How many Different Rulesets are there??

[Darth Sketch]

how many different rulesets are there in PnP games??/ are they all generally the same?? if not whatr are your favorite rulesets and why?

[Judge Hades]

Well, I stated my favorites in the other thread but there are many.

 

Lets see, to name a few...

 

d20 System

Interlock

FUZION

GURPS

Rifts

Deadlands

Fading Suns

d6 System

Rolemaster

MERP

Star Frontiers

Gamma World

Alternity

Shadowrun

Earthdawn

Storyteller System

Red Dwarf

Call of Cthullu

 

...and so forth and so on. Since 1974 there have been so many its not even funny.

[Darth Sketch]

what are some of the Major the differences in the rules.. ??

[Kalfear]

Lots of them as other poster showed you

 

Differences usually come down to (at least I found it this way) how involved you want to get.

 

You could do D&D which is very basic all the way to CoC or Civalry and Sorcery which track a amazing amount of things. And all those inbetween.

 

Thats the main difference I always found anyways.

 

Personal Opinion here: I always found useing spell components and tracking exactly where (body part) damage was taken to distract away from the storyline of what ever adventure to be honest, some folks like it tho. As I said, just comes down to personal opinion, really have to try the different ruleset to know if its for you or not.

[NeverwinterKnight]

has star wars always used the d20 system? the only pnp game ive played was way back in like 1991 or 1992 using those old sourcebooks for star wars by west end games. i never knew what the ruleset was actually called.

[Loof]

The d20 starwars is a rather new invention I think... But i dont know what the west end system was called either or even if it had a name...

[J.E. Sawyer]

The d20 starwars is a rather new invention I think... But i dont know what the west end system was called either or even if it had a name...

Humorously enough, those system were referred to as "d6 Systems".

[Kalfear]

Asking a friend and he says yuppers, always been D20 (D6) system.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

There used to be 100's not sure how many are left now but my attic is full of different roleplaying systems from the days when I used to get them at cost.

 

My Favourites which I liked to DM. Close call between Pendragon and MERP.

 

The one I REALLY enjoyed playing was Space 1889.

[Darth Sketch]

ive played any PnP games ttytt so how do sidee quest work in them... does the gamemaster just make them up? and as the story goes on you complete them

??

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

ive played any PnP games ttytt so how do sidee quest work in them... does the gamemaster just make them up? and as the story goes on you complete them

??

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

It's kind of hard to understand the question.

 

Side quests in PnP are a lot like side quests in CRPGs although in PnP you dont really need side quests for the same purpose as you can balance the main quest much more in a PnP game.

 

Another big difference in PnP is that in most cases taking on a sidequest will have many more consequences as in PnP the clock isnt static and scripted.

 

If for example you take two weeks to search for the missing daughter of the woodcutter. When you finally arrive at your destination you may arrive to find it burned to the ground and the few surviors telling you that three days ago they were attacked by outriders from Lord Valaks army.

 

Had you not been occupied looking for the woodcutters daughter they would have been no match for your party and you would have saved maybe 80 villiagers....

[Kaftan Barlast]

Ive got an old Swedish Lord of the Rings RPG from the 80's, I looked in the books off and on for years but I never found out how the rules worked. None of the books explained it, it was as if the devs assumed everyone knew what to do with a 100-page booklet containing nothing but weird tables

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

Ive got an old Swedish Lord of the Rings RPG from the 80's, I looked in the books off and on for years but I never found out how the rules worked. None of the books explained it, it was as if the devs assumed everyone knew what to do with a 100-page booklet containing nothing but weird tables

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Are you sure you have the whole thing ? If it's anything like Rolemaster, the game is divided over a couple of books.

 

One which is arms lore and claw lore are pretty much nothing but tables.

ICE is also the company that published MERP.

[Kaftan Barlast]

I just looked it up on the internet and its appears to have been a swedish translation of MERP but it was heavily abridged, the site I read says

 

..the original rules were heavily abridged without oversight, resulting in a more or less unplayable game

[Darth Sketch]

ive played any PnP games ttytt so how do sidee quest work in them... does the gamemaster just make them up? and as the story goes on you complete them

??

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

It's kind of hard to understand the question.

 

Side quests in PnP are a lot like side quests in CRPGs although in PnP you dont really need side quests for the same purpose as you can balance the main quest much more in a PnP game.

 

Another big difference in PnP is that in most cases taking on a sidequest will have many more consequences as in PnP the clock isnt static and scripted.

 

If for example you take two weeks to search for the missing daughter of the woodcutter. When you finally arrive at your destination you may arrive to find it burned to the ground and the few surviors telling you that three days ago they were attacked by outriders from Lord Valaks army.

 

Had you not been occupied looking for the woodcutters daughter they would have been no match for your party and you would have saved maybe 80 villiagers....

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

sohow do you level up?? side quests are the purpose of exp points no??? and that helps you level up to be stronger...

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

sohow do you level up?? side quests are the purpose of exp points no??? and that helps you level up to be stronger...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Probably varies with the individual DM. In my games people level up in interludes rather than in the middle of a dungeon.

 

In the villiage example above they would level up during their stay at the villiage and then be ready to pursue the army responsible.

