Well, except for Narrative Opportunities are built into the rules but are a "mechanical resolution" only because they are tied to die rolls, so clearly it's intending to be a hybrid. And it allows and encourages intentional failures on die rolls. Your definitions of "narrative gameplay" and"mechanical resolution" are nothing more than a nebulous construct, not some set-in-stone definition. By definition, every game has mechanics, even one as simplistic and free-form as Mouseguard.

I mean, you can try to split all the hairs you want though.

18 minutes ago, TheVeteranSergeant said:

Well, except for Narrative Opportunities are built into the rules but are a "mechanical resolution" only because they are tied to die rolls, so clearly it's intending to be a hybrid. And it allows and encourages intentional failures on die rolls. Your definitions of "narrative gameplay" and"mechanical resolution" are nothing more than a nebulous construct, not some set-in-stone definition. By definition, every game has mechanics, even one as simplistic and free-form as Mouseguard.

I mean, you can try to split all the hairs you want though.

Narrative Opportunities are more flavour than anything else. They don’t determine success or failure, they allow players to shape the scene to an extent. And whether intentional failures are encouraged is entirely up to previous dice rolls and abilities being used.

Which definition of narrative gameplay are you using? Because there’s nothing more nebulous than not saying anything pertinent at all. You seem overly concerned with what others do with their hairs and not nearly enough with your own.

I never said I was concerned with what other people were doing. You picked out one word from my post and made a big deal out of it when it, by your own admission, doesn't matter. I call this narrative gameplay. You call this a mechanical system, something I'd never agree with because it uses narrative functionalities and narrative dice.

An interesting thing to contemplate: If nobody's definition of narrative gameplay matters, why do you care about mine so much?

So what would you do to fix things?

24 minutes ago, TheVeteranSergeant said:

I never said I was concerned with what other people were doing. You picked out one word from my post and made a big deal out of it when it, by your own admission, doesn't matter. I call this narrative gameplay. You call this a mechanical system, something I'd never agree with because it uses narrative functionalities and narrative dice.

An interesting thing to contemplate: If nobody's definition of narrative gameplay matters, why do you care about mine so much?

Who said anything about definitions not mattering?

Somewhat wordy post:

20 hours ago, Darksyde said:

24 xp for a starting character seems a bit much but everyone enjoys some extra skills.

My personal suspicion is that they wanted to make sure that characters made for the beta adventure would have, and hence test, the odd rank 2/rank 3 technique in anger.

I'm not insisting that added XP is the intention; rather that it is an option.

20 hours ago, Darksyde said:

imagine he has been 'defending it' for the same reason you have been 'attacking' it. He has his own feelings and opinions on the subject.

Just try and remember we aren't here to argue over how each of us play the game but to find enough of a middle ground that as many of us can enjoy it as possible.

Agreed. And I'm not saying that a different, completely-from-the-ground level would be wrong. But my starting point is 'here are some rules, do I and the player group I run think they work?' (I do, I accept someone else might feel they don't)

19 hours ago, TheVeteranSergeant said:

The argument against it boils down to "It's okay that the characters are clones because obviously all samurai are clones."

And the practical of time and effort. Getting four characters made in a nice short time over pizza and having a pretty decent storyline backstory to all of them in the process has its own value independently of spending time pouring over sourcebooks to figure out how to spend the last 50 Xp (or whatever).

I have run quite a few campaigns of much more 'free-form-advancement' games like Black Crusade/Dark Heresy 2nd edition (where you essentially handed a bundle of XP can take any skill or talent from day one, regardless of character type, barring those which have a prerequisite of other talents). Compared to that, there is a certain appeal, even to players used to RPGs, to characters you can quickly bolt together from 'pre-fab elements' as long as you feel the resulting structure sufficiently captures the feel of the character you were trying to create .

That last bit is the important qualifier, and is very much more a matter of personal opinion.

The counter view on "why can't I have games 1 at character creation?":

Why must you have a specific mechanical benefit (skill rank) to represent a not-really-a-particular-core-competence-but-I-was-kind-of-interested?

You are:

• definitely allowed to attempt the task with a rank 0 skill - the game doesn't include the 40k RPG-esque concept of Advanced Skills where you can't try in the first place if you don't have a specific skill
• Able to gain a non-skill benefit analogous in mechanical effect to a skill by defining one-to-two relevant distinctions, meaning you can be statistically better at [task] than a.n.other character with the same ring rank and the same rank 0 skill

Why is having two distinctions in relevant fields for 'hobbies, interests, and general off-duty stuff' any less relevant to the mechanical effectiveness of your character than having two extra rank 1 skills covering the same fields?

Equally, when offered a free rank in a skill (yes, at a price), the response essentially feels like a view that a free rank in a skill must be used to up a 'core competence' skill rank to 2 or 3 rather than to up a less commonly used skill from 0 to 1.

The extra skill dice provides a certain 'chunk' of performance effectiveness.

Given that it is a skill die, not a ring die, it doesn't actually increase the number of kept die possible in a given approach.

How much value you get out of it depends how often you roll and keep that specific die.

I suspect the value of additional skill levels (especially in excess of the attached ring) will drop exponentially, so I'm not convinced excessively high skill levels will necessarily be as useful as a well-rounded set of skills. That is a question very much driven by the scenario (and hence the player and GMs); how often does your story actually require the games skill (because the rate of occurance may be dramatically different from everyone else's).

On 10/24/2017 at 1:12 PM, TheVeteranSergeant said:

Why is a meaningful character creation process a problem for you? Why do you so desperately defend this?

It's not, and I'm certainly not desperate.

If they want to scrub the rules entirely, and start again with something more like DH 2.0 with completely free-form character creation, I'll happily playtest that, too.

The comment that resulting characters are clones:

• Imagine 2 characters of the same family and the same clan, attending the same school.
  • Narratively - as in stuff that you describe but does not directly influence dice rolls - can be ignored. It's extremely relevant because the 'wordy' questions of the twenty should be the most important as they're outlining how you as a player intend to play your character, but it's not important if we're specifically setting the scope to 'how the dice rolls influence the game'.
  • These two characters (the equivalent of "same race & class") have the following (potential) differences at startup:
    • 2 skill ranks (3 if it's a Shujenga school) 1-2 techniques different from their school (Q3)
    • 1 Ring rank different (Q4)
    • 2 skill ranks from personal beliefs (Q 7 & 8)
    • 5 Advantages/Disadvantages giving bonuses or penalties to task fields of your choice and potentially a further (free choice) skill rank
  • If this is not enough for them not to feel like clones, at what point, to you, would be the tipping point at which they don't? That is, regardless of the 'assembly line process', how different does a character have to be not to feel like a clone?