I'd almost be inclined to have an intermediary session where some Powerful Force Of Good calls time out and asks the paladin and cleric "WTF happened, guys?"

Or a Force Of Evil jumps in and hands out "So You Just Betrayed Your Friends and Vows" pamphlets.

Goal being to provide an opportunity to explain/justify and reflect.

Not to punish.

nod

That makes sense

I've had a couple players with complex and fascinating inner monologues for their characters, with wide character arcs that they cultivate almost entirely on their own.

This can cause surprise when the character arc suddenly rears its head as a totally out-of-the-blue action that makes sense only if you know the inner development.

@Trajan I'd like to drop a word about how Pathfinder isn't really made to support the kind of clash that comes from players choosing different, rival factions.

I've also had players who felt trapped by their character development.

@Zachiel It doesn't sound like that happened, though. At least not that @Tridus knew.

Yeah. One of the characters who sat out the combat has been doing that ever since he died. I gave him a special session while he was in Celestia, and he's been doing lots of character development with it

Course, that development doesn't line up with what happened very well.

@BESW I'm not talking at Tridus, I pinged Trajan.

I feel like there's a really big piece missing. Either you know it but don't recognize its significance, or it passed you by.

This was about as unambiguous as you can get. Demon that's already betrayed you once doing bad things to good people, and other party members intervene. If you're a Holy warrior type, that's time to go do something

@Zachiel Bah, one of those Tr* guys.

The only thing I can think of is that they thought they couldn't win. Those people initiaially argued to retreat and just let events play themselves out, and that part is fine. But then combat started and they just stood there watching, which is not fine

I've had a couple players who needed the "team" dynamic explained to them explicitly.

We're over 40 sessions and that hasn't been a problem before, so I thought the team part was working fine

In at least one case, it was because the guy's previous RPG experience was OWoD, and that system's ethos is very much "every man for himself and stab your neighbor."

I'd even have understood it if it was a more morally ambiguous situation. But the only way this could have been more absolute is if the fallen angel had been using orphans as thrown weapons for target practice on kittens.

I'm betting on the kittens.

Pretty sure the kittens deserved it.

@BESW I know. I always have the same problem with cities. Like Carmignano, Castelfranco, Camposampiero (all around here, all in different directions)

But it doesn't sound as unambiguous as you're saying.

You dangled redeeming a demon in front of a paladin and cleric.

And now you expect them to just forget it because the demon had some relapses?

Redeeming a creature of pure evil is, like, the Holy Grail of D&D paladin RP. There's a freaking spell to make it happen.

@BESW If by "some relapses" you mean that it created a plan to get a powerful item by having the party get it and then betraying the party at the first opportunity, and trying to murder them for it, then yes.

Yes, I call that "some relapses." You've gotta expect some major roadbumps on the way to redemption for a creature like that.

But the only thing that ever said she was redeemable is her. She claims to want it, but she acts wholly evil all the time.

Once you've dangled the possibility in front of them, it'll be almost impossible to take it back.

I guess, but neither of them was terribly interested in redemption at that point. They didn't even want to talk to her

If that's what they were thinking about, they didn't convey it very well during the session

[sigh]

@tridus thats why PC journals that are public are great as a way to telegraph desires that might not come across via roleplay

@JoshuaAslanSmith RElevant part of the Cleric's journal, from the last session:

she saw we were in trouble and she came back, and lifted Zyranta and I out from between the bebelith and its troops... I thought she'd take us to the garrison to deliver the status, like we'd agreed, but when she telepathically asked and found out Zyranta was carrying it, the bitch dropped me in the lava and flew off with them. We have to try and find her-- she'd have tried to get away, I'm sure of it-- and if she did and she managed to keep the statue,

our priority has to be to get it to the garrison and then regroup with the others... and then tell the angels that they should proceed to hunt that evil godsdamned bitch down and tear her apart. If she doesn't want to be redeemed, then to hells with her."

@Zachiel Ravnican guilds aren't rivals per se. They all defend Ravnica and help it proper in their own way. But why do you think Pathfinder doesn't cover internal conflicts ? I'm interested.

(from the session before the one where this fight happened, that is)

@Trajan Well I'm not sure Gruuls would agree. But I'm stuck at the original Ravnica expansion plot

So if his journal was conveying what he really wanted, redemption was no longer on his mind

Pathfinder, just like most d20 systems, has the implicit assumption that you will be a party. Anything that adds problems to the plot ones is making it more difficult to win battles.

