still longer than something you could reasonably expect a player to read.  What follows is a setting deep dive, using lore from the Brian Herbert novels to pad out the world of the original six Dune books. This lore section proper begins with a long discussion of the Titans and the Cymeks, who were various types of cybernetic guy from the prequel books that humanity rebelled against during the Butlerian Jihad. I think this sucks because it’s directly contra to the explanation given in the original series for what the Jihad was about - it was humans using computers to enslave other humans that the Great Revolt fought against, not Terminators. But besides that, it annoys me because there’s no reason for a lengthy explanation of this event to be in the Dune RPG. There is zero mechanical support in Dune 2d20 for playing a game set in the pre-Jihad or Jihad era, if you wanted to do that you’d just use a conventional science fiction RPG. And the entire lore section is like this. Multiple pages are devoted to the inner workings of the CHOAM Company bureaucracy. The bureaucracy of the Bene Gesserit sisterhood. Planets like Poritirin, a peaceful agricultural world where that’s never given any interesting backstory or reason to visit. Lots of page space and expository detail on setting elements that just… aren’t interesting.  If we’re pulling in non-canon Dune content to fill out the universe, my first choice would be the Dune Encyclopedia rather than the Brian Herbert books. But I understand why they chose to include the latter. It’s hard to make a financial case for pulling in an out of print book by a dead guy, when instead you can drive traffic to a series that’s still being written. That’s not my real issue here. I’ve seen two approaches to RPGs set in established fictional settings. The books that exemplify these approaches, for sake of argument, are GURPS New Sun and GURPS Chtorr.
I don’t think this is a fatal flaw. This book was obviously written to capitalize on the surge of interest in a “Dune RPG” that would result from the 2021 film, and it was reasonable to expect that most people coming in from the film would want to play in the parts of the Dune setting depicted in the film. But do me a favor and open up the appendix at the back of the original Dune. Read all the entries about the space ships that crush enemy fortifications by falling on them from orbit, or the wood that shapes itself telepathically according to human thought. Pages and pages of evocative golden age science fiction concepts that are only mentioned peripherally, to give the expansion of a wider universe. And Dune 2d20 is the complete opposite - a closed setting which offers little assistance for anyone trying to create anything outside the established parameters.  THE BASICS OF 2D20 2d20 is a dice pool roll-under system. A die roll consists of two or more D20s rolled versus a target number generated by summing some combination of stats and skills (depending on which 2d20 you’re playing). Each die showing a result equal or less than the target number is a success. The number of successes is compared to the task difficulty, which starts at 2 and can go lower or higher depending on a number of factors. Players can purchase additional dice to roll on a test using momentum, a shared metacurrency that accrues from overperforming on skill tests, as well as various other sources depending on which 2d20 game you’re playing. Momentum can also be spent to create traits, manipulate the game world, activate special powers, or do other things. The cost of adding dice to a pool for a roll linearly increases with each die purchased, so 1 for the first die, 2 for the next, 3 for the third, etc. If you don’t have momentum to spend, you can instead add threat to the GM’s pool. The GM can spend threat on NPC rolls the same way players spend it, and similarly gets various other ways to spend it that depend on which 2d20 you're playing. CHARGEN Dune 2d20 supports various modes of play, but the default assumption is that the majority of your characters will work for a Great House. The House creation minigame is bare bones, but has enough flavor that the group can still create something exciting. You get a list of traits to choose from or roll randomly, along with subdomains that add additional flavor. I suspect a lot of it comes down to a group's familiarity with Dune, and their ability to create something that fits with the world.  The House creation system is no help creating notable NPCs, like Dukes and warmasters and mentat assassins. You get a list of roles that need to be filled, and you're on your own. The game has no support for playing as the leaders of a great house. The players may be trusted counselors and high level strategists, or lower level agents.  The only mechanical effect your House has is on starting threat, which scales according to House size. Nascent and Minor Houses give the GM a small amount of starting threat to play with, while Major and Great Houses start with a larger pool. The pool refreshes at the beginning of each “adventure” but the length of an adventure is not defined in the text - is it a single session? An entire campaign? Somewhere in between? This is not the only mechanic in the book that procs on a per-adventure basis. I suspect the term “adventure” has a clearly defined meaning in some other 2d20 book, and was added to this one by a designer who didn’t realize that it hadn’t been explained here.  The chargen rules are a mix of straightforward numeric decisions, narrative choices, and “talents” chosen from a D20 style feat menu. You make some declarations about what your character is good at, what they care most about, and then you choose from a menu of “assets” to use in play. First you budget points across your drives. These are the things that motivate characters in the Dune setting. Power, Faith, Truth, etc. Your higher level drive statements get a “drive statement” that expresses how your character feels about the world. Next, you do the same for your Skills. These are broad categories of things people do in the Dune setting, like Battle, Discipline, Communicate, etc. The skill system is broad enough that you won’t get hosed because of things like choosing Anthropology when the GM wants Archaeology. You do get a limited budget for skill focuses, which are things within the category that your character is especially good at. You can take a Stealth focus in Movement, for example, or a Commanding Troops focus in Battle. If one of your D20s rolls under the value of the skill you’re using, and you have a focus in that skill, it counts as two successes instead of one. Skill focuses in commonly rolled fields can dramatically increase the amount of momentum coming into the group’s coffers, especially ones that are rolled on DC 0 tests like the ubiquitous Discipline (Observation).  Assets follow the typical RPG paradigm of buying powerful social advantages and mundane items with the same chargen resources. The cost of acquiring a face dancer servant who can infiltrate any location is the same as the cost of a cloak to protect you from the sun. This isn’t an academic gripe, it had huge impacts in our game. It’s further complicated by an additional rules explanation that certain items are common enough that characters serving a noble house can always be assumed to have them - shield belts, personal weapons, etc. So taking those at chargen is a waste of a slot that could be filled with something more exotic, except the rules say your starting items are special in some way, over and above the stuff you get off the rack. EXCEPT your starting assets are quality 0, and quality level is the only mechanical differentiating factor between assets - everything else about an asset is an abstract “trait” that’s only relevant when invoked narratively by the players or GM. This weird quantum state reminds me of the aspect system from FATE - always true narratively, but mechanically relevant only when invoked or compelled. Oh yeah, traits. As you go through chargen you accumulate these on your sheet. You get one from the Great House or faction that you’re part of, one for the character archetype you’re running (based on your skill spread, pick one or choose), one if you chose a specific character type like Bene Gesserit or Fremen.  