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HJRP 19-13
Jun 25, 2017 21:27:02 GMT -8
via mobile
Post by uncommonman on Jun 25, 2017 21:27:02 GMT -8
Maby a post combat roll to see if the wound keeps bleeding could be a solution.
Maby based on type of wound and the source.
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sdJasper
Initiate Douchebag
Posts: 30
Preferred Game Systems: GURPS, Fudge, PDQ
Currently Running: GURPS Traveller Interstellar Wars
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Post by sdJasper on Jun 26, 2017 6:04:08 GMT -8
Maby a post combat roll to see if the wound keeps bleeding could be a solution. Maby based on type of wound and the source. That's how the bleeding rules in GURPS work. ...But the original point was about Achilles... which is a mythical figure. Why did he die to a shot to the ankle? Even in the bronze age, there must have been soldiers that survived wounds to the foot! But that was his one weak point... So, if you wanted to model this in GURPS, Achilles would have some level of "Unkillable" which means he takes damage, but doesn't die from it... BUT this often has a limitation that allows certain damage to be able to kill you normally. This limitation is actually called "Achilles' Heel". This setup requires that Achilles "take damage" near or over the amount to cause him to start rolling for survival, then have the "killing blow" hit his heel which is the weakness that can kill him. Of course this is just one way to model this... and with GURPS there are always other ways. Another point is that some sources say the the arrow was poisoned, some say it was "guided by Apollo" (read blessed, add follow-up damage not subject to normal max damage rules). So really, it all depends on how you read the stories, and how you want to model it. It definitely can be done.
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Post by zoomfarg on Jun 26, 2017 15:04:35 GMT -8
I consider RPGs their own thing, and am not trying to be a book or movie, so the whole idea of "heroes only die in epic ways" is not something I subscribe to. I generally agree with this... Except for timing of character death. Personally, the more time I invest in making a character, the more time I want to spend playing that character. I think Probie Tim nodded to this perspective on the show... It's his voice in my head, at any rate. Trouble is, I don't know the ratio 😭 But once I've played out all the hours indicated by the formula I don't know, then yeah. Let the dice fall where they may. During that time, I'd rather have that character deal with a big consequence (e.g. wound, severed limb, etc.) instead of just losing the character. So basically, I don't know exactly what I want, but I'm obviously particular about it. And I want the GM to know it better than me. And it'll mean more if they can figure it out for themselves than if I have to tell them. ... I'm a great date More seriously, though, it's not something I'd throw a fit about if it doesn't work out exactly the way I want. But if a GM has the group spend weeks developing characters, and then puts a super dangerous encounter in the first few sessions, I might be irritated.
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shinigamitwo
Initiate Douchebag
Posts: 45
Preferred Game Systems: oWoD, Deadlands, D&D
Currently Playing: Deadlands HOE Classic - The Doctor Rides Agin!
