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Topics - traeki

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DFRPG / Game Balance and the Laws
« on: February 09, 2010, 04:51:55 PM »
How important to game balance are setting specific structures like the Laws of Magic and, say, Vampires dependence on Feeding?  That is, it seems pretty clear that the latter would be a positive cost refresh "flaw", but the former -- going by Harry's character sheet, which is awesome -- seems more implicitly rolled into character design.  So I'm curious to what extent you think I might unbalance the System by dramatically altering the Setting (I'm excited about using the DFRPG rules for other settings such as Alpha Omega or Shadowrun, for example).

My guess is that it doesn't matter very much because those things are mechanically dealt with by compels or even out-and-out plot devices, but I'm curious if the power level of, say, Evocation is in part dependent on the fact that you're not allowed to kill people.

I'm new to Fate, but it's often asserted that it's hard to build an unbalanced character -- there's too much advantage to be gained by having interesting flaw aspects (and indeed this is one of the things that makes this system so profoundly enticing for me).  To take things to one extreme, if I just used the DFRPG rules for a supers campaign of some kind, and stripped away all the flaws from templates by default, would that significantly alter the baseline power of a 10-refresh character?

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DFRPG / Questions about non-wizardly powers
« on: February 09, 2010, 06:48:59 AM »
I've seen lots of cool discussion thus far about Evocation and Thaumaturgy, but I'm a lot less clear on how other powers work in the new cost framework.  Here are a couple of specific questions:

1) I think I've seen various references to enhanced strength (or toughness, etc) that have different associated adjectives and costs (Inhuman -2, Supernatural -4, though those might just be different development versions of the powers).  I'm curious what those powers do for you, and what kind of reasoning goes into costing them.

2) To what extent are powers that could be instantiated as magic, but aren't nearly as broad, covered, and how are they costed?  That is, suppose I have the ability to mold stone with my bare hands as some kind of gargoyle, or command swarms of insects and spread plague, but not just "do anything".  I'm curious if the game provides sort of a "mutant power" feel alongside the "freeform magic" feel, and if so how it's costed.  Perhaps the power would work like the equivalent evocation, but you get major restrictions on scope, and bonuses to power level, at a given refresh cost?  It seems like it'd be nice to have maybe simpler but potent powers that don't pressure you into skill choices the way magic does, I guess...  Anyway, I'm curious to know what direction you took such things, if any.

3) Can you talk a bit about the costing intuition behind non-negative costed powers?  +0 powers I think are pretty straightforward -- that's something that alters the character mechanically, but not in a way that is advantageous or disadvantageous on average.  But I have a little more trouble wrapping my head around straight up flaws -- how do you decide how many fate points a player would need to receive to justify a flaw?  Why allow it over an aspect that gives the player fate points exactly as often as it inhibits them?

Thanks!

(I am blind with excitement about this game.)

-John

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