TG August Cat Thread: it was like a sweaty danny devito

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > TG August Cat Thread: it was like a sweaty danny devito

Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

Reene posted:

hell yeah the august cat thread!!

I'm okay with this

# ¿ Aug 1, 2015 09:49

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 15:39

Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

Gravy Train Robber posted:

Dog supremacy

# ¿ Aug 2, 2015 11:22

Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

Splicer posted:

Hey I'm running torchbearer and looking for generic tips, is there a torchbearer thread or should I go chase up the burning wheel thread?

I'm pretty sure the Burning Wheel thread is buried in the archives by now. I think someone (not me, I'm lazy) should make a Burning Wheel/Mouse Guard/Torchbearer thread, because I've been on a huge Burning Wheel kick recently. The system still hasn't quite clicked for me, but I still want to give it a shot at some point.

# ¿ Aug 5, 2015 19:59

Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

Bucnasti posted:

Let's cut down to the brass tacks here... Who do I gotta kill to get a Rat Queens movie made?

There's an animated series in the works already for what it's worth.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2015 18:46

Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

TheLovablePlutonis posted:

Who was the idiot that kept the rules about loving over your party members that makes sense on apoc world but not on a game where cooperation is actually important

Yeah, the interfere side of the Aid/Interfere move makes zero sense in Dungeon World.

Based on what I'm hearing, Rat Queens is going to be very loosely based on Dungeon World. Also, Adam Koebel likes Burning Wheel, so guy's at least got a good taste in games. I'm holding out hope that for Rat Queens they decide to get rid of some of the more superfluous mechanics of DW.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2015 21:33

Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

IT BEGINS posted:

I suppose I was thinking 'interesting' instead of 'interesting mechanically'. Coming from a decade of 3.X, I'm welcoming the ability to describe things starting with the narrative rather than a mechanic. I also can't think of a system that has mechanically complex combat while still pushing the narrative first.

You should check out The Burning Wheel. It has a really simple base system but it builds really complex subsystems on top of it, so even though there are simpler ways to deal with random scraps where nothing important is at stake once a character's beliefs are on the line you're supposed to break out the Fight! system, which is scripted combat where the participants plan ahead three actions at a time and then they're resolved in order according to how they interact with each other.

Ultimately thought, the game isn't about being "Complex Combat System the Game," but about playing characters according to their beliefs, instincts and traits so as to get a compelling narrative.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2015 09:05

Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

Splicer posted:

I'll be running a Torchbearer campaign starting this week and while I haven't had a chance to play yet so far the mechanics are hitting a lot of good buttons. It's based on burning wheel and gently caress you Ratpick with your lovely four post new page. I'll be posting noob questions and game reports in our shiny new thread.

e: also mouseguard would fit the dungeons and redwalls descriptions from earlier.

Yeah, Torchbearer owns too. To me the difference between whether I'd want to play Burning Wheel or Torchbearer is a matter of scope. For dungeon-crawling there's really nothing better than Torchbearer, while Burning Wheel is really good for games with a wider focus.

That said, I much prefer Torchbearer's generalized conflict system to Burning Wheel's specialized subsystems for everything approach, but I get that Luke Crane likes his complex games and Torchbearer is more Thor's baby.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2015 11:38

Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

gradenko_2000 posted:

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?

It's not the character creation method for it, but Fate Core proposes exactly this as one of the character creation methods. You start with just your High Concept and maybe a Trouble and your peak skill defined, and the rest you fill up as it the situation arises, filling up your yet-to-be-undefined skill and aspect slots.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2015 16:30

Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

Hey, I just got the weirdest idea and I'd like to see if this gets any traction. There might be a homebrew in this:

So, John Harper's Lasers & Feelings is pretty much the best rules right Star Trek RPG out there, and the best thing about it is that it converts to almost any genre where you can easily see two poles that are used to define characters, right? So, you could probably use it for, say, the Cthulhu Mythos as Sanity (traditional investigative techniques) & Sorcery (knowledge of how things work under the rules of the Mythos and how to use it).

What if your character's place on this scale wasn't static but it was used more as a sliding scale? What if events in the game could push your character towards the Sorcery end of the scale (as your character experiences the mythos they lose sight of reality and start to lose their mind, which also grants insight into how magic works)? Strangely enough, it produces an effect that emulates the way Call of Cthulhu is traditionally played but also reinforces the narrative of going slowly insane until the only sensible thing to do seems to be to cast that spell you found in one of the old dusty tomes, because as your character slowly loses their mind and moves towards the Sorcery end of the scale traditional investigative techniques become much less reliable and characters need to rely more on supernatural tools.

