http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/10/10048.phtml

He has some points, and he really made me think about the GM/planning campaigns bit. I don't agree that you have to wing it so much for a TROS story, only be prepared for sudden changes.

I think that its not as much a decision of winging it or not as much as 1) grounding the adventure in the SAs, and 2) giving the players real choices (no 'railroading'). Because of this, making a published adventure module for TROS (in the old D&D sense) is practically impossible.

As for the review, the forum under it is a must-read. Ralph does a good job of explaining the problems in the review. Its a shame the forum devolved into such a flame-fest (I'm not blaming Ralph, BTW).

I will now be quiet again for another 4 months :)

I think the reviewer is definitely coming at the game from the wrong angle for TROS entirely. Yup, it has flaws and so does the book, but I think a few things should be noted:

1) A realistic combat system is not necessarily what you need for a combat heavy game.
2) He obviously has no experience of actually fighting, to judge by his comments on a "true sword fight".
3) A GM need not run the game that heavily by letting the SAs do the work instead (and of course, changing your SAs willy nilly does penalise you heavily)

But at least there is yet another review out there :)

James

I love this. First he raves about it being realistic, then raving that it is too realistic and not realistic enough?! Having a swordfight up stairs isn't possible? I don't even know how to argue this.... this guy does not know what he wants to say IMO.

Salamander wrote: this guy does not know what he wants to say IMO.

My Nick, you are rather verbose this month... :)

I feel that it does bring up the issue (once again) of the overall ignorance of those who roleplay sword fights. I am not saying the reviewer is a boor or a slob, just not aware of what happens when two people cross swords. Even I am only basically aware of the concept as I have never been in a real swordfight either. But I have an inkling due to the training I am recieving in Kunst dei Fechten. In regards to the idea of heroic swordfights, I have never heard of such a thing. All the fights I have heard about were dirty, desperate affairs where one or more people died. This leads me to the second concept, how long does this fellow think a real sword fight would last? Most of the rounds for a sparring match for me last a few seconds and five blows between both people, TOPS. A functional engagement with swords and a theatrical engagement with swords are two different creatures. One kills you, the other pays for your beer and bread.

I think he has a point when it comes to being a novice GM/Seneschal. What does an unexperienced GM do when one player, as the reviewer suggests, wants to go north and the other go south?
In my own campaign, players have split up, and I have let them do it, because it fit the story quite well (just like the splitting of the Fellowship in The Lord of the Rings heightens the drama), but not for long periods of time. Besides, players soon enough realize they need to stay together with such a brutal combat system.

On writing adventures for TROS; the one I've written for personal use had pre-generated characters (at least when it comes to the characters' backgrounds/ranks etc.); in this way, the players were forced to start out from a certain point; in this case, a young lordling, a house knight and the son of a smith, all connected to each other (the knight serves the lordling's father, whose castlesmith is the father of the third PC). *then* the players created their SAs. In this way, at least some SAs were compatible (such as the smithson's "Loyalty to the House (of the lordling's character)". Flaws and gifts flesh out the individual parts of the characters.

Salamander wrote:
I feel that it does bring up the issue (once again) of the overall ignorance of those who roleplay sword fights. I am not saying the reviewer is a boor or a slob, just not aware of what happens when two people cross swords. Even I am only basically aware of the concept as I have never been in a real swordfight either.

Tywin Lannister wrote: I think he has a point when it comes to being a novice GM/Seneschal. What does an unexperienced GM do when one player, as the reviewer suggests, wants to go north and the other go south?

Oi. Morons all. Did the reviewer actually read the GM chapter? It sounds like he's trying to run d20 modules with TROS. Someone should point him to Chris Chinn's Ways to Play.

<Edit, because I clikcked "post" too soon.>

The poster "Buzz" does have a point, though. It's something I was a bit annoyed with the TROS book about. Ken Burnside has the same problem with his Attack Vetor game. When you publish a game, potential players need to be able to derive a clear picture of what actual play looks like from the literature alone. If it's necessary for the designer to hand-hold them through the teaching process, it means the text is not sufficiently developed.

