hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr2892.txt

Episode: 2892
Title: HPR2892: Stardrifter RPG Playtest Part 02
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2892/hpr2892.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-24 12:51:41

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This is HBR episode 2008-192 entitled, Tardrifter RPG playtest Part 02, and in part of the series,
tabletop gaming, it is hosted by Lost in Bronx, and in about 37 minutes long, and carry
an explicit flag. The summer is Lost in Bronx, and friends playtest are new,
original RPG system. Today's show is licensed under a CC hero license.
This episode of HBR is brought to you by Ananasthost.com. Get 15% discount on all shared
hosting with the offer code HBR-15, that's HBR-15. Better web hosting that's Aniston Fair at Ananasthost.com.
Hello, this is Lost in Bronx, otherwise
known as David Collins Rivera. This is Part 2 of our playtest of the Star Drifter role-playing
game. Now I was running it, and our players were Clat 2, Taj, Bren, and Brian. Last time we read
through the rules, the entire episode basically, we discussed aspects of the rolling up process
for the characters, saving throws were discussed whether they were likely to work or not.
There are a lot of great suggestions, in fact, covering different aspects of the things that we
talked about. This week, we continue reading through the rules, and you'll find that there are
also some really great suggestions from these guys. Okay, skills. All skills start at certification
grade 1 or cert 1, regardless of the characters level when they acquire it. The only exception to
this is a character's prime skill, which starts at cert 2, when the character is rolled up.
In addition to the initial class skills, each new character gets two cert points,
which they are to expend on two additional skills that they're choosing. At first level,
characters may not expend cert points on skills they already possess, nor may they expend their
cert points to gain a new skill at cert 2. At level 1, only prime skills can start at cert 2. In
other words, at first level, you acquire new skills, but you don't build any up.
Every level gained after this, the character gets one or more new cert points, which they may use
to increase the certification grade of skills already possessed, or to acquire new skills at
cert 1. No more than one certification grade may be expended blah blah blah, it's the same deal.
Okay, skills are a reflection of training and experience, but they are associated with attributes.
Each skill has an attribute listed in parentheses. This is the base number to start with, while the
skill certification grade reflects a bonus on top of that number. Okay, skill checks are rolled
for with 1d20, equal to or less is a success situational modifiers may apply. So that is the same
throughout. Pretty much you're always going to be rolling a 20 when you have to check something,
any kind of check with your character as opposed to rolling percent dice for a weird chance of
something happening or damage being done. A d20 is going to be your, you know, your go to die.
And unlike dnd, lower is better. A natural 20 is not a success. It is a failure. So many skills
require extensive knowledge to attempt. These are denoted by the carrot symbol that little V shaped
at the, you know, on the keyboard upside down V shape, I should say. And they carry the highest
non skilled penalties of all characters without proper certification and those skills may attempt
to substitute another skill at a minus three penalty on their skill check die roll or if they have
no other appropriate skill, they may attempt to wing it, rolling against the appropriate attribute
at a minus eight penalty on their skill check die roll. Now that seems like a lot, but there might be
other modifiers that are giving you a bonus at that time or maybe you can't do it at all. You know,
if you don't know anything about computers and someone puts you in front of the computer and,
you know, if you just sit there and say, Oh, this is unique. I know you next, you know, there's
going to be a die roll there and there's going to be penalties. So in some cases, prerequisite skills
or prerex are required before the character can take another skill in which they are interested
starting or later characters may choose both a skill and its prerec at the same time. So if there
is a skill you want, but it has a prerec, you get both of those, you have both skills. So,
but you have to have the certain points, obviously. Typical modifiers for attempting to use even a
regular skill that one doesn't possess range from minus two to minus six depending upon the circumstances.
Now these are regular skills, not the the extra hard ones like with the character and the numbers
obviously it's fluid. It all depends on the situation, you know, that there's a range of penalties
and it will depend on a lot of things and at that moment and probably, you know, a good
game master will negotiate this at the time. So with the players, although some things might be
preset, this may be an addition to any standing situational modifiers. All right, so I have a long
list of skills. I am not going to read them directly. I'm just going to list them off and
I will list the attribute that they're associated with and when we get to that skill, please stop
me if you have any comments or questions guys. Okay, first is bureaucracy. This is a carrot skill.
