FO:E PnP Roleplay Group (Blue Team) Concluded
Re: FO:E PnP Roleplay Group (Blue Team)
You never know, Green Sister maybe better suited to another martial art style
Xavi, target 45: 97 [5d100=16,2,32,26,21]
Epic set of rolls is epic.
Fallout New Vegas Lets Play!
Fallout New Vegas Lets Play 2!
Epic set of rolls is epic.
Fallout New Vegas Lets Play!
Fallout New Vegas Lets Play 2!
Re: FO:E PnP Roleplay Group (Blue Team)
PFFFFTHAHAHAHAHA xD
I love you Icekatze. Everywhere and forever.
I also noticed it works both ways, ha! They can be Remedy's Angels, or Angel's Remedies
I love you Icekatze. Everywhere and forever.
I also noticed it works both ways, ha! They can be Remedy's Angels, or Angel's Remedies
Re: FO:E PnP Roleplay Group (Blue Team)
hi hi
Thanks
I suspect I'm going to be making more art for this group before this game comes to a close. (And I may need to double check to make sure I've got Thunderbird's colors right.)
----
In other news, I think I've reached a point where I need to start over with the rules. They may be just fine in the context of people sitting around a coffee table playing shadowrun or something, but over IRC, its becoming increasingly clear that our game would be much improved if the rules were simpler. I feel like I'm struggling against the rules instead of having them work with me, and thats not a good sign. Also, I'm sure other folks have noticed how long combat is taking. This last session, a minor skirmish with some random raiders took almost a whole session, and that just can't happen.
That being said, I don't really have an alternative in mind yet, and I'm willing to keep going with the current rules if people prefer that. Celestia knows it was all yall's encouragement and interest that persuaded me to take the leap of faith in the first place and start an actual game up. (I suspect if it hadn't been for you all, I'd have finished my ruleset and just tucked it away somewhere and that would have been it.)
Hopefully the second time around, having learned many valuable lessons from countless hours of gaming, it'll be easier to come up with something. Maybe I'll even be able to fix magic, finally. (One of the reasons I started writing these rules was because of the magic system. Even if so much of it has gone wild since the war, I wanted to play with a world were people could make the leaves fall, the plants grow and move the clouds or even the sun and the moon across the sky.)
Anyway, time will tell. As always though, if you have any thoughts, I'd love to hear them. (And then dash them mercilessly against the rocks, laughing and twisting my mustache as I do...
)
Thanks
I suspect I'm going to be making more art for this group before this game comes to a close. (And I may need to double check to make sure I've got Thunderbird's colors right.)----
In other news, I think I've reached a point where I need to start over with the rules. They may be just fine in the context of people sitting around a coffee table playing shadowrun or something, but over IRC, its becoming increasingly clear that our game would be much improved if the rules were simpler. I feel like I'm struggling against the rules instead of having them work with me, and thats not a good sign. Also, I'm sure other folks have noticed how long combat is taking. This last session, a minor skirmish with some random raiders took almost a whole session, and that just can't happen.
That being said, I don't really have an alternative in mind yet, and I'm willing to keep going with the current rules if people prefer that. Celestia knows it was all yall's encouragement and interest that persuaded me to take the leap of faith in the first place and start an actual game up. (I suspect if it hadn't been for you all, I'd have finished my ruleset and just tucked it away somewhere and that would have been it.)
Hopefully the second time around, having learned many valuable lessons from countless hours of gaming, it'll be easier to come up with something. Maybe I'll even be able to fix magic, finally. (One of the reasons I started writing these rules was because of the magic system. Even if so much of it has gone wild since the war, I wanted to play with a world were people could make the leaves fall, the plants grow and move the clouds or even the sun and the moon across the sky.)
Anyway, time will tell. As always though, if you have any thoughts, I'd love to hear them. (And then dash them mercilessly against the rocks, laughing and twisting my mustache as I do...
)Re: FO:E PnP Roleplay Group (Blue Team)
Make stampede broken again. 
But in all seriousness I don't know how to help really.
But in all seriousness I don't know how to help really.
Xavi, target 45: 97 [5d100=16,2,32,26,21]
Epic set of rolls is epic.
Fallout New Vegas Lets Play!
Fallout New Vegas Lets Play 2!
Epic set of rolls is epic.
