Exceed Fighting System

Andy has been telling me about this game for years. Like, with glowingly high praise. Andy also thinks Dr. Who is a legitimate show.

OK, that last part isn't very fair. I couldn't keep watching after Rose left, she was my favorite part of the show.  

The point is, I ignored Andy. It wasn't that I wasn't interested, I just had my own rabbit trails I was following and didn't want to take the time to jump onto another. I'm like that a lot.

But when Lv99, the folks who make Exceed, decided to mail out completely free decks of Ryu and Ken from Streetfighter, I decided to take the bait. I didn't even have to pay for shipping! Even that minor excuse was unfounded! And besides, if I didn't like the game, I could donate it to a Goodwill or something. What was there to lose? Legitimately nothing.

About a week later everything came in. I was impressed with the rulebook. It reads pretty well and I was able to ascertain the following from it, with few questions.

There are nine "range" cards, which set up the physical space your characters are fighting in. Players place their character cards on this make-shift range of cards. There are mats that you can buy. I think I may get one, because goodness gracious the cards are annoying. The physical space demand surprises me every time, and not for the better. Besides, the cards are always moving, which also annoys me.

Characters in this game are compromised of a thirty-card deck. Cards have two different abilities on them: a strike and a boost. If you play the card as a strike and hit with it, it goes into your Gauge. If you play it as a boost you discard it. Your Gauge may be used to either power the Critical abilities on some cards, or to get you into your Exceed form, which amplifies your character, sometimes exponentially.

There are a wide variety of actions you can take, but you can only do one action a turn, so turns usually go pretty rapidly. If you do any action other than one that involves a strike you get to draw a card at the end of your turn, which means that striking all the time is generally a pretty bad idea. You have the option to Wild Swing, which is where you just pull a card off the top of your deck and pray to God it works, but that's a pretty crappy option. You can do it if you need to, but why would you want to when you can swap out cards from your hand to draw more, or just draw more cards in general, or move, or activate your character ability, etc? There is a surprising amount that you  can do, but the options never really felt overwhelming.

This game encourages card counting. And it would fall apart if it didn't. When you play your strikes against each other you play them face-down, which means that you have to have a reasonable way to figure out what you opponent is up to. Half the cards in your deck are completely universal, and the other half are summed up on a handy little card that you can reference at any time!  You also have the right to check each other's Gauge and discard piles, meaning that you can create a reasonable picture of what your opponent is capable of as time goes on. Of course they can reshuffle their deck once a battle and throw you off, but more on that option in a minute. The point is that you can actually develop a pretty legit strategy, even while praying that they didn't play that one card PLEASE NO NOT THAT ONE OH GOD NO.

I stand by the decision to use this picture. It is appropriate.

I drafted my brother, who is definitely not a gamer, to try it with me. He very politely sat down with as I raved about how interesting I found the rulebook and that I wanted to see if he would pick it up as quickly as I did. I asked him which character he wanted, he picked the defensive Ryu, leaving me with the offensive Ken.

He beat me two times out of three.

And I won the third by the skin of my teeth.

Yeah, I think he picked it up.

The interesting thing about the game is how you have to be willing to completely embrace what the character is about. Ken's special moves were mostly up-close and personal and granted a lot of closing ability. The game where I won I had to willingly trade enough blows to get my Gauge up, so that way I could get to my Exceed ability, which turned Ken into a tank of death and destruction. My brother only needed a few questions after being taught a few of the rules to settle right into playing Ryu. Yeah, he wasn't exactly playing very deeply into the mechanics (neither was I), but he certainly got the basics! And that's not nothing. We had a great time and I found myself wanting to try out other characters to see how they played.

Exceed is a bit crunchy, but the system is designed well enough to where I could get someone who thinks himself not a gamer to play and thrive. The physical set up is something I dislike, but that's a pretty small nitpick for a game that produces an experience like this. It's fast-paced, technical, and deeply rewarding. I'll definitely be getting into this more. A lot more.

