Themadviolinist
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A pattern in criticism?

Sat 24 Jul 2021, 00:00

I want to be extremely careful and clear that the following does not reflect any disagreement or disrespect for any opinion on the question I'm raising. I'm noticing a pattern in a lot of the criticism of the 2e rules that seems to come down to the idea that the mechanics do not give the LM enough information to convey a rich sense of the world, or of the effects of character actions. Examples: councils having binary results, the journey events, and the apparent removal of mechanical differences between different skill applications, particularly of social skills in journeys and councils. Am I right to believe that those of you lodging these critiques feel that 1E supported you better in these situations?
If that's true, could you tell those of us with no 1E experience more about how that support worked? I'm asking, because I'd like to have a better sense of comparison, and because, like having just learned how helping worked in 1E, which I kind of love and may well use at my table instead of helping dice, I'd like to have the option to make intelligent choices. Alternatively, I'd like to problem solve these from my own perspective and offer possible solutions that would give more support to those who feel this way.
Or maybe I've misreading the pattern. There's a lot of material on this forum, and I've probably not read half the threads half as well as they deserve. *smile*
Some specifics. I think it's fairly easy to extrapolate from when/if successes reach the threshold for councils and other, what are they called, endeavors, you know, linked multiple-roll tasks. (I'm preparing to go play a gig and don't have my rules handy.) I feel farily confident as a LM that I can narrate, and even provide mechanical support to a fellowship that finishes a six-roll council challenge in four rolls due to extra successes, also depending on the skills chosen to color the account. "Not only does Beorn seem more well-disposed to you as the result of your regaling him with your orc-smashing adventures, but he even is willing to throw in some of his famous honey cakes to add to your journeying supplies," would be a silly example of this, ass opposed to being one success short at six rolls, "Beorn is unimpressed with your tales of orc-smashing, but will permit you to stay the night, though he makes it clear that he will not in fact offer you the help you asked," or missing by three successes, "Beorn's brows grow thunderous with his irritation with your useless prattle, and he gives you one night to leave his country or else."
These are simplistic and silly, but give a flavor for how I'd do this.
I'm still deeply uncertain how to do journeys; that is how to make them thematic and have a real effect on the story. The fatigue mechanic seems to fall short in both respects to my way of thinking. I'd be happy to hear from folks who make it work and get some best practices.
 
Asgo
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Re: A pattern in criticism?

Sat 24 Jul 2021, 04:31

...
I'm still deeply uncertain how to do journeys; that is how to make them thematic and have a real effect on the story. The fatigue mechanic seems to fall short in both respects to my way of thinking. I'd be happy to hear from folks who make it work and get some best practices.
I don't think you are alone there.
I have never played the journey system from 1e so this just from reading this alpha, but my impression is that while it is basically a very light hex crawl travel system it ironically feels very mechanical.

Potential reasons for that impressions might be:
1. the lack of theme, if your LM isn't willing or able to invest a lot of creativity or preparation to fill the events in the event table with life, it will degenerate fast to some boring dice roll party. To be fair that holds for basically any rpg, but here the scheme of "And now hop LM fill our bare bones system with life" is used often enough with way too few examples and hooks for LMs to get ideas, in particular new LMs. From the last video I understand that the journey system basically originated as a pre-processing step to vary the starting stats when coming to the scene you were traveling to and reflects the cost of the journey as a reduction of the general rest state. I think that function it fulfills its very well, but unless you flesh it out, that alone will be very dry and the player participation might actually be a detractor because it stretches the process.
Because how the events are timed as being placed down the road, it isn't necessarily designed to play out the day to day to fill it with that much meat though. ;)

2. The combination of event and outcome into a single table - well technically it is just an outcome table - isn't that intuitive. I would choose the actual event after the the target selection and then roll on the event outcome table. Setting the scene of the event before your actually know what the result on failure is, seems more supportive of a at least somewhat dynamic interaction with the player test in between.
3. Is my understanding correct, that going by these rules there isn't any life encounter of any kind intended as a potential event? Might be a reason. ;) Or am I missing something?
 
