Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Locked thread
deadly_pudding
May 13, 2009

who the fuck is scraeming
"LOG OFF" at my house.
show yourself, coward.
i will never log off

FMguru posted:

Yeah, setting the swashbuckling age of sail game in a world where everyone lived on a single giant continent and there was no reason for anyone to develop anything more advanced than bronze age coasthugging triremes was the first warning sign. There were a couple of foreign lands on the far side of the continent that it made sense to visit by ship, but the setting made sure that you could never reach them by surrounding them with a giant impenetrable wall of fire that there was no way to cross unless you were one of the demigod setting NPCs whose power the PCs could never hope to approach even if they got and spent all the XPs in the world.

Ah, 90s RPG design :allears:

:catstare:

That's pretty rough.
Wick, what are you doing with your life? I was in high school when I homebrewed an age of sail setting. It was a ring continent around a gigantic inland sea. IT WAS EASY, SO EASY. ONE CONVENIENT CONTINENT, STILL A MASSIVE AREA OF OPEN WATER TO TRAVERSE.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Kellsterik
Mar 30, 2012
I had a mild crisis of faith when I realized that the Comte de Saint-Germain (and for that matter, the Freak) in Unknown Armies are cut from that same 90s design cloth. It's not the same, dammit! :arghfist::saddowns:

AccidentalHipster
Jul 5, 2013

Whadda ya MEAN ya never heard of Dan Brereton?

Payndz posted:

I've honestly never understood the appeal of this kind of "If you want to play in our world, you can't ever mess with our precious Mary Sues vital-to-the-setting characters no matter how hard you try" metaplotting. It's in 7S, it's in Five Rings, Rifts, the White Wolf titles... funnily enough, a lot of games that have featured prominently in F&F. It's just a slightly less overtly obnoxious form of railroading.

I think it's the "Hand of God" GM tool gone horribly wrong. Hands of God like Captain Reis from 7th Sea (the guy who is unkillable and can one-shot anyone in melee) are good for slapping down problem players and really good ones can even be used to save players who are in over their heads, but far too many times (especially in the 90's) RPG writers like to think that they're running the campaign instead of the GMs and stick in a bunch of metaplot Hands of God to prevent customers from going out of bounds getting stuck in the skybox.

FMguru
Sep 10, 2003

peed on;
sexually

Redeye Flight posted:

Let's be fair, here. If there is a Rasputin character in a game, him being unkillable is not only par for the course but should be actively expected. Wanted, even.
Normally I'd agree - except in 7S the not-Rasputin character is also not-Koschei the Deathless, who has not-Baba Yaga and the living spirit of not-Russia as his patron. He's at least a thousand years old, has dozens of long-term schemes percolating at any given time, is possibly the world's most powerful wizard, and has one of only a half-dozen known magic talismans that allows him to cross the aforementioned giant wall of fire to enter not-China.

If you are lucky, the sagas will sing of the day when your characters did the equivalent of fetching a diet Pepsi from the fridge for him.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!

AccidentalHipster posted:

I think it's the "Hand of God" GM tool gone horribly wrong. Hands of God like Captain Reis from 7th Sea (the guy who is unkillable and can one-shot anyone in melee) are good for slapping down problem players and really good ones can even be used to save players who are in over their heads, but far too many times (especially in the 90's) RPG writers like to think that they're running the campaign instead of the GMs and stick in a bunch of metaplot Hands of God to prevent customers from going out of bounds getting stuck in the skybox.

Well, it's really the 90s issue of building so much predetermined story into a game that PCs are like pachinko balls in its mighty plot workings if you carry it to its logical end. The problem with 7th Sea is that it already has a predetermined tale to tell, and doesn't necessarily need the players to tell it. Other Alderac settings, like Legend of the Five Rings or Shadowforce Archer, have similar issues. That's not to say they're not fun games, but if I were to run them, I'd be inclined to wipe the NPC slate clean and do my own thing.

The added issue is when they go so far as to prioritize preserving the setting over player enjoyment, and so you get characters like Reis or Deadlands' Stone whose main purpose is to murder players who get too big for their britches. Say what you want about Swashbuckling Adventures, it at least had Reis dead and gone and even provided mechanics for any player who wanted to take his place.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

I like a lot of the NPCs in 7th Sea, even the powerful ones...but the ones I like tend to be the ones in Castille, Vendel or Eisen, who all have fundamental personality issues that keep them from solving their own problems.

