Hello!

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Hi everyone. I just got the rules and am ploughing through them.

Question for the GM:

• Is the background is the book at all related to your background (the thousand years war leads me to think not)
• Races: is 'pretty much anything reasonable' OK? or is it human/Tolkien centric?
• How much combat are we expecting? And does this school teach magical stuff as well as combat stuff?

Great questions!

1.) The lore in the ICON playtest ruleset is specifically for their world, not our game world.  We're borrowing some terminology for ease of use, but when you come across terms like  "Arkentech" in the book, you can sub that specific term for something more generic like "tech".

2.) "Pretty much anything reasonable" is okay for character Kin.  As mentioned in the Character Creation thread, if you want something particularly strange be sure to check with me first so we can work together to make sure the world we're creating can accommodate for it.

3.) Spearpoint teaches both magical and mundane practices.  The combat question is slightly trickier because ICON has two versions of combat - Narrative and Tactical.
Narrative combat is looser, less regimented, lower stakes, occurs in "theater of the mind", and pulls off the abilities of a character's Bond.  Facing down a group of bullies would probably be narrative combat, for example.
Tactical combat is strict, mechanics-heavy, grid-based, utilizes the abilities of a character's Class and Job, and is reserved for life-and-death moments in the story when the characters are pushing themselves to the absolute limits of their abilities.  Holding off an attacking lance of warriors while non-combatants escape would be an example of tactical combat.

With that in mind, I'm imagining our game will have more narrative than tactical combat, but we can expect both at their appropriate moments.

As far as I can see narrative combat is a coin toss.

Take a person with 20 years combat experience who trains for 4 hours a day with armour and weapons and a child with a rubber knife and it's a straight coin toss to see who wins the fight...

I might be missing something but in the above example the 20 years combat experience fails half the time, succeeds badly 1/3 times, and only succeeds 1/6.


Tactical combat looks a little strange too. For example no matter how experienced you are, or how tough you are, you fail your saving throws on a toin coss. So take Conan the barbarian and the aforementioned child, expose them to the same risk and each tosses a coin to see if they survive



Although the tactical combat does look to be better for dealing with the kid vs Conan.

I hope I am missing something

Remember that during Narrative sections these rolls would be affected by Action Ratings on the dice pool. In this case, let's assume the combat expert has Smash 3, in which case you're rolling 3d6 and taking the highest roll for your result. The chances of rolling a clean 6 is just shy of 35% in that case, and obviously much better for a limited success.  Bonus dice can also be added if the situation calls for it, adding up to an additional +2D if the situation warranted.  So if the story has made this battle between the combat expert and the child truly dramatic, interesting, and necessary, the combat expert still has a significant advantage.



This one is a correct reading of the rules as written - saves are unmodified 1d20 rolls with 10+ a success.  That being said, ICON does not seem to have save-or-die abilities for enemies, and the Recover mechanic allows a character to re-attempt saves against all hostile conditions they currently have.

This is, unfortunately, one of the instances in which the narrative rules and tactical rules don't talk to each other in ways it seems like they should.  If the RAW is truly odious for players, I'm comfortable house-ruling save rolls to be modified by the character's Endure action rating.

Does that sound fair?

You certainly made me feel better about the narrative combat :)

Let me use the technique 'reductio ad absurdum' to demonstrate what I think is giving me cognitive dissonance with the saves:



Let's see what other people think before making rule changes. It's only a 'huh' moment, but since the rules are still under development it might be helpful feedback

Makes sense.

I understand the sticking point here, though I also think that this a "rules as written" problem with a "story-deployment" solution.  Remember that these tactic combat rules are reserved for the highest stakes, narratively charged situations.  I don't think it would make sense to play out a tactical fight in the ad absurdum examples - by design, they're already narratively lopsided.  Would these be interesting to play out?  Not as interesting as a fight between two group of more balanced scale, I'd imagine.

I think the solution here is trusting in ourselves as a play group to find what we think is engaging and fun, and then making the rules work for us to facilitate it.  They're tools, after all, not shackles - if it's not working, we'll change it. :)

I think I'm going to play a Trogg Harlequin/Enochian with his field of study being either Finesse or Engineering. I feel like the dichotomy would be fun!

What's everyone else thinking?

Thrynn Vagabond/Shade with a focus on Spycraft for me. Though I'm still trying to find time to dig through the book to fully understand it. Thank goodness this is pbp instead of at a table!

I do need to figure out my project still, if there's anyone with experience in the system has suggestions, I'm all ears. I don't think "assassinate a classmate" would be a welcome project.

I'm still workshopping ideas, but I do have some questions for GM:

I'm looking at the Setting and Tone section of the playtest, and since we're working with a completely different setting here than in the materials, I can assume we are also looking at different Setting Conceits. Do you have any writeups on what those might be as of yet? Also what about Game Conceits? Can we expect those to be about the same as whats listed in the playtest?

Along the same vein, ICON is pretty inspired by jRPGs in its rules and themes, would you say that this will hold true for our game or do you have a better place to look to for inspiration as far narrative and character design?

I think that would probably be frowned upon! :D
Vagabonds are our game world's mercenary companies.  Perhaps her project has something to do with her old company.  Is she still a part of it after enrolling?  Is she leaving something behind, like an heirloom or an unfinished technique?



Excellent questions.

I can do a Setting Writeup and have it available for you tomorrow morning. The World Information topic is close, but it's long and dense, so I agree a shorter, bottom-lined version is also warranted.

The Game Conceit in the rules is on par with that our game, except that beyond dungeon delving and monster fighting we can also expect to bump into issues of foreign relations between the three nations.

And yes, the jRPG thematic frame is appropriate for our game.

Thanks, that helps a lot already! By all means, take your time on the writeup too. I can look over the World Info thread again more holistically in the meantime.

I'm really liking the Knave job thematically ("Absolute Bastard" as a tagline is like music to my ears) but I'm thinking I'd like to play against type a little as well. I'm kind of torn between something like a Yeokin Lopen, just a good ol' rabbit feller in overalls with a wheat straw in his mouth and a whole lotta "awww shucks" energy right before he kicks you in the junk and calls your mother a rude name, or like a Leggio Xixo that's more the quiet type that uses their pheromones to get under opponents' skin (and also to call their mothers rude names).

Any thoughts?

I'm planning on starting my character creation tomorrow (I'm traveling a lot)

I've updated the World Information topic with our Setting Conceits at the top.

Let me know if you have any other questions!  In the meantime I'll finish up some work on instructor bios and maybe some small flavor details.

Thank you, that actually helps a lot and I now know my project. Which will potentially lead to projects in the future.

Do you want any information put in the Cast section for our characters?

As much or as little as you're comfortable with!  Any info will help me brainstorm opportunities for character complications, but those details will also arise naturally through gameplay.

Are most/all of the students, faculty, and staff at Spearpoint going to be from the Northern Realm since it's a military academy?

Or are there visitors from the other countries too?

Great question! Lots of good questions from this group, very exciting.

The Academy accepts applications from all across the Continent.  In fact, the most recent staff hire, Instructor Arragett, is from the Mandrarchy.  So students from the other nations are welcome as well.