Spoiler<GenTrigger> I guess I was wondering if you had any ideas how to create mechanics that encourage more number light situations for storytelling. Since I think our conversation last time was about if the system allows characters to kill deities or if it requires narrative fudgery, and stuff like that.
<DragonFogel> That might be easier to think about if you gave a specific example of what you're aiming for?
<GenTrigger> True
<Schazer> well tabletop in general tries to resolve various things (combat, tests of skill, and social engagements) as a numbers game
<Schazer> some games might handle combat differently to other "tests" and I think from a design perspective you need to figure that out first
<GenTrigger> Standard skill checks vs. combat checks hmmm
<Schazer> like
<Schazer> depending on the system, you can automatically do most things relevant to your skillset
<Schazer> unless you have to actively oppose another "person" to accomplish said thing
<Schazer> at which point the relevant skills are squared off and we see who came out on top
<Schazer> I think tabletops should be about risk/reward if you are using dice in some fashion to resolve how well you do a thing
<GenTrigger> That's an interesting point to keep in mind.
<Schazer> and combat is a scene with opposition that's easy to quantify, because the risk is obvious (death)
<Schazer> you can gussy that up with things like injuries or consequences but the guts of it is "fighting badly gets you killed"
<Schazer> when someone does roll the dice to test their character's skill, it should be clear to everyone (GM and players) what the stakes are exactly
<Schazer> it's going to cause dissatisfaction if, when the GM casually says "roll to check for traps" it turns out the party's gonna get monstered right by the front door if the rogue fucks up
<Uroplatus> Uroplatus is the genus of leaf tailed geckos
<GenTrigger> I can feel that.
<Uroplatus> Which are super cool
<Schazer> I think it'd be better if, if the GM's made the hallway dangerous, to give some preamble and then the team can actually root for the rogue
<GenTrigger> If they fuck up then they're punished, if they do well then they might not get the satisfaction of knowing how well they did, or even don't have the tension of the roll on their shoulders as it's happening.
<GenTrigger> I can dig that philosophy
<Schazer> tangentially, if you're not going to quantify monsters by their challenge rating/how many hit dice they have, then how does the party comprehend the danger of the encounter
<Schazer> From my understanding Eskero as a setting is not "everything is out to murder you" but more like "stay on your toes because the land's shifting beneath you"
<Schazer> particularly for a party that is a band of adventurers, I imagine it'd be different if you've got some very goal-oriented people who want to carve out their own niche on the world
<DragonFogel> What that suggests to me is using environmental cues to suggest the danger level of a particular encounter.
<GenTrigger> Yeah, I definitely always think about ways to make the environment something that's just as interesting to traverse as the monster obstacles.
<Schazer> a "hostile environment" literally fucks with you if it doesn't want you there
<DragonFogel> Like, if you're facing a powerful monster, the GM talks about the ground swaying as it walks, maybe if it's indoors the room gets darker as it comes nearer...
<DragonFogel> I guess I'm thinking of boss battle intros in general here, just that whole idea that a really strong monster gets an introduction.
<Schazer> paths lead into dead end gulches or swamps, it's cloudy/misty so you can't navigate by the stars, there's never any wild game around to eat and generally just being there wears on you
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<GenTrigger> Indeed, the environment has the sass of the deities and beings who shaped it, so the atmosphere is important to take in and read.
<DragonFogel> But with the environment being a thing, it feels like that can actually be part of the encounter? Or at least, that's something you want to encourage GMs to try.
<GenTrigger> So I wonder
<GenTrigger> How I'd expect the players to overcome that.
<GenTrigger> Or how I want them to struggle with it.
<Schazer> two options
<Schazer> you're going to have players who slog through it
<Schazer> and then you're gonna get the occasional "power gamer" (not intended here as a pejorative because manipulation like that fits the setting) whose whole jam is just
<Schazer> making the land itself be at peace with the party and their quest
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<DragonFogel> Hello Para.
<DragonFogel> Whoop, I guess that's the Secret Santa deadline.
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<DragonFogel> If someone wants to sneak in at the last second, speak now or forever hold your peace.
<Schazer> example: the Finnish mages in Stand Still Stay Silent
<Schazer> Lanni (one of the main characters) performs some sort of spell to guarantee moonlight on their train ride, which was generally a good thing
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<GenTrigger> I'd find that sort of play and leverage of abilities in that spirit to be clever and interesting.
<GenTrigger> Like, those are the sort of tools I want PCs to have access to, to solve problems.
<GenTrigger> Also this comic looks amazing, I'm diving right into it when I get a chance.
