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Halloween Jack posted:Hey OtspIII, regarding your NY Red Box: I have read some stuff from fans of Greyhawk and the Realms regarding what they feel are the essence and distinct characteristics of their favourite campaign settings. Do you have any similar insight into Mystara? From 30 Years of Adventure I gathered that Mystara never took itself too seriously and was designed to host not-Vikings, not-Romans, not-Mongols, and, uh, not-plutocrat-sorcerer-guilds sharing borders without worrying about whether or that's believable, because "having lots of new and interesting places to adventure" was more important than anthropology. But I've also read that in Mystara, as in Greyhawk, nations and rulers are pretty much concerned with the same things that concern them in the real world, as opposed to epic battles of good vs. evil. To be honest, I never know what's 'official' Mystara and what's custom to our campaign. The game is centered around a megadungeon, which means that we don't actually do too much traveling. Once we took a big trip south through the Broken Lands and through Darokin to visit a minor chaos god to cure a curse our fighter got nailed with, and one of the big plot points in the campaign has been a war between Darokin and Glantri, but I actually don't know too much about the official setting. In general, though, I do appreciate that pretty much all the factions I've seen in the game have been ambiguously moral. Glantri is nice in that it's big enough that you can toss pretty much infinite one-off dungeons somewhere in its borders without things feeling too cramped, and since it's pretty well surrounded by mountains you can introduce other locations fairly slowly, but I'm not sure it's the best starting place for a campaign about continent-sprawling adventures. It's also run by a bunch of rear end in a top hat wizard princes, which is good for giving reasons for weird poo poo to be everywhere, but lends a little bit of a wizard-centric feel to the campaign. I don't really know anything about any of the other nations, though. It's not a bad place to hold a campaign, but there might be places better for you.
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Jun 29, 2014 18:15
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Halloween Jack posted:Hey OtspIII, regarding your NY Red Box: I have read some stuff from fans of Greyhawk and the Realms regarding what they feel are the essence and distinct characteristics of their favourite campaign settings. Do you have any similar insight into Mystara? From 30 Years of Adventure I gathered that Mystara never took itself too seriously and was designed to host not-Vikings, not-Romans, not-Mongols, and, uh, not-plutocrat-sorcerer-guilds sharing borders without worrying about whether or that's believable, because "having lots of new and interesting places to adventure" was more important than anthropology. But I've also read that in Mystara, as in Greyhawk, nations and rulers are pretty much concerned with the same things that concern them in the real world, as opposed to epic battles of good vs. evil. Glantri is Machiavellian Renaissance Venice where Wizard Supremacy is not an unintentional byproduct of game design but is instead the explicit face of their society's oppressive stratification and degeneracy also there's a mystery cult that draws its power from a crashed starship's leaking nuclear reactor what's not to love? part of the appeal of Mystara is that the world is drawn in broader strokes than in other settings, and that those broad strokes are more obviously accessible to casual players. like, "Renaissance-era Venice/Italy where the merchant guilds are run by wizards" is a capsule description that makes Glantri easier to sum up for a player who's new to the setting than trying to tell them what distinguishes, say, Cormyr or Furyondy from every other generic fantasy nation. (and it's not like Greyhawk and FR don't also have their own not-Vikings, not-Native Americans, et al.)
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Jun 30, 2014 07:24
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gtrmp posted:part of the appeal of Mystara is that the world is drawn in broader strokes than in other settings, and that those broad strokes are more obviously accessible to casual players. like, "Renaissance-era Venice/Italy where the merchant guilds are run by wizards" is a capsule description that makes Glantri easier to sum up for a player who's new to the setting than trying to tell them what distinguishes, say, Cormyr or Furyondy from every other generic fantasy nation. (and it's not like Greyhawk and FR don't also have their own not-Vikings, not-Native Americans, et al.) *Those maps on Pandius are a godsend.
