Dawnborn General /dbg/

>>48685597
>Want to use Mutants & Masterminds' exact rules in a fantasy setting

Nigger I can already do that with fucking M&M in the first place. Why the hell would I use this outside of the pre-made setting which you are not even bothering selling.

>>48686553
I've heard in previous threads that Mutants and Masterminds is a placeholder system, the end product will be quite different. Whether that means a highly modified M&M, or an entirely new system, hasn't been confirmed yet.

Don't take this as me curtailing your feedback though - constructive criticism is how games get better.

>>48686553

He's not selling.

He's trolling. The actual Dawnborn devs are not involved in this but someone is spamming Dawnborn stuff, likely to try and build up bad blood over the system.

>>48686706
For what purpose?


Regardless the playtest is too barebones to be of any interest outside of Kingdom Hearts jokes involving the setting.

MUH HEARTS AND DARKNESS HEARTS

>>48686684
This is in fact the case. Gareth,etc said they wouldn't continue the threads until they had something better based on the feedback we already gave (varying die systems/methods they could base on, why d20 bad, why 4 legs better on a mech than 2, etc) but someone here's really butthurt about'em. Dunno if it's same person that keeps claiming it should use Strike!

>>48687045
No, it should use Godbound.

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>>48687061
>OSR

May as well make some use of the thread.

In a system like this, what would you want to see? What elements would you really want to be included?

I always like the idea of 'defeat' not necessarily ending in death, and for this sort of heroic game I think that kind of thing is very important, for both players and GM's. Having systems set up so that the PC's winning or losing doesn't automatically mean they/the opponent dies opens up a lot of compelling storytelling possibilities, allowing those mythically compelling rivalries and such to grow over time.

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Well this keeps happening. I'd thought maybe things would be able to rest for a bit while we work after the last one timed out but if this is here I guess I'm on-deck.

>>48686896
I hadn't thought of this and now I cannot stop thinking of this. You monster.

>>48687045
This is also correct. If these threads die down for a bit, Worry Not; we'll be back.

>>48687540
At least one of the genres inspiring Dawnborn has a...particular...relationship with death that we're using as an inspiration for a mechanic/worldbuilding element. Conflicts may just end in death since that's what the Darkness usually wants, but death's not necessarily the end of you playing that character.

>>48688095

That sounds good!

Although another question, if you don't mind? What sorts of archetypes do you intend to support? Is this a game of divine warriors, or are there healers and oracles amongst the Dawnborn? And do they all fall into distinct roles, or do they all have combat abilities plus utility?

Most games I know fall to the latter, letting people heavily specialize, but I'm more and more enjoying games which let everyone interact with combat, even if non-warriors do so in different ways, while also giving everyone their own flavour of utility.

Legends of the Wulin is my favourite example of this. As a Wuxia martial arts game, it has Warriors alongside Scholars, Doctors, Courtiers and Priests, but non-warriors are still Kung-fu badasses who can hold their own in a fight, and the non-warriors all bring their own unique secondary abilities to a combat, with Courtiers able to talk an enemy down or Priests wreathing their enemies in curses.

Of course this isn't directly transferable, just an example. I'm a strong believer in designing to a central theme, so I'm just giving the example to provide context to the previous question.

>>48688184

*Fall into the former

Damn language getting away from me.

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What I want to know is, how the hell are these threads getting around my filters?

>>48688184
If you're gonna mention wuxia, we're gonna want some seriously badass mass combat systems. Past a certain "level" (of power/capability/equipment) one should cross the rubicon from "kill a mook a swing" into "dynasty warriors gundam" territory.

Comes a point where that vehicular railgun gains a kill radius of imploding atmosphere down its path, and the huge greatsword now autocleaves large groups.

Possibly even larger groups if it's a coil-type gaussian weapon and the projectile's wielding said greatsword...

>>48688196
> Damn language getting away from me.

Do what the English did and beat it until it accepts whatever horrors you want to inflict upon it.

Few people know what it is to both love and hate something as furiously as native English-speaking writers love and hate our language.

>>48688184
All Dawnborn can fight or contribute to a fight to an extent. As in many fantasy stories (and comics, for that matter), each takes on different roles both in and out of combat. You can see that to an extent with our sample Dawnborn, actually, and that dynamic's something we're looking to preserve.

>>48688402

That is excellent to hear. Too many games make you choose between being effective in combat and having interesting and effective utility abilities. Making sure everyone has both is always good in my book.

