Fallout Equetria PNP

[AMARDA]

With a D20 system, how does one represent the Luck statistic?

I ask because I just can't see how a D20 can represent a 7% crit chance. Where as with a D100 roll Luck in its base form is really easy.

[Kkat]

With a D20 system, how does one represent the Luck statistic?

I ask because I just can't see how a D20 can represent a 7% crit chance. Where as with a D100 roll Luck in its base form is really easy.

I'll admit up front, I do not care for the d20 system, and I would be very resistant to seeing Fallout: Equestria coverted to it. However, this is largely due to the fact that D20 is, to me, Dungeons & Dragons. And Dungeons & Dragons is not, IMHO, a good system for anything other than juvenile hack-n-slash games. As a Dungeon Master, I've spent over a decade "elevating" Dungeons & Dragons by trying to run actual roleplaying games in the system, and success has only come by fighting against the system's severe flaws and weaknesses. I tend to view D20 as the "training wheels" of RPGs... it's what everyone starts with, and they play it until they graduate to playing better games.

The benefit of turning Fallout: Equestria into a PNP roleplaying game is that it is already based on a game mechanic, Fallout. So you don't need to create an entirely new one, or try to pidgeon-hole it into something like the D20 system. The Fallout mechanics may not be the best game mechanics out there, but they work, and they have the added benefit of feeling like Fallout. Whether you chose to use the Fallout/Fallout 2 mechanics or the Fallout 3/New Vegas mechanics is the big decision, and either choice is equally valid.

Personally, I think the only reason anyone would try to make it D20 is if they didn't know how to play anything else and weren't willing to learn. I have my own favorite system (which is neither the Fallout system nor d20) but I wouldn't advocate trying to convert Fallout: Equestria into that system either.

[Arcane_Scroll]

I like the Palladium system myself, it can adapt to basically everything. The official expansions range from fantasy, sci-fi, cyberpunk, everything. Most importantly, it has a post-apocalyptic furry rule set which would be fun. I played After The Bomb for a while and loved it

[AMARDA]

I just had a really good idea on how to use SPECIAL for all those miscellaneous things like jumping and poison. Using poison as an example, they would be rated on a scale of 0-10 with 0 being absolutely lethal, no save sort of stuff (Excepting perks and highly capable healing potions/magics). A poison of 5 though would be End*5+Lck, thus if the PC's End was 6, their Lck 5, the target score to save would be 35.

So, what ya think?

[Kitnoka]

Personally, I think the only reason anyone would try to make it D20 is if they didn't know how to play anything else and weren't willing to learn.

Ouch, I think my nerd card is smoking from that burn.

I understand the the point of view and definitely the part about D&D being poor for Role Play vs Roll Play. I mean no disrespect towards FO:E work by suggesting it, and it is certainly not my intent to reduce the story to a juvenile hack and slack adventure. The reason I used a system other than Fallout 3 as a basis is to serve as guidance for resolving issues with, well, porting Fallout 3 to pen and paper. I know I harped on climbing and Light Step/Trot. Those are minor bugs in the grand scheme but I thought that was a good place to start discussion on how computer games do not turn into paper games without effort. I did not think anyone would want to start the discussion on topics of:

-How to emulate FPS mechanics outside of a real time game. If I may stick my tongue in my cheek, I did consider LARPing.
-How should S.A.T.S be implemented? It is a core mechanic of the game but is supposedly a feature found only in PipBucks. Should such a powerful ability only be available to players that choose to create stable dwellers? What about players that want to run dashites or tribals? Should they be denied the bonus attacks, accuracy and damage reduction because of their character concept? Should all players be given PipBucks at character creation regardless of origin for fairness?
-Fallout 3 allows players to pause in combat and consume as many stimpaks are desired, making it next to impossible to fall to 0 HP as long as players have stimpaks. Should ponies be allowed to chug health points in a similar manner? If yes, how will this impact game play or the believability of the world if ponies can consume inhuman... er, inequine amounts of potions in the span of a turn? If no, will the combat system need to be rebalanced to be less brutal to compensate for the reduced access to healing? Perhaps more importantly, are NPCs subject to the same restrictions? I have a special hate for Kane from the first Fallout precisely because of the number of stimpaks he carried.
-Is there a reasonable possibility that characters can advance through 20, 30 or more levels without being reduced to 0 HP? Fallout 3 has no provisions for recovery from death (Except scripted events. I am looking at you Broken Steel and Point Lookout) or for an incapacitated stated state between consciousness and death. This last point particularly jarring when compared to how many times Littlepip has been rendered unconscious. Is the system too harsh when players do not have a save system to allow them to reload from a death? If the answer is yes, how much of a buffer should be provided between falling to 0 HP and death?
-Do we really want to roll critical hit chances per shotgun pellet? Okay, I admit this one is for laughs.

