This is the thread for not playing a PnP RPG

all the other threads are also about not playing a PnP RPG, but this one is more specific

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Juri
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Re: This is the thread for not playing a PnP RPG

Post by Juri » Sun Jan 10, 2021 11:15 am

the system you play those games in is AdEva right? i vaguely feel like i remember finding some connection between you and Karada years back
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Re: This is the thread for not playing a PnP RPG

Post by Fry Guy » Sun Jan 10, 2021 4:55 pm

Juri wrote: Sun Jan 10, 2021 11:15 am the system you play those games in is AdEva right? i vaguely feel like i remember finding some connection between you and Karada years back
Yeah, we're playing Adeptus Evangelion, v3.5. And indeed, I played several games with Karada back in ze day.

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Re: This is the thread for not playing a PnP RPG

Post by Fry Guy » Sun Jan 10, 2021 8:42 pm

I think I want angel 5 to not be defeatable by damage at all. I guess the easiest way to represent this would be to make it look like it's sort of out of phase, intangible or something. How they force it to manifest so they can harm is the tricky part. There's only so many thing you can do while piloting an Eva, and they don't give you intuitive non-combat actions, so I'll would either need to have NERV offer them something that would help manifest it, which makes it less of a puzzle, or have it's weakness be something it creates itself. Maybe it leaves crystals lying around and if they can align them right it'll become solid? That's okay but I kind of want there to be a thing they can do that isn't just created by the angel.

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Re: This is the thread for not playing a PnP RPG

Post by Ashenai » Sun Jan 10, 2021 8:56 pm

If you've read Worm, you can just steal the Siberian: have the angel be a 4th-dimensional projection of a hyperdimensional manifold <insert pseudo-mathematical technobabble of preference>, meaning it's unaffected by physics or anything the players can do, and instead the trick is to find the "projector", the vulnerable core that's creating the projection. Perhaps the projection can't move more than a certain distance from the projector, so if they kite it to the boundary a couple of times, they can figure out that it's staying within a circular boundary, and from then it's not much of a leap to want to check what's at the center of that circle.

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Re: This is the thread for not playing a PnP RPG

Post by Ashenai » Sun Jan 10, 2021 9:09 pm

Here's a more original idea that works with the intangible thing: something specific (water, electric fields, coherent light, radio waves, heat, UV light, powerful sound waves, gamma radiation, magnetic field) could make it tangible temporarily (for a few seconds). The players could need to lure it into power lines or a lake or a nuclear facility or whatever.

This idea would need to be fleshed out a little, to give the players some clues that could help them figure it out, but I think it could work. They could detect a field of distorted <thing> around the angel, and try to swamp it with a large amount of <thing> maybe.

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Re: This is the thread for not playing a PnP RPG

Post by Fry Guy » Sun Jan 10, 2021 9:24 pm

Ashenai wrote: Sun Jan 10, 2021 8:56 pm If you've read Worm, you can just steal the Siberian: have the angel be a 4th-dimensional projection of a hyperdimensional manifold <insert pseudo-mathematical technobabble of preference>, meaning it's unaffected by physics or anything the players can do, and instead the trick is to find the "projector", the vulnerable core that's creating the projection. Perhaps the projection can't move more than a certain distance from the projector, so if they kite it to the boundary a couple of times, they can figure out that it's staying within a circular boundary, and from then it's not much of a leap to want to check what's at the center of that circle.
The tricky part of this is that in my setting basically all the angels are kind of implied to be this to some degree. People can't see them with the naked eye (I) because they're so strange/impossible their brain just ignores it. But, the Evas have no problem seeing them and the pilots end up seeing them through the synchronization.

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Re: This is the thread for not playing a PnP RPG

Post by Fry Guy » Sun Jan 10, 2021 9:28 pm

Ashenai wrote: Sun Jan 10, 2021 9:09 pm Here's a more original idea that works with the intangible thing: something specific (water, electric fields, coherent light, radio waves, heat, UV light, powerful sound waves, gamma radiation, magnetic field) could make it tangible temporarily (for a few seconds). The players could need to lure it into power lines or a lake or a nuclear facility or whatever.

