Tabletop RPGs

An online comic has me hardcore wanting to do tabletop role-playing again. Was discussing with Vader the other day when I was looking for a "rules lite" system to slowly get back into things, and easy enough to drag in some new members. In a different thread, he asked for a link to the one I found that intrigued me. HA! In your face, SithLord!!! I forgot what it was and can't find it on my hard drive!

BUT... never fear. Check this one out! Risus It's basically the same thing, but instead of the 3 main classes being your stats, you make "cliches" to describe your character. For example, your character's starting cliches could be "Space Marine, cowboy, snake handler, chef". Each cliche gets a number of dice, and you roll that number of dice versus a something you're interacting with based on what cliche would be most suited to the happening. You COULD roll in a fight against a Tyranid using your cowboy cliche at a reduced roll (though a success would allow you to ride the Tyranid, GM willing)... you could try to cook something the Tyranid would eat besides you... at a reduced roll. OR...you could roll space marine and slay that skeevy bastard! Risus, the whole thing just sounds neat!

As Vader and I continue to discuss (however briefly), I start to lean towards that other rules lite system (the one that's not Risus that I forgot the name of again, but this time we have the rules). As I states to Vader, this system being SOOOO frickin simple would be perfect to get us back into the swing of things quickly, introduce new players to the 'art', AND... EVERYBODY should have their own set of multi-sides! Risus just uses D6...sigh... how boring.

Anyway, in regards to RPGs, last post I mentioned a webcomic, and as I'm reading it this evening, I check the page notes under the page, and I am met with

Quote :

the Wandering Damage System, printed in Dragon magazine #96, an April Fool's issue.

Good god, what fun! The page is here, just scroll down under the page and start reading!

Was thinking further about this whole tabletop RPG resurgence thing, and a little tidbit popped in there. COST. Toss aside all other factors involving all other games we (should) play, because we already have the sets, or minis, or what-have-yous. With the current economy, and the idea of perhaps bringing in some new players, and hell... just getting back into it, you REALLY can't beat the cost of a role-playing game! Pencils, pens, paper, dice, snacks, and eemagination! Shit, $10 gets you all the "gear" you need for a whole campaign, and enough snacks/drinks for a session! Good gravy!

Also, and now it's just for the fun of it... I was looking for something to increase the speed and efficiency of mapping, especially for this idea of tossing a quick adventure together just to see how it goes. Sure, there's open source map programs with a certain CAD level difficulty... but guess what I accidentally found? Free online map making tools! That's right, online! FREE! Make the map, export to JPG or PNG or PDF, save them online (not sure how without signing up)... anyway, pretty damn simple grid based map making! Check them out!

Dungeon Painter Online

StoneSword

I have no idea how far along you are (with talking to Vader) regarding this system, so I'm probably going to be asking a lot of repeated questions until I'm up to speed.  I'll probably be also adding a lot of useless stuff that has already been discussed.  Before I get onto that, may I make a suggestion?  Rename this thread; it is already quickly going away from a general "tabletop rpgs" into "making our own".

Okay, suggestions.

Don't like all the dice needed in the D&D system.  Shadowrun is great in that you only need one sized dice, but you'll need a fair number of them.  In my opinion, I would stick to the use of percentage dice only, two dice total.  In reality, everything has a chance of success or failure, and I think the percentage dice would best represent this.  In gaming terms, the more negative your result (from success) would determine just how screwed you are or how badly the situation has become; on the flip side, the greater percentage of success would grant benefits.

THACO would be easy in that you roll your percentage to see how well your aim / use of weapon was.  Target would roll to see his success at dodging / deflecting / or to see if his armor would offer any protection.  Granted, there would be modifiers (your skill at that weapon, weapon type, armor rating, etc).  Let's say you are a Marksmen with pistols (90% chance of success); you are an experienced hitman (95% for stealth, percentage granted for specialty); are shooting a .45 pistol (level 3 ballistics); target is wearing dragon skin body armor (level 5); and is a combat veteran (85% towards combat scenarios).  Dragon skin rated at level 5 means it stops anything with a rating the same as or lower... in this situation, the hitman succeeds in gaining ground on the target, gets off his shot right in the back of the target, but the target lives because of the armor.  Similar situation, hitman approaches the target, draws the weapon and takes aim at the back of the target's head; veteran "senses" something, and his training kicks in (lower body profile, twists and spins around).  Hitman gets his shot, but it just grazes the target.

