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I've been binge-listening to RPPR's Call of Cthulhu games and now I really want to look into a d100-based game, but there are so many variations of RuneQuest and I don't know jack about Glorantha. Where do I even begin?
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Aug 4, 2015 07:00
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I've always wanted to play in the Dissidents in Darland setting. There's a lot of directions you can go without overloading the setting with too much information, and the fact that it's alt-fantasy Weimar Germany appeals to me as a history buff.Plague of Hats posted:Rolemaster! I heard all the horror stories, figured it couldn't be that bad, skimmed the combat section of what was supposed to be the simplified version of RM (Rolemaster Express) and got scared off. This is my cat: 
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Aug 4, 2015 09:10
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I know I came across a document before of trying to match the various 13th Age icons to Eberron organizations, such as the Lord of Blades instead of the Crusader and the Church of the Silver Flame instead of the Priestess.
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Aug 4, 2015 17:44
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Captain Foo posted:D&D 3.5 w/ Book of Vile Darkness Leadership feat
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Aug 5, 2015 16:30
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fool_of_sound posted:That's what I meant when I said "Come up with 16 ways to say 'I hit it with my sword". It's all just empty RP when there's no real benefit to your described maneuverings, either in terms of dice or real narrative control, a la FATE Compels. There's no real reward for creativity, and certainly no mechanical strategies to be had, so combat is nothing but cotton candy: tastes good for a moment, but leaves you unsatisfied. Is it not the case that Dungeon World gives the GM codified options for granting bonuses and controlling outcomes based on declared fluff? That is, I agree that if a D&D player says "I swing for his legs" then it's either meaningless because you're still just rolling 1d6+STR for damage, or you're loving around with the balance because you're not supposed to be able to slow the dude just by declaring that you swing for their legs, per the rules, but if a DW player says the same then you actually can apply some additional stuff without going outside the rules because the game actively encourages you to do so. quote:If the action that triggers the move could reasonably hurt multiple targets roll once and apply damage to each target (they each get their armor).
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Aug 9, 2015 03:42
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fool_of_sound posted:Yes, but they work a lot better when each roll has a meaningful story impact, which they can't when each player is rolling a minimum of 3-4 times per combat, fluffing each attempt to do a thing, especially when their action already has a very explicitly stated effect. At best, you're allowing the players to modify enemy behavior by standing between the demon and the mage. Most of the time, you're not going to get more than a +1/-1 to your roll, because the GM isn't going to be able to keep track of half a dozen fluffed stratagems in a combat and give each one a meaningful effect, especially when most combat moves already have an explicit effect. In either case, any such are entirely in the GMs hands, something goons like to complain about in other systems. I guess the way I would phrase it is that in D&D, if a Thief wants to scale a wall, we resolve the entire action as a single roll to successfully scale the wall or not (or some partial success state), but if a Fighter wants to smash a Skeleton Warrior, we have to break it down into multiple granular "combat skill check vs armor difficulty class" rolls because it's accepted that D&D is about combat and thus combat needs to be granular. Certainly we could do the same with the Thief rolling for every hand-hold on the way up the wall, but it'd only be thematically appropriate if we were playing Sly Stallone's Cliffhanger: The RPG. Does Apoc World or other PBTA games resolve combat in a faster manner?