Currently Running: Vampire 20th Anniversary
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Post by shinigamitwo on Jun 26, 2017 15:14:36 GMT -8
With all due respect, but that sounds horrible. First, the players immediately know which fights are tied to the plot and which aren't. You've lost some great opportunities for mystery, doubt, red herrings.... Second, IMO that just sounds boring. I would counter that I have lost no opportunities for mystery, doubt, red herrings et al but have increased our chances of such as all of those things are plot related elements, i.e. they have plot in them. By changing the amount of time that would have only been "rolling dice to roll dice" (as I would argue a truly random encounter is) from 2 hours to 2 minutes I enable my players to live in the world while not being bogged down by "daily work" that isn't why they are playing. I'll cop to boring, as fun is relative. But I'm trying to build parts of the world that are necessary to the fiction but would not necessarily be "fun" to experience. As I haven't run a fantasy/D&D game, which is the only other genre/game that I feel really needs "random encounters" and only if your doing "classic" D&D style, since before I started using this I don't know how it works there. But as a system for Scavenging in the wastes, it worked out well. My players visited three times as many settlements as prior, and thusly got into 3 times as many plots, and all of them felt that the shift to Scaving light let them keep on looking for more gear without it being all we did in a particular session, as happened numerous times before the adjustment. In one game I had a series of "random encounters" that would pop up from time to time while the adventurers made their way across a jungle from one adventure site to the next. The player in question was "shocked" multiple times because the random encounters each related to the overall events that the players were investigating. Some had clues to the bigger picture, some were just natural consequences to the overall problem. The player just didn't know what to do. He had a hard time trying to figure out if they were "suppose to" check out the random events (when they could avoid them) or not. I had been role playing with this guy for years, and I strait up told him that there was nothing they were "suppose to" do. I like to run a pretty sandbox-y game, and if they wanted to jump ship and run from the local problems that was fine. But this guy just had some hang-up because I rolled an encounter at "random" that it somehow meant something different than if I had "plotted" it. I disagree that anything listed above is a "Random Encounter." Sandbox games where I have a bunch of pre-generated things that will happen in a random order/when you find them are different from "Random Encounters." Random encounters are things without plot that exist as a gamey element of the RPG. In D&D, they were very much related to the "I need to fight X orcs before I can be level Y" part of the game. So they made a chart of random orcs so the GM didn't have to always come up with the why when an enemy is "Always Evil," as the "Always Evil" line kind of gives you reason. In Deadlands HoE, the random encounters serve as a timer for players Scavenging. Namely, you can only scav so many times before the Marshall rolls on the chart of bad things that might kill you. "Random Encounters" are often VERY gamey in their use, imho. That makes connected but randomly timed fights (such as how I read the above) just randomly timed not plot irrelevant as a "Random Encounter." Yes, I know. Pedantry for the win/lose/draw
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Post by Probie Tim on Jun 26, 2017 15:29:45 GMT -8
It's his voice in my head, at any rate. Rowr.
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Post by ayslyn on Jun 26, 2017 20:10:03 GMT -8
With all due respect, but that sounds horrible. First, the players immediately know which fights are tied to the plot and which aren't. You've lost some great opportunities for mystery, doubt, red herrings.... Second, IMO that just sounds boring. I would counter that I have lost no opportunities for mystery, doubt, red herrings et al but have increased our chances of such as all of those things are plot related elements, i.e. they have plot in them. By changing the amount of time that would have only been "rolling dice to roll dice" (as I would argue a truly random encounter is) from 2 hours to 2 minutes I enable my players to live in the world while not being bogged down by "daily work" that isn't why they are playing. ..... Of course you've lost opportunities. It's basic math here. EVERY encounter in my game has a chance to be tied to the plot, or not. Only those you decided ahead of time were plot related are tied to the plot. Every is always larger than a subset of every.... If I throw a bunch of bandits along the road, just to add to the feel of a living world, and my players, after the fight, exclaim that these bandits MUST be working for the Big Bad, I can choose to yes and them and make the bandits work for the Big Bad. You, however, have told the players that it isn't ahead of time, so your players won't have that moment.
