Kyros Skyfall
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Posts posted by Kyros Skyfall
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On 24/11/2017 at 9:15 AM, AK_Aramis said:Wrong. The rules are there to provide the framework for the fantastic, and working within them is a creative exercise. The moment you stop using the rules is the moment it's no longer a game.
Ho I agree you have to respect tue rules allwright (and thus know them by heart as a good GM), but not when they're stupid : when they are you have to modify them to match your mastering style. you do as you wish man, but I'm not the guy that follows rules blindly just because they are rules : first rules of an RPG : the GM makes the rules. it's in almost evry RPG book
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yeah, but logic implies that you can ''breath calmly'' and thus lose fatigue / strife
the moment rules take over your sens of ''what's logically possible for a character to do'' is the moment you stop playing an RPG
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is it not the case here? you can use calming breath at the end of the scene, or anytime you wish, and it works only till you hit half your endurance/composure. it's how I'm gonna play it anyway.
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Victory! thank you FFG for considering us, nitpicking GM
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On 13/11/2017 at 11:52 AM, AK_Aramis said:The techniques I've used for non-combat don't work well on the field in SCA melees. Likewise, the ones I've adopted on the field don't work well off. I do suffer from bipolar, so I can't say my experiences are typical there, but I can say mine are that it really isn't unreasonable and definitely NOT illogical for the combat version not to work out of combat and vice versa. Adrenaline in mass quantities totally mucks with your psychology. (and SCA fighting - heavy or rapier - can get the adrenaline going quite well.)
I agree, but here it's irrelevant : adrenaline in combat and stress-gestion is covered by other parts of the rules (katas, composure,resilience and all the rest, like the fact that if you're accustomed to fight you won't keep much strife on your dices as you rool more of them).
my point is : thoses rules can lead to absurd situations any GM wants to avoid, thus they need rectifications, even small ones
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21 hours ago, The Grand Falloon said:The GM needs to be aware, and say, "No." This is a role-playing game, not a competitive game. You don't get to use exploits because they're "in the rules." The player suggests, it, the GM says "That's not how it works." End of story.
Well, it is a roleplaying game, so when the GM says ''no'' to an action, he has to explain why, in the universe's logic, the action cannot be made. you cannot say ''the rules don't allow it'' or ''it is not in the spirit of the rules'' because there is no ''rules system'' in the fictive universe characters are in : concretely, if the character cannot perform an action, it need a real reason.
just saying ''no'' without good reasons is just a failure from the GM or from the rules : a roleplaying game is ment to allow characters any action they would logically be able to accomplish in a given fictive universe. that's why this issue with the calming breath rule needs to be adressed : it is a beta, oure role is to spot the rules point that will eventually be problematic in one way or another.
(that's why I never play mouseguard or Torchbearer, because you got stupid rules like the need to collect (bull)''chips'' to be able to f-ing rest ! what a joke!)
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man, I like your take on the rules, I hope the new rules will be inspired by thoses
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dudes, I keep saying that TN to be hit should NOT increase, why do you keep trying to convince me, we are saying the same thing ! I'm just saying we should maybe look at a system or something that makes it not exactly the same difficulty to afflict two different level characters with a technique. NOT the TN to be hit - I understand that, it's OK
16 hours ago, WHW said:And again, remember, there are techniques that cleanse stuff like Conditions, and a lot of Conditions is resisted by a roll - which will be easier for a Emerald Champion than for a bandit noob.
yes, that also means that hight level fighter can not use some techniques uppon each others or even uppon mid-level character, wich makes them useless, since the TN to resist won't change either !
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except fencing has nothing to do with real fighting, plus european fencing is different from japanese one;
Having faced and watched chanbaraka of various skills, novice and mid-ranked fighers tend to jump at each other's throat more easely, werheas experienced ones take more time to overcome the other's defense. fights are somewhat short in all cases though. an experienced fighter will not likely fall into traps easily, and keep a good posture, not leaving any openings for the adversary.
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7 hours ago, AK_Aramis said:Ring 5 characters should be hitting each other easily.
Why? on the contrary I'd say long-trained warriors should have difficulties overcoming the other, and have trouble finding a breach in their defense.
but anyway they're not going to come back on the TN to be hit they made that clear. still it feels odd that you can inflict conditions upon an adversary with the same number of opportunities weather you confront a mere bandit or the emerald champion.
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On 08/11/2017 at 8:53 PM, llamaman88 said:There's multiple Iaijutsu styles. Niten is just the most distinct.
just a little nitpicking there, but technically, Niten in not a Iaijutsu style : it is impossible to draw two weapons simultaneously (because you need to hold the saya : it is just tucked into the Obi). when you practice Niten, you are suposed to start the duel with your two weapons in hands, and cross them before you, point facing down, when you salute the adversary.
Suzume Chikahisa and AK_Aramis reacted to this -
anyway it's not just about combat : it seems odd that any one knowing the right suji could learn - for say - the emperor's ninjo just by spending 2 opp
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14 hours ago, TheVeteranSergeant said:Every time you roll the dice, you're trying to A: succeed at tasks, B: resolve mechanical/narrative
distractionsgoodies with Opportunities, and C: collect (or avoid collecting) Strife points. That's a lot of "moving parts" for a simple roll of the dice and it makes every task in the game carry the same mechanical weight. In most games, routine rolls are a simple pass/fail. In this game, they're a pass/fail/spaz/have an epiphany.I don't think they're going to change or remove the strife mechanic anyway. I personnaly like this mechanic, and I don't give a **** if its called a narrative system or not : i just like the idea that your character's emmotion are taken into consideration.
but as I said earlyer : if you don't like the core mechanic of this game, it's just not for you : you don't HAVE to switch to 5th ed, 4th is good to you know.
