[Galactic] Big problem

[Robert Bohl]

Unless I'm misreading, the places on pages 52 and 53 where conflicts resolution is described doesn't actually state the conditions for winning a conflict. They say that the example conflict between Emily and Luke make it look bad for Luke, but they don't say why that is. I skimmed the other conflict descriptions and deduced that you win if you have more dice left over than your opponent. However I'm not really sure how ties break?

It's fairly obvious that if we each have 3 dice, and mine are 2d8, 1d6 and yours are 1d8, 2d6, I'm winning. But if I've got 2d8 and you've got 3d6, am I still losing? What if we both have the same dice totals?

I've read up to page 55 where we're talking about Conflict Options, and I've skimmed the examples of play as I said. Please help.

[Robert Bohl]

Hey Matt,

Just finished reading Galactic ahead of running it in a couple of weeks. I'm going to focus for now on problems with the text so let me say first that it's a really exciting game and I can't wait to play it. Here're my thoughts on what I saw:

1) p. 16, left column, Quests on Caliban, 1st paragraph. "Here's a few quest ideas" should be "Here are a few quest ideas."

2) p. 16, right column, 2nd paragraph, next-to-last sentence. "have operations in the vicinity of Mirands" should be "have operations in the vicinity of Miranda."

3) A map might be nice.

4) It might be nice to note that both the worlds and the factions are examples of things you can do yourself so people don't take them too seriously and realize they'll be creating planets just as important later.

5) p. 18, left column. The Northern Span and the White Wind's bullet points are the same.

6) p. 28, left column, The Call to Adventure, 2nd paragraph. I think that rather than a suggestion, it should be a rule that each one "provide a tiny clue about the nature of the Scourge, such as a color, or smell or sound." That's how I'm going to present it to the group I'm GMing for.

7) In reviewing the sheet and comparing it to the creation section it seems like it would be nice to have an area to include personality notes, since they're part of charactger creation. Same for concept.

p. 32, right column, Fortune. I think that briefer notes about what Fortune does here, and putting specifics on spending later when it's relevant in the conflict chapter might be good. Or at least note here that some of this will make more sense later, or maybe include the character-creation-relevant things here and the conflict-relevant things later.

9) p. 34, left column, Strictly Professional. The word "and" is misspelled as "adn."

10) p. 36, both columns, Example Worlds and p. 39, Worlds, italicized example paragraph. These both contain citations for rumors, but rumors are not listed in the Creating Worlds  section (p. 36, left column) proper.

11) p. 37, left column, Quest Benefit, 2nd paragraph. It says that you'll learn about losing the quest benefit on p. 37 (which we're on) and p. 51, but the answer isn't found in either place. I saw elsewhere that you keep it until it becomes impaired, and then it's lost? Can you spend Fortune to save it?

12) pp. 52-53, Step Two: Roll and Compare. As I outline above, it's not very clear how you determine who wins a conflict until you extensively read all the examples, whereas a simple statement saying "you win if you have more dice, ties broken by higher dice," would be extremely helpful. Also I need to know what to do if there's still a tie. I assume you roll again?

13) p. 53, left column, Concede or Roll Again? From reading the play examples it seems you can only choose to concede if you have at least one die that's not knocked out, but this should be explicit. Also it wasn't immediately clear to me when you roll again or what. It was again by reading examples that I figured out you fiddle as much as you want to, then roll.

14) p. 53, left column, Aftermath, 2nd paragraph. The word "injuries" is misspelled as "inuries."

15) p. 54, left column, Fortune. I want to make sure I have this right: if I'm playing your crew member, and I get a die knocked out, the captain I play gets Fortune? Assuming that's right is there a logical problem there (my captain gets better for nothing having to do with anything he did) or are you comfortable with that?

16) p. 54, Impairment. I gather from context elsewhere that each point of impairment reduces the number of dice you can roll for that trait, but I don't believe it's explicitly stated anywhere, and I don't see it in this section in particular.

17) p. 59, left column, Aftermath, 1st bullet. It says that Andy gets 1d8 trust from Bari for winning on the Crew component, but Emily lost the conflict with all her dice knocked out so shouldn't he get 2d8?

18) p. 59, left column, Aftermath, 2nd bullet set, 1st bullet, "Emily has lost all. . . ." It says she gets 10 Hazard, plus the 1 that Joshua (Andy?) spent when he brought in Omar's Warrior archetype, but I don't see this rule elsewhere. p. 55, A New Archetype, doesn't mention this rule.

