Lancer

The SNES storyline was admittedly more compact but it wasn't a very good one IMHO. The key word dialogue system was atrocious. Matrix combat was weak compared to the SEGA's. The SNES version felt like an adventure game with scattered RPG elements whereas the SEGA's was a RPG in every sense of the word.

I just can't believe it... Deus Ex, the movie? Is this for real or am I dreaming?! (w00t)

A modern Shadowrun RPG should follow PnP rules at least as closely as the Sega version did without the arbitrary events and encounters. A Deus Ex-style Shadowrun game could work if on the console. On a PC, I wouldn't mind a combat system similar to KOTOR's. If isometric view, I would prefer turn-based combat similar to Fallout's. However, I do really think that a FPP is pound for pound just a better view for pure immersion than an isometric view is. If the FPS-RPG can evolve to the point where it offers all the tactics/strategy that isometric RPGs have, then this would lead to the next RPG revolution. That said, I'd much prefer it to be on the PC rather than on a console because that market appeals to gamers with a different mindset altogether.

The Sega version of Shadowrun was better! <{POST_SNAPBACK}> The Sega Shadowrun was indeed better.

Ahh... Darn.. forgot about that.. Too late now.

I voted Bastila. I wouldn't consider Padme "sexy" with the outrageous outfit, hair and makeup in the prequels so I couldn't vote for her. However, if it was the actress Natalie Portman dressed normally vs. Bastila.. that would be a toss up.

It all comes down to what you personally consider is "close enough" and "compelling/convincing." These definitions may vary from person to person. Though I like the other aspects of your RPG and feel that these could be modeled quite easily given standard round or phase-based systems, the "timing" system as described here is much more than I would have bargained for. I would consider the concept to be more appropriate for a computer RPG than a tabletop RPG. When you are trying to attempt things like getting the timing of *all possible* individual actions down to fractions of a second you are not trying to approximate reality so much as trying to duplicate it! But that is just in my not so honest opinion. I gander that systems like GURPS, Shadowrun, Cyberspace and SLA Industries are probably more than realistic enough to be compelling/believable for most people, but YMMV. This is not to say that it is impossible to design your system....It can be done. If you are really hell-bent about incorporating your timing mechanic, I would seriously study lots and lots of martial arts and action movies, pause relevant scenes, take a stopwatch and literally time each of their moves.. You mention Ep. 1.. this would be a good start. So would old Bruce Lee movies, Jet Li movies and such.. Probably even more important than determining the timing of moves performed by martial arts experts, get the timing of "normal" people too. These could serve as a benchmark for "average stats/skills" and then you can interpolate skill ranks between the two extremes.

And this is where you arrive at an impasse because the literature just doesn't exist for what you want to do. BTW, AD&D speed factors are just grossly simplified game mechanics and they are not at all accurate representations of reality down to fractions of a second like you wish to do. It sounds like not even GURPS is realistic enough for you! But no.. You aren't the only one that is crazy.. This reminds me a little bit of my own attempts at making a realistic sci-fi game with very, very realistic science.. I even wanted to design my solar systems, aliens, civilizations and their alien worlds realistically and accurately 100% without any guesswork. To make a long story short to get the type of realism that I wanted for such a game it required substantial knowledge that contemporary science just doesn't have answers to like how planetary evolution works from start to finish, how alien life evolves on a planet (how much of a factor is sociobiology), and how things like climate, orbital characteristics, and star type (s) work in tandem in affecting life... And how the said characteristics influence planetary evolution and so on and so forth.. This sort of information is simply not available yet.. Maybe in a few millenia, but not now! Not willing to compromise my vision horribly, I realized that it just wouldn't be possible to design a sci-fi game with the type of scientific precision I wanted. So, unfortunately, I did the only thing that I could do..I scrapped the project.

