Greg Stolze (Unknown Armies, One Roll Engine) Appreciation Station

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Greg Stolze (Unknown Armies, One Roll Engine) Appreciation Station

«‹›61 »

FirstCongoWar: Aug 21, 2002; It feels so 80's or early 90's to be political.

clockworkjoe posted:

Arc Dream news

http://arcdream.livejournal.com/6768.html

There's talk of a M&M version of KC as well.

Maybe they'll ship me Progenitors now (I had no idea selling 125 books in a month was "a lot", jesus christ).

# ? Aug 31, 2010 23:24

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Jun 7, 2024 11:49

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

FirstCongoWar posted:

I had no idea selling 125 books in a month was "a lot", jesus christ

If you're not WotC, that's actually pretty good.

In other news, Greg announced that he's looking for angry models for his next Reign setting.

Greg Stolze posted:

You know how there's all this SF where humans are the most _______ race the aliens have ever encountered? Most intelligent, most adaptable, most violent, most creative, something like that? Well, in this setting, humans -- while not more inherently violent or aggressive or strong -- have one clear advantage in warfare. We become something like a biological weapon used by all three sides in an interstellar conflict.

# ? Aug 31, 2010 23:29

clockworkjoe: May 31, 2000; Rolled a 1 on the random encounter table, didn't you?

FirstCongoWar posted:

Maybe they'll ship me Progenitors now (I had no idea selling 125 books in a month was "a lot", jesus christ).

WELCOME TO THE TABLETOP RPG INDUSTRY

their shipping problems are the fault of Cubicle 7.

I really need to do a mega post on monsters and other childish things, explaining the poo poo out of it and so forth.

# ? Sep 1, 2010 02:58

Shrecknet: Jan 2, 2005

I got this book for $5 at a game store blowout sale, I'm working through the intro and so far it reminds me a lot of White Wolf's old stuff, tons of gonzo-style writing and fluff. I'm only 10 pages in, still going through the intros, but this thread convinced me to pick it up.

I hope I'm not disappointed!

# ? Sep 1, 2010 22:47

FrozenGoldfishGod: Oct 29, 2009; JUST LOOK AT THIS SHIT POST!

Ok, now I've got a new system to talk my gaming group into trying on One-Shot Night. Specifically, Reign. I've got an idea for a campaign, too:

The 'PCs' are in fact a set of low-level organizations. Each player designs their Company first, then designs 3 individual characters to act as 'faces' for that organization - at the moment, I'm thinking something like a social face, a mental face, and a physical face, each one reflecting the specific goal and/or nature of their Company. Then, as various situations arise, the campaign is about these three organizations interacting in their rise to influence and power.

Thoughts about the viability of this idea are appreciated, as would be any suggestions on how many points to give the players for their company's Qualities (I'm leaning towards 7, with a ban on starting with any Quality above 4.)

# ? Sep 2, 2010 01:40

Capntastic: Jan 13, 2005; A dog begins eating a dusty old coil of rope but there's a nail in it.

So for WT, if you have like, 3d in body, 3d in hyperbody, and 3d in brawling, your dice pool be 9d, right?

# ? Sep 2, 2010 01:42

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

FrozenGoldfishGod posted:

Ok, now I've got a new system to talk my gaming group into trying on One-Shot Night. Specifically, Reign. I've got an idea for a campaign, too:

The 'PCs' are in fact a set of low-level organizations. Each player designs their Company first, then designs 3 individual characters to act as 'faces' for that organization - at the moment, I'm thinking something like a social face, a mental face, and a physical face, each one reflecting the specific goal and/or nature of their Company. Then, as various situations arise, the campaign is about these three organizations interacting in their rise to influence and power.

Thoughts about the viability of this idea are appreciated, as would be any suggestions on how many points to give the players for their company's Qualities (I'm leaning towards 7, with a ban on starting with any Quality above 4.)