Keep in mind that you are not making a series of rolls here.  Each part adds or subtracts from the percentage.  Roll once.  Everything is in the telling of the story!  You say what you are going to do; the more detail, the more colorful, the more it will impact your percentage (good or bad).  With the above example, let's just say that the hitman would have a 87% chance of being able to take out his intended target with this weapon and in this fashion (both are walking in same direction on a public sidewalk in the daytime, shooting in back); hitman is unaware of the body armor being used.  The roll would be the hitman's 87% (daylight and public negative factors, in back and up close positive, weapon level) against the veteran's 90% (combat sense, body armor rating).

It may sound complicated, but it isn't, not if you play it out aloud.  The player is describing a scene from a movie, or playing out the situation, not just "I swing, do I hit or miss?"  Using the information from creating the character and from what is being played out, both the story teller (director?) and character can easily come up with a percentage, or at least agree on one.

A lot of your skills would come from your character development, his history / experiences or education / training.  Most of the time you won't have to roll to determine if you can do something.  Why would a trained chef have to see if he can successfully cook a rabbit?  Creating a five star quality entree from the rabbit would be something else, but not a basic cooking.  Again, it's in the telling of the character.

You would have character points in creating your character, but they would be a percentage based system, and based on key words (I believe 'crunch mentioned this on another thread).  Novice, amateur, professional, expert would be such key words; each word would have a grouping of associated words (beginner, recruit, trainee, veteran, consultant, and so on).  Education level would also influence the starting percentages of your character (a well educated amateur may be on the same level, if not better, than a professional with standard training).

...

I don't know if this makes much sense; it does to me, but I may have skipped something important. Just remember, you'd only need three things:

Key words. Story telling. Percentages.

Just remembered what I thought I had forgotten, but it ties in with the keywords.  I think.  Let me ponder a bit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Okay, leveling up!  That's what I had forgotten!  You would level up in a similar fashion as Call of Cthulhu: only those skills or traits that you used will go up!  Also, if your character actually spends game time practicing something or studies an existing skill or trait, that will go up as well.

But what if your character wants to learn something new?  In game he has to go to a library, a university, or perhaps a private instructor, and learn it.  That was one of my peeves with D&D... people could level up right there in camp, give themselves a new skill, without it ever being questioned as to how or why they could learn that instantly when all they've been doing is fighting and hauling loot.

Of course, you'd have to roll this against your education level if it is something entirely new (with hinderances because it is new).  However, you would gain a bonus to learning it if it is somehow related to a pre-existing skill, but those bonuses would increase or decrease depending on how far removed it is from the source.

Taking the hitman example from the previous post, let us say he has traits in semi-automatic pistols; he can take them apart, clean them, and assemble them with no difficulty; he can quickly draw his pistol from the hip or cross draw pattern; and is able to successfully conceal the weapon from casual observation.  He specialized in 45s, allowing him to expertly handle the weapon as he knows the 45 pistol inside and out, knows what the ammo is capable of, and so on.  He can easily pick up a 9mm or even a Desert Eagle with no difficulty; he may not be an expert in those weapons as they are new to him, he may not know the advanced techniques, but he can certainly fire them (this falls under traits: semi auto pistols).

However, if he were to handle a revolver, although similar, it would take him a while to become familiar with that weapon.  The draw would be different, as would the firing; he'd automatically be going to what he has learned (muscle memory).  He would roll his percentage dice with a benefit from his experience: he'd have a fairly high chance of picking up on it.  On the other hand, if he wanted to expand with rifles, he could still roll based off of his experience and training, but the benefit would not be as high as that with the revolver since the rifle as a bit more complicated.

