TrippyHippy
Emperor Mongoose
Thought so. That's how we did it. I was just answering a querie on rpg.net about it though.
Announcing: The Open Playtest!
- Thread starter Se Chris
- Start date
Mongoose Gar
Mongoose
I'll add it to the giant pile of stuff that needs to be clarified in the next draft. (Giant, giant pile...)
TrippyHippy
Emperor Mongoose
Heh! That's why I'm posting all my bits! Please enjoy the read!
You love it, really!
You love it, really!
TrippyHippy
Emperor Mongoose
Character generation:
Another point of clarification: Is the Ageing roll based on a 2D6 roll or just 1D6?
Another point of clarification: Is the Ageing roll based on a 2D6 roll or just 1D6?
Even though we're hot in the middle of a CT adventure, my players agreed to switch gears and try the playtest rules for tomorrow's game. Looking over the rules so far, I have a question about the character generation checklist, specifically:
"6c. If you did not succeed, then events have forced you from this career. Roll on the Mishap table, then go to Step 5 for your next four-year term, or Step 12 if you wish to finish your character. Optionally, establish a Connection with another player character."
First, it looks to me like the reference to Step 5 should be a reference to step 3 since the character has been forced out of their career:
"5. Choose a specialisation for this career.
3. a. Choose a career."
Either that, or the effect of failing the survival role is little more than the loss of benefits for that term, and taking a roll on the mishap table. If it _is_ a return to step 5, is there not even a rule to prevent them from selecting the same specialization?
Next, it's not clear whether establishing a Connection is in addition to or in lieu of the preceding parts of 6c. It seems logical that it's in addition to, but stating "Optionally" makes it confusing.
Thanks for your work on this so far. I really like the character creation system--a great set of choices for careers, and the ability to establish Connections within the player character group is great. In my experience, the first couple of adventures with a new group of characters always starts out a little slow while the different characters are getting to know each other, even though I usually provide some background that has had them cross paths before the adventure starts. Giving the characters some background with each other through the Connections rules will address that nicely, I think. (One of my players thinks likewise--that was her first comment on looking over the character creation rules.)
-Mark
"6c. If you did not succeed, then events have forced you from this career. Roll on the Mishap table, then go to Step 5 for your next four-year term, or Step 12 if you wish to finish your character. Optionally, establish a Connection with another player character."
First, it looks to me like the reference to Step 5 should be a reference to step 3 since the character has been forced out of their career:
"5. Choose a specialisation for this career.
3. a. Choose a career."
Either that, or the effect of failing the survival role is little more than the loss of benefits for that term, and taking a roll on the mishap table. If it _is_ a return to step 5, is there not even a rule to prevent them from selecting the same specialization?
Next, it's not clear whether establishing a Connection is in addition to or in lieu of the preceding parts of 6c. It seems logical that it's in addition to, but stating "Optionally" makes it confusing.
Thanks for your work on this so far. I really like the character creation system--a great set of choices for careers, and the ability to establish Connections within the player character group is great. In my experience, the first couple of adventures with a new group of characters always starts out a little slow while the different characters are getting to know each other, even though I usually provide some background that has had them cross paths before the adventure starts. Giving the characters some background with each other through the Connections rules will address that nicely, I think. (One of my players thinks likewise--that was her first comment on looking over the character creation rules.)
-Mark
You beat me to it !
That was one of the comments I had after re-reading, cogitating and trying to generate characters.
Also :-
In the Events tables, there are a lot of entries calling for a Skill roll. None of these specify a task or state what characteristic modifies these. Does this mean that you *don't* get char modifiers for them, or have they just been missed off ?
Again in the Events tables, a 12 gets an automatic promotion. Is this instead of rolling, or is it in addition to the roll ? If in addition, does it result in a skill roll ?
The service skills for Drifter seem OK - unless you choose to be a Belter, in which case they don't make much sense. Maybe make Belter a separate career ?
As mentioned by another poster, is it the number of terms or the rank that is a negative DM for promotion ? For now, I'm assuming that the main listing is correct since the checklist also has the flow wrong for multiple terms in one career.
