SaveVersus

I get it. Do you do that for every situation, like even when an NPC isn't involved? For example, I want to shoot the rope of someone being hanged? Also, with NPCs, do you pull first so the PC can decide if they want to cheat fate or not, or do you just let them know the opponent's AV and they have to make the decision based on that?

I'm not familiar with the Malifaux rules. What TN system do you use?

While I was reading the Corebook, I kept coming back to, "This is Deadlands with steam," which I'm totally okay with.

This me just spit balling, so sorry if I don't give actual numbers or anything. Hoping to just give you a skeleton to work with. Caveat 1: This system assumes both shooters fire at the same time and hit each other, kinda like a samurai duel where they both strike and one falls down two seconds later. I didn't think about that until after I finished. If you don't like that, one suggestion I have is that you deal them both a facedown card to add to their Initiative. Let them Cheat Fate if they like, but they don't turn the card over until it's time to Draw. Fastest player shoots first, then the opponent fires if they're still alive. Caveat 2: I don't know when and where you'd like to Cheat Fate, but for added tension, maybe only allow a player to cheat one time during this entire process, so they have to choose the best time to use it. First, The Countdown, I'd set up some number of rounds minimum ("Till this here coin hits the dirt" or "When the second hand strikes twelve"). Maybe 4 minimum, so they have choices. You want to build tension, otherwise it'd just be a normal combat session with the faster person shooting first. Second, The Staredown. On your turn you're either prepping to fire, or testing your opponent's nerve. Prepping to Fire: Make an attack flip (I'm assuming Pistols, but whatever weapon/magic you're actually using). I'd say start at TN 7 to make things simple, or opponent's Defense if a static number doesn't sound fair (you're both just standing there with nothing to hide behind). Each MoS adds to your damage flip. If you Prep to Fire more than once, you take the best flip as your attack. Test Opponent's Nerve: Make an Intimidate flip. The TN should be something appropriate, like the opponent's Willpower or something. Each MoS imposes a to the opponent's damage flip. If you Test Nerve more than once, you take the best flip. Third, The Draw (or The Showdown, if you want to keep the rhyme scheme). After the minimum number of rounds have passed, the duelists can keep Prepping or Testing as much as they want (keep going round to round), but as soon as one announces that they're firing their weapon/spell, they both attack simultaneously (see Caveat 1 if you don't like this). In the event that one of the duelists never Prepped, then they were too slow to draw their weapon and don't get an attack (or they fire second if they live, up to you). For the damage flip, the shooter should hopefully have some number of unless they lost their nerve. Allow the player to flip one at a time and add a special damage trigger: The Quick and the Dead: Each leftover adds X Wounds. I have no idea what X should be, but you can either make it a static number (1, 2, 3) or the severity of the flip (W/M/S). Again, I'm just spit balling so maybe this doesn't make much sense or it only looks good on paper and not in actual testing. I left all the actual stuff to the damage flip because it's the only open ended system I could add stuff to. If you want, you could move the / stuff to the attack flip, but then you're capped at 13 for the highest card value. Even then at best the damage flip only gets one if you beat your opponent's value by 11 using normal rules. I'm not an expert on the system, so feel free to toss this whole thing out if you want.

... but not Half Jack?

Brought me back to my Dead Can Dance/In the Nursery days.

I know you didn't ask, but just in case you decide to get some of the other books... Into the Steam, Into the Bayou, and Under Quarantine (and most of the adventures from what I can tell) were written during 1e. They're still compatible with 2e, but you might run into stuff that doesn't quite mesh, like a skill that's no longer around, or a talent that was updated in the core book. The most current FAQ mentions which talents were updated, I believe, and I think the core book mentions which skills were retired.

Thanks for the reply. My other thought was to have everyone use the Cross Roads Tarot, remind the one player that he needs to have in his Body, and give him the two replacement cards just to make sure that happens. Has anyone experimented with drawing the cards and letting the player place them where he wants, either before looking at the table and after?

Hi, I just got Into the Steam and I noticed that the Assembly Line Tarot has Allegiance as one of the pulls. Say one of my players wanted to be an Invested right from the beginning, does that mean everyone has to use the Assembly Line? I didn't see anything in the Core Book 2.0 Tarot to indicate an allegiance (Stations don't really point you in that sort of direction), and it seems a little odd that one player would already have a direct connection to a faction before any of the other characters. It also looks like I can't do any fresh off the train scenarios if I wanted to be fair either. Even if the factions made those sort of connections earthside, it seems like I'd have to give everyone that option to choose an allegiance.

That's cool. I also saw something called Obsidian Gate?

Thanks. It felt kind of hodge-podge based on the 2e core book, like the lore was stitched together after the tyrants were made, but stuff being lost to history makes sense and horror is best when stuff is unknown. Thanks. Nythera looked like it would be an important adventure. I assume The Burning Man would be another one. How are the Penny Dreadfuls in general? There was this old RPG, called Tribe 8, which I enjoyed, but one thin g I didn't like was that the adventures were written in a way that it didn't feel like the players made an impact, like epic things happened, but they happened to important NPCs and the players were just along for the ride. Thanks. I was planning to get Into the Steam next, because after necromancers I wanted to see cyborgs. I'll look out for the zines.

Thanks, I'll give it a listen. My observation was just that, an observation. I'm not critiquing it in anyway; I'm used to it (the L5R CCG and Doomtown CCG were the same way back in the day). Since the story read as hero-centric stories, I figured that maybe the most current lore was located on the Malifaux-side. If they're in the Penny Dreadfuls, that's cool. Is each one part of the metaplot?

