The Gaming Den

Kemper Boyd wrote: For instance, if you have a Guns skill, it might include things like general knowledge about guns, gun laws, how to get a gun and so on.

AncientH wrote:There are separate rules for using firearms (shotguns will kill you), knives, blunt objects, bulletproof vests, disarming attacks, throwing objects, throwing people, critical hits, "sucker attacks" (i.e. feinting), etc. Which is fun and exciting when you could seriously get beaten to death by a guy with the Brick skill, and that somebody with Pistols skill actually is less dangerous if you hand him a rifle.

So can you grab a guns skill or do you need a separate skill for different guns?

Kemper Boyd wrote:A NASCAR driver doesn't irl gain much benefit from their race driving skills when they go grocery shopping, but can shine in situations where Joe Sixpack just isn't any good at all.

How is a NASCAR driver supposed to survive if there is a ~45% chance of a crash in every race?

ishy wrote:How is a NASCAR driver supposed to survive if there is a ~45% chance of a crash in every race?

Ishy, if its an customary activity, the driver can automatically succeed at it (or roll with a significant bonus modifier). He only rolls his original 45% rating if there is stress/pressure/stakes involved.

ishy wrote:How is a NASCAR driver supposed to survive if there is a ~45% chance of a crash in every race?

Ishy, you are falling into the trap of assuming that what skills do is defined, or what happens if you fail a roll, or when you have to roll. None of these things are given a tight definition, so there is a lot of leeway for the GM. Some GM's may well have you "roll Drive Car to not crash" as the sum total of the rolling required when entering a race. Others would have you roll each time there is an important decision point (taking a corner, overtaking the next driver, making a neat stop etc.) and failure in these only hinders your final position. Another GM might decide that if you have at least 15% you are skilled enough not to crash at all, and only call for a roll to see if you finish in the Top 3. And all 3 GMs would believe they are playing RAW and this is totally how things are supposed to work.

So when people say they played UA under a good GM and therefore it's a good system, you can see how little that means.

ishy wrote:

Kemper Boyd wrote: For instance, if you have a Guns skill, it might include things like general knowledge about guns, gun laws, how to get a gun and so on.

AncientH wrote:There are separate rules for using firearms (shotguns will kill you), knives, blunt objects, bulletproof vests, disarming attacks, throwing objects, throwing people, critical hits, "sucker attacks" (i.e. feinting), etc. Which is fun and exciting when you could seriously get beaten to death by a guy with the Brick skill, and that somebody with Pistols skill actually is less dangerous if you hand him a rifle.

So can you grab a guns skill or do you need a separate skill for different guns?

You can, but what you can do with it is a surprisingly hard question to answer. One of the sample skills is "Quick-draw", implying that your Guns skill may not be applicable for shotgun iajutsu, or that it might have a penalty when quick-drawing.

silva wrote:He only rolls his original 45% rating if there is stress/pressure/stakes involved.

It's a fucking NASCAR race. Stress, pressure and high stakes are involved in every actual race.

Kemper Boyd wrote: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.

Unless you just paraphrased it poorly and it's better worded, doesn't this literally say that Entropomancers can't get charges by endangering themselves in pursuit of the goal of getting charges to use to accomplish a goal? Limiting it to 'needlessly' makes it impossible to get charges on purpose, which is baffling but based on this review I could see that actually being RAW, so please clarify?

My biggest bone is with Videomancer. It's just so... outdated. Do youtube videos count? Do you have to watch every upload of your favorite show? What about torrents? What about broadcasts in different countries?

silva wrote:

ishy wrote:How is a NASCAR driver supposed to survive if there is a ~45% chance of a crash in every race?

Ishy, if its an customary activity, the driver can automatically succeed at it (or roll with a significant bonus modifier). He only rolls his original 45% rating if there is stress/pressure/stakes involved.

I know nothing of this system, so this is a 100% serious question:

How do you know if a given situation is "customary" or not?

I'd think that taking a curve at 200+ MPH is always at least somewhat stressful and "not crashing into a wall and experiencing fiery death" were significant stakes and "execute this turn properly or risk death/dismemberment" was a lot of pressure to be under, but you seem to be implying they are not in the UA system.

If I've misunderstood, please correct me. If I am right, then what exactly counts as a stressful situation or significant stakes?

Is it up to the MC?

Game On,
fbmf

silva wrote:

ishy wrote:How is a NASCAR driver supposed to survive if there is a ~45% chance of a crash in every race?

Ishy, if its an customary activity, the driver can automatically succeed at it (or roll with a significant bonus modifier). He only rolls his original 45% rating if there is stress/pressure/stakes involved.

What page are customary activities clearly defined on?

Thats an interesting dilema, Fbmf, because the skill ratings in UA are supposed to represent your chance of success in stressful situations, not in your average day to day job or activities. But a Nascar race (or any other activity involving risk of death) are, by its own nature, stressful situations. In this case, I think the final say should fall on the group consensus.

