Thread 96334337

Godbound is an RPG I have played and GMed since launch, in 2016. I have played and GMed it a lot. It is one of the games I have played the most, and also the one game I have had the least overall success with, as much as I like it (though not its mechanics).

It seems to be the perfect storm of an RPG wherein everyone at the table is near-guaranteed to have a nigh-irreconcilable vision of what the game is about. I have never, ever seen this in any other tabletop system. From what I see, it is far harder to have a cohesive group in campaign in Godbound than in most other RPGs.

Great freedom, grand scale, demigod PCs: a recipe for different people wanting vastly different things.

At least with, say, a grid-based tactics game, everyone has a roughly similar vision of what they are signing up for. Indeed, grid-based tactics RPGs are where I have found the most success. Besides them, I have had reasonable success with PbtA and cousin-of-PbtA games, because of their greater focus.

I do not like Exalted as a system or a setting anywhere as much, but it has plenty more built-in expectations of what the PCs will actually be doing together.

Godbound stresses, time and time again, that it is for sandboxes. The word "sandbox" appears 25 times in the 243-page core rulebook. This is the most salient passage:

>This is crucial because most Godbound campaigns are sandbox campaigns. The GM has built a setting with a great many conflicts, villains, heroes, sympathetic bystanders, long-standing afflictions, and fabulous rewards to be seized. They've brewed up a starting session to thrust the pantheon into a crisis situation to help you all warm up to the game and the setting. Beyond that, however, the game's progress is your responsibility. Your goals and your choices are going to be the things driving the game, and while the world will doubtless react to your decisions and have its own share of ambitious actors, the heart of the game is about the new world your hero is making.

>>96334337 (OP)
Ah, great, a pointless Edna autismfest.

It is possible to have a party such as:

• The Melee God, who, thanks to action economy manipulation and multiattacks (the usual suspects), can shred apart enemies vastly above their metaphorical weight class. They need the fight to take place up close.

• The Sniper God. With flight, Creation's First Light, None Beyond Reach, and the Inexorable Shaft, they can snipe people across the world. They would rather not have the fight take place up close.

• The Robot Army God, who specializes in mass-manufacturing robots and leading them in mass combat. They would like to be able to bring around vast armies and fight other vast armies.

• The Industry God, who specializes in building entire cities and all sorts of goods, and manipulating economies.

• The Mind Control God, who specializes in mind controlling anyone and everyone to do their bidding, even vast populations. If they are a degenerate, they might just have Birth Blessing to impregnate everyone.

• The Assassin God, who specializes in slowly, laboriously building up trust in another person, then one-shotting them in a grand betrayal. (This is an actual gift, Judas Kiss. It specifically requires a built-up, genuine relationship.) Direct combat is... really not their strong suit.

It takes an extremely, exceptionally skilled GM to make all of these work together in a campaign. At any given moment, most of the party is not getting to do what they were built to do.

Consider fighting styles. The Melee God wants a clean, straight-up fight. The Sniper God wants an unaware enemy on the other side of the world. The Robot Army God wants a vast, open space to field enormous quantities of troops. The Assassin God wants days or weeks to become someone's BFF.

I have tried and witnessed different solutions. "Just have lots of dungeon crawls, like the core book suggests." "Just run in Ancalia." "Just run those two premade adventures." "Just run for a smaller group, or even one-on-one." Little seems to truly work.

I do not know, by this point. I have, on multiple occasions, tried running the Godbound premade adventures as one-on-one games, and there is somehow still a great rift in expectations on what a "demigod game" should be like, between just me and the one other player.

Is there some key, crucial detail that makes it impossible for me to grasp this game more so than some grid-based tactics game, or a PbtA or cousin-of-PbtA game?

Other points I have trouble with?

The game really, really needs a second edition to clean up the lack of internal balance. Some Words and some playstyles are just plain better than others ( https://www.reddit.com/r/godbound/comments/c9to7r/an_extended_tier_list_for_godbound_words/ ). There are homebrew projects like Fallen Empire Words ( https://docs.google.com/document/d/13nooujjQXDHEBfAcJt1xXB-Mmm32MaTZiMMll7EWJwU/edit ) that try to overhaul many of the game's Words, but even that can do so much.

I also think that Godbound needs significantly more guidance on the Dominion/Influence subsystem. I have always found it very vague on what effects it can actually produce, and how long it takes to engender any given effect. Likewise, the "I create an army of 100,000 combat robots" strategy is seemingly too good.

I am really not a fan of the combat mechanics of Godbound. In theory, it is about divine entities hurling around a dazzling variety of flashy manifestations of cosmic power. In practice, optimal play looks something like this:

>"I use Loosening God's Teeth and miss with my ranged attack (because ranged combat is simply better than melee in most cases), but I make it automatically hit using Bolt of Invincible Skill."
>"I block with Nine Iron Walls."
>"I dispel your Nine Iron Walls with Purity of Brilliant Law."
>"I dispel your Purity of Brilliant Law with my own Purity of Brilliant Law."

This is before we bring in all the ways to gain extra actions (e.g. The Storm Breaks, Faster Than Thought, Avalanche of Moments, Red Jaws of Frenzy), which are important for landing strings of attacks.

This is before we bring in A Hand on the Balance, which breaks the action economy into little pieces: "And now my bag of pebbles with A Hand on the Balance on each of them goes off."

And this is before we bring in "Remember that army of 100,000 combat robots I crafted earlier?" That is certainly one way to trivialize combat.

One of my single greatest gripes with Godbound, is that the default enemies in the bestiary make Godbound look like complete chumps. They are so, so powerful, utterly embarrassing the actual demigods.

When the leader of any given nation's branch of the Church of the One is a Greater Eldritch with 22 HD, 1d12 straight damage attacks, two attacks per attack action, two actions per round, Effort 8, 60-foot flight, three Words at bare minimum, and gifts, the actual Godbound look pathetic. And that is just counting the Church of the One, to say nothing of secular governments' forces, nefarious cultists, or non-humanoid monsters.

Are you fighting a great magus of one of the many Black Academies of Raktia? Well, you had better get ready to look feeble in the face of yet another Greater Eldritch. And even the lesser adepts of the Black Academies are Lesser Eldritches with 16 HD, 1d10 straight damage attacks, two attacks per attack action, two actions per round, Effort 6, two Words, and gifts. Specific examples can be even worse; Look at Bishop Lazar and his goons in Ancalia: The Broken Towers, who are tremendously powerful despite being mere mortals.

>>96334492
I'm guessing these are meant to be fought by a party. Kind of strange really, I never understood why games like Godbound (And to a lesser extent Exalted) are built on the idea that you will exclusively run party-based games with them.

