New draft of Rogue, Warrior, Sage:

New draft of Rogue, Warrior, Sage:

Originally shared by Dirk Detweiler Leichty

New draft of Rogue, Warrior, Sage:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1IHa8A33hy7VGExbk85cE05YUE

This one hacks a bit deeper into the structure of pbta, messes with the die roll, reframes how some of the concepts and rules are presented.

Would love thoughts and feedback, esp. relating to those structural changes.Tagging people who’ve influenced the development or I thought might be interested.

Scott M, David Morris, Kristopher Miller, Jason Cordova, Paul Taliesin, Jason Lutes, Jeremy Strandberg

30 thoughts on “New draft of Rogue, Warrior, Sage:”

  5. Ok impressions from first read thru:

    It feels like Conan (in the best way).

    It’s deceptively complex. The interaction of cross blades, weapon moves, and class abilities takes a minute to grok. If I read it right, I roll once but I don’t have to spend all the hold right away? So there’s a lot of room for cinematic descriptions of fencing, throwing sand, toppling tables, etc. before I “go for the throat” to end them–cool!

    There’s a ton of advancement options but that seems to be by design since there are so few play books. Lots of room to make each character unique by choice of weapon moves, assets, etc.

    In general, counting successes doesn’t feel as intuitive to me as target number (or pbta style ranges). But they’re implemented pretty elegantly.

    Do I have to slash an ability to ask the relevant questions? Put it another way–if I ask one of those questions, does it automatically slash my ability?

    There’s no rules for sub classes even though they’re a possible advancement.

    How do you recover x’d abilities?

  6. Marshall Brengle All of those are valid points, your review encourages me to throw things I’ve custom made in your direction lol; as for the last portion of yuor question. You wrote their are no rules for sub classes; on the vary first page they explain on the To Do Section, that it is basically coming soon; so no worries they already working on sub classes rules and such.

  7. Ah I must have missed the note about sub classes forthcoming. I didn’t mean that as a big issue, just that it left me wondering. There’s enough customization options already that they almost seem superfluous. But if they end up being like, 1 more class ability and rule, that’s probably the right amount extra.

  8. Marshall Brengle damn, you’re nailing it, so happy to see you pick up on the things I like most about the design.

    Your reading of Cross blades is spot on: roll once, spend hold throughout the fight.

    Re: question-asking ability options, you can always ask any question you like without marking an ability. If you do so as part of the Invoke abilities rule, though, you’re entitled to a better answer. From the MC rules:

    “Answer questions

    When another player asks you a question, answer it, or say what they must first do to find the answer. If they’re asking the question at the direction of a rule, you must answer here and now. “

    Maybe that needs to be mirrored somehow into the player rules.

    There’s currently no rule allowing the recovery of X’d ability boxes. Was thinking maybe about a “Pass the season” move that would give an option for that?

    And one more ability and rule is about exactly what I was thinking for subclasses.

  9. Ah ok, makes sense on the ability questions. Maybe some wording like “slash to compel the MC to answer…”

    Pass the season… That’s a tricky one. The abilities are like, the coolest things. The protags will want to do them all the time. So it is a major bummer if being devious 2x in a story day means I can’t be devious again for like, story months. But you want to encourage diverse behaviors, so I get the limited uses. My gut would be let x’d abilities recover between play sessions (e.g., Fahfrd starts each novella at full might but could exhaust himself in the course of one arc.) Might be something that gets ironed out in testing.

    Overall I’m really psyched on this. You’re cherry picking the best of the PbtA ecosystem, and seasoning with a heaping helping of Appendix N. I have more than a few gaming buddies who will be hype to take it for a spin.

  13. Also could someone explain how simple magic would work here. I understand ritual for mighty spells, but have trouble understanding how simple magic would work in play.

  14. Gerard Snow All magic triggers the Spellcraft rule, part of which says “simple, subtle magic should be easily accomplished with standard methods”

    It’s a judgement call whether additional demands come into play for spellcraft.

  15. I know this is an old post but I have two more questions, do you have any plans in mind for developing the harm and hp systems? I imagined weak enemies could take only 4 harm and strong boss enemies would need up to 20 to subdue (inspired in part by DW 16 Hit point dragon). Second, when do you think next update will come. This feels like DW 2.0 alpha. An excellent alpha to be sure.

  16. Gerard Snow in the mc moves it says 1 hp is frail, 4 is tough, 7 is inhumanly resilient.

    Which makes sense given that the most harmful weapon move listed does 4.

    20 hp boss monsters would be inflation, basically. And not really in keeping with the genre. That’s more of a “D&D thing” or “WoW thing.” As opposed to the sword & sorcery fiction this seeks to emulate, where a fight is decided by a single telling blow.

  18. Marshall Brengle has it right on HP, though those numbers haven’t been exhaustively tested. A 20 hp monster would really tax the economy of ability boxes. Working on clarifications and small fixes for the next version, plus a few subclasses and sets of starting questions.

    how do y’all feel about bonds? are they a good fit? is there an obvious better alternative?

  20. During playtesting today we made some alterations to Cross blades that seemed to work well. Folks were struggling with lack of hold, rerolling to repeatedly generate more with unclear fictional implications. So now:

    When you engage a foe in armed combat, roll.

    For each hit, hold 1. While you’re fighting, spend hold to:

    put them where you want them;

    make a weapon move;

    enhance a weapon move with +1 harm or forceful;

    add +1 die to Endure calamity.

    After you roll, gain one hold if you ask the MC what happens next. Otherwise, say what you do first. When you run out of hold, you’ll have to regroup or rebalance the situation before you can engage again.

  23. Also in playtest, there was a feeling that the Rogue needed some additional thrust. Parley as a class rule chafed a bit. I’d like to keep Parley there, but was thinking of adding something like:

    Hidden talents

    When you search your life or luggage for some useful bit of knowledge or paraphernalia, roll. For each hit, choose one; ask the MC for the details:

    it’s exactly what you need;

    it will be useful more than once;

    it comes with no strings attached.

  25. One thing I would love to see is an example combat scene to demonstrate moves in action. Also, guidelines on how much defensive moves a monster should get. Not to complain but page15 where the sage’s starting skill points are listed he has the same list as the rogue. Love the simple PC and monster stats.

  26. Gerard Snow I definitely need to write up an example of play soon. I’m waffling about defensive moves, I need to test a little more to see how they feel. Really appreciate the questions and proofreading help, always.

  27. Draft of a replacement for Endure calamity. We have had some problems in playtest with Defy danger leading directly into E.C.–feels redundant and time-consuming to roll twice to resolve the same event. Playing with reframing the move as a Saving throw and trying to refine the trigger so that “dodging out of the way” clearly triggers the saving throw rather than defy danger:

    Saving throw

    When you’re threatened with harm to your person, ask the MC how many hits you need and roll. You may add two dice to your roll if you ask the MC for a Condition.

    If you get enough hits, you shrug it off and keep going. Otherwise, choose one:

    -you’re knocked out, dragged off or overwhelmed; ask the MC how it happens.

    -Die: tenderly, heroicly or with great malice. You describe how it happens.

  28. Quick revision to the first bit:

    “When you’re threatened with harm to your person, say how you try to elude it or brace for it. Ask the MC how many hits you need and roll. You may add two dice to your roll if you ask the MC for a Condition.”

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