This idea would need to be fleshed out a little, to give the players some clues that could help them figure it out, but I think it could work. They could detect a field of distorted <thing> around the angel, and try to swamp it with a large amount of <thing> maybe.
This could work. I like the image of coaxing it to a nuclear plant.

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Re: This is the thread for not playing a PnP RPG

Post by Ashenai » Sun Jan 10, 2021 9:34 pm

So the core problem with puzzle fights is that boss fights are (by their nature) on a pretty tight time limit, and do not encourage wasting time on experimentation.

If you want to make fights puzzley then a thing you can do is introduce an artificial delay where the players can learn about what's going on with the Angel, but can't attack it. Maybe the Angel keeps phasing into existence, blowing things up, then phasing out before the NERV forces can get there, or maybe after the first round of combat. NERV is working on a) predicting where it'll appear next and/or b) a way to keep it "pinned" to this dimension, but until that's figured out, the players are stuck always showing up late to the fight... but they can spend that time finding clues and figuring out the thing's modus operandi. They can also use that time to interact with NERV people and share their knowledge and hunches to figure out how to do a) and/or b).

This can get frustrating, so to make the players feel they're achieving something in the meantime, have the Angel scatter a bunch of weak(er) enemies that the players can pummel when they get there. But the real progression should be in them figuring out what the thing's trick is, over multiple encounters. So this is maybe best suited for the last angel.

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Re: This is the thread for not playing a PnP RPG

Post by Ashenai » Sun Jan 10, 2021 9:38 pm

Like obviously it depends on how much time your players are willing to spend on one "encounter", but I think it would be satisfying to eventually figure out that the thing is weak to THING and then convince the Nerv team to make a big beefy THING gun that can be mounted on one of the Evas, and then finally hit it with the THING gun and see that yay, it's not vanishing this time! All thanks to the THING gun we had the Nerv people make for us! Agency!

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Re: This is the thread for not playing a PnP RPG

Post by Fry Guy » Sun Jan 10, 2021 10:35 pm

Ashenai wrote: Sun Jan 10, 2021 9:34 pm So the core problem with puzzle fights is that boss fights are (by their nature) on a pretty tight time limit, and do not encourage wasting time on experimentation.

If you want to make fights puzzley then a thing you can do is introduce an artificial delay where the players can learn about what's going on with the Angel, but can't attack it. Maybe the Angel keeps phasing into existence, blowing things up, then phasing out before the NERV forces can get there, or maybe after the first round of combat. NERV is working on a) predicting where it'll appear next and/or b) a way to keep it "pinned" to this dimension, but until that's figured out, the players are stuck always showing up late to the fight... but they can spend that time finding clues and figuring out the thing's modus operandi. They can also use that time to interact with NERV people and share their knowledge and hunches to figure out how to do a) and/or b).

This can get frustrating, so to make the players feel they're achieving something in the meantime, have the Angel scatter a bunch of weak(er) enemies that the players can pummel when they get there. But the real progression should be in them figuring out what the thing's trick is, over multiple encounters. So this is maybe best suited for the last angel.
Well, ultimately the fights in Eva are about an enemy trying to get to (thing). You can make it passive until attacked or halted in it's progress towards (thing). This lets the players pick the pace of the fight, though sometimes they don't realize they're picking the pace. And yeah, you can have cannon fodder interact with the angels to give them examples of how the angel works in combat.

So for the nuclear disruption plan, we need some way to clue them into the fact without just pointing at it. I could have something where an attempt to interact with the angel's AT field temporarily gave you a glimpse of its perspective, so they could see something happening over nuclear power generators or whatever phenomenon that make it stand out. Alternatively, we could have a nuclear powered Eva-equivalent thing try to take it on, get destroyed while they watch and then temporarily be forced into solid form. In the setting there's also a bacteria that eats nuclear waste, so I could do something with that.

But I can make sure the angel isn't just ripping them to shreds while they try to piece stuff together, but still poses a threat.

