Spycraft Third edition Wishlist and Suggestions Mega-thread

[TheAuldGrump]

3 wounds a round isn't bad enough?

That will kill an "average" special NPC in 4 rounds, or an average PC in 5.

That's 24 or 30 seconds.

Yep. However you are assuming that no saves are successful - an unlikely situation. Particularly for characters that can pump their saves with Action Dice, Feats, or a conveniently nearby medic. The odds of making saves during that time drops the average by a lot. (For my part - I meant to type '2' not '3'.)

And Gentry - no, if I wanted Save or Die I would have said Save or Die, since I did not then I did not. Do not put words in my mouth. 

I want flexibility - that is F as in Flummoxed, L as in Lame, E as in Error, X as in Xavier, E as in Egregious, I as in Irritating, L as in Loser, I as in Irrational, T as in Trenchfoot, Y as in Yucatan. Sometimes a poison is stronger, sometimes it is weaker, having the ability to easily modify the poison is something that I want. What you suggest is not what I want. Are we now clear on this?

The Auld Grump, yes, I really am annoyed.

Just FYI, you spelled Flexeility, not Flexibility

Whoops - I removed a word as being *ahem* unacceptable, then forgot to replace it. Rhymes with bull grit....  (The second 'e', on the other hand, is just plain bad spelling.)

Sorry, but there are things that cause me to hackle, and that was one of them - I say what I say, on web and in person. If I don't say it then I did not say it. You should have seen me on another forum when a poster accused me of having a hidden agenda... for wanting the huge colored margins in a PDF removed or turned into a removable layer - they ate up way too much ink, and were pretty much there to disguise huge margins. Hard to see a hidden agenda in that....

My in person and web personae are close enough that my players figured out who I was on the old Crafty forum.

The Auld Grump

[Crafty_Pat]

Please keep the critical hit / error lists from Spycraft 2.0 intact.  My group doesn't like the examples in FC and often reverts to the Spycraft 2 charts.

What, specifically, does your group not like about the FC examples?

[Crafty_Pat]

Grump - I suspect we'll be able to accommodate you, but not in any core book. What you're after is, in our opinion, simply too much for a baseline system.

[TheAuldGrump]

Grump - I suspect we'll be able to accommodate you, but not in any core book. What you're after is, in our opinion, simply too much for a baseline system.

The problem with it not being baseline is that further materials will not reference it - how many supplements have you had that referenced the excellent Fragile Minds, as a not at all random example. And changes to the poison and potion system would be much more universal than the sanity cracking of Fragile Minds.

I do not like the current poison system, and feel that it is lacking in flexibility - even when compared to that of D&D 3.X. Ditto for disease, and when D&D has the edge then there is something off....

I realize that in part this is to accommodate the Forge system, but, again, I feel that the Forge, as represented in FC, tries to cover too much ground, and shoves too many things into too few and too small boxes. (Treating flintlocks and wheel locks the same comes to mind - a wheel lock cost roughly six times as much a a flintlock, and was much less reliable. The price of guns plummeted, while the reliability skyrocketed. Wheel locks were much harder to make, and very delicate.)

The result has been that I ignore the Forge chapter, and have not run FC much at all, preferring more concrete pricing. (For the steampunk game I cheat, and haul out the Harrod's, Sear's, or Montgomery Ward's catalogs.)

This may be very different in SC₃, not enough information yet in regards to available eras of play. The Forge could be much more specialized, and can ignore much of the Magic from FC.

Has there been any surveys done in regards to what systems from Fantasy Craft people like, and which ones they would rather bury in an unmarked grave? It might be a good idea to do so before you get too far along with SC₃. I know that I am not the only one in my immediate gaming circle that dislikes some of these things, and at least one of my players has decided that he will not be running FC because of them. (For him I think that the biggest problem was the limitation on Prizes that can be kept - something that did not bother me particularly.) He decided to run Pathfinder instead, even though he loves the NPC creation system in FC.

The Auld Grump

[Crafty_Pat]

Grump - I suspect we'll be able to accommodate you, but not in any core book. What you're after is, in our opinion, simply too much for a baseline system.

The problem with it not being baseline is that further materials will not reference it - how many supplements have you had that referenced the excellent Fragile Minds, as a not at all random example. And changes to the poison and potion system would be much more universal than the sanity cracking of Fragile Minds.

