General WoD Discussion #2: Its time to Celebrate!

[MugaSofer]

If no-one else is interested/available, I could probably ST a quick game. I only have the Rules Update, though.

Balance != compiling. Balance is do the rules work, compiling is a specifically computer programming term to represent technical function without direction or application. You can crash a computer by making it compile every digit of pi, a human will realize what's up and say "screw this noise". That's being mindful and that's good.

Emptying a bathtub isn't faster by using a bigger ladle, it's faster by pulling the plug. Think around not through the block. Y'know?

Storyteller innovation is a limited resource. Many STs, often including myself, just want to run a game; there's enough work in building a story without building the system as well.

Throwing enough this limited resource at problems will fix them. But if a game is too much work for the ST, only ST's willing to put in vast amounts of work (read: not all of them) will want to use it. A lot of people want to just play something else where all this has been done for you, ahead of time, and all the ST has to do is run every single NPC while refereeing the players and keeping the plot going at the same time.

If you look at my simulation a few posts above yours, you will see that there's hardly any "whittling" involved. If you're using a weapon bigger than a knife, every successful attack of yours will deal at least two points of damage. If the new combat paradigm has a problem, and I'm not convinced if it is a problem, then it's that it may be too hard to score at least one success.

... that was in reference to the nWoD, where it would always require multiple solid hits to max out someone's Health track. I was pointing out that the old system had problems, but worked overall. The new system has much better mechanics, but also worse problems.

I confess I am not sure what you're talking about.

I said that if you knew what the system was aiming for, you could handle it. You said that it was easier when you could ad-lib modifiers instead of ring stuck with a list of conditions. I said the conditions list is not exhaustive, and simply shows how these would work, and further that the difference between "ad-lib modifiers" and "conditions" is that the game gave ad-lib modifiers a title and that's it.

How did we go from there to the above? How did we go from me saying you haven't actually lost anything to minmaxing modifiers? I thought this stemmed from whether or not it was too much presumed workload for the ST.

In which case, no. Saying "you've got Blinded as a condition while in the fog" is actually easier than explaining everything Blinded does, and is identical to telling a player they are blind in the nonGMC rules. You point to the book and keep playing, maybe brush up on being blinded yourself (or what slight obscuring does, or whatever you decided the fog does) before hand so you know what you're getting into.

... I replied to a comment about minmaxing modifiers and keeping things in the "sweet spot" by pointing out that adlibbing modifiers is less conductive to minmaxing and more conductive to keeping things in the "sweet spot" than putting them on cards and giving them to the players.

Especially, although I didn't say this, when said cards are premade and specific cards are referenced continually by the rules.

At a table, this is a non-issue. It takes seconds to clarify and is what the ST is supposed to do; my only concern is having to drop the fiction as give a rules statement maybe breaking immersion.

At a play by post, well, depends on style of players. For a crunchier game, of any system, you would have to stop or be ready for interuption, and action scenes would consist of lots of brief posts instead of long ones. But play by post naturally runs afoul of things that are no big deal at a table, and I'm still learning to cope with those issues.

Indeed. I was responding to the claim that Conditions solve this problem, which only effects PBP.

That's rather Othering and offensive. Please don't make blanket statements about labeled groups.

Sorry, who am I supposed to be Othering and labelling? It was certainly not my intention.

Everything I've seen and heard falls into two camps– people who played it and said it works fine, or people who did not play and only concocted scenarios to prove it would fail. Give it a shot and see how it actually works. I honestly think that the GMC rules don't do anything different, they are just very aware of how, despite what you'd think from reading, stuff actually happens in a game. I think they are cognizant of the outcome of their and merely wrote the rules in such a way as to account for that, and most people are upset not at the content but the presentation.

I certainly can't wait to try out the new rules in a less ... artificial environment. Hopefully they play better than I expect them too, based on what I know.

However.

Firstly, I find it mildly offensive that you are making such a blanket statement labelling everyone who disagrees with you on this.

I've seen plenty of people raving about how the new system solves everything with only the most cursory read-over, let alone an actual playtest. I've also seen plenty of people who haven't played it insist that all the problems dissapear in play. A lot of people don't mention if they have played it or not, but I think there are people who have dismissing worries and criticizig; I wouldn't want to try and divine anything as concrete as a ratio, though I think more people who've played it are on the dismissing side.

You can do that without triggering their defense at all. Remember, tossing crates at them isn't an attack, it's affecting the scenery. You could chuck armfuls of ice from an ice machine onto the floor, toss your heavy wallet into a light fixture for a flash and pop, dash a handful of change at their face to make them blink, splash water from the gutter up as a surprise... You don't hav to aim at them for these almost at all. Just get the right general area.

Those either affect the area or would, I assume (or know from the book) allow defense. Then again, you apparently wouldn't allow defense for a falling crate?

Also, for the bloke who said tilts were ridiculous because an earthquake on a featureless desert was lethal? No it's not. Tilts are combat only. That not earthquake while you're chilling, that's earthquake while you're running for your life and there is an abundance of sharp things and chaos. If you're chill, tilts don't apply.

I'm not sure about this, but I'm guessing the complaint was regarding the location? Presumably deserts are relatively safe to be earthquaked in, although they might through your aim off and so on.

[SiuiS]

If no-one else is interested/available, I could probably ST a quick game. I only have the Rules Update, though.

Neat!

Storyteller innovation is a limited resource. Many STs, often including myself, just want to run a game; there's enough work in building a story without building the system as well.

Throwing enough this limited resource at problems will fix them. But if a game is too much work for the ST, only ST's willing to put in vast amounts of work (read: not all of them) will want to use it. A lot of people want to just play something else where all this has been done for you, ahead of time, and all the ST has to do is run every single NPC while refereeing the players and keeping the plot going at the same time.

I just don't see how much more ST innovation is needed now. It looks zero sum when compared to the old set of rules, or a net positive evaluate the 'new problems' are acute but less intensive than the 'old problems'. The only difference is the older problems were emergent, and so potentially dismissible.

Hmm. That might be the key. Will think on it.

... I replied to a comment about minmaxing modifiers and keeping things in the "sweet spot" by pointing out that adlibbing modifiers is less conductive to minmaxing and more conductive to keeping things in the "sweet spot" than putting them on cards and giving them to the players.

