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Vox Valentine
May 31, 2013

Solving all of life's problems through enhanced casting of Occam's Razor. Reward yourself with an imaginary chalice.

I mean let's be real unless it's just XP again it's not Paranoia XP but I do find it's a relatively effective and useful system for fast resolution. They throw out the entire card and initiative system from Red Clearance so it's about describing actions and environments and then everyone acts based on Clearance level but you can risk going faster/slower, it's a pretty simple system to get going. I like it for being a decent enough update of the previous system where it strips skills and stats down a lot and then taking out all of the gimmicky cruft, I'd like it a lot more if this was the core system since Red Clearance but alas.

Also they did some frankly lovely plot adventure ideas across Red Clearance that was basically culminated in a module called "Operation Infinite Hole" where R&D opened a microsingularity in Alpha Complex and everything takes place after that but really all it does is get rid of "Terrorists" as a concept and bring back the Communists as a common threat. Red Clearance had a whole list of named Ultraviolets and Perfect Edition jettisons that while also combining and updating various secret societies based on how they reacted/didn't react to Friend Computer whipping up another purge in the wake of the black hole or tried to take control of the black hole and how that affected their societies.

Plain and simple when they did reductions they got rid of some of the societies or just merged them into other ones in order to give them more clarity of purpose. The Humanists, Pro-Tech and Computer Phreaks all joined forces to become Haxxor, a network of decentralized techno-progressivists slapfighting over how best to replace Friend Computer. Free Enterprise took a massive hit in its higher networks with the introduction of the new economy and devoured the Mystics to stay alive so now they're more focused on free-roaming aggressive capitalism slinging hot product and various substances instead of being the mafia. PURGE's high command is now made up of everyone who didn't die to the black hole, too cautious and cowardly and more armchair terrorist leaders interested in open-carry and shows of force/self defense while the Sierra Club realized that if nobody was going to flee the complex in the wake of the incident, then they have to be more militant and focus on collapsing the dome to bring the nature in. And then there's other groups like the Frankenstein Destroyers who didn't get involved in anything at all because they accidentally tricked themselves into believing that infiltration perfect-facsimile androids exist and have infiltrated their own ranks. It did an overall good job of explaining what these societies want now, what kind of stuff the players will be asked to do/get involved in and limiting the scope to make sure they stand out.

Oh also because the Computer assumed the Communists caused the black hole, the Communist Threat caused IntSec to hard-infiltrate the entire society, but they used the cop playbook and all of the Old Reckoning Knowledge at their disposal to blend in. So now the Communists are just IntSec lying to themselves, funding terror cells and outfitting them with actual military tactics and unedited access to Das Kapital. It's definitely a reduction in the misunderstanding jokes to give them more of an edge but I honestly don't mind making them more sinister for a bit, the general tone of the game runs a little more on the Straight side but is mostly Classic with some Zap elements like what mutant powers are in play, but that doesn't mean you can't do the stupid accents and big bushy beards while making them more competent.

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friendlyfire
Jun 2, 2003

Charmingly Indolent

Helical Nightmares posted:

I know Dungeon 23 is a new thing going around the blogs and discussions of the roleplaying community. Evidently Sean McCoy on Twitter kicked off the idea with this: https://twitter.com/seanmccoy/status/1599809865836363782?s=20&t=EGHhFmqQQegi2ch7hvN96w

While I have answered the question "are megadungeons ever good" question pretty definitively for myself, I am still doing this. I'll probably chop it up into different dungeons.

drrockso20
May 6, 2013

Has Not Actually Done Cocaine

Arivia posted:

Do you have some examples of cool poo poo happening in RPGs right now that's not being talked about? Or changes the industry is undergoing/things that are happening that should be talked about?
well like I said yesterday(but clearly got buried) got my PDF copies for The Monster Overhaul and The Vast In The Dark
and the latter's physical copy should be shipping soon so that's pretty great, particularly since like I said before The Vast In The Dark is one of the best setting/toolkit books I've seen in a long time, and The Monster Overhaul is really good too, lots of nuggets of inspiration and more than a fair bit of humor too

Helical Nightmares posted:

I'm going to echo Megazver here and suggest the same two solo focused wargames. Personally I was looking for an opportunity to have emergent stories arise from my wargame play (and I wanted a Scifi setting with lasers), so Five Parsecs From Home 3rd edition was a perfect fit. Also the author is a goon and he posts here, albeit rarely.

