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Jimbozig
Sep 30, 2003

I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

Leperflesh posted:

This post got really long but I'm an hour late for bed, so my apologies if it's rambling and repetitive, I'm out of time to make it better:


Hey, that was a good post. Thanks! I really like the mechanic you are talking about there. I'm not entirely sure it's a negative feedback mechanic because couldn't players use it even when doing well? I mean, they probably wouldn't, but then you could say that about action points, too, and I'm not sure if call them or any other saveable player resource a negative feedback mechanic. It certainly is a player option to enhance agency, which is absolutely a good thing. And like you said, it doesn't prevent failure, just defers it. Which is cool because the only downside of mechanics that increase player agency is the risk that if you give them too much control over what happens they'll be able to avoid all hardship - and giving the DM a thing they can use to give you hardship later eliminates that risk perfectly. It's a very cool mechanic.


*I don't want to get into what precisely is and isn't negative feedback because it's sometimes just ambiguous. In Strike!, are comeback rolls negative feedback because you should be taken out but have a chance to come back? Or are they positive feedback because you are down but not out of the fight yet and the roll could take you out? It depends on a notion of what it should mean to be sitting at -3HP, when there is no clear default. It's more forgiving than most games but less forgiving than some.

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Heliotrope
Aug 17, 2007

You're fucking subhuman

SunAndSpring posted:

I think it'd be fun when I get more financially stable to make a PbtA game where you're a cultist specifically serving a deity or power of some kind, rather than the Cthulhu Mythos game I'm sure is already out for that system where you're supposed to stop people from doing that nonsense. Feel like I'd have to make a mythos behind it where being a cultist doesn't involve awakening horrid things that drive the world insane via horrific acts of depravity and murder, though, but rather interacting with forces that the mundane powers that be really would rather you not tamper with since it destabilizes their rule. Don't really like games where the protagonists are awful people, and I think most people share that view.

There's a game called Soth which is very close to this. It's a mostly diceless system based off PbtA where the PCs are cultists of a god named Soth who are trying to bring them into the world while trying to conceal what they're doing from everyone else in the American small town they live in. The Keeper gains points of Suspicion based on what the PCs do, and spends that to make moves or have NPCs become Investigators. It takes a lot from Call of Cthulhu obviously, but also a bit from noir fiction. It also has what's possibly my favorite rule in a game: "You can replace the current cult leader with a vote or by murdering them. There's a maximum of one vote per day. There is no maximum number of murder attempts."

It's a short game - it's supposed to be very hard to summon Soth and it's not uncommon for the PCs to fail. If they succeed, then they summon Soth and transform the world for the worse. If you want a longer term game that doesn't cause the end of the world if the PCs win it might be worth taking a look at it for inspirations on being the cultists instead of the people stopping them.

Coolness Averted
Feb 20, 2007

oh don't worry, I can't smell asparagus piss, it's in my DNA

GO HOGG WILD!
🐗🐗🐗🐗🐗

Heliotrope posted:

There's a game called Soth which is very close to this. It's a mostly diceless system based off PbtA where the PCs are cultists of a god named Soth who are trying to bring them into the world while trying to conceal what they're doing from everyone else in the American small town they live in. The Keeper gains points of Suspicion based on what the PCs do, and spends that to make moves or have NPCs become Investigators. It takes a lot from Call of Cthulhu obviously, but also a bit from noir fiction. It also has what's possibly my favorite rule in a game: "You can replace the current cult leader with a vote or by murdering them. There's a maximum of one vote per day. There is no maximum number of murder attempts."

It's a short game - it's supposed to be very hard to summon Soth and it's not uncommon for the PCs to fail. If they succeed, then they summon Soth and transform the world for the worse. If you want a longer term game that doesn't cause the end of the world if the PCs win it might be worth taking a look at it for inspirations on being the cultists instead of the people stopping them.

If you want the cultists not to be bad guys maybe copy some aspects of the owod mage, or nobilis. Reality is shaped by dieties and beliefs. You're just bringing back a god that used to exist or creating a new one. The oceans weren't always salt water and the sun didn't always rise in East and set in the West until other gods and their cults made it so. You could be tweaking or even protecting some aspect of reality by awakening your god.
Like what if your god destroys poverty? Or eliminates famine? You can make that as much of a monkey's paw or actual happily ever after as you'd like.
Hell for an ongoing you go around raising/creating or protecting different deities.

