Interface Zero: Upgrade in Progress

[Willard]

What it does tell us is that adding another damage die is about ten times as expensive as boosting the die type, which in turn is about as expensive as adding a point of bonus damage. For that price you can increase the range by 5 (of whatever unit the chapter uses), while you need twice as much to increase ROF by one.

An initial point system is thus:

+5 range, 1 point
Additional damage die, 10 points
Improve die type, 1 point
+1 damage, 1 point
+1 ROF, 2 points.

[Willard]

Nice!

Does it improve the approximation any if, instead of three separate terms for die size/number of dice/bonus you use a single "average damage" term? (Just asking because my thought was to work from average damage rather than the specific mechanics of how damage is rolled. Which may or may not be a good idea. )

I'll check, but I'm not sure how that'll work from an upgrade/add-on perspective. Be right back.

[Willard]

Doing that actually loses some power (not surprising now that I think of it), going down from R^2 of 0.80 to 0.72, but it looks a little simpler:

log (price) = 5 + 0.03 range + 0.26 ROF + 0.25 average damage

More significantly I can now add AP in without it going bonkers (even if it's p-value isn't great at 0.0594):

log (price) = 5.15 + 0.03 range + 0.27 ROF + 0.22 average damage + 0.05 AP

Looking at a few more decimal points AP is twice as expensive as range, which is a tenth as expensive as ROF which is about the same as average damage. So a +5 to AP is about as expensive as a +1 to damage. There is an outlier with 30 AP that might cause those problems, so I'll see about removing that.

[Willard]

Dropping the outlier did a lot to restore parity between damage and AP, so that's good. In fact it may have gone a little too far, implying that a point of AP is more expensive than a point of damage. It may make more sense to say that they're pretty much the same, and even include it in the average damage variable. Then I'll try that with ROF and range again.

[nDervish]

Additional damage die, 10 points
Improve die type, 1 point
+1 damage, 1 point

Interesting that an extra die comes out as so expensive when it's only equivalent to a little over +2.5 to +6.5 damage (depending on the die type).

+1 ROF, 2 points.

I suspect that ROF should be a higher cost for going from 1 to 2 (which makes the weapon full-auto in the first place) and a lower cost for increasing beyond that point (which just adds to the number of full-auto shots).

The Semi (which allows ROF 1 weapons to double-tap for +1 to hit and damage), 3RB (+2 to hit and damage; should only appear on ROF 2+ weapons), and Auto (allows an ROF 2+ weapon to fire single shots or double-tap - yes, I know it's backwards) modifiers are pretty relevant here, too.

Doing that actually loses some power (not surprising now that I think of it), going down from R^2 of 0.80 to 0.72,

Agreed that it's not surprising, given that the original version overpriced additional damage dice and underpriced increased die sizes relative to a flat damage bonus. It's probably a better starting point for building a new system, though, since it weights all damage increases equally.

It may make more sense to say that they're pretty much the same, and even include it in the average damage variable.

Not quite the same, though. +1 AP = +1 damage only until AP = Armor, then +1 AP = +0 damage beyond that, so AP is definitely inferior to raw damage. Not sure what the ratio should be, though. 1 AP = 0.8 damage, maybe?

[Willard]

Yeah, 0.8 was my guess too, but that may make it too granular to be practical. The current estimates are something like 1.5 or 1.8, which is clearly off. I imagine you would be free to pick the parameters as you choose, and thus will be less likely to overinvest in AP, so it won't be much of a problem.

[Willard]

About the extra dice costing so much I suspect it has something to do with the possibility of them exploding. Perhaps I should include that in the average too.

Isn't the addition of more dice in full-auto linear? I suppose 3RB could be included as well, to see if it matters, but it means I'll have to go through the list again.

A couple of new versions:

log (p) = 5.108 + 0.186 average damage including AP + 0.528 floor (ROF/2) + 0.088 round (range/5)
for approximate points: +5 range (1), +1 damage (+2), +2 ROF (3).

log (p) = 5.26 + 0.22 (dice number * die type / 2 + bonus damage + AP) + 0.28 ROF
for a simpler approximation of 1 point per additional damage or ROF.

Weight, heavy, ammo capacity, minimum str and size (one or two hands) don't really want to fit into this mold. Range is possible but very weak.

