Mister Shine

Damnit Mack

Dont forget to adjust prices for location. Your flophouse in Malifaux city is still going to cost more than an Inn in the Northern Mountains because its always going to cost more for a shitty place in Manhattan than a nice place in rural New Jersey.

It was the Winter Campaign, more wins for a faction got more story for them. You only have yourself to blame if you weren't winning for your faction!

Not sure if bug, but Nathan's email footer still links to the old webstore. It redirects just fine to the new one though Account confirmation email's signature has a green facebook square and a green.... nothing square. Probably supposed to be for twitter or something? Also a broken image beside the office.assisstant email addy?

I generally have an idea of where I want my story to go. There's often a timeline of events that are happening with or without the Fated's knowledge. I'll often remind them of the passage of time to emphasize this. But I leave the details to the players. I have an idea of paths they can take to get to the next plot point, but Im more than happy to let them have their own ideas. You should always be working towards "Yes". If the players have an idea of what could work it either should work or work them towards the goal. SO lets say they want to drink an NPC under the table, like in your example. Well, maybe you dont want them to bypass the cool alley encounter you had planned out, so let the guy they drink under the table have a receipt on him with the mark of the thing they're chasing down and letterhead of the Saloon the alley is behind. This lets your players feel accomplished because their idea worked, but doesn't work around the effort you've put in. I only really turn ideas down if I can't see them working in any way. Mostly I try and let creativity have SOME reward in-game so the players never feel they shouldnt propose something because it seems dumb or may not work

I wouldnt even call them failings. That'd be like saying that Deathwatch has major failings in its combat system. It can certainly be a lot of fun for characters to really shine in combat, but I just wouldnt make it the focus of the campaign. I've said it before, but this game reminds me of a combat-reversed Call of Cthulhu. It shines brightly in social/non-combat situations and then combat exists (but instead of getting murdered you do the murdering)

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Which it should be pointed out, isnt necessarily a bad thing. If the players all want to play "Outlaws: Badasses of the Victorian Horror Gothic West" thats fine! Just so long as everyone is on the same page about what they want the game to be, FM included

And then youre just indebted to the Dragon instead of the Ram

Remember that the Guild wants to wring out all the money you could possibly bring with you so that you 1) Have to rely on them for all future supplies and 2) Prevents other factions from gaining a strong foot hold as you cant just bring whatever you like So the ticket cost is more like {N minus Cost of Living for A Week} where N is your net value as a person

I hope so, my nearest retailer for free rpg day is in a different country

You can always judge your players and adjust starting cash. Newer players can start with full/more scrip because they come from wealth/pulled a successful heist earthside/claimed a huge bounty whatever and veteran players can start with less having sold everything for their ticket/didnt have time to grab anything because theyre on the run etc I mean, talk with your players about it first "Do you want a greater challenge?" but the kind of players that want to make combat beasts are also the kind to play Deprived in Dark Souls, so just phrase it right I guess

There's the mechanics listed above, but the impact of the destiny step is up to the Fatemaster to write. Not every destiny step is going to be super easy to work in, but as adventure hooks and inspirations they are an amazing tool to use. I personally try to set each step up referring to someone's death or loss of something important and if the Fated will save them or let them die/be lost. So for example I had the step "And You Will Drown In Not But Three Tears" (or something similar, book not in front of me) and I had the Fated slowly being drowned by spirits that were holding them down while they slept and keeping them in a dream. I gave lots of little hints during the adventure like trouble reading (needing to take literacy tests to read a map and describing "the general idea" of what the map said, rather than what it did say specifically, etc) they immediately popped at locations rather than having to travel there (harder to catch during a tabletop game, believe me) and other nonsensical clues. The other big one being that they kept feeling water sliding across their faces. The three players woke up and defeated the spirits and were pretty chuffed about the whole encounter. Which I never would have thought of without the destiny step, which they totally denied by not dying.

I always see the as being more focused on the task at hand. So if you have a :+fate to your melee, you are concentrating on nothing but that punch and the target of your punch. Which, if you borrow from Cthulhu mythos, is a very bad idea. The more you focus on something wrong like an abomination, the more it works into your mind, the sicker it makes you. I mean, flavour this stuff however you like (I do consistency as much as I can within a campaign so there are established world rules) but the general idea is that the revulsion a normal person feels from seeing human limbs attached to a dog that barks viscera is worse for the person trying to look for a weak point in a scope than a person blind firing over a fence

Have a Height cap. I've been using 5 as I've never seen a 6 in Malifaux Skirmish. Unofficial but makes sense IMO

Not +10 Df, the card required to to dodge a hit being a 10 over a 4 or something. As for building your attack: 2 or a 3 in skill from character creation, 2 or a 3 in relevant aspect gets you a +4-6 starting AV on your attack from creation. Usually +5 as most people can spare a +2 in an aspect then bump it to +3 with "Step 8: Modify" and then have a 2 pointer skill somewhere during creation. 3 sessions in you'll have the xp to bump {Attack Skill} to 3 and have a god chance at completing a Destiny step to push your Aspect to 4 by then too. That'll give you +7 to your main attack's AV. That's a min max example, but its easy enough to do if have someone who wants to be REALLY good at shooting, and since lotsa people are coming out of D&D or Pathfinder, lots of people are prioritizing combat ability.