Especially, although I didn't say this, when said cards are premade and specific cards are referenced continually by the rules.

That does make more sense, thank you.

I don't really think it is more gamable, myself. As I've said, it's descriptive examples not prescriptive lists. But we will have to wait a while and see how play unfolds over time. And we need an aggregate, as ST application has weight.

Sorry, who am I supposed to be Othering and labelling? It was certainly not my intention.

It seems like you were justifying a position by lumping opposition into 'those guys' and dismissing them wholesale. It also seen like it wasn't intentional and was a language blip, which is why I bought it up.

Firstly, I find it mildly offensive that you are making such a blanket statement labelling everyone who disagrees with you on this.

I've seen plenty of people raving about how the new system solves everything with only the most cursory read-over, let alone an actual playtest. I've also seen plenty of people who haven't played it insist that all the problems dissapear in play. A lot of people don't mention if they have played it or not, but I think there are people who have dismissing worries and criticizig; I wouldn't want to try and divine anything as concrete as a ratio, though I think more people who've played it are on the dismissing side.

I can't apologize, unfortunately, as that is my experience. An overwhelming number of of the people who I've seen dislike the fall out, continue on to say "and that's why I won't play it", indicating no actual experience. I'm not trying to use a blanket dismissal (and appreciate the irony here, I really do!) but those do seem to be the way things go; those people who tried it out say "it's cool" and those who only run sims don't like the numbers they get.

Which is why I'm pushing for a play test! I'll be the first to shut up and accept opinion from folks who have it an honest shake.

Those either affect the area or would, I assume (or know from the book) allow defense. Then again, you apparently wouldn't allow defense for a falling crate?

Affect the area; you're not hitting a guy with crates for damage, you're fouling his range of motion. Think ball bearings on the floor, not buckshot.

I'm not sure about this, but I'm guessing the complaint was regarding the location? Presumably deserts are relatively safe to be earthquaked in, although they might through your aim off and so on.

About the ridiculousness in general. Tilts only apply in combat (specifically, otherwise you use conditions). So complaining about how tilts work outside of combat is silly. They aren't supposed to exist outside of combat.

This is admittedly a barely saving grace, because the math on those tilts is terrible... In sims. Not sure about in practice.

[MugaSofer]

Whelp, if people have any character ideas they want to put forward, I can rig up with a plot they'd all be involved in. Any subsystems you're particularly interested in trying should probably be at least somewhat usable for your character, but beyond that you can go crazy.

Supernatural Merits should in theory be balanced against other Merits, so I'm not going to ban them; on the other hand, I will be simulating NPC Breaking Points and psychology and so on, so firefights with trolls in broad daylight will have consequences and such; the main point of this is to get our simulation out of white-room territory, so I'm going to be enforcing a bit more detail than I normally would generally.

Oh, and since a big part of GMC seems to be the shock of having your nice little reality ripped away, people who already know about the supernatural are probably not a good idea. Beyond the mechanics already in the book, anyway; you can be a cultist or a psychic, but no demon-hunters, 'k?

[Turalisj]

Hmmm... I'm thinking about making a detective who has a knack for "feeling the connections" between objects (psychometry, but isn't aware of it).

[Friv]

Okay. I'm going off of having this exact conversation elsewhere. Someone said use the terrain, toss a crate to inflict a tilt, and a writer said "exactly". I know you don't always need to roll an attack to do it and you don't always need a critical to do it.

Personally, I would expect the ST to give the bad guy a dramatic failure, if only for the WP refresh so he can clobber the good guy next round, if tits aren't in play. Dynamism is available, I don't understand why it isn't expected.

Because it moves us back to Binder Of Houserules town, which is the place that I hate.

I read the rules, and didn't see anything about tossing a crate to inflict tilts; the tilts that I saw used attacks, so I believed that attacks were meant to be how tilts were inflicted. The writers, apparently, assumed otherwise.

Because that isn't in the rules, the writers and I are now playing a different game. Because the Tilts are both apparently critical and really, really vaguely defined, my actions are dependent entirely on whether my image of how easy or difficult a task is matches up perfectly with the ST's image of the same, at which point I might as well not use the rules at all because a freeform game where everyone creates a five-point list of "things I'm good at" would be just as effective.

Is that not good?

(For those not up on the conversation, the "that" in question was the degree of difference the new rules apply to a 2-die skill differential)

And no, not really.

The scale goes pretty far. You can easily get up to 10-15 dice in an area of expertise. Having a narrow edge over someone translate into a near-certainty means that it is very easy for tiers to develop where everyone is utterly clobbered if they ever face an NPC who is even slightly better than them, while utterly clobbering anyone who is even slightly worse, at which point, once again, you don't really need to roll, you can just use a system where "higher number wins".

In direct roll-offs it's not generally so bad. In combat, because a one-die gap is being applied twice and a massive advantage is being given to the first successful roll, it really, really is.

To use a non-ax murderer example, because attacking full-out is generally a dumb move, let's say that a cop is walking the beat and he comes across a thug. The thug gets snippy, and the cop decides to knock some sense into him. Neither guy is declaring for murderous intent.

Our cop is a Beat Cop and our thug is a Gangbanger. The cop wants to intimidate the thug by injuring him a little, and the thug wants to lay a few punches on the cop so that he can keep running this little slice of heaven. Neither one is using a weapon.

Thug has five dice to hit and Defense 4, and the officer has five dice to hit and Defense 5, plus one armor. If they use the one-roll combat they're evenly matched. Either one can win. But that rule is optional and isn't in play right now because the cop is a player and he has realized...

With long-form, we can pretty much call it now, because +1 Defense and 1 Armor means that the officer can do whatever he wants. The thug is at a chance die for his base action. If he makes an all-out attack he can get up to two dice, which has a 13% chance of dealing a single point of Bashing but which also lets the cop beat the crap out of him. If he spends Willpower, the chance of injury goes up to 26% per Willpower spent, giving him the average ability, over four rounds, to do a single point of damage. If he spends Willpower and tries to inflict a Tilt or make a called shot, the listed penalties take him back to a Chance die, although as mentioned maybe he can do some Tilts with a basic roll? The rules don't actually say what that roll is.

