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Kai Tave posted:Well I suppose you could argue that as a character rises in personal skill and capability that it gives them more of an opportunity to say "screw carefully aiming and single-shotting all the time, I need to move over thataway and shoot as many rounds as I can at that rear end in a top hat" and still maintain a reasonable chance for success. Though that players and group are likely to consider a reasonable chance for success is one of those things where you ask ten different people and get eleven different answers. Also something that really requires a GM to talk to his players, and for the RPG to be coherent. Rogue Trader, for instance, bills itself as more high-power than DH, and all the characters are described as experienced and capable, but the actual mechanics mean that they'll gently caress up everything they do at least one in two times at chargen, if not more often, like a bunch of stupid bumblefucks, and also that several of the character types have Intelligence as one of their hardest-to-advance stats while having basically only Intelligence skills available at chargen. If the players read the fluff more than the mechanics, they might expect to be reasonably badass, which will be a nasty surprise to them if the GM mostly looks at the numbers and runs things by RAW, because their first fight can pretty easily be their last.
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Oct 10, 2014 05:46
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Kai Tave posted:Well I suppose you could argue that as a character rises in personal skill and capability that it gives them more of an opportunity to say "screw carefully aiming and single-shotting all the time, I need to move over thataway and shoot as many rounds as I can at that rear end in a top hat" and still maintain a reasonable chance for success. Though that players and group are likely to consider a reasonable chance for success is one of those things where you ask ten different people and get eleven different answers. Well, given the core idea is that you're supposed to be an Inquisitor's elite (or at least on the fast track), it's pretty embarrassing to keep missing early on.
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Oct 10, 2014 05:53
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What's all this poo poo about aiming? Back in the DH1e days, it was all full auto, all the goddamn time. +20 to hit from that, +10 from Close Range (and in any reasonable sized room you'll probably be close range) and suddenly that 35% BS is a 65% and every 10 under you get an extra gravy hit. That was before they wised up and made Full Auto -10% to hit instead of Literally The Best Combat Action Besides Maybe Aim And Fire An Accurate Rifle.
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Oct 10, 2014 06:09
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Evil Mastermind posted:Well, given the core idea is that you're supposed to be an Inquisitor's elite (or at least on the fast track), it's pretty embarrassing to keep missing early on. One of the biggest disconnects with 1E Dark Heresy was GW promoting it as "Like Eisenhorn, the novel series about badass Inquisitorial agents!" and then Black Library basically making ratcatchers in space. I don't think the game itself actually bills characters as elite badasses, it's pretty clear in a few places that the Inquisitor may basically be using you as a passel of coal-mine canaries, it's just that the way GW pitched it got people psyched for something other than what the game as produced was angling towards. So I don't think that issue is solely the game's to own. Also, characters always seeming to fumble and fail all the time seems to be an issue with d100 systems in general where there's no bell curve and even an expert doctor with Surgery 80% is still cutting the wrong leg off one time in five whenever he has to roll for it. Like, Unknown Armies is generally regarded as a pretty decent implementation of a percentile based system and a big part of the advice it gives you boils down to "don't actually roll unless it's a stressful situation." Of course combat is always stressful, so.
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Oct 10, 2014 06:12
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Kai Tave posted:Also, characters always seeming to fumble and fail all the time seems to be an issue with d100 systems in general where there's no bell curve and even an expert doctor with Surgery 80% is still cutting the wrong leg off one time in five whenever he has to roll for it. Like, Unknown Armies is generally regarded as a pretty decent implementation of a percentile based system and a big part of the advice it gives you boils down to "don't actually roll unless it's a stressful situation." Of course combat is always stressful, so. The problem with that implementation is that, in my entirely anecdotal experience with GM's, most GM's will err on the side of more rolls, rather than less, no matter what the system. A system that only works when GM fiat uses the system less is expecting a lot from its users.
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Oct 10, 2014 06:18
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Yeah, that was more or less my point. "This system works best when you interact with it as little as possible" isn't really a ringing endorsement. I think some of the 40K games' "whiff factor" may not be solely attributable to the characters being a bunch of scrubs so much as the fundamental resolution system being one where, like with the d20 system, results are linear rather than having any sort of distribution curve.
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Oct 10, 2014 06:30
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Mors Rattus posted:I picked up the Tau book they released for it and was super disappointed. Put in Earth caste too and you could have an entire ship full of space commies. Maybe Kroot and the occasional human. A Tau Colony Ship adventure game would be pretty fun, actually.
