Kai Tave posted:

On the one hand having a skill called "Murder" was kind of cute, but on the other hand I was never fully satisfied trying to differentiate between three different skills for hurting other people and where one skill left off and another began, so I can't say I'm too sorry to see the skill list consolidated.

QuantumNinja posted:

Every time I see this game, I get a little more convinced that John Harper doesn't know what game he wants to make. The system doesn't seem to be strictly improving, just getting increasingly dissimilar from where he started. (I typed out a long list of what I meant, but posting them here where John can't see them probably isn't very effective other than just complaining. So I posted several of them on the G+ group instead.)

SilverMike posted:

Check the descriptions for those; Attune seems spirit-oriented, Invoke is more general purpose occult-oriented. Given that spirits are prevalent in the setting, I'm alright with the split. But I wouldn't cry over them being consolidated if room's needed for another skill.

Cyphoderus posted:

I kind of agree with you. Would you mind posting a link to the G+ thread? I'm interested in seeing where it goes.

quote:

1. Vice. The mechanic for vice and stress recovery has changed. Vice is more of an issue now and can be fraught with trouble. Players now have a reason to let stress build up a bit higher (so they don't overindulge) but also, ignoring your vice has a bad consequence. It's a tough line to walk, better reflecting the problematic nature of vices. See page 19.

2. Coin value.The scale of value for coin has been tweaked slightly. Each character can now hold 4 coin instead of just 2. See page 20.

3. Engagement Roll. I've rewritten the outcomes of this roll to make it more interesting in play.

4. Tier, Rep, and Hold. I've revised these systems a bit to make them clearer, more strongly connected to fictional positioning, and a bit simpler to track.

5. Resistance.When you decide to resist a consequence and roll the dice, you must suffer the stress indicated. You can't roll first and see how much stress you'll take, then decide whether or not to resist. You decide to either accept the consequence or roll to resist and then suffer the stress.

6. Trauma.When a character suffers trauma, you choose a permanent trauma condition to add to your character. These conditions affect how your character thinks and behaves, reflecting how they've changed because of the traumatic experiences they've had. When you roleplay your trauma conditions, you earn xp for your character.

7. Bonus Die.There is only one available bonus die for rolls now. You either push yourself (taking 2 stress) or you accept a devil's bargain. This simplifies the dice rolling procedure slightly so there are fewer steps and choices. Characters can still help each other, using the assist teamwork action. Instead of a bonus die, assistance now improves the position of the assisted character. See page 17.

8. Character Sheets.All of the character sheets and the Crew sheet have been tweaked to reflect the new rules. Time to print again.

Golden Bee posted:

For as fawning as the first post is, this game seems to have stalled out both in forum interest and mechanical efficiency. This is version 3 of wildly revising the core mechanics, right?

homullus posted:

If I had known the rules would be changing this many times and going this far from what was available in the KS, I wouldn't have backed it.

Fenarisk posted:

Realistically, the die rolling mechanic has gotten simpler, skills got better, and overall stuff has been added (like tier, holds, turf, etc), which are good. The only thing I don't like are how stress and consequences are done now, and I have a feeling they might get changed back or cleaned up anyway.

Galaga Galaxian posted:

New version of the Quickstart, v4. Also, the game is definitely "behind schedule" and not going to make the original November 2015 estimate. No big deal, IMO, its progressing very well.

quote:

The rules are finished! That's right, version 5 is the final iteration of the core mechanics. Nothing significant will change going forward (maybe just a number here or there if we find an error). If you've been waiting for the rules to stabilize before you start playing with the Early Access PDF, your wait is over.

quote:

Are you ready for this? The rules are finished! That's right, version 5 is the final iteration of the core mechanics. Nothing significant will change going forward (maybe just a number here or there if we find an error). If you've been waiting for the rules to stabilize before you start playing with the Early Access PDF, your wait is over.

quote:

VERSION 5 CHANGELOG
Most Changes in this PDF update are in dark red text.
1. Healing Rules! I've fleshed out the healing rules on their own page and provided an example of their use. See page 21.
2. Going to War. At -3 faction status, you're at war. This results in several difficulties, detailed on page 14and also summarized on the faction status tracking sheet.
3. New Entanglement: Flipped. Sometimes your allies switch sides. See page 30.
4. Te amwor k. I've rewritten the Assist and Set-Up maneuvers to improve their use in play. See page 17.
5. Vice. You now may choose what your character does when they overindulgetheir vice. See page 19.
6. Resistance Roll. When you roll a criticalon resistance, you clear 1 stress.
7. The Slide. I re-wrote several of the Slide's special abilities to make the playbook a bit cooler. See page 36.
8. The Cutter, The Lurkand The Houndhad a few special abilities tweaked and shuffled around. If you have a player who is already playing one of these, they can keep any shuffled abilities they already have as veteran advances.
9. The Spider. New PC playbook! The Spider is a devious mastermind. See page 37.
10. The Ghost. New PC playbook! What happens to you when you die? See page 52.
11. Extra Crew Sheets. I've added the Breakers, Cult, Hawkers, and Smugglers in this update. Also, all crews now start with a free training upgrade.
12. Crew Advancement. I tweaked advancement a bit as well as the cost of some crew upgrades. When you advance, you get either a special ability or two crew upgrades. See page 18.