Joe Slowboat
Nov 9, 2016

Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements



If you want 'dangerous but already present and ruling gods, which the politically powerful hide to protect the way the world runs' you should check out the lore in Cultist Simulator, a computer game about being a morally ambiguous Cultist learning things the Suppression Bureau doesn't want you to learn, chasing immortality and a richer experience of life.

You are likely to murder people in CultSim but a friend of mine just succeeded at a pacifist run of the game, so it's entirely possible not to be a murderer or make the world meaningfully worse. You might even improve it by dealing with real, energizing occult powers.

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

Jimbozig posted:

I really like the mechanic you are talking about there. I'm not entirely sure it's a negative feedback mechanic because couldn't players use it even when doing well? I mean, they probably wouldn't, but then you could say that about action points, too, and I'm not sure if call them or any other saveable player resource a negative feedback mechanic. It certainly is a player option to enhance agency, which is absolutely a good thing. And like you said, it doesn't prevent failure, just defers it. Which is cool because the only downside of mechanics that increase player agency is the risk that if you give them too much control over what happens they'll be able to avoid all hardship - and giving the DM a thing they can use to give you hardship later eliminates that risk perfectly. It's a very cool mechanic.

Yeah, negative vs. positive feedback loops probably isn't the best rubrik.

I've glossed over some of the details of the system. Now that I've got the book in front of me, here's a better explanation. This is again pretty long, feel free to skip it if you don't really care much about the details!

Players actually have two spendable resources: Momentum and Fortune points. Characters start adventures with usually 3 Fortune points (reduceable to 2 in exchange for an extra attribute or skill point during character creation) and a maximum of 5. Fortune isn't a shared resource, and is doled out by the GM for succeeding at quests and doing awesome stuff.

Almost everything in the game that involves rolling dice to see if you succeed is conceived as a skill test, including combat and noncombat actions. When you're testing against the environment (opening a lock, doing research, climbing a wall) the GM determines difficulty, although there are extensive guidelines. Difficulty is ranked D0 (simple) through D5 (epic). When you're testing against other characters/NPCs/monsters/etc., you are doing a Struggle, which is a type of opposed check. These still have a Difficulty as well - usually 0, but combat starts at D1 for making an attack or defending against an attack (meaning both sides can experience simultaneous failures).
Characters have seven attributes (agility, awareness, brawn, etc) usually between 6 to 12, with 8 being human average.
Skills have two values: Expertise and Focus. They're generally ranked between 0 and 5, and in most cases (at least right after character creation) a character's Expertise and Focus will be the same number. Having a number above 3 is rare. All of the following discussion uses Focus for tests - Expertise is used to qualify for related Talents, which give characters special capabilities.
You have to take a skill test when the difficulty is D1 or higher (GM may often decide the difficulty of some action is 0, but it's up to the GM whether you skip the roll and automatically succeed, or need to roll anyway (and thus can generate either or both of Momentum and Complications from the roll)).
You roll against a Target Number equal to the attribute your character has that the skill is related to plus any ranks the character has in the skill.
You roll some 20 sided dice. Each die that rolls equal or less than the TN earns a success. If you have Focus in that skill, any of your successes that are equal to or less than your Focus earns you a second success. In Struggles, when one character gets more Momentum than the other, you subtract the loser's from the winner's total and the result determines how well one or the other side won.

So with the default 2d20, a character with at least one rank of Focus in a skill can earn up to a possible four successes on a roll, without spending any additional resources. But with an average character (attribute 8) with one rank of Focus, there's a 35% chance per die of 1 success and 5% chance per die of 2 successes and 60% chance per die of no successes for that die. I should add that there are things that can allow a player to reroll a die.
Any die that comes up a natural 20 triggers a Complication. (If you take a completely unskilled test, rolling only against your unmodified Attribute, you get a Complication on a 19 or 20.) These are inconveniences - temporary setbacks, never injuries or permanent losses. If the GM doesn't immediately think of a Complication, or doesn't want to use one right that moment, they can instead add 2 points of Doom to the Doom pool.
Successes beyond the number you needed to beat the Difficulty generate Momentum, which you can spend immediately or add to the party's Momentum pool.