RichKarp
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Re: A pattern in criticism?

Sat 24 Jul 2021, 14:29

I think what most of the 1e fans who have complained about aspects of 2e have said is that there have been major revisions to aspects of the rules set which seemed to work perfectly well, while the areas that almost everyone acknowledged needed improvement have received somewhat less than the complete overhaul which was required and anticipated.

So like, Councils and Journeys were two areas that we were told to expect major improvements.

Councils have very little variation in the Alpha and all that is really mandated now is the order in which skills are used: no introduction, no encounter phase. There isn’t much of a strategic decision to make other than selecting the best skills suitable for the task and using them. Now, the 1e version of introduce/preliminary roll and then a prolonged kind of convincing task was not something I used very much, I often designed my own more complex decision-trees and bargaining minigame so that the players could engage in true social combat. I had hoped Councils would provide some more tools in that direction.

Journeys have received a much needed simplification, but the replacement of interesting and unique hazards with a generic table is puzzling and doesn’t really get us closer to the source material, which the old region-based hazards (especially those in the wonderful gazetteers for Wilderland, Rohan etc) really did quite well. I’m glad it can be used on the fly and “open up” travel decisions more for the LM and the players, but I also feel like it’s much lighter in substance than I was hoping for.

Meanwhile we’ve had rather significant changes to basics like character creation, success threshold, and Hope and Shadow. Some of the issues strike very close the core themes and world of Tolkien, and whether players feel the new system is better or worse at implementing those themes to touch the players. Mostly though, I think the fact that the rules now necessitate and entirely fresh approach make it feel like a very different game have sparked a mix of excitement and reticence. The 1e rules are far from perfect, and it would be ridiculous to reject out of hand any changes to them out of a sense of purity. Almost every fan already has a number of key house rules they choose to observe.

However, you’re right in the sense that a lot of the pushback on 2e changes are on game basics because of the way they influence LM-player interactions and how both LM and players interface with the rules/rolling mechanic. They require different approaches. 1e is LM-driven and structured so that the player has somewhat more narrative control via Hope, with an associated cost in Shadow and Madness. 2e is player-driven, with their own choices affecting the TN threshold, how much they gamble/leverage for success, and it seems to give them more options and freedom but at a cost of certainty at influencing critical outcomes.
 
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aramis
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Re: A pattern in criticism?

Sun 25 Jul 2021, 12:20

Journies and Travel Encounters
1E travel had an issue, a big one. It was more likely to have encounters the larger the party was.
Now, that may sound like a good thing... but it wasn't, because most encounters were simple travel hazards, not risky encounters, but some were conflict encounters.

2E's journey system has the same basic parts as 1E's: The actual hexcrawl, and the generation of encounters.

The thing is, the nature of the encounters, and the detailed example narrations (at least one for each combination of who was targeted and what the hazard is) made it easier to run those encounters. And most were clearly taken from Tolkien. The encounter generation for 2E as seen in the alpha draft is pretty bland, and unlike 1E, doesn't make clear how to handle GM inserted ecounters (do they shorten the leg? Are they in addition? Do they simply replace the rolled?) {for reference, in 1E, they replace one of the rolled encounters for the leg.)

That is a VERY powerful tool-set for doing Tolkien -- after all, the core books are both travelogues -- and the generating where/when is much better in 2E-alpha. Generating what the encounter is is much, much reduced.

1E set the difficulty for journey fatigue/encounter rolls from the terrain, and each leg was supposed to be a single terrain. How many fatigue rolls was a matter ot terrain, time, and season. Travel times were in several categories more. Riding on horses gave a speed bonus.

Councils

The equivalent rules had multiple outcome levels, and could even be easily tasked into multiple goals.
The rules aren't all that different, but the core difference is that 1E, you generated how many failures before they stopped listening, while 2E, the limit is how many rolls you get to make.
The alpha version is very... schematic.