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<Schazer> I mean the problems you as a GM do put in front of the PCs should be scaled to their skills
<GenTrigger> Right
<Schazer> from a narrative standpoint, especially so if the characters' general motivation is to improve those skills
<Schazer> I'm thinking back to the QDB shadowrun campaign and like, we had at least three wizards on the team at any point and one competent hacker (who admittedly had a pokemon-style team of digibeasts but)
<Schazer> earlier on, one wizard was a tactical nuke and my character was a newbie wizard who still preferred to punch things
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<Schazer> but becoming good at wizarding was important to her as a character, so situations were needed where my character's magical skills being tested were important helped a lot
<Schazer> which brings to mind a different thing: character advancement and how does the game system handle it
<Schazer> shadowrun for example grants Karma and that's used for raw stat points, acquiring collateral like guns or new spells or new implants, or spent on skills
<Schazer> and you have to spend it between sessions
<Schazer> the Pokemon Tabletop though had a feat(?) you could take which would basically let you save your feat gain in reserve, allowing you to break the rules and gain a new skill mid-battle for instance
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<GenTrigger> Hmmm, quick question, when you say new guns do you mean as in equipment? or gun skills?
<Schazer> guns
<Schazer> physical guns
<GenTrigger> I've never really dug into shadowrun despite being interested.
<Schazer> gun skills is a separate thing
<GenTrigger> Are gun skills improved or determined by another system beyond Karma?
<GenTrigger> Other than Karma rather
<Schazer> well, because it's shadowrun, you can basically give yourself brain implants so you can download "how to pilot a helicopter"
<Sanzh> really disappointed QDB never downloaded a car/pizza, as far as I know
<Schazer> however cyberware interferes with your "essence", which needs to be mostly intact to be good at spellcasting
<Schazer> so wizards can't have implants mostly
<Schazer> I think shadowrun would be worth examining because it handles so many disparate skillsets
<Schazer> although I don't think the method of giving every conceivable action you'd want to perform in-game a relevant skill is the way to go either
<Schazer> especially when things are so mutable and someone in Eskero who's well-versed in swordplay can, in the right circumstances, basically make a work of art
<Schazer> also because under Shadowrun rules, Harv would be really really good at using throwing stars even though that makes no sense
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<Schazer> (they're a thrown weapon and I only took that because I wanted her to specialise in Grenades)
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<Schazer> basically she's godly at lobbing grenades by design but tangentially she ends up being pretty decent at all other thrown weapons as well
<GenTrigger> Blessed by the power of pitching.
<Schazer> we fixed this in FATE by basically making her a master of all things grenadely (because I had to invest a similar number of points in ranged weaponry to make her good with a grenade launcher) instead of multiple skills
<GenTrigger> I think that was a daredevil villain's power.
<Schazer> Harv is, arguably, a villain
<PickYerPoison> from what i remember shadowrun has a v obtuse rulebook
<PickYerPoison> network stuff was a nightmare when i tried to look into it
<GenTrigger> I'll glean what I can.
<Schazer> one thing I was thinking about was like
<Schazer> if Eskero is so narrative-focussed why not model your combat turns after narratives as well
<GenTrigger> I'm working on my small library of systems that I half-understand for inspiration-sake
<GenTrigger> And do explain
<Schazer> like a whole exposition-climax-resolution (add inciting incident/rising action/etc as appropriate)
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<GenTrigger> Interesting
<Schazer> have each turn of combat follow some kind of structure inspired by that and the fight at large should follow that structure?
<GenTrigger> I'm trying to twist my head around how that'd work but it's not quite getting there.
<GenTrigger> But at the very least it's a boss set of terms for the sections of combat.
<Schazer> I'm not fully up with your mythos but like, if mortals can change the world around them through Song, and some people sing through battle, then depending on how devout you are about it fighting is basically a very intimate/religious experience
<Sanzh> one system I played with had a mechanic (I think it was called, like, Tension? something pretentious) where with each round of combat attacks got an increasing modifier? which is a mechanical way of at least helping make battles build towards a climax and have increasing stakes, maybe
<GenTrigger> The current form has not everyone singing since not everyone is paired off with a deity right now, but everyone does have a song, which deities see and describe as a sort of resonance of fate. One thing happening after another and bouncing off of other actions.
<GenTrigger> So it's indeed a very spiritual concept.
<GenTrigger> That's interesting Sanzh
<GenTrigger> I'm jotting this all down btw
<GenTrigger> So sorry in the gaps, I'm just creating a pile of thoughts and concepts to mull over here.
