Post by House Dustin on May 12, 2011 8:22:05 GMT -5
Smith, apologize for my intereference on all things rulesly... But you appear to stop in here and read what I got in here, so here's where I'm putting musings on such stuff.
In trying to anticipate issues we might develop with the play of our new game, mechnically somewhat more difficult than the previous iterations of LoW, one that comes up is our marriage of house attribute/resource to character attributes. I think in concept it makes sense and is a fun way to play it, but as players have min/maxed themselves for whatever purpose (as an example the Ironborn are generally super-high on power because of the ships they're logically buying) it exposes something in the system wherein by doing the ironborn are now all natural genius generals in comparison to other characters. I've been trying to think of a reasonable way around this, and I have a suggestion... And I think we need to act quick, one way or another, because the tournament is upon us.
The first question is, what is our skill test... I'm not sure if we're using what I call "the old D100 mechanic" which is what we've used in previous iterations of LoW. Simple as it is, I think it's a great mechanic for a game like this. Suitably abstract and also just random enough to give you that randomness a ASoIaF world needs. Provided that's what we're going to consider using, opposed D100 rolls, then I'd suggest something like the following.
We don't use the old noteworthy - legendary monikers, but replace them by levels. 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100, 110. I dunno if it's worth letting players increment between levels, for example 30 vs 33. Mathmatically it's not that important, but may help players understand advancement. On the other hand that could cause a scenario for +1 skill problem. Personally, I think it's better to just increment by 10s. Then we translate the house skills by range, which will allow houses to become a certain level of powerful without allowing for creation of ever stronger PCs.
An example of a translation could look like this. (House/PC Base)
0-19 / 10
20-39 / 20
40-59 / 30
60-79 / 40
80+ / 50
Or if we're going to allow spaces between levels:
0-19 / 10
20-29 / 20
30-39 / 25
40-49 / 30
50-59 / 35
60-69 / 40
70-79 / 45
80+ / 50
Then we allow players at creation to spend a certain number of points... Maybe 80? (for primaries, less for secondaries, none for tertiaries) Across their attributes.. With a maximum allowed of 40 to any one attribute. You could keep the reduce your house by 10 and add 5 mechanic in there. Then skills would add +10 or +15 or something, and that would become your character bonus in the opposed D100 roll.
The biggest problem with this, is that it'll cause everyone to have to go back and rework their characters... But better now than later, and I fear we're going to have a mechanics breakdown once we the PCs start competing against each other in ways that matter... (We're still in the getting-to-know-you ice cream social phase of the game at the moment)
Anyway, hope it maybe helps one way or another. Let me know what you think.
In trying to anticipate issues we might develop with the play of our new game, mechnically somewhat more difficult than the previous iterations of LoW, one that comes up is our marriage of house attribute/resource to character attributes. I think in concept it makes sense and is a fun way to play it, but as players have min/maxed themselves for whatever purpose (as an example the Ironborn are generally super-high on power because of the ships they're logically buying) it exposes something in the system wherein by doing the ironborn are now all natural genius generals in comparison to other characters. I've been trying to think of a reasonable way around this, and I have a suggestion... And I think we need to act quick, one way or another, because the tournament is upon us.
The first question is, what is our skill test... I'm not sure if we're using what I call "the old D100 mechanic" which is what we've used in previous iterations of LoW. Simple as it is, I think it's a great mechanic for a game like this. Suitably abstract and also just random enough to give you that randomness a ASoIaF world needs. Provided that's what we're going to consider using, opposed D100 rolls, then I'd suggest something like the following.
We don't use the old noteworthy - legendary monikers, but replace them by levels. 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100, 110. I dunno if it's worth letting players increment between levels, for example 30 vs 33. Mathmatically it's not that important, but may help players understand advancement. On the other hand that could cause a scenario for +1 skill problem. Personally, I think it's better to just increment by 10s. Then we translate the house skills by range, which will allow houses to become a certain level of powerful without allowing for creation of ever stronger PCs.
An example of a translation could look like this. (House/PC Base)
0-19 / 10
20-39 / 20
40-59 / 30
60-79 / 40
80+ / 50
Or if we're going to allow spaces between levels:
0-19 / 10
20-29 / 20
30-39 / 25
40-49 / 30
50-59 / 35
60-69 / 40
70-79 / 45
80+ / 50
Then we allow players at creation to spend a certain number of points... Maybe 80? (for primaries, less for secondaries, none for tertiaries) Across their attributes.. With a maximum allowed of 40 to any one attribute. You could keep the reduce your house by 10 and add 5 mechanic in there. Then skills would add +10 or +15 or something, and that would become your character bonus in the opposed D100 roll.
The biggest problem with this, is that it'll cause everyone to have to go back and rework their characters... But better now than later, and I fear we're going to have a mechanics breakdown once we the PCs start competing against each other in ways that matter... (We're still in the getting-to-know-you ice cream social phase of the game at the moment)
Anyway, hope it maybe helps one way or another. Let me know what you think.
