My Dresden Files (formerly Star Wars Saga) group is having a debate via email on the objective value of "awesomeness" of one of our PCs getting dropped into a coma during the very first scene of the game.
I have to say, I would hate to be that player. Absolutely hate it. Like, potentially ragequit hate. But it did an excellent job of illustrating the stakes of combat when these particular antagonists are involved, and it very effectively set the tone for a more survivalist style game than the cowboy shoot-em-ups we usually play.
Dresden Files isn't quite an L5R-esque "NOBODY WILL GET OUT ALIVE" meatwagon-on-text, but it's pretty unforgiving. A single bad die roll can render a character unplayable, and it's almost never a straight up death so the loss of character can be even more wrenching.
It's somewhat different from standard FATE that way, but I think it really brings home the "oh shit" nature of the setting that pervades the lives of even the more powerful individuals (i.e. Harry Dresden). There's also the added benefit that if your GM is game, most of those "unplayables" are recoverable if the group works for it (de-railing whatever else was on tap, of course).
The last game we were playing was Spirit of the Century, so the lethality level was completely different.
The longer version of the story is that part of our opening scene was the former-cop PI who talks to ghosts alone at his office when he heard (and then saw) a domestic violence incident across the street and ran out to break it up. It should be noted that I had just finished a short sequence where my character finds a runaway on the street and helps him to a shelter run by my ex-wife, so we were all kind of expecting early character development.
So our guy hits the street and pulls the man off the woman he was preparing to strike only to be assaulted by the woman (revealed to be a black court vampire) and her two cronies that were hiding some distance away. The guy was a dupe to draw out the investigator, and a crowd is gathering that the vamps are threatening to eat unless the investigator "stay(s) and play(s)." A battle ensues that the PC is woefully underpowered to properly participate in and ends with the player offering a concession of "unconscious with his guts hanging out" only to be told that he'll be eaten or turned if he goes out that way. So he instead winds up with "hotwires a car and crashes one of the vamps through a building, car catches fire, she dies he is in a coma."
I suppose he could have just run like hell, but that wouldn't have been very heroic or remotely in character. So now he's in the hospital and the player is running an (admittedly badass) NPC ex-con priest from the local youth center until we can get the guy back on his feet.
Sounds like the rest of the party needs to go on a risky mission to recruit a wizard willing to break the Laws of Magic, invade the coma victim's mind, and bring him back to the land of the conscious.
Yep. That's how DFPRPG works and it's fucking great. I also like that your GM didn't waste his time and let him jump right back in with a temp character. That's also good. Keeps anyone from getting bored. Sometimes people like the temps more than the originals, so even if you rescue the original, they just drop to temp status.
Sort of a crude simulacrum of how Harry has an ally mix-and-match program going.
Yeah, reading the newest book, I'm seeing Murphy less and less then in the start of the books. Characters like Toot and Butters is getting more page time this go around, which is... oddly cool. Not that I don't love them, but Murphy is one of my favorite characters in the series. I'm going to have to pick up DFPRPG next paycheck. Too bad the nearest gaming store is an hour and half away.
I don't know where the extra "P" came from, ignore it, it's a bad P.
As far as the books go, Harry explains, in authorial ex machina, that even though people aren't "on stage" they're gaining power to survive a growing existential threat to the Second City (and it's all Harry's fault/martyr complex.) It's something that anyone running DFRPG should keep in mind; even if characters are "out of it" for a while, they're not idle. The example hard-nosed PI might come back from their coma with the ability to use magic, should that sort of increase in power be necessitated.
Well, he could already see ghosts, but that was about the only weird thing he could do.
The player is looking at picking up a couple of aspects that reflect his scars/injuries and having spent some time hovering between life and death, which is a cool way to handle it.
We're already going balls out with 10 Refresh, though. So if he wants new abilities he just has to spend those points.
I spent all but two of mine, but luckily my GM finds my aspects hilarious and is ticking them off constantly. I have a pile of fate points in front of me already, and I've been spending several a scene.
I could see him coming back not only being able to see ghosts, but able to let them possess him so that he can gain their abilities. Heck, maybe that's how he manages to come back.
So, apparently Age of Rebellion won't be available to purchase outside GenCon for a couple weeks? Lame. Last year EotE was available to order the same day.
If anyone would like to offer to snag me a copy, I will love you forever. (And pay, obviously )
Origin for Dragon Age: Inquisition Shenanigans: Inksplat776
Well, he could already see ghosts, but that was about the only weird thing he could do.
The player is looking at picking up a couple of aspects that reflect his scars/injuries and having spent some time hovering between life and death, which is a cool way to handle it.
We're already going balls out with 10 Refresh, though. So if he wants new abilities he just has to spend those points.
I spent all but two of mine, but luckily my GM finds my aspects hilarious and is ticking them off constantly. I have a pile of fate points in front of me already, and I've been spending several a scene.
