Character skills

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Corporal Hicks
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Character skills

Post by Corporal Hicks » Sat Sep 12, 2020 6:47 pm

I think the current character sheets and the rules leave a lot of room for improvement. Here is one idea for improvement that I had.

What if there were "main skills" "supporting skills" and "tertiary skills" or something like this. You get a certain amount of each and they don't cross over. The reason I think this would be good, because now most people would think "well I can put one more in gun combat or put it into climbing..." Hmm shooting or climbing, which one do we do more often??? In my new system I think there would be about ten commonly used skills and then things like welder skill or climbing would drop into tertiary skills.

SECONDLY I think you all know by now that I absolutely HATE the PDF graveyard that is our character creation system. I want to change this to a different method. It wouldn't be too hard to just have a forum section dedicated to that. You could copy a character template and post it in a reply.
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Morse
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Re: Character skills

Post by Morse » Sat Sep 12, 2020 8:05 pm

No argument with the PDF graveyard. I'm pretty sure I have 3 old sheets for the same character in there. Copying and pasting an image in a forum is easy enough, and would probably keep us better organized.

For the skill system, I guess I don't know. Obviously we all use gun combat on a regular basis and its generally the difference between life and death. Recently I started 5th Edition DnD, and they have a system for skills in there that regard proficiency. Generally you can do any task, it just depends on how proficient you are in that task and I kinda like that. All our characters are military trained and probably have the same general skill base with the equipment we encounter. Its just on how good you are with it.

So basically everyone could roll medical. But if you actually are a trained medic, you get like a +2 in rolling medical.

I think this would work out a little better too, as we in the passed have had issues with the "Who knows how to drive" situation or "are they able to use a smartgun/sniper". In the end its just shooting and driving, but do you do it well enough to get the job done is what the roll determines.
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taimdala
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Re: Character skills

Post by taimdala » Sat Sep 12, 2020 9:07 pm

I agree with y'all: in a game that's mostly writing based, we could use a streamlined version to keep track of profficiency and our skills, without getting bogged down in number crunching.

I wouldn't mind kicking the pdf to the curb if we could have a simpler/easier to use char sheet that would could post here and refer to easily.
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Re: Character skills

Post by maxvale76 » Mon Sep 14, 2020 11:08 pm

Having bought a rare version of the Leading Edge Aliens RPG, I can attest to how tricky the detailed skill system and WAY MORE COMPLEX firing/hitting/location/ damage system it uses is.....so switching to something else I can certainly get down with....

One thing I'd like to avoid though is switching to (old man time here, apologies in advance) some of these new "narrative game" systems that I just can't get down with.....i.e. the new Cortex system (I liked the original, the one they use for the second Firefly/Serenity and Marvel Superheroes game...Yuck...does NOT work forme).....my main issue is that I'm not a big fan of each and every poster being able to take the story any which way as otherwise, we're not playing a game anymore, we're all just putting in parts of a novel and that's not what I signed up for. To me, the game results bring out the narrative NOT each person rolling dice and on "I got a die with a triangle and another with a square and the last with a circle....so that means I succeed, but with a consequence, so hmmmm, let me make some sh$t up right quick"....that just doesn't work for me personally.

On the other hand....the GM saying...."Okay, 2 aliens rush Samantha and get within a few yards as they hiss and their spiked tails arch up behind them, ready to strike!"

I then post...."Eyes bulging out in fear, Sam rapidly cut loose a pair of 6 round bursts from her Pulse Rifle as she backed up and yelled out "A LITTLE HELP OVER HERE!"....

and behind the scenes the GM rolls some dice, gets results that take out both aliens, but one of them splatters enough acid blood to hit Sam and then posts THOSE results....now that works for me.....and some might say "What's the difference?".....to me, the difference is that it's the GM's job to make that interpretation, not each player to do that (I'm talking in 'scenes that matter'....it's fine to let players make up whatever in non 'important' situations as long as it doesn't get out of control).....I hope I'm not the only one that feels that way. If I am, please let me know and I don't want to get in the way of anyone else having fun and I'll move along back to the old peoples' home. :)

As for a different system, I think both d6 and Ubiquity (powers Hollow Earth Expedition) would work easily......for d6 all skills fall under a specific Attribute and it would be easy to quickly set up something to scale each skill like: "Grand Master equals: +6 dice, Master equals +5 dice, Expert equals +4 dice, Proficient equals +3 dice, Competent equals +2 dice, Novice equals Attribute rating +1 dice, Unskilled obviously means just Attribute rating.

