creativehum
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Re: Polyhedral dice,

Sun 01 Oct 2017, 07:24

I wanted to follow up with my question to what I realized is my larger question.

I'm currently plowing through Mutant Year Zero. I've fallen in love with the mechanics -- and even before finishing I've ordered the deck and the maps/markers.

One of the things I love about the mechanics is the risk of consequence when someone pushes a roll. It isn't just a matter of "And then the GM hits you with something" if you fail. It's that you can take a risk and push knowing you might well concretely end up pushing yourself so hard you hurt yourself, or you valuable gear gets damage. The GM is going to hit you with a problem if you fail. But even succeeding can come at a cost in MY0.

I really like that.

I also like that there are four attributes, each managed the same way in terms of tracking, each handled the same way in terms of dealing out damage, and each having analogues for healing.

Now, I am right now skimming Coriolis. And while it is only a skim, it already seems different from YM0 in ways I don't find as appealing. In particular the risk of pushing rolls is missing. I understand the risk in Coriolis is shifted when pushing with Icons. But this means that the risk only really kicks in when tapping a force larger than yourself. For me there is a different in this I don't enjoy as much. The task itself is not being pushed, the tapping of a supernatural force.

All of this is to say that while you cannot be beholden to Coriolis, know that you have an exceptional game engine already with MY0 and I would really love it, as you think the rules thorough, you don't worry about making sure it is different from those rules. Change them, yes, make them more specific to the genre and setting, yes. But the element of risk of the hero pushing himself harder in MY0 is so solid as is... i really recommend you stick with that if you can.
 
vivisect
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Re: Polyhedral dice,

Sun 01 Oct 2017, 08:21

I wanted to follow up with my question to what I realized is my larger question.

I'm currently plowing through Mutant Year Zero. I've fallen in love with the mechanics -- and even before finishing I've ordered the deck and the maps/markers.

One of the things I love about the mechanics is the risk of consequence when someone pushes a roll. It isn't just a matter of "And then the GM hits you with something" if you fail. It's that you can take a risk and push knowing you might well concretely end up pushing yourself so hard you hurt yourself, or you valuable gear gets damage. The GM is going to hit you with a problem if you fail. But even succeeding can come at a cost in MY0.

I really like that.

I also like that there are four attributes, each managed the same way in terms of tracking, each handled the same way in terms of dealing out damage, and each having analogues for healing.

Now, I am right now skimming Coriolis. And while it is only a skim, it already seems different from YM0 in ways I don't find as appealing. In particular the risk of pushing rolls is missing. I understand the risk in Coriolis is shifted when pushing with Icons. But this means that the risk only really kicks in when tapping a force larger than yourself. For me there is a different in this I don't enjoy as much. The task itself is not being pushed, the tapping of a supernatural force.

All of this is to say that while you cannot be beholden to Coriolis, know that you have an exceptional game engine already with MY0 and I would really love it, as you think the rules thorough, you don't worry about making sure it is different from those rules. Change them, yes, make them more specific to the genre and setting, yes. But the element of risk of the hero pushing himself harder in MY0 is so solid as is... i really recommend you stick with that if you can.
I have yet to pick up Coriolis, but I can tell you that Tales from the Loop also changed the threat of pushing the roll. I find that the base mechanic lost some of it's charm, at least for me anyways. One of the things I love about MY0 is pushing a roll and knowing that there is a threat of damage, fatigue, etc, or that your item may be damaged. I'd also love to see the same thing carry over to Forbidden Lands. If not the same, at least more similar to MY0 than Tales from the Loop.
 
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King_Kull
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Re: Polyhedral dice,

Sun 01 Oct 2017, 09:05

Can’t say if I like the idea of pushing because I don’t know what Fria Ligan has planned. The rules have to be consistent with the game world. And therefore I like the rules of both Coriolis and TftL because the make sense in the game surrounding.
I am king!
 