The GM plays by similar rules; when NPCs suffer a Complication, the players can choose to force the GM to remove 2 Doom from their pool. In both cases, the players and GM are supposed to cooperate to figure out whether to generate Doom or apply a Complication - they're explicitly empowered to "request" one or the other, although the GM makes the final decision if they can't agree or don't want to have a discussion about it right then.

There's five ways to improve your odds beyond the 2d20 default:
  • Create an opportunity - spend 1 Momentum to add another d20
  • Add Doom - if there's not enough Momentum left, you can add 1 point of Doom to the GM's Doom pool to add another d20 to your roll
  • Use Fortune - one of the several things you can do with Fortune points is spend one to add an automatic "1" result d20 to the result. If they have at least 1 rank of Focus in that skill, that means they've generated two successes... and if Fortune spends is enough successes to succeed at the test, the player can opt to not even roll the other dice, thus avoiding the risk of generating any Complications.
  • Expend resources - basically, consumable equipment items that when spent give you extra dice are fairly common in the game. They're typically limited to certain skills, sometimes add additional benefits, and you can't have an unlimited supply.
  • Teamwork and assistance - at the GM's discretion, additional characters can pitch in on a skill test, rolling 1d20 each (up to a max determined by the GM) against skills approved by the GM to be applicable. They can use Fortune but can't use any means to add additional dice. Their dice only count if the leader rolled at least 1 success.

You can't add more than 3 bonus dice to a test, so you generally can't get more than five total dice. Teamwork dice don't count against that total, but realistically a GM is unlikely to let you roll much more than that, because there's limits to how many assistants you can get to help you with a really hard test.

Usually you spend Momentum either to improve your result, or add it to the party pool. The party Momentum pool maxxes out at six points. At the end of each scene or full round in an action scene, the shared momentum pool decreases by 1 point. So you can delay the spend, but not indefinitely; the game wants you to spend it sooner rather than later. This could still be days later if you're not having fights, though... it could make sense to top up the party pool and then hold it as you get through a couple of social scenes against an anticipated difficult combat maybe coming up soon.

Spending Momentum to add dice to a skill test is a mixed bag. You might decide to add dice to an already-easy test, in order to try to generate lots of Momentum, maybe to help out a struggling fellow party member or beat a test more decisively. BUT the more dice you roll, the more likely you are to roll one or more Complications. And often the mechanism to roll more dice has a cost.

The game ensures that Momentum generally isn't wasted. Here's the general list of stuff you can do with it:
  • Create Opportunity (immediate, repeatable): add dice to your pool before rolling a skill test
  • Create Obstacle (immediate, repeatable): increase the Difficulty of an opponent's skill test by one or more, by spending 2 momentum for each rank of Difficulty, but never by more than three ranks of Difficulty.
  • Obtain Information (repeatable): ask the GM a question about the situation, an item, object, structure, creature, etc. present or relevant to the current scene. Generally tied to a skill your character has.
  • Improve Quality of Success (often repeatable): inflict more damage on a hit, help a patient heal faster, hurl a rock farther, etc. Open to GM discretion.
  • Reduce Time Required: pretty self-explanatory. You pick the lock in half the normal time, etc.

Doom also has a bunch of stuff it can do, besides just being spent like the GM's own Momentum to get more dice on a check. At the beginning of the session, the GM starts with Doom equal to the sum of all the characters' Fortune points. The GM is supposed to let the pool grow and shrink during play, but in the final encounter of a play session, all the Doom left in the pool should be spent.

Doom is added to the Doom pool for:
[list][*]Immediate Momentum by players who don't have any Momentum available to spend can add Doom to buy it instead.
[*]Complication - if the GM doesn't have an immediate Complication, add 2 Doom to the pool instead
[*]Reactions - basically the players can add Doom to interrupt the actions of NPCs, at an escalating cost during a given round of combat; 1 for the first Reaction, 2 points for the second, etc.
[*]Voluntary failure: players can intentionally fail a task without rolling dice by paying one Doom into the pool, and also gaining one Fortune point. Nifty!
[*]Threatening Circumstances: Like, the players decide to confront a dangerous sorcerer, or explore the stinking lair of a horrific beast, so the GM adds 1-2 points of Doom to the pool just for the looming risk they've decided to take on.
[*]NPC Momentum - when an NPC gets extra Momentum on a check and doesn't immediately spend it, it goes into the Doom pool.

