The Gaming Den

Kemper Boyd wrote:I think it might not translate well from the review, but the game isn't about playing supers even if you have magic.

Oh yes.

It's not a game about supers, it's just a game in which you happen to play a guy with super powers fighting other guys with super powers. Which is, you know, the exact definition of a game about supers.

Until now, I though White-Wolf-fanboys were the most pedantic players ever. I was wrong. At least, they largely admit that Vampire and ToothFairy and Werezombie and other White Wolf games are about playing superheroes.

And you probably missed the part where I said that the power level of characters tends to balance out fairly well between characters, magic or not. Because of how charging works for Entropomancers: they can't charge up without endangering themselves needlessly so taking risks while pursuing goals with other player characters doesn't count. And the meat-and-potatoes part of charging, minor and significant charges, don't give you any bonus for endangering other characters.

So AH is lying when he write : "Entropomancers get their power by playing Russian roulette and win. They gain charges by surrendering themselves to chance, be it gambling with money (minor), serious injury or death (significant), or the lives of you and everyone nearby (major)" ?
According to this, it seems the only difference between significant and major charge is the risk incurred by other people. If the entropomancer isn't an idiot, he never risks his life alone, because risking TPK is in every way more advantageous: he gets better magic if he succeed, and if he fails he doesn't even have to reroll a character because the whole game ends.

According to this description, he also has infinite minor charges, because "gambling money" isn't something hard to do at all.

rasmuswagner wrote:AH and FT are on a hyperbole bender as usual. There's plenty of shit in Unknown Armies, but the low skill percentages are not part of the shit. The low skill percentages are a fucking improvement on CoC because unlike CoC, where skills are calibrated for "HerpDerp", skills in UA are calibrated against "getting it right on the first try, under pressure".

Also, getting 90% right on the test in college is not a fucking 90% skill rating, nor is it even an indicator of the ability to perform actual tasks, and whoever insinuated that is a massive twatwaffle.

But it's 90% of getting what right on the first try under pressure? A standard task? A difficult task?

Let's say my character is a musician, he has guitar 90%. He auto-success every repetition, but when he's on stage, there is some pressure because of the public; therefore every ten concert, he fails and must start again.

That's... not very good. That's more the level of a good guitar student than a professional musician. Under your definition, any score below 100% is very amateurish, and any expert should be in the range 180%-200% (as in "even under pressure, he can succeed at task a beginner can't do at all")


And anyway, even if we admit that guitar 90% is impressive... it's 90% of playing what right on the first try? Is it the same to play Buckethead and a simple bed song? You aren't even able to explain what this "90%" actually is, and you want me to believe that the percent-roll-under-system is "easy to grasp"? That's complete bullshit.

GâtFromKI wrote:

rasmuswagner wrote:AH and FT are on a hyperbole bender as usual. There's plenty of shit in Unknown Armies, but the low skill percentages are not part of the shit. The low skill percentages are a fucking improvement on CoC because unlike CoC, where skills are calibrated for "HerpDerp", skills in UA are calibrated against "getting it right on the first try, under pressure".

Also, getting 90% right on the test in college is not a fucking 90% skill rating, nor is it even an indicator of the ability to perform actual tasks, and whoever insinuated that is a massive twatwaffle.

But it's 90% of getting what right on the first try under pressure? A standard task? A difficult task?

Oh for fucks sake. Please tell me about that magical, perfect rules system where every single conceivable task, routine to normal to extra difficult, is clearly defined and there are no GM calls involved in the resolution system. You know, the one you play all the time.

GâtFromKI wrote: Let's say my character is a musician, he has guitar 90%. He auto-success every repetition, but when he's on stage, there is some pressure because of the public; therefore every ten concert, he fails and must start again.

If you interpret a failed Guitar roll as being "unable to play", that's not really criticism of the system, that's just you being a retard.

rasmuswagner wrote:Oh for fucks sake. Please tell me about that magical, perfect rules system where every single conceivable task, routine to normal to extra difficult, is clearly defined and there are no GM calls involved in the resolution system. You know, the one you play all the time.

Any system allowing me to know if I succeed at an easy task or a professional task is better than this. It means the skill system of D&D3 is better than your pile of shit. That's quite an accomplishment, especially when the book was edited 2 years after D&D3.

If you interpret a failed Guitar roll as being "unable to play", that's not really criticism of the system, that's just you being a retard.

OK! It's clear now.

It's 90% of... doing... undefined stuff on the first try under pressure. But a failed roll doesn't mean the task is failed on the first try.

So the whole game consist of having undefined skills allowing you to do undefined stuff, and you can roll to obtain undefined results in case of success and undefined results otherwise. And you may have random superpowers by taking the right skill among your undefined skills.

