Magical MacGyver side-by-side comparison game

**solidork** · 2023-03-27, 05:45 PM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by solidork

Spoiler: James Bond (Chuubo's Mortal)

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Skills:
Secret Agent 4 - Run. Jump. Shoot. Brawl. Drive. Pilot. Sabotage. Lie. Look good in a suit.
"The name's Bond. James Bond." 2 - Catchphrase for making an impactful first impression, often for seduction or intimidation.
Cool 2 - This is gives a penalty to anyone who tries to directly mess with Bond.

Affliction: Gadgets - It's a law of the universe that James Bond happens to have just the right gadget for whatever insurmountable problem he's faced with.
Bond: "I am driven to become romantically entangled with dangerous women." - Bond gets a boost to his seduction when there is competition or a good reason why they shouldn't be together. When this tendency gets him in trouble, he gets a boost of resources to spend on doing things.

Bonus Perks:
Power Up: Secret Agent - 2x per scenario Bond can treat his Secret Agent skill as a level 2 Superior Skill, letting him push it to superhuman levels.
Chi-Boost - 1x day Bond can spend an MP to get a +2 tool bonus to a skill he has at least 2 points in.
Extra Tough Health level.

Will: 8
Health: 2 Normal, 3 Tough

Spoiler: Solution

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Bond goes into see M and she gives him the lowdown on the scenario and says to stop by the armory because Q has something for him. He gets down there and witnesses a normal looking horse breathe some fire, but Q tells him that isn't ready yet and pulls out some glasses. These Spectral Spectacles reveal the current and past presence of the undead - you'd be able to follow a ghost all the way across the kingdom if you needed to. Bond pockets them and then takes his normal horse out of the stables and heads to this farm.

(The nitty gritty details of how Bond's "Gadget" affliction stipulate that he generally acquires them in this fashion, but in a pinch a device he's already got could reveal an unexpected feature. The miracle that creates these things is limited to 1-2 invocations per scene and is entirely in the hands of the GM to decide when it happens. This also makes it very difficult to take away his gizmos - a miracle will intervene if you think to try and take off his watch and you've got to beat it with another miracle.)

The way actions work in Chuubos is that you take your Skill, spend some will (in amounts of 1 2 4 or 8, spending 4 or 8 injures you) add them together and consult this chart - you're guaranteed everything up to the level you hit. Difficult situations might level a penalty. You get 1 spent will back when you're done doing the thing.

Spoiler: Intention Ladder

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0 - You attempt to do the thing, but only make it worse.
1 - Use your Skill in such a fashion as to please yourself and make yourself happy.
2 - accomplish a task; have a tangible impact on the world.
3 - do something "correctly"; impress people
4 - do something effective - something that moves you closer to your goals.
5 - do something productive - something that makes your life better.
6 - do something that looks dang good - impressive, dramatic or cool
7 - do something really effective, moving you a lot closer to your goals.
8 - do something really productive - it will make your life a lot better.
9 - do the "right thing", for some fuzzy definition of right.

Normal:
Bond rides out to the farm and meets with the farmer. Bond might flirt with his catchphrase, but he's only going to spend one will so there's just some good sexual tension. Bond applies his Spectacles and spends 2 Will with his Secret Agent skill to start locating the needle - there's a level 1 obstacle since the farmer wore it and has been all over the place. The GM might make Bond take a couple of days to search the whole farm, and bond might make some XP actions foreshadowing the stacks or comforting the farmer when he tells them the truth about what the Lich is and is doing. He uses his Secret Agent skill and some Will to evaluate if the Lich has got some plan for when the phylactery is broken - he doesn't think so. He breaks it and rides off into the sunset.

Medium:
Same as above, except he uses his Chi Power to boost his intention to 8 and claim "move a lot closer to his goals" so he can easily follow the trail of the needle carried by the bird. He still doesn't think the Lich has a failsafe so he breaks the needle.

Hard:
This time he's sure that the Lich is ready to get revenge if he's destroyed so he waits for the Lich to reform. Some stats for the Lich:

Skills
3 Necromancer
3 (Superior) Undead
2 Evil Overlord

Bond: I'm driven to uncover the secrets of death.
Affliction: I must return from death as long as my phylactary exists.

Bond pulls out all the stops to convince the Lich that the kingdom has agreed to his demands (4 skill + 4 will + 2 Chi boost - 1 Obstacle = 9), the Lich does his best to see through the ruse (2 Skill + 4 Will - 2 Bond's Cool) but doesn't stand a chance. Even if he nearly killed himself by spending all 8 will, he still wouldn't see through it because of Bond's Cool. The Lich can send the message without depleting his Will any further (I"m saying its Obstacle 2 for a Necromancer to speak through one of their minions).

At this point Bond needs to keep the Lich from sending the signal to kick of the Wights, and the GM honors his Affliction and tells him that his Glasses also function to disrupt Necromantic magic; he starts doing so with a level 6 intention (4 Skill + 2 Will). Since the Lich only has 4 Will left he can't send the message or do anything fancier like become ethereal and escape. He doesn't have any relevant skills to physically overpower Bond or escape the mundane way so he gets a silver hand crossbow bolt to the head and the kingdom is saved.

Conclusion: Having a level 4 Skill and a way to add applications to it on the fly is very powerful, as expected. If I had made his Bond something like "I'm driven to use my Gadgets to protect the Realm" he'd be able to easily take on most things that aren't miraculous.

Also, using Chuubo's rules is going to make pretty much every spell caster much weaker than they would be in just about any other system. In Chuubo's magical always faces an obstacle, so if something can be accomplished without magic then you're much better off. If you're a Fire Mage, lighting a candle is likely going to cost your resources unless you're a "professional" (level 3). You can't fling fire around in combat reliably without hurting yourself unless you're a once in a generation talent (level 4), or you've got a Bond or a Tool to help you.

**Ameraaaaaa** · 2023-03-27, 06:05 PM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by solidork

Spoiler: Solution

Show

Bond goes into see M and she gives him the lowdown on the scenario and says to stop by the armory because Q has something for him. He gets down there and witnesses a normal looking horse breathe some fire, but Q tells him that isn't ready yet and pulls out some glasses. These Spectral Spectacles reveal the current and past presence of the undead - you'd be able to follow a ghost all the way across the kingdom if you needed to. Bond pockets them and then takes his normal horse out of the stables and heads to this farm.

(The nitty gritty details of how Bond's "Gadget" affliction stipulate that he generally acquires them in this fashion, but in a pinch a device he's already got could reveal an unexpected feature. The miracle that creates these things is limited to 1-2 invocations per scene and is entirely in the hands of the GM to decide when it happens. This also makes it very difficult to take away his gizmos - a miracle will intervene if you think to try and take off his watch and you've got to beat it with another miracle.)

The way actions work in Chuubos is that you take your Skill, spend some will (in amounts of 1 2 4 or 8, spending 4 or 8 injures you) add them together and consult this chart - you're guaranteed everything up to the level you hit. Difficult situations might level a penalty. You get 1 spent will back when you're done doing the thing.

Spoiler: Intention Ladder

Show

0 - You attempt to do the thing, but only make it worse.
1 - Use your Skill in such a fashion as to please yourself and make yourself happy.
2 - accomplish a task; have a tangible impact on the world.
3 - do something "correctly"; impress people
4 - do something effective - something that moves you closer to your goals.
5 - do something productive - something that makes your life better.
6 - do something that looks dang good - impressive, dramatic or cool
7 - do something really effective, moving you a lot closer to your goals.
8 - do something really productive - it will make your life a lot better.
9 - do the "right thing", for some fuzzy definition of right.

Normal:
Bond rides out to the farm and meets with the farmer. Bond might flirt with his catchphrase, but he's only going to spend one will so there's just some good sexual tension. Bond applies his Spectacles and spends 2 Will with his Secret Agent skill to start locating the needle - there's a level 1 obstacle since the farmer wore it and has been all over the place. The GM might make Bond take a couple of days to search the whole farm, and bond might make some XP actions foreshadowing the stacks or comforting the farmer when he tells them the truth about what the Lich is and is doing. He uses his Secret Agent skill and some Will to evaluate if the Lich has got some plan for when the phylactery is broken - he doesn't think so. He breaks it and rides off into the sunset.

Medium:
Same as above, except he uses his Chi Power to boost his intention to 8 and claim "move a lot closer to his goals" so he can easily follow the trail of the needle carried by the bird. He still doesn't think the Lich has a failsafe so he breaks the needle.

Hard:
This time he's sure that the Lich is ready to get revenge if he's destroyed so he waits for the Lich to reform. Some stats for the Lich:

Skills
3 Necromancer
3 (Superior) Undead
2 Evil Overlord

Bond: I'm driven to uncover the secrets of death.
Affliction: I must return from death as long as my phylactary exists.

Bond pulls out all the stops to convince the Lich that the kingdom has agreed to his demands (4 skill + 4 will + 2 Chi boost - 1 Obstacle = 9), the Lich does his best to see through the ruse (2 Skill + 4 Will - 2 Bond's Cool) but doesn't stand a chance. Even if he nearly killed himself by spending all 8 will, he still wouldn't see through it because of Bond's Cool. The Lich can send the message without depleting his Will any further (I"m saying its Obstacle 2 for a Necromancer to speak through one of their minions).

At this point Bond needs to keep the Lich from sending the signal to kick of the Wights, and the GM honors his Affliction and tells him that his Glasses also function to disrupt Necromantic magic; he starts doing so with a level 6 intention (4 Skill + 2 Will). Since the Lich only has 4 Will left he can't send the message or do anything fancier like become ethereal and escape. He doesn't have any relevant skills to physically overpower Bond or escape the mundane way so he gets a silver hand crossbow bolt to the head and the kingdom is saved.

With the power of narrative logic james bond is unstoppable!

As for the discussion on wealth i guess it depends. Since 1 4th of my build is relent on it i feel fine using it. Since everything is at a legendary level (6d6) i feel fine with using it willy nilly.

**Telok** · 2023-03-27, 09:30 PM (ISO 8601)

Re: wealth & xp

In all the systems I'm checking for "xp" or the skill ups you get for survival/success is all fooled with between game sessions. So there's no "middle of the session" stuff going on.

Paranoia doesn't truly care about money. Everything belongs to the Computer and thought crime to the contrary is all commie propaganda. Gear is assigned, R&D is insane, voulnteer mandatory bonus duty stuff is locked in. Besides, the IR/black market is typically inaccessible once the mission starts because, well, it's treason and so is walking off alone. Ok, walking off alone isn't technically directly treason, but it's a really really good way to get framed for everything and that's the same thing.

Traveller uses money but you're looking at basic (if high teched) civillian stuff at the level these things care about. A 40 year mortgaged 30 million credit spaceship is a plot driver & enabler, not a pile of fungible cash burning a hole in your pocket. Heck, the useful but dumb robot helper was new luxury car levels of money and involved near five years of savings to buy outright. Good luck getting a better one on mortgage with 5% down in less than two weeks of shopping and negotiations. Plus these scenarios generally happening on more primitive planets will pretty heavily limit what you can usefully buy.

Dungeons the Dragoning tho... well that's a abstract wealth system but it's still limited by what's available and how long it takes to find stuff. Suffice to say it's likely not an issue in these scenarios. Nobody's selling magic items in a market this game anyway. The least artifact would cost as much as the best quality power armors and strain even a max wealth character to their limits, in addition to taking months (years if the hero isn't personally doing the looking personally) and needing a 10 million+ population major metropolis. Sure, Gun Whore Bob might be willing to trade that AT-ST for a favor and throw a few bags of gemstones around, but "buy a castle and noble title on an undeveloped backwater world without indoor plumbing" isn't very important or useful to that character.

**NichG** · 2023-03-27, 10:58 PM (ISO 8601)

As far as spare build points in point based system, I think what would fit the spirit of the experiment would be amounts around the order of 'what you'd expect to have sitting around while you wait to buy the next expensive thing'. So e.g. if this were WoD Mage and you were saving to afford Arete 4 and then randomly a situation dropped that might require spending some XP, you'd have between 0 and 30xp saved. But you wouldn't generally expect to have like 80 points sitting around fallow.