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Post by zoomfarg on Jun 27, 2017 0:28:05 GMT -8
ayslyn I see where you're coming from. Except I think the trouble isn't with the technique, but with the name. Are you focusing on "plot important" vs. "plot unimportant?" Seems to me that shinigamitwo is describing a montage-ish mechanic, a tried and true time-saving device in storytelling. Again, we come to basic math: the less time you spend on each event, the more you can cover in a single session. If you call it a montage instead of "world building" (which, here, is code for "plot unimportant"), you avoid predetermining its value. Players can still assign value to it as they would in a normal scene, especially if they can discuss it. No reason the bandits-in-employ-of-big-bad can't work, in that case.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Jun 27, 2017 2:22:54 GMT -8
Maby a post combat roll to see if the wound keeps bleeding could be a solution. Maby based on type of wound and the source. That's how the bleeding rules in GURPS work. ...But the original point was about Achilles... which is a mythical figure. Why did he die to a shot to the ankle? Even in the bronze age, there must have been soldiers that survived wounds to the foot! But that was his one weak point... So, if you wanted to model this in GURPS, Achilles would have some level of "Unkillable" which means he takes damage, but doesn't die from it... BUT this often has a limitation that allows certain damage to be able to kill you normally. This limitation is actually called "Achilles' Heel". This setup requires that Achilles "take damage" near or over the amount to cause him to start rolling for survival, then have the "killing blow" hit his heel which is the weakness that can kill him. Of course this is just one way to model this... and with GURPS there are always other ways. Another point is that some sources say the the arrow was poisoned, some say it was "guided by Apollo" (read blessed, add follow-up damage not subject to normal max damage rules). So really, it all depends on how you read the stories, and how you want to model it. It definitely can be done. Man, this is far too literal for me. Achilles was not unkillable, but a peerless warrior laid low by a crucial injury. It's no different than someone like wild bill hickock getting shot in the foot. Once you can't stand anymore you are probably in a losing fight, especially if you rely on melee weapons instead of something like guns (which might allow you to win from the ground while crippled). In GURPS this would be born out by the likes of posture, stunning, and shock penalties. It doesn't take much damage to get a disabling shot to the foot. From there you have to pass a stunning check. Finally you are knocked down to prone. That may take you excellent chance of defending and reduce it to a place where you can be defeated.
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Post by zoomfarg on Jun 27, 2017 2:53:39 GMT -8
That's how the bleeding rules in GURPS work. ...But the original point was about Achilles... which is a mythical figure. Why did he die to a shot to the ankle? Even in the bronze age, there must have been soldiers that survived wounds to the foot! But that was his one weak point... So, if you wanted to model this in GURPS, [excellent description of how to model it in GURPS] Man, this is far too literal for me. Achilles was not unkillable, but a peerless warrior laid low by a crucial injury. It's no different than someone like wild bill hickock getting shot in the foot. Once you can't stand anymore you are probably in a losing fight, especially if you rely on melee weapons instead of something like guns (which might allow you to win from the ground while crippled). In GURPS this would be born out by the likes of posture, stunning, and shock penalties. It doesn't take much damage to get a disabling shot to the foot. From there you have to pass a stunning check. Finally you are knocked down to prone. That may take you excellent chance of defending and reduce it to a place where you can be defeated. But being super literal is the half the fun of GURPS! For pedantry points, the question of Achilles's invulnerability depends on which myth sources you read, IIRC. A dunk in the River Styx did the trick, save for where he was held by his heel. For the record, the other half of GURPS fun is collecting more supplements than you can ever use. The other other half is "just roll 3d6". The other other other half is being able to model pretty much anything. For those keeping score, that's four halves. It's too fun for only two.
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Post by ayslyn on Jun 27, 2017 5:23:52 GMT -8
ayslyn I see where you're coming from. Except I think the trouble isn't with the technique, but with the name. Are you focusing on "plot important" vs. "plot unimportant?" Seems to me that shinigamitwo is describing a montage-ish mechanic, a tried and true time-saving device in storytelling. Again, we come to basic math: the less time you spend on each event, the more you can cover in a single session. If you call it a montage instead of "world building" (which, here, is code for "plot unimportant"), you avoid predetermining its value. Players can still assign value to it as they would in a normal scene, especially if they can discuss it. No reason the bandits-in-employ-of-big-bad can't work, in that case. What you name them is irrelevant. The fact that you treat them different MECHANICALLY is the problem. You're telling your players, UP FRONT, that these are categorically different events. There is no chance of them assigning value to the event because you already told them that it wasn't as important as the three hour epic combat. If you introduce an NPC, a warrior named Tim, the players won't think to suggest that he's a wizened wizard named Bob. You've already told them that he's Tim the warrior.