Assume the following Attribute change/mods....range is from 2D (lowest), 2D+1, 2D+2, 3D, 3D+1, 3D+2, 4D is the highest...with 3 points or "pips" per die.....18D for 6 attributes....so 3D+2 and 2D+1 in another attribute would add up to 6 of the 18 dice for attributes, if that makes sense) So Sam Hall might look something like this: (New Attributes in bold....old attributes in parentheses)

STRENGTH/STR (a combination of the current STR and Health attributes): 3D
MIND/MND (a combination of Intelligence and Motivation): 3D+1
REFLEXES/REF (a combination of Agility and Perception): 3D+2
CHARISMA/CHA (a combination of Charisma and Leadership: 3D
MECHANICAL APTITUDE/MECH (essentially an attribute for Flying ships, working Motion Trackers, Driving the APC, firing ship based weapons, etc.): 2D+2
TECHNICAL APTITUDE/TECH (essentially an attribute for fixing things and computer wizardy, etc.): 2D+1

And then slot the skills under each....so Gun Combat under REF, Motion Tracker under MECH, etc. And Sam has Master for Gun Combat so that's 3D+2 +6 dice so 9D+2....Sam is bad ass with a Pulse Rife....but she's unskilled at fixing an APC...so if the APC throws the trans-axel and she has to try and fix it, she's just rolling her TECH of 2D+1....not good!

Difficulty numbers are typically (assuming the D for Dice used is a d6): VERY EASY tasks: 5, EASY tasks: 10, MEDIUM tasks: 15, DIFFICULT tasks: 20, VERY DIFFICULT tasks: 30

If your skill is 5 dice...you roll 5 dice, add them all up and see if you beat the Difficulty number. If you need to know HOW well you accomplished something or failed, you can do stuff like +5 over the Difficulty one step UP /Down.....or Twice the Difficulty number means you REALLY DID WELL at it, etc.

Anyway, I can go on about it if anyone is interested.

The Ubiquity system is similar excpet instead of adding dice together if you roll 6 dice, you only add up the even results to see how many successes you got. Typically like above, the difficulty number is a sliding scale so 1 success is needed for Very Easy, 2 for Easy, 3 for Moderate, 4 for Difficult, 5 for Very Difficult.

Obviously things like taking cover, multiple actions, opponents actions, etc. can tie into this, but both systems I find very straightforward and work VERY WELL with any non Magic/Supernatural/Super Heroic etc. kind of setting.
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taimdala
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Re: Character skills

Post by taimdala » Tue Sep 15, 2020 4:17 am

Wow!

That's a lot of game mechanics but the short version of my opinion is:

I really dislike Cortex Plus and I really prefer Cortex Classic. If we were playing a Firefly/Serenity campaign with Cortex Plus, I wouldn't sign up for it.

I repeat: I would pass up Serenity/Firefly.

That's **how much** I dislike Cortex Plus.

And I dislike it for pretty much the same reasons Sam mentioned. And while we aren't playing Serenity/Firefly, I will say Cortex Plus is pretty much the deal breaker no matter what we're playing.

So if I may express my preference, may we avoid using Cortex Plus? Please and thank you!
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Corporal Hicks
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Re: Character skills

Post by Corporal Hicks » Tue Sep 15, 2020 5:26 am

Hey all!

Wow that’s a lot of information. I’m not much of a stat person myself. I am primarily here for the roleplay. I think the game element is critical to the roleplay, however. Having a GM who is in control of the story is critical to the way we do things.

We are not doing cortex. Sounds like that would put me out of a job! Also it sounds like garbage.

Honestly all I wanted to do was tweak the character creation method we already have. I think the current system is fine and it can be pretty good with some tweaks. But I don’t want to just start making rule changes without consulting the players so don’t worry about that.
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Re: Character skills

Post by taimdala » Tue Sep 15, 2020 3:06 pm

Cortex Classic (IOW the first version of the rules) was fine. The second version, Cortex Plus, tossed out the features that made the mechanic fun to use and introduced other fetures in their place that made the game harder to use, IMNSHO.

