Fellowship of the Ring Sourcebook available for purchase

[Don Mappin]

Originally posted by kong
what people need isnt stats for aragorn (despite what they mioght believe)

I find this bit interesting for two reasons:

1) People will purchase a book whether or not they find it useful and if its contents has merit in their games. Meaning, if someone wants the stats for Aragorn then they'll want this book. If someone doesn't want the stats (or the other content) then no one (Decipher or anyone else) is standing there forcing them to buy the book. Out of curiosity, was kong required to purchase the book? Didn't think so.

2) Who are you to tell people what they do and do not need in their games? Are you running my LotR RPG game? No, I am. You have no business telling me, or any other Narrator, what we need. We buy what we need and use what we need. Your predisposition to believing that Decipher owes you some great debt, that you are somehow the anointed representative of all things LotR RPG-related and that these books must be tailored to your needs is frightening. As if your way (kong) is the only right way.

Seems like a cyclic argument; I've seen this pedantic rambling before on other forums. Come on, pick a new cross to bear.

[Don Mappin]

Originally posted by kong
any game that is based on a licensed property should support the creation of the source characters (as the buffy rpg does) right out of the core book. those characters should be the default and rules for playing 'weaker' characters should be an option - not the other way round.

Bzzt. This is incorrect. You can not create Buffy using the Core Book and play her as a starting character. Her stats are insanely high.

Buffy and Friends are not the "default" setting and you do not elect to play weaker characters--all characters created in Buffy are "weaker," starting characters that can one day strive to be of the same talents of the featured characters.

Just like it is in Coda Trek or LotR.

[John Kim]

Originally posted by Don Mappin
Bzzt. This is incorrect. You can not create Buffy using the Core Book and play her as a starting character. Her stats are insanely high.

Buffy and Friends are not the "default" setting and you do not elect to play weaker characters--all characters created in Buffy are "weaker," starting characters that can one day strive to be of the same talents of the featured characters.

Just like it is in Coda Trek or LotR.

Bzzzt yourself. This is absolutely false. Starting Buffy RPG Hero characters are fully the equal of Season One Buffy, and are capable of doing equal tasks like taking on the Master and his lieutenant (with considerable difficulty). If anything, a PC group is likely to outclass the Season One gang (though I think Willow is a bit over starting for a White Hat). Buffy and friends *are* the default setting: that is precisely why character sheets were provided for them in the core rulebook.

I haven't yet seen the Fellowship sourcebook so I can't comment on that directly. However, I do not agree with the general logic of the RPGs like Amber, Star Trek and LOTR that PC's are 'supposed' to start out far below the series characters. While I have some beefs with its (lack of) organization, I think that in design the Buffy RPG is nearly ideal as an adaptation of the series.

[Phantom]

Originally posted by John Kim
Bzzzt yourself. This is absolutely false. Starting Buffy RPG Hero characters are fully the equal of Season One Buffy, and are capable of doing equal tasks like taking on the Master and his lieutenant (with considerable difficulty). If anything, a PC group is likely to outclass the Season One gang (though I think Willow is a bit over starting for a White Hat). Buffy and friends *are* the default setting: that is precisely why character sheets were provided for them in the core rulebook.

Ok, I don't have the Buffy RPG but I have been closely eyeing it in my LGS. To me it seems that making a character start off as powerful as Buffy is impossible...the fact that sticks in my mind is the ungodly life points she has, 109 isn't. Heads and tails above even her Vampire enemies Spike I believe has 96.

This is the default for the game?! YIKES, power gamers please start the line here.

[John Kim]

Originally posted by Phantom
Ok, I don't have the Buffy RPG but I have been closely eyeing it in my LGS. To me it seems that making a character start off as powerful as Buffy is impossible...the fact that sticks in my mind is the ungodly life points she has, 109 isn't. Heads and tails above even her Vampire enemies Spike I believe has 96.

This is the default for the game?! YIKES, power gamers please start the line here.

OK, I should explain further, then. The character sheet which you will see from casual browsing is Buffy at the end of Season Five. At that point, she has been through nearly 100 episodes of on-screen adventures -- including contacting the power of the First Slayer and taking on a goddess to save the universe. The accompanying text explains how Buffy increases in power from her introduction in Season One through the first five seasons. As I said, a starting Hero PC is equal to Buffy at the start of Season One, which is less powerful but still darn tough. A PC with 100 episodes of experience will be equivalent to Season Five Buffy.

