[Burning empires 2] Continuing my review

Right, now we've had a look at the conflict mechanics in burning empires and the basic dice mechanic. Now to look at some of it's other mechanics.

Major NPCs:

This is one of the more clever things in the building of the game in my opinion. For each player in the game, they should work with the GM to create a major NPC. These people are the major recurring opposition in the campaign. They are made up front, and here is the thing I love about it; each PC has to be entangled with one of these NPCs. In the first campaign I played of this system this meant that one of the major villans was one character's husband, and another was my character's political rival and best friend since childhood.

In play, this was great. It meant that we had a scene at dinner, where we talked to the major "bad guys" from the game. We all talked in a civilized manner, and discussed the matters of the day. Later, when something bad happened to my pc's childhood friends, my pc declared war on them. Despite him being the opposition for the campaign. It made things personal. It drove drama. It meant we cared about the other side to a certain degree. It was great.

Scene economy:

This is one of the big deals in the game. Play does not proceed in the normal way of the game. Instead there is a specific way you get to do scenes. Everyone in the game gets a set allocation of scenes. You get:

1) a conflict scene. You can use the mechanics from one of the types of a conflict in here. You spend time in these scenes fighting or debating, generally.
2) an building scene. Here you can make three rolls, which can't be a conflict set of rolls. You spend your time in these scenes building things, researching things or sneaking in somewhere.
3) an interstitial scene. You use this to roleplay with another character. No rolls are allowed.
4) a colour scene. Use this to show colour from the setting, or show something happening. You generally introduce the stuff you will work on later here.

Every major character gets these. So, one set for each of the PC's and each of the major NPCs. Once you have done these you have finished a phase (see below).

At first I though I would loath this. It seemed like it would constrain how I played and make everything seem artificial. But when I played it the first time it didn't. It gave us structure. It meant that play seemed to run well, and we were amazed. At the time I bored some of my friends about this new idea. Then we played a new campaign, and instead of helping thing it sucked. It got in the way, plot didn't make sense. So from two campaigns from this I am one time loving it and one time hating it. So, this is some ambivalence from me. Once again, it feels like a great idea in the system that then does not quite work how we would hope.

Meta points.

So, the burning whatever games have a system where you can earn points to spend on rolls. These come in three flavours. Little ones, medium ones and big ones. The little ones are common and don't do a great deal (make 6's explode on the dice). The medium ones you get about one or two a session and give you a bonus dice. The big ones DOUBLE YOUR DICE POOL. You get one for winning one of the phases (see below). You get them in play, you spend them and it is pretty good generally, but not terribly exciting. They are not anything stupid like being xp.

Belief, Instincts, Traits

Okay, the burning whatever games have got something called beliefs, instincts and traits. These are three things that differentiate characters and are varying degrees of clever. 

Beliefs are things your character believes in. They should generally be action orientated and achievable in the nearish term. Conquer the world is a bit much, perhaps you might want to make it forge an alliance or an army to do it with. When you either fulfill or dramatically break a belief, you get one of the meta game points, that let you do dice tricks in play.

Instincts are something I think is very smart. They are a thing that your character always does without you having to say it. "I am  always armed" or "I always check out where I am going before I get there" or something. These are a great way of solving problems about preparedness of pcs by allowing them to specify a certain number of small actions they have always done.

Traits Are small words about your character that are definitively true. The might be that you are "angry" or "hairy". You can get some meta game points for going along with your traits.

Experience system

This game has a weird but engaging experience system. Your skills have a value, and you look up how many checks you need to make at a certain value to go up a level. These have to be against a certain difficulty. And once you get to a highish level of skill, some of those levels will be so high you are desperately improbable to actually succeed. You get xp for a check, succeed or fail though. So you will sometimes set your own character a really difficult task with the certain knowledge he or she will fail, so you can get the sweet difficult check. Especially as you sort of call for your own rolls in this game, it gives a reason to drive players to do things that they might fail at. This has driven some good play in the games I have played, but it can also lead to people doing uninteresting things to get checks. So again,they do good things but have an unfortunate side effect at times.

Infection mechanics

So, the most unusual thing in this game replete with unusual thing is that it is legitimately competitive. The players are against the GM, and at the campaign there will be a winner and a loser. There is a whole conflict system related to this. This is... unusual, to say the least. It comes with a curtailing of gm authority, which some will like and some will hate. But each side can make a roll in the conflict at the end of a session to try and build or degrade disposition. If your character did something to help, then they can help. The side which runs out of dispo first loses the phase.