A Thought Experiment on 4.5e: Introduction

I make no big secret about the fact that 4e was the first RPG I truly loved. It has a lot of warts, but the core gameplay of managing the resources of Surges, Encounter and Daily Powers, and Item abilities  can create some truly incredible moments in gaming. But eventually I left, because I wanted a more character-centric game. I found Burning Wheel, and got a whole lot more than I ever could have imagined. Burning Wheel is much more than a character-centric game, it is holistic: everything feeds into everything else. Little changes make ripples, and big changes can completely change the game for a player. Had they focused on making their system holistically focused upon this core of resource management I don't think I would have left the game. But it wasn't, and I did.

Now, this isn't a series of blog posts where I provide you with tested content. This just me sitting down, looking at my first love, and commenting on what could have probably gotten me to stay, had I known. Is this a bit of a wish fulfillment fantasy? Absolutely. Whose benefit am I doing it for? Mine, but hopefully you'll find it interesting as well? Far as I'm concerned, if you're along for the ride, cool! If not, well, oh well.

So what do I mean by holistic?  In this case I mean a mechanical system that is so interconnected that if something happens in the mechanics the other subsystems react and change the mechanical (and thus fictional) landscape. You reincorporate already existing elements of the design as answers to the questions that other elements have. You are aiming for a larger vision, something is more than the sum of its parts. 4e manages this by seeming accident. They do add up, but they don't seem to add up on their own, without a discerning GM. That doesn't really count. I should be able to hand the system to even a half-awake GM and have sparks fly, even if it's being bungled. And 4e has that potential.

4e is a game about resource management: Surges (which dictate health), At-Will/Encounter/Daily powers (class special abilities), and Item  abilities (unclassed special abilities).

Yes, I would cut out feats.

No, that's not a stupid idea. Feats are dumb and undermine the other three systems. But that's its own blog post.

Anyway.

While the class and unclass special abilities are minorly linked to health management in some of the abilities, none of these systems are really all that linked. I want to link these three systems so that way players would have something a bit more substantial than what's in 4e vanilla. Part of doing that is making sure the d20 mechanic fits the three systems a bit better, pulling them to the forefront.

Part of this thought experiment is going to reference the d20 game par excellence, Miseries and Misfortunes, because there are subsystems in that game that can be ported over to this thought experiment to allow for a greater variety in gameplay, as well as modifying a few systems to behave better.

So yeah, no real actual impact or stakes. I'm wanting to just sorta work out in my head what would have gotten me to stay with the game and what I think would have been good for an actual iteration on 4th edition DnD, as opposed to the retcon we got with 5th. I've got a number of general ideas of where to go with this series, and hopefully that'll be enough to have everyone stick around see where we wind up!

I Hate Everyone and Everything

So I was planning on just making a few addenda for my Star Wars Epic Review. Star Wars is a very, deeply, personal thing to me as it exists, Rise of Skywalker included. So it gets hard to watch as people just utterly... wreck the point. Rather than approaching it from the Campbellian framework that it exists in they prefer to see it as they would rather prefer to.

To be blunt, I find that silly. And immature. If you approach life on your terms you will never be happy, so I'm not sure why Star Wars is an exception to one of the hard and fast rules of living.

So, the thing is that, with the advent of the digital release of The Rise of Skywalker, I had the opportunity to just tack on my observations of The Rise of Skywalker, as if it was an appendix to The Last Jedi. And, given that The Last Jedi is one of my favorite movies, ever, it would be very easy to do that. But that wouldn't be approaching the series on its own terms, now would it?

So, I will start over, ALL over, from The Phantom Menace and up.

I do not relish putting my thoughts out there and seeing it have no impact on the Star Wars community, or few other people.

But my brain won't shut up.

And so therefore whoever wants to read this is going to have to put up with my temper tantrum of 25+ posts.

