High School Harem Comedy (Game System, PEACH)

[Amaril]

So I tried a system where it wasn't a "queen of the hill" but instead people who earned more VP in an episode got more "success points"

It ended up with the player that skipped a third of a game, still only losing to a tiebreak of the other player having more total VP, cause when the player showed up. They DOMINATED.

I can understand the frustration there, but in abstract, I'm not sure I see that case as inherently a bad thing. I don't see why a player who joins late should inherently have less chance of victory in a game like this. Sure, it strains credulity that Protagonist-kun would suddenly prefer this new person over others he knows much better (though honestly, that's not even that implausible, people are like that sometimes), but in terms of fair competition, I think it's better to design from the presumption that someone joining the game late is either only just finding out about it, or has been delayed in starting for real-life reasons, in which case, why should they be punished for missing that time? I might be misunderstanding what you're getting at here, though.

As for your blue shell idea, I'm not sure queen of the hill does anything to fix it. A player that wins one episode is very likely to take another, and another. I'll use Techno's game as an example, after some of the people left, did anyone besides Sakuya and (possibly) Becca ever "win" an episode. How would such a feature help Molly or Jill to win? I mean such a feature in this case helps second or third place, but not the ones distantly far behind.

I assume that when you say a player who wins one episode is very likely to win more, you mean because they have a more optimized character, or are better at being creative in applying their abilities through narration. If that's the case, I'm also not sure how that's a bad thing. Those skills, character optimization and creative narration, are, to my read, the main challenges of HSHC's competitive play. Now, you can argue that the possibility of certain characters being more or less mechanically optimized is a flaw in the game's character options (that is, the options should be balanced such that PCs end up more equal in mechanical power), and that's not an indefensible criticism of the game. But it's not what this option is concerned with fixing.

The issue these rules are meant to address is the case where one player starts at a mechanical disadvantage, falls behind early, rebuilds their character to be more mechanically optimized, but then remains at a permanent disadvantage because they're now behind in points for the rest of the game. It's a specific issue, for sure, and not one I remember directly observing in East Marshall in particular (I know I did rebuild Jill somewhat after the first episode or two, but she still wasn't nearly as optimized as Sakuya, and I remember not really caring that much because her stats lined up with how I wanted to play her fictionally at that point). In my opinion, as long as charop remains part of the game's competitive challenge, a player who improves in that area during the game should then (all else being equal) be on an even footing with others from there on out, which isn't the case with the rules as-is. That's what I was going for with this variant.

In addition, I have questions or concerns about your solution.

1) How does the principal rule on DC's for the Protagonist's special scenes fairly. If I won say 5 episodes and my DC to capture the heart was around 8-10, and another player wins and they get 5, I might get upset. And vice versa. In addition malevolent Principals may intentionally set it up like that.

That's a good point. I admit, I haven't thought about it much. In general, I like to design from the assumption that all players (GM included) are acting fairly and in good faith OOC as much as possible, because if someone isn't, they can find a way to cause problems no matter what rules you're using; but I can see the need for some structure here, especially in a competitive game. I'd have to work on that.

2) Clarification question. How does your system handle tiebreaks in total VP at the end of episodes. Special roll off? Additional scene, special scene becomes opposed if both or more players hit the unopposed DC, What if different players have different DC's? Multiple players can get the heart?

Also a good point, hadn't thought about this either. My first instinct is that if there's a tie, the one-on-one scene at the end of the episode becomes an opposed roll between all tying players, but I'd have to work on that more.

3) While I totally understand the everyone player needs to okay the genre change from Unleash hell, I'm not sure how comfortable I am with EVERY player needing to approve the tenchi solution. I can understand the tying players, but why does PC #3 get to decide what happens? What's to stop them from deciding, "Cause I don't win, no one gets to win even though I'd be okay with it if I were the tying player"

Ah, that's my bad--I didn't clarify that I meant the group should decide whether the Tenchi Solution, Unleashing Hell, both, or neither would be available options at the start of the game, before anyone knows who'll win. That aside, my thinking behind requiring full group approval for the Tenchi Solution (despite it being much less of a narrative curveball than Unleashing Hell) was that I could see some players feeling it risks cheapening the competition if a player who captures Protagonist-kun's heart at the Last Chance mark can spoil the previous favorite's total victory that way, but now I think about it, the challenger has already earned that chance by winning the Last Chance episode. I think I'd actually have the Tenchi Solution in play automatically by default, but leave Unleashing Hell as an extra variant at group discretion.

