The Solar System discussion

[dyjoots]

Just for my benefit, let me see if I've got this whole healing thing.

I've taken damage (+2, +3, and +3, in that order), which leaves me looking like this:

1 [ ]
2 [x]
3 [x]
4 [x]
5 [ ]
6 [ ]

Now, since damage doesn't shake down, I still look like this after BDTP.  I get someone to heal me, and they roll a +3.  Now I look like this:

1 [x]
2 [x]
3 [ ]
4 [x]
5 [ ]
6 [ ]

And if they rolled another +3, I would look like this:

1 [x]
2 [ ]
3 [ ]
4 [x]
5 [ ]
6 [ ]

That leaves me with a penalty die until I can get some better healing, right?  Did I get the general idea?

[Andy Kitkowski]

Hey all-

Yeah, I managed to run a 1 player 1 GM session (about 80-90 minutes from chargen to finish) this weekend.  Sorry, it'll be a few days before I can sit down and write a lot about it.

However, a brief summary, which I will expound upon later:

1) It's Fudge!  Mind you, it's not terribly bad, because I really like Fudge, but there are parts of it that are a tiny bit confusing: With the new skill names, I found myself INSTANTLY converting "Journeyman" to "1" then rolling the dice: A drawback to what some people say is "Fudge just diguising numbers with adjectives", but a little moreso.

2) I swing either way, but I know my group REALLY loves the numbers and granularity of the 1-10 ability levels.

3) Innate abilities and Athletics: Golden!

4) Parallel vs Perpendicular.  I REALLY like this seperation.  HOWEVER, because of it, I got a little confused: I had an evil wizard throwing fireballs and launching traps at the Bard, while the Bard retorted with Storytelling, trying to get him to change his ways, while dodging the traps.
Now, this seems like Parallel.  On the first roll as written, because it was parallel and the Wizard was a Master, he slew the PC in one hit. (So I "redid" it, lowering the skill of the wizard to 1 rather than 2) Actually, now that I'm going through that in my head, I'm not sure that that adds up right... I'll have to look at our numbers again, but I rolled 5 dice, keeping three and got 3 plusses... and that instantly Broke the player.

Now, what I should have realized was that, even in this situation, the action was perpendicular: The Bard was dodging and hiding against the Wizard's attacks while retorting with Story, and the Wizard was throwing traps and making noise to distract the Bard and make noise.  So it was a little deceptive, and the fact that now there are two types of combat confused us in that regard.  I guess we should have thought about it more in the Free and Clear stage.

Wound levels: I dig them.  However, I never had problems with a player loading up on Stay Up, so the old HP system was never a big problem for us, and in fact worked a little easier IMO.

In a word: Good. Great, even, with a little work. Again more comments later.

For me, though? It might come down to me making a hybrid of the two systems to run with my crew.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Hey all-

Yeah, I managed to run a 1 player 1 GM session (about 80-90 minutes from chargen to finish) this weekend.

Andy: cool!

1) It's Fudge!  Mind you, it's not terribly bad, because I really like Fudge, but there are parts of it that are a tiny bit confusing: With the new skill names, I found myself INSTANTLY converting "Journeyman" to "1" then rolling the dice: A drawback to what some people say is "Fudge just diguising numbers with adjectives", but a little moreso.

Ok - either you're saying that the adjective translate poorly (like Journeyman = 1 in your head) or you've just got the numbers wrong when typing. Hmm. Clarify.

And, dude, so not Fudge. Ok, maybe a little. I mean, Bringing Down the Pain is now an unholy child of the original + Fate.

2) I swing either way, but I know my group REALLY loves the numbers and granularity of the 1-10 ability levels.

Sounds dumb to ask, but: why? I don't get this, but I really want to, because I don't want to alienate my audience.

The only thing I see is that the new one is more "centered": you're less likely to get an extreme result. That's good in my opinion: in play, I noticed spending for bonus dice rarely happened. It happens all the time now.

