Latest / Sessions Canceled / Draw Steel, Tactial Heroic Cinematic Fantasy | Tabletop Shoutout-Part. 4: Ep. 167

Transcript

Draw Steel, Tactial Heroic Cinematic Fantasy | Tabletop Shoutout-Part. 4: Ep. 167 · Sessions Canceled

0:11
Internet the. GM is in prison right now.
0:18
You got caught for trespassing. And as I'm saying this, I
0:21
realized I may have already made this joke.
0:23
Absolutely. Already did make this joke.
0:24
Yes, God dammit. The GM has amnesia or maybe
0:31
dementia or maybe dementia is crazy, but I feel like I had
0:39
another idea before too. And then I forgot it and I was
0:41
like, we'll go with this. And I was like, wait, it's fine,
0:46
it's fine, whatever. Listen, who's keeping track or
0:53
listeners like the audience always keeps track.
0:59
We'll see. We'll see.
1:02
We're back at it again with the Krispy Kreme.
1:05
I am Josh. I am here.
1:07
Isaiah is also here. Hello, Michael.
1:11
Phil is not here. Although I would love, I would
1:13
love to ring that man's brain sauna on the other side.
1:19
That would be interesting. I would feel like terrified.
1:24
Why? I don't know.
1:25
I just feel like a Colville is a very big brain and I would ask
1:29
very dumb questions. Listen, he's got some old man
1:34
yells at clouds take in my opinion, so don't be too
1:36
intimidated. I don't know with MFF dolphin
1:39
because I was like so into fucking Fabulo and I like was
1:44
doing a bunch of research outside of this outside a
1:46
podcast, but I'm doing less so with raw steel.
1:50
So I'm like I feel like I wouldn't be as prepared.
1:53
I mean he's done things other than draw steel, but fair
1:56
enough. True, but I also don't watch
1:59
these videos that much anymore. Because like I, I.
2:02
Don't really know why. I just kind of don't.
2:05
I feel like you're making it sound like you have to do a
2:08
dissertation before you talk to a man.
2:10
No, but like, I don't want to be like every other fucking
2:12
interviewer who does ask like the same basic boring ask
2:14
questions. I want to be like Sean Evans
2:16
from hit TV. Hit Internet TV show Hot Ones,
2:19
where he asks really good safety questions.
2:22
Hit YouTube channel. Yeah, question mark.
2:27
The worst thing You. Can do is be a boring
2:29
interviewer. I mean, I think I could take
2:33
care of that for you. Don't worry.
2:35
I want to be the third wheel. Ask him, ask him opinions on
2:38
movies and then get salty and then go down that rabbit hole.
2:41
Oh my God, I'd lose it. I can't.
2:46
Anytime Colville starts bringing up movies, I'm just like, Nah,
2:51
we can't, I can't. I cannot abide by this.
2:53
I'm just going to pretend like I'm not hearing anything.
2:56
I I should watch a compilation of all of his movie takes.
2:59
Listen, I have the movie. I have the movie knowledge of a
3:02
goldfish. I've never been someone who's
3:03
super into movies. And I get that.
3:04
But like, God damn, some of the shit I hear him say, I'm like,
3:07
that's old. That's a choice.
3:13
I mean, it's fine, but I realized their opinions.
3:14
But yeah, sometimes I'm like, cool.
3:18
Anyway, we're not here to talk about Backhoeville.
3:19
We're not here to talk about the game.
3:21
Backhoeville maybe draw Steel part numero Quattro, numero
3:31
quattro #4 #4 can I get on #4 We have finished all of the
3:40
character creation stuff, so now it's on to just like the meat
3:44
and potatoes main mechanic shit. Before we do that, of course, if
3:52
you would be so kind as to hit follow, subscribe on whatever
3:55
platform you're currently listening on, and if you're
3:57
feeling extra generous, we have a donation link in the
4:00
description. Without further ado, draw, seal,
4:05
draw. Yeah.
4:09
Draw steel stuff. You know that really that didn't
4:12
want to come off the tongue you're having, you're having
4:14
some speaking problems. I feel like you might be having
4:16
a series of micro strokes while we record.
4:19
Good. Fucking Take Me Out that dog,
4:23
Dog. The last six months of my life
4:27
on Earth has been that fucking opinion.
4:29
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Micro strokes.
4:32
Let's get the majors here. Come on, what are we doing with
4:34
these Pansy micro strokes? Look fair enough?
4:38
Let's get the major leagues. All right, so we talked about
4:43
all the character creation stuff, which breaks down to
4:46
ancestry, background, classes, kits, perks, and then
4:50
complications. Let's actually get to the meat
4:55
and potatoes of mechanics here. And with that, we start with
5:00
tests. Tests, which would be your
5:03
equivalent to a difficulty check in D20 fantasy games.
5:08
Side note, Calvo really always goes out of his way to not
5:12
mention D&D by name, and he will always say D20 fantasy and I
5:15
don't know what that's all about, but it's like a thing.
5:17
It's like he's like, he doesn't want to like summon Voldemort or
5:20
some shit. Interesting.
5:23
Have you ever, have you not noticed that?
5:24
As I don't think you've noticed, no, I've not noticed that he
5:27
will always, he will like always refer to it as D20 fantasy.
5:30
I think the reason he's doing it is to encompass stuff beyond D&D
5:34
and to include like D&D esque games I think is the point.
5:38
But it sounds like he's trying to avoid Wizards of the Coast
5:41
ire. Like if he says their name
5:43
they'll like the scrying spell will be upon him or some shit.
5:46
Yeah. I mean, I assume he's also
5:47
trying to account, like, derivatives as well.
5:49
Yeah, that's kind of what I'm guessing, but I don't know.
5:51
It's just funny. He also will call them the
5:53
Seattle company. He won't say Wizards of the
5:55
Coast. I got no explanation.
5:56
That almost feels like a slur. Yeah.
5:59
So I don't know. I have.
5:59
Problems with the Seattle company, Like, hey, that's what
6:01
he calls them. He calls them the Seattle
6:03
company. He like won't say Wizards of the
6:05
I mean, sometimes he will, but a lot of the time he will not say
6:07
Wizards of the Coast. I don't know.
6:08
It's a weird thing. I don't know.
6:10
I don't know what that's all about.
6:11
Maybe he said why he does it in some like live streamer video or
6:15
something, but I don't know. Anyway, we're starting with
6:20
tests, which is the equivalent of your difficulty check in your
6:23
D20 fantasy games. So I mean, it's a test you, you
6:32
know, you, you, you roll. It's when you're trying to
6:34
accomplish a thing, right? It it serves the same purpose as
6:37
a difficulty check, but there are some relevant differences.
6:41
So when you make your test, your director instead of calling for,
6:47
you know, an athletics check or an intimidation check or a, you
6:52
know, persuasion or they're going to tell you to do, they're
6:56
going to say either might test, agility test, reason test,
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intuition test or presence test for one of your characteristics,
7:06
one of your 5 characteristics. They are what they sound like
7:13
might agility, reason, intuition, presence, right?
7:15
The book describes what those generally mean.
7:17
Your GM will call for those when they feel necessary.
7:22
But you might say, OK, so we know the power roll, which is
7:27
how you do all of your like attacks and abilities.
7:30
You can't fail a power roll and it's on a instead it's on a
7:35
minimum, you know, minimum success, medium success, full
7:39
success type scale. So how does that translate to
7:43
test? Does test just use a different
7:44
die system? No tests do still use roll test
7:50
the same as you would roll a power roll.
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So you roll 2D10 plus the stat plus the scale if you have a
7:54
skill. But instead your director will
7:59
determine if it is a easy test, hard test, or sorry, easy test,
8:05
a medium test, or a hard test. And effectively what it does is
8:09
there's a little chart of comparison.
8:12
The chart will shift based on if it's an easy, medium, or hard
8:16
test. So as you, I'm sure you noticed
8:21
this, Isaiah, if you're making an easy test, you cannot fail.
8:26
Yes. Impossible to fail on easy
8:29
tests, which is interesting. Interesting choice.
8:32
It feeds back. It's into that loop of heroic,
8:36
tactical, you know, fantasy like it it it feeds back into the
8:39
game ethos. So I get it, but still kind of
8:42
interesting. There's also no critical fails
8:44
in this game, which I didn't think about at first, but
8:49
realized later. There's no critical failure.
8:52
There's critical successes, but no critical failures, which I
8:55
was like, huh, interesting, interesting.
9:00
I almost, I feel like if you roll double ones, which is super
9:05
rare, right? Like double ones.
9:07
Actually let's pull up the old dice percentages here.
9:10
I think double ones on 2D10 is like 2% or something like that.
9:17
I'm going to be OK. This might be my most it's 1%
9:21
chance. It's pretty nuts.
9:23
Yeah. So I feel like, I feel like for
9:26
me, I would put a critical fair rule in there where if you roll
9:29
double ones, like an enemy gets another whole another action.
9:34
But anyway, but what were you going to grognard about?
9:37
I think my, yeah, my biggest grognard take in any system is
9:41
if you're going to have critical successes, you need to have
9:43
critical failures. Yeah, Yeah, I mean, I don't
9:50
agree with that. You kind of sort of there's a so
9:56
if you have an easy test, you can't fail.
9:59
So it works on a scaling chart, right.
10:01
So an easy test, if you roll below an 11, you get a success
10:05
with a consequence. If you roll a 12 to 16, you get
10:08
a success. And if you roll A-17 plus, you
10:10
get a success with a reward. If it's a medium test on an 11
10:14
or lower, you fail. On a 12 to 16 you get a success
10:18
with a consequence. On a 17 plus, you succeed.
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On a hard test. If you roll an 11 or lower, you
10:24
get a failure and a consequence until 12 to 16, you get a
10:28
failure. On a 17 plus, you get a success.
10:31
So essentially there is a critical failure state on hard
10:36
tests because a failure plus a consequence is like you fall
10:40
down and you get kicked in the balls.
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So that would be the closest to a critical failure.
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But that's only on hard tests, so not going to come up all the
10:50
time. Obviously.
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You could also make the game design argument that an enemy
10:58
getting a critical success against you is effectively a
11:01
critical failure. No, I don't agree with that.
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I mean, it's not a, it's not a question of agree or not.
11:08
It's a question of like from a From a pure math on paper
11:13
standpoint, the two are equivalent.
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I don't think they are though. I they are no, they like like
11:21
mathematically. Sure they might be, but like
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when you talk about a a design sense, there is a situation
11:28
where you will not have enemies rolling against you.
11:30
Therefore, it is impossible to fail critically.
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So having some sort of critical fail resource in the same way
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that an enemy should be able to critically fail.
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No, what I'm saying, what I'm saying is if you wanted to have
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like an enemy critting against you is a set effectively like
11:51
especially in this game where it swings the action economy
11:53
slightly more in your or quite a bit more in your favor, that is
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basically a critical fail situation.
12:00
Like, yeah, you can't. You can't get them if there are
12:05
no enemies necessarily. But in a sense there is a
12:08
critical fail in the game. It just doesn't exist on your
12:11
side of the table or the player side of the table.
12:16
Well, it doesn't exist on either side actually.
12:17
The enemies can't critical fail either.
12:20
I'm not particularly perturbed by I mean, they made a decision
12:23
that the game doesn't have failure in terms of attack roles
12:26
and stuff. So I understand why there's no
12:30
critical failures. Again though, a failure with a
12:32
consequence pretty pretty close to a critical fail.
12:36
Yeah, it's I guess I don't know 'cause I mean think about it, a
12:42
failure. So essentially the way the the
12:44
consequences situation works, if you if you get a success with a
12:47
consequence, it's a like it's a PB TA-7 to 9 result where you
12:56
you get which if it's a success, you get what you want.
12:58
But there's also going to be now a side problem that is
13:01
introduced. If you get a failure with a
13:03
consequence in this game, that means you're talking you didn't
13:07
get what you want and the problem has now snowballed
13:10
further against you. It's that move snowball idea
13:13
that Apocalypse world. I don't know if I shouldn't say
13:16
started, but you know, really popularized if nothing else, I
13:19
feel like, and it's so in Apocalypse World, you can fail
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and moves all kind things will snowball against you.
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In draw steel, you can fail and things stay neutral or you can
13:34
fail and things will snowball against you depending on the
13:37
test. Because like if it's a medium
13:40
test, failure is just failure. You can't.
13:42
There is no failure plus consequence.
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You can only get the failure plus consequence on a hard test.
13:46
So it's just it's shifting the goalpost slightly on that, but
13:50
it's essentially the same idea. And that's kind of critical
13:53
failure situation because it's like I didn't get what I want
13:56
and now it's worse, which means it's going to be harder down the
13:59
road. That doesn't apply to combat,
14:02
granted. So if you want critical failures
14:04
in combat, yeah, no, game ain't got that.
14:11
I I don't know. I honestly the whole premise of
14:16
the you can never miss thing. I personally, I don't know if I
14:25
really care that much about it. Like, I'm not vehemently against
14:28
it, but I don't really think it's gonna make me feel that
14:33
much more excited because ultimately The thing is about
14:38
the mechanic of you can't miss, right?
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The reason it got introduced or the reason they even considered
14:45
it for this game at all and ended up using it is because
14:49
Matt Colville was like, well, part of the reason that DND
14:54
combat and games like it are boring is because you can have
14:58
turns where you fail and you just do nothing and nothing
15:02
happens. I don't actually disagree with
15:05
the premise that that's why DND combat gets boring.
15:10
So I don't I don't really care that much about the solution
15:15
because I already don't agree with the premise That makes
15:20
sense yes. I mean, I think I agree that DND
15:26
combat can be boring, but I don't yeah, the the things just
15:31
miss is not a reason why I would say that's the case.
15:35
I don't think that's the culprit.
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I think the culprit for DND getting DND combat getting
15:40
boring is that things stagnate and become repetitive.
15:44
Like the same shit happens every time over and over again.
15:47
Yes, nothing really changes or shifts up.
15:49
Yes, you have to actively go out of your way to spice up the
15:52
combat and that this is from a players and GM's perspective by
15:55
doing things like moving around to stop things from just being
16:01
OK. I just dropped dice.
16:03
I'm on my turn and then go on my phone for 45 minutes.
16:06
Yeah. I also think the other reason
16:08
that DND combat is boring, which this game does actually solve,
16:13
is that from a player standpoint, there's not a lot of
16:23
what am I trying to what's the word?
16:25
It's difficult to have like interplayer strategy between
16:29
each other because there's not that many abilities or things
16:37
that will crossover to assist each other.
16:40
And the initiative order is locked in at the start, so you
16:45
can't like prioritize a certain character towards the front so
16:49
they can do a thing that sets everyone else up.
16:52
Whereas you can do both of those things in this game because a,
16:55
there's lots of abilities that you can do on other people's
16:58
turns that will directly affect what they decide to do or affect
17:02
what the enemy does. And you change up the turn order
17:08
every turn where it works like Fabula, where you can say, OK,
17:11
this is a new round. I would like to go first 'cause
17:13
I'm going to do this thing that's going to set you guys up
17:15
for the second round or for the second turn.
17:19
So they did solve some of the boringness with that.
17:24
I don't actually think the power roll thing was really the the
17:27
answer, but some people people seem to like it.
17:30
So I guess maybe I'm in the minority on that one.
17:32
I don't know. I mean, I think it's certainly
17:35
an interesting idea. I like, I don't know, I the idea
17:40
it's like, you know, when I read, Oh yeah, you basically
17:42
can't miss. I it didn't fill me with
17:45
literally can't you know what I mean?
17:48
It didn't like wow me. I wasn't like, Oh my God, that's
17:52
crazy. It was just kind of like, oh,
17:53
that was a choice. Yeah.
17:59
And, and The funny thing too is we have a, a, a good comparison
18:03
point 'cause we're playing Fabula right now, which has the
18:06
same style of initiative, but you can miss in Fabula.
18:11
And like, I don't know, I don't think that detracts that deeply
18:15
from the entertainment. You know what I mean?
18:19
Like the fun of it, the fun of a fight in Fabula.
18:22
Look, I mean, I'm not. Gonna lie.
18:23
I get. I get a route 30% of my
18:26
enjoyment and fabulous as Gennaro is still stuck with his
18:31
dice curse. I'm not going to lie, Gennaro
18:35
having a wheat and dice curse does provide me with.
18:37
I mean here's the thing, you can still have a dice curse and draw
18:40
steel. You just will do the least
18:42
effective thing you possibly can every time.
18:45
Like you'll do damage and nothing else and you'll do the
18:48
least amount of damage. Right, because a lot of the
18:49
class abilities have a thing where it's like you hit them and
18:53
then if you get a Tier 2 or 3 success, you also do something
18:56
else on top of the hit. Whereas if you just keep getting
18:59
tier ones, a lot of the time you'll just get nothing or very
19:02
little. So you know he can still be
19:05
cursed. True.
19:10
But that's not even what I'm talking about.
19:12
I'm just saying Fabula keeps things interesting because you
19:18
have to watch what everyone else is doing.
19:20
A lot of it because of that turn order thing and because of how
19:23
abilities combo with each other. And turns in Fabula can go by
19:27
really fast because you essentially like do your main
19:32
thing and then move. There's no like, did I spend a
19:36
bonus action? Can I move?
19:37
Can I do that? Like you have your thing that
19:39
you're going to do for your turn, much like a actual turn
19:42
based video game. It's like character A does this,
19:45
character B does this, you know? So yeah, I just, they, they
19:52
slightly barked up the wrong tree.
19:55
But again, other people are liking it.
19:56
So like, whatever, fine, I guess I'll go fuck myself, right?
20:01
I still think I, I think it really ultimately comes down to
20:04
things need to change as you go. That's really the crux of it for
20:11
me. That's one of the main reasons I
20:13
think Apocalypse World is as interesting and PBTA games by
20:16
extension end up being as fun as they are.
20:19
Because every time a player whips out dice on the GM side of
20:22
the screen, you have to be ready to interpret the bones as it
20:26
were, read the tarot cards of what the dice are giving you.
20:29
Because if the player fails, you can't just say in Apocalypse
20:33
World, oh you fail and nothing happens.
20:35
Like, you are not allowed to do that as the GM.
20:38
So as soon as the dice come out, you as the GM are on your seat
20:40
as much as the players are on their seat, 'cause you have to
20:42
respond to whatever they're doing and nobody on either side
20:46
knows what's going to happen. Whereas in D&D, if the players
20:49
miss, just nothing happens. So it's you're like, OK, yeah.
20:54
I think that's an interesting way of looking at it for me.
20:56
I think the thing that keeps in combat interesting is not having
21:01
the basic solution on your turn. Like I, I, in some ways I almost
21:06
fucked myself playing the the most mechanically basic class of
21:11
all of us in Fabula right now, because a lot of time my best
21:15
thing is just attack. But now that I have things like
21:18
Bone Crusher and and Breach, I can actually start thinking
21:22
tactically and being like, Oh well, they're casting spells.
21:23
I don't want you to do that anymore.
21:25
And I still get to do my cool attack stuff, you know?
