Posts made by Ganymede

@Thenomain said:

So you're planning on making Forces not only limited by Strength, but the Attribute for it? I'm confused, since Arcana ain't attributes.

An illustration might be best here.

If Arcana (Forces) is limited to Stamina, then:

1. Your Arcana (Forces) level cannot exceed your Stamina.
2. When you cast improvised magic using Forces, you roll your Stamina only to determine success.
3. If you have a Rote in which Forces is the greatest Arcana, then your roll is Stamina + Appropriate Skill + Arcana (Forces).

On the surface, it seems pretty awful that 1 XP can bump Forces 4 to 5. And yet, when you can only roll your Stamina for improvised magic, and you have to spend 5 XP to get a Rote with Forces 5 in it, it starts to balance out. Contrast that 1 XP with what you get between Martial Arts 4 and 5.

Consider this too:

A. What if every spell cast costs 1 Willpower?
B. What if every extended roll after the first costs 1 Willpower?

Taking Gnosis out means taking Mana out, which means that casting large magickal effects can be very, very difficult at higher levels, unless you have massive pools. Which you will only have if you dump a lot of XP and get a Rote -- and that Rote only allows you to do one thing.

@Thenomain said:

One of the big things I don't like about nWoD Mage rotes is that people on Reach were very quick to ask for existing rotes using different dice pools, to the point where I wonder why have specific dice pools at all. "I am scanning for life using my int + socialize". Er, okay?

Since the Arcana are going to be tied to an Attribute, it makes sense to do the same to limit Rote mechanics. I'd say, for conjunctive Rotes, the applicable Attribute is the highest Arcana involved.

Of course, as Sammi points out, that means people may max out in an attribute, but, meh.

@Sammi said:

Do you have any ideas about how to encourage players to try to make stuff up instead of using book effects?

I think the system ought to encourage this on its own; not mine, but Mage itself. Even with what I'm proposing, that encouragement ought to increase, since you need a Rote to do anything hardcore.

An idea I had to encourage Rote innovation is to allow PCs to swap around their Rote points freely, and maintain a list of approved Rotes learned on their Wiki page. So if I have 2-pt. Rotes and a 3-pt. Rote, I could swap in a 5-pt. Rote and a 2-pt. Rote from the list at the beginning of a scene. I haven't worked out the details on how to keep track of Rote-swapping.

@Vorpal said:

Fuck these ‘High Concept’ stage directors- if they want to parade what pretentious pricks they are, they can write their own plays and operas that nobody will see instead of piggybacking on someone else’s masterpiece that will guarantee them a captive audience.

The mark of a great director is not in how he breaks apart the material to leave his own imprint, but how he uses what is there to do the same. Ironically, Mozart did the same within the constrains of classical musical theory.

@Misadventure said:

Yeah unless you plan on Forces not being lightning or fire, and Prime to not be about enchanting etc, I'm not talking about the "fiction", but how it is represented as occurring in the world.

Forces is Forces; Prime is Prime. That's not going to change. How it occurs in the world is philosophical, so that'll be largely explained by the setting; I don't know, maybe the Great God Hubbajubba granted humanity with Forces, I dunno. Not really the point here.

As for Ars Magica, I'm familiar with it. And I rejected it long ago.

@Misadventure said:

I could lay out a lot of whining, but the core is that the system fiction isn't designed around that arrangement at all, and so the Arcana don't feel linked to such things.

@Sammi said:

I can get behind that just looking at the Arcana, but it makes things awkward for Obrimos.

I did not make this clear, but I'll go ahead and do it now.

I only wanted to take some of Mage's mechanic systems. I do not intend to adopt its fiction, its orders, or any of that shit. I like how Mage describes magic as a system of "spheres" or "arcana," from which "spells" or "rotes" are derived. I like how you can cast impromptu magic at less potency, but rote magic at higher potency. I like how you give the players that tools to create their own magic, rather than limiting them to published spells like "Magic Missile" or "Ganymede's Unceasing Pedantry."

But, no. No Obrimos, no Mastigos, no Pillars. Just fucking magic, with a new mythos to follow, maybe some new names for the arcana (although the divisions would be familiar), and a new fantasy world to play in. That's why I originally said that I'd use Chronicles of Darkness for a political fantasy game, but use a torn-apart version of Mage for the magic part.

Social creatures get Status, Social Merits, Social Styles, and all of that to play with. You can get land to develop over time that provide bonuses. You can gather resources, govern. Make fancy deals and shit. All of that.

Fighters get the Fighting Styles, including the experimental ones from the Hurt Locker.

Magic users get the Magicky Merits. You could dump all your XP in there, and that's fine, but you won't have VAST TRACTS OF LAND and you may get the shit beaten out of you in fisticuffs. Without Gnosis, impromptu magic gets gimped, which means you have to rely on Rotes, which are a limited-but-awesome bag of tricks.

That's kind of what I'm envisioning. Theno's CGen can handle the stat additions. Just have to make sure the rules of play are clear when it comes to social stuff and magic.

@Misadventure

Tough cookies, unless you've got an articulable rationale for being a poo-poo head.

