Speak now or forever hold your peace...

[Jaypay]

Hah! Ok, good.

[PotatoJedi]

Cutting down on the time Out Of Game is a lot easier than cutting down on it IG. You can do several things from creating clever macros to putting up a timer (like the Bob Ross idea).

As was rightfully pointed out however, players with low skills will need a much longer time to develop Trump making than those who already have them at a higher level. The price? Time spent. That's it. That's the only real thing they have to pay, and since we can quite easily cut down on it Out Of Game, the only time they are paying is IG time.

I think Logan's idea about practising your painting first (which takes considerably less time) is probably the way to go, and then trying to make the trumps. It's not hard to say "I paint that tree over there while we rest" or something along those lines. It can be done within the narrative. As for practising trumps – you can do Trump sketches as part of your "10 free skills" per session and hope that you get a check in one of those 10 (then use any left over rolls on something else, if you have any). Hell, you can do Trump sketches IG if you find a reason to (comes up more often than you think). Now if you want to create a permanent Trump Painting… That's when you need to ask yourself: how badly do you want/need this? Is it worth spending x days trying to make one considering where your current skill is at? When Trump making first started out it was a necessity because very few people even had Trumps so we decided it would be beneficial to spend the time making them despite our low skills. Now that there is a few people with decent Trump making skills, they can start churning them out for the rest of the group while those who are less skilled can focus on simply getting their checks until they are ready to start making their own. Cuts down on both types of time.

To summarise: do normal painting/sketching IG to get your check. Do some trump sketches if the opportunity presents itself. Use the 10 free skill checks to try and get a check in Trump making if you don't get one by the end of the session. Ask those with higher skill in Trump making if they can make you a Trump of a place/person when they get the chance (and they probably will, considering this will get them a check in the skills as well) until you feel you can start making them yourself more reliably.

How does that sound?

[Fantômas]

If it wasn't worth the time then people would not be doing it in the first place.

To create a trump from a sketch you still need to make your sketch roll first

[PotatoJedi]

Oh I'm not saying it's not worth the time, it definitely is. I just wanted to point out to Logan that time is the only downside to sitting and trying to make the Trumps. And yeah, you do need to make your sketching roll as well, but you can do several of those in a day. Though… Not sure how that would fit into the narrative, especially if you did it for more than one day.

How about… Having the Trump sketches/one-off trumps that last a day be one skill instead of 2? You just roll normal Trump Making (no sketching required) and if you succeed, you have your one-shot Trump. Obviously you still need to draw it. If you want the permanent one, then you spend the normal 2 days painting.

It's the only thing I can think of to cut down on potential IG time. Otherwise, as Pete said earlier, I think we may just have to deal with the fact that it takes a long time.

[logan9a]

"10)put up with it. The way you run the game and the way the rules are designed encourages this behaviour, so live with it."

We might go partially this route and partially limited.

I'm thinking that we can start off by having the painting of a Trump take an hour or so but only one per day. Try it out and see if the PC's can keep it unobtrusive as they wander around trying to learn slowly how to paint at all, much less make a trump.

If they can keep it unobtrusive (like Matt does when he does a brief flurry of spells now and then) I can probably live with that.

If the PC's want to stop the action and hold paint parties and burn time, I'll just stick a hard limit on how many attempts per session.

And no, after GM'ing for four decades I don't think my whole style of GM'ing will change for the trump cards. If I had to, I'd just turn those in to NPC only created items and have done with them.

[PotatoJedi]

If you're okay with those with higher skills being able to churn out twice as many trumps in as much time, then that sounds okay to me. 1 attempt every day = 2 trumps every 2 days potentially. Though this would make it more fair for those with lower skills.

But you also have the balancing factor of being able to create trumps in such a short amount of time. Normally a lot of consideration/preparation needs to be made when creating a trump of a new place, whereas now you just need to spend an hour and then leave when you're done.

I can already tell you I'd be jumping at the opportunity to create more trumps if it only took an hour to make one each day. Stick a bunch of them in storage and let others take them when needed.

