Apollyon Noir---Black Powder, Black Magic

[GMSkarka]

This is intriguing. What do you mean by the "operating systems" comment? Can you expand on that at all? It sounds like you have a concept, but I'm not getting it, precisely. Does it mean that there's a separate magic system for each school of magic? Or does it simply imply the list of mods for the school?

I'm still hashing out magic...right now, the notes are that different types of magic would use the same core mechanic in slighty different ways, specific to the "feel" of the tradition.

I know that it's not too specific, but hey, that's what I've got.   :)

GMS

[Walt Freitag]

Dynamic rolls, however-- For every 6 points by which the difficulty exceeds the roll, the character loses 1 die of that concentration (going from the LEFT-- that's right, you lose Wild first, then Active, until you can only react, and then not even that).

What you appear to have here is the core of a really good mechanism for tempo (in the chess, not the music, sense). A cleaner alternative, perhaps, to carried-over successes or carried-over action points. Very very cool.

But it appears you might not be using this for all it's worth:

Combat:

Use the core system above—straight opposed rolls for hand-to-hand, and Dynamic rolls against range-based difficulty for musketry.

Shouldn't this be the other way around? Wouldn't a failure in hand to hand be much more likely to compromise your tempo (ability to be active) than a failure in shooting at a distant target?

- Walt

[GMSkarka]

Shouldn't this be the other way around? Wouldn't a failure in hand to hand be much more likely to compromise your tempo (ability to be active) than a failure in shooting at a distant target?

Actually, I'm afraid that I didn't explain that well enough...both rolls in that case are dynamic (any roll that is opposed is dynamic, compared to just comparison with a static difficulty number)and hence, both are equally able to compromise one's tempo.

Static rolls are never used in combat.

Combat, for better or worse, is drama.

GMS

[Walt Freitag]

Ah, I see. I was confused and didn't grasp that all opposed rolls (including "straight" ones) are dynamic.

There still may be a problem justifying penalties affecting subsequent actions applied to a shooter who misses badly. Once in a while you could say your piece misfired or the recoil made it bruise your eye or something, but ordinary misses should also be able to occur.

But on the other hand, it is drama, so maybe "ordinary misses" isn't a valid concept. I guess you could say that it's not the failure, it's whatever factor accounted for the failure, that has the lingering discomfiting effect. Is that the idea? (I'm quibbling, but this could also impact the magic system(s), so I want to get it straight.)

- Walt

[GMSkarka]

But on the other hand, it is drama, so maybe "ordinary misses" isn't a valid concept. I guess you could say that it's not the failure, it's whatever factor accounted for the failure, that has the lingering discomfiting effect. Is that the idea? (I'm quibbling, but this could also impact the magic system(s), so I want to get it straight.)

Yes, that's essentially it.   That's one of the reasons why we referred to the dice pools as "concentration"---your performance of skills depends on how much you concentrate on the action, and when you fail, you get flustered, frustrated, etc....you lose concentration.

GMS

[Balbinus]

If I am creating a character and take a splat, I get 3 splat traits and 5 splat skills.  Is there any equivalent for splatless characters?  If not, it seems unlikely many players will choose unsplatted characters.

A dragoon may have fewer unique abilities than an alchemist, but the time the alchemist spent learning his unique stuff the dragoon will have spent honing his more mundane skills.

How does this aspect of chargen work?

[GMSkarka]

How does this aspect of chargen work?

First, I should explain how skills work.  There is no quantification of skills--they represent training.  You either have had the training, or you have not.  More advanced training is represented by seperate skill.  (Advanced Horsemanship as compared to Horsemanship, for example).

The Splats (which have been officially given the name Sects, as of this week's development meetings) bestow more traits and skills, yes, but those are *specific to the sect* and not available elsewhere.

That said, Sect-less characters will be able to "promote" several skills to their advanced version by way of compensation.

GMS

[Mike Holmes]

How does this aspect of chargen work?

First, I should explain how skills work.  There is no quantification of skills--they represent training.  You either have had the training, or you have not.  More advanced training is represented by seperate skill.  (Advanced Horsemanship as compared to Horsemanship, for example).

Wow, don't think I've seen that since TFT!

So two swordsmen would only be able to distinguish themselves via their stats?

Mike

[GMSkarka]

So two swordsmen would only be able to distinguish themselves via their stats?

Their traits and, more importantly, their concentrations, but essentially, yes.

I hate to use an old rubrick like "realism" as an excuse, but it has been my experience that the only difference between like-trained individuals is a)their natural ability (which we cover through traits) and how much they concentrate on what they're doing (covered through the concentrations).

Still, we wanted to reflect that there are some people who get better training, so we decided to with the idea of advanced skills.

GMS