Latest / Sessions Canceled / Fabula Ultima, Early Play Impressions: Ep. 150

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Fabula Ultima, Early Play Impressions: Ep. 150 · Sessions Canceled

• 0:15
  All right, everybody. So the GM decided that they were
• 0:18
  going to run the plot point system in 5E and then didn't
• 0:22
  really put enough effort in thinking about how terribly
• 0:24
  that's designed and how that's going to break the game.
• 0:27
  So when the player just decided that there was a way out of the
• 0:29
  dungeon, they just used the plot point and made a way out.
• 0:31
  The GM didn't know what to do. And then they they had a bunch
• 0:34
  of back and forth and then the players like, why did you input
• 0:37
  the system if you weren't going to do anything?
• 0:38
  And then the GM was like, well, it worked in Fabula.
• 0:40
  And then they were like, what? The rules are good in Fabula?
• 0:42
  Why the fuck? Why would you just assume that
• 0:43
  they're going to work here? It's the whole thing.
• 0:45
  It was a whole thing and Sessions was cancelled.
• 0:50
  It was nightmare. Anyway, welcome back.
• 0:55
  It's funny you say that, because you you absolutely could use a
• 0:57
  fabulous point to just declare and exit to a dungeon.
• 1:01
  Yes, you could, but you know, definitely could as as we will
• 1:07
  talk about Fabulous gives you a little bit more to work with.
• 1:12
  Maybe too much. I yeah, we're going to get into
• 1:16
  it, bud. Don't you worry.
• 1:18
  Spoilies, I guess. Welcome back, y'all, to the
• 1:20
  Sessions Cancel podcast. It's me, Isaiah.
• 1:24
  I'm here with Josh. I'm here in a sense.
• 1:28
  Are any of us really here though?
• 1:33
  You know, I feel like less and less with each passing day, but
• 1:37
  you know, that's fine. Just don't let the existential
• 1:40
  thread existential dread creep in too much.
• 1:44
  Bite it off with cocaine and hookers.
• 1:49
  I was going to say fight it off with some trench crusade, but
• 1:51
  yeah, I mean I don't that works too.
• 1:53
  I don't know if that's helping you on the existential dread,
• 1:56
  I'm going to be honest. No it's not.
• 1:58
  No, the honestly, the thing that has helped my mental health the
• 2:01
  most in the last three weeks on ironically has been that fucking
• 2:04
  Gundam gotcha that I'm playing. It is taking over.
• 2:08
  Of course, of course. Brother the Gundam seed event
• 2:12
  just dropped and me and fucking Cade have been pulling to get
• 2:18
  the the seed suits and he got the infinite justice and I'm
• 2:23
  really trying to get the strike freedom.
• 2:27
  OK I yeah I mean side note can I did I did I bring up last time
• 2:34
  about the me re watching the old DMC anime we.
• 2:39
  Talked about it last week. I don't know if we talked about
• 2:40
  it in. Did we talk about recording?
• 2:42
  Is what I'm asking. No, no, I do not think we did,
• 2:45
  no. I'm just going to put this
• 2:47
  energy out into the Internet. I'm rewatching DMC the animated
• 2:51
  series after watching the Netflix anime because everyone
• 2:55
  keep kept being like I've had DMC vary on the brain lately.
• 2:59
  A back in the mood of DMC aesthetic is the coolest thing
• 3:01
  I've ever seen in my life, which is basically true.
• 3:04
  But anyway, you know, people are like, oh, the old anime was so
• 3:09
  much better. Guys like you should go back and
• 3:11
  watch it. And I'm like, I don't remember
• 3:13
  it being very good. I'm going to go back and watch
• 3:15
  it to see maybe it's better than I thought.
• 3:18
  Now, y'all, it's still bad. Stop glazing on that fucking
• 3:21
  anime. It's it's not very good.
• 3:23
  It's bad enough that Reuben Langdon took his name off the
• 3:26
  project. All right, just so we're clear,
• 3:29
  actually, yes, it says Dante is voiced by Justin cause in the
• 3:34
  credits. And that was his fucking pen
• 3:37
  name that Reuben Langdon used for that anime 'cause he didn't
• 3:40
  want to be associated with it. And there's an old video of him
• 3:43
  talking at an anime convention where somebody said what's the
• 3:46
  worst project you worked on? And he said the DMC anime.
• 3:52
  That is crazy. Yes.
• 3:54
  Which is funny because I he said he phoned it in really hard
• 3:57
  because they didn't give him a lot of time.
• 3:59
  But I feel like he actually did a pretty solid job voice acting
• 4:01
  wise of that show. Dante's portrayal is not really
• 4:04
  the problem with that show. Right, Yeah.
• 4:07
  I mean, if anything, you can pretty much trust Robin Langdon
• 4:10
  to be consistent. Yes, also consistently solid
• 4:14
  across. It's funny hearing Reuben
• 4:15
  Langdon talk 'cause like Dante is mostly just his normal voice.
• 4:20
  It is, yeah. It's.
• 4:21
  Mostly just his voice, but anyway, yes I stand by that
• 4:26
  anime not that good. It's OK.
• 4:30
  I I had fond memories of it. I feel like maybe I should now
• 4:32
  go back and. We should go back and watch it,
• 4:34
  yes, 'cause I think it's probably worse than you
• 4:35
  remember. It might be dude, like, well, so
• 4:39
  you know, I've been doing that a lot recently.
• 4:41
  I've been like, I know you. I think I've rewatched like 7 or
• 4:43
  8 old shows last like last year alone.
• 4:49
  Let's see. Wait, we rewatched Gundam?
• 4:51
  G Gundam rewatched. That was better than.
• 4:55
  Oh dude, it's always peak G Gundam.
• 4:58
  Actually Peak yeah, rewatched Gundam Wing.
• 5:02
  I've rewatched a lot of Gundam. It's just a lot of a lot of
• 5:06
  Gundam. Anyway, yeah, I don't know.
• 5:10
  I I've been rewatching the old shows to see if they're shit or
• 5:13
  not, and I stand by Blood Plus is still fucking peak and Haji
• 5:18
  still will never win a fight to save his life.
• 5:22
  If anyone understands that deep cut that's proud of you.
• 5:25
  All right, The the love interest in blood plus is like notorious
• 5:31
  for never winning fights and rewatching the show.
• 5:34
  I was like he gets 1 dub right? No, no, not a single dub across
• 5:38
  all 52 episodes, not one at the end.
• 5:42
  I was like, oh, he's got a cool full vampire powers.
• 5:45
  He's about to take this dub still.
• 5:47
  No, he he didn't really no, no, the guy kind of like he he hurt
• 5:51
  him at the beginning and the guy just kind of like ran out of
• 5:54
  time. I'm going to call that a tie
• 5:55
  because he got his ass beat again.
• 5:58
  That's unfortunate. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 6:02
  But today is not about old anime that we watched.
• 6:05
  Today is about reminiscing on the old JRPGS that we played as
• 6:10
  we inevitably sink into middle agedness.
• 6:16
  Why did you put it that way? I don't know.
• 6:19
  Anyway, we're going to talk about Fabula again because this
• 6:24
  game is peak and we finally got some practical experience
• 6:27
  playing it because we've been glazing it real hard, rightfully
• 6:31
  so. But we haven't had any practical
• 6:34
  experience playing the game. And now we do a little bit, you
• 6:37
  know, we only run 2 sessions going on three soon, but I think
• 6:40
  that does give us just enough talk some shit.
• 6:44
  Absolute authority. I can tell you if it's garbage
• 6:47
  or not. I, I mean, that's a little
• 6:51
  crazy. I don't.
• 6:51
  I don't know about all that, but I'm not actually.
• 6:56
  I can tell you that I have some thoughts, mostly good, some
• 7:01
  critique, but mostly good. Before we get into it though,
• 7:07
  Josh, tell people what they need to know and do not fuck me on
• 7:10
  this like you always do when I try to pass it to you.
• 7:13
  I don't know what you mean by that, but anyway, hit follow or
• 7:16
  subscribe for more fabulous content.
• 7:20
  That is such amazing levels of fucking Cap.
• 7:23
  Sir, I want you to know this is some fucking char as Neville.
• 7:28
  I've never betrayed someone they're betraying.
• 7:30
  Anyone a day of my life? They OK, so they they re
• 7:34
  released, they like reanimated a bunch of Zeta and they brought
• 7:38
  that line back. I was like, yes, it's kind of
• 7:41
  Quattro. It's kind of.
• 7:43
  Important. It ironically it unironically it
• 7:48
  is very important to his character is Quattro Bagina and
• 7:51
  the immediate heel turn after Zeta to going back to being
• 7:54
  sharp and then betraying all his things and then.
• 7:58
  Betraying everyone? Yeah.
• 8:02
  Camille still vegetative being like dude what the fuck?
• 8:05
  But yeah, if you want more of that sweet, sweet, fabulous
• 8:08
  content, hit subscribe, because apparently we can't shut the
• 8:10
  fuck up about it. Look, dude.
• 8:14
  Very rare, I feel do we like hit a game that we vibe with that
• 8:20
  hard? Like for me it was Lancer, for
• 8:22
  you it's Apocalypse World or the Pbta games.
• 8:24
  And like, I feel like this is one that we're just kind of
• 8:28
  sharing. I still consider Apocalypse
• 8:30
  World largely my favorite tabletop game, so.
• 8:35
  Understandable, I think. I think I can finally
• 8:36
  declaratively say that Lancer is that for me.
• 8:41
  That's crazy. That's crazy for me.
• 8:43
  Dude is. I, I that game is just a lot.
• 8:47
  It's just that game is a lot. It is a lot, but here's the
• 8:49
  thing. I like Isaiah notoriously.
• 8:53
  I like propping every week is like got to get this prepped on
• 8:56
  baby. Are you just saying, are you
• 9:01
  just saying you like the game because it forced you to prep
• 9:03
  like it just. Doesn't give you a choice.
• 9:04
  I like the games so much that the prep doesn't give me like
• 9:08
  anxiety attacks. I it's like a like I get my my
• 9:13
  artwork, my studio work done Thursdays and that like 430 I
• 9:18
  got like 2 hours before session. I'm like, it's rise and grind
• 9:20
  gamers, it's time to prep. Like it's rise and cry.
• 9:26
  Fair enough. Also like mex cool.
• 9:27
  Like they're just. So yeah, I know big.
• 9:28
  Well, the Mex is so sick. I know we're all going off topic
• 9:33
  again far too early or 10 minutes in of absolute bullshit.
• 9:36
  Let's get to fabulous, OK? OK, basic overview.
• 9:41
  We're going to talk about two sections.
• 9:43
  We had kind of broadly, I'm going to go over some of the
• 9:46
  pros and a general thoughts and then we're going to talk about
• 9:49
  combat and then we're going to talk about the fabulous points.
• 9:53
  I think we should do a a brief housekeeping perhaps here.
• 9:57
  OK. So just for those curious in
• 10:01
  terms of who's doing what and what we have and yadda yadda.
• 10:06
  I am the GM so we will get AGM perspective on this.
• 10:11
  Isaiah is a player, so we're getting both sides.
• 10:16
  For those who want to know a little bit of the mechanical
• 10:19
  stuff, Isaiah's character is a weapon master, Guardian,
• 10:23
  Arcanist, and then we have a chimerist, Florist and a Gourmet
• 10:34
  weapon master. Think she's just, yeah, Gourmet
• 10:38
  weapon master. And then a tinkerer, wayfarer
• 10:42
  merchant. The players just hit level 6.
• 10:49
  So basically we're talking about the beginning of the game 'cause
• 10:52
  you start the game at level 5. Any other?
• 11:00
  Yeah, we're using the main book and the Natural Fantasy book.
• 11:04
  With some play test stuff sprinkled in A.
• 11:06
  Tiny amount of play test things, yes.
• 11:12
  Yeah, that's the housekeeping. Keep in mind, take any of these
• 11:17
  opinions, good or bad, with a grain of salt.
• 11:20
  We are still very early on in the game and these thoughts are
• 11:25
  likely to change as we play. You know, there is 100% some
• 11:28
  growing pain going on and that's like that's it's a double sided
• 11:33
  sword, right 'cause on one end we're doing really cool things
• 11:36
  that maybe we shouldn't be doing rules as written, but it's fine
• 11:39
  'cause it's cool. But then the other thing we're
• 11:40
  running into things that we go, Oh well, I kind of certainly
• 11:44
  what we talked about last session, right?
• 11:45
  You play a game and go, I kind of wish it was like this happens
• 11:50
  every time baby. But we're going to start with
• 11:53
  the pros. OK, I I feel like you're
• 11:55
  referencing a specific thing that I'm not remembering, but
• 11:58
  we'll in the. Last session where I was like
• 12:00
  when you when you play a game and you think about a game
• 12:02
  critically, you immediately go, I want to start home brewing
• 12:04
  things. Oh.
• 12:05
  Oh, that's what you meant? Oh, OK.
• 12:07
  Yeah, yeah. I thought you were referencing
• 12:08
  something more specific, but yeah, OK.
• 12:10
  Fair. No, no, no.
• 12:11
  But yeah, so just general thoughts.
• 12:13
  We're going to go over some of the pros 1st and we're going to
• 12:15
  hit the cons #1 this game is super fucking fun.
• 12:21
  Like every aspect of this game is enjoyable to play and I do
• 12:25
  not think that that happens often.
• 12:27
  There are games that I love. Fantasy Flight Star Wars is
• 12:31
  fucking awesome. I love that game but the
• 12:34
  character creator is a little annoying.
• 12:37
  It's a little like it's, I don't know that annoying's the right
• 12:42
  word. The character creation's a
• 12:44
  little clunky in that game. There's some I would call that
• 12:49
  it frustrating. Yeah, frustrating's a good word.
• 12:52
  Yeah, there's some confusion to it for sure.
• 12:54
  If you're not, if you like, aren't paying close enough
• 12:57
  attention, you can miss some weird bits.
• 13:00
  I I will say slight caveat on the statement of nothing.
• 13:09
  Nothing we don't like in the game to play wise yet.
• 13:13
  We haven't quite interacted with everything yet.
• 13:18
  Right. There's a couple.
• 13:19
  Everything we have interacted with is we are deeply enjoying.
• 13:25
  So yeah, the character creator's really good.
• 13:27
  I think that's what they're trying to say on, on the the
• 13:30
  topic of character creator, Emma really managed to strike a fine
• 13:34
  balance I feel because on one end there is a massive number of
• 13:40
  options, which is good, right? Because it's it's, it's
• 13:44
  exciting. There's so much stuff that you
• 13:46
  want to try and and fuck with, but at the same time, it's not
• 13:52
  so many options that it feels like really overwhelming.
• 13:55
  And maybe it would if we used all of the books.
• 13:58
  I'm sure you'd get some analysis paralysis there.
• 14:02
  But assuming you're running it the way it's supposed to be
• 14:05
  written, where you I. Mean using one of the books
• 14:07
  would only add. It would add 7 more classes
• 14:11
  which is not like that. Yeah, I mean, it's more classes,
• 14:15
  the quirks, the rules. Like if you if you did the game
• 14:21
  and you're doing all of it, and then you were doing the
• 14:23
  Technospheres thing, then you have to figure out which rules
• 14:26
  aren't going to conflict if you did all that, which is not the
• 14:28
  way the game is supposed to be played.
• 14:30
  Yeah, your very intended to smash all of it on top of each
• 14:33
  other. Yeah, that will get noodly and
• 14:35
  weird, but that's not the way you're supposed to do it.
• 14:37
  And given that we're trying to do it the way we're supposed to
• 14:39
  do it, yes, there are plenty of options and they don't feel
• 14:42
  overwhelming. Very good quirks I'm in love
• 14:46
  with. I love my quirk.
• 14:48
  I took the ancient weapon or the high fantasy version I believe
• 14:52
  is it's called heirloom weapon. Heirloom weapon.
• 14:55
  I'm I'm treating it more like an heirloom weapon.
• 14:57
  It's not like a piece of magitech.
• 14:59
  It's just a magical sword with a little deity inside of it.
• 15:04
  And it's, it's really fun because the the quirks and we've
• 15:07
  talked about this when we were sort of theorizing how impactful
• 15:10
  they are. No, they're very impactful.
• 15:13
  Once I had my character sort of figured out, I wanted to do the
• 15:16
  samurai thing. The quirk informed so much about
• 15:20
  the character that I wasn't even really expecting.
• 15:22
  Once you think about why it is the way it is and how it acts
• 15:26
  the way it does, and why it could like it could fail in the
• 15:29
  way that the the weapon is supposed to fail from time to
• 15:31
  time. And just from all that alone,
• 15:33
  that made me decide I wanted to swap out Spiritist for Arcanist
• 15:36
  because I like the idea that there was a spirit of the weapon
• 15:39
  and I could do a bunch of stuff with that.
• 15:40
  And it your brain goes in 20 different directions immediately
• 15:45
  because you just, it just starts rolling and it's great.
• 15:49
  Well, I do think it's also worth pointing out that the the impact
• 15:56
  of the quirks can also vary a bit because there are some
• 15:59
  quirks that will definitely broadly speaking, impact your
• 16:04
  thinking less. So like, it doesn't necessarily
• 16:11
  have to be, it doesn't have to be something that gigantically
• 16:18
  throws your like your whole train of thought into another
• 16:22
  area or whatever, you know what I mean?
• 16:26
  Yeah, but I, I, I don't necessarily mean like that.
• 16:28
  What I, what I'm saying is that it, it just, it informs a lot
• 16:31
  about who your character is. It can.
• 16:32
  Inform a lot of yes. Like I mean, so you know, we
• 16:35
  have 1 character who took the arboreal quirk and basically
• 16:39
  designed her entire character premise around that quirk.
• 16:42
  Like the fact that her character is a plant person.
• 16:45
  It's basically her whole character.
• 16:47
  But like for example, we also have the chef who took the quirk
• 16:51
  that was just the big broker which significantly less
• 16:55
  impactful on her like character idea.
• 16:57
  So you can you can dial it in and out.
• 17:00
  It doesn't necessarily have to take over.
• 17:03
  I was so, Sarath herself said, like the big bro informed a lot
• 17:06
  about the way her character is portrayed, like quirky,
• 17:09
  inquisitive, in this case, you know, big sister thing that she
• 17:13
  had. Yeah.
• 17:13
  Informed some some back story stuff, but not as much as like
• 17:17
  your entire character being built around the sword, you
• 17:20
  know, or plant person character being entirely built around the
• 17:24
  plant person thing. Like you know what I mean?
• 17:27
  I suppose I I think in terms of a role play thing, I think it
• 17:31
  informed a lot, maybe not about necessarily the character itself
• 17:33
  mechanically or stuff like that. Well, I don't even mean
• 17:35
  mechanically, I'm saying that there's a dial to how much the I
• 17:40
  am talking about role-playing. I'm saying there's a dial to how
• 17:42
  much you can let it in to the role play.
• 17:45
  I'm just saying because some people might hear that and be
• 17:47
  like, oh, so if you pick a quark, like it has to influence
• 17:50
  your entire character and it's like, it doesn't have to
• 17:53
  necessarily. You can dial it in and out.
• 17:55
  And some of the quirks are a little more forceful than
• 17:57
  others. You know, if you pick the one
• 17:59
  that makes you like a robot or a plant person, you can adjust how
• 18:02
  much that matters. If you pick the one that's like
• 18:06
  you are the grand arbiter of the end of the world.
• 18:08
  Yeah. All right.
• 18:09
  That one you kind of have to deal with.
• 18:12
  Yeah, I mean, that's the yes, I, I, I'm not just saying, not even
• 18:16
  really disagreeing with you. There is, there is a.
• 18:18
  It's a spectrum for sure. It's degree of influence is
• 18:23
  open-ended, which is good because some people might not
• 18:27
  want to commit that much. Yes.
• 18:33
  And some people might want to pick a quirk entirely
• 18:35
  mechanically speaking, which I suppose you could, but you are
• 18:40
  missing out a little bit if you do.
• 18:43
  Yeah, I mean, I definitely wouldn't recommend doing
• 18:47
  anything for sheer mechanics in this game.
