As was foretold, we've added advertisements to the forums! If you have questions, or if you encounter any bugs, please visit this thread: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/240191/forum-advertisement-faq-and-reports-thread/

[Roleplaying Games] Schrodinger's NPC

1246729

Posts

  • GrogGrog My sword is only steel in a useful shape.Registered User regular
    If you were to make a Dungeon World 2 (or more likely just your own PBtA fantasy game), do you think it’d make sense to weld hitting the enemy and damage together?

    ‘When you attack, roll+stat.
    On a 10+, you deal your maximum damage, and you gain advantage over the enemy.
    On a 7-9, you deal half damage, and leave yourself open to harm.
    On a 6-, you deal your minimum damage, and the enemy gains advantage over you.
    Regardless of the roll, if you leave yourself open to further harm, add half your damage to the result.’

    Let’s say an Arcane Duelist has:
    Minimum 2, half 4, maximum 8, so the best they can ever deal is 12 damage.

    A lot of situations in Dungeon World grant +1 forward to a roll, but if you throw in a few +1 damage forward things in there you could vary the damage a little.

    But perhaps enemy HP should be removed entirely, and instead you have to pull off a few moves, like Reveal their Weakness, Pull Off a Strategy, Strike the Killing Blow...

    Edit: I’m just thinking about DW as a mental exercise really, I’ve run homebrew stuff that only used conditions, no HP for anything. I bet there are a lot of proper RPGs that use that sort of system too.

    I honestly prefer apocalypse world's harm system because you have a concrete idea of what you're doing and what you can expect to do. When I shoot an NPC with a 9mm I

    I think where DW falls down is that damage doesn't feel tied to the fiction. When I shoot a 1-armoured NPC with a 9mm in apocalypse world I have a solid idea of the harm they're taking (pain, fear, cosmetic damage). When I roll damage against an enemy in DW, I'm reducing an arbitrary HP pool by a random amount.

    I'd much rather have a static amount of harm that scales differently to different enemies, which is to say different levels of enemies have different harm clocks. If an enemy is still fighting after I've done 5-harm to it then I know it's tough.

  • MahnmutMahnmut Registered User regular
    I think an important difference between a Harm clock and an HP pool is that the HP pool is closer to being a binary state — you’re either alive and swinging, or you’re not. Whereas the Harm clock in AW starts specifying bad fictional effects almost right away.

    Steam/LoL: Jericho89
  • DelduwathDelduwath Registered User regular
    Ardent wrote: »
    So, the Shadowrun 6e skills are: Assensing, Athletics, Biotech, Close Combat, Con, Conjuring, Cracking, Electronics, Enchanting, Engineering, Firearms, Exotic Weapons, Influence, Outdoors, Perception, Piloting, Sorcery, Stealth, and Tasking.

    You may now panic.
    If you don't have any points in Outdoor, you're not allowed to go outside.

    If you don't have any points in Tasking, you're super-disorganized and can't get anything done ever, you're just a mess of Post-Its and half-finished to-do lists and none of it helps.

  • DelduwathDelduwath Registered User regular
    I've never played it, only read the rulebook, but it seems like Fellowship (a PbtA game) has a very narrative approach to damage and defeating opponents. The move associated with it is:
    Finish Them
    When you attempt to defeat an enemy you hold an Advantage over, tell us what you want to do to them and roll the appropriate stat.
    If you do not have an Advantage over them, you cannot attempt to Finish Them. An Advantage is something you can use to get the upper hand, such as teamwork, the element of surprise, or a moment of hesitation.

    If you Finish Them by…
    ...trying to kill them, roll +Blood. On a 10+, they die by your hand.
    ...forcing them to retreat, roll +Courage. On a 10+, they back off. They won't be back any time soon.
    ...outsmarting, terrifying, or overwhelming them, roll +Grace. On a 10+, they admit defeat, and will not willingly challenge you again.
    ...disabling them or knocking them out, roll +Sense. On a 10+, they're physically incapacitated and unable to continue.
    ...showing them the error of their ways, roll +Wisdom. On a 10+, you Forge a Bond with them, and they cannot bring themselves to hurt you.

    On a 7-9, you deal damage to them and lose your Advantage over them. If an ally was Keeping Them Busy, they aren't anymore.

    On a 6-, you lose the Advantage, and you must face retaliation.

