HyveMynd
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Post by HyveMynd on Mar 18, 2012 6:38:27 GMT -8
I finally ran a game of Time & Temp for my group yesterday. It was my first time running it and their first time playing it, though we'd been wanting to try it out for a while now. kaitoujuliet has mentioned it before but for those who don't know, T&T is a narrative-heavy indie RPG about time travel. It's meant to be light hearted and rather ridiculous, as the PCs play absolute bottom of the heap temporary workers who are specifically hired to travel in time. It was created by Epidiah Ravachol, the same guy who wrote Dread. The game got dumped on me rather last minute, so I only had about a day and a half to come up with a scenario. Normally I like a week to plan my sessions, but I think I did a fairly decent job considering the circumstances. Since my players (I only had two) said that this game was the most fun they've ever had (including our Blaxploitation Cosmic Patrol game) I'm considering it a success. I was stumped for a scenario idea, but eventually settled on the Wild West due to one of the recommendations in the book. My grandmother was originally from Coffeyville Kansas, the town that's famous for the ill-fated Dalton Gang's twin bank robbery attempt back on October 5th 1892. I decided that since the Dalton's became famous for failing at their robbery attempt, someone decided to go back in time to rob both banks at the same time before the Daltons attempt to do it, simply to prove that it could be done. I was stumped for a culprit for a while, but eventually went with the team from the Leverage TV show because I'd been watching a lot of that recently. Plus, it made sense; the Leverage team are a bunch of thieves and criminals who steal things. Nate would pose as a bank manager from California who would set up a meeting with the managers from both the C. M. Condon and Co. and First National Bank, Sophie would pose as a French burlesque dancer who'd put on a show at the local saloon that evening to distract the bank managers, Eliot would pose as US Marshal 'Heck' Thomas (who'd been chasing the Daltons) to call an inspection of the guards and get them out of the banks, while Hardison and Parker would each rob a bank. The rest of my session preparation was just collecting as many facts about the historical event as I could find. I was lucky, and found a lot of information on Wikipedia and other sites, including a rough layout of the town around the area of the two banks, the names of the Dalton Gang members who died, and the names of the four townspeople who died. Because of the sandbox-y nature of game, this was about as much scenario "planning" as I could realistically do. I set up a clear opening for my players (meeting the real US Marshal 'Heck' Thomas so they'd realize something was wrong in the town) and a very clear goal (make sure everything plays out exactly as our history recorded it) but how they got there was completely up to them. I was pretty nervous at the beginning of the session, since this would be the most "yes and-ing" I've ever done while GMing a game. Like Stu, I usually prefer to GM from underneath a huge pile of crunch, but T&T NPCs have absolutely no stats. The PCs do have stats, but they are very minimal; just their three most recent jobs, each with 2 bullet points worth of skills. After about 20 minutes of play though everyone was at ease and having a total blast. The game lasted for about three hours with the PCs successfully stopping the Leverage team, sending them back to their own time, and convincing the Daltons to attempt their (incredibly stupid) bank robbery attempt (resulting in most of the gang meeting their ultimate demise). The game mechanics took a bit of getting used to because they are so different from a "traditional" RPG. First, There is only a single die mechanic to determine task resolution. When attempting to do anything, the players and GM discuss how much Effort the PC is putting into the action and how much of an Effect the action will have on the fabric of time. That determines the die size the player rolls, ranging from d12 to d4. A Minor Effort with a Minor Effect results in a d12 while an Extensive Effort with an Extensive Effect results in a d4. You than figure out how many dice the player rolls. If the character could fail at the action, they add an additional die. If there is a chance for them to be injured or embarrassed during the action, they add an additional die. If Paradox is present (determined by the rules) you add an additional die. So the number of dice rolled is between one to four, depending on the circumstances. The player then chooses one die result, and enters that number into the Matrix; a 21 x 21 grid that records all of the chosen dice results throughout the session. The Matrix is the core of the game and determines a lot of the mechanics. If the players manage to enter numbers into the Matrix so that form a specific pattern (such as nine unique numbers arranged in a 3 x 3 square, a cross of five digits, or a line of seven consecutive numbers) then they get a pretty hefty bonus. But if there are two identical numbers adjacent to each other, bad things start to happen. So rolling more dice is usually better than rolling less dice, and rolling bigger dice is usually better than rolling smaller dice because the players want a wide variety of results to choose from that they can then plug into the Matrix. The interesting thing about this game is that success or failure is completely up to the player performing the action. There is no target number to beat or opposed roll. If they want to succeed at their action, the players simply