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Oct 10, 2014 06:37
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PurpleXVI posted:The problem with that implementation is that, in my entirely anecdotal experience with GM's, most GM's will err on the side of more rolls, rather than less, no matter what the system. A system that only works when GM fiat uses the system less is expecting a lot from its users. Don't forget that like WHFRP2E, a lot of the written adventures are full of 'The players must roll at -10 to find the clue!' with little suggestion of what to do if they all blow that roll, which in turn convinces DMs that's what you're supposed to do.
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Oct 10, 2014 06:56
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The Sin of Onan posted:Put in Earth caste too and you could have an entire ship full of space commies. Maybe Kroot and the occasional human. A Tau Colony Ship adventure game would be pretty fun, actually. Well you're also gonna want a Vespid and an Ethereal on that team. Heck why not toss in a demiurg.
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Oct 10, 2014 06:58
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theironjef posted:Well you're also gonna want a Vespid and an Ethereal on that team. Heck why not toss in a demiurg. And then it just needs an Ork Freebooter riding a Looted Carnifex, with his sidekick: a Necron wearing a top hat and flamboyant moustache, and you've rounded out the team.
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Oct 10, 2014 09:53
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Of course, the problem with full auto having a penalty as opposed to a bonus for going full auto is that there is no reason to ever use it. I mean, if you've got a WS of around 40 (high for a starting character; not so much for a combat monkey with a few advances), then you'll hit with two shots out of five when firing single shot, without aiming. If you fire full auto, you're trading two shots in five for less than one in three to hit at all, and only one in five to hit with a second shot. This also translates to the threat an enemy poses - assuming all else is equal, a gang of mooks with stub pistols is more dangerous than a gang of mooks with autoguns who fire on full auto, even if the mooks with pistols never take aim actions. Don't get me wrong, I know that firing on full auto being objectively the best way to fight was pretty dumb (unless ammo is hard to come by, in which case that can be a useful limiting factor). But so is making it objectively the worst way to fight. How to balance it better? No idea; that's why I'm not a game designer.
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Oct 10, 2014 11:35
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I liked the way full auto was handled with Unknown Armies. Single fire: d100 firearms skill check. Roll under your skill and it hits. Your percentile dice is also your damage; roll a 17 and you do 17 damage (Humans have between 40 and 70 hit points). Full auto weapons: Choose 3 shot burst, or hold the trigger down. A 3 shot burst gives you a +10% Firearms shift. Blazing away gives you a +40% Firearms shift, but you need a minimum roll of 20. It also costs 10 shots (of ammo), and automatically qualifies as suppressive fire (-10% skill shift to all people in field of fire). Either way, ignore maximum damage. Your damage is what you roll. Weapons had a damage cap, based on the caliber and type of firearm, so full auto with an Uzi, which usually has a damage cap of 50, and enough skill, could mean a one-shot kill to whomever you aim it at. It's a bit easier to hit and there is the potential for more damage, but full auto is liable to use all your ammo in one go. Full auto weapons are also pretty rare in the setting - if you're looking for a more military oriented game with everyone packing large automatic weapons and no ammo restrictions, then full auto is still the way to go. Here's the reference sheet: http://www.geocities.ws/pbrennan42/uacombat_v2.pdf
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Oct 10, 2014 12:37
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In practice, with all the other sources of bonus and the fact that later line characters tend to be much more accurate by default, full auto still ends up being a great idea much of the time, especially as you want multiple hits to overcome their Dodge whenever possible since dodgetanking becomes one of the only effective kinds of tanking unless you're a Marine (and even then, a Lascannon will still generally vaporize you).
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Oct 10, 2014 13:54
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Kai Tave posted:Also, characters always seeming to fumble and fail all the time seems to be an issue with d100 systems in general where there's no bell curve and even an expert doctor with Surgery 80% is still cutting the wrong leg off one time in five whenever he has to roll for it. It's amazing. I've played 40k RPGs like five times and I've never seen so many 90+'s rolled in my life. It's like our dice knew.
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Oct 10, 2014 14:29
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One thing I've been curious about is the Squad Mode from Deathwatch. It seemed like an extra fiddly bit, but was it actually worth using? I'm only asking because I never got around to actually playing Deathwatch. 
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Oct 10, 2014 14:39
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Evil Mastermind posted:It's amazing. I've played 40k RPGs like five times and I've never seen so many 90+'s rolled in my life. It's like our dice knew. In the Rogue Trader game I play in, we almost had the game die on the second session because no one wanted to deal with the cursed dice any longer. Out of some 20-ish rolls, 18 were failures, and three of them 100-critfails.
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Oct 10, 2014 15:49
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PurpleXVI posted:Not sure how kosher it is to call dibs on RPG's, here, but I foolishly promised a friend that I'd review this loving thing if it got funded, once it got published, and it got funded. Oh boy. I should note that me, Jason Sartin, and David Giles are also going to team up to review it when it comes out. I think that we shall not be sparing. That being said, I'm still very interested to see your take on it as well. 
