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QuantumNinja: Mar 8, 2013; Trust me.
I pretend to be a ninja.

Is there a space opera / Firefly-esque hack?

# ¿ Jul 12, 2015 21:07

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 08:04

QuantumNinja: Mar 8, 2013; Trust me.
I pretend to be a ninja.

This question is for Bucnasti, but anyone who has played a good bit of Spirit of '77 should feel free to chime in:

What role is money supposed to play in the game? Characters start with various amounts, but I can't find in the book where it addresses things like paydays and whatnot. Should they be expected to manage it D&D-style, where they have to track expenditures and income? Are there moves or something associated with it that I totally missed? If one of the characters has, say, $50 on their sheet at the start, is that literally the cash they have to do that sort of thing?

# ¿ Jul 30, 2015 22:02

QuantumNinja: Mar 8, 2013; Trust me.
I pretend to be a ninja.

For a Far weapon, it's AUF/DD to use it closer. Shooting someone with a sniper rifle if they're standing next to you really opens you up to some risk, just like shooting someone with a handgun in a fistfight. As for further away, AUF/DD may be appropriate, or you can always say, "yeah, there's no way you could pull that off from this distance".

# ¿ Aug 7, 2015 14:14

QuantumNinja: Mar 8, 2013; Trust me.
I pretend to be a ninja.

Tulul posted:

There are a metric fuckton of them.

The real problem is that none of the Shadowrun hacks are good. Or, more accurately, none of them feel like you're playing Shadowrun. Shadowrun has a certain level of detail, of minutiae, that underlines most of its appeal. Unfortunately, Apoc World is all about jettisoning minutiae to push the plot forward with every move. It's hard to reconcile tiny bits of math that give you tiny advantages in specific situations with broad moves. For example, "'Wared to the Gills" is a reasonable 'move' that a Street Samurai would have on their playbook, but it completely drops away the potential pleasure for digging through a list of gear and perfectly skating the essence line and price just to get yourself actually 'wared to the gills. The minutiae is the appeal. And until an AW hack manages to get it in without it feeling like the Shadowrun gear system just added to the *World system, there won't be a good hack for it.

# ¿ Aug 12, 2015 03:47

QuantumNinja: Mar 8, 2013; Trust me.
I pretend to be a ninja.

Error 404 posted:

So then, how much minutiae is enough? Assuming there's a sweet spot between RAW shadowrun and AW...

Like, you can look at The Regiment, which is a tactical/modern combat hack that has (relatively) waaay more crunch than the aw we know and love but still has that zip and fiction first mentality. Like if I were doing a cyberpunk/shadowrun hack this is where I'd start.

Or would taking a look at the battlebabe's custom weapon rules, expanding them, and integrating them for everyone with some kind of essence/fatigue mechanic be enough?

Honestly, Regiment seems like a good step in the right direction. The problem isn't getting the minutiae in it, but about making it feel consistent throughout the system. Simply bolting on a deep gear subsystem makes the small list / light style of the basic moves feel empty. You'll first need to pad those back. The idea, I think, is that a SR game needs upwards of 12+ basic moves / 7+ attributes to sort of reconcile it with the fact that you have 20+ itemization options? I'm not sure, but I know that simply expanding the gear rules isn't enough. The core mechanics need to reflect the minutiae: everything from recon to firefights in Shadowrun have a similar style of minutiae to selecting your cyberware and guns, and it's definitely part of the feel. For example, this table:

The way it works is that every modifier you have gives you a dice pool penalty. If you have two on the same row, they add up to the next row (so two at -3 gives you a -6, two at -6 gives you a -10). If you have two at -3 and one at -6, you're at -10 total. It's insane to stop and look at this table and do the math, but it's also the fundamental charm of Shadowrun: minutiae rules all.

I feel like Blades in the Dark captures this sensation pretty well (at least as of v2), but it currently lacks detail in the gear department that needs to get fleshed out. The system is "bigger", and lets you capture those silly details.

# ¿ Aug 12, 2015 04:33

QuantumNinja: Mar 8, 2013; Trust me.
I pretend to be a ninja.

Kai Tave posted:

Doesn't the Sprawl do exactly this? At least in an earlier draft I recall that making a corporation and giving some details on it was something that every player did during character creation.

Yes, Sprawl does this exactly. Honestly, I think that Sprawl is a good cyberpunk system: it hits upon gear, focuses on Megacorps, and generally gets into a lot of the grit you would expect. If you want classic Gibson-style stories, it will deliver.

Unfortunately, that doesn't really scratch the Shadowrun itch. As derisively as it has been brought up in this thread, the appeal -really- is playing the gear selection minigame, and figuring out how to push that during sessions to get the upper hand. But as has been repeatedly observed, that seems pretty opposed to the fundamental way gear is handled in PbtA. Attempts to squeeze one into the other is fundamentally flawed, and I wish people would stop trying and failing.

# ¿ Aug 13, 2015 04:34

QuantumNinja: Mar 8, 2013; Trust me.
I pretend to be a ninja.

Bucnasti posted:

I loved GURPS back in the day, I'd probably play a GURPS Shadowrun game, but I don't have time to do all that work.

This exactly!

Kai Tave posted:

This is another problem a lot of would-be Shadowrun *World hacks run into. The last draft of Sixth World I looked at had Matrix rules that were like ten pages long. The Sprawl's were only like two pages and I even thought that might have been a bit excessive, but we'll see.

The pervasiveness of the Hacker Dungeon is seriously :lol:

to me, and I wish it would just die.