[Willard]

Sorry for all these posts, but when I account for the exploding dice (http://axiscity.hexamon.net/users/isoma ... h/explode/) things do of course change a little bit.

You then get approximately: +1 ROF (3 points), +1 average damage (2 points) and +6 range (1 point).

Whether or not the system actually has to deal with weight, ammo, str requirements etc is up for debate. Since they're all custom made it really isn't a sacrifice for someone to impose a strength requirement which they know they can pass. The same sort of argument could be made for weight, even if it's a little weaker. Ammo could perhaps come with the ROF, or be abstracted from entirely. No one likes to keep track of that, and perhaps auto-fire could be held back by tweaked penalties instead. But that's up to you.

More important to add to the mix is bonuses to hit, both in general and at certain ranges. Something like 4 points for a general bonus, and 2 points to reduce any particular situational penalty sounds reasonable.

Now for a way to convert points to credits in a way that works at both high and low levels...

[jeronimooo]

Out of game there's no problem, at least on my end. We all know Mal had his reasons and can't blame you for following through with it, but also realize that if you keep insisting on things like that the character has no place in the group. Maybe Mal really is stubborn and can't/won't patch things up. That's fine, but then you need to make another character that blends in better. If you as a player insist on playing a character that doesn't work within the group then those feelings might start seeping out of the game too, but let's not make that happen.

see, here's my beef (to use a strong word...) I am not allowed to play out my character, where Paladin was the one failing the mission... yet I end up being the bad guy somehow, and I get blamed for pulling a stunt... This mission could have gone hugely different had Mal been allowed to investigate the bike instead of being forced into a battle... I might have concluded that with his current powers he posed no threat at all to get close to a singularity, and maybe just tagged him to be followed up by Stopwatch (as in placing him on a watchlist...) Stopwatch does not have a problem with each individual AI as long as they don't go on a killing spree or get close to reaching singularity...

But when Paladin decided to take it to the next level, I got called by Jayne and from that moment on Mal had no choice... I don't see the reasons the group as such decided to go for Paladins idea to ''free'' the sim (where Mal had no problem with what so ever btw) and tag along the AI over my own duty, as it wasn't realy a choice...

But I don't feel all blame should be assigned to Mal, nor should he be the one going all apologetic for being betrayed... The fact that Stopwatch is weak in Chicago (for now) should not be counted as they did have a strike team en route, and can fall back on (quite high level) mercs and maybe even help from official authorities up to and including Ravenlocke and whatnot...
All in all, I feel the group is over-accommodating towards one player, and almost non-accommodating towards the other... It may not at all be intended that way, but that is how the ''if you pull a stunt like that again'' style of posts comes over...

First, specific to this situation, a number of your posts regarding the showdown over what to do with Zephyrus come off sounding like you're upset with other members of the group in real life over the way things went down. Or maybe you aren't and you're simply trying as hard as you can to justify Mal's actions and make him "the good guy" in that situation. I honestly can't tell.

for the record: I am not upset with other members of the group in real life over the way things went down. I have some questions regarding the way the story has to develop and what got posted here afterwards, but that might be down to different interpretations and the fact that no-one here really is posting in their native language... so taking in account that this is a written medium, subtleties are definitely harder to bring across... When I put myself in Mal's shoes, I do feel he's getting a bit shafted by the rest of the group, as in getting all the blame assigned to him where that most certainly is not justified. By taking the group in for questioning and debrief, and Mal fighting for them to get a chance to repair the situation (instead of being locked away for a while) I had thought that nobody had to lose face, the group would be ''officially'' informed of Mal's profession and no lasting harm would be done... But it seems that that solution is unacceptable for the group and they want Mal to grovel for their assistance after having betrayed him... That is something very hard to swallow for Mal (especially given the arrogant hindrance) to the point where I am actually considering taking another character completely. though as of yet I have no idea about what kind of character I would want to go with... (potentially cyborg or something similar)

Given that there seems to be a huge load of things we need to discuss anyway (if bjorn can make it), I think we should focus on that on monday and then see where it leads us... I'll try to make up my mind on what I want to do with Mal, partly will depend on what else further gets written here...

[God45]

I didn`t want to do this post but now I am. But this was the situation:

1. The rest of the group do not know who Mal is working for. Mal starts acting weird by akting agresivly towards an friendly npc that have been enslaved by an evil Corporation.

