I am 100% un-ironically excited. Have any questions, fire away - I haven't gotten too far into the playtest doc, yet. I'll probably be doing a combat dry-run over the weekend.
May God have mercy on your soul.
Also, find a way to ensure that a Mutant can have the core Superman power set out of the gate, that you can roll up DC's Captain Marvel, and some clarity as to what Tigers are and where the inspiration in RL comes from.
Right on! I wasn't aware this was in development. I'll be interested to read your posts about it. :)
Quote from: DestroyYouAlot;538179I am 100% un-ironically excited. Have any questions, fire away - I haven't gotten too far into the playtest doc, yet. I'll probably be doing a combat dry-run over the weekend.
You're what!?!
Seriously, you have to post stuff. I remember Synibarr with fondness, alcohol drenched fondess, but fondess indeed. No game with laser beam dolphins* is bad in my book.:)
*I don't remember who had the laser beams but whatever.
Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;538189May God have mercy on your soul.
Man. I was going to say this.
I guess the only thing else I have to say is "Have fun!"
Well, I'm jealous...I'd love to be able to poke at the rules for this.
Watch out for the flying grizzlies.
Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;538207Well, I'm jealous...I'd love to be able to poke at the rules for this.
Watch out for the flying grizzlies.
"With Fricken Lasers!"
Quote from: Drohem;538193Right on! I wasn't aware this was in development. I'll be interested to read your posts about it. :)
What he said.
(I love Drohem's pro-game attitude.)
Let's see... so far, things that stand out: Initiative is still "advantage", still rolled on a d10 (ties are rolled off against each other). Combat is tracked in seconds, and advantage is rerolled every 3 seconds (3 seconds is one "turn"). If you have multiple attacks, you roll multiple advantage dice (with attacks coming on different segments).
New to Synnibarr are "calories" and "willpower" - both character resources used to upgrade to-hits and damage, number of attacks, or alternatively effects like range, duration, etc. You have a default of 20 calories and 2 willpower (I believe these can be upgraded by race/class selections and merit). You get 5 of your calorie pool to spend every second, represented by tokens placed on your sheet. You can spend a maximum of 5 calories each second, unless you spend a willpower point, in which case you can spend an additional 5.
Sounds as whacky as ever. You using pregens? The combat rounds feel very similar to Hackmaster of all things.
I think I'll have players roll up PCs - probably not on the day of, but we'll see. Keen observation on similarity to HM - you could probably do some interesting things with the "count up" here.
It's worth noting, the playtest suggests generating the basic numbers required for combat, running an "arena" fight to get players (and the GM - or "Fate") versed on the system, and then finishing character creation (with skills and such). I don't know whether this will be in the final version, but it's a unique way of doing things - for a super-high crunch game like this, it makes a certain kind of sense.
Quote from: DestroyYouAlot;538242I think I'll have players roll up PCs - probably not on the day of, but we'll see. Keen observation on similarity to HM - you could probably do some interesting things with the "count up" here.
It's worth noting, the playtest suggests generating the basic numbers required for combat, running an "arena" fight to get players (and the GM - or "Fate") versed on the system, and then finishing character creation (with skills and such). I don't know whether this will be in the final version, but it's a unique way of doing things - for a super-high crunch game like this, it makes a certain kind of sense.
Sort of the crunchy version of Preludes in Storyteller?
Maybe characters should have to roleplay through The Maiming.
(For those not in the know, in the old Adventurer's Guide, this was a Synnibarrean ritual where all classed-character apprentices get a limb hacked off then have to win a knife fight before getting it regenerated. Doing it badly means extra rings of scar tissue which other PCs will make fun of ).
Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;538244Sort of the crunchy version of Preludes in Storyteller?
Maybe characters should have to roleplay through The Maiming.
(For those not in the know, in the old Adventurer's Guide, this was a Synnibarrean ritual where all classed-character apprentices get a limb hacked off then have to win a knife fight before getting it regenerated. Doing it badly means extra rings of scar tissue which other PCs will make fun of ).
Ah, the memories let's hope it's an option.
Sounds good so far DYL.
Quote from: Marleycat;538195You're what!?!
