FS3 3rd Edition Feedback

[faraday]

@ThatGuyThere said:

Thing is I don't mind being the pilot/Driver and quite frequently make that.
What i hate is being not that guy but having folks trying to guilt me into blowing points on a skill I will never use for the nebulous reason of "you should have that."

For me it's not a question of guilt it's just a question of consistency. When I review character sheets, it is mainly with an eye of "do you have all the skills that a character with that background should have". For me, it's not a nebulous reason - it's 90% of the review process.

Why? Because for me the primary purpose of character sheets is to reflect your character. If they don't do that... if they're just "hey this might be useful someday so I'll take it", it bothers me.

Not saying it has to bother anyone else; we all have our pet peeves. But that's what I do on my games.

Side note: Even if Drive isn't an action skill you can still take it if you want to be the wheelman.

[Thenomain]

@faraday

If someone doesn't have the skill, aren't they still capable if the associated attribute is above 1?

[Packrat]

The big problem I have with 'linear costs in character generation, geometric costs afterwards' is that this very strongly encourages some concepts whilst punishing others.

Suppose you are making say... A middle aged character who has done a variety of things, maybe you want to have 2-3 points in a number of skills to represent stuff they should know about but are not experts in. You get punished for this. May be you are making a knight in a fantasy/middle ages type setting and rather than just being a sword master you also want some points in unarmed combat, polearms/lances and archery for hunting. You get punished for doing this.

It creates a huge incentive to make characters who have a reason to be monofocused in their abilities and, far from discouraging twinking, turns it into an exercise in guessing what combination of background and the fewest, highest level, skills you can get away with having approved by staff. The incentive to do this on most FS games is also huge, you can literally end up ahead or behind by a year or two worth of progression depending on if you hit the sweet spot or not.

Worse, people who are not thinking this way, can easily make characters who are utterly useless mechanically if they say, do not spend the maximum possible number of points on attributes, or the maximum possible on active skills as opposed to background ones. Background skills cost just as much in character generation but half as much to raise afterwards? Given that I can see literally no reason not to have them as seperate point pools instead of having them pull from the same one but with a maximum quantity that can be spent in the 'better' area, the same for attributes.

[faraday]

@Thenomain said:

If someone doesn't have the skill, aren't they still capable if the associated attribute is above 1?

Sure, to some degree.

But here's the thing... there are a couple ways to approach character creation. (This is true in ANY system, IMHO.)

You've got X points. You can ask yourself...

1. What skills are likely to come up in the game? I'll take as many points as I can in those.
   Woohoo, I can afford Firearms 10! Screw Drive; it probably won't come up. I better take a point in First Aid though, just in case.

2. How do the dice work? I'll try to spend my points most efficiently to maximize my success chance.
   Oh, hey... the success chance difference between Firearms 9 and Firearms 10 is, like, 10%. I'll just take 9 so I can have a point to spend elsewhere. Even without Drive, I still have a 30% chance defaulting to reaction... that's good enough for me. I can buy First Aid with XP later cheaply; skip it for now.

3. What should my character have, assuming that the names of the levels are accurate reflections of reality?
   Well, he's a marine with several tours in combat, and he knows how to drive, and he took a combat lifesaver course. That sounds like Firearms:Veteran(7), Drive:Proficient(4), First Aid:Novice(1).

None of these ways is "right" or "wrong" in the absolute sense of the word, but #3 is what I would call closest to the "spirit" of FS3. There's very little thought involved in chargen. You just go through the very short action skill list and pick the descriptive name that best fits your character in each one. Then you pick a couple interests to round them out with hobbies.

And, btw, I'm not saying the people who do #1 or #2 are "ZOMG evil min-maxers" or anything. It's just a different approach, totally valid on some games. But that's not what I want on mine.

Incidentally, in my ideal world there would be no point limits; you would just pick what fits your character and staff would decide if that concept was too unbalancing. But I've tried that before and it kinda freaks people out. So the points are a necessary evil IMHO. I try to give enough cg points to accommodate 90% of the concepts, and I work with people if they fall into the extreme edge cases.

I'm not trying to "punish" anyone with this system, @packrat, though I understand why some people see it that way. Not all characters are created equal, and that's OK with me because everyone has the same opportunity and is subject to the same rules.

