MGibster
Legend
There's no reason to have characters roll skill checks for routine tasks. The rules tell us to save the dice rolling for dramatic situations or tough challenges.
Aliens RPG Post Mortem
Manbearcat
Legend
I haven't forgotten about this thread. I'm going to put together a few posts to support my position on the ethos of this game and to do some post mortem. Maybe tonight I'll put together a post on my lines of evidence to support my position on the ethos of the game.
The post mortem will have to wait though because some loser had Kidney Stones last week so we didn't get to play (loser!)!
The post mortem will have to wait though because some loser had Kidney Stones last week so we didn't get to play (loser!)!
Manbearcat
Legend
Quick thought after the session tonight on Panic:
* My review of the system presently is the Panic rules are (a) not specific enough when/how success is overtaken and (b) not thematically general enough in their renderings.
* I think sorting out when Success turns into Failure due to Panic result overwriting the success state in the fiction is a bit of an issue. This is complicated a bit by the fact that the results themselves (eg Drop an Item) are too high resolution...too specific.
* If I would have written the Panic rules, I would have codified when a Panic result overwrites a Success and made it strictly math (eg Failure = Subtract 1 Success for every Panic above 9...if you get to 0 Success, the result is a Failure...eg Success +2 is cancelled by Panic 11).
Then, I would have written the results themselves to be more like a PBtA move so the result can be mapped on the attendant fiction; eg Reveal an Unwelcome Truth or Show Signs of an Approaching Threat on 8 and 9.
This way the procedure for handling Success = Failure is low overhead and the "WTF does panic look like" carries a much broader descriptor and can easily be mapped to more situations/conflicts.
* My review of the system presently is the Panic rules are (a) not specific enough when/how success is overtaken and (b) not thematically general enough in their renderings.
* I think sorting out when Success turns into Failure due to Panic result overwriting the success state in the fiction is a bit of an issue. This is complicated a bit by the fact that the results themselves (eg Drop an Item) are too high resolution...too specific.
* If I would have written the Panic rules, I would have codified when a Panic result overwrites a Success and made it strictly math (eg Failure = Subtract 1 Success for every Panic above 9...if you get to 0 Success, the result is a Failure...eg Success +2 is cancelled by Panic 11).
Then, I would have written the results themselves to be more like a PBtA move so the result can be mapped on the attendant fiction; eg Reveal an Unwelcome Truth or Show Signs of an Approaching Threat on 8 and 9.
This way the procedure for handling Success = Failure is low overhead and the "WTF does panic look like" carries a much broader descriptor and can easily be mapped to more situations/conflicts.
Manbearcat
Legend
Presently, I think I see the game a little differently than @prabe and @Ovinomancer (who both see this as something of a Trad/Story Now tweener). I see (at least the Frontier Colony play) being entirely amenable to Story Now play along the Alien thematic axis. However, as noted above, I think the Panic rules are ultimately not beautifully crafted. They definitely seem to be written too specific to Xenos on your ship or confronting your marines in a creepy abandoned colony. So my thoughts:
* I look at the thematics of the character build rules, the xp triggers, the extremely good (imo) condition/exposure rules, the very solid encumbrance/gear rules. These all support survival horror, hubris-of-mankind tinkering with biology and engineering Story Now play about your biome trying to kill you and the politics/fears/curiosities spraying gasoline on the tender that is inherent to the Alien milieu (including the Corporations and the UPP and the UA) quite well. Things are big and sweeping and scary...but the thematics inherent to build/advancement are personal and intimate.
* The GMing advice tells me this game aspires to Story Now ethos. Here are the seminal parts I feel:
p18 The Game Mother
The game is a conversation between the players and the GM, back and forth, until a critical situation arises where the outcome is uncertain. Then it’s time to break out the dice—read more about this in Chapter 3.
It is the GM’s job to put obstacles in your path and challenge your PCs, forcing them to show what they’re really made of. But it is not up to the GM to decide what happens in the game—and above all, not how your story is supposed to end. That is decided in the game.
That is why you are playing the game, to find out how your story ends.
That is pretty much the Agenda of Dogs in the Vineyard "prep situation not plot...don't play the story...play the town" and Apocalypse World "play to find out."
* p206-208 Principles
- F U E L T H E I R AG E N DAS
The PCs are living and breathing characters in the world of ALIEN, each with their own agendas and goals. Learn their agendas by heart
and feed into them. Put them in situations that directly challenge their goals and see how they react. Use their fragile humanity against them.
