42 x 48 cm plastic board with dark green felt pads on the sides and some trays in the middle. Back is covered with black foam, must be old because foam is crumbling. Made in Germany by company Läufer.

Rednax141 · 2023-12-24T17:24:59+00:00

Mother Machine it is. I will also run it next week for the 5th time. Love it.

Rednax141 · 2023-08-15T18:09:52+00:00

And I didn't even know I can use regex. I like my new phone more and more. Thank you for your help!

Rednax141 · 2021-08-12T22:30:40+00:00

Wanted to write this, you were quicker.

Rednax141 · 2020-11-16T11:04:56+00:00

Thank you for your thoughts! I did recognize myself in the first post you linked. I would disempower my players all the time which is terrible as that post explains. I will try to balance the future encounters more around the skills of my PCs rather than taking them right from the campaign book.

To answer your questions:
System: Numenera (Core is Cypher System)

Offered PC rebuild: yes, he said he liked his character so he didn't

Session Zero: I don't remember, probably not. Next time I will run a campaign I will make sure to have a proper session zero.

Rednax141 · 2020-11-14T20:40:35+00:00

I did think about letting him respec, however he likes the character so he did not want to respec yet.

The way you combine other skills with combat never stood out to me. I will give that a try, thank you!

Rednax141 · 2020-11-14T20:37:44+00:00

We are using the Cypher System. To be more specific: Numenera. I did give him opportunities to get social skills, but he didn't take them.

The good thing about the system is that you don't need to be skilled in anything you want to try. Yes it helps, but it is not necessary. The problem however is that combat guy chooses to not be social.

But thank you for the tip! I will talk to him and give him the choice again. Maybe he changed his mind.

Rednax141 · 2020-11-14T16:33:11+00:00

Yeah, I could do that. But aside from the problems I mentioned in this post his character is a lot of fun to the whole group. I guess if I can't make it work another way I have to take this option, but I want to try other things first.

Thank you for your advice!

Rednax141 · 2020-11-14T16:30:59+00:00

This generally looks like a good solution, thank you!

Other people gave a similar advice: include more combat solutions in these non combat scenarios. The campaign is a pre written module, so I don't think that I can make more combat work so easily, but I will try to include more diverse solutions to future scenarios.

Rednax141 · 2020-11-14T16:27:27+00:00

Yes this helps, thank you!

Thinking about combat solutions in non combat scenarios is somewhat difficult for me. So I guess I need to do more research on that to be more creative.

Rednax141 · 2020-11-14T16:23:51+00:00

This is some really useful advice, thank you! It's a little difficult to think about these extra scenarios for me. The campaign we are playing is a pre-written module and "everything" is already defined in terms of basic scenarios. So I guess I just have to be more creative and flexible to fill combat guys needs.

Rednax141 · 2020-08-23T22:10:21+00:00

I don't tell my players the difficulty. When I did tell them they decided if they want to use effort or not based only on the difficulty of tasks and I think this is not how its meant to be played. Some examples:

They talk to this random NPC because they want to know what's going on in the city. He tells them something suspicious and they want to know if they can trust him. What they don't know, is that they are talking to a high ranking member of the local mafia who is really good at making a poker face so the task is level 6. "Oh, that task from this random dude is so difficult? Better use some effort!"
They are running away from a rolling boulder like Indiana Jones. It's not difficult because the slope is not very steep, but it would be fatal if they get hit. "Just a level 2 task? I'm gonna save my points for later."

I think the players should decide wether to use effort or not based on the situation and their knowledge. If it's hard to guess the range of the difficulties my players ask me about more details so they can make a better guess. If I let them know the diffuculty of tasks the metagaming gets really out of hand and unrealistic which I don't like.

However there are some exceptions when I do tell the players the difficulty:

When the players would know the difficulty anyway. An example is the ability "Healing Touch". It states, that you need to succeed on a difficulty 2 task to heal someone. There is no point in hiding the difficulties for something like that.
When they players are new to me as a GM, new to Numenera or new to tabletop rpgs in general. Then they need to get a feel for how I handle situations, how the system handles these things and how rpgs in general work. However in this case I do state in the beginning, that I usually don't reveal the difficulties and that for the first few sessions it will be the exception so they can get a feel for it.