• 18:48
  It just doesn't really speak to the spirit of the game.
• 18:51
  Well, like for example, you could take the cork you took
• 18:53
  ancient weapon and just do it purely for cool weapon and not
• 18:56
  address why you have the cool weapon at all.
• 18:58
  You know, like you could do that, but it would be a little
• 19:01
  like all right, I guess. Yeah, it it, it, it doesn't jive
• 19:06
  with, like I said, it just sort of the same.
• 19:08
  It doesn't really jive with the spirit of the game.
• 19:09
  Like no, you're you're supposed to put some thought and and some
• 19:13
  cognition to why your character is making the decisions they're
• 19:16
  making and why they're taking the classes they're making, the
• 19:17
  quirks they're using all that. You could continue.
• 19:27
  I I know I just, I literally was like we're at the top of the
• 19:30
  notes and I already lost myself. That's good now.
• 19:34
  This isn't a con, but it is worth mentioning.
• 19:36
  I I did make a couple mistakes with my quark weapon.
• 19:41
  It this sort of speaks to inexperience with the game.
• 19:44
  And this is not necessarily a frustration I had, but something
• 19:48
  that I I sort of goofed up on. And now that I have hindsight, I
• 19:51
  might go back and shift things cause certain abilities did not
• 19:55
  work the way that I thought they worked.
• 19:57
  And I learned. And some of you might know this,
• 20:01
  some of you might not. You could be a fucking idiot
• 20:03
  like me and not realize the defensive qualities for rare
• 20:07
  items. The ones specifically labeled
• 20:10
  above the offensive qualities, those are not for weapons and
• 20:13
  armor. Those are for sorry, sorry.
• 20:16
  Those are not for armor and Shields.
• 20:17
  Those are for weapons. Weapons and then armor and
• 20:21
  Shields have their own defensive and offensive qualities.
• 20:24
  Yes, this. Is more of a bookkeeping thing.
• 20:26
  For any of you looking to play this game, keep track of that
• 20:28
  'cause if you're going to be like me and be an idiot, I
• 20:31
  probably would have done a couple things differently.
• 20:35
  I do kind of just like that my weapon does more damage but like
• 20:38
  fuck it. I will also say it is kind of
• 20:42
  funny that both you and our, our, our plant person player did
• 20:53
  the exact same mistake in that you completely fucked up how
• 20:58
  custom weapon builds work, which is all this funny.
• 21:02
  Yes. I, I guess I don't know what
• 21:05
  that means necessarily. I guess maybe the, maybe the
• 21:08
  custom weapon stuff could be worded a little more clearly or
• 21:11
  something 'cause you both had you both fucked up and you both
• 21:13
  seem to have the exact same misunderstanding.
• 21:16
  And I was kind of like, huh, that's weird.
• 21:19
  Yes, I mean, I, I think as a general rule, the game is
• 21:23
  written really well, but there are certain things that I still
• 21:29
  need a clarification on. Like we're gonna we're gonna
• 21:31
  talk about the the multi 2 handed fighting thing.
• 21:34
  Well, I'll tell. You just 'cause.
• 21:36
  As a little bit of a spoiler, I think what it is is there are a
• 21:41
  couple elements of the game that need need to be a little wordier
• 21:46
  than they are, and that leads to some unclearness.
• 21:50
  Like there's there should be. It's just not as it's not as
• 21:56
  thoroughly explained as it could be.
• 21:59
  Yeah. And I think there's a couple of
• 22:02
  reasons that might be, but there's a, there's a
• 22:04
  particularly from the GM side, there's a couple of bits that I
• 22:07
  was like, oh, this, this, this could have used a little more
• 22:14
  clarification. So I would have or or not even
• 22:16
  clarification, a little more guidance to make it clearer.
• 22:25
  I'll say I'm not explaining this well because I'm trying to not
• 22:27
  go into the entire tangent that I'm thinking of, but it'll make
• 22:32
  sense once I get there. Yes, no, no, I, I, I think I
• 22:35
  know what you're going to talk about.
• 22:36
  So I underneath, yeah, when you're, when you start your
• 22:46
  session zero, they the game talks about all that really fun
• 22:49
  role building stuff we had mentioned in in our initial
• 22:52
  reviews of the books analysis. And that was such a really good
• 22:59
  really I, I almost say it like nostalgic because it, it really
• 23:04
  does. It brings me back to the the
• 23:05
  Fire and Bloom campaign days where we designed the world
• 23:08
  together and it was so cool to be able to carve out like a
• 23:13
  little piece of the universe for myself and go, OK, this is my
• 23:16
  thing. And then the players made their
• 23:18
  own thing. And then I would go, oh, what if
• 23:20
  you did this? And then they would tell me, oh,
• 23:21
  what if we tried this? And then what if your thing had
• 23:23
  this thing going on? And it's just, it's, it's weird
• 23:27
  to call it almost heartwarming, but it's really how it felt.
• 23:30
  It just kind of was like, ah, this is good.
• 23:34
  Like I I know it's not the most critical way of wording it, but.
• 23:38
  Well, I I find a. Little hand.
• 23:42
  Finish you though. Oh no, just having a hand in the
• 23:45
  world building itself. And like I, I, I always have my
• 23:49
  players do this in any of the games I've run.
• 23:52
  But to have the game make that the standard, it just, I, I love
• 23:56
  it. I love it so much.
• 24:00
  Yeah, IA valid statement and I'm not saying this to invalidate
• 24:06
  what you just said, but I do think it's a little funny that
• 24:08
  you you're like, oh, that's like that's really cool.
• 24:12
  I like that a lot because I've, I've played many different
• 24:16
  systems that tell you to do the exact same thing and I've almost
• 24:20
  come to expect that of a lot of games.
• 24:22
  And I often get disappointed that a lot of games don't have a
• 24:26
  system for how you should do that, you know?
• 24:30
  No fair enough. I mean like I have not played.
• 24:33
  I've played a fight you know a few games but not as many as you
• 24:36
  clearly well, although the a lot of the ones I've played have re
• 24:39
  established settings. Yeah.
• 24:40
  Well, I think, yeah, purely, I think it's, it's kind of a by
• 24:42
  chance thing. It's just I, I have happened to
• 24:44
  play in a lot of systems that do the same, do that same build the
• 24:48
  world together thing that Fabula has you do just by, I don't
• 24:54
  know, just because that's what I looked for, I guess.
• 24:56
  I don't know, just by chance I can suppose, but I I yeah, I
• 25:02
  just think it's like it's I agree.
• 25:04
  Yes, I do like how fabulous does.
• 25:05
  I just think it's, it's funny that you took note of it because
• 25:08
  I'm looking at other games being like, yeah, why aren't you doing
• 25:11
  that, you know? Look, no, I mean, I I agree.
• 25:14
  I want more games to do it for sure, like because, you know,
• 25:19
  when I, when I have my players do that right, there is always
• 25:25
  some disco biscuits going on because of course some players
• 25:29
  give me fucking pages and pages and pages and pages and pages,
• 25:32
  which I love. I I'm one of people who are
• 25:34
  like, no, yes, give me more. I want all of that because it's
• 25:37
  less work I have to do, you know, But then some players go,
• 25:41
  my character is from a planet. I'm like, all right, cool,
• 25:45
  what's on the planet? Stuff.
• 25:47
  Water. OK, so like a like an oceanic
• 25:50
  planet? No, just just like a lot of
• 25:52
  water. So like a like a temperate, like
• 25:55
  a like a tropical planet. Yeah.
• 25:57
  OK. All right.
• 25:57
  So what, you know, it's that thing where you're like, you got
• 26:00
  the clipboard, you're going uh huh.
• 26:01
  Uh huh. Uh huh.
• 26:02
  Tell me more. Uh huh.
• 26:05
  And that, yeah, that's annoying as fucking I don't really like.
• 26:08
  It it can be annoying, yes. I will say I do like however,
• 26:12
  that I like the way that Fabula broke it down into very bespoke
• 26:20
  chunks for the world creation stuff and gave you very specific
• 26:24
  questions to ask and said have each player contribute to one of
• 26:31
  these. You know, have each player
• 26:33
  contribute to the question of this chunk.
• 26:36
  So there's like 7 steps to the flow chart.
• 26:39
  Each step you know, every player should contribute, GM included
• 26:42
  obviously. So I do like the way it broke it
• 26:45
  down. What is the IT was major events,
• 26:50
  calamities. So shape of the world map sheet,
• 26:58
  which we skipped that one 'cause I just didn't feel the need to
• 27:01
  do it, really. What is the role of magic and
• 27:04
  technology in your setting? Major kingdoms and nations,
• 27:09
  historical events, enigmas and mysteries, and then terrible
• 27:13
  threats. Those are the seven low chart
• 27:20
  steps. Right.
• 27:23
  It yeah. And I mean really kind of hit
• 27:26
  the nail on the head. Like they, they are the crucial
• 27:28
  things that you as AGM, your world building should think
• 27:32
  about. And the fact that it's written
• 27:34
  out for you and it it's comprehensive and it lets
• 27:36
  players think about it Very good.
• 27:44
  We're going to talk more about this organized.
• 27:46
  Well, no, yes, it's it's organized very well.
• 27:49
  We're going to talk about this later because this is a pro and
• 27:53
  a con, I think, and it has to do with the traits and declared
• 28:01
  like to to, you know, off bat. I really like that in the idea
• 28:06
  of invoking your traits. A lot of games do this, I know,
• 28:08
  but to see it in this game, I you know, I'm just it's just
• 28:10
  another thing that I'm like, yes, this fucks.
• 28:14
  I like that the game expects you to actually go into detail as to
• 28:18
  why your trait matters. You don't just say I'm invoking
• 28:21
  my trait. It's, you know, my character to
• 28:24
  to set the scene a little bit. We were fighting these like
• 28:26
  corrupted wolves. And my character grew up in a
• 28:30
  village with a monastery and a lot of monks traveling to and
• 28:34
  from that monastery. So he learned some sutras,
• 28:38
  especially like specifically ones for, you know, cleansing
• 28:43
  and and removing corruption and, and, you know, all that good
• 28:47
  stuff. So I said, OK, you know, well,
• 28:49
  my character knows these things. And I established that my
• 28:53
  character knows these things because my village, I wrote in
• 28:55
  my like personal character notes that that's the kind of village
• 28:58
  it is. And use that argument to get me
• 29:03
  both the information I needed and allowed me to help with the
• 29:07
  ritual role and the fact that the yeah, the fact that the game
• 29:12
  says like, no, you don't just magically get this.
• 29:14
  Like explain why you get it. Go into detail.
• 29:17
  Yes, I feel like you you skipped over part of the explanation a
• 29:21
  little bit there. What it's talking about is you
• 29:24
  spend a fabulous point to invoke a re roll, but you can't just
• 29:29
  say I would like to spend my point and get a re roll.
• 29:32
  You have to say I'm a I'm spending the point and the the
• 29:35
  re roll is because of this specific trait.
• 29:38
  So Isaiah's character had this background of, you know,
• 29:44
  religious cleansing rituals. So he's saying when he was
• 29:48
  helping with the ritual to cleanse the wolves of the
• 29:51
  corruption, he's like, oh, this trait is relevant to this
• 29:54
  scenario. So I'm invoking this trait to do
• 29:56
  the reroll. Well, more than that.
• 29:59
  So I, I invoked the trait not quite mechanically, but in in
• 30:04
  the sense of of role play to to put forth the idea that it was
• 30:08
  even possible to do that thing, you know, and then.
• 30:13
  Well, yeah, you did before, because I know this.
• 30:15
  Yes, right. That's kind of, I'm saying I, I
• 30:17
  asked you like, oh, my character has this information.
• 30:21
  Would that be broadly applicable here?
• 30:23
  And you being like, well, yes, you, you, you're, you have
• 30:27
  plagues and illnesses in your home that you can use that these
• 30:30
  things work on. So it could.
• 30:35
  But yes, the I mean yes true, but also the mechanic
• 30:40
  specifically is the fabulous reroll thing.
• 30:44
  Yes, and I mean the last thing on the topic of rituals, they're
• 30:54
  really cool. They're really, really cool and.
• 30:57
  They they pretty much worked how we were thinking they would.
• 31:02
  It yeah, it literally just do be the weave magical bullshit
• 31:05
  button yeah and it. Covered It covered quite a few
• 31:08
  bases. Yes, we actually, I didn't
• 31:11
  expect us to use rituals and on to another degree projects
• 31:15
  'cause they're they, they invoke a sort of similar mind space
• 31:17
  mechanically they do. I didn't think we were going to
• 31:21
  use them as much as we did in two sessions and I don't think
• 31:25
  that's going to be a reflection of every session, but.
• 31:30
  I think it will actually. You think so?
• 31:33
  Yes, because I think the thing that Emmanuel did and how much
• 31:40
  of this was 100% intentional and how much of it was sort of just
• 31:46
  a good instinct, I don't know. But none none of the spells in
• 31:52
  the game really do. But I, how should I, how should
• 32:02
  I phrase what I'm trying to say? The, the spells that you get in
• 32:05
  the game and the class abilities that you get in the game are
• 32:11
  sort of tightly focused in what they are capable of doing.
• 32:17
  So in something like D&D you have dispel magic and
• 32:22
  prestidigitation and counter spell and, you know, mold Earth,
• 32:31
  a lot of spells that that cover these weird sort of niche corner
• 32:37
  scenarios because D&D basically says if you don't have a spell
• 32:41
  for it, you can't magically do it.
• 32:44
  So with Fabula, the spells and skill, the spells and character,
• 32:51
  what do they call them? Character skills?
• 32:53
  Yeah, they use the word skills. The spells and character skills
• 32:56
  that you have are pretty, pretty narrow in what they can do on
• 33:04
  their own. So what's going to happen is
• 33:07
  you, you run into, you're going to run into scenarios where your
• 33:14
  spells do not cover and you're basically going to be forced to
• 33:18
  turn to rituals because you're going to want to do something
• 33:21
  that you can't do any other way. Like it's just going to happen
• 33:27
  because your, your, your spell and your spell and skill lists
• 33:30
  are so focused that you're going to be like, well, GM, can I use,
• 33:35
  you know, I'm a, I'm a spiritist or I'm an elementalist.
• 33:38
  Can I walk on water? Like, well, you don't have a
• 33:41
  walk on water spell, but you can do an elementalist ritual to
• 33:45
  make yourself walk on water, You know?
• 33:48
  So I think the the game's almost forcing you to make them happen.
• 33:54
  Almost. True, somewhat subconsciously,
• 33:57
  like you're probably not going to think of it in that way, but
• 34:01
  that's kind of what the game is doing.
• 34:03
  It's looking at you and go well you have to solve a problem, how
• 34:05
  you going to do it? So it's something really funny
• 34:09
  that that Palin and I figured out is that or that he, I guess
• 34:12
  he figured out, he told me is that because he's a tinkerer,
• 34:14
  one of his abilities is that he just gets like 150 zeni to to
• 34:20
  put towards all of his projects. Like he just gets that for free.
• 34:25
  So he effectively can just do minor projects for freebies is a
• 34:30
  minor project is like 100 Zenit. So it just, yes, he gets that
• 34:34
  and then some, which is pretty funny.
• 34:37
  Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
• 34:38
  Oh, this. Oh yeah.
• 34:39
  Visionary. When you work on a project up to
• 34:41
  skill level times 100 Zeni of material costs are automatically
• 34:45
  paid. Additionally, you generate an
• 34:47
  additional skill level progress every day.
• 34:49
  If multiple characters with the skill work on the same project,
• 34:51
  the effect will be cumulative. So yeah, which is it's, it's the
• 34:55
  MacGyver thing, right? You just have stuff on hand.
• 34:59
  Yeah. Which if he took that, probably
• 35:02
  means he's going to be doing more of that horseshit.
• 35:05
  Oh, absolute. Well, that's his whole thing,
• 35:06
  right? He just wants to be the fucking.
• 35:08
  He wants to straight up be blacksmith MacGyver, man.
• 35:10
  So I'm I'm not surprised in the fucking slightest.
• 35:13
  Which means I'm going to have to start dealing with that.
• 35:17
  Correct. Yeah.
• 35:21
  It it do be the the fucking TF2 scout.
• 35:24
  Think fast, chuckle nuts. Right, right.
• 35:26
  I. Think it'll be fine?
• 35:29
  It'll be all right. We're going.
• 35:30
  To find out yes we will. So.
• 35:35
  You have any thoughts about the pros before we switch to the
• 35:37
  cons? Let's see, you said there was a
• 35:45
  you said there was a good, You said good and bad.
• 35:48
  When you're talking about the traits, what was the bad?
• 35:50
  I feel like I missed. Oh yes, so that will be a part
• 35:54
  of the cons. OK.
• 35:57
  Sorry, one last thing for the pros.
• 36:00
  I'm really excited to get into the Arcana stuff.
• 36:02
  We did a little bit of it, done a whole lot of lore stuff on my
• 36:05
  personal Arcana and like her whole deal.
• 36:08
  But I am very excited to get into that conversation because
• 36:10
  I've got a million thoughts. Yeah.
• 36:13
  So pro, pro stuff, I mean, I'm, I'm looking at the pros that you
• 36:23
  put here, specifically practical, theoretical back.
• 36:33
  Oh yeah, yeah. Probably not right this second,
• 36:37
  but something will probably come to me, I think.
• 36:42
  Gotcha. We'll see.
• 36:44
  I mean I guess a a a Pro is combat goes quite smooth.
• 36:50
  Yes, I'm going to talk about that little bit because I have a
• 36:52
  whole section for combat. Understanding of it goes pretty
• 36:55
  quick, yeah. For cons for general gameplay
• 37:01
  now this is probably due to us being at low level and not not
• 37:07
  like insubstantially due to us admittedly having some shit
• 37:11
  roles. But I mean, yes, you guys were
• 37:14
  relatively unlucky last session. I.
• 37:17
  Felt yes we were. But with that in mind I am sort
• 37:22
  of questioning the the math used to to come up with ice checks
• 37:29
  and how to achieve them. And what I mean by that is I I
• 37:37
  personally use the Jack of all traits starter thing as
• 37:41
  described in the. The Jack of all traits.
• 37:44
  The Jack of all traits. The brain Isaiah is saying his
• 37:49
  starting stat layout was D eights across the board.
• 37:53
  Yes, that was yeah. And I felt like I was struggling
• 37:58
  quite a bit to to meet standard DC, which is DC-10, a lot like
• 38:02
  Lancer and. Well, the DC can go up and down
• 38:06
  in this game. It's not fixed like a Lancer.
• 38:08
  Yes, it is in Lancer. It is fixed to 10, but I like it
• 38:16
  presents a question and this this sort of goes into the
• 38:20
  invoking traits thing that I feel like the lack of
• 38:25
  standardized floating modifiers adds a level of swing to the
• 38:31
  game that I and I don't know if it's 100% a good thing.
• 38:36
  Like obviously my, my, I could change my mind if we hit higher
• 38:39
  level and the the stability seems to level out a bit.
• 38:44
  But I can imagine being like level 20 plus and still being
• 38:51
  like, how am I struggling to meet DC-10?
• 38:54
  And maybe that's the point. Maybe the point is that, you
• 38:56
  know, it tries to maintain a level of complexity while
• 39:02
  keeping numbers low. That 100% could be an
• 39:05
  intentional thing, but I still don't know if I like that.
• 39:09
  I feel like on some level I find it a little frustrating.
• 39:14
  Am I making any sense? Feel like I'm not worrying this
• 39:16
  well. Yeah.
• 39:18
  I mean, you're just saying your success rate is lower than you
• 39:20
  want it to be. That's really the crux of it.
• 39:22
  Yes, it does feel a bit low. And yeah, and we did, we did
• 39:27
  look into the math and basically if you're rolling 2D8 and the
• 39:31
  difficulty is 10, you're looking at like AI think it was like a
• 39:36
  45% success. Chance 43.7.
• 39:43
  Where'd you get that number from?
• 39:46
  Just remember, I I I wrote that number down somewhere.
• 39:50
  It's approximately 43% though. OK, well it yeah, it's below
• 39:57
  half. Yes.
