Retrocloning 4e: Shouting hands back on

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Retrocloning 4e: Shouting hands back on

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.

Maxwell Lord posted:

So obviously AFTER the 4th contest I get an idea.

Basically I wanna make a Space Opera game that uses a rulesset that's pretty close to a reverse-engineered 4e. Everyone has combat powers and is roughly equal, classes define those combat roles, there are per-battle and per-day abilities, etc. (Part of this is that there are so many dungeon crawling games now and I'm really not interested in writing the hundredth variant on "Elves live in trees.") Have the rules live on in a different skin, basically.

The flavor is pure Star Wars/Flash Gordon/etc. with an emphasis away from the gritty stuff that a lot of sci-fi games focus on. A heavy bias towards mid/late 70s aesthetics (like, Star Wars had a "used" look but it wasn't Alien) and craziness. So obviously SWSE would also be an influence as well as 4E.

One potential issue is that in 4e, classes describe both combat role and much of the flavor, even though you can reskin the latter. (The limiting of skill choices is also a thing though changing that probably wouldn't break anything.) So, for example, I've figured out what a Martial Defender in the game would be- someone like Worf or Chewbacca or Groot who can just wade into combat and shrug off blaster bolts, whether it's because they're a crazy alien or just a Tough Guy. But just "fighter" probably wouldn't be a good descriptor for Chewie, who is also a pilot and does that a lot of the time. Classes in 4e and Saga, as in many other games, are tied to archetypes, and I'm not quite sure where the split the difference between classes and backgrounds/themes.

Starships and such are the other big hurdle. There are many potential approaches/solutions- it's largely a case of just giving everyone something to do if they're all in one ship together, without making it so complex that when a spaceship fight breaks out you're playing an entirely different game.

This is still entirely in the "musings" stage and I've got a few other writing-type projects that will take more time but... thoughts?

You could try Gamma World's method of dividing class into two backgrounds that are merged together during chargen.

# ¿ Aug 16, 2014 21:35

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 18:15

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.

You may wish to clean up that coding a bit.

# ¿ Nov 24, 2014 03:14

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.

Last night, while having 4e chat after a 4e game, I sort of came with an idea. I don't really have the time to expand on it, at the moment, but I'd thought I'd mention it. Somewhat, it's me saying "screw randomness" since -- harking back to an unrelated conversation a year ago about Chess -- strategy and total randomness don't really mix well.

I've never played amber diceless or any diceless game, but my idea basically revolves around static target numbers and pools of points:

pre:

Points: Characters in Souls receive five pools of points. These points are used to increase their competency with actions or add effects.
     Skill points: Can be used on a skill check and refresh per scene.
     Round Points: Can be used on attack checks or -- at the cost of all round points -- use a healing surge and refresh per round.
     Encounter Points: Can be used on attack checks, to add up to X damage, to add encounter effects, and refresh per scene.
     Daily Points: Can be used on attack checks, to add damage, to add daily effects, and refresh per day.
     Action Points: Can be used to gain an extra standard action and refreshes per day. Limited once per round.

These points can be spent "downard." So, you can spend Round, Encounter, and Daily points together on a check. Thing is, they don't refresh at the same time.

The effects are broken down into encounter and daily effects and are bought by their corresponding points. So, you get a list of encounter and daily effects -- some you start with, some you buy with XP -- and you can add them to checks with their corresponding points. Each would have its own cost.

Instead of skills, I borrowed an idea from a friend where you mix backgrounds and skills:

pre:

Backgrounds: Character pick X background at character generation. This background starts at a value of +1. Each background gives a list of skills. 

Skills: Players receive a list of skills from their background. They may distribute X points among these skills.

The core mechanic of the game would be:

(Background + Skill) / Attack Value + Points vs Target Number

What makes it a 4e retroclone would be the fact it would use 4e's tactical combat system, but iterated upon. After all, this change in core mechanics requires a change in math and I might import some ideas from other systems.

Speaking from importing from systems, I'm thinking of adapting the Icon system from 13th Age or something similar. Something to tie them into the setting. It might be relationships or it could be things like actually having holds and keeps like in older games.

Does any of this sound like a good idea?

# ¿ Mar 27, 2015 17:36

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:

Some fan actually did a "4e Modern"

I decided to skim through this without really reading it and I'm kind of confused why there is no Wise Hero and, instead, a Psychic hero. While d20 Modern wasn't such a great idea, in my opinion, since it was attempting to make a generic system out of a class system which was a little roundabout, I don't see how this break from formula helps.

Also, this guy likes naked androids, a lot. Like, an 1/8 of that pdf is naked androids.

# ¿ Jun 1, 2015 22:21

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.

Iny posted:

"Roll twice to hit; if both attack rolls succeed, this attack does 2[W]"?

Doesn't that make the power worse to gimping degree? Like, it increases your likelihood to do nothing with your attack by a lot for not a lot of reward.

Unless it's just a regular hit if only one hits.

# ¿ Oct 19, 2015 13:30

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 18:15

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.

After I made Phoenix Rising for National Game Design Month, I showed it to my friend. He felt I've been sticking too close to the familiar and dared me to try something I never would make otherwise. After all, I don't really have any intention at the moment of selling my NaGaDeMon games.

So, I got to work making a rules heavy game with a big focus on traditional murderhobo adventuring with a heavy focus on combat. Not really familiar territory for me on a design level.

I used 4e as a base to work off of, but changed a lot of the core math assumptions.

The game is Yokai Blade and I'm frustrated with it, a bit. If anyone could look it over and tell me if the base is anything I could work off of, that would be greatly appreciated. Or any other comments, of course.

# ¿ Nov 11, 2015 23:56

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