Wow that turned out longer than I thought. Sorry. That's what I get for rambling at 4am

[Packrat]

That is the problem, people do not end up subject to the same rules and they do not get the same opportunity, it turns things into a game of guessing what staff what/will allow then squeezing in as close to that barrier as possible. Somebody who guesses 'wrong' ends up with a character who is far inferior to others as soon as dice are rolled and on FS based games? The dice get rolled an awful lot.

[faraday]

This post is deleted!

[Alzie]

@Thenomain That's always kind of bothered me actually. That's one of the things I liked about DSS. It separated skills into ones you could roll untrained and ones you couldn't. Because at some point, you shouldn't be able to jury rig 'spaceship operations' because 'lol i r smart.'

[Roz]

@Alzie I mean, the system lets you roll stuff you don't have statted on your sheet, which is valuable just because sometimes we don't think to stat certain skills that our characters might have because maybe we just didn't think of it or whatever. But what GM is going to let you roll Spaceship Operations without any skill or reason to have skill in it?

[faraday]

@Packrat said:

That is the problem, people do not end up subject to the same rules and they do not get the same opportunity

No system with an integral app review can defend against capricious or inconsistent staff. That's a policy/people problem.

@Alzie - FS3's stance on defaulting is that it's tied to the task not the skill: "you can’t do brain surgery without training, but you could default to your Athletics aptitude to run a footrace."

One last point on the chargen balance thing. Consider three characters (using the new 1-5 FS3 stat levels):

• Nate is 18 and fresh out of marine boot camp - Firearms: 2, First Aid: 1, Melee: 2
• Jane is a 40 y/o veteran who's been through several combat campaigns: Firearms: 4, First Aid: 1, Melee: 3
• Andy is a Navy SEAL: Firearms 5, First Aid: 2, Melee: 4

All three also have up to 4 fluffy interest skills free of charge.

In a flat chargen system, the costs of these characters is 5, 8, 11. Giving 11 points to all accommodates everyone pretty well. Nate has some points left over to carry forward as XP or spend on fluff, but Andy can still make it through Chargen without making hard sacrifices. You can't do that sort of balancing with a geometric system. Andy needs TONS more points than Nate.

"Exactly!" you might say. "Andy got an unfair advantage!"

FS3 is not designed to build equally-powered characters. End of story.

If you view that as some kind of hideous design flaw, nobody's forcing you to use it for your games. If you're stuck on a game that uses it.. well.. understand its limitations.

[Misadventure]

It's not about equal power.

It's about being equal as a player, having equal opportunity to succeed in game situations and so on. Systems like this massively rewards gaming cgen. It's that simple.

The player who games the system can pick up every skill the non-gaming player got in cgen, and still have all their own stuff. The reverse is not true.

However, I do not use FS3, and if I did I would immediately fix it. Why? Because I don't want to reward, or encourage, the mind set that informs that action, nor the followup version of doing it just to keep up. The game system is now forcing distracting and game play warping styles of play.

You want players to be free to not be massive experts without relegating themselves to second or third tier characters right?

It's also easier to track in the long run, you can always just add up the xp costs and verify everything. Allowing a respec is also easier.

But yes, people are free to not use or fix a game that uses such a system.

[faraday]

@Misadventure said:

It's about being equal as a player, having equal opportunity to succeed in game situations and so on.

How is that not equal power? Do you really think that the Navy SEAL should have the same chances to succeed in wartime situations as the marine fresh out of boot? Or are you saying that nobody should be allowed to be Navy SEALs because it's "unfair" to the people who choose to be marine privates?

[Thenomain]

@faraday said:

@Thenomain said:

If someone doesn't have the skill, aren't they still capable if the associated attribute is above 1?

Sure, to some degree.

But here's the thing... there are a couple ways to approach character creation. (This is true in ANY system, IMHO.)

A lot of games are very specific about what happens if you try to do Skill-Thing without having Skill. Fate, for instance, says that unless you note otherwise you are at the can-at-average level. So if there is Drive in a game, then it's assumed that you know the basics of driving without taking a point. This is the nature of Fate, and it's pretty up-front about it.