• 40:00
  Which is a little on the low side, I will say.
• 40:04
  Oh yeah, 43.75 S yes below half is a little surprisingly low.
• 40:19
  I think part of it is part of it is not having characters, you
• 40:28
  know, avoiding the role to take a piss problem like don't have
• 40:31
  characters role for everything. Also the the floating +2
• 40:38
  modifier I think can get thrown in there.
• 40:41
  Also, I think it's it's partially to encourage fabulous
• 40:45
  point usage and potentially I think it might also be to
• 40:53
  encourage general teamwork and teamwork and clock based stuff.
• 41:02
  Like it almost feels like there's a bit of a deemphasis on
• 41:06
  just a normal run-of-the-mill check covering the problems,
• 41:13
  covering any problem you might run into.
• 41:16
  I'm thinking that's a, that's a theory at the moment.
• 41:20
  I don't, I, I can't back that one up 100%.
• 41:23
  But that's sort of what I'm feeling.
• 41:25
  And I'm also wondering if maybe on my side GM side, I should
• 41:28
  just be lowering the number a little bit more.
• 41:33
  I mean, I, I don't think you should because the game does say
• 41:36
  when in doubt, go with 10, right?
• 41:38
  It when in doubt, go with. 10 but that doesn't mean you can't
• 41:45
  throw out some more sevens. You know, the only reason the
• 41:48
  the main reason I say that is because the descriptor of the
• 41:52
  difficulties themselves is it says 7 is anyone with a bit of
• 41:58
  training or natural talent and then 10 is a competent person or
• 42:01
  a very talented 1. So a very talented 1 is making
• 42:08
  me think like, OK, maybe the intention is don't go, don't
• 42:13
  make everything A10. Like go with A10 if you're
• 42:15
  really unsure. But if not, you know, adjust the
• 42:20
  number. And also maybe just, if a player
• 42:24
  has 2D8 on a check, don't go for it as much, you know, like sort
• 42:31
  of avoid it and give it to somebody else or have someone
• 42:33
  or, or teamwork it. I I feel like the idea is you're
• 42:36
  you lean into the shit you're good at, avoid the shit you're
• 42:41
  not, and try to work together as much as you can Idea on top of
• 42:45
  using fabulous points and stuff to modify because spending
• 42:51
  fabulous points is, you know, a big deal.
• 42:55
  It is well, so to that to that point, it, it gets to a point
• 43:01
  where your character, I feel could feel a little incompetent
• 43:06
  if you have to constantly rely on other players to succeed
• 43:09
  standard roles. You know, like if if your
• 43:13
  character's got like AD six or something, yeah, having a player
• 43:16
  come in and be like, I got you, bud.
• 43:18
  But if D8 is supposed to be the like you're kind of good at
• 43:22
  everything but not great at anything.
• 43:24
  If you do that, then the the feels like the need to have
• 43:28
  someone help you for every check, including stuff you're
• 43:31
  supposed to be good at just feels kind of like demoralizing
• 43:36
  in a way. I.
• 43:36
  Don't think D8 means you're kind of good at everything.
• 43:39
  D8 means you're I think D8 is supposed to be.
• 43:41
  You're passively acceptable at things because the average stat
• 43:45
  layout has AD 10 in there. Should I say think like an
• 43:49
  average character? If using the word average makes
• 43:54
  me think an average character should have AD 10 in there
• 43:57
  somewhere when they're trying to do stuff, you know what I mean?
• 44:03
  Is that the average stat layout? Hold on.
• 44:05
  That's that's the name of the stat layout.
• 44:07
  So the stat layouts are Jack of all trades is D eights across
• 44:10
  the board, average D8D ten 2D eights and AD 6 and then
• 44:15
  specialized is 2 D 10's and 2D sixes.
• 44:22
  So it uses the word average for the stat layout that has the
• 44:24
  1D10 in it. Interesting.
• 44:30
  And if you roll, I mean, I'm actually hold on.
• 44:33
  Let me open the dice calculator up again there because now I'm
• 44:38
  just curious what kind of percentage we're looking at If
• 44:41
  you have Oh, is it not going to let me do multiple kinds of
• 44:45
  dice? Damn it.
• 44:49
  All right, well, I'll scratch that.
• 44:50
  I was going to check the percentages, but I don't think
• 44:51
  it's going to let me. Sadness.
• 44:55
  Well, I mean something that I I so I I some comments slash Emma.
• 45:02
  Please correct me if I'm wrong about this, but I distinctly
• 45:05
  remember Emma saying that the difference between something
• 45:08
  like AD 8 and AD 6 is going to feel negligible.
• 45:14
  And it it like, and I, I get, you know, the idea being like
• 45:17
  one die up or one die down is not going to feel like a massive
• 45:20
  shift. What it kind of does it, it
• 45:27
  feels way more relevant than I feel like I figured it would.
• 45:36
  And for like several things, right?
• 45:39
  To roll a critical success, you need to roll double s on a six
• 45:44
  up. Six up, yeah.
• 45:45
  So AD 6 you're get what you get one shot at that per die,
• 45:51
  whereas with 2D8 you have to potentially get 4-4 or yeah,
• 45:56
  sorry, 33433. Well, yeah, 6786. 783.
• 46:01
  Yeah, that feels a lot more significant to rolling a
• 46:06
  critical success, which will help you succeed on a roll.
• 46:11
  And this goes doubly if you have like, well, so AD 8 to AD 10
• 46:15
  probably won't because while you can hit a higher maximum, your
• 46:18
  chance to crit will remain the same because it has to, right?
• 46:20
  You can't double D 10 unless you hit Level 3 and get one of the
• 46:23
  stat bumps right? But yeah, I, I, I it just feels
• 46:31
  like AD 8 to AD 6 and AD less so for AD 10 to AD 8, but like it
• 46:38
  feels more significant than I feel like I otherwise would have
• 46:40
  expected. Yeah, this is one of those
• 46:46
  things I, I don't know enough about math to really like.
• 46:52
  I don't know. I don't know how to do the
• 46:54
  calculation to figure this shit out.
• 46:55
  So I can't, I can't really argue one way or the other on what it
• 47:00
  is. But I, I get what you're saying.
• 47:02
  It it it is a little weird. It does seem like the number
• 47:05
  averages are lower than I was thinking.
• 47:10
  Yeah, I don't know. I don't really know.
• 47:12
  I'm not 100% sure on what to do with it.
• 47:14
  And the the game doesn't give a ton of information on that.
• 47:17
  It's pretty brief on that particular thing in the GM
• 47:20
  section, so. I brought this up in my notes.
• 47:24
  I wonder what? Right, because this game also
• 47:27
  follows the idea of like, if it makes sense for your character
• 47:30
  to just not have to roll for it, you just don't roll for it, even
• 47:32
  if it might be a little more complicated because you are good
• 47:34
  at that thing. What was the intended ratio of
• 47:39
  auto success based on background versus role to succeed?
• 47:44
  Right, right, right. Like what was the intended ratio
• 47:47
  on that? I I everything we just talked
• 47:51
  about considering dice almost makes me think it's higher than
• 47:54
  I would have expected. What's higher than you would
• 48:00
  have expected? The the the ratio of just
• 48:03
  success based on background because it makes sense in the
• 48:05
  narrative. That'll be happening more than I
• 48:09
  expected. Yeah, I do think that is, yeah,
• 48:12
  I do think that is perhaps part of the intention.
• 48:14
  I think it's only, it's, it's that idea of only make the dice
• 48:18
  hit the table when it matters. And if it matters, it's not
• 48:20
  going to be super easy, right? That idea yes, because if you if
• 48:25
  you have a if you're making a check, that is the situation is
• 48:32
  is is important and you're like, I only have two D8 for this, but
• 48:38
  I really want to succeed. So I'm going to burn the fabula
• 48:40
  points for my bonds and my whole team is going to help me because
• 48:43
  this is really important. That kind of makes sense if
• 48:45
  narratively the moment is important, whereas it does feel
• 48:48
  a little weird if it's just I'm arguing with some guy and then
• 48:53
  I'm burning all this fabulous or whatever to argue with the guy
• 48:55
  yes. So yeah, maybe that is maybe the
• 48:58
  ratio there is a little off and we're perhaps 2D and D brained.
• 49:03
  That's possible. Yeah, I mean, I'm not a percent
• 49:07
  that that isn't the case. The the DND brain runs thick.
• 49:09
  There's time like, Oh yeah, we were talking about it before.
• 49:13
  Like I I just sort of want floating modifiers to your stats
• 49:19
  because it just. It.
• 49:22
  Makes sense, like Lancer kind of does it.
• 49:25
  It plays both games, right? Because you have both a
• 49:28
  floating, a floating modifier in your grit.
• 49:30
  It's just the thing that you always have and then you get to
• 49:34
  add an additional floating modifier for your trigger.
• 49:38
  And because the DC typically doesn't go past 10, it's still
• 49:43
  the idea of, well, your character would have a plus.
• 49:46
  Like I think the highest, I think someone has a + 9 to
• 49:50
  hacking roles. So typically when it comes to
• 49:53
  hacking, I just let her get away with it because she literally
• 49:58
  can only roll A1 to fail and she has the ability that lets her
• 50:01
  reroll. So typically she's not going to
• 50:03
  fail a standard hack. I just kind of let that rock and
• 50:06
  it gives you like a, a, a numeric, like a numeric
• 50:10
  foothold, I guess, or, or reference point that you can put
• 50:14
  to the DC. Whereas using your background is
• 50:18
  good and I like it, but it doesn't provide you concrete
• 50:22
  answers. Maybe that isn't maybe the game
• 50:24
  doesn't want concrete answer or is it what's wants more of a
• 50:26
  conversation? But I think relying too much on
• 50:30
  the conversation could inflate play time and lead to some maybe
• 50:35
  bloated encounters that don't need to be, you know, yeah,
• 50:47
  maybe thought on that. I, I just, I don't, I, I just
• 50:55
  don't, I can't like dice math. Like, I don't know, you know
• 50:59
  what I mean. No, I'm dice math and how to use
• 51:01
  it. Necessarily requires math.
• 51:02
  I think this is just sort of like, I mean yes for for
• 51:05
  definitive answers you need math, but I I think this is just
• 51:07
  a vibes thing. Yeah, I mean, I think the the
• 51:13
  overall, I'm really trying to find a fucking dice calculator,
• 51:16
  by the way, that I can. It shows you percentages but up
• 51:21
  to the one we used yesterday. It wasn't letting me use two
• 51:25
  different kinds of I'm trying to find one that's doing what I
• 51:27
  want that doesn't require me to have a fucking math degree to
• 51:29
  use. So like I'm getting confused as
• 51:32
  you're talking anyway. Like yes, I overall, yeah,
• 51:40
  averages are yeah. Like the average numbers are
• 51:46
  perhaps a little lower than I was expecting or the the roll
• 51:48
  totals are a little lower, little lower than I was
• 51:51
  expecting, yes. That's like, that's like all I
• 52:00
  can like I have. I can't really add to anything
• 52:02
  else. Do you know?
• 52:04
  Right. I mean, that's, that's pretty
• 52:06
  much all I got for the cons for our for the general thoughts.
• 52:10
  Moving on to the combat pros. Combat has a bit of nuance to
• 52:17
  it. Like it, there's a learning
• 52:19
  curve to the general flow of combat, but once you get the
• 52:23
  hang of it, that shit is snappy. Like, we were in a fight with
• 52:27
  eight total turns on the initiative tracker and a round
• 52:30
  took like 5 minutes tops. Yeah, rounds generally pretty
• 52:36
  fast and Lancer rounds do not typically take 5 minutes.
• 52:41
  Yeah. Well, I think with. 5 minutes is
• 52:43
  just trying to get the party to to understand what's going on on
• 52:46
  the battle map kind of thing. Right.
• 52:50
  I think in particular with Lancer too, or with D and DI
• 52:54
  should say I can't speak on Lancer.
• 52:58
  I don't know why it said Lancer There a lot of the time between
• 53:06
  rounds is I I think a big thing that slows 5E down is all right,
• 53:11
  hold on, I need to fucking close this calculator 'cause I'm like
• 53:14
  I'm losing my mind here I'm trying to do too many things at
• 53:17
  once. I.
• 53:18
  Think you should mute it yourself?
• 53:22
  What the fuck? Oh OK, well for audience you're
• 53:25
  going to hear me yapping. I I somehow did just mute myself
• 53:28
  by accent. Not sure what I did there, what
• 53:32
  I was. I said I was.
• 53:32
  I need to close this fucking calculator I'm looking at
• 53:35
  because now I'm losing my mind. Fucking train of thought.
• 53:41
  Oh, part of what I think. What slows 5E down in particular
• 53:46
  is the making sure that you've maximal maxim Max.
• 53:50
  What the hell was I just trying to say?
• 53:52
  Maximized maximize the use. That's not a good way to say
• 53:56
  that. Making sure you fully used your
• 53:59
  turn and everything you could potentially do.
• 54:02
  Because DND has action, bonus action, move, and reactions,
• 54:09
  you're often in a turn trying to focus on or worry about did I
• 54:17
  use everything in my turn that I could possibly use?
• 54:20
  So a lot of the slowdown in D&D becomes, OK, I did my action,
• 54:24
  let me double check to see if there's any bonus actions I can
• 54:26
  do. OK, I can't.
• 54:27
  No, can't do that. One can't do that.
• 54:28
  One can't do. OK, OK, bonus action done.
• 54:31
  Is there anywhere I could move that would be beneficial?
• 54:33
  OK, looking around. No.
• 54:35
  OK, my position's probably fine. Is there someone that I can, is
• 54:39
  there somewhere I can position myself or something I can do to
• 54:42
  make it so I can get a reaction on the next turn of somebody
• 54:45
  else? Yes, I can move my character
• 54:48
  here and then this character will move and then that'll proc
• 54:50
  a reaction thing I could do OK, now I've used my entire turn.
• 54:53
  A lot of 5 E comes down to that. Whereas fabulous you, you throw
• 54:59
  out the movement component completely.
• 55:01
  So obviously that's going to speed things up.
• 55:02
  And there's no such thing as a bonus action.
• 55:04
  You just you have your action for the turn you do your action.
• 55:08
  Now, some people might say, doesn't that mean that the
• 55:11
  actions are really limited? Like action economy wise?
• 55:15
  Sometimes, yes, there will be some turns where you do one big
• 55:18
  thing and that's kind of it. But a lot of abilities will have
• 55:22
  riders or other things that you can do after them or in the next
• 55:27
  round in the next turn. So you'll have an ability where
• 55:31
  it's like you do XY or Z thing and then you get a free follow
• 55:34
  up attack and that'll just be part of the action or you'll do
• 55:40
  something on the first turn. A good example is our our our
• 55:44
  Flora's character has an ability where she plants this flower,
• 55:47
  this Lily, and the Lily can purge status effects.
• 55:51
  The first turn she plants the flower, that's all she can do.
• 55:55
  The second turn, the Lily now does passive healing so she can
• 56:01
  do something else in that subsequent turn.
• 56:03
  And the Lily does a benefit on top of that at the end of her
• 56:06
  turn. So it's like a little bit of set
• 56:08
  up and then a pay off of more stuff to do later down the road.
• 56:11
  So there's a lot of that in a in a way, it's kind of doing
• 56:16
  fabulous kind of does bonus actions, the way that I think 5E
• 56:21
  originally intended for bonus actions to work in that they are
• 56:27
  bonus, they are extra, you're not always trying to fish for
• 56:32
  them. They come up in certain
• 56:34
  scenarios. I think Fabula actually achieved
• 56:37
  that by not giving you a bonus action mechanically, but having
• 56:43
  abilities that essentially have bonus action riders.
• 56:47
  So you're only fishing for a bonus action when you know it's
• 56:50
  going to be relevant. So that greatly speeds up your
• 56:52
  turn. And you know, if you're just
• 56:54
  doing a basic attack, you probably won't have a bonus
• 56:56
  action rider. And if you do have bonus action
• 56:58
  riders on your basic attack, you probably know they're there
• 57:01
  because you do them all the time.
• 57:04
  Yeah. I mean all that, all that long
• 57:06
  windedness to say, yes, it it has snappy things up a lot by
• 57:11
  making it clear you could do X and you could do Y.
• 57:15
  Yeah, I mean, to that end, I'm, you know, basically what we were
• 57:19
  saying in the The last Atlas, the the expanded Atlas classes
• 57:23
  are sort of just brilliantly built.
• 57:27
  And because those riders being a perfect example to the point
• 57:29
  that I'm kind of jealous because I'm using primarily like or rule
• 57:32
  book classes, which feel very simple in comparison.
• 57:38
  I mean, I guess, I guess kind of a con, like up front, I almost
• 57:42
  want more of that D&D nists back in the game.
• 57:45
  Like only having one action at the moment is driving me a
• 57:52
  little crazy because I go wait, but I can only do one thing.
• 57:54
  Like like I want to do more than just a thing.
• 57:57
  That's kind of why I focus so hard on the like figuring out
• 58:00
  how to get to weapon fighting because I was like, I like one
• 58:04
  thing is not enough things. I need more things.
• 58:05
  There's more things I want to do.
• 58:13
  I, I mean, yeah, I think there are, I think that's going to
• 58:22
  come down to a build thing in how you set yourself up.
• 58:26
  You currently only kind of, well, you, although you kind of
• 58:29
  also don't have one thing because if you think about it,
• 58:31
  you have, you have a transforming weapon.
• 58:34
  So you could potentially attack transform, swap to your weapon
• 58:38
  that has quick, and then get 2 attacks the next turn which
• 58:41
  which depending on what abilities you have might matter.
• 58:46
  Or if you summon your arcana, you could potentially use your
• 58:49
  pulse or your dismiss, both of which are an additional thing
• 58:52
  that you can slap on. So it sort of depends on the
• 58:54
  situation. You're not always limited to one
• 58:56
  thing, yes, you know what I mean?
• 59:00
  So. To that point, like the arcana
• 59:02
  things you can only do like because you only have one
• 59:05
  action, you can only do one of those things.
• 59:08
  And the pulse just for the arcana I picked is kind of
• 59:13
  simple. And yeah it's not bad but I
• 59:18
  don't know 100% how it scales with the stuff I have.
• 59:22
  Like if I had a weapon that did multi it says one attack, so
• 59:27
  does that attack affect two things?
• 59:29
  And from 2 weapon fighting does the does the pulse affect that
• 59:32
  in the same way? Because technically weapon
• 59:36
  fighting is still 1 action. Like 2 weapon fighting is 2
• 59:40
  attack rolls. But still 1 action because it
• 59:45
  says you can use a free action to take an attack.
• 59:48
  Yeah, still 1 action. Yeah.
• 59:50
  So like it, it's, there are questions I have, I feel like if
• 59:53
  these are clarified, it might open up some possibilities for
• 59:56
  me. But I feel like I am running
• 59:57
  into the, I don't know how much stuff is like is good enough to
• 1:00:06
  justify the whole action being put towards it, you know?
• 1:00:10
  I mean, here's the thing for your SO for example, if you have
• 1:00:14
  your quick weapon out and you have your arcana summoned, you
• 1:00:18
  get you have three attacks. Right.
• 1:00:23
  I don't though that's that's kind of what I mean is no, you
• 1:00:25
  do takes an action to give you a free action.
• 1:00:32
  So you well. I probably shouldn't be trying
• 1:00:36
  to do this. So when you perform your farm
• 1:00:39
  free detected OK, I got to double check the wording on the
• 1:00:42
  pulse now pulse in addition game pulse all your merged pulse
• 1:00:52
  effect may only dose who doing it.
• 1:00:53
  OK, yeah OK, so yeah, it's one it's a free attack.
• 1:00:59
  I you do you would still get your two weapon fighting though
• 1:01:08
  for that particular. That does make it a bit better
• 1:01:11
  and it it helps me because I was, you know, one of the things
• 1:01:13
  I was really thinking about is should I do the magic defense
• 1:01:15
  thing with? So if I if I did the dismiss
• 1:01:20
  that technically is the reactions, but that's like a one
• 1:01:24
  yes, at the moment at least that's a once a combat thing,
• 1:01:26
  because it's 40 mind points to even summon the arcana and then
• 1:01:31
  you dismiss it because the. Point I'm saying is.
