04-14-2012, 06:56 PM | #231 | ||||||
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Seattle
|
Re: In Nomine Second Edition: What have we learned?
Quote:
Quote:
In review, that's pretty much how I really see human PCs in IN currently (both fluff and mechanicswise), although I am aware that the core doesn't make that distinction as sharp as it is in my head. (The distinction is there, but the fluff and mechanics would have corresponded more tightly had the book said 'don't play humans or expect to play them, but here are some ideas that might help GMs who want to try it', rather than saying 'humans are subpar but you can play them if you really want to'.) Quote:
How many styles of play should IN support? At some point, the game designer has to draw a line (shooting missiles at angels is on the other side of that line, probably). That "gamebooks should respect and support" any type of game players can imagine is a pretty impossible requirement for any game to meet. Rather than have IN (or any RPG) change accommodate all imaginable playstyles, I'd rather it fix the problems within the narrower set of playstyles the game supports well. Quote:
Quote:
Now, you don't have to play IN like this, but that is certainly the default expressed in the opening vignettes and with NPCs such as those in Night Music--and by default, I mean default campaign. A one-shot (or multiple session minicampaign with a planned arc) is much more likely to be "your Superior assigns you to this group and you are tasked with this mission", where you would have all the PCs spending all their time together (like the PCs' role in Night Music--this is of course more analogous to an adventuring party, but it doesn't have to convey implications of hack'en'slashery, because the mission could just as easily be one of espionage or politics). And again, it's certainly not the only campaign model that the rules or even the fiction support (a Triad of Judgment is a solid campaign setup and they spend all their time together), but it is the default. One advantage of that default is that the "spotlight time" "play balance" you mention (which is, I agree, very important even in any RPG) is easier for the GM to handle. While I have no experience GMing human PCs in IN, more than a few PCs have had human Servants, and creating plots in the more episodic model to showcase those humans was not too difficult (and was important--creating encounters and plots where the servant was useful pleased the player who had spent all-to-rare CP on the servant, giving that player more spotlight time even if it wasn't his PC who was being most useful). And I am talking about times when the humans' rolls came into play, too, not just this-is-how-it-works-on-Earth scenarios. For example, one game had three angel PCs, one of whom had a full Soldier (statted normally for a starting Soldier) as a Servant. Because the angel who had the servant was a Seraph who (RPwise) had a very hard time dealing with humans, the servant got about one-half of the Seraph player's spotlight time, something the player was very happy with (the two characters had a sort of nobleman/valet relationship). It was not difficult to construct an episodic, assumed-downtime, default IN campaign that showcased the servant mechanically one-sixth of the time. Quote:
If you say that only PC humans get more Forces (thus sidestepping some of the sweeping implications), you 1) aren't addressing the underlying concern that RAW humans simply don't work, so those problems remain for NPCs, and 2) are butting in on the "different than the average person" appeal of playing a celestial in the first place. No, these high-Force human PCs can't get killed and buy a new Vessel to return to Earth, and they don't have resonances, but they are superpowered people, and IN already has supers--they're called celestials. It's not that I'm not bothering to pay attention to the fact of human weakness, it's that I haven't yet seen a significant reason to overhaul IN to address it, when the quick fixes work well enough for NPCs and the focus for PCs is placed firmly on celestials.
__________________
“The world is going to Hell in a hand-basket, but I’ve got Good News: I saved my soul by switching to Heaven.” —Baruel, former Djinn of the Media, now Cherub of Destiny and the Angel of Good News |
||||||
04-14-2012, 07:03 PM | #232 | |
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Seattle
|
Re: In Nomine Second Edition: What have we learned?
Because it was an aside above and because I ran out of characters in that post (if there is a Discord that makes you fail at concision, I have it):
Quote:
That is an idea I could, provisionally, get behind (sorry for the double post, I didn't see this post while writing my monstrous one above). Equal CP wouldn't make humans power equivalent to celestials (lack of access to Ethereal and Celestial Songs, as well as most attunements, means that humans would be spending much more on average than a celestial on Skills, which would maintain the humans-understand-the-world, celestials-can-be-clueless-about-simple-machines schtick that is a mainstay of IN; also humans would have lower attributes with their still lower number of Forces, reducing the change boosting human CPs would have on fluff assumptions about the gameworld). Certainly something to think about!
