My growing appeal for skill/point based RPG systems

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Raleel said:
indeed, Classic Fantasy, the Mythras offshoot, was tested on Against the Giants. I think it works pretty well, once you get your head around it.
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That is hard to imagine but it sounds really interesting. Mythras/RQ/BRP characters are so much more fragile than mid-level D&D PCs.
 
Edgewise said:
That is hard to imagine but it sounds really interesting. Mythras/RQ/BRP characters are so much more fragile than mid-level D&D PCs.
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CF characters generally have more armor (by virtue of changes in the money system) more defense (by virtues of class powers such as extra defensive actions for every martial class), more skill (by virtue that most of the monsters don’t crack 90% skill unless they are real icons, and mid rank CF character require minimum 90%), and more luck (by the time you are at against the giants ranks you have probably half a dozen do-overs).

ivd been surprised at how tough my player‘s characters are. You are almost weening them on ogres. I feel pretty comfortable bringing a couple of giants at them now.
 
Endless Flight said:
In my opinion, D6 is one of the great systems of all time. It can actually still be improved even today, but I haven't seen anyone really move it forward since D6 Space/Fantasy/Adventure came out a decade ago.
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Mythic D6 is based off D6, but uses successes rather than summing the result. There was also talk of another D6 revival Kickstarter, but I don’t recall hearing anything more on that.

Found a press release...
 
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dbm said:
Mythic D6 is based off D6, but uses successes rather than summing the result. There was also talk of another D6 revival Kickstarter, but I don’t recall hearing anything more on that.
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Some ot the later WEG D6 games (DC Universe, Hercules and Xena) were success based which might have been the right way to go. There is something glorious of adding up large numbers from buckets of d6s, but over the course of the evening it can slow things down a bit.
 
Endless Flight said:
In my opinion, if you want to run a skill-based game but you don't want to spend loads of time creating characters, you might want to use a D6 game (like WEG Star Wars). Pick a template, put a couple of skills under some attributes and done.
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Really good game as well. I played and loved WEG Star Wars, but only looked into the “generic” version(s) well after SW had already come into my life. Had this not been the case I might be rocking the D6 to this day.
 
The Butcher said:
Really good game as well. I played and loved WEG Star Wars, but only looked into the “generic” version(s) well after SW had already come into my life. Had this not been the case I might be rocking the D6 to this day.
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It’s never to late to rock the D6!
 
We do Level & Point-Based gaming (you go up in level, you get points to spend).
 
Are there any extensive examples of play on the net for JAGS, M Marco? I want to get my head around the system but find the writing style hard to absorb. I have the same problem with EABA, so it’s nothing personal. :smile:
 
dbm said:
Are there any extensive examples of play on the net for JAGS, M Marco? I want to get my head around the system but find the writing style hard to absorb. I have the same problem with EABA, so it’s nothing personal. :smile:
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I lament having exactly the same trouble grokking EABA. The rules themselves seem sensible and straightforward, there's just something about the dense technical presentation of the text that makes it difficult for me to absorb.

Though, I will say EABA v2 has far and away the best damn RPG PDF formatting I have ever seen (fully hyperlinked and color-coded, full-page automated generators, dice rollers in the margins, etc.). Gods I wish all my gaming PDFs were like that.
 
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dbm said:
Are there any extensive examples of play on the net for JAGS, M Marco? I want to get my head around the system but find the writing style hard to absorb. I have the same problem with EABA, so it’s nothing personal. :smile:
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I ran a JAGS Wonderland game streaming--we lost some of the audio and such--but it's complete and should be decently easy to follow. I can certainly answer any questions about it.

www.youtube.com

Stranger Wonderland

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com

I should really say more about it: I was contacted by the group and asked if I would run a Wonderland game (we didn't know each other). I agreed--and, as we had all seen Stranger Things, I asked if they would be interested in doing a game with the feel of Stranger Things. They were indeed interested. So--Stranger Wonderland.

The characters are 9th Graders and the game is set in 1995. This is the handout I gave them to start with:
docs.google.com

Stranger Wonderland

The year is 1995. You are all friends since 5th Grade. You are in 9th Grade in Constantine MI. You are members of the Constantine High School Computer Club 9th Grade Stats: PHY 08 REF 10 INT 10 You have 8 CP to distribute to skills and stats. You can get a limited slate of defects for additional ...
docs.google.com docs.google.com

The online JAGS Character Generator (still in Beta) is here--and they used it to make the characters: http://jagsrpghost.com/jags_workbench/

The game was successful--the characters were quite weak by JAGS Standards in the beginning--but were quite a bit more powerful at the end where combat takes place.
 
