If a player doesn't take the provocation skill, then are they not able to make a check to annoy someone in a manner that might be tactically advantageous?
They may annoy someone but it won’t be tactically advantageous. Or it could be a harder test. It’s the difference between using athletics to jump on a thing vs using your strength characteristic alone. It’s a trained skill although it is innate in humans.
And that is why I hate skill systems. If I need to have taken 5 points in pedantry for "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries" to go from flavor text to psychic attack, that's ridiculous.
That's a good example of why I like skill systems. Maybe I as a player am not particularly good at provoking people, or being sneaky, or jumping long distances, or understanding religious symbols, or using a chain sword, but my character is. Or maybe I'm really good at parkour but my character isn't. I like a good bit of mechanical separation between me and my character.
While I agree with your point I think it is revealing a different issue with delineated skill systems, which is over categorization. This is basically "Just how broad is a skill?" and "How can you know x but not y?" This is how knowing something about all recorded history is equivalent to being able to do some card tricks.
I don't really think D&D needs more social skills. I'd slot this, variably, under Deceive (i.e. manipulation) or Intimidation (i.e. angry manipulation?) with an outside chance of Persuasion depending on circumstance. Which is really freaking weird that your intention matters in which skill you use but, well, D&D.
I'm totally with you. You often end up with skill lists that are too granular and end up being cumbersome, or skills that are too general and end up feeling weird. Although probably more often you end up with an odd mix of the two where certain things (usually magic) are just like a single skill, but for some reason jumping/running/climbing/lifting/swimming all need to be separate.
Personally I prefer the 13th Age approach of backgrounds instead of skills, even though that can be really easy to game.
This translates as "Tell a brief cool bit about your character and why they know a thing" so I'm pretty okay with that. I suppose some sense of shame is assumed which, yes, can be an issue for some rpg geeks.
If a player doesn't take the provocation skill, then are they not able to make a check to annoy someone in a manner that might be tactically advantageous?
They may annoy someone but it won’t be tactically advantageous. Or it could be a harder test. It’s the difference between using athletics to jump on a thing vs using your strength characteristic alone. It’s a trained skill although it is innate in humans.
And that is why I hate skill systems. If I need to have taken 5 points in pedantry for "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries" to go from flavor text to psychic attack, that's ridiculous.
That's a good example of why I like skill systems. Maybe I as a player am not particularly good at provoking people, or being sneaky, or jumping long distances, or understanding religious symbols, or using a chain sword, but my character is. Or maybe I'm really good at parkour but my character isn't. I like a good bit of mechanical separation between me and my character.
While I agree with your point I think it is revealing a different issue with delineated skill systems, which is over categorization. This is basically "Just how broad is a skill?" and "How can you know x but not y?" This is how knowing something about all recorded history is equivalent to being able to do some card tricks.
I don't really think D&D needs more social skills. I'd slot this, variably, under Deceive (i.e. manipulation) or Intimidation (i.e. angry manipulation?) with an outside chance of Persuasion depending on circumstance. Which is really freaking weird that your intention matters in which skill you use but, well, D&D.
I'm totally with you. You often end up with skill lists that are too granular and end up being cumbersome, or skills that are too general and end up feeling weird. Although probably more often you end up with an odd mix of the two where certain things (usually magic) are just like a single skill, but for some reason jumping/running/climbing/lifting/swimming all need to be separate.
Personally I prefer the 13th Age approach of backgrounds instead of skills, even though that can be really easy to game.
Arbitrating is why we have GMs in the first place. Someone's background explicitly cannot cover all the bases.
I get how the system works and did say that I prefer it to other systems (D&D and Rifts were the two I was thinking of at the time). However, the open-ended nature of it is more susceptible to abuse than a more rigidly-defined skill system. Any RPG mechanic that relies in a social contract for its intended experience is flawed imo.
My favourite skill based systems are often just the simple D100 ones you get in Delta Green and Eclipse Phase, often CoC derived rulesets
Running a mini-campaign of DG right now, and it's really good. The system does very little other than resolve skill checks and that is mostly all I want from it (and also have relatively simple if horrifically lethal combat)
I mean, I get that the social contract can be problematic with some gamers, but I'm not sure how something that is explicitly not supposed to be capable of covering all scenarios is abusable without the cosigning of the GM.