must enter the lowest scoring die into the Matrix. If they choose to fail without incident or succeed with incident, they can add the second lowest die into the Matrix. If they choose to fail with incident, they can add the third lowest die to the Matrix. So the players will have their characters succeed or fail based entirely on the meta-game decision of which number they want to add to the Matrix in an attempt to complete these Sudoku-like patterns. That took a lot of getting used to but worked really well, and lead to a lot of hilarious situations. One thing though, at the end of the session my players said they didn't really like the discussion about what the Effort and Effect should be. They said they weren't really sure what the difference was, and that in future games they'd simply prefer to describe how much effort their characters were expending towards their goal and have the GM decide how strong the Effect is. After the game I also realized that "success" doesn't have to mean a fantastic success. During the session, the players lured Eliot (the fake US Marshal) out to a back alley, beat him up, hog tied him, and left him in a barn. I let it happen because the players chose the lowest scoring die (indicating a success) and because I wasn't going to be a douche bag and tell them "no", but in my head I was thinking "No way could these temp workers beat up Eliot Spencer! He's a bad ass." But the player said "I'm grabbing his gun" and chose the die that let him succeed, so it happened. At the time I thought that "success" meant succeeding at everything the player said they were attempting. I now realize that I can scale success to reflect the situation. Because the NPC the player was acting against was such a bad ass, the "success" in this case could have less spectacular. Like the player ends up with his hand on the gun, but is also being grappled by the NPC. The player succeeded, but not in the way that they wanted. The funniest part of the game was when one of the players attempted to discover if Hardison was in fact a time jumper. He had his character walk past Hardison, give the NPC a slight body check and use an ethnic slur that was common in the 1890's but would provoke a very strong reaction in an African-American from the modern day. My response to the player was "OK... How hard are you going to try to not get punched in the mouth?"
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Post by kaitoujuliet on Mar 18, 2012 14:03:37 GMT -8
Great writeup, Hyvemynd! I've been a fan of Time & Temp for the last year or so. I always meant to write up a post on it for the old board, but well, if I had, it would just have been eaten anyway when the old board went away. I think the concept is pure genius and offers scope for loads of fun. The matrix is complicated at first, but once you get used to it, it's easy to use, and I like the way it focuses on the things you most need to think about in time travel--namely, how are you affecting the timestream? I love the story idea you came up with. I might have to use that on my own group sometime. ;D Although, I probably won't use the Leverage characters because I've never seen the show while three of my group are very much into it. I'm tempted to say that it's actually impossible to do much prep for Time & Temp beyond designing the characters and working out/researching the basic situation. Beyond that, it's all responding to the players' input. So, not to bring up the dreaded subject, but would you call Time & Temp a crunchy system? I'm tempted to do so, but maybe it's just "rules-infused." I do think the matrix is rather elegant once you get used to it. Possibly the biggest obstacle is in getting the players to see the advantages of sometimes choosing to fail. I think people who are used to traditional "roll to see if I succeed" RPGs tend to go through a period where they get so excited by the idea that they can succeed every time that they forget to pay attention to the numbers going into the matrix. An anomaly or two should get their attention, though. By the way, how many rolls did you end up making (i.e., how many numbers went into the matrix)? I always feel like I should be making more, but a typical game for me runs about three hours and usually includes about fifteen rolls. Fortunately, players usually seem able to manage at least one synchronicity token with that number. One thing though, at the end of the session my players said they didn't really like the discussion about what the Effort and Effect should be. They said they weren't really sure what the difference was, and that in future games they'd simply prefer to describe how much effort their characters were expending towards their goal and have the GM decide how strong the Effect is. The way I described to the group at the con was this: "Setting the Effect is more powerful, but setting the Effort gives you access to more bonuses." Still, there's certainly nothing in the book to prevent the players from always setting the Effort, if that's what they prefer. Now, I would say that your first instinct was correct. If the player chose to succeed without incident, then he got the gun without complications. I'd only have the character grappled by the NPC if the player had chosen to succeed with incident. However, I also wouldn't have made that whole thing into one roll. I'd have made the player break it down into smaller actions and roll for each. Alternatively, I might say that the character succeeded in getting the gun, but Hardiman could lunge and tackle him after that, causing a new roll for the PC to react (wiggle out of the grapple, toss the gun to someone else, kick Hardiman in the head, or whatever).
