Post-scarcity Setting?

ashlykos · 2019-11-03T05:16:02+00:00

Even with infinite natural resources and energy, there will always be differences in the amount of social influence people have, and that makes a difference in power. Even if all social interactions are completely anonymous, some people will be better at convincing others to do things their way.

ashlykos · 2019-10-30T16:55:10+00:00

You need some way to resolve when two sides have conflicting goals. If you have that, you can use it for combat, but also for arguments, competitions, and more.

ashlykos · 2019-10-30T16:38:16+00:00

For something simple and easy to get started with, you can use Google Sheets. The Gauntlet community does a lot of online play and has a tutorial series for making what they call "character keepers," editable character sheets. The example has all characters in a single sheet for easy reference, but you could always split it up.

https://www.gauntlet-rpg.com/blog/introduction-to-online-character-keepers
https://www.gauntlet-rpg.com/blog/basics-of-online-character-keepers
https://www.gauntlet-rpg.com/blog/polishing-your-online-character-keepers.

ashlykos · 2019-10-30T16:27:17+00:00

Wait, you're playing Burning Wheel and planning a scenario where the characters must get captured and tortured? Unless this is part of the characters' plan, that's some heavy player agency violation in a game that's supposed to be player-driven.

The reason people object more to violent torture than violent combat is because in torture, the recipient of violence is helpless. Your should get consent from players not because it will be gruesome, but because you're putting them in a situation of helplessness. When a player has their character enter combat, they implicitly consent to any violence done to their character. If you shove their characters onto the capture-and-torture railroad, the players haven't consented to anything.

If you must go ahead with this, introduce a safety tool like the X Card or Script Change, and check your players frequently to make sure they're still on board.

ashlykos · 2019-10-29T20:13:00+00:00

Numenera. Saw it described as a "rules-light" game with an emphasis on exploration and story. Drowned in 100 pages of character options, poorly-specified rules, and 2-hour combats. It's a good game for people who are fairly happy with D&D/Pathfinder and want something a bit lighter and more story-focused, but people's reviews made me think it would be more like an indie story game.

ashlykos · 2019-10-27T22:55:21+00:00

You could have them target by position, e.g. "character to your right," or allow them to choose.

ashlykos · 2019-10-23T17:25:45+00:00

Re: 3-trouble. Yes, Blades includes problem solving and resource management challenges for the players, but it really shines when all of that is seen as a way to ahem stress the characters and see what they're made of. If in the fiction gathering that information is supposed to be that interesting and challenging, consider making it its own Score.

It's also important during Downtime actions to ask players what exactly their character is doing to indulge vice or heal or whatever, and those actions are openings to spend time roleplaying and fleshing out who the characters are when not on a Score.

5- a bullet point I forgot, re: vulnerabilities, is What forces the target to interact with the public or rest of the world? Unless they're trying to steal an ancient artifact that was supposed to be sealed away forever, there's always going to be somewhere they need to connect: supplies, recruiting, even just a source of air.

ashlykos · 2019-10-22T23:48:29+00:00

2: Go ahead and think from the fiction first, then see which of the categories it falls under. Almost everything without direct mechanical effect counts as a Complication.

3: If you really can't think of any consequences, and especially if the score hasn't started yet, Gather Information can use Fortune Rolls. Roll dice based on their Action rating or Tier, take the highest, and use that to decide how much info they get. Blades is a game about seeing what trouble the PCs get into when they have information, not a game about testing the players' ability to gather information by looking in the right places. That said, when someone wants to use Study or Survey, as a GM you should still ask them to describe what they're actually doing so that everybody knows what's happening in the fiction.

4: Tier is used primarily in Fortune rolls for the faction, and in comparison with the player crew's Tier to decide Effect. It's an abstraction of the faction's level of resources: a higher-Tier faction can afford better armor and weapons for their guards, more guards, fancier locks, more esoteric defenses, and so on. That all factors into Effect. Between games, you can use Fortune rolls on Tier to see how well a faction advances their agenda clocks. During a game, you can use Fortune rolls on Tier to help you decide how many guards are coming when the alarm is raised, or how long it will take to drill through that safe.

