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[Harry Baldman]

-words-

The problem is that it shouldn't be possible to get skill levels and equipment that render the situation and target moot. That's how you turn the whole thing into so much wank. And rolls shouldn't do the exact same thing in all situations - context-dependence is one of the things I like best about the current rolling system. Putting in +2s, +3s and +4s is how you rob a roll of its context-dependence, in fact, since with a +4 you're just going to get the result you want every time (the skill level's description, not mine). That's wildly uninteresting.

The looseness and wide range of possibility within a single result is also a virtue of the RTD system. The whole point is that each result doesn't mean the same thing in each circumstance. It's just shorthand that you can use to gauge the unfolding of a situation, easily understandable and adaptable for whatever you need.

As for why do I care even in the hypothetical minimalist RTD where all things have equal rates and natures of success - quality storytelling. Hitting a monstrosity in the eye with a pebble while fleeing nakedly, causing it to reel back and buy the ill-advised nudist valuable time that they use to get up a nearby rope out of its reach - that's something that interests me just as much, if not more than some guy with a 20-token suit listlessly sweeping corridors of monstrosities with his alien death penis, wondering how much he is getting paid for this as his instinctual reaction to marauding seafood has dwindled into so much idle curiosity. And why I don't care for the current state of ER is an overall decrease in quality storytelling as people go through the motions as if this was their day job or something. Storytelling is really all there is, whether it's as simple as the logic-free hilarity of random mayhem, as strange as the escalating madness of a fresh-faced team of killers being put in front of a crowd of innocent bystanders or as heartbreaking as the cosmic tragedy of a man, his dick and an eldritch abomination.

I think the easiest way to solve it would be to just reduce the number of extremely powerful items.  No battlesuits.  No piezoelectric shard launchers.  No amps.  No robotic bodies.  If even the most skilled guy is still vulnerable to the same stuff the newbies are vulnerable to, they'll still have to be careful.  Less careful, sure, but they will be able to die.  Yes, this would kill Tinker (;-;) but it would be worth it.

We should really all take a page out of Milno's playbook. Man knows how to keep a level playing field. You want to make him into a transhuman, you damn well are going to need to irreparably infect him with it.

Although really, battlesuits aren't that much of a problem in and of themselves - they're an example of specialization. It really is as simple as "okay, you can tank gauss rifle shots, but say goodbye to fitting your ass through any given door in that case". And when you get loose with that restriction and don't make environments that battlesuits would have tangible disadvantages in, you lose all the downsides and retain all the upsides, and that crucial bit of interesting differentiation just becomes "that guy has better stuff than you do". As long as that disadvantage remains palpable, though, the battlesuit remains as not particularly unpleasant, and an application of Green Storm that noticeably rots your brain when you use it is similarly that much more difficult to object to than the one we observed. A question of quality storytelling and world-building, once again.

[syvarris]

Yeah, you have a fair point that a lot of ER's quality problems stem simply from being just too damn big.  The problem is, it's literally impossible to solve that without reducing the number of players.  I don't think we'd end up having much better storytelling if every single person were naked and armed with rocks.  I think the only way to solve that particular problem is having less people, so PW can give more time to each turn.

[Egan_BW]

I'll call the ninja assassins.

[Lenglon]

If I understand HB correctly, then I think we actually have either matching or near-matching opinions on this subject, and just aren't communicating well.

Just clarifying, by +1, +2, etc. you mean actual roll modifiers, not the current system implemented in ER for stat gains. right?

[Harry Baldman]

Yeah, you have a fair point that a lot of ER's quality problems stem simply from being just too damn big.  The problem is, it's literally impossible to solve that without reducing the number of players.  I don't think we'd end up having much better storytelling if every single person were naked and armed with rocks.  I think the only way to solve that particular problem is having less people, so PW can give more time to each turn.

To be fair, it's not that you absolutely have to put the entire playerbase into a set of missions. Shelving 50% of them like so many surplus XCOM rookies would do a world of good. The waitlist is a cruel mistress, and a lack thereof is one of the main contributors to ER's popularity, but they do exist for a reason.

I rather like the idea of Mr. Bone's Wild Ride, though. You could apply it to missions if you scale down player counts in those. Take 5 to 10-man teams of expendable newbies chomping at the bit to be put into action, then hurl them into the main missions for a moment of blazing glory as they burn their candle from 12.56 steradians with a mission fund-purchased namite thrower in an effort to have their statues put up in the shiny room next to the guy wearing a locker.

If I understand HB correctly, then I think we actually have either matching or near-matching opinions on this subject, and just aren't communicating well.

Just clarifying, by +1, +2, etc. you mean actual roll modifiers, not the current system implemented in ER for stat gains. right?

Indeed we do, indeed we are not, and indeed I do. Though the stat gains in ER currently still ultimately come out to something largely the same as roll modifiers, since what they were meant to address was the silly decompensator rule patch rather than what may in fact have been the underlying flaw of skill inflation.