That was one of the comments I had after re-reading, cogitating and trying to generate characters.
Also :-
In the Events tables, there are a lot of entries calling for a Skill roll. None of these specify a task or state what characteristic modifies these. Does this mean that you *don't* get char modifiers for them, or have they just been missed off ?
Again in the Events tables, a 12 gets an automatic promotion. Is this instead of rolling, or is it in addition to the roll ? If in addition, does it result in a skill roll ?
The service skills for Drifter seem OK - unless you choose to be a Belter, in which case they don't make much sense. Maybe make Belter a separate career ?
As mentioned by another poster, is it the number of terms or the rank that is a negative DM for promotion ? For now, I'm assuming that the main listing is correct since the checklist also has the flow wrong for multiple terms in one career.
weasel_fierce
Mongoose
TrippyHippy said:
well, T4 and TNE both established stats as pretty significant (or even the primary) over skills, so it'd not be new ground. I agree with you that skills should be the defining thing, I just dont think the effects will be as severe as you think.
But in the end you're right. Its kinda pointless to gibber about, so lets proceed to something more usefull
weasel_fierce
Mongoose
Are the Skill Packages intended to be only level 1 skills (except for a few exceptions), i.e. if I have Pilot 1, I cannot raise it to 2, with a Skill Package pick ?
i.e. are they intended to cover lack of skill, or to possibly boost existing proficiencies ? (Im assuming the former, but you never know)
Timing / Effect:
One artifact of this system (which is very good btw) is that if you attempt a task so difficult that you need, say, an 11 or 12 on the dice to succeed, you cannot help but do it in an ultra fast and efficient manner, even though you barely succeeded.
Of course the odds of succeeding at all are very remote, but its still a bit of an odd element (kind of like how headshots in Reign/Godlike tend to happen before stomach wounds)
i.e. are they intended to cover lack of skill, or to possibly boost existing proficiencies ? (Im assuming the former, but you never know)
Timing / Effect:
One artifact of this system (which is very good btw) is that if you attempt a task so difficult that you need, say, an 11 or 12 on the dice to succeed, you cannot help but do it in an ultra fast and efficient manner, even though you barely succeeded.
Of course the odds of succeeding at all are very remote, but its still a bit of an odd element (kind of like how headshots in Reign/Godlike tend to happen before stomach wounds)
Mongoose Gar
Mongoose
weasel_fierce said:
Yeah, that's going to happen when you try to extract more information from a dice roll than normal. I'm not too concerned about it, though - it's one of those things that's odd when you think about it, but doesn't really affect play that much (at least in my experience).
TrippyHippy
Emperor Mongoose
Well, I've emailed the consolidated ideas of my group and I, now, I hope.
I'll add more if I can think of anything.
I'll add more if I can think of anything.
Monteblanco
Mongoose
TrippyHippy said:
I agree with you. In fact, one of the reasons I like Traveller is its reliance in training and not attributes. Wouldn't be better to give a +1 CM whenever the attribute was over the difficulty level?
weasel_fierce said:
Not necessarily. The effect die is modified by the same modifiers as the dice roll (minus charactereistic modifiers) with a minimum of one and a max of 6. So if you have a difficult task with skill 0 and no other modifiers you need a 12 to succeed at the task. Say you roll 6,6 and succeed, your timing result will be 6 but your effect will only be 2 (the roll of 6 modified by the -4 for difficult tasks).
weasel_fierce
Mongoose
ah, good catch.
SableWyvern
Mongoose
My one major gripe with character generation is that all promotion leads to a commision -- there are no career NCOs.
Mongoose Gar
Mongoose
No, because you're adding all the modifiers to the roll, including your skill.
For example, we've got two characters, Ninjaboy and Fatso. Ninjaboy has Stealth 4, Fatso has Stealth 0. They're both trying to sneak past a very alert guard post (it's Hard, -4). By a weird co-incidence, both roll a natural 12.
