|
Post by Dionon on Mar 2, 2009 15:14:33 GMT -5
Nice story TWF, I love the concept.
|
|
|
Post by takewithfood on Mar 2, 2009 16:27:04 GMT -5
Yay! ^__^
It's generic enough, but with a little flavour. There are going to be a lot of characters, it seems, so it will be up to players to decide how to organize themselves. I'm curious to see if some teams will form, and if so, how they'll interact.
~TWF
|
|
|
Post by malice on Mar 2, 2009 17:00:57 GMT -5
How does Leadership work in 2.0? I seem to have an urge to play something charismatic. If it works as it did in 1.0, will you allow me to use these advantages on it? Next, would you allow me to combine Leadership and Social Skills for a +1 to cost level on the action? Cuz I'm feeling like making something like this: Charismatic Mofo (Cost = AN+7 cost levels) Acts as Leadership and Social Skills Tactician +2 cost levels (Characters receiving Leadership stones from this Charismatic Mofo get 1 additional free stone from the general pool) Unlimited Power +4 cost levels (Stones for this action come from the general pool) Subsumes Social Skills +1 cost level (This action performs exactly as Social Skills does whenever the player wants it to) It may not see use in this game, and atm it's probably cheaper to buy Social Skills seperately. I've done it before in other games and I was curious if you would allow it in yours (I always thought Leadership and Social Skills went great together)
|
|
|
Post by Dionon on Mar 2, 2009 17:32:23 GMT -5
Isn't Statecraft a mix of Social Skills and Leadership?
|
|
|
Post by malice on Mar 2, 2009 17:39:42 GMT -5
Actually no, although that appears to be a common misconception/house rule. As far as I know the only action that can directly substitute Social Skills is Psychiatry.
Do I feel Statecraft SHOULD encompass Social Skills? Maybe. It would certainly be nice, but it's not written anywhere. Did the creators intend it that way? Actually it looks like they did, since Black Panther has no Social Skills it makes sense that his Statecraft works in the place of Social Skills and therefore the action does.
Is that how TWF (the GM and therefore decider) feels? I have no clue. Although just because Statecraft is "better" than leadership doesn't mean I want to take it, I feel the action has a grander scope than I normally give my characters.
|
|
|
Post by takewithfood on Mar 2, 2009 18:01:24 GMT -5
Wow, lots of stuff to answer in there. ^__^
a) I'm not a fan of the Tactician option. It's just too powerful. However, I've always liked Strategist, or at least the concept behind it. I'd allow it, unless I come up with an alternative.
b) Statecraft and Social Skills are different, though they overlap. I see Statecraft as more of an administrative Action, leaning towards/encompassing politics, cultural experience and diplomacy rather than generic, face-to-face social skills. You could probably get away with using Statecraft in a social situation, but with a sit mod penalty. Same goes the other way with Social Skills. I don't take Black Panther's CAD's lack of Social Skills as a hint, as a few characters out there are missing Social Skills too.
c) I'm iffy about letting such an Action act as both Social Skills and Leadership. I don't see the need to combine them, other than that it's cheaper to buy it up with LOEs later. If it can be argued that you're likely to use both Leadership and Social Skills at the same time, then maybe it's not such a big deal. Also consider that you can combine Social Skills stones with Leadership stones by default. It's right there on the list of Actions that combine stones, on page 83. So in a lot of ways, you may be a lot better off buying them separately.
d) While it's hard to say for sure without seeing the whole CAD, this seems like a bad case for Unlimited Power.
~TWF
|
|
|
Post by malice on Mar 2, 2009 18:07:58 GMT -5
1. Really? Too powerful? How? Really? Wow. What do you think it does? 2. Thus spake the GM 3. I always thought Leadership and Social Skills combined beautifully because what makes a person good at one frequently helps them excel at the other. Apparently the developers felt the same way! I did NOT know they could combine when they were two seperate actions! Thanks for pointing that out! 4. Lol, of course it is! This is hardly the game-breaker, it's just funny to move effortlessly through all your social encounters and give stones to your allies whenever you want. Cost-wise it's TERRIBLE I'll be honest: I never intended to put the advantage on that action.
|
|
|
Post by takewithfood on Mar 2, 2009 18:20:17 GMT -5
Tactician is too powerful in that it breaks two of Leadership's basic ground rules: that stones aren't created "out of nowhere" (the Leader is playing for them, so nothing is free) and that only 2 stones can be shifted to any given character. That seems unnecessary and very potent for a mere +2 CL. It's one of those Options that is pretty much automatically better than it's equivalent in AN.
Leadership 3 with Tactician means you can give 3 characters each 2 free stones that stack ON TOP of ANs. A total of 6 stones given for 3 stones spent. Compare that to Leadership 5.
It's silly, and I don't know what it's even trying to represent. Leadership is fine on its own. It's already incredibly potent.
~TWF
|
|
|
Post by Neros on Mar 3, 2009 2:25:42 GMT -5
Just a note: Tactician have been removed from the next version of the House Rules Guide.. Giving a Option called tactician sounds nice, but what it did was just to.. Baah..
But it sounds like you have yourself a nice little world to let the players lose in ^_^ Im looking forward to seeing the result of this..
|
|
|
Post by malice on Mar 3, 2009 2:55:35 GMT -5
Just a note: Tactician have been removed from the next version of the House Rules Guide.. Giving a Option called tactician sounds nice, but what it did was just to.. Baah.. You're all crazy
|
|
|
Post by WildKnight on Mar 3, 2009 13:03:42 GMT -5
Yes, they are.
Crazy-right!
|
|
|
Post by malice on Mar 3, 2009 23:38:01 GMT -5
I guess I'm not as good at this game as you guys are. I just can't break the game with 1 free stone.
|
|
|
Post by Kaimontfendo on Mar 4, 2009 0:05:38 GMT -5
Interesting story concept, but I'm still not quite sure how well my super-secret agent character could work within the setting. On one hand, she's a highly gifted agent, on the other hand, that's only because a secret government project "programmed" her brain with the skills. So, she's still special, but she's only that way because her government did some tweaking to her brain.
Don't get me wrong, the idea could still work, and perhaps she had some sort of special "receptive mind" or something that allowed the programming to take root more easily. (Yeah, I ripped off that idea from a TV show.) Oh well, I can keep toying with the idea.
|
|
|
Post by takewithfood on Mar 4, 2009 2:18:05 GMT -5
Malice: you're either deliberately misrepresenting my point, or you don't understand it. Hoping it's the latter, I'll explain it one last time.
It isn't my point at all that the Tactician option "breaks the game" - it just gives too much benefit for too little a cost. It's so cost-effective that it's basically stupid not to buy it. That means to me that it's poorly conceived. Leadership is fine without the option.
I don't mind if GMs incorporate it into their own games as a house rule - by all means, every GM should run what feels right to them. But IMHO it isn't good enough to be a standard rule, and at the very least I'm not including it in this test game.
Kai: That idea would absolutely work in this setting. I'm going to be pretty flexible about character origins, particularly in terms of what "special" means. Being programmed by some shadowy organization could certainly count!
~TWF
|
|
|
Post by malice on Mar 4, 2009 11:42:12 GMT -5
Consider it completely dropped.
Sorry to have dragged it out. I didn't mean to make a big deal out of it, I was just honestly stunned that anyone thought it was overpowered and let myself voice it too much and too long. I really don't have a problem with it not being available since it's a custom rule anyway and I'm not the GM.
|
|