Feedback Needed: DR v3

[Fred]

Bear in context that DRv3 looks at damage through the lens of lethality. Is the aether blade of the saber-rifle conductive to destroying a Plumeria gunship? Not really, especially from outside. It's going to take forever to destroy one with that kind of weapon. It's so small compared to such a big ship. The aether sword is simply not potentially lethal in a single strike.

Does it make it an ineffective hull-cutting tool? Of course not. The DRv3 article tells one part of the story to supplement what the weapon article actually says about the weapon, giving an idea of how deadly it is. If the article tells you that its an zesuaium blade that can project an aether sword and that it has a secondary purpose as a hull-cutting tool, then everyone with knowledge of the weapon understands its nature and knows what it can accomplish. Including hull-cutting.

I see people wanting to add more layers to the system in order to give special consideration or pointing out possible inconsistencies, but the thing is, the DRv3 system is just there to give you an idea of how deadly a weapon can be relative to a target.

For example, making melee weapons deadlier as compensation doesn't work, because the question to answer is "if you land a well-placed hit on this target, can you kill it/make it cease operation?" If you can do it to a heavy power armor, but probably can't to a light mecha... then you're likely heavy anti-armor.

If a tank is meant to be tougher, perhaps it should be up to the tank's article to express that, and consideration from the NTSE mods involved in the approval process to let things shape out that way too - they're the ones that typically deal with exceptions. I mean, there's a reason you make an article to present an idea to SARP and there's no way the DRv3 system can cover everything, but your descriptions of the item in an article can.

 

[Wes]

Sorry for the confusion, I actually posted my Mindy comment in the wrong thread, it was supposed to go in the discussion thread for the submission.

 

[Legix]

Bear in context that DRv3 looks at damage through the lens of lethality. Is the aether blade of the saber-rifle conductive to destroying a Plumeria gunship? Not really, especially from outside. It's going to take forever to destroy one with that kind of weapon. It's so small compared to such a big ship. The aether sword is simply not potentially lethal in a single strike.

Does it make it an ineffective hull-cutting tool? Of course not. The DRv3 article tells one part of the story to supplement what the weapon article actually says about the weapon, giving an idea of how deadly it is. If the article tells you that its an zesuaium blade that can project an aether sword and that it has a secondary purpose as a hull-cutting tool, then everyone with knowledge of the weapon understands its nature and knows what it can accomplish. Including hull-cutting.

I see people wanting to add more layers to the system in order to give special consideration or pointing out possible inconsistencies, but the thing is, the DRv3 system is just there to give you an idea of how deadly a weapon can be relative to a target. If a tank is meant to be tougher, perhaps it should be up to the tank's article to express that, and consideration from the NTSE mods involved in the approval process to let things shape out that way too - they're the ones that typically deal with exceptions. I mean, there's a reason you make an article to present an idea to SARP and there's no way the DRv3 system can cover everything, but your descriptions of the item in an article can.

This is actually why I was going to recommend something. While I am in the mindset we should approve this simply because it's a step in the direction of removing the hold the DR system has, it has an inherent flaw of translating everything currently. Once this is approved (it appears to be going that way), then I think it perfectly reasonable that not only the submission mods and Fred go back and begin discussing what converts into what, but also all of the player base. The reason for this is that it should be a group effort, regardless of who voted for the system or not, to make this smooth in transitioning. That should include going in and saying "hey, this weapon should be a higher tier or have notes mentioning X, to imply its original intent" for both your own and others. It'll make the board busy with discussion, but that's how it should be regardless of how we vote simply because of the fact making it transition smoothly is vital for submissions in progress as much as for players and GMs.

TLDR: This is better placed here simply because it's not a discussion topic, I firmly believe. If this is approved, this should be a required step that all of us are aware of. Otherwise, many weapons such as the Garuda Shoulder Cannons, might be uncertain in terms of where they'd better fit into the new system. And this is example'd by how we're looking at even micro/swarm missiles in the discussion board. So yeh. Figured I'd propose this in the actual vote, since it's only relevant to the outcome of said vote and really needs to be necessary in everyone's minds.

 

[Navian]

We could try doing it by sorting weapons into lists of 15-20 items grouped by faction and typical role, and discuss one group at a time, maybe in a couple of parallel threads, taking about a week on each one. That should get it done eventually, without too much looking back and going 'huh, what just happened?'.

I think another good example of something that doesn't have exactly the effects that the table says is a needle or dart. Weapons that small do light damage at most, probably negligible, even to an unarmoured person, but that's all they have to do in order to deliver some kind of payload. The same could go for boarding parties, where rather than putting poison in someone's bloodstream or shocking them with a taser dart, you're putting power armours, nanomachines, or whatever else inside a ship, which could be just as effective as a 'quite lethal' attack, even if it starts out as 'negligible damage'.

 

[Fred]

Way back, the discussion on this DR system became rife with the example list being from multifactions. Nepleslian Arms, Lorath, Origin, Abwehrans, etcetera.
The process became rife with drama as people butted heads over this as far as weapon portrayal went.

I was ultimately told by NTSE mods that the process of determining what weapons went were would be established on a per-case basis and that none would figure as examples.

This is why, to avoid drama and to provide a benchmark, that's you mostly see Yamataian gear only there. This is essentially Wes setting the standard for everyone else. Besides, this website is Star Army of Yamatai - so it kind of makes sense for the focus to be mostly there.

Also, the dart mentioned in Navian's post is likely the unofficial tier 0. Like, the sort of stuff that's likely just better dealt as common sense.

 

[Zack]

'Ignore the rules that you don't like' seems to be a terrible basis for a system.