Brick

Yes, there are spoilers for Brick. This is analysis. If you haven't seen the movie yet demand to keep reading that's on you.

Brick was not the first Rian Johnson movie that I watched (that honor goes to The Brothers' Bloom, courtesy of my father). It is, however, my favorite, as it is the hardest hitting of Johnson's movies. While the rest of his movies refuse to back down on showing people in all their messed up glory. This is where the triangle (brunette and two white dudes) mentioned in Knives Out begins, in its most brutal manifestation. This is not a movie for those who have a weak moral stomach, or who want to find someone to blame. Because, in the end, everyone is to blame, which means that no one is.

For those of you who don't know, Brick follows the story of Brendan, who is trying to find  out what happened to his ex-girlfriend, Emily, who called him on a payphone, babbling nonsense. The only thing that Brendan can really make out are the words "Tug" and "Brick" (along with a few others, but the movie covers those). The rest of the movie is a descent into the underworld of his highschool to find her and try to redeem her, to the best of his ability.

Brendan is the most tragic of Johnson's protagonists. There are more conflicting drives in this guy than a trio of other protagonists. He wants to keep people from hurting those he loves, but also wants to get revenge. He thinks he cares about Emily, but his constant need to control her drives her away and starts this whole series of events. Brendan is partly to blame for Emily's plight. I mean, sure, he didn't make her get in trouble, but if people think they're not responsible for the environment they create for others to make choices in I've got swampland in Florida for you!

C'mon, it's a good deal! People make their decisions in a vacuum, this is a good deal!

No, Brendan's hands are not clean. I think he knows it, too. The line between loving Emily and controlling her are pretty thing, and maybe he has left is to check up on her to make sure she's OK? It's hard to tell. But Brendan's anger gets in the way of everything he does, especially the end, when he is finally confronted with what he actually and truly is. The definition of tragedy, far as I'm concerned, is to struggle with one's fate. And Brendan cannot accept what he was told. And that is tragic.

Laura is the only antagonistic brunette that Johnson has ever devised. And even then, she's shown in as fair of a light as someone can show an evil manipulative puppet master. She's played with such vulnerability, such brutal honesty, that I just can't help feel sorry for her own position. Yes, she's consumed by her own greed and lust for power, but she is consumed by her flaws, the same as Pin, Tug, Brendan, and everyone else is. She has fallen prey to who she is. She gave up. They all did.

Tug is the most powerless character in the whole movie. Yes, I rated him above Emily. At least Emily gets to move on, at least she tried to have some agency. You cannot say the same of Tug. He is never not subject to his anger, never ever in control, never able to make a single decision for himself. Even when he's trying to rise above his anger, it is his anger that consumes and drives him to make that decision. He is utterly incapable of change, which Brendan uses against him. No matter what Tug does, he loses.

Brick is a tale about how we will never win. If we are only out for revenge, if we only act on anger and disappointment then we will be forever stuck. Brendan would not change, he would not evolve, he would not let go. And he paid the price for it: all he knows and loves is gone. And I doubt he moved on from it. 

Risk Legacy: A Review

Let's get a few things out of the way, before I start roasting this game. Cause yes, I am about to hit it where it lives, as hard as I can.

I did enjoy myself.

I AM A TERRIBLE RISK PLAYER. NORMAL RISK AND I DO NOT GET ALONG.

This was my first Legacy game, ever. So I've no idea what this experience will do to my understanding of future Legacy games. I may look back on this more kindly in the future. We'll see.

It's important to know these things, because I am about to drop about a ton of bricks on this game. Yeah, I get the novelty of "adding things to the board" started here and we're all still living in the environment that the designer built (hopefully that ends with Oath) , but Risk Legacy is not a good narrative game.

 "Ok, wise-ass", someone who likes this game will say, "Define narrative!"

OK, sure.

