Helvéczia

Best Selling RPGs - Available Now @ DriveThruRPG.com
I've started to tuck into the rules book, and am more impressed than expected. The author has a real creative gift and distinctive voice, and is clearly inspired by the genre. Whether or not the rules, per se, are better than playing classic D&D I couldn't really say, but the vibes are awesome and the material explaining and supporting the picaresque alpine setting is extraordinary.
 
Exalted Funeral is unlikely to carry EMDT products in the future, unfortunately.
I'm thinking of picking up a bunch of Fomalhaut zines, and I'm curious about this. Do we know why Exalted Funeral won't be carrying EMDT products anymore?
 
This just came to my attention. It is an intriguing concept.
The production quality is great and it seems a labour of love all around.

Thanks under_score under_score for this thread It has been a very informative journey.

Because your posts were so interesting to read I bought the pdfs, even if I am right now running two different game systems and preparing a third, but before committing further on reading, and to the physical stuff anyway, I have some questions on the back of my mind, that maybe you and those in the known could help me clearing it out.

I wonder if is there any good reason for the player characters to not wander around in full plate?
Bonjour João Talassa João Talassa. I am sorry that I did not reply sooner to you, I no longer hang out on this forum and hadn't seen your posts. After nearly a year of running Masks of Nyarlathotep, we finally concluded that campaign and I have begun my Helvéczia campaign. I dropped by to collect my notes for a record of our play. I hope I can answer some of your questions at this point.

1652883682374.png

Regarding plate mail, I believe the armor makes for enough impracticality in the game that my players haven't had any interest in obtaining any. For one thing, it is extremely expensive (40 or 80 Th). It also incurs additional encumbrance. But moreover, when discussing the setting I explained that this sort of armor is falling out of use, and even a cuirass is really only used by soldiers going to war. None of my players elected to wear more than a pelisse and armguards. That, along with a dexterity bonus, gave the group's duelist an AC of 17, which is not shabby at all.
Looking through the rules, it seems quite easy to get rather high AC scores, while attack bonus (especially for npcs) stays relatively low. I wonder if this might lead to a high "whiff factor", something I don't like in my games. What are your experiences or thoughts on this issue?
Combat checks are the answer here. Swinging, whiffing, hitting occasionally to whittle down hit points, can be dull. Combat checks are an opposed roll, and our duelist, armed with his rapier, gets a +4 to those checks. A fight can be very quickly and dramatically resolved with creative combat checks. Our duelist invested in a whip as an additional weapon and trained in balance skill. He should be quite formidable.
Similar to how I run Pulp Cthulhu, where I favor combat maneuvers to basic attacks. Something should always be happening, and always changing, to capture the swashbuckling feel that I believe is intended in the system.

It would be wrong expect that pistols would pierce plate amour in this kind of setting?
Is there anymore material expected for the game soon? Can we play for years with the existing material?

Have you played it? If so, how it went? How did it feel? It feels like D&D or not like D&D at all?
How does the Bible/deck of cards mechanics impact play? It changes the way the game is played?
It is something easy to do on-line or expected to do in person?

Are you expecting to play or run this game in the future? If so, what are your thoughts and plans about it?

In short I would like to know more about your opinions on the game ( under_score under_score and you all out here) after four months have passed from the start of this thread. It is awesome and I wanted to tell you that, and I want it to continue.

Does the game holds up? Where are your mind currently about it? Do you expect to do something more with it?
There are armor piercing weapons but the guns are not among them. However, guns do have exploding damage dice, so they are a bit more deadly.
The deck of cards has been explained but has not come up yet. The group's cleric loves the Bible mechanic and is eager to find divine intervention in the most obtuse verses. We are playing in person so I have a Bible and the cards laid out on the table for the players access. If run online, there are random Bible verse websites you could use, but I think the GM would just draw and track the cards regardless.

