The Forge Archives

Thanks Ron!

Your answer is great!

I will work on those which aren't good ^^

Read you soon
Meme

Great!

That move with the schoolteacher? Technically legal like crazy.

-Vincent

Alternative Armor Rules
Whenever I say "simplified" in reference to mechanics, I never mean "dumbed down to make it easier to calculate".  I mean that the mechanics are more elegant from an aesthetic and practical point of view.  So yes, it is easier to comprehend, but the rule itself has not been rendered abstract.

Furthermore, the alternative rules are completely consistent with the core logic of the system.  In comparison, the original post implemented special rules, which was why it was revised so quickly.

The new method is to add up points allocated by coverage and strength to determine your overall protective value.  From there, the dice rank of your armor check will be determined.  There are 12 total areas of coverage: 2 for the torso (point values are tripled for each area), 2 for the head/face (point values are doubled for each area), and 2 for each limb (upper and lower limb).  Armor type gives a point value for each coverage area: 1 for padded, 2 for leather, 3 for studded, 4 for brigandine/jack of plate, 5 for mail, 6 for plate armor, 7 for tournament armor / other (magical, etc.)

DR 0 (1d4-1): 100 (full plate armor)
DR 1 (1d4): 84 (reduced plate)
DR 2 (1d6): 60 (cuirass and helmet)
DR 3 (1d8): 36 (cuirass, or jack of plate and helmet)
DR 4 (1d10): 18
DR 5 (1d12): 12
DR 6 (2d8): 10

Areas unaccounted for: hands, feet, neck, groin, underarms.  Coverage of these areas does not improve overall protection value, but does protect the wearer from aimed attacks.

I've been trying to moderate here for a couple of days, without success due to server hassles.

Anyway. Brent, no one was rude to you. No one said you were dumb or said your game design didn't make sense. Everyone had reasons for what they suggested, and they knew that those reasons might not dovetail with the rest of the game design or with your own reasons behind that design. They were at risk by making the suggestions, not you, because of their limited knowledge.

Your irritation is misplaced. You are free to feel what you like, but as moderator, I am saying your post is discourteous to people who were not insulting you, not insulting your game, and doing their best to work with the information you provided. Your defensiveness is incomprehensible and also misplaced, and as text, it communicates that you like your system as described very much, and gives the impression that you do not intend to anything about it.

You asked for suggestions and feedback with no other specifications. My reading of your post is that you were not looking for any such thing. I don't know your mind, of course, and can't know what you were looking for, but I can say that everyone's responsibility, when posting, is to be sure that they are not merely asking for praise and confirmation when they claim that they're asking for critique. Whether this applies to you or not is your private concern.

None of your points about typing and format are valid. I'm not holding you to any specific editorial standard, but the very fact that you "type too fast" means you are responding in the grip of emotional reaction. I suggest typing into a word-processing program first, instead of the Reply box, and only pasting it in as a reply when the post says what you mean without being fueled by immediate responses.

Best, Ron

Hi guys,

I am going to be a bit harsh this time, with any luck in a helpful way. There are a lot of problems with your proposed lists, and I think you're getting a little bit distracted by the standards of previous fantasy role-playing games, especially the concepts of races and skills.

Meme

I am a poor ploughman, attuned with the rhythms of nature, but my family has been imprisoned by the king - too situational; this is front-loading a specific Goal into the character's definition. Perhaps "... but I can no longer shut my eyes to injustice."

I am the daughter of a mighty queen, womanly and charming, but I can freeze your heart with a mere gaze - the first problem is that the definition is gendered, which is an absolute no-no for this game. The second problem is that there's no inherent tension. She's a princess, she freezes hearts, big deal. Without that tension, there's no adventurer.

I am the temple warden, I see past and future alike, but the woman of my life lives only in my dreams - the second phrase is too closely tied to the concept of a Lover, which should be left open for play and individual adventures. Solution: "... but my true desires live only in my dreams."

I am an angel cast on earth, my touch can return one's life but I will never be able to reach again the heaven I came from - get rid of the first phrase, and begin with "My touch ..." That'll work well, especially since the term "heaven" is now left open for interpretation.

I am a vampire, my gaze can conquer countless maidens, but I long for the warmth of sunbeams on my flesh / I am a sea dweller, bearing jewels made out of pearls and coral, but outside of the water I would choke in an instant. - both of these are boring, for several reasons. First, they are standard fantasy races. Second, the "but" statements are mere physical limitations, and worse, they are exclusive to story. For instance, if the sea dweller is in water, then the limitation means nothing, and if he is outside the water, then he's choking and is hence unplayable. (I said "he" to keep my sentence structure readable; put "or she" in mentally).