I think the Matrix would work best with Workshop rules. Something like:

quote:

When you hit the Matrix and dedicate yourself to owning a network, hacking some heavy metal, or to getting to the bottom of some poo poo, decide what and tell the MC. Thee MC will tell you �sure, no problem, but...� and then 1 to 4 of the following:
� it�s going to take hours/days/weeks/months of work;
� first you�ll have to get/build/fix/figure out ___;
� you�re going to need ___ to help you with it;
� it�s going to cost you a fuckton of nuyen;
� the best you�ll be able to do is a crap version, weak and unreliable;
� it�s going to mean exposing yourself (plus colleagues) to serious danger;
� you�re going to need some serious computing power;
� it�s going to take physical access to a specific network;
� you�re going to have to take ___ apart to do it.

Want to hack a Yakuza Gambling Webfront? Sure, no problem, but first you'll have to figure out the IP address, and it's going to mean exposing yourself (plus colleagues) to serious danger.

Want to disable the cameras at a local warehouse? Sure, no problem, but first you'll need to build a GPU-based mobile cracker, or the best you'll be able to do is a crap version, weak and unreliable.

Want to hit the Renraku Arcology research databanks? Sure, no problem, but you're going to need Russian ICbreakers to help you with it and it's going to take physical access to their network, OR it's going to cost you a fuckton of nuyen and you're going to need some some serious computing power.

And, of course, once those requirements are met, BAM, it's done. One of the most resounding parts of Gibson's writings was that Matrix runs happened fast. Faster than fast. It was the sort of thing you prepared for for days, and then you burned hard through in a few seconds tops. Bringing that back is a good idea.

Then add some other move like :

quote:

When you want to pwn someone's gear in the middle of combat, roll+Hacking. On a 10+, pick 2. On a 7--9 pick 1.
� the gear starts malfunctioning
� they have no idea why it's busted
� the gear isn't easily repaired
On a miss, not only do they know what's up, but you leave digital fingerprints that a hacker can use to track you down.

It might be better if there was another choice, but I'm not coming up with one off the cuff. Those two slapped together with something like "Console Cowboy" that acts like No-poo poo Driver but for your deck is probably a good step in the right direction for a fun-to-play decker. I guess this precludes hardcore decker-on-decker action, but I'm not certain that's a particularly interesting loss because literally no other character can be a part of that. And if you wanted to, just use the basic moves with the deck-boosted stats or whatever.

poo poo, now I want to write a Shadowrun hack. Which seems like one of the classic blunders, right up there with Land Wars in Asia.

Impermanent posted:

The point behind all the gear worship in SR in terms of tone, which is what PbtA game is all about, is that is illuminates the complete corporate control of society. Spergin' around with hundreds of gear-checks and items completely misses the point - PbtA games are always about what the characters can do, not what their equipment is.

Yes and no. In all the big works of cyberpunk, and especially in Shadowrun, gear defines a character as much as anything else. Maybe the little details don't matter, but your cybereyes do as much to define your character as your strength. They state something about your views of mortality, and your personal opinion about the value of your original eyes versus roboeyes that work better. They help define what your character can do, and what they will do.

The other part of playing Shadowrun and gear, and what I tried to hint at in my last post but clearly didn't go a good job of, is that of exploiting and improving your gear post-chargen. For exploitation, coming up with a crazy solution because you had the gear for it is a lot of fun. (That said, a decent flashback mechanism can also serve that purpose). For improvement, buying new ware in SR exercises the scarcity of money in a real way, and does a good deal to establish the tone of Shadowrun. Finding a guy to sell you assault rifles might be a roll, but a new nervous system? That requires a fake license, a trusted doctor, a recovery clinic, more money than your group is going to make total in three runs, and so on. It's a long-term project, and the system needs to acknowledge and support that. Making it into "5 XP and a check box" or "Roll for some gear" removes that experience, and the tone with it. (Incidentally, BitD has a system for this that works well.)

# ¿ Aug 14, 2015 07:09

QuantumNinja: Mar 8, 2013; Trust me.
I pretend to be a ninja.

Hugoon Chavez posted:

I'm running AW this weekend and I think I had a cool idea for the setting:

It�s based around the golden gate bridge, although they don�t know it yet. San Francisco is in ruins, the BloodGate bridge is populated by a powerful warlord and his lackeys (having built a shanty town that extends to the bottom of the bridge) and there�s a precarious network of roads built on top of big metal spikes crossing over the water, a pirate stronghold amongst said roads that resists BloodGate, and a bunch of settlements around the bay that pay tribute to one or the other.

Oh, and the water bursts into loving flames every nightfall. There�s something weird going on that causes the highly gasoline-polluted water to start burning every night.

These are the questions I�m going to ask my players, and I was wondering if Goons could think of more questions to add to the list.

-What inhabits the ruins of the nearby city that make settling in a lethal idea?
-Who�s Bloodgate�s leader? what�s he/she like?
-What�s the external threat that worries the min-ds of the Firewater Bay settlers?
-What�s the internal threat that grows, hidden, in Firewater Bay?
-What�s the barter system in the Bay like?

In general, for AW questions, I wrote this list and posted it in the AW thread:

QuantumNinja posted:

What are the scarcities? (Everybody at the table should name something that's hard to get.)

Where does the game take place?

Is it static? Do you stay put or move around?

What's the climate like?

What are risks from the world itself, from nature?

How supernatural is the world? Game of Thrones or Silent Hill?

How in-the-know are your characters? How well do the handle the Weird? (See playbooks; this is about baseline in-the-know, not specialized.)

How localized is the weirdness?

How hard is travel?

What isn't scarce? What could I expect to walk into any hardhold and find if I have the jingle? (Everyone, again, should name something.)

Did you have lives before the apocalypse? A memory of it?

How reliable is the narrative?

For the world?

For your characters?

Is time linear?

For the world?

For your characters?

What about other weirdness?

Are there mutants and poo poo?

Is there hardcore futuretech?

What is the default weirdness level?

Are we going Gene Wolf with the narrative, or should I tell you if what you found is a toaster?

What survives of the old world?

Is there anything you want for sure to be in the game we haven't gotten to, or for sure forbid?

What of the things mentioned should we nail down right now?