• 1:01:34
  It drop it. The point I'm saying is your
• 1:01:37
  current set up for your particular character.
• 1:01:39
  Yes, you are slightly limited in how much stuff you're throwing
• 1:01:44
  out in turn just because of how you are currently set up, but it
• 1:01:48
  doesn't necessarily have to be that way.
• 1:01:50
  And also, even if it does, I still stand by.
• 1:01:53
  I'd rather have it the way it is with Fabula where everyone is
• 1:01:57
  not trying because the thing that annoys me in five years is
• 1:01:59
  just everyone's just, you're always fishing for the bonus
• 1:02:04
  action, right? You're always looking for it.
• 1:02:06
  You're always trying to be like, can I do I have a bonus action
• 1:02:09
  here? And then if you play a class
• 1:02:11
  like a wizard or a sorcerer, which generally don't tend to
• 1:02:15
  have a lot of bonus action options, you will sometimes feel
• 1:02:19
  shitty because you go, OK, I did my thing.
• 1:02:23
  I don't have a bonus action Now you feel like you have
• 1:02:26
  underutilized your turn, right? Like I remember playing a
• 1:02:31
  sorcerer in 5 E when we were playing when Sam was GM and for
• 1:02:37
  Magic Goon Academia. And I was annoyed because
• 1:02:39
  there'd be a lot of turns I'd be like, I still didn't I, I didn't
• 1:02:42
  use my bonus action. And then I started fishing
• 1:02:45
  around on my character and being like, OK, what could I add to my
• 1:02:48
  character to make sure I'm always using my bonus action?
• 1:02:51
  Because if you don't, it feels like a waste, which I don't
• 1:02:54
  think is the intended effect of bonus actions, right?
• 1:02:56
  I don't think they wanted you to feel that way, but that's how it
• 1:02:59
  feels the way, at least the way 5 E is.
• 1:03:01
  Now, right? Well, so you know what it is
• 1:03:04
  too. It's funny for me, it's not even
• 1:03:05
  5 E it's it's, it's fucking Lancer again.
• 1:03:08
  Because with Lancer you get your two quick actions which you
• 1:03:10
  confuse to do a big action with your with a full action.
• 1:03:14
  And then you get all the Lancer and Lancer has a whole action.
• 1:03:19
  Lancer has a whole action juggling system.
• 1:03:22
  Yes, and. I, I really like that style of
• 1:03:25
  gameplay. Like I like being fight, but
• 1:03:29
  you're talking about the speediness of combat.
• 1:03:31
  You're going to lose that if you take the Lancers.
• 1:03:33
  I know, I know, I know you are, I know you are.
• 1:03:35
  That's kind of why I like, I, the con is sort of out of order
• 1:03:38
  'cause I like that a little bit, but I do like the, the, the
• 1:03:42
  speediness of the, the rounds. Honestly it's really funny to to
• 1:03:46
  the initial point, the rounds went by so quickly while we were
• 1:03:50
  doing the combat but I constantly kept not knowing when
• 1:03:56
  my turn was. You kind of forgot.
• 1:03:59
  You're like, oh, it's my turn. Yeah, well, 'cause I was like
• 1:04:02
  wait, it's my turn and then someone would be like no, well
• 1:04:04
  technically Francis has to go. And I was like oh wait.
• 1:04:08
  But that means that still means 3 characters went yes in 3
• 1:04:13
  minutes. So like I kept just, I felt bad
• 1:04:15
  excited. I, I don't, I don't, I, I said
• 1:04:17
  her name. I didn't want Serath to think
• 1:04:20
  that I was trying to take her turn constantly.
• 1:04:22
  I just genuinely kept losing track of the turn order 'cause
• 1:04:24
  it was moving way. Yeah, you lost track.
• 1:04:26
  I, I, I will say I I lost track a little bit of the turn order
• 1:04:30
  sometimes too, which is kind of funny.
• 1:04:34
  It almost goes too fast sometimes.
• 1:04:38
  Yeah, it feels like it, doesn't it?
• 1:04:41
  A little bit, a little bit, Yeah.
• 1:04:42
  There's an element of that, yeah.
• 1:04:45
  And I, I think I get like, because I me coming off the
• 1:04:48
  heels of 5 E and now running Lancer for a year and a half,
• 1:04:52
  rounds for me take upwards of 45 minutes.
• 1:04:55
  Like, right, right. So yeah, you, when you blink and
• 1:05:00
  that shit is over, you're like, what year is it?
• 1:05:05
  You look like fucking Tom Hanks at the halfway through.
• 1:05:08
  Cast away. Never seen that movie right?
• 1:05:14
  You've never seen Castaway? No.
• 1:05:18
  It's a, it's a good movie. Like I, I always, I, I, I feel
• 1:05:22
  bad for saying this, but I always laugh when he loses the
• 1:05:24
  volleyball when he gets off the island because it's just sort of
• 1:05:28
  an inherently goofy thing that he's like completely
• 1:05:31
  anthropomorphized this volleyball.
• 1:05:34
  But when you're not an asshole about it, No, it is actually
• 1:05:37
  quite sad, Right? Yeah, it's a it's no, it's a
• 1:05:44
  great film. I I would say if you get a
• 1:05:46
  chance, you should pick it up. It's it's solid anyway.
• 1:05:50
  Let's see. Next point it's actually really
• 1:05:56
  interesting and quite fun to jump back into narrative 1st
• 1:05:59
  combat as a player. We, we talked about this a
• 1:06:03
  couple weeks ago. Lancer has narrative 1st combat,
• 1:06:06
  but I think I have a hard time portraying it as AGM.
• 1:06:11
  And to that point, my players have a hard time figuring it out
• 1:06:14
  as players. Whereas I as AGM know what I as
• 1:06:19
  a player would do, and I'm creating some Ludo narrative
• 1:06:22
  disco biscuits around that. Whereas I as the player, knowing
• 1:06:27
  you as the GM running narrative 1st combat, I can sort of just
• 1:06:30
  weave it the way I expect it to work.
• 1:06:32
  You know what I mean? And fabulous, we're going to
• 1:06:35
  talk about this later, but to be like, I just jump in front of
• 1:06:38
  attack for a player, I'm just going to cut the initiative
• 1:06:40
  order real quick to like take a hit for a homie.
• 1:06:46
  So this is going to feel, I don't mean this to undercut your
• 1:06:52
  statement, but I actually wouldn't say Fabula is in there
• 1:06:57
  is a fiction 1st combat system you.
• 1:07:00
  Don't think so. No, what it is because you are
• 1:07:06
  still mechanically choosing from an action list and deciding an
• 1:07:10
  action, right? You're still doing mechanic
• 1:07:13
  fiction, mechanical resolution. At the end of the day, you're
• 1:07:17
  saying I'm making the attack and then you roll your check and
• 1:07:21
  then mechanical resolution. Or sorry, you say I'm making my
• 1:07:26
  attack roll, I'm deciding the attack action, I'm making my
• 1:07:28
  attack roll, fictional descriptor of attack and then
• 1:07:31
  mechanical resolution. But the difference is that
• 1:07:38
  Fabula encourages the mechanical stuff to be much more open-ended
• 1:07:47
  than something like 5 E. So it's sort of feels like it's
• 1:07:50
  fictional. It sort of feels like it's
• 1:07:53
  fiction first, but it's it's almost a little bit of a trick
• 1:08:00
  because even if you say, all right, on my turn, I'm just
• 1:08:04
  going to try and do XY and Z random thing to give us a
• 1:08:08
  fictional advantage of some kind.
• 1:08:10
  Like I'm going to tackle the guard to the ground so that the
• 1:08:15
  other player can try and take his sword out of his hand.
• 1:08:19
  That might feel like you're doing a fiction first thing, but
• 1:08:21
  really in the perspective of the game, you're making an objective
• 1:08:24
  action, right? Like it has a, it has a a action
• 1:08:29
  type to cover that kind of idea. So it's the mechanical emphasis
• 1:08:36
  is still there, but it's obfuscated.
• 1:08:40
  That makes sense. Yeah, I think I see what you're
• 1:08:44
  saying. And then the The thing is, is
• 1:08:47
  that layer of obfuscation makes it feel more free form, which I
• 1:08:54
  think just generally feels better as a player.
• 1:08:58
  You know what I'm saying? Get what I mean?
• 1:09:00
  Yeah, no, I can see what you're saying there.
• 1:09:02
  And also when you run into problems, the GM might say the
• 1:09:09
  enemy is up on a ledge so you can't, that you can't reach,
• 1:09:15
  there's no obvious way to get to it, so you have to overcome that
• 1:09:19
  problem. That is now a puzzle that's
• 1:09:22
  occurring in the conflict. Whereas in something like 5 E,
• 1:09:27
  the enemy is 60 feet up the wall.
• 1:09:29
  The player goes, OK, do I have enough movement to get to the
• 1:09:31
  wall and then climb the wall, or can I teleport up the wall?
• 1:09:34
  And you're calculating distances and checking spells and
• 1:09:37
  movement, you know, movement options and all that stuff.
• 1:09:40
  So it doesn't feel very free form.
• 1:09:44
  At the end of the day, you're resolving both of them with a
• 1:09:46
  mechanical backing, but one adds this layer of obfuscation so
• 1:09:50
  that it doesn't feel as crunchy as mechanical.
• 1:09:53
  So it feels a little more satisfying to describe and
• 1:09:56
  explain how you're overcoming the situation or overcoming
• 1:10:00
  essentially the puzzle, right? Fabula treats a problem like
• 1:10:03
  distance or elevation or cover. All of those things are puzzles
• 1:10:09
  to solve, not mechanical issues to overcome with math.
• 1:10:17
  Interesting. OK.
• 1:10:21
  Because if you think about it, right, Fabula has no mechanic.
• 1:10:24
  There is no rule in that game that says, oh, if the enemy is
• 1:10:27
  behind cover, their defense goes up by two, right?
• 1:10:30
  That there's no rule for that. But instead, if an enemy is
• 1:10:34
  behind cover, the GM might say, player you.
• 1:10:39
  If you want to get to them, you have to overcome that cover
• 1:10:42
  somehow. And the player has lots of
• 1:10:46
  options. Would it be fair to say that it
• 1:10:50
  is more fiction first than 5 E or than a typical combat system?
• 1:10:56
  Because it does allow for, you know, it's saying I want to do a
• 1:11:00
  thing and then when I succeed the check, that thing is
• 1:11:02
  accomplished to be an objective action or attack action, right?
• 1:11:05
  It's it's not, Oh well, you are still attacking the end of the
• 1:11:08
  day. You can't.
• 1:11:10
  It's not like 5 E where it's like, OK, I, I I want to push
• 1:11:13
  that guy down the floor to go, OK, make a shove action, then
• 1:11:15
  you go, OK, so I, I rolled, I succeed on my shove.
• 1:11:18
  OK, now they're gonna make a, a save.
• 1:11:20
  OK, they made the save, right? Right.
• 1:11:24
  So it's there's I don't I don't know how to explain.
• 1:11:31
  I know I I get it from a game design standpoint, but I I'm
• 1:11:36
  having a hard time explaining it's it's in a fabulous existing
• 1:11:40
  kind of a little bit of an interesting minutia.
• 1:11:43
  So you're right in that it is it is prioritizing the fiction
• 1:11:50
  more, but I still wouldn't say it's prioritizing the fiction
• 1:11:55
  first and foremost. Whereas if you're playing
• 1:12:00
  Apocalypse World, that prioritizes the fiction first
• 1:12:03
  and foremost. Fabula and then D&D is
• 1:12:08
  prioritizing the mechanics first and foremost.
• 1:12:10
  Fabulous sits between them in that it's kind of, I guess I
• 1:12:15
  could say it's almost prioritizing them in parallel is
• 1:12:21
  maybe the best way I could think of putting it at the moment.
• 1:12:24
  This feels like the kind of thing that I could come up with
• 1:12:26
  a better explanation of if I sat and thought about it for a
• 1:12:28
  little while. But yeah, right.
• 1:12:34
  But yeah, you're right. Cause 'cause the, the thing
• 1:12:37
  that's funny about it is 5 E technically the idea of fabulous
• 1:12:47
  objective action sort of does exist in 5 E, right?
• 1:12:51
  You can say I'm making a check to try and do XY or Z thing that
• 1:12:55
  that is a thing that is a thing covered by the rules in 5 E but
• 1:13:00
  it's so it's so neglected as a rule.
• 1:13:06
  It's so deprioritized, like it's not that important, that you
• 1:13:12
  either forget that it's a thing or you use it so rarely that it
• 1:13:18
  doesn't feel particularly relevant.
• 1:13:20
  Because you're right. The shove action thing I would
• 1:13:25
  like to shove. Like if you're AGM who hasn't
• 1:13:32
  run 5 EA lot and the player says I would like to shove the enemy,
• 1:13:35
  you as AGM might say OK make an athletics check and then the
• 1:13:38
  enemy will make an opposed check and if you succeed the enemy is
• 1:13:42
  shoved over. That's not actually how that
• 1:13:45
  rule works. There is a shove action that
• 1:13:47
  requires a specific role and a specific reaction to the role.
• 1:13:51
  But if you're a new GM, you might not know that Fabula is
• 1:13:55
  essentially taking that new GM assumption and saying no, that
• 1:14:00
  just is the rule. So it's this weird.
• 1:14:05
  Yeah, it's kind of a, it's like a funny middle ground.
• 1:14:08
  But I think the the thing that's most interesting is that
• 1:14:12
  Effectively Fabulous achieved what it was trying to achieve
• 1:14:16
  because you as a player feel like it's fiction 1st combat,
• 1:14:21
  which I think was the goal, even though under the hood it's kind
• 1:14:25
  of not. So it's mission accomplished
• 1:14:28
  because it feels like fiction 1st combat but has the
• 1:14:32
  mechanical backing. Yeah, that makes sense.
• 1:14:35
  I think it's, yeah. I mean, I think it's a fair
• 1:14:36
  middle ground to hit. Yeah, it's a, it's a very, it's
• 1:14:39
  kind of an interesting middle ground.
• 1:14:40
  I don't know if there's AI have to think about it, but I'm off
• 1:14:44
  the top of my head right now, I can't think of another game
• 1:14:46
  that's quite hit the middle ground in that same way, which
• 1:14:49
  is interesting. But yeah.
• 1:14:54
  I don't think I Yeah, no. Not at the moment, yeah.
• 1:15:01
  But it is it it it does also speak to the the strength of the
• 1:15:05
  general design that you're like, oh, I'm really happy to be doing
• 1:15:09
  a fiction based, you know, a fiction 1st combat system in
• 1:15:12
  that the under the hood felt so smooth that you didn't even
• 1:15:15
  really notice it. And yeah, I will say, and from
• 1:15:21
  my standpoint, I like it because it means I can do, I can do the
• 1:15:29
  crunchy mechanical thing with Fabula when I want to, right?
• 1:15:32
  I can have an enemy that debuffs a specific stat and opens your
• 1:15:37
  character up to more damage, like I did.
• 1:15:39
  But I can also make it so that if the enemy is under a certain
• 1:15:45
  fictional situation, they're buffed or debuffed, right?
• 1:15:49
  Like you guys took the corrupted wolves away from their home that
• 1:15:53
  debuffed them. But then I also can do the
• 1:15:59
  crunchy thing of they have a spell that combos with one of
• 1:16:03
  their attacks. You know, it's like it's, it's
• 1:16:05
  cool because I can do both. I can operate in both spaces and
• 1:16:08
  kind of wiggle back and forth between them.
• 1:16:12
  Right, right. I don't even know if that's 100%
• 1:16:16
  was intended or a happy accident or what, but that's how it
• 1:16:19
  feels. And I honestly think a big one
• 1:16:24
  of the biggest reasons, and I know this is going to sound kind
• 1:16:27
  of funny, I think a big reason for that feeling of the free
• 1:16:31
  flowing this is the lack of giving a shit about distance and
• 1:16:39
  and movement. No, that's, that's because,
• 1:16:42
  yeah, no, because if you don't have to worry about the crunch
• 1:16:45
  of how far away you are, where you are, you just sort of assume
• 1:16:50
  that because you're in close quarters combat, it is doable
• 1:16:54
  kind of intrinsically that it works.
• 1:16:56
  Yeah, that's totally. Fair.
• 1:16:57
  And it it lets you it lets you prioritize the narrative because
• 1:17:03
  The thing is right. Fabulous pulling from video
• 1:17:06
  games, specifically turn based JRPGS.
• 1:17:10
  And in a turn based JRPG, you have the cut scene where, I
• 1:17:17
  mean, I don't know, minor Final Fantasy 10 spoilers I guess, but
• 1:17:22
  actually I'll use the beginning of 10 so it's not big spoiler.
• 1:17:24
  You have the cut scene where Titus and Oren are on the bridge
• 1:17:27
  and all of the weird sin spawn land on the bridge and kind of
• 1:17:30
  surround them, right? And I don't know if you
• 1:17:32
  remember, but in that tutorial section, there's parts where
• 1:17:34
  Oren and Titus are like back-to-back with each other and
• 1:17:37
  they're fighting because they're surrounded.
• 1:17:40
  Visually, cinematically, it's like, oh, they're surrounded and
• 1:17:43
  fighting back-to-back on the bridge.
• 1:17:45
  Mechanically, it doesn't fucking matter.
• 1:17:46
  It's exactly the same as every other fight in the game.
• 1:17:48
  You pick your target and hit your target, right?
• 1:17:51
  Because the game doesn't actually give a shit about the
• 1:17:53
  distances or you know, how far or who's positioned where.
• 1:17:59
  The video game only cares of like hit chance.
• 1:18:01
  Can you hit? Do they have a buffer, A debuff,
• 1:18:03
  all that stuff? That's what Fabula is emulating.
• 1:18:06
  It's emulating that moment, right?
• 1:18:08
  Fictionally, you guys were fighting the wolves, you all had
• 1:18:11
  your backs to this bonfire and you were kind of semi circling
• 1:18:14
  around the wolves to make it so that the wolves couldn't hit you
• 1:18:18
  as easily. Mechanically, it doesn't fucking
• 1:18:21
  matter, right? They had a, they had a
• 1:18:24
  mechanically they had a debuff. Their exact position, relatives
• 1:18:27
  to the bonfire doesn't really matter.
• 1:18:29
  We just know that they are in that general area so that it's
• 1:18:35
  mimicking that vibe quite successfully.
• 1:18:38
  Final Fantasy 13 did this a lot too, where the characters, if
• 1:18:42
  you watch someone play that game, the characters kind of
• 1:18:44
  move around the battlefield somewhat free formally and will
• 1:18:49
  reposition themselves, but it doesn't actually affect
• 1:18:52
  anything. It's like a visual cinematic.
• 1:18:53
  Cue. The new Yakuza games.
• 1:18:56
  Yakuza like a dragon. Yakuza 7 and 8 do the exact same
• 1:18:59
  thing. The characters like walk and
• 1:19:02
  move around like a designated area and kind of circle each
• 1:19:06
  other and shit. But again, mechanically, you're
• 1:19:08
  still making like you're declaring an attack and making
• 1:19:11
  an attack check against a defense stat and all that shit.
• 1:19:15
  So I really think the taking out the the giving a shit about
• 1:19:17
  movement is a huge part of what makes that vibe.
• 1:19:20
  And if you imagine in a video game, there's an enemy up on a
• 1:19:23
  ledge, right? You're playing Final Fantasy 10
• 1:19:26
  and there's an enemy up on the ledge and you try to attack the
• 1:19:30
  enemy and Titus goes, I can't hit them, they're too far away.
• 1:19:33
  And the Walker goes, oh, I can do it.
• 1:19:35
  And then you throw the blitz ball on the dude on the ledge
• 1:19:39
  under the hood. That is just a check for a
• 1:19:42
  specific status, which is, do you have a range weapon or not?
