Went through what I have written so far, and - as I feared - Bonni was right to warn me. The captain was doing too much and the other officers too little. If it wasn't the captain doing it, it was the ratings, and while in a game with troupe play that is cool, Pigboats is not all about the troupe play. I have to go through and assign stuff to officers, even if they aren't actually doing the work. Example - Hydrophone contact, range and bearing. That is the Sonarman's work, but with this setup, it's the Signals Officer that should roll for it.
So I'm wondering - should I have a rank auction at the beginning of the game? Amber has a stat auction. I'm thinking you could bid on taking higher rank by taking on complications. "Bad relations with CO." "In love with fellow officer's wife." "Secret alcoholic." etc. Each complication having a different point value. Whaddya think?
-clash
I don't get how your idea of auction articulates with the rest of char gen.
ReplyDeleteIn Amber DRPG the pool you use to bid on trait ranks is the same pool you use to buy powers and other gizmos. So if you want to be good in, say, Strength and you had to bid up to 40 points to get the first rank, that's 40 points you don't get to buy awezome powerz with.
I am afraid that I'm not a fan of Amber diceless RPG. We tried it and it didn't go well with the bidding process. Perhaps it was just my group through. Instead of an auction per se, just make them buy their positions with points. You can increase the number of points they have to start out with maybe and say only X number of positions available to make sure to check with GM blah blah blah blah...you know the language. :)
ReplyDeleteHi boulet!
ReplyDeleteI've got Amber, so I know how it works there. Thing is, if you are using build points for the auction in pigboats, you'd have weak, stupid skippers and clumsy, obnoxious XOs. In Amber, what you are auctioning effectively *replaces* stats, which is why I was wondering about the 'complications", if they would be a good currency.
-clash
Hi Bonni!
ReplyDeleteWhat I said to boulet still applies - if they bid character build points on rank, the higher rank characters are going to be less effective than the lower rank characters, which seems... clumsy. Since rank is outside stats, I was trying to think of bringing something else in that's outside stats.
-clash
Also - forgot to mention this - right now you can generate stats at random or point buy. That won't jibe with paying points. Now the game is still at the state where I can just remove the random option, but I'd rather not do that if I can get away with it. :D
ReplyDelete-clash