Fallout New Vegas Lets Play!
Fallout New Vegas Lets Play 2!
Re: FO:E PnP Roleplay Group (Blue Team)
hi hi
Well, before I get too far into it, I'm going to try to come up with an absolutely rock solid dice rolling system. If you're interested in reading some in depth analysis on the subject of dice probability and how it relates to enjoyable gaming, I recommend taking a peak at A Treatise on Different Dice-rolling Mechanics in RPGs.
How many times has it come up in game how the dicebot defies all expectations? Its because using the percentile dice (d100) without appropriate diminishing returns on modifiers creates a frustratingly flat distribution of results.
A system where you add up hits like in the Storyteller system certainly would have a better distribution while still allowing for the possibility of exceptional success or failure, but unfortunately it becomes too easy, even at high levels to get no hits and thus fail unless you start rolling ridiculous numbers of dice. But if you start rolling ridiculous numbers of dice, the gap between unskilled and skilled becomes a gaping chasm and you get those awful situations where peasants get killed by house cats because they're just so helpless down there at the bottom.
If this was a tabletop game, I would instantly reach for my old standby of West End's D6 system or my derivative rating system. They both have very nice normal distributions and the wild die concept allows for even broken clocks to be right twice a day, and for the greatest heroes to fail once in a blue moon. However, the wild die concept translates very poorly into IRC. (you have one die that, if you roll 6, you add that and roll again until you stop rolling sixes, or if you roll a 1, you subtract 6 and roll again, etc.) It would involve seeing your result then entering a new roll on a different line and adding the result yourself, with other people potentially commenting or rolling their own dice in-between. Not ideal.
The way the special system and skill system is set up in Fallout meshes well with a d100, but doesn't work so well with increasing numbers of dice. (roll 30d6 please? no thanks)
At the moment, I'm leaning more towards a West End D6/Rating System mechanic, but replacing the wild die concept with a different concept that I came up with when I was working on my simple rules. I've come to the realization that I want fatigue/energy/strain (whatever you want to call it) to apply to everything, not just magic. So I think I can replace the wild die concept with a fatigue system where depending on some stat or another (maybe luck, maybe your strength or whatever is relevant) you can add to your roll by spending fatigue, representing your extra effort. I just don't know how to make the Luck statistic factor into critical successes or failures using this setup, and I feel it should.
------
Anyway, once I figure out the dice, the rest of the system is just going to be a matter of writing down the rules. I've learned an awful lot about what works and what doesn't over the last 20 sessions, and I already know a lot of what things I intend to keep from the old system and what I intend to scrap.
I want to simplify action points, health points and things.
• 5-15 action points sounds about right, it might be reducing the granularity of the system, but as far as I can tell, that granularity is slowing things down. Miscellaneous actions will be simplified into, no-cost, simple, average, complex. Action points for weapons will be simplified.
• I'm considering making some kind of generic wound system to apply to characters, armor, weapons and vehicles that will have predictable effects no matter what. Light wounds, crippling wounds, deadly wounds, etc. Rather than keeping track of meaningless piles of numbers, each injury would have some meaningful result.
- Damage may be a smidgen more complicated this way, but in return, it should simplify armor, called shots and sneak attacks. Allowing a character with a pistol to still be a threat to someone in armor, while not having the big guns ruin your day without fail. (though they're still likely to ruin your day)
• Radiation, disease and poisons are overly complicated in my current system.
- Poison will have a strength and will roll that to cause damage to Health and/or SPECIAL stats. The strength drops over time.
- Disease essentially be an NPC just like any other, simplifying matters for a GM who is accustomed to NPCs. It attacks with its strength, like poison. And the character attacks back with their endurance until one of the two is dead.
- Radiation will just be a simple value that adds or subtracts from a character's rolls after a certain point, depending on whether they are a ghoul/alicorn or not. (and with a perk, characters may be able to spend it like fatigue in the same way ditzy doo did, or to boost abilities like the pyrelight.)
• Travel is going to be simplified to: "how fast you want to go = how tired you'll be when you arrive."
• Initiative order is going to be simplified. You'll have your initiative score, and you can spend fatigue to increase that if you want. No rolling, but it might not necessarily be the same each time.
