Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Messages - Sabwones

Pages: [1] 2 3 ... 5
1
brainstorming & development / Re: Snuffed - A Morbid Hack
« on: February 11, 2016, 04:14:59 PM »
Another thing I need to think about is paring down some of the mechanics. The entire card-based NPC generation sounded fun on paper, but in practice it was clunky, hard to keep track of and didn't really add anything to the experience. This would mean rewriting some of the moves, the Gloom and Skinjacker in particular, but considering that we're considering adding more stuff for players to juggle, making some of the other stuff less cluttered might be a nice idea.

Spending Creep also might need less crunch to it - assigning limits to what's supposed to be weird ghost mojo feels a little stilted, whereas in-test last time, a situation came up where the Ripper's pet chainsaw gained a temporary supercharge by using the 'Drain Creep' aspect of the Traumatize move. It was a nice twist to the scene, it had a mechanical benefit (+1 to whatever Bert did next), and it was entirely organic without needing resource management.

Basically, I'm starting to think that rather than treating Creep like a resource that can be stockpiled, it could be simpler to treat it as a Surplus/Satisfied/Want balance.

You roll +Eerie at the start of the session. On a 10+ you've got Surplus. On a 7-9 you're okay, but you could be better. On a Miss you're going to start suffering if you don't feed.

Then, when you're in-game, you can declare 'I'm going to use my mojo to...' and then tell the MC what you want to do. The bigger the request, the more the player puts at stake, the more they have to gain and lose, so it's not a safe bet. That way Creep becomes a scarcer, but much more fluid and useful resource, without the need to stockpile it for future events.

Problem is, it winds up sounding a lot like the Influence move, which steps on another mechanic.

BLAAAAAAARGH this is hard.

2
brainstorming & development / Re: Snuffed - A Morbid Hack
« on: February 11, 2016, 04:26:40 AM »
Totally agree on that. I think the afterlife needs to be the supporting foundation more than the mortal world - that's something entirely on me to actually do when running these tests, but maybe some way of adding this to the playbooks would be useful, too. I'll have to chew it over some more.

3
brainstorming & development / Re: dedicated hack forums
« on: February 11, 2016, 04:04:17 AM »
Hi Vincent,

Due to the size of the thread and the amount of AP stuff now being done, could Snuffed get a hack subforum?

Merci beaucoup.

4
brainstorming & development / Re: Snuffed - A Morbid Hack
« on: February 11, 2016, 04:02:35 AM »
Two things. Firstly, do you think it's about time this got it's own sub-forums, the second is that being a murderhobo isn't always a bad thing, especially when you are literally a soul-eating monster. The issue for me is pressure. In AW, the monthly barter cost prevents turtling as an individual without significant preparation. Turtling as a group after gathering enough resources to be sustainable is excellent gameplay and strategy.

How about this: At the end of the session, spend X Creep (5, 10?). If you don't roll+barter spent instead. 10+, pick one, 7-9, MC picks two, 6- something bad. The options are related to the spirit fading, becoming less real, and leaking energy. Other players can boost you back up enough, but there is a constant pressure to "farm" the mortal realm for enough creep to survive. Using it to heal and boost is suddenly a serious cost. Teamwork is rewarded, but so is backstabbing to get an edge.

How does that sound?

I like the notion of putting players on a rolling platform to keep stuff moving, but I'm not sure if that might tip the balance in the favour of certain playbooks who can brute force Creep out of NPCs. I'm thinking maybe creating a new sheet for all the playbooks much akin to the 'Rage' section in the Revenant playbook, where you put down your drives, emotions, desires, etc.

You start off with some basic notes, then when you act upon them, you can flesh them out a little more. If someone helps you act upon them, you can expand your own, or agree to expand one-another's and mark XP for doing so. Once you've put, say, three or four notes into a section, you can work out what 'closure' would be to you, whether that's revenge, understanding, power, etc, at which point that aspect can be tapped to give you +1 ongoing during relevant situations.

Say, a Gloom has been developing their Desire route and they've come to the conclusion that they just want their work from their mortal life to get the recognition it deserves. Thereafter, whenever they use their skills as a performer to accomplish something meaningful to them, they can tap that Desire route to take +1 on the roll. MC caveat would still apply to prevent ludicrous spamming, as well as ensuring players create a specific enough end result.

No worries man! It's just a game. I'd still love to play but if you mean 1AM Sydney time I don't want to stay up that late.

Also, Spigot, totally sorry 'bout that. I do have another guy who was looking to play but couldn't make the session, so if you're interested in playing a one-shot, I'll see what I can whip up. American EST was what the last group were working on, but we only started that late because one of 'em finished work at midnight. Anyway, I'll see what I can do.

