/twewy/ - The World Ends With You TTRPG

What is the World Ends With You?
It's a strikingly original Square Enix action RPG from 2008 for the Nintendo DS about trust, collective consciousness, desperation, imagination and fabulous outfits. Characters are swept into the Underground, a parallel dimension of Tokyo's Shibuya district, where they run through a 7-day gauntlet of tasks and trials by higher-plane beings called Reapers. Band together and win the Reapers' Game and you have a shot at returning to the Real World. Fail, and you face erasure.

>What is this?
This is a Veeky Forums Homebrew Project to create a tabletop RPG based on the above game. The goal is to create something that's fast and exciting, incorporating most if not all of the mechanics from the game and fleshing them out with new ideas that fit the themes. And what are those themes?

>Cooperation
A Player in the Reapers' Game can't survive on their own. The Players are arranged into a party where they share combat power, pass stacking buffs to one another (quite literally, in the form a "light puck") and must stay in the fight together.

We're also working a Trust and Synchronization mechanics which measure how in-touch you are with other Players.

>Powers
Players have access to powerful abilities called Psychs which they use to battle Noise, monsters spawned from human struggles and psychological dissonance that plague the Underground. These take the form of Pins that players collect and wear and activate to use their power.

>Fashion
Spend your precious time in the Reapers' Game shopping high-end boutiques or thrift stores for a new pair of skinny jeans or a worn parka that gives you extra attack power or modifies your battle combo!

>What system are you using?
Right now we're working with the system used in an actual Japanese tabletop RPG, Tenra Bansho Zero. Roll a dice pool equal to one of your Stats (Rhythm, Flow, Insight and Bravery), and count each die that's under the Skill or Psych you're using as a success.

Other urls found in this thread:

docs.google.com/document/d/15kJXvBVinsbst0tMWmzwaUj5ddk0hotd3nifw3Hs720/edit
docs.google.com/document/d/1yjonEzY_gVzJm5FyYksoDnx1otVEBpjAA8K1Ozw3eZU/edit
docs.google.com/document/d/16Uc3YJ-yRMoDhNc90EK5Ao0WOrubO0Gnl8ixIYQOEZs/edit
docs.google.com/document/d/1850Ubwvdlqe0_9hk176tZ91-ykkJFlHX2XeS2VAA5Gw/edit
strawpoll.me/10545485
youtube.com/watch?v=i0569Wt-cZ0
twitter.com/NSFWRedditGif

>What have you done so far?
Here's our main document, which contains all of our ideas recorded en masse:
>docs.google.com/document/d/15kJXvBVinsbst0tMWmzwaUj5ddk0hotd3nifw3Hs720/edit

We also have a couple supplementary documents:

The Psychlopedia
>docs.google.com/document/d/1yjonEzY_gVzJm5FyYksoDnx1otVEBpjAA8K1Ozw3eZU/edit
This is a rundown of all the Psychs in the source game. As we develop the system these will be fleshed out with actual mechanics.

The Thread Count:
>docs.google.com/document/d/16Uc3YJ-yRMoDhNc90EK5Ao0WOrubO0Gnl8ixIYQOEZs/edit
This is going to catalog the various Threads (clothing) and Brands from the source game, as a resource for GMs to use in their own games.

The Couture Matrix:
>docs.google.com/document/d/1850Ubwvdlqe0_9hk176tZ91-ykkJFlHX2XeS2VAA5Gw/edit
Rules for randomly rolling new Threads.

>What's on the Agenda?
We're still puzzling out how Trust is going to work. We don't know what it's going to do quite yet, but we hope it'll be good.

We've also made some headway on progression of characters, but we haven't cemented it down yet.

There's still a lot to do beyond that, though.

Previous Thread:

Nice, new thread

"Pick it up, Phones!"

"I'm there!"

Hey Jazzman, what horrible timezone do you live in anyway?

Alright I added the Soul-Sync system to the google doc as of last night, so that's in there for our consideration. Here's the premise in brief, as summarized at the end of the document.

>Earn PROPS by good roleplaying and impressing your fellow players
>Convert Props into SYNC by making Tag Rolls at the end of each Day
>Spend Sync for temporary advantages and permanent Skill boosts
>Spending Sync increases your SOUL
>Reduce your Soul by modifying your Tags and improving your Stats at the end of each Day

In response to Jazzman's post last thread:
>I don't know how you guys' groups work, but what about pooled Sync, with our trusty Trust stat functioning as what we roll below, and have Trust as trust within the party (which will increase per day or something). People who don't earn many sync won't fall behind, but they also won't be contributing to the Soul gain.

Hmmmm that's a possibility. What do you mean though when you say that Trust would be the stat we roll under?

>It's a gentle persuasion for the team to work together to gain as much sync as possible, as opposed to everyone growing individually.
That would work though it's more self-serving in the Props phase because player are offering up Props to each other with the understanding that they'll be going into one big pool that they can all use anyway; if that's the case then there's not much of a point in even handing out Props in the first place.

>The problem with it being gained from battle is that grinding can become an issue, depending on how much each prop translates into sync, and that into soul. I'd prefer it if we could gain enough out of combat to make up for not grinding.
Battles are scenes as well as anything else in the game, meaning that players have their supply of Props they can hand out according to the rules. That's why the GM being mindful of time is important, to prevent the players from just trying to hunt noise all day.

>This. I like this. It also means you can power up each day as oppose to missing a day with the old version (because you would have to change props into sync at the end of the first day instead of advancing).
Well to be fair the start of the First Day is the start of the game so it wouldn't make sense for players who've just created their characters to then level them up as their first order of business. I thought there was some consensus that it was a good idea for Stats and other core values to increase at the end of each Day, which this system supports.

Also at the start of the game everyone makes Tag Rolls to accumulate a starting pool of Sync. It won't be that big but that's okay because you don't want a huge pile of brownie points when players are still learning the game, and it's natural that Sync would be low when the game begins.

Also don't forget again that Sync can also come from food, which is kind of an idea I'd like to keep in some capacity, as weird as it is.

The wonderful timezone of Aus. I think it's +13 or something.

I was talking to you guys around 3 am last night. Fun-derful.

You roll (Props) at the end of each day to gain Sync, with your stat to roll under being your Trust stat, meaning the higher your party's Trust, the more Soul they each gain.

>there's not much of a point in even handing out Props in the first place.
Not entirely true. Props are still necessary, and if one person isn't adding to the progression then they're effectively weakening the rest of the team. Make it so the players can't give out props and just give them out yourself for when the players do something fitting or something really well.

>I thought there was some consensus that it was a good idea for Stats and other core values to increase at the end of each Day, which this system supports.
There is, but I don't think players could gain much props on the first day, meaning they wouldn't have Sync day 2, which means they wouldn't have Soul until the end of day 3, literally half the week in. Having them able to advance on Day 2 fits the timing, as well as makes tracking 3 stats that can change easily into 2 stats that change easily.

>Tag Rolls to accumulate a starting pool of Sync.
Something to start with. Nice. However, what's the Tag roll made with?

Western Oz is in +8. I don't think there is a +13.

East Oz, but yes. You're probably right.

Actually, you're right. As we currently have it you get Stats by investing your Soul, which you only get by spending Sync,and on Day 1 your Sync pool is pretty small.

This isn't a problem in TBZ because you don't get Stat points from Karma, you get it by spending Kiai, just like skill points, but it is a problem if we're linking Stats to Soul in this system.