21:28
Well, like when I was playing Goro, not not Goro, when I was
21:32
playing Django, the fact that I had a full rotation of shit I
21:36
had to do every turn and like I had to actively decide, should I
21:38
do this or should I do this even if I wasn't moving or or, you
21:42
know, using tactical positioning, the fact that I had
21:45
like pretty uniquely had to be like, OK.
21:47
I have about. 12 things I can do on my turn that are all like
21:51
good decisions, but what is the right decision to make here?
21:54
And it's not always attack. Well, ultimately that is kind of
21:58
what I'm saying about constantly changing because in order for
22:03
you to not have the one right answer every turn, the situation
22:07
has to keep changing and updating.
22:09
That's how you avoid. Because if the situation doesn't
22:12
change, you're going to figure out the best answer to the
22:14
current situation and then just keep going with that because the
22:17
situation is not updating in any fashion.
22:19
Whereas if the situation keeps changing, you have to change
22:23
your plan of attack because, you know, before the enemy was weak
22:27
to fire, now they are weak to ice.
22:30
OK, what do we have to do now? Because I don't have any ice
22:33
attacks. OK, somebody else go first to do
22:36
the damage or or you know, go first to do the damage and I'll
22:39
help you. Or maybe I'll go first to set
22:41
something up. Like that's ultimately what I'm
22:43
saying. Like, yeah, you can't have the
22:45
the answer can't be right and obvious because since the answer
22:47
is right and obvious, you get bored.
22:49
And the answer is right and obvious if the situation does
22:52
not change. You can also test this on your
22:57
own in any turn pace video game. If you're playing Final Fantasy
23:02
and you get to the point where you're like, oh, I figured out
23:04
what this boss's like order of operations is.
23:06
And then you just do the same thing over and over and over
23:08
again on the turn order because you figured out what the boss is
23:12
doing. And then you get bored because
23:14
you're like, all right, so Titus uses a potion.
23:18
OK yeah. And then the Orin attacks, and
23:20
then Walker uses the antidote. And then next turn, Titus uses
23:22
potion, Orin attacks, Walker uses antidote.
23:24
And you just do that over and over and over again, 'cause you
23:26
figured out the boss order. Same problem.
23:31
Anyway. So yeah, that's the, that's the
23:35
the idea with the test. You, the GM, will declare it an
23:38
easy, a medium or a hard test. And then you will roll and
23:40
compare against the chart. You can potentially have
23:43
failure, success or failure with a consequence, success with a
23:47
consequence, or success with a reward.
23:51
So there is failure with a consequence where you fall down
23:54
and get kicked in the balls. But there's also success with a
23:56
reward where you push the other guy down on the floor and you
24:00
get to kick him in the balls. So you know, it can it can go on
24:04
the other side too, success for with a reward happening on a Nat
24:10
a Nat 19 or 20 or if it's an easy test, you can get it on a
24:13
17 up. So in terms of, excuse me, in
24:25
terms of like using tests and combat and stuff like how long
24:27
should they take? What kind of action should they
24:29
take up to the director? Director is just going to
24:33
adjudicate that be like, all right, you're trying to dive
24:36
behind a barrel. I'll make you do an ability test
24:39
to see if you could do it. And I'll say it's a maneuver
24:42
because it's not main action worthy.
24:44
Whereas like trying to open the door like a complicated door.
24:48
All right, that's main action, you know, just kind of do it on
24:51
the fly is ultimately what it comes down to, which I think is
24:54
what most people end up doing anyway.
24:55
Even though games like 5 E don't necessarily tell you to do that.
24:58
I feel like that's how people end up adjudicating it anyway.
25:01
So no harm, no foul really there.
25:05
Yeah, the NPCS technically don't need to necessarily make roles
25:17
in this game, but they can make deceptive tasks, which is to say
25:22
like, you know, the the GM does the thing where, you know, can
25:29
the assassin sneak up on the characters?
25:31
I'm going to roll to see if they know some kind of thing, that
25:33
sort of thing. And there can be a pose tests.
25:39
Those are the 2 main situations where MPCS are going to roll.
25:42
Otherwise you're going to have the players just roll against
25:44
you. So it's kind of in between, like
25:48
it's not DND where you're going to need the MPCS to be rolling a
25:51
lot, but it's not quite Apocalypse World where you're
25:54
never rolling either, just sort. It's sort of between the two,
26:00
which I feel like for me personally might cause me to
26:07
short circuit every once in a while only because I'm so I, I,
26:13
my brain's going to be, especially when you're talking
26:16
about tests, like my brain's going to be in that Apocalypse
26:18
World mindset. So I'm going to feel like I
26:20
shouldn't be making roles as an MPC.
26:21
But sometimes you do want to make roles as an MPCI.
26:25
Don't know. Opposed test being the other
26:29
scenario where it's like, you know, head to head roles, which
26:32
is another thing that doesn't exist in Apocalypse World.
26:34
No opposed test. So and then they also mentioned
26:41
a thing called reactive tests, which is kind of like saves I
26:48
guess is the best way to say it. So like examples they give is
26:52
like hidden environmental features.
26:54
The director asked for an intuition test to notice a
26:56
secret door, hidden trap, or other disguise thing.
26:59
The director calls for an intuition test to notice a
27:01
hidden foe, hidden motives. You might call for an intuition
27:05
test during a conversation. So it's kind of like a save
27:08
where the director's like, hey, can you make this role for me
27:11
instead of you trying to make the role actively.
27:16
But it's not quite a save because again, this game doesn't
27:19
have saves. It's, again, it's a little bit
27:23
of an in between situation. There's a couple mechanics in
27:26
this game where they kind of like skirted the line between
27:31
like full on Pbta thing and full on D and DD20 thing, you know?
27:36
Yeah, actually. So to an earlier point, I think
27:39
something really funny that I find about D&D, especially when
27:42
it comes to like NPC checks, is they like sort of figured the
27:46
system out and then kind of ignore it in certain aspects.
27:52
So, you know, they talk about like the idea of passives and
27:54
like just relying on passives for a lot of things.
27:57
Yeah, but then they don't reinforce that rule at all.
28:00
So like still expected that your you know your your assassin NPC
28:05
rolls stealth when yes, they have a proficiency score which.
28:09
Means that they would have a passive so.
28:10
You can just rely on their passive, which would drastically
28:14
lower the amount of shit that you would have to roll as Adm to
28:17
the point that when I was running, you know, my 5V
28:19
adjacent, I pretty much never rolled for shit like that.
28:22
I was like, well, you know, they've got a passive stealth of
28:24
22, so fucking good luck beating that.
28:28
Yeah, I think DND just doesn't. I don't know, DND is a game.
28:34
I think they're not sure how to handle that particular scenario.
28:37
Like they're just they don't want to commit one way or the
28:40
other. I think that's exactly it.
28:41
I think it's it's, but here's the thing.
28:44
Draw steel's basically doing the same problem, right?
28:46
So yes, but like it's a little little better.
28:51
It's a little better. I think they.
28:52
They're running into a similar problem, an adjacent problem, an
28:57
adjacent for sure. It's it feels more intentional,
29:03
like for and this is like, I hate that I'm shitting on DND
29:06
and it and it episode not about DND, but like, yeah, we do it
29:11
all the time. D&D kind of has this thing where
29:13
it's like, well, we have this thing, but like, we don't want
29:15
you to feel like you have to do that thing.
29:17
So maybe you could do this thing if you want to do it and you
29:19
know, that's what that's how you prefer to run your games.
29:21
But like, if you don't want to do it, it's there for you.
29:24
Whereas draw steel has more of a you have these two options.
29:29
Do whatever you want. Like there there seems to be
29:32
more like when we were talking about confidence in in
29:35
brushstroke draw, Steel has way more confidence to be like both
29:40
of these options are available to you.
29:42
Well, that that just goes back to my complaint that the about
29:45
D&D all the time, which is that it doesn't put its foot down on
29:48
mechanics. Yeah.
29:50
The writing is very like Floofy, but yeah, so there's there's a
29:59
little bit of that in Draw Steel, but not quite the same.
30:04
So obviously. So you call for tests and there
30:06
are skills in this game. So what's the deal with the
30:08
skills? So I mentioned that there's a
30:11
shit load of skills in this game and the you know, it, it comes
30:20
across as as a bit intimidating for a director.
30:27
Basically the way the game remedies that is if, if a, if a
30:34
player has a skill that they think would apply to the
30:36
situation, you as the director ask for a test based on one of
30:40
the five characteristics. The player will say, oh, I have
30:44
the intimidation skill, can I use that for this situation?
30:48
And then the GM can say, you know, yay or nay.
30:52
So that's how they kind of remedy it where you don't need
30:55
to remember all the skills, which is good.
30:58
I mean, that does mostly solve my problem.
31:01
I I do still think people are probably going to look at this
31:04
game and see big crazy skill list, particularly if they are
31:09
planning on GM ING and get a little like wigged out by the
31:11
big skill list I feel like. But that does take the load off
31:17
your shoulders. So they thought about that and
31:23
it it literally says it's not the director's job to know every
31:26
task potentially covered by the skills in the game or to know
31:29
the specific skills your hero has.
31:31
Instead, the the director asks you to make a test using
31:33
characteristic and you tell the director if you think you have a
31:36
skill that applies and you might say, all right, So what happens
31:43
if you have a skill? Real simple.
31:44
If you have the skill, you get a plus, you get a + 2 bonus to the
31:47
role. Essentially you get an edge.
31:51
It's not the same as an edge. So you can get the +2 bonus from
31:55
a skill and the edge on top of that.
31:58
But yes, if you what? What are you laughing?
32:02
About, I don't know, like you said, you get the edge.
32:04
I just surf. So what?
32:14
Like if you just keep going for the edge, that means you're
32:16
edging. I'll leave.
32:19
That's right. I'll, I'll step out.
32:22
OK. You, you could you, you step
32:24
out. Go go sit in the corner.
32:26
You're on punishment. No, dude, I can't as even I was
32:29
reading this fucking book. That's just like Jackie said.
32:33
I listen, I I didn't I I don't like the phrase.
32:39
I don't like that the I mean, I get, I get why that?
32:42
Shows they were called boons. It's because Boons and Baines,
32:46
particularly if you're a non-english speaker, can be
32:48
confusing, which I understand. Here's my thing.
32:52
Don't even you don't need a word for it.
32:55
Just say you have a + 2 or a -, 2.
32:57
We don't need a word for it. It doesn't really need a
32:59
categorize. You know what I mean?
33:00
Like like kind of you do need, you do need a name for it 'cause
33:03
when you get a double edge or a double bane, you'd like that is
33:08
more important like that there, there's different rulings there.
33:11
So you do need something to quantify that, but I just
33:14
doesn't side note, can I, can I just that the, the, the, the
33:20
double edge and double bane thing.
33:22
I also don't understand why that OK, it's really not that funny.
33:26
I don't understand. It's really not that funny.
33:28
I do not understand what the point of that is.
33:30
Because they're like, oh, if you get a double bane, then your
33:37
tier is reduced by one. Why not just make it a -, 4
33:41
That's probably gonna bump you down a tier anyway.
33:44
You know what I mean? Like a -, 4 is such a big hit to
33:46
the role. Like I don't know why it I
33:50
didn't just make it a - 4. That seems like there may be
33:53
something I'm not thinking about in terms of how the mechanics
33:55
react to these. Like I think, I think with each
33:58
other, I think you hit the nail on the head.
34:00
I just think they had they, they had a reverse psychology.
34:02
To it which is. If it's going to bump you down,
34:05
it's here anyway. Just bump you down.
34:07
It's here. Maybe I don't know.
34:12
Like I said, I also just, I don't know, I think giving it a
34:16
title like a name like that when it's just a + 2 or a -, 2 just
34:20
feels weird. But there must have been
34:24
something in play testing that made them realize that giving it
34:26
a name like giving it the edge and bane name was useful for
34:29
some reason. Anyway, Long story short, if you
34:32
have a skill, you add a + 2. You can also add the +2 bonus
34:37
from an edge on top of that skill, so you know, you can bump
34:42
it up to a + 4. For example, as we mentioned in
34:50
one of the episodes, I don't remember which one, the skills
34:54
are broken up into groups. So you have crafting skills,
34:56
exploration skills, interpersonal skills, intrigue
34:59
skills, and lower skills and skills and skills are just on
35:03
off. It's like, you know, it's like a
35:05
proficiency in D&D. Either have it or you don't.
35:07
There's no tier to the proficiency, which is a little
35:10
disappointing. I kind of wanted there to be
35:12
tears. I feel like this is a game where
35:14
tiered, tiered like having like climb one, climb 2, climb three
35:19
would have been fun. But yeah, man, I don't think
35:21
it's a particularly contentious opinion to say that expertise is
35:26
a cool thing in DND and one of the things where I think they
35:29
did really good and I would like to see that more places.
35:31
I assume the reason it's not in this game is because otherwise
35:34
the numbers would get too inflated and blow the math out
35:38
of the water. Because the whole 2D ten thing,
35:40
I assume that's why. I mean, I think the simple
35:42
answer is if you had something above whatever that is, it just
35:45
counts as an automatic double whatever, right?
35:48
Like if you have a, you know, if you're a blacksmith's apprentice
35:53
as your back story and you have proficiency with blacksmithing.
35:56
All right, cool. But if you get a thing in like
36:00
your character creation, that cut makes it like you are a
36:02
master Craftsman and any check you make just has plus one tier.
36:08
Like I feel like that's valid. I mean, that would be two levels
36:11
of it. So yeah, you could do that.
36:19
What's the other thing? Oh, the, the there, there is
36:28
also a little side note on skills that, you know, be aware
36:33
of the kind of game you're playing.
36:35
And there's a lot of skills in the game.
36:37
So you could potentially pick a skill that's totally fucking
36:40
useless if you're not paying attention or don't ask your D
36:42
and your, your GM what the style of campaign is.
36:47
So because there's a big skill list, just be aware what kind of
36:50
game you're playing and then pick appropriately.
36:53
I mean, don't be like, you know, don't be like I'm going to take
36:57
wilderness and then, you know, it's an all urban campaign.
37:00
Just, you know, the usual real shit that should be normalized.
37:04
And I, it's not like just asking your GM, Hey, oh God, this would
37:10
ever come up as the language that I need.
37:13
Yeah, yeah. Should I take it or not?
37:15
Like, I, I think that should be a lot more common.
37:17
And I think GM should be more OK with being like, I mean, I
37:20
wasn't planning on it, but if you want to take it, we can do
37:22
something about it. You know what I mean?
37:23
Well, yeah, that's the other thing too, right?
37:25
I always come at it from the reverse direction.
37:27
If I see players picking weird skills and I go, OK, I have to
37:30
put something in here. Like I have to put shit in there
37:32
now to make this worth it. That's always how I look at it,
37:34
right. That's kind of what Fabulous
37:36
tells you to do with the classes.
37:37
It's like once your players pick your classes, make sure you give
37:41
the players shit that makes sense relative to their class.
37:45
Like if you have an arcanist in the game, put arcana in the
37:48
game. If you have a dark blade in the
37:51
game, give them a reason to be melodramatic and mopey and
37:55
gutsy. And by gutsy I mean like the
37:57
character Guts not not gutsy isn't tough.
37:59
I mean both work. Both work, both work.
38:04
You know, if you have a wayfarer in your game, make sure travel
38:10
roles are going to happen, you know, or a gourmet in your game,
38:12
make sure travel roles are going to happen because those are
38:14
relevant to them. You know, that kind of thing.
38:17
That's always how I come at it. No, yeah.
38:19
And I think that's how everyone should come at it.
38:21
I think that's a pretty safe one to be like.
38:23
You. Should be doing this if you're
38:25
running a game. It's a good GM habit.
38:27
As someone who's had this problem of like, Oh yeah, I
38:31
picked celestial because my character's a cleric and then
38:34
Celestial never comes up. Even if you do contact like
38:38
other realms or do that shit and you're like, oh, sage, I guess
38:44
I'll just go fuck myself. Question mark.
38:50
And then lastly, the note on little last point on the skills
38:53
and tests and stuff is the game does encourage you to make your
38:56
own skills as a as a director. The example they give is the
39:06
example they give is like there's no brewery skill, but if
39:09
you want to have a game where brewing ale is relevant for some
39:12
reason in the campaign, make a brewery skill.
39:14
And because the skills are just are just category and then word,
39:22
it's really easy to make skills, right?
39:24
You look at which category. So brewery would probably fall
39:27
under crafting and then you just slap brewery in there and then
39:31
they can just take the skill and that's it.
39:32
Like you don't need to figure out any of the math or anything
39:35
or what, what what characteristic does it pair
39:38
with? Like none of that shit matters
39:39
because of the way the skill system works.
39:40
So very easy to make skills. So if you want to add more, go
39:45
for it. And then it gives us.
39:48
Some I would. Just, I wouldn't, I'd just be
39:49
like, fuck it. I mean, there's a lot, but if
39:51
for some reason you feel like it would be really cool to throw
39:54
one in there, then, you know, I, yeah, I get it.
39:56
It's, it's the same problem I had with Lancer where it's like,
39:59
you know, technically you're not supposed to take the triggers.
40:01
They're examples, but they're good examples.
40:04
So why wouldn't you take them? And then you get to a point
40:07
where there are so many examples that you don't feel a need to
40:11
make more because you could arguably do anything you would
40:13
need to do with the examples you have.
40:15
Well this I mean in in defence for draw steel, they're not
40:18
saying that the skill lists are examples, they're just saying we
40:21
could only think of so many things.
40:22
So like if you come up to weird edge cases then add to it.
40:25
Fair, fair. Slightly different than saying
40:28
here are some examples, right? They're not saying it's a list
40:31
of examples, they're saying these are the skills you might
40:34
need more. Fair for like?
40:36
Weird scenarios. Lancer being like here's some
40:38
examples. Gives you like 25.
40:40
You're like. Yeah.
40:43
Yeah, that's that's a little more than an example.
40:45
Yes, you can assist tests in this game.
40:54
You you can assist another creature with the test they
40:56
make, provided you have a skill that applies to the test.
40:58
The other creature the other creature isn't using the same
41:02
skill on the test and you can describe how your character
41:05
helps in to to the director satisfaction.
41:09
So basically if it makes sense for your character to be able to
41:11
help with whatever skill you have, you can attempt to help
41:13
and then you make a power role. The thing about helping in this
41:17
game is you can make the situation worse so you don't
41:21
necessarily always want to help. If you get an 11 or lower a Tier
41:26
1 result, you make the situation worse and the creature takes a
41:29
bane on the test so you can potentially fuck your teammate
41:34
over if you're not being careful.
41:38
If you get a 12 to 16, they get an edge and if you get a 17 plus
41:41
on your assisting role, they get a double edge.
41:47
Then it it it gives a whole chunk to like hiding and
41:53
sneaking and searching for hitting creatures.
41:56
I it, it's pretty much DND rules in terms of how like hiding and
42:01
sneaking means and stuff like that.
42:02
That like it's not it works pretty much how you expect.
42:07
I don't. I don't know if you have
42:08
anything to add, but I don't really have anything to add on
42:10
that. No, not really.
