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Are all RPG's bad?

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Are all RPG's bad? Empty Are all RPG's bad?

Post by pvtnum11 Thu Feb 25, 2010 12:11 am

Okay, I had a thought. Scary, I know...

I used to do D&D (and other RPG's) way back in the day. Like, fifteen years ago. Lots of crap in there that I wouldn't touch now with a ten-foot pole. Or an eleven-foot pole, either.

But I started thinking - is it the game medium itself that is bad, or just the contents used therein? I argue that it was the contents. Unfortunately, the market for RPG's that aren't laced with all manner of CRAP is pretty slim.

Here's the deal of a table-top RPG versus on-line gaming of any sort: We all like gaming, obviously. This is just another way of doing it that doens't involve a computer.

You get to be at someone's house, all of us, in a group, and that's fun in and of itself, even if the gaming session is nothing more than munching snacks (or not) and talking all night about whatever. Far more personal interaction than what's p[ossible from behind a keyboard.
Totally infinite frames per second - your mind's eye is the best graphics card ever made.
Creativity of the players and GM totally trumps whatever physics of whatever computer game EVER, I don't care what computer it is.
GM can fudge some rules to accomodate players. See if your computer can do that.
No internet connection required.
You only need pencil and paper, and maybe a few dice. Oh, and a place to sit. That helps.
It doesn't need any occult, drug references, language, booty or anything blatantly evil to be fun. I'd rather prefer it to be pretty clean, anyway - and since we'd all still be saved and sanctified, we don't have to worry about language popping in from team-mates. Aside from little kids sneaking off with your dice, it can be a totally family-friendly thing, too.
If the power dies, your stuff is all on a piece of paper, just bust out the flashlights and game on.
It goes along at a pace that's everyone is confortable with - no load-ganking and waiting for servers to sync up.
You get to act a part.
Even if your character totally sucks in combat, it's not all about combat, anyway. It's about playing a role.

And the best part is: Every players has a say on what happens.

So anyway, I'm kicking an idea around for a homemade generic RPG set in modern times, where the players are private investigators. They play the good guys. They get called into to solve crimes, bring the bad guys to justice, and basically save the day. Since it's all scratch-built, I woudn't have to worry about buying a product, only to rip out anything I didn't want in my game. So you, as the players, would roll up a character and play a role in a little PI organization. Do you sleuth? Gather evidence and clues? Pump information from your network of street informants? Question witnesses and suspects? Take the perps down in hand-to-hand? It's up to YOU. Oh, and what stats you rolled. Low strength characters would sort of suck at the hand-to-hand part...

But before I brainstorm more stuff for it, I'm willing to listen to the fellow brothers for any ideas or advice. Anyone up for it? No clue if/when such a hair-brained scheme would even work, honestly. This is more just a "what if" thing.

So, whatch all think? Questions? Comments?
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Post by Ambush Thu Feb 25, 2010 5:56 pm

pvtnum11 wrote:Okay, I had a thought. Scary, I know...

I used to do D&D (and other RPG's) way back in the day. Like, fifteen years ago. Lots of crap in there that I wouldn't touch now with a ten-foot pole. Or an eleven-foot pole, either.

But I started thinking - is it the game medium itself that is bad, or just the contents used therein? I argue that it was the contents. Unfortunately, the market for RPG's that aren't laced with all manner of CRAP is pretty slim.

Here's the deal of a table-top RPG versus on-line gaming of any sort: We all like gaming, obviously. This is just another way of doing it that doens't involve a computer.

