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Nuns with Guns
Jul 23, 2010

It's fine.
Don't worry about it.

gradenko_2000 posted:

Every time d20 clones get brought up, Fantasy Craft always gets mentioned as being the best of the lot, and every time I get an urge to sit down and start learning the game.

I'm writing down my commitment to try and make sample characters for it, as part of the effort.

I don't know if I'd call Fantasy Craft the best, but I guess that's a hard thing to measure. It's certainly the most polished iteration of the d20 games drawing on 3e rules, and probably the most idealized version of a balanced 3e you could make. It's also dense as gently caress and I enjoy Mutants and Masterminds more, but imbalance is baked into that by the nature of it being about comic book heroes. Star Wars Saga edition is an interesting transition between 3e and 4e that I think is worth exploring, but it definitely got weighed down by splatbook glut.

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Covok
May 27, 2013

Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

Nuns with Guns posted:

I don't know if I'd call Fantasy Craft the best, but I guess that's a hard thing to measure. It's certainly the most polished iteration of the d20 games drawing on 3e rules, and probably the most idealized version of a balanced 3e you could make. It's also dense as gently caress and I enjoy Mutants and Masterminds more, but imbalance is baked into that by the nature of it being about comic book heroes. Star Wars Saga edition is an interesting transition between 3e and 4e that I think is worth exploring, but it definitely got weighed down by splatbook glut.

Star Wars saga Edition suffers from the same problem that every edition of Star Wars role-playing games, except Fantasy Flight Star Wars role-playing game, has. Which is that Jedi are too loving powerful.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!

Rand Brittain posted:

Everything Jenna writes is as clear as she was able to make it. If it doesn't work out for a lot of people, it's because Jenna's idea of what constitutes a logical order of information is really different from most people. She tends to see everything as part of a single "flow" of book and I'm not sure that it works out if you try to read it like a White Wolf splatbook.*

To be clear, I really, really wanted to understand it, but at a certain point the amount of time that would have taken for me to understand it and when the GM wanted to start the game didn't match up, and so I gave up. Maybe I'll give it another try sometime, but as a reader it wasn't even necessarily whether or not it was structured like a conventional gamebook in my experience, but that it would often not explain the ideas it was trying to communicate, simply presuming I understood concepts that would often not be explained for another few or even a hundred pages ahead.

I really would like to try it but at the same time it was causing me a surprising amount of stress and frustration I didn't need at the time.

AlphaDog posted:

What I've seen a lot of over the years is people trying to run a game before they finish reading/understanding the rules, then when something's confusing, or seems dumb, or doesn't work, instead of looking it up and trying to figure out they'll slap in a makes-sense patch based on whatever other game they already know. It's less "my job is to rewrite the rules" and more "I'm not reading all that poo poo, I already know how to play RPGs"

I try not to mod rules the first time I play a game unless I'm really certain of what I'm doing. I'm probably more confident on it these days, but I try to avoid it just because I like players to be able to look at the core book of the game I'm running and understand that's all they need to know. I find I prefer clarity for my players over trying to plug rules holes, unless they really make the game malfunction in some way.

gradenko_2000 posted:

Every time d20 clones get brought up, Fantasy Craft always gets mentioned as being the best of the lot, and every time I get an urge to sit down and start learning the game.

I'm writing down my commitment to try and make sample characters for it, as part of the effort.

Having played it extensively for years, I've gotten to that point where I'm keenly aware of its flaws now and have a more balanced view these days, but it feels like an evolution in d20's design that was tragically cut short.

In any case, more people needed to be exposed to Ben McSweeney's art in that book, it's some of the most dynamic stuff I've seen in a gaming book with all sorts of little details that I'm still only just noticing even after flipping through that book for ages.

ProfessorCirno
Feb 17, 2011

The strongest! The smartest!
The rightest!

Covok posted:

Star Wars saga Edition suffers from the same problem that every edition of Star Wars role-playing games, except Fantasy Flight Star Wars role-playing game, has. Which is that Jedi are too loving powerful.

Jedi are OP for the dumbest reasons, also. And in fact get progressively less powerful the longer the game goes on for that same dumb reason; if you actually play until level 20, jedi powers become hilariously useless and lovely.

Nuns with Guns
Jul 23, 2010

It's fine.
Don't worry about it.