    There's an aside that explains what an Advantage is. Basically, it's "anything that sounds like an advantage". Higher ground, having a buddy distract them, knowing their Secret Weak Spot, etc. It carries over to various kinds of conflict, so if you're trying to convince the king to let you rummage around the royal crypt to find his great-grandfather's signet ring that's needed to seal away a wight and the king's adviser is trying to convince him that you're full of it, but you happen to know that the king's adviser is taking payments from the ruler of a neighboring kingdom, that might be an Advantage that lets you Finish Them in a verbal/social contest. The easiest and most straight-forward (and mechanically-described) way to obtain advantage is with a move called Keep Them Busy, which lets you draw the full attention of a target to give your allies Advantage against it (like fencing with someone so your buddy can come up from the flank and club them on the head, or engaging a guard in conversation so that your buddy can sneak behind them).

    That move also mentions dealing damage. All enemies have a list of stats, which are a flavorful phrase and a mechanical description of the way that stat presents a threat to the players. When an enemy takes damage, one of their stats is damaged (basically: becomes crossed out and the associated threat becomes inactive), and when all of an enemy's stats are damaged they are defeated. The rules have this to say about damage:
    The simple way to think of this is, when the fellowship deals damage to something, they are actually taking away its abilities to stop them. "Damage" in Fellowship is not necessarily violence and bloodshed, but rather, it is the strength, skill, tact, or plan that you use to neutralize a problem. This is why the 10+ result to Finish Them lets you “destroy them, with whatever that means.” These are not necessarily by lethal means, as there are many many ways to keep someone from wanting to hurt you or stop you anymore.
    [...]
    Non-violence is assumed within several core rules of the game. The fellowship only has one Move for actually harming and destroying enemies. Everything else is for dealing with them in other ways.

    Note that the Overlord (the Ultimate Big Bad of the game) is harder to damage than other enemies, and even trying to damage them will cost the players something. Further, the Overlord and their generals (the mini-bosses) have the trait Threat to the World, which makes them immune to a bunch of different moves, so you can't just go "Hey look over there!" and then bop them on the head.

    Of course, Fellowship is a game that is very much about people coming together, teamwork, making allies of enemies, and so on. A lot of the rules around doing damage and defeating enemies in open conflict are somewhat nebulous and handwavy, and require the players and the GM to trust one another. It assumes dramatic rather than fair storytelling. This model isn't going to work if you're trying to set down a set of rules in stone that will always apply in every situation.

  • AthenorAthenor Battle Hardened Optimist The Skies of HiigaraRegistered User regular
    Delduwath wrote: »
    Ardent wrote: »
    So, the Shadowrun 6e skills are: Assensing, Athletics, Biotech, Close Combat, Con, Conjuring, Cracking, Electronics, Enchanting, Engineering, Firearms, Exotic Weapons, Influence, Outdoors, Perception, Piloting, Sorcery, Stealth, and Tasking.

    You may now panic.
    If you don't have any points in Outdoor, you're not allowed to go outside.

    If you don't have any points in Tasking, you're super-disorganized and can't get anything done ever, you're just a mess of Post-Its and half-finished to-do lists and none of it helps.

    Outdoors probably replaces Survival.

    Tasking, in Shadowrun, has always been used to represent giving tasks to agents/sprites/daemons for deckers and technomancers.

    At least, that's what I assume off the top of my head. As are all of these.

    Assensing - astral perception
    Athletics - climbing, running, jumping
    Biotech - medical
    Close combat - combining unarmed and melee
    Con - hustling, deception
    Conjuring - summoning spirits
    Cracking - illegal computer use (more keeping with the modern definitions of hacking)
    Electronics - legal computer use
    Enchanting - making fetishes and foci
    Firearms - projectile weapon use
    Exotic weapons - weird stuff, likely will need to mark a specific weapon
    Influence - takes the place of negotiation?
    Outdoors - survival, as I said
    Perception - mundane perception
    Piloting - Rigger skills
    Sorcery - Spellslinging
    Stealth - countering Perception
    Tasking - ordering sprites/agents/daemons and probably drones


    Seems pretty comprehensive!

    He/Him | "A boat is always safest in the harbor, but that’s not why we build boats." | "If you run, you gain one. If you move forward, you gain two." - Suletta Mercury, G-Witch
  • DevoutlyApatheticDevoutlyApathetic Registered User regular
    I'd assume that Electronics is more towards the hardware side of decking/rigging rather than illegal/legal divide. In previous versions this is where all the signals bullshit that was crucial to riggers lived with ECM/ECCM stuff lived.