>>48688402
Ideally those would meld fairly well with one-another.

>Can create weapons out of energy with your mind? Magically high-accuracy/damage? Well, excellent wrenches, drills and scalpels too!

>You control the elements? Party should probably be damn comfortable no matter the weather, and no one should ever worry about running out of flint or cooking fuel

>The lightning blaster aligator-clips his own nipples and powers the electric bronze chariot

Have you or anyone on the dev team read Lord of Light? It's my absolute favourite version of the divine heroes setting/story. I'd love to run a game in the style of it one day, but I've never found a system which would quite do it justice.

The tl;dr is science-fantasy colony world ruled by superhuman immortals taking the names and identities of Hindu gods, blending themes and styles of myths and epics with human drama and century long schemes and conspiracies. Well worth a read if nothing else.

>>48688628
I have not. Can't speak for the team, but I've got a local library and time to kill.

>>48688549
Mechanics is definitely looking to do some stuff related to this, aye.

>>48688864

The author is Roger Zelazny, for Lord of Light. I hope it provides inspiration, or at least entertainment, in your creative endeavors!

>>48688095
>At least one of the genres inspiring Dawnborn has a...particular...relationship with death
You've got me curious now. I can't help wondering if it's like Mythender. That system has its share of problems but the death mechanics were quite elegant and fit the conceit of the game.

>>48688402
>All Dawnborn can fight or contribute to a fight to an extent.
That's good. Looking forward to seeing how that works.

>>48688095
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UigzN-4JR14

But can you make a metaplot that's a big of a clusterfuck as kingdom hearts?


What about laser weapons with lantern motifs for the dawnborn?

>>48688549
Not gonna lie, I laughed at the alligator clips comment. Which is awkward, given I'm at work and phone-posting.

Anyway, some of you might know me from /Pfg/, but for those that don't I'm one of DSPs devs, a math and mechanics nut. I'm on this team for much the same reason, to assess probabilities and mechanical impact of any rules we play with. Nothing specific to report right now, but the MnM shell we started with is preparing to go away entirely on the next update.

>>48688220
Possibly the OP? I don't see the appeal in Dawnborn, although I have to thank these threads for drawing my attention to Godbound, but I keep getting these threads at the top of my catalog because they mention Exalted.

Also, maybe that's why I don't like Dawnborn.

>*Don't like the way Exalted tries to do "bronze age heroism, fantasy superheroes, improving a dark world" but screws up the rules for it?
>*Don't like the grognardy OSR way that Godbound does "bronze age heroism, fantasy superheroes, improving a dark world"?

No and no. I like both of those things. Especially the way that Exalted screws up its rules. I like complicated rules, although I also like Godbound's simpler rules for the same basic thing.

>>48689253
I will note that whoever keeps starting this thread isn't with us. Those aren't claims DSP's making.

>>48689253
You like how exalted's mechanics masterfully countered the fluff, story and setting at every tick?

>>48689345
we noticed.
well some of us did.

>>48690361
That feels like an overstatement. I'm sure there are points where that's true, but if you look at the broad strokes that are critical to the setting, like "the Exalted are so superior to mortals that mortals are essentially irrelevant to the politics of Creation", then it's hard to argue that the rules don't back that up.

>>48690616

It's true for some pretty major elements of the setting. By 2e rules, the Great Usurpation makes no sense. If you look at the stats of those involved, it's literally impossible. Which undermines one of the major historical events which makes the current setting possible. And that's just the most egregious example.

>>48690361
The mechanics also masterfully countered the mechanics.

>>48690712
Are you sure about that? 2e combat boils down to perfect defenses and mote attrition, so it's almost the ideal system for a situation in which the near-invincible demigods of the setting are taken down by sheer force of numbers. The Solars were outnumbered ten thousand to one by the Dragonbloods. Zeal only gets you so far in that situation.

>>48690987
It's not just the combat (which had mote reactors of 20m/turn before errata), it's the "I detect a usurpation coming" foresight charms that would have told them the Usurpation was coming. You can easily write off one Solar simply not knowing or not using that charm. Ten, okay, maybe only three had it in caste/favored and none of them bothered using it or were too arrogant to believe it. Fifty, starting to stretch probability. Three hundred Solars with humongous time and XP on their hands, and half a dozen more charms of that sort, "I can tell you are plotting a usurpation", "People will tell me any rumors they hear of usurpations", etc. and the Usurpation starts to become thoroughly mechanically impossible.

