TG Chat Thread 2017

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Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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Moriatti posted:

What's a good PVP game, either an "RPG" focused on PVP or a board game that lets you have a high degree of customization over your chracters?

Paranoia

# ¿ Dec 13, 2017 19:54

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 09:31

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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Legendary Encounters: Predator is a kind of co-op PvP deckbuilder, but all the customisation occurs in game. If you like it you can grab the Alien version which doesn't have PvP built in, but you can mix and match it with the Predators game to have a bunch of Predators beating each other up while competing to kill the Queen on Hadley's Hope.

# ¿ Dec 13, 2017 20:02

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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Moriatti posted:

In-game is fine. How is it as a deckbuilder? I have a lot of Legendary so I didnt pick this one up.

I think it's similar to regular legendary (which I haven't played). There's a stack of cards called the armoury. Five of those cards are available at any one time and do cool stuff when played (they're stuff like nets and guns and being really angry). You start your deck with a bunch of basic cards with either one attack or one recruit, and one of five special predator cards. On your turn you can spend recruit to buy new cards for your deck from the visible ones (and spend attack to attack enemies). Depending on what cards you already have some are more valuable to you than others etc, similar to Dominion except if you don't buy enough duchies you all get murdered by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

# ¿ Dec 13, 2017 20:40

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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ImpactVector posted:

I think Alien being co-op alleviates some (but not all) of the issues with a market row deckbuilder. You can still get a market flooded with cards no one can afford, but at least you can coordinate your buys with the other players.

It sounds like Predator takes it back the other way towards Ascension or Star Realms even moreso than Marvel Legendary, but I haven't played it so I can't comment too much.

As with Alien, there's a secondary deck with 8 cards ("Killer Instincts") in it that always cost 3 recruit and are worth two recruit when played. So you may end up with a few rounds of everyone buying the Killer Instincts cards, but after that you're good to go. Instead of co-ordinate you can suicide them to kill a card out if your discard pile when you don't need them anymore. There's also Traps, which are basically monsters you spend recruit instead of attack to murder, so if you can't buy a card but you can afford to disarm a trap then you'll make the world a bit less dangerous and also get some honour for it! It also gives Recruit a bit more use later in the game.

I'll describe the PvP bit though: Like Alien, there's a bunch of bad things slowly making their way down The Wilds. You spend attack (or recruit, if traps) to kill them, as per Alien (for honour!). However, some of the purchasable cards have the Duel keyword, which lets you spend your attack to attack other Predators instead (once per Duel card, must spend attack equal to the Predator's Defence). If a Predator dies then the current round plays out, then everyone still alive gets one more turn, then the dead predator blows up while everyone runs away. If a Predator killed them their murderer gets their avatar card to add to their honour stash.

The game can also end by killing The Ultimate Prey, which is the main characters of the two films.

You also get a full Alien-style setup of cards for playing the films co-op from the Human point of view.

Splicer fucked around with this message at 21:44 on Dec 13, 2017

# ¿ Dec 13, 2017 21:39

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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I liked DM of the Rings.

# ¿ Dec 18, 2017 09:09

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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Halloween Jack posted:

Yeah, STR as D&D defines it is actually this very weird specific facet of overall strength that doesn't correspond to how muscles work in real life. It wasn't a conspiracy against fighters, either, it was just an accident brought about by cargo-culting D&D's mechanics. In old-school D&D, STR is important for melee fighting, lifting and carrying heavy things, and forcing doors open. That makes it really valuable in the context of D&D and not so much in a ton of other games in different genres.

Agility being it's own thing makes sense if you look at it from a character archetype point of view. The tough one, the smart one, the fast one etc. The str/con split still make no sense though, as if they're separate then dex should be three different scores, minimum.

# ¿ Dec 18, 2017 09:18

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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Yawgmoth posted:

It's because I can walk/jog for 10 miles no problem but that does not affect my ability to lift a pallet of paper bags.

Halloween Jack posted:

I'm not equally talented at dancing, boxing, fencing, shooting, driving, tumbling, lockpicking, and pickpocketing, yet there's this thing called DEX in many roleplaying game that

That's what I was saying about archetypes. The tough dude shows up in fiction a lot, as does the nimble dude. You could make a case for splitting nimble dude and fast dude but in fiction "tough" and "strong" tend to be a package deal.