Covok posted:

Star Wars saga Edition suffers from the same problem that every edition of Star Wars role-playing games, except Fantasy Flight Star Wars role-playing game, has. Which is that Jedi are too loving powerful.

Like Cirno said, jedi are actually kind of kooky in Saga. The 'use the force' skill is super useful early on in the game, especially with skill focus, but jedi characters will rapidly become outpaced by the soldier class as they level unless they're heavily invested in lightsaber combat. And even then they're a melee-heavy class in a game overflowing with long range blasters.

Covok
May 27, 2013

Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

Alien Rope Burn posted:

To be clear, I really, really wanted to understand it, but at a certain point the amount of time that would have taken for me to understand it and when the GM wanted to start the game didn't match up, and so I gave up. Maybe I'll give it another try sometime, but as a reader it wasn't even necessarily whether or not it was structured like a conventional gamebook in my experience, but that it would often not explain the ideas it was trying to communicate, simply presuming I understood concepts that would often not be explained for another few or even a hundred pages ahead.

I really would like to try it but at the same time it was causing me a surprising amount of stress and frustration I didn't need at the time.

Let me break down how chuubo's works from experience:
People are in the scene together. They act out their characters. When one of them does an XP action, they get XP and vanish from the scene for how long the genre requires in game time because they're wrapped up in that action. When they attempt to do something that has a risk of failure, they use their skill and will to try to get a preferable result on the intentions table. The GM interprets the intentions table to figure out how the action goes. They can do up to two actions concurrently. Anymore and they have to drop one to do another. To be clear, an XP action is not in action. You know what XP actions are because they are listed by the genre. I think the game has clearer terminology. Once everyone has made an XP action, the game advances to the next round. The game says based on genre how how much time passes between then. Then that all begins anew.

That's the absolute basics. I remember that took a long time to get. Did that help?

XP is split between group XP and experience for yourself. Group XP share and XP for yourself is not. You can spend your XP on your quest. When you complete a quest, your Arc advances and you get a perk. You can only have 8 Perks at once. Once you have more you have to replace a perk. When your Arc exceeds 5, you completed that Ark and get a more permanent benefit.

You have health levels. That's complicated to get into. What you need to know is that what health level is damaged is based on the narrative cause. If it's minor it's only to me the lowest. And it doesn't Advance on it's own. If you just keep getting punched, there will be a point where you won't take any more damage unless they escalate by stabbing you or something. Whenever you take damage, you take a wound or you let the GM Knock You Out. Wounds let you decide how you're hurt and allow you to mitigate things. When you can't take anymore wounds cuz you're out of help levels, the GM gets full control of what happens to you as a result of the action.

Quest can also give XP actions and will list them.

Afflictions are always true and are almost a cosmic Force being exerted on you. It actually takes a miracle to ignore affliction. Bonds are more like skills what you can choose to turn on when you want. They are narratively similar as they are both essentially fate aspects, but are different in the ways I just described.

Throughout play, you can get issues. Issues are rewarded on basis of narrative need. Sometimes genre can Define when you get issues. For example, doing an XP action by yourself gets you the isolation issue in a pastoral setting. Issued advance and start as a bad thing, but turn into a good thing by the end because you learn from them.

I think that was a good job covering the basics of mortal play. I don't want to overload you, but that help?

quote:

Having played it extensively for years, I've gotten to that point where I'm keenly aware of its flaws now and have a more balanced view these days, but it feels like an evolution in d20's design that was tragically cut short.

In any case, more people needed to be exposed to Ben McSweeney's art in that book, it's some of the most dynamic stuff I've seen in a gaming book with all sorts of little details that I'm still only just noticing even after flipping through that book for ages.

What do you mean cut short? The magic book is going to be coming out any day now. :)

ProfessorCirno
Feb 17, 2011

The strongest! The smartest!
The rightest!
Honestly, all the math breaks the gently caress down in SWSE eventually, and not in a 3.x way. They just hosed up the formula. In fact, it's OPPOSITE of 3.x, because SWSE's problem is that defense scales faster then offense.

That said, SWSE does get kudos for actually understanding that archtypes are, like, a thing, and trying (and not always succeeding) to work on that. Like hey, almost nobody in Star Wars wears armor, but some people do, so the Soldier class has a talent they can choose to take that lets you benefit from using armor, and otherwise, you probably aren't using armor. That's an idea that mechanically didn't quite work out, but at least thematically, uh, existed. Meanwhile in FFG's Star Wars there's basically no reason not to wear the best armor you can get your grubby little mits on even if you are a Han Solo type.