The cop, meanwhile, has a base 30% chance of hitting. If he spends a Willpower, that chance increases to 76%, with a 14% chance of just winning. Two Willpower, and he's almost certain to have ended the fight.

From 1 point of Defense.

[Water_Bear]

I just don't see how much more ST innovation is needed now. It looks zero sum when compared to the old set of rules, or a net positive evaluate the 'new problems' are acute but less intensive than the 'old problems'. The only difference is the older problems were emergent, and so potentially dismissible.

Hmm. That might be the key. Will think on it.

That's pretty much the crux of it.

Stuff like the Radiation Spear is the result of strange interactions between obscure rules; it's almost certainly never going to come up, and if it does the solution is to say "stop being a munchkin" to whoever brought it up.

Stuff like the large number of Chance Die in combats or the general lack of definition of how things like Tilts work is going to start being a problem immediately and the situations will keep coming up; any solution needs to be simple enough to occur to the ST immediately without disrupting play and applicable enough to fit any future variation of that glitch.

As much as people might complain about "compiling," the rules really ought to work with minimal ad libbing. After all, the main reason RPGs have rules at all is to avoid the "I shot you!" / "No you didn't!" dead-end; if the rules aren't consistent and known, it becomes an obstacle to actually playing the game.

[SiuiS]

Rules quibble; the Stun ability on a weapon doubles the weapon's Weapon Modifier(?) when calculating the odds of stunning someone (their STA). The sap, a stun weapon, has... A weapon mod of 0. So it's not actually better than any other weapon for inflicting stun in any way? I guess you can stun someone with like, a sap shot to the knee now, but that's just weird.

Because it moves us back to Binder Of Houserules town, which is the place that I hate.

I... Don't believe it should? Again, I'm not saying attack someone. Maybe knock over a book case; the point is now that there is an obstacle in the way, the other guy has to expose himself to get to you. Maybe he jumps the crates. Maybe he trips. Maybe he takes his turn to dash around. Maybe he knows you're setting him up and just waits. The point being, use terrain, not make as-ilib special attacks.

While you're fighting this guy, you could also intimidate him, trick him, bribe him, shout for help, call the cops... That's my point. It's not a "two fighters enter, one leaves and gains a level" situation. The entire framing of the issue is wrong because its rooted in old school murderhobo-ing. Toss a crate is shorthand for "break up the tunnel vision by pointing out and introducing the world around you".

Aha. Here we are.

Tilts replace the existing combat rules for Fighting Blind, Immobilized, Knockdown, Knockout, and Stun effects. They also provide a new way of handling drugs, poisons, sickness, and environmental and weather effects, but only as they apply to combat. Out of combat, use the normal rules for these effects.

Throwing hard to bypass debris on the floor is an environmental change.

I read the rules, and didn't see anything about tossing a crate to inflict tilts; the tilts that I saw used attacks, so I believed that attacks were meant to be how tilts were inflicted. The writers, apparently, assumed otherwise.

Because that isn't in the rules, the writers and I are now playing a different game.

Okay. This is understandable.

Because the Tilts are both apparently critical and really, really vaguely defined, my actions are dependent entirely on whether my image of how easy or difficult a task is matches up perfectly with the ST's image of the same, at which point I might as well not use the rules at all because a freeform game where everyone creates a five-point list of "things I'm good at" would be just as effective.

Um. No. See, your actions aren't based on how difficult they are in the end; even straight nWoD doesn't have the ST telling you any penalties or bonuses until you've declared a roll, meaning stuff can be surprisingly hard even there. Wanting to know the difficulty before tossing isn't a rules issue.

I understand the problem of not playin the game the way the designers are. I also note they are putting in as much as they can to make sure you're playing the way they are.

no, not really.

Okay. I personally find a system giving the edge to a psychopathic murderer over joe blow appropriate for a horror game.

The scale goes pretty far. You can easily get up to 10-15 dice in an area of expertise. Having a narrow edge over someone translate into a near-certainty means that it is very easy for tiers to develop where everyone is utterly clobbered if they ever face an NPC who is even slightly better than them, while utterly clobbering anyone who is even slightly worse, at which point, once again, you don't really need to roll, you can just use a system where "higher number wins".

Well, now that doesn't really pan out. The actual dice differences – and this the percentage chance – is still the same. This has nothing to do with the God-Machine rules update; only the damage boost hanged anything and that's a hack from preGMC times.

Second, I think that can be a problem in theory but rarely in actuality. The change in XP expenditure means you now are not incentivized to be an awesome one or two trick pony; you can spread your attributes around instead of having big spikes, and you don't need to resign yourself to only ever having the attributes you started with. So suddenly, the game goes from having characters where one has 10-13 dice in weaponry out the gate, and another has similar in, say, investigation, you get two characters with more average scores in both. You've still got a chance to succeed, and the system is implicitly supposed to penalize you a close to 1-3 dice as possible (though the blue book did such a bad job of this it's funny), and the guy who brings five or six dice to a difficult encounter, net, should have a decent chance of winning.

The game is built so that four dice is actually pretty good. People just didn't see that because the expected bounds were so poorly communicated. There's no need for a character to build up to such heights. If they do anyway, it means it is important to them, narratively, to do so. In which case, at ten dice (best possible attribute and best possible skill) you're a paragon of humanity, why the Hel shouldn't you almost auto-succeed? You're batman.

The GMC update also updates the expectations as assumptions that go into the game. Not keeping that in mind will cause discongruity.

In direct roll-offs it's not generally so bad. In combat, because a one-die gap is being applied twice and a massive advantage is being given to the first successful roll, it really, really is.

Hmm. What do you mean applied twice?

To use a non-ax murderer example, because attacking full-out is generally a dumb move, let's say that a cop is walking the beat and he comes across a thug. The thug gets snippy, and the cop decides to knock some sense into him. Neither guy is declaring for murderous intent.

Our cop is a Beat Cop and our thug is a Gangbanger. The cop wants to intimidate the thug by injuring him a little, and the thug wants to lay a few punches on the cop so that he can keep running this little slice of heaven. Neither one is using a weapon.

Thug has five dice to hit and Defense 4, and the officer has five dice to hit and Defense 5, plus one armor. If they use the one-roll combat they're evenly matched. Either one can win. But that rule is optional and isn't in play right now because the cop is a player and he has realized...

