My players are very invested in their characters, and spent a lot of time developing them. I’ve spent a lot of time getting to know the PCs and their players, while trying hard to scaffold the rules so they can learn the new system as they go. They are extremely fluent in EDGE OF THE EMPIRE and GENESYS, so they get on a deep level that this is a system with metacurrency and multi-axis results. That’s the good news.
The bad news is: they’re still struggling to adapt to the game. They want simpler magic, clearer talents, and more freedom in spending momentum/fortune. Most of all, they seem to take a lot of time with the arithmetic: having to compare the dice results to a target number that changes all the time (so is never written down anywhere) and then compare number of successes to a number I set–that all seems to slow them down a lot. Where I’ve heard from so many other players that the dice symbols of FFG RPGs are impossible cognitive load, these folks have really gotten useful to a single handful of dice telling them everything they need to know, especially when they can physically remove dice by “cancelling out” symbols, or use an online roller to calculate results the same way.
Does anyone else have experience like this–or related advice–they can share? I’m a bit stymied by how hard this is for them and it’s having a negative effect on my GMing (these are smart folks, all of us close friends, and we had a pretty bitter last play session as a result of this).
Thanks in advance for your advice.