 

Leveling up to get stronger isnt generally a factor in PnP. You dont kill things just to get experience.

[AlanC9]

Another big difference in PnP is that in most cases taking on a sidequest will have many more consequences as in PnP the clock isnt static and scripted.

 

If for example you take two weeks to search for the missing daughter of the woodcutter. When you finally arrive at your destination you may arrive to find it burned to the ground and the few surviors telling you that three days ago they were attacked by outriders from Lord Valaks army.

 

Had you not been occupied looking for the woodcutters daughter they would have been no match for your party and you would have saved maybe 80 villiagers....

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Note that this is a design convention. CRPGs could work like PnP. But CRPG players don't seem to like having the clock mean something, so designers generally don't use it for anything. (Something I dislike about CRPG style)

 

Darth Sketch, sidequests in PnP -- and the term "sidequest" is hardly ever used in PnP, actually -- aren't about levelling or items. It's futile to plan your actions around levelling in PnP, since the GM will throw whatever opposition he wants to at you. You won't get any advantage out of it.

 

Something that NWN mods generally get backwards. Typically, random encounters scale, but boss encounters don't.

 

In fact, it's fairly rare for a PnP game to have sidequests. Most GMs only use them when they want to make players make a difficult decision. Unless the players do something unexpected, in which case you have to make stuff up on the fly..

[Loof]

Another way of looking at it is that since as a player in PnP you could theoreticaly try to do anything you can imagine your character doing you have infinite sidequests.

I think the main reason that the term sidequest isn't very common in PnP is simply that since stuff doesn't have to be prescripted the distinktion between sidequest mainquest and goofing of gets kind of blured.

[palathas]

Asking a friend and he says yuppers, always been D20 (D6) system.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Not true, the d20 system is fairly new for Star Wars. The d20 system uses skill modifiers when trying to do something and you roll a single d20 + skill modifier to try and beat a Dificulty Class set by the GM. The DC part is the only real similarity.

characters also have levels and their HP increase as they level up

 

In the older d6 system when you finished game sessions or particular tasks the GM would award a certain amount of skill point which when spent on a skill would increase the number of d6's you'd roll to beat a set DC. So if you had a 4d+2 skill then you'd roll 4d6 and add 2 to it. You didn't have levels and HP would pretty much stay the same. Just equipment and skills would get better so you could avoid damage more easily.

 

Very similar to Shadow Run, not sure which game started up the d6 system though.

 

Personally I prefered the rule set for Runequest, although I liked the crit tables for Roll Master. Some descriptions were very humorous.

[Amentep]

Very similar to Shadow Run, not sure which game started up the d6 system though.

 

According to a FAQ I read, it was WEG's Ghostbusters RPG that began the d6 system...

[Achalon]

The easiest way to understand a PnP rpg is to pick up a core book for a game that looks or sounds cool to you and read through it. That alone would answer far more questions than we could.

 

PnP RPG's are typically based as much or more on personal interaction and "Role-Playing" your character than on leveling up. Don't get me wrong, in most PnP games leveling up your character is still a factor, it's just not as big a deal as in CRPG's.

 

If you want to ease into something, I'd recommend something from Palladium Books. Such as the Palladium Fantasy RPG. Its a big system that's got a lot of (mostly optional) rules. It's fairly easy to understand, only requires the core book, and doesn't cost much (about $20 I think).

 

I'd recommend D20 Star Wars as a second option as I beleive it also only requires the main book to play. It costs a little more though.

[Jediphile]

sohow do you level up?? side quests are the purpose of exp points no??? and that helps you level up to be stronger...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Well, you don't always level up or accumulate xp in PnP.

 

I run an AD&D campaign myself, but I grant xp on the basis of good role-playing alone, so killing any number of monsters or enemies won't matter in the slightest - I won't award xp for it. Period.

 

I will award xp for good decisions in the game, though. For example, if you've freed the peasant's daughter (no reward - peasants have no money) from an orc camp and the orcs discover you as you sneak out, then you could fight the orcs or you could run. Lots of players would fight since they gain xp that way, but doing so, you would endanger the life of the group and the peasant's daughter.

 

If she is indeed killed, then I'll guarantee you that you'll suffer heavy xp penalties for it, and even if she doesn't you still will in my game, since it was just a really stupid thing to do. I don't care if your 14th level paladin can carve up 50+ orcs in short order - the decision is just stupid by an sort of common sense, so you will be penalized for making it.

 

Rushing to the aid as the orcs prepare to sacrifice her to their evil god or some such is a completely different story, however.

 

Still, it depends entirely on what sort of game you enjoy. Some people enjoy killing monsters and collecting treasure. This is known as Hack 'n Slash. Others like exploring dungeons and making maps while doing so. Such games are called Dungeon Crawls. But I like neither of those much, so I stay clear of them.

 

PnP games don't often have sidequests because they tend to stop being sidequests and becoming real quests when the players focus on them. If players make a big issue out of something the GM thought was a footnote, then the GM will often put far more attention on it on the fly. I know I have in many situations.

 

This is not possible in CRPGs, however, because the programmers don't know who will be playing the game or what sort of choices they will make, so they have to allow for all the possibilities in advance, and unlike the GM they cannot spontaneously add to a sideplot in an instant if the situation calls for it.