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Benagain posted:Yo anyone got a recommendation for a quick to play sword and sorcery kinda game? I'm probably gonna run a one shot of 13th age or dungeon world tomorrow and I was wondering if there's another game out there that might be more suited for the genre with an equivalent ease of play. Barbarians of Lemuria?
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Jan 6, 2018 01:43
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hyphz posted:
So, it doesn't resolve all of your concerns, but the above stuff suggests that you are thinking of a heist in a mansion as being something that involves room by room exploration. I don't think Blades intends a heist to involve room by room exploration. Indeed, the only PbtA game I am aware of that does expect that (Dungeon World) expressly tells you to draw maps. There's nothing stopping a GM from having a map in Blades of course, and it might even be helpful, but the game doesn't expect players to explore it all. My reading of Blades is that if you want to find where the treasure is located, you need to roll actions to fill the relevant clock. You roll survey, or study, or hunt, or attune, or whatever (maybe you do something that doesn't require a roll but still advances the clock). If you succeed you fill the clock and some complications might happen. If you fail, you will have to deal with a consequence (perhaps you ran into a trapped door?), and make no progress for now. When the consequence is dealt with, you can explore again. Once you've filled the exploration clock, you know where the treasure is, and how to get to it (you can just say that you go there when you need to). There are probably other obstacles. Breaking through a wall is probably a pointless action when exploring, because it won't fill a clock unless you have established that what is on the other side will help you find the location of the treasure. If you are still determined to break through the wall, you will probably roll wreck, and we see how you do. If you succeed with a complication, then maybe there is a guard in the next room. If you just succeed, I'll probably give you a description of a room that gets you no closer to finding the treasure. You might lose resources taking this action, but you chose to take an action that wouldn't advance exploration mechanically--it might, on the other hand, be a very sensible action if you have already established the treasure is behind the door. This doesn't address what constitutes a good level of challenge in Blades, and arguably the book could address that better. But, like all PbtA games, Blades in more interested in setting up fictionally appropriate situations, and finding out what happens, than it is about the level of challenge being satisfying. The PCs are responsible for deciding what jobs they want to take, and the tier system should tell them how much resistance they should expect (as should their information gathering). The game gives PCs broad ways to judge if a heist will be too easy or too hard.
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Jan 7, 2018 23:46
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hyphz posted:The Dimmer Sisters house is explicitly described in the printed fiction as one that nobody who has entered has ever left. Isn't maintaining the integrity of that statement exactly the same as setting up for a particular outcome? Don't send a low tier, inexperienced crew to the Dimmer Sisters' house. If they decide to go there knowing that no one returns they should expect things to be rough. It isn't unfair to put difficult challenges in a place they have been told will almost certainly kill them.
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Jan 7, 2018 23:56
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Jimbozig posted:You guys are focusing on "well DUH don't have a dragon where it doesn't make sense." But what about when having a dragon absolutely makes perfect sense but will also absolutely cause the PCs to lose the mission? Do you put it in and make them lose? Or do you take it out even though you would have put it in if they had more resources left and even though it makes sense to have it? The only PbtA game where a situation like that remotely makes sense is Dungeon World, and that games tells you draw maps. Edit: using D&D based examples to discuss how to play Blades is pointless because Blades doesn't work on the same logic as D&D. thefakenews fucked around with this message at 00:35 on Jan 8, 2018 |
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Jan 8, 2018 00:32
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:well I mean at least one person has made the argument that no tabletop game works on those assumptions, meaning not even D&D A good game of D&D doesn't work on those assumptions. Most games of D&D are bad.
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Jan 8, 2018 00:43
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Subjunctive posted:
The answer here is: some non-zero amount of people. I don't necessarily think it's a concern that makes sense, but it does matter to some people, and that's OK. It just means some games and some GMs won't suit them. Tuxedo Catfish posted:See this is bullshit, and precisely why it's important to distinguish between hyphz not understanding PBTA games on the one hand and those dynamics being real and applicable in other contexts on the other. So you claim is that, in D&D, any time there is a monster on the other side of the door the only outcome is that combat starts? I mean, who ever heard of a reaction roll? thefakenews fucked around with this message at 00:49 on Jan 8, 2018 |
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Jan 8, 2018 00:45
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:It could be the case in a particular campaign, and there's nothing inherently wrong with that. I would find it boring and bad. When I talk about good and bad D&D it's obviously subjective, and about what I find bad and good. Edit: also, you phrased your post as if it was universally true that D&D operates on those assumptions. That's obviously wrong and I was disagreeing with the idea that it was universal.