2. The rest of the Group are weirded out by this and want answers. Mal refuses to answer them and says that he is caling someone outside their cirkle of secret mercenarys. He refuses to say who.

3. Mal says that he wants to "take a look" at the bike and when Paldin and Bullseye stop him becuse he have said agresive things about the bike and refuses to tell them who he hae been talking to.

4. Mal pulls out a gun and aims towards Paladin while threatening Bullseye with shooting her.

5. Paladin tries to negotiate with Mal and get Mal to talk to the rest of the group or leave. Mal refuses.

6. A fight breaks out. Everybody uses non-lethal weapons until Mal during the fight loads his automatic rifle with live ammunition.

7. Mal threatens the rest of Group with having called in a Stopwatch striketeam. In response to this Paladin threatens him with Heavy weapons and dismemberment.

8. Mal gives up, Paldin drugs him and the team leaves without taking Mal prisoner or doing anything else to him.


Now, you drove us all to the situation. You could have handled this by lying and saying that you had a safe house and we would have let you take the girl and bike. You could have told us that you were stopwatch and this was an rouge AI, you didn´t. SUre, Paladin would have problems but the rest of the group would not and Paladin would not have attacked the entire group.

You handled this in the worst way and then you attacked us! And then you switched to the kind of bullets that could have killed us! The group betraying Mal? Please! You shoot at us and refused to tell us why and then you snitched on us!

Now we found a way to let you keep playing you character even though he did all this. You can accept that or you can make a character that fits better with the group.

[jeronimooo]

I didn`t want to do this post but now I am. But this was the situation:

1. The rest of the group do not know who Mal is working for. Mal starts acting weird by akting agresivly towards an friendly npc that have been enslaved by an evil Corporation.

2. The rest of the Group are weirded out by this and want answers. Mal refuses to answer them and says that he is caling someone outside their cirkle of secret mercenarys. He refuses to say who.

3. Mal says that he wants to "take a look" at the bike and when Paldin and Bullseye stop him becuse he have said agresive things about the bike and refuses to tell them who he hae been talking to.

4. Mal pulls out a gun and aims towards Paladin while threatening Bullseye with shooting her.

5. Paladin tries to negotiate with Mal and get Mal to talk to the rest of the group or leave. Mal refuses.

6. A fight breaks out. Everybody uses non-lethal weapons until Mal during the fight loads his automatic rifle with live ammunition.

7. Mal threatens the rest of Group with having called in a Stopwatch striketeam. In response to this Paladin threatens him with Heavy weapons and dismemberment.

8. Mal gives up, Paldin drugs him and the team leaves without taking Mal prisoner or doing anything else to him.


Now, you drove us all to the situation. You could have handled this by lying and saying that you had a safe house and we would have let you take the girl and bike. You could have told us that you were stopwatch and this was an rouge AI, you didn´t. SUre, Paladin would have problems but the rest of the group would not and Paladin would not have attacked the entire group.

You handled this in the worst way and then you attacked us! And then you switched to the kind of bullets that could have killed us! The group betraying Mal? Please! You shoot at us and refused to tell us why and then you snitched on us!

Now we found a way to let you keep playing you character even though he did all this. You can accept that or you can make a character that fits better with the group.

that was what happened from Paladin's point of view, here's what happened according to Mal:

1) There is a minor hindrance called secret... Mal has absolutely no idea yet of who you are and wether or not he can trust you. And asking questions aggressively? seriously? he only got agressive AFTER you started to get in his way and threaten him

2) again, minor hindrance called secret... besides, Mal got called by Jayne, he did not call someone himself... Besides that, there is no reason that Mal would have to justify or explain every phone call he receives, nor would he ever, especially not when being threatened to...

3) I just wanted to take a look and investigate the bike at that point... you guys stood in my way and then you started threatening knocking me out, you initiated the conflict there...

4) Mal took out his gun aiming at Paladin and threatening Bullseye with shooting her, to stop him from knocking Mal out as both of you were threatening him... (forgot about that little detail did ya?)

5) at that point, there was nothing Mal could have said that would have changed the outcome of the situation, Mal was not walking away in any case, and neither were the both of you, and unlike Paladin, Mal does not try to talk everything out until it gets way past ridiculous... once the result is sure and unavoidable, so be it...

