Gavinfoxx Posted January 12, 2013 Posted January 12, 2013 Hi there. I just wanted to open up a thread where people could have a discussion of, 'What are some D&D-like pen and paper roleplaying games, which are not AD&D / D&D 3.5e or Pathfinder / 4e / D&D Next, that you very strongly want the developers to look at to take ideas and inspiration from'. To me, there is one particular game that I strongly, strongly want the developers to become familiar with, and to take ideas from. To me, it takes the best parts of 3.5e, 4e, and several other gaming systems, and puts them in one game. It evokes D&D, without the flaws of several of the different editions. This game is Ruelofcool's Legend, and if I could encourage the Project Eternity developers to understand one aspect of this, it would be the vertical 'track' system for multiclassing. Basicaly, you can swap out 1/3rd of the Rogue-equivalent for 1/3rd of the Barbarian-equivalent, and the game works like that. Second to that would be the use of levels as the ultimate arbitrator of how powerful something is. Third would be... well, read the skill system. Read what it is capable of, and at what levels; in order to have skill based characters be functionally equivalent to magic-based characters who are able to arbitrarily rewrite the rules of reality... well, just take a look at what the skills can do. Further, this game is free, so it will only take time to look it up: http://www.ruleofcool.com/ http://www.ruleofcool.com/get-the-game/ https://s3.amazonaws.com/det_1/Legend.pdf Now, in order to make this an actual discussion, I would like to open up the topic to what other pen and paper roleplaying games which are not exactly D&D or WotC or affiliates, that still evoke D&D, would you like to show the designers, in the hopes that they understand one (or more) aspect of the mechanics of that game... and what aspect of those mechanics would you like them to grok, and why?
PK htiw klaw eriF Posted January 12, 2013 Posted January 12, 2013 GURPS, Megaversial, Shadowrun. "Akiva Goldsman and Alex Kurtzman run the 21st century version of MK ULTRA." - majestic "you're a damned filthy lying robot and you deserve to die and burn in hell." - Bartimaeus "Without individual thinking you can't notice the plot holes." - InsaneCommander "Just feed off the suffering of gamers." - Malcador "You are calling my taste crap." -Hurlshort "thankfully it seems like the creators like Hungary less this time around." - Sarex "Don't forget the wakame, dumbass" -Keyrock "Are you trolling or just being inadvertently nonsensical?' -Pidesco "we have already been forced to admit you are at least human" - uuuhhii "I refuse to buy from non-woke businesses" - HoonDing "feral camels are now considered a pest" - Gorth "Melkathi is known to be an overly critical grumpy person" - Melkathi "Oddly enough Sanderson was a lot more direct despite being a Mormon" - Zoraptor "I found it greatly disturbing to scroll through my cartoon's halfing selection of genitalias." - Wormerine "I love cheese despite the pain and carnage." - ShadySands
rjshae Posted January 12, 2013 Posted January 12, 2013 I really like the flexible powers system from HERO/Champions, although I prefer the simple point-buy approach used in GURPS. "It has just been discovered that research causes cancer in rats."
Gavinfoxx Posted January 12, 2013 Author Posted January 12, 2013 KP: Could you explain what about those systems you would suggest that they take inspiration from? And why? RJ: Isn't perhaps providing hero/champions/gurps scalability of abiltiies too... granular? The idea that this is to be a class based game; having hundreds/thousands of choices to make in character creation is... probably undesirable. An online character generator for Legend is here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/47651526/LCGb.html It shows you the scope of 'possible choices' I am talking about!
JFSOCC Posted January 12, 2013 Posted January 12, 2013 Rule-less PnP's like so many forum RPG's Remember: Argue the point, not the person. Remain polite and constructive. Friendly forums have friendly debate. There's no shame in being wrong. If you don't have something to add, don't post for the sake of it. And don't be afraid to post thoughts you are uncertain about, that's what discussion is for.---Pet threads, everyone has them. I love imagining Gods, Monsters, Factions and Weapons.
Gavinfoxx Posted January 12, 2013 Author Posted January 12, 2013 Rule-less PnP's like so many forum RPG's ... ... How, precisely is that to help in a computer game??
