Now that Beta 1 of the Shadows Over Sol playtest has officially opened, I have some questions for the playtesters. Feel free to also talk about any other comments you have.

How well-balanced are the different genelines against each other, or the different subcultures against each other? Do any stand out as being particularly weak or too strong?

Take a look at the skill list. Are there any obvious holes in the skill list? What about skills that you see as too broad or too narrow?

Looking over the genelines, they do seem pretty balanced, though some are worth a little bit more.

I couldn't remember whether you counted edge as ~5 or ~10 XP, so here are the calculations for both:

Edge=5:

40 XP: Wild
50 XP: Athlete, Celebrity, Genius, Budget
60 XP: Groundside, Spacer
70 XP: Superman

Edge=10:

50 XP: Athlete, Celebrity, Genius
60 XP: Groundside, Spacer, Budget, Superman, Wild

The specialist genelines (Athlete, Celebrity, Genius) tend to be worth a little less which may be problematic since the system already pushes against min-maxing and really low stats.

The subcultures seem pretty balanced, as long as the skills are all pretty balanced against each other. There may be some that are too similar to each other. At least Entro/Ghostman, Expret/Neoret, Expret/Heed, Neoret/Serv, and Serv/Techno have 2 of 6 in common.

The breakdown of unique skills:

2 Unique: Former
1 Unique: Entro, Ghostman, Heed, Techno
0 Unique: Expret, Neoret, Serv

Based on less-useful skills, overlap, and unique skills, Expret, Neoret, and Serve may need to be tweaked.

It seems like a good time to talk about skills. The skill list is good, but there are always some skills worth more, especially given the situation. As a realistic space, space opera, or cyberpunk skill list, it is a good, but given the modes of horror, combat skills and those that can be relevant to combat tend to be more valuable. Combat skills mean you live longer, so they are just more valuable.

There are dud skills in a campaign that takes place mostly in a hermetically-seal spacecraft (Animals and Survival). Animals seems the worst offender here, since beyond rats and insects, what else is found on a space installation? I'm curious if anyone in our group has animals. A flora/fauna or agriculture or cultivation skill (covering vat food, traditional agriculture, and animals) might be better.

I find social skills to be an issue in a lot of systems, often granulated more than they need to be. A skill or two could be cut here, though there are no obvious problems. Broker (a skill I did pick for flavor reasons) sometimes seems mostly a formal subskill of persuade and may not come up a fraction as much. Carouse is a weird combination of empathy and persuade. Language/Culture skills in games can either be really important, or glossed over, usually based on the GM and player focus.

I agree that Animals is probably the least useful skill. The fact that Dodge is calculated from Melee makes that skill even more valuable. In a sci-fi setting, I would expect Survival to cover zero-gee type things and knowing how to survive and function in the extremes of that setting.

I do wonder how much Engineering versus Mechanic will be used. How often do you design machines versus fix them? I understand the distinction somewhat more in the computer area, the desire to have a skill that simulates people's ability to Google versus hacking.

I forgot about the Melee skill's secondary use as a dodge. Is it the only skill that has that sort of secondary mechanical effect? I couldn't think of any others. I regret not taking any melee in my initial build and will probably change that during the rebuild between chapters (assuming my character doesn't die).

Programming, CompOps, Engineer, and Mechanic may seem like a lot, but compared to something like GURPS, it is rather reasonable. Having the split between engineer and mechanic makes sense for flavor or mechanics issue. Having only one technical skill would create balance issues. That said, how exactly they break down and are defined in the text is important for GMs and players outside our group.

Micah
Edge=10:
50 XP: Athlete, Celebrity, Genius
60 XP: Groundside, Spacer, Budget, Superman, Wild

That's a really good point! And an error on my part when I was putting the genelines together. It will be fixed for next chapter.

Micah
There are dud skills in a campaign that takes place mostly in a hermetically-seal spacecraft (Animals and Survival). Animals seems the worst offender here, since beyond rats and insects, what else is found on a space installation? I'm curious if anyone in our group has animals. A flora/fauna or agriculture or cultivation skill (covering vat food, traditional agriculture, and animals) might be better.

That's a good idea. Maybe “Naturalist” for a skill name?

Micah
Broker (a skill I did pick for flavor reasons) sometimes seems mostly a formal subskill of persuade and may not come up a fraction as much.

Yeah, I wrestled with whether to make Broker a separate skill from Persuasion or not. The reason I made it a separate skill was mostly that broker corresponds to wealth, which corresponds to gear, which directly affects power in the game. Less an “influence people” skill than a “let me get better stuff” skill. But we'll see if it pans out that way.

DarkOni
I do wonder how much Engineering versus Mechanic will be used. How often do you design machines versus fix them? I understand the distinction somewhat more in the computer area, the desire to have a skill that simulates people's ability to Google versus hacking.

I think there's a certain role in sci-fi of the “guy who cobbles together new devices or inventions. (Engineering)” This role is perhaps less common in hard sci-fi, but I've seen it done. Similarly, there's a role for “the guy who fixes the ship or other gear when it takes damage (Mechanic).” Whether this is the best break down, I don't know. But that's the intent.