Nothing is really stopping you from going "Okay what 'skills' does your background cover? Those are now your skills."
I mean, I get that the social contract can be problematic with some gamers, but I'm not sure how something that is explicitly not supposed to be capable of covering all scenarios is abusable without the cosigning of the GM.
Nothing is really stopping you from going "Okay what 'skills' does your background cover? Those are now your skills."
It's the reliance on that agreement that can be an issue, in my mind. Putting that extra bit of pressure on the GM to think, "Okay I said yes to Player 1 when they said their background covers this situation, and Player 2 wants their background to cover this other situation, but I don't think it should, but they do think it should, but I've already said no twice tonight so they might think I'm picking on them, or that I'm showing favoritism towards Player 1. And then Player 3 barely puts any creativity into their background so I feel like I'm always telling them what they can use it for, so of course I'm always saying yes to them..."
And if you instead say "Background X? These are now your skills," it kind of defeats the purpose of the background system in the first place, at least to me.
Again I don't think it's a bad system. I quite like it. But I do still see that flaw in it, which can be problematic in some cases. Particularly if you have one of Those Players that forces you to be the Fun Police all night.
RingoHe/Hima distinct lack of substanceRegistered Userregular
I personally love 13th Ages backgrounds as skills. But my best friend refuses to use it because as a female gamer she feels she already has enough hassle with male gamers trying to confront and gainsay her to get what they want. She doesn't want a system that encourages that behavior. And with the groups we used to game with, she very much has a point.
BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
I'm sure part of the issue is my own personal need to nitpick over why I can do X, but have no idea how Y works when they are relatively similar, and backgrounds just sort of sweeps that away, so then I can't get hung up on small mechanical hiccups.
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
13th Age is great! I was able to put "stealth" on my cleric:
Remarkably Unremarkable (+4): Perhaps it's because he's a member of the clergy, perhaps he's just easily ignored, or perhaps he's even unknowingly focused his magical knowledge into a sort of arcane shroud, who really can say? All anyone seems to know for certain is that Erethun seems to have a knack for going unnoticed, resulting in him either getting somewhere he's not wanted, or hearing things not meant for his ears.
I personally love 13th Ages backgrounds as skills. But my best friend refuses to use it because as a female gamer she feels she already has enough hassle with male gamers trying to confront and gainsay her to get what they want. She doesn't want a system that encourages that behavior. And with the groups we used to game with, she very much has a point.
Again, this is why we have a GM to be arbiter. It's not down to rule of the mob or anything.
Kind of has a second use as a more individual version of the command skill. So instead of riling up a whole hive mob as a priest to go kill some muties or whatever you can make an individual really mad at another guy.
I personally love 13th Ages backgrounds as skills. But my best friend refuses to use it because as a female gamer she feels she already has enough hassle with male gamers trying to confront and gainsay her to get what they want. She doesn't want a system that encourages that behavior. And with the groups we used to game with, she very much has a point.
Again, this is why we have a GM to be arbiter. It's not down to rule of the mob or anything.
Having a GM there to make rulings is not the end of the story.
Did ya'll ever get around to posting the Dresden Files games that you did?
Edit: You know, I just looked at the website, and it looks like you guys started putting it up their, so YAY!
It's probably the best game I've run? It's certainly one of the most memorable, and I learned a ton from it. DF and DFA have really, really sound worldbuilding exercises built into character creation.
If you're interested, we've posted the first and second audio episodes and future episodes go up on Mondays. It, uh. Goes places.
It sounds to me like PF2 is really going to need a Character Builder.
Actually I think once they nail down some of the verbage and people get used to the layout it actually goes reasonably quickly. There are a ton of options but initial character creation your stats basically wind up with one of 2 stat arrays unless you are actively trying to deoptimize. Generally you you will mostly see 18 16 14 12 10 8 for non humans and 18 16 12 12 10 10 for humans.
There are a shit load of skill feats and feats which I like but at first level once you pick your class its pretty straight forward. As you level there is going to be some serious choices and book searching but thats a skill or feat every few levels.