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Jun 30, 2014 13:53
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Hey I hope this is the right thread for asking about some scenario creation advice. I'm currently a member of a table RPG club in Japan, and recently we've been throwing back and forth a crazy idea for a campaign. Basically we're using the Macross idea of music and love overcoming war and prejudice and trying to make a campaign where a party composed entirely of bards or bard-likes goes around trying to kill monsters as seldom as possible (using whatever other means to get out of battles as possible, such as using monster languages to discuss their differences, illusions to avoid danger or whatever else) with bonus exp being awarded any time they end a fight without killing their opponent. The setting and story I can think of, but what I need help with is making some premade characters for everyone. I want to make 4, maybe 5 bards or bard-likes that are diverse enough to cover anything the party might need while still being singers and instrument players. My basic, initial questions are: What edition would it be best to try this campaign in? What can I do with bards to make a whole party of diverse ones that will cover all the necessary bases? What supplements should I look into to make this all work out? What level should I start them at to give a party of bards a fighting chance? Can I start them at level 1 and still have enough diversity between the characters? I want to kind of enjoy crafting the characters myself, but if you guys could point me in the basic direction of somewhere to get started with this that would be awesome.
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Jun 30, 2014 14:39
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While I'm not a huge fan of it, I'd say AD&D2e is your best bet, along with The Complete Bard's Handbook. The kits in there go a long way to diversifying Bards, from Knightly Romantic Poets (the Gallant) to Skalds. Two kits that jump out at me for being very suitable for your idea, there are the Meistersinger's, which can charm animals, and project goodwill towards hostile animals and monsters, preventing them from attacking the bard and possibly his friends (you might want to houserule this, the rules say a 1' per level radius, I'd go with 5'/lvl or 5'/3 lvls to not make it pointless at low levels), and the Herald, who has the ability to speak to/understand any creature that has a spoken language using a "Read Languages" roll. It also has rules for demihuman bards beyond the ones normally allowed by the PHB (Humans and Half-Elves), musical instruments, performances and some special ways bards can use magic items. It won't be too hard to cover a lot of bases, being that bards are pretty multi-purpose, but healing will be tricky. I'd say start them of at level 2, maybe 3, to give them a little hit point edge, boost their abilities some, and give them spell access.
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Jun 30, 2014 17:43
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Getsuya posted:Hey I hope this is the right thread for asking about some scenario creation advice. I'm currently a member of a table RPG club in Japan, and recently we've been throwing back and forth a crazy idea for a campaign. Basically we're using the Macross idea of music and love overcoming war and prejudice and trying to make a campaign where a party composed entirely of bards or bard-likes goes around trying to kill monsters as seldom as possible (using whatever other means to get out of battles as possible, such as using monster languages to discuss their differences, illusions to avoid danger or whatever else) with bonus exp being awarded any time they end a fight without killing their opponent. Personally, I wouldn't run something like this in DnD. My first thought based on your criteria is Fate, then maybe Burning Wheel or Mouse Guard.
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Jun 30, 2014 19:16
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If you're really committed to using the D&D framework for a musical game, you might be able to get some inspiration out of the Hijinks d20 minigame that ran in Polyhedron #158/Dungeon #99. Although, it's probably not quite what you're looking for tonally - it's an explicitly comedic game in the vein of wacky '70s caper cartoons like Josie and the Pussycats, and the way that "combat" is handled solely through the medium of dueling musical performances wouldn't quite mesh with a game where actual combat was always a possibility but was meant to be avoided.
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Jun 30, 2014 21:09
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Thanks for the advice. I'll look into the 2e stuff once I can get my hands on it. The main reason I wanted to use D&D over another system is that it's the only one I can be sure I can easily find in both Japanese and English. I really don't want to have to translate large portions of an RPG system so that my Japanese players can understand the rules. Plus pretty much everyone in the group is an old hand at D&D so I won't need to take too much time explaining the mechanics when we get started.
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Jul 1, 2014 00:13
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gtrmp posted:part of the appeal of Mystara is that the world is drawn in broader strokes than in other settings, and that those broad strokes are more obviously accessible to casual players. like, "Renaissance-era Venice/Italy where the merchant guilds are run by wizards" is a capsule description that makes Glantri easier to sum up for a player who's new to the setting than trying to tell them what distinguishes, say, Cormyr or Furyondy from every other generic fantasy nation. (and it's not like Greyhawk and FR don't also have their own not-Vikings, not-Native Americans, et al.) My status as a FR apologist forces me to respond to and correct this. FR locations are as easy to sum up. Cormyr, for example, is the setting's one stable feudal monarchy. Waterdeep is fantasy New York run by a masked council. The Savage Frontier is a savage frontier. Etc.
