[RPG]: In Harm's Way: Dragons!, reviewed by SteveD (2/2)

[RPGnet Reviews]

http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/14/14096.phtml

Steve Darlington's Summary:

A game is a terrible thing to waste.

Go to the full review for more information.

[bardbloom]

Is this intended to be a gaming system for the Temeraire books? Or are those more recent?

Thanks for the review, by the way.

[flyingmice]

Thanks for the review, Steve! This review was very important to me because you caught a problem I, and all my playtester groups, never caught: I didn't set down in the rules how damage was applied to dragons! The aerial combat system was adapted from my air combat games - IHW: Aces in Spades, IHW: Aces And Angels, and IHW: Wild Blue. The playtester GMs all were familiar with one or more of these games, and didn't notice that the rules for applying damage were skipped, because they already knew how it worked! This will immediately be fixed, with pdf customers receiving free replacements, new print customers receiving fixed documents, and previous print customers able to receive errata from the main site. This should have been in the rules! It's fairly simple - for every ten points of damage, cross off one box on the Damage Track. For every ten points of healing, erase one cross from the damage track box.

As for Dragon Generation, any random generation will produce non-starters - a string of crap rolls and there's a dragon not worth bothering about. The Dragon Generation tables are designed for a GM to produce breeds of dragons, not individuals. It is assumed that the GM is editing the results before allowing the breed as an option. The rules (p. 109) state: "This work is a Dragon Breed generator, designed to allow you to design dragon breeds for In Harm’s Way: Dragons!... The dragons generated by this method are breeds of Dragon peculiar to a culture. We strongly recommend that the GM create or approve all new breeds of dragon introduced by this method. In lieu of a breed, a dragon generated by this method may instead be regarded as a unique crossbreed at the GM’s option."

Thank you for your hard work and charitable reading in writing this review. It was sincerely appreciated!

-clash

Added: And thank you very much for the kind words on my paintings!

[flyingmice]

Hi Steve:

I should also add that there are reasons why I did what I did with the system - it's a framework metasystem into which you can slot different sub-systems, including replacing the percentile rolls with dice pools, or roll over d20, or 3d6, or diceless, or other task resolution sub-systems. This comes at a slight cost in abstraction - thus the attributes being at the range they are, and the skill ranks being +1 instead of +5%, for example. Also, in order to facilitate the trading of points between initiative, chance, and quality - the heart of the abstract tactics used in the game - the numbers have to be on the same scale, thus the large numbers in a percentile game. Whether one likes it or not - whether one feels the trade-off is worth it - is another issue, but these things were not done blindly.

As for the layout comments, I have no defense. I've never been good at it, have no flair for it, and work extremely hard to keep to plain and straight forward. I do my best, and sometimes that just isn't good enough.

Thank you again!

-clash

[flyingmice]

Originally Posted by bardbloom

Is this intended to be a gaming system for the Temeraire books? Or are those more recent?

Thanks for the review, by the way.

The game is inspired by the Temeraire series, but nothing beyond the basic idea - Napoleonic war with dragons - is used. I have my own ideas, some of which differ sharply from Ms. Novik's. One could use the game to play in that world, but by default it is not the same.

-clash

[SteveD]

The best thing a reviewer can hope for is to actually make a game better. That only happens when a reviewer respects the author and the author respects the reviewer - so thank you, sir.

[flyingmice]

Originally Posted by SteveD

The best thing a reviewer can hope for is to actually make a game better. That only happens when a reviewer respects the author and the author respects the reviewer - so thank you, sir.

And thank you! Your comments were vital in making the game better. I deeply appreciate the care with which you wrote this review.

-clash

[flyingmice]

A few factual points which I should address. The fact that these are in the book and you didn't notice them, or didn't apply them correctly, is not a testament to my presentation skills... These may need further/better explanation in the game.

You said that no provision is made for non-military characters. That point is addressed, I believe, under Maverick Characters. This character type is intended to cover characters who come into the military from different fields, but is also suitable for characters who do not ever enter the military as well.

Also, there is a penalty for low attributes, given as an optional rule. I have never seen any need for it after running games with this system since 2000, but some GMs would be more comfortable with this rule, which is why I made it optional. There are in fact several useful optional rules, some of which I typically use, some of which I don't.

It is also possible to create intelligent nobles, but it is impossible to create intelligent, lucky nobles. The point pool is divided between IQ, Class, and Luck, with an assumption of average rolls. Allocating 94 points to Class, 1 to Luck, and 70 to IQ gives a character from the lower nobility, with no Luck and an IQ of 119. Since you can increase your INT in the path chargen - and thus in play - you can easily achieve this goal. It's really a matter common to all point allocation schemes, where it is impossible to be good at everything. If you wanted to, you could replace point allocation with random rolls - 2d6 for each attribute, and percentile for Class and Luck - and maybe IQ - on the appropriate tables. I know some people would prefer that, and it perhaps should be in the optional rules.

As for the random damage, you are interpreting it backwards. Yes, you can do a Boxing punch for 130 points, and a sabre hit for 27, but that Boxing punch for 130 points would be a devastating blow, and the sabre hit wouldn't be a gut wound, but a minor scratch. Interpret the blow by the results, and it makes sense. How can one person survive numerous gunshot wounds and live, yet another person can die from a single hit? That one wound was a crushing hit in a vital area, and the numerous hits on the other fellow were in non-vital areas. Thus a hit with damage of 100+ would be a vital hit, and that of less than 30 would be a scratch. By trading points from chance or initiative, a skilled opponent can massively increase damage at a cost, exactly as one would with a called shot in other systems. These abstract tactics are entirely under the player's control.

-clash

[flyingmice]

Changes made and uploaded.

-clash

[goeticgeek]

Originally Posted by flyingmice

As for the layout comments, I have no defense. I've never been good at it, have no flair for it, and work extremely hard to keep to plain and straight forward. I do my best, and sometimes that just isn't good enough.

If you know you are no good at layout then, for goddess sakes, get some help man! I had a similar issue with your original In Harm's Way game where I felt the product seemed more slapped together than planned. If you want to start creating professional looking products, you will need to get some professional help. A smart editor would do your products wonders. As long as you are doing all the books yourself, they will never look any better than amateurish.

ED