But there is one point- would you actually give TROS to a newbie GM and expect him to run it?


Those of us who have had nothing better to do for 10 years or more have seen and done a lot of things in RPGs. We make rules on the fly, we spend ages with the players making characters and fitting them to settings, and we can cope if the party splits itself without any problems. I have even played scenarios using two GMs, with a fixed path in mind- if the PCs are together, one GM gets to play the bad guys (watch the other guy's eyes pop at some of the dialogue) while the other sets the scene. If the party splits (as the scenario intends), then each GM runs one bunch. We liked the one-off adventure so much, that now, if one of the PCsin a regular game pegs early, he can aid the GM if he feels up to it (which is when a minor sideplot can explode in your face!).

But of course, don't expect new players or those lacking that little bit of maturity to do this!

James

TROS sucks because the sky is purple.

TROS is simply more complex than your normal hack and slash game. Comparing it to D&D type games is just plain silly.

Paganini wrote: Oi. Morons all. Did the reviewer actually read the GM chapter? It sounds like he's trying to run d20 modules with TROS. Someone should point him to Chris Chinn's Ways to Play.

<Edit, because I clikcked "post" too soon.>

The poster "Buzz" does have a point, though. It's something I was a bit annoyed with the TROS book about. Ken Burnside has the same problem with his Attack Vetor game. When you publish a game, potential players need to be able to derive a clear picture of what actual play looks like from the literature alone. If it's necessary for the designer to hand-hold them through the teaching process, it means the text is not sufficiently developed.

We've been over this before, James, everyone knows Ken. Ralph rooms with him at cons. He was just across the aisle from The Forge booth at GenCon (I bought his SCAM - Society for the Conservation of Angular Momentum tee-shirt). He's tried to get all of us to play at least ten times. :-)


Ken does represent an interesting point here. That is, AV is complex to say the least. But Ken will tell you over and over that they've really streamlined how things work such that anyone can play just reading the rules.

That said, I'm willing to bet that more than half the people who play the game have played with him. And those that haven't are playing with people who've played with him.

Thing is, that this is pretty common in hobby gaming. Yes there are those examples of people who learned to play D&D just reading a manual, but they're relatively rare. IOW, "newbie GM"? Just what is this creature? Should we really care about him? Which is to say that isn't it possible that it isn't important to have a game be immediately accessible to someone who reads the book? Can't games just continue to spread virally as they do now?

Sure, it would be idea for a game like this to be instantly accessible to anyone reading the books. But it's just unlikely for a game of any complexity. D&D certainly isn't a counter-example. For every story that I've heard of the person who learned by reading, I get a corresponding, "And we played it all wrong for the first three months," story.

I think a game that's simpler, like Inspectres, for instance, can be learned from the text, fairly easily. But I think that if TROS had been written in such a way that you didn't have to have some RPG background to figure out how to play easily would have made Jake the best designer ever. As it is, Jake's first shot out of the gate, he did astoundingly well, equaling or exceeding the "industry standards" for presentation.

Moreover, Jake is here to handhold you if need be. The internet makes this possible, and Jake uses it. So, in this day and age, who can decry the product as it's presented? At worst you have to ask Jake to get the straight dope.

Mike "Obvious Fanboy" Holmes

Sigh

We've been over this before, James, everyone knows Ken.

So, is there anything else that the review (accidentally?) makes us think about, such as Tywin's comment?

The priority system is exactly that--it starts asking you what's important to you; it's not supposed to balance anything.

Jake

Jake Norwood wrote: The priority system is exactly that--it starts asking you what's important to you; it's not supposed to balance anything.

Its what's important to the player Psyke.
TROS is subtle like that. Its ALL about what's important to the *player*

That's why SAs can change so easily. Someone might be prone to think "why would the character lose his Passion so easily". Answer: Because the *player* wanted him to. If the player doesn't want him to, he doesn't change the SA. If what's important to the player is a real good honest ingame portrayal and roleplay of how the character lost his passion before actually making the change on the sheet. The player can do that too. If the player doesn't need to have that played out in game but is happy thinking about it occuring off stage...than he can do that.

