Subject:
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Re: Elements of a brick oriented RPG
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.gaming
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Date:
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Tue, 14 May 2002 22:46:15 GMT
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19 times
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In lugnet.fun.gaming, Frank Filz writes:
> I've been thinking about combining my hobbies of The Brick and Role
> Playing. The question is what is the best way to go about it. Some
> questions I've been asking myself:
>
> 1. Do I go with an existing RPG and just use LEGO bricks to build sets?
>
> 2. Do I use LEGO minifigs, or do I use standard metal miniatures?
>
> 3. Do I use a rules light system, or a heavy system, or something in
> between?
>
> 4. Do I use a canned setting, or build my own setting which is keyed to
> a LEGO theme?
>
> 5. If I key the setting to a LEGO theme, do I try and maintain purity,
> or do I just use the theme as a starting point?
>
> 6. If I don't go with an existing game, do I build from scratch, or do I
> start with an existing game, and adapt it?
>
> 7. What is the intention of the game? A game for one off con events? An
> alternative RPG to give a break from something else? A long term
> campaign as a primary game?
Hmmm...a brick RPG? This sounds sweet, I would go about borrowing
several aspects from other brick RPGs on the net, and adapting them
to your respective tastes.
>
> I'm very strongly thinking that I want to use LEGO elements for scenery
> and miniatures. This will limit the inhabitants of the setting to those
> easily representable by LEGO elements. A reasonable number of creatures
> exist, and many more can be built from bricks, so a wide range of
> settings should be possible. I'm mostly leaning to a fantasy setting
> since I find that is what I enjoy gaming the most. Science Fiction also
> works well and could be fun with LEGO.
Definitely, I prefer Science Fiction, but Fantasy also works
well, but try combining the two, and you've definitely got something
there! Of course, that's what's great about Lego, you can use whatever
you want to build the alotted scene.
> There is some consideration of a Pirate themed game to interact with
> Evil Stevie's Pirate Game.
>
> I've been looking at FUDGE, http://www.fudgerpg.com for one possibility
> of a game basis. My gut feel is that I want a game of modest complexity.
> It should be skill based, and have enough detail in the skills to allow
> for interesting characters. I would like to be able to run a moderately
> long term campaign, but probably won't play too often, so character
> development should be granular so something can improve at least every
> few sessions, if not more often. On the flip side, there has to be
> enough depth that a years worth of gaming doesn't result in unplayable
> characters.
Hmm...I think level ups by sessions would work well, since calculating
experience and all of that after battles doesn't seem feasible, (tedious, yes).
Sessions would give an idea on how experienced your characters are,
which I think is quite interesting. Also, a few changes along the way, such
as the ability to use different occupation classes for your characters as
they level up, offering a greater "incentive" to play as you go on.
> I'd like to base the game heavily in an existing rules set to make it
> easier to recruit players (this makes me wonder if I should look at D20,
> though long ago I got tired of many of the elements of D&D).
Recruitment? I've never contemplated this yet, but It would be interesting
to ally your forces with existing teams, and perhaps, form an alliance,
of coalition (?) Anyway, I think this would take a lot of thought, a
suggestion of mine to set up mercenary guilds throughout your campaign,
kind of like, for example, before battle, you have the option of hiring
extra characters at a modest fee, which could add a bit of depth to your
battles.
> A brick based RPG clearly calls for a moderately detailed combat system
> which is tactical in nature (this would probably eliminate Everway for
> example [of course Everway's character generation system wouldn't
> interact with LEGO too well either I don't think]). On the other hand,
> the toyness of bricks suggest that the system should not be too serious
> or too detailed.
Too much detail detracts potential players, yet too less detail
makes the game seem boring. I guess this is the hard part, differentiating
the line between too much, or too little. I do agree that HP, MP. EXP and
all of that gets a bit bothersome to measure every round, but I think
more of an armor system is necessary, for example, depending on its level,
how much damage it can take before it breaks (and kills the character).