6) I'd like to point out that both my pistol AND assault rifle come loaded with lethal ammo by default, yet I only used the non-lethal Tazer grenades, at NO point did I choose to hit you with something heavier...

7) I did not call in a strike team, it was allready en route anyway, and Mal was friendly enough to warn you guys... He could also have stalled and try to delay things until they arrived... but no, he tried to save you from lethal danger


yeah right, Mal could have lied and that would not have lead to an open war in the group next session... Telling you I am Stopwatch is not an option yet, you guys getting picked up and interrogated/debriefed and then made to sign an NDA would have solved that...

and yeah, I shot a tazer grenade at you, but that was in self defense... or are you forgetting both you and Bullseye were attacking me? you started threatening with violence first, you initiated the whole conflict... the way you acted gave Mal no choice what so ever... Yes, I shot on you (again, in self defence) and snitch on you? please... an agent reporting to his superior can hardly be called snitching... what did you expect Mal would do? Lie for you and come up with a cover story to his superior officer who could clearly follow what was happening anyways

You found a way for my character to continue playing that requires my character to go in against his arrogant hindrance, his secret hindrance and his base character alltogether... There is no way Mal can agree with the terms you want to impose...

Did I handle it perfectly? absolutely not, but neither did you (or Bullseye) so please stop putting all the blame on Mal because that is getting really old really fast

anyways... it looks like I have no choice left but to drop Mal so I 'll further consider my next character... though not sure if I can do that before monday... In the worst case scenario I'll be there for the discussions that have to take place and then sit out a sesion...

but for the record: I don't think Mal was a bad fit for the group so making a character that fits better to the group might not prove that easy...

[nDervish]

see, here's my beef (to use a strong word...)

Nah, not particularly strong at all. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug75diEyiA0

I am not allowed to play out my character,

I disagree. Granted, I missed most of the initial discussion since I was having a separate conversation with CW as the conflict developed, but, from what I saw, you did play out your character (and, IMO, that scene involved a lot of good roleplaying on all sides). Mal was ultimately prevented from doing what he wanted to/had to, but he sure as hell tried to and, in the end, he demonstrated just how far he was willing to go in the name of his duty. If that's not playing out your character, I don't know what is.

where Paladin was the one failing the mission...

That was the conflict I had actually been trying to set up: Does the group go along with Paladin and do the (arguably) "right thing" by helping the runaway sim? Do they turn her in to complete the mission? Do they find a way to both save her and complete the mission? (Incidentally, I had intended to step that conflict up a notch by having Boreale offer a bonus for returning the pilot along with the bike, but forgot to actually do so at the table.) I just got so fixated on that conflict that I failed to notice the one I was also setting up with Mal and the AI.

Stopwatch does not have a problem with each individual AI as long as they don't go on a killing spree or get close to reaching singularity...

...and they're confined to a single physical location. In general, Stopwatch is fine with androids, but zero-tolerance for AIs running free in the Deep. (races.pdf says that androids can't ghost; hacking final.pdf says that AI sprites are "highly illegal, and with good reason", even if they are not self-aware.)

But I don't feel all blame should be assigned to Mal, nor should he be the one going all apologetic for being betrayed...

I don't think anyone has said that Mal should be apologetic. On the contrary, last Monday's suggestion for the next session was for Zephyrus to turn out to be a threat after all, causing the other PCs to realize that Mal was right all along.

When I put myself in Mal's shoes, I do feel he's getting a bit shafted by the rest of the group,

Absolutely. In-character, I think that's the reaction most people would have. I just wanted to be sure that it was staying in-character and not becoming an out-of-character issue.

By taking the group in for questioning and debrief, and Mal fighting for them to get a chance to repair the situation (instead of being locked away for a while) I had thought that nobody had to lose face, the group would be ''officially'' informed of Mal's profession and no lasting harm would be done... But it seems that that solution is unacceptable for the group and they want Mal to grovel for their assistance after having betrayed him...

My impression of what is "unacceptable" for the others, which I tried to get across indirectly in my earlier "not gonna happen" comment, is that it sounds like you're talking about wanting Stopwatch to forcibly abduct/kidnap the other characters, lock them up (even if only temporarily), interrogate them, and use threats of a a fate worse than Gitmo to blackmail them into helping out.

