RGS 3.0

[jstomel]

So I'm kicking around another variation of the boards, not sure what number we're on so Ill call it option 9:
Have 3 boards:
(1) Actives+Active boosting Passives,
(2) Social abilities + Social boosting Passives
(3) Skills + Skill boosting Passives

Boards 1 and 2 make immediate sense, but 3 takes some imagination. This approach gives us a 1:1 option of boosting your baseline or boosting your possible max value. Thoughts?

I think you would end up with a lot of runes in your bag that aren't bound to anything. I also think you might be short-selling the versatility of passives by assuming that they only affect one type of ability or action. I can envision that there are Active spells, Social spells, and Skill spells, and a passive might affect all <spell> type abilities, whether they are active, social, or skill.

Here is what I would propose:
Option 3 for RGS3. Actives (combat), Socials, and Skills) on one board, Passives (that could affect any or all of the above) on a second board.
Then have a single social board with some of the most typical social abilities for RGS2.5 and declare that this is a bonus board accessible to all RGS2 archetypes and whenever they increase (or rebind) an essence rune they may bind a rune to the social bonus board instead of to an Active or a Skill, at their option. This would maintain some level of cross playability between RGS2&3, with each playing by their own rules. A headache for the Norn, but anything likely will be.

[Panjumanju]

I think you would end up with a lot of runes in your bag that aren't bound to anything.

That is my concern also. Under this model you could, technically, have a rune mapped to 3 different Passives and then the symbol itself would serve no purpose in the game until it gets mapped to something more active.

I think that lessens the impact of the mechanics on a semiotic level—not to get too hifalutin—just that it would feel less.

I also think you might be short-selling the versatility of passives by assuming that they only affect one type of ability or action. I can envision that there are Active spells, Social spells, and Skill spells, and a passive might affect all <spell> type abilities, whether they are active, social, or skill.

I would love that, but I'm not sure the system has that much...integrated modularity? What you're talking about certainly involves making "social" an action type like "seith spell" or "manoeuvre". I don't know what Andrew has made a decision on that yet.

As an argument against that design direction: you'd want the various Archetype boards to always work together, no matter what. If Passives get so specific as, for example: "Street Survival: The skill Survival: Urban can be used to find food in urban environments just as Survival: Wilderness." But what if the character never picked Survival: Urban? The character might end up with a Passive that is dependant on a specific aspect from the active board that they do not have. I've seen players pick things they didn't necessarily want on the board en route to things they really want; under this structure that may result in orphaned abilities.

Otherwise I think it's a great idea, but not easy to pull off from a design perspective considering how entrenched the rules are in RGS2, for good and for ill.

(3) Skills + Skill boosting Passives...Boards 1 and 2 make immediate sense, but 3 takes some imagination. This approach gives us a 1:1 option of boosting your baseline or boosting your possible max value. Thoughts?

I largely agree with jstomel's reasons, but another reason I think this won't work is: there are only about 30 skills in RGS2. Let's assume you added 20 more and made 50. Under RGS3 you can increase the rank in something you already have. That means there's no longer a reason to have a Skill appear multiple times on a Skill board. The grids are, what, 7x7? That's almost 50 spaces. Every Archetype, roughly speaking, would have access to every Skill. I'm afraid Skills, under this new change—of which I approve, it'll be awesome, but—are not enough to support a board on their own, even with Passives.

Here is what I would propose: Option 3 for RGS3. Actives (combat), Socials, and Skills) on one board, Passives (that could affect any or all of the above) on a second board.

I agree that at least one board must be entirely "Active". I do think Skills would do better to share well with Passives. But this is a good structure nonetheless.

Then have a single social board with some of the most typical social abilities for RGS2.5 and declare that this is a bonus board accessible to all RGS2 archetypes and whenever they increase (or rebind) an essence rune they may bind a rune to the social bonus board instead of to an Active or a Skill, at their option. This would maintain some level of cross playability between RGS2&3, with each playing by their own rules. A headache for the Norn, but anything likely will be.

Sounds like it would add a whole lot more powers to the already potentially overloaded RGS2 characters. Still that does sound like the path of least resistence for getting RGS2 characters social abilities.

//Panjumanju

[jstomel]

I would love that, but I'm not sure the system has that much...integrated modularity? What you're talking about certainly involves making "social" an action type like "seith spell" or "manoeuvre". I don't know what Andrew has made a decision on that yet.

I don't know what you have access to, but the last several patreon/kickstarter RGS3 rules drops have treated social as a full peer of combat and skills. Not so much an action type, as a type of action. There are certainly actions ("question", "provoke", "compel") that are clearly "social" (or whatever terminology he decides on).

there are only about 30 skills in RGS2. Let's assume you added 20 more and made 50. Under RGS3 you can increase the rank in something you already have. That means there's no longer a reason to have a Skill appear multiple times on a Skill board. The grids are, what, 7x7? That's almost 50 spaces. Every Archetype, roughly speaking, would have access to every Skill. I'm afraid Skills, under this new change—of which I approve, it'll be awesome, but—are not enough to support a board on their own, even with Passives.

Yeah, and I suspect the number of skills will drop as things like "sense motive" and "verbal manipulation" are subsumed by social actions. This is why I suggest that RGS2 characters be able to select social abilities from a bonus board instead of skills. It will vary by archetype, but under this scheme I would suspect that the "active" board would be about 50% combat actives, 50% split between social and skills. The blacksmith would obviously have more skills, while the skald would have more socials, but on average this seems like a good mix. This is a game about vikings, so combat will always play a large role.

Sounds like it would add a whole lot more powers to the already potentially overloaded RGS2 characters. Still that does sound like the path of least resistence for getting RGS2 characters social abilities.

It would add more options, but the number of powers would remain the same because you would be choosing socials instead of skills or actives.

[andrew]

The ranked skill occurrence is a very good point.

Another Patreon drop coming this evening!

edit: blaaaaaarg, something came up, tomorrow!

[baniRien]

So I just got the Children of Eriu pdf, and I wanted to start working on making a conversion guide for my group's characters. Is there any design philosophy that could be shared to make sure my changes are balanced? Intended scalings for attack and defense (like the changes that were made crafting and scaling passives with Denizens of the North), the kind of unique abilities that should not be available before a certain level threshold , rules for the disposition of abilities on a board, that kind of thing. What kind of meta should be given to what kind of social power is something with no precedent, so that would help a lot.

Our Norn is planning to get Creatures of Fairy Tale and Myth at some point, which will allow me to cross-reference some numbers, but numbers aren't everything, and the information would be much better straight from the designer's mouth.

[jstomel]

@baniRien

I am actually working on an official conversion guide for Andrew right now and I need a collaborator because it is too much for me to bite off at once. If you’d like to meet up on discord some time I could show you what I’ve developed thus far and introduce you to the development philosophy and behind the scenes tools for developing abilities. We can see if you are interested in doing a piece of the project

[baniRien]

@jstomel
I'd be very interested, and Discord works well for me. Just tell me what disponibilities you have and I can make something work.

On a related note, it sems I don't have access to the PMs yet, so I'll probably need an admin to speed that along for me to share my contact info.

[jstomel]

@jstomel
I'd be very interested, and Discord works well for me. Just tell me what disponibilities you have and I can make something work.

On a related note, it sems I don't have access to the PMs yet, so I'll probably need an admin to speed that along for me to share my contact info.

I've PM'd you