#Blood Money: How to Run a Mercenary Campaign

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autumn prism
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I could probably just times everything by roughly 100

unreal coral
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precise dollar values in BM dont really matter that much. what matters is rank

autumn prism
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actually I have a friend studying maths ill bully him

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:D

autumn prism
rare solar
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I like when currency is in the order of 1-20 units

gentle token
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You'd also need to account for giving players the manna to actually level up

autumn prism
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primarily spaceship upkeep and supplies (homebrew, they have fuel and supplies so they cant sit out in the corner of space and do downtime actions away from any real danger)

gentle token
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(I think that Manna leveling would be more common if it was supported by Comp/Con)

autumn prism
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tbh I mostly level up on milestone

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my campaign is a horrendous egregorian monster

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I started it before I owned the core rulebook šŸ˜­

unreal coral
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yeah i cant help with that lol but it sounds like youre used to using duct tape

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so i have faith in you

autumn prism
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I lot of what im complaining about is honestly just issues where i've either

  • shot myself in the foot
  • duct taped something
  • had to retcon a previous decision
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but yeah thats everything ill get out of your hair now thanks

unreal coral
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gun to my head, if i were to mix BM and long rim, i would still keep them separate. pay ou blood money jobs as per my book

autumn prism
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oh yeye

unreal coral
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then at the end of the op, players get a "bonus package" that is, in essence, the long rim manna system

autumn prism
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im switching entirely to blood money mechanically

unreal coral
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would have to fudge some numbers but should be fine

autumn prism
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no shade on the writers here

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entirely thought out
-# long rim I mean

unreal coral
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what, long rim manna?

autumn prism
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yeah

unreal coral
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yeah i hate it

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i dont think its all that interesting and it kinda falls flat of the whole power fantasy

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plus its, by report, very easy to abuse

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which im not necessarily against but it is funny

autumn prism
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yeah

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as previously mentioned I brought in my spaceship supplies and fuel to try and stopgap the abuse

atomic topaz
slow tundra
autumn prism
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weeks away from any union planet or station

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feedstock is stored and has to be rationed (as supplies)

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and fuel cannot be simply converted, it is instead its own thing

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they can turn feedstock into repairs and full repairs, or into items, and generally use some in ship maintenance

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-# although my game actually takes place in the titanfall setting but im using the equivilents šŸ˜­

sage comet
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the thing I like and will keep about Manna from long rim is that the cost of living is about 1 Manna a day - ties in nicely with the origin of the word

autumn prism
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unfortunately it has to be increased for BM šŸ˜”

sage comet
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IĀ“d scale other prices to make military expenses appropriately outrageous honestly

unreal coral
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you can still live on 1 manna a day in BM you just need a bit more to buy military grade munitions

autumn prism
autumn prism
unreal coral
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my perception of mercenary work in lancer is in line with mechwarrior, in that the jobs you take on earn you an exorbitant amount of money but the vast bulk of it is put into the expenses of running the kind of operation you have to begin with

autumn prism
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yeah thats fair

atomic topaz
slow tundra
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Food: 0.25 Manna
Data: 0.25 Manna
Rent: 0 Manna
Military Grade Munitions: 10000 Manna
Utilities: 0.5 Manna
someone who is good at economy please help me budget this. my family is dying

unreal coral
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lmao

rigid hill
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spend less manna on military grade munitions

sage comet
upbeat knoll
upbeat knoll
autumn prism
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just get a filter toobā„¢ and you can cut down on utility costs

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and food? okay yeah buddy your just lazy it literally walks around and gerows on the ground

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there we go already 0.5 manna saved

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thats another 1/10 of a bullet

nimble barn
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Bro really went for all the efficient and economic options for everything else just so he could spend more on boollet.

slow tundra
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not a he, but I was trying to divvy up the 1 Manna/day number

nimble barn
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More so referring to Mr. GM but I see ya bro.

ivory pasture
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I've finally packaged the companion app so it can just be run as an executable instead of requiring pulling of the repo - will add this to the repo later but here it is now for those that want it o7

(calling this version 0.5.1)

Google Docs
Lancer Bloodmoney Companion 0.5.1.zip
GitHub
Release 0.5.1 - First Packaged Release Ā· Shteb/LANCER-Bloodmoney-M...

This release marks the beginning of packaging the app as an executable! Will be continuing with this going forward.
Normally I'd note what's being added this release, but instead I'm ju...

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(this doesn't remove the need to portforward or reverse proxy it)

wraith burrow
unreal coral
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sick!!!

pale pumice
ivory pasture
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yah :>

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Just means it doesnt have to be run through terminal via npm start or anything

ivory pasture
sturdy kelp
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So I'm a little confused, I've never really messed with this kind of thing before. What steps from the read me do I still need to do to run the program? Do I still need Node.js and Git?

ivory pasture
sturdy kelp
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Thank you, I thought it was supposed to be that easy but wanted to confirm that I was simply having an issue on my end

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So I'm encountering an issue with Windows 10 where the terminal appears for a split second then shuts. I've been trying to run as admin so it's off to google to see if there's any settings I might need to mess with.

ivory pasture
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ahhhhh dammit alright that's probably my doing, lemme troubleshoot

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hobbyist dev putting software out there for the first time doesn't properly test their release, more at 11

ivory pasture
sturdy kelp
ivory pasture
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big thanks for reporting as things went wrong, I'd have just gone to sleep with it broke otherwise (āŠ™_āŠ™;)

sturdy kelp
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You're welcome!

nimble barn
ivory pasture
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There is not, though I'm happy to add that to the list? :>

nimble barn
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That would be lovely if it ain't too much trouble. <:3

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Though I do have a question. If I make two separate folders and copies, and I run each executable differently. Would each of them be different?

ivory pasture
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Yup, their data is stored to the data folders that the executable is lauched in - as such, you can have a bunch of them in different folders if you need

nimble barn
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Niiiiiice

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I can make separate folders and copies for different campaigns.

ivory pasture
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Glad it's working out, I was almost going to store to appdata but got lazy and it seems to have worked out šŸ˜…

nimble barn
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Yeye, now I just need to figure out how to reverse proxy it so that my players can access it.

ivory pasture
ivory pasture
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Oh also, I asked already regarding reserves but wanted to ask for base stuff too - @unreal coral would I be allowed to include the various base modules and upgrades directly in the app?

ivory pasture
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Also quesiton for you lovely people - how would you run base upgrade/minor facility demolition? Do the players have to pay to remove a Minor facility to make space for a new one? Is it free? Do they get money back?

coral orchid
ivory pasture
coral orchid
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perfectly fine, thank you!

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honestly the program is already very very nice as is :D

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very good work, and seems to work perfectly fine even through a bit of a convoluted reverse proxy system

ivory pasture
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V happy to hear C: Am currently working on the base management rework which, once done, should pretty much round out the primary features of the app

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Glad to hear reverse proxy stuff was manageble btw - I should probably add some links to some into the README

coral orchid
unreal coral
ivory pasture
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And that's 1.0! With Base Management fully added, I think it's pretty much minimum-viable-product now. Still taking ideas though so happy for suggestions to be pinged my way :>

Link to release here!

image.png
unreal coral
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very cool shit stebb

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thanks again for making this, im very gratified

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what a cool device!!

ivory pasture
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v happy with it myself, doubly so that you and others like it :D Eleonor has already pointed out to me that this'd benefit from time gated Job voting so 1.1 will be on the way soon im sure lol

gentle token
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I was poking around with it over the weekend, I love it, have to try the new one.

autumn prism
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would there ever be a way of using it myself without having to check through ports and stuff

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im technologically illiterate

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like monke

gentle token
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The main use of ports and stuff is to have your players directly interface with it

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If you're just tinkering with it yourself you don't need to do anything except run it

ivory pasture
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Run instructions for yourself are at the top of the readme :>

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which in heinsight, I should probably include in the zip

autumn prism
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thanks

nimble barn
ivory pasture
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Added it to The Listā„¢, thanks for the reminder xP

sturdy kelp
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So this may be a bit of a silly question for those who know but I already do port forwarding for Foundry, would I use the same address but change the number behind the : to 3000?

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And do the players also need the program to access the board?

rare solar
sturdy kelp
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Thank you

upbeat knoll
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I got mine set up, thanks for the hard work stebb

If you're a fool like me and still have McAfee you'll have to tell it to stop trying to quarantine the program pain

upbeat knoll
nimble barn
upbeat knoll
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I've only just gotten it up, it'll probably be off when my computer's turned off

nimble barn
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Huh, is ZeroTier free?

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Might consider it for my own use for the Blood Money app.

ivory pasture
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Companion App 1.1.0 release!

This update cleans up a bunch of visuals and adds some QoL to make usage just a bit smoother.

Notably for @nimble barn, you can now change the Manna currency icon :P

nimble barn
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Absolute fire

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Can't wait to try it home later and make a copy for my campaign.

I made the worldbuild+system mistake of renaming the currency to something else so I should be able to edit the Manna name and icon for me campaign.

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:]

upbeat knoll
nimble barn
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Yeyeh is campaign use

ivory pasture
nimble barn
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Oof then Manna currency name with fancier icon then might be what I see later when I get home.

ivory pasture
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just checked, there are in fact 2 remaining mentions of Manna - patch later today tomorrow will fix that :P

ivory pasture
unreal coral
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thanks again stebb!! very cool business

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may everyone make a million manna

ivory pasture
# unreal coral may everyone make a million manna

Sudden idea for indentured servitude type merc gang with a Rank 3 reserve

Your debt is paid.
Freedom is yours.

:100,000M```
Enter the narrative trust fall game of the characters not cashing in eachother's bank to get themselves out
unreal coral
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i was toying with the idea pre-release of having achievements that were kinda like this

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but i never got around to doing it

ivory pasture
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on the plus, system you've built is evocative and tight enough that coming up with them ourselves is lovely ā¤ļøā€šŸ”„

unreal coral
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hell yeah!

sage comet
# ivory pasture Aaand I reckon that's feature complete - have fun people :> ## Job Voting in [d...

the docker stuff is for folks that donĀ“t want to deal with port forwarding: this way you can deal with web hosting instead! šŸ˜„

I wrote a mini-guide in the repo (https://github.com/Shteb/LANCER-Bloodmoney-Merc-Board/blob/main/docker/RENDER_README.md) on hosting the dashboard on online services, basing it off Render (which has a free tier, and an easy UI).

