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Hey all, does anyone else recall the Firaxis dev team saying they workshopped their original XCOM as a.board game and made sure that was good before they started building the actual PC game? I swear that was a talking point back when the game was new. Anyway, has anything ever come out about the specifics of it's rules? AFAIK the actual XCOM board game is an abstraction of the strategic layer?
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May 17, 2022 13:22
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Panzeh posted:They do workshop a lot of things as board games but the x-com board game is absolutely nothing like it. I doubt you'll find the rules to what they did any time soon. The XCOM board game is a somewhat re-themed space alert type deal. I'd like to make a 40k custom ruleset for my local group that's similar to XCOM, and I was hoping to shamelessly steal their actual rules instead of reverse engineering it from the PC Game, but I guess it's never surfaced.
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May 17, 2022 13:58
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Everyone in my group hates THAC0, but when I start saying "I attack and hit AC 19 for 11 slashing", the DM likes it and the other players copy it. Really, what people don't like is that it's not consistent about buffs going up and penalties going down. And yes, I know a bonus to hit leads to a lower THAC0 in any edition, but the, I don't know, optics?, Are different.
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May 18, 2022 19:01
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Leperflesh posted:
It's archaic, and I'm not really even sure it's good, but I will always, always have a soft spot for the neutral simulationist referee of a GM, talking to you over a screen, referencing secret notes, who will let you do anything but also won't stop the game world from killing you.
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May 19, 2022 19:20
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Also more seriously: the "Dexter's Lab" style dungeon master is fun for a certain kind of OSR style game, that requires a lot of buy in from the players and a certain kind of distance and affability from the DM...but since I haven't actually been able to run or be in one in twenty years I could be completely full of poo poo! Though if I get asked to run a game in the future I'm going to see if the group is interested.
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May 19, 2022 19:42
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You know, I actually have a local gaming group that both loves Star Wars and has money to burn if their loving Disney world star wars trips mean anything; so if you want to sell them for real let me know and I'll show them that pic.
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Jun 3, 2022 21:49
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Leperflesh posted:Definitely transact this via a SA-Mart thread, even if it's just formalizing in two posts, to protect both of you please. SA-Mart has some specific rules and the public posting of the goods, the agreed-upon price, and terms, and so doing it that way is a good way to make sure any dispute later can be handled by SA-Mart mods. Good call, thanks. OP suggests they don't even really wanna sell, but if you just want to know what my friends ~might theoretically pay~ hit me up OP and we'll take it to SA Mart.
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Jun 3, 2022 22:10
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I'd like a quick sanity check on a position I just held in a discussion. I've been playing D&D from the 90s and I was talking to a dude that started with Path Finder, I'm not trying to be elitist it's just a discussion about what is 2nd edition D&D compared to 3.0/PF. My contention is that THAC0, often held up as the example of 2E's nonsense, is ironically THE mechanic that was taken forward into 3.0 - it's basically the same as a DC check. The revolution of 3.0 is extrapolating that system across almost every mechanic of D&D, whereas 2E uses THAC0 for hitting, NWP checks for skills, saving throw tables for saves, reaction adjustment, bespoke initiative rules, percentage thief skills, etc etc. Is this broadly correct? Is DC just a cleaned up THAC0 and is THAC0 the bedrock of modern D&D?
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Aug 8, 2022 19:43
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I glossed over that component in my post here but mentioned it in the actual discussion, but yeah they absolutely made the roll more intuitive, and I didn't mean to down play that. But my essential point was that the core mechanic of the d20 system comes from the THAC0 system used to roll hits in 2E.
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Aug 8, 2022 20:55
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mellonbread posted:In what sense - that they're both "die roll with modifiers versus target number"? They're both a single d20 roll, against a target number, modified by the bonuses of the "attacker" and "defender". Yeah, at a far enough distance every dice roll is "roll it and hope its good enough", but every part of the d20 DC check maps onto a part of the AD&D the to-hit roll, and that's not true of other AD&D mechanics/systems. Or am I reading too much into the similarities? Edit: You know, I don't want to over state the case here, I should point out that the original conversation started because I mentioned I was playing Baldur's Gate 2 and a player that owns milk crate after milk crate of Pathfinder books said that Pathfinder and 2E have "nothing in common but the dice", which, I mean, that's an exaggeration for a million reasons but that's why I specifically made the argument that THAC0 is the core of what becomes the d20 DC check. Jack B Nimble fucked around with this message at 21:32 on Aug 8, 2022 |
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Aug 8, 2022 21:29
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I guess I might be over reaching then; it seems similar to me but I might be doing a lot of mental gymnastics. I will say that I still use the phrasing of "I hit armor class 21 for 7 slashing" when I'm playing any edition of D&D or PF, it lets the DM keep the mystery of the AC and DR alive a bit longer if I just give that all up front instead of making them conspicuously ask me.
