Again, Fate as an example: Fate dramatically rewards planning and preparation, but it tends to be more of the "know your enemy and come prepared for what they can do" type than "have a map with Xs and Os and lots of bendy arrows" type.
In D&D terms, find out the dragon is red and prep lots of ice spells and fire resist buffs.
It might be worthwhile to even abstract preparation and planning away for some desired gameplay results. By placing a lot of emphasis on the players (not the PCs) planning, you can get huge stalls and pacing issues, speaking from experience.
In a Doctor Who game (Fate), an Australian airline stewardess had the stunt "Because I have leadership training, I get +2 when Flashily creating aspects to coordinate a plan."
Apocalyspe World rulebook has an interesting optional move suggested: the players can simply announce that "uh yeah, my character saw this coming and was prepared for this". Like if you crash through the enemy stronghold's gate and straight at a hidden spike strip, they can announce they had a hunch it was coming and installed puncture-proof tires just in case... but they have to Roll+Sharp and stuff goes wrong if the roll misses.
She couldn't really fight in a physical conflict, so she hung back and created the aspect I have a plan! with free invokes.
She could hand those free invokes to people who followed her plan.
Exactly how much she defined the plan beforehand was totally up to the player.
@kviiri This is very common in games with player-facing narrative power.
Fate would ask that the player spend a fate point to declare they had the thing, and then the thing would just work (or the GM could instead give the player a point to have the thing not work, but they'd still brought it so the PC got be awesomely clever anyway).
Bubblegumshoe assumes you've got anything your abilities imply is reasonable for your character to have, and lets you spend ability to points to declare that you have things you could have but wouldn't necessarily just be carrying around by chance.
...and InSpectres has a clever twist on it, where players can pause the action and take a moment to narrate "to the camera," reality TV style, about the scene and what's about to happen.
(InSpectres is basically "What if the Ghostbusters had got their own reality TV show?")
(The game's first scene has the PCs pitching their show to a producer, which means it's also the players telling the GM what the game is gonna be like.)
....[adds InSpectres to list of games he wants to play]
@kviiri The Atomic Robo RPG treats individual adventures of one or two sessions each as "issues" in a comic book series. After each major story arc the group decides what the trade collection will be titled.
I've been thinking of episode titles where people can drop their suggestions in and one is drawn at random. The suggester of the title can submit another one later, but old suggestions persist, so people will eventually have a near certainty of having their suggestion picked given enough games.
Then again, I like probabilities too much. I might want to introduce some weighing to make suggestions more likely to come up after a while... or maybe I should have a voting system. Or a system that protects me from the perils of overengineering!
@Adeptus in re this comment, I don't see how picking a target being the last part of casting having any bearing... as long as it's part of casting the spell then it's got to be done at the time of the Ready action, right?
In general I'm interested in developing my GM style more towards wish listing, where people can quite cozily drop suggestions about plot developments of mechanical happenings.
Part of it is that I'm the 'most experienced' and most of it has been through college. This might be the group (as a whole)'s 3rd month on average -- I feel guilty trying to push them through
"Can we have a mass battle?" "I'm tired of shooting monsters, can we fight some humans for a change?" "Since I'm officially a member of the force now, could I receive something related to my police duties?"
@BESW A little! The concept is VERY appealing to me but I've yet to try it out.
@kviiri I try to make space at the end of every session to talk about what happened, what we want to see more of and what we want to see change. It's a good time for that sort of request to come naturally out of the group chatting about the game.
@BESW Yeah, we usually have a little feedback after every session too. But we're all computer scientists and keep touch on the IRC almost daily, so lots of ideas and suggestions tend to crop up between sessions too.
@nitsua60 Took me a while to figure out exactly what he was alluding to, and it seems a bit of an odd argument. I suppose that, once I think about it, it does make sense, though.
Since it's listed in the effects block of the spell, it would imply that casting the spell allows you to choose targets and make an attack
I know what I like in a post-apocalyptic story, for example, and there are certain elements I throw around a lot. I think more player input would help me explore new tropes in the setting.
Now that I'm thinking about it more, SSD's reading makes the most sense to me. So far as actions go Casting is a given, naturally, and can't be influenced by outside forces
Firing the spell is the same way -- not much can stop you (Let's forget about counterspell for now)
Targeting, on the other hand, is not a guarantee. You can miss.
