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[Roleplaying Games] New Year, New Dungeons, Same Ol' Bane

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Posts

  • Grunt's GhostsGrunt's Ghosts Registered User regular
    Cracked opened the FATE Toolkit and it has a section called "Cyberware" which has stuff about augs (even calls them that.)

  • Captain CarrotCaptain Carrot Alexandria, VARegistered User regular
    So I've been thinking about Deus Ex and that last game and I'm wondering what system might work for it. I'm thinking maybe Eclipse Phase or Transhumanity's Fate or Shadowrun. Still piecing together the story hooks but it would be set after Mankind Divided's bad ending.

    I'd play a FATE game of Deus Ex. All you really need are Stunts/an Aspect or two to describe the character's augments. Oh, and what bad ending?

    Deus Ex spoilers
    In the game, there is a UN law called "Human Restoration Act", an Illuminati-backed law that would permanently segregate augmented and non-augmented people. If the player saves a guy, Nathaniel Brown, then the law doesn't pass. But a group called Augmented Rights Coalition, once a peaceful group, will blow up buildings and kill thousands of people. If you don't save Brown, the law passes and you get the bad ending, which is a world that augs are second class citizens and the ARC has a ton if support as a terrorist group.
    Ah, gotcha. The two times I played I found it easy to avoid that bad thing. Still totally up for it if you decide to run a game, particularly if it's stealth-focused and there are various ways to keep the team quiet, like was discussed upthread.

  • The EnderThe Ender Registered User regular
    The Sauce wrote: »
    There's something about games with tons of skill / ability granularity like in the EP image above that fills me with a weird excitement. In appearance, they offer the promise of being able to do so many things. It suggests content that just goes on forever, systems that interact with each other in weird and wonderful ways, characters that are as unique in their numbers as they are in their personalities and backstories.

    But then the game inevitably disappoints. The massive list of possibilities collapses into either a "did anyone happen to pick the right one for this adventure" check or a "just make up a way to use one of your skills in this situation, the details don't actually matter after all" sort of fail.

    It seems like this is something that tabletop games should do better than video games since tabletop can rely on players thinking outside the box and going off the prepared trails, but that inevitably seems to lead to the second above failure state of the design. Whereas most video games that attempt this just fail to do anything useful with the majority of the skills, making them traps for naive beginners who don't already know the "correct" choices to make in character creation (yes hello Daggerfall).

    I guess it could be fun to see Paradox Development Studio take on the concept of a crunchy computerized RPG. I feel like you need automation to keep all the required mechanics from bogging everything down, and if nothing else Paradox has repeatedly demonstrated mastery of creating games that have many dozens of traits and modifiers that can apply to all kinds of interconnected subsystems. I almost wonder if there's anything that could be learned there for tabletop application, but I think it's too math-y of a design even to use as inspiration.

    I think the clumsiness of this type of highly granular skill design become most apparent when you contrast it with the broader archetypical skills in a game like D&D:

    D&D's game design objective with skills is crystal clear - they are a means for a GM to rotate the spotlight around the player group & give everyone a chance to feel like an awesome, key contributor to the adventure. Trap-filled dungeon or high speed chase, the thief makes their presence known; mad hunt for arcane wisdom or have an unexpected need for obscure lore, the mage has your back; someone needs to have the law laid down or some heavy furniture moved, welcome to the fighter's neighborhood; dire desire for sweet talk or song & dance, make way for the bard; etc, etc.

    So... what does EC want to do with these granular skill lists? The GM is going to have a tough time using them as a spotlight, because there is going to be a lot of overlap except in extremely specialized areas of expertise... and it will quickly become a real nuisance to try and slip-in a bunch of niche situations to address everyone's special snowflake skill set. It's also not sensible from, say, a purely simulation experience because no GM is likely to run into a situation where everyone blows their skill checks when confronting an obstacle that they didn't prepare for during character creation, shrugs & declare a game over. TT games just don't operate that way!





    With Love and Courage
  • ArdentArdent Down UpsideRegistered User regular
    This is similar to the problem Shadowrun has. When a mage can do everything with the right spell (or, you know, is a possession tradition mage), the spotlight rarely moves.

    Steam ID | Origin ID: ArdentX | Uplay ID: theardent | Battle.net: Ardent#11476
  • OptimusZedOptimusZed Registered User regular
    I think any system that still has a Profession [FIELD] skill is a hard pass from me.

    We've come far enough now that those kinds of things are completely obsolete. If that skill exists, it's a pretty good sign that the system just isn't for me.

    We're reading Rifts. You should too. You know you want to. Now With Ninjas!

    They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
  • InquisitorInquisitor Registered User regular
    edited December 2016
    Ardent wrote: »
    This is similar to the problem Shadowrun has. When a mage can do everything with the right spell (or, you know, is a possession tradition mage), the spotlight rarely moves.

    To be fair, you can always a way to fix one person taking the spotlight in Shadowrun, it just generally involves the DM being a bit of a dick.

    In this case it is throwing obnoxiously massive background counts at the party all the time.

    Inquisitor on
  • Professor PhobosProfessor Phobos Registered User regular
    There was even an official conversion of Eclipse Phase to Fate. Personally I'd think a Call of Cthulhu derivative like Delta Green or GUMSHOE would be even better fits. Fate is a little overly generous for most horror purposes.

