Dragon Age

DangerDwarf · Post by **DangerDwarf** » Sun Mar 21, 2010 1:11 am

I like how the magic items of the game aren't of the canned variety. Lends itself pretty well to the feel that each magical weapon, armor, whatever is unique unto itself.

Last night's session saw our first introduction of a magic item. The party has been spending time with a Dalish clan and the party mage (a city born elf) is torn between returning to her roots and fear of being hunted by the chantry for going apostate. The keeper of the clan gave her a necklace dedicated to Sylaise, the elven goddess of the hearth, telling her that it will always allow her to find home should she decide to return to the clan.

So, yes its a magic item, but no it has no real effect other than story effect and and the players were more stoked about it than they ever were any canned +2 sword for other games. So, its working out pretty damn good for us.

And I'll let ya know how the stamina draught works out BD. The Dalish loaded it in with the party's parting gifts before they set back on the road for the next session.

One thing I'm learning about the game through actual play is that the system has some pretty cool little nuances that you don't catch just by reading. Actually playing gives you a greater appreciation for some of the mechanics.

We had a discussion about whether or not we thought we would keep pace with the release of the box sets and if we should convert to another system and just carry on in the setting using C&C or 2nd Edition. The decision was unanimous that we will be sticking with DA for this campaign. Even my wife, who is usually fairly system neutral was adamant about sticking with the AGE system. They even said if they hit 5th level prior to set 2, they were willing to go XP free for a few sessions to keep the pacing right. So, the DA game system has really struck a chord with us.

The Advanced Tests in particular are kick ass. In The Dalish Curse, when they had to cross the tree bridge ended up being a very cinematic and fun use of the test. The mechanics lend themselves to a very easy way to blend story telling and gaming almost seamlessly. It is looking like Dragon Age will be occupying our game time for quite awhile.

GoOrange · Post by **GoOrange** » Sun Mar 21, 2010 11:22 am

I was getting ready to start a new C&C campaign but now am leaning heavily to doing a Dragon Age game. Both have their strong points but I'm starting to think that DA's slightly different mechanics like stunts might provide enough extra fun to put it on top.

Sigh. Right now, however, I'm just stuck in analysis paralysis.

Post by **Breakdaddy** » Sun Mar 21, 2010 12:22 pm

GoOrange wrote:
I was getting ready to start a new C&C campaign but now am leaning heavily to doing a Dragon Age game. Both have their strong points but I'm starting to think that DA's slightly different mechanics like stunts might provide enough extra fun to put it on top.

Sigh. Right now, however, I'm just stuck in analysis paralysis.

C&C is awesome too. DA is the new kid and is getting a lot of love right now, but C&C has shown staying power and is still more compatible with existing material. You couldnt go wrong either way, but remember that if you want stunts in C&C you have but to add them.

AGNKim · Post by **AGNKim** » Sun Mar 21, 2010 12:39 pm

GoOrange wrote:
I was getting ready to start a new C&C campaign but now am leaning heavily to doing a Dragon Age game. Both have their strong points but I'm starting to think that DA's slightly different mechanics like stunts might provide enough extra fun to put it on top.

Sigh. Right now, however, I'm just stuck in analysis paralysis.

C&C without a doubt. DA has, what , two books? Small, paperbacks that take you to 5th level. C&C has tons of resources. It is proven, simple and fun. Like BD says, DA has gotten all the love, but C&C is still the better game.
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Piperdog · Post by **Piperdog** » Sun Mar 21, 2010 5:04 pm

Dragon Age kicks ass, no doubt. But yes, it is the new kid, and getting the attention right now. The novelty will fade a little bit in time. I really enjoyed my read through the books, and look forward to a chance to play or run it. In the end though, nothing beats my C&C!
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DangerDwarf · Post by **DangerDwarf** » Sun Mar 21, 2010 11:30 pm

Both are solid games. If stuck, I'd go with a C&C campaign to start off with as they release the DA stuff. Then plan out what you want to run with DA.

My group needed a change to get us out of a funk so I started running DA. I'm still very much plotting out my C&C game in the meantime though.

Piperdog · Post by **Piperdog** » Mon Mar 22, 2010 2:28 pm

Hey BD, I am curious as to how stunts could be added to C&C. Any ideas?
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Maliki · Post by **Maliki** » Tue Mar 23, 2010 8:13 pm

Piperdog wrote:
Hey BD, I am curious as to how stunts could be added to C&C. Any ideas?

I would do it like this;

Use the stunts presented in DA.

When a natural 20 is rolled, a d6 is rolled to generate the number of stunt points.

