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Wouldn't we be testing Speed instead for an Operation?
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Jan 16, 2016 05:28
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Sorry, meant to have a vignette. Also, did you have any opinions on Jenny's deployment/EVA replacement?
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Jan 16, 2016 06:40
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I got my Eva stat block edited onto my pilot stat block.
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Jan 16, 2016 18:55
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Wouldn't we be testing Speed instead for an Operation? Yes. I was looking at the quick ref in the back of the book instead of where I should have been looking. That's kinda weird that there are two separate ways of determining initiative. Oh well!
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Jan 16, 2016 20:25
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Well, it's basically that there are two forms of combat and ironically, the pilot's traits are almost never used in Operations. I think there may be exceptions but they're almost functionally two different "games", presumably so there's no pressure to maximize your pilot's traits to be an effective pilot.
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Jan 16, 2016 20:41
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Just to make absolutely certain, initiative aside, the pilots are waiting on bosslady Jenny for their location deployment specifics? She is the boss, after all. Also, women's intuition.
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Jan 17, 2016 12:01
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I would suggest the pilots pick their deployment. You can tell me where you want it or just give it a quick mark-up in MS paint, and I'll put in a full version in the next full post.
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Jan 17, 2016 16:49
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Hmm.. okay, I'm tripped up by something kind of. I originally thought that with the 14 initiative Hannah got, she'd get to where she was going pretty early. I kind of missed the bit about Jenny's N2 blast radius thingy because I was a dumb-head. When I looked this morning, I felt bad for messing with Jenny's attack plan. I rewrote a variation of the post from the perspective of Jenny's attack going off first, but looking back again, she has an initiative of 6. So, presumably, Hannah does actually get to where she's going before the bombs start doing her thing? In which case, Zachol, do you want Jenny to shoot the spot you originally declared and I'll have Hannah stop one tile short, or do you want to move the blast and still have Hannah on the hill?
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Jan 19, 2016 09:18
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Everyone gets three XP for their end-of-day activity. K Prime gets an extra XP for how utterly monstrous and teenager-like that last post was.
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Jan 31, 2016 16:03
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Just as a heads up, a Hannapost is coming, but it won't get to actually happen until tomorrow evening. Sorry about that!
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Feb 1, 2016 14:40
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Franklinpost should be coming sometime this evening.
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Feb 3, 2016 17:02
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Not that I am a paragon of quick posting, but lack of EVA activity makes me sad. :/
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Feb 24, 2016 05:51
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Don't look at me, go fetch Zachol from their mountain hideaway.
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Feb 24, 2016 06:32
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Here's something to think about. Unless the dice radically turn against you, the Angel is not likely to pull off a kill. This is going to be your first big unqualified win since that first Angel encounter. What are the pilots going to do to celebrate their victory, perhaps in a form that can cap off the scene in a couple of posts lasting no more than a week?
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Mar 1, 2016 14:54
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I think Franklin's ideal methods of celebrating would take more than a couple of posts.  But wild parties aside, he might use his celebrity pull to get the pilots reserbations to a fancy restaurant or something.
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Mar 1, 2016 23:23
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Hannah being Hannah, if left to her own devices she's not much for celebrations at all. Best case for her is to be dragged out by her peers, otherwise her idea of celebration is pretty much just going back to her room. She has video games and music there, you see.
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Mar 7, 2016 03:19
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The idea of celebrating isn't really second nature to Pax and Noah; one or both might be willing to go along with a suggestion, but having any freedom at all is something they're still working out what the hell to do with.
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Mar 7, 2016 04:33
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Celebration comes second to cleaning the materiel for the next battle. Then, you may have a restrained celebration at base, near the launch vehicles, in case of further issues.
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Mar 7, 2016 06:11
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Jenny is going to get soooo drunk.
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Mar 7, 2016 11:03
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ARB has more or less beaten me to the punch on the big finishing move attack thing, but I'd had concerns before unleashing it: since the Angel is in a duel with Rabah, is there some sort of might test shenanigans that need to happen to determine which of the two Pax & Noah hit, or does that only apply to ranged attacks and not melee?