We're going to call it a carrot, a carrot skill is one that's extra tough. Why? Because bureaucracy
can be absolutely mystifying to someone who is outside of it. Absolutely, especially in this time
period where the laws and forms and policies can be absolutely impenetrable. So that is associated
with wisdom. Next is combat XXX strength or decks you pick one. So you get to pick either your
strength or your decks per skill and decide whether or not this is this is associated. Now I think
this is probably another good place to put down more explicit instructions telling people what to
write down on their character sheet. This is, you know, I can see exactly what you're talking about
there. So there I have a very limited subset of weapon skills to have bludgeon bladed pistol rifle
hand-to-hand strategy and tactics and a carrot skill, which is special and that would be something
like heavy weapons or ship defense, things like that. And obviously in the future, this will be a
much more expanded list. But for now, this is what we've got. Next is computers that's based on
intelligence. There are sub-skills. Now I didn't write this out. That should have been computers,
you know, computers XXX, but computers on its own is a skill. So that's why I had it separate.
I don't know if that's clear. It's probably not clear, but a sub-skill of computers is artificial
intelligence. That's a carrot skill that's based on intelligence and cybernetics systems that has a
prerequisite in both computers and medical. So both these sub-skills both have prerex.
Artificial intelligence has computers and cybernetics has computers and medical and biology.
That's probably the hardest single one to get right off the bat in this game, starting off again
to create cybernetics systems or cybernetics. And by cybernetics, I mean, bionics, human
machine interfaces. Next is a carrot skill engineering XXX. Now engineering is based on intelligence
or wisdom. You get to pick one, whichever one's highest for you. And the sub-skills on this are
life support main drive, which is the main thruster drive of a spaceship star jump ship or station
systems that's life support and gravity and all this other stuff ship defense systems. That's
the guns and the missile systems and all the power that goes through them and all the sub-systems
and the computer types of monitoring and sensor systems that would be hooked into those.
And finally, general repair. And general repair is a prerequisite for all of the others. If you,
you know, I haven't listed them all, but if you want to have any of those other engineering,
you have to have general repair to begin with. And that just is a reflection of you've been taught
how to use the tools and how to read the schematics and, you know, how to open up a, you know,
a power line without killing yourself. That's sort of thing. Okay, the next skill is exosuit.
And that is based on strength. Now that could have been based on almost anything,
constitution or whatever, but I went with strength. That one's up in the air and I don't know that
it matters that much, but a subskill of that is power dharma. And that would just be what it
sounds like. Kind of that Iron Man thing going on. And the next skill is lying. That's based on
your charisma. The next is medical and that's based on your wisdom and medical. I have much
about how medical works and how healing works written right here. And I won't go into that just
yet. But that's a major and important skill in this universe. Well, in every game really.
Next is a carrot skill piloting xxx and there are subskills. So we have space boats, star jump,
air vehicles, water vehicles, and ground vehicles. An important note here,
based on the way I have set up these rules, that if you say you needed star jump,
but you only have, say, water vehicles piloting water vehicle boats, right? You still have the
ability to operate a starship through jump space, assuming that there aren't any major problems
going on. The concept here is that the way control surfaces are laid out. Everything is
computerized in this future. And the way the control surfaces and the readouts are laid out,
being actually trained in one thing gives you a basic understanding so that you sit in front
of the control surface for a spaceship. And you at least can read what the displays are saying.
You know, my speed forward should be this display right here. And some way to break or some way
to measure how I'm going to stop or slow down should be this control over here. That's the concept
behind it. Very general and not realistic. I realized, but this allows you to actually cross use
some of these skills provided you aren't in some sort of stressful situation. Being shot at,
being chased, that sort of thing. That's a question that I have for you guys. I would like your
feedback on that concept. Now I'm picking piloting, but of course, that cross use applies to all
the skills, but piloting is the one where I think it's going to stand out. And I'll give you a
heads up. It'll, it may be an important factor in this play test adventure as well. What are
you guys feeling about that? The ability to have this sort of cross use of the subskills?