We've only just begun our campaign but have established a bit of an origin for the group. Basically a drunken tavern debate on theology and philosophy and science needs to be resolved, so the group is traveling to Brückl to have a famed Rabbi there weigh in. I am trying to lean into the short picaresque adventure idea, so that every stop along the way presents its own night's entertainment. My group plays weekly on Monday evenings, usually 2-hour sessions, so keeping to a quick pace works well for us. I do think this is a format that will lend itself to longer play as the group gets entangled in the greater affairs of the region and develops their own imprint on it.

I'll be keeping a campaign journal, so hopefully in a year's time I'll have some more insight for anyone interested.
 
M Moonglum do you mind you share how long it too your order to arrive? My order was shipped around 8th February and I am still waiting to receive it here in Lisbon. As I have the PDFs of the game, I have manged to play the game twice already. Because of time constraints I’ve chosen the short adventure in the book “seven knaves”, one time on-line with 4 players through roll20 and the other time at a Thirst Project charity event at a public library in Lisbon, with another 4 players, two rpg veterans and two newbies, one of them never played or even heard about D&D. I feel both runs were very successful and 3 of 4 of the same characters were played in both instances, as I gave the player’s a choice of the pre-gen characters available. Even so, it felt we were playing two completely different adventures, both of them with different situations, all very flavorful and fun. We had great moments in play, I think that is partly due to Gábor Lux great knack for adventure design. He creates interesting situations and opportunities for the players to engage with. The other part is the player’s own creativity and decision making while interacting with said situations at the table, which was something very much facilitated by the adventure design. All 8 players loved playing the game and the on-line groups wants to continue to play, which will happen this Friday.

In the meanwhile I’ve ordered Xyntillan Castle and am considering to run it, probably with Swords & Wizardry.
Ah, I missed this, you've actually had more experience running the game than I am now then. I hope that is has continued to be a success for your group!
 
Combat checks are the answer here. Swinging, whiffing, hitting occasionally to whittle down hit points, can be dull. Combat checks are an opposed roll, and our duelist, armed with his rapier, gets a +4 to those checks. A fight can be very quickly and dramatically resolved with creative combat checks. Our duelist invested in a whip as an additional weapon and trained in balance skill. He should be quite formidable.

Similar to how I run Pulp Cthulhu, where I favor combat maneuvers to basic attacks. Something should always be happening, and always changing, to capture the swashbuckling feel that I believe is intended in the system.
First of all welcome back to the board it has been a while. Can you please give a quick summary of the combat maneuver system?
 
Combat checks are the answer here. Swinging, whiffing, hitting occasionally to whittle down hit points, can be dull. Combat checks are an opposed roll, and our duelist, armed with his rapier, gets a +4 to those checks. A fight can be very quickly and dramatically resolved with creative combat checks. Our duelist invested in a whip as an additional weapon and trained in balance skill. He should be quite formidable.
Similar to how I run Pulp Cthulhu, where I favor combat maneuvers to basic attacks. Something should always be happening, and always changing, to capture the swashbuckling feel that I believe is intended in the system.

While I have only played one session so far, my experience with combat checks (cc) has been less positive. They might be a viable option for duelists who get the mentioned bonus, but lacking such special modifiers, ccs mostly resulted in a draw in our game, which wasn't exciting at all. My players tried lots of combat manoeuvers at the start of the game, but as most of their attempts failed to achieve a conclusive result (which is statisticalls very unlikely, if you don't have a really big bonus to you roll), they mostly retorted to simple attacks for hp damage later on.

I think requiring a roll to win by at least 5 for a cc to succeed is not a good idea. Just rolling higher than your opponent might make combat checks much more swingy (which is entirely in tune with Helvéczia's intended style/tone, imo) but, more importantly, more attractive to players than the current rule - I will probably try this houserule if I get to play the game again.
 
While I have only played one session so far, my experience with combat checks (cc) has been less positive. They might be a viable option for duelists who get the mentioned bonus, but lacking such special modifiers, ccs mostly resulted in a draw in our game, which wasn't exciting at all. My players tried lots of combat manoeuvers at the start of the game, but as most of their attempts failed to achieve a conclusive result (which is statisticalls very unlikely, if you don't have a really big bonus to you roll), they mostly retorted to simple attacks for hp damage later on.

