I mostly remember once applying for a character on a WoD game (Denver I think?) who had a bachelors degree and ten years experience in something, I think the Finance secondary skill, but my application was rejected and I was told I could only have three points.
Because four dots was a masters degree and my character did not ICly have one. So no four dots in Finance for you, you min maxer!
So I have been playing some more Kingdom Come: Deliverance.
I was investigating counter fitters in the town of Sasau and it was quite a cool involved investigation, then when hunting unrelated bandits I found a bunch of them camped outside an abandoned silver mine. After murdering the bandits I decided to look inside only to hear noises of people at work.
It was the hidden workshop, the game actually ran with it and had suitable dialogue. Impressive!
So, the people who made FTL: Faster Than Light?
It turns out that was not any kind of fluke and they are just really, really good at making games. Into the Breach looks at first glance completely uninteresting but I have been playing it and the mechanics and presentation are just absolutely right in practice. Every single battle is tense, intricate, makes me feel like an idiot when I make a mistake but amazing if everything works just right. A big thumbs up.
So, to follow on from Altered Carbon being turned into a TV show?
https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/21/17035618/amazon-culture-series-iain-m-banks-television-show
Apparently Amazon is going to try turning Consider Phlebas into a show. I can only imagine the brain melting degree of budget that would be required to pull it off but am intrigued as to the result.
@thatguythere The main thing was that Sword 6/Polearm 6 guy is really useful in both stages, a specialist would be relatively liable to get mauled as they attempt to fight armoured Demon Knights encased in Demon Steel using a sword, or trying to awkwardly wield a poleaxe in a narrow stairway against a Tentacle Demon, though presumably their amazing skill would not make them totally useless.
It is really hard to balance both character generation and system though to make a non specialist viable without turning everyone into some kind of omnicompetent demigod. I guess maybe why I am a fan of Exalted? There having somebody who is an Invincible Sword Princess but also a competent doctor is totally viable. At least if you house rule the idiotic linear chargen/exponential xp thing.
@thatguythere I figure that depends on if there is possible 'synergy' between skills or if the system rewards different skills in different circumstances that can change at any given moment.
I mean to use a combat example, in a lot of game systems it does not really matter much what melee weapon you are using, a knife, a sword, a club, etc. Maybe they have slightly different stats, or one is clearly superior to another, etc. A lot of games then inexplicably have separate skills for them.
In that instance yes, there is no reason to take Sword 6/Polearm 6 guy over Sword 8 guy.
But what if poleaxes are awesome vs people in heavy armour and in open spaces on foot, but you cannot use them on horseback or easily indoors, plus they are a pain to carry. Swords are easy to carry and great vs people without good armour plus take up less space. You are going to storm Baroness Von Evil's castle to rescue the sexy prince who was kidnapped and is being forced into marriage.
In a lot of systems you obviously take Sword 8 guy, because Sword 8 guy is better at fighting. If different skills actually let you do different stuff though? Sword 6/Polearm 6 person might well shine over Sword 8 guy when you fight Baroness Von Evil's demonic knights in the courtyard then be less effective after you hack your way inside and battle up the stairs of the Evil Iron Citadel against tentacle demons.
@faraday Surely if this was your reasoning then you could just give older/more experienced characters more points rather than building weird linear/exponential traps between character generation and advancement? Otherwise the person who is the veteran expert and starts with Do Shit 8 is, long term, better off than the less specialised person who starts with Do Shit 5, Do Other Shit 2 and Do A Thing 1. In the short term though? That second person is actually better rounded which suggests greater life experience.
I find it far more nonsensical that the 22 year old 2nd lieutenant has better rounded life skills than the 40 year old major, if anything this encourages people making young idiot savant types.
It can be system based as well, a lot of older systems especially have multiple paths to get to the same place but some are wildly more 'efficient' than others. A lot of systems also punish diversity very very strongly.
