RPGPundit's post on house rules got me thinking. Was there a game you played that was so awesome except for some rule set that could have ruined the game (for you) if it was used.
Mine was the way Bio-E points were set up in TMNT: AOS. It was as if any cool animal had too high a cost to be any good. You'd have to lower their size, add addictions and other crap just to get a fleshed out character. (Not counting team creation that only felt helpful with 4 or more players)
What is that one for you>
Quote from: rway218;838956RPGPundit's post on house rules got me thinking. Was there a game you played that was so awesome except for some rule set that could have ruined the game (for you) if it was used.
Mine was the way Bio-E points were set up in TMNT: AOS. It was as if any cool animal had too high a cost to be any good. You'd have to lower their size, add addictions and other crap just to get a fleshed out character. (Not counting team creation that only felt helpful with 4 or more players)
What is that one for you>
That was the whole point of bio-e, to allow for the big powerhouses. But at more manageable sizes. So you have an elephant who can actually enter a house rather than being 20ft tall and not much use for anything other than demolitions.
FENG SHUI: It rocked... except for the entire dice mechanic at the heart of the system. In what was supposed to be a fast-moving action-movie game set in a gonzo Hong Kong funhouse world everyone's sitting there counting on their fingers to figure out what 16-6+13-14 is for each and every action.
SAVAGE WORLDS: It rocked... except for the weirdly complex vehicle combat system that felt like it wandered in from a different game.
HEROES UNLIMITED: It rocked... except that if you rolled up most character types, character generation would take about 30 minutes, but if you rolled up certain character types... well, break out the calculator, grab a lot of scratch paper, and don't make any plans for the next few hours.
TSR'S CONAN and GAMMA WORLD 3RD EDITION: They rocked (Well, OK, maybe it's more accurate to just say they didn't suck)... except that like a lot of TSR products at that point in the 80's they were sloppily rushed out and had chunks of the rules missing. Big disappointments as a teen, fatal to my interest in subsequent TSR games.
SEVENTH SEA and BRAVE NEW WORLD: They rocked (Or at least were an interesting oddity, in the case of BNW)... except for both of them being burdened with the 1990's pox of metaplot, so thick that the game's audiences were left feeling more like passive spectators than players and quickly stopped caring. These were the games metaplot strangled, dismembered, and left by the side of the road in garbage bags... look upon their bodies, oh future game line developers, and learn.
Pretty much any game with a passive defense system, which doesn't allow the defender to react in any way to an incoming attack. Yes, that includes D&D. Passive defense almost inevitably leads to boring, unengaging combats lacking the dynamic and tension of a more proactive combat system that allows dfenders to have some influence in their own fate, even if it is only roling a die and hoping for the best.
I can tolerate passive defense, if I have to, but switching to an active defense system is such a steep upgrade for any combat rules that it is definetely preferable to include those.
Likewise, any character creation system that is solely point-buy based or otherwise free of random elements can be improved significantly through the inclusion of at least some random elements, if only to destroy the idiotic delusion that the game could or should be "balanced".
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 1ed rocked...apart from trying to parse all the stealth/moving silently rules - which were a mess and seemingly plain broken in parts. And the 'whiff' factor too.
Quote from: rway218;838956Mine was the way Bio-E points were set up in TMNT: AOS. It was as if any cool animal had too high a cost to be any good. You'd have to lower their size, add addictions and other crap just to get a fleshed out character. (Not counting team creation that only felt helpful with 4 or more players)
What is that one for you>
I think that's the first time I've seen someone NOT like the TMNT character-creation system. Or the 'mutant animal' part of it, at least.
The later editions of the Moorcock inspired Chaosium RPG were fun, I love Moorcock's world and cosmology... Except they chose to call the game 'Elric!' instead of the much cooler 'Stormbringer'. Who in their right mind would do that!? :p
Quote from: Beagle;839009I can tolerate passive defense, if I have to, but switching to an active defense system is such a steep upgrade for any combat rules that it is definetely preferable to include those.
What's your favorite example?
Quote from: Just Another Snake Cult;838978FENG SHUI: It rocked... except for the entire dice mechanic at the heart of the system. In what was supposed to be a fast-moving action-movie game set in a gonzo Hong Kong funhouse world everyone's sitting there counting on their fingers to figure out what 16-6+13-14 is for each and every action.
SAVAGE WORLDS: It rocked... except for the weirdly complex vehicle combat system that felt like it wandered in from a different game.