    I want to say that Enchanting/Electronics/Engineering are various flavors of the same skill, building shit, but I'm not real confident on the Electronics bit. Similar to how Assensing is just "Magic Perception". Kinda surprised there is no matrix/rigger version of that skill.

    Exotic weapons are almost assuredly stuff like monofilament whips and possibly cyberware based melee weapons.

    Nod. Get treat. PSN: Quippish
  • AthenorAthenor Battle Hardened Optimist The Skies of HiigaraRegistered User regular
    In the past, matrix perception has been at the mercy of the programs you are running at any given time, and the quality of your cyberdeck. Same with rigger perception - you use your active perception if jacked in, and the drone's perception programs when running in captain's chair mode.

    He/Him | "A boat is always safest in the harbor, but that’s not why we build boats." | "If you run, you gain one. If you move forward, you gain two." - Suletta Mercury, G-Witch
  • DelduwathDelduwath Registered User regular
    edited May 2019
    I'd assume that Electronics is more towards the hardware side of decking/rigging rather than illegal/legal divide. In previous versions this is where all the signals bullshit that was crucial to riggers lived with ECM/ECCM stuff lived.
    They've actually explicitly said in various interviews and previews that Cracking is illegal computer actions and Electronics is legal computer actions.

    It's possible that there will be some other uses (like maybe Electronics for building electronic hardware, or bypassing it without being explicitly jacked in), but that legal/illegal divide is the one thing they have for sure definitely confirmed.

    Delduwath on
  • AthenorAthenor Battle Hardened Optimist The Skies of HiigaraRegistered User regular
    They did that split in 5th. Maybe even 4th. As it became more and more obvious that everyone should have some level of computer literacy in the future, ESPECIALLY with them incorporating wifi and AR, they needed to make that divide.

    I believe there used to be a skill along the lines of hardware that handled the physical component side, like baking chips and the like. I can see that being one of the concentrations or specializations of whatever they are going with in 6th. (I really need to not be going 100% off memory.)

    He/Him | "A boat is always safest in the harbor, but that’s not why we build boats." | "If you run, you gain one. If you move forward, you gain two." - Suletta Mercury, G-Witch
  • DevoutlyApatheticDevoutlyApathetic Registered User regular
    That feels like a really weird split to me. I guess it is sorta a difference between "MS Office Use" and "Programming" where they're not really related though anybody with the later will be at least able to do a little of the former but not vice versa.

    Nod. Get treat. PSN: Quippish
  • DelduwathDelduwath Registered User regular
    I have a Master's degree in computer science and you would be shocked at how little competency I have with, like, Excel.

    I can change the margins in Word, that feels pretty huge.

  • MarshmallowMarshmallow Registered User regular
    That feels like a really weird split to me. I guess it is sorta a difference between "MS Office Use" and "Programming" where they're not really related though anybody with the later will be at least able to do a little of the former but not vice versa.

    Honestly, someone with a serious MS Office cert is kinda terrifying in a way some typical C++ fellow is not.

  • ArdentArdent Down UpsideRegistered User regular
    admanb wrote: »
    Ardent wrote: »
    So, the Shadowrun 6e skills are: Assensing, Athletics, Biotech, Close Combat, Con, Conjuring, Cracking, Electronics, Enchanting, Engineering, Firearms, Exotic Weapons, Influence, Outdoors, Perception, Piloting, Sorcery, Stealth, and Tasking.

    You may now panic.

    I have many questions.
    To be clear I have no answers. No authoritative ones, anyway.
    admanb wrote: »
    Con and Influence are honestly the worst names for Persuade/Falsehood Consort/Sway I’ve ever read.
    I don't hate 'em. "Running a con" is definitely a thing you'd do in Shadowrun as a Face. But confidence games are a bit broader than just, you know, deceit. Influence is...meh. It's not good it's not bad it just is.
    Delduwath wrote: »
    Ardent wrote: »
    So, the Shadowrun 6e skills are: Assensing, Athletics, Biotech, Close Combat, Con, Conjuring, Cracking, Electronics, Enchanting, Engineering, Firearms, Exotic Weapons, Influence, Outdoors, Perception, Piloting, Sorcery, Stealth, and Tasking.