Kakita Natsumi reacted to this -
I noticed that striking a target that is not aware of your presence is still TN 2. maybe the rules should need a specification about that : if the guy does'nt even know you're there, maybe the TN should be lower.
And for the more unexperimented GMs, maybe it should be noted somewere that you do not need to roll the dices to kill someone who is uncouncious : the guy is sleeping, I don't see how you could miss his throat (by the way greate usefullness on the ''bayushi'' shcool here, for the lethality augmentation on unconcious targets). I know it's obvious but to some it will be their first ropleplaying game, so maybe it should be specified
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I actually like that honor and glory rank does'nt impact much on mechanical effects. any samurai can choose to live in honor or not, they just have to live with the concequences (and the look of others). I think strife and composure are interesting becasue the player canot really ''control'' what they're character are feeling, anyway not entirely control if they're feeling something and wheather it's gonna be a problem or not. without a mechanical system, I don't expect any of my players do ''play'' their character's emmotional journey and outburst, adventures are hard ennough so that they're not gonna willingly handicap themselves^^
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hi.
I personally don't see the problem in having different timing for the different school techniques. To me the most important thing is that a school tech gives the character a distinctive ability that represents his school, and that no other character could match. For example I think on of the best school is the kitsuki investigator's one : the ability marvelousely represents their wide knoledge of any subject when it comes to investigate, exactly as a ''rokugani shelorck holmes''.
however I think we'll need WAAAY more katas (and shûjis) in the final edition, espacially katas reserved to schools, the ''special school techniques'' that no other know. I guesse that's what they're trying to do ultimately : representing the school techniques by katas and shûjis.
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yes, but it pushes players to use that ''cheat'' of starting friendly duels to purge all their strife and fatigue away. I think the main rules should have a firm limitation to the ''calm breath'' use, to avoid any discussion with the players and any cheats. I don't want my players to make a fight go longer just to use calm breath more and purge off their strife or fatigue.
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as for my part, I think strife and composure is the real plus-value of this version. without it, all the custom dice thing serves no purpose and can easily be replaced by standard dices.
the fight between the human nature of a samurai and the face he is expected to wear is a real interesting part of this world, and if you don't want to play it, you should probably stick to (witch is a good game anyway).
Kakita Natsumi reacted to this -
8 hours ago, AtoMaki said:We kinda ran into this one in the last session, but it could be a cheap cop-out if two players just get into a friendly duel, take only Calming Breaths, then bow out once they are at 0 Fatigue and 0 Strife.
yeah ! that's exactly my point ! plus we just canot say ''this action can only be used in conflict'', it's totally irrealistic ! if you can do it in conflict you should be able to do it anytime. after all it's just taking a calm breath !
let's not forget it's a roleplaying game, not a board game : rules should never get in the way of logic.
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that's a good idea, i'll try it.
and what about strife? how do you manage it with this capacity?
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Something is bothering me with this action. I like the concept of being able to recover a bit of fatigue and strife in action, but I feel this action need limitations.
Whats stops my players to say ''I'm gonna use calming breath for 10 minutes'' durring any non-conflict scene, to remove all their strife and fatigue?
I just cannot tell them ''this action only works in conflict'', that doesn't make sense ! if you can ''calm breath'' in combat, you can do it any other time.
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10 hours ago, Franwax said:Now if the idea of Crit with zero physical damage bothers you, maybe requiring that some damage goes through the armor to take effect can be a middle ground. Kinda like the crit from the second Iaijutsu kata..
I'm starting to wonder : would'nt it make sense that armor apply to lethality but not to damage? after all an armor (or even heavy clothes) is limitating in combat, it drains stamina to moove quickly wearing one, so it would make sense that is would not really help against fatigue. cutting one's hand off while he wears a wodden gauntlet however seems way harder.
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true it is tied. my only concern is about highlevel fights : I fear characters would never break earth or air stance, since first one to do so would immediately reduce its defense to ''normal'' and be cut down immediately.
I think we could start thinking about a system to passively defend against some opportunities.
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Ok, so in the ''critical strike for 2 opportunities'' post I ended up talking about defense scaling again. I'm posting my comment from this post here as a reminder :
theres another point to this : it's the general way to defend against oportunities. Developers made clear they do not want to made the defense scale with levels, but maybe we can have a defense score against oportunities ? after all the jade champion will not likely fall for a feint from a debutant bushi, or get easely pined by a mere rank 2 with a yari.
So : now we are not talking anymore about TN to be hit, but an ability to defend against katas and other opportunities. To me the funiest way would be a system where you don't rellay know how many opportunities will be necessary to inflict a state on a fighter the first time you fight him (you get to have to guess his defense against tricks).
Calming breath
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man, I think we just have trouble comprehending each others, because that's exactly how I feel about RPG in general. Reading that I feel like we master games with the same philosophical way : apply the rules, because they make the game more dangerous and balanced, and thus : more fun.
I'm just saying that rules should not prevent any character of doing something they would logically be able to do : if so, it mean the rule is not well written, and thus it is the duty of a gamemaster to change the rule. But it should indeed not change on a whim : because rules need to be stable, and one does not change it just like that : once you changed the rule you let all your players know and you stick to the ''new rule''.