I think the reason Cortex v2.0 was made was because Margaret Weis Productions either lost or couldn't renew their license for Serenity (the movie, held by Universal) and had to go with Firefly (the show, held by Fox) and it might have been a condition for pick up that the game mechanics be significantly different from its predecessor to justify [IP/Legal reasons].

I *suspect* due to the same [IP/Legal reasons] MWP had to make some sweeping changes across their entire Cortex Classic properties, up to and including shutting down websites/forums that dealt with their Cortex Classic games. While a heads-up of the shut downs would have been a kindness to all the fans who contributed to the forums, I understand that MWP may not have been given warning in time to do so.

The whole situation just left me burnt on MWP and Cortex Plus.

Upshot: they had to take something that worked well and change it into something different that didn't work the same/as well; they had to kill a website without much warning to comply with a change in licensing(or to merely coincide with a change in licensing), which caused the game/company to fall out of favor with some gamers (like me).

Grah! We're dodging the entire mess by not using Cortex at all. Which is fine by me, really, but if we did choose Cortex, I do recc the Classic over the Plus due to ease of use/ease of play.
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taimdala
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Re: Character skills

Post by taimdala » Tue Sep 15, 2020 3:17 pm

As for narrative-style game mechanics, if you mean anything that White Wolf has made, I have to say that the mechanics aren't bad of themselves.

I think that their decision to organize their RULESBOOKS as they are now is total rubbish. You have to read a novel from start to finish just to find the fucking tables you want so you can complete your character.

If you state at the front of the book that you can make a character in 5 easy steps, then please put all those steps in the next 10 pages, in order, without having to go anywhere else.

Don't require the gamer to go to page 122 for the first step, then go to 57 for step 2, page 300 for step 3, and back to 127 for 4, and then the "epilogue" for step 5.

Cheese and fuckin' crackers!

To be fair, the material is pretty much complete when you get to the correct page, but for the love of fucking God, put the information in straightforward order in a single fucking section in the goddamned book.

I like playing in the White Wolf system but I FUCKING HATE the process of char-gen because their rulesbooks are so fucking insane to use.

And that's it y'all. Not posting any more rants on game mechanics. I've covered all my pain points.

Back to being my sunny self!
ImageCpl. Dmitri Mikhailovich Barayev
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VP70 Pistol + 2 clips
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Corporal Hicks
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Re: Character skills

Post by Corporal Hicks » Wed Sep 16, 2020 1:00 am

Your frustration adequately describes my feeling toward all rule books and mechanics. I can never understand them so I just make up my own rules that make sense to me. That isn't what I do here so much. I may not be following the rule book to the letter, but I'm using a consistent system based on the stats you guys entered for your characters.

I really didn't want to make a change to another system. Ours is fine. I just thought we could distribute skills differently to prevent having 12 marines who are expert shooters and expertly aware and no skill with any of the less glamorous stuff.

I appreciate all the feedback and conversation though :)
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Re: Character skills

Post by taimdala » Wed Sep 16, 2020 2:01 am

Corporal Hicks wrote: Wed Sep 16, 2020 1:00 am Your frustration adequately describes my feeling toward all rule books and mechanics. I can never understand them so I just make up my own rules that make sense to me. That isn't what I do here so much. I may not be following the rule book to the letter, but I'm using a consistent system based on the stats you guys entered for your characters.

I really didn't want to make a change to another system. Ours is fine. I just thought we could distribute skills differently to prevent having 12 marines who are expert shooters and expertly aware and no skill with any of the less glamorous stuff.

I appreciate all the feedback and conversation though :)
Less glamorous stuff?

You mean, like ... scrubbing the latrines? LOL!
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VP70 Pistol + 2 clips
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Re: Character skills

Post by Medic Guy » Thu Sep 17, 2020 9:45 pm

Agreed Hicks, it is nice to see a bit more depth to a character than just their ability to shoot something. I've been a fan of the portrayal of characters through their backstory and accents and mannerisms (Dmitri's rocky marriage, Morse and his dislike for colonists, Sam's New Kingston references, and the side banter between Tonya and Dmitri that the rest of the marines don't understand.