I really like the way they do multiclass stuff now. Multiclassing is basically just feat bundles so dipping a second class does not screw you out of getting your primary class stuff at a greatly delayed rate. I think as they add options almost everybody is going to wind up doing some level of this for or most characters. There are some like animal druids where right now you basically just get every single animal related druid feat as you level and can't afford to waste any feat slots on multi classing but some like wizard are almost always going to do so.
bard with fighter dip and wizard with fighter dip looks super strong currently because there is no longer any casting penalties for wearing heavy armor.
Just saw the soft and hardcover playtest books at the nerd store. I know the PDFs are free, but why such a high price point and production value for temporary material this is definitely subject to change? Is that normal?
They are basically collector items for fans and priced as such.
Honestly the 40+ something feats a character gets over their career is entirely why I think it needs a character builder. Just to collate all that in any kind of reasonable way.
I am all for a good character creator but at least currently when I was whipping up characters it seems pretty reasonable. Its daunting to look at the whole level 20 pile of stuff but if you just go a level at a time it makes a lot of sense. They made a lot of stuff that used to be built in packages that classes just came with into feats so that as they do more archetypes and things in the future they can add on with easier balancing knobs and buttons.
Crunchier games derive a lot of benefit from tools that automate the character creation process. I'm not sure why that's even in doubt in this day and age.
Crunchier games derive a lot of benefit from tools that automate the character creation process. I'm not sure why that's even in doubt in this day and age.
Look, when I was a kid, we had to chop down a tree, and burn the wood to create charcoal...
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
Crunchier games derive a lot of benefit from tools that automate the character creation process. I'm not sure why that's even in doubt in this day and age.
Look, when I was a kid, we had to chop down a tree, and burn the wood to create charcoal...
And we had to put skill points into both of those skills! By hand!
Crunchier games derive a lot of benefit from tools that automate the character creation process. I'm not sure why that's even in doubt in this day and age.
Look, when I was a kid, we had to chop down a tree, and burn the wood to create charcoal...
And we had to put skill points into both of those skills! By hand!
Half the time they were cross classed but we still did it by gum, and we liked it!
One of my players in my weekly 5E game had to bail, so I was looking around for various simple systems to run a one shot in. My group has previously played Dungeon World (bounced off - I think they were too inexperienced as players to feel comfortable with that much narrative control), Blades in the Dark (bounced off - too much crunch/mechanics for a short series of games (we had a 3 session interlude when a player took a vacation)), and a whole lotta 5E.
So, I gave them a few options, and we ended up with Lady Blackbird. I did not tell them it was made by the same guy that did Blades in the Dark.
They all had a blast! I was shocked. We had a great time of it. We only had 3 players, so I kind of DM-PC'd Lady Blackbird, but they seemed to enjoy her. I told them up front that I'd be playing Lady Blackbird hard, according to the sheet, just as they all had their own keys and such.
But, it was surprisingly tight and technical for how few rules and mechanics exist. I absolutely adored the "key" mechanic in that game, and short cut a TON of time feeling out player-character relationships, and gave a lot of the characters a ton of personality from the get go. The PDF is also free. If anyone needs a system for a one shot, I can't recommend this highly enough!
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BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
Crunchier games derive a lot of benefit from tools that automate the character creation process. I'm not sure why that's even in doubt in this day and age.
they really don't. They get some short term benefit in getting people to the table slightly quicker but it always results in bigger problems longer term. Because people who rely on character builders are the ones who never, even after years of play, understand where the numbers on their character sheet came from. And so are still having to ask for rules help every single turn every game night forever.
4th ed D&D had some extra problems from its character builder but those are more avoidable. In order to give it away for free they felt the need to strip out copyrighted materials and "fluff". Which fed into some of the absurd, and false, myths about 4th ed.
Anybody got any advice for running Star Trek Adventures for the first time? Gonna do the intro scenario next weekend. My DMing experience is all 3.5 and 5e D&D.
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KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
Take modules from all games, say they’re on another planet, in the VR room, or otherQ sent you there.