• 1:19:46
  But cinematically, fictionally, it feels like the characters are
• 1:19:51
  doing their own cool little thing like, oh, I'm good at this
• 1:19:53
  and you're good at that. And again, it's just, it's
• 1:19:56
  fabulous emulating. Basically what I'm saying is
• 1:19:59
  they did a really good job getting the vibe of the video
• 1:20:01
  games. They were trying to get the
• 1:20:02
  vibe. Of no they did 100% yeah I.
• 1:20:05
  That's really what we're looking at.
• 1:20:07
  This, this really do be the the the Emma Glaze Hour, doesn't it?
• 1:20:10
  Like. A little bit.
• 1:20:13
  Congrats my dude, you nailed it. I mean, I, I do, I mean, listen,
• 1:20:17
  I have some little complaints or I think a lot of my complaints
• 1:20:20
  on Fabula, as as was shown by our fucking 15 minutes talking
• 1:20:25
  about dice, a lot of my complaints are very around the
• 1:20:28
  edges, right? Like, oh, a little, a little
• 1:20:32
  niggle, a little something here, a little, oh, that's a little
• 1:20:34
  annoying. You know, like that kind of
• 1:20:35
  thing. The core very few complaints.
• 1:20:41
  Yeah, I mean, and I think, and this is not like cover your ass
• 1:20:45
  no jutsu, but I I do think it is absolutely worth saying that if
• 1:20:49
  you like a thing and have no critiques for that thing, that
• 1:20:53
  means you did not critically take that thing in in any
• 1:20:57
  meaningful way. Yeah, you aren't really.
• 1:20:58
  Yeah, you aren't really absorbing.
• 1:20:59
  It the fact that I have a half a page of good things to say and a
• 1:21:04
  half a page of things to say like, well, I like that, but I
• 1:21:07
  didn't like this. Yeah, Josh doesn't notice it,
• 1:21:11
  but I I've like like mentally taking notes the entire time we
• 1:21:14
  were having session because I was like, oh, that's really
• 1:21:15
  cool. I like this a lot.
• 1:21:16
  Oh, but I kind of wish this was a little different.
• 1:21:19
  I think I was having what 7 episodes of tells you how much
• 1:21:23
  we like this game. But with that there has to be
• 1:21:26
  some level of creative disagreement if that makes
• 1:21:31
  sense. As as you know and to.
• 1:21:33
  Give. On some level, game designers
• 1:21:36
  and. Right.
• 1:21:39
  And to give a a little just explain what I mean about I have
• 1:21:44
  some frustration around the edges.
• 1:21:47
  There are core intrinsic mechanics in 5 E that I actively
• 1:21:53
  am annoyed by and dislike that are like cruxes of the game.
• 1:21:59
  That is not really the case with this game.
• 1:22:01
  Now granted, we could get to a point where we use a particular
• 1:22:06
  mechanic over and over again and then the cracks form and I go
• 1:22:09
  OK, I don't really like this one.
• 1:22:11
  I don't. I think that's pretty unlikely
• 1:22:14
  though given what I've read and looked at, I don't think I'll
• 1:22:18
  have that problem. I could have, if we do have
• 1:22:21
  that, I so I thought about this. If we do have that problem, I
• 1:22:26
  think it will be in regards to fishing for the +2 for traits,
• 1:22:34
  maybe a little bit. I think that's where it'll come
• 1:22:36
  in because not that I get annoyed by this, but this is a
• 1:22:40
  thing in Lancer where I have to ask my players as the GM, right?
• 1:22:48
  When they make a roll, I say, roll me a skill check with any
• 1:22:50
  relevant triggers. And then we have to do that
• 1:22:53
  thing of, well, does that work here?
• 1:22:54
  Well, does that work here? And that's every single time
• 1:22:57
  they roll a skill check. That is the question I have to
• 1:22:59
  ask them, right? And it I wouldn't go as far as
• 1:23:03
  say it's annoying at this point, but it is unfair of me to expect
• 1:23:08
  that my players know what I'm thinking and how I think their
• 1:23:11
  skills will work. So we have to have that
• 1:23:12
  conversation. It just doesn't work otherwise.
• 1:23:15
  And it might, it might enter a same mind space where I'm kind
• 1:23:17
  of just like, I just kind of wish I had a + 2, you know?
• 1:23:22
  Yeah. But yeah, I think that's the
• 1:23:26
  only thing I can foresee in the immediate future that will be
• 1:23:29
  frustrating is the like. Perhaps.
• 1:23:32
  How much are we supposed to be asking for that +2 for our
• 1:23:34
  trade? See where we?
• 1:23:38
  Oh, to counter my own point about not having enough stuff to
• 1:23:42
  do on one turn. To argue with myself.
• 1:23:45
  To argue with myself. Literally.
• 1:23:46
  Evil Kermit to evil Kermit. I must begrudgingly.
• 1:23:52
  Except that the single action system effectively eliminates
• 1:23:56
  analysis paralysis. Yes, Right.
• 1:23:59
  You don't like what? It's literally what Josh said.
• 1:24:00
  You don't have to worry about maximizing your turn.
• 1:24:02
  You go, OK, well, what do we need this turn?
• 1:24:06
  Well, we need, you know, our tank needs to heal.
• 1:24:09
  OK, so I, as the support, will not use one of my abilities and
• 1:24:12
  will use my inventory points to heal a teammate.
• 1:24:16
  That's it. That's all you got to worry
• 1:24:17
  about. Yeah, it it that's, yeah, it
• 1:24:19
  goes back it that whole point of you don't have to worry about
• 1:24:24
  maximizing a bonus action and a movement and everything.
• 1:24:26
  So you can make a decision relatively snappily.
• 1:24:33
  And yeah, that that all just feeds back into that greater
• 1:24:37
  combat speed and stuff, which it which it again emulates a video
• 1:24:43
  game. Yes.
• 1:24:46
  Right. In a, in a JRPG, if you're in a
• 1:24:48
  boss fight, even a particularly long boss fight in a JRPG is
• 1:24:53
  probably what, 15 to 30 minutes? And 30 minutes would be pretty
• 1:24:59
  long for a boss fight, you know? About, yeah.
• 1:25:02
  Whereas AAD and D combat session that goes 3 hours is like pretty
• 1:25:07
  normal. Oh yeah, wait, wait, we cleared
• 1:25:10
  that combat in like less than a session.
• 1:25:12
  Shit guys, we were fucking firing all cylinders today.
• 1:25:15
  Let's go. Exactly.
• 1:25:17
  That's pretty normal in D&D. Dude, I OK, I don't know if I
• 1:25:21
  talked about this. So in my the the fucking last
• 1:25:29
  big encounter, they did the Boston encounter for the latest
• 1:25:31
  mission they did. They just completely
• 1:25:33
  circumvented it. They were like, we don't want to
• 1:25:34
  fight that boss, so we're just going to steal the objective.
• 1:25:38
  And I what was I was expecting was to was going to take 4 1/2
• 1:25:43
  hours, took an hour and 20 minutes and I went.
• 1:25:46
  Right, right. And they did like, I, I played
• 1:25:54
  it off pretty well. They were like, were you
• 1:25:55
  expecting that? And I was like, no, not at all.
• 1:25:57
  But in reality, I was like, Oh my God, what the fuck do we do
• 1:26:00
  now? I, I was supposed to have more
• 1:26:02
  time. Oh, no.
• 1:26:04
  Right. I, I, I will say just a just a
• 1:26:08
  quick clarification, that's not me saying that a fight in Fabula
• 1:26:12
  will go by in 30 minutes. It did take like an hour and a
• 1:26:14
  half or so to do the, the corrupted wolf like boss fight
• 1:26:18
  thing I did. But that is because you're still
• 1:26:21
  dealing with, you know, 5 human beings who all need to speak and
• 1:26:25
  communicate with each other and do all that yada yada, right?
• 1:26:28
  There's still that human barrier.
• 1:26:29
  When you're playing a video game, you press X and the little
• 1:26:31
  video game gremlins do as you command because you are their
• 1:26:34
  God overlord. That's obviously not the case in
• 1:26:35
  tabletop, so it's not going to be that fast, but it my point is
• 1:26:39
  that it's exponentially faster. Yeah, it's just to clarify.
• 1:26:47
  Fascinating, truly. Now, this isn't necessarily a
• 1:26:55
  combat thing. This sort of fills the general
• 1:26:58
  atmosphere, but also combat, because inventory points are
• 1:27:01
  sort of crucial to both of these things.
• 1:27:04
  Man, not having to worry about if I have an item is very nice.
• 1:27:12
  It's very, very nice. Just saying I'm just going to
• 1:27:15
  heal, I ain't got to worry about.
• 1:27:18
  Oh well health potions kind of suck, so should I waste my
• 1:27:21
  action using a shitty health potion or should I just attack
• 1:27:23
  to try to drop the boss? Don't even have to worry about
• 1:27:26
  it. Not even a thought I've ever had
• 1:27:27
  play Fabulous in the two sessions I play Fabulous.
• 1:27:30
  Not even a thought. Because the standard healing
• 1:27:33
  item heals you 50 hit points. Which is.
• 1:27:37
  We caught a ball in on that healing bud and yeah, 5050 hit
• 1:27:40
  points for an action. Yeah, I'll take that.
• 1:27:44
  Absolutely. It's a.
• 1:27:47
  Slip of free action on that too. Yeah, yeah, it's Tinkerer has an
• 1:27:53
  ability where, where when they're in crisis, they can use
• 1:27:55
  a free inventory action. Yeah, no, it's, it's very good.
• 1:28:01
  I, I like it a lot. Inventory points rock.
• 1:28:05
  I will say there is more stuff I wish there was a bigger list of
• 1:28:09
  like. I Yes.
• 1:28:11
  I wish. There was more stuff.
• 1:28:13
  Point things or, or if you don't want to have a list of of
• 1:28:18
  bespoke list of inventory point items, a a bigger chunk of
• 1:28:25
  guidance on what an inventory point spend should be capable of
• 1:28:32
  a little more guidance on what can a player potentially whip
• 1:28:36
  out with one of these. Because Dungeon World has a
• 1:28:40
  somewhat similar mechanic with an adventuring pack where you
• 1:28:44
  sort of whip out, you know, a useful adventuring tool and it
• 1:28:48
  gives a bit of guidance on limitations.
• 1:28:51
  What it's what is expected of it.
• 1:28:54
  A little bit more on that of inventory points I would have
• 1:28:56
  been fine with or a bigger list, whichever, whichever you felt
• 1:29:01
  you know. But that being said, as the GM,
• 1:29:09
  you can just sort of say fuck it, I'm just going to let
• 1:29:14
  inventory points do whatever. Like you can let them be pretty,
• 1:29:20
  pretty wide in their capability if you want them to be.
• 1:29:25
  Because I, I think at the end of the day, the game just doesn't
• 1:29:28
  care enough about tracking tools and items and stuff like that.
• 1:29:33
  It just doesn't want to deal with it.
• 1:29:35
  Yeah. And I it's valid, yeah.
• 1:29:43
  Yeah, I mean, we, we sort of talked about, I didn't write
• 1:29:45
  this anywhere, but we did sort of talk about the and it seems
• 1:29:49
  like there's a pretty public consensus on the tonic maybe not
• 1:29:54
  being as useful as it could be. But we honest we I I think we
• 1:29:59
  that the first idea we spit bald of either do some yeah, just
• 1:30:05
  cost you a 20 hit points of healing shit tossy 15.
• 1:30:08
  That's typically like from what we were dealing with one attack.
• 1:30:12
  Oh, fuck it. Yeah, I'd say like let it do a
• 1:30:16
  little healing. Or I mean, I don't know.
• 1:30:24
  I think there's a solid argument to be made that just the the
• 1:30:26
  tonic is a free action is if you don't.
• 1:30:29
  If you don't want to give it any other benefits, just make it.
• 1:30:31
  Oh, if you want to make it 1 status action, you could, Yeah,
• 1:30:39
  yeah, yeah 'cause I don't love the idea what, what we're
• 1:30:42
  bringing up. For anyone who's curious, in the
• 1:30:45
  playtest document, they they posit the the idea that tonic,
• 1:30:53
  spending your action on a tonic to clear a status effect is just
• 1:30:56
  not useful enough. So you're never going to do it
• 1:30:59
  because it takes up your whole turn.
• 1:31:01
  So in the play test, it says a tonic clears every status effect
• 1:31:05
  instead of just one. And I, I just, I don't know, I
• 1:31:09
  just don't love the idea of busting out a tonic to clear
• 1:31:12
  every status effect. That just feels that feels a
• 1:31:16
  little yo-yo Y. Yeah, that's kind of my
• 1:31:21
  especially when if you know the the the wolves we were fighting,
• 1:31:25
  correct me if I'm wrong, but they could have afflicted that
• 1:31:27
  that shaken on us multiple times.
• 1:31:30
  If they had the mana leftover, yeah, they wrote.
• 1:31:32
  They didn't have a ton of mana, but yes.
• 1:31:35
  So the idea that you use the it's a full action uses thing,
• 1:31:38
  it clears the thing, you no longer have an action, and then
• 1:31:41
  you can get whacked next round and get it back again.
• 1:31:44
  Just seems like a waste of inventory points and action
• 1:31:47
  economy, right? Yeah, Yeah.
• 1:31:52
  I didn't know. I didn't know how I feel but.
• 1:31:57
  No, Yeah, I I get what you mean. I do.
• 1:32:00
  Yeah. It's.
• 1:32:06
  Yeah. I don't know.
• 1:32:06
  I'd have to think about. I I don't hate your idea of
• 1:32:08
  healing, but also maybe, yeah, maybe it just doesn't take an
• 1:32:10
  action. Or maybe you put both forms.
• 1:32:15
  Maybe you put minor tonic and major tonic. 1 cures one status
• 1:32:19
  effect. One cures all of them.
• 1:32:20
  One takes no action. 1 takes an action.
• 1:32:23
  That could be good. Yeah, you just adjust the
• 1:32:26
  inventory. Price, inventory, cost to keep
• 1:32:34
  the con train roll, and it's not really a con train.
• 1:32:37
  To talk about more in more detail.
• 1:32:38
  The cons for combat in my opinion I already talked about,
• 1:32:42
  I just kind of wish there was more stuff for me to do, but
• 1:32:44
  that's because I prefer more combat.
• 1:32:47
  Crunchy systems is not really anything that I can even
• 1:32:51
  remotely say is objective. Just my personal opinion.
• 1:32:54
  I can move past that one pretty easily.
• 1:32:57
  One thing I am curious about, and I again, I put this in the
• 1:33:00
  con situation, but this doesn't really fall under a pro or a
• 1:33:04
  con. It's an observation really, is
• 1:33:06
  that it seems that the combat in Fabula runs into a very similar
• 1:33:10
  issue that D&D does, which is 2 combats are equal on paper, but
• 1:33:14
  are massively variant in practical play.
• 1:33:18
  Because, and to Josh's words, right, we, we, we, we've done 2
• 1:33:23
  combats, so forth. Both were normal difficulty
• 1:33:27
  combats and one felt pretty solid, like there was a good
• 1:33:33
  back and forth. We took some hits, we got some
• 1:33:35
  hits. I think two of us went into
• 1:33:37
  crisis in a four man party and then the 2nd combat which is
• 1:33:42
  also a normal combat, we got our shit pushed in.
• 1:33:47
  You didn't get your shit pushed in that bad?
• 1:33:49
  Honestly. I know it kind of felt like it
• 1:33:52
  went. Down.
• 1:33:53
  I dropped down to single digits twice.
• 1:33:55
  And but going down to single digits doesn't affect anything.
• 1:34:00
  You know like the only HP that matters is the only difference
• 1:34:05
  is 0 and 1. So you going down to single
• 1:34:08
  digits doesn't matter. So I know it kind of felt like
• 1:34:12
  you got your ass kicked, but you really didn't if you look at it
• 1:34:15
  from a purely empirical mathematical standpoint.
• 1:34:18
  Like yes. 1. True, one player went down, but
• 1:34:22
  that was kind of it. One player went down.
• 1:34:24
  So here's my thing that I don't necessarily consider that true
• 1:34:27
  in this game, because unlike D&D where you can just play fucking
• 1:34:34
  up down whack A mole with a player, you cannot do that in
• 1:34:37
  Fabulous. No, you can't.
• 1:34:39
  But you can't. Down.
• 1:34:41
  So running that low health runs on major risk for losing the
• 1:34:45
  encounter. It runs a risk, but you can play
• 1:34:47
  up down, whack A mole your health self and being in single
• 1:34:52
  digits if you do not go down, being in the single digits does
• 1:34:57
  not affect you in any way. You don't get weaker at lower
• 1:35:00
  health or anything like that. So.
• 1:35:02
  No, but I don't just. Because you dropped low on
• 1:35:06
  health doesn't mean that you are getting completely destroyed.
• 1:35:11
  It means you're at risk of another player going down, but
• 1:35:14
  you didn't go down, so you didn't actually get beat that.
• 1:35:17
  Like if you look at the end result, you didn't really get
• 1:35:20
  beat that badly. Right, so but that I'm sort of
• 1:35:24
  disagreeing with that in because of the fact that it is an you
• 1:35:28
  are either in combat or not in combat based on your health.
• 1:35:32
  Getting dropped to numbers that low can mean the difference
• 1:35:36
  between winning a full combat and losing a full combat due to
• 1:35:39
  compounding difficulty. No, no.
• 1:35:43
  Getting low on your health does not make any difference.
• 1:35:46
  Going down makes a difference. But if you the lower you go, the
• 1:35:51
  higher chance you have of going down.
• 1:35:52
  Yes, the higher chance the higher chance you have, but you
• 1:35:58
  did not like specifically talking about the fight that
• 1:36:01
  occurred. You did not go down right?
• 1:36:05
  11 character went down, nobody else did.
• 1:36:09
  And once you got, especially because once you got, once you
• 1:36:13
  killed the one wolf, immediately your chance of victory
• 1:36:17
  skyrocketed because two turns got taken off the board and you
• 1:36:21
  then outnumbered them. So just because you're going
• 1:36:27
  down low on health, though, does not, does not increase your
• 1:36:32
  chance of losing in that moment. It increases the chance of
• 1:36:36
  things going potentially worse from that point, but it does not
• 1:36:40
  in that moment decrease. It's not like you're less
• 1:36:42
  effective at 5 health that you are at 55 health.
• 1:36:47
  I know I think you are less effective I because no you're.
• 1:36:50
  Literally not, though you could do the same damage output, the
• 1:36:52
  same actions, your character's not limited in any way.
• 1:36:56
  Well, not. You are not limited in a in a
• 1:36:59
  forceful way, but at lower health you do not have the
• 1:37:03
  resources to heal you. There are less things you will
• 1:37:06
  do in 5E. It doesn't really matter what
• 1:37:10
  you do on your turn because if you go down, someone will bring
• 1:37:13
  you back up. If you attack someone versus
• 1:37:15
  healing someone else, that's more nebulous.
• 1:37:18
  There's there's wiggle room there.
• 1:37:20
  But in Fabula, if you have low health as the primary attacker
• 1:37:23
  like I am, I am less likely to stay in the thick of it and will
• 1:37:28
  have to shift the overall strategy of the fight as primary
• 1:37:32
  damage dealer to not dealing that damage.
• 1:37:35
  So it does affect it. Well, you don't necessarily have
• 1:37:39
  to shift away from your damage. You would in that situation.
• 1:37:43
  You should do essentially what you guys did, which is the
• 1:37:46
  person who can support you needs to focus on supporting you.
• 1:37:50
  It's a big emphasis on teamwork. Right, but that you might not
• 1:37:54
  always have be able to have that support.
• 1:37:57
  Right. Well, yes, but the game kind of
• 1:37:59
  explicitly tells you you should build a cohesive team.
• 1:38:04
  Like there isn't a Holy Trinity explicitly in fabulous, but the
• 1:38:09
  game does say, you know, be careful to build a relatively
• 1:38:14
  cohesive team. Have someone who can support,
• 1:38:16
  have someone who can heal, have someone who can eat hits.