4) Is the last chance episode supposed to be a surprise? Cause that one seems the most important for determining victory. It also prevents game concepts like my first game where their were explicitly 24 episodes.

Ah, no, I hadn't meant to suggest the Last Chance should be a surprise. I'd assumed the number of episodes would be fixed and known info from the beginning.

5) What happens in an unleash hell where the second to last winner is dead, and the (yandere) loses? Does the queen of the hill win? Is the protag considered too traumatized to romance?

Er, sorry, I'm having some trouble parsing this one (which is my fault, I could've used clearer language for some of this stuff). Let's call the person who wins the Last Chance and chooses to Unleash Hell the "challenger," and the previous holder of Protagonist-kun's heart the "favorite." If Hell is Unleashed, and at the end of the finale, the favorite is alive and the challenger hasn't scored the most points, the favorite wins, regardless of who else is alive. If the favorite is dead and the challenger has won the most points, the challenger wins. If the favorite is dead and the challenger has not won the most points, no one wins; the challenger has ruined everything and achieved nothing. Unleashing Hell is not a cool or good thing to do

6) If another player wins a last chance, and the other player's unwilling to compromise, can they only force a loss.

If the Tenchi Solution is invoked, the challenger wins the finale with more VP than the favorite, and the favorite is unwilling to share Protagonist-kun, then no one wins the game.

And a more general thought about blue shells.

I'm not sure blue shells are the solution here. What would have happened in a scenario where in East Marshall Techno employed a blue shell.

Sakuya has quite a few less VP points, Becca maybe has a few less, and it's a competition between Sakuya and Becca and not Molly or Jill.

My thought process is what would probably help out more is sort of rising tide feature where the people in the lower rankings gain additional powers, additional vp on a success, or something to help THEM get VP.

You might be right. I'd need to test this to know anything for sure. Just a thought.

[Zevox]

Hey, is this thing still on? *taps mic*

So I was thinking back to the big game of this that I was in a few years ago, and how even though it was a blast, the one thing that kind of bugged me about the system was its lack of a blue shell-type feature--how some characters, whether due to better mechanical optimization or just luck, were able to pull into a lead early on and leave others in the dust with little hope of catching up. I started thinking about how I might solve that problem, and came up with this. I have no idea if it would work, or if someone's already tried it, but I'd be curious to hear what y'all think.

Spoiler: HSHC Alternate Rule: Queen of the Heart

Show

The default scoring system of High School Harem Comedy can produce some undesirable outcomes. Because point totals are tracked continuously throughout the game, characters who are more mechanically optimized or simply lucky from the outset can quickly pull ahead and establish a nigh-untouchable lead, which the rules offer little way of challenging. One could say the game lacks a "blue shell" feature, a way for characters who have lagged behind to get back into the running. This alternate rule is meant to address that problem.

Queen of the Heart

Rather than accumulating Victory Points continuously throughout the game, the PCs instead compete to "capture Protagonist-kun's heart" and hold onto it until the series ends. At the beginning of the first episode, each character has 0 VP, as normal. The episode proceeds as normal, with the PCs competing to earn the most Victory Points. Then, at the end of the last normal scene, whichever PC has the most VP gets a special, one-on-one scene with Protagonist-kun (if this rule is in play, PCs may not make rolls or earn VP in one-on-one scenes besides these ones). Instead of the GM setting this scene, the player does so; they can frame it however they want, narrating any situation they like for their character and Protagonist-kun to find themselves in, as long as it follows reasonably from the events of the episode so far. Then, based on how the player sets the scene, the GM will assign them one final unopposed roll. If the PC wins this roll, they've captured Protagonist-kun's heart, and become his favorite. Then, the episode ends.

