Grimoire Spotlight - Design Goals

LR · Post by LR » Sat Oct 16, 2010 4:14 am

Ghostwheel wrote:I'm not a big fan of completely ignoring RP interactions with a single spell.

How does it let PCs ignore RP interactions? It has the exact same story effect as a Diplomancer rolling a high Diplomacy check. The NPC changes from a wary stranger to a trusted contact.

Ghostwheel · Post by **Ghostwheel** » Sat Oct 16, 2010 4:17 am

LR wrote:
Ghostwheel wrote:I'm not a big fan of completely ignoring RP interactions with a single spell.
How does it let PCs ignore RP interactions? It has the exact same story effect as a Diplomancer rolling a high Diplomacy check. The NPC changes from a wary stranger to a trusted contact.

Good thing I made changes to the social interaction system that completely do away with the power of diplomancers ^_^

Ghostwheel · Post by **Ghostwheel** » Sat Oct 16, 2010 4:22 am

FrankTrollman wrote:For the last fucking time: the players doing something you did not expect is not a flaw in the game. If you have a problem with it, it is a flaw with you. Period.

It is not reasonable to expect, much less demand, that the other people at a table will come up with exactly the same ideas for where they want the story to go as you do. It's a cooperative storytelling game, which means that you have to cooperate with your players. Yes, there is a very real chance that the other players will take the story in a direction you did not originally intend, but that's a good thing. In fact, that is the entire reason that the other players are at the table in the first place. If the story was just going to follow the script you wrote at the beginning, you'd just write the fucking story and let your friends read it.

When you whine about the players have agency and using agency, you look like a whiny little bitch. The DM has a lot of power, and if your story ideas aren't interesting or motivating enough to compel the players to interact with them if they have other options, that is entirely your fault.

The fact that players can do X, where X is "some thing that affects the way the plot turns out" is not the problem here. You have complained about all values of X. The problem is that you are getting upset when the players take actions or make choices that affect the direction and outcome of the story. And since that is the player's entire fucking job, I will go out on a limb and say that your problem is not rules related. Your problem is that you just aren't mature enough to DM.

DMing means accepting that some of the ideas you think are super cool just won't engage the players very much. And when that happens, you have to bend. You are not the director of a movie, you don't get to decide what the protagonists do in any particular scene. You're the guy who makes scenery and hires extras. You are not the star of the fucking story, the player characters are. And they get to make some fucking choices, and you get to fucking like it.

-Username17

I don't think we're talking about the same thing; let me reiterate, this is not D&D as you know it.

I've got no problem with players having the agency needed to make changes to the story. I think it's important that players feel as though their decisions matter--and that they truly are. I see the story as sort of like a road, with the party travelling in a car along that road. There are crossroads, there are byways, there are offramps, and so forth. The DM marks a few he thinks might be interesting, and presents them to the players, but the players, should they choose, may travel off the marked roads and instead create their own roads and offramps spontaneously. I've got no problem with that. The ability to create one's own offramps, byways and highways is an important way for the players to feel that the world is just as much theirs as it is mine, allowing them to write their own story instead of simply playing through mine.

I do have a problem with players teleporting 20 mi. ahead on the same road, or to suddenly have their car sprout wings and fly across the road, ignoring all the traffic and sights along the way that make the story interesting. Or having the ability to demolish the road completely, such as by summoning a shadow, and having the whole world be filled with nothing but shadows in a few days.

Now, the difference between D&D and Grimoire is that characters in D&D gain power that's transformational in nature, rather than just horizontal or vertical.

Let me quickly give examples of what I mean.
Vertical power: "I was once able to shoot fireballs to hurt people, now I'm able to shoot fireballs that hurt people a lot more."
Horizontal power: "I was once able to shoot fireballs to hurt people, now I'm able to shoot iceballs that hurt people."
Transformational power: "I was once able to shoot fireballs to hurt people, now I'm able to teleport."

