HyveMynd
Supporter
Dirty hippie, PbtA, Fate, & Cortex Prime <3er
Posts: 2,273
Preferred Game Systems: PbtA, Cortex Plus, Fate, Ubiquity
Currently Playing: Monsterhearts 2
Currently Running: The Sprawl
Favorite Species of Monkey: None
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Post by HyveMynd on Dec 6, 2013 17:21:40 GMT -8
"Part 2 and there seems no end in sight to this episode. Will my children recognize me when we finish? Will my wife? I had cats. Two. How long do cats live for? Oh god. I hear voices. No, it is not madness. It is the other hosts. Something about a 13th Age. When did we start? The 1st Age? I can't remember. I do remember two books with such promise. Will this second deliver? Is it what we've been seeking? I'm so tired."In this episode, we review 13th Age. Is it worth the 3 a.m. bedtime that the hosts suffered to bring you this review?
Duration - 1:06:29 Idle Red Hands Blog postDirect Download
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Post by SavageCheerleader on Dec 10, 2013 10:31:05 GMT -8
I was a beta tester for 13th Age, and yeah, the icons started out *rough* early on; my group hated them in fact. But now, man they are super cool concepts that I freely move around to every game that I run Change the flavor to match the genre and bam, easy day mega-NPCs.
I am surprised that you guys, despite all the hoopla for narrative games, like 4E. That is the antithesis of 'World games.
In the end, while the book is neat and has some interesting ideas, it is still too d20/4E for my tastes.
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Post by guitarspider on Dec 10, 2013 11:10:40 GMT -8
Seems I forgot to post: The escalation die kind of sounds like a cool idea. May well be worth exploring in other games/game situations as well. I'm thinking arena fights, say heavily armored vs lightly armored gladiator.
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HyveMynd
Supporter
Dirty hippie, PbtA, Fate, & Cortex Prime <3er
Posts: 2,273
Preferred Game Systems: PbtA, Cortex Plus, Fate, Ubiquity
Currently Playing: Monsterhearts 2
Currently Running: The Sprawl
Favorite Species of Monkey: None
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Post by HyveMynd on Dec 10, 2013 19:25:33 GMT -8
I think I said this in the episode, but I was glad to hear that the Escalation Die does more than just tick up each turn, granting the PCs an increasing attack bonus. The Doom Pool in Marvel Heroic Roleplaying is such a fantastic resource mechanic that I would like to see more games with similar things. Characters and monsters being able able to interact with the Escalation Die sounds like it would be a lot of fun, and add a layer of tactics to the game without requiring a grid. In our Warriors: Gladiators episode we discussed using Cortex to play a gladiator game, where the something like the Doom Pool would be used to represent crowd favor. Instead of using a die from your action to inflict Stress or a Complication on your opponent, you could add it in your Favor Pool. This represented you showing off for the crowd and earning their approval. You could add those dice to your actions at a later time, representing you going for a quick kill at the expense of putting on a show for the crowd. If you were beaten but still alive at the end of a match, you would roll your Favor Pool and the result would indicate if the crowd liked you enough to give you got a thumbs up (meaning you lived, but with a decrease in favor) or if you got a thumbs down and died. Edit. I forgot to mention that we are not universally AW-based game lovers, SavageCheerleader. I'm probably the biggest fan, with @chrisinkobe next and Lyal third (or last, depending how you look at it). We did however pretty much universally dislike D&D 4e (if you don't believe me, check out this really early episode). But we never claimed to dislike it because you can't tell a story in it. We simply disliked the mechanics and balance. Lyal points out that 4e does have its fans (which is totally fine), and I completely agree with his statement that if 13th Age is supported, 4e fans will migrate to it, while 3.5 fans will stay with Pathfinder, making D&D Next's attempts to recapture lost fans that much more difficult.
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