Yes you could resolve those with simple defy dangers, but you can resolve most of anything with a defy danger. The reason we're looking into moves specifically for these actions is because we want to put more focus on them. This group has been playing DW for a little over a year and these are both holes in the move set the group has agreed we would like to fill.
"-You are forced to move more slowly than you anticipated"
This is intended to be a sort of "reduced effect" scenario, where you don't make it as far as you needed to, you needed to stop midway, etc. You have accomplished part of what you set out to do but you are still in danger. Like the reduced damage penalty for volley.
"-nobody believes you fully, but enough to stay in for now"
This is intended to mean "you succeeded but now they are suspicious of you" which may be a better wording
Hey, my name sake. My PA name was supposed to be Gaunt's Ghosts but I made a slight mistake.
DVORAK keyboard?
Vodka Keyboard.
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admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
edited February 2018
I would generally suggest more specific language with PbtA. "You succeed but they're suspicious of you" is definitely better. I might even go further with something like, "They believe you now, but for the last time."
I can see what you're trying to do with the group Sneak action where cumulative failures end in complete failure, but a lot of the results kind of seem the same and they don't really evoke danger. What about...
- it takes too long
- someone or something follows you in
- in your haste you miss a dangerous hazard or trap
- one of you has to use up a valuable resource or item
- you're caught
Yes you could resolve those with simple defy dangers, but you can resolve most of anything with a defy danger. The reason we're looking into moves specifically for these actions is because we want to put more focus on them. This group has been playing DW for a little over a year and these are both holes in the move set the group has agreed we would like to fill.
"-You are forced to move more slowly than you anticipated"
This is intended to be a sort of "reduced effect" scenario, where you don't make it as far as you needed to, you needed to stop midway, etc. You have accomplished part of what you set out to do but you are still in danger. Like the reduced damage penalty for volley.
"-nobody believes you fully, but enough to stay in for now"
This is intended to mean "you succeeded but now they are suspicious of you" which may be a better wording
I would generally suggest more specific language with PbtA. "You succeed but they're suspicious of you" is definitely better. I might even go further with something like, "They believe you now, but for the last time."
I can see what you're trying to do with the group Sneak action where cumulative failures end in complete failure, but a lot of the results kind of seem the same and they don't really evoke danger. What about...
- it takes too long
- someone or something follows you in
- in your haste you miss a dangerous hazard or trap
- one of you has to use up a valuable resource or item
- you're caught
I love the suggestion for deceive, "but for the last time" is exciting wording
I also like "it takes too long" as a penalty for sneak, as well as "someone or something follows you in" and "you miss a dangerous hazard or trap" and I see what you mean about some duplicate-y answers
Maybe I'd go with:
-You are caught
-You draw unwanted attention without giving yourself away
-You miss a dangerous hazard or trap
-It takes too long
-Someone or something follows you in
Re: unwanted attention, I want one of the choices to be basically the "What was that?" sort of thing but I'm not certain that what I've got right now differentiates itself enough from being caught, so I'm open to a change of language for that one as well
(by the way, 5 choices is too much I know, but that decision was made SPECIFICALLY so that my group, which is four players, could all roll partial successes without being caught, and then any failures would have to be balanced by full successes, etc, just in case anyone was thinking that)
Y’all ever tried to do big battles in the games you do? I’m trying to figure out a way that’s less tedious then me having to group dozens of NPCs into squads with group initatives but still having to roll dozens of rolls against dozens of rolls.
Thinking of trying a structured time “bubble” where the players interact with a select amount of NPCs and space while the battle rages around them. They can engage more NPCs that will enter the “bubble” and NPCs can enter it on their volition when appropriate. I just don’t want it to feel too gamey.
Done it a number of different ways. Sometimes I've treated formations of NPCs as individual creatures (a la Godbound or hordes in Deathwatch) while on other occasions I've gone the vignette route. In a recent climax in my Sleeper campaign, the players' actions acted as a modifier on "Advance" tests made by their allied ground forces and these Advance tests fed back into consequences for the team (for example, if the test failed because the ground forces couldn't storm a strongpoint then the party would have to take the job on). In my very last game, I prepared a very simple set of tables for a three-sided fight so unengaged NPCs could just chip away at each other's health without requiring me to roll and adjudicate individual attacks (for example, this side with the warbots suffers d4-1 wounds a turn while the less well-armed humans suffer d6-1).