You get to be at someone's house, all of us, in a group, and that's fun in and of itself, even if the gaming session is nothing more than munching snacks (or not) and talking all night about whatever. Far more personal interaction than what's p[ossible from behind a keyboard.
Totally infinite frames per second - your mind's eye is the best graphics card ever made.
Creativity of the players and GM totally trumps whatever physics of whatever computer game EVER, I don't care what computer it is.
GM can fudge some rules to accomodate players. See if your computer can do that.
No internet connection required.
You only need pencil and paper, and maybe a few dice. Oh, and a place to sit. That helps.
It doesn't need any occult, drug references, language, booty or anything blatantly evil to be fun. I'd rather prefer it to be pretty clean, anyway - and since we'd all still be saved and sanctified, we don't have to worry about language popping in from team-mates. Aside from little kids sneaking off with your dice, it can be a totally family-friendly thing, too.
If the power dies, your stuff is all on a piece of paper, just bust out the flashlights and game on.
It goes along at a pace that's everyone is confortable with - no load-ganking and waiting for servers to sync up.
You get to act a part.
Even if your character totally sucks in combat, it's not all about combat, anyway. It's about playing a role.

And the best part is: Every players has a say on what happens.

So anyway, I'm kicking an idea around for a homemade generic RPG set in modern times, where the players are private investigators. They play the good guys. They get called into to solve crimes, bring the bad guys to justice, and basically save the day. Since it's all scratch-built, I woudn't have to worry about buying a product, only to rip out anything I didn't want in my game. So you, as the players, would roll up a character and play a role in a little PI organization. Do you sleuth? Gather evidence and clues? Pump information from your network of street informants? Question witnesses and suspects? Take the perps down in hand-to-hand? It's up to YOU. Oh, and what stats you rolled. Low strength characters would sort of suck at the hand-to-hand part...

But before I brainstorm more stuff for it, I'm willing to listen to the fellow brothers for any ideas or advice. Anyone up for it? No clue if/when such a hair-brained scheme would even work, honestly. This is more just a "what if" thing.

So, whatch all think? Questions? Comments?

Ian, it's definitely an intresting thought. One thing I was thinking was that most people's opinion on the matter spawn from their intrest in a specific topic or genre. Take for instance if it was a "Hacker" RPG. It would be fine, but if we did something with sword and axe weilding characters it would be frowned upon. I think it closely linked to its asthetic association of Dungeon's and Dragons. Also, people are whether they say it or not concerned with their image. It's not always a bad thing, either. They may feel that if they played it could become addictive and lead to other RPG's. It sounds silly I know. Honestly, I wouldn't mind. However, I would be lying if I said it wouldn't be awkward. It would be better than video games I think. It's like how a real fellowship and game session should be. Sitting around playing, but talking at the same time. Maybe if it was more board game orientated or something. You could use an existing board of another game and create the backstory for the new game to be used with it. Maybe it wouldn't be so weird then.
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Post by pvtnum11 Thu Feb 25, 2010 6:39 pm

You actually hit the nail on the head, dude... Thanks for the feedback.

My whole point is that any activity doens't have to be bad, RPG's included - what do you think actors do? They play a role. That's what Drama wsa all about, Oscar encouraged us to get into the character's role and run with it. But as with virtually everything on the planet, it all gets twisted and defiled and perverted. Well, I'm taking it back. It can be fun, clean and good times.

I was thinking about taking that old classic boardgame, Clue, and running wild with it. No more dice rolls to see how far you can walk around the house - your Agility stat would show how fast you can walk. Roll Perception to look for a clue. Already found the clue and don't want to share? You can hide it from your fellow players. And it wouldn't be restricted to just that map, that's just the starting point. It might have you running around an entire city - oh, EPIC idea just popped into my head. Anyone play Scotland Yard before...? Tim, you rock! It has a map of a huge chunk of London, only that the streets aren't marked. I'll probably be visiting Google Maps and getting a map of Chicago or something, printed out.

I was aiming to have the players work together, unlike Clue. Like I said, Clue (and now, Scotland Yard) was just a springboard - the sky's the limit, it'd be modern times, maybe a few years ago, or something. No swords or spells or any of that stuff. But if your character has a drinking problem, that's fine, as long as the description of their bad habit is merely implied - I didn't have a drinking problem, but some players might have, and I'd not want to defile anyone with embellishing just how cool sin is, becasue it's not. Being a lush would be bad - penalties to Agility, Perception and Intelligence, moreso the more sauced you get. Maybe a small bonus to Charisma as you loosen up, or a penalty, depends on if yoru character is more or less a nice guy or a jerk to begin with. But if it's your character's vice, then it might be a plot point to overcome it, or at least muddle through it.