• 1:38:19
  Because the game specifically calls out, I don't remember
• 1:38:22
  where, but it's it calls out that if player characters are,
• 1:38:31
  if you have squishy player characters because they're
• 1:38:33
  because you can't run away, like you can't make space, rules is
• 1:38:37
  written. I mean, fictionally you could
• 1:38:39
  potentially argue for that, you know, you could come up with a
• 1:38:41
  strategy, but you know, rules is written mechanically speaking,
• 1:38:44
  because the the wizard character cannot make distance between
• 1:38:47
  themselves and the orc. The game is like, doesn't that
• 1:38:51
  mean squishy characters could go down easier?
• 1:38:53
  And the game says, yes, you have to coordinate your teamwork to
• 1:38:57
  protect your squishier characters.
• 1:38:58
  That's part of the strategy of how the game works.
• 1:39:01
  So you as the damage you, if you're the primary damage dealer
• 1:39:05
  and you're down on 5HP, that doesn't mean you need to go and
• 1:39:09
  protect the wizard or whatever. That means the wizard needs to
• 1:39:11
  find a way to help you so you can still keep your damage
• 1:39:14
  output going, right? It has to be a coordinated
• 1:39:18
  teamwork. And again, the emulating video
• 1:39:21
  game situation, if Titus is low on health, that doesn't mean
• 1:39:25
  Titus uses a potion. That means Titus continues to
• 1:39:28
  attack because he has haste on it.
• 1:39:30
  I mean, he could do plenty of damage.
• 1:39:32
  What it does mean is the next turn that you is up, she needs
• 1:39:35
  to focus on helping Titus out and heal him or throw him a
• 1:39:37
  shell or throw him or protect or something like that.
• 1:39:40
  That's the idea. And I I get what you're saying,
• 1:39:43
  but I I think the the binary up or down thing throws a monkey
• 1:39:48
  wrench in it. No, I don't think it does.
• 1:39:52
  I think it makes it a little more difficult and you have to
• 1:39:56
  consider a little bit more, but I don't think it throws a
• 1:39:58
  straight up monkey wrench in it like there.
• 1:40:03
  There is a there is an element of you have to be potentially
• 1:40:07
  more careful because you don't have a phoenix down as it were.
• 1:40:13
  Which funny enough, I don't know, missed opportunity could
• 1:40:16
  have been a phoenix down item in the game.
• 1:40:19
  I mean, this seems to be pretty contentious based on what
• 1:40:21
  Paladin told me about whether there should be resurrect items
• 1:40:24
  in the game. Well, when I say Phoenix down, I
• 1:40:27
  don't mean a I I wouldn't make it a resurrect item, I would
• 1:40:31
  make it a get someone up during a conflict scene, specifically
• 1:40:35
  item like it only works in a conflict and you can only drop
• 1:40:40
  someone get someone up from zero if you're in a conflict and it
• 1:40:43
  doesn't do anything outside of that.
• 1:40:44
  It's essentially a Oh no, the player, the character's
• 1:40:47
  unconscious, give him some smelling salts and get him back
• 1:40:49
  up. Not the player got stabbed
• 1:40:51
  through the chest and now I'm going to cast Revivified.
• 1:40:53
  Not that situation, you know what I mean?
• 1:40:55
  When when I say resurrect, I I mean Phoenix down like you're in
• 1:40:58
  combat, you get dropped, you can put them back up.
• 1:41:00
  Yes, I, I've, I think, I don't know, I think there's maybe some
• 1:41:04
  room there for that, but. I agree.
• 1:41:06
  I I mean, I here's the thing. This this sort of shifts to a
• 1:41:11
  second point. Well, don't worry.
• 1:41:13
  Hey, we're not done with this point yet.
• 1:41:16
  OK. What I'm the crux of what I'm
• 1:41:18
  getting at here is the combat we had you, you might have felt
• 1:41:24
  like there was a momentary we got our asses handed to us.
• 1:41:28
  But if you look at the data very empirically and take any kind of
• 1:41:32
  emotional attachment to the situation out of it, you didn't
• 1:41:35
  actually get your asses handed to you that badly.
• 1:41:38
  The situation overall was in your favor.
• 1:41:41
  You per you're like from a purely mechanical, purely
• 1:41:46
  empirical standpoint, your character almost went down twice
• 1:41:49
  but didn't, and the other two characters didn't really come
• 1:41:52
  that close to going down. And we 1 character did go down,
• 1:41:57
  so you really didn't get clapped that badly.
• 1:42:00
  Now you are on the edge as a group there you are on the edge
• 1:42:04
  a couple of times of things going worse, but you were still,
• 1:42:10
  it went relatively even all said and done by the end of it.
• 1:42:14
  So I don't think it's quite the same problem that 5E has where a
• 1:42:20
  fight can just swing out of control because the GM sort of
• 1:42:26
  missed their math a little. I I think what happened there
• 1:42:31
  was that I, I personally misunderstood the math of the
• 1:42:38
  game, but I don't think that the math of the game did not work.
• 1:42:42
  I think once I once I reassessed during during the session, I was
• 1:42:48
  thinking the math might not be working here.
• 1:42:52
  Once I reassessed after the session, I think the math
• 1:42:55
  actually worked fine. I was mis utilizing it
• 1:42:59
  personally, which is a, which is a separate thing.
• 1:43:04
  And I do think my my criticism of this situation is not that
• 1:43:11
  the math is bad. My criticism of this situation
• 1:43:14
  is when you're dealing with NPCS and specifically the designing
• 1:43:19
  NPC mechanic, I would like a little more guidance.
• 1:43:25
  This is where I'm talking about around the edges.
• 1:43:28
  There's parts of the game that are very brief on their
• 1:43:32
  description and their guidance when it comes to mechanic stuff.
• 1:43:36
  And I would like a little more guidance on those elements.
• 1:43:41
  I think it's a lot of it is probably because of just page
• 1:43:47
  count, number count, paying an editor to read more words and
• 1:43:50
  stuff like that. So I, I kind of understand why
• 1:43:52
  it is the way it is, but I would like a little bit more and to
• 1:43:55
  give a very concrete example of this, when you build an MPC,
• 1:44:00
  cause the game has an MPC designing system in terms of
• 1:44:08
  damage, the game is doesn't give you.
• 1:44:13
  It basically says when you make a, when you make an MPC, their
• 1:44:18
  damage should be high roll +5. If you want, you can make that
• 1:44:23
  go to high roll plus ten with a specific skill that they can
• 1:44:26
  pick up but that eats into their skill budget that does that.
• 1:44:30
  MPCS have the. The problem is that it doesn't
• 1:44:35
  really say anything about how to go beyond plus 10, but there are
• 1:44:40
  some things in the game that go beyond plus 10.
• 1:44:43
  Now the monsters in the bestiary all stop at level 20, so it kind
• 1:44:53
  of leaves you a little more high and dry once you get past level
• 1:44:56
  20. And then you have to start
• 1:44:58
  looking at your only other guidance is the antagonist
• 1:45:02
  bosses in the other the other atlases.
• 1:45:08
  But those are bosses, obviously. So you can't necessarily use
• 1:45:13
  boss numbers for everything, right?
• 1:45:15
  There's a, there's a bit of a, there's like a Gray middle area
• 1:45:19
  where we got low level, we got the higher level.
• 1:45:21
  I'm kind of missing some of the in between and there is an
• 1:45:25
  enemy, of course, now I'm not going to be able to find it, but
• 1:45:28
  there is an enemy in the book that does have an ability that
• 1:45:31
  does over 10 damage, but it is limited because it's a spell and
• 1:45:38
  he can only do it so many times, right?
• 1:45:43
  That was kind of the part where I fucked up.
• 1:45:45
  Is the enemy in question. Oh, I found it actually.
• 1:45:49
  So there's a lightning wheel enemy that is a level 10 demon
• 1:45:53
  and he has a spell called Fulgore and it does HR plus 15
• 1:45:58
  bolt damage. But it's mana cost is 10 times
• 1:46:04
  the number of targets and it has 60 manas.
• 1:46:08
  So if it targets 3 people, it can only do that twice ever in a
• 1:46:13
  whole fight. The ability I gave the the
• 1:46:16
  corrupted wolves, they could do it an unlimited number of times
• 1:46:21
  assuming you guys still had the shaken debuff.
• 1:46:23
  Now granted you guys could have cleared the debuff, but that
• 1:46:29
  that amount of consistent damage at that level was a little too
• 1:46:32
  much. But I had to figure that out by
• 1:46:35
  essentially back engineering the game by looking at the bestiary
• 1:46:39
  examples and sort of reverse reversing their math.
• 1:46:45
  All this is to say I would like a little more on designing MPCS
• 1:46:50
  and how to utilize them. And also I would like just more
• 1:46:55
  in the bestiary. Now we have learned that we're
• 1:46:58
  going to get a bestiary dedicated Atlas that is just
• 1:47:02
  it's basically a monster manual. So that will probably shore up a
• 1:47:05
  lot of this issue I'm having on the GM side of of dealing with
• 1:47:08
  enemies. But currently with the core book
• 1:47:11
  this is a little bit of a struggle I'm finding.
• 1:47:16
  Yeah, I mean, so I, I think we're going to have to agree to
• 1:47:19
  disagree on the earlier points as I see what you're saying.
• 1:47:24
  I still don't 100% agree. But which earlier point?
• 1:47:31
  Because there is a binary up and down, I think it makes more
• 1:47:34
  sense to say struggling more or less on a thing based on the
• 1:47:42
  binary up and down, I think is valid to say that it was
• 1:47:47
  difficult. I mean, but you do also have to
• 1:47:51
  acknowledge that you guys won with only one person, like you
• 1:47:54
  won the fight with only one person going down.
• 1:47:55
  That is just empirically true. So it's not like you, it's not
• 1:47:59
  like you skinny or teethed it, you know?
• 1:48:06
  Ultimately, no, I mean, that final heal from Senna was
• 1:48:09
  clutch, but it was skin of it was touch and go for a second,
• 1:48:13
  which I think is enough to say it was more than just equal.
• 1:48:21
  Yeah. I mean, I mean, fine.
• 1:48:23
  I yeah, I just, I don't, I don't agree with your assessment of
• 1:48:26
  it. That's fine.
• 1:48:31
  I, I will say because I, I should, I do need to mention a
• 1:48:35
  little bit, the game doesn't does mention a little bit on how
• 1:48:39
  to handle damage, but this is what I mean where I would like a
• 1:48:40
  little more of this. It says in terms of in terms of
• 1:48:45
  damage, a successful enemy should do damage equal to 1/3 of
• 1:48:51
  an average P CS hit points. Similarly, APC should do an
• 1:48:55
  average of 1/3 to an enemy soldier rank enemy's hit points.
• 1:49:01
  So essentially I was a little bit above that one third mark
• 1:49:09
  and that's where things went a little off because I was doing
• 1:49:13
  high roll plus 15. So the highest that the enemy
• 1:49:16
  could potentially have rolled, I think not ignoring the debuffs
• 1:49:21
  'cause they were debuffed at that point, but let's pretend
• 1:49:23
  they weren't for a second. The highest they could have
• 1:49:26
  rolled was 25, which the highest health person is you at 55, and
• 1:49:33
  I think that was so that's more than 1/3, right?
• 1:49:36
  That's about 45%. So almost, you know, almost
• 1:49:42
  after help. So I did overshoot that damage
• 1:49:45
  suggestion a bit. Again, overshooting it a little
• 1:49:51
  bit probably would have been OK if it was only once or twice,
• 1:49:55
  but they did it over and over again.
• 1:49:58
  Right. Because again, the, the
• 1:49:59
  lightning wheel enemy does have HR plus V.
• 1:50:02
  So the lightning wheel enemy, the, the spell it has Fulgore is
• 1:50:06
  insight plus wheelpower HR. So the highest it could roll on
• 1:50:10
  that would be, I don't know, whatever, what's 8 + 1523?
• 1:50:15
  So 23 would again, overshoot that third by a little bit on
• 1:50:20
  you, for example, right? Because 23 you'd be looking at
• 1:50:26
  about 42%, but he can only do that once or twice.
• 1:50:31
  So between reading that bit and then looking at the other
• 1:50:36
  monsters examples and then, you know, comparing numbers and
• 1:50:41
  stuff, I was able to back engineer the math.
• 1:50:44
  I just wish I didn't have to back engineer it.
• 1:50:46
  I wish I had a little more of a clear guidance on it.
• 1:50:50
  Fair. That's not the only thing with
• 1:50:53
  the designing MPC section. There's a couple of bits of that
• 1:50:56
  where I would like a a little more clear guidance, but again,
• 1:51:01
  I think it was a question of limiting page count and stuff.
• 1:51:03
  I really do think whenever this best theory comes out I want it
• 1:51:08
  to come out real bad because I have a feeling it is going to be
• 1:51:11
  like a must have book, you know what I mean?
• 1:51:15
  Oh yeah, no, I I have no doubt my mind that that's I'm I'm
• 1:51:19
  maybe looking at. I'm thinking that, yeah.
• 1:51:21
  So we'll see. I'm so I'm so curious to see
• 1:51:24
  what that looks like. I know that was a long winded
• 1:51:33
  bit, but that was the thing I had to bring up at some point.
• 1:51:36
  No, it's fair. I know it's.
• 1:51:45
  Oh yeah. I mean, on the final topic of
• 1:51:47
  the binary up and down, it feels bad.
• 1:51:54
  Like it just doesn't feel good to be like, well, now I'm out of
• 1:51:56
  the fight and I just have to sit here and do nothing.
• 1:51:58
  That's just not fun. Yeah, that's, you know.
• 1:52:02
  Yeah, I really, I really don't know.
• 1:52:04
  That one is Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what to.
• 1:52:11
  I I understand why it's in place, but it does have a bit of
• 1:52:14
  a Feels bad if you're the if your character is the one that
• 1:52:18
  went down. Yeah, I don't.
• 1:52:21
  I mean, some people don't argue DND has that problem too, but I
• 1:52:29
  don't know. I see.
• 1:52:31
  I know why someone would say that.
• 1:52:36
  I don't know that I agree. Well, you can of.
• 1:52:41
  You can yo-yo more in DND so well the thing OK, DND has that
• 1:52:47
  problem if your character dies, dies, right?
• 1:52:50
  It doesn't have that problem if your character goes down.
• 1:52:54
  Yeah, and if you get gibbed, yes, that's gonna feels bad man,
• 1:52:57
  but. The problem is, I think Fabula
• 1:53:00
  does not have a downstate. It either has a live or dead.
• 1:53:04
  Yeah, well, it has a live or defeated your character does not
• 1:53:10
  that that's kind of the concession, right?
• 1:53:12
  You're out of the fight, which is shitty, but you're whether
• 1:53:15
  your character is completely killed and no longer playable is
• 1:53:19
  up to you as the player. So that is the concession point.
• 1:53:22
  Yeah. Right, because Gennaro went
• 1:53:25
  down. Gennaro went down in session 2.
• 1:53:27
  If, if, if this was D&D, he'd be rolling up a new character for
• 1:53:33
  session 3. But because it's not, he doesn't
• 1:53:35
  have to. So that is that is a that is
• 1:53:37
  somewhat of a concession. You do got to admit to that.
• 1:53:41
  Yeah, I mean the the fact that he's not dead and he cannot be
• 1:53:43
  outright killed, that's a that's good.
• 1:53:46
  It's a pretty solid concession it it does.
• 1:53:51
  And I'm not saying that you would that you will do this, but
• 1:53:54
  it could, you could have a situation where your GM is not
• 1:53:57
  quite grasping the swing of balance and you guys just get
• 1:54:00
  surrendered several times in a row, which would feel really
• 1:54:04
  shitty. So you're supposed to have like
• 1:54:08
  big lasting effects on the narrative.
• 1:54:10
  Like you don't just casually lose a fight if you lose.
• 1:54:13
  There's got to be like. I think this is also one of
• 1:54:16
  those things where some of this some of this problem is, is
• 1:54:20
  intended to be mitigated by the fact that you're playing a
• 1:54:22
  social game where everyone's hanging out.
• 1:54:24
  So even if even if your character's dead, it's not like
• 1:54:27
  you can sit that, you know, you can still chat and like hang out
• 1:54:30
  and suggest things and stuff. There is that element to which
• 1:54:37
  playing in, I think The funny thing is playing in person, your
• 1:54:40
  character going down and out during the fight, not as big of
• 1:54:44
  a deal, probably because you can like, you know, you'll get up
• 1:54:46
  and go to the kitchen, you get a snack, you take a piss, you kind
• 1:54:48
  of like whatever. You'll chat to the person next
• 1:54:51
  to you when it's not their turn, you know, like playing in
• 1:54:53
  person. I think it's less of a problem
• 1:54:55
  playing on the virtual table top.
• 1:54:57
  Sometimes there's that little, like the computer is in the way
• 1:55:01
  of that vibe, right? Yeah.
• 1:55:05
  Which you can't I, there's nothing I, there's nothing you
• 1:55:09
  can do about that particularly. It just kind of is.
• 1:55:13
  But I did. I did just have that thought as
• 1:55:14
  we were talking about it. No, I mean that that is a valid
• 1:55:18
  thing to say. I think that is a fair to be
• 1:55:20
  like, you know, given that virtually you just you have to
• 1:55:26
  sit there on some level, right? Because there's only, there's
• 1:55:29
  technically only 1 medium for, for audio delivery, right?
• 1:55:33
  That's right. There's the one medium through
• 1:55:34
  which you communicate. Yeah, in in a, in a room, you
• 1:55:38
  can talk to people, you can have side conversations.
• 1:55:41
  You can't really do that over a display call because of the
• 1:55:43
  medium. And also in the room, you can
• 1:55:45
  get up and, like, go to the kitchen and do a thing.
• 1:55:48
  And then also, like, you can hear what's going on maybe, You
• 1:55:52
  know, Whereas if I want to get up from my desk for a minute
• 1:55:56
  because I died and we're playing virtually, I don't even hear the
• 1:56:00
  background chatter, Right? Like, I took my headphones off,
• 1:56:03
  you know? Yeah, it's that weird thing.
• 1:56:06
  But again, that's not on the game.
• 1:56:08
  That's just kind of a trade off of playing online.
• 1:56:17
  Yeah, I don't know. I don't I I don't really know.
• 1:56:19
  I don't know what the answer on that particular problem is.
• 1:56:21
  It's just, it's just a weird one.
• 1:56:26
  Well, we came up with a solution, I think, using a
• 1:56:28
  fabulous point to bring a player up, and with the limitation that
• 1:56:32
  it can only be done once per player, otherwise you could
• 1:56:35
  infinitely farm fabulous points, which would not be ideal.
• 1:56:39
  I think that works. And like, yeah, technically if
• 1:56:41
  everyone does it once, everybody will come out of that fight with
• 1:56:43
  two fabulous points at least. But like, seems like you're
• 1:56:47
  supposed to use the more often anyway.
• 1:56:51
  Like it's not the worst thing in the world to have those.
• 1:56:54
  Yeah, yeah. I don't know.
• 1:56:56
  I would love to. I'd love to ask Emma be like
• 1:56:59
  why? Why no Phoenix down?
• 1:57:00
  What was the logic? I I feel like a lot of it, it,
• 1:57:07
  it, I think, you know, I'm not trying to speak for him, but it,
• 1:57:12
  it feels like an attempt to not commoditize, like the the threat
• 1:57:21
  of a character going down, which I get and respect, but on the
• 1:57:23
  same, it is still a game. It has to be that back and forth
• 1:57:27
  right, right. And like the, the, the idea
• 1:57:30
  that, Oh well, I my turn, didn't I?
• 1:57:32
  Like I I forgot to do a thing and now my turn is over and now
• 1:57:36
  I'm going to get dunked on because I accidentally attacked
• 1:57:38
  instead of guarded. You know, like.
• 1:57:40
  God, now I'm postulating all these thoughts like I just had
• 1:57:44
  the thought. What if you had a phoenix down
• 1:57:46
  type item, but the Phoenix down type item doesn't, isn't, can't
• 1:57:50
  be used if there's a villain in the scene, right?
• 1:57:52
  If you're fighting soldiers or elites, you can use it, but if a
• 1:57:54
  villain shows up, you can't use it or, or sorry, if you're
• 1:57:57
  fighting regular MPCS, you can't use it.