AccidentalHipster
Jul 5, 2013

Whadda ya MEAN ya never heard of Dan Brereton?

Alien Rope Burn posted:

Well, it's really the 90s issue of building so much predetermined story into a game that PCs are like pachinko balls in its mighty plot workings if you carry it to its logical end. The problem with 7th Sea is that it already has a predetermined tale to tell, and doesn't necessarily need the players to tell it. Other Alderac settings, like Legend of the Five Rings or Shadowforce Archer, have similar issues. That's not to say they're not fun games, but if I were to run them, I'd be inclined to wipe the NPC slate clean and do my own thing.

The added issue is when they go so far as to prioritize preserving the setting over player enjoyment, and so you get characters like Reis or Deadlands' Stone whose main purpose is to murder players who get too big for their britches. Say what you want about Swashbuckling Adventures, it at least had Reis dead and gone and even provided mechanics for any player who wanted to take his place.

That's pretty much my thoughts exactly. Characters like Reis and Stone should be there to prevent players from pissing too hard on the GM and his plans and need to be used judiciously. But as you've said, 90s metaplots are pretty much the designers thinking of themselves as the GMs (and pushy "DM of the Rings" ones at that).

Kavak
Aug 23, 2009


FMguru posted:

Normally I'd agree - except in 7S the not-Rasputin character is also not-Koschei the Deathless, who has not-Baba Yaga and the living spirit of not-Russia as his patron. He's at least a thousand years old, has dozens of long-term schemes percolating at any given time, is possibly the world's most powerful wizard, and has one of only a half-dozen known magic talismans that allows him to cross the aforementioned giant wall of fire to enter not-China.

If you are lucky, the sagas will sing of the day when your characters did the equivalent of fetching a diet Pepsi from the fridge for him.

Then they shouldn't have given him stats. If it has stats, a player will find a way to kill it.

MonsieurChoc
Oct 12, 2013

Every species can smell its own extinction.
Part 2
The Telling of Agonies: A Chronicle of the Millions
By Jonathan Blacke




”Charnel Houses” posted:

You would tell the truth… And you know what would happen?... They wouldn’t believe you. They’d say you were crazy. Might even put you in a madhouse. How can anyone believe this terrible business – unless he has lived through it?
- Quoted by an SS Corporal to prisoner Simon Wiesenthal, near Lwow, Poland, 1944.

So, this is the history chapter. It tells in detail the history of the Holocaust, from Hitler taking power to the Allies liberating the survivors of the Death Camps. It goes over a lot of things, like the Evian Conference, the Krystallnacht, Operation T4 and all the other nice things the Nazis did. I’m not really going to over that, it’s a pretty good history and it really made me alternatingly sick and angry and sad. Instead I’m going to focus more on the sidebars that can be read throughout the chapter dealing with the effects on the World of Darkness. It was decided, wisely, to separate the fiction from the facts in this section, so that no one could mistake one for the other.

Note: There’s going to be a lot of Wraith jargon thrown around, so it might be a good idea to reread the old Wraith corebook review in the first thread.

Hidden Agendas: While the various Supernaturals were not the cause of the Holocaust and were not leaders in the Nazi party, they were still involved in some ways. In this Sidebar, it’s revealed that the early Thule Society had many Verbena members, while the Technocracy, especially the progenitors and Iteration X, had close ties to the Nazi regime. If those names don’t mean anything to you, don’t worry, this is Mage stuff. The Sons of Tertullian, a group of extreme exorcists know for burning down orphanages rather than let ghosts live in them, were also involved in the Nazi government, albeit at the lower levels. They used the Nuremberg laws to persecute Gypsies, believing them to be mediums, and many of “Gypsies” were imprisoned in concentration camps and had forced “exorcism” performed on them. Few survived.

Taking Sides: During World War II, many group saw themselves torn apart, divided along national lines. This is especially true of Mages, with the Technocracy falling into literal civil war over it. Meanwhile, in the Underworld, Charon and the Hierarchy were at war against the Dark Kingdom of Jade, and every resource Stygia could muster were used for the war. Reapers, the people in charge of processing new wraiths and decide whether to enslave them or soulforge them (Wraith is such a cheerful setting, isn’t it?) suffered tremendous overwork due to the war, and took a lot of short-cuts to deal with it, such as getting unofficial apprentices. The early Holocaust wraiths were therefore lost in the bureaucratic mess for a while.