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shinigamitwo
Initiate Douchebag
Posts: 45
Preferred Game Systems: oWoD, Deadlands, D&D
Currently Playing: Deadlands HOE Classic - The Doctor Rides Agin!
Currently Running: Vampire 20th Anniversary
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Post by shinigamitwo on Jun 27, 2017 11:32:07 GMT -8
ayslyn I see where you're coming from. Except I think the trouble isn't with the technique, but with the name. Are you focusing on "plot important" vs. "plot unimportant?" Seems to me that shinigamitwo is describing a montage-ish mechanic, a tried and true time-saving device in storytelling. Again, we come to basic math: the less time you spend on each event, the more you can cover in a single session. If you call it a montage instead of "world building" (which, here, is code for "plot unimportant"), you avoid predetermining its value. Players can still assign value to it as they would in a normal scene, especially if they can discuss it. No reason the bandits-in-employ-of-big-bad can't work, in that case. What you name them is irrelevant. The fact that you treat them different MECHANICALLY is the problem. You're telling your players, UP FRONT, that these are categorically different events. There is no chance of them assigning value to the event because you already told them that it wasn't as important as the three hour epic combat. If you introduce an NPC, a warrior named Tim, the players won't think to suggest that he's a wizened wizard named Bob. You've already told them that he's Tim the warrior. I think montage is a great way to look at it actually, thanks for the comparison. I think the illustrative example of my issue is Stu's Bear. That is a Random Encounter as I seem them. Something added for non-narrative reasons, he was trying to fill a few lines of column space not start a bear hunting trip. In that game, it derailed the whole game and provided nothing. Sure, Stu and the players could have given it meaning, like he did with Witchypoo, but not all things are nor should connect back to the central plot. Stuff was happening in World War 2 that didn't involve Nazi's which can include bears and the hunting of them. By making the bear hunt a montage, I have let them go off, fight the bear, feel victorious and be part of a larger world then otherwise while letting our limited play time be Nazi hunting fun, which was what everyone signed on for. Your metaphor keeps giving me problems. I'll assume the thought is that by using a montage I have established that the scene is Tim and cannot be Bob. But does that means when you introduce a scene, it is neither Tim nor Bob until the players decide? As that is likely not the case, as a the scene still happens, which means it must be defined. You just have the advantage that you are hiding whether it is Tim or Bob, instead leaving it as NPC, until the players force the issue. That's not bad, I just have found that for the majority of Tims (sorry Probie) that popped up in my game didn't need to be there with the same weight as the Bobs. And since the story/game is about Bobbing, that is where I want to spend the majority of my time. What I'm saying to the players is that I don't think that this fight (because random encounters are always fights it seems) is going to be a real challenge but it logically should exist or maybe that I would rather tell the story of the caravan making to the town to trade rather then fighting all the bandits along the way. If the players want to fight all the bandits, and are just telling me now, we have a larger problem as I clearly think we are playing a different game. But, as long as all of us are here to be merchants, lets go be merchants.