Suppose your goal is to make a competent knight, you go with what makes sense for your character who is a 40 year old veteran. So you get a decent Sword skill, Mace Skill, Polearms skill and Knife skill, plus some Unarmed and Crossbow. You keep your Dexterity fairly low because your character is not some kind of ninja, they are a scarred badass with a limp.
But this is a system with exponential costs to raise things after character generation and linear costs in chargen, you just spent a huge number of points on combat ability only to end up distinctly mediocre to average.
Somebody else buys Dexterity up really high and Sword up really high, spends fewer points and could fight four of your character at once, then still has enough to raise their Unarmed higher than you before walking away with some spare to know how to dance.
@wildbaboons Definitely, I like the system, but for combat especially it is pretty obtuse and it is not documented anywhere. Tehom from what I recall was happy to answer questions and suchlike but you cannot go onto the website and read to find out what dice system is being used. There can be weird and non intuitive results that favour those who go deep into numbers whilst it is pretty difficult to go 'Well I have Attribute 4, Skill 3, what kind of average result can I expect if I roll them?'
At least not without consulting something scary like this:
@wildbaboons It does not work like that at all in fact, kind of proving my point. Unless they changed it? From what I remember it is essentially a modified version of the the Legend of the Five Rings system with a 'roll keep' mechanic.
Basically you roll a number of 10 side dice equal to attribute + skill+1 (I forget if it is exactly one? It might vary between types of rolls), also 10s explode indefinitely. Then you keep a number of the dice equal to Skill+1 that rolled highest.
So attributes are definitely useful but somebody who has a Skill of 4 is going to be infinitely better than somebody with a skill of 1 even if their attribute is only at 2 and the Skill 1 person at 5. They both roll the same number of dice but the Skill 4 person keeps the highest 5 of the seven dice, the Skill 1 person rolls seven dice but only gets to keep the highest two.
I definitely want to chime in and say that I agree with the people who prefer skills to matter over stats though, the default equal weight to both in WoD (and a fair few other systems) really is nonsensical.
Take the example of the doctor with Intelligence 3, Medicine 3 for a pool of 6. Should they really be barely better than a really smart person (Intelligence 4) who has qualified on a first aid course (Medicine 1) and thus has a pool of 5? Probably not!
It also makes all sorts of concepts just not work. Hell, in real life I probably have WoD Dexterity 1 (Dyspraxia) yet when I was in the military I was an excellent shot. Did I have Firearms 5? Hell no, but I was a better shot than the commando qualified captain who must have by definition had a dex+firearms pool of 5 or 6 minimum.
I actually really like the attribute+skill weight in the system used on Arx but it really could benefit from the system being an awful lot more transparent. That might have changed since I played there but it certainly used to be that people who had experimented and worked out the odds (and/or cooked up spreadsheets) were significantly advantaged mechanically if they wanted to be.
That said I found with Arx that all characters have amazing base attributes but also start with weirdly anemic skills in comparison which then rise rapidly in play. You cannot be a even a merely very capable person who is a serious expert at things, you have to start as a wildly naturally talented person who is 'pretty good but unexceptional' at one or two things.
@wildbaboons I agree that some level of supervision there is good but it should probably pay actual attention to what levels in a stat are supposed to mean.
If that is clear, which it certainly is not on a lot of games.
I recall seeing the opposite as well with people on a WoD game trying to insist that attributes of 2 were pretty poor and that you needed 3 to pose/ICly be at all capable in an area, in complete defiance of the actual descriptions of different attribute levels. One oWoD game took it to weird extremes and dictated how tall/buff you could describe yourself being based on your Strength - reasonable on the face of it but they basically deemed any male character had to have strength 3 or be written up as actively weedy looking.
Whilst the actual description for Strength 3 gave a suggested a bench press value suited for say, the level required for a firefighter, implying that Strength 3 was supposed to be somebody who pretty seriously hits up the gym or carries out intensive manual labour.