HEROES UNLIMITED: It rocked... except that if you rolled up most character types, character generation would take about 30 minutes, but if you rolled up certain character types... well, break out the calculator, grab a lot of scratch paper, and don't make any plans for the next few hours.
TSR'S CONAN and GAMMA WORLD 3RD EDITION: They rocked (Well, OK, maybe it's more accurate to just say they didn't suck)... except that like a lot of TSR products at that point in the 80's they were sloppily rushed out and had chunks of the rules missing. Big disappointments as a teen, fatal to my interest in subsequent TSR games.
SEVENTH SEA and BRAVE NEW WORLD: They rocked (Or at least were an interesting oddity, in the case of BNW)... except for both of them being burdened with the 1990's pox of metaplot, so thick that the game's audiences were left feeling more like passive spectators than players and quickly stopped caring. These were the games metaplot strangled, dismembered, and left by the side of the road in garbage bags... look upon their bodies, oh future game line developers, and learn.
For Heroes Unlimited I have found it works better not to bother with the random rolls for everything unless you really just don't give a shit and have time to kill. We generally just eyeball what seems fair enough and make whatever sounds fun and then get into that wacky action.
Quote from: Beagle;839009Pretty much any game with a passive defense system, which doesn't allow the defender to react in any way to an incoming attack. Yes, that includes D&D. Passive defense almost inevitably leads to boring, unengaging combats lacking the dynamic and tension of a more proactive combat system that allows dfenders to have some influence in their own fate, even if it is only roling a die and hoping for the best.
I can tolerate passive defense, if I have to, but switching to an active defense system is such a steep upgrade for any combat rules that it is definetely preferable to include those.
Likewise, any character creation system that is solely point-buy based or otherwise free of random elements can be improved significantly through the inclusion of at least some random elements, if only to destroy the idiotic delusion that the game could or should be "balanced".
Yes, especially games where combat is expected and common. It's an area where Palladium beat the pants off D&D.
Quote from: Just Another Snake Cult;838978SEVENTH SEA and BRAVE NEW WORLD: They rocked (Or at least were an interesting oddity, in the case of BNW)... except for both of them being burdened with the 1990's pox of metaplot, so thick that the game's audiences were left feeling more like passive spectators than players and quickly stopped caring. These were the games metaplot strangled, dismembered, and left by the side of the road in garbage bags... look upon their bodies, oh future game line developers, and learn.
I've never played BNW, but in 7th Sea my brothers and I got around this by simply ignoring the metaplot and going from the basic setting. Did the same thing with Earthdawn, which also fell prey to the depredations of metaplot (albeit not to the same extent). I honestly can't think of any game I've played that we haven't chucked the metaplot going in. Games are just better that way.
Quote from: Matt;839542For Heroes Unlimited I have found it works better not to bother with the random rolls for everything unless you really just don't give a shit and have time to kill. We generally just eyeball what seems fair enough and make whatever sounds fun and then get into that wacky action.
Sorry to get off-topic, but is there any web resource with pre-generated HU robot and power armor "Packages" where the purchasing decisions and math have already been done? That would save untold shitloads of time.
Quote from: Shipyard Locked;839487What's your favorite example?
For active defense? I think the newer Runequest versions and Legend do it reasonably well, when a successful defense can have a direct tactical application. For an upgrade from passive to active defense, we played a lot with those during the glory days of D&D 3.5, but true to the whole rule set, these rules were quite complex. I can post them if you're really interested.To summarize: Defense works like a saving throw; characters ave fewer hitpoints at high levels; combatants can either take a penalty to attack rolls or sacrifice iterative attacks to gain defense bonuses and armor offers both an increase of defense and damage reduction.
IfI ever write yet another D&D clone that is totally needed and not at all redundant, it would probably include similar, if significantly simplified rules.
For my personal tastes:
* High-powered psionics. Rules for this always remind me of what our 5th Grade class lore thought the OSR D&D psionics rules were, which was something like "when you roll up your character, if you roll 00 on a pair of 20-sided dice, you're psionic and you can make other people's heads explode my staring at them". Probably I was just scarred for life by that and by watching "The Fury" in a double feature with "Alien" and being freaked out as "The Fury" basically uses that same mechanic. I don't want to live in a world where arbitrarily some people can make you die with psionics and you can't do anything about it. (This spoils X-COM for me - I don't want to play when the aliens start mind-controlling my men to shoot each other, and I can't do much about it.)