Among these, I see a host of Story Now aspirant principles. I picked out Fuel Their Agendas in particular because it is so apropos of the premise of play in an Aliens game and the tech (character build and triggers and special item) push play toward this. It is the dramatic need portion of play and its telling GMs that play should orbit around this heavily and I think the system does solid work to enable this.
As I've said above, my only complaint (thus far...there absolutely may be more) is how the Panic rules were implemented. Tight codification vs interpretation of Panic overwriting Success would have been preferred and less specificity on the actual fiction of each result would have been better. If I was writing Aliens, these two things would have been changed.
* I look at the thematics of the character build rules, the xp triggers, the extremely good (imo) condition/exposure rules, the very solid encumbrance/gear rules. These all support survival horror, hubris-of-mankind tinkering with biology and engineering Story Now play about your biome trying to kill you and the politics/fears/curiosities spraying gasoline on the tender that is inherent to the Alien milieu (including the Corporations and the UPP and the UA) quite well. Things are big and sweeping and scary...but the thematics inherent to build/advancement are personal and intimate.
* The GMing advice tells me this game aspires to Story Now ethos. Here are the seminal parts I feel:
p18 The Game Mother
The game is a conversation between the players and the GM, back and forth, until a critical situation arises where the outcome is uncertain. Then it’s time to break out the dice—read more about this in Chapter 3.
It is the GM’s job to put obstacles in your path and challenge your PCs, forcing them to show what they’re really made of. But it is not up to the GM to decide what happens in the game—and above all, not how your story is supposed to end. That is decided in the game.
That is why you are playing the game, to find out how your story ends.
That is pretty much the Agenda of Dogs in the Vineyard "prep situation not plot...don't play the story...play the town" and Apocalypse World "play to find out."
* p206-208 Principles
- Riff from the movies
- Limit their resources
- Stay in the shadows
- Increase the pressure
- Let them breathe
- F U E L T H E I R AG E N DAS
The PCs are living and breathing characters in the world of ALIEN, each with their own agendas and goals. Learn their agendas by heart
and feed into them. Put them in situations that directly challenge their goals and see how they react. Use their fragile humanity against them.
- Bring horrible death
- Reveal the univierse
Among these, I see a host of Story Now aspirant principles. I picked out Fuel Their Agendas in particular because it is so apropos of the premise of play in an Aliens game and the tech (character build and triggers and special item) push play toward this. It is the dramatic need portion of play and its telling GMs that play should orbit around this heavily and I think the system does solid work to enable this.
As I've said above, my only complaint (thus far...there absolutely may be more) is how the Panic rules were implemented. Tight codification vs interpretation of Panic overwriting Success would have been preferred and less specificity on the actual fiction of each result would have been better. If I was writing Aliens, these two things would have been changed.
Ovinomancer
No flips for you!
So, in response, I point to your earlier post where you clearly point out that the main driver of complication for Story Now play is the Panic rules and that these are not written to facilitate the play, but would work better with a fairly substantial rewrite. I agree with this, wholeheartedly, but I think that the very narrowness of the Panic rules, the genre and play assumptions that they assume, and further the same kind of design and intent present in both the skills (very specific, non-general skill system with tightly constrained, pre-story applied result options) and the talents (same as skills -- tightly constrained with story assumptions baked in) actively belie the idea that this system is broad enough to step far outside the titular genre assumptions.
I mean, yeah, there's a lot here that suggests, and even outright claims, things that seem to lead to good story now play, but then there are clear design elements that do not, and these permeate the system. Combat is highly detailed and leans into specific genre assumptions. The skill system and talent system are not flexible but rather tuned to replicate the source material. The panic system is too keyed to specific genre assumptions. This is why I say the game is a tweener -- it leans towards story now in some ways but then claws back to traditional/classic play with others. Outside play features the titular genre assumptions, I think that this very much starts to become incoherent.
That said, you're very much skilled and experienced enough with systems to paper this over. I'm enjoying the game, and the pain points -- so far -- are not strong enough to cause me to do much more than note them. However, when we get a berserk result on the panic table for a roll to try to find out what happened at a murder scene or to treat a wounded roughneck... I'm not sure I see a way to reconcile that at all. I mean, it would be hilarious to watch Birdwhistle go berserk (although I'm sure I could find a way to turn science into a horrific weapon of immediate rage), but I don't see how failing a research roll would lead to that result.