@selu I kind of assume so? That said capital city and main setting has a climate fairly similar to Cairo. Scanty clothing outside is liable to lead to sunburn.
Also noble on commoner sex is hardly super shocking, you need to get priests involved for that.
@arkandel That mostly seems to come down to 'wash before going shopping' but there are troughs for quick washing almost everywhere urban.
You can go to a proper baths to get extra clean but frankly I have never bothered.
Encumbrance is definitely an issue until you get a horse though.
@auspice I think I would go with my brother's awesome looking dog:
Not sure what he would be, he looks very wise but is actually a lazy idiot who runs around ineffectually but with great enthusiasm when he thinks there may be rabbits, followed by not knowing what to do if he catches one.
@bored Very belatedly, there probably is going to be some kind of min max point but the general idea is that PCs should not find it difficult to get access to the basics of good gear. If nothing else? If I try to make it difficult then some rich person will just buy all of their friends laser rifles and make a mockery of such restrictions.
Energy shields, synthsilk, guns or blasters, etc? Meh, I am pretty sure any player character can get hold of that stuff unless they are deliberately playing a poor person. Powered ceramsteel? To be honest? The same, though I would intend fairly strict enforcement of the fact that powered armour only has battery life measured in the hours meaning it is something that rich people break out for pre planned high intensity combat not something you wear on adventure or when walking around town. Also it is vulnerable to anti tank weapons in a way that energy shields are not.
The really fancy stuff like battle shields, wire blades, mist swords (lightsabers), fusion guns, etc? That costs character points and if you obtain such a thing through roleplay then it remains subject to being lost until you pay for it. Though going into 'xp debt' to secure such an item should probably be an option.
The idea behind high lifestyle spending being that it makes having access to a certain level of gear assumed along with the ability to temporarily kit out buddies without paperwork. If somebody is a rich bishop and they want to send people on a mission in an aircraft? If they want to send three baddass level NPC mooks to back up the PCs due to only a few turning up?I do not want to keep track of who has non military aircraft or precisely how many badasses somebody like that has access to, the rich bishop probably has an air yacht or a shuttle and can send people off in it along with having 'sufficient' numbers of moderate badass level mooks.
Notably, PCs who are not rich are liable to have goals in the 15-18 range in their area or areas of specialty. Generic NPCs do not get goals higher than 12 or 13 at the extreme. When it comes to combat goals? Professional soldiers have goals of 9-10 (9 for shooting, 10 melee). Veterans 11, special forces 12. Generic Brother Battle have goals of 12 across most areas along with a lot of combat maneuvers.
To follow up from the previous, there is definitely jank and a few problematic parts to Kingdom Come but overall? It is really well written and feels authentic. There are really neat little touches like people treating you differently depending upon not just your local reputation but also how you are dressed.
Rock up in Milanese plate with golden spurs and an awesome brocaded coat atop your armour? As long as it is not dirty or damaged then people are calling you my lord and that they are honoured a knight such as yourself deems them worthy of attention.
Roam in wearing bloody rags? People ask if you were attacked or what happened to your nice clothes, etc.
Also good maces are severely overpowered as soon as you are fighting people wearing armour and it is also really worth practicing to work out which stances lead to riposte counters hitting the head when timed properly, if you get it right you can immediately murder anyone lacking a visor by crushing their face.
@oldfrightful I assume dog staffers leads to this:
I have been playing Kingdom Come - Deliverance.
It definitely has janky edges but is overall rather fun as well as being absolutely gorgeous.
Currently riding around on a horse I spent far too much money on in half stolen, half cheap plate armour and beating Hungarian mercenaries to death with a mace whilst keeping a longsword for cutting up bandits or stabbing people with visor lacking helmets in the face with.
EDIT: If you run into the 'Faint Hearted Knight' along the road and he challenges you to a duel, demand he stake his sword on the contest. His sword is probably the best longsword I have found in the game so far and has a base value of somewhere north of 2,500 silver, also he is terrible and easy to beat up.