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HyveMynd
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Post by HyveMynd on Mar 18, 2012 17:10:28 GMT -8
Wow. I just saw how long my original post is. I think I may be getting into JiB length post territory. Heh. So, not to bring up the dreaded subject, but would you call Time & Temp a crunchy system? I'm tempted to do so, but maybe it's just "rules-infused." I do think the matrix is rather elegant once you get used to it. Hmm. That's a tough one. The Matrix is an absolutely huge part of the game. If the players don't pay attention to it, everything pretty much falls apart and the game doesn't work. That being said though, the Matrix only takes up the players attention for a very short amount of time; just for a minute or two (if that even) right after they make a roll. It's not something they are constantly thinking about while RPing with each other or NPCs. As you said, the Matrix looks complex at first, but becomes second nature almost immediately. So, I wouldn't call it crunchy. "Rules infused" sounds appropriate. I'd have to count the numbers when I get home to give you an accurate result, but off the top of my head there were about 15 to 20 number in the Matrix when we finished. There could have been more, but after the PCs successfully dealt with the Leverage team I didn't have them roll that often. I figured that they had dealt with the threat successfully and in a clever way, and wanted to reward them. By that time there were three Paradox Dice locked in (20, 19, and 17) with about six numbers threating Paradox, and I felt it would be really dickish of me to have reality collapse after they had technically won. So I didn't make them roll for the last 10 minutes of the game. They managed to get two Synchronicity tokens during the game (the Sudoku bok pattern and seven consecutive digits in a row) which were complete game changers. They used the first Synchronicity token to have an Epiphany, saying that the Dantons were hiding out in the upper rooms of the saloon. The bartender had told the PCs that all the rooms were rented out, but I had imagined that was because the Leverage team wanted a secure base of operations. In my mind, the Daltons were laying low in their hideout outside of town waiting until the next morning. But the players spent their token and said "The Daltons must be in those other rooms!" and so, they were. That was a new experience for me as a GM; to have the players make a declaration about the facts of the game world. It's a tough call. On the one hand, you want the players to succeed in their mission because no one likes to fail. On the other hand though, you want to give the players a challenge so they don't feel like the game was a cakewalk. If I could do the scene over again, I would break things down into smaller actions as you suggest kaitoujuliet. The first action would allow the PC to get his hand on the gun but not draw it (it was still in the NPC's holster at the time). The second action would allow the PC to draw the gun before the NPC could stop him. Maybe even a third action to determine if the PC got the gun up and pointed at the NPC in time. That sounds about right for taking that kind of action against someone as quick and dangerous as Eliot Spencer. If the NPC had been less capable, perhaps the same result could have been achieved in two, or even a single action.