One thing to note, this will generate far less stunts than by rolling doubles.
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Treebore · Post by **Treebore** » Tue Mar 23, 2010 9:24 pm

A pod cast interview with Chris Pramas on Dragon Age:
http://www.rpgmp3.com/files/conventions ... pramas.mp3
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anglefish · Post by **anglefish** » Tue Mar 23, 2010 9:40 pm

Maliki wrote:
I would do it like this;

Use the stunts presented in DA.

When a natural 20 is rolled, a d6 is rolled to generate the number of stunt points.

One thing to note, this will generate far less stunts than by rolling doubles.

I know that rolling 2d6, doubles comes up %17 of the time, not so sure with 3d6.

That's easily solved by expanding your "stunt range" to when people roll natural 18s-20s. Maybe make the "dragon dice" a d4 with a +2 bonus when you roll a natural 20?

For now, I'm waiting on more of DA to come out before I get overly excited. The quickest way to make me a customer would be to either make a system free DA source book or collect all the rules in a DA "Rules Cyclopedia." product.

Until then, I'll use Action Dice.

Post by **Breakdaddy** » Wed Mar 24, 2010 12:18 am

Well, if I wanted to add stunts to C&C, I'd probably do something like create a "stunt threshhold" on the D20 die. Maybe something like: If the hit would have been scored without using any adjustments (so attacking an AC 15 would mean rolling an actual 15 or greater on the die) a stunt may be performed. The amount of stunt points could be rolled on a d6 or a fixed amount could be given based on how much the roll beat the target AC by (minimum 1). This is just off the top of my head of course, but it could be a workable solution. A natural 20 would always give a stunt regardless of AC.

dunbruha · Post by **dunbruha** » Wed Mar 24, 2010 11:48 pm

Finally decided to order a copy. I'll be looking forward to checking it out when it arrives.

Piperdog · Post by **Piperdog** » Thu Mar 25, 2010 2:24 am

Quote:
Well, if I wanted to add stunts to C&C, I'd probably do something like create a "stunt threshhold" on the D20 die. Maybe something like: If the hit would have been scored without using any adjustments (so attacking an AC 15 would mean rolling an actual 15 or greater on the die) a stunt may be performed. The amount of stunt points could be rolled on a d6 or a fixed amount could be given based on how much the roll beat the target AC by (minimum 1). This is just off the top of my head of course, but it could be a workable solution. A natural 20 would always give a stunt regardless of AC.

Thanks for the ideas BD!
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Post by **Breakdaddy** » Thu Mar 25, 2010 12:32 pm

Piperdog wrote:
Thanks for the ideas BD!

Word. You could also just say that if the swing wouldve scored a hit on an ac 5 higher than the ac of the target that a stunt is earned. That would let fighter types shine a bit more and allow more stunts for them and less for the other classes which may or may not be a desired effect in your game.

anglefish · Post by **anglefish** » Thu Mar 25, 2010 1:08 pm

Breakdaddy wrote:
Well, if I wanted to add stunts to C&C, I'd probably do something like create a "stunt threshhold" on the D20 die. Maybe something like: If the hit would have been scored without using any adjustments (so attacking an AC 15 would mean rolling an actual 15 or greater on the die) a stunt may be performed. The amount of stunt points could be rolled on a d6 or a fixed amount could be given based on how much the roll beat the target AC by (minimum 1). This is just off the top of my head of course, but it could be a workable solution. A natural 20 would always give a stunt regardless of AC.

anglefish wrote:
I know that rolling 2d6, doubles comes up %17 of the time, not so sure with 3d6.

That's easily solved by expanding your "stunt range" to when people roll natural 18s-20s. Maybe make the "dragon dice" a d4 with a +2 bonus when you roll a natural 20?

Great minds think alike.

mordrene · Post by **mordrene** » Thu Mar 25, 2010 2:48 pm

what about magic stunts?

Post by **Breakdaddy** » Thu Mar 25, 2010 4:07 pm

Magic Stunts... hmmm... off the top of my head I would have an INT based SIEGE check with a CL of the level of the spell +1 whenever a spell is cast. If you want stunts to be rarer then double the level of the spell as CL for the check or add +N (where N is whatever the hell you want it to be to make stunts rarer).

Ive actually thought of this as relates to a casting check instead of the "fire and forget" magic system. This was a fleeting thought when I was thinking of making a 3.xe style sorceror class and importing it to C&C. Have yet to give it a try though.