With long-form, we can pretty much call it now, because +1 Defense and 1 Armor means that the officer can do whatever he wants. The thug is at a chance die for his base action. If he makes an all-out attack he can get up to two dice, which has a 13% chance of dealing a single point of Bashing but which also lets the cop beat the crap out of him. If he spends Willpower, the chance of injury goes up to 26% per Willpower spent, giving him the average ability, over four rounds, to do a single point of damage. If he spends Willpower and tries to inflict a Tilt or make a called shot, the listed penalties take him back to a Chance die, although as mentioned maybe he can do some Tilts with a basic roll? The rules don't actually say what that roll is.

The cop, meanwhile, has a base 30% chance of hitting. If he spends a Willpower, that chance increases to 76%, with a 14% chance of just winning. Two Willpower, and he's almost certain to have ended the fight.

From 1 point of Defense.

Sounds familiar.

That does look troublesome, almost. However, from reading it, I can't find where tilts can only be applied with called shots. I see how the previous conditions associated with attacking limbs or the head or eyes are now handled by the tilt/condition system, but that doesn't say they can only be applied as such at all. It is, literally, just tidying up a subsystem using cleaner language. Nothing more prescriptive than that.
The obvious analogue is "a called shot takes a penalty to inflict damage and a tilt, so without that penalty you can only do one or the other".

I also don't see the validity of "we'll that's an optional rule", and I note that padding and armor is why gangbangers wear like, three t-shirts at a time, so the numbers are off, but those are quibbles and don't really address the point you're making. Two dice¹ is quite an advantage, which does feel appropriate to me. It fits with what I know is the intention of the system – and ridiculous fighters with ten dice on attack will also fight ridiculous opponents with 8-10 defense, keeping it in range while allowing for atrocious whomping of the unprepared.

Sounds like a murder simulation to me.

Whelp, if people have any character ideas they want to put forward, I can rig up with a plot they'd all be involved in. Any subsystems you're particularly interested in trying should probably be at least somewhat usable for your character, but beyond that you can go crazy.

Supernatural Merits should in theory be balanced against other Merits, so I'm not going to ban them; on the other hand, I will be simulating NPC Breaking Points and psychology and so on, so firefights with trolls in broad daylight will have consequences and such; the main point of this is to get our simulation out of white-room territory, so I'm going to be enforcing a bit more detail than I normally would generally.

Oh, and since a big part of GMC seems to be the shock of having your nice little reality ripped away, people who already know about the supernatural are probably not a good idea. Beyond the mechanics already in the book, anyway; you can be a cultist or a psychic, but no demon-hunters, 'k?

A'ight. Lemme crash into the psychic stuff again real quick, make sure i can solidify an idea before tossing my hat in the ring. Otherwise, might stick to a mundane.



¹: "1 defense" is disingenuous. 2 defense is rather generous, as the addition of armor on one side is closer to a net 4 defense. The numbers are still vastly skewed, but the armor seems to have been overlooked.

[Friv]

I... Don't believe it should? Again, I'm not saying attack someone. Maybe knock over a book case; the point is now that there is an obstacle in the way, the other guy has to expose himself to get to you. Maybe he jumps the crates. Maybe he trips. Maybe he takes his turn to dash around. Maybe he knows you're setting him up and just waits. The point being, use terrain, not make as-ilib special attacks.

Okay, great. What's the penalty for having a bookcase between you and your enemy?

While you're fighting this guy, you could also intimidate him, trick him, bribe him,

Hilariously, under the new social mechanics, you can't.

Okay. I personally find a system giving the edge to a psychopathic murderer over joe blow appropriate for a horror game.

Being a psycopathic murderer isn't what's giving him an edge - in fact, it actually weakens him because all-out attack is such a terrible option.

Well, now that doesn't really pan out. The actual dice differences – and this the percentage chance – is still the same. This has nothing to do with the God-Machine rules update; only the damage boost hanged anything and that's a hack from preGMC times.

The damage boost and the Defense rules.

When Defense is equal to attack, conditions are absolute requirements if you're equally matched, useless if you're slightly behind, and useful but unnecessary if you have a slight edge. The damage boost means that it takes far fewer successes to end the fight (as few as one, actually) in your favor. The combination of these two effects creates a situation where any degree of advantage going into a fight in which you have any goals at all becomes nearly overwhelming. How large the advantage is doesn't actually matter that much.

Second, I think that can be a problem in theory but rarely in actuality. The change in XP expenditure means you now are not incentivized to be an awesome one or two trick pony; you can spread your attributes around instead of having big spikes, and you don't need to resign yourself to only ever having the attributes you started with. So suddenly, the game goes from having characters where one has 10-13 dice in weaponry out the gate, and another has similar in, say, investigation, you get two characters with more average scores in both. You've still got a chance to succeed, and the system is implicitly supposed to penalize you a close to 1-3 dice as possible (though the blue book did such a bad job of this it's funny), and the guy who brings five or six dice to a difficult encounter, net, should have a decent chance of winning.

You don't need 10-13 dice, though, that's what I'm saying. You need 1 more attack and 1 more Defense than the other guy, and then you're all but invincible.

¹: "1 defense" is disingenuous. 2 defense is rather generous, as the addition of armor on one side is closer to a net 4 defense. The numbers are still vastly skewed, but the armor seems to have been overlooked.

Okay, that's fair. I will separate out my armor complaint from my other complaints.

[Morty]

Hilariously, under the new social mechanics, you can't.

You can. That's what the "Forcing Doors" option is there for - you roll once and add the number of Doors as a penalty. If you fail, you can't try again. Good for scenarios like convincing someone to back down in a combat situation.

[MugaSofer]

Rules quibble; the Stun ability on a weapon doubles the weapon's Weapon Modifier(?) when calculating the odds of stunning someone (their STA). The sap, a stun weapon, has... A weapon mod of 0. So it's not actually better than any other weapon for inflicting stun in any way? I guess you can stun someone with like, a sap shot to the knee now, but that's just weird.

That ... is weird. Maybe it's supposed to double the damage dealt? Or maybe the sap stats was written by someone who hadn't seen the new mechanic, I guess.