So it'd be odd to tie something with a chance of failure to something that's guaranteed
i.e., if targeting is an intrinsic part of casting, I'd expect that a failed attack roll would necessarily mean an failed casting, which would mean that the spell slot would not be expended
Hmm... that strikes me as a strange mental model of targeting. I wouldn't have said that when your attack roll misses that your targeting failed, but rather that... something else failed? I'm not saying I can see anything wrong with that interpretation, it's just one I've never heard, or considered, and my sleep-addled brain's having trouble wrapping itself around.
(Need a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster--that'll make my brain more flexible.)
And then I go running for the comfort of Bubblegumshoe where all my mental stress, physical damage, and social disasters just come out of my Cool points.
@nitsua60 I'm going to bed now, but before I go--chances are looking good that I'll only be available for about an hour of DW play time this coming week. The class that has been trying to schedule for the last month is finally coming together, maybe.
@BESW That could be good for a first session, anyway. I've got it on my list to post some pre-game thoughts/info in Discord today... we'll see if I make it that far down the list =)
@nitsua60 ...yeah. it sounds like Trader Joe's is missing the expansion opportunity right under their nose -- apparently nobody's asked "why don't we buy this guy's operation? there's certainly a market for our products north of the border, as we can see...."
The famous/landmark case in how ridiculous US commerce law goes a little something like this:
I have a farm. I grow wheat on my farm, and feed it to my animals.
Then the FTC slaps me with a fine for not hewing to commodities regulations as regards my wheat, because I'm underselling a federally regulated market.
"Wait," I say, "I didn't even sell the wheat to anyone."
FTC: "Nevertheless!"
Me: "Also, what the heck it the federal gov't doing trying to regulate wheat non-sale and consumption entirely within my state?"
@BESW You, friend, lack imagination. We're (the US) currently under a WTO judgment levied on behalf of Brazil because our cotton subsidies undercut fair competition standards. So we "settled" with Brazil: we pay Brazil as much to not grow cotton as we pay Texans to grow it. (Literally, dollar-for-dollar.)
@Adeptus Yeah, that idea's an interesting one, I think, I hope someone posts it separately. The sage advice that someone mentioned but didn't link which purportedly allows one to ready a spell for a target that's currently out of range would seem to be controlling. If I can find it I may comment it to others or even delete my previous answer and re-submit under that line of argument.
I'll admit I don't find your answer convinving, @Adeptus, because I don't see how the given example in the text has bearing. There's no reason to think that the target of the MM was either viable or not at the time of the Ready, so I don't know how to use the example to inform this question.
@nitsua60 we have a ton more beetles here than crickets. I don't recall hearing too much cricket noise that wasn't in other places I have gone to
but the beetles who are here are actually pretty noisy, and large, though not quite to the degree that you can typically hear them from inside your home
Hey all, I had an roleplaying question about something I did a LONG time ago in a game and was wondering what others thought about a PC doing such a thing
@Adeptus The only reason I can think of is to hope a party-mate does something to burn your intended target's reaction, so that you can avoid shield. But that's a super edgey case, I'll grant.
I was playing a CN ranger/ bard in AD&D. The DM had houseruled a lich was a former paladin, had a wife and had turned to the dark size by the fact that his wife died
@Adeptus Here's what happened: last night I was playing, rather than running, so I actually had spare brain-width. Party's wizard readied something to hit a goblin when it came out of the dark cave. And I thought, hmm... she can't target it right now, and Ready says you need to cast the spell at the time of Ready... where does targeting fall?
Anyways, we found his old wife's belongings stuffed away in a warehouse, and I was determined to play the "good guy" and make sure he got them back (after all what were we to do with them)
So under a flag of truce I had him contacted and met him without the knowledge or permission of my fellow party members
And I was reading the section and see spellcasting so specifically called out as working differently. You cast at the time of Ready, not at the time of trigger. Contrast with any other action, where Ready says the whole action happens at the time of trigger.
I think I'd want to allow it at my tables, but I also think it's something I need to--in all honesty--add to my list of house-rules. 'Cause I kinda think it's not what the rules say.
@JesseCohoon I personally don't see the problem with that -- it sounds like something that could be played off of down the road as a side-plot, but given the context, @BESW is probably more right than I am :P