This gives an app that is published on the web (and that can then be embedded as an iframe in apps like Miro or Notion) and can be accessed from anywhere.

Only hiccup is that the free tier in Render goes to sleep after 15 minutes of inactivity, so the first visit to the page is a bit sluggish. But there are workarounds for this, also described in the guide.

(There are a million other web hosting solution out there, i just picked the one that I thought would be easier to setup)

GitHub
LANCER-Bloodmoney-Merc-Board/docker/RENDER_README.md at main Ā· Sht...

A companion app for Blood Money, a mercenary focused supplement for LANCER RPG by Pigsriot. - Shteb/LANCER-Bloodmoney-Merc-Board

rare solar
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a docker image makes it a lot easier to configure all my stuff in a single compose file and rev proxy config

ivory pasture
nimble parcel
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looks like it resets to defaults if the render host goes to sleep, that or I did something horribly wrong. Does one of the other hosting options solve this, or is it better to just use one of the keep-awake options?

upbeat knoll
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holy shit we have docker images now

sage comet
nimble parcel
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Docker. Went through the new>web service>public repository pipeline.

sage comet
ivory pasture
sage comet
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Was looking into Vercel right now šŸ™‚ the free tier is serverless - so has kind of the same problems as renderĀ“s free tier. Github pages only allows static pages, so no nodejs - Will look into cloudflare later.

nimble parcel
sage comet
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the winner might be Azure - free tier with 1gb storage and 60 minute of active cpu time per day. a bit more to configure than Render, but not too much. Found it easier than Google Cloud. I tried breaking the instance, forcing it to go idle, deploying from one image and switching to another, etc -- and it kept my settings and data, so it seems to work. Will see tomorrow after a long idle time.

main negative: Even for the free tier you need to give a credit card though, hope thatĀ“s not a deal breaker for most folks. But the other main alternative for free hosting with a bit of storage, Google Cloud, also has the same limitation.

Will write a small guide during the weekend.

ivory pasture
wraith burrow
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Random intention thing to check regarding with how the pricing for rank rewards goes (specifically referring to the blood money board by stebb!)

Is each job payout per player or just for the whole team? I only ask because the book advises that one job should give each player enough money to afford the same rank of reserve each, and the example jobs are very low for that bracket (but I could just be misunderstanding)

gentle token
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I am 99% sure itā€™s per player

sharp tide
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I think pigs answered on reddit that payouts are per player

ivory pasture
# wraith burrow Random intention thing to check regarding with how the pricing for rank rewards ...

Ah yeah, the example stuff is very much "this is what it might look like filled out", I should probably have something a little more concrete šŸ˜…

With regards to displayed pay, because the GM has to manually pay the players anyway I advise you run the job listing pay as you feel is clearest to your group - I thematically opt for the listed pay to be interpreted as group pay, divided among them to sell the whole "Merc company gets paid, you sort your cut out among you" thing, but that doesn't actually effect how much they're individually being paid :>

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As for whether recommended payouts from the book are meant to be split or not, see other responses above and [pigsriot's official](#1359607476001050634 message)ā„¢ o7

sage comet
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In the campaign I am setting up, I do rewards per player, with the company itself being an extra player taking his share. The base upgrades are paid from the company account. To account for that i'm going to set up rewards on the lower end of the spectrum.

This is because it's an open table, where pooling resources for vase upgrades might affect regulars and occasional players very differently.

ivory pasture
wraith burrow
ivory pasture
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Let us know if it goes well! (or wrong!) šŸ˜…

wraith burrow
# ivory pasture Let us know if it goes well! (or wrong!) šŸ˜…

Just finished option 1! It worked super smoothly!
Although I've used azure web development before, I think step 19 (specifically the volume mounts portion) might be better formatted to be clearer for people who aren't as familiar. Is there the possibility to maybe add the entries as an image, just to make things clear as to which segments go into which box?

ivory pasture
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Oh great catch! I think I borked the table formatting, will fix that - super happy to hear it's worked though! :D Ty for test run :>

ivory pasture
unreal coral
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If a job rewards 1000m, everyone gets 1000m

unreal coral
wraith burrow
gentle token
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I like the operation system, but one problem I think that it creates is that it makes Downtime a lot more scarce, and devalues a lot of options that players can take during it.

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I know some modules have players do multiple downtimes for long time skips, but I've never felt quite satisfied with that, lot of my players feel like the run out of things to do

unreal coral
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i didnt garner downtime as being scarce

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it happens along more or less the same pacing as vanilla

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i do agree that the shop devalues the organic gathering of reserves, which is the chief function of downtime actions in the book

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but thats fine, im content to kill that function

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and its not like you cant use your downtime action to score reserves on the cheap anyway

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my players did that plenty of times

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the trick to downtime is to ignore the downtime actions as stipulated in the book

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rip the pages out, burn em in a firepit

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"get organized" okay how about get fucked

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what is your character doing? how are you spending your R&R? what are your hopes and dreams? paint me a word picture

gentle token
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We have very different opinions

gentle token
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Though that's where my Iconic is, so maybe I'm biased

unreal coral
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after a few smaller campaigns my players eventually ran into the same problem you described, which is they just kinda looked at the options available and went "well we've done a lot of these"

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there are some that are practically useful but overall they felt like they had to jump through too many hoops to sync their roleplay goals with the actions described by the book

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and i agreed, so we ditched em

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like i get the jist

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1-9 failure, 10-14 success with caveat, 15-19 etc. etc.

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this aint my first rodeo

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i can take it from here lancer, ty

gentle token
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I'm referring to the opposite problem

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There so MUCH they can do they default to just getting another reserve

unreal coral
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oooh i see

gentle token
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In my original Merc campaign, we had multiple Get Organized groups running around, one was a union one player put together that became the combat crew of their ship once they evacuated

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The other was the Subaltern crew that the Horizon-oriented crew member unionized

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I was actually disappointed there was no way to fit them into the Blood Money system, I guess I know why now

unreal coral
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in a lot of ways blood money is one big Get Organized action

gentle token
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On the other hand, maybe the shop would make using downtime for narrative reasons more appealing

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Maybe I'll run downtimes as a mirror to operations, as a clock

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Narrative consequence of job or otherwise, then downtime

unreal coral
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yeah! thatd work

gentle token
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Ooh, got a name for it, the Aftermath Clock

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Tick one, deal with narrative consequence (good or bad), then the players can have downtime, then repeat

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Or I can use it to set up moving parts for the next operation

upbeat knoll
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My campaign's finally into the "open world" (read: Merc Job Board) section of the game, huzzah

I have a ton of individual factions in this system due to the local political situation but I probably should make some of them allied to others (and view the team favorably if they helped their allies) so they don't have to relationship-manage 14 different unrelated groups when they move from planet to planet

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How many factions do y'all use in your games?

ivory pasture
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5 proper factions tops - though I track some npcs within factions that have more power (eg. intelligence division head may have their own agenda and the means to move without the company taking notice) so maybe absolutele maximum 7?

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I think I personally would try and keep inter-planetary factions to a minimum too, as I think I enjoy the idea of a conflict being largely isolated to a planet

unreal coral
nimble parcel
upbeat knoll
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I'll probably keep lumping smaller factions together into allied blocs, sounds like

stable hill
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like the pro-Union faction in my game includes actual pro-Union insurgents, UIB glowies trying to aid them, and Harrison Armory fuckers supporting the guys that will most directly fuck over their enemies

sage comet
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Beginning with 4, two actively at war with each other, 2 more side-plotty

gilded ridge
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Same here, I have a corpo fighting some religious extremists, with criminals and a NGO in the middle

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(Altho my table is built to have no good guys - except for the Union-backed NGO)

autumn prism
# upbeat knoll How many factions do y'all use in your games?

So I wouldnt call it best methods but about...

-# well theres the IMC and its three factions... then the militia and its three... then the horus cultists... and the communists...

yeah about too many to absolutely ridiculous (about 10 rn, not all of them are fully represented or interacted with but do exist)

ivory pasture
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This talk is making me think it'd be useful for GMs to be able to hide or disable Factions in the app šŸ¤”

upbeat knoll
upbeat knoll
sage comet
drowsy grotto
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@unreal coral Salvage Corps is 1/job right?

unreal coral
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Y'know it probably should be lolol

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Let's say 1/scene, give the multi star jobs more incentive

drowsy grotto
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Gotcha thank you

vernal idol
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Finished reading Blood Money, and while all of it is super good, I think the thing I'm most excited to use are the Knights of the Sterling order; that's the exact kind of bullshit my playgroup loves to hate

unreal coral
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lmao badass

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im glad those disgusting cretins appealed to you

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thanks for reading!

vernal idol
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I did have one question that I might've missed the answer to, but are faction reputations intended to not change if the players take jobs that directly fight them?

unreal coral
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that, my friend, is up to you.

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i roll that into the "GM fiat" part of that section

vernal idol
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Yeah I figure it probably depends on the context of the job/values of the faction

unreal coral
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figure this: larger, more powerful factions (like union, the big four, etc) are professionals. they know how the game is played, they know that mercs go to the highest bidder

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theyre probably more inclined to forgive a company that takes jobs against them, esepcially if they do good work. after all, they may be able to hire them later themselves

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they wouldnt want to burn any bridges

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but smaller organizations like local militias, pirate bands, etc. those that lack those titanic resources?