If you actually meant that Jayne (or Mal) should send everyone email saying, "you helped create a serious problem and now you will help fix it", then I don't think anyone would have a problem with that, but that's not how your earlier comments came across.

[bladerunner_35]

Ok, with that out of the way (in all friendliness):

My name has been mentioned a time or two so I thought I should.....lol....make a statement or something.

1) I will be playing monday. Is it possible to start a little earlier than 18? I think we need....to talk.

2) I've read through the last two pages or so and I am still not sure exactly what has happened. There seems to be three relatively serious issues we need to adress in order to have a healthy campaign where everyone is having fun:

2a) There's a lot of talk about characters doing this or that. Clearly whatever this is has gone beyond our characters. We need to adress this thing that cropped up last mission (or whenever) between you guys. We need to adress this out of game.

2b) The state of the campaign. There's been a lot of talk about the grittieness of the campaign, if there is too much money/equipment or not enough and if this is or isn't a problem. We need to adress this out of game.

2c) From my count there's also three major plots that are being bounced around:

• Stopwatch
• Sim-liberation
• a fight to drive the NAC out of Chicago intertwined with some high-end corporate business-stuff(?)

On top of all this there's the pseudo-merc outfit thing were we are doing random missions. We do not necessarily need to adress the "what-the-hell-are-we-going-to-do-during-our-sessions" out of game but considering the problems that have cropped up it is better if we do.

I don't want to put words in Björn's mouth, but he seemed to be the biggest advocate of gritty street-level punkiness in the pre-game discussions and I suspect that his initial misgivings about the game which he wanted to discuss in person may have been largely related to the game's power creep almost immediately turning into a sprint. If I'm right about that, then this is likely to drive him out of the campaign.

Yes and no. I do feel that my initial misgivings (way back before the first session or even character creation started) about the campaign is very much in danger of being a reality. Now, I've gamed long enough to know that this need not be a problem with the campaign itself and perhaps it's just me and what I want to get out of roleplaying that is jarring with the group.

With that said I am not overly concerned about the power level of the campaign - the "scraping by" or "having an armoury to choose from back home" 10,000 credits question. By that I mean while I prefer grit and spit and duct tape I can roll with higher-end stuff. This is not the issue that'll drive me out of the campaign.

My main concern is with the overal theme of the campaign and the obviously wildly different agendas of both the characters and the players.

Jeroen brought up the fair point that we're all debating (hardly even discussing anymore) through a text-based medium in a foreign language (for the majority).

In order to not muddle the issues further I humbly suggest that we do not continue to talk about the major problems here but wait a few more days until we can all meet on monday. Just so things do not escalate further.

I realise I have missed a great deal and will bring an open mind on monday to see what's what.

This message brought to you by Chichago Blue Collar PrideTM.
Have a productive day!

Edit: Dave made his post while I was posting mine!
Edit2: And Jeroen!

Lol there's no way I can keep up with you guys....

[jeronimooo]

both dave and bjorn posted whilst I was writing my previous post.

I will follow bjorn's advice and refrain from posting until we can talk things out on monday... we can then see where that leads us...

for the record, I can be there way earlier... (probably will be there around 1 or 2 PM)

[nDervish]

I didn`t want to do this post but now I am. But this was the situation:

1) There is a minor hindrance called secret...

Stand down, both of you. Casting blame isn't going to help the situation, it's only going to escalate it and cause bad feelings.

It was a tricky situation in-game and, in the moment, you both turned it into a great moment of roleplaying. Please don't turn against each other out-of-game in the aftermath.

I'll still say a bit more, but I want to get this initial comment out now, before anyone else fires off another volley.

[jeronimooo]

see, here's my beef (to use a strong word...)

Nah, not particularly strong at all. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug75diEyiA0

I am not allowed to play out my character,

I disagree. Granted, I missed most of the initial discussion since I was having a separate conversation with CW as the conflict developed, but, from what I saw, you did play out your character (and, IMO, that scene involved a lot of good roleplaying on all sides). Mal was ultimately prevented from doing what he wanted to/had to, but he sure as hell tried to and, in the end, he demonstrated just how far he was willing to go in the name of his duty. If that's not playing out your character, I don't know what is.

That is playing out my character, and it does not get accepted... how else am I supposed to take all the ''make a character that better fits the group'' comments?

where Paladin was the one failing the mission...