Hi, I currently have the 2.0 Core Book and Under Quarantine (because I really like necromancers). I've only read the story from the Core Book so far and was wondering if the metaplot is available in other books, assuming there's an overall story that continues? Would I have to get some Malifaux books too? The story in the core book reads more like a summary of a bunch of storyline tournaments (this character does X, this other character does Y, this other character does Z, and none of them feel related to one another), but I might be wrong. I'm also a little confused by the Tyrants and the Grave Spirit, or the mythology, I guess.

Cool, thanks for the reply. My players in Conan like that they're larger than life, and that sounds like it could also be the case here. As long as I know that ahead of time, I can plan accordingly.

Thanks for the responses. One of the things I didn't like about Edge of the Empire (FFG Star Wars RPG) was that it seemed to favor spending XP on your stats and skills over buying new talents (it looks like they fixed this in the Genesys RPG). I think that was that game's version of min/maxing though. I don't see that as an issue here since you just get new talents at the end of a session. Can you spend XP on stats in this game? I thought it was only for skills? The players in my group aren't tournament level min/maxers, so I don't anticipate too much abuse ("take this level 1 talent, and work your way to the other level 5 talent later on and wreck face!"), but they'll exploit something immediate if they get the chance (like two, Level 1 talents that synergize pretty well). I don't multiclass in D&D, but it looks like it works for this game; the lore looks like it supports a "do whatever you need to get by" kind of vibe, and that was one of things that drew me to this game. That, and I like it when a magic system gives me different philosophies to use when casting (Shadowrun does this too). How "swingy" is the system? On average, are players praying to draw like a 10 or better a lot, or do they mostly pull hoping for a big margin of success? I like the idea of the Twist Deck (I'm always a fan of luck mitigation), but since there's only one of each number I'm wondering how often it comes into play. Is there a way to abuse , like are they easy to come by?

I was kind of looking for a little of both, but trying to avoid a "this is what I hate about this system" conversation. Closer to a "I wish I had known this before I started." Like in my examples above, it would have been nice in the GM section of Conan and the Savage Worlds books if they mentioned you shouldn't try to build a fight around one, big villain. That's not a bad thing about the system, but knowing that ahead of time would help construct battles differently. Your example helps though, thanks. That's not something I would have seen from the onset.

Sorry, there's a different forum for rules questions for Through the Breach? I'm confused.

Hi. This might be a strange thing to ask in this forum - because I generally assume if you're on these forums you really like the game - but I'm hoping to find issues with the system so I can look out for them later when teaching friends or running an adventure. This isn't a "this system sucks, who's with me?" thread, but a lot of you here have have way more experience with the system than I do, so you've probably seen things that aren't apparent when you first read the rules. To give a few examples from other games I've ran: D&D 3.5/Pathfinder: Once you start getting past 8th level or so, the number system begins to fall apart. You see this in Natural Armor; a lot of monsters start to have huge amounts of Natural armor to counteract the -AC for size and to account for the players' high Base Attack Bonus. Something like this is even exposed in 4th edition D&D, when the TNs for skill checks raise based on your level for no other reason than to maintain a certain percentage chance of success. Savage Worlds: the SW system isn't really built to have the party fight one BBEG. A party of four or five will always beat a party of one, unless you somehow invent a way for that one person to have more attack than normally allowed for one character. That doesn't mean you can't have a dramatic, final fight against there villain of the story; your crime boss/dragon just needs to have enough minions there to back him/her up. Conan, Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of (Modiphius): At a certain point (Conan doesn't have levels, so it's a little hard to say exactly when), the players make short order of their opponents in battle. The Momentum (a resource) the players can generate is faster than the Doom (a recourse) the GM can in the same amount of time (Doom is player dependent). Depending on your game, this may or may not be a bad thing. I've thrown Dynasty Warrior levels of minions at the players. The players feel like epic heroes (which is good), but it feels weird as a GM when you're wondering if your group of fourteen minions is going to be enough to wound a party of four... and then do that four more times ("Didn't you say this castle was deserted? We just killed like 70 people.")

Thanks. That makes sense too. I don't know how often two suit skill pulls come up, so it might now even be an issue, but pigeonholing someone into failure seems like a bad thing. Unless there's some sort of "check mate" feature where you've spent enough resources to back the other person into a corner. I've been focusing on getting the rules down, so I haven't taken a deep dive into all the Talents yet.

Ah. thank makes sense, thanks. Are there any examples of something like this? If you had to beat a 10 and already knew you had no way of getting two suits, do you just fail?

Thank you for the reply. I was just wondering if there were any effects I haven't read yet that reference the suit categories, like "gain [+][+] if the target's Ascending Suit matches yours" or something similar. I totally read the Craft These Items section and retained absolutely none of it apparently. I have another question now: 4) Under the section about multiple TNs, it says you need to succeed on each TN in order for the action to be successful. Is there a reason it wasn't worded, "if there are multiple TNs, you need to succeed on the highest?" The example given looks like one pull for both checks. Is there an example where you need to check against different TNs using different skills?

Hi. I just picked up the Core Rulebook and a few others, and had some questions. If these have been answered already, apologies. 1) Suit types in Fate Deck. Aside from Undead having to select Crows as their Defining Suit, is there anything else that checks for this, or are the names just there to avoid confusion? 2) The core book goes from tools right into weapons. Do weapons give you a [+] when using them, or that is that just for the toolkits? 3) All the toolkits say Skill 4 in the table. Does that add to/replace your skill, or is that a requirement?