Posts made by Coin

What this thread has taught me is that no matter what, "good game" and "bad game" are subjective and people will always find something to praise and something to damn about anything, and that someone will always rise up in defense and someone will always double-down on criticism when that happens.

So, really, I guess it didn't teach me a damn thing I didn't already know.

@Lithium said in Marvel: 1963:

It's a lot to overcome. I'd love to see the Marvel world brought to life in a game, the 60's is interesting also, but I'd prefer it if the FC's weren't available for play and people created their own characters and stories. If there was ever a universe that had room for OC's, it's Marvel's.

I'm not sure why Marvel has more room than DC or other universes.

In any case, I think the niche theme will probably help the people who do play focus on characterization and how to interpret characters.

But I am also a really big fan of alterante realities and stuff, so maybe that's just my jam.

@Lithium said in Marvel: 1963:

@ixokai Don't get me wrong, I am not wanting it to be that way just that whenever I've seen an FC comic game come up, people want to play with the FC's, not with the OC's, because it's the FC's everyone is familiar with and wants to link their story to.

It's basic power fantasy type of thing, writing their own story into the FC's and really, there's nothing inherently wrong with doing that.

It's just been done, to death, and it follows almost a formula.

I hope it is different, but right now it's got two things for it: 1, 1963 I'm not sure most people who MU even remember that time period. So it'll be an odd thing to try and RP. Two it's going to try and mesh characters who didn't even exist into that time period which is going to cause two levels if disconnect.

OC's are going to be a third level of disconnect and that's a lot of disconnect to try and overcome.

I don't want any game to fail (Except Haven but that's another thread entirely) but I /fear/ it's going to turn out that way.

Also: FC's means the same crowd of interested people, which means the same temperament and same mood and same drama.

That's all.

My only gripe with this sort of argument is that you keep saying there will be a disconnect when there won't be. Not for the people who are interested in playing there and who want to. It will probably end up being a much smaller game than other comic book/superhero games, but the people who want to play there will probably enjoy it.

I was poked at by one of the staffers to see if I wanted to go play there and I am considering it, but to be fair: I don't really like the sixties as a roleplaying setting. I might do it anyway, though.

Maybe I'll play Pete Wisdom and he can finally smoke to his heart's content without people being whiny babies about it...

@tragedyjones said in Core Memories Instead of BG?:

I am late to this thread and just wanted to say, before I read it, that by default, the Chronicles of Darkness core rules have a section for "5 important questions" that are designed to flesh out a character and create their customized breaking points.

In tabletop, at the very least, it works wonderfully.

I said the same thing, but longer, and I was informed that similarity is not enough--it must be the same or comparisons are not worth making.

@Taika said in Game Idea:

Moar Updates!

@thenomain has been epic and started installing cgen and a few key bits of code (dice, health, etc).

I have a wikidude that's helped a ton.

Been looking at The Pack - it has some really interesting ideas in it, and a few new merits.

Been posting some plot ideas to the super seekrit staff plot bboard, and started on wolf theme. Poor wolves will be so very busy.

We got Feeding hashed out for the bitey folks.

I think essence will balance itself out since I do believe that loci will be in real short supply until people start to clean up the shadow and get the corrupted access points fixed up some.

The Pack was a bit of a disappointment in that there are no new Gifts. I was at least hoping for a couple of new Wolf Gifts, so that the Tribes book and Auspice book could concentrate on Shadow and Auspice Gifts, respectively.

Meh.

However, the Pack Tactics and Totem sections were pretty great.

@Thenomain said in Comics Stuff:

@Arkandel

Three people have written Spider-Man for the movies, so I'm not sure how you can say one person writes for the movies. They're getting reset once every few years. Movies put you in the situation where you are potentially resetting expectations with each one.

TV shows, now....

Ark didn't make a comparison to the movies, though; he made a comparison to novels.

@surreality said in RPG Percentile Mechanics:

@Coin That gave me a weird idea, though, for something regarding extended tasks and potentially also team mechanics.

