[OOC] Sudden Payback

So, do I take this silence as an indication that you're all frustrated with this combat or tired of this game? I was hemming and hawing about wrapping up the game as a one-shot after we ended this fight and found the warehouse, but I wasn't sure yet.

I think maybe I dragged the adventure out one encounter too long perhaps, so my apologies. But I also have some thoughts on the Ready... Fight! rules that I'd change if I were to run another game with that ruleset.*

On the other hand, if you're all just busy with RL, no worries. We can finish out the combat and resolve the adventure at the very least.

* (Basically, I think Grappling is broken. Genesys combat is meant to be fast, with most combats over in about 4 rounds. That's why the average combat check is versus Average (PP) difficulty. But with Grappling as an opposed check each time, it just causes too much back-and-forth with no one doing any damage to anyone else. If I were to do this again, I'd give would-be grapplers a few talents to choose from to give them additional abilities beyond the default, which is striking. In Star Wars, for instance, there's the Grapple talent that makes an enemy have to spend two maneuvers to escape Engaged range with you. Maybe Grapple (Improved) turns that into a check versus your Athletics, but that only applies to advanced Grapplers. And all damage is dealt with normal Brawl.)

Sorry Guy's the last PC to go since we all went I thought that's what we were waiting on.

I think half the group went Grappling since it is good for crowd control but we just haven't really had a lot of times (at least for me) it's overly useful especially since most actions for grappling when using strong moves will tire you out rapidly. More so for finishers I guess when people have high soak.

Yeah, I've been struggling with the utility of grappling, so I ended up veering more into striking. I'm happy to finish out this adventure, but I recently started running a Zoom game that's been taking up most of my game-brain space. Sorry for dropping off a bit in my responses.

Either way we go, I do want to say thanks to Bob for running this game and the rest of you for playing it. It's my first PBP, and I've had a lot of fun. I wasn't sure how much I'd enjoy it, but I'm glad I played. On the whole I think PBP is a bit slow for my gaming appetite, but that's more just the medium than a criticism of this game.

Personally, I like your setting and the system, but I find the latter doesn't translate well to PbP. The narrative dice system requires so much adjudication, player input, multiple ways to spend dice results, raising and lowering checks, etc., that it slows games waaaay down in this format. Some rolls can take up to half a dozen posts just to resolve a single outcome. I would definitely play this game in person, I am not so interested in continuing this beyond a one-shot.

FWIW, I tried to deconstruct what Grappling is supposed to do and see how to represent it in a way that you could use in any setting without messing with the rules so much.

What does Brawl (Grappling) do? It lets you get certain bonuses versus an opponent depending on who has the upper hand at the moment: Neutral position (no bonuses), Advantageous position (+2 boosts on Brawl checks), Superior position (automatic upgrade on Brawl checks).

It lets you access the tables 3-2 and 3-3 for spending symbols on Grappling checks and takedown attempts. Of these, the most useful mimic options already on the standard table like this in the core rulebook (adding temporary Melee Defense, knocking the opponent prone, temporarily reducing the opponent's Melee Defense). The exception is ensnaring them, but that can be kept if you're still keeping the Unarmed Weapons list.

To that end, the Grappling unarmed weapons can be left largely as-is, but the concept of banking advantage for specific effects is kind of clunky and adds unnecessary bookkeeping. Those elements might be represented with a talent. To that end, I would try these:


TALENTS

Superior Positioning

Tier: 1
Activation: Active (Incidental)
Ranked: Yes
When your character activates the Ensnare or Knockdown quality after making a successful Brawl check against an enemy, add +Success +Advantage per level of this talent to any further Brawl checks against the same target (in addition to gaining the standard benefits of attacking a prone target) as long as the target remains prone or under the effects of the Ensnare quality.

Grapple (from Realms of Terrinoth)

Tier: 2
Activation: Active (Incidental)
Ranked: No
Your character may suffer 2 strain to use this talent. Until the start of your character's next turn, enemies must spend two maneuvers to disengage from your character.

Grapple (Improved)

Tier: 3
Activation: Active (Incidental)
Ranked: No
Your character must have purchased the Grapple talent to benefit from this talent. Your character may suffer 2 strain to use this talent. Until the start of your character's next turn, enemies must spend two maneuvers and make an opposed Athletics versus Brawl check targeting your character before they can disengage from your character. Likewise, if your character activates the Ensnare quality on a Brawl weapon, the enemy affected must make an opposed Athletics versus Brawl check targeting your character to escape the immobilized condition unless the standard difficulty is higher. In this latter case, your character does not need to suffer 2 strain to use this talent.

Awesome, Kermit! Glad you've got a good game going via Zoom. I haven't waded into that realm yet, but maybe I should. I love running games, and I miss actual voice play.

