Saga Discussions (OOC)

Retired Play by Post Campaigns Ars Magica 5th Edition: The Heir of Laimunt Valley
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My thoughts:

  • Combat rules

I hadn't heard of the idea of making defense a flat number, but I like it. Other than that... trained groups are a bit too strong maybe? Honestly I would have just gone on with the normal rules and not given it a second thought if you hadn't brought it up, I don't have any problems with them.

  • Absences

I think it's fine to rely on common courtesy that if we're going to be away for more than a day or two we let the troupe know and maybe suggest what a character is doing in the background? I think hard and fast rules don't accomplish much on this, but not staunchly against it if that's what other people want. Having a multiplicity of story threads going on helps, too.

  • Text formatting

Is there much to be done in these fora? As far as I know the formatting is pretty limited, but maybe I'm just not very good at it.

  • Dice-rolling

Discord? I think Discord is a good accompaniment to a play-by-post game, and there are a number of bots that can give us die-rolling.

  • Creation of a wiki

Wikidot? Seems the best way.

  • Stories Frequency and Duration

I think this really comes down to what we want the scope of the game to be. Do we want a snapshot of 10-20 years in the life of these magi? Or do we want to tell the story of their whole lives? I personally prefer the latter; but in order to do that the saga has to move along pretty quickly, and I've found that most players/SGs don't want that. I like the idea of a game covering 150 to 200 years, but I've accepted that it's usually a minority opinion that I need to let go. Still, putting it out there.

  • Confidence

Not sure what the question is. How quickly it refills? I think that's totally dependent on above re: stories. I think the aim should be that nobody gets their full pool every story, but someone can spend all their confidence and have some assurance that after a couple of stories without any, or with very little, they'll get back to having a few points available.

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  • Combat rules

the roll of 5 as mentioned, gritty, dark, and violent - also, narrative combat for less important grogs, and less important NPCs are fine with me

  • Absences

Leave a description of what you do, keep absences to a minimum. Remember being respectful of each other's time.

  • Text formatting

I second that I don't think there are that many options? Put direct talk in quotation maybe, and even spacing.

  • Dice-rolling

I use a bot on discord, works well.

  • Creation of a wiki

all for it, though technically inept here lol.

  • Stories Frequency and Duration

I would prefer seeing a possible "end" to our magi, meaning 100+ years story time - what ever needs to be done to accomodate that can be discussed. Let us say that we aim for about 5 years IRL game time; that means 20+ years each real year to be covered...that is a lot, but would be a price to pay for it.

  • Confidence

I tend to be fairly generous, a point a session.

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5. Combat rules
Combat sequences can take a very long time in PbP format, due to: announcing actions, rolls, counterrolls, results, and repeat. That is particularly true when there are multiple opponents and when several players are involved. I have seen some combat sequences drag on for weeks.

So I'm looking for options that would make them quicker to resolve. No rolling for defense is a start. Narrative combat for grogs is good too. We will have to see if we can come up with additional ides. :sunglasses:

6. Absences
Just trying to establish how we will deal with absences. Yes, everyone should absolutely notify us if they will be away for more than a day or two.

But what happens if someone doesn't? That happens all the time in PbP. How long do wait before if a story is ongoing and the absence is putting everything on pause? Does someone take control of the character?

The goal is to keep things flowing, because once things grind down to a stop, it's very hard to get them rolling again.

7. Text formatting
The goal is to improve readability. Some sagas don't bother, others encourage it.

There's quite a bit that can be done with just some basic formatting. A few examples:

  • Using quotes when a character speaks:
    "I am so glad to be here, my friend!"

  • Using italics for what a character thinks:
    I would rather be doing anything but speak to you!

  • Using the out-of-character tag to explain stuff during an in-character scene:
    OOC: Sponting Eyes of the Cat on myself, casting total 12 + die roll of 3, so 1 Fatigue Level lost.

  • Yelling with caps:
    "ATTACK!"

  • Separating different sections of text by a line (---):

More can be done, but that requires some HTML tags:

  • Using colored text to differentiate between characters (<font color="blue">blue text</font>):
    "What can I do for you, my lady?" asks the innkeeper. "A room, food and drink for two days. My majordomo will pay you," says Arabella before breezing by the man.

  • Text size for more or less emphasis (<big>big text</big>) and (<small>small text</small>)

The question is, do we bother with something formal? Or just encourage people to simply do their best?

8. Dice-rolling
Personally, I don't worry about dice rolls much. If it were up to me, everyone would handle their own roll in whatever way they like (including the good old physical dice) and just post the result.