This is weird and poisoned some of our fun. It also has an odd effect of players end up spending all of their metagame points on these rolls. Since they let you WIN THE CAMPAIGN. This leads to players not spending them in play when they might be interesting. Since you get a big point for winning one of the three phases and it then lets you double your pool in a task what happens is:

1) side A wins the first phase. All characters get a big metagame point.
2) first character rolls in the next phase. Doubles his or her pool,. Since this game's mechanic means that you compare number of successes and the threshold is what matters, doubling your pool very much more than doubles your effective number of succeses.
3) player 2 does it next session. Side A continues to dominate the infection
4) players continue until out of deed points. Slaugheter the opposition in this phase and get a deed point each.
5) go to 1.

Basically it is a weird positive feedback loop which means that once you have one the first phase, then you have to fuck up hard to not just trounce everything later. Which is no fun for the person who can see they have lost, but there is a good 9 sessions until this is official. I really, really did not liek the infection mechanics. If I ran again, I would absolutely not use them. It is one of the major reasons why I will end up saying this game is nearly great.

.... this is getting long. I will finish up tomorrow.

[Tuesday review] Burning Empires

So, Since it is a Tuesday, I am going to be reviewing a game again. Today I am reviewing:

Burning Empires

Mechanics:

Right so to the basics: The dice mechanic is a nice simple one, dice pool of d6's, 4+ to succeed and count successes. So no worries about not having the right dice or with problems with the basic mechanic. Which is just as well, because the rest of the subsystems in this games are extensive. The dice give a pretty good and easy to understand probability scale.

There are a couple of nice points added on to this. You can get a FORK from up to two other skills, which give you extra dice to roll. One of these has to be a "-wise" skill, the system's nebulous knows about this specific thing skill. You can also get help dice from your friends, but they have to physically give you the dice for it to count. Apparently this shows enough trust for the help to happen. It means having a bunch of skills that support your concept means you can call on them all together to be better.

Character Generation

Character generation is a lifepath system. It has ups and downs, certainly. You get a character at the end who is probably something very close to the competence that you expected when you set out. It will also tend to have a number of characteristics and skills picked up in their life. A downside (for some) is that the system does not make very balanced characters.


But since you can make this guy:

art by kimplate on deviantart


A badass sci fi knight who is also a psychic and owns a space navy and this guy:



A space peasant and mayor of a local town, it is perhaps not too unexpected that one of then ends up being a more action adventure competent go-getter sort of guy.

This will be an advantage to some, and a drawback to others. Also, character gen is a pretty involved process. I didn't mind it, but some more maths and notes adverse players may well find it a lot of work.

Next subsystem!

Combat

Well, what kind? There is a social combat system. I am not the world's biggest fan of social combats, usually since I can't help but feel that they can get in the way of a flowing roleplay scene, and can result in a player losing their control over their own character due to some dice rolls. So in general, a social combat system has to go a long way for me to be willing to like it. Burning empires, in a theme of this review comes within touching distance of nailing it.

Right, so how does it work? Well, there is a unifying method to a lot of the conflict resolution mechanics in this game, so I'll describe it in detail now, and we can then reference this later. Okay? Okay.

1)  decide what the stakes are. Both sides state what their goal in the conflict is.
2) generate disposition. This is basically your hit points for the fight.
3) Then we begin scripting. This has a hell of a lot more involved so bear with me...



(this is now an ongoing pun. Sorry, not sorry)

Right, there are a lot of options you can make, like "point!" (make a point) "intimidate" (threaten the person you are debating) and suchlike. You have to choose three of these in secret. You write them on a little sheet that no one else gets to look at. So does your opponent.

You then reveal your scripting. You cross reference what options you chose against what your opponent scripted. Then you find out if you are opposed, in which case you both roll your pools and the person with the most successes wins, and get the margin of victory as how much you won by. If you are not opposed, you just roll your pool and every success counts. But it probably means that your enemy is also getting something done without you opposing it.

Then you roleplay out the points and counterpoints you were making. You repeat this system until one side runs out of disposition or gives up. They person who is left with disposition, is the winner. But they have to make concessions dependent on how much disposition they lost.

So, given I don't like social combat, why do I almost like this one? Well, first of all, it never convinces your pc when you lose. Instead, the system is there to convince the people who are hearing your debate. Second, it gives me a chance at roleplaying out the scene, without having to dice off during it. Third, the secret scripting is a lot of fun. So, what is wrong with it? Some niggling things. The most potent defence is to ridicule or ignore your opponents points. While this might be realistic, it is not fun in play. The system is pretty slow, so the debate part is maybe five minutes and the mechanics multiple times that.