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Mar 9, 2016 03:10
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I'm going off the rules on page 31 of the full book. It's my interpretation that the two duelists are locked into combat with each other until one of them is dead or disengages. That, and the specific wording of "might test" and not "attack" makes me assume that it doesn't matter if you're shooting or stabbing at a duel participant, you hit your buddy on an odd roll. I'm open to arguments, though. I am not an expert in BCG yet!
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Mar 9, 2016 03:21
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Melee attacks can hit mecha engaged in duels accidentally. But! Unit-02 is making a Crippling attack. And "Crippling Weapons always have the benefits of the Suppress Action but without the penalty to Damage." And Suppressing is"never at risk of hurting a friendly Unit that is in a Duel." Normally there's almost no way to reliably nail a dueling target, but as far as I can tell this attack should be safe.
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Mar 9, 2016 03:24
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Hmm. That definitely works RAW, and I'll allow it. I do wonder if that was an intended use, though.
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Mar 9, 2016 03:38
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That's pretty cunning, yeah! As things stand, will it be enough to off the Angel outright, gnoll? If not, I'll come up with something for Hannah to do that hopefully won't hurt Rabah a lot.
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Mar 9, 2016 03:45
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Yeah, it definitely feels like a weird interaction. To be honest I had forgotten I had figured for that and was pretty worried for a moment there. That's because ironically, no accuracy-boosting gimmicks help in that situation.
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Mar 9, 2016 03:53
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Yah, that'll definitely kill it. I'm writing up the post now. In the interim, consider the following: What did you like and dislike about BCG combat? Excusing length, because PbP combat takes a billion years regardless of the system. What did you like and dislike about the encounter itself? What would you like to do going forward? I'm trying my damnedest to kill you guys and make the rest suffer in proper Eva form, but you're being pretty resilient. Do we want to turn this into a less grim version, or do you want me to set things up for a serious turn?
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Mar 9, 2016 14:40
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Please don't take any of this to heart. On BCG combat: Initiative: This is mostly a pbp concern in general, not actually a problem unique to BCG. Initiative in pbp seems to bog things down, and in other games (mostly DnD ones) can hamper thread activity and threaten the life of the game. People check in, see it's not their turn, and wait for the person whose turn it is, and check in later, or maybe check in later, or forget, because they've got lots going on. It's not anyone's fault, but I think that being able to check the thread and immediately post is a definite plus that aids in game sustainability. Always Moving First: Straight up, it seems like a silly restriction. Presumably there are underlying mechanical reasons as to why you can't attack and then move, but in our brief experience I never really saw why. On the encounter: Range and movement: It was our first go, so there's a learning curve for all of us, but it seemed as though range was pretty meaningless here. (Maybe tinier tiles?) There was no point on the map where any of us couldn't have reached in a single turn, I don't think. The Angel probably could have reached the base without any of it's opposition able to do anything about it, if you'd so chosen. Going forward: Sorry about resilience! I signed on knowing that there was a very real possibility that our poor cast members would be horribly broken by the experience. I won't be offput if this doesn't happen, or does happen. Either way, I'm fine. This is the sole game I'm involved with on the forums currently, I'm enjoying it so far, and I'm having fun making Hannahposts. You've been patient and have been doing a great job, gnoll!
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Mar 10, 2016 04:10
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I agree with a fair amount of what bahamut posted. Initiative seems like a real drag for PBP games. Maybe if it was rethemed as an "order of resolution" kind of deal, where players can post whenever they like but their actions resolve in that order? I'm not sure how to overcome the issue. Zones seem to be a bit busted in concept. They're described kine of like zones in Fate, in that multiple people can occupy them and that they represent an area, but the ranges for weapons seem to treat them like hexes or squares. I think increasing map sizes or hexes would solve things a little. I do like that there's discrete actions you can do, where Fate would kind of have you waving you hands and trying to guess. Wish I got to use more of them though! I also like how "chunky" health appears to be and that losing it is a pretty big deal. No reason why we can't act and then move - hell, even Dungeons and Dragons allows you to take your actions in any order. The angel wasn't terribly threatening, although it had a pretty boring power set and it was our first fight in the system. I feel like the game is meant to have multiple enemies that provide different kinds of threat, which doesn't quite work with an EVA setting. Maybe turn up the damage, or give the alien multiple actions a turn, or have it split into copies, or just generally weight things in its favor. As for our characters being resilient, i think it might be best to try and make more dangerous/damaging fights and then have players carry out story consequences from them, with a sprinkling of narrative events in between to pile on the classic EVA grimness. One of EVA's things was that fighting an Angel was exhausting and often horrifc, and I'd be up for tweaking the system to help reflect that. I'm okay with going either lighter or grimmer either way!