However, each of you will be running stories, so if we want something more formal (such as a dice-rolling online service) that is fine with me.

There is also the matter of secret rolls. Do we ask people to make Awareness rolls to know something is there? Does the SG make such rolls? Asks the player to make a bunch of rolls beforehand so that we can use them when needed?

I just want to make sure everyone's on the same page.

9. Creation of a wiki
Creating a wiki is a big help to keep evolving data like character stats, as well as more structured info like the covenant assets.

So I'm all in favour of creating one. We just need to define what should be on the wiki, and what should be on the forum. I think we want to avoid duplicating information.

I can handle the technical details of creating and structuring it. And I was indeed thinking of Wikidot. :slight_smile:

10. Stories Frequency and Duration
This will condition the pace of the saga. If we want to a time span of decades during play, then we will need stories that can be resolved relatively quickly in real-time. That means stories need to be designed that way. It also means that Story flaws won't be triggered as often.

The flip side is that stories won't be as detailed and complex, nor will interactions between character be as deep. Also, that makes companions age faster, diminishing our return-on-investment for the time spent creating them.

A compromise would be to have periods with several stories happening simultaneously, followed by quieter periods during which no stories will happen at all. The quiter periods could still use the narrative approach we use for post-Gauntlet advancement, so each player would fill in the details of what happens to their characters during those periods. (Just thinking out loud here)

I was thinking we may need some guidelines for story types (minor vs major story flaws, short vs long player-triggered stories, plot stories, etc.) These could indicate how long each type should take in real time and how rewarding they should be (xp, vis, etc.)? That way, we would all know what to aim at when designing a story for someone else?

11. Confidence
In some sagas, players just forget to use it. :wink:

In PbP, there are no such things as a "session" of play, so how do we determine when to give some points? At the end of a story? After a significant scene for longer stories?

Sorry, that was a long post! :smiley:

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I'm at school and work today, but I do have on thought for 10

We could modify the pace of the game by introducing time skips every so often instead of just keeping one consistent rate going. For example, we could start off doing like the first 5 years or so pretty densely with adventures to set the stage, and then introduce a timeskip where we advance through a number of years before we go back to a more standard pace of play.

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Yay! Too bad the errata aren't included in the spells there.

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Combat I'm all for the no rolling defense option and the narrative Grog combat. Comparing Grog raw stats to enemies should give a good indicator of how an un-boosted engagement is likely to go.

Absences If the absence is during combat, I would suggest turning on a narrative switch for the character until they re-insert themselves. OOC its easy enough to just imagine them keeping a low profile. With zero experience here I'm not sure what a reasonable amount of time is but I can't imagine needing to wait more than a day for anything but the most important responses...during situations in which the character needs to be involved directly.

Dice-rolling I'm open to whatever for basic rolling....but on secret rolls I'm a big fan of keeping their existence secret. I go so far as to roll on behalf of my players in many situations and its always worked pretty well. Don't even tell them any results, just streamline those results into the narrative. Active efforts on their part are obviously handled as normal. I could also see using the default 5 rule for many of the most basic Awareness tests.
My biggest concern with "trust rolls" isn't a mistrust for other players...but a concern that others might be suspiscious if I roll too well. I'd prefer to avoid that but will suck it up if the group prefers.

Story Frequency I too am a fan of century spanning games. This format seems very well suited to these as multiple stories could be ongoing with players ignoring those of no interest to them. A familiar search or vis hunt no longer has to involve the entire party.

Confidence I tend to give these out sparingly and my players horde them accordingly. This isn't anything I NEED to do and my tendancies will shift according to the group experience.

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Combat rules
Don't have anything here, they are simple and robust.
Absences
l think, lt's nice to alert others about any absence for more than a day or two, as well as check if someone is suddenly silenced.
Text formatting
Not that l'm such a big fan of it - l have enough way with words to be able to convey my point without bold or anything. Still, l have nothing against it and will use it on par with you to keep style consistent.
Dice-rolling
l have a really nice bot in discord and telegram.
Creation of a wiki
l would use it, but, idk, google sheets are mostly sufficient.
Stories Frequency and Duration
l would like to play a long (in in-game time, at least) story with something curious arising once or twice a year at first, but with time and power of magi - rarer to a point of year without much to do outside of their occupations.
Confidence
l think, it's a part of core mechanics and should be used. And for it to be used, it has to be renewable. Maybe, to starting 3/5 at each winter or something.

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Do we want to start a topic for SG roles?

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Let me try something for that. I will create a new topic named "Notes and Claims" which will be set up as a wiki. I think that means every one will be able to edit the post, so we can keep a running list in that single post instead of a discussion over several posts.