# ¿ Dec 18, 2017 18:03

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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DalaranJ posted:

Now humans are back, and better than ever!

In pog form!

# ¿ Dec 20, 2017 09:45

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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Cassa posted:

Sounds cool, but what's with the adversity to a grid?

Gridded and gridless both have their advantages. A genuinely gridless modern d&d alike would be good for running or playing games where I don't have reliable access to a large table.

# ¿ Dec 20, 2017 15:22

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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LuiCypher posted:

-The roll is modified by how similar/different alignments are.

God no.

Assuming by "the game" you mean 5e:

1) remove charisma from the game
2) merge str and con while we're here
3) have the player describe their action
4) they roll stat, prof, or stat + prof (or no stat + expertise if better), based on how well they tie it into the existing scene. Paying the tiniest bit of attention gets stat or prof, whichever is better. Actually addressing relevant parts of the scene gets advantage. Having a background or skill relevant to the scene or NPC and integrating it into the description gets stat + prof or no stat + expertise.

Default stat for interactions is brawn because people trust healthy looking people :biotruths:

Splicer fucked around with this message at 22:59 on Dec 20, 2017

# ¿ Dec 20, 2017 22:57

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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ProfessorCirno posted:

"There�s boring, there�s bad, and then there�s �Bright,� a movie so profoundly awful that Republicans will probably try to pass it into law over Christmas break."

I won't bother linking any full reviews of the movie because nothing can top that line.

I just watched it. That burn is, if anything, far too kind.

# ¿ Dec 22, 2017 19:22

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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Jimbozig posted:

Hey, since we were talking about reskinning, I'd like some ideas for a certain thing - the damage buff. In fantasy games, the cleric casts a spell to make you stronger so you hit harder and do more damage. How does that translate to a game where you are shooting bullets at enemies? How can a buffing class buff an ally's damage and have it "make sense"?

(The one explanation I don't want is "they point out the enemy's weak points" because that fits better with causing vulnerability or increasing the odds of critical hits, which are also cool buffs that the same class could have and having 3 distinct powers with the same fluff is dumb)

"Teamwork" -> The next time the target character attacks something, the activating character also shoots that thing, dealing additional damage.
"Flushed out" -> Target mob is driven into a less advantageous position, dealing additional damage.
"Get your head in the game" -> Target character gets their head in the game, dealing additional damage.
"A grenade" -> Target character gains a grenade, dealing additional damage

# ¿ Dec 22, 2017 19:30

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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Bedlamdan posted:

The disconnect between Bright's critic score and audience score is super fascinating for me.

I'm an audience and I think the critics were too kind.

I'm presuming a lot of the positive audience reactions are due to "Orcs and elves in the modern day? What an original concept!"

# ¿ Dec 23, 2017 21:38

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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Bedlamdan posted:

The joke is that it actually is, because the concept is never explored all that much outside of Shadowrun and normies don't give a gently caress about rpg settings.

That's what I mean. Almost everything else about it is trash, so if it's not a novel concept or you're actively being paid to pay attention beyond the premise then it's uh not good.

Geostorm, now that's a good bad film from this year.

Splicer fucked around with this message at 14:30 on Dec 24, 2017

# ¿ Dec 24, 2017 14:24

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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Moriatti posted:

What's a good PVP game, either an "RPG" focused on PVP or a board game that lets you have a high degree of customization over your chracters?

Coming back to this to say Sorcerer's a recently kickstarted game by white wizard games that fits this description. I don't know if it's any good but they made star realms, which I like.

# ¿ Dec 27, 2017 21:26

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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Plutonis posted:

The real tragedy is that while there is actually a lot of systems that let you be a cool longbowman or even a crossbowman on foot there are few ones that let you be the true terror of the battlefield: The Steppe Horse Archer

It's like ashes in my mouth to give 5e credit for anything, but a mounted archer in 5e has pretty good mobility and evasion without penalty or character investment.

Of course, playing an archer on a horse means you're not playing a wizard on a horse, and being on a horse is incompatible with being in a dungeon, but if you were playing Steppes Sans Sorcerers it would be pleasantly functional!