Help and Extended Tasks
The other key was that there was an explicit help and extended task mechanic. It lowered the TN, but required a number of successes across those helping.

Preparatory rolls
These were used at the start of key mechanics.
You rolled the relevant skill (Lore for Journeys, Battle for fights, a suitable skill for councils). Simple success got you 1 "prep die", Great Success 2 prep dice, and extraordinary Success got you 3.
Prep dice last until the end of the relevant scene/event.
Prep dice were one use each; you could add one or more to your pool before rolling, but not to above 6d total.

Songs
Songs were not in Core, but were in Rivendell...
Songs generated song dice.. Each song was dedicated to one activity... Travel, Combat, council, recovering hope.
Songs required all to benefit to roll... each who succeeds gets a single-use 2d bonus (which didn't fall under the 6d cap). If, across the party (counting skill runes as additional successes) a total number of successes equal to the size of the party, a fellowship point was generated to be used in scene.
Each song was one use between fellowship phases, and writing or researching new ones was a fellowship phase activity. Elven Songs could be used twice.

The Dice Limit
Since difficulties modified the TN, not the dice pool, a 6d cap was in place to limit prep dice with high skill. Song dice were excluded

Fellowship
THe Fellowship pool was able to be drawn from during scenes. If you had permission of the majority, you converted it immediately to a hope. If you did not have permission, and drew it anyway, you converted it to a point each of Hope and Shadow.

Fellowship focuses had no Adventure Phase mechanics.

Hope
Spending hope added the attribute to the total rolled. (normally, it was not added.
Recovery was by fellowship focus (1 unless your FF was wounded, poisoned, or had a bout of madness) and drawing from the fellowship pool. When starting the fellowship phase, undrawn got divvied up by the party. Each FF reset the pool. Humans, Elves, Dwarves provided 1 point to the FP; Hobbits and some Men of Bree contributed 2.

Hope was VERY tight. 1 point per adventure phase, possibly 1 per fight or 1 per council, plus 1 for keeping your FF intact. This was, IMO, too tight. Song soon made up for it, tho'...

Eye of Mordor
The Eye was in Rivendell.
Note that 1E had actual spells for the Mirkwood Elves, the Dwarves, and the High Elves.
So PC's could actually do singular actions directly adding a point.

Equines
There were prices in TP to buy horses and/or ponies in core.
Horses actually affected speed of travel in some terrains.
The Rohan book allowed for mounted combat... Athletics was the skill used... mounted combat required using the lower of the weapon skill or the athletics skill.
—————————————————————————
Smith & Wesson: the original point and click interface...
 
Dorjcal
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Re: A pattern in criticism?

Sun 25 Jul 2021, 13:17


Help and Extended Tasks
The other key was that there was an explicit help and extended task mechanic. It lowered the TN, but required a number of successes across those helping.
There was no Help mechanic in 1E.
You are referring to Prolonged actions, which are still in 2E as Skill Endeavours
 
Mythicos
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Re: A pattern in criticism?

Sun 25 Jul 2021, 18:31


Help and Extended Tasks
The other key was that there was an explicit help and extended task mechanic. It lowered the TN, but required a number of successes across those helping.
There was no Help mechanic in 1E.
You are referring to Prolonged actions, which are still in 2E as Skill Endeavours

Not completely true.

The Preliminary Rolls section defines a "Help" action where one player could spend 1 or more of the dice in his reserve (said reserve generated by the preliminary roll) at any time (for his roll or to help others) (emphasis mine).

(ref.: Revised Core book, "Preliminary Rolls", page 151)
 
Dorjcal
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Re: A pattern in criticism?

Sun 25 Jul 2021, 21:32


Help and Extended Tasks
The other key was that there was an explicit help and extended task mechanic. It lowered the TN, but required a number of successes across those helping.
There was no Help mechanic in 1E.
You are referring to Prolonged actions, which are still in 2E as Skill Endeavours
Not completely true.