__________________
“The world is going to Hell in a hand-basket, but I’ve got Good News: I saved my soul by switching to Heaven.” —Baruel, former Djinn of the Media, now Cherub of Destiny and the Angel of Good News |
|
04-14-2012, 09:26 PM | #233 | |||||||||
Join Date: Aug 2004
|
Re: In Nomine Second Edition: What have we learned?
Quote:
In particular, I don't see the gap between what you're describing as IN's "default" play style and one where human PCs aren't broken on the back of the mechanics to be big enough that you'd need separate mechanics for each. Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
|
|||||||||
04-17-2012, 07:56 AM | #234 |
Join Date: Sep 2005
|
Re: In Nomine Second Edition: What have we learned?
a thought that I had was to allow non aware humans the fight to choose the order of their d666 roll to get maximum benefit. allow them one roll per force which only gets refreshed when an intervention is rolled [either kind]. once they are aware they can no longer do this.
Possibly even allow after the roll |
04-17-2012, 08:36 AM | #235 | |
Petitioner: Word of IN Filk
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Longmont, CO
|
Re: In Nomine Second Edition: What have we learned?
Quote:
__________________
“It's not railroading if you offer the PCs tickets and they stampede to the box office, waving their money. Metaphorically speaking” --Elizabeth McCoy, In Nomine Line Editor Author: "What Doesn't Kill Me Makes Me Stronger" |
|
04-17-2012, 04:31 PM | #236 | |
Join Date: Sep 2005
|
Re: In Nomine Second Edition: What have we learned?
Quote:
For mooks I'm not too sure, perhaps leaving it as declared before roll for them and giving them a reduced essence pool available so not too grimm for the celestials... Chris |
|
04-19-2012, 12:21 AM | #237 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
|
Re: In Nomine Second Edition: What have we learned?
A radical revision to the characteristics that I've toyed with in the past, and that I personally wouldn't mind seeing in IN2e (emphasis on "radical"; I fully expect it to be too drastic of a change for many people):
Characters get six Characteristics and three Aptitudes. Characteristics are determined by your Forces as they always have been: you get 4 Characteristic Points per Realm Force to divide between two Characteristics in that Realm. The difference is what those Characteristics are: the Corporeal Characteristics are Strength and Body; the Ethereal Characteristics are Intelligence and Mind; and the Celestial Characteristics are Will and Soul. Agility, Precision, and Perception become Aptitudes. Aptitudes are determined by dividing a pool of 18 points between the three Realms: Agility is the Corporeal Aptitude, Precision is the Ethereal Aptitude, and Perception is the Celestial Aptitude. Note: I said "18 points", not "2 x Forces": Aptitude ratings would be largely independent of Forces. I could see varying the total, but not directly proportional to your Forces; and in particular, your Aptitude in a given Realm should be unrelated to the number of Forces assigned to that Realm. Maybe it's tied to the Force caps: Celestials can have up to six Forces in each Realm, so they get 6+6+6=18 Aptitude points; humans can have up to five Forces in each Realm, so they get 5+5+5=15 Aptitude points. And an immature or decrepit character (in human terms, old or young) might not get his full allotment of Aptitude points. • Strength, Intelligence, and Will no longer determine how likely you are to succeed in combat; they "only" determine how much damage you do if you do hit. They're also used to determine how much of a presence you have in the respective Realm: Strength lets you move large masses, Intelligence lets you process and recall a lot of information, and Will gives you a "force of personality" that's very useful when trying to intimidate or inspire people. • Body, Mind, and Soul are used to determine their respective Realms' Hits, and are also used any time that a "resistance save" would be called for: Body is your physical stamina and constitution, Mind is your mental stability (low-Mind characters are prone to mental breakdowns), and Soul is your spiritual integrity. • Agility, Precision, and Perception take over for both attack and defense in all combat; they also act as the basis for all skills and for "avoidance saves". Each Aptitude deals primarily with the Realm in question, but not exclusively so: Perception is primarily about seeing into a person's soul, but it can also be used to spot hidden objects (Corporeal) and/or single out significant facts (Ethereal); Precision is primarily about disciplined thought (i.e., "reason"), but it's also used for manual dexterity (Corporeal) and for manipulating peoples' reactions (Celestial); and Agility is primarily about physically adjusting quickly to changing circumstances, but can also be used in a similar way in cerebral (Ethereal) and emotional (Celestial) situations. Use these guidelines when assigning Aptitudes to Skills: if the skill is about revealing secrets, it's Perception-based; if it's about carefully manipulating something, it's Precision-based; if it's about adapting to rapidly changing circumstances, it's Agility-based. Skills might even be decoupled from Aptitudes, with the Aptitude/Skill pair being decided on a task-by-task basis. |
04-19-2012, 07:23 AM | #238 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
|
Re: In Nomine Second Edition: What have we learned?