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Mar 10, 2016 12:40
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I think the easy solution is to decrease the defense of enemies, increase their thresholds, and increase their offense. Construct Angels so at each threshold loss, it changes the battle, but in a new offensive way. Avoid making super defensive angels unless that's the entire point- a puzzle angel like everyone's favorite floating octahedron. That way, we feel like we're actually making worthwhile rolls, the angel "adapts" as the battle moves onward, and they're a reasonable threat.
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Mar 10, 2016 17:04
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bahamut posted:Always Moving First: Straight up, it seems like a silly restriction. Presumably there are underlying mechanical reasons as to why you can't attack and then move, but in our brief experience I never really saw why. The main obvious reason for this is to reduce the possibility of kiting - hitting somebody, then moving out of their attack range (a dominant tactic in early editions of Exalted). While it's not as much of an issue with the mission restrictions and map we were working with, but I'd be surprised if this isn't why. Generally since "keep the Angel away from NERV" is almost always the goal, you can't just run the angel in circles in this particular game, but it at least makes it harder to do sniper builds that just run away all day and use movement range to avoid being attacked entirely. Designing Unit-02 was a bit tough because honestly, it wasn't intended as specialized and Battle Century G really pushes one towards having a specialized role. I'm nooot really happy with how Secret Equipment works, it seems by the time it comes up, the fight will be either over or we'll be wishing it was over. I was trying to kludge the Beast Mode into BCG, but there may not be a good way to do that sort of thing RAW. A lot of how Evangelion structures angel fights is tricky to do in a TRPG, since they're often "puzzle fights" - that is, many of the Angels create situations where they can't be fought directly. Going into the fray without a plan generally just slows them down. To be honest, when we first started the game, I thought picking up clues on how to beat an Angel would be a lot more important (which is why originally Pax & Noah had a brainstorming stunt). But there aren't really any RPGs that come to mind that structure fights this way - you could take a "fiction first" attitude like a lot of modern story RPGs, where maybe you need some specific action to take an angel past a certain layer. But, of course, this runs into a similar issue as a lot of investigation RPGs, where if you don't know what to do, you're just stuck. Which is a greater problem when getting stuck means getting defeated... Though BCG handles it better than most, you still have the issue that the action economy favors the players unless the boss just has defenses strong enough to no-sell a majority of PC attacks or takes down PC mecha at a speed of about one per threshold, and neither is ideal, but it's how it would work functionally as far as I can tell. I'm honestly surprised bosses don't get multiple attacks (though there are some counterattack / auto-damage effects that serve a similar role), though I don't know precisely how you'd balance that. Of course, one way would be to stat an angel as a group of enemies where the weaker enemies are its limbs (or drone options, or controlled Eva units from another branch, or whatever) and the boss end as the core. Or an angel that's a swarm of minions around a boss core. Another is just to break from tradition and have two angels (or more?) attack at once as a way to rise the ante. I don't mind hard fights, though not every fight needs to be a trauma-inducing nightmare, either. If you're going with the episodic nature of the original series, having some which are more routine is okay, but I'm certainly up for some very tough fights were Evangelions go down. A lot of it depends on where you see this going, of course, but I'm up for a beating as long as we have some rest or a simpler encounter inbetween. The "no hope" latter third of the the TV show is where I think it jumps the shark, but I don't mind being relentless if it's building towards something interesting.
