TheRPGSite

Any questions?

How do stats work now?

Luck, idea rolls and the like?

Any substantial changes from usual D100?

How can I get a copy?!?

EDIT: Never mind!  I have a copy now.  (Should've checked my e-mail account earlier.)

I just downloaded mine, too.

*#*~! I've just seen what they made in the kickstarter; over $500K! When is the official release? I expect for that it will be an amazing product?

Quote from: Piestrio;679577How do stats work now?

The quickstart rules have abbreviated character generation details, so this might not be how stat generation works in the full game, but it has you assign percentile scores to STR, CON, POW, DEX, APP, SIZ, INT and EDU. (The breakdown of scores is 1 score of 40, 3 at 50, 2 at 60, 1 at 70 and 1 at 80.)

However! You don't just note down the basic score - you also note down the "half" and "fifth" score. I suspect the range of "fifths" will correspond fairly closely to the current stat range, so converting between 7th and 1st-6th stats should be fairly trivial.

They also record skills in the same way, the reason being that there's now grades of success. You still fail if you roll above your skill/stat, but if you roll below the full score it's a "regular success", below the half-score it's a "hard success" and below the fifth score it's an "extreme success". (This isn't too far from the critical hit rules in some BRP/RQ versions, now that I think of it.) This is used not just to handle task difficulties, but also to handle opposed checks - the opponents each make a skill roll and extreme successes beat hard successes beat regular successes beat failures, if it's a tie on that front you compare skill levels and whoever has the highest skill level gets the tiebreaker, if the skill levels are identical you roll off.

QuoteLuck, idea rolls and the like?

Luck is, at least in the quickstart rules, rolled independently of POW (3D6 x 5). No notes on Idea Rolls, but they may be saving that for the full rulebook.

To answer elfandghost: don't see anything too radical in terms of changes beyond the system outlined above, more or less everything in here is straight BRP or is clearly derived therefrom.

Quote from: elfandghost;679590*#*~! I've just seen what they made in the kickstarter; over $500K! When is the official release? I expect for that it will be an amazing product?

They were saying October, and had most of the text written -- my understanding is the new art revisions the Kickstarter made possible are going to take some time, so I haven't heard a new estimate for release now.

I seem to recall something in the comments about early next year.

Full explanation of how Push works with corresponding examples from the text would be nice. :D

Yeah, the more examples the better.

Quote from: Warthur;679591However! You don't just note down the basic score - you also note down the "half" and "fifth" score. I suspect the range of "fifths" will correspond fairly closely to the current stat range, so converting between 7th and 1st-6th stats should be fairly trivial.

The fifths will range between 1 and 20, which is... yeah. Looks like an easy port

Converting the array given to 3d6 rolls, it looks like the equivalent of rolling an 8, three 10's, two 12's, a 14 and a 16, which is a pretty average human being. (I think it's better than my Laundry Files investigator, actually).

I don't recall this coming out before, but there's a bonus / penalty die rule (If something is making a situation easier or harder for you, the GM can ask you to roll an extra tens die, and take the better or worse, depending), with a note that it would primarily be for opposed rolls.

The GM can also specifically call for "hard" or "extreme" successes (50% or 20% of your skill, respectively). It's just codifying something that could already happen.

Quote from: CRKrueger;679608Full explanation of how Push works with corresponding examples from the text would be nice. :D

Quote from: CoC 7e quickstartIf you can justify it through your investigator's  actions, you can "Push" a failed skill roll. Pushing a roll allows you to roll the dice a second time. However, the stakes are raised. If you fail a second
time the Keeper gets to inflict a dire consequence upon your character.

Example: You are trying to lever open the heavy stone door of a crypt. The Keeper decides this is very difficult and asks for a STR roll, specifying
that a 'hard success' is required. You roll the dice but the result shows that you have failed, as you rolled above half your investigator's STR. You
ask if you can push the roll, stating that your character is using a spade to lever the door. The Keeper permits a second roll, but warns you that if you fail this roll not only will the door still be closed but 'something' may hear you and could be coming for your blood!

That's the entire section on pushing.