The one thing I would absolutely try to avoid is sitting there as the GM rolling for lots of NPCs fighting lots of NPCs with the players as spectators. If you feel the story obligates you to dice the combat out, then give the players the task of rolling for one side.
I like the advance stuff. Hahnsoo’s way makes a lot of sense to me too. I think I used the wrong word with “battle” when I meant “fight” as in on a single tactical map.
How did you deal with armor in grouping NPCs together? I tried to make an NPC group vs NPC group system that fell apart when trying to put in armor and figuring out how they should be treated when players atack those groups. The way I did it doesn’t make sense for a group to roll for a characteristic then give 4d10+5 or whatever against one PC or individual NPC, but then I have to treat all those NPCs individually, but they would get attacked by a group not being treated individually and I would be back to the same problem.
They’re going back to investigative stuff with possible combat rather than assured combat, and the situations I envision them in will not have like 36 guys on each side I have to adjudicate for. If I have a situation where it makes sense for a bunch of guys to fight them, then they’ll come in waves of fewer groups so that it doesn’t get slowed down.
My system agnostic answer is that the heavily armored guys are probably leaders or elite units or something of that nature that need to be targeted separately. In an NPC v NPC fight I'd have the cannon fodder targeted and die out first and then start working through the armored elites. My real answer though is that I don't do NPC v NPC fights ever, and simply decide in advance what the result of that fight would be sans intervention from the players, with maybe a few separating branches depending on likely player interventions.
飛べねぇ豚はただの豚だ。
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KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
I wanted them to feel like they were part of a big defense so the way it got set up required them to have NPC allies to deal with the numbers of NPC enemies to feel like a huge fight. Their allies were supposed to die pretty quickly to lead to another act of the battle where they would be in smaller space and then would have to go fight the minibosses in their own little rooms, but I forgot an important roll modifier so allied NPCs killed berserking melee groups that were supposed to be hard to hit. Also the corrupted troopers with bolters and heavy weapons backing the charging groups kept missing.
Yey the Cannon Fodder finished the second part of a two part module. Now they have to stop a civil war by proving the attack from the climax was a false flag and that the tried nobleman, who pretty much is one of the three major hives, is innocent. They did finally call in a valkyrie hellstrike missile which blew from the hangar a major conspirator, who only just stayed alive due to the grav chute he had on (and also burned fate). They now have an interrogation target with all the answers. As in everything I have planned for this campaign I’m running. He will be difficult to crack and is expecting rescue soon.
I am going to try to not force them into combat in this module. They might have to chase people down to capture them and bring them in front of the trial. They could also get proof of the false flag conspiracy. They could just hide or run and still complete the mission successfully if they have evidence. They can avoid fighting unless they want to. I am also going to introduce an ongoing intervening antagonist. He’ll be a good fighter but he is aloof and be there to mess up their investigation rather than be a basic boss man.
Deceive - When you try to get someone to believe a feasible lie, roll +CHA.
On a hit, choose one. On a 7-9, the GM also chooses one:
-your lie won't last long, the GM will tell you why
-you've almost sold them on it, the GM will tell you what you need to pay or do to close the deal
-when they believe you, it's more than you bargained for
I figure since it's a combination DD to sell the lie and Parley to get them to do something, one drawback even on a hit works out.
KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
Should a haywire/EMP effect disable an explosive collar or make it explode? I want to say disable. It at least should disable the remote, I think.
I have a major villain one of my groups is interrogating, and I want them to have just enough time to get what they need out of him before a co-conspirator rescues him via a gate of infinity.
doesn't an EMP disable electronics by causing an electrical surge? sounds more explodey to me, but depends on the specific setup i think
what a happy day it is
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KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
edited February 2018
If it spends 5 minutes away from a bomb collar range, then is asplodes, so it must work on a signal system to not asplode. It might blow it up.