42:12
Yeah, it it's hiding and seeking.
42:13
It's basically, I mean, there's a, there's a little bit of
42:15
minutia in terms of like rolling the dice or whatever, but we
42:18
talked about that with tests already.
42:19
So then you have group tests. If you call for a group test,
42:29
basically everybody makes the same test.
42:35
The director determines the difficulty each.
42:41
Sorry, lost track. If you're making a group test,
42:46
obviously you can't assist because you're already in.
42:49
You're already assisting by being in the group test and
42:54
then. So first you have to figure out
42:58
if the test succeeded or not, and then you have to figure out
43:03
the rewards and consequences. So if the hero succeeded and
43:08
half or more of them obtained a reward from So everyone makes an
43:11
individual test. If the hero succeeded and half
43:14
or more of them obtained a reward from the test the the
43:16
group, the director gives the Group A collective reward and
43:19
ignores consequences incurred. If the heroes failed a group
43:25
test and more than half of them accrued A consequence as a
43:28
result, the director gives out, gives the Group A collective
43:31
consequence, and ignores any earned rewards.
43:36
It mentions that an easy option if you can't think of a reward
43:39
or a consequence is either a Hero Turk, either a Hero token
43:43
as a reward, or Malice for the director as a consequence.
43:48
If fewer than half the heroes incur A consequence or earn a
43:51
reward on their individual tests and the group simply succeeds or
43:54
fails. And the oh, sorry, and I, I
44:00
didn't say before, if half or more of the heroes making the
44:03
group test succeed, then the then they, then you succeed.
44:05
So if there's four of you, if two people succeed, group test
44:08
succeeds. I forgot to say that first.
44:12
Then we get on to montage tests. So this is one of their other
44:17
like big things like a kind of showcase mechanic, I guess you
44:21
could say. So if you have ever messed
44:26
around with, if you know about skill challenges in DND 4th
44:29
edition, that's where this idea came from, at least for the MCDM
44:33
folks primarily. There's also clocks in games
44:37
like Blades in the Dark, which has then extended out to games
44:40
like Fabula for example, in Lancer, I think uses clocks too.
44:44
So you know, clocks have spread around.
44:46
But basically the idea is the montage test for draw steel is
44:52
over a longer period of time, the exact period of time being,
44:57
you know, it doesn't need to be specific.
44:59
It could be a couple of days, a couple of hours, a couple of
45:02
minutes, depending on the situation.
45:04
But it's a bunch of tests made in a row all trying to take up a
45:09
number of successes. And then if you manage to take
45:13
up enough successes, you succeed the montage.
45:24
Little like rules for the montage.
45:26
So like everyone basically you go into like a pseudo turn
45:31
order. Everyone gets to do one thing.
45:35
You can't. The way they describe it is like
45:39
you can't have one player just keep doing doing everything for
45:44
everybody basically. Like everybody has to help and
45:50
you can't use the same skill twice.
45:53
And then also once a hero has made a test in the montage, they
46:02
have to essentially once you've overcome one problem in the
46:06
montage test, you then have to deal with another problem.
46:09
So like the example, I think they give an example in here of
46:12
like burning a city or like buildings burning, you go in to
46:18
rescue some people from the building.
46:20
Your next role in the next round cannot be rescuing people from a
46:25
burning building again, like you already did that you have to
46:29
keep changing up what you're going after.
46:31
And also the direct, you know, the director is going to, you
46:37
know, work with you back and forth on what the new challenge
46:40
might potentially be. Unless, of course, the director
46:44
feels like there is a good reason that doing it multiple
46:47
times might make sense, then you can do it.
46:51
But generally they say don't do that.
46:56
You track the total number of successes and failures and they.
47:02
The book recommends A montage test should only last two
47:08
rounds. If the heroes don't end the
47:11
montage test by achieving the six, by achieving the success
47:16
limit or failure limit, the montage test ends when the
47:20
second montage test round is over.
47:24
Basically this just keeps things moving is the idea. 2 rounds
47:28
feels a little restrictive to me, but I haven't played so like
47:35
maybe it feels fine playing it out.
47:37
I don't know. I don't know.
47:40
I don't know if you had a strong opinion on that one way or the
47:43
other. No, yeah, I mean, I agree with
47:45
you. I think 2 rounds is a little
47:46
like, I mean, you get to a point where I don't think I've ever
47:49
had one even like an 8 section clock last more than two rounds.
47:53
If you've seen me, you've got four to five players.
47:55
That's the thing too. Yeah, it's probably not going to
47:58
go past it anyway. So they probably ran into a
48:01
situation where it never went past two rounds, or the one
48:04
situation where it went past two rounds, or the few situations
48:08
run past two rounds. It got like really noodly
48:10
because then you're running out of skills to roll, right, Right.
48:13
These ones that are relevant to a situation.
48:15
So at some point you get 2 rounds, you haven't done it by
48:16
then. I'm to cut now.
48:18
Honestly, the more, the more I'm talking myself through this, the
48:21
more I'm like, no, you're not out of it.
48:22
Yeah, yeah, yeah, fair enough. It does say it does say at the
48:26
rounds bit if you want to make it particularly grueling, you
48:30
can add more rounds as the director if you feel like.
48:33
This is like a a particularly brutal montage situation.
48:36
Like I don't know, enemy already army invading the city type like
48:40
big deal shit. And then basically if it's an E
48:44
then you have a chart of easy, moderate or hard test.
48:47
If it's an easy test, you need 5 successes and you can have 5
48:51
failures. If it's a moderate test, you
48:53
need to succeed 6 times and you can only have 4 failures.
48:56
And if it's a hard test, you can have to succeed 7 times and you
49:00
can only fail 3 roles. That's for the entire group,
49:04
keep in mind. So 33 failed roles across four
49:09
players is like, you know, four players taking two rounds each.
49:14
Definitely a little like oh boy. Yeah, it's a little.
49:19
Nuts. And then in terms of outcome,
49:25
there's a total success, partial success and total failure.
49:31
So it says if they achieve what they set out to do or hold on,
49:36
wait Monta or sorry, if the heroes hit the success limit
49:40
before hitting the failure limit or before the time runs out,
49:44
total success. If they hit the failure limit or
49:48
the time runs out, but they have at least two more successes than
49:52
failures, they achieve A partial success.
49:55
So in the hard situation, you could hit 3 failures, but if you
49:58
have 5 successes, you still get a partial.
50:01
If you hit the failure limit or time runs out and you don't have
50:05
more than two successes, the total failure.
50:10
If you get a total success, you earn a victory on an easy or
50:16
moderate, or two victories on a hard montage test.
50:19
On a partial success, you get one victory if it was a moderate
50:25
or hard montage test. So you've got a partial success
50:28
on an easy test, no victory accrued, total failure, bad
50:34
things happen. And then it gives you some
50:39
sample montage tests. It does also mention there can
50:43
be interludes, so the example it gives is the players are trying
50:49
to crossover an ancient ruin partially buried in the sand.
50:54
After or sorry, the director pauses the montage because the
50:59
heroes are travelling across this like sandy dune situation
51:03
looking for these ancient ruins and they get attacked by a big
51:06
fuck off worm Shai Hulu attacks. The battle is an interlude so
51:12
you pause the montage test. After you finish the battle you
51:14
go back to the montage test. So they don't have to be totally
51:18
consecutive. Which is interesting.
51:21
I've never really thought to do that, but it makes sense that
51:24
you could do that. I have no reason that I
51:26
wouldn't, but I've never really thought about it.
51:28
I'm sorry. I think I I just, my brain
51:30
disconnected. Can you give me that again?
51:33
So like they mentioned, between rounds you're doing a montage.
51:37
So the example it gives is the players are walking through like
51:41
a like a a desert area looking for some ruins.
51:46
After round one, the director has them get attacked by a big
51:49
worm because we have to do a do in reference obviously.
51:54
And then after the fight is over, you then go back to the
51:58
montage test and finish round two of the montage test.
52:00
So like the fight is an interlude in the montage test.
52:03
It is part of the entire event, but it is an interlude on the
52:07
montage itself, mechanically speaking.
52:12
Are you was that? No, I, I, yeah, I got it the
52:15
second time around. I like, oh, OK, OK.
52:18
Interesting I was. Explaining that bad.
52:19
No, no, no, no. I, I, I the first time I just
52:22
kind of was like, wait, but if you get into a fight, then the
52:25
clock should be over. But no, I I get, I get the Intel
52:27
yet the idea being it pauses the clock.
52:29
Yeah. I mean, I don't, I've not done
52:32
this practically, so I don't I haven't either.
52:34
That's The funny thing. I've played a lot of games with
52:37
like clocks that have effectively, you know, a montage
52:39
style system. I've never thought to do this
52:41
and I don't really know why because it doesn't seem
52:44
intuitive. I'm going to be honest.
52:48
I don't know. I think it makes perfect sense.
52:49
I've just never thought about, let's put it this way, if I have
52:51
done it, I don't remember having done it.
52:55
To me, it almost makes sense to have two one round clocks with a
52:59
fight in between. I mean, that's kind of what
53:03
you're doing. Yeah, but it like, like to me,
53:08
right? Like.
53:08
So let's put it this way, montage one is you trying to get
53:12
away from like, you know, you see you the, the, the worm sign
53:16
coming, you get the breach, right?
53:18
And you're trying to run away. And let's say maybe you succeed
53:22
on that role and you fight one room, you fail, you fight 2.
53:25
And then that that affects how the second one turns out.
53:29
Like it like it's a similar thing, but the order of
53:31
operations is a bit different. I mean, you could just do it
53:37
that way. You could.
53:39
I don't know you could, but. This isn't this is I don't think
53:42
this is being restrictive enough in the design that you couldn't
53:45
just do something like that after montage as though we get
53:52
to the big kit and caboodle fucking combat.
53:57
Oh, baby, it's combat time. I I want you to know it took
54:03
every fiber of my being not to do the it's rewind time thing
54:06
and you're welcome. It's rewind.
54:09
Nah, it's rewind time. All right, So combat, combat,
54:15
combat. So it starts by talking about,
54:19
you know, sizing and spacing on a grid and stuff.
54:22
How big is a square? By default they assume it's a 5
54:27
foot cube on a side, but if you want to change that, knock
54:29
yourself out. Basically, a square is a square.
54:32
This game doesn't really care about the specifics, and because
54:35
the game doesn't care, it means you as the GM are also going to
54:37
end up not caring. Because I've seen people make
54:41
this argument where they're like, oh, if the game isn't
54:44
giving me exact measurements then how am I supposed to know
54:47
what the distances of things are?
54:49
And people don't seem to understand that If the game
54:52
doesn't care about the measurements, then you as the GM
54:54
will very quickly stop caring about the measurements because
54:57
there's no reason for you to care about the measurements.
55:00
So you're just going to use the game's language.
55:02
When the player asks how far away is the enemy, you're just
55:05
going to say 5 squares because you're just going to translate
55:10
to whatever game you're playing. Like you're not going to care
55:12
what the specifics are 90% of the time.
55:15
Every once in a while maybe it'll come up, but very rarely.
55:19
I've heard people bitch about that with like Apocalypse World
55:21
or games like it where it's like, oh, I hate not having
55:24
exact distance measurements and I'm like, but if you don't have
55:27
them then you don't need to worry about them.
55:30
It's very like, it's a weird complaint to me.
55:33
No, no, I mean, I get where they're coming from, right?
55:35
Like you get into situations like, you know, my character has
55:41
a pistol. How do I know how far away my
55:43
effective range is? And the answer is like you have
55:46
that. The answer is, is near.
55:48
There's A tag for it. Sure, in that situation there
55:51
is. But like there are situations
55:56
that that I've run into thinking about, I can't think of them now
55:58
at the moment where I went, it would probably be more
56:02
convenient to have a range. So I know definitively what the
56:04
answer is. But it's also like it's the the
56:07
tools that surround the system that matter, right?
56:11
That's what I mean. Because the system doesn't care.
56:13
You're not going to care when you're explaining it because you
56:15
don't need to worry about it, right?
56:17
But that like, yes, but you would there is also the
56:20
important part of the system has given you tools that makes it
56:24
able to not care, I think. But I think people who are
56:28
reading the rules for things, something like Apocalypse World
56:30
for the first time are not aware of those tools, which is what
56:33
the complaint is coming from, or they've not thought about those
56:36
tools in context. If your complaint is you're bad
56:39
at reading, then I cannot help you there.
56:42
Hey, look, look, look, look. Hey, I have, I as well have
56:46
struggled reading Apocalypse like Powered by the Apocalypse
56:48
rules, you know, before I ran them practically or even before,
56:52
like I read more of them. But on the first read, it's not
56:57
the most intuitive. There's a mindset you need to be
56:59
in. I mean, I'm not talking about
57:01
any specific game here. I'm just saying nevermind, this
57:06
doesn't matter, this is not that important.
57:08
If you want to know how big a square is in fucking draw steer.
57:11
It does tell you if for some reason you care, but you're
57:14
probably not going to. The game will mention sides in a
57:23
combat. Allies are one side, creatures
57:28
opposed to the players are another side controlled by the
57:30
director. That's, you know, it's very
57:33
intuitive combat rounds. This game does not really care
57:41
about how long a combat round is or a turn is because it doesn't
57:47
have bespoke timers like that. So don't really need to worry
57:51
about it. When does combat start?
57:53
When people are trying to kill each other?
57:55
That's all pretty straightforward.
57:56
A lot of this shit is, you know, they like when combat starts, it
58:00
mentions determine surprise and then determine who gets to go
58:03
1st and like creatures take their turns.
58:11
Things that are different that aren't your usual DND thing.
58:15
So when you determine which side you, you roll for your your
58:20
side. So if all the creatures on one
58:25
side are surprised, then the creatures on the other side act
58:27
first. Obviously if the but if both
58:30
sides have creatures who aren't surprised, the director or a
58:33
player, the director or a player they choose rolls AD 20 on a six
58:38
or higher. The player determines who goes
58:40
first, the hero's side or the other side.
58:42
Otherwise the director decide which side goes first.
58:45
So you just roll a singular die and that's the just determines
58:50
who's getting that first round. And then after that on a player
58:56
turn any player can go, on an enemy turn, any enemy can go.
59:01
The director will decide obviously for the enemies and
59:03
the players will decide amongst each other.
59:07
Real simple monsters for the director will be broken up into
59:16
groupings generally. So basically the same way that
59:21
actually no, it is the same way that 5 E does it.
59:23
So like for example in 5 E you roll a single initiative for all
59:27
of the goblins on the board and then all of the cobbles on the
59:29
board. Draw Steel does effectively the
59:32
same thing. It's the only thing that will be
59:34
slightly different is they have a couple of different kinds of
59:38
goblins. So the the goblin slash throat
59:41
guys will be Group 1 and the goblins stabby stabby guys will
59:45
be group 2. And so when a monster initiative
59:49
comes around you could choose either Group One or group 2 to
59:51
go. Once they have gone, obviously
59:53
they can't go again until next round.
59:55
Everyone restarts again. That's how DND actually that's
1:00:01
how 5V does it. It just doesn't.
1:00:03
I don't know that it describes it quite that way, but yeah, I
1:00:10
guess it, I guess 5V does describe it that way actually,
1:00:12
now that I'm thinking about it. Yeah, I guess it.
1:00:15
Yeah, I guess. Yeah, yeah.
1:00:16
Enemies go in groups. Yeah, yeah, it's the same shit.
1:00:20
I'm like, overcomplicate. Yeah, it's the same shit.
1:00:26
The game mentions putting an argument timer if your players
1:00:29
just cannot decide who's gonna go first or who's gonna go next.
1:00:35
I can't see that happening very often, but on the off chance it
1:00:39
does it, it mentions it. Then end of the round, everybody
1:00:48
restarts. Boom bang boom.
1:00:50
So actually taking your turn you have a main action, a maneuver,
1:00:54
and a move action. These are action, bonus action,
1:00:58
and move. Just like 5 E Although
1:01:01
technically 5E doesn't call it a move action, it just says you
1:01:04
have a speed draw. Steel calls it a move action.
1:01:08
I don't know or remember if there's things other than
1:01:13
movement that actively use your move action, but there might be.
1:01:22
There's also triggered actions and free triggered actions.
1:01:28
You can use one triggered action per round and a free triggered
1:01:34
action doesn't count against your limit.
1:01:36
And you can do as many free triggered actions as possible.
1:01:40
Basically the yeah, yeah, the free triggered actions are free.
1:01:52
You get one regular triggered action, then you get the free
1:01:54
ones. Yeah, I keep, I keep feel like
1:01:59
I'm saying it too straightforward, but like that's
1:02:01
what it is. The game also does mention free
1:02:06
manoeuvres, which are, you know, free bonus actions to do little
1:02:10
things like picking something up or moving an object or giving
1:02:14
something to someone, you know, that kind of free manoeuvre
1:02:17
crap. And then there are technically
1:02:20
no action activities. I don't even really know why
1:02:25
they bothered mentioning this, but like a no action activity is
1:02:28
stuff like shouting out a warning or dropping an item.
1:02:33
I don't know why that doesn't just fall under the free
1:02:35
manoeuvre that like, I don't know why they bother making a
1:02:36
distinction, but they did. Is there a?
1:02:40
Limit on how many free actions you get?
1:02:42
No. Right.
1:02:44
No. Then yeah.
1:02:45
Free manoeuvres. No.
1:02:47
Free maneuvers don't have a limit.
1:02:48
At least not that I, I, I guess I, I mean, oh, no, yeah.
1:02:56
But you can typically take as many free maneuvers as you like.
1:02:58
Yeah, No, yeah. I don't know why they made a
1:03:00
distinction there, but they did. I guess maybe there's some edge
1:03:04
cases where it comes up. You know, one of the one of the
1:03:06
weirdest home rules I've ever had to play with.
1:03:09
I don't remember if it was the the game that went nuclear or if
1:03:13
this is my first ever campaign, but it was like to avoid meta
1:03:16
gaming. If you want to talk to another
1:03:18
character on your turn, I think you have you get like 6.
1:03:21
It was like 6 or 10 words or something like that.
1:03:23
It's odd. That's obnoxious.
1:03:29
Yeah. I mean, it was, it was
1:03:30
frustrating because you get into this thing where it's like, OK,
1:03:34
well, I can't tell the meta character because that for some
1:03:35
reason it's considered meta gaming.
1:03:37
So I have to say it in character and I have to limit it to like,
1:03:40
again, it was like 6 to 10 words or whatever.
1:03:43
More frustrating than it was worth 90% of the time.
1:03:46
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But then, you know, the GM also
1:03:48
was like, well, I want you guys to strategize and it's like,
1:03:50
well, we're not doing that in six to 10 words, I'll tell you
1:03:53
that shit for sure. Yeah.
1:03:55
That. Yeah, yeah.
1:04:01
Then we got movement in combat. It's it's it's pretty much the
1:04:07
same as 5 E. You can move a number of squares
1:04:09
that your speed is. You can move through teammates.
1:04:17
You don't need to worry about height too much.