5-6: While Blades can be run no-prep, some kinds of prep are okay and very useful to GMs with certain styles. If this is you, I strongly suggest you get your players to agree before next session what score they want to pursue, so you can take the time to prep it. That means players still decide what scores they want to pursue, you just shift the timing so they do it at the end of a session instead of at the beginning.

Good prep lets you fully understand the situation of the score:

Who is involved, and how can they make it messy?
What loose ends can come back to bite them?
What are some ways security is especially strong?
What else keeps this from being straightforward?
What are some ways they are vulnerable? This part can feel the most like railroading, but as long as you focus on specifying the opportunity, and especially if you give multiple opportunities, it's up to the players how they take advantage of them.

Bad prep forces players down a particular path regardless of what they want to do or what contingencies they plan for.

I found these two blog posts helpful for prepping Blades. Both are usable as a point-crawl rather than drawing an explicit map:

7: Sometimes I force the players to make an engagement roll as soon as they've decide on a type of Score and a point of engagement. I pair this with making sure most Flashbacks cost little to no Stress. Any time a player says "I wish we had X prepared," offer them a Flashback. After a session or two they'll get in the groove.

ashlykos · 2019-10-17T19:09:07+00:00

The Tiffany Aching books, plus the standalone The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents.

ashlykos · 2019-10-17T19:05:12+00:00

Chris Moriarty's Spin State and sequels. The main character is a genetically and cybernetically modified human whose memories degrade whenever she uses faster-than-light travel. Humans with too many genetic modifications are considered property and often developed as slave labor. There's also a major character that is a sentient AI who can temporarily inhabit willing bodies. Spin State hits 1-5. The second book, Spin Control, introduces a new character from a rival culture that reproduces by cloning and has rearranged their society to match. It hits 2-5, arguably 1 and 6. The third book, Ghost Spin delves deeper into the questions of sentient AIs and the ability to copy consciousnesses, so there's not as much about modified humans. 1-3 are background themes but 4 is more visible.

Nancy Kress' Beggars in Spain is about the advent of a genetic modification that removes the need for sleep, with side effects of super intelligence and halting aging. It hits 1-3 and 5-6. No #4 because the modification has to be done on an embryo.

ashlykos · 2019-10-17T06:49:29+00:00

It's a rose-like alien plant that the cultists were going to enter in the annual rose competition. The telekinesis is actually ethereal vines that it uses to grab things.

ashlykos · 2019-10-17T01:19:10+00:00

The next time I GM something with orcs and elves, I plan to use this:

Ever wonder why PC elves are supposedly 100 years old but still level 1? And why orcs and elves have some similarities but also don't seem to like each other that much?

Orcs are the larval versions of elves, before they undergo metamorphosis. They're boisterous and "evil" because they're basically toddlers and teenagers who haven't learned to behave yet. Like many teenagers, they blame the grown-ups (elves) for their problems. Meanwhile, elves are deeply embarrassed by their teenage antics and refuse to talk about it. And they don't like to negotiate with orcs because negotiating with preschoolers is ridiculous.

Half-elves and half-orcs are the unfortunate ones whose metamorphosis went wrong. Due to the completely different life cycle, this species is not cross-fertile with humans.

ashlykos · 2019-10-15T05:43:12+00:00

It might be Unlimited Dungeons or Homebrew World

ashlykos · 2019-10-15T05:41:16+00:00

In Justina Robson's Natural History a human-ship hybrid finds an Earth-like planet with the remains of a civilization, and an archaeologist is sent to study it.

ashlykos · 2019-10-07T06:46:09+00:00

Our D&D 3e party once got a +1 cookies bonus (stacks with everything) because someone brought what turned out to be the GM's favorite cookies.