They're mostly derived from the apocalypse-building session that Adam Koebel did with Roll20 recently. I think not all will fit with your boot-strap, but some certainly will. I find the scarcity and plenty questions really inspire players, and they name crazy things (like batteries and chocolates for things you can't find, and wood and personal space for things you can).

Also, I find most of the best AW games involve getting everyone around a table and destroying the world together. Giving people personal boons in the poo poo that's gone sideways or weird or nightmarish is cool.

QuantumNinja fucked around with this message at 20:14 on Sep 17, 2015

# ¿ Sep 17, 2015 20:10

QuantumNinja: Mar 8, 2013; Trust me.
I pretend to be a ninja.

Does anyone know where I could find a copy of pirate world? I'm happy to pay for it, and the kickstarter claims the PDF is done.

# ¿ Oct 26, 2015 20:20

QuantumNinja: Mar 8, 2013; Trust me.
I pretend to be a ninja.

What can I use for a BPRD game?

# ¿ Nov 9, 2015 19:36

QuantumNinja: Mar 8, 2013; Trust me.
I pretend to be a ninja.

Evil Mastermind posted:

In the sense that they're both designed around the idea that your power can get out of your control, yeah. The main difference is that the MotW Spell-Slinger is more focused on combat magic, whereas the Urban Shadows Wizard's moves are more balanced between combat and utility.

I think both of them are "one step away" from Dresden. The MotW playbook for it plays like a kick-in-the-door, no-prep Dresden (which we see sometimes), and the US playbook plays like scheming, prep-and-good-times Dresden, complete with sanctum with intelligent spirit, a classic Dresden wizard death-cure, and tracking spells. Both of these styles show up across the books, and I think you'd probably have to hybrid the classes together to get Dresden's full set of skills back.

QuantumNinja fucked around with this message at 21:12 on Nov 9, 2015

# ¿ Nov 9, 2015 21:06

QuantumNinja: Mar 8, 2013; Trust me.
I pretend to be a ninja.

Golden Bee posted:

I'd love to playtest. Set up a doodle.

This.

Also, I like the font.

Edit:

Here are some maths about Blessed / Cursed.

Average Outcomes

"At Least" Outcomes

Probability of Roll Outcome Difference

2d6, Blessed, 2d6+1, and 2d6+2 Graphed

Looks like it's close to 2d6+2 in the critical period (6 -- 10), but with a softer curve.

These were all generated with anydice.com and

code:

output {1,2}@3d6 named "Blessed"
output {2,3}@3d6 named "Cursed"
output 2d6 named "Normal"
output 2d6+1 named "2d6+1"
output 2d6+2 named "2d6+2"

The median cases for blesses are +1 and +2, and the median cases for cursed is -2 and -1.

QuantumNinja fucked around with this message at 07:00 on Dec 1, 2015

# ¿ Dec 1, 2015 04:25

QuantumNinja: Mar 8, 2013; Trust me.
I pretend to be a ninja.

Covok posted:

Things I learned today: Do not do PVP in Urban Shadows.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2015 05:22

QuantumNinja: Mar 8, 2013; Trust me.
I pretend to be a ninja.

Covok posted:

Ya know, saying this all out loud, it doesn't sound like it really went that bad, mechanically. Maybe? Could have been our view on things or our mutual attitude on it? I'm not sure because, strangely, it doesn't sound like it went that bad, except for the meta-game-y cold war part, really. I'm not sure.

Eh, I think it went pretty bad mechanically, but you skipped over precisely how. Basically, the cold war thing can easily spiral out of control in Urban Shadows. When you can play politics and use Workshops to try to ruin the other person slowly, the game can quickly turn into ~3-4 sessions of trying to come up with the perfect plant o deal with the other player. Which means the other PCs, who had previously be working with us on stuff, would be stuck between us and generally entertaining themselves while we spent entire sessions just working on murdering each other. And this sort of has to happen because politics are a codified part of the system via Debts.

Some people might enjoy that. Neither of the players involved seemed willing to press that, though, so we decided "screw it, we'll meet up to brawl and let the dice decide". I mean, a Wizard can pull 4-armor with channeling, so maybe Benny could deal with the Hunter's 6 damage on a 10+ attack and manage to get a good upper hand.

That's when things get lousy. The way you attack people in Urban Shadows is with Unleash:

Urban Shadows posted:

_{Unleash

When you unleash an attack on someone, roll with Blood. On a hit, you inflict harm as established and choose 1:

� Inflict terrible harm

� Take something from them

On a 7-9, choose 1 from below as well:

� They inflict harm on you

� You find yourself in a bad spot}

And here's the advancement of that move:

Urban Shadows posted:

_{Unleash

On a 12+, your target chooses: surrender completely or you incapacitate them.}

This might as well read: "On a 12+, you instantly win combat. Congratulations!"

So in literally the first volley, the Wizard lost to the Hunter's advanced Unleash. Seeing as we were on a train platform, the Hunter had the option to just... throw the Wizard in front of a train. Then I pointed out the Wizard's Death Curse could literally unmake the Hunter's entire long-term goals, and the Hunter decided not to follow through.

For system failure, I think the complaint stems from how Urban Shadows treats combat: it tries to ignore it and avoid it at essentially all cost. Unlike Apoc World, there isn't an interesting and rich infrastructure for throwing down. The fight felt cheap: we were sort of hyped up to see which of us would win in a fight, and the advancement of Unleash unceremoniously declared one the winner. Compared to the Battle Moves of Apocalypse World, which would have guaranteed a good and interesting fight, which would have been a crazy fight across Grand Central Station, we just got the Hunter getting an ace roll. I don't think it felt satisfying to anyone involved---it certainly didn't to me.

Edit:

Golden Bee posted:

All that and my takeaway was "The Unleash move is really powerful on a 12+".

This is a good summary of the post I just wrote.

