...Yeah, that would be "literally throw a book at the ST's face" behavior for some people.
Sardonyx: Scion and Trinity Continuum
- Thread starter Nervaqus987
- Start date
- Pen & Paper
Skelethin
Barebones Writer
Add more complications to their results, and if they continue to act like they don't care, let them suffer the result?
I mean, don't go out of your way to try to kill the players, but just give them rope to let them hang their character with it. Treat that rule more like a guideline, especially the more your players appear to abuse it/not care because of it.
To what degree are we talking about when you say "fucking up the world?" That would have been my suggestion, tbh, but I wanna be sure that we'd be discussing the same thing.
Like, the way I see it, while every failure should be an opportunity, those opportunities don't necessarily have to allow you to still achieve your original goal, or do so in the same way. For example, let's say that if the PCs fail at a thing, the world is fucked. They fail, but the failure should be an opportunity, but that doesn't me they should be able to find a way to prevent the fucking of the world; rather, the world still gets fucked, but because of the circumstances of the failure they have a chance to unfuck it.
That arc of Teen Titans with Trigon would be a good example: the Titans fail to ward off Slade and Trigon's minions, and also fail to convince Raven not to go through with becoming the portal, but as a result of Raven knocking them out they aren't turned to stone by Trigon, giving them the chance to save the world.
Or say your assault on the Fire Nation's capital during the solar eclipse fails (possibly because of an earlier failure that left you alive, but unable to use the Avatar State), and thus the war continues and many of your NPC allies are captured, but you are able to escape and ultimately gain Zuko as a companion.
tl;dr failures should be opportunities, but they don't have to be opportunities that allow the PC to proceed linearly, also Teen Titans and Avatar are good television.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Mostly that if they don't even try to stop the cultists doing their dark and evil ritual, well... they actually manage to do it.
After a sequence of various events combining a mix of apathy, incompetence and "lol nothing will happen to us", their town is pretty much, uh... how to put it... have you played SMT: Nocturne?
Skelethin
Barebones Writer
That sounds likes time to get someone who can hand them their ass on a silver platter to sudden show up to express displeasure in their general direction... and they suddenly are at massive disadvantage in supernatural circles because of how badly they failed to stop it.
OR!
Now those cultists have a heavily enhanced base and are planning to summon something that will outright trash the world if they aren't stopped.
And now they have to be stopped multiple times in order for the ritual to actually be prevented.
Maybe the mini bosses will be at the power level of what should have been the end-of-campaign boss before they didn't bother.
It sounds like they just signed up for an end game, raid-type boss fight already. I hope they are ready for it.
They signed up for pain, deliver it.
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Well if they're that apathetic about it, then I see no reason why you should hold back on destroying everything they hold dear. If they complain, act surprised and say that from how they were acting you didn't think they would care that much.
Actually, what game are you playing, specifically? I'm sort of assuming Scion, but knowing for sure might help me provide more specific advice. For example, in Scion you could take a page from Greek mythology and Marvel's Thor and have the Gods, angry at their failure, strip them of their awesome powers and punt them back down to Tier 1 until they prove themselves worthy again.
I have not played Nocture, although from what I've heard of it second hand, that's the one where you're the tattoo guy and are in broken city full of monsters, right?
I'll second slapping them with social penalties. If they fuck up, then they should get slapped with a reputation for being fuck ups.
Ooo, maybe, if they have to be stopped multiple times, then some of the work gets done by a different group of heroes? Then even if the PCs succeed the next time around, they have to share the glory, accolades, rewards, etc., if not get outright overshadowed by the group(s) that didn't need other people to help clean up their messes.
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- Pronouns
- They/Them
Ah, the other group actually getting shit done might motivate them, yes. I know it'll work very well on at least one of my players.
The most terrible of all threats: "If you keep fucking up, you'll lose plot relevance and become side characters."
azoicennead
Overly-Affectionate Zombie Squad
- Pronouns
- He/They
I talk to my players and tell them that if they don't start putting an effort in either their characters will start dying (because sometimes rules need to be ignored) or the game will, because their apathy is killing my ability and/or willingness to run the game.
Problem players should be dealt with as players, not as their characters. Talking to them above the table ensures they know why you're punishing them, rather than it feeling arbitrary. They might also tell you they're okay with you killing their characters. Really, the only downsides of talking to your players is that it involves having serious conversations with your players (which is a skill only vaguely related to running a game) and most people aren't very good with criticism (giving or receiving).
notanautomaton
I've got 99 quests, I've finished one
Origins and Hero are the only things that are out for 2e, for a given value of the word.