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Jul 1, 2014 00:22
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Getsuya posted:Thanks for the advice. I'll look into the 2e stuff once I can get my hands on it. http://www.purpleworm.org/rules/ Have fun!  2e supremacy
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Jul 2, 2014 09:02
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Getsuya posted:Thanks for the advice. I'll look into the 2e stuff once I can get my hands on it. Like if someone wants to have an affinity for nature start them as a Bard and then create a kit that gives them some Druid or Ranger abilities. Same for a mystic/priest minded character with some bonus access to Clerical magic. Etc...
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Jul 2, 2014 09:57
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I have a question for people who have run megadunegons. On average, how many rooms/encounters were your players getting through in a standard session?
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Jul 10, 2014 06:27
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I'd say 3-5 involved rooms or encounters, or 7-9 simple ones. I really depends on what game you're playing though.
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Jul 10, 2014 06:39
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I can't believe I neglected to mention system. Assume something like ACKS or B/X. I'm basically about ready to start running one, but I don't know quite how much to prepare beforehand.
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Jul 10, 2014 07:19
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Oh cool, that was what I was getting my figures from anyway. This is probably tl;dr, but I was on a roll: Just worry about the set piece rooms, wandering monsters will smooth everything out. You want to include all the equipment they will need to succeed in the dungeon. Random loot is their edge up on the dungeon, and should never replace set loot. Come up with factions with different goals, the history of the dungeon, and then it mostly writes itself. Ultima Underground nailed it. Think of environmental features and what kind of flora and fauna will live there and tweak the random encounter tables or just pick the monster. A third way is to cross off each monster as you roll it. Although it is a game conceit that the dungeon gets more dangerous as you go deeper, try to make the lower levels more imposing. Don't be afraid of having empty rooms, they can even be the lair treasure of a wandering monster, but put something in there that gives it character if only so they have a reference. "The room with the broken crates" is memorable enough for a point of reference for navigation. I kind of like the idea of having a ridiculously powerful monster doing a circuit so the whole "they need to know when to run" smugness actually works. They have to know the monster is a capstone monster before they encounter it. An encounter doesn't have to be a direct confrontation. You could catch a glimpse of a beast that's oblivious to you. Maybe it is stalking you from afar, waiting to scavenge. Imagine the excitement of backtracking upon an animal corpse that is now gnawed up. I really, really like indulging the players when they go "off track." If they're interested in something, make it important or cool. There is no such thing as derailing. I've had parties completely devoted to figure out a whiff of incense I pulled off the random smell table. One of mega-dungeon's strengths is that it is wandering and meandering with loose goals. Don't overplan and get butthurt when they miss your awesome thing you had planned, it's a mega dungeon put it somewhere else. Charisma matters, and good reaction rolls will solve many encounters, and with all kinds of reasons to check for morale it's not going to be a murderhobo fight to the death unless you are fighting a cornered beast or a mindless construct or something. If a fighter hits level 9 in the companion box set, or rules cyclopedia, there is a good chance they will become an avenger and befriend every intelligent chaotic creature they meet, and lawful creatures will most likely give them quarter. Ban the thief, they are terrible.
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Jul 10, 2014 08:17
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PeterWeller posted:My status as a FR apologist forces me to respond to and correct this. FR locations are as easy to sum up. Cormyr, for example, is the setting's one stable feudal monarchy. Waterdeep is fantasy New York run by a masked council. The Savage Frontier is a savage frontier. Etc. MadScientistWorking fucked around with this message at 13:07 on Jul 10, 2014 |
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Jul 10, 2014 13:04
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TheSpookyDanger posted:I can't believe I neglected to mention system. Assume something like ACKS or B/X. I'm basically about ready to start running one, but I don't know quite how much to prepare beforehand. 3-7 sounds pretty on target to me, but I'd say that you should probably prepare a good bit more than that before you start. A big part of the appeal of megadungeons is that you can go in pretty much any direction, so I'd say that you probably want to get at least the closest 30-40 rooms from the most obvious entrance made before you run your first session. Also, if that sounds intimidating to you I suggest you reign back your room descriptions a bit. I usually give my rooms tiny descriptions ("Bedroom", "Busted Crates", "Demonic Altar and Pools of Blood") and then just fill in any additional info that I adlib as I run the room. Even with a bunch of stuff like trying to come up with relationships between the monsters living in the megadungeon, you can probably draw and populate 20 rooms of dungeon in about an hour and a half to two hours. That may sound like a large amount of prep time, but keep in mind those 20 rooms will probably last you about a month of weekly play-sessions. Megadungeons can have steep prep time at first, but once you have a bit of content the prep pressure falls off to way below what you have for a normal weekly game. Basically, what's vital to have figured out for any room the PCs might go into is the map layout and which rooms have monsters, treasures, or traps/special qualities--you should have this for probably 40ish rooms, ideally the whole level (and ideally-ideally two levels, in case they wander down a staircase, but it's totally fair to say they can't do that until a few sessions in). Then you should probably have the monster type/treasure value/trap type figured out for about the first 20 rooms in the dungeon, and maybe try to think about about the specifics for the first 8 or so rooms. Prep anything that would really suck to have to decide arbitrarily, basically.