>>96334669

>I'm guessing these are meant to be fought by a party.

This is correct. Godbound's bestiary consists chiefly of bosses meant to challenge an entire party of demigods.

To me, this creates great dissonance. Why does it take an entire pantheon of demigods to successfully jump a single mortal? "Well, this guy is just really good at magic" stretches my suspension of disbelief.

Garak Red Chorus, a mortal fighter who is merely "one of the greatest hunters of his generation," is liable to completely massacre a level 1 or 2 party of demigods. If he is merely "one of," I would hate to see who the greatest actually is.

Garak is not even couched as some god-level threat. He is a scourge of villages and border cities. He would be a low-level villain in just about any D&D edition.

The two premade adventures of Godbound are just... not demigodly at all. They seem like they could be level 1 adventures in just about any D&D edition.

Both are set in Dulimbai, essentially fantasy China.

The first, Ten Buried Blades, takes the PCs to the town of Gongfang. It is being menaced by three threats: (1) a wizard coercing families to give up their children, whom he sacrifices to prolong his lifespan, (2) a bandit chief, and (3) the force construct of a long-lost hero of an enemy nation, rallying dissidents.

The second, The Storms of Yizhao, brings the party to the border city of Yizhao. It is being wracked by powerful storms; the city's sacred altar is conjuring up punishment for the vile acts of one particular citizen. The PCs are assigned to investigate and suss out whom this one city is. After dealing with some merchants and minor nobles, they eventually discover that the culprit is the head priest of the local fertility shrine, who has been "solving" women's fertility problems by raping and impregnating them, then mind-controlling them into compliance.

These do not sound particularly demigodly. If someone were to run these as level 1 D&D adventures, few people would bat an eye (except for that rather icky plot point in the second adventure).

>>96334971

Take one of the starter adventures, Ten Buried Blades, for example. It is set in Gongfang, a town of 2,000. If the PCs start causing trouble, what happens?

• A. The game shifts to an examination of "So you are strong enough to beat up everyone here, as demigods. Now what?"

• B. The GM deploys ever-escalating threats, up to and including an elite squad of superpowered mortals that only a pantheon of mid-level demigods could feasibly win against.

If you are Kevin Crawford, the answer is B.

>>96336059

https://forum.rpg.net/threads/sine-nomine-godbound.773601/post-19906359

Here, Kevin Crawford showcases an 8-round-long combat between a party of "maximum-level Godbound and a duke of Hell."

Who wins? The duke of Hell. Sorry, max-level demigods; better luck next time. Maybe they would have had better luck in D&D.

>>96335142
I suppose the issue really is just interpretative. "Demigod" technically means anything from Pompey Magnus to Heracles. I suppose the intention is meant to be for low-level Greekoid demigods who do things that any man (and real men have) could do, but are just impressive or consistent in doing so.
Except it gets a bit worse since instead of designing things for a Demigod, they expect several of them and don't know how to scale threats accordingly beyond making the numbers bigger.

>>96338117

>I suppose the intention is meant to be for low-level Greekoid demigods who do things that any man (and real men have) could do

A level 1 Godbound has three Facts to spare. Any one of those Facts is strong enough to acquire archmastery in a low magic tradition.

A level 1 Godbound has three Words to choose, and six gift points. A lesser gift costs 1 gift points, and a greater gift costs 2 gift points.

Here is an example of a noncombat lesser gift, Azure Oasis Spring.

>Azure Oasis Spring, Action
>Summon a water source, causing a new spring to gush forth. Repeated use of this ability can provide sufficient water supplies for almost any number of people, or erode and destroy non-magical structures within an hour. At the Godbound's discretion, this summoned water is magically invigorating, supplying all food needs for those who drink it. These springs last until physically destroyed or dispelled by the Godbound. Optionally, the Godbound may instead instantly destroy all open water and kill all natural springs within two hundred feet per character level, transforming ordinary land into sandy wastes.

With just this one lesser gift, at no resource cost whatsoever, a Godbound can create a perpetual source of sustenance that can feed "almost any number of people."

That is how strong a lesser gift is, and a level 1 Godbound has 6 gift points.

So clearly, even a level 1 Godbound is an incredibly powerful entity by real-world standards. But not by the default setting's standards. Oh, no. NPC "mortals" are stuffed to the gills with freebies, because they are supposed to challenge whole pantheons of these demigods.

>>96338117

>I suppose the intention is meant to be for low-level Greekoid demigods who do things that any man (and real men have) could do

A level 1 Godbound has three Facts to spare. Any one of those Facts is strong enough to acquire archmastery in a low magic tradition.

A level 1 Godbound has three Words to choose, and six gift points. A lesser gift costs 1 gift point, and a greater gift costs 2 gift points.

Here is an example of a noncombat lesser gift, Azure Oasis Spring.

>Azure Oasis Spring, Action
>Summon a water source, causing a new spring to gush forth. Repeated use of this ability can provide sufficient water supplies for almost any number of people, or erode and destroy non-magical structures within an hour. At the Godbound's discretion, this summoned water is magically invigorating, supplying all food needs for those who drink it. These springs last until physically destroyed or dispelled by the Godbound. Optionally, the Godbound may instead instantly destroy all open water and kill all natural springs within two hundred feet per character level, transforming ordinary land into sandy wastes.

With just this one lesser gift, at no resource cost whatsoever, a Godbound can create a perpetual source of sustenance that can feed "almost any number of people."

That is how strong a lesser gift is, and a level 1 Godbound has 6 gift points.

So clearly, even a level 1 Godbound is an incredibly powerful entity by real-world standards. But not by the default setting's standards. Oh, no. NPC "mortals" are stuffed to the gills with freebies, because they are supposed to challenge whole pantheons of these demigods.

>>96338397

A few other noncombat lesser gifts.

>Jewel-Bright Eyes, On Turn
>Commit Effort. While committed, you can see through earth or stone. With a moment’s focus, you may look outward from any gemstone you’ve ever touched, regardless of where it is now.
"Commit Effort" with no other qualifiers simply makes it an on/off toggle. See through earth or stone, spy on people.

>Ender of Plagues, Action
>Commit Effort for the scene. Cure all diseases and poisonings within sight. If the Effort is expended for the day, the range of the cure extends to a half-mile around the hero, penetrates walls and other barriers, and you become immediately aware of any disease-inducing curses or sources of pestilence within that area.
Eradicate disease.

>Windsinger, Action
>Commit Effort. Control weather within a mile, from still air to rainstorms strong enough to knock down fragile structures and make mundane archery impossible, Weather changes occur instantly on use of this gift and last as long as Effort remains committed. When released, the weather rapidly returns to its normal condition.
Control the skies.