Others, as @Alzie mentions, tell you what happens if you don't have any points in the skill. Storyteller/Storytelling penalize you one to three dice. I'd penalize someone another two dice if it's stick-shift because screw stick. (Note: I can't drive stick because screw stick.) This is the nature of WoD.

But I'm not done! Let's cast this in the Online Text Gaming aspect, where I think you have a much stronger point:

You've got X points. You can ask yourself...

1. What skills are likely to come up in the game? I'll take as many points as I can in those.
2. How do the dice work? I'll try to spend my points most efficiently to maximize my success chance.
3. What should my character have, assuming that the names of the levels are accurate reflections of reality?

One of the things we get in tabletop that we don't get online is that the way players take stats are a conversation between the players and the GM. Even in Fate Core they say this, if more in the sense of "if a player takes a skill, find an excuse to use it".

Game design from staff becomes a skill to make this work, here. I don't think #3 works without staff support, and that #1 is the most likely for the casual online gamer. To make #3 work, the player has to be on-board with it before they enter chargen, which makes it a social training issue and not a game-design issue. You need to do what these other RPGs do: Say, 'Hey, making a character is a discussion between you and the game.' Then explain the game.

And finally, I kind of want to explain why I think you're getting push-back here. See, a lot of us loudmouths are used to do-whatever-you-want, find-your-own-entertainment games like how nearly every World of Darkness game has been set up since MasqMush (our progenitor). The idea that we would not game the system is alien to a lot of us, so that should explain the probing questions.

Also, they're probing questions. I don't think any of them are meant to incite or harsh. You're taking it well, but it could look like a dog-pile.

[Misadventure]

@faraday I am saying neither.

I am saying that IF you want SEALs then give enough XP to create a character who performs as one. IF they want to play a green recruit, they are free to not spend those XP completely.

That green recruit may potentially NEVER be able to afford the XP for what is needed to catch up to that gamed character creation.

I acknowledge that it is easier to have simple linear cost CG points. I have provided a workaround to ensure later fairness.

The traditional approach for games that want some to be elite characters is not to say "Go ahead get the most value out of cgen, we'll tell the other PCs not to make as good of characters", it is to give the elite characters more of that thing that makes them elite: experience/character ability.

Put another way, what's to stop my green recruit from being equal to your SEAL? Same points right? Same freedom to spend the same way. This completely undermines the "in story" approach you have laid out.

In the end, the core system being equal for all, and player judgement is better, in my eyes, than some will play awesome characters and the rest are free to make impotent characters without recourse or compensation.

As a note, I have personally made, and seen played, characters who min-maxed linear cgen and then played as being less capable (not rolling all their dice), just to avoid the massive xp gap created by the bad system.

[Packrat]

If that is a design goal then it is better to make it deliberate and obvious, put in rules for different 'tiers' of character where staff or players applying for characters can make a conscious choice to have one more capable than another and say, have more points to spend.

The current system turns it instead into a hidden minefield where making hyper focused characters without rounding life skills is the path to One True Power and does not really succeed in modelling what you set out above either. Take for example two players making police officers of the same age (I do not know, mid thirties), one makes a character who is entirely focused on police stuff and has been a career police officer, their skills are all focused on say Pistol, Investigation, Driving, Unarmed Combat, Intimidate, etc. Another player makes a police officer who was in the army as a Ranger prior to joining the police and drops down some of the investigation and similar skills to a lower level in order to round out with say, Survival, Rifle, etc.

The latter character is going to end up significantly less capable, massively so once some advancement has taken place. Both are likely to be characters which are quite reasonable for somebody to apply for and get approved with sensible staff but the second person has shot themselves in the foot.

Not to mention relying on staff as an arbiter for this kind of thing is in general a terrible idea, sure you can filter out the worst min maxing but even if you do this perfectly and entirely objectively you are setting an invisible bar, the people who find things working out best for them are the ones who skim perfectly under it whilst anyone who drastically undershoots finds themselves effectively a year behind in progression/advancement.

[Misadventure]

I wanted to add that the more traits a system has to buy (attributes, skills, merits) the more this gap between linear and geometric xp costs matters. The Third Edition of Fading Suns may have so few traits, that giving out xp for equal value will just produce very similar characters.