Then again it's not really that bad, because a point in a Stat just gives you another die to roll, and you can buy dice with Sync at a 1:1 rate, so deficiencies like that can be caught-up with pretty quickly.

We could also just decouple Stats from Soul entirely and just award each player like 2 Stat points at the end of each day. That would certainly make it easier for the GM to have certain expectations for player ability each day. Which I'm personally all for because it seems easier and more controlled.

>just award each player like 2 Stat points at the end of each day.
That'd make life easier, that's for sure. If we remove Skills from that system too, we could make it a system that grants bonus dice and more AP, meaning we wouldn't need it to be balanced by everyone gaining it together.

On the flip side of that, if we don't remove them and instead have it based on cooperation to gain sync which can be used to get temporary buffs, which then becomes soul to permanently power up characters, it might be a much more team based experience, as stated in my previous post here:
>if one person isn't adding to the progression then they're effectively weakening the rest of the team.

>That'd make life easier, that's for sure. If we remove Skills from that system too, we could make it a system that grants bonus dice and more AP, meaning we wouldn't need it to be balanced by everyone gaining it together.
Also true. I'm leaning towards that as the simpler, more controlled solution, with Sync acting as device for acquiring aptitude on the fly.

Still not sold on group Sync, though. I definitely understand the reasoning behind it but I like it more as a representation of personal investment in the group rather than group cohesion. Individual Sync pools would also work better when the Fusion system you and I have been talking about, where you pay a certain amount of Sync to trigger it once the battle reaches a certain point. If we have group Sync then it's just an all-around reduction instead of each Player pitching in his share. It also kind of messes with the Sync-Soul economy; the idea is that each Player is responsible for his own Soul, but Sync is pooled then accumulating Soul is more of a group activity, since Sync spent by one person necessarily denies it from another. I suppose that's part of the idea of teamwork and cooperation-- if you hog all the Sync then others won't like you because it means they have less to use-- but it just doesn't sit as well for me.

It'd be nice to get some additonal feedback on these ideas since it's unclear if this is just something you and I are interested in or if more people are into the idea of the Sync-Soul system; once we know that we're moving ahead with it we can work out the specifics and even put up a poll.

I said what I said wrong, here's what I meant. Group sync points from Props. All props go to one pool which is rolled to get that much Sync in a collective sync pool. Each player then has that much sync the next day (say you had 12 Props, and 8 succeed in being turned into Sync, each player gets 8 Sync to play with) and it's separate for each player from there what they want to do with their own sync.

Either that or have the sync be split evenly among each player to have scaling not be an issue (Get 7 sync with 3 party members means gaining 2 each with 1 remainder carried over to the next day).

Either way could work.

I agree that we need more feedback than just us two though. Especially because I've never played TBZ before, and we're using that as a starting point.

Ohhh, so instead of each Player rolling their own Sync, everyone rolls collectively for the Sync that they each get. I actually like that.

Note though the way that Props turn into Sync. Each Prop buys one Tag:Stat roll, so a single Prop can yield between 0 Sync 10, assuming you're rolling 10 stat dice and all of them roll under your Tag. That's a best case, end game scenario though. So we could conceivably be dealing with very large numbers of Sync by the end of the game; which would be the time when Players can be pumping out higher tier Fusions that eat up their Sync. A, uh, Sync-sink, if you will.

I think I'm on board now. To make this even more about team-work, we can say that Props can be awarded for three things:

>When a Player acts in pursuit of one of his Tags
>When a Player does something particularly game-elevating
>When a Player actively helps or supports another Player, the supported Player should give a Prop to his helper.

That last one is key because it means that a major source of Props is player cooperation; the more cooperation there is, the more Props are passed around, the more collective Sync the group gets.

>Each Prop buys one Tag:Stat roll, so a single Prop can yield between 0 Sync 10, assuming you're rolling 10 stat dice and all of them roll under your Tag.

Can you... provide an explanation using examples please? I'm not the best at understanding things.

>When a Player actively helps or supports another Player, the supported Player should give a Prop to his helper.
Yes. I like this.

>Can you... provide an explanation using examples please? I'm not the best at understanding things.

Sure thing.

At the end of the First Day, R.B. has earned 6 Props. He has two Tags:

>Musician's Heart, Rank 3
>Entry Fee: Musician's Hands, Rank 2

(Basically he's a musician and loves music, and his Entry Fee was his ability to play music on his own)

His highest Stat is Flow, at 5, so for each Prop he makes a Musician's Heart:Flow roll with 5 dice, aiming at rolling under a 3.

>1st Roll: 0
>2nd Roll: 2
>3rd Roll: 1
>4th Roll: 3
>5th Roll: 1
>6th Roll: 2

So he contributes 9 Sync in total to the Group Pool for Day 2.

Make sense?

Okay so, a Rank 3 Tag (which I assume he's starting with) is what says to roll a 3 or less, and his rolls have given him 1, 1, 2, 2, 3 (0 is 10, yes?)

This means that what he has rolled gets added up to 9 (1+1+2+2+3).

That correct?

Yup. Each success he rolls turns into 1 Sync, you roll once for each Prop you're cashing in.

It means the total Sync that the Players can swing pretty wildly, but that's part of the fun of it. You never quite know how things are going to go for you, but you've got your bros to get your back.

And again you can also make-up for missing Sync by eating food.

>Each success he rolls turns into 1 Sync
Hang on, is it 1 sync for each success or the total value of what you have rolled as successes?

>make-up for missing Sync by eating food.
I assume that that would be something akin to "false" sync, where you do gain sync, but the sync you gain from food would not translate into soul.

1 per Success, where a Success is defined as a die that rolls equal to or under the target number.

So if R.B. rolls 5d10 (his Stat) and his TN is 4 (his Skill), and his rolls are 1,3,4,5,8, then he gets 3 Successes. If this roll is R.B. trading in Props for Sync, it would translate to 3 Sync.

Sorry if that was unclear before.

>I assume that that would be something akin to "false" sync, where you do gain sync, but the sync you gain from food would not translate into soul.
No I think it's straight-up regular Sync. Sync only increases your Soul when its used, so if you add like 10 Sync from a meal that you really love but don't do anything with it then it doesn't affect your Soul.

That's the idea though. We haven't work-shopped it yet so it's entirely up in the air. Food isn't a terribly high priority yet.

Hello and good morning /twewy/!

I'm liking the ideas that are being talked about so far, and about sync for each day being regarded as a group pool. So in general you would always pick your highest stat and your highest ranked Tag?

What do the different ranks of Tags mean in this case?

Perhaps we should decouple stat increases from soul, or alternatively have the GM gate stat increases from soul. I proposed in another thread a kind of "cap the day" mechanic in which the party gathers together at a cafe or restaurant at the end of each Day. During this closing period, the characters roll for the next day's sync, spend soul on modifying Tags, and are able to buy specialty food (or stickers or what have you) that permanently increases stats or skills, typically stats. If my original idea about trust was followed, this would also be an opportunity for players to make a daily roll (or choose, whichever we go with) to increase or decrease their trust in other players, and a chance for players to talk with one another in-character without the time mechanic pressing down on them. More or less a built-in wind-down.

I was envisioning it as somewhat similar to Catherine, if any of you have played that, in the sense that the Days/Missions are somewhat time-pressed and frantic with action afoot, and afterwards players perform a few rolls of lenient bookkeeping and, if the group wishes, have a quiet moment to talk to one another or NPCs, or shop for new threads or pins. Naturally, the mission timing should allow for talking to NPCs and shopping and the like.