I would also like to point out that a Mindy Aether-Saber can not pierce the shields of a ship under the new system. The new system also explicitly states it would do negligible damage to a starship and provides examples of how a Mindy Aether Saber would do less damage than scratching the paint.

 

[Rizzo]

Honestly I'm really not too concerned about the outcome of this because I don't reference the current SADR anyway. If you have super-heavy tier infinity body armor my character is just going to beat his his sward onto your joints until we 'call it a draw'

EDIT: this appears to be a guideline of armor resistance... sooooo don't hit the armor. Tanks are real tough unless you toss a grenade down the barrel. That battleship has heavy armor, go for the engines. we have weapons that disrupt shields, chain your attacks to destabilize the shield before the punch lands on an unarmored critical system and suddenly the behemoth is coughing blood.

 

[Navian]

It looks like the descriptions of what the different damage categories mean are no longer in the article. A hole made to board a starship or the injury from a poison dart are 'Negligible damage', though, you're not using the sword to kill the ship, you're using it to get inside where you can do more damage. Sometimes it doesn't matter that an attack is doing negligible direct damage, because the secondary effects are the focus.

The old system doesn't say that you can use an aether saber to open a hole in a ship, either. It says that if you hit a ship with your aether saber a set number of times (10 for very small ships, 50 for a battleship), the ship is destroyed. Period. We can't rely on strict interpretations either way, these are meant to be guidelines.

 

[Fred]

Navian, due to feedback given, the examples were moved to the end of the wiki article (you can see where they ended up in the table of content).

It seems like it read better to explain lethality and then leap forward to barrier and armor, rather than have to scroll to multiple examples until you reached those.

 

[Zack]

One system explicitly states the Aether Saber will only do damage to a starship's paint job.

The other system shows the Aether Saber as able to deal damage to a ship.

Both systems are abstractions, but there is a reason HP systems are the go to for abstractions: They tend to be very good at giving people an idea of how much damage they can take.

 

[Rizzo]

This damage is measured per shot, right? If thats the case I would reason that a slash of the ASBR blade may not cut but sustained contact would

 

[Zack]

The rules state 'per shot or per use' which I assume means 'per shot' as the rules seem to go on to describe it as per shot in contrast to the 'per turn' of the old system.

In either case, a slash of an ASBR blade would still only hurt the paint of a starship and not pierce the hull.

 

[Fred]

Pretty much, Rizzo. The article lets you understand its usual purpose and how it does it. If you grasp what aether does to any kind of metal, it isn't farfetched to use it as an hull-cutter that way. If you happen to do it someplace more vulnerable like an airlock or a window, then the going gets much easier.

Just like how you'd know that your assault rifle wouldn't be terribly damaging to a Daisy, but that you'd still try to amount to some greater harm by having you and the rest of your team focus on the less plated/more articulated point of the power armor. Even if it's just light damage, the Daisy is bound to not be very amused.

 

[Zack]

Just so we're clear, the maker of the article is asking us to disregard the article when it doesn't fit how we think things should work?

 

[Syaoran]

Zack if you want and HP system so much, sit down and make one of yoru own, and see if you can get most of SARP to approve it. This isn't a discussion about how to break down the v3 system and then build something new. And it's not constructive to say "HP would be better" because you don't have an HP system to replace it with. That would just be starting over.

 

[Navian]

So far as I can recall, almost every P&P RPG book I've seen gives about the same advice to GMs. I think they're on to something. It's only a problem when 'how we think things should work' contradicts setting canon, and conversely it's necessary when the predicted results would make no sense, which is bound to happen sometimes with any system.

These are guidelines, so they're meant to establish general comparisons and support GM decision-making, not to dictate precise results. All the third version of the guidelines has to do is be better than the second at doing this. We already disregard the V2 rules all the time, because the RP is not about reducing things to zero hit points. V3 would better reflect the way attacks are used and targeted, and get rid of some weird implications regarding high volumes of weak attacks, and restrictions on equipment.

 

[Zack]

It seems that whenever a problem with the new system is brought up the response is 'Ignore the new system'.

Since the V2 version of the guidelines work far better, the solution may just be to continue using the V2 guidelines and let whoever want to use V3 use V3.

 

[Legix]

It seems that whenever a problem with the new system is brought up the response is 'Ignore the new system'.

Since the V2 version of the guidelines work far better, the solution may just be to continue using the V2 guidelines and let whoever want to use V3 use V3.

You know, it's funny. It's like you're saying the same thing: we should just ignore V2 even though we have problems with it.

It's a site decision because the site needs to have a singular system to either use or ignore. Having both is just silly and would require all submissions have both forms of information. That's even worse than having one that someone wouldn't like.

 

[Syaoran]

It seems that whenever a problem with the new system is brought up the response is 'Ignore the new system'.

Since the V2 version of the guidelines work far better, the solution may just be to continue using the V2 guidelines and let whoever want to use V3 use V3.

It is not 'ignore the system when there's a problem' It's what happens in every pen and paper system. The GM is allowed to take liberties with how the system works to get the results they want for their plot. That was the same with teh V2 system, in fact most people didn't even know how to use the V2 system right and we even had a big discussion about how to even interpret it. So no, the V2 system is not a better set of guidelines.

 

[Navian]

How long has it been since you read the V2 rules, Zack? They don't actually give you what you've built out of them. They say nothing about armour scale units being invulnerable to damage from personal scale units, for example, a 'rule' that's not a rule that I've seen you take for granted. Whether or not it's intended, it's just not there, and it would be just as easy to interpret the conversion as allowing 50 PDR 3 rifle attacks to destroy an armoured vehicle outright... even using your interpretation of 'ASP' vs. 'PSP', which the article doesn't define.

The V2 rules are not as rock solid as you've made them out to be.