So, Fated combat power level comes up a lot in this system. I still maintain you've got to be doing more story less punchy for this system to work, don't let your Fated ignore their giant block of skills they COULD be leveling in favour of just mashing {Attack Skill} until its maxed. But, even so, Fated are going to be getting really strong, really fast. WIth that in mind, I looked at what I thought the main issue was: A combat focused character is going to have lets say about +7 to {Main Attack Skill}. With an average Df of somewhere around 10 or 11, Mister Punchbags requires only a 3 or 4 to connect and a 9 or 10 to start getting degrees of success in. With a combat minded Fated grabbing weapons with high minimum damage we're already seeing a problem. Add to that a number of positive flips and Fated are never going to miss. So we see our main problem. But there are some problems that come up with solutions too. 1) We want to maintain the core of the game. I really like TtB for its focus on flat numbers and easy math for the FM and letting the Fated do the math because Players LIKE calculating up their big hit. Don't want to change the system so I have to start adding math in for myself, yuck. Also shouldn't make the players learn anything new outside their book. This is FM stuff only. 2) Not everyone is combat focused. The example above shows how Punchbags is built, but someone in the party could just as easily make Prof Booknerdington. Booknerdington takes a revolver at the FM's recommendation so he can defend himself, but he's only got +2 to his skill and no positives. We have to make combat more challenging for Punchbags, but not impossible for Booknerdington. 3) We can't just punish Punchbags. Punchbags isn't a worse character than Booknerdington. They should both feel powerful and both deserve to have fun. Obstacles in combat should surmountable and ideally have a sense of accomplishment for the combat characters. With that in mind, the solution I've been testing out with my group is an Archetype buff system to my combat encounters. It stems from the idea of monster pursuits and works as a general buff applied while the Archetype mob is still alive. This automatically resolves certain issues outline above, as the (player perceived) negatives can be removed by killing the Archetype. A side benefit is directing combat a little more so you can have immediate threats in an Archetype boss OR multiple threats in having an Enforcer with Archetype minions with him. I'll list what I've been working with below - Name, Desciptors to Players and a Design Description below that: Guardian - to attack flips against other friendly targets. I generally describe the Archetype as calling out warning to other friendlies or physically shoving them out of the way of Fated attacks. Nice and basic. Stacking a few of these can really start hampering the Fated. Can be used on multiple small models to make them more threatening or on a BigGuy to protect his minions somewhat. I play around with the active effect area a bit depending who has it. If I had to nail down a number... within 3 yards? Prof B can handle Guardians, while Mister P can attack protected models directly, if at a penalty. Despot - :-fate to attack flips against the Archetype while another friendly is within 3yrds. Similar to the above, but I generally describe the Archetype as yanking its minions in front of itself or kicking them into the line of fire. The Despot still gives Booknerdington the normal mobs to hit but severely hinders a Punchbags trying to get him directly. Optionally you can have misses against the Despot do 1 wound to the nearest minion for flavour. Hexer/Overseer - Other friendlies are treated as one/two ranks higher. Hexers get descriptions of their presence making the Fated feel weighted and the enemies they seem appear stronger than they normally would. Throw in some hexy flash like hex bags, voodoo dolls or floating purple runes to make it as obvious as you like who's doing it. Non-magically you can do Overseers who wrangle the other friendlies, barking orders but still with the key phrase "enemies appear stronger than they normally would" A rank bonus moves the AV/Df gap to 5/6 and a double increase moves that to 7/8. I really like throwing Hexers and Overseers into combat. It still follows nicely into Rule #1 as well, because we arent giving the mobs a bonus, we are changing their rank, a calculation I do anyway. Also makes them hit a bit harder so be aware. "Other friendly" still lets Prof B hit the Archetype itself, since it doesnt benefit from its own abilities. Once its dead combat is going to swing real hard the other way, so even a beat-up party can pull through. Noxious - When activating in LoS/Within X of this Archetype pass a TN[9-12] Centering Duel or treat as and visa versa Described as a fetid aura surrounding the Archetype that seems to affect those with greater focus as they try to resist it. Can be described as Whiskey Vapours with a Carousing challenge or any number of other ways too to fit into your story. I was a bit worried with this one that it would seem a bit much like punishing the Punchbags players for having on their flips, but the very first thing one of my Fated did once figuring out the condition was throw his knuckleduster to the ground and drunkely belch "Brinsh It On -hick-" soooo, worth it right there. There's a number of way around this one depending how you set it up, and you can look at Brewmaster for how to set up this style of encounter as well, since that test applies to everyone, not just Fated. I wouldnt overuse this one, but it can make for an interesting encounter or encounter set if you want it to be a theme for an area. Abominable - After attacking the Abominable, generate a moderate critical effect for each in the attack flip I always make sure to telegraph this one, mention how looking at the monster turns your stomach, the harder you focus the worse the effect. I tend to telegraph with focus a lot for things that punish flips. Players balked a bit at this one, but quickly realized that half of them were wearing full protective gear so the first flip didnt do anything anyway and they couldnt DIE from the effects as it was virtually impossible to generate a 15. And again, if you figure out the trick you can work around it. I think the punishment should be used sparingly , but its another tool in the arsenal. Eldritch - All friendlies attack on Wp instead of Df Describe the attacks as revolting in an otherworldly way, the nature of the Eldritch Archetype being there making the Fated require more mental fortitude than physical to withstand the attacks Fated forget about wp. This is a min-maxer punishment, pure and simple. The high Df bruise machine might think twice about getting up in people's faces when he's only dodging with a 10+ instead of a 4+ Spirit/Weak Point - Fated only use their skill, not attributes when determining AV against the Archetype I usually describe this one as either a ghostly apparition that only skillful hits seem to affect, the force of the blow carrying through the spirit or for boss types that they are a mountain of muscle/armor/chitin with only a few visible weak points, the vast majority of the Fated's attacks rebounding off of them Maybe a bit intense on the ease-of-play side, but most everyone I play with has their main attack skill as their first one, so just use that number instead of the AV number you normally have. Easy peasy. Calculation-wise this drops Punchbags down a solid 3 or 4 points, but generally leave Booknerdington completely alone as he wasnt going for prime stats anyway, just tossing a couple skill points into whatever attack they fancied. I tend to use this one for creating more difficult encounters with a single opponent that I want everyone to feel like they are doing something to. I dont think the party really notices how unequal the penalty is because it SOUNDS the same to both Prof Bs and Mister Ps but only really cuts the Punchbags down a lot. Anyway, thats what I've been working with so far, I'll add more as I think of them. Let me know what you all think and any experiences you have using them should you decide to try em!