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Oct 10, 2014 16:52
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Kai Tave posted:Also, characters always seeming to fumble and fail all the time seems to be an issue with d100 systems in general where there's no bell curve and even an expert doctor with Surgery 80% is still cutting the wrong leg off one time in five whenever he has to roll for it. Like, Unknown Armies is generally regarded as a pretty decent implementation of a percentile based system and a big part of the advice it gives you boils down to "don't actually roll unless it's a stressful situation." Of course combat is always stressful, so. Kai Tave posted:I think some of the 40K games' "whiff factor" may not be solely attributable to the characters being a bunch of scrubs so much as the fundamental resolution system being one where, like with the d20 system, results are linear rather than having any sort of distribution curve. Night10194 posted:Don't forget that like WHFRP2E, a lot of the written adventures are full of 'The players must roll at -10 to find the clue!' with little suggestion of what to do if they all blow that roll, which in turn convinces DMs that's what you're supposed to do. Kai Tave posted:As to the second point, kinda sorta maybe not really. Nothing you purchase, either gear-wise or talent-wise, is exactly going to radically shift your combat paradigm. Some stuff can change how you approach things...there's a talent that lets you fire heavy weapons without bracing them first which obviously improves your ability to remain mobile while using support weapons, the talent that lets you stand up for free seems kind of pedestrian but since being prone makes you harder to shoot it gives you the ability to play an actual Prone Shooter, etc., but in general it's not that much more tactical than any other RPG in that regard. Playing D&D 4e has kind-of ruined me on playing games with complex rules where the rules aren't a fun experience in their own right.
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Oct 10, 2014 17:29
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Halloween Jack posted:All the Warhammer games are hosed when it comes to odds of success because the designers (in WFR2e, at least) didn't really know what they wanted them to be. Everyone I know who runs and enjoys Warhammer Fantasy assumes that a standard, unmodified roll represents being under fire or in lovely circumstances--otherwise, if you have the skill, you can do it under normal conditions. But the textual example of a skill roll, if I remember right, penalizes a guy using the Sneak skill because it's dark, and the skill system generally encourages the GM to throw around penalties for minor bullshit. The 40K games categorize a skill roll at +0 (that is, no bonus or penalty, just a flat roll against your base skill) as "Challenging," so the implication is there that rolling against an unmodified skill DC represents something that's an actual challenge as opposed to the expected baseline but at the same time the games (to the best of my knowledge) don't have any sort of "Outside of stressful situations assume characters can simply automatically succeed at the skills their trained in" provision. Also the listed example modifiers given for each skill can be all over the place in terms of how reasonable they are. Halloween Jack posted:Shadowrun and 40kRP seem similar to me in that your combat options only matter before combat--you decide to specialize in ranged vs. melee, in Shadowrun you make a tradeoff between concealability and stopping power, etc. Once combat starts, you want to hit first, hit repeatedly, with your most powerful weapon that uses your highest combat skill. To be fair you've just described like 98% of all RPGs and a huge swathe of other games as well.
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Oct 10, 2014 22:03
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Halloween Jack posted:But the textual example of a skill roll, if I remember right, penalizes a guy using the Sneak skill because it's dark, and the skill system generally encourages the GM to throw around penalties for minor bullshit. That's bad but nothing yet has beaten the Haven system where art identification became more difficult as a factor of how singular or well known the piece was. Way way easier to identify a random Rothko than the Mona Lisa. His thinking was that the Mona Lisa is more vauable so it's probably "harder."
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Oct 10, 2014 22:16
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theironjef posted:That's bad but nothing yet has beaten the Haven system where art identification became more difficult as a factor of how singular or well known the piece was. Way way easier to identify a random Rothko than the Mona Lisa. His thinking was that the Mona Lisa is more vauable so it's probably "harder." Or for creatures, in D&D 3.5 the DC to identify a creature is based on its HD. So creatures from another plane of existence can be easier to identify than an Elephant.