At the beginning of each episode after the first, all PCs' victory point totals reset to 0. Then, they play out the episode the same way as the first one, attempting to earn the most VP. At the end of the episode, whoever has the most VP unlocks another one-on-one scene with Protagonist-kun, and has a chance to capture his heart if they don't already have it. Only one PC can be Protagonist-kun's favorite at a time; if someone new captures his heart, they take it from whoever had it previously. If the winner of the episode already has Protagonist-kun's heart when they unlock their one-on-one scene, they don't have to make another roll to keep it; they can just frame the scene as they like and roleplay it out, no risk.

Last Chance

Once the game is near its conclusion, the GM will declare that the episode after the next one will be the series finale. The episode before the finale is the Last Chance. If the winner of the Last Chance episode was already Protagonist-kun's favorite when it started, they've won the game: Protagonist-kun's heart belongs to them. The finale is then devoted to wrapping things up, giving everyone the chance to play out any scenes they'd like and tie up loose ends for their characters, but with the final outcome of who ends up with Protagonist-kun already established.

However, if someone else wins the Last Chance episode and successfully captures Protagonist-kun's heart then, they have a choice to make. They can't win Protagonist-kun over completely--it's too late for that now. If they accept that, they can simply forfeit, letting him stay with whoever last held his heart before they took it. Alternatively, if the entire group unanimously agrees out of character that it’s okay, they can do one of two other things.

The Tenchi Solution

First, they can attempt the Tenchi Solution. During the finale, they and the previous favorite compete one-on-one to earn the most Victory Points, while the other PCs play out the finale normally. If the old favorite wins, their victory is complete, and Protagonist-kun is theirs alone. If the new challenger wins, however, they manage to convince Protagonist-kun that he needs to be with both of them in order to be happy. The two competitors can either agree to share him in a polyamorous relationship, or both walk away, leaving no one the winner.

Unleash Hell

Alternatively, the winner of the Last Chance episode can Unleash Hell. If they can't have Protagonist-kun, no one can.

During the finale, the challenger competes against all other PCs for the most Victory Points. This competition is no-holds-barred, with all PCs free to use whatever tactics they want against each other, up to and including deadly violence. If the challenger defeats all the other PCs, they win completely: Protagonist-kun is all theirs (and almost certainly traumatized for life). However, if any other PC earns more Victory Points, the challenger has failed; the previous favorite wins (if they're still alive), while the challenger gets nothing, and will probably be spending some time in jail or a psychiatric facility.

Some of that could make for an interesting alternate system, I think - though as Illven said, I don't think it would necessarily fix the problem of whoever the most optimized player is just cruising to victory. I would personally say though, I hate the "Unleash Hell" idea. Any scenario where the PCs are expected to potentially kill each other sounds like a recipe for very quickly ruining any fun from the game to me, and I expect that I'd either avoid a game using that rule, or at least drop out as soon as it was invoked. The game's supposed to be largely light-hearted comedy, nobody should be ending up dead.

So I tried a system where it wasn't a "queen of the hill" but instead people who earned more VP in an episode got more "success points"

It ended up with the player that skipped a third of a game, still only losing to a tiebreak of the other player having more total VP, cause when the player showed up. They DOMINATED.

I can understand the frustration there, but in abstract, I'm not sure I see that case as inherently a bad thing. I don't see why a player who joins late should inherently have less chance of victory in a game like this. Sure, it strains credulity that Protagonist-kun would suddenly prefer this new person over others he knows much better (though honestly, that's not even that implausible, people are like that sometimes), but in terms of fair competition, I think it's better to design from the presumption that someone joining the game late is either only just finding out about it, or has been delayed in starting for real-life reasons, in which case, why should they be punished for missing that time? I might be misunderstanding what you're getting at here, though.

Oh, Illven doesn't mean the player joined late - they were there from the start. They just missed scenes occasionally, including the majority of the second-to-last episode. Which is the only reason another character (mine, for whatever that matters), who was usually in second at the end of most episodes, was able to barely bring things to a draw, since Illven was awarding SP to the top three finishers of each episode, just more the higher you placed.

Though I do think he exaggerates things by suggesting that Vecna missed a whole third of the game, I don't think it was that extreme all told. It was just that him specifically not playing for the majority of that second-to-last episode, thereby not earning SP and giving my character the chance to take a first-place finish, was the only reason there was even a chance for a draw going into the final episode.