As to the specific scenario responses, looks good, this is the sort of thing I wanted to see! For cases where there are details you'd like to know but I didn't provide, feel free to improv them (like why that idiot killed the lich during the negotiations and what was up with him, or how the kingdom knew about the phylactery but not exactly its location). For reference, the excuses I'd give as a GM would be 'yeah, that guy was a Pelorite plant' and 'Legend Lore was used on the lich and it gave something similar to the fable of Koschei the Deathless e.g. the soul is in a needle inside an egg inside a duck inside a hare inside a log on an island in an ocean, kinds of vague nonsense'.

For those who have run a lot of characters, do you think you could categorize the feel of thinking through the scenario across those characters/systems? Any hints of different quantifiable aspects of systems in that regard yet? It might be a bit early since there's five more to go...

**Quertus** · 2023-03-27, 11:19 PM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by Satinavian

Experience is tricky because for point buy that basically amounts to "I only build the character after i know the challenge". And that runs very much counter to the whole setup.

I feel like you've just succinctly stated the point I was getting at, while simultaneously dismissing it.

The "Voltron" feel ostensibly under investigation in this thread quite literally entails, "which systems have a huge catalog of abilities that you can shop for after knowing the challenge?". Granted, it's bigger than that, in that it also includes "that weren't explicitly written for the purpose of handling such challenges" and "that you can combine to handle the challenge in unexpected ways".

AND, (IMO), with some consideration of what gameplay would look like at an actual table. Just because a D&D character could enter the adventure naked doesn't mean that anyone at an actual table would ever actually do so. Whereas XP is much more likely to be sitting around in potentially useful sizes at actual tables, IME.

So, I'm potentially tainting my own results, but I walked into this expecting that the results would probably look something like, "D&D has huge Voltron potential on paper, but I'm too clueless and lazy to use it, and most actual characters at actual tables aren't going to save up significant funds ahead of time unless it's to buy the next big thing;" "Even then, characters are unlikely to trade large quantities of (resources for) long-term power for short-term benefits in a single scenario;" and "MtG, played with towns selling cheap spells like D&D sells items has HUGE Voltron potential". And most other systems saying "... Vole what now?".

That said, I'm more interested in a holistic look at the differences in how systems feel than just the singular focus of Voltron ability that this thread was created to investigate, so I'm not really focused on that one little detail.

Which is why I made that big post asking about the concept of resources throughout systems, to see if my take on the general feel of such resources rung true. It was my mistake to ground it too much in the specifics of this comparison.

**icefractal** · 2023-03-28, 01:11 AM (ISO 8601)

So having already read the first scenario before deciding to play, I'm going to use some existing characters rather than make one for this purpose.

Spoiler: Hero System, lower-end Superheroic

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The power level seems roughly equivalent to (somewhat optimized) mid-level D&D in terms of abilities. The character is an inorganic shapeshifter, think like the T-1000 or Plastic Man in terms of abilities, including the ability to include slightly-above-modern technology in their form. And being in a comic-book style world, probably ended up in fantasy-land through an unstable portal, needs help to get back, and is doing stuff like this in the meantime.

Finding the needle is the easy part. I can turn into a big octopus with hundreds of tentacles that end in metal-detectors, so searching the hay bales is easy. If it's not there, I can fly at fighter-jet speed to the places the wagons were sent and search there as well. IDK if I'd spot the farmer's guilt, but it won't change anything really - I don't have a way to talk to a bird.

But then what to do with the needle? I don't have a high opinion of someone who'd use mass destruction as a deterrent, so if I was sure the Lich had no failsafe I'd just break the needle on the spot, or shoot it into the sun if it's indestructible. But I'm used to supervillains who often have dead-man switches, so I'm assuming that's a possibility.

If I fight the Lich, it depends largely on initiative, and seems quite risky. If I go first (probably +10-15 initiative in D&D terms), then I could grapple quite well and cover his mouth in the process. No buffs and no items, so the Lich isn't immune, and then I'm good if he doesn't have something like a Silent Teleport. But since this is an obvious weakness of coming back from a phylactery, the odds of having something like that prepared are pretty good. Actually with no buffs and no items, I could quite possibly just re-kill him, but that just kicks the can down the road and solves nothing.

This is the part where in practice I'd ask the kingdom whether they have any Lich-containment measures, but since this is supposed to be about the character's capabilities I'll assume they can't help.

So then my plan (after consulting with a couple sages) is to fly out in space at least 3000 miles or so (with the needle). That won't stop Greater Teleport, but it will stop regular Teleport. Then I turn into a room with (what looks like) a couple people in it. One of them is the assassin who destroyed the Lich at the meeting, now chained up. The other is one of the kingdom's officials, holding a big sign saying "We Surrender! Don't destroy the kingdom!" I'm hoping that will buy me enough time to talk to the Lich and find out what his terms for not setting off the apocalypse are.

Can I convince the Lich? I don't know. My social skills are decent but not godly. I can be extremely intimidating, but the Lich is immune to that. I do at least have some useful leverage - I can launch his phylactery into the sun. I don't think I have that much to offer him (bodyguard during the next negotiation, I guess), so it's more stick than carrot. If he sets it off immediately without waiting to talk, I guess I can still use that leverage for learning where it's initiated from. Unless of course he immediately teleports away. In which case, needle goes into the sun, good luck surviving your next death *******.

So if that fails, we go to Plan B - stop the apocalypse. This is a lot easier if the Lich told me where the initial spreading point is, but if not then I fly around the kingdom like a spy plane looking for signs of combat within a town. Wights are about zero threat to me (immune to energy drain, and aside from that they're chumps) and only move at normal human speeds, so if I can get there fast enough then I can just destroy them all, though some people in town will die so it's not a complete win. If they manage to spread to multiple towns (and here I'll say that being 1-2 hours away out in space is in retrospect a bad move, but since I had no knowledge of how the signal worked it seemed reasonable) then I think I can probably still stop it, but a lot of people are going to die before that, so that's more like a qualified fail.

All that said, I'm not sure how much this says about Hero System. The character has the right conditions for this kind of scenario (a somewhat broad but not unlimited portfolio, lots of utility abilities) because that's the kind of characters I like making. Other characters of the same power-level could be nearly useless in the scenario, or have such universal capabilities it's not even interesting.

That took longer than I thought, will add some more over the next few days.

**Telok** · 2023-03-28, 02:17 AM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by NichG

For those who have run a lot of characters, do you think you could categorize the feel of thinking through the scenario across those characters/systems? Any hints of different quantifiable aspects of systems in that regard yet? It might be a bit early since there's five more to go...

Well, as I said I'm sort of trying to translate the scenarios into Paranoia & Traveller as best I can while keeping as close to the original and in the spirit of it. DtD40k7e is super easy as it's D&D 2e & 3e smooshed up with WH40k, WoD, and a bunch of other stuff.

On thought processes:

Spoiler

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Paranoid Bob is likely near clueless about a bunch of stuff.

Spoiler

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Especially anything outside Alpha Complex (outdoor life @ 1). Combined with the usual partially accurate briefing, alternately terrifying or useless R&D gear, conflicting orders, inane gear requisitions from the commissary... PB is a walking comedy of errors trying to survive and make a few explosions happen, as is only right and good given the system. Thought processes are semi-anarchist oppressed worker drone given a gun, a limited license to kill, massively incomplete and possibly wildly inaccurate information, and will be punished for failure by different factions with conflucting priorities.

Traveling Bob is a 60ish year old professional scientist with a laboratory spaceship and a (very limited but very skilled & strong) robot pilot.

Spoiler

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This character's thoughts are easy. Basically modern western human with some access to advanced tech. This is very much a field archeologist / disease control front lines / "it works or people die" mechanical engineer type of science, not academia or stuck in a lab insulated from downstream consequences.

Diplomat Bob is a vampire dryad vice president of an interstellar megacorporation.

Spoiler

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This comes closest to qualifies for "alien though processes". But really it breaks down into pretty simple sets. 1. Immortal therefore seek to survive, tougher than regular people but weaker than dedicated combat exalts, requires blood. 2. Collect power, followers, & allies, long term planning is on the table. And that's basically it. The things that are super variant from standard faux-medieval fantasy tropes are being high in the power structure of a major corporation and a willingness (& ability) to drop a failing situation and walk off without regret of blowback. So angle anything for personal long term advantage if possible and early exit if things go south, but has access to the resources of a megacorp for longer term planning.

Gun Whore Bob is pretty close to a traditional faux-medieval fantasy trope adventurer.

Spoiler

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More tech, more anti-grav moving vans, but basically similar to a high level AD&D fighter/specialist wizard (super mounts, magic items, elite troops, golf bag of weapons, great at hitting stuff).

The "AD&D" bit is important, before WotC wizards didn't (default rules) get automatic known spells, fast or flexible slots or recharge, unlimited potential, or easy access to new spells & magic item creation. GWB has five locked in spells and the two highest aren't foolproof. I do have rules for permanent enchantments and demon summoning, but those are 3-6 weeks or 1100-1300 hours of work per instance because GWB isn't optimized that way (even then you aren't getting them under a week or two for a mid range demon or 500 hours for a basic simple permanent spell).

What GWB does have is wealth, but the DtD40k7e wealth rules make rustling up useful stuff on primitive planets mostly impossible. Buy people off with gold bricks? Easy. But like the first scenario? It'd only be any real use buying a bunch of grain at a few markets (and that's just being nice about it & not taking it at gun point). The trucks to hop over to the next town at 75 mph and haul it in were way more important.

Edit: I think what I mean is that since these aren't straight combat scenarios you look at your characters "resources" and what they mean in the game narrative that's backed/promoted by the system mechanics, then you bring those to bear on the issue. So like a 9th level straight D&D fighter with just magic armor & weapons and good "can fight" resource is basically hosed. But if the character has a a noble title and is buddy-buddy with Gandalf/Elminster they have a chance if the system allows those things to have mechanical weight like you'd expect from a story narrative. If the system says all your non-"can fight" resources are roll 11+ on a d20 for personal skill, a npc commoner "squire", and the ability to talk to the mighty mage if you can find them (roll) and get to them in time (roll) and convince them (roll), then you're back to being hosed.

This means games that give you world connections to powerful individuals or factions and enforce that through actual mechanics are going to potentially have an outsized influence on the scenarios over basic "I have personal power". On the other hand we have supers games with ultra flexi powers and sillyness (if you assume an idiot savant GM who never says no) like dumping all your points into a 'luck' power, or some versions of D&D spell casters (3.5e - scroll of limited wish to psychic reformation to 50xp per level rewritten of feats skills and learned spells).

**NichG** · 2023-03-28, 02:48 AM (ISO 8601)

Hm, I meant more like the player side, like... From what people have said so far I might identify four broad categories:

- The process is that the player decides how they will succeed (within a framework of constraints) and creates that directly, e.g. freeform powers, dramatic editing, etc. I'd expect the feel to be like 'make it up' improv.
- The player searches for a way to succeed in an external predefined set of elements and combinations which they can get access to. I'd expect the feel to be like engineering or charop.
- The player asks the dice if/how they succeed - what happens is not within complete control, or intentional sacrifice of control is fundamental. Feels like gambling, being surprised, ...?
- The player can mostly only make the decisions that would determine success or failure before they have the relevant information for those decisions, e.g. 'for a given character, the scenario decides if they succeed or fail more than the gameplay does'. Feels like... watching a Rube Goldberg device, simulation, etc unfold? Dunno...

The category probably applies more to particular builds than systems, but systems might have tendencies here as well given the responses so far.

Curious if there are others? Different breakdown? Are these corellated with the feel of solving the scenario at all?

**Ameraaaaaa** · 2023-03-28, 03:32 AM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by NichG

Hm, I meant more like the player side, like... From what people have said so far I might identify four broad categories:

- The process is that the player decides how they will succeed (within a framework of constraints) and creates that directly, e.g. freeform powers, dramatic editing, etc. I'd expect the feel to be like 'make it up' improv.
- The player searches for a way to succeed in an external predefined set of elements and combinations which they can get access to. I'd expect the feel to be like engineering or charop.
- The player asks the dice if/how they succeed - what happens is not within complete control, or intentional sacrifice of control is fundamental. Feels like gambling, being surprised, ...?
- The player can mostly only make the decisions that would determine success or failure before they have the relevant information for those decisions, e.g. 'for a given character, the scenario decides if they succeed or fail more than the gameplay does'. Feels like... watching a Rube Goldberg device, simulation, etc unfold? Dunno...