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Post by kaitoujuliet on Mar 22, 2012 17:41:30 GMT -8
Hmm. That's a tough one. The Matrix is an absolutely huge part of the game. If the players don't pay attention to it, everything pretty much falls apart and the game doesn't work. Or the universe just ends. I'm astounded that your group managed to lock three paradox dice in so few rolls, though! I don't think my group has ever managed to lock more than one. They must have had a lot of anomalies. That reminds me, I don't think I sent you a copy of the matrix photo that goes with the con recording. I'll just post it here: Oh, interesting! I've never had a group use a token for an Epiphany before. The favorite seems to be Hidden Agent. What did they use the other Synchronicity for? I meant that I wouldn't have put the beating up, hogtying, and getting the gun all in one roll. I, personally, still would have made getting the gun into a single roll, if "grab the gun from his holster" was just one action in that general sequence. But this could be partly just a difference in players and general philosophy. It never occurred to me to design my adventures with the idea of making individual tasks challenging for the PCs, or making NPCs difficult to defeat. My group isn't likely to initiate combat, so I just concentrate on making an interesting situation. As for the idea of the game being too easy ... as I said before, the players can choose to succeed on every roll, but they have to be prepared to accept the consequences in terms of potential damage to the timestream. I do think it takes a couple of sessions to learn to use the matrix and bonuses to maximum effect. Getting locals to do things for you, bringing in situational advantage, failing the first attempt and trying again--they're all useful strategies. ;D
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HyveMynd
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Post by HyveMynd on Mar 22, 2012 19:01:25 GMT -8
Wow. I never considered laminating the Matrix sheet so that it could be erased. That's bad ass, and great for cons. I just printed out an A4 sheet and had my players use erasable pens. Which they sometimes forgot to use... I'm astounded that your group managed to lock three paradox dice in so few rolls, though! I don't think my group has ever managed to lock more than one. They must have had a lot of anomalies. They actually only had a single Matrix-caused Anomaly the whole game. They were rolling a lot of 8's for some reason, and fairly early in the game they got the Deja Vu Anomaly. Then towards the end of the game the Anomaly escalated to persistant, benign, and subtle. I chose the Erased from Time option since it seemed the least punishing; the players had pretty much "won" at that point and it seemed dickish to really slam them with something bad. Because the Leverage team had a rating of 3 on the Menace scale, I was checking off the high Anachronometer numbers every 40 minutes. The players got unlucky with the Paradox dice, and the numbers that got locked in were 20, 19, and 17. Sure enough, their second Synchronicity token was for a Hidden Agent. Heh. They were trying to figure out how to tip the town off that the Daltons were coming to rob the banks, because that is what historically happens; someone recognizes the bandits as they're riding in. But in the game, the players hadn't told anyone in the town about the robbery attempt and needed to think fast as the Daltons were making their way through town to the banks. One of the players goes "Hidden Agent! We'll go back in time and tell the shop owner the Daltons are coming at 9am and tell him to get the Town Marshal and raise the alarm!" I really like how the fiction in the game was pretty much what happened in reality. I didn't even make them roll for the hogtying action. I figured that the players had this NPC covered with a gun and that he'd pretty much do whatever they wanted him to do. Rather than making them roll to see how well they tied him up (failure indicating that he would eventually get loose), I had his partner come looking for him. They lured her into the barn, and pointed the gun at her too. Here's another example where I would do things differently the next time I run T&T. The character they were threatening with the gun now is pretty damn quick and agile (it was Parker, for those who watch the Leverage TV show). I figured she would have a good chance of ducking out of the line of fire and sweeping the legs from the PC pointing the gun at her. I set the Effect (the PC being on the ground with the gun knocked from his hand) and asked how hard the player was trying to not have that happen. I was told the PC would be giving an Extensive Effort, naturally. The player chose the lowest scoring die, indicating success and I asked what happened. "Umm... I shot her, I guess." was the response. I sat there for a second, blinking, because in my mind, the game had just taken a somewhat darker tone than I had imagined it would. Someone just got shot. By the PCs. "OK," I said "You shot her through the right shoulder. She's not going to die, unless she doesn't get medical attention. What do you do now?" What the players chose to do was round up the rest of the "bad guys" shoot two more of them in the foot, and break the leg of the guy they had hogtied. Their rationale was that needing medical attention would at least slow down their ability to jump back in time. The player who suggested this said that this was the problem with time travel games. He correctly noted that if the Leverage team really wanted to, they could go home, heal up for a year or two, and then jump right back in time to the exact point they left 1892. Which I totally could have done. But again, the players had technically "won" and I didn't want to be a douche bag and take away their victory.