Rangers of Shadow Deep is also very good game with plenty of acclaim in the solo wargaming community. It is closer to a roleplaying game than many solo wargames, but that is one of it's strengths. The author, Joseph A. McCullough, has written Frostgrave and Stargrave, which you may have heard of.

If you want a solo wargame more focused on a party than Rangers of Shadow Deep (I'm splitting hairs here) with a fantasy setting and an integrated hexcrawl mechanic, then I would recommend 5 Leagues from the Borderlands by the same author as 5 Parsecs.

Thank you for mentioning that! I totally forgot until I saw this post then coincidentally got the update from itch in my email that 1.03 is out. I need to find the time to look into this RPG. Also I'd love to hear more about this game than some of the topics discussed in the chat thread in 2022.


I know Dungeon 23 is a new thing going around the blogs and discussions of the roleplaying community. Evidently Sean McCoy on Twitter kicked off the idea with this: https://twitter.com/seanmccoy/status/1599809865836363782?s=20&t=EGHhFmqQQegi2ch7hvN96w

Also the Delta Green community finished it's Shotgun Scenario Contest. The winners are Take the A Train by Bird Bailey (First Place) and Saturnalia by mellonbread (Second Place and People's Choice).

Personally my new discovery has been the solo focused wargame Last Days: Zombie Apocalypse written by Ash Barker's, of Guerrilla Miniature Games Youtube fame. I'm into the first 25 pages (100+ pages total) but I found the foreword to be a great little discussion about skirmish wargame design.

Dungeon 23 is definitely a neat thing, reminds me of the Gygax 75 Challenge* from last year which would be fun to see what people here could come up with

*https://rayotus.itch.io/gygax75

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy

drrockso20 posted:

The Monster Overhaul

oh wow I looked up the kickstarter for this and it sounds really good

Mirage
Oct 27, 2000

All is for the best, in this, the best of all possible worlds
It's odd, I remember a lot of folks hating on Paranoia XP when it came out. It was certainly a huge improvement over the flubbed cartoon that was 5th Edition, but it still felt really flat (compared to 2nd Edition particularly, which was just brilliant).

If the newer editions can get that spark back, good on 'em.

drrockso20
May 6, 2013

Has Not Actually Done Cocaine

gradenko_2000 posted:

oh wow I looked up the kickstarter for this and it sounds really good

It really is

Lemon-Lime
Aug 6, 2009

Drakyn posted:

More symbolically, I'm guessing it comes through strongest in that 'anchoring' the Lord of a Hollow (basically catching their soul in a spooky jar and freeing them from being trapped in their worst form) is both more difficult AND more rewarding than simply murdering them to death and thereby defies what the rest of the game is pushing where murder-or-be-murdered is the whole of the law and the only way forwards. Simultaneously, although the game makes it extremely clear that Hunters are doomed to eventually turn into a Hollow themselves no matter what, it also points out that successfully anchoring a Hunter AFTER they do this is the only way for a Hunter to permanently escape being a walking nightmare-murderer-come-nightmare.
So your character's surroundings and background all tell you you're an evil screwup, your most powerful tools tell you appealing lies about how much better than everyone else you are because you can use them to cause harm, and the easiest way to continue forward and gain power is to mindlessly hurt things until you turn into exactly what you're fighting... or you can go out of your way to do the hard work of dragging other people out of their own misery and your friends can do the same for you and you get to escape the cycle.

Please tell me the bits I'm completely wrong about and or missing entirely, I'm earnestly curious.

Not sure why you feel you've missed something - I'm fairly sure that reading is correct.