A narrative is a sequence of events that each end with the statement "But" and/or "Therefore". Patrick Wilhem's amazing video boils it down and he's a quality dude to begin with, so if you wanna watch that and then get back to this rant/review I'd be more than happy to recommend it.

Yes, right now if you wish.

Back?

Cool.

So, by way of example, we'll take the Spider-Man origin story: Peter Parker is a cruelly abused nerd BUT he gets spider-powers THEREFORE he uses them for his own personal gain BUT his uncle is killed THEREFORE he chases down the sonabitch BUT discovers it's a dude he'd let get away with a crime THEREFORE Peter Parker realizes that he can never look away, never again THEREFORE Peter resolves to put himself in situations where he can't look away. That origin story is so good, on a structural level, that Spider-Man remains Marvel's best character, hands down.

Of course I'm objective about that. DUH.

The really heartbreaking part about Risk Legacy is that it actually manages to nail a narrative at the beginning. Stickers are flying, card bits are going into the trash, and there's so many But and Therefore statements happening because of the Legacy elements. Cities! Ooh! I can begin to muck with those! Wait, Ammo Shortage makes it harder to defend? CRAP! What now? What some think of as an addiction to just opening boxes is, I think, a reaction to powerful statements that fundamentally change everyone's relationship to the board state.

And for the first... ten or so sessions?

Maybe eleven?   

I was totally there, is the point.

So was my group. We would walk away from each game going "I have no freaking idea how we're going to deal with this now". We had been thrown back into the unknown, with a system that we had enough of an idea about to manipulate, but with elements that we could have some illusion of control over. And we would just blow up our group chat, every week, trying to figure out what we were going to do next.

Now, to be fair, a lot of real-world things happened in these last few sessions. But that's just not true anymore. The Legacy statements had mostly dried up, and I was left with a very, very unfortunate truth: Risk is still a bad game, nostalgia be damned. The same problems that I've always had with the game, namely how it seems to defy any and all attempts at actual strategy beyond slowly turtling along and for God's sake grab Australia had not vanished, but instead had become magnified. Risk's mechanics do not, natively, provide for But and Therefore statements, not in a way that respects player agency. The mechanics of battling would work out just fine if that was just one part of a holistic picture, where the wild and random nature of the dice fit into a larger mechanical picture. The Legacy mechanics provide for a fun and engaging distraction from Risk's battle mechanics, but there is nothing in the game that further engages with the wild nature of Risk's battling mechanics. Nothing. These additional mechanics are never developed further.

No, the stupid Event deck does not count. That thing was made for everyone's pain. Even when I benefited from it I found it dumb.

I can totally see enjoying this game for eight to ten sessions. There's a lot that gets unlocked, which keeps changing the board and the pace of the game, deepening it out and allowing you to take slightly different tacks. But the lack of depth on the Legacy mechanics, as well as the slowing of the drip of gaining new stuff, makes the end-game a ridiculous slog. If you don't mind Risk to begin with I can't recommend the game highly enough, because this game just takes that engine and tacks a few things on. But for folks like myself, who routinely considers burning his own dice?

Play eight to ten sessions and get out. You may not even last that long.

Hallucinations: Session Three

Previously... Karel and Zilya had broken into a golden cube, which had popped outside the divided town of Novstrech. They've been scraping gold off the walls, broke a few robots (who initiated a lockdown, whatever that means??), and are pretty happy with getting rich, and they found a secret passageway... and apparently there's someone walking down it.

As the footsteps got louder Zilya rushed to find a place to hide. But in her desire to get into a spot for a sneak attack she just wound up standing right next to the opening to the hallway, in plain view. Karel didn't even bother; he stood in plain view, lighting his lantern, as Zilya's torch had gone out. Out walked two unknown human males (one whom was holding a torch), along with Karel's friend Arron and Zilya's mentor, Timok, who didn't acknowledge her. Karel jovially told Arron that he had some money for his inn! The two humans were aghast: the walls were scraped of as much of the gold that Karel and Zilya could have gotten into their bags. They'd defiled an Ensivalen meditation cube! The information in this cube could completely stop the religious civil war in its tracks. And Karel and Zilya had just been bumbling about in it??