# ¿ Dec 27, 2017 21:36

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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dwarf74 posted:

1. Races are relatively lightweight, similar to 4e but even moreso. They give starting stats (there's 4) and a single racial power. Stats are only slightly adjusted from there. Since the resolution is 2d10 I think every + is probably more important than it is in 4e. Max is +3 for any stat at the start.

Is there a lifetime cap or some other method of avoiding 4e's put your asi's anywhere as long as it's in your to-hit stat issue?

Is there mechanical fail forward support outside the individual powers, in or out of combat?

# ¿ Dec 29, 2017 09:47

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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dwarf74 posted:

I submitted feedback about exactly this last night. You get 5 increases over 10 levels. The obvious best choice will always be your attack stat. I am hoping I missed something.

Are the ability scores raw numbers or a 3.x+ style derived modifier? What formats are the statups in?

Do monster defences etc. seem formula-scaled or a winging it situation?

# ¿ Dec 29, 2017 15:31

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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Hypnobeard posted:

Ability scores are just a modifier. Race gives you a base, you distribute one of two arrays on the base.

I meant the level up stat ups. Do you get 5 +1s over the course of the game, five pairs of +1s etc?

Splicer fucked around with this message at 15:47 on Dec 29, 2017

# ¿ Dec 29, 2017 15:39

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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Thanks to you both btw

# ¿ Dec 29, 2017 15:40

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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Hypnobeard posted:

Did a quick skim of this. Monsters have a Danger Level (DL) which takes from 1-10 just like player level. Theoretically, DL = character level for challenge purposes, so 1 DL 4 monster is a reasonable fight for a level 4 character or a significant challenge for four 1st level characters. No idea whether this actually works in play.

Anything neat about the action economy?

dwarf74 posted:

They are the modifiers.
As for the stat increases, there's very little information that I've found so far. It's a table footnote so far. I'm hoping for clarity and a mechanical restriction to keep you from just massively jacking up one stat.

I've a bunch of questions that could probably be answered by posting a level 1 character's stat block, if that's doable.

Splicer posted:

Thanks to you both btw

# ¿ Dec 29, 2017 16:18

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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whydirt posted:

Trying to cheese the game by only using the ranked highest path all the time seems more like a player issue than a mechanics issue.

I think Countblanc's issue is that the example given seems a bit of a stretch, but reading the sheet it's pretty spot on for her path fluff.

Are the paths from a list? If so, how much of the fluff on her sheet is common to every A Warrior's Heart?

Do you get more points as you level? Is there a cap? It looks like you can go 2/2/1 in theory, but that feels like a trap option.

Splicer fucked around with this message at 21:09 on Dec 29, 2017

# ¿ Dec 29, 2017 21:07

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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dwarf74 posted:

I don't think it's possible, tbh, if there's no specific list to pick from.

Freeform descriptors require good behavior from players and attention by the GM. It's like anything else - the book can give guidance, but at the end of the day there's a boundless number of possibilities.

I think a big problem with flexible skills is that application is usually binary. There's no "you can use that but..." option. It's not flexible :v:

If there was a second information channel so you could have a trade off that didn't affect success odds they'd probably work a lot better, like escalating the difficulty dice in EotE.

# ¿ Dec 29, 2017 23:25

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 09:31

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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Nickoten posted:

Didn't 13th Age's system let you decide how much of the total bonus they'd get to apply, based on how on-point it was? That seems like an easy solution.

It comes back down to a numbers game again though. If you stretch the +5 to apply but you're getting a -2 penalty why not just use the +3? And if you don't know you're going to get the -2 until after your justification then it ruins the whole flow of the game. It increases the mother may I. Same with increasing the DC. That's always been the big problem with a binary success, single information track system, the mechanically most optimal choice is always the one which requires the lowest die roll to succeed. Flexible skills just make it even harder to judge what is going to get you the best roll. Coming up with an explanation as to why "Dad Lessons +3" applies only to have it knocked down below "Owned a pub +2" just wastes everyone's time. Being able to add a reached "Dad lessons +3" but with a higher chance of complications than rolling your ability score straight makes life easier and more fun for everyone.

# ¿ Dec 31, 2017 16:51

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