I wouldn't measure HP with armor, but rather by levels. For example, level
one armor could take ten damage before it breaks, and to measure this,
a token could be placed before a character to show its status.
I'm not sure on the feasibility of this suggestion, but It seems a lot
more simple than an HP system, doesn't it?
> I had been thinking of trying to use LEGO pieces to build the character
> sheet, but I think that wouldn't really work out (you'd be constantly
> looking at the rules to determine just what skills you had). On the
> other hand, keeping track of things like hit points and spell points
> screams out for use of bricks (for wounds, you can even use different
> colors for different meanings [red=wounds, blue=stun, green=poison]).
> Depending on the system, either a large plate or a baseplate could be
> used (20-30 hit points would fit on a 6x6 plate, magic users could use a
> 6x10 plate to have room for their spell points (even larger if they have
> things like crystals which store spell points, or familiars which have
> their own).
Hmm...kind of like a status meter, seems interesting, but then again,
this could be quite useful when playing the game, but to have a
plate like this for every character spells out the question, are
tokens more necessary than this?
>
> It might be interesting to produce printed tiles for all the equipment
> used in the game. Then you can just stick the tiles onto a plate and
> have an easy record of your equipment, and encumbrance could even be
> based on the space taken on a plate by all your equipment. Things like
> arrows could be represented by bricks where different colors represent
> different quantities (though don't use too many colors). An alternative
> would be to just assume the quiver is the main encumbrance, and just
> keep track of the arrows separately.
I think an arrow system would take too much time to keep track of,
although it would add a touch of realism to the RPG. This is yet
another system that bothers me. I can't think of a really useful
solution to this, but rather to ignore the arrow count (assume
the archer is carrying a whole lot of arrows, okay?)
> Of course treasure would be represented using LEGO treasure. Assume the
> values of gold coins are the number of silver pieces. Use grey 1x1 round
> plates to count silver pieces. You could make a little compartment for
> small treasure on the hit point card. The compartment should have a
> firmly closing lid (attaches by a few studs for example).
Heh, treasure! Yes, I understand this is a fundamental basic of RPGs,
so I think an interesting way to do this would be as above. I think
the treasure collected should be held by the characted until they return to
base, at that point, the treasure being transferred to the campaign funds (?).
Again, yet another touch of realism here.
> Character's minifigs should try to be representative of what the
> character wears, but need not be absolute. Perhaps the system should
> encourage modest or light armor so not everyone is wearing a helmet. A
> fair range of armor is certainly representable given the variety of
> armor pieces, and torso printings.
Yeah, again, thank goodness for the diversity of armor to wear,
helmetry would make most of the soldiers look the same, so instead,
I think items like capes, epaulets, and of course, custom weapons
would also help to identify characters.
> Even before thinking about a brick oriented RPG, I've actually had
> thoughts about setting up a campaign world where most folks only wear
> leather or similar light armors. The game system for such a campaign
> should then balance the effects of armor with the benefits of mobility
> for lightly armored folks. The common LEGO weapons, broad sword,
> cutlass, hatchet, and spear all work well with light armor. The heavier
> weapons, katana, lance, battle axe, and bastard sword would then be
> restricted to knights and nobility. Making the world metal poor might be
> interesting. Then the silveryness of the bastard sword might be easily
> justified by implying that the only way to get such a large weapon is by
> magic. Of course the silver breast plate would represent magical armor
> which is much lighter. Of course implying magic by a silver weapon means
> that no one has a common dagger, but perhaps you just assume everyone
> has a common dagger, and silver daggers are the most common magic weapon
> (of course the large number of silver daggers suggests playing in
> Katherine Kerr's world...). Of course a number of constructed weapons
> can be made and need to be dealt with (has anyone put together a nice
> catalog of them?).
Well, I'm not for magical weapons, unless you're speaking of those with
transparency, like trans blue spears, or light sabers, but then again,
you could say that these are also of technology, not magic. Silver daggers
are common, yes but I think normal weapons such as wooden spears, or steel
swords would vastly outnumber then. I would only limit magical weapons to the
great sword, since It's rarity among the field is unprecedented. Magical armor
works fine, though.
