Tell me about Spirit of the Century

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

....every exchange in combat involves a lot of back and forth -- you can't even resolve a successful hit without input from all parties.

You could try it, but I wouldn't recommend it.
But it's _awesome_ face to face!

Yeah, that's what I was afraid of. The thing is I don't play face-to-face right now, so I need good systems for PbP or chat. It might work on the latter, though based on the descriptions it still wouldn't be as fun.

Thanks for the answer.

 

[Mallus]

The thing is I don't play face-to-face right now, so I need good systems for PbP or chat.

What about Skype?

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

What about Skype?

Until they make a Mac version it's not free for me because I'd have to buy Windows. I have no other need of Windows, so it's not worth the purchase to me.

 

[Atlatl Jones]

edit: now I find myself wanting to convert my soon-to-be-off-hiatus 13th level 3.5e campaign to SotC. The current plan is to convert it to M&M2e/W&W (an easier system for me to run than high-level 3.5e). But SotC seems like such a terrific way to describe the PC's. Running jokes would become their actual character abilities (specifically, 'Not in the Face', 'In His Hands Cowardice is a Deadly Weapon', 'He's Covered in Blood Again', 'I Bottle It!').

I wonder if I could sell my guys on this...

It might be a bit difficult to adjudicate all the different spell effects. A good magic system is one thing that SotC is lacking.

I've been thinking for a while now about how to use Aspects in M&M. M&M's hero points already work a lot like Fate points, so it would be easy to say something like "you can only spend a hero point when invoking an aspect." Or, to be less harsh, make rerolls without an aspect use only a straght d20, with rerolls-by-aspects using the standard M&M 11-20 reroll.

Rather than M&M's vague rules for "the GM gives a hero point when he spends one, or when he uses GM's fiat", just use SotC's tag and compel aspect mechanics.

 

[TheWyrd]

I've been thinking for a while now about how to use Aspects in M&M. M&M's hero points already work a lot like Fate points, so it would be easy to say something like "you can only spend a hero point when invoking an aspect." Or, to be less harsh, make rerolls without an aspect use only a straght d20, with rerolls-by-aspects using the standard M&M 11-20 reroll.

Rather than M&M's vague rules for "the GM gives a hero point when he spends one, or when he uses GM's fiat", just use SotC's tag and compel aspect mechanics.

I too have been putting some thought into adding aspects to M&M. My biggest concern in so doing is combat issues. M&M combat is balanced on the fact that players should be able to re-roll their toughness saves. You'll want to make sure that all characters have a way of making a reroll on most toughness saves.

I like your idea on re-rolls being different. How about if a non-aspected re-roll is just a straight re-roll where you take the new roll. If you use an aspect for a reroll use the M&M rule of adding 10 if you roll under 10 on the reroll.

My other concern would be that FATE's +2 is a fairly good percentage of the available values of a FATE role (12 being about the highest you can roll unmodified) where as you're looking at close to twice that on a standard M&M roll. Maybe a +5 modifier for tagging an aspect instead?

 

[Atlatl Jones]

I like your idea on re-rolls being different. How about if a non-aspected re-roll is just a straight re-roll where you take the new roll. If you use an aspect for a reroll use the M&M rule of adding 10 if you roll under 10 on the reroll.

That's what I meant.

My other concern would be that FATE's +2 is a fairly good percentage of the available values of a FATE role (12 being about the highest you can roll unmodified) where as you're looking at close to twice that on a standard M&M roll. Maybe a +5 modifier for tagging an aspect instead?

Fate dice have a steep probability curve, so that +2 is a very large difference, mathematically. Also, going from a standard reroll to an 11-20 reroll is effectively a +5: the average on a d20 is 10.5, while the average on the M&M reroll is 15.5.

 

[Mallus]

It might be a bit difficult to adjudicate all the different spell effects. A good magic system is one thing that SotC is lacking.

It's probably not a good fit. Which is a shame... thinking up Aspects for the World of CITY characters had been amusing me all morning.

I've been thinking for a while now about how to use Aspects in M&M.

And now thinking up Aspects for Joséirus will amuse me for the rest of the afternoon.

"Egyptian God of Mexican Wrestlers"
"Good Catholic Boy"
"I'm Not in a Gang"
"I Can Fix That With Magic!"
"I Had a Nintendo DS"

 

[Lackhand]

BTW, thanks for the concrete example of a fight scene. Some questions:

Do you flat-out tell players what Aspects the NPC's and environment have at the start of a scene?

The obvious ones. I usually do it via verbal tic -- "The squat, heavily muscled gobelin chieftain's enormous bronze axe gleams dully in the light of the bonfire. His twelve minions cavort in the dark fringe around the light".
That the chieftan is prideful or a coward, however, I wouldn't lay out. Anything obvious makes its way into the description, with special emphasis for toys I suspect they'll use or I'll use.