Percentile could prove interesting for multiple days/hours/etc. work -- roll with any mods, add up; this gives you 'how far you get on that task'. If you hit 100%, you made it. If not, you still have something. Could use the skill rating or whatever for the number of times you can roll.

What could be additionally useful with something like that would be for team mechanics; if someone else wants/needs to complete the task later, they may end up with a negative mod (for picking up where someone else left off/not necessarily knowing how the other party was going about it/etc.) but they would only need to fill the gap between wherever the first party left off and 100%. Teams working together could potentially just pool the rolls somehow, 'many hands make light work' and such.

Extended tasks in CofD actually already does this, sort of, ever since GMC. You can pick a project up again if you have a certain percentage of it done, IIRC.

Not that I know of.

But percentiles would be cool if they could fuck with each other. Like, if I have a 60% in ATTACK and you have a 20% in DEFEND, then my roll is at 40%, etc.

The real problem with percentiles is that they... are limited to 100%. So you would have to find other ways to figure things out.

Fact is, multiple dice will always have more dice tricks, which is more evocative of stuff. Anyway, digression.

@Arkandel said in Comics Stuff:

@Kanye-Qwest said in Comics Stuff:

It's because Captain America was created by Jewish writers as a way to show the American way defeating what amounts to Nazis.

I get what you're saying but Superman was also created by Jerry Siegel who was Jewish IIRC and there was at least one (fairly well regarded) elseworlds comic placing him as both a Nazi and USSR superhero with zero backlash.

Which is not the same as taking the mainstream version of the character and doing that. That's why it's an Elseworlds story. If they had done What If... Captain America Were An Agent Of HYDRA?! nobody would care.

@Arkandel said in Good or New Movies Review:

I liked X-Men: Apocalypse. It wasn't great by any means but it worked in many ways and actually cared about fan service as well as telling its own story. The new (new new) X-Men roster is fun and there's chemistry between the actors; I'd actually like to watch a team made of the new Jean, Scott, Nightcrawler, Quicksilver, etc.

My one peeve which isn't spoiler-y if you've watched any trailer at all - there's a lot of emphasis on Mystique being a leader/revered hero type. On its own I don't mind that but it's because she's being played by Jennifer Lawrence whose star value skyrocketed since the contract was signed, and it turned a perfectly good spy/infiltrator/mysterious character into a front-line person which wasn't ideal.

The interesting thing about Mystique is that, thanks to her powers, she can be both.

She can be in the public eye, and she can be a nobody spy/infiltrator... because you won't recognize her if she doesn't want you to.

@Packrat said in Conflict mechanics:

That is what I am working on for the (eternally still in progress) Space Nobles game I am still plodding through planning out, FUDGE dice mechanics with a momentum/initiative system stolen or at least heavily influenced by Exalted 3e.

So you roll to attack, with modifiers to the roll for equipment/circumstances, net successes +1 is added to your Momentum for the fight. Narratively, you are shooting at somebody and forcing them to take cover, pressing them in a sword fight, etc. Minor injuries might take place but nothing significant.

You can instead on your turn choose to spend Momentum points to try a more decisive attack where, depending on how many points you spend, you can disarm them on a success, or wound them, grapple them, etc. If you succeed then the Momentum is all gone, if you fail then you lose a few points but could potentially try again. Wearing armour does not inherently defend against a Decisive attack, it defends against regular attacks as you are (potentially much) harder to disadvantage because you can take more risks and ignore more threats. But if somebody has you pinned and is sticking a knife into your eye or has lined up a shot on your head or whatever then it no longer matters.

Yeah, I love that. I also really like that it makes each Health Level matter. Because before, you took 1B or 1L and it was a glancing blow. Now, glancing blows don't really mean anything HL-wise; if you take even a single HL of damage, someone nailed you. Perhaps not badly, but it's still a solid blow that is impactful, narratively speaking.