Squad combat

This is an image from the setting the game came from. You can see squad fights are a thing here.

So, the setting is a military sci fi, and so it has a system for squad based combat. I have to say, it has produced some of the best fight scenes in games I have played. I have played a lot of fight scenes in my time, so this is a hell of a statement from me. How does the system work?

Well, you draw the map for the fight. Simple enough. Then taking it in turns, you put points that need to be taken and places with cover. The person who won the roll for who maneuvered before the fight gets to put more stuff on the table, and hence have a better chance of getting the advantages.

As above both sides roll to find their initial disposition, and state their intentions for the fight. Notably, this cannot include a mission of "kill all of the opposition". You should be fighting this battle for a reason.

So, you have positions and cover. You script three actions again and so does your opponent (see above), reveal and then compare. You do things like advance, shoot, more lead downrange and suchlike. If your troop are in one of the positions, then you can do damage you took to your disposition to that position instead of to your dispo total. If you are in cover then the number of successes needed to hit you is increased. But these values can be winkled down by the opponent. This means that people can take important points, defend them and be driven from them and this is all sensible and mechanically supported. Which is nice. Cover fire does things sensibly. Having the bigger gun has a mechanical effect. There are a lot of choices and tactics and you end up second guessing what your opponent is going to do, taking tactically useful positions and then losing them. There is an organic and nice flow to battles. I liked it. Would use this system again.

Once one side runs out of disposition, the opponent gets what their mission was. But they also get a concession for how much damage they did back, and so get some part of their goal. So, partial and compromised victories are the order of the day.

Personal combat

Called, in the game "I corner him and stab him in the face" is a single, opposed dice roll. We were a little underwhelmed here. I must admit. Maybe I am missing something.

That's all for today

That's it for today. This post is running long so I will say the rest of it tomorrow. There is a lot still to talk about. Burning Empires is one of my qualified likes among my games.

[WFRP review 3] Finishing thoughts

Right, been a little while, but what are my last thoughts on WFRP 3rd edition? Well, here are a few things

First, does it run the warhammer world well? Are the rules well suited to the setting? Not especially. In the same term they're not exactly badly suited, but there is not many reasons that this system would model the old world particularly over other settings. I mean I quite like the system, but it is not exactly tailored to the game.

This being said, it does do a couple of things for the setting in particular. It does keep the career system from other versions of wfrp. I don't think it could call itself wfrp if the game didn't have the iconic career system. It also has a system that helps make the magic seen dangerous, and sometimes the characters get a random problem from the deck of miscasts. This makes the magic very chaotic, which is true to the feel.

It also has mook rules for combat. Now, in general, I love me some mook rules. I GM a lot more than I play, and the idea of having to sit and slog through char gen for a bunch of goons who the players are going to tear through on the way to the big boss generally makes me sad. But, well, is the warhammer world, with it's usual rat-catchers desperately thwarting cults vibe the right place for these rules? I mean, they are optional, so i guess they are good for running Gotrek and Felix. But less the band of doomed idiots trying to not get the plague and freaking out when they see their first skaven.

So,to sum up:

Things it does well:

1) The NPCs stats come on little cards. Pick some cards for their abilities. That little stack? NPC generated. That's a total length of time of about 60 seconds. When you have been running a game that made you generate too many characters for every NPC this comes as a godsend.

2) The characters abilities being on cards and the tokens. I know I went on about this last time, but it is a revelation for management of information.

3) The party card is a great idea. Stuff that gives a benefit to the whole party, and a brief description of the party on it? Yes please. Loves this idea.

Things it does badly:

1) Dear god the healing system. They revised it in the second publishing, but the system is still a mess. I think, after 3 years of playing and running I understand it now, but I could not swear to it.

2) Balance. Some types of casters are just better than others. Though to be fair, it is the most common types who get the most love. Priest of Sigmar getting a better power set than priest of Ranald, probably since one is much more common tan the other.

3) Mandated xp spends. You have to spend xp in certain amounts to finish a career. Your career may only have space for 2 talents, and you may have the two you want, but if this is your third career, you are buying another talent to sit and look useless in your character box. This irrationally pisses me off. I hated spending an xp I knew I would never ever get use out of.

Things I would steal for other games:

1) the cards. I am in the process of writing a system for a more crunchy fate. It incvolves putting stunts on cards and turning them to see when they are ready to be used. Basically because I stole it wholesale. 