>Inexhaustible Hoard, Constant
>Wealth somehow finds its way to you, and your hoard is fathomlessly vast. You can always afford anything costing 1 Wealth or less, and you may Commit Effort for the day once per week to afford a single purchase of up to Wealth 10 magnitude. In addition, every week you may make purchases worth a number of Wealth points equal to your character level; these purchases count as "real", non-magical Wealth for purposes of fueling Theotechnical low magic or other ritual requirements. Your hoard cannot be stolen so long as you live, as it simply refuses to leave its appointed place.
A Wealth 10 purchase is normally reserved for an emperor of an entire world.

All of these are lesser gifts. A Godbound can have six of them at level 1. We have not even gotten into greater gifts yet.

"Mortal" NPCs can be even stronger, though.

Sounds genuinely shit ngl. Just a wankfest with a bunch of mary sues and a gm high off his own farts

Buy an ad, faggot.

>>96338423
>nooo, no one can discuss traditional games on this game board, they must pay for an ad
who tf would by an ad on /tg/?

>>96338443
>acts like a faggot
>gets called out for being a faggot
>What? Anon is evolving!
>Anon became a nigger!
kys nigger

>>96338469
the OP is literally complaining about a TTRPG, but this supposedly requires him to buy an ad instead? You kill yourself, you worthless fuck. Retarded board police like you are no better than the "Traditional games?" spamfaggot.

>>96338477
Blah blah blah go suck your dick somewhere else you nogames simp. Cucks like you shit up this board with garbage threads like this and then sit here and argue because this is what you think trolling is. You are the reason this board is dogshit nigger. Take your dead shit game nobody cares about and go shill it on /v/ or something.

>>96338499
No, people posting about traditional games on the traditional games board are not the reason the board is shit. It's toxic individuals like you, obsessed with shitting up every single thread on the board, who have driven out any worthwhile discussion by just whining and bitching that anybody else dared to post. If I believed that there were a bunch of SJW faggots seriously working to destroy the board, I'd assume you were one of them.

>nogames
Literally the first line of the OP is:
>Godbound is an RPG I have played and GMed since launch, in 2016. I have played and GMed it a lot. It is one of the games I have played the most, and also the one game I have had the least overall success with, as much as I like it (though not its mechanics).
You faggots call everyone nogames as a massive projection, because you're too busy playing board police to game. The reason you never have anything useful to say is because you don't game and thus have no experience gaming with which to provide assistance. KYS.

>>96338518
Tl;dr shut the fuck up and buy an ad nigger

>>96338524
No, you go kill yourself and get the fuck off the board, loser nogames board police faggot.

>>96338528
Qq cryba y see how fast you quit posting your garbage instead of just reporting ignoring and moving on? You are so fucking desperate for attention and your ego cant handle anyone not liking you or your shit game nobody wants. Unironically go suck a shotgun instead of sucking my nuts, bitch nigger lmao

>>96338547
>cryba y
You're the one who has spent five posts whining that a thread he doesn't like exists, while also being an illiterate retard nogames board police loser faggot.

>>96338553
>mom i posted it again!!

>>96338569
Concession accepted.

>>96338571
Unc you crashed the fuck out and just abandoned your shit thread to engage in something way more fun and entertaining. Please just do this instead of making garbage threads. Youre a nogames shitposter not whatever this shilling shit was. Nobody cares about whatever garbage you were yapping about.

Keep being the good little bitch you were always meant to be :)

Lol op got real quiet gg ez

>>96334352
I don't give a shit about what you have to say about this litteral who game, I just want to say HSR is garbage and anyone who likes it is a blithering retard

>>96338592
I barely read one sentence into this post. OP is a notorious autist who always posts Genshin Impact pics alongside his posts; I'm not him. You are stupid, a newfag, illiterate, and nogames. I took a nap; now I am filtering your posts because you are too stupid to breathe and are probably in an iron lung or something.

But aside from all that, how is Godbound as a game?

>>96339157
It's great, OP is just an autist. No competent DM has ever had a single game with any of the problems he's been bitching and whining about.

>>96339338
Not him, but what do you say is great about it?

>>96341254
Everything.

Man, I think Godbound is neat, if kind of flawed. But I can't talk about it on /tg/ without summoning 2hu. And I don't feel like participating in one of those threads, either. Those big autism-dumps upthread take all the air out of the room.

>>96338932
You crashed out and took a nap when you should have just killed yourself you malding nigger. G9d you're such a fuck up. How about you filter your brain with a bullet? Big ask I know, but theres no way you can fuck up twice in a row, right?

>>96341552
Care to elaborate, friendo? I won't ask for an in-depth review on par with 2hu's lecture, but some highlights would be nice

>>96344491
It's OSR. If you don't like OSR that's a you problem.

>>96336059
>>96336112
Only thing I got say: Demigod-level adventures, like Honkai you mentioned, don't go well with "dungeon crawling" as it was intended for D&D.
In a dungeon crawl, there are limits about what PCs can do and how far they go.
Some of Godbound powers are so over-the-top that you need to amp up everything, avoiding the players destroying the world.
I think Seth Skorkowsky said this about Cyberpunk (or it was a blogger I've read): if your PC have access to a private jet and can get anywhere in a few hours, the GM will go mad trying to keep up with them. The original world, who was only Night City, has become really ""The World", which becomes unsustainable (unless you have generated an entire world before, like Dwarf Fortress do).
In a videogame you don't have real freedom, just the one that the devs allow you to have: in a sandbox RPG with god-level powers, that's impossible to handle.
So, I think Godbound is a good idea that should be remade from the beginning.

>>96344547
shit take. osr sucks. go back to your containment board faggot

>>96334337 (OP)
What would you want to see in a theoretical second edition of Godbound? Besides more Words of course.

>>96347931
Ascending AC.

>>96334337 (OP)
>>96334352
>>96334474
>>96334492
I just want to remind you that I offered to DM the type of game you wanted. (because extremely high power fantasy is my niche.) But you said no because my friends and I wanted to play on VC instead of typing everything out.

>>96334337 (OP)
Is there a reason to use God bound over High Level D&D if the group is already familiar with the edition?

>>96353079
Old-school D&D doesn't (natively) support the kind of adventures that Godbound does. Not to say you can't go into the crazy-high levels and take down a god or three in combat, but you won't have the same tools to sway nations, rebuild a world in your image, or other things that Godbound characters are meant to do. That is why Godbound exists, to fill that space.
How much it succeeds at the task, or how interested your group is in those kind of stories, is going to be entirely up to you.