  • OptimusZedOptimusZed Registered User regular
    There was even an official conversion of Eclipse Phase to Fate. Personally I'd think a Call of Cthulhu derivative like Delta Green or GUMSHOE would be even better fits. Fate is a little overly generous for most horror purposes.

    I've been having this same thought, actually. It doesn't help that the fate conversion is really uninspired.

    For example: when you've got the disconnect between a person's intellect/ personality and their body as a central theme of your game, to the point that you gave them different terms in the fiction, why are we not then using those same terms in the game? Ego stress is so much more evocative than mental stress.

    We're reading Rifts. You should too. You know you want to. Now With Ninjas!

    They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
  • Grunt's GhostsGrunt's Ghosts Registered User regular
    Eclipse Phase was one of those games that came out right at the start of this Industrial Revolution or Golden Age of RPGs, which I think started with 4E bringing a ton of new people to the hobby. It's got a ton of old school in it so now, 8 years later, we see as clunky, but in '09 when I got to play a sample game with Brian Cross as my GM, it was fine, it was different than other games that I loved, it did something interesting with it's d100 system, and everything was amazing. Now have more streamlined, simpler systems. Even EP folks have kinda recognized that, with Transhumanity's FATE. I think as the game grows, gets new editions, ect, that it will get better and better. D&D 1st Edition might look like garbage to us today if we tried to play it now.

  • VanguardVanguard But now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    Moldvay D&D still holds up remarkably well given its age. 1E, however, is really, really needlessly complicated and pretty much no one played the game as written.

  • OptimusZedOptimusZed Registered User regular
    I don't think the contention is that Eclipse Phase is unplayable. Just that there's no reason to do so unless it's exactly what you're going for.

    The original thing that got us on this tangent was a discussion about why anyone would ever try to play something in the Eclipse Phase system. And the reason is that they wouldn't, unless it was Eclipse Phase and they didn't want to do it in FATE.

    It doesn't speak well of the mechanical underpinnings of the game that it's been creative commons through the entire duration of the RPG renaissance and no one has wanted to do anything with it besides port the setting to another game.

    We're reading Rifts. You should too. You know you want to. Now With Ninjas!

    They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
  • RendRend Registered User regular
    Someone should at least have stolen the contested roll mechanic where if both parties succeed, the one with the lower margin of success wins. Because that part is brilliant.

    But almost every game I can think of in the last, like 6 years that's not D&D uses dice pools so there's nowhere for it to go :(

  • DevoutlyApatheticDevoutlyApathetic Registered User regular
    Rend wrote: »
    Someone should at least have stolen the contested roll mechanic where if both parties succeed, the one with the lower margin of success wins. Because that part is brilliant.

    But almost every game I can think of in the last, like 6 years that's not D&D uses dice pools so there's nowhere for it to go :(

    Is that mathematically any different than just saying "Highest still successful roll wins"? Quick mental math says it returns the same probability/skill advantage without all that silly on the fly math.

    Nod. Get treat. PSN: Quippish
  • RendRend Registered User regular
    edited December 2016
    Rend wrote: »
    Someone should at least have stolen the contested roll mechanic where if both parties succeed, the one with the lower margin of success wins. Because that part is brilliant.

    But almost every game I can think of in the last, like 6 years that's not D&D uses dice pools so there's nowhere for it to go :(

    Is that mathematically any different than just saying "Highest still successful roll wins"? Quick mental math says it returns the same probability/skill advantage without all that silly on the fly math.

    Highest successful roll is the same as saying lowest margin of success for a d100 system. The thing that sets that mechanic apart is that you are rewarded for high margin of success with increased effect. So, in a contested roll, a roll with massively increased effect is sometimes a liability, if your opponent also succeeds.

    In a dice pool system it would be more like saying lowest number of hits wins, as long as each has at least one hit. Or for d20, lowest successful die roll wins.

    [edit] Correction in eclipse phase the rule is actually "higher successful roll wins" but that tends to produce contested successes with lower margin of success, since rolling lower produces higher margin of success. So it's more like "lowest successful roll wins" in d20, but again in dice pool there's not a really good analog.

    Rend on
  • Super NamicchiSuper Namicchi Orange County, CARegistered User regular
    i have wanted to try eclipse phase myself but with a high crunch game comes with high GM workload and no one I know has that kind of time anymore

    Not to mention: The gamers designing games now are milennials and have different priorities and feelings about the medium than the folks who were making games in the 90s and even 00s. There's probably some kind of interesting research thesis buried there

  • Albino BunnyAlbino Bunny Jackie Registered User regular
    Contested dice rolls can create incredibly tense and engaging things out of the smallest moments if Infinity is anything to go by.

    Also I think my new years resolution is going to be about confidence and organisation. Starting with organizing a proper session (probably on Roll 20 or Tabletop Simulator) of Fragged Empire for anyone interested. Starting off with just a pre-baked adventure with pre-made characters (or at least, custom characters that are just a quick race swap if people have strong feelings).

    So consider this post kind of a soft way of gauging people's interest in doing that in the new year.

  • AShieldOfMeatAShieldOfMeat Registered User regular
    Rend wrote: »
    Rend wrote: »
    Someone should at least have stolen the contested roll mechanic where if both parties succeed, the one with the lower margin of success wins. Because that part is brilliant.

    But almost every game I can think of in the last, like 6 years that's not D&D uses dice pools so there's nowhere for it to go :(

    Is that mathematically any different than just saying "Highest still successful roll wins"? Quick mental math says it returns the same probability/skill advantage without all that silly on the fly math.