Covok
May 27, 2013

Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

ProfessorCirno posted:

Honestly, all the math breaks the gently caress down in SWSE eventually, and not in a 3.x way. They just hosed up the formula. In fact, it's OPPOSITE of 3.x, because SWSE's problem is that defense scales faster then offense.

That said, SWSE does get kudos for actually understanding that archtypes are, like, a thing, and trying (and not always succeeding) to work on that. Like hey, almost nobody in Star Wars wears armor, but some people do, so the Soldier class has a talent they can choose to take that lets you benefit from using armor, and otherwise, you probably aren't using armor. That's an idea that mechanically didn't quite work out, but at least thematically, uh, existed. Meanwhile in FFG's Star Wars there's basically no reason not to wear the best armor you can get your grubby little mits on even if you are a Han Solo type.

Actually, they're talents that give you the defense and soak naturally which due to the stacking rules means you don't actually want to wear armor if you have those abilities. Some effects are contingent on more lightly armored characters I believe as well. So armor becomes less necessary as you advance for certain character types. If I recall correctly that is.

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy

Covok posted:

Inertia. It's simple lazy inertia. The guy just started with 3rd edition D&D and treated as if it's the platonic ideal role playing game. And that is pretty common in this Hobby. Many of us here are unique in that we constantly play different games and recognize the importance of the system itself and how it influences and enhances gameplay.

However, this ideology seems to be getting more common. I think the influx of indie games has led to more people recognizing that specialized games for particular play styles means that system matters and can make your game better.

Sure, there are still those who don't think that way. Like my friend who was confused why I thought it was weird that Will Wheaton use the age system for his game when it was clear he'd be happier with a more narrative Focus system considering how he runs games. My friend retorted that, if they were having fun, "why would it matter?" Not getting that if they use the system closer to the play style they want then they'd have even more fun and have to fight the system less to get their desired experience. But, that seems less and less common in its own ways.

Unfortunately, I feel that 5e is going to start a whole new wave of people who don't get it that we'll all have to deal with because they'll think 5e is the platonic ideal role playing game.

Yeah I'm sort of dreading this ever since I saw people porting Star Wars into 5e.

Nuns with Guns posted:

It's also dense as gently caress and I enjoy Mutants and Masterminds more, but imbalance is baked into that by the nature of it being about comic book heroes. Star Wars Saga edition is an interesting transition between 3e and 4e that I think is worth exploring, but it definitely got weighed down by splatbook glut.

SW SAGA is also another one that I'm interested in, but the unavailability of good-quality PDFs hurts, and the actual books are hella expensive by now.

Mutants & Masterminds is also one that seems good, but my eyes glaze over when I start reading the powers section, even if a "point-based d20" is something that I know kinda appeals to my idea of how to "balance" d20

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!

Covok posted:

I think that was a good job covering the basics of mortal play. I don't want to overload you, but that help?

I'd have to be able to look at this while I'm going through the book, I think, to have examples to go with what you're talking about.

Covok posted:

What do you mean cut short? The magic book is going to be coming out any day now. :)

It better, I still have it on pre-order. :v:

(Dammit, Crafty.)

8one6
May 20, 2012

When in doubt, err on the side of Awesome!

Covok posted:

...
What do you mean cut short? The magic book is going to be coming out any day now. :)

They mentioned on their forums that it was nearly ready.
Last year before Gen Con.

Honestly it wouldn't be so frustrating if they didn't pitch the loving vapor ware magic book in the text of the core book.

Covok
May 27, 2013

Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

gradenko_2000 posted:

Yeah I'm sort of dreading this ever since I saw people porting Star Wars into 5e.


SW SAGA is also another one that I'm interested in, but the unavailability of good-quality PDFs hurts, and the actual books are hella expensive by now.

Mutants & Masterminds is also one that seems good, but my eyes glaze over when I start reading the powers section, even if a "point-based d20" is something that I know kinda appeals to my idea of how to "balance" d20

Let me tell you, balance and mutants and masterminds are not words that should be used in a sentence together unless you're trying to say mutants and masterminds is not balanced.