The Preliminary Rolls section defines a "Help" action where one player could spend 1 or more of the dice in his reserve (said reserve generated by the preliminary roll) at any time (for his roll or to help others) (emphasis mine).

(ref.: Revised Core book, "Preliminary Rolls", page 151)
That it is true. But outside that context there was no Help mechanic like he was referring to
 
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aramis
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Re: A pattern in criticism?

Mon 26 Jul 2021, 09:51



There was no Help mechanic in 1E.
You are referring to Prolonged actions, which are still in 2E as Skill Endeavours
Not completely true.

The Preliminary Rolls section defines a "Help" action where one player could spend 1 or more of the dice in his reserve (said reserve generated by the preliminary roll) at any time (for his roll or to help others) (emphasis mine).

(ref.: Revised Core book, "Preliminary Rolls", page 151)
That it is true. But outside that context there was no Help mechanic like he was referring to
It's called Cooperation, rather than Help, but the two are near synonyms. Spending prep dice as help is also a help mechanic... the lack of prep rolls really is a huge change, especially for combat.

Skill endeavours are cosmetically similar... but are NOT the same as prolonged actions in 1E. I see no difficulty decrease in that rule, because it's for ONE of TWO use cases covered by the prolonged action rule of 1E:
Case 1: multiple people doing one task (exemplar of this in a help mode is on the table in 1R p150, top entry: 3 people rolling to break down a door. Reduces the TN by 2.)
Case 2: a task that should take more than one roll to resolve (which does not get reduced difficulty).

1E, if the action could benefit from multiple people or repeated attempts (either/or/both), by switching to 3 rolls, you reduced the TN by 2.
Many times, that TN-2 made all the difference. the advice on failure effects was not very well worded for me, but if it was a social action, local Tolerance was spent.
—————————————————————————
Smith & Wesson: the original point and click interface...
 
Dorjcal
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Re: A pattern in criticism?

Mon 26 Jul 2021, 11:55

It's called Cooperation, rather than Help, but the two are near synonyms. Spending prep dice as help is also a help mechanic... the lack of prep rolls really is a huge change, especially for combat.

You can always roll battle before an encounter, which gives you 1 or 2 die extra. You can also do it as a secondary action any time during combat.
So, it is actually easier to get bonus in 2E

Skill endeavours are cosmetically similar... but are NOT the same as prolonged actions in 1E. I see no difficulty decrease in that rule, because it's for ONE of TWO use cases covered by the prolonged action rule of 1E:
Case 1: multiple people doing one task (exemplar of this in a help mode is on the table in 1R p150, top entry: 3 people rolling to break down a door. Reduces the TN by 2.)
Case 2: a task that should take more than one roll to resolve (which does not get reduced difficulty).

1E, if the action could benefit from multiple people or repeated attempts (either/or/both), by switching to 3 rolls, you reduced the TN by 2.
Many times, that TN-2 made all the difference. the advice on failure effects was not very well worded for me, but if it was a social action, local Tolerance was spent.

The time limit can help decrease the difficulty by adding one or 2 rolls that can be failed. Also the Loremaster is always free to give or remove extra die to adjust the challenge.
2E offers flexibility, you just need to take advantage of it

Also, it is not really "cooperation" when you don´t require any other player to do it. A single player could lower the TN and roll all by himself, help from others was not mandatory
 
Mythicos
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Re: A pattern in criticism?

Mon 26 Jul 2021, 14:35

It's called Cooperation, rather than Help, but the two are near synonyms. Spending prep dice as help is also a help mechanic... the lack of prep rolls really is a huge change, especially for combat.

You can always roll battle before an encounter, which gives you 1 or 2 die extra. You can also do it as a secondary action any time during combat.
So, it is actually easier to get bonus in 2E



Two things:

1) Those bonus dice are yours only; you can't give them to another player like you could in 1st edition;
2) The "Roll battle" to gain bonus dice ("Complications and Advantages" section, pp. 101-102) might be as a secondary action, depending on the current situation (i.e. LM's judgement). It also might use a main action, thus stopping you from attacking in the same round.

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