• Movement is going to be simplified into the following three choices that will have simple, easy to understand consequences without needing to add up nickels and dimes:
- you can make a short move up to a certain distance
- you can make a long move but you move to the end of the initiative order on anything else you do
- you can make a dash and use your athletics to move as far as possible
• Magic will be more like an ordinary skill, where you can spend fatigue to increase the effect if you want.
- Alchemy and magic should hopefully be more interchangeable, with characters able to enchant objects, and conversely, able to draw the inherent magic out of objects to help power spell effects. (the latter being classic zebra alchemy)
• Target numbers should be more consistent. Once I figure out the probability distribution between (no skill + 1 stat) vs (max skill + 10 stat + max fatigue spent) I'll have a simple scale from easy to impossible that I can assign target numbers from. (Modifiers, such that they exist, will fit into that scale)
- Opposing target numbers (ie. dodge and such) should be more consistent too, and should match up with the general difficulty scale.
• Making some minor tweaks to skills, in light of some skills not seeing much use. Weapon skills are mostly unchanged.
- Ballistic Weapons is unchanged, covers most things that follow a ballistic trajectory.
- Energy Weapons is unchanged, covers beams, spray weapons and most things that are just point and click.
- Explosives is mostly unchanged, covers rockets, grenades, molotov cocktails, and things that have an area of effect.
- Melee is unchanged, covers anything that extends reach significantly.
- Unarmed is unchanged, covers anything that uses the body's natural motions (including the tail)
- Academics is mostly unchanged, covers science and technology, magic and alchemy, and is a catchall for book smarts.
- Streetwise is being combined with Negotiation. It's defining characteristic is that it is the art of fitting in and meshing together, and of course, reaching an agreement. It will remain the catchall for "street smarts."
- Expression might get renamed "Presence," to help clarify its defining characteristic as the art of standing out, being noticed and such.
- Stealth is unchanged, its a pretty ubiquitous skill.
- Medicine is unchanged, also pretty self explanatory.
- Mechanics is being combined with Security and then split into two groups. Mechanics remains the art of building and creating things, machines, weapons, structures, etc.
- Sabotage is a new skill taking some of the parts of Security. It will be the art of circumventing things, picking locks, cracking safes, hacking computers, laying traps and rigging things to fail.
- Athletics remains the same, being a catchall skill for physical activity, lifting, running, swimming, flying, climbing, etc.
- Piloting remains the same, being a catchall skill for anything that involves guiding a self-powered device or creature, whether it is a drone, a tank, an airship, a stampeding cow, or guiding a blinded team mate.
- Survival is being axed. It's knowledge component is being incorporated into academics, and its toughness component is being replaced with the new ways fatigue can be used to enhance rolls.
- Prices are going to be balanced a little bit differently, not relying quite so heavily on FO:NV. Hopefully reducing the total number of caps you have to worry about.
Thats all I can think of off the top of my head. If you can think of anything that bugs you about the rules as they stand, now is definitely the time to say something.
Well, before I get too far into it, I'm going to try to come up with an absolutely rock solid dice rolling system. If you're interested in reading some in depth analysis on the subject of dice probability and how it relates to enjoyable gaming, I recommend taking a peak at A Treatise on Different Dice-rolling Mechanics in RPGs.
How many times has it come up in game how the dicebot defies all expectations? Its because using the percentile dice (d100) without appropriate diminishing returns on modifiers creates a frustratingly flat distribution of results.
A system where you add up hits like in the Storyteller system certainly would have a better distribution while still allowing for the possibility of exceptional success or failure, but unfortunately it becomes too easy, even at high levels to get no hits and thus fail unless you start rolling ridiculous numbers of dice. But if you start rolling ridiculous numbers of dice, the gap between unskilled and skilled becomes a gaping chasm and you get those awful situations where peasants get killed by house cats because they're just so helpless down there at the bottom.
If this was a tabletop game, I would instantly reach for my old standby of West End's D6 system or my derivative rating system. They both have very nice normal distributions and the wild die concept allows for even broken clocks to be right twice a day, and for the greatest heroes to fail once in a blue moon. However, the wild die concept translates very poorly into IRC. (you have one die that, if you roll 6, you add that and roll again until you stop rolling sixes, or if you roll a 1, you subtract 6 and roll again, etc.) It would involve seeing your result then entering a new roll on a different line and adding the result yourself, with other people potentially commenting or rolling their own dice in-between. Not ideal.