Edit: Speaking of that sorcerer co-conspirator, what is "Head of the Demon" in Japanese? He's the Chaotic counterpart to the loyal samurai space marine. I got a little lazy in naming him; I just literally named him Rahs Al Ghul but in Japanese. Google Translate said Atama no Oni.
If it spends 5 minutes away from a bomb collar range, then is asplodes, so it must work on a signal system to not asplode. It might blow it up.
Edit: Speaking of that sorcerer co-conspirator, what is "Head of the Demon" in Japanese? He's the Chaotic counterpart to the loyal samurai space marine. I got a little lazy in naming him; I just literally named him Rahs Al Ghul but in Japanese. Google Translate said Atama no Oni.
Yup, that works as a literal translation. Atama is head, no is of or possessing the quality of, and oni is demon.
I don’t know enough Japanese to know if that would sound like a natural construction to a native speaker but it definitely works on a literal sense.
Should a haywire/EMP effect disable an explosive collar or make it explode? I want to say disable. It at least should disable the remote, I think.
I have a major villain one of my groups is interrogating, and I want them to have just enough time to get what they need out of him before a co-conspirator rescues him via a gate of infinity.
This is the RPG thread so the actual answer should be "Whatever is coolest".
For actual application it is gonna be heavily dependant on the design intent and the value assigned to the life the collar is attached to. If they really do not care about exploding the head then sure make the failure state murder the wearer. If it is meant to be a deterrent/psychological control tool (or the folks who put it on aren't horrific monsters with no value for life) then you might well want to ensure you don't accidentally explode anybody and require it to have an active detonation signal.
Should a haywire/EMP effect disable an explosive collar or make it explode? I want to say disable. It at least should disable the remote, I think.
I have a major villain one of my groups is interrogating, and I want them to have just enough time to get what they need out of him before a co-conspirator rescues him via a gate of infinity.
This is the RPG thread so the actual answer should be "Whatever is coolest".
For actual application it is gonna be heavily dependant on the design intent and the value assigned to the life the collar is attached to. If they really do not care about exploding the head then sure make the failure state murder the wearer. If it is meant to be a deterrent/psychological control tool (or the folks who put it on aren't horrific monsters with no value for life) then you might well want to ensure you don't accidentally explode anybody and require it to have an active detonation signal.
To ask this a different way, is this the Fail Safe model or the Fail Messy model?
The syntax is reversed. Oni no Atama is literally demon's head, but even to my non-native ears sounds about as awkward as naming someone "Head of the Demon" in English. If I may suggest a few alternates, oniboshi 鬼星 lit Demon Star is the Japanese name of the Chinese "Ghost" Constellation. "Boshi" is also a homonym for 'hat' which get's you close. Dantou 弾頭 means warhead, as in the explosive portion of a missile. Toukotsu 頭骨 is skull. Kitou is the alternate reading of 鬼頭 (lit demon head), but also is a homonym of like 8 different things including "prayer" or the glans :winky:
Also, I found a great idiom in Japanese: 鯛の尾より鰯の頭 tai no o yori iwashi no kashira; "better to be the head of a dog than the rear of a lion." By extension, 聖の尾より鬼の頭 sei no o yori oni no kashira; "Better to be the head of a demon than the rear of a saint."
飛べねぇ豚はただの豚だ。
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KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
You guys have been a lot of help. I do prefer Oniboshi. Also I like that saying. If the party has the samurai in tow when they meet him, I’ll try to use that.
Oh. Shit. I was in a sci-fi RPG mood after the latest Star Citizen update. I ordered the Uncharted Worlds books...but I just realized that both Uncharted Worlds and Impulse Drive have cargo/squadron bays for piloted mechs or fighters. Oh man, oh man, oh man.
Now I just need to figure out which RPG had super sci fi internet, or if that was Stars Without Number. Basically, I like the idea that the turrets, nav computers, and diagnostics programs inside a ship all utilize limited AI - so if you plugged into the ship's intranet (especially in your dreams during sleep) you'd get to interact with them in a sort of Second Life-esque or Tron-Grid capacity. Or, more esoterically, like that Animatrix Liberation short story. Space stations and huge ships would have their own internet societies and denizens on their own networks, or beamed across solar systems.
Sorry for another ramble.