That's correct, further materials would probably not reference it - for the very same reason the proposed level of complexity (at that degree, flexibility becomes complexity) doesn't belong in a core book. We're talking about nearly every GM and player's first contact with the game. Fantasy Craft is 400 pages and we still get an order of magnitude more complaints about that length, and the complexity that remains, than we do about any perceived lack of flexibility. In fact, I can count the number of complaints akin to yours on both hands, while the number of kudos we've received for reducing the complexity from 2.0 is easily in the many hundreds. No hyperbole - Alex can attest to this, as do the many positive reviews and unsolicited comments and forum posts out there.

I'm sorry that you don't care for the Forge chapter as written but it's not going to dramatically change. Not only is that not possible at this stage, any increase in flexibility/complexity would be detrimental to the health of the game, and ultimately the company.

Spycraft Third's era(s) and scope will indeed be much more focused than the Fantasy Craft presentation, but the number of "core" gear items is also exponentially larger, what with us living in an age of explosive technological development and nigh limitless mass production. The challenges will be very different but I suspect the approach will, by necessity, have to be very similar - for many of the same reasons. Plus, it's Mastercraft and we'll be aiming for it to be compatible in terms of rules, presentation, content, and yes, complexity/flexibility. The needs of average GMs and players don't suddenly change because they're roleplaying in the Information Age.

P.S. If you think anything more powerful than the (already very potent) poisons in the Fantasy Craft core book wouldn't cause problems for an average play group, go read this thread again. There are considerations above and beyond concept and scope to consider when building an RPG - you have to consider the great range of GMs, players, and group dynamics out there, and how each might stumble over or struggle with every option and item you include. Often what one group craves smothers many others.

[Sletchman]

Please keep the critical hit / error lists from Spycraft 2.0 intact.  My group doesn't like the examples in FC and often reverts to the Spycraft 2 charts.

What, specifically, does your group not like about the FC examples?

They're a little too specific, to the point that outside those listed examples, we're often not sure what "4 dice" should represent in terms of failure.  It also has examples for all types of weapon, whereas the Fantasycraft example is a melee weapon.  The example would be great in addition to the chart with its general items, to say "here's how it could work in play".  Particularly the 3 and 4 dice errors.

Hopefully that helps, if you want me to expand on that explanation any, I'm happy to do so.

[TheAuldGrump]

Grump - I suspect we'll be able to accommodate you, but not in any core book. What you're after is, in our opinion, simply too much for a baseline system.

The problem with it not being baseline is that further materials will not reference it - how many supplements have you had that referenced the excellent Fragile Minds, as a not at all random example. And changes to the poison and potion system would be much more universal than the sanity cracking of Fragile Minds.

That's correct, further materials would probably not reference it - for the very same reason the proposed level of complexity (at that degree, flexibility becomes complexity) doesn't belong in a core book. We're talking about nearly every GM and player's first contact with the game. Fantasy Craft is 400 pages and we still get an order of magnitude more complaints about that length, and the complexity that remains, than we do about any perceived lack of flexibility. In fact, I can count the number of complaints akin to yours on both hands, while the number of kudos we've received for reducing the complexity from 2.0 is easily in the many hundreds. No hyperbole - Alex can attest to this, as do the many positive reviews and unsolicited comments and forum posts out there.

I'm sorry that you don't care for the Forge chapter as written but it's not going to dramatically change. Not only is that not possible at this stage, any increase in flexibility/complexity would be detrimental to the health of the game, and ultimately the company.

Spycraft Third's era(s) and scope will indeed be much more focused than the Fantasy Craft presentation, but the number of "core" gear items is also exponentially larger, what with us living in an age of explosive technological development and nigh limitless mass production. The challenges will be very different but I suspect the approach will, by necessity, have to be very similar - for many of the same reasons. Plus, it's Mastercraft and we'll be aiming for it to be compatible in terms of rules, presentation, content, and yes, complexity/flexibility. The needs of average GMs and players don't suddenly change because they're roleplaying in the Information Age.

P.S. If you think anything more powerful than the (already very potent) poisons in the Fantasy Craft core book wouldn't cause problems for an average play group, go read this thread again. There are considerations above and beyond concept and scope to consider when building an RPG - you have to consider the great range of GMs, players, and group dynamics out there, and how each might stumble over or struggle with every option and item you include. Often what one group craves smothers many others.

It is not merely the potence of poisons - it is their lack of flexibility, and the fact that one of the more important features for a poison was stuck under character abilities. The damage of a poison is set in stone, rather than being a variable. As a result even such real world toxins as tetrodotoxin, heparin, or botulina could not be covered. (And before it gets mentioned - I have never bought the whole 'reality is broken' line. Reality is what is, all pale imitations of reality, however entertaining, are, by their nature, broken. ) For disease bubonic plague would be difficult to recreate, and, at the other end, so would sinusitis. (Essentially a bad case of the sniffles, that never goes away - it can linger for years.)

