I've noticed a ton of talk about how the rpg works and what you can and can't do with it. Now a lot of the talk seems to be about stuff the starter kit doesn't tell you (and a lot of it isnt but whatever). So, I was wondering if people have managed to reverse engineer the system into something useable or If I'm just going crazy. Or both.
You're crazy.
Someplace between. There were public playtests at each of the last two Gen Con events, so there was some reverse-engineering going on from what was available in those. Now the Starter Kit's out (picked mine up today), so people are looking at what's in the wild and trying to continue to fill in gaps.
Hate to sound like my English teacher (actually wait no I don't, he's the coolest teacher at the school) but mind citing where you got that idea from, or at least giving a few varied examples? I'm not quite sure what you're referring to, but I hope to figure out so maybe I can try and give an explanation.
Me? I got that idea from being a group that took the descriptions that were available in public and tried to work backward to what the system was probably like, then spent about 6 weeks this summer playing on Discord.
I was talking more to X-metal, but those must be some die-hard fans. I isusally wait ‘til the product comes out, because anything I make will either be way worse than the real thing or I’ll like it better and refuse to play the real game. But yeah, I’ve just been getting ideas for character mechanics by plugging C&A’s Lenny’s spoilers into the character sheets, and then imagining how they would play out in the Boards Alive podcast. But that’s just me.
Now a lot of the talk seems to be about stuff the starter kit doesn't tell you (and a lot of it isnt but whatever).
On the forums, Beside Christopher and Paul (GTG people working on it) there is Davethegame and critical hits studio (The creators of the system). They are the Authority of the game. They are making clarification or errata to the game.
Ry6smtih, myself and a few other demoed this game at cons so we have some time with the system. Keep that in mind as you read. does this answer you question?
For me, I assembled everything that was out back in March and decided to run with it. The power and qualities were simple enough, but the abilities are hard to reverse engineer. Healing and damage reduction cost are premium abilities along with high impact turns (taking 2 actions at once etc). But without looking at their notes I have just been playing it fast and lose. I am just in love with the Idea of a Narrative game so after listening to a few people beta testing it I had to try it. All of the base rules of the game are out there, just some finer detail and level progression I missed out on and now correcting my group with the new rules.
Wish I game Marvel Heroics RPG a chance (burned out by Marvel Universe RPG). Also just found this.
Here at GTG HQ, we are deep in the RPG mines, refining the raw rule set into a high-quality, premium grade core rulebook, which will include character creation rules, and villain/lieutenant/minion/environment/scene etc rules for the GM!
All of these rules were in place before we made the Starter Kit, and were used to craft everything in it, but now we are putting them in a format that people not named Christopher Badell or Dave Chalker can use :)
Great to hear! If you guys need any freelancers, be sure to let us know. XD
Seconded; I can gladly send along my list of writing/editing credits if you like.
(Edit–For what it's worth, I'm offering on a professional level. I'm a published writer and editor, and have credits with Pinnacle Entertainment, Cubicle 7, Fantasy Flight Games, and more. While I'm open to beta-testing, I'm much more interested in full freelance services, both as a writer and an editor.)
If we are self-promoting, I can do that too. :B
I can't write worth poo, but I did proofreading/copyediting for the former Transformers Collectors' Club back in the day (and have worked as a secretary in general), so if you need volunteers for that, I'm willing to help.
I can do a bit of proofreading as well, though I do it best in small increments.
We gave reverse enginnering it a shot and made an issue in the format of what came with the starter kit.....hopefully its not awful.
Just for giggles (and because I'm that kind of person) I started poking at the builds for Absolute Zero, Legacy, Tachyon and Wraith. I may add Unity at some point, (I didn't because summoner characters tend to have weird stats because so much of their power is based on their minions) but I'm sure that trying to figure out how to generalize from Bunker's different modes would drive me nuts.
Health: The base seems to be something like: Red 0-10, Yellow 11-20, Green 21-26. Just eyeballing it, it looks like the Vitality Power bumps those numbers up a little, as does Strength. Or it might be tied to the Archetype. (shrug)
Principles: Again, just eyeballing things, any new Principles can be done based on the 12 from the Starter Kit, and those cover a lot of ground. (Spider-Man, for instance, probably Legacy's Principle of the Hero and Unity's Principle of Levity.)
Dice Based Things: All my Mathy stuff was based on the idea that a d6 in something cost 1 point, with +1 point for +1 step up of die type. This, of course, does not work.
Status: I was hopeful after plugging Absolute Zero and Legacy into the sheet that it'd be 7 points, but then Tachyon and Wraith threw the numbers off. My guess is that Status dice are based on Archetype. It makes sense that Legacy gets better as things get worse because that's when he has to pull out of all the stops. Meanwhile, Wraith starts out strong but gets weaker, because she's "merely" human.
Powers and Qualities: I couldn't math my way to a solution here either. I'm assuming that Archetypes and Principles unlock different Powers and Qualities, but also that it's not a set list. For instance, not all Detectives are Wealthy CEOs. I'm guessing that there's a list of general purpose Qualities (like CEO or History) and ones that are tied to Principles (Science!) Were I a betting man, I'd guess that the remainder of the math adds up if I could figure out a way to generalize the Abilities.
Abilities: Here's where I just threw some notes in and decided to go back later. That said, until we gets the precious, err, I mean core rulebook, you could take existing Abilities and rename them as appropriate to your character ("Thokk" could be called "It's Clobberin' Time") or re-skin then ("Favorite Knife" becomes "The Iron Fist").
Since the character creation has been previewed it a few playtest events, I can tell you that it's not point buy in the slightest. Every character gets one unique Quality at d8 specific to their character, which is why Wraith is a Wealthy CEO d8. Also, the ablities in character creation have generic names in the book and like you said one of the steps is to rename them to be appropriate to the character.
Any chance you can make that preview available online? I’m more curious about this than any other part of the system, and it will probably make the difference between my backing it or not.
@MindWanderer
It is very likely that we will in some form before/during the Kickstarter!
