Yes. The high concept and trouble have all the properties of any other aspect. They may have additional duties assigned to them, but they don't have any taken away.
(Like the idea in many games that the high concept must somehow justify any stunt you take.)
500 considered words an hour or more (because it is narrative), text is stuff like, "(Tribune, 12 Oct 1944 p1 "Newsmen keep the news running"): Communist party has an illusion that the news is actually being produced for a political purpose other than the immediate one in the strike. (Plus italics and footnotes possibly). Network needs to be considered down, so "end of day" network. Can't use voice, library / archives "special reading room" you whisper, "I need these documents by 4pm"
My current writing system is OS X storage of research materials => Google Docs for writing => Presentation layer isn't specified. Might be LyX if I get greedy about being pretty-printed via LaTeX
Yes. I have a paper "Journos are silly" which needs new evidence from archival material, slotted in to narrative at points 5 and 8 and 14 to demonstrate the argument. The evidence is a SLNSW in a reading room.
Collecting up to 4000 in a bad day, so an 8 hour day of primary work maximum.
Battery wouldn't need to be 8 hour though. They'd have plugs
the work space is a seated reading desk in public. The main data input problem is putting a device in my hands—there's no time problem in taking in the data, because I'm converting it to information as I read.
That's actually pretty important. It is why I'm seriously considering chromeos, because it lacks the "worshipful" user:configuration relationship, or the fullness of experience offered by a real operating system.
I tried wedging a BT keyboard into my iphone. The experience was… … … visual search for … … … paragraph… … … head………tail………what did I mean again? [search]
So if I want to create stats for, say, a starship in FATE, I can just treat it like a character, right? Give it a name, some aspects, and a stress track?
Between the ability to buy off compels and the ability to use FP and free invokes to boost rolls as high as the group can afford, the only way to make something impossible is to avoid assigning it mechanics in the first place.
So then I guess we're back to not assigning mechanics to the inevitable bits. Though you can let them narrate / buy out of parts: certain things WILL happen, but it's up to the PCs to make them less bad than they would be.
And we'll be playing with common tropes, so that's some good shorthand.
Basically, each PC has entered the Enchanted Forest (the forest found in just about every fairy tale ever) seeking honor, glory, or something they've lost. They may be ambitious or desperate, but nobody wanders through the forest without reason... except those who already live there.
So far we have an incompetent wizard who lost his staff in a hazing stunt, a semi-reformed thief/acrobat cursed to be half-cat, and a youth whose entire family gets magical powers when they turn 18... except him.
@BrianBallsun-Stanton Without a narrative construct of some sort (even the sandbox type of narrative is still a narrative), that question is not an RPG question.
I can't tell if he's trying to excise his narrative context in a misguided by earnest attempt to make the question appeal more broadly, or if he's actually lacking it.
I'm sure I'll evolve, eventually, but I think I need to play some less crunchy games as a PC to see how it's done before I'd be comfortable GMing a game
@BrianBallsun-Stanton I want to leave a comment. Preview, plox?
> This is a fascinating (if dauntingly broad) question, but without some kind of narrative construct or context (even sandbox games are a kind of narrative) it's not answerable as an RPG question. What are your gameplay experience goals and how do you hope answers to this question will help you achieve them?
> This is a fascinating (if dauntingly broad) question, but without some kind of narrative construct or context (even sandbox games are a kind of narrative) it's not answerable as an RPG question. Maybe break it down into a progressively posted set of smaller-topic questions relating these ideas to your gameplay experience goals and how a culture/environment can be designed to help achieve them?
I spent about two months helping Hobbs put together his already-mostly-designed world into a coherent plot-encouraging quilt of environment, culture, and history.
@sevensideddie It seems if the scope of the economic/individual stat question was aimed for tabletop it could go well. I don't see how it would be a subjective answer - they're not asking "should I" but "could I." Do you believe the question might be worth salvaging at this point? I sort of like where they were going with it, even though right now I voted to close based on the comments from them, mainly
@BESW so far yeah. There are plenty of other questions that would require less working to fit. I'd even have to change the asker's intention with the question to make it fit - hence I haven't tried editing it yet
@Hennes Ah, yes. That's been a common issue I've seen crop up (and to which I've been subject myself): trying to make D&D fit game experiences it's not really designed to handle.
Most RPGs teach you that casual violence is the best solution to all your in-game problems. This is so well established a part of the vast majority of RPGs that there are entire satire RPGs like Greg Costikyan's Violence and John Tynes' Power Kill dedicated to showcasing the issue. In most RPGs, ...
Depending on how open your group is, you might also try some new systems; non-combat-centric, narrative-focused systems are enjoying a surge in popularity.
@Hennes I do strongly suggest, based on your description of playstyle and frustration with D&D casting systems, that you check out something like FATE at some point.
First game I made a nice world. Maps. Races. Backgrounds...... Hero looked at it and tried to get to another continent. Not quite what I had in mind when I got them deported (australia style) to a brave new world with ---Indians--- elves. :)
I was commenting on a discrepency in 2 different lines of text about the number of kobolds in the premade encounter thing and he acted like i was adding an extra one. in one place it said 14 and in another it said 15.
@Hennes After eight or nine years of D&D 3.5 and 4e (which were great fun, don't get me wrong), I've become somewhat disillusioned with the d20 system's ability to support the narrative game experience I want to see in my RPGs.
4e has one of the best combat engines around, but even with some of the non-combat concepts it brings into play D&D is first and foremost a combat system.
Hmm. in my search for Psicrystal shenannigens i keep hearing refference to Psicrystals getting feats for Hit Dice. I dont think they get feats. because their HP is 1/2 yours and dont have any sort of level advancement.
ive read the text for Expanded Psionics Handbook and seen no such indication of such a thing.
their Hit Dice is equal to yours yes but i belive that is only for effects dealing with Hit Dice.
RPG.SE's own @Magician has a short article about what he calls goblin dice which sums up my problem with non-combat d20 mechanics nicely: they use a complex resolution system that's great for combat, but they leverage it poorly in non-combat contexts.