I don't think I would have a thought until we play tested it. I have no idea what the
fact that will actually have. I like the concept, but maybe I don't like the concept.
Anything else? I think that probably would help. Again, you can't really tell it gets
put into practice, but say you need to operate the start jump. Nothing's there. Is that when you're
seeing this, you can close to two. That's the minus two penalty. It's the only. Yeah,
that's right. Go ahead. I was going to say I had one question. So is this one of those skills
that you need to have piloting one? And then the next time you pick up start jump or air vehicles,
or it's a correct shot. It is. So if you're piloting, it is a subskill.
XXX is a placeholder for one of the subskills. There are a couple of skills like computers that you
can just take computers, but there are also subskills. But piloting, it will always be piloting
colon space boats or star jump or air vehicles or something like that. It won't just be generalized
piloting because I think that is too generalized. That's kind of my view on it. But that's I,
you know, do you think that's wrong? Do you think that works or? No, it works. I just think that
was just not understanding it kind of thumbnail style, but okay. Taj, no, no general opinion on that
or. Yeah, I kind of agree with what Claudio was saying. Okay, it seems like a good idea. It would
probably take a lot of gaming to see if this is a rule like simply isn't working or is working
or is too good or too, you know, needs tweaking. That sort of thing. We won't necessarily get enough
feedback from one play test to understand that. But maybe we will. Maybe we will. That would be good.
Okay, the next skill is science XXX. That's based on intelligence. And I have biology, genetics,
physics, astronomy, chemistry, terraforming. And you'll notice I don't have any description of any
of that because, I don't know, it's a lot to write down. And again, those are all subskills. And
you can swap one for the other with a with a minus two or whatever. The next is social engineering.
And that's based on charisma. And I will read the description on this. It's not what you know,
it's who you know and how you play them. The idea here is just your ability to, you know,
you know, people and you know what they know and they maybe can do favors for you. That sort of
thing. And it is distinct from lying because you aren't necessarily lying to people. You're just
trying to finesse the situation. So I was thinking and here's something I was thinking of making
social engineering based on lying or lying based on social engineering as a prerequisite. But I thought
nah, I don't, I don't think that one necessarily follows the other. But if you have a different
of opinion on that, that's I would like to hear it. Otherwise, next is stealthiness moving quietly
and unseen or hiding in plain sight. It cannot be performed in an exosuit or powered armor. And
there's probably other plenty of other situations where it's impractical or can't work. But that's kind
of a combination of the old D&D moving silently and hiding in shadows and everything. All of the whole
concept of that sort of ninja quality to a person falls into that skill of stealthiness.
Okay, next is survival XXX. That means there's subskills and those are nature out in the woods
or in the desert or whatever. Urban living in a city. That also includes living homeless being
essentially being homeless on large space stations or large ships because it's effectively a very
similar sort of situation, except you don't have to worry about the the elements most of the time. So
it's not exactly necessarily a direct parallel. But if you have survival urban then surviving
on a space station without actually having a home probably isn't much problem for you.
Survival XXX is also survival vacuum. That's one of the subskills and that is a carrot skill
that is surviving vacuum conditions in open space or upon a planetary body. And that does not mean
just wearing a spacesuit. Survival vacuum means surviving in that environment for an extended
period of time. Learning how to find air when there may be it may be it's a vacuum wrapped
planetoid. How do you produce air? How do you do this? You know, do you have the right equipment? Well,
if you have this skill, you would have the right equipment and the skills to use to you know,
break down the soil into its basic elements and get oxygen out of that. That's sort of thing.
So it can be a very important skill if you're spending a lot of time rock hopping.
And then survival, hostile environment and that is also a carrot skill and that includes
not just vacuum, but assuming you have a suit that can take it for a while,
surviving on the surface of Venus or surviving in and around volcanoes or terrible storms or
all sorts of terrible, terrible environments like that situation where the atmosphere is semi-liquid
and caustic and all that sort of stuff. So that's a separate skill and it does have prerequisites
and it's a difficult one to get. Okay, and I think that's it. Is that the last of the skills?