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they may take it a bit more personally

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a running gag in my blood money campaign was "All's Fair in Love and War*"

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with the asterisk

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it was actually never fair and everyone always took everything personally

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despite constantly saying that they wouldnt

vernal idol
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makes sense

sage comet
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I wonder if this could tie into the players' Tier / LL - assuming one would also assign Tiers to factions - in some way like bigger faction cares less or not at all about smaller factions acting against them, but as you get more powerful and have access to better gear and more exclusive licenses, they do start caring. Maybe also the big 4 don't like you using their own top of the line equipment against their interest..

unreal coral
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hmmmmmmm

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company ranks

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i quite like that

ivory pasture
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There's something to be said for a "Theatre Rep" track, with carry over between the various conflict zones your players might visit

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Though it'd basically be putting a number to an otherwise entirely fiction based thing, and you could pretty easily say this is already tracked using Factions as a whole

rare solar
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there's a lot that can be borrowed from Band of Blades as well, if you're interesting in faction dynamics

ivory pasture
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How much does an increase in LL mean in universe anyway? My personal impression was that the crew of mercs/UDoJ pilots played by your players are super-elites out the gate, and so LL's translated to notoriety rather than an increase in qualification per se. Something for a group to decide for themselves certainly.

autumn prism
wintry steppe
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May I have access to this if that is fine with you.

untold peak
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Absolutely, I keep forgetting it's not just public :P

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It's slightly out of date, my main branch has had a fair bit more tinkering which I'll add soon but nothing game changing (I think)

wintry steppe
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Thanks!

wraith burrow
# ivory pasture ## [Companion App 1.1.0 release!](https://github.com/Shteb/LANCER-Bloodmoney-Mer...

After trying out the companion app, I'm loving it, and my players have had a lot of good comments on it. I think it's really brought a level of immersion that my players are vibing with.

I do have a couple of questions on design intention, just to assure I'm using the website correctly.

  • What is the intended use behind pilot-related jobs? Is this for any/all jobs a particular pilot goes on, or moreso if they are going on individual missions or missions specific to their characters?
  • Is the intention to delete jobs from the listing after an operation is over? With each part of an operation typically having an option for four jobs, I can end up seeing that stacking up quite quickly in the listing.
  • Jobs are in states of pending, active, ignored and failed/completed. Is the intention for pending missions being future missions the GM is setting up, and active being ones they can choose from, or is active the current mission they are on specifically? I ask because the missions have to be set to active in order to vote for them, so wanted to check for the correct interpretation.
image.png
autumn prism
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What are tier 3 reserves supposed to be?

sharp tide
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Exotics or permanent Licensed gear

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That kind of stuff

gentle token
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I intend to use a rotation of the vast array of exotic gear I have from Lancer modules, plus the specialty licenses from Suldan

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Looking at my comp/con, looks like I have ~50 pieces of exotic gear, plus the 15 specialty licenses

ivory pasture
# wraith burrow After trying out the companion app, I'm *loving* it, and my players have had a l...

I'm glad to hear you've found it cool! Thanks for the comments, this proves I need to make something resembling a user guide. To address:

  • Pilot related jobs lists all non-pending jobs that have passed through the board while they were active.
  • Only "active" jobs appear on the board to the players - any beyond that stage only appear in history c: On the job management tab, theres a "progress all jobs" button which will make all active jobs ignored (any other results need to be assigned before pressing this), and will make all "pending" jobs active (visible to the players on the board)

Lmk of any other questions, will be useful in assembling a guide c:

wraith burrow
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And in regards to the pilot related jobs, should that mean I assign all jobs that they participate in to them?

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(I'll also ask my players if they have any questions regarding the site - we do session in an hour but just in case anything comes up from the player side!)

ivory pasture
drowsy grotto
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Hullo, is the roll for green squad naturally made at +1 difficulty at tier 1?

zinc bolt
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Reads as that

unreal coral
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dont get attached

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ESPECIALLY dont name green squad leader, and buy them drinks

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and give them a nickname and talk about their sweetheart back home

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and whatever you do

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for the love of god

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dont make plans with green squad for "when they get back"

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do you WANT them to die???

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(im just kidding, do all of these things, theyre very funny)

drowsy grotto
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Hahaha

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My GM is like okay if you want green squad, we will give them hella personality, and if they fucked up, you gotta rescue them, deal

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and I said deal

unreal coral
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thats badass

drowsy grotto
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that said if we scan a lot, he said he will give us some discount by allowing us to recruit existing NPCs who might be open to the task

unreal coral
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thats VERY cool

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your GM has some good ideas

drowsy grotto
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yep, Tanoshii is full of cool ideas

unreal coral
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oh word???

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hell yeah

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not at all surprised in that case

drowsy grotto
#

the reason why we are even considering green squad is not for money, but he made like 100 pages of worldbuilding doc showing us how terrible the state of the system is

#

so I wanted green squad so we can double the help we can provide

#

don't even want the money

unreal coral
#

yes!!! excellent

#

i dont think green squad is even cost effective

#

but its super fun.

#

youre paying for the experience

drowsy grotto
#

it would be super handy to have another team where/when we face a burning orphanage to the left and a burning maternal ward on the right

unreal coral
#

my thoughts exactly

#

youre in good hands, tanoshii understands BM perfectly

drowsy grotto
#

He might figure out the use for a legal team even. Right now I look at all our jobs and I'm just like why do I even need the legal representatives base upgrade when a lot of these seem borderline black ops

#

our lawyer might as well be a recorder that continuously repeats "We are looking into these alledged accusations and monitoring the situation. No comment."

unreal coral
#

lmfao

#

every purchase of the legal team upgrade comes with a free on-site therapist to help your lawyers through the massive amount of job stress

vernal idol
#

So I'm re-reading page 54 where it talks about a first session; is the intention to have that meeting with each faction Liaison happen during the first session, and then that first session ends with choosing a job?

unreal coral
#

thats precisely what i did, but its really up to you

#

you can absolutely slow-drip the liaisons if you want

#

i front-loaded it so that players were better informed as to their job choices

#

but i think itd be really fun if you started with, say, two factions

#

and then as the campaign went on you introduced more

#

thus adding more diversity to the job board as it goes on

#

OR

#

another fun idea

#

you can have job offers from all factions at the start

#

but not offer liaison meetings with all of them. like, say, minor factions

#

so players would be like "can we trust these guys without meeting them? what are the risks? how do we know who we're working for?"

#

thatd be fun friction IMO

#

then itd be up to them whether they pursue an official meeting

gentle token
#

Thats probably what I was going to do when I run mine; adapting my old Mercs campaign, most of the jobs were either for a solitary faction or were one-offs

#

Early on there was a job from an anonymous posting that involved stealing from a Harrison Armory transport ship to steal medical supplies

#

Other times the players met the faction leader after they chose their mission

#

And other times, they just had their contract bought out by Union

#

Once, as a "we need every gun in the system pointing that way", and the other time as "since you brought us the data, you get the exclusive contract to defend the Far-Field team"

vernal idol
# unreal coral but not offer liaison meetings with all of them. like, say, minor factions

Might be fun to have the first session be faction liasons arriving at the merc base to pitch their missions, but halfway through the negociation a 3rd group bursts through and tries to assasinate the liasons. The players then have to choose pretty quickly who to support initially. Also serves as a reason reason for why other liasons might not want to meet with the mercs initially.

unreal coral
#

thats very cooool

vernal idol
#

oh no now I'm imagining that shitty mobile game trope where you start with a base that's destroyed and get told you need microtransactions or whatever to rebuild it

echo mountain
#

realized i forgot to have my group meet the commander/liaison for the house company that hired them after they had already signed up, so instead they're meeting him while he's cracking skulls at the front of the encircled army they're arriving to bail out lol

unreal coral
#

badass!

rare solar
#

so, update on my blood money open-table campaign:

  • foundry, game server, and networking all configured
  • central conflict declared (needs plenty of elaboration)
#

ive been focusing on getting the damn game server up and running for a few months bit by bit and it's finally ready

rare solar
#

im so damn happy. i made a massive todo list for this project and we're past the halfway point!

unreal coral
#

thats awesome!!!

#

im happy for you, and excited to hear more

lusty portal
#

just picked up blood money and it looks awesome!!! really lighting the fire of finally starting my MSMC game in me

autumn prism
#

mirror smoke mercenary company headquarters casually constructing a pigsriot shrine for attracting so many pilots to the company

unreal coral
unreal coral
drowsy grotto
#

We only got BM after being part of MSMC in the previous campaign. But we wouldn't have had the chance to use the base building materials as our base was a joint venture amongst 4 corps (5 cuz Horus was somehow in it as expected).

We had nowhere near the power to petition for what would be built, instead was just relegated to an extra detachment that any corp could contract to improve the odds of their mission.

#

Funnily enough since we got core bonus as reserve based on the corp we help, the whole game we grew cozy to HA only. SBD and Heatfall too good

#

By the end of the game at LL12 my char got all the cores he needed legitimately already so he just pointed at the HA captain who gave him core reserves previously and said "I want you"

lusty portal
#

lol i was also thinking of setting my game in the dawnline shore... maybe a central space station so we can bop around to different planets as needed...

upbeat knoll
#

No MSMC for me this time, my gang is running a SMALL INDIE MERCENARY COMPANY founded because the team survived an illicit smuggling/cargo insurance fraud scheme that assumed none of them would survive

MSMC and, uh, Wagner Group in Space are rivals or potential subcontracting opportunities

#

Hmmm... I need to think of an excuse for MSMC to subcontract to freelancers. They're the lowest-bidder merc group already so subcontracting seems like you'd be paying a merc that's willing to work a job for less than your already rock-bottom asking price

Maybe they got overbooked lol

drowsy grotto
upbeat knoll
#

I won't get attached crylaughing

drowsy grotto
#

Its a healthy attitude considering my 3 repcap DH

gentle token
#

MSMC, comes with the legal team base upgrade for free

unreal coral
upbeat knoll
#

I will give it free if the players successfully manage to press-gang a lawyer

gentle token
#

I mention it because MSMC is always supposed to deploy with one of their crack lawyers

#

Or at the very least have them on call

upbeat knoll
#

My MSMC campaign had a lawyer. He was very occupied with important things like feuding with his soon-to-be-ex-wife, and pawning off parenting his kid to the detachment manager, whom he was weirdly attached to

gentle token
#

I mean, from the lawyers Ive known, that's pretty normal

vernal idol
lusty portal
#

my notes for my eventual msmc campaign say i should name my lawyer "sol badguy"

nimble barn
#

What about Saul Badman?