QuantumNinja fucked around with this message at 20:57 on Dec 3, 2015

# ¿ Dec 3, 2015 20:54

QuantumNinja: Mar 8, 2013; Trust me.
I pretend to be a ninja.

Covok posted:

Can't. It's behind a patreon paywall and we aren't supposed to give links out.

It isn't much, to be honest. It really is just a reskinned AW 2nd Edition with some tweaks. It's...underwhelming.

I though it was fine

The real innovation in the work is the horse-riding mechanisms, which are actually pretty cool. Based on the failures of past attempts (i.e., Driver playbook in AW), VIncent is trying to get a handle on how to do chase and chase/combat scenes correctly in PbtA, and that's totally worthwhile. What's more, his work is headed in the right direction! That is to say: it's headed in the direction of some of the cyberpunk hacks. (And that's a serious improvement! His previous draft of AW2 had horrible hold/spend for each group in the chase!)

At any rate, it's a neat foundation, and the rules were certainly worth my patreon money. :colbert:

# ¿ Jan 2, 2016 11:28

QuantumNinja: Mar 8, 2013; Trust me.
I pretend to be a ninja.

Thanqol posted:

My Masks playtest games haven't gone particularly well. We can see what they're trying to do but the basic moves don't quite do what you expect or give the results you'd want. There's also crazy indecision on 'powers matter and are woven into my playbook moves' and 'powers don't matter at all and all my playbook moves are social stuff'. They either need to scrap the Nova or scrap the Delinquent; having them both in the same ruleset is really jarring.

I had the same exact experience. The system didn't do what I wanted, or what it sold itself as doing. The basic moves feel lacking and disconnected. It isn't clear where some are triggered, which ones should work where, and how they lead into each other. During the session I ran, I repeatedly flipped to the basic moves to figure out what to roll (in situations where rolls were obviously demanded) and then say to myself, "Wait, there isn't one here for this. What do I have them roll?"

The moves also doesn't really snowball like most PbtA movsets: they don't often follow up well on each other. Or maybe they do, but that doesn't come across at all in the cheat sheet.

I think the #1 thing, at this point, that would help that game is the author streaming a playtest where they run the game. The current material I've seen / played with was... not presented to be used the way it probably should be? I'd like to see what the author intended, though, before condemning the work.

Covok posted:

I suppose that is a good point. The chase mechanics do seem much better than in other PbtA titles. I am curious what you mean by "some cyberpunk hacks:" which exactly?

My biggest issue with it and the battle moves, though, is that it has lead to serious move inflation. Some moves (like Assault a Position and Sieze by Force) feeling redundant. Even outside that front, there just seems to be a lot more moves that everyone has than in any other title. That isn't necessarily bad and may be a good direction to go, but is a bit surprising to me. In some ways, the battle moves help keep to a "one move per scene" dynamic that I, personally, feel is for the best, but it also means a lot more moves are necessary, on the other hand.

As for hacks, look at Sprawl for what I mean. (I thought there was another one that did similar, but I can't find it ATM.)

Your issue seems misplaced, IMO, but that's partially Vincent's fault. The 'Battle Moves' are really poorly organized. There are 'big battle' moves, 'small battle' moves, and 'chase' moves all under that heading.

As for 'big battle' moves, the original AW had 4 battle moves for large battles (p. 212-214). Fallen Empires has five now: Assault A Position, Seize by Force, Defend Something You Hold, Hold an Enemy Off, Stand Guard. But that's really a separate subsystem for crunchier battles, just like before, with one extra move than before.

The other new combat rules fill in 'small battle' moves: direct one-on-one combat (basically replaced old SbF) and Chaotic Free-for-all (which AFAIK hasn't been done elsewhere in other PbtAs, and was a bit of a gap).

And then there's Keep Lookout, which has a certainly thematic feel, but maybe shouldn't be a battle move.

So far we have one extra 'big battle' subsystem move, one extra 'small battle' move that fills a gap, and one misplaced new move that builds theme. 3 extra moves isn't serious bloat.

Then to the 'chase' moves: the other four "Battle Moves", about traps and bait, roll back into the chase and chase/combat rules (called Mounted Combat) that seem to be the focus of experimentation here, for a total of 8 moves about chases and chase/combats. And that actually is bloated! What's worse, Leap Onto a Moving Animal and Unseat Rider are just concretizations of Go Into Danger (which is renamed Act Under Fire). Even if we discard, though, however, we have a 6 moves for chases and chase combat, and that seems like a lot. If it was pared down to 4 (by tying some of them together), I think it would feel good.

Even so, it's a better rough draft of managing chases than anywhere else I've seen.

QuantumNinja fucked around with this message at 23:46 on Jan 3, 2016

# ¿ Jan 3, 2016 23:37

QuantumNinja: Mar 8, 2013; Trust me.
I pretend to be a ninja.

malkav11 posted:

The basic moves are supposed to define what's important to a PBTA game, no? So if there isn't a move, you don't roll. Even if it feels like you should. The fiction triggers the moves, not the other way around, so no move, no trigger.

Or at least that'd be my take.

Appreciated, but there are some things seriously missing, like:

A harm move. There is a sort-of harm move, called Take a Powerful Blow, but it's unclear how often that should come up. Sure, a huge combatant hits you, roll it. But if you're just mixing it up with some thugs in an alley, does it come up? If not, damage is only 'mark a condition'. Which is fine, but only barely spelled out, i.e., why doesn't Directly Engage mention marking a condition when it goes poorly?
A general 'dangerous maneuver' move, a la Act Under Fire. Is there never risk, beyond the few things outlined?
A general manipulation move. There's one for changing people you have influence over, but no outright lying. There's a move to Provoke Someone, but using it for subtle, quiet lies is more than a stretch. I think that's weird for a game that so heavily focuses on personal communication: do lies just default as successful?

Tense moments in the fiction, moments that seem to require something beyond general table consensus, don't trigger moves.

