# CONAN LIVES!  Info on the new Conan RPG



## Water Bob (Mar 27, 2015)

FYI, there's a new Conan RPG in the works. Vincent D. (who wrote a major part of the Mongoose version) is one of the writers. Here's an update I received via e-mail:









Major Writers & Artists Announced!

Hi there, Modiphius has been continuing the quest to assemble one of the greatest ever teams to work on CONAN - Adventures In An Age Undreamed Of! 

We can now announce that we've added legendary Conan artist Ken Kelly (Robert E. Howard covers for Berkley and Tor, Eerie, Creepy and Vampirella for Warren magazines) and Dark Horse regular Tomas Giorello (Conan The Cimmerian, King Conan, 2013 Robert E. Howard Foundation Award for Artistic Achievement) to the team who'll be creating the stunning covers for the Conan books. 

They join other greats including Sanjulian, Carl Critchlow, Mark Schultz, Tim Truman, Phroilan Gardner, Alex Horley with more still to be announced!

The writing team is also growing with long time TSR stalwart Thomas M Reid (Dragon Mountain, Tales of the Comet, Forgotten Realms, Planescape, Ravenloft, Temple of Elemental Evil novel), Monical Valentinelli (Firefly RPG Lead developer & writer, Tomorrow's Precious Lambs), Kevin Ross (Masks of Nyarlathotep, Cthulhu by Gaslight, Colonial Lovecraft Country, Down Darker Trails), Lou Agresta (Snows Of An Early Winter, Slave Pits of Absalom, Freebooters Guide to the Razor Coast) and Scott Oden (Best-selling author of the historical fiction novels Men of Bronze, Memnon, and The Lion of Cairo) 

You may also have missed our update that Vincent Darlage (Conan d20, Member of the Robert E. Howard United Press Association) has joined the games design team alongside Mark Finn (Blood and Thunder: The Life and Art of Robert E. Howard, The Barbaric Triumph, The Dark Man: The Journal of REH Studies).

Finally, two other major names join the team: 

Patrice Louinet, well known for his expertise and seal of approval for the Conan board game by Monolith, will be working alongside Jeffrey Shanks to ensure the Conan roleplaying game is of the highest standard. Patrice was Editor of the definitive, three-volume Conan series (from Del Rey Books (US), Wandering Star (UK) and Bragelonne (France). Awarded Lifetime Achievement award from the Howard Foundation (USA, 2014) and the Special Award from the Imaginales (France, 2012)). 

Sally Christensen (Cortex Hackers Guide, Firefly RPG, Leverage Companions, Marvel Heroic) steps up as Line Editor with support from Thomas M Reid, to keep the rabble writing proper. 

These all join the existing team of Timothy Brown, Jason Durall and Chris Lites led by Jeff Shanks

Remember to tell friends to sign up at http://www.modiphius.com/conan.html to get the first news of the Conan roleplaying game launch and be invited to the playtesting. 


Thanks!
Chris, Modiphius
www.modiphius.com


----------



## dm4hire (Mar 28, 2015)

Thanks, unfortunately it's old news.  Check the thread on the most anticipated RPGs of 2015, it was listed there over a month ago.


----------



## pming (Mar 30, 2015)

Hiya.

  Meh. I like Conan (and "Swords and Sorcery style fantasy") quite a bit...not my fave, but definitly scratches an itch every couple of months.  That said, the best "conan" style RPG's I've seen are _Powers & Perils_, and _Astonishing Swrodsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea_.

The first, P&P (http://www.powersandperils.org) is an old Avalon Hill foray into fantasy RPGs. They didn't put much effort into the marketing part...I don't think they knew what to do or how to do it, being an almost entirely "tactical combat board game" type company. That said, some people find it's rules...er... "confusing, complex and obtuse". To that I say... yeah, kinda.  It's what I call a "lightbulb" RPG... at some point, probably during the second or third game session, a little lightbulb will go off over the players head and he will suddenly "get it". The whole system. Everything. It's like the stars align and the heavens open up. It's really fun to watch when it happens...it's like the player can't believe it all follows the same, logical task structure. Anyway...I digress. At it's heart, it's very S&S, with magic being rare but potentially VERY powerful if one doesn't die first. Hedge wizards, lowly shamens, old midwife-magery, not super rare, but not very effective or at the least very restricted in scope. But a full on Wizard? Yeah, they can bring down entire kingdoms almost by themselves.

As for AS&SoH (no, don't sound it out...too late!  ), it's basically a retro-clone of 1e AD&D, with all the "high fantasy" stripped out. Mostly, anyway. Classes are slightly to greatly re-worked, some world-specific classes are introduced, and only humans (but various 'types' of them). And yeah, it is set in Hyperborea with all the trimmings...but you can use your own world if you want. The world isn't hard-coded into the rules/classes/etc. All in all, if you want to run a "D&D" version of Conan...you really can't go wrong with AS&SoH (http://www.hyperborea.tv/ ). Love it! 

All that said..._maybe_ this 2d20 system they hype up for it will be really fun to run/play. I'll give it a look, but I'm not holding my breath. I have two games that give me my Conan fix when I want it...but I'm a sucker for new RPGs! 

^_^

Paul L. Ming


----------



## Water Bob (May 2, 2015)

I've been looking at the 2d20 System.  All of you know how much of a Conan fan I am.  Just look at my Conan thread that I've been maintaining for over three years now.

I'm trying to like what I read, but I just don't.  I don't like the 2d20 system, and I feel like its gimmicky.

It really disappoints me, because I was primed to fall in love with a new Conan RPG, especially one that has all the talent that the new one has behind it.

Do any of you like the 2d20 system?  I'm still willing to be persuaded.  

What's your experience with it (with Mutant Chronicles...the only other game, I think, to use it)?

Do you think 2d20 is a good system?


----------



## JeffB (May 3, 2015)

It a bit better after the revision . 1.0 was a mess. 1.1 clarified some things.

I love the idea of threat points...players spend them to increase  tbeir dice pool and then they go to the gm  and he can use the points against the characters in other ways. Complications, etc.

Otherwise. Way too fiddly. I am not going to bother playtesing it in its current version.


----------



## fjw70 (May 3, 2015)

Yes, I just glanced through the playtest document but it seemed real fiddly to me.


----------



## modiphius (Jun 8, 2015)

There's a v1.3 of the Playtest now which has made some significant changes which I think some people will like. We're now working on v1.5 - so it's coming along quite a bit. 2d20 is also being used for the Infinity RPG, plus there are 3 or 4 other major RPG's planning to use the system in 2016 / 2017 - it's going to be evolving all the time but it's definitely here to stay and will be one of the best supported RPG's out there.


----------



## Water Bob (Jun 12, 2015)

modiphius said:


> .....(2d20) it's going to be evolving all the time but it's definitely here to stay and will be one of the best supported RPG's out there.




I'd love to hear from gamers who are using the system.  I'm pretty turned-off by it, but I'll keep an open mind.


----------



## JeffB (Jun 14, 2015)

modiphius said:


> There's a v1.3 of the Playtest now which has made some significant changes which I think some people will like. We're now working on v1.5 - so it's coming along quite a bit. 2d20 is also being used for the Infinity RPG, plus there are 3 or 4 other major RPG's planning to use the system in 2016 / 2017 - it's going to be evolving all the time but it's definitely here to stay and will be one of the best supported RPG's out there.




Im not familiar with Infinity. What are the other major RPGs that are going to be using this system?  

I wish you luck , I am always up for a new system to check out. but so far I have been unimpressd with the system,  Even with the revisions we have seen so far.  I do like the threat point idea, but the game seems fiddly for no good reason...That said, I felt the Mongoose  d20 version was a poor fit for Conan as well.  If I am modelling Conan stories the last thing I want in the fury of combat is needless complexity and/or a system that slows it down.


----------



## Water Bob (Jun 14, 2015)

For those interested, here's the link to the v1.3 test materials:  Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of.


I really dislike the approach that is being taken with this Conan game.  I love Conan so much, and, too, was ready to embrace a new system. But, like the poster above just said, the 2d20 system is too fiddly and gimmicky for my tastes--it seems too fiddly for no good reason.

Reading through the playtest, it doesn't seem near as well thought out as the d20 system.  I'm no d20 lover.  But, I can appreciate a well crafted game system, and d20 is certainly that.  I'd be very happy to see Conan played with a different, less crunchy system.  

But, 2d20 is not cutting it for me.


----------



## aramis erak (Jun 14, 2015)

A quick skim shows a lack of research into armor - "platemail" (all one word) is beyond even Gygaxian levels of historically wrong. Brig is nominally better than chain in real world terms (absorbs more energy and spreads the energy over more area), scale is missing entirely (and is used in one of the novels)...

The rules don't look terribly complex.

The author needs to review the rules for possessives in English.

Difficulty 2 is essentially D&D disadvantage...


----------



## Water Bob (Jun 15, 2015)

Keep in mind that the rules are a playtest and morph from version to version.  He's trying to work out the "bugs".


----------



## modiphius (Jun 24, 2015)

aramis erak said:


> A quick skim shows a lack of research into armor - "platemail" (all one word) is beyond even Gygaxian levels of historically wrong. Brig is nominally better than chain in real world terms (absorbs more energy and spreads the energy over more area), scale is missing entirely (and is used in one of the novels)...
> 
> The rules don't look terribly complex.
> 
> ...




Playest texts are not usually edited or proof read as they literally change every week. 

In terms of the armour: 
Our version 1.5 launching soon uses the model that armour is situationally excellent. It has mail (no functional difference between chain and scale) and plate is Aquillonian plate. The point is not to historically model armour, but where REH mentions it, to include it in a way that feels right without getting in the way of story telling


----------



## aramis erak (Jun 25, 2015)

modiphius said:


> Playest texts are not usually edited or proof read as they literally change every week.
> 
> In terms of the armour:
> Our version 1.5 launching soon uses the model that armour is situationally excellent. It has mail (no functional difference between chain and scale) and plate is Aquillonian plate. The point is not to historically model armour, but where REH mentions it, to include it in a way that feels right without getting in the way of story telling




Having been involved in over a dozen playtests  of (mostly now published) professional materials, lack of spellcheck is NOT the standard. 

FFG - three open betas, two closed. All spell checked, and well edited. 
Green Ronin - the weekly drafts lacked significant spelling errors.
Far Future Enterprises - Spellchecked, laid out. 
BTRC - all 5 materials I've playtested were consistently spellchecked. Everything was also laid out - and one of those was alpha.
Deep 7 - Alpha test materials spellchecked and well edited. Beta test looked almost identical to release sans art.
Amarillo Design Bureau - Alpha materials B&W, spellchecked, laid out clearnly in 2 col. Beta laid out to publication standard.
Mongoose - Spell checked and well organized. Weekly in alpha. May make lots of other screw-ups, but at least it's consistently spell checked.
SJGames - spell checked, and often laid out in two column.

I say, sir, if you don't meet the minimum standards in a public alpha, there is little to no reason to think you've anyone who CAN spell check it competently later. Which means basic computer literacy failures. (Learning to use spell check utility in a word processor is a basic skill. And given that spellchecking is far more a pain once one gets to using serious layout software... Did I mention I've done some publications work? No? Back in the late 90's, not in the gaming industry.)

Either that or simple inattention to basic communication skills. Again, not conducive to bothering further looks at the game.

Combine that with Gygaxian errors - your first impression is excessively amateurish. Defending non-spellchecked manuscripts  looks even more inept.


----------



## modiphius (Jun 25, 2015)

aramis erak said:


> Having been involved in over a dozen playtests  of (mostly now published) professional materials, lack of spellcheck is NOT the standard.
> 
> FFG - three open betas, two closed. All spell checked, and well edited.
> Green Ronin - the weekly drafts lacked significant spelling errors.
> ...




Aramis simply check our other books such as the Achtung! Cthulhu line which is excessively spell checked and well presented - and has won Ennies and UK Games Expo awards for it's layout, art and writing. Mutant Chronicles is going through the same stringent spell checking, grammar correction etc with several thousand error reports already handled for the core book alone. We don't layout playtests. Our intention with alpha's is to give people raw material to test out specific scenes - and we often remind people that these are not edited and proof read. Our intention is not to give people 'almost identical to release sans art' material but working documents that are changing sometimes weekly with some projects. Mutant Chronicles went through around 12 phases. Conan is on it's 5th iteration and there will be more. The first Conan playtest documents were rushed out and the obvious errors corrected in the second pass. However our works stands for itself and ask anyone who has a Modiphius RPG book and you'll know our work surpasses most other publishers out there. 

In fact, regardless of whether other publisher's Alpha's look nice, our retail copies look gorgeous. As will Conan - with major name art gracing EVERY single book cover. Major name art inside, major writers on all sections of the books. Two scholars are overseeing the written content (not the playtest rules but the actual core book background being written), and it has several editors on board who are reviewing core book content. Conan will be one of the best looking RPG books ever and we'll delay it's release to ensure it's about as error free as we can get (as we often do with other titles). So you can be sure there's nothing to worry about there.


----------



## Water Bob (Jul 25, 2015)

Everything about the new Conan RPG sounds exciting.  Then, I saw the cover, and my first thought was, "This is dynamite, major name art?"

Then....the rules...

The game has a meta-game mechanic where, as players roll poorly, points stack up (bookkeeping for the GM....never a good idea), all players know that things are about to get tougher because the GM can use these points to activate more obstacles.  It's a big, blinking light that screams, "Players!  Make more conservative choices and expect the worst because things are about to get rough!"  And, how to the characters know that?  Well, there is no real reason.  It's a meta-game mechanic.  Characters (or even players) shouldn't know, but they do, because they know about the point total that has built up against them.

It's gimmicky.

I don't like it at all.


----------



## modiphius (Jul 26, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> The game has a meta-game mechanic where, as players roll poorly, points stack up (bookkeeping for the GM....never a good idea), all players know that things are about to get tougher because the GM can use these points to activate more obstacles.  It's a big, blinking light that screams, "Players!  Make more conservative choices and expect the worst because things are about to get rough!"  And, how to the characters know that?  Well, there is no real reason.  It's a meta-game mechanic.  Characters (or even players) shouldn't know, but they do, because they know about the point total that has built up against them.




When you say 'tougher' what the GM is about to do is make the story more interesting, Threat points as they're called, accumulate when players buy extra d20's on top of the 2 they get to roll normally (wanting to push their luck) or when they roll a 20. The GM doesn't have to take the points then if he can think of a cost to the player - they drop something, step out of cover to get the shot, inadvertently insult the wrong person etc. So those points are then used to add more drama. If you think of it as a blinking light that warns the players to be careful I don't think you've actually played the system. Yes they can see the mounting Threat, but that's fun of it, they know COOL stuff is going to happen - the story is going to unfold and the universe is going to push back. 

I don't know about you but I want my characters to be surrounded, to be captured, to be arrested for something I didn't do, to be ambushed, for steam to jet out of age old pipes at the wrong moment, for something big we didn't expect to come lumbering in to the room - because that's where the adventure is. When I see that Threat accumulating I know my attempts at trying to screw the laws of reality by using extra dice are going to bite, but it's gonna be fun.


----------



## Water Bob (Jul 26, 2015)

modiphius said:


> Yes they can see the mounting Threat, but that's fun of it, they know COOL stuff is going to happen - the story is going to unfold and the universe is going to push back.




And, that's the problem with the system.  It advertises when stuff gets tougher.  It's a big, blinking beacon that says that there will be more obstacles, and obstacles, on average, will be harder to overcome.

I don't know how long that you've been gaming, but players don't usually react to learning about more difficulty as "COOL" stuff on the horizon.  If they know about upcoming harder difficulty, then that out-of-game knowledge have an effect on the decisions that they make.  They were going to do_ this_, but, now that they know the Threat pool is high, they'll instead take the more conservative route and go with _that_ instead.

In effect, the game system is giving each and every character a special ability (call it Sixth Sense?) to know that trouble lurks around the next corner every time that Threat Point Total gets to a certain level.

I really don't want that influence in my game.


----------



## modiphius (Jul 26, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> And, that's the problem with the system.  It advertises when stuff gets tougher.  It's a big, blinking beacon that says that there will be more obstacles, and obstacles, on average, will be harder to overcome.
> 
> I don't know how long that you've been gaming, but players don't usually react to learning about more difficulty as "COOL" stuff on the horizon.  If they know about upcoming harder difficulty, then that out-of-game knowledge have an effect on the decisions that they make.  They were going to do_ this_, but, now that they know the Threat pool is high, they'll instead take the more conservative route and go with _that_ instead.
> 
> ...




Except the GM can do whatever he likes with those Threat Points - but it's a mechanic to help increase the sense of dread amongst the players and IT WORKS when you play the game Bob. I don't know if you've tried it yet? We will be posting a play through soon including the epic Howard's Day game filmed around Robert's dining table so you can get a better feeling for this.  

Have you ever known a GM to make life easy for the players? It's always about challenges and pushing, and making their game fun. Sometimes it's exceptionally hard for many GM's to get across the impending sense of doom. Not everyone is an actor or a story teller. Threat Points help everyone get across the drama to come. They're as much the same as the GM evilly rolling dice behind his GM screen as a pile of growing Threat - every player knows things are going worse and I don't think there's any difference between secret dice rolling and open Threat - you have NO idea what they're going to be spent on, or in fact if the GM will spend them. I've rarely known players to be conservative either, and if they're scared by a pile of chips then surely they'd be equally scared if you start rolling dice behind the screen? The thing is with Threat is that most of it is there because of their actions, because they decided to push the universe. They can expect the universe to push back and some.

I've been GM'ing since I was 9 years old - I treat threat - danger, calamity, intrigue, betrayal, all of those things are exciting events in which players can shine, in which they can show how great their characters are. It's wrong to see increased difficulty / Threat / danger as a bad thing. The reason players are at the table is to get in to danger and figure out how to get out of it. Threat gives you a structure to make it fair and fun for both GM and players and to help raise the tension. 

I strongly suggest you try playing with it, because then you'll see how fun it can be. In all games players are confronted with all kinds of things that remind them they're in a game, dice, pencils, paper. Threat Points are nothing new in the GM tool box and a good GM leads the story and embroils the players in his world. I think you'll find every player has a sixth sense in every game that trouble lurks around the corner - it's no different. And if you think when the Threat Pool is low that there's no trouble coming think again - remember that the GM can have scripted events and NPC's waiting in their droves around the corner. Remember a GM doesn't need Threat to activate NPC's, only to activate them BEFORE the players. So I can write in that there are 10 traps in the next room, that an army of mercenaries awaits through the door and you'll have plenty to wory about without a single Threat being spent. 

I think you're seeing Threat as a lock that absolutely controls everything the GM can do and that's wrong.


----------



## CapnZapp (Jul 26, 2015)

Why not simply drop the Threat mechanic?

It seems a good idea to me that any metagame resources should be positive for the players: action points or fortune points.

Regulating the GM and her monsters, not so hot.


----------



## modiphius (Jul 26, 2015)

CapnZapp said:


> Why not simply drop the Threat mechanic?
> 
> It seems a good idea to me that any metagame resources should be positive for the players: action points or fortune points.
> 
> Regulating the GM and her monsters, not so hot.




Well Threat is balanced - it's good for the players - they can buy additional dice with it (which let's them do really awesome stuff), but there's a cost

Look at Fate points in Fate. To gain them you need to act up your weaknesses. They have a cost once your initial allocation is spent. We have Chronicle Points that are free that count the same way and provide Threat. 

It works very well in playtests and pretty much everyone who has actually played a game enjoys it. Numerous convention demo's leave people wanting more. Now I totally understand it's not for some people - as much as Fate or Dungeon World isn't for some people, or Pathfinder or D&D isn't. You can't please everyone


----------



## Water Bob (Jul 26, 2015)

I'm not sold.  But, I am interested in looking at the video play through.  When will that be posted?


----------



## modiphius (Jul 26, 2015)

probably after Gen Con - we'll post here when it is thanks for bearing with us


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 15, 2015)

About that Threat Point mechanic I dislike so much in this game....

I had a thought that has turned into a question.  When players take risks (which means roll more dice), the risk of generating Threat Points increases.  What happens when one player is single-handedly generating a lot of Threat Points for the group but his actions aren't something that would, with all rationalization, be something that should put the entire group in danger?

For example, what if, on all his attack throws, a player always takes extra dice on his attack?

Isn't that another problem with this mechanic?  One guy is risky and beserker-like with his attacks, but the Threat Pool is building because of this one guy's actions, putting the entire group in more danger?


----------



## JeffB (Aug 16, 2015)

Ever see a movie or read a booK where someone does something stupid and gets the whole group in trouble?

If you come into a system like this one with a D20/d&d mindset,  there is little point, and you will never understand it or have fun with it. THREAT  is a more modrrn/indie style system that models/drives the fiction/story with it's mechanics, it is not tryjng be a simulation of task resolution with mechanical balance at the forefront. It creates opportunity for a good GM to make the story more interesting. Its not there as a tool for a sadistic dm to punish people. 

See DungeonWorld for a great example of a system thats been around for awhile where the mechanics drive the story ever forward, instead of being a simple pass/fail mechanic.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 16, 2015)

JeffB said:


> Ever see a movie or read a booK where someone does something stupid and gets the whole group in trouble?
> 
> If you come into a system like this one with a D20/d&d mindset,  there is little point, and you will never understand it or have fun with it. THREAT  is a more modrrn/indie style system that models/drives the fiction/story with it's mechanics, it is not tryjng be a simulation of task resolution with mechanical balance at the forefront. It creates opportunity for a good GM to make the story more interesting. Its not there as a tool for a sadistic dm to punish people.
> 
> See DungeonWorld for a great example of a system thats been around for awhile where the mechanics drive the story ever forward, instead of being a simple pass/fail mechanic.





Here's a good, hard example showing why I don't think the mechanic is a good one, but also asking why you do think it is a good one.  I posted this on another forum, but it works here, too.





*The Situation*

You are in a team that includes Conan, Valeria, Subotai, and Akiro, and you are infiltrating Thulsa Doom's Mountain using the caves near the gorge towards the north face.  Everybody is being cautious, not taking any risks, except for Conan.  Conan hates Thulsa Doom.  And, he's in there swinging hard and dispatching enemies with extreme prejudice.

Because the one guy is fighting hard--he's just taking risks when he fights.  It doesn't mean that Conan is being loud and attracting attention.  He's grim and quiet.  But, when he swings, he's ruthless and savage (in game terms, spending extra dice to fight that way, and increasing the Threat Pool when he fails).



Originally, the GM had two guards watching that back cave entrance, but now, since the Threat Pool is higher, the GM can spend those points to increase the number of guards that the players have to fight.



Why is that a good rule?

The characters really did nothing to attract more attention--yet, because of the savage nature of one, there are more enemies to fight.

How does it even make sense?


----------



## JeffB (Aug 16, 2015)

Who says you have to add more guards?

Maybe later Conan botches a roll in a heated circumstance and the GM uses threat to add some other complication...an innocent caught in the battle...or uses it with a npc conan is fighting to increase their ferocity...

I dont like the 2d20 system, but I like threat.

As I said, if you take a D20 mindset, it will not make sense. If you take novel/movie stance you will see it as a way to add to the story in non scripted ways.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 16, 2015)

JeffB said:


> Who says you have to add more guards?




It can be extra guards...or something else.  Still wouldn't make sense.





> Maybe later Conan botches a roll in a heated circumstance and the GM uses threat to add some other complication...an innocent caught in the battle...or uses it with a npc conan is fighting to increase their ferocity...
> 
> I dont like the 2d20 system, but I like threat.




Even that doesn't make sense.  Conan is fierce outside when entering the cave and happens to add some Threat.  Then, he pays for it later with some complication not even related to his fight outside.

Or worse...

 Conan is fierce outside when entering the cave and happens to add some Threat.  Then, SOME OTHER CHARACTER pays for it later with some complication not even related to his fight outside.

I think its a horrible mechanic.


Or what about this....

The players see the Threat Point total rise, and they decide to start playing very cautiously, not taking any chances, not rolling extra dice for anything.

They do this not for a good, in-game reason.  They do it for an artificial game reason--simply because the Threat Point total is high and they don't want to give the GM any more ammunition to make more obstacles for the group!

It's a horrible, meta-game mechanic.


----------



## JeffB (Aug 16, 2015)

If you say so.

I would suggest you stick with what you like.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 16, 2015)

JeffB said:


> If you say so.
> 
> I would suggest you stick with what you like.




Good advice, of course.  

I'd like to like this new game.  I love the idea of so many experts working on it.  I just can't get past the 2d20 System and that Threat mechanic.


----------



## CoreyHaim8myDog (Aug 17, 2015)

Suboati and Akiro would not appear in the current Conan game. It's REH as canon and whatever is made up in that vein.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 17, 2015)

CoreyHaim8myDog said:


> Suboati and Akiro would not appear in the current Conan game. It's REH as canon and whatever is made up in that vein.




They would if a player made them as characters!

And, I do understand that the game will be based only what REH wrote and what the game's producer's _make up_, using their own estimation _ "what is"_ and _"what is not"_ appropriate for Howard's version of Conan's world.

In the end, it will be just another set of _opinions_ on what Howard would want.


----------



## CoreyHaim8myDog (Aug 17, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> They would if a player made them as characters!
> 
> And, I do understand that the game will be based only what REH wrote and what the game's producer's _make up_, using their own estimation _ "what is"_ and _"what is not"_ appropriate for Howard's version of Conan's world.
> 
> In the end, it will be just another set of _opinions_ on what Howard would want.




Well, we have the experts on the case. So, it should be about as faitful as one can get without necromancy.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 17, 2015)

CoreyHaim8myDog said:


> Well, we have the experts on the case. So, it should be about as faitful as one can get without necromancy.




C'mon.  I don't mean to argue with you, and, indeed, I am glad that so many informed people are working on the game.

But, if you're talking about making up new stuff--what you_ think_ Howard would approve--you're still just making up new stuff, just like any comics writer, pastiche writer, roleplaying game writer, screenwriter, or any other person who has added to the Hyborian Age since Howard's death.

Yeah, I get it.  You've got experts making informed, educated guesses with new material.  I think that's fantastic.

It's still just an opinion, though, just like anybody else's opinion.


----------



## CoreyHaim8myDog (Aug 17, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> C'mon. I don't mean to argue with you, and, indeed, I am glad that so many informed people are working on the game.
> 
> But, if you're talking about making up new stuff--what you_ think_ Howard would approve--you're still just making up new stuff, just like any comics writer, pastiche writer, roleplaying game writer, screenwriter, or any other person who has added to the Hyborian Age since Howard's death.
> 
> ...




Well, sure we are. Like I said, without necromancy, there isn't much more we can do, but we are trying to avoid the pitfalls of past pastiche. I think that's the best anyone can do playing in somebody else's garden. Hopefully, it all comes out of a deep love for REH's version of Conan. I don't think Conan has gotten that treatment in RPGs yet. So, we're aiming high. Hope you wind up liking it.


----------



## Jan van Leyden (Aug 17, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> Because the one guy is fighting hard--he's just taking risks when he fights.  It doesn't mean that Conan is being loud and attracting attention.  He's grim and quiet.  But, when he swings, he's ruthless and savage (in game terms, spending extra dice to fight that way, and increasing the Threat Pool when he fails).
> 
> Originally, the GM had two guards watching that back cave entrance, but now, since the Threat Pool is higher, the GM can spend those points to increase the number of guards that the players have to fight.
> 
> ...




Well, I don't know the rules, but according to your description the Threat Pool increases whenever Conan *fails *his attack. He attacks a guard, fails and the guard can react. Would the guard quietly wait for Conan's next blow or would he start yelling for help?

For me, this makes perfect sense, assuming that we're playing in a gamist situation where more guards may arrive from wherever.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 17, 2015)

CoreyHaim8myDog said:


> Well, sure we are. Liek I said, without necromancy, there isn't much more we can do, but we are trying to avoid the pitfalls of past pastiche. I think that's the best anyone can do playing in somebody else's garden. Hopefully, it all comes out of a deep love for REH's version of Conan. I don't think Conan has gotten that treatment in RPGs yet. So, we're aiming high. Hope you wind up liking it.




I'll probably never get a chance to enjoy other aspects of the game because of the game's mechanics (I really despise the 2d20 System), but if that were not so, I'd surely be interested in what you guys put out.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 17, 2015)

Jan van Leyden said:


> Well, I don't know the rules, but according to your description the Threat Pool increases whenever Conan *fails *his attack. He attacks a guard, fails and the guard can react. Would the guard quietly wait for Conan's next blow or would he start yelling for help?
> 
> For me, this makes perfect sense, assuming that we're playing in a gamist situation where more guards may arrive from wherever.