>>96341254
>>96344491
Not that anon, but my take:
>Pros: exists to tell similar stories to Exalted, without the system bloat of Exalted. OSR trappings are familiar to a wide range of players. GM advice is excellent; I wish Exalted had anything as useful as Godbound has. Divine Word system is neat, fun, evocative without being complex
Cons: not everyone is into d20, let alone OSR systems. Not all the powers are equally useful, so there are multiple rewrites for words like Fire, Sword, and Shapeshifting. Similar flaws to Exalted 2e (risk of "mote attrition" and "Factorio your way to victory") but again, less bloated.

>>96348564
>Ascending AC.
Different anon, what does that mean, I haven't played the game before.

>>96357299
Classic D&D worked in a way that lower AC was better, or "descending AC". Modern RPGs (including D&D) prefer "bigger number is better" design, because that is more intuitive for new players. Godbound uses the former, but other games from its developer have switched to ascending AC.

Also, the game is free on Drive-thru, or from various troves. Costs you no money and very little time to download it, rather than keeping this thread alive

I mean even Crawford considers Godbound something of a failure, and I don't think that he means just as a financial one.

Hopefully one day he'll revisit the idea.

>>96357974
Proof?

>>96355765
Ah, that's a fair point.

>>96357974

>Hopefully one day he'll revisit the idea.
He kinda did with the Heroic Characters rules in the appendix of Worlds Without Number.

>>96357974
Every Crawford game I've seen is OSR (specifically LL), but he changes the theme/setting and tweaks a few rules.* If you try to create a game that's supposed to make players feel like demigods but just keep it basically OSR, you're going to fail.

*Sometimes not even that: I remember being pretty surprised that WWN & SH have the same 'goblins and orcs are just a human subrace' thing despite the very different settings.

>>96357974
>Hopefully one day he'll revisit the idea.
I hope that too. How can we convince him it's worth it though?

>>96347931
Maybe some new hints at why the divine throne is empty.

>>96349043
This is the least surprising thing I have ever heard, lol

>>96338547
I don't even like Godbound. You are a massive faggot who needs to fuck off back to /v/ with your retarded behavior.

>>96358272

He's literally said it. That's why there are no more books.

Probably on RPGnet, but I'm not digging though those long ass threads.

>>96349043
>I wanted to play on VC instead of typing everything out.
Not him, but what's VC? And did you end up going a Godbound game anyway?

>>96334337 (OP)
We need more systems/settings like Godbound. Like seriously.

>>96334337 (OP)
>tranime trash
>god-level bullshit
>narrative faggotry
One of the worst examples of "games".
And we already have Exalted, faggot. No need to do it all over again.

>>96334337 (OP)
Why does it not have a 2e yet? Why?

>>96334337 (OP)
What hypothetical Words do you wish existed? And what about homebrew Words that you like both thematically and/or mechanically?

>>96334337 (OP)
You could always try Glitch.

>>96386662
Not Op, but I've never heard of that before, please explain.

>>96334347
edna is a pedo but they make good threads when they are not wrong

i'll bite. someone share a pdf

>>96334337 (OP)
Besides Exalted, what are some other similar games worth checking out? >>96386662 mentioned Glitch, but what else is there?

>>96389643
I asked the share thread.

>>96334337 (OP)
>wander into thread because I don't know much about godbound but the premise piques my interest
>it's a bunch of autistic clique slapfighting

>>96393392
It's a pretty cool system, it's just OP is a mega-sperg

>>96393601
It's pretty... Impressive? Depressing? Hilarious? How much time Edna spends thinking about a hobby that they so fundamentally don't understand.

>>96388957
It's another game that revolves around godlike characters, made by one of the creators of Exalted, Jenna Moran, in the same universe as some earlier games (Nobilis, and Chuubo's Marvelous Wish Granting Machine) with a different ruleset and type of player characters. You play as misanthropic goths from the misanthropic goth faction who're at war with the world, and the player characters are some of the few who've decided they'd rather not destroy All That Is, for whatever reason. It has both a robust ruleset for divine combat and a fairly tight understanding of what the players are going to be playing and at what sort of scales conflict would occur, which the OP seemed concerned about. It's actually a lot more like a higher level Godbound than it is anything else I've seen, with the way your powers tend to involve a lot of miracle-like conceptual playing around.

>>96389885
>what else is there?
Ars Magica and Mage: The Ascension are more mechanically robust and feature very flexible and powerful magic systems that set player characters above the common man, if you care about useable systems more than you do going all the way over the deep end of the power scale. Anima: Beyond Fantasy does go to the deep end of the power scale but is also much more broken. Mythender exists. Dungeons the Dragoning 40K could work too, and jacking the point totals of GURPS characters way the hell up does provide some damn-well mythical characters.

I would like to play Godbound someday.

>>96389637
The only thread where I didn't want to punch Edna in the face was the 4E warlord thread, because first post was being an even bigger faggot.

>>96389637
One issue is that Edna can be technically correct while also missing the larger point. The 13th Age 2e playtesting incident comes to mind. Edna's utility as a poster is, arguably, sussing out significant balance issues that are likely to be encountered by any given tabletop group. That utility drops off drastically as they hyperfocus on niche problems.

>>96397253
Edna also expects every game to be some platonic, perfectly balanced ideal system that essentially runs itself, and views anything that's less than that a flaw. Of course a game that is supposed to be player driven, that is relatively rules light or, at the very least "rulings over rules," where the pcs are literal gods is going require a lot of work as a gm. Some would see this as a feature and not a bug. But Edna is only capable of looking at how numbers interact with other numbers which is, as you say, useful from a certain pov, but kind of orthogonal to gaming at large.

>>96397323
Personally, I do not get much out of Edna's criticisms because they do not reflect the aspects of tabletop that I value most. Yes, I agree that balance is good, but past a certain point I just do not have the energy to care.

>>96398295
Same. I feel like the system they actually want is something like Gloomhaven.

>>96397253

The final draft of 13th Age 2e actually addressed most, if not all, of my balance criticisms, and then some. It is a "balance patch" that actually works, and that I like very much.

Last year, I playtested the 13th Age 2e gamma: https://docs.google.com/document/d/176GRa7xitZAmNqfW49mp7qu_M-g6a5WllBzdO4ZuCr0/edit

It was very rough. It was trivial to snap apart the combat metagame by building characters towards the optimization ceiling and going all-in on offense. The worst offenders were paladins with Evil Way, rangers with Twin Arrows, clerics with the Strength domain adventurer feat (at 1st and 2nd level specifically), wizards with Evocation and VPV (at 3rd level and above), and clerics with the Turn Undead type expansion feats. Lethal was the single best kin power for its reroll, and there were so, so many magic items that helped the party go nova and instantly explode enemies.

At the same time, some character options were simply bad. Rogues were the single worst class around, and barbarians and melee fighters were shabby, too.