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Jan 8, 2018 00:56
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quote:I don't really care what you consider good and bad D&D. Sorry for expressing an opinion on RPGs in an RPG discussion. Tuxedo Catfish posted:My point is more that first, it's incredibly important to understand that this tension exists because it impacts game design in very significant ways, and games that try to have it both ways fail both audiences, and second, that designing the latter type of game makes the dragon-behind-door problem significant in ways somewhat (although not exactly) similar to what hyphz is saying. Sure the tension exists in terms of player expectations, but I'm arguing that D&D is not actually designed with assumption that all encounters with monsters will immediately become combat encounters without any other solution. It's a way of playing the game, but not one the games assumes is the default.
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Jan 8, 2018 01:10
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:But I am going to take issue with "combat-oriented, antagonistic D&D isn't real and rules or guidelines designed to facilitate it don't mean anything." Ok, but I never made that argument. In fact, I agree with it (see my first post where I was explicitly addressing the idea that Blades doesn't operate on that logic, and that seemed to be a disconnect for hyphz). I disagreed with the very specific proposition that opening a door and finding a dragon, in D&D, means you immediately start a fight that can't be avoided. You made the claim that D&D operates on that assumption, and I disagree. That fact that the solution to the problem of a dragon is often combat doesn't mean that's the only one, or that there is no opportunity to find another solution.
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Jan 8, 2018 01:28
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:I didn't make that claim, though. I just disagreed with the claim that a good game of D&D can't operate on those assumptions. Your response to Cirno reads like you are saying that D&D operates on those assumptions. Edit: and your response to Elfgames.
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Jan 8, 2018 01:32
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:I disagree. Ok. I mean, if that's not what you are saying then I don't think we particularly disagree. I don't think D&D is designed assuming you will play that way, but it can be used to play that way. Although, I wish you'd stop making unmarked edits between when you post and I hit quote.
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Jan 8, 2018 01:39
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Subjunctive posted:So there are players who can have a great time in a session, and then want to check the GM’s paperwork to make sure they didn’t have an unfairly good time? That sounds pathological to me, I have to say. I don't think that's quite fair. I doubt people are demanding to see the GMs notes, but I think they might be upset if the GM "confessed" to improvising. I don't think the reasons for wanting everything pre-planned are necessarily ones I can agree with, but there are enough people who want everything pre-planned that they should be able to find a game together and have fun with that. Edit: Tuxedo Catfish posted:I'll try to make more discrete posts instead of consolidating. thefakenews fucked around with this message at 01:50 on Jan 8, 2018 |
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Jan 8, 2018 01:47
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hyphz posted:Hey, the worst thing is I can never face running them because they all have the same problem I'm running into here Out of interest, what is it that you think makes these games "great", or that you think you are missing out on? It seems like, if you keep having the same problem with them, they aren't going to give you the experience that you want, and so aren't actually all that great for your purposes.
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Jan 8, 2018 03:03
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Serf posted:Also, in Blades, when you take a trauma, you're out of the heist. You don't die or anything, but you can no longer continue contributing to the operation. If the whole team traumas out of the heist, then you effectively lose and don't get anything (aside from stuff like XP from desperate action rolls or pursuing your drives). I've seen it happen in an AP before, and it ended with the PCs captured and being forced to run another heist immediately to bust out, so you can lose, and there are consequences for using up your resources/getting lovely rolls. I had cause to think about this in a session I ran a couple of days ago. The rules actually say you are dropped out of the current conflict. I think that, depending on the nature of the heist, it might be possible that you can come back during the heist if the 'conflict' is new. I have been thinking about this because the crew are Hawkers, so their heists are potentially a much longer term thing than a robbery or raid type heist. If everyone "traumas out" that is still pretty certain to end the heist though.