#

:]

odd star
#

Clearly they should be named ā€œLuna Maladyā€

rare solar
#

Luna good?-girl???

#

honestly that sounds like half the trans women i know... transtuff

upbeat knoll
#

Are the other half Luna Evildame

gentle token
#

I was reading through Field Guide to Castor and Pollux, really liking it. One of the things it has is a new set of downtime actions for obtaining and upgrading a small ship to house the players; I made a list to use in my campaign for mapping each upgrade you can get to a Blood Money base upgrade that will transfer when the players narratively get access to the base

#

For example, there's a medical bay upgrade players can get on their ship, it will count as the Med Bay facility before the base, and after the base when players get access to the full ship, it will act as the medevac upgrade to the med bay

unreal coral
#

dope!

gentle token
#

I'll post it when I get home, there's a few oblique conversions, but I had fun

#

IIRC, the drop pods module's bonus was a Green Squad upgrade, and I considered having the Stasis pods get the revolving door upgrade, lol

#

Real Helldiver Hours

#

In fact, I'm totally changing that back

#

The only upgrade that doesn't have a direct bonus is atmospheric landing, which is sort of a prerequisite to use everything else

unreal coral
#

fuck yeah please do share

gentle token
#

So, for reference

IMG_1145.png
#

Atmospheric Thrusters: N/A, necessary for use as dropship during Downwell operations

  • can be swapped to after finding base ship
    Brig: Expanded Cells brig upgrade
  • can enable use of Brig prior to attaining base
    Commercial Cargo Hold: Expanded Renovations module
  • necessary for carrying full team of mechs
    Comp/Con or NHP Co-Pilot: Salieri-class C/C Intelligence Center upgrade, Company NHP module
    Drop Pods: Better Training green squad barracks
    Improved Scanners: Satbirds hangar upgrade
    Full Mess Hall/Kitchen: Bar module
    Omninode: Omnimarket module
    Personal Rooms: Advanced Scout Kits command center upgrade
    Schedule-1 or Schedule-2 Printer: Auxiliary Printer, Diversified Fabricators printer upgrades
    Smugglerā€™s Hold: Expanded Shop module
    Stasis Chambers: Revolving Door module
    Stealth Drive: Stealth Measures module
    Subaltern Technicians: Subaltern Assistants workshop upgrade
    Upgraded Medical Bay: Field Triage med bay upgrade
  • enables use of Med Bay before base
    Weapons Battery/Spinal Spool Gun: Gunbirds hangar upgrade/Power Recycler module
sage kernel
#

Recently cracked Blood Money open on a whim while brainstorming with my GM on how to cobble together our own narrative systems for a Pankrati-style game, and i just wanted to remark that I really love all the writing in here about game structure and narrative play. They're greatly appreciated and also just a blast to read

unreal coral
#

thank you! im gratified to hear you liked it so much

rough crescent
#

5 hour session later, first every Blood Money operation is done owo

#

the added econ mechanics are sick, really amps up the feel of attrition and resource managment

lusty portal
#

hell yes!!

#

iā€™ve been daydreaming about my eventual BM and i want to start the players in a lot of debtā€¦ but i canā€™t think of a good justificationā€¦ ideas?

nimble barn
#

captain of Merc company was loaned out money to get the whole company started. So they now gotta do missions for them at reduced pay until they pay off the debt?

sage kernel
#

I think not making it ā€œalright how much are you paying into thisā€, but instead ā€œalright did you complete the jobā€ is the right instinct. I would worry how reduced pay would interact with PCsā€™ available funds to the shop economy, though šŸ¤”

#

Hereā€™s an important question, actually; do you think the debt will be a campaign-long problem where resolving it is the conclusion of the game, or just a starting thing they claw out of after a few missions?

nimble barn
#

Just a few missions

#

Ideally the total would be variable (depending on vampaign economy) but at least three missions worth is enough.

#

Can be adjusted.

#

Like say example.

#

You got a 15k Debt.

Ideally you can do contracts and missions that are more dangerous but have payouts of like 5-7k and get that stuff resolved after 3-4 contracts if players are fine with funneling payouts.

upbeat knoll
#

The debt is a truly ridiculous amount and the principal can only be paid off by endgame through some ridiculously priced final contract, all you can do before that is pay off interest

#

E.G. "everyone owes Evilbank 200,000 manna, there's a 0.5 percent per mission interest rate"

nimble barn
#

Truly Evilbank earned its name.

upbeat knoll
#

Evilbank is the endgame opponent

sage kernel
#

Hmā€¦ see, I think what I would do is just set a big clock where completing jobs of different ranks tick up at different values, and then play with ticks on the clock as an extra currency to barter. Maybe one job offers less manna but an extra tick, or another has an opportunity where you can screw your enemies or employers over and steal some stuff to tick the clock further. Conversely, you can threaten them with subtracting progress for beefing big narrative scenes or extended skill challenges, use it as a consequence for failing a job, or have big narrative setpieces like someone trying to rob you

upbeat knoll
#

The way to beat capitalism is to destroy your creditors with a giant robot

#

what does the clock represent, the remaining principal of your debt?

sage kernel
#

Yeah, exactly

#

Going with hard numbers might be better thematically and to interlock with the system, but I feel like itā€™s easier for players to gauge progress that way in the abstract

upbeat knoll
#

If you want to keep the specter of financial ruin looking over the characters you could go with the "debt is unrealistically large and paying interest is all you can manage " optional, and maybe throw in extra payment per mission to compensate for the interest payments

sage kernel
#

Trueā€¦

#

I also think you could do, like

#

No direct simulation of interest, but if you donā€™t get x ticks in y timeframe you start getting pressured or penalized

gilded ridge
#

I haven't launched my BM campaign yet, but I was also wondering about a big debt

#

What I'm going with is that the players who are fresh MSMC recruits are provided with access to minimum infrastructure and services (hangar, bunks, etc.). They signed a contract that bonds them to the MSMC for a year (I thought a year is enough to make a big sum of money with a high probability to die in the process), which represents their debt. They could "break free" but that would make them a target for the company.
The pressure from that debt would be their allocated lawyer "suggesting" them to complete certain contracts for the good of the company, like "You only worked for the pirates so far, which makes the local authorities question our presence here ; go work for the good guys just for once, or we will loose work opportunities"

rough crescent
#

heyo, what would be a good amount of missions / operations per story stage progress

unreal coral
#

3 job board rotations per op

#

and as many operations as you like

#

you can do 4 job board rotations, but if players pick higher-star jobs then it may start to drag

#

as for story stage progress, i try to keep to one op per arc

#

like, this is the south pole arc. this is the tropical island arc. this is the city arc

#

its all the same war but the theater changes with the momentum of the conflict

#

what i did in my campaign was show players 3-4 theaters where the war was hottest, and then let them pick where they wanted to be deployed

rough crescent
#

Im doing it a bit more simplified for the first stage

unreal coral
#

i go more into this in chapter 3

#

and pages 16-17

rough crescent
#

we're starting before full frontal assaults start, so each job is a specific objective anywhere around the continent. Like convoy escort, sabotage etc. Gonna open up full scale operation once it gets hot I think

unreal coral
#

sure that sounds dope

rough crescent
#

currently Im letting them struggle to decide what jobs to take, since the early stage dictates how powerful the major players are gonna be for stage 2

#

like whether to help the commoner faction amass weapons from abandoned facilities they need help taking apart, or escord HA convoys as they prep defensive positions

#

or sabotage HA on the behalf of the attacking forces

#

once 4 of those smaller missions are done, stage 2 is on and it's operations full force

lusty portal
subtle thorn
#

book says: don't get lost in the weeds of developing your setting and factions
me: that sign can't stop me because I can't read.

(book is hella useful for the game I want to run, thanks for making it)

unreal coral
#

lolol thank you!

#

the weeds are a fun place to be but never forget:

#

youre on a deadline

autumn prism
#

anyone got any thoughts or advice on radical battles

#

I kinda got confused the first time I did it since only the players attack šŸ˜­

#

oh and does anyone have any thoughts on how to best do it on foundry

unreal coral
#

as the GM, your main goal in radical battles is to clock where players will want to go, and then move your forces in their way

#

forcing them to decide how much of their army/what battatlion composition would best clear the path

#

you "attack" by simply moving battalions adjacent to them

#

you cant attack for real, but you can force them to initiate a combat or suffer attrition for moving away

#

so moving a battalion that counters one of their own into adjacency forces them to take chip damage as they reposition, or commit to an unfavorable matchup

#

so lets say players need to occupy a landmark as one of their objectives, and they have a battalion of mostly infantry that theyre marching towards it

#

and you dont have any armor nearby to counter them

#

so instead you buy yourself time by moving a brigade or two into adjacency to force them to commit or take chip damage while your tanks rumble on down the road

#

ultimately radical battles is maent to facilitate power fantasies. if they arent super challenging, dont sweat it

#

as long as you get your players saying shit like "echo battalion needs to take this hill" or "bravo team can flank from the mountains" then youve already won

autumn prism
#

Thank you!!

autumn prism
unreal coral
#

i did not allow that at my table but ive had some readers argue in favor of it, and their arguments were sound

#

so in total my stance is "i didnt do that but i dont think it would break anything if you did"

#

or rather

#

the breakage will be funny

autumn prism
#

fair

#

I wont allow it for the time being

#

thank you

teal kindle
#

Wait until a player notices and then agree that they should get more so they feel clever /bad advice

odd star
#

Remember: you can always ask for a raise šŸ˜Œ

teal kindle
#

and yeah radical battles were weird to me in their asymmetry mainly for the defensive scenario since, it doesn't work as a traditional 'hold out against attacks' defense and is instead a 'sally forth to secure your defenses' or somesuch. Just gotta account for it in your objective planning, and that enemies being unable to force players off of an objective is perfectly fine

unreal coral
odd star
severe kite
#

for theaters, do people prefer regions on single planet or various planets?