So you hate "free actions?" This might be a problem realistically if phases are each 12 sec long for 1 minute rounds.. However, by decreasing the length of the round to say 3 secs (like in SLA) each phase is only .6 sec. The said wizard might be "sitting" around for only 1 second or so instead of 24 before the round resets again. Ahhh.. I see. This is effectively the same concept as phases except each "phase" has a variable duration depending on how long it takes PCs to perform their standard maneuvers (if I am understanding this correctly). This would, however, mean you need to do a lot of subtraction (constant subtraction of durations) from the time clock after each player decides exactly what action he will perform in his alloted time slot. I am assuming though that you have researched the time duration for all sorts of different movements? I imagine that determining these different durations would require much guesswork anyway and effectively cancel out the realism that you were trying to obtain out of this. It doesn't sound like you want to do this.. But as Loof and I stated you might consider grouping different maneuvers in terms of their "action point costs." With the time clock you described this would mean, you would lump together .5 second maneuvers, 1 sec maneuvers. 1.5 second maneuvers and so on arranged in fixed increments. This is not quite as realistic as you were planning (since it wouldn't take into effect fractions of a second) but it does allow for phases with variable time durations while making the math *a lot* easier. You might also consider starting from "zero" seconds and counting up instead of counting down from an arbitrary value. I get the feeling it would be easier that way partially because you don't know exactly how long that battle will be.. And heck, addition is slightly easier than subtraction. Man.. I heard about this before but I can't remember where I heard it ...about player's indecision reflecting in their characters and such.. Where did I hear about this ...? I like this because it makes fighting fast-paced and keeps the PCs on their toes! It is not how it would work in the real world but it is meant to be a convenient mechanic that sacrifices some realism for gameplay. So there is a very real rationale behind it (unlike having a large dice pool and counting successes and subtracting failures).

Yep.. yep.. yep.. We came up with the same ideas

That's true. You can just have an infinite number of phases that keep counting up until the battle ends and eliminate rounds altogether. Yep. I also feel that a phase-based combat system would be closest to emulating reality reasonably without actually counting down to fractions of a second. It seems that realism is of utmost importance to Jediphile, however, though the question to be asked is it really *that* important to be *that* realistic in a game? It would make much more sense in a CRPG where the computer does all these calculations for you instantaneously, but in a tabletop RPG, the average person is not a lightning calculator and the tradeoff between realism and quick gameplay is a very real concern... And it is always a fine line to find the right balance between those two when designing your own system. Getting rounds down to a fraction of a second may be very realistic but is it really worth the reduction in gameplay? Especially when you can come pretty darn close to being remarkably realistic using other methods (phases/rounds) without having to resort to actual timing. That said, I really do like the basic concepts of Jediphile's system.. It sounds pretty neat

Alternatively, have some actions grouped under "1 phase attacks." Simple maneuvers will be grouped under "2-phase attacks." More complicated ones will be grouped under 3-phase attacks and so on. These would be modified by your skills, attributes and so forth. The idea for grouping attacks chronologically is that it would simplify the gameplay while maintaining a sense of realism. You could also simulate more accurate timing by just adding more than 5 phases per round if you need that sort of detail. This effectively partitions the time interval even further. It won't simulate timed events down to the fraction of a second but it could work. EDIT: To give you an idea... SLA uses 3 second rounds (that is a pretty small time interval!!!!) and with 5 phases per round translates to .6 sec a phase! If you put in 10 phases per round. you can effectively have a mind boggling .3 second per phase!

Do you have rounds? If every single action is timed then sounds like it would eliminate the need for rounds/phases all together. The problem with having every action time down to fractions of seconds is that it would be nigh impossible to have your PCs actions synchronized chronologically with one another. Maybe I am misunderstanding an aspect of your system but seems to me that the more the fight drags on, the more spaced out chronologically a combatant's attacks will be with respect to everyone else. There would be an accumulated "time differential" which would produce some really strange effects. With a large time differential you will tend to get unusual scenarios like one of your PCs fighting in the future by 5 sec with respect to another... Then that PC will be fighting a couple of seconds ahead of the next character and so on. This might be precisely why this sort of thing is simplified in all RPGs with concepts such as rounds and phases. Maybe you would have to "reset" time back to zero after all your characters have completed one standard barrage of attacks?.. But then this basically is exactly what a round is...

Sounds really cool. It sounds like your system would be doubly pertinent for martial arts style games. Perhaps a phase combat system somewhat like SLA Industries or PO could work here.. ? Tentatively, say you have 5 phases in a combat round. Someone rather inexperienced in his particular attack style would only be able to act in the latter stages phase 4 or 5 of the combat round..And can only attack once. As he learns more and more maneuvers/styles he can both act sooner (in phases 1, 2 or 3)as well as in more phases (say, when he is *very* proficient in his style and/or more agile he can act in phases 1, 2, *AND* 3) Alternatively, everytime your character successfully "repositions" before the enemy takes advantage and counterattacks, this give an extra attack to your character in the following phase in addition to his standard attacks. The above would of course be modified by your character's skill/maneuver rank...etc. Say... if your parry roll exceeds the target number by some number (say 5 or more) and you have the counterattack skill then it is in effect. As long as you and your opponent succeed in employing counterattacks in succession then all these occur during the same phase. Maybe you could impose a limit on how many counterattacks occur per phase? Perhaps a low Agility character can perform at most one counterattack per phase whereas more agile characters can perform 2 or 3 or so in one phase.