I would still argue that, if a Nascar pilot do that for a living, then a normal Nascar race should count as his everyday, routine job, and his skill rating should be increased by a bonus (or simply auto-succeed). But if he have to use his Nascar skill on a street race over city avenues while on firefights against other cars, then yes, it configures a stressful situation. But again, the most mportant is the group consensus, so I would went with what the group decides.

I think what silva is trying to say, is that with a skill "NASCAR driver" you automatically succeed in not dying horribly during the race, but you'll have to roll to determine your place on the finish.

Longes wrote:I think what silva is trying to say, is that with a skill "NASCAR driver" you automatically succeed in not dying horribly during the race, but you'll have to roll to determine your place on the finish.

I didn't get that out of what he said at all. Why should that be the case? Is that case (or something similar) in the rule book anywhere of is that a rectal retrieval?

Game On,
fbmf

I fucking love the idea that the group should just all collectively decide what the skills should do. Lemme see if I can incorporate this idea into John's perfect RP system.

Here we go:

John's Perfect Roleplaying System
Rule #1: Have a good time. If you're not having a good time, you're not following the rules of this game.
Rule #2: Roleplay. If you have a disagreement about how the imaginary story should proceed, as a group decide on a resolution system and then follow that resolution system.
Rule #3: Give me money.

Ishy wrote:]So can you grab a guns skill or do you need a separate skill for different guns?

You are completely at your GM's mercy on that score. One character has a "cheap shot fighting" skill. Another character has "firearms." Another character has "Gunplay." Another character has "Handguns." Another character has "Guns." Another character has "Guns of All Nations." Yet another character has "Unlicensed Firearm."

Note that these sample characters are in the GM-only section, so technically players aren't supposed to be looking at this shit. The GM is just supposed to have that list and then approve or not approve player suggested skills based on the explicitly contradictory and retarded examples.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:

Ishy wrote:]So can you grab a guns skill or do you need a separate skill for different guns?

You are completely at your GM's mercy on that score. One character has a "cheap shot fighting" skill. Another character has "firearms." Another character has "Gunplay." Another character has "Handguns." Another character has "Guns." Another character has "Guns of All Nations." Yet another character has "Unlicensed Firearm."

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.

So the actual example skills published for the game system literally run the gamut between covering "unlicensed firearms" and covering every ranged weapon ever invented. Does the unlicensed firearms guy revert back to unskilled use if the mayor of his home town sends him a permit?

momothefiddler wrote:Unless you just paraphrased it poorly and it's better worded, doesn't this literally say that Entropomancers can't get charges by endangering themselves in pursuit of the goal of getting charges to use to accomplish a goal? Limiting it to 'needlessly' makes it impossible to get charges on purpose, which is baffling but based on this review I could see that actually being RAW, so please clarify?

The Entropomancer can get a charge on purpose (to use said charge to accomplish a goal), but say, getting into a fight with a guy because you want to steal his wallet wouldn't count. Picking a fight with a random guy for no reason would count, or taking a skateboard and going down the street with your eyes closed would count,

Kemper Boyd wrote:

momothefiddler wrote:Unless you just paraphrased it poorly and it's better worded, doesn't this literally say that Entropomancers can't get charges by endangering themselves in pursuit of the goal of getting charges to use to accomplish a goal? Limiting it to 'needlessly' makes it impossible to get charges on purpose, which is baffling but based on this review I could see that actually being RAW, so please clarify?

The Entropomancer can get a charge on purpose (to use said charge to accomplish a goal), but say, getting into a fight with a guy because you want to steal his wallet wouldn't count. Picking a fight with a random guy for no reason would count, or taking a skateboard and going down the street with your eyes closed would count,

But my exact point is that "to get a charge" is a reason!

If that's an okay reason, what's to keep you from grabbing his wallet once the fight is over anyway? You can get in a fight for a charge and then coincidentally grab some cash out of his wallet, but you can't get in a fight for cash and get a charge out of it? The only difference is how much you can pull off the doublethink to convince yourself of your 'true' intentions (or more accurately, how well the player can bullshit the character's motives). The Entropomancer is then penalized for planning, and is best served taking ~totally random LOL!!~ actions that, thanks to metagaming, just so happen to get him where he wants to go.

Maybe I'm just overthinking this.

momothefiddler wrote: But my exact point is that "to get a charge" is a reason!

If that's an okay reason, what's to keep you from grabbing his wallet once the fight is over anyway? You can get in a fight for a charge and then coincidentally grab some cash out of his wallet, but you can't get in a fight for cash and get a charge out of it? The only difference is how much you can pull off the doublethink to convince yourself of your 'true' intentions (or more accurately, how well the player can bullshit the character's motives). The Entropomancer is then penalized for planning, and is best served taking ~totally random LOL!!~ actions that, thanks to metagaming, just so happen to get him where he wants to go.

Maybe I'm just overthinking this.