ivory pasture
#

I find it easier to resolve conflicts that max out at global, but a conflict could very much go interplanetary. I think the only thing to scale when planning is that critical objectives are relevant on the scale being played.

stable hill
#

Like mine is going to be across one planet and the moons in its orbit

#

That's what helps sell stories like UC Gundam and the Expanse, it makes them feel grounded

upbeat knoll
#

Personally doing one system with 4 worlds and some stations. I wanted more planets for some variety in terrain

gentle token
#

It wasn't a merc game, but my first campaign was set in one solar system over four different planets, and each was its own narrative arc

severe kite
#

so like

#

the ktb own planets would be the different theaters

#

was my idea

lusty portal
#

also planning on dawnline shore

stable hill
#

wip of my ops screen

director_wip.png
#

still need the orbital bits (fleet, something for stations i guess)

lusty portal
#

so sick!!

unreal coral
#

Badass!!

stable hill
#

There we go. Explicitly separating the orbital theaters means it will be 100% the players' fault when they forget to bring EVA

director_wip.png
sharp tide
#

This looks sick

unreal coral
#

Yeah that's gorgeous

ivory pasture
#

Love the use of planets from that one world gen - really solid idea šŸ˜¤

unreal coral
#

I do think like... Regions of space can have strong identity like that

#

But you're also setting yourself up for a lot of prep, potentially

#

Not a bad thing

#

Like y'know. A region of space could be The Bumfuck Sector, and the planets therein could have a linking theme; cultural if not environmental

#

That'd be really fun i think

severe kite
#

ah makes sense

severe kite
#

in the same star system

unreal coral
#

That's a very comfortable scale imo

#

Cause then you can really dig into their unique biomes

severe kite
#

many thanks mr blood money

unreal coral
#

Please, mr blood money is my father's name. You can call me blood money

lusty portal
#

your name is blood money blood money?

severe kite
#

setting out my blood money prep has reminded me i went through some similar bits in different campaigns

#

did a "job board" in my arms race campaign

#

did the npc crew in my muv luv ripoff campaign

dim rose
#

Me and tech also have a job board for our merc campaign

slate ivy
stable hill
slate ivy
#

thanks!

upbeat knoll
#

Fellow spinny pixel planet enjoyer

zeta.png
#

Your layout's nicer though, I just dragged stuff onto my VTT background

stable hill
#

i like the sql injection spaceship

unreal coral
#

these maps are so good

severe kite
#

so i was thinking about faction lists again

#

and it reminded me of something that came up in my arms race campaign

#

namely that it became difficult for my players to parse not JUST who they were taking a contract from

#

but also WHO they'll be fighting

#

if that makes sense

#

effectively theres two layers of identification

#

job employer and opfor

#

wonder if anyone had figured out a solution there

odd star
#

Hm. Iā€™d probably stick all the scans into folders labeled by the names of the factions?

#

Like, then the dossier is clear

#

ā€œYouā€™re fighting Fallen. Therefore you can expect dregs, vandals, captains, Servitors, and floaty dronesā€

#

Ah but I get you now

#

E.G. Youā€™re working for Stone but fighting HA

#

A job may have a rep tracker in the rewards summary?

#

+++House of Stone Rep
-- HA Rep

severe kite
#

sorry yes im bad at explaining things

#

via text

#

thats a good idea

#

im not sure if it solves the core quibble tho

odd star
#

Yeah I donā€™t know. Feels like a UX/info design problem to me? Like how to show ā€œthese jobs are from Stone, hereā€™s the lowdown on each one with expected opforā€

#

Unfortunately Iā€™m a backend designer at best

severe kite
#

trueeeeeee

severe kite
#

i feel like u need a high degree of system knowledge to use a faction list well, as a player

odd star
#

I mean, if you know what the faction usually fields, that should inform you what to pack

#

if you know they're all Heat Lovers, you pack stuff to fuck with their heat

#

if you know they like Evasion + mobility, you know to pack Slowed + Smart + Immobilize

severe kite
#

yeah thats fair

odd star
#

like, I don't think it's purely backend

severe kite
#

but that requires you to KNOW thats an effective strategy against that sorta playstyle

#

is what i mean

odd star
#

I mean yeah, that's part of the system mastery of the thing

#

it's like knowing pokemon type matchups

#

sure you can brute force the game with a level 100 Swampert

#

but you can do more with less if you take advantage of type matchups, etc

severe kite
#

definately agree

odd star
#

so like, sure, it can be an opt-in thing? I'd make the info available though

#

so like, I'd have a high-level overview of the faction's tactics, as a GM, and share that with the players once they learn about the faction

#

HARRISON ARMORY AMT

High Armor, High Heatcaps, but slow and low-evasion. Like to fight in the Danger Zone for benefits.

FACTION ROSTER

  • [Insert NPC 1 here]
  • [Insert NPC 2 here]
    ...
sage kernel
#

Itā€™s easy to get fretful about showing your hand too much or ā€œgiving your PCs all the answersā€, but beyond helping your PCs make informed decisions on what jobs they to for and making it easier to weigh risk/reward, this openness of knowledge can create some very juicy dramatic tension in combat

upbeat knoll
#

my campaign's still too early for the faction roster to mean a whole lot to the players

odd star
#

Thinking about modular jobs and how one might

  1. Allow for multiple full repairs per LL
  2. Still incentivize performing well and actively participating in several missions before going back for a full repair
#

Right now my thought is a counter: Each job completed after the second after a full repair grants a piece of exotic gear

#

Or a Manna bonus in the case of Blood Money

#

Or like, scaling progression rewards for each subsequent job

#

Thinking like:

  • 6 renown to level up
  • Job 1: 1 renown
  • Job 2: 2 Renown
  • Job 3: 3 renown
  • Job 4+: Bonus

Job count resets after full repair, so youā€™d have to do 6 jobs to level up if you full repaired between them

#

Compared to 3 jobs if you stick it out

unreal coral
#

mmmmmmm interesting

#

so youre risking more by pushing for the level up

odd star
#

yeah it's a natural reflection of the risk taken by continuing to fight after taking attrition

#

like "oh shit these fuckers are beaten up and they're still going strong, fast track these guys to a license"

#

kinda like how Draw Steel has its own momentum system

#

though instead of like, unlocking combat abilities or even Reserves, it's tied to character progression

unreal coral
#

yeah im very into it

#

especially like the idea of getting even more shit after you already pass the finish line

#

i loveee mechanics that bait greedy players

#

aka

#

all players, ever

odd star
#

this is something I think I'm going to incorporate into my albatross framework

unreal coral
#

badasss

autumn prism
unreal coral
#

players saying "this is bait" as they take the too good jobs

upbeat knoll
#

Players only doing Rank 1 Jobs because they have no sense of joy and whimsy (and also ate 2 structure straight up on Job one)

odd star
#

like, if folks wanna play powerful but slow then who am I to stop them

#

it's like farming low-level hexes in Kingmaker

upbeat knoll
#

I think it's kinda fair that they know not to be greedy at the moment

#

they're broke-ass ll2s

odd star
#

"great, you killed that Level 1 giant spider! Since you're Level 12, you get 1 XP (out of 1000XP needed for a level up)"

#

harder jobs could give a bonus to Renown

#

and if, for example, you have a bit of an "open world" where there's Tier 1, 2, and 3 areas, you can say "you get zilch renown for helping in a location of a lower tier than yourselves. But you might get some other benefits!"

#

e.g., Reserves, alliances, other stuff not tied to advancement

unreal coral
#

the cowards

autumn prism
#

it makes the final encounter harder but they've been good in taking the OBVIOUSLY SHIT 0 MANNA JOBS

small gyro
# odd star Or a Manna bonus in the case of Blood Money

I do like this idea tbh for another reason, which is something I've been thinking about in the context of Blood Money which is "what happens if a player is missing on a set day"

I was planning on maybe doing my campaign as a more casual "tag in/out" system with a looser play schedule than I would do for something far more linear, and being able to just throw literal side quests at people if something doesn't line up for whatever reason

#

but yeah, giving the group as a whole a way to push on for extra gain for whatever reason (be it greed or a perceived need to be more prepared for later missions) is a good hook

#

same reason i'm interested in the idea of like, optional sitrep objectives (which i've played with before)

odd star
# small gyro I do like this idea tbh for another reason, which is something I've been thinkin...

Legit I was thinking the same thing as I rotated this idea in my head

Attrition is a bit of a hassle to track in Open Table drop in/drop out settings, and itā€™s unclear when full repairs should happen for folks. I think that doing this renown system on an individual basis will empower folks to choose when to full repair, but reward them with extra progression for going into a fight lower than max capacity

#

Because otherwise the full repair question is a pain:

  • group FR: people could play once and then wait for the group FR trigger and before playing again. Doesnā€™t feel great to the folks actually doing the hard work
  • individual FR: without a stacking renown/progression system, folks will just FR every combat

So usually what Iā€™ve seen is open tables just saying ā€œfuck it, FR every time, even if the sessions are mostly one shotsā€

#

So yes: I 100% agree and I think Iā€™ll be leveraging this on an individual basis in a project Iā€™m planning

#

Being able to FR at player leisure also means that someone can change up their build if necessary, mid-mission, for a mild ā€œretraining penaltyā€, without any weird concessions for Limited systems

And this could even play into partial advancement like Long Rim tries to do (or like 13th age does, more elegantly imo)

#

Anyway sorry for the hijack, Pigsriot, but this has been helpful and this space seemed like the best place to discuss such an approach

rare solar
#

the way im doing FR and open-table in my game is each player tracks their own Operation clock individually. So at the end of the day, each player needs 3 Jobs before a Full Repair

#

that does move the problem of "how long do we hang out in a theater of war" to the GMs or the meta GM

ivory pasture
#

A clock for each player presumably would make either of the above suggested approaches a lot easier too

#

I'm trying to remember if the app ever got per-player Op clocks? Eiter way, probably worth making it configurable so it can be used to track Renown or w/e

rare solar
#

ye it did

severe kite
#

wrote out the second major faction for my campaign, with a faction list

image.png
#

i was thinking the two minor factions would get.....4? 5? different ones instead of 8

upbeat knoll
#

My gang of assorted dipshits has finished their first Operation wooooooo

All Rank 1 jobs, they spent most of their cash on base upgrades. They haven't bought Green Squad yet but they've met some NPC pilots that could join now!

upbeat knoll
#

Anyway, is it anything too problematic if the Reserve the Workshop produces is a piece of rented licensed gear? Personally I don't see an issue, though printing out actual exotics seems like a bridge too far as it removes some of the incentive for doing risky high rank jobs

unreal coral
#

my intent for the workshop was to be reserve-only (as in grade 1 and 2), but if players wanted to print like a chain axe then, yknow

#

whatever

#

i might add an extra clause like "you need the wreckage of a berserker" if i was feeling spicy

#

or even custom reserves with GM approval.

