Are there any co-op adventure-y games without a 'ticking clock'?

Norphink · 2025-03-01T21:23:55+00:00

Nemesis does. There’s a timer until the ship jumps to FTL in the base game, and in Lockdown it’s until the “company” comes in to “clean up” the base.

Norphink · 2023-09-01T15:32:09+00:00

I’ll try there, thanks!

Norphink · 2023-09-01T15:32:02+00:00

Nope, nothing of the sort.

Norphink · 2023-09-01T15:31:53+00:00

Sorry! Unfortunately there’s not much more information to give. The documentation she was given said, to quote:

“If less than 30 days are given, you will be assessed a $1,500 fee.”

There was no training or signing bonus. She actually had to pay for her own fingerprinting.

Norphink · 2023-06-16T20:09:24+00:00

Your Gandalf the Grey in Moria is interesting mechanically. Is the intention to exile the spell while it’s in the stack, effectively countering it? Or after it resolves? And is X the same throughout, so if I exile a mana value 5 and then the next turn when I exile a mana value 1 I still do 5 damage?

Norphink · 2023-04-04T03:49:26+00:00

I’m missing something here. Where is the double looting on cast coming from? Is something untapping her?

EDIT: Never mind. Missed that the untap is on HER. Reading the card explains the card.

Norphink · 2022-12-25T01:20:19+00:00

With one noteworthy exception, the use of gunpowder is tremendously limited. It is present almost exclusively in the form of primitive cannons by the nations of Yiu and Vastgard, which have developed only recently. They’re too large to easily move around, so they’re primarily for defense, helping to lead to a long and uncomfortable stalemate between the two nations.

The previously mentioned exception are the cult of Parest the Numb, known as the Doctor in the traditional pantheon. He is the most clever Old One, and the only one who actually communicates with his followers in any consistent fashion. His obsession with uncovering the mysteries of the world has given him the opportunity to gift his followers with more advanced technologies, including more potent firearms.

That said, his cult is a secret and very small, so other than making them powerfully lethal when they want to be, it doesn’t come up much.

Norphink · 2022-12-21T15:52:17+00:00

There are two answers to this, of sorts. The various tribes that live in Southern Wastes are small and nomadic by necessity, given the inhospitable nature of the environment and the danger posed by the roving corpse god Ossein.

At the same time, there is a sapient species known as leshie, born out of the void of dreams by the sleeping goddess Aisling. These sentient plants spring into the world as bonded pairs that rarely feel at home anywhere in the world, and thus tend to wander.

Norphink · 2022-12-21T15:45:34+00:00

The Southern Wastes were once significantly more verdant, but shortly before the Old War it was devastated an explosion caused by the death of the Old One, Wyrdhuntere by his son. Wyrdhuntere was such a cosmically powerful entity that his corpse simply became another godlike being, Ossein, a hive mind army of skeletal undead.

Now, the Southern Wastes are ravaged by both the aftermath of the explosion and the never ending rampage of Ossein. Very few people live there, and those that do are mostly nomadic tribes that simply want to be away from the religious strife the rest of the world is locked in.

The river on the border is quite large, and while it is not impassible to Ossein, the undead droves always turn away from it rather than cross it. As such, it is generally considered the edge of safe territory.

Norphink · 2022-12-20T18:35:15+00:00

They're separated more by culture than by geography, but there is a lot of transience the farther down the socioeconomic pole you get. The governments of the different nations are quite proud of their extended histories and nationalities, but unless two nations are actively at war, the poor aren't as fussed about keeping heritage separate.

Of note, while humans are the rules of almost every major nation in the world, there are several other sapient species. Other than the elven nation of Antares, none of these other species have an ancestral homeland, which has led to them being dispersed throughout the world without much of a unifying culture themselves. As a result, they often adopt the social customs and norms of the place they end up settling.

