I'm inspired by the recent artificer and equipment threads. I'm wondering what games are out there that are nearly 100% equipment based in terms of character progression. How do they work? How would such a game work?
To be clear about equipment, I'd define it as something that you acquire from the world that can be taken away without erasing your concept of what the character is all about. If your character is always assumed to have a sword no matter what, for whatever reasons, then it's more like a class ability. If acquiring a spell book is the most important part of learning a spell, and it's fairly easy for the world to make you forget or unlearn your spells - until you find a replacement spell book - its really more more like a piece of equipment. For my purposes here, that's roughly what I'm getting at. I'm not beholden to these definitions.
So, how might such a game work? Tell me where I'm wrong and what I'm missing.
I suppose you'd need a lot of random tables and different places / activities / enemies would be more likely to yield certain kinds of equipment. That way PCs could make meaningful choices in persuit of equipment, and still feel like their part of the world.
I suppose a lot of what character classes would be about is how well they be benefit from certain types of equipment. This class likes bows; this class likes books.
Certain kinds of enemies and situations would require different kinds of equipment to handle, so PCs would have to think in sequence (what do I do first) to plan out their actions.
Trade might be more important. So their should be more variety in local value of items.
Storage might be a big part of the game. Limited item slots / encumberence rules, and devising places to store things you can't take with you. And safekeeping them, so you don't get robbed.
There's also crafting and combinatory McGuffins.
Well, that's I can think of. What do you think?
I think Traveller, in most of its incarnations (GURPS Traveller being a notable exception) would fit the basic description. You gain a variety of skills during character creation by serving 4-year terms of service in the military, trading, or elsewhere, and then those are pretty much the skills you've got because, while skill advancement is technically possible, it's extremely slow, on the order of multiple months of weekly play to gain a single new skill rank. So, instead, characters increase in power and ability primarily by making contacts, making money, and using that money to buy better gear.
I'd definitely recommend taking a look at it. Based on the questions you asked, I suspect that your ideas on how you think it's likely to play out may have very little in common with how things actually work in Traveller...
That actually reminds me of a different SF game. Star Frontiers, the initial module had your characters crash landed and marooned on a planet. So keeping track of gear and such was very, very important to your character's survival.
OTOH, for character development, some games have cybernetic rules, expanding your character's cyberware is what increases their power. Most of them use some sort of slot or point system to limit the amount of things they can use. But then you can get better tech ones so you can cram more in.
The one game that comes to my mind is Chris McDowall's Into the Odd (http://lostpages.storenvy.com/products/10964031-into-the-odd-print-pdf).
It's one of those small, minimalistic, not-quite-OSR-anymore games that sprung up in the past years (Whitehack, The Black Hack, et al, but it's older than those).
Characters have three attributes (STR, DEX, WILL), hp, and randomly rolled equipment. No skills, no classes - you are what you do. And what you (can) do is somewhat dependent on your "arcana" (weird-tech, magic items).
Boot Hill and Star Frontiers come to mind as a purely equipment + skill based RPGs. Albedo is another. Call of Cthulhu kinda counts since you tend to start out very mundane. I've seen alot of people play Shadowrun that way too. No magic. Purely skill and gear.
These games work perfectly fine because the character is the point. Not their gear. Well... mostly not their gear. :cool:
D&D can and has been played that way too.
Some people REALLY despise this sort of RPG though. Their character MUST have teh powerz! Others really get into the idea of equipment and gearing up. Sometimes to the point shopping is more fun than adventuring.
Thanks for all the perspectives and examples. I was thinking yesterday that I had made a really boring post so no one was interested. I suppose folks were paying attention to the news.
Also wanted to apologize to Asen. I was hard on him in another thread when he was just trying to help. I am sorry.
Not being a fan of class/level bsaed games I always appreciated Traveller for its approach to character advancement, with equipment being a part of the overall obtainable resources... but also reputations and connections... access to power. Which of course is present in most games to some extent. But Players, even GMs, often don't seem to see that stuff as 'rewards'... even though something like making friends with a local prince and having a letter of introduction from him might be much more powerful in-game than... whatever new number you get from going up a level.
I opened the thread to say "Traveller and CP2020, for two very different takes on the same".
And then they were recommended already, of course:).
Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;941737The one game that comes to my mind is Chris McDowall's Into the Odd (http://lostpages.storenvy.com/products/10964031-into-the-odd-print-pdf).
It's one of those small, minimalistic, not-quite-OSR-anymore games that sprung up in the past years (Whitehack, The Black Hack, et al, but it's older than those).
Characters have three attributes (STR, DEX, WILL), hp, and randomly rolled equipment. No skills, no classes - you are what you do. And what you (can) do is somewhat dependent on your "arcana" (weird-tech, magic items).
Funny, I'm sure I have played that, but don't remember anything but the name...
Why would you say it's "not-quite-OSR-anymore"?
Quote from: Omega;941748Some people REALLY despise this sort of RPG though. Their character MUST have teh powerz!
Yeah, I can think of examples:D!
Quote from: Ashakyre;941757Thanks for all the perspectives and examples. I was thinking yesterday that I had made a really boring post so no one was interested. I suppose folks were paying attention to the news.
Also wanted to apologize to Asen. I was hard on him in another thread when he was just trying to help. I am sorry.
It's forgotten already;).