Alien Rope Burn posted:

I'd have to be able to look at this while I'm going through the book, I think, to have examples to go with what you're talking about.


It better, I still have it on pre-order. :v:

(Dammit, Crafty.)

Well, I hope it helps. Also, it's a little hosed up they haven't refunded your pre-order yet. I mean come the gently caress on.

Also, anyone here ever look into Legends D20 by rule of cool? It was actually my first F20 game. It was also the first campaign I every played in. It seemed based on Star Wars saga and try to go for fantasy, specifically High fantasy where everyone eventually can fly. I remember the campaign going terribly due to a problem player. I also believe the game never got a bestiary and proper monster rules so the only way to play it is by making monsters as player characters which must suck dick in a bad way, like a smelly dick or an unwashed dick. Is that game good at all? It's been so long since I looked at it.

Also, turns out I have a copy of weapons of the Gods and Hell does that book have good art.

mllaneza
Apr 28, 2007

Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1993-1952




gradenko_2000 posted:

SW SAGA is also another one that I'm interested in, but the unavailability of good-quality PDFs hurts, and the actual books are hella expensive by now.

Don't forget D6 Star Wars. It's a good rules-light system. I've run it several times and it's a good fit for Star Wars.

Plus who can resist legal, free PDFs of the whole line ?

http://d6holocron.com/downloads/

Some of those books, The Imperial Sourcebook were sent out to authors writing SW novels as reference material. If you miss the EU, it came out of these books.

Len
Jan 21, 2008

Pouches, bandages, shoulderpad, cyber-eye...

Bitchin'!


mllaneza posted:

Don't forget D6 Star Wars. It's a good rules-light system. I've run it several times and it's a good fit for Star Wars.

Plus who can resist legal, free PDFs of the whole line ?

http://d6holocron.com/downloads/

Some of those books, The Imperial Sourcebook were sent out to authors writing SW novels as reference material. If you miss the EU, it came out of these books.

I remember having a bunch of posters from that line I got from various Star Wars Insider issues as a kid. Never had any of the books though. Half tempted to download the core book and give it a read but I'm still trying to get a Trail of Cthulhu game off the ground.

Antivehicular
Dec 30, 2011


I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

8one6 posted:

They mentioned on their forums that it was nearly ready.
Last year before Gen Con.

Honestly it wouldn't be so frustrating if they didn't pitch the loving vapor ware magic book in the text of the core book.

I really wish designers wouldn't do in-text advertisements/references for stuff unless it has a release date locked in and imminent. Putting ads in the main text of the game is irritating enough, but I'm willing to accept it if the book in question really will be out in two months; if it's "look for a future cool thing!" and said cool thing shows no sign of existing, however... don't waste your page space and my time.

Irritation brought to you by the Masks softcover, which has about a quarter-page ad for new expansion playbooks coming out soon, honest! Some of these playbooks did come out. Others were released with extensive revision and didn't match what was advertised. Others are, as far as I can tell, purely theoretical. And this deserved space in the book, right in the core text, not even on a back page or something?

Flavivirus
Dec 14, 2011

The next stage of evolution.

Antivehicular posted:

I really wish designers wouldn't do in-text advertisements/references for stuff unless it has a release date locked in and imminent. Putting ads in the main text of the game is irritating enough, but I'm willing to accept it if the book in question really will be out in two months; if it's "look for a future cool thing!" and said cool thing shows no sign of existing, however... don't waste your page space and my time.

Irritation brought to you by the Masks softcover, which has about a quarter-page ad for new expansion playbooks coming out soon, honest! Some of these playbooks did come out. Others were released with extensive revision and didn't match what was advertised. Others are, as far as I can tell, purely theoretical. And this deserved space in the book, right in the core text, not even on a back page or something?

Still better than Exalted 3e, which devoted a two-page art spread to 'here's some future splats, we're not even going to tell you what they are or what their deal is'.

drrockso20
May 6, 2013

Has Not Actually Done Cocaine
So with D6 Star Wars that marks at least three major systems available for free in a somewhat legal fashion, anyone know of any more besides;

1) D6 Star Wars

2) Marvel TSR

3) Talislanta

Tuxedo Catfish
Mar 17, 2007

You've got guts! Come to my village, I'll buy you lunch.