The category probably applies more to particular builds than systems, but systems might have tendencies here as well given the responses so far.

Curious if there are others? Different breakdown? Are these corellated with the feel of solving the scenario at all?

The 1st 2 categories are probably the strongest for solving the challenges tbh. Given 1 is ultra flexible and the other is highly optimized.

Btw which one would you say if my risus character?

**Quertus** · 2023-03-28, 09:19 AM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by Telok

Well, as I said I'm sort of trying to translate the scenarios into Paranoia & Traveller as best I can while keeping as close to the original and in the spirit of it. DtD40k7e is super easy as it's D&D 2e & 3e smooshed up with WH40k, WoD, and a bunch of other stuff.

And that has been a blast to read!

I took the opposite approach, of magic is magic, because that's what I'm used to.

Originally Posted by NichG

For those who have run a lot of characters, do you think you could categorize the feel of thinking through the scenario across those characters/systems? Any hints of different quantifiable aspects of systems in that regard yet? It might be a bit early since there's five more to go...

Originally Posted by NichG

Hm, I meant more like the player side, like... From what people have said so far I might identify four broad categories:

- The process is that the player decides how they will succeed (within a framework of constraints) and creates that directly, e.g. freeform powers, dramatic editing, etc. I'd expect the feel to be like 'make it up' improv.
- The player searches for a way to succeed in an external predefined set of elements and combinations which they can get access to. I'd expect the feel to be like engineering or charop.
- The player asks the dice if/how they succeed - what happens is not within complete control, or intentional sacrifice of control is fundamental. Feels like gambling, being surprised, ...?
- The player can mostly only make the decisions that would determine success or failure before they have the relevant information for those decisions, e.g. 'for a given character, the scenario decides if they succeed or fail more than the gameplay does'. Feels like... watching a Rube Goldberg device, simulation, etc unfold? Dunno...

The category probably applies more to particular builds than systems, but systems might have tendencies here as well given the responses so far.

Curious if there are others? Different breakdown? Are these corellated with the feel of solving the scenario at all?

I dropped a knife back behind my stove. Can I reach it? Hmmm... is there a different approach that will let me reach it? Do I have any tools I can use to reach it? Can I get any tools to reach it? Borrow? Buy? Maybe I could ask someone with smaller hands / longer arms? Can I move the stove? ... Do I really care about that knife?

Most characters in most systems, including the poster <Quertus> IRL, you start with what is familiar and in-character, the atomic button presses that the character is accustomed to using. When those fail, you "get creative", evaluating less common buttons, combinations of buttons, the environment, resources you are willing to expend.

Because I'm running too many characters, I've kinda done a poor job of explaining all the details, like how different characters have different amounts of Knowledge, and how that affects their options (although, in the recent scenario #1, it seemed that the briefing covered most of the basics, and this didn't matter as much).

That said, I guess I can make a few comments and predictions.

Let's start by discussing ~~Voltron~~ Focus(?) and Character Growth

The characters who felt like they were shopping through a big catalog of options included the MtG Elven Chronomancer, M&M - Omni-Wizard, and Paradox Cutter Fyord. In MtG, I gave myself a limit on each card, attempting to optimize each atomic action, whereas in M&M, there was a total budget limit at any given time, and definite demands on that budget. Paradox, the catalog seems like a blank check, but is limited by the character's experience and imagination (and no other players seemed to understand how to use the system as safely or effectively as I did, so the character seems like some mad prodigy, safely casting dangerous Wild Magic to safely cast Wishes, to put it in D&D terms). The 3e D&D Wizzard Whizzy definitely felt that there was a catalog of options outside their own personal ability; however, aside from a Potion of Glibness that they never used, they didn't really touch that catalog in the Needle in a Haystack challenge #1.

In both the MtG Elven Chronomancer and 3e D&D Wizzard Whizzy, there's a definite sense that purchases of spells can lead to a permanent increase in the character's options moving forward (which is why the MtG Mage looks at the cost of each individual card, and the value of adding it to their infinite sideboard). OTOH, when the M&M - Omni-Wizard summons things, it can lead to a temporary (cannot summon again for a while if they die) or permanent (HOUSE RULE and RP - summons treated poorly (and their "relatives" and "neighbors") might be unfriendly on future summons) reduction in options. Paradox Cutter Fyord has a completely different set of concerns, as he's looking at how badly he's going to mess up the world, how bad things would be if turned against him, and what options are going to ensure he never ends up in a fight. Or something of that ilk.

Speaking of character degradation over time, John Faseman of Marvel has felt depressingly like the world is eating away at him, rather than that he's making progress, as these scenarios have definitely had much more potential for loss of Karma (XP) than for actual karmic gains. There's probably a reason he retired to be a Guild Master in a fantasy world.

One could argue that 2e Cleric of D&D Arma has the most access to catalogs of options, having both spells and items to pick from by the rules of this comparison, yet, by virtue of my experience with 2e, it feels much more appropriate to focus on individual atomic actions. So the options are there, but the feel isn't. But that's almost certainly a "me" thing, and might change by the end of this. And, from the meta-scenario I set, Arma is very concerned with the growth or degradation of the world (such as it is); her concept of "personal growth" has largely been replaced with a sense of Community.

Similarly focused on individual atomic actions are the Shadowrun Troll Wizard and Warhammer - Mr. T. I expect this to remain true for Mr. T, but to craft options that result in a growth of character options for the Shadowrun character.

The Paradox Telepathic Vampire has a very strong focus on the Environment. Granted, that's not a system thing, but a character thing - he is definitely the character most interested in making friends / allies, and he's always wondering where he'll get his next meal.

I'm sure Paradox Cutter Fyord seems OP enough that one expects that he feels like, "the player decides how they will succeed", but that's due to the nature of the challenges; in a "suddenly, 3 goblins!" scenario, Cutter would be panicking (although, since he's not naked, a sane player wouldn't worry until at least "suddenly, 3 orcs!", and wouldn't start panicking until something closer to "suddenly, 3 ogres!"). However, from the way I set the meta-scenario of the "Another World" video game up, the weakest of my entries, Alex Knight, the WoD shut-in, actually is in the OP "decide how he wins" setup of feel; even though he pretends he's looking through a huge catalog of options, it's just a coincidence for his inevitable victory.

So that just leaves WoD Harry tHH, M&M - Alex Daeus, and Star Trek - LtC Vir. Staltek Vir... really ought to think in terms of backup plans, if we were looking at things from either a system optimization or intelligent scientist perspective, but that's rarely the Star Trek way. Instead, they just "75+%? Yes." their way through anything that doesn't involve convincing the natives of anything. Which, for Star Trek technology on a primitive world, is kinda appropriate. However, they are (in effect) shopping through the small catalog of "tools I remember from Star Trek", as opposed to the "writer adds a new McGuffin every episode" / "write how you win" feel that many Star Trek episodes use. Harry the Happy Hermetic has a whole array of things he can do with his Spheres and skills; I'm just limited by the lack of the book and related lack of having actually built his character sheet. I know roughly what the character should be able to do, and built him as "75+%? Yes" for magic... except that I'm winging it for "but how many successes does he need?". So when playing him, I'm having him look for solutions that don't require big successes, where "simply succeeding" is enough. Arguably, all 3 characters are looking through the catalog named "Science!" for their solutions, even if they each got different, contradictory editions of that catalog.

The role (heh) of Chance in determining the outcome is an interesting question. I'm tempted to make some big chance / scenario / character / [resources (which is actually secretly a fancy defined interface for "Player Skill")] theory here, but let's save that for after we've gone through more scenarios.

First off, the nature of the thread, the "assume 75+% -> success, below that is failure" actually greatly biases any conversation about the role of chance in RPGs. Just wanted to get that out there. That said...

When it comes to the role of chance, the easiest for me to talk about here is the Paradox Telepathic Vampire. Paradox (1e) is a great system for teaching people the importance of planning / having backup plans / thinking on your feet when your first plan fails. So, really, chance less affects your chance of success (unless you're a moron), and more affects how ~~you succeed, what success looks like~~ the narrative progresses, BUT you can make "all roads lead to Rome" easily enough, to where it's more "which way you made it to your objective" (and what you gave up along the way).

Which isn't to say that Paradox couldn't be played as "single attempt, pass/fail", or that in other systems characters don't benefit from having backup plans and fallback plans and such. Just that IME Paradox is at the sweet spot for evoking such as intelligent behavior, of having good cost/reward ratio at the table.

Still on the same character, there's something of a meta-layer. That is, I went in with the "assume the GM will make you roll" mindset, in part because of the nature of the comparison. But (especially) things like negotiations are often handled through pure RP, with the GM simply roleplaying the Lich and asking themselves, "well, gee, how would the Lich respond to this offer?". (And these meta-concerns, of Knowledge:GM and table culture and wasting people's time is something I'll post about here in a bit, I imagine, senility willing, if I don't make it part of this post).

Some systems give the player some degree of control over when they succeed. The Good Karma of Shadowrun, the Hero Points of M&M, the Luck Domain or Fate of One of 3e D&D. Actually, M&M can even give the hero some control over when they fail / the challenges they face, as (for example) my M&M Alex Daeus gained a Hero Point in Challenge 0 by declaring the added complication that they couldn't build their heavy fortifications near the edge of the cliff. Marvel goes so far as to give characters the option for complete control over when they succeed, as they can always spend XP to make any roll.

Then we get to the flow of events. Some systems only have the concept of pass/fail, while others have the concept of degrees of success (which is something I usually HOUSE RULE into almost any system). Some systems have the concept of costs or side effects of the attempt, even if that's only time or resources as opposed to change in narrative state, but some bake the question of whether there are such costs or side-effects into the roll.

The narrative flow chart can be controlled by the GM, controlled by the player, controlled by the dice, or controlled by the scenario. Arguably, different systems lend themselves to different choices here.

But, again, the "75+% assume success" conceit of the thread throws this question into flux, as in practice in this thread, there is no chance, no real narrative flowchart of rolls once the characters and scenario are set.

In practice, IME, Paradox lends itself to having backup plans, where the narrative flows through the flow chart created by repeated failures until you reach an acceptable state from which to continue. Certain systems, like Warhammer, lend themselves to "have everyone roll / keep throwing guardsmen/bullets/dice at the problem until it goes away, someone's got to succeed" loops. D&D and Shadowrun can certainly be played that way. As the origin of Combat as War, it should come as no surprise that D&D lends itself to a mindset where you collect the tools or build up the bonuses to ensure that we never need to roll. One would think that the limited resources and costs of failure in WoD would produce a parody of an old commercial, where everyone is standing around saying I don't want to use my power, he's your friend, you use your power, but, in practice, it's more of a case of when all you have is a hammer narrative reframing commandeering the flow. Which is definitely how my Shadowrun and Warhammer characters have felt thus far. In general, I'd say that characters in most systems are incentivized to attempt solutions where the fail states most likely return you back to the initial start state before attempting solutions where the fail state degrades the game state whenever possible, all other things being equal.

And this is getting really long. Does it make any sense? Thoughts?

**Ameraaaaaa** · 2023-03-28, 09:40 AM (ISO 8601)

Lotta words that i partly understand. You certainly put more thought into it then me Quertus.

I'd say for my risus character it was mostly about coming up with a plan then figuring out how that worked mechanically.

I needed to be able to talk to the lich so i hired watch men with teleport stones. I already discounted the possibility of having my gal find the needle.

Then i just needed to talk the lich down.

Step one hire guards with teleport stones.
Step two wait.
Step three use teleport stone.
Step four talk the lich down.

Very simple plan.

Mechanically it's 1, maybe 2 rolls to buy the equipment and manpower (depending on whether the gm separated the two purchases)

Then a simple social combat.

Essentially it's risus being itself. A really rules light game.

**Telok** · 2023-03-28, 10:32 AM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by Quertus

But, again, the "75+% assume success" conceit of the thread throws this question into flux, as in practice in this thread, there is no chance, no real narrative flowchart of rolls once the characters and scenario are set.

Yeah, the 75% thing is a bit of an issue for me. I'm not holding real hard to it because many things in most scenarios for my systems wouldn't be sort of one-off do or die checks.