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KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
edited February 2018
I like the rambles. Make me feel not alone as a rambler.
Oh! And I looked, the Super Internet is from the Uncharted Worlds expansion, Far Beyond Human. It's called SectorNet. Hell, you could start the Uncharted Worlds campaign off with a session where the players are actually hooked up to SectorNet and playing an action RPG with the ship's AIs. Then after the quest they wake up in their ship, and realize the turrets, computers, and software have the same names as the NPCs that were playing with them.
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Lord Palingtonhe.him.hisHistory-loving pal!Registered Userregular
Two bits that you might check out for more ideas about that kind of thing - Ancillary Justice and its two sequels detail the quest of what's left of a giant ship's AI to find out what happened to the rest of it. It's a really great series, but not so much a plug into the Matrix sort of thing.
The other one is Jon Bois's 17776, a ... multimedia story about the future and football and the Voyager 9 space craft. It's really something else.
Anyway, it's a really cool idea, and neither of these two are exactly it, but it made me think of them.
(also I just ordered the Genesys book and some dice, going to try and put together an Avatar Last Airbender/Legend of Korra game with it)
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KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
edited March 2018
Think I might just bypass the bomb collar thing by having Oniboshi conjure a gate of infinity to the place they’re interrogating his co-conspirator in, roll for the characters in and around the interrogation room to freak the fuck out because of a portal to hell, and just have him snatch the remote telekinetically from the person holding it in the room before he leaves with the co-conspirator.
I’m excited for the interrogation they're going to have. The character, whose nickname is Rainmaker, has a lot of the answers to questions both my groups would have about my continuity, the villain group’s plans, and what’s going on like I said before. He was once Not-Revolver Ocelot, now he’s more of a (social) darwinist with the manner and voice of an American southern aristocratic gentleman. He’s almost like an Istvaanian Inquisitor in a way, trying to jumpstart conflict and wars everywhere so the strongest will emerge on top.
Edit 3:
They didn’t have interrogate.
These Inquisitorial acolytes, who are part of an organization that has inquest built into its name, and who knew they were going to be interrogating someone.
Did not put any experience into interrogation.
Learned nothing, got corrupted a little.
Also Oniboshi did great, freaked them out with the gate of infinity, telekinetically pulled the remote to him, and was so intimidating (and not the skill) that even the one non-freaked out guy was just like “fuck no”.
Playing Sonaiyo worked super well, the players looked scared, and then the gate actually opened and they saw what came out and they were not having it.
Created due to a desire to move Pathfinder forth, this edition will be derisively known as "Forth Edition", and ridiculed by the true fans, who will move on to 5th Edition D&D, as it faithfully recaptures the feeling of the original Pathfinder.
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WACriminalDying Is Easy, Young ManLiving Is HarderRegistered Userregular
It's been a while, but hey, @WACriminal how's that Pokemon thing doing?
It's going! I've been 1) adjusting some things to try and streamline the way information is presented, so that things are more visual and less texty, 2) doing some sloppy hypothetical math to figure out expected values for various stats at different levels and therefore what level-appropriate damage and effects look like, how to numerically balance different species of Pokemon, etc., 3) theory-crafting new playbooks, 4) using Trello to set goals for myself that I need to reach before I can playtest any of it, and 5) being a generally distractible piece of shit who pretends that any of #1-#4 actually constitutes progress on the project.
Cool! I know I spent a retrospectively terrifying amount of time using custom excel spreadsheets to generate craploads of Pokemon of varying power and style to test out stuff to see how it worked at the low and high torques.
Keeping the math tight is hard, but grants a lot of peace of mind when you start branching out. Good foundations and all that. Wish you luck!
Marshmallow on
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KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
You ever need like a play tester to bounce the numbers off of I could try to help.
It’s fun to have two different groups in the same continuity serving the same inquisitor. It means they can pass notes and debriefs onto each other. They even have a pict recording of that interrogation so the Expendable Henchmen, who are unknowingly attempting stop a mass nurglite invasion from the underhive, can see what happened with the Cannon Fodder when they get back to the main hive.