The Partition Accords: Eventually, the Hierarchy started noticing what was going on. Nihils, holes in the underworld leading to the Labyrinth, started appearing in places that had been stable before. And then strange wraiths, with never before seen Deathmarks, started showing up. They were refused entrance in many Necropolises, as they looked strange and ragged, others feared they might be a new breed of spectre, and some simply had not let go of their living prejudices and so wanted nothing to do with these undesirables. Eventually, a group of representatives of the new Shoah wraith reached Stygia, accompanied by the mysterious Ferrymen, and demanded an audience with Charon. They got it. There, they revealed what was happening in the lands of the living. Charon and the Deathlords were stunned, but not because they cared about the Shoah wraiths. This was dangerous for the state of the Shadowlands, as it could cause all kinds of Spectre nastiness to come into being. With Charon busy with his war against Yu Huang, the Deathlords drafted what was called the Partition Accords: the new wraiths would be placed in gated communities, protected by the Equitaes (knights of the Hierarchy) until they could adapt to life in the shadowlands and integrate with the rest of the Hierarchy over time. To the surprise of no one with half a brain, the ghost ghettos were a complete failure.

Project Werewolf: Not just humans were used in the Nazis’ experiments, some of the supernaturals were caught along with the communities they had been hiding in. Some werewolves and a few vampires were found and experimented upon by people like Mengele, to horrifying results. Most died. Some vampires also found the camps to be nice feeding spots. The Nazis did not care if they found the desiccated corpse of a prisoner, as he was going to die later anyway. Man, vampires are dicks.

The Army of Fire: Many members of the various resistance groups who fought against the Nazis did not stop fighting after death. They regrouped and started calling themselves the Army of Fire and went around trying to find old comrades… and enemies. When they saw the ghettoes of the Partition Accords, they were enraged and convinced the wraiths living in them to leave and join them. The Hierarch administering let them do it, thinking something like ‘Good Riddance’.

When the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, the Sixth Great Maelstrom (a giant reality storm covering the shadowlands around the world, full of specters and other fun stuff) started. Charon vanished, presumably destroyed, fighting a giant Malfean who attacked the City of Stygia. Now in charge, the Deathlords had to deal with the Shoah dead. Another conference was called, and this time everyone showed up. The Deathlords, the Ladies of Fate, important officials, the Ferrymen, representatives of the Holocaust wraiths and of the Army of Fire were all present. There, the victims accused the Hierarchy of failing them and of shirking its responsibilities. The Deathlords, unsure of their new power, accepted their faults and signed a new treaty, the Covenant of the Millions. Basically, it renounced all authority over the Millions, gave them the Haunts created by the death camps as territory and promised to hand over to them all Nazi wraiths they could find. In exchange, the leaders of the free camps had to deal with the Nihils and Spectres created by the holocaust.

The ghettos are linked through the old nazi railway system, blasted into the Shadowlands by allied bombardments. The railways are protected by remnants of the old Army of Fire, to stop poachers and slavers who would target their trains. As far as organization go, they’re pretty anarchic, usually going by the “one leader chosen by the population” method of rulership. They mostly focus on finding still missing wraiths of victims and family members, hunting down the ghost of nazi war criminals and trying to redeem victims who have become Spectre. Because of their self-ruling nature, they are largely not trusted by neighboring Necropolis and are treated as outsiders by many. Many of the higher-ups are angry that these wraiths who “should have been theirs” were given so much liberty, and would like to bring the “Dark Kingdom of Wire” back under the thumb of the hierarchy. Fortunately, they are not without allies, with many Renegade groups and lower-ranked bureaucrats of the Hierarchy sympathizing with their plea. Another important topic for them is memory: structures in the shadowlands are powered by memories of the living. In order to be safe, they want to make sure the living remember what happened at these sites, and they subtly help things like Holocaust museums and other projects.

In the remaining chapters, we’ll see in more details four of these free ghettoes.

Next: An Antechamber of the Damned.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!

Kavak posted:

Then they shouldn't have given him stats. If it has stats, a player will find a way to kill it.

A number of of the fey in 7th Sea had the statblocks of "You lose." using many more words, so they were aware of that.