Doom is spent on too many things to make a detailed list. Complications, ranging from 1 doom for a minor inconvenience, 2 doom for the loss of significant resources or incidental damage or something that takes a standard action to overcome or work around, 4+ doom for a serious complication that persists, needs great effort to work around, takes several actions to overcome, or inflicts serious harm. It can be spent in all the ways PCs spend Momentum from the pool as listed above (improve quality of success, etc.) Remove 2 doom to cancel out a Complication suffered by an NPC. Non-mook NPCs (Toughened or Nemesis in the game's parlance) can spend Doom for Reactions just like the PCs. Instead of tracking ammo or potions or other expendables, NPCs get the benefit of one unit of resource by spending one Doom. (This is a really nice help for being the GM, when designing encounters, by the way!) Some NPCs have special abilities that can only be triggered by spending doom. Allowing a single NPC or Mob or Squad to act in the middle of the player's turn in a round. Summon reinforcements (1 for a minion, 2 for Toughened.) Activating environmental dangers; like, spending a doom to have a nearby fumarole suddenly spurt out steam, make a rickety bridge's rope snap, etc. Environmental effects range from one to maybe three or four doom, and range from minor poo poo like some smoke or the candle blows out (adds one rank to a skill test), to a rock fall that could seriously injure multiple characters for 5-6 doom. Finally, you can spend Doom to divide the group; a number of Doom points equal to the number of characters in the largest of the new groups.


so, tl:dr; Modiphius' 2d20 system, as shown here in the Conan book, is a push-your-luck feedback mechanism that trades off player and GM agency in an economy of benefits and setbacks. The players' ability to mitigate severe danger starts with expendable resources, but then moves into a region of cost where benefit is traded directly against future disadvantage. A short series of terrible die rolls thus don't have to ruin the party's adventure, but similarly, they can't dominate the game for long without ensuring the GM has the tools to severely push back. The GM's preparation ahead of the game leaves open lots of opportunities to adjust to what the players do and how well they do, without resorting to cheating or arbitrary decisions that subvert the game's designed mechanics. Players and the GM can see each other's pools, and are even encouraged to discuss what should happen, explicitly opening avenues for collaborative storytelling in which the players help the GM challenge them. The GM rewards the players' engagement with the game with their best resource (Fortune), and the players intentionally take on interesting setbacks to increase both the GM's Doom and their own Fortune bank.

Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 07:36 on Jan 18, 2019

Nehru the Damaja
May 20, 2005

Has anyone made a good heist rpg? Like you hit all the beats of assemble your crew, case the joint, plan the job, execute, escape, survive the inevitable doublecross? I know about the free game Honey Heist, and I've heard of Fiasco, though a friend I think insists that's all improv and very little game.

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy

Nehru the Damaja posted:

Has anyone made a good heist rpg? Like you hit all the beats of assemble your crew, case the joint, plan the job, execute, escape, survive the inevitable doublecross? I know about the free game Honey Heist, and I've heard of Fiasco, though a friend I think insists that's all improv and very little game.

https://projects.inklesspen.com/fatal-and-friends/gradenko2000/daylight-robbery/

also Blades in the Dark

Kai Tave
Jul 2, 2012
Fallen Rib

Yeah, right now I'd say Blades in the Dark is...I don't know about the best heist game, but it's certainly the one I'd probably point a lot of people towards to start with if that's what they're looking for.

Revitalized
Sep 13, 2007

A free custom title is a free custom title

Lipstick Apathy
Is there a place to trade board games? Board games are kind of expensive to ship so I figure trading them instead of selling them would feel more worth my time.

I have an unopened copy of Dead of Winter I ended up never touching.

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy

Kai Tave posted:

Yeah, right now I'd say Blades in the Dark is...I don't know about the best heist game, but it's certainly the one I'd probably point a lot of people towards to start with if that's what they're looking for.

yeah but I wrote the review of that other one and ... always be pluggin'

remusclaw
Dec 8, 2009

Nehru the Damaja posted:

Has anyone made a good heist rpg? Like you hit all the beats of assemble your crew, case the joint, plan the job, execute, escape, survive the inevitable doublecross? I know about the free game Honey Heist, and I've heard of Fiasco, though a friend I think insists that's all improv and very little game.