5
brainstorming & development / Re: Snuffed - A Morbid Hack
« on: February 10, 2016, 12:27:19 PM »
A key point that's been brought up in these playtests has been player motivation and bringing the group together, and now that I've had one 'mission' scenario and one 'sandbox' scenario played out, I've started to collate what needs fixing/fleshing out, so I'll keep a list here for keeping track:

* Give players more reasons to interact/team up with one another.
* Figure out how to make the playbooks more than inventive toolkits for causing pain.
* Collate moves into 'Public' and 'Specific' to help with cross-playbook move choices. Maybe alter/expand some playbooks to have viable selectable moves.

That being said, one thing I'm noticing right now is that this system lacks real long-term appeal. It's mechanically fine for one session, but I get the feeling that it's going to be hard for players to connect with, essentially, a bunch of antagonists whose only purpose is to hurt other people. It's essentially enforced murderhobo rules without the benefit of the cast being technically good guys. I'm kicking ideas around, and I'll come back to this in a few days ideally with a fresh perspective, but I'm getting this nagging feeling that this scenario and style would be better suited to a more intensive sit-down-and-play system than the more narrative-focused PBTA engine.

Blah. Here's hoping I can figure something out.

6
brainstorming & development / Re: Snuffed - A Morbid Hack
« on: February 10, 2016, 04:57:23 AM »
So hey, that thing I was trying to do actually happened. A couple of fine folks from the Drunk N' Ugly forums carved a bloody swathe through a small town in South Dakota, in an adventure we might finish a little later on, but as it stands, I think everything went rather well. Three hours of terrible people doing terrible things to perfectly nice NPCs, plus some really great critique at the end of it all. A great experience to play with these guys, and I can only hope I get to commit further atrocities in the future with people here, too.

One word of warning, there's some intermittent popping from the mic an other audio cockups throughout the recording. My b, yo.

The MP3

YouTube Links:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Aftermath & Critique

7
brainstorming & development / Re: Snuffed - A Morbid Hack
« on: February 08, 2016, 03:29:29 AM »
Aw Christ, I completely dropped the ball on this - I've found a group that can do 1AM EST Tuesday, and I can totally fork you in if you're free, but I got completely sidelined getting those guys set up that I didn't update you.

I am all kinds of freaking dumb, I swear to God. If you can't make it, I'll see if I can arrange a BFA-specific session.

8
brainstorming & development / Re: Snuffed - A Morbid Hack
« on: January 30, 2016, 03:19:17 AM »
That'd be ideal. Still getting details back from everyone.

9
brainstorming & development / Re: Snuffed - A Morbid Hack
« on: January 28, 2016, 11:11:15 AM »
Right! Wee update. I've found a couple of people over on the Drunk & Ugly forums who are also down for some shenanigans. I think a Saturday night is a good idea, maybe a Friday, depending, so if people could let me know what their timeslots/timezones are, I can start knocking stuff together.

You guys are neat.

10
brainstorming & development / Re: Snuffed - A Morbid Hack
« on: January 26, 2016, 08:57:23 AM »
That's exactly the point - it's kind of what makes a good slasher film. It's not the killing, but the build up and the tension beforehand.

KILL WITH SKILL

11
brainstorming & development / Re: Snuffed - A Morbid Hack
« on: January 26, 2016, 06:51:21 AM »
Ah, that's all groovy. Dont worry about crediting unless it's wholesale.

I'll have a riot around the interwebs and see who I can find to try this out.

Also, minor update - a conversation with one of the previous testers brought up a good point. Gaining Creep for just straight-up killing kind of makes the brute force skins a little overpowered in comparison to the more thinky characters who have to manipulate NPCs. An alternative would be to play that side of things more softly on the MC, awarding Creep when the players do suitably horrible, macabre or disgusting things, or possibly only when mortal NPCs are actually scared or shaken.

Blah. Something.

12
brainstorming & development / Re: Snuffed - A Morbid Hack
« on: January 25, 2016, 03:32:56 AM »
I've tried pbp a few times before and it's not been too great. I much prefer live.

13
brainstorming & development / Re: Snuffed - A Morbid Hack
« on: January 25, 2016, 02:45:52 AM »
pbp?

Well, Live would be preferable. I have Tabletop Simulator, but straight Skype would work fine.

14
brainstorming & development / Re: Snuffed - A Morbid Hack
« on: January 24, 2016, 04:32:02 PM »
Right. I think I want to organize a one-shot online, ideally with folks who are familiar with the PBTA system. Might record it for the youtubes. Is there a forum I can source that on?  Ant seem to find anything thus far...

15
brainstorming & development / Re: Snuffed - A Morbid Hack
« on: January 22, 2016, 03:33:26 AM »
If you want to take some ideas, by all means - if you wanted to draft over skins/etc if you could credit this system, I'd really appreciate it.

Pages: [1] 2 3 ... 5