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Jan 8, 2018 12:35
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I'm almost certain that the Blades book says that rumours say no one who has entered the Dimmer Sisters' house has left alive.
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Jan 8, 2018 23:27
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hyphz posted:What fiction was he following when he made up the music room, the ghost, the presence of a piano, the subvertability of the ghost.. literally anything in that scene? You seem to think "follow the fiction" means "refer only to things that have been written down". It doesn't mean that. Following the fiction means that you take account of what is established as true about the world and events in the game and do something that logically and cogently follows from that. Based on what the book says (although I don't think the setting in book should be taken as absolute truth of any game, and the book only constitutes part of the fiction if everyone has agreed it does), and what has been established in play, the GM has decided that all of the thing narrated in that scene make sense and fit logically with established facts. That is following the fiction. Edit: it's the exact same logic a GM uses in preparing content prior to play. What fits and makes sense here? thefakenews fucked around with this message at 00:53 on Jan 9, 2018 |
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Jan 9, 2018 00:50
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hyphz posted:And how can it be "established" before the game, other than by being written down in advance of the game? Maybe the group agreed that the setting details in the Blades book are part of the fiction. Maybe the GM has come up with stuff and has notes. Maybe there was session 0 where everyone talked about the world their expectations. Maybe the group came up with them during play. There are a ton of ways to establish the fiction. In the example from the Blades book, it is clear that the game has been going on for some time, since the crew is Tier II, so there was plenty of time for fiction to be established. quote:Possible that those things would exist, sure. Plausible that a ghost bound by experts could be subverted by a bunch of random footpads? Much trickier to argue. Plausible that they would then find the valuable thing they were looking for, in the huge mansion, in 2 minutes flat? Ummm. The example in the book doesn't take place over two minutes. Do you understand the difference between task resolution and scene/conflict resolution? The screen time is compressed vs a room by room dungeon crawl, but it doesn't mean time didn't pass in the fiction.
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Jan 9, 2018 01:35
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hyphz posted:Banks are robbed. But even most actual bank robberies don't seem plausible except in hindsight. That's a problem when you have to make up how hard it is to rob a bank and are supposed to do so based only on what seems plausible, without hindsight. Why is this difficulty easier to overcome if I am preparing a D&D 5E adventure? thefakenews fucked around with this message at 01:45 on Jan 9, 2018 |
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Jan 9, 2018 01:41
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Elfgames posted:i can answer this for him "because D&D provides hardness rules and ect and therefore you know how hard your character has to hit to break a door" If a "plausible" plan for robbing a bank is simply "break the door", I can come up with an appropriate difficulty for that in Blades just as easily as looking up hardness in the DMG.
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Jan 9, 2018 01:47
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hyphz posted:I had to think about this but unfortunately, the answer turns out to be "because caster supremacy". Unless that vault's owned or made by a 20th level wizard there's a way in. (And I don't like caster supremacy, but it seems relevant here.) Ok, pretend I asked this question about D20 Modern, or Savage Worlds or GURPS. quote:Mmm. I can understand time passing if the players are waiting for the solar eclipse or something like that, but using a "time passes" skip over when the players are in what could be a fascinating and unusual environment would seem a bit disappointing to me as a player at least. Ok, that's a fair preference, but Blades does abstract the passing of time into a single roll (in some cases). Making a prowl roll to explore a location and advance the exploration clock abstracts the act of wandering around looking for what you want into ticks on the clock. The GM tells you if you found what you were looking for, but they don't detail every room you looked in unsuccessfully. Edit: also, the PCs in Blades are professional criminals. Criminals stealing from an occupied location with security don't usually poke their head into every room they find. They work out where they want to get to and try to get there as directly and quickly as possible. They aren't dungeon crawling the house. thefakenews fucked around with this message at 02:51 on Jan 9, 2018 |
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Jan 9, 2018 02:37
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hyphz posted:But it seems here what I’m being told is that the PCs have to spend resources trying to pick the lock and at the same time be cool with knowing that the GM could just spawn another locked door between them and their goal, 10 more, 100 more, because hey it’s not that bad if they don’t manage to pick one. That just seems a sideways argument. Please show me in the rules where D&D stops me doing this as a GM. Hell, show me in the rules where any traditional RPG stops me doing this.
