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So it's doing to be December 1st very soon, so I figured I'd make a new chat thread! What stuff do you want to talk about? Eager to score a new collection of goodies on Cyber Monday? Setting up your Christmas Wish List of elf-games? To kick discussion off, I like Deadlands. I hate Neo-Confederate apologia. How should I go about fixing this in games I run? I'm currently wondering whether to have the Confederacy as an expansionist, tyrannical government which ended up scoring a bunch of ghost rock in the Lousiana swamps to help give them the technological edge against the North. Even though the country's hurting after the result of the Civil War, they do plan on expanding into the Western territories as well as Cuba and Nicaragua. So the Confederacy would be kind of like the Empire in Star Wars: the PCs are far from their center of power, but their presence can be felt even out in the deserts and plains of the Old West. I'm just as interested in finding out a plausible explanation for how the Confederacy can still stand, much less fend off the Union successfully. Even with zombies and monsters and poo poo roaming about. Alternatively, I could try for an alt-history where the Civil War is over, but the South lost the war. This would take quite a bit more work, as it fundamentally shakes the setting's foundations. Thoughts? Libertad! fucked around with this message at 06:14 on Dec 1, 2014 |
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Dec 1, 2014 06:12
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You should have the confederacy being utterly annihilated as it was irl.
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Dec 1, 2014 06:19
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I'm not too well read on Deadlands and not very invested in the particulars of the setting. Are your players invested? Because I don't think you need to do that much legwork to make the whole Civil War thing shake out like it did in real life, but now there are also zombie cowboys. I guess the world building/metaplot part of Deadlands was always the least interesting thing about it, for me.
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Dec 1, 2014 06:38
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The Confederacy would have probably been very expansionist if it didn't become a Before the war a number of Southern congressman had tried to lobby for the purchase of Cuba and wanted to expand into Central and South America because Northern climates did not support cotton cultivation. Slavery was still legal in Spanish colonies like Cuba and countries like Brazil until the late 19th century so they assumed it would be the logical route of conquest. They probably wouldn't have accomplished much with a small national army. EDIT: The argument for conquest mostly came due to the makeup of Congress. If slavery is legal, they aren't going to need to get more states to pass legislation. RocknRollaAyatollah fucked around with this message at 06:45 on Dec 1, 2014 |
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Dec 1, 2014 06:39
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Plague of Hats posted:Are your players invested? Because I don't think you need to do that much legwork to make the whole Civil War thing shake out like it did in real life, but now there are also zombie cowboys. We're still playing Pathfinder, but I have a soft spot for Deadlands so it might be one of several planned games once we're done with our current campaign. RocknRollaAyatollah posted:The Confederacy would have probably been very expansionist if it didn't become a Actually the Confederate Constitution removed more states' rights than it created or protected. The whole States' Rights thing didn't come up until after the war was over and Southerners realized that they'd go down in history as bad guys defending slavery. The Confederacy would still have a problem with states wanting to do their own thing, but I can see the Confederate military going all totalitarian post-war and cracking down on local insurrections with newly-developed ghost-rock technology. Libertad! fucked around with this message at 06:50 on Dec 1, 2014 |
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Dec 1, 2014 06:44
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Libertad! posted:We're still playing Pathfinder, but I have a soft spot for Deadlands so it might be one of several planned games once we're done with our current campaign. Well, I meant specifically, are they invested in the setting details? Or would they be cool with "everything is like real history up to 1880 except Cali collapsed and ghosts came out"?
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Dec 1, 2014 06:49
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Plague of Hats posted:Well, I meant specifically, are they invested in the setting details? Or would they be cool with "everything is like real history up to 1880 except Cali collapsed and ghosts came out"? I don't think any of them played Deadlands, so it will be a new thing to them. They'll probably be fine with the latter. I just want to have a good, short way of keeping as much of the things I like about the setting while changing the bad stuff. Libertad! fucked around with this message at 06:55 on Dec 1, 2014 |
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Dec 1, 2014 06:51
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Bear in mind the pyrrhic Confederate success is, in the larger metaplot, an evil plot by the archvillains to divide America. Though there is some Confederate apologism afoot, the Confederates ultimately are deeply in the wrong, though not for reasons they're aware of until it's too late (and Hell on Earth happens). Of course, the Union is also manipulated too. Both sides are essentially victims of the Reckoners' manipulations. I'm torn because there aren't great solutions to the issue, but bear in mind it's not that the game treats the Southern victory as without terrible consequences. It's ultimately a very real problem that because it prevents America from being united just when it needs it most.
