TG September Chat Thread: Back To School Thread

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Glorified Scrivener: May 4, 2007; His tongue it could not speak, but only flatter.

Best gaming experience this year so far has been finishing off a Solomon Kane savage worlds campaign. Players finished collecting the ~~13 ghosts of scooby doo~~ 13 Maguffins of Power and prevented a crazed priest from forcing the rapture in 1612. Their only regret was not sticking around to fight the Master Vampire in the Virginia Colony, but a war against the Undead Tobacco Lords will probably be the premise for another game if we go back to it.

Also, per some of the chat; James Raggi is an histrionic rear end in a top hat who publishes a lot of material that people don't like, for entirely valid reasons. His art choices are oriented toward over the top shock and gore and is rooted in the culture that produces stuff like Cannibal Corpse album covers. He is also friends and in business with some genuinely terrible human beings. Still...

RocknRollaAyatollah posted:

EDIT:

Qelong by Ken Hite is cool but it's Ken Hite.

Helical Nightmares posted:

If I recall correctly the only LotfP supplement that is good (and it's off the charts amazing) is Scenic Dunnsmouth.

Raggi the publisher has worked with some good authors, apparently pays on time and in full and will probably continue to sell. If one dismisses everything published on his imprint out of hand, you'll miss some neat stuff. Qelong is cool, as is Scenic Dunsmouth and I'd add One Small Cut by Michael Curtis, which I ran for my Savage Worlds group to good reception during a Solomon Kane campaign.

So while Raggi the person is indefensible, Raggi the author is generally a hack and Lotfp the ruleset is a boring rear end retroclone with almost no distinguishing characteristics, but some of the non-Raggi authored modules are worth checking out. And if you come across them for free or in a bundle, some usable ideas can even be gleaned from his own modules, if you're willing to dig through the mountain of poo poo encrusting them, even if it's not usually worth the effort.

# ¿ Sep 2, 2015 16:55

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 04:24

Glorified Scrivener: May 4, 2007; His tongue it could not speak, but only flatter.

gradenko_2000 posted:

Are there games whose primary combat system resembles that of mass combat?

That is, a lot of mass combat systems boil down each side's various combat factors into a single number, plus terrain, leadership and other modifiers, compares the two numbers into a ratio, then the die roll inflicts damage to both sides simultaneously, with the final ratio influencing the results: that is, if the force ratio is 2-to-1 in your favor, then rolling average still gives you favorable results.

To be clear, the characteristics I'm looking for are:

1. The results are inflicted simultaneously to both parties, rather than IGOUGO
2. The results are based on a differential between the two sides' relative strengths
3. Because of both 1 and 2, it's likely that even the winner will always take damage no matter what

I can't think of anything that specifically hits all of your marks, but Combat Results tables were used in the fashion you're describing in a lot of game books like the Lone Wolf series. I'll second Tunnels & Trolls, and the Pacesetter games line (Cryptworld/Chill, Timemaster) might be something else to look at, while the resolution system from the TSR Marvel Superheros game might be hackable to produce the results you're interested in.

I know those are older games, but the mechanic you're describing is one more familiar to me from war games. Come to think of it, you might find a system like you're describing in a squad level miniatures war game.

# ¿ Sep 22, 2015 16:28

Glorified Scrivener: May 4, 2007; His tongue it could not speak, but only flatter.

gradenko_2000 posted:

Thanks for the responses.

As a follow-up, are there games (or supplements to games?) that'd let you play with mass combat right away? It seems like most such systems assume you'll be a single-person adventurer for a half-dozen levels before you leverage your earned riches into buying an army, so I was wondering if a game has ever experimented with starting you off as landed noble/force commander right off the bat.

Traveller: Mercenary? I didn't play in a campaign that used it, but the assumption in the rules seemed to be the pcs were the leaders from the get go. Assuming your character survived the creation process.

# ¿ Sep 22, 2015 18:41

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