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Jan 9, 2018 23:49
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Halloween Jack posted:The art looks cute and all, but I'm almost certain that this isn't a thing I like fae, but I can't back it because a lot of the art is an extremely ugly take on this "aesthetic". This art style needs a ton of attention to colour theory to work. That dog-thing is especially awful. There are some good pieces, when the colours are actually given proper attention.
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Feb 6, 2018 06:06
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senrath posted:The dog thing is because it's based on Lisa Frank art which uses those colors pretty much exclusively. Lisa Frank art is extremely bad  Edit: also, despite being ugly, most Lisa Frank art doesn't have the colour theory problems that dog art has. The Lisa Frank artists understand the effect of coloured light sources on saturation and how to vary chroma. thefakenews fucked around with this message at 06:31 on Feb 6, 2018 |
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Feb 6, 2018 06:21
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Zurui posted:This doesn't even mention the insane inflation you'd see every time a party tried to spend the money they found in even a low-level dungeon. The Nightmares Underneath, a kind of OSR thing, actually has rules for this.
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Feb 17, 2018 02:32
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hyphz posted:I can see how establishing threats makes the narrative fairer, but not how it helps with the game aspect. It might eliminate problems with preparation, I suppose. If the players can choose not to face the threat while still achieving a goal, that works, but that can’t always be the case. If the players know in advance that the guy’s using a poisoned blade that doesn’t stop them thinking I’m an rear end in a top hat for giving him it, and heck, I can’t see the narrative value of doing so at the point of combat either (a poisoned blade and a regular knife both kill you). What stops the GM in any game giving an enemy a poisoned knife? Can you give concrete examples of the rules that other games have that you think are missing in Apocalypse World? Not vague abstract stuff, but actual rules mechanics that you say prevent players from thinking the GM is being unfair.
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Feb 22, 2018 22:27
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hyphz posted:It’s not just for his existence, though. First, the bolded section: AW is not a game where spending money on upgrades is really a thing. Also, in many AW games the PCs are at odds with each other, or certainly not an adventuring group, so your character dying of poison might not even be a big deal to them. Second, I repeat my previous question. What actual rules do other games have, that AW doesn't, to prevent your scenario here from happening?
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Feb 22, 2018 22:51
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cheetah7071 posted:Speaking of Blades in the Dark, I had a ton of fun GMing it and my players had a ton of fun playing it but I definitely swept some rules under the rug, and maybe this thread can tell me what I was supposed to do. Some of them I know how I'm supposed to use them and just forgot (clocks, non-physical harm) but I don't really get effect. Like position is great, I understand it perfectly, and I used it constantly but I felt like most rolls didn't have effect make sense. As I understand it, an action that calls for a roll is broken into three parts--the result of the die (either success at your stated goal, success but also bad things happen, or bad things happen without success), the position (how bad are the bad things that happen on failure or partial success) and effect (how much of your stated goal do you accomplish on a success). But I felt like the vast majority of rolls were pretty binary success/failure. Like, either the guard saw them sneaking or they didn't. Either their gunshot hit the mook or it didn't. Either they pick the lock or they don't. Position and die roll make perfect sense for all those actions but I dunno how I was supposed to apply effect to them. Well, you can find small ways to make a lesser or greater level of effect give some detriment or bonus. Before the roll, think about the stakes and what the intended outcome is. Then think of what a slightly worse and slightly better version of that is, while still giving the player the core thing they want. If you can't think of something, it is ok not to worry about effect on some rolls.
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Feb 22, 2018 22:56
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hyphz posted:Ok, that’s a specific case though. Just substitute any failure resulting in a side quest for the poisoned knife. Apocalypse World is a game, not a TV show. The gameplay isn't, and isn't supposed to be, exactly like a TV show. And, for the third time, please provide an example of actual mechanics from another game that would stop this from happening. E: this is a good faith request, not a gotcha, I sincerely want to understand what kind of explicit rule you are looking for.