* Almost any game without a relevant tactical combat map. I feel out of control when I can't decide where to move and how to fight and have that mainly determine what happens.
* Almost any game where combat involves slowly whittling down hitpoints with no real other effects or tactics until the enemy runs out of hit points.
* Almost all computer RPGs, because they almost all expect you to die several times but to then just restore from a saved game and pretend it didn't happen, and if you do start a new character, you basically have to re-do everything in the same world state as your first game started. That just seems to make all such games so utterly pointless to me. The only thing at risk in a combat is the player's time and annoyance of having to replay since the last save game, and in my case, my sudden complete lack of interest in continuing playing at all.
* STAR FRONTIERS - I thought it rocked that they had tactical maps and counters for both space and personal combat, with city maps, and lots of content... but then practically all of the content I thought sucked so hard that it was utterly unusable, and even the maps and counters were tainted with association with so much suck. Reading an adventure module was like an example of what not to do in any RPG ever.
* Combat (or in D&D, initiative) systems where an entire enemy side gets to act while the other side waits, and targets can be ganged up on and destroyed helplessly. I can't play Conquest of Wesnoth because of this, and it goes with wanting a map, etc.
Quote from: Battle Mad Ronin;839485The later editions of the Moorcock inspired Chaosium RPG were fun, I love Moorcock's world and cosmology... Except they chose to call the game 'Elric!' instead of the much cooler 'Stormbringer'. Who in their right mind would do that!? :p
Elric is more identifiable, I think.
Maybe the steepness of the power curve for D&D?
Deadlands really rocked except for some very stupid choices in how they handled their alt-history.
Quote from: RPGPundit;840050Deadlands really rocked except for some very stupid choices in how they handled their alt-history.
Yeah, I know they wanted to not turn anyone away or anything. But the whole point of the Confederacy was slavery. Saying that all of a sudden they just give up slaves is not very realistic. And cuts out the opportunity for your characters to do some anti-slavery stuff. At least, that's MY big beef with Deadlands alt-history. what's yours?
Quote from: RPGPundit;839768Elric is more identifiable, I think.
The real reason was because Chaosium planned to release Hawkmoon, Corum and (possibly) Erekose games, and they wanted the protagonist name to feature in the title. Elric! was a better system than Stormbringer, but Stormbringer was by far the cooler and more iconic name.
While I can understand the logic, Stormbringer is different because the sword is as much of a character as Elric, and the definitive, doom-laden fantasy novel is named for the sword. So changing to Elric! was a mistake.
But there you go.
The setting of Deadlands and it's humor weren't enough to drive me off and I generally liked the rules, but I never cared for the 'bennies' or 'chip' economy because they seemed to lead to a no-risk game where no one bothered to plan or take precautions, ever. Just kick down the front door and go in blasting... throw chips at any damage taken (there's a good chance the majority of my gripes come down to how the GM was running the game).
In general I'm not a fan of games that make too much use of 'fate-points' or other mechanisms to give Players plot immunity.
While we're on the subject of Deadlands, a related question: have there been any games set in a fictional world's wild west era? I don't mean a fantasy infused alt-history, I mean a completely made up world similar to our wild west, the way 7th Sea is a made up world similar to our 17th century.
Quote from: Shipyard Locked;840294While we're on the subject of Deadlands, a related question: have there been any games set in a fictional world's wild west era? I don't mean a fantasy infused alt-history, I mean a completely made up world similar to our wild west, the way 7th Sea is a made up world similar to our 17th century.
Aces & EightsAces & Eights is set in an alternate history time line in which the American Civil War happened ten years earlier and the United Kingdom and France assisted the Confederate States of America (CSA). The Civil War lasted for ten years and both sides ground to a halt as resources and manpower started to run low for all concerned. The Republic of Texas never had a chance to join the Union and remains neutral in the war. With the Union tied up in a war of attrition with the CSA, the "Indian Territory", modern-day Oklahoma, was able to form their own government and withdrew from the Union. Mexico still owns much of the modern day western USA, but does not have the manpower or money to govern it properly.
Quote from: Ronin;840297Aces & Eights
Aces & Eights is set in an alternate history time line...
Thank you for this suggestion, but this was the question I asked:
Quotehave there been any games set in a fictional world's wild west era? I don't mean a fantasy infused alt-history, I mean a completely made up world similar to our wild west, the way 7th Sea is a made up world similar to our 17th century.