Karel laughed; they'd done everyone a favor by taking out the two statues upstairs and deactivating some of the security! The four could explore to their heart's content now. Shaking their heads, the humans formed up, drawing their weapons. They would bring in these two hooligans! Timok formed up with the two humans, but he hung back. Karel made a break for Zilya, but one of the humans knocked his lantern onto the ground, where it went out. Zilya shoved both humans out of the way and they made a break for it, but they grabbed her torches as she ran, spilling them onto the ground.  Karel managed to scoop up his lantern as they ran down the worked stone hall, which turned neither right or left. Zilya and Karel swapped the lantern and a bag of gold as they ran, and Zilya relit the lantern as they fled. They came to a stair, vaulted it, and burst through the door at the top of the stair.

The three guards in the room beyond were utterly shocked. The windows opened out to the street. Their backpacks did not fit through the windows, so they threw them off as they jumped out.

Broken, bruised, exhausted, and yet laden down with bags of shaved gold, Zilya and Karel vanished into the crowds of Novstretch.

The Undertow: Session Twelve

Mikansia: the female elven main character, played by Lena. Mikansia helped bring down Elfharrow and, because she was an exile of the elven nation of Kotae Mah, had joined an elven smuggling ring called The Sword Runners. It's been a year since we last saw her, and she is now headed to Kotae Mah with Akseli and Nomi for a personal mission.

Yngvar: Mikansia's former Firstsword, who had traveled down with Akseli to bring her back to Kotae Mah after Jabez had helped her desert. After the fall of Elfharrow Yngvar returned to Kotae Mah, so that way Mikansia could have someone on the inside of the system.

Jabez: Mikansia's deceased Sword Singer friend. He had been exiled to Elfharrow, which is something that should not have happened. Elfharrow is not a place where any elf is sent, for any reason. And Mikansia wants to find out how that happened.

It was dawn. Dale, with Mikansia, Akseli, and Nom in tow, flew the rickety airship under Kotae Mah, easily slipping past the military patrols. That disturbed Mikansia and Akseli, who had been on these very patrols previously! Nomi, however, found their disturbance hilarious, which made them even more uncomfortable. Dale gave some money to Mikansia as a ladder came down. Mikansia, Akseli, and Nomi climbed up the ladder. There was a male elf at the top of the ladder. Mikansia paid him and they were let up. Dale told them to be back by dawn the next day, or else it would be awhile before they could leave Kotae Mah. They acknowledged and Dale was off.

It was strange, seeing the white and towers of Kotae Mah rising against the infinite black of the Void. There was a nostalgia to seeing these places, as an exile; home, and yet not home. Akseli said he was going to go see Yngvar. Mikansia told him to tell Yngvar she said hello. Akseli laughed and said that wouldn't be necessary; they'd be talking about her most of the afternoon. Mikansia smiled and told Akseli not to wait up for her. He laughed an said if Mikansia got herself in trouble again he was going to come for her, period. Besides, Yngvar would kill Akseli if she was abandoned again. Mikansia laughed and they'd see each other dawn.

Mikansia and Nomi walked on. It had been a year, and over all that time Nomi had refused to tell anyone anything about herself, only that a "Marian" had sent her, and that the now-dead Tyce had contacted this Marian. Mikansia asked who Marian was, again, remarking she really must be someone special, to be able to turn someone from the Lone Keep to defect. Nomi agreed, and then tried to drop the subject. But Mikansia persisted. For a whole year Nomi had told them nothing. Nomi told Mikansia it wasn't her business: she was there to help and destroy the Lone Keep, and that would have to be enough. Mikansia laughed: Nomi wore a Dagger of Betrayal, rode a dragon that was controlled by said Dagger ("His name is Fish!" protested Nomi), she claimed to be sent by some random human woman, and she expected that to fly??? No, this needed to change.