#

from my own words!

#

so yeah youre gucci

worthy karma
#

Okay, what exactly is a "manna stipend?" I get it suppose to be some vague amount of cash/trade goods/whatever, but its too vague for me to use. Is like enough credit to cover a month of medium life style? Can you buy a car with it? A house? A castle? A planet?
I am the GM and I know I can make it whatever I need it to be, but I am hoping for what the actual intent is

gentle token
worthy karma
#

I know that much. When my players earn "5 manna stipends" and "4 paychecks", what can they do with them?
I guess I should have asked "what is it worth?" A check, wad of cash, gold coins, and credit are all kinds of payments. I just don't know the value

autumn prism
#

theres no exact amount of manna equal in a stipend or a paycheck

#

being someone who scoured the entire BM book to try and find out myself šŸ˜­

worthy karma
autumn prism
#

I suppose to give a conservative estimate, 500 (anywhere between 500 to 1250 tbh) manna per stipend

#

bearing in mind the average person lives on like 1 manna a day

worthy karma
#

Ah! That there is something I can work with.

autumn prism
#

Also I want to state for the record

worthy karma
#

Where did you find that information?

autumn prism
autumn prism
#

or was it long rim

#

might have been long rim actually

sharp tide
#

are you familiar with what manna is in the setting, in general?

autumn prism
#

yeah it was long rim -_-

worthy karma
#

Coco: On in so far that certain books use it for currency to buy reserves and such.

autumn prism
sharp tide
#

and this is from the long rim book's manna section

image.png
autumn prism
#

Mr bloodmoney himself has also confirmed the 1 manna per day thing to still be the case for BM in terms of narrative

worthy karma
#

...I should have seen those. This makes things better. Thank you both for your input and clarifications

sharp tide
#

i will say whether you use manna or some other unit/metric, in actual play, the currency only matters for purchasing reserves and base upgrades

#

you can pretty much just handwave all the day-to-day stuff

worthy karma
#

...now I just need to understand how the not-economy works, and I am ready for the mech dystopia future

sharp tide
#

unless you feel like subtracting 1 unit of currency from every player lol

odd star
#

I donā€™t know if Iā€™m just missing something, but 1 manna a day sounds like a lot compared to a cup of coffee

#

I guess it is the long rim but yeah

sharp tide
#

yeah i assume this factors in the scarcity of the rim and like, extortion lol

#

but also its the classic "scifi writer who isn't a math person putting down numbers"

odd star
#

Very much interpreting 1 manna as roughly US$1000, so coffee is $1 a cup and a modest ground vehicle is $10k

So $1k living expenses a day is a yikes hahaha

#

Iā€™d expect $1k living expenses a week at worst for comfortable living

So Iā€™d probably make downtime cost 1 week and thus 1 manna

#

Itā€™s fine, folks are getting paid in the 100s of manna

#

Itā€™s like playing AC6 and having to pay for ammo, except those costs are so minimal in comparison to your payout

sharp tide
#

now i'm just thinking about the type of player who blows all of their cash and now those ammo costs start to actually become a problem

autumn prism
sage kernel
#

Iā€™d have quibbles about the Blood Money economy not necessarily being built with such things in mind, so expenses could throw a bigger wrench than expected if you go hard with it

#

But also dat just means itā€™s game design time baby

autumn prism
#

tbh

#

my players are free lancers

#

they have to cover their crew wages and ships costs

#

supplies and fuel run expensive and monthly wages dont threaten them outright but they are there

#

and theres always someone to bribe or something you could fund to get on someones good side

sharp tide
autumn prism
#

my favourite tool from stopping my players snowballing

#

is themselves

sharp tide
#

real

autumn prism
#

I always provide repairs they are just hideously expensive

#

but when the mfs eat their repairs because har har har what is hea- ronin invades, reactor stress sound

#

I can hear 4000 manna go down the drain

sharp tide
sage kernel
autumn prism
sharp tide
unreal coral
#

the kind of stuff players are buying with manna in blood money are heavy duty military hardware that are the equivalent of millions of IRL dollars

#

its just on such a different scale compared to, like, rent

gentle token
#

The "one manna a day" is also supposed to be covering background things like oxygen and power

unreal coral
#

so one stipend here is approximately 500 or so manna

gentle token
#

I'd just assume operating expenses were taken from the pre-player paycheck

unreal coral
#

thats also my assumption yeah

#

not to mention repair fees, debt, etc

#

this printer aint free, cowboy

gentle token
#

Like, if a rank 1 job is paying 1000 each to five players, in-universe the company is getting paid 6-8 thousand Manna and the rest is going to operating costs and salaries

#

Expenses, if you will

unreal coral
#

100%

#

that said

#

if GMs really want to count pennies like the sickos they are, and i encourage them to do so

#

i say go nuts and account for everything

#

just cause i hand waved expenses doesnt mean you have to

#

the core principle of my system is that each job rank pays enough for players to spend money in that same rank strata

#

if you want to incorporate rent in that selfsame strata? do it

#

as long as the job pay covers it

sharp tide
#

posting a job opening on linkedin for someone to be the party accountant

#

they don't actually play lancer, they just manage their finances

gentle token
unreal coral
#

ive played with some real lunatics

sharp tide
#

real sickos behavior

unreal coral
#

oh man we briefly played a ghostbuster rpg some years ago

#

and to our GM's dismay, we basically turned it into an independent business simulator

#

the ghost busting was incidental

#

we were like

#

"ma'am, this is a Class B haunting, and your pay package only includes Classes F through D. we're going to need you to upgrade your subscription plan in order for us to proceed"

sharp tide
#

that's amazing lol

#

extortions and exorcisms

unreal coral
#

lmao basically

#

we were NOT ethical at ALL

gentle token
#

The trials and tribulations of a new business sounds pretty on-brand for a Ghostbusters campaign

#

Though I am also a sicko, I love RPG logistics (but not for Lancer)

autumn prism
#

Lancer blood money campaign where you are the first proffesional eidolon hunting company

gentle token
#

šŸ‘ the party šŸ‘ should šŸ‘ include šŸ‘ hirelings šŸ‘

autumn prism
#

"stupid time bubble in your backyard?"
"Neighbour crying and weeping blood?"
"Snakes whispering to you, prophesying the ends times?"

For only like the GDP of a small nation, we'll just run into the sucker and punch it out of existence!

autumn prism
#
  • already mentioned in the bloodmoney doc
  • I alr have as a homebrew thing given some (narrative) NPCs like, abilties that can be used in narrative to incentivise bringing them along
gentle token
#

Old meme

autumn prism
#

šŸ‘ oh šŸ‘ ok šŸ‘ when šŸ‘ can šŸ‘ I stop... šŸ‘ this is really... šŸ‘ ow...

lusty portal
#

ya my plan if i ever run bloodmoney is to put the players in a LOT of debt to start with

#

and then charge them like, printer operating costs

#

and printer insurance and shit

#

its gonna be so annoying itll rock

unreal coral
#

based and cool

autumn prism
#

based and cool

upbeat knoll
#

What I did on my game:

Local currency to spend on downtime things like coffee is mechanically separate from manna, the explanation being that the conversion is outta whack and you need the manna for big purchases, and the local currency could be earned by doing little odd jobs in downtime or cashing in favors, and be used for narrative activities like buying fancy dinners

My local currency was the Hibachi Zaibatsu Yen, abbreviated to "zennies"

upbeat knoll
upbeat knoll
slate ivy
#

I've got a quick question, after re-reading the rules a couple of times I still can't find a specific place saying if the suggested job payouts are total or that much per-player. Which is it?

upbeat knoll
#

IIRC, should be that much per player -- that's why there is provision for cost modifiers on communal facilities like base upgrades

kindred stump
#

Hi @unreal coral
I'm currently reading rules about massive battles and wanted to ask what is the specific logic in mind when writing rule that states the enemy battalions can't attack?
Because for me it looks like massive tactical disadvantage.
I'm aware that players are outnumbered and need any aces but deciding which targets they want to engage and with what units especially for scenarios like defense seems weird because it looks like enemy can only push

unreal coral
#

The logic is that i didnt want a pvp mode, i just wanted a little minigame that let players feel like cool generals

#

You also can attack, sorta

#

If you maneuver your battalion next to theirs they're forced to attack or lose health when they retreat

#

sorry i was at a red light, im at work now so i can talk more at length lol

#

i experimented with gm's getting their own turns and frankly it was a time sink

#

having two distinct battle phases, one for player attacks and one for GM attacks, was not the vibe i wanted out of this

#

so now theres only one battle phase, and players decide whether they want to commit to it

#

if it helps you swallow the pill, assume that moving one of your own battalions next to a player battalions is in itself an attack

#

by moving into engagement, players have to decide to meet that attack, or retreat, which will lose them both ground and HP

#

sure, thats just pushing forward

#

but like

#

good?