1:04:19
In terms of moving I I don't even think actually, I think
1:04:22
this game tells you to even ignore like moving up and down.
1:04:28
Or how does it phrase it? All adjacent squares to your
1:04:32
character cost one movement to move into.
1:04:35
There's no Pythagorean theorem on a grid, which I think the
1:04:40
implication is like if your character is 2 squares up or
1:04:43
something, to get down would be 1 movement because you ignore
1:04:47
the vertical bit, you just do the one movement over to get
1:04:50
like off the roof or whatever. I I pretty sure is what the game
1:04:53
is getting at there. Yeah, well, they, they, they
1:04:56
talked about it in the section where it talks about like
1:04:59
cutting corners. You can't move up to a corner
1:05:01
and then move diagonally. You have to move up and then
1:05:04
turn at a 90° angle. You basically can't use that
1:05:07
diagonal to save movement, which I don't agree with.
1:05:09
I think that's a little goofy, but like, fair enough.
1:05:12
Well, if you don't need to worry about height, then that kind of
1:05:15
makes up for it in a way, sort of it's more than just height
1:05:18
because it's it's, it's laterally as well as.
1:05:21
No, no, I know, but I'm saying it's like a, it's a, it's a
1:05:25
compromise. Like you don't have to worry
1:05:26
about height, but you can't cut corners, you know what I mean?
1:05:28
Like it's a little compromise situation.
1:05:30
Yeah, I guess you can't exceed your speed.
1:05:38
Pretty straightforward. Like I say, I just mentioned
1:05:40
there's a bit about you can't cut corners, so you can't like
1:05:43
diagonally move over a corner around a house.
1:05:47
That, by the way, that's not saying you can't move diagonals,
1:05:50
period. That's just saying you can't
1:05:51
move diagonally if there's like a thing in your way.
1:05:56
Yeah, you know what I'm saying? Yeah.
1:05:57
So you can move right, you can move diagonally on open space on
1:06:02
open space, right. But if you're at a door frame,
1:06:04
right, if you're 1 space behind a door, you can't move
1:06:07
diagonally out of the door area. You have to go all the way
1:06:11
through the door to 1 space outside of the doors area and
1:06:16
then take a right or a left. Yeah, it's it's hard to explain
1:06:21
if you saw it the way that they they actually make a Pretty
1:06:24
Little. Yeah, it's there's actually
1:06:26
quite a lot of good diagrams in the combat section.
1:06:30
So yes, I did want to bring this up.
1:06:32
I really appreciate those charts because I think, and you know,
1:06:36
again, I, I don't have the the 2024 Player's Handbook, so I
1:06:43
can't check at the moment. I don't remember there being
1:06:46
diagrams like this, but I don't think so.
1:06:50
The diagrams that that draw steel has actually makes things.
1:06:54
It solves a lot of problems that D&D has.
1:06:56
Like you could use this for D&D be like, oh, this makes a lot of
1:06:58
sense. Yeah.
1:07:03
Then it gets into all of the oh geez, I just, why did my PDF
1:07:08
just jump like that? That was weird.
1:07:12
Hold on. I got to scroll back to where it
1:07:13
was. There is a sort of weird special
1:07:20
type of movement for this game called shifting, which like
1:07:24
abilities will say like shift one, shift two, shift 3 you.
1:07:31
Basically you you move and do not provoke an attack of
1:07:34
opportunity, and you can shift in any direction.
1:07:40
You cannot shift into or well within difficult terrain or
1:07:45
damaging terrain. If a rule allows you to shift,
1:07:47
you can choose to instead move up to a number of squares you
1:07:50
would have shifted to. Wait, what?
1:07:54
If a rule allows you to shift, you can choose to instead move
1:07:58
up to the number of squares you would have shifted, for example,
1:08:01
to get out of the difficult terrain.
1:08:03
However, you can't combine moving and shifting within that
1:08:06
movement. Oh, like you can't get the
1:08:10
benefit of the shift if you're in difficult terrain, but you
1:08:12
can walk out of it? But that means you can get
1:08:13
attack of opportunity. OK, then it mentions the types
1:08:21
of movements there's like burrowing and, you know, digging
1:08:24
and flying and walking being the default.
1:08:27
Obviously. There's also a power roll called
1:08:29
claw dirt, which if you aren't a creature who can Burrow, you
1:08:33
could just try and claw your way into the dirt by your del bare
1:08:37
hands, which I just thought was a funny addition.
1:08:41
I don't know how often that's going to get used.
1:08:43
But no, I you didn't watch Twilight of the Gods, right?
1:08:47
No, there's really a part where a character gets dragged to hell
1:08:51
and the main character just starts, like, digging down into
1:08:54
the dirt. And he spends, like a full
1:08:56
episode digging. And by the time like a full
1:08:59
conversation gets up, and by the time that the main character or
1:09:01
the other main character comes back, he's like, made almost no
1:09:03
progress. And you're like, yeah, like,
1:09:05
what the fuck were you trying? What was this?
1:09:08
What was this effort? You saw some magical shit
1:09:10
happen. What makes you think you're
1:09:11
going to dig into hell itself? Yeah.
1:09:13
What was the plan there bud? There's some rules for of course
1:09:18
climbing and swimming that work basically like you would expect.
1:09:23
There is a role for climbing onto other creatures.
1:09:27
There's a power roll chart for that.
1:09:28
So there is some rules for climbing onto other dudes.
1:09:32
If you want to jump, there is a power roll involved with making
1:09:35
a jump. Well that's not true.
1:09:38
You can jump. You can automatically long jump
1:09:42
a number of squares up to your might or agility score as part
1:09:46
of the movement. The height of your jump is 1
1:09:48
square. If you want to jump longer or
1:09:51
higher than your baseline, that's when you make the roll.
1:09:55
Jumping is one of those goofy things that comes up in games
1:09:58
all the time and I just, I just don't care.
1:10:02
I just don't want rules for it. I just don't give a shit most of
1:10:05
the time. Like, give me whatever the
1:10:07
simplest, most basics, like I just don't give a fuck about
1:10:11
jumping. I'm just going to my character's
1:10:13
going to say, could I reasonably jump that?
1:10:15
And I'm just going to say yes or no.
1:10:17
I like, maybe I'm a load of this.
1:10:18
I just don't care that much. Well, maybe it was a situation
1:10:20
where every rule, like every rule set that's ever existed was
1:10:23
like, we don't need rules for jumping.
1:10:25
And then it came up, weirdly enough.
1:10:26
And every time they were like, oh, I guess we do actually need
1:10:30
a rule set. Maybe, yeah.
1:10:31
I don't know, because I'm in your mindset.
1:10:33
I don't feel like we need this. Yeah, I know.
1:10:36
Unless it's like, you know, the jump spell.
1:10:40
Well, that's the thing. Like DND has rules for jumping,
1:10:42
too, and it very rarely comes up, but every once in a while.
1:10:47
But The funny thing, jumping is one of those rules where it's
1:10:50
like, oh, oh, my character, can I jump this gap?
1:10:55
And then everyone goes. Yeah, And then everyone goes,
1:10:59
ah, fuck, wait, what are the rules for jumping again?
1:11:01
Because you don't look at them that often.
1:11:03
So when it comes up, you never remember what the rules are for
1:11:05
us. You always are like, hold on,
1:11:07
let me find jumping real quick. You know, I it's one of the
1:11:09
things I appreciated Salasta for.
1:11:11
They were like, God damn it, we're going to make jump the
1:11:13
most effective spell in this fucking game.
1:11:16
Balder's gate jumping is really good too, actually.
1:11:19
Yeah, yeah, but like I'm. I'm close to the end of act one
1:11:24
in Bother's Gate, and even then I think I used jump in Salasta
1:11:29
so God damn much I don't remember using it bar I don't
1:11:35
know. I use a lot in Boulders Gate 3.
1:11:36
There's a lot of scenarios where jump is really useful.
1:11:40
Although how the math of the jump works in Bulger's Gate 3
1:11:44
perpetually confused me and I was never quite sure if I could
1:11:47
or could not make a jump. Is it different?
1:11:50
Is the I really have no idea. I really, I couldn't for the
1:11:55
life. It took a bonus action.
1:11:56
I know that which is different, but in terms of the distance, it
1:11:59
seemed like the distance wasn't always that consistent.
1:12:02
But I couldn't really figure out why because some because
1:12:05
Bulger's Gate 3 obscures some information.
1:12:08
So I was just like, I don't know.
1:12:10
So I would usually just be like, can I jump that?
1:12:12
I don't know, Let's find out. Oh, yes, yes or no?
1:12:15
You know, do I get the white line or the red line?
1:12:17
OK, Like, yeah, anyway. And then crawling, flying,
1:12:24
hovering, teleporting, all that usual shit.
1:12:27
Falling. If you fall 2 or more squares,
1:12:32
you take two damage for each. Each square you fall up to a
1:12:37
maximum of 50 damage. And then you land prone.
1:12:40
Why is there a limit on falling damage?
1:12:43
I do not know. I I hate putting a limit on
1:12:45
falling damage. I just think that's dumb.
1:12:47
Just just let me drop a bitch off a Cliff and kill them.
1:12:50
Like I hate that rules is written.
1:12:52
The barbarian can drop thousands of feet and live driving insane,
1:12:57
that is. Realistic.
1:12:59
That is realistic you. Can live, but the barbarian with
1:13:03
200 health and D&D could jump off a 500 foot Cliff every
1:13:08
single day of his life and live every single time.
1:13:10
He's just that thick, Josh. Let him be.
1:13:13
Thick. I fucking guess I don't know, I
1:13:16
hate I hate the damage limit anyway.
1:13:18
I don't know look, I like I like dropping my barbarian like I'm
1:13:21
AB 52 power. I mean, sure, it's good for
1:13:26
memes. I guess one of my favorite
1:13:28
things in a camping what a critical role was the hashtag
1:13:31
Kedior when she would just whenever they were underground,
1:13:33
she do the earth elemental and just drop down on people.
1:13:41
I don't know, just make the damage unlimited Anyway.
1:13:45
Creatures who fall can reduce their effective height by a
1:13:49
number of squares equal to their agility score, minimum 0.
1:13:52
So like if you fall 4 squares and you have agility to, that
1:13:57
brings it back down to two squares, which means you would
1:14:00
take no damage. So higher agility can help you.
1:14:07
And then there's some rules about falling into a liquid
1:14:09
which I like. What the the good old if you hit
1:14:13
water at terminal velocity, it's like concrete falling into
1:14:16
falling into liquid that is 1 square or more deep reduces the
1:14:19
effect of fall height by 4 squares.
1:14:22
OK, sure. I don't know.
1:14:26
Nah, let me let me do Minecraft rules.
1:14:28
As long as there's a puddle of water, I'll survive.
1:14:29
And I don't know, I just like it's I get why it's there.
1:14:33
It's just one of those things where I'm like, when is this
1:14:35
coming up? I don't know.
1:14:36
There's also rules for falling onto another creature.
1:14:39
This one I thought was funny. So a creature who falls and
1:14:42
lands on another creature causes that creature to take the same
1:14:44
damage from the fall. The falling creature then lands
1:14:47
prone in the nearest unoccupied space.
1:14:49
If the falling creature size is greater than the might score of
1:14:52
the creature they land on, the creature is knocked prone.
1:14:57
That one's just funny. If you're falling from a great
1:15:02
height, you fall 100 squares in the first round, and then each
1:15:06
subsequent round that they remain falling, you fall another
1:15:08
100 squares. If you're falling from hundreds
1:15:12
and hundreds of feet up, I feel like at that point, I don't, I'm
1:15:16
not really tracking anymore. I'm just going to be like, you
1:15:19
are falling. Goodbye.
1:15:22
Difficult terrain works like difficult terrain.
1:15:26
Shocking. I know it cost an additional
1:15:29
square to go through difficult terrain, damaging terrain, You
1:15:34
move through it, it gives you an owie.
1:15:36
Shocking. I know High ground.
1:15:41
High ground is relevant. If you have the high ground on a
1:15:44
creature, you gain an edge on your power roll.
1:15:46
So climbing up shit and like shooting down at them, mucho
1:15:50
bueno. It's fine.
1:15:52
We're not going to talk about how that's only effective for
1:15:53
ranged combat. It's it's fine.
1:15:55
I'm not going to, I'm not going to go off on this rant.
1:15:59
What? No, it can work in melee.
1:16:01
Two people using swords. What happens is the guy who's
1:16:03
actually below has an advantage because they have an open way to
1:16:06
whack your legs pretty much free 99.
1:16:09
And the person up there would constantly have to keep their
1:16:11
sword low to stop from getting their legs Hacked Off like a
1:16:14
tree, which would stop you from actively trying to fight back.
1:16:17
You mean in real life? It only works for OK?
1:16:22
Sure, I Whereas if you're sitting at the top of the hill.
1:16:25
And some. Poor Jackass has to run up at
1:16:27
you and you've got arrows. Well, it's going to look a lot
1:16:30
like Edge in court, this. Is one of those nobody but
1:16:34
Isaiah cares. Situations.
1:16:36
Yes, I. Do look, as much as I love it's
1:16:38
over Anakin. I have the high ground as
1:16:41
Anakin. I'd be like oh awesome.
1:16:43
Yeah, sick. I'm cutting your ankles off.
1:16:45
Yeah, I'm. Going to do to you what?
1:16:46
You did to me in this timeline. It's true.
1:16:49
It's true. It is.
1:16:51
Awkward to swing down. At someone that is very true.
1:16:54
Or defend yourself from someone below you.
1:16:59
There is force movement in the game.
1:17:00
There is push, pull and slide pushing.
1:17:06
Something you have to push away from.
1:17:08
The so like if you. Have an ability that pushes,
1:17:10
they have to move away from you. If the ability pulls they have
1:17:13
to move towards you in a straight line.
1:17:15
If it says slide, you can move them in any direction.
1:17:22
Force movement ignores difficult terrain and does.
1:17:24
Not provoke attacks of opportunity.
1:17:31
If the forest movement has the. Word vertical in front of it you
1:17:34
can. Move them up and down.
1:17:37
For example, if it says vertical push 5, then a.
1:17:39
Creature targeted by the effect can be pushed.
1:17:41
Up to five squares in any direction as long as the force
1:17:43
movement is in a straight line. If a creature who can't fly is
1:17:46
left mid air at the end of the vertical vertical first
1:17:49
movement, they fall and the game is safe.
1:17:54
I can walk up and. I can fucking.
1:17:55
Hit somebody up and then up. Air them like it's smashed.
1:17:58
Yes you could hit them with the Hadouk.
1:18:00
Nice forced movement against. Flying creatures is always
1:18:06
vertical, it sure wait. Did you as the fighting game guy
1:18:09
say the up is a hadouken? Not the sure you can.
1:18:12
I am. I did.
1:18:13
You're right. I did actually say the wrong
1:18:15
move. It would be Sure you can.
1:18:16
Wow absolutely correct. That is weird that I did that.
1:18:20
You're fighting game cred just gone like ripping up a degree.
1:18:24
I fucked up the dragon punch. Damn.
1:18:31
If. A larger creature forces.
1:18:32
To move a. Force moves a smaller.
1:18:34
Creature with a melee weapon. The distance of the force
1:18:37
movement is increased by one. If a smaller creature tries to
1:18:40
move a larger guy, the distance doesn't change.
1:18:44
Slamming into creatures. So this is.
1:18:46
This is something that's different from.
1:18:48
D&D so you can punch dudes into other dudes.
1:18:52
Also there's a lot of charts and diagrams for all of the
1:18:56
movements and high ground and all that stuff because sometimes
1:19:01
it can be a little confusing. Basically you can punch a dude
1:19:05
into another dude, with both creatures taking one damage for
1:19:10
every square remaining in the first creatures force movement.
1:19:13
So like if you punch a guy for slide 5 and then he slides one
1:19:19
and hits another dude, both of those dudes are taking four
1:19:22
damage 'cause there is 4 leftover movement and then they
1:19:25
stop. It is.
1:19:29
Possible to move? It is possible to move a
1:19:32
creature object of a large size into several creatures of
1:19:35
smaller size. When this happens, the larger
1:19:37
creature in the collision only takes damage once.
1:19:39
So punching an ogre into a swarm of goblins doesn't mean he takes
1:19:43
the damage for like every goblin.
1:19:46
If a creature is killed by damage from an ability or effect
1:19:49
that also has forced movements, a second creature they are
1:19:52
slammed into still takes the damage.
1:19:54
So if you punch a man so hard in the chest he dies and then flies
1:19:56
into his friend, he still hurts his friend, which is hilarious.
1:20:02
Nice. Slamming into.
1:20:04
Other slamming into objects. If you hit a stationary object
1:20:09
that is your size or target size or larger, the object doesn't
1:20:13
break, the movement ends and the target takes 2 damage plus one
1:20:17
damage for each square remaining in the forced movement.
1:20:19
So it's like you punch a guy into a wall if a force if a.
1:20:23
If you force move a creature downward into an object that
1:20:26
doesn't break, including the ground, they also take falling
1:20:29
damage as if they had fallen, and their agility score as if
1:20:33
they had fallen and their. Agility score was 0.
1:20:37
So they don't get the benefit of their agility score if you
1:20:39
punch. Them downward.
1:20:40
Basically if. You hit them with the meteor
1:20:42
smash. Nice.
1:20:45
Then there's a little side. Box about.
1:20:49
Object force movement, so like at the director's discretion,
1:20:54
mundane objects. That are forced moved.
1:20:56
Into a, creatures or other objects take damage as if they
1:20:59
were creatures. So if it's a wood object it has,
1:21:05
it can take 3 damage for each square it occupies.
1:21:08
If it's stone 6. Damage metal. 9 damage
1:21:11
essentially. If it's like a 2 square thick
1:21:14
wood, I don't know, box or some shit really, that's a really big
1:21:17
box. But let's go with A22 square
1:21:19
box. It could take 6 damage before it
1:21:23
breaks. Does the game tell you
1:21:25
approximately how much space is in?
1:21:28
A box. It doesn't, right?
1:21:30
Yeah, 5 by it's a 5 by 5 cube. Oh, it is still a 5 by 5.
1:21:34
Yeah, that's the whole thing I was talking about before where I
1:21:37
was like, the game tells you the numbers, I don't think you're
1:21:39
going to need the numbers, but it tells you that's where that
1:21:41
whole rant started. I must have missed that somehow.
1:21:44
Evidently, when you. Move a creature into a mundane
1:21:51
object. You can break the object
1:21:53
depending on how many squares of force movement remain.
1:21:55
The cost of being slammed into an object is tied to the damage
1:21:58
a target takes for being hurled through it.
1:22:01
So it costs one remaining square of force movement to destroy one
1:22:06
square of glass the creature. The move creature takes three
1:22:09
damage. If you punch them through wood,
1:22:13
they would take 5 damage. If you punch them through stone,
1:22:15
they would take 8 damage. If you punch them through metal,
1:22:18
they'll take 11 damage. Essentially brain there's a
1:22:29
certain however many remaining. Squares of movement.
1:22:33
You have left in your force movement destroys one square of
1:22:38
whichever. Objects so for.