@Zachiel Well, maybe Gruul wouldn't. And Dimir. But the other 8 are working together for the greater good. At least citizens, if not guildleaders. (And I too am more familier with the original block)

While in other games there's some gain for putting the characters in danger, Pathfinder has none that I know of

@Zachiel putting characters in danger is the gain. Character progression is... a side effect.

@Tridus Maybe he had time to cool down after being thrown in a river of lava

@Trajan Zing

:)

@Trajan YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Now the other half of things is figuring out how to rebalance the big climactic fight going forward. I don't know how powerful the one new character is going to be, but he was a Barbarian and is probably playing a Master of Many Forms. So I don't think there will be much (or any) drop there

more importantly they lost their most skilled Cleric

@Trajan Several players will beg to differ. Anyway, even supposing you have players who all like to build a story, Pathfinder will do nothing to help them. Unless you do something as the GM, all the prizes will be given for winning battles and most of the prizes will be helpful for battles. Even the collateral effect gives the players more oomph... in battle. Other games give story-helping rewards.

the other Cleric is a great roleplayer but not exactly a combat champ

(well, usually a great roleplayer. I don't know what happened this week)

Gmorning

It is totally reasonable to say "Hey, I don't know the new party makeup well enough to build the next fight. Can we add a session or two between now and then for "testing" encounters?"

You don't have to pretend that being GM makes you all-knowing and all-capable.

@BESW If I can give them something to distract them, yes. But they've got all the pieces to trigger that fight, so if they decide to just go directly to it, stopping them will be difficult.

That's why you talk to them. Out of character. As friends working together to play a game.

@tridus, BESW is telling you to OOC tell them the issue and work it out

@Tridus You could always say they run into some hidden protectors of the last fight.

What is the last fight?

"Hey, that really threw me for a loop and I need some time before we do the next big piece of the story. Work with me, please."

Yeah, that's a good idea

If your attempts to deal with meta-level challenges like this usually leverage in-game solutions instead of table-level discussion, that could go a long way to explaining the poor communication problems.

@BESW There hasn't really been a problem like this before.

In this game

Not like this, no.

But are you really telling me that in 40 sessions you haven't run into table-level challenges --like trying to get the characters to make a certain choice, or balance issues between builds-- that could've and maybe should've been dealt with as players at the table?

@Aaron There's a demon lord that is breaking out of a prison. He's going to succeed. The party has to kill him before he breaks fully out, because if he rejoins with his army and gets his full power back it's... bad. They've got helpers who will be fighting the army to give them the opportunity to deal with him.

@Zachiel You may be right about Pathfinder's focus on battle, but that doesn't prevent players to roleplay or proactively following their goals (which may be linked to their faction).

@Tridus Hmm. So it is set up that it would be too much of a stretch to have some team of 'assassin' like characters try to stop them as a practice battle?

It sounds like your default response is to try and deal with these things in the game instead of at the table. If that's so, it makes for poor communication because you're not modeling an open atmosphere. I've often run into the situation where if someone has a concern, he thinks he should deal with it within the game narrative/mechanics instead of with his friends who are playing the game.

@Trajan It does not prevent it - it does not help either - it tries to shift the focus away from those. It's a matter of reward cycles. And a balance problem: what if your wizard and your cleric decided that the barbarian was a problem and wanted to take him out? How would the system react to that choice?

@BESW If your referring to my suggestion I would likely try talk to my players but the people I have dnd with took a player vs DM stance.

@BESW Every game I've seen fail has failed because of this.

@BESW It's been a pretty smooth game, until now. We'd have some issues but we've always been able to deal with them fairly easy by discussing it. I mean the biggest issue was over what a feat did.

@Zachiel Their alignment would change toward evil likely and that is about it I think.

@Aaron It's probably possible. They're in town right now, stuff can happen in town.

@Zachiel As any other system, I guess. Party explodes, barb's player may be offended or thrilled, and the PC is out of the team (killed, running, or successful with the rest of the party dead)

@Tridus ask them if they mind helping the town with a group of bandits outside of town or something as a practice fight.

@Aaron Nuh-uh. Think about ramifications. The system doesn't give tools to handle intraparty conflict moderately. You'll wind up with someone dead, or kicked off the team. That means a player loses a character he probably liked.