My thought process is what would probably help out more is sort of rising tide feature where the people in the lower rankings gain additional powers, additional vp on a success, or something to help THEM get VP.

So, a comeback mechanic of some kind? Might help - though I fear it'd need to be pretty strong to have much impact.

On a similar subject, recent discussion in the current game's OOC thread had me thinking about the game's balance again, and a thought occurred to me. The reason I think that it's so hard to balance different options against each other in this game has to do with how most of the abilities are set up. Specifically, that they're applied under certain circumstances, which are tied to their flavor. That makes it very hard to sus out how easy or difficult they'll be to apply in actual practice when writing them, or what the appropriate level of ease or difficult in use should be when deciding how much of a bonus they should give. For instance, when I was writing my homebrew versions of the various archetypes, I made my version of Butt In apply to both Allure and Luck because I thought it was situational enough that it'd be on the more difficult side to apply if I left it as Allure only. In practice now playing with it, I find I was very wrong about that, it's actually quite easy to use almost whenever I want. Plus there's the element of the GM to consider - Illven's on the more permissive side I'd wager, while I could see others being much stricter in what they'll allow; but that makes a big difference in how effective any given ability is in this game.

So, I had the thought: perhaps there would be a way to do away with all of that, though it would require a fairly major change to the game. Specifically, doing away with ablities' activation being based on players finagling the circumstances such that they can get a GM to agree that they apply. Instead, I was thinking you'd split up abilities into two categories: passive, and active. Passive abilities would be always-on (think the clothing-based advantages) but have a low (probably +1) bonus, or would have clear game-mechanics triggers (the "when you fail a roll, gain +2 to your next one" powers, for example). Most abilities would become active, having a limited number of uses per episode (many higher than our current such abilities I think, though I haven't figured what an appropriate number would be atm), but offering a higher bonus than the passive powers, and being something players can simply declare they're using, and they will apply, rather than being situational. A GM might take issue with how the player chooses to portray their use in-character, if it doesn't fit with the game's tone or something, but then it would just be incumbent on the player and GM to agree on a better way to portray it, not be a situation where the ability's use is being disallowed. This helps make balancing a lot easier, since you simply need to decide on the appropriate number of uses for a given benefit offered - everything that offers +2 to just one roll type gets five uses per episode, but if it offers it to two skill types it only gets four uses, etc, just to throw some numbers out there without having thought about them too much.

This does however fundamentally change how the game works in a sense, taking it from one where a central element is trying to find ways to apply your situational advantages, to more of a resource-management game. Though personally, I find that idea appealing, since I know that a contributing factor to burnout on the game for me in the past has been the need to constantly figure out, scene after scene, how to work in ways to apply my advantages; that just gets tiring after a while, rather than fun, as it is when the game first starts. It'd also potentially lead to some silly situations where it doesn't entirely make sense that an advantage being used applies, but I'd personally be fine with that, and just chalk it up to the game being fundamentally a comedy - just play it off in a goofy fashion when, say, the Sports Star somehow applies their Athletic skill bonus to a skill check meant to help them pass a math exam. Have fun with it.

I don't know, does that idea sound like anything to anyone else, or is it just me?

[Amaril]

Some of that could make for an interesting alternate system, I think - though as Illven said, I don't think it would necessarily fix the problem of whoever the most optimized player is just cruising to victory. I would personally say though, I hate the "Unleash Hell" idea. Any scenario where the PCs are expected to potentially kill each other sounds like a recipe for very quickly ruining any fun from the game to me, and I expect that I'd either avoid a game using that rule, or at least drop out as soon as it was invoked. The game's supposed to be largely light-hearted comedy, nobody should be ending up dead.

I mean, fair To be clear, that part was mostly a joke, in the sense of, "you can do this if you want to, but you really probably shouldn't."

Oh, Illven doesn't mean the player joined late - they were there from the start. They just missed scenes occasionally, including the majority of the second-to-last episode. Which is the only reason another character (mine, for whatever that matters), who was usually in second at the end of most episodes, was able to barely bring things to a draw, since Illven was awarding SP to the top three finishers of each episode, just more the higher you placed.