Mauro

QuoteThe Mirror Lake, where persons forget their sorrows ∫ Under the Unending Rains ∫ The Dancing Hall, where it seems everybody is enjoying themselves ∫ The Outer Zone, where a girl is lost

All of the above are excellent:

QuoteThe Crystal Mask, where nothing is as it looks like ∫ The Stone Forest, whose inhabitant disregard each other

These aren't bad, although I think that the first should be renamed (there's already a Crystal Court) and the second's qualifying phrase might be better re-written, perhaps, "where everyone is alone."

The Ancient Factory, where mechanics rules over life - too straightforward. It'd be better without the second phrase, retaining merely the first three words.

QuoteThe Sun Court, after the Slaying of the Queen ∫ The Moon Court, waiting for his King ∫ The Eclipse Court, mourning his Prince

This combination is too clever without much content, resulting in the typically diverse but ultimately uninteresting setting found in modern fantasy. ("Seven kingdoms!" "Ten lands!" "Fifteen dimensions!" all of which indicate that the author cannot do one thing well). If you must have this, then combine into one location called the Celestial Court and have the family or social system be dysfunctional, phrased in a more general way. "The Celestial Court, where poison brews behind every smile."

The Memory Dome, in which Halls all is retained, and all is forgot - a bit too abstractly philosophical, I think. I can see how it could be made strong, but also how it could easily slip into nothingness.

The Halls of Life, where death is spread - the contrast here is probably too obvious.

The Lost City, broken by Civil War - neither term really jumps out as something interesting, nor do they combine well. If it's lost, who cares if there's a civil war? I've seen this done well in fiction (e.g. "Red Nails") but I think it probably arises from different colorful starting concepts.

The Green Planet, whose King was overthrown ∫ The Green Lands, where the Sun shine over an impending threat (next location!) - first, the Green and Green present the same redundancy as the Court phrases, and second, I don't think that any location should have any link to another location - it becomes a preliminary encounter rather than an adventure of its own.

Characters:

I am a young men, attractive and skilled, but I don't dare to open my heart - too much Lover conflict. Whether he "opens his heart" or not is an adventure-specific, location-specific, Lover-specific question that should always be left open for play. I think this description should be abandoned.

I am a Demon Prince, a Kingdom under my rule, but I crave human warmth - this isn't bad, but I think it'd be better without the Kingdom phrase, leaving the meaning of "demon prince" entirely up to interpretation. If you want him to have a kingdome, then introduce one when you play the character. Also, "prince" is gendered in English, so anything similar that doesn't include that implication would be better.

I am the daughter of the Moon, blessed by her gifts, but I'll never be able to see her again - it's gendered. Fix that to "child," and it's great!

I am the Herald of the Sun, strong with his brightness, but my hands burns the life - the "but" phrase is boring, a simple physical limitation. You could change it to anything emotional, like "... but I hate him," or "... but I love my family more than him," or anything situational that doesn't front-load the story too much, like "...

I am a waylander, knower of the lands, bu no one trust me - this is effectively empty of content and should be abandoned.

Let me know what you think! I am not sure whether my logic in constructing this material is fully apparent, and although I consider it consistent at the creative level, I have not yet articulated it formally for myself.

Best, Ron

I've been trying to reply for days! Anyway, without the link I was looking for (the thread exists but searches aren't working well due to server hassles) ...

I see! Many thanks. We are in full agreement about Rifts, in that tire-kicking - and a lot of it - seems absolutely required. I think this was very common among the more well-known 1980s games, including the first three editions of Champions, Call of Cthulhu and RuneQuest of that era, and to a very great degree, AD&D2. I think that (Andreas' Rifts thread; I'll add the link later) offers a good example of how much tire-kicking of a very different sort was applied to the same or similar rules text, for different goals of play.

I was especially struck, in your first post, about how when you were younger, you role-played in order to fill a void in your life. I don't want to know the details, but I do think that was the case for quite a few people attending this site. It would be useful one day to see an Actual Play thread in which people compared that phenomenon.

Best, Ron

Hi,

QuoteHow to create a special ability that will help in social interactions without allowing a die roll to simply settle the matter? Players can take such special abilities or leave them as they see appropriate, and since there are several character builds in the game system that do focus on dialogue it would seem appropriate to enable those characters to be more effective in dialogue.

What's the overall objective of play, as you've decided it? Is it about the player trying to win? If it isn't about trying to win, does the character need to be more effective? I mean, it'll have nothing to do with the game as it's not about winning?