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E-Rocker said:
This sounds like a great approach! What questions are on your character questionnaire?
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I unfortunately can't claim credit for the genius of this approach; you can find the free, form-fillable PDF (with dropdowns too) at Mook's gloriously helpful site. :thumbsup:

It's called the "Character Creation Walkthrough," about a quarter of the way down the page.
 
Antiquation! said:
I unfortunately can't claim credit for the genius of this approach; you can find the free, form-fillable PDF (with dropdowns too) at Mook's gloriously helpful site. :thumbsup:

It's called the "Character Creation Walkthrough," about a quarter of the way down the page.
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I didn't know about this--that's great!

I usually try to give new players (and regular ones) a hand-out on the game that explains what the basic scenario is and gives them some examples of what characters would make sense for it.

I also am very careful to state up-front expectations and conditions--such as that the characters all know each other and are friends (or even family). I also make sure specific very-early plot-hooks or what have you are stated clearly.

In one game I had the characters trying out a cult-type offering (modern day horror) and specified before character creation that each character had something go *badly* wrong in their life and they would take *anything* that offered a way out / a second chance. That helped a lot because it short circuited the "I don't get involved with the cult" thing.
 
Marco said:
I didn't know about this--that's great!

I usually try to give new players (and regular ones) a hand-out on the game that explains what the basic scenario is and gives them some examples of what characters would make sense for it.

I also am very careful to state up-front expectations and conditions--such as that the characters all know each other and are friends (or even family). I also make sure specific very-early plot-hooks or what have you are stated clearly.

In one game I had the characters trying out a cult-type offering (modern day horror) and specified before character creation that each character had something go *badly* wrong in their life and they would take *anything* that offered a way out / a second chance. That helped a lot because it short circuited the "I don't get involved with the cult" thing.
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All excellent points! A brief scenario and shorthand world exposition summary is excellent to present to people; I try to keep those between one and three pages. Broad strokes, you can dive into detail later as players explore your setting!

Similarly with the starting game-state; it's absolutely ESSENTIAL to create a cohesive party right off the bat IME, unless you are running a 'pure' sandbox. Even moreso in modern or futuristic environments, where potential activities are so tightly packed and extensive as to divide the group in all sorts of directions without... well... direction. In my recent cyberpunk/supers campaign, the premise question was "how did this specific corporate injustice wrong you, and why do you think these other PCs can help you gain your revenge?" which really helped gel the early interactions. Granted, there were some secrets and conflicting interests, so this cohesion split apart a bit as the various backstabbing and self-interested motivations came to fruition, however it was by design and all the players were into it (there was literally only one PC out of four that could be described as remotely heroic, which was her own friction point with the rest of the party).
 
Not to say dictating a scenario right off the bat is the solution to all complications regarding player input... we did end up having an entire session devoted to clothes shopping... :errr:
 
Edgewise said:
The majority of my favorite sessions have no combat whatsoever.
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Agreed, those can be the best! Assuming you don't have a trouble-maker player who does their best to create physical conflicts at every given opportunity... In the particular CP/supers campaign I was speaking of, I had one PC who robbed or stripped down and/or kidnapped every homeless person and mobster he encountered (not to mention kneecapping perfectly legitimate bartenders out of suspicion alone). :sick: It became a running joke over some time. His "super" name became "Blackbag," and the player even designed an animated .gif related to such activities after a few sessions of that... hilarious as it was, it did cause some discord and ruined some particularly vital party plans.
 
Antiquation! said:
In the particular CP/supers campaign I was speaking of, I had one PC who robbed or stripped down and/or kidnapped every homeless person and mobster he encountered (not to mention kneecapping perfectly legitimate bartenders out of suspicion alone).
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Sounds like Captain Murderhobo got lost in the wrong genre. Although such a character would probably be interesting in my idea of a corporate supers campaign.
 
