TG July Chat Thread: Practical Transhumanist Roleplaying

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > TG July Chat Thread: Practical Transhumanist Roleplaying

«‹›21 »

fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

occamsnailfile posted:

How would one potentially go about buffing those to balance them out? I haven't read the rules closely yet but my book is coming and I am excite.

For Everyday Hero I'd probably upgrade their Improvised Weapon Mastery to +2, like Versatile Master, and also give it the Signature Weapon effect (+3 damage). Maybe throw in Battle Scavenge I to let them use their central gimmick with Guns too. That'll bring their initial output up to snuff, and they have good enough Schtick availability that they can keep up once the game starts rolling so long as they don't have to play catch-up first.

Supernatural Creature is harder. It doesn't have a clear central theme (maybe 'hard hitting tank'?), and it's not particularly good at much between it's low attack skill and lack of any sort of abilities to take advantage of. Regeneration isn't a substantial amount of tankiness either. It's damage is moderately high, but not spectacular, and it's not enough to make up for it's mediocre Schticks. You'd probably be better off reflavoring another archetype or making your own for a more specific kind of supernatural creature than try to fix the existing one.

# ? Jul 29, 2015 22:34

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 12, 2024 23:58

LongDarkNight: Oct 25, 2010; It's like watching the collapse of Western civilization in fast forward.; Oven Wrangler

Evil Mastermind posted:

That's the fighter.

It must be 5 pages long in the original German.

# ? Jul 29, 2015 22:35

drrockso20: May 6, 2013; Has Not Actually Done Cocaine

LongDarkNight posted:

It must be 5 pages long in the original German.

I imagine reading it out loud would sound like a very odd speech from Hitler

Though really I'm pretty interested in seeing Dark Eye come to the States, now if we could only get that setting that that Scandanavian BRP clone uses brought here as well and I'd be a very happy camper

# ? Jul 29, 2015 23:26

Gravy Train Robber: Sep 15, 2007; by zen death robot

There are a ton of CRPG games using this system, and I've tried playing a few that I've randomly received in bundles and once again had my eyes just glaze over looking at all the stats and categories and skills. I'm starting to get to the point in my life where instead of being intrigued by a puzzle like that I instead start thinking I just don't have the time or inclination to even attempt it. And especially not for what is yet another medieval fantasy game.

The one I remember most recently was something called Blackguards, and I played for maybe half an hour before deciding I didn't feel like wasting any more time with it.

# ? Jul 30, 2015 00:12

Tulpa: Aug 8, 2014

Blackguards is basically just the combat system of The Dark Eye put into videogame form.

Notably, every single videogame conversion of the rules features a 'pick a character template and don't worry about the sub-sub-stats' character creation that is almost always recommended over trying to learn how the rules work.

The best videogame to use DSA rules was Realms of Arkania: Star Trail, but the things that are good about it had nothing to do with the basic mechanics it used.

Darklands is completely unrelated and is a game set in Germany, not a German game. It's actually co-designed by Sandy Petersen of Chaosium fame.

# ? Jul 30, 2015 00:42

Maxwell Lord: Dec 12, 2008; I am drowning.
There is no sign of land.
You are coming down with me, hand in unlovable hand.

And I hope you die.

I hope we both die.; Grimey Drawer

My Lovely Horse posted:

Every last stitch.

Ah, the Patrick Stewart PrC.

# ? Jul 30, 2015 06:12

My Lovely Horse: Aug 21, 2010

Going through some DSA quickstart rules, just so I'm not talking out of my rear end all the time. Really it seems to be a servicable system that's bogged down by overly complex task resolution mechanics. What bugs me most is the tone of the entire thing. It's almost unbearably folksy and twee, full of stuff that encourages immersion and verisimilitude in the most grognardy way.

Evil Mastermind posted:

Some mechanics and other bits that struck me, in no particular order. And this might not all 100% apply to the stat block, since I assume they'd be translating the latest edition, which they're only working on at the moment.

- Basic mechanic: roll below your ability score on a d20. Simple enough. There are modifiers where you have to add to your roll or get to subtract from it.
- But then there's skills. Each skill is associated with three ability scores, and you roll for each one separately. Your points in a particular skill serve as a pool you can draw on to modify rolls. There are situational modifiers here as well, and they're applied to your pool before anything is rolled.
- On the other hand, it does tell you to only roll when things actually depend on the roll.