The talents on offer for characters run the gamut of extremely powerful to largely useless. The best ones grant free rerolls or other dice manipulation in a broad spectrum of circumstances, which means more successes and more momentum down the line. The worst ones have minor bonuses that activate when the enemy uses a specific ability. The mechanical implementations of Dune setting elements are quite clever. Mentats can predict the outcome of a scenario, or gain free momentum by farming their vast well of knowledge for information about their present circumstances, which lets you turn their computational abilities into a generic bonus that fits whatever game circumstances you’re facing without the need for hyper detailed mechanics. Bene Gesserit can reroll Body and Move tests with their Prana Bindu ability, which is extremely broken in a way that reflects the source material exactly. Their Voice ability lets them buy automatic successes on social tests, but sends the threat level skyrocketing, reflecting the Sisterhood’s wariness about publicizing their most powerful ability. The Slow Blade ability lets you ignore defensive assets in combat, the Direct talent lets you hand out bonus actions… This is the strongest piece of rules design in the book, directly reflecting the themes and setting elements from the source material.  One rules quirk we ran into was having to pay twice for friendy NPCs. In the rules, a friendly NPC can be an asset (mechanical tool that you use in conflicts and skill tests) and a supporting character (statted NPC that you bring with you on your adventures, and even play as). One of the players picked a mentat as a starting asset, then wanted to bring him with them on the adventure. But starting with an NPC as an asset doesn't mechanically entitle you to have that NPC as a supporting character, so the player paid the cost and added four points of threat to bring him on as a permanent member of the cast. Maybe there's a rule we missed about this, or maybe that's working as intended. It does bring up a hypothetical scenario where a player has an asset like a mentat or a courtier or whatever, but doesn't pay the cost to bring them onboard as a supporting character. So they're with you the entire time, but only as a playing piece that enables skill checks. I suspect they ported the supporting character rules over from Star Trek or some other 2D20 and developed the Dune asset system separately, without fully resolving the overlap it created.  The system has “in play” chargen rules allow the player to define a handful of core features of their character, and fill in the fiddlier details as you progress. Half the players chose to use the in-play method, while the other half left the starting gate with finished characters. The advancement system gives you character points for enduring hardship. It’s skewed toward participation in the conflict system. You get a point every time you fail a DC 3 skill test, and if you're fighting that can happen every turn if you're attacking a hard target or increasing task difficulties by keeping the initiative. Being defeated in battle or targeted by large NPC threat spends is similarly an XP reward. You can also gain XP for advancing your character’s motivations. I counted on the players to self-serve this, since I couldn’t track whether every action of the story served the needs of a full table of characters. Here’s the sample character.  I like the bold colors on the outfit. Bene Gesserit Assassin/Duelist is a great build because the game’s combat system has a heavy focus on Movement, and the foundational Bene Gesserit feat gives you free rerolls on that. The skill focus in stealth is a welcome complement as well. GAMEPLAY The system is overall pretty fun. The metacurrency is not as much of a pain to track as I feared. The main challenge is calling for enough die rolls to actually let them build threat/momentum and use their special abilities. I don't normally make player characters roll for lots of things in RPGs, but in 2D20 you need explicit mechanical challenges to keep the economy going, without going so far overboard that you gate everything behind a skill check.  Some of these images are slices of two page spreads that got cut up in the PDF If you don't know how to manipulate the game's economy you can get stuck in a downward spiral, unable to achieve the successes necessary to generate the momentum to succeed on further tests. Indie Game Club's Band of Blades Postmortem had a good discussion on the challenges of reminding players what all their mechanical choices in a given situation are in this kind of narrative-but-really-mechanically-driven game, without outright quarterbacking them through the whole session. What helped in the end was being very explicit about why the NPCs were making the choices they were. Eg "He's going to take an observe action and get some free Threat with a DC 0 test", or "This guy knows he can't beat you head on, so he'll try a DC 2 test to create a trait that lowers the difficulty". Since NPCs largely use threat the same way the players use momentum, those examples helped them understand the options available to them. Skill test target numbers are set with a combination of your character’s drives and skills. Essentially, each test asks: Why does your character care about the outcome of this die roll, and how good are they at performing the associated action? The need to negotiate drives and skills for every die roll means the game can bog down when player hem and haw about what combination makes the most sense for the character’s personality, weighed against what gives them the greatest mechanical advantage. I can’t blame the players for struggling with this, since in many cases (especially information gathering and perception) it’s not obvious what’s going on in a given situation, the players don’t know how much their character might care about it until after seeing the outcome of the roll. The rules book explicitly says it’s not a problem if the players always default to just rolling their best skill. Which is a nice thing to say, but really cuts against one of the other subsystems: the drive challenging minigame. If your character wants to do something that conflicts with one of your drive statements, you’ve got two choices: either take a “complication” that harms you in some way, or cross that drive out and gain a point of determination.  Determination is another 2d20 metacurrency that can be spent to reroll dice, ignore mechanical penalties, or otherwise manipulate the dice system above and beyond a normal momentum spend. Normally you can only spend determination on stuff that agrees with your drive statements. If you cross out the drive statement, you can’t use it for a determination spend until you “refresh” it between sessions, replacing it with a new or modified statement. I don’t think I ever had a player take a drive statement conflicting action in seven sessions of play. It’s another layer of metacurrency and narrative negotiation to deal with on top of the existing point economy and trait system and I suspect they either forgot about or ignored it. The GM can track and enforce it, but that means evaluating whether every event in the game world creates a philosophical conflict with five drives multiplied by the number of players at the table.  One thing I'm not clear on is whether task difficulty is meant to be public information, or kept vague/hidden from the players. I find that revealing it publicly makes the players more likely to spend metacurrency/increase threat in order to succeed on higher difficulty rolls. Anything beyond DC two and your odds of success are poor without a skill focus (one extra success if you roll below the linked skill on a test that fits with the focus) or a momentum spend. CONFLICT The combat system is fun. Dune uses a generic set of conflict rules based on opposed 2d20 rolls and a movement system that gives you varied tactical options without D20isms like measuring the battlefield in 5 foot grid increments. Each type of conflict has its own special mechanics on top of the generic system.  