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9littlebees
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Re: Polyhedral dice,

Sun 01 Oct 2017, 09:13

I agree, MYZ handles pushed rolls the best. Coriolis and Tales just don't have that same feeling of risk.
I make YZE games (https://drivethrurpg.com/browse.php?author=Matt%20Kay) and produce predominately Free League content on my YouTube channel (https://youtube.com/@3skulls)
 
Harper
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Re: Polyhedral dice,

Sun 01 Oct 2017, 11:27

Can’t say if I like the idea of pushing because I don’t know what Fria Ligan has planned. The rules have to be consistent with the game world. And therefore I like the rules of both Coriolis and TftL because the make sense in the game surrounding.
Agreed, you need to tailor to the specific needs of the setting,
Also if you have the same system across many games you get a psychological bleed over between games by association, (it doesn't just dilute the game, but brings in unwanted miss associations)
So to make the system slightly different not only heightens the setting, but protects it,

(Edit due to the spell check thinking it knows better..)
Last edited by Harper on Sun 01 Oct 2017, 22:14, edited 1 time in total.
 
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King_Kull
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Re: Polyhedral dice,

Sun 01 Oct 2017, 12:03

Agreed Harper :)
I am king!
 
creativehum
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Re: Polyhedral dice,

Sun 01 Oct 2017, 15:56

Can’t say if I like the idea of pushing because I don’t know what Fria Ligan has planned. The rules have to be consistent with the game world. And therefore I like the rules of both Coriolis and TftL because the make sense in the game surrounding.
Agreed, you need to tailor to the specific needs of the setting,
Also if you have the same system across many games you get a psychological bleed over between games by association, (it does just dilute the game, but brings in unwanted miss associations)
So to make the system slightly different not only heightens the setting, but protects it,
I completely can see this point. Really.
But I will say the element of risk is one of the things that seems to make MY0 rules really sing... less so than the other two games at this point.
I would also suggest that the element of risk that some of us are advocating for makes perfect sense in the kind of setting described so far. It is not that the mechanics have to be identical (though could be) but some variation of this for the Forbidden Lands do make sense for some of us.
Forbidden Lands is already going to be retro in feel of the place and in its hex crawl structure. But I have a shelf full of games that can support that style of play with rather conventional rules. What I am looking for with Forbidden Lands is that retro feel of exploration and freebooter characters mixed with some sort of new spin on the mechanics to make the moments of play more interesting than "I hit" "I miss." MY0 pulls this off in spades (which is why I'm going whole hog in on it and can't wait to share it with my players).
Whether or not Forbidden Lands is very much like MY0 or not, what I do not need is something that feels conventional in the mechanics. Not exotic for exotic's sake at all. But MY0 has clever, evacuate rules -- from the resolution rolls, to the equipment, to the Arc projects, the DEV levels which interact with exploring... it's an incredibly clever game. And I hope Forbidden Lands pushes in that direction of building a game that really offers something new to a retro-style of play.
 
vivisect
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Re: Polyhedral dice,

Sun 01 Oct 2017, 18:00

I understand changing the way that pushing works for different settings, and that makes sense to me. I think that it needed to change for TFL, because MY0 way of pushing would not have been appropriate. My point is that I never felt the threat of pushing in TFL like I did in MY0. 

On the kickstarter heading it says Forbidden Lands - Retro Open-World Survival Fantasy. I know that we can each read this and interpret it in different ways, but this very much reads more like MY0 than TFL to me, and I hope that is true. It's fantasy rather than apocalyptic, so I doubt that they will keep it exactly the same. And to be honest, I think it probably should change slightly.

I just loved that feeling of looking at the dice, and wondering... I already have one "1," do I really want to reroll the other dice?  

I like TFL, but it didn't do that for me the way that MY0 did. It felt like more of a carry over from the MY0 engine adapted to TFL than an integral part of the setting. I actually pitched the idea of house ruling that there would be no pushing in TFL, but then the argument of probabilities came in, and we never came to a consensus of the threat of pushing in TFL. 
 
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Tomas
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Re: Polyhedral dice,

Sun 01 Oct 2017, 19:45

Great discussion here. As the theme of Forbidden Lands is closer to Mutant: Year Zero than to our other games, we do plan to keep a ruleset for pushing rolls that is similar to MYZ's. More on this in an update to the kickstarter soon!
Fria Ligan
 
vivisect
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Re: Polyhedral dice,

Sun 01 Oct 2017, 20:02

Great discussion here. As the theme of Forbidden Lands is closer to Mutant: Year Zero than to our other games, we do plan to keep a ruleset for pushing rolls that is similar to MYZ's. More on this in an update to the kickstarter soon!
Awesome! I can't wait to hear more.

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