Manbearcat
Legend
@Ovinomancer , that looks pretty good to me in terms of assessment. I think I'll have a better feel after the next few sessions when combat experience, trekking, and exposure/conditions come into play.
I think you may be right though. The Panic rules issue may be a pivot point that really hurts this game. The more I get exposed to them, the less I love their instantiation. And play is so propelled by them that it becomes a thing.
Some of them are good because they belie environmental stresses that are broad:
7 NERVOUS TWITCH. Your STRESS LEVEL, and the STRESS LEVEL of all friendly PCs in SHORT range of you, increases by one.
8 TREMBLE. You start to tremble uncontrollably. All skill rolls using AGILITY suffer a –2 modification until your panic stops.
10 FREEZE. You’re frozen by fear or stress for one Round, losing your next point of action. Your STRESS LEVEL, and the STRESS LEVEL
Others...not so good.
11 SEEK COVER. You must use your next action to move away from danger and find a safe spot if possible. You are allowed to make a
retreat roll (p. 59) if you have an enemy at ENGAGED range. Your STRESS LEVEL is decreased by one, but the STRESS LEVEL of all
friendly PCs in SHORT range increases by one. After one Round, you can act normally.
I mean...come on here. This is extremely specific, extremely action economy specific, and extremely threat type/kind specific (you aren't Seeking Cover against a biological threat that can't pursue you/attack at range nor a geographic hazard that isn't a pyroclastic cloud or the like!).
Not great.
I'm also unclear on what the cash economy is supposed to do for outlying Frontier Colonies that are small and isolated.
What this game may turn out to be is a very aspirant Story Now game with some hexcrawl tech and some very poorly conceived tech that wobbles play a fair bit.
I think you may be right though. The Panic rules issue may be a pivot point that really hurts this game. The more I get exposed to them, the less I love their instantiation. And play is so propelled by them that it becomes a thing.
Some of them are good because they belie environmental stresses that are broad:
7 NERVOUS TWITCH. Your STRESS LEVEL, and the STRESS LEVEL of all friendly PCs in SHORT range of you, increases by one.
8 TREMBLE. You start to tremble uncontrollably. All skill rolls using AGILITY suffer a –2 modification until your panic stops.
10 FREEZE. You’re frozen by fear or stress for one Round, losing your next point of action. Your STRESS LEVEL, and the STRESS LEVEL
Others...not so good.
11 SEEK COVER. You must use your next action to move away from danger and find a safe spot if possible. You are allowed to make a
retreat roll (p. 59) if you have an enemy at ENGAGED range. Your STRESS LEVEL is decreased by one, but the STRESS LEVEL of all
friendly PCs in SHORT range increases by one. After one Round, you can act normally.
I mean...come on here. This is extremely specific, extremely action economy specific, and extremely threat type/kind specific (you aren't Seeking Cover against a biological threat that can't pursue you/attack at range nor a geographic hazard that isn't a pyroclastic cloud or the like!).
Not great.
I'm also unclear on what the cash economy is supposed to do for outlying Frontier Colonies that are small and isolated.
What this game may turn out to be is a very aspirant Story Now game with some hexcrawl tech and some very poorly conceived tech that wobbles play a fair bit.
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Ovinomancer
No flips for you!
Or a trad/classic game with some fun "in the sandbox" story now tech. I honestly see this game working well with a classic approach and heavy source genre theming -- like crawling around a colony overrun by xenomorphs or investigating a derelict freighter, but all with pulse rifles close to hand or power tools or the like.
I think it CAN flex, but it would require a panic system rewrite like you suggest above and a pass over the skills/talents. Honestly, though, that's too much work to interest me anymore. I'd rather do the kitbash on a PbtA game, or use FATE, or find another system that I can more easily bend to the genre assumptions than patch Aliens. That said, I'm very much going to be running that classic crawl for my home group in the Aliens system because that looks like hella fun to me. It's gonna be tropey as hell, and if people aren't quoting movie lines every 15 seconds, I'm adding more xenomorphs.
Heh. I'd probably want to use a different ruleset in the setting, too, but for entirely different reasons. I think the setting is interesting as hell, and I kinda dig the character oriented stuff, but I think the game gets less interesting, the closer it gets to the source material.
Ovinomancer
No flips for you!
Fair enough. I like them both -- scratch different itches.
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