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Aug 9, 2015 04:10
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fool_of_sound posted:Most of the PBTA games I've seen resolves 'I fight the thing' as a single die roll (or a short series of opposed rolls representing gaining and losing the upper hand), with the standard failure/partial/success roll with standard narrative impact. DW is trying to emulate D&D and similar, so it breaks off it's combat mechanics from the other systems, centralizes the game on them, and requires multiple rolls per fight (substantially more than the second version above) using damage/hp/special effects. Interesting. I'm thinking now of a model where if we consider a dungeon crawl as the attempted accumulation of wealth against the steady depletion of limited camping/spellcasting/health resources, then "is good at Fighting" is a resource to be spent in the same way that "has a spell slot to end a tough fight instantly" can be. A skeleton warrior would be a drain on the party's resources similar to how an undetected and triggered arrow trap would shoot someone for 1d6 damage. You need the Fighter to kill the monster much like you need the Thief to stop the trap, but the Fighter can only "rage" or activate their "be really good at fighting" ability so many times per day, and outside of that it's a random roll where he's going to take chip damage. After you've failed one too many detect traps, rolled mediocre on one too many "single roll combats", used up all your spellcaster's spells and your fighter's martial exploits, and run out of supplies you need to bed down for a few hours to get some partial healing and squeeze out a few more spells and exploits, you have to head for the exit (and god help you if you're so deep in that you draw multiple wandering monsters and have to do even more straight/umodified single combat rolls). gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 04:27 on Aug 9, 2015 |
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Aug 9, 2015 04:25
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Simian_Prime posted:I guess it just didn't go far *enough*? You're not wrong. That is, it's possible to simplify the results of a dungeon crawl down to a single roll if you really wanted to, but in general you do that sort of thing to any activity where the granularity doesn't matter and isn't the focus of the game. The scenario you're describing would be absolutely acceptable if you were playing Dungeoneering Party Manager 2015 and the point was to form a top-notch high fantasy party. Steve's Elf didn't EDIT: my point is that DW makes its combat granular for seemingly no other reason than because D&D's combat is granular (on top of DW already adopting multiple D&D-isms for what I can only presume are similar reasons), without understanding that you don't need to do that to replicate the feel of an OSR-style dungeon crawl, especially when you have a base mechanic like PBTA. gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 05:22 on Aug 9, 2015 |
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Aug 9, 2015 04:58
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Are there games that experiment with, or straight-up use, a method of character creation in which you only define your stats/skills/etc in the spur of the moment? That is, you can possibly start the game with half or more of your "skill points" unallocated and then you're only supposed to invest them when you see that you need to? Paolomania posted:Nit-pick: I know what people are intending here when they say "granular", but this is ambiguous usage. All abstractions have granularity - a degree to which they are broken into grains - it is more descriptive to say whether that granularity is fine-grained or coarse-grained. Even a phrase like "more granular" can be ambiguous -some people mean bigger grains (more chunky) while some mean more grains (more finely divided). Saying fine or coarse removes the ambiguity. I learned something today! Thank you
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Aug 9, 2015 16:28
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remusclaw posted:If I remember right, Heroquest 2 uses that as one of the Character creation options. Ah ha! Thank you! The high level of abstraction in that game even fits with the dungeon crawler concept I had earlier. The wheels are a'turnin'
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Aug 9, 2015 17:03
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That's not the point. Okay, yeah, let's suppose the Confederacy is in 2nd place behind the Nazis in terms of as close to real-life evil as you can possibly get - that still doesn't mean it's a good fit for the scale and scope of your standard spaghetti western. Maybe when you get to Name Level and you start playing with mass combat rules and the group wants to 
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Aug 10, 2015 03:35
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Simian_Prime posted:Has there been any sort of OSR hack of Boot Hill, the old TSR Western RPG? Seems like it'd be prime material for this sort of thing. Googling "Boot hill retroclone" pointed me to this
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Aug 10, 2015 04:38
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That's a really good idea! You might even play it off as you can only choose a 2 or a 3 as your number so you start off on that side of the Sanity scale (but players are still differentiated by their Style and Role), and then invoking Cthulhu Mythos (either as something the GM pulls or something the player willingly commits) will increase that number until you need to keep pulling Sorcery rolls because that's what you On a slight tangent, I don't know who the hell made the Swords and Scrolls reskin for Lasers and Feelings, but they have my eternal ire for not using the incredibly more obvious alliteration of Might and Magic. loving scrolls? Seriously? That ain't evocative.
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Aug 10, 2015 15:00
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Yeah seriously that's even more straightforward than Trail/Call and I want to try it now.