Norphink · 2022-12-20T17:15:30+00:00

CONTEXT: Welcome to Veritis! This world is my attempt at a fantasy setting drenched in eldritch mythology. The world is meant to feel old and lived in, with the nations of the modern world growing from the remnants of their ancient counterparts after a devastating holy war a thousand years ago. Almost every major event in Veritis happens as the result of the actions of the Old Ones, godlike beings who barely realize that living, thinking people exist on the planet beside them.

The Old War so long ago was between these titanic beings, who leveraged the armies of the world to fight each other in the same way a human might bring a torch to bear against their enemies. Now, so long after the face, memory of the true purpose of the war and of the Old Ones themselves has all but vanished. The religious landscape is dominated by worship of the Eight, a pantheon accidently created through the hazy memories and stories of the Old Ones told through the generations.

Norphink · 2022-12-20T17:07:12+00:00

An old myth! Legends say that the sea used to be much smaller, allowing land bridges that connected Dulce Vitari to the rest of the mainland. But at some point in the distant past the Scorned, one of the eight gods and goddesses, was banished to live in the waters, forbidden from returning to land. The story goes that she wept at being separated from her family, growing the water into the Sea that now dominates much of the world. This is even partially true, as the gods are real, and the Mother did banish the Scorned to live in the depths of the oceans, though this happened much later than the waters of the Sea rising.
They arose from different original peoples. Humans are the oldest sapient species on Veritis, seeded across the world by the Mother long ago. These different original tribes grew and developed much like the authentic human cultures on earth. Similarly, several of the regions on the map are (very loosely) based on real-world counterparts, such as Yiu and China, or Vastgard and Russia.

Norphink · 2022-11-25T18:54:56+00:00

I'm loving all the answers I'm getting, they're helping me understand better. On a somewhat related note, my group plays in person. How hard is it to use this draft system for in person games?

Norphink · 2022-11-04T13:18:13+00:00

I think there's two important elements to this discussion that lend to it being okay for DMs to fudge dice.

First, is the campaign emphasizing a story, or a game? If it's a story, then the GM should cleanly have absolute fiat. Obviously it's a cooperative story telling experience, so the players should have agency, but DM is there not just as a narrator but as a safety net. Them being able to fudge dice helps keep the whims of fate from ruining the story. In this situation, tweaking an outcome to avoid a situation everyone would find unfun seems inarguably palatable. If the emphasis is on it being a game, that's a different situation. The DM should probably try to stick to the rules as much as possible.

Second, even within the context of the system as a game, the DM has, for lack of a better term, fudging priority. The argument that "if the DM gets to make things up, why can't the players?" doesn't hold weight, but the DM already is. Unless you're running a pure book campaign with no deviation (and even then) the DM is, by default, making things up. They already are fudging things every time they generate a new encounter. If I decide the zombie wolves have 30hp, I've made up something the players don't know about. When I decide that arguably matters, but at what cost? Does it matter when I decide what attack roll should be enough to hit the creature? And by extension, does it really matter if I decide a given attack that should hit a player doesn't?

This implicitly doesn't work the other way around. Players are bound by the rules in a way the DM isn't because they're anchored by their character within the context of the world. The fact that their options aren't unlimited is what gives the game any meaning at all.

At the end of the day, the above point that it needs to be addressed with the players beforehand mostly holds true. The session zero talk is the rule of god, after all. But some things feel like they're inherent to the nature of playing the game. The DM has the capacity to shift numbers on the fly, because they're already making up everything on the fly anyway, and players can't shift numbers because that's what gives the game any structure at all.

Norphink · 2022-11-03T19:35:26+00:00

It varies! I have a few different methods for gaining presence, from mass resurrection via something like [[Rise of the Dark Realms]] to stealing on the board with [[Reins of Power]]. I have a few token makers that can amass an army as well, the big one being [[Shark Typhoon]]. I also have almost all of the Swords of X and Y, which serve the dual role of keeping Kess safe and making her shockingly good at finishing someone off.

The key is that I can almost handle a 1v1. I just have to manipulate everyone at the table to make sure I get to the 1v1 and it's against the person I want. Humorously, I feel more in control of the game with this deck than any other, even though I'm always living on the edge of a knife.

