[OOC] Character Development and Rules Questions

So we seem to have:

• Bulldog (GeneCortess)
• Lightfinger Tech (Giardiatric)
• Dancer Assassin (maJunior)
• Lightfinger Sneak (JoshuaMabry)

So: close combat, security, investigator, infiltrator.

With 5 PCs there is bound to be a lot of overlap, but that also means we could specialise a lot more (presuming we won't lose players along the way, in which case specialising could leave a hole in our roster(which can be fun too:)).

There are some areas not explicitly covered, but some of them are rather niche and can force particular elements of gameplay that we might not otherwise want. For instance:

A Driver means we need to include driving elements in the game to justify them being send with the team (and keep the players choices relevant); and a Hacker means we need hacking/netrunning which has a reputation for excluding everyone else.

Do we want to test out those subsystems of the game, or do we want to skip them for now. I can make such a character if we want, or I can make something else.

It seems we don't have mention of Healing. Should I make a healer character, or include healing in the build?

I am not sure about what @JoshuaMabry's Infiltrator looks like, but do we need or want a Face character?

Knighthawke, what sort of feedback are you looking for?

I assume you don't need us to tell you about typos and spelling. You can pass the document through a spell-checker and sort those out easily enough. Similar with grammar (which tends to be a bit opinionated, anyway:).

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There are some sections that are confusingly or over-complexly written, but I checked the SRD and they seem to use similar structure, so I won't comment on some of them unless I don't know how to interpret them.

For instance, the whole description of having 0 in a Skill:
• Surely this is misleading. You don't roll with the attribute 'alone'. You also include gear and anything else? Maybe this should read something like 'add zero dice for skill'. This seems redundant, though, since I assume this note is merely telling us we can still roll, even with 0 in a Skill, and the mechanics work exactly as expected.
• This seems like a confusing way to say this. Reverse the order and merely say that 'no skill may exceed 3' and the talk about the Archetype and package increasing any three by 1 each to a maximum of 4. (also see below about Attributes.)

Presumably the Archetype and Package could overlap? But that does not make a difference?

• Similarly, Attributes are just: "Distribute 15 points, minimum 2 and maximum 5"? All the talk about Key Attributes makes no difference to the process. (Same with Skills 'Distribute 15 points, max 3 unless a Key Skill which can reach 4'.)

I think these were from the SRD, but maybe there was more complexity —to point-costs, or something— that justified jumping through these hoops?

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As already mentioned, there are Talents listed in the Archetypes that are missing from the book (Gearhead, and Mind Over Body, for instance in addition to the ones already mentioned.) Do you want us to compile a list, or are you already looking at them?

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• Doesn't this contradict page 7 which says we get 1 Skill from our Archetype and 2 from our Training Package? Is it 2 or 3 Key Skills?

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Presumably this needs to be 'roll a 6 or better', else upgrading the dice (which is complicated in PbP) hampers us?
• If it is not 'roll 6 or more' then a step-up makes it harder to succeed. A D12 has a 1 in 12 chance of rolling a 6.
• Either way, a step-down means we can not succeed, but that die can still roll a 1. So it is worse than -1D. I do like that. :)

Looks good. Aside from the Pride and Weakness you should have one more Talent of your choice.

This is definitely the kind of feedback I’m looking for. I’m appreciative if do come across typos, etc. and point them out. However, mechanical and understanding-related points are exactly what I’m trying to avoid. Let me step through these….
1) No Skill? - That was pretty well copied from the SRD but I do see where it could be misconstrued easily. I need to point out that you can roll with all the normal feature (Attributes, Gear, Environment, etc) but you would not add any additional dice to the roll for the Skill. Maybe an example would help clarify in this case?
2) Skill ranks - Perhaps something like "With specific exceptions, no skill may begin play at higher than rank 3. If a skill is designated as a Key Skill, it may be increased to Rank 4. As an Archetype and Training Package may both increase the same key skill, you may only need to spend 2 Skill Points to maximize the Key Skill. This feels like an example is needed as well.
3) Attribute Ranks - Seems like may need to reduce points too. - "Attribute ranks can begin no higher than a 3. The Key Attribute is an exception to this and may begin at up to rank 4. You have 13 Attribute Points to spend after the free rank from your Archetype and Training Package."
4) Nothing fits - maybe should be "Select Two or Three skills. You have 3 ranks to add between your selected skills (+1 to three Key Skills or one Key Skill at +2 and another at a +1)."
5) upgrading? - I think the upgrade a die step is something I missed. It should just be that a +1 modifier adds an additional die to the roll and a -1 modifier means roll one less die.