All this has changed in the final draft. They actually took the time to rebalance the game, and that is incredible. I very much appreciate the writers' and editors' efforts.

Evil Way has been significantly curtailed (and possibly overcorrected, since it requires a rather stringent condition), Twin Arrows no longer works with Lethal Hunter and seems to have been downgraded (though I cannot be sure, since the wording is ambiguous; do both d20s apply to a single target?), the Strength domain adventurer feat is escalation-die-gated, wizard spell damage has been significantly toned down, Evocation and VPV have been rewritten, and Turn Undead has been overhauled. Lethal is ED-gated, and magic items for raw accuracy and offense have been revamped (e.g. ED-gating), replaced, or removed outright.

>>96398798

Paladins have been rebalanced in general. They lost their adventurer-tier feat for +4 attack on smites and can no longer pick up cleric at-will spells, but can now determine AC using the middle of Constitution, Wisdom, and Charisma modifiers. Meanwhile, rogues, barbarians, and fighters have all been given considerable upgrades. Battle Drill is not what it used to be, but all fighters are melee fighters, and pushed towards more of a defender role ("hit me specifically, or my accuracy goes up"). I am uncertain as to whether or not rogues, barbarians, and fighters can keep up with paladins and rangers, now, but I am grateful for the writers' commitment to trying to make it work.

These are just a few examples of the "balance patching." I like it a lot. It shows that the writers earnestly care about improving their game.

I highly recommend taking a look at 13th Age 2e when it comes out, and I think it is definitely worth a purchase. There are still facets that I think are lacking (e.g. there are still no subsystems for complex, multi-step noncombat challenges), and I still do not agree with many of the monster design decisions, but the fact that the writers are actually willing to refine their game impresses me so much.

On the whole, I am very satisfied by how 13th Age 2e turned out, and I am thankful that the writers actually rectified many of the balance issues I pointed out. (Or maybe they did not listen to me, specifically, and what I was pointing out was simply being pointed out by many other playtesters as well. Either way, it is the same end result: the final game is more balanced.)

>>96398798
>>96398814
Specifically, I was referring to how you ignored the playtest guidelines and stress tested the system in ways it is not intended to be run, then focused a good deal of criticism on those results than evaluating what the creators were asking for.

>>96398905
*rather than evaluating

>>96398905

Which playtest guidelines in particular are you referring to, in this case? What in particular do you find to be stress-testing?

If this is about creating overpowered characters who alpha-strike enemies to oblivion, then it seems that that has been addressed in the final draft. Virtually all of the damage-ceiling-pushing options have been addressed in some form, from class options to magic items, so it is much harder than before to simply explode enemies.

The final draft really did patch up most of my concerns about player options, and I am deeply thankful for that. I got what I wanted.

>>96399038

For example, to expound on the last sentence here >>96398798, some alpha-striking magic items, such as Boots of Reckless Charging and the Gauntlets of Clobbering, are now gated behind the escalation die. Others, like the Weapon of Abandon and the Ring of Fickle Fate, are gone.

These alpha-striking PC options were among my largest complaints about the 13th Age 2e gamma, and they have since been addressed. I think that the game is better-off for it.

>>96399038
>If this is about creating overpowered characters who alpha-strike enemies to oblivion, then it seems that that has been addressed in the final draft.
Yes, and that is perhaps something to praise Pelgrane Press over in particular. They would have been justified in ignoring your comments because you went out of your way to stack the most broken combinations you could when those would almost certainly have never seen the light of day during a real game. Complaints about those edge cases risk distracting from more common issues, which is what the playtests are meant to weed out. If anything, now I'm worried they may have taken you too seriously and either nerfed or deleted what would have been some interesting items.

>>96344491
He can't elaborate because he's never played it. It's a common trend with shills that get upset whenever 2hu dismantles their game.

>>96398905
>p-please don't do anything that makes our system look bad
Really?

>>96399201
seething bootlicker

>>96347931
Divorce the system from D&D mechanics. It's completely incompatible trying to tie a grid based dungeon tactics game to world shaking narrative godlike beings. This is far and large the biggest problem with the system, it fundamentally does not work with Godbounds theme or setting.

>>96399201
>>96398905
I know you don't have much experience with actually playing games, but these "edge cases" matter even when no one is deliberately trying to minmax with bad intentions. It can still crop up completely unintentionally and ruin someone's game session all the same.

The fact is, in this medium, the specific fantasy you may have in your head of playing the game does not often coincide with how a game actually plays in practice, and throwing a tantrum when someone points this out after actually fucking playing is the textbook definition of delusional.

>>96399432

I would also like to point out that some of these "edge cases" are as simple as "being a wizard and picking the two in-class talents that raise damage (Evocation and VPV)."

It is hardly inconceivable that someone would want to play a blaster wizard and gravitate towards the two talents that straight-up boost damage. Before the final draft, this would result in a wizard who could instantly incinerate encounters. After the final draft, wizard damage has been (rightfully) toned down across the board, and Evocation and VPV have both been overhauled to do something other than raise damage. Thus, the wizard is now more of a hybrid blaster and debuffer, roughly in line with the other classes.

>>96374001
Voice chat, my group usually plays in real life, but we've done online before when one of our guys was working abroad for like 2 years and it's really not that bad, everyone has quality mics and aren't ESL's. As for the Godbound game, no we ended up playing an anime fightan thing instead, which was really fun, and overpowered so my point about being able to handle his complaints stand.

>>96399481
>would also like to point out that some of these "edge cases" are as simple as "being a wizard and picking the two in-class talents that raise damage (Evocation and VPV)."
That example would be one of those common potential pitfalls I referred to, the ones worth focusing on. A potential combination of class feature building blocks should receive far more playtester scrutiny than specific combinations of items which may or may not be introduced together during any given game. This is especially true during this foundational stage, when there are the fewest number of said building blocks.

>>96349043
voice games are cringe

>>96402421
You're cringe, text games are way too fucking slow, and either filled with people waxing poetic about every little thing their character does, or responding to an incredibly important prompt with minimum effort. No the only proper way to play rpg's is in real life, when this isn't possible, voice chat is the way to go.

>>96403778
>text games are way too fucking slow
only if you're an illiterate retard

>>96403795
writing takes longer than talking, you are autistic if you don't know this.

>>96404448
only if you're an illiterate retard

>>96402421
Could you describe this as more of a "win" for being in text-based games? I'm in several voice games, and the problem is that I don't really care if you think they're cringe or not, I'm more focused on objective advantages.

>>96334337 (OP)
Why hasn’t Kevin returned to this?

>>96405673
Commercial failure, nobody bought it so why not make stuff people will actually buy?

>>96402421
Voice games are fine for beer and pretzels trash.

