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Vainamoinen
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Coriolis vs. Mutant : Same but different?

Sat 09 Jul 2016, 14:38

Hi there,

I'm looking forward to Tuesday's Kickstarter and finding out more about the game, but I already have some questions pertaining to the game's being based on Mutant: Year Zero up front:

1. Character roles
Mutant: Year Zero didn’t prevent power gaming in any way and left it to the GM to keep players at bay. The Slave’s special talent makes him basically invincible, the Chronist’s talent enables him to basically roll his expertise level number of die for any skill he wishes, the Boss basically dominates the group etc. 
 
I’m thankfully not seeing a space for anything like that on the Coriolis character sheet – still, are there such unbalanced talents in Coriolis as well? If not, how are the different roles individualized?
 

2. Relationships
Taking a look at the character sheet fotos, I see that Mutant’s relationship system has made it into Coriolis as well. By my own discretion and by very pressing player demand, these rules have been eradicated from the Mutant ruleset in my group as it was felt to be fostering automated negativity towards certain NPCs. The respective experience points are awarded for roleplay.
 
Now, Coriolis basically sounds like an ongoing travel narrative, like e.g. Firefly, and when you’re visiting new planets, old NPCs are unlikely to reoccur. Does Coriolis, like Mutant, still award experience points for acting out preset antipathies? 
 

3. Setting
One of the core problems with the “Mutant” setting was that every group basically begins from the very same starting condition. The whole setting is tied to a single scenario with a single decisive revelation for the players to uncover. A scenario that may even have a definite ending. For Mutant to actually work for my group, a lot of that had to go (including not just Eden, but the mere idea of Eden), leaving a whole lot of rules and fluff in the Zone’s dust.
 
I really hope the Coriolis setting isn’t as terribly restricted given the vast space that this game encompasses?


That's it for now. Will certainly ask more once the Kickstarter goes live! :)
Last edited by Vainamoinen on Tue 12 Jul 2016, 14:59, edited 1 time in total.
 
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Nils
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Re: CORIOLIS (English topic until subforum occurs)

Sat 09 Jul 2016, 16:17

3. Setting
One of the core problems with the “Mutant” setting was that every group basically begins from the very same starting condition. The whole setting is tied to a single scenario with a single decisive revelation for the players to uncover. A scenario that may even have a definite ending. For Mutant to actually work for my group, a lot of that had to go (including not just Eden, but the mere idea of Eden), leaving a whole lot of rules and fluff in the Zone’s dust.
 
I really hope the Coriolis setting isn’t as terribly restricted given the vast space that this game encompasses?

That's it for now. Will certainly ask more once the Kickstarter goes live! :)
Hi!
I'll let Tomas answer your rules queries but I can give some more info about the third point. 
You are correct that Coriolis is a lot more open in it's nature as there is no metaplot tied into the game structure in the same way as in MYZ. In a way, Coriolis is a bit more traditional with the metaplot confined to a grand campaign that will be published separately (but is not required at all to get the full Coriolis experience). There is no single starting point in Coriolis, the only fact given is that all groups start with a spaceship and are expected to use it (but even that can easily be changed). The Horison is composed of 36 linked star systems, each with their unique culture and features. A fair bunch of these are left open to the GM to create and adapt as he sees fit, whilst the core systems are described in more detail.
Feel free to ask more about the setting and I'll try to answe your questions!
Fria Ligan
 
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Tomas
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Re: CORIOLIS (English topic until subforum occurs)

Sat 09 Jul 2016, 16:43

Hi!

While I don't agree with all of your points about Mutant Year Zero, I won't go into that here as it is a thread about Coriolis. Instead, I'll share some points where MYZ and Coriolis differ.

Regarding roles - unlike MYZ, there are no specialist skills for each character role in Coriolis. Instead, roles (called Concepts in Coriolis) are individualized by the choices of skills, talents and gear available.

Regarding relationships - you do define your relationships to the other PCs during character generation in Coriolis, but unlike MYZ, you do not define relationships to NPCs.
Fria Ligan
 
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Vainamoinen
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Re: CORIOLIS (English topic until subforum occurs)

Sat 09 Jul 2016, 18:43

Many, many thanks for your answers – on a Saturday to boot! :D

And most of the answers given sound very promising indeed. A far more versatile player advancement system combined with the unintrusive light ruleset of MYZ in a Space Opera setting is what I've been looking for for years. I don't roll the dice to determine encounters and threats in MYZ, I think up the scenarios myself as much as possible, so the traditional "make your own metaplot" freedom makes a great(er) starting point to me. The starship as the group's mobile home is the idea that brought me to Firefly, and in my youth, that was the reason I actually even fancied Eagle 5 over the Millenium Falcon.

And the predefined player relationships – well, as with M:YZ, easily wiped should the need arise. :mrgreen:


So judging from the unboxing video of the Swedish edition, it contains no special dice like those in MYZ – so that means number of die rolled is calculated just like in MYZ, sixes are still successes, failures are determined differently, no trauma on rerolls, and rerolls have a religious component to it. However, is the number of rerolls restricted somehow? The more faithful have more rerolls, something like that?

And with that freedom in character generation, how easy would it be for a GM to make his/her own additional character roles/Concepts?

And I assume the attributes range from 1 to 6 this time as opposed to MYZ' 1 to 5?
 
 
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Tomas
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Re: CORIOLIS (English topic until subforum occurs)

Sun 10 Jul 2016, 12:35

Hi!

You can only reroll once, just like in MYZ.

Attribute scores are 1-5, like in MYZ.

It's fairly easy to create your own concepts - easier than in MYZ I'd say, as you don't need a specialist skill.
Fria Ligan
 
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Vainamoinen
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Re: CORIOLIS (English topic until subforum occurs)

Sun 10 Jul 2016, 14:46

It's fairly easy to create your own concepts - easier than in MYZ I'd say, as you don't need a specialist skill.
Looking forward to that. :)

The character sheet shows a maximum of 12 "life points", calculated by adding two attribute scores. That's why I thought that individual attributes could go up to six. But I guess there's different mechanics involved to reach those 12 (cyberware, possibly?).

If players can opt to reroll once for each action and don't take attribute damage, is there no risk at all involved in re-rolling?
 
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Zapp
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Re: CORIOLIS (English topic until subforum occurs)

Sun 10 Jul 2016, 15:21

There's a general talent giving you two extra life points. You can have 5 in one ability and 4 in another, nine plus two makes 11.

(There's also a bionic talent giving two more, so I guess 12 isn't a hard cap, just what fit the sheet?)

Whenever you opt to reroll, the GM gets a "darkness point", which is used to create difficulties and obstacles for the group. Kind of a "story point", but for the referee...
 
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Vainamoinen
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Re: CORIOLIS (English topic until subforum occurs)

Sun 10 Jul 2016, 17:56

Ahaaa, so it's still closer to the M:YZ rules than I thought.

The 'darkness points' remind me of Numenéra's XP gambling system a bit. But it seems to make a good bit more sense in Coriolis (AND doesn't infringe on experience): When you re-roll, you're tempting fate. It's what the protagonists in the Arabian Nights do... and those always regret it bitterly:mrgreen:
 
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Zapp
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Re: CORIOLIS (English topic until subforum occurs)

Mon 11 Jul 2016, 09:56

It does explain why the people are always blabbering on about "the darkness between the stars"... ☺
 
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Vainamoinen
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Re: Coriolis vs. Mutant : Same but different?

Tue 12 Jul 2016, 15:01

Gave this thread a new title that fits better into this shiny new forum.

Moderators: Thanks for the transfer, and nothing speaks against eventually deleting the redirect in the English MYZ forum.

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