Aramoro
Jun 1, 2012




FMguru posted:

Yeah, setting the swashbuckling age of sail game in a world where everyone lived on a single giant continent and there was no reason for anyone to develop anything more advanced than bronze age coasthugging triremes was the first warning sign. There were a couple of foreign lands on the far side of the continent that it made sense to visit by ship, but the setting made sure that you could never reach them by surrounding them with a giant impenetrable wall of fire that there was no way to cross unless you were one of the demigod setting NPCs whose power the PCs could never hope to approach even if they got and spent all the XPs in the world.

Ah, 90s RPG design :allears:

People in Europe got pretty far past bronze age boats even though you can walk pretty much anywhere in Europe. There are issues with the game but this isn't one of them.

FMguru
Sep 10, 2003

peed on;
sexually

Aramoro posted:

People in Europe got pretty far past bronze age boats even though you can walk pretty much anywhere in Europe. There are issues with the game but this isn't one of them.
Buh? The ancient/classical world was defined by control of the Mediterranean - it was the source of Phoenician wealth, the bulwark of Athenian power (it was called the "Rower's Democracy" for a reason) and the central artery of Roman commerce and power (and food - for most of its existence, Rome required a continuous flow of grain from Egypt to feed itself. So did Constantinople, for that matter). Control of the Med made it possible for Rome to quickly ship legions all over the empire. So there was huge pressure to develop ships and shipping. Same in Scandanavia, where you were stuck trying to eke out a living on the side of glacier unless you hit the waves in search of plunder or new lands to settle. Again, lots of impetus to build better and better ships.

7S is more like China - a single contiguous land mass with no reason to develop anything more advanced than shore-hugging junks to move food from one coastal port to another. Which is what China got by with for thousands of years.

And yet in 7S, the seas is covered with navies of fully-rigged multimasted and multidecked sailing vessels and ships of the line, all capable of long oceanic voyages, despite there being nowhere to go and no reason for ships to ever spend more than a couple of days in a row at sea.

Mr. Maltose
Feb 16, 2011

The Guffless Girlverine
And there's fairies. Who thinks fairies are real? Stupid John Wick!

BryanChavez
Sep 13, 2007

Custom: Heroic
Having A Life: Fair
I don't really give a poo poo about historically-accurate ships, but I did find it really dumb that I needed to forget what I knew about the actual Age of Sail and actual geography in a game where I accidentally said 'France' instead of 'Montaigne' half of the time anyway.

Kai Tave
Jul 2, 2012
Fallen Rib

Kellsterik posted:

I had a mild crisis of faith when I realized that the Comte de Saint-Germain (and for that matter, the Freak) in Unknown Armies are cut from that same 90s design cloth. It's not the same, dammit! :arghfist::saddowns:

The difference is that if the players in Unknown Armies ever do find a way to topple a character like the Freak then I'm pretty sure that neither John Tynes or Greg Stolze would throw a hissy fit and tell you how no, you actually failed because their super-special NPC is better than you, they'd go "Awesome, congratulations...now what?"

Nostalgia4ColdWar
May 7, 2007

Good people deserve good things.

Till someone lets the winter in and the dying begins, because Old Dark Places attract Old Dark Things.

deadly_pudding posted:

I can't tell you how pumped I am about the MONEY update. This game flew so close to the sun with approximating modern finances, but close examination of the system instantly melts its "makes any drat sense" wings.

Oh, God, between "Wealth" and the goddamn Hardness on military vehicles, during playtests with this I ended up spending a lot of time screaming back and forth.

I can't remember who it was, but the argument for military vehicles, hell, military vehicles at all was "Well, we want the PC's to have a chance if a tank comes at them no matter how they are armed!" and one excuse was "Well, when I was in Desert Storm a tank got knocked out by small arms" and when pressed the the guy admitted that it wasn't so much "got knocked out" as "deadlined because the antennas and lights for broken." Then there was the screaming over weapon ranges, and it finally boiled down to "Real weapon ranges aren't fun because REASONS!" and they were throwing out all kind of stats, but when it was put out that there's no way a first level character could even outshoot someone who passed military Basic Training and that the ranges were 1/3 of what they needed to be, they mumbled "BALANCE AND REASONS!" for basically no reason.

Holy poo poo, soooo many arguments over d20 Modern and d20 Future it was obscene.

They'd said they'd put an option in for straight cash, but then they backed out and basically said: "Look online for actual cash values!" because it felt dumb as hell saying "OK, you found a briefcase with a whole PLUS TWO WEALTH in diamonds" instead of "The briefcase has $2 million in DIAMONDS!"