That was the conflict I had actually been trying to set up: Does the group go along with Paladin and do the (arguably) "right thing" by helping the runaway sim? Do they turn her in to complete the mission? Do they find a way to both save her and complete the mission? (Incidentally, I had intended to step that conflict up a notch by having Boreale offer a bonus for returning the pilot along with the bike, but forgot to actually do so at the table.) I just got so fixated on that conflict that I failed to notice the one I was also setting up with Mal and the AI.

Stopwatch does not have a problem with each individual AI as long as they don't go on a killing spree or get close to reaching singularity...

...and they're confined to a single physical location. In general, Stopwatch is fine with androids, but zero-tolerance for AIs running free in the Deep. (races.pdf says that androids can't ghost; hacking final.pdf says that AI sprites are "highly illegal, and with good reason", even if they are not self-aware.)

But I don't feel all blame should be assigned to Mal, nor should he be the one going all apologetic for being betrayed...

I don't think anyone has said that Mal should be apologetic. On the contrary, last Monday's suggestion for the next session was for Zephyrus to turn out to be a threat after all, causing the other PCs to realize that Mal was right all along.

And yet CW posted that Mal shoould be the one going to the group and asking (or begging) for help because he doesn't know anyone... If the group does not come to Mal, realising they were wrong, or the group does not get ''forced'' by Stopwatch to resolve the situation, Mal would go in with the merc strike squad centuries before he would consider asking the group for help... He'd probably even rather go in on his own than ask for help...

When I put myself in Mal's shoes, I do feel he's getting a bit shafted by the rest of the group,

Absolutely. In-character, I think that's the reaction most people would have. I just wanted to be sure that it was staying in-character and not becoming an out-of-character issue.

By taking the group in for questioning and debrief, and Mal fighting for them to get a chance to repair the situation (instead of being locked away for a while) I had thought that nobody had to lose face, the group would be ''officially'' informed of Mal's profession and no lasting harm would be done... But it seems that that solution is unacceptable for the group and they want Mal to grovel for their assistance after having betrayed him...

My impression of what is "unacceptable" for the others, which I tried to get across indirectly in my earlier "not gonna happen" comment, is that it sounds like you're talking about wanting Stopwatch to forcibly abduct/kidnap the other characters, lock them up (even if only temporarily), interrogate them, and use threats of a a fate worse than Gitmo to blackmail them into helping out.

If you actually meant that Jayne (or Mal) should send everyone email saying, "you helped create a serious problem and now you will help fix it", then I don't think anyone would have a problem with that, but that's not how your earlier comments came across.

Stopwatch will need to know the location for the drone and possibly the sim, for that they would bring in the group for interrogation anyways. By bring in, take that as whichever way works but they would be brought in... be it by a phone call, or a message personally delivered by a (so far) friendly superior merc with backup and superior firepower just in case... The result would be the same... and yes, Jayne might threaten them with Gitmo or worse to ensure there cooperation, but only if they did not seem cooperative enough from the beginning...

and now I really won't post until monday (unless it is about agreeing to be here earlier on monday)

[nDervish]

You found a way for my character to continue playing that requires my character to go in against his arrogant hindrance, his secret hindrance and his base character alltogether... There is no way Mal can agree with the terms you want to impose...

I'll leave the interpretation of Mal's base character to you, but my understanding of the way we were talking about taking things in the next session doesn't go against Arrogant or Secret at all.

• Approaching the other PCs with the attitude of "you will help fix the mess you created" (a statement, not a request) is thoroughly Arrogant.
• The description of Secret at the Minor level says that revealing it could cause major embarrassment, cause you to become Wanted, or lead to the loss of friends, associates, or contacts. None of those potential problems would apply in this situation. On the contrary, revealing your Stopwatch connections seems to be pretty much the only thing that will prevent losing friends, associates, or contacts at this point.

I see no reason why you would be forced to retire Mal if you don't want to.

1) I will be playing monday. Is it possible to start a little earlier than 18? I think we need....to talk.

Good to hear you can make it! I can be there as early as 16.

And, yes, yes we do...

2) I've read through the last two pages or so and I am still not sure exactly what has happened. There seems to be three relatively serious issues we need to adress in order to have a healthy campaign where everyone is having fun:

Your assessment on 2a and 2b is spot-on. I'm not sure that 2c is quite as major as your impression of it.