Yeah, it looks like it. Okay, any questions about the skills? Is there a skill there you guys
wish you had seen right off the bat and did not? There doesn't seem to be anything that I
that I was seeing for like sort of traditional roguish activities or thief activities.
You know, like that falls under general repair. It also depends on what you're trying to do.
Like say you're trying to, well like breaking a lock is essentially you're you're beating a
computer or some sort of, you know, small subsystem of a interlinked system. And if it is
truly mechanical, that absolutely falls under engineering. So, but maybe that could be more
explicit. Maybe we could have something that covers theaving skills because just because you are
skilled with general repair or some of these other things doesn't mean you know how to apply it
breaking and entering. So I'll make a note of that. So the other one I'm probably just hitting all
the obvious ones here, but the other one is kind of like a knowledge-based character. Like
there doesn't seem to be any academic skills. I mean, there is the science stuff. So if you're
trying to like search your brain for knowledge about, you know, an alien species, you could rely on
that and I didn't really see anything for that. A generalist or maybe, but more like,
like if you come across something that no one else on your in your party knows what it is,
like just to identify what that thing is, like how what kind of check would you do to try to
identify, like is this a black hole? Is it a nebula? Like how do we even know? Like what's the
where's the knowledge-based academic skill? The differences between a black hole or a nebula
be under astronomy or astrophysics or something like that. But if they're for things like
general knowledge about like culture, that probably science might be the wrong
might be a better term and then I would just add to the academic skills. And just because you
have a cert and it doesn't mean you're professor or a teacher or anything like that, it just means
you have knowledge in that field. Yeah, yeah, or whatever, whatever it have to be. So yeah,
we took correspondence. I have one suggestion and it kind of relates back to what you were talking
about earlier. I would combine social engineering and lying because they're mechanically the same
thing. Like they're both charisma. So if you're getting one, like you can do social engineering,
like I would call it social engineering, but make make the description say that that's probably lying.
And I would add like a thief skill, but in base it out of the text because that's usually what it is.
And I see that also kind of having kind of linking up with a bureaucracy there. But in my mind,
you could have a good lying skill, but no social engineering skills, and in which case your
lies just, though they might be very good, not or just won't work. All right.
I do actually see social engineering and lying as distinct, but possibly related. That's
why I asked the question before. But I've known people that have never, I mean, they're as honest as
the day is long, and yet they're able to pick up the phone and call people, get things done,
they know this person, they know that person, they make deals with people, and yet they're completely
honest. They don't lie to anybody. I've seen that in action. I think we all have at different times.
Whereas I know people that can get the same thing done by lying to everybody, but you know,
we all know where that can lead or maybe not if they don't get caught. And yes, they are both based
on charisma, but if they're separate skills, you can advance in one better than in the other,
simply by adding certain points to it as you go along. But once again, you mentioned thief skills.
So if if I had a separate thief skill or even a thief class of some sort, would you say lying
more properly belongs either in that skill or in that class? Well, when I rolled up a character
just to kind of play just to fill it out, I kind of went into it thinking I looked at my roles
and I was like, okay, I wanted you kind of a rogue. Like that's what I wanted to do. And I just
social engineering. And then I felt like I needed to pick up lying like as a secondary skill.
But then I picked up stealthiness to kind of because I was figuring, well, with between lying and
stealthiness, I can probably thief things if I want to like seem like I could combine skills to
get what I needed. But there wasn't just like a singular thing to be like, oh, swipe this from
somebody. No, I probably you're right. There could be skills like pick pocketing that sounds like
something that, you know, would be a distinct skill. But maybe that's too specific. Maybe we do
we do want to generalize thief skill, you know, being a thief. Thievery, we'll call it a Thievery
skill, which would include things like breaking and entering or specifically include things like
breaking and entering and pick pocketing and maybe even some con artistry, you know, possibly.
