Themadviolinist
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Re: Balance of Distinctive Features and Useful Items

Fri 23 Jul 2021, 02:01

Actually Rich, I think you did explain it well. It'll be interesting to see how feedback influences them, and what the rest of the rules bring us when we get them that might change how you or I think about this. Respect.
 
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aramis
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Re: Balance of Distinctive Features and Useful Items

Fri 23 Jul 2021, 02:59

My objection here isn’t just the difficulty though: it’s the process. Traits and Hope and even obtaining bonus circumstantial success dice used to all feel unique and special.

Now tasks are deliberately made more difficult apparently for characters to have a challenge over their long arc of progression, and every task that does merit a roll requires players to go nuts mining their character sheets for Useful Items, Hope dice, etc to ensure they have enough dice to comfortably succeed.

I can’t really completely explain why I don’t like this, I just don’t. I know your whole thing is to not isolate the mechanics from each other and criticize them individually, but I’m also just not really digging this new dice pool focused approach. Obviously the old game used a dice pool too, so I’m having a hard time articulating what part of this I find objectionable, I just think it’s a bit ordinary and uninspired.

The simplicity of just having the pips, knowing the relative skills of characters (specifically to each other), being able to set a variable difficulty without the players explicitly knowing that or not and feeling either discouraged or softballed - I miss it. I think I’m just not a fan of them knowing their own difficulty threshold and then gaming the shit out of all their Hope and possessions to ensure victory.

I could just be a curmudgeon about this in particular. I guess I just don’t find it especially compelling from either a mechanical or thematic perspective.
No, not a curmudgeon, but definitely in the school of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" school (at least, If I'm remembering correctly from the C7 forums)... and a lot that wasn't broken in 1E is now cracked, perhaps even broken.

The difficulty by pool adjustment has several things about it that give me pause and that may contribute to your dislike:
  • The GM has to reveal the difficulty to the players
  • Players now "know" their chances
  • The current mechanics lead to multiple rounds of "does this work?" - 1 each for Traits and Tools
  • The option to reduce difficulty by 2 to make it best 2 of 3 is absent
  • The difficulty shift is now profound, instead of subtle
  • There is no cap on number of dice
  • There is much more to do with tengwar skill runes than just success levels
  • Players need to spend hope often now
  • Traits have too low an effect
THe following aren't directly a result of the skill advancement
  • Task rolls no longer contribute to/drive skill advancement
  • Traits no longer contribute to skill advancement
I know I preferred 1E's help mechanic: drop the TN by 2 and get 3 successes across the helpers. Or by 4 and 5 successes.
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Themadviolinist
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Re: Balance of Distinctive Features and Useful Items

Fri 23 Jul 2021, 15:42

OOOOOOH! Thanks for posting the old mechanic, I like this and may use it. My wife and one kid, (two of my three players) are expressing positive feelings about this. The help mechanic does feel clumsy to me, though it is simple.
 
gyrovague
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Re: Balance of Distinctive Features and Useful Items

Fri 23 Jul 2021, 17:08

The help mechanic does feel clumsy to me, though it is simple.
Totally agree here. In a game about companionship and fellowship and loyalty, requiring players to spend a scarce resource in an inefficient way in order to help a companion seems...odd.

I don't think Help should cost Hope at all, but if it does it should be a more efficient use of Hope, compared to only using it on/by yourself. Not less.
 
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aramis
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Re: Balance of Distinctive Features and Useful Items

Sat 24 Jul 2021, 17:03

Totally agree here. In a game about companionship and fellowship and loyalty, requiring players to spend a scarce resource in an inefficient way in order to help a companion seems...odd.
It's nowhere near as scarce in 2E. each party member generates 1 fellowship pool. Plus, upon start of fellowship (possibly being moved to end of session), each recovers Hope equal to their Heart score. This means most characters will be able to recover Hope=Heart+1, sometimes more.

Changing hobbits away from being 2 fellowship each feels wrong. ;)
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Dorjcal
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Re: Balance of Distinctive Features and Useful Items

Sun 25 Jul 2021, 11:33

Quite a lot of wrong statements here:

The GM has to reveal the difficulty to the players
Players now "know" their chances

RAW 1E:
The Target Number for most actions is 14; the Loremaster may raise this number or lower it, but will explain what it is that makes the test easier or more difficult.

TN was never meant to be secret. Players always knew their chances.


