First impressions [long]

[nsruf]

My group finished their second TROS session on Monday (third if you count character creation). So far, their impressions are mixed, and I am wondering what I could do to improve our game. Since most problems we ran into were rules-related, I post it here and not in actual play (mods, feel free to move it there if it's more appropriate). And please don't take this personally, even though the rules section focuses on the negative. I'm just looking for some advice here.

Setting
The game is set in Hyboria, using Mongoose's Conan RPG for background. I converted the human races and equipment from that book, and it worked quite well. As for the time, the story is set after the last Conan story by REH (Hour of the Dragon). So Aquilonia has recently defeated Nemedia in battle, and Conan is king.

Characters
The PCs are members or retainers of the Morantes family, minor Nemedian nobles living next to the Border Kingdom. This means they have to deal with the bandits and other rabble living there on a frequent basis. Also, they have been feuding with their neighbours, the Scyla family, for the last 100 or so years.

Albano Morantes
Albano is the good-looking heir of the Morantes estate. The current baron is his deceased father's younger brother, Dario, a cripple and drunkard who gives a lot of leeway to his kin and employees. Albano is mostly interested in politics and socializing, having distinctly effeminate manners. He can be somewhat effective fighting on horseback, but is nearly incompetent as a footman. He has a TO of 6, but EN 2, HT 3, and Per 2, which means that he is lame and blind in full plate. Overall, an interesting character, with a lot of potential for comic relief.

His SAs are:
Destiny (become king)
Drive (become influential noble)
Luck
Passion (hate Aquilonia)
Passion (hate Scyla family)

Hassan Morantes
The bastard half-brother of Albano (his mother is from Koth), a landless adventurer who lives off of uncle Dario's generosity. He is an avid duellist but has no particular interest in real battles. As a lecher, he is the prime target of abuse for Helena (see below).

His SAs are:
Destiny (become accepted noble)
Drive (become most famous duellist)
Faith (Mitra)
Luck
Passion (hate Scyla family)

Marius Son of Dragan
A mercenary sergeant serving the Morantes family. He has a terribly scarred face and a bad temperament to match. Since he failed to either protect his lord or die with him in the decisive battle (the one at the end of Hour of the Dragon), he feels guilty and nurses a deathwish.

Destiny (die in battle)
Faith (Mitra)
Luck
Passion (hate Aquilonians)
Passion (loyal to Morantes family)

Helena Ricardo
Helena is a mystery woman. She is an extremely good looking Brythunian who was found wandering near the border of the Morantes's barony. Somehow, Helena convinced Dario to hire her as a bodyguard for his nephews. This was in part due to some real swordfighting skill, and in part due to the impression she made on Hassan.

I'm not posting her SAs, since the player wanted to keep them secret, but so far she has mainly attempted to sweet-talk, swindle, and steal to get her way. And she's cheeky, too. BTW, Helena is played by a guy.

Urdaa
Urdaa is a servant girl, whose mother was brought back from a campaign in Turan by Albano's father. She is one of Albano's personal servants (he has an A priority in social), and responsible for all sorts of menial tasks. She's also good at medicine and dealing with animals, but her skills in these areas are not yet appreciated. Since the players know it already, I can tell you that Urdaa is a witch, with points in Growth, Conquer, Vision, and Banishment (healing, divination, and dealing with minor spirits)

As with Helena, Urdaa's SAs are secret (and she is played by a guy). So far, she has been gentle, soft-spoken, and obedient. But as she met a more experienced witch last session, she may start to develop her sorcerous talent soon enough.

Story so far

I'll post this later, when I have more time.

Rules
Now to the mechanical side of things:

Attributes
One of my players remarked that you don't need high EN or HT if you have good TO. I found this rather funny, and pointed him for the rules for falling damage... Still, TO is a real life-saver. It seems ok for a Hyborian age game, though.

Overall, the attribute system works well. The only problem might be that the improvement rules encourage min-maxing, since high values cost the same during chargen but are more expensive later. I know this has never been a concern of Jake, but I am a little afraid that I'll be seeing quite a few big dumb combat clones soon.

