3 areas of improvement for next time....

[Storn]

Okay, played SotC last night.  And I had three areas that we couldn't lay our hands on the rules quickly.  Now.  I love this game.  So don't think I'm poo-pooing this wonderful creation.  I'm talking about doin' the tighten up.

1)  Companions are not well explained.  Pg. 77 sez that a companion gains a number of advances to begin with (but not how many).  Sorry.  I just got it.  Strike this critique.  On page 130, I finally tracked down right now, as I'm writing this, that it is three Advances. But in play, I missed that little nugget several times.  Which means I wrote up Princess Alura wrong.  Cool.  I can make her a bit better. 

2.)  This almost came up last night.  But Julie decided to sit this game out and concentrate on school work.  Julie doesn't have a SotC character yet.  And if she had played, we've got a couple of characters, created all at the same time, with the wonderful structure of guest starring in each other novels, etc.  What happens when you want to integrate a new Player?  Should we do the guest star novel writing with the new character... or should they just come in....?  I think that the Century Club is a real easy IN-GAME structure to introduce a new character.... but I love the novel writing section of character generation.  And maybe this is in the rules, but I can't seem to access it.

3)  Last night, we wanted to have one player make a support roll in order to help another player.  This is a common feature in most games now.  Lending dice from BW.  Fan Mail from PTA.  While we eventually cottoned on to I made a roll to create a Taggable "environmental" Aspect, that Jeff tagged for Free (got that +2).... it took us a bit to track that down in the rules.  I think if that was an actual section  and a bit stronger... for the write up speaks of the SAME PC using two skills, not 2 PCs using two different (or similar skills) to work in conjunction.

[iago]

1)  Companions are not well explained.  Pg. 77 sez that a companion gains a number of advances to begin with (but not how many).  Sorry.  I just got it.  Strike this critique.  On page 130, I finally tracked down right now, as I'm writing this, that it is three Advances. But in play, I missed that little nugget several times.  Which means I wrote up Princess Alura wrong.  Cool.  I can make her a bit better. 

Yep, that's written up in the book and... I *thought* it was indexed enough to make that findable.

2.)  This almost came up last night.  But Julie decided to sit this game out and concentrate on school work.  Julie doesn't have a SotC character yet.  And if she had played, we've got a couple of characters, created all at the same time, with the wonderful structure of guest starring in each other novels, etc.  What happens when you want to integrate a new Player?  Should we do the guest star novel writing with the new character... or should they just come in....?  I think that the Century Club is a real easy IN-GAME structure to introduce a new character.... but I love the novel writing section of character generation.  And maybe this is in the rules, but I can't seem to access it.

It's spelled out pretty clearly in the 'Creation on the Fly' stuff in the character creation chapter, towards the back.  It in fact still preserves the novel-writing part, but lets you figure out most of the rest of the stuff in play.

3)  Last night, we wanted to have one player make a support roll in order to help another player.  This is a common feature in most games now.  Lending dice from BW.  Fan Mail from PTA.  While we eventually cottoned on to I made a roll to create a Taggable "environmental" Aspect, that Jeff tagged for Free (got that +2).... it took us a bit to track that down in the rules.  I think if that was an actual section  and a bit stronger... for the write up speaks of the SAME PC using two skills, not 2 PCs using two different (or similar skills) to work in conjunction.

Fair critique.  The "create a temporary aspect for the other dude" thing is definitely meant to be the main mechanism for that. 

Furthermore: if you gain spin on a defense roll, you can use the bonus resulting from that to help a teammate (if the order of things plays out that way). 

But doing the temporary aspect handoff?  Yeah, that's totally the idea.

[Storn]

Yep, that's written up in the book and... I *thought* it was indexed enough to make that findable.

Oh.  it was there.  And indexed!  I just couldn't find it the first two times I looked for it.  But that is my own blindness.  It was the top of the page under companions.  I'm sometimes hampered by my own strong visual problem solving that I look for some kind of visual cue to find info.  Using a RPG book isn't like reading a novel for me... it is very much about textbook cues.
And sometimes I miss the forest for the trees.

It's spelled out pretty clearly in the 'Creation on the Fly' stuff in the character creation chapter, towards the back.  It in fact still preserves the novel-writing part, but lets you figure out most of the rest of the stuff in play.

Ah.  Haven't looked there yet.  I will.

But doing the temporary aspect handoff?  Yeah, that's totally the idea.

yeah.  YOur one sentence in the other thread in Paka's game totally spelled that out for me. 

[iago]

Excellent.  Thanks for pointing out the places for improvement, man!

[Storn]

A good critique is a love letter saying "I care.".  <g>

....while that is pretty tongue in cheek, I think it holds a kernal of truth.  Certainly something I learned to accept and give in art school has been useful in all paths of life (so far).

[Mel White]

3) Last night, we wanted to have one player make a support roll in order to help another player. This is a common feature in most games now. Lending dice from BW. Fan Mail from PTA. While we eventually cottoned on to I made a roll to create a Taggable "environmental" Aspect, that Jeff tagged for Free (got that +2).... it took us a bit to track that down in the rules. I think if that was an actual section and a bit stronger... for the write up speaks of the SAME PC using two skills, not 2 PCs using two different (or similar skills) to work in conjunction.

Storn,
I'm interested in this feature of SOTC--PCs helping PCs.  Would you have preferred a 'lending dice' sort of ability as in BW or, say, TSOY, with the assisted PC keeping the best four dice?  Could you expand a little bit on how your character's creation of a 'taggable environmental Aspect' actually worked in play?  Not mechanically, but in terms of the flow of the game.  I know you've posted some AP reports so I'll go look for them again. 
Take care,
Mel