I... Don't believe it should? Again, I'm not saying attack someone. Maybe knock over a book case; the point is now that there is an obstacle in the way, the other guy has to expose himself to get to you. Maybe he jumps the crates. Maybe he trips. Maybe he takes his turn to dash around. Maybe he knows you're setting him up and just waits. The point being, use terrain, not make as-ilib special attacks.

Doesn't that impede you just as much as your opponent?

While you're fighting this guy, you could also intimidate him, trick him, bribe him, shout for help, call the cops... That's my point. It's not a "two fighters enter, one leaves and gains a level" situation. The entire framing of the issue is wrong because its rooted in old school murderhobo-ing. Toss a crate is shorthand for "break up the tunnel vision by pointing out and introducing the world around you".

Can you inflict Conditions with a regular Intimidation roll?

I think you're oversimplifying our simplifications. There are many, many situations where people are going to find themselves fighting an opponent, especially in a horror game, and the rules need to be able to model that. If you don't want to model that, fine, one-roll combat is explicitly noted as an option. But there are times when (in most games) you need to fight someone - after all, this is supposed to be simulating horror, and ravenous monsters are the second-oldest kind there is.

The oldest, of course, being people.

Throwing hard to bypass debris on the floor is an environmental change.

I assumed that referred to the "environmental tilts", which are noted as applying to all combatants.

Um. No. See, your actions aren't based on how difficult they are in the end; even straight nWoD doesn't have the ST telling you any penalties or bonuses until you've declared a roll, meaning stuff can be surprisingly hard even there. Wanting to know the difficulty before tossing isn't a rules issue.

I think you're missing the point. If the ST thinks something is hard or impossible, and you think it's easy, that isn't conductive to fun play. Or vice versa, for that matter.

Okay. I personally find a system giving the edge to a psychopathic murderer over joe blow appropriate for a horror game.

You know what would be even more fitting for (that subset of) horror where monsters rip you apart instantly? Not having a combat system. Or, better still, having a combat system that models regular folk's combat, and noting that monsters win instantly because that's scarier.

Well, now that doesn't really pan out. The actual dice differences – and this the percentage chance – is still the same. This has nothing to do with the God-Machine rules update; only the damage boost hanged anything and that's a hack from preGMC times.

You're forgetting Defense is more powerful now, as well.

That said, as an aside, I never used that hack in my games.

Second, I think that can be a problem in theory but rarely in actuality. The change in XP expenditure means you now are not incentivized to be an awesome one or two trick pony; you can spread your attributes around instead of having big spikes, and you don't need to resign yourself to only ever having the attributes you started with. So suddenly, the game goes from having characters where one has 10-13 dice in weaponry out the gate, and another has similar in, say, investigation, you get two characters with more average scores in both. You've still got a chance to succeed, and the system is implicitly supposed to penalize you a close to 1-3 dice as possible (though the blue book did such a bad job of this it's funny), and the guy who brings five or six dice to a difficult encounter, net, should have a decent chance of winning.

10-13 dice in Investigation?

This has already been replied to, but I'd like to note I've seen people waxing eloquent over how the new system encourages specialization and it makes each character unique. Don't know if they'd play it or were just extrapolating from the rules, though.

The game is built so that four dice is actually pretty good. People just didn't see that because the expected bounds were so poorly communicated. There's no need for a character to build up to such heights. If they do anyway, it means it is important to them, narratively, to do so. In which case, at ten dice (best possible attribute and best possible skill) you're a paragon of humanity, why the Hel shouldn't you almost auto-succeed? You're batman.

Quoted for truth. I always wince when examples show people rolling 7+ dice for every damn thing.

That does look troublesome, almost. However, from reading it, I can't find where tilts can only be applied with called shots. I see how the previous conditions associated with attacking limbs or the head or eyes are now handled by the tilt/condition system, but that doesn't say they can only be applied as such at all. It is, literally, just tidying up a subsystem using cleaner language. Nothing more prescriptive than that.
The obvious analogue is "a called shot takes a penalty to inflict damage and a tilt, so without that penalty you can only do one or the other".

The only listed methods of applying Tilts are all penalized attacks of some kind, existing conditions (or Conditions) impacting combat, or magic. Oh, and there's a note about bursting a pipe or something to cause floods.

A'ight. Lemme crash into the psychic stuff again real quick, make sure i can solidify an idea before tossing my hat in the ring. Otherwise, might stick to a mundane.

Let's not all pick on the Supernatural Merits, now - if they're an issue, well, they're pretty much optional anyway. There are plenty of Merits, all in theory worth the same.

That said, if you fell like you need to, I wont stop you.

¹: "1 defense" is disingenuous. 2 defense is rather generous, as the addition of armor on one side is closer to a net 4 defense. The numbers are still vastly skewed, but the armor seems to have been overlooked.

Yeah. I honestly think armor is a bit too powerful, now, but I guess it had to keep up with weapons.

[SiuiS]

Okay, great. What's the penalty for having a bookcase between you and your enemy?

Well, according to the writer dude I asked, it's worth either +2 to me or -2 to him, in an appropriate fashion. Unless he waits me out then reverse it.

What are the stats for fighting over a low wall? I know I saw something like that in the blue book.

Hilariously, under the new social mechanics, you can't.

The new mechanic is supplementary. It is for situations where you're taking a month to get anything done; moving an episode into montage mode. For regular interactions you still use regular rolls. Because that mechanic hasn't been removed.

Being a psycopathic murderer isn't what's giving him an edge - in fact, it actually weakens him because all-out attack is such a terrible option.

I meant in fiction and motive, not in tilts

The damage boost and the Defense rules.

When Defense is equal to attack, conditions are absolute requirements if you're equally matched, useless if you're slightly behind, and useful but unnecessary if you have a slight edge. The damage boost means that it takes far fewer successes to end the fight (as few as one, actually) in your favor. The combination of these two effects creates a situation where any degree of advantage going into a fight in which you have any goals at all becomes nearly overwhelming. How large the advantage is doesn't actually matter that much.

That's what I mean though. I don't believe the edge is as damning as you suggest. I agree it's there and it's big, but I find it within reason.

You can. That's what the "Forcing Doors" option is there for - you roll once and add the number of Doors as a penalty. If you fail, you can't try again. Good for scenarios like convincing someone to back down in a combat situation.