19) p. 59, left column, Aftermath, last paragraph. Bari doesn't gain trauma for the Gm rolling high on doubt dice does she? It seems unfair for the GM to damage the player's crew members for the GM's own bad rolls.

20) p. 62, left column, Artifacts. What are these? I haven't seen these before.

) A rules synopsis--as well as a list of tables--at the end would be extremely helpful.

[Robert Bohl]

Still working on that character sheet. I noticed another thing: There's no room on the sheet for crew's Doubt levels.

[Robert Bohl]

I put the form-fillable version of the character sheet up at RPG Sheets. I left the things that are likely to be erased and re-written a lot during the game un-filled. The tab order is more or less the order that character creation takes in the book.

[Matt Wilson]

Hi Rob:

Thanks for all the feedback. I'm glad you're giving this a critical eye, as you'll notice below many of your fairly bottom-line observations have slipped past other groups.

I don't know what's weirder: that I left out explicit conditions for winning/losing or that you're the first person to notice. Maybe it was one of my clever late-night edits. Yes, if you lose all your dice, you're out of the conflict, though often enough a player will concede before that.

p. 54, left column, Fortune. I want to make sure I have this right: if I'm playing your crew member, and I get a die knocked out, the captain I play gets Fortune? Assuming that's right is there a logical problem there (my captain gets better for nothing having to do with anything he did) or are you comfortable with that?

The player gets fortune, not the captain. No logical problem. Player participated, player gets a cookie.

p. 37, left column, Quest Benefit, 2nd paragraph. It says that you'll learn about losing the quest benefit on p. 37 (which we're on) and p. 51, but the answer isn't found in either place. I saw elsewhere that you keep it until it becomes impaired, and then it's lost? Can you spend Fortune to save it?

If by that you mean "can you un-impair it," then no.

As I outline above, it's not very clear how you determine who wins a conflict until you extensively read all the examples, whereas a simple statement saying "you win if you have more dice, ties broken by higher dice," would be extremely helpful.

It would, except that that's not right! You win if the other player concedes or if you remove all of his or her dice from play.

. 54, Impairment. I gather from context elsewhere that each point of impairment reduces the number of dice you can roll for that trait,

Yes

p. 59, left column, Aftermath, 1st bullet. It says that Andy gets 1d8 trust from Bari for winning on the Crew component, but Emily lost the conflict with all her dice knocked out so shouldn't he get 2d8?

Yes.

p. 59, left column, Aftermath, 2nd bullet set, 1st bullet, "Emily has lost all. . . ." It says she gets 10 Hazard, plus the 1 that Joshua (Andy?) spent when he brought in Omar's Warrior archetype, but I don't see this rule elsewhere. p. 55, A New Archetype, doesn't mention this rule.

Every point of fortune you spend goes to the GM. I bet it's in there somewhere. Maybe.

p. 59, left column, Aftermath, last paragraph. Bari doesn't gain trauma for the Gm rolling high on doubt dice does she? It seems unfair for the GM to damage the player's crew members for the GM's own bad rolls.

a) oh yes she does. b) But is it unfun? Play first, critique second!

62, left column, Artifacts. What are these? I haven't seen these before.

Assume that I mean "quest benefit." I kept having specific objects in my head as examples, very golden-fleecy, but they absolutely don't need to be.

Man, this is long enough to be its own FAQ. I have work to do.

[Robert Bohl]

Glad to help. When I start to run it I'm sure I'll have more feedback.

I heard somewhere that you had advocated each player only making one world? Is that so? I didn't see the original source on it, just a reference. Why would that be?

[Matt Wilson]

You can make more worlds in advance if you want. It's just a lot of prep time.

[Matt Wilson]

Oh, and crap, I forgot to respond to this bit in your first post:

It's fairly obvious that if we each have 3 dice, and mine are 2d8, 1d6 and yours are 1d8, 2d6, I'm winning.

You're not winning. That's like saying if you have 6 HP in D&D and I have 5, you're winning. If you have better dice, you have an advantage.

It's more about how many dice each side has lost. If you lose one of your d8s, and I lose a d6, that's a narration cue that whatever just happened was to my advantage.

[Robert Bohl]

Yeah realizing how wrong I was about win conditions was pretty surprising. The actual way it works is much better.

[Brad Murray]

On p.38 under "Earning Hazard" we are told that the GM earns a point of hazard whenever a point of Fortune is spent.  This doesn't seem to be mentioned again and doesn't appear in the examples.  Can you clarify/verify this rule for me, Matt?  Posting in this thread just to consolidate these editorial issues.

[Matt Wilson]

Brad:

Yes! Important rule. Thanks for asking.