So much got screwed up that couldhave made huge differences in how d20 Modern came out.

AmiYumi
Oct 10, 2005

I FORGOT TO HAIL KING TORG

50 Foot Ant posted:

"Real weapon ranges aren't fun because REASONS!"
See, this is where I love both ends of the spectrum. Some games (AEON/Trinity, I think?) handled it as "these aren't actual weapon ranges, they're the ranges you can do anything other than spray blind cover fire"; others, like Adeptus Evangelion just say "your railgun fires as far as you can see, and if you need to hit something farther away than that you're probably firing from a stationary position while hooked to a computer for plot reasons so it's going to be up to the GM anyway". It's when you try to split the middle that things look dumb.

AccidentalHipster
Jul 5, 2013

Whadda ya MEAN ya never heard of Dan Brereton?
Personally, I always felt that the way Wealth was intended to work in d20 Modern was a REALLY good system for having "fuzzy" resources instead of D&D's drat bean counting method. Unfortunately, it was too chaotic to really work out as intended as was even harder to keep level appropriate than D&D gold.

Domus
May 7, 2007

Kidney Buddies
For Shatterzone characters, please make the manager of this establishment:


MonsieurChoc
Oct 12, 2013

Every species can smell its own extinction.

BryanChavez posted:

I don't really give a poo poo about historically-accurate ships, but I did find it really dumb that I needed to forget what I knew about the actual Age of Sail and actual geography in a game where I accidentally said 'France' instead of 'Montaigne' half of the time anyway.

Ever since I played Europa Universalis and read the Baroque Cycle, Théah has become waaaaaay too small for me. You look at 17th-century Europe, and man there was a lot more going on than in 7th sea. A lot more countries and cultures, that's for sure.

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

Mr. Maltose posted:

And there's fairies. Who thinks fairies are real? Stupid John Wick!

It begs the question, though. What are you, or indeed the empires of the game, supposed to be doing with these ships? The not!Turks have very little contact with not!Europe. Not!Scandinavia isn't raiding anyone. Not!Netherlands has no long voyages to make to trade. Not!Spain has no New World to colonize. There's a handful of islands with alien tech that's probably going to kill you, and that's about it. Even the metaplot doesn't do anything with the idea. Much as I enjoyed the writeup of Seventh Sea and think that there's a lot you could do with the setting if you're willing to modify it from how it's presented, taken at face value it doesn't even hold up to its own logic.

Ratoslov
Feb 15, 2012

Now prepare yourselves! You're the guests of honor at the Greatest Kung Fu Cannibal BBQ Ever!

Cythereal posted:

It begs the question, though. What are you, or indeed the empires of the game, supposed to be doing with these ships?

Last I recall from the time Wick spoke about it on RPG.net, you're supposed to emulate 13th century Chinese river piracy. Seriously, that's what he said.

Kemper Boyd
Aug 6, 2007

no kings, no gods, no masters but a comfy chair and no socks

Kai Tave posted:

The difference is that if the players in Unknown Armies ever do find a way to topple a character like the Freak then I'm pretty sure that neither John Tynes or Greg Stolze would throw a hissy fit and tell you how no, you actually failed because their super-special NPC is better than you, they'd go "Awesome, congratulations...now what?"

There's also the thing that the Freak does it's own stuff and Saint-Germain can do pretty much whatever. They're not tied to a metaplot so just ignoring them is perfectly valid and easy.

Death to metaplots.

AccidentalHipster
Jul 5, 2013

Whadda ya MEAN ya never heard of Dan Brereton?

Ratoslov posted:

Last I recall from the time Wick spoke about it on RPG.net, you're supposed to emulate 13th century Chinese river piracy. Seriously, that's what he said.

But... It's the Age of Sail... with galleons... and swashbuckling... and Europe... rivers?

...

And so, as I pray, Unlimited Psyduck Works!

Mr. Maltose
Feb 16, 2011

The Guffless Girlverine
As hilarious as it is or is not, keep the drat psyduck in your own reviews. C'mon son.

AccidentalHipster
Jul 5, 2013

Whadda ya MEAN ya never heard of Dan Brereton?

Mr. Maltose posted:

As hilarious as it is or is not, keep the drat psyduck in your own reviews. C'mon son.