If this doesn't work, let me know in Table Talk.

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Ooh, that's nice. I didn't know we could all edit one post like that. Cool.

I did come up with an idea I think fits well with our particular Tribunal Border issue. I listed that there.

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This is the first time I've used it. Wasn't sure it would work! :smiley:

This may make the creation of an actual wiki less critical... Let's play with it a bit.

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House rules...is this going to be a discussion or has it been decided?

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And in addendum to "house rules" - player-created/tweaked virtues?

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We have one House Rule decided already, for combat.

Any specific House Rule that you are thinking about?

For now, I will add a post in the Notes and Claims to keep track of any we add. But discussions should be here (for general things) or in the Character Creation Discussions for new/tweaked virtues.

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The ones that come to mind...I haven't played with all of these but they're the ones I find interesting

For fun...experimentation while studying from vis.

For balance (I hate Tremere being nerfed)...alternate House virtues.

To avoid all Magi being paragons of fortitude...varied casting characteristics

I also like books on magic being lesser enchanted items

Maybe players rolling all dice against a static target would ease the back and forth?

The important one for my purposes...do Wards need to penetrate?

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As a general rule, I figure the fewer house rules, the better.

That is a popular one for Tremere, especially since so many Houses have them without needing a house rule.

Please, no house rule to undo this. Require them to penetrate as normal.

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Now that I have a bit more time to think of some more points for here.

Combat Rules
I strongly support using a more narrative or faster approach to grogs fights or lower stakes combat. A friend told me about one PbP he played in where there was no dice-rolling, and people simply reasoned out the expected outcomes of an encounter given the circumstances. I heard it worked really well, with there only being a handful of times where people disagreed and had to hash things out. I think that kind of approach could work well for really simple things. Eg "The heavily armed and highly skilled martial companion makes short work of the opposing group of conscripted guards, taking a light wound unless they get some magical assistance".

Absences
We should alert others if we have an extended period of things happening or an expected amount of absence. I would think that whatever acting Story Guide could control the characters of absent players, although that's an important point to agree on.

For disappearances, I like waiting for whatever one posting period is and then having the SG take over a character.

Text-Formatting
I have no strong preferences for any specific kind of formatting, but I think we all need to agree to do the same thing.

Dice-Rolling
I don't have a preference here.

Creation of a Wiki
How much information and research do we want to include for the saga? Having a dedicated wiki to keep track of large amounts of people, places, events, and so forth could be beneficial. That said, I am in favor on sticking with the forum here and its wiki feature until we deem a time when it's necessary to do something else.

Story Frequency and Duration
I already mentioned one idea I have for a long spanning game. I personally sometimes like to really pack adventures into important years or around big events. I think in my current running saga, we put like 6 adventures into one year where the Albigensian Crusade really flared. That's not something we would need to do every year or all the time, but I like the option of really making events fly every so often.

Confidence
I like the idea of letting characters restore confidence at the end of a year.

House Rules
Can we get rid of the Swim Ability and just fold it into Athletics? It seems unnecessarily siloed off to me.

I like switching the Tremere house virtue to Puissant Certamen.

I think this is unnecessary. The bonus from having good stamina is nice, but it gets dwarfed pretty quickly by everything else involved in spellcasting. It's not that much of a penalty to have a worse stamina than another character, especially considering all the other areas you can gain or lose on your spellcasting totals.

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House rule proposal:

Tracking fractions for experience points. Instead of rounding up (or down), we record the fractional xp on the character sheet. So if you have an affinity and put 3 xp in the corresponding Art or Ability, you write 4.5 xp on the character sheet.

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And that would include recording quarters as well when needed. I'm not a fan of the rule, myself, but I can certainly play fine with it.

Since we do have at least one character with Sympathy Traits, one of my primary house rules is that Sympathy Trait adjustments from rolling 1s and 0s are limited by Warping Score like all the other methods. It's fairly innocuous while keeping things from exploding.

Meanwhile, for myself we should look at Craft limits with Excellent items. There is nothing I have ever seen that exempts anyone (e.g. someone using Rego craft magic) from the bonus to Excellent items based on Craft score, which makes sense in that magi cannot create what they cannot imagine, and without enough Craft you can't imagine how an item can be that much better than a Superior item. The other side is Verditius Magic. If you use Verditius Magic to make an item, you can even go beyond what can be done in a normal workshop, which I like to keep within that same Excellent limit based on Craft, but just set to that limit automatically to reflect this. Mostly those will place limits on me more than anything else. The more important part is that they'll prevent things from exploding.