Think I’m actually going to have each group type me up a short summary of their campaigns to give to the other one. Not like an essay, but minimally bullet points about what and who they encountered that might help the other. Even if I can never get these eight people for a full crossover type adventure I like the feeling of interconnectedness this can bring.
My commission’s taking a bit. I asked the artist to put one of the Cannon Fodder player’s xeno femur bone mementos on one of the tables. I paid for this piece as a thing to remember the Henchmen guys who were my first real consistent players by, but I wanted a nod to the other group too.
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
oh my god I am going to have so much fun telling everyone who plays, or even dares to mention within earshot, 2nd Edition Pathfinder that they are stupid video gamers who don't understand real RPGs and furthermore
TiamatZGhost punsThe Banette of my existenceRegistered Userregular
As someone who started with 4th edition, then switched to Pathfinder (after WoTC pulled the plug), I'm actually excited for this.
The only reason I stuck with PF were the enjoyable adventure paths they released. To compare, 4th ed only had one (Scales of War) versus PF's twenty odd or so. Admittedly some of them were stinkers (Second Darkness and Serpents Skull are widely considered to be the weakest of the lot). As for PF as a whole, the first edition was starting to bloat, and after 10+ years of splatbooks, the power creep is really starting to show itself.
I'm pretty okay with having a new edition, knowing that the Paizo staff will implement 10+ years of experience into the new edition, streamlining/fixing a lot of the issues that the system still has (trap feats, action management, martial vs casters etc.).
Even with the problems that Starfinder has (looking at you, starship combat), me and my friends are enjoying it, cosmic warts and all.
I’m as excited about Pathfinder 2.0 as I am about any edition of DnD, which is to say somewhat. I’m sure it will have some neat ideas to mine.
I always think it’s a little weird how much folks get rankled by new editions, in both directions. Streamlining and simplification has been the overall design direction for like a decade now. I don’t get why people flip out and call this dumbing down, the older crunchier systems still exist. I still play Battletech warts and all. But I also don’t get why people get upset when they are told that what they want is a simplified game.
Like and play what you like and let other people play what they want. Geeze!
With what little we have seen so far I would venture a guess that starfinder was them dipping their toes into these waters and given the overall acceptance of starfinder they decided to go ahead with their pathfinder 2.0. Frankly a lot of stuff they are talking about like making archetypes part of the core game rulebook are pretty much no brainers. Simplifying the action economy makes sense as well you have three actions you can do spend them how you want makes a lot more sense than the move/attack/reaction/swift action type stuff that even starfinder had. Although starfinder does move this direction as the amount of reactions are pretty limited especially compared to pathfinder.
It has been 10 years and they have learned a lot so I am kinda looking forward to what they trot out.
one other reason for them to do a second edition is there is such a metric ton of stuff out there for pathfinder now that character creation is pretty damn crazy now and it's intimidating as hell for new players to jump into.
Posts
"-You are forced to move more slowly than you anticipated"
This is intended to be a sort of "reduced effect" scenario, where you don't make it as far as you needed to, you needed to stop midway, etc. You have accomplished part of what you set out to do but you are still in danger. Like the reduced damage penalty for volley.
"-nobody believes you fully, but enough to stay in for now"
This is intended to mean "you succeeded but now they are suspicious of you" which may be a better wording
Vodka Keyboard.
I can see what you're trying to do with the group Sneak action where cumulative failures end in complete failure, but a lot of the results kind of seem the same and they don't really evoke danger. What about...
- it takes too long
- someone or something follows you in
- in your haste you miss a dangerous hazard or trap
- one of you has to use up a valuable resource or item
- you're caught
I’d change the wording on both then yeah.
“You only sneak part of the way”
And
“They believe you, for now”
Or something.
