FASERIP for 40k. Am I crazy?

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CRKrueger

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Ok, so I was thinking about what you need for 40k.
  • A system that scales from humans to greater demons, 100ft tall mechs and space gods.
  • Includes magic and Psionics.
  • Has rules for armor, powered armor and vehicles.
  • Could have all of the above on the table at the same time.
I mean FASERIP can do this right? Like, easily? The Marvel Universe isn’t 40k, but it contains all the elements.
I know GURPS and HERO could do it, but I wouldn’t want to spend 10 years modeling everything.
MEGS I suppose could do it too, but I’m not really familiar with it.

Anyway, what do you think?
 
Yeah, I ran 40K with FASERIP, a successful Rogue Trader campaign, lasting about a year.

The only major change I made was I swapped Fighting for the traditional Warhammer Weapon Skill and Ballistic Skill

The conversion was really easy overall
 
should work just fine. I was actually considering a fate of the norns hack for 40k.
 
Superhero games make sense to me. I did a one shot with Champions (4E) but only focused on space marines and it was a fun.
 
That's interesting! Would you use the runes? Seems fitting for Space Wolves.

yep, whole thing. essentially, i think you would do a power board for each class. Seithkona feels fairly on for one of the casting classes. I'm not a super big 40k nerd, but it's got the right level of crunch, goes from human to god-emperor, and is totally ludicrous.

Whole thing is very much just an idea in my head at this point.
 
Might have to change the Karma rules a wee bit. :wink:

It's funnier if you don't. :wink:

It would work, just like it works for Rifts; seriously. I'd leave Fighting alone that is WS, and BS is Agility.

Yeah, Fighting is your up close and personal action. Agility handles ranged. Talents can be inserted for different weapons.
 
It would work, just like it works for Rifts; seriously. I'd leave Fighting alone that is WS, and BS is Agility.

I went with it as an Aesthetic choice, just to feel more like WH. And because BS doesn't map to Agility exactly, so I gave it it's own Stat.

This also gave the characters just a bit more survivability, which compensated for the lack of Karma.
 
This sounds like exactly the right kind and amount of crazy...
 
I am intrigued and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Well, let's say you have Yancy Mud Stomper, first Lieutenant of the 1021st Armored Division, and he has to carpet bomb some Orks, but he also has a dinner date with his Aunt and promised to help his betrothed study for their murderthon exams. If he kills the Orks the Emperor will share karmic favor, but failure to meet his obligations will cost him in the eyes of the Emperor as well. Both leave to heresy.
 
Um, yeah, I'm sure I have my campaign notes somewhere around here, I'll see if I can dig them out, in the meantime..

I went with Rogue Trager and Realms of Chaos as the background for the adventure ignoring modern 40K continuity except for a few bits and pieces (like the Necrons).

During character creation, I had ech plsyer choose from deck of "secrets" - one was a Psyker one a mutant, another was secrety a Chaos Cult member.

The set up was essentially just "Rogue Traders" - they had a small vessel and smuggled contraband and Xenos artifacts between planets on the outer rim and hiveworlds.

They eventually became embroiled in the "Bene Hereticum" (something I came up with on the spot). Essentially, in 40K longrange space trave is only possible through the Warp, which ships are only able to navigate using Astropaths that follow the "Golden Path" which is ustained by the God Emperor. All Psykers are either killed as Witches, inducted into the military to be trained as Astropaths, or sacrificed to the Emperor (100 Psykers are sacrificed to him each day to sustain his undead corpse on the Golden Throne). The problem of course is that using the Warp weakened the boundaries between the Chaos world and the universe, allowing the continued encroachment of the Chaos Daemons.

The Bene Hereticum ( or Good Heresy) was the plans for a new type of technology that allowed FTL travel without entering the Warp.

During the course of the campaign, the characters raided a not-yet-awakened Necron tomb, fought off H.R.U.D. pirates, avoided the Inquisition and planetary authorities, and became embroiled in a Necromunda gangwar that turned out to be a front for a plot by a Genestealer cult.