Just the New Slayer archetype (i.e. sample starting PC) is still darn tough, though: 72 Life Points, 14 base damage from just a kick. That's what Buffy adventures are supposed to be, in my opinion. By the same token, I consider it a travesty to have Star Trek adventures be subordinate officers going around in shuttlecraft. Star Trek adventures should by default be about a starship captain and his trusted chief officers.

[Phantom]

Ah. Ok, I see now. Thanks for the explanation.

[Lt. Dade]

Hi,

I think Coda Trek and LotR handle the issue of starting character power quite well. By having the default character creation system create meek characters at the start of their lives, the game naturally reinforces a sense of mechanical advancement corresponding to life experience (as opposed to mechanical advancement corresponding to narrative importance, which some games do). In Star Trek, the characters we're given to watch on television are often well into careers that we learn to be filled with adventure, such as Picard. Characters without this experience (Voyager's Harry Kim) are shown with fewer Advancements.
Coda is perhaps the easiest game I know of to start with an experienced character: just add Advancements before the first session. If you want to play a game wherein characters have power levels like Picard or Aragorn (sic), then tell have your gaming group create characters with 50 or 60 Advancements. The Advancement style of development even encourages you to stop and consider the little eras or stories that resulted in those Advancements.
E.g.: For Picard's 8th Advancement I've decided to give him some skill levels in Gaming (Domjot), and some Flaw to represent his artificial heart; to explain all of this, I make up a little story that explains that Advancement. For his 40th Advancement, I make up another little story, and so on. The mechanics even help to encourage backstory.
Before we can seriously consider the merits of a game's ability to reflect it licensed universe, we must identify the hardpoints or areas where game mechanics connect with the artificial world of the licensed property.
I'll be honest; I have no real interest in seeing Aragorn's stats. I do however have a real desire to see Frodo and Sam's. I had a real interest in seeing stats for Star Trek characters.
These sorts of presentations are the Rosetta stones for translating the game world into the game. In Star Trek, we got to see these in the Narrator's Guide. In LotR we did get Gollum, Saruman, Grima and some familiar monsters. Yeah, I think it would've been terrific if we could have gotten, say, Pippin and Frodo and Boromir, too, for good measure; but me thinking that doesn't signify an egregious error on the part of Decipher.

word,
Will

[John Kim]

Originally posted by Lt. Dade Coda is perhaps the easiest game I know of to start with an experienced character: just add Advancements before the first session. If you want to play a game wherein characters have power levels like Picard or Aragorn (sic), then tell have your gaming group create characters with 50 or 60 Advancements. The Advancement style of development even encourages you to stop and consider the little eras or stories that resulted in those Advancements.[/B]

Hmm. That seems like pretty laborious bookkeeping to me, especially after my experience of taking many hours just to make starting characters. (Though admittedly this was the first time and thus had problems.)

That aside -- how well has this worked after character creation? Did your high-power games have any problems? I haven't played CODA Star Trek, but I know that LUG's ICON Star Trek had some serious problems in play after heaps of experience.

I'll maybe try making some high-power characters this evening. I haven't got the Fellowship sourcebook yet, but is 50 advancements really right for the likes of Aragorn? Has anyone tried out simple things like playing out Aragorn, Legolas, and crew against a bunch of orcs and a cave troll?

[Lt. Dade]

Well, I haven't really seen 50 Advancements in play yet, so I can't speak intelligently about the satisfaction of such a game. I prefer lower-powered games in general, my self.

What I can say is this: the probability distribution in Coda is such that a good deal of game situations still come down to luck, even at high levels. This is largely because of Opposed Rolls. In the case of a Star Trek episode, I can also testify that very experienced or talented characters can still be adequately challenged or entertained by encounters that they should ultimately be able to beat mechanically. In Star Trek, for example, the trick is to challenge characters with situations like these:

Not: Can you fix the warp core? But: Can you fix the warp core in three minutes?

Not: Can you destroy that alien starship? But: Is it right to destroy that alien starship?

Not: Can you slay the orcs at Amon hen? But: Can you keep those orcs fighting you so Frodo can get away?

It's also a fair to ask this question: If we're using the Combat Pacing rules from LotR, how many successes are those goblins worth in Moria? 3? How many Advancements does that Cave Troll have? 10?

The answers are, and not unfairly: it depends on the experience level of the characters playing in the adventure. Unlike D&D, I think Coda isn't best used to model a fictional world which the PCs explore for good or ill. Instead, the same adventure in Coda needs to be built with encounters that specifically challenge the characters you know are setting out to face the dangers.

