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occamsnailfile posted:In comic books, "street-level" is stuff like Daredevil or Batman, or arguably also Power Man and Iron Fist and Spider-Man--basically heroes who operate at a city-level scale and don't generally have abilities that affect more than the area around them. Not counting Batman's wealth of a small nation of course. They usually fight more localized threats as a result.
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May 10, 2018 03:44
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Halloween Jack posted:Batman is kinda funny because he's street level, but if you actually stat out all his poo poo in a system like M&M he will be god-tier just by virtue of all his contacts and gadgets. And of course if the plot of a Justice League issue needs him to, he'll break out some Space Marine armor that he only ever uses to get in a fistfight with like Grodd or Despero. Congrats, you're Zack Snyder
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May 10, 2018 03:45
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Covok posted:Actually, talking about that 4e game, I'm curious if I'm being unreasonable or if the players being unreasonable on this one aspect. Same player I was talking about, but he's complaining about the fact we're still Level 1. Now, we've only been in a couple of sessions, maybe four, and we've only been in two fights and a skill challenge. The reason being that they stayed in the city and kind of refused some plot threads I kind of thrown at them as I've already mentioned. You end up with a very warped view of how quickly a campaign advances when you can binge an entire actual play podcast over the course of a few days. Campaigns are sloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow.
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May 10, 2018 03:54
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Moriatti posted:I too want a better written sci-if Exalted. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/193253/Emissary Slimnoid posted:Is there any superhero RPG out there that's both good and isn't an overcomplicated mess of mechanics?
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May 10, 2018 03:56
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Also, Session Zero is baked into quite a few games. FATE, Monsterhearts, Fellowship, and Mouse Guard, to name a few.
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May 10, 2018 03:57
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lofi posted:I'm really not convinced tactical combat is compatible with rpgs - there's always one player who doesn't get it, or it takes forever, or something. Honestly, I'm not even sure it should be an aim of rpgs - 'good story' and 'realistic fights' rarely go together. The appeal of a tactical systemin an RPG is that you have something beyond "I attack" in a fight. When I play Strike! and 4e, I consider my powers, but I also consider my environment beyond how it interacts directly with the tactical rules. I ask leading questions sometimes because then I can pull cool stunts! ...Plus, what I really want is a Bioware RPG with X-Com's combat and that video game doesn't exist yet (but Mario Rabbids is close.)
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May 10, 2018 03:59
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Pollyanna posted:You end up with a very warped view of how quickly a campaign advances when you can binge an entire actual play podcast over the course of a few days. Campaigns are sloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow. do campaigns need to be slow tho if you leveled up every other session that's still 60 sessions of 4e
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May 10, 2018 03:59
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Moriatti posted:The appeal of a tactical systemin an RPG is that you have something beyond "I attack" in a fight. I understand the appeal, but I think it might be an impossible goal - balancing one-vs-many and accounting for that one friend who sucks at this and varied fights and varied party composition and so on seems beyond the scope of any real system.
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May 10, 2018 04:06
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Pollyanna posted:I’m really not sure about grid-based tactical combat as a tabletop RPG thing. If you want to create characters that move across a predefined board with a bunch of math and a game that’s 90% crunchy mechanics, just play a video game. It’ll be less work. It depends on how granular combat becomes and how many options are available at any given time. A big issue you see with 4e D&D is that as players progress in levels they start getting tons of abilities that can interrupt the combat turn and slow everyone down while they roll dice and numbers get rejiggered again. Even just the larger and larger pile of at-will/encounter/daily powers can make players hem and haw at the table. Games that come out of 4e like 13th age cut down on the overall list of powers and interrupts and such to mitigate that, and it does help a lot. They also tend to scale down from 5ft square grids to more abstracted zones. Fragged Empire manages to be pretty tactical (drawing XCOM comparisons here before, even) without the same sort of drag that hits mid/late level 4e fights, too.
