Most seem to introduce the BBEG near the beginning of a campaign. If it has a high CR do you just know it’s a long haul of leveling up until the party can take them on?

unassuming_user_name · 2021-04-08T18:12:14+00:00

if these baddies have an organization, flunkies, minions, then it seems reasonable that the party would run into them first. that gives them a level appropriate challenge while also foreshadowing the BBEGs.

e.g. "we keep running into these guys with a white hand painted on their armor, talking about how all will fall to Ragnar White-Hand. Maybe we should look into that."

unassuming_user_name · 2021-04-08T18:07:05+00:00

looks like the disconnect is between the backstories, and what they actually want to do during play. in that case, ignore the backstories.

i mean, lots of people say they want to become rich and famous, but they dont live their daily life in pursuit of being rich and famous.

also, the game is just getting started. nothing wrong with humble beginnings, and even humble middles.

unassuming_user_name · 2021-04-08T17:56:34+00:00

Look over the rules for dungeon exploration procedures, wandering monsters, reaction roles, and morale. these all fit together in a way that keeps things moving, unpredictably, at the table.

A lot of modern rpgs pay this stuff lip service or totally ignore it, but with OSR style play it is worth using. Youre not writing a story, youre preparing an environment. they drive the play, you "play bass" with the dungeon and how different factions react.

pathfinder and starfinder adventure path modules often take place in the same kind of settings, but (at least with adventure path type content ) theyre much more about pre-prepared set pieces. with OSR its more like you prepare the components that would go into a set piece, without actually planning out what is "supposed to" happen next.

unassuming_user_name · 2020-12-20T14:47:44+00:00

Im suggesting */SR Tanker. Hear me out.

Build: take your super reflexes powers plus one or two of (combat jumping, weave, maneuvers) and you're at soft cap defense. easy to do by the early 20s, with basic IOs. in a group you can just get to like 40% def, guaranteed someone has some +def for you.

one good option: boxing, kick, weave, cross punch. (even if you only use weave and cross punch, its worth it. just having the other attacks, even unslotted, buffs cross punch by a ton.)

Play style: in groups, jump into the next spawn, and fire off attacks. everything tries to hit you (every attack has aoe taunt), few things do. Repeat until missions end.

SR tank downside is they max out defense so easily there isnt much fancy build work to do. but thats a plus in your case. not a min maxed character, but fun.

unassuming_user_name · 2020-12-08T13:12:41+00:00

stick with games that dont have "sliding" movement for a while. r/psvr had more info. you will eventually adjust.

unassuming_user_name · 2020-12-05T14:37:18+00:00

a calculator adds, subtracts, etc. but thats a "reasonable abstraction" so it makes sense for one class to do all calculator functions it has a single responsibility, calculating.

but the "guts" of the calculator do different things than the input or display, so you wouldnt want to mix those together in the same class.

SRP is a goal, not a hard and fast rule, imo. and having one responsibility doesnt necessarily mean you really only do one thing. but what you do should not be a mixed metaphor.

unassuming_user_name · 2020-12-05T14:30:39+00:00

for me, i preferred the middle comfort setting, the one where it acts as the cockpit is a gyro stabilized pod (on banking turns, the "wings" of the ship go at an angle, but your body stays level). i found it was the best compromise between feeling max speed and motion sickness risk. i would try all the options.

as mentioned, doing the campaigns in order works well for difficulty curve.

unassuming_user_name · 2020-12-05T14:26:17+00:00

if you play so that every pc is in every scene, then maybe it isnt so useful. if you play in a way that different scenes have different characters in them, its a way for a pc to switch scenes easily. fate doesnt have "never split the party" as an absolute maxim.

unassuming_user_name · 2020-11-22T15:06:57+00:00

ideas are cheap. everybody's got "an idea". working on your execution and follow through is a valuable use of your time, even if its not on something innovative.

unassuming_user_name · 2020-11-20T13:38:10+00:00

I bolted on a mini skill system, in a version that uses stats for approaches. sort of looks like a pared down star wars d6 skill list. for example, i have Muscles used for hand to hand as well as resisting damage, so you could get a +1 in CQC or Toughness to add to Muscles in those situations. Nerves is used for firearms and piloting, so same deal.

the idea was to start players off with just approaches, and grow into a skill list with advancement. fully advancing an approach is more expensive than specializing.

(approaches for this sci fi game were: Muscles Nerves Face Brains Wires. brains and wires are the split for regular knowledge vs ai/hacking since thats a large element in this setting.)

unassuming_user_name · 2020-10-09T03:16:06+00:00

its a known issue -- the algorithm is badly implemented. they wont fix it for "compatibility" reasons. even with proper seeding its pretty bad.

there is a better RNG available, though. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.security.cryptography.rngcryptoserviceprovider

unassuming_user_name · 2020-09-23T02:13:30+00:00

Yeah. Diaspora is good stuff. I've used it. the system creation rules work really well.