We did have ship-to-ship combat, the system was a simple adaption of the MSH vehicle rules, but I had a chart for critical hits that determined which subsystem on the ship was affected or damaged and the necessary repairs. I used the gadgeteering rules to cover "jimmy-rigging the ship, such as diverting all power to one system or on-the spot repairs to get out of sticky situations.
 
@ TristramEvans TristramEvans I would like to hear more about the nuts and bolts of the game. FASERIP is a system I have always admired but never got to play. I played a 40k game every week for 2 years and never liked the whiffy % system it uses.
 
@ TristramEvans TristramEvans I would like to hear more about the nuts and bolts of the game. FASERIP is a system I have always admired but never got to play. I played a 40k game every week for 2 years and never liked the whiffy % system it uses.


Well,, "Phaserip" as I call it, is basically my streamlined adaption of the rules divorced of the Marvel IP and the superhero genre (well, not totally divorced, it's still geared towards playing superheroes, but also tweaked to cover other genres - for 20 years now I've been using it for a long-running pulp horror game.

There are 7 Attributes that form the acronym that fans usually use for the system - FASERIP (Fighting, Agility, Strength, Endurance, Reason, Intuition, and Psyche). I'll often play around with these depending on the type of game I'm running, so for the 40K game I went with

Weapon Skill, Ballastic Skill, Agility, Strength, Toughness, Initiative, and WillPower

Just as for the game based on the D&D cartoon I've done, the attributes were

Thaco, Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma.

Each Attribute is ranked by a descriptor or "Echelon", that follows a scale of 1 to 10: Feeble, Puny, Typical, Good, Excellent, Uncanny, Fantastic, Amazing, Incredible, or Unearthly. This is used to describe the quality of any element in the world - so a Feeble flame is a lit match, while an Unearthly flame is the heart of a Volcano, likewise paper would be feeble Material Strength whereas Unearthly Material Strength would be reinforced Titanium.

Resolution is a D100 roll, with the result compared to The Arg! (Action Resolution Graph!), giving one of 5 possible Colour Phase Results

ARG! & MaCE.png


So a character with Strength of Excellent who wants to try and break down a door, would roll dice, and the GM compares the result to the "Excellent" column of the ARG!, with the colour result indicating the degree of success - Green is a regular success, Blue a major success, and Red a Critical success, just as White is a failure, and Purple a fumble.

When an action is contested, the characters rating in the relevant attribute is compared to the "Intensity" of the task - the Echelon rating of the task's inherent difficulty, the opposing character, or the object the character is trying to exert force against. This determines the Colour phase result needed for success - if the Intensity is lower than the character's attribute, they just need a Green Phase Result to succeed. If it's equal, they need a Blue Phase result. If it's larger, a Red Phase result

So say the door in the previous example is a sturdy oak piece with a material strength of Excellent - the character would need a Blue Phase Result to knock it down, or 70 or above on the Excellent column.

Combat throws in one extra wrinkle with Combat effects, as shown in the MaCE below the ARG! (Matrix of Combat Effects). So if a combatant throws a punch and scores a Red Phase Result, that's a "Stun", and the opponent must make an Endurance Roll and compare the Phase Result to the Stun? column, with failure meaning they are knocked out. If the attacker was using an edged weapon (MELEE) or a gun (SHOOT), a Red Phase Result could end up in an automatic Kill.

Combat Effects aside, damage inflicted in Combat is based on either the character's Strength Echelon Rating, or the Damage Rating of the weapon they are using. So, a person with Excellent Strength inflicts 15 points of Damage. A character can absorb an amount of Damage equal to their Stamina, a pool of points that is the sum of their Physical Attributes' Echelon Ratings (Fighting + Strength + Agility + Endurance).

So a character who is Typical in all stats (5 + 5 + 5 +5) has 20 points of Stamina. Once Stamina is reduced to zero, a character takes wounds, in the form of Attribute Loss (their Endurance goes from Typical to Puny, etc).