Grimoire tries to keep the same level of transformational power consistent from level 1 to level 20, while allowing characters to gain power both horizontally and vertically. But it doesn't give power to people transformationally. However, the same thing applies to the monsters that Grimoire characters face. Just as characters don't get transformational power, you're not going to meet an enemy who can spit in your face, laugh, and screw you over without a save. D&D characters need that power because much of the time monsters gain transformational power in the form of spells and the like. But this isn't the case in Grimoire. Since Grimoire monsters don't have that transformational increase in power, characters don't need to get that same boost either to be able to fight them, unlike in "regular" D&D.

This also means that the ability of low-level characters in D&D to affect the plot is viable at high levels under Grimoire. I don't think anyone complains that a 3rd level character can talk to the mayor, walk over to the blacksmith, chop the head off of the baker, and woo the barmaid in order to affect the story. Because of the non-transformational nature of Grimoire, such abilities do not lose value as you gain in levels.

In D&D, you start as an adventurer, become a superhero, go on to become a demi-deity, and so on. But under Grimoire, you continue being an adventurer that one would see in an action movie or read about in a fantasy novel, rather than something out of a Greek epic about deities which is more the purview of D&D.

Characters under D&D gain transformational power by being able to planeshift and teleport to any place they want. On the other hand, Grimoire characters gain horizontal power by learning/gaining the ability to travel the planes through planar portals--though they still have to journey to the portals, go through, and then go to the place on that plane they want to go to. This means they can't simply ignore the things in between, and have to interact with the scenery rather than pretend it doesn't exist. If that gets boring the DM can always fast-forward, but the scenery isn't just bypassed. But this is viable because everyone else also needs to do this.

I even wrote this as the second-to-last bullet point on my first post. The game doesn't change considerably at higher levels. It is non-transformational. This shares some base mechanics with D&D, but it is not in any way D&D.

The characters have the power to shape the story, and the world. Just not in the way you're used to, or at the rate/scale you're used to. The system is built specifically to work in a different way.

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Sat Oct 16, 2010 7:07 am

Ghostwheel wrote:
Let me quickly give examples of what I mean.
Vertical power: "I was once able to shoot fireballs to hurt people, now I'm able to shoot fireballs that hurt people a lot more."
Horizontal power: "I was once able to shoot fireballs to hurt people, now I'm able to shoot iceballs that hurt people."
Transformational power: "I was once able to shoot fireballs to hurt people, now I'm able to teleport."

Are you planning to use D&D monsters though? Because MONSTERS still have that happen.

Ghostwheel · Post by **Ghostwheel** » Sat Oct 16, 2010 7:11 am

Nope, encounter system is completely redone. Look forward to its unveiling soon!

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Sat Oct 16, 2010 7:51 am

You need to go back and redo your description. So far you have added ranged attacks to all classes, and now you mean something completely different by 'planar adventure' that might be expected.

Ghostwheel · Post by **Ghostwheel** » Sat Oct 16, 2010 8:27 am

The ranged attacks don't actually do any meaningful damage within the system to comparable opponents, and at most have the ability to "ground" flyers, so I wouldn't actually count them as actual attacks.

And I mean what I meant by "planar adventure" as in the original--I've simply successfully communicated what I meant originally

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Sat Oct 16, 2010 11:17 am

Not really - read frank's example under the game design flowsheet, then read yours. It's way clearer what he wants to actually do.

I am still mystified as what you want to happen.

Ghostwheel · Post by **Ghostwheel** » Sat Oct 16, 2010 11:23 am

What part specifically? I'd be happy to expand on any part.

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Sat Oct 16, 2010 11:33 am

* I still don't understand how your characters are going to deal with mobility hostiles. You've said that you're going to give them arbitrary flying abilities, but that doesn't deal with things that are

A) Fast

B) Can teleport

C) Can plane shift

D) Can burrow

E) Are Etheral

F) Can cast spells like 'summon wall'

G) Are archers on the other side of a gorge.

If you're setting the D&D monster manual on fire, fine, but past level 10 practically everything can do atleast one of those, or is AMAZINGLY DANGEROUS in melee combat. So yeah, your melee party seems non functional.