Skelethin
Barebones Writer
Ah. Am looking at running some to grind some polish into my GMing/STing/SGing? skills, and was looking at books.
Why did they just copy the covers from 1e? Why couldn't they have made new covers for everything to make it easier to tell the difference?
Backerkit only shows Origins and Hero, though who knows when the shipping will lock in. I want my DM board and dice, dammit!
- Location
- East of the Sun and West of the Moon
I mean, it's generally a safe bet that an RPG company is going to be on board with you giving them money for an RPG book. You'll probably hear more about it once the core's officially out.That reminds me, do we know if we'll be able to purchase the Scion Companion later on, even if we didn't back the Kickstarter, much like the actual books? I would hate to be out 3+ pantheons just because I didn't know the kickstarter was a thing until it was already over.
Aaron Peori
Rest in Peace
So these are out now, any feedback?
The Aberrant Kickstarter will be starting on July 2nd for those who want to back it.
I don't know if this has been posted elsewhere, but this was in the email;
So, does anyone else feel that two thousand novas world wide seems really small?
I don't know if this has been posted elsewhere, but this was in the email;
So, does anyone else feel that two thousand novas world wide seems really small?
It's two thousand as of "ten years later"/2028, IIRC the amount of Novas that show up grows exponentially as time goes on, so by 2040 there could be ten or twenty times that number.
It is not unexpected numbers, but I agree rather small. it will be interesting, how will they modify the setting, but the remarks in the run-up of Trinity do not make me optimistic. It felt like they largely missed the point of Aberrant and di not really have a plan to utilize the crossover nature of the setting, which is where the strength should come from.
Aberrant Kickstarter
So the Kickstarter is here.
So is the manuscript preview and the setting and history parts of the manuscript are strangely bland. There seems to be certain spice missing. Terrat is much more obviously bad guys. The setting chapter is big, but imo tells very little ultimately. It is much less engaging than the first edition.
So is the manuscript preview and the setting and history parts of the manuscript are strangely bland. There seems to be certain spice missing. Terrat is much more obviously bad guys. The setting chapter is big, but imo tells very little ultimately. It is much less engaging than the first edition.
Not exactly thrilled with the setting as of now. It ranges from bland to stupid IMO.
Mostly, due to those really low Nova numbers. It's like, I read about something like Baraka, a cult that basically views eating Nova as a path to divinity(and also selling their leftovers for profit) and I'm like "Motherfucker, where are you even finding any Nova to eat?"
Of more interest to me is the slight hints about how Nova have changed. Instead of the MR node in the brain, there's been mention of "MR Flux" in being detected in the brains and "MR Coils" in the cells.
Mostly, due to those really low Nova numbers. It's like, I read about something like Baraka, a cult that basically views eating Nova as a path to divinity(and also selling their leftovers for profit) and I'm like "Motherfucker, where are you even finding any Nova to eat?"
Of more interest to me is the slight hints about how Nova have changed. Instead of the MR node in the brain, there's been mention of "MR Flux" in being detected in the brains and "MR Coils" in the cells.
The nova numbers were always absurdly low, and really should have been boosted by an order of magnitude or so. Just assume that most novas aren't that powerful and you're done.
So, going through the new manuscript and I noticed a couple minor changes and a fairly big one.
Minor stuff, Taint got renamed. Temporary Taint is called Flux, Permanent Taint is now Transcendence.
The big one though is that good old Peace Fist, Ceastus Pax is a completely different character now.
Literally.
In Aberrant 1e, he was named Shelby Eisenfaust, Erupted in the first year of N-Day, and was your standard Glory Hog Dickbag Superman.
In Aberrant 2e, his name is Sam Williams and he Erupted forty years prior to N-Day. The two paragraph blurb we got for him is that he Erupted in a car accident and carried around some survivor's guilt for living when his family didn't, particularly as his new powers couldn't save them. He's also got more than a little guilt over sitting on his powers and doing nothing with them, particularly when he was "brought up to believe that power brings responsibility."
As a change, this is something I definitely approve of. "What if Superman was an asshole?" is a question that's been asked and answered and it's more than a bit tiring to see at this point.
Minor stuff, Taint got renamed. Temporary Taint is called Flux, Permanent Taint is now Transcendence.