Spiritual Attributes
I think we "get" them. Personally, I like them, but found it hard to give out 3-5 per session. In fact, if I had not given out one free point per player every session, some would have gotten none. When I post the full story, I'll put in some notes on when I did or did not give points and why. Maybe I'm just too stingy;)

Also, my players speculated how useful it would be too spend your beginning SAs on improvement right away. Any experiences with that?

Skills
For my personal taste, there are too many skills. And some of the packages seem a little odd - so a rogue can sneak but not hide?! Maybe we'll switch to the vocation system of the QS rules later on.

Skill improvement is also a little odd - some skills are just used way more often than others. E.g. we agreed that using Body Language in combat would only grant you one mark per battle, not per check. Else, the duellist would have a rating of 3 after the 4th or 5th session. How do you handle this?

Flaws
I have the same problem with the flaw system which I have with GURPS: I don't like flaws that dictate behaviour. Even though TROS forces a WP check to ignore such flaws, I as Seneschal have to remember them in the first place. And then care enough to bring them up and interrupt a free-flowing dialogue or story. So overall, they give PCs something for nothing (or very little).

What I find especially strange are flaws like Greed or Lecherousness. These seem to be perfectly suitable Drives to me! And as SAs, bringing them up is the players's decision, not mine. I am definitely going to drop all those "character flaws" if I start a new game. Maybe allow two Drive SAs as compensation.

Combat
Combat takes long, at least between skilled opponents who know what they are doing. Since combat is also quite interesting, this is no problem for those involved. But the group contains one duellist and one troublemaker. Which means many combats involving only one PC. What do I do to keep the others occupied? One of my players suggested I let the "spectators" run the opponent. I told him I needed to learn the system first for myself, but would allow them to do that later. Do you have any experience with that?

Also, at least one of my players thinks that combat is too random, making it too easy to die. I don't see that, at least not if you use SAs properly - e.g. buying an automatic success with Luck to defend against a serious attack is very helpful. Especially since the opponent has usually overextended a little to finish you off.

Impressions
- My players found the story more interesting and free-flowing than our (currently on hold) D&D game. However, they are not sure if or how to attribute this to the game system. I believe that it is in part because the D&D game is high level and tends to degenerate into a spell-slinging contest. With a lower level D&D group, I could probably get a more interesting story as well.

- SAs seem to be quite well received, but the players are a little reluctant to take risks related to them. That may account for the small number of points I gave out so far.

- Having people ask all the time whether they can use SAs or get a skill improvement is a little tedious. It seems that it would be simpler to handle skill improvement via SAs.

- Combat involving only one PC leaves the others on the sideline, sometimes for 20 or 30 minutes if neither opponent can easily wound the other.

So there are some good things and some bad things, and my players are not sure whether to continue TROS or return to D&D completely. For me, it is a refreshing change from D&D, but I would like to retool some parts of the system to make it more rules-light (for the G/N/S purists: I don't mean more Narrativist, but simply less handling-intensive, ok?)

Thoughts? Advice?

[Mike Holmes]

Spiritual Attributes
I think we "get" them. Personally, I like them, but found it hard to give out 3-5 per session. In fact, if I had not given out one free point per player every session, some would have gotten none. When I post the full story, I'll put in some notes on when I did or did not give points and why. Maybe I'm just too stingy;)

Also, my players speculated how useful it would be too spend your beginning SAs on improvement right away. Any experiences with that?

This statement, and the one about the players not taking risks with SAs indicate that you might not "get" them. OTOH, that's not surprising, really, because the book doesn't say some important things about "best practices."

How did you prepare the game? If I had these characters with these SAs, all my prep would revolve around creating the Scylla family, the Morantes family, some Aquilonian diplomats, and the local court. Just a web of NPCs belonging to these groups. Play would begin with PCs getting involved with these NPCs, and just go from there - no plot in my mind. Just keep putting them into situations where the SAs have an opportunity to be used.

