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Matt_E

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Posts posted by Matt_E

  1. I track Fatigue during combat, per RAW.  The good news is, in my game most combats don't last more than 3 rounds, which is when you need to make the first roll for characters with good CONs.  There have been occasions when a failed Endurance roll has made a big difference.

  2. Yes, that is a serious problem with that approach.  When you suddenly start applying penalties to all of the traits that you don't know, it's kinda backward from the usual d100 ethos.  It's like the Mad Hatter and co., celebrating unbirthdays.

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  3. Another tidbit for you, while I continue to work on other projects...

    https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/291556/Guidelines-Skill-Points-by-Age


    Guidelines:  Skill Points by Age

    This game aid presents a handy alternative for awarding development points during character generation in the MYTHRAS gaming system. Older characters receive more bonus points in the rules as written, but the progression is not smooth, and does not address certain questions. In a more finely grained system, exactly how many bonus points does a character receive at any particular age? Suppose that a character takes a long break from adventuring and then returns; how many bonus points should be awarded for the intervening span of "regular life"? How many bonus points would an unusually old character receive, beyond the tabulated ages in the rules? This supplement offers a systematic, analytical approach to answering those questions.

    To be clear, Skill Points by Age has been crafted specifically for the MYTHRAS gaming system. Any compatibility with other systems is fortuitous. You may find some inspiration here, though.

    You are free to use this material in your own game world, for fun. If you are interested in doing more than that, such as incorporating it into a scenario or campaign setting for publication, please contact us.

    Skill Points by Age is offered as Pay What You Want. If you like it, please consider leaving a tip, but in any case it's yours for the taking. Happy gaming!

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  4. Realize that enough genetic modification eventually means you have a different species...which is handled quite naturally by the rules as written.  You would roll different numbers of dice for characteristics, and assign Creature Abilities as desired.

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  5. Good discussion.  I think, in the interest of making a too-little-used skill more obviously useful (in my game), I would favor a broad set of situations for Conceal.  So, I would use Conceal for e.g. hiding a weapon on my person under my clothes, or hiding a scroll in a library, or hiding a car in the woods, or hiding a squad of troops in the field. 

    I would use Sleight for acts involving specifically the hands and small objects and motion--the taking or moving of an item, or hiding it or using one's hand--, but not for any subsequent stashing of the same item (that would be Conceal).  Since Sleight is a Professional skill but Conceal isn't, I guess I would allow substitution of Conceal at some level of penalty.

    I would use Stealth specifically for hiding myself from detection, possibly involving but not requiring movement.

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  6. I can see conceptually (and historically) why Conceal was included as a Standard skill, but I sympathize with TheophilusCarter.  I think I have never used Conceal in actual play.  Some of the examples above seem blurred with use of the Stealth skill, to me.  Also, for characters in an action scene, I think the concept of Cover goes a long way toward precluding Conceal checks.

    To sharpen the discussion, let me ask:  Do you see Stealth as involving movement, whereas Conceal is for an immobile object (or possibly character)?  I don't have RAW in front of me, but it is probably worthwhile to check the exact verbiage in the entries for these skills, with this in mind.

    In RQ3, we had separate Hide and Sneak skills, which frankly were almost always resolved with a single roll when a character was trying to be stealthy (and if you failed either one, you were sunk).  Thus sweeping these up into a single Stealth skill resonated with me when I first read RQ6/Mythras.  Meanwhile, in RQ3 Conceal was used specifically when a character tried to hide a large object that was not himself.  (For quite small objects, you used Sleight.)  I think those older ideas are worth revisiting in this discussion.

     

  7. Use Passive Possession by a spirit that constantly shrieks (or sings Britney Spears tunes, or whatever).  Treat as a form of ongoing Miasma that combines aspects of the spells Befuddle and Demoralize.  After a suitable amount of time, the victim develops the Passion Madness.  This nefarious treatment combines punishment (torture, really) and restraint.  They might kinda like Loz's narcotics...but they won't like this.

     

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  8. Flicker rate of the human eye is taken to be 16 Hz, I believe; standard video rate of 30 frames/s is approximately double that, but employing a nice number.  24 frames/s was standard for motion picture film, IIRC, and is 1.5 times the flicker rate.

    Using a flywheel to even out small fluctuations in the turning rate was well known technology back then; think of treadle sewing machines, for example.  I'm not sure that they bothered to use it in these cameras, but they could have.  Surely in Doggerland they might.

    Gear mechanisms that don't jam would be crucial to Doggerland's technology, considering the operations of the Difference Engines...  I'm sure they would have worked that out to high precision.

     

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  9. As always, the question is, how much magic do you want your game to include?  It's a lot easier to dial it up than to retcon and take toys away, so I suggest starting small.  Put something up here and we'll pick it apart for you, if that's what you're looking for, and then you can refine, before getting to the gaming table. 😄

  10. In line with what Butters has said, if a viewer is using it to get a grip on the rules, in the video's description you might want to give a "table of contents" with times for the various pieces of the video.  That way, if I want to see a brief combat, I can jump to 7:15 or whatever, but if I'm more interested in the roleplaying aspects, I can watch just those segments.

    I was going to suggest editing the video to feature just the relevant parts--here rules illustrations--, but then realized the TOC approach (a) would be MUCH easier, and (b) would allow different users to enjoy the same product, for their own reasons; there's no telling a priori what a given viewer might actually prefer.  For example, I personally wouldn't watch a video that just illustrates rules, but I would like to see roleplaying and story development.

     

    • Like 3
  11. 19 hours ago, g33k said:

    Honestly, I see the wargaming roots here.  Early Gygax was Tolkien-izing & Leiber'izing the team-A / team-B wargames, where the "referee" was a neutral arbiter of rules-arguments.  Magic replaced guns/artillery/&c; dragons replaced aircraft and bombs &c.  Etc.

    Then came the twin notions of grabbing the "interesting commander-unit" out of the squad/platoon/company/brigade/whatever, and just running the ONE PERSON as a "unit" and have "team B" be the Ref.

    The focus of the game remained the wargaming focus -- combat; adding in small-unit purposes like "scouting" (exploration) and some tropes from the literature like traps&puzzles...  (edit:  and huge piles of treasure!)

    Yes, to me the wargaming roots are clear and well-documented.  I was more wondering about the subconscious stuff that might have been part of the zeitgeist back then.

     

  12. Yes, I agree:  Alienation (from a mainstream society that is nonetheless degenerate and awful) and dehumanization are the key tropes of cyberpunk, I would say, aside from advanced technology.  As has been hinted, though, the only thing worse than this alienation would be assimilation...  Attempts to break the system may or may not be totally hopeless; that depends on the particular writer, I think.

    That's an interesting point about S&S and the other genres being similar here.  I hadn't thought of that.  Maybe this explains the mindset that, back in the First Wave of OSR FRPGs, led to the "murder hobo" nature of so many characters:  The players were expressing something they had subconsciously internalized from the S&S lit.  Hmm.

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