|
The issue with Star Wars is that they tend to lock up the 'fun' powers behind dark side points and make it so that using them too often is detrimental or even deadly. I'm not even talking about the rubbery face look Palpatine got. In the OGL Star Wars game, using dark side powers negatively impacted your constitution score, meaning that if you used them too much you just flat out died. In the new d20 game if you have too many dark side points you become an NPC for reasons. At least TOR tried to maintain the ability/fun parity between the factions.
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2014 19:09
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 19, 2024 22:03 |
|
|
raverrn posted:In Knights of the Old Republic using poison to kill a few hundred slaves gives you dark side points. Where in KOTOR did you get to use poison to kill slaves? I can't remember this happening. Closest would be the Korriban training room area. Unless there's some other KOTOR that isn't Bioware (probably not Obsidian's) that you're talking about?
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2014 19:20
|
|
|
The weird thing about powers in Star Wars games is that sometimes Force Lightning is a really big deal, and in other games the protagonist is Magneto with a lightsaber.
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2014 19:25
|
|
|
Davin Valkri posted:Where in KOTOR did you get to use poison to kill slaves? I can't remember this happening. Closest would be the Korriban training room area. Unless there's some other KOTOR that isn't Bioware (probably not Obsidian's) that you're talking about? They mean the MMO, and it's an Empire quest, so the light and dark side options are...relative. Basically: Sith lord gives you a quest, tells you to talk to his underling. His underling is like "Okay, the dosage he's prescribing would drag this out for weeks and cause vast amounts of unnecessary suffering. I mean, that his thing, he's a sith, and they're all cackling murder wizards. No offense. But we're under orders to get this done quickly and cleanly, so here, up the dosage, kill them without the suffering and let's get this over with, goddamn." (The Underling's real motive is that doing things his sith boss's way is killing his career, so, uh...yeah.)
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2014 19:33
|
|
|
Halloween Jack posted:The weird thing about powers in Star Wars games is that sometimes Force Lightning is a really big deal, and in other games the protagonist is Magneto with a lightsaber. Force Unleashed was pretty good about the fact that at his best Starkiller was only gray on the good/evil scale. In the first half of the game you're basically a sith lord, and in the second half of the game you're a lone man up against an army with a big old bag of force powers culminating in you yanking a super star destroyer out of orbit to destroy a foundry. The KOTOR series and TFU (at least the first TFU) were pretty big on the fact that sometimes a lesser evil can create a larger good, and good intentions can often lead to evil ends. (This is basically Kreia's whole shtick)
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2014 19:47
|
|
|
Davin Valkri posted:Where in KOTOR did you get to use poison to kill slaves? I can't remember this happening. Closest would be the Korriban training room area. Unless there's some other KOTOR that isn't Bioware (probably not Obsidian's) that you're talking about? It's actually a minor quest in the Old Republic MMO, one of the early minor quests on whatever the Sith capitol world was called. Basically a Sith Lord with a penchant for torture has developed a new toxin that should, in theory, paralyzes its victim and give them a prolonged, agonized death - something about him feeding on their pain and terror as they lay dying. You're tasked with subduing a slave rebellion and Darth Sociopath up there wants you to taint the rebelling slaves' water supplies with his toxin. You get to either tell him to stick a crankshaft up his primary exhaust and apply torque (refuse quest, which this being an MMO he'll have forgotten about the next time you talk to him), to taint the water according to plan (darkside points), or to pump ALL of the toxin into their water, with the reasoning that a) the poor folks are about to get crushed by the sith army anyhow, might as well give them a fast and peaceful end instead of torture practice, and b) the 'experiment' failing leads to Darth Sociopath scrapping that particular strain of toxin as a failure (and getting you lightside points). In-context it makes more sense in the long run, but still. Considering that in that particular game it was entirely possibly to play an 'ascended Sith' with all the light-side points while still tossing around force lightning willy-nilly and vice versa.. I'd think it's more about the intent behind the use of a power rather than the actual power itself. If you use Force Lightning to spot-weld shut a hull breach and save an orphan from suffocating, does that earn you a dark side point? Or is using Force Healing to bring a prisoner back from the edge of death, knowing it's just so he can be tortured for information later a light side act? Suppose this is the kind of stuff grognards will happily argue for YEARS about.