    Highest successful roll is the same as saying lowest margin of success for a d100 system. The thing that sets that mechanic apart is that you are rewarded for high margin of success with increased effect. So, in a contested roll, a roll with massively increased effect is sometimes a liability, if your opponent also succeeds.

    In a dice pool system it would be more like saying lowest number of hits wins, as long as each has at least one hit. Or for d20, lowest successful die roll wins.

    [edit] Correction in eclipse phase the rule is actually "higher successful roll wins" but that tends to produce contested successes with lower margin of success, since rolling lower produces higher margin of success. So it's more like "lowest successful roll wins" in d20, but again in dice pool there's not a really good analog.

    Eclipse Phase actually has your margin of success be your roll (so it's kind of like blackjack). This is nice as it means it's really easy to see how well you succeed when you do. The downside is it doesn't have the nice property you thought it had :( However, typically the losing party gets some benny if their roll "succeeds" but doesn't beat the opposition (e.g. for hacking the hacker will be spotted by the defender if both succeed).

    Although, not in combat. In combat, if you make your Fray check and the attacker beats that, you still get shot in the face.

  • RendRend Registered User regular
    edited December 2016
    Rend wrote: »
    Rend wrote: »
    Someone should at least have stolen the contested roll mechanic where if both parties succeed, the one with the lower margin of success wins. Because that part is brilliant.

    But almost every game I can think of in the last, like 6 years that's not D&D uses dice pools so there's nowhere for it to go :(

    Is that mathematically any different than just saying "Highest still successful roll wins"? Quick mental math says it returns the same probability/skill advantage without all that silly on the fly math.

    Highest successful roll is the same as saying lowest margin of success for a d100 system. The thing that sets that mechanic apart is that you are rewarded for high margin of success with increased effect. So, in a contested roll, a roll with massively increased effect is sometimes a liability, if your opponent also succeeds.

    In a dice pool system it would be more like saying lowest number of hits wins, as long as each has at least one hit. Or for d20, lowest successful die roll wins.

    [edit] Correction in eclipse phase the rule is actually "higher successful roll wins" but that tends to produce contested successes with lower margin of success, since rolling lower produces higher margin of success. So it's more like "lowest successful roll wins" in d20, but again in dice pool there's not a really good analog.

    Eclipse Phase actually has your margin of success be your roll (so it's kind of like blackjack).

    Margin of success is defined as the amount you roll under the target number, per page 118 of the core rules.

    [EDIT] Interesting. This changed between the first and fourth printing. The version of eclipse phase I've always played, including the group I'm currently in, works as I've described. But margin of success is defined as the roll you rolled in the latest printing.

    Rend on
  • Grunt's GhostsGrunt's Ghosts Registered User regular
    Rend wrote: »
    [EDIT] Interesting. This changed between the first and fourth printing. The version of eclipse phase I've always played, including the group I'm currently in, works as I've described. But margin of success is defined as the roll you rolled in the latest printing.

    Yeah, This changed in the May 2011 Errata.

  • RendRend Registered User regular
    I understand why they did that, but man that is so much less interesting for contested rolls, which are a huge percentage of die rolls in that system.

  • DarkPrimusDarkPrimus Registered User regular
    All this talk about granular d% systems makes me want to finally get a Rouge Trader game going.

    Except that I don't know if I feel confident in myself to come up with a storyline worthy of the setting and players.

  • CarnarvonCarnarvon Registered User regular
    edited December 2016
    DarkPrimus wrote: »
    All this talk about granular d% systems makes me want to finally get a Rouge Trader game going.

    Except that I don't know if I feel confident in myself to come up with a storyline worthy of the setting and players.

    I ran a bit of RT. The problem with it is that it has like, seven different systems you have to juggle. Foot combat, ship combat, space travel, skills, navigator magic, psyker magic, and everyone wants to play a character from a different book. You see, everyone wants to play Rogue Trader, they just don't want to play a RT character, unless they're the actual Rogue Trader. Expect to get a lot of "can I be a Space Marine/SoB/Inquisitor?" (and you want to say yes, but then you have to read those books too!).

    If you're a 40k buff, then the bit that makes Rogue Trader special is that, you're in this setting with horrible aliens, mind bullets, horrific abuses of power, and demons that want to literally burn worlds via eating the brain of that guy sitting next to you, but you're literally above all of that. So long as you don't utter the words "fuck the emperor", you can justify nearly any action with your charter. Sure, that Inquisitor can try to burn you at the stake, but if you fight him and win, no one can challenge you.

    Good RT campaigns (to me) involve finding a situation, and disrupting the status quo in order to make a profit. Disrupting things should almost invariably involve doing fucked up illegal shit, double dealing, and gaining the ire of the local inquisitor/planetary governor/space marine chapter. You also have the luxury of developing an alien race that can be or do anything you want, which is a great way hamfist practically any story you're trying to apply. This is also one of the few settings where you're almost exclusively talking to nobility and men and women of great power, which most players get a kick out of.

    Carnarvon on
  • Grunt's GhostsGrunt's Ghosts Registered User regular
    Question: For this Deus Ex thing I'm thinking on and kinda not writing anything down, should hacking be it's own mini-game?

