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Kassoon posted:I ran a 4e D&D game, but we're sick of it, and looking at Mouse Guard and Burning Wheel as our next system. Currently, my plan is to do a small adventure in Mouse Guard, and then move on to Burning Wheel. Is this a good plan? Bad? Boring? I hear Mouse Guard is sort of a stripped down version of Burning Wheel, so I thought it would be a good intro to the playstyle since there are a couple people in the group where 4e D&D is their first ever tabletop rpg. However, it may also be too little structure, so I was hoping for some perspective from someone that's played both. Mouse Guard is not an introduction to Burning Wheel. It shares some of the same mechanics, but what it does with those mechanics, the style of play, and the sort of stories it tells are very different. The structure of GM / Player turns is omnipresent in Mouse Guard, informing and making demands on almost every aspect of play. The results are fun and interesting, but it's unusual to say the least. I'd suggest jumping into Burning Wheel first if you're concerned about structured play. It's also a bit easier to grok for someone who's only played 4e.
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Dec 23, 2010 20:47
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I've been trying to remember the name of a game I read about a while go, where you played as a family (e.g. you start as Jim, play a while, start Jim's son, and so on) with an economic/political slant. Got a project it'd really be useful to see how they handled it. Anyone have any clue what game I'm talking about?
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Jan 6, 2011 18:30
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Loomer posted:I've been trying to remember the name of a game I read about a while go, where you played as a family (e.g. you start as Jim, play a while, start Jim's son, and so on) with an economic/political slant. Got a project it'd really be useful to see how they handled it.
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Jan 7, 2011 01:00
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Loomer posted:I've been trying to remember the name of a game I read about a while go, where you played as a family (e.g. you start as Jim, play a while, start Jim's son, and so on) with an economic/political slant. Got a project it'd really be useful to see how they handled it. This sounds a bit like Hero's Banner to me. However, it doesn't have the political/economic undertones you're talking about so I doubt that it's the game. However, you do play as a hero who goes about and does heroic stuff. Eventually you retire or die or whatever and your successor comes along and takes up the hero life in your stead.
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Jan 7, 2011 07:41
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It doesn't seem be either of those, looking at the cover art with Google Images. I remember it being very red (or possibly brown. Yay colourblindness.) Still, those two are a good look at other ways of handling the sort of 'dynastic' style of play, so thanks!
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Jan 7, 2011 10:41
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Loomer posted:I've been trying to remember the name of a game I read about a while go, where you played as a family (e.g. you start as Jim, play a while, start Jim's son, and so on) with an economic/political slant. Got a project it'd really be useful to see how they handled it. Possibly Houses of the Blooded, which is about playing nobles and going on adventures and managing your estate.
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Jan 7, 2011 14:01
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I think that may be it! The cover looks familiar and the wiki article's mention of 'aspects' and the 'Ven' sound familiar too. Thanks - and now I can see which implementation of the three I like best to boot!
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Jan 7, 2011 17:01
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Mention of Pendragon here and a rather longer thread on RPGnet has gotten me interested in the game again. I've always loved the concept of playing through Arthurian myth via the Grand Pendragon Campaign, but I can't help but think that a more modern "story game" system would produce better results: the aforementioned Hero's Banner, perhaps, or a customized version of In a Wicked Age? Burning Wheel could handle it mechanically, but I question whether it provides enough support for the "feel" of the Arthurian legendarium. Has anyone here played both Pendragon and modern indie / story games? If so, thoughts on the systems?
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Jan 8, 2011 19:50
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Is there a good story-driven game out there good for running dystopian genre games? I've found Misspent Youth, but I'm not entirely convinced by it. Does anyone have any experience with the system? Also, what are some ways to convince myself to buy Apocalypse World? The premise rocks but for some reason I'm still on the fence about it.
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Jan 8, 2011 22:30
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Cyphoderus posted:Also, what are some ways to convince myself to buy Apocalypse World? The premise rocks but for some reason I'm still on the fence about it. Powerful, elegant, landmark design and the ability to use the AW toolset to design custom settings and mods with ease. Honestly just how weapons are made out of descriptors instead of awkward numbers feels so good to me. +reload, +messy, +area plugs into a narrative so much better than a set of numeric values. Plus how everything is based on scarcity and hard decisions so you aren't wandering around in a turgid haze, you're constantly forced to decide, decide, decide and what you do matters.