This is some pretty high level design discussion and I did not want to overload anyone. Poking through Fallout 3's SPECIAL revealed so many of these computer game artifacts that I found it easier to begin with a system already calibrated for table top use and expand from there. By no means are any of these issues insurmountable by extrapolating from Fallout 3 but will require more development time before a play testable document can be laid out.

Sorry for the ramble. I realize the comment is not directed at me personally, but being the one who proposed d20 it stung a bit.

With a D20 system, how does one represent the Luck statistic?

I ask because I just can't see how a D20 can represent a 7% crit chance. Where as with a D100 roll Luck in its base form is really easy.

Luck took some effort to make work. The immediate choices are drop the 2% and call it acceptable losses or develop a mechanic that creates a similar effect within the new system.

The solution I worked out is that instead of being a critical percentage, the Luck score represents the number of increases that can be made to d20 rolls in a period of time. For now, it is per day. In the rules I am working from, attacks cause critical hits on a roll of 20. An attack that rolls a 19 there fore would not cause a critical hit, but the player could expend a luck point and raise the value to 20. This turns the normal hit into a critical hit. In the current form as many luck points can be expended on one roll as desired so a character with 7 Luck could use all of her luck for the day in one go to turn a roll of 13 into a 20.

Is this the statistical equivalent of a 7% critical chance? It would shock me if it came anywhere close. Does it emulate the spirit of Luck? Does it increase all skills and improve the chance to cause a critical it? It does accomplish that. Does it feel Fallout enough? That is up to general consensus.

[AMARDA]

The way I see S.A.T.S. being implemented is in an initial AP cost followed by an improved round of shooting/bashing. After using it though there is a cool down during which it can't be used. Using this we could theoretically balance it, maybe even give PC's who use it all the time negative modifiers when not using it?

[Kattlarv]

First off: Gah, really sorry for the lack of progress with the module. I am terrible when it comes to stop doing nonsense and actually work. Will compare notes to what you have gotten down and my own.

Secondly, to answer stuff and reply to things: (yw for the link btw)

Like said: I plan to release a "illogical" version where you can throw rocks and thus learn how to hack terminals and how a laser works.
And regarding climb and light step (again): I'd as said, rather make climb a general attribute check, with penalties or bonuses regarding the terrain. Lets say, you want to climb a " / " (maybe a bit less angled xD) slope, that would be a hard Str+Agi check (x3) so, say you got 6 and 8 in them, that would be 14x3=42 % chance to get up that slope. Does this sound fair? And ofc: You could "crawl inch by inch with a pickaxe" with a like, +70 modifier or some stuff like that. But a simple "you can walk up " | " mountains just doesn't make any sense. Then we'd come to the yes/no situation again. What would be to steep? What angle would be the breaking %? I'd like to see climb, jump swim and whatnot to be a general attribute check. With possible perks or stuff that'd like, "gives you a +x to y, and an additional +20 to climb/jump checks or w/e

What goes for light step/trot, that would be something good to introduce "activate" perks, or "perks per day", sorta like with that unrelated talent tree I got going. Then again, it would favour changing the system to cater for more "realism" or w/e to call it, game balance or whatnot. (and regarding pegasi and minefields: as a GM, I'd just point out those nice automated AA guns that seems angled to take down anything more then 3-5 meters of the ground. Now get crawling ;P) But some perks have ofc been either restricted, changed or removed (like Logan's loophole, wild wasteland or crazy bomber) But yeah, GM restricting perks should be allowed, heck, there's even plenty in D&D you might not noticed (such as ex: undead/construct template. Cannot be critted against, immune to x and y)

And so far (or well, recently) I've started stealing almost every mechanic I can find from the Fallout RPG, as well as tactics (only Fo I got installed atm heh). I made the system more complex (from d10 to d100) and generally just tried to balance stuff out.

And something I just want to ask everyone (mainly Kkat): Do you think the non-combat skills I'm working on adding are worth it? I knew a few complained over the added "worthless" skills such as perform, since being able to sing or dance doesn't kill stuff or get you loot. And that Fallout is only about survival and killing. Also, wouldn't mind some help with the... "reproductive" questions. and before anyone asks: Yeah, I know it ain't in many RPG's, but honestly. If not at least mentioned somewhere, people will make their own rules. Since face it: Despite not being in the rules, in how many games have people "1: Done it. 2: Gone pillaging, raping and maiming 3: Made up house rules for how to do." in? I'm still unsure how to address it, despite writing a page of the theme. Is it best left alone? Or should some measure be applied to it?

