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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RyvenCedrylle" data-source="post: 5129895" data-attributes="member: 66726">My problem with the BW maneuvers (Point, Rebut, Avoid, Dismiss, Feint, Incite, Obfuscate) is that most of them didn't seem to make any sense to my players.  They could do Point, Dismiss and Incite.  They also had a basic sense of what Rebut and Feint should be, but Rebut felt like a Point and they couldn't roleplay Feint very well making it a useless choice.  Avoid and Obfuscate were completely counter-intuitive to them - "Why am I avoiding the topic of the argument I'm trying to make?"  Then there was the actual play.  First they picked a maneuver, had to figure out what Skill to roll, then check the grid to see what happened versus the opponents' choice and then finally resolve the event.  It was way too slow.  I'm sure it would be faster with experience, but I want something that can be picked up and run with.  When I started the redesign, I built the foundation on the idea that my players can all creatively roleplay the Skills, so I should just make them the maneuvers.  In theory, it would make the system accessible to "rollplayers" as well, but that's not an issue with my group(s).   I also wanted to make sure every option had the potential to accrue Successes so that we didn't run into the issue of needing to script one or two specific Skills (probably Diplomacy) to win all the time.   Every skill needs to have a chance at progress or regress.  Next, I wanted to throw out the Hesitate mechanic since it doesn't fit with 4E group skill challenges.  Finally, because I wanted to reduce the system to one table instead of two (the grid and then the maneuver descriptions), I would build the effects or feel of the Skill/Maneuvers directly into the table itself.  Diplomacy has the most varied results because its the one people are going to fall back on, so I wanted to make sure almost anything could happen if you pick it.  Bluff isn't necessarily the best skill for gaining Successes, but it has a signficant ability to numerically screw over the opposition.  Insight is the safe choice - not a lot of punch, but you're probably not going to hurt your cause either.  Intimidate is the high risk/high reward option where Streetwise works kind of like Avoid, taking away options and disrupting strategy.  Finally, Knowledge is where you go for the more bizarre effects and the killer for the powerful Intimidate.  It follows the spirit of BW's Duel of Wits, but isn't a literal translation.  You can still think strategically - if you think your opponent is going to come out with 'shock and awe' (Intimidate followed by Bluff), you can script Knowledge and Insight to shut them down.  Not every Skill has a clear counter since I'm really trying to avoid the thing devolving into RPS or Pokemon.  There's supposed to be a risk-reward mechanic involved; the highest-paying Skills also have the easiest "kills."  Hope all that answers your questions!  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />I'll look over the color scheme again.  In the split-color boxes, the characters are rolling against each other's dice AND one is also rolling against a set DC (much like how Obfuscate rolls against the opponent AND an obstacle).  If that isn't clear, however, it needs to change.  Thanks for the critique, Noumenon!</blockquote>

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