Note: I would definitely like to hear thoughts on using a pool of d6 to roll vs. rolling 2 die of same or differing sizes ? I.e. an attribute of 4 would be rolling a d10 and a skill rank of 3 would be a d8. The success target would still be a 6, but a roll of a 10 or higher on a die (0possible for for a d10 or a d12J would be 2 successes. So for a roll of d10+d10 should both dice roll a 10, you could end up with 4 successes before even considering any Gear, etc. this is where a die step modifier up or down could really affect things.

Did I cover everything you asked? :)

I have been actively ignoring these since they are seldom useful nitpicks at this stage of development. :)

The only I recall, both because it would not show up in a spell check and because of the irony of Muphry's law is:

Page 31, Attention to Detail: 'you can’t help put pick out': should obviously be: 'you can’t help but pick out'.Maybe the SRD did not have Gear and Drama dice and such things that are added?
I am not sure how much you need to spell this out. The Skill is zero (0) so you add 0 dice from the skill.
That is always the case. :)
But examples take up space and time, so we, unfortunate, can't have them for everything.

In this case an example might be all that is needed, you could probably avoid the whole complex and redundant explanation with two examples, one showing a roll with 0 in the skill.
It seems to me these 'Key Skills' are only used for character creation? They don't have any affect later in the game?
Since there is no increasing cost in points to buy high skills, this 'only need to spend' business is unneeded complication, no?

All you are saying is: 'Starting skills can not be more than 3 unless they are a Key Skills which can reach 4'.

So maybe:

'... spend points with no skill level exceeding level 3 for normal Skills or level 4 for Key Skills.'

or

'... spend points with no Skill level exceeding level 4 for Key Skills and level 3 for all others.'
There is absolutely no mechanical reason to take the same Key Skill twice. I could just not mention it as an option, if the player does, the above rule still limits it to 4 since you are not adding anything.
The math does not work out: 13 points is 3 3 3 4, so everyone is at maximum.
Ignoring that his means you will have points left over from the 13, I still don't see the point of having the Archetypes and Packages give you points, especially with your adding them before you distribute the starting points.

Same as with Skills, just give the appropriate number of points and set the maximum levels?

I would remove the minimum level, 2 seems very high for our 'weak point' (though I don't know the engine well enough to know if that is needed to survive), maybe a minimum of 1? Some player like having their characters be bad at things and I found the 5 5 3 2 or 5 4 4 2 spread to be very uninspiring.
I can not comment on this till I see it in play, but it does seem high.
Seems very complicated when these effectively do nothing?

Just say you have three Key Skills. Key Skills can start as high as level 4? This focuses on the mechanic and effect rather than the procedure.
Cool. Makes sense. Step Dice add an additional layer of complexity that we just don't need. If we want to use Step Dice they need to be integrated into the system a lot more.
We can chat about it more. But Step Dice (different sizes) seem fun but are very unintuitive for players and often just lead to disappointment. Unless they are bringing something extra to the table stick with adding more dice, 'more dice' is always fun, so my opinion is to stick with that.
Oh, yes. This can be fun, but look how much that has complicated things already. That has added the need to consult a table for how many success are added. The Dice Pool equivalent would be 4d6 and therefor the maximum success would obviously be 4, no complication. (The odds are different, of course, but we are not tweaking odds here, and that tweak can be done with adding more dice.)
Maybe rewrite the 'Nothing Fits My Concept?' on page 10. It lists different numbers to the rest of the rules. It has one less Key Skill and one less Key Attribute. The Key Attribute did not matter before since they made no difference at all when they could all be level 5, but if you reduce the cap then they matter a bit.

Those feel very personal to the character. I could see benefit to having examples, but I am not sure they should be tied to the Archetypes? Each Archetype could make an array of different characters types with their own Prides and Weaknesses.

Are we sure want to call it 'Pride'? Is it not less loaded to call them 'Strengths' and 'Weaknesses'?

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• Presumably this is Body and Coordination? Strength does not exist and Agility is a Skill.

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Typo: Talents (page 31)
Inconsistent use of pronouns (in this day and age‽:).

Calm And Collected uses both 'she' and 'them' to refer to the agent.

Maybe it is best to go with gender neutral, singular they for everything?

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Talents (page 35)
• Maybe rename the Engineer Talent to Mechanic since it seems to only be a mechanical engineer and only applies to mechanical rolls?

I feel it's worth pointing out my character should excel at both close and ranged combat.

And not much else. Lol

Are we reducing the Attributes and Starting Points? That will affect how I make my character.

@JoshuaMabry: Can you tell us more about your Infiltrator? Then I can make something that does not step on their toes.