Though I do think he exaggerates things by suggesting that Vecna missed a whole third of the game, I don't think it was that extreme all told. It was just that him specifically not playing for the majority of that second-to-last episode, thereby not earning SP and giving my character the chance to take a first-place finish, was the only reason there was even a chance for a draw going into the final episode.

Ah, gotcha. Thanks for clarifying.

-snip-

I think it could totally work, but yeah, like you said, it would fundamentally change what I see as one of the game's two core challenge elements, from "creativity in working your situational advantages into the fiction" to "resource management."

Semi-related, your point about the creative narration thing gives me another idea that probably wouldn't work: since "comedy" is right there in the title, take a page from Toon. Every ability becomes unlimited-use, but in order to use it, you have to narrate it into the fiction of the scene, and then the rest of the group votes on a majority whether to allow it based on whether the way you narrated it was convincing and/or entertaining. If your narration makes someone at the table laugh out loud, they automatically vote in your favor. If your narration makes anyone laugh so hard they can't speak for a full five seconds, you win the vote automatically.

(Obviously, this would be an issue in a forum game...honor system, I guess?)

[Zevox]

Semi-related, your point about the creative narration thing gives me another idea that probably wouldn't work: since "comedy" is right there in the title, take a page from Toon. Every ability becomes unlimited-use, but in order to use it, you have to narrate it into the fiction of the scene, and then the rest of the group votes on a majority whether to allow it based on whether the way you narrated it was convincing and/or entertaining. If your narration makes someone at the table laugh out loud, they automatically vote in your favor. If your narration makes anyone laugh so hard they can't speak for a full five seconds, you win the vote automatically.

(Obviously, this would be an issue in a forum game...honor system, I guess?)

I'm not familiar with Toon. From how you describe it though, I could see that being a fun way to run a game somewhat similar to this in an in-person setting, but for this game in particular, I'd have reservations. Some abilities I'm not sure how you'd work with rules like those - I don't have the first clue how you'd in-fiction describe using Less is More, for example; and if you could, unlimited uses of it would become very overpowered. Meanwhile, for a lot of abilities the only difference from how it is now would be that you need to convince the other players to allow your abilities rather than just the GM. Which honestly seems sketchy to me for a competitive game, where those players have a strong incentive to object to everything they possibly can. And yeah, the laughter part doesn't work so well with play-by-post, that's for sure.

[Illven]

That's a good point. I admit, I haven't thought about it much. In general, I like to design from the assumption that all players (GM included) are acting fairly and in good faith OOC as much as possible, because if someone isn't, they can find a way to cause problems no matter what rules you're using; but I can see the need for some structure here, especially in a competitive game. I'd have to work on that.

I did think of a solution at work today, although I'm not sure if you'd like it. My concern is balancing the "heart"'s ability to change hands with making it feel like winning episode 1 isn't absolutely meaningless. (It shouldn't turn into a rout either of course). My idea is that while a player can set the scene for the purposes of applying advantages, etc. The dc starts at a certain number and that number increases slowly as the game goes on. (Probably not 1 for 1, in a long game that'd shortly turn into better hope you have an auto success or you can't win) This allows an early win to feel like it matters, while allowing for the possibility of a later win

Ah, that's my bad--I didn't clarify that I meant the group should decide whether the Tenchi Solution, Unleashing Hell, both, or neither would be available options at the start of the game, before anyone knows who'll win. That aside, my thinking behind requiring full group approval for the Tenchi Solution (despite it being much less of a narrative curveball than Unleashing Hell) was that I could see some players feeling it risks cheapening the competition if a player who captures Protagonist-kun's heart at the Last Chance mark can spoil the previous favorite's total victory that way, but now I think about it, the challenger has already earned that chance by winning the Last Chance episode. I think I'd actually have the Tenchi Solution in play automatically by default, but leave Unleashing Hell as an extra variant at group discretion.

The tenchi solution, sounds alot better. Initially to me it read as a player with no chance of winning getting to go. "I'm uncomfortable with a poly relationship being portrayed." And gets to throw a wench in possibly a quite nice developing polycule, that since they aren't in isn't any of their business. If it's known from the start, they know what they are getting into.