It's interesting to hear both of you essentially say that PbP is too slow for you. Was it the stay-at-home quarantines that compelled you to give it a shot?

But I feel like I've failed at my duty to the art form by not making things fast-paced enough! :) Again, I think part of that is due to Grappling being broken. Like I said, Genesys combats shouldn't last past the fourth round in most cases. But with Grappling, you can easily go two or three rounds with no one doing any damage at all since it's an opposed check with large dice pools.

Second, I may not have been proactive enough in asking players to spend their own symbols. This addresses Nezzeraj's point that it takes multiple rounds of back and forth to resolve dice rolls in Genesys. As I think about it, though, I think y'all have been pretty good about proactively spending your symbols. The problem, I think, comes in when an enemy rolls threats or despairs. I've been pausing to let y'all propose results, but in retrospect, maybe that stalled things out too much at the expense of giving you all more narrative input? Maybe it'd be useful if I run something new in Genesys (or Star Wars) to have a house rule that when an enemy rolls negative symbols, they don't get spent until another PC takes a turn? I'm thinking of situations where the initiative order features multiple NPCs in a row before the next PC slot.

Tl;dr, yes this system requires more back and forth than other ones, and I'd love more input on how to speed things up.

Regarding ending the game, why don't we just narrate it out? Maybe throw in some die rolls where it seems appropriate. Check the IC.

For me, yes quarantine was a major reason. But I also wanted to try it out as a new experience. I don't think PbP is too slow in general, I think it's just exacerbated by this particular system. I love the narrative dice system in person, but it requires a lot of arbitration and improv that occurs between players and GM organically in person, but doesn't translate as well in written format. Another thing I love about PbP is you can get more in character and develop characters more without hogging the spotlight that happens in tabletop games. But I feel that so many posts are taken up by combat, every time I check in on the thread, it's like 5 posts of dice rolls and only one post of actual plot/character relevant details. It makes reading posts feel unrewarding since the ratio of pertinent information to me is so low. I don't think this has anything to do with you as a GM or even the campaign, I think combat in general doesn't translate the action and excitement into PbP very well, and specifically with this system it seems really unsuited. I feel more character-driven or investigative systems like CoC translate much better to PbP than Genesys.

It's less this game, actually. I started playing in another PBP game after this one, and it's significantly slower. You both make good points about the system, but I think think it's mostly the fact that I go a day or two outside of the game headspace and then have to bring myself back into it.

Been offline for 3 days hope everyone's good.

Glad you're back! Hope all's well. We're trying to slip into the warehouse unseen. Hank's slinking underneath to cut their Internet cable.

Nezzeraj is right: It's September! +5 XP to everyone. Please let me know if you spend it. (And since we're wrapping up soon, you probably should!)

Huzzah! Any idea how much we should have total? I think I've spent my XP up to this month, but not positive.

Including the +15 I gave you at character creation, this should make 85 earned XP.

Thanks! I just saw you'd been tracking that in the Player Resource thread. And then we had 100 at character creation, right? So 185 including that?

I think I confused myself. For some reason I have my XP total at 130, which is way off whether I'm high or low. I'll go back through and figure out what I'm missing.

Edit:
Going back through, I think I've got a total of 30 to spend including this month. I see 55 points spent on non-creation stuff, and I see 30 points worth that I didn't say what I was spending them on in this thread. I have no clue where that 130 came from... apparently I'm not very consistent at documentation... :)

I ended up spending them on a 3rd rank of Brawl (Striking) and a Hook Punch attack.

FYI, I'll be off the grid this coming week. We're renting a cabin in the woods, so probably won't be able to post till next weekend.

Have fun! This is the final fight, so we can hold tight till once Hank's turn comes back around.

Uh oh, cabin in the woods movies never turn out well...please don't unleash any demons or anything lol.

Just a heads up: We're still winding this game down, but I wanted to go out with a bang with a big warehouse fight. Let's get creative; there might be all sorts of gadgets and bricks and barrels lying around to use for wanton mayhem. And Story Points: Last chance to use 'em!

Also, to keep things faster-paced, I'm going to ignore the special Grappling rules. If you want to make an attack with Brawl (Grappling), just roll the normal melee difficulty (PP). If you have any special grappling talents, let me know, and we can interpret them to give you some bang for that buck.

Now get to bashing heads!

Sorry for missing the month! +5 XP all around for October. As we're nearing the end of the adventure, you should spend it up. No need banking, so grab a lever of Grit, or Knack for It, or whatever else you can.

I'll update the main thread soon. Deadlines are a pain right now.

No special hurry, but looks like the Talent Tome from the Player Resource thread has been deleted.