• 1:57:59
  But if there's a villain present, you can't or you know
• 1:58:01
  what I mean? Like I just had that thought off
• 1:58:03
  the Dome. Fuck yeah, that'd be cool as
• 1:58:06
  fuck. Or what if it was limited on a,
• 1:58:09
  you know, per day basis? Like you can use it once per
• 1:58:11
  day. There's so many.
• 1:58:15
  I'm like, I, I'm, I'm mulling thoughts in the back.
• 1:58:18
  Not that it really matters, but yeah, like mulling thoughts.
• 1:58:20
  Well, I guess it kind of matters because I could add those things
• 1:58:23
  to my game if I wanted. But yeah, I'm mulling thoughts
• 1:58:25
  in my head. I did see though you made a note
• 1:58:29
  that Paladin had a thought on this.
• 1:58:35
  Oh. Seeing as he's the one who went
• 1:58:38
  down. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:58:40
  So less than a thought. He, he looked it up, he did some
• 1:58:43
  researching and people recommended like, because you
• 1:58:47
  can be healed even though you're down and out, like letting the
• 1:58:52
  player still interact with the scene but just be unable to
• 1:58:55
  engage in the combat aspect. So he put the idea forward of
• 1:58:58
  like, maybe, maybe Don could start like grabbing the
• 1:59:04
  barricades and using that to, you know, push against one of
• 1:59:08
  the the wolves to sort of maybe weaken them or hinder them in
• 1:59:11
  some way that isn't directly affecting combat.
• 1:59:16
  Or. Like throwing support into like
• 1:59:20
  in a monetary bonus to allies, just doing something to let it
• 1:59:24
  it because it's really the interaction thing.
• 1:59:26
  It's it's if you're down, that's fine.
• 1:59:29
  But in, in D&D, there's still, you're still interacting with
• 1:59:32
  the scene. You know, players are going, OK,
• 1:59:33
  do we bring you back up? Do we still attack?
• 1:59:35
  Oh, well, if you bring me back up, I can pop this thing.
• 1:59:38
  There's a conversation going on where is when you're down in
• 1:59:40
  Fabula, you're just down and are effectively useless to the
• 1:59:42
  scene. And yeah, you can still talk and
• 1:59:44
  shoot the shit with your friends, but you're not.
• 1:59:46
  You're no longer. Mechanically the game, yeah.
• 1:59:48
  Mechanically, you're not interacting.
• 1:59:52
  I, I, yeah, I kind of see what he's getting at.
• 1:59:54
  But then my thought becomes, OK, but how do you handle that in
• 1:59:57
  terms of initiative? Because part of the way the
• 2:00:00
  balance of the game works is that you lose APC initiative
• 2:00:03
  slot when someone goes down, right?
• 2:00:05
  Like that's part of the punishment for someone going
• 2:00:07
  down is you lose a slot. So how do you, how do you deal
• 2:00:12
  with that relative to someone trying to help but they're not
• 2:00:17
  in the initiative slot, you know?
• 2:00:20
  Like I'm not immediately saying it's not an option, but I'm just
• 2:00:22
  trying to I'm I'm seeing where the contention points come in
• 2:00:28
  and I don't I don't have a great answer at the moment.
• 2:00:32
  Well, so I think the idea being is that if you can't pose an
• 2:00:35
  active threat to the enemy, it doesn't matter if you still have
• 2:00:38
  a place on the initiative. Like you could remove it
• 2:00:41
  officially but still make it like, you know the the
• 2:00:44
  equivalent of Initiative 20 with a with a layer action you just
• 2:00:47
  give a player control of like a limited layer action so to
• 2:00:50
  speak. Although you know layer actions
• 2:00:52
  are specifically like damaging but or like a regional effect.
• 2:00:57
  I guess you could argue in 5D terms.
• 2:00:59
  Maybe, maybe at maybe after you have to say, yeah, you could
• 2:01:04
  maybe say that the PC who who's downed can do something only
• 2:01:11
  after everyone else has already gone, like you have to go last.
• 2:01:14
  You could maybe say, yeah, I, yeah, that's a tricky one.
• 2:01:24
  That's a tricky 1. Yeah, I mean, I, I definitely, I
• 2:01:27
  wouldn't say I know what the right answer is, but it does
• 2:01:29
  feel like there there should be something that you're capable.
• 2:01:32
  Yeah, I don't see it. That is kind of a funny point,
• 2:01:34
  though. You made a good point that even
• 2:01:35
  when you're downed in D&D, you're still an element of the
• 2:01:40
  situation because people are considering what to do with you.
• 2:01:44
  That's kind of an interesting point I never considered.
• 2:01:48
  Like you're not doing anything, but you're still affecting the
• 2:01:50
  situation because your teammates are thinking about what to do
• 2:01:53
  about you. Right.
• 2:01:56
  Which is kind of weird, but I like.
• 2:01:58
  Is it like it's true? Yeah.
• 2:02:01
  I mean, it is, it is a thing that you like.
• 2:02:03
  It is a point that you have to contend with.
• 2:02:06
  Yeah, and now I'm like, and now I just had another thought.
• 2:02:12
  Like what if you can pick a player back up from being
• 2:02:15
  downed, but only if you can get them back up to their crisis
• 2:02:18
  score in one shot, then you could get the bet.
• 2:02:22
  You know like like make it hard but doable.
• 2:02:27
  Well, assuming that you'd have to have some coctex ball and
• 2:02:30
  level health for a a standard healing potion to not bring you
• 2:02:33
  back up to that point. Well, maybe you say you can't do
• 2:02:36
  it with a healing potion. Yeah.
• 2:02:37
  Like, I don't know. I don't know.
• 2:02:38
  That's what I mean. Like ideas keep popping in and
• 2:02:41
  out of my brain as we talk about it, which I should.
• 2:02:46
  Which means I should probably stop talking because I'll just
• 2:02:49
  keep coming up with new ones. Yeah.
• 2:02:51
  I mean, so I really only have one pro and one con for Fabula
• 2:02:57
  points, OK. By the way, the pro I do want to
• 2:03:01
  just say. So I I did, I did did a little
• 2:03:04
  more checking on the dice math. If you have AD 10 and AD 8 on a
• 2:03:09
  roll, your chance of hitting 10 is 55%.
• 2:03:16
  So it's not that much higher, but it's over.
• 2:03:19
  Half, but not that much. Yeah.
• 2:03:21
  Well, I mean, you, you do have a, you have a what?
• 2:03:23
  What's that? A 12% increase?
• 2:03:25
  Which is it it that's significant, statistically
• 2:03:28
  speaking? Yeah, basically, but 12%.
• 2:03:30
  Increase not a crazy amount. No, not a crazy amount.
• 2:03:36
  Which is still kind of odd I feel 'cause even if you're a
• 2:03:39
  specialist like that'll probably bump your odds to.
• 2:03:43
  Well, if you're a specialist, you have two D 10 and then your
• 2:03:45
  chance is 64% to hit a 10. If you're rolling on, you know,
• 2:03:52
  a specialized. If you're rolling on a thing
• 2:03:53
  that you have your two specialist stats on, you'd be
• 2:03:55
  looking at 64% to hit difficulty 10.
• 2:04:02
  I feel like I I'm forgetting this.
• 2:04:03
  Is there not a way to just. There's no help action in this
• 2:04:07
  game, right? Yeah, there is teamwork every
• 2:04:09
  all. All three players can help you
• 2:04:10
  at once. Right, but they have to roll to
• 2:04:14
  see if they can help you. They can't just help you.
• 2:04:17
  Yes, they have to roll. Which I, I, I do not find to be
• 2:04:21
  that particularly useful. I I should have brought that up.
• 2:04:25
  Yeah, I mean, I guess a slight reaction to, to to the rituals
• 2:04:28
  thing. Rituals are cool and I love
• 2:04:32
  them, but having each player role and have to meet the same
• 2:04:39
  DC as or potentially the same DC as the main roller.
• 2:04:44
  And the only thing you get for a success is a + 1, if that.
• 2:04:52
  That's kind of brutal. Like I, I feel like, I don't
• 2:04:58
  know, I just, I think having forcing everyone to roll just
• 2:05:01
  feels. So I did just, I did just find a
• 2:05:08
  thing which I, I didn't realize before because I just double
• 2:05:11
  checked that the rules on teamwork.
• 2:05:16
  If APC performs a check during a conflict scene, any other PC who
• 2:05:20
  is able to help them and hasn't already taken a turn may choose
• 2:05:23
  to lend their active lend the active character at hand.
• 2:05:27
  If you do it in a conflict scene, every support check is
• 2:05:30
  automatically successful. So there is this help action in
• 2:05:36
  conflict scenes which I I I did miss that I before but that is.
• 2:05:46
  Just sort of would prefer it just be if they say they help
• 2:05:50
  you get a + 1 per person helping.
• 2:05:51
  I like, I just feel like that the necessity for the check is
• 2:05:54
  sort of other like clunky in an otherwise really robust game,
• 2:06:01
  you know? Yeah.
• 2:06:05
  Because it's either helpful or useless, There's not really an
• 2:06:07
  in between. Uh huh.
• 2:06:14
  I don't know. Yeah.
• 2:06:15
  I mean, there is worth pointing out that the your chance of
• 2:06:19
  helping somebody you have a bond with goes up quite a bit because
• 2:06:21
  you add your bond to the role. So that that is somewhat of a
• 2:06:24
  factor. But yeah, I don't know.
• 2:06:25
  I don't know what the point of having other supporting
• 2:06:27
  characters make that. I don't know what the idea.
• 2:06:31
  I can't right now at least think about what the objective behind
• 2:06:35
  having the supporting characters have to make a role to see if
• 2:06:38
  they do the support or not out of a conflict scene.
• 2:06:41
  Again, in a conflict scene you get an automatic extra plus one,
• 2:06:44
  which is totally relevant and something I completely missed,
• 2:06:49
  but definitely relevant. I know I definitely agree in in
• 2:06:52
  combat it's it's 100% relevant. I it's it's interesting.
• 2:06:58
  I almost wonder if I would prefer the opposite of during
• 2:07:03
  scenes other than combat, you get the automatic plus one like
• 2:07:06
  a ritual 'cause I would prefer it there, but in combat because
• 2:07:09
  there's so much chaotic shit going on that I almost want to
• 2:07:12
  feel like you shouldn't. It shouldn't be as easy.
• 2:07:19
  I don't know. Oh.
• 2:07:26
  Oh I actually misread the bond bit, I just double checked.
• 2:07:29
  So it's not that you get a bonus to your support role, it's if
• 2:07:32
  you succeed on your support role, the bonus you give to the
• 2:07:36
  leader increases. So if you have a bond with the
• 2:07:40
  leader, you have like a level 1 bond, instead of giving the
• 2:07:43
  leader a + 1 bonus, you give them +2 bonus.
• 2:07:45
  But you still need to beat that DL10 check first.
• 2:07:52
  Yeah, see, I, I just don't like that.
• 2:07:56
  I, I don't, I, I think, I don't think that.
• 2:07:58
  I don't think there's another way for me to put it.
• 2:07:59
  I just don't like it. Like I, I don't, I find it
• 2:08:01
  frustrating. And yeah, no, I think you just
• 2:08:05
  find it frustrating. Well, I think you mostly just
• 2:08:07
  find it frustrating because the percentages of the hitting DL10
• 2:08:10
  by yourself are relatively low. That's kind of well, exactly.
• 2:08:14
  Yeah, it's it's well, so I, I it's, it's twofold again,
• 2:08:17
  because adding a bunch of roles, it sort of goes against the the
• 2:08:22
  more elegant design of the game because the game is trying to
• 2:08:28
  limit that when possible. And I think this is a
• 2:08:31
  possibility, like an easy way to limit that.
• 2:08:34
  But yes, if I'm having a hard time succeeding and the person
• 2:08:39
  who's trying to help me has an equally hard time succeeding, if
• 2:08:42
  not worse if they're not good at those things.
• 2:08:44
  But we need that point and there isn't an NPC to take the help
• 2:08:48
  action for you. And even then they still cause
• 2:08:50
  Radwolf tried helping us and he failed right then.
• 2:08:55
  It just seems like a get fucked situation and at that point why
• 2:09:00
  not everyone just try to make the roll on their own 'cause if
• 2:09:04
  someone rolls like that, we had the situation where I rolled
• 2:09:07
  really well on the support, right?
• 2:09:10
  And the fact that I, I think I hit like a a 13 or 14 on the DC
• 2:09:15
  only gave Lita a + 1 yes. So I feel like it just, it needs
• 2:09:24
  to be more significant than that to to justify the fact that you,
• 2:09:28
  statistically speaking, are going to fail anyway.
• 2:09:37
  You know, I, yeah, I'm not really sure.
• 2:09:38
  I, I, I do feel the desire to reread the entire section on
• 2:09:43
  checks really carefully and wondering if I'm
• 2:09:47
  misunderstanding something on the GM side.
• 2:09:50
  Don't know. Yeah, like, well, like I'd love
• 2:09:53
  to have my back on to sort of talk about it.
• 2:09:57
  It is kind of an odd sticking point.
• 2:09:58
  It is. It does.
• 2:09:59
  I think the the main, the only reason the main, I shouldn't say
• 2:10:02
  the old thing. The main reason it's bugging me
• 2:10:05
  is because it feels weird to be like the characters are heroes
• 2:10:12
  who fail a lot. I'm kind of like, huh, that's
• 2:10:14
  weird. Right.
• 2:10:16
  It it almost feels like a a slightly more extreme version of
• 2:10:18
  the thing that I have with the Apocalypse World games, where
• 2:10:21
  Apocalypse World you are going to succeed more often than you
• 2:10:24
  are not, but when you do succeed, chances that things are
• 2:10:27
  not going to go perfectly. Well, I think that's a really
• 2:10:30
  bad example to use because the two style of games are way
• 2:10:34
  divergent from each other, but I kind of get what you mean.
• 2:10:37
  Well, I mean, I I see why you why you don't really like that
• 2:10:41
  comparison, but I think it holds true in that you are still the
• 2:10:45
  the heroes quote UN quote like you're the main characters and
• 2:10:49
  you are the game wants you to succeed more than it wants you
• 2:10:51
  to fail. So you're not, you're not heroic
• 2:10:53
  in most Powered by the Apocalypse.
• 2:10:54
  Some of them you are, but most of them you're not heroic,
• 2:10:57
  right? Fabulous.
• 2:10:58
  You're very explicitly heroic like you are.
• 2:11:01
  You are big Dick energy like you're supposed to be.
• 2:11:03
  Right, but you're still the protagonist.
• 2:11:05
  It is assumed that it is through you that you know the the the
• 2:11:09
  mission will be accomplished. Does not really know Apocalypse
• 2:11:15
  World doesn't Apocalypse World phrases the the PCs are the
• 2:11:20
  people that the camera is paying attention to, but they are not
• 2:11:22
  explicitly better or protagonist Y in any particular way.
• 2:11:27
  They're just who we're focusing on.
• 2:11:29
  You could have an Apocalypse World game where the players
• 2:11:32
  fail miserably and everything goes horribly wrong, and that's
• 2:11:35
  still a perfectly valid campaign in that game's eyes.
• 2:11:39
  So like I, I don't, I don't, I don't really think you can
• 2:11:41
  compare them. I don't know, because then you
• 2:11:45
  you get into the well, the game says that it's perfectly fine,
• 2:11:48
  but if the players feel demoralized and frustrated, then
• 2:11:51
  it isn't. Well, yes, but that comes into
• 2:11:54
  understanding the kind of game we're playing.
• 2:11:57
  Yeah, but even if you understand the kind of game you're playing,
• 2:11:59
  like if you understand it, this is the problem that that Sam had
• 2:12:02
  with Blades, right? Where like, it really doesn't on
• 2:12:06
  some level doesn't 100% matter mechanically how it's supposed
• 2:12:10
  to work. You do have to sort of
• 2:12:12
  understand that the vibes are an equally important thing.
• 2:12:15
  I would not. I don't know about equally
• 2:12:17
  important, but they are relevant.
• 2:12:19
  Well, so this is this is like the the the frustrating thing
• 2:12:22
  about perspective, right? It doesn't matter that something
• 2:12:26
  is objectively false. If it feels true and it feels
• 2:12:30
  true and it impacts someone in a negative way, then it.
• 2:12:32
  I understand what you're saying, but the person designing the
• 2:12:35
  game can't account for every little feels bad vibe scenario.
• 2:12:39
  So you have to you have to look at what they are presenting with
• 2:12:43
  the game and what they are suggesting to you.
• 2:12:45
  And Apollo's world does not at any point suggest that here that
• 2:12:49
  the that the player characters. It does not suggest that they
• 2:12:53
  are expected to win all the time.
• 2:12:58
  And also Apocalypse rule gives you the leeway, the fictional
• 2:13:02
  leeway, in that when you succeed on a roll on a 7UP, the game
• 2:13:11
  says you succeed. And there there there's a caveat
• 2:13:16
  on A7 on a 7:00 to 9:00, but you succeed.
• 2:13:20
  And how mean or not mean the caveat is, is up to the GM.
• 2:13:27
  And thus the GM has a adjusting dial if they want to be meaner
• 2:13:33
  or nicer, and that's on them. It gives you that dial to
• 2:13:37
  adjust, which Blades also does. Blades specifically says you as
• 2:13:41
  the GM have a dial to adjust in terms of how you want the game
• 2:13:45
  field to be. Fabulous doesn't really have
• 2:13:48
  that dial as much because the checks are binary.
• 2:13:52
  They are, you know, D&D style binary.
• 2:13:56
  So that is all. That is some of the contention
• 2:14:00
  of it too. You know, having having the dial
• 2:14:05
  to adjust the G as the GM likes can help a lot because of
• 2:14:09
  players might say we want to play this game, but we don't
• 2:14:11
  want to be as brutal and then use the GM say, OK, well there's
• 2:14:14
  mechanical things that I can tune that the games explicitly
• 2:14:17
  tells me to affect. Now of course you can
• 2:14:20
  mechanically tune anything in a game you want to to change the
• 2:14:23
  intended effect. But if the game explicitly gives
• 2:14:26
  you the tools versus you trying to figure out the tools, like I
• 2:14:29
  could say in Fabulous, I could give you guys flat bonuses to
• 2:14:32
  things or just lower the difficulty levels generally if I
• 2:14:36
  wanted to just increase your general success.
• 2:14:39
  But the game doesn't necessarily suggest that to me fully.
• 2:14:46
  So there's there's part of that too, where the math is what the
• 2:14:49
  math is and then the game design suggestions of how to handle it.
• 2:14:56
  I think it I the only I really the only reason I feel like it's
• 2:15:00
  an issue. If Fabulous was a game about
• 2:15:03
  dirt farmers trying to kill the king, I wouldn't think it was a
• 2:15:07
  problem. I only think it's a problem
• 2:15:08
  because Fabulous frames the characters as heroic and so that
• 2:15:14
  a below 50% chance on a double D 8 feels off.
• 2:15:24
  That's why that's my problem. It's it's a tone, it is a tone
• 2:15:27
  versus mechanic thing that feels a little bit off to me.
• 2:15:34
  Now I will say because you know, we're, we're going back and
• 2:15:40
  forth a little on should it be 10 all the time?
• 2:15:44
  If you roll Double D eights to beat A7, you have a 76% chance
• 2:15:50
  to go 7 or higher. So if you're rolling, if you're
• 2:15:55
  if the difficulty level's A7, that's a totally different
• 2:16:00
  scenario, you're looking pretty good.
• 2:16:02
  Do we ever run me that for D sixes?
• 2:16:05
  Double D sixes. If you can, if you can, give me
• 2:16:07
  double D sixes and then AD 6 and AD 8.
• 2:16:09
  So AD 6 and AD eight against a 7 is a 68% chance, 69 if you round
• 2:16:15
  up and then double D sixes to beat A7 is 58% chance.
• 2:16:23
  What was it? What was the other one?
• 2:16:24
  Sorry, the double C6 so. If you're rolling 2D6 and you're
• 2:16:28
  trying to beat A7, you have a 58% chance, which is.
• 2:16:31
  That's in that now we're talking Apocalypse World numbers.
• 2:16:35
  Right. Which makes sense.