@Packrat said in Conflict mechanics:

Another thing that works great with Exalted 3e is that it does not mechanically matter how you launch Decisive attacks in a lot of circumstances along with Withering attacks being highly narrative. My tabletop game saw somebody build up initiative through sword fighting a foe then, when they tried to flee, finish them with a thrown javelin to the back.

The javelin did not have anything like the weapon stats of the character's magic sword but the threat of said magic sword had allowed them to take control of the fight. They were swinging it with intent to kill but presumably connecting with punches, kicks or slams of the pommel as their enemy desperately defended themselves.

Yes. I am dying to play this, actually. I am considering adding this sort of thing to my homebrew system (which uses different stats, etc., and is much more streamlined; but this particular aspect of the combat system is... neat).

@Kestrel said in Conflict mechanics:

What I want most in a combat system is the freedom and flexibility to showcase my character.

Many systems reward player skill and ingenuity, but very few of them reward a character for being a character, or even allow them to be one. By this I mean, if I OOCly know that my +4 dex knife is the most powerful weapon in my arsenal against a guy with a certain type of armour, I don't want to feel forced or even motivated to use it for that reason. I don't want a system where combat consists of a series of attacks with the goal of each to be as powerful as possible, and as a result essentially identical with really minor variations... like punch-punch-punch-punch-win.

My ideal roleplay fight works something like this:

A heated argument at a bar turns into a shove, which turns into someone grabbing a bottle and smashing it over the other's head. Someone swings a punch and misses because they're drunk, a bottle is hurled and someone lifts up a chair to shield themselves, the chair is then smashed to smithereens and the chair-leg becomes an improvised club. By getting smashed in the face with a chair leg, someone is sent slamming into the bar-top, and that hard surface is what injures their jaw. A dazed opponent fails to make a move (as a player choice, not a coded repercussion), someone grabs them and sends them flying through a window. The fight moves from the bar to the lawn, then the pool, and eventually someone grabs a knife.

Things like this would never happen if the person with the knife knew from the very beginning that a knife is the best weapon for the job, or that staying stationary at the bar is advantageous as it doesn't consume a move action, or that in the pool they have to take a movement debuff. The person slammed into the bar would not choose to skip their chance to attack, even if it makes sense for them to, as they wouldn't want to sacrifice their turn and increase their chances of losing overall.

A system that decides the outcome in general terms without tactical mechanics sounds just fine to me, if it would encourage more creativity throughout the fight by causing less pressure turn-by-turn.

I don't really care about a chance to use the powers I've bought with my hard-earned XP if it means sacrificing the character. As @Seraphim73 mentioned, I want representation of my hard work, but for me that hard work should be things like creativity, teamwork and good sportsmanship, less about things like min/maxing.

When rolling, I want a good chance to fail, otherwise there's no point in rolling and you may as well just go by constant stat values. Suspense and uncertainty are something I enjoy in roleplaying games.

Lots of people fight tactically in real life, too. And for example, your "drunk guy misses because the player wants to, not because of the system" ignores that there is a system and that when people buy stats, they buy stats to avoid/encourage certain types of situations. If I buy stats that make it unlikely that being drunk will slow me down at all in a fight, there's no reason it should.

I get what you're saying--I really do. I love the kind of scenes you're talking about. But when a game has stats, those stats should have weight, yes?

That said, take a look at the new Exalted (third edition) combat system. It has two different types of attack: withering and decisive. Even if you take everything else away, this difference (withering wittles away at your Initiative and decisive actually does damage despite there not being any required difference in what your character is doing or their intent) can go a long way into depicting the sort of fighting you'd like to see.

@Thenomain said in Comics Stuff:

@ThatGuyThere said in Comics Stuff:

My personal advice for those wanting to start with comics is to look at particular creative team runs on titles rather then the series as a whole.

Yeah, but until you get into comics, how do you know what team you like? And unless that team involves someone with the brand recognition like Gaiman, how do you know what they're writing at any given time? That is, like Mushes, it seems like the best way to get into comics is either diving in and working it out on your own, or being introduced by someone else.

