Min/Max Boards

Quote from: sirpercival on September 06, 2017, 04:23:55 PM

I'm going for more sinister/spidery than that. We're talking full-on "mysterious advisor in the shadows behind the throne" here...

Oh, I get that, I do. I'm wondering how you manage having multiple players in the same game doing this, however. Surely they don't all occupy the same role in a king's court, though, do they?

What I was getting at was, from a literary perspective, someone who has gained the trust of the noble-in-power (king, prince, viceroy, what-have-you) due to their position of influence within the community/nation/city/etc. My experience with such literature is limited, of course, but the "Man behind the man" trope is certainly present in many types of media.

Each player gets their own noble house (none of which is the actual current Imperial Family) to use as pawns.

Quote from: phaedrusxy on September 06, 2017, 10:38:06 AM

Wow that looks like some incredible power and flexibility... Is that really compatible with low/subtle magic? Or am I over/under-estimating the potency/dcs?

Well they cost fate points (which I'm not sure how rare they are) and second/third syllables require a deeper investment (which I'm not sure how much that requires).

Fate points are a limited resource, yes. You can get more of them by doing lots of compels... like, for example, if you make it so that your magic is granted by some sort of demonic patron, then you can be influenced by your patron (to your detriment) in various situations to gain more fate points.

However, I do think that we can and should scale down the magic level significantly. Maybe we can make the syllables' contribution to opposition cumulative? So that it's +1 / +3 / +6?

Nans, are you interested in playing this game if and when it happens?

Everyone, what are your thoughts re: players designing their own noble houses, vs choosing from an already-prepared list? It seems to break down like this for me:

• Players make their own
  • Pros: less pre-game work for DM, guaranteed to be fits for PCs (by definition)
  • Cons: harder to balance, less organic
• Players choose from existing list
  • Pros: easier for DM to balance, has better with in-game logic
  • Cons: more pre-game work for DM, no guaranteed fit for any given PC (mitigated by PCs built to take advantage of a given house's strengths/weaknesses)

Have you been to this?? It looks amazing!

So I've been reading the Broken Empire trilogy (via audiobook), and it got me thinking about an interesting campaign idea... but I'm not sure how it would actually work. The premise is that each of the PCs is a "power behind the throne" - an advisor who attempts to guide the actions of their chosen pawns. The setting would be an amalgam of Cairhien from Wheel of Time, Tolnedra from the Belgariad/Mallorean series, Rennaissance Italy, and other similar situations - cosmopolitan fantasy, aging emperor with no heir, great houses vying for influence and power, etc.

I see a couple difficulties:
1) The underlying PvP nature of the game. Alliances and double-dealings make it complex and interesting, but in terms of logistics, the players would need lots of back-channel communication with the DM to make this happen.
2) The players' actions would be very indirect. This would be asking a lot of the DM, who would have a very complex tapestry of influences and interactions to weave together. However, this actually helps mitigate difficulty #1, since the players wouldn't come into direct conflict.

So here are some brainstorming ideas for how to set up such a campaign. (This is mostly stream of consciousness, so bear with me.)

• D&D is almost certainly the wrong system for this. Fate maybe? I can't think of a system off the top of my head which is designed for this kind of intrigue, but Fate could possibly work, in terms of influence by way of Aspects, and having built-in social & mental combat. Online people seem to recommend Burning Wheel, but I don't know it at all so I can't comment.
• Magic should be rare, and lean more towards thaumaturgy than evocation (in Dresden Files terminology). Basically, the idea is that if you have to resort to blasting people, you've already lost the game. The PCs would be magical advisors to each family, probably with other NPC families (with or without similar advisors) thrown in.
• Probably the best way to structure the game is to have it revolve around a series of public events (tournaments, feasts & holidays, royal audiences, etc), with each player working on their own preparations in between via individual RP with the DM, and then communal RP sessions for each event. There could also be ad hoc sessions with smaller groups for private functions (dinner parties, social calls, etc) involving two or three players.
• I don't know whether the communal sessions would involve the PCs directly, or whether the players would be their various pawns & scions. Would have to have some kind of mechanic for rebellious pawns that don't do what they're told...
• Honestly, some kind of direct influence & control mechanic would be a good idea, to make adjudicating this kind of thing easier, and maybe also as a resource. For example, if you extensively mind-control the members of your chosen family, they'll follow your instructions extremely well, but have very little initiative for dealing with unexpected events. However, if your influence is lighter, they're better at adapting, but more likely to act on their own and cause problems with your plans. In a tourney setting, you can expend your energies making your champion unstoppable, but if your enhancements are too obvious, they could be disqualified. And so forth.

That's what I've got for now, I'd love some input.

So this kind of seems like a hybrid of 3 Ethos classes. I'm not exactly sure how to feel about that, though I suppose I did steer you in that direction from the get-go.

Some quick general comments, which is what I have time for at the moment:

• It's interesting that spellcasting and soulmelds are granted by Font of Power, but maneuvers are native to the class. Is there a reason to have two separate resource pools?
• In a similar vein, why give unrestricted discipline access, but then restrict spellcasting & soulmelds as per the dragon patron?
• Most of the class features need to be fleshed out in terms of wording, and I can give you a detailed breakdown at a later date if you'd like.
• From a design standpoint, I personally prefer to give scaling abilities at most/all levels instead of granting a selection of feats. Even if you'd like to give a choice of abilities at each level (which is usually the justification for granting feats), I think it's more interesting to do so in the framework of a class feature - see the Astronomer's Astrolabe Techniques for an example of what I mean.
• When I come back again, I can help you fix the bbcode for the table.

Quote from: sirpercival on August 29, 2017, 11:50:05 AM

WOOOO POSTING WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Nice to have you back 

Hard to be on mmf in the midst of herding cats (aka taking small children to Disney World)...

Rotu heaves a mighty sigh, and turns back toward the misting, smoking jungle. "I honestly can't remember why I ever left the mountainhold. I hate forests and jungles. Leave them to the elves, my grandfather always said, and I should've listened. But if there's no ale here, at least we can try and collect some more gold. Especially if some people," he shoots the shaman a dirty look, "can get the alehouse up and running again by the time we get back."

He stomps through the mud toward the treeline, obviously expecting everyone else to follow his unimpeachable logic.

OK I'm back from vacation, so LET'S DO THIS.

Added the Zraal seed. 20% done!