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Jul 10, 2014 15:42
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MadScientistWorking posted:Except your description of Waterdeep is pretty bad and is kind of ignoring the giant mad scientist laboratory which is a pretty important part of the city. Fantasy New York run by a masked council on top of an insane mega-dungeon. That wasn't hard.
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Jul 10, 2014 16:19
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PeterWeller posted:Fantasy New York run by a masked council on top of an insane mega-dungeon. That wasn't hard. That's not really as far off from "Fantasy New York" as you might think. New York has some pretty amazing crypto-architecture.
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Jul 10, 2014 17:51
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Hubis posted:That's not really as far off from "Fantasy New York" as you might think. New York has some pretty amazing crypto-architecture. You don't need to tell me. I grew up there and all the sewer/subway legends and lore made a big impression on young me. That's why I didn't explicitly mention Undermountain to begin with.
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Jul 10, 2014 18:37
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So our current 2e adventure may be wrapping up soonish and I might GM our next one. I was hoping to adapt something from Dark Sun. Are there any good modules to look at for a very large group around level 7-10?
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Jul 11, 2014 02:48
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Hey, goons! I'm running RC D&D for a few sessions in a while, so I'm wondering which of the classic B-series adventures I should run for my group except not B2 Keep on the Borderlands or B4 The Lost City. Both of those I've run (under 5e and Dungeon World, respectively) within the past few years. I'm leaning towards B3 Palace of the Silver Princess, but I'm not sure if there's other gems in that line I'm not familiar with.
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Jul 12, 2014 02:58
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B10, Night's Dark Terror.
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Jul 12, 2014 03:02
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I'm kind of waffling between using the different coins and just saying everything is silver coins. Most of my players have little to no PnP game experience so don't want to unnecessarily complicate things, but I'm worried there's a good reason for several times that I'm missing. Any thoughts?
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Jul 12, 2014 21:06
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TheSpookyDanger posted:I'm kind of waffling between using the different coins and just saying everything is silver coins. Most of my players have little to no PnP game experience so don't want to unnecessarily complicate things, but I'm worried there's a good reason for several times that I'm missing. Any thoughts? If you're using detailed encumbrance rules or gold=XP (both hallmarks of some retro rules), you need to balance things out so the players don't get poor at higher levels. Introduce gold and platinum eventually, or throw in more jewelry and other value-dense replacements.
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Jul 13, 2014 04:47
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Bedroom Wall Press is making the digital versions of their retroclone-ish games free. I only know Hulks & Horrors, which is a sci-fi dungeoncrawl game. It's very Basic D&D-based, and uses THAC0 if that matters to you.
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Jul 13, 2014 19:44
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Always interesting to see another outfit take a crack at going some combo of OGL and full-on open---somehow oddly amusing to me seeing a github page for something like this.
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Jul 14, 2014 14:11
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ExiledTinkerer posted:Always interesting to see another outfit take a crack at going some combo of OGL and full-on open---somehow oddly amusing to me seeing a github page for something like this. I watched a video where the DW designers recommended Github. It certainly makes sense, at least if your project is a fully realized game. Deeper in the game has been posting some good stuff about dungeon design, I recommend taking a look: http://bankuei.wordpress.com/2014/07/16/dungeons-theory-and-design/ (There are four parts so far, and there will probably end up being 5 or 6.)