Er, sorry, I'm having some trouble parsing this one (which is my fault, I could've used clearer language for some of this stuff). Let's call the person who wins the Last Chance and chooses to Unleash Hell the "challenger," and the previous holder of Protagonist-kun's heart the "favorite." If Hell is Unleashed, and at the end of the finale, the favorite is alive and the challenger hasn't scored the most points, the favorite wins, regardless of who else is alive. If the favorite is dead and the challenger has won the most points, the challenger wins. If the favorite is dead and the challenger has not won the most points, no one wins; the challenger has ruined everything and achieved nothing. Unleashing Hell is not a cool or good thing to do.

Oh, it wasn't a judgement, I just wasn't sure what happened if the favorite was dead, and the challenger didn't have the most points. And I could see three main options based on fluff.
1) The last episode's winner is the knight in shining armor, and woos the protag.
2) The last episode's winner gets to woo the protag but it's an extremely toxic relationship where it's clear the protag is still deeply in love with the dead favorite.
3) Protag is too traumatized to date.

So, a comeback mechanic of some kind? Might help - though I fear it'd need to be pretty strong to have much impact.

Oh definitely. When Techno ran his East Marshall game he did something around the middle of the game.
He gave us each a list of additional abilities for each of us to pick from
Sakuya (The lead) got a set of weak and mediocre powers as long as they could at all be twisted to fit her personality.
Becca (Second place) got pretty much what most fits her personality. (And for some reason Everyone's big sis, AKA refluffed school queen. I ended up not taking it)
Molly (Third place) got a set of strong powers as long as they could at all be twisted to fit her personality.
Jill (Last place) got to literally pick whatever non supernatural ability her heart desires.

I imagine such a catch up system would include doing that every few episodes, so that maybe by the end of the game the person that's been in last place has four abilities of their choice.

On a similar subject, recent discussion in the current game's OOC thread had me thinking about the game's balance again, and a thought occurred to me. The reason I think that it's so hard to balance different options against each other in this game has to do with how most of the abilities are set up. Specifically, that they're applied under certain circumstances, which are tied to their flavor. That makes it very hard to sus out how easy or difficult they'll be to apply in actual practice when writing them, or what the appropriate level of ease or difficult in use should be when deciding how much of a bonus they should give. For instance, when I was writing my homebrew versions of the various archetypes, I made my version of Butt In apply to both Allure and Luck because I thought it was situational enough that it'd be on the more difficult side to apply if I left it as Allure only. In practice now playing with it, I find I was very wrong about that, it's actually quite easy to use almost whenever I want. Plus there's the element of the GM to consider - Illven's on the more permissive side I'd wager, while I could see others being much stricter in what they'll allow; but that makes a big difference in how effective any given ability is in this game.

So, I had the thought: perhaps there would be a way to do away with all of that, though it would require a fairly major change to the game. Specifically, doing away with ablities' activation being based on players finagling the circumstances such that they can get a GM to agree that they apply. Instead, I was thinking you'd split up abilities into two categories: passive, and active. Passive abilities would be always-on (think the clothing-based advantages) but have a low (probably +1) bonus, or would have clear game-mechanics triggers (the "when you fail a roll, gain +2 to your next one" powers, for example). Most abilities would become active, having a limited number of uses per episode (many higher than our current such abilities I think, though I haven't figured what an appropriate number would be atm), but offering a higher bonus than the passive powers, and being something players can simply declare they're using, and they will apply, rather than being situational. A GM might take issue with how the player chooses to portray their use in-character, if it doesn't fit with the game's tone or something, but then it would just be incumbent on the player and GM to agree on a better way to portray it, not be a situation where the ability's use is being disallowed. This helps make balancing a lot easier, since you simply need to decide on the appropriate number of uses for a given benefit offered - everything that offers +2 to just one roll type gets five uses per episode, but if it offers it to two skill types it only gets four uses, etc, just to throw some numbers out there without having thought about them too much.