    You may now panic.
    If you don't have any points in Outdoor, you're not allowed to go outside.

    If you don't have any points in Tasking, you're super-disorganized and can't get anything done ever, you're just a mess of Post-Its and half-finished to-do lists and none of it helps.
    That seems as logically arbitrary as many of the other rules in Shadowrun.

    FWIW I have my hands on all of the playtest documents and this looks worse than 5e. Like clearly they heard the message (i.e. "simplify") but then they also heard "new edition" so they went sort of pants-on-head with pet issues and they're currently all lurking in the rules waiting to muddle the whole thing up. I'll try to explain "chips" and how "chips" interact with the game without just grumbling. As an example.

    "Chips" are CGL's take on advantage or what have you. It's not clear what they intended them to be but they try to represent them as advantage. You get them for "using superior weapons and gear and making good tactical decisions." No real guidelines, because why bother with that? Chips can be carried over between combats (okay, okay, bear with me here I know you're screaming). Chips are also accumulated in the course of certain situations (combat, infiltration, hacking, etc) and are lost when that immediate situation ends. Super clear, right? Right! Here's where I note that you cap at 5 chips.

    1 chip will let you: reroll one die, add 3 to Init, use an "Add-On." (more on those later) 2 chips: +1 to any die roll, give an ally 1 chip, negate 1 enemy chip. 3 chips: buy an automatic hit, heal one box of Stun. 5 chips: 2s for glitches for target, heal one box of Physical, create special effect.

    Remember when I said Add-Ons? Well, here's a selection: called shot-disarm. Called shot-vitals. Fire from cover. Tactical roll. Knockout blow. So...all of those combat options that used to just be options in combat for a dice pool penalty now require "chips." Those dice pool penalties? Still there. (-4 dice for a called shot on vitals, as an example)

    It only gets more perplexing and boggling from there. On the upside: they did actually cut out like 50% of the Matrix-related actions.

    Steam ID | Origin ID: ArdentX | Uplay ID: theardent | Battle.net: Ardent#11476
  • DelduwathDelduwath Registered User regular
    edited May 2019
    What you're describing here matches what the previews called the new Edge system, they're upfront that it's an advantage/disadvantage system that constantly gets you points that you can cash in for various bonuses, and it wouldn't surprise me that in playtesting material these points would be called "chips" (as in poker chips), since a lot of games use that to track narrative/mechanical currency that flows back and forth.

    I can't speak to how reasonable, effective, or interesting the rules are; I'm just saying that this sounds like the exact same system that we've already talked about earlier in the thread, only using placeholder playtesting names.

    EDIT: I'm also curious about how up-to-date these playtesting materials are, because in the podcast that I listened to, Jason Hardy outlined some very specific and clear ways in which you earn these Edge points; it didn't really sound ambiguous or play-by-ear. Of course, it's possible that he was misrepresenting what's in the actual game.

    Delduwath on
  • DelduwathDelduwath Registered User regular
    Ooops, sorry, we talked about this in the previous incarnation of this thread:
    Delduwath wrote: »
    They touched a bit on some of this on the episode of The Arcology Podcast that came out alongside the announcement. It sounds like for combat, at least, they are trying to standardize the situational bonuses and have a uniform system for it, revolving around the Edge system. Certain well-defined combat situations give you Edge (having a higher attack rating than your opponent has defense rating; being within a certain range of your target; I think they also mentioned having higher ground). Edge gain is at most +2 per turn, and you can hold a max of 7 at a time. You can then spend Edge on your attack to do stuff like make your opponent have glitches on 2s as well as 1s, or give you roll a +1 (I assume this means to one die in your die pool, because you can spend multiple Edge to gain multiple +1s on a turn). Sounds like they expect you to be gaining and spending Edge all the time.

    This still sounds like a lot of bookkeeping to me, and still sounds like it'll make combat take a long-ass time to resolve, but at least it seems like a more standardized system.

  • Super NamicchiSuper Namicchi Orange County, CARegistered User regular
    edited May 2019
    Chips aka we see a bunch of games using meta-mechanics like fate points/destiny points/inspiration, lets do that except not really

    Super Namicchi on
  • ArdentArdent Down UpsideRegistered User regular
    Delduwath wrote: »
    What you're describing here matches what the previews called the new Edge system, they're upfront that it's an advantage/disadvantage system that constantly gets you points that you can cash in for various bonuses, and it wouldn't surprise me that in playtesting material these points would be called "chips" (as in poker chips), since a lot of games use that to track narrative/mechanical currency that flows back and forth.