Although I again, where does lying, you know, if you're if you're having a separate lying skill,
should we have a separate lying skill if we have thief skills or if Thievery is a skill,
should it have prerequisites or maybe Thievery XXX. So you can specialize and be a con artist,
you could be a pick pocket, you could be, you know, a burglar, you could be a safe cracker. That's
sort of thing. Does that make more sense? In which case, most of those would have prerequisites
based on the other skills? So question, are we talking about adding another class or adding
skills so that we could customize to become a rogue type character? I think adding a skill right now.
Yeah, I don't think adding a class because be perfectly frank, I wanted to dispense with classes
entirely, but because I base this on dungeon raiders that does come with classes and I just ran with
that, but I do have another version of these rules or of the Star Drifter game that I started years
ago and there are no character classes in that at all. It's all skill-based. So if you want to be a
thief, you just pick the skills that you feel is appropriate and you self-identify as a thief,
the same with pilot, the same with athlete, the same with, you know, soldier, that sort of thing.
And I was hoping to go more in that direction. That's more traveler-like. Traveller is based like that.
You know, that's that's the sort of game that that is based on skills as opposed to a necessarily
character classes, but at least it used to be. I don't know what it's like these days.
And that was kind of the direction I was hoping to go in. The one advantage of skills or I'm sorry
of classes that I wanted to take advantage is that if you took this class, you come with some
prepackaged skills, some basic skills that you've gotten simply because you have lived this life
before the game started. But from a thief standpoint, it sounds to me, I mean, does that sound
like a good idea of a thievery XXX with subskills or is that sound too complicated or too
watered down or? I was thinking along the lines of I like the skill-based approach rather than the
character class approach because you have so much customization. If you have the skills there,
that you can build what you like. So that's the direction I was coming from. Yeah, I mean,
that's exactly my point of view as well. Taj, how do you feel? Yeah, I think the skill is the way
to go with it. And in my opinion, I think you could just make one skill and maybe as you're defining
that skill, just sort of like list, like, that might be a good thing to do with all the skills.
It's just make like a little short list of like, these are circumstances where this skill might
be applicable. But I don't think it needs to be a class at all. And I kind of agree that
I felt like I was able to build the character I wanted with the classes were there that were there.
But I would make one change. And it's probably just to alleviate what I'm doing because I'm
coming into it and I'm seeing the terminology that I'm used to. And so my first thought was I want
to fit this class into this game or this sort of archetype in this game. I would get rid of the
word class. And I would just call them like backgrounds because a lot of it is based on like
your job or like where you're from. Like if you're a stationer, that's more of your background.
That's not really, you could be anything and be a stationer. You know, it's just sort of divorce
it from that connotation of being like one of the, you know, I guess typical classes that you
normally see. Okay, that's actually a really good, good idea. Regarding the whole,
Ivory idea. I'm not sure. I kind of like it a bit more obscure where you would need to combine
your, your skill. No, most basic Ivory is really nothing more than stealthiness. And if you were to
go to something like safe cracking, then you're adding some engineering into it there. And I kind of
like it a little more open-ended rather than see it seems like you could fit almost any situation
just by putting your line with your stealthiness or putting your social engineering with your
bureaucracy or whatever for that situation. Yeah, yeah, go ahead describe this situation that I
kind of anticipated is I was going to use stealthiness to try to do things to steal. And then if I got
caught, I would try to use social engineering or lying to get out of it. Well, that's exactly what
they're for. I mean, that that's exactly what it's for, you know, like in my case, like and just
to one more point on the distinction between social engineering and stealthiness, you try to,
you use your stealthiness to or social engineering and lying. Use your stealthiness to do to try
to steal something you get caught in social engineering. It's like, oh, do you know my cousin? I know
your cousin. He, you know, we went to school together and you tell this, you know, a great old
story about the cousin and try to make friends with that person, et cetera, et cetera, whereas in
lying, oh, well, I belong here and I don't have my ID on me right this moment, but blah, blah, blah,
blah. So you're actually telling a boldface lie as opposed to finessing a situation based on,
you know, who you know and what you know, that that's my distinction between the two. I,
I think Brian has hit on the point where that in my mind, even with this very limited subset of
skills in this play test in this early version of the game, I should say, you could do a thief.
