The Game Concept

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Trip
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The Game Concept

#1

Post by Trip » Wed Aug 16, 2017 4:32 pm

A team of Force-sensitive beings that goes around the universe helping those in need. The year was 3682 BBY, one year before the battle of Coruscant. The much of Republic government was corrupt. One lesser known general had the Black Suns mercenary group rob the Corusca Bank on Coruscant. The strike team he was commanding found out about his roll in the heist. They were going to report him. He decided to frame them for the crime to cover his tracks. They end up in a military prison. Working together, they broke out and are now on the run. But they help people that need it while trying to clear their name.

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Re: The Game Concept

#2

Post by swrider » Wed Aug 16, 2017 10:11 pm

Things I mentioned on the old board that need answers.
1) Group background. name of unit, what missions we have accomplished, how we were formed, how long we were together, as well as what we were framed for. This is necessary so we can have group backgrounds.

2) Post Creation XP level. Is this a starter game, a Knight Level Game, or something else.

Also you had a list of the rolls you would like filled. I relive DeepSpacer wanted the Commander roll and I was interested in the Pilot (though I'm willing to take another). It would be beneficial to have a list of those rolls which is edited when they are assigned.

Looks like my post was preemptive as you answered all of the questions.

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Re: The Game Concept

#3

Post by swrider » Wed Aug 16, 2017 10:25 pm

You seems to have covered everything.
My only question is why no Duty? Duty measures contributions to a group. Not specifically the rebellion. It is possible for us to have duty with the military organization we previously served (this could play out in a soldier letting us go because he's heard of our reputation) or duty with a mercenary organization (perhaps the group which gives us jobs). I am fine not utilizing duty, but just wanted to point out it can be used and is not necessarily linked to the rebellion. For that matter it is possible to have duties with multiple groups.

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Re: The Game Concept

#4

Post by ShadoWarrior » Wed Aug 16, 2017 10:30 pm

Post-creation XP (which should be called "earned XP", BTW) cannot be used for "anything". It specifically is not allowed by the game RAW to be used for increasing characteristic scores, which can only be raised with the XP from species, obligation/duty/morality, and GM grants (please note the distinction between GM grants and GM XP awards, as awards tack on after creation, not during). You should reword your post to avoid possible misunderstanding.

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Re: The Game Concept

#5

Post by Trip » Wed Aug 16, 2017 11:02 pm

ShadoWarrior wrote:
Wed Aug 16, 2017 10:30 pm
Post-creation XP (which should be called "earned XP", BTW) cannot be used for "anything". It specifically is not allowed by the game RAW to be used for increasing characteristic scores, which can only be raised with the XP from species, obligation/duty/morality, and GM grants (please note the distinction between GM grants and GM XP awards, as awards tack on after creation, not during). You should reword your post to avoid possible misunderstanding.
In my mind the Characteristics were off limits, hence the post-creation XP description. But I see where it would be ambiguous. I corrected that.

And sorry if I plagiarized your post from After the fall character creation. I thought it well written and didn't want to reinvent the wheel.

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Re: The Game Concept

#6

Post by Trip » Wed Aug 16, 2017 11:02 pm

swrider wrote:
Wed Aug 16, 2017 10:25 pm
You seems to have covered everything.
My only question is why no Duty? Duty measures contributions to a group. Not specifically the rebellion. It is possible for us to have duty with the military organization we previously served (this could play out in a soldier letting us go because he's heard of our reputation) or duty with a mercenary organization (perhaps the group which gives us jobs). I am fine not utilizing duty, but just wanted to point out it can be used and is not necessarily linked to the rebellion. For that matter it is possible to have duties with multiple groups.
Good point. I think we can add that in. Part of the story line will have a good benefactor (senator) that knows they are innocent but his hands are tied to help openly until they can prove they are innocent. He can only help them through back channels.