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Dec 1, 2014 07:03
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Libertad! posted:We're still playing Pathfinder, but I have a soft spot for Deadlands so it might be one of several planned games once we're done with our current campaign. Confederate governors were constantly telling Jefferson Davis to screw off and were purposely withholding troops by the end of the war because they wanted to protect their homes from marauding Union generals like Sherman. There's a reason it used to be called "these United States" as opposed to "the United States". The Civil War forever changed the definition of what powers the executive branch could wield and Lincoln's interpretation of the Constitution has influenced American perceptions of "state's rights" Though on paper it might seem like they had less rights, in practice they had a lot more because when you secede from a country decrying a tyrannical central government, the President isn't going to exercise every power. One of the reasons the Confederacy went bankrupt was because the central government couldn't effectively raise taxes on the states. It was a constant struggle from day one. Every Confederate President in the first 100 years, the first 20, would have probably strictly held to the constitution while every governor would have gone with what was implied. Jefferson Davis would have influenced every CSA President like Lincoln does every US President. There would be a big culture of strict constructionism and the implied powers of the executive branch would not have been exercised very frequently. EDIT: Alien Rope Burn posted:Bear in mind the pyrrhic Confederate success is, in the larger metaplot, an evil plot by the archvillains to divide America. Though there is some Confederate apologism afoot, the Confederates ultimately are deeply in the wrong, though not for reasons they're aware of until it's too late (and Hell on Earth happens). Of course, the Union is also manipulated too. Both sides are essentially victims of the Reckoners' manipulations. This whole thing is pretty dumb because the world ends in a nuclear holocaust and they could have easily just had that happen with a victorious Union. The world pretty much follows the same trends it followed in the regular timeline anyways so it's not like that scenario is dependent on a CSA existing. RocknRollaAyatollah fucked around with this message at 07:15 on Dec 1, 2014 |
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Dec 1, 2014 07:03
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You could always just move the timeline back a little bit to the middle of the civil war and have your players fight the demon that is Nathan Bedford Forrest as their main villain. Or, you know, do so afterwards, when he's busy founding the KKK and generally being one of the most horrible men in American history. More 19th century American games need to have 'Nathan Bedford Forrest is a loving demon' as a plot point.
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Dec 1, 2014 08:42
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Has anyone else tried out DnD Attack Wing? I picked it up to tide me over till Star Wars Armada comes out and had a lot of fun playing with a friend gradually adding in rules. It has some cool stuff, like instead of just getting a stat blocked red dragon with x rules you buy the special abilities and powers your creatures have when you build your force. You could have a red dragon that starts the game with haste on it and has magic missile as a spell. Or a bronze dragon that knows lightning breath (though this is more expensive than it would be on a blue dragon). There is stuff like flying creatures can't attack ground troops and vice versa, but if you buy flame breath for your red dragon it is a cone attack that can hit the ground. Flying creatures can land if they want to, or "swoop" that lets them attack flying and ground creatures but also be attackable by both. There isn't a lot of product for it though which is a little discouraging. Mind you Armada is launching with what, 5 capitol ships?
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Dec 1, 2014 12:39
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Can someone talk to me about the game design behind "saving throws" and defending against spells in general for D&D-esque games? I understand that some sort of chance to resist a debilitating effect is necessary, since such things tend to be more powerful than raw damage. I also understand that there's some sort of expectation built around (direct damage) spells being defended against by a stat that's NOT Armor Class. What I'm not quite getting is "a successful save causes half damage, a failed save causes full damage", apart from simply being the way that such a thing has always been done. To add context, I was tinkering with math and spreadsheets over the weekend, trying to figure out how much damage a "caster"-type enemy should be dealing to the players with a generic "he shoots you with a blast of energy" attack, since the "DPR vs AC" calculations were obviously going to be different. As I was computing average damage between "full damage, failed save hits" and "half damage, successful save hits", it just struck me that there wasn't really any particular rhyme or reason why it had to be like that. I could justify a "Spell Defense" number that was separate from AC so that the Fighter-type character wasn't necessarily less vulnerable to a Fireball than a Wizard, but why not just boil that down to a plain hit-or-miss mechanic?
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Dec 1, 2014 13:00
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gradenko_2000 posted:Can someone talk to me about the game design behind "saving throws" and defending against spells in general for D&D-esque games? Because spell damage was really loving lethal in the early editions, and to make things a tad less insta-death saving throws against spells had to happen. Also because D&D started out as war game and Wizards are siege weapons/tanks/artillery pieces so of course they have glancing hits, don't always do full damage and more likely to miss than hit.