I'm sorry, I just couldn't hold back after waking up to... that. I guess we can add "before coffee" to the list of occasions when I shouldn't be posting.



Seriously, loving riverboats?

AccidentalHipster fucked around with this message at 16:34 on Oct 26, 2013

Traveller
Jan 6, 2012

WHIM AND FOPPERY

Houses of the Blooded

Risky business

quote:

Now, in most roleplaying games , this section is called something like "game system" or "mechanics" or "task resolution." Sounds about as sexy as repairing your dishwasher.
This chapter is different. This isn’t about your character taking an action. It’s about your character taking risks.

I will not be kinkshamed by you, Mr. Wick. :colbert:

Anyway, actual mechanics! Like in other Wickgames, the basic roll is a risk. Roll a number of dice, and if you get 10 or more bam, you get privilege. This has nothing to do with the actual success or failure of the action you're attempting, mind you. If you make your roll, then you get to describe what happens. If you fail it, the GM gets to do so. But where do you get those dice anyway?

Let's talk about Style. Remember those points we got at chargen? Style is flamboyance and panache. You get those by acting ven: dramatic, tragic, lovestruck, hotblooded, etc. You don't get it by reading other game books, answering your cell phone, arguing about rules with the GM, or getting off of Mr Wick's wild ride in general. Anyway, they're used for a lot of things, most of which have to do with aspects. As mentioned in chargen, you can only bank a maximum of five Style on your own, but fancy gear (a good hat, good boots, a nice sword) lets you bank more. Like 7th Sea NPCs, you can be measured on how floppy your hat is and how ruffled your collar is.

To make an actual roll, you first declare your intention. For instance, let's say Dio's intention is "I want to kick this puppy." This is what you get if you succeed.

Then you gather dice for your pool. These come from:
  • Your name: you may declare your character's name if it means something appropriate to the risk. So if Dio means "rear end in a top hat" in Venspeak (how could it not?) you get one die. That's for your public name; if you reveal your SEKRIT NAME you get three extra dice... but anyone who hears you knows it.
  • A virtue: you can assert one single virtue per risk that's appropriate to the risk. You get as many dice as ranks in the virtue you have, 0 if it's your weakness. Note that you can roll a risk based on your weakness and still get dice from other sources.
  • Aspects: you can invoke one of your aspects for three dice, or tag someone or something else's aspect for two dice. Invoking an Aspect is free the first time it's done in the session, then it costs one Style. Tagging or compelling an Aspect costs one Style, and getting tagged or compelled gets you one Style at the end of the risk. You only get one invoke and one tag per risk unless the Aspect in question is defined as a Free Aspect, in which case you can always tag it (still costs you one Style though)
  • Other sources: artifacts, rituals, orks, etc. We'll get to those later.

If the roll succeeds we get our intention, but that's it. Dio kicks the puppy. To get extra effects out of our risk, we make wagers. Like in L5R, we can penalize our own rolls by setting dice aside. Say Dio gets ten dice to kick the puppy: that's overkill for the TN of 10, so he can just set, say, five dice aside and trust he'll get a 10 with his remaining five. Wagers can be used to take narrative control of the scene and add elements. So if Dio makes his roll with five wagers, he could say "I kick the puppy: it lands on a brazier, and its coat catches on fire, and it runs away yelping through the dance hall, and it sets the dresses of several dancers on fire, and finally dies right on top of an expensive carpet." His intention, plus five extra details from his wagers. Wagers cannot contradict previously established elements of the scene or do something that would require a risk to happen.

If another character opposes the risk, it becomes contested. The resolution is mostly the same: characters announce their intentions, then go through each step of gathering dice in turn (A declares or not their name, B does the same, A asserts a virtue, B does so, etc.) until they both run out of dice sources. Wagers are made in secret, then shown, and then the dice are rolled. The player that rolls higher is the winner, as long as they get over 10; the loser gets only half of their wagers rounding up, or none if they don't even make 10. If they both fail to roll 10, the GM takes over. The winner decides who spends their wagers first, then they do so until they run out of wagers. Ties are solved either by the largest pool, or by the GM asking how much Style the involved ven are willing to give up to win. All rolls that involve 2 or more characters are contested, even if they're trying to help each other.

So let's say Al doesn't want Dio to kick the puppy. They make their declarations and gather their dice. Dio again rolls five dice and wages another five, while Al wages four out of his seven dice, rolling three. They both make their rolls, but Dio rolls higher, and decides to go first.