That too, although I think this only applies when you're rushing to finish a long con in a few minutes, and single rolls or extended contests (such as at a party) are still normal, as per the blue book.

That ... is weird. Maybe it's supposed to double the damage dealt? Or maybe the sap stats was written by someone who hadn't seen the new mechanic, I guess.

I think it's foundational. A sap doesn't need a -3 penalty to deal stunning, and other splats can enhance them. Still, feels like a numerical holdover or a needless technicality.

Doesn't that impede you just as much as your opponent?

Yep! You're going to have to wait him out or wade through your own trap.
Momentum is on your side though; he gets the first action and logic dictates he's not gonna let you pull one over, and will try to overcome the obstacle and out you in your place.

Can you inflict Conditions with a regular Intimidation roll?

Yes. Literally nothing has changed in that regard from blue book to GMC. They just renamed the previously nebulous bits.
Blue book: you successfully intimidate someone. They either back off, or if ballsy attack anyway at a penalty for fright.
GMC: you successfully intimidate someone and grant them the Froghtened condition, which imposes a -2 penalty against you or can e resolved by backing off in fear.

Look at that example. Really, honestly look at it.
All GMC does is, when this stuff happens to a player, you offer them a choice; RP the consequences and get a beat (XP), or don't, and look like a bad ass.

It doesn't change the game at all, in execution. At the table nothing is different. It just incentivized good play.

Tilts are "conditions, but in combat." Specifically combat only. But this implies that tilts can be applied like conditions; without an attack. I do admit it is a seemingly obvious mistake to leave that out. Isuspect the writers had tunnel vision, being so familiar with the material as to have missed how it should be explained to outsiders.

I think you're oversimplifying our simplifications. There are many, many situations where people are going to find themselves fighting an opponent, especially in a horror game, and the rules need to be able to model that. If you don't want to model that, fine, one-roll combat is explicitly noted as an option. But there are times when (in most games) you need to fight someone - after all, this is supposed to be simulating horror, and ravenous monsters are the second-oldest kind there is.

The oldest, of course, being people.

Okay, this needs compound logic. Gimme a sec, I should have gone to bed hours ago.

The combination of One Roll Combat and the new defenses, means that fights that aren't worth rolling are handled easily; this takes the narrative off the play-by-play and into the consequences, which is good. Which means only fights where each blow matters are played that way; as soon as you enter real combat, It's supposed to be about surviving the next three seconds. Enemies are harder to hit but easier to wound, and have a harder time hitting you but around the same difficulty killing you.

This makes perfect sense, because only those dramatic and interesting encounters – against equals and superiors – get air time. Fights Re hard because you only show hard fights. It sounds circular but it works.

I assumed that referred to the "environmental tilts", which are noted as applying to all combatants.

A spike floor affects all combatants, yes.
A bonfire in the middle of a room is stilt. It's an effect/condition (burning) that only applies while you're in the fire. Resolving the tilt involves leaving the fire.

I think you're missing the point. If the ST thinks something is hard or impossible, and you think it's easy, that isn't conductive to fun play. Or vice versa, for that matter.

That's true. It's also why I advocate everyone being on the same page from te get go, and why I keep repeating the scale;
Four dice is competent.
Six dice is professional.
Eight dice is top tier; a city's top DA, a mafia Don, the SWAT team's star sniper, a pulp fiction war hero.
Ten dice is best of the best; your commander Shepard, your booker Dewitt, your Dragonborn.

If players and STs both agree that having six dice in a profession is being the grizzled old town sheriff and four dice is being the skilled rookie, you'll be okay.

He'll, the exact numbers don't matter, the rubric being public does.

You know what would be even more fitting for (that subset of) horror where monsters rip you apart instantly? Not having a combat system. Or, better still, having a combat system that models regular folk's combat, and noting that monsters win instantly because that's scarier.

They don't have a combat system. They have a murder simulator. The only winning move is not to play. Except every now and then some drunken jackass with a knife or a werewolf on the rag or maybe some zombies insist on pulling you in. Then the only winning moves are running or a good alpha strike

You're forgetting Defense is more powerful now, as well.

That said, as an aside, I never used that hack in my games.

Okay. I think defense may be too much, but that's what the game will be for.

On weapons, I disliked that a yokel with a shotgun had a better chance of sniping me than his equally skilled buddy with a scoped rifle. I prefer the damage over dice myself.

10-13 dice in Investigation?

Equipment and specialties/merits.

This has already been replied to, but I'd like to note I've seen people waxing eloquent over how the new system encourages specialization and it makes each character unique. Don't know if they'd play it or were just extrapolating from the rules, though.

By specialization I mean that nWoD punished you for having a primary attribute block at 2/3/3 instead of 4/3/1. The old chargen rules encouraged building a complete person, and widening the gap between peak and valley. The new rules allow you to build a character with room to grow.
You can still specialize, but you aren't penalized for generalization.

There was a nWoD hack to convert chargen from dots to focused XP use. We noticed that using allocated dots we focused on spiking some attributes and bringing 1s up to 2/ later, maybe. With XP, where the costs worked out better to have a few medium stats, characters were shallower and wider. It's anecdotal though.

The only listed methods of applying Tilts are all penalized attacks of some kind, existing conditions (or Conditions) impacting combat, or magic. Oh, and there's a note about bursting a pipe or something to cause floods.

All methods for applying conditions apply to tilts though. It wen flat tells you there's no difference between the Frightened Tilt and Frightened condition except you don't get XP for Tilts.

So, literally, ignore "tilt" and use condition, and just don't award mid-combat beats.

Let's not all pick on the Supernatural Merits, now - if they're an issue, well, they're pretty much optional anyway. There are plenty of Merits, all in theory worth the same.

That said, if you fell like you need to, I wont stop you.

Well, it's a stress test. Better to push, right?

Two concepts. First is an ex-prostitute who got through vocational school as then college on a scholarship grant after catching a murderer who was after her and her girls. Would use Mind of a Madman as her basis, works a white collar job but can get into the head of blue collar scum. Medium light offense, likely to try and manipulate folks into traps.

Second is a gregarious con man with kcredible investigative skills and an impish streak who managed to convince the CSI he is psychic, and works as a contractor. Uses Trained Observer, and True Friend for his plucky straight man side kick.