For example, I believe Amber has more or less 5 traits, plus some other stuff.

Ultimately it STILL matters to be fair. For a low number of traits system, I would suggest a niche/role protection trait, such as "are of expertise" which acts as a bonus to some area of action, maybe a whole trait, and you get one, and only one.

So that soldier can take Fight or whatever that trait is, as their area of expertise. Whether they buy a 1, or a 5, they always have that AoE +1 to mark their focus, AND everyone else has the same power to get to a 5 in Fight in the course of the game.

[faraday]

@Thenomain said:

A lot of games are very specific about what happens if you try to do Skill-Thing without having Skill.

FS3 is too. Or I try to make it so - I would be happy to have feedback about the quality of the docs. You can default as long as there's a "reasonable chance" of success. Again see the footrace / brain surgery example.

As far as assuming average... Basically: If it's an Action Skill, it's likely to come up in the course of the game so you're expected to take it at the appropriate level based on your char's experience. Background Skills (now split into Interests and Expertise in 3rd edition) cover everything else and they're more "take what's important to your char". You're not expected to take Baseball just because you played catch in the backyard as a kid.

Also, they're probing questions. I don't think any of them are meant to incite or harsh. You're taking it well, but it could look like a dog-pile.

Well it's hard not to take it harshly when words like "bad design", "terrible idea" and "broken system" are thrown around, but I did ask for feedback so I can't really complain too much.

But I do think there's a strong cultural component at play here.

I run PvE games with PCs united against a common enemy. That's also where I've primarily seen FS3 used. So I don't really care if Andy the SEAL has an advantage over Nate the Grunt. So Andy kills more Cylons than Nate. So what? They shouldn't be equal. One's a Navy SEAL for goodness sake.

There's also this persistent perception that people sacrifice being well-rounded to min/max their useful skills. I still don't understand this complaint when 3rd ed forces you to take fluffy background skills and gives you up to four for free. Games are also free to configure position-based skill packages. For instance, all my military characters are required to buy First Aid/Firearms/Melee 1 just because of basic training. You can't skimp on that to max out other skills. z

@Packrat - Assuming you're making a generic modern setting and not PoliceMUSH, only Firearms and Melee strike me as action skills. Maybe Intimidate if you think that'll come up a lot. So there won't be a huge disparity - RangerCop might even have an edge due to more combat training. It all depends on how you set up your skill list. FS3 recommends a very narrow list 10-12 skills total, centered around what the primary conflict is on your game.

[Alzie]

@Faraday I mean, I don't really care about FS3 one way or another, but you built an RPG system and your premise was to make it inherently imbalanced? Are you high motherfucker?

[faraday]

@Alzie said:

@Faraday I mean, I don't really care about FS3 one way or another, but you built an RPG system and your premise was to make it inherently imbalanced? Are you high motherfucker?

Apparently that's the general consensus.

:shrugs: Worked just fine on my Battlestar games. Some folks come wanting to be top-of-my-class-badass-Viper-pilot. Some come wanting to play a civilian "nugget" fumbling their way through on-the-job-training. Some want to be cooks, or paper pushers. I've seen tons of well-rounded characters of very disparate power levels having oodles of fun fighting Cylons together.

It's up to you to pick the game system that's best for your game. If FS3 isn't it, no skin off my nose. It works for me.

[Alzie]

@Faraday if the game system is inherently imbalanced, it's not a game system. It's different if it's imbalanced because of how a character spends their imaginary points, that's not your problem. What matters is that theoretically, given the same amount of points to spend and spending them in the same way the results end up the same. If you're suggesting however, which you seem be, that two people with the same amount of points spending them the same way can still be different, then you are high and calling this a game system is a joke.

[faraday]

@Alzie said:

If you're suggesting however, which you seem be, that two people with the same amount of points spending them the same way can still be different..

Umm, no, what I'm saying is that two people with the same amount of points spending them differently can end up being very different in terms of effectiveness in conflict situations. Which seems to be kind of... obvious? If you dump all your points in basketweaving you're not going to be as combat-effective as someone who dumped them into firearms. That's true in any system.