One on one combat uses the duel system, which is the most well thought out and fun of the subsystems. The battlefield is broken up into “zones”, with each zone representing proximity to a character’s body rather than the environment in which the duel is taking place. Each character gets a left guard zone, a right guard zone, and a personal zone. Your personal zone is adjacent to your guard zones, which are adjacent to the reverse of the enemy’s guard zone (IE your left guard zone is adjacent to the enemy’s right guard zone).  The objective is to move your offensive assets (weapons) into the enemy’s personal zone and perform a successful attack action, while preventing the same from happening to you. The rules for special types of movement and trait creation make this much more interesting than a battlefield composed of six spaces in a more or less straight line would appear. You can boldly move your weapons into the enemy guard zone and force them to move in response, or subtly move and get an immediate bonus action, but both of these take a skill test and can risk giving the enemy a free action against you. The main downside is that this game mode only engages one player, the duelist. I would have appreciated some “support” mechanic like in the Duel expansion to the old Avalon Hill Dune board game, where players who weren’t directly involved could mechanically influence the outcome of the fight from the sidelines. The skirmish battle rules (any combat with more than two participants) are much weaker than the ones for duels. You still get the varied movement types, trait creation minigame, and the momentum system, but it's all layered over a combat engine that plays like every other RPG battle system you've ever played. You move into contact with the enemy, roll to hit, and the target maybe gets a defensive roll to negate the damage. You don't have HP, except you actually do, because defeating you in combat requires the enemy to accumulate successful hits equal to your most relevant skill.  One of my players articulated quite well why it doesn't fit in with the rest of the game. Normally in Dune 2d20 a single die roll is a big deal. You negotiate which drive and skill to use, which traits might be in play, whether any of your special powers enter the equation, and how much metacurrency to spend. The inputs and outputs of the die roll have narrative weight. Meanwhile in the skirmish battle mode, you have a full table of players and a stable of NPCs making a sequence of very similar die rolls in a round robin. It feels less like 2d20 and more like, well, d20. Like a standard fantasy brawler with lots of rolling to hit and chipping away at HP. It's an interesting reversal of the usual RPG paradigm. In so many other games, the combat rules are the most functional and interesting part of the system, with everything else as an afterthought. Whereas Dune has quite good rules for bargaining with NPCs, blackmailing people, "locking in" bargains with ironclad mechanical guarantees, introducing interesting narrative twists using the point economy… I was correct in foreseeing a couple issues with the "warfare" version of the game's conflict rules. Moving squads around the battlefield is basically a one player affair for whoever has the highest battle skill, with the other players offering advice where they can. I don't think this is a huge deal. The duel minigame is similarly a one player affair, and it rules. But it leads directly into my second problem. The game has no rules for what happens when player characters take to the battlefield - other than providing a small buff to the move actions of the unit they are attached to. This is a glaring omission in a setting where lone badasses with superhuman abilities (The Voice, Ginaz Swordmastery, Honored Matre Martial Arts, the list goes on) regularly take on a dozen combatants and win. We ended up declaring that individual characters could not attack and damage units of soldiers, unless they had a trait or asset that let them fight a whole roomful of people. They could use special powers, like buffing units and distributing bonus actions, and could otherwise do everything a character could do  We didn't get much use out of the rules for espionage/intrigue "conflicts" because those activities already fit naturally into the flow of play. Breaking out a separate subsystem and using different mechanics would just break the flow and make it harder to involve all the players once the focus shifted to moving assets around the board. If any of the players had invested character generation resources in feats that functioned in these specific minigames we aren't using, this could be a real issue. Since nobody seems to have built their character on that assumption, it was just an interesting side note. In all types of conflict, using the "gain information" move is powerful because it grants immediate momentum, and if your character has the right skill focus you can build up a lot very quickly. I like it because it's a tight thematic fit with the combats we see in the Dune books, where carefully observing the enemy's fighting style is the key to survival. It's also not as broken as it sounds, because it costs your action to do it, meaning there's a significant opportunity cost that can only be offset by spending momentum and increasing your task difficulties to keep the initiative.  If you want your NPCs to be a danger to the players in conflicts, they need threat to spend. Their default two dice are unlikely to penetrate the players' defenses, especially given that most characters in Dune are walking around with defensive assets that increase the target number on the opposed roll. Easiest way to build up threat if the tank is empty is put an "officer" or "cheerleader" character on the back line, who does difficulty 0 actions every turn and converts the successes to threat that the other enemies can spend. If you're feeling really nasty you can give that guy the "Direct" feat that lets him immediately give another character an action after acting himself, so that one of the NPCs can spend that threat doing something nasty. This type of back line buffer is a priority target for the player characters, which in-turn makes the movement and zone rules more relevant. The trait/asset creation/destruction minigame gets more important the more moving parts you introduce to a conflict, giving the characters reason to do things besides just attack the target every round. The conflict rules can be trouble because broadly, and in each of the mini-games, they use slightly different rules than the core mechanics, and it isn’t always called out explicitly. Best example I can think of is trait creation. In most circumstances, creating a trait is a straightforward 2 momentum spend. In the conflict minigame, it's a difficulty 2 skill test. But if you are trying to force that trait onto a hostile character in the conflict minigame, it's an opposed test, with a DC determined by whatever your opponent rolls on their skill check. That last mechanic is not explained anywhere in the book, it appears in the example of conflict the devs posted on the Dune 2d20 blog. I suspect the rules author did not explain this special case because it was obvious to them from their experience with prior 2d20 games.  CREATING A HOUSE AND CHARACTER In the next post, I’ll create a Noble House and Character or two. For the House, we’ll pick one primary domain and two secondary domains. Each domain gets one area of expertise. So I need three domains and three corresponding areas of expertise. The domains are
I don’t think there’s a way to decide this democratically since there are too many options to choose from, so I’ll pick whichever ideas I think are most interesting. What should we create?