The point is that if you have them contact nothing but stuff related to their SAs you'll be giving out points constantly. Players asking to use SAs mean that they're interested in what's going on - it's a good sign. The more it's happening, the better job you're doing as GM.

I find it odd that they think that things are risky with SAs when they're much riskier without them. Or do they just avoid risk altogether. Your job as GM is to make that impossible. Just keep putting them in situations where all they have is a choice of what sort of risk to take.

I'll leave scene framing to someone else to describe. But, in the games I run, everyone is always sitting out for 20 minutes or more at a time. But nobody cares. It sounds like you're still stuck in "party" mode.

Mike

[Stephen]

Flaws
I have the same problem with the flaw system which I have with GURPS: I don't like flaws that dictate behaviour. Even though TROS forces a WP check to ignore such flaws, I as Seneschal have to remember them in the first place. And then care enough to bring them up and interrupt a free-flowing dialogue or story. So overall, they give PCs something for nothing (or very little).

What I find especially strange are flaws like Greed or Lecherousness. These seem to be perfectly suitable Drives to me! And as SAs, bringing them up is the players's decision, not mine. I am definitely going to drop all those "character flaws" if I start a new game. Maybe allow two Drive SAs as compensation.

I would suggest against making Greed or Lechery Drives.  The difference between a Flaw and an SA is that a Flaw represents an aspect of character behaviour the player can't willingly control, unlike SAs.  Things like Greed, Rage, and Lechery are essentially impersonal and unpredictable -- they're meant to throw obstacles into the story, not to assist in overcoming other obstacles.

SAs always have an element of willing embrace to them, and are related to specific goals, people, and fates -- it's the difference between a Passion for Helen of Troy that leads you to take on the Greek army, and a thing for women with big gazongas that leads you to do something truly stupid at a party.

Bear in mind that Flaws taken is a D or E (for humans) Priority accounted for, giving you more room to put A, B and C in Attributes, Proficiencies and Skills.  So they do give something back; they give you a head-start in areas others will have to catch up with you on.

Now, if the idea of behaviour-dictating Flaws doesn't sit well with you in the first place, that's one thing, but there are enough differences in the way Flaws and SAs handle that simply converting one to the other wouldn't be as transparent as you think.  A Flaw is a minor recurring obstacle with the potential to cause some interesting disruptions; an SA is a major storyline drive, and trying to make a generalized greed or lechery into that kind of motivation does, I think, bog down stories more than the original format.

[nsruf]

This statement, and the one about the players not taking risks with SAs indicate that you might not "get" them. OTOH, that's not surprising, really, because the book doesn't say some important things about "best practices."

How did you prepare the game? If I had these characters with these SAs, all my prep would revolve around creating the Scylla family, the Morantes family, some Aquilonian diplomats, and the local court. Just a web of NPCs belonging to these groups. Play would begin with PCs getting involved with these NPCs, and just go from there - no plot in my mind. Just keep putting them into situations where the SAs have an opportunity to be used.

I tried to do it that way. When I write up the story later today, I'll try to explain where SAs did or didn't come into play.

The point is that if you have them contact nothing but stuff related to their SAs you'll be giving out points constantly. Players asking to use SAs mean that they're interested in what's going on - it's a good sign. The more it's happening, the better job you're doing as GM.

I find it odd that they think that things are risky with SAs when they're much riskier without them. Or do they just avoid risk altogether.

The latter, I think. We had at least one situation that was a pretty clear cut opportunity to use or earn SA points. But they walked by, not wanting to get involved.

Your job as GM is to make that impossible. Just keep putting them in situations where all they have is a choice of what sort of risk to take.

I'll try to keep that in mind.

I'll leave scene framing to someone else to describe. But, in the games I run, everyone is always sitting out for 20 minutes or more at a time. But nobody cares. It sounds like you're still stuck in "party" mode.

There were two duels last session, which took 30 min to run, each. The other players had absolutely nothing to do. I can't blame them if they feel the combat oriented characters hog "face time" with the Seneschal.