So, takeaway points:

* It's under the GM's control
* You can get a push just because you want one, it has to be justified
* Pushing changes the result from "you fail" to "fail forward"
* You can fail forward in as good or crap a way as your group happens to play (Don't we have a thread about this?), and it can be as much of an asspull or pre-planned thing as you have prepped for
* There's also the narrative consequences of what the character did to earn a push - in the example, that spade may now be broken

Possibly also worth noting that you cannot push a Combat Roll.

There are quite a few odd bits (for me) in the Quickstart rules:

Besides difficulty levels, and pushing failed skill rolls, there are "Bonus and Penalty Dice" based upon task conditions. These conditions reflect the environment, time limits... and potentially Keeper-whim. A Bonus Die allows an extra 10's die to be rolled during task resolution (2 10s dice, and 1 single digit die), with the lowest 10's die value being used; conversely, Penalty Die also involves an extra 10's die but with the highest result being used. Hmmm... what upcoming Rpg does this remind me of?

Bonus and Penalty Dice come into play quite a bit in combat. An Investigator's Build (which is generated from the Damage Bonus table) can influence whether they have an advantage or disadvantage when it comes to performing a fighting maneuver. Being outnumbered by opponents can grant an advantage to an Investigator's assailants. Firing off multiple rounds from a firearm can provide a disadvantage.

Initiative works off the percentile Dex value, with beneficial situational factors adding a lot of points to Initiative. Having a readied firearm allows you to act at DEX + 50 in the turn order.

Practically every characteristic roll has been converted to a percentile scale, except for Hit Points, Damage Bonus, and Magic Points. Changing those values would certainly make backwards compatibility more challenging, but it's a little strange looking at statblocks in CoC7e and seeing percentile values nearly everywhere (or values in excess of 100). It's also weird for me, as a long-time CoC Keeper, to see a statblock for a ratpack with double-digit stat values.

Yeah, the big new detail about Push is that the player does need to have some IC justification for exactly how they're putting this extra effort in - actually, that's quite nice, because often the way a player describes how they're redoubling their efforts will give you an idea for the negative consequences of failure. ("Fuck being subtle - I am tearing Mr Smith's offices apart until I find that goddamn artifact." - Rolls failure - "Well, you don't find the artifact. Whilst you're in the middle of hauling files out of his filing cabinet to see whether it was hidden at the bottom of one of the drawers, you hear a cough behind you. When you turn around, you find Mr Smith standing there with a couple of security guards. 'So,' says Mr Smith, 'are you going to sit quietly whilst I get the police down here, or do Vinnie and Claire here need to hold you down?'")

In fact, I might be inclined to houserule that the player's justification for the push has to involve some form of risky behaviour - yanking wires out of a bomb's detonation mechanism at random, whacking a locked door with a shovel, etc.. Though of course there's no reason why the negative consequence of failure has to manifest immediately. (Remember when you Pushed that roll when you were hacking into azathoth.com's main server? Well, apparently they were able to trace you down based on that.")

I'm trying to keep an open mind, but the more I read of the Quick Start, the less confident I feel in 7e. Some of the rules additions make me think that a variety of 'modern' rules mechanics were thrown at a wall to see what would stick. Change for change's sake.

I contributed to the Kickstarter (which may have been the result of a failed SAN check, and a bout of temporary insanity). And, I'll read through the core books when I get them, and give the rules a fair shake. Maybe use them for my next CoC campaign.

Can't be much worse than Trail of Cthulhu. ;)

The nice thing about how they're handling the rules changes is that if you just ignore Push attempts, bonus and penalty dice, and the different degrees of success you're basically back to the old system, and the majority of those changes are entirely in the hands of the GM, so it's entirely down to you how many of the new mechanics actually come into play and how often.

Well, at least old Corbitt is still around:)

Leafing through the quickstart(haven't read it properly yet), I like the opposed test-mechanic, I like the push-mechanics.
The percentile stats seems like a perfect example of trying to fix something that didn't need fixing, and fucking it up in the process.

