FS3 3rd Edition Feedback

[Three-Eyed Crow]

@faraday said:

@bored said:

But they will. After 6 months playing, the master will have picked up all your rounded skills, and you will have gained only a fraction of their knowledge.

It's hard to argue without citing specific examples, but I haven't seen that phenomenon. But if true, I would suggest that's a case of the XP awards or costs needing to be adjusted, rather than a problem with chargen itself.

My assumption is @bored is either talking about Fifth World (which I never played personally so can't speak to, though I've heard stuff like this from friends of mine) or Game of Bones, which has a laissez-faire attitude toward stats in general that seemed like an intentional part of game culture.

[lordbelh]

I will say that the 1-12 setup of stats was one of the things I liked about fs3. Even if half of that range was fluff, and some games were uber restrictive on what you could have, it was a nice change-up from the 1-5 WoD style.

[Misadventure]

@faraday I was aiming at a few goals.
Keep the add on simple and optional.
Allow a game to decide if they think some template XP value out of Cgen is fair, and modify starting xp from that point. If they end up with tons of folks having a lot of XP, they can implement whatever limiter they want, and it's not hard coded into anything. That allows for leveling of the playing field at whatever desired, and keeps it optional, and flexible to whatever the given game wants.

[Thenomain]

In trying to catch up with this game design, I notice that the link in the initial post does not link to the system it's adjusting. What is presented is a toolbox, and like Fudge before it, that's not enough to talk about balance, which is what's going on here. So could someone link to a game system designed around FS2 or 3? Thanks.

[Misadventure]

I will try to find the PDF.

[faraday]

@Thenomain Sorry, you're right. I had assumed some familiarity with the old system.

For specific games using 2nd edition, there's BSG Deimos, Game of Bones and Star Wars Omens. Of course, each has their own customizations.

You could compare BSG Deimos to the sample 3rd edition battlestar game stats at the bottom of the 3rd edition article.

The official 2nd ed docs are here but they're more of a wikidot template for you to adjust for your own game.

[Thenomain]

@faraday

I apologize for seeming to harp on this, but let me be clearer: I'm looking for the FS3 game rules. The Star Wars page comes closest by describing simple and opposed rolls, but none of these links really explain the system.

In a way this is in your defense. Without a system, sure I could create a game with a horrible leaning curve or one where it's impossible to become a master so min-maxing is a necessity. I have long criticized WoD games for giving out too much XP, but because we know the effect of XP from the get-go.

For example, look at the Game of Bones skill list. There are so many there that how could anyone become well-rounded in comparison to, say, the Battlestar's much more meger list?

I see complaints like this about a framework, which is what I'm guessing FS3 to be, as indicators of How Not to Make The System Around This Framework.

[bored]

@faraday said:

@bored said:

But they will. After 6 months playing, the master will have picked up all your rounded skills, and you will have gained only a fraction of their knowledge.

It's hard to argue without citing specific examples, but I haven't seen that phenomenon. But if true, I would suggest that's a case of the XP awards or costs needing to be adjusted, rather than a problem with chargen itself.

I'm not sure if you're failing to grasp simple math or what. At CG, you get 80 points (or however many). You give yourself as many max skills as staff lets you before declaring you a twink and kicking you off the game. Say that's 3 skills at 10. You spend 30 points, get that, 10 more on attributes (I'm just estimating), and then 40 points on 8 skills at 5. You take nothing at 1 or 2 because lol, that would be stupid. While I'm talking in theoreticals, this is close to me apping a character on an FS3 game a month or two ago.

Some other person, being an non-math oriented, well-intentioned, total opposite of a twink, spends their 70 points after attributes getting 4 skills at 1, 4 at 2, 4 at 3, 4 at 4, 4 at 5. They also take one skill at 10.

Now we play for 6 months. We get 2 xp per week, so we have 48 xp. Skills cost 1 per rank you're going to, I think? I've actually seem games modify this slightly, but I believe this is your normal version.

First thing, I buy their low skills: 4 at 1, 4 at 2, 4 at 3. That costs 4+12+24. I have 8 xp left.

Note that at this point, I have all their skills matched. I've covered their low ones, and their 4 4s and 4 5s are matched or exceeded by the 8 5s I took to start. I also have 3 10s, while they have 1.

If they try and bring their 4s to 5s to match me, that's 20xp. Now they try and catch up one of their 5s up to match the extra 10s I have. They can't, of course. They can get it to 8 (6+7+8 = 21) with less xp left over than I have.

So at this point, I have everything their character does, a 10 over their 8, plus an extra skill 10. And one more xp.

Do you get why your "philosophy" is bad design? There's no argument for this being positive.

[Misadventure]

Wow, way to be even handed and open to discussion. You've used absolutes and insults to try to convince someone to do work for free YOUR way.

Well done.

[bored]

Actually, I made the point that I'm sure someone would be willing to code this for her. I would. It's not terribly hard.

[Misadventure]

Then get on it.

You are not being inviting to converse with.

You're pretty much within spitting distance of annoying enough to be worth ignoring no matter how useful what you say might turn out to be.

Maybe it will work, let's wait and see.

The suspense is killing me. I hope it lasts.

[Alzie]

@bored So if i'm reading this right. What you're saying is:

Because I'm a dick who figured out how to game your system, you should rewrite it so that other dick's like me can't take advantage of the loop hole.

Glad we had this talk.

[bored]

Other people said it nicer, she just noped at it. And she asked me for a specific example of how it's gameable, so I gave an example.