1:22:40
Glass you only need one remaining movement.
1:22:42
For wood you need 3 squares of remaining movement to to destroy
1:22:46
one square of wood. Etcetera etcetera.
1:22:50
Long story short, there are rules for punching dudes through
1:22:54
walls and objects and stuff, so if you would like to you know 1.
1:23:00
Inch punch. Playing the Knoll and one inch
1:23:02
punch a man through like a window and then kill him with
1:23:05
the shattering glass. You can do that.
1:23:09
Hell yeah. Which is.
1:23:11
Is definitely fun so you can punch motherfuckers.
1:23:14
Into other motherfuckers, and you can punch motherfuckers into
1:23:16
walls or boxes or ceilings or floors if you cannot fly.
1:23:24
And you are forced to move. Across an open space that would
1:23:26
call you cause you to fall, you continue moving the total
1:23:30
distance you were moved first. If you're still in a position to
1:23:32
fall when the force movement ends, you fall.
1:23:35
Basically you get punched off a Cliff, you move your remaining
1:23:38
movement off the Cliff and then fall in a very wily coyote
1:23:42
style. I can only imagine it's like you
1:23:45
fly out across the Cliff, stop for a second, look down and then
1:23:47
fall. Stability is a.
1:23:52
Stat in this game. We've mentioned it when.
1:23:54
We were talking about like the dwarfs having ability for have a
1:23:57
have a perk they can pick to give them better stability in
1:24:00
their ancestry. Stability allows you to resist
1:24:04
forced movement, so when a creature is forced to move, they
1:24:06
can reduce that movement by number of squares equal to their
1:24:09
stability. By default you have 0 stability,
1:24:12
but there are various ways you can get it.
1:24:14
So if you have stability 2 and someone hits you with forced
1:24:17
movement 4, you only move two squares 'cause you're just
1:24:20
you're just thick like that. Your stability cannot go below
1:24:24
0. So you can't be made.
1:24:27
So light that someone could, like, eat you.
1:24:29
Off a fucking. Mountain I guess when a creature
1:24:36
certain. Abilities it mentions are
1:24:39
triggered. When a creature moves into a
1:24:40
particular area, forced movement does count as ticking these
1:24:45
abilities, unless the ability specifically says otherwise.
1:24:54
Death effects so. Some creatures have.
1:24:56
Traitor abilities that trigger when they die or reduce.
1:24:58
The 0 stamina If a creature is reduced to 0 stamina by damage
1:25:02
from an ability or an effect that also force moves them, the
1:25:05
force movement takes place before the trigger defect.
1:25:07
So you punch them through the wall and then they die as
1:25:11
opposed to they die and. Then go through the wall.
1:25:17
Move. Actions I.
1:25:19
Mean, not a whole. Lot to say.
1:25:21
You have the Advanced move action, which is your basic
1:25:24
movement. You move up to your speed.
1:25:26
You can break this up however you want between your maneuvers
1:25:29
and main actions. There is the disengage move
1:25:32
action where you shift one square but you do not trigger
1:25:37
attacks of opportunities so you can.
1:25:41
So the disengage in this game is only like 1 square away.
1:25:44
You kind of like take 1/2. Step away.
1:25:51
There are certain features. That will also.
1:25:53
Potentially increase your shift speed.
1:25:55
Like there are some kits that do it.
1:25:57
A creature who does so can break up their shift with their
1:26:00
maneuver and main action however they wish.
1:26:05
So it's a little, it's. Harder to.
1:26:07
Disengage from people basically. And then there is the ride move
1:26:11
action, which obviously is only relevant, well mounted, but
1:26:14
basically you take the ride move action to ya, your steed, ya
1:26:19
forward, Fartwinkle or whatever the fuck that pony's called in
1:26:22
Borderlands. What's that fucking horse's name
1:26:25
in Borderlands? I don't.
1:26:31
The horse I do I. Handsome Jack's horse, right?
1:26:35
Yeah. Oh God, it's like Fartwinkle or
1:26:39
something like that. It's.
1:26:40
Such a stupid name. Butt Stallion.
1:26:45
Butt Stallion, there we go. Yeah, forward butt stallion,
1:26:50
there's a great. OK, there's a bit entails from
1:26:52
the. Borderlands where?
1:26:54
Before you like you've only ever heard of this thing, and there's
1:26:57
a bit where the characters are trying to sneak into Handsome.
1:26:59
Jack's. Like, you know, base or
1:27:02
whatever, and one of them negligently discharges a gun and
1:27:07
it hits the horse, which is, it's, it's a horse made of
1:27:10
diamonds. And they're like, Oh my God, I
1:27:13
hit the horse and she's like, it's.
1:27:14
Fine, it's just a. Statue and as they're.
1:27:15
Walking out, you just see a little.
1:27:17
Trickle of blood and she's like, wait, why is it bleeding?
1:27:19
Why is it bleeding? It's like just a really.
1:27:24
Fucked up moment in the funniest way.
1:27:27
How is the diamond? Horse bleeding because it's just
1:27:29
a. Statue it's a horse.
1:27:30
Do it in like in in mid. What is it called when they go
1:27:32
up on 2 legs? Mid, mid gallop.
1:27:36
Not, not gallop. Mid, mid Winnie mid.
1:27:39
I know what you're talking about.
1:27:40
Like, yeah, it's it's like it's in the middle of a rear up and
1:27:42
it's it's rearing. Yeah, yeah.
1:27:44
And yeah. So they're just like, oh, it's
1:27:46
just a statue. And then it starts to bleed a
1:27:48
little bit out of its neck. And one of them just has a full
1:27:50
on mental breakdown just to get dragged out of the room by
1:27:53
another character. All right.
1:28:00
Then we go on to. Maneuvers.
1:28:04
Your sort. Of default maneuvers.
1:28:06
A lot of your maneuvers are. Going to be used up by your
1:28:08
abilities. Obviously, but like default to
1:28:09
maneuvers, you can aid an attack of an ally, you can catch your
1:28:14
breath which is just the thing which is one of your default
1:28:17
ways to spend a recovery and heal your stamina.
1:28:20
You can escape a grab, you can initiate to grab, and you can
1:28:25
push a creature called not otherwise known as knockback.
1:28:29
Escape, grabbing, and knocking back all have power roles
1:28:32
associated with them, the specifics being within the power
1:28:37
roll itself. Funnily enough.
1:28:41
Escape, grab and. Grab you can.
1:28:43
Actually fail those because if you roll an 11 or lower, there
1:28:46
is simply no effect. Those you can fail, yeah.
1:28:55
You can assist assist somebody. Else's test with a maneuver.
1:29:01
You can search for hidden creatures.
1:29:03
You can stand up if you are. Prone.
1:29:06
And you can use a consumable like a potion or a treasure
1:29:08
thing, or you know, the usual then.
1:29:15
For your like default main actions.
1:29:17
There's a charge. Main action where you move up
1:29:19
here, speed and then you make a melee free strike against the
1:29:21
target that you charged at and then you end your turn.
1:29:26
You can't move through difficult terrain or shift when you
1:29:30
charge, but you can like Burrow and fly.
1:29:35
You can. Defend, which is just the What's
1:29:40
it called in DND? The defensive action the.
1:29:46
No what's? Dodge action.
1:29:48
Yes, defend is the dodge action. It gives your opponents a double
1:29:52
bane against trying to hit you. A.
1:30:00
Creature, however, gains. No benefit from this action
1:30:02
while another creature is taunted by.
1:30:04
Them so you know taunting can negate it there's the free
1:30:09
strike action which were the. Everyone's range and.
1:30:12
Melee free strike. Most of the time you'll want to
1:30:15
use the more impactful main actions granted by your class
1:30:19
kit or other features, just as the director reuse the main
1:30:22
actions in a creature stat blocks.
1:30:24
But free strikes are available when all else fails, so they are
1:30:27
your most default ass attack thingy.
1:30:33
The heal action is employing Medicine or Inspiring.
1:30:39
Words or whatever. The target creature can spend a
1:30:42
recovery to regain stamina or can make a saving throw against
1:30:45
one effect. Basically, you can burn your
1:30:47
action to give someone else you know, give someone else a chance
1:30:51
to recover, and then free. Strikes so.
1:30:59
A lot of abilities. Are going to grant.
1:31:03
You free strikes, such as the Tacticians strike now, which is
1:31:09
literally you command somebody else to attack for you that will
1:31:13
use a free strike. Free strikes are also covered
1:31:16
under Opportunity Attacks, which work exactly as you would expect
1:31:22
they do whenever a creature an enemy adjacent to them and the
1:31:26
enemy willingly moves to a space that isn't adjacent to the
1:31:28
creature without shifting, the creature can take advantage of
1:31:31
that movement to quickly make a melee free strike against the
1:31:34
enemy as a free triggered action.
1:31:35
This is called an opportunity attack if a creature has a bane
1:31:39
or double bane on the power roll.
1:31:41
Against the enemy they. Can't make an opportunity
1:31:43
attack. That part's slightly different,
1:31:48
so. If you're debuffed by the.
1:31:49
Person you're trying to hit you like can't make that opportunity
1:31:52
attack. Despite.
1:31:58
Moving. Oh sorry, one of the charts
1:32:04
distracted me for a moment and then it just re.
1:32:07
It just re mentions your standard free strikes in this
1:32:10
little section Flanking Rules. They work like DND 5.
1:32:18
E Flanking rules. You have to be able to draw a
1:32:23
straight. Line to be able to flanking.
1:32:25
To be able to flank if if you have certain what is it the.
1:32:34
Troubadour isn't flanking the. Sense of blah blah blah.
1:32:36
The shadow can't flank it because the conduit.
1:32:38
Oh yeah, if you have something that negates your triggered
1:32:45
actions, right? Is that what it is when one of
1:32:50
your allies adjacent? Enemy.
1:32:52
Opposite side, you're flanking enemy well, flanking, blah blah
1:32:55
blah. If you're unsure whether you're
1:32:57
flanking a foe draw and passes through, you must have a line.
1:32:59
Of effect on me. Oh yeah, if you can't take
1:33:02
triggered actions, you can't flank somebody.
1:33:05
So the dazed condition, for example, removes triggered
1:33:08
actions. So if your friend is on the
1:33:09
other side but they have days not flanking, flanking gives you
1:33:13
an edge, as you might imagine cover.
1:33:19
Same deal. If something has cover then you
1:33:23
have a bane on your role to hit the guy in cover and then if
1:33:27
they have complete cover you just have no line of effects so
1:33:31
you cannot hit them. Concealments, basically if it's.
1:33:36
Like foggy or hard to? See or something that's
1:33:38
obscuring your vision. You have a bane against the
1:33:42
thing you're trying to hit. Again, very much 5 E invisible
1:33:49
creatures if an invisible. Creature.
1:33:52
Invisible creatures always have concealment, but if an invisible
1:33:56
creature isn't hidden, they can still be targeted by abilities.
1:33:59
The test made to find a hidden creature is invisible takes a
1:34:02
bit. Damage types.
1:34:09
Now we get into. Like damage stuff.
1:34:10
So damage. Types basically also like 5 E
1:34:14
damage types do not have any default rules to them.
1:34:20
They're. The damage types are.
1:34:22
Acid, cold, corruption, fire, holy, lightning, poisoned,
1:34:26
psychic or Sonic. They do not have any inbuilt
1:34:29
rules to them but. They will interact.
1:34:32
With other rules, right? So you can have like weakness or
1:34:35
immunity to damages and such. The thing that's cool about this
1:34:41
game, if you have. A certain amount of immunity.
1:34:44
Or a weakness to something it is not.
1:34:47
It is not zero, half, or full. There's a number associated with
1:34:51
it. So if something tells you you
1:34:53
have damage immunity 5, like if you have fire immunity 5 and you
1:34:58
get hit by a fire attack, that means you take 5 less damage.
1:35:02
So something could have immunity 5 or something could have like
1:35:05
immunity 10. If The thing is completely
1:35:08
immune, like a fire elemental is might be completely immune to
1:35:12
fire damage. It will say immunity all and
1:35:16
then weakness works the same way.
1:35:17
If you have fire weakness 5, it means you take 5 extra damage.
1:35:22
Which just means they did exactly what I've said everybody
1:35:27
else should do. Thank you, MCDM.
1:35:32
I'm glad somebody. Did that because.
1:35:35
I felt like that was a. Rule that made sense and I
1:35:37
didn't see anyone do it, and I'm glad that I'm not.
1:35:39
You know, I'm not the only one who had that thought.
1:35:42
You know what I mean? I want to try this.
1:35:44
Out in practical play because. I feel like at the moment I
1:35:46
prefer the DND just double or nothing or double or half
1:35:50
system. I don't.
1:35:53
I like the idea of it being a. Number because.
1:35:55
It can give you. Granularity to the.
1:35:57
Rule itself, right? It can make it that.
1:35:59
It can make it so that you know a.
1:36:05
Skeleton a low level. Undead might have corruption
1:36:08
immunity 5, but like a death knight has corruption immunity
1:36:12
20. Like they're both somewhat
1:36:14
resistance to that type of damage, but the death knight is
1:36:17
a bigger badass so he gets even more resistance as opposed to
1:36:20
just half or full, you know? Yes, but D&D is a sort of solved
1:36:24
this or it solved it. You know.
1:36:27
At one point where it has resistance to where a creature
1:36:31
can have resistance, but it can also have a thing that says it
1:36:33
halves damage from certain sources.
1:36:35
So it halves it or it it's resistant to something and then
1:36:40
halves that incoming damage to make it a quarter damage.
1:36:44
Yeah, every once in a while some monsters have stuff.
1:36:47
Like that, but I feel like that's.
1:36:49
I feel like that's putting a Band-Aid on a problem that they
1:36:51
caused when you could have just had it be a more granular number
1:36:55
and then you wouldn't have to do shit like that.
1:36:58
You know, like you're you're adding a mechanic on top of a
1:37:01
mechanic. To solve a problem that you.
1:37:02
Created yes, but I think it's in my opinion, I think it's worth
1:37:06
it because when you hit something that's got a
1:37:08
vulnerability and I think there should be more of these I don't
1:37:10
think that's like a contentious topic it should feel really good
1:37:15
yeah, but like doing a little bit more damage like is fine
1:37:18
but. It's going to say 10 extra.
1:37:19
Damage can be a big deal. It can be a not always.
1:37:23
Most of the time, I mean, actually, no, I would say most
1:37:26
of the time 10 extra damage is going to be a big deal.
1:37:30
I don't know how high the health values in this game go, so I
1:37:32
don't know. Well, it's not so much about how
1:37:36
high the health values. Go.
1:37:37
It's about the fact that every. Single turn you're doing damage
1:37:39
because you can't miss, so any amount of bonus damage like that
1:37:43
is a bigger deal. That's fair.
1:37:51
Then it mentions. After.
1:37:53
Damage. It talks about stamina and
1:37:55
recoveries. Stamina is your health.
1:37:56
We've talked that one to death. Recovery value.
1:37:59
Recoveries are you. You use the Catch breath
1:38:02
maneuver, you burn a recovery. You heal yourself for your
1:38:05
recovery value. Your recovery value is 1/3 of
1:38:08
your maximum stamina, rounded down.
1:38:10
Nice and simple. When you are at half stamina,
1:38:13
you are winded. This is the same as D and DS
1:38:16
Bloodied or Fabulous Crisis. When you're dying, this is a big
1:38:24
one. So when you're dying in this
1:38:27
game, your stamina hits zero or lower.
1:38:29
You are dying, well, dying. You can't use the catch breath
1:38:33
maneuver in combat. Additionally, you are bleeding
1:38:36
and this instance of the condition cannot be negated or
1:38:39
removed in any way other in any way until you are no longer
1:38:43
dying. While you are dying, you can
1:38:46
still act your ally, your allies can help you spend recoveries in
1:38:50
combat, and you can spend recoveries out of combat like
1:38:54
normal while your stamina is lower than 0 if it reaches the
1:38:58
negative of. Your winded value.
1:38:59
You die when you die. You can't be brought back to
1:39:02
life without the use of special powerful items such as a scroll
1:39:05
of resurrection. So effectively, when you hit
1:39:07
zero in this game, you're not down and out, you're on a timer,
1:39:13
so you cannot heal yourself someone.
1:39:15
Else can help you heal, but you can't.
1:39:17
You can't catch breath to heal yourself and you're bleeding
1:39:22
every turn. You're bleeding, which means
1:39:23
you're going to take damage every turn.
1:39:25
So once you get to half of your maximum health then you're done
1:39:28
done. Which is pretty cool.
1:39:31
I like that it's like a decent compromise.
1:39:36
I I almost feel like you should maybe have.
1:39:38
A little bit. Maybe you should have a bane to
1:39:40
your attacks and stuff when you're dying or something like
1:39:42
that. It feels weird that you can
1:39:43
fight at maximum effectiveness while dying, but not the end of
1:39:48
the world. I don't know, I feel like it
1:39:49
fits it. It fits what they're going for.
1:39:51
Their narrative like you're. Having a heroic last stand.
1:39:55
Yeah. I don't.
1:39:56
I just, I don't know. Mechanically, it feels weird
1:39:58
that you're still at like. Maximum strength or something, I
1:40:02
don't know, You know what I mean.
1:40:03
I I get what you're saying, I think.
1:40:06
For the fantasy that they're trying to.
1:40:07
Capture, I think it works pretty well for director controlled
1:40:14
creatures. It's real simple.
1:40:17
When they hit zero, they they're done.
1:40:20
They don't have recoveries and they do not have a recovery
1:40:22
value or anything like that. So they don't they can't do that
1:40:25
the way players can. Player characters, in terms of
1:40:29
knocking creatures out, like if you don't want to kill them or
1:40:31
whatever, you can just say whenever the fuck you want I
1:40:35
knock this creature out instead. There's no stipulations on it.
1:40:39
You just knock motherfuckers out.
1:40:42
They remain unconscious for an hour.
1:40:45
After an hour they get one stamina back and they wake up
1:40:51
when you're unconscious. You can't do stuff I don't.
1:40:56
Can't take actions, can't move, can't take triggered actions,
1:40:58
blah blah blah blah blah. There's temporary stamina in the
1:41:03
game it. Works identical to.
1:41:05
Temporary HP to 5 E If you have two sources of temporary
1:41:09
stamina, you take whichever source is higher.
1:41:11
You do not add them together and then objects can have stamina if
1:41:17
the director. Needs and there's a quick.
1:41:18
Little chart of reference underwater combat there.
1:41:24
Is literally. One sentence No2 sentences on
1:41:27
it. If you're submerged, you have
1:41:29
fire immunity 5 and lightning weakness 5.
1:41:33
If you can't automatically swim at full speed while moving, your
1:41:38
power roles take a pain. So if you don't have a swim
1:41:40
speed, you'd take a pain. That's it.
1:41:43
And then suffocating during combat or under similar
1:41:48
circumstances you can hold your breath a number of.
1:41:49
Combat rounds equal. To your might score minimum of 1
1:41:54
at the end of each combat round. After that, you take AD 6.