Can we get Mack back to make a DeathBreachwatch RPG? That'd honestly be a lot of fun. If your players do insist on wanting to do this campaign though, remind them they're not necessarily the good guys, but they arent supposed to be the bad guys. You can have a town elder (Fresh Baked Cookie Grandma for max effect) and a bunch of miners (not miner minions, describe the fear in their eyes, mixed with a resolute expression across their collective faces) ask the players to please, just leave. You dont want to egg the players into combat on this one, they'll win. This isnt about beating the mob of stat blocks, its about a town's defiant last plea to the monsters that invaded them to please leave them alone, they got nothing for the monsters and just want them to leave. Hell, you can throw a pile of meager possessions (value, maybe 3 scrip for the lot if you take the family photos out of the old frames and resell them) Tug the damn rotten heart strings of your players. You can even refer to the posse as the heroes of the town. Just, do everything in your power to remind the players they are playing on the wrong damn side of things.

You can use a skill of 0 instead of negative aspects, so your Df would always be at least 2. Although I sorta feel like Papa Eastwood might have smacked Jeb around a bit to toughen him up, rather than teaching him bout those idgits at the bank (Swap Bureaucracy for Toughness/Evade? Get those derived aspects up a little?)

There's always the meta option too: talk to your players. Ask them if they want to be using this system. If they want to kill every problem you can try to side step and punish it to a point, but if everyone wants to play murder hobos, maybe switch to a game of murder hobos Otherwise a frank talk could make them realize they are acting murderous and they can start playing like people Not everything has to be behind the scene trickery, you can talk to players about what they want from the system and what the system has to offer

No story survives contact with the enemy

Your tarot is the reverse order. So it'll end with your station card. Your DM would be doing the adventure hooks from the tarot, but for some examples from my party: When Hope Drown in But 3 Tears - The Three party members were being held down by Sorrows who were crying overtop of them, slowly drowning them until they figured out they were in a dream state As The Watcher Awaits Your Cry of Vengeance - The party was doing other stuff but during their nights in the Badlands Torakages kept trying to Steal the plot maguffins they got in the previous mission. Just watching them during the day and during the morning one of the players literally yelled "I will have vengeance on this sneak thief" which really stroke the point home during the epilogue.

Hack and slash this is not. The Penny Dreadful does a really good job of showing some other things you can do instead of just running into fight after fight.

Assuming people are selected, anyone in need/want of an online group through roll20 or skype or w/e?

I can be summoned by mentioning Collodi or Through The Breach But I have no powers, so its a really bum deal to sell your soul for it