Teaser 11: Short and Sweet

[Agamemnon]

We've been putting more work into writing than teasers lately, but we thought we'd share this one with you. It largely speaks for itself.

I present, the Band of Bastards Beta character sheet.




Pdf available here.

[thirtythr33]

Ooo interesting. Lots of tasty little hints in here for me to pour over.

Is this finalized or are you looking for feedback/still drafting?

[higgins]

Feedback is always welcome!

[thirtythr33]

Here's some feedback then.

I like that you have Gender and not Sex listed at the top.

Maybe change to "Family Names & Occupations" instead of Parents? This leaves open characters having their own wife/husband and kids or situations where their character is closer to their brothers/sisters than specifically their parents. But I like you are forcing people to not play loner orphans by default.

Is no TN5 checkbox ever going to be required?

There are 5 lines for Story Aspects but 6 sets of pips?

Skill list is smaller than I expected but that is more a discussion about the number of skills in the game and not really relevant to character sheet feedback.

I like that the second page has everything combat related in one place. No switching back and forth is good.

Reach: Hand > Knife > Short.
It seems kind of weird to me the ranges are generic except Knife and Hand refers to a specific weapon. It would make more sense to me to name them Touch, Close, Short, Medium, Long, Extended as well as more consistent with the Ranged Ranges. But I can see how that has problems of it's own.

Also maybe column "Length" should be column "Reach" so it's more clear your writing down "Medium" instead of "35cm".

"Silly" in the gear section? Is that a technical term?
Also the word "Gear" feels... colloquial? Like naming the section "Stuff you have" just feels off to me. Carried Equipment or Possessions might be more in the serious tone.

No Exhaustion or Fatigue tracking anywhere. No encumbrance tracking for anything but armor via CP Pen. Unless these are somehow rolled into Blood loss like in RQ6 or rolled into TN penalties which would make sense.

Conspicuously absent:
Anything magic related.

[higgins]

Maybe change to "Family Names & Occupations" instead of Parents?

In my original writeup, that was actually Father's name and occupation, so, we've actually broadened it already. The main idea here is to give the character a sense where they are coming from. If they're much closer to their siblings, cousins, whatever, then those will probably end up in the NPC section anyway, whereas in most games the parents don't.

Is no TN5 checkbox ever going to be required?

Never. See previous teaser.

There are 5 lines for Story Aspects but 6 sets of pips?

Agamemnon tweaked the sheet a bit last night after I crashed. I've already sent him a message about the error.

Reach: Hand > Knife > Short.
It seems kind of weird to me the ranges are generic except Knife and Hand refers to a specific weapon. It would make more sense to me to name them Touch, Close, Short, Medium, Long, Extended as well as more consistent with the Ranged Ranges. But I can see how that has problems of it's own.

We considered it, but it seemed less intuitive. I guess we'll see how many people complain about it.

Also maybe column "Length" should be column "Reach" so it's more clear your writing down "Medium" instead of "35cm".

Me to Agamemnon last night, paraphrased: "We need to fix three things before the sheet goes live. First, to give the SA's a bit more room. Then replace that one missing location on the wound wheels. There was one more thing, but it's late and I can't remember what it was."

"Silly" in the gear section? Is that a technical term?

Indeed it is.

Also the word "Gear" feels... colloquial? Like naming the section "Stuff you have" just feels off to me. Carried Equipment or Possessions might be more in the serious tone.

We'll mull that one over for sure. I like Possessions. Good catch!

No Exhaustion or Fatigue tracking anywhere.

It's on both pages, actually.

No encumbrance tracking for anything but armor via CP Pen.

There's -1, -2, -3 and Silly load, depending on what kind of pack you carry. If you carry a person, then you are also under Silly load. So, while under Silly load, you can't fight in melee and the only skirmish action you can perform is Drag Weight. Extra crucials also count as encumbrance, essentially.

During playtesting, one my players who is at officer school had his eyes lit up instantly: "Silly load! I was definitely under silly load last weekend, carrying two backpacks and a pair of rifles."

Conspicuously absent:
Anything magic related.

Not necessary for every single character. It gets a dedicated sheet.

That's some outstanding feedback, sir!

[Agamemnon]

I'm going to add two things and then step aside - 1) I remembered to change Length to Reach in the text, but not the column heading. Oops.

2) six sets of SA pips isn't an error. Higgins has forgotten the "orphan SAs" clause. I.e you are generally supposed to spend down your SA points before you can change the focus of one, but you can orphan up to one SA at a time. The points remain available to spend, but don't apply to anything. Any points burnt must come from the orphaned points first. This is set up so you aren't forced to go blow points on something just to get rid of an inapplicable SA.

[higgins]

pips

pips

Dots!

Higgins has forgotten the "orphan SAs" clause.

Ah, I figured orphaning would manifest in player erasing just the SA description and leaving the dots intact until they're spent, then rewriting the whole thing anew.