Some commentary on my last post:
Agility undergoes the most radical conceptual revision: as currently written, it's assumed to be exclusively about Corporeal matters, whereas Precision and Perception have always had cross-Realm applicability. I've also attempted to provide a clearer definition of what Intellect is; and by all rights, similarly clear definitions of Body, Mind, and Soul should be provided. Humans fare better under this setup than they do in the 1e model: while they're still weak (5 Forces instead of 9 Forces, for an average Characteristic of 3⅓ instead of 6), they're not inherently incompetent (15 Aptitude points instead of 18, for an average Aptitude of 5 instead of 6). This also preserves the "humans are 5s, celestials are 6s" brainfeel that Beth has mentioned in the past. But despite my earlier advocacy for more capable humans, this was not my primary motivation for coming up with this model; rather, it has always bothered me that Forces conflate quality and quantity. This model makes Forces all about quantity, while the Aptitudes embody quality. It also means that you don't need to worry about cats being inherently clumsy or elephants being inherently nimble, because having a lot of Corporeal Forces doesn't give you more points to spend on Agility. One thing that sort of gets lost in this is the direct juxtaposition of demonic Will vs. angelic Perception. I say "sort of" because angels and demons still consider the Celestial Realm to be the most important of the three, and angels still prefer quality over quantity while demons still prefer quantity over quality; and taking these things together, the result in that angels will still tend to prize Perception (celestial quality) above all else while demons will likewise favor Will and a strong Soul (celestial quantity). Still, the lack of a direct opposition between Perception and Will is a bit of a problem. As well, the reason why the "clumsy cats and nimble elephants" is a problem is that common experience implies that the relationship should be the other way around: the smaller you are, the more nimble you tend to be, and the larger you are, the more likely you are to be slow and clumsy. This could probably be addressed by allowing characters to trade Forces for Aptitude and vice versa, but this opens a can of worms. This setup, combined with the recent suggestion to decouple Character Points from Characteristic Points, gives us three "currencies" in character creation: Forces, Aptitude Points, and Resource Points. This is up two from the current system where everything is based on Forces, and it does add some complexity to the system. I suppose you could try lumping them all together into one currency system; but doing so would lose a lot of what makes the In Nomine system special. And the "three currencies" model has a certain aesthetic feel to it that I like: much like the Corporeal/Ethereal/Celestial division aligns with the concepts of "body", "mind", and "soul", these three currencies roughly parallel the concepts of "to be" (Forces), "to do" (Aptitudes), and "to have" (Resources). |
04-20-2012, 12:57 AM | #239 | |
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Seattle
|
Re: In Nomine Second Edition: What have we learned?
While I am not a huge fan of that from reasons of complexity, there's some that I like. I really like the inclusion of an attribute that measures power apart from resiliency on the Corporeal (and other planes). Also,
Quote:
__________________
“The world is going to Hell in a hand-basket, but I’ve got Good News: I saved my soul by switching to Heaven.” —Baruel, former Djinn of the Media, now Cherub of Destiny and the Angel of Good News |
|
04-20-2012, 06:49 AM | #240 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
|
Re: In Nomine Second Edition: What have we learned?
To me, the key feature of the idea is the breakup of the close pairings of Strength/Agility, Intellect/Precision, and Will/Perception: the idea that there's any sort of parallel between how strong you are and how nimble you are rubs me the wrong way, and creates technical difficulties such as agile characters tending to have more Body Hits than clumsy ones (because you need more Corporeal Forces in order to be agile).
|
Tags |
meta, rules |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|