Flavivirus posted:

Still better than Exalted 3e, which devoted a two-page art spread to 'here's some future splats, we're not even going to tell you what they are or what their deal is'.

This isn't quite the same because by the time I got to them they had been published (I just couldn't afford them) but as a kid I was always really annoyed that the AD&D 2E Monster Manual was littered with references to spells that weren't in the Player's Handbook.

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy

drrockso20 posted:

So with D6 Star Wars that marks at least three major systems available for free in a somewhat legal fashion, anyone know of any more besides;

1) D6 Star Wars

2) Marvel TSR

3) Talislanta

What's your criteria for "free" and "major system"? Because I'm pretty sure you can play some version of completely-legal OSR D&D without shelling out a cent.

drrockso20
May 6, 2013

Has Not Actually Done Cocaine

gradenko_2000 posted:

What's your criteria for "free" and "major system"? Because I'm pretty sure you can play some version of completely-legal OSR D&D without shelling out a cent.

I probably should have put an addendum saying besides OSR systems, cause that's an area I'm very well acquainted with

Siivola
Dec 23, 2012

Halloween Jack posted:

It was a system where, instead of dropping a big set of new cards every few months, they'd release small monthly "episodes," with relatively flat rarity and no Rare cards.

The new rarity scheme was actually worse for players, and because each set was based around a faction, some factions lagged months behind others in getting new core cards (strongholds, et cetera). Ostensibly, the reasoning was that the staggered release schedule was easier on players' wallets and didn't force them to hunt for rares.

Much later, Dancey candidly admitted that he realized the market was flooded with CCGs, and a lot of retailers had a de facto policy of ordering one case of everything to see how it sold. Rolling Thunder was a scheme to make sure every set got on the shelf in every store.
This sounds eerily similar to the LCG model.

And L5R's an LCG now. :thunk:

mllaneza posted:

Plus who can resist legal, free PDFs of the whole line ?

http://d6holocron.com/downloads/
I'm reasonably sure those are not actually legal in any way.

Siivola fucked around with this message at 09:59 on Aug 11, 2017

Kwyndig
Sep 23, 2006

Heeeeeey


You know, I realized something in this insomniac hour of mine. I don't think it's possible to create a balanced point buy system of any sort, but especially Supers. Because going by the archetypical power sets you have Skill Guy, Invulnerable Man, Fast Man, and the Blaster. Fast Man and Invulnerable Man isn't a fair match up, neither is Skill Guy and anybody else without handwaving, and most supers settings have the bad guys follow the same general archetypes (the dark mirror effect), so if Skill Guy fights General Zod he's going to die unless he has some handwavium that neutralizes Zod's powers, and that's just bad storytelling.

I don't know where I'm going with this, but I guess comic book games need to be more narrative or something.

potatocubed
Jul 26, 2012

*rathian noises*

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

This isn't quite the same because by the time I got to them they had been published (I just couldn't afford them) but as a kid I was always really annoyed that the AD&D 2E Monster Manual was littered with references to spells that weren't in the Player's Handbook.

That was standard marketing practice for Sword and Sorcery (WW's D&D imprint) back in the early days of 3.0: the monsters in the monster books would have spell-like abilities that referenced the magic books, the magic books would reference the setting books, the adventures would have links out to other adventures...

Although that said, there were some properly good ideas in those monster manuals. The mechanical execution was almost always garbage, but the ideas were great.

Kwyndig
Sep 23, 2006

Heeeeeey


potatocubed posted:

That was standard marketing practice for Sword and Sorcery (WW's D&D imprint) back in the early days of 3.0: the monsters in the monster books would have spell-like abilities that referenced the magic books, the magic books would reference the setting books, the adventures would have links out to other adventures...

Although that said, there were some properly good ideas in those monster manuals. The mechanical execution was almost always garbage, but the ideas were great.

Yeah I liked some of the monster ideas, but they heavily rode on a train of desperate GMs to get anywhere in 3.0. For example, they put out the monster book first and before the official MM came out if memory serves.

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy
I tried my hand at creating a FantasyCraft character:

https://pastebin.com/7yxndBzk

This is Zinn, he's a Giant Soldier, whose character concept is mostly about being large and wielding a large pike. He has Reach 2 just for being a Giant, and then the Pike gives him Reach 4, and then he can enter Monkey Stance to let him wield the pike in a single hand, and then wielding the pike in a single hand increases his Reach again, to 5.