Okay, now I understand.

>I think it's straight-up regular Sync.
Fair enough. I think if we go combined sync like I suggested though, we should have it as false sync. A sort of "good food, good mood" deal.

lemme reformat my suggestion for Trust and it's effect in battle. This definitely isn't set in stone since this assumes a set Puckpass order.

Trust is a stat that you have for each bond with another character. Trust is lowest at 0 and highest at 5, with possibly differing levels on each partner of the bond.

Many rolls will involve trying to roll under the combined Trust of a bond. Teamwork and gaining Sync rely on each person trusting the other.

But, having high Trust with someone enables them to Betray you for some other goal, temporarily gaining an advantage against you and resetting Trust to 0 at the end of the Day.
This is compounded if you told that someone your Entry Fee in order to gain a quick boost in Trust. They can very quickly damage and/or kill you if you aren't careful.

At the end of a Day, you can attempt to raise Trust normally by rolling over the Trust you currently have for them.

>Combat
Trust is also used in a variety of ways in Combat.

The combined PARTY Trust is put up against the initiative of the Enemy(possibly rolled) to determine turn order.

The combined Trust you have in all party members determines your turn order. The higher you are, the later you act in relation to your allies.

When receiving the Puck from someone, you add your Trust in them to the multiplier of the Puck.

The combined Trust in a bond determines the strength of their Fusion attacks, which is a supermove that uses up both character's turns/AP for the round.

To steal from RnF here then having a higher ranked Tag would mean you are more likely to gain sync for the next day. Going from Tag 3 to Tag 4 means rolling 4 or less for Sync in comparison to rolling 3 or less.

>have the GM gate stat increases from soul.
Just limit it to one rank per stat each day or something. Gradual growth is what you want from TWEWY anyway. If you want a faster week or more progression, make it two ranks per stat per day.

Cap the day sounds like an interesting mechanic, but you can also do all that at the end of each day anyway out of play. The cafe would explain how they're spending their soul, if it's a reaper cafe, as per my suggestion last thread.

>When receiving the Puck from someone, you add your Trust in them to the multiplier of the Puck.
While this sounds good on paper, mechanically I'm worried that that's going to break the game. If we generate 6 AP, and everyone in the party has 3 trust in one another, then in just two passes of the puck people are getting double AP. This means that encounters will be difficult to manage because a party with the puck will be overpowered and a party without, underpowered. I was going to suggest something like an increase of 1 AP per successful pass. We've yet to playyes though.

No, what I'm saying is, RP-wise, what would a higher ranked Tag mean? Also, are we going with the idea of being able to invoke Tags to gain bonus dice or be able to perform special actions on things pertaining to one's Tags?

And, yes, "limit it to one rank per stat each day" is exactly what I meant by gating stat increases. I wanted to give that power to the GM rather than to us.

As for capping the day, that sort of thing can absolutely be done out of play and typically is in most systems. I thought that having it an actual "thing" would be nice, though, especially if the characters can in-character discuss what to get at the cafe and whatnot. I was indeed thinking of your suggestion with regards to the cafe -- we can regard it as specialty reaper food that solidifies your personal growth (soul or some such) into a mechanical ability to better affect the UG, as if one's frequency were growing more stable.

Since sync is shared, I thought it would be good to introduce a reason for everyone to stay at the table and perform bookkeeping rolls and advancement rather than break apart and end up handling that offhandedly. That might come from my own experience, such as That One Player who always forgets to spend xp.

>people are getting double AP
wait, Puck gives you AP? I thought AP is only the spare amount you didn't use on your turn, and the multiplier is to damage, like in the game?

On the other hand, I just realized that having Trust blatantly stated like that would eliminate any way to "hide" the low Trust you have in someone.

Are we hiding DCs?

>Many rolls will involve trying to roll under the combined Trust of a bond. Teamwork and gaining Sync rely on each person trusting the other.
>But, having high Trust with someone enables them to Betray you for some other goal, temporarily gaining an advantage against you and resetting Trust to 0 at the end of the Day.
>This is compounded if you told that someone your Entry Fee in order to gain a quick boost in Trust. They can very quickly damage and/or kill you if you aren't careful.
These are nebulous sentences, please expand these further and/or provide examples.

Also, how is trust gained?

>The combined PARTY Trust is put up against the initiative of the Enemy(possibly rolled) to determine turn order.
>The combined Trust you have in all party members determines your turn order. The higher you are, the later you act in relation to your allies.
Why? How does this work, from a narrative perspective? Are you just being polite? I'd imagine in a fight you'd abandon your manners pretty quick after a fight starts.

>When receiving the Puck from someone, you add your Trust in them to the multiplier of the Puck.
I agree, or perhaps add it to the puck, like a point system that builds slowly until you can use fusion.

>The combined Trust in a bond determines the strength of their Fusion attacks, which is a supermove that uses up both character's turns/AP for the round.
My only concern is how fusion works with multiple partners like this system is going to inevitably be. Rule 1, don't split the party.

>These are nebulous sentences, please expand these further and/or provide examples.
These were all taken from above posts/other anons in the previous threads, so I'll need to go over them again to find the exact terms.

>Why? How does this work, from a narrative perspective? Are you just being polite? I'd imagine in a fight you'd abandon your manners pretty quick after a fight starts.
You are pitting the fluidity of your teamwork against the raw feral speed of Noise. Rather than relying purely on reaction speed, you work by acting in sync with your party members. Lower Trust units act first because they are less able to "follow-through" with the actions of their allies.

>My only concern is how fusion works with multiple partners like this system is going to inevitably be. Rule 1, don't split the party.
yeah, we haven't really defined the Fusion system too well yet.

>Are we hiding DCs?
Not normally. For most Player actions, the DC is the number that they are rolling under, and most of that the time that's either a Skill or a Psych, so you know exactly what your Success threshhold is.

What he means is that if you're adding your Trust as AP when you pass the puck, then with 3 Trust you'll be at double AP after two passes. Clearly out of control.

>Not normally
ah, so we can't have situations where a character secretly has low Trust in someone else. It's pretty easy to determine Trust by comparing the DC with your Trust in them.

>What he means is that if you're adding your Trust as AP when you pass the puck
like I said: since when was Trust added to AP? I thought the puck was mainly for Damage Multiplier, which is what I'm adding the Trust to. The AP cache is only whatever unused AP you have when you passed the puck.

>No, what I'm saying is, RP-wise, what would a higher ranked Tag mean? Also, are we going with the idea of being able to invoke Tags to gain bonus dice or be able to perform special actions on things pertaining to one's Tags?

From the TBZ manual, translated into our terminology:
>The higher the Tag’s rating, the more the character feels strongly about that particular Tag. Tag assist in the conversion of Props to Sync points, as well as showing the psychological state of the character: Essentially what they care about, and how much they care about it.

So really it's MOSTLY a roleplaying thing. We could say that you can add your Ranks of a Tag as dice for a certain roll, but gaining bonus dice with Sync is fairly easy already so that may not even be necessary.

>ah, so we can't have situations where a character secretly has low Trust in someone else.
Which is why using Trust in that way is a somewhat difficult prospect. The only real way is for the GM to keep track of Trust in secret, but that leads to situations where one Player wants to do something involving another Player and the GM shoots it down as "You don't Trust that Player enough to do that" which in my opinion isn't a great way to play.