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2014 19:49
|
|
|
unseenlibrarian posted:They mean the MMO, and it's an Empire quest, so the light and dark side options are...relative. I remember that quest! Writing a whole society of Sith has to be one of the dumbest things in the Star Wars EU. I finally settled on explaining it to myself that the entire rest of the population was trying desperately to keep things together and clean up after whatever Sith Master wanders through and decides to murder half the popoulation to re-upholster his speeder.
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2014 19:59
|
|
|
Kurieg posted:Force Unleashed was pretty good about the fact that at his best Starkiller was only gray on the good/evil scale. In the first half of the game you're basically a sith lord, and in the second half of the game you're a lone man up against an army with a big old bag of force powers culminating in you yanking a super star destroyer out of orbit to destroy a foundry.
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2014 20:07
|
|
|
ZorajitZorajit posted:I remember that quest! Writing a whole society of Sith has to be one of the dumbest things in the Star Wars EU. I finally settled on explaining it to myself that the entire rest of the population was trying desperately to keep things together and clean up after whatever Sith Master wanders through and decides to murder half the popoulation to re-upholster his speeder. This is pretty much canon if you play an Imperial agent, who keeps having giant wrenches thrown into carefully laid secret agent plans by cackling space murder wizards and having to clean up after them. ETA: I think at one point one of your dialogue choices when dealing with a sith is literally just to sigh and not say anything. unseenlibrarian fucked around with this message at 20:16 on Jul 16, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2014 20:14
|
|
|
I think the huge problem is that the writers of these games decide because a Sith used those powers, it's automatically evil and never really thought about it any further.
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2014 20:15
|
|
|
Halloween Jack posted:I wasn't really speaking to the protagonist's morality and what that means for the setting, but rather the way Jedi power can ramp way, way up or down depending on the question "Do non-Jedi matter in this game?" I keep trying to mind-trick myself in the mirror after asking, 'How well would a Star Wars game with Ars Magica's troupe mechanics work?'
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2014 20:17
|
|
|
The best part of Dark Force powers is that IN CANON one of the Jedi Elders campaigned to have Force Lightning recognized as a not-evil use of the force. He called it Force Justice or something similarly EU.
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2014 20:18
|
|
|
unseenlibrarian posted:This is pretty much canon if you play an Imperial agent, who keeps having giant wrenches thrown into carefully laid secret agent plans by cackling space murder wizards and having to clean up after them. Lightside Imperial Agent was, far and away, the most fun I had in SWTOR.
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2014 20:21
|
|
|
Mr. Maltose posted:The best part of Dark Force powers is that IN CANON one of the Jedi Elders campaigned to have Force Lightning recognized as a not-evil use of the force. He called it Force Justice or something similarly EU. New Campaign idea: He's a cop, working undercover in a bad part of Coruscant! She's a Jedi fresh from the temple, cutting a swath through the underworld and messing up his investigation. But if they ever manage to see eye to eye, they'll be an unstoppable team. Together they'll be...FORCE JUSTICE.
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2014 20:21
|
|
|
I've played both the Star Wars MMOs and this one is really more Galaxies than KOTOR. You're supposed to play as a lovely guy that sucks. Like the book wants you to remember at all times that you aren't the star, and your character is a fragile stupid maroon in deep debt to your evil betters. Galaxies was basically a true Star Wars experience, if you wanted to start the story when Luke was 10 and spent most of his time visiting a space doctor so he would have enough buffs to punch a sand rabbit.
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2014 20:34
|
|
|
It's called Electric Judgement, Kurieg fucked around with this message at 21:05 on Jul 16, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2014 21:03
|
|
|
Robindaybird posted:I think the huge problem is that the writers of these games decide because a Sith used those powers, it's automatically evil and never really thought about it any further. The only real logic I can see in it is that lightsabers and other Force powers can be used offensively or defensively or for other things, but Force Lightning is pretty much just an offensive weapon. But Force choke?