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Post by ayslyn on Jun 27, 2017 12:33:27 GMT -8
What you name them is irrelevant. The fact that you treat them different MECHANICALLY is the problem. You're telling your players, UP FRONT, that these are categorically different events. There is no chance of them assigning value to the event because you already told them that it wasn't as important as the three hour epic combat. If you introduce an NPC, a warrior named Tim, the players won't think to suggest that he's a wizened wizard named Bob. You've already told them that he's Tim the warrior. I think montage is a great way to look at it actually, thanks for the comparison. I think the illustrative example of my issue is Stu's Bear. That is a Random Encounter as I seem them. Something added for non-narrative reasons, he was trying to fill a few lines of column space not start a bear hunting trip. In that game, it derailed the whole game and provided nothing. Sure, Stu and the players could have given it meaning, like he did with Witchypoo, but not all things are nor should connect back to the central plot. Stuff was happening in World War 2 that didn't involve Nazi's which can include bears and the hunting of them. By making the bear hunt a montage, I have let them go off, fight the bear, feel victorious and be part of a larger world then otherwise while letting our limited play time be Nazi hunting fun, which was what everyone signed on for. Your metaphor keeps giving me problems. I'll assume the thought is that by using a montage I have established that the scene is Tim and cannot be Bob. But does that means when you introduce a scene, it is neither Tim nor Bob until the players decide? As that is likely not the case, as a the scene still happens, which means it must be defined. You just have the advantage that you are hiding whether it is Tim or Bob, instead leaving it as NPC, until the players force the issue. That's not bad, I just have found that for the majority of Tims (sorry Probie) that popped up in my game didn't need to be there with the same weight as the Bobs. And since the story/game is about Bobbing, that is where I want to spend the majority of my time. What I'm saying to the players is that I don't think that this fight (because random encounters are always fights it seems) is going to be a real challenge but it logically should exist or maybe that I would rather tell the story of the caravan making to the town to trade rather then fighting all the bandits along the way. If the players want to fight all the bandits, and are just telling me now, we have a larger problem as I clearly think we are playing a different game. But, as long as all of us are here to be merchants, lets go be merchants. Alright... Show me where I said that all events needed to be tied to the plot.... Go ahead, I'll pretend to wait.... But since you can't, because I never did...... The difference is that you've taken away the chance for the players to mold the story outside of your decisions. You have decided that the Witch wasn't actually important, so be good little players and get to dealing with the Sabbat. Don't think you said that? Look a sentence or two higher, and that's exactly what you said about the bear. My game, I get to choose if I want to indulge some nice, random frivolity, or somehow use that to tie things back into the main plot. You've already decided, and told your players which encounters are integral to the plot, and which aren't. You don't have that flexibiity. As to the quantum Tim/Bob, I don't personally wait until the players decide, all the time. There are some characters that I've defined, some I haven't. When they run into the later, sometimes I will define them on the fly, sometimes I'll let the players do so. Sometimes, I beat the players to it, sometimes they beat me. Regardless, since I am not telling them ahead of time that this event is just fluff to make the world feel real, if they get invested in something that I had previously dismissed, I can pivot if I want and make it important. The players go into a bar, without prompting, and before I get a chance to say anything, someone speaks up, "We're near the Military Quarter, so I bet this is a soldier bar. The barkeep is probably a veteren of the Goblin Wars!" I have options. I can yes and, "Aye, lad. That I am. I've seen things that'd make yer hair turn white!' I can no but, "I wish t'were true, lass. I was a mite too young when it ended, but I did so admire the boys that did go off to war. I got this job so as to be around the soldiers and listen to their stories." I can do either, and the players can decide I'm "lieing". "He's definitely old enough to have fought! I think he might have been a deserter!" Your approach tells the players not to bother speculating, because you've already decided that this event isn't relevant to the plot. Sure, you keep them on track, but you miss out on chances to spin off the plot. IMO you're throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Midway throught Season Six of DS9, we have Far Beyond the Stars, a story that has nothing to do with the overarching plot of the show/season. Without it, we lose a GREAT story. With it, the show is much richer.