Tulip
Jun 3, 2008

yeah thats pretty good


Helical Nightmares posted:

I'm going to echo Megazver here and suggest the same two solo focused wargames. Personally I was looking for an opportunity to have emergent stories arise from my wargame play (and I wanted a Scifi setting with lasers), so Five Parsecs From Home 3rd edition was a perfect fit. Also the author is a goon and he posts here, albeit rarely.

Rangers of Shadow Deep is also very good game with plenty of acclaim in the solo wargaming community. It is closer to a roleplaying game than many solo wargames, but that is one of it's strengths. The author, Joseph A. McCullough, has written Frostgrave and Stargrave, which you may have heard of.

If you want a solo wargame more focused on a party than Rangers of Shadow Deep (I'm splitting hairs here) with a fantasy setting and an integrated hexcrawl mechanic, then I would recommend 5 Leagues from the Borderlands by the same author as 5 Parsecs.

Thank you for mentioning that! I totally forgot until I saw this post then coincidentally got the update from itch in my email that 1.03 is out. I need to find the time to look into this RPG. Also I'd love to hear more about this game than some of the topics discussed in the chat thread in 2022.


I know Dungeon 23 is a new thing going around the blogs and discussions of the roleplaying community. Evidently Sean McCoy on Twitter kicked off the idea with this: https://twitter.com/seanmccoy/status/1599809865836363782?s=20&t=EGHhFmqQQegi2ch7hvN96w

Also the Delta Green community finished it's Shotgun Scenario Contest. The winners are Take the A Train by Bird Bailey (First Place) and Saturnalia by mellonbread (Second Place and People's Choice).

Personally my new discovery has been the solo focused wargame Last Days: Zombie Apocalypse written by Ash Barker's, of Guerrilla Miniature Games Youtube fame. I'm into the first 25 pages (100+ pages total) but I found the foreword to be a great little discussion about skirmish wargame design.

Megazver posted:

You could try a bit of solo wargaming like Five Parsecs From Home or Rangers of Shadow Deep.

Thank you for the suggestions, though it doesn't quite get to what I want which is to have beerhammer with the bros. Currently Apex is getting the closest but its really not very close at all. May still check it out if/when I get desperate.

Angrymog
Jan 30, 2012

Really Madcats

There's a thread for Dungeon 23 - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4020948

Gort
Aug 18, 2003

Good day what ho cup of tea

ZearothK posted:

Gunbat Banwa came out! I guess, it looks interesting, another game building on DnD 4E and FFTs foundations, with a lot of flavour for its fantasy South East Asia settng, still have to actually play it. Any takes from the thread?

My hot take is that Gubat Banwa looks rad as hell and reminds me of ICON, though that may mostly be the art

Splicer
Oct 16, 2006

from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸

hyphz posted:

It did damage the game for him a lot, though. The Killer has a disadvantage called Heroic Bloodshed: "in the climactic fight of an adventure, any attack that deals you more than 4 Wound points deals an additional 3 Wound points." After this got him heavily into Impairment (he may have even taken a Mark of Death) in the first adventure, he naturally started to want to work around this disadvantage.
Ah, see, here's the issue. This is a class feature. You take the Killer with the understanding that you will end an adventure probably dying horribly in the climactic gunfight. If you don't want to do that you don't pick that class. The problem isn't that there's no such thing as cover, the problem is that the player thought this was something to be circumvented.

Splicer
Oct 16, 2006

from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸
Hyphz's Killer, digging: And the second one is, what, some kind of defensive trench?

Splicer fucked around with this message at 13:28 on Jan 5, 2023

ZearothK
Aug 25, 2008

I've lost twice, I've failed twice and I've gotten two dishonorable mentions within 7 weeks. But I keep coming back. I am The Trooper!

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021


Helical Nightmares posted:

Thank you for mentioning that! I totally forgot until I saw this post then coincidentally got the update from itch in my email that 1.03 is out. I need to find the time to look into this RPG. Also I'd love to hear more about this game than some of the topics discussed in the chat thread in 2022.

Not detailed enough for a F&F, but here's my take after spending the last few days on and off with the book.