@Sammi said:

You have ten Arcana and nine Attributes, so one of them would have to get two Arcana.

I know. Not a perfect system, by any means. The odd one out, for me, would be Prime. Maybe that's limited by your Highest Arcana.

This definitely limits the rate at which a character can get more Arcana, but you'll end up seeing a lot of unbalanced stat categories right out the door. The "problem" with having a power be all or mostly ruled by a single stat is that people don't have much system incentive to buy diverse stats.

Personally, I've never seen a Mage PC built with just one Arcana in mind, but, even supposing that one does that, I don't see much of a problem with a Strength 5, Arcana (Forces) 5 mage lurking about. That's no worse than having a Strength 5, Weaponry 5 bully walking around. If the Super Forces Mage wants her Rotes to be worthwhile -- which cost XP to obtain -- she's going to need Abilities to go with it. Maybe even some other Merits to intensify her Rotes or On-the-Fly Spells. And without Gnosis, on-the-fly spells are rolled against your particular Attribute alone.

I'm not too worried about min-maxing at this point, given I'm probably going to implement a capped-auto-gain XP system, where PCs, after a certain XP limit, cease to auto-gain and only get XP via Aspirations and Plots. Definitely thinking about adding in the yet-to-be-tested Hurt Locker Fighting Merits to give warriors more oomph. And will definitely implement a RfK-esque social and influence system, so that folks that don't want to fling fireballs or swing swords will have meaning and something to play with.

But, back to the Mage system: yeah, I know there's issues. But I basically came up with the 5 tenets above while in the shower last night, and I invited criticism here to hone the ideas.

@Thenomain

I know your code could handle the slight modifications. That's one of the motivations behind eliminating a Power Stat and pushing everything into the Merits category.

The reason why Mass Effect is taking so damn long is because I decided to build the system from the ground up. I don't want to have to do that again, and I want to put myself in a position to ask for your code/assistance when the system's been tweaked to play-testing level.

@Thenomain said:

I absolutely promise to maybe look into adding Mage to my CofD stat system possibly eventually.

Will you help me put a fantasy-style game together, then? Using CofD as the basis, and Mage: the Awakening for the magic?

I'm thinking of doing the following, and am mulling over the problems:

1. Mage Arcana purchased as Merits, cost wise, but limited to a particular attribute. E.g., Forces is linked to Strength, so you can only buy Forces up to what your Strength is.

2. Free-form Rote creation, based on the Mage book, with Rotes costing XP based on the highest Arcana involved.

3. Non-Rote magick rolled based on the related Attribute.

4. Extended magick rolls requiring Willpower expenditure for every roll after the first, with a limit on Willpower spent to extend the roll equal to the related Attribute.

5. Assisted casting by others, limited as per the extended magick rules.

I'm not the most Mage proficient, but I think the above would force people to purchase Rotes and engage in complex magick with others. This would balance the power of magick relative to PCs that specialize in combat (and fighting merits), social maneuvering (based on existing Merits for social interactions), and investigations (using the new Clue system).

And, yes, I've eliminated the need for Gnosis or a power stat. That's intentional.

Looking for input and suggestions. Perhaps this post and topic should be split.

@Arkandel said:

That's one of my frequent questions for games like D&D as well. What do characters get to do when they're not adventurers? The entire game's mechanics are geared towards quest, get items, level up, repeat.

Perhaps they play the Game of Questions?

@ThatGuyThere said:

Yes she quit the job poorly then and should be condemned for quitting in that manner but not for quitting in general.
The right to quit is a basic principle of free labor.

Except that's not what @Admiral's complaining of, apparently. He's complaining that this bitch is supposed to come in and work, and doesn't.

Organizational labor requires some measure of reliability. This cunt doesn't have it.

@Bobotron

That's good enough for me; I must have missed that through the Board messages.

@Jaded said:

While it doesn't matter - there are a ton of mods that give you nudity.

That's nice, but I doubt there's as many brothels. If there's one thing I learned from the Witcher, it's that there's a brothel on every corner, apparently.

As for Avallac'h, yes. He is a wretch of a being. But did your dislike for him come before or after the discovery of the laboratory.

Before. He's a dick. I wanted to slit him up the middle. I'm pretty sure he banged Ciri, and forced her to have sex with others.

But, I digress.

@Lithium said:

Actually, yes to all of those.

EDIT: And the modders don't even have the tools to /really/ mod the game yet.

Alas, I play the PS4. So, I may have a problem, yes?

@Jaded said:

There are a lot of mods out there Gany that make it better. Granted - Bethesda shouldn't rely on the mod community to fix and improve their game. But they did. I recommend going to Nexusmods to look some up.

Will those mods turn an otherwise dull world into something interesting? Will it make the hit-registration of my melee weapons better or faster? Will it allow me to dodge an attack?

Will it provide me with a lot of gratuitous nudity?

Not that the latter means anything, but I was simply reminded of why I like games with less open-endedness and more storyline. Also, fuck Avallac'h.

So, I started playing this the other day. After 4 hours, I was reminded as to why I started playing -- and am still playing -- The Witcher III: The Wild Hunt.

It's a bad sign to be bored in 4 hours. I'm getting old and impatient.