>>48688402
>each takes on different roles both in and out of combat
Just like Strike, you mean.

>>48690616
>>48690987
It's unfortunately extremely true.
The broad stroke you mentioned IS one of them in fact!!!
Any mortal with a maul could - if they get lucky - one or two-shot a solar if the solar doesn't have his invulnerability combo on (so any time before Essence 3 is a pretty good chance)

The usurpation, as stated, would've been flat out impossible at every last step of the way:
>The social charms and ability to alter everyone's intimacies in particular with speeches,etc makes people thinking negatively of them impossible. These same abilities are what let their lunar pets take horrific beatings with a "thank you sir may I have another" attitude btw.

>Any kind of grumbling or dissent would have been detected long before it grew. It couldn't NOT have. It would literally take hundreds of years of NO solar EVER seeing, hearing, talking-to or fucking (and we know they did a lot of that last one) any kind of sidereal, dragon-blood, lunar OR BUREAUCRACY in order for these thoughts not to have been caught ever.

>Even if somehow it had made it there, which it couldn't, the great divination of the fates+sids had a chance of being known. There's 300 solars, so even if we split up so that only 4-5 of each HIGH ESSENCE SOLAR has a single charm tree (yeah, right) that chance is still decent of happening.

>Surprise at the usurpation is impossible. Literally, RETROACTIVELY impossible. Any solar with that surprise-negator charm literally turns around and says "no you didn't" to the entire fucking affair being suddenly-sprung on them.

>If there were even five Throwing charm users at E4+ in the *300 solar deliberative*, every single usurper - DB, Sid or otherwise - automatically gets blindsided by five attacks as a mote-free interrupting counteraction to... them attempting to roll init/joint-battle. That's right. Everyone. As an interrupt. To "roll initiative". EVERY. ONE.

And then, reactor dawns.

>>48693423
>These same abilities are what let their lunar pets take horrific beatings with a "thank you sir may I have another" attitude btw.
Wasn't that the Glorious Solar Leash installed directly into their exaltation so that it's impossible for them to hate their Solar?

>>48693474
Something like that.
The worst is 2e has you pay for your lunar's solar bond. As in, "this costs you points".

>But it's a drawback. all it does is make it harder to go against your solar and gives you penalties against the solar mindfucking you
Yes. That's why it costs YOU, the LUNAR, points.

>But it's a flaw. a penalty.
Yes. Because you're a Lunar. You WANT to take it up the ass from your Solar.

>BUT IT'S A FLAW
AND IT COSTS YOU POINTS.

>>48693474
They can hate, they just have a really really hard time resisting.

By the time the solars now return, Lunars tend to have a "I want every one of its incarnations to die a horrible death forever" view tempered by a horrific fear of "and if he talks to me before I pull this off I'll be on my back begging to take it harder"

>>48693509
At least 2e didn't have the "If you ever stop being a barbarian, you lose your exaltation" bullshit that 1e had.

I wonder how 3e is going to make Lunars awful. Maybe have Solars be able to steal their shape-shifting?

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>>48688095
So what inspirations are you taking anyways? I figure a lot of modern RPGs are gonna wind up borrowing from Dark Souls if only due to its extreme popularity.

Tell me about the status on Dragon derived PCs tho, daddy needs his Breath of Fire fix.

>>48689038
>>At least one of the genres inspiring Dawnborn has a...particular...relationship with death
>You've got me curious now. I can't help wondering if it's like Mythender. That system has its share of problems but the death mechanics were quite elegant and fit the conceit of the game.

He just means superhero comics. No one ever stays dead in superhero comics.

>>48693612
That awkward feel when I haven't played any Souls games but almost all of my friends have.

Define 'dragon-derived' for me. That's likely (hell, more than likely) a theme you can angle at, sure, and with previous discussion on making non-human Dawnborn it shouldn't be hard, but I doubt we're labeling anything in particular as draconic.

>>48693967
Hi, I was in the first thread you made and asked about what it was you were taking from superhero comics other than just superpowers, and you said primarily the tone. You do realise that superhero comics have lots of different tones, right? They run the gamut from Adam West Batman to Christopher Nolan Batman.
It sounded to me like you're going for a pulpy, campy tone. Would you say that's right?

>>48694139
Pulpy and campy sound about right, yes. Even the grimmest of comic heroes often have elements that are, to be frank, a bit absurd. I wanna capture some of that, or even a lot of that.

