Welp... I did get all the planned goals complete, even if the bar was pretty low. Goals since the last report (which was a compressed schedule due to neglect):
Given I ended up getting really interested in playing the Pokemon TCG of all things, thanks to my family. It is fun and cheap so it works for me. Skies Far BeyondI played with both groups and we're on schedule again. Both games were really different; one was totally non-combat, which is rare in any game I run, but did get a lot of skill use and out-of-combat mechanics into play. Those seem to be working well and everyone is satisfied with it thus far. The games are both shaping up nicely. The other group also had a large climactic combat which was pretty good. Admittedly, I was a bit rusty on the rules so it was a little choppy, but everyone definitely understands what they should be doing now and how the options break down. The missile rules still don't feel quite right, but it might have just been that I was out of practice. I was also juggling a lot of things in the fight as the GM, but it wasn't too taxing despite being rusty. I took that as a good sign. We did have some good discussions later on a few topics. The detection and transition to combat has been hugely simplified. Originally I had a big table of modifiers for flying high, fast, and other stuff, but it was hard to use because sometimes there's stuff flying at varied regimes and then it just became a mess. Given we typically forgot to use it, I just threw it out. Another big change was the weight penalties. Instead of every plane having a different set of penalties when it was Loaded or Dirty, now it's a flat -2 Agility for Loaded and -4 for Dirty. It was too easy to forget and it was fiddly to have all these different modifiers. They were flavourful, but if you forget them, then it's better to simplify or delete the rules. I don't want to lose the weight management altogether, so simplification it is. It also makes the plane sheets a bit nicer and cleaner, which is a plus. Finally, I went over all the aircraft and gave them a balance, Fuel totals, and flight regime pass. I added the unicode fuel pump character to represent Fuel Efficiency as well, which works perfectly. Danger CloseWith simplified enemies (they have only two range bands and their rules are all on the chit), there's no need for the reference for hostiles anymore. I was considering compressing the data on weapons down to the chit, but it wasn't really working out, so I'm going to keep the reference page for now. Maybe I'll come up with a better solution, but it's not exactly untenable as-is. Otherwise, I played some Farm Gate and the new enemies format makes the game notably easier to play, but not any easier to win at! The compressed range bands basically are all buffs to the hostiles, so they're more lethal at greater ranges now for the most part. The biggest thing I need now is just more maps! I've been playing with the same Battletech map a lot and it's time to change things up. Otherwise I just need to keep grinding out games and getting quality of life improvements before I move on to testing the Air Commandoes campaign. Goals for SeptemberWell, this should be kept similarly simple.
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