While Traveller is full on simulation mode the game 2d6+skill+mods vs target is variable enough to confuse stuff, not in rolling but in setting those +1 & +2 mods. Like I recall a computer hacking in one adventure that was something around Computers vs 10, but +1 if Int was 9+ and +1 if Edu was 10+ and +2 if Admin skill was 3+ and auto success if you had five hundred credits plus Bribery vs something on the person who usually did the job. Throw in that there's multiple paths available at once and you get limited retries... there's a lot depending on how actual individual checks get described because there isn't a strongly set difficulty chart. Technically you'd need to get the rolls down to 5+ on the dice, but that's hard for near anyone on a lot of stuff and the game isn't really about one roll solutions.

Paranoia has an issue with the 75% because the game is aimed at being funny, not successful and there's no simulationist modifiers on the die rolls. It's "rule of funny" not "rule of cool". Plus the peversity... economy is way way too strong a word... Basically, unopposed, Paranoid Bob could own two rolls a scenario by spending peversity points. But you're supposed to be riffing around the table gaining & using them all session which requires multiple people, characters in conflict, and... well it's really subjective. But by that 75% thing the only thing Paranoid Bob can ever do is the matter eater mutation. Which admittedly does let PB safely consume & digest a nuclear submarine, given enough time, but makes the whole scenario about "how can we use one weird trick to win because everything else is 100% failure".

DtD40k7e is somewhere between those. It runs mostly simulation but has the exalt resources that are a sort of in universe metacurrency, plus the actual hero point meta currency, and then the stunting that's baked in. It's set for characters owning normal/hard stuff in their focus and going full cinematic action hero at critical moments to do impossible stuff. You can start off being a faction leader in Sigil with the Lady of Pain on speed dial and own your own pleasure planet, or be capable of solo fighting a tarrasque if you focus on that instead. But while being a faction leader or ultra rich has mechanics in the game they're along the lines of "stuff fitting X level of narrative appropriate stuff", plus you can roll it like a skill with hero points and stunting. I could have built GWB as a divination caster spamming luck & reroll spells plus stunting to hit the magic 75% on basically anything they try.

**NichG** · 2023-03-28, 11:46 AM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by Ameraaaaaa

The 1st 2 categories are probably the strongest for solving the challenges tbh. Given 1 is ultra flexible and the other is highly optimized.

Btw which one would you say if my risus character?

To me I would expect it to feel most like category 1 ('this is a creative writing exercise, I have to figure out a story about how being a rich ninja lets me find a lost object quickly'), with the next closest category being 4 (if e.g. the GM is very strict on how skill names are interpreted, or if you didn't give yourself sufficiently broad concepts, then it could become 'welp, I guess I just brought the wrong character, anyone else got anything?'). Even though dice are involved, and you don't get like infinite rerolls in Risus (because failures and successes change your dice pool sizes if I remember correctly?), I would expect that the bulk of the player's mental activity with regards to the scenario would be more of the 'I have to come up with a plausible story about how I make contact with this problem' rather than like 'Imma draw from the Deck of Many Things and hope a solutions presents itself'

How did your own mental process feel when working out the scenario?

Originally Posted by Quertus

I dropped a knife back behind my stove. Can I reach it? Hmmm... is there a different approach that will let me reach it? Do I have any tools I can use to reach it? Can I get any tools to reach it? Borrow? Buy? Maybe I could ask someone with smaller hands / longer arms? Can I move the stove? ... Do I really care about that knife?

Most characters in most systems, including the poster <Quertus> IRL, you start with what is familiar and in-character, the atomic button presses that the character is accustomed to using. When those fail, you "get creative", evaluating less common buttons, combinations of buttons, the environment, resources you are willing to expend.

...

And this is getting really long. Does it make any sense? Thoughts?

In a sense, if the 'catalog' is your character sheet, I might call that category 4 - did you bring the stuff that will be needed? No? Well you should have predicted it! If the catalog is actually some external concrete set of information that can be perused, like book diving for a polymorph form that will solve your problem or even 'actual MacGyver gameplay' in asking the GM what sort of junk is lying around the scene so you can use it to build a homemade metal detector (but only if the components happen to be around, otherwise you might end up with a homemade flamethrower or homemade grain sieve or whatnot) then that sort of dynamic is what I was thinking of as category 2. If on the other hand, you're the one who gets to determine what junk is lying around and you just need a consistent and plausible story about how random junk could make a homemade metal detector, its category 1.

So like, when you talk about the catalog of 'Science!', is that literally a source book that you're perusing, or is that license to come up with anything that feels Science!-like as long as the GM would find it thematically coherent, and the sense of it being a catalog is through e.g. treating the whole of sci-fi/fantasy literature as things you could point to and say 'yes this is thematically coherent'? Also, I can see how in general OP-ness leans towards 'the player decides how they will succeed', but the distinction (I was making) between that and category 2 would be whether that OP-ness is because some existing pathways already take you there and just need to be found, or whether you can literally write yourself that pathway and make it take forms that you think would be neat (as long as you can get the GM/table to agree). Like the difference between using the allowed safe uses of Wish in a solution (category 2), versus going outside of those safe uses and just trying to come up with a Wish that sounds sufficiently clever that the people at the table let it work (category 1).

Anyhow, the stuff about the cost/risk of stepping forward (character degeneration for actually engaging with the scenario, or needing to very carefully plot out all sorts of counterfactual what if scenarios because otherwise the system might crash you into a wall) does seem to be a pretty distinct feel. I could definitely see some systems where its like 'don't even take the first action unless you've thought through the entire flowchart' because of a combination of rising stakes, low possibility to ensure or predict outcomes, etc. I suppose another categorization, taking the 'cares about the environment' point a bit further, is characters/systems who are extremely dependent on the long-term construction of specific relationships or infrastructure or knowledge in the campaign's play space. So this would be sort of like category 4, except that rather than it being destiny once character generation/build choices are done, the game is sort of like 'you know that there will be difficult tests coming, how quickly can you build up the knowledge, favors, etc so that when those tests hit, you will have a solution?'.

For example if someone was running a character from Crusader Kings 3 or something like that, they could be quite able - but only if the scenario took place in their world with their politics and allies and conspirators and so on in place. Isekai them and they lose their biggest feature (having a hierarchy of people owing them fealty), because the game is actually about 'a race to prepare faster than the other guys' rather than 'how do we actually fight when we finally have to throw down?'.

**Telok** · 2023-03-28, 01:23 PM (ISO 8601)

Hmmm. How the action process feels from a player perspective... that's mostly player based, but the exercise cares about how the system affects it?

I, personally, have two distinct modes that are mostly exclusive based on time. In play I like running through the character's point of view. What does the character want? What do they know and feel? What do they feel able to accomplish? Then that proceeds into my translating character direction into mechanical actions. Which honestly does screw some characters over in some games.

Example

Spoiler

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I have a celestial warlock in a D&D 5e game. Happy go lucky, 10 int, 10 wis, not interested in dying but does like hanging out with friends and helping them. So as a mechanic the character has a number of spells & ability picks making his life safer and more comfortable. Means we're not running at full optimization. Still contributes but... the character has no knowledge skills, he isn't the type. Highest skills are deceive and stealth, everything else is a +0 to +5. So I totally pass on stuff like arcana checks even if I could mechanically throw d20+3d4 +advantage +reroll at it. He prefers to concentrate on protective buffs and barriers rather than just pump out max damage in combat. I could totally +150% more damage to match the fighter while pumping my own defenses even more and still throwing around heals & debuffs. But it's not in that character to be that way.

Part of the screw job for the character comes from D&D 5e skills. Around 80% of skill checks fail out (low bonuses vs 15-25 dcs and not bonus stacking to make it) so the character basically relies on magic 100% and only occasionally offers anything skill related. The character, based on the character's history, starts out assuming anything they aren't using magic on will fail. It is a sort of self fufilling prophecy for the character, but it came up out of the results of the mechanics because it wasn't in character to be optimized for skill checks. So while the character has the highest invstigation skill in the party (+5) they still go stand behind a solid object when anyone opens a suspicious door because that's where all the traps are (this campaign) and the investigation check usually misses them.

Second mode is outside game where I have an idea of what the character is, their past, and their future. Then I decide a goal or path and look for ways to mechanically make that happen given the rules. Sometimes I want to explore a particular quirk or edge case of the game, sometimes I'm just doing my "choose stuff for awesome/characterization based on it's name without parsing the rules first" system test, sometimes I'm full on pursuing the character's goals. I'm a computer programmer, my entire job is taking different sets of rules and playing them to produce a desired result, I'm not bad at that and it translates well into dealing with game rules.

These scenarios all basically occur in the first mode because they're "in play". So it's look at what the character wants & thinks. Then what they know & feel they can do with what they have. Then put that through into a mechanical expression. System doesn't really change any of that... well, it dictates what the character thinks can/will succeed based on the (in this case assumed) history of the character's actions. So say Paranoid Bob gets into a "talk at other people" situation and reverts to trying bootlicking and blame deflection because that's what the character's "history" indicates will keep PB alive and/or out of trouble. But it doesn't change to suddenly using chutzpah instead because a game mechanic says that unopposed PB can just declare victory once a session.

**NichG** · 2023-03-28, 01:43 PM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by Telok

These scenarios all basically occur in the first mode because they're "in play". So it's look at what the character wants & thinks. Then what they know & feel they can do with what they have. Then put that through into a mechanical expression. System doesn't really change any of that... well, it dictates what the character thinks can/will succeed based on the (in this case assumed) history of the character's actions. So say Paranoid Bob gets into a "talk at other people" situation and reverts to trying bootlicking and blame deflection because that's what the character's "history" indicates will keep PB alive and/or out of trouble. But it doesn't change to suddenly using chutzpah instead because a game mechanic says that unopposed PB can just declare victory once a session.

I'd think the system and choice of character would change the feel of that first mode though. Like, if the character you chose to play was a user of magic in a totally freeform magical system where you can invent new spells at any time by coming up with a new rhyme, I imagine that would feel different even in a completely character-POV perspective than if, say, the character was an allomancer from Mistborn and basically had one or two metals they could burn, which in turn might be different than if the character was a lawyer on retainer for the forces of hell and worked via devil's deals and infernal contracts and such...

**Quertus** · 2023-03-28, 04:38 PM (ISO 8601)

Scenario 1.1 - A New, Deeper Layer of Hell

Spoiler: Overview

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So, as I pointed out, Hell needs a new, deeper layer in which to house the soul of that Farmer Dude(tte). So let's evaluate which of my characters could make headway on that most important of quests.

Spoiler: 2e Cleric of D&D Arma

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OK, in theory, the same tech that destroyed the world could potentially be used to destroy Hell, and, if successful, Hell could theoretically be rebuilt with an additional layer. But it would be completely out of character for Arma to even make the attempt (unless Hell really pissed her off somehow...), and, even then, such an attempt would have to wait until, you know, after it was proven that it was even possible that the world could be recreated after its destruction.

That said, one could theoretically research custom spells to accomplish similar ends, and a True Dwoemer to create a demiplane of Hell doesn't sound unreasonable. So, this probably isn't exactly within her current reach... although IIRC my brother had ways to capture and torture a soul with less than this level of power, so the Farmer Dude(tte) could well be placed in a "temporary hell" until renovations to make a proper space for them can be completed.

Also also, "a soul" is trivially within Arma's purchasing power, if she just wanted to buy direct instead of using spells to solve her problems.

Spoiler: 3e D&D Wizzard Whizzy

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Um... planes don't work that way, right? Lawful planes don't just grow on trees, or change in number, or anything like that, right? That would totally upset all cosmic balance. I can't imagine Whizzy even trying. Although he might do "spell research"-adjacent actions just to try to understand what that would even look like.

That said, "eternal torture" is easily achievable in many ways without having to go through the impossible effort of creating a whole new layer of Hell for that explicit purpose.

Spoiler: Paradox Telepathic Vampire

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... OK, this attempt would represent an evolutionary moment to rival any Pokemon, or even his past discoveries wrt Telepathy on golems, undead, robots, and the gods. If he were to dedicate the energy to using Telepathy on Planar matter, understand the nature of Soul Stuff, and Transcend the limitations of Telepathy into true Soul Manipulation, combining Mr. T's understanding of the nature of reality with his own incredible personal power, he would become a transcendent being, finally walking among the gods. And, you know, be able to build that layer of Hell on a hunger-inducing whim.