Anyway, so it's not obvious what people are bringing to the party. But the other problem is I still don't understand what the other side (the BAD DUDES) are doing. Are our heros facing down McGuvyer? King Arthur? A Hydra?

* You've only proposed one adventure - what else are your dudes going to do?

* Your campagin description is STILL completely incomprehensible. What's the power level at the start and the end? What are people doing?

* If nothing changes except the numbers WHY FOR THE LOVE OF GOD are you trying to jam this into D20 which is the least suitable system possible?

Ghostwheel · Post by **Ghostwheel** » Sat Oct 16, 2010 11:44 am

cthulhu wrote:If you're setting the D&D monster manual on fire, fine, but past level 10 practically everything can do atleast one of those, or is AMAZINGLY DANGEROUS in melee combat. So yeah, your melee party seems non functional.

Nope; I'm setting the MM on fire, AND keeping things past level 10 at around the same threat comparatively as level 1 monsters were to level 1 characters. See the whole "keeping the same game", one of the bullet points in the first post.

cthulhu wrote:Anyway, so it's not obvious what people are bringing to the party. But the other problem is I still don't understand what the other side (the BAD DUDES) are doing. Are our heros facing down McGuvyer? King Arthur? A Hydra?

* You've only proposed one adventure - what else are your dudes going to do?

* Your campagin description is STILL completely incomprehensible. What's the power level at the start and the end? What are people doing?

Ugh, I'll try to expand on it a bit, but no promises. Still, in theory it could be from level 1 to 20. Remember, this is not D&D. I think you might still be trying to treat it as though it were :-3

cthulhu wrote:* If nothing changes except the numbers WHY FOR THE LOVE OF GOD are you trying to jam this into D20 which is the least suitable system possible?

System familiarity, mostly. And I like the mechanics. And the way people level up. And the class chassis. And how defenses and attacks work. And martial adepts. And creating classes. And a lot of the feats. And... well, lots of things.

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Sat Oct 16, 2010 12:22 pm

You're presenting architypical D&D ideas, and not filling out the details, so in absence of anything else you fall back on the D&D vesion because you're leveraging 3.5 ed content.

Plus, none of this matches up with your description

They meet heroic figures fighting an eternal war in one planes and beings of ineffable evil in the abyss, fighting against monsters, horrors, and abominations all the way as they journey towards the respective stones, often in contact with the wizard through a sending gem he gave them (comic relief).

You need to define ineffable evil, eternal wars, horrors etc. These have a D&D meaning - the blood war - but beyond level 10 everything involved in the blood war has at will teleport and you need to as well otherwise you are TEH FUXED.

So tell us what your monsters look like! In your entire description of a combat centric adventure, you never said what the other guys might do. Frank could 'cheat' by referencing War40k material that we've all read. If you're not leaning on D&D you either need to explictly establish a reference point, or articulate one.

He, on the other hand, has garnered the attention of the gods, and one day has his own portfolio and followers.

What the fuck? Becoming a god isn't a transformational step in power level? If BECOME GOD isn't transformational, what is.

Ghostwheel · Post by **Ghostwheel** » Sat Oct 16, 2010 12:23 pm

The last part is actually referring to my new epic rules that do away with epic levels. Should I unveil them now, or would you rather wait until I spotlight it?

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Sat Oct 16, 2010 12:27 pm

Err, you should work them into your game worksheet - it's completely confusing what you are talking about now. You're not going to have transformational powers except when you are?

Which roles get what capabilities?

What adventures do you see taking place when one of the players really is god?

It's confusing as hell. Nothing adds up - your sample adventure isn't even remotely sensible when the god of death turns up. And none of your sample adventures line up to what you see happening in the campagin?

What do you even see the players doing in the blood war?

Ghostwheel · Post by **Ghostwheel** » Sat Oct 16, 2010 12:28 pm

I'll do the spotlight now real quick so it's more understandable, hopefully that'll help. It's not too long and pretty easy to understand.

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Sat Oct 16, 2010 12:30 pm

Spotlight isn't going to help. I have no idea at all what your roles, campaign and adventures are supposed to look like.

