u/Captainwhizfiz

I’ve been reading Neo-Tribes, the 2020 nomad sourcebook, and came across this passage:

“Nomads are, to a degree, defined by their families, clans, tribes and nations; so taking nomads out of their normal environment and forcing them into an urban game opens the possibility of abuse of a nomad's family status. At the other extreme, some referees feel that the Family special ability's unique qualities can unbalance the game, and so limit the nomad to being a sec-ond-rate solo or (even worse) a chauffeur. In short, nomads should be run in nomad campaigns.
Nomads work best as the focus of a team, rather than as an aspect or team-member. Having a nomad in an urban team encourages the down-play of nomadic goals for the benefit of the team's greater play enjoyment. It is hard to put pressures on a team if they can call for their nomad member's family to pull them out of a bind, and a nomad's responsibility to the family can also put unwanted strings on a team that can ruin playability. Having both a nomad and a fixer in a team can put such responsibilities on a play group that other goals simply cannot be addressed; and while this effect may be true to reality, it makes for lousy gaming.”

What do y’all make of this? I had a nomad player in my group for about a two year campaign and I definitely felt like the story was constantly having to sacrifice his being a nomad for the sake of being an edgerunner and he was typically just a chauffeur. What have any of you done to remedy this? Is it just a simple conversation about setting expectations with a player? Is it more of a restructuring of the story? Most of all, how do we feel this take has aged into 2045?

I got a little heated in traffic, punched the steering wheel. Now there’s something rattling around in there when I turn the wheel, like it’s rolling around in there. Sounds like a bit of plastic idk. Any way to get it out of there?

Been thinking about the nature of social roleplaying with dice mechanics. It’s a topic that’s been discussed at length, mainly by D&D slop-tubers and even some more respectable individuals (such as Brennan Lee Mulligan, my hero). But no one seems to have a definitive answer. So, I wanted to ask the community!

When you or your players are roleplaying a social encounter and something occurs that would require a check, do you roll before or after saying it?

For example: The crew’s PC fixer is speaking with the client about the job, and the fixer can tell that the client is hiding something. They analyze their body language and their tone of voice, succeed a Human Perception check, and are told that their intuition is on point. Then the fixer wants to persuade the client to spill their guts. Would the fixer (if you were the GM here) need to roleplay what they say to the client to convince them, THEN roll to see if it works? Or would they roll first, see if it works, then roleplay accordingly?

Imagine that they roleplay first and make a very convincing argument that you, as the GM, really like. But then they roll and it fails. Feels bad.

But also imagine they roll first and they roll badly, now they have to roleplay accordingly and intentionally make a bad argument?

I’m curious what the approach ya’ll take to social encounters and dice rolls looks like.