Wheel Tree Press: Discussion – Page 4 – Powered by the Apocalypse G+ Archives

Hi there!

Hi there! My gaming group has been listening to Jank Cast and heard about SCUP and now we are scouring the internet trying to figure out how to play it. Where can we go to procure the materials?

Hey there, friends of Wheel Tree! Please help us come up with time anomalies for Time Cellist!

So Megan and I are currently putting together the LIST OF RANDOM TIME ANOMALIES for Time Cellist.

If you haven’t played TC, what that is is when there’s a tie in the conflict mechanic (i.e. rock, paper, scissors), it creates a time anomaly where something from another time comes crashing into wherever you are.

Examples:

-Dinosaurs come running down the street.

-A 747 lands.

-A bunch of cowboys come driving a herd of cattle through the desert.

The idea is that some goofy appears in whatever time period you’re in, forever changing history.

So we’re trying to come up with a HUGE list of time anomalies people can use as a random table if they can’t think of one. We’d like to invite you all to suggest some below. The ones we like the best will wind up in the table.

Thanks everyone!

Read through the SCUP document, and had a first session today.

Read through the SCUP document, and had a first session today. We didn’t get to actual play, opting to indulge in some extended Myth Creation and build characters at the table instead of before-hand. Also we tend to be a slow group that gets distracted, so it’s not much of a commentary on the system that we took as long as we did.

I’m actually pretty happy about it, because now I can jump off from world creation with some time to think instead of grasping for ideas right away.

I’ll probably be posting the recording in the Actual Play category within a few days. We came up with a sort of Arabian inspired world/culture, which hopefully doesn’t come across too ignorant, although I would describe myself as such so ..yeah.

Some notes from players and myself:

In the Voice playbook, the original character creation overview states taking 2 additional Voice Moves, and the character sheet resource states taking 1 additional Voice Move.

The way the original character creation section is written it isn’t obvious that the ‘Special’ isn’t a move you need to take. (The character sheet resources make this clear though)

The game sets precedent for information Gathering moves to not need to be spoken aloud, but the Screw Specific moves do not specify, and due to the nature of the Screw it is unclear if you’re torturing the information out, or simply inferring it.

That’s about it for notes at the moment, although I do have some general editing information, such as typos I can send you.

There is also a question I have about the Advanced Seduce or Manipulate (although far from coming up in play)

It reads, when used on a PC the effect is that your target must act under duress, without the choice to gain experience. Isn’t that explicitly worse than the 10+ effect? What about, must act under duress at a -2 or something?

Looking forward to play, everyone seemed to enjoy Myth Creation and found the text and character creation really evocative. It’s just written really well to make you want to see these character come to life.

We’re going to have a Screw, a Lyre, and a Voice. So I’m pretty excited. Those have to be my favourite classes of the bunch!

I finally got around to actually reading the SCUP rulebook, since I pitched it to my group and it looks like we’re…

I finally got around to actually reading the SCUP rulebook, since I pitched it to my group and it looks like we’re going to tackle it. As such I’m sure to have some feedback eventually, might even record the sessions if that’s the sort of thing you have time to watch.

I’ve just been going off of what was said in the IPMM demo game until now and I’m seeing some obvious changes from one version to the next, which is to be expected but it just makes me really curious on the design decision.

Like what happened to Pull most of all?

I guess in play people found it was just another thing to forget? Is that why Places are gone and Factions have been rewritten?

Anyway, I’m still reading through the text, looking forward to seeing how it actually plays. I’m hopeful, as a weak GM, since it seems to have a lot of great tools for starting the game with, well, Factions and Patrons, to push the story and player interest.

Latest episode of the jank cast mentioned there was web link for Greenlight somewhere but nothing i the show notes…

Latest episode of the jank cast mentioned there was web link for Greenlight somewhere but nothing i the show notes or on the Wheel tree press website or even this group. Sound like a fun game and I would like more info

So, we are in our 3rd session of SCUP; and by and large, very fun so far! I’m sure I will come back with some more…

So, we are in our 3rd session of SCUP; and by and large, very fun so far! I’m sure I will come back with some more helpful, detailed and productive thoughts in a later post.

Fresh from our latest game though, I feel the need to vent a little bit.

Highlighting Stats.

This form of advancement has always left a bad taste in my mouth in other PbtA games, and so far my SCUP experiences are matching what has come before. I seem to always have my combat stats highlighted for the sessions with a lot of talking and intrigue, and my talky intrigue stats highlighted for the sessions filled with blood and gore.

Are highlighted stats a deliberate choice for SCUP adding something to the experience that I’m not seeing yet? So far in practice they have left me feeling frustrated, and I would enjoy hearing an outside perspective.

I think SCUP needs a place in that list.

I think SCUP needs a place in that list.

Strangely it’s quite visited.

I’ve yet to get all the way through SCUP, but I have several intrigued players now, which is a good start.

I’ve yet to get all the way through SCUP, but I have several intrigued players now, which is a good start. Looking through the playbooks I had a thought. Would Death Moves be an interesting addition to these characters?

Most of the initial feedback from my Indiemeet session was positive.

Most of the initial feedback from my Indiemeet session was positive. Lots of love for the Moves the various characters had. We were playing a one shot rather than a campaign so we didn’t get to see the full range of the game.

One thing that did come up was that PCs often want to “gloss” a situation by telling a partial version of the truth and rather than having someone roll Read Person and choosing “What aren’t you telling me?” (or however the term is phrased). It might be easier for the player who wants to deceive to roll something like Hold Steady, if they succeed they get to say what they like and it seems the truth otherwise they get to choose what they conceal and everything else is revealed or on a failure its obvious that they aren’t telling the truth.

As MC I was worried about not getting to ask leading questions but actually the “day in the life” kick off gave me the opportunity to understand the characters well enough.

It didn’t come up but the failure consequence for Faction Moves are massive and I was worried that it might be difficult to explain in terms of narrative. I think a character should be able to ignore a failure on Faction Moves per advancement or be able to take an ability that mitigates it.

Hi

Hi,

I’ve had a quick read through the Beta doc for SCUP- is this the best place to discuss some initial thoughts?

A) first impression- the name is a little lengthy. How about Sword & Crown?

B) Someone described it as Game of Thrones Powered by the Apocalypse, but it feels more like a Joe Abercrombie or Mark Lawrence type of story. (Indeed the Spur is the Prince of Thorns, and Screw is Glotka) because it lacks the high level politics of Westeros – the PC’s arent the heads of major houses or princes of regions, the Crown is relatively small stuff with a holding of a few hundred people. And while it’d be fine for Arya and Hound wandering around (or Brienne and Podrick) or the Brotherhood without Banners, it lacks the scale currently of ASOI&F RPG.

C) – for the PC sheets, can you insert blank sheets for odd number paged characters for ease of double sided printing? In printing out the playbooks I’ve had to go single-sided, leading to some massive character sheets.

Otherwise I look forward to running some of it at our IndieRPG meetup.