Instead it gives a set number of "free" stunt slots, and the ability to stack multiple stunts'-worth of effects into one slot if they're all thematically linked (like they all have to do with your superpower, or with one cool piece of hardware you have).
(IE, when players show up loaded for bear, the GM gets the tools he needs to make sure it's a big bear.)
@Anaphory Every PC starts an "issue" (ARRPG uses comic-book story forms; an issue is usually one or two sessions) with a number of Fate points equal to the number of character aspects they've filled in (up to five).
The GM starts each scene with a number of Fate points for NPC invokes equal to the number of PCs in the scene.
If a PC has extra stunts, the GM gets points added to a "reserve pool" that refills each issue, which he can draw from in any scene.
ARRPG is the most coherent and clear explanation of Fate I've yet seen, and it's got a lot I like. It's designed very carefully to evoke the Atomic Robo atmosphere, but the tools it uses can be applied elsewhere with some tweaking--and Atomic Robo has enough in common with many other stories that it can often just be re-skinned.
My current campaign is kind of a mashup of Atomic Robo, X-Files, Warehouse 13, The Librarians, Primeval, all that "Weird Stuff is everywhere but the average guy doesn't notice; it's our job to protect the public from the Weird."
ARRPG also uses my favourite generic initiative system: at the end of each person's turn, he chooses who goes next from those characters who haven't gone yet.
I had great success with "Marvellous" initiative in D&D 4e, too.
It added a new level of tactics and control to the game which my players really liked, and it actually reduced the bookkeeping (always welcome in D&D 4e).
4e is extremely tactical. Often a PC has something set up that requires triggering by an enemy, or they want the enemy to go before the healer so the healer can top you off after the big attack, or they just want to spread the enemies' turns out throughout the round instead of coming all at once at the end.
We also sometimes had effects which lasted until the end of the user's next turn... so gaming the system by having the enemy go first meant the enemy's action was taken while the effect was still active.
Very much a mechanical strategy game. We had a lot of fun, but I've done basically everything I ever want to do in D&D systems now.
(And the composition and interests of my group have shifted a bit, too.)
The other really cool initiative system I've seen comes from Doctor Who: Adventures In Time And Space.
In order to get the "feel" of how conflicts in Doctor Who play out, and to emphasise the franchise's values and themes, initiative is determined by what you do, in this order: Talkers, Runners, Doers, Fighters.
The Doctor gives an impassioned monologue, the villain explains his evil plan, the NPCs run screaming, the companion fiddles with their Plot Device, and the villain's minions attack.
In OSH or whichever it was, you choose one of 7 (?) broad actions, that are resolved in a particular order, and all of the same number are resolved at the same time. Although I think that's smaller scale, and would mostly be the Fighters in this system.
Another thing that made sense to me when the initiative system is meant to model reaction speed is declaring with the slowest character first up to the fastest, and then resolving in reverse order, but that would require serious fiddling of what happens if your action is made invalid by some previous one.
I think that basic tenet is one of the things that kept me out of the D&D sphere, as well as the fact that the one I had most contact with was 3rd, and long-term strategy isn't my thing, and too much of character building seems to be of that type in D&D3.
Everybody composes their turns independently as a string of subsequent actions, blind to what each other person is doing, and then the GM compiles the actions to see how they interact.
MG was one of the best campaigns, and one of the few finished ones, I played.
The only thing of it I didn't like was the 3-turn scripted combat.
I did at some point switch that to “secretly choose your next option”, I think.
Otherwise, it's a beautiful system, both for it's GM rules as well as for its player-facing ones, with a very strong character advancement system. It's around my second choice of system for new players, after * World (mostly DW, because too few people appreciate post-apocalyptic settings) which is easier to start going, but also easier to fall with because DW's GM rules are not easy to grok.
Well, Cthulhu Dark doesn't: the only "stat" you have that changes is your Sanity.
That's advancement of a sort, but it's not designed for long-term play.
In Do, at the end of each session you change either how your character gets in trouble, or how she helps people.
My goal is to combine the two concepts: a very simple "change one quality of your character" advancement between sessions, with an in-session escalation mechanic.
It's aimed at telling extremely dramatic stories in a single session which escalate to ridiculous heights and then resolve very suddenly: Saturday morning cartoon story pacing.
Cthulhu Dark does this well.
But I also want the episodic-yet-not-status-quo feel of Do.
I'm drawing on the recurring theme that ponies seem to be so small they can't hold more than one emotion at a time: when they try, their little minds crack like eggs and it takes their friends to help them recover.
@Anaphory Could do. I'm thinking Lasers & Feelings might be of help there.
But really, I think my next practical step is to get a group to just play a re-skinned but unhacked game of Do.
For a while I thought The Princes' Kingdom was the key to my challenges, but it's probably about as useful as Mouse Guard.
I also have some secondary goals that I really hope I can meet, like "the group shouldn't need more dice than they get in a Yahtzee set" and "the game should fit comfortably on the front and back of a regular sheet of paper."