    The idea that I have:
    This is of course assuming that I'm using FATE at this point, but computers, mechs, drones, turrets, ect. will have a Security Rating that will be used against the player's Hacking Skill. The Computer will have nodes that will hide things that are in the computer's network, such as Cashe that might have bitcons the player gets as credits, Datafiles that could hide encrypted or deleted files, External Network Nodes that could give the hacker control over things like turrets, cameras, lights, doors, ect. The GM would decide what level of Security each node would have. Stuff like Cameras and Doors might have level 1-3, Datafiles and Cashes might be 2-3, Turrets and Drones would be 3-5, Mechs would be 5. So when the player starts to hack, he'll know what type of nodes are in a computer, and their individual Security Ratings which will be rolled against his hacking skill. At the start, the Security system doesn't have an alert, so the player can attempt to hack the nodes in any order without worry. But once they fail, the Security system goes into lockdown mode, giving the player 3+Hacking Skill- Computer's Security Rating rounds left to get to the Login Node (which will always be at the same rating as the Computer itself) and hack it. Once that node is hacked, the person is in and any nodes they hacked are available to them.

    So if a player with Hacking 2 tries to hack a computer with a Security Rating of 3, he'll have 2 rounds to get in the Login Node once the System goes into Lockdown. And this system might have two Datafiles (both at Security 2), 1 Cashe (2), and a Login Node (3). If he got 1 Datafile and 1 Cashe before the system was alerted to him, but he got in before the Lockdown, he'd only have access to those things, and not the second Datafile.

    Now, while this is going on, the other players are still moving around, so if a hacker is trying to hack a computer in a firefight (to take over a turret or lock a door or something), they are going to have to deal with bullets flying around. Not sure if it's overly complicated or not needed, but I'd like to try to capture the feel of hacking from the games.

  • DarkPrimusDarkPrimus Registered User regular
    Carnarvon wrote: »
    DarkPrimus wrote: »
    All this talk about granular d% systems makes me want to finally get a Rouge Trader game going.

    Except that I don't know if I feel confident in myself to come up with a storyline worthy of the setting and players.

    I ran a bit of RT. The problem with it is that it has like, seven different systems you have to juggle. Foot combat, ship combat, space travel, skills, navigator magic, psyker magic, and everyone wants to play a character from a different book. You see, everyone wants to play Rogue Trader, they just don't want to play a RT character, unless they're the actual Rogue Trader. Expect to get a lot of "can I be a Space Marine/SoB/Inquisitor?" (and you want to say yes, but then you have to read those books too!).

    If you're a 40k buff, then the bit that makes Rogue Trader special is that, you're in this setting with horrible aliens, mind bullets, horrific abuses of power, and demons that want to literally burn worlds via eating the brain of that guy sitting next to you, but you're literally above all of that. So long as you don't utter the words "fuck the emperor", you can justify nearly any action with your charter. Sure, that Inquisitor can try to burn you at the stake, but if you fight him and win, no one can challenge you.

    Good RT campaigns (to me) involve finding a situation, and disrupting the status quo in order to make a profit. Disrupting things should almost invariably involve doing fucked up illegal shit, double dealing, and gaining the ire of the local inquisitor/planetary governor/space marine chapter. You also have the luxury of developing an alien race that can be or do anything you want, which is a great way hamfist practically any story you're trying to apply. This is also one of the few settings where you're almost exclusively talking to nobility and men and women of great power, which most players get a kick out of.

    I think maybe the way to approach it is to think of pirates and privateers and the Age of Sail... and then just convert it into the grimdark gothicness of 40k? Like, provide players with incredible opportunity for wealth, except that it will require them somehow pacifying inhospitable conditions and dealing with native populations and then having to defend their claim against rivals and making sure their shipments of valuables don't get intercepted by pirates.

  • OptimusZedOptimusZed Registered User regular
    The last Rogue Trader game I was in started with a hulked xeno megaship, wherein we found a replica(?) golden throne. It got predictably bonkers from there.

    Of course, my badass gunjack or whatever they're called caught a bolter crit in the second round of the tutorial fight and his head exploded.

    Which, effective tutorial, for what it's worth.

    We're reading Rifts. You should too. You know you want to. Now With Ninjas!

    They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
  • CarnarvonCarnarvon Registered User regular
    DarkPrimus wrote: »
    Carnarvon wrote: »
    DarkPrimus wrote: »
    All this talk about granular d% systems makes me want to finally get a Rouge Trader game going.

    Except that I don't know if I feel confident in myself to come up with a storyline worthy of the setting and players.

    I ran a bit of RT. The problem with it is that it has like, seven different systems you have to juggle. Foot combat, ship combat, space travel, skills, navigator magic, psyker magic, and everyone wants to play a character from a different book. You see, everyone wants to play Rogue Trader, they just don't want to play a RT character, unless they're the actual Rogue Trader. Expect to get a lot of "can I be a Space Marine/SoB/Inquisitor?" (and you want to say yes, but then you have to read those books too!).

    If you're a 40k buff, then the bit that makes Rogue Trader special is that, you're in this setting with horrible aliens, mind bullets, horrific abuses of power, and demons that want to literally burn worlds via eating the brain of that guy sitting next to you, but you're literally above all of that. So long as you don't utter the words "fuck the emperor", you can justify nearly any action with your charter. Sure, that Inquisitor can try to burn you at the stake, but if you fight him and win, no one can challenge you.

    Good RT campaigns (to me) involve finding a situation, and disrupting the status quo in order to make a profit. Disrupting things should almost invariably involve doing fucked up illegal shit, double dealing, and gaining the ire of the local inquisitor/planetary governor/space marine chapter. You also have the luxury of developing an alien race that can be or do anything you want, which is a great way hamfist practically any story you're trying to apply. This is also one of the few settings where you're almost exclusively talking to nobility and men and women of great power, which most players get a kick out of.