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Dec 1, 2014 13:07
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This is going to fall into all sorts of traps, but I imagine something else that went into it being the fact that spells were a limited resource while you could melee attack all day long. I don't think there's much reason to keep it in any modern and properly designed game, but I could see a few excuses for it back then.
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Dec 1, 2014 13:10
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gradenko_2000 posted:Can someone talk to me about the game design behind "saving throws" and defending against spells in general for D&D-esque games? Bear in mind part of your question involves "what is an armor class?", and it originally for the most part simply represented the armor you were wearing and its ability to protect you from harm. AC bonuses from Dex and magic bonuses muddy this a bit, but if you look up the table in AD&D that crossreferences weapon type with the ability to hit a particular AC, it's clearly designed around different weapons being effective against different armor types. Parrying was its own action and is another issue entirely. Therefore, it makes sense that armor - or AC - wouldn't protect against a lightning bolt or sleep spell. It's easy to forget because AC was generalized into a generic defense stat by the time of d20, but mostly what it represented in earlier editions was "what armor are you wearing?" Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 13:21 on Dec 1, 2014 |
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Dec 1, 2014 13:17
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Plague of Hats posted:I'm not too well read on Deadlands and not very invested in the particulars of the setting. Are your players invested? Because I don't think you need to do that much legwork to make the whole Civil War thing shake out like it did in real life, but now there are also zombie cowboys. North America still being a lovely war torn Hellhole is the point though. Are you running Hell On Earth? Because if not, roll the setting back to the Classic Line timewise and have the war STILL being ongoing. Or have the North win but at the cost of a couple of states (Utah/Mormon land, California, and either Texas/North Carolina as part of their tratiors reward). Or hell, just do what your planning. CSA is now the loving Empire from Star Wars.
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Dec 1, 2014 13:26
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Thanks for the input. I do think I will just go with a binary mechanic, then.
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Dec 1, 2014 14:27
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Wait, Fantasy Craft actually released another class expansion and has news on Spellbound? Just when you think a game line is down... Always thought of it as "the game Pathfinder players ought to be playing instead".
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Dec 1, 2014 16:36
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Wait, Fantasy Craft actually released another class expansion and has news on Spellbound? Just when you think a game line is down... I am extremely  about Spellbound finally coming out. Can't wait to get it! I'll probably even run a game of it over IRC once it's out.
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Dec 1, 2014 19:06
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I thought that Shadowrun did an allright job with handling Neo Confederate style stuff. It's always hard to work with that though.
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Dec 1, 2014 21:03
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Wait, Fantasy Craft actually released another class expansion and has news on Spellbound? Just when you think a game line is down... For reference, you can find the new Shinobi, Skirmisher and Witch Hunter classes here (assuming DriveThruRPG isn't down due to Cyber Monday when you click that link) and you can find all the new news on Spellbound here. Thanks for mentioning this, ARB. I'm really glad to hear that Fantasy Craft still exists.
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Dec 1, 2014 21:06
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I saw the Fantasy Craft classes topping the rpgnow sales charts; Crafty has always been kinda bad at getting the word out on stuff, it's not even mentioned on their frontpage yet. And you'd think those of us with preorders for Spellbound could use an e-mail about that kind of thing, instead of tucking it away on the Crafty boards... Still, really glad to see it getting some support, even if it feels like it's likely a last hurrah.
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Dec 1, 2014 21:31
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RocknRollaAyatollah posted:This whole thing is pretty dumb because the world ends in a nuclear holocaust and they could have easily just had that happen with a victorious Union. The world pretty much follows the same trends it followed in the regular timeline anyways so it's not like that scenario is dependent on a CSA existing. The idea is that a unified America could have dealt with the supernatural threats in an organized fashion without both sides being distracted by the North-South Cold War. Whether or not that's a convincing conceit is an exercise for the reader, but the general idea is that the big reason the timeline diverges from ours at all is because of Reckoner meddling. Well, that and ghost rock, but the two go hand-in-hand.
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Dec 1, 2014 21:37
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Alien Rope Burn posted:The idea is that a unified America could have dealt with the supernatural threats in an organized fashion without both sides being distracted by the North-South Cold War. Whether or not that's a convincing conceit is an exercise for the reader, but the general idea is that the big reason the timeline diverges from ours at all is because of Reckoner meddling. Well, that and ghost rock, but the two go hand-in-hand. Reckoners are the reason for ghost rock. It sure isn't naturally occurring in the Deadlands universe. Ghost rock and Mad science helped to keep the U.S. from defeating the C.S.A. Also in the time between the end of the civil war and Hell on Earth, the two countries are at peace. At the same time the two countries do a good job of wiping out most supernatural threats.