I'm pretty sure it's out of print now, but the hotness for that few years back was the "Leverage" Role Playing Game. Yes it was based on the TV series, and apparently, yes it was really good by all accounts.

GimpInBlack
Sep 27, 2012

That's right, kids, take lots of drugs, leave the universe behind, and pilot Enlightenment Voltron out into the cosmos to meet Alien Jesus.

remusclaw posted:

I'm pretty sure it's out of print now, but the hotness for that few years back was the "Leverage" Role Playing Game. Yes it was based on the TV series, and apparently, yes it was really good by all accounts.

Good news! It's still available in PDF and PoD from DrivethruRPG. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/85727/Leverage-Roleplaying-Game?cPath=5451

And yeah, it's really good.

Nehru the Damaja
May 20, 2005

I forgot that was a thing. I was excited to try it a few years back. Thanks for reminding me. And I'll deffo check out Daylight Robbery.

Haystack
Jan 23, 2005





There's also One Last Job

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003
I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!
Hollowpoint is also good (though not every mission has to be a heist). It references the armored car robbery in Heat to explain the ethos behind its rules, which are objective-oriented rather than playing out three-second rounds of combat.

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.
Dusk City Outlaws is pretty focused on one-shots with campaign play being an optional rule, but it's a pretty fun Heist thing in the Locke Lamora vein.

mkultra419
May 4, 2005

Modern Day Alchemist
Pillbug

unseenlibrarian posted:

Dusk City Outlaws is pretty focused on one-shots with campaign play being an optional rule, but it's a pretty fun Heist thing in the Locke Lamora vein.

Seconding this. I got the boxset from the Kickstarter and have run it a couple times. Its a little more board gamey and plays pretty well for groups with board game experience dipping their toes into RPGs.

Zurui
Apr 20, 2005
Even now...



My gaming group is going through a period of schedule upheaval and I want to start running pick-up games. I need a system that has the following characteristics:

- Engaging tactical combat (rules out Basic D&D). Essentially I want to be able to use a map and have it matter.
- Quick character creation (less than 10 minutes, ideally).
- Reasonable levels of character balance (rules out Pathfinder).
- Ability to run a combat encounter in less than an hour (rules out 4e).

Any suggestions?

Lemon-Lime
Aug 6, 2009
#1, #2 and #4 are mostly inherently incompatible. The latter two especially rule out 4E and Fragged Empire which would otherwise be your best bet for #1 and #3.

You could try Panic at the Dojo?

thetoughestbean
Apr 27, 2013

Keep On Shroomin

Zurui posted:

My gaming group is going through a period of schedule upheaval and I want to start running pick-up games. I need a system that has the following characteristics:

- Engaging tactical combat (rules out Basic D&D). Essentially I want to be able to use a map and have it matter.
- Quick character creation (less than 10 minutes, ideally).
- Reasonable levels of character balance (rules out Pathfinder).
- Ability to run a combat encounter in less than an hour (rules out 4e).

Any suggestions?

13th Age for everything that isn’t 2

Tuxedo Catfish
Mar 17, 2007

You've got guts! Come to my village, I'll buy you lunch.
Shadow of the Demon Lord gets you everything except 3, and can make large strides towards 3 by banning Time Magic and anything from the Demon Lord's Companion 2.

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003
I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!
I think the game you want is Let Thrones Beware. Google it, it's free. Another good choice is the sadly OOP Empire of Dust, which has a wonderfully baroque sci-fi/fantasy setting that feels right out of JRPGs.

There are other games (many 4e inspired) that do tactical combat while being fairly rules light, but most of them use abstract range increments instead of a battlemap.

dwarf74
Sep 2, 2012



Buglord

Zurui posted:

My gaming group is going through a period of schedule upheaval and I want to start running pick-up games. I need a system that has the following characteristics:

- Engaging tactical combat (rules out Basic D&D). Essentially I want to be able to use a map and have it matter.
- Quick character creation (less than 10 minutes, ideally).
- Reasonable levels of character balance (rules out Pathfinder).
- Ability to run a combat encounter in less than an hour (rules out 4e).

Any suggestions?
In b4 Arivia complains about someone mentioning Strike!

