The Gaming Den

Koumei wrote:For what it's worth, that's basically the same as "you fail your fear save against the dinosaur and panic" "Woah now, my character isn't scared of dinosaurs!" in regards to "the rules actually can override the way you think your character should be acting all the time. Sometimes, the dice actually do determine things in spite of how you like to imagine your character".

The difference of course being the sexual aspect. Because it's really uncomfortable territory where you tell someone without their consent the person to whom they are attracted (regardless of whether a sex scene follows or even a fade-to-black follows).

I think that it'd be nice to hammer out a list of acceptable PC personality and character development overrides for various games. I have the feeling that people are by and large okay with fear effects and mutilation and mind control, but they're not cool with people being told that they're attracted to certain characters or that they decide to drop their current quest and do all that they can for these heartwarming orphans.

Very much depends. I'm not okay with mutilation, even temporarily losing limbs bothers me to visualise. And mind control is one of those ones where you'll find a lot of people have a lot of different caveats to it, including "you should always have the option to ignore it if it's something you REALLY care about" ie "mind control can only make you do what you were already going to do".

Koumei wrote:Very much depends. I'm not okay with mutilation, even temporarily losing limbs bothers me to visualise. And mind control is one of those ones where you'll find a lot of people have a lot of different caveats to it, including "you should always have the option to ignore it if it's something you REALLY care about" ie "mind control can only make you do what you were already going to do".

It is something of a fiction trope that mind control inevitably fails before the power of boners and/or kittens.

Stinktopus wrote:
It is something of a fiction trope that mind control inevitably fails before the power of boners and/or kittens.

Damn Furries

Lago PARANOIA wrote:I think that it'd be nice to hammer out a list of acceptable PC personality and character development overrides for various games. I have the feeling that people are by and large okay with fear effects and mutilation and mind control, but they're not cool with people being told that they're attracted to certain characters or that they decide to drop their current quest and do all that they can for these heartwarming orphans.

I think MHR has a usable take on it. Instead of save or die, mind control gives you a penalty to your actions if you resist the command.

Sir Neil wrote:

Lago PARANOIA wrote:I think that it'd be nice to hammer out a list of acceptable PC personality and character development overrides for various games. I have the feeling that people are by and large okay with fear effects and mutilation and mind control, but they're not cool with people being told that they're attracted to certain characters or that they decide to drop their current quest and do all that they can for these heartwarming orphans.

I think MHR has a usable take on it. Instead of save or die, mind control gives you a penalty to your actions if you resist the command.

Apocalypse World has a rather elegant take on PvP persuation/manipulation/mind control. Basically the resisting person is offered a XP pt if he accepts your suggested course of action.

silva wrote:Apocalypse World has a rather elegant take on PvP persuation/manipulation/mind control. Basically the resisting person is offered a XP pt if he accepts your suggested course of action.

So, the same take that FATE uses in many ways? Even M&M has a similar mechanic with DM Fiat to force behavioral scenarios, though that's admittedly not PvP.

Cool. Didnt know Fate and M&M uses that too. What I find interesting in this approsch is that it rewards players to cope, but never forces them.


Edit: MHR also uses it, though in different ways.

silva wrote:Cool. Didnt know Fate and M&M uses that too.

Except M&M explicitly states that under no circumstances is the GM allowed to use Complications to kill or otherwise destroy characters and/or the players' fun (at least in 3E, 2E hinted at all kind of dick moves).

In FATE, a player can draw the line at any time the GM wants to do a dick-compel against them, turning the compel into a bid (it basically becomes a "tax for not being screwed over," but given how FATE's thing is shared narrative, trying to run FATE with a Gygaxian attitude actually goes against the spirit of the game, so these cases should be the exception, not the norm).

Dogbert wrote:

silva wrote:Cool. Didnt know Fate and M&M uses that too.

Except M&M explicitly states that under no circumstances is the GM allowed to use Complications to kill or otherwise destroy characters and/or the players' fun.

Neither Apocalypse World. There are clear prompts for damage-dealing / life-threatening situations for the players to react to. And having fun is a stated goal of the game.

BTW, I do not know any game that actually instructs the GM to kill player characters out of nowhere. Do you ?

(perhaps OD&D, but then it instructs players to create backup characters and only start to think long-range after one of these reach 3rd level; same with Paranoia and its stable of clones)

silva wrote:And having fun is a stated goal of the game.