Quote from: Michael Gray;840230Yeah, I know they wanted to not turn anyone away or anything. But the whole point of the Confederacy was slavery. Saying that all of a sudden they just give up slaves is not very realistic. And cuts out the opportunity for your characters to do some anti-slavery stuff. At least, that's MY big beef with Deadlands alt-history. what's yours?
Same as yours.
Quote from: Beagle;839009Pretty much any game with a passive defense system, which doesn't allow the defender to react in any way to an incoming attack. Yes, that includes D&D. Passive defense almost inevitably leads to boring, unengaging combats lacking the dynamic and tension of a more proactive combat system that allows dfenders to have some influence in their own fate, even if it is only roling a die and hoping for the best.
I can tolerate passive defense, if I have to, but switching to an active defense system is such a steep upgrade for any combat rules that it is definetely preferable to include those.
Likewise, any character creation system that is solely point-buy based or otherwise free of random elements can be improved significantly through the inclusion of at least some random elements, if only to destroy the idiotic delusion that the game could or should be "balanced".
I don't like passive attack systems.
There was a D20 mini game. I have it somewhere, but I can't remember it's name. It was a D&D type world (elves, dwarves, orcs, magic, etc), but it was set in the Fantasy Wild West rather than Fantasy Medieval Europe.
Ah, found it! It was called Spellslinger, by Fantasy Flight.
Quote from: RPGPundit;840685Same as yours.
Funny enough, when one of our resident GMs was running Deadlands, he just laughed at the setting and decreed that it's the real Wild West, post USCW, but with steam punk and cardslingers.
Quote from: Beagle;839560For active defense? I think the newer Runequest versions and Legend do it reasonably well, when a successful defense can have a direct tactical application. For an upgrade from passive to active defense, we played a lot with those during the glory days of D&D 3.5, but true to the whole rule set, these rules were quite complex. I can post them if you're really interested.To summarize: Defense works like a saving throw; characters ave fewer hitpoints at high levels; combatants can either take a penalty to attack rolls or sacrifice iterative attacks to gain defense bonuses and armor offers both an increase of defense and damage reduction.
IfI ever write yet another D&D clone that is totally needed and not at all redundant, it would probably include similar, if significantly simplified rules.
Runequest 6 is a good choice. If you are going to have an active defense roll, it needs to meaningful; not just dividing up the probability of one roll between two. A defender in RQ is making decisions that make the extra roll worth it.
Quote from: Simlasa;840286The setting of Deadlands and it's humor weren't enough to drive me off and I generally liked the rules, but I never cared for the 'bennies' or 'chip' economy because they seemed to lead to a no-risk game where no one bothered to plan or take precautions, ever. Just kick down the front door and go in blasting... throw chips at any damage taken (there's a good chance the majority of my gripes come down to how the GM was running the game).
They patched this is a later supplement. When the game first came out, you used chips to absorb
x points of damage. If you had a good number of chips, you could just charge the guy with a shotgun, knowing you could spend the points to negate the damage.
They later went to chips allowing you to make a soak roll to attempt to negate the damage. You couldn't be sure a chip would save you.
If you hate meta-currency in general, it probably won't help you, but it is less egregious.
Quote from: Shipyard Locked;840294While we're on the subject of Deadlands, a related question: have there been any games set in a fictional world's wild west era? I don't mean a fantasy infused alt-history, I mean a completely made up world similar to our wild west, the way 7th Sea is a made up world similar to our 17th century.
I think this is what Owl Hoot Trail (http://www.pelgranepress.com/?cat=208) from Pelgrane Press does.
Quote from: AsenRG;841468Funny enough, when one of our resident GMs was running Deadlands, he just laughed at the setting and decreed that it's the real Wild West, post USCW, but with steam punk and cardslingers.
I've always found it a pretty easy thing to patch.
It's ironic as the original core book makes it clear that they are bending over backwards to make it so you have a version of history that makes it easy to play black characters and women who don't have to deal with historical prejudice. It just came out horribly wrong.
Quote from: RPGPundit;840858Ah, found it! It was called Spellslinger, by Fantasy Flight.
Thank you.
Quote from: AsenRG;841468Funny enough, when one of our resident GMs was running Deadlands, he just laughed at the setting and decreed that it's the real Wild West, post USCW, but with steam punk and cardslingers.
If I were to ever run Deadlands again, I'd definitely just set it in a wild-west whose history played out like our own.