Spycraft 2.0 is awesome!

[Henry]

I have to disagree with Henry on this one. To me, "level has little/nothing to do with your relative competence or character role" is just one more step forward on the same shining road as "character class has little/nothing to do with your character role."

Levels are a great tool for making a playable game, but they restrict character concepts immensely.

My difficulty with this is, if true, then why have levels in the game?

To me, levels serve a twofold purpose: one, they gauge character progress and give players a measure of progress, so as not to feel too stagnant in character advancement. Second, levels also allow a range of power measures to play in. The same game can handle gritty street-struggle, competent heroes, or larger-than-life champions, all by varying the level the action takes place at.

If, however, level is no longer a reliable tool to gauge progress, if all threats have the same relative chance of success or failure regardless of level, then level becomes an unnecessary concept. That's the part that I have difficulty with. Even in Spycraft 1.0, level still gauged whether missions were the "clean-up" or "world-saving" variety. I can appreciate wanting to have heroes able to save the world from level 1, but to me that's what levels 9 and up are for.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

My difficulty with this is, if true, then why have levels in the game?

To me, levels serve a twofold purpose: one, they gauge character progress and give players a measure of progress, so as not to feel too stagnant in character advancement. Second, levels also allow a range of power measures to play in. The same game can handle gritty street-struggle, competent heroes, or larger-than-life champions, all by varying the level the action takes place at.

If, however, level is no longer a reliable tool to gauge progress, if all threats have the same relative chance of success or failure regardless of level, then level becomes an unnecessary concept. That's the part that I have difficulty with. Even in Spycraft 1.0, level still gauged whether missions were the "clean-up" or "world-saving" variety. I can appreciate wanting to have heroes able to save the world from level 1, but to me that's what levels 9 and up are for.

I can understand the difficulty.

I suppose it really comes from my extensive console RPG background; I see levels as an entirely abstract concept, like hit points, to give a sense of mechanical advancement; the characters' "plot power," so to speak, comes not from their levels but from events in the storyline.

For that matter, I much prefer levelless, classless systems (for instance, HERO and SilCore) in most respects. However, I like the way level based systems keep PCs in rough parity for game mechanical purposes. Spycraft seems to present a fairly solid compromise.

 

[AscentStudios]

Alex, please clarify for me -- was that supposed to be an insult to my ability to comprehend RPG's? Because it really read like my struggling with the body of SC2 rules was due to my "inexperience with d20," or the fact that "I'm a GM who doesn't know what he's doing."

Argh! Not at all...totally not what I mean =t - that'll teach me to write when I'm constantly being interrupted at work. I was referring to your comment: "As it is, there's just TOO much for a first-timer to absorb - enough to turn them off from it, if hit all at once". We acknowledge the distinct possibility of information overload from all the options and crunch, particularly for newbies, but ultimately we were writing it for gamers like yourself. We were pretty unforgiving about the lead-in, so it's not surprising that there are people who are a little shell-shocked. I am glad you like it...I was just trying to acknowledge the book is heavy (in more ways than one) My apologies.

 

[Plane Sailing]

If, however, level is no longer a reliable tool to gauge progress, if all threats have the same relative chance of success or failure regardless of level, then level becomes an unnecessary concept.

As I was thinking about these comments, I realised that in my experience that was true of earlier editions of D&D, but not true at all in 3e.

Let me try to explain my POV.

In 1e a high level party was guaranteed to last longer against almost all threats. They were much harder to take down than a low level party.

In 3e there is more of an emphasis on 'level appropriate challenges' and certainly PCs in the 6th-12th level range can die in their droves in just a few rounds of combat - very unlike the 1e experience. I noticed this in empirical fashion in that far more PCs were dying at those levels than before... the gamers longer experience with 1e levels of power and resilience left them ill-prepared for how vulnerable their characters were against challenges of 'appropriate CR'. Critical hits and much, much higher amounts of damage on every side were huge factors in this

So in 3e the DM is encouraged (and the system heavily supports) a pretty uniform level of threat to the PCs as they advance. The only place where this isn't seen is in static skill check DCs.

n.b. I've just purchased Spycraft 2.0 on the basis of the comments in this thread. I don't know when I'm going to be able to start actually reading it though!

