Redefining and Reviewing

jpariury said:
Not to be all slippery slope, but the problem is that if we accept that argument for Dragon's Breath, we need to accept it for "Thunderstorm" and "Blizzard" and "Forge Spark"... it moves away from an easily absorbed list of effects towards fifty pages of disparate names of shtuff.

(As for not having dragon's breath - you clearly haven't seen Mark Mensch's fire breathing routine, or tasted my chili. :) )

I don't think we need to follow that to the logical conclusion that all the storms should have cooler names. Also, I don't think that is necessarily the logical conclusion. Part of the coolness is the uniqueness of it. Changing the others dilutes that coolness factor quite a bit. Dragon's Breath has a history in the game that those others would not. Also, Blizzard and Thunderstorm just aren't as cool as Dragon's breath, but I do kind of like Forge Spark.
 
Anazstaizia said:
RiddickDale, binding isn't that useful in large quantities. Nearly everything I've run into resists, is immune, or rips free from binds. Those same things are often immune to commands, too.

Must be a cultural thing. Sure it might resist or start to rip free from binding, but once it begins to rip the critter is evisca-bait. (Or at the very least even if there is a fighter/templar/scout swinging 5s you'll likely get 20 pts of damage out of it by the time they recover from ripping and get back into a fighting stance... it gets dumb if said fighter swings 10+ or there are multiple bodies.)

Sleep is a death spell to the right monster. If it resolves... they die. Lightning storm is 30 pts of damage. I'm just sayin'.

With all that said... I was just suggesting ways to help balance out the increase in incant length.
 
RiddickDale said:
Must be a cultural thing.

It partly is. We have much smaller games on average out here than the east coast does. Couple it with a different play style (west coast tends to have associates and friends, versus team and not team) and it definitely makes for a different flavor of game.
 
RiddickDale said:
Anazstaizia said:
RiddickDale, binding isn't that useful in large quantities. Nearly everything I've run into resists, is immune, or rips free from binds. Those same things are often immune to commands, too.

Must be a cultural thing. Sure it might resist or start to rip free from binding, but once it begins to rip the critter is evisca-bait. (Or at the very least even if there is a fighter/templar/scout swinging 5s you'll likely get 20 pts of damage out of it by the time they recover from ripping and get back into a fighting stance... it gets dumb if said fighter swings 10+ or there are multiple bodies.)

Sleep is a death spell to the right monster. If it resolves... they die. Lightning storm is 30 pts of damage. I'm just sayin'.

With all that said... I was just suggesting ways to help balance out the increase in incant length.

Like Inaryn said, it probably is cultural. I've only ever been to one chapter for a year fighting enemies that are immune to commands and low-level binds, so my view of the game is probably pretty narrow. :) In other places where monsters take binds and commands, they would totally be more awesome than evocation.
 
jpariury said:
"I call upon the earth to heal 2 body"
"I call upon chaos to consume 2 body"

I remain torn between loving the poetry of the old incants, and the utility of streamlining them, though.

The only real effect for utility is to speed casting rates, which of course means more noise spam during fights. Of course, it makes it easier to be a spellcaster, too. Less to memorize. Much more of that, and you may as well dispense with verbals entirely and just toss damage/effects at people. That long verbals are really that big a show-stopper for spellcasters is something I've always held to be fantasy- I play at games where the equivalent of a Death spell is a 15-word verbal, while a weak Cause Wounds is just six.

People still toss plenty of Deaths at monsters, it just means there's a longer windup.
 
Talen said:
jpariury said:
"I call upon the earth to heal 2 body"
"I call upon chaos to consume 2 body"

I remain torn between loving the poetry of the old incants, and the utility of streamlining them, though.

The only real effect for utility is to speed casting rates.
I'd disagree. In terms of utility, it makes the game more accessible to new players. I think if you've played for more than a year, sure, some of the numbers become second nature, but to a new player, there's a barrier of frustration when you get hit with an ice bolt and pause to ask how much that did, during which time you get wailed on by two or three different weapon damage calls. The non-intuitive nature of our damage system is a facet that could be somewhat smoothed out by including damage calls in the incants. You could make them an OOG call after the IG one, but play flows smoother if its just included, imo.
 
jpariury said:
Talen said:
jpariury said:
"I call upon the earth to heal 2 body"
"I call upon chaos to consume 2 body"

I remain torn between loving the poetry of the old incants, and the utility of streamlining them, though.

The only real effect for utility is to speed casting rates.
I'd disagree. In terms of utility, it makes the game more accessible to new players. I think if you've played for more than a year, sure, some of the numbers become second nature, but to a new player, there's a barrier of frustration when you get hit with an ice bolt and pause to ask how much that did, during which time you get wailed on by two or three different weapon damage calls. The non-intuitive nature of our damage system is a facet that could be somewhat smoothed out by including damage calls in the incants. You could make them an OOG call after the IG one, but play flows smoother if its just included, imo.