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Aug 8, 2022 23:05
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Yeah it wasn't until 3.0 that my gaming groups had a sort of inarguable correct way to play. I'd go back and browse the 2E books years later and find that we didn't use half of the rules. Initiative in particular looked interesting as written.
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Aug 10, 2022 14:36
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I bought Pools of Radiance on steam, after thirty years of memories. I was NOT prepared to re-experience a command line UI, not at all.
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Aug 11, 2022 20:21
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Huuue, I may play it again at some point, I'm just grateful it's been made available at all. Now give me Buck Rogers Countdown to Doomsday, a game that I'm positive actually rivals Mass Effect and hasn't merely grown in my imagination 
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Aug 11, 2022 21:30
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For my part, I had no idea there was a NES port and, you know what? It's great? It's a faithful recreation of the actual game as far as I can tell, Plan looks the same, ruins seem the same, combat mechanics etc. Only having two main and four total buttons makes everything a LOT MORE intuitive. I'd even say the art's better.
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Aug 12, 2022 13:05
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Splicer posted:Duskers is good though Well, because I hadn't loaded up a manual on a second screen, I had to do things like discover what key is used for half the commands by trial and error. And it's not intuitive on a modern keyboard - down in the menu is Numpad1.
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Aug 12, 2022 16:00
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Regarding pools of Radiance, has anyone tried using only 4 characters?
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Aug 12, 2022 19:29
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Has anyone ever played in a TTRPG where all, most, or many of the dice rolls and mechanics were processed by the GM, so that you didn't know things like your hit points, skills, etc, and engaged with the game based purely or largely on in character knowledge? If so, what did you think of it, was there anything in particular you liked or disliked, and was there anything you very much wanted to roll yourself, like perhaps the essential combat dice?
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Aug 14, 2022 14:35
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Atopian posted:I have, and enjoyed it as a different sort of experience, but I don't think I'd like making it my normal thing. I should have said, I'll be running it explicitly as an experiment, for three months, before then settling into a projected 18 month d&d module. Running the module is me taking my turn as a DM, and I'm happy to do it, but I'm confident my players will indulge me in running a smaller project of my own first, so I'm thinking a stripped down game like Five Torches Deep with many of the mechanics obscured. What I keep thinking about is how often perfect knowledge of a setting or system robs a sense of wonder from the game. And really, what dice the players roll is already on a spectrum; think of perception tests.
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Aug 14, 2022 14:52
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 Good mods are important, congratulations and a preemptive bless you.
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Aug 15, 2022 21:14
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dwarf74 posted:"Tom, the one who Waits" I want you to know you're responsible for inflicting this on whoever is in my next game regardless of system and setting.
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Aug 19, 2022 14:59
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Nessus posted:So like is Monte Cook's thing here that his trained audience can accept some kind of demonic reality editor power but can't accept "this story works kinda like an interactive heist movie so sometimes there's a flashback to your cool setup to what you just did, like in a movie." Some people really seem to hate any fundamental game dynamic than The DM being the sole arbiter of absolutely everything about a game world other than the thoughts and actions of the PCs, who's job is to explore and interact with that work that the DM made. A lot of DMs don't want to "share" creative control.
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Aug 19, 2022 17:53
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IME a lot of players don't like being put on the spot to improvise something in the moment ("Hey, where did this thief come from?") But can be a lot more comfortable providing back ground details between or before games ("Hey, tell me about where you're from and the party can visit your homeland later in the campaign").
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Aug 19, 2022 17:57
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I had very good results when I ran a 40k guard set in one small sub sector and I told every player to make their home world, and that the worlds they made would comprise the entire setting, with the exception of the prologue world which I emailed out as both a template and a table setting. I still got to engage in world building because there was a secret running through the sub sector, but they made the Battle of Britain style world stuck in an endless war against Orks, the Forge World on Fumes that has been producing ever worse products for centuries, the world of abhumans intentionally mislabeled as Ogryns in a long running conspiracy by the adeptus mechanicus against the inquisition, etc etc.
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Aug 19, 2022 18:11
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I think I'd be a terrible Blades in the Dark GM because, while I understand TTRPGS have room both for collaborative storytelling and adversarial conflict, and I use both, when it comes down to it, in the final moment, I'm just a bit too much of the later than the former, and I need the climax of the game to be constrained by the rules of your average crunchy, battle centric games. I could probably steal the system wholesale as a vignette for heists tho' , and still have regular old war gaming battles. 
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Aug 19, 2022 19:35
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It's funny, I like it when players contribute to the games I'm running and hate it when I'm a player - and it's for exactly the reason mentioned in the blurb - I don't want to realize you're just making all this up as you go along! There's degrees of making it up - sometimes you're being given little hints that touch at the mystery at the heart of the GMs setting and they don't expect these to start adding up for real life months, other times the GM is doing their best poker face while listening to and stealing the best party speculation. But as a player I don't want to know which is which until after the campaign is over.
