GI Joe Strike Force Alpha OOC thread

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catsi563
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Re: GI Joe Strike Force Alpha OOC thread

Post by catsi563 »

catsi563 wrote: Mon May 15, 2023 9:34 pm So final count
Relic

Successful Kitchen and locker room clean up

benefits (all members gain 1 temp health for duration of mission or until wounded, all members may access a standard battledress they are trained in or an upgrade for battledress without a requestion check

Successful training in sparring and range

Relic may access a limited melee weapon or weapon upgrade for a melee weapon without a check
Relic may access one limited ranged weapon or weapon upgrade for a ranged weapon without a check

Personal storypoint awarded
Ken

Successful motor pool work

Vamp mk 1 available for crit may gain an edge if driving that vehicle

Successful Rotary vehicle work

2 sky hawks available for crit may gain an edge if driving one of them

Aircraft flight training
for duration of mission gain an edge on a skill test related to an aircraft

Firing range
Ken may access one limited ranged weapon or weapon upgrade for a ranged weapon without a check for free crit success may assist another joe to do the same in a requisition check




Personal story point awarded
Ghost raven

Successful environmental control work
can control environment as needed during mission

Success communications assistance
All joes gain +1up on Skill tests in Comms and in the hallway outside comms for the remainder of the mission

Target practice success
Esme may access 1 limited ranged weapon or upgrade for free crit success may assist another joe to do the same in a requisition check

Obstacle course failed
no bonus

Personal story point awarded
Toymaker

successful Observatory
Benefit upcoming

successful Lab work
Toymaker has an edge on A skill tests for technology for the duration of the mission

meet team work with Dial tone or assist

Toymaker has an edge on A skill tests for technology for the duration of the mission

Firing range success
Toymaker may access 1 limited ranged weapon or upgrade for free crit success may assist another joe to do the same in a requisition check

personal story point awarded

Breach
Rotary craft success
2 skyhawks available for remainder of mission as needed

Assitance in Jump packs complete

Training in Obstacle course failed

Training in Firing range success
Breach may access 1 limited ranged weapon or upgrade for free

Personal story point awarded
Warsaw

Comms success
All joes gain +1up on Skill tests in Comms and in the hallway outside comms for the remainder of the mission

Jetcraft hangar
All joes are assigned a JUMP pack during equipment requisition for the mission

Training no success

Personal Story point awarded


So the team has earned the following benefits
**all members gain 1 temp health for duration of mission or until wounded
**all members may access a standard battledress they are trained in or an upgrade for battledress without a requestion check
**Vamp mk 1 available for crit may gain an edge if driving that vehicle
**2 sky hawks available for crit may gain an edge if driving one of them
**can control environment as needed during mission
**All joes gain +1up on Skill tests in Comms and in the hallway outside comms for the remainder of the mission
** Jump packs available to all joes for mission duration


Esme and Ken and jake and breach and toymaker may access 1 limited ranged weapon or upgrade for

Esme Ken and toymaker may assist another joe to do the same in a requisition check

Jake may access a limited melee weapon or upgrade
Ken may get an edge on an air craft related skill test

So in general a successful work and training period though that obstacle course had it in for you all :lol: :lol: no worries youll get it on the next go around :mrgreen:

Everyone earned a personal story point and the team has gained one additional story point for the team pool

ill start us off real soon need to go grocery shopping and get dinner ready soon should have the move forward tonight

take a moment to clean up and get to know toymaker when he brings everyone their HBTs which are standard issue equipment for you all now
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catsi563
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Re: GI Joe Strike Force Alpha OOC thread

Post by catsi563 »

Corrigon wrote: Mon May 15, 2023 9:37 pm Breach also did a task on the Skyhawks which he completed
Crap i goofed i didnt realize breach allready did both tasks assisting with Comms and the rotary craft so you were good

ah well the vagaries of PBP got us both

so were all caught up and good
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Re: GI Joe Strike Force Alpha OOC thread

