Lancer

AFAIK, there has never really been an offically published PnP game in a post-apocalyptic setting (a la Fallout). The closest thing to this genre would be cyberpunk but still it is not post-apocalyptic. I do realize that there have been various Fallout PnP games made by different people.. Does anyone have any recommendations on which ones of these is best? The other thing I was wondering is can you successfully just utilize the SPECIAL system as is from the actual CRPGS and make a PnP game out of that? Has anyone tried this or are there serious balance issues?

An addendum to my Mystara rant: Mystara had a couple of console RPGS devoted to it called Warriors of the Eternal Sun on the Genesis and Order of the Griffon for the TG16. The former was a decent RPG based on Mystara's Hollow World. The latter was based in Karameikos (the first detailed Known World nation) and is the greatest RPG to ever grace a console . It was a brilliant fantasy game with a novel horror storyline mix with a FPP for dungeon exploring but isometric turn-based for battles. It also inspired a couple of PC strategy games: Stronghold and Fantasy Empires not to mention a couple of arcade games as well.

This is funny because 3E, 3.5E 4.0E (or whatever) is just as bad or worse than 2ndEd ever was in saturating the market with endless supplements and bewildering consumers. I love it when 3E first came out it heavily advertised the "end of kits"... But what do you think prestige classes are? LOL

Out of curiosity Jediphile, what did you think of the Hollow World and Red Steel settings? I personally loved the Hollow World as much as the Known World but I could never get into Red Steel.

Perhaps AD&D Mystara would have been given a better reception had it been given a proper "Introduction to the Setting" boxed set giving an overview of Mystara (and the Known World in particular) before moving on to more advanced supplements such as the K:KoA and G:KoM boxed sets which required a greater understanding of the setting. Virtually all other TSR's AD&D settings were given this treatment.. Why not Mystara as well? So they officially alienated both their old consumer base (us OD&D/Basic D&D folks) by (as you mentioned) not updating the NoS info post-WoTI but they also alienated a potential new fanbase by not giving the setting the proper inception it required so that a newbie can just jump right into it. From a business standpoint, it is just not logically sound. For those who don't know Mystara can be broken up into three major settings: The Known World--the original and most popular by far. It has all the usual fantasy elements like elves, dwarves, halflings typical medieval England stuff but also nations reminiscent of ancient Norway, Rome, India, Native American, merchant countries, paradise nations..etc Hollow World--Mystara is actually a hollow planet inside and the civilizations within are loosely based on real world ancient cultures such as the Ancient Greeks, Egyptians, Aztecs and various humanoid countries. Red Steel(The Savage Coast)-- is west of the Known World and has a culture reminiscent of Renaissance Spain/Portugal with the curse known as cinnabryl. Let me rant a little too, to those others who haven't played Mystara... The Gazetteers were arguably the best, most detailed world guides ever devised for any of TSR's official settings. Each Gazetteer fleshed out in detail a given nation in Mystara's Known World and there were 14 in total. Not only did they delineate usual information such as geography, NPC personalities and stats, items and so forth... But each also had sections on political intrigue and plot hooks, national economics, history, culture, a breakdown and statistics of the country's army to be used for the setting's "War Machine," and maps of major cities and points of interest. A similar Gaz series of similar quality was also made for Mystara's Hollow World (which IMHO was equally as great). Jediphile provided a link to the Vaults of Pandius site which is certainly the largest, most comprehensive Mystara site online. The following URL: Mystara Archives is the largest Mystara forum online and it is a very vibrant community! Most of the major people who have contributed to Vaults of Pandius are members of that forum. Oh and B10 was great. It was great because it did not just rely on hack and slash like modules before it but rather it contained heavy roleplaying and wilderness travel components. And for great roleplaying material don't forget the Poor Wizard's Almanacs!

It is great to see another fellow Mystaran. I also DM in Mystara as it is my favorite AD&D setting. Mystara is almost best with just plain old Basic D&D. And, yes, Mystara is better than FR!

AD&D 2ndEd all the way I don't even bother with 3E. But seriously all this talk about different gaming systems and why hit points, experience levels etc are so bad and why skill-based is so much better...etc. Whatever system you prefer I think boils down to how important it is to you to have gaming system rules to emulate the real world. I don't think the rules system you use matters too much to someone who just wants to tell a story. People who worry about the rules system so much seem to worry about realism and details as much or even more so than the telling of the story itself. Neither approach is wrong.. But for me, I fit in the first camp, I have AD&D 2ndEd, OD&D, GURPS, Shadowrun, Cyberspace, SLA and on and on..etc And I always end up going back to AD&D or Basic D&D. Heck, the rules are simple and efficient and anything that I feel detracts from gameplay I have house rules for. As a result, the rules don't get in the way of telling the story like they would in GURPS and Shadowrun with the excessive attention to detail (rollplaying!) and realism. And yeah, I am fine with hit points/levels for tabletop just like I am when playing my favorite CRPGs such as Baldur's Gate, Planescape, Ultima (strangely, the aforementioned issues don't bother people when it comes to CRPGs). I am used to these RPG archetypes and as such they have never bothered me personally but then again.. Whatever floats your boat.