    I can't speak to how reasonable, effective, or interesting the rules are; I'm just saying that this sounds like the exact same system that we've already talked about earlier in the thread, only using placeholder playtesting names.

    EDIT: I'm also curious about how up-to-date these playtesting materials are, because in the podcast that I listened to, Jason Hardy outlined some very specific and clear ways in which you earn these Edge points; it didn't really sound ambiguous or play-by-ear. Of course, it's possible that he was misrepresenting what's in the actual game.
    Wish I was. These aren't the rules for Edge. Edge has a separate set of rules that they already hobbled for fear of "powergaming." Rules for Edge are less wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey for sure.

    Steam ID | Origin ID: ArdentX | Uplay ID: theardent | Battle.net: Ardent#11476
  • DelduwathDelduwath Registered User regular
    Wait.

    You're saying that there are two identical systems in place, only with different names?

    Wait.

    What.

  • ArdentArdent Down UpsideRegistered User regular
    I told you it was weird. It's weird. They might end up being the same system. But I don't see how. Edge, for example, isn't capped at 5.

    Steam ID | Origin ID: ArdentX | Uplay ID: theardent | Battle.net: Ardent#11476
  • DelduwathDelduwath Registered User regular
    Based on previews, Edge is capped at 7, which is one of the things that makes me assume the chips stuff is from an earlier iteration of the Edge rules. I read a review of the Quickstart Boxed Set on ENWorld, and it describes Edge in some detail, but makes no mention of an Edge-like-but-not-Edge system. Obviously doesn't really provide much - the reviewed could have just left it out, or the rules aren't part of the abbreviated quickstart package - but this seems like such a weird thing that I feel like the reviewer would mention it.

  • ArdentArdent Down UpsideRegistered User regular
    Even if we assume they decided to just shove all of it under Edge, it still represents a bad direction for the game, gating options behind a mechanic that's not likely to be intuitive for many groups.

    Steam ID | Origin ID: ArdentX | Uplay ID: theardent | Battle.net: Ardent#11476
  • DelduwathDelduwath Registered User regular
    edited May 2019
    Q&A with Jason Hardy on Shadowrun 6th Edi... sorry, 6th World:
    https://www.shadowrunsixthworld.com/2019/05/qa-with-shadowrun-line-developer-jason-hardy/

    This seems relevant to the current conversation:
    The very first set of playtest rules had a lot of what is now part of the Edge in a separate sub-system. Playtesters thought it would be good to combine all the systems into Edge. That was a good idea.
    (I'm sorry that I keep harping on this, I know it makes for boring posts and I come off as Catalyst Game Labs's stalwart defender. I don't really care about CGL one way or the other, but it's true that I want to believe that things will be good, so I'm very free with giving people the benefit of the doubt.)

    EDIT: And also:
    The process of how Edge evolved is the longest, most detailed process in the whole game. So I’ll try to make a long story short! Ish. So, the first thing I focused on when it came time to move past brainstorming and put rules to paper was combat. I wanted the whole combat process to move smoother and for combat to resolve faster. I saw a lot of things to tweak the process, but in the end, many of them boiled down to one thing: It takes a long time to calculate dice pools. Modifiers can come from a lot of places, and remembering to look at all these places, while also remembering the size of the modifiers, can be complex. I wanted to streamline that whole process. The first step in that was combining a lot of weapon stats into a single number called Attack Rating. That number is compared to a Target’s Defense Rating, and, in the initial system, if your Attack Rating was sufficiently higher than the Defense Rating, you’d get what was called a Chip, which would represent your accumulated advantage in the fight. The idea was that other things, such as good tactical execution, would give you more Chips. Then playtesting showed us that the Chip system had similarities with Edge, and things would work best if Edge was expanded, rather than introducing a new meta-game currency. Once that merger was in place, the work was to find how to implement Edge across the system. So deckers, faces, riggers, technomancers, and whoever else hits the shadows gets a chance to build up Edge and spend it in a spectacular move.

    Delduwath on
  • Super NamicchiSuper Namicchi Orange County, CARegistered User regular
    it still basically looks like a clumsy mechanic that narrative systems already have solved before (fate is the prime example of 'build up chits and then unleash a whammy' that comes to mind)

  • ArdentArdent Down UpsideRegistered User regular
    it still basically looks like a clumsy mechanic that narrative systems already have solved before (fate is the prime example of 'build up chits and then unleash a whammy' that comes to mind)
    Yep. But it's also tied to an attribute, because why the heck not?