>>96393862
>They
Discord tranny detected

>>96399201
>>96398905
Ever since Wizard had a spergout last month I've been starting to like 2hu but I'm convinced now that he's one of the least retarded niggers on this board. Playtesting is all about trying to stress test shit.
>Y-you should get no credit for pointing out the broken things that the company then fixed, you should be glad they even listened!
Genuinely one of the most pathetic things I've ever read from /tg/. The point of playtesting is to break things, find edge cases, and address issues. If fixing one small aspect of your system somehow prevented you from addressing anything else, you're retarded and were never going to make even a halfway decent system to begin with.
Just say you hate the guy next time and blame him for having a recognizable posting style, spare everyone the dishonesty.

>>96406145
What spergout?

Don't know who the faggot OP is, but honestly my experience with Godbound kind of mirrors their claims.

I was playing a folksy fertility god, alongside a technocratic god of industry, an occult god of death and a fairly classical god of war hercules type and the game had a hard time keeping up with us being so distinctly different and more or less clashing with each other.

>>96406160
He had a meltdown over some old Dresden Files game, and then someone dredged up the archives for it and 2hu was found to not be at fault.

>>96406173

In addition to some Words being just plain better than others ( https://www.reddit.com/r/godbound/comments/c9to7r/an_extended_tier_list_for_godbound_words/ ) and other Words being in need of revision ( https://docs.google.com/document/d/13nooujjQXDHEBfAcJt1xXB-Mmm32MaTZiMMll7EWJwU/edit ), certain Words encourage somewhat unintuitive playstyles.

For example, you were playing a "folksy Fertility god." Did you know that one of the better ways to get value out of Fertility is to spam Birth Blessing on inanimate objects, such as the ground?

https://www.reddit.com/r/godbound/comments/8u7eln/mr_seahorse/e1i3tk6/
>CardinalXimenes (Kevin Crawford)
>While I didn't specifically think of using Birth Blessing to make inanimate objects pregnant, it was intended to cover all living creatures, male or female, and I'd probably be okay with letting the PC use it on pretty much anything, with the caveat that it'd produce humans (or appropriate creatures) and not baby wagons or lampshades or whatnot. It's a very narrow gift in its scope, and while it gives people something that many humans are desperate to have, it's something the PC has to build a plan around if they're going to get real use out of it.

Did you know that the Fertility greater gift Unending Abundance is significantly outstripped by the Desert lesser gift Azure Oasis Spring?

>Azure Oasis Spring, Action
>Summon a water source, causing a new spring to gush forth. Repeated use of this ability can provide sufficient water supplies for almost any number of people, or erode and destroy non-magical structures within an hour. At the Godbound's discretion, this summoned water is magically invigorating, supplying all food needs for those who drink it. These springs last until physically destroyed or dispelled by the Godbound. Optionally, the Godbound may instead instantly destroy all open water and kill all natural springs within two hundred feet per character level, transforming ordinary land into sandy wastes.

>>96405765
But clearly there's a lot of people interested in this. Why not do another KS?

>>96406351
I'm aware of the fucked up word balance. But the primary problem that came up during play was the fact that everyone went in wildly different directions during the downtime because of the worship/cult mechanic that made everyone functionally compete with each other in the background and have totally different goals.

My fields of bountiful wheat don't entirely mesh with the guy setting up factorio megabases; and what the fuck does the death god do when I'm diametrically opposed to their character? The guy who had probably the least strife with the group was our meathead since he just had the "King of Kings" thing going on and wanted to attract all the mightiest warriors.

>>96407770

Yes, this is absolutely an issue as well, and I have struggled with it in most of the Godbound games I have played and GMed. Downtime ambitions can vary wildly between players, and not in a good way.

It is especially egregious when someone gets the idea to use their Influence/Dominion to field, say, an army of 100,000 (or more) combat robots.

>>96406175
2hu is rarely at fault
he's obnoxious to a point that will make some people go crazy, but that's on them. I've never seen 2hu bait or proactively enrage people.

>>96406145
Not every game has to be compatible with every play style. If I want to run a quick no prep GURPS game it's gonna take ages to start, because that's not the appeal. Expecting everything to be able to handle anything is asking for slop.

But in this particular case the stress test sounded reassonable and the angry response he got was probably related to sending walls of text when there was succinct form to fill or replying to every confirmation email with new walls of text or some other autistic fuck up that made them personally angry

>>96407891
Uh-oh, incoming GURPS fans!

>>96334971

Let us revisit Garak Red Chorus here. Let us showcase just how power-bloated the mortals of Arcem are. Compare him to the top-end human adversaries in more recent Sine Nomine games.

• Godbound deluxe, p. 220: Garak Red Chorus. HD 30, AC 3 even unarmored (heavy armor AC in more recent Sine Nomine games), attack +12 ×2, damage 1d10 straight, move 60 feet, Morale 10, Effort 6, save 5+, "mastered the True Strife of the Hunting Beast and has innate talents equivalent to the Word of Beasts and Alacrity. He can Commit Effort to automatically save, and can take two actions per combat round." Note that Hunting Beast and Alacrity give Garak an incredible action economy and a stupendous number of attacks per round, particularly Red Jaws of Frenzy.

• Stars Without Number, p. 195: Legendary fighter. HD 10, AC 20 in power armor, attack +12 ×2, damage weapon+4 non-straight, move 10 meters, Morale 12, save 10+.

• Worlds Without Number, p. 283: Great warrior king. HD 12, AC 18 in armor, attack +14 ×2, damage weapon+5 non-straight, move 30 feet, Morale 10, save 9+, 6 points of relatively minor special abilities.

• Cities Without Number, p. 188: Megacorp CEO's personal guard. HD 10, AC 22, attack +17 ranged or +19 melee, damage weapon non-straight, move 20 meters, Morale 12, save 10+, an assortment of moderately powerful special abilities, such as "Twice/scene as an Instant action gain a bonus Main and Move action."

• Ashes Without Number, p. 215: Dire warlord. HD 12, AC 18, attack +15 ×3, damage weapon+8 non-straight, move 10 meters, Morale 12, save 9+, 4 relatively minor special abilities.

Garak is inferior in some respects. He overwhelmingly surpasses the competition in other regards, particularly when we consider his straight damage, his True Strife of the Hunting Beast, and his Words of Beasts and Alacrity. And again, Garak is presented not as some godly threat, but merely as a bane of villages and border cities: some low-level villain in D&D.