Post by Shock »

catsi563 wrote: Mon May 15, 2023 9:39 pm
Shock wrote: Mon May 15, 2023 9:18 pm
catsi563 wrote: Mon May 15, 2023 8:30 pm Toymaker uses tech in place of targeting and because hes specialized with pistols he gets the full run
Not sure I understand this. Because he has specialization he gets to roll one of each type of bonus die and add the best one to the d20? That's a ridiculous bonus.
Yep skills basically work like this in the essence system

if you have no skill ie no dice in the skill you roll with a snag ie roll 2D20 and take the worst result

if you have a skill dice you roll a 1D20 and the skill dice so as example warsaw has athletics 1D2 which means anytime he makes an athletics check he rolls 1D20+ 1d2

if the PC is specialized in the skill you roll the 1D20 and ALL the dice in between 1D2 up to the dice and take the best one

so in warsaws case if he were rolling for his Persuasion (Command) +1D6 skill hed roll 1D20 +1D2 +1D4 +1D6 and take the best

which is a good chance the higher up the skill tree you go to get good rolls
So what good is having a Specialization for a skill with +1d2?
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Re: GI Joe Strike Force Alpha OOC thread

Post by catsi563 »

In the short term admittedly not much but it does give you something to build on

Scratch that there is a reason i just remembered.

UP SHIFTS theres always a chance to get an upshift on your skill test and when that happens the specilization kicks in
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Re: GI Joe Strike Force Alpha OOC thread

Post by Spectrum »

There are a lot of odd maths to the game that I don't quite understand yet. I'd be interested to hear if someone has worked out prob functions and optimizations. I don't think that I'm really anywhere close and may have gone down a unexpected trap. But that's why we're exploring the system and testing it out for ourselves.

The system pretty heavily penalizes not being skilled in something- roll 2d20 and take the lowest. Also there is a good chance that a downshift will push you into auto fail or even auto critical fail territory. Even a d2 can help tremendously with something that you don't to be truly horrible at.

Middle ranges are a bit better. You have more room to play in the shifting system (advantage/disadvantages). Also, success/failure tends to be a bit more binary in this range. There isn't a benefit from meeting the difficulty vs going 20 over. It's still a normal success. With smaller dice, there is also a higher chance of rolling the max result on that die which leads to better results-crits.

Higher ranges have a sharply diminishing payoff. Again, once you meet the threshold, it doens't matter how much higher you roll. Also crits will get rarer as the prob of rolling the top goes down. On the other hand, truly difficult things becomes more in reach. In general, I think that you're more likely to succeed but less likely to do spectacular.

Specializations are at an odd angle to that system. It doesn't necessarily lead to more success, but leads to more of the vital crit fishing. It seems odd that RAW doesn't force you to choose one of the dice to enitrely use. Instead, it seems to allow you to use parts of different dice for a. threshold and b. crit fishing.

What isn't in the book, but would be really nice, is a discussion on this. Particularly nice would be this mechanic system in terms of the existing generations of GI Joes. Is it better to have a group of all around competent characters with lots of middle (but passing) results with some opportunity for higher (but still not superhuman) degrees of specialization? I think that represents a lot of the more mainstream characters, most of series 1 but fewer and fewer in later seres. Or, a philosophy that Hasbro/Marvel/Larry Hama used in later series, have the Joes as more as group of hypercompetent in more narrowly focused areas. Alpine is THE mountain guy, Dial Tone is THE comms guy, Hardball is THE oddly specific grenade thumping baseball player. I suspect that the later idea comes in more useful when you have a higher number of characters to utilize. Aquaman is really useful when you contrive a situation that involves the water but can be a real pain to try to work into every storyline. Meanwhile, you can use the Big Three nearly anywhere.

Just a few thoughts, curious for feedback :)
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Re: GI Joe Strike Force Alpha OOC thread

Post by catsi563 »

youve pretty much got what ive gotten in the system on my end from my reading of it, the essence system seems designed to build towards crits and using specializations to hit them.

thats why a D2 in a skill with a specilization may seem at first glance to be a bit of a waste but in reality is a base to build on for skill shifting up or down

the systems actually somewhat resembling of the D6 WEG system only with out adding all the dice together, interestingly enough it also does make me wonder if there were a way to actually include the essences themselves in the roll as some sort of bonus

as they stand now the essences are just baselines for how to improve skills and a semi abstract for what the PC is like physically and mentally and socially
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Re: GI Joe Strike Force Alpha OOC thread

Post by catsi563 »

as a note im going to attempt to carry on but if everyones uncomfortable with the system or wants to adjust characters id be happy to discuss further go ahead and PM me here or on discord

I want you guys to be having fun and if im not providing that than i need to adjust direction
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Re: GI Joe Strike Force Alpha OOC thread

Post by Doctor Malsyn »

Ark has a hold of the book and he's suggested a few things to myself for one, may take him up on the offer if allowed. For now, let's power on through!
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Re: GI Joe Strike Force Alpha OOC thread

Post by catsi563 »

Doctor Malsyn wrote: Tue May 16, 2023 8:44 pm Ark has a hold of the book and he's suggested a few things to myself for one, may take him up on the offer if allowed. For now, let's power on through!
Sure let me know what you think

I am thinking and talking with spec about a minor modification to Toymakers targeting skill i REALLY did not intend toymaker to be able to so badly blow Ken a natural pistol marksman out of the water like that

though there is a bit of humor in the situation it definitely shouldnt be a full time thing
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Re: GI Joe Strike Force Alpha OOC thread

Post by Shock »

Absolutely carry on.