The way the special system and skill system is set up in Fallout meshes well with a d100, but doesn't work so well with increasing numbers of dice. (roll 30d6 please? no thanks)
At the moment, I'm leaning more towards a West End D6/Rating System mechanic, but replacing the wild die concept with a different concept that I came up with when I was working on my simple rules. I've come to the realization that I want fatigue/energy/strain (whatever you want to call it) to apply to everything, not just magic. So I think I can replace the wild die concept with a fatigue system where depending on some stat or another (maybe luck, maybe your strength or whatever is relevant) you can add to your roll by spending fatigue, representing your extra effort. I just don't know how to make the Luck statistic factor into critical successes or failures using this setup, and I feel it should.
------
Anyway, once I figure out the dice, the rest of the system is just going to be a matter of writing down the rules. I've learned an awful lot about what works and what doesn't over the last 20 sessions, and I already know a lot of what things I intend to keep from the old system and what I intend to scrap.
I want to simplify action points, health points and things.
• 5-15 action points sounds about right, it might be reducing the granularity of the system, but as far as I can tell, that granularity is slowing things down. Miscellaneous actions will be simplified into, no-cost, simple, average, complex. Action points for weapons will be simplified.
• I'm considering making some kind of generic wound system to apply to characters, armor, weapons and vehicles that will have predictable effects no matter what. Light wounds, crippling wounds, deadly wounds, etc. Rather than keeping track of meaningless piles of numbers, each injury would have some meaningful result.
- Damage may be a smidgen more complicated this way, but in return, it should simplify armor, called shots and sneak attacks. Allowing a character with a pistol to still be a threat to someone in armor, while not having the big guns ruin your day without fail. (though they're still likely to ruin your day)
• Radiation, disease and poisons are overly complicated in my current system.
- Poison will have a strength and will roll that to cause damage to Health and/or SPECIAL stats. The strength drops over time.
- Disease essentially be an NPC just like any other, simplifying matters for a GM who is accustomed to NPCs. It attacks with its strength, like poison. And the character attacks back with their endurance until one of the two is dead.
- Radiation will just be a simple value that adds or subtracts from a character's rolls after a certain point, depending on whether they are a ghoul/alicorn or not. (and with a perk, characters may be able to spend it like fatigue in the same way ditzy doo did, or to boost abilities like the pyrelight.)
• Travel is going to be simplified to: "how fast you want to go = how tired you'll be when you arrive."
• Initiative order is going to be simplified. You'll have your initiative score, and you can spend fatigue to increase that if you want. No rolling, but it might not necessarily be the same each time.
• Movement is going to be simplified into the following three choices that will have simple, easy to understand consequences without needing to add up nickels and dimes:
- you can make a short move up to a certain distance
- you can make a long move but you move to the end of the initiative order on anything else you do
- you can make a dash and use your athletics to move as far as possible
• Magic will be more like an ordinary skill, where you can spend fatigue to increase the effect if you want.
- Alchemy and magic should hopefully be more interchangeable, with characters able to enchant objects, and conversely, able to draw the inherent magic out of objects to help power spell effects. (the latter being classic zebra alchemy)
• Target numbers should be more consistent. Once I figure out the probability distribution between (no skill + 1 stat) vs (max skill + 10 stat + max fatigue spent) I'll have a simple scale from easy to impossible that I can assign target numbers from. (Modifiers, such that they exist, will fit into that scale)
- Opposing target numbers (ie. dodge and such) should be more consistent too, and should match up with the general difficulty scale.
• Making some minor tweaks to skills, in light of some skills not seeing much use. Weapon skills are mostly unchanged.
- Ballistic Weapons is unchanged, covers most things that follow a ballistic trajectory.
- Energy Weapons is unchanged, covers beams, spray weapons and most things that are just point and click.
- Explosives is mostly unchanged, covers rockets, grenades, molotov cocktails, and things that have an area of effect.
- Melee is unchanged, covers anything that extends reach significantly.
- Unarmed is unchanged, covers anything that uses the body's natural motions (including the tail)
- Academics is mostly unchanged, covers science and technology, magic and alchemy, and is a catchall for book smarts.