Spoiler: Paradox Cutter Fyord

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Cutter will need to take the L here. His knowledge of D&D tells him that layers of Hell are infinite in size, and he has no ability to accumulate the infinite mana necessary to attempt such a feat.

Spoiler: John Faseman of Marvel

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Um... out of the entire roster of Marvel FASERIP powers, I don't think there's anything whatsoever to actually do this. The absolute best I can possibly do is have John create a pocked dimension inside himself to act as an appropriate Hell for Farmer Dude(tte), or... perhaps... use Power Granting to grant a daemon on the current lowest level of hell the pocket dimension ability, and have their body serve as Hell's new sub-basement. Yes, that should do the trick. And thematically match things I've seen in multiple D&D modules. So, he just needs to gain the power (study a spell for) power granting. Winrar.

Spoiler: Shadowrun Troll Wizard

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Bwahahaha! Finally, a challenge without a time limit (beyond that of a mortal lifespan)!

Except... there's certain explicit limits to what Shadowrun spells can do. Like, a grand total of a whopping 2 of them. And this probably breaks both of them.

I am a sad panda.

Spoiler: M&M - Alex Daeus

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Um... *if* someone else brought him there (he does have money...), and *if* the planes are made of matter... then he can quickly accomplish what a muggle with a shovel could do. So impressive.

Spoiler: M&M - Omni-Wizard

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<chuckles nervously> Well, of course this is possible... just not while maintaining all the protective spells necessary to survive being in Hell. So... maybe... maybe Transform 10 would be enough? Maybe Transform 10(5) Transdimensional (+1) Subtle x3? Just need to add a few flaws to the power (and HOUSE RULE that powers above the point cap before disadvantages are possible, if they're not (I think that's a Champions thing, not an M&M thing)) (and remove the HOUSE RULE that prevents going over PL 10 even for non-attack powers), and, sure, it'll work. Really.

Spoiler: Warhammer - Mr. T

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I mean, power is power, it's all a matter of collecting and converting it. I guess this would theoretically be possible as a quest and custom ritual spell, involving sacrificing entire cities and droves of daemons to power the creation of a new realm?

In the grimdark of running Mr. T, the road to Hell - and the new Hell itself - would all be paved with the screams of the dead sacrificed to achieve this goal.

Spoiler: MtG - Elven Chronomancer

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... huh. I can't think of anything.

Spoiler: Star Trek - LtC Vir

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Not happening. With years of study, and a small fleet of ships, it might be possible to research some way in which the planes the natives have access to interact with subspace or some other technobabble, but it's unlikely that they actually do interact with his technobabble in a meaningful way.

Spoiler: WoD Alex Knight

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If Another World is taken as a literal video game, then it's as simple as creating new content for it... although the existing content won't necessarily interact with the new content in a coherent manner. OTOH, if taken in the spirit of being an actual different world, it would (presumably, AFB) require 6+ ranks of Spirit to accomplish such a task of expanding a spirit realm. So, I'm going with "long-term goal", not "currently achievable".

Spoiler: WoD Harry tHH

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Not a chance.

**Ameraaaaaa** · 2023-03-28, 08:50 PM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by NichG

To me I would expect it to feel most like category 1 ('this is a creative writing exercise, I have to figure out a story about how being a rich ninja lets me find a lost object quickly'), with the next closest category being 4 (if e.g. the GM is very strict on how skill names are interpreted, or if you didn't give yourself sufficiently broad concepts, then it could become 'welp, I guess I just brought the wrong character, anyone else got anything?'). Even though dice are involved, and you don't get like infinite rerolls in Risus (because failures and successes change your dice pool sizes if I remember correctly?), I would expect that the bulk of the player's mental activity with regards to the scenario would be more of the 'I have to come up with a plausible story about how I make contact with this problem' rather than like 'Imma draw from the Deck of Many Things and hope a solutions presents itself'

How did your own mental process feel when working out the scenario?

I just thought "how do i solve this" then i thought of a plan then i just did it.

**Quertus** · 2023-03-28, 10:29 PM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by NichG

So like, when you talk about the catalog of 'Science!', is that literally a source book that you're perusing, or is that license to come up with anything that feels Science!-like as long as the GM would find it thematically coherent, and the sense of it being a catalog is through e.g. treating the whole of sci-fi/fantasy literature as things you could point to and say 'yes this is thematically coherent'?

Eh, "Science!" as I was using it is more... things like the mass, melting point, viscosity, and "visibility" of certain substances? Only some of them aren't "real". And, occasionally, instead of "Oh, obviously, I put a battery in the flashlight", I have to ask, "how would a <system> character think about this?", and get a "Oh, in character, they're probably more likely to power the device with the ambient neutrino emissions of the technobabble, or with the psychic energy produced by the screams of a thousand simps". Which is not "con GM with technobabble into accepting solution because it sounds plausible", so much as "convert coherent answer into technobabble of 'Science!' used by character".

Originally Posted by Telok

In play I like running through the character's point of view. What does the character want? What do they know and feel? What do they feel able to accomplish? Then that proceeds into my translating character direction into mechanical actions. Which honestly does screw some characters over in some games.

Yeah, at some point I should definitely try and evaluate just how in character a lot of these choices feel, just how much solving problems in these various systems qualifies as roleplaying, and see if there's any useful data to be pulled from the results. Although the actual outcome might be dependent upon a few too many variables for my results to be useful. I guess we'll see.

**Telok** · 2023-03-29, 01:01 AM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by NichG

I'd think the system and choice of character would change the feel of that first mode though. Like, if the character you chose to play was a user of magic in a totally freeform magical system where you can invent new spells at any time by coming up with a new rhyme, I imagine that would feel different even in a completely character-POV perspective than if, say, the character was an allomancer from Mistborn and basically had one or two metals they could burn, which in turn might be different than if the character was a lawyer on retainer for the forces of hell and worked via devil's deals and infernal contracts and such...

Ah, hmm. That's just system feels then. Yeah different systems feel different, and not just in mechanical application.

I was checking out Stars Without Number, been hearing it referred to as a space opera game. Made some characters and they get skills described as "professional level" and "high tech armor ac 15" and descriptors like "veteran soldier". Oh, and a d6+2 hp & d20+3 vs ac attack for the warrior class... then look at the 'wolf' type generic pack predator with it's 2d8 hp, ac 14, d20+2 attack... Someone finally mentioned it was a OSR that basically ran as first level AD&D in space. Made a heck of a lot more sense then. See it's been described online & in the rule book and looked like, oh maybe Shadowrun in space type stuff, where chatacters start as competent professional adults. That was the feel from the descriptions and art. Based on 30+ years of gaming I started getting "this doesn't match the advertised product" vibes on the first test character. If it had been described and illustrated as teen neophytes who hocked the family space-cow for second hand space-armor and cheap space-swords facing their first space-dungeon, then I'd have expected something more like the system math told me was going to happen.

Game is very different in feel from the Shadowrun in space theme I'd seen described, and even further from something like Dungeons the Dragoning 40k 7e where you start out as recently become an immortal badass with optional veritech space fighter plane or similar. But that's really more the default power level of the games than any specific mechanical implementation.

Hmm... Now I'm thinking about how that compares to Paranoid Bob or my D&D 5e warlock who starts at the assumption that any form of mundane normal attempt at a solution begins at failure and needs exceptional boosts, special "beyond mortal skill" abilities, or rules shenanigans to become worth attempting...

So my original approach for Paranoid Bob's reaction to the first scenario was looking at it from the character's perspective of being a complete fish out of water (or, ya know, troubleshooter outside of Alpha Complex, same thing). On approach from a purely mechanical function those 25 perversity points let us metagame that PB will ace any two rolls (because there aren't any other players involved). That would let you own a hardware roll to MacGuyver a super science electromagnet and then use the matter eater mutation to eliminate the lich, with a sure roll left over for bootlicking or deflecting blame during debriefing or trying to accomplish a secret society goal. As run in an actual game with other players & characters involved PB would be doing the "Three Stooges with a stick of lit dynamite" dance (and trying to sabotage other people, and trying to avoid being sabotaged, and being darkly funny) unless pure luck intervened. But played serious (blasphemy!) on a pure mechanics level the character can have a real shot at success.

Yeah, I can see the mechanics giving a different feel based on how functional or reliable a particular chunk of a system is. A game with one subsystem that calls for multiple 50/50 rolls between you and success and another subsystem that's "it just works" with charges will feel different in action from a system where you bet metacurrency & risk to one-roll a whole scene or may have the "yes" answer if you can just fit bits of your character to the problem in the right way. I think that's more just a sort of "how helpless and whim-of-the-dice enslaved am I" feeling than anything related to actual processes. You just either mastered or lucked out chargen to avoid the more failure prone parts of your system, or else you're in a system where it's set up that a character can succeed through your actions with little need to "win" chargen. I may have been confused because my actual in-character decision process is basically the same no matter the system and that bit won't feel any different except maybe if I feel that having to roll the dice means the character is currently in a failure state.

**animorte** · 2023-03-29, 02:22 AM (ISO 8601)

Scenario 1

My builds!

Spoiler: Risus

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Alright, that makes sense. I had a particular affinity with animals on Panaka's original Risus build. Naturally I removed that, which would have been directly helpful. Anyway, moving on...

His very first thought, "why are these fools attempting to negotiate with a Lich?" Either way, he's got no problem heading directly to the scene alone, wasting no time. Upon arriving, he seeks out the farmer and whomever else with ease, but makes sure to go unnoticed in case of any red flags. All clear. Social game is nothing to write home about, but he'll offer to help in exchange for the information. This is probably a day's worth of work, provided the farmer accepts. If so, he will Sketch a basic farmhand skill relevant to the hay. If the farmer does not agree to this, Panaka will threaten to light everything on fire instead. If he gets the information about the bird, he will try to Sketch one of the bird's skills to bridge the gap, but success is not expected here. Otherwise, he can put together enough clues to figure out which way the needle went, Seek. And this is where we break up the difficulty...

Easy: He either finds the needle while helping out or burning through the haystacks. The latter has a solid chance of destroying the phylactery outright.

Medium: A full day's work wasted, he will waste another two days traveling to the marketplace and rest. Then he'll provide the same there as he did for the farmer, offer to help out. At this point, he's probably annoyed at the entire ordeal and a "freak accident" causes the lot to go up in flames. Of course, he stays well hidden for the occurrence so as not to be immediately suspected. He will also help out in the clean-up to see if he spots the needle, which may have been destroyed.

Hard: The needle probably being destroyed by now, he has no additional information on the Wightpocalypse, aside from the original negotiations. In fact, he likely assumes that everything has been dealt with and will head back to the kingdom the following day. (If he is suspected of the fire instance, he will not wait a day.) The Wightpocalypse will very likely happen in this instance, but if it's conveniently in the populated marketplace he happens to be in, those Wights are in for one heck of a time. He's got enough tricks, being extremely elusive and controlling the battlefield, this will be one for the books. If it is in another populated location entirely, he'll move that way to help out as soon as he hears about it, but there will be casualties.

Conclusion: If he needs to deal with the Lich at any point (unlikely), he'll attempt to calm the situation by offering his services, strictly out of curiosity. He knows his own limits and a direct mental challenge is not in his best interests. He will attempt to make it clear that the kingdom will die before it goes against the church and the Lich should have sought out a better guard to begin with, "which is where I come in."

If the Lich doesn't agree to have him on board and it comes to blows for some reason, he's not in any real danger, as he has been known to escape some extreme circumstances. He will drop some smoke and dance around the battlefield, prioritizing self-preservation. He's (very likely) outmatched, so it looks like there's even bigger problems and he'll jump on the recruiting thread to bring together an entire party and clean up this mess.

Does a solid job of using out-of-combat abilities for the hunt. While it can't solo the Lich, it can still escape and has the best odds of dealing with the Wights.

Spoiler: Tails of Equestria - Unicorn

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Yet again, we have another circumstance where I had the opportunity for the perfect ability but I decided I wouldn't need it. One of the few Unicorn talents I did not include was Locate. (There's also a Speak with Animals talent.) I'm 0 for 2 on hitting the mark. Anyway, moving on...

Yakul is very proud of the kingdom and the Lich for attempting to come to an agreement. He is extremely disappointed in the particular somepony that got them in this mess. He'll agree to help them out and keep everyone at peace. He can sympathize with anybody willing to negotiate and talks to the farmer about the whole ordeal, also trying to present a semblance of respect for the Lich. I don't think the farmer will have a problem with that and offers up some help.