[Egan_BW]

Straight +1 or +2 in RTD is silly because you're just replacing your 1 with a 7 and your 2 with an 8. Depending on how you interpret overshots, that can be actually Worse than having a lower skill level, thus the decompensators.

[Harry Baldman]

Straight +1 or +2 in RTD is silly because you're just replacing your 1 with a 7 and your 2 with an 8. Depending on how you interpret overshots, that can be actually Worse than having a lower skill level, thus the decompensators.

Depends on what you're going for, really. The ruleset isn't ironclad, and there is literally nothing stopping you as a GM from ruling something as occurring sensibly if you find that a complete lack of improvement from skill increases is a problem you'd like to address.

I mean, imagine if the AM or the Doctor with their +5 or so to their respective areas of specialization couldn't help but horrifically overdo everything they're asked to accomplish. Hell, for the Doctor that's practically an in-universe part of his character. Especially once you look at what the Deep Infirmary looks like. I mean, if that's not a classic result of a 6+5 on Med Tech, I don't know what is. Dude's living in a world of cardboard. No wonder he says the flesh is weak.

So I believe there's a case to be made for skill increases being potentially as painful as helpful. In fact, returning to that without decompensators, and keeping skill bonuses to reasonable levels, might actually be a potential fix in this regard. It would reflect a certain level of ARM-ness to a veteran. Internalized psychosis from extended service. The stress tends to be bad for one's mental health. Does improve the ability to destroy, however.

[Radio Controlled]

Which might work for things like, say, spess wizards getting more unstable as their powers grow, but good luck if you wanna roleplay a 'only sane man around' type of char that uses guns and just wants to shoot his target quick and clean, but who keeps unloading his entire clip into a corpse or causing massive collateral with every shot as his skill 'increases', instead of becoming a more efficient cold killer. However, somebody with good skills that doesn't always overshoot can still go for a 'no kill like overkill' approach and Rambo his way around if he so chooses.

[Empiricist]

My exact thoughts when I read that post.  I've had fights in DnD which took multiple sessions to resolve.

Yep. First and last time I tried playing, rolling for initiative took the entire session.

[Harry Baldman]

Which might work for things like, say, spess wizards getting more unstable as their powers grow, but good luck if you wanna roleplay a 'only sane man around' type of char that uses guns and just wants to shoot his target quick and clean, but who keeps unloading his entire clip into a corpse or causing massive collateral with every shot as his skill 'increases', instead of becoming a more efficient cold killer. However, somebody with good skills that doesn't always overshoot can still go for a 'no kill like overkill' approach and Rambo his way around if he so chooses.

This is why people with sanity as their dominant character trait become commanders, you see. They know the madness nestling in their bones. It takes every shred of their self-control not to unleash it at the slightest provocation into the nearest bunch of helpless, unarmored civilians. It's all they can do to keep themselves into a vaguely humanoid state while aiming their arsenals at likely hostiles.

Look at their flesh. So soft. So pliable. You knew how it was to be like that once... it was long ago. How long ago? You scarcely remember now...

[renegadelobster]

Maybe have each skill have specific instabilities inherent in them? Like say Exo/spess wizard have to worry about extra-universal entities taking them over, temporarily? Although that's a little WH40Kish. Or as their skill level grows, they cause anomalies and other sorts of !!FUN!!. Randomly setting things/teammates/space itself on fire. Dunno what would happen with the other skills though.

[NJW2000]

The problem appears to be that there just aren't any damn penalties for extreme stat gain.

I think that weapon power should be proportional to collateral/mindfuck/danger/fingers lost. So you can use low-key weapons efficiently and well, but not be completely on a different level from the noobs, for fear of fractal self-immolation

[Harry Baldman]

Maybe have each skill have specific instabilities inherent in them? Like say Exo/spess wizard have to worry about extra-universal entities taking them over, temporarily? Although that's a little WH40Kish. Or as their skill level grows, they cause anomalies and other sorts of !!FUN!!. Randomly setting things/teammates/space itself on fire. Dunno what would happen with the other skills though.

That's just it. No eldritch fuckery happens. It's just that the source of your ability, the power to kill, to heal, to see, to resist, to run and to gun, all of it springs from garden-variety madness. You are a Lovecraft character with access to the most lethal weapons ever devised by man. The stress alienates you from the baseline, makes you stronger, but also progressively more crazed. You become a loosely carved tool of murder where once there stood an ordinary combat-trained schlub.

[spazyak]

why don't we just make the enemies tougher or smarter?

[Harry Baldman]

why don't we just make the enemies tougher or smarter?

Far, far easier said than done.

Stronger enemies run the risk of obsoleting people without supervet credentials. See the 9000 Raditz Amp Specialist. And there is a very fine line between enemies being smarter and the GM fucking with you. See the Curious Case of the Thermonuclear Door.