What happens is this:  Player is allowed to throw more dice when making a task.  The more successes he has, the better he does on the task.  But, there is a chance the he rolls bad enough to add points to the Threat Pool, too.

The Threat Pool grows, for the group.  It is suggested that buttons are placed into a jar.  The GameMaster can spend the points in the Threat Pool to add extra obstacles to the party or a player, whenever he wants.

So, in effect, Conan could build up the Threat Pool single handed, and Subotai could pay for it with a complication he encounters in a completely unrelated part of the adventure.


----------



## Jan van Leyden (Aug 17, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> What happens is this:  Player is allowed to throw more dice when making a task.  The more successes he has, the better he does on the task.  But, there is a chance the he rolls bad enough to add points to the Threat Pool, too.
> 
> The Threat Pool grows, for the group.  It is suggested that buttons are placed into a jar.  The GameMaster can spend the points in the Threat Pool to add extra obstacles to the party or a player, whenever he wants.
> 
> So, in effect, Conan could build up the Threat Pool single handed, and Subotai could pay for it with a complication he encounters in a completely unrelated part of the adventure.




So the system is prone to bad GMing? If your Subtai tries to open a lock later on and this lock suddenly has a poison needle payed by from the increased threat pool, I'd agree with you. But in the context of a single scene the mechanism makes sense to me.


----------



## modiphius (Aug 17, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> About that Threat Point mechanic I dislike so much in this game....
> 
> I had a thought that has turned into a question.  When players take risks (which means roll more dice), the risk of generating Threat Points increases.  What happens when one player is single-handedly generating a lot of Threat Points for the group but his actions aren't something that would, with all rationalization, be something that should put the entire group in danger?
> 
> ...




Well the Threat can be spent directed at the character generating the Threat. But also this is the point if you're spending a lot of Threat, it's a balance. If guards are going down because of a player buying loads of dice it pays back - you don't know how or when, but it's coming. 



Water Bob said:


> Here's a good, hard example showing why I don't think the mechanic is a good one, but also asking why you do think it is a good one.  I posted this on another forum, but it works here, too.
> 
> *The Situation*
> 
> ...




It doesn't have to be guards, it might be more physical challenges or traps for Conan or the others - Threat should be spent focused on those creating it to be thematic, but as a group if they're letting one guy cause them problems, then they're basically watching one guy play the game and copping out - and they should suffer the consequences. If players take too long working out what to do, take some Threat, they'll soon act. 

Also if you were GM'ing D&D, and one player was smashing guards left right and centre would you not bring in more challenges to balance things out? Or do you let them cruise through and finish the game with a feeling of dissatisfaction that it was too easy? The Threat system makes it really easy to balance things, you don't have to learn the balance which can take GM's a long time, it's simple and there in the rules. 



Water Bob said:


> It can be extra guards...or something else.  Still wouldn't make sense.
> 
> Even that doesn't make sense.  Conan is fierce outside when entering the cave and happens to add some Threat.  Then, he pays for it later with some complication not even related to his fight outside.
> 
> ...




If another player is paying for it, that could be identical to a D&D situation where a GM gives loads of problems to a player who isn't causing all the commotion - would you do it as a GM? No, so it's not sensible to do it a player in 2d20 either. This is common sense and will be discussed in Gming advice. It's not different to any other RPG where you don't penalise players for something they haven't done. Remember you can spend the Threat exactly as you like and when you like. No one is forcing you to spend it on this player or that. 

If players become to cautious seeing the Threat points rise they probably shouldn't be playing an RPG - we're here to have adventures with brave heroes. If you're worried about a few bad monsters coming through a door maybe you should back home? Again we teach players about enjoying the thrills of rising Threat, cool stuff is about to happen, monsters, challenges and other 'bad' things are dramatic and fun - that's what we're here to do, and if it feels like the GM is punishing you with Threat then a) he's probably the wrong GM and b) he can do exactly the same thing with D&D and abuse the amount of encounters



Water Bob said:


> What happens is this:  Player is allowed to throw more dice when making a task.  The more successes he has, the better he does on the task.  But, there is a chance the he rolls bad enough to add points to the Threat Pool, too.
> The Threat Pool grows, for the group.  It is suggested that buttons are placed into a jar.  The GameMaster can spend the points in the Threat Pool to add extra obstacles to the party or a player, whenever he wants.
> So, in effect, Conan could build up the Threat Pool single handed, and Subotai could pay for it with a complication he encounters in a completely unrelated part of the adventure.




Again would you do this in a game of Pathfinder, 13th Age or D&D? Why should another player pay for the success of another player? Use your common sense as a GM and use the Threat when it's relevant, when it's fun, etc. 

Again remember Threat is there to drive drama and make fun stuff happen - new challenges, new stories, new dangers and creatures are what we're here to explore and fight. If a GM is abusing it, find a new GM, the Threat system gives you a simple mechanic for balancing it out between player success and failure. No one forces a GM to spend Threat, he or she should be spending it to help contribute to a great story.


----------



## N01H3r3 (Aug 17, 2015)

What Chris (modiphius) said, but I thought I should weigh in, as the guy running the rules side of things:



Water Bob said:


> What happens is this:  Player is allowed to throw more dice when making a task.  The more successes he has, the better he does on the task.  But, there is a chance the he rolls bad enough to add points to the Threat Pool, too.
> 
> The Threat Pool grows, for the group.  It is suggested that buttons are placed into a jar.  The GameMaster can spend the points in the Threat Pool to add extra obstacles to the party or a player, whenever he wants.
> 
> So, in effect, Conan could build up the Threat Pool single handed, and Subotai could pay for it with a complication he encounters in a completely unrelated part of the adventure.




More accurately, the situation is this:

A player character rolls 2d20 for a test normally. If he wants to roll more - push his luck, be more daring, etc - he may buy up to three additional d20s for that test, by handing the GM one Threat for each d20 bought.

The GM also gains Threat when the players suffer complications from rolling natural 20s and 'buy them off' (the system is roll low, on a per-die basis - you're counting successes with each die generating up to two successes, so roll-low is faster than roll-high in this instance), when player characters attempt Response Actions (dodge, parry, etc), and under a few other circumstances ("this monster is particularly vile and mighty, so it adds 1 to Threat just by turning up", "the sorcerer's ritual adds one to Threat each round until he's got enough to cast his spell", etc)

The GM can use Threat for minor scene editing ("more guards arrive, drawn by the sound of fighting", etc), or for boosting his NPCs (buying extra dice, Response Actions, buying off complications, and triggering unique special abilities), by paying points out of his pool.



Jan van Leyden said:


> So the system is prone to bad GMing? If your Subtai tries to open a lock later on and this lock suddenly has a poison needle payed by from the increased threat pool, I'd agree with you. But in the context of a single scene the mechanism makes sense to me.



The GM is welcome to play up or play down the 'scene editing' uses of Threat as he or she wishes - some GMs may wish to do impromptu retcons like this, others may not feel comfortable doing it, and instead save their threat for things like NPCs dodging or fighting harder. A lot of the time, I'll have a handful of Threat spends lined up in a scene in advance, to represent extant perils that aren't happening constantly. The limiting factor on those events is that there's a limited amount of Threat available at any one time, and it's limited by the players. There are ways for the GM to generate Threat by himself, sure - NPCs can pay excess successes (Momentum) into Threat in the same way that PCs can save Momentum into a group pool - but the players are the main contributors, so they can collectively serve to set the pace of the game by choosing how much Threat they're willing to throw at the GM.

It's "prone to bad GMing" in the same way that any game system is - player behaviour is the kind of thing that should normally be handled through talking it through like adults and/or finding a system that suits your style of play better. No system will suit every player or every group.

If one player is generating all the Threat, then the GM is entirely within his rights to focus his uses of Threat on that one player in return: the towering, brash hero drawing all the attention. I'd still make sure that everyone is on the same page in terms of what they want out of the game, though.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 18, 2015)

Jan van Leyden said:


> So the system is prone to bad GMing? If your Subtai tries to open a lock later on and this lock suddenly has a poison needle payed by from the increased threat pool, I'd agree with you. But in the context of a single scene the mechanism makes sense to me.




It would make more sense to me, too, if it played out in a single scene, for the one character.  I still wouldn't like the mechanic, but it would make more sense.

But, that's not the way it works.

Threat Points are basically Kharma.  Do badly, and it comes back to bite you, and everyone around you, in the lower extremities.  Being risky and being a hero is tempting the fates in this game.





In d20 terms, Threat Points are akin to a character having a chance to generate a Threat Point every time that character uses a Feat.  The more often he uses his Feats, the more likely he'll generate Threat Points.









modiphius said:


> It doesn't have to be guards, it might be more physical challenges or traps for Conan or the others - Threat should be spent focused on those creating it to be thematic, but as a group if they're letting one guy cause them problems, then they're basically watching one guy play the game and copping out - and they should suffer the consequences. If players take too long working out what to do, take some Threat, they'll soon act.




It's exactly what I said.  Risky, heroic characters are punished because they generate Threat Points more often.







> Also if you were GM'ing D&D, and one player was smashing guards left right and centre would you not bring in more challenges to balance things out?




I find that players feel like they are damned if they do, damned if they don't, when a GM plays that way.

The best way is to have a set number of guards.  If the PCs blow through them easily, then the PCs should smile and rejoice for a job well done.  If the PCs have a hard time, then maybe they should re-think their actions and strategy.





> Or do you let them cruise through and finish the game with a feeling of dissatisfaction that it was too easy?




Actually, I find that players are very satisfied when they do well, make great choices, have high dice throws.  If that results in them "cruising through the adventure", then they usually pat themselves on the back.

It's when every game session--every adventure--is a cake walk that the game becomes dissatisfying.






> The Threat system makes it really easy to balance things, you don't have to learn the balance which can take GM's a long time, it's simple and there in the rules.




What I'm seeing is a meta-game mechanic that punishes players for being risky and heroic.

If they roll more dice, to get the interesting and neat effects, they run the risk of more Threat Points.

That's not a good game mechanic, in my estimation.






> If players become to cautious seeing the Threat points rise they probably shouldn't be playing an RPG - we're here to have adventures with brave heroes.




WHAT???

That's exactly the opposite of what I always remind my players in my Mongoose d20 Conan game.

I remind them how dangerous and gritty the game world can be.  I remind them that this isn't like it was in AD&D where a player tried to kill everything on the map to get the XP.

I tell them to play smart.  Use tactics.  Retreat if they are in over their heads.  And be strategic.

I tell them NOT to play the game like a computer game.

I tell them to live in their character's shoes and experience the world, living through their characters, as if it were real.

*And...that seems to be exactly opposite of what you say above--and the direction of this new Conan RPG.*







> Again would you do this in a game of Pathfinder, 13th Age or D&D? Why should another player pay for the success of another player? Use your common sense as a GM and use the Threat when it's relevant, when it's fun, etc.




First, it CAN be done using that Threat Mechanic.

And, Second, if a GM doesn't mean to, he probably will still punish the entire group, or another character who didn't generate any Threat, just by using the Threat Points for whatever reason.



Threat Points, in my opinion, are very bad game design.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 18, 2015)

N01H3r3 said:


> More accurately, the situation is this:
> 
> A player character rolls 2d20 for a test normally. If he wants to roll more - push his luck, be more daring, etc - he may buy up to three additional d20s for that test, by handing the GM one Threat for each d20 bought.





OH, I thought there was only a chance of generating Threat when rolling more dice.  Here, you're saying that Threat builds automatically.

That's even worse.

You're saying, "You can be heroic and daring and push your luck, but if you do, obstacles will be harder and more numerous for you."







> The GM also gains Threat when the players suffer complications from rolling natural 20s....




That's where I got the "chance of Threat" idea.

This 2d20 System has a lot of meta-game aspects to it.  It's more akin to a board game or a computer game than it is a role playing game.  Meta-game aspects, by definition, do not lend themselves well to immersive roleplaying.

Typically, meta-gaming is something that players and GMs want to keep minimized in a roleplaying game.  Players should play their characters (and GMs should play the NPCs) from the perspective of those characters--not use the players knowledge, which can be something the characters don't know or realize.



Chris said that Threat can be used to add more enemies when the players are blowing through an encounter too easily.  That's meta-gaming.  That's the GM saying, "Hmm....this is too easy.  Let's add in some more enemies."

Or, if the GM looks at the Threat Pool, sees that it is high, and decides to spend some of that threat by putting poisoned needle on a trapped trunk, where there was no poison needle there before.







> The GM can use Threat for minor scene editing ("more guards arrive, drawn by the sound of fighting", etc), or for boosting his NPCs (buying extra dice, Response Actions, buying off complications, and triggering unique special abilities), by paying points out of his pool.




I get it.  An aspect of Threat is that it is a pool that any NPC can draw from, rather than each NPC have his own individual abilities.


----------



## pollico (Aug 18, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> It would make more sense to me, too, if it played out in a single scene, for the one character.  I still wouldn't like the mechanic, but it would make more sense.
> 
> But, that's not the way it works.
> 
> ...



Then don't use them. 

But you seem quite focused in YOUR way of doing the things... And yet you forget that every game is different and so, MUST be played accordinly withing its own ways... And to understand a mechanic it must be put in practice without previous biases, because if not, our own expectatives are going to ruin them. So, Im sorry but I cannot agree.  

In fact, I think the "Treat system" is a neat and cool way of creating great adventures and fun obstacles meanwhile its develops the history forwards. It is not realistic, but hey, D&D has never been any realistic and people didn't complain, isn't it?


----------



## pollico (Aug 18, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> OH, I thought there was only a chance of generating Threat when rolling more dice.  Here, you're saying that Threat builds automatically.
> 
> That's even worse.
> 
> ...



Oh boy, this is ludicrous. So a roleplaying game can't use abstract, gamist tools to create new ways of doing stuff, because then its not an rpg, so Fate is a videogame, HeroQuest is a boardgame and RQ6 is a guessing kinden-garden game. And meta-game is using threat points, but not rolling damage or hitpoints. Why? All are "out of character" mechanics... So... Explain it to me, please.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 18, 2015)

I predict that more people will dislike this mechanic that those who do like it.

And, yes, I know the 2d20 based Mutant Chronicles just won an Ennie for best rules.

Time will tell who is correct.

I know I don't like it.

And, I explained it to one of my Conan players last Saturday, and he said (because I am the GM), "If you switch to that game, I'm quitting."


----------



## CoreyHaim8myDog (Aug 18, 2015)

I don't see the quandary here. Threat creates a basic tension between the character's goals and the evorinoment. Tension and conflict are at the heart of all drama. If you know, as a player, that you can keep trying the craziest thing imaginable without increasing risk, what is the point of NOT doing the most dangerous thing every time?

How is threat different from charging headlong into combat with opponents that outmatch you? And yet players do it. Sometimes the risks pay off. Sometimes they don't. Every game is, to one degree or another, based on that tension.

I think, WaterBob, you're taking a fluid concept and trying to apply it rigidly in a codified manner. Threat allows the players to visualize the sense of rising tension in the mechanics of the game. It's like reverse Jenga—the more threat tokens you see in the GM's pool, the harder you know things might get. Rising tension and increased stakes are pretty much the root of all narrative. Without them, who cares what happens?


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 18, 2015)

CoreyHaim8myDog said:


> I don't see the quandary here. Threat creates a basic tension between the character's goals and the evorinoment.




And tension between the players, too, don't forget that, as players get mad at that idiot who keeps building the threat pool because the player is trying to make his character do risky and heroic things.







> Threat allows the players to visualize the sense of rising tension in the mechanics of the game.




That may be.

But, Threat also tells the players, "Hey!  Expect more obstacles, enemies, and complications" for a purely meta-game reason when the characters have no legitimate reason at all to expect things to get harder.





> Rising tension and increased stakes are pretty much the root of all narrative. Without them, who cares what happens?




Rising tension in a story or game is great.  I'm just saying that the Threat Pool is the wrong way to achieve that effect.






*EXAMPLE OF WHY THREAT STINKS....*

Conan ventures into Thulsa Doom's mountain alone.  He fights the guards at the mouth of the cave, and buys some Threat.  But, his heroics pay off, and he enters the cavern complex.

Inside, Conan runs into a squad of more guards.  Again, Conan pushes his luck, buys some more threat, and takes 'em all out.

Now, Conan players sees the Threat Pool.  It's too high for the player's taste.  All of a sudden, bold, risky Conan is now backing off from those heroics, becoming more conservative.

He's done nothing but demolish every foe that has stood in front of him.  But the player now knows that the GM has a good amount of Threat to play with.

So Conan becomes....cautious.

For no other reason than the meta-game mechanic of the Threat Pool has gotten high!





So, the GM sees the total, spends the Threat Points on bringing out Thorgrim and  Rexor, Doom's right hand men, who proceed to capture Conan.

If Conan hadn't been so heroic earlier, the GM would not have the points to activate these two, strong NPCs together.  But, because Conan was risky and heroic, he pays for that heroism now by having to face two of the strongest NPCs in this scenario, shay of Thulsa Doom himself.



Time passes, and Valeria and Subotai are worried.  They go after Conan, even though they said that they'd stay behind.

There is NO THREAT left in the pool.  The GM spent it on activating Thorgrim and Rexor above, who captured Conan (which probably would not have happened without the GM using the Threat Pool).

So, as Valeria and Subotai approach the mouth of the cave in search of their missing comrade--when they should be concerned about the situation at their utmost--the players are actually pretty calm and lackadaisical about their entrance into Thulsa Doom's fortress--the place that swallowed up their friend.

Why?

*BECAUSE THERE'S NO DOGGONE POINTS IN THE THREAT POOL.

*




Threat isn't a good roleplaying mechanic.  It's something for use on a board game or a card game.  

It's a meta-game tool.


----------



## CoreyHaim8myDog (Aug 18, 2015)

That presupposes that Threat is the only mechanic which causes danger in the game. It's an extra not a substitute for die-rolling and general GM plotting. The GM needn't even use it in the way you assume. Yes, he or she could add more guards. he or she could also rule that it costs the player character something—a lingering wound, death of a beloved NPC, etc.

Why couldn't Conan's example pay off not in being captured, but Valeria being killed? You don't HAVE to use them in one specific way. For that matter, maybe Valeria gave the GM tons of Threat when she resurrected Conan, and that's why she died. There is no reason you cannot integrate it directly into plot.

If a specific play is always pushing the Threat pool, the effects come down on that player. It needn't affect the whole group. That ought to remain the GM's call. As GM, I wouldn't punish the whole part for one player always buying more dice. 

As for metagaming, this is pulp. Pulps follow a pretty solid formula of increased risks and rising tension.I don't see why metagaming can't be utilized to build real, palpable tension for the players rather than their characters.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 18, 2015)

CoreyHaim8myDog said:


> That presupposes that Threat is the only mechanic which causes danger in the game. It's an extra not a substitute for die-rolling and general GM plotting. The GM needn't even use it in the way you assume.




I wrote that example to highlight what's wrong with the mechanic.

It could easily be used the way I describe.






> Yes, he or she could add more guards. he or she could also rule that it costs the player character something—a lingering wound, death of a beloved NPC, etc.




And, now, you've got a player upset with you, which is never good for the game.

"Why do I have a bruised knee that halves my movement rate?  You didn't use the Threat Points to do this to anybody else!  You're picking on me!  Singling me out.  That's not fair!







> As for metagaming, this is pulp. Pulps follow a pretty solid formula of increased risks and rising tension.I don't see why metagaming can't be utilized to build real, palpable tension for the players rather than their characters.




I've explained why.

And, I've run very exciting, very "Conan" games not using a meta-gaming tool.  Meta-gaming is not a requirement, by any stretch, to run a pulpy game.

The Threat Mechanic is a meta-game tool.

Whenever a player uses meta-game information to guide his character in most rpg's today, it is usually looked at as bad form.

"Jerry's character wouldn't take the gold offered him because Jerry knows, for a fact, that the gold is covered with contact poison.  But, there was no reason in the world that his character would have known that--and who would turn down gold?"

See...bad form.


----------



## pollico (Aug 18, 2015)

Thats a very selfish and personal opinion. You can't state that this or that is right or wrong based in your only preferences. You have to explain why: and all your explanation assume or that nor the GM or the players like this mechanic beforehand, or it is badly used.
And I ask you: what if... Obstacles are so bold and risky by standard, that players must use the "risky boons" in order to get trouht those alive? What if... Generating treath points is not a product of foolishly playing, but rather a basic tactic? 

I dónt see meta-game problems here: the GM can use the Threat but is not obblied. Players can generate MORE threat to obliterate the newly generated obstacles. 
And even, Conan novels are not about a fool with big muscles who charge through all the things without hesitation, are about an anti-heroic guy who survive rather impossible situations using his "barbaric" traits, which are best than the civiliced ones. Thats the thing.

And I repeat: this tool is not meta-game itself: players only see how many points the Gm has, but can't know what is it for... And the tension and danger are ALWAYS raising in a good Conan novel. You are very biased. And Im not saying it is thw best way to do Conan, but I can see how it can work perfectly.


----------



## N01H3r3 (Aug 18, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> OH, I thought there was only a chance of generating Threat when rolling more dice.  Here, you're saying that Threat builds automatically.
> 
> That's even worse.
> 
> You're saying, "You can be heroic and daring and push your luck, but if you do, obstacles will be harder and more numerous for you."




So up until now, you've been basing your loathing of this mechanic upon flawed information?

Hardly a good-faith argument, then. If you're unwilling to try and understand the rules before you criticise them, why should anyone actually debate anything with you. You've clearly already made up your mind that this is bad, regardless of any of the facts or details.



Water Bob said:


> That's where I got the "chance of Threat" idea.
> 
> This 2d20 System has a lot of meta-game aspects to it.  It's more akin to a board game or a computer game than it is a role playing game.  Meta-game aspects, by definition, do not lend themselves well to immersive roleplaying.
> 
> Typically, meta-gaming is something that players and GMs want to keep minimized in a roleplaying game.  Players should play their characters (and GMs should play the NPCs) from the perspective of those characters--not use the players knowledge, which can be something the characters don't know or realize.




"By definition"? By your definition, perhaps, but I refute and decry your assertion that metagaming is always bad, particularly given that the concept of "character knowledge" doesn't originate with original D&D (player knowledge is an assumed and expected element).

Board games are more popular than ever before. Computer games, many of which draw elements from RPG design, are a multi-billion-dollar industry. RPGs already derive heavily from their wargaming roots, to which most people seem blithely unaware. Gaming is bigger than ever. It would be utterly foolish not to take inspiration from other sources, just out of a sense of snobbery as to the definition of so ill-defined and fluid a medium as role-playing games.

We get it: you don't like the rules. But you not liking them does not make them bad, just as me not liking GURPS does not mean that system is bad.

Your arguments come across more as fervent one-true-wayism than as anything else. You've already formed your opinion, and now you're going to proselytise to anyone in your path.



Water Bob said:


> Chris said that Threat can be used to add more enemies when the players are blowing through an encounter too easily.  That's meta-gaming.  That's the GM saying, "Hmm....this is too easy.  Let's add in some more enemies."
> 
> Or, if the GM looks at the Threat Pool, sees that it is high, and decides to spend some of that threat by putting poisoned needle on a trapped trunk, where there was no poison needle there before.



These are true. Or the GM could just use them to mirror PC activities - make that warrior dodge, buy extra dice for that attack, etc.

If the player characters choose not to generate Threat, then the GM has less to use. The GM has the option to use - or not - the scene editing elements that you demonstrably loathe as he sees fit. The mechanic scales to suit the group in play.

With reinforcements, the GM could easily silo them behind some choice, action, or declaration - one of the enemies flees to get help, and returns a round or two later with help, or a foe sounds an alarm to call in more warriors, or even a simple word to the players "the sound of fighting here could draw more enemies". At that point, Threat is being used to model an existing peril, with the total size of the Threat pool representing problems and challenges that haven't yet manifested.

I do not believe, nor have I believed for many years, that an absolute ban on metagame concepts is conducive to all games, and the rise of systems like Fate, and the various Cortex Plus games, seems to support my belief. Not everyone will enjoy every game, but that applies just as much in the 'Traditional gaming' style you're arguing for as it does to games that embrace narrative elements.



Water Bob said:


> I get it.  An aspect of Threat is that it is a pool that any NPC can draw from, rather than each NPC have his own individual abilities.



Not quite. NPCs have their own individual abilities, but some abilities require some expenditure to use. This is little different to the idea of having 1/encounter or 1/day abilities, only more fluid.



Water Bob said:


> And, yes, I know the 2d20 based Mutant Chronicles just won an Ennie for best rules.



To make things utterly clear: actually, no it didn't. The Ennie was for Mutant: Year Zero, an distinct game (related only in publication history, rather than mechanics or setting).



Water Bob said:


> Time will tell who is correct.
> 
> I know I don't like it.



We all know you don't like it.

Thing is, I don't actually care "who is correct", because I'm not in this to be right. I'm in this to make games and take satisfaction in people enjoying them. Proving someone wrong on the internet ranks much lower on my list of priorities.

I'm trying to set the record straight, to cut through your loud assertions and provide information that they wouldn't get if you were the only voice here. If people are interested, that's their business, and they're entitled to get clear information, rather than your bombastic opinions.



Water Bob said:


> And, I explained it to one of my Conan players last Saturday, and he said (because I am the GM), "If you switch to that game, I'm quitting."



Given that we've established that you've been ranting against a system you don't have an accurate understanding of, I can't imagine that your explanation was particularly illuminating.



Water Bob said:


> *EXAMPLE OF WHY THREAT STINKS....*
> 
> Conan ventures into Thulsa Doom's mountain alone.  He fights the guards at the mouth of the cave, and buys some Threat.  But, his heroics pay off, and he enters the cavern complex.
> 
> ...



Because this GM is clearly out to prove the system is wrong?

It takes almost no effort to frame the growth of Threat. The deeper into Doom's mountain Conan goes, the more formidable and numerous his foes become. As Conan cuts down guards, the ones who remain fight all the harder to stop the onrushing Barbarian. Either or both of those sentences serves as ample justification for things getting tougher as the adventure progresses.

Beyond all that, your example assumes that the GM isn't spending Threat during those previous scenes, which is a flawed assumption.

There's an alternative approach here. Conan, seeing the mountain is guarded, sneaks around, using stealth and guile to bypass the guards. His entrance draws less attention, and so the Threat pool doesn't grow as swiftly... and thus Doom's forces aren't as ready to fight back.



Water Bob said:


> So, the GM sees the total, spends the Threat Points on bringing out Thorgrim and  Rexor, Doom's right hand men, who proceed to capture Conan.
> 
> If Conan hadn't been so heroic earlier, the GM would not have the points to activate these two, strong NPCs together.  But, because Conan was risky and heroic, he pays for that heroism now by having to face two of the strongest NPCs in this scenario, shay of Thulsa Doom himself.
> 
> ...



Of course there isn't, in your example that assumes an all-or-nothing use. Actual play results may vary from your assertions.



Water Bob said:


> Threat isn't a good roleplaying mechanic.  It's something for use on a board game or a card game.
> 
> It's a meta-game tool.



So you keep saying. But when your examples consist of theorycrafting, without the theory, your arguments are less than persuasive.



Water Bob said:


> And, now, you've got a player upset with you, which is never good for the game.
> 
> "Why do I have a bruised knee that halves my movement rate?  You didn't use the Threat Points to do this to anybody else!  You're picking on me!  Singling me out.  That's not fair!



If your players can't take their characters not being perfect paragons of pulchritude who never suffer from any hardship, then that's their problem.

RPG systems shouldn't be required to 'solve' the behaviours of players, and it almost never works out well if they try.



> And, I've run very exciting, very "Conan" games not using a meta-gaming tool.  Meta-gaming is not a requirement, by any stretch, to run a pulpy game.
> 
> The Threat Mechanic is a meta-game tool.



Nobody ever claimed it was a requirement. You're the one claiming that metagaming is anathema to gaming.



> Whenever a player uses meta-game information to guide his character in most rpg's today, it is usually looked at as bad form.
> 
> "Jerry's character wouldn't take the gold offered him because Jerry knows, for a fact, that the gold is covered with contact poison.  But, there was no reason in the world that his character would have known that--and who would turn down gold?"
> 
> See...bad form.



Using a deliberately poor example to support your position? Bad form.