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Post by kaitoujuliet on Mar 27, 2012 18:17:00 GMT -8
Wow. I never considered laminating the Matrix sheet so that it could be erased. That's bad ass, and great for cons. Thanks! I did learn that I need to use wet-erase markers, though. Apparently, whatever sort of plastic my local copy shop uses for lamination doesn't work well with dry-erase ones. Oh right, you did mention that. So the group was rolling a lot of 8s, but they managed not to put them adjacent to each other? See, here's where I get sort of torn about the scenario you describe. On the one hand, I'm tempted to say that you're trying to create stats for characters who don't have stats, and that the challenge of triumphing over difficult tasks isn't really the point of the game. But then on the other hand, it also makes logical sense that some people are simply going to be better at doing some things than others, and shouldn't the game be allowed to reflect that? So ... I don't know! And having a "negative effect" like that just makes my head hurt. Which doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong, just that it's hard to wrap my brain around. I think the problem is that the game isn't really designed for NPCs to be in a situation where the mechanics determine whether they attack PCs. The game assumes that the PCs are going to be initiating whatever action is being taken. It would be pretty easy to have the PCs ambushed and then make rolls for their reactions. Possibly the effect could have been set as "the PC keeps her covered with the gun and doesn't allow her to move." If the player chose success on his roll, then it would have been up to him to narrate how he managed to keep her from trying anything. Having her attack and him shooting her would qualify as "succeeds with incident," I guess. (It does seem like this situation cries out for players to use some bonuses to help their characters along--something from the CV, or cooperation, maybe. Still, you say the player managed to choose success even without that.) Did you hand out many incident reports, by the way? And did you players choose to fail much, or did they mainly choose success?
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HyveMynd
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Post by HyveMynd on Mar 28, 2012 5:43:17 GMT -8
Oh right, you did mention that. So the group was rolling a lot of 8s, but they managed not to put them adjacent to each other? Well, it felt they were rolling a lot of 8's, but upon looking at the matrix again, there are only two written in. So I guess they rolled other numbers as well. Here's the matrix from our game; you can see the two synchronic sets the players got marked in red. I know what you mean. The game isn't about action at all, but after about half of the session I felt the PCs were having too easy a time of it. Because the matrix is so big, at the start of the game it's really easy for the players to choose the lowest number and succeed all the time. I'm by no means saying that I want them to fail, because failing sucks and failing a lot would frustrate the players. But if the game feels too easy, that can be just as unsatisfying too, in a way. That didn't happen in our game, and no one was disappointed with the way things went. But we all kind of thought that the matrix was a bit too big. I realize that the characters are meant to go back to the same place and time in a later session and reuse the same matrix sheet, making things harder for them. But for a one shot like this I would think about having maybe a half-sized matrix or filling in some random squares with some random numbers right at the start. I'm still confused a bit on what Effect actually is. I like the idea of the player being able to definitively say what their character achieves, but one of my players said he'd just prefer to say what he's attempting and how much Effort he's putting in. They said, and rightly so, that the GM (in any RPG) usually knows a lot more about the situation than the players do, since they usually set up the situation. So the GM is in a better position to determine how big of an Effect the PC's action will have on the situation. Also, the players will usually want to succeed at what their attempting, and so will usually put in an Extensive Effort to see it done. In the situation where an NPC got shot, that happened because the payer said "Uh... I shoot her." when asked how he was stopping her from tripping him. I guess he could have changed his mind, but by that time he'd already rolled and entered the lowest die into the matrix to succeed. Which meant he shot her. If he'd said success meant simply covering her so she wouldn't move, or preventing her from attempting to trip him, no one would have gotten hurt. I only handed out two incident reports for the entire game. The first was when a PC attempted t mount a horse in front of a US Marshal and chose to succeed with incident. That resulted in a verbal warning of 'Looks Silly on a Horse' which eventually cleared up when the character rode into town and fell off in front of a bunch of people. The second incident was when that same character got punched in the mouth, resulting in a written warning of 'Swollen Lip'. But by that time the story was pretty much over and the players didn't make any other rolls. The matrix does a really good job of forcing the players to choose whether they succeed, succeed with incident or fail. I never thought that something so meta and out of fiction would do such a good job of driving the story forward. But it does. The thing that happened with our session though, was that the players got incredibly lucky and were able to choose to succeed. A lot. Their rolls resulted in the lowest number being either exactly what the PCs needed to complete a synchronic set or they could stick it somewhere in the matrix where it wouldn't cause problems. So I didn't get to hand out a lot of incident reports. This also ties back to my idea of possibly having a few numbers already in the matrix at the start of the game.