>like I said: since when was Trust added to AP? I thought the puck was mainly for Damage Multiplier, which is what I'm adding the Trust to. The AP cache is only whatever unused AP you have when you passed the puck.
I don't recall that being brought up earlier, I think it's more of a new idea that is fairly controversial. I'm more of a fan of the Puck giving a static +1 or 2 AP to whoever holds it, full damage against Taboo Noise, and using its passes to track the escalation of Fusion potential. But that's just my opinion, and it's a point we've been stuck at for a while.

Right now there are a bunch of ideas for what the Puck can do, and I think we can maybe put it to a poll to see how everyone feels about it. Not to rule out options but just to get a more qualitative analysis of options.

Let me know if I'm missing anything:

When someone gets the puck passed to them, they...
>...gain +2 AP as long as they are holding it
>...gain AP equal to the Trust of the person who passed it to them
>...gain AP equal to the cumulative Trust that's been passed around
>...gain a damage boost
>...increase the Fusion counter by 1

Am I missing anything? I left out "ignore Taboo Noise damage reduction" because that's canon to the game and would be easily to implement.

What does fluid teamwork have to do with the speed of your actions? If you move slowly, but someone else on your team moves fast and you're his best friend, why does the fast guy move after the slow guy? And why would you planning a follow-up attack with your fast buddy be faster than two fast guys who hate each other beating up the same (or even different) enemies?

Why can't we just have reaction times based on Flow rolls? Literally just Move:Flow and then have that also impact initiative. It's that simple. Perhaps Sense:Flow instead, because it could relate to your perception of the environment around you and your reaction speed to it with a simple rewording.

yeah, seems like it's only possible to hide Trust once players are intimately familiar with DC ratings to estimate on their own. It'll be kinda hard to get to an RP situation where you roll a semi-good roll that turns out to be a failure when one player "quickly jerks their hand back in fear" or "suddenly hesitates"

>controversial
huh. I just figured it was a matter of course that keeping the puck around to raise the damage multiplier was crucial for taking down bosses.

There's lot of ways to increase damage though. Even giving extra AP can increase Damage by allowing you to execute more attacks.

>gain AP equal to the total unused AP of the person who passed it
>add Trust value to the damage multiplier
...is there something you have against the multiplier or something? If you don't think it's a part of the game that needs to be added, you could say so.

I'm going to say both first and last options are the only necessary ones, but depending on the difficulty of combat, a damage bonus might be wise.

> If you move slowly, but someone else on your team moves fast and you're his best friend, why does the fast guy move after the slow guy?
that's easy. Haven't you ever played with someone new at a game in a coop? Instead of doing everything yourself, you wait for them to slowly do one thing right and quickly follow-up right afterwards because you know what they're trying to do?

Coordination is key to quick action. You can run as fast as you want, but if you were expecting the enemy to stand still when your partner knocks him across the room, it's going to take time to get to the position to actually hit him. Whereas if the "slow" guy(and there's no such thing as slow: heavy things tend to also move fast) already knows where to be and when to time his windup so his attack is right after the previous one.

Multipliers don't work well in tabletop games unless the numbers are very small and it doesn't use decimals. Decimals require calculators for most players which slows down combat, and numbers bigger than, say, 2 cause numbers to spiral out of control quickly and make it extremely difficult for GMs to set up challenges of known difficulty.

Now if you meant "add Trust as extra Damage" then that's a different story, because that would be one that I forgot. Was anyone proposing that?

The damage multiplier was my idea originally, before I was a namefag. It was to emulate the game. I don't think it's a necessary feature as even in the game, I never really needed it to be on me to win.

Both CAN result in damage, but to the observant one, direct damage =/= potential indirect damage or other actions. Even though more actions is better than more damage on average simply because of more possible things.

Also, and I'm sorry for dragging the conversation back to this, but in the compilation document we have the sync being added together and each person has a total amount of sync the next day equal to the amount that everyone rolled added together. Do we want players to have that much or the average gained between all players?

Another thing, were we removing the stat power-ups from the soul modifications? Because they're no longer there.

you just didn't mention it, so I've been left out of the water for a while now.

The main point is damage boost proportional to Trust. Which SHOULD be added to the poll for sure.

>Instead of doing everything yourself, you wait for them to slowly do one thing right and quickly follow-up right afterwards because you know what they're trying to do?
Yes, but what if everyone's new here? I'd assume they all are at least, because that way there's nobody playing again.

In addition to this point, what if the two friends want to attack different targets? The faster guy should go faster, surely.If the faster guy was to finish his fight first, he could go help the slower guy.

>and there's no such thing as slow
People who think slowly and react slowly (like me, for instance) totally exist. Not everybody has the same reaction speed, same as not everybody has the same mental capacity and not everybody has the same physical prowess. Some are better than others.

>Also, and I'm sorry for dragging the conversation back to this, but in the compilation document we have the sync being added together and each person has a total amount of sync the next day equal to the amount that everyone rolled added together. Do we want players to have that much or the average gained between all players?
That's up for workshopping, if everyone is sold on the Soul-Sync system.

Let's find out if we are!
>strawpoll.me/10545485

>Another thing, were we removing the stat power-ups from the soul modifications? Because they're no longer there.
Yeah I took it off because we were thinking that it was better for Stat points to be distributed directly by the GM instead of bought using Soul investment.

>Both CAN result in damage, but to the observant one, direct damage =/= potential indirect damage or other actions. Even though more actions is better than more damage on average simply because of more possible things.
Fair point. Then there are basically two options: either the Puck grants a fixed damage boost or it grants a damage boost equal to Trust. Those will be added to the list of possibilities.
Agreed, see above.

Aight, fellas. It's 1/4 to 3 here so Imma go sleep. I'll see what's what in the morning.

Appreciate your input Jazzbro. Things are starting to shape up towards genuinely productive directions, if I may say so.

>The faster guy should go faster, surely.If the faster guy was to finish his fight first
>People who think slowly and react slowly
this is really giving me a headache. Are you talking about fast as physically fast, or can react quickly?

If it is physically fast, then I just explained that there is no such thing, no difference in combat. A "slow", heavy attack moves very quickly. You are always limited by mass and momentum. If you are far away, it takes time to go help another fight. If you are close enough to help, then you should be coordinating otherwise you are a burden who can potentially hurt or be hurt by the person you're helping.

If you are talking about reaction speed, that is exactly why I am framing Trust as teamwork. You are specifically relying more on muscle memory and moving according to cues given by allies to make up for gaps in reaction speed.

which is it, and please stick to a single definition.

I'm not 100% sold on tags, but I'm down with earning Sync for temporary boosts and spending Sync to get Soul for permanent boosts.

I'm a little unclear on this shared pool thing, though.

That's fair, it's still being worked on.

Basically the idea of the shared pool is that once every finishes converting their Props into Sync at the end of the Day, they add all their Sync together to get a big number. So for example let's assume that four characters have finished their Sync conversions:

Jazz gained 5 Sync
Rock gained 4 Sync
Pop gained 7 Sync
R.B. gained 3 Sync

With the shared pool idea, the total Sync that the group earned is 19, so on the next Day each character starts with 19 Sync.

The result is that everyone gets lots of Sync and everyone benefits from everyone else doing well, and awarding Props for actions ultimately benefits everyone instead of just the person who did the thing.

An alternate idea would be for everyone to split that pool up, so everyone starts with 5 Sync except for one Player who starts with 4.