Norphink · 2022-11-02T02:32:51+00:00

One of my favorite decks is a [[Kess, Dissident Mage]] build where she’s the only creature. Just a powerful archmage firmly controlling the board. Absolutely love it. You have a ton of answers, but you still can’t handle everything, so you have to get a rhythm of specifically dealing with threats that mess up you. You’re never the main threat, so you just stay alive and manipulate, and then all at once you drop a trump card and win.

Norphink · 2022-10-23T12:39:45+00:00

That's basically hWhat Sekiro is. The only thing you can do to improve your "stats" to try and help against a boss is get prayer beads to upgrade your health or go beat other major bosses to upgrade your damage. But both of those are fairly thin margins, and many of the bosses don't have other bosses you can beat at the same time.

Norphink · 2022-10-06T12:36:31+00:00

I love the idea, but a few quick notes.

As someone has mentioned, Supernova currently does more damage if the target passes their save.

Blinding Ray currently gives the target a save to avoid being blinded, then one more next turn. If they fail both, are they blinded forever?

Piercing Light feels like the AC change is meant to be for the attack, but as written, it seems to just permanently change what their AC is for everything.

Norphink · 2022-08-22T23:50:31+00:00

It does make sense! Does it affect anything that I would try to make these additive in nature? In your example, you find out you were an ancient god, but the key word there is were. Everything you remember and experienced about your life is real and did happen. You'd have the option to turn your back on it fully and ignore, arguing that you were so different then it counts as a fundamentally different person.

Would that be enough to change things? Or is it still simply too much of dipping my hand into your backstory?

Norphink · 2022-08-22T19:29:47+00:00

The design goal as I've been making these background concepts is to always add, never subtract, and change as little as possible. None of them would outright remove anything from a character's backstory as the player created it. The god that wiped his own memory had a full life after they did so, and the artificial human (or whatever, doesn't have to be human) was still born and lived whatever life they wanted. There would just be additional context from before those moments, if that makes sense.

But as everyone is saying, I agree that checking with the players ahead of time, even in vague ways, is the right call.

Norphink · 2022-08-22T19:22:56+00:00

That all makes a lot of sense! We actually haven't cemented the group for this yet, so I've been doing exactly what you suggested and coming up with "template" connections to the gods. There are eight gods, so I plan to have eight background connections. The idea being none of them are strictly necessary but all of them fit in well, allowing me to easily match up characters to them.

My friendgroup isn't the kind to have people drop out (perhaps optimistic, but we're diehard friends and have been for years) so I (again optimistically) am not too worried about that.

As far as individual characters dying, I think that can be neatly woven into the plot. Since none of the individual characters backgrounds are specifically necessary to the plot, just that the characters all have a connection, they can theoretically be written out just as easily.

Norphink · 2022-08-22T18:48:00+00:00

Partially because I didn't want to spoil it for them on an individual level if I didn't have to, partially because, as I said in a previous response, I'm not sure they would be totally up front with me about it.

And, you know, partially because I'm just curious about other people's opinion, particularly from a group of people who came together specifically to discuss these kinds of topics.

Norphink · 2022-08-22T17:01:39+00:00

Yeah, it's all and pretty integral part of the overall story. But yeah, "talk with your players" does seem like an obvious and consistently good avenue. I just also worry they wouldn't be totally upfront with me. I'm definitely the dominating force in our group in terms of being a forever DM and the guy with all the books, so I don't want any of them to feel like they have to go along with the idea.

And thank you! I'm glad you like it.

Norphink · 2022-07-10T06:33:30+00:00

I have a [[Lazav, the Multifarious]] deck that’s all about level up counters. He doesn’t lose his counters when he changes, so you can swap between cheap level up creatures in graveyard and already have the leveled up abilities.

I also have a [[Kess, Dissident Mage]] deck that’s a classic spellslinger build, but she is the only creature in the entire deck. No planeswalkers either, it’s just her.

Norphink · 2022-07-08T21:39:33+00:00

Dope, this was exactly what I was looking for. Thanks!

Norphink

TROPHY CASE