Seriously, you have to post stuff. I remember Synibarr with fondness, alcohol drenched fondess, but fondess indeed. No game with laser beam dolphins* is bad in my book.:)
*I don't remember who had the laser beams but whatever.
Death rays. The dolphins have death ray eyes.
The flying grizzlies have chi beam eyes, IIRC.
But it's still so much fun to say "flying grizzlies with laserbeam eyes". :D
Quote from: Dan Davenport;538417Death rays. The dolphins have death ray eyes.
The flying grizzlies have chi beam eyes, IIRC.
But it's still so much fun to say "flying grizzlies with laserbeam eyes". :D
Very true. :D
If this game drops the Death/Chi/Laser beamed bears and dolphins I'm out.
Have gone through the character creation section - as far as I can tell, all the classes from v2 are here, although you don't explicitly HAVE to roll for your class (I would probably make you, haha), and it looks as though the playtest version doesn't present the full range of abilities for each class that v2 does (unless they've simply been scaled back).
There's an nifty playtest scenario - without spoiling it for anyone, it's a pretty bare-bones grab bag of "enemies, doors, traps, a boss fight and some treasure, possibly a twist at the end", with options for continuing the adventure afterwards - but you're provided with random tables to allow you to re-use the basic structure multiple times, and to scale it upwards for more powerful adventures. (So it's basically B1 In Search of the Unknown for Synnibarr. ;) )
I'm at the GM section ("Book of Fate"), now. Some interesting stuff on GMing techniques.
Stuff on awarding merit. "Merit" is the resource characters use to customize abilities at character creation, and they receive it as experience when they complete a mission. It's also used to balance encounters. There are awards for task completion, and for combat - a character or monster ("denizen") is worth 10% of their merit for kills, 20% for subduals, and 30% if they are imprisoned. Interestingly, bringing back an allies' body is worth 5% of their merit, while rescuing them from death is worth 20%. Successfully completing "the mission" is worth 25% of the party's total merit as an award (unless they fuck it up, in which case it scales downward).
Interesting note on spending merit - you're advised to let the party spend 25% on "acquisition" (stuff), and the remaining 75% on "allocation" (improving skills and abilities).
There is a noteworthy mechanic for "flashbacks" - basically, if you blow an important roll, Fate may decide (50% chance if you want to roll for it) to let the character tell a "flashback" story about prior use or training of the skill to allow the roll to juuuust barely succeed. (That's right - SYNNIBARR IS NOW A STORY GAME! MUUAAAAAHHH-HAHAHAHAHA!!! *thunderclap* :eek:) (Don't worry, really, it's not.) Fate is advised to only award 1/2 merit value for skill successes by this method. Similarly, there's a procedure for "dice-lite" resolution, wherein you compare opposing characters' "cogency" (basically the value of a skill multiplied by the amount of "calories" they're pumping into the attempt) to determine who'll have the upper hand, without needing to roll for it if one participant is clearly overmatched. (Addresses the "I'll try it" phenomenon we were discussing here, recently.)
Haven't gotten to monsters, yet, will advise as to the presence of laser grizzlies, etc.
Skills come in two types: "Deeds" and "Aims". Basically, deeds are roll-under, aims use the combat/shot system and are roll-over. The huge list of skills appears to be gone, task resolution looks like it's boiled down to targets based on abilities, with some basic sub-categories.
Huh - apparently, the game unit "calories" actually corresponds to 100 real, actual calories (and the corresponding ratio of 4.2 joules/calorie). (Remember, Raven was an engineer. ;) )
Section on "Calamities, Catastrophes and Disasters". Basically, at certain "merit awarded" thresholds, Fate doles these out to characters (and there's a random table to generate them with). The character gets a save roll to avoid the bad thing, if they flub it, the bad thing happens. Scales from "locking the keys in the car" through "major equipment failure" to "death in the family". Nifty.
Edit: WINGED GRIZZLIES ARE IN. :D Also para-drakes and (amphibious) sabertoothed tigersharks.
Quote from: DestroyYouAlot;538538Edit: WINGED GRIZZLIES ARE IN. :D Also para-drakes and (amphibious) sabertoothed tigersharks.
The game has a chance then.:)