Don't get me wrong – from a player's perspective one hour trumps is awesome, but you should be aware of the potential balancing issues that comes with that. Can you imagine a party walking through MMO Land and spending an hour each day creating Trumps of all the places they visit? Something that would have taken twice as long now takes half the time and the time needed to create it is only 1 hour, opposed to several hours each day for two days. If you think that's fine, then all hail the new trump rules!

[logan9a]

"If you're okay with those with higher skills being able to churn out twice as many trumps in as much time, then that sounds okay to me. 1 attempt every day = 2 trumps every 2 days potentially. Though this would make it more fair for those with lower skills."

Not sure where this came from. If everyone gets one attempt per day, it will always be 'unfair' to those with lower skill. If you have lower skill, you should always be worse than someone of higher skill. Otherwise, why get higher skill?

"I can already tell you I'd be jumping at the opportunity to create more trumps if it only took an hour to make one each day. Stick a bunch of them in storage and let others take them when needed. "

Which is why I am still leading to X number getting made per session - otherwise the IG time will get stretched out for more attempts. In fact, the more I am thinking about it, the more I like the 'you get ten attempts to try making a trump this session regardless of how low your skill is. If it is super low, that's too bad. Be sure to get your painting up so that eventually you can work up your trump making skill."

It's amazing how 'indispensable' these became once introduced.

[logan9a]

Here's what I'm thinking currently:

If a Pattern, Logrus or shapeshifting skill fits into the story you can use it as you would other skills currently. Blatant skill whoring will be disallowed as it is with every other skill.

You get ten attempts to make a card per session. If you can't do it because your skill is low, tough. Build up your skill. Maybe someone else will make some cards for you. Very few people of the royal family can even make the cards - they are not a birthright to make.

You get ten attempts for outright training in your choice of Pattern, Logrus, Shapeshifting or spell (ie petty magics) skills. If you want to try the same skill over and over or ten different ones, it's up to you. Because there are cards that can help you, unless it begins to gum up game play you can do the whole set of ten whenever you want but do them all at once. Otherwise, knock them out at the end of game before you try skill ups.


Anyone wondering "Why aren't we able to make magic shit" - right here. This is the problem. In a different system where stuff was on a point buy (Champions, etc) and you had to spend points for each of your inventions that you didn't get back it attempts a type of balance.

[PotatoJedi]

10 attempts to make a card per session = still using the same rules as before? 2 days to paint it?

[logan9a]

Apr 12, 2019 14:07:18 GMT PotatoJedi said:

10 attempts to make a card per session = still using the same rules as before? 2 days to paint it?

No, I'd have it be very fluid.

Example:

Let's say the adventure took 5 days. During that time, the players got their 10 practice paint rolls.

Let's say the adventure took 100 days. During that time, the players got their 10 practice paint rolls.

Let's say the adventure took 1 day. During that time, the players got their 10 practice paint rolls.


Hence, it wouldn't matter how long or short the adventure was - for that session everyone can try a total of ten practice trumps. If you can't at least get a check in painting during that, well maybe next session or you just weren't meant to become a painter.


And also during the session regardless of IG time that has passed or not, you would also get your ten misc practice rolls you could use for only (your choice, mix and match) spells, Pattern, Shapeshifting, Logrus. Again, this wouldn't affect powers you could use normally once (etc) per day if you can make it part of the story just like every other skill.

[Jaypay]

And can one of our friends in the EU area get their hands on a Bob Ross wig for Logan to wear occasionally?

[logan9a]

Apr 12, 2019 14:16:55 GMT Jaypay said:

And can one of our friends in the EU area get their hands on a Bob Ross wig for Logan to wear occasionally?

"And here will be a happy mutherfucking tree..."

[PotatoJedi]

What if we want to create Trumps of several different places?

[logan9a]

Apr 12, 2019 14:51:01 GMT PotatoJedi said:

What if we want to create Trumps of several different places?

Honestly, tough.

If you go through all your rolls and make say 2 Trumps, you'll have to choose which areas you want them to. [Consult the GM - if it's not an area you can 'sit at and paint' I'll say 'hell no' and you'll have to choose somewhere else.]

Essentially, it is limiting a more or less permanent (easy to lose or destroy but otherwise permanent with no real cost to the PC's) magic item that is super useful.

[PotatoJedi]

So if you make 2 trumps like that, you can choose what they are of even if you don't physically go there and paint it?