- It doesn't look like positioning or movement factor in in combat at all. At least not in the quickstart rules. I'm sure I'm missing something because there are ranged weapons and stuff, but I do kind of dig the idea. Seems it would make for quick combat scenes.
- Just so they're not too quick, in combat everyone gets to roll an attack, and the target gets to defend. To actually damage an enemy, you have to succeed in your attack, and the target has to fail its defense. And even then damage gets reduced by your armor. I remember reading about this in the 90s and even then the general sentiment was that it made combat go terribly slow. (You don't get to defend against ranged attacks, by the way.)
- There's got to be more to combat. I'm seeing references to weapon categories all over the place and those have to do something, but I guess that's what you get with quickstart rules.

- Hit points are categorically, expressly and exclusively your state of physical health.

- Magic. Okay. Each spell costs MP. You also make a roll to cast a spell. If you fail, nothing happens, and you lose half the MP the spell costs. A creature's magic resistance serves as a situational modifier as with skills. Casting takes some time - 1 or 2 rounds for most spells in the quickstart, but there's one with 4 and one that takes 5 minutes. Apparently you roll after that period, so you might just waste a few rounds. Oh, and what's the roll based on? Three ability scores, specific to any given spell, just like skills.
- Spells in the quickstart are pretty basic. Give yourself some magic armor, heal HP (that's the 5 minute one), blind enemies, increase ranged hit chance, damage, sleep, silence...
- One thing I do like: the one damage spell is pretty high damage, but also costs as much MP as it deals damage. Same with the healing one.
- The spell names are all super weird and Harry Potter-like and each spell has a strictly defined gesture and I strongly suspect your run-of-the-mill DSA groups makes the wizard players say the spell names out loud and do the gesture.
- Corroborating evidence: the silence spell has the drawback that the party can't talk to each other while in its area of effect, and it explicitly tells the DM to make the players use sign language while it's active.

The quickstart comes with a short adventure. There are parts of that I actually rather like. That doesn't include the full half page of read aloud text, but for example monsters are incredibly simple. Basic stats, one attack, that's it. The main antagonist gets as much description as the central NPC. And it's not very railroady at all; you're given setups, and some common ways things could play out with suggestions on how to handle them, but how things really go down is very player-determined. Fitting for a system where combat is obviously not the main focus and you're encouraged to find your own ways around obstacles.

The full frontal spell isn't in this. I'm left with a vague feeling of disappointment.

# ? Jul 30, 2015 09:33

Goa Tse-tung: Feb 11, 2008; ;3; Yams Fan

Melee combat really will take an eternity. In my experience (played 20 years ago) groups tend to quickly adept a Harnworld approach to tactics: everybody has a ranged weapon, ambushes and alpha strikes are a key to victory.

# ? Jul 30, 2015 10:59

frankenfreak: Feb 16, 2007; I SCORED 85% ON A QUIZ ABOUT MONDAY NIGHT RAW AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY TEXT

#bastionboogerbrigade

Evil Mastermind posted:

That's the fighter.

It will always be funny how the current edition shows that someone in the author team has read GURPS after years of being stuck in its own bubble (after starting off with a D&D clone like everyone in the 80s).

Covok posted:

I really hope Spheres are some magical artifact integral to the setting and not how well you know round objects.

Spheres are the planes of existence. They're called spheres because they're layered "like an onion" from the orderly foundation of the first sphere, the mortal realm of the third, the Gods' fortress in the fourth, all the way to the seventh, the Netherhells.

LongDarkNight posted:

It must be 5 pages long in the original German.

4 for mundane characters, 7 for spellcasters http://www.ulisses-spiele.de/download/559/Wege-der-Helden_Heldendokument-edit_20b4.pdf

My Lovely Horse posted:

- Basic mechanic: roll below your ability score on a d20. Simple enough. There are modifiers where you have to add to your roll or get to subtract from it.
- But then there's skills. Each skill is associated with three ability scores, and you roll for each one separately. Your points in a particular skill serve as a pool you can draw on to modify rolls. There are situational modifiers here as well, and they're applied to your pool before anything is rolled.
- On the other hand, it does tell you to only roll when things actually depend on the roll.

The skill roll(s) are a loving slog at the table, let me tell you, and cutting down on how often you make skill rolls is more than good advice.

On the other hand, since you're using your skill points to reduce your die roll when you roll over on a one of the ability checks, the left over points are a good measure of how well you did. I've already handled it that way forever and apparently it was a popular houserule since it made its way into the current edition.

quote:

- It doesn't look like positioning or movement factor in in combat at all. At least not in the quickstart rules. I'm sure I'm missing something because there are ranged weapons and stuff, but I do kind of dig the idea. Seems it would make for quick combat scenes.
- Just so they're not too quick, in combat everyone gets to roll an attack, and the target gets to defend. To actually damage an enemy, you have to succeed in your attack, and the target has to fail its defense. And even then damage gets reduced by your armor. I remember reading about this in the 90s and even then the general sentiment was that it made combat go terribly slow. (You don't get to defend against ranged attacks, by the way.)
- There's got to be more to combat. I'm seeing references to weapon categories all over the place and those have to do something, but I guess that's what you get with quickstart rules.