1:41:57
While holding your breath out of combat, you can hold your breath
1:41:59
a number of minutes equal to your might score.
1:42:02
Being unable to breathe after that time counts as a stressful
1:42:05
condition. Causing you to run out of.
1:42:06
Air as above. Boom bang boom mounted combat.
1:42:15
Nothing to say. You get on your mount and you.
1:42:18
Spend a maneuver to move. Your mounts and move at your
1:42:21
mounts speed. Yeah, if a.
1:42:28
Creature riding a mount is forced move.
1:42:29
They're knocked off their mount. If a mount is forced move, they
1:42:32
carry the rider with them. Riders and mounts teleport
1:42:36
separately. If your mount dies, they fall
1:42:37
prone and you fall off of them and land prone.
1:42:42
Yeah, not much, Not much going on with the.
1:42:44
Mount to combat thing it's. Pretty straightforward, which
1:42:46
is. I like that they it really just
1:42:49
did the simple thing of simplifying the D&D.
1:42:51
Well, technically your hort thing was past you, so you have
1:42:54
to save an action, but they only get one attack and then you go.
1:42:58
So what's the point of me fighting on a horse and then you
1:43:00
go. Flavour.
1:43:02
There is and you go, yeah, but no, I'm not going to take that
1:43:04
massive mechanical L for flavour.
1:43:06
He he had no fucked it. And then it mentions ending
1:43:14
combat and how to end combat, basically like the director will
1:43:17
declare when combat's over, which is technically always the
1:43:20
case to be honest. And then it gives you a couple
1:43:25
of sample, more than a couple, quite a few different kinds of
1:43:30
like objective endings to combat.
1:43:32
So instead of just, you know, diminished numbers is the
1:43:35
default one. Just, you know, kill every man
1:43:37
to the last. But it mentions like defeat a
1:43:40
specific foe, get a specific thing, destroy a thing, save
1:43:44
somebody, escort somebody, hold something off, assault the
1:43:48
defenses. It basically gives you like,
1:43:50
here's a couple of different combat scenarios for you to
1:43:54
think about as the director, as someone who's been GM.
1:44:00
ING a good amount I personally. Don't need.
1:44:02
Something like this like I. Already think about stuff like
1:44:04
this, but it is good for newer GMs to be you know.
1:44:07
Here's a list of ideas. Ideas never hurt nobody, mostly
1:44:14
for the most part. I shouldn't say that that's not
1:44:15
true. That's a lie.
1:44:22
That's the combat like. Like we said with the combat it.
1:44:25
It's it's mostly 5 E in a lot of ways.
1:44:30
It's when you get into like the minutiae of like class abilities
1:44:33
and things like the force movement and things like combos
1:44:38
with, you know, other players and stuff.
1:44:40
That's where the minutiae suit. Comes out and is interesting but
1:44:43
yeah the the sort of core skeleton is 5 E combat.
1:44:49
I. Don't know if you have any any
1:44:53
sauce to add on that one? No, I mean I pretty much agree.
1:44:56
Like I I skimmed the. Combat rules very lightly once I
1:44:58
realized I was like oh that's OK oh that's different OK that's
1:45:01
cool that's the same that's the same that's OK it's a little
1:45:04
different I like it yeah after combat Chapter 11 is
1:45:10
negotiations well so actually real quick I do want to put put
1:45:15
this forward before we leave combat yes the fact that it's so
1:45:19
similar to 5 E is not a. Bad thing.
1:45:22
No, in this case it's not because like I said, the minutia
1:45:26
it does make it in more like interesting and.
1:45:29
Arguably more like. Honestly, the, the, what makes
1:45:32
the combat cool in this game is all of the cool tactical
1:45:35
abilities that the classes have, you know?
1:45:37
Yes, and that's really where the sauce is.
1:45:39
The important thing is it was clearly designed to be, mentally
1:45:44
speaking, backwards compatible for people.
1:45:47
It's it's goal to be your second first or or your first, second
1:45:51
RPG, First, second RPG. Yeah, In that sense, bang up Job
1:45:56
actually really good, right? Yeah, exactly.
1:46:01
Yeah. In the objective.
1:46:02
Of your. First second RPG makes a ton of
1:46:05
sense that the five that the combat is very 5.
1:46:08
ES in its flow. And also, I don't think, I don't
1:46:13
think Matt Colville and a lot of the crew at MCDM.
1:46:16
Have an issue with the? Core foundations of the combat
1:46:19
of the 5E combat mechanics right.
1:46:21
They have issues with like the the the minutiae bits and bobs
1:46:26
that make it get dull right? Like the the core foundation
1:46:30
works well, yeah, like it it works.
1:46:33
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. All right, so Chapter 11
1:46:39
negotiations, basically there is a system in.
1:46:44
There's a system in this game where.
1:46:46
You can call to negotiate with the.
1:46:51
Bad guy. You know the king of the
1:46:54
country, the goblin tribe leader, the demoness woman.
1:47:00
You know you can call for a negotiation.
1:47:03
It talks about when should you call for negotiation and
1:47:07
limitations on negotiations. You know, it's, it's not mind
1:47:11
control and sometimes a, a character will just refuse to
1:47:14
negotiate all the stuff you'd expect.
1:47:17
How does it work mechanically? Essentially the there's there's
1:47:22
two. Sliding.
1:47:24
Scales. The NPC has interest and
1:47:27
patience. As their interest goes up, their
1:47:31
patience goes. Down.
1:47:35
If you get their entrance interest maxed out before their
1:47:39
patients hit zero, then you succeed and you basically get
1:47:42
what you want. If their patients hit zero, then
1:47:46
you have to check against how much interest you have and see
1:47:49
what you're going to get out of it.
1:47:50
There is like a sliding difficulty based on how much
1:47:53
interest is left by the end. The other main thing.
1:48:00
Is that every? NPC.
1:48:02
And when you're doing a. Negotiation will have
1:48:04
motivations and pitfalls, and the basic idea here is if you
1:48:09
touch upon a pitfall, you will make things harder for yourself.
1:48:16
And if you manage to hit. Upon motivations, you will give
1:48:18
yourself buffs to your roles and make things easier for yourself.
1:48:23
They then give a big list of example motivations and
1:48:28
pitfalls. So like benevolence, discovery,
1:48:32
freedom, greed, higher authority, justice, legacy, you
1:48:36
know, they're all kind of like big keywords to spark your ideas
1:48:41
for negotiation. There's a lot of there's a lot
1:48:47
of words in this chapter. But the mechanic.
1:48:51
Itself is quite straightforward. Essentially, you start the
1:48:57
negotiation the the director will.
1:49:02
Determine kind of where. The where the NPC you're talking
1:49:06
to sits in terms of their starting opinion of you.
1:49:10
So like if they are suspicious of you, they start with interest
1:49:14
to and patience to. So their patience is not very
1:49:17
high because they they're suspicious.
1:49:20
So it's likely that you're not going to be able to get their
1:49:22
interest up that much, but they only have an interest maximum to
1:49:30
make your. This is.
1:49:31
Very role play. Heavy as you might.
1:49:32
Imagine. You make your argument, you make
1:49:35
your, you know, make your claim kind of like a montage.
1:49:40
Everybody goes around and like tries, says something or or
1:49:43
maybe chooses not to. And then you basically you make
1:49:50
a. Roll make a.
1:49:52
Roll for your argument. See how it goes if.
1:49:55
You get 11 or. Lower the NPCS patience goes
1:49:58
down by 1. You you just didn't get rid
1:50:02
again anywhere. If you make it 12 to 16, their a
1:50:05
their interest goes up by 1 and their patience goes down by 1.
1:50:10
If you get a 17 plus, their interest goes up and their
1:50:12
patience does not change. So you're most likely to get a
1:50:15
scenario of interest going up and patience going down by 1.
1:50:20
So essential, you know, meaning like you can only get, you can
1:50:24
only yap somebody up. So much like you can't just make
1:50:29
an argument forever. Eventually they're going to be
1:50:31
like, all right. We're done with this
1:50:32
conversation yes, I, I think this is one of the few times
1:50:35
where I'm like I this is a cool codified system to have
1:50:39
especially it's like I I'm usually the guy for codified
1:50:42
systems except. When it comes to like the.
1:50:43
Narrative conversation of role play.
1:50:46
But in this instance, this is pretty cool actually.
1:50:50
Yeah, well, and it's not. Overly codified, right?
1:50:53
Like it's. Just enough mechanics.
1:50:55
To utilize, but it's not so many mechanics that you can't also
1:50:58
have like a natural back and forth.
1:51:03
You can also. Make a role to try.
1:51:05
And uncover the NP CS motivations because if you know
1:51:10
their motivations, you can argue, you know argue for their
1:51:14
motivations to make the test for your to make your argument role
1:51:19
to give it a buff basically. That being said, if you can.
1:51:25
Also try to learn the. Motivations roll poorly and piss
1:51:28
them off and have their patience go down too.
1:51:30
So you have to keep that in mind.
1:51:36
And if you. Or yeah, that's what I was
1:51:43
saying before. Oh that chart.
1:51:47
Sorry that chart I was reading. Before where the patients?
1:51:50
Decrease or increase up and patients interest up, patients
1:51:54
down. That was if you're appealing to
1:51:56
a motivation. If you're not appealing to a
1:51:58
motivation and you're not mentioning A pitfall, then an 11
1:52:03
or lower decreases patients by 1 and decreases interest by one.
1:52:08
If it's a 12 to 16, it only decreases patients by 1.
1:52:13
If it's 17 plus, interest goes up and patience goes down by 1.
1:52:17
So essentially, if you're not appealing to a motivation, it's
1:52:21
quite a bit harder to bump their interest.
1:52:25
So you really want to try and get at those motivations.
1:52:29
Or you can also just make an argument that appeals to their
1:52:33
motivation even though you didn't necessarily know that you
1:52:38
know. It also mentions if you're
1:52:42
caught in a lie, you know interest is going down because
1:52:47
you're a lying sack of shit. And then there's also a thing in
1:52:52
this game called your renowned score.
1:52:55
If your renowned score is high enough, you leave an impression
1:53:01
on the person you're negotiating.
1:53:02
Depending on who it is. And you basically can start.
1:53:08
You start the. Negotiation in a better.
1:53:10
Position. So like if it's a if you're
1:53:13
talking to a knight, their impression is 2.
1:53:16
So if you have a renown of two, then you're starting from the
1:53:21
better position because you're well, no, once the negotiation
1:53:29
is. Over if their.
1:53:32
Interest is at 5, then the response is effectively yes.
1:53:36
And so yes, I'll give you what you want.
1:53:38
Plus this. If their interest is at 4, they
1:53:41
just say yes, I'll go with what you want.
1:53:43
If their interest is at 3, they'll say I'll go with what
1:53:46
you want. But if their interest is 2, no,
1:53:50
I'm not going to go do what you want.
1:53:51
But if their interest is 1, Nope, end of discussion.
1:53:56
If their interest is 0, no. Also go fuck yourself.
1:54:04
So effectively, if the interest is at 5 four or three, you
1:54:09
succeed if. It's at 21.
1:54:10
Or zero, you fail. But even at 2, which is still a
1:54:15
failure, it's a it's a no. But the but could be a situation
1:54:20
of the MPC being like, I'm not going to give you what you want.
1:54:24
However, if you deal with this problem for me, then I'll give
1:54:28
you what you want afterward. So a no but might not be a
1:54:33
guaranteed failure scenario, right?
1:54:35
Like it there could still be an out like you know, it could lead
1:54:40
into something else. So.
1:54:42
Essentially as. Long as you're not at interest
1:54:44
one or zero, you're going to get something.
1:54:51
And then they give you a. Sample negotiation to play out
1:54:55
with and an NPC with their motivations and pitfalls.
1:55:01
And then there's also, I forget where, I think it's in the
1:55:07
director section. There's also like sample NPCS
1:55:14
with negotiation setups for you to steal from, but it's pretty
1:55:18
easy. Basically, you just you decide
1:55:20
on, you just decide on motivation, decide on a pitfall,
1:55:24
figure out starting interests and patients.
1:55:26
And then if you want to use impression, you'd figure that
1:55:30
out like it's. It's 3 numbers and.
1:55:32
Two keywords pretty. Much so doing it on the fly.
1:55:36
Not that hard. Then chapter 12.
1:55:46
Downtime projects so. These If you've played Blades in
1:55:55
the Dark, you'll. Be kind of familiar with
1:55:57
downtime projects one moment. Need a little little sip of
1:56:08
water? So.
1:56:14
Basically, when you go on a. Rest bite.
1:56:16
Which is you know this. Game's.
1:56:18
Rough equivalent to a long rest. You can do downtime projects and
1:56:26
effectively downtime projects are different.
1:56:29
Kinds. Of projects that you can work on
1:56:34
for. Different kinds of.
1:56:36
Benefits you a lot of the. Projects will often have item.
1:56:44
Prerequisites. So like what shit you need to
1:56:47
start building the thing or making the thing or, or what
1:56:51
shit you need to like talk to a person like they're not all
1:56:54
necessarily building per SE. One of the projects is like
1:56:57
community service, for example. And then you need a project
1:57:03
source, which is to say instructions, quote, UN quote.
1:57:09
It might not be literally instructions, but the idea is
1:57:12
that you need to be able to read specific lore or information
1:57:16
about the project to do the project.
1:57:18
Like you need to have some degree of knowledge to do The
1:57:21
thing is the is the basic idea. And then once you.
1:57:28
Engage in. Once you start your project.
1:57:34
You basically. Every time you have a respite,
1:57:38
you can make a project roll. Obviously they can be broken up
1:57:41
over long periods of time, and you can also do multiple
1:57:45
projects going at a time, but you can only work on one.
1:57:48
Like you can have three going, but you can only work on one at
1:57:51
a time. So you have to pick and choose.
1:57:55
Basically you make a project roll.
1:57:57
You roll. Your two.
1:57:59
D10. Plus a character.
1:58:02
You you, you make a test, you, you roll 2D10 plus a
1:58:05
characteristic. If you have a skill that could
1:58:06
apply, you apply the skill. Whatever the numerical result of
1:58:12
the role is, that's how many points you get towards the
1:58:16
project. And every project has a goal
1:58:19
number that you need to hit. So if the project goal is 50.
1:58:26
Then you need to make however. Many roles it takes you to get
1:58:29
up to 50. So you work on the project, you
1:58:32
roll a 14 on your test, then you add 15 points to the project.
1:58:40
That does mean for some of the projects they're gonna take a
1:58:45
fucking while. Well, so I.
1:58:47
Actually have a question about that?
1:58:49
Yeah. So when it shows the like gear
1:58:52
that you can build right? So first level armor enhancement
1:58:55
project stores text or loan language term might be
1:58:57
enhancement. Project.
1:58:59
Role, you know might reason intuition the goal is 150 yes so
1:59:06
with that in mind and you can start with I think a maximum of
1:59:08
240 if you build right well, if you take a if you take a career
1:59:14
that gives you project points yeah yes.
1:59:17
So is this a one rest bite and then you've made it situation
1:59:21
assuming you have the points, yeah, if you have the points,
1:59:24
yes. And at fifth level you can do it
1:59:28
as well. And you need an armor.
1:59:30
With a first level enhancement. So can you just level it up for
1:59:34
one down pint or one rest pint like I don't see?
1:59:41
That. The question is I.
1:59:42
Don't see why you couldn't. Is there anything that's
1:59:45
stopping you from doing that? I guess is really that specific
1:59:48
example. I think you do need to be level
1:59:50
5 to make that enhancement. I don't think you can make it at
1:59:54
level 1, but if you did not have the level block.
2:00:01
Then no there. Would be nothing stopping it.
2:00:03
That's pretty cool. I like that a lot.
2:00:05
Yeah. So end the game.
2:00:07
I forget where, but in the character creation stuff it
2:00:09
specifically says if you start with project points from your
2:00:13
background, you can have built stuff prior to play.
2:00:17
Oh, that's so fucking sexy. I love that.
2:00:20
So you can spend your project points during character creation
2:00:23
to have the stuff. So for example, learning a
2:00:26
language is a downtime project. And you can, I think it's 120 to
2:00:34
learn a language. So you could have learned two
2:00:36
language, two extra languages before you even start playing.
2:00:42
Yeah, I like this, Yeah. I mean, yeah, the the the the
2:00:45
project. Thing is really cool like.
2:00:47
There's lots of. Great shit.
2:00:50
And obviously I'm not going to go through all of the different
2:00:52
kinds of. Projects because there's a.
2:00:53
Shit load of them. But there's like, you know,
2:00:57
building equipment, there's building an airship.
2:01:00
There's going. Undercover, there's doing
2:01:02
research, there's the community service one I mentioned honing a
2:01:07
career skill, which makes it so that I think you get edges on
2:01:13
tests with that skill, you know, learn a new language, learn a
2:01:18
new skill, perfect recipe. There's like a whole, there's a
2:01:22
shit load. So it there's a lot to if you're
2:01:27
the kind of person who likes your character.
2:01:28
Like working on. Crafty stuff.
2:01:30
There's a whole bunch of shit for you. 01 other fun thing with
2:01:35
a project. Role is you can crit on a.
2:01:37
Project role and if you crit you roll twice, so that's fun.
2:01:50
Basically. Like that's the main thing like
2:01:52
you, you make test. A crew towards project.
2:01:55
Once you have all the prerequisites, once you hit the
2:01:58
number required, you make the thing that's like the long and
2:02:02
short of it you during you, you take them during respites, you
2:02:05
do the thing. Boom bang boom.
2:02:06
Like it's pretty straightforward, which I love.
2:02:10
Don't get me wrong, that's not a straightforward is not a
2:02:12
complaint. In fact, straightforward.
2:02:16
Is a, is a. Whatever the opposite.
2:02:19
Of a complaint is I can't. You know what I mean?
2:02:22
It was a compliment. A compliment, yeah,
2:02:25
straightforward is a compliment in this case, because I think a
2:02:28
lot of games like to get a little overboard, if you will.
2:02:34
Looking at you, D&D takes 3. Months of downtime.
2:02:37
To make a fucking uncommon magic item.
2:02:40
Yes, it is worth pointing out. Oh yeah, there's also a project
2:02:44
to build a road or repair a road, which I thought was
2:02:46
interesting. And for stuff like building the
2:02:52
road for example, it will tell you what kind of reward you get.
2:02:57
So for example the road 1, it says when you complete the
2:03:00
project you earn renown among people in the area where the
2:03:03
road is built. And also time travel, time spent
2:03:08
travelling between locations on the road is cut in half.
2:03:12
So some of them have like bespoke rewards like that.
2:03:17
Some of them will take a long ass time.
2:03:18
Like build an airship requires 3000 project points to complete
2:03:23
so that shit's going to take a while.
2:03:25
Granted, you can be, there's lots of different ways you can
2:03:29
accrue project points, like you can be rewarded them, multiple
2:03:33
people can work on the project. You can also get retainers in
2:03:36
this game who can work on projects in the background for
2:03:40
you. So stuff like build an airship
2:03:43
will take a long time, but there are ones, as you, you know, go
2:03:47
on adventures and accrue levels. There are ways that you can
2:03:49
mitigate that quite high amount. The other notable?