It could work though I'm still not sold and kind of prefer the rules are written for TBZ where the Sync you get from converting Props is yours alone. Like I said it needs workshopping.

totalling it up sounds better so you don't need to worry about rounding errors.

If only Props gives you Sync(or if we do away with Props entirely and just "earn" Sync and tally it at the end of the Day), it would vastly simplify things, so I kinda prefer that.

Yeah, I think I'm okay with that. Sync is shared, food is probably shared, but when you buy some clothing, that stuff is YOURS(unless you're okay with someone else's BO, nobody ever gets a chance to shower).

gonna have to tap out soon too, too sleepy. You'll know what happened if I don't reply.

No problem.

Yeah, the sole purpose of Props is to get Sync at the end of each day. We could award Sync directly, but I personally like the extra gamey-ness of the intermediary step.

The way I see it, once each Day begins, Players can add to their own personal Sync supply with food, but we can talk about that once we get into food in detail, which again is not a major priority for us.

One of the original purposes of Tags was to give a way to rank up and use skills beyond the ones that were specified

We don't have to make Sync add bonus dice on a 1:1 ratio -- we could make things more costly. That said, I'm personally in favour of dealing with smaller numbers.

I believe that we were considering AP because it allows the recipient of the puck to do what they need to do, instead of being forced to do damage. That said, under the combo system, damage will be incentivised anyway, so we could add to damage instead.

>ah, so we can't have situations where a character secretly has low Trust in someone else
I'm still hoping that we can scale back the use of Trust in combat in order to have Trust be a hidden stat, because otherwise the "point" to it is missing and there's no need for it as a mechanic. Allow me to provide an example:

Imagine a three-player party of Pop, Rock, and Metal. Pop has 4 Trust in Rock and 5 in Metal; Rock has 1 in Pop and 7 in Metal; and Metal has 3 in Pop and 6 in Rock.

Metal is attempting to Protect Rock from something arbitrary, say falling rocks. The GM declares that Metal needs 3 successes, but Metal only rolls 2 successes. Metal can then ask Rock to trust him, and rerolls one of his dice. Rock's Trust in Metal is now 6. The die is unsuccessful, and so Metal asks for Rock to trust him again, and rerolls. Rock's Trust in Metal is now 5, but Metal is successful at saving Rock's life. Because of the success, Rock might be able to immediately roll to regain some of that trust that he pawned, or might have to wait until the Day's end, depending on how we choose to deal with trust increases.

On the other hand, if the same scenario occurred with Pop and Metal, then after spending one trust, Pop would refuse to trust Metal to save him since Pop would now have 0 trust in Metal. This shouldn't happen that often.

May I ask as to what you think of Tags, what your concerns are with the concept and/or implementation, and if you have any alternatives? I'm asking so that we can change, replace, or remove the mechanic if needed.

While I like the gameyness of props, I'm worried that it's just another thing for players to worry about. That said, since sync is only totalled at the end of the day (so that you lose sync all day and gain props all day), I'm okay with it, I suppose.

>Imagine a three-player party of Pop, Rock, and Metal.
I hope that means Jazz and R.B. were able to reincarnate...

Which still works just fine. Tags function the same as Skills (they tell you the TN you roll your Stat dice pool under). As in my example earlier in the thread, R.B. has a Tag "Musician's Heart", so he can roll Musician's Heart:Insight to invoke his knowledge of music, M.H:Flow or M.H:Rhythm to play something appropriate to those stats (if he's able to reclaim his Entry Fee at least), or M.H.:Bravery to rush in and prevent a fellow musician from being harmed.

>I believe that we were considering AP because it allows the recipient of the puck to do what they need to do, instead of being forced to do damage. That said, under the combo system, damage will be incentivised anyway, so we could add to damage instead.
I think the system is streamlined enough that the Puck can have several functions at once, so it can grant a little bit of AP AND a damage boost, in addition to its functions of increasing the Fusion Counter and bypassing Taboo armor.

The REAL question is, how much AP/Damage? Should they be fixed amounts? Should they be dependent upon Trust? Or the number on the Fusion Die?

>While I like the gameyness of props, I'm worried that it's just another thing for players to worry about. That said, since sync is only totalled at the end of the day (so that you lose sync all day and gain props all day), I'm okay with it, I suppose.

Precisely. All Players need to know during gameplay is that More Props=More Better. They don't do anything with them until the Day's end.

Also, gaining Props instead of Sync from other players means, like you said, that you always Gain Props and Lose Sync, which in turn means that you can't offset the Sync cost of doing something by receiving Sync from another player. You cannot spend 1 Sync to gain a die and have another Player say "that was awesome!" and toss you 1 Sync, effectively giving you a free die. Props prevent that from happening.

I picked random player names.

I will say one thing: I think that the fusion die should increase regardless of whether or not the puck was passed successfully, or if the fusion is somehow set aside otherwise. I would rather not punish players threefold for not passing the puck. Since we're passing the puck based on performing a combo (I believe, is what people decided), then losing the puck means that (1) you didn't do enough damage last turn and (2) you just lost the damage.

I'm of the opinion that the fusion counter should increase each time the puck is passed regardless of whether or not it was successful. Then again, I'm also an advocate of fusions being per-duo, but that might be too complicated for the tabletop.

I personally think that more AP trumps a damage boost. While a single AP probably won't do touch beyond letting someone position themself better, three or four or more AP could give someone the opportunity to use two pins in one turn. Some people may purposefully have a weak, less-AP-using pin that they can use to take advantage of a small puck.

This may have been settled earlier, but what is your idea for how Fusion attacks should work? A lot has been said about it and I want to make sure I understand your current proposal.

What do you think about the use of trust as I proposed in the Rock/Pop/Metal example?

As for Fusion, certainly. Here is my proposal, in brief terms:
1. Fusions are split into tier one, tier two, and tier three. The highest tier Fusion two players may perform is based upon their combined Trust. For example, if Trust goes from 0-5, then you might need a cumulative 2 to accomplish Rank One, cumulative 5 for Rank Two, and 8 for Rank Three.
2. Once a duo has unlocked a new tier of Fusion (perhaps a sticker then becomes available for purchase next time they check the shop, or it's immediate), they can essentially custom build the Fusion that they will perform using some sort of point-buy template, wherein they can trade the ability to do damage for the ability to apply status effects, temporary boosts, etc. Basically, a way to customise their attack strategy. Alternatively it could just be straight damage.
3. During combat, every time the puck is passed between those two players, their Fusion counter increases. Once the counter reaches the threshold, they can choose to perform their Fusion (if they have higher tiers unlocked, they can also continue to build their counter). The Fusion must be performed on one of their turns, and immediately takes [x] amount of AP from both of them. If one of them doesn't have enough AP and has a Held Pin, then that pin is interrupted and the Fusion instead takes the AP. i.e. if Rock has 2 AP and the Fusion costs 6 AP, then Rock has -4 AP. During the partial refresh, he'll only get 4 AP and therefore have 0 AP during the Noise Round.
4. Higher tier Fusions require higher counter thresholds.

This might be too complicated however, as it would require keeping track of Fusion counters for each potential relationship. With 3 players it'd fine, but scaling up sounds awful. So it might be better to just go with a group fusion as you suggested.

Oh I also meant to ask what your concept of Combos are, since I'm not clear on that either.

Your concept is very accurate to the games but I think perhaps too accurate; as you said it requires tracking independent puck passes for each duo, which is prohibitive beyond a three-person party. The AP costs you're describing are also pretty complex, which will inevitably slow down combat more than we want it to, even for a two-person party.