As for poisons, Fallout already sorta has a system for poisons. Kinda, but something like that could be a start. I'll look into how the P&P deals with it.
Regarding deaths: I made a odd system to deal with it, I'm quite sure it needs to be tinkered with thou. But atm, it's easy to die. Like it should. Althou, Pip seems rather resilient to not die xD
And S.A.T.S I have no real good solution for, maybe it having it's own AP or something? Right now using S.A.T.S works like in 1, 2 and tactics.

Now, I'll have to get something to eat so my stomach stops hurting, then I'll be sure to at least... I dunno, check over death in Fo:P&P, re-work threshold, and maybe write a few overkills on the overkill table... and make sure to forget everything I just thought about of adding a "intimate table", cuz that would just be way off xD (even if a fumble+botch on it would give a nice "10 seconds flat, Rainbow Dash would be proud... if it were any other situation" or something, gah, gotta focus. Stop trailing off, bad brain)

[Kattlarv]

And finally got done checking out your system. Seems rather good, althou the choice of SW as a base module was a bit ponderous. But I guess it'd work. It'd just not be as "Fallout" with Armour prof and whatnot. Even if I think it requires a bit of practice to use armour/weapons. Most systems seems quite well thought out. But we'd still come to my problem of a "Fallout Equestria inspired/based game instead of one based on Fallout, with FoE elements.
I'd actually find it nice if you'd maybe want to do the "level" version of FoE. But with the amount of time you must have put in, I can see you rather wanting to finish your version of it. But hopefully we could "trade" some things in it. Such as spell systems possible, and items.

[Fallen_Kaisar]

If I might be so bold as to contribute my input, as I have begun designing a Fo:E RPG as well, I do think that the game needs to use an approximation of the actual Fallout system from the computer games. In the broad strokes at least, levels, perks, SPECIAL, skills, ect... This is because Fallout Equestria runs on that system, the story is told by it, its how the world works, and in designing a game based upon it, the mechanics of said game should setting as much as they are able.

Fallout has never been a particularly 'realistic' setting, lorewise or mechanically, and My Little Pony takes realism and gives it to Pinkie Pie to bake cupcakes with. What we should be, or at least I have been, is focusing on the feel of the game. What Fo:E is is gritty and comically dark, Littlepip, Blackjack, Puppysmiles, they all take large amounts of damage in combat and are rarely the worse for wear after it afterwords. Healing Potions fix just about everything short of death and taint in the story, so they should in the game as well. The priority should be representing the Wasteland as authentically to the source material as possible.

That said, a direct port of New Vegas' mechanics would be unwise, though I feel this is less because of the way they're built and more because of how they would translate in a multiplayer setting. The trick is to pull as much from the system as needed to keep the feel. We're not making Fallout the RPG, this is Fallout Equestria, the mechanics won't be the same, but they will be similar. I don't have any hard numbers on how to run that yet, as I'm currently working on the character creation process, but my current thoughts are similar to some mentioned earlier. A d100 roll-under based system with thresholds. Lockpick of 50 is required to attempt to pick a Average (50) lock, at equal skill vs difficultly, success chance is 40%, each rank above the threshold is +1%. If skill rank is double the threshold, no roll is required. Critical effects occur on a roll of 1 - (Luck) and vary depending on skill used, such as reducing time required or increasing the effectiveness of the result.

Now, the other major concern I've seen in this thread is S.A.T.S. I was considering just making S.A.T.S. the combat system itself. All player characters would have an item (or ability) that gives S.A.T.S. for convenience, whether it be Littlepips Pipbuck, Steelhooves Steel Ranger Armor or even saying Calamity has a 'Deadeye' ability. It translates into PnP turn based combat so well.

If people are interested in my further musings, I'm hoping to finish my alpha draft over the weekend.

[Sunrise]

Just another lurker here registering interest in this. First impressions of the two systems so far are that the d20 isn't exactly well suited for any kind of fallout game, Equestria or not. The second system seems to suffer from the same problem as regular D&D in which you need a spreadsheet to play. It's very scattered, lots of rolls alternating between d20 and d100 to use and hundreds of micro-rules built onto one platform. It's not very succinct or intuitive. While I could write my own up I'm going to wait for Fallen_Kaisar to drop his in since he seems to have the same sorta opinions/ideas I have. Sweet ideas all around though, I'd be more than up for GMing (or Overmare-ing) a game if we got a rule set going.