I usually pick out my preferred teams/writers by seeing what they've done out of mainstream continuities.

For example, I love Mark Waid, but I didn't realize that The Flash and his Impulse in the nineties were his until after I'd read Kingdom Come, and Irredeemable. And then it all made sense.

@Taika said in Core Memories Instead of BG?:

@Coin - What helped your players get their heads around the idea of a Breaking Point?

Those that I managed to explain it to adequately usually got it after a few examples in pages. Some of them gave up and just chose from generic ones. I'm of the opinion that a lot of the time, problems with Breaking Points come from a (perhaps subconscious) refusal to marry mechanics with story, like Warma Sheen above. It's not bad, it's just a bad fit for CofD, especially re: Breaking Points.

CofD systematizes a lot of story beats into things: Breaking Points, Conditions, Aspirations; all things some people would prefer were divorced from the system altogether. But in CofD, they aren't; they're intrinsic to it. This is why I stress that not liking the system you're using doesn't make bitching about it any more tolerable. Use something else. I don't like FATE. So I don't play games that use FATE.

@Warma-Sheen said in Core Memories Instead of BG?:

@Coin said in Core Memories Instead of BG?:

<rant>
As an aside, I am repeatedly baffled at how difficult it is to get people to understand how to build Breaking Points. Running Eldritch--especially app approval--was a challenging experience mostly because I just found myself not even being able to even with some people's inability to comprehend this. And I know it makes me a bit of a dick--some people just have trouble with this sort of concept and it's not, you know, their fault. But the twentieth time someone presents a Breaking Point as, "one time my character shot a person and left them to die" as a Breaking Point, I twitch. It's not that hard to rephrase that as an actual Breaking Point, man. "Abandoning someone who may potentially die". Come on, man.

Maybe building Breaking Points just isn't that easy for everyone to understand. For example, "one time my character shot a person and left them to die" would not be the same thing as "Abandoning someone who may potentially die". The latter encompasses a slew of things that have little to do with the reasoning behind why the former is traumatic for the character.

And that might be difficult for some people to understand, even if they feel like they really understand Breaking Points and other people don't...

I suspect the disconnect in the "understanding" comes from the way people look at Breaking Points, either from a character vantage or a mechanics vantage. The Tony Stark example illustrates this perfectly:

@Coin said in Core Memories Instead of BG?:

4. What has your character forgotten? Another perfect catalyst question for a core memory--except this is the opposite. What your character has forgotten is probably almost as important as what he remembers. Why? Because it can both represent something so traumatic that they blocked it out--but also what your character feels is insignificant. Tony Stark can't remember half (or even 90%) of the women he's bedded in Iron Man (the first movie). Why? Because they aren't important to him. It defines him as a character at that stage in his life. If we apply that to Breaking Points: being confronted emotionally with his disregard for women as people, being forced to face is own womanizing and misogyny, being shown the consequences of his ways (as he is, particularly in Iron Man 3, in the case of his womanizing) should be Breaking Points for Tony Stark. (This is a horrible example, by the way, not because it doesn't work mechanically, but because it makes Tony's womanizing and misogyny into a vehicle for his own character development, which... ugh... but I digress..!)

You list it as something that should be a core memory because of how important it is to the character, but then say it doesn't work mechanically so it is a bad example. (I'm not sure why it doesn't work mechanically, but the fact that it is viewed that way is the point.) Why would you disregard something that important to the character?

I said, "not because it doesn't work mechanically" in the sense that it does work mechanically--the reason it's bad, IMO, is something that has nothing to do with mechanics. It works fine, mechanically. My complaint is something else, which is why I mentioned I was disgressing.

So one person might "understand" Breaking Points differently than another person. That's fine. Not everyone has to fit into neat orderly boxes.

You're taking my examples as my saying "this is the only way each of these could be interpreted", but that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying: it is easy to interpret these things in ways that can be used as Breaking Points. How you interpret them forges the kind of Breaking Point you want your character to be challenged by.