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Post by kaitoujuliet on Mar 30, 2012 14:41:10 GMT -8
I'll try to make a more substantive post later, but I was listening to Season 4, Episode 18 today (I'm going back through all the live-at-con episodes that I had previously missed), and Bruce said something which I think is relevant to the issue of the game "seeming too easy." He was talking about Dresden Files, but I think it applies to Time & Temp as well. I transcribed the quote (this begins at 1:19:20):
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Post by tappy on Apr 6, 2012 22:09:26 GMT -8
OH. MY. GOD.
FUCKING WANT!
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HyveMynd
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Post by HyveMynd on Apr 12, 2012 19:55:10 GMT -8
Yeah, the game's pretty cool. It was my first experience with something that is so meta game and has nothing to do with the fiction (the Matrix) driving the things that happened in the fiction. I was initially worried that the players would focus on the Matrix to the detriment of the story, but that wasn't the case. It took about 30 seconds to do Matrix stuff at first, but by the end of the game it had been reduced to only a few seconds. It didn't detract from the game at all.
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Post by kaitoujuliet on Apr 15, 2012 12:36:09 GMT -8
Do I take that to mean you like the sound of this game, Tappy? ;D I guess it shouldn't surprise me that you'd enjoy a game where PCs are time-traveling temp workers who try to fix history while risking destroying the universe AND playing sudoku at the same time... Wish I could make it to one of you guys' cons and run a session for you! But until and unless that happens, you can find more information on Time & Temp at dig1000holes.wordpress.com/. It's also available at Drivethrurpg. So, back to the discussion, hyvemynd and anyone else who may be reading...and I do apologize for dropping off the face of the net for about two weeks. Busy season at work was a real bear. At least it was only two weeks of not being able to keep up with stuff this year instead of three and a half months like it was a couple of years ago. About the Dresden Files quote: I think Time & Temp is an "I can do this" game. I mean, the GM can't make things too difficult for the players, because they can always choose to succeed if they want, and as long as they don't actually undo the universe in the process, it'll work for them. But even if they do always choose success, they should still be having a good time as long as they can make interesting choices and see complications or consequences arise from them. I see from looking at the matrix that your group actually rolled quite a bit more often than mine did. I count 20 rolls for you, 15 for me. By the way, the game's creator says that about 20 rolls per game is average for him, so I don't know why he made the matrix so big either. Maybe he figured it was better to have too much space than not enough. You got lots of ones and twos, and three locked paradox dice, so your group was a lot more gung-ho about risking paradox; my group didn't even get deja vu because they spread their numbers around so evenly. Actually, it probably says a lot about our respective groups that you were worried about things being too easy. My group would almost certainly have been sweating bullets on every roll if they'd had three locked paradox dice, knowing that one more would make the universe cease to have ever existed. But your group was apparently so unconcerned that they didn't even spend a synchronicty token for zeitgeist to reduce the danger! But for a one shot like this I would think about having maybe a half-sized matrix or filling in some random squares with some random numbers right at the start. Ooh, you just gave me a cool idea: what if the office sends a team back to fix some problems caused by another group of temps? It seems logical to me that they'd start out with a partial matrix created by the first team. (You'll have to explain why the office didn't just send them back to a time before the first group messed up, but hey, it's a bureauocracy; bureauocracies do a lot of stuff that doesn't make sense.) Do you think having some numbers already entered would make your group more cautious/excited/nervous in a good way about what happens? I mean, if three locked paradox dice didn't scare them, what will? First off, have you had a chance to listen to the recording of my con game? There are some examples of the players setting Effect in that game which might possibly help. The way I generally approach it is this: 1. The players propose an action that they want to accomplish. For example, wrestling a gun away from someone or mixing a perfect Tom Collins. 