Ratpick fucked around with this message at 14:58 on Aug 10, 2015

# ¿ Aug 10, 2015 14:38

Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

gradenko_2000 posted:

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 ~~are good at~~ have been reduced to.

I agree, I'd probably start characters off with either a 2 or a 3, because otherwise characters will reach the far end of the Sorcery scale too quickly.

My main problem is, what determines when a character's stat slides up towards Sorcery? I'd like to keep it sort of in the hands of players, so probably not just "Increase stat when you see a Cthulhu." It'd have to actually be something the player elects to do. Hmmm, maybe that's just it? If you see a Mythos monstrosity your only options are to either run away and hide and not lose Sanity, or stand and fight and lose Sanity whether you win or not. Decide not to touch that Mythos tome? You won't lose Sanity, but at the same time you're electing to not get the clue hidden within that tome which could help you solve the mystery.

Basically, at some point or another characters will have to do the mythos thing, because traditional investigative methods can only take them so far, but it also comes at the risk of losing your character. (I'm thinking this as more of a one-shot game than one for long campaigns, so going all the way to 6 would mean that you lose your character)

gradenko_2000 posted:

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.

I was just looking at Swords & Scrolls yesterday and I also had the very same reaction to the title! Might and Magic is so much better, and if I ever run Lasers & Feelings as a fantasy hack that's what I'll be using! Thanks!

# ¿ Aug 10, 2015 15:09

Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

AlphaDog posted:

Amazing concept for a short or one-shot game. I think you're on the right track with the way you're looking at what would cause the track to change. I think it will create a lovecraftian vibe really well.

gradenko_2000 posted:

Yeah seriously that's even more straightforward than Trail/Call and I want to try it now.

Thanks! All it needs is a list of Styles and Occupations, but thus far I've got nothing. Having to boil down the entire essence of the source material into just a short list of seven styles and occupations is really difficult.

e: And of course the d6 charts for scenario generation, because you've gotta have those.

# ¿ Aug 10, 2015 15:24

Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

Siivola posted:

This is sort of reminding me of the Gumshoe system. The players can get the basic clues by asking nicely, but they can always look a bit deeper into it...

Definitely. You don't want the game to grind to a halt because the players are lacking vital clues, but at the same time the GM should entice the players with the promise of more in-depth clues if they're willing to put their sanity on the line.

AlphaDog posted:

Are occupations like jobs? Scientist, writer, historian, occultist, explorer, reporter, and detective would all make a shortlist. Styles are harder though.

That's actually a really good list, and covers the most archetypical character types in Mythos writing. (Also, to go with reporter, I can't help but think that "Intrepid" should be one of the styles.)

AlphaDog posted:

1 Daemoniac
2 Foetid
3 Cyclopean
4 Amorphous
5 Unutterable
6 Accursed

This is a good list. Although I can't help but feel that it's missing Squamous.

DigitalRaven posted:

If you want to graduate things, you could look to Unknown Armies' Madness Meters. If your number is equal or higher than the "Mythos Score" of the situation you're fine, otherwise you have the option to flee or increase.

Hmmm, I have to think about that. I do like Unknown Armies' Madness system in general, because it really promotes the idea that enough exposure to the maddening stimulus hardens you against it. I'll definitely put that one up for consideration.

# ¿ Aug 10, 2015 15:53

Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

AlphaDog posted:

I left out squamous, rugose and non-euclidean on purpose since a) they don't actually come up very often in the writing and b) I have no idea what the first two even mean. e: I wasn't even being serious, just listing off stuff lovecraft kept on writing down.

If I do put this down in writing I do want to include a d6 list of Lovecraftian words just for flavor. The ones you listed are perfect, I was just being a bit cheeky, because squamous is just one of those words he used occasionally that sticks out in the nerd popular consciousness.

# ¿ Aug 10, 2015 16:27

Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

Tulul posted:

All of one time, oddly enough.

"Loathsome" probably deserves to be on there.

Huh, I'm actually learning a lot more about Lovecraft as a writer thanks to this! I've only read a couple of his short stories, but I was under the impression that he really used that word a lot. I guess it just sticks out because it's one of the stranger words he used.