Yes, you could expect some hacker elements in there. The geeky character would be called on to hack into someone's computer (roll versus Intelligence, bonuses if you have nice gear and/or IT training) for evidence about some shady financial transaction, tracking those transactions to whatever financial institution, and then you'd have the bruiser character "pay them a visit" so to speak. It could be that MOST of the players are hackers and sneakers. The few characters remanining might be the Secretary, the Boss and maybe a footwork guy for running out to buy Hot Pockets and Red Bull - and kicking some doors down once the hackers run an IP trace and found the criminal five blocks away...

Great, now I've got to gin up a list of skills you guys would probably use. Definitly sticking IT stuff in there.
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Post by Ambush Thu Feb 25, 2010 8:17 pm

I'm not sure about all this. If you can make a game up, make it presentable I don't see why we couldn't enjoy fellowship. However, maintaining and building characters is time consuming. It would need to be something perhaps you could just jump in and out of. That was one issue with D&D.
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Post by pvtnum11 Thu Feb 25, 2010 8:50 pm

Yeah, I'm toying with the idea is handing out characters already rolled up, and you get to make a few tweaks to suit yourself, or if you're cool with it as-is, jump right in. I actually found character generation to be the best part of any RPG I ever played. Especially since my GM's usually sucked running a game, it was the only good thing. But yeah, if it's not your thing to spend an hour (or five!) rolling a character, I get it. I've yet to even finalize whatever game mechanic to USE, but it'd be pretty simple, not requiring a mountain of tables, dice or charts. Despite those being detailed, they take lots of time. Star Fleet Battles has a 300-page rulebook and lots of charts, and resolving a single ROUND of combat can take an HOUR. Not looking to make anything nearly as complicated.

Book-keeping should be easy - hand the GM (or Narrator, Story Teller, whatever you want to call it) your sheets when it's time to go home, with a sticky on it with what was going on at the time. Might have a brief five-minute recap the next session, doesn't have to be moutains of paperwork. I'm wanting to keep character sheets to a single side of a black piece of paper, maybe even a simple index card. SFB was a nightmare in record-keeping, and I had just barely scratched the surface as far as the basic rules went.

As this is homebrewed, there's no mountains of source-books to lug around, tons of dice, huge maps or any of the other clutter that can totally devour a gamer's wallet. I got lots of exercise trying to carry four pounds of dice, ten books and food to a gaming session, as a teenager... No need for any of that. A handful of dice, a few pages, we're running.

Here's a teaser scenario for you to consider:

There's three trained hackers in the group, and for type-casting purposes, I'll say it's you, Roman and Slavic. Angela's the do-all secretary/photographer/Hot Pocket shopper. You are all busy trying to crack some goon's computer remotely, so a to find out where he's at, so you can go in and shut his operation down, and the company that hired you to do it is offering you lots of money to pull it off. You're all finding out nice juicy bits of data, running the trace, hoping to find where this guy is actually at, and things are going along peachy, with lots of caffinated beverages being consumed by the characters. Maybe some in-character trash-talking going on between you guys, whatever.

I already know all your skills and stats, so I make a secret Perception roll while you're all up to your eyeballs in whatever programs you're all running, which gives you three hackes a penalty to the roll. Angela, not being busy, passes the check, so I slip her a note. She looks at it, gets a worried look, and then asks aloud:

"Hey guys? What's with the goons outside with trenchcoats? They just pulled up in a van out front!"

Now what do you do?
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Post by Ambush Thu Feb 25, 2010 9:03 pm

Pre-made characters that are randomly giving out all with their each individual abilities. Like a video game where you pick a character and each one has different stats. For the RPG game: In that game session and that game session only you can pick up power ups maybe. They will permantely or temporarly increase your stats for that session.
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Post by pvtnum11 Thu Feb 25, 2010 9:26 pm

Yeah, I'll have to find out who's all interested, and gin up pre-mades, maybe. That or make generation really simple, like fifteen minutes tops, with no crazy math and tables and charts and cross-referencing and stuff like that to fret over. Part of the benefit of rolling from scratch is that the player gets to tweak their character to suit thier style better than if I merely hand out an already-generated character. I wasn't into ruling over the gaming session with an iron fist, that merely frustrates players and then the game sucks, and no one has fun.