In Fate - by way of example - the GM would be perfectly within his rights to compel the aspect "Shiny, Shiny Gold", offering the player a Fate Point to convince him to accept the poisoned gold in spite of his knowledge. The player would still have the option of refusing that compel, typically with a justification for why his character is suspicious.

The kind of blanket ban on metagaming you describe tends to - in my experience - just lead to players coming up with creative ways around that, using whatever justifications they can stretch to fit the circumstances.

Me, I'm more likely to err on the side of awesome, and see what kind of drama we can milk out of a character being suspicious of the offered gold.


----------



## crazy_cat (Aug 18, 2015)

I was a bit on the fence about teh new Conan game - after all I've got loads of games, including Mongoose Conan, various D&D/D20, Pathfinder, and OSR games to do Conan or Swords & Sorcery gaming, what was this one going to add or do that was new or original? 

But this thread now has me interested. Will now certainly have to give it a look when it Kickstarts.


----------



## Imperialus (Aug 18, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> Here's a good, hard example showing why I don't think the mechanic is a good one, but also asking why you do think it is a good one.  I posted this on another forum, but it works here, too.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Alternate situation... Keep everything the same until the guard bit.  In fact Conan continues to wreck face for the entire fight.  Then when they flee Thulsa Doom, the GM uses a threat point to allow Thulsa to cast a spell turning a snake into an arrow...


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 18, 2015)

Well, heck.  Who knows.  Maybe this game with this gimmicky, gameist mechanic, will be the best selling game of all time.

I guess we'll see.


----------



## pollico (Aug 18, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> Well, heck.  Who knows.  Maybe this game with this gimmicky, gameist mechanic, will be the best selling game of all time.
> 
> I guess we'll see.



Something selling much don't tell much about its qualities... It tells about its merchandising and investiment force of its publisher's company. 

If I were you, I would simply try to shake off my prejudices and then try to read lots of rpgs. You would learn a lot of things, first of all: there is no right or wrong way of designing a rpg (there ARE ways of playing badly...)  There's always options better or worse, its all a fact of choosing what YOU think is the best or the most interesting part.

 For example: if you are aiming for the most realistic combat system possible, you will have to put a limit when the mechanics are way too complex for them to be funny. This Threath system is the same: its a way of giving power to the players and to the GM, while creating drama. Its a very good point, you can like it or not, but trying to tell that its WRONG because then you can't play the game the same you did with D20?


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 18, 2015)

pollico said:


> You would learn a lot of things, first of all: there is no right or wrong way of designing a rpg (there ARE ways of playing badly...)




Oh, my friend, you are so wrong about that.  Just try to make sense of Traveller 5, where, mathematically, Spectacular Success gets easier to achieve the harder a task becomes.  Or, there is a Fighting Task, but if you use it for melee actions, it results in an automatic hit, 100% of the time.

There are bad games and bad rules out there.

The Threat Mechanic is not "bad" the way Traveller 5 is bad.  But, it's not a role playing game.  It's more of a board game without a board.

And, that's fine for people like you who want to play it.

I'm disappointed that the new Conan game, with everything else that looks so cool about it, has this awful set of mechanics.

Now, if they publish the game with a different set of mechanics--with a good set of mechanics--the way Primeval Thule is doing, then I'll buy the game.  But, otherwise, I'm out.

And, I'm pretty much the target audience for this game.  I bought every book for Mongoose's Conan RPG--the entire game line, good and bad, I own it.

I would have done the same with this game if the mechanics were not so--funky.


----------



## CoreyHaim8myDog (Aug 18, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> Well, heck.  Who knows.  Maybe this game with this gimmicky, gameist mechanic, will be the best selling game of all time.
> 
> I guess we'll see.




If you like Conan D20, why are you so strident in your vocal dislike of this game which is, I should note, still in playtesting? It is unliikely anyone will force you to play it or buy it.


----------



## pollico (Aug 18, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> Oh, my friend, you are so wrong about that.  Just try to make sense of Traveller 5, where, mathematically, Spectacular Success gets easier to achieve the harder a task becomes.  Or, there is a Fighting Task, but if you use it for melee actions, it results in an automatic hit, 100% of the time.
> 
> There are bad games and bad rules out there.
> 
> ...



Well, I have not said there can't be bad games, or poorly made mechanics, what I was trying to imply was how there isn't good or wrongs in game designing. You allways says: thats not a roleplaying game!, well, YOU are wrong. People are playing "not" rpgs from 15 years. And I can say that, sometimes, this sort of "funky" mechanics, if well implemented (and used) can do things that no traditiinal game could. 

You have not even tried to play the game, you KNOW ir is crap for ONE of its nechanics, without knowing about the others or how the whole game is set... This is not even a discussion. Its you saying I don't like it because it is a boardgame and meta-game crap, and the rest of people trying to make some sense into you, which, to me, appears hard as . But of course, you know better than anyone...


----------



## TreChriron (Aug 18, 2015)

My translation of the past 100 posts by *Water Bob*;

"Boo Hoo! I am a Conan expert and this game is not the one I play nor was I consulted and now I hate it. Boo Hoo!"  (unless you thought you were so "tricky" that your posts were somehow hiding your butthurt...)

I think the game engine looks interesting. I certainly will wait to pass any judgement until I've actually played it.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 18, 2015)

Every game, no matter how broken or poorly implemented, has its fans.  Even Traveller 5.

Even, this game, too.


----------



## CoreyHaim8myDog (Aug 18, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> Every game, no matter how broken or poorly implemented, has its fans.  Even Traveller 5.
> 
> Even, this game, too.




It's not even out yet, though, WaterBob. You're judging it without seeing the final product.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 19, 2015)

CoreyHaim8myDog said:


> It's not even out yet, though, WaterBob. You're judging it without seeing the final product.




Yes.  I'll give you that.  But, I'm also pretty sure that the Threat Mechanic is here to stay.  Which isn't a good thing, in my book.



The Threat Mechanic could work if the results were applied to the character who generated the Threat immediately when it happens.  That way, there'd be no meta-gaming.  But, that's not how the game is designed.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 19, 2015)

The Threat Mechanic really isn't a tool to support and provide narrative and drama.  It's really a tool to limit the GM's actions in a game.

The GM can activate whatever NPCs he thinks makes for a good game.  He doesn't need Threat Points to do that.  The GM can impose obstacles--that's really a major part of his job.  He's there to run the game world and all its creatures, enemies, and obstacles, as the characters explore and interact with the game world.

As was said, Why are Threat Points needed for him to do what he's supposed to do in the first place?




Second, besides being a meta-game tool (which is usually a bad thing in most roleplayers' eyes), it is also a mechanic that punishes the entire group for players running their characters so that they are heroic.  

How are Threat Points created?  A player "pays" for them when he buys extra dice in order to push his luck and do something spectacular in the game.

And, later, those Threat Points, generated by the character's heroics, are used to apply more obstacles in the path of the players.


Why anybody would want to play that way beats me.


----------



## pollico (Aug 19, 2015)

Bla bla bla. Water Bob, you haven't changed your speech in all your post, just spamming the same inconsistent crap. 
"In most roleplayers eyes", yes... Because you have met everybody around the world...

Let me ask a question to you: how can a pj know how many hit points he has, or the level of a creature? That's, strictly talking, meta-game stuff, you know... 
The bad meta-gaming is the one which is used to take advantaje of a knoledge that ha chararter should't have, and he uses it to its advantaje. This ISN'T meta-game. 

By the way, this doesn't penalize anybody for being heroic, you can charge to the front and strike with might without it. But maybe your enemies are stronger than you, you lack certain skill or simply you need to make certain things faster. Your'e not penalized for nothing, its a pulp trope build into the system: when something good (for the protagonist) happens, then its going to get worse.... Until the " bad luck" ends and he save the day. Its always an up\down narrative. 

If you think for a moment, its the same system of Luck Points presents in a lot of games.

The GM don't need this system at all, is a drama device that he has for creating opposition, dramatic scenes and so on (Conan is knocked down by a pety guard, how? Its "impossible"... But the GM had TP. Perfect, isn't it,? In the stories, it happen's all the time)

It a shame that not only you are unable to think of this TP system without prejudges, but you can't stop to spit crap and nonsense witout hesitation.


----------



## Porcupine (Aug 19, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> A
> *EXAMPLE OF WHY THREAT STINKS....*
> 
> Conan ventures into Thulsa Doom's mountain alone.  He fights the guards at the mouth of the cave, and buys some Threat.  But, his heroics pay off, and he enters the cavern complex.
> ...




This sounds pretty good, and very much in the vein of the original pulps. Conan is forever catching something on the wind or feeling something in his bones that makes him suddenly wary. And the nonchalant rescue is a genre staple.


----------



## RoguesPanda (Aug 19, 2015)

Sounds pretty cool actually. What do they mean a system is too crunchy? I've only played a few RPGs, I know I'm a noob. What is up with the crunch? I hate single dice systems, kinda boring.


----------



## CoreyHaim8myDog (Aug 19, 2015)

RoguesPanda said:


> Sounds pretty cool actually. What do they mean a system is too crunchy? I've only played a few RPGs, I know I'm a noob. What is up with the crunch? I hate single dice systems, kinda boring.




Crunchy means a game is rules heavy. Rules lite is the opposite. The Conan 2D20 is designed to be a rules lite version of the Mutant Chronicles 3rd Edition 2D20 system. So, MC3 has more crunch versus Conan (and John Carter) which are "lighter."


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 19, 2015)

> Let me ask a question to you: how can a pj know how many hit points he has, or the level of a creature? That's, strictly talking, meta-game stuff, you know...
> The bad meta-gaming is the one which is used to take advantaje of a knoledge that ha chararter should't have, and he uses it to its advantaje. This ISN'T meta-game.




You obviously don't understand the term "meta-game" as it is applied and used in RPGs.

From This Link:



> Metagaming is any strategy, action or method used in a game which transcends a prescribed ruleset, uses external factors to affect the game, or goes beyond the supposed limits or environment set by the game. Another definition refers to the game universe outside of the game itself. Metagaming differs from strategy in that metagaming is making decisions based upon out of game knowledge, whereas strategies are decisions made based upon in-game actions and knowledge.
> 
> In simple terms, it is the use of out-of-game information or resources to affect one's in-game decisions.






And, looking at all the new, low level posters, why do I feel as if Modiphius is trying to get people in there to support their meta-game mechanic?


----------



## pollico (Aug 19, 2015)

It is not my first languaje, and on top of that I'm using a cell-phone. 

I understand what Meta-game is, better than you, I have to say: using your own link, "every action,  strategy or method used in a game that trascends a prescribed ruleset, uses external factors to affect the game or goes beyond the supposed limits or environments set by the game".
So, if a game USES a certain rule as the TP system, despite using tokens or something, as it is related to the rules and don't trascends the suppossed limits of the game nor uses external factors, it is NOT meta-game.

I have only used " wrong" meta-game elements as examples of your own meta-game concept usage being flawed, but anyway. You have your answer.

I am not related in any way with Modiphus, I just have just created an account for the forums. But it seems quite paranoid coming from you:"oh. I seem to have found some pesky free-thinkers, they must be spies and traitors... 

By the way, I apologize in advance for any wrong usage of the languaje. But you have to think that the majority of the people on the internet  are not english or has it as a mother-tongue.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 19, 2015)

pollico said:


> By the way, I apologize in advance for any wrong usage of the languaje. But you have to think that the majority of the people on the internet  are not english or has it as a mother-tongue.




I removed that part of my comments once I posted, before you replied.  When I re-read what I wrote, it sounded mean, and I didn't intend it that way.  So, I took it out.


----------



## Pickles III (Aug 19, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> You obviously don't understand the term "meta-game" as it is applied and used in RPGs.
> 
> From This Link:
> 
> ...




It must be disappointing to have a setting you love implemented by a set of mechanics you desperately do not like I feel your pain, well we all do as you will not stop going on about it 

However that does not make the mechanisms in question bad or not role-playing merely not to your taste. In fact I I don't think you are supposed to say things like that around here. 


Meanwhile while I agree with your assessment that the threat mechanic is metagamey, it does not fit with the definition you posted quoted above. The threat mechanic is definitely in the game & uses in game knowledge to make the decisions. What it does not do is use _in character knowledge_. 


Metagame thinking is certainly frowned upon by a lot of folks but was a characteristic of classic player vs DM gygaxian D&D. Loads of the monsters & abilities from 1e are pretty much metagame solutions earwigs, mimics & rust monsters for example.

Anyway I am pretty neutral on metagame mechanics. They can give players agency in situations where they may not have any & can make for more of a shared story telling experience, as contrasted to a world exploration type simulationist experience.
They give players some mechanical buttons to press even if they can work to undermine immersion.  

(not a Mophidius shill, Pickles I & II linked to defunct email accounts from the 3e spoiler days)


----------



## CoreyHaim8myDog (Aug 19, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> You obviously don't understand the term "meta-game" as it is applied and used in RPGs.
> 
> From This Link:
> 
> ...




I work for Modiphius but have long been a member here. I'm on the fluff side of Conan, though. My only question is why you seem to hate the game so much. It seems personal. You can play it or not play it as you like. I can tell you that Modiphius doesn't astroturf, having worked for them for some while. But when you are so vehement in your dismissal of a game that isn't even out yet, you have to expect people who've put hours of work, and in the case of the company, considerable money into the game would want to respond. Caring about your work isn't a conspiracy.


----------



## fjw70 (Aug 19, 2015)

When is this game suppose to be out? I am interested in seeing the final product. The threat mechanic sounds interesting.


----------



## N01H3r3 (Aug 19, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> And, looking at all the new, low level posters, why do I feel as if Modiphius is trying to get people in there to support their meta-game mechanic?



I'm a Modiphius employee - I'm in charge of games development for all 2d20 system games (though I didn't design it - that credit belongs to Michal Cross and Jay Little), which includes Conan. My attention was drawn to the discussion because my boss wanted to double check some rules-side answers he was giving, and I chose to get involved myself. 

I hardly think games developers getting involved in discussions about the games they've developed is cause for paranoia.


----------



## crazy_cat (Aug 19, 2015)

N01H3r3 said:


> I hardly think games developers getting involved in discussions about the games they've developed is cause for paranoia.



But you are posting on the interwebz and encouraging badwrongfun type gaming with your heretical 2D20 Threat mechanic nonesense - this must be resisted at all costs!


----------



## CoreyHaim8myDog (Aug 19, 2015)

crazy_cat said:


> But you are posting on the interwebz and encouraging badwrongfun type gaming with your heretical 2D20 Threat mechanic nonesense - this must be resisted at all costs!




Crom cares not about heresy!


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 19, 2015)

Pickles III said:


> It must be disappointing to have a setting you love implemented by a set of mechanics you desperately do not like I feel your pain, well we all do as you will not stop going on about it




You mean this as a dig, but it really does hit the nail on the head.  When I first heard about the new game, I had a big smile on my face.  Then, when I heard all of these wonderful people would be working on the game, that grin turned into a big, ear-to-ear toothy grin.

Then I saw the awful, gimmicky, meta-game mechanic that is so rooted in the system.

My disappointment, as it dropped, could be heard on the other side of the planet.

I play a lot of games, and I like all sorts of mechanics, both crunchy and slick-n-easy.  I typically like roll high, but I've played some roll low systems that were well constructed.  I've played and like the simple percentile system of FASA's Star Trek.  I love Classic Traveller, with it's simple D6 based mechanics.  I think WEG's STAR WARS game, based on D6, is flat out incredible.  Top Secret/SI has a dynamite system.  The old James Bond RPG by Victory Games has a cool, unique system that uses multiplies--and is very, very cool.  And, of course, all of you know that I love Mongoose's take on the d20 3.5 System for their Conan RPG. 

So, I would have been happy with any well-made system for the new Conan game.  My tastes in game systems is quite wide.

That silly Threat Mechanic, though, is a deal breaker.



My only hope is that Modiphius publishes a second version of the same game using better mechanics, following the lead of games like Primeval Thule.


----------



## pollico (Aug 19, 2015)

I hope they don't. And I have to repeat myself: bad system FOR YOU and your tastes.

I think this mechanic suits perfectly (awesomely) to Conan style adventures.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 19, 2015)

pollico said:


> I hope they don't.




Why?  Then, we'd both enjoy the new game.  Not just one of us.





> I think this mechanic suits perfectly (awesomely) to Conan style adventures.




A poster on another forum gave a good example of why the Threat Mechanic is an inferior game rule.



> Role play out the above example from the Conan movie :
> 
> 1)Normal way - GM rolls, rolls good and Valaria dies. Can't do much about that except say - Good roll GM
> 
> ...




It's clear that the Threat Mechanic can also promote friction between the GM and the players in some groups.

"Why'd you kill off my Valeria character?  Why didn't you use the Threat Points for something else?"

Players don't like it when they feel like the GM is picking on them.


----------



## pollico (Aug 19, 2015)

Well, it is the way THIS game works. It's THE SAME the first and the second examples: they are both a death. Nobody likes when their pcs die. 

It promotes friction between GM and players in the same way that poisons, traps and enemies do.
 "Eh, why your wizard threw a fireball when he could throw a sleep spell instead? Its not fair!, bad GM! Buu"


----------



## modiphius (Aug 19, 2015)

fjw70 said:


> When is this game suppose to be out? I am interested in seeing the final product. The threat mechanic sounds interesting.




When it's ready and because it's so important we're taking our time. However the goal is a PDF by Christmas, with a Kickstarter just before in Oct-Nov 

Walter we recorded our Tuesday night session playing the playtest adventure this week we'll edit and post soon along with the version played around Howard's dining table. I played with 8 players and had a growing threat pool which I used steadily but didn't use as much as I could have, and still the player's had a hard time (actually because as some left we took them out of the story for the purposes of the test). As a result I didn't spend as much Threat as I could have, because I wasn't trying to kill off the players. Just as with a game of D&D I know how to keep them on the edge (the final two players nearly came a 'cropper with the finale) and pull the punches enough to make them fear death. 

Threat is not this system that forces you to do anything. You can actually play much of the system without it, sometimes I used it to fire extra arrows from archers, made a slave master try to dodge an attack, a player character almost miss a jump and end up hanging off an edge, etc and still the players had a great time. I could have spent a lot more - going back again I'd have used some more for scene changes, more dodges from the enemies, or return attacks but it was all fun and people were getting wounded left right and centre so I didn't feel the need to.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 19, 2015)

pollico said:


> Well, it is the way THIS game works. It's THE SAME the first and the second examples: they are both a death. Nobody likes when their pcs die.
> 
> It promotes friction between GM and players in the same way that poisons, traps and enemies do.
> "Eh, why your wizard threw a fireball when he could throw a sleep spell instead? Its not fair!, bad GM! Buu"




Are you just being combative?  You honestly can see how a player would accept his PC dying on the roll of the dice but feel picked on and bitter if the GM chose to use Threat Points to help end the character's life?

You don't see how a player could feel as if the GM were out to get him (when really, the GM just thought the narrative would be grand)?

If you can't see that, then you and I have nothing else to discuss on this topic.

Because, it's plain as day.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 19, 2015)

modiphius said:


> When it's ready and because it's so important we're taking our time. However the goal is a PDF by Christmas, with a Kickstarter just before in Oct-Nov
> 
> Walter we recorded our Tuesday night session playing the playtest adventure this week we'll edit and post soon along with the version played around Howard's dining table. I played with 8 players and had a growing threat pool which I used steadily but didn't use as much as I could have, and still the player's had a hard time (actually because as some left we took them out of the story for the purposes of the test). As a result I didn't spend as much Threat as I could have, because I wasn't trying to kill off the players. Just as with a game of D&D I know how to keep them on the edge (the final two players nearly came a 'cropper with the finale) and pull the punches enough to make them fear death.
> 
> Threat is not this system that forces you to do anything. You can actually play much of the system without it, sometimes I used it to fire extra arrows from archers, made a slave master try to dodge an attack, a player character almost miss a jump and end up hanging off an edge, etc and still the players had a great time. I could have spent a lot more - going back again I'd have used some more for scene changes, more dodges from the enemies, or return attacks but it was all fun and people were getting wounded left right and centre so I didn't feel the need to.





Get that game session posted on YouTube, and I will certainly watch it.  Post a link here, if you please, so that I'll know when it's ready.



EDIT:  And, you may want to post the video in two versions.  One, showing the game play.  A second one showing the game play but with commentary from you.  It'd be nice to hear you, as GM, explain why you made the choices you did in the game, using Threat (but also explain the rules as they work).


----------



## modiphius (Aug 19, 2015)

pollico said:


> Well, it is the way THIS game works. It's THE SAME the first and the second examples: they are both a death. Nobody likes when their pcs die.
> 
> It promotes friction between GM and players in the same way that poisons, traps and enemies do.
> "Eh, why your wizard threw a fireball when he could throw a sleep spell instead? Its not fair!, bad GM! Buu"




I actually like players fearing PC death - knowing that I'm willing to do it, I won't unless they're stupid but if they don't BELIEVE the GM will let their character die then the drama has little excitement. Now there is also great story telling in characters dying and it can be a fun part of the game as you start a new character, perhaps a relative, or a friend or just someone new. The world of Conan is brutal and it should be reflected. Call of Cthulhu has a very brutal system seeing PC's degenerate in to insanity, and it's a much loved part of the system that you just start a new character. 

Perhaps we should all have a track record of how our last character died in Conan ?


----------



## modiphius (Aug 19, 2015)

Sure I'll post the links here as soon as we can. 

Good idea on the commentary - it might be a bit busy audio wise for that, I think a video version (mine was audio only) would allow that better as I can add subtitles and will bear that in mind.


----------



## pollico (Aug 20, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> Are you just being combative?  You honestly can see how a player would accept his PC dying on the roll of the dice but feel picked on and bitter if the GM chose to use Threat Points to help end the character's life?
> 
> You don't see how a player could feel as if the GM were out to get him (when really, the GM just thought the narrative would be grand)?
> 
> ...



I see that one kill you only by the luck. It is impersonal, cold, lifeless. 
The other is a drama device. We know it can enhance or activate opposition skills, but nothing like "kill a pc right now", thought.

So... It is the same. The GM has used HIS RESOURCES to challenge you.that is what I see. Can't you?


----------



## Pickles III (Aug 20, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> You mean this as a dig, but it really does hit the nail on the head.  When I first heard about the new game, I had a big smile on my face.  Then, when I heard all of these wonderful people would be working on the game, that grin turned into a big, ear-to-ear toothy grin.
> 
> Then I saw the awful, gimmicky, meta-game mechanic that is so rooted in the system.
> 
> My disappointment, as it dropped, could be heard on the other side of the planet.




My apologies - I was empathising to start with, then could not resist the cheap shot.  I appreciate your frustration, I seem to remember it happening to me though I cannot remember in what context. 

I do think you are letting your dislike for this style of game & love for the setting overcome your reason about whether it is bad or simply not to your taste though.


----------



## The Crimson Binome (Aug 20, 2015)

pollico said:


> I see that one kill you only by the luck. It is impersonal, cold, lifeless.
> The other is a drama device. We know it can enhance or activate opposition skills, but nothing like "kill a pc right now", thought.



It basically comes down to the difference between: "_Tough luck, that's the way the dice fall sometimes, but I'll be rooting for you next time,"_ and _"You died because I decided that it would be dramatic for you to die. Isn't this a great story?"_

It's the difference between the GM as a neutral arbiter, and the GM as an unpredictable force of nature which can switch between benign or malevolent on a whim. It doesn't make for a terribly satisfying experience as a player, not even getting into the causality chains between innocuous actions in one region having a physical impact on the events that take place in another region.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 20, 2015)

modiphius said:


> Sure I'll post the links here as soon as we can.
> 
> Good idea on the commentary - it might be a bit busy audio wise for that, I think a video version (mine was audio only) would allow that better as I can add subtitles and will bear that in mind.




I just think hearing how the rules are used from the GM's point of view--why you made that choice, what you were thinking there that motivated you to do that--would be good for the game all around.  Those that already like the game get to see it in action.  Those on the fence get a better understanding of how the rules can be used.  And, those, like me, who hate the Threat Mechanic get a close up view of it in action, with commentary--which may change some opinions (even mine--I'll give it a fair look).

It can't hurt you.  I can only help the game.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 20, 2015)

Pickles III said:


> I do think you are letting your dislike for this style of game & love for the setting overcome your reason about whether it is bad or simply not to your taste though.




I'm Old School.  My games are heavy on roleplaying and immersion.  For me and my group, that's what makes roleplaying so much different than another gaming activity, like playing Axis & Allies, poker, or Monopoly.

The Threat Mechanic is more akin to those types of games than actual, real roleplaying.

And, in being Old School, I believe that Meta-Gaming is bad.

I've found that most roleplayers have that opinion of Meta-Gaming.  Not all, of course.  But, most.


----------



## Pickles III (Aug 20, 2015)

I think you are more 2e AD&D era school than "old" school. 

Old 1e & before was (often - massive table variation) about overcoming challenges set by the DM & was anything but immersive. See Tomb of Horrors for the classic metagame dungeon. It was very much about player skill rather than their characters abilities which is surely metagaming. 
But that's by the by I know what you mean but I do not think you can claim heritage as a support for the idea that acting in character is the only definition of what makes a roleplaying game.  It is most closely matched to what roleplaying is but playing a roleplaying game can involve much more than that.

I agree metagame mechanics like threat can break immersion but they need not - you can be fully invested in playing your character while _also _participating in the metagame. 

These devices are intended to help emulate genre tropes & allow for all of the participants not just the DM to be involved in the narrative - 5 brains being more creative than 1. They also give you some mechanical depth which can be lacking in the I attack with my sword, again fighter combat.


Anyway you are clearly not happy with this(!) & I wish you luck with the next 2025 edition of the Conan RPG!


----------



## N01H3r3 (Aug 20, 2015)

Pickles III said:


> These devices are intended to help emulate genre tropes & allow for all of the participants not just the DM to be involved in the narrative - 5 brains being more creative than 1. They also give you some mechanical depth which can be lacking in the I attack with my sword, again fighter combat.



A lot this. I find that many 'traditional' style games (AD&D and its ilk) tend to cast a large divide between Roleplaying and Game, so that they're two distinct activities, and you don't let one impinge upon the other (or vice versa).

I disagree with that. I enjoy both the narrative and the mechanical sides of RPGs, and I want to engage with both when I'm playing or GMing.



Saelorn said:


> It's the difference between the GM as a neutral arbiter, and the GM as an unpredictable force of nature which can switch between benign or malevolent on a whim. It doesn't make for a terribly satisfying experience as a player, not even getting into the causality chains between innocuous actions in one region having a physical impact on the events that take place in another region.



Alternatively, the latter is "GM as participant".

My typical GMing style works under the same assumption as a Joss Whedon show - the player characters are most interesting when they're suffering. When everything is going smoothly, things are boring. When things get complicated, things get interesting. Similarly, in my experience, a difficult and hard-fought victory is more satisfying to the players than coasting from one victory to the next.

Threat is the means by which the GM complicates things mid-scene. The GM is free to frame scenes in whatever manner he chooses, with Threat as a counterpoint to the resources that the PCs have. It takes a delicate touch to maintain the pressure on the PCs just right... but the same can be said of traditional GMing, only with Threat, there's a way to quantify it.



Water Bob said:


> I just think hearing how the rules are used from the GM's point of view--why you made that choice, what you were thinking there that motivated you to do that--would be good for the game all around.  Those that already like the game get to see it in action.  Those on the fence get a better understanding of how the rules can be used.  And, those, like me, who hate the Threat Mechanic get a close up view of it in action, with commentary--which may change some opinions (even mine--I'll give it a fair look).




I'll give a telling example from my Mutant Chronicles campaign (same mechanic, different names).

The player characters are investigating a murder, when the victim's body begins to move - it had been animated as a Kadaver (a disease-fuelled zombie, extremely resilient to harm). Typically, a lone Kadaver is tough, but otherwise not a particularly challenging foe (they're more effective in groups), but I wanted to amp up the fear and peril of a single foe.

The Kadaver has a special rule that means that an attack against it can be ignored by spending a Dark Symmetry point (the Mutant Chronicles counterpart to Threat), unless the attack was fire or a headshot. They're also Troopers, the lowest class of NPC, so they only roll 1d20 for normal tests, making them less effective. I spend most of my starting pool of Dark Symmetry points to boost its attacks up to a more reasonable level, and to ignore the attacks of the PCs until they figured out that headshots were more effective. It didn't take long, but the whole fight lasted three rounds, instead of one, and the player characters were a bit scratched up, where they would have been untouched.

