Quote from: Razor 007;1088789White Box FMAG; developed from Swords & Wizardry White Box,

How is FMAG different than S&W: White Box?

Quote from: Spinachcat;1088803How is FMAG different than S&W: White Box?

That's a great question.  I can only rely on White Box FMAG's author, Charlie Mason; who pitches it as a revision of S&W White Box.  He says he was a big fan of that rule set, but thought it needed further revision.  And S&W White Box was itself a revision of OD&D.

Finarvyn who posts here often is the author of the original S&W:WB.  It's my favorite retroclone and so much fun to play and tinker with.  I'll check out FMAG.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1088855Finarvyn who posts here often is the author of the original S&W:WB.  It's my favorite retroclone and so much fun to play and tinker with.  I'll check out FMAG.

FMAG is mostly a reformat with cool layout. I don't think that the rules have been changed. Charlie sent me a copy of his FMAG version and I love it, but will confess that I haven't done a line-by-line comparison of the FMAG to WB.

Quote from: finarvyn;1088998FMAG is mostly a reformat with cool layout. I don't think that the rules have been changed. Charlie sent me a copy of his FMAG version and I love it, but will confess that I haven't done a line-by-line comparison of the FMAG to WB.

If you like it, that's a good vote of confidence right there.

I like White Box, because it's core 4 and no more; and a somewhat limited range of spells.  Nobody becomes superman.

Tiny Dungeons, which I run for the family. We're also about to do some Mecha vs. Kaiju mixed with Tiny Frontiers.

I've been running Magic World every other week, too....but that's technically Chaosium, so maybe not small press?

Also For Blood & Coin which is on my radar, and our group wrapped a great White Star campaign last year and they want to get back to a new WS campaign ASAP.

I also ran a Swords & Wizardry Complete one-shot earlier this year, always a blast.

Finally....does The Fantasy Trip/In the Labyrinth count? Ramping up for a big campaign.

Quote from: Razor 007;1088789White Box FMAG; developed from Swords & Wizardry White Box, developed from the OD&D little brown booklets.

I'm not really a RAW DM with any system, but this system is awesome.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1088792White Box is truly great, my game is based on White Star which in turn is based on White Box.

I really like these two games as well. FMAG's bonuses only ranging from -1 to +1 may render having high or low abilities, and your abilities in general, somewhat meaningless. White Star has a -2 to +2 range and also optionally allows for ability rolls, making your ability scores matter more.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1088803How is FMAG different than S&W: White Box?

Wasn't the thief class added?

UK

Quote from: 3rik;1089347I really like these two games as well. FMAG's bonuses only ranging from -1 to +1 may render having high or low abilities, and your abilities in general, somewhat meaningless. White Star has a -2 to +2 range and also optionally allows for ability rolls, making your ability scores matter more.



Wasn't the thief class added?

Yes.  The Thief wad added.

Really? A major strength of S&W:WB in actual play is the LACK of the thief class.

Quote from: rgalex;1088690I've gotten to run:

Motobushi – I only ran 1 session to test it out.  Think Sons of Anarchy mixed with Shogun. It was fun enough but I think it needs to be played for an extended time to really shine.  You need the PCs to develop those bonds so that there is that weight behind what happens.

Degenesis – The current, beautiful, edition.  The players had a great time despite it being pretty deadly.  They started off captured by cannibals, escaped into the desert, had to figure out where they were, then found an old pre-cataclysm vault which they decided to explore.  One PC went off on his own, got caught by surprise and was shot dead in 1 round.  The system was simple enough that everyone got it real quick and the whole extra 6s allow special bonuses worked well.

The Sprawl – Works for very specific cyberpunk stories - making runs with a team of specialists.  The players enjoyed the Intel and Gear rules which helped keep things moving instead of the session devolving into an hours long discussion of what to bring.  If you want to do things outside the mission you can, but don't expect any real mechanical support for it without some house rules.

And played in games of:

Dungeon World – It was a small group and we had some rough goes of it.  I played the group's priest and I felt sufficiently priest-y and had a good time.  The GM was new to the system and it's taken him several sessions to really get it down.  It's fun though and has become our go-to when too many can't make it for the normal game.

Blades in the Dark – I loved it but I don't think the other players did.  One in particular just didn't get how the system was supposed to work and was constantly fighting against it.  The other player just… I don't know which dice gods he pissed off but damn!  I've never seen so many failed rolls across so many sessions.  We got about 12 sessions in and then called a quits.

Colonial Gothic – It was a brief "demo" game that was about a 60% success. Mostly it was the guy who picked the alchemist PC and was expecting to be throwing fire bombs and making healing potions who was disappointed when he learned it was closer to real world alchemy/chemistry.  Everyone else kinda got it but the "mystery" was a little incoherent and we managed to stumble into the end without really knowing what was going on.  Rules worked perfectly fine for us though so I'd give it a 2nd go if the opportunity came around.

My group plays a The Sprawl adaptation for Shadowrun and it kicks ass. The way it uses Intel, Gear and Clocks is simply great. We also played Blades in the Dark and had a blast (I've played the alchemist/arsonist - The Hound? - and had a bunch of flasks to blow/smoke/poison things up).

And now you got me interested in Motobushi, Degenesis and Colonial Gothic. I'll look out for those.

Definitely interested in learning more about The Sprawl and Motobushi!