So, that is the basics of the system with two wrinkles: Traits and Arete ("Karma" in the original game)

Traits are any aspect of a character not covered by Attributes - Talents, Skills, Limitations, etc.

For the most part, a character either has a Trait or they do not. A person who is trained in Swords doesn't have an Echelon rating determining how good they are at Sword-fighting, that's covered by their Fighting Attribute. It just means that this is a skill that they possess. This goes back to the idea that characters are omni-competant, as represented by their Attributes. A character with high Reason is smart at everything they do, Triats just determine specializations.

Traits modify Attributes when they are rolled in one of two ways - an Echelon Shift or a Phase Shift. Meaning they add a +1 to the Echelon of the Attribute being tested (a character with Good Agility who possesses the trait Climbing, would compare the result of a climbing roll to the Excellent column), or they increase the Colour Phase result of the roll by 1 ( a Blue Phase Result becomes a Red Phase Result). The difference is if it is an "active" use of the Trait, or "Passive" use. Traits are applied passively (a +1 Echelon Shift) when the roll is opposed, or the Trait only applies inirectly ("My swimming Trait implies I know something about fish!"). But if a character with the Chemistry Trait sits down and tries to mix together a compound, this is an active use of the Trait, allowing them to increase the Colour Phase of the result.

The intention here is basically to give characters the chance to "show off" their Talents every once in a while. If they are good at something, it's just that much easier to succeed.

You'll notice though, that passive uses include opposed rolls, and that normally means combat. The only exception is if a character "Outclasses" their opponent, meaning their Fighting Echelon is 3 or more higher than the opponents they are facing. In this case, the character can actively apply appropriate fighting Traits, such as Martial Arts. (This basically was my solution for the problem of "mooks" - I never liked how certain games would artificially "depower" opponents so a player character could mow through them, it cheapens the win and doesn't show the character themselves is a badass because of their abilities, it just presents them with weaker foes. Instead, this way Batman, with Amazing(8) Fighting, can take on a bunch of goons with Good (4) Fighting, and mop the floor with them because he can push up his Phase results while they are at the mercy of the dice).

I mentioned that generally a character either possesses a Trait or they don't, with little distinction, but the exception to this is that a character can possess Ultimate Skill! in a Trait, noted by an exclamationamark (instead of Archery, Robin Hood has the Trait Archey!). This indicates mastery of a skill such that any time a character uses that Trait, they treat it as if they possess an Unearthly Echelon Rank in the Attribute (so, while Robin Hood normally has Excellent Agility, when he is using his bow, he treats it as if he has Unearthly Agility).

And the other wrinkle is Arete. Arete is Phaserip's version of Karma points, coming from a term from Ancient Greek philosophy that means "the excellence of a thing" (it's more complex than that, but I'm trying to keep this short). Arete is earned by acting heroically. The underlying premise of Phaserip is "the more you act like a hero, the more effective a hero that you are". This is a pool of points that can be spent on a 1 to 1 basis to influence the results of a roll. So a character with Excellent Strength who really needs that Blue Phase Result to knock down that door, but only rolls a 35, could spend 35 points of Arete to raise it to a result of 70.

Because 40K isn't a game about Superheroes, however, this mostly wasn't awarded in the game, because characters rarely acted heroic (there were a few notable exceptions). Instead a character basically just relied on their starting Arete (based on the sum of their Mental Attributes' Echlon Rankings) as a sort of "Hail Mary" in a desprate situation.

(whew) I think that pretty much covers the basics. It's actually a really simple system, and players tend to pick it up in about 5 minutes, and it plays very fast, especially combat, which usually takes @ 10-15 minutes to resolve.
 
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Given the narrow range of 40k stats it would probably plug in pretty well, 1= Feeble, 2= Puny, 3 = Typical, 4 = Good, 5 = Excellent, 6 = Uncanny, 7 = Fantastic, 8 = Amazing, 9 = Incredible, 10 = Unearthly.
 