My perspective:
I like games where the mechanics try to describe the situation accurately. So if the game is about a situation where equipment would make a big difference, I want it to be like that in the game. I don't like it when things work in weird ways, or are over-represented. To exaggerate the direction I don't like: if almost everyone in the game has 1 hit point, but special people have 10d8 hit points, or if almost all weapons do 1d4 - 1d8 damage, but magic weapons do 2d6 to 4d12, so the real-world differences hardly exist, but it's all about who has the better special magic items, or who has acquired superhuman immunity to caring about non-super-heroes. On the other hand, it makes sense to me if a club does 1d6, a sword does 2d6, a greatsword 3d6, and then it's not such a big deal if there are some fine or magic weapons that do +1 or +2 on top of that.
Some games that aren't supposed to necessarily be special-equipment-based, can become so, which can be a bit disappointing to me, because the equipment starts to be a bit like super-hero super-powers. Players can start to get overly attached to their weapons, and insist they take their equipment everywhere, always know where it is and have it immediately available, sleep in their armor, never part from their weapons, and might rather their character lose a limb than lose a special item (even if the game didn't also provide ways to more easily replace lost limbs than the special items), make decisions based on wanting to acquire more special items as opposed to other considerations (like killing people they would otherwise be allied with (possibly other PCs) to loot their gear), or even would rather die than have their items taken away. Since I find that to be not what I generally want, I've been more likely to design in ways to reduce those trends, rather than to base games around them.
It seems to me that many games have special (spells and) magic (or high-tech) item abilities be more important than other elements of gameplay, such as character ratings or the situation or the approach/tactics taken. In general, I tend to be more interested in the characters, the situation, and their approach to a situation, than I am to the special gear they have. When what happens and who prevails starts to be mainly about who has the better special gear, more than those other types of causes, I start to lose interest, and/or feel I would prefer things were not that way.
I also don't like when the weight given to special items seems excessive in terms of believability or logic. On the other hand, if a repeating rifle is dominating a bunch of flintlocks, at least that makes sense.
I tend to prefer it when equipment has limits and ways that it can wear out or be lost or damaged or taken or malfunction.
I don't mind so much if a game is mainly about equipment, if I believe the situation makes sense and is organized in an appropriate way for that. Examples of equipment-based games that seem natural and interesting to me:
* Games that center around vehicles, ships, or planes and their abilities.
* Games where the availability, selection and rationing of available equipment is a natural part of the setting, such as a military campaign, a survival or post-apocalypse situation, or a game where players are medieval newcomer men-at-arms trying to scrounge bits of armor that fits them from battlefield leftovers.
* Sci-fi games that orient around technology.
* Games where the characters are mechanical, or pilots of ships or other machines that can be fitted with new equipment.
What I really can't stand are games that are just following a standard game formula but think it's cool to have a "gadgeteer" character class and give mechanics for it that aren't a whole lot different from a wizard or something, giving abilities with weird effects and limits for game balance purposes that are highly gamey and don't make much (if any) sense in terms of how actual objects work. Excessive abilities to repair, invent and create stuff in short periods of time. Mysterious pouches of stuff that can produce effects every so often. Equipment only they can use with abilities scaled to their experience level, and that they can only have a limited number of at once, but no one else can use them and they can make another one quickly if something happens to theirs. (Have I mentioned yet that I really can't stand games that pretend to be about something, and then have game mechanics that aren't like how that thing actually would work?)
If equipment requires supplies or maintenance, or can take damage or break down, or be targeted or disarmed by opponents, or doesn't work so well in all situations or against all targets, and if there are limits on what (and how much) equipment can be carried or used at once, and who is skilled at using what, then you may have some hope of getting some players to put down some special items.
Another thing that can help to consider is the distribution of gear in the whole game world. What skills, equipment and materials does it take to make each item? Who has how much access to those? What do they do with it? How much equipment and supplies of what types already exists, where is it, and who has it? Who is interested in amassing or limiting access to equipment, and what are they doing about it? How will the people in the world react to things PCs may do in terms of amassing and using special gear? If the GM and players limit their thinking to the PCs, the stuff they can get, amassing and using it, imbalance and weirdness can happen that can be hard to handle well. If instead the GM has thought about the above already, then they'll have an idea of how the world works in regard to items, and have natural reactions to when/if the PCs get & use bunches of powerful gear. Like in the real world, we have an idea what might happen if someone gets a minigun and robs a bank, or gets a tank and goes on a highway road rage joy ride with it.
Quote from: Ashakyre;941757I suppose folks were paying attention to the news.
I have time for news?
Funeral.
That turned into a warzone.
Quote from: Skarg;941769Some games that aren't supposed to necessarily be special-equipment-based, can become so, which can be a bit disappointing to me, because the equipment starts to be a bit like super-hero super-powers. Players can start to get overly attached to their weapons, and insist they take their equipment everywhere, always know where it is and have it immediately available, sleep in their armor, never part from their weapons, and might rather their character lose a limb than lose a special item (even if the game didn't also provide ways to more easily replace lost limbs than the special items), make decisions based on wanting to acquire more special items as opposed to other considerations (like killing people they would otherwise be allied with (possibly other PCs) to loot their gear), or even would rather die than have their items taken away. Since I find that to be not what I generally want, I've been more likely to design in ways to reduce those trends, rather than to base games around them.
And now we have the reason for the Resistance charmtree in Exalted:D!