You'll also wind up with a party that doesn't trust each other, so they won't collaborate and work together well, and the whole assumption of the system is that the party works together.

@BESW That sounds more like a RPing thing then a game mechanic to me.

@BESW This.

@Aaron It is a lack of game mechanics to deal with it moderately that produces the extreme effects in RP.

there are other, better systems for intrapart conflict

paranoia for example

@Trajan Some games are made to deal with this. I'd like someone with more Apocalypse World experience to chime in but I guess even Fate is good at this. @BESW?

@BESW It depends. I have played an evil character who killed a team mate but the player understood why I did it so his next character didn't mis trust me. It all depends on the players.

You also get more mechanical ramifications about the wealth-by-level system: Did you loot the body? Does the new guy come in with his level of loot? Suddenly ganking your party members provides income.

Another issue with the mechanics is that 3.PF does nothing to separate character from player.

The entire onus is on the players themselves to emotionally detach themselves from their characters.

Whereas in AW and Fate and similar games, the player is explicitly a step removed from her character.

@Zachiel Yes, I thought about Fate, and from AFAIK, in Fate, the wizard and cleric's players should have talked to the barbarian's player and considered all together the eviction of his PC, and would have had to agree.

@BESW I've tried not to do that. Between sessions I talk to the players pretty regularly about how things are going and if they're unhappy about anything. But never "guys you just got your two strongest members killed, so can you go do a sidequest for me while I figure out how to make the boss fight killable again?" That's a new one for me.

She is a narrator of character actions, rather than the character being a player avatar. 3.PF provides no mechanical support for considering your character's actions and choices as "other."

@BESW I think the leveling and book-shopping aspects of it kinda do that, a bit. Often you plan out a character's path way ahead of the character's own goals and expectations.

If the best that can be said is a system "doesn't prevent" a kind of interaction, and "it all depends on the players" whether that action is going to rip the group apart, that's a good sign the system isn't intended to handle that action.

@AlexP Yup! Putting a lot of time into a character in a system where the character can die easy is always a risky proposition.

@BESW I never thought of my PC being an avatar of me. It's not a system thing, it's in the hobby description : role-playing game, we play role, people we're not. But maybe it's not that clear for everyone and I'm wrong assuming it is, and I need a system enforcing this to my players.

It makes the loss of the character more emotional, and if it comes out of the blue from a fellow player rather than a villain (who you kind of expect to be trying to kill you, it's fair dues as you're trying to kill him)...

Getting your level 5 Barbarian killed means you lose the time you spent in CharGen and the five levels of play and leveling.... and the 15 levels you had planned.

That is personal loss of your own time and effort in the real world, and while the game is set up so you expect it--you expect your fellow players to be helping you avoid that outcome, not cause it, unless you started out the game with that explicit understanding.

@BESW Sure, losing a character is sad, and being betrayed is even worse. But to me it's not a system thing. But then, I never played paranoia or Apocalypse world.

This is why Paranoia characters are generated with a lot of quick random rolls, and you get a six-pack of a given PC before you have to re-roll.

@Trajan Well, it's play expectations. Paranoia is about celebrating that. AW is all about our characters interacting with each other in various ways.

It is a mechanical buffer, built into the system, which reduces your emotional connection to the character's build time (as it's quick and randomized) and spreads the pain of loss over six easy installments.

A party is really strongly built into D&D.

3.PF doesn't have these buffers.

So anytime another PC kills your character, you still have to go back and create a character for a game where that other PC is still one of the protagonists.

And yes, the party dynamic is also built into the rules. The idea that you're a team which supports each other against difficult odds and helps each other from dying is hard-wired into the mechanics.

The mechanics tell us that party betrayal is unexpected and potentially suicidal.

It's really hard to be interested in "Bob the guy who killed my character is still the protagonist of this story."

I really like the art in the pathfinder books. The buddy who's game I might be joining lent them to me. The picture for the barbarian class is awesome.

@BESW I think this is the point I miss. Except for CR which is built for a party of 4.

Whereas in, like, AW, it's much easier to root for Bob's downfall, for example.

@AlexP Unless your new character is there to kill Bob, of course.

@Tridus But that doesn't work! If your new character is there to kill Bob, you are not playing D&D really.