Antiquation! said:
Agreed, those can be the best! Assuming you don't have a trouble-maker player who does their best to create physical conflicts at every given opportunity... In the particular CP/supers campaign I was speaking of, I had one PC who robbed or stripped down and/or kidnapped every homeless person and mobster he encountered (not to mention kneecapping perfectly legitimate bartenders out of suspicion alone). :sick: It became a running joke over some time. His "super" name became "Blackbag," and the player even designed an animated .gif related to such activities after a few sessions of that... hilarious as it was, it did cause some discord and ruined some particularly vital party plans.
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A friend of mine is designing a superhero RPG, and I took part in a playtest. We'd been playing for a few weeks, when another guy joined. I'd previously played in a Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate game with him. In that game, he'd been single-mindedly focused on committing crimes and controlling the criminal underworld. It wasn't really an issue in that game, as Brendan can roll with anything, and villainous protagonists are not unknown in wuxia.

The GM explicitly told him this playtest was for playing superheroes. The game would allow for playing villains, but that wasn't what he was testing. The guy nodded. Once the session started, he split off from the group "to check something out." He went straight to nearest bank and robbed it in broad daylight.

He wasn't present at the next session.
 
Baulderstone said:
A friend of mine is designing a superhero RPG, and I took part in a playtest. We'd been playing for a few weeks, when another guy joined. I'd previously played in a Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate game with him. In that game, he'd been single-mindedly focused on committing crimes and controlling the criminal underworld. It wasn't really an issue in that game, as Brendan can roll with anything, and villainous protagonists are not unknown in wuxia.

The GM explicitly told him this playtest was for playing superheroes. The game would allow for playing villains, but that wasn't what he was testing. The guy nodded. Once the session started, he split off from the group "to check something out." He went straight to nearest bank and robbed it in broad daylight.

He wasn't present at the next session.
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That sounds just like my player!:shock: What a shame, particularly during a playtest.

Edgewise said:
Sounds like Captain Murderhobo got lost in the wrong genre. Although such a character would probably be interesting in my idea of a corporate supers campaign.
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Yeah, it fit the genre and campaign conceits. If it had been another campaign premise we would have had to engage in serious discussion about his character concept. Funnily enough we did have to, in a totally different heroic, fantasy-based scenario. Players... players never change.
 
Antiquation! said:
Agreed, those can be the best! Assuming you don't have a trouble-maker player who does their best to create physical conflicts at every given opportunity... In the particular CP/supers campaign I was speaking of, I had one PC who robbed or stripped down and/or kidnapped every homeless person and mobster he encountered (not to mention kneecapping perfectly legitimate bartenders out of suspicion alone). :sick: It became a running joke over some time. His "super" name became "Blackbag," and the player even designed an animated .gif related to such activities after a few sessions of that... hilarious as it was, it did cause some discord and ruined some particularly vital party plans.
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Baulderstone said:
A friend of mine is designing a superhero RPG, and I took part in a playtest. We'd been playing for a few weeks, when another guy joined. I'd previously played in a Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate game with him. In that game, he'd been single-mindedly focused on committing crimes and controlling the criminal underworld. It wasn't really an issue in that game, as Brendan can roll with anything, and villainous protagonists are not unknown in wuxia.

The GM explicitly told him this playtest was for playing superheroes. The game would allow for playing villains, but that wasn't what he was testing. The guy nodded. Once the session started, he split off from the group "to check something out." He went straight to nearest bank and robbed it in broad daylight.

He wasn't present at the next session.
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I have had at least one player going full murderhobo in supers game every. Single. Time I’ve tried to run a supers game.

I’ve stopped trying.
 
The Butcher said:
I have had at least one player going full murderhobo in supers game every. Single. Time I’ve tried to run a supers game.

I’ve stopped trying.
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In my experience it takes a very particular player type to merit successful enjoyment and productivity in a traditional supers campaign.
 
Has anyone ever sat down and talked with the murderhobo player? I mean--we never had problems with "pretty traditional supers"--but we certainly did have clashes over what was appropriate, etc.

It's not a cure-all but saying "the bad guys kill people--the PCs are supposed to be pretty much the good guys" did have an effect.
 
Nobby-W said:
Funnily enough I started with Traveller, so I didn't play level based games for a few years after my first exposure to gaming. I was always pretty lukewarm about D&D (even a bit anti in my early years) but I've had plenty of enjoyable D&D games and I've been playing 5e in a good group for the last couple of years.

A system like FATE is quite good in that it lets you build pretty much any character concept. D&D does tend to push you into stereotypes with its class based system. Traveller's life path system is OK but pretty much the luck of the draw; it doesn't lend itself to making a specific character.