Last I heard making games for mobile phones. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> What the? LOL

Do we know yet where Tim Cain and company are going?

You must have not noticed that I *did* write FO was made by Interplay in the part of my post in parenthesis that you quoted.. The point in lumping the FOs with Troika's games is that many of the people who made the FOs also worked for Troika. And you can definitely see the FO influence in Troika's games... including the bugs. Saying Interplay or BIS made FO2 are both correct statements. BIS was Interplay's roleplaying division which was created sometime after FO1 was released. Just adding my .02 cents

Thanks everyone and Ellester, Dhruin for your hints, tips again.. After much deliberation I have decided to purchase Wizardry 8. I will come to understand the repercussions of my mistake in due time.

Fair enough. We just don't know enough about Obsidian yet.. And I had edited my post before your reply. But as I understand it, KOTORII's problems can be mostly attributed to an inordinantly tight schedule imposed by LucasArts. Remember how long KOTORI (or even NWN) was in the works? Apparently Bioware didn't have any problems telling LucasArts to piss off and let them have the time needed to make a kick-butt game. You could expect that Obsidian would have made a pretty polished KOTORII had it a more realistic time schedule.

Toee comes very close to one of the crappiest releases ever. It

Target Earth for the Genesis is probably my all-time favorite game along with Planescape Torment (PC) and Order of the Griffon (TG16)

Thanks everyone for the input and thanks Dhruin for the accurate description on DD! Another question about DD... Is the combat as extensive as it was in Icewind Dale? In other words, is DD a dungeon crawl with roleplaying elements mixed in every now and then for good measure or is there enough RPing to satisfy fans of PST, FO, and Arcanum?

So DD is pretty much a dungeon romp that happens to be in a big world? There is no character interaction or real dialogue options? And as for Wizardry 8, aside from cool tactical combat and character development...how is the roleplaying and NPC interaction...etc? Thanks! P.S. As for demos.. I still use an archaic dail-up so that is not an option :">

Ultima VII: part 2 An oldie, but a goodie! P.S. and cool avatar Darque.. No pun intended

These two have caught my eye for different reasons. As I understand it, DD is heavily inspired by both Ultima VII (which is a good thing!) and Diablo. I didn't like Icewind Dale, for ex, because not only did it not have enough RPG elements but the dungeons were very long, boring and seemed to drag on and on. BG series dungeons, OTOH, were just about right in length to me. Wizardry 8 just sounds like a cool 3D RPG from what I have read so far. So how are Wizardry 8 and Divine Divinity in terms of roleplaying aspects, dungeon length, combat system..etc? In regards to roleplaying aspects, I am in particular looking for a good storyline, strong character interaction, PC choices that affect NPCs and/or gameworld, and if possible non-linearity.

I am pretty much a goodie-goodie and haven't broken the law yet so that makes me Lawful Good.

You are master Yoda. Yoda's teachings are far reaching within the Jedi order. Ever the diplomat, scholar and teacher - Yoda seeks to enlighten through wisdom, experience and discipline. Yoda employs the lightsaber form Ataru in which the practioner uses The Force in conjunction with his own physical prowess to achieve unparalleled acrobatic skill, accuracy and speed. Skill is stressed over raw power. He has trained many Master Jedi - most notably Count Dooku, Mace Windu and Obi-Wan Kenobi and is one of only four Jedi to have preserved his personal identity after death. Yoda 96% Darth Revan 93% Qui-Gon Jinn 93% Mace Windu 86% Obi-Wan Kenobi (Pre Death of Qui-Gon Jinn) 79% Anakin Skywalker 79% Bastila Shan 75% Obi-Wan Kenobi (Post Death of Qui-Gon Jinn) 75% Luke Skywalker 68% Exar Kun 61% Darth Sidious 57% Darth Maul 57% Count Dooku/Darth Tyranus 57% Darth Vader 46%

I can't even imagine Hades Ones' reaction to this :D

KOTOR1 had a better "main" storyline than KOTOR2 ...IF Obsidian had more time (cough Lucasarts cough). Though for what its worth, KOTOR2 did flesh out characters more. The influence system, although quite flawed, was a good start... It was still an improvement over the time-triggered BG2-esque character interactions. So, I would say KOTOR1 storyline> KOTOR2 storyline KOTOR2 character interaction > KOTOR1 character interaction

Glad to be back.

I don't know if anyone remembers that old Milton Bradley boargame "Heroquest".. But we would use those as miniatures.. Works really well too and much cheaper than the metallic ones.

AD&D 2nd Edition and OD&D would be my favorite gaming systems. My favorite settings within it are Mystara and Planescape. SLA Industries is quite possibly the most interesting cyberpunk setting I have ever seen though Shadowrun and Cyberpunk 2020 are also pretty nifty. I would love to run a post-apocalpytic RPG (ala Fallout) although nothing published exists to the best of my knowledge.