Positioning is, from my recollection (it's been a while since I actually played the game), an optional rule and only covers the range between two combatants for melee combat (hand-to-hand, regular melee/an arm's length, polearm/I can hit you, but you can't hit me). Actual distance only matters for ranged combat/spells. A grid hasn't been part of the rules since the 80s.

Weapon categories matter since you have different skills in each, so your combat stats depend on the weapon you're using. (Look at the Combat Techniques listing in the example character sheet. Some of the Special Abilities are also limited by what weapon category you can use them with.

quote:

- Hit points are categorically, expressly and exclusively your state of physical health.

There's a separate pool of stamina points AND an additional fatigue mechanic, too.

quote:

- The spell names are all super weird and Harry Potter-like and each spell has a strictly defined gesture and I strongly suspect your run-of-the-mill DSA groups makes the wizard players say the spell names out loud and do the gesture.
- Corroborating evidence: the silence spell has the drawback that the party can't talk to each other while in its area of effect, and it explicitly tells the DM to make the players use sign language while it's active.

They've always tried to push that, but the novelty wears thin quickly. Some gestures are idiosyncratic enough to serve as a shorthand, though: "Mage, it's your turn. What do you do?" *Mage shakes fist* "Ah, yes, Horriphobus, go ahead and roll."

The Real Foogla posted:

Melee combat really will take an eternity. In my experience (played 20 years ago) groups tend to quickly adept a Harnworld approach to tactics: everybody has a ranged weapon, ambushes and alpha strikes are a key to victory.

I've only played a bit of the current edition, but it's still a slow slog. Several separate 1vs1s will take hours, so ganging up on one enemy at a time is a tried and proven strategy (since you can only parry/dodge once per round).

# ? Jul 30, 2015 13:24

ProfessorCirno: Feb 17, 2011; The strongest! The smartest!
The rightest!

That the big number one German ttg is the equivalent of Fantasy Truck Driver Sim is 1000% fitting, I think.

# ? Jul 30, 2015 15:43

Siivola: Dec 23, 2012

This is making me wonder what the favourite RPG of France is.

# ? Jul 30, 2015 15:53

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

ProfessorCirno posted:

That the big number one German ttg is the equivalent of Fantasy Truck Driver Sim is 1000% fitting, I think.

But is there a TRPG equivalent of Euro Truck Simulator???

EDIT: Now I'm wondering if Car Wars' rules are actually realistic enough that you could pull of a normal days driving through an autobahn heading for the Ausfahrt

# ? Jul 30, 2015 16:03

Potsticker: Jan 14, 2006

Siivola posted:

This is making me wonder what the favourite RPG of France is.

The only RPG out of France I've seen is Cadwallon and it is absolutely one of my favorite TRPGs ever.

If you're familiar with Battlestations, where every action is gameified to make the whole thing more like a board game, that's basically Cadwallon. Even social interactions and it is fantastic.

# ? Jul 30, 2015 16:47

My Lovely Horse: Aug 21, 2010

I'm slowly realizing just how much of DSA the most groggy two of my gaming buddies straight up copied for their homebrew system. Too many ability scores, skills governed by several abilities, attack vs. defense rolls, damage reducing armor, roll to see if you do anything or waste your turn, it's all there. And I didn't like it back then either!

Funny thing is, according to wikipedia, the whole system came about when one publisher didn't want to pay the licensing fee for D&D but wanted to get into the RPG market and asked some folks from the local nerd circles to write one, and they pretty much dumped their existing homebrew setting and rules into a presentation file. Among them was the actual translator of D&D.

# ? Jul 30, 2015 17:01

long-ass nips Diane: Dec 13, 2010; Breathe.

I think Shadows of Esteren comes out of France, it's alright.

# ? Jul 30, 2015 17:32

Potsticker: Jan 14, 2006

I'm a little surprised to see neither has recieved a F&F writeup. Battlestations at least.I figured was popular enough. It toes the line between RPG and Boardgame, but I'd certainly put it more of the former as compared to the likes of say Warhammer Quest and Descent.

# ? Jul 30, 2015 18:28

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

I'm really, really hoping this won't suck.

# ? Jul 30, 2015 20:33

Serf: May 5, 2011

If nothing else, that art is fantastic.

# ? Jul 30, 2015 20:53

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.

Evil Mastermind posted:

I'm really, really hoping this won't suck.