> I haven't thought as much about non-Fantasy genres, but the whole
> weapons issue is a whole lot easier there. You don't need anything more
> than what's available for Pirate, Wild West, and other similar
> historical genres. There's plenty of good space weapons ideas to fulfill
> anyone's needs there.
>
> One question is how the standard LEGO factions play into the game. I
> think I would build a campaign world to suit. I would probably try and
> make most of the factions available to the PCs, but I would probably ask
> the players to decide as a group which set of compatible factions they
> would play (though it might be possible to play a character from an
> incompatible faction in certain circumstances). Generally PCs aren't
> usually connected too tightly to the government though, so probably
> there wouldn't be much of a problem (so perhaps the one or two
> soldier/knight/noble characters come from a faction, and every one else
> uses a generic factionless figure). Of course shields present somewhat
> of a problem, but maybe the Dragon Masters and Black Knights are
> declared to not be a faction, and perhaps the dragon is the symbol of
> the adventurers guild or something.
Hmm...custom factions would also do wrell, though, and I would
limit that to the user's discrimination, in which they decide under
what faction they want to join, or campaign to create their own
order. Since most people are all for their own, I think they should
decide on what faction to create.
> I would make the campaign mostly human centric, but some non-humans are
> clearly useable. I don't usually do elves in my FRPGs because they
> generally are just set up as humans which are better at magic. Some of
> the possible races (not all would be available for PCs):
>
> - human
> - dwarf (use stubby legs)
> - wookies
> - ewoks (well, maybe not - though I'm not personally offended by them)
> - goblins
> - cat people (Fabuland head)
> - rat people (Fabuland head)
> - wolfman (new head or Fabuland)
> - Stingrays
> - Bulls
> - undead (skeletons, mummies, Darth Vader heads)
> - lizard men (Fabuland head)
Hey, you forget to include those dragon human hybrids (I think
they're called Dragoons) No wait a minute, that's from my story...
> I think I would be inclined to restrict PCs to human, dwarf, goblin, and
> perhaps cat people (the Fabuland cat head is just to nice [almost cute,
> but not absurdly so, and hey, I'm a sucker for cats]). I'd probably
> allow rat people also (I've used rat people in some of my FRPGs as a
> race which lives in the undercity, too bad the Fabuland head looks a
> little to goofy for such a shadowy racial concept.
Would the cat people cause a sort of underestimation among
rival armies, into thinking they're complete wimps, and when
they attack, getting surprised at their own idiocy for thinking in
that fashion? :)
Well, don't say the cute ones are harmless!
>
> I think I would set up the campaign to be strongly centered on a modest
> town for which the important buildings and their neighborhoods could be
> constructed as permanent sets. I've got some ideas on modular dungeon
> pieces which would make it easy to set up dungeons for exploration (the
> ease of this compared to building wild expanses of wilderness suggest a
> return to the dungeon oriented campaigns, but with care, plenty of
> outdoors can be done also).
Town battles are the best, due the the high concentration of
events that can happen (peasants inciting riot, the local blacksmith
with hisbranding iron roasting enemy soldiers, of the good old maid
woth her skillet, ready to whack the invaders?) Again, it's great to
see lots of extra scenes, but for now, the only RPGs I have to worry
about are the Lego RPG's I'm trying to create as of now, and of course,
my RPG Maker 2000 version :)
Just my two brickz...
<<_Matt Hein_>>
Lugnet No. 1112
Pyrokid17@hotmail.com
> I welcome additional thoughts and ideas.
>
> FUT: lugnet.fun.gaming
>
> Frank
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Elements of a brick oriented RPG
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| Matt Hein wrote: < snip > Tonight when I'm on my own time as opposed to my employers, I'm going to give all of the responses so far some additional thought. I did want to throw out one quick thing though... Matt (and I think at least one other (...) (23 years ago, 14-May-02, to lugnet.gaming)
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