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Aug 10, 2015 15:21
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A Threat ... 1. Academic-gone-mad 2. Unknowing crime boss 3. False prophet 4. Political extremist 5. Reckless industrialist 6. Desperate victim wants to... 1. Destroy 2. Enact / Perform 3. Merge with 4. Awaken / Activate 5. Seize 6. Hide the... 1. Innocent 2. Hybrid abomination 3. Human-skinned tome 4. Black altar 5. Cannibalistic ritual 6. Buried alien intelligence which will... 1. Summon an unspeakable evil 2. Destroy an entire city 3. Open a portal beyond time and space 4. Corrupt a high-ranking leader 5. Create a depraved artifact 6. Ascend them into godhood For character roles I was thinking 1. Investigator / Reporter 2. Socialite / Dilettante 3. Cop / Soldier / Agent 4. Scientist 5. Hobo 6. Occultist gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 16:45 on Aug 10, 2015 |
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Aug 10, 2015 16:40
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To take a page from Trail, how about "Stability"? As in, it's that midpoint where you realize or experience something relevant to your investigation (that leads you deeper into the Mythos), but your Sanity isn't (yet!) at stake. Alternatively, "Sense Trouble"
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Aug 10, 2015 19:10
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I also have Powers and Punches as a superhero reskin kicking around in my TG folder.
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Aug 10, 2015 19:47
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Mad vs Mediocre?
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Aug 10, 2015 20:36
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Ewen Cluney's Schoolgirl RPG
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Aug 11, 2015 12:30
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"Good thing I didn't buy anything from DTRPG yet or else I would've been part of the credit card thing" Don't think he was talking about the quality of the book.
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Aug 11, 2015 17:26
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Can someone dumb down GURPS' magic system for me and tell me if it has problems similar to D&D Wizards' universalism? In exchange I give you catte: 
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Aug 13, 2015 05:08
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That's sad. Gurps is what got me into TGs.
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Aug 13, 2015 12:29
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There are even stats for Cthulhu in various D&D beastiaries! That's ... that's not what you meant, did you
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Aug 13, 2015 16:18
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Tulul posted:Someone please post good games about cars moving to distract me from my life while I wait for AAA and my grandmother pees on my car. 
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Aug 15, 2015 17:25
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Helical Nightmares posted:For more Ruin talk, check out the Gencon Game Designer Workshop podcast : http://slangdesign.com/rppr/2015/08/game-designer-workshop/game-designer-workshop-live-at-gen-con-2015/#comments I'm pretty excited for Red Markets just by listening to it being talked about in RPPR. Lot of great ideas there. bunnielab posted:I had forgotten how polarizing D&D is. I have looked at some of the other games you guys suggested, but I don't see a lot of PBP games for them, and that will have to be how I play. I understand 4th ed is super polarizing, but honestly I cannot get past the minis/grid focus. It seems to be if I want something like that I might as well play a wargame or a skirmish mini game. Maybe I am overreacting though, which is why I am looking for a game to read. On that note: There's at least two AD&D PbP's going on in the game room so people are definitely down to play it if it ever comes up.
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Aug 16, 2015 23:56
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Some nice nominees in there. Schoolgirl RPG, Base Raiders, Blueholme I'm all familiar with.
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Aug 17, 2015 17:00
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LongDarkNight posted:Is SchoolgirlRPG like Maid without the rapeyness? Yes, it's my understanding that that was its point.
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Aug 17, 2015 17:46
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Golden Sky Stories? I keep hearing that's a good game for kiddos.
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Aug 19, 2015 03:19
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dwarf74 posted:Excuse me, the ad said D&D. So not 4th edition then? 
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Aug 19, 2015 04:19
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All of the SSI D&D Gold Box games have been released on gog.com
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Aug 20, 2015 18:16
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Tendales posted:The Gold Box games are interesting, because they kind of set the template for mashing D&D's weird tacticless combat-should-be-avoided-because-it's-lovely ruleset into actually being a tactical combat game. They're interesting as far as they're actually grid-based and turn-based rather than the lovely Infinity Engine's pausable-real-time on a free grid system that only barely resembles the tabletop rules. Like, if you were going to make a tactics game out of D&D, you should probably implement it as is rather than into something its not so that it actually works.
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Aug 21, 2015 03:22
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Drone posted:Is Beamdog going to be remastering Planescape: Torment like they've done so far successfully with BG1/BG2/Icewind Dale? The earliest D&D game I ever played was NWN, but I got sucked into BG1:EE something fierce after getting it really cheap on a Steam holiday sale a couple years ago. They're doing that BG expansion next, so PS:T isn't on the radar (yet?)
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Aug 21, 2015 12:54
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bunnielab posted:How people can hate on realtime-with-pause is beyond me. Turn based is so dull.