Speaking of which, I've hit another design snag: what do I call the Laserfeelings equivalent in this game?

# ¿ Aug 10, 2015 18:02

Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

Galaga Galaxian posted:

You could also try expanding the die size. A d10 would work just about as well (10% increments instead of 16%) while giving a bit more range between sanity and madness.

For now I'd just keep it as d6, because everyone's got loads of those around. You're right about it giving a larger range of numbers to play with and making the descent into madness a bit slower. I'll think about it.

Oh, and I loved pretty much all of the suggestions, but I think Evil Mastermind's "Moment of True Clarity" has the best ring to it.

Galaga Galaxian posted:

Two-Fisted has to be one at the very least.

Holy poo poo, you're right. I'll probably go with Curious, Intrepid, Obsessed, Rational, Steadfast, Studious and Two-Fisted.

Oh, by the way:

gradenko_2000 posted:

For character roles I was thinking

1. Investigator / Reporter
2. Socialite / Dilettante
3. Cop / Soldier / Agent
4. Scientist
5. Hobo
6. Occultist

Are Hobos so prolific in Lovecraft's writing so as to merit a background? Man, I've been reading the wrong stories by him. :stare:

# ¿ Aug 10, 2015 20:24

Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

UnCO3 posted:

Following up on this (and the whole discussion it spawned) you might be interested in Cthulhu Dark by Graham Walmsley. It's a rules-light mythos game with a sliding Insanity score from 1 to 6 (1 being mostly sane, 6 being insane and on your way out of the story) that can increase whenever your character comes across something horrific or risks insanity to achieve their goals (which covers e.g. blacking out in a brawl and beating someone to a pulp as much as doing sorcery or entering the Dreamlands). Once it gets to 5 you can reduce it by denying the horror and destroying evidence of it. There's a couple of rules expansions as well: Dark Tales and Dark Depths.

It's not the same mechanic as Lasers and Feelings, but it might be useful.

I love Cthulhu Dark, but was unaware of the expansions you just linked! Dark Tales definitely looks like a good resource to look for advice in running Mythos scenarios. Thanks!

# ¿ Aug 11, 2015 12:37

Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

moths posted:

I read this as "Duck Tales" and now I really want to run that.

This inspired me too Google Duck Tales and Cthulhu together and this is what I found:

So, I guess that's a thing.

In cat-related posting, my loving idiot of a cat has for some reason taken to grabbing huge chunks of food from her bowl, throwing them on the floor and then proceeding to nibble at them from the floor. What are you doing, cat?

# ¿ Aug 11, 2015 14:42

Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

Speaking of cars and post-apocalyptic settings, two Finnish RPG designers are working on a generic RPG system called Ironcore and the pilot game for the system is going to basically be Cthulhu meets Mad Max: http://ironspine.com/wp/en/blog/2015/08/12/ironcore-engine/

I'm not that excited about the system (it seems okay, but nothing to get hype about) but I love the basic pitch for the setting. Might check it out when it's available to see if I can steal stuff from it for Apocalypse World or Atomic Highway.

Ratpick fucked around with this message at 11:44 on Aug 15, 2015

# ¿ Aug 15, 2015 11:41

Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

The best part of Arcanum, in my opinion, was there being a spell for speaking with the dead. It was only situationally useful, but being able to talk with the dead made some of the quests more interesting.

Also, Final Fantasy Tactics does own. I think everyone should play it.

# ¿ Aug 22, 2015 10:40

Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

ImpactVector posted:

MP based systems are actually kind of a tough design problem. The most likely scenario is that you end up with a "4e psionics" problem, where people choose a widely applicable spell and spam it all the time, leading to stagnant gameplay.

At least in an old school Vancian system, your wizard probably chose a broad range of spells to cover a lot of situations. Or even if they decide to play a pure fire mage, the system still forces them to mix it up between fireballs in level 3 slots and burning hands in level 1. So from a game design perspective, Vancian casting is actually a pretty brilliant way to inject meaningful choice into the game for those that like that kind of thing.

Another problem that is by no means exclusive to MP based systems but sort of exasperated by them is that it front-loads characters with lots of resources at the beginning of an encounter/day/whatever, and without a proper pacing mechanism in place can encourage alpha-striking, i.e. unloading your biggest and baddest spell on turn 1 in order to blast all the enemies. Not only is it not very dramatic (most examples of that sort of stuff in media have the main character dishing out one big attack at the end of a long drawn-out fight instead of right at the beginning) but it also turns combat into a grind where you plink at your enemies with crossbow bolts or at-will spells after you've unloaded your big attack spell.