Crunchier games derive a lot of benefit from tools that automate the character creation process. I'm not sure why that's even in doubt in this day and age.
they really don't. They get some short term benefit in getting people to the table slightly quicker but it always results in bigger problems longer term. Because people who rely on character builders are the ones who never, even after years of play, understand where the numbers on their character sheet came from. And so are still having to ask for rules help every single turn every game night forever.
4th ed D&D had some extra problems from its character builder but those are more avoidable. In order to give it away for free they felt the need to strip out copyrighted materials and "fluff". Which fed into some of the absurd, and false, myths about 4th ed.
Eh, yes and no.
There is a reason why I sat down with all of my players one on one and made their Shadowrun characters with them (so they could understand where their numbers were coming from).
And there is a reason why for EVERY character I made after that process I used software to speed up the process.
Crunchier games derive a lot of benefit from tools that automate the character creation process. I'm not sure why that's even in doubt in this day and age.
they really don't. They get some short term benefit in getting people to the table slightly quicker but it always results in bigger problems longer term. Because people who rely on character builders are the ones who never, even after years of play, understand where the numbers on their character sheet came from. And so are still having to ask for rules help every single turn every game night forever.
4th ed D&D had some extra problems from its character builder but those are more avoidable. In order to give it away for free they felt the need to strip out copyrighted materials and "fluff". Which fed into some of the absurd, and false, myths about 4th ed.
Honestly, the people who have no idea how their character sheets work will have no idea regardless of how those numbers got filled in.
They're just people who are happy to show up, roll some dice, and have some fun, and I generally like having them at my tables - I just need to help them a little more with their character sheet (or, more likely, get another player to help them).
The builders help out the power users way more than they ... uh ... screw up the non-power-users.
KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
“This world (other)Q sent us to seems to be an amalgam of 19th century gothic literature. Number one, make a call to the bridge crew, get them to send a shuttle right away.”
A covered peasant takes off his hood and smiles.
“They won’t do you any good down here, captain. Welcome to Barovia”
If I was running Star Trek I’d go full season 1. Every planet is a hammered home morality play, and there’s plenty of time to talk. Even the bad guys give the crew enough room to ham it up. No one shoots before talking; it’s just a physical law, like water is wet. In Star Trek, people talk to each other about important philosophical life stuff.
5th edition skills are relatively simple and you are slightly to notably better at the ones you choose to be slightly to notably better at
It's a decent enough way of making a non-skill based game work
Honestly, the way that what the die shows is way more important than how good you are at a skill has been bothering us a bit. Up to here (we're level 4), the paladin with no proficiency and -1 int has succeeded in more Investigation rolls than the wizard with +3 int and honestly it feels kind of silly at times.
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It's a decent enough way of making a non-skill based game work
I get how the system works and did say that I prefer it to other systems (D&D and Rifts were the two I was thinking of at the time). However, the open-ended nature of it is more susceptible to abuse than a more rigidly-defined skill system. Any RPG mechanic that relies in a social contract for its intended experience is flawed imo.
Running a mini-campaign of DG right now, and it's really good. The system does very little other than resolve skill checks and that is mostly all I want from it (and also have relatively simple if horrifically lethal combat)
Nothing is really stopping you from going "Okay what 'skills' does your background cover? Those are now your skills."
Edit: You know, I just looked at the website, and it looks like you guys started putting it up their, so YAY!
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
It's the reliance on that agreement that can be an issue, in my mind. Putting that extra bit of pressure on the GM to think, "Okay I said yes to Player 1 when they said their background covers this situation, and Player 2 wants their background to cover this other situation, but I don't think it should, but they do think it should, but I've already said no twice tonight so they might think I'm picking on them, or that I'm showing favoritism towards Player 1. And then Player 3 barely puts any creativity into their background so I feel like I'm always telling them what they can use it for, so of course I'm always saying yes to them..."
And if you instead say "Background X? These are now your skills," it kind of defeats the purpose of the background system in the first place, at least to me.
Again I don't think it's a bad system. I quite like it. But I do still see that flaw in it, which can be problematic in some cases. Particularly if you have one of Those Players that forces you to be the Fun Police all night.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
1 - Cha/Wis mod
made it!
