We updated our character sheets to the new version for today’s session. Unfortunately, my Protege wasn’t around today, so I can’t speak much to those changes, though they seem a bit more focused, especially for newer players. In V2, my Protege felt a bit like he had less cool stuff than the other players around the table.
The changes to the Doomed are fantastic, though. My Doomed player had a really hard time navigating his sheet in V2, and wasn’t really playing towards his doom the way I was hoping. Within five minutes of setting up the new sheet, he was focusing on how he could work to prevent his doom while fearing a discussion about it, as that could bring it closer. The other players also have a better sense of how the doom fits into the rest of the game a bit better.
Overall, for a group of players who are relatively new to role playing games, these changes seem very positive. The shift to comfort and support also led to better interpersonal play during this session.
Thank you for the feedback. Sounds like it was a great session!
That surprises me, because the new Doomed playbooks completely derailed my player’s plans for his character and made the Doomed unplayable as a character for both him and me. I’m glad to hear you had a good experience, even if it was directly opposite to mine and my groups.
My player kind of stalled out a bit during character creation, and hadn’t really fully fleshed out the details of his doom using the V2 rules. I think the descriptions were broad enough that he got trapped in decision paralysis. That put his story on the back burner while I moved ahead with some of the more immediate character stories at the table. With the V3 sheet, it gave him enough to get a clearer picture of how to play the role, and ways to incorporate his doom into the storyline without having it take over the table.
It’s probably worth noting that it’s a group of high school students who are part of a tabletop gaming club, so the needs and demands and comfort levels are different from an average group of role players. What an experienced player finds freeing, a new player can find overwhelming, I think.
With the Doomed, I’m still a bit concerned that as soon as you have a Doomed in your game, it will take over the narrative of the team a bit. I’m not sure if adding the Nemesis feature helps that issue or makes it more of a problem. If you try to set up a main Villain that isn’t the Nemesis, it creates some narrative complexity, as you need to keep pressure on The Doomed with the Nemesis as well. I’ll get a better sense over our next few sessions how that all plays out.
The whole “taking over the narrative” is my biggest complaint behind the Doomed. The v3 Doomed seems to be penalized each session they aren’t going after their nemesis, which means they warp the entire game around them. In Teen Titans (the original cartoon series), Raven was the stereotypical Doomed, but not everything had to resolve around her.
This may be long and a bit rambly, but I’ve been thinking about this problem with The Doomed and the idea of a nemesis.
If you look at a lot of Doomed archetype characters, their nemesis is either somehow within themselves or is a figure that effects them indirectly much of the time.
Hellboy is a good example. He is doomed to either die or bring about the end of the world, but most of his adventures don’t involve The Ogdru Jahad directly, or even Rasputin. The choices he makes either brings him closer to his doom or closer to humanity, though.
The Hulk might be a different archetype, but “The Other Guy” might also be a nemesis that he struggles against. He is constantly flirting with the power that he holds, but is doomed if he ever loses control of that power, since he will destroy everything he loves.
I haven’t read enough of the Spawn comics, but I doubt he is constantly facing the demon he sold his soul to. Instead, his choices and use of his (limited) powers bring him closer and closer to his ultimate doom. He can slow things down or speed things up, even when he’s not interacting directly with his nemesis.
One solution to the narrative takeover issue might be to push players to find a nemesis that can influence them without direct contact or a more abstract nemesis that is within the character itself. It’s definitely not the most direct interpretation of the playbook description, but it might help keep The Doomed from taking over the storyline, especially in larger groups.
The changes to the playbook seem specifically to address the problems we were having with it in play–that the doom never got off the ground. (exacerbated by the fact that the sanctuary was explicitly defined as far away from Halcyon, and so isn’t being used for any day-to-day stuff). I’m hoping that my player will be able to work the nemesis into her existing narrative (since it didn’t previously have one). We’ll find out tonight.
My problem with the Nemesis is the sheer amount of possibility space it closes off.
I had built a Doomed who was a very nice person, who simply wouldn’t hate any specific individual enough to devote every session to trying to destroy them.
I had another concept for a character that was growing more and more powerful despite slowly dying of cancer. That character can’t be played unless I create a nemesis that somehow gave them cancer. That feels a bit cartoonish for the serious, real world condition I wanted to explore.
Thanks for the discussion all. We really value all of this feedback!
Adam Beece – You might consider someone like Daredevil as a model for that character; he wants to bring Fisk to justice!
+Magpie Games
That is… fundamentally exactly what I said I didn’t want to do.
I wanted to play a character whose reaction to being doomed is to see the light in even the darkest soul; a disposition that is dramatically opposed to obsessively fighting a Nemesis.
Unless you were referring to the “dying from cancer” concept, in which case, I’m not sure how the head of a criminal organization can “represent and embody your doom,” as required by the playbook.
(A corrupt cigarette company exec that also has superpowers just feels too After School Special).
Adam Beece – Our apologies! That last comment wasn’t totally clear.
1) You can have your Doomed be focused on bringing people to justice, even if that means you think you can save them (like Luke and Vader) or that you can do something good (like Daredevil) by opposing them as a hero. That doesn’t mean you have to hate them; you just have to be focused on stopping them (which is a thing even the most good-natured of heroes sometimes has to do).
2) As for embodying the doom, the head of a criminal organization can represent and embody your doom if you see them (like Fisk) as a representation of the thing you’re fighting against. Maybe they didn’t give your character cancer directly, but they represent the kind of people who would do such a thing and they are in the position to similarly hurt others.
It’s also possible that the concept doesn’t fit the new playbook! (Which is totally cool!) It might be that you need to be a Beacon who is taking big risks because they know they don’t have long on this earth.
Or a Transformed who takes the Doom advancement (which doesn’t grant a nemsis, apparantly).
I do really like how you can blend playbooks like that. The combinations really work out well mechanically as well as thematically.
That said, I really don’t like how much possibility space the Doomed changes closes off.
Adam Beece and Magpie Games This problem might have a solution as simple as making the Nemesis not a person, per say, but a powerful force. Change the text to: “You have a nemesis, an epic and powerful force representing and embodying your doom. It’s going to take everything you have to take them down in the time you have left. What is your nemesis?” This would allow the Nemesis to be a disease, an organization, an oncoming cataclysm, a terrible event, or a personal tragedy. It opens up the narrative space with very little effort or a change to the current design.