- Streetwise is being combined with Negotiation. It's defining characteristic is that it is the art of fitting in and meshing together, and of course, reaching an agreement. It will remain the catchall for "street smarts."
- Expression might get renamed "Presence," to help clarify its defining characteristic as the art of standing out, being noticed and such.
- Stealth is unchanged, its a pretty ubiquitous skill.
- Medicine is unchanged, also pretty self explanatory.
- Mechanics is being combined with Security and then split into two groups. Mechanics remains the art of building and creating things, machines, weapons, structures, etc.
- Sabotage is a new skill taking some of the parts of Security. It will be the art of circumventing things, picking locks, cracking safes, hacking computers, laying traps and rigging things to fail.
- Athletics remains the same, being a catchall skill for physical activity, lifting, running, swimming, flying, climbing, etc.
- Piloting remains the same, being a catchall skill for anything that involves guiding a self-powered device or creature, whether it is a drone, a tank, an airship, a stampeding cow, or guiding a blinded team mate.
- Survival is being axed. It's knowledge component is being incorporated into academics, and its toughness component is being replaced with the new ways fatigue can be used to enhance rolls.
- Prices are going to be balanced a little bit differently, not relying quite so heavily on FO:NV. Hopefully reducing the total number of caps you have to worry about.
Thats all I can think of off the top of my head. If you can think of anything that bugs you about the rules as they stand, now is definitely the time to say something.
Re: FO:E PnP Roleplay Group (Blue Team)
I'm sad to inform that I won't be likely attending the next 3 session of Blue team. If anyone wants to take my place as Wind Chaser (with the idea in mind that you may continue doing so after August if you so wish) or want in the group more in general, contact icekatze (or me if you want details on my character) and we'll figure things out. In the meantime, enjoy the sessions ponies
Re: FO:E PnP Roleplay Group (Blue Team)
I have to inform that I won't be likely attending the next 3 sessions of Blue Team. If anyone wants to take my place as Wind Chaser (with the idea in mind that you may continue doing so after August if you so wish) or want in the group more in general, contact icekatze (or me if you want details on my character) and we'll figure things out. In the meantime, enjoy the sessions for me, ponies
Re: FO:E PnP Roleplay Group (Blue Team)
hi hi
I appreciate getting the heads up in advance, and we'll look forward to your return. I know full well that real life has to come first sometimes. Speaking of which, I will be attending a wedding on the 24th of August, so game will have to be cancelled for that week.
In other news, I've been contemplating opening up a spot for another player. If you know of anyone who might be interested in joining, would you let me know? I had been hesitant to try bringing anyone else on board until I had finished with my massive 2.0 rules overhaul. Its getting close to being playable now though, so it might be time to start thinking about it.
If you're interested in taking a look at how the rules are coming along, you can find the core document here. You'll notice it is a lot different than the current rule set. Since that is the case, I will only switch over to the new rules if everyone agrees that it is worth trying, but I hope you'll agree that they're less complicated and overall better than the current rules we're using.
Rules 2.0 Core Document
I appreciate getting the heads up in advance, and we'll look forward to your return. I know full well that real life has to come first sometimes. Speaking of which, I will be attending a wedding on the 24th of August, so game will have to be cancelled for that week.
In other news, I've been contemplating opening up a spot for another player. If you know of anyone who might be interested in joining, would you let me know? I had been hesitant to try bringing anyone else on board until I had finished with my massive 2.0 rules overhaul. Its getting close to being playable now though, so it might be time to start thinking about it.
If you're interested in taking a look at how the rules are coming along, you can find the core document here. You'll notice it is a lot different than the current rule set. Since that is the case, I will only switch over to the new rules if everyone agrees that it is worth trying, but I hope you'll agree that they're less complicated and overall better than the current rules we're using.
Rules 2.0 Core Document
Re: FO:E PnP Roleplay Group (Blue Team)
Your wedding isn't a problem for me, I play on the 25TH
But in all seriousness have fun.
But in all seriousness have fun.
Xavi, target 45: 97 [5d100=16,2,32,26,21]
Epic set of rolls is epic.
Fallout New Vegas Lets Play!
Fallout New Vegas Lets Play 2!
Epic set of rolls is epic.
Fallout New Vegas Lets Play!
Fallout New Vegas Lets Play 2!