    "I don't always make mistakes, but when I do, I try to end the world in global nuclear annihilation" isn't exactly a fun meme.

    Steam ID | Origin ID: ArdentX | Uplay ID: theardent | Battle.net: Ardent#11476
  • AthenorAthenor Battle Hardened Optimist The Skies of HiigaraRegistered User regular
    it still basically looks like a clumsy mechanic that narrative systems already have solved before (fate is the prime example of 'build up chits and then unleash a whammy' that comes to mind)

    I'm not sure what's different about this implementation that makes it clumsy/worse than other narrative systems? Like, if the edge resets every scene, then you just make each combat part of a new scene or something.

    Then again, I am an admitted Shadowrun defender, so take that as you will. :)

    He/Him | "A boat is always safest in the harbor, but that’s not why we build boats." | "If you run, you gain one. If you move forward, you gain two." - Suletta Mercury, G-Witch
  • ArdentArdent Down UpsideRegistered User regular
    Athenor wrote: »
    it still basically looks like a clumsy mechanic that narrative systems already have solved before (fate is the prime example of 'build up chits and then unleash a whammy' that comes to mind)

    I'm not sure what's different about this implementation that makes it clumsy/worse than other narrative systems? Like, if the edge resets every scene, then you just make each combat part of a new scene or something.

    Then again, I am an admitted Shadowrun defender, so take that as you will. :)
    We're going to be pretty merciless with any game that is made in "current year" but without respect to all of the lessons learned in "current year" from a game design perspective.

    Narrative token economies are fine. Except we've learned a lot about how to do them and what they're working with here is not "current year" narrative token economy. It's not horrifyingly behind the times, but it could do with taking a look at games that are doing this well right now and not...five years ago.

    To be clear, this isn't Exalted 3e choosing to make a cutting edge game for 2003 in 2013 I mean 14 I mean 15 I mean 16. At least I don't foresee CGL rolling this through pointless iteration unreleased for 5 years.

    Steam ID | Origin ID: ArdentX | Uplay ID: theardent | Battle.net: Ardent#11476
  • DelduwathDelduwath Registered User regular
    Ardent wrote: »
    it could do with taking a look at games that are doing this well right now and not...five years ago.
    What would you say is a good example of one? I'd like to read up more about this approach, because I think the only systems I personally know of that have a narrative currency are Fate Core and 13th Age, neither of which are really state-of-the-art at this point.

  • crimsoncoyotecrimsoncoyote Registered User regular
    I assume Genesys does, as it came out of Edge of the Empire/Age of Rebellion/Force and Destiny, and the Destiny point system there is a form of narrative currency. EOTE is coming up on 6 years old though.

    Not sure about anything more recent.

  • DenadaDenada Registered User regular
    I'm not great at game design theory. What exactly has Edge not learned from ________ ?

  • Super NamicchiSuper Namicchi Orange County, CARegistered User regular
    edited May 2019
    there are modern fate games getting released that continue to push the Fate envelope forward fren

    Fate of Cthulhu for example is still in a kickstarter

    however, Apocalypse Engine games employ Hold, Monsterhearts also has Strings

    As Crimson mentioned, Genesys basically lives in narrative currency (you can see threat/advantage as currency of their own alongside Destiny points)

    and yeah, this is grain of salt stuff--it's still in development, and clumsy/clunky doesn't mean The Worst

    *side eye at Exalted*

    Super Namicchi on
  • captainkcaptaink TexasRegistered User regular
    Star Trek adventures has a great narrative currency system in Momentum/Threat.