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2014 21:11
|
|
|
Halloween Jack posted:The only real logic I can see in it is that lightsabers and other Force powers can be used offensively or defensively or for other things, but Force Lightning is pretty much just an offensive weapon. But Force choke? Force Choke is only a problem because it's specifically Choke. If it was just the ability to telekinetically push a specific body part without specifying windpipes, it'd be "Force Pressure" and you could use to perform the heimlich or CPR (or even just manually pump a heart), maintain even pressure across an uneven laceration, give massages, splint a break, shove a bullet out of a wound, and more.
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2014 21:22
|
|
|
theironjef posted:Force Choke is only a problem because it's specifically Choke. If it was just the ability to telekinetically push a specific body part without specifying windpipes, it'd be "Force Pressure" and you could use to perform the heimlich or CPR (or even just manually pump a heart), maintain even pressure across an uneven laceration, give massages, splint a break, shove a bullet out of a wound, and more. Which is incredibly dumb, because why is telekinetically choking someone a specifically evil thing?  The obvious thing to do (which none of the Star Wars games ever did) is make using the Force with intent to harm someone be "evil."
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2014 21:43
|
|
|
Kurieg posted:The KOTOR series and TFU (at least the first TFU) were pretty big on the fact that sometimes a lesser evil can create a larger good, and good intentions can often lead to evil ends. (This is basically Kreia's whole shtick) In regards to KOTOR2 at least, there are extremely few characters that can be described as good or evil or even vaguely representing either of those factions. Considering Kreia is about the most complicated character in video games and that game in particular, no, that is not her shtick. The premise of KOTOR2 is explicitly about how Light Side and Dark Side can be deep, rich and rewarding to explore and do not map almost ever to capital-letter Good and Evil. The shtick is that there is no Good or Evil only flawed people.
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2014 22:03
|
|
|
I meant that her Shtick was that Good and Evil don't always map out the way you want them to, the series of events that happen right after you hit Nar Shadda are that in a nutshell. No matter what you do she gives you a lecture because you've created a ripple that will turn into a wave.
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2014 22:56
|
|
|
This latest episode made me drag out my old copy of First Edition d6 Star Wars, and I don't know what happened between 1st and 2nd Ed, because 1st Ed d6 Star Wars is pretty drat fun. The GM advice for 1st Ed is genuinely some of the best I've read. Players are made to feel that even if they're not starting out as cool as Leia or Han, but they'll probably get there. GMs are told to not be a dickbag to players, but not to be a doormat either. Jedi PCs can get Dark Side Points, but only through using The Force for personal gain, using it out of anger, or using it to hurt/kill. There were still layout issues - the Player Section takes up about 20 pages of a book that's about 150 pages long, most of the rules are in the GM section, and most of the actual GM stuff (GM advice, adventure seeds, etc.) are in the Adventure Section. But there is a genuine love of the source material that radiates from the pages; the "ads" for The Imperial Navy, Galaxy Tours, X-Wings and R2 units are a delight to read. In short, West End Games dropped the ball so hard over the space of 9 years, they never picked it up again. I love WEG's stuff, even their Ghostbusters RPG, but I'm tempted to say that they deserved to lose the Star Wars license.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2014 00:32
|
|
|