To my chagrin I found that FantasyCraft actually did away with Opportunity Attacks, but this does still mean he can go around attacking people from beyond reach, and especially since the Action Economy means he can attack twice per Initiative Count.

Other things I noticed that I liked was that they invented a Save category that sits between 3e's Good and Bad, capping out at +9, and that you can only put skill ranks into class skills, which simplifies things significantly.

It's cool how much stuff I was able to pack into a level 1 character: reach 5, and he has the significantly modified version of Power Attack, and the special attack rules have been changed such that Disarm is probably an option for Zinn (but not Trip, since it's an opposed Acrobatics check).

gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 10:38 on Aug 11, 2017

Nuns with Guns
Jul 23, 2010

It's fine.
Don't worry about it.

Kwyndig posted:

You know, I realized something in this insomniac hour of mine. I don't think it's possible to create a balanced point buy system of any sort, but especially Supers. Because going by the archetypical power sets you have Skill Guy, Invulnerable Man, Fast Man, and the Blaster. Fast Man and Invulnerable Man isn't a fair match up, neither is Skill Guy and anybody else without handwaving, and most supers settings have the bad guys follow the same general archetypes (the dark mirror effect), so if Skill Guy fights General Zod he's going to die unless he has some handwavium that neutralizes Zod's powers, and that's just bad storytelling.

I don't know where I'm going with this, but I guess comic book games need to be more narrative or something.

In an ideal world, I assume the balancing mechanism of each superhero archetype is that they'd all excel at their area of expertise even if they couldn't match another archetype in that archetype's expertise. In reality, the areas of expertise aren't given equal mechanical weight or emphasis so yeah you end up with a lot of imbalance in a system that focuses on detailed combat over like, organization-building or social maneuvering. As far as narrative superhero games, Marvel Heroic Roleplaying and Masks trend that way and do it well, though I know a lot of people find MHR a bit too abstracted to be satisfying.

Kwyndig
Sep 23, 2006

Heeeeeey


You know, I backed Masks but I forgot all about it until I got the PDF copy, which I haven't read. I did like Marvel though, it just needed real guidelines for character creation beyond 'lol, make it up or do some random thing', oh and a clearer discussion on the underlying dice probabilities, because there's some tricky math in there with the multiple die types making up a pool and when to use face value versus saccing it for type value on a test. I know a lot of players trip up on that.

dwarf74
Sep 2, 2012



Buglord

drrockso20 posted:

So with D6 Star Wars that marks at least three major systems available for free in a somewhat legal fashion, anyone know of any more besides;

1) D6 Star Wars

2) Marvel TSR

3) Talislanta
Talislanta is the only one of these which is legitimately up for free. The other two, I just don't think anybody has bothered to C&D.

But I can add Powers and Motherfucking Perils to the list, avalon hill's foray into the boxed set rpg world. http://powersandperils.org

I did an F&F for it around, oh, 2012 and it's a wonderfully bizarre game that's very early 80's, with design elements that I've never seen before or since.

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy
Following my idyll musings at work, I also looked at Mutants & Masterminds (2nd Edition) and tried to create a D&D 3.5 level 1 Human Fighter using the point-buy system:

https://pastebin.com/Mznw0uxM

It came out to 35 points, so a power level of between 2 and 3, more likely 4 if we were to obey the stat caps.

Cassa
Jan 29, 2009
Why is it bad handwavium for the skill guy to use his skills to punch above his weight and take out evil speedster?

unseenlibrarian
Jun 4, 2012

There's only one thing in the mountains that leaves a track like this. The creature of legend that roams the Timberline. My people named him Sasquatch. You call him... Bigfoot.

dwarf74 posted:

Talislanta is the only one of these which is legitimately up for free. The other two, I just don't think anybody has bothered to C&D.

But I can add Powers and Motherfucking Perils to the list, avalon hill's foray into the boxed set rpg world. http://powersandperils.org

I did an F&F for it around, oh, 2012 and it's a wonderfully bizarre game that's very early 80's, with design elements that I've never seen before or since.

The Marvel TSR one at least has permission from Wizards. Whether it or the Star Wars D6 one has permission from Disney, on the other hand...

Kwyndig
Sep 23, 2006

Heeeeeey


Cassa posted:

Why is it bad handwavium for the skill guy to use his skills to punch above his weight and take out evil speedster?