@Trajan The mechanics aren't very good at enforcing the team, but they're there. Utility, meat shield, healer, damage-dealer--the classes aren't built to be self-sufficient, they're built to be synergistic units of a cooperative group.

I mean, "I will go on adventures with you and then kill you while you sleep" is a ridiculous storyline.

But I think you're right, and 3.PF isn't built for intraparty conflicts

@BESW Moreover, the game's focus doesn't really stand up to "split up the group and have them do different things, maybe even work at cross purposes for an extended period / forever."

Compare WoD, or Fate, where each character is equally self-sufficient and doesn't expect to have someone else filling in the holes their role leaves.

@AlexP Players who are angry about their characters being betrayed and killed by a party member have been known to do irrational things like that, though. You make a new character, kill Bob, all is right with the world, and you can resume playing. It's a bad situation.

@Tridus I've seen it.

If I really wanted to, I could run Fate or BW about characters who are outright rivals. Just as long as they have anything that keeps them from "going nuclear" right away.

Also, at the player level, regardless of how you RP your character, you now have the nagging idea that the other guy's character is going to stab you again. It festers.

@BESW Maybe the group I played with is too much D&D-centric. We played Vampire as a team with a nosfe meat shield, a malkavian face (dont ask), and a gangrel damage dealer.

@AlexP One of the primary roles of White Wolf Storytellers seems to be "Provide a reason the PCs don't all kill each other in the first session."

(and it went poorly, actually... maybe it is a system thing, then)

I really need to introduce my friends to the Same Page Tool.

@Trajan I wouldn't call it D&D-centric, necessarily, but team roles is a distinct subtype of RPG.

@Trajan It's really easy and actually kinda fun to go through it as a group.

@BESW I wasn't aware of that.

@Tridus It probably wouldn't work in your group, but it'd be a lot of fun (if it could be done in fun) to have the surviving PCs get dropped into a pocket dimension where the Forces of Good and Evil (RPed by yourself and the guy whose PC died but is sticking around) barter for their loyalties.

@Trajan Paranoia is famous because it plays with the fact that D&D is designed to be a team game but so many people play it competitively. There are other RPGs which cut out the team concept entirely.

I'm not very interested in them, myself.

The Forge messed around with it in games like Dogs in the Vineyard and My Life with Master

@BESW DitV is still kind of a team game. It just works differently.

The idea is that you can pretty much plow through opposition if you (1) all work together and (2) don't care about the consequences.

DitV looks like a team game, but one of its major points (and its wager mechanic supports this) is getting its characters to fight for different outcomes.

Sure.

But ultimately you're fighting to come to agreement.

@AlexP The goal of the game, though, is to make it hard to do that.

@BESW I was getting to that.

And My Life with Master does something similar.

So, it's very much a game about a team coming to a decision over a difficult situation.

Sometimes that decision might tear the team apart.

But I do think the characters are very prominently "In it together."

Aye. It's a different kind of dynamic from White Wolf, but it's very much not the "team roles" genre.

No, it's not.

But it's still the team concept.

There's nothing like the idea that everyone has a different specialty and you need one of each to fill in each others' competency gaps.

@BESW Yeah that's a good idea. I'll think about it today.

If it had a "team roles" dynamic, the "team argument" dynamic wouldn't work half so well.

@Tridus If I did it, I'd have the dead PC's player be the Good Force, arguing to save them and redeem them. It could be cathartic. But again, it's not a good idea for every group. It'd work in most of my groups, but not all.

@BESW I'll ask him and see if he's willing to do something like that.

Thanks folks. Been a weird morning being at a loss on what to do like this

Good luck.

@BESW Niche protection isn't really what I think of as the core of the "team concept." It's just the A-Team concept.

That's why I've been calling it a "team role" thing.

Because you can say any game for more than one player that isn't explicitly about them fighting each other has a team concept.

Dogs in the Vineyard shifts the focus from "what am I able to do?" to "what am I willing to do?".

WoD is a team game, it's just a game where the teams are usually forced together by some outside force and have little internal motive to work together.

@BESW Well, no. Any game where the PCs are all together all the time, also.

I like to have a session or two of nothing but role playing to prevent forcing characters together.

@Aaron My strategy is to ask each player to make sure their character has X element when they start the game.

@BESW As D&D often is.

It's been "you all want to get passage on a ship to the same place," or "you're all members of the same guild," or a number of other things.