The option to reduce difficulty by 2 to make it best 2 of 3 is absent
I know I preferred 1E's help mechanic: drop the TN by 2 and get 3 successes across the helpers. Or by 4 and 5 successes.

That worked ONLY for Prolonged actions, not every roll. This has not been changed significantly in 2E and it is called a SKILL ENDEAVOUR 2E p132


The current mechanics lead to multiple rounds of "does this work?" - 1 each for Traits and Tools

RAW 2E: If the Loremaster allows it, a failed action can be attempted again by the same Player­hero if the fail­ ing Player­hero tries again using a different ability, effectively representing a different approach to the same problem. Of course, a Player-hero who is given a second chance must always cope with the consequences of having failed the first time.
  • Loremast has to allow it.
  • Players face the consequences of the failure each time
  • A different skill has to be used
This was also true for 1E, it was not just explicitly stated in the rules.
 
wanu76
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Re: Balance of Distinctive Features and Useful Items

Thu 14 Oct 2021, 23:02

The suit of expensive clothing as a bonus to Awe or Courtesy makes sense in that it has a time and a place requirement .And in that scenario I always have a spare authentic xxxtentacion hoodies to meet that kind of things.
Last edited by wanu76 on Tue 19 Oct 2021, 23:06, edited 1 time in total.
 
Dunheved
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Re: Balance of Distinctive Features and Useful Items

Fri 15 Oct 2021, 08:35

The 'overuse' of Useful Items does seem a risk as described by those upthread. Have to say, that I saw the Useful Items rules as an idea that somewhat addresses the largely unexploited use of Treasure in 1e, without gettng into D n D. (Buy everything, and have lots to buy?) And also adding a bit of flavour without getting too detailed.

In my head, I saw the Useful Item being something that introduced a RARE advantage. If a player was using their item so frequently that "Useful item" changed to "Necessary item", I would be looking to see ways to consume the item.
Rope? You had to leave it behind, tied to that tree stump (magic rope needed, Mr Gamgee)
Lantern? You have Run out of fuel. (Probably at the end of the tunnel, though)
Hunting Knife? Overuse has blunted the edge so much, it gives no advantage until it can be sharpened again.
Pot of Honey? It's now empty (also, lose 2 endurance for toothache!)
Item X: you search for (item X) in your bag but it seems that yesterday you must have dropped it. (A Revelation from Eye of Mordor!)

I have earlier suggested that each Useful Item count as 1 Load. (A lantern with zero encumberance, seems a bit if a stretch to me?)
 
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Asrath
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Re: Balance of Distinctive Features and Useful Items

Sat 16 Oct 2021, 10:07

The 'overuse' of Useful Items does seem a risk as described by those upthread. Have to say, that I saw the Useful Items rules as an idea that somewhat addresses the largely unexploited use of Treasure in 1e, without gettng into D n D. (Buy everything, and have lots to buy?) And also adding a bit of flavour without getting too detailed.

In my head, I saw the Useful Item being something that introduced a RARE advantage. If a player was using their item so frequently that "Useful item" changed to "Necessary item", I would be looking to see ways to consume the item.
Rope? You had to leave it behind, tied to that tree stump (magic rope needed, Mr Gamgee)
Lantern? You have Run out of fuel. (Probably at the end of the tunnel, though)
Hunting Knife? Overuse has blunted the edge so much, it gives no advantage until it can be sharpened again.
Pot of Honey? It's now empty (also, lose 2 endurance for toothache!)
Item X: you search for (item X) in your bag but it seems that yesterday you must have dropped it. (A Revelation from Eye of Mordor!)

I have earlier suggested that each Useful Item count as 1 Load. (A lantern with zero encumberance, seems a bit if a stretch to me?)
I like your ideas very much! Distinguishing between useful and necessary item helps me. It limits the use of useful items without taking the items away. I really like the idea of temporarily misplacing the item due to a relevation episode. Great!

I was also thinking of telling my players, when they think of a useful item for their character, they should think not only about how and when this item would prove useful, but also when and why the PC is generally not able to use this item. (eg. a rope for climbing but not for all athletics manoeuvres, fine clothing for councils with rich/prosperous cultures, but of no use with poor/martial cultures,...). So I would like to make them think about the limits of that useful item themselves. LM and player then can agree on certain things to ensure the overall balance is kept.

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