But sure, if you think a system rewarding the people who game it most is good, then that's another stellar argument that this isn't a bug that needs fixing!

[faraday]

@Thenomain - Sorry if I'm being dense, but I'm not sure quite what "rules" you're looking for. Dice mechanics? Chargen instructions? As you say, FS3 is a framework not a complete game, so I'm not sure that what you're looking for actually exists.

The documents I have are meant as player-oriented help files. They talk about what skills to take and what/when to roll but don't really go into the details about how the dice work. That's all handled behind-the-scenes by the code.

@bored - Whoa, geez. No need to get insulting.

Firstly, you're taking an extreme chargen example that would never in a million years be approved (or shouldn't, anyway), and nor have I seen anyone even try. Most players I've seen are very adept at making well-rounded characters out of the gate. Those that don't get smacked down in chargen. Character review is an assumed part of the equation. If an app staff draws the line at "whoa, obvious twink" and not at "hmm, not a very well-rounded character", that's their problem. Code can't fix people making poor decisions.

Secondly, even in the default configuration it's more expensive to raise skills than what you have there. It's 1XP per week with higher level costs. On my games I usually make it even more expensive than the default.

Thirdly, giving free background skills at chargen (which 3rd edition does) eliminates some of the pressure to sacrifice fluffy hobbies for useful skills. So does having a leaner skill list, so there aren't so many you feel obliged to take.

What you're complaining about is extremely configurable in the current system without making chargen more complicated.

[bored]

@faraday

There's a weird disonnace here between 'I am faraday the coder' and 'I am faraday the coder and also the person who says how games running my code are run', because while you say 'that would never be approved', it's precisely a character I apped on an FS3 game two months ago, minus a little rounding to make the numbers easy (ie, it might have actually been 3 skills at 10, a couple at 5, a couple at 6, one at 7, etc, not the 8 5s). You seem out of touch with how people are actually using your code, if you're saying 'this would never happen.' My app was hardly a twinky one, compared to characters on the game already.

Second, 1 xp per week doesn't change anything about my example. My example is that with that XP, whether it took 6 months or 12, I can buy up everything their character has, and have several whole skills at master territory.

Thirdly, I'm not sure how that will play out, admittedly, but linear vs geometric will always create an XP gap and encourage people to buy the maximum allowed # of skills at the highest values in CG.

[faraday]

@bored Obviously I have no say in how FS3 games are run. But I don't care what system you're talking about... 3 skills at "master-elite" level plus 8 skills at "professional-I-could-do-this-for-a-living" level seems really jarring to me. It's even more jarring in FS3, which recommends a lean skill list (8-12 skills total). But hey, it's their game. They can configure it any way they want.

[bored]

Well, skills at 1-12 is really confusing, IMO, in terms of what is 'normal' what is 'master', and who gets to have what, and it probably contributes to what you're seeing. Its hard to reconcile whether your 'beginner' should have a 1 or a 3, and it's also probably hard to feel exceedingly competent at 7-9 when there's 10-12 staring you in the face, which may contribute to games using the higher values. I'm happy to link you to the game I'm talking about, if you really care.

To temper my criticism with some kindness, I do think that's a big improvement in your new version. 1-5 is much easier to mentally grasp and to lay out expectations for.

[faraday]

@bored said:

Well, skills at 1-12 is really confusing, IMO, in terms of what is 'normal' what is 'master',

Agreed, it never worked well.

FWIW I considered your chargen/xp example using 3rd ed. Bearing in mind that aptitudes don't cost points and you get 4 interests for free... that basically means that you'll have 20 points to spread among 10 or so action skills (more like 6 or 7 since not all of them will apply to every char).

I really don't think min/maxing will be as big of a problem as what you've seen on those other games. I could be wrong.

Regardless, if your players are coming through Chargen feeling like it's some kind of Sophie's Choice, then IMHO you've got your points and/or skill list set up poorly.

[bored]

Well, presumably with so many fewer skills and so many fewer ranks, the XP costs are higher?

It might be less of an issue if there's really less variety you can do in CG, but it still sort of boils down to setting a 'trap' for the players who don't take the time to 'powergame', 'twink', or in less hostile, loaded words, simply figure out the implications of the system. If its 20 points among 10 skills, and the game limits you to say, one 5 starting, 5, 4, 3, 3, 3, 2 (which covers your 6 relevant skills) is still simply better than 5, 3, 3, 3, 3, 2, 1 or 4, 4, 3, 3, 3, 3 etc.

And I think saying 'well staffers will catch the twinks' is an awful, awful way of monitoring it. Is one of those obviously twinkier than the others? This mentality basically makes CG a game of chicken where either you see how much you can get away with before staff decides (completely arbitrarily) that you have one 4 too many, you powergaming asshole (see how stupid that sounds?), or you spread things out and find out you're perpetually behind other people, who have all your skills and more.

So, maybe it won't be as bad, but its still bad design. And I don't say that to be insulting, as in you are a bad person for coming up with the design, but rather in that it is a framework that causes a lot of problems for very little (if any? I struggle to think of any) reward.

[faraday]

@bored I handle chargen very differently on my games. I couldn't care less how many 4's you have, numerically. What I care about is whether your skills reflect your background. And it's never "shame on you, you evil powergamer..." it's always "your Gunnery seems a bit high for someone fresh out of flight school..."

Anyway, I'm kind of exhausted arguing about it. You think it's a bad design, I disagree. You're entitled to your opinion and we're not going to convince each other. Let's just agree to disagree and move on.