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Jul 19, 2014 17:01
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mango sentinel posted:So our current 2e adventure may be wrapping up soonish and I might GM our next one. I was hoping to adapt something from Dark Sun. Are there any good modules to look at for a very large group around level 7-10? The official Dark Sun modules are easily the worst of the stereotypical 2E period "The PCs watch iconic NPCs do cool, setting modifying poo poo" type railroads. I suggest adapting something else to Dark Sun. What kind of adventure are you looking for? Personally, with regards to old school modules, I've always wanted to run Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, the Lost City or Dwellers of the Forbidden City in Dark Sun. The Pharoah series might work too. Glazius posted:B10, Night's Dark Terror. Probably the best BECMI adventure. Run it.
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Jul 22, 2014 00:13
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Lightning Lord posted:The official Dark Sun modules are easily the worst of the stereotypical 2E period "The PCs watch iconic NPCs do cool, setting modifying poo poo" type railroads. I suggest adapting something else to Dark Sun. What kind of adventure are you looking for? That's not really true. While they tie into the metaplot, the PCs do a ton of important poo poo and have a lot of agency. Freedom, the most commonly cited for this trend, for example does have the PCs watch as Rikus and friends attack Kalak, but then the PCs have to take over and lead the citizens out of the stadium before Kalak's ritual slays all of them. And before the finale, they're basically left to their devices to establish relationships and pursue subplots in the slave pens.
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Jul 22, 2014 00:31
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The Dark Sun boxed sets are considerably better. I had a good time converting City by the Silt Sea to 4e. It's awesome. The Crimson Legion one was pretty okay. Arcane Shadows was awful. Forest Maker was salvageable, barely. I was converting/adapting Dragon's Crown, but it has some terrible "gently caress you, psionicists" stuff I had to work around.
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Jul 22, 2014 00:35
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The biggest problem with Dragon's Crown is that it was designed assuming that you were actually using the "everyone runs 4 PCs that they swap between" rule, so no one batted an eye at writing a capstone mega-adventure in which psionicists and thri-kreen were unplayable. You're right that Arcane Shadows is a railroad, but the PCs actions are still of paramount importance. Ironically, the ones that tie into the novels, Freedom and Road to Urik, give PCs the most room to play around before reaching their finales.
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Jul 22, 2014 01:08
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PeterWeller posted:That's not really true. While they tie into the metaplot, the PCs do a ton of important poo poo and have a lot of agency. Freedom, the most commonly cited for this trend, for example does have the PCs watch as Rikus and friends attack Kalak, but then the PCs have to take over and lead the citizens out of the stadium before Kalak's ritual slays all of them. And before the finale, they're basically left to their devices to establish relationships and pursue subplots in the slave pens. To be fair it's been awhile since I've given them a look. Anyway, even if these adventures aren't only about just standing there and watching stuff happen I'd still argue that it's not worth utilizing them wholesale nowadays since they're so tied into a long dead metaplot. By the way, am I right in thinking the big metaplot book (Beyond the Prism Pentad, right?) has a mini-adventure with a sequence where the PCs fist fight skeletons while a super-NPC fights some sort of mega wizard? That is just a metaplot cleanup thing that I doubt very many people ran, however. It's kind of interesting that the modules have all this "You watch these cool guys do things you may have read about in the Prism Pentad" baggage. I mean say what you want about the Dragonlance adventure series, but at least it let the players do poo poo from the books and be the movers and shakers, not the fantasy equivalent of Airwave gawping in astonishment while Superman fights the Anti-Monitor. It is probably worth looking through them for setpieces to loot though. I'm not against iconic NPCs existing btw, I just think this is the equivalent of having Elminster show up to lightning bolt the party's arch nemesis when he should be used as a quest giver and sage. dwarf74 posted:I was converting/adapting Dragon's Crown, but it has some terrible "gently caress you, psionicists" stuff I had to work around. Dark Sun's whole schtick was "the D&D setting with psionics" so why the hell would you stick something that fucks that over in an adventure?