Evil Mastermind posted:

For people who missed the kickstarter, John just put the current draft up on DriveThru, which will be updated up to and including the final version.

Apocalypse World, p. 268 posted:

Here’s a custom threat move. People new to the game occasionally ask me for this one. It’s general, it modifies nearly very other move:

Things are tough. Whenever a players’ character makes a move, the MC judges it normal, difficult, or crazy difficult. If it’s difficult, the player takes -1 to the roll. If it’s crazy difficult, the player takes -2 to the roll.

Several groups in playtest wanted this move or one like it. All of them abandoned it after only one session. It didn’t add anything fun to the game, but did add a little hassle to every single move. So it’s a legal custom move, of course, and you can try it if you like, but I wouldn’t expect you to stick with it.

Harrow posted:

I just picked up the early access version on DriveThruRPG and I really like what I'm seeing, though I don't have much to base it on. I'm actually interested in your critiques, QuantumNinja, because I'm considering hacking this for use in a very different setting/time period and I'm wondering what you'd have done differently, or what previous versions did better.

Fenarisk posted:

In a few months all the stretch goal hacks are coming out, so look for those. Some of the notable ones are cyberpunk and I think a pirate one. There's also a dungeon crawling adventuring company one but we will see how that goes.

Harrow posted:

I just picked up the early access version on DriveThruRPG and I really like what I'm seeing, though I don't have much to base it on. I'm actually interested in your critiques, QuantumNinja, because I'm considering hacking this for use in a very different setting/time period and I'm wondering what you'd have done differently, or what previous versions did better.

QuantumNinja posted:

I think my post summed it up: there is a ton of complexity where there could be none, and a lack of complexity where some could help. I feel like the entire core mechanic could be replaced with a pair of d8s, for example. Other examples include four tracks for health, 30 factions to keep track of as a GM (even just 1/3 would be annoying to do clocks for), a two-axis system for GMs specifying how rolls might go (fixed in previous versions!), 12 attributes (more than Shadowrun), an under-specified GM clock economy ("add some ticks, or don't, or whatever, when some rolls <5"), and flat itemization.

More importantly, all of these congeal into 5-7 complicated subsystems. Maybe these are excusable, individually, since none is unlivable. But together, I can only ask: "Why?"

While the first release was a half-complete game with a narrative-first promise and some middling problems, the latest is full of bloated subsystems that decries that promise. I mean, think about this: we have four tracks for health, but each of the three dozen items gets a single-sentence description, all crammed on a single page. Like I said, it's bloated in some ways and spartan in others. At the end of all of that, I gotta ask: "Why? Why all of this complexity where I shouldn't care, and none of it I might?"

As such, it's left a bad taste in my mouth.

QuantumNinja posted:

I think my post summed it up: there is a ton of complexity where there could be none, and a lack of complexity where some could help. I feel like the entire core mechanic could be replaced with a pair of d8s, for example. Other examples include four tracks for health, 30 factions to keep track of as a GM (even just 1/3 would be annoying to do clocks for), a two-axis system for GMs specifying how rolls might go (fixed in previous versions!), 12 attributes (more than Shadowrun), an under-specified GM clock economy ("add some ticks, or don't, or whatever, when some rolls <5"), and flat itemization.

More importantly, all of these congeal into 5-7 complicated subsystems. Maybe these are excusable, individually, since none is unlivable. But together, I can only ask: "Why?"

While the first release was a half-complete game with a narrative-first promise and some middling problems, the latest is full of bloated subsystems that decries that promise. I mean, think about this: we have four tracks for health, but each of the three dozen items gets a single-sentence description, all crammed on a single page. Like I said, it's bloated in some ways and spartan in others. At the end of all of that, I gotta ask: "Why? Why all of this complexity where I shouldn't care, and none of it I might?"

As such, it's left a bad taste in my mouth.

Harrow posted:

Fenarisk posted:

I feel like the factions are there as a complete list, and groups can pick what they want out of it, using as many or as few as they want. This is basically the setting book as well so it makes sense.

Four tracks for "health" isn't bad in my mind, as stress and harm are the ones that'll change a bit, and trauma and vice are long term and not often changing.

QuantumNinja posted:

Yo I didn't say it was a bad system. There's a ton of cool poo poo, like I said in my first post about the fifth revision. But you wanted my complaints, so I trotted them out. Basically, I think it could be a lot better, and I'm sad about it.