Luckily, it's easy to grasp for a beginner.

Did you pay actual money to get this pile of... nothingness? Are you stupid?

Unknown Armies has three kinds of checks.

For minor checks, everyone who has the appropriate skill succeeds. Skill levels and stats are wholly unimportant.

For significant checks, you only "completely fail" if you roll over your stat. This means that your skill is again largely meaningless (if you have it at all). But circumstance modifiers affect your skill and not your stat, so being wounded or blinded or something doesn't actually affect your chance of failure. Seriously.

For major checks, your stat is discounted and only your skill counts. Suddenly being really fast or really strong or really smart (which is the only thing that really matters on significant checks) is completely meaningless.

The game has strong successes, cherry successes, and higher successes, but there is no actual ranking of those in the book. Not only are the degrees of success mostly unrelated to how nominally good you are at a task, but the book doesn't bother giving you any solid examples of what those degrees of success even mean. If I roll a weak matched success and you roll a strong normal success, which is better? There's no way to fucking say.

It isn't that people are complaining that this system isn't perfect. It's that people are complaining that this is complete and total fucking garbage. I think it's relatively uncontroversial that if your character is listed as being better at a task that they should have increased chances of doing better when performing that task. Unknown Armies cannot even promise that. Indeed, a majority of ways that your character could nominally be better at a task will be largely or wholly discounted every time you perform a task.

One of the sample characters has a skill in "large and hard to move." Do you not think that it is weird that her skill in "large and hard to move" is meaningless on minor and significant checks, while her Body attribute to which it is attached is meaningless on minor and major checks? Because I think that's weird. I would expect being larger and harder to move to provide a benefit on every kind of test involving your largeness and hardness to move. But in Unknown Armies, it very specifically does not.

-Username17

talozin wrote: Amusingly, the same guy who has "Killing Things Up Close" -- it's Lancelot in, I think, the Postmodern Magick book -- also has "Killing Things Far Away", which could conceivably cover not only every variety of firearm in existence but also bows, crossbows, thrown knives, tank gunnery, artillery, rocket launchers, guided missiles and the USS New Jersey's 16-inch guns.

Sounds legit

talozin wrote: Amusingly, the same guy who has "Killing Things Up Close" -- it's Lancelot in, I think, the Postmodern Magick book -- also has "Killing Things Far Away", which could conceivably cover not only every variety of firearm in existence but also bows, crossbows, thrown knives, tank gunnery, artillery, rocket launchers, guided missiles and the USS New Jersey's 16-inch guns.

You call this absurd, I call it elegance. Its the same overpowered npc from any other rpg, but while in D&D/Gurps/BRP/Shadowrun you need tons of feats and skills to do it, UA only needs 2 lines.

silva wrote:

talozin wrote: Amusingly, the same guy who has "Killing Things Up Close" -- it's Lancelot in, I think, the Postmodern Magick book -- also has "Killing Things Far Away", which could conceivably cover not only every variety of firearm in existence but also bows, crossbows, thrown knives, tank gunnery, artillery, rocket launchers, guided missiles and the USS New Jersey's 16-inch guns.

You call this absurd, I call it elegance. Its the same overpowered npc from any other rpg, but while in D&D/Gurps/BRP/Shadowrun you need tons of feats and skills to do it, UA only needs 2 lines.

But if a PC tried to take the same skill, you would smack him down on the basis of...?

Longes wrote:

silva wrote:

talozin wrote: Amusingly, the same guy who has "Killing Things Up Close" -- it's Lancelot in, I think, the Postmodern Magick book -- also has "Killing Things Far Away", which could conceivably cover not only every variety of firearm in existence but also bows, crossbows, thrown knives, tank gunnery, artillery, rocket launchers, guided missiles and the USS New Jersey's 16-inch guns.

You call this absurd, I call it elegance. Its the same overpowered npc from any other rpg, but while in D&D/Gurps/BRP/Shadowrun you need tons of feats and skills to do it, UA only needs 2 lines.

But if a PC tried to take the same skill, you would smack him down on the basis of...?

Not being a big enough munchkin. Obviously the first skill you should write on your sheet is "Solve problems."

I solve the problem of us needing to get there in a hurry to win the race. I solve the problem of us not having enough money. I solve the problem of that guy being alive.

DM: I feel like this is OP.
Player: Looks like I solved the problem of us wasting time playing UA.

silva wrote:

talozin wrote: Amusingly, the same guy who has "Killing Things Up Close" -- it's Lancelot in, I think, the Postmodern Magick book -- also has "Killing Things Far Away", which could conceivably cover not only every variety of firearm in existence but also bows, crossbows, thrown knives, tank gunnery, artillery, rocket launchers, guided missiles and the USS New Jersey's 16-inch guns.