I actually had tried looking for the game today at my local gameshop.. Not there. ARGH..Annoying because I had seen the game stocked there for the longest time and now when I want it.. not there. I might actually have to search it online.

Can you give an overview of what combat options you want in your game?

SLA core mechanics meets GURPS character creation.. A match made in heaven.

One other thing comes to mind if suggesting a Matrix RPG. I haven't really tried it myself but from what I hear "Feng Shui" is probably the best system out there for cinematic action roleplaying like in action movies and such. The focus is on emulating wild combat stunts (i.e the crazy stuff in typical jackie chan jet li, chow yun-fat movies) as done in the movies at the expense of realism. The players are even encouraged and rewarded for exceptional stunts such as jumping off a cliff on a motorcyle and landing on to an airplane.. Or running up a wall, doing a backflip while shooting a plank releasing heavy barrels that fall right on top of your enemy. ..etc etc. In other words, this is *definitely* not GURPS. The Feng Shui system might be of interest if you are looking to emulate the exceptionally cinematic combat of the Matrix movies... Since GURPS' specialty is on emulating realism and the combat in the Matrix is anything but realistic, Feng Shui would probably be the better pick for emulating Matrix combat.

Welcome back Hades! You are indeed alive! Still have your Hello Kitty/?Ctulhu? mix (from what I can tell) icon there. Always quite liked it

Sucktastic indeed.

FPS can have melee combat (which would cover Physical Adepts) Shamans/Mages: Hello, who needs a gun Deckers: Again if it's built like DE Deckers could do a lot. Riggers: DE has a rigger "mod" for JC. Riggers would work well too. A Shadowrun game built in a DE mould would not only work, it'd probably rock <{POST_SNAPBACK}> But if it is an FPS without the "RPG" it won't appeal to us as much.. Maybe to the hypothetical "average" gamer but not to me, anyhow.

Wasn't Dues Ex announced as a FPS? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Deus Ex was announced as a FPS RPG hybrid. This "Shadowrun" game on the Xbox2 will apparently be just a pure FPS, however .. The article stated that Shadowrun will be a FPS based on the RPG.. not that it will be a FPS/RPG hybrid.

I know what you mean.. ick.. Shadowrun. I have wondered why some skill-based games use what is an unnecessarily complex mechanic? Is it a desperate attempt at trying to be "different" or could it just be reflective of a fear that change might alienate a fan base used to the cumbersome mechanics (which also sounds applicable to 3e)?

Individual combat modifiers usually range from about -1 to -5 depending on typical things like lighting, distance, proficiency in currently armed weapon...etc. There are *so*many modifiers in SLA, that this is not really a problem in the system, IMHO. The wound system in SLA is particularly cruel in that every time you get hit, you receive a wound and a -1 modifier to attack. So, if you get hit 5 times in one round, that means 5 wounds and a -5 to attack modifer the next round (not including other modifiers!). After stacking, is quite possible to get modifiers well over -10 in the system. In contrast the highest possible rank in a skill is 10. A critical success (over 20) in combat just means a bonus to damage for every point over 20. Alternatively, Some people admittedly have preferred to raise the target number for success from 11 to say 15. Speaking of wound systems... The wound system here is also quite lethal in that the more wounds the character has, the faster the rate his remaining hit points are lost. Which translates to if these wounds are not treated soon, the PC eventually dies. Yes, SLA's mechanics do rock! It is very interesting to see that many people (myself included) seem to prefer the "rolling the few dice vs. a target number" mechanics instead of rolling many dice and counting successes and failures.

This is actually very, very true. Although this problem doesn't really have anything to do with AD&D being level-based. There is no reason why you couldn't introduce some sort of real wound/hit location system into AD&D like they do in virtually all good skill-based systems. Say....Have your character's total hit points represent the total hit points needed to disable the torso... then divide total hp/2 for each of the arms/legs, hp/3 or hp/4 for the head...etc or similar... Give small-moderate penalties for attacking specific locations other than torso (no more than say -6 or -7) Say your Level 7 fighter with 57 hp get surprised by a couple of orcs. The orcs would only need to hand out 15-19 hp (not 57) of damage to the head of the PC before knocking him out. And if your PCs are mature enough you can even go a step further and allow the possibility of receiving major injuries and losing limbs and of the like. I think this is a much better method than PO: C&T's endless, gameplay-slowing critical hit tables... You can also decide to apply penalties to a character's movement/hit-to-attack roll (or if you are very evil to *all* attributes or skills) as the character loses more and more hit points in combat. Both these fixes can increase the sense of mortality for PCs by allowing the possibility of dying within one or two hits. It is a problem that can be easily addressed, IMHO. Well said. People are different.