<Schazer> thinking about character advancement
<Sanzh> (I haven't really been participating in this because I don't have much to contribute, but I've been following along)
<DragonFogel> I feel like the place to start is just, how do you imagine a battle flowing?
<DragonFogel> Ignore the numbers for now, what do you want players doing?
<Schazer> especially in like, FATE where your attributes are basically phrases which sum up some aspect of your character
<Schazer> what if character advancement entailed adding a new conditional/clarification to an existing aspect of your character?
<Schazer> or hoard some points and add a different aspect entirely
<GenTrigger> Interesting, what would an example be?
<Schazer> hrm lemme have a look at the classes you came up with
<GenTrigger> Because I'm imagining this playing into how the magic system works with those who do work with the powers from deities.
<GenTrigger> Because the issue I was having was that it's hard to create a system where there are a ton of possible domains that someone's character could be possibly using.
<DragonFogel> You basically have to go freeform for something like that.
<GenTrigger> But maybe a domain is a sort of word bank full of those phrases that add onto what they can do.
<GenTrigger> Nod
<Schazer> well, I guess your character sheet would start with <class> of <aspect>, <name>
<Schazer> e.g. Gossiper of Winged Beasts, Schazer
<Schazer> this could give me say, two sub-skill "trees" relating to being a Gossiper (one combat-useful and one less so)
<Schazer> and hell if you're an Aspect and shacked up to a deity then you get an extra "tree" for skills directly from the deity
<Schazer> if your character is not an Aspect then maybe they lose out on that tree but get to flesh out their class trees a bit quicker than an Aspect PC
<GenTrigger> I see, that's an interesting trade-off then.
<Schazer> the trees start mostly generic but players would be encouraged to specialise
<Schazer> so my Gossiper can hear news from distant lands but not on the wind, rather through birds blown off course
<GenTrigger> That works really well with the way I want abilities to work actually.
<Schazer> a combat-stronger character is one who has opted to spend most of their level-ups on fighty-sounding skills, perhaps quantified by a combat system that lets you tag skills
<Schazer> so I dunno let's say I've got a Brave of Coins
<Schazer> one of the Brave trees should be a weapon mastery (maybe someone might want to be a Weaponmaster instead but they'd probably lose in any given fight against a master of a particular weapon)
<Schazer> let's say it starts a sword user and then instead of just generically going Swords I spend one level up on Greatswords instead
<Schazer> this means if I lose my trusted sword and have to settle for the rapier some dead dude in a battlefield left lying around, I'm immediately at a disadvantage because I can tag fewer of my skills
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<Schazer> maybe you choose a bunch of skills that are best exploited at the start of combat, like analysing the playing field or psyching out your opponent and striking at their weak point
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<Schazer> but your similar-levelled opponent's three skills they chose might be in defensive reflexes (to counter incoming attacks), indomitable will, and something like battle endurance
<Schazer> and then I guess you need to work dice in there somehow to resolve whether the sneaky fucker gets an early kill in or the big guy works through it and beats down the opponent
<Sanzh> I kinda feel like there'd need to be some means of making up your own skills, given the breadth of aspects? FATE kinda does this with stunts, although almost all of the stunts they suggest are
<Sanzh> "+2 to something", which isn't mechanically interesting
<Sanzh> sorry for interrupting
<Schazer> nah it's cool
<Schazer> because when I talked about the above skills I intended them all as things the players would name themselves when they figured out character advancement
<Sanzh> ahh, right right
<Sai> The whole tagging thing makes it sound like fate tbh
<GenTrigger> I see, so they're much more thoughtful about what sort of character they're building, how they work and where these skills are useful and placing themselves in situations where that works the best for them.
<Sai> which kind of does that, but less focused
<GenTrigger> While also creating cohesion in the party since someone who's fighty isn't going to survive very well in the wild when things get more survivey.
<Schazer> yeah seeing as Gen's wanting something a bit more numbers-light FATE seemed a good inspiration
<Sai> I could see using it as a basis where players start with only 1-2 aspects, but get more as they 'level' if that's what you're suggesting
<Schazer> I think for each class type you need a rather generic combat skill tree and non-combat skill tree, unless the player really doesn't want to take a combat one for some reason
<Sanzh> I think with most kinda-narrativist things tend to lean towards either FATE or the PbtA games (dungeon world, apocalypse world, etc)
<Schazer> Aspects/god-contracted people can have an extra tree that's basically adding "elemental flair" from the get-go, /but/ anyone can do that eventually through specifying and adding symbolic elements as they level up