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Jun 24, 2022 23:02
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It does seem like a lot of STA copy & paste, with a few additions (dueling) and minor changes (values --> drives) I vote for art (produce), religion (understanding), and kanly (expertise). Zensunni assassin-poets whose verses you never want to openly criticize.
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Jun 24, 2022 23:18
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I like to see how well licensed RPGs handle the main characters. Make Paul
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Jun 25, 2022 01:58
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Kaza42 posted:I like to see how well licensed RPGs handle the main characters. Make Paul We need to make his store brand non-copyrighted version, Peter Agamemnes
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Jun 25, 2022 02:25
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Soulbound: Champions of Destruction Eat You Eat Me Hunt: You must have Training or Focus 1 in Survival. You spend a week pretty much exclusively hunting for meat so that you can build up a surplus. (It is generally assumed the average Destruction PC can acquire enough food via hunting to just survive without significant time or effort during downtime.) This is an extended Survival roll over a week aiming at 8 successes in three rolls. If you succeed, you gain 200D worth of meat and 100D worth of teef. If you fail, you suffer a Lasting Wound. Improvise: You wander off and just kinda do stuff. You have a bender or something. Whatever it was, you don't really remember all of it, but you show up again after a week stinky, with damaged clothes and probably some new scars. One time before the next downtime period, you may declare that you did something during the downtime that will now be helpful - maybe you met the new NPC that just showed up and befriended them, maybe you already explored the area you're now in, whatever. You and the GM figure out something reasonable, but you may not contradict anything already established. Insult: You decide to go after someone's rep, because rep is everything for a Destruction leader. You spread rumors, tell humiliating stories, make up songs to mock them or otherwise make yourself a problem. You select a rival, then make an extended Entertain or Intimidate roll, aiming for 8 success on three rolls over a week. If you succeed, you may make up a new and insulting epithet for your rival which catches on. Next time they see you, they will go into a rage and attack immediately, even if it compromises them socially or otherwise. If you fail, however, your rival counters with their own insults, and everyone calls you an embarrassing nickname until the next downtime period. Offer Tribute: You must have the Blessed talent - doesn't matter which god. All gods like gifts, though the gods of Destruction tend to be more proactive about having their followers offer them up. Still, even Sigmar will not deny sacrifices. When you do this, you select some tribute to sacrifice - a captive, a whole lot of fresh meat, a valuable treasure, maybe even a secret the godw would value. It just has to be something valuable to you and your god. The GM will decide based on your overall resources, history of service and which god you serve whether your offering is worthy or unworthy. If the tribute is worthy, you get a bonus die to all Devotion rolls until your next downtime period. If it isunworthy, you get a one die penalty to all Devotion rolls until your next downtime period. Punch Armor: You must be an Ironjaw orruk to do this. Ironjaw armor is made the same way the Ironjawz do anything - hit something really hard. They take scrap metal and lovely iron and punch it into shape, having usually salvaged it from their grunta's fecal matter after the pigs digest the enemies they ate. Then they or whoever they can bully into doing it paints them brightly. Punching armor into shape is an extended Might roll, aiming at 8 successes on three rolls over the course of a week. If you succeed, you create at no cost a suit of Heavy Armor that can only be worn by an Ironjaw and decide its shape and decorations. Ironjawz that wear the same colors will assume you are a friend and ally, while those wearing other colors will likely attack you on sight, though if you fight well they'll probably be friendly after. If you fail, you enjoy yourself but the result is an unusable mass of metal. Rage: You get loving mad, possibly at the fact that the stuff you smash keeps getting rebuilt, but really it could be at anything. The important thing is getting good and mad. To get proper mad, you make an extended Determination roll, aiming for 8 successes on three rolls over the course of a week. If you succeed, once before the next downtime period, you may Cheat Death without needing to spend any Soulfire or Waaagh! Energy. If you fail, you mellow out before the week's up and can't maintain the boiling anger, but at least you're now fairly pleasant to be around. Rile Up: You refuse to give up the fight and spend your week looking for folks to brawl with and things to smash, then doing those things. Your Binding does not lose 1 Waaagh! Energy this downtime, but you take a Lasting Wound due to your brawling, and depending on circumstances, you may also make new enemies. Seek Bounty: You must be an ogor to do this. Ogors have a long tradition of selling their services as mercenary warriors - it's part of what makes them welcome just about everywhere, even among the forces of Order and the hordes of Chaos. When you do this, you accept a contract to kill or otherwise defeat a specific NPC, who will generally be a Champion or Chosen and have a fair number of followers. If you defeat the NPC before the next downtime period, you get 300D when the next downtime period starts, though the GM can adjust this up or down based on the difficulty of the job and the resources of the client. If you don't manage to pull it off by the next downtime period, the bounty expires, likely because the client is now dead. Seek Vision: You must have Training or Focus 1 in Devotion. Everyone knows Gorkamorka blesses his followers with visions to direct them to g ood fights...and also that the visionsa re often nonsense, if impressive nonsense, because most of the folks receiving them are not great at interpreting Gorkamorka's rather direct, earthy and annoying metaphors. You can seek out these visions, possibly by snorting live mushrooms, going into a food coma or bathing in the energies of the Waaagh!, but whatever you do, you are actively hunting for guidance. This is an extended Devotion roll aiming at 8 successes on three rolls over a week. If you succeed, you manage to interpret Gorkamorka's will, learning where a nd when a bigass fight is going to happen, though it may not be especially relevant to the plot. If you do get involved in that fight in the next adventure, however, you get 1 bonus XP on top of the normal XP you'd normally gain from your Goals. If you fail, you spend the week doing something weird, incomprehensible and embarrassing due to misinterpreting the vision, and you get a penalty