The goal is to have a good time with people you like to hang out with.

A stat booster might be something like getting a nice laptop and carrying it around all the time in your courlier's bag. You'd gain a bonus of oh, +2 to any computer-related task in which you use the laptop. Until it crashes, heh heh. Or maybe you have a smashed hand from some brawl. You might take a -4 penalty to any skill that requires the use of that hand, until it heals. Got a nice digital SLR? +2 bonus for photography. Cheap disposable camera? -2 penalty, instead.

Being skilled in a particular skillset would also help. If you're a good swimmer, you'd get a bonus. Not only that, you pretty much avoid the risk of drowning - except for very unusual circumstances like trying to swim through an underwater cavern, whereas the untrained character might end up killing themselves if they try to swim at all, even in a controlled environment like a swimming pool.
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Are all RPG's bad? Empty SNEAKERS

Post by pvtnum11 Thu Feb 25, 2010 9:33 pm

Basic plot premise. Yes, I'm aware that they made a movie called Sneakers. They did much the same thing. Discuss.

Sneakers, the game where you do shady things for the greater good.

You’re a sneaker. You might be good at hacking, taking pictures, talking to people, fixing things, finding clues, or busting a scam. But here’s where it gets fun – you get paid to do this. You’re part of a team of fellow sneakers, and you offer your services to corporations, law enforcement agencies, industries or individuals, in order to help find out their security vulnerabilities, help solve a case, find out who’s performing industrial espionage, or to discover who stole the family heirloom. Part hacker, part private investigator, part vigilante; you and your team-mates must work together to do the job right.

And sometimes, just to stay alive...
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Post by Slavicio Fri Feb 26, 2010 9:03 am

Well..............I see where you all coming from. Tell you the truth I never played RPG's specialy real life. But I have seen it done. My brother for example, used to play D&D but then I always thought his friend were wierd.
Remember now I was never a geek before until 3 years ago I stated developing the hunger for the technology and realized that I still have a brain left...wel at least some of it. Did a lot of drugs......All though I wouldn't mind getting together and throwing some ideas around, I thinik it would be a good fellowship.

Cheers gents!


"It's almost over what a bumer"

-Tony Horton-
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Post by Romanovski Fri Feb 26, 2010 12:42 pm

Ian, I remeber playing a RPG game with you back in the day during Thanksgiving. It was the Startrek game were u had to role to attack another star ship. I think it would be cool to have a similar game were we would use battle equipment as such to acomplish Role playing tasks and then map out the progress on map of each unit against a GM made sets of missions. Examples at first thought; Mechwarriors, Tanks, Spaceships, Ships, etc. Personaly I like the MechWarrior approch. Another Idea that I have is to put together a hacker club and meet at tims play a few times a week to test and learn how to hack things like WEP, WPA and learn from eachother in other technoligies and stratagies and then use are computers to try different attacks on systems. I remember when me and Tim were learning how to use Backtrack it was totally fun. If we have more then 4 guys doing this we would learn how to penetrate almost any type of system. This would require tons of research on are own and then sharing are finding and exicuting them in a lab for proof of consept. Personally I really want to learn how to program my own utilities and then share my knowledge with others. Also if Tim gets the "Round table of Arthor" OOOPS i mean table then it would be totally fun fellowship. What you think?
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Post by pvtnum11 Fri Feb 26, 2010 6:19 pm

Dudes,

Thanks for the replies. I like feedback.