  • His intention triggers first: he kicks the puppy.
  • Then his first wager: it lands on a brazier.
  • Then Al takes over: the brazier was mercifully not lit.
  • Dio: the scared puppy kicks the brazier down in its haste to get out.
  • Then Al makes his final wager (he gets half of his original four, remember): the puppy flees the scene through a door, yelping but safe!
  • Dio still has his wagers to go through: the crash of plates is heard, something smells as if burning, and the chef comes out screaming "That runt ruined the cake!"

loving Dio, seriously.

So far, so good? Great, because now things go to poo poo.

You can lie on your rolls. Those bits about gathering dice, declaring name, and all that poo poo? Lie as much as you want, as long as your lie is not greater than the dice you can actually roll. If you don't want to reveal your name could be used for rear end in a top hat poo poo? Say it's no good. You can roll less Virtue dice than you actually have. You can say you have no appropriate Aspects. And you can lie about the result of your roll as long as your lie is not greater than your actual roll.

You can lie on your rolls. You can LIE ON YOUR ROLLS.

Why would you do this?

:smug: posted:

Think about it.

No, Wick, seriously. Why the gently caress would you do this.

:smuggo: posted:

Lots of different reasons… but I’ll let you find those out on your own.

Character creation is supposed to be done all together, remember? You can't make Contacts if you don't have fellow PCs next to you. The character sheet is not two-sided like in Paranoia. How the gently caress would you lie to another PC about your rolls? And for that matter, how would you ever know the GM lied to you---

Oh. Oooooh.

We get a list of "skills" that are essentially common tasks and the dice we could get for them. A "decipher" roll could involve Cunning or Wisdom, or an Aspect related to secret tongues, that sort of thing. This is actually useful to get how the system works.

As long as people are not literally lying on their loving rolls, that is.

Next: no, seriously, the gently caress is wrong with Aspects. And Virtues, for that matter.

Traveller fucked around with this message at 20:11 on Oct 26, 2013

AccidentalHipster
Jul 5, 2013

Whadda ya MEAN ya never heard of Dan Brereton?

Traveller posted:

You can lie on your rolls. You can LIE ON YOUR ROLLS.

I had to drink an extra cup of coffee to make sure I wasn't hallucinating. Seriously Wick, WHY?

On a less :psyduck: note, I'm so glad that Dio was chosen as a sample character because he is so much fun to hate. And I'm still waiting on pins and needles to find out exactly why both sample characters are so hosed.

AccidentalHipster fucked around with this message at 17:59 on Oct 26, 2013

Kavak
Aug 23, 2009


So let me get this straight- as part of Wick's stupid adversarial GMing philosophy, the players and Game Master are supposed to just roll whatever they feel like, within certain limits, and hope they don't get caught? Blame the same lack of coffee AccidetalHipster was suffering from if I'm being dense.

Amechra
Sep 9, 2012
With that last post, I've finally realized how you are supposed to run Houses of the Blooded.

Run it like Paranoia. I mean, if you look at it from that perspective, a lot of it makes sense (actually, a lot of what Wick writes makes sense if you pretend that he intends you to play the games like Paranoia.)

AccidentalHipster
Jul 5, 2013

Whadda ya MEAN ya never heard of Dan Brereton?

Kavak posted:

So let me get this straight- as part of Wick's stupid adversarial GMing philosophy, the players and Game Master are supposed to just roll whatever they feel like, within certain limits, and hope they don't get caught? Blame the same lack of coffee AccidetalHipster was suffering from if I'm being dense.

I just dug up my copy of Ven and apparently the answer is yes. See why I thought I was hallucinating?

Amechra posted:

With that last post, I've finally realized how you are supposed to run Houses of the Blooded.

Run it like Paranoia. I mean, if you look at it from that perspective, a lot of it makes sense (actually, a lot of what Wick writes makes sense if you pretend that he intends you to play the games like Paranoia.)

Except his basic "Roll for narrative control, not success" (which I just realized he apparently stole from Donjon of all loving things) mechanic demands cooperation to prevent the game from turning sour and cooperative RPing is pretty much the opposite of antagonistic RPing. So it still makes no sense.

AccidentalHipster fucked around with this message at 20:01 on Oct 26, 2013

Mr. Maltose
Feb 16, 2011

The Guffless Girlverine
I don't really see how unless you have someone at the table that doesn't buy into it.

