Playtest Feedback (last 4 weeks)

[LucasC]

Game Version

• August NEW playtest doc
• WOIN playtest update doc (for the time after it was published)

Deviations from the Above Rules

• Defense calculations (from DEFENSE discussion)
• Dice pools limited to character level (we were using this before the WOIN playtest doc updated it for NEW)

Players: 8
Level: 6

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Dice Pools

I think these elements are excellent additions. The encounters I have created since the introduction of dice pool limits are the first encounters I've really felt like I could craft adequate challenges.

DEFENSE

I am still not thrilled about DEFENSE. Using the rules I presented in the DEFENSE thread have some problems:

1. Characters gain DEFENSE passively so someone that tries to pump DEFENSE is only marginally better than someone that doesn't
2. Low-level characters will have a difficult, if not impossible, time hitting a higher level character - this can be mitigated somewhat by positioning and other combat tactics but not entirely.

An observation -

When my players were forced to choose between DEFENSE and SOAK, only 1 chose DEFENSE, the others all chose to go with a high SOAK. The one player that chose to pump DEFENSE is the player of the Jedi, who gains a +5 bonus on his DEFENSE but only if he's not in armor.

Careers

Speaking generally, I think careers are too restrictive with too many requiring specific prior careers.

Consider the Scout. You must have Military Academy to become a Scout. The abilities granted by Scout revolve around reacting quickly and being sneaky. It's not hard to envision non-military means to access these abilities. Another example, Battlespsysch. This also requires Military Academy but the powers and boons are not military in nature. They revolve around being a brute with your mental powers. Why force me through the military route?

Of note, 6 of 8 characters have selected Military Academy as one of their careers and only because it is a requirement for so many others.

Secondarily, the progression of ability scores via careers needs to be weighed, to make sure every score is adequately represented. With so many different scores, lots of characters end up with 2 or maybe 3 in several abilities.

The restriction on selecting the same skill from a career list is probably not necessary any longer. Dice pools preclude a heavy focus on one skill, and this restriction now serves to encourage career dipping.

The restriction on returning to a career after having taken another career is also an unpopular rule amongst my players. They would like to be able to return to a prior career and pickup where they left off. In many cases, you could envision this being reasonable. Why, for example, would a character need to restart as a Psychic just because they went on a Star Marine Tour of Duty?

Luck

The most recent change to LUCK was not well received by my group.

Let's consider the example of a gunshot:

• AGI vs. DEFENSE
• Give the character an AGI pool of 3d6
• Give the character a LUCK pool of 3d6 (which is hard to achieve at present)

Pre-Change: When lining up this shot, the character can roll 3d6 + 3d6 for LUCK. The total pool size is 6d6 with 3 of them being exploding dice.
Post-Change: The same shot is now limited to 3d6, either using AGI or LUCK. They no longer stack.

This means the only time LUCK will be useful, is when your using a non-core skill. It also means that LUCK was effectively nerfed by the change. You could always add your LUCK to a check before the change, increasing the chance of success of any check. Now you can only substitute it.

Abilities

There are an awful lot of ability scores competing for space and attention, and a lot of them get left behind.

If you are interested, here is the distribution of scores for my players:

2: 10
3: 8
4: 15
5: 4
6: 3
7: 3
8: 5
9: 3
10: 3

The 2s are clearly abilities not increased from starting. So about 20% of their scores are whatever they started the game with.

The 3s and 4s are similar though, in most cases, they are scores that were increased not because the player wanted to raise that ability, but because the increase came as a rider on a career that raised the actual score they wanted.

The scores most of them actively seek to increase are at 7 or higher.

This suggests that upwards of 60% of their ability scores are just stats they're tracking because its on their sheet but not things they have any active interest in.

 

[Morrus]

I thought you said they never used LUC previously, and when they did it didn't make much difference?

My group loved it. One difference was I artificially gave them higher LUC scores though, because I already knew they were too low. They loved the fact that the usage now focuses on luckily doing a thing you can't normally do.

The low LUC scores we mentioned in the thread. Careers need more LUC. But being lucky shouldn't be an option for every character - Kirk's lucky, Spock is not.

That last section. Eeek. That's all new! Ugh.... sounds like I have a lot more work to do than I suspected.

So we can rule out your DEFENSE idea? My new one didn't work too great either. Dang, that's a tricky one. Though low level characters having a difficult time hitting high level ones is intended.

I'm in the depths of O.L.D. right now, but I'll try to find time to delve into the N.E.W. document as soon as I can.

 

[LucasC]

They didn't use LUCK before, and probably won't use it after, so maybe my guys are just bad test cases for LUCK? =)

I'm a bit stymied on DEFENSE. I'll try my system a few more weeks, but it just bugs me that characters actively seeking a high DEFENSE end up only marginally better than the folks around them. Or, said another way, as you were concerned about, there is perhaps not enough variance between characters.

 

[Morrus]

I thought you said there was too *much* DEF difference? Has this gone the other way?

Try giving a couple characters (whichever seem thematically right) a LUC bonus of 3 or 4 points while we wait for all the career attributes to be adjusted. I plan to sprinkle a lot of luck in there, plus increase humans base luck by 2 points.