Cheers

 

[specks]

Henry,

I was going to buy Spycraft 2.0 but now you may be scaring me away from it. Anymore advice?

Please help!!!

 

[Henry]

Argh! Not at all...totally not what I mean...ultimately we were writing it for gamers like yourself. We were pretty unforgiving about the lead-in, so it's not surprising that there are people who are a little shell-shocked. I am glad you like it...I was just trying to acknowledge the book is heavy (in more ways than one) My apologies.

No offense taken; the way I mistook it, it came out of left field and surprised me. When I say "first-timers" though, I'm more referring to people, veteran or not, who are new to SC2. Even as I am familiar with SC1, this one is familiar, yet option-laden enough to blow me away. For someone who is unfamiliar with Spycraft at all, it would still be a challenge to decipher. What I may do, if the AEG folks are amenable to it, is sign up at the AEG forums, and walk myself through creating a character from scratch, and seeing what I miss. I dug into it more last night, and while I'm clearer on it, the Equipment and Gearing Up sections are as clear as mud to me. The caliber (as in I,II, III, etc.) really would be more helpful if it were listed with the relevant stats of the equipment, be it gun, car, kit etc. I can appreciate it being broken out by type of equipment (e.g. service pistols, pump-action shotguns, etc.) but constant flipping at gear picking and assignment is a big turn-off, especially with gear being so important.

I'm in love with the feats, though. I got a kick out of the "James Bond Walther PPK" feat - I was wondering how he kept taking down mooks with one shot from that puny gun. I also love both the "marked" feats (though I'm curious to see how such a roleplaying disadvantage would work out) and the various martial arts feats did not disappoint, even if they're a little murkier in explanation than the SC1 versions. Some abilities I'm not sure how often they'll come up.

One thing that I'm still in doubt about: The Sliding Initiative scale. Just thinking about it gives me nightmares. I've LONG been a proponent of Initiative cards, and it's been a LOOOONG time since I've kept track of what someone's actual number was, after the first roll for the round. Init cards have sped my d20 games up threefold, and if I use sliding inits, I'd be afraid it would not only slow back down, but it would slow down even more!! And writing and rewriting people's names on paper or battlemat, or worse, calling inits ONE by ONE like in the old days, are very unappealing to me.


My question for you, Morgenstern, and anyone else listening:

--What would be the biggest revisions I'd have to make if Sliding Inits were not used?
--How do YOU keep track of inits in your Spycraft 2.0 games, so that the action keeps moving?

 

[Henry]

Henry,

I was going to buy Spycraft 2.0 but now you may be scaring me away from it. Anymore advice?

Keep reading Specks - there's plenty of good mixed in with the possible bad.

 

[Henry]

As I was thinking about these comments, I realised that in my experience that was true of earlier editions of D&D, but not true at all in 3e...

In 1e a high level party was guaranteed to last longer against almost all threats. They were much harder to take down than a low level party.

In 3e there is more of an emphasis on 'level appropriate challenges' and certainly PCs in the 6th-12th level range can die in their droves in just a few rounds of combat - very unlike the 1e experience...

So in 3e the DM is encouraged (and the system heavily supports) a pretty uniform level of threat to the PCs as they advance. The only place where this isn't seen is in static skill check DCs.

I can definitely see what you're getting at, PS -- however, I saw this more in 2E than 1E, because of lack of die caps on spells. But it's true that characters in 3E have a more sliding scale for lethality. One thing in 1E and 2E AD&D -- your saving throw targets were largely independent of threat, so once you got to 15th level or so, and possessed even a modicum of magical boosts, anything that forced a save, unless a penalty was attached, was a hollow threat.

Maybe it's just the "you can be the Baddest Mother on the Block, no matter the level" philosophy is what I'm not settling with, same as Psion indicated. It's even built into some of the class abilities (I think there's a hacker ability that says YOU CAN'T FAIL a hacking check unless its DC is 20 + level??? ) Admittedly any player looking at that is going to drool -- I know I did.

