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Topics - Ereshkigal

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AW:Dark Age / New playbook for DA: the spymaster.
« on: September 16, 2014, 03:34:58 PM »
Well, i found Dark Age lacking of a roguish playbook, someone who could be a spy like Varys (from Game of thrones) or a thief like Garrett (from thief) as the player chooses. I felt the need of a spy in my playtest campaign, and since vincent suggested me to create one, here i am :)
This is the first draft of the playbook, if you like it, please help me making it better, a couple of rights aren't of my exact liking but it's a start. Since english is not my first language i could use some help refining the various sentences. Comments and critiques are very welcomed.

Here's the playbook: http://www.mediafire.com/view/cbl76g006a1obdn/Spymaster.jpg

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AW:Dark Age / What's the AW:DA font?
« on: September 15, 2014, 06:33:51 PM »
I'm making a playbook to cover some aspects of the game i find missing and i'm struggling finding the font to match the one used in the playtest doc. Anyone knows it? (and as a "gift" i'll post the playbook in this forum when it's finished :p)

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AW:Dark Age / Some feedbacks from Italy
« on: September 11, 2014, 09:40:37 PM »
Last weekend we playtested the game at a gdr convention in my area. I was the MC and i had the time to collect some thought when we headed home. I'll keep it simple, but we can discuss about it further in case:

WHAT WE LIKED A LOT
- The stronghold creation. It reminded us the Covenant creation from Ars Magica (a game i always liked for various reasons) and it was a good starting point to dive into the narration because all the players were involved in some way with the stronghold and the people.
- The experience system. A lot of options and a built in system to prevent abuses (i had some in the past in AW, Dark Ages felt a lot more "safe" against powerplayers)
- The Join Single Combat move. You can win a duel by taking damage. Brilliant. (there is BUT sadly, some MC could ruin the players game by spending 2 in "position" every time. Players will be more careful because Harm is really deadly in DA)
- The Aid move. Streamlined, no rolls required, beautifully simple.
- How the harm is handled and the lack of an "healer" playbook. When you can heal, the harm is almost meaningless and the healer mandatory (that's why i disliked the Angel in AW). When you don't have the option to heal, you can "fear" for you character and you tend to resort to violence only when you can't do anything else to avoid it. A lot more pathos at the table, i love it. Please never ever bring an "healer" playbook in the game. (ok you can heal using the enchantments, but there are sacrifices involved. So it's good)

WHAT WE DIDN'T LIKE
- Weird. Too many contact the other world rolls, too many "weird" people. My players all had +1 or +2 in weird and they kept contacting the other world, after a while it felt like it was the norm to speak with entities.
- The lack of Act under fire or something similar. I think the game could have a move to handle stressful and risky situation, like sneaking behind someone or breaking undetected inside an enemy camp. Leap into action feels wrong when doing something cautious but potentially deadly. This imho was MAJOR, because if there is an archetype i love in medieval settings, is the rogue.
- The lack of 2 archetypes i feel they are needed: the rogue and the spymaster. The outranger just isn't what i expected him to be and i didn't like the "step out of earthly life" move on him (while i like it on the wizard), so i feel the need of an assassin/trapper/sneaky playbook. The spymaster instead would be someone more like Varys from A song of ice and fire, an educated person who can speak his way out of the most dire situation and can collect knowledge to leverage people. Those two playbooks would be really good to have more "social" oriented campaign in a medieval setting, something i would love to play.
- The setting in the real world. It was somewhat limiting, but i understand the reasoning behind this choice.
- The absence of a move to fight something different from a single enemy or a war company. When you fight 3 vs 5, is that a join single combat? It's not a 1v1 and the fiction most of the time doesn't allow for "duels". We didn't understand how to handle these situations.

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AW:Dark Age / war companies...
« on: September 03, 2014, 01:50:05 PM »
Ok, i want to create a war company but i can't find the rules to assign the various values like the ones for the people. And i thought the war-captain would have a war company (judging by his name) but in the playbook there isn't a rule to allow him to have and create one (like the gangs in AW) but you have "the right to roll your company's war".
Am i missing something?

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Apocalypse World / Suggest me some "different" apocalypse :)
« on: June 23, 2014, 05:09:35 PM »
So, i'll run soon enough another AW campaign. And while i'll always ask my players what kind of Apocalypse they want, i would like to give them some inputs to ponder on. Last campaign my players wanted a Mad Max Apocalypse, and while they liked it, i hated it very much.

Things i will avoid at all costs:
- Classical Nuclear Apocalypse
- Terminator or Matrix Apocalypse
- Zombie Apocalypse
- Battlestar Galactica Space Exodus Apocalypse

Things i'm considering:
- Nausicaa or The 100 Apocalypse
- Ice Age Apocalypse
- Waterworld Apocalypse

Do you have some suggestions to have a different spin on the Apocalypse World?