#

so the players retreat to the edges of the map

#

enjoy your overwhelming defeat, losers

#

the important thing to take away is that radical battles is not a pvp wargame, its a narrative challenge with mechanics

kindred stump
#

I'm glad that i asked
Engaging players' battalions against units with no default penalty in unfavorable locations can also be an offensive move that really hurts
Iā€™m not talking about ā€œharassing playersā€ in this mode, but rather about the feeling of being pushed back and having to make drastic decisions, like withdrawing a battalion from a flank, only to later find that enemy forces pour through it

#

Ye it makes sense if this combat is more a challenge than real combat

kindred stump
unreal coral
#

i wouldnt call it an awful mechanic, just not something i wanted for this

#

if it puts it into context, radical battles literally evolved from two clocks

#

its all one big clock pretending to be a strategy game

#

players dont know the difference though because players are idiots

kindred stump
#

Nonetheless
Thanks for clarification
That put new perspective on that

unreal coral
#

ofc happy to offer insight

kindred stump
#

Hey, another question
When making paycheck in mind
Should i allow my players to share manna between them to buy reserves etc. or they should be limited to their paycheck? (excluding building base ofc.)

autumn prism
#

I would allow my players to share personally

#

because ultimately when you buy a reserve it goes into the team stockpile for everyone to take from

autumn prism
#

I have 5-6 players and they all share one workshop

#

so it feels strange/unfair/underpowered due to the insane credit markup from everything being balanced for six players, that they'd only get like 1 reserve once an operation (I run 4 mission operations usually) so I was wondering if you think it would say its still balanced since they could just get subaltern workers or if I should change it at all

drowsy grotto
#

Since they have more earning, I wonder if it wouldn't break anything by allowing a second workshop purchase

#

so 3 people share one workshop

upbeat knoll
#

I think it could feel bad to pay for certain facilities that effectively only benefit one person at a time and still pay the six person scaling price for it, considering other stuff like the accounting desk and green squad effectively scale with player count

My fix would be either discounting it or making the 2nd tier upgrade print a second reserve of choice instead of a random one

unreal coral
#

catching up

#

sorry i dont go on the internet on weekends

unreal coral
#

this is an expected and encouraged gameplay style

unreal coral
#

i cant really say if workshop in particular is balanced for that many people

#

i think, largely, itll be okay if you tweak how many reserves they get per workshop refresh, and by relation how much of a bonus subaltern workers give

#

thats what id do anyway

#

continuing to read, i agree with tanoshii

#

thats a great solution

odd star
unreal coral
#

weekends are for chillin MascHeckYeah

upbeat knoll
#

You have wise opinions

upbeat knoll
#

I'm playing with a normal sized group but I think futzing with costs can be a reward for narrative achievements or as a balancing lever for stuff

unreal coral
#

agreed!

unreal coral
nocturne hare
#

WOAH

#

so im working on a hexcrawl exploration sort of system for lancer and i havent checked out blood money *yet but i was kind of wondering (since it felt like it made lancer a bit more open worlded) how a hexcrawl and blood money would mesh

unreal coral
#

i think theyd work very well personally

#

a lot of blood money has a strict focus on "theaters," ie areas of the world map where the fighting is hottest and would therefore result in contained, thematically-consistent arenas from which jobs are born

#

the way i did it was that once players picked an operation/theater, they couldnt move out of it. thats because i didnt have much in the way of a world map, i wanted it to be fully abstract

nocturne hare
#

oh hell yeah

unreal coral
#

but if you ditch the abstraction

#

and just make a full map of the war zone?

#

operations/theaters can live on your map and players could swap between them far more fluidly

nocturne hare
#

oh sweet

#

i think ill be picking up the book later today, but is there anything i should take note of (from you specifically) if i wanted the hexcrawl to work with blood money specifically, without making it a blood money modular option (i am writing the hexcrawl rules for a horror module of mine)

unreal coral
#

thank you!

#

uhhh i cant think of anything in particular, blood money is very flexible

#

at its core, what it does is break scenes down into defined blocks that you rearrange

#

the hex crawl doesnt affect what blocks you use, it only adds another layer of arrangement

#

which IMO should fit nicely

nocturne hare
#

sweet as fuck
if you ever have time when i fiinsh this book id love to run hexcrawl+blood money for you just to see how it feels

unreal coral
#

yeah if im not in the middle of a game id love to see what youve cooked

#

otherwise happy to read anything you send my way

sage kernel
#

A hex map could also just be a fun way to visualize the jobs too, tbh

nocturne hare
#

actually while im mulling it in my mind

#

how much would you mind if i made a little panphlet to fill out with "this is how you could hexcrawl with blood money specifically"

#

basically asking for your blessing to make a module for your module that is not the primary thing being sold

unreal coral
#

i would not mind at all, just link to the itch page and thank your ol pal pigsriot and you can reference it as much as youd like

nocturne hare
#

šŸ™

upbeat knoll
#

I'm thinking, if you do a hexcrawl you would keep the reserves, manna and base-building systems, but integrate Jobs into the world map somehow? I'd assume it'd go something like "Complete 3 combat encounter hexes on the world map to hit quota and level up, but you can push your luck and keep going (equivalent of doing level 2/3 jobs)

odd star
#

the job becomes "go get a fragment of the rod of seven parts in the Lair of the Omnidemon"

#

and then the lair of the omnidemon is over yonder a few hexes and you gotta hoof it over there and explore the nested dungeon

#

but you have like 3-4 of those sorts of jobs at the same time and folks choose which jobs to take on

#

if this sounds like a Quest Board, you're 100% right

sharp tide
#

a fun thing you can do, and something i've rotated for a bit, is encounters that escalate in difficulty as time goes on

#

can be measured with like a clock

#

every time a segment fills the combat increases in difficulty through things like more npcs, more templates/optionals, environmental effects etc

cunning adder
#

I wonder, generally, does a full repair also happen with the license level up after operation clock gets filled

upbeat knoll
#

That would be the typical assumption, yes

unreal coral
#

yep!

#

page 16

nocturne hare
#

got a comm of my blood money mercenary made by @mellow river :3

image.png
#

(fomorian frame everest)

mellow river
unreal coral
#

Badass!!!

mellow river
sharp tide
#

Damn pigs, I just saw BM get mentioned in an r/rpg thread

#

You're moving up in the world

severe kite
#

lol i saw that thread too!

sharp tide
#

Interesting thread to say the least lol

#

But I don't wanna clog this channel

odd star
#

Letā€™s fuckin go

unreal coral
#

that explains this lmao

image.png
#

ive been trying to track the source of this spike like aragorn tracking the uruk-hai across the plains of rohan

#

do you mind linking me to it?

odd star
unreal coral
#

sick! ty

odd star
#

I think the referring links listed on itch should also help?

#

Depends

unreal coral
#

oh yeah this thread is very

#

like i get it, its a fine conversation, but yknow

#

i did my time

#

good luck to everyone involved

severe kite
odd star
naive forum
#

The thing about that thread that's notable to me is how a lot of games that are being recommended also don't really do anything for the OP's wants

#

Lancer's 'utopian' focus leads to a shift away from a lot of the darker aspects of the genre - mechs are giant war machines designed to kill people, and I feel Lancer isn't really interested in the moral dilemma of being a mech pilot on the one hand, I think this is kind of a funny thing to say about a game whose first published module and the one that set the standard for years was No Room For a Wallflower, but on the other hand most of the games being mentioned in that thread ALSO don't do anything to really emphasize this in a way I would characterize as anything beyond "just mentioning it" either

#

Mekton, Heavy Gear, Battletech, Jovian Chronicles, the Mecha Hack, pretty sure Salvage Union doesn't, Aether Nexus, etc

#

I can think of a couple of games offhand that emphasize this sort of thing but at the same time, those games aren't going to also simultaneously give you a lot of Wow Cool Robot either

#

Maybe the closest thing that exists to bridging that gap would be Beam Saber

#

which, weirdly, I didn't see too many people bring up

sturdy arch
#

It's too utopian, too nice!

Meanwhile the average Lancer GM cooking up hideous war crimes (for players to stop)

frigid thistle
#

As someone who didn't know about Beam Saber until literally just now, it's entirely possible that its too niche for most people?

rare solar
#

"Post-scarcity removes resource tension!"
Money as consequence is a boring lever to use as a GM. Use meaningful stakes please.

naive forum
#

Outside of that, if you really want a game that plays up "being a mech pilot is a moral dilemma, war is bad, what did it cost you" then what you want is something like Mobile Frame Zero Firebrands (which, notably, has zero actual mech combat anywhere) or Specters of Brocken, which is also extremely abstract on the mech combat end

naive forum
frigid thistle
#

you know what that's fair

rare solar
naive forum
#

Beam Saber had a pretty big and prolific Friends at the Table campaign based around it

frigid thistle
#

I am going to exit this conversation as I am now realizing I am in no way qualified to talk about this

naive forum
#

Anyway, I think the OP may be disappointed because tbh I don't think you're going to find many if any games out there which marry both robust tactical combat AND robust "the horrors of war" in any way that isn't simply noting "war = bad" in the text, not because those two things are somehow fundamentally incompatible but because most game designers, if they have a really hot idea for one of those things, are going to focus on that one and not have the gas in the tank for the other

odd star
severe kite
naive forum
#

girl frame is one I need to remember more, yeah

severe kite
#

which just confirms my thoughts that i think it was a good idea to not make lancer super connected to The Genre

naive forum
#

which is also a very PARTICULAR sort of mech game vibe that I would only recommend if someone was really after something in the mechsploitation vein

rare solar
#

I've been meaning to play Girl Frame recently. Too many good games to play

severe kite
#

otherwise you get people coming out of the woodwork (oftentimes with undeveloped ideas) about The Genre

odd star
naive forum
#

idk maybe you could massage it into doing something like original Mobile Suit Gundam where Amuro is pressured into being the pilot of the Gundam against his wishes