I think requiring a roll to win by at least 5 for a cc to succeed is not a good idea. Just rolling higher than your opponent might make combat checks much more swingy (which is entirely in tune with Helvéczia's intended style/tone, imo) but, more importantly, more attractive to players than the current rule - I will probably try this houserule if I get to play the game again.
Well, maybe first try and limit that to "roll 3 higher"?

I'd also like to hear more about those Combat Checks, BTW.
 
Well, maybe first try and limit that to "roll 3 higher"?
Why should I do that? I mean, what's the reason for making success in combat checks rather difficult - in a game that wants to emulate swashbuckling fiction like the Three Musketiers? I honestly don't get it; perhaps you can explain what the benefit of requiring roll "3/5/whatever higher" would be?
 
Why should I do that? I mean, what's the reason for making success in combat checks rather difficult - in a game that wants to emulate swashbuckling fiction like the Three Musketiers? I honestly don't get it; perhaps you can explain what the benefit of requiring roll "3/5/whatever higher" would be?
I don't own the game (yet), remember? So I'm not sure what those checks would be doing, I imagine "whatever manoeuvre the player describes". So the following, and my previous post, are based on that assumption.
1) Anyone who's seen me playing a DCC Warrior would attest that achieving such results easily is an ability you don't want in...certain players' hands:angel:!
2) To make sure that the opponents wouldn't do that too often on PCs (also see the previous point, but imagine me in the Refereeing spot:thumbsup:).
3) To leave any room for actually hitting people instead of disarming them - the example above was an AC of 17, and hitting that in an OCR game is way worse odds than coming up with a trick.
4) You can always tone it even further down if it's not good enough, and that would result in much less players' grumbling.

And now, if you still don't care about that, and would simply want to make sure there's more stunts in combat than anything else, go right ahead:grin:!
 
I don't own the game (yet), remember? So I'm not sure what those checks would be doing, I imagine "whatever manoeuvre the player describes". So the following, and my previous post, are based on that assumption.
1) Anyone who's seen me playing a DCC Warrior would attest that achieving such results easily is an ability you don't want in...certain players' hands:angel:!
2) To make sure that the opponents wouldn't do that too often on PCs (also see the previous point, but imagine me in the Refereeing spot:thumbsup:).
3) To leave any room for actually hitting people instead of disarming them - the example above was an AC of 17, and hitting that in an OCR game is way worse odds than coming up with a trick.
4) You can always tone it even further down if it's not good enough, and that would result in much less players' grumbling.

And now, if you still don't care about that, and would simply want to make sure there's more stunts in combat than anything else, go right ahead:grin:!
Your assumption is correct, combat checks are used to resolve any manoeuvre besides hitting for standard damage (which, as usual, needs to match AC).

I appreciate your answer, but your points basically come down to "it's meant to make tricks (more) difficult, because I don't want them to be overpowered".
And I just don't think that is a) neccessary and b) an elegant solution, as it is counter to the game's intended tone and somewhat against usual osr practices, too - if I think a manoeurve is implausible/overpowered/not possible against a certain kind of npc, I'd rather use some kind of on-the-spot ruling.

I had hoped there might be more to it, something I'm missing, but I guess I'll have to ask the designer for any deeper insights (and I think he'd quite likely state the same points as you!).
 
Your assumption is correct, combat checks are used to resolve any manoeuvre besides hitting for standard damage (which, as usual, needs to match AC).

I appreciate your answer, but your points basically come down to "it's meant to make tricks (more) difficult, because I don't want them to be overpowered".
And I just don't think that is a) neccessary and b) an elegant solution, as it is counter to the game's intended tone and somewhat against usual osr practices, too - if I think a manoeurve is implausible/overpowered/not possible against a certain kind of npc, I'd rather use some kind of on-the-spot ruling.

I had hoped there might be more to it, something I'm missing, but I guess I'll have to ask the designer for any deeper insights (and I think he'd quite likely state the same points as you!).
Another possibility is that the designer believes picaresque adventures go well with more grittiness - a stance I've certainly seen as well, though YMMV. Manoeuvres allow you to bypass the consequences of getting into unnecessary fights and killing people you really shouldn't have...