Jeffrey of YOSPOS
Dec 22, 2005

GET LOSE, YOU CAN'T COMPARE WITH MY POWERS

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

Shadow of the Demon Lord gets you everything except 3, and can make large strides towards 3 by banning Time Magic and anything from the Demon Lord's Companion 2.
This seems closest to me. I'd dispute character creation taking less than 10 minutes though - it might take less than 10 minutes to someone familiar with all the spell schools, but if you aren't rolling for those randomly, there's a lot to look at, even if you're skimming, especially if you want to balance around players picking their spells intelligently. It certainly took me way more than 40 minutes to make choices for 4 level 1 characters, and only two of them used magic.

fool of sound
Oct 10, 2012

Zurui posted:

My gaming group is going through a period of schedule upheaval and I want to start running pick-up games. I need a system that has the following characteristics:

- Engaging tactical combat (rules out Basic D&D). Essentially I want to be able to use a map and have it matter.
- Quick character creation (less than 10 minutes, ideally).
- Reasonable levels of character balance (rules out Pathfinder).
- Ability to run a combat encounter in less than an hour (rules out 4e).

Any suggestions?

Strike! get you most of that. It has good tactical combat and balance. Encounters still are going to take some time but are fairly quick once people get the hang of the system, and character creation is fairly quick, sinec there isn't a tremendous amount of options or customization, though there is some reading. Points 2 and 4 aren't super compatible with 1 though.

dwarf74
Sep 2, 2012



Buglord

Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:

This seems closest to me. I'd dispute character creation taking less than 10 minutes though - it might take less than 10 minutes to someone familiar with all the spell schools, but if you aren't rolling for those randomly, there's a lot to look at, even if you're skimming, especially if you want to balance around players picking their spells intelligently. It certainly took me way more than 40 minutes to make choices for 4 level 1 characters, and only two of them used magic.
Also depends on if you're starting at 0-level.

SotDL complexity ramps up pretty quick, tho. We needed spreadsheets to figure out how many boons/banes our Warriors had.

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

Revitalized posted:

Is there a place to trade board games? Board games are kind of expensive to ship so I figure trading them instead of selling them would feel more worth my time.

I have an unopened copy of Dead of Winter I ended up never touching.

There used to be a board game trading thread in SA-Mart, but it eventually dwindled and died. I'd suggest the general board game thread instead: Board Game Thread 4e: The Call of Catan.

slap me and kiss me
Apr 1, 2008

You best protect ya neck

Halloween Jack posted:

I think the game you want is Let Thrones Beware. Google it, it's free. Another good choice is the sadly OOP Empire of Dust, which has a wonderfully baroque sci-fi/fantasy setting that feels right out of JRPGs.

There are other games (many 4e inspired) that do tactical combat while being fairly rules light, but most of them use abstract range increments instead of a battlemap.

I'm putting this on my fridge.

E: rather than googling, you can just click here to download it from dtrpg

slap me and kiss me fucked around with this message at 05:09 on Jan 19, 2019

Jeffrey of YOSPOS
Dec 22, 2005

GET LOSE, YOU CAN'T COMPARE WITH MY POWERS

dwarf74 posted:

Also depends on if you're starting at 0-level.

SotDL complexity ramps up pretty quick, tho. We needed spreadsheets to figure out how many boons/banes our Warriors had.
Oh that's true, I had counted out level 0. If it's that then it really is just 10 minutes. Levelling up to 1 however, a magician better be prepared to make 4 potentially character-defining spell choices.

Jimbozig
Sep 30, 2003

I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

Zurui posted:

My gaming group is going through a period of schedule upheaval and I want to start running pick-up games. I need a system that has the following characteristics:

- Engaging tactical combat (rules out Basic D&D). Essentially I want to be able to use a map and have it matter.
- Quick character creation (less than 10 minutes, ideally).
- Reasonable levels of character balance (rules out Pathfinder).
- Ability to run a combat encounter in less than an hour (rules out 4e).

Any suggestions?

The only one of those Strike! doesn't hit is chargen in under 10 minutes. I mean, you can do it in under 10 if you know what you are doing, but with first timers it will certainly take longer. However, if you make pregens for the games, that solves that issue. I have a set of 8 or 10 pregens I could send you if you were interested, though they may not fit the setting you want to play in.

Parkreiner
Oct 29, 2011

Halloween Jack posted:

Another good choice is the sadly OOP Empire of Dust, which has a wonderfully baroque sci-fi/fantasy setting that feels right out of JRPGs.

