Questions about the rules

[marcblondeau]

Hi,
I've read the rulebooks and i intend to test the game on sunday with friends. I have some questions about it that seem unclear to me.

-when i have fixed difficulty and timer, do I have to announce it to the players or do I keep it secret ?
-In most of example, the PC must react to a Problem. Suddenly, a skellie or a ship attack. It's seems to me easy to create problems in this case. But what if the pc is looking for problem. He attacks an NPC or he wants to climb a cliff or a wall. How create problem ? Could you give some example of problem generated by PC ?
-In the "print your self games pieces", there's no banana token. It's food token. I imagine it's the same, but it's not coherent with the rules.
-There's a problem with the cutlass token. Its range is close. In the rulebook, it's hand range.
-p.24 and 82, rules are not the same for the anchor on the legendary dice. P24 : take 1 injury, ask new problem, loose supply. P.82: take injury, loose 1 victory, ask new problem.
-PC vs PC : the rule say : diff = 2 + permanent legendary dices. And then : The first player to reach 5 victories wins. In the example, difficulty is 5 (2 + 3 dice), but it seems to me unclear. If the pc had 4 dice, difficulty is 5 or 6.

Thanks for clarifications

Despite this littles problems, i'm a huge fan of avast system

Marc

 

[MongooseMatt]

Hi there,

Let's get you sorted!

* There is no hard and fast rule that you have to announce Difficulty or Timer to the players - if you want to keep it secret for dramatic effect, you are welcome to do so!

* The short answer is that the actual Problem is created by the GM. So, they try to leap across to an enemy ship, fail, and request a Problem - so you tell them they fall into the sea where a shark is waiting for them. The longer answer is that you can allow a player to create their own Problem if they come up with an idea that is better than yours (!). Basically, do what is the most fun or interesting, whether it comes from you or a player. The overall story is the important thing.

* When we started work on the RPG, there were only bananas in the video game - when other food stuffs appeared, we altered the counter. Means the same thing though.

* Thank you for pointing that out, we will look into it!

* Page 24 is correct (page 82 is listing the original way we had it - you are welcome to try it out, but we found it less fun overall).

* Very sorry, don't quite get what you are saying here - can you please elaborate?

And do swing by here again after you have played your first game and let us know how you got on!

 

[marcblondeau]

For my last point, the problem is about PCs fighting other PCs :

It's written : the problem "your pirate friend will kill you" is difficulty 2 + legendary dices owned by the player.

But it's writtent "the first player to reach 5 Victories is the winner". It's ok if the number of permanent Legendary dice is 3, like in the example. But if it's 4 Legendary dice, it should be 6.

So, i'm asking : 5 for everybody no matter the Legendary dice or 2+Legendary dice ?

 

[marcblondeau]

Hello
according to your response about the possibility to loose a Victory when you get an anchor on the Legendary dice. If i follow the p.24 rules, i've spotted other contradictions.

p.46 : in the injury section : "they save themselves to loosing a victory"
p.84 : "in the hold" section : Note: If a player rolls an anchor and choses to remove a Victory..."
p.86 : in the example of the "Injuries, healing and death" section : "For one, I remove1 Victory from the hold."

 

[marcblondeau]

Hello,
We've tried our first session of sotrpg.
I'm afraid i've to say it was not a real success. We've had several problems that i list below

-It's really difficult to build a spécific pirate with just the card and weapons. It seems to me there a lack of place for aspects that can define th pirate
-there's to type of resolution. In fact, you have to resolv a problem mecanically before narratively. And both of them seems us not bounded. Maybe it's a problem of being used to, but it doesn't really work with the group. maybe it's a part of the next problem
-with the difficulties and timer of the book, it's really difficult no to success. And it makes all the tough choice system useless.

every legendary dice got 50% chance to make a success (more or less : two times one victory face, one time two victory, one time a though choice, two times nothing). A basic pirate throw two dices, except in combat situation (often in our test) and when he can invoke his aspects. So the weakest pirate, alone, résolve a 4/4 problem in 4 turns on average, without any weapon or aspects. But the 4/4 difficulty, if I have understood is for a group of 4 players. If they both throw two dices (the minimum). The problem is solved in one turn.

If we want suspens, let's say one chance out of two to success, for a 4 players group throwing two dices, an average difficulty should be 16/4. One of my player, who loves math and logic propose this formule :

(Number of pirates * number of legendary dices)/2 = Succes needed / 4

4 pirates with three dices = 12 dices
12 dices = 6 succes on average each turn
If you want the timer 4, a good challenge would be 24 succes if you want 50% chance of resolve the problem

 

[MongooseMatt]

Hey there,

Thank you for raising these points, we are looking at making some adjustments - I will let you know when the PDF gets updated!

 

[marcblondeau]

Hello,

Have you made some adjustements and are the pdf updated ?

thanks
Marc

 

[MongooseMatt]

Yes to both!