    I think maybe the way to approach it is to think of pirates and privateers and the Age of Sail... and then just convert it into the grimdark gothicness of 40k? Like, provide players with incredible opportunity for wealth, except that it will require them somehow pacifying inhospitable conditions and dealing with native populations and then having to defend their claim against rivals and making sure their shipments of valuables don't get intercepted by pirates.

    So, there's the [Product], and there's the [Deal], and there's the [Wealth]. Find the product, make the deal, and take the wealth. The campaign is the reason why no one else has done it already, the challenges before and after each step.

    There's a Adeptus Mechanicus run penal colony that uses prisoners to harvest [Product], the AdMech then [Deal] with local powers for [Wealth]. You can put problems and treachery before and after each step.

    The penal colony has rebelled and seized control of the [Product]. The [Product] has been irradiated by aliens/warp. Raiders are attacking Admech ships and stealing [Product].

    Local powers are under siege and cannot make [Deal]. Local powers have rejected the Emperor and the AdMech refuses to make [Deal]. AdMech ships can no longer navigate the adverse conditions of space to make [Deal]. Inquisitors/Aliens/Pirates attempt to stop deal.

    Local powers have no [Wealth] and wish to pay in favors. Local powers give you counterfeit [Wealth]. [Weath] is paid in goods which must liquidized later.

    The question is what the players want to do. Do they want to do the Colonization of Africa? Do they want to be space pirates? Do they want loads of ship to ship combat? Do they want cut deals? Do they want to be treacherous? Do they want to explore?

    Remember, the Imperium is a large place, and every world is different. You can force pretty much any trope, it's a strength of the setting.

  • RingoRingo He/Him a distinct lack of substanceRegistered User regular
    Anybody have experience with Blades in the Dark?

    Thinking of putting a one shot together using it

    Sterica wrote: »
    I know my last visit to my grandpa on his deathbed was to find out how the whole Nazi werewolf thing turned out.
    Edcrab's Exigency RPG
  • admanbadmanb unionize your workplace Seattle, WARegistered User regular
    Question: For this Deus Ex thing I'm thinking on and kinda not writing anything down, should hacking be it's own mini-game?

    The idea that I have:
    This is of course assuming that I'm using FATE at this point, but computers, mechs, drones, turrets, ect. will have a Security Rating that will be used against the player's Hacking Skill. The Computer will have nodes that will hide things that are in the computer's network, such as Cashe that might have bitcons the player gets as credits, Datafiles that could hide encrypted or deleted files, External Network Nodes that could give the hacker control over things like turrets, cameras, lights, doors, ect. The GM would decide what level of Security each node would have. Stuff like Cameras and Doors might have level 1-3, Datafiles and Cashes might be 2-3, Turrets and Drones would be 3-5, Mechs would be 5. So when the player starts to hack, he'll know what type of nodes are in a computer, and their individual Security Ratings which will be rolled against his hacking skill. At the start, the Security system doesn't have an alert, so the player can attempt to hack the nodes in any order without worry. But once they fail, the Security system goes into lockdown mode, giving the player 3+Hacking Skill- Computer's Security Rating rounds left to get to the Login Node (which will always be at the same rating as the Computer itself) and hack it. Once that node is hacked, the person is in and any nodes they hacked are available to them.

    So if a player with Hacking 2 tries to hack a computer with a Security Rating of 3, he'll have 2 rounds to get in the Login Node once the System goes into Lockdown. And this system might have two Datafiles (both at Security 2), 1 Cashe (2), and a Login Node (3). If he got 1 Datafile and 1 Cashe before the system was alerted to him, but he got in before the Lockdown, he'd only have access to those things, and not the second Datafile.

    Now, while this is going on, the other players are still moving around, so if a hacker is trying to hack a computer in a firefight (to take over a turret or lock a door or something), they are going to have to deal with bullets flying around. Not sure if it's overly complicated or not needed, but I'd like to try to capture the feel of hacking from the games.

    I've never played FATE but the impression I get is that it's a pretty fiction-driven game, right? I would resist the urge to make hacking overly mechanical or you're gonna end up in situations where one player is describing how he triggers his cyberlegs to spring over the desk and into the security guard, while the other player says "I guess I go to the next node and roll Hack."

    I would either de-emphasize the complexity of hacking and make it a single skill roll (if it needs to take time, make that a fictional cost) OR use the Neuromancer/Shadowrun style of hacking and create a cool cyberworld where you can do cool narration and make things shiny and chrome while keeping everyone busy.

  • admanbadmanb unionize your workplace Seattle, WARegistered User regular
    Ringo wrote: »
    Anybody have experience with Blades in the Dark?

    Thinking of putting a one shot together using it

    Yes. I love Blades in the Dark. What do you want to know? AMA about Blades in the Dark because I seriously love talking about it.