  • Super NamicchiSuper Namicchi Orange County, CARegistered User regular
    to address @Denada and your question:

    this is just my take mind you, but when you're talking about narrative meta-currency, its power is most obviously seen in its ability to influence the fiction it inhabits. like, if we talk about Destiny Points for example in FFG's GeneSys, sure, you can spend them to upgrade/downgrade rolls. and that's great and all, but that kinda stuff isn't where the juice lives, in my mind. the secret sauce is when you (or the GM) flips one of those points to change the narrative positioning in any given moment.

    based on what we've seen with Edge? it ... kinda has that? like, based on the assessment here, they want it to sort of fill that role a little? but really you're just supposed to accrue them like Super Meter in a fighting game to unleash your Super Art? which is cool i guess?

    like, Fate does this already in its core game flow, but it also revolves around principles of narrative truth and approaching from the fiction, so you spend Fate Points to like pivot the campaign in very different directions... and sometimes in a conflict you spend a couple to invoke a couple aspects for a big whammy... but it's almost a tertiary effect (because you usually see more mileage from stacked invokes of Advantage-created aspects)

    basically, if we're going to be trucking above the game world and adding meta currency... don't just import that more Edge = more bonuses or using your shadowrunner's shinryuken. allow Edge to manipulate the fiction directly.

  • captainkcaptaink TexasRegistered User regular
    edited May 2019
    So Star Wars Genesys has force points, tokens with a light and dark side. PCs spend light side for beneficial effects, the GM spends dark side to buff NPCs and do other stuff. Either way, spending it gives it to the other side.

    There's a part in a published adventure for one of the Star Wars Genesys games where it says to spring an ambush on your players, and flip a darkside token. It doesn't actually change what you throw at them (but the PCs don't know that) it's just to amp up the menace. I really like that. It's a clear metanarrative signal that to the players that "I'm fucking up your shit, directly". Not only that, but they've now got a point to spend against the GM, and are probably particularly motivated to do so.

    The other suggested use (in Genesys and Star Trek Adventures) is that they can be spend to retcon the situation. Players can spend them to say "Oh actually, I did bring a fusion cutter/C4/a fake id." It costs them something but feels really good.

    captaink on
  • DelduwathDelduwath Registered User regular
    Ah, I think I understand now what you folks are getting at. Thank you for the explanation!

    Yeah, I don't think Shadowrun will ever be the game that gives you narrative currency that can be spent that way. You mentioned "approaching from the fiction", and my feeling is that Shadowrun is more "approaching from the gear list". I understand that there's no reason why gear can't give you currency that lets you pivot the narrative, but it seems like Shadowrun prefers that currency to be concrete bullets (or foci or decks or whatever) and the pivoting be done concretely by applying that currency to someone's forehead (or Matrix host or guardian spirit or whatever).

    Maybe Shadowrun Anarchy: The Next Edition can lean into that more.

  • Super NamicchiSuper Namicchi Orange County, CARegistered User regular
    edited May 2019
    except you pointed out that they're allowing Edge expenditure to make glitches occur on 1s and 2s among other things

    using that as an example, how does that map to approaching from the gear list? it's very much an abstract game-level element here--it's manipulating the fiction. it's just doing so in a very milquetoast way (by increasing critical failure rates like that in a die roll, you're basically influencing the outcome to more likely be a disastrous critical failure, which if I recall usually changes the narrative position pretty drastically, especially if it's happening to a PC)

    Super Namicchi on
  • DelduwathDelduwath Registered User regular
    edited May 2019
    Good point.

    The only thing I'd say in their defense is that I think really grokking this narrativist/"approach from the fiction" philosophy is very hard when you've been raised on a tradition of games like D&D, games that either don't have rules to manipulate the narrative or don't realize (and therefore don't teach the players) that they have rules to manipulate the narrative. (Witness: me not recognizing that a critical failure is a narrative event.)

    The counter-defense is that they're the game developers, and it's their job to grok this, to do the necessary research, and to work through the implications.

    Delduwath on
  • Super NamicchiSuper Namicchi Orange County, CARegistered User regular
    that's a good point honestly--if you take it in the perspective of Shadowrun trying to evolve gradually, it starts to make sense. i think at the end of the day though they have to make the shit-or-get-off-the-loo decision and decide whether they want to be sim-forward or game-forward.

    narrative can live in either space, but abstract game mechanisms like metacurrency naturally shift emphasis away from simulating a world in the strictest sense (you can argue narrative currency can also further simulate worlds if you use "cinematic world" as the thing you're simulating but that's not the main point)

    to me, Shadowrun's strength has always been its setting and premise, which is why the "buckets of dice and modifiers for every fleck of paint on your gear" has always seemed at odds with what SR is trying to deliver--that is, cinematic cyberpunk dipped in a delicious fudgey fantasy candy coating.

    honestly, Blades in the Dark sometimes feels to me like a better version of Shadowrun.

  • ArdentArdent Down UpsideRegistered User regular
    Sorry, went for food.