Even the combat system features *player* skill. Its possible for a buff axe wielding viking type to get schooled by a 12 year old kid with a stick (cough cough) because the *player* screwed up. Someone might be prone to suggest that the character should be a better fighter than that, but TROS is all about the *player*.

Even the system for death feeds into this. Its real common for an opponent to go down through shock and pain or blood loss, meaning he's out of the fight, but not yet dead. This gives yet another opportunity for highlighting what the player wants...what to do with the defeated guys who aren't killed.

So yes, when viewed from a character simulation perspective the Priority system irritates the heck out of me. When viewed from a "force the player to make choices" perspective it works quite well.

Pyske wrote:

Jake Norwood wrote: The priority system is exactly that--it starts asking you what's important to you; it's not supposed to balance anything.

Understood. But moving beyond that, what conclusion should I, as Seneschal, draw from the fact that my player chooses Social Class A as opposed to Attributes A? Are they telling me that they want to control the world more through social & economic pressure, rather than raw personal ability?

. . . . . . . -- Eric

Added my bit. I'm just interested in what the reader of the review gets concerned over reading it, rather than trying to school the reviewer.

Damn cut and paste error at the start though.

As an aside and for the record: the poster Seanchai hates everything that is TROS, and in fact anything Forge related from what I can see. I pretty much ignore anything he has to say because he's using that hatred as the basis for his arguments rather than logic or knowledge of what he's arguing about.

I suggest others do the same.

(edit: Also for the record: I'm not bashing the review or the reviewer, he makes some valid comments, although he keeps contradicting himself over and over (seemingly so he can say something else bad) and overall, the tone of the review warrants a substance of 2-3, certainly not 1. I'm just bashing Seanchai).

Brian.

As I've discovered after reading some of his other posts at rpg.net

As for the reviewer himself, I'm having trouble figuring out when he's going to make his mind up. As far as reviewers are concerned he's awefully spiteful himself.

Seanchai (James Durnon) makes some valid points. Other comments simply indicate a poor match for his interest.

Things that struck me:

Seanchai wrote: The first thing about the book that turned me off a little was the artwork. The artwork was very inconsistent. Some pieces were great, and others were like a child's drawing.

Seanchai wrote: Initially, I was really excited about the character creation system. It allowed for a lot of flexibility on the player's part, yet kept them from creating unrealistic characters . . . But something occurred to me after making a couple of characters, and helping my players make theirs. One player of mine noticed a huge flaw, and after that, I couldn't view it as a viable creation system anymore.

Seanchai wrote: While you are defending, you cannot attack, and vice-versa. This was another disappointment for me . . . Why? Well, either you hit someone or you don't. If you hit, you win the round, and can continue again next exchange. If you miss, your opponent will win the round, and you will automatically be sent on the defensive.

Seanchai wrote: . . . the other thing that turned me off about it was that combat was extremely deadly, meaning that basically, the first one to hit won the fight, in almost every case. This was what the designers intended, I'm sure, but in my opinion, I would have preferred a more heroic combat system.

Seanchai wrote: The game is primarily set up to have one on one, man vs. man type of fights. It is not meant for your party to fight a troll, a giant, a dragon, a beholder, or any other beast. Why? Well, for starters, the system assumes that you are fighting one man, and only man, and that this man is a humanoid the size of a human.

Seanchai wrote: Supposedly, the second book released by this company has more tables for fighting other types of beasts, which is good, but to me, this should have been given in the core book, and I refused to cash out any more dough to this company to find out.

Seanchai wrote: I've read a number of posts in the forums on Driftwood's site, and so far, I've come up with three different answers to a simple question (and I'm not sure any of them were correct): How do you write a successful adventure where your players have SAs that are totally contradictory?

Seanchai wrote: So, even if you design the adventure around the players' SAs, they will change, and ruin it for you.

Seanchai wrote: Does anyone want to play Pippin the hobbit while I play Gandalf the wizard x10?