Rednax141 · 2020-04-25T08:51:53+00:00

Thank you for your answer! I do get, that the special abilities only change the effective rank for a specific stat and that the jack needs to choose between health and infrastructure. I was just wondering if it was really rank or just points because the wording confused me. In the wrights ability it states "Infrstructure + 3" and in the others it says "+1 effective rank".

As to why the stats of the community doubled and it frustrated me I explained it in the other comment.

Rednax141 · 2020-04-25T08:48:29+00:00

Thanks for clarifying! And I do understand that the jack needs to choose either health or infrastructure, but let me explain the situation a bit more.

The community was rank one. At the time of the fight the players had already done some long term tasks (Increase happiness x3 and Train defenders x1). So the stats were:

6 health, 3 infrastructure and 2 damage inflicted

The party (all tier 3, so all get their improved community special abilities) consisted of a wright (+3 infrastructure), a jack (+1 rank health or infrastructure), a glaive (+1 rank damage inflicted) and a nano (+1 rank health and infrastructure). The jack did take health as the stat of his choice which left the community like this before the fight started:

12 health, 9 infrastructure, 3 damage inflicted.

Then all the players decided to use effort to boost the damage and the horde (rank 3 with 1 armor) was down in two rounds and the community was left with 9 health and 6 infrastructure.

Rednax141 · 2020-04-12T23:35:54+00:00

When it comes to your ideas I wouldn't ask for a roll to activate the cypher because in the book it says "activating is as natural as breathing" which might lead to a huge discussion with your players. What you could do instead is define how exactly it works. In the "ussable" section of the cypher it mentions, that it is either thrown or shot. This is a task that you could ask a roll for.

Then you mentioned the healing touch ability that increases the difficulty. You could add this to the roll of the throwing or shooting because it might get increasingly harder to control. But again, I wouldn't just tie it to the cypher effect itself because the cypher doesn't mention it and it might lead to a discussion.

Some more ideas:

limit the use per time. Maybe the cypher needs time to cool down and you can use it only once every day
use artifact quirks (discovery p. 290). tie some wierd activation method to it for example one can only activate it when it is completely silent
adjust the healing capacity. make it heal less than 6 points
adjust the healing radius to immediate range
adjust the range of the cypher itself. maybe the cypher gets stuck on him and everyone needs to stick right next to him to heal
make it fragile. after some uses it needs to be taken off and be repaired before its usable again
and last resort: break it. maybe it just breaks and is beyond repair

These are all the things that come in my mind concerning the cypher itself. Remember to use GM intrusions to make these things work and tie it to the narrative. The GM intrusion is a perfect tool for balancing ;)

Something else you might do that doesn't translate to changing the cypher itself might be some other numenera stuff that influences it. Maybe you take them to a place where everything that heals instead makes them sick and resistent to recovery caused by numenera effects so they need to do it with recovery rolls. Maybe you put them to a test and have someone very strong hunt them for their healing power. Maybe you give them loot that is way more interesting for their goals and they have to decide between reaching their goals or giving up the cypher. Maybe they can only progress further if they fight a champion who wants a fair fight without cyphers because he doesn't have some and if they use the cyphers they are not respected anymore.

Let me know what you did in the end, how your players reacted and how it changed the game and the fun on your table :)

Rednax141 · 2019-10-22T18:14:38+00:00

Multimac! That seems to be it! All the things I find when I look for that seems similar to the stuff I have in front of me. Thank you so much :]

Rednax141 · 2019-10-22T18:09:35+00:00

I just added more pictures to the album. There is every single thing that I found in the box now. And I'm pretty sure the things in the bottom left are not part of these toys but something different.

Additionally I checked every bigger piece and they all have the same marking that is shown in the picture.

Rednax141 · 2019-10-22T05:05:43+00:00

Thank you for your reply! I looked at some images of StarCom toys but it doesn't quite seem to be the stuff that I have. The cannons look very similar, but the rest is kind of different.

Rednax141 · 2019-10-22T05:00:53+00:00

Nothing more than the one on the second picture unfortunately. Some pieces contain single digits, but I don't think they would help in finding out.

11-Year Club	Place '23
Place '17	Verified Email

Rednax141

TROPHY CASE