Quote from: Spinachcat;1089675Definitely interested in learning more about The Sprawl and Motobushi!

So The Sprawl is a cyberpunk game that uses the Apocalypse World system.  You have all the trappings of those games like Playbooks and Moves and Clocks.  Players roll 2d6 and a 6- is a fail, 7-9 is a partial success and 10+ is a full success). The game revolves around The Job.  In fact the first move that the PCs involve themselves with is called Get The Job.  

GET THE JOB (EDGE)
When you negotiate the terms of a job, roll Edge.
10+: choose 3 from the list below
7-9: choose 1 from the list below

• the employer provides useful information [intel]
• the employer provides useful assets [gear]
• the job pays well
• the meeting doesn't attract attention
• the employer is identifiable

Your crew is made up of characters from the following professions:

• Driver – has a garage of vehicles and drones, often being able to jack into them for better control
• Fixer – you are the middle man.  You have the contacts and know who has what and who needs what.
• Hacker – cyberspace is your playground
• Hunter – picking up info, fitting puzzle pieces together and tracking targets are your bread and butter
• Infiltrator – spy, ninja, man of 1000 faces, walls should keep people out but you find ways past them
• Killer – when stealth or a soft touch doesn't matter the killer is your goto
• Pusher – if you prefer to talk your way through missions the Pusher is ideal
• Reporter – good at getting and spreading info
• Soldier – The A-Team had Hannibal and your crew has you.  The planner and prepper, you call the shots.
• Tech – you fix the broken things, figure out the new tech, customize the gear

Everyone has metal in their meat.  Character creation gives you some choices as to what it is and how you managed to pay for it (or did you?).

Two mechanics my group really liked were the [gear] and [intel] rules.  Both work in similar ways and are fairly narrativeist, so I'm sure a bunch of people here won't like them.  For us though, it helped keep things moving along.

When the PC goes out and gathers info before a job they can acquire [intel].  This can be specific bits of information as well as points to hold onto and use later.  For example, say you manage to track down the janitor for a building you plan to break into.  You lean on him and get 3 [intel]. Later on when you are on the job you spend 1 [intel] saying that the janitor told you how when the AC kicks on in the building all the vents shudder for a few seconds.  This gives you a +1 on any roll that you can think of that would exploit that intel.

[gear] is similar.  During the legwork before the mission you can go acquire [gear].  During the job you can spend your [gear] and produce some equipment, so long as it makes some sense.  This was nice because my group tends to spend hours doing laundry lists of equipment and then debating what's actually needed.  Now we don't need to have a 10 minute discussion on whether to bring the rope or not.  If we need it and want to spend the [gear] for it its there.

Hacking has it's own set of moves that revolve around getting in, avoiding traces, accessing subsystems and manipulating them.  What's nice is that do to the nature of the *World system hacking doesn't create a completely separate game where the Hacker is off in their own play space and everyone sits around waiting.

Each Job ends (hopefully) with the PCs going to Get Paid.

GETTING PAID (LEGWORK)
When you go to a meet to get paid by your employer, roll and add the number of unfilled segments on the Legwork Clock.
10+: choose 3 from the list below
7-9: choose 1 from the list below

• it's not a set-up or an ambush
• you are paid in full
• the meeting doesn't attract the attention of outside parties
• the employer is identifiable
• you learned something from the mission; everyone marks experience

I should add here that just because you don't choose something, that doesn't mean that it automatically happens.  So if you only get to choose 1 you don't always need to pick "it's not a set-up" or you get screwed.  That just means that the MC has the option of making it a set-up if they want.

Like other *World games, it uses clocks and agendas to help the GM keep things moving along which can help or harm the PCs if time is an issue on the Job.  The book has some pretty good advice on making the cyber-stetting your own.  So long as what you want out of your cyberpunk fits into this kind of frame, the game works really well.  There is plenty of time to add in between job RPing, but it's not going to be heavily supported by the rules (although a clever MC can make it work just fine with what's given).

I'll write up a bit more about Motobushido later, may have to wait until tomorrow.

...and you can play The Sprawl in Shadowrun with this nice hack here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1If8nBsl73CFxyy1x951le8VNYYVL9xDr/view?usp=drivesdk

Quote from: rgalex;1089683When the PC goes out and gathers info before a job they can acquire [intel].  This can be specific bits of information as well as points to hold onto and use later.  For example, say you manage to track down the janitor for a building you plan to break into.  You lean on him and get 3 [intel]. Later on when you are on the job you spend 1 [intel] saying that the janitor told you how when the AC kicks on in the building all the vents shudder for a few seconds.  This gives you a +1 on any roll that you can think of that would exploit that intel.

Thank you for the breakdown!

Is the Sprawl a stand-alone game or do I need AW or DW as the corebook?

I've been working on a hacking/intel system and I'm using a similar approach. I fully agree on the need to slim down the gear pick time and I've been working on that as well. I totally understand where the abstract gear option would be great for some groups and peeve others.

Kevin Crawford's Exemplars & Eidolons (an OSR game) assumes that PCs have whatever mundane gear they need, and abstracts wealth as well, in order to focus the game on more "big picture" issues. It works for me (because I hate bean counting), but everybody has a different balance for where abstraction ruins immersion.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1089728Is the Sprawl a stand-alone game or do I need AW or DW as the corebook?

Stand-alone. You can get it from the usual outlets (Drivethrough etc).