2. I state whether, in my judgment, this action would have a minor, major, or extensive effect on the timeline. If the players prefer, they can adjust the action based on my response. (Eventually, the players should reach the point where they can figure this part out for themselves.) 3. Once we've agreed on the action, I tell them how much work it would take, in my estimation, for an average person to accomplish that action. This is where the capabilities of an NPC might come in. Wrestling a gun away from a feeble or unsuspecting NPC would take much less effort than wrestling a gun away from a trained soldier ... or a member of the cast of Leverage. The players can then spend bonuses to make it easier: for example, "I'm an ex-Navy SEAL" or "Two of us jump the guy at the same time." Wait, how did you get a written warning for your second incident report? I don't have my copy of the rules with me, but I thought written warnings were only after two verbals were already on the table? Anyway, have you tried playing it again since the last time we chatted, and how did that go? If not, do you have plans to play again anytime soon?
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HyveMynd
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Post by HyveMynd on Apr 15, 2012 18:45:10 GMT -8
Wait, how did you get a written warning for your second incident report? I don't have my copy of the rules with me, but I thought written warnings were only after two verbals were already on the table? You're right; you have to have two verbal warnings currently on the table before a player gets a written one. The warning I gave out for getting punched in the mouth actually was a verbal one, I think. Having to write out a "verbal" warning tripped my up when I was relating that story. We haven't had a chance to play T&T again, but that's mostly because our gaming schedule has been shit recently.
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Post by kaitoujuliet on May 15, 2012 17:56:04 GMT -8
Well well, lookee at what I just happened to find while browsing Drivethrurpg... rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/100895/Episode-61%3A-Campaign-Confessions%3A-Time-%26-Temp It was a very enjoyable listen! The only question I have is about your group's worry about their temps being dressed in modern clothes. That's what the basic training and Cultural Transcendency Course are for--to soothe any worries that people in the past may have about the characters seeming out of place!
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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 May 15, 2012 22:00:01 GMT -8
Yup, that is indeed us. Thanks for the listen. ;D I've never really mentioned it here before because I feel it's kind of poor form to talk about "my" podcast in the forum of someone else's podcast.
Like I said in the episode, I fulled expected Chris and Lyal to buy period appropriate clothes with the cash they got from selling the "Boston Cakes". Little did I know they'd turn around and head straight to the saloon for shots of whiskey. LOL. One NPC remarked at how strangely they were dressed, but as the PCs already had an uphill battle to fight, I just sort of let it slide rather than make it an issue.
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Post by kaitoujuliet on May 18, 2012 10:25:47 GMT -8
Regarding the podcast, I personally think it's okay to mention it in the context of a thread where we're discussing a specific topic like this ... or I guess you could have dropped me a PM if you weren't sure about doing it in "public." But I did find it anyway, so I guess all's well that ends well. :-)
I just knew there was something in the manual that covered the issue of clothing and stuff, so I finally got around to digging it out and checking what it says. I found this on page 8 of the Paperless Office edition, under "Cultural Transcendency Course" (emphasis mine):
...Which is not to say that you can't play it differently if you want to, of course, but the issue of period clothing is addressed in the game itself. (Mostly I'm just relieved to find that I wasn't making it up!!)
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