Yeah. I honestly think armor is a bit too powerful, now, but I guess it had to keep up with weapons.

I think so too. Armor has always been severe, but under used in my games. Now it almost seems mandatory.

[Mewtarthio]

So, how's this game going to be played? Skype? Google Hangout? PbP?

I'm thinking an overly-curious young adult who's about to stumble into something way over his head (think last survivor of a horror film), if you'll have me. I want to see the Integrity system in action.

[SiuiS]

So, how's this game going to be played? Skype? Google Hangout? PbP?

I hope PbP. I work graveyard, so my schedule is tw worst possible for connecting with anyone, even Australians.

I'm thinking an overly-curious young adult who's about to stumble into something way over his head (think last survivor of a horror film), if you'll have me. I want to see the Integrity system in action.

Neat.

If we are playin psychic CSI, how would newbie here fit? New transfer maybe? Just got the promotion?

[Elderand]

The new mechanic is supplementary. It is for situations where you're taking a month to get anything done; moving an episode into montage mode. For regular interactions you still use regular rolls. Because that mechanic hasn't been removed.

You're wrong on that. Technicly the whole of GMC is supplementary of course but you're wrong in thinking the new social mechanic is only used for month long interraction and work alongside the old one. It's explicitly stated in the gmc that the new social mechanic replace the old one.

[MugaSofer]

I figured we'd use PbP, if only because timezones. Also, I kind of want to see how well Conditions work in a forum environment.

All the character concepts so far sound great.

Funny thing, but re-reading the rules with my ST hat on they seem a lot better. Not perfect, mind, but something I'll be excited to run once I've patched any holes that come up during this.

[SiuiS]

You're wrong on that. Technicly the whole of GMC is supplementary of course but you're wrong in thinking the new social mechanic is only used for month long interraction and work alongside the old one. It's explicitly stated in the gmc that the new social mechanic replace the old one.

Huh. Is it? I recall... Okay, hold on a sec.

Ah, I see. Yes and no is the answer.

The old system of (intimidate+presence)–target's composure is still there, still does what it's supposed to. Only it's now spelled out differently; (intimidation+presence)–Doors, with doors being a variable represented by the lowest of target's resolve or composure. You add a bonus if the circumstances warrant it in the nWoD and you add a bonus if the guys aspirations are geared toward not being intimidated (that is, if the circumstances warrant it) in the GMC update. It gels perfectly. There's 100% fidelity and no difference

The only change I can see is that you can't try again if you fail, whereas before you could repeat actions with cumulative penalty. You were right though, it does strictly, 100% replace the old mechanic. For certain values of replace.

The question now is... Can "inflict the Frightened tilt on my target" be considered an appropriate goal for this so you could try to force the doors and apply it? Because that maps to a straight skill test versus composure roll, and gives us the rubric for applying it throughout the system in a clear and holistic manner.

I figured we'd use PbP, if only because timezones. Also, I kind of want to see how well Conditions work in a forum environment.

All the character concepts so far sound great.

Funny thing, but re-reading the rules with my ST hat on they seem a lot better. Not perfect, mind, but something I'll be excited to run once I've patched any holes that come up during this.

Aye. I'm very interested in the test results. I'm also interested in seeing how others present a nWorld of Darkness game. With luck I'll have enough detail to start running my own!

[Lady Serpentine]

I figured we'd use PbP, if only because timezones. Also, I kind of want to see how well Conditions work in a forum environment.

Then I'll see about throwing my hat in the ring...

I'm thinking a somewhat vulnerable, but also mildly scarred, former kidnapping victim, who escaped by way of manifesting umbrakinetic powers, and has since gotten a job as a cop.

[Spamotron]

Sius for half your responses you start with "the Dev told me..."

If these things are in the book they are very poorly communicated. It doesn't matter how good the system is if the book doesn't explain it very well.

[SiuiS]

Aye. However, this information is about the same as, and as easy to find as, the errata for the nWoD alone had been. It's also often less a ruling issue and more discussion about frame of mind. See how so many people have read "use the tilt/condition rules to replace called shot effects" somehow as "only called shots can create tilts/conditions ever". That's understandable, but it's not more likely than this being a supplementary but not sole system.

"The rules don't say you can do that" is less of an issue in world of darkness, especially when they imply that you can. In D&D the rules tell you what you can do and that's it. WoD has always been more open ended. I don't see why that should change now.

[MugaSofer]

OK, since people have said they're interested in a CSI-type Chronicle, everyone has to be plausibly involve-able in investigations. You don't need to play a detective or anything (although you can), but you should have an appropriately-fluffed dot in at least one of these Merits: Professional Training, Allies, Contacts, Fame, Mentor, Mystery Cult ,Retainer, Staff, Status, Telepathy.

I was going to say Conditions would work as well, but unfortunately you can only take Persistent Conditions at character creation, so: Connected or Obsession, basically, which also happen to be useful and free.

Embarassing Secret, Leveraged, Informed, Noteriety and Swooning could all work, but sadly they are not Persistent for some reason, which could well be some balance thingy I'm not aware of. (You're encouraged to homebrew new Conditions, presumably including Persistent Conditions, but I'll be damned if I'm going to break the game with a poorly-thought-out character trait just because the book gives precisely no guidelines for this.)

Oh, and by the way, Soulless is a Persistent Condition and now I want to buy it at character creation in all my games.

[Turalisj]

Well, I've been reading about the SCP Foundation stuff over the past few (2-3) days. Maybe a game related to that?

[SiuiS]

How's this? Anything you need that you aren't getting from this format?

