Burned Circle - OOC Thread

Shayuri · Sep 24, 2012

Ah!

That mitigates my criticism considerably then!

I had this notion that the Declaration system -was- the skill system AND the narrative collaboration system all in one.

Well now, that's fine then. All's well.

Proceed. (^_^)

ThirdWizard · Sep 24, 2012

I'm glad I was able to explain it. The first time I ran Dresden Files with my regular group, there were two things that took them forever to wrap their heads around: 1) The fact that there wasn't a list of Aspects to choose from and that they just made them up and 2) How declarations worked. The first one took perhaps half an hour of explanation before they kind of sort of got it. The second... well lets just say nobody used any declarations the entire first session.

Bluedevil · Sep 25, 2012

ThirdWizard said:
I agree that it is an imperfect system. It does look like the skills were designed without Declarations in mind and then of attached later on. I can see why they didn't make it a pure FATE use, though, because FATE is also doing so many other things. And for any really powerful uses of declarations you're going to use FATE anyway - for example if you want an enemy's gun to jam you would have to use a FATE point because the roll for such a thing would be astronomical.

Most of the time people are so starved for FATE points that they would rather give up on, for example, getting into the house than spend a precious FATE. At least, that's how my players react to that kind of thing, even though I give out lots of compels to gain FATE as much as I can.

A simple solution (that goes into House Rules territory) would be a "Luck" skill that is purely used in declarations that don't have anything to do with another skill. When there isn't an obvious skill, you use Luck. This skill could also be used by the DM for random event and to gauge their general luckiness/unluckiness.

I dont find it as bad a mash in table tops I have played, you just have to remember that the expectation is that skill rolls for declarations have to make sense and are suppose to represent people using their skills appropriately. Keep in mind, declarations is also supose to be how you combine skills.

For example in the key under the mat, someone with a lot of investigation is more likely to think of checking under the mat for the key then someone with no investigative skill.

In thirdwizards, the guy who is an expert in guns or has high resources is more likely to have silver bullets on him in case he runs into something then someone who isn't. Its also a great example of declarations as skill boosts. Because I have resources, I declare that I have special bullets (hollow points) which i load into my gun to give me the aspect (Heavy Metal) to add to my next attack roll. I could also do a lore declaration to know a monster's weak point, to give me another aspect to add to the attack. This way my other skills represent bonuses to that attack to show that I am prepared and knowledgeable.

The declarations are also not suppose to be unreasonable, they are small changes to the scene that make things a joint narrative or an interesting combat rather then a clunky mechanic.

A great example in the literature is Dresden fighting the Shadow creatures in the subway where they killed the lights and were fighting in darkness. he suddenly remembers that there is a set of pipes for fire suppression and uses them for his spell to drowned out their magic. In the book, the player could have just used a spell to cancel it out, but thought it would be cooler to use a declaration to give an interesting and flavorful bonus to the action represented by the players skills.

and apparently a window is not our way in lol

ThirdWizard · Oct 1, 2012

On the sneaking in the house front, Malcom finds an open window and Juno finds a key under a fake rock. Both will be able to be used for entrance purposes.

You guys have been hanging around out back for a while now, and not in a bad neighborhood. So, there are going to be one or two checks, roll them in this thread.

First, its possible nobody noticed you go around to the back yard. Logan and Keira might be a good enough distraction for you. Roll Stealth checks. You only need to get Mediocre, but you both have to get it for it to count.

If one or both of you fail, then you can both attempt a roll of Presence. This is to determine how much you two look like you belong there if you were noticed. Remember, just because somebody saw you doesn't mean they'll do anything about it or even remember you were there. This will be a sliding scale, and I'm not going to tell you just what your rolls mean, but basically it can run the gamut from "I'm calling the cops on those guys" to "I could identify them in a line up" to "Maybe there was somebody there, but maybe not." I'll take the best of your Presence rolls if you flub the Stealth and have to make this roll.

Bluedevil · Oct 1, 2012

Alright, Roll time. Looks like I am stealthy luckily.

ThirdWizard · Oct 1, 2012

A word on thresholds. For the most part, thresholds aren't that dangerous. At least, you won't be destroyed or slowly disintegrated by a threshold, so you've got that going for you over certain monsters out there. I've put up a wiki page going over the basics of what a threshold is and what the mechanics are.

Both groups will suffer the effects of a threshold upon entering either home right now. The woman is not offering Keira and Logan an invitation, so entering will mean you suffer the effects of the threshold, and no one is there to invite Juno and Malcom into the other home, so the same with you. For homes like these it isn't going to be extremely taxing. I'll go ahead and tell you that both of these thresholds are only strength 1.

Specifically, this means that any numerical bonuses you get that are directly enhanced by your supernatural abilities are counteracted by 1 point. It also means that spells must get past a block of 1 or fizzle. Neither of these penalties is really that bad. If you were getting around a threshold 3 or 4 you would start seeing major problems with using abilities.

As an example, Inhuman Strength would normally provide you with a +2 bonus to damage. Because of the threshold this is decreased by 1 to become a +1 bonus only.

Things like Inhuman Toughness, however, generally aren't affected, as they don't have shifts of power associated with them. It is theoretically possible for a sufficiently strong threshold to bypass certain Catches, however.

A lot of the rules for thresholds are open to interprietation, so if you have any questions on specifics, just ask. The general rule is that if something has shifts of power, those go down by the threshold's strength and if something is an active power the threshold attempts a block. If there is an active opposed roll to something the opposer might get a bonus based on the threshold strength. Otherwise, the power is unaffected.

An important note is that often wizards put wards up around their homes by using the threshold as an anchor. It might be worth it to "check for traps" as they say.