No, that's a serious epistemic problem with the Entropomancer. To make matters worse, the determination is specifically objective viewpoint. The example is that if you play a game of Russian Roulette, you only get the charge if there is actually a bullet in the chamber, not just if you think there is one.

So you only attain your actual reward if you take actual risks for actually no reward. The Entropomancer is genuinely a divide by zero error. Doing something that would get you a charge by definition wouldn't get you a charge because doing something to get a charge violates the rules of getting one. And your character's point of view about it is specifically not supposed to matter.

Compared to other parts of the game that are fucked, this one is pretty minor. But yes, you're not wrong.

-Username17

momothefiddler wrote:Maybe I'm just overthinking this.

Yeah, I think you are.

The reason "to get a charge" is not a valid one, since its a player reason. The character reason for getting a charge is due to his obsession. Magick, in adepts terms, is twisting the reality around with the power of your obsession. So a Entropomancer risks his life needlesly because his obssessed about it; a Boozemancer risks his health on drinking because his obsession says so, and a Personomancer risks losing his own identity because he is obsessed about mimicking others. Of course the lure of power is a factor too, but not the main one.

Obsession is the keyword here.

silva wrote:

momothefiddler wrote:Maybe I'm just overthinking this.

Yeah, I think you are.

The reason "to get a charge" is not a valid one, since its a player reason. The character reason for getting a charge is due to his obsession.

So this...

FrankTrollman wrote:The example is that if you play a game of Russian Roulette, you only get the charge if there is actually a bullet in the chamber, not just if you think there is one.

...isn't an actual example in the book?

---

What's more, doesn't making it subjective again disqualify all the previous points? "Oh, well the player is going along with the party to accomplish a goal, but the character is totally just doing stuff because it's risky, so everything generates charges." "The player is getting into this fight to take the dude's wallet, but the character is totally just doing it to risk getting blood on his new shirt. And then later he'll grab the wallet, but he's not thinking about that right now."

FrankTrollman wrote:No, that's a serious epistemic problem with the Entropomancer. To make matters worse, the determination is specifically objective viewpoint. The example is that if you play a game of Russian Roulette, you only get the charge if there is actually a bullet in the chamber, not just if you think there is one.

So you only attain your actual reward if you take actual risks for actually no reward. The Entropomancer is genuinely a divide by zero error. Doing something that would get you a charge by definition wouldn't get you a charge because doing something to get a charge violates the rules of getting one. And your character's point of view about it is specifically not supposed to matter.

Compared to other parts of the game that are fucked, this one is pretty minor. But yes, you're not wrong.

-Username17

Having played an Entropomancer - we just kind of assumed that because getting the charge was a reward that only exists for Entropomancers, it was allowed to be part of (or even the entirety of) the reason you took a risk. This is also implied by the opening fiction in I think Lawyers, Guns & Money, where an Entropomancer insults someone who is pointing a gun at him after calculating that if he doesn't die, he'll get a significant charge and thus be able to use a magic blast which is about as damaging as a gun.

Of course, while this escape clause makes perfect sense and fits with the rest of the flavour for an Entropomancer, that doesn't mean it's what the designers actually wrote.

silva wrote:The reason "to get a charge" is not a valid one, since its a player reason. The character reason for getting a charge is due to his obsession.

Wait, back up for a second. The characters do not know about charges? Isn't the Pornomancer taboo having sex for reasons other than magical power?

Entropomancer would probably end up banned at our table once one of our players got hold of it. He's gotten lynched twice so far for the group's safety, once as a vampire who kept diablerizing stuff at every opportunity, and once as a psyker who was clearly worshiping Tzeentch and undermining the group constantly. It'd probably only take him a single session before that system turned him into a murderous kender who would have to be put down.

schpeelah wrote:

silva wrote:The reason "to get a charge" is not a valid one, since its a player reason. The character reason for getting a charge is due to his obsession.

Wait, back up for a second. The characters do not know about charges? Isn't the Pornomancer taboo having sex for reasons other than magical power?

The characters know about charges - Silva is just being an idiot, and mind-caulking in a retarded fashion which doesn't actually fit with one of the few canon portrayals of an entropomancer approved to accompany the actual rulebooks.

The Pornomancer taboo, IIRC, is having sex other than in a ritualistic reenactment of one of the Naked Goddess' porn flicks. I'm not sure that doing that shit with a person you actually love for the purpose of bonding and procreation violates the taboo if you're also doing it as a ritual reenactment and your ritual reenactment never goes off-script.

schpeelah wrote:

silva wrote:The reason "to get a charge" is not a valid one, since its a player reason. The character reason for getting a charge is due to his obsession.

Wait, back up for a second. The characters do not know about charges? Isn't the Pornomancer taboo having sex for reasons other than magical power?

I dont have the books with me now, but Im sure characters know they get more power the more they give away to their obsession. Cant remember if the concept of cooki-cutted "minor, significant and major" charges, actually exist in-game.