• The major Stopwatch involvement at the moment is that it was the underlying in-character cause of the issues in 2a and doing some followup Stopwatch business in the next session or three is the way we came up with to resolve the rift between Mal and the rest of the group.
• Sim liberation is Paladin's personal agenda and Sebastian's come up with a crazy plan to pursue it
• The corporate stuff, driving the NAC out, and getting Chicago to join the GLU are Almighty's personal agenda and CW thinks he can use Sebastian's crazy plan to advance this agenda

So one short-term thing and two personal projects, none of which need to be (or, I think, are intended to be) campaign-defining.

I do feel that my initial misgivings (way back before the first session or even character creation started) about the campaign is very much in danger of being a reality.

...and yet you're still not telling us what they are...

(That's fine. It gives us all an extra reason to show up Monday so we can find out. )

In order to not muddle the issues further I humbly suggest that we do not continue to talk about the major problems here but wait a few more days until we can all meet on monday. Just so things do not escalate further.

Quite sane.

In that vein, I've tried to avoid anything directly connected to the current issues in this post aside from explaining why I don't think Mal needs to be banished from the campaign. If I've failed to do so, please ignore any hot buttons I may have brushed up against. We can talk about them on Monday rather than reacting to them here.

Lol there's no way I can keep up with you guys....

I know the feeling... Some days, it seems like a miracle that I get anything done at work...

[bladerunner_35]

I do feel that my initial misgivings (way back before the first session or even character creation started) about the campaign is very much in danger of being a reality.

...and yet you're still not telling us what they are...

Oh but I have. But that was about one month and twenty pages ago so it's pretty ancient history. Here it is again (the original can be found on page 5):

I think the West Marches sounds great in theory but I've got two misgivings:

1. I am afraid there won't be a red thread or cohesion to the campaign and that it will be very episodic. I do not mind sandboxing at all but just running around stirring up shit for the sake of stirring up shit or running mission of the week is not very appealing to me. There needs to be something driving the campaign forward - forward meaning an ongoing story that builds from session to session and that is something more than just the accumulated experiences of our characters.

2. Finding a time to get together. This is the part I dislike the most about playing roleplaying games. Finding a time where the group can get together is a pain. Now sure, in West Marches this isn't a problem in theory because as long as one or two players can play there's a session. But again, with that setup I feel there will great difficulty to keep up with the story.

I think that my misgivings steem from the fact that West Marches do not have a story - just an "environment". This may or may not work. In Savage Marches it worked well enough and we built on the story from session to session even if it just happened to be "last time we killed enemy X and liberated village y".

I think it speaks volumes (and is quite funny) that your casual description in the above post about "one short-term thing and two personal projects, none of which ned to be (or, I think, are intended to be) campaign-defining" is pretty much spot on my misgiving #1 with exception to that it's character driven and not just "stirring up shit".

Again, probably nothing wrong with the campaign. More likely it's just not for me. It might not be an issue at all and that it will in fact turn into an awesome plot. But, reading about it here it seems like it's all over the place.

We'll see what happens monday. I promise to bring an open mind.

[nDervish]

Yeah, 0.8 was my guess too, but that may make it too granular to be practical. The current estimates are something like 1.5 or 1.8, which is clearly off. I imagine you would be free to pick the parameters as you choose, and thus will be less likely to overinvest in AP, so it won't be much of a problem.

There should definitely be limits on how things can be combined ("No, 1d4 damage with AP 500 doesn't make any sense."), but that can probably be left to common sense with GM fiat as a backup for when common sense fails.

That said, there should perhaps be some point beyond which the cost of AP drops off, given that most normal weapons cap out around AP 4, then it skips up to 20-50 for light anti-vehicle weaponry and up to 150 for serious tank-killer missiles. (Implementing such a cost break would probably be the solution to that AP 30 outlier you mentioned earlier.) I'm not sure whether it would make more sense for the cost break to kick in after a fixed level of AP or if it should be based on the base damage (making AP cheaper for heavier weapons), though.

Isn't the addition of more dice in full-auto linear?

Mechanically, yes, but the distribution of ROF values is not. There are a lot more ROF 1 weapons than any other ROF value, very few if any ROF 2[1], then a lot of ROF 3, and a few ROF 4 or 5.

