I do believe it's a valid critique of any RPG if the game is based around a "novel" way of reading a dice result.

I know of one RPG the determines a result based on Width and Height of a roll.  Basically, if you rolled a lot better than the other guy, what we call a Margin of Success, and also how high you rolled in general.  I can't explain it more than that because I could care less at that point.  It just comes off as pretentiousness to invent new ways to roll dice. 

Especially ones based around just D6's or such.  Those games are almost a class of suck in their own right.  Yet, other games do well, like the Tiny-D6 series, which I own and actually play. 

The KISS principle is something I care about. 

Modiphius and 2D20 sort of seems like it is like this.  Why 2D20?  What makes this better, or is it just to be different? 

Then again, not having played it means I can't be too hard on them.  It might be great.  But, I doubt that very much. 

Quote from: weirdguy564 on August 03, 2024, 06:38:28 PMI know of one RPG the determines a result based on Width and Height of a roll.  Basically, if you rolled a lot better than the other guy, what we call a Margin of Success, and also how high you rolled in general.  I can't explain it more than that because I could care less at that point.  It just comes off as pretentiousness to invent new ways to roll dice.

Godlike?

I am not the biggest fan of the way the dice or metacurrency works in 2D20.  That wasn't the biggest problem for STA for me though.  The biggest problem for me was the terrible organization of the book.  Just finding the rules that were relevant to a fairly simple action was a chore of flipping through to book and hoping I found all of the relevant rules. 

Quote from: weirdguy564 on August 03, 2024, 06:38:28 PMI do believe it's a valid critique of any RPG if the game is based around a "novel" way of reading a dice result.

I know of one RPG the determines a result based on Width and Height of a roll.  Basically, if you rolled a lot better than the other guy, what we call a Margin of Success, and also how high you rolled in general.  I can't explain it more than that because I could care less at that point.  It just comes off as pretentiousness to invent new ways to roll dice. 

Especially ones based around just D6's or such.  Those games are almost a class of suck in their own right.  Yet, other games do well, like the Tiny-D6 series, which I own and actually play. 

The KISS principle is something I care about. 

Modiphius and 2D20 sort of seems like it is like this.  Why 2D20?  What makes this better, or is it just to be different? 

Then again, not having played it means I can't be too hard on them.  It might be great.  But, I doubt that very much.

There is nothing novel about the way dice are read in 2d20. You start with 2d20 and can buy extra dice (up to a maximum of 5d20) in various ways. You want to roll low on each die and you count successes to reach difficulty #.

Quote from: yosemitemike on August 04, 2024, 01:38:49 AMI am not the biggest fan of the way the dice or metacurrency works in 2D20.  That wasn't the biggest problem for STA for me though.  The biggest problem for me was the terrible organization of the book.  Just finding the rules that were relevant to a fairly simple action was a chore of flipping through to book and hoping I found all of the relevant rules. 

The 2e book is supposed to be better in this regard. How much better is a matter of opinion. I haven't been able to do more than skim it over the past couple of days, so I haven't reached my own answer on it yet.

Poor organization at least in 1E was a valid critique. As it was to me at least annoying to find and look stuff up.

I should be getting 2E as well in a few days

Quote from: Thornhammer on August 03, 2024, 08:00:37 PM

Quote from: weirdguy564 on August 03, 2024, 06:38:28 PMI know of one RPG the determines a result based on Width and Height of a roll.  Basically, if you rolled a lot better than the other guy, what we call a Margin of Success, and also how high you rolled in general.  I can't explain it more than that because I could care less at that point.  It just comes off as pretentiousness to invent new ways to roll dice.

Godlike?

O.R.E.  One Roll Engine, or Star ORE in my case, which is an unauthorized Star Wars adaptation of the One Roll Engine. 

It does nothing better by interpreting the dice in a weird way. 

Quote from: weirdguy564 on August 05, 2024, 11:54:39 AMO.R.E.  One Roll Engine, or Star ORE in my case, which is an unauthorized Star Wars adaptation of the One Roll Engine. 

It does nothing better by interpreting the dice in a weird way.

I used to be a huge fan of ORE. I really liked what you could do with the interpretation - Monsters & Other Childish Things was the best implementation of it, although I found StarORE to also be very good (I used it with WEG Star Wars for the fluff).

The problem I had with it was rather some of the players. It's hard to get your head around. There's a lot you can do with it, but the players like to know everything they can do up front. If I teach them everything up front, it takes way too long to get started. If I teach them as we go, then they're frustrated because they didn't know everything that was possible.

So I've changed to liking systems where the entirety can be explained within 10 minutes, and character generation can be fast (some players will of course want to read from cover to cover and that's fine, but it shouldn't be necessary).