The use of ten Dark Symmetry points in that fight wasn't an overwhelming force, but rather a tool to amp up the tension and challenge the players. The intent wasn't to destroy them, but to scare them, and establish the threat of the enemy.


----------



## The Crimson Binome (Aug 20, 2015)

N01H3r3 said:


> The use of ten Dark Symmetry points in that fight wasn't an overwhelming force, but rather a tool to amp up the tension and challenge the players. The intent wasn't to destroy them, but to scare them, and establish the threat of the enemy.



But you're doing that in a way such that they're learning a lesson which is untrue. You want to establish the enemy as a threat, so you make this one monster much scarier than it would otherwise be (through use of a meta-game resource); their takeaway is that this is a very strong monster which needs to be dealt with using one of its prescribed weaknesses.

But if they encounter a group of ten such creatures, at a later point, they're going to _think_ that these are all very scary monsters, and they'll need fire or a called shot if they want any chance of putting one down. They'll _know_ through first-hand experience that regular attacks are ineffective. If one of them goes down from a shot to the torso - if anyone even attempts that, given their certain knowledge that it would be ineffective - then it creates a plot hole.


----------



## The Crimson Binome (Aug 20, 2015)

I guess what I'm getting at is this:

If you've already established that you're not playing an antagonistic GM (in the vein of Basic D&D), then you've decided that you're not going to kill the PCs unless they're really asking for it (either through stupid or heroic actions, where death would be suitable to the genre). You just want to scare the players, and make the story more dramatic. At that point, why do you need a meta-game resource to regulate that? Why can't you just fudge some dice rolls, whenever you feel like it? How does it improve any aspect of the game when the Big Bad goes down before it can even act, _because_ the GM spent too many Dark Symmetry points on keeping the Dragon up for another round? Is it just a way to keep the GM engaged with the game aspect of it, by giving a resource to manage?


----------



## N01H3r3 (Aug 20, 2015)

Saelorn said:


> But you're doing that in a way such that they're learning a lesson which is untrue. You want to establish the enemy as a threat, so you make this one monster much scarier than it would otherwise be (through use of a meta-game resource); their takeaway is that this is a very strong monster which needs to be dealt with using one of its prescribed weaknesses.
> 
> But if they encounter a group of ten such creatures, at a later point, they're going to _think_ that these are all very scary monsters, and they'll need fire or a called shot if they want any chance of putting one down. They'll _know_ through first-hand experience that regular attacks are ineffective. If one of them goes down from a shot to the torso - if anyone even attempts that, given their certain knowledge that it would be ineffective - then it creates a plot hole.



Or I'm playing up narrative elements over a slavish devotion to realism - the first time such a foe is encountered, it's a terror. The next time, the heroes have figured out how to deal with those foes, and they're weaker by comparison. I'm running something that resembles a story, with a particular pace and particular narrative beats, albeit guided by player choices, rather than a simulated chain of events to which I'm just an impartial judge (which seems to be a sin to some people).

I dislike the notion that an NPC must always exist in a specific, singular state (indeed, that element has more in common with computer games than anything else - NPCs as a pre-set and immutable package of stats). Fights aren't fair, they're not all equal, and nobody should enter battle with the certainty that "I'm fighting X, so I'm probably going to win", and the uncertainty and variation that comes from an additional factor that they can't 100% plan for is a valuable one for keeping action scenes tense, and keeping foes as viable threats regardless of how powerful the PCs have gotten.



Saelorn said:


> I guess what I'm getting at is this:
> 
> If you've already established that you're not playing an antagonistic GM (in the vein of Basic D&D), then you've decided that you're not going to kill the PCs unless they're really asking for it (either through stupid or heroic actions, where death would be suitable to the genre). You just want to scare the players, and make the story more dramatic. At that point, why do you need a meta-game resource to regulate that? Why can't you just fudge some dice rolls, whenever you feel like it? How does it improve any aspect of the game when the Big Bad goes down before it can even act, _because_ the GM spent too many Dark Symmetry points on keeping the Dragon up for another round? Is it just a way to keep the GM engaged with the game aspect of it, by giving a resource to manage?



I don't _need_ a metagame resource. But this isn't about need. I like the outcomes it produces, and the effects I can create with it. I recently did a revision of the Infinity RPG playtest that frames "Heat" (the name for Threat in that system) as the kind of noise and unpleasant attention that gets in the way of covert ops. High Heat means that enemies are more alert, that the situation is risky and filled with peril. In one of the adventures in the Mutant Chronicles line, I used Dark Symmetry points to serve as a stealth and subtlety system, where the total number of Dark Symmetry points represents the security at a high society party being infiltrated, and players contribute Dark Symmetry points to the GM through actions that might draw undue attention. It's a tool, and while it isn't essential, it has certainly been useful, and I enjoy seeing what I and other GMs can do with it.

You're right that it is, in part, a way to keep the GM engaged with the game aspect. I find that a lot of RPGs overlook that the GM is a participant as well, and while that's fine for some, that isn't always ideal for every style of game. I got into game design in part because I like the rules side of RPGs, particularly when the rules interact interestingly or complement the roleplaying side of things. I dislike systems that just "get out of the way" when roleplaying happens, as if RP and G are anathema to one another. I dislike systems that assume that the GM's only real interaction with the rules is pre-session prep and teaching the players, because I want to play too, rather than just serving as Master of Ceremonies for everyone else's fun (having spent two years dealing Roulette and Blackjack professionally, I've done "you're playing, I'm just facilitating play").

Beyond that... some players don't like the idea of a GM fudging the dice rolls, and don't respond well to the idea of it. I've done it with some games, but I prefer systems where I don't _need_ to, because that kind of flexibility and authorial power is a part of the system, rather than using the GM as a way to patch the system if it creates undesirable outcomes (a good GM doesn't need a system, a bad GM can make even the best system awful).

And, once you get down to it, GMing is a daunting prospect for those who've never done it before, particularly with systems where there aren't guidelines, limits, and structure. GMing where there's a structure in place is an easier prospect... and we want more GMs, because that's the only real way the hobby can expand.

It's also worth remembering that Threat is one part of the system, not the whole of it.

Broadly, test difficulties do not scale linearly, but the maths of the system is obfuscated into relatively straightforward player choices. For a character rolling only two dice (the default, buying no extra dice), with an Attribute of 8, and Expertise 2 (adds +2 to the attribute for that test) and Focus of 2 (any natural roll of 1 or 2 on any d20 counts as two successes) each in a given skill, passing a Difficulty 1 test happens 75% of the time. Difficulty 2 reduces that to 25%. Difficulty 3 reduces it to 5%, and Difficulty 4 to 1%. Difficulty 5 is absolutely impossible to reach on two dice. Hitting the high difficulties reliably means buying dice. Threat is the most obvious way to do that, and it's universally applicable... but it comes at the cost that the GM might be able to do the same (or something equivalent) later. Spending Luck - a limited player resource, difficult to recover - is more reliable and comes without adding fuel to the fire (a Luck point spent gives you a d20 that's already rolled a 1 - no risk of Repercussions, and if you've got Focus, an automatic two successes). Assisting a task lets one character add a d20 tested against his skills to someone else's test. Certain skill tests have specific ways of boosting dice pools - Mutant Chronicles and Infinity let you spend Reloads (an abstract unit of ammunition) to get bonus d20s and damage dice on attacks), often drawing on some limited circumstance or player-side resource. A few talents let a character buy two dice for each Threat on particular tests, giving them a better deal for the cost. There are a few ways to get those extra dice, not only Threat. Threat is the baseline, the universal option.

From that perspective alone, Threat is one of the ways that the player hits high difficulties, but it's otherwise not essential. And it's entirely possible to play that way.

However, there's also Momentum to consider. Getting more successes than the minimum required is advantageous - those successes become Momentum. Momentum is a degrees-of-success mechanic, so the more you get the better you succeed, but it's designed to be more versatile than that - a character could spend Momentum to take extra actions, succeed at a task more quickly, achieve more, give aid to an ally or hinder an enemy, etc, or all of the above, if they spread around what they spend their Momentum on. It serves as our 'stunts and manoeuvres' mechanic in combat, with the added advantage that you can see how you did before you choose what stunt you're doing. More than that, player characters can save spare Momentum, passing it into a group pool that any PC can draw from, so one character's successes can benefit someone else. Consequently, succeeding really well on a test is something to aspire to a lot of the time, which makes buying those extra dice more temping.

At that point, it's entirely possible for a single player to pump Threat into the pool, then pass on the benefits to his allies (who aren't buying extra d20s) as Momentum.


----------



## The Crimson Binome (Aug 20, 2015)

N01H3r3 said:


> I dislike the notion that an NPC must always exist in a specific, singular state (indeed, that element has more in common with computer games than anything else - NPCs as a pre-set and immutable package of stats). Fights aren't fair, they're not all equal, and nobody should enter battle with the certainty that "I'm fighting X, so I'm probably going to win", and the uncertainty and variation that comes from an additional factor that they can't 100% plan for is a valuable one for keeping action scenes tense, and keeping foes as viable threats regardless of how powerful the PCs have gotten.



What it has most in common with is reality, where there is variance between individuals but each person is consistent in its own state (barring outside factors like fatigue, intoxication, etc).

But the point is taken. You're trying to enforce a tone, and the players have already agreed to not question inconsistencies, back when you all decided to play the game in the first place. The game can be more successful with its target audience by intentionally excluding players who won't buy into that.


----------



## N01H3r3 (Aug 20, 2015)

Saelorn said:


> What it has most in common with is reality, where there is variance between individuals but each person is consistent in its own state (barring outside factors like fatigue, intoxication, etc).



True... but those outside factors, and all those little variables too small for the system to accurately model, are what we use dice for. The Threat system permits a little more control over those variables from the GM's perspective (without giving absolute control).

Plus, it helps cover those situations where two otherwise-identical NPCs should be different. Those two city guards aren't the same in every way... they've got the same stats for the sake of convenience, but here's a way to make them distinct in the players' memories.



Saelorn said:


> But the point is taken. You're trying to enforce a tone, and the players have already agreed to not question inconsistencies, back when you all decided to play the game in the first place. The game can be more successful with its target audience by intentionally excluding players who won't buy into that.



As can any game - every game works best in the hands and minds of those who accept the underlying assumptions of the system and setting.


----------



## pollico (Aug 20, 2015)

N01H3r3 said:


> True... but those outside factors, and all those little variables too small for the system to accurately model, are what we use dice for. The Threat system permits a little more control over those variables from the GM's perspective (without giving absolute control).
> 
> Plus, it helps cover those situations where two otherwise-identical NPCs should be different. Those two city guards aren't the same in every way... they've got the same stats for the sake of convenience, but here's a way to make them distinct in the players' memories.
> 
> ...



That second part is SO true: trying to play original D&D with people (veterans of other games, but that haven't played Gary Gigax thing -its possible-) who are not assumed or understand what they are going to do... Its a waste of time. Nor the game, its rules or its background are going to impress or interest them. At least if they are not aware of its qualities, and they have to avoid prejudices to all enjoy the ride...

And yes, every game has to be played withing its own context. You don't play the same a high fantasy setting as a dark fantasy one.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 21, 2015)

In reading this discussion about Threat, I still don't get why it is needed.

Without doing a lot of quoting from the above and writing a wall of text, the simple question is:  Why is Threat needed at all?  Why is is practical.  How does is help or improve the game?

Because, from what I see in all these examples, it is used express the GM's will.  

Well, can't he do that already?

Doesn't the GM do everything that has been expressed as the use of the Threat Mechanic in all the examples above?  Or, in other words, if you take the Threat Mechanic out, what's lost?  What's different about the game?





Let's say you sit down to play the new Conan RPG, and the GM says, "No matter how high the Threat Pool becomes, I will not use Threat in the game for any reason."

What's different about this game, now?

Won't the GM still run his game, make it interesting, throw obstacles in front of the PCs?

Is the only real use of the Threat Mechanic is as a tool to keep players from throwing more than 2d20 for every task throw?


----------



## CoreyHaim8myDog (Aug 21, 2015)

Saelorn said:


> I guess what I'm getting at is this:
> 
> If you've already established that you're not playing an antagonistic GM (in the vein of Basic D&D), then you've decided that you're not going to kill the PCs unless they're really asking for it (either through stupid or heroic actions, where death would be suitable to the genre). You just want to scare the players, and make the story more dramatic. At that point, why do you need a meta-game resource to regulate that? Why can't you just fudge some dice rolls, whenever you feel like it? How does it improve any aspect of the game when the Big Bad goes down before it can even act, _because_ the GM spent too many Dark Symmetry points on keeping the Dragon up for another round? Is it just a way to keep the GM engaged with the game aspect of it, by giving a resource to manage?




It give the players agency. If you, as a player, take a risk and see the threat pool going up, you know that YOU have a hand in your later fate. Fudged rolls are all in the GM's hands. This engages players directly in the overall dramatic arc of a scene or an entire adventure.


----------



## The Crimson Binome (Aug 21, 2015)

CoreyHaim8myDog said:


> It give the players agency. If you, as a player, take a risk and see the threat pool going up, you know that YOU have a hand in your later fate. Fudged rolls are all in the GM's hands. This engages players directly in the overall dramatic arc of a scene or an entire adventure.



Maybe, but it's extra-character player agency, which can interfere with immersive role-playing. It's all well and fine for a player to make a decision, but if you can't reconcile that with the perspective of the character, then it gets complicated.

I mean, the example could be a textbook definition of meta-gaming, so you really need to be sure that all of the players _want_ to play the meta-game (in addition to playing the actual game). Or I suppose, in this instance, the meta-game is an inseparable _aspect_ of the game as a whole. If I did buy into playing this game, I probably wouldn't appreciate if another player ignored the meta-game and just let the Threat accumulate unfettered.


----------



## CoreyHaim8myDog (Aug 21, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> In reading this discussion about Threat, I still don't get why it is needed.
> 
> Without doing a lot of quoting from the above and writing a wall of text, the simple question is:  Why is Threat needed at all?  Why is is practical.  How does is help or improve the game?
> 
> ...


----------



## CoreyHaim8myDog (Aug 21, 2015)

Saelorn said:


> Maybe, but it's extra-character player agency, which can interfere with immersive role-playing. It's all well and fine for a player to make a decision, but if you can't reconcile that with the perspective of the character, then it gets complicated.




I don't see many Stanislavski gamers going for pulp, nor do I see many games where immersion is anywhere near total regardless of genre. It sounds like you're lookig for a narrativist system?

And yu can easily reconcile Threat with the player's perspective if you want. How many times, in games or in life, do people say, "I'm really pushing my luck?"

You keep taking risks, and sooner or later they catch up with you. You don't take risks and you lead a nice, safe, and mundane life. That's really the entire premise of all RPGs. Your character is not the guy who decides to be a farmer or open up a candle shop. Your character is the one that goes out and risks all for fame, glory, or whatever your unit of existential currency happens to be in that game.


----------



## The Crimson Binome (Aug 21, 2015)

CoreyHaim8myDog said:


> I don't see many Stanislavski gamers going for pulp, nor do I see many games where immersion is anywhere near total regardless of genre. It sounds like you're looking for a narrativist system?



You're probably right on the first half, though the second part is way off. Still, it's entirely possible to redeem a pulp setting by thoughtful consideration over its premise. I've always wondered at why anyone would _want_ to evoke a pulp feeling, when 'pulp' literally means _as cheap as possible_.



CoreyHaim8myDog said:


> And you can easily reconcile Threat with the player's perspective if you want. How many times, in games or in life, do people say, "I'm really pushing my luck?"



Now we're getting into probability distributions. In real life, taking one risky action does not actually increase the risk of an un-related action that takes place in the future, even if overcoming an initial risk may convince someone that the future risk is worth taking. In real life, pushing your luck is when a certain action has a 5% chance of catastrophic failure and you keep taking that chance until eventually the 5% happens. It doesn't mean that you have a 5% chance of failure on the first attempt, and every subsequent attempt increases the risk of failure by 2%.

With a Threat mechanic, in this context, you are turning probability on its head and invoking truth from a fallacy.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 21, 2015)

CoreyHaim8myDog said:


> View attachment 69849





Fine.  We take out the Threat Mechanic (that seems to be so central to the 2d20 System.

What now?  Players are allowed to Throw 5d20 on every task with no consequence?

Or, you limit players to just 2d20 on every throw....which really isn't the System, is it?  The system is:  Base of 2d20 on throw, with up to three more dice if the players are willing to play the consequences in Threat.


----------



## pollico (Aug 21, 2015)

Saelorn said:


> You're probably right on the first half, though the second part is way off. Still, it's entirely possible to redeem a pulp setting by thoughtful consideration over its premise. I've always wondered at why anyone would _want_ to evoke a pulp feeling, when 'pulp' literally means _as cheap as possible_.
> 
> Now we're getting into probability distributions. In real life, taking one risky action does not actually increase the risk of an un-related action that takes place in the future, even if overcoming an initial risk may convince someone that the future risk is worth taking. In real life, pushing your luck is when a certain action has a 5% chance of catastrophic failure and you keep taking that chance until eventually the 5% happens. It doesn't mean that you have a 5% chance of failure on the first attempt, and every subsequent attempt increases the risk of failure by 2%.
> 
> With a Threat mechanic, in this context, you are turning probability on its head and invoking truth from a fallacy.



In real life people don't throw dices and get levels. Heck, we even don't have pointy ears with magics!


----------



## CoreyHaim8myDog (Aug 21, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> Fine.  We take out the Threat Mechanic (that seems to be so central to the 2d20 System.
> 
> What now?  Players are allowed to Throw 5d20 on every task with no consequence?




They'd have to buy them with Chronicle Points.


----------



## CoreyHaim8myDog (Aug 21, 2015)

Saelorn said:


> You're probably right on the first half, though the second part is way off. Still, it's entirely possible to redeem a pulp setting by thoughtful consideration over its premise. I've always wondered at why anyone would _want_ to evoke a pulp feeling, when 'pulp' literally means _as cheap as possible_.
> 
> Now we're getting into probability distributions. In real life, taking one risky action does not actually increase the risk of an un-related action that takes place in the future, even if overcoming an initial risk may convince someone that the future risk is worth taking. In real life, pushing your luck is when a certain action has a 5% chance of catastrophic failure and you keep taking that chance until eventually the 5% happens. It doesn't mean that you have a 5% chance of failure on the first attempt, and every subsequent attempt increases the risk of failure by 2%.
> 
> With a Threat mechanic, in this context, you are turning probability on its head and invoking truth from a fallacy.




Our goal is to capture the feel of Robert E. Howard's Conan stories in a fun game. Neither REH, nor this game, attempts to recreate reality. I have my actual life for that. Lots of people love pulp, and pulp does not have to be bad. Raiders of the Lost Ark took pulp and serials and made them into a great film. It's still pulp, but it's also great. It sound to me like you prefer narrativist games. That's totally cool, but why get angry at a game for not being the kind of game you want?

Speaking of, what do you and WaterBob want from a Conan game?


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 21, 2015)

CoreyHaim8myDog said:


> They'd have to buy them with Chronicle Points.




What are Chronicle Points?  Is that the new name of Luck Points in the playtest doc?

If so, don't the rules say that a character can only have 3 Luck Points per game session?


----------



## CoreyHaim8myDog (Aug 21, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> What are Chronicle Points?  Is that the new name of Luck Points in the playtest doc?
> 
> If so, don't the rules say that a character can only have 3 Luck Points per game session?




Oh, sorry. I used the MC3 term. Yes, that's the current rule, but you could alter it if you take out Threat.

What would you like to see in the Conan RPG? We're going into beta, so you might as well tell us what you want. I'm sure it'll be considered.


----------



## The Crimson Binome (Aug 21, 2015)

CoreyHaim8myDog said:


> It's still pulp, but it's also great. It sound to me like you prefer narrativist games. That's totally cool, but why get angry at a game for not being the kind of game you want?



As I understand the term, a Narrativist game would be a game which has rules for enforcing genre conventions, so this game as-is would definitely apply and it would not sit well with me for that reason. My personal balance skews strongly toward Simulation (of the process - players making all decisions from the in-character perspective, and GMs making all decisions agnostic of whether it would make for a good story - rather than trying to simulate our own reality), but I also understand and appreciate where rules have to be shaped toward making a fun and balanced Game (since a pure Simulation of any fantasy world would probably be unplayable due to complexity).



CoreyHaim8myDog said:


> Speaking of, what do you and WaterBob want from a Conan game?



Rather than a game which tries to generate stories similar to the original novels, I would like a sort of 'reality ensues' version of the setting. After all, the original stories can work out the way they did because they _are_ just stories; but for the characters within a Role-Playing Game, the game world is _their_ real world. If I'm playing as my character, and I see that the world around me is unfolding as though it was a story, then that makes it difficult to keep suspending disbelief. For any setting, there _should_ be a way that it can be presented without making it seem as though it was powered by narrative causality.

Personally, I just want the setting, and rules for how elements within the setting interact with each other. Tell me about the different lands, and their inhabitants. Tell me how magic works, and what happens when you stick a sword into the wizard before the spell can be completed. Tell me how long it takes to starve to death, or to recover from a wound. 

Basically, I just want a traditional sort of RPG - something like AD&D 2E, or Rifts, or Shadowrun.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 21, 2015)

CoreyHaim8myDog said:


> Our goal is to capture the feel of Robert E. Howard's Conan stories in a fun game. Neither REH, nor this game, attempts to recreate reality. I have my actual life for that. Lots of people love pulp, and pulp does not have to be bad. Raiders of the Lost Ark took pulp and serials and made them into a great film. It's still pulp, but it's also great. It sound to me like you prefer narrativist games. That's totally cool, but why get angry at a game for not being the kind of game you want?
> 
> Speaking of, what do you and WaterBob want from a Conan game?




I don't care if the rules are lite or crunchy, as long as they are well written rules, and the game is fun to play.

I want a game that captures the gritty feel of Conan's Hyborian Age.

I want to be able to create new and interesting characters for the game--even those that are vastly different from Conan--but still fits with the Hyborian Age.

I want to be able to re-create Conan, or a character very similar to Conan, using the game.

I want rules that simulate what I've read in the stories.  Since Conan jumped onto Belit's Tigress and fought off a deck full of her Black Corsairs without getting much of a scratch because of his chain hauberk, then I want it to be possible to duplicate that in the game--where a chain hauberk will protect any character (that knows how to use the armor) as well.

I want a Barbarian or Zamorian Thief, wearing only a loincloth, carrying on a knife, to be a viable combat choice.  Armor should be extremely protective, as Conan says of it in Beyond The Black River.  At the same time, armor should not be a requirement for all types of fighting.  There should be a negative to wearing armor--something that makes not wearing armor attractive.  Maybe it's fatigue. Maybe it's heat.  I want a mechanic reason, that makes sense, for why people wear armor in combat but tend to shed it when they can.  There certainly should be a penalty for sleeping in it.

I want rules that serve the game--rules that are easy to understand, and easy to play, but don't draw attention to themselves.  I want my players thinking about the scenario--living through the game via their character's eyes.  I don't want my players focusing on dice and modifiers and checks.

I want interesting, exotic equipment such as that Taurus had in _The Tower of the Elephant._

I want a smart system for fighting large scale battles, so that the major combats shown in Black Colossus can be played.  This should be a flexible system, easily used with Black Corsairs sacking a village in Shem or a tribe of Picts nailig an Aquilonan Fort.  I want to use a version of it to run ship battles.

I want combat to be gritty, and immersive, so that players feel the excitement through the mechanics.

I'm sure I can think of some other things, but that will do for starters.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 21, 2015)

I really like Combat Options.  So much of Howard's story is about combat.  Conan's ultimate response to just about ever major problem is, "Smash it with a sword."

So, instead of just a to-hit roll, I want specific options, each with pros and cons.  Not a generic, one-size-fits-all mechanic where the player makes up his move.  If a player wants his character to feint, he does this.  If a character wants his character to grap his foe and attempt to slit his throat, then he does this.

I think combat can be extremely fun when players are mixing and matching combat options.

Some combat options should serve as basic ones.  Others should be specific to the type of character or the abilities of the character.  No one character should be able to master all options.



And, there should be fighting styles, too.  Spear and Shield is different from short sword and shield.  Long polearms have an advantage because....?  A big, honkng, two-handed sword like the Vanir use can break a small tree in half if used by the right person.  But, a light, small, sharp dagger has its uses too, as one can get inside the reach of a slow, large weapon and slam, slam, slam home on the target.

That kind of stuff.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 21, 2015)

Oh...and NO META-GAMING.


----------



## CoreyHaim8myDog (Aug 21, 2015)

Saelorn said:


> As I understand the term, a Narrativist game would be a game which has rules for enforcing genre conventions, so this game as-is would definitely apply and it would not sit well with me for that reason. My personal balance skews strongly toward Simulation (of the process - players making all decisions from the in-character perspective, and GMs making all decisions agnostic of whether it would make for a good story - rather than trying to simulate our own reality), but I also understand and appreciate where rules have to be shaped toward making a fun and balanced Game (since a pure Simulation of any fantasy world would probably be unplayable due to complexity).
> 
> Rather than a game which tries to generate stories similar to the original novels, I would like a sort of 'reality ensues' version of the setting. After all, the original stories can work out the way they did because they _are_ just stories; but for the characters within a Role-Playing Game, the game world is _their_ real world. If I'm playing as my character, and I see that the world around me is unfolding as though it was a story, then that makes it difficult to keep suspending disbelief. For any setting, there _should_ be a way that it can be presented without making it seem as though it was powered by narrative causality.
> 
> ...




I'd say the game falls closer to traditional than experimental for sure, but that's my opinion. Experimental to me is something like Lacuna or Over the Edge back in the day.



Water Bob said:


> I don't care if the rules are lite or crunchy, as long as they are well written rules, and the game is fun to play.
> 
> I want a game that captures the gritty feel of Conan's Hyborian Age.
> 
> ...




I'd still debate metagaming, but almost all of what you said were part of the original manifesto we came up with for the game. Griity, Howarding, fast, fun, etc. Be able to play a barbarian in a loincloth that can take out lots of villains. Yeah, that was all at the top of our list.

As for seting, there's going to be a lot more setting over the course of the game than crunch.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 21, 2015)

CoreyHaim8myDog said:


> I'd say the game falls closer to traditional than experimental for sure, but that's my opinion. Experimental to me is something like Lacuna or Over the Edge back in the day.




I think he's talking about the non-traditional dicing system.  2d20 doesn't use the full range of the d20, counting successes on multiple dice (and even more than one success on a single die), with the ability to add more dice at the expense of Threat Points that are used by the GM.  It's pretty wacky and gimmicky, in my opinion, but I've seen games like that before.  I can't remember the title (was it Decipher Star Trek?  Or, the short lived Chronicles of the Imperium Dune game?  I can't remember.  Maybe neither of those.), but I've seen a "count the successes" game using a handfull of d6 before.  There's a neat d20 based combat system for 3.5 d20 games that uses up to 4 d20 for attacks and defense rolls--where you use the highest die.  And, lots of game uses "Hero Points" or "Fate Points" (as in the Mongoose Conan game) to change aspects of the rolls (the thing is, with those uses, they aren't meta-game).



As I said earlier, Threat Points would work if you could find a way to use them (1) on the character that generated them (2) when the character generated them.  The problem is, that would really punish heroics because you could expect something to go wrong or enemies to get tougher right then.

What if you had a Critical Fumble rule, and made it where Threat Points were not automatic.  If a character tries to do something heroic, he just risks rolling Threat--he doesn't automatically get it.  And, if Threat comes up, the the GM spends it right then on his enemy or whatever task the character is trying to do.

If the character is opening a lock and generates Threat, then the GM can use it to activate the poison needle trap.  Otherwise, failure on the task says the trap isn't sprung.

If the character is fighting an enemy and generates Threat, then the GM can use the Threat to give the enemy a special extra attack, better defense, special maneuver (like a disarm attempt), or create some problem for the character, like loose footing where he has to make a check or fall.

Do something like that, and you've taken the meta-game aspects out of the Threat rule AND it makes a lot more sense.




As you have Threat now, it punishes heroics, and it punishes the entire party for what could be one person's heroics.


----------



## The Crimson Binome (Aug 21, 2015)

CoreyHaim8myDog said:


> I'd say the game falls closer to traditional than experimental for sure, but that's my opinion. Experimental to me is something like Lacuna or Over the Edge back in the day.