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AW:Dark Age / I'm interested in playtesting...
« on: June 23, 2014, 04:53:41 PM »
But is the rulebook available anywhere? can't seem to find it...

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Apocalypse World / Something about harm that i never understood
« on: November 10, 2013, 10:43:13 AM »
I need some clarification about harm since next session my PCs want to assault an enemy gang.

When two gangs fights, the bigger gang inflicts more damage and suffer less damage. And that's easy.
When a single person fights a gang, the gang inflicts a lot more damage and suffer far less damage. And that's easy too.
When a gunlugger with NTBFW fights a gang, it's the same as the first case. Ok.

Now the troubles:
1)When two or more PCs fights a gang with different weapons, how much damage they inflict to the gang?
2)When a gunlugger with NTBFW and some other PCs fights a gang, how much damage they inflict? Are they considered a medium gang?
3)When a chopper and his gang plus a gunlugger with NTBFW fights another gang, what happens?
4)When 2 npcs open fire on a single PC and they inflict harm as estabilished, how much is that harm? Is the sum of the two weapons? But if that's the case, isn't this damage BIGGER than the damage a gang would inflict? Or you should use the gang damage even if they aren't a gang?
5)When a gunlugger with NTBFW fights a gang, is always considered a battle if the conflict is open? (i.e.: not an aggro or something done by stealth but guns against guns) If not, when it's not a battle?

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Apocalypse World / Seize something by force and creativity
« on: October 21, 2013, 09:49:28 AM »
Easy enough question i think... but i better explain it with an example:

Jeremy the brainer has used the violation glove in front of Grungi, an npc. After a while in a heated situation Jeremy wants to seize by force Grungi to use the glove on him. He rolls and fail, so the MC can make an hard move and this move could be "take away their stuff" and Grungi could take his glove, could "inflict harm" without taking the glove, could "activate their stuff downside" by ripping the glove or anything the MC likes since he can make a move hard as he wants.

But what if the roll was 7-9 or even 10+? Grungi could "trade harm" since seize by force makes PC suffer some harm, but could he lock Jeremy in a hold, or make him trip to run away or something similar that doesn't involve the harm part? Could Grungi throw Jeremy out of a window in the process to "trade harm for harm"?

So the question is: what an MC can do when a PC rolls 7-9 on a seize by force? Is the damage already the slightly worse outcome or you can add something more? (like if you roll 10+ you suffer harm as estabilished, on 7-9+ you suffer harm as estabilished plus a worse outcome, on a 6 the MC can make an hard move)

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roleplaying theory, hardcore / AW - When an MC should kill a PC?
« on: October 15, 2013, 02:49:59 PM »
The MC should be a fan of the characters so it is hard for me to decide when the time for a character it's over. It's a difficult decision because not every player can handle the death of a beloved character and most of the time when a player loses a character unwillingly also loses some of the will to play that particular game.

In my particular situation i've a player who almost always do the worst possible thing in every situation because he wants an escalation in violence. Seems fine at the first glance, but every one (other players included) in my AW started to hate him and he made very powerful enemies (i.e.: he declared a war against a warlord with 300 well armed thugs by killing 6 of them and sending back to the warlord parts of them, signign the murders using their blood as ink). Now, ofc i won't kill him right away as a move because it wouldn't be interesting, but if i have to be honest with myself and the warlord (that he created when i first asked questions in the first session), he should die in his sleep pretty soon.

So, when enough is enough and you should kill a PC?

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Apocalypse World / read a sitch and ambushes:
« on: October 14, 2013, 10:58:18 PM »
Tonight i had a situation where i wanted an npc knock out the gunlugger hitting him in the head from behind with a bottle.
The gunlugger was humiliating the chopper in a fist fight and one loyal member of his gang decided to knock him over because he was tired of the continuous threats made by the gunlugger to the gang and his leader (my move was to deal harm), so he attacked from behind while the gunlugger was holding the chopper threatening to break his fingers.

The gunlugger demanded a +sharp roll to see if he was surprised by this gang member (like reading a sitch with the only purpose to know the true position of the enemy). He rolled 12, so he saw the attacker before being knocked out.

This outcome really bothers me for 2 reasons:
1) Whenever i decide to use moves like "capture someone" or "divide them", they can call for a "reading a situation" to avoid bad things.
2) It makes "sharp" people almost impossible to surprise, because even with 7 they can ask the right question: "what's the true position of my enemies?". I don't think reading a sitch was designed with that purpose in mind.

So my questions are:
Should a player be entitled to roll to reading a sitch when surprised retroactively? Or should they read a charged situation before if they think they could be ambushed, and if they don't, well... they didn't think the situation was charged and so they are ambushed and they have to suck it up?


p.s.: stupid side question, in my AW the players are gaining almost an advancement per session, is that normal? I feel like it's too high, what do you think?

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