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Post by zoomfarg on Jun 27, 2017 15:24:50 GMT -8
What you name them is irrelevant. The fact that you treat them different MECHANICALLY is the problem. You're telling your players, UP FRONT, that these are categorically different events. There is no chance of them assigning value to the event because you already told them that it wasn't as important as the three hour epic combat. If you introduce an NPC, a warrior named Tim, the players won't think to suggest that he's a wizened wizard named Bob. You've already told them that he's Tim the warrior. The difference is that you've taken away the chance for the players to mold the story outside of your decisions. You have decided that the Witch wasn't actually important, so be good little players and get to dealing with the Sabbat. Don't think you said that? Look a sentence or two higher, and that's exactly what you said about the bear. [. . .] You've already decided, and told your players which encounters are integral to the plot, and which aren't. You don't have that flexibiity. I dunno, though. Let's take a step back from value judgements like "important" vs. "unimportant" for a second and look at what shinigamitwo 's proposed mechanic actually does: Basically, it compresses long--and often complex--amounts of fiction-time into brief amounts of table-time. Lots of games have rules like this. L5R mass battle. GURPS job rolls. Fate Core Challenges. Traveller character creation. Reign has a group management system, which happens to compress fiction time. Heck, you often don't even need special systems for fiction time compression. Like making a research roll to represent a few days at the library; you don't need resolve it moment-to-moment as you do a normal combat--we're not playing Library Trip Simulator 17, after all And lots of those things modeled by those rules are important to the plot. So what's the point of time compression? It protects our table-time--our "on-screen time"--which is super precious. Those events covered by time compression rules might be REALLY important to the plot, but IME they're usually not exciting/engaging enough to run them moment-by-moment, like a normal scene should be. So when do we use these rules? Traditionally, games delegate the application and adjudication of rules to the GM. So it is a fair assumption that the GM--not the players--decide when to use which systems/rules/whatever. But they don't have to. If I'm running a series of events using time compression, and a player wants to zoom in on the action, that's totally cool. We can switch over to handling the scene normally. If we look at the classic random-bandits-as-random-encounter, some people may want to play that out moment to moment in a normal combat. Others may want to gloss over it with time compression. I've definitely played through random-bandits-for-the-sake-of-random bandits encounters before, and in hindsight I wish my GM had used something like this. --- Side note: Bill Roper , this topic and some of the examples have given me an idea for a traveller subsystem: a push-your-luck scavenging system that's somewhat similar to the character creation system. Character creation is so fun, but when you finish your character, you don't touch that system for awhile. Maybe there's an opportunity there. Dunno.
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Post by ayslyn on Jun 27, 2017 15:52:43 GMT -8
I know what it does. If you somehow think that I don't then I have to wonder if you are actually reading my posts. However, I am going to operate under the premise that you have been.
So. One more time, for the cheap seats. I understand what he's doing, and why. I disagree with him. It's my opinion that it is a bad idea. That opinion is formed with a thorough understanding of what is intended.
There's no value judgment here in important vs unimportant. It's a qualitative analysis. Fighting the Big Bad is important to the plot. Chatting with a totally random guy unconnected with any part of the plot is unimportant to the plot. It's that simple. Neither is good or bad.
I live in New England. The weather right now in Seattle is unimportant to me. No value judgment. Just a simple fact.
However, if you attempt to argue that montages like this don't limit your ability to adapt your narrative to the players actions more than not; you are simply, factually incorrect. And that's my point.
I prefer the flexibility. He prefers the time savings. Both are valid choices.
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HJRP 19-13
Jun 27, 2017 16:32:39 GMT -8
via mobile
Post by ericfromnj on Jun 27, 2017 16:32:39 GMT -8
I know what it does. If you somehow think that I don't then I have to wonder if you are actually reading my posts. However, I am going to operate under the premise that you have been. So. One more time, for the cheap seats. I understand what he's doing, and why. I disagree with him. It's my opinion that it is a bad idea. That opinion is formed with a thorough understanding of what is intended. There's no value judgment here in important vs unimportant. It's a qualitative analysis. Fighting the Big Bad is important to the plot. Chatting with a totally random guy unconnected with any part of the plot is unimportant to the plot. It's that simple. Neither is good or bad. I live in New England. The weather right now in Seattle is unimportant to me. No value judgment. Just a simple fact. However, if you attempt to argue that montages like this don't limit your ability to adapt your narrative to the players actions more than not; you are simply, factually incorrect. And that's my point. I prefer the flexibility. He prefers the time savings. Both are valid choices. Ayslyn you need a hug?
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