#

that's vaguely in a similar ballpark if you squint

unreal coral
#

"i wish there was a game that made you feel bad about being in a giant robot that kills people despite the moral compass of the ethos you represent" gee i wonder if theres any game like that

odd star
#

Others to consider in the Beam Saber vein are ā€œArmour Astir: Adventā€ and ā€œCase and Soulā€ (same author)

unreal coral
#

people just plumb dont really know what lancer is about

#

they hear the word utopia and then its just white noise

naive forum
#

like to be clear I don't think the OP is bad or whatever, but I do think it's kind of funny that the responses in the thread are a mix of A). people eye-rolling over "just change what you do/don't like about lancer's fiction to make it suit your tastes" and B). people recommending games that don't suit the OP's wants

rare solar
#

the triple misunderstanding of not understanding lancer, or the OP, or the games recommended

naive forum
#

like it's true that lancer does not overtly have a mechanistic system to go "you now feel bad about being an instrument of war" but buddy, guess what, most RPGs with cool combat aren't gonna do that either

severe kite
#

yeah i think the thing is most folks on /r/rpg are trpg discoursers who are predisposed to not like 4e like tacticsgames

naive forum
#

if you want "war fucking sucks shit" then you aren't gonna get that from most if any mech games, you want Patrol

rare solar
#

I need my "feeling sad about war" meter, or bad game /j

odd star
#

Iā€™m reminded of Glaiver, the Lasers and Feelings hack for Lancer, and how building a satisfying cool mech combat build is kinda sorta opposed to the ā€œhorrors of warā€

unreal coral
#

brow furrowing in frustration at any ethical commentary that doesnt include a red/blue morality slider ala mass effect 2

sharp tide
severe kite
#

i saw that post

#

i hate bsky

#

ive had SO MANY discourses with people about lancer's place "in the genre"

odd star
severe kite
#

people dont understand genre positionality

unreal coral
naive forum
#

like idk I do think you can point to lancer as a game and say "all the politics of this is divorced from the game" and have a compelling argument, I think it's a reasonable ask to then go "okay then what would that look like?"

severe kite
#

works within a genre exist within a context relative to other works in the genre. lancer exists in context with the works its in conversation with. not with battletech or whatever

odd star
unreal coral
#

40k people do this to lancer, too

severe kite
naive forum
rare solar
#

To me Lancer feels more like a Western than anything

naive forum
#

Gundam is not VOTOMS is not Escaflowne is not Bravern is not Eva is not etc

rare solar
#

(maybe i play too many long rim campaigns)

severe kite
#

i dont think we're talking about the same thing if we're talking about gundam seed or sousei no aquarion to lancer

unreal coral
odd star
severe kite
#

this is why appendix n is so important

#

lancer's inspirations are right there

odd star
sharp tide
#

i have always told people that lancer is a game with mechs, but it's not a mecha game

rare solar
#

IGF is a spaghetti western send tweet

odd star
naive forum
#

also fundamentally lancer not trying to be "a mecha game" is to its benefit tbh

severe kite
#

yeah it would muddy the waters a lot

#

even if i feel that bit is more accidential than intentional (and its a bit of both on either side)

naive forum
#

that and I think a lot of games that have intentionally tried to be "a mecha game" have very often ended up feeling significantly more pastiche-y

sharp tide
naive forum
#

not all of them, I think some lean into an angle or element pretty well

#

but a lot of stabs at it have been things like "oh all mecha anime are like [X], so now Hot-Blooded is a stat"

#

again, as pigsriot said, it's boss baby brain

severe kite
severe kite
#

cut to my soul

naive forum
#

or it's the difference between "people who are inspired by a bunch of other stuff who then make star wars" versus "people inspired by star wars making more star wars"

#

anyway yeah good luck to the OP but the games that really give you a lot of the requested vibes don't overlap with "games that give you a lot of fun crunchy combat"

#

I regret to inform you that you probably do have to add the War is Bad vibes yourself

unreal coral
#

forcing the grogs to play 4e against their will solomag

sharp tide
#

season to taste

odd star
#

Hard to execute on the balance of ā€œwar is atrociousā€ when fighting wars in the same game is fun as fuck

rare solar
#

"this excel sheet reminds me of my shattered patriotism" the game

naive forum
#

"I want a game with an economy" is maybe a more reasonable ask in the sense that okay, D&D has "an economy" where you can count coins and buy stuff, but even here I sort of struggle to see a lot of games in the field as caring about that, though there ARE notable exceptions

#

Battletech is the big granddaddy, and this is kind of Salvage Union's whole deal

sharp tide
naive forum
#

but like, mekton, heavy gear, etc largely don't care or gloss it over

#

mechs in heavy gear DO have monetary costs (or did as of 2e) but also you're probably playing soldiers and therefore not buying stuff out of your own pocket

rare solar
# sharp tide version of one of those stock trading games but you work for a defense contracto...

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3642000/Space_Warlord_Baby_Trading_Simulator/

Steam
Space Warlord Baby Trading Simulator

In Space Warlord Baby Trading Simulator, you of course do not actually trade BABIES. We aren't monsters.

You buy stocks BASED on the simulated lives of babies, profiting from their misery and cashing out the moment they win the Galactic Lottery!ā€¦

Price

$19.99

Recommendations

404

sharp tide
#

YES

sharp tide
rare solar
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I really appreciate this discussion. I think I've gained a greater understanding of the gap in tone and genre expectations between my multiple friend groups regarding lancer.

sharp tide
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they have a vibe or an idea but zero clue about how that would actually play out and do zero work to try and conceptualize it, but want it nontheless

severe kite
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average player be like

naive forum
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yeah pretty much

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hell, I'm guilty of this myself though I try to be mindful of like "okay dipshit, so how would you square that circle then?"

odd star
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Big mood yeah

naive forum
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real "I want all the groceries in the bag, but I don't want the bag to be too heavy" moments

bleak fable
sharp tide
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and like i'm sympathetic to the op of that thread, which is why i was rotating how to do "rules of engagement" in lancer

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but you gotta do the work a bit

naive forum
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like, you brought up IGF earlier and IGF is a huge example of someone importing a tone into lancer that, and I don't say this in a derisive way at all as someone who really likes vex's work, isn't what I think of as lancer's "default" tone

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being much more of a Borderlands-ish thing

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and I think in a game that was being much more overtly about X or Y, that wouldn't work as well, you'd have more of a struggle slotting it in there, but lancer being more "hands off" about it means there's less friction to scrape against if you do

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whereas a game like Patrol is the entire game

odd star
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Yeah thatā€™s true, genre emulation games like many PBTA games tend to be laser focused on that emulation as a result

naive forum
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the amount of work to turn Patrol into a Borderlands-style experience is substantially higher and at a certain point the question becomes "why not just make a whole new game"

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even the first party stuff is like, you have wallflower, you have solstice rain, you have dustgrave, you have shadow of the wolf, you have SSMR, etc

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pick your lens and look through it

naive forum
sharp tide
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yeah

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(i've been busy so i haven't made any progress, but i did look at the battlegroup stuff)

naive forum
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one of my social media acquaintances had critiques of lancer in that he feels the mechs don't feel like mechs because there isn't enough in the way of collateral damage, citing things like gundam where it shows the destructive power of mobile suits, civilians dying from falling shell casings, etc

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and then later on they were (to their credit) spitballing design ideas for a system, but their initial stabs at it turned out to perversely incentivize causing as much collateral damage as possible, whoops

unreal coral
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lmao

sage kernel
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See the thing I find funny about this too is like

odd star
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When you wanna make Gundam and accidentally make Rampage

sage kernel
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Lancerā€™s mission structure kinda forces you to make every combat A Big Deal

bleak fable
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Gamification of things like civilian collateral damage can lead to some really weird incentives for players

unreal coral
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i also think that mechs dont feel like mechs in lancer but for completely different reasons

rare solar
sage kernel
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And I think that gives you a lever to use

naive forum
odd star
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Now Iā€™m legit thinking about a campaign progress meter measuring war weariness and civilian outrage over using mechs based upon collateral damage in combat/failure to adhere to rules of engagement like coco brought up

naive forum
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like, on paper it makes sense to be like "will you accept a BAD THING for more power?"

odd star
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ā€œBad thing for me, or bad thing for someone else?ā€ Energy

sharp tide
naive forum
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but in practical terms you have now created a game that incentivizes you to both A). always push that button, but more importantly B). stop caring about the outcomes of pushing the button

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you can only shove "wow a BAD THING happened, do you FEEL BAD YET?" in peoples' faces for so long before they go "no and also fuck you"

unreal coral
naive forum
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this is why battlegroup does not have Feel Bad mechanics of that sort, really

severe kite
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i think /r/rpg also has a preinclination towards art games

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which shows in the bias

odd star
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This is very much how I feel about some proposed narrative ā€œconsequencesā€ for lancer games yeah

severe kite
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i think tone and premises can go a long way, campaign wise, but also appendix n and "what is this game for" matters

naive forum
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I think if someone is in it to grapple with the horrors of space war that they will bring that with them, but that I cannot create an actual game system that will make someone care about 10,000 imaginary deaths

severe kite
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its why i try push back on "magical girl lancer" as a premise

naive forum
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and like idk okay then I guess

sharp tide
severe kite
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i feel like often the more heroic element of lancer is deemphasized

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for understandable reasons, but its not particularly one i care about

zinc bolt
naive forum
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though it kind of comes back to "how do you get people to invest in this narrative sufficiently"

zinc bolt
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^^^

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Very much

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I've heard peopple talke about wallflower and not being connected to evergreen. Then my group were absolutely DEVESTATED when I hit them with a stain you can't wash out

sage kernel
sharp tide
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this is why we have session 0 and discuss tone before we start campaigns lol

sage kernel
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Itā€™s where the juice is

odd star
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For my part, when remixing the SR escort combat, I put Sgt Garcia in the bus and encourage prologue setup where players hopefully get to know him

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Harder to turn away from Bad Things when theyā€™re happening to people youā€™ve interacted with and worked with before

sharp tide
bleak fable
bleak fable
rare solar
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I've linked valk's remix to you. I can send it again too

bleak fable
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I appreciate that!

gentle token
unreal coral
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i think if youre roleplaying a character and you cant pretend to act like your character cares about something, even if you as a person do not, then like

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idk

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we have different roleplay styles obviously lol

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i also probably wouldnt care if a fake bus full of puppies got vaporized by a particle cannon