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Re: This is the thread for not playing a PnP RPG

Post by Fry Guy » Mon Jan 11, 2021 9:58 pm

You know it might be more interesting to have it be that the angel is always out of phase as long as it's being perceived. So the characters can only hurt it if they attack it indirectly or blind.

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Re: This is the thread for not playing a PnP RPG

Post by Starprintsky » Tue Jan 12, 2021 12:06 am

I think that's a sweet idea

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Re: This is the thread for not playing a PnP RPG

Post by Juri » Tue Jan 12, 2021 2:59 pm

Fry Guy wrote: Mon Jan 11, 2021 9:58 pm You know it might be more interesting to have it be that the angel is always out of phase as long as it's being perceived. So the characters can only hurt it if they attack it indirectly or blind.
if i close my eyes and attack, but someone else is still looking does my attack work
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Re: This is the thread for not playing a PnP RPG

Post by Fry Guy » Tue Jan 12, 2021 5:21 pm

Juri wrote: Tue Jan 12, 2021 2:59 pm
Fry Guy wrote: Mon Jan 11, 2021 9:58 pm You know it might be more interesting to have it be that the angel is always out of phase as long as it's being perceived. So the characters can only hurt it if they attack it indirectly or blind.
if i close my eyes and attack, but someone else is still looking does my attack work
No. I was thinking I could layer this a bit and add in the radiation thing again, so it could be if they flood it with radiation you have people still looking at it as long as you aren't or whatever. I should probably think of a third thing to mix in that gives the players the best chance of figuring out some way to hurt it and/or stack with the other stuff to become extra effective.

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Re: This is the thread for not playing a PnP RPG

Post by Fry Guy » Tue Jan 12, 2021 5:23 pm

To be fair, opening/closing your eyes should be a free action so I'm not going to make it especially difficult to coordinate that once they realize it's what they need to do.

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Re: This is the thread for not playing a PnP RPG

Post by Khaos » Tue Jan 12, 2021 8:08 pm

this seems cool. i never played a PnP before so i have no idea what works and what doesn't but heres random ideas

an angel fight that's actually 2 angels. when one dies, the other splits into two, each with full life. to win the players have to weaken them both, then kill both simultaneously

angel doppelganger fight. the angel looks like one random player, and that player is muted (can only talk to / send actions to DM on discord but can otherwise listen.) other players don't know which is real and the doppelganger copies all moves of the muted player. if the team kill one of the two, it's a 50/50 to succeed, otherwise the only way to win is for a player to eject from their eva and to determine which one is real by seeing which is visible

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Re: This is the thread for not playing a PnP RPG

Post by Khaos » Tue Jan 12, 2021 8:18 pm

an angel with cannon arms, which is very deadly at long range. as players close the gap the arms narrow to medium range weapons, and finally swords at close range, meaning it can adapt to any range to be most deadly.

to win (or to make things easier) players have to split up, some close range, some far range. the angel will then switch forms periodically. while in sword form, the close characters need to do defensive/evasive moves, and the ranged players can deal bonus damage to it. and vice versa when it's in ranged form

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Re: This is the thread for not playing a PnP RPG

Post by Khaos » Tue Jan 12, 2021 8:19 pm

an angel that's just a dude who wants to bang your most emo player

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Re: This is the thread for not playing a PnP RPG

Post by Fry Guy » Tue Jan 12, 2021 8:56 pm

Khaos wrote: Tue Jan 12, 2021 8:08 pm this seems cool. i never played a PnP before so i have no idea what works and what doesn't but heres random ideas

an angel fight that's actually 2 angels. when one dies, the other splits into two, each with full life. to win the players have to weaken them both, then kill both simultaneously
This is a canon fight in Neon Genesis Evangelion. :D

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Re: This is the thread for not playing a PnP RPG

Post by Fry Guy » Tue Jan 12, 2021 8:57 pm

Khaos wrote: Tue Jan 12, 2021 8:19 pm an angel that's just a dude who wants to bang your most emo player
This is also canon to the show