A great deal of my difficulty with the Forge chapter comes down to familiarity with the actual nuts and bolts of making things - it does not take a month to make a longsword. It does not take a month to make twelve longswords. (Hell, there aren't even any such thing as longswords! The name got added later.) By my nature I lean toward the simulationist end of things - if it can be done in the real world then it can be done.

There are many things that I like about the Forge chapter - it handles armor much better than D&D, in this case veering closer to the simulationist end of things.

I kind of like the rules for enchanting, though they are unfortunately not compatible with the magic system that I favor. (Not a thing you can do about that really, and I'm not going to ask you to - you have to make it for the magic system of the game, not a weird offshoot that was converted from another game entirely.) If I used the base FC magic system then it would work fine.

I really don't mind the limit on prizes, though one of my players, who was thinking about running FC, had enough of a problem with it that he went with Pathfinder instead. (In this case I feel that he is just being lazy. There are some pretty easy work arounds, from just increasing the number to incorporating the Agency as a fiscal entity.)

The variety of weapons and the disease/poison rules are really my biggest problems. In all honesty, while I will kvetch more about the poisons, it is the lack of variety in the equipment that bothers me more - from flintlocks to musical instruments. Some things should not all be lumped together.

That said - the variety of gear is a problem that can be handled with optional supplements, or my just coming up with a list of musical instruments and their prices. Statting out the Land Pattern musket as standard gear is easy, and coming up with stats and price for a wheel lock is also easy (reliability drops, price rises, range and damage remain the same).

The end result in that regard is that, as things stand, I will not be using FC for my steampunk game, but would have no difficulty using it for my Reformation/Counter Reformation game or the Elizabethan Spy game that I have sketched out. Both allow me to avoid the difference in price between a flintlock and a wheel lock. (The flintlock is what allowed the gun to become common, wheel locks were ruinously expensive.)

The Aul Grump, losing coherence, time to sleep....

[TheAuldGrump]

And of course I skipped the easiest fix, which is not to come up with a ranked system, but just add some more upgrades.

Ones that come to mind:
Potent - adds half again to the damage of the toxin.
Weak - deals half the damage of a full strength poison (this one is probably cheaper)
Fast Acting - deals damage after one round
Slow Acting - deals damage after a delay
Cumulative - each dose after the first adds +1 to the save DC. (scary when added to slow acting...).

Would have helped if I had been awake while typing last night - two hours of sleep in two and a half days. I crashed and burned right after signing off. Lords above and below, I hate insomnia.

The Auld Grump

[Jake]

I was flipping through FC’s NPC section the other night and noticed the system is perfect for building mechs. Walk speed, fly speed, attacks, skill checks, everything is in there, all you do is use the mount rules. I’ve had good time toying around with it and I think using a similar system for FC3’s vehicles would be tons of fun. Have some premades in the book just like the NPC system but the option to build your own. A caliber I motorcycle is worth X points, caliber II is worth 3x/2 points, caliber III is 2x. Then you can spend the points on handling, speed, fuel consumption, damage save, and upgrades like hard points or ornate.

[Crafty_Pat]

Please keep the critical hit / error lists from Spycraft 2.0 intact.  My group doesn't like the examples in FC and often reverts to the Spycraft 2 charts.

What, specifically, does your group not like about the FC examples?

They're a little too specific, to the point that outside those listed examples, we're often not sure what "4 dice" should represent in terms of failure.  It also has examples for all types of weapon, whereas the Fantasycraft example is a melee weapon.  The example would be great in addition to the chart with its general items, to say "here's how it could work in play".  Particularly the 3 and 4 dice errors.

Hopefully that helps, if you want me to expand on that explanation any, I'm happy to do so.

In practice we've found that when we offer just one hard and general example in these cases that's all that ever gets used. Worse, we've had folks come to us and say that since the rules don't specifically and blatantly (and in many cases exclusively) encourage creativity, groups feel their hands are tied and they must use what's in the book. This is ridiculous, of course, but with Mastercraft we're making a decided effort to showcase creativity and interaction as a facet of general play - especially when action dice and similar interactive elements are used.

