Quote from: Warboss Squee;1090974Genesys has weapon tags like Accurate, Pierce, Breach, etc, that determine how weapons behave, and with the exception of accurate how the weapons damage interacts with the targets armor.

So in FS terms, you could have a pistol equivalent of a .45. Eyeball it at dmg 6 (I'd have a 9mm at dmg 5) medium range because it's a pistol and a standard crit requirement of 3. No tags, so armor interacts normally, unless you mod the weapon, which we're not getting into here.

A laser pistol might be dmg 5 for sake of argument, still medium range with the same crit. But give it the Accurate tag so you get bonus dice to hit, and Pierce so it ignores some damage reduction. So in the end it's easier to hit with (and crit possibly due to the extra die) and better dmg.

A Plasma pistol would have higher dmg, likely an 8, a lower crit requirement at 2 or 1 with the same range. Breach means fuck your armor and your toughness, you take all the dmg and Vicious means crits hurt even more.

OK, so nothing more than SW did then.

Quote from: kythri;1090958Does Fading Suns d20 have any redeeming qualities, over the Victory Point system?

Sort of.

Having played both (one session only, since they both sucked) here's my take. D20 is better than VPS, but that's not saying much. FS D20 was one of the earlier attempts to graft an existing game onto the D20 engine and it shows. They tried to both convert some of the base 3E classes and invent new classes, and it doesn't entirely work. Some of the classes are obviously superior to others, but occupy the same concept space. So you have to steer players away from trap options. But trap options and exploitable combos are nothing new to D20 players.

On the plus side, the Psychic and Theurge classes are not reskinned versions of the Magic User and Cleric, and the "spell" system is completely new, not the same rehashed d20 grimoire. "Magic" is spell-point based, not Vancian. The star of the show was meant to be the Social feats. VPS has a Gurpsian approach, where you buy Edges (or whatever) with points and select Flaws (or whatever) to get points. In the D20 version, you "buy edges" by selecting feats. The Social feats are stuff like promotions, allies, contacts, favors, etc. Now if you are thinking that no player is going to select any of that stuff over Improved Critical or Power Attack, you are absolutely right. To make matters worse, FS D20 (like most early D20 incarnations) has dead levels, so you're still consuming a lot of feat slots to make the complex feat trees work.

A better design choice would have been Open feats on the odd levels and Social feats on the evens, but I'm not even sure that would work. Honestly if I were to run FS again, I'd use Gurps. The VPS version is essentially "a version of Gurps that doesn't work." (Point buy, atts and skills, roll under, ads and disads, spells, social status, etc.)

Quote from: HappyDaze;1090994OK, so nothing more than SW did then.

It's the same core system being used for different games. It half way works for Fading Suns abd I hacked it for 40k easily enough.

Quote from: Aglondir;1090999Sort of.

Having played both (one session only, since they both sucked) here's my take. D20 is better than VPS, but that's not saying much. FS D20 was one of the earlier attempts to graft an existing game onto the D20 engine and it shows. They tried to both convert some of the base 3E classes and invent new classes, and it doesn't entirely work. Some of the classes are obviously superior to others, but occupy the same concept space. So you have to steer players away from trap options. But trap options and exploitable combos are nothing new to D20 players.

On the plus side, the Psychic and Theurge classes are not reskinned versions of the Magic User and Cleric, and the "spell" system is completely new, not the same rehashed d20 grimoire. "Magic" is spell-point based, not Vancian. The star of the show was meant to be the Social feats. VPS has a Gurpsian approach, where you buy Edges (or whatever) with points and select Flaws (or whatever) to get points. In the D20 version, you "buy edges" by selecting feats. The Social feats are stuff like promotions, allies, contacts, favors, etc. Now if you are thinking that no player is going to select any of that stuff over Improved Critical or Power Attack, you are absolutely right. To make matters worse, FS D20 (like most early D20 incarnations) has dead levels, so you're still consuming a lot of feat slots to make the complex feat trees work.

A better design choice would have been Open feats on the odd levels and Social feats on the evens, but I'm not even sure that would work. Honestly if I were to run FS again, I'd use Gurps. The VPS version is essentially "a version of Gurps that doesn't work." (Point buy, atts and skills, roll under, ads and disads, spells, social status, etc.)

See, I'm the guy who would take the social feats.

Why have Power Attack, when I can have troops loyal to me that have Power Attack?