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Re: The Game Concept

#7

Post by ShadoWarrior » Thu Aug 17, 2017 12:04 am

Trip wrote:
Wed Aug 16, 2017 11:02 pm
And sorry if I plagiarized your post from After the Fall character creation. I thought it well written and didn't want to reinvent the wheel.
I hadn't noticed that part of your post was unoriginal. I appreciate the praise. Thank you. I, too, believe in copying nice ideas from others.

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Re: The Game Concept

#8

Post by swrider » Thu Aug 17, 2017 12:30 am

We are pretty loose with sharing ideas on this board. Heck you could even steal one of our "inactive games" and continue it and most of us wouldn't care. I do kinda miss my Prakith Cell game.

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Re: The Game Concept

#9

Post by Trip » Thu Aug 17, 2017 12:40 am

Not that it really matters but on the 'Alpha' subject, if you google "Alpha Star Wars", you will find a "Alpha-class Advanced Recon Commando" clone. I was close to changing it but since I found that, I will leave it as the Alpha Squad... Although Aurek does sound cool.

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Re: The Game Concept

#10

Post by ShadoWarrior » Thu Aug 17, 2017 12:51 am

Most people don't mind having their stuff copied so long as the copier gives the originator credit for what was copied. Notable exceptions are the dickheads from Hollywood, who copy others shamelessly and without credit and then sue people who do give credit and are creating non-profit works of fan fiction based on fair use. Yeah, I'm calling out those greedy Paramount hypocrites that shut down the production of Axanar, the sequel to Prelude to Axanar. (The prelude was so professionally done that it scared Paramount. It included some B-list stars that have been on Paramount-made Star Trek shows, such as Gary Graham who reprised his role of Vulcan Ambassador Soval, and Tony Todd.)

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Re: The Game Concept

#11

Post by swrider » Thu Aug 17, 2017 12:54 am

I was going through the pages of the old board and came across Raaydos' recruitment page for an A-Team game. There may be some good ideas in that treat if you are interested Trip.

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Re: The Game Concept

#12

Post by Trip » Thu Aug 17, 2017 1:30 am

I got my intro done. I welcome any input.

Oh and I am glad I am not a "womp rat" anymore. LOL

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Re: The Game Concept

#13

Post by Trip » Thu Aug 17, 2017 1:32 am

swrider wrote:
Thu Aug 17, 2017 12:54 am
I was going through the pages of the old board and came across Raaydos' recruitment page for an A-Team game. There may be some good ideas in that treat if you are interested Trip.
Are you going to keep the old board around for historical purposes?

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Re: The Game Concept

#14

Post by swrider » Thu Aug 17, 2017 1:41 am

No eventually it will be deleted by tapatalk. I am coping the IC pages for each of the Active Games and storing them on my site/linking them in the ic threads.

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Re: The Game Concept

#15

Post by Trip » Thu Aug 17, 2017 2:11 am

@shadowarrior @swrider Is it too late to change my board to Alpha Squad instead of Alpha team?

I need it to be squad since that is what they used for "Havoc Squad"

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Re: The Game Concept

#16

Post by ShadoWarrior » Thu Aug 17, 2017 2:16 am

Forum fixed.

Editing topic titles and post contents is something that you can do yourself.

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Re: The Game Concept

#17

Post by swrider » Thu Aug 17, 2017 2:39 am

That is a good point. You may want to play around with the moderator control panel and see what you have abilities to do. You should be able to edit and delete posts within your game as well as a few other things.

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Re: The Game Concept

#18

Post by ShadoWarrior » Thu Aug 17, 2017 2:47 am

Changing a topic title can be done by merely editing the topic's title in the top post of the topic. I don't think that it requires moderator privileges, but I could be wrong.

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Re: The Game Concept

#19

Post by Trip » Thu Aug 17, 2017 12:44 pm

swrider wrote:
Thu Aug 17, 2017 12:54 am
I was going through the pages of the old board and came across Raaydos' recruitment page for an A-Team game. There may be some good ideas in that treat if you are interested Trip.
I just read through it. It didn't have anything helpful. But it is interesting that I was not the first person to imagine this concept.