I love the suggestion for deceive, "but for the last time" is exciting wording
I also like "it takes too long" as a penalty for sneak, as well as "someone or something follows you in" and "you miss a dangerous hazard or trap" and I see what you mean about some duplicate-y answers
Maybe I'd go with:
-You are caught
-You draw unwanted attention without giving yourself away
-You miss a dangerous hazard or trap
-It takes too long
-Someone or something follows you in
Re: unwanted attention, I want one of the choices to be basically the "What was that?" sort of thing but I'm not certain that what I've got right now differentiates itself enough from being caught, so I'm open to a change of language for that one as well
(by the way, 5 choices is too much I know, but that decision was made SPECIFICALLY so that my group, which is four players, could all roll partial successes without being caught, and then any failures would have to be balanced by full successes, etc, just in case anyone was thinking that)
My system agnostic answer is that the heavily armored guys are probably leaders or elite units or something of that nature that need to be targeted separately. In an NPC v NPC fight I'd have the cannon fodder targeted and die out first and then start working through the armored elites. My real answer though is that I don't do NPC v NPC fights ever, and simply decide in advance what the result of that fight would be sans intervention from the players, with maybe a few separating branches depending on likely player interventions.
Yey the Cannon Fodder finished the second part of a two part module. Now they have to stop a civil war by proving the attack from the climax was a false flag and that the tried nobleman, who pretty much is one of the three major hives, is innocent. They did finally call in a valkyrie hellstrike missile which blew from the hangar a major conspirator, who only just stayed alive due to the grav chute he had on (and also burned fate). They now have an interrogation target with all the answers. As in everything I have planned for this campaign I’m running. He will be difficult to crack and is expecting rescue soon.
I am going to try to not force them into combat in this module. They might have to chase people down to capture them and bring them in front of the trial. They could also get proof of the false flag conspiracy. They could just hide or run and still complete the mission successfully if they have evidence. They can avoid fighting unless they want to. I am also going to introduce an ongoing intervening antagonist. He’ll be a good fighter but he is aloof and be there to mess up their investigation rather than be a basic boss man.
-your lie won't last long, the GM will tell you why
-you've almost sold them on it, the GM will tell you what you need to pay or do to close the deal
-when they believe you, it's more than you bargained for
I figure since it's a combination DD to sell the lie and Parley to get them to do something, one drawback even on a hit works out.
I have a major villain one of my groups is interrogating, and I want them to have just enough time to get what they need out of him before a co-conspirator rescues him via a gate of infinity.
Edit: Speaking of that sorcerer co-conspirator, what is "Head of the Demon" in Japanese? He's the Chaotic counterpart to the loyal samurai space marine. I got a little lazy in naming him; I just literally named him Rahs Al Ghul but in Japanese. Google Translate said Atama no Oni.
Yup, that works as a literal translation. Atama is head, no is of or possessing the quality of, and oni is demon.
I don’t know enough Japanese to know if that would sound like a natural construction to a native speaker but it definitely works on a literal sense.
This is the RPG thread so the actual answer should be "Whatever is coolest".
For actual application it is gonna be heavily dependant on the design intent and the value assigned to the life the collar is attached to. If they really do not care about exploding the head then sure make the failure state murder the wearer. If it is meant to be a deterrent/psychological control tool (or the folks who put it on aren't horrific monsters with no value for life) then you might well want to ensure you don't accidentally explode anybody and require it to have an active detonation signal.
To ask this a different way, is this the Fail Safe model or the Fail Messy model?
Also, I found a great idiom in Japanese: 鯛の尾より鰯の頭 tai no o yori iwashi no kashira; "better to be the head of a dog than the rear of a lion." By extension, 聖の尾より鬼の頭 sei no o yori oni no kashira; "Better to be the head of a demon than the rear of a saint."
Now I just need to figure out which RPG had super sci fi internet, or if that was Stars Without Number. Basically, I like the idea that the turrets, nav computers, and diagnostics programs inside a ship all utilize limited AI - so if you plugged into the ship's intranet (especially in your dreams during sleep) you'd get to interact with them in a sort of Second Life-esque or Tron-Grid capacity. Or, more esoterically, like that Animatrix Liberation short story. Space stations and huge ships would have their own internet societies and denizens on their own networks, or beamed across solar systems.
Sorry for another ramble.
The other one is Jon Bois's 17776, a ... multimedia story about the future and football and the Voyager 9 space craft. It's really something else.
Anyway, it's a really cool idea, and neither of these two are exactly it, but it made me think of them.