The examples in Spycraft 2.0 are great, though they need to be just one possibility among many, and the best criticals will always be tailored specifically to the situation (like our FC examples, which are not there to say "do exactly this when you score a critical," but rather "here's how this specific group used them in this specific situation - you should customize to your needs"). I'll make a note that you liked the specific examples from 2.0, though, and maybe we'll include them as one illustration of the system in Spycraft Third.

A chart is unlikely, however, as it fails to promote the needs of your story. The closest we might get - and probably not in the Combat chapter - is what you see in FC with Narrative Control.

[gaghiel42]

There's been a fairly decent thread going on in the SC2 section about wheelmen and their usefulness and changes/ideas for the chase DCon.  Here: http://www.crafty-games.com/forum/index.php?topic=3754.0

Any of these ideas being brought to the table for SC3 would be great.  We can all admit the Wheelman can use a little fine tuning and the Chase DCons too.   Toss the ideas from that thread into my SC3 wishlist.

[Crafty_Pat]

(And before it gets mentioned - I have never bought the whole 'reality is broken' line. Reality is what is, all pale imitations of reality, however entertaining, are, by their nature, broken. )

If our time helming game systems and listening to the myriad fans' concerns out there have taught us anything, it's that most folks don't actually want reality in their games - they want to be able to create and enjoy their own reality, one that's as complex and as plausible as their sensibilities allow. Your sensibilities clearly lie pretty far afield of what we've found to be the average, even among our discerning, highly educated audience.

The further someone gets from a game's target, the more they have to tinker to make the game work just the way they want. We aim for the middle for this reason - because we have to consider folks on both sides of the target. I'll get back to this in the last paragraph below.

A great deal of my difficulty with the Forge chapter comes down to familiarity with the actual nuts and bolts of making things - it does not take a month to make a longsword. It does not take a month to make twelve longswords. (Hell, there aren't even any such thing as longswords! The name got added later.) By my nature I lean toward the simulationist end of things - if it can be done in the real world then it can be done.

Some of this is indeed a balance issue. We're more willing to forgive implausible results that also help avoid well known roleplaying pitfalls, including the proclivity to micro-manage time to maximize return. It's simply not fun to have groups carefully plotting their days so they can march just enough to avoid exhaustion, then spend their evening hours making swords to sell at market so they can amass mountains of coin they can't actually carry. So when the needs of a crafting system - which would be far, far too complex at anything approaching reality - demand a single Complexity score, and the needs of such a score result in it taking a week for some characters (not everyone, but those without specialized knowledge) to make a sword, it's a win-win.

That said - the variety of gear is a problem that can be handled with optional supplements, or my just coming up with a list of musical instruments and their prices. Statting out the Land Pattern musket as standard gear is easy, and coming up with stats and price for a wheel lock is also easy (reliability drops, price rises, range and damage remain the same).

This is exactly what I mean when I talk about folks who diverge from the middle making the game work for them. Really, no one's better equipped for this than the simulationist, who has the knowledge he wants to include. My experience and training doesn't match yours and I wouldn't be able to make your perfect game regardless, but you can - if I give you all the tools you need. That's what Mastercraft strives to do, and from the look of your poison upgrades post the system seems to be doing its job there.

[aegis]

I'll make a note that you liked the specific examples from 2.0, though, and maybe we'll include them as one illustration of the system in Spycraft Third.

You do that!

I must say that if I like how critical successes/failures are handled with FC, free-form and all, maybe some additional examples would be nice, especially for people new to the game. There are some very good examples of skill "critics" in SC 2.0, and others not so great. Maybe a short list of the "critics" we like the most would help?

[Crafty_Pat]

There are some very good examples of skill "critics" in SC 2.0, and others not so great. Maybe a short list of the "critics" we like the most would help?

Sure. Bring 'em on. If nothing else it'll be illuminating.

[Spycrafty]

Hello Everybody, please forgive me if this post shows up in the wrong spot or something, this is my first post ever on any forum.  I love spycraft so much that when I saw 3.0 was coming out I had to speak!

OK, I would like to say that when spycraft 2.0 came out, it was the most innovative game system I had ever seen, and I am thrilled to hear 3rd edition is on its way!  Seriously, I love spycraft!     That being said, this is a forum designed to help the new edition be the best it can be, so I will get right to the point, which is this - spycraft should take what it already does well, and replace what isn't working with new innovations OR innovations already seen in D&D 4e.  D&D is often used as a comparison to other RPG's, and rightfully so, I mean really spycraft 2.0 existed because of D&D and the OGL!  In 3.0 D&D, we had a lot of problems with the game, and spycraft really blew me away with it's fresh twist on the d20 system (campaign qualities, dramatic conflicts, gear picks and gear in general that replaced the need for "magic items", etc).  However, with the release of 4th edition, it has become apparent that WOTC (wizards of the coast) has clearly learned from many of their mistakes and, I would hazard a guess to say, learned from crafty-games successes as well. (skill challenges, I am looking at you    )  So, how do I believe spycraft 3.0 can mimic D&D 4e to become the best game out there?  Let's take it one point at a time.