Hell, history & fantasy even give an avenue for it - heraldry.

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>>48693967
Try Demons Souls, it's like 20 bucks on PSN and basically tells you everything you need to know about the Souls games in terms of gameplay and themes.

anyways Breath of Fire, another capcom game, this one sacrificed on the altar of sales after a rogue like was given the name without having much in common with the mainline series.

Typically follows a cast of humanoids who can turn into animals, anthropomorphic animals and weirder stuff like sapient plant people or disincorporated gods crammed into suits of armor.

In this case 'Draconic' means a person who can transform into a dragon and who has dragon derived magical abilities and resistances.

Shades of Exalted Dynasts but with bloodline 5 level powers and dragon transformations.

>>48693967
Souls games are what happens when someone decides to reduce quite how much content they need for a big, beautiful world of an exploration game by making it "Nintendo-Hard". A lot of the game is built around dying and trying again "now that you know there's deathtrap here"

>>48695017
eh 'hard' is a bit much. honestly if you pay attention the games aren't that difficult. There's a bit of grind there but really aside from grinding to get that extra oomph you need to beat a boss the games aren't as hard as the hype machine would suggest.

>>48695017
Looks like somebody's bitter about their inability to git gud.

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>>48695017
I disagree. Dark Souls (referring to the Souls series in general really) isn't a hard game ***if you know what you're doing***. The problem is that the game is extremely poor at explaining how the mechanics and equipment works. I've played two of the games and still have no idea how exactly Armour, Carry Capacity, and Poise work in any of them. The fact that the mechanics keep changing between games, but the names stay the same, is infuriating.

This is further exacerbated by the fact that experimenting in Dark Souls punishes players for experimenting with different builds and approaches. You can't re-spec your character easily, death often has semi-permanent consequences, and consumables are either finite or require tons of grinding to acquire. This leads to players either sticking with a sub-optimal build out of necessity and frustration or asking other people how to play, and that's bad game design IMO.

Dark Souls isn't 'Nintendo-Hard' like Battletoads; that game required pattern memorization and reflexes beyond most people's ability. Dark Souls is just incredibly unintuitive and punishes players who experiment or try different approaches. It's like playing an untranslated Korean MMO on an empty server - you check the wiki or you make a crappy character and muddle your way through.

And yet, I still love the series for its approach to world-building, its level design, and its atmosphere. It's like a Terry's Chocolate Orange wrapped in barbed wire on a pedestal tied to a rabid dog. It's a frustrating, crazy thing to want but I swear to you that the reward tastes all the sweeter for the effort you put in.

>>48696582
Poise doesn't even work in the third one.

Is sorcery still utterly fucked by shit growth in the third as well, or had they patched that?

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>>48696725
I've only played Dark Souls 1 and Dark Souls 2 but from what I can tell sorcery has never been viable in PvP. It's alright in PvE in those games, though I always favoured miracles and the Cleric-style characters. Maybe I'm a fool, but I think it's better to serve in heaven than rule in hell. Becoming the Lord of the Dark or whatever is pointless, being 'King of the Hill' doesn't matter when you live on Shit Mountain.

I'm really disappointed with Poise. It's an interesting CRPG mechanic that I'd love to see work in a tabletop game. Sacrificing attack power or accuracy to possibly stun or interrupt your opponent, or perhaps having a meter representing damage that makes you skip a turn once it fills... those would both be pretty interesting to have. The difficult part would be making them fun mechanics, because generally speaking anything that stops you from being able to take actions during battle... well, those mechanics usually suck. Nobody likes to be side-lined while the fight keeps going. 13th Age, interestingly enough, has a 'Fighting in Spirit' mechanic to give some power or agency to 'downed' PCs and their players, and thankfully that game has precious few Save of Die/Suck effects if any.

Apologies, quite a digression. I think Poise or a similar mechanic could be quite fun to play around with. Maybe in Dawnborn, even?

>>48696725
I think there were slight buffs to some spells. You can still avoid all projectiles just by moving left or right, no rolling required.

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>>48690361
>>48690616
>>48690712
>>48690823
>>48690987
>>48691067
>>48693423
>>48693474
>>48693509
>>48693530
>>48693552

>talking about Strike for 8 posts = not okay
>talking about Godbound for 30 posts = okay
>talking about Exalted for 11 posts = okay

Good to see Dawnborn General has its priorities straight.