/Ian critically hits Tim with Wall of Text for 804 points of damage
/Tim is no more


Roman, the tabletop game we played that Thanksgiving was Star Fleet Battles, and it was a tactical wargame, rather than a Role Playing Game, although wargames eventually led to D&D, way back in the seventies - instead of controlling a bunch of plastic dudes on a map-board like a real-time-strategy game of today, you took on the role of just one person or whatever, and you no longer needed a map. The game got more personal, also - you can accept that you'll lose some of your field army against the enemy, as long as you triumph on the field of battle. It's a much bigger deal to have the only unit you can control, your character, get killed. Hence why it was very rare for me, whenever I GM'ed, that I managed to kill off characters. After playing a character for a time, they grow on you, like getting used to a certain character in a movie, TV show or book. But in this case, you control the action, instead of passively being along for the ride. I've lost characters before; I merely rolled a new one and jumped back in when the plot permitted.

The two game genres, wargames and RPG's are almost totally separate today, forty years later, despite one being an outgrowth of the other. I used to play Battletech, way back when, actually. Death from Above sucks. Priority kill anything with jumpjets, if you value your cockpit.

But again, this wouldn't be a wargame. This is about immersing yourselves into an alter-ego, your character - who has their own motives, desires and wants - they're not a carbon-copy of you, and running around in a realistic world I describe to you. I'd have a map of a city, so you can all see where stuff is, and I can more or less describe the city with something to refer to, maybe some layouts for plot-relevant locations to help you guys visualize the scene (and help me keep stuff sorted out, heh).

In this case, you all (whoever wants to) would take on the role of one person in a private investigative team that specializes in IT technology, although not everyone woudl be required to specialize in IT skillsets. This would do a few things - one, all of the characters woudl have to work together to defeat whatever plot device I set as the challenge, be it catching the evil hacker that's stealing information and data from a corporation (that hired you guys to stop it), or finding out what happened to all the wealth that some rich internet tycoon left behind when he died, foiling some Chinese hackers from shutting down a municipal power grid, and maybe some plain-and-simple footwork on the streets, to include a smattering of physical combat. Of course, I'm betting that most of the characters will be rather, ahem, nerdy, so physical combat would be rather rare. There might be only one buff character in the group who does all the butt-kicking and stuff. That's okay.

All I have to do, is come up with a core set of rules that makes sense, isn't a monstrosity to figure out, and doesn't make it so you have to refer to a huge polyglot mishmash of charts and tables just to resolve a round of combat, or most likely, attempting to perform a skill. SFB , on contrast, had nice rules. But there were LOADS of them. And, combat resolution took HOURS. We did what, three full turns? Took stinking forEVER. That gets in the way of fun for a noob player, and I doubt that Slavic would appreciate a game that is a nightmare in record-keeping, rules-referencing, and feels like a spreadsheet. You will not have a huge rulebook to slog through. This can be explained OJT-style.

In the end, if the players are active enough in deciding to do things, all I have to do as GM is keep up with you guys. There are two basic types of GM's. The one who forces the players to stay on hsi carefully-crafted plot outline, and the one who more or less lets them figure it out for themselves. I've dabbled in both, and it's better overall if it's the players making the decisions, merely stopping to ask, "okay, we go into the next room, what's it look like?"

If character generation is simple and straight-forward, I might leave it in there, but I'm open to handing out pre-rolled characters for everybody - but it might not be exactly what you wanted. Maybe I'll bring some of that stuff tonight and you can see what (precious little) I have jammed out.

(in case you're all wondering, the 804 points of damage is equal to the word count of this post, minus this footnote. Yeah, I write a lot...)
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Post by Romanovski Fri Feb 26, 2010 6:32 pm

what about my hacker club idea?
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Post by pvtnum11 Fri Feb 26, 2010 7:26 pm

...stupid thread hijackers... ;)

Sure, sounds fine, I could always use some informal IT schooling, being the only sound guy with zero certifications and qualifications. And honestly, not really caring if I ever get any, but I'm open to learn a trick or two.
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Are all RPG's bad? Empty Attributes (AKA, stats)

Post by pvtnum11 Fri Feb 26, 2010 7:34 pm

Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, and Luck. They fall roughly into two basic categories, Mental and Physical, with the exception of Luck.