1st - An NPC/Monster alteration process that makes it almost effortless to scale to the level of your gaming group, and gives you hundreds of quality examples to start with.  I understand this means more page space and more brain power devoted to creating exciting antagonist stats for the crafty staff, but it is worth it!  If I want a specific type of durable, dumb brute with attacks that grab up the PC's and crush them or fling them across the room, I can find a monster with those stats, re-flavor it and describe it as anything I want to the PC's (a golem, an octopus, a tuxedo-wearing giant bouncer, etc), and then put it on the board to fight.  Having raw numbers in a block to start with and then mentally adding (ok, this guy is 10 levels lower than my party, but his basic abilities are perfect, so I add +5 to defenses, attacks, and skills, and +2 to all damage rolls and I am good to go!) is ridiculously easier than making a spycraft villain.  IN addition, templates (or their spycraft equivalent) could still exist as well, and thus help preserve the signature customization spycraft NPC design is known for.  I will go into greater detail about how successful this system is and how it works if requested, but seriously, as a gamemaster of both long term spycraft and D&D games, I can attest to the vast superiority of 4e in this regard.

2nd - Player Powers.  In 4th edition D&D, you have literally so many powers to use you never get bored in combat (well, at 11th level and above at least).  You rarely feel you are repeating the same actions and you discover in each combat new ways to synergize your abilities with your teammates.  While I am not necessarily proposing spycraft mimic 4e exactly in this regard, the options for characters in combat should be EXTREMELY varied, and each option should be well-balanced and viable.  The spycraft melee combat, ranged combat, and martial arts feats all added considerably to these options, and might still be the best way to keep combat fresh and exciting in spycraft 3.0.  I'm not saying 2.0 was horrific at making combat fun, but without those feats, it was pretty basic in terms of your options.  On a related note, a core tenant of 4.0 is that every class should be equal in their own way in combat to every other class.  That doesn't mean "clerics" do as much damage as "rogues".  However, clerics heal allies, still deal damage themselves, buff their allies and thus deal extra damage through them, and so forth.  This kind of logic and class-balancing should exist in spycraft 3.0.  Combat is too common and takes too much time in each game session to have certain classes just suck at it!  Please make all classes shine in their own way IN COMBAT as well as outside of it.

3rd - Dramatic Conflicts should involve the whole group.  DC are about the coolest thing ever to come out of spycraft, especially with those cards and everything (so much fun!), but when only one or two of the characters can be involved in those conflicts, you need to do one of two things.  Either make the DC super-short (2-3 minutes) so the other players don't get bored, or find a way to include everyone.  Skill challenges in 4.0 are NOT as awesome as dramatic conflicts in spycraft, but they do at least manage to include the whole group, and honestly that is worth more than anything else when you are that player sitting around doing nothing for 20 minutes while the hacker does his thing, or the GM watching that player and feeling like you are a terrible person for wasting 20 minutes of your friend's life by not including them somehow.  'Nuff said on that.

4th - The core idea beyond 4.0 D&D, as stated by its designers, which is this - everything that makes the game more fun should stay.  Everything that slows it down and makes it less fun should go, no matter how cool it is IN THEORY.  As a broad example, what is "realistic" is less important than what is fun in game.  Otherwise every game would have a combat system that focused on not getting hit, because once you did, you would die.  How is that fun?  Continuing this line of reasoning - some of this has already been touched on, but a few examples - having 100 pistols when 5-10 options would suffice (especially when they are not balanced so only like 5 of the pistols are ever used anyway!), and having a villain design process that allows someone to make any NPC imaginable (great in theory), but bogs down so much that it is less useful than a plain old book of monsters.  There are other examples, but the key is really just that simple - everything fun stays, everything that in actual play is slow and/or not fun goes.  This is a roleplaying GAME, and games are to played for fun.  That is their purpose for existing!

I have some other, more specific issues I might share later as well, but for now I really just wanted to give the best examples I know of 4e innovation and share them with my favorite game ever, spycraft!  Thank you for reading this and I sincerely hope the suggestions are helpful in making spycraft 3.0 a better game for everyone.