Re: Awesome moments in Dragons Dance

[Theomore Tullison]

The problem with this system is that those great rolls are much too easy to get, diminishing the means to dampen the effects of them is a step in the wrong direction IMO.

To be frank, it sometimes feels as if half the PC's are pushing past the point where this system folds upon itself. That is not a critique of the players behind them, the system does encourage players to do it, after all. It just fails to address the consequences when they do.

That doesn't mean that if Ser Benjen is clearly outmatched (which he is) and we all know he's going to loose (which we do), reader can dispense with Benjen taking wounds and simply die on the spot for narrative reasons.

My main concern is that Walder is a PC that is unfair to let loose on another PC in a combat situation.

[Reader]

I share these concerns, so a quick balance pass beckons, but only post combat.

[Nathaniel Mason]

I normally stay out of combat discussions, but I want to strongly protest any changes that water down the Wound rules.

The penalty of a Wound is a -1D to ALL tests for at least a week or longer. Depending on the number of Wounds and the Endurance of the person it can take months to get rid of them without a healers aid.

Capping the amount of damage a Wound can remove not only doesn't respect the severity of the penalty, it means that a high damager can inflict multiple wounds with a single hit, or even still kill his opponent outright.

IMO, this is a very very bad idea.

[Reader]

Good points from Nathan - I like fatalities in home games, but those run faster than this and operate on more of a rotating cast anyway. I'll not implement this here.

Reviewing Walton's character with him to bring him to a similar balance to existing PCs, but only after his moment of glory against Ser Benjen!

[Nathaniel Mason]

Reviewing Walton's character with him to bring him to a similar balance to existing PCs, but only after his moment of glory against Ser Benjen!

I am not sure he is overpowered compared to existing PCs.

He is rolling 8d6k5. Which probably puts him as rank 5 fighting and 3B Longblades. Very good, but not overpowered.

His damage is 9. I am guessing 4 in athletics, +3 from the greatsword, and say +2 from Strength. Again, good, but not overpowered by a personal stat point of view.

Remember, a Knight made with secondary character rules and good equipment could easily have those numbers.

I am not seeing the issue here, if he made his character with the standard rules that everyone else did.

If he ever tries to hit me with that wonking great hunk of metal, I will happily run away, and given his agility, he has zero chance of catching me.

[Reader]

Nathaniel, I can see the stats for the other PCs, who can't put out that kind of damage AND maintain the +4 defence of a large shield.

I'm kicking it over with the player in question, but massive gives a huge damage and defence boost relative to taking other qualities at low cost (Endurance 5 and a quality).

Another PC with Blood of Rhoyne and a greatsword is at -2CD relative to the Massive PC.

Or a PC with a longsword and athletics 4 plus weapon mastery is at 6 damage rather than 9 [and the gap grows wider with each DoS]. Why bother with weapon mastery/heirloom weapons in a world with Massive.

Talos Canaris in BITW was Massive but balanced out by having fighting 4, will see if we can go a similar path here, or if Walton wants damage and fighting 5 he can take weapon mastery instead.

[Nathaniel Mason]

Why bother with weapon mastery/heirloom weapons in a world with Massive.

Talos Canaris in BITW was Massive but balanced out by having fighting 4, will see if we can go a similar path here, or if Walton wants damage and fighting 5 he can take weapon mastery instead.

I think everyone can agree that Massive is an excellent advantage and Heirloom (especially after the re-write) is terrible.

I would probably tweak Massive before I would tweak anything else. (Perhaps he can use a shield but with a -2 penalty.)

If there is an issue, starting him with a fighting 4 doesn't solve the issue. It just delays it as he could always buy up to fighting 5 with experience later (and I would not want to see artificial caps on individual characters.)

[Athelstan]

So people buy BoA to combo their character builds, I just don't see why he can't have a combo build like everyone else did take a Benefit to cover his weakness improve his strength. He has to suck at something, and the combat oriented character will be right to fear a mountain of a man, he has to be terrible at social encounters and easy to manipulate so social characters have an advantage over him, I would not like to fight him lol I'll probably be his bestest BFF if I could lol

[Theomore Tullison]

I don't really have a problem with massive greatswordwielder with fighting 5. That character isn't unbeatable. It's the part where a proper challenger would have to be equally brutal in composition to the point where the first attack of the combat is near guaranteed to inflict a wound that I take issue with. Intrigue is about the same problem. When I was toying with maybe playing a combat brute rather than Theo for this chapter, the concepts I tossed around would be equally deadly, at least one iteration more so. Effectively putting the restriction on myself that this character could never fight another PC for real. Brutally slaughtering NPC's though, that would be half the point of the character....the other half would be making people piss themselves at the prospect of becoming the NPC's he would brutally slaughter.