I like FATE's character generation the best of any I've used, with RQII coming in second - for completely different reasons. FATE's aspects and stunt system lets you fill in pretty much anything within reason with specific mechanical effects. OTOH you still have to understand how to design and use aspects in order to make it work, and a lot of folks find aspects quite confusing. It's more or less class-less with no restrictions on what you can design, except all characters start with the same skill pyramid and same number of aspects and stunts.

RQ II has a nice interaction between the character and its society in order to build a starting character. You can borrow money from guilds and cults to train up skills. This choice becomes an implicit character class - Lankhor Mhy will train different skills to Humakt or Waha. It lets you advance from a starting character into the equivalent of mid-level (i.e. competent) character in a few sessions.
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I think that a trimmed down version of D&D 5E is about the best it gets, keep it simple, almost OSRish, but use the core mechanics and logics of 5E, that works for me.

But out of all the games I play, these days I tend to gravitate back to two home bases - BRP and Fate Core. I can do pretty much anything with these, for the reasons you described. Both systems are quite different, but achieve their goal well.
 
The Butcher said:
I have had at least one player going full murderhobo in supers game every. Single. Time I’ve tried to run a supers game.

I’ve stopped trying.
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That's a big bummer. One nice thing about a supers setting is that you can always send in tougher heroes to spank said murderhobos. But once you have to get so heavy-handed you're basically in the death spiral.
 
Edgewise said:
That's a big bummer. One nice thing about a supers setting is that you can always send in tougher heroes to spank said murderhobos. But once you have to get so heavy-handed you're basically in the death spiral.
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Yep. It may be a version of striking the offending character with lightning that makes total sense in the setting, but its still striking the offending character with lightning.
 
I'm curious what the OP (and others here) think of Earthdawn? It's kind of a hybrid between class/level and point buy. Some abilities are restricted to certain classes while others are open for anyone to buy, and you can put xp into improving specific abilities as much as you want, but you had to level up in order to unlock new abilities based on your class. Also, casters can learn any spell they want from their class list, but to cast it safely they have to be high enough level for that spell.
 
Dr. Mindermast said:
I'm curious what the OP (and others here) think of Earthdawn? It's kind of a hybrid between class/level and point buy.
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There's a LOT that I like about Earthdawn... the setting, how it handles magic items, how it gives in-game justifications for various D&Disms (classes, levels, dungeons, spell slots, etc.). There are options on how to spend XP besides just raising improving Talents (skills) and raising your Circle (Level).
I'm not an optimization guy but I assume there is a lot of fodder there for someone who is. With the dice chain and the way Talents work off of each other there's a lot of room for analysis.
When I was playing it only knew some Talents seemed like filler, just there to make it look like you had options... and to sink XP towards fullfiling the requirements to raise your Circle (Level).

One thing that I found lacking, and it might just have been how our GM ran it, was that it seemed like the various Disciplines (classes) were near religious in the way each had its concomitant worldview... but the Disciplines had no official structure or responsibilities. It was like Runequest without the cults... or rather, if the cults were just a very loose association of rogue individuals. In that way it allowed the D&D trope of wandering murderhobos with no attachments.
If I were ever to approach running Earthdawn I'd do it with Mythras, make the Disciplines into Cults, and fill in what I felt was missing. The way Classic Fantasy (the Mythras supplement for running D&Dish games) molds Cults into Classes is a useful example.
 
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I was an early convert to skill based games and still prefer them. I started playing AD&D in the summer of 1978 and by 1980-81 I had found Runequest and Champions, after that class/level was relegated to "well if we can't play one of these other games".

I've kind of come around in the other direction, in recent years I'm gaining some appreciation for the development of OD&D games, Lion & Dragon, and ACKS in particular. D&D 3E didn't work for me, too much work to still be constrained by class / level constructs but when they keep things relatively simple then I can appreciate what class / level brings to the table.

I've been tempted to look at D&D 5E but there seems to be a lot of player baggage attached to it at the moment which kind of turns me off.


Antiquation! said:
In my experience it takes a very particular player type to merit successful enjoyment and productivity in a traditional supers campaign.
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I've never really been able to enjoy a straight supers game. Oh I've made numerous Batman and Ironman clones that would fit right into a serious supers campaign, but lacking the right group of players I tend to gravitate towards The Tick (animated version) where inappropriate player / GM antics don't tend to spoil the game too much.