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Aug 19, 2022 23:04
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Games my "Super Group" has played in the last twenty years: Full (year+ campaigns that finish) D&D4E, 5E FFG 40K (many) -original Dark Heresy (with the OP full auto) -only war, with it's much better aptitude system -the chaos one, which I think is where the combat rules improved - Death Watch (as a Horus Heresy precursor, only partially finished) - a home brew hybrid of the best of all the systems, run in a Dark Heresy setting, three or four times. Warhammer Fantasy RPG Shadow of the Demon Lord Pathfinder 1.0 Werewolf, the apocalypse Star Wars home brew based off of FFG 40k homebrew Partial (less than a year, didn't finish) More FFG 40K Cyberpunk ... 2017? Shadowrun, not sure what edition In retrospect, I'm really surprised we haven't played Pathfinder 2 yet, I own the PHB but our resident PF runner owns several milk crates of 1.0 books and is pretty salty about PF2.
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Aug 22, 2022 15:52
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What are the influences and spiritual predecessors of Spell Jammer? Flash Gordon, that one I know. And Buck Rogers? What would be recommended examples of both? Any particular prog rock album? Movie? Are there any well regarded novels in Spell Jammer itself?
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Aug 24, 2022 05:05
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I actually read a Jack Vance novel, The Chasch, that had touches of some of the elements of Spell Jammer in it; it's about an earth astronaut stranded on a alien world that mixes humans and aliens, swords and high technology, ruined cities, etc. There's some sort of term for the aesthetic that's shared by Rifts, Samurai Jack, etc, but I'm not well versed enough to recall it off hand. Pulp Sci Fi Fantasy? It shares a lot with 70's prog rock and Spell Jammer evokes a lot of that while also adding a lot of whimsy I'd associate with children's stories. For seem reason I cant shake the feeling that the flying sailing ships is straight out peter pan, even though I know that I've only ever seen the Disney animated film and it doesn't happen there.
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Aug 24, 2022 16:51
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Does Disney have some sort of official TTRPG?
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Aug 24, 2022 19:02
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Im sort of surprised Bethesda never made or licensed an Elder Scrolls TTRPG.
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Aug 24, 2022 20:45
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Blood bowl is RIGHT THERE, ready to be stolen into an xcom alike where the foozeball is turned based and RPGified. Hell, back in the late 90s my TTRPG friends at another high school made a football board game that was a big hit over there. I think it was just a simple paper rock scissors of play making plus some simple dice rolls?
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Aug 25, 2022 20:21
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Do they have be houses? Can one be the Dragon cabal Z? Because you're going to struggle to make one that conveys "anime" to the uninitiated without seeming obnoxiously obvious to even a limited viewer, so you're gonna have to use a pun to soften the blow.
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Aug 26, 2022 15:41
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Kame House is very good if your players will get it.
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Aug 26, 2022 17:13
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I was going to ask, they "transcend any setting/IP" but also defined by, what, a certain fandom? I'm trying to name something I don't actually understand.
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Aug 26, 2022 17:58
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Maybe this is a USA thing but I feel like DBZ absolutely nails "universally recognized anime", yeah. You've got an absolute ringer there in Kame House. It's not any more obscure than calling one of them House Atredies instead of House Dune or House Trek.
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Aug 26, 2022 18:28
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Hey, what are my options for borrowing mass combat / field battle rules from other systems?
I think Birthright might be my best choice, though I've never read the rules myself. I also like how quickly and cleanly the "mob combat" rules of the DMG work; I think some slight additions to having one PC "captain" a mob per battle could work; the character could impart certain buffs or modifiers based on the necessity of the moment, but these rules seem better for a smaller band of soldiers being brought into a traditional D&D combat that a field battle. Anyway, what are some other options or systems I might want to examine?
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Aug 27, 2022 15:20
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trapstar posted:Just joined a West Marches game for GURPS. Excited to try out the system. Is it going to use the rotating party membership that I think is an element of west march? Or set party but still an "unleveled" game world the party can interact with simulationistly? Or something else?
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Aug 28, 2022 23:41
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The last time I was in a game like this, Shadowrun, the chase was fine because our three person party had a driver, a gunman, and a mage casting barrier spells on the road behind us. If it was a different game, like one where only the driver would be rolling, just compress it down into few quick but impactful Dice rolls; let it genuinely matter if the driver succeeds or not but don't spend a combat's level of granularity and real life time on what should amount to "I'm the one that can pick a lock" or "I'm the one that can lie".
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Aug 29, 2022 16:50
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Right, that's why unless you're playing in a robust system like Shadowrun you make it, like, two rolls. The first is a regular old drive test to sort of set the stage (are the cops right on your tail? Or do we get to see a couple squad cars wipe out in the initial scramble? Does one hot shot unmarked car stay in their tail no matter what?) Then you give the a few options to try something dangerous, like do they take the highway in ramp where they can go flat out, or weave into the narrow side street, or maybe into the construction site? It lets the player (s) decide what might be best based on the particulars of their car, where they're going etc and then you make one more modified dive roll and it's over.
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Aug 29, 2022 17:13
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