Without putting it to paper, I have made rough outlines for both a Hacker, and for a Face/Healer (it seems a bit strange that Healing uses the Empathy Attribute and not Wits, but does make a certain sort of sense).

I am still completely open to making anything else we would prefer.

@vagueGM Still working on game stats, but I'm picturing a stealthy acrobat, kind of like a cross between a ninja and Yen from Ocean's Eleven.

Cool. So neither a Hacker nor a Face (talker) would be in conflict with them. I can make whichever we think would be most advantageous (or something else, just as easily:).

Introducing Johnny Yu, cat burglar extraordinaire. I'm only about halfway through his build, but I submitted him so @Knighthawke can review him.

Won't need to change anything up for these characters. :) I'm hoping we'll see as we go if things are too easy, hard, etc. After all, it is playtest. :)
Looks ok. I need to figure out why the autocalc is giving 11d6 for those couple of skills though... LOL

If you all have a general idea of how your concept is in your head, you're welcome to go ahead and post in the game thread too. :)

Talents
• Wording makes it sound like this might be 'only once ever'. Maybe clarify this, presumably it is 'once per Broken'.

Combat Medic is just a weaker form of Calm And Collected which provides exactly the same benefits with fewer limitations. Sure, both can be taken together, but having one patently better than the other feels wrong, especially when Combat Medic is a prerequisite for other Talents.

Fighting Style: Striking calls out that its damage bonus stacks with Close Combat Specialist, Fighting Style: Takedown does not say this, but presumably does stack.
Either call this out each time or maybe mention in Close Combat Specialist that it stacks with sub-talents?

Missing Talents
The Talent Cat Burglar is listed in the Archetypes and is in the table of Talents (starting on page 32), but there is no full text description for it (It is pretty self explanatory, but still an anomaly:).

Gearhead and Mind Over Body are also missing from the table of Talents, there is no mention of them outside of the Archetypes.

I can't see the players' sheets, so I don't know which Skills are autocalcing wrong. Let me know and I can take a look.

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Related to that thought: The book talks about 'Different Colors' for dice (page 25). Do we use that in this game? If so we might want to change the autocalc for skills to something more like:

Agility (Body)|[_Agility=]| [_FAgility$=Agility]d6,[_FAgility$=FBody]d6

Agility (Body)|[_Agility=]| [_FAgility$=FBody+Agility]d6

Then it will list them separately in the dice roller and we can distinguish which results came from which.

We can also do more complex things. I see that there are some situations where we roll a Skill with a different Attribute, but that seems to be rare enough that it is not worth making the player need to click on both the Attribute and Skill roll-table to get the roll populated (using [ table="rolls pool"] for instance).

You can also change the Drama Points section to something like:

[color="white;background-color:#000000;display: block;padding: 0.2rem;"][b]DRAMA POINTS[/b][/color]
[table="rolls compact"]
[b]Drama [_DramaPoints=0/6][/b] | [b][_FDramaDice$=DramaPoints]d6[/b]
[/table]

and have it be easily rollable, too.

I have made these changes on my (empty) sheet, if you want to accept it and see how it looks.

OK. Do you have any desire to test any particular aspect/subsystem of the system?

I see there is quite a bit to do with vehicles (though I have not looked at that section of the book). Do we want me to make a Driver so we can test the vehicle stuff (I can always make a temporary character for a brief car-chase if ever we want see it in action).

What era are we set in? The opening scene of the RP could be anything from modern day to 1960s. Do you want to test the Hacking subsystem? I think a hacker could be interesting with the other players' characters.

Probably because Dexterity accidentally redefines Coordination from that point forward:

Dexterity (Coordination)|[_Dexterity=]| [_FCoord$=FCoord+Dexterity]d6

Should be something like:

Dexterity (Coordination)|[_Dexterity=]| [_FDexterity$=FCoord+Dexterity]d6

The book has two conflicting definitions for 'Base Dice':

ROLL THE DICE
Are Base Dice the Attribute or the Attribute and Skill? Body Armor Protection on page 47 seems to include Gear in Base Dice as well.

Maybe the term 'Dice' (as in 'roll your dice') should be used throughout instead? 'Base Dice' does not seem to have any mechanical meaning or effect.

• The long description makes it sound like you need to roll the Skill, then roll Improved Tradecraft, then roll the Skill again? Does it only apply 'when making an associated skill roll', or can one 'prepare to make a roll'?
• Is it a Wits roll or is it a Tradecraft (Skill) roll? I assume it's Wits since it would be very strong otherwise, but the names could be confusing. This is not exactly 'tradecraft' related, maybe a rename is in order?

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As an aside: Tradecraft is a very broad Talent, almost everything we do in this game could be tradecraft/espionage related, especially for Wits rolls.