Basically I think it's just a little overly ambitious for the tabletop platform.

I'm not the one who came up with combos so I'm not actually certain, let me give it some thought.

Yes, I'm in agreement that what I originally proposed was too complicated, and I'm more than willing to go with an alternative. That said, I think that Fusion should be in way shape or form changed or gated by Trust.

The AP costs I described were the same as the Held Pin concept that Stats Brigade Member championed, so if those are too complex, then we should examine whether players should be able to hold pins.

Alright so we have one way of handling Fusion up here: Here's another idea; this is mostly coming off the top of my head, but here we go anyway:

1. Once per turn, a Player spend 2 AP to Lend a Hand to another Player by rolling Trust:Stat (usually their highest Stat). What this means depends on the Stat used. They could roll Trust:Insight to point out a weakness or Trust:Bravery to raise their spirits, for instance. Doesn't really matter. Trust can also be used to harness the power of a Psych to give your ally an edge in some way, but you can't inflict damage or cause status effects in doing so.
2. Successes gained from Lending a Hand can go to two places. At least one Success must go to the receiving Player as a bonus die for his next action. Additional Successes can be turned over in the same way, OR they can increase the counter on the Fusion Die.
3. Once the Fusion Die reaches a certain Threshold, a Fusion Attack is possible. Cooperation is voluntary: each player involved must dedicate their full turn towards executing the Fusion, as well as a number of Sync points equal to number on the Fusion Die.
4. As I laid out in the prior thread, Fusion Attacks are totally improvised; Player can use their Psychs in any way they want and in any amount they want to describe what unfolds.

How's that sound? The idea of Lending a Hand definitely works with the mechanics of the game as well as the themes we're working on, AND it uses the Trust stat. This idea is fairly off the cuff so I'm sure there are holes in it.

Yeah I'll freely admit that I don't really "get" the Held Pin concept as I wasn't quite as involved as I am now when SBM posted the suggest AP economy.

I do agree that Fusion should be related to Trust, which it is in my above suggestion. I wish SBM was around to explain his combo system, since without that we can't get very far in Combat if it's meant to be super integral to the experience.

bumping

That works well, though Lend a Hand should be viable in of itself -- I suppose it depends on what we intend the counter to be, but spending 4 AP a turn essentially kills the possibility of passing on the puck as well since we're looking towards combos with that.

While I agree that Fusion Attacks should be improvised fluff-wise, I think it's relevant to know how much damage is done, especially if we want to have different tiers of fusion.

If I recall correctly, the idea behind combos was that each pin would have a certain amount of hits before the combo would be successful and the puck gets passed. Which is what we agreed on, if we didn't change it.

I don't think I'm quite understanding, how does each players sync ratio factor into this method of fusion attacks?

I believe that R+F is suggesting that, in order to perform the Fusion, you need to spend sync to do so.

My question is, depending on how we balance Fusion, it might actually be more worthwhile for players to simply spend that sync and AP on damage and bonus dice respectively in terms of actual damage output, especially since the Fusion attack effectively costs another 6 * (numbers of players) AP.

And, yes, that is what I also recall about combos, so presumably that is what we'll go with.

Hmm that is a good point. It also means that it's easier to increment the Fusion Die when you have more players in the game, since one will always be able to Lend a Hand without significantly reducing the party's combat effectiveness.

Guess we need a third option, probably something that implements the best of these two options.

Right, remembering this now. It's not a bad starting point.

Here's another idea: instead of linking Combos to Pins, we link them to the Players. Each Player has a combo (or set of Combos, based on his Threads), which is a certain number of Successes he needs to score during his turn. Meet that level and you can execute a free Finishing Move which does some extra damage and maybe causes an Effect.

Here's where Threads come in, because some Threads will extend or shorten the length of a combo.

A Finisher's power is relative to the length of the Combo. Longer combos are harder to achieve but have stronger Finishers, whereas shorter Combos are easy to do but have weak Finishers, but with the possibility of pulling off more than one in a single turn.

Threads can also alter the nature of a Finisher, which is a repurposing of the Threads which change the shape of a partner's combo tree.

A Player who executes a Combo while holding the light puck will pass it along to a new Player, starting in the next Player Round.

So that's another way of doing it. Not sure if it's more complex or roughly equal. SBM's idea is more rooted in the AP economy and Pin usage where this one is based more on your Stats and Sync (since a bigger pool means the chance at executing a bigger combo) as well as Thread selection.

That's probably it for me tonight, and I'll be out for most of tomorrow morning (EST). If this thread's archived at that time and there's not a new one up I'll make it.

Have a good night. I'll try to keep the thread up, and besides I'll come up with some thoughts regarding combos and possibly trust.

I'm of the opinion that combos should be tied to pins, since that was how it worked in the game, but we can certainly have Threads affect what kind of combination you have and how it works.

As for Lend a Hand, I think that every use of Lend a Hand should automatically contribute to the Fusion counter.

Real quick:

>Lend a Hand
That's a good point. It's also less work for the Players since they don't have to manually divide up their successes.

For Combos, I guess I'd need to see how the two systems work in practice to know which is better, since they're both so theoretical right now. I'd say keep them both as possibilities and test them each out.

First of all, scaling back Trust in combat specifically won't help keep Trust hidden, because we just cleared up that even without combat, the DCs given in regular play would quickly reveal Trust values. That is the entire point I asked.

Now for your example, I'm not sure if it's wise to give consumable Rerolls the same name as Trust, because of how Trust is treated as much more static. A change in Trust is supposed to be a major event. Perhaps proportional to the number of rerolls you start the day with, but not directly named the same.

Also, when you ask for a reroll, do you subtract one from both players?

>Tags
Mostly it's because I'm not familiar with Tenra Banso, so it's a bit confusing. From what I can tell, it's using personality traits as the DC for xp gain? Encourage characters with personality, I get it.

I guess the most important thing is that all Entry Fees should count as the first and primary Tag, with a standardised high rank. This ensures that EVERYONE grows just a little bit each Day, no matter what.

From there, you can have 1-2 more Tags in character creation, and possibly gain 1 more over the course of the Week?

I can agree with fusion points just rising up over time to simplify things. Maybe specific Threads grant a bonus fusion point on a successful combo, but no more than that.

Having one Fusion per pair is fine, I just think that adding different Ranks is where things might get too cluttered.

I just ran through and scrapped a couple ideas on how to fix that, though.

No, you only subtract one from the other player. The intention is that Trust will not often be consumed. In that example, one of the players was attempting to save another player's life. I mean that Trust can pawned in such dire situations. Because it takes so much effort to raise Trust, Trust should only be expended in a serious pinch. Since Trust wouldn't be used often, Trust could still be kept mostly hidden. For example, if we choose to use Trust for Fusion rank gating, and say that the Fusions are purchased via stickers that appear in the shops after the threshold Trust is reached, players might have a general idea of what the others' Trust levels are, but they wouldn't know the specifics. If we decide to have Trust be rolled at the end of the day rather than simply giving players the choice to increase or decrease by one, then we don't have to reveal those rolls at all. The only time that they would be revealed is when one of the player's Trust hits 0 and another player tries to pawn a Trust.

I suppose an astute player could figure it out, but.

Yes, the point of Tags is to encourage and incentivise roleplaying, and changing one's abilities as well. Following your character's personality, or having it be used against you, grants you experience that you can then use to , which in turn lets you modify your Tags to showcase your character's development.