Easy: He can Teleport short distances between haystacks and Telekinesis to lift them to shake out the needle. This wouldn't take but half the day and he'll spend the rest of his time bringing the Lich back to the kingdom to reinitiate negotiations acting as a mediator.

Medium: He doesn't really have much luck with hunting anything down or following trails. He'll have to roll at random to figure out which path to travel so this will take some time. He should still find the needle before the Lich shows up (if barely), but probably won't get back to the kingdom in time.

Hard: Since he has no plans to destroy the needle, there will still be an opportunity to talk to the Lich and prevent this disaster in the name of friendship! Yakul offers to mediate the circumstance and will personally halt any interference. He can trade in two friendship tokens for a d20 Charm, so this should be fine.

Conclusion: The entire goal here is to mediate the negotiation to appease all sides, make friends. There should be no problem here and if somepony interferes again, they will catch a lock down of Unicorn talents until proceedings have been concluded. If, for some reason an agreement cannot be reached and Wightpocalypse happens, he is not equipped to handle it alone. This will take some more firepower.

If the Lich is not taken by the Charm and chooses not to pick up where negotiations left off, that's a shame. If it chooses to attack... We'll, it better not. Yakul is going to drop this fool. He has a maxed out mental stat and maxed out Stun Ray. If the Lich gets the jump on him in any way, Pony Sense will account for that up to 6 times, not to mention a Forcefield to diminish incoming onslaught. We also have 3 friendship tokens left to expend for an automatic success on a roll of choice. Yeah, that Lich is getting wrecked if it chooses violence. However, if the Wightpocalypse occurs, Yakul can't hope to deal with it all on such a large scale.

This has some reliable out-of-combat capabilities, but I had to get creative to be relevant here. Still, it can easily solo the Lich, but not the Wights.

Spoiler: Worlds Without Number - NecroFist

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Wow, in my initial build post, I mentioned something along the lines of this guy not being able to handle much out of combat. I did not expect this build to have the best answer, much less 2 good options. Yay!

So, NecroFist just rolls his eyes at this information. While quite amused, he still gets right to the point. "Where's the body?" He'll cast Query the Skull on the corpse, and the Lich will answer up to 5 questions truthfully. Some of this will include where the phylactery is, where the Wights are, reestablishing better communication methods, etc.

Easy: He accepts the teleport and walks directly to the haystack with the needle in it. If they came to acceptable agreements, he will bring it back to the kingdom and wait. If a positive circumstance was not established, he will destroy it on the spot.

Medium: He will request that the offered teleport be closer to where the needle actually is. If this is not possible, he'll just go get it. Then same as easy.

Hard: He will first collect the needle from wherever it may be and then take it directly to where the Wights are, assuming the friend is there. At this point he'll wait until the Lich comes back and make sure they're on the same page.

Conclusion: Now, I will mention NecroFist has good Charisma and the Administer skill so he will be able to efficiently organize a crew (likely planning to split some of his earnings) for hunting down the phylactery. This only really comes into play if, for some reason, the original spell idea doesn't work. Same results.

If the Lich comes back angry and wants to start a fight, it better get the initiative. As long as NecroFist makes the relevant mental saves, it has enough effective health to noodle-slap anything into oblivion before it can bring him down. As far as the Wights go, he has Enfeebling Wave to slow them down, but that's about it.

This one has the best out-of-combat solutions and I didn't even expect it! Can probably solo the Lich, but not the Wights.

On another note, if anybody has recommendations if I have misunderstood something (particularly in WWN), feel free to correct my understanding.

**InvisibleBison** · 2023-03-31, 06:20 PM (ISO 8601)

Spoiler: Reyyah Ibrili

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Playbook: Whisper
Heritage: Iruvian
Background: Noble
Actions

Insight 2

0 Hunt
2 Study
0 Tinker
1 Survey

Prowess 4

1 Finesse
1 Prowl
2 Skirmish
1 Wreck

Resolve 3

3 Attune
2 Command
0 Consort
0 Sway

Special Abilities

Tempest
Warded
Ghost Mind
Ghost Fighter
Iron Will

Friend: Scurlock, a vampire
Rival: Flint, a spirit trafficker
Vice: Obligation (family members)

Spoiler: Advances

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1 Attune
1 Skirmish
1 Wreck
1 Command
1 Study
Warded
Ghost Mind
Ghost Fighter
Iron Will

Spoiler: Reginald Blythe

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Playbook: Lurk
Heritage: Tycherois
Telltale: Hair turns into? emits? mist
Background: Law
Actions:

Insight 2

3 Hunt
0 Study
0 Tinker
1 Survey

Prowess 2

2 Finesse
3 Prowl
0 Skirmish
0 Wreck

Resolve 3

1 Attune
0 Command
2 Consort
1 Sway

Special Abilities

Reflexes
Ambush
Daredevil
Sharpshooter
Like Looking Into A Mirror

Friend: Rosly Kellis, a noble
Rival: Telda, a beggar
Vice: Faith (ancestor worship)

Spoiler: Advances

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1 Prowl
1 Survey
1 Attune
1 Hunt
1 Sway
Ambush
Daredevil
Sharpshooter
Like Looking Into A Mirror

Spoiler: Oturug Bhulgan

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Playbook: Leech
Heritage: Severosi
Background: Military
Actions:

Insight 2

0 Hunt
2 Study
3 Tinker
0 Survey

Prowess 4

2 Finesse
2 Prowl
1 Skirmish
1 Wreck

Resolve 2

1 Attune
0 Command
1 Consort
0 Sway

Special Abilities

Artificer
Analyst
Venomous
Alchemist
Strange Methods

Friend: Jul, a blood dealer
Rival: Eckerd, a corpse theif
Vice: Gambling (dog races)

Spoiler: Advances

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1 Tinker
1 Finesse
1 Attune
1 Prowl
1 Consort
Analyst
Venomous
Alchemist
Strange Methods

Spoiler: Known Designs

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Electroplasmic saber: A fine curved sword, with a channel in the back of the blade that connects to a resevoir of electroplasm. When activated, the electroplasm fills the channel, causing the blade to deliver powerful shocks to anything it touches. This allows the sword to be effective against ghosts as well as being dangerous to living people. However, the resevoir only contains enough electroplasm to power the sword for a few minutes, and creating more of the particular variety of electroplasm the sword uses is a time-consuming task.

Flash Potion: A small vial of blue-grey liquid that hyper-accelerates a person's movement when consumed. The drinker moves several times faster than normal for a few minutes. Afterwards, they will be restless and unable to sleep well for several days. Also, there are those who notice when people manipulate time...

Unfindable Bag: A seemingly ordinary burlap sack, both the bag and anything inside it can only be noticed by the creator or others they've attuned to the bag. Anyone else will simply pay no attention to the bag or its contents, and dismiss them as obviously unimportant if they are pointed out. However, if anything is kept in the bag for more than a few hours, there is a chance it will dsappear without a trace.

Spoiler: The Laughing Jacks

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Crew Type: Shadows
Reputation: Honorable
Tier: 1, strong hold
Lair: A hidden subbasement beneath a factory
Hunting Grounds: Charterhall, near the university
Special Abilities:
Patron
Pack Rats
Everyone Steals
Second Story
Ghost Echoes
Synchronized
Upgrades:
Prowess Training
Hidden Lair
Workshop
Quality Gear
Steady
Quality Weapons
Quality Subterfuge Supplies
Quarters
Thief Rigging
Secure Lair
Favored Contact: Fitz, a collector

Spoiler: Advances

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Pack Rats
Everyone Steals
Second Story
Ghost Echoes
Synchronized
8 Upgrades:
Steady (3 upgrades)
Quality Weapons
Quality Subterfuge Supplies
Quarters
Thief Rigging
Secure Lair

I figured since I was making several Blades characters I may as well make a crew for them to be part of as well. I'm looking forward to seeing how they handle the next challenge.

**NichG** · 2023-04-02, 12:47 PM (ISO 8601)

Alright, time for Scenario 2: Nautical Forgery

Spoiler: In-character info

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You are in the employ of a traveling exhibit of vehicular wonders of the world (a sort of combo museum and tech expo advertisement for shipbuilders), about to have its most important show of the season to the court of a magocracy. The exhibits are precision 1:4 scale mockups of real magical or technological vehicles (but without their actual functional bits). Unfortunately, a lightning strike and subsequent fire burned the gem of the collection – the Imperturbable – down to the waterline of the river you were using to transport it. You have 3 days to procure a suitable replacement to within the exacting standards of the eyes of the magesmiths and shipwrights of the magocracy.

There is scaling credit based on the degree of fidelity: The top score would be a fully functional, full size Imperturbable exhibit correct in every way. Below that, a scale mockup of similar quality to what the museum had before – basically something with all of the details painstakingly replicated from the real ship, but not e.g. the functioning weaponry or rare/expensive materials. Below that, something which is only visually correct but can’t be interacted with or boarded. Below that, some other ship or something where the details are wrong but hey at least its a ship.

Alternately, top score can be achieved if you somehow convince the three VIPs in attendance - the mage king, the royal magesmith, and the royal shipwright – to be impressed with the exhibit to the extent that they’re willing to order a similar vessel on commission from the shipwright of the original.

The location for the exhibit is a capital city on a river, with the ocean about 30 miles away.

Spoiler: Extra scenario info

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The real Imperturbable is docked at a port on that same ocean 600 miles away and it can normally traverse about 150 miles a day under normal weather conditions and using normal trade routes. Its crew should collectively be considered Strong if combat is utilized. The ship’s current duties are to be ready to sail out in response to coastal raids that happen to that country around this time of year, so any attempt to negotiate or persuade the captain or the captain’s government has to take that into account and resolve it somehow. The actual Imperturbable is 100ft long, 30ft wide, and 30ft deep, and weighs 500 tons unloaded. It would have a bit of a problem with the river passage due to its draft, either requiring very skilled sailing, widening/deepening of the river in three particular difficult spots, or something modifying the ship’s means of movement so it wouldn’t matter.

The mage king's potential as a customer is mostly as a pissing contest with a rival monarch, and he's looking for toys to show off when they will meet next in six months at a summit meeting. He wants something that can show off more than something that can actually win wars.

The magesmith cares about the intricacy and correctness of enchantments, how things are worked together, and basically has a chip on his shoulder about things being 'an affront to magic!' or some-such. He's the one who is going to most annoyingly test any sorts of claims, 'accidentally' let loose a Reaving Dispel near the exhibits, etc. He won't even mind an illusion if the quality of the spellwork is good enough, but his standards of 'good enough' are a bit inflated - in D&D terms he can personally pull off 6th level spells, but it takes 8th level stuff to actually be 'good enough' and 9th+ to 'impress him'. Or things totally impossible within his understanding of magic, but they still have to be within the context of the exhibit itself, not just 'oh by the way I can do this thing that D&D magic doesn't allow, now look at this toy model of the ship'

The royal shipwright is the only one thinking about the actual utility and usability of the ship, and its appropriateness for potential war or other kinds of service to the kingdom. She actually doesn't like the original Imperturbable design because its lack of maneuverability means that a smart enemy could just tack around and kite it if you were actually trying to use it for defense, and while it can certainly carry enough weapons to reduce a port town to ashes if its given time to line up the shot, destroying cities is not the most useful of wartime acts in a world with highly mobile strike teams who are stronger than armies of regular soldiers.

**Kane0** · 2023-04-02, 07:50 PM (ISO 8601)

Spoiler

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Well mr Lizardman chef is pretty much screwed. He can't fabricate much more than basic tools nor is he a skilled shipwright, but he has a pretty good chance at winning over the VIPs if he can get something in the water to show them. Being an actual ~~pirate~~ sailor gives him an edge in judging ships himself, but that's only helpful if he can find something he can work with, or pay someone to work with, on such short notice.
A water-facing capital city is sure to have something, and with his excellent memory, sufficient charm and excess of money and muscle he should be able to acquire a serviceable ship, though it will cost valuable time.
So he has a basic vessel, that's the lowest bar to cover. There no chance of miraculously turning this into the best exhibit in two days, nor can he manufacture an illusion either, so all efforts go into getting some artists renditions as visual aids and charming the VIPs into taking his word for it. He will need a talented artist to assist, which again is valuable time and money, but at least that is within his capabilities.
Then it's all down to showmanship. +9 on a persuade plus guidance and advantage from circumstances up to and including Charm magic he can easily clear 'hard' DC 20, although the dice could be kind or cruel of course. 'very hard' DC 25 is certainly feasible, but 'impossible' DC 30 is likely out of reach.