AGNKim · Post by **AGNKim** » Thu Mar 25, 2010 4:15 pm

Maybe just have the players roll 3d6 with every attack roll or magic attack, then use the same rules from DA, i.e. any doubles = stunt.
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serleran · Post by **serleran** » Fri Mar 26, 2010 5:33 am

Odds of getting any doubles on 3 dice are pretty good when a d6 is used. A specific set of doubles is more uncommon, though. It basically depends on how common you want them to seem.

I've considered a Yahtzee-like method in the past (for character creation, not game play) so that could be fun to work details out for... hmm.
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Lord Dynel · Post by **Lord Dynel** » Fri Mar 26, 2010 11:11 am

Yeah, the odds of rolling doubles on 3d6 is 1/12. Better than rolling a crit in d20-based games but then again the stunts are more interesting than a d20 crit, even though doubles in DARPG aren't guaranteed to do double damage. Crit damage is nice, don't get me wrong, but sometimes it's nice to shake things up, and to me the stunt system does that nicely.

But as far as a stunt-system for C&C? As long as everyone knew that a natural 20 didn't mean double damage automatically, then it'd be cool to try to get one cooking for C&C, too. I think it should have a little more "oomph" since it's a little harder to roll a 20 with a d20 than it is to roll doubles on 3d6.
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DangerDwarf · Post by **DangerDwarf** » Sat Mar 27, 2010 1:46 pm

So far we've played 5 sessions of Dragon Age. While we've been having a good time with the system, we are beginning to experience the same affliction we always do...

We are primarily D&D players. Other systems might be fun for us, but we ALWAYS end up migrating back to good ol' D&D type playing. We include C&C in with that because we see C&C as the natural inheritor of D&D. When we say D&D at our table, a lot of the time we are referring to C&C.

Anyways...

Our group is regaining our D&D itch but are unwilling to scrap our Dragon Age campaign. The players have been really digging the overall progression so far. So, tonight we are going to give something a shot.

The characters have all been converted over to C&C (with some minor tweaks to the mage). Tonight we'll play our DA campaign but using C&C to see if it works for us. It'll be a test session to see if we can maintain a DA feel that we like using the C&C rule set. If not, we'll jump back to the DA system. If it does work out for us though, we'll drive on full throttle in the campaign using C&C.

DangerDwarf · Post by **DangerDwarf** » Sun Mar 28, 2010 2:00 am

Well, we tried Dragon Age with C&C tonight....

Epic Fail.

Not that you can't run in the World of Thedas using C&C, but with our group my players were already accustomed to the feel that the DA system gives so the attempt went over poorly.

Back to straight DA next session.

Post by **Breakdaddy** » Sun Mar 28, 2010 2:06 am

This will go down on your permanent record, Double-D.

DangerDwarf · Post by **DangerDwarf** » Sun Mar 28, 2010 2:17 am

Thats cool. I put nekkid pictures of Rosie O'Donnel at the very front of my permanent file. Protects it from folks viewing better than Snake Sigil.

Post by **Breakdaddy** » Sun Mar 28, 2010 2:43 am

Hell, now I wont even open it to put this incident in there. YOU'RE FULLY PROTECTED, GIZMO

Treebore · Post by **Treebore** » Sun Mar 28, 2010 2:50 am

They can make a camera lense capable of lasting long enough to take a picture of her? Multiples?
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DangerDwarf · Post by **DangerDwarf** » Sun Mar 28, 2010 3:56 am

No camera involved. Her nekkidness burned itself into the very page. In fact, page bleed through can be found as far back as page 21 of my file.

It is disturbing.

Treebore · Post by **Treebore** » Sun Mar 28, 2010 4:04 am

DangerDwarf wrote:
No camera involved. Her nekkidness burned itself into the very page. In fact, page bleed through can be found as far back as page 21 of my file.

It is disturbing.

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Piperdog · Post by **Piperdog** » Mon Mar 29, 2010 4:52 pm

Man, Dragon Age is bad ass. I know that Green Ronin figured that people who were fans of the video game would be tempted to get into the rpg, but I wonder if they suspected the opposite was true as well. I got the boxed set, thought it was cool, and am now playing the video game on my pc. It kicks ass all the way around. My wife got on me today to get off the computer and stop playing, after a mere three hours. Can you believe that crap? lol. Anyway, the more I delve into the lore of Fereldan, the more I dig it. Familiar and cliched dark fantasy, sure, but enough of a fresh twist on it to make entertaining. I blame BreakDaddy for all my wasted time now.
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Post by **Breakdaddy** » Mon Mar 29, 2010 5:00 pm

Listen, ace: I dont want any nasty phone calls from your wife cursing me out for breaking you off some RPG knowledge, savvy? GIVE HER MCBAINS DIGITS AND TELL HER IT WAS ALL HIM