Or is this more like one of those games where you just play out the world? I've always thought it odd to use 'effectiveness' in such a case - you should just play out the world, sans any idea X is effective and Y isn't. Just play it out, just see events.

Fastlane and Primetime Adventures, alongside the aforementioned Orx, implement systems like this. Universalis, too, in fact. The way out of the mechanical interaction discussed here in all cases is to make the GM's pool of resources dynamic, which breaks the conflict pattern of easy-followed-by-difficult and vice versa. Rather, in Fastlane the GM is free within certain flexible constraints to choose which conflicts will be easy and which will be hard, and he may expect to have a constant flow of resources that'll allow him to continue doing so indefinitely. The overall resource level might mean that "easy" at some time is 1 chip's worth while at other time it's 3 chips, but that's what makes it interesting, really.

Of course it's still possible to game the system as a player by introducing frivolous conflicts, which is why all of these games in actual fact are based on the more fundamental cooperative interaction: the group has a common creative agenda, which is fulfilled by appreciating the joint fiction. This basic requirement means that those games do not have to worry about players constantly declaring frivolous conflicts as a way to leach the GM of resources, as doing so would be counterproductive for the joint goals of play. Individual game texts will differ on whether the management of the common creative agenda should happen by informal concensus or whether the GM should have some sort of veto to simply block the occasional brainfart, but the common theme in each case is that inappropriate conflicts (for the group's fictional sensibilities) are not taken through the resource-consuming conflict system because group concensus filters them first and only allows the good stuff to get mechanical impact. This is not so different from any other conflict resolution system, generally all roleplaying games rely on the players wanting to uphold the integrity of the fiction, even if some of those games will achieve this by appointing one player as the chairman.

Anyway, it seems to me that checking out one or more of the above titles might be educational in this line of design inquiry. Those are all quite interesting games, I think.

Quote from: Eero Tuovinen on May 27, 2010, 01:19:55 AM
You remind me of something with these great NPCs - it might be worthwhile to make some colorful NPCs with interesting crunch for TSoY at some point as a collection of sorts. The nature of the game is such that the largest bit of scenario-prep is actually in creating NPCs, and even that is relatively arbitrary as long as the NPC cast has strong convictions about whatever it is they do. I could see running a campaign off a "thousand faces" type collection of these people of Near myself. I'll have to remember this if I have some spare time for TSoY at some point...

That was actually the reason I started this thread, to hear about what other people have done and to collect the interesting bits to some public place. In hindsight the topic should probably specifically mention NPCs as well. We could of course start a different thread just for NPCs. I often leaf through the crunch for inspiration for NPCs and combine them with the characters purpose in the fiction and some theme. Many NPCs fall into some role of Antagonist, Support, Foil, mr. Exposition or some combination. For example The Secret Dark Rhetoric gave birth to our campaign's first antagonist. The Depressing Fool, sent by a lord to  the court of another to drive him and his land to ruin and ripe for conquest.

I haven't gotten around figuring out how to best design societies, cults, etc. yet or what roles they should play. When I figure that out, we'll see what becomes of the subterranean dwarf clan of astrologists and their grand planetarium.

Anyway, such an booklet should probably have an article or two on the methods for making material interesting. I find mine to be bit of hit-and-miss and many NPCs improvised on the fly to be left too shallow.

Quote from: MikeF on May 26, 2010, 09:16:21 AM

Maybe I'm misunderstanding your point, but I don't see it this way. Why does the mechanical difficulty of a challenge mean that overcoming it is more or less creative? The system doesn't automatically penalise - or reward - you for coming up with creative solutions to problems. That's up to the GM, who can arbitrarily make your chances of succeeding more or less likely using tokens. You could have your PC take the most circuitously "difficult" approach to a problem within the fiction and still have the GM make it "easy" by assigning a low number of tokens. So how you approach the problem and whether or not you succeed seem to me to be entirely independent of each other, mechanically speaking.

That's not to say the GM should be acting entirely independently of the player's creativity - I would hope that they would use their tokens wisely to pace the story, and invest the most tokens in those bits of the story that the players seem most interested in and respond to most. But fundamentally that's a GM technique, it's not forced by the mechanics (though I guess you could tweak the rules so that GM's received their tokens in installments, to force the pacing a little: so the GM gets, say, 20 tokens to use over the first three scenes, 20 tokens for the next three, and then fifty tokens to use in the climactic endgame).

Hmm, maybe I see where the disconnect is. I was assuming that "obstacle level" was supposed to fairly closely map "perceived difficulty level". Is that not true?