Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature currently requires accessing the site using the built-in Safari browser.
One weird side effect of having dyspraxia is that I can cope with that a lot more easily than most people. Because everything is in an odd order as far as my brain wiring is concerned, so I'm used to compensating for it.The crunch of Bushido is fine for me. It's the layout and the way noth8ng is in a coherent order that stops me runni g that one. Which I've had for nearly 30 years...
Bushido. I've considered running it but that level of crunch is outside of my experience and gives me the fear.
I want to run some real Cronenbergian craziness in either CoC or OtE.
Want to play a D&D game where if a TPK takes place we continue playing with Ghostwalk.
Having run it for a year I can say that most of the problems are with the exception based options, the mechanics of the core rules are perfectly solid, if minimalist* - but there are a lot of problem with the exception based options.
*As long as all players know to dump Accurate to 5.
Starchildren? Whats is that?the new iteration of Kult is on the list, along with Starchildren when that comes out.
Never run or played King Arthur Pendragon,.
Opps, its called Velvet Generation. The orginal was called Star Children.Starchildren? Whats is that?
My version is better:Opps, its called Velvet Generation. The orginal was called Star Children.
You play alien glam rockers.Velvet Generation
The Starchildren came looking for the home of rock music, only to find it outlawed. Fight back in the RPG of rock & roll revolution!www.kickstarter.com
I ran it when it came out back in the day and a new version is on the way.
It's a freeform system, which is as complicated as saying 'you can do this stuff' (listed by level from nine different 'Spheres') and then you can mix up the stuff you can do to tailor it to whatever effect that you want to do. As with Champions, you can interpret these effects any way you wish to explain it - as per the character's paradigm - but the effects are standardised. The pull back is that you have to roll to be successful, and if you roll badly, you accumulate 'Paradox' which can mess up your life in different ways.I almost forgot Mage: the Ascension. I haven't read it in almost 20 years but I remember it seeming really cool but at the time I couldn't wrap my mind around the magic system. It probably makes a lot more sense now.
Pit me down for that, too.Oh yeah, always wanted to do The Great Pendragon Campaign, from start to finish
I'm sensing a challenge/opportunity here. We have many fine knights on this forum. Who will rise to the challenge of running it and who will join the Court at Camelot?Pit me down for that, too.
Only it's intimidating by it's sheer size and depth. Plus I never had a group willing to embrace Pendragon the way it needs.
Symbaroum's core issue lies in the way characters scale (or don't scale). Toughness (HP) pretty much never increases over the course of the game other than via extremely limited ability increases or a one-off ability that can grant a +5. However, as PCs get more experience they quickly accumulate exception based abilities - because the game is really pretty simple one of the most common things these abilities do is grant more damage.Got any examples?
Talislanta.
Advanced FF
Beyond The Wall
C&C
Blood Dark Thirst
HEX (or any ubiquity stuff!)
Talislanta Savage Land
Troika
Hostile (with Zaibatsu)
Kult Divinity Lost
Other Dust
Silent Legions
I could make this list as long as my arm, so I'll stop now...
Symbaroum's core issue lies in the way characters scale (or don't scale). Toughness (HP) pretty much never increases over the course of the game other than via extremely limited ability increases or a one-off ability that can grant a +5. However, as PCs get more experience they quickly accumulate exception based abilities - because the game is really pretty simple one of the most common things these abilities do is grant more damage.
This leads to the situation in which PCs quicky, or eventually (depending on how much they're optimising - or to be more accurate - anti-optimising) leads to PCs putting out considerably more damage than they themselves are able to soak. This wouldn't be so bad if monsters and and PCs weren't built using largely the same set of rules - but since they are it means combat risks turning into rocket tag.
Throwing heavily armoured foes at PCs can limit this a little - as armour soaks damage - but it also means that any PC that hasn't sufficiently increased their damage can't hurt their enemies at all.
I know I said that the core rules are solid and the exception based rules are poor - but I think since I posted earlier, I've been looking at revising rules elements and largely come around to the opinion that the problems are deeper rooted than that. If HP are capped damamge also needs to be capped - but this means there is little for the exception based powers to do without increasing the complexity of the system.
It's really hard to give clear examples of the problems with the exception based rules unless you know the system well - but to give you one example - with Two-handed Great Weapons its possible to get an ability that guarantees attacks completely bypass armour (which is important for reasons outlines above). If the PC was chose to use a different weapon - such as a pole-arm - they can never do that. Basically if you build your whole combat system around armour reducing damage as a key pillar of that system you shouldn't create an ability that completely bypasses that.
Basically to make the system work at all, it requires really careful encounter design.
It's a good solid system for PCs with less than 50 XP (although you won't necessarily end up with baland characters - but that's just the perils of a point buy system). It's probably ok up to about 100XP if you don't let PCs take abilities at Master (Part of the issue is that a lot of them are written like they're capstone abilities but really it doesn't take that long to get them). After that's you'd need to open up the Master ablities or PCs will start running out of choices - there's only so many abilities to choose from and even less than any individual PC would want
That's probably I suspect 10 to 20 sessions at the minimum (assuming no less than 5xp per session - because if you're playing a game which has PCs accumulating exception based options then they need the opportunity to actually get them.