You call this absurd, I call it elegance. Its the same overpowered npc from any other rpg, but while in D&D/Gurps/BRP/Shadowrun you need tons of feats and skills to do it, UA only needs 2 lines.

Those piles of feats aren't because the system isn't "elegant". They're to give the players ways to fight things other than rocket tag. If a GMPC or plot-critical NPC is defined by having 100% in "Fuck the Players", the ONLY way to deal with it is rocket tag. And dumpster diving for initiative bonuses.

Kaelik wrote:Not being a big enough munchkin. Obviously the first skill you should write on your sheet is "Solve problems."

I prefer "Badassery". My character solves problem because he's badass. And he can do many other stuff. Because he's badass.

Anyway, I think our two characters are in the same tier and can play together. Wanna play UA?

Longes wrote:

silva wrote:

talozin wrote: Amusingly, the same guy who has "Killing Things Up Close" -- it's Lancelot in, I think, the Postmodern Magick book -- also has "Killing Things Far Away", which could conceivably cover not only every variety of firearm in existence but also bows, crossbows, thrown knives, tank gunnery, artillery, rocket launchers, guided missiles and the USS New Jersey's 16-inch guns.

You call this absurd, I call it elegance. Its the same overpowered npc from any other rpg, but while in D&D/Gurps/BRP/Shadowrun you need tons of feats and skills to do it, UA only needs 2 lines.

But if a PC tried to take the same skill, you would smack him down on the basis of...?

...the cited skill equaling lots of perks and traits and advantages in other system, thus eh will only be able to afford them, when he got enough experience to do so.

Its like Zen really: in the beginning you see a bazillion techniques and forms and procedures. In the end, when you achieve illumination, you just see two skills: Hit things far and Hit things near. Then, when you reach true transcendence, like Bruce Lee or Charles Bronson, its just one skill: Hit things.

GâtFromKI wrote:

Kaelik wrote:Not being a big enough munchkin. Obviously the first skill you should write on your sheet is "Solve problems."

I prefer "Badassery". My character solves problem because he's badass. And he can do many other stuff. Because he's badass.

Anyway, I think our two characters are in the same tier and can play together. Wanna play UA?

You're both basketweavers. A real pro optimizer would take Failing at 1% and fail to fail at any task 99% of the time (for certain levels of task difficulty) for only one skill point.

silva wrote:

Longes wrote:

silva wrote: You call this absurd, I call it elegance. Its the same overpowered npc from any other rpg, but while in D&D/Gurps/BRP/Shadowrun you need tons of feats and skills to do it, UA only needs 2 lines.

But if a PC tried to take the same skill, you would smack him down on the basis of...?

...the cited skill equaling lots of perks and traits and advantages in other system, thus eh will only be able to afford them, when he got enough experience to do so.

Its like Zen really: in the beginning you see a bazillion techniques and forms and procedures. In the end, when you achieve illumination, you just see two skills: Hit things far and Hit things near. Then, when you reach true transcendence, like Bruce Lee or Charles Bronson, its just one skill: Hit things.

Woah woah woah! I don't see any "Use sword" or "Use crossbow" or "Use T-34" on Lancelot's sheet. He clearly began the game with "Kill things up close/from afar" skills. What is a measure of "experienced enough"?

You could reasonably have a system in which starting skills are specific and get to transform into generic skills later. Say, at the top is "Kill", and that breaks into "Kill with weapons" and "Kill with magic", and "Kill with weapons" divides into melee and ranged, and ranged breaks into guns, bows, and thrown, and guns break into big and small, etc, and when people have enough points in a subcatagory they combine them and move up a catagory. That would result in kind of a weird progression and a ton of bookkeeping, but you could do it. However, I haven't heard anyone mention a "skill upgrade" system of any sort in Unknown Armies.

The fact that it would be more expensive in another system is not actually a coherent reason to object to it, because different systems have different degrees of granularity and some will seriously let people take "fighting" as a skill because they abstract things so much that "fighting" and "9-millimeter pistols" are equally valuable.

Kaelik wrote:

Longes wrote:

silva wrote: You call this absurd, I call it elegance. Its the same overpowered npc from any other rpg, but while in D&D/Gurps/BRP/Shadowrun you need tons of feats and skills to do it, UA only needs 2 lines.

But if a PC tried to take the same skill, you would smack him down on the basis of...?

Not being a big enough munchkin. Obviously the first skill you should write on your sheet is "Solve problems."

I solve the problem of us needing to get there in a hurry to win the race. I solve the problem of us not having enough money. I solve the problem of that guy being alive.

DM: I feel like this is OP.
Player: Looks like I solved the problem of us wasting time playing UA.