Well, let's say you have Yancy Mud Stomper, first Lieutenant of the 1021st Armored Division, and he has to carpet bomb some Orks, but he also has a dinner date with his Aunt and promised to help his betrothed study for their murderthon exams. If he kills the Orks the Emperor will share karmic favor, but failure to meet his obligations will cost him in the eyes of the Emperor as well. Both leave to heresy.
Sounds more like Paranoia should be the system of choice...
 
Not seeking to derail, just for info: We played a great 40k campaign using GURPS 3e. Implementation was super-easy. We just stat’ed guns as doing Xd6 damage where X equals the normal Strength it has in 40k, eye-balled armour penetration and Psionic powers were just spells for vanilla GURPS Magic re-fluffed And heavily trimmed back.

It was honestly the work of minutes...
 
GURPS would keep it gritty and kinetic. I think FASERIP/PHASERIP would give it speed and scale and general ease of use. The sheer amount of possible stuff you can model with an MSH-chassis is literally incalculable - and you can do it on the fly.

You can do it with all the GURPS supplements too, but it takes a bit more work.
 
If I was going to run 40K with some other system, I'd probably start with Stars Without Number and take a hammer to the class system. Possibly integrate Godbound material if people wanted to play Space Marines, Rogue Traders, Inquisitors and Eldar.

I have been thinking of doing something similar with Rifts, to be honest, because while I haven't run Rifts in 20 years, the idea of a conversion haunts me still.
 
I think FASERIP/PHASERIP would give it speed and scale and general ease of use. The sheer amount of possible stuff you can model with an MSH-chassis is literally incalculable - and you can do it on the fly.

Pretty much. The Amazing thing about FASERIP is that since almost everything can be handled by picking a power effect and assigning a descriptive Rank, and that rank gives you everything that you need to handle whatever you're doing mechanically. The Rank has a value that doubles as the amount of damage an effect of that rank would do, or the amount of damage a protective effect would absorb, how difficult a effect is to resist, etc. And since Ranks use descriptive terminology it's easy for the GM to eye ball which rank would be most appropriate for whatever it is you're trying to have happen in the game in any given situation.
 
If I were to get FASERIP should I get the old Marvel stuff or is the retroclone on Drivethru as good/better.

Or should I wait for PHASERIP? :grin:
 
If I were to get FASERIP should I get the old Marvel stuff or is the retroclone on Drivethru as good/better.

Or should I wait for PHASERIP? :grin:


Get the original. It's all free, way more content, and better designed than the retroclone, which misses the point on several nuances of the system.

Phaserip has a ways to go before publication, but the playtest doc should be out within the next month
 
@Seadna - just as a suggestion, if you do start getting into FASERIP (I assume you already know you can download all the books from Classicmarvelforever.com), I would start with the 2nd edition revised Basic Set, and then pick and chose options from the Advanced game to add in. It's also worth noting that the Campaign City Guide is effectively the GM's Guide and Setting rules, but not identified as such.
 
I think it would be a fine fit. As you say, it covers pretty much all the aspects needed. I always liked that about supers games. They really encompass so much stuff in general, and as long as they have some 'granularity' you can play just about anything with them.

Okay, you might need some adjusting for the tone. But you can still make it deadly or gritty. ;)
 
Ok, so I was thinking about what you need for 40k.
  • A system that scales from humans to greater demons, 100ft tall mechs and space gods.
  • Includes magic and Psionics.
  • Has rules for armor, powered armor and vehicles.
  • Could have all of the above on the table at the same time.
I mean FASERIP can do this right? Like, easily? The Marvel Universe isn’t 40k, but it contains all the elements.
I know GURPS and HERO could do it, but I wouldn’t want to spend 10 years modeling everything.
MEGS I suppose could do it too, but I’m not really familiar with it.

Anyway, what do you think?
You're not mad, you're the most normal person in the 40th Millennium:devil:!

Also, I'm curious what you're going to do about Karma:shade:.
 
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