Eldad Assarach posted:This latest episode made me drag out my old copy of First Edition d6 Star Wars, and I don't know what happened between 1st and 2nd Ed, because 1st Ed d6 Star Wars is pretty drat fun. The GM advice for 1st Ed is genuinely some of the best I've read. Players are made to feel that even if they're not starting out as cool as Leia or Han, but they'll probably get there. GMs are told to not be a dickbag to players, but not to be a doormat either. Jedi PCs can get Dark Side Points, but only through using The Force for personal gain, using it out of anger, or using it to hurt/kill. There were still layout issues - the Player Section takes up about 20 pages of a book that's about 150 pages long, most of the rules are in the GM section, and most of the actual GM stuff (GM advice, adventure seeds, etc.) are in the Adventure Section. But there is a genuine love of the source material that radiates from the pages; the "ads" for The Imperial Navy, Galaxy Tours, X-Wings and R2 units are a delight to read. I don't remember exactly what we decided on the Ghostbusters RPG, but right now I'm mostly just pleased they made one at all. As for the difference between 1st and 2nd edition, you're not the first I've heard that says it got worse. Second is unabashedly meanspirited. GMs are consistently encouraged to wrest control of PCs when they make a bad decision, to boobytrap everything so that players never seek any powerful gear (that thing with the turbolaser is crazy, the book just says "Did your party manage to scrimp cash and acquire something cool? It should break parts of their ship when they use it"). I wonder if the game fell under the sway of powerful groggos.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2014 02:20
|
|
|
My understanding is that many of the WEG Star Wars sourcebooks were so lovingly detailed and so well-regarded that they, in turn, informed what the franchise novelists were writing. Ironically, I had a lot of stuff for Masterbook, but I only played WEG Star Wars two or three times.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2014 02:51
|
|
|
The DarkStryder campaign was pretty awesome, or at least I remember it being awesome. Timothy Zahn even contributed to it so it had that going for it. The problem with WEG Star Wars was that it played more like Traveller than something akin to the later RPG adaptations. Not that there's anything wrong with Traveller but it's not what most people think of when thinking about SW action wise.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2014 04:02
|
|
|
Even the revised edition has a lot of good energy behind it. WEG just fell into the same trap so many companies do of piling on more and more fiddly bits and numbers to "fix" or "expand" options. Which can be fun, but I don't think most designers in that era put enough thought into why you should or shouldn't do such things, and that kind of approach definitely doesn't fit most expectations of Star Wars.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2014 04:19
|
|
|
Kurieg posted:I meant that her Shtick was that Good and Evil don't always map out the way you want them to, the series of events that happen right after you hit Nar Shadda are that in a nutshell. No matter what you do she gives you a lecture because you've created a ripple that will turn into a wave. Which was doubly annoying because she really bitches you out if you take the argument to its logically conclusion, namely, the only winning move is not to play. APATHY IS DEATH* *Nevermind that apathy is actually the best choice in that situation, since you get to kill all those stupid preachy force ghosts and harvest their delicious XP Vengarr fucked around with this message at 04:34 on Jul 17, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2014 04:32
|
|
|
Second edition isn't terrible, it's still basically the same system. But they added way too much cruft, making every spaceship maneuver beyond "fly in a straight line" punishingly difficult. They did finally rejigger the system to allow you to fight capital ships, though.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2014 04:44
|
|
|
Maxwell Lord posted:Second edition isn't terrible, it's still basically the same system. But they added way too much cruft, making every spaceship maneuver beyond "fly in a straight line" punishingly difficult. Oh it's very playable, for certain. The book is moralizing and fosters an antagonistic relationship between the GM and the players, which is nearly the worst tone a book can take to keep my interest. Much like a lot of the books I read, I could see stripping it of tone and cruft, and getting a decent, playable system. It's certainly not a completely unsalvagable mess like Haven or Star Fleet.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2014 05:27
|
|
|
Kurieg posted:Well, in the d20 Star wars games, using force lightning to electrocute someone, even a little bit, is a dark side act. Using ignite to burn someone alive from the inside out is not. I played that game once as a Force Adept who thought of the Force as a bunch of insane and meaningless taboos he had to appease to please the spirits and let them use his powers, and so I played every loophole I could about stuff like 'If I throw a dude with the Force, Dark Side Point. If I throw a CAR at him with the Force, more damage, no Dark Side Point.'