The idea if a game of doomed jerk wads with a stratified culture of back biting and deception being a game where antagonism and cooperation exist in the same mechanics might actually be, dare I say it? Sensical.

I know, Wick Delanda Est, but it might just be that he's not a literal drooling incompetent. Just maybe.

Test Pattern
Dec 20, 2007

Keep scrolling, clod!

Kemper Boyd posted:

There's also the thing that the Freak does it's own stuff and Saint-Germain can do pretty much whatever. They're not tied to a metaplot so just ignoring them is perfectly valid and easy.

Death to metaplots.

Here's how you beat The Freak: find a child, ruin its life so badly that the only way it can cope is by turning to extreme body-mod, but that doesn't help so it turns to MORE exteme body-mod and the LITERALLY GOES INSANE FOR BODY-MOD because it can't bear being who it is. It strings chains through its chest, and changes its face, gender and body shape so often that it can barely even remember what it used to look like. At some point, it starts to lose its own identity to the collective idea of a protean, formless body. Eventually, it's barely even a person anymore, just an abstract desire to control every aspect of itself, to change everything so maybe SOMETHING will actually be different, but it can't get away from the yelling and stench of cheap booze in that tiny apartment, no matter what it looks like or what it does with who. It's just a name and a legend and a fear on the streets now, and it's still a scared little child that wants to hurt a scared old man and it's not even sure why anymore.

Congratulations. You beat The Freak. Happy now?you did it

AccidentalHipster
Jul 5, 2013

Whadda ya MEAN ya never heard of Dan Brereton?

Mr. Maltose posted:

I don't really see how unless you have someone at the table that doesn't buy into it.

The idea if a game of doomed jerk wads with a stratified culture of back biting and deception being a game where antagonism and cooperation exist in the same mechanics might actually be, dare I say it? Sensical.

I know, Wick Delanda Est, but it might just be that he's not a literal drooling incompetent. Just maybe.

Maybe, but games about treachery and backbiting tend to make tempers flare and that usually means people start abusing the rules to get back at each other. Paranoia gets away with it because it's rife with black humor and gives you a bunch of clones to work with, but Houses of the Blooded is oWoD Romanticism wank little in the way of second chances. Roleplaying like you're in a round of Diplomacy or Werewolf could work out great, but Houses courts disaster too much for my tastes.

Mr. Maltose
Feb 16, 2011

The Guffless Girlverine
The problem I'm seeing here can be solved simply by going into the game with everyone on the same page, acting like adults playing a game. I know for our hobby that can be difficult, but you can't blame Wick for that.

AccidentalHipster
Jul 5, 2013

Whadda ya MEAN ya never heard of Dan Brereton?

Mr. Maltose posted:

The problem I'm seeing here can be solved simply by going into the game with everyone on the same page, acting like adults playing a game. I know for our hobby that can be difficult, but you can't blame Wick for that.

Fair enough, but I still don't like the idea of RPing manchildren in a system that cannot survive the players being manchildren.

Mr. Maltose
Feb 16, 2011

The Guffless Girlverine
No system really survives players being manchildren, though. A shitlord will ruin any game.

Kellsterik
Mar 30, 2012

Dirk Allen wins again!

(that was fantastic and it never occurred to me before. Also, someone run UA)

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

Kemper Boyd posted:

There's also the thing that the Freak does it's own stuff and Saint-Germain can do pretty much whatever. They're not tied to a metaplot so just ignoring them is perfectly valid and easy.

Death to metaplots.

Not to mention that the whole plot of Godwalker (the UA novel by Stolze) is about people trying to oust the Freak as godwalker of the Mystic Hermaphrodite. So I don't think Greg would have a problem with players trying it. Although they're a little less anti-social about it than Test Pattern's idea.

It does have a entropomancer getting charges by blind-driving with her kid in the car, though.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

AccidentalHipster
Jul 5, 2013

Whadda ya MEAN ya never heard of Dan Brereton?

Mr. Maltose posted:

No system really survives players being manchildren, though. A shitlord will ruin any game.

True, but I still hold that Houses of the Blooded's premise and mechanics is more likely to cause unnecessary drama in a group than other storygames and I'm standing by that. I think at this point we're just going to have to agree that manchildism in real life sucks and leave it at that.

  • Locked thread