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Oct 10, 2014 22:32
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Torchbearer Episode 2: The Quest for More Money Character Terminology This is a long and boring section that defines the areas of the character sheet. This section works a lot better if you have a character sheet to refer to, but because of  you're going to have to deal. In addition to the standard array of Name: Stock: (race, but less racisms) Class: Age: Level: goes from 1 to 5 for right now Alignment: Law (I don't lie, follow the rules, and have a stick up my butt), Chaos (screw the rules, I'm too awesome) and Unaligned (I don't care) you have fun stuff like Home: (this has a game effect) Raiment: a one sentence description of a notable piece of clothing Parents: (also has a game effect) Mentor: (This matters too?!?!) Friend: (it's good to have friends, and they provide game benefits as well!) Enemy: (more mechanical stuff?) Allies and Enemies: no game effect here, but a way to keep track of friends and foes. And even more fun stuff like Belief: A short driving philosophy. Following your beliefs is how you level up Goal: This is your current mission, you get to choose it, and if you accomplish it, you'll earn points towards leveling up Instinct: This is an action oriented macro, unique to your character. For example, “If I'm in trouble, I draw my sword” or “I always double-check locks for traps” or “Never trust an elf.” Instincts have a bunch of really neat benefits, including earning points towards leveling up, allowing for “free” rolls of the dice, and creating hilarious situations. Traits: These are sort of like aspects in FATE core, in that they help (and hurt) your character and help to describe them. Unlike FATE, the range of traits is a little bit smaller (so Courageous is ok, but Last Survivor of the Wu Tang Clan is not). You need to use your traits to get “checks,” which allow you to recover when you rest. No more 15 minute adventuring day!  I wonder what that was? Anyway, we've got some bookkeeping stuff Fatigue and Recovery Factors: Heavy armor, spell casting, and carrying lots of loot will tucker you out, making it harder to recover from fatigue Rewards: the points your earn from your beliefs and goals go here. You spend them sorta like fate points, and after you spend so many, you get a level up! Inventory: the complete list of everything you are carrying, organized by where. Each item takes up 1 or more slots. Your belt, for example, has a pouch holding 1 thing, a sheath for your weapon, and a skin for water or wine, while your backpack (if you have one) has just 6 slots to use however you want, and if you want to carry something else, you have to find space for it Level Benefits: Every time you level up, you write down what you get here. Level 1 characters have 1 benefit Spells and Prayers: You memorized spells and prayers. You also have a traveling spell book, which holds 5 levels of spells. These are all the spells you can refresh in a dungeon. A Lifestyle Tracker: If you survive to get back to town, this keeps track of the money you're spending, so you can settle up (or try to dodge your creditors) before you head back to the wilds Armor rules, Camp Procedure, and lots of text that will get explained again later  After that silly interruption, the the math stuff: Conditions: This is your “HP” tracker. Rather than keeping track of points, you have a “ladder of woe” starting with Fresh -> Hungry and Thirsty -> Angry -> Afraid -> Exhausted-> Injured -> Sick -> Dead As you go through your adventure, you will tend to accumulate these. Another important point is that it's not a strict “ladder” in that you can have any combination of them, and they all apply (so you can be Angry and Injured, but not Afraid nor Exhausted nor Hungry and Thirsty). Each rung has problems associated with it, and getting better requires resting and spending a “check” Abilities- You have four “stats,” Health, Will, Nature and Might Health is how healthy and strong you are. It goes from 1 to 6, Will is how mentally strong you are. It too goes from 1 to 6 Nature is very neat. It's a measure of how “Xly” you are, where X is your stock. It goes from 0 to 7 (both 0 and 7 will shortly spell the end for your fortune-seeking adventurer) and it is both rolled and spent over the course of the game. A dwarf, for example, has a nature with the descriptors of “Delving, Crafting, and Avenging a Grudge.” Early on, you're going to rely on your nature a lot. Might is your place in the great chain of being. Wait, no. It's your place in the food chain. There are limits to the kinds of conflicts you can fight with creatures above you in the order of might. For example, an adventurer (Might 3) can try to kill an owlbear (Might 4), but trying to kill an ogre (Might 5) is a little outside your reach (but you can drive it off). However, if the ogre tries to kill you and you stand your ground, they're putting their own life at risk! I'll talk about this more when we get to combat. You also have your Wises (knowledge skills) and Skills (other skills).  In case you haven't guessed, we're going to be building both a halfling and a warrior, because this lets us show off some fun fight stuff.  Our Halfling will be named Mr. Tumnus Our Fighter will be named Bradamante For next time, we need the following things:
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Oct 11, 2014 04:26
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? Torchbearer clamps down on their character sheets?
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Oct 11, 2014 04:32
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They don't have them linked directly for all to download; you have to "buy" them for $0 from the Burning Wheel webstore or DriveThruRPG. Seems odd, but there you have it.
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Oct 11, 2014 04:37
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theironjef posted:Haven ...City of Violence.
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Oct 11, 2014 06:09
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Evil Mastermind posted:...City of Violence. ...Terror is never far behind.