Baulderstone said:
Yep. It may be a version of striking the offending character with lightning that makes total sense in the setting, but its still striking the offending character with lightning.
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Well there is your problem, you need to get to the root of the issue and strike the offending player with lightning. :hehe:
 
dbm said:
And another blog post, but nothing recent
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The upcoming Zorro The Roleplaying Game will be using the D6 2nd edition rules. I assume it will be the first to do so? The PDF should be out for the Kickstarter backers later this month, with the printed rulebook in late January/early February 2020. Always subject to delays of course, as that's the way of most Kickstarters.

You still total up the dice rolled, but there are more options such as being able to retry a non-combat option with 'Double Down'. If you fail that second roll versus the Difficulty Number you get a Complication. There are also Hero Points, but we've only gotten partial details on the D6 2e system.

There are 5 attributes in the game:
  • Agility
  • Brawn
  • Knowledge
  • Perception
  • Charm
The total number of skills is at 20, broken up from the broad categories of Agility, Brawn, Knowledge, etc.. These can be expanded (both Attributes and Skills) as desired. Remember this will be a Zorro game, so things are more on the heroic side.

As for this thread; I was okay with classes and levels UNTIL I played some Chaosium games back in the day, and I could never go back. At least for games that I GM.
 
ORtrail said:
As for this thread; I was okay with classes and levels UNTIL I played some Chaosium games back in the day, and I could never go back. At least for games that I GM.
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I was the opposite. I tolerated levels in D&D but found playing other, level-less, game systems preferable (playing or GMing). However, over time, and because of my experience enjoying computer games, I found that "leveling up" was something that I enjoyed and other players enjoyed.

Leveling is basically just a pacing mechanism--it's a way of describing experience or power-levels in a handy format--but it's also a step-wise function meaning that rather than a dribble or stead stream of XP, there are plateaus of little development marked by sharper inclines.

While that's not appropriate for every game, it works very well for a lot of scenarios (IMO)--especially "adventure game" scenarios (D&D, etc.) where the characters typically start out as much more ordinary but then increase in ability in significant steps.
 
One thing that can help with D&D is to stop tracking XP in detail, go up when it feels right. D&D in particular is designed to go from zero to hero, which doesn't match many campaign ideas. You can just tell players that levelling is going to be slow. You can also go the E6 route and stop levelling at some point, switching to more of a skill based model of advancement. It's still not going to work for lots of campaigns but it's something to consider if your players are hesitant to move away from D&D.
 
Toadmaster said:
I've never really been able to enjoy a straight supers game. Oh I've made numerous Batman and Ironman clones that would fit right into a serious supers campaign, but lacking the right group of players I tend to gravitate towards The Tick (animated version) where inappropriate player / GM antics don't tend to spoil the game too much.
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Ha, that's generally my experience as well. Most supers games IME either become flavored like The Tick, or The Punisher (minus any moral qualms or boundaries, plus superpowers, plus everyone is playing the Punisher).
 
Last time I ran a supers game, back when M&M first came out, it ended up with a Tick flavor to it. I'll take that over a Punisher-flavored supers game. The Tick may be a parody of the genre, but it is a very affectionate parody.
 
Antiquation! said:
Ha, that's generally my experience as well. Most supers games IME either become flavored like The Tick, or The Punisher (minus any moral qualms or boundaries, plus superpowers, plus everyone is playing the Punisher).
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Avengers Annual #10 is my reference point for all supers games
 
Baulderstone said:
Last time I ran a supers game, back when M&M first came out, it ended up with a Tick flavor to it. I'll take that over a Punisher-flavored supers game. The Tick may be a parody of the genre, but it is a very affectionate parody.
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By pure coincidence I created a design thread about my ideas for a corporation supers game.

www.rpgpub.com

Corporate Supers - setting ideas

I've been toying with the idea of a corporate supers campaign setting for a while. I've mentioned it before, but I've been inspired by recent anime (One-Punch Man and My Hero Academia) as well as some American takes on the idea (mainly The Boys, but I hear The Tick has elements of that). What I...
www.rpgpub.com www.rpgpub.com
 
Stan said:
One thing that can help with D&D is to stop tracking XP in detail, go up when it feels right.
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In general, that is the policy we have adopted with all RPGs. The GM decides when we level up, or allocates XP / Character Points as they feel appropriate for the game.

There are a couple of specific instances where that doesn’t work, primarily 3.x and strong evolutions of that system. This is because (as you may know) characters specifically spend XP when they make magic items. So, you need to track XP here unless you make other changes to eliminate these other functions.
 
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