to all opposed rolls to make people respect or listen to you. Spread Wilds: You must have a Spellcaster or Blessed Talent. Most powerful mages and priests of Destruction's peoples like to spread their preferred type of wilderness - the ice of the Everwinter, the spores of the Bad Moon, the swamps of the Kruleboyz. Doing so is an extended Nature roll aiming for 8 successes on 3 rolls over a week. If you succeed, you transform an acre of land into your preferred biome. Invasive species displace the native ones, the environment shifts, and Zones at the center of the change become Difficult Terrain or Major Hazards. If you fail, the land fights back against you, and the are you tried to change becomes a deadly and exaggerated version of itself instead of becoming what you wanted. Steal: Someone has something you want and won't give it to you. Might as well take it. You pick an item near where you are and make an extended roll. You need 8 successes for a Common item, 10 for a Rare one, and 12 for an Exotic one. You get three rolls over the course of a week, with the first two being Stealth rolls and the third being Dexterity. If you succeed, you get the thing and escape. If you fail, you get away without the thing and its owner catches a glimpse of your face, which will almost certainly have consequences. Swindle: You must be a hobgrot to do this. This is because hobgrots are extremely practiced at convincing people to buy things from them and especially at knowing what everyone values and how to convince them something fits in that category. You make an effort to sell what are, objectively, worthless goods to make bigger profits. This is an extended Guile roll, aiming for 8 successes on three rolls over a week to convince people to buy or trade for your trinkets. If you succeed, you roll a d6. On a 1-2, your marks don't have much, and you gain a Common item of the GM's choice or 100D. On a 3-5, you make a decent profit, gaining a Rare item of the GM's choice or 300D. On a 6, you make a big score, gaining an Exotic item of the GM's choice or 500D. However, if you fail, your marks get mad at you for trying to trick them and whollop you good. You take a Lasting Wound, and you get a penalty on opposed rolls to make anyone in the local area trust you in the future. Tattoo: You must be a Bonesplitter orruk for this to work, or at least an orruk who wants to become one. Bonesplitterz love their tats, as we know. When you do this, you seek out a tattoo maker, usually a Wardokk or Wurrgog Prophet, and ask them to give you some magic tats or modify the ones you've gotto a higher power. (You can do it to yourself if you have the appropriate skills, too.) By default, you don't have to spend money on this, but you may have to fulfill a special request or bring specific rare materials if that fits how your character views the magic. Note that being a Bonesplitter is more calling than choice, so if you're becoming one, work with the GM to determine how the Waaagh! has touched you and what it means for you. Taunt the Everwinter: The Beastclaw are always being chased by the Everwinter, and most of them make every effort to avoid it...but if it's on your tail, sometimes you want to spit in the god-storm's eye. You spend a week stalking the edges of the icy power's reach, roaring at it and showing it you don't fear it. When you're done, you've had a great time, though you're kinda numb and your flesh is a teensy bit frozen. Fortunately, this makes any other attacks you suffer feel less bad! For each downtime period you spent taunting the storm, you get +1 maximum Wounds, permanently, to a max of +3. Vandalise: The peoples of Order are suuuuper boring and love putting up lovely statues, boring gardens and annoying buildings. You just wanna smash 'em up into something that actually looks interesting aesthetically. This likely requires smashing some walls in the way, too, maybe some people, but you're just so sick of their hoity-toity art. Finding some art and messing it up is an extended Might roll, aiming for 8 successes on three rolls over a week. If you succeed, you really mess the place up, infusing it with the energies of joyful, raging destruction. Whenever your Binding rests there in the future, you recover 1 Waaagh! Energy. If your Binding has Soulfire, they only recover 1 Soulfire when resting there if the place was previously dedicated to Chaos or Death. War Dance: There's few arts the peoples of Destruction love more universally than dance. The grots dance under the light of the Bad Moon, the orruks stomp and perform in honor of Gorkamorka or Kragnos, and more. Grots and orruks are the most prolific dancers, but ogors, hobgrots and troggs love it too. It reminds everyone of the joy of action and fighting and gets everyone all hyped up. When you do this, you find a local gang, mob or warband to hang with and make an extended Entertain roll, aiming for 8 successes on three rolls over a week. If you succeed, your dance rites get everyone super riled and happy to be working together. Until the next downtime, no member of the group will challenge the boss for leadership or start an internal conflict. If you fail, however...well, everyone gets worked up, but it's uncontrolled, and a coup or civil war will start at the end of downtime. You may, before rolling, choose to swap the consequences of success and failure. Yorask-Or: You must have a Loyal Companion Talent. In the traditions of the Beastclaw, especially those of the Svard, AKA the Boulderhead tribe, a warrior performs the rite of Yorask-Or to create an unbreakable bond with their beast allies. It is a horrific ritual of endurance and pain, with both beast and master going before one of the Huskard Torr priests and having a slice of fat and flesh cut from their body. They then feed this flesh and fat to each other, binding master and pet together by sharing flesh and soul. Some ogors even claim the Binding Ritual borrowed elements of the Yorask-Or in its design. When you do this, you take a Lasting Wound, and if your Loyal Companion has Wounds, it also takes a Lasting Wound. However, you permanently gain bonus Toughness equal to your Companion's Soul, and your Companion gains the ability to spend Soulfire or Waaagh! Energy as if it was a PC. (Note that because Gnoblars and Grots can be Loyal Companions, this works on them even though they aren't animals. Don't think too hard about it.) Next time: Playing a Destruction Binding
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Jun 25, 2022 02:44
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Dune is a book that I greatly enjoy but am a bit skeptical about roleplaying in. Even more than Star Wars (before it got a billion side stories), Dune was kind of defined as being very In The Moment. I'm curious what advice it offers to playing in the setting.Kaza42 posted:I like to see how well licensed RPGs handle the main characters. Make Paul Kavak posted:We need to make his store brand non-copyrighted version, Peter Agamemnes Third'd
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Jun 25, 2022 02:46
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make the most min-maxed/obnoxious/canon-breaking/super special character you can, too.