-It uses its own names for everything, from player characters (Kadungganan) to turns (Fulmigations) to dice (Crocodile's Teeth) and so on and so forth. It is a clear and deliberate intent at immersion in the setting. It took me a bit to roll with it, but it grew on me and flows nicely, but I can see it being a barrier of entry.

-There's a lot of flavour, holy poo poo, so much. The worldbuilding is phenomenal and the setting feels very fresh, drawing on different tropes, myths and and history than Western RPGs, the book is successful in making me want to learn more about its world. It does use the tried and true method of "this is where lore is, this is where mechanics are", though, so it doesn't really obfuscate the actual game part.

-The setting is fantasy South East Asia during a period of constant warfare, as the core polities in the setting believe the world is ending and the victor of their conflict will get to make the new one. The five core factions are based on historical realms that existed in the region, these are Gatusan (Hindu-Buddhists), Apumbukid (Indigenous people), Akai (Islamic Sultanates), Virbanwa (Western Colonial states) and Ba-e (Sinicized kingdoms).



-Early game PCs will be doing general exploration, working for or against Warlords, solving mysteries and all that. High level play involves going into mythical realms and exchanging violence with the spiritual manifestation of Imperialism and all that.

-The art and layout is mostly great and evocative, with only a few pieces that feel dissonant. Very pretty book, good production standards for what's a very niche product.

-The narrative layer (War Drama) is very simple and narrativist, you have a dicepool based on the approach (flavoured by the Elements) you are using rolling d10's against d8's for the difficulty, successes are 6+ and 10's are doubles. You can get bonuses from equipment, convictions, etc and a re-roll metacurrency for putting the minimal effort in the description of your actions. It has partial successes and even allows for success without rolling any successes (you get what you want but eat a big consequence for it, essentially fail forward). It has clocks (called Moons), downtime actions, Raids as an adventure structure, etc; all in all it is functional contemporary design, if a bit unexciting.

-What is exciting in the War Drama layer is the social system with your Honour standing, Debts and Complications, as this is (outside the big not-Spanish colonial city where capitalism rules) a society driven by personal reputation and barter.

-Character creation for War Drama is mechanically simple, but the random tables for complications and backgrounds are very good, you can also pick from them. I rolled a bunch and I loved every single one of the melodramatic tragic badasses that popped out.

-The combat layer seems very promising and seems to be fast based on the damage, HP numbers and suggested map size (10x10 to 16x16). Do need to test it in practice and might try out a solo mode encounter later in the week and an one-shot later in January, but initial impression is that this one has potential to stand alongside Strike! and Lancer.

-It is clearly DnD 4E and FFT derived, with lots of emphasis on positioning and manipulating it and is very much gamist design. There are also elemental interactions between attacks, terrain and (optionally) the weather.

-Disciplines (the classes/jobs) come with three Violences (Attacks), a number of traits and two Techniques, but after level 1 you can learn techniques from any discipline (or learn more techniques from yours), so there's a lot of space for building unique characters for combat. You can also switch your Discipline through Downtime, which changes up your traits and Violences, but retains all learned techniques. The art for them is great!

-The Disciplines are super very distinct in function, complexity and flavour and there's 25 of them, classified as Raiders (Strikers), Sharpshooters (Artillery), Witches (Controllers), Mediums (Support) and Sentinels (Defenders). They go from relatively straightforward "I am a super mobile short ranged combatant" and "I am a martial arts elementalist with a lot of options" and "I am going to have the crap beaten out of me and then turn that into murder like a Shonen protagonist" to more arcane stuff like "I am going to spend the entire combat loving up this map and foraging for materiel to empower my abilities" or "I am a footballer and I am going to be kicking and shoving my ball into people until it gains enough momentum to cross the entire battlefield and kill everything in its path".

-You have three action points (beats), all the basic actions cost 1, but the Techniques can use from 1 to 3 beats to trigger different versions. Really like that.

-NPC profiles are very good! Clear with all the info laid out neatly. The "Gambits" part is for Solo Play, or just for a GM who wants to let dice do the thinking for them or to choose from.