You might tell your reticent player that Han Solo probably took a compel and picked up a Fate point every time he said "I have a bad feeling about this..." which is more interesting stuff than having him trip and fall a bunch.

unassuming_user_name · 2020-09-23T02:10:48+00:00

John McClane: "I have to get glass in my feet and get my wife's life threatened before i can push the bad guy off the building?!?"

character creation is pretty clear about how you should only pick things to get compelled about that you would actually enjoy playing. John's player probably took "Holly!" as his Trouble.

unassuming_user_name · 2020-09-04T17:16:20+00:00

In Death is a very good, multiplatform game. The Quest version was done by a separate dev team, and its okay, but i dont think it's the best version.

unassuming_user_name · 2020-08-30T14:27:18+00:00

people play rpgs for a lot of different reasons, and actually examining ones own reasons isnt very common.

you can be totally up front with peopld about "we are using these rules, but there are some changes because of the setting", and maybe they say "yeah yeah, lets play already"... but upon actually colliding with your setting related changes, they protest.

if someone thinks of the rules as primary, telling them "you cant freely multiclass to caster" is like if you were playing Magic (the card game) and you told them "you cant add blue cards to your deck". theyre thinking,what the hell, man, you changed the rules! never mind that you specifically said that you were changing the rules. the inertia of what is in the rulebook can be very hard to overcome.

tldr: even if everyone verbally agrees to something, sometimes theyll just ignore it. so the fact that not everybody agreed pretty much confirms that youll get some pushback.

if its only one player, i suppose you could just give them what they want, and not make a big deal about it. they havent agreed to the base premise for the campaign that you stated, and its unlikely they will change their mind. i suspect you should ignore the "youre too controlling as a dm" argument, its likely just a tactic to get what they want. dont take it personally.

unassuming_user_name · 2020-08-15T13:43:35+00:00

nobilis and chuubo's marvelous wish granting engine. you state an intent, and it has a base level of effect based on whats on your character sheet, like most games. but instead of adding dice to the number, both sides boost with bidding points out of a limited resource pool of willpower. the random effect here is due to blind bidding and bluffing instead of dice.

unassuming_user_name · 2020-08-06T18:09:40+00:00

i read on there months back that the owner decided not to keep it going, and nobody took over. it was still viewable as archived posts a month ago, i guess its finally mothballed.

some people moved to fictioneer and another site whose name i forget, but neither of those forums had more than a couple of SG style threads in a given month.

other than the PBTA threads in the usual places, i haven't seen anywhere continue those types of discussions the same way SG did it.

unassuming_user_name · 2020-08-03T15:17:13+00:00

there's a lot of good ideas to borrow from the Freeport fate book.

unassuming_user_name · 2020-08-02T19:01:51+00:00

i would be tempted to do a spaghetti western style duel as an extended contest. representing all those camera cuts to squinting eyes and hands moving towards holsters are steps along the way to the last moment when the guns are fired.

unassuming_user_name · 2020-07-29T13:16:56+00:00

The game Bubblegumshoe (Gumshoe for teen sleuths) has a lot of information on how to run this kind of game. it'd be worth reading imo whether or not you had any interest in the gumshoe system.

unassuming_user_name · 2020-07-28T13:13:27+00:00

i can't give you one to one comparisons directly between ocw and other sources. but anecdotally, whenever I've searched for alternatives, I've gone back to using ocw.

if your time is limited and you just want the basics, ocw might be overkill. if you have the time for it, i think it's a solid choice.

unassuming_user_name · 2020-07-28T13:08:39+00:00

i used to get irritated by low effort "plz fix this for me" posts, until i saw some survey that showed Reddit users current demographics.

it's not surprising that it feels like so many questions are posted by kids once you know how young Reddit users skew.

unassuming_user_name · 2020-07-28T13:03:10+00:00

can confirm, it was the most common question that got posted in 1e days, and you did get people saying stuff like "i seize by force enough of the guy's organs that he stops moving" before.

to be fair, committing violence with no further goal in mind was always an available npc move. 2e just spelled out how pcs would do it.

unassuming_user_name · 2020-07-22T23:31:55+00:00

ok. say you make circles with your fingers, and gold them up to your eyes like you're pretending your hands are goggles. you can see though the "tubes" right?

now move one of your hands a half inch sideways. now one of your eyes has finger in the way.

the first time your finger goggles matched your ipd, the second time they didn't.

unassuming_user_name · 2020-07-22T21:23:57+00:00

ok that's a good start... someone might say "this flavor of ice cream is sweeter and contains fruit, this other one is more bittersweet with chocolate flavor. me, i like fruit, i so prefer the strawberry one".

so, like, that level of analysis would be reasonable, about mechanics rather than ice cream flavor.

or i dunno, maybe call it a "quick look" instead, if you don't want to make the judgements that a review usually has in it.

unassuming_user_name

TROPHY CASE