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Oct 11, 2014 11:44
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Yeah, the way Haven based every single skill roll on D&D 3e monster identification checks was hilarious, but I'm still going to say that Don't Look Back: Fat Knife Clowns are Never Far Behind is worse, because even after you explained it to me in detail I don't understand the basic mechanic. By the by, the new season of American Horror Story prominently features a fat knife clown. Maybe they were just ahead of their time.
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Oct 11, 2014 12:52
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Which one of you did Numenara? Because they made an... interesting supplement earlier this year. (Seriously, this thread could survive for a year just of the stuff that comes up when you search Adult Content on DTRPG)
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Oct 11, 2014 17:03
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Kavak posted:Which one of you did Numenara? Because they made an... interesting supplement earlier this year.
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Oct 11, 2014 17:07
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Kavak posted:Which one of you did Numenara? Because they made an... interesting supplement earlier this year. From the comments on DTRPG: quote:I've found one part of this book somewhat confusing, and was wondering if someone could clear up for me. It says that becoming pregnant is a Level 5 Task involving two people I sometimes feel bad for prejudging Numenera just based on the synopsis and who's involved in making it, but then I see things like this and I realize that my judgment was entirely correct, no matter how prejudiced. Crunchy mechanics for pregnancy of all things, just brings to mind a slightly less juvenile version of FATAL.
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Oct 11, 2014 17:08
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For any game, has there ever been a game or supplement focused on love/romance/sex that hasn't been completely loving terrible? NO GUYS I GOT THIS! I KNOW WHAT EVERYONE ELSE DID WRONG!
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Oct 11, 2014 17:24
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Halloween Jack posted:Yeah, the way Haven based every single skill roll on D&D 3e monster identification checks was hilarious, but I'm still going to say that Don't Look Back: Fat Knife Clowns are Never Far Behind is worse, because even after you explained it to me in detail I don't understand the basic mechanic. Oh it's super easy! Add together your stat and skill value (noting that your stat might be negative) and any applicable MODS (basically situational modifiers). Take whatever number that adds up to, derive the absolute value, add that to 3, and roll that many dice. If your pre-absolute value number was negative, you take the worst three dice from your result, and if your pre-absolute value was positive, you take the best 3 dice. Compare the result of the relevant dice to a success chart, and then drink til your vision fuzzes over and you start calling old girlfriends. But don't even get me started on math problem games right now. Because I am reading Synnibar.
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Oct 11, 2014 17:39
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Jesus, the Pathfinder SRD Wiki thing for Path of War is horribly organized. I can't even find the part where it says what the weapons for a given discipline are. I had to look back of Libertad!'s posts.
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Oct 11, 2014 17:42
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Midjack posted:For any game, has there ever been a game or supplement focused on love/romance/sex that hasn't been completely loving terrible? Apocalypse World, because it deals with sex as just "when two characters have sex, here's how it affects their relationship". Likewise Monsterhearts.
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Oct 11, 2014 17:51
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Evil Mastermind posted:Apocalypse World, because it deals with sex as just "when two characters have sex, here's how it affects their relationship". Likewise Monsterhearts. In short: because they deal with the EMOTIONAL and SOCIAL aspects of sex, while giving basically no screentime to the actual squishy organic parts which, frankly, are less interesting than the former when it come to a story. PurpleXVI fucked around with this message at 18:53 on Oct 11, 2014 |
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Oct 11, 2014 18:15
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Evil Mastermind posted:Apocalypse World, because it deals with sex as just "when two characters have sex, here's how it affects their relationship". Likewise Monsterhearts. Not coincidentally, neither of those games have love and sex as their main point.
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Oct 11, 2014 18:19
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wdarkk posted:Jesus, the Pathfinder SRD Wiki thing for Path of War is horribly organized. I can't even find the part where it says what the weapons for a given discipline are. I had to look back of Libertad!'s posts. Hey, about that, sorry for the week-long delay. I've had to balance my reviews with my other work (which in turn is divided between a Pathfinder mini-sourcebook and my Arcana High RPG). It takes me about an hour and a half to write each F&F entry. Anyway it's a weekend, so I'm going to use that time to write up some more martial disciplines today.
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Oct 11, 2014 18:57
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theironjef posted:But don't even get me started on math problem games right now. Because I am reading Synnibar. The entire podcast could just be a dramatic reading of the setting background in the first chapter.
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Oct 11, 2014 19:12
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Midjack posted:Not coincidentally, neither of those games have love and sex as their main point. MH has a core move called "Turn Someone On".
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Oct 11, 2014 19:32
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Lynx Winters posted:The entire podcast could just be a dramatic reading of the setting background in the first chapter. Man I am gonna go record that today.
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Oct 11, 2014 19:56
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