One of the REIGN supplement bits, the "But What Do You Do With REIGN" one, actually had the PCs playing one Company (The Empire) with each character playing one Aspect of it, so you can look to that for tips.

# ? Sep 2, 2010 04:50

Doc Hawkins: Jun 15, 2010; Dashing? But I'm not even moving!

FrozenGoldfishGod posted:

Ok, now I've got a new system to talk my gaming group into trying on One-Shot Night. Specifically, Reign. I've got an idea for a campaign, too:

The 'PCs' are in fact a set of low-level organizations. Each player designs their Company first, then designs 3 individual characters to act as 'faces' for that organization - at the moment, I'm thinking something like a social face, a mental face, and a physical face, each one reflecting the specific goal and/or nature of their Company.

Sounds great, as long as there are no more than four players, including GM. I ran a very similar idea once, and supporting characters multiplied like rabbits.

quote:

So for WT, if you have like, 3d in body, 3d in hyperbody, and 3d in brawling, your dice pool be 9d, right?

When brawling, yeah. But what if you have to resist a disease that is immune to superpowers?! Eat poo poo, heroes!
:wicksay:

# ? Sep 2, 2010 05:16

Capntastic: Jan 13, 2005; A dog begins eating a dusty old coil of rope but there's a nail in it.

Rockin'. It's weird, I'm chronically unable to internalize different game systems, but WT seems pretty goddamned intuitive. I'd still have to see or read some games in action before I think I've got it down.

# ? Sep 2, 2010 05:20

TouretteDog: Oct 20, 2005; Was it something I said?

FrozenGoldfishGod posted:

Thoughts about the viability of this idea are appreciated, as would be any suggestions on how many points to give the players for their company's Qualities (I'm leaning towards 7, with a ban on starting with any Quality above 4.)

We tried something along these lines (no characters, though); the big issue is that it begins feeling very much like a board game without a lot of narrative flow. With the way the rolls resolve in a single shot, it was hard to have it not turn into "OK, new month, what does your company do now? OK, you burned down his grain warehouse and reduced his territory by 1, anything else?"

It was fun, but more board-game fun than RPG-fun.

# ? Sep 2, 2010 20:17

Doc Hawkins: Jun 15, 2010; Dashing? But I'm not even moving!

A tip, from my limited experience with similar games and systems:

Give the players either a requirement, or an incentive, to roleplay scenes like you want them to. Tell them that rather than/in addition to rolling a company action, they can play through one of their PCs going on a related mission, and if successful (according to your standard), there will be a larger effect than if they just roll. Or tell them that the characters have to actually do something every season. Or combine these.

Don't think of these missions as full-session adventures: skip to the climactic scene, briefly describing how things got to that point. For a battle, give the warrior a duel with the enemy champion. For an alliance, give the diplomat a tea ceremony with the emperor.

Give all the other players someone to play in this scene. They may not need stats, or they may only need incomplete ones thrown out on the fly ("Uh, I guess the emperor has a single die in dodge."), or you may have already statted some of the important characters, so you can just hand them a sheet and some basic directions.

In general, a character connected with a given Company should be played by that player. If there are multiple such characters, they should be given to other players. If there are a ton of characters in a scene, important groups should have individual leaders or significant members, with all the other characters being background.

# ? Sep 2, 2010 21:20

Capntastic: Jan 13, 2005; A dog begins eating a dusty old coil of rope but there's a nail in it.

Wait, so booster on stat Hyperbody stat multiplies all of the capacities (lift, throw, sprint, jump) by 10? Otherwise, for things like power capacities (teleporting) you have to pick a specific capacity to boost, like range or mass?

That seems weird since that means hyperbody + boosters means you get to be The Flash and The Hulk unless you specifically take the drawbacks to reduce some of the qualities.

# ? Sep 3, 2010 03:19

CHaKKaWaKka: Aug 6, 2001; I've chosen my next victim. Cry tears of joy it's not you!