[Agamemnon]

Higgins has forgotten the "orphan SAs" clause.

Ah, I figured orphaning would manifest in player erasing just the SA description and leaving the dots intact until they're spent, then rewriting the whole thing anew.

If you have five lines and you erase the SA but leave the dots, then you still wouldn't be able to do anything with the slot until you did something with the dots. The intent was that you didn't have a slot "taken up" with an SA that no longer applied. On the sheet then, we need somewhere else to park the unspent SA points that isn't taking up one of the SA lines.

pips

pips

Dots!

My LotFP is showing.

[thirtythr33]

No Exhaustion or Fatigue tracking anywhere.

It's on both pages, actually.

No encumbrance tracking for anything but armor via CP Pen.

There's -1, -2, -3 and Silly load, depending on what kind of pack you carry.

That's some outstanding feedback, sir!

I must be not understanding something about the encumbrance/fatigue systems. The only thing tracked on both pages is base TN, but surely exhaustion would have additional penalties like reduced movement speed or is that somehow rolling into a terrain check penalty because of the higher TN?

Also, I don't really know how your "Pack" system works, but unless you are writing down the same item in multiple places, aren't you giving weapons effectively a 0 encumbrance? For example, if I have a mace, longsword, medium shield and longspear written in the Weapons sections, am I actually holding those weapons or is it merely for ease of reference? If I'm meant to write them down a second time in the Crucial Items section (to mean I am carrying them) and I put the 4th item into "Extra crucial" so I take a -1 penalty... I imagine it could get a little tedious if I was studious about tracking objects moving in and out of my "crucial" and "pack" sections every time I wanted to change out a mace for a sword.

Also, armor isn't tracked as a crucial item so it doesn't have encumbrance other than CP penalty and it's equally encumbering to carry 4 apples as it is to carry 6 longspears?

And if you like that feedback, wait until I get my hands on the beta.

#pips

[higgins]

I must be not understanding something about the encumbrance/fatigue systems. The only thing tracked on both pages is base TN, but surely exhaustion would have additional penalties like reduced movement speed or is that somehow rolling into a terrain check penalty because of the higher TN?

Fatigue drives up your Base TN, which makes all the rolls harder. Chase is an opposed roll, so, the TN has a direct impact on that.

Also, armor isn't tracked as a crucial item so it doesn't have encumbrance other than CP penalty and it's equally encumbering to carry 4 apples as it is to carry 6 longspears?

A crucial item is something attached to your person that can be reached instantly during combat. If the item is not listed as crucial, the assumption is that you have it in your pack, pocket, pouch, etc which makes it inconvenient to reach (can't do it in melee, eats your turn in skirmish). You can carry three crucial items with no ill effects. If you carry 4-6 crucial items (aka, you fill any of the extra fields), you get -1CP. You can't carry more than 6 crucial items at any given time. Packs give a CP penalty that is determined by the pack size, so, you don't really want to carry a pack to the combat, which generally limits you to the crucial items on your person during the fight. Hope it clears things up.

And if you like that feedback, wait until I get my hands on the beta.

Workin' on it!

[Marras]

Looks great!

I like the fact that skill list is not assumed to be awfully long.

[thirtythr33]

Was there a particular reason you shuffled around all the results on the wound wheel? I liked how the old one had the hit locations listed in a circle based on the "height" of the hit location (shoulder, elbow, forearm, hand). Keeping it all the same makes the wheels easier to memorize.

On this new graphic some go "down" like arm and others go "up" like shin. I thought you changed it to something like outside to in, but then Head is ordered in different directions depending on if it was a thrust or a chop.

And thrust to the thigh is just all a jumble no matter which way you look at it.

[higgins]

Was there a particular reason you shuffled around all the results on the wound wheel?

Okay, this is something major we both missed. I have no idea how it happened, but somehow Agamemnon reverted the wheels back to some draft configuration from May 2011 when laying out the sheet. So, yeah... This is still the correct one. You know it's the correct one since it says "Shoulderr" on the arms wheel (yeah, we should have numbered our versions back then).

[EinBein]

I adore this sheet if the beta looks half as well you'll get a lot of fans!

Besides: I would offer to translate it to German if you like

[Agamemnon]

Was there a particular reason you shuffled around all the results on the wound wheel? I liked how the old one had the hit locations listed in a circle based on the "height" of the hit location (shoulder, elbow, forearm, hand). Keeping it all the same makes the wheels easier to memorize.

On this new graphic some go "down" like arm and others go "up" like shin. I thought you changed it to something like outside to in, but then Head is ordered in different directions depending on if it was a thrust or a chop.

And thrust to the thigh is just all a jumble no matter which way you look at it.

Good catch!
I must have pulled an old version of the chart when I made the character sheet. It appears we owe you a beer.