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May 10, 2018 04:10
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lofi posted:I understand the appeal, but I think it might be an impossible goal - balancing one-vs-many and accounting for that one friend who sucks at this and varied fights and varied party composition and so on seems beyond the scope of any real system. why are you assuming every table will have 'that one friend'? this is like saying story-focused games can't work because there will always be one guy who just wants to kill monsters
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May 10, 2018 04:10
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Pollyanna posted:You end up with a very warped view of how quickly a campaign advances when you can binge an entire actual play podcast over the course of a few days. Campaigns are sloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow. I suppose that could be it. I gave them XP as the monsters told them to and they were put into very challenging fights. They actually lost their first one but that's because they didn't have a Defender. We quickly amended that by inviting another player. But they did actually get quite a bit of the XP. There at like 700-800 and just need like 200 more to advance. Two fights and the skill challenge should make sense because that's three encounters so one more should take them over the top to the next level. Brother Entropy posted:do campaigns need to be slow tho The problem with that is now we're talkin a game where 1/2 of the party have never played a role playing game before and one half has never played 4e before and don't know how it's played. If they level every session, it'd be a nightmare. Funny enough, the player who complains about the XP and refuses to take the plot threads and all that stuff, he knew a lot about 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons which ended up making character generation a lot harder. Because he kept expecting things that just weren't the case anymore like nine alignments and spells per day and all that jazz. Actually, saying it out loud, he probably just knows about 5th edition because of all the podcast they keep putting out. Still, that actually made things harder than it was for the guy who never played before and just accepted everything wholesale. Though, the person who was absolutely new was devastated by our session zero because he didn't understand what sessions zeros were because he really want to play. And that was sad. Honestly, I think I may have made a bad choice with 4e when I had two new players. I chose it because I had the physical books and I actually really want to run it and I actually am having fun playing it. I think I should have gone for a lighter narrative game first.
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May 10, 2018 04:10
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lofi posted:I understand the appeal, but I think it might be an impossible goal - balancing one-vs-many and accounting for that one friend who sucks at this and varied fights and varied party composition and so on seems beyond the scope of any real system. You don't need to include your tactically-inept friend in your 4e campaign, you can play a different RPG with them
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May 10, 2018 04:11
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Covok posted:Honestly, I think I may have made a bad choice with 4e when I had two new players. yeah i was about to say 'why are you playing 4e if the newbies are getting bogged down and the 3.x grog keeps wanting it to be not 4e' get some fellowship in your life imo
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May 10, 2018 04:13
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Brother Entropy posted:yeah i was about to say 'why are you playing 4e if the newbies are getting bogged down and the 3.x grog keeps wanting it to be not 4e' Like I said, it's probably a 5e grog. Also, if it's probably too late to shift gears because everyone is enjoying things when I asked. And starting over now would just make everyone quit. Especially since one player only signed up because we're doing Eberron.
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May 10, 2018 04:14
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I'd start with gamma world if I wanted to build a 4e group.
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May 10, 2018 04:16
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Honestly I’d be kinda irritated if I was still at level 1 four sessions in. IMO leveling up quickly early on is a good thing; customization helps people get invested in their characters.
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May 10, 2018 04:17
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Revisiting Ryuutama, I was worried for a moment when one of my PCs hit a hobnekogoblin in the head with the butt of a fish spear, but then they helped her reconcile with her boyfriend over honey cake and it ended in the two of them getting engaged.
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May 10, 2018 04:18
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Babylon Astronaut posted:I'd start with gamma world if I wanted to build a 4e group. Actually do own that box. But, yeah, I didn't think it be a big deal. I wanted to run 4e, my friend wanted the game to be a live game, so I texted a friend from my old job, a friend from high school, and a friend from college. Also, this has been an experience of the different people I've been over my life. Because my friend from high school never really changed so I'm remembering how I was in high school through him, same thing with college, same thing with my old job, and is really startling how much I've changed over the years.