REIGN is awesome. I'm running a campaign set in the world of Kamigawa, and one of my players plays this guy who was known as the toughest guy of his village, basically just a thug who hasn't travelled the world at all. Another player is playing a wise figure who tries to teaches people by getting them to make mistakes so they can learn from them.

They were passing through a forest and saw some monks training. The wise one says "you know, these guys are some of the fiercest warriors in the world" and the thug just laughs and makes a rather rude comment about them. The oldest monk offers to demonstrate his skills to the thug, who refuses, saying "this is absurd, I'm not fighting an old fart." The monk insists, the thug goes "this is ridiculous, I'm gonna hurt you grandpa." Actions are declared, monk rolls 10d and declares some move with a scary name and then the thug rolls 4x10 on his 6d pool and knocks the monk out in one punch. The best part was how the thug's player roleplayed his character not giving a poo poo about this amazing thing he had accomplished because he thought of the monk as just an old man dressed in pajamas while everyone else in the party thought they'd somehow ended up going on an adventure with the baddest man alive.

ORE is very fun. Getting all that info from just one roll is great, and the combat system is so unique. I love how it's both gritty and very quick to run.

# ? Sep 3, 2010 11:14

Xand_Man: Mar 2, 2004; If what you say is true
Wutang might be dangerous

My last REIGN campaign ended with something similar. One of my players decides "Eh, it's the last session" and responds to another PC's wisecrack by stabbing him. She rolled 4x10.

The game ended with monks trying to force her through an exorcism.

# ? Sep 3, 2010 20:29

Benagain: Oct 10, 2007; Can you see that I am serious?; Fun Shoe

Goddamn I need to get a REIGN game going.

# ? Sep 3, 2010 21:12

Robotic Folksinger: Jun 27, 2008; I guess a robot would have to be crazy to wanna be a folksinger

How good, generally, is Gregs writing? I saw he had ransomed a horror story that looked a bit interesting.

# ? Sep 5, 2010 00:43

CHaKKaWaKka: Aug 6, 2001; I've chosen my next victim. Cry tears of joy it's not you!

He has some of his short stories online. Here's one that I enjoyed quite a bit. http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2010/202/f/f/Icke_by_GregStolze.pdf

# ? Sep 5, 2010 01:05

Robotic Folksinger: Jun 27, 2008; I guess a robot would have to be crazy to wanna be a folksinger

Has anyone tried A Dirty World? I like One-Roll and I like noir. Seems like this could be awesome.

# ? Sep 5, 2010 22:44

clockworkjoe: May 31, 2000; Rolled a 1 on the random encounter table, didn't you?

Robotic Folksinger posted:

Has anyone tried A Dirty World? I like One-Roll and I like noir. Seems like this could be awesome.

I picked up a copy at Gencon this year and I ran it for the first time tonight. It was a great game. The players loved it. Being able to adjust and raise stats during the game gets people into the game. I recorded it so I will try to upload it soon so you can get an idea of how it played out.

# ? Sep 13, 2010 05:46

Robotic Folksinger: Jun 27, 2008; I guess a robot would have to be crazy to wanna be a folksinger

clockworkjoe posted:

I picked up a copy at Gencon this year and I ran it for the first time tonight. It was a great game. The players loved it. Being able to adjust and raise stats during the game gets people into the game. I recorded it so I will try to upload it soon so you can get an idea of how it played out.

This sounds great. I haven't read that much about it, but if it is as awesome as it sounds then I will definitely pick it up.

# ? Sep 16, 2010 14:34

clockworkjoe: May 31, 2000; Rolled a 1 on the random encounter table, didn't you?

Posted it http://actualplay.roleplayingpublicradio.com/2010/09/systems/a-dirty-world/a-dirty-world-the-buyout/

# ? Sep 17, 2010 22:48

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

Hot on the heels of Nain comes another mini-setting for Reign...

quote:

ARDWIN is a setting for the REIGN tabletop fantasy RPG rules. Ever since REIGN was first released, there's been discussion of how to incorporate the traditional fantasy races -- elves, orcs, dwarves -- and with ARDWIN I've tried to provide those templates in a way that's faithful to expectations and, at the same time, lets them move in unexpected new directions.

