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Topics - JasonT

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Monster of the Week / Use Magic: Spooky/Monstrous vs. all the rest
« on: March 23, 2014, 12:59:51 PM »
First, I should say that I just ran my first session of Monster of the Week last night, and it went great. What was intended to be a one-shot is now going to be an ongoing game because people loved it so much.

I had just one rules question that I was hoping folks here might be able to help out with: Does the Use Magic move potentially work differently for different playbooks? I kind of ruled on the fly that this was the case, and that just about any magical effect required some time to prepare or perform it, plus some kind of genre-appropriate explanation for what the hunter does to activate it. For instance, one hunter wanted to Use Magic in trying to banish a demon, reciting prayers in Latin like he'd seen characters do in Supernatural, but he didn't have anybody covering for him, so the demon attacked him mid-ritual.

The exception to this rule, I figured, might be The Spooky (and perhaps the Monstrous, who was not in play), who could draw on their dark power source to Use Magic instantaneously. The way I ruled this on the fly was that if the Spooky used magic immediately rather than cautiously preparing like everyone else, I could ask them to do something revealing their dark side right then and there (like the playbook suggests).

To be honest, the main reason I made these rulings was one or two of my players tried to use "I Use Magic to trap him with an invisible wall of force!" every time they needed to deal with a potential enemy, and it was getting a little dull. I pointed out that trapping a Duke of Hell probably required a bit heavier mojo, including drawing circles around them and such, but I'd already let the Spooky get away with it, so ... that's where that ended up going.

How do others approach improvised attempts to Use Magic – the same for everyone, or based on the context of what certain characters/playbooks seem like they'd be able to do?

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blood & guts / The lack of a "speed" stat
« on: August 18, 2012, 01:59:08 PM »
I'm curious: How do you get around the lack of a "speed" stat (like "Fast" or "Quick") in this game?

The only hack I've seen that had anything like such a stat is Dead Weight, and presumably only because parkour is a central aspect. In AW and most hacks, though, I feel like a LOT of diverse actions get lumped together under Act Under Fire, making Cool into something of an uber-stat (at least until you take moves that let you Act Under Fire with other stats). You end up using it for everything from keeping your shit together under a hail of bullets to madly scrambling out of the way under a hail of bullets, right?

I also have a hard time reconciling the idea that someone with high Cool is both rational/calm and amped/light on their feet – but maybe I'm trying to turn a system based around personality descriptors into a system based around capabilities, which I don't mean to do...

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blood & guts / Regrouping Go Aggro/Manipulate around Coercion/Convincing
« on: August 07, 2012, 09:52:10 AM »
I've been trying to rethink some moves for my group (soon to be trying In Nomine with Apocalypse World rules), thinking about how they typically approach social situations. They absolutely love BSing NPCs, misrepresenting who they are or what their motives are; I wanted to make bluffing more explicitly part of the moves and somewhat separate from leverage/dealmaking (which has additional supernatural implications in In Nomine). Meanwhile, I think they will have a problem with Go Aggro's requirement to follow threats of violence with violence, but it'd be nice to have the option there still.

I ended up with these two basic moves as a result, and I was hoping I could run them by folks here to see whether I'm leaving open obvious loopholes or otherwise breaking how the game should work. (Versus NPC versions only so far.)

Convince Someone
When you you tell someone something they're inclined to be skeptical of, roll+smooth. On a 10+, they believe you. On a 7-9, they believe you, but the GM also picks 1 as appropriate.
  • They'll want some additional proof of whatever you claim before they tell you anything or let you do anything that could get them in trouble.
  • They decide after the fact (CD minutes) that they were right to be skeptical of you.

Coerce or Manipulate
When you use leverage to get someone to do what you want, the type of leverage determines your roll. If you're threatening with something they don't want, roll+hard. If you're offering something they do want, roll+smooth. On a 10+, if they refuse, you can choose to do them harm (if you're positioned to do so) or to get +1 ongoing against them until the balance of power changes. On a 7-9, you get the same options if they refuse, or they can choose to demand some other positive incentive in exchange for complying (like a bribe, or a promise of protection not just from your threat, but from other enemies).

The first is basically designed for the scene where angels/demons wander into crime scenes, morgues, and other places they don't belong, claiming to be with the cops/FBI/whoever. The second is basically for when the players know they have some advantage, not just something to trade. I'd appreciate any input!

(Apologies if this is in the wrong forum. Still getting the lay of the land here.)

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brainstorming & development / In Nomine hack
« on: July 30, 2012, 05:14:58 PM »
I went looking for a hack for In Nomine, and all I found was this. It looks nice enough, but I'd like to play with something that doesn't just take In Nomine's material whole-cloth, and doesn't just use AW's 2d6 system as-is. (The 111 and 666 intervention mechanics from In Nomine are non-negotiable for me and my players.) I already have an embarrassing amount of notes for how I might approach this, but here are some highlights to give a sense of where I'm headed:

1) Replacing AW's 2d6 system with a 3d6 system, which means a miss is 9-, a mixed success is 10-13, and a hit is 14+. (I picked these ranges because the odds of landing in the mixed success zone or the hit zone are within a few percentage points of the odds from the original system. ) A 111 roll represents the Blessed Trinity or the unity of Body, Mind, and Soul, and is thus a victory for the forces of Heaven. A 666 roll represents … well, take a guess.

2) Characters will have a playbook based on their Superior (Archangel or Demon Prince) matched with a cover sheet based on their angelic Choir or demonic Band. Each Choir/Band has a starting move in the form of its resonance, and can choose from a short list of other starting moves or Songs (which are basically spells). Ofanim, for instance, get to pick between a bonus to maneuvering with vehicles, and any of the Songs of Motion.

3) Rather than (or in addition to?) boosting stuff through XP, you gain Favor by furthering your Superior's Word (kind of like getting XP for fulfilling your Alignment in Dungeon World). If you want something that can only come from a Superior, like a Song or Attunement, you have to spend a certain amount of Favor to get it. Each Superior's playbook has all the original Choir and Servitor attunements from the book, but only a selection of Songs thematically relevant to that Superior (and an option to get Songs from the playbooks of allied Superiors, at an additional cost in Favor).

4) A lot of the stuff that requires consulting a 6-item table in In Nomine is getting collapsed into the full success/partial success system here. For instance, rather than dealing with 6 different degrees of how well you sense emotions as an Elohite, on a partial success, you get to ask 1 of 3 questions about a target's emotional state; on a full success, you get to ask all 3 questions.

5) I'm having a harder time figuring out how I want to deal with Forces, Characteristics, and modifiers. I could just ditch Characteristics altogether, basing rolls on your Forces in one of three areas (Corporeal for physical moves, Ethereal for intellectual and technical moves, and Celestial for social and emotional moves), but since Forces are always at least 1 in each area, that makes it tricky to assign negative modifiers to any stat.

Alternatively, I could just use the Characteristics from the original game, and say that Characteristics in each area just need to sum up to the Forces of that area: If you have 3 Corporeal Forces, for instance, you can have +3 Strength and +0 Agility, or +4 Strength and -1 Agility, and so on. That kind of gets screwy, however, when you get to discussing 18-Force celestials who should basically be maxed out in all stats. Whatever the case, I want to keep in mind that a +3 in Apocalypse World (2d6) is roughly equivalent to a +4.5 in this system (3d6), so modifiers shouldn't really get above 4 or 5 unless you're talking about the biggest badasses of Heaven and Hell.

I'm looking forward to any feedback you folks might have. I'm very new to AW and its variants, so I'm open to hearing obvious criticisms I might have missed. Thanks in advance.

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