Yes, the Entry Fee should be a Tag (or something related to it). I was going to suggest having a handful of other Tags for the purposes of describing a character's motivations/fears/other abilities. Perhaps something like, your Entry Fee begins at Rank 3, and you can have an additional Tag at Rank 2 and two at Rank 1, or some such, depending on how high Tags go.

The game had different ranks. The ranks shouldn't be too difficult, though. You unlock them as your Trust in one another increase. Say that a rank one Fusion requires 3 Fusion counter points, a rank two requires 6, and a rank three 10. Say a group has unlocked both the rank one and rank two Fusions. Once you get up to 3 Fusion counter points, the group can choose to activate the Rank one Fusion, or they can choose to wait until they have 6 points for the Rank Two.

I was actually working on this back on the Velocity threads, adapting their game for TWEWY, but life got in the way. love the ideas here, keep it up.

Neat, do you mind sharing anything that you might've thought up or some troubles you could've run into?

I hope that once we get over these hurdles we can start the process of stating pins and psychs. I'm waiting until the weekend to go full tilt on the Noise Report and stat as much as I can, since I'm rather busy during the weekdays.

bump with thread theme
youtube.com/watch?v=i0569Wt-cZ0

my problem is that 3 different fusions per pair is quite a lot of different choices once you get a third or fourth person in the party.

3 people: 9 fusions

4 people: 18 fusions

>Trust rerolls rare
I suppose that makes it more likely to work....

>If we decide to have Trust be rolled at the end of the day rather than simply giving players the choice to increase or decrease by one, then we don't have to reveal those rolls at all. The only time that they would be revealed is when one of the player's Trust hits 0 and another player tries to pawn a Trust.
that might be too little information. Do you at least tell the Player if their Trust increased after hiding the roll? Otherwise, it might be hard to even estimate whether you have high Trust in someone else.

>Tags
I guess I'm alright with that, then.

Morning gents!

So, Fusion.

To review we have two suggestions right now:

Archivist's Two-Way Fusion
Rhythm+Flow's Active Support Fusion
Here's a thought combining the two.

Archivist's system has the Fusion Counter increase whenever the Puck is successfully passed between two Players, and in that system each duo has their own Fusion Counter, which is the real stumbling block because it means the system becomes exponentially more complex the more Players you have in a party.

So how about this instead:

ANYTIME the puck is passed, the PARTY'S Fusion counter increases by 1. Failing to pass the puck successfully doesn't do anything to the Fusion Counter. Once the Fusion Counter reaches a certain thresh-hold, a Fusion Attack is possible, and is open to everyone in the Party willing and able to pitch in the Sync cost.

One other possibility:

At the end of each Noise Round, before the next Player Round begins, all Players make a Trust:Stat roll using their Highest Stat and their LOWEST Trust. The lowest Trust represents the limit of their faith in the party. Each Player who scores at least 1 Success increases the Fusion Counter by 1. The Fusion Counter can never increase by more than 2 per Round.

Once the Fusion Counter reaches the appropriate level, then Fusion is possible via the means that I outlined above.

This system incentivizes Players to improve their total Trust in the party, not just prioritize one person as their BFF.

I have to head out for a morning appointment, so I'll be back in a couple hours. Hopefully some feedback on the above should move us towards nailing down these mechanics today.

Good morning /twewy/! Writing fron mobile this morning so forgive any errors.

The players will always know THEIR trust in other players. It will simply be difficult to determine the trust other players have in them. For altering Trust at the end of the day, we have a few options.
(1) GM and players pass notes to announce if they want to gain or lose trust and with whom, i.e. "Rock, gain, w/ Jazz". Then the GM rolls dice and passes them each note with a success or failure comment.
(2) Same as above, but players roll their dice in public after passing the notes. GMs and players don't announce their failures or successes, but simply adjust their internal values.
(3) Players do not roll, but merely choose to raise or lower each relationship by 1.
My intention with the rolls was to make it increasingly difficult to gain more trust from a daily roll. I also intended for players to be able to roll for gain and loss of trust after RPing emotional scenes of said relationship, per GM judgment.

Regarding Fusion, I don't think that the different tiers will be difficult to keep track of. I think that a group Fusion is preferable to many duo fusions, though, so that you only need a single Fusion counter.

Hm, a lot of good ideas here. Rolling your lowest Trust is interesting. I actually like the idea of Lend a Hand to build Fusion, but providing an incentive for group trust isn't a bad idea.

We can then gate ranks of Fusion via the total group trust added together. If we have 3 players and Trust runs from 1-10, then group trust can run from 6-60. We can put a Rank One at 12, a Rank Two at 30, and a Rank Three at 48, or what have you.

>ANYTIME the puck is passed, the PARTY'S Fusion counter increases by 1. Failing to pass the puck successfully doesn't do anything to the Fusion Counter. Once the Fusion Counter reaches a certain thresh-hold, a Fusion Attack is possible, and is open to everyone in the Party willing and able to pitch in the Sync cost.

Since no one commented unfavorably on my proposal to have combat outside of bosses last only a handful of rounds, such a system would make it easy to get to a first tier fusion, while more difficult fusions would be set aside for longer battles. For example, if we're looking at 3 players, and assuming 3/6/10 requirements for Fusion, they could have a rank 1 at the end of a single Round and a rank 3 at the beginning of a fourth Round. This is fine because most combat won't proceed for that long, and the amount o Fusions one can do is dependent on sync as well.

One consideration is that groups with more players will be able to achieve Fusion much more quickly. If we say that a rank 3 Fusion costs 10 fusion counter points, a group of 2 would take five rounds and have to pitch in an average of 5 sync each, while a group of 5 would take two rounds and pitch in an average of 2 sync each. Perhaps the total sync to pitch in should be tied to the number of players in the party regardless of how many participate in a Fusion. i.e. if it's only two players, it costs 10 sync total, but if it's 5 players it might cost 25 sync total instead.

This is dependent upon how often the puck can be passed.

I'm in favor of the puck passing at the END of the Player Round, meaning that one Player holds the puck for each Round, instead of it being passed from one person to another within the Round.

So if we imagine a party of Jazz, Rock and Pop, we could say that Jazz has the puck at the start of combat and passes it to Pop at the end of the first Round. Pop now holds the puck for the duration of the second Round and passes it to Rock, who receives it at the start of the third Round. That way Fusions will rarely occur in quick, easy battles, but are more likely in drawn out, difficult battles, and may even be crucial to success.

Passing the puck within a Round seems like a recipe for confusion. It would be much easier if one Player hold the puck for an entire Round, and it moves on for the next one.

Another possibility for the Lend a Hand system is to infuse it into damage itself. Whenever you launch an attack, you can pass on at least one Success from that attack to another player as bonus dice for their next action.

So say Jazz attacks with a Piercing Pillar Psyche and scores big, getting like 5 successes. He can pass one of those successes along to Rock, who gets a bonus die for it. They can then narrate how Jazz's attack set-up Rock's action, maybe by using a pillar of ice to launch Rock at the Noise at high speeds to improve his Shockwave attack.

That way a Player doesn't have to sacrifice two whole AP to help out his allies-- he can just do it on the fly by re-purposing his successes.

Oh and incase I didn't explicitly say it I'm in agreement with the premise that non-boss combat shouldn't take very long at all and be over within maybe three-four rounds.

