hyphz posted:

What always confuses me about PbtA games, and BitD for that matter, is how the GM fairly decides how many obstacles there should be in the way of the PCs before they achieve a goal.

My favorite example was the Dimmer Sisters house inflitration which is the sample of play in BitD. It happens that the players manage to convince a ghost to show them where the item they are looking for is. But what if they hadn't done so and/or a roll to find their way failed? There is no map of the house, so the GM is making the house up as they go, and every roll is likely to cause attrition to the players so how big a house does the GM make up?

The problem is that most of the classic answers end up with being:
* it's based on "drama" so the PCs ought not to really try to overcome obstacles cleanly because the GM will not allow them to complete until they have suffered the correct amount.
* it's based on "the session" so the PCs again have no investment in trying to use skill or strategy because the only thing that can let them win is the time in real life.

I know people say that having a map would make no difference if the PCs don't know where they're going, but I just don't feel it works like that in practice. Even if you have a "lady or the tiger" choice, it's a whole different ball game if you know someone else is able to swap the rooms around based on their own agenda.

Plutonis posted:

Blades in the Dark is good but PBTA sucks so even if his reason is baffling and psychotic he's on the right track

Leraika posted:

There were some miscommunications in my game Monday that led to everyone kind of being down on it and I went back in to my volunteer gig today only to find that woops, all our systems were down.

Great start to the week!

Babylon Astronaut posted:

He got killed by the first enemy on screen and then spent half an hour about how MGS2 had better controls. The guy who ran it last year wasn't even spotted the entire game.

Leraika posted:

Ah, if I could only kill the menace electric.

Instead I sent an e-mail to my boss.

Leraika posted:

Well, it looks like it's all resolved itself in the end, so there's that.

(you were there, nerd)

Countblanc posted:

I appreciate the offer, but I don't really feel comfortable taking money from e-strangers

Covok posted:

If I say nice things about you, can I get a physical copy of the original Breakfast Cult? You know, the one before the kickstarter that is objectively less playtested, has less content, and stolen art and is, overall, a worse product?

Covok posted:

I'm being funny. I have a physical copy of the new, post Kickstarter Breakfast Cult. It's a good game, and has all the content of the original contest version but with better art and support and even more content. There's no reason why anyone would ever want the original contest version in a physical format.

Thus, requesting it would be funny.

quote:

A 13-14 year old boy would probably be the equivalent of his mother in combat statistics

Payndz posted:

I love my wife.

hyphz posted:

pre:

Player Likes->  Socialising  Sensual      Inspiring
Mechanic
Socialising                  Unnecessary  Restrictive
Sensual         Broken                    Unnecessary
Inspiring       Unnecessary  Hollow

Splicer posted:

This stems from the same problem. In D&D if you get into a fight above your pay grade the only mechanical results are winning, running away, or dying, and most games don't even have a robust running away mechanic. There's no Pyrrhic victory option outside of "someone died", so there's a very narrow band if acceptable challenges.

Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:

Yawgmoth posted:

I remember when the WotC Death Squads showed up to my door and demanded that I burn all my 3e books and then forced me to play 4e.

My Lovely Horse posted:

Starting to think that probably the best way really is to make a few themed NPC companions and a simple rule to bring them into combat. It's not quite the same oomph but all the rules are already there.

e: I keep thinking about this, how about this setup:

Magicite is a new kind of magic item that gets its own slot, so you can only have one at a time. If you have one, you can summon its esper as a standard action. The esper is built according to standard NPC rules with a heavy elemental theme and will stick around until the end of the encounter, or until reduced to 0 HP. Only one esper can be on the battlefield at a time.

You decide at the end of each extended rest whether to attune to your magicite or not. If not, you can't summon your esper today. If yes, the summoning ability replaces your highest level Daily power. Your choice sticks until the end of the next extended rest.

Assuming a 4 person party in which everyone has a magicite and uses it diligently, you can assume they're 5 strong for each encounter (since there are usually 4 encounters between rests). So just build encounters for 5 person parties and everything should be balanced enough.

Other stuff you could do with this:
- wearing the magicite, attuned or not, gives you a bonus to appropriate elemental powers
- Sidequests to beat the espers and gain their magicite, sidequests to level them up, sidequests to restore them if they've been defeated...
- magicite could take up an existing item slot if it's too powerful
- certain espers could be most appropriate for certain tiers of play: Ifrit/Shiva/Ramuh for heroic, Bahamut, Alexander and such for paragon, in epic you get the real crazy poo poo like Odin, NEO BAHAMUT ZERO ULTRA TURBO EDITION or Eden
- Knights of the Round: can only summon then once, ever, but they win you the current encounter, no matter what. Which boils down to "your campaign's end goal is now getting the Knights summon so they can beat the final boss for you".