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2014 05:49
|
|
|
I remember playing some version of d6 Star Wars a couple times about ten years ago and just found the wild die to be an awful idea. Having three options that the GM can choose from with no rhyme or reason was annoying enough, but our GM wasn't even creative enough to come up with extra complications so it was just Drop Highest every time. A 1/3 chance of your rolls being maybe great or complete garbage just seems really swingy and hard to plan around. Not the most fun we had with a game.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2014 08:15
|
|
|
Vengarr posted:Which was doubly annoying because she really bitches you out if you take the argument to its logically conclusion, namely, the only winning move is not to play. It might be that she's trying to get you to think about your actions before doing anything because of your disproportionate effect on people due to being a walking hole in the spiritual fabric of reality. Or it could be that her own philosophy isn't all that well thought out, considering that after her end game of "Drag you in front of the Jedi Council and point at you emphatically while screaming 'SEE! SEE!' " doesn't work she decides to destroy the universe. Kurieg fucked around with this message at 08:24 on Jul 17, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2014 08:22
|
|
|
I liked the idea of the wild die, in theory. I pretty much always like when a system has some stupid thing that adds to rolling so as to make it more interesting. That said, the whole thing was just poorly thought out. If it was "On a 1, there is some added complication to the action" then that would be awesome. It's the fact that they were like "Maybe don't do anything at all or maybe totally gently caress your players in the rear end! Whatever!" that made the Wild Die a terrible idea.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2014 08:23
|
|
|
RocknRollaAyatollah posted:The problem with WEG Star Wars was that it played more like Traveller than something akin to the later RPG adaptations. Not that there's anything wrong with Traveller but it's not what most people think of when thinking about SW action wise. I GMd a lot of 1e WEG Star Wars. I found it to be at its best when I was pushing some straight up Cold War espionage poo poo with real-world fieldcraft like dead drops, one time pads, and other cool spy poo poo. I set the game before the first movie so everyone knew there was a really juicy espionage target out there, and that everyone would likely die if they really got deep into things. Some of them had lightsabers, we had fun. For the occasionally single PC session I played it like James Bond, more action, lots of chases, plenty of chances to spend your force points. It's all in what you do with the setting, not the system.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2014 08:32
|
|
|
Grnegsnspm posted:I liked the idea of the wild die, in theory. I pretty much always like when a system has some stupid thing that adds to rolling so as to make it more interesting. That said, the whole thing was just poorly thought out. If it was "On a 1, there is some added complication to the action" then that would be awesome. It's the fact that they were like "Maybe don't do anything at all or maybe totally gently caress your players in the rear end! Whatever!" that made the Wild Die a terrible idea. I'm running a D6 Star Wars campaign and I treat a 1 on the Wild Die like Threat in EotE and a 6 on it like Advantage. It's worked out quite well.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2014 09:23
|
|
|
mllaneza posted:I GMd a lot of 1e WEG Star Wars. I found it to be at its best when I was pushing some straight up Cold War espionage poo poo with real-world fieldcraft like dead drops, one time pads, and other cool spy poo poo. I set the game before the first movie so everyone knew there was a really juicy espionage target out there, and that everyone would likely die if they really got deep into things. Some of them had lightsabers, we had fun. For the occasionally single PC session I played it like James Bond, more action, lots of chases, plenty of chances to spend your force points. That's all true and a good strategy but it doesn't address the main issue. The problem is that in 1998, when there is only one Star Wars system, 12 year old me would rather play a system that allowed for something similar to the EU novels and comics I was reading. You shouldn't have to reinterpret a game setting to make up for the mechanics of the game not really meshing with the setting. The mechanics are supposed to exist for the setting, not the other way around. It's very much a product of the 1980's.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2014 13:31
|
|
|
RocknRollaAyatollah posted:That's all true and a good strategy but it doesn't address the main issue. The problem is that in 1998, when there is only one Star Wars system, 12 year old me would rather play a system that allowed for something similar to the EU novels and comics I was reading. You shouldn't have to reinterpret a game setting to make up for the mechanics of the game not really meshing with the setting. The mechanics are supposed to exist for the setting, not the other way around. It's very much a product of the 1980's. We touch on that in the podcast a bit, but basically yeah. If you look at the skills it gives a strong impression that this is supposed to be a long-form game of space truckers punctuated with occasional combat, since the book goes on and on about how easy it is to damage ships and ship repair times are ludicrous. I guess maybe the GM is supposed to say things like "well your hyperdrive is busted so you're stuck on Nar Shaddaa until you do this adventure I wrote" but that'd be just a narrative trick baked into the skill system. Which means your character that wants to fix hyperdrives like in the movie (by pleading with them and hitting the ship) is accidentally buying a level in "DM fish hook." Of course I also hate games where you take months to heal injuries. I like abstracted simple quick healing because I like the whole party being present during adventures and I am fully aware that puts me on one side of some sort of ideological RPG train tracks.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2014 15:06