Given the amount of uncertainty and outside assistance required, i'm not comfortable giving my guy more than a middling result.

**Telok** · 2023-04-02, 08:44 PM (ISO 8601)

1. Summary exection of the fail sucker on fire watch.
2. Kill VIPs & take their stuff.
3. ???
4. Profit.

Well... maybe I'm just off today. I'll try again later.

**Ameraaaaaa** · 2023-04-02, 09:34 PM (ISO 8601)

Here we go! Also renaming problem solver chan to ninja chan.

Spoiler: ninja-chan

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Ok ninja chan can't really build a good ship in just on week nor can she use ninja politeness to charm people so here's my 5 step plan.

1st buy a ship. Just a normal pretty good ship.

2ed buy 3 suggestiblity potions. Both shouldn't be lower then 75% imo but up to the gm how difficult it is.

3rd ask a mage i know to enchant the potion to be undetectable by spells like "detect magic." Hard but doable.

4th ask a reasonably charismatic person i know to present the event.

5th this is where i come in. I use my legendary ninja skills to sneak in their houses and replace their drinks with with a suggestiblity potion the nigt before the judging. Then boom i have succeeded.

Results. They judges are easily persuaded by my pal into thinking the boat is that good. This a short term solution but a good one nether the less.

3 things to note.

1st the "above 75% auto succeed below auto fails" really trivialises the randomness of the systems.

2ed my not knowing how to calculate dice odds and just winging it might be making things easier then they should be.

3rd this required about a minute of thought to come up with the plan. But there is the really difficult part of doing 3 hard stealth missions in 1 night. 1 is the king and another is the royal shipwright who both should have high security and the mage smith should have powerful magic defenses. So it's entirely possible i fail that step. It'd also be most of the adventure if this was an actual game of risus.

**InvisibleBison** · 2023-04-02, 10:29 PM (ISO 8601)

Spoiler: Reyyah Ibrili

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At first glance, Reyyah's skill set doesn't seem directly applicable to this situation. She's good with manipulating ghosts or other spiritual forces, but she's no shipwright. However, she's got a great solution - the Ghost Echoes crew ability, which allows her to "see and interact with the ghostly structures, streets and objects within the echo of Doskvol that exists in the ghost field." With the standard setting-translation applied to it, this ability should let her see the ghost of the burned ship, and she's going to try to share that vision with the VIPs. She's rolling Attune to do so, so she gets three dice, and the roll is risky position, zero effect - she's trying to jailbreak the ability quite a bit, so she'll have to put some effort into it to make it work. She pushes herself to improve the effect to limited, and trades position for effect to shift the roll to desperate/standard. Since she has three dice in Attune, she gets an automatic mixed success. The VIPs are quite impressed by their tour of the ghost ship and agree to commission a similar vessel, but the strain of making the ghost ship manifest inflicts level 3 harm "Mind Shredded" on Reyyah. She uses the Warded ability to reduce the harm to level 2 "Disoriented". She's suffered some harm and some stress, but she's pulled off a top-tier performance.

Spoiler: Reginald Blythe

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Reginald's best skills, sneaking and shooting, aren't applicable here. But he's a pretty smooth talker as well, so he should be able to just convince the VIPs to order a ship even without having seen the model. This starts at risky/zero, but he can mark documents as one of his items to have a glowing letter of recommendation for the shipwright to improve effect to limited, and then push himself to improve to standard. Since he's got two dice in consort, he gets a mixed succes - the VIPs are convinced, but as a complication they insist on a significantly lower price. "After all, we are taking a risk by buying a ship sight unseen." Reginald can resist the consequence, though, and since it's a social consequence he'll use Insight. With two dice, the rules of the contest mean he takes 3 stress and finds a way to persuade the VIPs to pay full price. He's burned through half his stress, but he's put in a top-tier performance.

Spoiler: Oturug Bhulgan

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In theory, this job should be right up Oturug's alley. He's an engineer and a craftsman, so he can definitely make a ship. The problem is time. Three days is just too short a window for him to make anything really satisfying. I think the best he can do is try to make a very small scale model of the Imperturbable, aiming for the third-place "visually correct but can’t be interacted with or boarded" target. Assuming he has a copy of the ship's plans, making the model would require completing a crafting project. Crafting is normally a downtime action, but the three-day period is sufficiently downtime-like that I think he can make a go of it, though I'll only allow one roll. I'd guess the model has to be at least quality level 4, and with three dice Oturug gets a mixed success on his Tinker roll, producing quality level 1. Since the ship, and thus the model, have some magical capabilities his Strange Methods ability boosts that to 2, and he pays 2 coin to buy high-quality ingredients to boost it the rest of the way up to tier 4. He's able to produce a miniature model of the ship, only a few feet long, which is not ideal but good enough for a third-tier performance.

Spoiler: Further thoughts after reading the extra scenario info

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I don't think there's anything in the extra scenario info that significantly affects these analyses. Since the Imperturbable itself would presumably have impressed all three VIPs, Reyyah's ability to take them on a tour of its ghost echo should also do so. Reginald's presuasion is more abstract, because I chose to model it as him convincing all three of them with a single role. Knowing more details about them, perhaps I'd do it differently, but Blades does allow for a wide variety of granularity in problem solving, so I don't think there's any real issue. And Oturug's mini-model, while small, presumably can capture whatever aspects of the Impertubable would have impressed all three VIPs.

**Telok** · 2023-04-03, 01:50 PM (ISO 8601)

Ok. Sorry about that first post. The weekend was full of other people time. If I'm lycky work has nothing in store but a couple telephonic meetings and coding so I can recoup from it.

1. Diplomat Bob

Spoiler

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1. Have the person of fire watch on the wooden ship flogged. If nobody was on fire watch then have the person in charge of that executed.
2. "Ok, so bring out the backup model" & another flogging because they don't have one.
3. Piss and moan about having to clean up after other people's incompetence.
4. Starship has StarTrek style teleporters. Zorp the origjnal ship into place during the presentation. "Oh the model burned down, we'll just telepirt the original in here for the afternoon."
4a. If original ship is too big then zorp the VIPs to it.
4b. If VIPs are unlikely to be willing for teleporting see if original ship will fit in cargo hold (seems unlikely but maybe) for physical transport.
4c. Shuttle the VIPs to the original ship for a walkthrough. Call it an hour to bring the starship groundside, do that during presentation timed to arrive a the end, then a bit to load them up. A nice snack & show them the command deck for the about 2 hours to ascend to orbit & move to position, then 30 to 45 minutes to reentry & arrive fir the viewing. Orbit is excessive for the distance but we're going for the impressive stunt.
5. While we're at it introduce the technology & stuff for metal hulled ships to the primitive goobers. Use hologram records & diagrams of stuff similar to the USS Iowa & aircraft carriers to sell "let Aztechnology help you bootstrap up through a techno-magical industrial revolution" to our potential new client state.
6. If all else fails call it a day and try again on another continent while wondering what we're doing on this backwards planet when we could be horsing around in some degenerate flesh pit enjoying ourselves.

Really can't say as to rolls. Most moving stuff is just "do our length/mass limits exceed the target length/mass", which isn't really hard defined in this system so GM coin flip or player convince roll vs any GM skepticisim, not something any system measures. We have a 500m long starship with a teleporter and "big cargo holds" vs a 30 meter wood ship or 8 meter model. It's the GM juggling "awesome & yes" vs "how difficult to I want to make stuff".

Socially any roll vs roll stuff depends heavily on how the targets are statted up and if you think some parts count as favorable conditions or stunting. If I used the stats for Athasian sorcerer-kings then DB would be hard pressed but possible (they were really more focused on being bad-ass casters trying to turn into dragons), but if the targets are less 'ulta-mage who rules for power ups & lulz' and more 'generic mortal king who is also a caster' then DB is on even footing just on skills & stats before bringing the exaltation & resources & stunts & hero points to bear on them.

If the DB had been in charge from the start then it would have been a wine & dine in-person trip from the start or the models would have been stored in a stasis cube in the cargo hold with a guard on them and futuristic fire suppression systems in place (it's a starship, oxygen conservation and fire suppression are major considerations and engineering goals). That's standard "I'm reponsible so I'm taking care of it" stuff.

The other issue is that if we reworked this for a full scale TL12 civilization presentation there wouldn't have been a wooden model stored in an open air place where it could burn down. You'd be dealing with a kilometer long space battleship and either just move the thing for the presentation or start & end with the holographic walkthrough.

Heh, just checked, got 150' age of sail ship stats in DtD40k7e (not doing formatting, just copy paste)

Spoiler

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SAILING SHIP (similar to a 1600s Caribbean pirate galleon)
Size: 33, Size Remaining: 0, Cost: 188, Price: Very Rare, HP: 25, Resilience: 33, Length: ~50m
Static Defense @M=0: 0, @M=1-5: 2, @M=6-9: 4, @M=10+: 6,
Maneuver: -10, Acceleration: 1, Speed: 2, 6 m/momentum, 2.16
kph/momentum, Drive: Naval (x3) May not leave the water without
crashing; if this is the only drive the size costs are halved.
Ramming: TN: 5+mom, Damage: 10k10 +10 +5x momentum.
Stuff: Open Top, Size: 0, Cost: 0, Effect: People can shoot in to & out.
Control System: Alternate Controls, Size: 1, Cost: 10, Effect: Use the Command skill & average Crew skills for piloting. 1x Luxury Passenger
Space: for the Captain, Size: 3, Cost: 20. 8x Passenger Space: 128 bodies total, Size: 8, Cost: 32. 10x Cargo Space: 250 m3 total, Size: 5, Cost: 40. Flaws: Fragile & Inefficient Controls & Junker & Unstable & External Power, Cost: -50, Effect: Vehicle HP reduced by 25% & Requires crew maintain control & Roll two crits instead of one & Double the maneuver penalty for momentum & Wind Powered (can only move up to half of wind speed or 1/4th wind speed when
tacking into the wind). 32x cannon portholes, Size: 16, Cost: 80 (discounted from personnel weapon mounts because they're just holes in the side of the hull). Weapons: 32 Age of Sail 12 pound cannon in two broadsides requiring a minimum of 2 crew per cannon.

12 pounder black-powder cannon - Heavy Primitive gun, Rarity: Common (discounted for being not portable at all and having loose explosive powder for ammo), Damage: 5k4 I, penetration 4, S/-, Range: base 240m (short <120, long 480-720, extreme 720-960), Ammo: 1, Reload: 4 full round(s) [about 1 in 4 shots will damage a 33 resilience ship, technically the cannon are sold separately but would probably be thrown in if you kicked the ship price up to Mythic Rare/Holdings 1].

2. Gun Whore Bob

Spoiler

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Probably run steps 1-3 as per Diplomat Bob.
4. Declare a bridge as (or make a big "two tall masts, a magic carpet, and some rope") a portal and just cast ****ing Gate to bring the original ship straight over into some properly deep spot in the river. Personally wandering back and forth isn't an issue as we have a 195 kph (120 mph) air-raft to carry 8 people. Leave the gate open so it can go back any time if needed.
5. Then if we're still feeling pissy we can quick cast Gate (interior of ship's hull/port hole & bottom of river) or... hmm... the At-St chin gun only has a 64.3% chance per shot to hole a 160' wooden sailing ship and only a 0.5% chance to push a "crash & sink immedately" roll on it... guess we probably shouldn't be thatannoyed. Well, that is based on a 165' ship. Guess there'd be better chances... eh, still only 2.5% per shot at insta-sinking a 31m ship by the calculator.