Ninjaboy's modifiers are: +4 for his skill, -4 for the Difficulty. Total 16.
Ninjaboy has a 6 for Timing, and a 6 for Effect (roll of a 6, +4 for skill, -4 for Difficulty). 6 for Effect means he totally sneaks past and can even spy on the guards as he goes.
Fatso also has a 6 for Timing, but only 2 for Effect (roll of a 6, +0 for skill, -4 for Difficulty=2). 2 for Effect means he succeeds, but only marginally. He might make it past, but he's the one who has to crawl through the sewage pipe to avoide detection.
For example, we've got two characters, Ninjaboy and Fatso. Ninjaboy has Stealth 4, Fatso has Stealth 0. They're both trying to sneak past a very alert guard post (it's Hard, -4). By a weird co-incidence, both roll a natural 12.
Ninjaboy's modifiers are: +4 for his skill, -4 for the Difficulty. Total 16.
Ninjaboy has a 6 for Timing, and a 6 for Effect (roll of a 6, +4 for skill, -4 for Difficulty). 6 for Effect means he totally sneaks past and can even spy on the guards as he goes.
Fatso also has a 6 for Timing, but only 2 for Effect (roll of a 6, +0 for skill, -4 for Difficulty=2). 2 for Effect means he succeeds, but only marginally. He might make it past, but he's the one who has to crawl through the sewage pipe to avoide detection.
he gets to add his skill. It does mean easy tasks are always maximal successes unless unskilled.
For a -6 difficulty (Formidable), you'd need to be skilled to pull it off anyway, and the skill will relate to the maximum success level:
For a -6 difficulty (Formidable), you'd need to be skilled to pull it off anyway, and the skill will relate to the maximum success level:
Code:
Difficulty DM MxSL
Simple +6 6
Easy +4 6
Routine +2 6
Average +0 6
Difficult -2 4+SL
Very Difficult -4 2+SL
Formidable -6 0+SL, min 1
Staggering -8 SL-2, min 1
Impossible -10 SL-4, min 1My group and i had a combat session yesterday
It went very well. I put the PC's up against a like number of npcs
The PC's made Excellent use of Cover and Leadership skill.
A couple of questions came up during combat:
How do you figure damage for Brawling and Martial Arts?
Are Positional and Cover Modifiers Cumulative?
Does Leadership use count like an attack, i.e., Effect and Timing die?
We found the combat and initiative system as presented in the playtest documents to be very dynamic and fun to play.
It went very well. I put the PC's up against a like number of npcs
The PC's made Excellent use of Cover and Leadership skill.
A couple of questions came up during combat:
How do you figure damage for Brawling and Martial Arts?
Are Positional and Cover Modifiers Cumulative?
Does Leadership use count like an attack, i.e., Effect and Timing die?
We found the combat and initiative system as presented in the playtest documents to be very dynamic and fun to play.
Mongoose Gar
Mongoose
<I>How do you figure damage for Brawling and Martial Arts? </I>
Currently, damage is 0+Effect for melee attacks.
<I>Are Positional and Cover Modifiers Cumulative?</I>
Positional? (I'm being dense here, I suspect).
<I>Leadership</I>
Yeah, Leadership's an action. Everything's an action except for moving, ducking, dodging, stance changing & reloading. It keeps things simple. (I expect Referees will allow players to do other stuff at a tick cost, but I want to stay away from a massively long table of actions and their timing costs.)
We tried Leadership as a free action in one playtest session, and it was hideously broken.
Currently, damage is 0+Effect for melee attacks.
<I>Are Positional and Cover Modifiers Cumulative?</I>
Positional? (I'm being dense here, I suspect).
<I>Leadership</I>
Yeah, Leadership's an action. Everything's an action except for moving, ducking, dodging, stance changing & reloading. It keeps things simple. (I expect Referees will allow players to do other stuff at a tick cost, but I want to stay away from a massively long table of actions and their timing costs.)
We tried Leadership as a free action in one playtest session, and it was hideously broken.