If he wanted to expand towards blackpowder (as an example), he'd still roll towards his training since it is a firearm... but he would be penalized with a negative on his percentage because it is completely unfamiliar to him; he could study blackpowder firearms and train himself to reduce the negativity, but it would still be a reduced number (unless he gets training!).  It's still a firearm, which is why he would still roll towards that trait.  If he were to go with, say, a short sword, he'd have to roll against his education and be trained.

Make sense?

You could even do that with non-weapon skills.  A bicycle, although similar to a moped, would not handle or match one completely; you could be experienced with bicycles, but would need some time before being comfortable on a moped.  In turn, a moped is a lot different than a motorcycle.  Going from bike to moped is one thing, going from bike to motorcycle is another.  And what if the motorcycle has a jockey shifter?  And even though a moped and motorcycle are gas powered engines, you certainly wouldn't be able to jump into an ultralight expecting to know how to operate one right away.

With the system I bring forth, it can easily be incorporated into any RPG theme or setting.  There isn't anything to memorize because you are building this character off of key words, words which denote a certain level of success towards accomplishing something.  Success is then determined by rolling it against a target's success rate only involving the character's dice (build fire v using water soaked wood / fire building v fire building in rain, fire building v using dry wood with no wind) or against the director's dice (my hitman / combat veteran example).  The more you are your character, the more you can visualize and describe what is going on or how you are doing something, that is what will affect your dice rolls.

The only thing that would really have to be figured out before hand would be ratings for weapons or armor.  It isn't difficult or impossible to visualize that a level 3 weapon would be more devastating than a level 1 (or significantly less than a level 6)... but how to know the difference between a short sword versus a 22 belly burner?  I think that that would be the only thing that would require work....

 

Duh, no it wouldn't.  Weapons would add to one's percentage for an attack, whereas an opponent's toughness (natural or otherwise) would be a negative.  Your percentage, after all, is your skill: the weapon being used would either increase decrease it, pending on how far removed it is from the trait.  The opponent's toughness (even if it is you bashing open a door with a sledge hammer) would only decrease your success percentage!

Say you are in a sword fight.  You are rolling simply to parry his attacks, so you are rolling your percentage with a slightly increased bonus because you are not on the attack.  While you are fighting, you are observing what your opponent is doing, studying his moves and technique (which would reduce your percentage because you are observing and studying).  When you have an opening, you press your attack.  Your skill versus your opponent's skill, but you have a slight bonus to your attack because you believe you know what your opponent will do.  I suppose you could even factor in such things as fatigue; you would be less fatigued than your opponent because he was on the attack, you weren't).  Here, watch this, maybe it'll help explain...



There is no weapons damage to calculate, because you already have a success rate with the weapon. The only thing that changes is the telling of the story. So what's to stop everyone from using the same weapon? That's tricky. Maybe just the playing style of the character, or that character's history and experiences? Look again at what I proposed: there is the successful defense as well to consider: a shotgun will work good on a fire door, but not as good as C4... a knife won't even, erm, cut it. Those weapons have various success rates (pending on the character), all of which is dependent on the defense of the door.

Ehh? Ehh? Does this work or fit in with what you are looking for, or is this something that could be taken in a whole new path?

Trust me, with the system we're currently looking at to get back into the swing of things, you are WAY over thinking it. More details when my head isn't pounding.

Was looking to see if there were any RPGs based on Nightwatch. Came across a couple forums that had suggested this: FATE role playing system. Along those lines, and based on the Fate system, is the Dresden Files, which, according to other sites, would work perfectly for a Night Watch game. Incidently, Risus was mentioned a couple times as well, but was deemed as being too vague.

All in all, Fate and Dresden were designed around story telling and not dice or the need to be rules heavy.

There was a tactical RPG based on the movie (for the PC), produced by Russia. Don't know if you can find it or not for free download, but as this is an RPG thread and not a PC one...

What gets me the most about all of the RPG stuff which I, you, we and all of us thought up and created, we could fill binders upon binders full of the stuff. Nothing was ever set, always being tweaked here, redone there. Always was the stuff being improved or re-worked. Years have gone by where systems were though up, character sheets made and monsters or other type of nasties invented and so on.  

Years.  