It sounds like your GM knows what they're doing. That sort of "crap, my character" event could have torpedoed the game but didn't.
Given that the entirety of the notes for the session and all the NPCs were left at home, and she was flying by the seat of her pants throwing stuff at us straight out of the book.
I think we were all caught off guard by the lethality of the game, especially when compared to previous iterations of Fate that we've played. Including the GM. We were collectively scrambling, everyone at the table, to find some way for him not to die or be turned into a vampire (and NPC) by the outcome of that fight.
Which isn't to say it didn't turn out well, and that we didn't enjoy it. But I don't think you could say that any of us knew what we were doing there, game runner included.
Given that the entirety of the notes for the session and all the NPCs were left at home, and she was flying by the seat of her pants throwing stuff at us straight out of the book.
I think we were all caught off guard by the lethality of the game, especially when compared to previous iterations of Fate that we've played. Including the GM. We were collectively scrambling, everyone at the table, to find some way for him not to die or be turned into a vampire (and NPC) by the outcome of that fight.
Which isn't to say it didn't turn out well, and that we didn't enjoy it. But I don't think you could say that any of us knew what we were doing there, game runner included.
Yeah, I guess it could be really jarring coming from SotC to DFRPG in terms of the ratchet up, but honestly it sounds like your GM handled the situation very well, especially without notes and NPCs to fall back on.
Given that the entirety of the notes for the session and all the NPCs were left at home, and she was flying by the seat of her pants throwing stuff at us straight out of the book.
I think we were all caught off guard by the lethality of the game, especially when compared to previous iterations of Fate that we've played. Including the GM. We were collectively scrambling, everyone at the table, to find some way for him not to die or be turned into a vampire (and NPC) by the outcome of that fight.
Which isn't to say it didn't turn out well, and that we didn't enjoy it. But I don't think you could say that any of us knew what we were doing there, game runner included.
Yeah, I guess it could be really jarring coming from SotC to DFRPG in terms of the ratchet up, but honestly it sounds like your GM handled the situation very well, especially without notes and NPCs to fall back on.
I think she did admirably under the circumstances. It helps that we're all mature adults (myself being the youngest in the playgroup at the tender age of thirty) and we've been gaming together for a long time 15 years or more in some of their cases.
Whether the intent was there or not, it definitely gave us a new sense of urgency and mortality, and we'll figure out the fallout for poor Oscar when he gets out of the hospital.
This DFRPG talk is making me want to play a wizard with lots of control but little power, with something of a complex resulting. Somebody run a game after I'm settled in Montana?
I would but I feel like I can't do games based on my favorite books because I couldn't do them justice. Like I would love to do a game based on the Discworld series but I don't have the intellectual humor that would make the game worthy of the Discworld name.
I've been thinking about what my ideal game would look like and I arrived to the odd conclusion that what I want is Dungeon World with less story game elements and target numbers that are not fixed, which makes zero sense since the design centers on player agency.
"All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes to make it possible." - T.E. Lawrence
Wow, the Onyx Path schedule is pretty ambitious. But Wraith 20th Anniversary was announced as being in the distant future, so I am a happy, happy camper.
Looks like they are making a Dresden Files Accelerated version next year. Its going to combine the Your Story and Our World books together and be 1/4 the size the current books are.
In other news, I've got the two books for the $40 pdf bundle. Now if I could make a story for it and find people who would want to play it, I might give in and run another pbp. Ill have to check out the Paranet Files they have on the site and run one of those short stories.
Wow, the Onyx Path schedule is pretty ambitious. But Wraith 20th Anniversary was announced as being in the distant future, so I am a happy, happy camper.
I'm curious on how Trinity is going to play like with Exalted 3rd and Scion 2nd (?!) coming out.
Looks like they are making a Dresden Files Accelerated version next year. Its going to combine the Your Story and Our World books together and be 1/4 the size the current books are.
There's a lot of good fluff in those books, cutting 'em down by 75% seems crazy.
Looks like they are making a Dresden Files Accelerated version next year. Its going to combine the Your Story and Our World books together and be 1/4 the size the current books are.
There's a lot of good fluff in those books, cutting 'em down by 75% seems crazy.
I agree with that, but now I have seen more Storygames after being blown away by DFRPG, I feel that It actually has too many skills, and I'd like them to be condensed much more. The special abilities are fine, I think they are qualitatively different, but the skills could be cut significantly.
Looks like they are making a Dresden Files Accelerated version next year. Its going to combine the Your Story and Our World books together and be 1/4 the size the current books are.
There's a lot of good fluff in those books, cutting 'em down by 75% seems crazy.
I agree with that, but now I have seen more Storygames after being blown away by DFRPG, I feel that It actually has too many skills, and I'd like them to be condensed much more. The special abilities are fine, I think they are qualitatively different, but the skills could be cut significantly.