Mostly they're accessibility goals, so the game is easy to pick up and run by kids in a non-RPG household.
Judging from some MLP summaries, it's usually one of them, the protagonist, that displays one strong emotion that makes them neglect their friendship in general, so the reward for doing that kind of stuff is being the protagonist? And who doesn't want to be protagonist
Example: Applejack has more work on the family farm than she can handle. She refuses her friends' help because of pride, working herself into exhaustion so that she causes more problems than she's solving.
The escalation comes where she insists on continuing to help her friends with THEIR projects too, and ruins them in increasingly dramatic ways until she's poisoned ponies with Pinkie's muffins and caused rabbits to overrun the town.
Confronted with the enormity of her mistakes and the chores she still hasn't done on her own farm, she collapses, weakened and defeated enough that she'll listen to her friends and let them help her as she's always helped them.
Speaking of collapsing from exhaustion, it's 1:30am. Goodnight.
I was wondering if anyone had a good example of a "table rules" and/or "social contract" document. I'm searching the web, of course, but I wouldn't mind a personal recommendation.
I'll have to dig for it because it's been a long time since I've played with anyone I'd have to explain anything to, since my friends have similar styles to me. :P
@Pixie No need to "dig". It's not like I'm having a problem with my group. (They're a bunch of old farts like me, except for my daughter.) I was just hoping for a sample so I could decide if I wanted to do something formal.
It's actually something I could stand to do anyway since I'm working on an RP forum. It's just for friends, but having a write-up doesn't hurt, especially if it turns into a "friends inviting friends" situation.
@Pixie As for system, we're primarily a D&D group (moving from 4th to 5th edition) but we delve into other systems as well. (We're just finishing up a Champions story arc.)
Hmm, reading over what I have, it's pretty geared to freeform PBP (and the specific place I use to play, at that). The things the rules had to spell out were pretty specific to the medium. The etiquette part was general and mostly glossed over since it was common knowledge within the community.
This is generally the way I addressed etiquette: "Most importantly, don't be a jerk. Godmoding, taking control of others' characters [without permission], and generally being an OOC butt will not be tolerated. RP is for fun!" I always included a line to this effect.
It was a different context, too. In my case, rules were usually determined prior to having a group. GMs would organize RPs, and players would browse the RPs to find ones they wanted to join. They'd read the rules and decide if the GM's standards fit with theirs or not.
It often goes in reverse with traditional, IRL tabletop, at least my experience: you find people you want to play with and then figure out how you want to play, if you even need to discuss it in depth. If you've already got a group, working out a social contract is best as a group activity.
The thing I usually clear formally and written down is “Same Page” stuff (that's because I'm a true believer in “playing the same game”), so that stuff is somewhere for most games I GM, and some I play. Definitely cleared are also location, time, regularity, foods, and what happens when someone is missing, in one case contingencies for OOC couples vs. IC couples (Apocalypse world), but I haven't yet organised anything where it was a problem that we didn't specify anything above this.
Someone asked a question about the D&D 3.5e spell Mage's Magnificent Mansion, which can be found under that name in the online SRD. An edit was then requested to change the name to Morkenkainen's Magnificent Mansion; the name under which the spell can be found in the Player's Handbook.
I have no...
haha it's about the starterset xD Several sessions ago (like a month or more) we were walking through a forest i believe and the rogue found a stone/rock with a face on it, she had to roll something but failed and it buggs me not finding out what it meant. i believe she was supposed to recognize it with her "thieves cant"I waited for asking because it might effect the game then, but now we are way further so i think it is safe to ask what it meant
aaah, thieves' cant -- it's an ideographic/verbal pseudolanguage that is granted by default to thief/rogue classes in D&D. it is only known by those classes, and is immune to wizards pulling Read Languages shenanigans out of their pointy hats, but has a very limited span of expression
it can say "this house is safe", "rich people live here", or "beware of armed man" -- but you can't write a spell out in it even if you are an Arcane Trickster :P
I don't know what that specific instance in the starter set was meant to refer to -- the starter set DM materials should say though
come to think of it, @Adeptus and @Emrakul -- I have a question for you folks: how do you overcome a perception that finesse is fragile? I have that in spades when it comes to RP plots, and it really hurts because overpowering problems all the time is seen as quite boring
@Emrakul -- I tend to see the long-winded, meandering solutions that are common in the RP environment that I've been asking about as fragile -- i.e. easy to disrupt
user61230
I've said it continuously, but I'll say it again: you're still thinking about games as a logical system to be solved.
@doppelgreener Ironic, considering that one of the arguments against their pricing was about the digital versions. (ie, there's no overheads like there are on physical product, so why does it cost twice as much?)
I'm talking about the "pay once, download, and it's yours for life" version, not the "pay monthly subscription" version. Or are you saying the cloud/subscription version is all we can get here now?