Do you choose all the environmental/NPC Aspects beforehand or stick to text descriptions, assigning Aspects on the spot (bit of both, I'm guessing)?

Yup Indeed, in the original scene, I didn't remember to allow a scene aspect for "enormous bonfire", just for the dark fringes. It still totally counted. Verbal description matters.

edit: now I find myself wanting to convert my soon-to-be-off-hiatus 13th level 3.5e campaign to SotC. The current plan is to convert it to M&M2e/W&W (an easier system for me to run than high-level 3.5e). But SotC seems like such a terrific way to describe the PC's. Running jokes would become their actual character abilities (specifically, 'Not in the Face', 'In His Hands Cowardice is a Deadly Weapon', 'He's Covered in Blood Again', 'I Bottle It!').

Join us. Joiiiiin uuuuuussssss....
There's a lot to be said for playing SotC and raiding a 1e D&D PHB, DMG, and MM.

I myself treat a character with 6 aspects, 3 stunts, and a pyramid that caps at +3 as a 1-2 lvl character; 8 aspects, 4 stunts, and a +4 pyramid as 5th level, 10 aspects, 5 stunts, and a +5 pyramid as a 9th level character... though the arrival of 4e has meant that I sorta have to rejigger what counts as "paragon".

I still haven't decided how I want to extend SotC into epic, if indeed I do

I wonder if I could sell my guys on this...

There's nothing sufficient elbow grease cannot solve!

 

[Nameless1]

I myself treat a character with 6 aspects, 3 stunts, and a pyramid that caps at +3 as a 1-2 lvl character; 8 aspects, 4 stunts, and a +4 pyramid as 5th level, 10 aspects, 5 stunts, and a +5 pyramid as a 9th level character... though the arrival of 4e has meant that I sorta have to rejigger what counts as "paragon".

I still haven't decided how I want to extend SotC into epic, if indeed I do

So considering that D&D has a "randomizer range" of 20 (1d20) and SotF/FATE has a randomizer range of 9 (+4 to -4), it seems like each unit in D&D should equal 1/2 unit in SotC, or really close there. Especially in editions earlier than 4e, where a single hit can kill you, the condition track sorta backs this up if you count each box as a unit too.

So in this case, 1st to 2nd level should be pyramid of 1, 2 aspects, a stunt, and a single conditoin track box. For every 2 D&D levels, you increase the pyramid by 1, give another 2 aspects, another stunt, and one more condition track box. Standard SotC would be ~10th level, which sounds about right for paragon level Century Club members.

So my partial hack so far has, divide D&D level by 2, round up. Set aspects, pyramid, stunts, and condition track to this number. This is fewer aspects than standard SotC, but I also allow 2 open story aspects that you can fill in in the middle of play to reflect the current conditions of the storyline, and I also allow on the fly stunts. These aspects and stunts give are sorta the basis for what they gain as they level.

Things get sorta wacky above 10th level for pre-4e editions, but that is when they always did, hence the E6 hack popularity. The stunts to simulate D&D spells are being worked on. I replace BAB/THACO/Fighty ability with Melee and Ranged skill, and magic ability with a magic skill and some sort of magic aspects. Weapons are bing simplified to unarmed/small/medium/two handed for -1/0/+1/+2 to hit. Armor is being simplified similarly. Magic items give aspects, but not stand alone bonuses.

I am also playing with a series of free aspects and stunts that come as a package at chargen to sort of simulate class. These will be along the lines of striker/leader/controller/defender from 4e, with the stunts designed to allow eack character to pull off that role, no matter what skills are taken to support it. Something like controllers get a bonus to adding aspects to enemies, defenders get a bonus to block actions, strikers obviously do a little more damage, leaders can buff/heal in some fashion. Multiclassing is handled by taking aspects/stunts. So a paladin might be a defender, with extra aspects dedicated to religious stuff and stunts dedicated to "leader type healing ability". So it basically is classless, but there is a free package that everyone gets that simulates classes.

I also like using generic stunts. +2 to specific, +1 to general, substitute skills, or do something not elsewhere covered in the rules. Players can come up with anything that fits this model. Magic is being workded on.

The hardest part is that I need to playtest the Shadow of Yesterday keys hack that I am doing for XP. I think that I just need to play, give XP according to the keys, and then level up the party when I feel it is time. The amount of XP that they have at that point should be what it takes to level for future games.

 

[Mallus]

There's a lot to be said for playing SotC and raiding a 1e D&D PHB, DMG, and MM.

As Atlatl Jones --who plays the Atlatl Jones in the campaign!-- reminds me, I'd kinda need tools for adjudicating (a lot of) spell effects. There are 3 13th level casters in the group. 4, if I keep a retired angry robot Warforged cleric around as an NPC.

This is something the Mutants and Masterminds handily provides.