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Re: This is the thread for not playing a PnP RPG

Post by Ashenai » Tue Jan 12, 2021 9:12 pm

how about an angel who just hangs out in outer space, and their attack is that you scream at the player about how their mother killed herself because of them

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Re: This is the thread for not playing a PnP RPG

Post by Ashenai » Tue Jan 12, 2021 9:15 pm

admittedly this is less effective if the player's mother did not, in fact, kill herself, but it should still make for a memorable play session imo

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Re: This is the thread for not playing a PnP RPG

Post by Khaos » Tue Jan 12, 2021 9:19 pm

Fry Guy wrote: Tue Jan 12, 2021 8:57 pm
Khaos wrote: Tue Jan 12, 2021 8:19 pm an angel that's just a dude who wants to bang your most emo player
This is also canon to the show
this one i knew. i actually forgot the double one entirely. what's his name so i can google it

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Re: This is the thread for not playing a PnP RPG

Post by Ashenai » Tue Jan 12, 2021 9:23 pm

Israfel

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Re: This is the thread for not playing a PnP RPG

Post by Khaos » Tue Jan 12, 2021 10:17 pm

i am looking at these dudes and i don't remember them at all. i guess i watched this show some 14 years ago

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Re: This is the thread for not playing a PnP RPG

Post by Ashenai » Tue Jan 12, 2021 10:19 pm

It was a pretty memorable scene. With the ballet EVAs.

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Re: This is the thread for not playing a PnP RPG

Post by Ashenai » Tue Jan 12, 2021 10:20 pm


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Re: This is the thread for not playing a PnP RPG

Post by Khaos » Tue Jan 12, 2021 10:33 pm

oh i remember it now! that training montage was good

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Re: This is the thread for not playing a PnP RPG

Post by Fry Guy » Wed Jan 13, 2021 5:31 am

Khaos wrote: Tue Jan 12, 2021 8:08 pmangel doppelganger fight. the angel looks like one random player, and that player is muted (can only talk to / send actions to DM on discord but can otherwise listen.) other players don't know which is real and the doppelganger copies all moves of the muted player. if the team kill one of the two, it's a 50/50 to succeed, otherwise the only way to win is for a player to eject from their eva and to determine which one is real by seeing which is visible
This one is interesting but I would prefer not to give the players a coinflip to not off their friend and/or remove them from play to get a normal fight.

an angel with cannon arms, which is very deadly at long range. as players close the gap the arms narrow to medium range weapons, and finally swords at close range, meaning it can adapt to any range to be most deadly.

to win (or to make things easier) players have to split up, some close range, some far range. the angel will then switch forms periodically. while in sword form, the close characters need to do defensive/evasive moves, and the ranged players can deal bonus damage to it. and vice versa when it's in ranged form
This one is a good angel fight, but the execution is clear enough that it's not super puzzly, more like a baseline test to see if they're going to try to strategize or not. This would have been a fantastic first angel for the current game, for example.

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Re: This is the thread for not playing a PnP RPG

Post by Fry Guy » Wed Jan 13, 2021 7:20 pm

Fry Guy wrote: Wed Jan 13, 2021 5:31 am
Khaos wrote: Tue Jan 12, 2021 8:08 pmangel doppelganger fight. the angel looks like one random player, and that player is muted (can only talk to / send actions to DM on discord but can otherwise listen.) other players don't know which is real and the doppelganger copies all moves of the muted player. if the team kill one of the two, it's a 50/50 to succeed, otherwise the only way to win is for a player to eject from their eva and to determine which one is real by seeing which is visible
This one is interesting but I would prefer not to give the players a coinflip to not off their friend and/or remove them from play to get a normal fight.
I might do something like this with the reflection angel, if they figure it out quick enough and "kill it" fast, have it shatter and become distorted copies of the Evas, but not have each person fighting their reflection. Make it like Unit 01 is fighting Unit 02, while Unit 02 fights Unit 03 and so on.

Not sure what I'd do if they all stopped taking actions but it's mostly a backup plan anyway.

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