Kind of has a second use as a more individual version of the command skill. So instead of riling up a whole hive mob as a priest to go kill some muties or whatever you can make an individual really mad at another guy.
Having a GM there to make rulings is not the end of the story.
it's always mob rule
If you listen to fools
Sounds like something a werewolf would say.
https://www.playwerewolf.co/
Werewolves are a popular theme on mafia, yeah.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
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When you're the GM, you control how the mob acts and reacts.
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If you're interested, we've posted the first and second audio episodes and future episodes go up on Mondays. It, uh. Goes places.
Penny Arcade Rockstar Social Club / This is why I despise cyclists
Actually I think once they nail down some of the verbage and people get used to the layout it actually goes reasonably quickly. There are a ton of options but initial character creation your stats basically wind up with one of 2 stat arrays unless you are actively trying to deoptimize. Generally you you will mostly see 18 16 14 12 10 8 for non humans and 18 16 12 12 10 10 for humans.
There are a shit load of skill feats and feats which I like but at first level once you pick your class its pretty straight forward. As you level there is going to be some serious choices and book searching but thats a skill or feat every few levels.
I really like the way they do multiclass stuff now. Multiclassing is basically just feat bundles so dipping a second class does not screw you out of getting your primary class stuff at a greatly delayed rate. I think as they add options almost everybody is going to wind up doing some level of this for or most characters. There are some like animal druids where right now you basically just get every single animal related druid feat as you level and can't afford to waste any feat slots on multi classing but some like wizard are almost always going to do so.
bard with fighter dip and wizard with fighter dip looks super strong currently because there is no longer any casting penalties for wearing heavy armor.
They are basically collector items for fans and priced as such.
Look, when I was a kid, we had to chop down a tree, and burn the wood to create charcoal...
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
And we had to put skill points into both of those skills! By hand!
Half the time they were cross classed but we still did it by gum, and we liked it!
So, I gave them a few options, and we ended up with Lady Blackbird. I did not tell them it was made by the same guy that did Blades in the Dark.
They all had a blast! I was shocked. We had a great time of it. We only had 3 players, so I kind of DM-PC'd Lady Blackbird, but they seemed to enjoy her. I told them up front that I'd be playing Lady Blackbird hard, according to the sheet, just as they all had their own keys and such.
But, it was surprisingly tight and technical for how few rules and mechanics exist. I absolutely adored the "key" mechanic in that game, and short cut a TON of time feeling out player-character relationships, and gave a lot of the characters a ton of personality from the get go. The PDF is also free. If anyone needs a system for a one shot, I can't recommend this highly enough!
To be clear, I love character creators. I like playing with them even if I will never play that game.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
they really don't. They get some short term benefit in getting people to the table slightly quicker but it always results in bigger problems longer term. Because people who rely on character builders are the ones who never, even after years of play, understand where the numbers on their character sheet came from. And so are still having to ask for rules help every single turn every game night forever.
4th ed D&D had some extra problems from its character builder but those are more avoidable. In order to give it away for free they felt the need to strip out copyrighted materials and "fluff". Which fed into some of the absurd, and false, myths about 4th ed.
Eh, yes and no.
There is a reason why I sat down with all of my players one on one and made their Shadowrun characters with them (so they could understand where their numbers were coming from).
And there is a reason why for EVERY character I made after that process I used software to speed up the process.
Honestly, the people who have no idea how their character sheets work will have no idea regardless of how those numbers got filled in.
They're just people who are happy to show up, roll some dice, and have some fun, and I generally like having them at my tables - I just need to help them a little more with their character sheet (or, more likely, get another player to help them).
The builders help out the power users way more than they ... uh ... screw up the non-power-users.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
A covered peasant takes off his hood and smiles.
“They won’t do you any good down here, captain. Welcome to Barovia”
The space travel is just the icing on the cake.
Honestly, the way that what the die shows is way more important than how good you are at a skill has been bothering us a bit. Up to here (we're level 4), the paladin with no proficiency and -1 int has succeeded in more Investigation rolls than the wizard with +3 int and honestly it feels kind of silly at times.