  • NotoriusBENNotoriusBEN Registered User regular
    My favorite adventure book from Rogue Trader was The Frozen Reaches (Part 1 of the Warpstorm Trilogy)
    https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/products/rogue-trader/products/the-frozen-reaches/

    A planet has put out the call for any and all men at arms to come aid them against a minor Ork WAAAHG!
    The planet is Imperial but its fair to middling in resources and not worth dispatching any Imperial Guards, or Astartes to assist them.
    Intro the players arriving for mercenary work and basically being told, "Help get these factions of humanity to unfuck their shit with each other and defend the planet."
    After negotiating with the Planetary Militia General, The Mechanicas Sect, an Imperial Navy Captain, and a couple other Rogue Traders and a few others, depending if you got them onboard or not, you get to move their navies in space and the armies around the Capital and defend the Wall around the city, as well as sending out troops to fuck up Ork Roks in transit and already landed on the planet. If you don't please the nobles, they take their units and guard what they think is important.

    The nice little kicker, the DM has all the hard numerical stats but you don't give them to the players. Simply tell them that the unit is full strength, half strength, broken, etc. and that Tanks are good at attacking the Ork Roks, they'd probably lose alot of effectiveness being a defense on the wall. Artillery is good while its in defense, doesn't have to worry about being destroyed if its not exposed. NEVER tell the players the straight numbers because then they'd be able to game the system in place.

    after all the placements you go through and tally the Units' Readiness against the number the campaign said about the Ork Horde hitting that quadrant of the wall and then narrate what happens. You tell the players, "Its a small attack, the units deployed here would stack evenly/crush this assault." "Its a veritable green tide, you will need more troops stationed here, nope... more... more... its... pretty iffy right now."

    did the orks beat up the ships in space? were they destroyed? how many made planetfall? did the wall hold? how badly were the troops mauled by that assault? You roll a couple dice and tally up the casualties ranging from, "minimal casualties, just remove a couple Readiness points" to "Took a beating, but still pretty strong, remove 6 points" to "Completely overwhelmed, the unit is destroyed"

    Its nice that the stats are basically relegated to a ''military readiness'' to cover the strength of the unit, the casualties and munitions of the unit.

    So the tank regiment has a base Readiness of 20 but if it is assigned to attack, it doubles its current Readiness to 40
    A Planetary infantry regiment has a base Readiness of 16, but you can split that regiment into two 8 Readiness companies, they'll both take combat damage, but at least you can split that unit if needed, or take two wounded regiments and combine them into one since they all work together.
    an artillery piece has 20 readiness while on the wall, but only 5 if it attacks or has to sit in the city, since it can't maintain the pace needed for cavalry attacks and cities don't have good ballistic trajectories to allow bombardments from.
    etc, etc, et al.

    While the skills might favor military knowledge and tactics (you give them more definite details if they have military training or tactics skills, etc.),
    the book gives ideas of how other skills and PCs might be effective if they think creatively about their abilities. A psyker would be another artillery unit, a senechal's logistical capacity and/or a medic could replenish some readiness stats of the units via making sure the troops have ammo/healed up. PCs could add a few more points if they actively take part in defending the wall.

    And during the assaults you have a few story hooks that arise as flashpoints. Join in destroying a Rok, evacuate some civilians, recover a Mechanicas object, Defend the Citadel. and if the players do well, adjust some stats or fudge an outcome in their favor for the overall war effort as a reward.

    After three or four weeks of siege, the Warboss fleet arrives and you do Rogue Trader stuff and board the Warboss ship and fight him on his bridge, and its just a really cool campaign. And since it doesn't have a lot of Rogue Trader/ War 40k stat blocks, its incredibly easy to rip this campaign and place it in another system, just rename all the stuff, almost basically replacing "Space and Orbit" with "Seas and Holding Off Shore", and "Tanks" with "Calvary"

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  • OptimusZedOptimusZed Registered User regular
    admanb wrote: »
    Question: For this Deus Ex thing I'm thinking on and kinda not writing anything down, should hacking be it's own mini-game?

    The idea that I have:
    This is of course assuming that I'm using FATE at this point, but computers, mechs, drones, turrets, ect. will have a Security Rating that will be used against the player's Hacking Skill. The Computer will have nodes that will hide things that are in the computer's network, such as Cashe that might have bitcons the player gets as credits, Datafiles that could hide encrypted or deleted files, External Network Nodes that could give the hacker control over things like turrets, cameras, lights, doors, ect. The GM would decide what level of Security each node would have. Stuff like Cameras and Doors might have level 1-3, Datafiles and Cashes might be 2-3, Turrets and Drones would be 3-5, Mechs would be 5. So when the player starts to hack, he'll know what type of nodes are in a computer, and their individual Security Ratings which will be rolled against his hacking skill. At the start, the Security system doesn't have an alert, so the player can attempt to hack the nodes in any order without worry. But once they fail, the Security system goes into lockdown mode, giving the player 3+Hacking Skill- Computer's Security Rating rounds left to get to the Login Node (which will always be at the same rating as the Computer itself) and hack it. Once that node is hacked, the person is in and any nodes they hacked are available to them.

    So if a player with Hacking 2 tries to hack a computer with a Security Rating of 3, he'll have 2 rounds to get in the Login Node once the System goes into Lockdown. And this system might have two Datafiles (both at Security 2), 1 Cashe (2), and a Login Node (3). If he got 1 Datafile and 1 Cashe before the system was alerted to him, but he got in before the Lockdown, he'd only have access to those things, and not the second Datafile.

    Now, while this is going on, the other players are still moving around, so if a hacker is trying to hack a computer in a firefight (to take over a turret or lock a door or something), they are going to have to deal with bullets flying around. Not sure if it's overly complicated or not needed, but I'd like to try to capture the feel of hacking from the games.