Anyway, that's just a little of why these types of questions might help, but they should be far, far removed from any systems or rewards in the game. It shoud be just to guide the creation of your character, not box them into how they should to react to things. That's the role of the player.

This is subjective. If you're dead set on this, you aren't wrong, but you're also probably not the kind of person who would enjoy the CofD system, inasmuch as its Integrity system is essential to what the game wants to facilitate you to play, mortal-wise.

Personally, I disagree with your seemingly strict division between them being things that help create the character and things that are attached to a system. I do not actually think these things need to be separate, and believe they can be bound very intricately and well. They don't need to be, but they can be, and this system is made for them to be.

You don't have to like it. You don't even have to agree with it. But if you don't, and then you play in a game that uses it and complain endlessly about it, I reserve the right to think you're acting like an asshat.

Royal 'you', obvs. Unless you do it. And then it's you. Obvs.

@SkinnyThicket said in Does size matter? What about duration?:

@ThatGuyThere

I wasn't aware! Is it just combat that MUSHes go turn-by-turn for? Burning Wheel comes to mind as a system that treats duels-of-wit with the same narrative gravitas as duels-of-sword.

Noooo. You are opening the floodgates. [puts on his rubber ducky floaters]

@Ganymede said in Core Memories Instead of BG?:

@Coin said in Core Memories Instead of BG?:

Did you miss that bit, later on?

No. I read what you wrote after, and it does not match with what I'm trying to convey.

You stated that the concept of "Defining Moments" is integrated Chronicles of Darkness character generation, and it isn't. While some "Breaking Points" may be deemed "Defining Moments," the purpose of "Breaking Points" is separate and distinct from what is being discussed as "Defining Moments."

I took a very specific snippet for a specific reason. Again, describing "Defining Moments" is not the same as describing "Breaking Points," and any analogy is fallacious.

Jesus fucking Christ. Yes, okay-- your incredibly nitpicky reading of my one sentence (while ignoring the rest of the post) is correct. Congratulations. Jeez, Gany. Really.

And no, it's not fallacious. "Defining Moments" can encompass "Breaking Points". So it's not fallacious; it is, at worst, generalizing.

@Ganymede said in Core Memories Instead of BG?:

@Coin said in Core Memories Instead of BG?:

So really, this entire concept is already part of the CofD chargen process.

Not exactly. The Chronicles of Darkness asks players to describe the traumatic things in their life, which can lead to the loss of sanity (Integrity). What is suggested here is the listing of "Defining Moments," which need not be traumatic. A person's successes can be just as important as their failures, just as sadness can be a part of happiness -- which is the driving point with Inside Out.

Defeating Ganon and winning Zelda is probably one of Link's defining moments, but I don't really think it describes a Breaking Point.

Thus why I said "what we're talking about here is broader and better suited to what we do". Did you miss that bit, later on? It comes right after the sentence you quoted: "It's just that what we're looking at is a way of expanding what the "questions" are to fit the more freeform mold of MUing (and perhaps less focused on "horrible, no good, very bad things", which is maybe better for us, but less in-theme with what the CofD is all about), and also merging it with the (unnecessary in tabletop) "requirement" of a background in most MUs."

I mean, I clarified. Not sure why you felt you needed to correct it when it... was clarified right after.

... is not that large. It's in fact tiny. Yes, not all games need to be huge but we're well past that point by now; we're no longer really discussing if games will have hundreds of unique concurrent connections, these days 40-50 is pretty damn good (and barring alts there are very few MU* that pull it off).

So yes, it is annoying if players aren't willing to find a compromise between what they really want and what's actually on offer, but on the other hand if those same annoying people weren't there to begin with to fill screens with their poses sans dice rolls and their questions about what to roll to pick a lock then the remaining folks might not have a blast either having only a handful of others to engage and renew their roleplaying threads.

I'm okay with smaller games. Just saying.