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Jun 25, 2022 02:49
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Yeah Dune is a setting that more or less changes completely just after the first book and before that happens events are more or less all pushing in one direction (because part of the book’s thesis is how the forces of history are stronger than any one person.)
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Jun 25, 2022 03:02
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Leraika posted:make the most min-maxed/obnoxious/canon-breaking/super special character you can, too.
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Jun 25, 2022 03:03
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Hostile V posted:Yes, make Duncan Idaho. This. Hopefully the original, but if you wanted to do Weird Dunca-ghola #572 that's cool too. Also I want to see kanly (produce), espionage (machinery) and art (workers) because I'm curious how well all these domains and areas of expertise mix and match. Some of them seem easier than others.
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Jun 25, 2022 03:40
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Mors Rattus posted:(Note that because Gnoblars and Grots can be Loyal Companions, this works on them even though they aren't animals. Don't think too hard about it.) Well I know I thing for Ogors is that they bite the ears of Gnoblars they really like to mark them as off limits to other Ogors. It's a similar principle just with them eating some Ogor as well.
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Jun 25, 2022 04:06
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Hostile V posted:Yes, make Duncan Idaho. You mean Norman Ohio.
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Jun 25, 2022 05:00
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Stanley Minnesota.
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Jun 25, 2022 05:24
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Pakxos posted:You mean Norman Ohio.
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Jun 25, 2022 05:53
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I get the feel that every Dune RPG nails one thing with laser accuracy, a lot of things that are "sorta okay" and then has a couple of absolute swamp trash subsystems that merit being set on fire.
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Jun 25, 2022 10:24
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Figure out the character the book wants you to make, and then see if that character actually works.
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Jun 25, 2022 10:48
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mellonbread posted:Dune 2d20 is a GURPS New Sun style book. It lists a lot of setting details established in the core Dune novels and the Brian Herbert prequels, including game statistics for the primary characters from the first book. It has a rudimentary system for creating a Noble House, but nothing for planets, creatures (Dune has no intelligent aliens but lots of weird monsters), wacky special powers, and the other things that would really bring the world to life. Honestly, I think that's just the way Modiphius likes to work. I got the Star Trek Adventures humble bundle, and have dabbled a bit in Conan 2d20, and hooo boy, do the core books kinda read like a textbook sometimes. It's always going to be that way with IP based core books where they have to give you a good chunk of the world, but... It's rough. They also have a lot of trouble putting out ideas in the text and not adding mechanics. I know Star Trek Adventures mentioned the idea of "Hey, you can run a Deep Space 9 campaign and have a space station, or maybe be a planetary colony!" But only has rules for being on a ship like a standard Star Trek series. Even the "Play as DS9 characters" add on didn't really have good mechanics for running the station. The big question I have is... Where does Dune expand from here? STA get really good in the expansion books. They've got four Quadrant books which add more lore and flavor (plus obscure species) and then the three Department books which give new Talents along with player advice for leaning into the tropes of that department along with GM advice about how to play towards those characters. Conan 2d20 had a lot of expansions which added more mechanics. The Pirate book, the Exiles book, the Sorcerer book, etc. Dune has... The Arrakis sourcebook and the Architects campaign which has rules for actually leading a big house instead of working on the ground. What's next there? Ix? Will Ix matter if assets are so kinda weak?
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Jun 25, 2022 11:21
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Knowing that Modiphius is doing a Homeworld RPG I'm suddenly a bit concerned. But the thing is seemingly stuck in development hell as it still hasn't passed verification at Gearbox according to the most recent update I could find.
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Jun 25, 2022 11:45
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Nessus posted:No, I mean Duncan Juggalo. He's like Duncan Idaho, except he's a wicked clown. You can't fool me you just put makeup on a ghola
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Jun 25, 2022 11:46
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Nessus posted:No, I mean Duncan Juggalo. He's like Duncan Idaho, except he's a wicked clown. Spice, how does it work?
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Jun 25, 2022 14:37
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Pakxos posted:You mean Norman Ohio. Xiahou Dun posted:Stanley Minnesota.
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Jun 25, 2022 16:30
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Damon Iowa.
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Jun 25, 2022 17:03
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Paul, Duncan, and most of the other canon characters get game statistics in the book's NPC dossier. They use the same rules as player characters but are made with more points than a starting character due to being at the peak of human abilities. The talent system is a good mechanical reflection of their powers from the book because it was specifically written to systemize the core cast's abilities as feats that could be chosen by the player. The NPC dossier will appear in part 3 of this review.
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Jun 25, 2022 17:41
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Hostile V posted:Yes, make Duncan Idaho. Pakxos posted:You mean Norman Ohio. Xiahou Dun posted:Stanley Minnesota. Yvonmukluk posted:No, clearly you mean Danny California. That Old Tree posted:Damon Iowa. Indiana Jones! ...oh wait
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Jun 25, 2022 17:51
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Everyone gets their own Private (Duncan) Idaho.
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Jun 25, 2022 17:54
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Cooked Auto posted:Everyone gets their own Private (Duncan) Idaho. 
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Jun 25, 2022 17:57
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I feel someone had to make that joke at some point. v v
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Jun 25, 2022 18:04
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Cooked Auto posted:Everyone gets their own Private (Duncan) Idaho. Everyone is Leto II? Quite a power curve!