Let me answer this question for you in the least cynical way possible: have the devs admitted the original game was flawed, correctly identified it's problems, and mentioned sample solutions that actually sound like they will solve the problems or suggest a new system that sounds like it will solve the problem? Then, did they have previews that suggest that they are implementing them well?

Until then, it's an unknown.

# ? Jul 30, 2015 20:56

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Evil Mastermind posted:

I'm really, really hoping this won't suck.

Is there indication that your whole party can look like that and won't all turn into people who look like one or the other aesthetic when they go to that place's homeland?

Because the inability to ride a T-rex into the CyberVatican alone put the fork in Torg, let along the insane mechanics, as far as I'm concerned.

# ? Jul 30, 2015 21:00

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

Covok posted:

Let me answer this question for you in the least cynical way possible: have the devs admitted the original game was flawed, correctly identified it's problems, and mentioned sample solutions that actually sound like they will solve the problems or suggest a new system that sounds like it will solve the problem? Then, did they have previews that suggest that they are implementing them well?

Until then, it's an unknown.

They haven't released any hard facts yet (the official official announcement is sometime this weekend), but people on the project have stated that the new system will be streamlined from the original version.

e: also I'm trying to remain positive because I want this to be good so badly. "A new version of Torg with better mechanics" is tied with "an official Buckaroo Banzai RPG that doesn't suck" as my top RPG desires.

God I'm going to have my heart broken again, aren't I? :smithicide:

Evil Mastermind fucked around with this message at 21:11 on Jul 30, 2015

# ? Jul 30, 2015 21:09

Serf: May 5, 2011

Much like alignment, the disconnect mechanic from Torg is pretty stupid and I'd ignore it if I ever (gods forbid) ran the game. It seems like half the appeal of a kitchen-sink setting is, y'know, the actual kitchen sink. They kinda shot themselves in the foot there.

# ? Jul 30, 2015 21:12

Plutonis: Mar 25, 2011

Night10194 posted:

Is there indication that your whole party can look like that and won't all turn into people who look like one or the other aesthetic when they go to that place's homeland?

Because the inability to ride a T-rex into the CyberVatican alone put the fork in Torg, let along the insane mechanics, as far as I'm concerned.

More like the spork XDDD!! Epic dinosaur vs cyberpope ftw XDDDD munky cheez lol!!!

# ? Jul 30, 2015 21:13

Simian_Prime: Nov 6, 2011; When they passed out body parts in the comics today, I got Cathy's nose and Dick Tracy's private parts.

Evil Mastermind posted:

I'm really, really hoping this won't suck.

TORG GIRL SQUAD

- SOUL CALIBER GUY!

- WHITE SAMURAI GIRL!

- *NOT* THE SHADOW!

- CYBERPUNK RAVE GIRL!

- GENERIC WHITE GUY!

# ? Jul 30, 2015 21:36

Potsticker: Jan 14, 2006

A friend's campaign is getting large enough that we're thinking a wiki might help keep track of all the NPCs, factions, kingdoms, houses and other sundry details. Can anyone suggest something that wouldn't be too difficult to throw up on a server, or alternatively if there's a something better than at least his current solution which is a big info dump pastebin.

# ? Jul 30, 2015 22:12

Siivola: Dec 23, 2012

I don't know about wiki software, but a shared Google Docs or Dropbox folder ought to work better than Pastebin.

# ? Jul 30, 2015 22:13

That Old Tree: Jun 24, 2012; nah

There are free wiki-hosting sites, like pbworks. I've never set one up myself, but judging by the number of MUSH wikis on it and similar sites, I can't imagine it's that hard.

# ? Jul 30, 2015 22:17

Potsticker: Jan 14, 2006

Siivola posted:

I don't know about wiki software, but a shared Google Docs or Dropbox folder ought to work better than Pastebin.

Oh, a spreadsheet on Google Docs would be way better than the pastebin for sure.

# ? Jul 30, 2015 22:18

Potsticker: Jan 14, 2006

Plague of Hats posted:

There are free wiki-hosting sites, like pbworks. I've never set one up myself, but judging by the number of MUSH wikis on it and similar sites, I can't imagine it's that hard.

last time I used something like that it was pretty bloated and loaded ads everywhere. Which is why I'd rather host something myself.

# ? Jul 30, 2015 22:22

That Old Tree: Jun 24, 2012; nah

You could just go to mediawiki.org and get the latest version and install on your server, then. Or sign up for a hosting service like DreamHost that will install it for you.

# ? Jul 30, 2015 22:33

Queen Fiona: Jan 8, 2008; Of all evil I deem you capable: therefore I want the good from you. Verily, I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good because they had no claws.