I still think there is benefit to having variation to the shooting ability of characters. I'm actually a fan of not hitting the target every time as it adds a lot more realism given all the influences the marines are having to deal with.
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taimdala
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Re: Character skills

Post by taimdala » Fri Sep 18, 2020 1:11 am

Medic Guy wrote: Thu Sep 17, 2020 9:45 pm Agreed Hicks, it is nice to see a bit more depth to a character than just their ability to shoot something. I've been a fan of the portrayal of characters through their backstory and accents and mannerisms (Dmitri's rocky marriage, Morse and his dislike for colonists, Sam's New Kingston references, and the side banter between Tonya and Dmitri that the rest of the marines don't understand.

I still think there is benefit to having variation to the shooting ability of characters. I'm actually a fan of not hitting the target every time as it adds a lot more realism given all the influences the marines are having to deal with.
I couldn't agree more! There was a time when I played D&D twice a week ... but then it slid into roll-your-dice/move-your-mice sort of play and I gave up on it. Too boring.
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Re: Character skills

Post by Morse » Fri Sep 18, 2020 2:00 pm

Absolutely agree with the majority on the cortex system, especially Taimdala's point of I would even pass up Firefly if we were using that system. (Some of us were on a Firefly Forum prior to playing here, so that says a lot for us.)

I also agree with the roleplay side is my preferred element. I did not really expect Morse to last long enough to be the invincibly powerful and skilled character that he is in the current system. Some of my favorite moments with the character were him getting shot and barely saved by Sam, or him losing his leg because he miscalculated his own abilities. Failure is what tends to make play good, and if they stats are too high it becomes problematic. - I'm not saying I want to get back to characters dying, I'm just saying it doesn't bother me when my character misses.

And if it makes things easier to simplify the system to achieve that, I could not be more in favor of it.
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-3rd Bn, 2nd Reg, 1st Co, 8th Plt
- DEVIL DAWG
- M41A Pulse Rifle - M4 Pistol - Med Kit
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Re: Character skills

Post by JuanPerez » Mon Sep 21, 2020 7:45 pm

Thanx for all your postings so far, here are my two cents.

The actual char sheet is from the original "leading-edge aliens board game" and the char-creation process is a simplified version of the same. As with all other rpg core systems, imo this stuff does not fit to our kind of game here. It is safe to say, that the majority of our players are not so much interested in "how many experience points does my char have?" or "is my skill level in gun combat better than xy's skill level", but on the narrative side of their character with all the curves and edges. So my conclusion is, don't try to adapt some kind of rpg system, but KISS - keep it simple and stupid.

Meaning:
- no attributes like stength, stamina, luck, etc.
- all chars start with the same kind of basic military training, aka they know how to shoot a rifle, how to handle a medpack, etc.
- each char chooses a special skill set, like medic, machine gun operator, tech, which improves the appropriate skills, so that a "medic" can handle a medpack "better" than a non-medic, or can perform small surgical procedures on the field, etc.
- of course there are some very special skills, like flying a dropship, that regular grunts dont do, because it's "so difficult", that a special training is needed
- skills define and shape a char in the progress of campaings, so that after each campain they improve (representing both experience and learning)
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M3 Pattern Personal Armor
M41A Pulse Rifle (6 Mags, 20 Grenades)
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Medic Guy
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Re: Character skills

Post by Medic Guy » Mon Sep 21, 2020 8:39 pm

Would we want to do a character sheet in the roster area perhaps?

Corporal Clint McKenna
Sniper, Armorer
30 year old white male
6'1" 230 pounds
Black hair, high and tight cut; blue eyes

Skills:
Gun Combat; Scouting; Infantry Weapon Repair; Special Weapon Operation; Special Weapon Repair
Awareness; Hand to Hand Combat; Balance; Portable Welder Operation; Manufacturing

Equipment:
Sniper Rifle, Sling, Ammo
Shotgun, Scabbard, Ammo
Combat Knife
Other equipment
ImageCorporal Clint McKenna
USCM Special Forces Recon Team
Serial Number: L69/EA5.2.31782M9

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Pvt. Isabel Orozco - Rifleman; formerly of the U.S.S. Shiloh Marine Detachment, currently on public relations campaign.
Private Dave Halbert - unknown location

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