From the way I've read it, its the Fluff that's getting hacked, but that's fine because they will release it as either free online stuff or have notes of where you can find the full story in the DFRPG books. We got a whole year to see what they are going to do with it.
Looks like they are making a Dresden Files Accelerated version next year. Its going to combine the Your Story and Our World books together and be 1/4 the size the current books are.
There's a lot of good fluff in those books, cutting 'em down by 75% seems crazy.
I think the idea is to set up everything so that you can play one-offs in the Dresdenverse, rather than try to maintain a campaign. Which makes a lot of the good fluff superfluous. For that matter, so doesn't having players like me, who have read 92% of the books/short stories.
Looks like they are making a Dresden Files Accelerated version next year. Its going to combine the Your Story and Our World books together and be 1/4 the size the current books are.
There's a lot of good fluff in those books, cutting 'em down by 75% seems crazy.
I agree with that, but now I have seen more Storygames after being blown away by DFRPG, I feel that It actually has too many skills, and I'd like them to be condensed much more. The special abilities are fine, I think they are qualitatively different, but the skills could be cut significantly.
From the way I've read it, its the Fluff that's getting hacked, but that's fine because they will release it as either free online stuff or have notes of where you can find the full story in the DFRPG books. We got a whole year to see what they are going to do with it.
Looks like they are making a Dresden Files Accelerated version next year. Its gto combine the Your Story and Our World books together and be 1/4 the size the current books are.
There's a lot of good fluff in those books, cutting 'em down by 75% seems crazy.
I agree with that, but now I have seen more Storygames after being blown away by DFRPG, I feel that It actually has too many skills, and I'd like them to be condensed much more. The special abilities are fine, I think they are qualitatively different, but the skills could be cut significantly.
From the way I've read it, its the Fluff that's getting hacked, but that's fine because they will release it as either free online stuff or have notes of where you can find the full story in the DFRPG books. We got a whole year to see what they are going to do with it.
Its not an active kickstarter so I'm sure it's not going to be against the rule to link it.
I don't get that page at all. Which is one of the reasons I don't go to KS. What exactly is being paid for there? Do the people paying get a book?
It's was an update during the kickstarter drive so it's not really about the whole project but about this specific thing. They were saying if they raised $400K (13,333 times the original goal....) they would make Dresden Files Accelerated. Now that Kickstarter campaign had a thing where if you donated more than $10 dollars you got pdf copies of all the books they released because of the Kickstarter.
The main page has a little better explanation but it's a bit confusing because they threw all the extra stuff on in a rush. Somehow they weren't expecting to massively overfund like they did.
The Fate Core kickstarter was easily the best $10 I've ever spent. I'll be getting stuff out of it for like, years.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
edited August 2013
I have managed to convince my IRL group to switch from Call to Trail system wise after we finish the current investigation. I am pleased about this, because I much prefer how Trail handles a lot of things compared to CoC - particularly with regards to combat.
Hopefully have the thread for my PBP here up by the end of the week. Really keen to run some of this.
I have managed to convince my IRL group to switch from Call to Trail system wise after we finish the current investigation. I am pleased about this, because I much prefer how Trail handles a lot of things compared to CoC - particularly with regards to combat.
Hopefully have the thread for my PBP here up by the end of the week. Really keen to run some of this.
Call of Cthulhu's combat mechanics seem to be written basically to deter you from attempting to use them, much like the 2E grappling rules.
so i dont suppose any of you fine gents would be willing to run a pbp shadowrun game? as each day passes, the realization that my RL group may not survive the transition into the fall grows significantly. which means the odds of me playing shadowrun are shrinking rapidly.
id be willing to beg, if thats something that would help...
So, I am back from GenCon. Got a chance to play 13th Age for the first time. I was much more impressed with it than 4th ed. I have two issues with it, though. First, from looking through the book it looked like a 10 level system. That's just not expansive enough for my group. We like fast leveling systems when it comes to d20 games, getting a new level ever two or three weeks, and 10 levels just isn't enough. Second was the price. They wanted $45 for a 10 level system. I just can't justify that when my group is already heavily invested in Pathfinder. I'm going to wait for more 13th age material to get released and for prices to drop and then look into switching my group over.
Now to be fair, I too enjoy fast leveling systems. It gives you a false sense of Achievement which is one thing I did like about 4e (sound the alarms, GG liked something 4e :P ) compared to 3.5 and their 18th level cap. But I think I could have still plopped down $45 dollars to get a book.
Because there are broke gamers who couldn't go to GenCon starving in Africa.
Did you notice the incremental levelling thing? Every session you choose one of the next-level bonuses or abilities.
I doubt 13th Age will ever go beyond 10. 10 is Epic. I think it's massively better than 4e, and I just don't understand the idea that you need more levels.