Some of it is a matter of scope, and some of it probably comes down to personal sensitivities, but I would consider any game with a strong meta-game mechanic to be fairly non-traditional. Even something like Savage Worlds would be mostly traditional, except for its extensive focus on Bennies as a core game mechanic which interacts with almost every sub-system. It only takes one rule to cross the line, if that rule is so important that it can't be avoided.


----------



## N01H3r3 (Aug 21, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> I think he's talking about the non-traditional dicing system.  2d20 doesn't use the full range of the d20, counting successes on multiple dice (and even more than one success on a single die), with the ability to add more dice at the expense of Threat Points that are used by the GM.  It's pretty wacky and gimmicky, in my opinion, but I've seen games like that before.  I can't remember the title (was it Decipher Star Trek?  Or, the short lived Chronicles of the Imperium Dune game?  I can't remember.  Maybe neither of those.), but I've seen a "count the successes" game using a handfull of d6 before.  There's a neat d20 based combat system for 3.5 d20 games that uses up to 4 d20 for attacks and defense rolls--where you use the highest die.  And, lots of game uses "Hero Points" or "Fate Points" (as in the Mongoose Conan game) to change aspects of the rolls (the thing is, with those uses, they aren't meta-game).



As I've learned from discussions of "associated vs disassociated mechanics", individual perceptions on what counts as "metagaming" vary considerably, and there is no absolute objective definition of 'meta-game'.



> As you have Threat now, it punishes heroics, and it punishes the entire party for what could be one person's heroics.



"Punishes heroics" is subjective, and bears little resemblance to practical experience. Within the last year, my group have played both D&D5 and Mutant Chronicles... and Mutant Chronicles, 'metagame' elements and all, produced more acts of heroism and daring than D&D5 did.

I've looked at options for Threatless 2d20. They're seldom as satisfying, IMO, and I find that discussions of them detract from actual playtesting (we can't get accurate playtest feedback if groups aren't engaging with the rules-as-written, but what you do once the playtest is done is up to you).

In this instance, I think the digression might be constructive.

Each character receives a small quantity of "Effort", which refreshes relatively swiftly. Each point of Effort spent adds 1d20 to a test, up to a maximum of +3d20, allows a character to perform a Response action, or otherwise allows the use of something that would normally require paying Threat.

The issue here is that individual NPCs need to be given their own Effort pools, which adds something extra for the GM to track. The GM also has to track any of the personal resources that NPCs use, such as ammunition, which are normally subsumed into Threat.

I'd recommend three Effort per PC, and can't go any higher. Out of combat, at the end of each scene in which the PC doesn't use Effort, they regain one lost Effort. In combat, each round the PC doesn't use Effort, they regain one Effort. This mirrors the rates at which banked Momentum decreases.

The end result would be a little more static and restrictive, but it could work. It's unlikely to be in the Conan rulebook, but we've had internal discussions of a basic 'system book' that gives options and different ways to use the system.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 21, 2015)

N01H3r3 said:


> As I've learned from discussions of "associated vs disassociated mechanics", individual perceptions on what counts as "metagaming" vary considerably, and there is no absolute objective definition of 'meta-game'.




To be specific about the new Conan game, when I say "meta-game" mechanic, I'm talking about the Threat Pool.  When players can look at the Threat Pool and decide to not be heroic anymore for no other reason (nothing in-game) than because the Threat Pool his high and they no longer want to contribute to it getting larger, then that's meta-gaming.







> "Punishes heroics" is subjective, and bears little resemblance to practical experience.




I'm not sure how you can say that.  It's pretty clear.  It's 2 + 2 = 4.

Players buy extra dice to be heroic, paying for those extra dice with Threat Points.

The GM then uses Threat Points to add obstacles to the game.



That's pretty cut and dried.  Player wants to be heroic.  Player generates Threat in order to have bonuses on a throw.  Any Threat generated can be used by the GM to make the adventure more difficult for the characters.

That's a pretty clear relationship, there:  If you are heroic now, the GM gets ammunition to make the adventure more difficult later.





[quoteThe end result would be a little more static and restrictive, but it could work. It's unlikely to be in the Conan rulebook, but we've had internal discussions of a basic 'system book' that gives options and different ways to use the system.[/QUOTE]

I'm not the only person who dislikes Threat (and the 2d20 mechanics, in general).  I'm just one of the loudest detractors.  I'm loud because I'm invested in Conan.  Those not as into Conan as I am just don't care and will skip over the game.

I suggest at least putting a side-bar in your game for people like me who can't stand the mechanic.  That little bit of page space, even if it is a half or entire page, will translate into more sales, I would think, for those who don't like the meta-game aspects of this game.


----------



## N01H3r3 (Aug 21, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> To be specific about the new Conan game, when I say "meta-game" mechanic, I'm talking about the Threat Pool.  When players can look at the Threat Pool and decide to not be heroic anymore for no other reason (nothing in-game) than because the Threat Pool his high and they no longer want to contribute to it getting larger, then that's meta-gaming.



It is entirely at the GM's discretion whether or not to represent or narrate the increase in the Threat pool.



> That's pretty cut and dried.  Player wants to be heroic.  Player generates Threat in order to have bonuses on a throw.  Any Threat generated can be used by the GM to make the adventure more difficult for the characters.
> 
> That's a pretty clear relationship, there:  If you are heroic now, the GM gets ammunition to make the adventure more difficult later.



The point of difference here is whether or not a given group of players regard "more difficult" as being a negative quality for an adventure to take on, and how much more difficult an adventure can become while remaining within the bounds of "an exciting challenge". I don't know many players who regard "more difficult" as a problem, so long as it doesn't become "too difficult".


----------



## The Crimson Binome (Aug 21, 2015)

N01H3r3 said:


> I've looked at options for Threatless 2d20. They're seldom as satisfying, IMO, and I find that discussions of them detract from actual playtesting (we can't get accurate playtest feedback if groups aren't engaging with the rules-as-written, but what you do once the playtest is done is up to you).



I think part of it is a sampling bias. The kind of player/GM who would enjoy the Threat mechanic is not the kind of player/GM who would use it in a way that hurts the game. The kind of player/GM who gets hung up on this sort of thing is the kind of player/GM who can't understand how to use it _without_ having it hurt the game. Perspective matters.

If you're willing to accept a mathematical tangent (pun intended), there's an old rule about reconciling multiple equations when you graph them. Basically, the rule says that the most interesting part of any graph - the solution to any problem which depends upon those equations - is going to occur at one of the extremes. If you're trying to maximize an outcome between two equations, then the solution is probably where those equations intersect. The best answer will never be in the middle of the defined area.

And that feels like what's going on here. You're saying that this mechanic works great as long as you use it in a balanced way, but I'm looking to the extremes because that's where any optimal solution will lie. If you're using the mechanic to increase tension, then I can "solve" that equation by maximizing tension. If you're using the mechanic to challenge the players, then I can "solve" that equation to maximize the kill rate. The only thing I _can't_ do is to _not_ solve the system of equations. My brain doesn't work that way. Math problem exist so that they may be solved.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 21, 2015)

N01H3r3 said:


> It is entirely at the GM's discretion whether or not to represent or narrate the increase in the Threat pool.




But...if the players don't perceive the Threat Pool as something that will create harder obstacles for them later on in the adventure, then where is the incentive to not buy 3 extra dice for each and every task throw--the Threat Pool be damned?

You've set up the 2d20 System with the Threat Pool integral to the system.  The 2d20 System doesn't work well without the Threat Pool.

And, it's ying and yang, pro and con.  A player can get extra dice on this task throw IF he accepts that, later on, the GM will have more points with which to use against the party.

Take that away--for example, if the GM says that he'd never use Threat Points to increase obstacles--then there is no cost associated with rolling the maximum amount of dice each and every time.

So, I don't see how the 2d20 System can exist without the Threat Pool (or with the GM going soft on the Threat Pool).





BTW, how would Threat Points be used to advance the narrative without creating additional/increased obstacles for the party?


----------



## N01H3r3 (Aug 21, 2015)

Saelorn said:


> I think part of it is a sampling bias. The kind of player/GM who would enjoy the Threat mechanic is not the kind of player/GM who would use it in a way that hurts the game. The kind of player/GM who gets hung up on this sort of thing is the kind of player/GM who can't understand how to use it _without_ having it hurt the game. Perspective matters.



Perhaps, but it's also the nature of feedback. From the context of a playtest, if the question being asked is "do these rules work as intended", the answer "I don't care, I don't like it" isn't useful information. It's noise.

One thing that seems continually the case is that the people who are most vocally and vociferously opposed to Threat are also the people who aren't actually testing the game; they're giving it a passing glance, forming an initial opinion, and never pushing beyond that. There's a place for theory and evaluation in the design and development of any game... but there's a need for practical testing as well.

And, you know what, it'd be nice for people who have reservations about the system to get some time with the system on the table as well. I'd like to hear practical feedback from that perspective, not necessarily because I think it'll make converts of everyone (though the game is one that plays better than it reads - one of my goals is to get it to read better, to narrow that difference), but because I think that we'll get some valuable feedback that might otherwise be missed. But we can't get that feedback from a portion of the gaming community that not only dismisses the system out of hand, but attempts to dominate discussion about the system in a way that drowns out or deters other feedback.

You're right that perspective matters... but we aren't getting workable, useful feedback from some perspectives, because the people who don't like the game don't provide any feedback except some variation of "I don't like it".

"I don't like it" doesn't have much value, because not everyone will like every game anyway.

It's an awkward situation, obviously - it's very difficult to get actual play feedback from people who don't want to play.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 21, 2015)

N01H3r3 said:


> The point of difference here is whether or not a given group of players regard "more difficult" as being a negative quality for an adventure to take on, and how much more difficult an adventure can become while remaining within the bounds of "an exciting challenge". I don't know many players who regard "more difficult" as a problem, so long as it doesn't become "too difficult".




If a DM in a D&D game starts increasing the Hit Points of a bunch of enemies that the PC's are fighting just because the PCs are doing a good job of whipping up on them, that's usually considered bad form and bad gamemastering.  The players feel as if the DM is trying to "win" rather than impartially govern the game.

And, the players feel as if, no matter what they do, the DM will just make enemies and obstacles harder.

Players lose that feeling of achievement when they do win, and even then, it was only because the DM decided it was time they won (otherwise, he'd have changed the encounter as it was played, making it harder).

I think the Threat Mechanic will lead to this type of play in many games.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 21, 2015)

N01H3r3 said:


> One thing that seems continually the case is that the people who are most vocally and vociferously opposed to Threat are also the people who aren't actually testing the game; they're giving it a passing glance, forming an initial opinion, and never pushing beyond that. There's a place for theory and evaluation in the design and development of any game... but there's a need for practical testing as well.




I'll admit that I fall into that group.  I've got no problem being fair handed and honest.  What you describe is me.

But, it's hard to want to put the time into learning a system where, in everything you read about it, you dislike intensely what you read.  There's nothing about the 2d20 rules that makes me want to spend a lot of time learning all the little details about the game.

I understand how the system works--how the big concepts work.

And, to further that understanding, I am going to watch every minute of your game session video once it gets up on YouTube (and I do hope there is commentary along with the visual explaining the rules as we watch).



Further, I've describe some real, practical problems that I see with the system (like the Valeria example where she's killed just because the GM felt the need to spend the Threat Pool and decided that killing Valeria would make for a good story).

The answer I get back from you and Chris and other is, "Well, you don't have to GM that way."

That's not a good answer to a real problem with the system.  I'm basically saying, "Here!  Here's a real issue!  The system is easily manipulated in a not-good way!"

And, your answer is, "Yeah, it's a legal move, but  don't use the system that way."







> You're right that perspective matters... but we aren't getting workable, useful feedback from some perspectives, because the people who don't like the game don't provide any feedback except some variation of "I don't like it".
> 
> "I don't like it" doesn't have much value, because not everyone will like every game anyway.




People don't often know why they don't like something.  Yet, if they don't like it, the buying decision is made.

Don't you think that the number of people that either don't have interest in this game (large number, from what I've seen here and on other forums) or are vocal about not liking the game (much smaller portion--but those are the ones who took the time to say they didn't like it) or flat-out don't like the rules that they are seeing is a tell-tale sign that should be listened to?


----------



## The Crimson Binome (Aug 21, 2015)

N01H3r3 said:


> It's an awkward situation, obviously - it's very difficult to get actual play feedback from people who don't want to play.



Playtesting is difficult, just in general. It's hard enough to get a group together to play a game, anyway, and asking everyone to spend that time on an unproven game can be a tricky task to pull off.

Running the numbers, making characters, and testing skill or combat interactions are all things that can be done individually, which makes it much easier feedback to give. It's relatively easy to run two sides of a battle to see who wins, but I'm not even sure how I could possibly test this sort of mechanic. It seems like a lot of it would come down to reading your players, to know where applying Threat would be most entertaining.

Sorry if that's not helpful :-/


----------



## N01H3r3 (Aug 21, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> But...if the players don't perceive the Threat Pool as something that will create harder obstacles for them later on in the adventure, then where is the incentive to not buy 3 extra dice for each and every task throw--the Threat Pool be damned?



I think you're missing my point.

My point here - the point you quoted - was that if the GM chooses not to narrate or establish an in-setting facet to Threat, then yes, it will be purely a metagame concept. But it doesn't have to work that way.

In Mutant Chronicles, Threat is Dark Symmetry points. In that setting, humanity is opposed by an malign extradimensional force, the Dark Soul, which exerts its will upon humanity through its servants and through the force known as the Dark Symmetry. Dark Symmetry points do have a connection to the setting, as they can be thought to represent the malefic influence of the Dark Soul upon the world, as it rises up to subvert and corrupt humanity. It is a fundamental oppositional force for the game.

In Infinity, Threat is Heat. Infinity has little in the way of supernatural elements, but the setting is one that emphasises covert and clandestine activities. 'Heat' is a representation of unwanted attention (from local authorities, from enemies, etc), and of the potential for plans to come undone and ordered situations to become chaotic. In the stealth mechanics that form part of Infinity, Heat has a direct relationship with the enemy's awareness, as their ability to respond to characters moving covertly is tied to the Heat pool (it requires Reactions, which require Heat to be spent - lots of Heat means enemies that are highly aware).

Similar relationships exist with Threat (as has been explained at length), that allow the GM to narrate and establish the relationship between Threat and extant peril within the game.



> BTW, how would Threat Points be used to advance the narrative without creating additional/increased obstacles for the party?



At the simplest level, Threat can serve merely as a parallel for PC resources. In Mutant Chronicles and Infinity, PCs may have several Reloads for their weapons, allowing them to unleash withering salvoes of gunfire. NPCs don't track Reloads individually, but spend Dark Symmetry points/Heat (for Mutant Chronicles or Infinity, respectively) instead (the GM has one resource to track for all NPCs, rather than a few for each NPC). Similarly, just as PCs can buy extra dice for tests or make dodge and parry response actions by paying Threat-equivents, so can NPCs do those things by paying them.

At this level, there's no scene-editing, merely a -for-tat parallel to what the PCs are naturally able to do.



> If a DM in a D&D game starts increasing the Hit Points of a bunch of enemies that the PC's are fighting just because the PCs are doing a good job of whipping up on them, that's usually considered bad form and bad gamemastering. The players feel as if the DM is trying to "win" rather than impartially govern the game.
> 
> And, the players feel as if, no matter what they do, the DM will just make enemies and obstacles harder.
> 
> Players lose that feeling of achievement when they do win, and even then, it was only because the DM decided it was time they won (otherwise, he'd have changed the encounter as it was played, making it harder)



And, in D&D, they'd have a right to feel that way... except that you've already brought up the GM's ability to fudge undesirable rolls, and this is essentially the same.

In that instance, the GM is doing so arbitrarily, stepping outside of the rules to make a judgement upon it. That's little different from the old "rocks fall, everyone dies" notion, that the GM can choose to wipe out the group at any moment if he wishes...

In 2d20, the situation isn't identical - the GM is wielding an open, known, and limited resource to make these changes. The players can see how far the GM can tweak things on the fly, and can contribute (or not) to his ability to do so. Spending a point of Threat to add an extra d20 to a Frost Giant's attack isn't an arbitrary change, make outside of the rules (as fudging the roll would be), but one that the rules already assume will occur, and which is limited and regulated by the rules.

There's the difference - it isn't "the GM wields his godlike powers to change the world however he wishes", but "the GM is using the tools provided by the game to be a participant in the game, albeit one with a different role".

Now, I'm being bombarded with responses and replies, so I'll stop here, gather my wits, and then push on...


----------



## N01H3r3 (Aug 21, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> I'll admit that I fall into that group.  I've got no problem being fair handed and honest.  What you describe is me.
> 
> But, it's hard to want to put the time into learning a system where, in everything you read about it, you dislike intensely what you read.  There's nothing about the 2d20 rules that makes me want to spend a lot of time learning all the little details about the game.



So you see my dilemma.



> Further, I've describe some real, practical problems that I see with the system (like the Valeria example where she's killed just because the GM felt the need to spend the Threat Pool and decided that killing Valeria would make for a good story).
> 
> The answer I get back from you and Chris and other is, "Well, you don't have to GM that way."
> 
> ...



A lot of 'issues' with RPGs come more from a behavioural perspective than a mechanical one - trying to solve these behavioural issues with rules can, in my experience, produce more problems than they solve.

The issue you reiterate here is one little different to the GM deciding to do the same things in D&D or another traditional system. As I mentioned in my previous post, "rocks fall, everyone dies" is an entirely possible outcome of traditional games and the limitless powers of the GM to step outside the rules. We don't legislate our way around those problems, we talk to players and GMs and establish common assumptions for gaming, or we stop playing with people who play or GM in ways that we find disruptive of or deleterious to our enjoyment.

The difference here is that there's a mechanic in play here, rather than GM fiat.



> Don't you think that the number of people that either don't have interest in this game (large number, from what I've seen here and on other forums) or are vocal about not liking the game (much smaller portion--but those are the ones who took the time to say they didn't like it) or flat-out don't like the rules that they are seeing is a tell-tale sign that should be listened to?



Considering the amount of feedback we get - direct feedback, rather than on forums (because there are multiple channels to give feedback) - I can't say for certain whether or not people who don't like the system form any sort of majority.

Beyond that, there's a point at which you have to make the game you want to make, rather than the game that someone else wants you to make. Sure, people don't always know why they don't like something, but as often, people may not know if they like something until they try it - the things that people know they like are the things they've already experienced, after all, and that cannot account for things they've never experienced.



Saelorn said:


> Running the numbers, making characters, and testing skill or combat interactions are all things that can be done individually, which makes it much easier feedback to give. It's relatively easy to run two sides of a battle to see who wins, but I'm not even sure how I could possibly test this sort of mechanic. It seems like a lot of it would come down to reading your players, to know where applying Threat would be most entertaining.
> 
> Sorry if that's not helpful :-/



It's helpful, and everything gets noted down and considered later anyway, but "actual play" tends to get more weight.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 21, 2015)

*... The Common Threat List ...*

I'd like to a list of common purchases for Threat in a Conan game. 

 If there is Threat to be spent, what are some common choices the GM can make....?

1 ...
2 ...
3 ...





*... An Adventure Question About Threat ...*

Also, a question:  When the adventures are written, will they have entries like this:  

_"...there is a loose flagstone near the entry to the temple, and it costs 4 Threat to have it depressed, which means poison darts shoot from four columns at the corners of the entry, attacking everyone in front of the door."



"...It takes 2 Successes to open the lock on the chest.  If 2 Threat are Spent, then the lock also explodes with hidden gas pumped by a bladder concealed within the cask.  Everyone within 10 feet take damage of..."



"...if the PCs make any noise over a whisper, spend 6 Threat to have 2 more guards appear from around the corner of the building..."_







*... Another Question About Threat ....*

Is the GM limited in anyway on how he spends the Threat.

Let's say the PCs are kicking butt, have stolen the princess from Thulsa Doom, and are making their get away.  The GM decides to use his Threat to kill Valeria, make Conan mad, and set up a revenge fueled climax for the adventure.

The GM spends 2 Threat in order for Doom to have a live snake on him to use in his spell.  It costs 4 Threat for Doom to have the spell, Snake Arrow, memorized and ready to be used.  It costs 2 Threat for either Thorgrim or Rexor to be carrying a bow that Thulsa can use.  And, the GM spends 3 Threat on Thulsa to give the sorcerer the best chance of hitting Valeria.  On top of that, the GM spends 3 more Threat to ensure that the venom injected into Valeria's body will render her dead withing a game round or two.

The GM uses all of the Threat pool to kill Valeria and further the narrative.

But...even after all of this, the players pull it out.  Akiro shows up, riding a donkey, and happens to have a neutralize poison spell.  He generates some more Threat when rolling for the spell, but he saves Valeria's life!  The poison is gone before it is fatal!

Yeah!

Now, though, the GM has 3 more Threat Points in the pool, and he uses all three to cause a landslide at the mouth of the narrow gorge as Valeria exits--and she dies from those wounds.

This is all legitimate, yes?  The GM could spend his points this way if he felt this was the best way to tell his story?


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 21, 2015)

N01H3r3 said:


> In Mutant Chronicles, Threat is Dark Symmetry points. In that setting, humanity is opposed by an malign extradimensional force, the Dark Soul, which exerts its will upon humanity through its servants and through the force known as the Dark Symmetry. Dark Symmetry points do have a connection to the setting, as they can be thought to represent the malefic influence of the Dark Soul upon the world, as it rises up to subvert and corrupt humanity. It is a fundamental oppositional force for the game.




Was 2d20 designed for use with Mutant Chronicles in mind, and now it is being shoe-horned into other game universes?







> And, in D&D, they'd have a right to feel that way... except that you've already brought up the GM's ability to fudge undesirable rolls, and this is essentially the same.




To be clear, I never fudge rolls in my game.  And, I know my players like that I don't.  It's one step that I've taken over the years to earn the players' trust.

If I say I rolled a number, then they believe me, because I did.

I think fudging rolls is bad form for a GM.


----------



## CoreyHaim8myDog (Aug 21, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> I'm Old School.  My games are heavy on roleplaying and immersion.  For me and my group, that's what makes roleplaying so much different than another gaming activity, like playing Axis & Allies, poker, or Monopoly.
> 
> The Threat Mechanic is more akin to those types of games than actual, real roleplaying.
> 
> ...




*OLD SCHOOL*


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 21, 2015)

CoreyHaim8myDog said:


> *OLD SCHOOL*
> 
> View attachment 69874




Maybe I am.  I didn't mean it in any sense other than I started roleplaying in the mid-80's.  No, not with the late 70's original group.  I've never played with the original booklets or even basic D&D.  But, I've spent too many hours to count with AD&D, and then AD&D 2E after that.  And, recently (last couple of years), with Mongoose's Conan RPG.

But, why are we getting side tracked with definitions?

Did you not want to answer some of the questions I posed above?


----------



## N01H3r3 (Aug 21, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> Did you not want to answer some of the questions I posed above?



I'll answer the big question post tomorrow, when I get a little free time. As it is, this thread is quite a distraction, and there's other things I need to get on with (like actually developing the game you're so disdainful of).

But a quick answer to one question. Yes, 2d20 was originally designed for Mutant Chronicles, a pulp action-horror setting with larger-than-life heroes. Altered versions are being used for Infinity (anime-inspired sci-fi action), Conan, and John Carter (plus others we can't yet discuss), with a distinct iteration of the system for each setting. This is little different to Mongoose using a modified version of the d20 system for Conan.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 22, 2015)

N01H3r3 said:


> But a quick answer to one question. Yes, 2d20 was originally designed for Mutant Chronicles, a pulp action-horror setting with larger-than-life heroes. Altered versions are being used for Infinity (anime-inspired sci-fi action), Conan, and John Carter (plus others we can't yet discuss), with a distinct iteration of the system for each setting. This is little different to Mongoose using a modified version of the d20 system for Conan.




The reason I ask is because, as you explained it above, the Threat Mechanic makes sense for the Mutant Chronicles game.  As you say, it's not a meta-game mechanic in that game.  There's an in-game reason for its existence.  It seems to be a harder logical fit for other settings because there is not an uber-powerful force to attribute the Threat Mechanic to.


----------



## CoreyHaim8myDog (Aug 22, 2015)

Which questions besides 2D20 being designed for MC3?


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 22, 2015)

CoreyHaim8myDog said:


> Which questions besides 2D20 being designed for MC3?




You didn't see post #130?

 [MENTION=6799909]N01H3r3[/MENTION] said that he'd answer them tomorrow.


----------



## CoreyHaim8myDog (Aug 22, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> You didn't see post #130?
> 
> [MENTION=6799909]N01H3r3[/MENTION] said that he'd answer them tomorrow.




No, I missed it somehow. I'll let No1H3r3 answer the rules queries, but I think you're approaching the system with a very specific GMing style in mind. Maybe we can Skype you in to a game sometime. I'm pretty sure I could run RAW and you'd have a good time. But for me, the GM's style is more important than any rule.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 22, 2015)

N01H3r3 said:


> In Mutant Chronicles, Threat is Dark Symmetry points. In that setting, humanity is opposed by an malign extradimensional force, the Dark Soul, which exerts its will upon humanity through its servants and through the force known as the Dark Symmetry. Dark Symmetry points do have a connection to the setting, as they can be thought to represent the malefic influence of the Dark Soul upon the world, as it rises up to subvert and corrupt humanity. It is a fundamental oppositional force for the game.




“Kid, I’ve ridden one side of the Known World to the other. I’ve seen a lot of strange stuff, but I’ve never seen anything to make me believe there’s one all-powerful Force controlling everything. There’s no mystical energy field that controls my destiny. It’s all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense.”

--  Hannus Soloist


----------



## N01H3r3 (Aug 22, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> *... The Common Threat List ...*
> 
> I'd like to a list of common purchases for Threat in a Conan game.
> 
> ...




I'll pull some text from an existing file rather than retype everything.

The following are the main ways by which the Threat pool grows:

*Complication.* When a character suffers one or more Complications [natural 20s, causing problematic effects] on a skill test, he or the GM may choose not to suffer an immediate Complication, in exchange for adding two to the Threat pool.
*Improve the Odds.* Each d20 that the player character buys before a skill test adds one point to Threat. A player character may purchase no more than three d20s for any given skill test.
*Response Actions.* A player character attempting a Response Action adds Threat to the pool. It requires one point for the first Response Action attempted during a round, two for the second, three for the third, and so forth.
*Voluntary Failure.* If a player character chooses to fail a task voluntarily – and the GM agrees to it – he pays the GM one Threat, and gains one Luck point.
*Threatening Circumstances.* The environment or circumstances of a new scene may be threatening enough to warrant adding one or two Threat to the pool automatically at the start of the scene. Similarly, some NPCs – this will be listed in their rules – may generate Threat just for turning up, or when taking certain actions.
*NPC Momentum.* NPCs with unspent Momentum cannot save it for later – NPCs don’t have a group Momentum pool. Instead, an NPC can add one Threat to the pool for each Momentum spent.

I know you didn't ask for it, but I feel that it's useful for context.

The most common uses for Threat are as follows:

*NPC Complications.* When an NPC suffers one or more Complications on a skill test, the GM may choose to remove two Threat from the pool instead of causing that NPC to suffer an immediate Complication.
*NPC Improve the Odds.* Each d20 that an NPC buys before a skill test removes one point from Threat. An NPC may purchase no more than three d20s for any given skill test.
*NPC Response Actions.* An NPC attempting a Response Action removes Threat from the pool. As with PCs, it requires one point for the first Reaction, two for the second, and so forth.
*NPC Resources.* Reloads, alchemical reagents, poultices, and other expendable resources used to boost the effect of a skill test are not tracked individually for NPCs. Instead, an NPC can be granted the benefit of a single unit of a resource by paying one Threat. For example, an NPC could pay one Threat to gain one Reload when making a ranged attack.
*Activating Special Abilities.* Some particularly powerful or experienced NPCs may have access to potent abilities or equipment. These abilities may require the GM to spend one or more Threat to activate them. These will be noted in individual NPC descriptions.
*Seize the Initiative.* Under normal circumstances, during an action scene, all the player characters will act first, followed by all of the NPCs. Before a player character acts, the GM may spend Threat to interrupt the action order and allow one of the NPCs to act. Interrupting the action order costs one Threat for each NPC the GM wishes to act out of turn.
*Summoning Reinforcements.* Sometimes the player characters dominate an encounter or clear through a combat in record time. Other times, the GM may wish to slowly increase the tension or add some extra complexity to a key scene. One way to do this is by summoning reinforcements using Threat. Reinforcements arrive at the end of the current round, they must arrive in a logical way, and they cannot act in the round they arrive. A Minion NPC costs one Threat to summon, while Elite NPCs cost two Threat.
*Triggering an Environmental Effect.* Dramatic scenes often play out in exciting environments – a firefight in a crumbling tenement, a chase through a busy marketplace, a chasm over a river of lava, etc. When describing encounters, the GM is encouraged to provide details to the players to help them visualise the scene, and sometimes it can be interesting to bring the environment alive through the use of Threat. Triggering an environment effect comes in two levels of magnitude. Minor effects – costing one Threat – are typically things like flickering lights, crumbling walls, thick smoke, which add to the difficulty of skill tests, or force tests where one was not previously required. Major effects – costing two or more Threat – may pose significant impediments to the characters, or even cause them harm (physical or mental) or short-lived conditions.