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Aug 21, 2015 14:40
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Well, consider games that split up actions into actual lengths of time and you just "pause" the game to have everyone take their turns at a confluence of actions done, or you process people in order of their actions completing. Those are "real-time" systems because time is treated as constantly passing. It's kind of a joke in the Infinity Engine games when one of the auto-pause options is "when a round has passed". If swinging a sword takes x seconds and swinging a polearm takes y seconds (and you know this because AD&D specifies weapon speed factors) but you're still not going to evenly divide them up over time and instead abide by the strict attacks-per-round anyway, what are you really gaining from turning the game real-time?
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Aug 21, 2015 14:53
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paradoxGentleman posted:Why do a lot of people in this forum hate ability scores? It's specific to D&D's implementation, or even post-3rd Edition's implementation, where A. it presents a false choice, B. it can make your character a lot more limited than they could be and C. the necessity of some ability scores over others differs between classes and can contribute to class imbalance. Say you're a Fighter. You need a high STR to hit often and hit hard and a high CON to have lots of HP. Depending on the edition (pre-3rd-Ed), you might also want high DEX for the extra AC or a bare minimum of INT/WIS to let you qualify for certain critical feats (3rd Ed). A. It's a false choice because if you're using a standard array or a point-buy system, there's often going to be very little variation from one Fighter to another, because you're really only ever going to assign your stats one way. Maybe you might be a DEX Fighter, but besides that needing the STR/CON/DEX and a bit of INT is going to pigeonhole your stat allocation because it plays such a big factor into how well you can fight. If you're using rolled stats, then the freedom to have a high CHA score mostly rests on how many 18s you can randomly stumble upon and consequently how dicked over everyone else in the table is when you have 18 STR 18 CON 17 DEX or something and can still afford to put a 15 into CHA. B. If the "Investigation" skill is linked to INT, or the "Intimidation" skill is linked to CHA, and you cannot ever have high CHA because of problem A, then you can never have a gumshoe Fighter or an intimidating Fighter. Or if you could, it'd mean gimping your combat stats, and good luck enjoying a game as combat-heavy as D&D when you're behind on combat stats. Granted, ability scores are only half of the problem - the skill system itself is also a contributor. C. The Wizard needs INT to learn spells, and to have extra spell slots, and to bump up the saving throw difficulty of their spells, and to make their spells hit harder. Meanwhile a Paladin needs STR/CON just as much as a Fighter does, but they also need CHA to power their spells. And in some editions, they need CHA and WIS. If you have one class that only needs one high stat, versus a class that needs multiple high stats, then the former class has an advantage because problem B does not hit them as hard.
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Aug 22, 2015 18:20
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Aug 24, 2015 22:19
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Gravy Train Robber posted:Diablo 2 "Fast Play D&D", fast play looks like some abomination between 2E and using nothing but D6s At-will attacks powered by mana? I can dig it! Alien Rope Burn posted:the Paladin's prayer ability that takes a full-round action and heals 2, yes, 2 points of damage to himself and allies up to 5, yes, 5 feet away. To be fair the actual Prayer Aura in the video game was not that much better 
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Aug 25, 2015 05:54
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Looking at that Diablerie thing, some of the ideas came close: the Amazon can, as a full-round action, turn her arrow shot into a Fire Arrow for 1d6 extra damage. Setting aside the actual amount of damage, she has a bunch of these (gasp) at-will powers. So does the Barbarian, so does the Paladin. And then you get to the Necromancer and the Sorceress and instead of a similar lay-out where the Necromancer can pick between shooting a Bone Spear as a full-round action for 1d8 Shadow damage or inflicting poison damage with a melee touch attack, you instead get spells-per-day and having to pick spells out of a spellbook.
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Aug 25, 2015 16:42
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quote:High level games would consist of "a bandit attacks you, he's wearing heavy plate armour and has a magic ice sword" You're talking about D&D, yeah? quote:The Witcher RPG is gonna suck balls but 3 was legit the best game of the year (until next week) What's coming out next week?
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Aug 25, 2015 17:16
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RuneQuest / BRP seems like a better fit for Elder Scrolls.
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Aug 25, 2015 18:27
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