Quote from: Warthur;679792The nice thing about how they're handling the rules changes is that if you just ignore Push attempts, bonus and penalty dice, and the different degrees of success you're basically back to the old system, and the majority of those changes are entirely in the hands of the GM, so it's entirely down to you how many of the new mechanics actually come into play and how often.

Agreed.  And if you ignore all the new options, it's just a matter of getting used to the new stat blocks and a few changes that I think are quite positive (e.g., no RR chart).

Nice to see more games are adhering to "new school" concepts like fail forward.

Cool.

Quote from: baragei;679841Well, at least old Corbitt is still around:)

I wonder if his house finally has a bathroom :D.

Quote from: Rincewind1;679846I wonder if his house finally has a bathroom :D.

You're supposed to be busy making RQ6 Fallout(I haven't forgotten this post (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=26679&page=5)), not nosing around in other peoples' bathrooms;)

Quote from: K Peterson;679762Some of the rules additions make me think that a variety of 'modern' rules mechanics were thrown at a wall to see what would stick. Change for change's sake.

I'm still feeling much the same. Comments I've seen by the designers over on Yog didn't dissuade from that impression either... their thinking they'd found something to 'fix'.
Still, nothing I've seen so far (except those comments) has put me off too much. 'Push' was something I was very leery about, but as described here it seems quite reasonable.
What I really feared was some veiled version of Fate or Savage Worlds... which I think are wrong for horror.
I'd balk at some sort of 'hero points' that would stave off the bad stuff in favor of cinematic appeal.

QuoteCan't be much worse than Trail of Cthulhu. ;)

I'd hope not... though there is some great non-system content in those books that can be swiped for use in CoC.

Quote from: Originally Posted by CoC 7e quickstartIf you can justify it through your investigator’s actions, you can “Push” a failed skill roll. Pushing a roll allows you to roll the dice a second time. However, the stakes are raised. If you fail a second time the Keeper gets to inflict a dire consequence upon your character.

Example: You are trying to lever open the heavy stone door of a crypt. The Keeper decides this is very difficult and asks for a STR roll, specifying
that a ‘hard success’ is required. You roll the dice but the result shows that you have failed, as you rolled above half your investigator’s STR. You
ask if you can push the roll, stating that your character is using a spade to lever the door. The Keeper permits a second roll, but warns you that if you fail this roll not only will the door still be closed but ‘something‘ may hear you and could be coming for your blood!

God that's fucking abysmal.  I guess I can understand some people just don't like roleplaying their characters, they need the game to shift up to the player level so that they can metagame some "Drama" into it as an author.  Me, I actually like roleplaying.

Quote from: Simlasa;679863I'd hope not... though there is some great non-system content in those books that can be swiped for use in CoC.

Sure. I own the ToC core book, and a number of the adventures. Many of the adventures are quite solid and useful for CoC. The core book has a small handful of interesting ideas, but it's featherweight (mechanically) in some areas, and far too complex in others. I'd never run the ToC, as it is.

Quote from: baragei;679858You're supposed to be busy making RQ6 Fallout(I haven't forgotten this post (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=26679&page=5)), not nosing around in other peoples' bathrooms;)

Curses!

No, but seriously - it may be a bug in Polish edition, but I swear, in Corbitt's house floorplans, there are 3 warehouse spaces, and no toilet/bathroom. It was really funny for me to discover this as I ran that adventure for the first time (I usually either ran my own or other CoC/ToC stuff, just had no time to prepare anything that time) and mid - adventure the player tells me "Alright, so I go to the toilet" and I'm like..."yeah, remember that warehouse #2 room? That's the bathroom/toilet after all".

Quote from: CRKrueger;679872God that's fucking abysmal.  I guess I can understand some people just don't like roleplaying their characters, they need the game to shift up to the player level so that they can metagame some "Drama" into it as an author.  Me, I actually like roleplaying.

I think you're making a tempest in a teapot. It is narrative but it's not exactly "Play sex card for XP" narrative.

Quote from: K Peterson;679874Sure. I own the ToC core book, and a number of the adventures. Many of the adventures are quite solid and useful for CoC. The core book has a small handful of interesting ideas, but it's featherweight (mechanically) in some areas, and far too complex in others. I'd never run the ToC, as it is.