Those should give a solid idea of the ways in which Threat is typically used.



> *... An Adventure Question About Threat ...*
> 
> Also, a question:  When the adventures are written, will they have entries like this:
> 
> ...



Not precisely. You've got the idea - adventures will list example Threat spends for the GM to use in particular scenes. However, Threat is not the only mechanism in play here.

The examples you've put forwards, I'd probably handle them as follows:


Near the entrance to the temple, there's a loose flagstone that conceals a dart trap in the nearby columns. If the characters approach carefully, a Challenging D2 Observation test will reveal the loose stone, and some brief investigation can determine that the stone is part of a trap. If the trap isn't noticed, or if characters pass through the entrance in a hurry, there's a chance they'll trigger the trap: the entrance area is hazardous terrain, requiring an Average D1 Acrobatics test to avoid the trap (either avoiding the trigger, or dodging the darts), or suffering [amount of damage] from the darts. 
It requires a Challenging D2 Thievery test to unlock the chest. Before a test is attempted, the GM may spend two Threat for the chest to be trapped. The trap is a bladder of explosive gas, that erupts in a blast of flame if the chest is opened. If the chest is trapped, then a successful Thievery test to unlock the chest also reveals that it is trapped, and the player character should be given the choice how to proceed. Attempting to disarm the trap requires a Challenging D2 Craft or Thievery test, with failure triggering the trap instead. A Complication on this test triggers the trap automatically (though the players or GM may choose to 'buy off' this complication by adding two Threat to the pool as normal). If the trap is triggered, each character within...
The guards in the area are particularly alert; at any point during the scene, if the player characters cause any loud noises (or the guards call for help), the GM may bring in up to two additional guards, for two Threat each, who arrive around the corner of the building at the end of the round, as normal for reinforcements.

The first doesn't involve Threat at all - it's a scene framing element, established when the scene begins. There are ways for the PCs to avoid it, and getting caught by the trap isn't guaranteed even for the incautious - it's a risk.

The second creates an additional complication with Threat, but it doesn't just spring the trap immediately - it poses a problem for the characters, rather than just throwing damage at them without warning.

The third is pretty much as you've covered (though the cost for reinforcements is determined by the type of NPC). Again, it should come with some degree of warning and framing - reinforcements should be a known risk for the players, and be established in the scene beforehand.



> *... Another Question About Threat ....*
> 
> Is the GM limited in anyway on how he spends the Threat.
> 
> ...



It's legitimate, though not how I'd handle it. A lot of that description assumes that Threat is the GM's only recourse to do anything.

To start with, Thulsa Doom's spells would just be a function of his rules - having a spell "memorised and ready" is a D&Dism we won't be using. However, as with Dark Gifts in Mutant Chronicles, spells used by NPCs will often come as Threat spends, serving as a natural limit on how often those spells can be used (dark rituals and the like will normally revolve around the sorcerer spending turns adding points to Threat until they reach a certain point, with the PCs trying to stop that happening).

There's also no inherent way of making an effect more deadly via Threat, unless that's a facet of a spell or ability (and, in fairness, many Dark Gifts in Mutant Chronicles scale upwards by the amount of points spent).

The magic system is still being refined and fine-tuned, but to borrow from Mutant Chronicles again, Mystics in that setting have the option of sacrificing their own mental health instead of paying Dark Symmetry points when powering their spells. The idea of magic being costly is a design goal here, so a similar mechanic may find its way into the final version (maybe sacrificing physical health instead of mental).

Finally, it's rare to use Threat to create an effect that can't be resisted, unless that effect is small or transitory. In such situations, the quantity of Threat spend would determine the difficulty of the test to resist, the amount of damage inflicted, or both.

Hopefully my answers have been illuminating.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 22, 2015)

N01H3r3 said:


> Hopefully my answers have been illuminating.




This post is the best thing I've read on the game, including the playtest rules.  Thank you for putting the time into writing this.  It is very illuminating about how the game works.





> I know you didn't ask for it, but I feel that it's useful for context.




Actually, that's exactly what I did ask for--so I'm glad you answered it!  





*Question:*  It looks like there are only a few "Difficulty Levels" used in the game.  Requring one success is average.  Requiring two successes is pretty hard.  Requiring three successes is very hard.  Requiring four successes is so hard that it is unheard of.

Is that a correct estimation?


----------



## N01H3r3 (Aug 22, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> *Question:*  It looks like there are only a few "Difficulty Levels" used in the game.  Requiring one success is average.  Requiring two successes is pretty hard.  Requiring three successes is very hard.  Requiring four successes is so hard that it is unheard of.
> 
> Is that a correct estimation?



Broadly. I'll give examples that assume a character with an Attribute of 8, Expertise +2, and Focus 2 for a given task (40% chance to generate 1 success on each d20, 10% chance to generate 2 successes).

There are six difficulty levels: Simple, Average, Challenging, Daunting, Dire, and Epic.

Simple requires no successes, and is there in part to account for talents or situations that make difficult tasks simpler to the point where they require no effort. It's also convenient to codify that some tasks are so simple that they don't need a test. A character can either pass a Simple task without a test as a Free Action, or they can take the normal action for the task, and make the test, in order to generate Momentum, at the risk of suffering Complications if you roll 20s. You can't choose to Fail a Simple task.

Average tasks require one success. They're the baseline for most combat tasks performed under normal circumstances. The sample character above passes an Average task 75% of the time on 2d20.

Challenging tasks require two successes. One significant impediment is enough to push a task from Average to Challenging - hitting a target with an arrow at optimal range is Average, but if it's dark as well, then it becomes Challenging. The sample character above passes a Challenging task 25% of the time on 2d20.

Daunting tasks require three successes. The sample character above passes a Daunting task 5% of the time on 2d20.

Dire tasks require four success. The sample character above passes a Dire task 1% of the time on 2d20.

Epic tasks require five successes. The sample character above cannot pass an Epic task without buying extra dice.

Consequently, finding extra ways to get successes - talents, buying extra dice, etc - is valuable, particularly if players want to pick up a decent amount of Momentum as well.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 22, 2015)

N01H3r3 said:


> There are six difficulty levels: Simple, Average, Challenging, Daunting, Dire, and Epic.
> 
> Simple requires no successes, and is there in part to account for talents or situations that make difficult tasks simpler to the point where they require no effort. It's also convenient to codify that some tasks are so simple that they don't need a test. A character can either pass a Simple task without a test as a Free Action, or they can take the normal action for the task, and make the test, in order to generate Momentum, at the risk of suffering Complications if you roll 20s. You can't choose to Fail a Simple task.
> 
> ...




That's about what I thought.  I'd guess that most checks in the game are Average, with the occasional "hard" task at Challenging.

Here's some feedback:  If that's an "average" character that you posted, shouldn't there be a difficulty around 50%?

His progression is:

*100%  Simple
75% Average*

Both of those make sense.  But, then, we jump way down...

*25% Challenging*

And, then, there are the super-hard difficulties.

*5% Daunting
1% Dire
0% Epic*



That progression looks a bit...steep.  Most games like this "live" with three progressions of difficulty for the average character:  75% chance, 50% chance, and 25% chance.

Your game has the 75%, but then it drops way down to the 25%.

Things are either pretty easy, at 75%, or they're pretty hard, at 25%.

Don't you think that a more even-keel 50% chance is needed?



Without it, it looks like this game will "live" at just the one difficulty, 75% (Average).  Occasionally, something will be hard, and so the 25% (Challenging) kicks in.  But, mostly, tasks will be Average.

You don't think that needs a little work?


----------



## pollico (Aug 22, 2015)

That's what the extra dices are for. Isn't it?


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 22, 2015)

pollico said:


> That's what the extra dices are for. Isn't it?




You have to pay Threat for extra dice.



What I'm saying is that, for an average character with average skills, the progression should look something like this: 

Difficulty Chance

100%

75%

50%

25%

10% and less.




From what was posted, the system has everything about right except the missing piece--the 50% Difficulty--which is vital because it should be one of the three most used in the game (usually, 75%, 50%, and 25% are about right).

As it is, the game lives with a task that is very likely (75%) or is not likely (25%).  There's no 50-50 chance.





EDIT:

Think about this.  This translates to one of two things happening when a character rolls a task.

1.  On Average tasks, the character will most likely make it. 75% chance.  Most of the time, the roll is made.  Every fourth roll, he fails.

2.  On all other tasks, the character is likely to fail.  25% chance.  Most of the time the roll is made, he fails three times out of four.



So, what happens?

Unless the task is Average, Threat must be purchased to slide the odds more towards the player.

The task system is designed so that Threat must be purchased.

In other words, any task that is Challenging or harder ensures harder obstacles and more enemies down the line.

The Threat Mechanic is very ingrained in this dicing system.


----------



## N01H3r3 (Aug 22, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> That's about what I thought.  I'd guess that most checks in the game are Average, with the occasional "hard" task at Challenging.
> 
> Here's some feedback:  If that's an "average" character that you posted, shouldn't there be a difficulty around 50%?



That's the thing - the character isn't "average". It's a convenient illustrative profile because the numbers are easy to work with (50% chance of 1+ successes, 10% chance of 2 on each die).

And... even with that, I've made a mistake on the Challenging difficulty, as I forgot to account for the chance of rolling 2 successes on one die and none on the other. This pushes the chance to 39%.

Expertise 2 and Focus 2 is a fairly skilled character (skills range from 0-3 for both Expertise and Focus for most characters, with some characters having up to 5 for both in a small number of Signature Skills), so it isn't 'average'. Eight is an average attribute (normal range is 6-12 for most characters), yes, but the skills represent someone with a decent amount of training.

The only reason I picked those values was because they're convenient to work with.



> Without it, it looks like this game will "live" at just the one difficulty, 75% (Average).  Occasionally, something will be hard, and so the 25% (Challenging) kicks in.  But, mostly, tasks will be Average.
> 
> You don't think that needs a little work?



Not really, because it comes down to design intent - the intended function of the rules - which I'll get to in a moment.



Water Bob said:


> You have to pay Threat for extra dice.



Well, you have to find a way to get extra dice. Threat isn't the only way, though it is the universally-available one.

But the core this is true - you cannot reliably function at higher difficulties (or obtain useful quantities of Momentum) without obtaining additional dice. That's a feature, an intentional part of the design.

This is because a significant part of the design is not purely "how likely are you to succeed at X?" It also includes "how much are you willing to pay to succeed at X?"

As you say, the system is built assuming that some fundamental way of buying extra d20s is available.

In a lot of games where characters have access to a limited resource, that represents some additional factor on top of the baseline odds - if you're playing Mutants & Masterminds, use of a Hero Point (essentially, roll 1d10+10 instead of 1d20) is a way to circumvent the normal odds of the game occasionally. The assumed baseline of the game is rolling 1d20+modifier against target number.

2d20 does not have the same baseline assumption. The game is built with the assumption that characters will, at least occasionally, buy extra dice somehow. Consequently, the 'difficulty' of the game, absent the use of Threat, is lower than it might be if Threat were not a fundamental assumption (the majority of enemies are relatively weak - stronger foes often come with an inbuilt pool of 'personal Threat' that they can only use on themselves.

As a result, any variation of 2d20 that removed the Threat pool must replace it with something - hence the suggestion I made in an earlier post giving players a limited-but-quick-replenishing pool of Effort that lets them buy dice instead. This, however, removes the self-balancing relationship between player expenditure and GM resource.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 23, 2015)

I've got no problem with some type of point helping the player out.  Fate Points in the Mongoose RPG.  Force and Character Points in D6 Star Wars.  Hero Points in the James Bond RPG.  Those all work for me.

In all of those games, though, the points are a very limited resource, where as your game pretty much requires the points very often.  And...I keep going back to it...the meta-game aspect of the points.


----------



## pollico (Aug 23, 2015)

Fate points being a likited resource? Not in FATE.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 23, 2015)

pollico said:


> Fate points being a likited resource? Not in FATE.




Yeah, I think the forum automatically hyperlinks that word.  I'm talking about the Fate Points used in the Mongoose d20 based Conan RPG.


----------



## N01H3r3 (Aug 23, 2015)

Right, it appears I made some mistakes on my previous summation of the odds for different difficulties - I was working them out off the top of my head, because I couldn't find the more precise numbers at the time. I've also found values for higher numbers of dice, to show the impact. I'll use 2, 3, and 4 dice to illustrate here - most tests in my home Mutant Chronicles campaign, and during my playtests and demos of both Infinity and Conan use those numbers of dice more often than not (buying more than that is extremely rare, though it does happen occasionally for particularly desperate situations).

Again, I'm using the numerically-convenient example of a character with an Attribute of 8, Expertise +2, and Focus 2, because it provides the easiest numbers to work with. Each d20 rolled for this character has a 50% chance of producing no successes, a 40% chance of producing 1 success, and a 10% chance of producing two successes.

For a difficulty of 1, the character has a 75% chance of success on 2d20, an 87.5% chance on 3d20, or a 93.75% chance on 4d20.

For a difficulty of 2, the character has a 39% chance on 2d20, a 57.5% chance on 3d20, or a 68.75% chance on 4d20.

For difficulty 3, the chances are 9% on 2d20, 26% on 3d20, and 43.75% on 4d20.

For difficulty 4, the chances are 1% on 2d20, 7.6% on 3d20, and 18.2% on 4d20.

For difficulty 5, the chances are are 0 on 2d20, 1.3% on 3d20, and 12.04% on 4d20.

This does not account for abilities that characters may possess that grant them rerolls on one or more d20 they roll, or for the peculiarities of abilities that grant a bonus d20 if the character has already scored at least one success (as the odds of that are slightly different due to the extra die being conditional).


----------



## aramis erak (Aug 24, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> If a DM in a D&D game starts increasing the Hit Points of a bunch of enemies that the PC's are fighting just because the PCs are doing a good job of whipping up on them, that's usually considered bad form and bad gamemastering.  The players feel as if the DM is trying to "win" rather than impartially govern the game.
> 
> And, the players feel as if, no matter what they do, the DM will just make enemies and obstacles harder.
> 
> ...




I've seen a few small heartbreakers with similar premises - and they have, as you predict, lead to being overwhelmed and turning back.

The mechanic needs to stand up to the majority of players and GMs... and such escalating threat has been such a problem in the past that I'm instantly leery of it. 

That said, I HAVE seen it work - in Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, and in Dragonlance 5th Age...
In MHR, there are enough reasons to buy down the doom pool as to make it hard to get it to stupidly hard. It's nigh constantly being spent from to power NPC special abilities and to inflict fumble effects that it's use as the default environmental difficulty is based upon them having rolled well earlier, rather than poorly, and having limited the NPC's.

In DL5A, being card based, it's limited by the size of the dragon suit. So, it's at most 10 cards deep in an 82 card deck, and often, players could overcome it. Plus, players could nerf the doom pool by holding doom cards in hand once drawn.

What I'm seeing here for the 2d20 system has the reward cycle skewed - early risk makes later actions more risky, whether it succeeds or fails. Therefore, players are likely to either spend big early, and die, or to avoid any use of it. It's a mechanic that rewards caution and cowardice, and punishes heroic swash. That's a VERY bad fit for a Conan game.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 25, 2015)

aramis erak said:


> What I'm seeing here for the 2d20 system has the reward cycle skewed - early risk makes later actions more risky, whether it succeeds or fails. Therefore, players are likely to either spend big early, and die, or to avoid any use of it. It's a mechanic that rewards caution and cowardice, and punishes heroic swash. That's a VERY bad fit for a Conan game.




It looks like, from the recent posts by N01H3r3, that the difficulty of some throws in the adventure will require Threat being built up (or extra dice found in another manner, with paying Threat being the most common form).  In fact, the 2d20 System flat out encourages the purchase of Threat.

The "fun" maneuvers that NPCs can do is tied to spending Threat.  

I agree with you, Aramis, that is is a very bad thing for a Conan game.


----------



## N01H3r3 (Aug 25, 2015)

aramis erak said:


> What I'm seeing here for the 2d20 system has the reward cycle skewed - early risk makes later actions more risky, whether it succeeds or fails. Therefore, players are likely to either spend big early, and die, or to avoid any use of it. It's a mechanic that rewards caution and cowardice, and punishes heroic swash. That's a VERY bad fit for a Conan game.



Which is valid criticism... but we can't go on forum posts alone, because those tend to become dominated by a small number of frequent posters (Water Bob alone is a majority of the commentary in this thread). We've just gotten in the responses from playtest surveys, and the results there are far more positive. How much weight do we give to negative posters on forums who by their own admission don't want to play the game, over people who've given it a try and responded positively? It doesn't bear out in any of my own tests and demos, or those of my colleagues either.

Any given forum thread will tend in one direction or another, primarily because people who disagree with it seldom stick around to present a counter-opinion. Social media is the same - you just end up with self-reinforcing echo-chambers that reinforce one set of opinions, while people who hold other opinions avoid it. Individual feedback sent privately - emails, face-to-face discussions at conventions, survey responses - tends to lack that factor, so we get feedback from people who aren't as likely to spend time on a message board complaining about games they don't play.

My own experiences, the experiences of my colleagues, and the feedback coming in directly is coming back saying "yes". Forums seem to consist of a small number of people saying "no" loudly and often, particularly places like this that skew more towards traditional styles of RPG.

Personally speaking, if you don't find our game to be to your tastes, you're welcome not to like it - particularly if you've already got a game that serves your needs*. I'd ask, out of courtesy, that you don't try and dominate discussions about it to dissuade others - if others like it, it's for them to decide, on their own terms.

*On this note, this tends to be a factor in feedback received - a part of the Mutant Chronicles community preferred the rules-heavy simulationist style of the earlier editions in the 90s, but they were a relative minority. Conan is similar in this regard, as it's a well-established property with numerous older games of more traditional styles. Infinity has very little of this kind of feedback - there's no prior edition to compare to. John Carter, thus far, has had little in the way of this commentary, in part due to a relative dearth of prior games for that setting. Presenting a new edition that takes a new approach to an existing community is always a fraught proposition... but if nobody tried new approaches to gaming, we'd never have had D&D to begin with.


----------



## The Crimson Binome (Aug 25, 2015)

N01H3r3 said:


> We've just gotten in the responses from playtest surveys, and the results there are far more positive. How much weight do we give to negative posters on forums who by their own admission don't want to play the game, over people who've given it a try and responded positively? It doesn't bear out in any of my own tests and demos, or those of my colleagues either.



Something you probably should take into consideration, though, is how much of your Threat usage follows directly from the rules and how much bias is introduced because you (and your colleagues) have some shared pre-conception about how that Threat should be used.

It's entirely possible that the game mechanic works really well if you come at it from the angle of making things interesting rather than challenging, but for as long as Threat can be spent in various ways, there may be issues with an outsider GM who doesn't get that point. I mean, if much of the fun of the game lies in its challenge, then surely the GM is there to spend that Threat as efficiently as possible in ramping up the challenge, right?



N01H3r3 said:


> My own experiences, the experiences of my colleagues, and the feedback coming in directly is coming back saying "yes". Forums seem to consist of a small number of people saying "no" loudly and often, particularly places like this that skew more towards traditional styles of RPG.



It definitely helps that you acknowledge this is not a traditional style of RPG. That's exactly the sort of statement which is useful for getting players and GMs into the right mindset for this game, and to warn fans of traditional RPGs before they become too invested in something that would likely end poorly for them.


----------



## N01H3r3 (Aug 25, 2015)

Saelorn said:


> Something you probably should take into consideration, though, is how much of your Threat usage follows directly from the rules and how much bias is introduced because you (and your colleagues) have some shared pre-conception about how that Threat should be used.



I'm aware of the possibility, although there's still a fair amount of variation between individuals.

Your point is a well-made one, in that a lot of it comes down to approach and perception. It's also not something that has completely passed us by. While it's a little late for Mutant Chronicles (with the book going to print, and already being 500 pages long), Infinity and Conan will have much more in-depth discussions of Heat/Threat, not only in mechanical terms, but also providing more advice and guidance on how to get the best from it.



> It definitely helps that you acknowledge this is not a traditional style of RPG. That's exactly the sort of statement which is useful for getting players and GMs into the right mindset for this game, and to warn fans of traditional RPGs before they become too invested in something that would likely end poorly for them.



I'm not going to shy away from the fact that different games favour different styles of GMing and playing, and 2d20 system games err on the side of narrative rather than traditional or simulationist. The GMing chapters in Mutant Chronicles already handle things from the perspective of pacing, scene framing, and other narrative conventions, with a focus on "the GM should make things interesting and keep things moving" - they include options for "Fail Forwards" and "Success at a Cost", for GMs and groups that want to embrace such concepts (they're not in the main rules chapters, because they're more GM advice than hard rules).

I apologise if I come off as a little acerbic at times - working on a game and seeing lots of negative feedback about it online (even balanced out by positive feedback from elsewhere) can be demoralising and frustrating, as I'm sure you all can imagine. I try my best to be patient and provide clear responses, but it can be difficult.


----------



## The Crimson Binome (Aug 25, 2015)

N01H3r3 said:


> I apologise if I come off as a little acerbic at times - working on a game and seeing lots of negative feedback about it online (even balanced out by positive feedback from elsewhere) can be demoralising and frustrating, as I'm sure you all can imagine. I try my best to be patient and provide clear responses, but it can be difficult.



I know exactly what you mean, and I must say, you're handling this very well.

One trick that I use, to compartmentalize my own thoughts on design, is to imagine ahead of time what your most likely criticisms will be, and decide if you can accept that before moving forward with the design decision. I think most people are aware that any sort of design is full of a lot of trade-offs, so for every imagined criticism, just keep in mind why it is the way that it is.

In this case, the Threat system offers a lot of benefits (mainly to the GM, but also to the players) which you couldn't get out of other game mechanics. And even if I don't personally like that particular implementation, I can understand why it is the way that it is.


----------



## CoreyHaim8myDog (Aug 25, 2015)

I think all we can do as designers is to try to provide a set of rules to game with in an REH style. What you players and GMs do with those tools is up to you. It may not be everyone's cuppa, but it won't lack for trying to capture Howardian pulp.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 25, 2015)

Saelorn said:


> In this case, the Threat system offers a lot of benefits (mainly to the GM, but also to the players) which you couldn't get out of other game mechanics. And even if I don't personally like that particular implementation, I can understand why it is the way that it is.




Yes, if the Threat System weren't a meta-game mechanic, I'd find it easier to swallow.  I can't think of any way, though to integrate the Threat Mechanic into the Hyborian Age, though.  There is no "Force that penetrates us and binds us and holds the universe together."

The first thought would be to do something with Sorcery, but even that should be rare in the Hyborian Age--not pervasive.




Another aspect of the 2d20 System is its focus on mechanics rather than roleplaying.  It constantly reminds players that they are rolling dice, focusing their attention on decisions like, "Do I need to purchase Threat so that I can roll more dice?'

When I first started playing the Mongoose Conan game, I used the alternate d20 rule where defense was not a static Armor Class but a d20 + mods defense roll.  I quickly realized that change to the standard d20 rules did exactly what 2d20 does--it focuses the player on the dice.  They look at their rolls rather than live through the experience.  Once I saw that, I went back to the standard AC in the game.  A dice is cast, and modifiers are added, sure, but the player looks to the GM for the outcome (with ACs hidden).

This allows the player to live the game instead of just dice it.

With 2d20, no only are players focused on dicing, but also the GM cannot easily hide the difficulty (as the AC is hidden in the Mongoose d20 game).  That's a curse many roll low systems have.  Players know their target numbers and instantly know whether the task was successful.  Any GM commentary describing the scene usually falls on deaf ears because the players already know the outcome.

But, if you hide the difficulty, the player rolls the dice....and the GM can re-focus them in the game world, living through the character, seeing what he sees, feeling what he feels.



"With all your might, you swing, and....


And, your players are glued to the drama you describe because they don't know if their attack was successful.  They experience success or failure through your description.

With 2d20...they already know, and the GM is just wasting his breath, on most accounts.  The players know the outcome and are looking on to what's next.

Lots of drama is lost with a system like this.

I think that having that drama is most helpful in delivering that "pulp" feel.


----------



## N01H3r3 (Aug 26, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> Another aspect of the 2d20 System is its focus on mechanics rather than roleplaying.  It constantly reminds players that they are rolling dice, focusing their attention on decisions like, "Do I need to purchase Threat so that I can roll more dice?'



I personally don't see that as a bad thing. The idea that roleplaying and mechanics are these mutually exclusive presences is anathema to the way I think. You can roleplay without rules. You can game without roleplaying. Surely RPGs are the point where you do _both_?



> With 2d20, no only are players focused on dicing, but also the GM cannot easily hide the difficulty (as the AC is hidden in the Mongoose d20 game).  That's a curse many roll low systems have.  Players know their target numbers and instantly know whether the task was successful.  Any GM commentary describing the scene usually falls on deaf ears because the players already know the outcome.
> 
> But, if you hide the difficulty, the player rolls the dice....and the GM can re-focus them in the game world, living through the character, seeing what he sees, feeling what he feels.



I also don't feel that "living through the character" is the be-all-and-end all of the RPG experience - I'm much more a fan of the author-stance than the actor-stance for RPGs these days, where the player is more akin to an author controlling the character, than a presence embodying the character (indeed, I tend to find that 'living through the character' tends to result in a number of problematic behaviours, where the player's attachment to the character makes them actively avoid risk, peril, and compromising situations).

This is likely a significant point of conflict here - player-as-author tends to see players more willingly putting their character into difficult or perilous situations, because they want to see how the character gets through them. Player-as-author also tends to be a lot more forgiving of metagaming, because it assumes an existing degree of distance between player and character. Player-as-actor drills down into "player choice must always equal character choice", which I don't regard as being particularly advantageous, outside of some forms of traditional gaming (even though, original D&D, characters were reportedly regarded as more akin to playing pieces, as befits units in a wargame).



> With 2d20...they already know, and the GM is just wasting his breath, on most accounts.  The players know the outcome and are looking on to what's next.



Except... not. Because hitting the difficulty isn't the end of the test like it is in a d20 system game. Momentum adds variety of choice and variation of outcome after the roll. Hitting the difficulty gives you the absolute bare minimum successful result... getting Momentum, from extra successes rolled, from using the group's banked Momentum, from bonuses like talents turns success into "yes, and".

With average tasks, you're less likely to fail outright... but often, the extras you get from Momentum are valuable enough and interesting enough (and impactful enough on the narrative) that their presence or absence changes things.

It's worth noting at this point, that I tend to take a very positive approach to player character success: in short, player characters are skilled professionals, and they _will_ succeed. With any given task, a player character will succeed given sufficient time and attention. Failure is the point at which opponents and obstacles interfere with the PCs.

To give a common example: the thief is attempting to pick a particularly complicated lock. Given enough time, he'll succeed, so long as he's allowed to concentrate. In a gaming context, he may fail if he isn't given sufficient time, or if he's distracted by some external force. The thief didn't outright fail to pick the lock... he was interrupted before he could finish because he heard a guard coming. The warrior didn't miss, his enemy turned the attack aside with a deft flick of his blade. The same applies to major NPCs - they'll succeed unless the PCs stop them. I don't fail to tie my shoelaces, but I might have to leave them undone because I'm about to miss the bus.

Consequently, the basic conflict of "pass vs fail" means little to me.

One thing to remember is that the system's designer was Jay Little, who designed the FFG Star Wars games. The two systems take a similar tack - the basic "success/failure" paradigm is a small part of things, and the extra things a roll of the dice present are a more interesting part of the game, and contribute more to the ongoing narrative.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 26, 2015)

N01H3r3 said:


> I personally don't see that as a bad thing. The idea that roleplaying and mechanics are these mutually exclusive presences is anathema to the way I think. You can roleplay without rules. You can game without roleplaying. Surely RPGs are the point where you do _both_?