Quote from: kythri;1090958Does Fading Suns d20 have any redeeming qualities, over the Victory Point system?

Nope. I've run FS20 and FSVP and I had a much better time running FS using Classic Traveller.

It's a great IP, and probably would do well with a 5e version.

I played in a FS D6 campaign and D6 worked fine as always.

Quote from: Warboss Squee;1091004See, I'm the guy who would take the social feats.

Why have Power Attack, when I can have troops loyal to me that have Power Attack?

I can see your point, but in some cases it wasn't clear what a lot of the social feats did. What's the difference between Rank 4 Church Official and Rank 5? Is it worth dumping 5 feats into? And wouldn't it have been better to have that progression as a class feature of the Priest? Also, if "Military Rank 4" gives you troops, how does that square with the Leadership feat?  

In the end, it seemed like a good idea that needed more work. The Aeon D20 lines (Adventure D20, Aberrant D20, and Trinity D20) also did Social feats, but they were much better.

Quote from: SpinachcatNope. I've run FS20 and FSVP and I had a much better time running FS using Classic Traveller.

Yeah, FS Trav would be awesome. The VPS character creation is already sort of Traveller-esqe: for example, if you are a Priest you select Cathedral, country parish, or (something else) and each one gives you a different skill package. There are also three paths for Noble, etc. You could easily map this to the three specialties in Mongoose Traveller. And Traveller's Social Status att is perfect for the genre. Trav's psionics are a bit bland, and you'd need new rules for Theurgy, Hubris, and Urge, but otherwise Trav would be great.

Quote from: grodog;1089969Blue Planet -Biohazard Games
Upwind - Biohazard Games
Thoan - Descartes (in French)
Fading Suns

Allan.

Has anyone here actually played Blue Planet? If so, how did it go?

I was just talking about West End Ghostbusters RPG with my brother on the phone last night.   One of those more light hearted games that sounds goofy, but was tons of fun to play.  You play a "start up" franchise of Ghostbusters, inc, with all the financial and business struggles tied in to the super-natural elements.

In the process of googling it for the link below, I see it was written by Sandy Peterson, Lynn Willis and Greg Stafford! No wonder it was such a blast to run.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostbusters_(role-playing_game)


What else... oh TMNT & Other Strangeness.  

I had a lot of fun running Immortal, the Invisible War but man does it seem dated now.

I was really into Earthdawn for a few years as a teenager / young adult.

Quote from: Trond;1089435Houses of the Blooded (a "story game", eeeep!) is awesome fun and easy to run with minimal prep time.

It's such a good game!!!

Quote from: Doc Sammy;1089661Big Eyes Small Mouth is an awesome RPG from the 90's

RECON was a classic 1980's RPG as well

I never did get the chance to run or play RECON, always wanted to try it. Was playing a lot of Morrow Project back in the day. When Twilight 2000 came out in the 80's, they made it really easy to expand Morrow Project, and it fit right in with the earlier Post-Apocalyptic game.

For those talking about SLA there was a kickstarter for a 2nd edition that just wrapped up - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nightfall/sla-industries-2nd-edition?ref=nav_search&result=project&term=SLA%20Industries

Games I think that should be on the list:
Palladium Fantasy 1st ed
Heavy Gear
Alternity

Quote from: Trond;1109357Has anyone here actually played Blue Planet? If so, how did it go?

Yes indeed, but I've only played with Jeff Barber, so my perspective is probably somewhat skewed.  You can listen to a BP RPR podcast at http://slangdesign.com/rppr/?s=%22blue+planet%22

Allan.

Tales of Blades and Heroes
Index card sized characters, low complexity, highly tactical, unique fantasy roleplaying game with a word-based magic system that actually works

Honor and Intrigue

Which is basically 7th Sea done right.

I really wanted the second edition of 7th Sea to follow the ideas presented in Honor and Intrigue... but it decided to go it's own...very different, very storey gamey direction... Then also messed up a bunch of the cool lore and inserted worse lore.

So Honor and Intrigue stayed relevant for my swashbuckling interests, despite 7th Seas 2nd ed existing.

The original Dragon Warriors RPG.
It came in a paperback pocketbook size and there were lots of expansions books that added new classes, races, adventures, campaigns etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Warriors

There was a new edition in larger book, which was cool and all, but not as convenient.
There was something special about those handy smaller books.