@Zachiel Except that in D&D niche protection tries to give them an internal reason: self-preservation.

WoD's characters don't have competency gaps in the same way D&D tries to do.

"The gate opens, the gate closes. It does not help."

@BESW That only works at the lower levels

@Zachiel Again, "tries."

@Metool The cheese slices will not help you either.

@BESW Quite. I had to throw up.

@Metool expecting? or do I lack some other context?

@waxeagle Metool often logs in with a random quotated phrase. This time, I responded with a vaguely-related one of my own, and that's his reaction.

@BESW ah :)

You just ingested rotten food and don't have digestive medicine to counteract it, so what do you do? Open the Character Viewer and spin until you puke it up. Gotta love Metal Gear.

METAL GEAR?!

METAL GEAR???

But is it solid?

@Aaron METAL GEAR?!?!?!?!?one!!eleven

Back in a while.

@shatterspike1 I don't get your reference.

@Aaron Oh. Well that's a shame.

@shatterspike1 What is it?

@Aaron Metal Gear.

@Aaron The "!1" Phenomenon, perhaps?

@shatterspike1 Ah. Yes unfortunately I have only played the first Metal Gear up to the first boss and I don't remember what happen but I was unable to play after that.

@BESW That too. It's making fun of how snake says "metal gear" with shock anytime anyone mentions it.

Has anyone played the new Deadpool game?

Not yet. But I definitely want to.

The video game? Yes, I have. It's fun and in character, although pretty short. Gameplay-wise it's pretty much Arkham City the light version, but there's still a lot of room for that to be enjoyable.

I heard the forth wall jokes were good.

It's Deadpool so yeah there is plenty of breaking of the 4th wall.

@JohnCraven Have you read the comic where he kills everyone?

I have read very, very little Deadpool comics

so no

Isn't that a trick question, though?

@BESW Hmmm?

How so?

@JohnCraven It's a really good alt universe comic.

If anyone quotes Rule 0 to me on this question, I'm going to be unhappy.

@BESW Don't worry about me doing it, I don't understand the question.

I see what you're saying. The example I think makes it make sense. You're in a situation where a non-aspectual compel makes sense. GM hands you a plot point for it to rain. What aspect is he compelling in that sense? (and can he even compel it?)

Exactly.

Do scenes have aspects?

and is an implied aspect the weather for that scene?

@waxeagle In some Fate systems but not in others.

Found it!!!! imgur.com/gallery/h5uik

because the narrative made the weather important. Which makes it an aspect

It's a good read

@waxeagle I have seen (can't remember where) a discussion about the validity of making implied aspects into actual aspects as they become important.

I kinda want to make a character based on him but I am not sure if I could pull it off.

I could probably, with a great deal of work, cobble together an answer to my own question. But I'm very curious about what the rpg.se gestalt can come up with in terms of prior justification pre-Core.

Regarding aspects... isn't there something out there in either FATE core or the supplemental book that talks about implied aspects?

@BESW I'm interested as well.

I.e. if it's raining then you can spend a Fate point to invoke that even if it's not specifically listed?

@JohnCraven I've seen that somewhere but a search of the Core and FAE give no results for "imply" or "implied."

One issue regarding that, however, is what you are actually asking the rain to do... if, for instance, you want to have the character slip on the ground, I think that does require all the normal ways to create aspects / boosts (i.e. the character must spend a Fate point or roll to create an Advantage)

so I have to turn this back to you... what are you attempting to invoke the rain for?

I'm not.

I'm invoking the scene to start raining.

@JohnCraven see the example, it's a narrative device to exploit a trope and create a conflict. The "this will be great so long as it doesn't rain" you're creating conflict by making it rain.

Would the rain starting trip any aspects in and of itself?

Because as a GM you can pretty much add any flavor you want to add there (note that this is not specifically Rule Zero)

"trip"?

It's a scenario aspect that will later justify overcome checks, increased difficulties, invokes, and compels.

For instance, if you're standing near a dam with the aspect "She's Gonna Blow Any Second Now", then all that saying "it's raining now" does is it kind of lets the characters know that you're going to be invoking that aspect some time soon

In the case of Digger, it forces her to take cover in a cave that is probably already inhabited by some unknown creature... which tries to eat her.

Hmm...

So here is how I might solve this...