    I've never played FATE but the impression I get is that it's a pretty fiction-driven game, right? I would resist the urge to make hacking overly mechanical or you're gonna end up in situations where one player is describing how he triggers his cyberlegs to spring over the desk and into the security guard, while the other player says "I guess I go to the next node and roll Hack."

    I would either de-emphasize the complexity of hacking and make it a single skill roll (if it needs to take time, make that a fictional cost) OR use the Neuromancer/Shadowrun style of hacking and create a cool cyberworld where you can do cool narration and make things shiny and chrome while keeping everyone busy.

    Yeah, I'd make just straight hacking a thing one roll. If they succeed with style, give them some cool thing they found while poking around in the system as a scene aspect or something.

    We're reading Rifts. You should too. You know you want to. Now With Ninjas!

    They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
  • ArdentArdent Down UpsideRegistered User regular
    admanb wrote: »
    Question: For this Deus Ex thing I'm thinking on and kinda not writing anything down, should hacking be it's own mini-game?

    The idea that I have:
    This is of course assuming that I'm using FATE at this point, but computers, mechs, drones, turrets, ect. will have a Security Rating that will be used against the player's Hacking Skill. The Computer will have nodes that will hide things that are in the computer's network, such as Cashe that might have bitcons the player gets as credits, Datafiles that could hide encrypted or deleted files, External Network Nodes that could give the hacker control over things like turrets, cameras, lights, doors, ect. The GM would decide what level of Security each node would have. Stuff like Cameras and Doors might have level 1-3, Datafiles and Cashes might be 2-3, Turrets and Drones would be 3-5, Mechs would be 5. So when the player starts to hack, he'll know what type of nodes are in a computer, and their individual Security Ratings which will be rolled against his hacking skill. At the start, the Security system doesn't have an alert, so the player can attempt to hack the nodes in any order without worry. But once they fail, the Security system goes into lockdown mode, giving the player 3+Hacking Skill- Computer's Security Rating rounds left to get to the Login Node (which will always be at the same rating as the Computer itself) and hack it. Once that node is hacked, the person is in and any nodes they hacked are available to them.

    So if a player with Hacking 2 tries to hack a computer with a Security Rating of 3, he'll have 2 rounds to get in the Login Node once the System goes into Lockdown. And this system might have two Datafiles (both at Security 2), 1 Cashe (2), and a Login Node (3). If he got 1 Datafile and 1 Cashe before the system was alerted to him, but he got in before the Lockdown, he'd only have access to those things, and not the second Datafile.

    Now, while this is going on, the other players are still moving around, so if a hacker is trying to hack a computer in a firefight (to take over a turret or lock a door or something), they are going to have to deal with bullets flying around. Not sure if it's overly complicated or not needed, but I'd like to try to capture the feel of hacking from the games.

    I've never played FATE but the impression I get is that it's a pretty fiction-driven game, right? I would resist the urge to make hacking overly mechanical or you're gonna end up in situations where one player is describing how he triggers his cyberlegs to spring over the desk and into the security guard, while the other player says "I guess I go to the next node and roll Hack."

    I would either de-emphasize the complexity of hacking and make it a single skill roll (if it needs to take time, make that a fictional cost) OR use the Neuromancer/Shadowrun style of hacking and create a cool cyberworld where you can do cool narration and make things shiny and chrome while keeping everyone busy.
    Fate is a game that is narrative-driven, but not in the way PbtA is. Fate clearly defines what is true through Aspects, and those Aspects are true at the moment, but not necessarily always true. Situational Aspects and created Aspects are basically how you, as a narrative-supported hero (trademark), interact with the setting.

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  • DarkPrimusDarkPrimus Registered User regular
    edited December 2016
    My favorite adventure book from Rogue Trader was The Frozen Reaches (Part 1 of the Warpstorm Trilogy)
    https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/products/rogue-trader/products/the-frozen-reaches/

    A planet has put out the call for any and all men at arms to come aid them against a minor Ork WAAAHG!
    The planet is Imperial but its fair to middling in resources and not worth dispatching any Imperial Guards, or Astartes to assist them.
    Intro the players arriving for mercenary work and basically being told, "Help get these factions of humanity to unfuck their shit with each other and defend the planet."
    After negotiating with the Planetary Militia General, The Mechanicas Sect, an Imperial Navy Captain, and a couple other Rogue Traders and a few others, depending if you got them onboard or not, you get to move their navies in space and the armies around the Capital and defend the Wall around the city, as well as sending out troops to fuck up Ork Roks in transit and already landed on the planet. If you don't please the nobles, they take their units and guard what they think is important.

    The nice little kicker, the DM has all the hard numerical stats but you don't give them to the players. Simply tell them that the unit is full strength, half strength, broken, etc. and that Tanks are good at attacking the Ork Roks, they'd probably lose alot of effectiveness being a defense on the wall. Artillery is good while its in defense, doesn't have to worry about being destroyed if its not exposed. NEVER tell the players the straight numbers because then they'd be able to game the system in place.

    after all the placements you go through and tally the Units' Readiness against the number the campaign said about the Ork Horde hitting that quadrant of the wall and then narrate what happens. You tell the players, "Its a small attack, the units deployed here would stack evenly/crush this assault." "Its a veritable green tide, you will need more troops stationed here, nope... more... more... its... pretty iffy right now."

    did the orks beat up the ships in space? were they destroyed? how many made planetfall? did the wall hold? how badly were the troops mauled by that assault? You roll a couple dice and tally up the casualties ranging from, "minimal casualties, just remove a couple Readiness points" to "Took a beating, but still pretty strong, remove 6 points" to "Completely overwhelmed, the unit is destroyed"

    Its nice that the stats are basically relegated to a ''military readiness'' to cover the strength of the unit, the casualties and munitions of the unit.