2) The party sheet. I like the idea of players being able to share some powers with the whole group if they put it on a party sheet. Would use in other games with a very distinct party. 

That is two things, which as my reviews continue, you will see is 1-2 more things than most systems manage! So, my end rating?

Fun game, would and do play it. Crunchy and mechanically detailed without going too slow. Some annoying niggles 8/10

[New setting] Types of magic

Right, first off, hello to the new people, and thanks to James for the reference. Sorry I've been away for a few days, but I was on holiday, then had teeth pulled today. As such, I am a bit drugged on painkillers. So.... bear with me, please.

                                                        

Right, terrible pun aside, I have been thinking about types of magic in the setting. Which also, it occurs to me I should name. I have been thinking of the types of magic, and one of the things I would like is there to be different types of magic that work in different ways. I would also consider them being different levels of complexity, so people who like complex system engagement can play something complex and people who want to be a magic user but not use one million rules can play something easier but just as effective. So, I have been thinking of different types of magic and how to use them in play.

Individual magic

1) Everyday magic. 

Everyone in the setting who has been initiated as an adult has access to the magic they got initiated into. This should be very simple and useful for everyone. My intention is that everyone can do this type of magic. The rules need to be easy, but I do want it to be broad ranging and effective. Basically, a call on for if you are doing something related to your initiation.

2) Shaman magic. 

I have a plan for there to be a spirit world, where there are beings who emerge out of natural phenomena and animals

                                                   

Basically, this magic will work out of a number of things, and will be the most social of the power sets. A shaman will have a fetch spirit, that gives him or her some powers reliably. They will also be able to bargain for more information and power from other spirits. Spirits like somethings done for them in the material plane, and if you are willing to do the work for them, they are willing to trade you some power. Since anything sentient can become a god, and spirits are sentient, there are some powerful spirits out there and if you can get their favor there is power to be had. This would be the magic user to play for someone who likes to get their magic through talking and tasks.

3) Priest magic.  

A god talker can channel the magic of their god. They gain an easy route to more magic if they do. Almost everyone chooses a god who is their favourite and gets a little bit of power that way, but some people take the unusual step of giving their praise to only one deity and becoming a priest or priestess. These people get more power and deeper revelations from their chosen god, and in return agree to live by the strictures of their religion.



                                                  

This type of magic will give the user a set of well understood and conceptually linked abilities. A priest of a war god will be able to bolster the will of warriors with him or divine things about a battle. A death priest will contact the spirits of ancestors, and curse the living (fun people!). This would be the easy version of a wizard for people. They would get to know in advance what they can do in a general sense and then do it repeatedly. They would be magic, but they wouldn't have to do anything too hard.

4) Wizard magic

The last type of wizard I am thinking of is an actual, wizard wizard. I want them to be practitioners of a weird sort of occult science. I think here is where I would reserve the more complex mechanics that would mean the character would be doing deeply weirdly little rituals to gain power. These people use the fact that the world is full of magic to direct that magic intentionally and willfully. This is your weirdo sorcerer.



                                                     

This would be the most mechanically complex sort of character. I am thinking something along the lines of there being a need to generate enough power to do the sort of thing you want to do, either by being at the right time, place, spending some willpower or having items and sacrifices that correspond to the effect you want to achieve.

Group/ritual magic

All of these types of magic can be done as a ritual using more time and more people. I will be writing a little sub system for how much time and effort it takes to get you a larger effect. Basically, something that gives you a bit of a way of modelling the big effects that magic seems to always be doing in settings but magic systems tend not to model well.

It will work a bit like this:

1) How powerful is the effect you are working towards?
2) How well suited is your magic to it? If you are using the wrong sort of magic you will need to work harder.
3) How long will it last? Longer lasting magic takes more power.

Add up all these factors to see your target. You then generate points to meet your target. You get these by:

1) your personal skill. Being skilled means you can do more.
2) How many assistants you have. Communities of assistants have a magic of their own, and that means if you can get a lot of people behind your magic then you get a lot more oomph.
3) Do you have sacrifices that are appropriate to the spell? Valuable and rare magic parts can be brought together to give magic a bit more oomph, meaning if it is something sacred to the deity being invoked or a sacrifice to high level spirits. These sacrifices can help buy off some of your factors.
4) Are you going to take a very long time about it? A hermit sitting in a hut and praying the sacred names of his deity every day for fifty years can get a lot more done than if he had just started casting yesterday.
5) Not getting quite what you want. Getting extra downsides. Basically, you can give your magic some quirks and get it a bit cheaper.