1. Create a fractal called Mother Nature

2. Give Mother Nature aspects, Fate points, and so on

3. Use that fractal to invoke aspects

or if "Mother Nature" is too cheesy, make the wilderness itself the fractal

In terms of literature, man vs. nature is one of the oldest conflicts out there, so making "nature" into a semi-character strikes me as being completely and totally within the bounds of FATE.

That feels like inventing more rules and thereby giving more focus.

Sure, it's totally legit--IF that's the goal.

I'm not adding any more rules than currently exist in the game

But it's not.

If Wombat vs Nature isn't a major theme of the story (and it's not), then there's no need to go inventing new fractals.

This is a one-off compel scenario, not the setup for a Jack London storyline.

So... I think the whole point of FATE is to take a lot of the burden of GMing off of the back of the GM and onto the players. The flip side of this is that as a GM I don't think you have the freedom to just railroad players into situations (no offense).

...compels aren't railroading.

I agree. If the character has an aspect you can compel to get them into that cave, that's one thing.

It's the duty of a GM to provide interesting compels that can further the drama and the story, and the player has multiple responses available.

Without invoking Rule Zero (which I agree is a terrible cop out in this case) I don't think that you can just draw up an aspect in the middle of a scene out of thin air.

I'm trying to figure out under what situation, if ever, this kind of compel is explicitly justified in any Fate documentation.

@JohnCraven Again, I'm not.

If, when framing the scene, you include that aspect within the scene, then really I think anything goes.

Based on the narrative (the player narrates her character saying something), it makes sense for the story to respond in a certain way to increase tension and conflict.

You can compel with it, the players can also use it to further the story via Fate points and creating advantages.

That's not out of thin air.

That's out of the narrative, which is what Fate's about.

And even if that weren't the case, it's still not "sudden aspect out of nowhere" because it gives the player a Fate point in exchange.

damn, I don't have the Core Rulebook on this computer so I can't look this up, so apologies if I continue to go by the spirit rather than the letter of the rules here

I'm not slapping new aspects onto the scene without justification and without giving the player their due ability to counter it or be rewarded for it.

Hmm... in this case, I think that if everyone agrees to the aspect, putting it out there is no big thing.

I'm just modifying one particular part of the compel mechanic, not ignoring the compel mechanic completely like you're making it sound.

@JohnCraven Fate SRD

If you described the scene as sunny without a cloud in sight, I could see where players might object.

I don't think you're ignoring it.

(Linked to twice in my question, by the way.)

I think you asked a question and I'm trying to respond with how I would approach the issue.

@JohnCraven "just draw up an aspect in the middle of a scene out of thin air" sure durn sounds like it.

OK, you disagreed with my tone.

I'm trying to ferret out a specific situation and how things could be applied.

I've edited my question to be more clear about the example, and I'm going to bed.

I would add that 1. if the weather was important to the scene, I would attempt to make sure that there was something about it - if not "it's raining" then at least "the skies look like they're about to erupt"

ok, good evening

@JohnCraven The weather's not important until the player calls attention to it. If it were important, there would, one can reasonably assume, already be an aspect about it.

Late to the party and all, but why is this a compel at all?

Rather than just a thing that happens?

I think the example given was that it's a torrential downpour that wants to route the character to a cave and the like, i.e. a complicating situation

therefore, mechanically I think you're supposed to compel something, award a Fate point, etc., as the point of Fate points isn't so much "making my character better" as it is "giving me more control of a situation in the future in exchange for accepting complications now"

To start raining, or to force you into the cave?

I just posted a longish answer that more or less summarizes what I posted in here if it helps

if you have an aspect on the table it's perfectly within the rules to invoke it on a player to compel them to go into a cave

which isn't quite what's going on here... so I think that rules-wise you have to find a way to create the aspect first

Today's Question: What 3 games - giving thought to GNS, ease of learning, ease of playing, speed, and similarity of theme - should an introduction to RPGs include? Consider this from the perspective of a 2-4 hour session where each student/player is given a binder with details for 3 different versions of the same character in each game, where a GM then walks them through each game one at a time across a small adventure.

@DampeS8N That is a difficult one.

@shatterspike1 I know. :)

I almost want to include Unknown Armies in that list, just because the rules are so damn sane.

If you can tie that into two other games in a way that makes sense, go for it.

Ideally, this should touch on as many different aspects of table-top RPGs as possible. Not just GNS theory, but methods of randomness, being designed with tons of custom stuff in mind (like Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay) down to almost nothing, like Fiasco.