3. Paranoid Bob

Spoiler

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1. Briefing: an ultraviolet and a couple violet clearance bigwigs are going to view some models of a new 33 meter tall military warbot but the model had an electrical 'oops' and burned down. Your mission is to procure a replacement model and make the bigwigs happy and get them to Ok buying a bunch of stuff. You have 3 days. The original of the model is in another sector 1000 km away and is currently being used to hunt commie mutant traitors.
2. PL&C: does not have a replacement model. Lose 1 day filling forms.
3. R&D: random generator sez...
anti-soluble detecting device
hand-held interference scanner
wind-resistant chain-reacting machine
Hmm... a plan forms. Scratch day two.
4. Blow perversity points to use Access to rent a prototype warbot with no-fault insurance. Rest of our perversity spent to hack the chain-reacting machine to remove wind resistance & install the machine plus a high power fan with remote control into the borrowed bot (and maybe tape a couple grenades to it just to be sure).
5. During the presentation whip out the hand held interference scanner, cause a memory overflow, declare that commie mutant traitors are interfering with stuff. Point scanner at someone near an exit, declare them mutant commie & chase them out of the room. Remote control activate the fan so the chain reaction machine goes off.
6. If, as is traditional, such malfunctions result in a massive explosion (which we aren't in the room for) our secret society will be thrilled. Actually they're probably pretty happy anyways what with the general sabotage and destruction even if we don't explode the UV & violets. If there isn't a big kaboom we corner and kill our victim (we'll apologize to their next clone).
7. Debriefing: deflect blame, deflect blame, deflect blame, deflect blame, deflect blame.
8. Rejoice in a 100% successful Paranoia mission.

4. Traveling Bob

Spoiler

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Up to ship.
Grab scannery stuff.
Down to original boat.
Scanning walkthrough.
Up to ship.
Dismount & jerry rig a 3d holo projector.
Down to presentation.
3d hologram walkthrough.

No rolls talked as everything not interpersonal is either "you got the gear & base skills so 100% ok" or impossible. Interpersonal depends on the exact framing of the talky talky. If it's set 2d6 vs 7 then probably +1 or +2 from stats then ok, but if -2 for no applicable skill then lousy, or it could be a multi-roll or contested or based on the other person's stats or...

Of course Classic Traveller doesn't have a dedicated social interaction structure outside of picking op or selling cargos. There's instances of it in adventures, but they're all sort of individual hand crafted & hand wavey 'best guess' sorts of things.

That's basically the best you're getting. There's no reason for a retired scientist-for-hire to be involved in modern space navy stuff so this has to be some random "tech help the low-tech locals for access to something we want". Robot carries heavy stuff and does the piloting.

Edit: ya know, I'm kind of waiting for a "Your task is to get a kitty cat out of a tree. The kitty is 300 miles long and hostile. The tree is Yggdrasil. Your client is Hera. She's having a spat with Freyja. Go."

**Quertus** · 2023-04-03, 07:06 PM (ISO 8601)

Response to Scenario 2 - Nautical Forgery

Spoiler: My initial thoughts

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I see several possible paths: rebuild, convince, investigate, sabotage. And combinations thereof.

... Hmmm... it seems I may have misunderstood the scenario. It may be less "Stark Expo" and more "Stark offering to upgrade the Helicarrier".

Also, why is the size of the Imperturbable under "hidden information"?

Now, on to the actual responses.

Spoiler: 2e D&D Cleric of D&D Arma

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Well, this one might be tricky. Technology or Magic, even with scrolls of Fabricate, Arma lacks the ability to build a scale Imperturbable. However, even if she has to get someone else to use the scroll, the cold black flames of the Unburn spell would make quick work of rendering building a new ship not an issue. Assuming the scale model wasn’t magical (which would make very little sense in 2e IMO), it'll be fully operational. Assuming, of course, that cutting away all the ice in the river won’t be an issue.

Regardless, that Cloak of Charisma will ensure the most favorable results possible when dealing with the prospective clients… ~~so long as she doesn’t open her mouth, and make one of her classically stupid comments~~ (never mind, she has high Wisdom, so that's probably not a concern).

It's not really rolls so much as RP, but I suspect "what we were already bringing" should meet with adequate approval with Arma behind it.

Spoiler: 3e D&D Wizzard Whizzy

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Well, this seems pretty easy - between potions of Guided and Divine, plus Scrolls of Fabricate, even Whizzy can build a high-tech laser battleship in a cave with a box of scraps. Which should be immune to any Dispel effects, and make the engineer happy. Winrar?

Spoiler: Paradox Telepathic Vampire

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Even if he could somehow bring himself to care, there’s not much he can do here.

I guess... best case scenario, he could simply act as spokesperson, making the best lemonade pitch he could with the lemons they've been dealt. With an adequate understanding of the tech, magic, and combat, coupled with extraordinary social skills (and telepathy if absolutely essential, but in reality no), it shouldn't be too hard to polish that sneaker.

Spoiler: Paradox Cutter Fyord

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Cutter would stare at his employer, perplexed. “You want me to solve this problem?” He’d barely have time to drop bouncy balls into the River of poo sticks before his incredulity would be given away like a common cold, and his audience would find him succeeding multiple successive magic rolls. “Create 1:100 scale Indivisible!” “Create 1:100 scale Intractable!” “Create 1:100 scale Inventively!” Of course, he wouldn’t get the name right until he had built up enough mana to create a high-quality replica of the Imperturbable.

Although his employer would likely (and rightly) feel unimpressed with this solution, Cutter would go back to playing poo sticks in the river. However, with 3 days lead, he could easily have built up enough mana to implement the second step of his solution: a case filled with 1:100 scale dolls (think Lego characters) of generic people. And the Soul Projection artifact to let the attendees actually inhabit the dolls in order to tour the Imperturbable.

And if that didn’t produce adequately positive results, Cutter would implement phase 3 of his plan: a case filled with 1:100 scale Angels and daemons (really, just his 10 lbs of dream) to pilot the ships in a mock battle, to prove the potency of the Inflatable, or whatever it was called.

Spoiler: John Faseman of Marvel

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3 days? To build something? In Marvel? Hahahaha! Oh, wait, he has hyper speed. And gate. Yeah, no problem. 3 days later, he has a fully operational battleship, complete with new fire suppression features and lightning Rod. And in case they aren’t impressed, he technically could Gate in the Adamantium full-sized flying Imperturbable Mark 2 he built out of bubble gum wrappers and balsa a few days later.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure he'll be using this conference as an excuse to improve his Popularity and Resources, trying to convince the King to let him expand his multi-city Adventurer's Guild into a multi-national Adventurer's Guild.

Although he'll probably spend Karma on a few of those rolls, this should result in an actual net gain in Karma... until he spends it all a hundred times over to improve his stats.

Spoiler: Shadowrun Troll Wizard

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Another bad showing for Shadowrun (despite the character having (some) engineering skills). The only even remotely significant contribution would be the use of the custom "Create Bullet" spell to provide ammunition to any tech guns the Imperturbable might have.

Spoiler: M&M - Alex Daeus

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No problem. Just show Alex the blueprints, and he can rebuild any muggle ship. Eventually. 3 days might be pushing it, depending on the size and complexity - hopefully, the original designer is good at project management. Anything that doesn't work on scientific principles, OTOH, Alex is useless for - unless "hire a Wizard" is an option. Although... he could always lace the food / drinks at the party with Happy Pills to encourage a more favorable reaction.

Spoiler: M&M - Omni-Wizard

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Initial Thoughts:... none?

Second pass: Retrocognition, Magic Sight, etc, to see what happened - adding an "Invisible" extra to everything possible so the investigation hopefully isn't noticed.

Oh, that isn't part of the challenge. Well, then.

Summons can certainly aid in the (re)construction; maybe use powers to "fake" any abilities necessary for the demo at the exhibit?

Any faked powers would easily get dispelled, so that's a bust. M&M doesn't have the best rules for building things to begin with, and afaict no rules for multiple people working on the same project, so... who knows?

Hmmm... I guess the silliest answer would be to simply "Heal" the lost HP of the model Imperturbable? That might trivially pass the challenge. Or time travel back to before the lightning strike, and attach a proper lightning rod. My other ideas sound like failure.

Spoiler: Warhammer - Mr. T

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Um... if this actually mattered to the fate of the universe, then Mr. T could try to arrange a transport to collect the finished replacement, and use the Warp to get it back in time to the exhibit...

But since that's highly unlikely to be the case... if it were still "really important", Mr. T could attempt to summon Daemons powerful enough to possess the vehicle and give it the "Regenerating" property... which has less than a 75% chance of not ending in utter catastrophe (from his employers' PoV, but sounds like fun to me). Under an extremely generous GM, he could maybe have a fallback plan of convincing the Daemon to wreck havoc and thereby hopefully delay the exhibit until the replacement prototype was ready.

Worst case scenario, if he really believed in the project, he could heckle the other presenters while making them throw up in their mouths, to make the presentation of the Imperturbable look good by comparison.

In the Grimdark of running Mr. T, it's not about succeeding, it's about making everyone fail worse. At about 75% success, we get a Daemon wrecking havoc in the city, while the scent of vomit impedes anyone attempting to restore order.

Spoiler: MtG - Elven Chronomancer

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One Blue: Reconstruction. Done?

Spoiler: Star Trek - LtC Vir

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Anything mundane, LtC Vir can simply replicate; anything "magical" is beyond his ability to understand, let alone help with. While there's about 0 chance of any foul play not coming to light with a telepath with Star Trek forensics around, that sadly wasn't part of the scenario. And, when it comes to the presentation, Staltek Vir lacks the social skills to convince anyone of anything. So, as usual, LtC Vir carves out his own small niche, and points to the natives, saying "the rest is up to you".

Spoiler: WoD Alex Knight

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Huh. The spirits playing "Another World" keep running into the oddest problems. He really ought to research some way to get a GamSav artifact for them.

In the meantime... best he can do... hmmm... if the spirits want to spend their reward from the last mission (presumably translated into Quintessence, or the Spirit equivalent) to hire unaffiliated characters from another game (neutral spirits) to come help with the project, he could act as intermediary. If so, it's super effective. Unlike his other options.

Spoiler: WoD Harry tHH

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Huh? "A lightning strike burned it to the ground/waterline"? Now, I'll admit that Countermagic in Wod is a farce, but, if lightning and electricity work like in the "real world" / like in the world Harry is accustomed to, simple precautions like a lightning rod, let alone his presence, should have made it all but impossible for natural lightning to have caused this problem. And the ship burning to the waterline while Harry was around should have been all but impossible, too. So I expect that if this isn’t a “the scenario is invalid” error, this is going to be more of a "apply car batteries to the genitals of those responsible until they talk" solution, rather than the approximately impossible task of him contributing to rebuilding a model ship.

That said, he could totally fake having done so, with illusions or whatnot, or maybe (get someone else to) convince the VIPs of the worthiness of the Imperturbable with video evidence of its trial runs. A “virtual tour”, I suppose.

Math... any "on the spot" illusions will fold like wet cardboard to even an apprentice's Dispel (almost every system is better at counter magic than WoD Mages, and it would show here), so this would be a really embarrassing failure on that branch of the interpretation tree. The "video tour" branch might be novel enough for the VIPs to want to tour the real thing. But the "I reject your reality - that never happened" seems most in keeping with the spirit of a WoD Mage, so I'm going with that.

**Telok** · 2023-04-03, 11:03 PM (ISO 8601)

@Quertus: your StarTrek chap has actually the perfect solution. Time travel is canonical in ST with a ship and a convenient star, thanks to the early movies. Zip back in time, scan, replicate, swap it out just before the lightning strike, let the nonmagic replacement burn, pop back to your original frame of reference, drop the original model back in.

**Quertus** · 2023-04-04, 05:26 AM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by Telok

@Quertus: your StarTrek chap has actually the perfect solution. Time travel is canonical in ST with a ship and a convenient star, thanks to the early movies. Zip back in time, scan, replicate, swap it out just before the lightning strike, let the nonmagic replacement burn, pop back to your original frame of reference, drop the original model back in.

OK, fair. I hadn't considered what he could do with the aid of a ship, as he seemed capable enough with the ground installation.

That said, there are some potential issues with this solution. For one, LtC Vir has no ability to know what effects the magic will have on, well, anything. Making it a huge risk to the starship that interacts with it. Also making it entirely possible that everyone present will know that it was only a model that burned. Lastly, I'm not sure how the Federation would feel about using time travel over so simple a matter, whether there's an equivalent of the Prime Directive wrt time travel, etc - and anything that goes to a Social roll, LtC Staltek Vir fails the 75% roll.

So the tech is there, but it'd take another player / character / GM to pull it off.

Thread: Magical MacGyver side-by-side comparison game

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