You could be a thief based on just the skills I have, but you would have to pick them carefully
with that in mind. And I don't even know if you'll, you'll even have enough points to start with
to get everything you want, but you know, you can't have everything you want right off the bat.
So yeah, I'm going to do some more thinking about having a specific thief class, because if I
went in that direction, probably I wouldn't have a single thief, thevery, I said class, I'm sorry,
I meant skill, it gets complicated. I probably wouldn't have a single feverish skill. I would have
a list of sub skills with related prerequisites, but if you already have those prerequisites,
you wouldn't even really necessarily need those. How about this for an idea, rather than something
like that, have a chapter on how you might apply these different skills in different situations.
If you wanted to steal something, you know, I would have a list of skills that you could use to
steal something as opposed to, you know, perhaps you want to fix a star jump engine on the slide.
There's some guards in the way, and you're trying to steal the ship or try to get by the guards
or access a computer system, and I list the exact same skills. These skills can be applied to
all these different situations, so that if you want to be a thief, all the skills are there,
but you have to apply them the way a thief would apply those skills. A thief would apply
their mechanical skill and their electronic skill and their stealthiness, that sort of thing.
Does that sound like worthwhile, or is it better just to have a single skill for
Sievery? I don't know. It's these sorts of questions that extensive playtesting would hammer out,
I think. Well, and I think it ultimately depends on like I didn't feel when I was doing this character,
I didn't feel like I couldn't do it. I just felt like I had to be more creative, which in a certain
regard is kind of nice to not just like see everything you want, like the the huge list of path
finder skills and just pick everything that fits any situation. Like it is kind of interesting
to have to figure that out, so I'm not sure that I'm kind of arguing against myself now, which
whatever. I'm not sure that adding it is beneficial. It may be, it's just one of those things that
I think it's something that people are going to look for, so maybe explaining it somewhere would be
good idea. Yeah. See there, therein lies a problem, though, because then I'm making the assumption,
or even designing the game in such a way that only people who play the game the way I do
will really be able to play this game. And I'm not sure that's a good idea either.
I mean, I like the way I run a game, but you know, that's just me. And if it's not
something that everybody likes, then, or, but then again, you know, here's me talking, you know,
arguing against myself, then again, you can't have one game to please everybody. I haven't seen
that game yet. You know, they're always constantly trying to come up with a game that's going to
please everybody, but I have yet to find it. And I'm not sure I should be chasing that rainbow
myself. So, well, in every game kind of develops its own flavor. Anyways, I mean, it's very rare.
Like there are some systems where you can do anything. Like I would say Dungeons and Dragons,
you can kind of do anything. It doesn't have its own sort of flavor. But most smaller games do.
And you know, it's just playing it and figuring it out. Yeah. See, I do like the idea of having
the skills listed and then you have to figure out how to apply them. And if you want to do something,
you look at your sheet and see if you can do it. And if you can't, maybe someone else can.
You know, so I want to get into that that store room and steal that thing. Do I have the skills
to do it? You know, and so just because you say you're a thief, automatically do get skills for
that just because that's, you know, I have a, a thief skill. I don't know. I don't know. I think
I'm not certain. It's, it's something that's worth exploring, but we're probably rabbit
holding this right now. So we'll keep going. We'll keep going. If that's okay. Yeah, I would just say,
like, this is me going back to the books themselves. Like E. Jack doesn't start with everything.
Like he has to like work. And you hear him talk about in the stories like, oh, I'm working on
this and he gets certain everything. So that is kind of a cool mechanic to start with you with not
everything. You have to work your way up. I think that kind of reflects the narrative pretty well.
Going on that, riffing on that because that obviously that's where I'm coming from for the
entire game. That is one of the reasons why I'd like to dispense with character class entirely.
And the concept of changing it to background is an excellent one. That's a really, really good one.
I don't know. Something to think about. Absolutely something to think about.
Experience points and leveling up. Actually, this is something he did have a question about.
And I don't mind jumping back if we need to. But adventuring around the galaxy inevitably leads
our lens experience, which in turn leads to new character levels. Levels, Garner, HP,
stamina, certain points and improvements to saving throws. So everyone is in search of experience.