    So the tank regiment has a base Readiness of 20 but if it is assigned to attack, it doubles its current Readiness to 40
    A Planetary infantry regiment has a base Readiness of 16, but you can split that regiment into two 8 Readiness companies, they'll both take combat damage, but at least you can split that unit if needed, or take two wounded regiments and combine them into one since they all work together.
    an artillery piece has 20 readiness while on the wall, but only 5 if it attacks or has to sit in the city, since it can't maintain the pace needed for cavalry attacks and cities don't have good ballistic trajectories to allow bombardments from.
    etc, etc, et al.

    While the skills might favor military knowledge and tactics (you give them more definite details if they have military training or tactics skills, etc.),
    the book gives ideas of how other skills and PCs might be effective if they think creatively about their abilities. A psyker would be another artillery unit, a senechal's logistical capacity and/or a medic could replenish some readiness stats of the units via making sure the troops have ammo/healed up. PCs could add a few more points if they actively take part in defending the wall.

    And during the assaults you have a few story hooks that arise as flashpoints. Join in destroying a Rok, evacuate some civilians, recover a Mechanicas object, Defend the Citadel. and if the players do well, adjust some stats or fudge an outcome in their favor for the overall war effort as a reward.

    After three or four weeks of siege, the Warboss fleet arrives and you do Rogue Trader stuff and board the Warboss ship and fight him on his bridge, and its just a really cool campaign. And since it doesn't have a lot of Rogue Trader/ War 40k stat blocks, its incredibly easy to rip this campaign and place it in another system, just rename all the stuff, almost basically replacing "Space and Orbit" with "Seas and Holding Off Shore", and "Tanks" with "Calvary"

    That's pretty epic.

    I know back when I was running a Dark Heresy campaign I had the players hole up with some Guardsman and try to wait out a minor WAAGH as well. Sounds kind of similar although I had it only take place over a short period of time.

    They ended up barely making it to their planned escape route with just them and the officer they had been sent to extract.

    DarkPrimus on
  • Albino BunnyAlbino Bunny Jackie Registered User regular
    Please don't talk about Blades in the Dark.

    Mainly because you talking about it lead to me reading about it.

    And I can't get another RPG I won't play and just read.

  • ArdentArdent Down UpsideRegistered User regular
    Please don't talk about Blades in the Dark.

    Mainly because you talking about it lead to me reading about it.

    And I can't get another RPG I won't play and just read.
    Sure you can! That's basically Onyx Path's business model.

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  • Albino BunnyAlbino Bunny Jackie Registered User regular
    I think it mostly appeals because it's a small scope game that knows what it wants to be.

    Which wind up far more interesting to me because that way the mechanics aren't about simulation or leaving wide gaps for narrative play so much as spurring the specific narrative it wants to put forth.

  • DevoutlyApatheticDevoutlyApathetic Registered User regular
    Ardent wrote: »
    Please don't talk about Blades in the Dark.

    Mainly because you talking about it lead to me reading about it.

    And I can't get another RPG I won't play and just read.
    Sure you can! That's basically Onyx Path's business model.

    Far too true.

    Me, like a week ago:
    "Why am I getting updates on the Scion kickstarter?"

    "Oh, apparently I backed it."

    "Huh."

    Nod. Get treat. PSN: Quippish
  • CarnarvonCarnarvon Registered User regular
    @NotoriusBEN Oh christ that book was a pain to run. If RT wasn't hard enough to figure out, let's add in some more sub systems cloaked in half-assed mechanics and then have you try to teach your players a sub-game while all your power gamers want to make 600 rolls to figure out the exact strength of every single fucking thing. I ended up hand waving most of it.

  • RingoRingo He/Him a distinct lack of substanceRegistered User regular
    admanb wrote: »
    Ringo wrote: »
    Anybody have experience with Blades in the Dark?

    Thinking of putting a one shot together using it

    Yes. I love Blades in the Dark. What do you want to know? AMA about Blades in the Dark because I seriously love talking about it.

    I'm just digging into the book now, so my first question is are there pregens in the quickstart or how easy is it to make some. Second is, do you think it's worth it if I fiddle with the setting right out of the gate? I want my players to be basically second class hobgoblin citizens. People who are easily discriminated against, trying to build up their community Godfather Part 2 style

    Sterica wrote: »
    I know my last visit to my grandpa on his deathbed was to find out how the whole Nazi werewolf thing turned out.
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  • NotoriusBENNotoriusBEN Registered User regular
    Carnarvon wrote: »
    @NotoriusBEN Oh christ that book was a pain to run. If RT wasn't hard enough to figure out, let's add in some more sub systems cloaked in half-assed mechanics and then have you try to teach your players a sub-game while all your power gamers want to make 600 rolls to figure out the exact strength of every single fucking thing. I ended up hand waving most of it.

    maybe I just had luck with my players. I had a couple that wanted to power game the rolls, but I flat out told them that if they kept trying to do that, I'd cut the readiness of units in half from them being over meticulous and undermining the unit leaders' authority. I told them I'd be fair with them about what they stacked where, but I'm not going to give them hard numbers. War is messy and some of your characters, while good fighters, are not good commanders.

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