It isn't, if he's using his skills. If he's relying on some external weakness (Speedsters can't run over the color purple! for example) then it's bad because the spotlight is on the handwavium, and not the player. Villains shouldn't have power negating weaknesses because your guy isn't very heroic if he just shoots an evil Green Lantern to death with yellow bullets. If you exploit a power draining weakness you take out the sense of struggle because suddenly Extraordinary Villain is just Common Criminal Man, and you probably punched out twenty of those guys on the way in. It becomes punching down instead of punching up.

hyphz
Aug 5, 2003

Number 1 Nerd Tear Farmer 2022.

Keep it up, champ.

Also you're a skeleton warrior now. Kree.
Unlockable Ben

Cassa posted:

Why is it bad handwavium for the skill guy to use his skills to punch above his weight and take out evil speedster?

Because 90%..

No, wait, 100% of RPG systems I've seen don't have very good integration of the skills system with combat. Even if they use the same numbers, any ability to use non-combat skills in combat is 100% handwavium, and that becomes a nightmare in a points buy game as the GM is torn between what makes sense and the fact that in most such games skills are explicitly mundane and have a lower points cost that powers.

Honestly, Delivery Boy Man becomes the perfect example of why superhero tropes have a terrible time of integrating with RP.

dwarf74
Sep 2, 2012



Buglord

unseenlibrarian posted:

The Marvel TSR one at least has permission from Wizards. Whether it or the Star Wars D6 one has permission from Disney, on the other hand...
The 80's were weird, but I have to believe the licensing of Marvel's characters was more complicated than that. I'm not worried about the game system, I'm wondering about the names and likenesses of billion-dollar franchise superheroes :)

Kwyndig
Sep 23, 2006

Heeeeeey


dwarf74 posted:

The 80's were weird, but I have to believe the licensing of Marvel's characters was more complicated than that. I'm not worried about the game system, I'm wondering about the names and likenesses of billion-dollar franchise superheroes :)

Considering MHR stopped because they couldn't afford to pay for those exact same characters. I'm in agreement with you about being concerned.

potatocubed
Jul 26, 2012

*rathian noises*

gradenko_2000 posted:

I tried my hand at creating a FantasyCraft character:

So did I, some time ago:

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3609987&userid=188512#post427288786

I loved that thread an awful lot.

mango sentinel
Jan 5, 2001

by sebmojo

dwarf74 posted:

The 80's were weird, but I have to believe the licensing of Marvel's characters was more complicated than that. I'm not worried about the game system, I'm wondering about the names and likenesses of billion-dollar franchise superheroes :)

Marvel in the 80s was owned by a movie distribution company owned by Roger Corman, I could see them doing dumbshit things. Hell when they got bought by some genius businessman at the end of the 80s, he was the smart guy that licensed the characters to Universal theme parks in perpetuity. Marvel had no idea how to actually manage IP until Disney bought them.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!

gradenko_2000 posted:

I tried my hand at creating a FantasyCraft character:

https://pastebin.com/7yxndBzk

This is Zinn, he's a Giant Soldier, whose character concept is mostly about being large and wielding a large pike. He has Reach 2 just for being a Giant, and then the Pike gives him Reach 4, and then he can enter Monkey Stance to let him wield the pike in a single hand, and then wielding the pike in a single hand increases his Reach again, to 5.

To my chagrin I found that FantasyCraft actually did away with Opportunity Attacks, but this does still mean he can go around attacking people from beyond reach, and especially since the Action Economy means he can attack twice per Initiative Count.

The thing is that when you enter adjacency, you just stop and can't move further save for 5' steps in Fantasy Craft, which is basically their answer to making characters sticky. Bit yeah, strangely it's polearms instead of spears that get an Attack of Opportunity lite in their feat tree. Spears by themselves tend to be about charging in and impaling folks real good, but you can do weird synergy stuff by combining spears, polearms, and staves. There's all sorts of things you can do with reach, but they generally require a bit of shenanigans, like taking the staff feats so you can use the trick that lets you halt people from getting adjacent with a full defense action, and then pick up the Contempt feat to get free attacks against mooks unable to get in sword range.