@DampeS8N D20 needs to be included just due to sheer size/popularity, almost.

To the point that an intro to RPGs is incomplete without mentioning D&D and its descendents.

@shatterspike1 I agree. And I strongly lean towards including 4E for various reasons (Popularity, being almost totally gamist, addition of great looking maps, minis, cards and other flavor) but I am open to alternatives.

My current personal list is something like 4E, FATE, and something heavy in simulation but not overwhelming... Maybe GURPS.

@DampeS8N I would place 3.5, but that's more personal bias and I think 4E works better for the Gamist aspect. Legend might also work, although that doesn't have quite the history behind it.

Hmmm... D&D 4E, Unknown Armies, Microscope

That's a good mix, but I am unsure how to create characters that logically can exist in all 3.

Alternatively, replace Unknown Armies with Harnmaster or Riddle of Steel.

I'd worry that Harn would take up the entire 4 hours alone. :P

In that case, the character created would be built on the same concept with necessary differences due to system.

Stick with Riddle, since it's close enough to simulationism for our purposes.

Check out "Ascension of the Magdalene", it has characters represented in both d20 and UA.

@BESW hellow

in which book it is written that the immunity of the constructs magic, is only affected by spells that RM has not????

3.5e

@krasawave I honestly can't understand what you're saying here. Could you rephrase that?

@DampeS8N Come to think of it, UA represents simulationism in the original sense better than any of those games. After all, you're "simulating" gritty modern magick setting extremely well.

You also have a nice scale of rules heavy to rules light, and DM-player dichtomy to none.

@DampeS8N I think "three versions of the same character" is a bad idea. Three wildly different themes and settings is so much better.

That's why UA is a good fit, for example. "Okay, now instead of being a Greek-style hero you are gonna be... well, okay, basically an addict."

I wouldn't do Riddle of Steel as a starter game. It's very complicated in places, the books are very hard to source, and ultimately I don't think it actually works that well (though that's a matter of opinion).

@krasawave If you mean where it's written that the golem's immunity to magic only works against spells that allow Spell Resistance (RM = Resistência Mágica, I suppose), it's in the description of the golems.

Oddly enough I'm getting the urge to play 4e again ...

@DampeS8N If you want to play the same characters I'd play 4e, Dungeon World or maybe Fiasco with the D&D playset and GURPS. 2-4 hours is barely enough for a D&D adventure alone, Fiasco can esaily take 3 hours and GURPS can be faster if you know what to roll. If you don't feel the need to have them play a Sim game (usual caveats on what Sim game really means), go for DW, Fiasco and maybe a medieval version of Agon

@C.Ross :evilgrin:

but then I read through the rulebook, and see the obvious mechanical straightjacket ... I dunno ...

I can hack/work around rituals and other out of combat magic ...

@DampeS8N Fate could also be a good game to showcase, same characters and all. Let the D&D games out for they take too long, while two scenes of Fiasco and some DW or Fate are squeezable

@C.Ross I don't like rituals. Except when I can cast them for free. :p

@Zachiel Yeah, that's part of the problem. Any out of combat magic has a huge buy in (unless you're a bard or something). But you can house rule that fairly easily.

@C.Ross As the DM I don't really like the "we have magic, half of the real life problems are nothing to us" approach. Makes it hard to plot plans

On the other hand I was reading a Druid Paragon path ... can't recall the name, but it lets you turn into beast form and fly. Except: it has two powers that let you fly in combat, but force you to land each turn, and a utility that lets you fly but prevents you from doing anything useful.

And it just ... feels so forced. The game designers were sitting there going "we want to give people flying because they want it, but we can't give them flying because X" ...

@Zachiel there is middle ground I promise

I'm not really into a full high level 3.5 intricate magic vs magic game either

my bearings aren't so frictionless I guess :-S

@C.Ross What do you normally play?

@AlexP Pathfinder and Fate

I don't like the whole "dissociative mechanics" discussion, but to be honest I also can't really handle a game where the mechanics aren't super-tightly linked to the fiction.

("Frictionless bearings" is a much better term, without the baggage. ;) )

One of my favorite parts of DMing new players is when they first start talking about what type of character they're going to play "next time"

I feel like that's the moment when they move beyond understanding and being invested in their characters and start understanding and being invested in the game