Not always played that way, but yeah, I think the definition of roleplaying games is to have a game with roleplaying.

Otherwise, you're playing a different type of game.

It doesn't surprise me that you think this way as I have said before that the 2d20 system is more akin to playing a board game like Risk more than it is a roleplaying game.







> I also don't feel that "living through the character" is the be-all-and-end all of the RPG experience -




I'm sure some will agree.  There are all types.  But, I think that good roleplaying is the highest experience a person can have with a roleplaying game.

RPGs aren't Yahtzee.  They aren't computer RPGs either.





> (indeed, I tend to find that 'living through the character' tends to result in a number of problematic behaviours, where the player's attachment to the character makes them actively avoid risk, peril, and compromising situations).




Having a player be so attached to a character that he plays him like a real person is generally the goal.  Sure, that person can do super human things, sometime--which can be a true thrill.

RPG characters shouldn't be the extra lives a person gets when playing a Computer RPG.  

This is why your Threat Mechanic doesn't work for me.  When a character is heroic, he's punished, or the group is punished, later on.







> This is likely a significant point of conflict here - player-as-author tends to see players more willingly putting their character into difficult or perilous situations, because they want to see how the character gets through them. Player-as-author also tends to be a lot more forgiving of metagaming, because it assumes an existing degree of distance between player and character. Player-as-actor drills down into "player choice must always equal character choice", which I don't regard as being particularly advantageous, outside of some forms of traditional gaming (even though, original D&D, characters were reportedly regarded as more akin to playing pieces, as befits units in a wargame).




You hit the nail on the head.  You're describing characters as playing pieces, like extra lives in a computer game, where all you have to do is reload your last save.

I'm talking about emotional involvement that delivers (what I would argue is) a superior game experience.







> Consequently, the basic conflict of "pass vs fail" means little to me.




Most games, including d20 based one, can be scaled.  How much you roll over your target gives you your "successes".

For example, for every 5 points rolled over the target, the character obtains a success.





> One thing to remember is that the system's designer was Jay Little, who designed the FFG Star Wars games. The two systems take a similar tack - the basic "success/failure" paradigm is a small part of things, and the extra things a roll of the dice present are a more interesting part of the game, and contribute more to the ongoing narrative.




I'm a HUGE Star Wars fan.  I LOVED the D6 WEG game.  Like Mongoose's Conan, I bought every supplement and rulebook ever published for that game, in all editions.  The new FFG Star Wars dicing system turns me off, big-time.  Thus, I have not purchased the game.




And, all I'm seeing here is that the design philosophy about the new Conan game is exactly my impression from reading the playtest rules--nothing about the game's rules jive with how I like to play or what I consider good game mechanics.


----------



## The Crimson Binome (Aug 26, 2015)

N01H3r3 said:


> I also don't feel that "living through the character" is the be-all-and-end all of the RPG experience - I'm much more a fan of the author-stance than the actor-stance for RPGs these days, where the player is more akin to an author controlling the character, than a presence embodying the character (indeed, I tend to find that 'living through the character' tends to result in a number of problematic behaviours, where the player's attachment to the character makes them actively avoid risk, peril, and compromising situations).



And of course, you're right, that this does lead to situations where the player becomes attached to the character and avoids risk, but is that really a bad thing? I guess it depends on whether you want characters that are larger-than-life heroic, or ones that are down-to-earth authentic. Whatever your goals, the ruleset should encourage that.

Actor-stance is kind of the _definition_ of role-playing, though. When you _role-play_, you take on the _role_ of the character, and make decisions from that standpoint. You can see why there might be some confusion. Personally, I refer to actor-stance games as _Role-Playing Games_, and author-stance games are _Story-Telling Games_. I think that would do a lot to reduce conflict in the future.


----------



## N01H3r3 (Aug 26, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> Not always played that way, but yeah, I think the definition of roleplaying games is to have a game with roleplaying.
> 
> Otherwise, you're playing a different type of game.
> 
> It doesn't surprise me that you think this way as I have said before that the 2d20 system is more akin to playing a board game like Risk more than it is a roleplaying game.



You're veering very close to "one-true-wayism" here - just because it isn't how you like to play RPGs, doesn't mean it's wrong.

The difference here is that the way you like to play is catered for in abundance. The way I like to play gets shouted down as "having fun wrong" by people who play your way.



> I'm sure some will agree.  There are all types.  But, I think that good roleplaying is the highest experience a person can have with a roleplaying game.
> 
> RPGs aren't Yahtzee.  They aren't computer RPGs either.



No, they're not. I don't know why you'd think you needed to bring them up.

Thing is, there are different definitions of "good roleplaying", which is something that you've reverted to dismissing (after a good long string of posts where we seemed to actually be communicating).



> Having a player be so attached to a character that he plays him like a real person is generally the goal.  Sure, that person can do super human things, sometime--which can be a true thrill.



Been there, done that. It isn't the only way to do things.



> RPG characters shouldn't be the extra lives a person gets when playing a Computer RPG.



"Extra lives" haven't really been a thing in computer games since the 1980s. Computer RPGs tend to have a singular character for a player to focus their attentions on (and maybe a party of computer-controlled NPCs to order about, at least for single player ones), and death means reloading from the last place the game auto-saved.

Thing is... that approach has almost no bearing on my perspective. I like a few computer RPGs, but not many, because I prefer the flexibility of tabletop RPGs. A computer RPG needs to have truly exceptional world-building, characters, and storyline to grab me. The last ones I completed were the Mass Effect trilogy.

My perspective isn't that. My perspective is - as I pointed out in my last post - more akin to an author determining a character's actions, than an actor playing a character. The author puts the character into situations where conflict (of some kind) can occur, often against the character's best interests. The character takes actions that aren't advantageous, because people don't always make logical decisions (this is, IMO, the biggest issue I've encountered with actor-stance RPing - players who play their characters without flaws or attachments because they don't want to be inconvenienced).

Author-stance games, like Fate, tend to encourage characters to be played with flaws, because those flaws encourage and incite conflict and drama. The outcome is game rules built on the concepts of story-telling, rather than the idea of emulating reality.



> This is why your Threat Mechanic doesn't work for me.  When a character is heroic, he's punished, or the group is punished, later on.



Both "heroic" and "punished" are subjective in this context.

For me, the heroic actions are the ones against terrible odds, in perilous situations. The hero is not inherently heroic when he cuts down a half-dozen ill-equipped 'villainous minions'. He's heroic when he fights for his life against impending doom. For me, the measure of a heroic character is now how they are when everything's fine, but how they are when everything is awful.

Similarly, "punished" isn't the word I'd use. Difficult situations are good, because they present an opportunity for the above - for a character to be tested and pressured.

I take the Joss Whedon approach to characters - that they aren't interesting unless they're suffering. I like the characters my players have. But I want them to suffer, because uneventful picnics aren't the stuff thrilling adventures are made of. My players know this and embrace it.

This approach suits 'author stance' games better than it suits 'actor stance' ones - in an 'actor stance' game, the player is too close to the character to willingly imperil that character. It produces things like the perception that a character with a family is a vulnerable one (because the GM can exploit the family for drama)

Yes, buying extra dice (etc) with Threat raises the stakes. The difference here is that I see that raising of stakes as desirable, while you see it as punishment. You also seem to constantly assume that the GM will save all his points for one big turn of the screw at the end, rather than spending at a measured pace throughout the adventure, or varying his use of Threat as things progress (spend hard in one scene, tension raises... the scene that follows, the tension is reduced because there's less Threat left... until we start to build again).



> You hit the nail on the head.  You're describing characters as playing pieces, like extra lives in a computer game, where all you have to do is reload your last save.
> 
> I'm talking about emotional involvement that delivers (what I would argue is) a superior game experience.



And I disagree with your assertion as to what makes a superior game experience - it may be your preferred approach, but that does not make it universally and objectively better.



> Most games, including d20 based one, can be scaled.  How much you roll over your target gives you your "successes".
> 
> For example, for every 5 points rolled over the target, the character obtains a success.



This isn't pure scaling, though. Momentum isn't just used to "succeed better" (though that is one of its uses). It can also be used to take additional, tangential actions, expand the scope of the action taken, or achieve a variety of other beneficial effects. Similarly, complications that can occur (on natural 20s rolled) don't indicate failure, but rather a problem that has occurred independent of success or failure (yes, you've hit, but in the process you've left yourself exposed). Players can choose to buy off that immediate complication for two Threat if they wish (avoid something bad now for something bad later), but it's an element that adds greater variety of outcome to each roll.



> I'm a HUGE Star Wars fan.  I LOVED the D6 WEG game.  Like Mongoose's Conan, I bought every supplement and rulebook ever published for that game, in all editions.  The new FFG Star Wars dicing system turns me off, big-time.  Thus, I have not purchased the game.
> 
> And, all I'm seeing here is that the design philosophy about the new Conan game is exactly my impression from reading the playtest rules--nothing about the game's rules jive with how I like to play or what I consider good game mechanics.



Which is all fine. But there's a difference between "I don't like this" and "this is bad" which a lot of your posts (barring the more recent ones in this thread) tend to skip past. Personally, I love the FFG Star Wars RPGs, and they're my favourite incarnation of Star Wars RPG - they hit all the buttons I want them to hit.

That's kind of the issue here. I have no problem with you not liking the game. My self-esteem is solid enough that I can accept people not liking everything that I do. I have more of an issue with people conflating personal tastes and quality.


----------



## N01H3r3 (Aug 26, 2015)

Saelorn said:


> And of course, you're right, that this does lead to situations where the player becomes attached to the character and avoids risk, but is that really a bad thing? I guess it depends on whether you want characters that are larger-than-life heroic, or ones that are down-to-earth authentic. Whatever your goals, the ruleset should encourage that.



Which is the intent here. Think of the original Die Hard - John McClane is an ordinary cop (his "larger than life" phase comes more in the later movies), who spends the movie getting progressively more beaten and bloodied by events, and the situation escalates around him. He's very clearly having A Bad Day of spectacular proportions.

He's not avoiding risk. He's still being careful, because he's outnumbered and outgunned, but he's still taking risks, causing trouble, and being a nuisance. And, as the situation escalates, he has to work harder for his little victories.

That's the kind of thing I'm aiming for when I run a game. It's the kind of thing I'm aiming for with 2d20 too.



> Actor-stance is kind of the _definition_ of role-playing, though. When you _role-play_, you take on the _role_ of the character, and make decisions from that standpoint. You can see why there might be some confusion. Personally, I refer to actor-stance games as _Role-Playing Games_, and author-stance games are _Story-Telling Games_. I think that would do a lot to reduce conflict in the future.



I've seen similar attempts to distinguish used... which ended up resulting in "storygames" being used as a derogatory term to refer to games that weren't "proper RPGs", which doesn't work when there isn't a clear dividing line between the two extremes (something like Fiasco at one end, GURPS or AD&D at the other), but rather a sliding scale.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 26, 2015)

N01H3r3 said:


> You're veering very close to "one-true-wayism" here - just because it isn't how you like to play RPGs, doesn't mean it's wrong.




Play as you want.  I don't care.

But, this entire dialogue is supposed to be feedback about what people want out of the game, yes?

I've been telling ya that I don't like at all what you're trying to produce.  Now, I've learned that even the guy working on the rules plays completely differently than the way I like to play.

And, now, instead of soaking up the feedback, you are defending your play style and what you like in games.

I don't think there is much hope that you and I are going to see eye-to-eye on this, and because your preferences are diametrically opposed to mine, I don't see much hope for this game.







> The difference here is that the way you like to play is catered for in abundance.




There's a profit motive to publishing this game, yes?  Why take the risk with such a system as 2d20 when you know the market for regular types games is already out there?

I wouldn't think that the roleplaying game market is that big to begin with.  I scratch my head at why a company would risk alienating a segment of that population with a game system such at that.

Maybe it was thought that the game rules wouldn't be that important to some people?







> That's kind of the issue here. I have no problem with you not liking the game. My self-esteem is solid enough that I can accept people not liking everything that I do. I have more of an issue with people conflating personal tastes and quality.




If a person goes to see a movie and doesn't like it, he doesn't say, "Oh, I'm sure some people out there will like the film. I didn't.  But, some people will."

What he says is, "Man, that movie was real crap.  It was a real stinker."

People do tend to equate their own personal taste with quality.


----------



## N01H3r3 (Aug 26, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> Play as you want.  I don't care.
> 
> But, this entire dialogue is supposed to be feedback about what people want out of the game, yes?



Maybe that was the initial purpose... but most of the feedback in this thread is you saying that what you want out of the game is a completely different game.



> There's a profit motive to publishing this game, yes?  Why take the risk with such a system as 2d20 when you know the market for regular types games is already out there?



There are countless traditional style games on the market already. If people already have a game that they're happy with, it's difficult to grab their attention with something that's almost identical to what they already have.

Beyond that, it's not like 2d20 is the first such game on the market. The massive success of Fate, the various games using Cortex Plus (Smallville, Leverage, Marvel Heroic, Firefly), the various "Powered by the Apocalypse" games show that there's plenty of nontraditional RPGs out there too. It's less of a risk than you might think, and it's an easier sell in a lot of regards to have different games for different styles and purposes.

Just doing a D&D clone would be unremarkable - the risk there would be whether or not people would actually pay attention or just carry on playing the games they already have (there was a lot of talk like this when D&D5 came out - I saw lots of people question whether or not it was worth buying a new version of D&D, when they already have versions of D&D that they like).



> If a person goes to see a movie and doesn't like it, he doesn't say, "Oh, I'm sure some people out there will like the film. I didn't.  But, some people will."
> 
> What he says is, "Man, that movie was real crap.  It was a real stinker."
> 
> People do tend to equate their own personal taste with quality.



They do. Doesn't mean they're right to do it. Just because lots of people do something doesn't mean it's right.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 26, 2015)

N01H3r3 said:


> Maybe that was the initial purpose... but most of the feedback in this thread is you saying that what you want out of the game is a completely different game.




That is my feedback, if you boil it all down and forget all the details.  I said it when I first dug into the 2d20 System

I'd love it if the game used a different system.  Hell, I'd buy it if the rule system used were "good" (meaning, something I like).  I'd be happy with a lot of crunchy or rules lite systems--even a new one, if it made sense to me.

Now, seeing that 2d20 is the House System, my suggestion has always been that the new Conan game go the route of Primeval Thule and publish with different rules.








> There are countless traditional style games on the market already. If people already have a game that they're happy with, it's difficult to grab their attention with something that's almost identical to what they already have.
> 
> Beyond that, it's not like 2d20 is the first such game on the market. The massive success of Fate, the various games using Cortex Plus (Smallville, Leverage, Marvel Heroic, Firefly), the various "Powered by the Apocalypse" games show that there's plenty of nontraditional RPGs out there too. It's less of a risk than you might think, and it's an easier sell in a lot of regards to have different games for different styles and purposes.
> 
> Just doing a D&D clone would be unremarkable - the risk there would be whether or not people would actually pay attention or just carry on playing the games they already have (there was a lot of talk like this when D&D5 came out - I saw lots of people question whether or not it was worth buying a new version of D&D, when they already have versions of D&D that they like).




It will be interesting to see just how well this game does.

BTW, I'm not in love with d20.  I just recognize it as a well thought out, well designed system.







> They do. Doesn't mean they're right to do it. Just because lots of people do something doesn't mean it's right.




Well, that's human nature.

I think the world is a bit too PC anyway.


----------



## The Crimson Binome (Aug 26, 2015)

N01H3r3 said:


> He's not avoiding risk. He's still being careful, because he's outnumbered and outgunned, but he's still taking risks, causing trouble, and being a nuisance. And, as the situation escalates, he has to work harder for his little victories.



He's being cautious. He knows that his task is inherently dangerous, so he tries his best to mitigate the risk, in much the same way a PC would in old D&D. A major difference is that he knows there's a time constraint, so he's forced to take more chances than he's necessarily comfortably with.

There's another difference, though. We're talking about John McClane as though he was an actual person, making decisions on his own behalf. The only reason why we can connect with him, and analyze his choices, is because we buy into that conceit.

We can imagine being him, and we can imagine being in that situation. We can imagine having to make those choices, and experiencing the joy of victory against daunting odds.

Nobody bothers imagining that they're the writer of that story. Sure, it's a great story, but a writer can do anything they want. There's no sense of investment in that outcome. 

There was a point brought up on the Happy Jacks RPG podcast - a criticism of the Dresden Files FATE game - that it does a great job of making you feel like Jim Butcher, rather than Harry Dresden. And as neat as that might be, people really want to feel like Harry Dresden.


N01H3r3 said:


> I've seen similar attempts to distinguish used... which ended up resulting in "storygames" being used as a derogatory term to refer to games that weren't "proper RPGs", which doesn't work when there isn't a clear dividing line between the two extremes (something like Fiasco at one end, GURPS or AD&D at the other), but rather a sliding scale.



I see it as more of a _Get Out Of Jail Free_ card. You can get away with any number of mortal sins against the establishment, as long as you don't claim to also represent that establishment. Say that you're your own thing - alongside FATE, and the many other story-telling games whose names escape me at the moment - and nobody will be able to judge you for what you're not.

I think the dividing line is probably clearer than you realize. Certainly, we're all aware of how easily a traditionalist can spot any deviation from the established ideals. Or if there's a spectrum, then you can clump a lot of games over on one end where players have zero non-character agency, and the other end runs the gamut between Savage Worlds (mostly actor-stance, some author-stance) and Fiasco (almost entirely author-stance). Separating those out into just two categories _can be_ a useful way of sorting information. If you're in the first camp, then you know you don't want anything to do with the second camp. But if you're in the second camp, and you've already accepted some amount of player-authorship, only _then_ is the black-and-white breakdown less useful, because you have to dig further to find your own personal comfort zone.


----------



## nerfherder (Aug 26, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> There's a profit motive to publishing this game, yes?  Why take the risk with such a system as 2d20 when you know the market for regular types games is already out there?
> 
> I wouldn't think that the roleplaying game market is that big to begin with.  I scratch my head at why a company would risk alienating a segment of that population with a game system such at that.



Because there is a market for games you don't like - e.g. Fiasco, FATE.  I don't like Monopoly, but Hasbro keep producing different versions of it, and people keep buying it; I don't scratch my head as to why they are alienating me!



Water Bob said:


> nothing about the game's rules jive with how I like to play or what I consider good game mechanics.



I think that was fairly obvious about 15 pages back...




Water Bob said:


> nothing about the game's rules jive with how I like to play or what I consider good game mechanics.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 27, 2015)

N01H3r3 said:


> I have no problem with you not liking the game.




I'll tell  you something I do like about the game.  And, no kidding, this is something that I think is very cool and will add to the experience of the game.  That's all the little effects that I've seen attached to armor.  I think that you should do something similar with weapons.

One of the things that people like about D&D (one of the things that keeps it, edition after edition, the best selling roleplaying game) are the "drops".  This is all the little things that characters get--usually an expendable resource--while playing the game.  These are usually magic-influenced.

It's fun to get a scroll or a potion...a new ring that you know nothing about but automatically sizes to your finger.  These are tools that the characters can use to defeat their enemies.

That's something that can be missing from a Conan game because the game universe is different.  

I have a subtle form of this in my Mongoose Conan game.  Players get excited about finding herbal concoctions and recipes, armor and weapons that are of a "fancy" manufacture, with jewels in the hilt and so forth.  Some things are built into the game.  A character who spends an hour honing his blade with a large whetstone and makes a check, he gets a +1 to his Critical Hit Threat Range until he makes his first hit (he can sharpen once per day to get the effect).

I do something similar, through a House Rule, with cooking.  If a character uses spices (something I can put on dead enemies that the players will get excited to find...hey, look, some salt) and makes a check, those who eat the food get a +1 morale bonus that they can use on any attack, Saving Throw, or Skill Check for the next four hours (at which time the bonus fades).

Here, I've made a mechanical bonus for the roleplaying action of finding a good cook for the party (as an Army travels on its stomach, yes).

A Mongoose Conan support book has a throw for sleeping in the wilderness, based on the weather conditions and what kind, if any, of a shelter was made.  Failing the check makes the character fatigued the next day.

But, if your new Conan game can deliver this type of thing through its mundane equipment, that's even better.



Plus, players like choices.  If I use this sword, it's good for X but not good for Y.  This armor does this but not this.  The players have to weigh the pros and cons of the mechanical effects presented by the armor and equipment. 

The more choices that you have like this in the game, the better.  

It makes equipment more interesting, too.

Plus, you could add processes, like the Cooking Idea above, or the Wilderness Sleeping check, to make the game quite interesting in this regard.


----------



## N01H3r3 (Aug 27, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> I'll tell  you something I do like about the game.  And, no kidding, this is something that I think is very cool and will add to the experience of the game.  That's all the little effects that I've seen attached to armor.  I think that you should do something similar with weapons.



We already did. Indeed, that's where we got the idea for doing it with armour.



> I do something similar, through a House Rule, with cooking.  If a character uses spices (something I can put on dead enemies that the players will get excited to find...hey, look, some salt) and makes a check, those who eat the food get a +1 morale bonus that they can use on any attack, Saving Throw, or Skill Check for the next four hours (at which time the bonus fades).
> 
> Here, I've made a mechanical bonus for the roleplaying action of finding a good cook for the party (as an Army travels on its stomach, yes).
> 
> ...



I dabbled in a few ideas like that in Mutant Chronicles - there's a sidebar in the skills chapter that covers environmental conditions and fatigue (though the fatigue rule will be getting a makeover for later games). Sleep deprivation was one of those factors, but stimulants (tea and coffee, energy drinks, etc) granted a bonus to resist this.

I like that kind of evocative little rule.



> Plus, players like choices.  If I use this sword, it's good for X but not good for Y.  This armor does this but not this.  The players have to weigh the pros and cons of the mechanical effects presented by the armor and equipment.
> 
> The more choices that you have like this in the game, the better.
> 
> ...



Again, agreed.

Weaponry is heavily influenced by the design goal that different weapons should serve different purposes - there's no 'best' weapon, merely better ones for different situations. Daggers, for example, tend to have the Unforgiving quality, which adds to damage and penetrative ability when used with the Exploit Weakness action (such as when sneaking up on an unaware opponent, or grappling), representing their use at close quarters against vulnerable foes. Rather than just doing less damage because they're small, daggers are valuable in a particular set of circumstances. Similarly, lances have the Cavalry quality, which makes them more effective when they're used from horseback.

And I agree that meaningful choices is important - it's something I'm passionate about.


----------



## CoreyHaim8myDog (Aug 27, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> Play as you want.  I don't care.
> 
> But, this entire dialogue is supposed to be feedback about what people want out of the game, yes?




PEOPLE, Bob, not PERSON. You have dominated this thread continuously which, in itself, obviates you're assertion that you don't care.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 27, 2015)

N01H3r3 said:


> We already did. Indeed, that's where we got the idea for doing it with armour.




Glad to hear that.  It's a good move.





> I dabbled in a few ideas like that in Mutant Chronicles - there's a sidebar in the skills chapter that covers environmental conditions and fatigue (though the fatigue rule will be getting a makeover for later games). Sleep deprivation was one of those factors, but stimulants (tea and coffee, energy drinks, etc) granted a bonus to resist this.
> 
> I like that kind of evocative little rule.




I think that's cool, too.  I like that type of stuff in a game.





> Again, agreed.




Wow.  We actually agree on some things.





> Weaponry is heavily influenced by the design goal that different weapons should serve different purposes - there's no 'best' weapon, merely better ones for different situations. Daggers, for example, tend to have the Unforgiving quality, which adds to damage and penetrative ability when used with the Exploit Weakness action (such as when sneaking up on an unaware opponent, or grappling), representing their use at close quarters against vulnerable foes. Rather than just doing less damage because they're small, daggers are valuable in a particular set of circumstances. Similarly, lances have the Cavalry quality, which makes them more effective when they're used from horseback.
> 
> And I agree that meaningful choices is important - it's something I'm passionate about.




Excellent.







CoreyHaim8myDog said:


> PEOPLE, Bob, not PERSON. You have dominated this thread continuously which, in itself, obviates you're assertion that you don't care.




You are misreading my post.  I don't care how he plays.  But, if there is a game I'm interested in, like this new Conan game, I do care whether I like the rules are not.  The 2d20 System fails to serve the Conan universe.  I know you disagree.  I am greatly disappointed that the game is going to use such a wacky system.

BTW, it is my thread.  I started this thread.  It should make sense that I would participate in it quite a bit.

I'm sure that you wouldn't be accusing me of participating too much if I were on here singing the praises of the 2d20 System, saying that it was the best thing since sliced bread.




*HERE'S AN IDEA!*

So, you publish the game as intended, with the 2d20 System.  What about publishing (and selling) Conversion documents?  I'm picturing inexpensive (B&W is OK) pdf's that can be downloaded.  Cost would be a few bucks.  In the conversion booklet, you run through the adventure or supplement and suggest how to run the game using X rules.  

You game continues with the 2d20 System.

Those still playing Mongoose Conan can purchase a booklet that converts the game (rule focus) for them, making the game more interesting for them (and, maybe, slowly converting them to 2d20).

Make one for D&D 5E, if possible.  Make one for Pathfinder and whatever other game system is requested a lot.

This seems like a way to bring in new customers who otherwise would not buy the game, right?

Thought on that?


----------



## CoreyHaim8myDog (Aug 27, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> *HERE'S AN IDEA!*
> 
> So, you publish the game as intended, with the 2d20 System. What about publishing (and selling) Conversion documents? I'm picturing inexpensive (B&W is OK) pdf's that can be downloaded. Cost would be a few bucks. In the conversion booklet, you run through the adventure or supplement and suggest how to run the game using X rules.
> 
> ...




That would likely require multiple other licenses. Maybe not for D20, but I don't know that a company can legally put out rules for other systems. For example, we use Savage Worlds and Call of Cthulhu for Achtung! Cthulhu, and those are both done by agreement.

I cannot remember for sure, but you have not played the game yet, right?


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 27, 2015)

CoreyHaim8myDog said:


> That would likely require multiple other licenses. Maybe not for D20, but I don't know that a company can legally put out rules for other systems. For example, we use Savage Worlds and Call of Cthulhu for Achtung! Cthulhu, and those are both done by agreement.
> 
> I cannot remember for sure, but you have not played the game yet, right?




Pathfinder wouldn't cost, would it?  And, for Mongoose d20...can't be that expensive, if at all.  Worth a looksee, I would think.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 27, 2015)

CoreyHaim8myDog said:


> I cannot remember for sure, but you have not played the game yet, right?




I've said that I have not.  I've just studied the game.

BTW, you haven't jumped out of an airplane without a parachute, right?


----------



## crazy_cat (Aug 27, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> Pathfinder wouldn't cost, would it?  And, for Mongoose d20...can't be that expensive, if at all.  Worth a looksee, I would think.



Mongoose D20 can't be licenced as Mongoose no longer hold any licence to make or distribute the game.


----------



## N01H3r3 (Aug 27, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> Thought on that?



Thought on, though I'm not the one running things - I develop the rules, I don't make the licence deals.

As CoreyHaim8myDog mentions, Modiphius' first RPG product, Achtung! Cthulhu, is dual-system. Every book contains two sets of rules - ones for Call of Cthulhu, and one for Savage Worlds. There's a separate book that covers using Fate Core for the game as well.

And... it's a pain. It reduces the space for available content in each book, because the rules are taking up twice as much space when each customer will only use one of the two systems at any one time. The A!C books are popular and successful, but dual-system is a lot of effort for relatively little payoff.

Plus, this conversion booklet - it still takes time and effort to create, and it can't be done for free (naturally - given the choice between work that pays the bills and work that doesn't...). It's a solid idea in theory... but the practicalities of it make it less ideal. It's worth bringing up, but the whole thing is above my pay grade (and would take more time than I have to spare).


----------



## Morrus (Aug 27, 2015)

crazy_cat said:


> Mongoose D20 can't be licenced as Mongoose no longer hold any licence to make or distribute the game.




You wouldn't need to.  You have access to the d20 rules and OGC content already.  The Conan element has been public domain since 2006 (at least in the UK).


----------



## CoreyHaim8myDog (Aug 27, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> I've said that I have not.  I've just studied the game.
> 
> BTW, you haven't jumped out of an airplane without a parachute, right?




Only once. Results were mixed.