4) Parallel vs Perpendicular.  I REALLY like this seperation.  HOWEVER, because of it, I got a little confused: I had an evil wizard throwing fireballs and launching traps at the Bard, while the Bard retorted with Storytelling, trying to get him to change his ways, while dodging the traps.
Now, this seems like Parallel.  On the first roll as written, because it was parallel and the Wizard was a Master, he slew the PC in one hit. (So I "redid" it, lowering the skill of the wizard to 1 rather than 2) Actually, now that I'm going through that in my head, I'm not sure that that adds up right... I'll have to look at our numbers again, but I rolled 5 dice, keeping three and got 3 plusses... and that instantly Broke the player.

Now, what I should have realized was that, even in this situation, the action was perpendicular: The Bard was dodging and hiding against the Wizard's attacks while retorting with Story, and the Wizard was throwing traps and making noise to distract the Bard and make noise.  So it was a little deceptive, and the fact that now there are two types of combat confused us in that regard.  I guess we should have thought about it more in the Free and Clear stage.

I think I need to clarify this more. Actually, I'm not certain how I would have adjucated your situation. I need to think about it more. I lean toward parallel, actually, but I want situations where you might do something like this.

[dyjoots]

On a topic that ISN'T harm and healing:

Looking at the advancement chart, some things cost more than one "advancement."  Are these costs additive or cumulative?  For example, if I am a Master in Pray, and I want to become a Grand Master, do I need to use 6 advances or 3 advances?  Does that question make sense?  I'm assuming it's the former, but it wasn't clear from the text.

[Jasper Polane]

I'm a bit confused about the BDTP example. After Matt says:

"Crap," he mutters. "I'm changing my intention. Gael's just going to high-tail it, trying to avoid danger."

Doesn't he have to defend a turn?

--Jasper

[aplath]

Now, what I should have realized was that, even in this situation, the action was perpendicular: The Bard was dodging and hiding against the Wizard's attacks while retorting with Story, and the Wizard was throwing traps and making noise to distract the Bard and make noise.  So it was a little deceptive, and the fact that now there are two types of combat confused us in that regard.  I guess we should have thought about it more in the Free and Clear stage.

I think I need to clarify this more. Actually, I'm not certain how I would have adjucated your situation. I need to think about it more. I lean toward parallel, actually, but I want situations where you might do something like this.

Perhaps an easier way to adjucate this would be to look at both character's intentions and not their actions.

Looks like the sorcerer's intention was to kill the bard and the bard's intention was to change the sorcerer's mind (meaning: avoiding getting killed).

Since the intentions are clearly mutually exclusive, ruling the actions as perpendicular seems just about right.

Andreas

[Clinton R. Nixon]

On a topic that ISN'T harm and healing:

Looking at the advancement chart, some things cost more than one "advancement."  Are these costs additive or cumulative?  For example, if I am a Master in Pray, and I want to become a Grand Master, do I need to use 6 advances or 3 advances?  Does that question make sense?  I'm assuming it's the former, but it wasn't clear from the text.

You're right: 6 advances.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

I'm a bit confused about the BDTP example. After Matt says:

"Crap," he mutters. "I'm changing my intention. Gael's just going to high-tail it, trying to avoid danger."

Doesn't he have to defend a turn?

--Jasper

You are also right. It's an alpha version of the text, and has mistakes.

[Per Fischer]

On another note: bonus/penalty dice add dice to the roll plus then removes either the highest or lowest rolled result(s).

Is that correctly understood?

I have absolutely nothing against Fudge dice, but this particular mechanic removes the possibiliy to use adapted Fudge rolls with ordinary six-sided dice (there are a whole bunch of them, just an example: roll 4 dice, two negative and two positive and pick the lowest. Ties between neg and pos are just read as 0)

I don't know, maybe I'll just have to get/make some Fudge dice after all. Darn.