[New setting] A scheme for increasing legend

So, since for the setting the thing the players are going is attempting to become a god, I thought that had better put together a proper system for that. So, here are my first thoughts:

There are a few tiers of being, and indeed of deeds; heroic, semi-divine and divine. When the players start, they are heroes and probably largely do heroic deeds. When they have done enough of these deeds, they con convert them into a deed of a higher level as the universe comes to recognise the deeds of the hero. Specifically, they need to get a set of deeds:

- 3 deeds related to what they want the higher deed to be. So, if they are a thief, they need 3 deeds related to thieving. The bulk of the story needs to be you proving that you can do the thing you are seekign a story about.
- 1 deed related to being defeated. Every mythic story should have the hero being beaten beaten so that they can triumph later. As such they need to be able to write in their story a time when they were beaten.
- 1 deed related to the gaining or losing allies. There has to be one deed that is related to interpersonal conflict. This is a good deed to be racking up in sessions focussed on other people's deeds.
- 1 other deed. Fill in what you like here!


When you have the 6 deeds you need, string them together for a more important and imposing story and then perform the rite that displays the deeds you have done to the universe. In doing so you then set up a new heroic deed that you have symbolically achieved. You cross the deeds you had off of your character sheet and then put the new, higher tier deed onto your sheet. I have ideas for what that will mean, mechanically, in terms of fate, but this is just a brief post. I will fill this the details in later.

[WFRP Review 2] More than a dice mechanic

So, I've talked about the basic dice mechanic of WFRP and it is pretty good. Not anything astounding or groundbreaking, but it does the job and generates the sort of results I like a system. But a system is a lot more than just it's basic dice mechanic. How is the rest of it? Well, the system has a couple of good ideas:

Action cards

One of the key ideas that wfrp did well, and then a lot of people slagged off was how it dealt with player powers. One of the things that a lot of systems, in my opinion do badly is that they make combat a long process, but with very few meaningful decisions. There have been a great many games I have played where my combat procedure was simple; approach the enemy, attack them and then get attacked back. Repeat this until one side runs out of hit points. Call the fight done.

It was dull. Lots of games make it optimal though, as you have one attack that is your best one to do. So you do it. Over and over again.

But! WFRP did this a lot better. Most of your powers, attacks and special maneuvers in social conflict come in the form of an action card. You stack them up in front of you and choose which one to use, One like this:


See how he rules for each result are right there on the card? Also the rules on what you have to roll it? All in one place, that is obvious when you need it.

If you want a crunchy, rulesy game this is great. Because instead of having to learn what each spell or dot of gift does, I have a little card in front of me with all of the rules. It all ties into the universal resolution mechanic, so I can read immediately what it does. It also has something that came as a bit  of a revelation for me: timers.

When you use a card, you put counters on it equal to its refresh value. At the end of your turn, you remove one counter from each card with counters on it. This was so easy and intuitive. It meant I could juggle how long it would be until I could use a power again. I could plan what i was going to do in a fight, and since a load of powers could count what was recharging, I had a strategy rather than doing the same thing over and over again.

In fact, if I wanted a move more advanced than the basic attack, then I couldn't use it very turn. So I needed to make choices, every turn. It also gave non combat options on the cards, and it was how wizards and clerics handled their spells. It has made playing a fighter in two games I have played a distinctly different in feel and use, and made them as fun as playing a mage.

But there is a downside: you cannot play this game without a table. They released a traditional form where everyone ran it out of the book, with no cards and it does. Not. Work. You can't handle all the information. The information economy is overloaded. You need the cards. I cannot emphasise this enough.

But this has a second disadvantage. It looks a little like a board game, which means a bunch of players will not look at it. Which makes the game a harder sell. I mean it looks like this in front of you:




and some people are not happy with that. I can understand that, but I don't agree. I don't usually play a lot of crunchy games, but it was nice to play a crunchy game which had thought about how to display and manage its information such that you can use it properly.

So, I am obviously somehow not done yet. But if you can take anything from this review it is this:

1)If a game wants you to remember a whole bunch of rules, I suggest you ask it what it is doing to help you use that information. It should be making your life easier.
2) If a game is going to be crunchy, is it making sure all those rules are making the play a more entertaining experience? If not, why not. I appreciate how this game has worked to give me a choice all the time, and that is not a choice that is wrong and one which is right, but genuine options.