We've been eyeing D&D 4th Edition for a while now but will probably try Lancer as our next tactical game before then (which itself was also inspired by 4e).

I legit had to stop and take a break from the video because he just cannot let other people talk. I like his ideas, but ffs ... you don't need to interject every time someone else has something to say.

Sounds like you had a bad GM.

@@Akeche Not bad, New. Like the rest of us. This AP was advised as the place for all of us to learn P2e. That advice was very bad.

The group luckily avoided Mr. Beak, but the fey on floor 3 felt totally broken even when I was playing it easy on them and having it not use its strongest abilities. Overall I think that PF2e is still a good game, but I think *every* single person in the group needs to be into the type of tactical fantasy team-combat it provides. If even one person wants to do their own thing and not contribute to 'the team', then that makes things much more difficult.

I think these types of systems work well in a specifically structured campaign. Both Blades and Red Markets are geared towards a Mission -> Downtime -> Mission mindset, though Blades is a lot more loose with that and has more free play integration. So the big question is - is your intended campaign built with a similar structure in mind?

@@primarchthemage I think so, I am inspired to combine the Black Hack basic system with the ideas from the (still in beta) Enlightened game system, where the game is played in Seasons more or less. You might go on an adventure in spring, rest up during summer at home and use your upgrading points and healing up, and then off again in autumn. I do suppose a difficult thing could be balancing the resource cost, as I think I recall the video bringing up "A jar of leeches is worth as much as my family member", but such is the price of not wanting to count out gold coins!

Oh, I was only halfway through the video, Indigo corrected it in the chat.

We have a suspicion (based on the clothing used in the Legendary NPC Stat blocks) that the art they used is actually licensed from the comic books. I haven't read the comics myself, but it's possible they didn't have permission to use enough animals to add to the book.

The core book is like 600 pages but at page 75 it says: "I strongly urge you to make a character. Get a friend or two together, and take the system you've just read for a spin." So, that's before introducing any of the specialized conflict resolution mechanics.

It was a mistake, I believe we retroactively fixed it part way through the campaign.

A lot of it can't easily be fixed with simple changes. I think this game would need to be rebuilt from the ground up to play as the designers intended. As for the video itself, I sometimes release edited-down 'Abridged Review' videos when I have time, so that's a future possibility.

TLDR: It's great for introducing players who are used to D&D to new games, not great for those already used to a variety of other roleplaying games. It's halfway between two styles of game design with a LOT of problems from both. Pros: - The initial concepts and character creations was our favorite part of the entire game, it's extremely evocative and prompts imagination - It's very easy for a GM to improvise things, but has a lot of room for prep and granularity for those that want it - GM intrusions are a neat concept for introducing more traditional style GMs to narrating active events happening Cons: - Character abilities didn't often live up to the promises of their description, and weren't nearly as modular as it seemed. For example, the Halo of Fire focus relied almost entirely on Intellect points, so if you wanted to be a close-up melee fire-fighter it made that harder and you felt less powerful. - Characters can become very specialized very easily, in a way that makes you rarely want to act outside of your specialization (the talker talks, the fighter fights, etc) - Difficulty levels are great in theory, but when attached to enemies or similar long-term challenges it very easily slips into 'boringly easy' or 'impossibly difficult' with a very small middle ground of appropriate challenge. You can't have glass cannon enemies because level affects both defense and offence. - The two above points combine to mean that sometimes fighters would be the only ones effectively fighting, while all the others sat back and watched the (rather long usually) fights happen. - Range bands didn't work well. This isn't exclusive to this game, I have yet to play a game with Range Bands were I enjoyed that part. - 'Discoveries' as a method of gaining XP is very vaguely defined, and from what our group can understand it boils down to 'when you find the thing the GM planned for you to find'. It's effectively a Milestone system that thinks it isn't one, and is thus confusing. - The book structure, layout, and even language made the rules feel scattered about and hard to find, often unclear or incomplete when you found them, and yet still definitive enough to not be able to ignore them.

@@primarchthemage thank you so so sooo much for this! much appreciated!

Not having glass canon enemies isn't true. There are modifications where a level 4 can defend at a level 5. I don't remember of the rules specifically state you can go the other way, but there's nothing stopping you. Monte often says if the rules get in the way of fun, change the rules. As for book layout being all over the place, yeah I agree. It will touch on a subject and then way later in the book reiterate and elaborate making it hard to fine or remeber where you read the rule. But that's why I just take notes. I have quick reference notes for other RPGs too, so it was just another day for me. A PDF version of Discovery helps because you can search for specific things easily. As for characters being out of balance and combat being either too easy or hard, it's not a number crunching game. It's meant to bend to story telling and fun. It's up to the players and GM to find ways to over come challenges not like a video game and just pressing A. Describe how you attack, maybe the GM thinks this is clever and awards some extra action that causes the creature to loose balance. Combat going too slow? The GM can say that a character's ranged attack although it misses hits a boulder and blocks the path of the incoming creatures, thereby allowing the PCs to deal with half the advocerie. Combat going too smoothly? The GM can play a GM intrusion.

1. There are a couple enemies like that, but it wasn't the default. It was more the HP and armor being too much rather than the defense level. I intentionally used as many creatures RAW from the book as possible because that's what the game provided and implicitly set precedent for. The ability to change the rules doesn't excuse the flaws of the rules, same applies to every rpg. 2. Difficult layout is a very common problem in many RPGs, this isn't exclusive at all to Numenera, but I also found that some of the page number references in the book were incorrect. 3. While that is possible to do, the game mechanics don't incentivize or provide moments for that most of the time (except GM and player intrusions, the former of which worked well and the latter of which didn't end up being used). More modern narrative games specifically have mechanics that leave 'space' for the narrative to be injected to make things more exciting, while Numenera expects you to wedge parts of the game aside to make some space yourself, which none of our group liked. Similar to a lot of discussion regarding D&D, the ability or expectation to mitigate or overcome the flaws of a game's rules doesn't mean that the flaws aren't there.

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it.

Thanks, there are a few more in this playlist - kzbin.info/aero/PLFj-I2M3fQjQrlAa2BrM9596HnLeWfOD2

2:30:15 The GMing section: Thanks for this! Extremely useful review!

Oh, that's awesome to learn about Veteran abilities. We just finished our campaign (videos coming soon to YT, already on twitch) and I wish we knew that beforehand. And yeah, the Ulf i portray is very spiteful, proud and self-important, (maybe) unlike the Union.

We only changed our Traits once during a mid-campaign Trait Vote, and to do that we intentionally played into or away from them. We did change Beliefs and Instincts every session though.

I'll give him the bad news

We just finished the campaign today. It had a fantastic conclusion, but also had a few technical difficulties along the way.

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it :) I might replay it as some point to see what else there is, probably before Life is Strange 2 releases. But for now, XCOM 2 has stolen my soul and I need to get it back.

Ha. Don't let me keep you from XCOM any longer than needed. Keep the great vids coming.