I ask Vincent a bunch of questions like I was a horde of flying monkeys
lumpley:
Hey Christopher, it sounds like you don't have the rules in front of you and maybe haven't read them. Is that true? I'm happy to answer your questions either way, but it'll help me know where to start.
-Vincent
Christopher Kubasik:
Hi Vincent,
Yes. Sorry. I mentioned that in the other thread. I should have repeated it here.
I feel kind of awkward about that, honestly. I usually wouldn't do it this way, but I'm really curious about the design. If you want, we can pass on the discussion until I can dig them up from someone on my end of the world. I'd completely understand.
CK
Moreno R.:
Quote from: Christopher Kubasik on February 21, 2008, 02:17:16 PM
And now I'm more confused... The dice mechanics are similar to Sorcerer? My brain just twirled on that. I mean... Each round of rolling in Sorcerer produces effects upon the characters immediately (which, if I understand IaWA), isn't the case (effects are at the end of three rounds). Bonus dice are earned by providing color in Sorcerer, not so in IaWA (which asks for color to justify dice). In Sorcerer Initiative and effectiveness are determined from one roll of dice, there's full defense and dodge, which are important options, dice bonuses carry over into the next round, from round to round, which can encourage players to cat-and-mouse their opponent for a while with all sorts of non-combat skills to nail someone with a final combat attack (or visa versa.)
In Sorcerer players roll their intent, and then the dice rolls determine whether a) the Intent happened at all, and b) if it did, what the result of the intent moving forward was. As Vincent says, the IaWA system is designed to provide consequences for contested actions, not resolve intents.
As far as can tell, after writing those two paragraphs up, IaWA might confuse me BECAUSE I've played Sorcerer!
If you want to break out the similarities, that would be great. It might help me grok something.
Well, the first similarity is see, it's the kind of long-term game it build: IAWA seems (by reading the rules - I only played one one-shot until now) designed to build a not-chronological narration that create, session by session, a cohesive world by adding sketchy colorful setting elements. And that seems to me the kind of "Sword and Sorcery narrative" that Ron advised using Sorcerer & Sword for.
Looking at the conflict system (it's not really a conflict _resolution_, but a mechanic that get triggered by conflict. The conflict could be very well unresolved at the end):
- as in sorcerer, there is no stakes or "find the conflict in this scene": you want to do something, someone try to stop you, get out the dice!
- you roll dice and "read" them exactly like in Sorcerer [there are no bonus dice before the first roll, but seeing that they were a problematic element for me in trying to play Sorcerer, I don't miss them. The number of dice is changed to the kind of dice, losing the elegance of the currency rule , but doing away with bonus dice and carry-overs it would not be used much anyway. All in all it seems to me like a very simplified and standardized Sorcerer roll. You lose a lot of options and the player is not pushed to role-play to get bonus dice, but by the other hand the simplification is considerable]
- The player with the highest die "act" and the other defends, re-rolling his dice and losing his declared action (like in Sorcerer, if the player choose to drop his action. In Sorcerer he could try to defend with a single dye, this option is absent in IAWA. Again, dropping options to get a simpler, faster game with less tactical choices)
- The player who lost the first round don't get a number of "victories" and bonus dice, but a single bonus die, that add to the highest die in the next roll (I see this as a simplified version of the sorcerer bonus dice: seeing that you don't get a variable number of victories, you get a variable bonus from winning the round)
- As in sorcerer, you can't force someone to do what you want by winning a conflict: all you can do is to give them dice penalties
So, it's not _exactly_ Sorcerer, not by a long shot, but the similitudes are not trivial, and I don't think that they can be casual. I think that Vincent started with the Sorcerer mechanics and altered them to suit the scope of this game (and I would really like to know the reason behind every change, but I am curious like that). By the way, the only rpgs listed in the "direct sources" section are Sorcerer (& Sword), Trollbabe, and Primetime Adventures (the last one surprised me: I still don't see the link to PTA in this game). And Conan is listed as another source, linking again the objective of this game to the ojectives of Sorcerer and Sword.
(my player was talking specifically about the reading of the dice and the "the loser reroll" mechanism. All the options in S&S confused him and he didn't see the basic system underneath. It was my fault in not being able to spot his confusion, too, obviously)
Christopher Kubasik:
Hi Alan,
I think you just gave me a light bulb moment. "Best Interest." Hmmmm... I don't know if that's exactly what we we're playing. We were playing more, "What my PC really, really wants."
I think framing things as "Best Interest" shifts the mind into subtler territory, where conflicts of interested can be better -- surprise! -- negotiated.
This is the kind of thing I was talking about where I don' t think I was understanding the point of view/logic of the game. Right up front, we're not talking about "Goal" -- we're talking about "Best Interest." And that's a big shift in how to approach the creation of the character and situation -- which in turn will have a big impact on conflicts.
***
Sidenote: I really, really don't want to get all confounded with the Sorcerer/IaWA stuff... But I don't think losers of the initiative re-roll. You can choose to do that with a Full Defense, or you can Suck It Up, which leaves your dice standing on the table and you roll one die for defense. But yes, dice carry over.
Christopher Kubasik:
Hi Moreno,
Yes, in terms of the die reading, it's like Sorcerer. But as I touched on in my response to Alan, I believe where I got confused was in the whole point of view of leading up to the conflict. Reading the dice was easy. What confused me was what the dice meant in relation to the conflict of the action, which conflicts would be best for the mechanic, and so on.
But your points are good ones.
CK
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