[citation needed] AW prompts involve the MC placeing the players in unwinable scenarios until either they can no longer bear it and quit or their resources are ground down to zero. Hell the devs even talk about how the theme of their game is "destroying something beautiful forever". That doesn't sound like fun, that sounds fucking unbearable.

I guess you could call it...

sunglasses.gif

...a honeytrap

Lord Mistborn wrote:[citation needed] AW prompts involve the MC placeing the players in unwinable scenarios until either they can no longer bear it and quit or their resources are ground down to zero. Hell the devs even talk about how the theme of their game is "destroying something beautiful forever". That doesn't sound like fun, that sounds fucking unbearable.

I concede the unwinable scenarios / resources depleting, but thats different from killing player characters on sight, right ?

silva wrote:I concede the unwinable scenarios / resources depleting, but thats different from killing player characters on sight, right ?

Bear with me for a bit I know thinking is hard for you. RPG players tend to be more upset when forced to bear on with a crippled character than just rerolling after a quick death. The fact AW takes and takes and then it doesn't give back is seriously more demoralizing than having a lol randumb death because you rolled 98-00: decapitate self on table 4-20 stupid fumble results.

If this were going to go anywhere, it would have any of the first dozen times.

fectin wrote:If this were going to go anywhere, it would have any of the first dozen times.

You'll have to bear with it, because I hate to be the bearer of bad news but these threads aren't going anywhere in the foreseeable future. Not as long as we have a bear minimum of posters committed to trashing and/or shilling *World.

Lord Mistborn wrote: Basically *World is the new AD&D 2e. If someone sings it's praises that's a red flag and you probably shouldn't game with them.

Sorry, but I feel I have to disagree based on my experiences playing 2e D&D off and on from when I was in grade 2 to the end of high school.

The example I feel you're looking for is actually the procedural brutalism of 1980's Rogue.

Honestly, I've had more characters die in "less brutal" systems like 3e D&D than in 2e games. However, that has much to do with the fact that I've grown to play tabletop rpgs with much more risk-taking characters than I ever did in 2e. Of course, one could make the case that I played my 2e characters very pragmatically because of my experiences with Rogue.

While with Rogue, I can't recall a single game where I got to the 7th of the games 10 levels. Let alone reach the amulet of Yendor and return to the first level of the game.

And once again, someone replied to that without reading the second sentence there - the bit where you avoid people who go out of their way to tell you how wonderful it is. It's not a long post.

Sakuya Izayoi wrote:Another difference might be, in games with a fear check system, you can build a character who's better at them than others. Adeptas Sororistas are simply braver than your average human and charge face first into danger with a flamethrower, ready to martyr themselves. Monsterhearts does not let you build a character who's straighter than straight and is mechanically harder for same-sex individuals to seduce, and the fluff would be terrible if it did.

Damnit, I want a game where I can put points into playing a character who's a -500 on the Kinsey Scale.

That bit about the Skinner was a paraphrase, but the basic idea of the "playbook" (class) is that you're this person that's either beautiful, or you've amassed a collection of beautiful things (clothes, jewelry, etc). And this is the Apocalypse, so beautiful faces get scarred, clothes get ripped beyond repair, etc. The character is an aggregate of things that are priceless in the post-apoc setting, with no mechanic for getting more of them.

One of the ways you can spend XP is to "retire a character to safety", where they can't be brutalized any longer by the fronts. Which is probably the ONLY option once you realize you're dealing with a campaign-long battle of attrition.

Sakuya Izayoi wrote:The character is an aggregate of things that are priceless in the post-apoc setting, with no mechanic for getting more of them.

Huh, no ?

Each playbook has its own way of acquiring resources. Ie: the Battlebabe earns 1 barter for 1 week as bodyguard or 1 execution; the Driver earns 1 barter for caravan escorting through hostile territory or 1 week as personal driver; the Operator begins with 2 gigs worth 3 barter each; the Skinner earns 1 barter for a week as personal companion or one private performance; the Angel earns 1 barter for a week as a doctor, the Turncoat earns 1 barter for 1 week of surveillance on a target, etc.

judging eagle wrote:the example I feel you're looking for is actually the procedural brutalism of 1980's Rogue.

While with Rogue, I can't recall a single game where I got to the 7th of the games 10 levels. Let alone reach the amulet of Yendor and return to the first level of the game.

Huh, no again. AW is miserable, but not lethal. At least no more lethal than your average game.