-GM advice and worldbuilding are top notch. Lots of tables to roll random stuff on as needed (this is a game that supports Solo or GMless Play). As I said earlier, I should be testing it out in actual play soonish and holy poo poo, did this post get big.

tl;dr: Gunbat Banwa seems like a promising DnD 4e inspired game with pretty fresh South East Asian inspired setting. Lots of terminology to get through.

Splicer
Oct 16, 2006

from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸

Hostile V posted:

[vibrates a completely normal amount] Reign 2e is finally out and my next campaign I run is lined up to be that so like I dunno it's like cool I guess.
where can I buy it if I missed the kickstarter?

E: n/m only the pdfs are out yet. Still excited.

Splicer fucked around with this message at 13:42 on Jan 5, 2023

Drakyn
Dec 26, 2012

Lemon-Lime posted:

Not sure why you feel you've missed something - I'm fairly sure that reading is correct.

I'm tired, habitually, unobservant, and rambly :p Though the second fits right in with not noticing I got something's point correctly.

CitizenKeen
Nov 13, 2003

easygoing pedant

Arivia posted:

Sure, but I don't think it's unreasonable/deserving of smarm to ask someone who wants to bring up a discussion topic to provide the relevant link.

Fair cop. I was posting from my phone and shooting from the hip.

I think everything in my wishlist has already been linked except Torchship and Zine Month, and Zine Month seems to be reliant on Tumblr/Twitter/Mastodon.

CitizenKeen
Nov 13, 2003

easygoing pedant

Drakyn posted:

I've read through this - not particularly carefully, but completely - and I'm curious if someone who knows anything about this sort of stuff could elaborate on this point because I'm sure I'm missing a lot of it. Of the bits I think I noticed, most obviously and unmissably there's the Weapon descriptions, which are full-bore disturbing.

(Like it says, the weapons lie))

More symbolically, I'm guessing it comes through strongest in that 'anchoring' the Lord of a Hollow (basically catching their soul in a spooky jar and freeing them from being trapped in their worst form) is both more difficult AND more rewarding than simply murdering them to death and thereby defies what the rest of the game is pushing where murder-or-be-murdered is the whole of the law and the only way forwards. Simultaneously, although the game makes it extremely clear that Hunters are doomed to eventually turn into a Hollow themselves no matter what, it also points out that successfully anchoring a Hunter AFTER they do this is the only way for a Hunter to permanently escape being a walking nightmare-murderer-come-nightmare.
So your character's surroundings and background all tell you you're an evil screwup, your most powerful tools tell you appealing lies about how much better than everyone else you are because you can use them to cause harm, and the easiest way to continue forward and gain power is to mindlessly hurt things until you turn into exactly what you're fighting... or you can go out of your way to do the hard work of dragging other people out of their own misery and your friends can do the same for you and you get to escape the cycle.

Please tell me the bits I'm completely wrong about and or missing entirely, I'm earnestly curious.

I think that's most of it, though one note: I don't think PCs are inherently evil or likely to be. At worst you've made a terrible mistake. Your trauma is "betrayed someone", not "murdered repeatedly over the course of your life". And your trauma may just as much be "betrayed by someone".

But yes, otherwise, the conceit is: Something bad happened in your life. The magic of the world has taken root in you and you will turn into a Hollow. This is inevitable. Before then, use your powers to cleanse hollows of their foul magic. Escaping the cycle is harder.

Xiahou Dun
Jul 16, 2009

We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.



Splicer posted:

Hyphz's Killer, digging: And the second one is, what, some kind of defensive trench?

I appreciated this joke very much. Highlight of the morning.

dwarf74
Sep 2, 2012



Buglord

hyphz posted:

I mean, he took a Mark of Death for it. That's not a "campaign loss" or "success at a cost" thing. His natural interpretation was, "I failed. How can I succeed?"
That's not a natural interpretation. That's a fundamental lack of understanding about what kind of game Feng Shui is.

hyphz
Aug 5, 2003

Number 1 Nerd Tear Farmer 2022.

Keep it up, champ.