The other thing I disliked, which I didn't remember until I looked at the rules to write this post, is that the bonuses are mathematically unreasonable. +4s and +5s are commonplace! It's easy and straightforward to get +3 in an attribute without much cost, even to the point that two classes (Transformed and Janus) start at +3 in something. That isn't intrinsically bad, but paired with the +1from the Team mechanic (which should be getting spent like candy, because Team points are easy and good), you get this:

A lot of the playbook moves also give you +1s left and right, exacerbating this problem.

Like I said, it's possible I'm doing all of this wrong. But my reading of the cheat sheet release suggests a game that lacks some important infrastructure for the stories it is trying to tell and that's pretty imbalanced with respect to roll bonuses. I'd really like to see the author(s) do a playtest, though, maybe on youtube, to see what they had in mind.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2016 05:35

QuantumNinja: Mar 8, 2013; Trust me.
I pretend to be a ninja.

Josef bugman posted:

Okay so this Thursday I am going to be running a game of Urban Shadows for some of my mates and I am really nervous.

Any advice people can give for me? I mean the first session is mainly going to be character rolling, rules explaining and ancillary bullshit. But I would still appreciate any advice other people have as to how to run a decent game.

Lean on debts hard. Make them a big deal, and shift them around a lot.

Make rumors small. They should either tie together or be resolved easily enough.

Try to get at least one player to pick a class built around debts or interacting with a faction. It will make the game work better.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2016 23:22

QuantumNinja: Mar 8, 2013; Trust me.
I pretend to be a ninja.

Vulpes Vulpes posted:

I've really gotten a hankering to put together a Spirit of 77 game based around car racing in exotic locales under the auspices of an underground race sponsored by a shady contessa. Basically Enter the Dragon crossed with Speed Racer, with the players alternatively racing and investigating the race.

I'm just trying to figure out what to do with character creation. Should I let all the playbooks take the Hot Wheels move to put everyone on the same footing? Or should I just scrub the Good Old Boy altogether? Having one playbook be so much better than the others at driving would really throw off the racing segments, and I'd like to let everyone be poo poo-hot drivers. Any thoughts?

Give everyone Sweet Ride and Hot Wheels. Don't let anyone play the class.

# ¿ Jan 9, 2016 21:07

QuantumNinja: Mar 8, 2013; Trust me.
I pretend to be a ninja.

Comrade Gorbash posted:

Personally, in retrospect I found A No poo poo Driver (and by extension Hot Wheels) to be a problem inherently. Because bonuses are so small in PBTA games, adding the car stats on means a lot fewer misses and partial successes. In a game where you want a lot of action to take place in vehicles, this can be problematic.

This is definitely true. That move is a total mess in original AW, and the 2E preview removed it altogether.

An alternative approach would be to flesh the vehicles out more, with attributes like say Power, Armor, Looks, Control, and Weakness. Then give everyone a move like:

quote:

Behind the Wheel. When in the driver�s seat...
� If you need to Deliver a Beatdown, roll+Power of the current vehicle.
� If you need to Take a Hit, roll+Armor of the current vehicle.
� If you need to Get Outta the Way, roll+Control of the current vehicle.
� If you need to Keep Your Cool, roll+Control of the current vehicle.
� If you Get in Somebody�s Face, roll+Looksof the current vehicle.
� If you try to Get What You Want, roll+Looks of the current vehicle.

Actually, this gives me an idea...

I don't know if this is good, but here is a set of rules for treating cars like secondary playbooks. The idea is that there are a set of moves for the cars themselves that mirror the standard moves, and everyone uses them for the race scenes. Things like Read the Sitch or shooting at someone should still work off your player stats: if the rules aren't there, default to the normal ruleset.

I'm not sure that document are super-balanced, or even reasonable (I literally just wrote it in ~1 hour), but maybe it's a step in the right direction? (Feedback, of course, would be awesome.)

QuantumNinja fucked around with this message at 03:07 on Jan 11, 2016

# ¿ Jan 11, 2016 03:04

QuantumNinja: Mar 8, 2013; Trust me.
I pretend to be a ninja.

Covok posted:

It's best to work on the project you feel passionate about at the moment, but always write down the ideas you get for other projects so you don't forgot them. Assuming no deadlines.

# ¿ Feb 10, 2016 00:08

QuantumNinja: Mar 8, 2013; Trust me.
I pretend to be a ninja.

Doc Aquatic posted:

I keep seeing that said, but I haven't yet seen an explanation as to why. What aspects of the core PBTA engine make it inherently opposed to long-term cooperation? I'm genuinely curious since I'm working on a hack that's lighter teen drama than Monsterhearts, and I haven't read a design analysis that explains the PVP Or Bust thing.

Here is a long post from a few pages ago in this very thread about it.

# ¿ Feb 28, 2016 03:32

QuantumNinja: Mar 8, 2013; Trust me.
I pretend to be a ninja.

Golden Bee posted:

Words

Yes, I just linked that post because it seems like a decent starting point for the discussion.

And I think you made the good follow-up point: a lot of the fun of PbtA is that sometimes your character is going to do a thing that the party doesn't want because your character wants it. In AW this usually ends with PvP, in US it usually ends in politicking and cruel/inevitable betrayal, and in MH it usually ends with (more) high school drama. (I'll refrain from speaking about MotW since I haven't played it, but maybe it has a similarly-themed mechanism..) And all of that is precisely tied to the fact that you need to sometimes act contrary to the "end goal" to make a good story.

I think a good way to generalize this insight is that a major strength of PbtA is its ability to incite inter-character drama. The idea of "betraying the party" shouldn't be a "die if you do" scenario, but a "Oh poo poo Tonic's going to be mad and good luck if he doesn't [stab/sell out/spread lies about] you" situation.