Sadly, only a small minority has "misery tourism" within their definition of fun (otherwise, Wraith: The Oblivion wouldn't have been the first title of oWoD to get the axe).

So yeah, other than AW's fandom, I don't know anyone who actually agrees with AW's design objectives. Few people go for that.

Sakuya Izayoi wrote:One of the ways you can spend XP is to "retire a character to safety", where they can't be brutalized any longer by the fronts. Which is probably the ONLY option once you realize you're dealing with a campaign-long battle of attrition.

"...the only winning move is not to play."

P.D: FWIW, I loved W:tO back in the day, I just don't go for that anymore.

silva wrote:Each playbook has its own way of acquiring resources. Ie: the Battlebabe earns 1 barter for 1 week as bodyguard or 1 execution; the Driver earns 1 barter for caravan escorting through hostile territory or 1 week as personal driver; the Operator begins with 2 gigs worth 3 barter each; the Skinner earns 1 barter for a week as personal companion or one private performance; the Angel earns 1 barter for a week as a doctor, the Turncoat earns 1 barter for 1 week of surveillance on a target, etc.

Barter has no intrinsic value aside from being able to cover a month's basic needs, or 2-barter covering a month of luxury. There is no mechanic that turns barter into the Skinner's defining items. There's a Move that lets you attempt to buy things, but it's not exclusive to any playbook - if you could turn 1-barter into beautiful clothing the like only a Skinner would posses, there would be zero point ot the playbook.

Let's take this for example: http://apocalypse-world.com/forums/inde ... pic=6608.0

Gem is a skinner with a long beautiful coat. Cutting through a dangerous acid jungle, she rolls a 7+ on a Act under Fire check- she can get through, but her coat will be ruined. She goes anyway and discards her coat.

lumpley, AKA D. Vincent Baker, the author wrote:My answer is extremely stern.

Don't take away their stuff unless you want to.

If you want to, you don't need us to explain why and when.

So, this coat, which gets destroyed "because I want to", is an item only offered to a new Skinner character at chargen. If the "fiction" informs the "moves", how could you possibly turn barter into priceless coats? The "fictioN" is the coat being one-of-a-kind.

When you go into a holding’s bustling market, looking for some particular thing to buy, and it’s not obvious whether you should be able to just go buy one like that, roll+sharp. On a 10+, yes, you can just go buy it like that. On a 7–9, the MC chooses one of the following:
• it costs 1-barter more than you’d expect
• it’s available, but only if you meet with a guy who knows a guy
• damn, I had one, I just sold it to this guy named Rolfball, maybe you can go get it off him?
• sorry, I don’t have that, but maybe this will do instead?

When you make known that you want a thing and drop jingle to speed
it on its way, roll+barter spent (max roll+3). It has to be a thing you could legitimately get this way. On a 10+ it comes to you, no strings attached. On a 7–9 it comes to you, or something pretty close. On a miss, it comes to you, but with strings very much attached.

Emphasis mine. Who's the arbiter of legitimate? Pretty sure it's not the player. One thing that's likely not going to be ruled "legitmiate": dropping a crate of bottlecaps on that one of a kind coat, the only one in existence, that got destroyed by an acid jungle bear, showing up at the market because you dropped ENOUGH bottlecaps on finding it.

silva wrote:Apocalypse World has a rather elegant take on PvP persuation/manipulation/mind control. Basically the resisting person is offered a XP pt if he accepts your suggested course of action.

So if members of the party mind control each other and then suggest actions they were going to do anyway you ride the xp train to REAL ULTIMATE POWAH? Sounds "elegant".

Sakuya wrote:Barter has no intrinsic value aside from being able to cover a month's basic needs, or 2-barter covering a month of luxury.

...aside from being the standard by all kinds of items and resources in the book are rated ? (ie: just look at all those gear lists in the book and the respective price in barter for each one)

There is no mechanic that turns barter into the Skinner's defining items. There's a Move that lets you attempt to buy things, but it's not exclusive to any playbook

This paragraph is weird, because you open it with a question and then immediately answer it yourself.

- if you could turn 1-barter into beautiful clothing the like only a Skinner would posses, there would be zero point ot the playbook.

Except, like yourself replied above, you can turn X-barter into beautiful clothing or anything else you want. And the "point" of the playbook is to fill a niche the author finds interesting to the game and genre. In the case of the Skinner, he is the social/manipulative charactera, and he is damn good at that.