For me, after good 20 sessions of ToC, the deal breaker was the treatment of Stability/Sanity mechanic, and this whole idea of spending actual Stability to counter potentially greater Stability loss...it just felt too gamblish for me for an RPG. So I took ToC lessons and applied them, in the most part, to CoC.

Quote from: Rincewind1;680032I think you're making a tempest in a teapot. It is narrative but it's not exactly "Play sex card for XP" narrative.

You know me, something's IC or it isn't, that's binary.  IC would be my character tries  trys to open the crypt, fails, then looks around for another option, sees the shovel and tries with that, getting a better chance on the roll from the shovel but the GM rolling to see if something hears me.  Or I could have seen the shovel and used that from the getgo.

Point is in previous versions of CoC there is no player-GM conversation like, "Ok your character failed Jim, you want to try with the shovel you can, but if you bone it this time, something will happen to you."  No retarded Fail Forward for player-driven dramatic effect, none of it, just roleplaying like CoC has been about for 20+ years.

It just so obviously a hamfisted attempt at cramming new school narrative non-roleplaying shit into CoC, one of the oldest RPGs around.

Lame, Sad, Pathetic, Etc... choose one or all of the above.

Quote from: CRKrueger;680072IC would be my character tries  trys to open the crypt, fails, then looks around for another option, sees the shovel and tries with that, getting a better chance on the roll from the shovel but the GM rolling to see if something hears me.  Or I could have seen the shovel and used that from the getgo.

I guess I just see Push as a slight (unnecessary?) codification of something we already do, when it seems fitting.
Since the GM can always say 'no' it doesn't bother me too much.
I'd likely try to restrict the discussion to describing character actions, with the understanding that compound failures might worsen the consequences.

At worst I'll probably just ignore it.

QuotePoint is in previous versions of CoC there is no player-GM conversation like, "Ok your character failed Jim, you want to try with the shovel you can, but if you bone it this time, something will happen to you."  No retarded Fail Forward for player-driven dramatic effect, none of it, just roleplaying like CoC has been about for 20+ years.

Yeah, well, when you put it that way...
I'm not likely to ever refer to it as 'Push' in-game and I'm not sure what 'fail forward' refers to, unless it's some version of the 'Pathetic Aesthetic'... which I like.

I'd hope I'm not anti-change but none of these changes sound 'more fun'... just different, or kinda different, or the same thing with a new name.
I'm still not seeing much reason to make the move. Except maybe to support Chaosium... which I'd probably get more out of by buying more BRP monographs and pre-7th CoC stuff I've missed.

Hmmm. Meh. At least it sounds like it's been blue-boxed as completely optional. Also good that it isn't allowed during combat.

I still think it's sloppy, though. What's so hard about just trying the task again? Or using risk/caution before the first attempt?

You are welcome in plain old task resolution to mention IC precautions and risks to affect your roll already. That's always been the purview of GM giving discretionary modifiers based on setting circumstances. Some games even codified it as Risk rules, where precaution raises to-hit while lowering degree of success, and risk raises vice versa. Some even did it as cumulative raising of stakes across multiple task attempts.

That risk idea based on IC interaction is an old idea, readily available from the first attempt on, and requiring no "Schrodinger cat" effect. This is just fiddly attempts to reinvent the wheel with something clumsy.

*cherishes his 30ème Anniversaire edition of L'Appel de Cthulhu*

Quote from: Benoist;680110*cherishes his 30ème Anniversaire edition of L'Appel de Cthulhu*

Amazingly, my copy was unaffected by the arrival of the 7e Quick Start rules in my mailbox! :cool:

Quote from: Akrasia;680160Amazingly, my copy was unaffected by the arrival of the 7e Quick Start rules in my mailbox! :cool:

What, your CoC licence didn't expire and needed renewing? :D

Quote from: Akrasia;680160Amazingly, my copy was unaffected by the arrival of the 7e Quick Start rules in my mailbox! :cool:

The second it came in, your anniversary edition began to lose sanity points.