Kaelik, despite all our disagreements, I must congratulate you on that post. That was elegant.

silva wrote:

talozin wrote: Amusingly, the same guy who has "Killing Things Up Close" -- it's Lancelot in, I think, the Postmodern Magick book -- also has "Killing Things Far Away", which could conceivably cover not only every variety of firearm in existence but also bows, crossbows, thrown knives, tank gunnery, artillery, rocket launchers, guided missiles and the USS New Jersey's 16-inch guns.

You call this absurd, I call it elegance. Its the same overpowered npc from any other rpg, but while in D&D/Gurps/BRP/Shadowrun you need tons of feats and skills to do it, UA only needs 2 lines.

Lest it be lost in all the mockery: I did not call it absurd. Shit, I once designed a game system that had a stat called "Fighting", and when two characters got into a fight whoever had a bigger pile of it won. For me to object to "Killing Things Up Close" would be hypocritical as well as stupid. The point is not that having high-level (in the sense of very broad, not the sense of very powerful) skills is a bad thing. The point is that Unknown Armies provides examples of skill granularity that range all the way from the extremely specific to the all-encompassing, and then does not provide useful guidance to GMs or to players on where that line should be drawn in play.

I know, I know, a good GM won't have any problem. The existence of good GMs and good players is not a defense to criticism of rules. It is nonresponsive, and it can be used to argue that virtually any game is not bad, including World of Synnibar and a game I just made up where actions are resolved by giving the GM a blowjob and letting them judge success or failure based on how good it is.

Not everything is good, and enjoying things that are imperfect is not just acceptable but necessary. AD&D is so bad that there are literally entire retro game systems created as mockeries of it. World of Darkness is mechanically terrible in more ways than you could count even if you were a hecatoncheire. Frank can probably rant until he loses the ability to speak on how stupid some Shadowrun rules are. I have played and enjoyed all three, and I am happy to admit that they are all bad game systems in highly significant ways even while I criticize Unknown Armies (which I also played and enjoyed) for being bad in highly significant ways. That's because a game is not your tribe and you will not be stoned to death for admitting it has flaws.

Talozin, I agree the skill system is too vague. I was being sarcastic. I just dont find it such a big problem as some people around here seems to.( In fact, I never bothered with this kind of problem in the first place, Im more sensible to holistic system problems like the one in Shadowrun).

Talozin, I agree the skill system is too vague. I was being sarcastic. I just dont find it such a big problem as some people around here seems to.

( In fact, I never bothered with this kind of problem in the first place, Im more sensible to holistic system issues like the one seen in Shadowrun).

silva wrote:Im more sensible to holistic system issues like the one seen in Shadowrun).

This sentence words order missing elephant.

Kaelik wrote:

silva wrote:Im more sensible to holistic system issues like the one seen in Shadowrun).

This sentence words order missing elephant.

If you read "sensible" as "sensitive", it works in order and in context.

momothefiddler wrote:

Kaelik wrote:

silva wrote:Im more sensible to holistic system issues like the one seen in Shadowrun).

This sentence words order missing elephant.

If you read "sensible" as "sensitive", it works in order and in context.

Technically that would still be wrong, because the issues with shadowrun are many, and not holistic. The fact that the Matrix Rules are ass is in zero ways at all related to any other rules.

Kaelik wrote:

momothefiddler wrote:

Kaelik wrote:
This sentence words order missing elephant.

If you read "sensible" as "sensitive", it works in order and in context.

Technically that would still be wrong, because the issues with shadowrun are many, and not holistic. The fact that the Matrix Rules are ass is in zero ways at all related to any other rules.

I never meant to say it was correct at that point, merely intelligible.

In my experience, while 'holistic' has a valid definition, any time anyone actually uses it they mean "I don't have to understand how this works in order to fix it", i.e. it's code for "magic".

Ancient History wrote:You have a magical Jesus Fish car
decal that gives you a situational bonus to your drive skill (note that characters in this game do not normally have a “drive” skill).

By default player characters in Unknown Armies have the "Driving" skill at 15%. See page 38 of the rulebook. All player characters get the following free skills: Body: General Athletics, Struggle; Speed: Dodge, Driving, Initiative; Mind: General Education, Notice, Conceal; Soul: Charm, Lying. "All of these begin at 15% except for Initiative, which starts at half your Speed score."

The magic Jesus Fish specifically says it gives a (situational) bonus to the "Driving" skill, so even the not-always-the-same skill names aren't really an issue here. Characters in this game do normally have the skill the magic Jesus Fish impacts.

lstyer wrote:All player characters get the following free skills: Body: General Athletics, Struggle

Oh man, I'm glad I have something to do for when I run out of Power Points!

It's either the default hand-to-hand skill or the one for finding your way through the rule book.