Does that mean you can't enjoy games that don't have levels?
I was dubious of the 10 level thing when I started messing with the system, but it actually doesn't look that bad once you break it down. There's still stuff going on at every level, and there's a fair amount of differentiation to be had within that 1-10 range.
I definitely don't think it's a perfect system, or the holy grail it sometimes seems to be from the stuff in this thread, but it's not a bad system if what you want is D&D and you don't want the granularity of 4th.
Posts
As far as the books go, Harry explains, in authorial ex machina, that even though people aren't "on stage" they're gaining power to survive a growing existential threat to the Second City (and it's all Harry's fault/martyr complex.) It's something that anyone running DFRPG should keep in mind; even if characters are "out of it" for a while, they're not idle. The example hard-nosed PI might come back from their coma with the ability to use magic, should that sort of increase in power be necessitated.
The player is looking at picking up a couple of aspects that reflect his scars/injuries and having spent some time hovering between life and death, which is a cool way to handle it.
We're already going balls out with 10 Refresh, though. So if he wants new abilities he just has to spend those points.
I spent all but two of mine, but luckily my GM finds my aspects hilarious and is ticking them off constantly. I have a pile of fate points in front of me already, and I've been spending several a scene.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
I apparently still owe the man a drink.
God damn. Come hell or high water, I'm going back to GenCon next year. Nothing's gonna stop me.
Penny Arcade Rockstar Social Club / This is why I despise cyclists
If anyone would like to offer to snag me a copy, I will love you forever. (And pay, obviously )
Penny Arcade Rockstar Social Club / This is why I despise cyclists
Given that the entirety of the notes for the session and all the NPCs were left at home, and she was flying by the seat of her pants throwing stuff at us straight out of the book.
I think we were all caught off guard by the lethality of the game, especially when compared to previous iterations of Fate that we've played. Including the GM. We were collectively scrambling, everyone at the table, to find some way for him not to die or be turned into a vampire (and NPC) by the outcome of that fight.
Which isn't to say it didn't turn out well, and that we didn't enjoy it. But I don't think you could say that any of us knew what we were doing there, game runner included.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Whether the intent was there or not, it definitely gave us a new sense of urgency and mortality, and we'll figure out the fallout for poor Oscar when he gets out of the hospital.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
In other news, I've got the two books for the $40 pdf bundle. Now if I could make a story for it and find people who would want to play it, I might give in and run another pbp. Ill have to check out the Paranet Files they have on the site and run one of those short stories.
Especially given the drop in, get whacked feel that our game has so far.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Anyone got it or seen a review? Haven't found any on Google.
Penny Arcade Rockstar Social Club / This is why I despise cyclists
I agree with that, but now I have seen more Storygames after being blown away by DFRPG, I feel that It actually has too many skills, and I'd like them to be condensed much more. The special abilities are fine, I think they are qualitatively different, but the skills could be cut significantly.
From the way I've read it, its the Fluff that's getting hacked, but that's fine because they will release it as either free online stuff or have notes of where you can find the full story in the DFRPG books. We got a whole year to see what they are going to do with it.
Link to the Post about it here.
Its not an active kickstarter so I'm sure it's not going to be against the rule to link it.
I don't get that page at all. Which is one of the reasons I don't go to KS. What exactly is being paid for there? Do the people paying get a book?
It's was an update during the kickstarter drive so it's not really about the whole project but about this specific thing. They were saying if they raised $400K (13,333 times the original goal....) they would make Dresden Files Accelerated. Now that Kickstarter campaign had a thing where if you donated more than $10 dollars you got pdf copies of all the books they released because of the Kickstarter.
The main page has a little better explanation but it's a bit confusing because they threw all the extra stuff on in a rush. Somehow they weren't expecting to massively overfund like they did.
Hopefully have the thread for my PBP here up by the end of the week. Really keen to run some of this.
Call of Cthulhu's combat mechanics seem to be written basically to deter you from attempting to use them, much like the 2E grappling rules.
id be willing to beg, if thats something that would help...
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
They got back from GenCon about an hour ago with shadowrun swag for me:
Storm Front, signed
Sprawl Wilds, Signed
Firing Line, signed
A deck each of the 5th Edition Gear Cards and Spell Cards
SQUEE!
Penny Arcade Rockstar Social Club / This is why I despise cyclists
Because there are broke gamers who couldn't go to GenCon starving in Africa.
I doubt 13th Age will ever go beyond 10. 10 is Epic. I think it's massively better than 4e, and I just don't understand the idea that you need more levels.
Does that mean you can't enjoy games that don't have levels?
I definitely don't think it's a perfect system, or the holy grail it sometimes seems to be from the stuff in this thread, but it's not a bad system if what you want is D&D and you don't want the granularity of 4th.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.