Yeah, it makes it easier for new players- if you keep the low-level spells simple to cast.

Heck, LAIRE DOES have you call spell damage if it hits the target, albeit with slightly longer verbals to outright long ones depending on the spell first, and the effect if it's not damage. It's not like you hear the spell being incanted (or hear it clearly) all the time, especially if it's in a crowd.
 
jpariury said:
A lot of our new players start out b NPCing, in which case they're taking everything from stone bolt to ice blast, so even the high-level spells should use the numbers, imo.e

this is actually why i like to start people off PCing. as an NPC you have to know what to take and you can take almost any effect at any time. its a crash course. while when you PC, theoretically it is the same, you only face off against a category of things at a time, so you can more slowly learn the effects (i.e. undead mod, they are going to be earth casters, so you have to know how to take binding, command and necro, while the same NPC has to know what's alchemy, what's binding, what each of the celestial spells do, what a slay, dodge, evade, parry, and riposte are as well as how to call any defensives you might have, what is command and if/how to take or ignore the effects. as a PC you just have to know how they hurt, as an NPC you have to know more due to monster defense/immunity as well as being subject to every single effect in the game at any time)
 
We're all the hardcore players or we wouldn't be here on this Bulletin Board.

But we also want to appeal to the part-time players -- those who may only show up every now and then, those who may just show up once to check it out, and those who are not tabletop gamers and thus used to complex rules.

I think it is possible, and indeed desirable, to have a much simpler rules system that can allow people to jump right into the game and start playing. I think that's how we can appeal to the largest number of people, as well as make us better than the other LARPs out there.

I've always held that plot is more important than rules. The rules are only there to make the plot work. We may lose a little flavor with the rules being simplified, but I think we will gain much more. (For one thing, there will probably be less holds and calls for marshals who need to interpret everything!)
 
That is the best thing I have heard anyone in charge around here say in a very long time, Mike. Agreed wholeheartedly.
 
jpariury said:
A lot of our new players start out b NPCing, in which case they're taking everything from stone bolt to ice blast, so even the high-level spells should use the numbers, imo.e

This is one of those reasons I never, ever like to stick a newbie NPC into a high-level situation. TMI overload. Most events should have plenty of lower-level NPC's you can let a newbie dip their toes into the game with, if not an outright "newbie NPC group" you can send out as simpler stuff.

Many years back, I was part of a module party that got mowed down by a necromancer hurling Death like a machine gun. We wondered why the heck a APL 5th or so party got hit by someone with a 9-pack of 9th rank Earth spells alone with the skeletons and zombies which were pretty much standard fodder...

...and as the marshal checked his card (which had ONE 9th-rank spell slot on it), the newbie NPC said:

"It was the only verbal I could remember!"

Quantity has a confusing quality all it's own, no matter how simple you make things. Tossing a new player into anything but the most straightforwards stuff ruleswise is a bad idea, NPC or PC. After all, we don't let inexperienced players buy themselves straight into a double-digit PC, why do the same with an NPC? :)
 
Generally speaking, we don't have the NPC bandwidth to say "You, don't go out right now, there are highbies in that group." We have the bodies we have, and we use them to the best of our ability. You give me 5-10 experienced NPCs on top of what I have already, sure, we can do that. As has been said, 90% of the issues with LARP can be solved by more NPCs.
 
jpariury said:
Generally speaking, we don't have the NPC bandwidth to say "You, don't go out right now, there are highbies in that group." We have the bodies we have, and we use them to the best of our ability. You give me 5-10 experienced NPCs on top of what I have already, sure, we can do that. As has been said, 90% of the issues with LARP can be solved by more NPCs.

Generally, I mean "keep your new players separate from the rest of the NPC pool as much as possible". Don't even consider them part of your usual NPC pool, even if it means you're running a little short.

Overload is one of those big reasons I've found over the years that turns new players into once-ever players. I know, the instinct is to use every warm and willing body you've got to keep things going...but it burns newbies out or confuzzles the heck out of them to the same effect. If you've got multiples, put them into a "squishy squad" and send them out as simple stuff. Or as "goons" to an experienced player's "boss". You know what I mean.

The temptation is otherwise. I've herded NPCs in other games, and there have been cases where Plot wants you to throw your NPCs into the pool, sink or swim to be able to run something they'd like to do. I've found that means you either have those players avoid NPCing as much as possible afterwards, or they just out-and-out quit after the experience if you even get a few annoyed players (yes, I know we're all kind to newbies. Mostly.) pushing them too far.
 