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Jul 22, 2014 01:16
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Lightning Lord posted:To be fair it's been awhile since I've given them a look. Anyway, even if these adventures aren't only about just standing there and watching stuff happen I'd still argue that it's not worth utilizing them wholesale nowadays since they're so tied into a long dead metaplot. By the way, am I right in thinking the big metaplot book (Beyond the Prism Pentad, right?) has a mini-adventure with a sequence where the PCs fist fight skeletons while a super-NPC fights some sort of mega wizard? That is just a metaplot cleanup thing that I doubt very many people ran, however. It's kind of interesting that the modules have all this "You watch these cool guys do things you may have read about in the Prism Pentad" baggage. I mean say what you want about the Dragonlance adventure series, but at least it let the players do poo poo from the books and be the movers and shakers, not the fantasy equivalent of Airwave gawping in astonishment while Superman fights the Anti-Monitor. I don't remember that BPP thing with skeletons, and I get what you're saying, but Freedom has one single scene where the players are second fiddle and then immediately puts the spotlight back on them. It's really not at all like the scenarios you mention. As for the metaplot, it's not really dead. 4E DS is explicitly post-Verdant Passage, and the bulk of the world shaking takes place 10 years after Kalak's assassination, so it's basically in limbo for the DM to decide if it continues to play out in his or her campaign. Anyway, as far as mining it for ideas, Freedom has some great slave pen plots that can easily be adapted to other scenarios. I used the bulk of it for a 3E homebrew setting completely unrelated to DS.
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Jul 22, 2014 01:35
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Someone mentioned a system where it was harder to die at low levels, but you would end up with some kind of terrible wound that would basically make you an NPC. Can someone tell me more about this? It sounds interesting!
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Jul 30, 2014 15:09
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A Strange Aeon posted:Someone mentioned a system where it was harder to die at low levels, but you would end up with some kind of terrible wound that would basically make you an NPC. Can someone tell me more about this? It sounds interesting! Adventurer Conqueror King does this. Basically, when you hit <= 0hp, you're unconscious. When you're revived, you make a d20 roll (modified by CON, your -HP value compared to total HP, the amount of time that's passed since your wound, and the skill of the healer) to determine your condition. It can range from "You are a stain on the flagstone" to "You wake up after visions of the afterlife. You also roll a d6 to determine if you take a "Mortal Wound" from the injury (likely). Based on the d20 and d6 roll, you look up your specific wound on a table. They can be things like "You loose an eye (-2 to ranged attack rolls", "You lost a leg (Dex halved for purposes of AC)" or "Gruesome Scarring (-2 CHA, +2 Intimidate)". We had one player get "Heart/Lungs damaged; Travel speed reduced, CON halved, cannot force march" on two separate characters. So what you end up with is a pretty deadly and brutal world, but a character is as likely to be "retired" because the sum of his mortal wounds are too bad as he is to be outright killed. This leads your world to become filled with a bunch of maimed former-adventurers who took one too many "arrows to the knee" which kind of underlies the roughness of everything. It also makes getting knocked down to 0hp a pretty lasting event, but falls short of wiping out characters. It's one of the better parts of the system, in my opinion.
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Jul 30, 2014 16:32
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I'll also note that the 'raise dead' equivalent in ACKS also cures all these injuries, but has a slight chance of more permanent death each time it is cast. This means that all these 'retired' characters aren't any harder to bring back than outright dead ones, but that you don't want to go running to the healer after each time you sprain a knee.
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Jul 30, 2014 16:43
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That sounds pretty great, actually! How easy would it be to port that into a retro fantasy game? It seems pretty easy to just drop in. Also, I've been gathering ideas and tables and notes for running something old school, but I could use some advice on what basic system to use. I have the cyclopedia, first edition, second edition, both basic boxed sets (the ones with the B modules), Hackmaster 4th, and DCC. I'm not opposed to grabbing something else if it makes sense, I just want to be able to plug in the hundreds of classic inspired ideas, tables, monsters and treasures with minimal fuss. One player won't like any of these options, so I'm just going to invite him to not participate; he's one of those char ops people and I doubt he'd be capable of having a good time, but the others would probably be okay with whatever.