This suggests (as does my extremely limited understanding of real-world weapons engineering) that going from ROF 1 to ROF 2 is relatively expensive (just getting full-auto capability in the first place), but from 2 to 3 is quite cheap (bringing yourself up to the optimal fire rate), with an increasing incremental cost for each additional point of ROF beyond 3 (pushing the mechanism harder and harder to squeeze additional performance out of it).

[1] There are no ROF 2 weapons at all in SWD core and the few ROF 2 weapons in the IZ mostly look like they were intended to be "can fire 2 single shots per round" rather than full-auto, in which case they should really be ROF 1 Semi rather than ROF 2. The pneumatic dart rifle in particular makes no sense as a full-auto-only weapon, especially when its ammo costs 50-500 Cr/shot.

You then get approximately: +1 ROF (3 points), +1 average damage (2 points) and +6 range (1 point).

That seems relatively clean, as far as it goes.

Whether or not the system actually has to deal with weight, ammo, str requirements etc is up for debate. Since they're all custom made it really isn't a sacrifice for someone to impose a strength requirement which they know they can pass. The same sort of argument could be made for weight, even if it's a little weaker. Ammo could perhaps come with the ROF, or be abstracted from entirely. No one likes to keep track of that, and perhaps auto-fire could be held back by tweaked penalties instead. But that's up to you.

Those should all, IMO, be calculated and/or bought.

The norm in SW is for Min Str to be based on the damage die. Looking at the chart on SWD 54, it seems to mostly be Min Str d(X-2) for weapons that do 2dX damage, although there are a lot of exceptions. Going from this, I'd say probably calculate Min Str from the average damage, then allow spending additional points to reduce it if needed/desired. (I'm inclined not to give a point cost reduction for increasing Min Str for exactly the reason you mentioned.)

I'd handle weight the same way: Calculate it based on the other weapon characteristics, then allow it to be bought down from there.

Ammo capacity (in tokens) would default to 2 (per Clint's original abstract modern ammo rules), but could be bought either up or down from there. My first thought on minimum ammo capacity is ROF/2 (which would, on average, allow one round of firing full-auto at full ROF for a character with Shooting d6), but that may need tweaking for very high ROF weapons. (Under the standard ammo rules, ammo consumption increases with the square of ROF, but it's linear under the abstract ammo rules. I'm not sure of the best way to address that discrepancy. Ignoring it is definitely an option, but that removes a balancing factor which discourages weapons with stupidly high ROF.)

I do feel that my initial misgivings (way back before the first session or even character creation started) about the campaign is very much in danger of being a reality.

...and yet you're still not telling us what they are...

Oh but I have. But that was about one month and twenty pages ago so it's pretty ancient history.

Awww... You gave away the secret!

I think it speaks volumes (and is quite funny) that your casual description in the above post about "one short-term thing and two personal projects, none of which ned to be (or, I think, are intended to be) campaign-defining" is pretty much spot on my misgiving #1 with exception to that it's character driven and not just "stirring up shit".

I see your point (and I agree that it's pretty funny).

I didn't intend to be dismissive about those three plot threads, only to indicate that, from what I've seen so far, nobody has said that they want to pursue any of them as a primary focus and, in the case of the first one (Stopwatch stuff), there have been comments to the effect of "I don't want to hunt AIs full-time".

But, yeah, if talking about possible long-term plot directions will increase your comfort level with the campaign, then let's do it.

[Rekreativc]

Hey. As expected the thread has exploded while away, but that's ok. I see we're up for Monday (probably won't be able to make it before 18 but I can try).

I'm not going to say anything about what went down last session. Out of game speaking I think pvp was a mistake and I feel it should have been avoided. That being said I know bullseye picked a side, and even though at the time I thought that would discourage combat, I know I share the "responsibility."

What I want to throw out there before before Monday is that I have a problem with "rich" (out of game). I feel that use of this edge/benefit is somewhat ruining the game for me. I feel that with all of the expensive toys being thrown around we are limiting our imaginations and our inventiveness is suffering for it.

If I were to give one example it would be the trucks/transports that Almighty willed into existence. I think that "I'm rich, I'll just have my company drive the truck around and pick all this stuff up in a minute or so" really takes away from the fun. The line "oh make it two transports then" is, I think a great example of how far we'let it go...

I suggest this is another thing we should think about and discuss on Monday.

See ya!