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Vanessa Owens

Ex-prostitute homicide detective
"You would be terrified how easy it is to really get into a murderer's shoes, and how hard it is to take them off again."
ASPIRATIONS: pending

STATBLOCK

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ATTRIBUTES

Intelligence 2
Wits 2
Resolve 3

Strength 1
Dexterity 4
Stamina 1

Presence 2
Manipulation 4
Composure 2

MENTAL
Academics 1
Computer 1
Crafts
Investigation 2 Asset Skill
Occult
Politics
Medicine
Science

PHYSICAL
Athletics 1
Brawl 3 (dirty tricks)
Drive
Firearms 1
Larceny 1
Stealth 1
Survival
Weaponry

SOCIAL
Animal Ken
Empathy 3 (Motives) Asset Skill
Expression
Intimidation 1
Persuasion 1
Socialize
Streetwise 2 (rumors)
Subterfuge 4

MERITS
Professional Training (detective) 1
• Contacts (Street walkers, Law enforcement)
Pusher 1
Mind of a Madman 2
Status (Detective) 2
Resources 1


INTEGRITY 7
VIRTUE: Driven
VICE: Corrupt
Breaking Points: Pending

DERIVED TRAITS
Willpower 6/6
Defense 3
Health 5/5
Speed 10
Initiative +6


XP:
UNSPENT XP:
BEATS:

DESCRIPTION

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Vanessa has the body of an overworked social worker. She is thin, wiry and lithe, with a pointed, heart-shaped face eternally in a predatory stare. Her eyes are the particular light blue of dirty glass, her hair between blonde and brunette and in an eternal A-cut. She keeps her face clear and her hands and nails neat and clean, and usually works in somber business attire; white or lightly colored blouse, slacks and jacket of black or charcoal.

Vanessa is a perpetually nervous woman who hides it well by pretending to be upbeat and energetic. She smiles easy, but sometimes it's the smile of someone who thinks they might be trapped, and she almost never leaves her back to a door or goes without checking a room. At least, not without sweating.

HISTORY

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Vanessa got an early start on the streets, working as a gopher for a drug dealer and then, eventually, making solid money as a hooker. She probably would have stayed as some two-bit hood rat if a series of slayings hadn't struck.

The detective on the case, officer Guererro, asked one too many leading questions when the cops swept through her neighborhood, and something clicked. Piecing together some stray ends left at the crime scenes and using what she gleaned from the detective, she was able to lie in wait for the attack. Sure enough, it came, and the new girl Vanessa set up as bait was right there to get hit. Unfortunately, she underestimated just how bad a guy like that could be, and he came for her next, right there on the street while Consuela ran screaming and bleeding.

The detectives commended her on holding her own, and taking down the murderer. She would be fine, they assured, since it was self defense. She didn't have the heart to tell them she came to kill the guy in the first place. Hell, maybe they knew and were just glad he was gone. Whatever the reasoning, detective Gurerro asked how she knew where to find the guy, and didn't let up. A few weeks, two grants and a scholarship later, and Vanessa was comfortably on her way to becoming detective Owens.

Vanessa is Greedy. Some part of her still rememebrs living on the street, and doesn't want to go back. The whole point of a gig like this was to benefit from it, right? So what if she's been passed over for promotion four times now, she still gets what she needs. Even if that means a little covert leaning on the local color to get the good stuff for a private celebration every now and then.

Vanessa is Just. However strange it is that she doesn't mind petty criminals and pimps and the like, she really believes there is good and evil in the world. When evil comes along, you need to get rid of it.

Vanessa is Petty. She keeps tabs on 'her girls' from the old days because some of them still owe her favors and it feels good to be envied for getting out. She remembers slights and pouts about them. Nothing biig, just the minor arrogance that usually makes you dislike someone but not tell them.

Vanessa is a Hard Worker, and it shows. She's always moving, always wired, and always has some idea what's going on, if only because she was just talking to the guys on duty a few minutes ago. She throws herself into her work and frequently risks burnout, but the accomplishments are worth it when they come.

Probably didn't need to throw out a whole character, but I suppose it is a good start for getting the other players communicating enough we can move to a different thread.

Atrtibutes and skills are interesting. I still catch myself trying to optimise for old costs and such.

[Mewtarthio]

OK, since people have said they're interested in a CSI-type Chronicle, everyone has to be plausibly involve-able in investigations. You don't need to play a detective or anything (although you can), but you should have an appropriately-fluffed dot in at least one of these Merits: Professional Training, Allies, Contacts, Fame, Mentor, Mystery Cult ,Retainer, Staff, Status, Telepathy.

Are all the PCs supposed to be working for a single organizations (say, everyone is either an agent of VASCU or an outside consultant hired by them), or is this going to be one event that's gathered everyone together?

[MugaSofer]

Wow, that sure is a character write-up

Mewt, I was thinking that the characters all know each other an co-operate fairly regularly, but aren't necessarily all in the same field. Although "a cop" is the simplest possible connection to the cops, it isn't the only one.

You could have a folklorist who happens to be married to a cop and hears about all the weirder cases from her thoughts, occasionally stepping in semi-officially when his expertise is relevant. Or a scientist who's lab houses specialist equipment the CSI occasionally need to borrow (along with it's operator, the equipment is expensive after all.) Even a low-level telepath who hears about cases whenever she gets picked up for vagrancy.

Or a beat cop who's seen one too many odd murders etc. etc. - there's no shortage of police character concepts, it's just a varied cast is good for the old playtesting.

[Lady Serpentine]

Where is this set? Wouldn't want to go for, say, FBI if it's not in the US, after all, and so on...

[SiuiS]

I'm pretty certain we can assume western society, and by picking a generic white collar title like agent/detective, you can circumvent the need for details for now.

Elsewise I think a made up institution might be best. Avoids having to actually know how a real life system works :P

[Mewtarthio]

Character subject to change as the prospective campaign gets more defined:

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Taylor Sullivan


Novice Occultist

Stats:

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Attributes
Mental
Intelligence 4
Wits 2
Resolve 2

Social
Presence 1
Manipulation 3
Composure 3

Physical
Strength 2
Dexterity 2
Stamina 2

Skills
Social
Socialize 2
Persuasion 3
Subterfuge 3
Expression (Blogs) 2
Empathy 1

Mental
Academics 2
Computers 1
Investigation (Puzzles) 2
Occult (Rituals) 2

Physical
Athletics 1
Brawl 1
Drive 1
Larceny 1

Merits
Contacts (Police) 1
Encyclopedic Knowledge (Occult) 2
Taste (Blogs) 1
Fast-Talking 3

I'll start on the description once somebody tells me if the concept so far seems fitting.

[Turalisj]

Could we have a formal recruitment thread set up?

[SiuiS]

Aye. Give it time; mugahsofer only seems to wander this way about once every two or three days.

[MugaSofer]

Yeah, my connection's been a bit iffy lately, I'm usually on more often.

Here you go.