Quote from: ForgottenF on August 02, 2024, 02:04:49 PMI believe I heard they got the Discworld license, so maybe I'll give that a look when it comes out.

Going by the Quickstart it's a custom /non-existent system  with a half a page of safety tool propaganda and all the NPCs have pronouns. 

Quote from: Gagarth on October 09, 2024, 03:12:43 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on August 02, 2024, 02:04:49 PMI believe I heard they got the Discworld license, so maybe I'll give that a look when it comes out.

Going by the Quickstart it's a custom /non-existent system  with a half a page of safety tool propaganda and all the NPCs have pronouns.

As a Discworld fan of sorts, I checked it out, and that seems accurate.

Characters have no numeric stats, just descriptive ones. Resolution is by the GM assigning a die from d4 to d12 based on how well-suited the PC is for the task, or well-justified the logic. The single roll is compared to the result of the "Narrativium" die (d8). There are Luck Points for limited rerolls.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/496512/discworld-quickstart-guide-pdf

There's a sample adventure that deals with a bunch of missing swamp dragons and a bridge, with six pregen characters.

While GURPS Discworld was too crunchy to fit the setting (even simplified), and I suspect any Discworld RPG would have to be fast-and-loose with the numbers, this is at the far end of the spectrum towards minimalism.

The book is about 384 pages in total, cover to cover. Here are my comments/observations about 2E.

Pros:

1. Visually it's an improvement with white background instead of black.

2. Character Creation and the game rules are grouped the rules closer together.

3. Dropping Challenge Dice simplifies the game somewhat.

4. PDF is included when you order from Modiphius.

Cons:

1. The same problems of book organization remain with Character Creation not beginning until p. 85 of the book. Most books based on IP's, including Conan and ones by Free League, start the game rules within the first dozen or so pages; putting the world info later in the book. Not so with Star Trek. You have to read 80+ pages of fluff on Star Trek before you get the rules. Chances are, if you are getting this book, you're already a Star Trek fan.

2. The actual game rules on p. 249; again, after three whole chapters of fluff explaining what Star Trek is.

3. The obligatory paragraph on "Safety Tools" is in there.

4. Too much fluff about Star Trek, which led to additional content moved to the GM Kit Booklet. By now, most people know what Star Trek is. They could have trimmed the page count and included this content in the core book: additional starship rules and about a dozen starships, like Defiant and Oberth.

5. Character art is "meh" overall, like D&D art; scene and starship art is decent. It's bland and uninspiring. (Also, the character art for the Klingon in the character creation section is the Discovery Klingon--not a Klingon, in other words!)

6. Pronouns are now part of character creation and appear on the character sheet(s)--neither pronouns, nor sex/gender were part of the previous version.

7. The vaque character attributes remain and don't seem to really capture the "feel" of the IP; like what the hell is "Daring?" Reason should have been called "Logic" as in the Last Unicorn Star Trek RPG.

8. No conversion guide or index of what's changed from 1E in either the 2E Core Rulebook or GM Kit. It's hard to tell what needs to be updated in earlier books and what needs to be ignored. I found out from reading for hours and hours that most of the Talents from the three Division sourcebooks are updated and now in the Core Rulebook, so those books are largely obsolete.

As a follow-up, I'm less than happy with Modiphius customer service. First of all, I pre-ordered the book and then they messed that up so I had an additional one-month wait after everyone else got theirs. Second, my book arrived with the corners crushed.  They shipped me a replacement, but they wanted the original back. They did include a return shipping label. Maybe they need this to file an insurance claim with the shipper.

I will contrast this with another company I purchase from regularly, Free League. Any time I've had an issue with a damaged or misprinted product, they have sent me another one and just told me to keep the original and dispose of it as I see fit (I usually donate it to my local library or give it to a friend). This is above and beyond to me.

Lastly, I am an original playtester on STA from 2017 and have my name in the original Core Rulebook. I have owned all the books in the line. The game runs fine more or less, but it depends on what you expect from a Star Trek RPG. I have run games in FASA Trek, LUG, Decipher and this one.  I feel the LUG version was probably the best one to date. With the way Free League changes up their YZE for each of their games, I would be very curious to see how this could be done for Star Trek.

If I was going to run Star Trek, it would be either Starships & Spacemen 2e, or White Star with the Five Year Mission supplement. Probably use The Lucanii Drift for S&S (Catgirls ahoy!)

Modiphius stuff always feels slick but hollow to me, marketing above substance. The contrast with the equaly slick but much more substantial offerings of Free League, a similarly sized publisher, is striking. And Modiphius is Woke/PC for a long time, eg there are no swastikas in my 1e Achtung! Cthulu. Free League is strongly non-political.