>>96406351
>Did you know that the Fertility greater gift Unending Abundance is significantly outstripped by the Desert lesser gift Azure Oasis Spring?
It's not, really. Azure Oasis Spring provides for almost any number of people, Unending Abundance supplies for any number of people. The 'almost' is meaningful difference. Azure Oasis Spring doesn't do the Fact thing, and Unending Abundance is a better gift to miracle because the fertility is an instant change rather than an enchantment, while the benevolent effect of AOS would be entirely temporary. Growing anything at exceptional speeds is also a broader and more exploitable effect than conjuring magically filling water. Make some kind of powerful crop or vegetation and Unending Abundance will make it go out of control.

Is it worth the gift points? No, probably not. On the other hand, you're playing Godbound and miracles are a thing. How much gifts cost to buy is not the most important balance concern.

re: kvetching about enemies being too strong, toughen up. Godbound aren't going to roll over the setting and that's not a problem, it's a feature.

>>96402421
>>96406065
filtering out people who are literally too socially awkward to talk to other humans is one of the biggest advantages of voice chat.

>>96408461
Nah voice games don't do that, it appeals to the illiterate and low IQ types who can't consistently stick to a schedule or remember their sheets.

>>96408423

Unending Abundance, a Fertility greater gift, says:

>Unending Abundance, Action
>Commit Effort for the day. The land you designate within a ten mile radius becomes impossibly fertile, crops erupting in mere hours and feeding any number of people within that area. If applied as a gift and not used as a one-off miracle, the persistent fertility counts as a beneficial Feature to any faction that controls the land, though it cannot be sacrificed in the case of a lost Conflict it was involved in.

Unending Abundance feeds "any number of people within that area." It costs Effort/day and costs 2 gift points as a greater gift, whereas Azure Oasis Spring is Effort-free and costs 1 gift point as a lesser gift, making the latter significantly more cost-effective in terms of both Effort and gift points.

About the only significant advantage Unending Abundance has over Azure Oasis Spring is that the former grants a Feature, and even that is not too big a deal, since a sufficiently large change (e.g. multiple applications of Azure Oasis Spring) would naturally grant a feature anyway.

>Unending Abundance is a better gift to miracle because the fertility is an instant change rather than an enchantment
Is it really "an instant change rather than an enchantment," though? Miracles last for a scene unless otherwise noted, and nothing about Unending Abundance indicates that its effects would last longer. Indeed, the stipulation about "If applied as a gift and not used as a one-off miracle..." suggest that it does not actually grant one-and-done abundance.

>re: kvetching about enemies being too strong, toughen up. Godbound aren't going to roll over the setting and that's not a problem, it's a feature.
What is the point of a high-powered demigod game if even the humanoid-ish enemies are going to be power-bloated to keep up with the PCs? Parasite gods and the like, sure. Those are appropriately divine enemies. But not mortals (or "mortals") this strong.

>>96408583
Honestly, I think the bigger thing people are missing is that Azure Oasis Spring creates a clean, unending water source; which means it fills two necessities instead of just the one of unending abundance (hunger and thirst). While also being useful for other respects, such as hydropower (either mechanical or electrical), irrigation or just straight recreation in the form of bath houses or insane coliseum naval battles. An equivalent effect from unending abundance would just mean a surplus of cash crops, spices and recreational drugs which to me seems less game changing than "instant unending water"

>>96408551
What are some ways I can convince myself this happens more often in voice games?

>>96408423
>The 'almost' is meaningful difference
>Is it worth the gift points? No, probably not.
fucking lol

>>96336112
Your mechanical problems reveal themselves; Kevin Crawford is the author.
Otherwise, your major issue,
>>96334337 (OP)
That of differing player expectations, is something best addressed in a social conversation between the GM and the players.
As the power level seems to be set on the higher end of the demigod scale, a pre-determined unified party goal would seem to solve your issue. I recall, but do not have, a screencap of an anon running a demigod game where the existing gpdly pantheon either fucked off or were killed, and the players had to step up. An alternative idea could be 'you are being tested by the gods of your worthiness to join them'.
Are the players the only demigods? Why are they even working together? If you throw your sample demigods,
>>96334352
In a party together, of course there are going to be problems! The solution is to present the game with a theme. Allowing every player to develop their demigod in isolation and without GM review only makes your task harder.

>>96411707
>The solution is to present the game with a theme.
buzzwords

>>96411937
NTA but not really. The game is a sandbox so anon is saying you need a unifying theme so characters don't end up with disparate playstyles. Saying "This game is about slaying powerful monsters" sets a precedent that stops people from making characters built to charm nobles in political intrigue

>>96412065
NTA but it's meaningless horseshit

>>96412318
I don't do this often, but I have to say, it sounds like you don't play games

>>96412390
NTA but nah that's you

>>96412318
What if it isn't meaningless, and you just can't understand or accept it? It's okay if you disagree or if this upsets you.

>>96412688
NTA but what if it is meaningless? and it is btw

>>96412727
Why do you want it to be meaningless?

>>96413180
NTA but it's meaningless whether he wants it or not

>>96413189
>if I'm too dumb to understand what words mean, then it must be "meaningless"
Real thinker right here

>>96413328
NTA but meaningless words don't mean anything whether you understand them or not

>>96413579
Are you really this dumb, or are you just pretending for shits and giggles?

>>96334337 (OP)

Appreciate the detailed writeup OP.

Ignore the retards telling you to "buy an ad" for writing an actual effortpost. This is better than 95% of the stuff posted on this board.

>>96414394

Thank you. Every so often, I still try to make Godbound work as a GM, and I still find myself playing Godbound (as early as just last month), but it never quite seems to work out.

Other RPGs, I have had a much better success rate with.

>>96393392
If Exalted is a Ferrari (sleek, beautiful, seductive) that you can't control and blows up anyway, Godbound is a 1987 Dodge Diplomat (simple, easy to understand, pretty basic and dated) that you can control but blows up anyway.

Godbound is often bandied about as the solution to Exalted's brokenness, but it's ultimately wonky too. In that much I'll agree with the OP. That said, Godbound is OSR-minded, so it basically begs GMs to deal with all the rules and situations the game can't be bothered with. Exalted's the same way really, but it's much easier for a competent GM to fix most of Godbound's issues than it is to fix Exalted many problems.

That said, both are ultimately just supers in a fantasy post-apocalyptic setting. Just pick a decent effects-based supers game (HERO, M&M, hell even something Fate-based like Kerberos Club) and use either setting you like. That said, Godbound works well enough you can mostly just run it as is (Exalted runs better in a different system though; it's so bad the publisher made Exalted Essence to acknowledge the fan base hates it).

>>96408583
>>96408617
These "issues" would be easily fixed with a simple houserule like saying Azure Oasis requires Effort and Unending Abundance doesn't. Why are you complaining this much when the game is fine?

>>96414394
Yeah, some people think that any thread about a specific system is just an attempt at advertising. We need more anons like you.