[nsruf]

I would suggest against making Greed or Lechery Drives.  The difference between a Flaw and an SA is that a Flaw represents an aspect of character behaviour the player can't willingly control, unlike SAs.  Things like Greed, Rage, and Lechery are essentially impersonal and unpredictable -- they're meant to throw obstacles into the story, not to assist in overcoming other obstacles.

Ok, but SAs are metagame traits anyway - not something the character should feel he can control. E.g., Destiny is impersonal and unpredictable, and Albano's player even decided that Albano has no clue of his Destiny to become king.

SAs always have an element of willing embrace to them, and are related to specific goals, people, and fates -- it's the difference between a Passion for Helen of Troy that leads you to take on the Greek army, and a thing for women with big gazongas that leads you to do something truly stupid at a party.

Yes, but I feel the player should willingly embrace the trait - the character can still know that it's stupid but be unable to control himself. But the player, not the Seneschal, decides when it comes up.

Bear in mind that Flaws taken is a D or E (for humans) Priority accounted for, giving you more room to put A, B and C in Attributes, Proficiencies and Skills.  So they do give something back; they give you a head-start in areas others will have to catch up with you on.

That is precisely my problem: the reward is front-loaded. That's really "old school" if you excuse the term. After chargen, players are encouraged to downplay their flaws and hope the Seneschal forgets about them. With SAs, they are more likely to do something stupid willingly, to earn points.

Plus, we played it that the priority only sets the balance on gifts/flaws. So you can take a B in Gifts and either get

1) one major gift
2) two major gifts and a major flaw
3) etc.

Since my players all came up with a huge laundry list of gifts and supposedly "harmless" flaw, I limited the total to three. But flaws are still abundant in the group.

Now, if the idea of behaviour-dictating Flaws doesn't sit well with you in the first place, that's one thing,

That's my point. I hate having to be alert all the time whether my players stay "in character".

but there are enough differences in the way Flaws and SAs handle that simply converting one to the other wouldn't be as transparent as you think.  A Flaw is a minor recurring obstacle with the potential to cause some interesting disruptions; an SA is a major storyline drive, and trying to make a generalized greed or lechery into that kind of motivation does, I think, bog down stories more than the original format.

I don't fully agree: some stories hinge on the tragic flaws of their protagonists, blurring the line between SAs and flaws.

An example from my game: Marius (flaw: Troublemaker) picked a bar fight with a veteran mercenary. The thing escalated and they went outside to settle it with real weapons. Marius had to burn a point of Luck to avoid a level 3 wound to the head and ended the fight by cutting off his opponent's nose.

The smart thing would have been not to pick the fight. In fact, I had no intention of making him roll WP to avoid the Troublemaker flaw. It was a minor scene, the presence of the mercenary only flavor text.

So what is the point? It was suddenly an important scene - Marius risked serious injury or death. But this came about only because the player felt obliged to play out the flaw. It wasn't encouraged or supported by the rules. Something an SA like Drive (suffer no insults) would have done splendidly.

The advantages I see in making most flaws into SAs are

1) No pressure by the Seneschal is necessary to have "suboptimal" behavior occur frequently.

2) Players can decide for themselves how often to use it, or whether it would bog down the current flow of events.

[Malechi]

when people aren't involved in a scene I give them an NPC to run who is.  easy..

Doesn't matter if the NPC is central or peripheral, the combat system really endears itself to this really easily.  

Also, with the time issue, I'm not sure how long you've been playing but that seems like a long time for a one on one...

Have you tried d/ling the GM screens and the TROS Cards to speed up handling time?  How much of that time is people searching and then reading rules?  I've often made a rule that states people can only use maneuvres they're immediately familiar with, unless you have a spare player who'll "Sub" for you and give you the rules as you request them... This might help get people into the game.

As for the SAs issue, others have put it far better than I have, but just 'cos i can... Don't fall into the trap of running the game like D&D (you probably don't but it bears repeating), Penalise them for not persuing their SAs(I rarely do this but who knows eh?), if someone asks if their SA is relevant, Make it relevant, even if it wasn't immediately apparent.  Get a red hot iron and start poking their SAs... they'll eventually bite...