Basic overview:

STR is simple to define; it measures your character’s muscle and physical power. How much can he lift? How hard can he hit? Exactly how powerful is he? Strength is important for anyone who wants to prevail in close combat. Or just move stuff around the office.
PER describes a character’s awareness, intuition, and common sense. Does he notice when the thug pick-pockets his wallet? Can he detect the underling ambush? While Intellect (described below) represents one’s ability to analyze information, Perception represents being in tune with and aware of one’s surroundings. If you want your character to have acute senses, put a high score in Perception.
END represents your character’s health and stamina. Can he keep going and play through the pain? Can he walk miles on the streets without stopping for a breather? Does he shake off the flu like a dog sheds water or does it bury him? Endurance is important for everyone since it determines a character’s hit points – double the END value to determine the starting hit points.
CHA measures a character’s force of personality, persuasiveness, willpower, personal magnetism, and ability to lead. It represents actual personal strength, not merely how one is perceived by others in a social setting. Can your character talk his way past a group of guards? Can he help negotiate? Can he convince others to do what he wants? Charisma is important for any character who wants to become a leader.
INT determines how well your character learns and reasons. Can he figure out which wire to cut on the bomb? Can she track down an IP address? Can he decipher the strange chunk of evidence found at the crime scene? Can he remember all the names of his fellow teammates? Intellect is also important for any character who wants to have a wide range of knowledge.
AGI measures hand-eye coordination, dexterity, grace, and balance. Can your character move silently to avoid being spotted by the goons? Can they dance well? Can he hit the security camera monitoring a hideout at 20 paces with a rock? Agility is extremely important for characters that are active in ranged combat.
LCK is how lucky you are, basically. Can you crack the password, or guess the IP address? How good are you at playing guessing games?

(You guys doing P90X are helping increase END and STR, by the way, and getting some training on the Athletics skillset.)


Last edited by pvtnum11 on Fri Feb 26, 2010 8:07 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Post by pvtnum11 Fri Feb 26, 2010 7:42 pm

More stuff? I thought you'd never ask...

How to roll your starting stats:

Roll 4 six-sided dice, and discard the lowest number, add the result. (a stat is considered 'average' if it's 10-11) Plug in the results in order. These are your raw stats. If you’re not happy with one stat, you can steal a point from another stat. You can only move three points total and no more than two points can be added or taken from one individual stat.

Example Rolls:
STR 4
PER 13
END 14
CHA 10
INT 16
AGI 11
LCK 14

Initial adjustment of stats:

STR is really low. Taking two points form END, I bump STR to 6, and downgrade END to 12. I then move a point from AGI and place it into PER, so AGI is now 10 and PER is now 14, as so:
STR 6
PER 14
END 12
CHA 10
INT 16
AGI 10
LCK 14

This character is shaping up to be wimpy, but very intelligent and observant. Good for doing the investigative work, not so good for footwork. Maybe evidence collection, photography of the crime scene, and sniffing around on the Net would be good roles for him/her.
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Post by pvtnum11 Fri Feb 26, 2010 8:43 pm

Skill usage example:

Let's say Roman's character, Ivan (the Terrible) Shukov is a burly man with a powerful build, and he lfts weights in his free time. Let's say he has an STR of 15 and the Atheltics skill with two points.

His bonus to any Atheltics skill-roll would then be: +2 due to his STR bonus, and +4 total due to having double points in Athletics, for a total of +6 overall to any Athletics roll.

He has to leap over over a 20-foot gap between buildings, to catch the thief that has the stolen data. As this task is also dependent on his running speed, I allow him to add in his AGI +1 bonus, as he has an Agility of 13 - not only can Ivan lift weights, but he can move quick when he needs to. Like now.

I assign a difficulty target of 25, so he has to roll a d20 and add his (now a) +7 bonus to it, and hope he gets a 25 or better.

Okay, Roman, roll a d20 and get back to me.
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Post by Ambush Fri Feb 26, 2010 9:20 pm

That's funny. It feels like phsyics class. Hey, if you make it up and it's sound I'll play. I just don't want to have to explain to someone what we're playing and look toooooo much like a geek. I want to be able to point my finger and say "he did it". HAHA.
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Post by pvtnum11 Fri Feb 26, 2010 9:31 pm

What? You're embarrased to be a geek? I'm rather proud of it. Then again, I'm a bit off-kilter to begin with...

