Originally published at: Running on Italics: Chrome City [Runner] - StimHack
Discuss the latest article by Cee and Ess here.
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Man, alive. These always slay me.
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I love these articles too. Keep up the great work guys!
A fun read, as always.
On Analog Dreamers, I think the idea is that youâve got this connection ready, but not yet activated, and then suddenly⌠itâs gone. The midpoint terminal is suddenly running Windows 3.1 and you have to set everything up again. You donât lose the work, itâs just no longer ready for launch.
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I feel like Skulljack was originally going to have Net-Ready Eyeâs effect, but they decided they couldnât give it to Anarch. Or something. That makes no sense. I mostly just want the Anarch Cybernetic to not be awful. Also a BCI increasing the efficacy of a breaker makes sense.
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How can you give Chrome Parlor an A when itâs missing subtypes? B+ at best. FFG needs to be held to some proper standards!
Dedicated Critique Team
Asset : Standards - Community
Rez 2, Trash 0
As an additional cost to play or install a card with crappy flavour, the runner must apologise to the corp.
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Enjoyable as always!
Am I the only one who went to check the Breaker Bay post after reading the Turntable bit?
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So, serious question.
Should the runner not be allowed to mess with the Corps score pile? Or is the specific flavor/context of Turntable that pisses you guys off?
Because If you answer no to the first question, Turntable (or at least a card like it mechanically) is where things naturally end up.
If anyones going to be disruptive enough to screw up/negate finished corporate projects, itâs going to be the Anarchs.
So how do you balance the effect? Really thereâs been a bit of problem with swinginess around scored agendas because nothing can touch them. While there have been more narrow answer to specific cards (Clot for Astro for example), something that interacts with agendas more broadly makes sense.
Just making the corp forfeit the agenda is a bad idea for pacing/âis this actually funâ reasons. It also has to have a natural barrier - you donât want this sort of effect to trigger that often. On stealing another agenda seems reasonable - it means that the way the corp guards against this effect while playing is similar to what they already know/understand.
You want to limit the ability of this to really hammer the corp agenda point wise - the point/value of the effect is in disrupting powerful agenda text, not making things take forever.
This naturally leads to the swapping mechanic. If the two agendas have the same point value, then points arenât even effected. If the just stolen agenda is more valuable, then the runner has a tough decision, which is great.
Putting it on an ID makes it too reliable. Putting it on most cards makes the opportunity cost to low.
So it ends up as a console.
So, challenge. If this what the designers wanted/needed mechanically, what do you do?
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We had discussed adding a glitched-out retcon to the beach party review, but we figured it would be confusing and strange to anyone who decides to read in order.
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Itâs an excellent question.
To address the very first bit: messing with the corp score area in this way doesnât seem to make any sense in-world, unless âshenanigansâ (eg. timeline alteration?) - so itâs mostly the context here. I would be perfectly happy with a card that just, say, turned off an agenda token in the score area (what turntable is going to be used for anyway), but swapping out is just weird. If you consider agenda tokens to be along the lines of extra benefits the corp is reaping for scoring the agenda, then you could easily fit in naturally an affect where the runner disrupts those extra benefits without this swap nonsense.
I mean, almost literally the same card. âWhen you steal an agenda, you may remove an agenda token from an agenda in the Corpâs score areaâ is significantly easier to explain from a flavour standpoint, and is probably the intended use (or at least, will be the most seen use given the current meta) of turntable anyway.
The point value thing, in the cases where there is a point difference is going to be swapping a 3 for a 2, or a 2 for a 1, if at all. More likely 2 for 2 or 3 for 3.
I dunno, I could be totally off base here.
In the current meta, yes. The advantage of the current wording is it lets them print more powerful static abilities on agendas in the future.
Iâm pretty sure this is the point. The corps are just as confused as you are.
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Hahahah. You make a very good point. The missing subtype is what prevented it from picking up an A+. Really, this is preferable to it having the wrong subtype - we would have docked it seriously if it had been, say, ritzy
Also, Seedy seems - categorical? Like you said in the article, itâs like tattoo parlors. I wouldnât describe most of them as exactly ritzy per say, and some are downright dives, but some are fine.
I mean, is the intent to turn off static abilities? Thatâs still achievable. I could see a card called âPoison the Wellâ - If you do [do something] place a [some token] on an agenda in the Corpâs score area. This agenda is treated as if it has a blank text box "
Yes and no. Thereâs a few subtle things going on with Turntable in that respect.
Turntable punishes mid-to large agendas with static/counter based effects. However it actually promotes 1/2 point agendas with truly static abilities - stuff like Gila Hands Arcology, or Self-Destruct Chips. So itâs intentionally designed to promote static one pointers, on-score 3 pointers (stuff like pri-req) and be a double beating to counter based effects (Atlas, Astro et al get screwed regardless of which end of the swap theyâre on).
Edit: hence my question. Instead of flavor telling design what to do, how do you sell this one? Is it possible to do better conceptually? At least Turntable makes some sense with the whole remix angle, even though it causes a bit of fridge logic.
Iâm certainly struggling to come up with a sensical single card that achieves all the same effects as simply as turntable does, at the moment.
Certainly open to suggestions! I think something should be possible given that the, weâll call them sub-effects, can be captured in more flavourful cards.
Another question- does a card thatâs trying to do something meta-ish get a mark up or down? (In this case, the whole remixing angle).
Does it, at that? If Iâm worried about Turntable, Iâm certainly not going to be playing either of those in the same deck; the blowout potential when the runner steals a Gila and swaps it for a PriReq is too high.
I think this is one of those cases where you have to turn back to design and say, no, we canât do that, it breaks the metaphor of the game. If you insist on this specific set of release valves on the meta - and Iâm unconvinced that specifically incentivising static effects on agendas is something the game needed - then this is better served with two or more separate cards.
Youâre not going to get exactly Turntableâs effect on the meta with any other combination of cards, of course. But if your optimisation process lands on something that canât be printed, then you donât print it and figure out what can be traded off; and that should be just as true for flavour reasons as any other.
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Iâd say a card that works on the meta level as well as in the game gets a mark up. But a card that only works on the meta level gets a mark down.