There was a feat somewhere in one of the Call to Arms supplements that increased your adjacency range to 10', which would also be useful for that sort of thing.

gradenko_2000 posted:

Following my idyll musings at work, I also looked at Mutants & Masterminds (2nd Edition) and tried to create a D&D 3.5 level 1 Human Fighter using the point-buy system:

https://pastebin.com/Mznw0uxM

It came out to 35 points, so a power level of between 2 and 3, more likely 4 if we were to obey the stat caps.

Mutants & Masterminds breaks down at low power levels, IMO, because it ending up being swinginess city when you have d20s and most combat bonuses not going above 4 or 5 or whatever. I think if you're going to do fantasy in M&M, you'd actually want probably around Power Level 8 and possibly less points per Power Level (maybe just 10 or 12 or so), if you're going for like mid-powered high fantasy.

In terms of combat, M&M is relatively well balanced because ideally everybody has their saves and attacks at Power Level and so everybody's numbers end up pretty much the same. The main issues number-wise comes at high levels of tradeoff, since trading accuracy for damage is almost always better, and the same goes with trading away your defenses for toughness. It's not so much better than a small tradeoff will make a huge difference, but a big one can. The improved critical feat is best ignored. Other than that, cheesing combat relies on people layering attacks (by linking a damage attack with a synergistic affliction, for example) or defenses (high regeneration or healing on top of a high toughness, for example).

Outside of combat, balance is a huge mess for reasons that will be obvious. You can also do some very abusive things with alternate powers if you're not stopped. But on a basic numbers level, Mutants & Masterminds isn't too bad.

dwarf74
Sep 2, 2012



Buglord

mango sentinel posted:

Marvel in the 80s was owned by a movie distribution company owned by Roger Corman, I could see them doing dumbshit things. Hell when they got bought by some genius businessman at the end of the 80s, he was the smart guy that licensed the characters to Universal theme parks in perpetuity. Marvel had no idea how to actually manage IP until Disney bought them.
Yeah, I mean, I'm definitely not saying it's impossible. But I also don't really believe that WotC could - for example - start up a brand new print run of the Marvel Superheroes box set.

Oh here we go. Right at the bottom:

"TSR is a registered trademark owned by TSR Inc. TSR inc. is a subsidiary of Wizards of the Coast, Inc., a division of Hasbro, Inc. Names(s) of character(s) and the distinctive likeness(es) thereof are Trademarks and © of Marvel Characters, Inc. and DC Comics, and are used without permission, for educational purposes. This site is NOT a for-profit enterprise, and does not make money. It provides resources to players of a game no longer being produced."

...yeah, they just haven't been C&D'd yet. If you want this stuff, I'd save some local copies.

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Jimbozig
Sep 30, 2003

I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

mango sentinel posted:

Isn't Fragged an incredibly more complicated take on PBTA?
I know this has already been answered, but I want to emphasize just how wrong this is. Fragged is super loving trad when it comes to the non-combat stuff. You have skills and roll against target numbers chosen by the GM, plus they can give you a bonus/penalty for RP, and the results are pass/fail with no fail forward elements at all. There are some "strong hit" effects you can choose which act basically like a critical success system. Looking at just the skills system, Fragged is essentially akin to a d20 game from 15 years ago.

Please don't take this as me bashing Fragged - this is just an honest analysis of one element of a game which has other more important elements.

Serf posted:

Kits are also totally optional, so dropping them is super easy. Having run a game with Kits and a game without, I gotta say I prefer the game without them.
Kits are my biggest regret in Strike! I didn't present them in a way that motivates players to use them or explains why you might want to use them, and as a result everyone skips them. Which is fine, I wanted them to be optional and not for every game. But I was certainly hoping for more uptake then they have seen. I think they are mechanically sound - they aren't broken or anything. But they don't justify their presence.

Alien Rope Burn posted:

I feel like Kits would probably be better replaced with some noncombat Feat system that operates parallel to normal Feat advancement, so you aren't locked into one specific concept.

I know getting locked in is part of the point, but they're effectively very loose Feat trees already.

This is very insightful. Mechanically, they are not much different from a set of noncombat feats and feat trees. Perhaps if I had presented them that way, it would have worked better. Presenting them as being like a non-combat class obviously didn't work.

How mechanics are presented in a game is as important as how they actually work. To present them as a group of feats would require nearly no alteration rules-wise. That's certainly something to think about.

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