ooc Letters Page

[Malkavian Grin]

@TiffanyKorta So, now that we've beaten our foes, what's the next move here? Is the next scene a new thing in a different dimension? Do we continue on Earth-72? I thought you hinted at running an "official" story at some point once we got the hang of things? So many questions...

[Roughtrade]

2 hours ago, Malkavian Grin said:

@Roughtrade by shout out do you mean this? Just use the @ symbol and start typing a name.

Must’ve been doing something wrong. It just printed out normal.

[Malkavian Grin]

8 minutes ago, Roughtrade said:

Must’ve been doing something wrong. It just printed out normal.

It's finicky sometimes. If it doesn't work, just backspace to the symbol and try again.

[TiffanyKorta]

Sorry, for the radio silence, it looks like people have figured things out but as always feel free to ask questions. I've added a slightly tougher fight, we'll then piviot to a plot to find out where and who sent these machines.

[Roughtrade]

3 hours ago, TiffanyKorta said:

those of you with spider sense felt that warning tingle.

I think that is only Daring Drow and Spider-Girl.

My guy's 'spider sense' is dependent on having video feed to warn him, and teleporting in would seem to negate that.

 

Do those of us without a warning system need to let the Spider Slayers go first for being able to surprise us?

[Malkavian Grin]

55 minutes ago, Roughtrade said:

Do those of us without a warning system need to let the Spider Slayers go first for being able to surprise us?

If I may, PbtA games are all character-facing mechanics. PCs only take damage due to rolling poorly. There is no "initiative" per se. Rather, go by the fiction. If they have the drop on you, you aren't rolling to attack them and gain the upper-hand, you're rolling to defend yourself and maybe turn the tide in your favor. Players still make the rolls and still drive the action forward.

@TiffanyKorta Feel free to correct me if I have that wrong!

[Roughtrade]

I am still trying to work out how best to do the 'powers' section. I feel like saying 'nano-suit' is too broad in nature. Revised list.

The Machine =Web/Computer access and information hub.

The ability to know anything available on the internet. I do feel like this is fairly well defined. Enough of us are familiar with the source material that I do not feel like I am cheating at anything.

God Mode = A more focused use of Web Access

Again enough of us play video games and are familiar with the TV show so I do not think it is ill-defined. I suppose I could push for saying it is really just part of the first power. That seems rather a cheap shot.

Money is Power = This one I am dropping.

On Person of Interest, Mister Finch has enough money to buy and sell entire corporations just to set up a one use identity for infiltrating a lawyer's meeting. Tony Stark level money. I can justify those sorts of reserves of cash in his home world, but it doesn't really figure into anything except as cosmetic background material. Setting up identities or getting an ATM to spit out some cash through use of the my first power is 'money enough' for most of our purposes.

---

Just saying "Nano-Suit that Emulates Venom-ish Powers" seems unfair to the rest of y'all. All of these do fall under 'The Suit' so if the nanites are somehow removed from his blood stream he will lose all of these powers much in the way that if the Venom Symbiote is removed from the host, the host loses power.

Venom Emulator = The Things Unique to the Venom/Symbiote Suit.

The ability to change into any sort of outfit, how it moves with a life of it's own, how it can make claws and weapons in a fight. Rather than claws, I am going to opt for 'brass knuckles' but the ability to have the suit grab things and help immobilize others seems like it would fall under this category. Make simple object without moving parts. He can form a police badge that looks real and others can examine as long as he doesn't let go of it, or he maintains a string on it for connection. Also the mask being emotive.

Spider Emulator = Typical Spider-Man Powers.

Wall Crawling, Web Slinging. The nanites can be sticky or not as desired and can extend for twenty-thirty feet or so before losing cohesion. Unlike other Spider-Man webs, the nanites melt into puddles after a few seconds of being detached.

Body by Nanites = My phrasing for 'Enhanced Physique" powers.

Better/Stronger/Faster and all. Nanite Healing. Recover faster. Super-Oxygenate his blood so he can hold his breath longer. Scrub his blood from toxins and drugs. I do not see him as being as strong as Venom, or maybe even as strong as Spider-Man. But he is essentially immune to drugs, poisons and it takes a very long time to suffocate or drown him.

Nanites are Magic = Catch-All for the weird tricks nanites do in Sci-fi settings.