Both games have issues of responsibility of power and the taxation of self (!) which conveniently take advantage of some of Coda's flaws. In this regard, I'm sure Coda's not the right game for every world.

word,
Will

[John Kim]

Originally posted by Lt. Dade Well, I haven't really seen 50 Advancements in play yet, so I can't speak intelligently about the satisfaction of such a game. I prefer lower-powered games in general, my self.

Well, nothing wrong with that as a preference -- though you probably should have qualified your statement earlier if you didn't really know. A lot of RPG systems tend to break down outside of the default range -- probably because they aren't playtested. Your guess is that the CODA system scales pretty well, but I think the only way to know for sure is to try it out. For example, it appears to me that warrior characters will fairly quickly max out on their offense roll because of the maximum skill of 12. A warrior character will probably hit this maximum within 4 or 5 Advancements, I would think. It isn't clear to me where things go from there.

Incidentally, I totally didn't understand your last statement about "issues of responsibility of power and the taxation of self (!) which conveniently take advantage of some of Coda's flaws". What does this mean? What flaws of CODA are you referring to?

[Ineti]

Originally posted by John Kim
A warrior character will probably hit this maximum within 4 or 5 Advancements, I would think. It isn't clear to me where things go from there.

I would think that from there, the Narrator makes sure there's a big enough story involved to keep the heroes working. The cannon fodder orcs and such will be little more than nuisances at that point. Gimli and Legolas wade through orcs during Helm's Deep because they are heroes. Heroes do heroic things. They whip up on the little guys while pushing toward the big baddies.

And, there's more to a RPG than just combat and advancement totals. Especially Coda, which has a significant focus on story, naturally, based on the setting.

Aragorn may have over 50 advancements, but his road to his throne is still a very difficult and challenging one. Gandalf may have had 80+ advancements, but he still fell in combat with the Balrog.

Higher-level characters engender a higher-level campaign. Epic-level. Heroic-level.

[Doug Burke]

Originally posted by John Kim
The accompanying text explains how Buffy increases in power from her introduction in Season One through the first five seasons. As I said, a starting Hero PC is equal to Buffy at the start of Season One, which is less powerful but still darn tough.

IIRC, Buffy at the begining of Season One was basically just starting. Just found out what she could do and learning to adjust to it, right? In LOTR analogy, that would make her on par with the hobbits in the fellowship (Merry & Pippin have 1 advancement each, Sam has 2, and Frodo has 6).

A PC with 100 episodes of experience will be equivalent to Season Five Buffy.

So continuing my comparison, maybe, after decades of experience fighting the forces of the shadow, the hobbits would be more on par with Aragorn's 68 advancements, no?

[Phantom]

Originally posted by Doug Burke
In LOTR analogy, that would make her on par with the hobbits in the fellowship (Merry & Pippin have 1 advancement each, Sam has 2, and Frodo has 6).

Ummm, how does one arrive at those values for the Hobbits? I would have guess that they were all 'beginning' characters. But, that's just me.

[John Kim]

Originally posted by Ineti And, there's more to a RPG than just combat and advancement totals. Especially Coda, which has a significant focus on story, naturally, based on the setting.

Aragorn may have over 50 advancements, but his road to his throne is still a very difficult and challenging one. Gandalf may have had 80+ advancements, but he still fell in combat with the Balrog.

Look, when I referred "where things go from here" -- it should be clear from the context that the "things" I am talking about are advancement choices. Obviously there is story and action going on as well -- I never suggested otherwise. To re-state: it isn't clear to me what PC character sheets will look like after 50 advancements. A warrior (or any other skill-based character) will quickly hit the skill maximum. What do you put your points into for the next 45 advancements? Yes, the game is a lot more than just advancements -- but the result of advancements does have an effect on the game.

Also, I consider it particularly silly to point to events of the book/movie and cite them as role-playing results. Gandalf fell in combat with the Balrog because that's how Tolkien wrote it. If the same battle was played out using the RPG rules as written, the result might be totally different. That is something I will probably try out for myself when I get the Fellowship sourcebook. If anyone else has the book and has tried this, I'd be curious to know what the result was.

[sooth]

after your Warriors have maxed out their combat skills they are going to develop other non-combat skills or migrate to develop in other basic or Elite orders.

That's realistic surely - in "real life" there would come a point in every warrior's career when his skills physically just could not get better, they are honed to perfection. At that point he takes on more responsibility & becomes a Captain or inherits land & becomes a Noble. Or he specialises & becomes a Knight, Ranger or Archer.

Take Aragorn - I don't have the FOTR sourcebook but one would imagine he started his career as a Warrior, migrated to become a Ranger, migrated again to become a Captain and finally to a Noble. He also picked up some Lore skills and healing information.