JFSOCC Posted January 12, 2013 Posted January 12, 2013 Rule-less PnP's like so many forum RPG's ... ... How, precisely is that to help in a computer game?? By allowing the devs to think outside of the box?Many times innovation is stifled by standards and accepted methods. Remember: Argue the point, not the person. Remain polite and constructive. Friendly forums have friendly debate. There's no shame in being wrong. If you don't have something to add, don't post for the sake of it. And don't be afraid to post thoughts you are uncertain about, that's what discussion is for.---Pet threads, everyone has them. I love imagining Gods, Monsters, Factions and Weapons.
Gavinfoxx Posted January 12, 2013 Author Posted January 12, 2013 Could you specify one particular aspect of that which would help?
JFSOCC Posted January 12, 2013 Posted January 12, 2013 (edited) Sure, there was a forum RPG I partook in about a year ago, maybe two, (sci-fi theme) where we had to write our entrances into the group. Not only did this establish party dynamic, but it showed us who the characters where, how they would be played, what we could expect from them. And it did all this before we did any questing. Perhaps that could be taken as a way to approach narrative with companions. In another Forum RPG I played (a battle royale role playing game) where we found that adding disadvantages and negative personality traits to characters made it much more interesting for them to team up with certain characters and see how they complemented eachother. This tells me that it might be interesting to balance traits so players can role-play more destinctive characters and have special builds that define their characters and the way they play From that same RPG we had a list of traits and character backgrounds for each of our characters. this cheat-sheet was useful for writing for unfamiliar characters. I'm not sure exactly how, but I think it would be interesting if you could have a sheet of information about your companion characters which would grow during play as you find out more about them. This might make it interesting to play those companion characters differently. Perhaps it would help make them feel part of a team. it did in the game I played. Edit: inspiration is everywhere. you just have to know how to look for it. Edited January 12, 2013 by JFSOCC 1 Remember: Argue the point, not the person. Remain polite and constructive. Friendly forums have friendly debate. There's no shame in being wrong. If you don't have something to add, don't post for the sake of it. And don't be afraid to post thoughts you are uncertain about, that's what discussion is for.---Pet threads, everyone has them. I love imagining Gods, Monsters, Factions and Weapons.
rjshae Posted January 12, 2013 Posted January 12, 2013 KP: Could you explain what about those systems you would suggest that they take inspiration from? And why? RJ: Isn't perhaps providing hero/champions/gurps scalability of abiltiies too... granular? The idea that this is to be a class based game; having hundreds/thousands of choices to make in character creation is... probably undesirable. An online character generator for Legend is here: http://dl.dropbox.co...51526/LCGb.html It shows you the scope of 'possible choices' I am talking about! Well, for one thing, drawing upon the point costs of the various powers for reasonable scaling of spells and charged items within the game. The philosophy that defense against a particular power should be easier to access than the offensive power it is defending against. Different way of kitting power (spell) groupings. Fringe effects on invisibility. The ability to push a power through extra exertion. &c. &c. "It has just been discovered that research causes cancer in rats."
TMTVL Posted January 13, 2013 Posted January 13, 2013 DSA 3, where a battle eventually winds up taking like 8 hours to be fought just rolling and rerolling attack, parry, dodge, damage,... Which had the effect that we became really good at avoiding fights."Soldier? No, no I'm a carpenter." Also a hobo "class" (classes only decided what skills you start with, only mages and priests had skills the other classes couldn't learn from a teacher). Magic was more balanced as well, my favorite quote about the game goes a little like "a decent wizard can tell the universe to shut up and sit down, but a decent fighter can do the same to the wizard."
TMTVL Posted January 14, 2013 Posted January 14, 2013 (edited) Das Schwarze Auge 3rd Edition. The 4th was rendered in English as "The Dark Eye". Edited January 14, 2013 by TMTVL
rjshae Posted January 14, 2013 Posted January 14, 2013 DSA 3, where a battle eventually winds up taking like 8 hours to be fought just rolling and rerolling attack, parry, dodge, damage,... Which had the effect that we became really good at avoiding fights."Soldier? No, no I'm a carpenter." I remember combat in GURPS: after fifteen seconds of simulated battle I'd look up and find two hours had passed. Good times... "It has just been discovered that research causes cancer in rats."
TMZuk Posted January 15, 2013 Posted January 15, 2013 Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. 2nd edition. Fatepoints. Deadly combat. Many, many classes. Call of Cthulhu. Simple and lethal combat. No classes, just skills. My two favourites.
.Leif. Posted January 16, 2013 Posted January 16, 2013 Fantasycraft, World of Darkness, Call of Cthulhu.
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