2:03:57
Thing about projects is there's also.
2:03:59
Project events which basically amount to the GM can roll on a
2:04:06
table depending on the project. The different projects have
2:04:09
different tables but you can roll on a table to be like oh
2:04:15
something something unique or different happens in this
2:04:17
scenario and you know thing happened.
2:04:23
So for example, on the using the build roads one, if you roll A2
2:04:27
on AD 10, after the roll the local population grows in
2:04:31
excitement with each completed portion of the road.
2:04:34
The name of the hero making the project roll spreads as a
2:04:38
builder of bridges, both literal and social.
2:04:41
If the project rolls at 12 or higher, the local community
2:04:43
comes together to complete the project alongside the heroes
2:04:46
hired crew, the heroes. The hero double s the renowned
2:04:49
earned at the end of the project.
2:04:50
So if your director decides to roll on the events table and
2:04:53
gets that one, you get double renowned for doing that project.
2:04:59
They're not all necessarily like.
2:05:01
Good, they could got to be. Good or bad or neutral, like the
2:05:04
the events can vary. There is also a generic projects
2:05:11
project, project events table towards the end of the downtime
2:05:17
section, downtime project section, and in terms of when
2:05:22
the events happened, it's up to the director.
2:05:27
They give you a couple of different options.
2:05:28
You can just kind of roll whenever you want.
2:05:31
You can roll at milestones in a project or you can do it.
2:05:38
What was the other one? I feel like there was another
2:05:45
one that. I'm forgetting.
2:05:46
Oh, you can make a roll to see. If the event will happen or not,
2:05:49
that was the other thing. Yeah, I think that's all say on
2:05:57
down time projects, it's a like I said, it's a straightforward
2:06:02
mechanic, but. It's very cool.
2:06:05
Also, some of the projects are stuff you wouldn't expect.
2:06:07
Like there's projects for, There's a project for fishing,
2:06:11
which has a really big event table with all sorts of
2:06:13
different outcomes. There's also a project that's
2:06:15
just called Spend Time with Loved Ones.
2:06:19
Oh that's neat. I didn't see that one.
2:06:21
Yeah, it's like. Way towards the back it's I
2:06:23
think. It's literally.
2:06:24
The last, yeah, it's literally the last project listed, but
2:06:29
yeah, so there's. There's a there's a lot you.
2:06:37
Can do and of course as. You, as the GM, can.
2:06:40
Create other kinds of projects too.
2:06:44
You can also reward one of the reward.
2:06:46
Things you can give in this game.
2:06:48
Are essentially like recipes, and the recipes will have a
2:06:52
project goal. The players work on the recipe
2:06:54
during downtime. They make the cool magic item or
2:06:56
potion or whatever. Yeah, I, I'm.
2:07:05
I don't think I have any complaint about the.
2:07:07
Project rules. I think I'm basically happy with
2:07:10
them. The numbers on some of them
2:07:14
maybe seem a little big, but I haven't played with the system,
2:07:18
so maybe they won't feel as bad once you actually try it out,
2:07:22
you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, that's a lot of the
2:07:24
critique I have by this game where it's like, I don't know if
2:07:26
that would work out, but I don't.
2:07:27
Have. The like an evidence to say that
2:07:29
it would or wouldn't yeah it's like I haven't seen the math in
2:07:32
action so I can't say 100% but I don't know I I assume you're on
2:07:36
the same page though as me where like you have no no complaint on
2:07:39
this one no yeah so after. Downtime Chapter. 13 is rewards,
2:07:52
so rewards are there's different.
2:07:58
Types of. Rewards.
2:08:00
Your kinds of rewards are. Treasures, titles, renown and
2:08:03
then wealth. So treasures are effectively
2:08:08
your. Magic items.
2:08:10
You have consumables, trinkets, leveled treasures and artifacts.
2:08:17
Consumables are what they sound like, you know, potions or magic
2:08:20
dusts or, you know, magic glass figurines.
2:08:25
You break that, you know, consumables do a thing once.
2:08:28
Trinkets are, you know, magic boots and bags and clothes and
2:08:32
gloves and jewelry and boots and cats and boots and Oh my God,
2:08:38
you know trinkets. Are.
2:08:39
Just 2015. Bullshit.
2:08:43
And then leveled treasures are your like, those are where your
2:08:48
magic armors and magic weapons and stuff are going to come as
2:08:51
leveled treasures. And they're called leveled
2:08:53
because as your character levels up, your magic item levels up
2:08:57
with you and becomes more powerful.
2:09:00
And then artifacts are the same as D&D.
2:09:03
Artifacts they are. Crazy fuck off.
2:09:07
Holy shit, big deal. Magic items that are, you know,
2:09:11
legendary campaign events. The game also specifically says
2:09:17
artifacts are overpowered. Like, artifacts are very
2:09:22
explicitly unbalanced, so if you're putting them in the game
2:09:27
then be aware they are unbalanced.
2:09:30
Good. Which, yeah, I mean, good,
2:09:33
right? That is kind of the point.
2:09:39
In terms of wielding like a treasure.
2:09:41
Of some kind so. In terms of weapons, because you
2:09:45
have the kit system in this game which will say if you can wield
2:09:48
light, medium or heavy weapons, basically your kit needs to have
2:09:52
the keyword for the thing. So if you pick up a sword and
2:09:55
it's a medium weapon, you need to have medium weapon in your
2:09:58
kit to wield the sword like, you know, as you'd expect.
2:10:04
Same thing with the. Armor you can.
2:10:09
Only benefit from 1:00. Weapon.
2:10:12
Or armor. Or implement thing at a time.
2:10:18
So obviously, you know, you have to keep that in mind.
2:10:25
Yeah, there's also. Some of them will specify.
2:10:29
That they have the like magic or psionic keyword to them, which
2:10:37
kind of like damage. Does.
2:10:39
Not have any rules bespoke by itself, but will interact with
2:10:44
rules. So you know a thing might say
2:10:48
turn off you know this this weird anti magic field turns off
2:10:53
anything that has the keyword of magic, but does not turn off
2:10:56
psionics or something like that. You know, it's that kind of a
2:10:58
thing. And then, yeah.
2:11:04
And then you just. Get the big list.
2:11:05
Of treasures and the art and stuff.
2:11:07
And they all have different, you know, different.
2:11:14
Kinds of effects. And shit as you.
2:11:16
Would expect from magical items. They also have for all the magic
2:11:21
items in this game. You will see they have project
2:11:23
sources. So for example the black ash
2:11:26
dart says project source text or lore in Zeech.
2:11:32
Zeech is I think the goblin language which and then item
2:11:38
prerequisite 3 vials. Of black ash from.
2:11:41
From the College of Black Ash. So essentially if you wanted to
2:11:44
make a black ash dart you would need to have text that explains
2:11:49
how to make it written in that language and then you would need
2:11:53
some vials of black ash to make the thing.
2:11:56
And then once you complete the project it yields 1D3 darts or
2:12:01
automatically gives you 3 darts if crafted by a shadow which I
2:12:04
thought was that was a cool touch.
2:12:10
So all of the all of the magic items will have what you need to
2:12:14
craft them also in their. Description which?
2:12:18
Is sick 'cause that means you can craft everything like it's
2:12:23
it's all on the table. You can craft anything you want,
2:12:26
it's all on the table. The GM doesn't have to do any
2:12:28
fucking work to figure out how you do it.
2:12:32
Yeah, it's you could just be like, I would like to make this
2:12:34
yeah, I want to make this I want to make a giant giant blood.
2:12:38
Giant's blood flame GM says OK, you're going to need a vial of
2:12:41
fire giant blood and some text in Kalian it's telling you how
2:12:44
to do it and then it costs it. They also have the Project Golem
2:12:48
out. So for the consumables, a lot of
2:12:50
them are 45, which will take you. 45 will probably take you
2:12:55
on average like 3:00-ish respites, I would think last, if
2:13:01
somebody's helping you. Yeah.
2:13:06
And of course. I mean, I don't think.
2:13:08
I need to say this, but like magic items.
2:13:11
Cool, right? Like I jumped, obviously.
2:13:16
Obviously I didn't look at all of them, but I was.
2:13:18
Jumping around and looking. At a bunch of them and like
2:13:20
yeah, magic item's cool in this game what a surprise.
2:13:23
The only one that I don't care about is that there's the Lance
2:13:25
of Longinus in this bitch baby and I'm that's all I need yes
2:13:29
Yep. And it's not even like it's
2:13:31
straight up. It's the double Helix that turns
2:13:34
into the Really. Yeah.
2:13:38
Also worth pointing out that. Treasures in this game are.
2:13:42
Broken up by echelon which is for as a reminder which is the
2:13:46
tiers of play in this game so you can you don't need to worry
2:13:52
about giving them something overpowered.
2:13:54
If it's a if the characters are in the first echelon of play and
2:13:57
it is a first echelon treasure, then that is intended for them
2:14:01
to be able to use it. I don't remember if the game
2:14:06
gives you guidance on. How?
2:14:08
Many treasures and things to give them, but I don't think the
2:14:14
game cares or is super worried about that, to be honest.
2:14:18
You know what? How about this, like we'll have
2:14:20
Matt run it and then he can give us that number.
2:14:23
Yeah. Well, that's yeah.
2:14:25
You know, it's great when he said there's a text being I
2:14:29
can't believe I'm being called out.
2:14:30
On something I absolutely should.
2:14:31
Be called out for. I'm just trying to listen to
2:14:33
podcast while I'm in Japan. Oh yes, for context, when we
2:14:37
called Matt out on, I think it was.
2:14:38
The first episode we were talking about draw.
2:14:40
Steel Max. Matt listened to it and was
2:14:44
like, I can't believe they called me out on something.
2:14:46
I absolutely did. We were like, listen, Matt, we
2:14:50
were just telling. We were just speaking.
2:14:51
Facts. Yeah, he my face.
2:14:53
When I get put on blast on podcast while being on vacation
2:14:56
for something I should have been put on blast for.
2:14:59
Yeah, it was a good. It was a good message with the
2:15:03
GIF of that cat looking around shocked.
2:15:05
Yeah. Welcome back.
2:15:06
That was great. Yeah.
2:15:10
One little thing I was a. Little bit.
2:15:11
Sad about. Is there's only three artifacts
2:15:15
in the game right now? Yeah, there's not a lot.
2:15:18
I was slightly sad, but I get it.
2:15:19
Because there's not that many you're going to end up using.
2:15:24
Then we have titles as another reward system.
2:15:27
So titles is so. Fucking cool.
2:15:29
I love this. Yeah, so titles are sick.
2:15:32
Basically, titles are perks that the director rewards to you
2:15:37
based on cool shit you do. So the basic idea is there's a
2:15:45
prerequisite for the title. You have to.
2:15:48
Do a certain thing. Once you acquire the title, most
2:15:51
of them will have a list. The GM will award the title to
2:15:55
the entire group and then everyone can pick from the list
2:15:57
of what they want. Some of them are like one person
2:16:01
specific, but a lot of them will be group based.
2:16:06
So like for example, there's the brawler title and the
2:16:08
prerequisite is you triumph in battle without killing any of
2:16:12
your foes and that gets you the brawler title.
2:16:15
And then you can choose one of the effects and they're they're
2:16:18
basically little mini feats, little mini perk effects.
2:16:21
So like for example, duck is one of the brawler ones.
2:16:24
When an enemy strikes you with a second, well, a second creature
2:16:28
is flanking you, you can use a triggered action to redirect the
2:16:31
strike against the second creature.
2:16:34
Once you use this benefit, you can't use it again until you
2:16:36
earn 1 or more victories. That's just one.
2:16:41
There's four listed in the brawler.
2:16:44
Also some of the titles will upgrade.
2:16:48
So for example there's one that's called what was it ship
2:16:53
captain. And to get the ship captain
2:16:56
title you have to acquire a ship and airship or a similar vessel.
2:17:00
Then as you go into the next echelon, cause the titles are
2:17:04
also split up by echelons of play, as you go into the next
2:17:07
echelon, there is the Corsair title.
2:17:10
And the prerequisite for the Corsair title is you have the
2:17:13
ship captain title and you sink and capture, sink or capture a
2:17:17
ship of equal or greater size than your own.
2:17:20
And then as you get into the next echelon of play, there is
2:17:24
the, I think it's pirate captain.
2:17:25
It's called, I want to say no fleet Admiral.
2:17:29
You have the Corsair title and you lead a fleet of at least
2:17:31
three ships. And then, as you might imagine,
2:17:35
in the 4th echelon, you have the last one or no or no.
2:17:39
That one might stop actually at the third echelon.
2:17:42
Let me double check. Now.
2:17:43
That one stops. OK.
2:17:44
Yeah. So, Fleet Captain, that one
2:17:46
stops. I don't know if any of them
2:17:47
actually upgrade all the way 4th.
2:17:49
I'd have to look more closely again.
2:17:50
I like. Yeah, they're broken.
2:17:52
The Tier 4. The 4th echelon 1.
2:17:54
Theoretical. Warrior yes it So what it means
2:18:00
is like. You just.
2:18:00
Have a like. You're basically an Ultramarine.
2:18:03
You have the codex of starties. You've got an answer to every
2:18:06
problem. Yes, you're you're you're very
2:18:09
you're a big smart man. You're a smart man who fight
2:18:12
good in my head, though theoretical warriors so funny.
2:18:15
It's got it's has the most anime like he's so good.
2:18:18
His skill is only theoretical. Yes, yeah.
2:18:22
And for that one you have the. Prerequisite.
2:18:24
Is you have the Master Librarian title and you complete a Learn
2:18:28
from a Master project with a project goal of 1000.
2:18:32
So yeah, I mean, these are sick. Like like we said, they're feats
2:18:37
that you hand out as rewards which is great.
2:18:40
Something I really like that. They went out of their way to do
2:18:42
for this game is make different kinds of rewards that can come
2:18:46
at that you can come at the game from different angles because
2:18:50
sometimes it's annoying to just be like, all right, well, I give
2:18:53
them, here's money again. Here's money again, you know,
2:18:58
Yeah, so I like that there's lots of, you know, you have your
2:19:01
victories, your treasures, your titles, your renowned.
2:19:03
You can give them money, you can give them project recipes, like
2:19:07
there's lots of different kinds of rewards.
2:19:11
Speaking of, after titles, you get renowned, which basically
2:19:16
renowned is just how well known you are.
2:19:20
And as you accrue renowned, you attract followers and you can
2:19:24
have there's three types of followers, artisans, retainers
2:19:28
or sages. Artisans can work on projects.
2:19:32
Retainers can help you like fight or do you know menial shit
2:19:35
and sages can help you on research type projects.
2:19:41
The renown also influences the negotiation thing.
2:19:44
Like I said before, renown only gets one page.
2:19:48
It's very simple and straightforward, but it.
2:19:49
Is another way to reward. Your players for like, you know,
2:19:53
actively doing something that's a big deal in the setting.
2:19:56
They have a mechanical way to get acknowledged like, oh, you
2:19:58
gain renown, like people know about you.
2:20:01
Also from a fictional standpoint, of course, renown is
2:20:03
intended to be literally renown. So if your players have a high
2:20:08
renown score, then when they go to the next town over, people
2:20:12
might have heard about them. You know, because they did
2:20:15
renown worthy things. You might say, how does world?
2:20:20
How does word get? Around in the fantasy.
2:20:22
World without cell phones? I don't know don't worry about
2:20:24
it who the fuck cares? Magic magic shit, who cares?
2:20:29
And then also something that has very.
2:20:31
Very little rules to. It is wealth.
2:20:36
It it has basically half a page. Essentially the game says,
2:20:42
listen bud, this game is about heroes and heroic characters who
2:20:48
are going out of their way to fight goblins and monsters and
2:20:50
demons and shit for the sake of heroism, not to make money,
2:20:54
right? This is not the Dungeon Fucker
2:20:57
Enterprise's game. So wealth is not a big deal in
2:21:03
this game. So effectively you have a wealth
2:21:06
score. It goes on a scale of one to
2:21:08
six. There's a little chart that
2:21:10
gives you a very brief breakdown of like what each wealth level
2:21:14
can afford. So like wealth 2 for example
2:21:17
could get you horse and cart dinner at a fine Tavern, a stay
2:21:21
at a fine inn, wealth 6 at the Max to get you a castle or a
2:21:26
shipyard. Basically, if the players do
2:21:33
something where there would be a.
2:21:34
Big fat. Stack of money, then they accrue
2:21:39
1 wealth. So if they loot the dragon horn
2:21:41
their wealth goes up by 1. Oh also wealth is party wide.
2:21:45
It's not on a player by player basis.
2:21:48
And if they do something or make a really big purchase that you
2:21:52
feel like it makes sense to deduct their wealth, then you
2:21:54
reduce their wealth by one. That's it.
2:21:59
Personally, I am fine with this. Because a.
2:22:03
I'm not. This is not the kind of game
2:22:06
where I would care about tracking money anyway, and I
2:22:10
think it makes sense to do it this way.
2:22:12
Yes, this is actually pretty close to the the way that Rogue
2:22:17
Trader does it where you have a wealth score and pretty much
2:22:20
small. Like a.
2:22:21
If a gun is worth, I don't know, 5 wealth and you have 6 wealth,
2:22:25
it doesn't actually reduce how much wealth.
2:22:27
You have it just. Says you have the potential to
2:22:29
buy this thing. You can just buy it.
2:22:31
Yeah. It's.
2:22:31
It's like a check. Yeah, it's a check against a
2:22:33
number. It's not.
2:22:34
Yeah, it doesn't dock it. Yeah, I've seen a couple other
2:22:36
games do it somewhat I think. I think Burning Wheel does a
2:22:40
similar thing, although there are more mechanics to it.
2:22:42
But I believe Burning Wheel does like a similar style of thing
2:22:44
with wealth. And to clarify, the the the one
2:22:48
the 40K one you can. Actually lose your wealth, but.
2:22:50
That's through like, oh, I made a deal with this shipmaster to
2:22:53
get passage. That's like big yeah, right.
2:22:56
Which is the which is basically what draw steel is saying too,
2:22:58
right? It's a big thing that you are
2:23:02
docking your wealth because it's a it's a important.
2:23:05
Essentially the wealth goes up and down when it is fictionally
2:23:08
important. Because again, this is not the
2:23:11
game where we're spending money and tracking torches and stuff,
2:23:13
which is not me knocking that kind of game.
2:23:16
It's just this is not what that this game, that is not what this
2:23:19
game is doing. Chapter 14 is gods in religion.
2:23:28
We're going to skip over this in the same way that we skipped
2:23:30
over. The lore section.
2:23:32
Back in the beginning of the book, but if you would like a
2:23:36
nice big chunky chapter on God's religion, Matt Colville's got
2:23:40
you covered. There's lots of different types
2:23:42
of gods and the different areas they live in and Saints
2:23:46
associated with this, with their gods.
2:23:49
The big thing you want to know with like the Saints and the
2:23:51
deities is. That conduits.