|
|
|
I think it's akin to the 'problem' with D&D: determining exactly what kind of world the game is intended to evoke. Luke starts off farming water on a dustball, Han is a scummy bastard, and it isn't until Leia's message in a walking bottle arrives that they move beyond that. It isn't totally unreasonable to assume that without that boost into the frankly magical realms of the setting, they'd have stayed in that mundane frame. And that fits with older style, hardscrabble gaming. Personally, I think it's bullshit. As much as I'm not a fan of Campbell, Luke and the others follow a clear Hero's Journey arc, and for my money the focus is on the fantasy heroics. Sure, Mos Eisley is a shithole, but then you've got places like Cloud City... which, okay, wasn't a whole lot nicer when you got past the shiny surface. The focus was still on adventure, and sticking a thumb in the eye of evil, not praying that you don't flub your docking roll, and getting hassled by Hutt legbreakers while your hold's being loaded with tibanna. Not that there isn't room for that style of play, but it's pretty weird when the rules as written seem to sidestep the tone of the source material.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2014 18:11
|
|
|
Bieeardo posted:I think it's akin to the 'problem' with D&D: determining exactly what kind of world the game is intended to evoke. Luke starts off farming water on a dustball, Han is a scummy bastard, and it isn't until Leia's message in a walking bottle arrives that they move beyond that. It isn't totally unreasonable to assume that without that boost into the frankly magical realms of the setting, they'd have stayed in that mundane frame. And that fits with older style, hardscrabble gaming. My favorite scene in Star Wars is when Obi-Wan draws his lightsaber to show Luke, rolls a 1 on the wild die, cuts his hand real bad, and has to stay home for two weeks before they leave the planet, and after two weeks he rolls to see if he gets better but instead it gets infected and he falls into a coma. Luke tries to help by using the force to convince a prejudiced old doctor that Old Ben in the desert needs help, but then Luke earned a Dark Side point and choked the doctor to death. Then on his way back with a medpack, his landspeeder busted a repulsor coil and Luke got stuck in Mos Eisley for a few weeks trying to fix it. Wait, now that I think about it, that just sounds like Star Wars: The Easy Rider, and I'm on board.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2014 18:18
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 19, 2024 22:03 |
|
|
theironjef posted:We touch on that in the podcast a bit, but basically yeah. If you look at the skills it gives a strong impression that this is supposed to be a long-form game of space truckers punctuated with occasional combat, since the book goes on and on about how easy it is to damage ships and ship repair times are ludicrous. I guess maybe the GM is supposed to say things like "well your hyperdrive is busted so you're stuck on Nar Shaddaa until you do this adventure I wrote" but that'd be just a narrative trick baked into the skill system. Which means your character that wants to fix hyperdrives like in the movie (by pleading with them and hitting the ship) is accidentally buying a level in "DM fish hook." Mostly it's the question of consequences or not, really. Some people feel it's no fun if there are never any consequences for their actions and/or failures. The problem, as I see it, comes when the system itself tries to enforce that with static rules like that especially in regards to actions that are not choice based. It's one thing for the GM to assign me a penalty of being captured and roughed up a bit by a gang of thugs when I decide to be crazy and try some one-man-army stuff on them but don't quite succeed. I chose to do that dangerous and silly thing, and as long as the result of my capture isn't something horrific (they amputate your character's legs and/or you now have these permanent stat penalties from trauma) I'm totally cool with it. But if you're talking about mandatory healing times from all damage, your avoidance of which is down to luck during the fight or trying to just avoid a fight completely which you can't always do. That's not a choice and its not even really interesting as a consequence. Mandatory consequences are a lot better when they're worked into the system more fluidly, like your Encroachment in Double Cross: it raises just from being present in scenes, and incrementally through your actions in combat with the consequence being that if it's too high your character goes crazy and becomes an NPC enemy. It works, though, because that determination comes at the end of story no matter how high you drive your Encroachment so you're never actually denied from playing your character. Even better, you've got the release mechanic coupled with experience bonuses for managing to cut it closer to the character loss limit without going over. Hell, the rules even have a safety valve if you really like your character and don't want to lose them by allowing you to give up all the XP in order to reset your Encroachment to base. It's complex, interesting and also has some really cool interplays with the actual role-playing of your character. LornMarkus fucked around with this message at 18:27 on Jul 17, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2014 18:24
|
|