Seanchai wrote: This is supposedly countered with the fact that whenever you cast a spell, your character can age a few months (maybe they really do start at age 4!). That's not much of a deterrent in my mind.

Seanchai wrote: To me, there just seems to be a lack of mystery to it all. In my mind, I prefer magic to be mysterious, rarely understood, and maybe unpredictable. Not a scientific process of A + B + C = D.

Seanchai wrote: Weryth could have the making of an excellent setting, but because the book was so big, they left out a bunch of needed descriptions. Most of the regions and their inhabitants are not explained in any great detail, meaning you pretty much have to make it up for yourself, which makes me wonder why they bothered at all.

bcook1971 wrote:
On the subject of SA's, while they are great, even revolutionary, I think it's valid to say there is over promise in their presentation and praises.

bcook1971 wrote:

Seanchai wrote: So, even if you design the adventure around the players' SAs, they will change, and ruin it for you.

It's about trust. Since SA's are potentially plot-based, the game must allow for flexibility in their reassignment. More to Seanchai's point, it seems his play style is at odds with the intended use of SA's.

Alan wrote: Rather than over-promise, I think it is under-explaination. More guidelines and examples and a less "use it as you wish" approach would go a long way to making the text convey the use of SAs. I once read that Jake wasn't sure if he wanted to include SAs in the game and perhaps that tentativeness shows.

Theres some misleading elements of the above. James Durnon wrote the review. To the best of my knowledge, James and Seanchai are not the same person.

Seanchai responded to my response to the review

Whoops! I apologize for the misidentification.

This has been my assertion all along and that of any of my players who've read the book. "Oh thats what they're for, cool" End-of-story...

While its a smallish section of the book, I still think its quite clearly stated how to use them. In the GMing section, from memory, it states clearly how to tailor adventures to the players SAs. The brevity of their presentation is perhaps something to do with the simplicity of the rules. Concise and elegant, with a lot of depth hidden under the surface. Not rocket science and not something a seasoned GM would find difficult. In fact I think its a hell of a lot more simple than that. I'd hazard a guess that newbie GMs would find the SAs perhaps a most obvious start-off point for adventure creation allowing them to create games quickly.

Which begs a question, how many people here are relative newcomers to gaming? I've been playing for about 15 years which makes me a middling gamer I guess, but I've run the game *for* newbies who got it a hell of a lot easier than D&D frex.

Jason..

I had been playing and GMing for a good 15 years before I found The Forge. I started reading GNS theory and playing games like InSpectres before I read TROS, so I didn't come to the game straight from my old habits.

I do recall however that it took several months of intense study of the Forge before I gave up all of my old GMing paradigm (what Ron would call Illusionism). I remember some posts where I worried about the consequences of letting go the plot and allowing the players to drive play.

I think that's a main stumbling block for a lot of people who come from D&D into TROS.

In retrospect I think "This is what I was looking for all those years." But I forget there was a time when a couple main elements of TROS would have baffled me.

Alan, you and me both. I went through the same process.

Thing is when you try to explain the different mindset that is required to "get it" to someone who hasn't gone through the process you get all of those "elitist" type comments.

Sometimes I feel like a Vorlon saying "You are not ready".

People hate that and usually respond by lashing out.

I struggled with DnD for a bit over six years with my own campaign world... trying to find an incarnation/house ruleset that would make DnD "Gritty combat, no healing magic, scary sorcerous magic thats powerful and rare"...

TROS was "What I was looking for all along" and SAs have given me the tools to create those kind of games I only experienced by getting together the best gamers I know and throwing away half of the DnD rules and trusting their own, as I now know its called, Directorial Stance abilities..

funny how things work out..

My experience has been all positive, and my players are coming from a DnD 3x background. Also, one player who is usually slow to get rules, got TROS in one session. I think he was waiting for a combat system where he could describe or mime what he wanted to do, and he could DO it. In 3e, there have been too many times where we've had to say...

"Sorry, you can say you do that, but the mechanic doesn't cover it."