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May 10, 2018 04:19
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Covok posted:Like I said, it's probably a 5e grog. Also, if it's probably too late to shift gears because everyone is enjoying things when I asked. And starting over now would just make everyone quit. Especially since one player only signed up because we're doing Eberron. hmm, well if it's 4e and eberron you should ditch those busters and run it for us goons
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May 10, 2018 04:23
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Brother Entropy posted:hmm, well if it's 4e and eberron you should ditch those busters and run it for us goons Tried. PBP 4e take too long and then people vanish from the game and then everything dies.
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May 10, 2018 04:25
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That's 95% of pbp games anyhow
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May 10, 2018 04:32
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Brother Entropy posted:hmm, well if it's 4e and eberron you should ditch those busters and run it for us goons EDIT: lofi posted:I understand the appeal, but I think it might be an impossible goal - balancing one-vs-many and accounting for that one friend who sucks at this and varied fights and varied party composition and so on seems beyond the scope of any real system. OH! Yeah, I either don't run with that group or give them an essentials class.
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May 10, 2018 04:40
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lofi posted:I was so disappointed by Strike, it was sold as a cure-all to D&D, but it turns out that '4e with less poo poo' is still 4e. Kinda the opposite of my opinion where I feel an RPG system needs good combat because the overwhelming majority of players(and GM's for that matter) in my experience are completely incapable of any actual Role-playing, so the majority of my enjoyment in most campaigns I've been in are from character building and combat Also most super rules light "Storytelling" games are just completely incomprehensible to me, like last time I tried reading through a copy of FATE I couldn't understand any of it and just got a headache for my efforts lofi posted:Linear arrows, quadratic thors? Maybe D&D has been perfect for supers all along! One of my favorite Superhero systems actually is D&D derived, look up Hideouts & Hoodlums
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May 10, 2018 04:44
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drrockso20 posted:Kinda the opposite of my opinion where I feel an RPG system needs good combat because the overwhelming majority of players(and GM's for that matter) in my experience are completely incapable of any actual Role-playing, so the majority of my enjoyment in most campaigns I've been in are from character building and combat Not trying to be that guy, but FATE is more like a rules medium game.
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May 10, 2018 04:49
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Pollyanna posted:I’m really not sure about grid-based tactical combat as a tabletop RPG thing. If you want to create characters that move across a predefined board with a bunch of math and a game that’s 90% crunchy mechanics, just play a video game. It’ll be less work. the problem with this is that you don't have any control over the plot and the theme
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May 10, 2018 04:49
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Covok posted:Not trying to be that guy, but FATE is more like a rules medium game. We might have different meanings for what is rules light or not, like I consider most D&D variants to be Rules Medium for example
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May 10, 2018 04:52
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A fully computerized combat program that tracked actions and movement and stuff would be pretty cool, though I imagine most tables are unable or unwilling to have a pc in front of each player. If you're going to have complicated, grid-based combat game, then a dynamic interface displaying powers, ranges, and the battlefield could speed things up a lot. It's still a big burden for the DM but it'd definitely be a step up from what roll20 provides.
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May 10, 2018 04:57
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:A fully computerized combat program that tracked actions and movement and stuff would be pretty cool, though I imagine most tables are unable or unwilling to have a pc in front of each player. If you're going to have complicated, grid-based combat game, then a dynamic interface displaying powers, ranges, and the battlefield could speed things up a lot. It's still a big burden for the DM but it'd definitely be a step up from what roll20 provides. I'm very blessed to be in groups where everyone uses roll20 macros to maximize their turn-taking potential.
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May 10, 2018 05:08
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I feel the need to point out that if anything is XCOM, it's Fragged Empire.
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May 10, 2018 05:13
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gradenko_2000 posted:I'm very blessed to be in groups where everyone uses roll20 macros to maximize their turn-taking potential. 5etools has a roll20 addon baked in that lets you generate token actions for monster abilities and saves and stuff and import them automatically...hope it doesn't get me banned.
