Grade the Forged in the Dark System

FrogReaver · Apr 5, 2024

niklinna said:
If setup means whipping them up on the fly, then sure ok.

Yes. It does.

niklinna said:
Perhaps better phrased as, "Enable the GM to decide to tick them, possibly in various combinations, as a consequence instead of just deducting meat/not-meat points." And remember, clocks passing certain values can trigger actions (or partial effect) in the fiction, it isn't just when a clock is completely filled (of course you could view that as serial clocks which I mentioned above).

I'm not opposed to that description. My point wasn't to disparage clocks. It was only to note that they can feel a bit arbitrary to some people. They did to me and it's much for the reason that they 'enable the GM to decide to tick them'.

niklinna said:
False! They are frequently directly related to players' action attempts, whether successful or not. But they don't have to be. So versatile!

Maybe an example here would be helpful. We may be meaning 2 different things.

niklinna said:
I wouldn't dream of classifying hit points as a type of clock. They are far too limited and boring in comparison.

Then we are on the same page! That was all I was pushing back on.

FrogReaver · Apr 5, 2024

hawkeyefan said:
It’s just a question. No one’s looking to call you a hypocrite.

Will have to disagree there.

hawkeyefan · Apr 5, 2024

FrogReaver said:
Will have to disagree there.

I was looking at it a bit more broadly I think. Clocks were not just solely GM things in our game. Players had lots of project clocks and there were lots of others that they could address through downtime.

So for me, they seem a bit more of a tool used by all participants rather than just the GM.

But if your game had them mostly as consequences ticked as needed by the GM, I can see how that’d create a different view of them.

Ruin Explorer · Apr 5, 2024

It's slightly difficult to grade FitD as a system for me because, unlike most non-D&D RPGs, FitD has absolutely insane differences in how individual groups understand and use the rules. Like night and day differences. And the FitD community just seems to take this as read, even though it can turn the game from trash to amazing, or amazing to trash if you understand the rules to operate in certain ways or the game to be played in certain ways. Every criticism I've made of FitD, and there have been many, someone has come out with a "Oh you don't have to run it that way, here's a much better way!" and their way genuinely is better, and solves the problem, but see how I was supposed to get that out of the actual rules or text on running the game, because AFAICT, it's not in them. It seems like if you approach it as an RPG system, you can just like, go ahead and play RAW/RAI, you're making a terrible mistake. If you approach as a toolbox of ideas for making an RPG loosely constructed from the constituent parts, which you may frequently modify and update, that's going to work a lot better. This surprised me a lot because in general PtbA games functioned just fine if you played them as directed - indeed some malfunctioned unless you played them as directed.

Wofano Wotanto · Apr 5, 2024

Ruin Explorer said:
This surprised me a lot because in general PtbA games functioned just fine if you played them as directed - indeed some malfunctioned unless you played them as directed.

Might be a complexity issue. The PbtA games I've played (which is not a huge sample set, admittedly) were all much, much simpler than any FitD one I've encountered (again, not a huge sample) and derived most of their complexity from individual playbooks so players had less to deal with overall. FitD has far more interlocking subsystems and just generally more going on "under the hood" with its engine, which makes it harder for the designers to clearly express what their play styles expectations are - perhaps because they don't want to make you feel restricted to them. By comparison, PbtA games are usually very good at one specific, fairly narrow thing and as you noted, don't work as well when you get outside of that.

Reynard · Apr 5, 2024

FrogReaver said:
So, if all someone is wanting to say by 'hp is a clock' is that it's a countdown mechanism I'm perfectly fine there. But that's not all that was being said in this instance.

No, that's exactly what I said: hit points are a particular kind of clock. That's all.

Ruin Explorer · Apr 5, 2024

Wofano Wotanto said:
Might be a complexity issue. The PbtA games I've played (which is not a huge sample set, admittedly) were all much, much simpler than any FitD one I've encountered (again, not a huge sample) and derived most of their complexity from individual playbooks so players had less to deal with overall. FitD has far more interlocking subsystems and just generally more going on "under the hood" with its engine, which makes it harder for the designers to clearly express what their play styles expectations are - perhaps because they don't want to make you feel restricted to them. By comparison, PbtA games are usually very good at one specific, fairly narrow thing and as you noted, don't work as well when you get outside of that.

Calling it a "complexity issue" feels like a real cop-out to me.

Plenty of games are as or more complex than BitD/FitD, but they're explained just fine. I think it's more of an attitudinal issue from the writers that stems from the not-very-good writing/explanations in the original BitD creating a sort of "funnel" effect where only people who were able to parse that and get a game they liked out of it* actually created FitD games, and continue the tradition of not writing about their own games very well/clearly. I also straight-up don't buy the "don't want you to feel restricted" angle - BitD was extremely prescriptive in its writing (far more so than most games), and most FitD games are pretty prescriptive too in my experience. Being prescriptive is fine, but you need to explain your game and intended gameplay well if you're going to be like that, imho.

Also "good at one narrow thing and doesn't work well outside that" is a perfect description for every FitD game I've seen, especially BitD, so I'm not sure that's a point of difference from PtbA at all. Indeed I'd say it's a point of similarity. To be fair it's true for most RPGs of all systems.

* = Seemingly usually by ignoring the RAW and apparent RAI and coming up with their own, divergent, rules interpretations and systems.

Breaking Star Games · Apr 5, 2024

I think I've seen most in the BitD subreddit agree that there are issues around organization and weak explanations in the book. Personally, I didn't feel well prepared to GM after just reading, so I watched dozens of hours of John Harper running the game. And of course no game should require that to run it.

I did find the newest downloads help with educating players and improvising obstacles though (its under Core Play Sheets I believe) and the Tips & Tricks cover a lot of what the book missed. But it really does feel like a cleaned up 2nd edition would be nice.

Reynard · Apr 5, 2024

Breaking Star Games said:
I think I've seen most in the BitD subreddit agree that there are issues around organization and weak explanations in the book. Personally, I didn't feel well prepared to GM after just reading, so I watched dozens of hours of John Harper running the game. And of course no game should require that to run it.

I own and have played BitD, but I have never actually read the book. I feel like Scum and Villainy, which i have read and run games of, does a great job of explaining things.

FrogReaver · Apr 5, 2024

Reynard said:
No, that's exactly what I said: hit points are a particular kind of clock. That's all.

No, you said ‘Like hitpoints?’ right after I had criticized clocks in BitD.

#Context matters

The context wasn’t a standalone statement that hp are a particular kind of clock

Grade the Forged in the Dark System

How do you feel about the Forged in the Dark System?

I love it.

It's pretty good.

It's alright I guess.

It's pretty bad.

I hate it.

I've never played it.

I've never even heard of it.

FrogReaver

As long as i get to be the frog

FrogReaver

As long as i get to be the frog

hawkeyefan

Legend

Ruin Explorer

Legend

Wofano Wotanto

Hero

Reynard

Legend

Ruin Explorer

Legend

Breaking Star Games

Explorer

Reynard

Legend

FrogReaver

As long as i get to be the frog

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