I really wish you lived near me.I've never given the mechanics a serious look but the fluff appeals so much to me. Secchi is a fucking legend and if there was any justice in the world he should be fucking swimming in money. Talislanta should have had Bakshi-style animated features, plural, a serialized Heavy Metal comic, a concept album (my heart says stoner rock, my brain says prog) and be in tattoos and shirts everywhere.
I know how it feels! Such a great list, too. Wish I could help you with it.
The only one I've played there is C&C and it was a really, really cool campaign.
BtW is on my list too but I feel there are some people in my gaming group better equipped than I to run it. I fear I might be too much of a Conan-head to do proper high fantasy.
And Hostile/Zaibatsu... gaah, so good. Paul Elliott is one of these guys I'd bankroll if I was a billionaire. "Here's ten million, make me a game. Get some nice art."
You'll be pleased to know that Secchi has composed three different albums of instrumental music for Talislanta, plus I think one song for The Savage Land. It's not stoner rock, but it's quite appropriate.I've never given the mechanics a serious look but the fluff appeals so much to me. Secchi is a fucking legend and if there was any justice in the world he should be fucking swimming in money. Talislanta should have had Bakshi-style animated features, plural, a serialized Heavy Metal comic, a concept album (my heart says stoner rock, my brain says prog) and be in tattoos and shirts everywhere.
I know how it feels! Such a great list, too. Wish I could help you with it.
The only one I've played there is C&C and it was a really, really cool campaign.
BtW is on my list too but I feel there are some people in my gaming group better equipped than I to run it. I fear I might be too much of a Conan-head to do proper high fantasy.
And Hostile/Zaibatsu... gaah, so good. Paul Elliott is one of these guys I'd bankroll if I was a billionaire. "Here's ten million, make me a game. Get some nice art."
We're currently near the end of the Tournament period at 549, so sixty nine years in. We do take breaks though. It's something else, the amount of NPCs and the geography to keep track of can be overwhelming and the details of all the minor NPCs created within each knight's manor (bread maker, random villagers they've gotten to know, etc).Pit me down for that, too.
Only it's intimidating by it's sheer size and depth. Plus I never had a group willing to embrace Pendragon the way it needs.
You've never seen the mechanics, right?Just as a follow up to my post about Mage, which I have played a lot over the years, a game that has always piqued my interest but never played was White Wolf's johnny-come-lately game - Scion. I think, ultimately, it came about too late for White Wolf to really give it a push, but I sometimes wonder that had they released it earlier, then the game could have gotten more of a hold on their market. Indeed, in retrospect, rather than creating a self competing 'New World of Darkness' they could have simply maintained their Classic World of Darkness games, and then released a Scion "World of Myth" as a counterpoint IP to the Word of Darkness and Exalted series, and they may have ultimately made better business plans overall. Pure speculation of course.
The IP is now owned by The Onyx Path outright, but it was a game that I felt rationalised a certain aspect of the Mage game - that of playing divine beings who gradually ascend to godlike status - in such a way that was much more focussed in a high concept kinda way. Rather than a particular interpretation of magical practices, it builds the game on cultural pantheons of Gods all competing in 'The World' where all myths are real. As such, it was a game that was more accessible and a bit more grounded than the holy hot guargantuan mess (albeit brilliant at times) that is the Mage background and game. It's mechanics are also simpler, with a few nods to things like Fate in the more recent edition.
I've never played it, but as a sort of American Gods/Lord of Light type of setting, I could get into it.
That could work.Cheers for the examples. I have the game and one of the modules and have been slowly going through it. I've noticed the 'power-ups' have nothing to mitigate them, but wasn;t sure how it would affect play.
Rather than hacking the whole system, maybe it would just be better to make increasing Toughness easier?
One very simple way to do this would be to give +1 to Toughness for each new Ability you gain and again at each new ability level. I would then change the options for starting character to either 4 Novice abilities or 2 Novice abilities and 1 Adept ability.
Tot up the totals for each of the monsters and change them accordingly.
This way, the more abilities something has (and thus the more xps and/or harder resistance rating for monsters) the higher their Toughness - thus mitigating some of the glass-canonness of the system.
We're currently near the end of the Tournament period at 549, so sixty nine years in. We do take breaks though. It's something else, the amount of NPCs and the geography to keep track of can be overwhelming and the details of all the minor NPCs created within each knight's manor (bread maker, random villagers they've gotten to know, etc).
Well worth it though.
Oh they do remember them and keep track of them. Mostly for Estate management. It's just I do as well because we've all enjoyed little stories in the manors. In one case a Cadfael-like story of the son of the Stabler going missing, stuff like that.I'm a mere 12 or so years in and I tend to outsource the keeping of detailed manor records to the players. He's your breadmaker, you look after his details, remember his name and what he does.
I have. What's wrong with them?You've never seen the mechanics, right?
Ahem I'm talking about the first edition. The one widely acknowledged to be brokener than Exalted.I have. What's wrong with them?
I was the same, looking for spell lists versus altering reality via different spheres of influence. It's my favorite magic system to date.I almost forgot Mage: the Ascension. I haven't read it in almost 20 years but I remember it seeming really cool but at the time I couldn't wrap my mind around the magic system. It probably makes a lot more sense now.
Ah right. I didn't experience the 1st edition rules. That said, when had clunky rules ever held back any other WW game?Ahem I'm talking about the first edition. The one widely acknowledged to be brokener than Exalted.
If you're wondering why Scion did not become a big property, I'd posit that at least part of the blame lies there!