But again, if that's not what you're looking for, go straight for my 5th point:shade:!
 
I think requiring a roll to win by at least 5 for a cc to succeed is not a good idea. Just rolling higher than your opponent might make combat checks much more swingy (which is entirely in tune with Helvéczia's intended style/tone, imo) but, more importantly, more attractive to players than the current rule - I will probably try this houserule if I get to play the game again.
FWIW, the author has been using combat checks in his campaigns (both Helvéczia and Sword & Magic) for 14+ years without altering them. I believe they are meant to provide flavour and easy adjudication for all sorts of crazy manoeuvres players might attempt (as opposed to being the bread-and-butter of combat).
 
FWIW, the author has been using combat checks in his campaigns (both Helvéczia and Sword & Magic) for 14+ years without altering them. I believe they are meant to provide flavour and easy adjudication for all sorts of crazy manoeuvres players might attempt (as opposed to being the bread-and-butter of combat).
"The street finds its own uses for things".
 
Here's quick summary of the probabilities for winning / drawing / losing a combat check with 5+ to win, 3+ to win, or 1+ to win over the opponent's roll:
View attachment 46199
Hope it helps!
I like the probabilities of 3+ to win best...which ain't surprising, really:grin:!
 
While I don't consider "the author has been using combat checks [...] for 14+ years without altering them" to be a very good point, the table is really helpful - thanks you!

Just looking at the numbers, I agree that 'win on 3+' looks like a good compromise - a draw always is the least likely outcome, but still very much on the table. And it is this last part that's bothering me: I find outcomes that change nothing rather boring in rpgs. But this is just our/my preferred way of playing, and I don't think there is a 'right' way to do it!
 
While I don't consider "the author has been using combat checks [...] for 14+ years without altering them" to be a very good point, the table is really helpful - thanks you!

Just looking at the numbers, I agree that 'win on 3+' looks like a good compromise - a draw always is the least likely outcome, but still very much on the table. And it is this last part that's bothering me: I find outcomes that change nothing rather boring in rpgs. But this is just our/my preferred way of playing, and I don't think there is a 'right' way to do it!
While I find that such outcomes are part of the expected flow of combat:thumbsup:!

Also, then you get people objecting to the fact that most RPGs can't simulate well a protracted fight where nobody is getting hurt, as in a fencing match or kung-fu duel...so there's no pleasing everybody:grin:!
 
I like my rpg combat as short and decisive as possible. Luckily, besides combat checks, our Helvéczia fights went reasonably fast due to low hit points - at least with beginning characters and low-level adversaries.
 
I like my rpg combat as short and decisive as possible. Luckily, besides combat checks, our Helvéczia fights went reasonably fast due to low hit points - at least with beginning characters and low-level adversaries.
Yeah, it's clear we have at least mildly differing tastes here, but you know what you're looking for - so again, go for it:thumbsup:!

(What do I like about rounds where nobody achieves anything? Counting coup. It's extremely difficult for such a thing to happen IRL, barring well-matched adversaries, so by extension, if it happens with a competent PC, you know the opposition is on par:shade:).
 
While I find that such outcomes are part of the expected flow of combat:thumbsup:!

Also, then you get people objecting to the fact that most RPGs can't simulate well a protracted fight where nobody is getting hurt, as in a fencing match or kung-fu duel...so there's no pleasing everybody:grin:!
There's a system in one of the GURPS compendiums for handling the 'disengaging' of a duel that always seemed to me as fairly 'realistic' and utilised fatigue as a real combat effect too.

This usually just gets hand waved into the X second combat round.
 
There's a system in one of the GURPS compendiums for handling the 'disengaging' of a duel that always seemed to me as fairly 'realistic' and utilised fatigue as a real combat effect too.

This usually just gets hand waved into the X second combat round.
Can you summarize what it was like and/or which compendium?

Also, fatigue is a real combat effect, and in GURPS, it halves your Dodge score IIRC.
 
Banner: The best cosmic horror & Cthulhu Mythos @ DriveThruRPG.com
Back
Top