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May 10, 2018 05:26
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On a totally different topic, has anyone had a look at the alpha rules for the Pillars of Eternity tabletop RPG that recently went to backers of Pillars 2? I haven't had a chance to have a good look, but it's seems like a weire hybrid of D&D and Burning Wheel (BW is explicitly referred to at one point, but the influence is obvious), using 2d10. I'm not sure it's a totally comfortable fit. I also can't find a clear explanation of the out-of-combat resolution procedure, which seems like an issue.
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May 10, 2018 07:03
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ProfessorCirno posted:I feel the need to point out that if anything is XCOM, it's Fragged Empire.
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May 10, 2018 07:34
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Covok posted:Actually, talking about that 4e game, I'm curious if I'm being unreasonable or if the players being unreasonable on this one aspect. Same player I was talking about, but he's complaining about the fact we're still Level 1. Now, we've only been in a couple of sessions, maybe four, and we've only been in two fights and a skill challenge. The reason being that they stayed in the city and kind of refused some plot threads I kind of thrown at them as I've already mentioned. - it plays much better if you don't have that notion in your head that you're eventually gonna hit level 30. To be perfectly honest, you probably won't anyway. In my game I only managed it because we started levelling after every session after Lv20, and we mostly did it for the sake of saying we made it to 30, and it kinda sucked. - levelling strictly by XP rules works, but the game kind of assumes you also give out XP for quests and stuff. When I ran Gardmore Abbey strictly with XP and using only the guidelines provided, my group levelled roughly after every other session. Once they gained a level and additional XP to take them halfway to the next, so they gained another one right after the next session. It was a good pace. (But keep in mind we're talking about ~6-7 hour sessions here.) - neither "XP for encounters" nor "XP for quests" work if your players just don't engage with the game and do stuff but that's really a different problem - all that being said, four sessions on level 1 is kind of a long time, I'd throw them a bone and let them get to level 2 soon-ish. Once they feel like they gained something, they might start actively working towards getting more. The first fix is free, and all that. Think of level 1 as the tutorial section in a video game. - you're supposed to level after ten fights, four or five is how many there are supposed to be between long rests. Again, quest XP are supposed to make up a certain proportion of that.
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May 10, 2018 09:18
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Covok posted:Tried. PBP 4e take too long and then people vanish from the game and then everything dies. Nuns with Guns posted:That's 95% of pbp games anyhow Completely and utterly unrelated to this, my X-Men game has been running for 220 days now. It's no Blackbird Dreaming, but I think that might be at least a personal best 
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May 10, 2018 11:08
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Pollyanna posted:I’m really not sure about grid-based tactical combat as a tabletop RPG thing. If you want to create characters that move across a predefined board with a bunch of math and a game that’s 90% crunchy mechanics, just play a video game. It’ll be less work. most of the games i've run have had tactical grid-based combat and they've all ruled. just gather up some willing folks who are into it, understand that the combats will be the centerpiece of some sessions, and run the drat thing also newbies aren't going to have a problem with tactical games. my first experience with tabletop RPGs was all-newbies including myself playing 4e and it went incredibly smoothly. also it turns out if you don't know to divide the xp earned among the crew and award it to everyone you level up very fast!
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May 10, 2018 11:32
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Nuns with Guns posted:Revisiting Ryuutama, I was worried for a moment when one of my PCs hit a hobnekogoblin in the head with the butt of a fish spear, but then they helped her reconcile with her boyfriend over honey cake and it ended in the two of them getting engaged. You should try Golden Sky Stories as well at some point. It’s pretty much peak feel-good RP. ... plus we need more GSS games here. It’s great but the only guy who runs it keeps ditching the threads without warning.
