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So Spire’s actually pushed me into GMing again for the first time in a decade and a half, and it’s actually going quite well. It’s horrifically easy to pretty much just wing it with a vague idea of the eventual direction of the game, which meshes well with my general laziness. It’s been quite alarming how little you need to feed the players - something about the characters the game generated pushes them into being nice and active with only the occasional nudges and the odd bit of scene description. Being online probably helps with this. Trying to use a selection of newspaper headlines as a framing machinist for each session. Have only written on Torch headline and already feel a bit greasy...
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Nov 25, 2019 23:44
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ZeroCount posted:So this game seems to have a fair few sourcebooks. What ones would you recommend the most? There’s really only two - Black Magic and Strata. The former has more info on the Occult domain and is pretty short, but does include the Blood Witch class and some bits and pieces to play up the occult horror side of the setting. Strata is much more comprehensive, addressing High and Low Society, with two more classes and a load of scenarios in addition to more flavour for some of the city. The scenarios are a bit of a mixed bag, but the book is pretty excellent otherwise. Both are worth getting, really, but Strata has a lot more content.
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Nov 27, 2019 12:46
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CitizenKeen posted:I picked up Heart (I actually picked up the entire Resistance bundle in print, because gently caress it, I'm not spending money on anything else). In general, everything in Heart is basically Spire 2.0 - advancement is leagues better (although geared to a slightly shorter campaign), Fallout is more interesting, with character death dependent on the player agreeing, and abilities are much more consistently useful. It's be interesting to see how portable some things would be back to Spire, although I suspect it'd be waaay too much work. For the record I'm doing a Fatal and Friends read-through/review right now.
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Apr 6, 2020 08:21
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GimpInBlack posted:Well, one of the stretch goals that funded is the Spire Conversion Kit--granted, that's more pitched as "using Spire classes in Heart" rather than "use Heart mechanics in Spire," but I have to imagine that will get you at least 75% of the way there. Burned and Broken (as it’s titled I think) is more the process of Spire characters becoming Heart characters and isn’t quite a conversion kit. The issue is more that there’s no Calling-equivalent in Spire; maybe Durance, if you reflavour it to “why do you hate the regime?”. Plus you’d need to come up with all the beats, although you’d probably want “choose 2, achieve 1” for Spire’s pace.
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Apr 7, 2020 08:58
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Think I'm going to start playing around with backporting Heart class/calling mechanics back into Spire (I have a game full of guinea pigs to test it on, after all). Thoughts so far; Durances basically become a core advance; some of them opening up the equivalent of Extra Advances Flatten High abilities into Major advance + Minor - maybe have some with specific Beat prerequisites, like the Knight's quests. Stuff which has requirements, like the Charnelite's summoning, or the Lajhan's oracle path would be a Major advance with attendent Minors. Scrap Reputation, replace with Fortune for immediate cock-ups. Shadow can take the long term reputation/cover damage role. Extra Advances would require a Durance (Armed Forces, frex), or turn their entrance requirement into a Beat or two. Most would have the Minor Advance you get for joining, then a Major Advance or two to represent paths through the extra (conduit vs military skills for the Armed Forces, once again). Minister Extra Advance would be a set of Minor/Major/Zenith advances available for everyone - probably cut down Class Zenith advances to two each, and add the inevitable Retire (or Promoted)/Betray the Ministry/Martyred advances for anyone to have an exit. For Callings, replace with Drive - why you're joining forces with the Ministry. Off the top of my head, Faithful (a true Lombre believer), Wronged (Classic out for revenge), Broken (the Ministry picked you up, but you're not a true believer), Revolutionary (maybe get Vigil access?), Hopeful (less angry, more desire to bring about a better Spire), Bought (more mercenary, maybe get resources in payment, but aren't a Minister proper?) Might be some Beats attached to the Extras, maybe work the existing 'make changes to Spire' as a Major Beat anyone can hit, if the story permits. Thinking of scrapping general refresh, replace with resources and maybe some of the advances to let players dump stress. Maybe formalise the whole 'spend time, but the adversaries advance' - maybe rework the Delve structure into an antagonistic investigation, or use as progress towards a Heist? Very rough notes; might have to wait until I finish my F&F.
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Apr 18, 2020 11:41
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Here's a very rough and incomplete re-working of the Azurite under these theories - comments are welcome. I've tried to stick to Heart patterns of abilities - 5 common minors (get domain, get skill, get +1 protection to one of 4 tracks, get +2 protection to one of 2 tracks), 4 that have a skill + perk (usually a 1/session), 4 that have a domain + perk. Then Majors are roughly equivalent to a good Low or a Medium, with the High stuff working with the add-on Minor advances for each. Really, really rough, especially given that the Azurite is probably one of the less rich Spire classes, so I've tried to add in some interaction with the resource system. I'm also toying with the idea of an Investigation with a similar structure to a Delve, so I may flavour one of the Majors around a kind of forensic accounting.
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Apr 19, 2020 08:22
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Coolness Averted posted:Another quick question: what have you folks used for character sheets, especially on stuff like roll20? I'm not a fan of the spire sheet uploaded to the site, it looks a bit more confusing than the default sheet to someone who doesn't know the rules, and since there's no compendium or SRD integration, I think I might just give my players the fillable pdf to use. I've just been using an online campaign tracker (Chronica) for sheets (and playing in text via Discord, which is slow but works), but have considered shifting to Google Docs or Sheets for the characters.
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Dec 10, 2020 08:58
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| # ¿ May 17, 2024 18:02 |
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CitizenKeen posted:This doing well is great, because it means we might get more books for other domains. Well, we've got Black Magic for Occult, Strata for Low/High Society, and now Sin for Crime, Order and Religion. Just leaves Academia and Technology which seem like they fit together, plus Commerce which is always a bit of an outsider.
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Mar 31, 2021 09:56
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