*ahem*

JK...

[nsruf]

when people aren't involved in a scene I give them an NPC to run who is.  easy..

I'll try that. But the fights in question were duels, so I couldn't have involved more than one other player. Still leaving three out.

Doesn't matter if the NPC is central or peripheral, the combat system really endears itself to this really easily.  

Also, with the time issue, I'm not sure how long you've been playing but that seems like a long time for a one on one...

Third session - that's how long we have been playing. I can't blame my players for looking up rules if I have to do it myself;) Plus, I made handouts of combat maneuvers to speed things up. Still, a fight between two equally skilled characters with high TO and light armor can take 8-10 rounds before one lands a lucky hit.

Have you tried d/ling the GM screens and the TROS Cards to speed up handling time?  How much of that time is people searching and then reading rules?

Not much, actually. The most time is taken deciding what to do and weighing the odds.

As for the SAs issue, others have put it far better than I have, but just 'cos i can... Don't fall into the trap of running the game like D&D (you probably don't but it bears repeating), Penalise them for not persuing their SAs(I rarely do this but who knows eh?), if someone asks if their SA is relevant, Make it relevant, even if it wasn't immediately apparent.

Not sure I agree with the last suggestion. They'll probably try to get SA dice every time they tie their shoelaces if I get too generous...

[Andrew Mure]

when people aren't involved in a scene I give them an NPC to run who is.  easy..

I'll try that. But the fights in question were duels, so I couldn't have involved more than one other player. Still leaving three out.

Not neccessarary true. It seems your players running fighters appear to like hogging the limelight a little too much and seek one on one scenes by challenging NPCs to duels at the slightest provocation.

In short you need something to make these hot-heads think a bit more before 'demanding satisfaction' and at the same time bring the other players into the combat. Here's two scenarios you could use.

1. The next NPC they challenge is no gentleman what so ever and further more he's a popular patron at the rather seedy joint the group encounter him at. What happens when his mates decide to help him with the upstart?

2. The town guard turn up in the middle of a duel. They proceed to attempt to arrest both combatents for 'disturbing the peace'...

[Mike Holmes]

I'm having a hard time figuring out your players. They make characters that have certain motives, then you put them into situations where those motives apply, and they avoid the situations? That's just peculiar. Have you asked them what it is that they're interested in getting out of playing the game?

What you can do, again, is what I mentioned above. Don't allow them to ignore situations. That is, make "ignoring" an extreme option. An easy way to do this is to put SAs in conflict with each other. For example, have a situation where an important member of the Morantes family tells Marius that he has to escort an Aquilonian safely somewhere. There are lots of things that Marius can do, but they all say something about his SAs. If he says he won't do it, then he's said that his hate of Aquilonians is more important than his loyalty to the Morantes family. If he takes the job, then have the Aquilonian insult him on the trip. Such that he either goes with his loyalty (gaining him bonuses to his ability to retort), or at some point he breaks and goes with his hatred (gaining him bonuses to his attack or something).

In these examples, don't penalize the one that's being ignored (that would be hosing the player), instead, just reward the one that was supported.

By coming up with situations like this, you make it so that the players don't have an option that allows them to avoid the conflict. It's not the GM's purview to be trying to find reasons to hold back SA points, but he should be trying to help the player find ways to get SA points.

Mike

[Bankuei]

Hi,

I think we "get" them. Personally, I like them, but found it hard to give out 3-5 per session. In fact, if I had not given out one free point per player every session, some would have gotten none. When I post the full story, I'll put in some notes on when I did or did not give points and why. Maybe I'm just too stingy;)

Also, my players speculated how useful it would be too spend your beginning SAs on improvement right away. Any experiences with that?

Personally, I don't give away free points.  I DO remind players that they need to work for those points, and I'm pretty loose with them when I see effort.  I also remind players that they can change their SAs if they don't like them(its in the rules!) and suggest some if I see them pursuing other goals that would fit better.