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Sat Oct 16, 2010 12:36 pm

violence in the media wrote:
Ghostwheel wrote:Could be; but replace that with any other way to derail the plot. That might be scrying and teleporting to the McGuffin, going ethereal and bypassing the infiltration of the dungeon, using Commune to discover the identity of the killer, or any other number of ways to ignore plot points. That was just one example, but there are a ton others.
They're not ignoring the plots, they're solving them through proper application of their abilities. Hell, they're being fucking proactive, as they're not waiting around for some NPC to point them in the right direction.

Just because they didn't make sufficient numbers of Gather Information rolls, engage in masturbatory "roleplaying" with a recalcitrant informant, and wander through the maze so the fighter could get stabbed a few times by the minotaur before finding the McGuffin doesn't make it a bad thing.

Maybe the players keep trying to shortcut the adventures because the adventures suck. They're trying to skip the bullshit to get back to the fun. Sadly for them, you appear to be trying to design the fun out.

This. If the players want to skip an adventure, it's because it sucks. Most likely because it's low level crap except not at low levels.

Thing is you want the game to be the same 1-20, with only numbers changing and then only artificially.

Go play 4.Fail and get your video game railroad grind. 3.5 is a game which changes fundamentally every few levels precisely to fuck with uncreative fucks like you.

Ghostwheel · Post by **Ghostwheel** » Sat Oct 16, 2010 12:36 pm

Roles basically down into 3 different ones, debuffer, striker, and defender. Leader is also a minor role, but currently I have only one class that actually does that, so it's not really a role on its own. There are bunch of ways to do each one, distinct enough from each other to be cool in their own right.

Campaigns are fairly low-fantasy that read a lot like books or action movies and a number of different animes where characters go places, meet interesting people, fight monsters, and where a general story is told.

Adventures start fairly low--you begin by fighting rats, bandits, orcs, and the like, and progress to fighting demons and devils (not MM ones) that have their own special abilities. You end up saving the world or some other fairly cliche ending if the campaign gets that far, and at the end you have an epic destiny which is an outstory that lets your character live on for ages to come or become a god or whatever. Mostly flavor, not actual campaigning or adventuring.

That help at all?

Ghostwheel · Post by **Ghostwheel** » Sat Oct 16, 2010 12:38 pm

Roy wrote:This. If the players want to skip an adventure, it's because it sucks. Most likely because it's low level crap except not at low levels.

Thing is you want the game to be the same 1-20, with only numbers changing and then only artificially.

Go play 4.Fail and get your video game railroad grind. 3.5 is a game which changes fundamentally every few levels precisely to fuck with uncreative fucks like you.

This. Is. Not. D&D. 3.5. I'm not sure how clearer I can be. The usual assumptions and such that come with D&D 3.5 don't hold water here, and looking at the system from that lens will only lead to misunderstanding.

And I might have used 4e, but I dislike a lot of the mechanics and the chassis they use. So thanks for the suggestion, but I think I'll pass

Red_Rob · Post by **Red_Rob** » Sat Oct 16, 2010 12:48 pm

Ghostwheel wrote:This. Is. Not. D&D. 3.5.

No. This. Is. E6.

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Sat Oct 16, 2010 12:52 pm

Ghostwheel wrote:Roles basically down into 3 different ones, debuffer, striker, and defender. Leader is also a minor role, but currently I have only one class that actually does that, so it's not really a role on its own. There are bunch of ways to do each one, distinct enough from each other to be cool in their own right.

Campaigns are fairly low-fantasy that read a lot like books or action movies and a number of different animes where characters go places, meet interesting people, fight monsters, and where a general story is told.

Adventures start fairly low--you begin by fighting rats, bandits, orcs, and the like, and progress to fighting demons and devils (not MM ones) that have their own special abilities. You end up saving the world or some other fairly cliche ending if the campaign gets that far, and at the end you have an epic destiny which is an outstory that lets your character live on for ages to come or become a god or whatever. Mostly flavor, not actual campaigning or adventuring.

That help at all?