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Mar 10, 2016 20:39
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I love it when I finally hit upon a very "Franklin" approach to things. He's pretty caught up in his own superficial celebrity appearance, so he is 100% confident that a lovely poem shoved under a door will work. This will change, of course. 
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Mar 11, 2016 17:37
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Initiative: I'm open to trying "everyone acts simultaneously" instead of proper initiative. My chief concern is that occasionally someone's going to act on information that's outdated - nothing is unfun in quite the same way as spending days waiting for your action to go off, only it misses because of something that's entirely out of your hands. Still, we'll give it a shot next time. Move then act: This I'm less open to messing with. I've tinkered with action economy in games before, and it turns out I'm really bad at math! It's seriously crapped out a lot of games. Range: I'm going to make the hexes smaller next combat. We'll see how badly that goes. Somewhat related - when I'm posting a lot of maps, I know the file size keeps creeping up. Has anyone had issues actually accessing the forums page to look at the game? I don't want to commit to making Even Bigger Files if I'm going to totally destroy someone's computer. Angels: I'm thinking of increasing damage across the board, and I'm definitely going to crank up the Angels' power level. Lemme ask a secondary question. Would you guys rather have only the Angel increase damage and decrease its health, or would you rather have Tension ratchet up by two points a turn for everyone instead? Either way, I'll probably throw in two turns for solo bosses from now on. I think maybe three on one could work, but with six PCs versus one boss, it's kind of lopsided. Puzzle bosses: So this is something I've been struggling with the entire game. Eva Angels are substantially weirder and unknowable than you really get in a semi-balanced RPG system. They have to follow rules beyond what's important for the narrative. I've also killed games before by making something Weird and then the players have to puzzle it out - it's even easier to get frustrated and give up when you're working through PbP than playing GM Simon Says in person. Where would you guys prefer to be on the weird/video game boss spectrum? Do you want puzzle bosses, and if so, how hard to you want me to signpost what you need to do? The Deleter posted:I love it when I finally hit upon a very "Franklin" approach to things. He's pretty caught up in his own superficial celebrity appearance, so he is 100% confident that a lovely poem shoved under a door will work. This reminds me, Frankie and Rabah have been appropriately awful teenagers as of late. The two of you get an extra XP.
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Mar 11, 2016 22:02
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I'd like puzzle bosses. Particularly, I'd like something for Jenny to do besides spamming the one support action, something along the lines of some kind of skill check or MAGI number crunching or something like that.
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Mar 11, 2016 22:14
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I'd have to get more of a feel for the combat before I can form a proper opinion of it.
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Mar 11, 2016 22:40
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Yo, quick question to Gnoll and Bahamut (and everyone else I guess tbh). Obviously playing out the date would take quite a while. Would it be preferred if we skipped over it and let the others do their thing more? Or is it okay to play some of it out? What should we do here? Keep in mind I'm looking to make sure the other players get time to do stuff as well, so I don't want to request just skipping to the next big event.
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Mar 17, 2016 17:11
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I would be super excited for and interested in watching whatever this date turns into.
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Mar 18, 2016 04:13
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I'm totally okay with whatever shenanigans unfold, but after tonight's post, I'm not sure I'll be able to sneak one in before late Saturday/ early Sunday or not. I'll try, though. My main concern is my post rate. I don't want to hold up the show.
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Mar 18, 2016 06:32
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I'm not sure anybody's about Dylan but Rabah? I was a little confused by the post.
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Mar 18, 2016 06:34
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I'm confused too. But rather than scratch our collective heads about the logistics, I'm just going to let stuff happen. So here is an idea about Date Night. There's no way two pilots are going anywhere unwatched, especially not when one of them is a TV star. Date Night sounds like a great inter-operation scene, but I want to keep everyone involved. And, since this is an Eva-derived game, everyone should be as wretched to each other as possible at all times. So to keep the non-involved players occupied, I'm imagining the command staff and the rest of the pilots watching the surveillance feeds and the TMZ gossipers on the big screen at HQ. Yay or nay?
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Mar 20, 2016 00:22
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Oh god. I'm all for it. 
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Mar 20, 2016 01:23
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