Once folks get the hang of it, they go after them like crazy.

As far as spending them right away...yeah, its useful and an open option.  It's also probably because they aren't getting to use them in play really, so they don't see what an advantage extra dice are...

Something I do as a demo idea, is that I give pre-gen characters with loaded SAs for a one shot, and then players pick up really fast how they work and why.  Once that's in their heads, everything is easy.

Chris

[Edge]

Also (i know this works in my game) if a player backs away from something that is directly related to his SA then he gets penalised .  One of my players has "defend the innocent"... when there is an innocent getting beaten on and the player is well within his means to defend him then he better do so or he would lose an SA point.  This will get them to take the risks associated with having certain SA's


I have made up some good combat reference sheets ( i have tried sending them through to jake but they are to big) and i also use the rule that Malechi does in that if a player doesn't know a maneaovre then he can't use it.  Means that in the off scenes when a particular player isn't doing anything he is reading the rules, and getting used to what he can use

[Overdrive]

Still, a fight between two equally skilled characters with high TO and light armor can take 8-10 rounds before one lands a lucky hit.

My thoughts on this: whattheheck? There's no such thing. Nobody's going to get into a fight with an equally-skilled opponent on a fair ground. It's 50-50, man. Toss a coin and die.

Perhaps the PCs should bring along some back-up. A man on the roof with a crossbow. Two brutes who look big and scary. The fights are over in one round, if they happen at all. And of course, SA's change it all again.

[nsruf]

My thoughts on this: whattheheck? There's no such thing. Nobody's going to get into a fight with an equally-skilled opponent on a fair ground. It's 50-50, man. Toss a coin and die.

Well, if your SA is "become most famous duellist" you kinda have to. The one duel he had was "friendly", meaning both pulled punches, but that takes even longer to resolve.

[MiB]

Hi, this on of the players in this campaign piping up, Helena's to be precise.

Not quite sure where to start, as nsruf summarized our impressions and problems rather well.

Maybe I can clarify on the "not taking risks" part a bit from the side of the players. Our Seneschal (and a couple of test-fights) made it clear that this is a realistic combat system, and the game is set in a rather harsh and brutal world. Some of us being a bit annoyed by the unrealistic "bring 'em on" attitude that D&D encourages, we try to play this game reallistcally. And that means avoiding risks. Even if I survive a fight, I might end up injured or maimed rather easily - ruining my characters life and my fun.

The situation that was obviously tailored towards SAs included a hooker being terrorized by her pimp and his bully. We encountered the scene as a pair of two women, one of them obviously noncombatant (Helena and Urda), and decided it is better not the get involved in other people's buisness - realistic, but not taking risks...

"not taking on equal opponents" isn't really an option IMHO,  for several reasons

1) Our game contains mainly human opponents, and its hard to judge whether they are equals or not. Even a under-average bully with some points in Strength and Toughness and a point or two in the right SA can become a dangerous opponent - you never know until it is to late

2) While a fight with a equal opponent might be "toss a coin - loser dies" a fight with underated opponents is "you take a scratch - he dies" which wouldn't warrant a fight either - combat it the big novelty in TROS and we wan't to try that out.

3) Fights needn't be to the death, so here's a chance to test out your skills on a worthy opponent. The three duels we had so far weren't fought to the death, at least one of them intentionally so. Still, they take time.

4) Fighting only bullies is rather anticlimatic. From time-to-time, players should have to face a equal opponent (or one which is better and can be taken down only as a team)

[Trevis Martin]

My impression is from the game that NPC's don't have SA's unless they are major characters (and then its a matter of group taste.)  SA's aren't really a character trait, they are a player resource. Jake or Brian, is that correct?

The premise of the game is the basic question (which I believe I remember from one of Ralph Mazza's (Valamir) posts is, "What are you willing to risk death for?"  Or even more interesting "What are you willing to kill for?"  If the players aren't in situations where their SA's are in play and they are putting it all on the line for something, then the question isn't being asked.

(that reads more critical than I intend it to, but I hope it helps.)

Trevis