I'm curious about the system but certainly haven't seen enough to have a problem with it. Just trying to wrap my mind around what's desirable.
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Re: GI Joe Strike Force Alpha OOC thread

Post by Spectrum »

Made a shift in the specialization. We may need to make further adjustments along the way.

The ability that make me taking it from good synergy to bad cheese is:


BRAIN POWER
Your Smarts Essence increases by 1 at 1st level,and again at 10th level, and the skill point from this improvement must be placed in TechnologyAdditionally, choose one of the following skills: Athletics, Might, Finesse, or Targeting. When making Skill Tests of the chosen skill, including attacks, you can use Technology instead.
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Re: GI Joe Strike Force Alpha OOC thread

Post by Shock »

Spectrum wrote: Tue May 16, 2023 1:04 pm There are a lot of odd maths to the game that I don't quite understand yet. I'd be interested to hear if someone has worked out prob functions and optimizations. I don't think that I'm really anywhere close and may have gone down a unexpected trap. But that's why we're exploring the system and testing it out for ourselves.

The system pretty heavily penalizes not being skilled in something- roll 2d20 and take the lowest. Also there is a good chance that a downshift will push you into auto fail or even auto critical fail territory. Even a d2 can help tremendously with something that you don't to be truly horrible at.

Middle ranges are a bit better. You have more room to play in the shifting system (advantage/disadvantages). Also, success/failure tends to be a bit more binary in this range. There isn't a benefit from meeting the difficulty vs going 20 over. It's still a normal success. With smaller dice, there is also a higher chance of rolling the max result on that die which leads to better results-crits.

Higher ranges have a sharply diminishing payoff. Again, once you meet the threshold, it doens't matter how much higher you roll. Also crits will get rarer as the prob of rolling the top goes down. On the other hand, truly difficult things becomes more in reach. In general, I think that you're more likely to succeed but less likely to do spectacular.

Specializations are at an odd angle to that system. It doesn't necessarily lead to more success, but leads to more of the vital crit fishing. It seems odd that RAW doesn't force you to choose one of the dice to enitrely use. Instead, it seems to allow you to use parts of different dice for a. threshold and b. crit fishing.

What isn't in the book, but would be really nice, is a discussion on this. Particularly nice would be this mechanic system in terms of the existing generations of GI Joes. Is it better to have a group of all around competent characters with lots of middle (but passing) results with some opportunity for higher (but still not superhuman) degrees of specialization? I think that represents a lot of the more mainstream characters, most of series 1 but fewer and fewer in later seres. Or, a philosophy that Hasbro/Marvel/Larry Hama used in later series, have the Joes as more as group of hypercompetent in more narrowly focused areas. Alpine is THE mountain guy, Dial Tone is THE comms guy, Hardball is THE oddly specific grenade thumping baseball player. I suspect that the later idea comes in more useful when you have a higher number of characters to utilize. Aquaman is really useful when you contrive a situation that involves the water but can be a real pain to try to work into every storyline. Meanwhile, you can use the Big Three nearly anywhere.

Just a few thoughts, curious for feedback :)
Yeah the thing is that bumping up a die isn't all that big a deal. Each bump up only gives you an a +1 bonus on average. But each added die when you have a specialization is a huge deal. It's one more chance for a crit as well as a better chance for success because you have buffers against the risk of a bad roll that you might get if you're only rolling one die.
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Re: GI Joe Strike Force Alpha OOC thread

Post by Spectrum »

Been thinking of this as perhaps an alterate vision of Toymaker- of course, more technical than adorable

Image
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Re: GI Joe Strike Force Alpha OOC thread

Post by catsi563 »

boots might be better for a cyclone rider than sandals but yeah =^_^=
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Re: GI Joe Strike Force Alpha OOC thread

Post by Corrigon »

it would be nice if given more than a couple of days to post please.
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