Couldn't we have decided on a pre-existing RPG, played the crap out of it, make house rules and still be playing it today?

To me it just seems that we can't settle on something and have fun.  

The wheel has already been invented. If anything, build around what has already been done.

One of us will come up with something. No matter how solid, another one of us would think, 'Well, if we change this or that, it would work better.' Then, another one would agree, but 'Let's tweak this a little..' And one would agree.. The cycle would always be going on to no end. Yes, the whole part of game creation is fun, very fun, but I think that it's almost time for us to start playing again instead of always creating.

This post is not meant to point fingers. Hell, we all want to make something grand; but in my eyes, aren't we wasting time not playing anything?  

Playing would be better in that it also helps in the game testing... but yes, I understand what you are saying.

However, as one who is greatly familiar with this next portion, let me throw a big monkey wrench into the works by posing this question: what weekend is everyone available?  Seems to me I've tried throwing a few gaming night get-togethers over the past couple years with little success; I've even tried to host a couple brain storming sessions a few times so we could work on our projects in person.  Whether they were planned a week ahead or a couple months, most were unsuccessful for one reason or another.

I don't think this is because of a lack of commitment, but rather due to life.  Work, spouse, offspring, finances, all of this has impacted one night or the other.  I have a lot of various gaming systems collecting dust and cobwebs in my basement because I can't get to Green Bay to play as often as I'd like, or because of the nigh difficulty of getting together with friends and family.

Is it irritating?  Hell yes.  Buying this or that to try something out, looking something up and then buying that to try it... too many games and too many systems, too much money wasted invested.  And yes, this would go for role playing games as well, especially since the core rule books cost as much as they do.  But that's life, shit happens.  I wouldn't trade or get rid of my gaming items, but I would be reluctant to buy new system items (I will buy items for games I already own though).

In regards to role playing, it would also boil down to everyone needing the books. Besides me, how many of us own Shadowrun, Call of Cthulhu, or WoTC bastardization of D&D? We would have to find something that is either relatively cheap (or free, free is better) that would interest us all. That's why I posted those two gaming system links in my previous post; I also believe that those were the ones 'crunch made mention of (but forgot the name) on your thread asking about the gaming system you had forgotten. And yes, it is fun to build and plan and create our own, and again, I completely agree that we will never truly know if they work if we don't play them.

...

Now that I think about it, what are those free role playing books on the Android systems? Damn, can't remember off-hand, even though I know I have a couple on my tablet... has anyone looked into those yet?

...

As a fine example of life and time interfering with something, look at this site, originally put together so we could exchange stuff and keep track of creative projects. How many members do we have that actively post? Actively. 13 members. Eight have posted at least once. Five have posted more than once. Wait, "Admin" is in those total... deduct one from each total, giving us four that have posted more than once. Four somewhat active members. Why aren't there more posts, more responses to posts? You've said it yourself in a different thread: lack of time, or too busy, or there are things going on.

Which returns me to the question I posed. What weekend is everyone available? Answer that, and who knows what can happen.

That's it! I'm tired of hearing about all this RPG crap. Vader I believe you said you were now off this weekend and I know Shadow is. So I am offering a game day/night this Saturday. Sooth I hope it works on such short notice. If not the next weekend Shadow will be free is Oct. 12.
No Shadow will not get a say in this. As I've had it listening to "we need to play." For goodness sake you three are worse then women on deciding something!
Now pick a freaking system that sounds interesting and get your games on!

I am off this weekend, and coincidentally the dining room table is clean...

*laughs*

Quick glance through the necro posts in this thread, and this post is NOT a specific whine about trying to find a new RPG system to run. This is a fun post following the topic of tabletop RPGs. I was googling away for a very specific type of RPG system (not to play, just to see if it existed), and google decided I was searching for something else, and I found a page of "the most controversial pen and paper RPGs ever made."

Not saying you should waste hours reading, but if you're into RPGs, and NOT over thinking things, check out the first one in the list, "Phoenix Command." Wow...just wow. Picture a system like that, then picture US running that system.

Oh, this might help: http://io9.com/the-most-controversial-pen-and-paper-rpgs-ever-made-1482148897