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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Fri, 17 May 2002 22:51:38 GMT
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Viewed:
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4312 times
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Bruce Schlickbernd wrote:
> I can't comment really on Traveller because my only experience is with the
> original dreadful system (fun to roll up characters, and that was it).
> RuneQuest experience was all about mini-maxing. I hated it almost as much
> as I hated the endless "I hit, he parries" sessions.
When I ran a long term RQ campaign, what I did which eliminated the "ok,
now I pull out my niblick and try and hit him with that" was to hand out
a limited number of experience rolls. The I hit, he parries thing is a
real problem though.
> My favorite experience
> system is the Hero (and by extension, GURPs) system, where you got a few
> points at the end of an adventure (not necessarily a single play session) to
> directly build your character. If you role-played well or your group was
> successful the GM might give you a bonus of a point or two.
>
> >
> > Rune Quest is a system I never really got into, so I can't comment there.
> >
> > > > > 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).
> > > >
> > > > Sounds like you need GURPS LEGO. :)
> > >
> > > GURPS would be a nice start, especially as it's a well known game
> > > system. Unfortunately, I think it has way too much detail, and I have
> > > serious problems with it's core mechanics (skill rolls, combat, damage).
> > > It does have a great set of advantages and disadvantages though (the
> > > game I spent the most effort at designing, which actually started from
> > > that Traveler system but sought to replace the experience die rolls with
> > > a points system, ended up with a points based character system which
> > > conveniently used a similar enough point scale that GURPS advantages and
> > > disadvantages could be easily converted over).
>
> It's not an easy system for beginners - which is why I suggest looking at
> D20. But I differ with you on the core mechanics, all of which I feel are
> quite good. As to the Advantage/Disadvantage list, it's great, but give
> credit to the Hero system that it was inspired by (or lifted from, depending
> on which Steve you are speaking to: Jackson or Peterson, though Peterson
> didn't use quite those words).
While the advantage/disadvantage system was clearly inspired by Hero, I
vastly prefer GURPS. My issues with GURPS:
- Attributes are far too important
- High skill attack vs defense endless rolls problem similar to RQ
- Hit point system not well suited to more cinematic campaigns
- Like I said, a little bit too much detail
A Fantasy Hero was where I really came to hate skill systems overly
dominated by attributes. We had a party with some high presence
characters. Then there was the assasin/bard. He had an Ok PRE (13), and
a good harp skill. Then the other players decided they wanted to be
musicians also. Well, the two characters with 23 PRE wound up with two
choices for music skill, familiarity (8) or as good (or maybe it was
higher) as the bard. At least GURPS runs familiarity as some level below
your attribute.
I've also been leaning away from advantage/disadvantage systems. Why?
I've found players in systems without them give their characters more
personality, whereas in the advantage/disadvantage systems (especially
Hero back when I played it where if you took several disads of the same
type, some were worth half the points) I found players relying on a
couple serious character flaws, and thus very two dimensional.
Interestingly, the campaign which started in Fantasy Hero (which
actually started because Friday night the first weekend of the fall
semester, I brought FH along to try it out, then Saturday, we had the
first gaming club meeting, and we had brilliantly put got a notice in
the 1st school paper, some 30+ people showed up, raring to play, I of
course had my FH with me so that was all I was prepared to run
immediately), wandered through a friends game system, and finally ended
in AD&D. I forget why it went to the friends system, but wound up in
AD&D after I decided it was taking too long to run battles and why not
just use a simpler system. This was one of my best campaigns.
Other best campaigns ran in the Traveler variant I mentioned (and that
campaign actually started with an attempt to use RQ rules for SF -
before I saw any of the published attempts to do so), a game run using
my friends system, a Rune Quest campaign, and a campaign which ran in
the fantasy system I built from the Traveler system.
The last campaign I tried to run was GURPS with the magic system for my
system used instead of GURPS magic (I spent a LOT of time on this magic
system, and would be inclined to try and use it in any future game).
My friends game system was an interesting one. It was not really skill
based, was level based, and sort of character class based (but the way
it ran, every character was a fighter, you could also be a mage or a
cleric - your fighter level governed your combat skills and hit points).
Skills were tacked on. The most interesting thing about the system was
how it managed to use a true normal distribution without much pain at
all. Basically, instead of trying to roll an effect number with the
dice, you generated a random number between 0 and 1 (exclusive) by
generating the digits. A simple chart then converted the fraction to a
positive or negative adjustment which was added to a skill and then
compared to the defensive skill or a fixed number. Anyone who could
remember numbers at all could easily remember the first one or two
standard deviations (the adjustments were about 3 [or is it 6] steps per
standard deviation). I still carry the chart in my wallet, and I could
actually run a game of this without having anything else if pressed
(though I would have to quickly reconstruct some charts from memory).
The way the chart works, you basically need two digits beyond a leading
string of 0s or 9s. You don't tend to need to know the bottom half of
the chart much because usually those are misses (and I firmly believe in
don't waste time trying to determine if you missed by 3 or 5 points).
Another thing I really liked from this system was that most magic items
were limited use (potions, or charged items).
At some point, I really need to write up some stuff for my web page
about this game. A lot of it's features are things I use to judge other
games by, even if they are totally different in scope. It's biggest
disadvantage actually was it's geek factor (the magic system had a lot
of geek factor in it also, though it also worked well so how much should
one complain).
My biggest problem is how to attract players to games no one has ever
heard of. At least RQ has some possibility there (though many of the
potential players may never have seen a 1st edition rule book, I run 1st
ed RQ with choice bits taken from the later editions).
My biggest problems with RQ are the "everyone's a magic user" and the
fact that for all the basis in running a supposedly religious character,
the game didn't provide enough material to really play this right. I
think the new Hero Quest might be a source of some better information
there, but it still felt lousy to me.
Well, that turned into quite a ramble with not too much tie in to
LEGO...
Frank
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Elements of a brick oriented RPG
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| (...) Frank, can you explain this in more detail? I've been trying to reconcile the bits that you mention into a roll-resolution system and I'm not getting it. When you talk about generating digits, I'm thinking that you're rolling d10s as you would (...) (23 years ago, 28-May-02, to lugnet.gaming)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Elements of a brick oriented RPG
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| (...) I can't comment really on Traveller because my only experience is with the original dreadful system (fun to roll up characters, and that was it). RuneQuest experience was all about mini-maxing. I hated it almost as much as I hated the endless (...) (23 years ago, 16-May-02, to lugnet.gaming)
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