Potsticker posted:

last time I used something like that it was pretty bloated and loaded ads everywhere. Which is why I'd rather host something myself.

I use this to host a copy of DokuWiki for some of my projects and campaigns. Assuming your total traffic is small (and for a personal campaign wiki, it will be), it gives you total control and a decent amount of resources for free.

# ? Jul 30, 2015 22:58

Potsticker: Jan 14, 2006

Thanks you two. I already have a hosting solution with SQL database et cetera, but I'll check both mediawiki and dokuwiki out.

# ? Jul 30, 2015 23:02

Queen Fiona: Jan 8, 2008; Of all evil I deem you capable: therefore I want the good from you. Verily, I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good because they had no claws.

DokuWiki's...not actually that great, if you ask me. It's fairly lightweight, but it's got a lot of weird legacy issues and bad plugin support. I mostly use it because this one RP site I was on used its syntax and demanded gigantic wiki pages for anything you wanted to add to the setting, so it's pretty much burned into my brain.

I mean, it's usable, but it's by no means pretty. Ettin, Cirno, and pals use Wikidot for their hosting, and the wiki syntax and presentation there seems pretty okay. Alternately, if you can code (I can't), you can probably customize DokuWiki's theme structure into something usable.

# ? Jul 30, 2015 23:06

Potsticker: Jan 14, 2006

That wouldn't happen to be a sci-fi game featuring a major faction comprised of android catgirls in Star Trek inspired spaceships, would it?

# ? Jul 30, 2015 23:17

Flavivirus: Dec 14, 2011; The next stage of evolution.

My rpg society uses dokuwiki for their game websites (example: https://mementomundi.chaosdeathfish.com) and it works pretty well for that once you have user access permissions figured out. Then again we have heavily modified it with in character email systems, hidden GM sections etc so a base install might not do so well.

# ? Jul 30, 2015 23:19

Queen Fiona: Jan 8, 2008; Of all evil I deem you capable: therefore I want the good from you. Verily, I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good because they had no claws.

Potsticker posted:

That wouldn't happen to be a sci-fi game featuring a major faction comprised of android catgirls in Star Trek inspired spaceships, would it?

Yeah, it's funny, but the amount of grief given to me (including sexual abuse, sexual ideation of IRL minors including myself, and a fairly unsurprising chunk of sexism and racism) makes the reminder uh...less than pleasant.

Suffice it to say that my entire development and philosophy in RPGs and life has been to not be that site or those people as much as possible.

# ? Jul 30, 2015 23:22

remusclaw: Dec 8, 2009

Potsticker posted:

The only RPG out of France I've seen is Cadwallon and it is absolutely one of my favorite TRPGs ever.

If you're familiar with Battlestations, where every action is gameified to make the whole thing more like a board game, that's basically Cadwallon. Even social interactions and it is fantastic.

I see that there is an English version of Cadwallon. One book, how does it compare to 4e D&D rules wise? A game that scratches the 4e itch without being a huge errata riddled mass of books sound pretty good to me. Before it is suggested I have backed Strike.

# ? Jul 30, 2015 23:47

Potsticker: Jan 14, 2006

At first I was excited we may have met before, but reading that made me realize who some of the disgusting shitheads are you've talked about previously.

# ? Jul 30, 2015 23:57

Potsticker: Jan 14, 2006

remusclaw posted:

I see that there is an English version of Cadwallon. One book, how does it compare to 4e D&D rules wise? A game that scratches the 4e itch without being a huge errata riddled mass of books sound pretty good to me. Before it is suggested I have backed Strike.

Comparing it to 4e, Cadwallon allows a lot more freedom in building characters that don't adhere to the comparatively strict combat class archetypes of D&D. Every action a character can take, like what skill checks and such are in D&D are discreet maneuvers in Cadwallon, even things like talking, jumping or squeezing through spaces. The magic systems can be a bit complex and the language used throughout leaves a couple sections a little confusing to the rules' intent.

I love Cadwallon, but the book is an absolute beast to get through. I wouldn't suggest trying to get into it unless you and your friends are prepared to do a lot of reading. Luckily the artwork, design and fluff are all fantastic.

# ? Jul 31, 2015 00:15

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 12, 2024 23:58

remusclaw: Dec 8, 2009

Thank you, all that sounds like the kind of thing I am into, so I figure I am going to look into it. Confusing rules and overwriting are endemic to most pre-2000 RPG's anyhow, and I have muddled through those just fine over the years.

# ? Jul 31, 2015 00:23

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > TG July Chat Thread: Practical Transhumanist Roleplaying

«‹›21 »