Free League Year Zero Engine

[Staffan]

• The second one is the pushing mechanic. A lot of their games have this mechanic with a metacurrency attached. I don't dislike it, but it has a huge impact on the flow of the game. In D&D, if I make you roll a skill check every 2 minutes, or every hour it doesn't change much. It games like Forbidden Lands it does because it interacts with the currency Willpower and you can starve or flood your players of it. It's a little bit like games where skills improve as you make rolls, how often you make the player rolls can affect the flow of the game. Once again, not a bad thing, but it makes the system a bit more rigid to me than something like D20.

This might be a matter of taste, but I think their games rely a little too heavily on their various push mechanics. I remember having a discussion over on a Swedish RPG forum about probabilities and how even someone with fairly high stat+skill would often fail, particularly on things requiring multiple successes (I think the discussion may have been based on the MYZ Gearhead's class skill, where you need two or more successes in order to build a thing that lasts for more than one use). At some point one of the designers chimed in that the probabilities looked a lot better if you included pushing, because they pretty much assume that that's a thing you'll be doing a lot.

I also mentioned in another thread here recently that only succeeding on a 6 does some wonky things with probabilities, in that it becomes very swingy. This was especially notable when we were playing Coriolis and someone was wearing armor. Heavy armor (the best without getting into advanced tech) has an armor rating of 6 which sounds impressive... until you realize that it means a 1/3 chance of being as effective as goggles (i.e. doing nothing).

 

[schneeland]

This might be a matter of taste, but I think their games rely a little too heavily on their various push mechanics [...] At some point one of the designers chimed in that the probabilities looked a lot better if you included pushing, because they pretty much assume that that's a thing you'll be doing a lot.

I have the impression that pushing rolls is basically always factored into the game design. That's not a problem for me per se, but it does mean that my enjoyment of the game hinges on how well pushing is implemented. Which is a bit hit and miss across the portfolio.

I also mentioned in another thread here recently that only succeeding on a 6 does some wonky things with probabilities, in that it becomes very swingy. This was especially notable when we were playing Coriolis and someone was wearing armor. Heavy armor (the best without getting into advanced tech) has an armor rating of 6 which sounds impressive... until you realize that it means a 1/3 chance of being as effective as goggles (i.e. doing nothing).

Yeah, it's quite swingy and it seems to generate strong reactions in players. There's a number of people I know that have sworn off Year Zero games, because they felt their characters were incompetent and the system was too punishing. And on top of that there's the "objective" problem that in the pool version, your chance for a failure (=rolling a 1) goes up with your skill level.
I personally don't mind both too much in the survival oriented systems (Forbidden Lands, Alien, etc.), but it can indeed be a little frustrating to have a pool of 10 or 12 dice and not roll a single success. And especially if you need more than 1 success, that's a problem IMO.

 

[Jaeger]

I've heard this come up as a quick fix from others for longer-style campaigns. It's one I'm def. thinking of implementing.

If you are planning to go for a long term campaign it is a must.

Benefit from my experience:

Double the XP for PC's and castle upgrades after 6 sessions. In the first six adventures you likely encounter a new vaesen each time, which should give the PC's and advance each session. This will give them a little turbo boost to their survivability...

This would let the Players get a few skill and talents to round their PC's out before advancement slows down. And even at a slowed rate they will get an advance every 2-3 adventures on average.

The 'annals of the society' should be the #1 first upgrade they get for the Castle. A Must Buy; +1 XP per adventure. If your players don't notice this, point it out. Or they will be missing out on a lot of XP until they get it.

(All assuming one 4 hour session = 1 full adventure. I have had a handful of adventures carry across sessions, but the average generally holds.)

As PC attributes cannot be advanced RAW; there is no point in making middle aged or Old PC's. Their decreased stats will eventually catch up to them. Fear, and Critical hit recovery rolls are 100% attribute reliant, good GM's don't let their players create gimped PC's.

Talents:

'Safety in numbers' a must have each PC for Fear tests. They will not like failing Fear tests. Ever.

If the PC is going to fight 'Defensive' is a must have.

PC's will also want to look at anything that reduces Action penalties, and/or Condition penalties for rolls, for their character concept.

They must also memorize and burn into their soul the fourth sentence of the first paragraph of p.22: "You can use your memento once per session to heal two Conditions."

This might be a matter of taste, but I think their games rely a little too heavily on their various push mechanics. I remember having a discussion over on a Swedish RPG forum about probabilities and how even someone with fairly high stat+skill would often fail, particularly on things requiring multiple successes (I think the discussion may have been based on the MYZ Gearhead's class skill, where you need two or more successes in order to build a thing that lasts for more than one use). At some point one of the designers chimed in that the probabilities looked a lot better if you included pushing, because they pretty much assume that that's a thing you'll be doing a lot.