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May 10, 2018 13:23
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drrockso20 posted:Also most super rules light "Storytelling" games are just completely incomprehensible to me, like last time I tried reading through a copy of FATE I couldn't understand any of it and just got a headache for my efforts You have a bunch of numbers that make up much of your sheet. If you want to do a thing, roll the funny dice and add the appropriate number. You also have a number of character descriptors. These are free-form, and can be anything from "is a goblin" to "for peace, justice, and apple pie". You also have a pool of points. These are called FATE points. By default you get 10 per session. At any point you can spend one of your points and explain why one if your character descriptors or a piece of scene description is helpful to what you're doing and get +2 to your roll. "Hand me that form, I'm a Tenured Professor. Bureaucracy is my lifeblood." "I'm an Inherently Logic Race, and everyone knows we don't lie. Wink." "Danger Is Literally My Middle Name" *backflips out the window* You can also use points to make declarations about what's going on. A rule of thumb is that these declarations are in genre and plausible, if unlikely. The password is on a piece of paper under the keyboard, or of course you brought a silvered weapon, or hey, isn't that guard the guy you helped at the market earlier, or oh dear, looks like the fire is heading towards the death ray. The GM can bribe you with points to have one of your descriptors add a complication to the scene, such as automatically failing a roll or acting unoptimally. If you acquiesce, you get a fate point. If you choose to nut up and push through you pay a fate point. You can also self compel, which is using one of your descriptors as inspiration to voluntarily fail something or do something that directly negatively impacts you, personally. Again, free fate point. In some FATE derived games you can buy powerful character abilities at the cost of your refresh (how many points you get per session). Jimmy Olsen is just a dude, but 10 fate points and "has been working in news since he was, like, 6" opens a lot of doors. Superman can fly, shoot lasers out his eyes, and see through walls... but he's only got one refresh and will cave to every GM compel he can for those sweet, sweet fate points. Splicer fucked around with this message at 13:30 on May 10, 2018 |
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May 10, 2018 13:27
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With 4e, either use the 'You level up whenever the GM decides it' rule or be generous with the roleplaying XP, sidequests and bonuses. I've gotten into the habit of regularly peppering the PCs with little experience rewards for memorable roleplaying moments, completing personal or group objectives, and full XP for bypassing an encounter. (playing online helps) Means the experience tracking sheet is also a bit of a summary of the session, nice to take a trip down memory lane. I've gotten some weird ideas for a superhero RPG system. It originated years ago with the idea of a system with three 'HP' stats; Damage (physical injuries/damage), Energy (stamina and, well, energy) and Morale (willpower, psychological strength and mental stability). The core idea being that superheroes can generally take a hell of a beating, but they're also huge, huge drama queens. (Is there a 'rambling about our half-baked RPG ideas' thread? I'd probably fill it) Actually got a bit of a theme of trio stats; character abilities starting with Extraordinary Skills (with Mundane Skills being related but separate), Special Equipment and Inherent Powers, and a reputation system inspired a little by Fallout New Vegas, with Fame, Infamy and Respect. (how much people like you, hate you, and think you're good at what you do. Inspired by celebrity reputations. "Hero or Menace?" is definitely a possible result)
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May 10, 2018 13:44
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Ghost Leviathan posted:I've gotten some weird ideas for a superhero RPG system. It originated years ago with the idea of a system with three 'HP' stats; Damage (physical injuries/damage), Energy (stamina and, well, energy) and Morale (willpower, psychological strength and mental stability). The core idea being that superheroes can generally take a hell of a beating, but they're also huge, huge drama queens. MHR/Cortex has something like this already; separate stress tracks for Physical, Mental, or Emotional Stress
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May 10, 2018 13:49
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Covok posted:I suppose that could be it. I gave them XP as the monsters told them to and they were put into very challenging fights. They actually lost their first one but that's because they didn't have a Defender. We quickly amended that by inviting another player. But they did actually get quite a bit of the XP. There at like 700-800 and just need like 200 more to advance. Two fights and the skill challenge should make sense because that's three encounters so one more should take them over the top to the next level.
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May 10, 2018 13:59
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