Talen said:
Generally, I mean "keep your new players separate from the rest of the NPC pool as much as possible". Don't even consider them part of your usual NPC pool, even if it means you're running a little short.
I understand that. However, we assign more experienced NPCs to work with the newer ones, so removing the new NPCs from the NPC pool means also removing the more experienced ones. I'd say we generally run about a 2:1 PC:NPC ratio, with around 30PCs. That means using 15 NPCs to entertain the 30. If even 1/3rd of those NPCs are new, that means using only 10 when it comes to bigger fights, plus the one or two vets that I have assigned to show them the ropes and work with them, and that doesn't count out the NPCs that are out because they're sleeping/eating/pooping/what have you. Honestly, our system has worked for what we have and how we use it. It's not a part of the game that is "broken" as far as what we deal with.

In an APL 10 game (about average for Oregon, low for Seattle), that suggests more than half of your PCs will be throwing spells > 5th level, definitely once you add scrolls into the mix. There simply is no functional method of running a combat of significant size in which you excise your NPC pool by a third because they're likely to encounter those spells. Adding numbers to the incants is simply a better fix for getting new players up to speed and ready to take part in the combat part of the game than trying to seclude them off on their own, imo.

It also seems like you expect all of the low-level PCs and high-level PCs to stick within some tight range of their own level. The Oregon game has a bit of that, though not entirely, and the Seattle game almost never has that. The last mod I went on in Seattle involved me at 3rd lvl, someone at 14th, and someone else at 29th, and that was it. My impression is that they run a more intermixed game, level-wise, than perhaps other chapters might. My experience is that they go for something a bit more organic and freeform (there's a thing to do!) than codified (this is for characters X level or lower), and we have fun with it.

Don't get me wrong, I agree that some new players burn out from big numbers. Some players burn out from hearing calls that they don't know. When tenth level was nearer the high end of the spectrum than the low end, I'd agree with you that new players don't necessarily need to be exposed to those calls. But the game is much bigger than that, and reaching those big calls is much faster than I think you realize. In terms of streamlining the system for new player consumption, I think removing "flame bolt", "ice storm" and "stone blast" and replacing them with "Magic 20 Flame", "I call forth a storm of 30 ice", and "Activate Magic 45 Stone" go much further towards retaining new players than trying to artificially sequester them off in one corner and treat them as less valuable.
 
JP, I think it's different for you because you're blessed (as the Midwest is, mostly) with a lack of the massive high/low level divide that exists out East thanks to the nigh-immortality of longterm characters. APL 10 would rock my socks off. :D

That said, I would rather tell a brand new player to stay home than throw them as an NPC into a EC-style fight like the ones at the National with just the Newbie briefing and a rough grasp of the rules. They'd have more fun and be more likely to come back.
 
Talen said:
Overload is one of those big reasons I've found over the years that turns new players into once-ever players. I know, the instinct is to use every warm and willing body you've got to keep things going...but it burns newbies out or confuzzles the heck out of them to the same effect. If you've got multiples, put them into a "squishy squad" and send them out as simple stuff. Or as "goons" to an experienced player's "boss". You know what I mean.

This is the primary reason why I always, always encourage new players to PC for their first event instead of NPC. It seems to be contrary to public opinion, but I've had far more new players stick around in my experience when they can learn just what they need for one character through an entire weekend.

-Bryan
 
Polare said:
Talen said:
Overload is one of those big reasons I've found over the years that turns new players into once-ever players. I know, the instinct is to use every warm and willing body you've got to keep things going...but it burns newbies out or confuzzles the heck out of them to the same effect. If you've got multiples, put them into a "squishy squad" and send them out as simple stuff. Or as "goons" to an experienced player's "boss". You know what I mean.

This is the primary reason why I always, always encourage new players to PC for their first event instead of NPC. It seems to be contrary to public opinion, but I've had far more new players stick around in my experience when they can learn just what they need for one character through an entire weekend.

-Bryan


Totally agree
 
Fearless Leader said:
I think it is possible, and indeed desirable, to have a much simpler rules system that can allow people to jump right into the game and start playing. I think that's how we can appeal to the largest number of people, as well as make us better than the other LARPs out there.
This.
I completely agree that a simpler game is a better one given the level of complexity we are currently at (which is ridiculously complex). I think things like adding damage calls to spells is definitely a step in the right direction.
 
Wraith said:
JP, I think it's different for you because you're blessed (as the Midwest is, mostly) with a lack of the massive high/low level divide that exists out East thanks to the nigh-immortality of longterm characters. APL 10 would rock my socks off. :D
Heh, possibly. Mind you, even with APL 10, we have levels ranging from 1 to 30, so I'm not certain that we're entirely immune to the divide, it's just less prevalent at best.

I'm not saying "dividing up the NPCs doesn't work". I'm just saying it wouldn't work for the Alliance game as it manifests out here. I do think, however, that adding damage calls to the incants would work towards making the game more accessible to new players for the Alliance game everywhere. It's not the silver bullet, but its a step in the right direction, imo. And as I said, it could open up a whole lot more possibilities, mechanically.
 
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