Also you're a skeleton warrior now. Kree.
Unlockable Ben

Splicer posted:

Ah, see, here's the issue. This is a class feature. You take the Killer with the understanding that you will end an adventure probably dying horribly in the climactic gunfight. If you don't want to do that you don't pick that class. The problem isn't that there's no such thing as cover, the problem is that the player thought this was something to be circumvented.

Well, I could understand that, but nothing says it in the archetype description, and I don't think any of the other archetypes have anything like that. It, um, might be better to warn the player that the PC can't participate in a longer campaign (not that FS is generally all that great for campaigns, but still..)

Lemon-Lime
Aug 6, 2009

hyphz posted:

Well, I could understand that, but nothing says it in the archetype description, and I don't think any of the other archetypes have anything like that. It, um, might be better to warn the player that the PC can't participate in a longer campaign (not that FS is generally all that great for campaigns, but still..)

The game generally assumes you are familiar with the genre it's emulating or are going to make some effort to gain that familiarity. It spends some time explaining its design intent and how it relates to that genre for a lot of mechanics elsewhere in the book, and has a dedicated appendix N section. The designers expected the target audience would be able to infer their design intent from the mechanical effects and their knowledge of the genre.

Could they have added two sentences to the archetype description that mentioned this? Sure! But most people don't seem to have had a problem drawing the right conclusions from the combination of "you used to be an assassin, and now you care, and are trying to redeem yourself" plus "in the climactic fight, you take more damage."

Lemon-Lime fucked around with this message at 18:22 on Jan 5, 2023

hyphz
Aug 5, 2003

Number 1 Nerd Tear Farmer 2022.

Keep it up, champ.

Also you're a skeleton warrior now. Kree.
Unlockable Ben

Lemon-Lime posted:

Could they have added two sentences to the archetype description that mentioned this? Sure! But most people don't seem to have had a problem drawing the right conclusions from the combination of "you used to be an assassin, and now you care, and are trying to redeem yourself" plus "in the climactic fight, you take more damage."

That's fair. I guess the issue was that it talks about redeeming yourself via the Chi War, and achieving anything in the Chi War will take a lot more than one adventure, if it's even possible at all (because it comes from the era of OWoD metaplots where the players are "involved" but can't really change anything that matters)

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!



hyphz posted:

That's fair. I guess the issue was that it talks about redeeming yourself via the Chi War, and achieving anything in the Chi War will take a lot more than one adventure, if it's even possible at all (because it comes from the era of OWoD metaplots where the players are "involved" but can't really change anything that matters)
Your PC doesn’t know about that, and one could be redeemed, shall we say, Vader style.

Zorak of Michigan
Jun 10, 2006


This is all starting to remind me of Eric Wujcik's essay about diceless gaming. He played a first level thief in some old version of D&D, and quickly realized that if he rolled for a thieving ability, he'd probably fail. Instead of stopping to say, "Hey, RAW seems to doom me to play an incompetent thief, I don't like this game," he decided to stop engaging with the system. He then decided that any system with dice must be a fail state and wrote Amber DRPG, which replaced dice-related fail states with social fail states. My experience was the the social fail states happened less often but were orders of magnitude harder to get over. Anyway. I sympathize with the Killer's player realizing his archetype didn't do what he wanted and wanting to play a better game. Too bad he couldn't skip the temper tantrum over it.

Splicer
Oct 16, 2006

from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸

Zorak of Michigan posted:

Anyway. I sympathize with the Killer's player realizing his archetype didn't do what he wanted and wanting to play a better game. Too bad he couldn't skip the temper tantrum over it.
If the player had wanted to switch class or retire the character or some other reasonable response to finding out that they didn't actually like the class features then it wouldn't be a hyphzgroup story.

hyphz
Aug 5, 2003

Number 1 Nerd Tear Farmer 2022.

Keep it up, champ.

Also you're a skeleton warrior now. Kree.
Unlockable Ben

Splicer posted:

If the player had wanted to switch class or retire the character or some other reasonable response to finding out that they didn't actually like the class features then it wouldn't be a hyphzgroup story.