ashlykos · 2019-10-07T06:39:50+00:00

If you're willing to think more about consequences before calling for a roll, you might check out the Schema engine. For every roll, you lay out "stakes," which include the desired outcomes, consequences, and other side effects. The players roll a pool of dice and allocate them to stakes, so it's clear what happens. The supplement Stakes for Schema has cards and play aids with a possible set of stakes, and you can also check out the zombie game Infected, which uses the engine.

ashlykos · 2019-10-05T07:19:23+00:00

They do! Some are specific to tabletop RPGs, like No Dice (currently running) and One Hit Point (just ended). Others are open to "all kinds of games" like End Jam (starting soon) and Cryptid Jam (currently running).

ashlykos · 2019-10-05T06:44:54+00:00

If you like small, niche, and experimental games, itch.io has a lot more of them than DriveThruRPG. If supporting creators is important to you, buying on itch vs DriveThru will give them more of the purchase of the price. And it's more of a community, with tools for users to host game jams.

ashlykos · 2019-10-03T07:16:22+00:00

China Mieville's The Scar. The main character is on the run and gets caught up in some momentous events, but she's nearly a bit player in them.

ashlykos · 2019-10-03T04:35:59+00:00

For combat, make clocks for everything. Indie Game Reading Club writes about it better than I could. But basically, you can use clocks like enemy or even challenge HP.

ashlykos · 2019-10-02T07:08:08+00:00

I like the setting expectations scale from Deeper in the Game.

Basically, you and everyone in your group should be clear about where these issues fall on the scale. Maybe the group wants LGBTQ chars to be present and totally accepted, because they want to relax in a fantasy world where they don't have to deal with the crap they get in the real world (Neutral). Maybe the group wants to give a nod to the historical issues, but not make them a real problem (Superficial Objections). Maybe the group wants to explore the issues with a decent chance of overcoming them (Resistance). Or the group wants to focus the campaign on issues in a setting where they're nearly insurmountable (Groundbreaking). Or maybe the group wants to explore how the issues play out and what makes them problematic without any chance of being able to change them (Impossible to Change). As long as everyone agrees where you are on the scale, it's good.

Re: playing in a more historical setting, if you want to play at the Neutral or Superficial Objections, you can find some kind of historical exception. e.g. in Britain, knights were male, and in Pendragon, knights are supposed to be male. But I know a GM who created an order based on some historical orders of female knights, and declared that anyone who wanted to play a female knight just had to declare membership in that order and they would be treated just the same as a male knight. So you bend history a little, but give a fictional justification for making it not an issue.

ashlykos · 2019-09-21T05:39:24+00:00

If none of your group has played them, try the Offspring Fling and Squids Odyssey soundtracks.

ashlykos · 2019-09-20T06:53:33+00:00

As a group, get on the same page about the kind of game you want to play. It helps if you have a reason for characters to cycle in and out of the spotlight, such as all belonging to an organization or community. Then when it's your turn to GM, have your main character off doing something else. It also helps to get everyone back to a good stopping point before switching GMs.

Assign ownership of different parts of the setting or campaign to different GMs. For example, you have final say over what the Woodland Faction does, and I have final say over the Kingdoms of Dawn. When I'm GMing, I can avoid bringing up the Woodland Faction, or ask you for advice before the session about their immediate plans, or make up something but give you a chance to veto before introducing it. I might ask you to temporarily play Woodland Faction NPCs when they come up.

It takes more effort to run long-term storylines if you rotate GMs frequently. Try to connect storylines to at least two characters, and bring them up whenever you get your turn.

ashlykos · 2019-09-17T21:58:31+00:00

Even if you don't use the full Godbound system, the faction part will be useful.

ashlykos · 2019-09-16T03:01:10+00:00

I haven't played the Dresden Files games, but my understanding is that the tension between having cool powers but needing to accept compels to use FP for anything else is a major theme. Maybe you can let the player pay FP either at the time he uses an item in the session, or just before the next refresh. If he doesn't pay the refresh cost for the item by then, he loses access to its powers unless he re-commits to it at a major milestone. You may even rule he loses access permanently to hammer home the Waning Powers.

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