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Jul 30, 2014 16:44
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OtspIII posted:I'll also note that the 'raise dead' equivalent in ACKS also cures all these injuries, but has a slight chance of more permanent death each time it is cast. This means that all these 'retired' characters aren't any harder to bring back than outright dead ones, but that you don't want to go running to the healer after each time you sprain a knee. Yeah, there's a separate table titled "Tampering with Mortality" that works basically the same way, but for when you cast "Resurrection"/"Reincarnation"/"Restore Life & Limb". You have a slightly better chance of getting away without any side effects, but the side effects are pretty crazy -- things like "Horses become fearful and may panic in your presence" or "Your hair/fingernails grows at an unnaturally quick rate". It's jam packed with flavor (which is a divergence from a lot of the rest of the system, which I feel is generally too much math and mechanic for not enough meat). A Strange Aeon posted:That sounds pretty great, actually! How easy would it be to port that into a retro fantasy game? It seems pretty easy to just drop in. ACKS and DCC are an interesting comparison, in that they both kind of want to do similar things but seem make completely opposite choices whenever a decision point in the design process is reached. One description we came up with was that ACKS was really trying to be D&D 2e with it's elaborate systems and world-building, wheras DCC is straight up OD&D "grab your fighting man and get straight to the action!" We just finished a 6-month ACKS campaign, and while my group had fun, it was mostly in spite of the system. I don't know if it's bad per se, but it really did not fit my group's style. The game relies on a very sand-boxy hex crawl type approach, where diverting a session to meander off to find the lair of some monster so you can get their loot is worthwhile, even if it holds up the story. It's kind of more an "Adventure World Simulator" than a "Roleplaying Game". Character building/customization is present, but it's not really a major factor -- over the life of the character you'll select maybe 3-4 Proficiencies, and maybe at higher level you'll make yourself unique by picking a few magic items. The game sort of relies metering out the march of time, though, and if you handwave a lot of the things modern DMs tend to handwave for the sake of convenience then some of the balance factors don't work. That being said, it does have some really good bits. What it does have is rules for building everything you could possibly want. The custom class design system is really cool -- your CHAROP guy might actually enjoy it if you let him build a custom class from scratch using the rules in the Player's Companion, and doubly so if he's a wizard and you let him craft his own spells and rituals. The rules for building up a Keep of some sort are pretty solid, and are something I have sort of lifted into other game systems quite readily. I wouldn't recommend against it at all, and it has a lot to offer someone looking for exactly that type of game. DCC on the other hand is just gonzo as poo poo. Where ACKS has rules for determining how much of each of a dozen categories of commodities a specific Class III market holds, given the relative distance to larger and smaller neighboring markets and their own demand modifiers, adjusted by the local Income-per-Family of the surrounding 24-mile hex, DCC has "Huge table of random bad poo poo that will go wrong when your spells inevitably miscast". Instead of "Look up on this table to see how many d6 you roll to determine the number of mercenaries in this market for this week" it's "roll on this table to see if your fighter gouges the orc's eye out or cuts off his arm, spraying blood all over his compatriots and blinding them". That being said, the table-heaviness can sometimes slow things down a little bit, and the problem with that approach is that each entry is only unique and exciting so many times. DCC is very much about the decisions you make as a player (which are informed by the character you make) rather than just how well you execute the role of the class you've got. It's very old-school in that sense. DCC is a game that absolutely has a tone written into the rules. Again it's not for everyone (I wouldn't try to run high fantasy, or even low/historical fantasy) but it knows exactly what it is and it isn't embarassed about it in the least. The main criticism I have heard about DCC is that there is very little in the way of actual character customization, and that it might get mechanically stale once you get to around level 4-5 unless you've got people really invested in the setting. That being said, there is a ton of really decent (and beautifully rendered) adventures out there so you should never be at a loss for things to excite the players even if you don't want to write the adventures yourself. Given the two, I'd absolutely pick DCC. A mentioned previously, though, it's very much a matter of style and taste.
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Jul 30, 2014 18:56
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Hubis posted:Given the two, I'd absolutely pick DCC. A mentioned previously, though, it's very much a matter of style and taste. You can pretty much think of ACKS as a splatbook that just adds kingdom management and merchant stuff to B/X. If you want to have that be a big part of the game ACKS is wonderful, but if not I'd probably suggest something else. It wouldn't be to hard to steal the wounds tables from it either way, though. I will note that ACKS just released Domains at War, though, which is all about managing an army and handling large-scale combat. It shipped recentlyish, but I haven't had a chance to really look at it yet since I'm out of town for a while.
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Jul 30, 2014 19:54
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