When I explain AW to people, it's usually as an HBO show. And I usually use that as a jumping-off point to couch character conflict. Of course you're going to have inter-character problems: point out one good TV show around that doesn't play up the interpersonal dramas between the main characters. Even when they're on the same side, that drama shows up to drive the story, drive player growth, and drive group growth. That sort of conflict, even benign in terms of physical PvP, drives good stories.

It's no coincidence that the AW book talks about "onscreen" and "offscreen". And, in fact, says this outright:

AW, p. 136 posted:

Choose the things you�d just loving kill to see well done on the big screen, and skip the things that don�t spark your interest.

Why do I tune in every week? I don't just tune in to see the cool dungeon of the week, but if Hardison and Parker are actually going to date, if this is the week where Jayne sells the crew out, if Michael is going to finally tell Rachel he didn't go to Harvard. That's what keeps me coming back to the show, and that's, in my opinion, when PbtA starts to sing.

QuantumNinja fucked around with this message at 04:26 on Feb 28, 2016

# ¿ Feb 28, 2016 04:22

QuantumNinja: Mar 8, 2013; Trust me.
I pretend to be a ninja.

I've been working for a few months on a spy game in my free time, something sort of 1960s-trope-ish. I'm aiming for a mix of Man From Uncle (the movie), Evil Genuis (the vidja game), '60s-era James Bond, and I guess Archer.

Here's a link to what I have right now: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BIwY4vrQR_Oq6x3OlnPeGaKMOFOJakJN4dFL41Ft5CE/edit?usp=sharing

I'd love some feedback.

(The gear isn't all done yet, and there's no GM section to speak of; it's mostly playbooks and basic rules.)

QuantumNinja fucked around with this message at 05:59 on Apr 23, 2016

# ¿ Apr 23, 2016 04:26

QuantumNinja: Mar 8, 2013; Trust me.
I pretend to be a ninja.

Just a heads-up for any Apoc World 2E backers, the second edition final draft is now out (you can access it at apocalypse-world.com with your kickstarter-associated email address). It's got a lot of additions and other nice things!

# ¿ Aug 30, 2016 01:40

QuantumNinja: Mar 8, 2013; Trust me.
I pretend to be a ninja.

potatocubed posted:

The Pigsmoke Kickstarter is down to 36 hours!

Is there any way to get in on this? I missed the kickstarter, but I've been super-excited about this game ever since you posted a draft months ago.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2017 01:59

QuantumNinja: Mar 8, 2013; Trust me.
I pretend to be a ninja.

ShineDog posted:

Anyone ever wonder if you could have a system that replaces the classic "pick x good things on 7-9 and maybe x+1 on 10+ and gm picks if you poo poo the bed" with a 4 fudge dice roll where the player picks for + and the gm picks for - ?

It feels like there's a nugget of an idea somewhere if it's not already done, but I can't think how you would factor in skills elegantly. Swap in better dice? Add extra dice with no fails?

This sounds a lot like the current Star Wars system, where your dice give you measured successes with complications and side stuff. This sounds like a good refinement of that, maybe? Wherein, maybe, net +s over -s mean you do it, net -s over +s mean you don't, and then each individual die is also resolved in terms of partial accomplishments and penalties? The one potential flaw I see is that, with FATE dice, adding more dice just widens out the range of probabilities, but you're still most likely to roll somewhere in the middle. To give characters something like stats, maybe a relevant stat would just give them free '+'s? So you might roll 4dF and get two extra '+'s because you have Hard+2. Then a move would be like:

Throw Down. When it comes to violence, and you're involved, name what you're trying to accomplish and roll with Hard. If the sum is greater than 0, you throw down and get what you want. If it's less, you throw down but you don't eek it out. Then choose one option for each '+' on your roll (including or precluding any from Hard): You inflict more serious harm (+1 harm) You don't destroy anything or anything you care about in the process You suffer little harm (-1 harm) You have a good position if they try to counter-attack (1armor forward) You have a clean out if you're quick about it The MC will choose options equal to the number of '-'s on the dice: Your opponents learn a lesson about you and how you fight. (You get one fewer '+'s the next time you attack them.) You lose track of something or someone. You miss noticing something important. You lose your position, your footing, or your grip on something.
Overall, that seems really busy to me, and it definitely needs some refinement, but it's maybe workable. It may be better 2dF instead of 4dF, or asking you to spend two '+'s for each option. That would mean you could write less options without someone rolling 4 '+'s and grabbing everything off the list.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2017 02:19

QuantumNinja: Mar 8, 2013; Trust me.
I pretend to be a ninja.

SBF in Apoc World only lets you pick three of its four things on a 10+, and most of the ones above were cribbed from it. :shrug:

# ¿ Feb 24, 2017 03:49

QuantumNinja: Mar 8, 2013; Trust me.
I pretend to be a ninja.

This week, I put together a tongue-in-cheek one-shot system based on a long-running gag in my real-life group, where the group is a gang of :frogsiren:

MUSCLE WIZARDS :frogsiren:

. It's PbtA-based, and I'd love some feedback. Here's the link. I haven't got a chance to run it yet (though may tomorrow).

The main divergences from standard 'Apoc World'-style stuff are:

There aren't AW-style stats. Instead, you have scores tied directly to individual moves.
your health is your bonuses, so messing up when you take harm means permanently reducing a score from a move.

I'm not sure if these things have been done before (I'd love to find out they have been!), and I'm not certain the second will work in longer-term (i.e., not one-shot) games, but I'm excited to try both.

QuantumNinja fucked around with this message at 08:29 on Apr 1, 2017

# ¿ Apr 1, 2017 06:17

QuantumNinja: Mar 8, 2013; Trust me.
I pretend to be a ninja.

Zurui posted:

Why is it 2d12?