It's why I am a big fan of scaling XP costs, simply because a 5 in persuasion or fighting tends to be worth more than a 4 in fighting/persuasion and a supporting ability, at least from purely mechanical point of view. I don't have any 5's because I think a lot of 4's is much more fun, but it does mean that I have to be clever about how Theomore goes about being Theomore, but that's kinda what I was aiming for to begin with. It also means that I cannot go toe to toe with at least half of the PC ensemble, or the NC's meant to be a challenge to that half.

But that isn't necessarily a problem, because this is collective storytelling, not a competition. As long as we keep this in mind, people with very different approach to the mechanics can happily play together. We've been fairly good at it so far, though. The limit is mostly where reader is comfortable putting it, having to balance challenges for characters built according to different philosophies.

[Gwyneth Drakeson]

I haven't got any 5's cuz 5's are expensive. I wanted to be a bit more rounded than having one would have let me be.

[Septon Arlyn]

Will if he does have 5 endurance and 5 fighting that means that his other skills will be sorely lacking. He might be on par with the Moutian from a combat standpoint but if he gets into intrigue's he is going be most likely be in trouble. Or even jousting he probably is not great at either (the other fighty type confrontation he will have) but in the melee he will be terrifying

[Nathaniel Mason]

I think we can all agree that our very own version of Gregor Clegane is a terrifying prospect.

I also want to point out that someone with 5 agility, and 4 Athletics (for 2B or more in Strength) would be churning out 8+ damage per DoS with a Double-Curve without the need of ANY DP qualities. (And CD would be irrelevant for at least the first few rounds of combat.)

At least the Massive Greatsword wielder needs to actually get in your face to hurt you.

[Septon Arlyn]

Plus it's kinda hard to do any covert operations when you are massive, just ask the moutian that rides how well his disguise worked when pillaging the river lands?

[Athelstan]

Plus it's kinda hard to do any covert operations when you are massive, just ask the moutian that rides how well his disguise worked when pillaging the river lands?

Exactly, not many people are massive and most would be easy to track down, if they commit any wrong doing.

Edit: Massive has it's own problems in RP and the weakness that comes with being a very fight oriented character

[Reader]

I don't really have a problem with massive greatswordwielder with fighting 5. That character isn't unbeatable. It's the part where a proper challenger would have to be equally brutal in composition to the point where the first attack of the combat is near guaranteed to inflict a wound that I take issue with. Intrigue is about the same problem. When I was toying with maybe playing a combat brute rather than Theo for this chapter, the concepts I tossed around would be equally deadly, at least one iteration more so. Effectively putting the restriction on myself that this character could never fight another PC for real. Brutally slaughtering NPC's though, that would be half the point of the character....the other half would be making people piss themselves at the prospect of becoming the NPC's he would brutally slaughter.

It's why I am a big fan of scaling XP costs, simply because a 5 in persuasion or fighting tends to be worth more than a 4 in fighting/persuasion and a supporting ability, at least from purely mechanical point of view. I don't have any 5's because I think a lot of 4's is much more fun, but it does mean that I have to be clever about how Theomore goes about being Theomore, but that's kinda what I was aiming for to begin with. It also means that I cannot go toe to toe with at least half of the PC ensemble, or the NC's meant to be a challenge to that half.

But that isn't necessarily a problem, because this is collective storytelling, not a competition. As long as we keep this in mind, people with very different approach to the mechanics can happily play together. We've been fairly good at it so far, though. The limit is mostly where reader is comfortable putting it, having to balance challenges for characters built according to different philosophies.

This is a good summary. The characters are in a reasonably tight cluster at the moment, making managing things easier for me.

I'm a fan of the scaling XP costs Theomore mentions, but so far this has mainly been enforced by narrator fiat - no 6s so far, a cap kept on damage per DoS in character creation pre Walton etc.

Controlling stats and XP has helped keep balance - I may introduce scaling XP and micro-manage stats less, but an the moment I enjoy the organic character development.

[Loreia]

I was gonna try quoting everyone's posts and putting it in the Mechanical thread, but there's just too much. Instead I'll just ask nicely. Please move this discussion to the Mechanical thread, would you kindly?