Per

[Andy Kitkowski]

I have absolutely nothing against Fudge dice, but this particular mechanic removes the possibiliy to use adapted Fudge rolls with ordinary six-sided dice (there are a whole bunch of them, just an example: roll 4 dice, two negative and two positive and pick the lowest. Ties between neg and pos are just read as 0)

If you use the adopted
1-2= -
3-4 = o
5-6 = +
, then you can just remove the lowest.

If you use the chart where you compare a 3d6 or 4d6 roll to a chart, then yeah you're right.

On the Fudge zine online, there was a suggestion to make Fudge dice by drawing X over the pips on the 3 and 5 sides (for "pluss") and a square over the 4 and 6 pip sides (for "blank"), and the 1 and 2 sides just draw a single angled slash (for "minus"). That's the best homemade method I've seen.  

But Fudge Dice rock. I highly recommend picking up a pack.

[Thierry Michel]

Is all damage tracked on the same chart, or do you need different ones for, say, physical, social, spiritual wathever?

[dyjoots]

Since the intentions are clearly mutually exclusive, ruling the actions as perpendicular seems just about right.

Cool observation.  I was wondering myself what a good guideline would be.  It brings me to another question though: what is a good example of parallel actions in BDTP?

[aplath]

Since the intentions are clearly mutually exclusive, ruling the actions as perpendicular seems just about right.

Cool observation.  I was wondering myself what a good guideline would be.  It brings me to another question though: what is a good example of parallel actions in BDTP?

Actually I'm not so sure the guideline is that good. The more I think about it, the more I find that if you follow this guideline there will be no parallel action that makes sense in a BDTP context.

Per the rules, BDTP is initiated from a resisted ability check. If it is resisted, one can assume that, in the very least, it involves one character trying to stop another character from doing something.

So the actions, by my guideline, would be always perpendicular. At least in the beginning of BDTP, anyway.

This leads me to think that I may not have quite understood the concept of parallel and perpendicular actions ... Clinton? Help?

Andreas

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Since the intentions are clearly mutually exclusive, ruling the actions as perpendicular seems just about right.

Cool observation.  I was wondering myself what a good guideline would be.  It brings me to another question though: what is a good example of parallel actions in BDTP?

...

So the actions, by my guideline, would be always perpendicular. At least in the beginning of BDTP, anyway.

This leads me to think that I may not have quite understood the concept of parallel and perpendicular actions ... Clinton? Help?

Hey, you made up the guideline. I never agreed with it. Personally, I think you've got it absolutely wrong. You're looking at it like the original BDTP, where I made things confusing by using conflict resolution concepts in task resolution, which makes it very hard to conceptualize.

Let me explain.

BDTP comes from a resisted Ability Check in conflict resolution. In conflict resolution, sure you can overpower a guy attacking you by cooking a meal.

BDTP, however, is task resolution. In task resolution, adding spices to the pot won't stop a sword stroke.

Make sense?

Now, how to make it so cooking for a master swordsman isn't a mistake in BDTP? It shouldn't be easy: the point of BDTP is so when someone overpowers you with their skill in one arena, you can respond back instead of taking it, usually in that same arena. I would note that you can chain actions and use successes from one to help another. A special version of this that could used in BDTP is the total defense. If you use only a defensive ability in one round, I'd allow the successes from it to be added to a action in the next round: i.e. dodge (using React - defensive) and then cook (Cooking - parallel).

The other idea is doing one thing until you get them beat enough to do another. If your cooking doesn't overpower them the first time, Bring Down the Pain and whip them with a sword until they're bloodied, then cook. That'd work, too.

[dyjoots]

Let me explain.

BDTP comes from a resisted Ability Check in conflict resolution. In conflict resolution, sure you can overpower a guy attacking you by cooking a meal.

BDTP, however, is task resolution. In task resolution, adding spices to the pot won't stop a sword stroke.

So, parallel and perpendicular only apply to tasks.  Tasks, whatever they may be, lead to the intentions of BDTP occuring.  So, being a good cook isn't going to protect you in BDTP, but being a good swordsman isn't going to protect your opponent in the same BDTP situation.