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Jan 9, 2011 03:26
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Cyphoderus posted:Is there a good story-driven game out there good for running dystopian genre games? I've found Misspent Youth, but I'm not entirely convinced by it. Does anyone have any experience with the system? If by dystopian you're talking about literary cyberpunk, then you're looking for Remember Tomorrow. You might also get some mileage out of Shock: Social Science Fiction.
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Jan 9, 2011 04:15
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I played Misspent Youth prior to its release at a con, it's a blast. Very specific though, and there's a good chance a given dystopia-centered idea wouldn't fit.
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Jan 10, 2011 02:21
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Thanks for the suggestions. One other thing, Burning Wheel, is it worth it? It's another thing I'm interested on because of this thread. Only there's no PDF and I don't trust internet overseas shipping.
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Jan 13, 2011 22:56
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Cyphoderus posted:Thanks for the suggestions.
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Jan 14, 2011 02:56
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Jimbozig posted:Well it's hard to actually give a good answer to this without knowing what you're interested in. I think it's great and totally worth it - for me. Unfortunately, not everybody has my impeccable taste. Mostly I'm looking for a thematic and mechanical alternative to D&D. 4E is great, but at this point I'm looking for something new, something unexpected. I've bought In a Wicked Age and it's completely charming in a rules-light way, my soft spot for crunchiness is dealt with by GURPS and Hero, but there's something missing. I've heard good things here and in reviews both about Runequest 2 and Burning Wheel... from what I gather, both fall in the area of fantasy-oriented semi-crunch systems.
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Jan 14, 2011 03:09
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Cyphoderus posted:Mostly I'm looking for a thematic and mechanical alternative to D&D. 4E is great, but at this point I'm looking for something new, something unexpected. I've bought In a Wicked Age and it's completely charming in a rules-light way, my soft spot for crunchiness is dealt with by GURPS and Hero, but there's something missing. I've heard good things here and in reviews both about Runequest 2 and Burning Wheel... from what I gather, both fall in the area of fantasy-oriented semi-crunch systems. I'm the resident TGD Burning Wheel fanatic as far as I can tell, so I'll field any questions you have about the system. Barring brief excursions into FATE, Burning games are about all I've run for a few years now. Regarding crunch, Burning Wheel is less crunchy than GURPS or Hero. Depending on who you ask it's either less crunchy than D&D 3.5E, or comparably crunchy but more coherent and sensible - I'm solidly in the former camp. I'm not terribly familiar with 4E so I can't make a good comparison there, but from what I've heard second-hand they sound roughly comparable crunch-wise. Other than that, are you looking to know about anything specific?
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Jan 14, 2011 03:17
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Kestral posted:I'm the resident TGD Burning Wheel fanatic as far as I can tell, so I'll field any questions you have about the system. Barring brief excursions into FATE, Burning games are about all I've run for a few years now. Yes, that middle level of crunch is what I'm looking for. Mostly I'm curious about combat. Duel of Wits was very praised in the social conflict thread, but what about good old fighting? Is there enough mechanical room for player strategy? How does it handle magic?
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Jan 14, 2011 03:42
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I'm excited about Burning Wheel and I have it, I just haven't played it. I tried to run a game for my friends and they didn't buy into it, expecting the usual division where the GM provides all the fun and they roll some dice. Beliefs drive the game and one player even refused to create Beliefs. Another asked me to make his character for him. So while I'm still excited about Burning Wheel, I think you really have to make sure your group is excited about it.