The land of Ardwin has no king and no central government: It's a collection of six racial enclaves who share a language and a general culture, while maintaining their unique identities as well. But Ardwin deviates from typical fantasy in two key ways. First, there aren't humans. Second, the races are not separate species: If an elf and a dwarf fall in love and marry, their union can produce offspring.

ARDWIN, then, is a setting based on fantasy genetics. (Note that the name's an anagram for "Darwin.") Conflicts arise between groups competing for resources: Since orcs eat only meat and animals instinctively dislike them they must perpetually hunt, or raid their more agrarian cousins. But there are also frictions within groups as biology goes head to head with culture. Who is the better elf? The child born with elfish nature, but raised among the gnomes? Or the child who spent her whole life in the elfin forests, despite being born a dwarf? Natural abilities and achievements of education are both provided for every group.

Support ARDWIN and bring a new take on classic fantasy to REIGN!

-G.

# ? Sep 24, 2010 21:36

Cyphoderus: Apr 21, 2010; I'll have you know, foxes have the finest call in nature

quote:

ARDWIN, then, is a setting based on fantasy genetics.

Goddamn it Greg Stolze stop making me want to marry you.

# ? Sep 25, 2010 20:15

children overboard: Apr 3, 2009

Trying to work out ship-to-ship combat rules in Reign with cannons and stuff. It should be easy enough to give a ship hit locations and damage boxes like a person:

Eg, for a standard sloop:

Cannon crew's roll:
1-5: hit hull for width damage, 10 damage boxes
6-8: hit sails for width damage, 4 damage boxes
9: hit crew for width damage, x damage boxes (x is number of crew)
10: hit PCs (roll 10d for damage?)

Dunno... open to suggestions. It's a bit weird because with a cannon ball hitting the crew, at least 2 dudes are gonna die from one ball (goddamnit followers 5 and 6 stand in a line for them!)

# ? Oct 2, 2010 08:00

FirstCongoWar: Aug 21, 2002; It feels so 80's or early 90's to be political.

I finally got my hard copy of Progenitors today. I'd almost forgotten I ordered the drat thing.

Great book, though!

# ? Oct 2, 2010 22:31

rex monday: Jul 9, 2001; Pisk. Pisk. Piiiiiiisk!

FirstCongoWar posted:

I finally got my hard copy of Progenitors today. I'd almost forgotten I ordered the drat thing.

Great book, though!

Same here. I think I ordered it two months ago now?

# ? Oct 3, 2010 18:52

Cyphoderus: Apr 21, 2010; I'll have you know, foxes have the finest call in nature

Greg Stolze posted:

Thinking about things, and reading the RPG.NET thread, it occurs to me that I may not have explained my purpose in writing ARDWIN. Or, to be pedantically accurate, purposes in plural.

The first purpose was to write something cool and new and innovative. I always aim for that. I didn't want to do a traditional dungeon-fantasy race writeup, not because there's anything wrong with tradition but because the competition is so fierce. There are so many takes on the "standard" elf/dwarf/orc fantasy that there's a sub-genre of games that don't do it well. (That's one aspect of the "fantasy heartbreaker," I think.) That's without folding in the various D&D incarnations, GURPS, Earthdawn, LoTR games and on and on that do it very well indeed. So I tried to come up with something that was different (subtracting humans, adding in a genetic crossbreed component) while remaining clearly, recognizably elves and goblins and gnomes.

The second purpose was to fulfill fan requests for traditional elves, dwarves and orcs. 'Cause people want 'em and far be it from me to tell folks they're having badwrongfun.

At first blush, these goals (make something innovative/make something traditional) seem completely incompatible, but I've tried to balance them. The traditional aspects of dwarfishness and elfishness and the rest are handled primarily through mechanics, and those are either (1) loosely coupled to the Ardwin setting or (2) very close to the standard view of the species. The innovative aspects lie in the cultural interactions.