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Dec 1, 2014 22:22
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DocBubonic posted:Reckoners are the reason for ghost rock. It sure isn't naturally occurring in the Deadlands universe. Ghost rock and Mad science helped to keep the U.S. from defeating the C.S.A. The whole reason for ghost rock was to a) keep people fighting over resources and b) release damned souls into the world. The Reckoners' long-term plot was to accelerate human technological advancement to the point where we developed ghost-rock-nukes that didn't rely on Mad Science and could be mass produced, because they were the tools needed to turn the world into one big Deadland. It's also why the manitous stopped helping mad scientists once the bomb was developed: their work here was done, and overnight mad science just stopped working.
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Dec 1, 2014 22:28
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Evil Mastermind posted:It's also why the manitous stopped helping mad scientists once the bomb was developed: their work here was done, and overnight mad science just stopped working. I will have no truck with any setting that doesn't allow for mad science 
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Dec 1, 2014 22:57
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Fuego Fish posted:I will have no truck with any setting that doesn't allow for mad science There still is Mad Science that is done by friendlier (but sometimes crazy, like Gun Spirits) Tech Spirits. Also they rightfully hate Nature spirits.
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Dec 1, 2014 23:27
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Widestancer posted:I thought that Shadowrun did an allright job with handling Neo Confederate style stuff. It's always hard to work with that though. Part of that is that Shadowrun's CSA doesn't really have much of anything to do with the Civil War, it's just "hey it's the future and everything's hosed, guess the USA's splitting up."
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Dec 1, 2014 23:34
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If you want to use the Confederacy, you should base it on Kreider's resurrection of Sherman
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Dec 1, 2014 23:59
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Fuego Fish posted:I will have no truck with any setting that doesn't allow for mad science Oh, Hell On Earth still allows for mad science, it's just that instead of hoping a demon will whisper the technological secrets into your ear and fill in the physics gaps with spiritual energy, you trap the demon in a special spirit battery and drain the energy out of it until it evaporates.
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Dec 2, 2014 00:05
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Saving Throws as I understand were added actually a bit later from most of the other rules; originally if the medusa caught your eyes or you got hit with the super poison you just loving died. Likewise you couldn't dodge fireballs or oil grenades or what have you for the above reason of the whole "siege engine" thing. Gygax later went "No wait this is terrible" and added saving throws. They incidentally weren't about you like, dodging the fireball or whatever, it was just fate smiled on you and you survived. You met the medusa's eyes and somehow turned away just in the nick of time, or the fireball managed to scorch just above you by luck, or something like that. If it helps, remember that HP was never intended to be actual physical wounds, and that rules were just sorta created ad-hoc in play because Gygax was playing his dumb elfgame basically every goddamn day and revising stuff on the fly. And that the whole "roleplaying thing" wasn't actually intended.
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Dec 2, 2014 01:57
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ProfessorCirno posted:Saving Throws as I understand were added actually a bit later from most of the other rules; originally if the medusa caught your eyes or you got hit with the super poison you just loving died. Likewise you couldn't dodge fireballs or oil grenades or what have you for the above reason of the whole "siege engine" thing. Gygax later went "No wait this is terrible" and added saving throws. They incidentally weren't about you like, dodging the fireball or whatever, it was just fate smiled on you and you survived. You met the medusa's eyes and somehow turned away just in the nick of time, or the fireball managed to scorch just above you by luck, or something like that. It does seem a bit backwards, in hindsight. You'd think the creature would have to roll well to hit you with a fireball, not you have to roll well to have the creature miss. I'm not saying systems where you make defense rolls don't make sense, but the creature rolling to hit you would be more in line with how the rest of the game functions.
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Dec 2, 2014 02:04
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Gygax was basically just making poo poo up on the spot though, he wasn't really sitting down and concerning himself with things like unified task resolution. Saving throws were basically "ugh fine, even though the medusa should totally just petrify you I'll let you roll a die and if you roll the right number then it won't," which then got codified as a standard thing probably because the other players present suddenly all wanted the same consideration.