----------



## CoreyHaim8myDog (Aug 27, 2015)

N01H3r3 said:


> Thought on, though I'm not the one running things - I develop the rules, I don't make the licence deals.
> 
> As CoreyHaim8myDog mentions, Modiphius' first RPG product, Achtung! Cthulhu, is dual-system. Every book contains two sets of rules - ones for Call of Cthulhu, and one for Savage Worlds. There's a separate book that covers using Fate Core for the game as well.
> 
> ...




Mine too. Savage Worlds is the most heavily requested, though.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 27, 2015)

N01H3r3 said:


> Plus, this conversion booklet - it still takes time and effort to create, and it can't be done for free (naturally - given the choice between work that pays the bills and work that doesn't...). It's a solid idea in theory... but the practicalities of it make it less ideal. It's worth bringing up, but the whole thing is above my pay grade (and would take more time than I have to spare).




I was suggesting something simple, LIKE THIS CONVERSION Thulsa did for his Pathfinder based Spider God's Bride anthology of adventures.

I was thinking it would be a separate pdf that players could download from your web site, or put it up on DriveThruRPG.  Don't take up any space in the proper book.

If you just did D&D 3.5 E, which you could do without a paying for a license, you'd probably pick up the Mongoose Conan, the D&D 3E, and the Pathfinder crowds--a substantial number of players.

If you couldn't do it for free, as a perk for buying the game, that's understandable.  Make the pdf a little more pretty and slap a cost of a few bucks on it.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 28, 2015)

INTERESTING COMMENTS ON THE GAME IN THIS BLOG - CLICKY, CLICKY.  

The author says...



> ...let me make a quick point about the game itself. So far, I don’t like it and I don’t think I’ll like it anytime soon. In fact, not ever, I imagine. See, it’s the bloody awful 2d20 system that just sucks the life out of the game.








But, he also says that he's going to buy the game.  Why?  He says...



> All that being said, I will be buying the game. They will still be getting my money, and, perhaps more importantly, I think they should get yours as well.
> 
> Why? For me, the main reason is, I’m wholly committed to the Hyborian Age and I’m hungry for the resources and modules they’ll be offering. It will be a simple matter for me to convert the whole thing to the system of my choice.
> 
> Secondly, I respect what Modiphius is doing (even if I don’t like the system chosen). Chris Birch is pulling in some of the finest artists, developers, and Howard scholars available. This is going to be a brilliant product.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 28, 2015)

THIS BLOG REFRAINS FROM EVALUATION, Clicky, clicky.

But, it's got a decent run-down of how the game works, for those of you reading this thread and interested in the 2d20 System (Which definitely has its supporters.)

Note that "Dark Symmetry dice" below means "Threat".  That's the Threat mechanic spoken of there.  The moniker has changed.



> The in-house roleplaying game system of Modiphius Games, future publisher of the Conan rpg, seems to have the following characteristics, according to the informations I wa able to gather thus far:
> 
> - The characters have 8 attributes: Agility, Awareness, Co-ordination, Intelligence, Mental Strength, Personality, Physique, Strength
> 
> ...


----------



## CoreyHaim8myDog (Aug 28, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> I was suggesting something simple, LIKE THIS CONVERSION Thulsa did for his Pathfinder based Spider God's Bride anthology of adventures.
> 
> I was thinking it would be a separate pdf that players could download from your web site, or put it up on DriveThruRPG.  Don't take up any space in the proper book.
> 
> ...




It's not a bad idea, Bob. Not up to us though. I'll mention it to Chris though.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 28, 2015)

CoreyHaim8myDog said:


> It's not a bad idea, Bob. Not up to us though. I'll mention it to Chris though.




I hope Chris likes the idea.  If you guys make it easy for me to use Mongoose Conan rules with your adventures and supplements, *I'll buy everything you publish*.  I won't need the main rulebook, since I won't be playing 2d20.  But, if there are Mongoose Conan conversion books for everything else, supplements, adventures, what-not, I'll buy it.  Because, I can use it in my game.





Misfit Studios prints three excellent supplements for use with Mongoose's Conan game, and they are 100% compatible.  I'm sure they do this only using the open Wizard's license (and they don't mention "Conan" in these books but instead call it OGL Barbarian.

Note that the booklets have Mongoose Conan specific stats (stuff not seen in a normal d20 OGL book), like Base Parry and Base Dodge bonuses for character classes, complete Conan stats for shields, combat maneuvers, and the like.

If they can do that, I'm sure you can make specific conversion booklets akin to the one Thulsa made for his adventure anthology for no cost, just using the open license.  Plus, you guys have the right to use the name "Conan" and talk about other aspects of the Hyborian Age.

The Barbaric Warrior

Barbaric Treasures

The Barbaric Sorcerer





*The "Conan" Crowd*

I'd definitely do one for the Mongoose Conan RPG.

But, also think about doing one for Zeb's Fantasy Roleplaying System - ZeFRS.  It's the old TSR system used in their original Conan game.  I'm sure that will be free to use.





*Other Conversion Booklets*

Do one for Savage Worlds, since you said that you get a lot of requests for it.  Here's a fan made Savage Worlds supplement for Conan:  The Savage Sword of Conan.

Do one for Pathfinder.  Free and lots of players.  Plus, if you do one for Mongoose Conan, this one is pretty much done anyway.

Do one for 3.5E D&D.  Free and lots of players.  If you do Mongoose Conan, this one will just take a little more work, and its done.




*You might also consider*

Doing one for other swords & sorcery type games, if the license is cheap/free.  *Babarians of Lemuria* anyone?  *Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea*?

This way, you spread your net wide for the largest number of Conan/Swords & Sorcery players out there.  Make the supplements and adventures useful for anyone who plays in the genre, regardless of the rule system they are using.

Maybe you'll pick up some 2d20 converts along the way.


----------



## CoreyHaim8myDog (Aug 28, 2015)

I ran Conan ZEFRS about a year and half ago. Like the system.


----------



## fjw70 (Aug 28, 2015)

The only think I am not liking about the game so far is hit locations.  Will there be a variant rule not to use those?


----------



## N01H3r3 (Aug 28, 2015)

fjw70 said:


> The only think I am not liking about the game so far is hit locations.  Will there be a variant rule not to use those?



Yes, there will.

Broadly, there are three approaches to hit locations which will be in the book.

Random hit locations (roll a d20 when you hit, to determine where the target is hit; attacker can spend Momentum to pick the hit location instead).

Selected hit locations (when you hit, the defender picks where he's hit; attacker can spend Momentum to pick the hit location instead)

No hit locations (just assume that all attacks hit the torso)

Injuries will come with two variants - general, and specific. General injuries impose a difficulty increase on all physical tasks, specific injuries have effects determined by the location they're inflicted on).


----------



## fjw70 (Aug 28, 2015)

N01H3r3 said:


> Yes, there will.
> 
> Broadly, there are three approaches to hit locations which will be in the book.
> 
> ...




Thanks.


----------



## Water Bob (Aug 28, 2015)

[MENTION=6799909]N01H3r3[/MENTION]

I understand the movement system isn't traditional, either.  It's some sort of abstract system, yes?

Can you explain it a bit for our viewers (and me!).


----------



## N01H3r3 (Aug 28, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> [MENTION=6799909]N01H3r3[/MENTION]
> 
> I understand the movement system isn't traditional, either.  It's some sort of abstract system, yes?
> 
> Can you explain it a bit for our viewers (and me!).



Yes, it's somewhat abstract.

Broadly speaking, it's best described as a kind of asymmetric grid - each environment is divided into rough zones around terrain features and points of interest, and a character will inhabit one of these zones at any one time. When defining these zones, the GM is encouraged to approach the environment organically and simply, and to define terrain effects for those zones, such as obstacles that might hinder movement or provide cover - this is primarily because I have a fervent belief that battles in environments with obstacles and terrain is more interesting than ones without, but a lot of systems make it easy to ignore or overlook the inclusion of terrain, so that action scenes take place in featureless empty spaces (even I've been guilty of this at times - it's a bad habit that's easy to form).

Moving around within the zone (Close range) you're already in is essentially free, a narrative movement that allows characters to shift around, take cover, and so forth, without it taking up any particular actions. Moving from one zone to an adjacent one (Medium range) is a minor action. Moving two zones (Long range) in one round takes up more effort (a standard action, same as an attack). Anything 3+ zones is further than you can move in one turn, on foot at least (Extreme range). Entering melee is as simple as declaring that you are entering Reach of a character within the zone you're moving within or to (so you can spend a minor action to move into an adjacent zone, and say you're moving into Reach of an enemy there, and that's all that's needed to enter melee). Ranged attacks will have an optimal range (close, medium, or long) - an enemy in the optimal range can be attacked without penalty, but each range category closer or further will impose an increasing penalty (some weapons are too cumbersome to be used easily at close quarters, others are better at short ranges). This system of weapon ranges was established for Mutant Chronicles, so that assault rifles, sub-machine guns, and sniper rifles were all effective in different environments.

Within a building or other enclosed space, individual rooms are likely to be single zones - it's an easy way to define zones. Open areas should be defined by the presence or absence of features, so that a characters' location can be easily referred to in natural language (Conan is by the mine-cart, Valeria is hiding in the mouth of the cave, etc). Specific distances don't matter, but approximate locations based on proximity to terrain features is a good way to give movement relevance without tracking yards. Because zones are of no fixed size, the GM can - if he wishes - scale zones according to terrain density too: a large, open zone is mechanically the same as a smaller one, but this can easily represent how movement and shooting is easier in a big open space than in a small space or one with a lot of obstacles (imagine a forest - the clearing might be one big zone, surrounded by smaller zones filled with trees).

The system suits medium-to-large battlefields, and with a little care and consideration, can be used to give interesting tactical choices to players. It can also be adapted relatively easily to chases (create a long, thin environment, no more than three zones wide and a dozen or so long, use difficult terrain and obstacles liberally to slow down pursued and pursuers alike, with different routes having different difficulties and different length zones to give players choices (a long zone that needs a particularly difficult Athletics or Acrobatics test to enter or cross might slow down an unskilled character, but it works as a shortcut for a skilled and daring one). It lets you do running battles easily, because there's no separate chase subsystem.

Importantly, it can be used without maps and miniatures (full 'theatre of the mind', and a little easier than systems that use defined distances), but it doesn't exclude the use of those things either.


----------



## fjw70 (Aug 29, 2015)

Any word on what the magic system will be like?


----------



## Hjorimir (Sep 5, 2015)

I'm actually quite encouraged by the Threat pool and what I'm reading here. Heck, I'd probably buy today if the book was available. Like fjw70, I'd love to hear something about how magic will be handled as well.


----------



## N01H3r3 (Sep 5, 2015)

Discussion kind of shifted over to the equivalent thread on RPG.net, but I'll repost what I said there.



> Sorcery is a tricky subject, that needs to be handled carefully to make sure it deals with the source material properly. Broadly, the idea of sorcery having a meaningful cost to learn is present - Sorcerers have Patrons who must be appeased to provide access to magic, and individual spells impose a greater cost when learning them. Most spells also cost at least one Resolve (a mental wound) from the caster when using them, and produce Repercussions on any die that doesn't score a success on the Occultism test - they're risky and costly to cast. Part of the section (in its current form) also covers alchemical tricks and techniques that sorcerers can use in place of true spells, and advice on using other skills to substitute for magic or to make it more effective.
> 
> The section's not finished yet, as it's a fairly important subject that we don't want to rush.
> 
> ...




Beyond that, if you're interested in the system, Mutant Chronicles (the first game using the 2d20 system) is now available through both Modiphius' online store and DriveThruRPG.


----------



## Water Bob (Oct 3, 2015)

*A CONSTRUCTIVE IDEA ABOUT THE THREAT MECHANIC*
 
 
 
I was watching the recorded play of the new Conan RPG with Shanks et. al., and I realized a constructive spin on what I can't stand about the Threat Mechanic.
 
First, I don't like that it is out in the open for players as the level of Threat will influence player's choices.
 
Second, I don't like that when a character attempts a heroic action, he's penalized with Threat whether he's successful at his task or not.
 
Third, I don't like that one person can generate Threat, and another can suffer the consequences in another part of the game.
 
 
 
 
*Let's look at some ideas on keeping the mechanic, but altering it so that the issues go away.*
 
First, the GM can hide the Threat Point total.  This is more bookkeeping for the GM, but he's got that bookkeeping either way.  But, if the Threat Point total is hidden, then players can only guess at its level.
 
 
 
Second, what if we change how Threat is gained?  I'd like to see the rule changed (if we have to have it) so that Threat is gained only when a character attempts to be heroic and fails.  If the character is heroic and does not fail at his task, then no Threat is paid.
 
Obviously, the amount of Threat paid from only failed checks has to be higher than what it is currently.  Maybe a dice roll?  How about 1d6 Threat per extra d20 that was used on the heroic throw?
 
Now, you've got a situation where Total Threat is hidden, and the amount of Threat is variable, based on failure.
 
That makes a lot more sense to me.
 
 
 
Third, I'm not sure how to overcome the remaining thing I dislike about the game listed above.  But, we could say....watch who you choose to spend time with.  That person may not have your back and cause problems for you later on.  I've known people like that in my life.
 
 
Just some thoughts.


----------



## N01H3r3 (Oct 9, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> First, I don't like that it is out in the open for players as the level of Threat will influence player's choices.
> 
> Second, I don't like that when a character attempts a heroic action, he's penalized with Threat whether he's successful at his task or not.
> 
> ...




Sorry about the lack of reply - moving house, lack of internet, and then my laptop breaking down have all contributed to my absence from all things work-related of late.

1) Hiding Threat generated is easy enough, so easy that it barely even needs acknowledgement - just put it on the near side of the GM screen.

2) Threat generation is currently undergoing some changes internally anyway. The biggest change is that Threat and Momentum are literally two sides of the same coin - you can get most of the same benefits from spending Threat or Momentum, with Threat used more when you don't have any Momentum to spare. This helps cement the two concepts properly - Momentum is planning, teamwork, and taking advantage of success, while Threat ends up more as risk-taking, being reckless, and opportunism.

So, in rough terms, you can spend saved Momentum to add d20s to your own or an ally's skill tests, to increase the difficulty of enemy tasks, or to ask questions about the situation that the GM has to answer truthfully (plus a few other common uses, and whatever specific uses a given skill test might have). If you don't have sufficient Momentum left over for what you want, you can make up the shortfall by paying Threat.

This should help even out some issues on the metagame side, and help more clearly delineate what Threat is and done.

3) That's how I've regarded the issue to begin with - it's a player behaviour matter, so it's not something the rules should try and fix. You resolve issues with player behaviour by talking to players as reasonable adults, rather than trying to build game systems around their shenanigans.


----------



## Water Bob (Oct 9, 2015)

N01H3r3 said:


> 2) Threat generation is currently undergoing some changes internally anyway. The biggest change is that Threat and Momentum are literally two sides of the same coin - you can get most of the same benefits from spending Threat or Momentum, with Threat used more when you don't have any Momentum to spare. This helps cement the two concepts properly - Momentum is planning, teamwork, and taking advantage of success, while Threat ends up more as risk-taking, being reckless, and opportunism.




I like the concept of Momentum.  It's success oriented (you gain Momentum when you succeed well), and it's used by the character that generates it.



> So, in rough terms, you can spend saved Momentum to add d20s to your own or an ally's skill tests, to increase the difficulty of enemy tasks, or to ask questions about the situation that the GM has to answer truthfully (plus a few other common uses, and whatever specific uses a given skill test might have). If you don't have sufficient Momentum left over for what you want, you can make up the shortfall by paying Threat.




I like most of that.  

If the Threat were tied to the character who generated it, then I'd like it more.  I still don't like that Johnny can generate Threat and Billy might have to pay for it later.

If a player is out of Momentum, then he shouldn't be able to buy extra dice (or any of the other things that Momentum can buy).


----------



## Water Bob (Oct 9, 2015)

If the Threat/Momentum System could be turned into more of a Fate Point system (whatever you want to call it) where a character generates his own points by doing well and generates his own Threat (that will effect his character) when he fails miserably, then I'd like the system a lot more.  The meta-game aspect of it is mainly what I object to, so get rid of that, and most of my objections vanish.

Does anybody have any ideas on how Threat can be tied to a single character and easily tracked?





*HERE'S AN IDEA.*



What if a character, once he generates Threat, is considered to be under a Threat Level of however many points he's generated.  Then, the character throws a Threat Die with any die throws he makes.

For example, let's say that the character generated some Threat and is now considered at Threat Level 2.

Whenever the character throws for a task, he throws a D6 Threat Die.  If that die results in a 1 or 2, then the GM is given Threat for his enemy to use (The Enemy basically gains Momentum that he must spend immediately).

This mechanic is like a Fumble or Critical Miss mechanic.  When it shows up, something bad happens to the character, or the character's foe gets an extra attack or some other Momentum advantage.







The character under Threat can lower his Threat Level by spending Momentum.  Which means, he's got to generate Momentum by rolling well, and then use Momentum to buy down his Threat Level.

GM's could award Momentum like Experience Points.  Each starting character begins the game with X amount of Momentum.  Momentum is generated by rolling well or by roleplaying success (awared by the GM).

Critical Failures cause the character to gain a Threat Level.  

Maybe all characters are always at Threat Level 1.  (Or, characters could start with no Threat Level.)

If there is a Threat level, then the GM can use Threat when it appears on the dice.




Something like that might work pretty good.


----------



## Water Bob (Oct 9, 2015)

The system would work kinda like the Critical Threat system in d20, but in reverse.

Remember, in d20, if you rolled a natural 20, then you rolled a Critical Threat.  You roll a check, and if successful, your weapon does more damage (usually double damage, but can be more depending on the weapon).  Some weapons have a greater Critical Threat range.  A Critical Threat may be checked on a natural roll of 19 or 20, for example, if the weapon indicates that Critical Threat range.



So, what I'm proposing for Threat in the Conan RPG is like setting up a Critical Fumble range for the character when the character generates Threat.  The more Threat he generates, the wider his Threat Range, the more likely that his rolls will generate Threat for the GM to use against him.

If a character ends a scenario/adventure with a lot of Threat, I supposed it would dissipate over time (so that the character can start the next adventure fresh).

Characters who know Sorcery could even curse enemies with Threat.


----------



## N01H3r3 (Oct 10, 2015)

You're welcome to propose such things, but bear in mind that you're not the only person this game is being written for. Also, these suggestions of "if X, then roll Y to see what happens" add additional time to task resolution, which is something we're looking to avoid where possible.

You're also still coming at it from the perspective of "how can I minimise this element of the game I despise", and while that's a fair enough perspective for you to take, it's not exactly one I can embrace professionally.

Yes, Threat does cause problems for the group, rather than the individual. But you know what, that happens in real life too. I've been in situations where I've faced problems indirectly caused by someone else's actions. Hell, anyone who has ever been stuck in traffic has probably been negatively impacted by another person's decisions. The game in its current form has Momentum as being of collective benefit - you can capitalise on your allies' successes as much as you can your own - so having Threat as a collective problem mirrors that nicely. A group succeeds together, and they struggle together. The revised version we're working on at present doesn't necessarily minimise the presence of Threat, but it does clarify and define it better as risk-taking and recklessness, giving it a clearer place in the action and tying it more closely to the character's choices.


----------



## Water Bob (Oct 10, 2015)

Ah, I see.  Well, I was getting excited there for a bit thinking that you guys were changing the Threat Mechanic.

I guess it was just wishful thinking on my part.  Looks like there's no reason to propose any changes as I'd like to see them, then.


----------



## N01H3r3 (Oct 10, 2015)

To clarify, the dynamic between Momentum and Threat will be shifting - partly to emphasise Momentum more, and partly to give Threat a clearer place in the whole thing. However, that doesn't mean we're getting rid of Threat or changing its purpose - it's a rearrangement, rather than starting from scratch.

At the current stage, more universal options are being given for Momentum. Principally, these are the ability to buy (in advance) bonus d20s for your tests and those of your allies (there are limits), to boost the difficulty of tests made against you, and to ask questions of the GM about the situation that the GM must answer truthfully. In essence, those represent a character creating opportunities for himself or others, creating obstacles/impediments for his enemies, and simply observing or discerning more about what's going on, respectively - all things that make sense for characters to do. 

Paying Threat to the GM, in turn, lets you do basically all those things, but instantaneously, on the fly, and without drawing from a resource that takes effort and a degree of planning to manifest (Momentum). However, it comes at a later cost - the GM has more Threat to use against the group - so it quite nicely represents actions which are reckless or heedless of cost.

Intelligent use of Momentum lets a group of characters move from triumph to triumph - their successes build upon one another, and individual characters can capitalise on one another's successes. Use of Threat can get a group out of a sticky situation, but it'll come back to bite them later. It builds an internal dichotomy of coordination and opportunism, and creates a situation where player characters have to tread a fine line between preparation (Momentum) and risk (Threat), because neither one alone can do the job completely. At that point, calculated risks become important - knowing how much of a risk to take (how much Threat to pay) in order to get that initial edge and generate some extra Momentum.

In turn, the GM can spend the Threat in basically all the same ways as players can - bonus dice, more difficult tests, etc. Similarly, the GM can generate Threat independently, because it serves as the GM's Momentum pool as well (the GM doesn't have a separate store of Momentum, but can turn surplus Momentum into Threat, much as players can save surplus Momentum).


----------



## Water Bob (Oct 10, 2015)

N01H3r3 said:


> .... and to ask questions of the GM about the situation that the GM must answer truthfully.




I think this is very, very dangerous to the fun quotient of a game.


----------



## N01H3r3 (Oct 10, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> I think this is very, very dangerous to the fun quotient of a game.



I don't see why, though to be fair I think we've established that you and I have quite different definitions of "fun" with regards to RPGs. Amongst other things, the actual rule (its current form) specifically does not require that the GM go into extensive (or even complete) detail, and while it requires the GM to be truthful, it specifically does not prohibit the GM from being cryptic, vague, or elusive. It's exactly the kind of truth that GMs have been using for decades. The key here is that the ability to ask those questions has been put squarely in the hands of players, representing character insights, investigative or knowledge-based skill use, and similar situations where the players would be asking the GM questions about the situation anyway. It's formalised as a function of the rules here, encouraging that more or less detail to be provided by GMs based on how successful a test was, etc.

The entire section on Momentum in its current form is headed with a requirement that any given Momentum spend must have some basis or grounding in the fictional events of the game itself - you can't gain a benefit unless there's appropriate narrative justification. This is no different: the GM is permitted, nay encouraged, to provide only that information that could reasonably be gleaned from the circumstances and context that originated the skill test. Defining it as a common Momentum spend means we don't need to set aside particular "knowledge" skills (all skills should contain some knowledge, and not all knowledge should be covered purely by skills), and means we don't have to repeat that option every time we want to describe how a character gains knowledge as a function of a skill test.


----------



## Water Bob (Oct 10, 2015)

N01H3r3 said:


> I don't see why, though to be fair I think we've established that you and I have quite different definitions of "fun" with regards to RPGs.




Often, there is mystery in an adventure.  The mystery, whatever it is, is learned at the climax of the scenario.  It will be something perplexing the players.  And, that's good. A GM wants players to be involved and perplexed.

But, if the players can just spend a point and learn the mystery, or get enough clues and context so that they figure it out early, then poof goes one of the main pushes for the adventure.

In addition, it's very meta-game, too.  Why would the characters suddenly know this information when they didn't know it before--especially if no character has a skill (or high enough skill) to know the mystery.









> Amongst other things, the actual rule (its current form) specifically does not require that the GM go into extensive (or even complete) detail, and while it requires the GM to be truthful, it specifically does not prohibit the GM from being cryptic, vague, or elusive.




That sounds like a player will spend a point--a precious resource--and get nothing for it, because the GM is so cryptic,what he says doesn't help and keeps the GM's mystery hidden.

Again, I don't think this is a good mechanic to have in a game.  Not unless the GM is ready for it, as with a fortune teller, soothsayer, or oracle.


----------



## N01H3r3 (Oct 10, 2015)

Water Bob said:


> Often, there is mystery in an adventure.  The mystery, whatever it is, is learned at the climax of the scenario.  It will be something perplexing the players.  And, that's good. A GM wants players to be involved and perplexed.
> 
> But, if the players can just spend a point and learn the mystery, or get enough clues and context so that they figure it out early, then poof goes one of the main pushes for the adventure.
> 
> ...




Wow... you've really misconstrued what this is for. I'd also hate to take part in any mystery-focussed game you're GMing, if you're only willing to parcel out information on your schedule. The mystery shouldn't just be revealed at the end; the players should be the ones to figure it out, from the clues they glean and the information they obtain. Otherwise they're just mute observers to the GM's story, rather than active participants.

How is it metagame? Sure, taken without the context of the surrounding environment (the situation a skill test was taken in, for example), it could look metagame, but otherwise you seem to be bandying that term around as a generic "bad thing" without any particular justification. Of course characters will gain information that they didn't have before - that's called being observant, making insights, and learning. As situations and circumstances change, new things presented to player characters will add to the information they already have; consequently, a player character will have more information, and more opportunities for information, as the adventure progresses.

Determining if the players have sufficient skill to know the mystery... that's what the skill test, and the Momentum spend are for - it places a cost on knowledge. It is a mechanism by which players can be rewarded for successful tests with knowledge about related things, the way both real people and fictional characters alike come to realisations, uncover previously unknown information, or make deductions. I'm actually shocked that I have to explain this to anybody, given how fundamental it should be to the very process of playing an RPG - the players talk to the GM, who acts as the player characters' senses in the world and describes what they see, hear, and otherwise sense. Have you never honestly seen a player in an RPG attempt a skill test to gain information, because I find that inconceivable. 

Will it require effort on the part of the GM? Yes, but no more than is involved in the preparation of any other adventure. Will it require extraordinary preparations, such as ensuring that there's an oracle or fortune teller present? No, and I can't honestly believe that anyone would come to that sort of conclusion unless they were deliberately looking for opportunities to complain. It's a mechanic that formalises something that I had regarded as commonplace in RPGs, for when players take skill tests intended to obtain knowledge - through research ("a few hours studying ancient scrolls tells you that..."), through their character talking to NPCs ("after an evening plying locals with ale and questions, you discover that..."), and through simple observation of their surroundings ("you spot a familiar symbol on the clothes of your assailant...")


----------



## fjw70 (Oct 11, 2015)

So what is the current schedule for this game to come out?


----------



## N01H3r3 (Nov 6, 2015)

fjw70 said:


> So what is the current schedule for this game to come out?



First step is the kickstarter, which is currently being planned and organised, and should begin end of this month/mid-December if everything goes smoothly. Another public release of the rules - likely a quickstart, similar to the one recently released for Infinity, is planned to be made available during the kickstarter.


----------



## fjw70 (Nov 6, 2015)

N01H3r3 said:


> First step is the kickstarter, which is currently being planned and organised, and should begin end of this month/mid-December if everything goes smoothly. Another public release of the rules - likely a quickstart, similar to the one recently released for Infinity, is planned to be made available during the kickstarter.




Thanks.


----------



## N01H3r3 (Nov 8, 2015)

Further to my previous response, we'll be promoting Conan extensively at Dragonmeet in London on the 5th of December. Anyone able to attend, feel free to come and discuss the game and/or take part in a demo. A fair few of us will be there to discuss Conan as well as our other games.


----------



## N01H3r3 (Jan 13, 2016)

Cover art for the rulebook has been revealed, and we're counting down the days until the Kickstarter begins next week. I'm currently putting the finishing touches to the text for the Quickstart adventure.


----------



## pollico (Jan 13, 2016)

LOVE it!


----------



## Water Bob (Jan 13, 2016)

Now THAT is a much, much better cover.  Thumbs up.


----------



## modiphius (Jan 22, 2016)

heads up we're announced the launch date for the Conan Kickstarter as Tues 16th Feb


----------



## BrockBallingdark (Jan 23, 2016)

modiphius said:


> heads up we're announced the launch date for the Conan Kickstarter as Tues 16th Feb




I'll be ready on Feb 16th!


----------



## N01H3r3 (Feb 16, 2016)

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/modiphius/robert-e-howards-conan-roleplaying-game?

And we're live!


----------



## CapnZapp (Feb 16, 2016)

And we're funded!


----------



## fjw70 (Feb 16, 2016)

That was quick.  I am sure my few pounds put it over the top. 

Right now I am PDF only (as I am with most purchases these days) but I may bump up to hardcover later, and those dice look nice.


----------