 

[Denaes]

One thing that I'm still in doubt about: The Sliding Initiative scale. Just thinking about it gives me nightmares. I've LONG been a proponent of Initiative cards, and it's been a LOOOONG time since I've kept track of what someone's actual number was, after the first roll for the round. Init cards have sped my d20 games up threefold, and if I use sliding inits, I'd be afraid it would not only slow back down, but it would slow down even more!! And writing and rewriting people's names on paper or battlemat, or worse, calling inits ONE by ONE like in the old days, are very unappealing to me.

What are these cards you speak of?

I know init hasn't slowed down any from normal d20 iniative.

We have a battlemat before combat we write down everyone's names and their iniative score. If someone does an action that modifes init, either they "X" off their old score and put the new score on or they tell the GM when they use the move and the GM writes it down.

I'm not sure how Init could go any faster as it doesn't take any time now. The GM just looks at the scores and says "Jim, you're up now, frank is next" and jim goes. I heard you say something about an init count. Why would you do something like that? Those never work and you'll always get someone who misses their count. It's faster when you just address them by name. No confusion.

Really sliding init is like a nightmare in that you dread it, you fear it, then when you confront it, it just fizzles away and you wonder why you were concerned about it.

There is a chart for what changes init, and look at them and see how often they really come up?

How often will someone take an aimed shot when they could have two unaimed shots? Bracing is really only important with automatic fire, Regrouping hasn't come up yet. tactical weapons? Triumph. Exhausted? Havn't come up at all.

Here is what I can see comming up: Shooting without a proficiency, Crit miss/failure, taking damage... thats about it.

For all I know your magic cards have circumvented time & space and you go 5x the speed of normal iniative somehow. In that case this would be slower. Otherwise, it's just as fast, saying you're not sitting with your nose in a book looking things up.


My question for you, Morgenstern, and anyone else listening:

--What would be the biggest revisions I'd have to make if Sliding Inits were not used?

Umm... none?

There is a box that addresses that fact on page 235 (opposite page of the sliding init chart). The only changes are that:

1. Init ranges from 1 to 20+init score.
2. No presses (boo!)
3. The only thing to modify init is a Regroup (basically holding your action) for +5.

And really if you find that any init changing is a hassle, just ditch #3 and wing it when people regroup.

--How do YOU keep track of inits in your Spycraft 2.0 games, so that the action keeps moving?

1. Write down everyones name & init score on the battlemat (or scratch paper).
2. If people do something to change their init score themselves (pretty uncommon), they can "X" off their old score and write the new value in or mention "-2 to init" with their attack and the GM can do it.
3. If the GM does anything that will modify someones init, "X" off their score and write down the new one.
4. When a new round comes up, the GM looks at the scores and the situation and determines who goes first.

more important than iniative, the players & GM needs to know the combat options for their weapons & feats. If everyone knows what their own stuff does and how it works, then it's not such a hassle.

 

[Denaes]

Maybe it's just the "you can be the Baddest Mother on the Block, no matter the level" philosophy is what I'm not settling with, same as Psion indicated. It's even built into some of the class abilities (I think there's a hacker ability that says YOU CAN'T FAIL a hacking check unless its DC is 20 + level??? ) Admittedly any player looking at that is going to drool -- I know I did.

Almost.

They get a minimun success (barely squeaking by) if they fail their check, but do not get an error and the TN is 20+level or less. They can still fail, it's just that odds are the Hacker class will be able to basic hacks more than half of the time.

Basically these class abilities have nothing to do with "best in the world". It just insures that you don't suck at your classes specialty. A Level 1 hacker will be a better hacker than a Faceman with the same ranks in hacking and maybe a higher Int. It has to do with the fact that a character who took a class will be capable at their speciality.

Also note that DC 10 is easy, 15 is average and they go all the way up to 60. So this won't be giving away the Pentagon or Nasa, it'll be letting the hacker do some pretty basic (a little above average) tasks that are really easy for her to complete.