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Dec 2, 2014 06:51
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Kai Tave posted:Gygax was basically just making poo poo up on the spot though, he wasn't really sitting down and concerning himself with things like unified task resolution. Saving throws were basically "ugh fine, even though the medusa should totally just petrify you I'll let you roll a die and if you roll the right number then it won't," which then got codified as a standard thing probably because the other players present suddenly all wanted the same consideration. I thought part of it was also just the sort of psychological effect of transferring the feeling of responsibility to the player, originally. As in, 'Instead of me just rolling to see if you get wrecked, YOU roll to see if you're awesome enough or lucky enough not to get wrecked'. It doesn't functionally affect things, it's clunky, and it's become kind of a design tumor on D&D, but I can see the appeal of the illusion of control.
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Dec 2, 2014 07:04
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Well I'm pretty sure that's some of the reason why, for example, spells traditionally call for the target to make a saving throw rather than the Wizard to make an attack check of some sort, because the idea is that Wizards just don't fail to cast a spell properly, they are masters of the arcane arts thank you, if something goes wrong then it was (literally) out of their hands.
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Dec 2, 2014 07:07
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Covok posted:It does seem a bit backwards, in hindsight. You'd think the creature would have to roll well to hit you with a fireball, not you have to roll well to have the creature miss. I'm not saying systems where you make defense rolls don't make sense, but the creature rolling to hit you would be more in line with how the rest of the game functions. That was the first thing I changed: I found it really inconsistent that every other action is "player rolls d20 to beat a number" but then saving throws reverse it. Kai Tave posted:Well I'm pretty sure that's some of the reason why, for example, spells traditionally call for the target to make a saving throw rather than the Wizard to make an attack check of some sort, because the idea is that Wizards just don't fail to cast a spell properly, they are masters of the arcane arts thank you, if something goes wrong then it was (literally) out of their hands. Yeah that's the other thing that I'm having to arbitrate: when the Wizard casts Mage Hand to pull off some trick I have to decide whether I still need to make him roll to succeed or just let it happen. I try to justify it by the particular spell system I'm using costing the Wizard HP to cast his spells, but still.
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Dec 2, 2014 07:16
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I liked an idea Mutants & Masterminds had, where (iirc) there were no HPs, just saving throws. Which makes perfect genre sense, when a truck hits Superman, he either shrugs it off or is struck down to make a dramatic monologue. I remember a Case White hex'n'counter wargame where, similarly, units did not damage their opponents directly, but rather forced opponents to roll for damage at varying difficulty. I think that's an interesting design space that should be explored more. [edit] Like, it might not might have much sense in D&D world where some people make careers as designated punchbags, but if one were playing, say, a James Bond game, when someone gets shot, it means something. Lichtenstein fucked around with this message at 11:28 on Dec 2, 2014 |
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Dec 2, 2014 11:19
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Sails of Glory's damage mechanic is that you shoot at an opponent's ship, and the opponent pulls the appropriate amount of whatever coloured damage chits from the bag (any of which could be "no damage"). Different ranges or types of fire cause the opponent to pull different colored damage chits. WHFRP3 has a "wounds" thing where you pull cards from a deck when you take certain types/thresholds of damage and then nasty things happen to you because Warhammer. Combining those two ideas might work pretty well for a D&D-like game. Weapons could do 1-2-3-4 cards worth of damage, cards could be "0 damage, 1 damage, 2 damage, 1 damage and draw again" or whatever. Armour could say stuff like "ignore the highest damage card drawn" or "convert the highest damage card drawn to 1 damage", magic weapons could be "the lowest damage card drawn is converted to X" or "any 2 damage card drawn gains Stun" or whatever.
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Dec 2, 2014 11:40
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I definitely do want to play with a "Wound Track"-type system like Mini Six or True20 eventually, just to see what that's like. As well as play in a non-Fantasy campaign.
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Dec 2, 2014 11:49
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AlphaDog posted:Combining those two ideas might work pretty well for a D&D-like game. Weapons could do 1-2-3-4 cards worth of damage, cards could be "0 damage, 1 damage, 2 damage, 1 damage and draw again" or whatever. Armour could say stuff like "ignore the highest damage card drawn" or "convert the highest damage card drawn to 1 damage", magic weapons could be "the lowest damage card drawn is converted to X" or "any 2 damage card drawn gains Stun" or whatever. That's a cool idea. Some other options might be forcing opponents to redraw their "least severe" injury, or (defensively) allow you to redraw your most severe one. A big enough deck could include a small number of "critical wounds" like injuries to specific body parts, movement penalties, attribute reductions, etc. I'm actually working on a simple card-based game (using standard playing cards) where injury is handled by forcing you to discard from your hand or blindly from the top of your deck and you're taken out once you've burned through your whole deck.
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Dec 2, 2014 12:11
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