The big one though is that good old Peace Fist, Ceastus Pax is a completely different character now.
Literally.
In Aberrant 1e, he was named Shelby Eisenfaust, Erupted in the first year of N-Day, and was your standard Glory Hog Dickbag Superman.
In Aberrant 2e, his name is Sam Williams and he Erupted forty years prior to N-Day. The two paragraph blurb we got for him is that he Erupted in a car accident and carried around some survivor's guilt for living when his family didn't, particularly as his new powers couldn't save them. He's also got more than a little guilt over sitting on his powers and doing nothing with them, particularly when he was "brought up to believe that power brings responsibility."
As a change, this is something I definitely approve of. "What if Superman was an asshole?" is a question that's been asked and answered and it's more than a bit tiring to see at this point.
The big lore change IMO is that Novas can occur spontaneously, which is something, that was not that apparent in the first edition.
What annoys me is, that there is no way to bleed of transcendence and dormancy is too good not to take.
Also setting is still bland, there is really the spice of the various conspiracies missing and even if they show up in secrets part of the book they are still missing here.
Okay, Kickstarter is finished and the previews shipped so I am posting my final impressions.
Mechanically it works, sadly they failed to include enough examples to make the system clear and easy to understand, perhaps understanding it themselves, but the book is extremely lacking in explanatory examples and assumes you already know the terms perfectly. It is freebuild of powers, but there are no true examples of how to freebuild. I think this is general inexperience with such system here in action.
setting wise, It is a bland mess, kinda characterizing a lot of Onyx path games. There are no real primary antagonists, outside of nebulously defined Aberrant war. 1E had utopia in the position of overall big bad, but Terragen fails to pick up its part of the setting. there are no grand conspiracies or decent secrets of the setting, you do not know if you read 1st adventure. Making the setting work is left to GM, but it really does not offer tools to work with, making the GM do all the work for at least Terat play, Daedelus play and I feel even project utopia. There are not true antagonists worthy of the name outside of Terat and Aberrat war plot, even though the game tries to tell you how you do not have to make Aberrant war, it gives no tools to do so, no inspiration to do something different and only worthy conflict is Utopia vs Terat. There are no real helpful plot hooks or tools, that can be used for space play, outside of play Psion. the whole setting does lack the edge and fails to present compelling inner narrative, hoping that GM creates it themselves, but unlike DND it creates arbitrary limitations on the superhero genre, which makes freewheeling impossible, not mention ultimately lacking tools for it. The best-supported gameplay style feels to me to be spec ops, which are kinda not a thing novas do actually.
Secondary splat-psiads also lack writeup currently and it will be a supplement for another game line.
You can make it work and the system might be worthy, but you are basically inventing new setting or ignoring large swathes of existing one, making a quarter of the book useless.
Mechanically it works, sadly they failed to include enough examples to make the system clear and easy to understand, perhaps understanding it themselves, but the book is extremely lacking in explanatory examples and assumes you already know the terms perfectly. It is freebuild of powers, but there are no true examples of how to freebuild. I think this is general inexperience with such system here in action.
setting wise, It is a bland mess, kinda characterizing a lot of Onyx path games. There are no real primary antagonists, outside of nebulously defined Aberrant war. 1E had utopia in the position of overall big bad, but Terragen fails to pick up its part of the setting. there are no grand conspiracies or decent secrets of the setting, you do not know if you read 1st adventure. Making the setting work is left to GM, but it really does not offer tools to work with, making the GM do all the work for at least Terat play, Daedelus play and I feel even project utopia. There are not true antagonists worthy of the name outside of Terat and Aberrat war plot, even though the game tries to tell you how you do not have to make Aberrant war, it gives no tools to do so, no inspiration to do something different and only worthy conflict is Utopia vs Terat. There are no real helpful plot hooks or tools, that can be used for space play, outside of play Psion. the whole setting does lack the edge and fails to present compelling inner narrative, hoping that GM creates it themselves, but unlike DND it creates arbitrary limitations on the superhero genre, which makes freewheeling impossible, not mention ultimately lacking tools for it. The best-supported gameplay style feels to me to be spec ops, which are kinda not a thing novas do actually.
Secondary splat-psiads also lack writeup currently and it will be a supplement for another game line.
You can make it work and the system might be worthy, but you are basically inventing new setting or ignoring large swathes of existing one, making a quarter of the book useless.