Micah
I forgot about the Melee skill's secondary use as a dodge. Is it the only skill that has that sort of secondary mechanical effect?

Both the Language and Culture skills grant slots for languages and cultural proficiencies, respectively. But those are the only others with secondary effects that I know of.

Here are my playtest questions for this week. For each of these questions I'm going to propose a potential change to the rules as they're currently written, and I want you to tell me whether you think is a good change, a bad change or any other thoughts on it you might want to share (other mechanical repercussions, trade-off you see, etc.).

Skills range 1 - 5 instead of 1 - 10. Skill flips are always 1/2 Stat + Skill. Only stats values have associated suits, and you simply use the suit associated with the stat. Defaulting to a related skill means you simply use that skill in place of your 1/2 stat.

Instead of combat having the Declare, Interact, Move, Concentrate & Attack phases, it has the Declare, Action-1, Action-2 & Contested phases. You still have 2 AP, and can only declare 1 action per phase. Contested actions (including all attacks) must be declared in the contested phase. All actions in a phase occur simultaneously.

The skill list is changed in the following ways: Language is rolled into LibArts, Culture is rolled into Carouse (and maybe renamed Socialize), slots for languages & cultures are instead based on Int & Chr respectively, Animals and Survival are combined and renamed Naturalist, Broker is rolled into Bureaucracy, Drive and Pilot are combined and renamed Vehicles. This reduces the skill list from 30 to 25 skills.

The dodge reaction, instead of adding to Defense, lets you make either a Spd action (adding twice your cover bonus) or a Spd/melee action (melee range only) and use your result as your first Defense number. When dodging there are no critical hits.

1. I think it could solve some of the “you practically can't succeed unskilled rolls, even for things like awareness” which is far and away what I'd consider the biggest problem in the current ruleset. It does introduce stat breakpoints though.

2. I'd have to see it played out, but it seems like it will make much more natural sense. The old MERP style hierarchy of what types of actions come before which never made much intuitive sense to me.

3. I like all the rolling-in, but taking culture slots and language slots away from their skills both doesn't make thematic sense to me and takes out the primary reason for those skills. In the current system culture and carouse are a strong skill and a weak skill, respectively. Rolling them together and taking away the culture slots makes them a single weak skill, not a medium-utility skill. All the other roll-ins seem like good and natural changes to me.

4. I like making dodge something that you can't tell if it's going to succeed before it happens. However in Saga Machine, when dodge is an active draw like this, it often seems to get balanced such that it's result is at best only statistically average for defense. You end up with situations where the defense action is used primarily for it's secondary effect (ie. “can't hit second number”, “no ciriticals”) than its primary. This is no exception - for a character without a bunch of melee skill this action seems like it won't help often, and would be primarily be used to negate criticals. (I think my characters melee is one and first defense number is 11?)

1. I like the skill/half-stat change. It makes all stats more useful and simplifies the suit situation. It makes defaulting interesting as well. High stats can be very valuable, but with the array, no one will be good at everything.

2. I would like to try this version of things, but it will probably create fewer edge effects like we saw during combat in the first session.

3. A more general Socialize makes more sense than carouse to me. Carouse always seemed very specific (parties, bars) while socialize could be anywhere. Same with Naturalist. I agree with Broker rolled into Bureaucracy. I agree with Drive and Pilot as well. LibArts/Language and Culture/Socialize change (no language/cultures) does make those skills less valuable, but it may be necessary trade off.

4. I do think this dodge change will make dodge useful in times where there is no cover or a character has no melee. Melee may still need to be +half for dodge if you want the chance to hit to be greater than 50-50 for roughly equal characters.

1. I like this change; having an Int 2 computer programmer and an Int 8 computer programmer with the same skill value perform just the same ~75% feels kind of silly. I might want to rearrange or rebalance my character's stats if stats are going to matter more, though.

2. Sounds good, will remove at least some awkward weirdness while preserving the building of tension.

3. I support rolling all these skills together, but oppose breaking cultures and languages off of Socialize and LibArts. LibArts particularly is kind of a joke skill in my opinion, and doubly so in a space horror setting (“What do you do with a B.A. in English…against flesh-eating nanobots?”) Getting Languages out of it gives it a nice boost. Socialize may be a liiiitle too good, but time will tell.

4. Having not yet needed to Dodge anything, I defer to the rest of the group on this one.

1. I like the 1/2 stat plus lowered skill. It makes stats do something aside from deciding other stats.

2. I like the phase revision. It looks like it solves the weird problem of not being able to move to someone then first aid them.

3. Aside from not liking LibArts as a skill, the rest of that sounds good. I think it would be interesting to just observe whether we run into the situation of needing to substitute something else all the time because it doesn't exist.

4. Is this supposed to be Full Speed +Melee or 1/2 Speed + Melee. Looking at my stats and assuming a reduced melee for lowered skills, I have a speed of 8 and a Melee of 4 (1/2 of 8). I would either be starting with a 12 or 8 before a flip. My 1st Defense number is 14. If the former, I need a 3 or higher to achieve a better defense with a 6 being the break point of the +4 bonus I would have gotten under the current system. If the latter, I need a 7 or higher to achieve a better defense with a 10 being the break point to achieve the +4 under the current system.