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Jun 25, 2022 19:01
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Asterite34 posted:Indiana Jones! Speaking of that!  Broken Compass is a game by the Italian design studio Two Little Mice. It’s about taking the part of a treasure-seeking adventurer in the mold of Indiana Jones, Nathan Drake, Lara Croft, and their ilk. You’ll travel the globe seeking clues, getting into and out of trouble, and clashing with rivals who are after the same treasure. The basic rulebook for BC is the Adventurer’s Journal, available in PDF or as a snazzy pseudoleather-bound pocket notebook. A bit over half the book is rules; the remainder is advice to the GM (or, rather, Fortune Master) on adventure and campaign design, variant rules, an introductory adventure, and a guide to setting adventures in the nostalgic, far-off era of – hack, cough, cough – 1999. Supplements are available to cover other adventurous eras, including Golden Age (1930s pulp), Voyages Extraordinaires (Jules Verne-inspired Victoriana), Jolly Roger (arr matey), and What If, a collection of variant campaign ideas, including a cartoon animal hack for those of you who want to run TaleSpin. Character generation is fast and simple, with ease of pick-up-and-play a priority. After writing down your character’s name, home (including heritage, homeland, and workplace), and Words to Live By (a short quote that summarizes your character’s outlook), you choose two Tags from the following list: Action Hero, Cheater, Daredevil, Explorer, Gunslinger, Hunk, Hunter, Medic, Pilot, Playboy/Femme Fatale, Professor, Rebel, Reporter, Soldier, Spy, Techie, Thief, and Wingman/woman. Broken Compass eschews ability scores. Instead, characters are defined by ratings in six Fields – Action, Guts, Knowledge, Society, Wild, and Crime – each of which has three associated Skills. A starting character has two dice (of a possible three) in each Field and one die (again, of three) in each Skill, so characters are broadly competent even at the base level. Each Tag gives you one more die in a particular Field and one more die in each of eight Skills. A Tag also gives a single Expertise, which reflects a specific area where you’re particularly skilled. Examples of Expertise include Military, Heights, Strength, Espionage, and, of course, Archaeology. Once you’ve chosen your Tags, you can customize your character by adding a third Expertise of your choice, and add two more dice to any Skill(s) you want. You can also choose the same Tag twice, which makes you a True example of that tag; e.g., a True Gunslinger. Doing this means you get one fewer Expertise, but you start with an extra Luck Coin (about which more later) to make up for it. Finally, you can also choose to be Old or Young. A Young adventurer doesn’t get a third Expertise, but you get a permanent Good Feeling (also, about which more later). An Old adventurer gets an extra Expertise and one Experience or Scar, but also gets a permanent Bad Feeling. After these details, you can choose three pieces of Gear to have with you, like a rope, a pistol, or a camera. Inventory management is fairly simple; you can store things in your Pockets, Bag, or Backpack, depending on their size and how accessible/secure you want them to be. So, that's all there is to character generation: pick two Tags, assign a couple of dice and an Expertise, and you're ready to go. The character generation chapter also includes tables so you can roll a character at random if inspiration isn’t striking.
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Jun 25, 2022 23:25
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Those Champions of Destruction downtime moves are intriguing. The permanent buffs and XP bonuses would probably stack up to some balance issues in a sufficiently long campaign if some players are messing around with narrative stuff instead, but I can't deny that most of them they are really cool. Man, I'm finding myself increasingly tempted to give Soulbound an actual play attempt. I've been sticking with D&D because it is easy and low-investment to play, but there is so much potential for fantastic adventure stories in this system.
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Jun 25, 2022 23:49
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  Nightlife 20XX I never had writer’s block with Nightlife until it was time to stop writing about it. First, I owe you a review of KinRise. What can I say, it’s all over the place! The good: Mother Earth and the Brotherhood are good post-apocalyptic supervillains. The book doesn’t exactly say what Mother Earth would go on to do after she conquered the world, but I think her experiments would lead to the whole biosphere being gradually taken over by the Twisted Dimensions. But you can understand why all these black-robed mooks would follow such an insane movement: she’s producing food out of thin air and giving them mutant powers. In fact, I like all the factions in KinRise! The Complex are well-organized Kin antagonists with clear goals. The Reconstructionists are a group the PCs can work with, with the added nuance of the Failsafe Coalition’s dubious ideology. The Army of New America are fascist scum you can feel good about slaughtering. Red Moonrise, Target Alpha, Solution 2000, and the scavvy gangs are excellent minor antagonists. KinRise is definitely for people who want to take the game in a more hack-and-slash direction. The new status quo vis a vis the Commune encourages you to dispense with the idea of hiding among humanity. It’s easier if you’re basically super soldiers who go on missions to get supplies for your grateful Herd. The bad: The Gypsies, well, obviously they should have just called them something like Merchants and canceled any illustrations with bandannas. I wish that they’d had the nerve to just nuke Golgotha and the other signature NPCs, too. It’s not like it really matters. I do kinda like the idea that the Kin have to look to people like the handful of Kin in Olds-Camp, PA for leadership now. And a final criticism I have to repeat is how they never really addressed the question of transportation. The communities and factions in the book are scattered all over the continental US, and the whole thing is very much in the Mad Max genre. But they never even discussed vehicles or overland travel, let alone have any use for them. You can walk through those Chasms they mentioned, and fight Wormhole monsters to take a shortcut? Sounds like a bad idea. So what about Nightlife in general? Something that I really like about Nightlife is that despite all the goofy stuff, it’s very grounded. Like the things I said about Hematech. They have a clear and rational mission: exterminate the Kin, but not before learning how to harness their powers. They finance this with illegal medical research which makes them tons of money. They get away with it because they provide cutting-edge treatment to powerful people. (Even today, the box-standard for this sort of thing is "Let's give people super powers by torturing them. This will never blow back on us.") In KinRise, the Complex doesn’t have any crazy scheme that goes beyond hanging out in their fortresses eating people all day. Their second-biggest enemy is the Brotherhood, and their biggest enemy is running out of MREs and water filters and plastic buckets and all the little things they can’t make more of, that they need to keep their post-apocalypse bunkers running, that make doomsday prepping an insane prospect in real life. But it’s still more rational than whatever the gently caress the Setites and the Giovanni are doing. I also like Nightlife’s approach to supernatural powers. (The books don’t absolutely confirm Parliament’s “Kin are spawned