I think the anger was more about the frustration that the system gave him no way to meaningfully act to avoid hails of bullets aimed at him. Again, I think it was a lot more to do with FS2 being a spit-polish of a 20 year old system.

Remember that FS1's revolutionary GM advice was "if a player wants to do something cool that doesn't make any mechanical difference, let them do it and don't penalize them." In the world of grognards and adversarial GMing that was empowering. But in the 20-years-on world of podcasts, cooperative storytelling, and tactical systems integrated with improved board game design, it wasn't that any more; after all, since if your local D&D 5e players did a cool thing and their GM was any good, they wouldn't just get no penalty, but they'd also get Inspiration.

theironjef
Aug 11, 2009

The archmage of unexpected stinks.

Zorak of Michigan posted:

This is all starting to remind me of Eric Wujcik's essay about diceless gaming. He played a first level thief in some old version of D&D, and quickly realized that if he rolled for a thieving ability, he'd probably fail. Instead of stopping to say, "Hey, RAW seems to doom me to play an incompetent thief, I don't like this game," he decided to stop engaging with the system. He then decided that any system with dice must be a fail state and wrote Amber DRPG, which replaced dice-related fail states with social fail states. My experience was the the social fail states happened less often but were orders of magnitude harder to get over. Anyway. I sympathize with the Killer's player realizing his archetype didn't do what he wanted and wanting to play a better game. Too bad he couldn't skip the temper tantrum over it.

When I first heard the term, this is what I thought "metagaming" was. Recognizing that a system sucks, and just using enough keywords and social manipulation to talk your way past the DM instead. Like instead of rolling Climb Walls you just waste everyone's time "inventing" a pulley-based elevator system or some poo poo so why would you need to make a climbing roll?

Personally I hate it because it suggests that learning how to play a game is actually ignoring that the game is bad and instead learning how to avoid interacting with it.

Zorak of Michigan
Jun 10, 2006


theironjef posted:

When I first heard the term, this is what I thought "metagaming" was. Recognizing that a system sucks, and just using enough keywords and social manipulation to talk your way past the DM instead. Like instead of rolling Climb Walls you just waste everyone's time "inventing" a pulley-based elevator system or some poo poo so why would you need to make a climbing roll?

Personally I hate it because it suggests that learning how to play a game is actually ignoring that the game is bad and instead learning how to avoid interacting with it.

And also ignoring any role-playing information built into the system. Yeah, having a thief who sucks at stealing is a huge flaw in a game, no argument there. On the other hand, if you're playing an actual good game, and the RAW says your character sucks at something, the right answer is not to avoid engaging with the system and find ways to do it well anyway. That is actually very bad role playing. The right answer is to embrace the suck.

Lemon-Lime
Aug 6, 2009

hyphz posted:

I think the anger was more about the frustration that the system gave him no way to meaningfully act to avoid hails of bullets aimed at him.



Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

So many "this game is bad" "this mechanic is bad" etc. discussions really boil down to a difference in expectations between players/GMs and the game.

If the GM sold the idea of roleplaying games to someone as getting to be a cool badass rogue, but 1st level rogues in this system only succeed at rogue things 24% of the time, the GM needed to either explain that as a first level character, being a rogue was still just aspirational for you and not a thing you already really are; or, start the game at a high enough level that the rogue would actually be good at poo poo; or play a different system, one where the PCs are actually heroic from day 1. Something. It's also important for players to understand that they're not letting the party down by failing a lot, if the game's system is set up for them to fail a lot.

Hyphz' story is similar. The player had different expectations somehow than what the game was offering for this character class (or what the table understood the game to be offering, if they didn't understand the rules) and that moment of realization was distressing. That doesn't really excuse childish behavior and storming out. It's also not necessarily the fault of the system, although it can be a failure of expectation-setting in the descriptive parts of the game, possibly.

hyphz
Aug 5, 2003

Number 1 Nerd Tear Farmer 2022.

Keep it up, champ.

Also you're a skeleton warrior now. Kree.
Unlockable Ben
For one attack. Which is doubly bad if the GM has added extra opponents because there’s a Killer in the game.