I once toyed around with the idea for an RPG where you'd start each encounter at 0 and by using your basic attacks you'd also gain MP or Refresh or whatever it's called, so that you'd only be able to unlock your biggest and baddest attacks after a couple of rounds of combat. Flavor it however you like, maybe in order to perform greater magics you first need to open yourself up as a conduit between the magical realm and this one by using basic spells or something, I don't know.

# ¿ Aug 26, 2015 19:15

Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

Covok posted:

While I'm not a big fan of 4e and find the game just ok, I do think its AEDU system is probably one of the better resource management systems in TRPGs. When proper balanced around a set number of encounters, this system can really keep resources properly attributed.

I like 4e and the AEDU system is great, but I could do without the D.

Wait, I phrased that badly.

# ¿ Aug 26, 2015 19:27

Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

What I mean is that phrasing daily powers as dailies is, in my opinion, the weakest part of 4e. I know there's an explicit assumption in the game that a single adventuring day is 4 encounters (I think, it's been a while since I read my 4e books) with short rests in between, but for games which are paced differently than the four-room dungeon (say, a long trip through the woods) daily powers tend to become super-Encounter powers.

Of course the 15-minute working day isn't quite as big a problem in 4e as it was in previous editions, but I still feel the game could do well either entirely without Daily powers or with Daily powers but expressed in some other way (say, Milestone powers, usable once per Milestone). Incidentally, this is why I think Strike! is such a great game, because in addition to being a really nice and stream-lined application of 4e's design philosophy it also got rid of my biggest problem with the system.

# ¿ Aug 26, 2015 19:31

Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

Oh yeah, I also like 13th Age's approach to it, basically making the adventuring day a narrative concept entirely. An adventuring day in 13th Age could be a four-room dungeon, or it could be a trip in the wilderness between two cities, with the journey from point A to point B being the "adventure" and only lasting a single adventuring day in game terms while probably taking days and weeks in real time.

4e is still basically one of my favorite editions of D&D (it's close, but I still rank B/X a bit higher simply due to its simplicity), but in retrospect I wish it had gone even further in slaying some sacred cows.

# ¿ Aug 26, 2015 19:51

Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

Yawgmoth posted:

I know that I personally dislike the 1/day thing in any system because it makes monster design a pain in the rear end. Either you assume the players will use their orbital bombardment on the thing and make it leagues harder without it, or you assume they don't have that power and it becomes a cakewalk if they do. Much easier to just balance everything on a per-fight basis and not have to worry about planning for X number of daily powers to be used to win.

This too. Designing things fight-by-fight is so much easier without having to account for the possibility of one of the PCs using a daily power.

# ¿ Aug 26, 2015 19:57

Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

TurninTrix posted:

That reminds me a lot on how Anima Prime's combat works. Building momentum/mana through play to power your killer moves is definitely design space I want to toy around with for a game.

Huh, I have actually read Anima Prime but had actually completely forgotten about it. And you're right, it basically does exactly what I'm talking about the way the game's resource management works, so you start each combat just doing maneuvers and gathering power and then hitting them with a big attack.

# ¿ Aug 26, 2015 20:08

Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

Evil Mastermind posted:

Today is Jack Kirby's birthday, so I'm required by nerd law to post the most game-able map ever written.

I'm the Gorilla Germaneks nowhere near Germany.

# ¿ Aug 29, 2015 11:01

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 15:39

Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

Reading the Burning Wheel again in anticipation for running a campaign set in the Kingdom of Jerusalem and I realized something pretty cool about dwarves: their implicit social structure (with the social classes being Clansmen, Traders, Artificers and Nobility) is pretty much a one-for-one analogue of the Confucian ideal of social structure that also influenced Japanese social hierarchy in the Edo period. I kind of want to scrap my original idea and run a campaign with just dwarves with faux-Japanese trappings.

I mean, it's almost a perfect fit down to the fact that you have noble axe bearers as a type of samurai analogue. I'm not sure if this was Luke Crane's intention or just a happy accident, but I think it's pretty cool.

# ¿ Aug 31, 2015 09:25

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