    Having a narrative currency that doesn't allow you to interact directly with, or intercede in, the actual narrative is sort of...I don't want to say not the point because intent is intent. But it's beside the point of vesting a narrative currency at the center of the most important systems in your game. Genesys is a great example because Triumphs accrue "naturally" during the course of play but you have to spend them in "current situation" (making them a literal currency) and they generate narrative AND mechanical options.

    A Triumph can (and usually does) mean "something good happens regardless of the roll." But you can also use those Triumphs for other, really big deal, actions or outcomes. Like making an amazing sword on a crafting roll. Or engulfing the entire group of enemies with a fireball.

    Narrative currency also requires some expectation setting with regard to how it's generated (which, yes, there are *some* guidelines for Edge) but specifying that it's only generated during combat or hacking would be a more useful limiter for GMs to have. For example, Genesys is pretty clear: you won't generate any narrative currency unless the situation requires a roll, and the game only calls for a roll when there's a chance of something interesting happening when the character fails.

    So you don't roll for your morning commute. Unless there's a chance that the Trog Kikkas gang shows up to trash their vehicle because they took a wrong turn.

    Steam ID | Origin ID: ArdentX | Uplay ID: theardent | Battle.net: Ardent#11476
  • Super NamicchiSuper Namicchi Orange County, CARegistered User regular
    edited May 2019
    feeding on the Triumph as currency, the most memorable Triumphs in my mind are always the ones that change the fictional position in some drastic way. for those unfamiliar, triumphs are one of the results on the upgraded (yellow) genesys dice. they are delicious and add the third axis to the resolution bar Genesys uses. they have all kinds of baked in mechanical effects, but more importantly, change the situation for the roller in a drastic, unmitigated way (there's a negative one on the upgraded Bad dice as well, the despair. same thing, in reverse).

    if you presented me with the mission to design a meta-currency and the name, Edge, well, i can tell you what it wouldn't be from me, which is a generator of static bonuses / penalties. i'd probably tie it directly into getting and rewarding the genre moments people come to expect and desire from shadowrun; that is, edge allows you to prepare for anything. it allows you to do cinematic gun fu. it allows you to infiltrate with style (whether that style is black trenchcoat or purple mohawk is up to the group)

    i guess what i'm saying here is Edge should be a currency that allows characters to do and engage with the tropes and styles SR lives inside. which I guess is Mission: Impossible meets Deus Ex meets Ocean's 11 dunked in urban fantasy.

    Super Namicchi on
  • AthenorAthenor Battle Hardened Optimist The Skies of HiigaraRegistered User regular
    You're describing the Pink Mohawk side of the game, from the sounds of it.

    Shadowrun's always had a duality to it - Pink Mohawk and Black Trenchcoat. The idea is that you have people who embrace the fun, over the top side of things.. and people who embrace the crunchy, dark side of things. And of course that's not a 2d axis! I personally run very over the top games that throw in all the crunch I can remember. But I'm also good at doing it fast and improvising, and I let my players know that I'm not going to be sticking to every +/- 1 exactly. Other people enjoy that, and more power to them.

    So when Jason and Co. are putting together a new version of Shadowrun, they have to balance that axis. On any given edition, the axis can favor one playstyle or another, but abandoning either angle will.. well, it wouldn't be Shadowrun. I think that's why I've liked what I have heard of the Edge system so far. If you take it as an abstract, a guidance for the narrative without being tied to 1:1 crunch, it becomes really, REALLY cool. Of course, I haven't seen the rules in any capacity, or even the early playtest things. I just have the interviews to go off of, and my personal history with the game.

    I love narrative systems. I adore Genesys, and I adore 5th edition L5R. But I also know the pain of being a Shadowrun GM -- because no one fucking wants to GM Shadowrun due to its complexity, while many of its players crave that shit. Hell, last time I got to be player, I had an amazingly fun time. It helped that my GM was Bull, Shadowrun GM "to the stars," but even then we were able to just have a shit-ton of fun. And in the end of the day, for me, that's far more important than the mechanics of the rules.

    But like I said, I tend to trust Jason. He seems a good guy, and a nice sport when you get his NPCs "killed" in a session.

    He/Him | "A boat is always safest in the harbor, but that’s not why we build boats." | "If you run, you gain one. If you move forward, you gain two." - Suletta Mercury, G-Witch
Sign In or Register to comment.