My hope is that if you want to run your own setting and are looking for easy plug-n-play 'orcishness,' the specialized Advantages of orc nature and culture can pop right out of my setting and slide seamlessly into yours. But if you want the Ardwin skew, you can get that with the mechanics intact.

In short, I've tried to raise some interesting questions, without making them so fundamental that you can't ignore them if you like.

-G.

I have my fingers crossed that he actually releases this. I'm looking forward to it.

# ? Oct 5, 2010 20:54

rex monday: Jul 9, 2001; Pisk. Pisk. Piiiiiiisk!

Cyphoderus posted:

I have my fingers crossed that he actually releases this. I'm looking forward to it.

What happened? Did the rpg.net wet blanket crew come out of the woodwork and make him nervous about releasing it?

# ? Oct 5, 2010 21:29

Cyphoderus: Apr 21, 2010; I'll have you know, foxes have the finest call in nature

rex monday posted:

What happened? Did the rpg.net wet blanket crew come out of the woodwork and make him nervous about releasing it?

I don't think so. I just hope the ransom reaches its goal.

# ? Oct 5, 2010 21:34

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

rex monday posted:

What happened? Did the rpg.net wet blanket crew come out of the woodwork and make him nervous about releasing it?

Sort of. They did come out, but it was this weird whinging about poo poo would work from a sociological standpoint and saying that without humans there's no baseline and a bunch of other poo poo. Basically people being over-critical and overthinking.

That wasn't all of it, of course; a few people were hoping for more Heluso & Milona stuff, or were just going "meh, not for me". But of course the wet blanket crowd had to chime in. Fortunately Greg's pretty good about knowing who not to listen to.

Which doesn't seem to be hurting the ransom, which hit $1000.

# ? Oct 5, 2010 22:00

Capntastic: Jan 13, 2005; A dog begins eating a dusty old coil of rope but there's a nail in it.

If I recall right from a quick skimming, someone more or less called racist, too.

And someone else cried about how his fantasy world language isn't like real world language.

Stolze himself posted another thread about his next project, which might be about a 17th century Italy styled setting, either as part of Heluso and Milonda proper, or just its own thing.

# ? Oct 5, 2010 22:08

children overboard: Apr 3, 2009

AAAAGH

In case anyone hasn't seen it, there is a maptools REIGN GAME recruiting here and I'm still looking for a couple of players. Saturday nights americans time.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3353745

# ? Oct 16, 2010 03:18

Capntastic: Jan 13, 2005; A dog begins eating a dusty old coil of rope but there's a nail in it.

children overboard posted:

AAAAGH

In case anyone hasn't seen it, there is a maptools REIGN GAME recruiting here and I'm still looking for a couple of players. Saturday nights americans time.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3353745

This looks amazing, and makes angry pains in my stomach that my schedule is unruly to the point I couldn't dedicate the time.

Also, ARDWIN has one week left to raise funds, and is about 500 bux shy. Just putting that out there.

# ? Oct 16, 2010 04:44

clockworkjoe: May 31, 2000; Rolled a 1 on the random encounter table, didn't you?

this is a cool reward if you want to support ARDWIN

quote:

Be Greg's editor for a day. A fair amount of the fiction I've written has been "We need something that shows off this element of the setting, it needs to have a big betrayal of trust, and, also, a monkey." Editors and publishers get to do this -- set parameters for fiction writers who then, like chefs with limited ingredients, try to produce a delicious meal. If this ransom clears, I'll write a short story (probably 2-5,000 words) and release it for free through my trusty internet library. But if won't just be ANY story. If you pledge $50+, you can dictate ONE element that must be present. I'll limit that by saying no fanfiction, but stuff in my established settings -- eCollapse, Milonda, PROGENITOR -- are all fair game. (I'll just have to hope and pray there's no crossover.) Or maybe you want a love story. Or a revenge drama. Or for someone to get caught in flagrante delecto with the babysitter. You name it, I'll do my best to put it in there. Will it be a hilarious mess, or an exquisite corpse? Only the high rollers get to decide.

only 50 bucks!

