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Say, if a Midwife is wearing Armor and then summons her armor with her Medium, they don't stack, do they? I don't think they do, but it's one of the only cases of 'natural armor' in the game.
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Nov 26, 2019 03:30
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The most important thing I've found (and I'm hardly an expert, this is pretty much the only 'narrative' system I play) is to limit how often people have to roll. I know the book tells you this already, but it means it; Fallout can come on extremely fast and you don't actually have very much Resistance most of the time. It also makes it easier if you only have players roll when you have a good idea for what could go wrong, because that's what I feel like you're really rolling for: You're not rolling to see if something goes right. There's no 'did better than expected' result, after all. Just 'Made it', 'made it but something went wrong', 'Oh no' and 'everything is on fire.' I also like to have lots of stuff players just get/can achieve because they have a skill or domain (which also lets players add this stuff to their own descriptions and actions more easily). Like the WWI veteran Midwife having Order from her Sergeant advance in Enlisted just having a good sense of when soldiers are bored or cutting through jargon in a stolen report to get a read on the real situation. Or someone with Fix being decent at reading peoples' moods, because Fix is also psychology. Also really, really don't be afraid to change the setting or to just focus on certain parts. There's so much in there that if you try to incorporate too much you can lose control of your plot. It's best to just find the bits that excite you and write around them. Again, something the book emphasizes but it means it. There is just too much setting to cover it all, even though an awful lot of it is very good. But the most important thing is to remember that outside Advances, most of the rules are about things going wrong or things you can lose. They even say as much in the SRD; rolls are about what you're risking. This doesn't mean the game is about inevitable failure, just that moments where failure is very possible and could drive the story in different directions are what the rules are for. This also means combat is extremely dangerous, because you roll for everything in combat. Now a character who is actually good at fighting has a surprising amount of resilience against this, and you're obviously going to need to fight at some point in a game about violent revolution, but just remember that an actual fight is one of the most dangerous things that happens in this game. E: Also, I find it's really helpful to sit down with your players and talk over any changes people want to make to the setting before you start play. And to discuss break points and strong points in the regime; is the military's morale flagging to the point that they can't be relied on? Are the cops genuinely loyal for the most part? Are the aelfir mostly disinterested in enforcement outside of flashy elite positions like the Paladins, or do they really get off on playing cop? What is possibly pushing the city towards rebellion? Is it a material condition, a political situation, or is it entirely up to the PCs in a Spire that's mostly given up? Night10194 fucked around with this message at 15:58 on Dec 12, 2019 |
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Dec 12, 2019 15:27
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Also the death fallout options are generally 'you may choose Bad Thing OR Death'. That said combat is the most dangerous part of the game because it's the part where you have to roll dice the most, and every time you roll dice you are inviting disaster.
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Jan 23, 2020 17:53
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hyphz posted:I agree, but if I was GMing I'd have a hell of a time explaining why, because of a low Stress roll, a character's mortal enemy would not decide to kill them given a golden opportunity with them unconscious in front of them. Maybe CountZero's GM had the same issue? This shouldn't be hard; you're resistance fighters. There's always a use for captured resistance fighters. Ransoms, questioning, hostages; there's tons of reasons your enemy would want to take you prisoner. Alternately, if you're not fighting the authorities, your enemy hits you hard in the head, sees your helmet split, and sees you drop, bleeding profusely. They think you're dead and they need to get moving before the authorities arrive anyway. Similarly, in a larger fight, same thing happens and you're left for dead because no-one goes through every body in a battle and stabs them to make sure they're dead. E: And more generally, 'I rolled Moderate Fallout and chose Knocked Out, so that means what happens for this Fallout stops at Knocked Out, let's come up with the circumstances of that and how it will introduce new issues for the story' is literally the game. That's the whole point of the system, to hit that result and then write fiction to explain it.
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Jan 23, 2020 20:05
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I think that's a general principle for more narrative games. They don't respond well to trying to optimize mechanically, and a game like Spire isn't even designed for that since pretty much everything you could get is meant to be useful and not to require too much thinking about synergies or mechanical elements. I like crunch in some games and systems, but part of what I enjoy about Spire is being able to just say 'this is a cool Durance that would make this character type interesting' and have it work out no matter what the combo was.
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Apr 8, 2020 18:29
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