• 2:16:39
  And maybe, I don't know, it would it?
• 2:16:41
  Would it therefore make more sense to say that a an easy
• 2:16:43
  check? Because to me, an easy check
• 2:16:46
  almost feels like unless you roll particularly dog shit,
• 2:16:52
  you're going to fail, right? That's kind of the essence of
• 2:16:54
  easy. Yes.
• 2:16:57
  So like maybe it easy should be A5 and then medium should be a 7
• 2:17:04
  and then like hard should be a 12.
• 2:17:06
  Or a seven. So if you're rolling 2D8,
• 2:17:08
  because again, we're kind of taking D8 as the middle dice, if
• 2:17:11
  you're old 2D8 and you're trying to beat A7, you're going to
• 2:17:14
  succeed most of the time. So A7 is kind of an easy check.
• 2:17:18
  If you're, you have a over, you have a 7076.56% chance on 2D8 to
• 2:17:25
  beat A7 or higher. That's that's like that.
• 2:17:29
  I would consider that an easy check.
• 2:17:31
  You have a 3/4, you know, 75%, three fourths chance, three out
• 2:17:35
  of four. I would.
• 2:17:37
  I think that makes sense as an easy check.
• 2:17:39
  Well, so the reason I, I'm sort of thinking about it in terms of
• 2:17:42
  D6 at the moment, like D6 is like you're not.
• 2:17:45
  Right, but D6 is. Something.
• 2:17:46
  You only are going to have one right?
• 2:17:52
  Like well, OK if you go. No, not necessarily, if you pick
• 2:17:55
  specialist. Well, you could pick specialized
• 2:17:57
  and then you'd have two. But you if you're picking
• 2:18:01
  specialized, you're sort of, I think you're aware of that trade
• 2:18:04
  off you're making there and you know that you're sort of taking
• 2:18:07
  an L in one regard to push it towards most people I think are
• 2:18:11
  going to take average or Jack of all trades.
• 2:18:14
  So I feel like D8 is a better metric to use on what the math
• 2:18:17
  is going to usually look like. Emphasis on usually always, but
• 2:18:29
  even then, even if you are arguing D sixes, I I don't think
• 2:18:34
  you should use D sixes because it's the lowest possible die.
• 2:18:36
  But even if you are arguing D sixes, you have almost a 60%
• 2:18:40
  chance of success on against A7. So again, that still does feel
• 2:18:46
  like relatively in range on like an easy check, like you're still
• 2:18:50
  kind of in that realm. So I think it really is just the
• 2:18:54
  issue of the game suggesting 10 as the usual number, maybe the
• 2:19:00
  maybe the 10's a little high. The 10, yeah, I mean, it
• 2:19:04
  definitely feels a little high, maybe 9.
• 2:19:07
  Could be 9, could be 8. I mean an an 8 on an 8 on 2D6 is
• 2:19:14
  41% chance and then an 8 on 2D8 versus an 8 is 67% chance and
• 2:19:23
  then a nine would be 56% chance. So yeah, I almost feel like like
• 2:19:34
  unfortunately I'm like, because Lancer is the game I'm playing.
• 2:20:01
  Then you have risky checks which are technically DC-10, but it's
• 2:20:07
  the the it's the apocalypse world thing where it's like if
• 2:20:09
  you roll below a 20, you will suffer a some sort of of
• 2:20:13
  negative outcome with the positive outcome.
• 2:20:15
  And then there's a heroic check which is DC.
• 2:20:19
  Well, sorry, risky is also has 1D6.
• 2:20:22
  And then you have heroic difficulty, which is you have to
• 2:20:26
  be to 20 and you have at least one difficulty.
• 2:20:29
  And the the the sliding scale for Lancer is you can tack on
• 2:20:33
  more D sixes to have a higher chance of rolling low.
• 2:20:36
  Right, I I think. So you can have a risky check
• 2:20:38
  with 2D6. Lancer's just a really weird one
• 2:20:41
  to use because the it's like a set difficulty number or is that
• 2:20:46
  be like explicitly gives you a sliding scale.
• 2:20:48
  I'm I'm kind of thinking right now like I'm looking at the
• 2:20:52
  description on the determining of the a difficulty level and
• 2:20:57
  for 10 it says a competent or very talented person like OK, so
• 2:21:04
  very talented is telling me, yeah, the normie is not going to
• 2:21:08
  succeed or most. It's awesome.
• 2:21:10
  That's a funny thing. Competent and very talented are
• 2:21:13
  two very different things. They kind of are, I agree.
• 2:21:15
  Yes, those are. Those two words are maybe not
• 2:21:17
  the, not the. Best words, Yeah.
• 2:21:19
  Competent just sort of means, right?
• 2:21:22
  You have a level of competency. You can do that thing with
• 2:21:25
  regular success. Right.
• 2:21:27
  No, I yeah, what you're saying? Extremely.
• 2:21:29
  I know, but I'm just sort of saying oppressor.
• 2:21:31
  Extremely talented means that you are innately better at this
• 2:21:34
  thing than other people, which means that you would succeed
• 2:21:38
  more times than you would not. Yeah, Yeah.
• 2:21:42
  But you do not on TC-10. I'm kind of yes.
• 2:21:46
  No, you don't. No, yeah, you succeed you, you
• 2:21:48
  fail more than you succeed on DC-10 if you rolling to D8 or
• 2:21:52
  even well actually even if you roll.
• 2:21:54
  So wait, if you roll again, D, let's assume D10 D 855%.
• 2:22:00
  So if you have AT10 and AD 8, you succeed more than you fail
• 2:22:03
  slightly, but 5% more, which is not a ton.
• 2:22:09
  Not a lot, yeah. So, yeah, I don't know, I guess,
• 2:22:16
  I guess I'm just going to start lowering DCS is kind of how I'm
• 2:22:19
  feeling. Sorry, DLS, That's kind of where
• 2:22:25
  I'm feeling at the moment. Yeah, valid I think.
• 2:22:31
  Yeah, and and I, I think I am going to reread the section
• 2:22:33
  specifically about checks. Just wondering if there's
• 2:22:35
  something I'm not understanding potentially.
• 2:22:42
  It is, It is weird how, Yeah, I don't know.
• 2:22:48
  It's it is. It is.
• 2:22:50
  It's funny how you can read the math of a game and go OK, and
• 2:22:52
  then you play the math a little and you go hold on, something's
• 2:22:56
  I'm sniffing something on the math here.
• 2:22:59
  Yeah, well, I mean, that's that's exactly why I wanted to
• 2:23:01
  have this like initial thoughts talk because, you know, the
• 2:23:05
  practicals are important. They come in like this, like
• 2:23:09
  maybe open checks should be used more.
• 2:23:12
  Maybe that's part of it too. Open checks.
• 2:23:15
  An open check being there's no difficulty level, it just is.
• 2:23:19
  The better you roll, the better outcome.
• 2:23:22
  Oh, yeah, no, I mean, yeah, that that.
• 2:23:25
  Maybe those should be intended, but yeah, like what?
• 2:23:29
  Like I'm I'm trying to basically what I'm trying to figure out
• 2:23:32
  now is OK, the math is what it is and I don't personally like
• 2:23:35
  as AGMI have no interest in fucking with the math.
• 2:23:37
  I mostly 'cause I, as a human being, do not like math.
• 2:23:42
  Valid, fair and valid. So I'm looking at the game, I'm
• 2:23:45
  like, what other sliding scales is the game generally giving me?
• 2:23:49
  And and I just I just happened to look at the open checks bit
• 2:23:52
  and I'm like, OK, that's another that is another sliding scale,
• 2:23:58
  you know, and then opposed checks, right.
• 2:24:00
  Opposed checks are also a sliding scale that you could
• 2:24:02
  potentially use because the other, you know, the your
• 2:24:04
  opponent can roll shitty, obviously.
• 2:24:09
  So yeah, I'm just, yeah. And there is the success of the
• 2:24:15
  cost rule, which I did give you guys the option to which
• 2:24:17
  nobody's used yet. So that's worth noting.
• 2:24:21
  Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean it that that is.
• 2:24:24
  That is an optional rule. I almost feel like that
• 2:24:26
  shouldn't be an optional rule. There's a part of me that wants
• 2:24:28
  to say that should just be a rule.
• 2:24:31
  That's valid. I I can see that.
• 2:24:33
  I understand that that's fair. Yeah, I don't know.
• 2:24:40
  Yeah, I definitely don't think you're wrong there.
• 2:24:42
  I I think success at a cost because when you think about
• 2:24:46
  from a certain point of view, that makes sense given that DC
• 2:24:51
  is more difficult than you would think it otherwise should be.
• 2:24:54
  Yeah. And then success is a cost.
• 2:24:56
  A success at a cost is the the leveler.
• 2:24:59
  In a way, yeah. Yeah.
• 2:25:01
  Yeah, maybe. Maybe this partially goes back
• 2:25:04
  to we're a little too D&D pilled, right?
• 2:25:10
  Yeah, although it funny the the having Susanna cost standard
• 2:25:14
  would bring it closer in line to Apocalypse World.
• 2:25:18
  It would, yes. That's what I mean.
• 2:25:19
  Like maybe part of the problem is we're trying to think about
• 2:25:21
  this 2D and D esque and we shouldn't.
• 2:25:23
  And maybe we should think closer to Apocalypse World 'cause we
• 2:25:25
  know for a fact Emmanuel took from Apocalypse World for a
• 2:25:27
  design reference. Right, I don't know.
• 2:25:30
  We're getting, we're getting really deep in the sauce on dice
• 2:25:33
  right now. Well, look, it's a big part of
• 2:25:36
  the game and it's the thing that I have the biggest guff with.
• 2:25:38
  So like. Yeah, no, I understand and I
• 2:25:40
  wouldn't say I have a, a, a full on guff with it, but it is it is
• 2:25:44
  giving me pause for thought for sure.
• 2:25:49
  That being said, we are we are 2 1/2 deep.
• 2:25:52
  So. So perhaps we should wrap up a
• 2:25:54
  little. Oh, for sure.
• 2:25:58
  Yeah, fabulous points if you want to.
• 2:26:01
  Well. Oh, right, right, right last.
• 2:26:03
  Little bit on Fabula points. Yeah, Yeah.
• 2:26:05
  Well, I only have one pro and one con, so we're good.
• 2:26:07
  Yeah, first pro. They are, as far as I have
• 2:26:11
  experienced, the most powerful narrative declaration tool.
• 2:26:17
  Yeah, yeah, that that I have used.
• 2:26:19
  That is the most powerful narrative declaration tool.
• 2:26:22
  Yeah, No, I think that's fair. I think from other games that
• 2:26:24
  I've seen that that's probably the case, yeah.
• 2:26:27
  And it really was we, we, we did some Googling in the combat
• 2:26:30
  because one of the things that I tried to do was take a hit for
• 2:26:33
  another player. Yeah.
• 2:26:35
  And there was a back and forth of like, well, and then we
• 2:26:39
  looked it up. And in Amazon words in the
• 2:26:42
  Fabula subreddit, they have no limitations on how they can
• 2:26:47
  narratively affect the story. My, my, my, my initial reaction
• 2:26:55
  to the idea of jumping in for the hit was no, because that
• 2:27:00
  felt like too much of A mechanical benefit.
• 2:27:02
  And there's a little bit in the book where it specifically says
• 2:27:05
  that the altering the story effect, which is what Isaiah was
• 2:27:09
  ostensibly using, shouldn't have a mechanical benefit.
• 2:27:14
  But I think given what Emmanuel said in that post, and then
• 2:27:20
  looking at it in the book, I think what it's saying is that
• 2:27:23
  it shouldn't have a mechanically like numerical effect.
• 2:27:28
  It shouldn't affect altering the story, shouldn't affect the
• 2:27:31
  numbers, but it can affect the circumstance.
• 2:27:37
  Which is actually, funny enough, another example of the fiction
• 2:27:41
  mechanics being somewhat in parallel with each other.
• 2:27:47
  Interesting note. Yeah, that's actually honestly
• 2:27:52
  that thought of the idea of them kind of riding parallel.
• 2:27:57
  I feel like it's going to reframe a couple of things the
• 2:28:00
  way I look at a couple of things in the game, funny enough.
• 2:28:02
  Yeah, that's fair. That's yeah, that's good.
• 2:28:04
  Yeah. So wait, what's the con in that
• 2:28:08
  case? The con I feel like I don't know
• 2:28:17
  if the game wants them to be something you use a lot or not.
• 2:28:24
  I think the game wants my. I'm going to say yes, the game
• 2:28:27
  wants me to. Oh, you know, I just had another
• 2:28:31
  thought. Yeah.
• 2:28:34
  Does the is wait, hold on, wait. Do you?
• 2:28:43
  Oh, no. When you fumble.
• 2:28:44
  OK, nevermind. I was about to say, I was like,
• 2:28:47
  oh, maybe part of the failing checks is to accrue fabulous
• 2:28:51
  points, but it's only when you fumble you accrue a fabulous
• 2:28:54
  point, right? Yeah, not so much.
• 2:28:57
  Yeah, it just seems a little unclear as I think the game
• 2:29:00
  intended. You should be gaining.
• 2:29:02
  I think again, the game definitely intends you to use
• 2:29:04
  them as much as you can based on 2 main things.
• 2:29:08
  One, the game explicitly says it's a core engine of the game
• 2:29:13
  you should use a lot. But also the fact that if you
• 2:29:17
  start a session with no fabulous points, you automatically get
• 2:29:20
  one, and if you go down you get 2.
• 2:29:24
  Makes me feel that, yeah, you know, use them because you're
• 2:29:30
  going to be handed them for free, you know what I mean?
• 2:29:33
  Yeah. Well, so use them because you're
• 2:29:34
  going to be handed them, yes, but like you don't really have a
• 2:29:38
  reliable way of earning them. The most reliable way you have
• 2:29:43
  is the invoking a failure option, which is technically an
• 2:29:47
  optional rule, but that is the most reliable.
• 2:29:50
  The other reli. The other, well, I was going to
• 2:29:55
  say the other reliable way is you get a fabulous point when
• 2:29:57
  the villain appears on a scene, but I guess that's not reliable
• 2:29:59
  because that's up to the GM. So that one's a little.
• 2:30:02
  Yes, you're also supposed to not see that many villains in the
• 2:30:05
  game, right? You're supposed to have villains
• 2:30:07
  that like grow with you, so introducing one every three
• 2:30:09
  sessions would be a little. No, it's not when a new villain
• 2:30:12
  appears. It's when a villain appears on a
• 2:30:14
  scene. Period.
• 2:30:14
  So it could be the same guy 500 times.
• 2:30:17
  Right, OK, OK, OK. Yeah, but yeah, that's pretty
• 2:30:22
  much my only con I have for faith ones.
• 2:30:24
  I, we haven't used them enough. I, I have used them by far the
• 2:30:27
  most just because I am more I, I'm almost certainly more used
• 2:30:31
  to narrative declarations than the rest of the party.
• 2:30:34
  Because we played Dungeon World, because we played Fantasy
• 2:30:38
  Flight, because we played Blades in the Dark.
• 2:30:40
  I've got training. They're not a narrative
• 2:30:42
  declaration only thing though, to be fair.
• 2:30:45
  No, but like that is where they're going to have their most
• 2:30:48
  interesting use. Like yes, you can get re rolls,
• 2:30:53
  which is good, but you can still roll bad and you know you can
• 2:30:58
  invoke them for other things. But really I think people will
• 2:31:02
  have the most fun and get the most out of them by like
• 2:31:05
  shifting the story around. I almost, I almost wish they
• 2:31:09
  worked a little bit more like the the actual proper down for
• 2:31:13
  narrative declarations in games like Wrath and Glory which are
• 2:31:17
  spin offs from Fantasy Flight because you can use those points
• 2:31:21
  to like do more damage or to subtract damage from getting
• 2:31:26
  like walloped by a boss or something like that.
• 2:31:29
  Oh, that's interesting. And that could be super fun,
• 2:31:32
  like if you, if you've racked up 3 and let's say I want to do
• 2:31:35
  like the fucking the, the dismiss for my sword arcana and
• 2:31:39
  I, you just wallop the boss for like 60-70 damage, that could be
• 2:31:46
  cool. And it's like, all right, well,
• 2:31:47
  now I'm out of narrative declarations, dude.
• 2:31:50
  You know, potentially when the boss looks at me and says, oh,
• 2:31:55
  God, die forever, that I can't defend myself from the die
• 2:31:58
  forever, he's going to put me in the raging demon.
• 2:32:01
  And I kind of just got to hold that like.
• 2:32:06
  I mean, yes, I, that's an interesting thought.
• 2:32:08
  I will say I did just have a thought too that would be kind
• 2:32:11
  of interesting is instead of you gain a fabulous point when you
• 2:32:14
  fumble, what if you gain a fabulous point if you fail your
• 2:32:18
  check by like 5 or more or something like that Just to open
• 2:32:22
  it, open it up a little bit more.
• 2:32:25
  It it would definitely do that. Yeah, yeah, it's kind of, it's a
• 2:32:30
  weird thing 'cause you wanna, it's like, yes, give fabulous
• 2:32:33
  points, but be careful giving fabulous points also.
• 2:32:37
  Yeah, don't, don't do it too much.
• 2:32:39
  Because I actually, I actually had the thought about giving,
• 2:32:43
  giving fabulous points as a narrative thing, kind of like
• 2:32:47
  how inspiration is talked about. And I'm I actually made a post
• 2:32:50
  in the in the subreddit and the consensus was you could do it,
• 2:32:56
  but be a little careful. Oh, really?
• 2:32:59
  Interesting. Yeah, yeah.
• 2:33:03
  So yeah, I, I know Paladin got significantly more pushback on
• 2:33:06
  the popping back up, so I figured there'd be a little
• 2:33:09
  more, I don't know, vitriol is not the right word, but more or
• 2:33:11
  aggressive resistance to that. What do you mean more pushback
• 2:33:14
  on the popping back up? He put he put out a post of
• 2:33:17
  like, does it make more sense to like be able to get back up for
• 2:33:20
  a reason or another in the game? And he was basically people were
• 2:33:23
  like, I know you really shouldn't do that.
• 2:33:28
  OK, I I don't know, interesting thoughts.
• 2:33:34
  All right, well, that was a lot of shit.
• 2:33:37
  Yeah, brother, we should. Probably cut ourselves off
• 2:33:39
  before we keep. Going my longest episode I think
• 2:33:41
  by a good bit. I don't know, maybe.
• 2:33:45
  All right, lead us up, motherfucker.
• 2:33:51
  I. Swear to God, I swear to God.
• 2:33:55
  I was trying to think of AI, was trying to think of a joke, and I
• 2:33:57
  kind of lost it. I don't know, fucking give us a
• 2:34:01
  fall on social media. That's all.
• 2:34:02
  I yeah, whatever follows us in the social media is there in the
• 2:34:07
  description. That's it.
• 2:34:14
  That's all I got. If you've got an interesting
• 2:34:18
  what's the most interesting thing you've used the fabulous
• 2:34:20
  point on, shoot us a comment. I'm quite interested to hear
• 2:34:23
  what you have to say. What are the limits that you
• 2:34:26
  have tested for? How?
• 2:34:29
  How much Emma's no limitations send us.
• 2:34:32
  I I'm just imagining. Can I spend a fabulous point to
• 2:34:34
  kill God? Just picture that.
• 2:34:38
  So I for me the there's a good story in warmer 40,000 but
• 2:34:42
  doesn't work that realizes killing demons and he goes to a
• 2:34:44
  corn world and gets impaled by the demon and then in a final
• 2:34:48
  act of resistance he crushes the demons and nuts in his power
• 2:34:51
  cloth. Nice, I feel like that's the
• 2:34:54
  power you get down. OK, Dungeon Master, I'm going to
• 2:34:58
  use my final fabulous point to smack his nuts on the way.
• 2:35:07
  Love it. I'm right at -2 for this fight.
• 2:35:11
  All right, good. Goodbye forever, you bitches and
• 2:35:15
  hoes. He's motherfuckers.
• 2:35:17
  Sorry, Brett. Yeah, seriously.