# ? Oct 16, 2010 06:29

children overboard: Apr 3, 2009

children overboard posted:

AAAAGH

In case anyone hasn't seen it, there is a maptools REIGN GAME recruiting here and I'm still looking for a couple of players. Saturday nights americans time.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3353745

Still looking for a couple more players, so if any newbies are wanting to try Reign but don't have the book, I WILL TEACH YOU HOW TO REIGN! Msg me on AIM (username: "stabs0000") and I'll walk you through character creation and the gameplay basics, it's pretty easy!

# ? Oct 22, 2010 08:03

Cyrai: Sep 12, 2004

clockworkjoe posted:

this is a cool reward if you want to support ARDWIN

only 50 bucks!

Alternately, you can safely ignore that because the project has been fully funded since yesterday or so

# ? Oct 22, 2010 19:36

Capntastic: Jan 13, 2005; A dog begins eating a dusty old coil of rope but there's a nail in it.

http://www.gregstolze.com/reign/REIGN_Ardwin.zip

It's out!

# ? Oct 24, 2010 05:21

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸

I have a question about hit locations in ORE. Since succesful dodges only gobble rolls lower than them, limb and chest shots are easier to dodge than headshots. So if someone pulls a called shot at my head (10) and succeeds, I'm less likely to dodge than if they aimed at my chest. Similarly, if someone is firing wildly into combat headshot rolls are more likely to connect than limb or chest rolls. Which results in the weird disconnect that if you really need to hit a guy with a high dodge your best chance of success is called headshots every day, and trying to shoot an aware target's centre of mass is actually less likely to succeed.

Am I getting something wrong, or looking at something the wrong way? Because I love everything about ORE except that and I'd love to be told I'm doing it wrong.

Edit: Also armouring your arms and legs is not worthwhile since the chance to dodge is pretty reasonable.

Splicer fucked around with this message at 13:48 on Nov 17, 2010

# ? Nov 17, 2010 13:44

Sir Kodiak: May 14, 2007

You've been running dodging the right way according to the rules, and you're right about how odd the consequences are. Personally, I houserule away that requirement, and it hasn't caused any problems.

As for armoring your arms and legs, I'm not sure I agree that it's not worthwhile. Armor doesn't typically need to be rolled, while dodging does, armor applies to every incoming attack simultaneously, while dodging you have to pick and choose, and armor doesn't need to beat or match the attack roll, while dodging does. Hard armor is arguably a little too good, really.

# ? Nov 17, 2010 15:27

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Jun 7, 2024 11:49

Doc Hawkins: Jun 15, 2010; Dashing? But I'm not even moving!

Thank you again, Evil Mastermind, for selling me on Kerberos Club: the skills and convictions rules are a huge boon to the ORE as a whole, and the rest of it loving rules.

The only two ways I can currently imagine making ORE an even best-er generic system are

a non-lovely experience system that actually ties into the rules and events of the game (but really I can just drop in Keys from Shadow of Yesterday, no problem (but really I want to make something even cooler that ties into willpower or something))
stats that logically divide human aptitude in a non-boring way

This second one is more important: making up your own skills means the skill list is unneeded, which means the stats are unneeded, and I don't like them.

I feel like my two choices are either to steal a page from Monsters and Other Childish Things and do Hands, Feets, Brains, Guts, Face, or to do a proto-narrativist thing and decide as a group on five distinct and thematically appropriate stats for each game setting. Like, the Kerberos Club would have stats like Class and Athleticism (no separate strength and agility stats in the fiction), but my ripped off kung-fu comic setting would have the five elements.

# ? Nov 27, 2010 01:04

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Greg Stolze (Unknown Armies, One Roll Engine) Appreciation Station

«‹›61 »