2:23:53
And censors worship a St. and then the Saint talks to the big
2:23:59
man. And basically you're the basic
2:24:02
idea is you as a player don't really talk to the big man until
2:24:06
you are Max level or close to Max level.
2:24:09
But in terms of how much gods and religion lore, you got like
2:24:12
20 some odd pages of stuff on gods.
2:24:15
So I don't know. I don't know if you want to add
2:24:18
anything, but yeah, I'm gonna. I'm gonna.
2:24:20
Be I'm gonna keep it so. Honey with you, chief, I didn't
2:24:24
even read it. Yeah, exactly.
2:24:26
Yeah. It's the kind of thing the.
2:24:28
Gods and religious thing is the only.
2:24:29
Thing you're really. Going to care about if you're
2:24:30
actively trying to engage with it in the game.
2:24:33
So it's kind of like not worth reading if you're just kind of
2:24:38
looking at it generally. So the very last section is the.
2:24:45
For the director, chapter 15, I'm.
2:24:51
Going to be honest. A lot of this.
2:24:53
Chapter is very broad advice for like newer GMs which again if.
2:25:06
We go back. To that mentality of your first
2:25:08
second game makes sense I. Personally as a more.
2:25:15
Experienced GM looked through a lot of this chapter and was like
2:25:20
not super impressed or anything, no actually something.
2:25:25
I thought was kind of neat. Was a lot of the villain stuff
2:25:28
is pulled right out of Fabula. Not like, not that they're, you
2:25:31
know, Fabula was a. It's a similar idea.
2:25:34
Not like, yeah, yeah, not that Fabulous was an inspiration, but
2:25:37
the information here lines up so closely with Fabulous that,
2:25:41
like, pretty cool, actually. Yeah, Yeah.
2:25:44
I mean. I should.
2:25:46
Clarify. I don't think.
2:25:47
Any of the I. Think a lot of the advice in
2:25:50
this direction section is good. I just don't feel like I have
2:25:53
much to talk about because it's very broad, general.
2:25:58
This is how you handle this. This is how you handle this.
2:26:01
Here's ideas about how you can think about, you know, campaign
2:26:06
style and your how to pitch your campaign.
2:26:09
And. It talks about the the four, the
2:26:12
four, the four pillars of play, that being combat, exploration,
2:26:18
interpersonal and intrigue and explaining to your players on
2:26:22
like a high, medium and low scale how much of each of the
2:26:27
four are going to be in the game.
2:26:29
So like in the example it gives, interpersonal is low, intrigue
2:26:35
is medium, expiration is high, combat is medium.
2:26:40
I do like that it it one thing I did like in this section is it
2:26:43
has like a sample campaign it uses and it always references
2:26:47
back to that same sample campaign, or at least most of
2:26:50
the time. So that it's you're, you're
2:26:54
always thinking about it in the similar context, which I think
2:26:58
is a good way to just deliver that information.
2:27:04
Yeah, I mean, Isaiah mentioned the villains thing.
2:27:06
Yes, there's a big. There's a big chunk on.
2:27:08
Like how to run the villains, how to think about the villains,
2:27:11
how to style them as it were. I don't know that style's the
2:27:16
right way to put. It but you know what I mean.
2:27:17
How to? What's their vibe?
2:27:23
Thinking about adventure goals, some advice on creating NPCS.
2:27:30
There is a little pop out section block where it says
2:27:33
stealing is encouraged, which I like I because you know agreed
2:27:39
stealing is encouraged right? Take from things that you like,
2:27:42
put them in your game mentions. You know, like how to.
2:27:52
Plan out scenes. How to?
2:27:56
Plan out locations. It does.
2:28:01
There's a very tiny little. Paragraph that mentions.
2:28:04
Creating and running combat. And you might say, wait, only
2:28:07
one paragraph. Yeah, the creating and running
2:28:10
combat rules are primarily are are are totally in the monsters
2:28:15
book. So this this game has two books
2:28:17
as opposed to three. There's no DMG.
2:28:20
The monsters book essentially acts as your like DMG so all of
2:28:26
that combat encounter stuff over there, not just, you know,
2:28:31
combat encounters and. Like X, you know, victory
2:28:34
rewards. And all that general stuff.
2:28:37
Trying to remember talks. About setting a scene.
2:28:43
When to call for tests? How to decide on the difficulty
2:28:49
of this? Again, a lot of.
2:28:50
This being very broad, you haven't GM very much.
2:28:56
Here's how. You should think about it type.
2:28:57
Advice. One thing I did like actually I
2:29:01
do want to mention there is. A section on.
2:29:03
Running traps and hazards. And one thing that's very
2:29:08
important is it has damage tables for the traps and
2:29:11
hazards. Thank you.
2:29:13
Improvise damage is something that I feel like is always
2:29:16
really, really important in games that a lot of games
2:29:18
forget. I don't know if you've run into
2:29:20
this problem, but that you know, the idea of like, oh, the
2:29:24
players like, you know, the floor falls out from under them
2:29:29
and they like hit the. Ground or like they fall.
2:29:31
On a spike trap, like how much damage should the environment
2:29:34
do? And some games don't give you
2:29:36
great guidance on that. Yeah, no, it's something I've
2:29:38
thought about for sure. Yeah.
2:29:40
So thankfully this game does have it has one time hazards and
2:29:45
perpetual hazards and like how much damage they should do at
2:29:48
the various levels. And if it's, you know, if it's a
2:29:51
not particularly deadly to a very deadly type trap, I was
2:29:55
happy to see that because again, it's always something I see come
2:29:58
up. Oh mentions creating and running
2:30:01
negotiations. That's an important if you're
2:30:03
running this game, if you're a confident GM, but you're running
2:30:05
this game, you might want to look at the negotiations bit
2:30:08
because that is, you know, relatively unique to this game.
2:30:12
And there are a bunch of sample negotiator stat blocks, quote UN
2:30:17
quote. They're not, they don't have
2:30:19
stats per SE, right? But it has their motivations and
2:30:22
their pitfalls and their impression score.
2:30:24
So it's it's sort of a pseudo stat block.
2:30:32
Yeah. Oh, and.
2:30:34
Then the the how to run the montages.
2:30:37
Section might also be one that you might want to consider.
2:30:40
They also give a lot of really good example montages which I
2:30:43
thought was cool with various stages to them and like the
2:30:47
different things that the players could potentially do in
2:30:50
the montages, which I like because for me the idea of the
2:30:54
montage is very straightforward. Makes a lot of sense.
2:30:59
I don't know if that's the case for everyone who's used to only
2:31:02
running. Something like.
2:31:03
DND or is only playing in that kind of space, you know what I
2:31:06
mean? I think even then, like I've got
2:31:08
experience running other games and I'm still not.
2:31:11
Super comfortable with the. Montage like I've done it, but
2:31:13
I've never been fair enough. Happy with it?
2:31:15
Well, this game has lots of example ones, so there you go.
2:31:19
Yeah. No, I mean it's a good again,
2:31:21
it's kind of like it like having monster stat blocks, right?
2:31:24
Having sample montages you can pull from definitely helps.
2:31:32
Tells you how to handle rest bites and like if the players
2:31:37
are taking too. Many rest bites you know how
2:31:38
should. Respond and like how many should
2:31:41
they be taking? And you know how Like what was
2:31:46
it? How many once hold on, sorry if
2:31:54
you Oh yeah, how many respite should you give?
2:31:58
Like do you want to give them down time to craft things or do
2:32:00
you want to make it more of like a tighter on the clock
2:32:04
situation? There's a couple of optional
2:32:08
rules. Throughout this section too.
2:32:11
Like taking the average role for.
2:32:16
Doing project role. Respites or or what?
2:32:19
Doing project roles during a respite and then easier crafting
2:32:24
Easier. Every crafting projects requires
2:32:27
that a hero obtain the project item prerequisite and project
2:32:29
sources in specific language. These requirements exist so you
2:32:32
can control the pace. That said, you can make it
2:32:34
easier to craft treasures and other items by changing the
2:32:36
rules to require either the item prerequisite or the project
2:32:39
source, but not both, for example, or by removing language
2:32:41
restrictions. Yeah, and then granting rewards.
2:32:48
Obviously that's an important one to look through.
2:32:50
Like how often? How often does the game?
2:32:56
Expect you to hand. Out rewards.
2:32:58
There's a little section on that and and awarding how awarding
2:33:08
hero tokens. It reiterates like sample
2:33:12
actions that should reward hero tokens.
2:33:14
Such as? The group is presented with an
2:33:18
easy way out of a difficult situation that involves lying,
2:33:21
cheating, or stealing, but they take the more arduous path.
2:33:23
That's like a hero token. The heroes stand against a group
2:33:26
of enemies to allow their comrades to escape.
2:33:28
You know, that's a hero token worthy.
2:33:32
And then it gives very general breakdown on awarding victories.
2:33:37
So like. For example, combat.
2:33:38
Encounters and says a successful combat encounter in which the
2:33:41
party's objectives are achieved earns one hero 1V.
2:33:47
Particularly difficult encounters are worth.
2:33:49
Two victories when? Completely successful.
2:33:51
The Draw Steel Monsters book has more information about victories
2:33:55
in combat for montage tests. Basically, give them a victory
2:34:00
if they earn a total success on easy or moderate, and two
2:34:02
victories for total success on a hard.
2:34:05
They earn 1 victory if they achieve partial success on a
2:34:08
moderate or hard. It also says, you know, give
2:34:11
them victories on negotiations if the NP CS interest is 3 or
2:34:15
higher or two or higher or sorry with that.
2:34:22
Wait, what? With an NP CS interest at 3:00
2:34:25
or higher, with that interest two or more higher than it
2:34:28
started, and with an agreement on the deal.
2:34:31
Oh yeah, sorry, stipulation. So like if you do well in the if
2:34:35
they do well in the negotiation, throw in a victory.
2:34:39
If they overcome hazards and traps, throw in a victory.
2:34:42
If they do a. The puzzle one is kind of funny.
2:34:45
It says if the heroes solve a complicated puzzle that feels to
2:34:48
you as if it would take most people at least 10 minutes to
2:34:51
complete, they earn a victory, which I thought was funny story.
2:34:57
Goals if they. Achieve a big story goal such as
2:34:59
accomplishing a quest, saving a Prince, trapped by an Eva Baron,
2:35:04
stopping a necromancer, Give them a victory and then clever
2:35:10
thinking if. They.
2:35:14
If they overcome a combat encounter, negotiation, montage
2:35:19
chest, a a trap, blah, blah, blah, with like clever, clever
2:35:23
thinking and they diffuse or get around the situation, still give
2:35:27
them the victory that you would have given them anyway.
2:35:33
Those are the general. So combat montages,
2:35:36
negotiations, hazards, puzzles, story, clever thinking,
2:35:40
basically give them a victory if they went through some kind of a
2:35:45
challenge and overcame it. You know, well, is the is the
2:35:50
very general way to put it. I know, I, I, I don't know, I
2:35:57
said. Do you have anything to?
2:35:59
Any comment on the awarding? Victories thing.
2:36:01
Well, other than yes, everyone who was dog eating the shit out
2:36:05
of me in the comments, which was very funny.
2:36:08
We finally got there. I hope you're happy.
2:36:11
What finally got to the victories?
2:36:13
Yes. Yeah, I mean.
2:36:17
I mean I. I mean, do you looking at?
2:36:19
This little section, I know it's not a lot but.
2:36:21
Like, do you have anything to do?
2:36:24
You feel a little better the way it describes it.
2:36:26
Yes, I. Do feel a little bit.
2:36:28
Better, yes. Fair enough.
2:36:33
Yeah, that's all. Yeah.
2:36:35
Yeah, I feel a little better for you.
2:36:36
It's it's more concise. There's little they've, they've
2:36:38
given me the information that I was looking for it.
2:36:40
It's not, you know, complete fucking wackadoo.
2:36:44
Whenever the GM wants like. Yes, I appreciate that.
2:36:47
Yeah. It's definitely not that.
2:36:51
I also. Like that the game explicitly
2:36:53
says to. Give out, you know.
2:36:55
Effectively XP for lots of different challenges.
2:36:59
So it doesn't have to just be combat, combat, combat, right.
2:37:01
Like that's one of those things that 5 E kind of sort of tells
2:37:05
you to do ish, but then doesn't give you great guidance on like
2:37:09
doing it necessarily. So any anytime a game does that,
2:37:13
I'm very much happy about that because that's how I always want
2:37:17
to do XP right Is you overcome challenges, but it doesn't have
2:37:22
to be just fight. Right.
2:37:25
Yes, and I think this see, like with this involved, it does make
2:37:29
it better when it's like, well, technically you can do a whole
2:37:31
like montage without burning any of your resources.
2:37:34
So it's another victory which will do.
2:37:35
Yeah, that's nice. Yes, I appreciate that.
2:37:38
Exactly. So, yeah.
2:37:41
And then it does also have the specific breakdown in the
2:37:45
monster book 'cause I did look at it a little bit of like,
2:37:48
basically they have their own CR rating system and how to award
2:37:51
victories based on that too. And then the last little bit is
2:37:56
just. How to?
2:37:58
Do your first session, which you know, which I don't have much to
2:38:03
say on. However, I like that they
2:38:05
specifically tell you to start off with a bang.
2:38:10
When all else is done, it's a great idea to play an.
2:38:12
Opening scene during. Your first session.
2:38:14
Ideally, that scene includes a combat encounter.
2:38:16
This encounter should give the players a taste of the delicious
2:38:18
campaign you're cooking up for them and leave them eager for
2:38:20
the next session. I just like that it specifically
2:38:22
is like get in there, fuck shit up.
2:38:26
Agreed. Always start with the bang.
2:38:27
Yes, the and Medius res good in media res is yeah, it's.
2:38:33
It's always. The move?
2:38:38
We finally finished it. That's straw.
2:38:39
Steel we finally did. We're not doing the, we're not
2:38:41
doing the the. Other one, are we?
2:38:44
I mean, I don't know, but we're not doing it next week.
2:38:46
That's for you. Yes, next week.
2:38:48
Oh fuck, next week is my turn and I got to drive back.
2:38:51
From Bama. Oh no.
2:38:54
Oh, good luck with that. I do.
2:38:56
Want to look in the monster? Book and I think it'll be much
2:38:58
quicker because most of the monster book is monster stat
2:39:01
blocks obviously so like it's only the first chunk of it that
2:39:05
is like the rules bit you know what I mean true yeah which is
2:39:08
not it's not that crazy much so it's it's only it's like 30 some
2:39:15
odd pages so yeah. Yeah.
2:39:23
That's been dressed up I. I'm I'm so.
2:39:27
Shocked when you said a couple days ago that you're.
2:39:29
Not jonesing to play this game I.
2:39:31
Am fucking Joe. I want to be a player in this
2:39:33
game real bad. It's it look, it seems like a
2:39:36
fun game and if someone was running it, I would I'd be like,
2:39:39
Oh yeah, I'll play, but no, yeah, I'm not Jonesing like I
2:39:41
there's about three other games I'm like Jones into play.
2:39:45
So I mean, yeah, I get I get that there's other games.
2:39:48
I don't know. I I'm Jones and I like I like a
2:39:50
lot of I think the thing I really like about this game
2:39:52
that's intrigued me is and I was thinking about this today is
2:39:55
that and I know sorry, Brett, I know we're still yapping.
2:39:59
Sorry, but I wanted to finish. I know, but I wanted to finish
2:40:03
real bad. The thing that I was thinking
2:40:07
about that I like with this game is that.
2:40:09
It. It is a it is a modern game that
2:40:15
is crunchy but is not tied down to any old like legacy systems,
2:40:24
you know, like like I feel like most most.
2:40:29
Newer most games. These days have moved away from
2:40:32
the the the crunch for the most part.
2:40:35
And the games that do have the crunch are tied to old systems
2:40:40
right? Like Pathfinder, Shatter, Run,
2:40:42
D&D. You know, most of the most of
2:40:46
the newer games I've seen coming out that are that still have
2:40:50
that crunch element, but our modern, yeah, they they, they
2:40:55
still have to deal with like the baggage of previous versions,
2:40:58
right? They don't want to stray too far
2:40:59
from their original selves, right?
2:41:01
Pathfinder isn't going to go off the deep end and throw out all
2:41:05
the old ability score systems and throw out the D20 and all
2:41:08
that shit, right? Like they're they're tied down
2:41:10
to a certain degree. So I like seeing a modern
2:41:12
crunchy game that's not tied down by any of that shit.
2:41:14
So they can they can come at everything with fresh eyes,
2:41:19
which I think is what makes this game really intriguing.
2:41:21
So it it is a crunchier game, but it almost doesn't feel like
2:41:26
a crunchier game because it's a crunchier game, but it's coming
2:41:29
at it with very modern design sensibilities and and very
2:41:33
little baggage. Get what I mean?
2:41:37
So it's like an, it's like a interesting little microcosm.
2:41:40
It's like an. It's I'm sure it's not the only
2:41:43
one out there. It's just one of the bigger ones
2:41:45
that I know about. You know what I mean?
2:41:46
Like I'm sure there's some other modern crunchy games that I just
2:41:48
don't know about that are doing a similar thing, but this one
2:41:51
got a lot of attention. You can argue Daggerheart's kind
2:41:55
of in that ballpark a little bit, although I think this one
2:41:58
is this one has more of that tactical crunch emphasis, but I
2:42:03
would. Definitely not say.
2:42:03
Daggerheart is a simple game, that's for sure.
2:42:07
I actually Daggerheart is one of those games where I'm like.
2:42:10
Kind of Jones into play 0. Interesting, I think, I think
2:42:16
it's just 'cause I'm playing Hall and I and I want to go
2:42:17
back. To being my bug man.
2:42:19
Fair enough. Yeah.
2:42:20
I mean, yes, all that praise I just said about draw steel.
2:42:25
Though I still. Don't think I necessarily want
2:42:28
to run it. I yeah, I mean, it's very rare
2:42:32
that I know I want to run the game.
2:42:35
I usually do say I want to run the game.
2:42:37
This one I'm iffy on anyway. Fucking hey.
2:42:42
That has been us. If you have made it through all
2:42:44
this, you better. Hit that fucking subscribe
2:42:47
button. I swear to God if you made it
2:42:51
through all this, you got it. Come on.
2:42:52
Slap me a 5. Come on, it would be much
2:42:56
appreciated. It would be.
2:42:58
That's all I have. Left to say.
2:43:01
Yeah. I mean, I, you know, it's
2:43:02
something I will say. It's a you know, we talked about
2:43:03
this. Last episode we have a Kofi.
2:43:06
Now, so we can get our boy Brett paid.
2:43:08
I mentioned it at the beginning, yeah, but I want to bring it up
2:43:12
again. Well.
2:43:15
Brett's going to, I don't, I don't know.
2:43:17
If the pay is going to matter, he's going to strangle us either
2:43:18
way. Look, those stranglers, let's
2:43:20
feel. That, yeah.
2:43:21
Maybe help Brett get paid, please.
2:43:23
That's all I'll say goodbye. Goodbye.