Nomi stared at Mikansia and then began laughing. Genuinely, actually, laughing! Yeah, that sounded pretty ridiculous! She explained she had been one of the Lone Keep's best agents: there was not one elven general that Nomi probably hadn't slept with, not one major human politician who hadn't been threatened by her. So when Nomi's sister, Anneli, had stumbled upon a way to bring the Ring of Tears back to the planet, they sent Nomi to plant a Dagger of Betrayal in Anneli's back. Nomi thought she could do it. She was wrong. The inner confusion almost killed her, leaving her a broken mess.  Anneli, permanently disillusioned with her sister, had left Nomi with Marian for rehabilitation. Marian was a human sorceress and a far better person than anyone had any right to be. She had helped Nomi and Fish regain a sense of self, outside of their own pasts. Marian had sent Nomi to Mikansia because Nomi needed to start living for more than healing or revenge.

Mikansia told Nomi she was familiar with hitting that moral wall, that realization of how far she could go. Nomi asked wryly if that had anything to do with meeting Mikansia when she wasn't wearing any pants. Mikansia blushed, but told Nomi she'd arrived at the just the nick of time, and that Mikansia would be forever grateful for that. Nomi smiled. She said they needed to move on, although if it was one of her ex-marks it would be an awkward reunion.

After asking some questions about General Santeri and his wife Aallotar, Jabez's parents. They found out that Aallotar had sailed a few months ago, into the Void. General Santeri had stayed on, in disgrace over the treason of his son Jabez. He alwasy came out when market convened and stayed there awhile, people watching. So off they went, trying to blend in with the crowd.

They found General Santeri sitting to the side of the market, watching the crowds as some watch ducks in a pond. Mikansia sat down next to him and held out Jabez's sheathed sword for him to see. General  Santeri grew pale and he looked at Mikansia; he asked where she had gotten that sword. Mikansia told General Santeri that she had received it from Jabez himself. General Santeri asked why Jabez didn't have the sword, or why he wasn't with her. Mikansia took a deep breath. She had caught the sword as Jabez had been killed, and then used that sword to gut the monster who had murdered him. But Jabez had died standing tall, proud, defending the values that all Sword Singers were so proud of. He died as a hero and not a day went by that Mikansia wasn't proud to have known him.

General Santeri gently pushed the sword back to Mikansia, telling her she should keep it. He could tell there was more to that story than she let on, and that Mikansia (whom he called by name) had something to do with Jabez going out as well as he did. General Santeri could see why Jabez had thrown it all away for her Mikansia, because he could see it too. Mikansia told him that Jabez had helped lead to the downfall of Elfharrow. Mikansia then confirmed that Jabez had been exiled near Elfharrow. General Santeri asked her to come with him and tell that to the elite of Kotae Mah. That shouldn't have happened to anyone, let alone his son! The elves were always so careful as to where they initially put their exiles, so the system needed to be alerted! Together, the two of them could make a difference! He would pull strings; Mikansia would be reinstated as a Sword Singer. General Santeri would see to that personally.

Mikansia was torn.All this running and sneaking around and being a criminal could end! She could return to the way things had been.. without Jabez. So she couldn't go back, not all the way. But the interior rot in the elven nation was there! And what of Akseli and Nomi? Akseli had given up everything to follow her, and Nomi would never be Maybe, just maybe...

General Santeri gently stroked Mikansia's hand and told her the offer would still stand. He understood.

As Mikansia and Nomi, who had been standing nearby, got ready to leave, General Santeri promised they'd meet again. He was about to sail, he missed his wife so much!

But not yet.

The people who sent his boy to Elfharrow needed to be found.

Mikansia nodded.

She left him there, vanishing from sight, into the crowd.