This does however fundamentally change how the game works in a sense, taking it from one where a central element is trying to find ways to apply your situational advantages, to more of a resource-management game. Though personally, I find that idea appealing, since I know that a contributing factor to burnout on the game for me in the past has been the need to constantly figure out, scene after scene, how to work in ways to apply my advantages; that just gets tiring after a while, rather than fun, as it is when the game first starts. It'd also potentially lead to some silly situations where it doesn't entirely make sense that an advantage being used applies, but I'd personally be fine with that, and just chalk it up to the game being fundamentally a comedy - just play it off in a goofy fashion when, say, the Sports Star somehow applies their Athletic skill bonus to a skill check meant to help them pass a math exam. Have fun with it.

I don't know, does that idea sound like anything to anyone else, or is it just me?

I mean such a large change immediately rankles me, I'm not going to say it's a bad idea, but it does immediately get my guard up. (Plus you'd have the task of converting all the homebrew)

However I can see two issues that make universals difficult to balance in the general.
1) Permissiveness as you discussed.
2) The other major issue is episode length. If I run longer episodes it makes universals stronger, meanwhile if I run shorter episodes it makes them weaker. Getting 2 dazzling displays in 4 scenes is really strong, getting the same in 20 is much less strong.

[Zevox]

Oh definitely. When Techno ran his East Marshall game he did something around the middle of the game.
He gave us each a list of additional abilities for each of us to pick from
Sakuya (The lead) got a set of weak and mediocre powers as long as they could at all be twisted to fit her personality.
Becca (Second place) got pretty much what most fits her personality. (And for some reason Everyone's big sis, AKA refluffed school queen. I ended up not taking it)
Molly (Third place) got a set of strong powers as long as they could at all be twisted to fit her personality.
Jill (Last place) got to literally pick whatever non supernatural ability her heart desires.

I imagine such a catch up system would include doing that every few episodes, so that maybe by the end of the game the person that's been in last place has four abilities of their choice.

Interesting. Though I don't know how much I like the idea of handing out an extra ability specifically for this, but maybe that's just because we've got so many already in our current game.

I mean such a large change immediately rankles me, I'm not going to say it's a bad idea, but it does immediately get my guard up. (Plus you'd have the task of converting all the homebrew)

Homebrew? Uh, just to be clear Illven, I'm not proposing this as something we'd use in the current game you've got going. That's already started, it'd feel weird and wrong to be suggesting that we switch to a new system that I just made up as we were playing. The conversation there is just what prompted me to think of this, is all.

If I were to seriously try making this alternate version of the game - which I'd only even start putting effort into if there are others around who are interested in it - the goal would certainly just be to convert Rainey's original archetypes. Any homebrew stuff, well, we'd see where I was at after doing all that. If I even managed to finish that task, for that matter; I never quite finished my tweaks to the original archetypes back when I was doing that due to burnout, after all.

However I can see two issues that make universals difficult to balance in the general.
1) Permissiveness as you discussed.
2) The other major issue is episode length. If I run longer episodes it makes universals stronger, meanwhile if I run shorter episodes it makes them weaker. Getting 2 dazzling displays in 4 scenes is really strong, getting the same in 20 is much less strong.

By "universals" I assume you mean the conditional, unlimited-use abilities? Because honestly, I think they're only affected by episode length in a roundabout way - that really more impacts the limited-use abilities heavily. Which is something that would matter a lot for my suggested alternate version of the game, for sure - it'd need to be built with the expectation of a certain episode length stated up front, and probably give suggestions for how to change the number of uses abilities would get if episodes were going to be longer or shorter.

The bigger thing for conditional abilities is just the weird, guess-heavy nature of figuring out how easy their conditions are to meet, and how powerful their benefits should be based on that. You'd generally want the easiest to use abilities offering the lowest benefit (i.e. how I was always changing clothing-based advantages to only offer +1 Allure, since they were effectively always-on), and harder to use abilities to offer more benefits (a +2 bonus, affecting multiple roll types, etc), but that's not remotely where a lot of the abilities are in practice, and it's a pretty difficult assessment to make, especially without extensive play-testing. Doubly so because the conditions and what rolls the ability affects are heavily based on the flavor of the ability, so altering those parts is always difficult to do.

[Mutazoia]

So I just became aware that the old link to the PDF is no longer valid do to a "security update" so here is the new link to the PDF if anyone wants it...

[Lentrax]

For those who still lurk the thread and have it subscribed, I present to you.

The fabled…

Recruit thread!!!