 

[LucasC]

I thought you said there was too *much* DEF difference? Has this gone the other way?

Under the older method, I felt there was too much difference. But, under the new method, the controls are tight enough that there is very little difference. Having played with both a little, I think I prefer more variation, but only if that variation rewards players that actively seek to improve DEFENSE rather than being a random result of choices made for other reasons that also has the side-effect of improving DEFENSE.

In either case, I do like the approach of armors with a high SOAK trading off DEFENSE. Making these elements somewhat of an either/or choice vs. a "get both" choice.

As it relates to ability scores, now that I have access to character sheets in The City of Brass I'm going through and looking at choices they each made. That's where I notice the ability score and career choices.

One thing for you to keep in mind as you consider the feedback: my group is heavy action-oriented. That's clear to me from the careers and skills they've chosen. I have a couple of snipers, two melee characters, and a jedi that all have chosen to build for combat. Add one starship pilot and a healer (psi) to that mix and one oddball and you've got my 8 characters.

 

[Velcerick]

I think that one option for players that want to focus on defense would be to add career level exploits or even just regular combat exploits that give a variety of situational defense bonuses; like ignoring covering fire, inability to be pinned down, etc. The Jedi already have a flat defense bonus. With defense being more flat, careers may be able to have exploits that give it minor bumps without it causing things to become too unbalanced. We haven't tried the new values a whole lot though, so I'm not sure where I stand as a player on them.

 

[Morrus]

The essential problem, I think, is that DEFENSE doesn't have equipment bonuses like attacks do. Even if you switch it to an opposed roll, which is the 'ultimate normalizer', DEFENSE pools are at a disadvantage. And with the dice pool cap, everybody would have the same attack and defense anyway, making the character sheet rather pointless - we'd just need to toss a coin.

I gotta admit, this is starting to frustrate me. I want to move on and work on the rest of the game, but this darn thing won't let me, and I just feel like I'm going round and round in circles.

I think my preferences are a little different to Lucas -- I like things a bit more swingy than he does. That's just a taste thing, though.

 

[Morrus]

The 2s are clearly abilities not increased from starting. So about 20% of their scores are whatever they started the game with.

The 3s and 4s are similar though, in most cases, they are scores that were increased not because the player wanted to raise that ability, but because the increase came as a rider on a career that raised the actual score they wanted.

The scores most of them actively seek to increase are at 7 or higher.

This suggests that upwards of 60% of their ability scores are just stats they're tracking because its on their sheet but not things they have any active interest in.

I'm totally fine with that. They're each interested in 40% of their stats. I don't want everybody to feel they all have to increase all of the stats equally. Again, result would be identical characters. It's fine that someone wants to be the clever character, or the strong one, or the accurate one, or the charming one.

The problem lies if all characters are interested in the *same* stats.

3s and 4s are all fine. Average in most respects, better at a couple of things is what we're kinda aiming at. The only issue might be the 2s; slightly too many of them.

A starting character with an array of:

1 x 2
mostly x 3 or 4
2 x 7-8

... is about right, I think. So it looks from your stats that a little bolstering at the bottom end is needed, but the rest looks OK. You have more 10s than I'd ideally like to see - for starting characters that should be quite rare, but you have three of them.

 

[Morrus]

Careers

Speaking generally, I think careers are too restrictive with too many requiring specific prior careers.

Consider the Scout. You must have Military Academy to become a Scout. The abilities granted by Scout revolve around reacting quickly and being sneaky. It's not hard to envision non-military means to access these abilities.

Thing is, I see it as a infinite number of careers, and they have roleplaying significance. The scout is just the name I gave it; I could have called it the "Military Scout". There's nothing preventing the existence of a non-military sneaky type. A Scout, however, is a guy who went through the military.

I'm not fond of "generic" careers; I much prefer lots and lots of specific careers. They refer specific roles in the world, not to (like in D&D) sets of abilities. So the solution to that isn't to change the Scout, it's to create a non-military sneaky career.

Of note, 6 of 8 characters have selected Military Academy as one of their careers and only because it is a requirement for so many others.

I confess there's a reason for that - it's that when I wrote them, I was coming off a Star Trek RPG campaign, and my focus was on Starfleet Officers and the like. So I started with lots of careers to do Star Trek. That's why so many of them are a "Starfleet" career path. There will be more!

The restriction on selecting the same skill from a career list is probably not necessary any longer. Dice pools preclude a heavy focus on one skill, and this restriction now serves to encourage career dipping.

Agreed.

The restriction on returning to a career after having taken another career is also an unpopular rule amongst my players. They would like to be able to return to a prior career and pickup where they left off. In many cases, you could envision this being reasonable. Why, for example, would a character need to restart as a Psychic just because they went on a Star Marine Tour of Duty?

I'll take a look at that. It was there because I didn't want silly munchkin choices where folks optimized their characters by dropping in and out of the police force or what-have-you. Maybe it should be the other way around - you can return to careers *unless* it's one that doesn't let you.