Problems with Poisn'd
lumpley:
Question 1 part 2: Interpretation a.
Question 2 (a): page 11, section "Dice," paragraph 3. All fights start at the first and can escalate no further than the third.
Question 2 (b): Tom suffered a deadly wound to end the fight. He's helpless and dying. Hannah wants some Xs so she attacks him again, to "smash his head fucking open," instead of letting him die of his deadly wound. She fails that roll, so she doesn't smash his head fucking open. He dies unnoticed, perhaps as she's howling at Pigfuck Dan.
Question 2 (c): I presume you have your reasons. You can't think of any? That's fine. Don't do it. You're allowed to ditch out of a fight you're losing with minor consequence, if you want to.
Question 4 part b: Whoever's in the fight is in the fight. If there's a pirate who might be fighting and you don't know whether he is, ask his player, she's the one who can decide that.
(Notice also the rule about withholding dice when you're fighting on a side. That's a different question.)
Question 4 part c: There is always a fight on the horizon.
Save your Xs until there's a fight including your character. At the end of any fight including your character, erase any Xs you didn't spend during the fight.
Do not track what actions gave you your Xs. It's irrelevant.
Question 4 part e: Yes, you can wind up in a fight you didn't want, forced to spend or lose your Xs you were saving for something better. Life sucks.
Your "rabid seagull" question is like your rocket ship question: it can go fuck itself.
Question 4 part f: No buckets for different fights.
Question 4 part g: You're right, the rules don't say whether you can combine them, like if I spend 1 and you spend 2 we can together buy a 3X effect.
Question 4 part h: When urgency resolves into the Resolute, now the Resolute is present. It is fully available to the game's fiction, under the GM's control. I don't know what you mean by "just a card to be dealt with eventually like any other." All the cards in play are effective immediately and constantly, under the GM's control.
The GM names the cruel fortune the urgency will resolve into when she brings urgency into play.
---
It's clear from your questions - and this conversation - that you were trying to interpret the rules to support some other game ("a pretty mechanical game where everything is regimented and orchestrated mechanically, board game style"), and in that light the rules didn't make sense to you. That's too bad, I'm sorry about that much. However, the only question in this post that isn't answered by the rulebook is 4g.
-Vincent
lumpley:
I have some questions back!
Matt, did Ben answer your question? Did I manage to, in answering Ralph?
Whose idea was it to play Poison'd? What other games did you consider? Why did you choose Poison'd over the others? What interested you about the game? Who was most reluctant to play it?
Julie was the GM?
You all gave it three hours of grief? Why on earth didn't you bag it sooner?
Julie, Ron, Tim, do you have anything to add to Ralph's and Matt's posts?
I have to tell you, I already knew from conversations at GenCon that it wasn't the pirate game you wanted it to be, Ralph. I kind of thought you'd understood that too, I was surprised to hear that you'd played it.
-Vincent
Valamir:
Quote
It's clear from your questions - and this conversation - that you were trying to interpret the rules to support some other game ("a pretty mechanical game where everything is regimented and orchestrated mechanically, board game style"), and in that light the rules didn't make sense to you. That's too bad, I'm sorry about that much. However, the only question in this post that isn't answered by the rulebook is 4g.
Actually, I think you have this completely backwards...and I think that's coloring the way you're interpreting my points.
I'll say this as clearly as I can, so forgive the bluntness, please.
I did not try to interpret the rules to support some other game. I interpreted YOUR rules, and that led me to my understanding that the game was meant to be regimented and mechanically orchestrated board game style. That is NOT (not not not) me layering my own bias on your game where it doesn't belong...that's how your rules read.
Everything I thought about how your game was supposed to be played that you've now indicated is completely wrong, came from trying to play the game EXACTLY the way you wrote it. We did what the rules said, and didn't do anything the rules didn't say.
The rules say that the GM starts a fight when a success roll is failed...that's the only way a fight gets started per your rules. I didn't bring any extra baggage to the game, that's exactly what your rules say...that's ALL they say. You indicate here that the ACTUAL way a fight starts is whenever one player narrates one of their characters attacking someone and the player of that character narrating that they fight back...then a fight happens. Sorry, that's NOT in the rules anywhere. If that's how fights start...then write it that way in the text.
You've indicated that narrating a serious wound to someone as part of a success roll actually does inflict damage of the sort that requires "make a bargain or die". But your RULES don't say that...anywhere. your rules only reference suffering injury as the result of the fight mechanics, and don't indicate that injury can be suffered at any other time.
I say this, not to harp on it, but as lead up to say this.
Please don't conclude "this is not the game for Ralph, this is not the game he was expecting, he brought his own baggage and preconceptions in, and that's why he didn't get it"...and then use that (false) conclusion to set my comments aside as not being really relevant.
We read your rules very carefully. We disected them ad naseum. We tried to do exactly what the rules said and we wound up in a place 180d from where you wanted us to be. That's not our fault...that's a serious failing in the text.
I didn't go into the game HOPEING to find a board-game-like set of rules...I read your rules, and concluded that you intended them to play like a board-game. It is now clear that you don't intend that...so it is now equally clear the current text is doing a pretty poor job for conveying how to play.
Everything you said in this thread...and everything you didn't say but could have...NEEDS to be put in the final version of the game text...the current text isn't cutting it. I am certain that there's a hellofa game hidden in these rules...but hidden it is, and it needs to become unhidden. Don't just give me the rules, give me instructions on how to use them. You do this very well in Dogs, but you're not doing any of it in the Ashcan for Poison'd.
So, what I'd love to hear from you is that everything I just wrote is something you're already planning to do, and all that stuff we just talked about in this thread is absolutely going to be in the final version of the text. And I'd LOVE to playtest again using THAT version of the text. I'd love to play this game the way YOU intend it to be played...but you're going to have to do a better job telling me what that is.
I'm not criticising your game here...I AM criticising the current text. It is really really not delivering.
lumpley:
Okay. I'll go through the text with your confusions in mind. I'll add text about handing off between the subsystems and the fiction, instead of from subsystem to subsystem, and I'll add a section about the game's overall approach. I'll do what I can for you.
But this game is never going to be Dogs in the Vineyard. I'm going to add 4 pages to it, no more, and I've already filled 2 of them. Your need for an expansive text is at odds with my creative needs for this game.
Especially, anywhere you said "substantial additional explanation" and "more than just a sentence or two," abandon hope. I'll do my best, but my page budget for this game is strict. It'll always depend on its audience making the right leaps instead of the wrong ones.
Okay! Ralph, to head off grief - I'm saying yes to you, yes to your concerns. I'm telling you not to expect a longer book, but yes, I'll do what I can. Wish me luck.
-Vincent
Ben Lehman:
"I interpreted YOUR rules, and that led me to my understanding that the game was meant to be regimented and mechanically orchestrated board game style"
Hey, Ralph: Could you elaborate about what gave you this impression?
What I'd really like to see is an example of rules text which gives the impression that the game needs to be played board-game like, and a text with the impression that the game needs to be played in a different way.
This is a pretty important nut to crack, I think.
yrs--
--Ben
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page