Also, combat has been quick and the round system of two exchanges has allowed me to go "around the table" so everyone gets more play time.

However, its not the combat...SAs have MADE the game. The same weekend we played with a GM who gave us a 'top-down' sort of adventure. That is, he had some kewl books and a kewl adventure and forced us through it. The players were not happy. In contrast, with SAs driving the Drama, everyone contributes to the Story, and that makes everyone happy. It is not just the uber-mage or uber-cleric or uber-GM that drives the story. I have had to ask players for notes since several conversations have occured in character while I'm doing something else. Plus, I like acting more as a facilitator, a weaver of the tale instead of a judge.

To say that the game does not allow for Heroics is misleading. In one of my first sessions, a player knew he could sneak away and watch an ambush occur, but his Conscience drove him to give away the positions of the ambushers with a shout. Because of the deadliness of combat it put him is serious jeopardy, but with SAs and because he prevailed, fearing for his life, it was very heroic.

I guess I would say the reviewer missed the point, and did not get the Riddle :)

Actually, the number of people I've personally taught how to play AV:T is under twenty. The number of people I've done the 5 minute "hi, wanna blow up a chocolate?" walkthrough to is in the hundreds and maybe thousands by now.

One of the major content differences between Delta V (which is what Nathan Banks saw) and the final product is that we formalized that walkthrough into the first chapter of the rulebook, and made sure everything was illustrated and presented in the simplest terms possible, and in the right order...and then alpha tested it on people who didn't know the game but were willing to try it from just that walkthrough. When they got through the four example turns, and had the same understanding we did, life was good.

The other major difference is component value -- die cut box minis and actual plastic tilt blocks in the box. I don't think Nathan ever got to try it with those components, and the ease of use and playability difference between doing it with them and without them is far beyond the mere difference of night and day.

Bringing this back to TRoS, I like TRoS' intent. Speaking as an old wargamer, I love how it relies on player utilization of tactics and to some extent, knowledge of stances, maneuvers, etc and how it ties into what you're doing. Speaking as a rapier fencer and SCAdian, a lot of it makes sense to me. Its armor model reflects Jake's stance on these things, and while I don't agree with it entirely, I can see enough in it to know where Jake's sources are likely coming from.

Speaking as an RPGer, I find the handling time to be...clunky. I also dislike the different ways that skills are handled ("getting better at a skill drops your target number, so skill 1 is better than skill 2 which is better than skill 3") to "Getting better gives you more dice".

I love the SAs, but find that my player group spread like a herd of cats due to them. Without a strong central aim shared by everyone, each player is maddeningly individualistic and wants to go do Their Own Thing.

Ken Burnside

Hi folks,

I found the review to be ok, but also a perfect example of what happens when someone plays ROS without any understanding of how SAs are supposed to work.

Given that over 90% of all game books and articles out there only support games with the heavy hand of a GM devised plot, where the PCs are run through like hamsters in a maze, it can only be expected that a LOT of people aren't going to get it, even if its spelled out in the rules.

When I find these reviews, I usually put up a short post about how the game is supposed to work, which funny enough, is usually misunderstood because people are applying rules and advice from other games onto ROS, instead of simply following what's there. The same problem is common for Sorcerer as well.

I've stopped replying to folks whom I've deemed trolls on rpg.net, or any other forum. I'll try to make my point, perhaps reply once, but once the person shows that they are arguing for the sake of arguing, not taking points into consideration, and basically acting like anything but an adult, I just stop wasting my time. Since they aren't really engaging in discussion, neither will I.

Chris

Here I was all curious to read this "new" review, only to discover this thread died in January and just got brought back :) Confused me for a moment!

Malechi wrote: I struggled with DnD for a bit over six years with my own campaign world... trying to find an incarnation/house ruleset that would make DnD "Gritty combat, no healing magic, scary sorcerous magic thats powerful and rare"...

Emiricol wrote: Here I was all curious to read this "new" review, only to discover this thread died in January and just got brought back :) Confused me for a moment!

My bad. I had thought this was referring to the newer review, not the older one.

Chris