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Re: The Game Concept

#20

Post by Trip » Thu Aug 17, 2017 1:07 pm

I think I need to add Obligation to the game. They would start out with 5 because they are wanted by the government. Then as Face calls in favors, he would get obligation, etc.

Thoughts?

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Re: The Game Concept

#21

Post by swrider » Thu Aug 17, 2017 2:51 pm

I have never liked obligation personally. Not because it is a bad mechanic but because it is an unnecessary one in my mind. Any GM creating a custom game is already going to incorporate people calling in favors or the consequences of past actions/backstories. Obligation has always felt like a way to force that on new or inexperienced GMs and to limit it on experienced GMs. I don't feel it should be limited but that the story should flow naturally.

This team will need what help and support they can get. If their senator pal needs help they will provide it, because what choice do they have?

It is your game and the mechanic does fit, but of the three options it is my least favorite.

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Re: The Game Concept

#22

Post by ShadoWarrior » Thu Aug 17, 2017 3:35 pm

Obligation is a valuable mechanic for quantifying favors. That it is also used for debts and warrants (Imperial or BH guild) is where swrider's feeling that it's unnecessary is coming from. I happen to agree that it's somewhat redundant for debts. Most debts are already quantified as they have values attached to them. But there are some debts that don't have prices attached (such as debts of honor), and being able to compare the magnitude of one such to something else does have a use. The main use of the Obligation mechanic (besides the use in character building at the start) is to be able to more easily judge how much it may take to discharge an obligation, and how far along someone may be in doing that.

Even characters built on Duty or Morality should incur Obligation for favors, debts, and suchlike. It's not really discussed in the FFG books, but it's one of those things that just makes sense.

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Re: The Game Concept

#23

Post by swrider » Thu Aug 17, 2017 5:00 pm

No I actually dislike the entire mechanic as I feel a GM can do those things anyways. An some obligations are never paid such as a small loan from organized crime (i.e. blackmail). I prefer a narrative approach to these things rather than an actual mechanic. (I think Shado and I have switched sides, he is usually the one arguing for more role play). The ultimate decision needs to come down to weather it will benefit your game. If you have a use for it and think it will make things better, use it. If not it is just another cumbersome mechanic that you need to track.

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Re: The Game Concept

#24

Post by ShadoWarrior » Thu Aug 17, 2017 5:27 pm

Morality is a worse mechanic, by far, IMO. The whole increase or decrease in Morality based on a random roll is poorly conceived. Seriously. If you accrue no Conflict (which means the GM is doing a poor job of forcing, pun intended, situations in which your Jedi has no choice but to do questionable things) then you're guaranteed to gain Morality. Basically, you gain Morality by not being bad, not by being good. That's fundamentally flawed. Worse, the amount of Morality you gain is random. Aron Lightwalker steals something and earns 1 conflict. When it's time to assess the consequences of Aron's acts his player rolls a 3 and gains 2 Morality. Later on Aron steals again, and this time when consequences are assessed the player is lucky and rolls a 9. Aron gains a whopping 8 Morality. Aron's not a particularly ethical person, but according to FFG he's now halfway to being a light side paragon. This mechanic is messed up. Quite a few people on the FFG board have noted this problem. The official answer is, of course, for the GM to inflict more ethical dilemmas on the Force users, or situations in which players must resort to using DS pips. Railroading players so that a game mechanic works as intended is not a good (let alone fair) solution to a crappy game design. The inclusion of ethical dilemmas should be a natural part of the story, if the story is supposed to have any at all, not crammed in just to balance game mechanics. And I especially don't like the randomness of Morality changes. How much your Morality changes shouldn't be random.
[/rant]

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Re: The Game Concept

#25

Post by Trip » Thu Aug 17, 2017 5:35 pm

If I can do it narratively speaking then that's fine with me. I just know that the squad will need to pay back someone for the safe house eventually.

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