>>96415000
>Other RPGs, I have had a much better success rate with.
I'd love to hear more about your successes with other RPGs please.

>>96420108
>the broken parts can be houseruled so it's not broken
Yawn.

>>96428201
Yes, welcome to rpgs nogames, houserules exist.

>>96428227
It's the oldest non-argument in the book. If it has to be houseruled, it's broken, not "fine".

>>96336112
>simulation of a presumably end-game fight that wouldve been built up for months

>GM tunnels the squishiest character in the party immediately, killing them by round 2 in an 8 round fight
>there's no way for them to get back up
Fuckin LMAO

>>96428250
>If it has to be fixed its broken so its not really fixed
Retards like you go around complaining about the heat when they have AC.

>>96407892
>Uh-oh, incoming GURPS fans!
What's wrong with someone liking GURPS?

>>96431189
Not a thing, it's the fans that are the problem.

>>96415000
Here's a thought, how would one translate the Archons into Godbound? Or any other Genshin characters for that matter?

>>96431223
>Not a thing, it's the fans that are the problem
Never really ventured in the GURPS threads, what do you mean?

>>96437228
The GURPS threads aren't really a problem either. Every system should be welcome in threats dedicated to them. The problem is that there's a particular type of fag who clings to GURPS, took all the ironic posting about it unironically, and considers it more than just being a good simulationist ruleset, and to be literally perfect (even in ways that are contradictory; For example, it has detailed and in-depth rules "for everything" and simultaneously is the fastest and easiest system to play).
And since it's perfect, it's also to be treated as being totally beyond reproach. So anyone critiquing GURPS obviously is wrong, and can't possibly have played it. And any discussion that isn't centered around praising it or recommending it, even to completely uninterested parties, is the wrong type of discussion.
Hence, you get modern GURPS fans.

>>96437260
I wonder if they’re really that obsessed or if they’re just trolling everyone?

>>96440171
My guess is that it's a bit of both.

>>96440171
I'd lean towards obsessed. Systems that pride themselves on being different yet "perfect", despite languishing in obscurity, tend to attract extremely zealous defenders who consider any attack on the system as a personal one. There's at least one guy on the board that is extremely in love with ACKS, for example, to the point where the jannies delete any discussion he starts sperging out in.

>>96404457
Most people can write at 40-60wpm; I can manage 100wpm. People talk at 180-250wpm. Not sure what you're imagining, anon. Are you only playing with stenographers?

>>96446544
More likely they are just trolling
I regularly do text-only games to accommodate one of my friends, and it is painfully slow compared to voice or in-person sessions.

>>96446544
>>96447805
text games are only slow if you're sub 90 iq

>>96444286
See? Didn't even take him 24 hours to show up.

>>96449722
>Anyone who disagrees with me proves my point
Kafka called, he wants you to stop stealing his intellectual property.

>>96444286
Didn't really agree until he actually showed up lmao, it's like summoning pazuzu but you only need to say the name once

>>96449669
>we
It's just (you), nobody else cares about this dogshit system macris.

>>96444286
Literally brings up ACKS out of nowhere he hates it so much, lol.

>>96450720
I didn't bring up ACKS, I brought up one sperg who flips out about it. ACKS itself is fine if you want a sidegrade of b/x.

>>96450752
>ACKS itself is fine if you want a sidegrade of b/x.
I'm sorry, NTA, but what does that even mean?

>>96454814
NTA, but it's just old school D&D with some guy's homebrew and changes as the selling feature. Some find the differences autistic and obtrusive, some find them fun and useful. One troll claims it's absolute perfection, probably in an effort to sabotage the games reputation for some unknown reason.

>>96455253
Thanks for clarifying, what are the pros and cons of the system in your book?

>>96461067
Pros:
+It's based on DnD, including the parts that actually worked well
+It adds some more things to the parts that worked well
Cons:
-It's based on DnD, including the parts that worked like shit
-The quality of the additions is all over the place.

To use an analogy, it's like if a cook whose favorite drink is water and whose favorite food is plain white bread, tried to make a copy of a popular recipe book and expand on parts he felt it was lacking.
The result would be a book that's not gonna be outright bad, it's just very bland.

>>96461067
(he doesn't actually know)

>>96461112
Careful, anyone who fails to praise ACKS risks being harassed by an angry gamelet sperg.

>>96461112
Thanks for clarifying. If only the creators had picked a better base system.

>>96437260
>Every system should be welcome in threats dedicated to them
If only some anons didn't automatically assume that anyone making threads about a never system is the creator trying to get free advertising.

>>96469410

Maybe they should just buy an ad instead of shitting up the board.

>>96469521
Seek medical help for your persecution delusion.

>>96334337 (OP)
About the only thing that "felt bad" to me was the way the game handled damage, but it's necessary for what it was trying to prove overall.

The system seems best for people who aren't overly caught up on rules. I would probably ignore the threats and foes and make my own if I ran it (I've only ever played a little bit.) I was very excited to level up my character, but it did sometimes feel if I wasn't sure what to get.

It's not the greatest system out there by any means (I am a Crawford fanboy, though, I love his other games).

If I was ever going to run a cape shit game, I would probably use it over something like M&M (but that's more because I hate wotc D20 more than anything.)

>>96473279
He's right though. For example, there was a shill thread a few months ago from the guy who wrote blood junkies. I couldn't believe how fucking unplayably awful it was, it had to be partly AI generated.

>>96474153
>I couldn't believe how fucking unplayably awful it was, it had to be partly AI generated.
It was seriously that bad?

>>96410079
Head injury. That or lack of playing a variety of games. I've done VC, PbP and irl games, and the only one with marginal improvement is irl because I know where those fucks live.

>>96336112
>>96428475
White room hypotheticals can go literally any way the writer wants in order to make a point. The PCs all only have 3 words and brought nothing else to the fight, Mammon has Endurance (a top tier word specifically for resisting divine damage) and two words that he almost doesn't use at all. Most of the fight is just a slugfest, only once does an attempt at being clever come into effect (with the blinding cloud) and no attempt is made by the two combat-focused gods to cover for the squishy one when they decide to barrel in headfirst. The battle ends inconclusively, with even Crawford saying it was a toss-up if Ares or Mammon would run out of Effort first.

>>96407861
Yikes. Are you speaking from personal experience with the robot army comment?

>>96399201
anon, I don't know how much experience you have with ttrpgs and I'm glad you've always played with nice people, 25% of the people playing ttrpgs want to be OP no matter what. It's a thing, super common, some games offer you the option of not playing with them while others try to close those tings off. It's super common, particularly since 3.5e

>>96399517
Edna is philipino or some other lesser asian like that, ESL and in a different time zone.