It was another experiment. I wanted more room to add +1s / -1s to things, so I chose to use a normal distribution with a larger range. The goal was to be able to hand out more bonuses without worrying about swaying moves to be nearly guaranteed success (e,g., +2 vs +3 on 2d6 compared to +4 vs +5 on 2d12). The goal was to see how this felt at the table, because I wanted to know if a pbta-style game could possibly recover some of the crunchy sensation of, e.g., Shadowrun, by using larger dice and more one-off bonuses. That said, I did manage to play Muscle Wizards yesterday and I'm not sure the 2d12 felt great as a player. It seemed that the 'middling success' range felt too big at times. For example, rolling a 15 and thinking "drat, only 5 off" didn't have the sensation of rolling an 8 on 2d6 and thinking it was only off by two. I might try it some more to see if it was just mismanaged expectations, and maybe try it with smaller dice (d8s or d10s) and see how that works out, too.

# ¿ Apr 3, 2017 06:58

QuantumNinja: Mar 8, 2013; Trust me.
I pretend to be a ninja.

I finally got around to actually laying out that game Muscle Wizards I wrote. A few other things changed after some playtests, including:

Reduced the die size from d12s to d10s after my previous comment about the range feeling too large, and tinkered with bonuses to reflect that
Added another roll outcome tier (9- is 'bad', 10-12 is 'middling bad', 13-15 is 'middling good', 16+ is 'good'), which meant retooling or rewriting the majority of the moves
Added a move for helping other players out
Added threat moves (Rulers, Brutes, Killers, Places) to the GM section
The players each now pick a rumor about the Muscle Wizards that's true in order to bootstrap the one-shot more readily
Small changes to the list of spellcasting, mixed magical martial arts, and description lists

As per usual, I'd love any feedback, comments, and otherwise.

QuantumNinja fucked around with this message at 04:10 on May 16, 2017

# ¿ May 15, 2017 19:34

QuantumNinja: Mar 8, 2013; Trust me.
I pretend to be a ninja.

Drop Database posted:

Link doesn't work for me

Fixed it now, sorry :v:

# ¿ May 16, 2017 04:10

QuantumNinja: Mar 8, 2013; Trust me.
I pretend to be a ninja.

homullus posted:

Impulse Drive is good because it points to a particular kind of story, rather than just being "PbtA in [setting]" without thought to the kinds of stories you tell in that setting.

I looked at the latest version of this after reading these posts (I last saw it back when ti was still a Google Doc), and my group is now bailing entirely on Scum and Villainy (the Blades hack) in favor of it, because it does the same but far better. :toot:

Flavivirus posted:

I've heard good things about Bluebeard's Bride, though that's a very specific horror niche.

Bluebeard's Bride is really awesome, but it puts a fair bit of impetus on the GM to invent horror on the fly. Which I would, personally, have some trouble with. The Book of Rooms coming out, though, definitely takes care of that problem.

# ¿ Aug 31, 2017 05:13

QuantumNinja: Mar 8, 2013; Trust me.
I pretend to be a ninja.

I arrived at what I consider a finished version of Muscle Wizards, a one-shot PbtA game about being overly-buff spellslingers. It's free to anyone who wants it: http://conjur.es/MuscleWizards.pdf

It's meant to be goofy and haphazard, which seems to really work out in my play-tests. I'd love to know what people here think of the "health" system, in particular, though, because it's caught a lot of people by surprise.

QuantumNinja fucked around with this message at 21:50 on Dec 31, 2017

# ¿ Dec 31, 2017 21:47

QuantumNinja: Mar 8, 2013; Trust me.
I pretend to be a ninja.

I really enjoy his patreon because it's a real look into game design. He'll experiment with a form or mechanism every two months for a year, working out the exact feel he wants, and it's interesting to watch that level of care in rule iteration. Also, he puts out some really cool 'technically playable' stuff (his words).

Speaking of PbtA hacks, I've been working on a space one and would love feedback. It's still rough around the edge, but mostly playable in its current state.

# ¿ Oct 7, 2018 02:57

QuantumNinja: Mar 8, 2013; Trust me.
I pretend to be a ninja.

Drop Database posted:

I had a quick read and left some comments. Feel free to message to discuss. In general, I feel like the playbooks have had some good conversion work, and are evocative and genre-appropriate (although some of the names confused me). I feel like the basic and peripheral moves can use some more work, though. Some of them are very reminiscent of AW still, where they should be dripping with space flavour, being the rules players interact with more often.

Thanks for the feedback, it was really useful. I'm still thinking about how to cram more space flavor in, and you gave me some good points to try to do it.

I agree with the playbook names--they're still a work in progress.

Pollyanna posted:

Given that in this particular case the character was "around" but not active in the party (outside of a "help me bust down this gate" thing), I think I have an idea for what they could have been doing.

A decent option is always to involve them in the other players' lives. For example, if another character is trying to hunt down a rare item, a good love letter option may be "You've managed to get hold of X. Where'd you get it, and who else knows you have it?" This pulls the player into the current session without having to have their character "magically" stumble their way back into the tangled web of events that happened during the session the missed.

# ¿ Oct 9, 2018 01:05

QuantumNinja: Mar 8, 2013; Trust me.
I pretend to be a ninja.

Here are my own love letters, from when we took a campaign break. (We referred to the break as the end of a 'season', a la TV framing, so I added some other advancement stuff in there to indicate the passage of time, too.)

quote:

Dear Clipse,

First, you get this move:

Deep brain scan: (... as per the Brainer playbook ...)

Next, note this move:

Trouble in Paradise. When we start this season, roll+cool. On a 10+, choose two. On a 7-9, all three.
- You've been having dreams where you are the trees and the river is singing to you. The songs aren't good ones.
- The roses have been taking over more of the garden, and they bleed red when you try to cut them back. The blood acts as a hallucinogen, too.
- Nelson's got hooked on something serious, and he's out more than he's in. People are coming to you with disputes now.
On a miss, all three, and one of them is pressing too hard right now.