[Yoren longshore]

And when someone is stronger in one way, they are weaker in another. He has spent 140 xp on those two stats, if he have an athletics of 4 its 180- even with a stat at one, if he is adult he will still have only 80 xp for his other stats, I could probably oneshot him in an intrigue for pete's sake His strength also makes him a bad investigator...

Edit: sorry Loreia, i will move this post.

[Lady Corrine Marsten]

I was gonna try quoting everyone's posts and putting it in the Mechanical thread, but there's just too much. Instead I'll just ask nicely. Please move this discussion to the Mechanical thread, would you kindly?

You beat me to it.

Yes, folks. Please move your me hanical discussion to the designated thread.

[Septon Arlyn]

"
Though, on a lighter note, I would never think to describe you as fumbling or innocent,"
she confesses, amusedly. "
You seem so confident and self-assured that it is hard to imagine you being a callow youth. And, given your reputation, it is also surprising and strange to think of you having a sweetheart. Is that something you ever intend to repeat?"

Find me a find,
Catch me a catch!

[url:1ztu9pgy]https:
//youtu.
be/59Hj7bp38f8[/url:1ztu9pgy]

[Nathaniel Mason]

We didn't handle it as an intrigue(although we easily could have) but Nathaniel approached Luecian to essentially ambush and assassinate Old Jack. Being new and with little background of his PC(mostly that he seemed a clever charming roguish type) I was not opposed to killing the bandit, I was going to do that in a battle anyway with House Dulver forces. If I could kill him and weaken them before that battle, more the better(this guy had been pillaging Dulver lands potentially killing possible friends, family or acquaintances of Luecian). My concern was while I understood his objective(Service-Luecan track and kill Old Jack), I had no real knowledge on his real motivation. Perhaps it was all on face value, perhaps he was secretly allied with House Frey and I was being led to a trap, perhaps he had influence on local bandits also and Old Jack or Benjen Frey were rivals to his influence. In essence, I was open to the service but concerned that I could end up being his pawn or patsy in the scenario. In another outcome perhaps I show up and the situation is staged, perhaps I accidentally kill Lord Bracken trying to reclaim his goods after outlaws had previously stolen them. Thus his trickery and my confusion sparks a war or fued between House Dulver and Bracken plus negative attention from the crown. Perhaps a step further someone in his employ is aiming at me once I kill my target to ensure Luecian's silence. He may have thought I drug out the exchange a bit longer than needed but I was definitely considering if I was about to get hustled by a more veteran player right out the gate...

I think this is just AWESOME. And to be completely honest, there were other machinations going on... which concluded very favorably, I must say. It will be interesting to see if they ever come to light.

[Luecian LongBow]

It turned out pretty cool for me thus far, so will have to take any bad with the good! :8-): Was thinking of changing my nickname to Luecian "
One Arrow"
but it just didn't seem to have the same ring to the ladies...

One arrow.

One arrow is all it takes.

Truth be told, Old Jack had spotted his assailant moment before the arrow comes, a snapped tree branch betraying his pursuer.

It mattered not. Even as the old sergeant glanced up to see his foe, he caught only a glimpse, a blur. After that, only the darkness of the Stranger's embrace...

[Reader]

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Heart breaking stuff. The narrator doesn't have a vote in the final treaty, but Blackbuckle is a tragedy. Let's see if you lot find someone to swing for this.

[Loreia]

That's a Song of Ice and Fire. More of a dirge methinks personally.

It was hauntingly, wonderfully written, and I think the scene would fit best if it were just them at this time - just Nathan, Jon, and the maester, all alone in a sea of desolation and death and decay. What are we voting on again?

[Reader]

That's a Song of Ice and Fire. More of a dirge methinks personally.

It was hauntingly, wonderfully written, and I think the scene would fit best if it were just them at this time - just Nathan, Jon, and the maester, all alone in a sea of desolation and death and decay. What are we voting on again?

The investigating houses negotiate the final peace settlement (fines, banishment, marriages, executions, confiscations, the wall and so on). I'll be a fascinated observer, little more.

[Reader]

The hunt produces some awesome after the first story's shameful display.

- Lady Corrine snares one wily old shadowcat...
- ... Then Luecian rescues her from its mate!

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t=1789#p47527
viewtopic.php?f=173&
t=1789&
start=10#p48225

A glorious way for two PCs to meet!

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