The method I've outlined prevents every fight from ending with a fusion attack because a.) there's a limit to how rapidly you can build the Fusion Counter and b.) actually performing a Fusion attack requires Sync, which is used for other stuff as well so Players probably wouldn't want to waste it on junk Noise. That is definitely the goal we should be aiming for.

What I was envisioning with the puck was literally passing it around to signal whose turn it was. For people at the tabletop, you could use some of actual prop that's passed around. In my experience it helps to build a sense of momentum, like passing the baton in a triathlon.

Would you mind explaining where the confusion might set in? I'm all for altering the puck passing, I'm simply confused as to what you see that would be confusing.

That said, I love that idea of Lend a hand as giving successes over. I think that sync will gate Fusion more effectively than the Fusion counter, and we could simply increase the Fusion counter requirements.

My intention was for easier-to-average battles to be over within two rounds or so, especially if we include chaining to get bonuses, which I think we should. Players shouldn't be compelled to grind Noise, but rather, if they need to fight Noise or if they're trying to look for a particular upgrade item, chaining together battles wherein you keep the Fusion and light puck bonuses, etc., sounds like a great way to do it. That way, your combat might be six to eight Rounds long, but you're fighting 3-5 waves of disparate Noise. Ideally these kinds of encounters should be kept to a handful per day.

By giving everyone relatively higher damage and relatively lower HP, I was hoping to have high-stakes, shorter battles. For Noise, this can mean erasure in a single round or two. Players will be more robust, of course, but losing a battle doesn't mean game over, merely lost time.

>What I was envisioning with the puck was literally passing it around to signal whose turn it was.
Alright, that wasn't clear before, but I see that as only exacerbating the problem.

Using the puck to signify whose turn it is is fine on its own, but the puck does more than just that. The puck carries certain bonuses with it like extra damage, more AP and bonus damage against Taboo Noise.

If the puck is purely a turn indicator, then it means that each player ALWAYS has the benefits of extra AP, damage and Taboo Noise killing, meaning that there's no difference between having the puck and not having it.

If only one person has the Puck each round, it means that each player takes a Round where they are the awesome one. In Round 1 Jazz is powered up, in Round 2 Rock is powered up, in Round 3 Pop is powered up, etc... Think of them as performers in a musical act. At one point in the song the lead guitarist melts faces with a solo, at another point the drummer gets to go nuts, and at another the singer wails away.

It also makes battling Taboo Noise a totally different thing. Against regular Noise, the puck merely makes one Player extra effective, but each player is still effective at dealing with them. Against Taboo Noise, however, players without the puck can't do very much, so it benefits them more to lend their successes as Support to the player with the puck; and since the puck moves each Round, each Round of combat that goes by lets another Player be the star Noise killer.

I see where you're coming from, and I think that works fine. A few comments, however:

1. That is why I initially proposed having a small AP augmentation with each successful pass. In your example, we would want to have a larger augmentation.
2. Regarding Taboo Noise, my initial suggestion that was only the extra AP granted by the puck is more effective against Taboo Noise, with all other damage cut by some amount.

In that case, how will we (1) determine puck order and (2) turn order within each round?

>1. That is why I initially proposed having a small AP augmentation with each successful pass. In your example, we would want to have a larger augmentation
I figure +2AP may be all that's needed. The player with the puck shouldn't necessarily be the show-stealer, just have a little bit more leeway. But that depends on how the AP economy with respects to Pins works.

>2. Regarding Taboo Noise, my initial suggestion that was only the extra AP granted by the puck is more effective against Taboo Noise, with all other damage cut by some amount.
That's a totally decent way of handling it under your initially proposed system, though in my mind it could get tricky to differentiate stock AP from puck AP. But that's a minor quibble.

>In that case, how will we (1) determine puck order
At the start of each combat, all Players make a Tag:Stat roll. Whoever gets the most successes starts with the puck. He's the one most motivated, most fired up and ready for action. A tie goes to who-ever has the higher Tag rank, and if that too is a tie then a simple roll-off is used.

Passing the puck could work one of two ways, which we're still kind of working on.

If we go with Combopass, a Player can pass the puck if he successfully executes a combo during his turn. He then chooses which player the puck goes to in the next round.

If we go with Trustpass, then the player with the puck chooses the next recipient at the start of the next Player Round, and the two of them make a Trust roll (add their Trust scores, roll under on a d10). If they succeed then the new player gets the puck.

In both cases the player with the puck chooses who to pass it to. That's why it's a pass and not a steal or some other random action.

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>(2) turn order within each round?
The player with the Puck gets first pick on when he gets to go in the Round. Against Taboo Noise it's suggested that this player goes last, which better allows players without the Puck to support him.

Other players can act in any order they agree on, with any disputes settled, again, by a Tag:Stat roll to see who wants it more. But since Player and Noise actions are broken into their own Rounds, initiative isn't quite as important as it is in games line DnD where players and enemies act on the same turn ladder.

This sounds good so far, but I do have one issue. If we make combats last a short amount of rounds, and one person happens to have a higher tag rank than anyone else or another person (more likely) has several low ranking tags, it might end up with the same player or players getting the puck in the first turn all the time. That might not be a concern however.

I suppose it wouldn't matter if we intend for players to chain, but it's something to consider. Perhaps if you got the puck first turn during the last combat, you're excluded from doing so in the next one.

Other than that, I think that your system is great.

That would work. The puck's starting position could also be a pure d10 roll-off as well, for the sake of simplicity.

Oh, and when passing the Puck a player should always prioritize passing to another Player who hasn't received the Puck yet in that combat.

Neat, I'm in agreement with you here. It also means that players can request not to be passed the puck if they don't intend to combo.

What's next on the agenda?

Here's the full, I think, proposal for the puck system we've come up with.
>Light Puck Sustem A-1

>Initial Position
At the start of every combat, all Players make a Tag:Stat roll (that is, roll their Stat dice and count each die equal to or less than one of yout Tags as a Success). Players are free to use their highest Tag and their highest Stat for this. The Player with the most Successes takes possession of the light puck for the first Round of combat.

If there is a tie, the puck goes to whoever has the higher Tag rank. If that too is a tie, then the two players just do a d10 roll-off.

If there are no objections by the other Players, one Player can also volunteer to take the puck for the first Round.

>Turn Order
The Player holding the light puck can choose when during the Player Round he wants to act. Against Taboo Noise, for instance, it's suggested that he go last so as to benefit from Assists from other players.

Other Players are free to decide on their own what the turn order should be. If adjudication is required, players can make Tag:Stat rolls as above to determine who is most motivated to act.

>Light Puck Effects
The Player with the light puck gains the following effects (these are still being workshopped):

....+2 AP for that Round
....Any attacks he makes deal extra damage equal to his Trust in the Player who passed it to him. During the first round of combat, this is based on the Player's Tag rank instead.
....Any attacks against Taboo Noise deal full damage, bypassing the Taboo Noise's damage reduction effects.

>Passing the Puck
Each Round, the puck is passed from one player to another. There are currently two systems for how this can work. In both cases, the Player with the puck chooses which Player he passes to.

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>Combopass
If the Player holding the puck successfully completes a Combo, he can pass the puck at the start of the next Player Round.

>Trustpass
At the start of every Round after the first, the Player with the puck chooses another Player to pass the puck to. The two Players make a Trust roll (add the Trust ratings they have with one another and try to roll under with a d10). If they suceed them the puck is passed.

Priority in passing should be given to Players who haven't yet held the puck in that combat encounter.