Finally, answer these questions:

- What has Charlie been doing lately that's bothering you, and why are you ignoring it outright but still secretly trying to stop it?
- What weird side effects are Beam's experiments having on members of your congregation? What happened at the last mass that got really loving nuts?
- Other people's minds have become louder lately, and you can even read them with some effort. What other side effects (physical or otherwise) is this having?

Grins & Love,
Your MC

quote:

Dear Lee,

First, you get this:

Your workspace now has skilled labor (name them), and choose one more workspace feature.

Then get a gang (detail in the usual way); you�ll have to get Leadership on your own.

Next, note this move:

Museum of Tomorrow. When we start this season, roll+hard. On a 10+, choose one. On a 7-9, choose two.
- Your museum has been crumbling to the plants, more and more, and even these brilliant minds seem unsure about how to hold them back.
- The sun's activity has been starting to mess with your broadcasting and receiving, and other messages have been leaking in.
- Cyclops has been offering you larger and larger gifts to take on Grub as an apprentice. The last few have been... problematic. How so?
On a miss, the first one and one more, and you haven't been sleeping much.

Finally, answer these questions:

- The printer has been printing some weird poo poo, all on its own, brilliant sculptures of glass and metal. What are you doing with them, and why do they scare you as much as they awe you?
- Valence and Shallot claim they can gently caress with a person's dream with their new rig---any truth to that?
- What keeps you going back time and again to stand over Fleece's grave?

Grins & Love,
Your MC

quote:

Dear Benzol,

First, you get this move:

Moonlighting. (... as per the Operator from 1E ...)

Next, note this move:

Kill your Friends. When we start this season, roll+sharp. On a 10+, choose one. On a 7-9, choose two.
- Parcher's talked you into that smuggling thing, and it entails moving some weird poo poo from Claymaker to Heckler in Nursery.
- "Dig, dig, dig," the helmet demands. And now Eldest and Hugo are here striking a deal to dig under Monk's. Which would be fine, except that Eldest is a weird fucker that nobody really likes talking to.
- Beam's got all sweet on you, and that's apparently made poo poo a little tight with Spidere (and Teatime, by extension).
On a miss, choose two, and you're running low on bullets, too. gently caress.

Finally, answer these questions:

- What dark thing did you see at the river bank a few weeks ago, and what about it keeps you from sleeping at night?
- What combat stimulant drug have you got a decent lead on, and how much of it have you been doing recently?
- Who offered you a big sum of pristine bullets to take a shot at Clipse, and what makes them practically untouchable?

Grins & Love,
Your MC

The goal was to set up things to kick off the whole 'season', though, so these are probably overkill for a one-off session absence.

Drop Database posted:

I think ultimately to have more flavourful moves, you will come up against having to decide what kind of space setting you actually want. Over the top cool space, like Mass Effect or Guardians of the Galaxy, gritty and threatening space, like the Expense, mystical/violating space, like 40K or Dune.... tech and mission-focused like Star Trek or crew-drama focused, like Firefly?

The strength of PbtA is being able to write the flavour right into the mechanics, and the best-regarded PbtA games focus tightly on a particular genre of fiction... but that sometimes means giving up the ability to be more generic

My goal is a mixture of interpersonal drama and localized power struggles---far from Star Trek / Guardians / Mass Effect, closer to Firefly and early Foundation. My intention is that even the tech should feel secondary to control and continued existence. That said, it turns out 'control and continued existence' look really different floating in space than they do living in a desert-waste, and that's the gap I'm still working to smooth out.

For what it's worth, I'm hesitant about nailing down space moves further because (in my playtesting) various groups seem to bring various levels of verisimilitude to space, and I've had issued trying to pin down the moves without pinning a level of realism to them.

QuantumNinja fucked around with this message at 05:06 on Oct 9, 2018

# ¿ Oct 9, 2018 05:04

QuantumNinja: Mar 8, 2013; Trust me.
I pretend to be a ninja.

My group recently started Pigsmoke, and it seems like progress in the game is... slow? (For what it's worth, it's otherwise absolutely fantastic!) Compared to Apoc World, where you can grab advancements once every session or two, XP jams, and the story wraps up in 8-12 sessions, Pigsmoke's XP rate seems like it's going to be closer to 20 or 30 sessions minimum (coming only from Delving Deeper and Teaching). Is that expected? Our group is usually into shorter, self-contained units, so we might pick a slightly-faster XP system if that's the case, but it's possible we've been doing it wrong so I wanted to know if there was anything we were missing before starting to graft other stuff on.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2020 08:22

QuantumNinja: Mar 8, 2013; Trust me.
I pretend to be a ninja.

Neopie posted:

My big one is read the gm section of Apocalypse World Specifically, many pbta games just sort of, assume you'veinternalized the basic rules of running them and don't, uh, copy that into their gming sections, but apocalypse world spells a lot of it out just in it's pages.

This is the largest sin most PbtA hacks commit. A rulebook should fundamentally explain how to play a game.

(I think the second-largest is that most skip the "players and their crap" section, which is incredibly useful in trying to determine how to interpret and think about specific moves.)

# ¿ Apr 12, 2020 09:41

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 08:04

QuantumNinja: Mar 8, 2013; Trust me.
I pretend to be a ninja.

Elector_Nerdlingen posted:

If I were writing a hack that had only 4 stats, would a move along the lines of AW's Act Under Fire or DW's Defy Danger make sense in an "roll the relevant stat" as opposed to "roll +thing"?

One issue I have seen come up with Defy Danger is that a player will often try to figure out how to tune their action to get their best stat to apply. It can force characters to forgo "what fits" in order to do "what's optimal," shaping their behavior around the mechanics instead of the character. I think that's generally a negative. One alternative might be to think about splitting it up based on the actual danger instead of their reaction: if it's dodging bullets, it's Hard; if time is of the essence, it's Fast; and so on. That way, it still selects the stat as as the situation demands, but it keeps the player from doing something out of place to game the roll.

# ¿ Apr 28, 2020 01:31

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