So is a devil just a palette shifted orc with bigger numbers? OR what do you mean by special abilities (but not like a MM one) seriously I cannot read your mind so you need to throw down some examples.

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Sat Oct 16, 2010 12:59 pm

Also you reference anime... but characters in anime do REALLY over the top shit! Like summoning thousands of swords and decimating an entire area with them, and the guys in naruto do all sorts of crazy stuff!

in FMA they summon doors in walls so they can walk through them and shapeshift.

Again, it doesn't fit your description at all. Totally confusing stuff.

Most of the shows that fit your model (wandering land, solving problems, etc) actually conform to this totally insane power curve that is much more like D&D that a static power level game.

Ghostwheel · Post by **Ghostwheel** » Sat Oct 16, 2010 1:10 pm

Red_Rob wrote:No. This. Is. E6.

E6 extended to level 20 would certainly be a good way to put it, sure.

cthulhu wrote:So is a devil just a palette shifted orc with bigger numbers? OR what do you mean by special abilities (but not like a MM one) seriously I cannot read your mind so you need to throw down some examples.

Mostly the first, though abilities can vary wildly; let me give an example of some of the abilities that a 3rd-level orc might have compared to those of a 15th level "fire devil".

Orc:
Greatsword +11 (2d6+6 and target is either moved up to 10' away or knocked prone unless they successfully make a Ref save DC 16)
Battle Cry (Swift action, recharges every 1d4+1 rounds): All other orcs adjacent to the orc gain +1 to their next attack.

Fire Devil:
Aura of Fire: All foes within 15' take 10 damage at the end of the fire devil's turn.
Fountain of Fire: (Standard action) Any target in a single square within 50' takes 10d6 damage (DC 29 Reflex save for half).
Fire Whip: +33 (15' range, 2d6+15 damage and target must make a Fortitude save (DC 29) or some of the fire devil's essence flows into them. On a failed save, they take an additional 15 damage).
Unbearable Grin: As a swift action the devil can grin menacingly at a foe who must make a Will save (DC 29) or become Shaken for one round.

Ghostwheel · Post by **Ghostwheel** » Sat Oct 16, 2010 1:15 pm

cthulhu wrote:Also you reference anime... but characters in anime do REALLY over the top shit! Like summoning thousands of swords and decimating an entire area with them, and the guys in naruto do all sorts of crazy stuff!

in FMA they summon doors in walls so they can walk through them and shapeshift.

Again, it doesn't fit your description at all. Totally confusing stuff.

Most of the shows that fit your model (wandering land, solving problems, etc) actually conform to this totally insane power curve that is much more like D&D that a static power level game.

And in Soul Eater, Samurai Champloo, Samurai Jack (animated, if not Japanese), Rurouni Kenshin, Basilisk, Berserk, and Tower of Druaga they don't. The most impressive of those is probably Soul Eater, and in that you're damn impressive if you get your shadow to attack alongside you or if you can chop people in half really really well. You'll note the lack of any world changing powers in those for the most part--heck, if they had even Teleport in Tower of Druaga they could have simply teleported to the top floor of the tower.

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 1:50 pm

Ghostwheel wrote:
Roy wrote:This. If the players want to skip an adventure, it's because it sucks. Most likely because it's low level crap except not at low levels.

Thing is you want the game to be the same 1-20, with only numbers changing and then only artificially.

Go play 4.Fail and get your video game railroad grind. 3.5 is a game which changes fundamentally every few levels precisely to fuck with uncreative fucks like you.
This. Is. Not. D&D. 3.5. I'm not sure how clearer I can be. The usual assumptions and such that come with D&D 3.5 don't hold water here, and looking at the system from that lens will only lead to misunderstanding.

And I might have used 4e, but I dislike a lot of the mechanics and the chassis they use. So thanks for the suggestion, but I think I'll pass

You're still using 3.5 as a basis, therefore you fail.

This. Is. Sparta?

E6 extended to level 20 would certainly be a good way to put it, sure.

This, and your description of abilities that sounds exactly like 4.Fail drivel are the reasons why you fail.