Nonsensical. They need to playtest more.

The instant you push in Vaesen you immediately give your PC die penalties for all further actions of that kind. Nobody wants to intentionally inflict penalties on themselves. This makes the PC's hyper conservative to use pushing.

Pushing in actual play is only done in desperation. Healing is to precious and too important to use just because you pushed a roll.

To use the Medicine skill requires a Entire Day of Treatment. In the overwhelming majority of published adventures put out for the game (and I've ran them all), a day off to heal means that the Vaesen will likely win.

Getting damaged all the way to Broken, then having someone make a medicine skill test is literally the fastest way to heal a PC to full health in the game, RAW.

I also mentioned in another thread here recently that only succeeding on a 6 does some wonky things with probabilities, in that it becomes very swingy. This was especially notable when we were playing Coriolis and someone was wearing armor. Heavy armor (the best without getting into advanced tech) has an armor rating of 6 which sounds impressive... until you realize that it means a 1/3 chance of being as effective as goggles (i.e. doing nothing).

Tell me about it.

Some of my players were waxing nostalgic about the good old days playing beginning CoC PC's when the percentile dice could be relied upon to give repeatable results...

 

[Staffan]

The instant you push in Vaesen you immediately give your PC die penalties for all further actions of that kind. Nobody wants to intentionally inflict penalties on themselves. This makes the PC's hyper conservative to use pushing.

Pushing in actual play is only done in desperation. Healing is to precious and too important to use just because you pushed a roll.

It sounds like Vaesen uses different consequences for pushing than OG MYZ. In MYZ, it's more of a push-your-luck mechanic. When you make a roll, you use different-colored dice: yellow for stat, green for skill, and black for gear. Situational modifiers usually add/remove green dice. On the primary roll, the color doesn't really matter: a 6 is a success. But when you push, you take all the dice that show 2-5, as well as the green 1s, and reroll (so yellow and black 1s stay). And when you push, 1s break things. A yellow 1 is 1 point of trauma to that stat (and 1 mutation point), and a black 1 reduces that gear's bonus by 1.

This gives you some information on the level of risk before pushing. For example, if you already rolled a success or two on the yellow dice but none on the green dice, but still need/want more successes, that's a fairly safe push because most of the dice you'll be rerolling are green and thus consequence free. But if you maybe already rolled two yellow 1s, you're only going to push that roll in a dire emergency.

MYZ also seems to have an easier time with healing. Mutants can heal damage and stress (Strength and Agility) by eating food and drinking water, one ration per point. So you're losing a scarce resource, but it's pretty fast. Confusion and doubt are more limited, requiring 4 hours of sleep and a "moment of closeness" with a companion (which could be sitting around the campfire telling stories, or it could be the ol' in-out) – so you can't heal them as rapidly, but on the other hand they don't cost resources.

I think the mechanic in itself (other than the probability wonkiness) is really well suited to MYZ in particular, where decay is a fundamental principle of the game. I think their adaptions to other games have sometimes been lacking.

 

[aramis erak]

It sounds like Vaesen uses different consequences for pushing than OG MYZ. In MYZ,

It does.
MYZ and FL are damage.
Vaesen, TFTL, TFTF are all take a condition
Coriolis: The Third Horizon is the one tied to a metacurrency.
T2K 4e is take stress damage.\
Alien is Add a die to your stress pool. (Highest I've ever seen was 16dS before snapping.)

Several imitators use a metacurrency for a reroll...

 

[Jaeger]

Vaesen, TFTL, TFTF are all take a condition

For Vaesen, a condition = damage.

You can only take 3 conditions before you are 'broken' and have to roll on a critical table.

Every time you take a condition, you -1D from your diepools. So for vaesen -1, -2, -3, then Broken.

Which is why in actual play, pushing is only done in desperation, or must succeed situations.

Because you are setting yourself up for recurring die penalties to your rolls until you have time to rest and recover.

I think their adaptions to other games have sometimes been lacking.

Lacking in practical playtesting...

I have a fix that keeps the game working more or less RAW, but it is a mod none the less. I just see no other way to have my players willing to push a roll outside of desperation otherwise...

 

[aramis erak]

For Vaesen, a condition = damage.

Conditions work the same in all three of Vaesen, TFTL, and TFTF.
the big difference is that TFTL lacks actual combat as a subsystem.