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Feb 22, 2018 23:00
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hyphz posted:I mean, I do not actually see any aspect of the rules which checks the "compellingness" of a situation before it is introduced, and if you argue that the GM is supposed to do this as part of the Principles, then it seems to be something that could be done in freeform as well. For the fourth time, please point to the mechanics in another RPG the do this for you. You keep arguing that AW is missing rules for this, but you've never given an example of a rule does what you want. If you can explain what kind of mechanic is missing, maybe the thread can offer an explanation for how AW handles it; otherwise everyone is just guessing what you want.
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Feb 23, 2018 02:47
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FMguru posted:"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."  I'm not expecting different results...
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Feb 23, 2018 02:59
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gradenko_2000 posted:So guys when the party meets at a tavern, how much do you tip the bartender? Whatever I feel reflects the quality of the service, because the bartender is paid a liveable minimim wage.
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Feb 23, 2018 03:08
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Where's the chart for people who call it coriander, like God intended?
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Mar 15, 2018 00:08
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Nuns with Guns posted:In hell, where god intended you to live But they call it cilantro in the United States?...
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Mar 15, 2018 03:01
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Subjunctive posted:The leaves and stems are cilantro, the seeds are coriander. It’s really quite simple. The whole plant is coriander. The leaves and stems of the plant are also coriander. It's even simpler.
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Mar 15, 2018 05:50
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Autonomous Monster posted:There was a time when I desperately, desperately wanted to get into that weirdo Hecatomb game Wizards came out with. There was a little scene around where I live. I liked that game quite a bit. I actually have a couple of pieces of original Ben Templesmith art from the game.
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Apr 16, 2018 11:11
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Martin Snazz posted:As to Zak S and all that entails... every time he's shown up on a project, it's been enough to whip the fanbase into a frenzy. Again, I only know of the larger bullshit that he's been at the center of, but the reaction to his participation on the fiction anthology was heavy enough to have White Wolf scrub it and do their damnedest to deny its existence. When I brought up the Exalted 3e Rape Charms, that was an attempt to be illustrative of what the reaction could have been. As I recall, one of the head designers went on forums and tried his best to defend them. At least with Zak S, there was an understanding that they had crossed a line, and they had to distance themselves. He's not been mentioned on the August release, so I have to wonder if they're willing to expose themselves to a potential boycott on that basis. Zak wasn't involved with the e-book, he was involved in the writing of a visual novel computer game which is still for sale. Also, when people complained about hiring Zak, WW released a statement claiming Zak had provably never done anything wrong and that the people complaining were making it up. So, no, I don't think they believe a line was crossed. thefakenews fucked around with this message at 12:18 on May 3, 2018 |
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May 3, 2018 10:29
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On a totally different topic, has anyone had a look at the alpha rules for the Pillars of Eternity tabletop RPG that recently went to backers of Pillars 2? I haven't had a chance to have a good look, but it's seems like a weire hybrid of D&D and Burning Wheel (BW is explicitly referred to at one point, but the influence is obvious), using 2d10. I'm not sure it's a totally comfortable fit. I also can't find a clear explanation of the out-of-combat resolution procedure, which seems like an issue.
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May 10, 2018 07:03
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spectralent posted:"We had a teenage girl join our group, which was fairly sensible since we were all teenagers, as the game was in high school." It would be extremely generous to call this a story.
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Jun 5, 2018 08:47
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clockworkjoe posted:I want sci-fi, not dark urban fantasy. Think Fringe, or Global Frequency. In fact, Global Frequency is very close in terms of game framing/structure that I want todo. If you're cool with Fate, what about Atomic Robo? Maybe mix it with the horror toolkit.
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Jun 28, 2018 00:03
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Cassa posted:Oh jeeze I hope you mean for gold... Yes. TNU has rules for bringing all your dungeon treasure and flooding the economy with new money.
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Jul 17, 2018 10:47
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