I saw this post after searching for the posts where I sold you on it, ha. The Indie Press Revolution link in there still works, so still available in PDF, and definitely hits all four criteria.

Parkreiner fucked around with this message at 05:14 on Jan 19, 2019

remusclaw
Dec 8, 2009

On the matter of fast character creation for pick up games. I cannot stress enough how much you will help yourself by just using pregens. Yes you have to create or find them yourself, but you don't have to teach 2-5 other people how to do it too, and first creations always take longer than they will later after you have a handle on a game. Use pregens, play a game, if you all like it and want to keep going, then have players create characters.

Having cheat sheets available for rule lookup is great too if you can find them for your game of choice.

drrockso20
May 6, 2013

Has Not Actually Done Cocaine
And some systems just work out best with pregenerated characters in the first place, Mekton Zeta being a prime example of that

Also

Zurui posted:

My gaming group is going through a period of schedule upheaval and I want to start running pick-up games. I need a system that has the following characteristics:

- Engaging tactical combat (rules out Basic D&D). Essentially I want to be able to use a map and have it matter.
- Quick character creation (less than 10 minutes, ideally).
- Reasonable levels of character balance (rules out Pathfinder).
- Ability to run a combat encounter in less than an hour (rules out 4e).

Any suggestions?

Gamma World 7e probably hits pretty close on all of those except maybe point 4

Azran
Sep 3, 2012

And what should one do to be remembered?
Actually, which game has the longest character creation process? I remember someone linking to a giant spreadsheet/character sheet over at the F&F thread a year or so ago, I wish I could remember what game that was. I just find it really funny when games in general get so bloated.

drrockso20
May 6, 2013

Has Not Actually Done Cocaine

Azran posted:

Actually, which game has the longest character creation process? I remember someone linking to a giant spreadsheet/character sheet over at the F&F thread a year or so ago, I wish I could remember what game that was. I just find it really funny when games in general get so bloated.

I imagine HERO system gets pretty drat involved with some of the more complicated thing a you can make with that system

Drone
Aug 22, 2003

Incredible machine
:smug:



Azran posted:

Actually, which game has the longest character creation process? I remember someone linking to a giant spreadsheet/character sheet over at the F&F thread a year or so ago, I wish I could remember what game that was. I just find it really funny when games in general get so bloated.

The longest one I've personally run through is probably Battletech: A Time of War's lifepath system (and then the "optimization" that you have to do as the last step of character creation).

gourdcaptain
Nov 16, 2012

Azran posted:

Actually, which game has the longest character creation process? I remember someone linking to a giant spreadsheet/character sheet over at the F&F thread a year or so ago, I wish I could remember what game that was. I just find it really funny when games in general get so bloated.

I'm guessing it's not the longest, but Battletech: A Time of War has five thousand point chargen where it uses a lifepath system where once you have all the modules award XP to different attributes... you then go and see if it actually gave enough XP in them to buy anything (in non-linear scales for prices for each rank), refund it if it didn't, and spend it somewhere else. It's the longest I've ever spent building a character, and for a game that it turns out handles the fundamental problem of "So what mech do I have" and "How do we fight with mechs" with "I dunno, have your GM wing a value" and "Play the main Battletech game."

Auralsaurus Flex
Aug 3, 2012

Azran posted:

... I remember someone linking to a giant spreadsheet/character sheet over at the F&F thread a year or so ago, I wish I could remember what game that was. ...
I can't attest to the length of their character creation processes, but you might be thinking of Anima: Beyond Fantasy or Eoris Essence, both of which have character sheets that are absolutely bonkers.

Yawgmoth
Sep 10, 2003

This post is cursed!

Azran posted:

Actually, which game has the longest character creation process? I remember someone linking to a giant spreadsheet/character sheet over at the F&F thread a year or so ago, I wish I could remember what game that was. I just find it really funny when games in general get so bloated.
Personally, L5R 4e is the longest for me just because you have loving tertiary derived stats, advantages that alter costs, tons of trap options (like advantages that alter costs :v:) choosing a family/school, and playing literal 20 questions. It all takes time and it stacks up very quickly even when you know what you're doing.

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fool of sound
Oct 10, 2012
HERO is so complicated they've been selling official character builder software for like 15 years.

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