And just as an aside, this is also something I'd like to change in the future. I'd like to dispense
with character levels entirely and have everything depending upon your skills, because that's how it
isn't real life. But we won't go there. Experience is a met is measured in XP awarded to a party as
a whole and divided equally among its members at the end of an adventure, skirmish or game session
depending upon house rules. Fighting earns XP successfully completing a mission earns XP,
solving particular or especially difficult tasks earns XP, excellent group role-playing earns XP.
There are many ways to earn experience in Star Drifter. But regarding combat for each enemy defeated,
their original HP is multiplied by 50 and the result is awarded to the party as XP. For every 2000
XP that a character earns, they increase in level by one. That's the same for everybody. It's not
based on class. At each new level, the player rolls one D4 and adds the result to their characters HP
and then rolls another one D4 and adds this to their stamina. So from second level on, your
hit points in your stamina can start to different and may continue to be from that point on. So
and finally, x-mill characters gaining plus one to damage for every level after first. Now,
one of in an email, platoon mentioned to me that he didn't think that multiplying the enemy
original HP is multiplied by 50. He didn't think that was a good mechanic. He didn't think that
that or he quite he didn't he questioned it. He wondered if that was adequate. My counter
argument in this particular case was just that well, you're not going to be fighting dragons and
liches in this game. You know, you're fighting people and maybe robots and I'm not sure what else.
You know, those are going to be about the extent of your enemies in this game. And yeah,
they can take almost any form, but you're not going to be dealing with these giant monsters with
incredible hit points that the entire party is the gang up on by and large. There may be situations
where it happens, but it's going to be rare. At least that's my concept of this entire universe.
Any feedback on this? Any thoughts about this? Or is it just we got to see play and see?
I think as long as your adversarial characters aren't completely OP, as long as their
their hit points are staying low enough, that's okay. It's just I could see it and this is maybe
what Gladys kind of worried about is I could see that ballooning to where like you get in, you know,
a mid-range kind of combat thing. It's not like big boss level, not, you know, your typical little
little skirmish and everybody levels up in the middle. Just because, you know, that,
depending on what you get out of hand. This is a mechanic that's lifted directly from dungeon
Raiders. In dungeon Raiders, it's actually multiplied by 100. I think it is or maybe even 200. I can't
remember off the top of my head. It's greater than this. And I thought that was too much. I thought,
you know, you play three adventures and your characters are either at like five six seventh level
already. Because 2000 XP per level, it never scales up. You know, so to me, this entire thing
for experience points and leveling up, it's all completely malleable. I have no idea if this can
scale none. So in my mind, I just have to play it and see what we're getting. Yeah, I've never
played dungeon Raiders as anything other than a one shot. So I'm not sure. Me too. I mean,
well, I mean, I've, I've run it myself, but I've never played in a regular campaign. And I have
no idea if this scales. I mean, it's sort of, I mean, the original D&D, it had tons of little
things like this that really didn't scale at all. And people just fudged it or figured out ways
around it. I'm either willing to fudge this or scrap it entirely for something else. Again,
I wouldn't mind scrapping levels entirely. But if I'm doing that, then why have character classes
at all? So, you know, we'll just see, we'll just see. Because in my mind, if you get XP, you put
them into your, your skills. They don't go into a level. And, you know, rather than each level,
you get a certain number of certain points, each skill would cost a certain number of XP directly.
And there'd be no certain points involved. In my mind, that's a better evolution of this concept.
But I think that would require a complete revamping of the game. So, and if I get rid of character
classes, that will be essentially the last vestige of dungeon raiders in this game outside of the
attributes, which I may modify anyway. So we'll just move on if there's no other thoughts.
Next time, more rules plus the adventure begins. That's right. We actually get into the play test
itself. Now, I'm reading through the rules and understand this. I'm reading through the rules
just to give you the listener the sense of how this game might be structured. I have some trouble
explaining myself because I'm not very good at that sort of thing. But I'm hoping that at least
some of it makes sense. And as the actual gameplay, as we go through it, I think it'll start to
make even more sense. So anyway, I guess I'll see you next time.
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