from the collective unconscious” theory, but it never contradicts it.) It serves as a rationale for why were aren’t already living in the wizard-induced post-apocalypse. It turns out that Kin powers do have a scientific basis. Kin can violate laws like conservation of mass by drawing energy from other dimension. Researching Kin powers requires being on the cutting edge of biochemistry and physics, and magic requires knowing a bunch of dead languages and ancient hidden traditions, too. Vanishingly few people can even try to figure out how it all works. Nightlife is always going to be compared to Vampire whenever it comes up. Is it a better game than Vampire? Well, I’ll say this for Nightlife: if I’d been handed this game when I was 13, I think I’d have had a better idea of what to do with it than I did with Vampire. Nightlife has a more “traditional” structure and the assumption that you’re going to be do-gooders who fight bad guys. There are plenty of random encounter tables, even endless megadungeons built into the setting. But hack-and-slash isn’t the point of the game; Nightlife and Vampire shared a new sensibility where the most important thing is for the PCs to hang around in cool clothes and rock out. (There are actually some places where I wish Nightlife was more D&Dish. Like, there should be maps for the Hematech facilities, and they should have expanded the rules for Wormholes and provided more reasons to actually go down there.) Another thing Nightlife has over Vampire is its NPCs. I mean, both games have interesting NPCs. Vampire’s are more three-dimensional and subtle, while Nightlife’s tend to be high-concept action movie characters. But Nightlife understands what NPCs are for. Friendly NPCs are there to give the PCs leads and get out of their way. Unfriendly ones are there to get their asses kicked. The adventure modules never force you to sit quietly and listen to the grownups talk. There's an albino werewolf biker gang leader drug kingpin named FrostBite and you can kill him or you can team up with him to fight the drug-dealing wizards or the monsters that want to wear your skin. At the same time, Vampire’s strength is Nightlife’s weakness. I was critical of Vampire’s advice on GMing and storytelling when I reviewed it, but I believe it was a big contributor to Vampire’s success. Rein-Hagen and company figured out that people wanted more guidance and fewer rules. If there are going to be, to use a random example, cults in the setting, GMs want advice on how to create interesting cults and use them in the campaign. They don’t need pages of statblocks, and they definitely don’t need some subsystem for measuring a cult’s influence that doesn’t matter because it’s for NPCs. So Nightlife’s biggest problem is that it often wastes a lot of space on rules that don’t really need to be there. There’s a useless system for measuring a street gang’s “Face,” while In the Musical Vein has a bunch of rules on auditioning, just to get the PCs into the premise of the campaign. (There are also other rules for testing how well your band performs together, and lets you build up a repertoire of songs as a narrative arsenal. They should have devoted more space to developing this into an actually useful type of “social combat.”) A peculiar thing about Nightlife’s supplements is the lack of power creep. After Magic, they never really introduced more and more powerful player options as time went on. They didn’t keep introducing new Races to play, nor Edges and Spells. The only thing that really stands out is the cutting-edge military weapons and body armour you can pick up in In The Musical Vein. This makes for a good segue into wrapping up some odds and ends of the rules that I wanted to discuss. I’ll tell you what I’d change if I was going to run it tomorrow. First, there are too many ability scores. Get rid of Strength completely, since it doesn’t really do anything outside of melee combat. Adjust Fitness bonuses accordingly. (This solves some weird little problems, like how Werewolves get a huge Strength bonus that does nothing because their shapeshifting Edges are based on Fitness.) Probably dump Attractiveness, too. Luck as a meta-attribute works fine. It’s the PCs’ plot armour and leveling mechanic. Set the skill list on loving fire. Cut it down to 20 at the most. One of them should be Music and one of them should be Fashion. Keep the goofy rules for vampire street karate. Finally, you can’t play Sorcerers because LOL none of that poo poo is balanced against regular Kin and it’s too much work to redo everything. I actually want to let you play a wizard but it's too much work, sorry. The bottom line is that this is a very playable game. It’s a straightforward percentile system where you almost never have to make two rolls to determine what happens in a combat turn or look up anything on a loving table. Storyteller was the first system I played, and in my early years as a gamer I reflexively hated anything that stank of D&D. But over the years I've grown to appreciate the straightforward dice math of of a d20 or d100 based system, provided it isn't ridden with the cancer of unnecessary subsystems that require tables and their own novel dice mechanic. One random little thing I want to pick on is the PCs’ options with regard to combat. It seems to me that the Claws Edge is an amazing combat option. First, it’s cheap and easy: a point of Max Humanity gets you 5 points of claws, and it only costs 1 point to activate. Skill progression is fixed and randomly rolled (5d10 per session), but 20 Max Humanity buys you Claws at 100%. Claws also work like any other melee weapon. You get to add your HTH bonus, and the damage scales with the Edge score. A Claws score of 100% does 20 base damage, the same as a big axe or sword–and it can keep scaling up from there. There are downsides, of course. Weapons and bullets can be made of silver or wood to take advantage of your enemies’ Flaws. Dual-wielding and automatic fire are also the only way to land multiple hits in a round--Nightlife is smarter than most games about not letting you break the action economy and the game along with it. But I think the biggest downside is in the fiction: this is a splatterpunk game. If tearing your enemies apart with Claws doesn’t ruin your velvet trenchcoat, the City Planner isn’t doing their job! Like I said, that was random. I’ve spent a lot of time writing about this game and I’m going to miss it. If I ever manage to actually run a session under geohell, I’ll even run it. Now it’s time to drink more, smoke more, make pizza, and watch The Keep. Remember, No Bleacher Seats! 
Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 17:02 on Jun 27, 2022 |
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Jun 25, 2022 23:57
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Anyway this is next!
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Jun 25, 2022 23:59
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gently caress yes, BLOODSHADOWS.
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Jun 26, 2022 00:13
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I love Nightlife and agree with all of Jack's changes. Also, Bloodshadows is a fantastic setting coupled to an abominable set of rules. Fortunately...https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/battlefieldpress/bloodshadows-chronicles-of-guf
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Jun 26, 2022 01:04
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| # ? Jun 1, 2024 18:26 |
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Yvonmukluk posted:No, clearly you mean Danny California.
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Jun 26, 2022 02:07
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