Also, you’re left imagining someone diving behind a barrier, popping up again, diving again, popping up again.. “Why don’t you just keep your head down?” “I’ve got to mug the camera.”

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

hyphz posted:

For one attack. Which is doubly bad if the GM has added extra opponents because there’s a Killer in the game.

Also, you’re left imagining someone diving behind a barrier, popping up again, diving again, popping up again.. “Why don’t you just keep your head down?” “I’ve got to mug the camera.”

You said "any way to meaningfully avoid hails of bullets", Lemon-Lime just gave you one way to meaningfully avoid hails of bullets, and your response is to appeal to both the cost of that way and create another (this time narrative/flavor) objection.

I think you should acknowledge that there is at least one way for a character, including a Killer, to meaningfully avoid hails of bullets. If you or that player doesn't like that option, that's different from there being no such option.

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!



hyphz posted:

For one attack. Which is doubly bad if the GM has added extra opponents because there’s a Killer in the game.

Also, you’re left imagining someone diving behind a barrier, popping up again, diving again, popping up again.. “Why don’t you just keep your head down?” “I’ve got to mug the camera.”
What if there were multiple possible objects? Also it is typically hard to shoot from behind full cover

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









hyphz posted:

For one attack. Which is doubly bad if the GM has added extra opponents because there’s a Killer in the game.

Also, you’re left imagining someone diving behind a barrier, popping up again, diving again, popping up again.. “Why don’t you just keep your head down?” “I’ve got to mug the camera.”

You mean firing from behind cover?

Have you ever seen an action movie.

hyphz
Aug 5, 2003

Number 1 Nerd Tear Farmer 2022.

Keep it up, champ.

Also you're a skeleton warrior now. Kree.
Unlockable Ben

sebmojo posted:

You mean firing from behind cover?

Have you ever seen an action movie.

No, that would make sense. But Dodge lasts for “the single attack you are interrupting”. So if 4 people fire at you, you can Dodge behind a barrier for the first one, but then inexplicably are not behind the barrier anymore for the next three, even though you didn’t get to fire back.

Tarnop
Nov 25, 2013

Pull me out

hyphz posted:

For one attack. Which is doubly bad if the GM has added extra opponents because there’s a Killer in the game.

Also, you’re left imagining someone diving behind a barrier, popping up again, diving again, popping up again.. “Why don’t you just keep your head down?” “I’ve got to mug the camera.”

Holy poo poo lol

Heliotrope
Aug 17, 2007

You're fucking subhuman

hyphz posted:

No, that would make sense. But Dodge lasts for “the single attack you are interrupting”. So if 4 people fire at you, you can Dodge behind a barrier for the first one, but then inexplicably are not behind the barrier anymore for the next three, even though you didn’t get to fire back.

Dodging costs you Shots - you can use the same cover but they’re firing at you so much they’re preventing you from being able to do anything (you keep going lower in the Sequence).

theironjef
Aug 11, 2009

The archmage of unexpected stinks.

I mean isn't mugging to the camera exactly what you should be trying to do in a Feng Shui game? Like if the complaint is "This hitman isn't realistic enough" then shouldn't the class really be a drunk idiot in a trailer park who accepts 3,000 dollars to kill his bar buddy's wife even though he has no training or experience? That's basically what a real hitman is, some dude that will get caught immediately because he agreed to the hit in a facebook message and only because his meth supply was running low.

Splicer
Oct 16, 2006

from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸

theironjef posted:

I mean isn't mugging to the camera exactly what you should be trying to do in a Feng Shui game? Like if the complaint is "This hitman isn't realistic enough" then shouldn't the class really be a drunk idiot in a trailer park who accepts 3,000 dollars to kill his bar buddy's wife even though he has no training or experience? That's basically what a real hitman is, some dude that will get caught immediately because he agreed to the hit in a facebook message and only because his meth supply was running low.
Wanna play a feng shui game which starts with the party being arrested by the "hit man" they hired on real-hitmen-not-the-feds.onion

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sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Roll your 'remembered to gas up the getaway car' check, cletus

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