(also I just ordered the Genesys book and some dice, going to try and put together an Avatar Last Airbender/Legend of Korra game with it)
I’m excited for the interrogation they're going to have. The character, whose nickname is Rainmaker, has a lot of the answers to questions both my groups would have about my continuity, the villain group’s plans, and what’s going on like I said before. He was once Not-Revolver Ocelot, now he’s more of a (social) darwinist with the manner and voice of an American southern aristocratic gentleman. He’s almost like an Istvaanian Inquisitor in a way, trying to jumpstart conflict and wars everywhere so the strongest will emerge on top.
Edit 3:
They didn’t have interrogate.
These Inquisitorial acolytes, who are part of an organization that has inquest built into its name, and who knew they were going to be interrogating someone.
Did not put any experience into interrogation.
Learned nothing, got corrupted a little.
Also Oniboshi did great, freaked them out with the gate of infinity, telekinetically pulled the remote to him, and was so intimidating (and not the skill) that even the one non-freaked out guy was just like “fuck no”.
Playing Sonaiyo worked super well, the players looked scared, and then the gate actually opened and they saw what came out and they were not having it.
PF2nd Playtest
Critical Failures - Havenhold Campaign • August St. Cloud (Human Ranger)
Critical Failures - Havenhold Campaign • August St. Cloud (Human Ranger)
It's going! I've been 1) adjusting some things to try and streamline the way information is presented, so that things are more visual and less texty, 2) doing some sloppy hypothetical math to figure out expected values for various stats at different levels and therefore what level-appropriate damage and effects look like, how to numerically balance different species of Pokemon, etc., 3) theory-crafting new playbooks, 4) using Trello to set goals for myself that I need to reach before I can playtest any of it, and 5) being a generally distractible piece of shit who pretends that any of #1-#4 actually constitutes progress on the project.
Keeping the math tight is hard, but grants a lot of peace of mind when you start branching out. Good foundations and all that. Wish you luck!
It’s fun to have two different groups in the same continuity serving the same inquisitor. It means they can pass notes and debriefs onto each other. They even have a pict recording of that interrogation so the Expendable Henchmen, who are unknowingly attempting stop a mass nurglite invasion from the underhive, can see what happened with the Cannon Fodder when they get back to the main hive.
Think I’m actually going to have each group type me up a short summary of their campaigns to give to the other one. Not like an essay, but minimally bullet points about what and who they encountered that might help the other. Even if I can never get these eight people for a full crossover type adventure I like the feeling of interconnectedness this can bring.
My commission’s taking a bit. I asked the artist to put one of the Cannon Fodder player’s xeno femur bone mementos on one of the tables. I paid for this piece as a thing to remember the Henchmen guys who were my first real consistent players by, but I wanted a nod to the other group too.
Because I am going to be honest, I've been on these forums for a decade now -- and that's the one area where I don't feel very welcome at all.
Critical Failures - Havenhold Campaign • August St. Cloud (Human Ranger)
The only reason I stuck with PF were the enjoyable adventure paths they released. To compare, 4th ed only had one (Scales of War) versus PF's twenty odd or so. Admittedly some of them were stinkers (Second Darkness and Serpents Skull are widely considered to be the weakest of the lot). As for PF as a whole, the first edition was starting to bloat, and after 10+ years of splatbooks, the power creep is really starting to show itself.
I'm pretty okay with having a new edition, knowing that the Paizo staff will implement 10+ years of experience into the new edition, streamlining/fixing a lot of the issues that the system still has (trap feats, action management, martial vs casters etc.).
Even with the problems that Starfinder has (looking at you, starship combat), me and my friends are enjoying it, cosmic warts and all.
tl;dr : Consider me optimistic for the change.
I always think it’s a little weird how much folks get rankled by new editions, in both directions. Streamlining and simplification has been the overall design direction for like a decade now. I don’t get why people flip out and call this dumbing down, the older crunchier systems still exist. I still play Battletech warts and all. But I also don’t get why people get upset when they are told that what they want is a simplified game.
Like and play what you like and let other people play what they want. Geeze!
And relinquish my god-given right to yell at total strangers for their choice of elf games? I think not, sir.
It's other people who don't like and play what I want.
That's the whole thing
It has been 10 years and they have learned a lot so I am kinda looking forward to what they trot out.