Still waiting to see how Roman does with his roll - did I forget to mention that it's a four story drop to the alley below?

That's just one example where you have an element of chance, so the story isn't an instant we-win thing for hte good guys. Unlike the overwhelming majority of movies, it's not a foregone conclusion that you guys will always triumph - or even survive, for that matter.

However, that isn't to say that even if Roman bombs his roll (1's are BAD) that he's going to leave a grease stain on the pavement below. I have all sorts of option available to me, as the GM, to illustrate the fact that he failed to clear the gap. Like, if he just barely fails it, he might miss but be able to latch onto the edge with his arms, and cling there desperately until he manages to hoist himself up after a bit, or fall a few feet to the fire escape ladder beneath him. More of a failure, and he might end up on the fire escape entirely, and smashing his face into the wall, with some damage to hitpoints. Only a really bad failure might end up with him tripping on the ledge and not jumping at all, to plummet to the ground below, with lots of damage to hitpoints.
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Post by pvtnum11 Fri Feb 26, 2010 9:44 pm

Oh hey, I forgot to explain how Luck would save his bacon, should he fail the roll.

For the purposes of this discussion, let's say he has a LCK stat if 10. He rolls a 15, adding his +7, he has a 22 total, not enough to pass. He needs three points.

The two options he has available is to spend Luck points. These are 'recharged' after a session, and we'll say he used four already this particular session. For one luck point, he can simply re-roll and hope he gets a better result.

Or, he can spend three points to bump his roll result to the required result.

Of course, that is if he fails. I'll go ahead and roll for him.

Ouch. He rolled a 14, so he'll need to burn four luck points to pass. He subtracts four points and now has two left for the session.

In-game result:

Ivan clears the gap, just barely, and he resumes chasing after the thief. It seems that Ivan had a tailwind help carry him across the gap or something. He's gaining quickly on the thief, as it appears that the thief twisted an ankle making the same jump seconds earlier. Looks like Ivan will get to practice his punching bag technique today.
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Post by Romanovski Sun Apr 04, 2010 6:22 am

i used online dice roller and got 17!
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Post by pvtnum11 Mon Apr 05, 2010 4:52 pm

*cringe*

You failed to make it. You got three options:
1 - spend a point of luck and try to re-roll it.
2 - spend a luck point and add it to your roll, as you were only one point off.
3 - let the ground rearrange your face. Don't worry, the fall doesn't look like it woudl be fatal.
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Post by Romanovski Thu Apr 08, 2010 3:48 am

pvtnum11 wrote:*cringe*

You failed to make it. You got three options:
1 - spend a point of luck and try to re-roll it.
2 - spend a luck point and add it to your roll, as you were only one point off.
3 - let the ground rearrange your face. Don't worry, the fall doesn't look like it woudl be fatal.

Option 2 please.
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Post by Ambush Thu Apr 08, 2010 9:40 am

cricket cricket
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Post by pvtnum11 Thu Apr 08, 2010 5:07 pm

Smart choice.

You clear the gap, just barely, and resume chasing after the thief. It seems that you had a tailwind help carry you across the gap or something. You're gaining quickly on the thief, as it appears that the thief twisted an ankle making the same jump seconds earlier. Looks like you'll get to practice your punching bag technique today.

My character creation process proved to be too complicated for someone with an IQ of 157. Pre-made is the way to go, I guess...

Maybe something to do when the Internets seem to be broken. I've set it aside for other things. Like, figuring out how EVE works.
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Post by pvtnum11 Tue Feb 05, 2013 7:13 pm

Abandoning this idea in favor of using an already-established system: GURPS. It't pretty much perfect, as it's Generic and Universal. The core rules can easily be tailored to whatever setting we want, since the core rules are devoid of setting. Plus, it's already established and there's less crap for me to make up or invent. Finally, GURPS only needs six-sided dice; Roman has already picked up a pile of them for this.

See my post in the LAN party area.

All we need is interested players and a regularly-scheduled time to do this.
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