Connect himself to computers. Pour nanites into a lock to manipulate the tumblers so he can open doors without breaking them. Pour nanites into the flaws in a wall so he can make it crumble into dust. As long as he maintains contact with another person, the nanites can infiltrate their system and allow them to emulate his powers. Healing others, protecting them from environmental hazards. Also the reverse, cause them to go into shock or feel pain. Cut off their senses.

 

Malk, you seem very familiar with this system. Am I over-thinking this?

 

 

[TiffanyKorta]

Thanks, everyone that's kept things ticking along, I appreciate the effort everyone's put into their characters. Being this is the first time I've tried this I have been keeping an eye on things, and whilst I think I've got the balance more or less right on keeping things really ticking along, and I want everyone to be awesome, I'd like to tweak things a little to add a little more threat to the characters.

So what I'm thinking is to tweak things a little so a partial success causes a condition to both to take a condition, with the villain causing 2 conditions on a failure. I'm also going to reduce their conditions by one so on balance unless they get unlucky the heroes will always scrape by a victory.

 

Combat

2-6	Villains hit you, take 2 Conditions.
7-9	You both catch each other. They take 1 Condition and you take one as well.
10+	Land a solid blow, they take 2 Conditions.

 

This won't be until the next fight, and it's not a done deal I'm interested in people's thoughts about such things.

[Roughtrade]

7 hours ago, TiffanyKorta said:

I'd like to tweak things a little to add a little more threat to the characters

I can agree it seems a bit easy so far. I am just unfamiliar with the mechanics. Your solution looks fairly balanced insofar as every side has equal chance to take damage. The results for winning will depend more on if the character has bonuses to add to the dice roll.

 

I am still trying to figure out what the core mechanics are supposed to represent.

Are the Adversaries going to be allowed a turn to 'strike back' or do we just continually roll for our successes?

[Malkavian Grin]

@TiffanyKorta This sounds more in line with how typical PbtA runs. I'm good with it.

@Roughtrade So, typically, the mechanics represent both your success and the threat at hand. However, the mechanics are all player-facing, meaning only the players make rolls. This also requires characters to drive the fiction forward. The whole system is designed to be a back-and-forth tug of war between the players and the world around them.

The GM can say there are villains attacking the bank; it's still up to the players to make up fiction that says how they intervene, and then roll for it. If the players don't intervene, i.e. they don't roll, usually the GM can just treat that as you failing a roll; it's going to heighten the stakes or put a big costs into play--maybe the bank robbers set up a bomb and now there's extra lives on the line more than just cash.

Rolling low is a failure. The GM makes a "move" against you. How badly you fail is either a "soft" or "hard" move. Soft moves are counter-productive to what you're doing, but it's something you can easily enough work through. Hard moves are more "they've taken a hostage and now someone could die" or "the guy gets away but leaves you with a bomb you must defuse/get rid of" and such.

Rolling in the "mid" range is "you succeed, but there's a cost" and rolling high is "you get everything you want."

You can take a look at my game I'm running using Star Worlds (it's slightly different but uses much of the same base mechanics) to see some more in-depth explanations of the mechanics as well as example of soft and hard moves the GM might take. The only difference is it uses Failures, Close-Calls (for skill use), Successes, and Criticals. So, there's an extra bit of granularity but not much.

[CharmingSatyr]

I think all the robots are down. Between the three of them, they have 5 conditions remaining.

Between Mayday, Silk, and Araneo, 6 conditions of "damage" have been applied.

Someone feel free to double-check my work.

[Malkavian Grin]

I concur; it looks like there's enough damage dealt that the robots should all be down.

[Roughtrade]

15 hours ago, Malkavian Grin said:

I concur; it looks like there's enough damage dealt that the robots should all be down.

So should we start free-chatter?

Story-wise I would think we all have questions about what brought us together. But I am hesitant to launch into things which might step on Tiff's actual plans.

[Malkavian Grin]

1 hour ago, Roughtrade said:

So should we start free-chatter?

Story-wise I would think we all have questions about what brought us together. But I am hesitant to launch into things which might step on Tiff's actual plans.

Same. I dunno how much control Tiff wants over the story.

[TiffanyKorta]

Apologies last few weeks have been exhausting for me, leaving little any energy for any posting. If people are still around I've put up a new thread, going to be a little exposition-heavy to start I'm afraid.