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Jan 14, 2011 03:52
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CNN Sports Ticker posted:I'm excited about Burning Wheel and I have it, I just haven't played it. I tried to run a game for my friends and they didn't buy into it, expecting the usual division where the GM provides all the fun and they roll some dice. Beliefs drive the game and one player even refused to create Beliefs. Another asked me to make his character for him. So while I'm still excited about Burning Wheel, I think you really have to make sure your group is excited about it. I hate reading posts like this because I instinctively worry that fun is zero-sum and by hanging out and playing games with a ton of awesome folks always interested in trying new things, I have destined everyone else to The Way of Pain. Keep hope alive, man; sometimes it takes a while before you can find the folks you can really play with.
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Jan 14, 2011 04:41
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Cyphoderus posted:Yes, that middle level of crunch is what I'm looking for. The fighting mechanics - creatively known as Fight! - are awesome if you like combat with some meat on its bones. They're like a significantly scaled-up version of the Duel of Wits mechanics: exchanges comprised of three "volleys" where fighters script out their actions in advance, with all actions in a volley resolved simultaneously, which makes it very tense and chaotic: it's not uncommon for two fighters to script such that they'll deal serious wounds to each other simultaneously if they aren't careful. Fight! is rather involved and rewards both system mastery and playing mind games your opponent so you can outscript them. That said, you only break out the Fight! rules for meaningful conflicts. If a fight isn't important enough to be connected to a Belief in some way, it probably isn't worth getting involved in the Fight! mechanics. Instead you can use Bloody Versus, which is basically a one-roll, winner-takes-all quickie resolution mechanic. You choose one character who represents each side (usually the best fighter), and every other character adds to their dice pool with Helping Dice drawn from their own skills. Secretly divide the dice into an offensive and defensive pool, lobby for any advantage dice you think are applicable ("We have the high ground, better armor, and we're using spears against their knives: +3 dice?"), then the two sides roll off. Takes about two minutes and gets you back to more important conflicts. The magic system in the core book, Sorcery, leans toward the "Magic is rare but powerful" side of the genre: mages tend to have a handful of spells which range from potent to horrifying, which they can cast as often as they want as long as their body can take the strain. Divine magic is more freeform, with miracles categorized as Minor, Major, Guidance and so on, each category encompassing a broad range of effects. The priest asks for a given miracle, player and GM confer and come up with a difficulty to roll against, and the player hopes like hell. Priestly magic is also extremely potent, but there are significant consequences for failing prayer rolls. Some of them have flaming swords, four wings, and a voice like thunder. There's also a whole book, the Magic Burner, devoted to various self-contained magic systems such as: * Art Magic: "effects-based" sorcery where you build spells on the fly out of component effects. Need to set a dozen guys on fire? Destroy With Sorcerous Fire Effect, Instant Duration, "Crowd" Breadth, done. It's quick, extremely versatile, but lacks some of Sorcery's raw power. * Summoning and Spirit Binding: Calling up spirits of the dead, angels and demons, or the nameless spirits of the world and binding them to your service with Faustian bargains. Or losing control of them and having to deal with the consequences. * Enchanting: Effects-based artifact creation in depth. A clever little system that can build just about anything you need, and gives you built-in quests for the obscure components you'll need. For example, one of my players wants to make a magical spear that flies to the hand of the wielder when called. She'll need the heart's blood of something - or someone - so loyal that its loyalty is codified in a mechanical Trait to finish the crafting. * Blood Magic: An add-on to any other system that gives particularly vile sorcerers extra dice for sacrificing or torturing their victims. Nasty stuff, not for everyone. * Death Art: A unique take on necromancy and the paths to lichdom. Death Artists focus on a handful of slavishly loyal undead minions, heavily customized to fit their needs, and leave hordes of unbound ghouls ravaging the countryside in their wake. But the Death Artist whose reach exceeds his grasp finds that the Beliefs of his minions will slowly return, and now he's in real trouble. * Abstraction: A process for creating new spells for use with the Sorcery system by researching the building blocks of magic (or stumbling on them when you gently caress up a spell badly enough and survive) and assembling them in creative ways.
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Jan 14, 2011 05:27
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I just purchased Burning Wheel. Their store only accepts paypal, and Amazon didn't want to ship it to Brazil for some reason. Americans  had to order from a british bookstore.My current group plays 4E, but since we are all about the characters and story, I think this will be a nice addition to our role-playing. We suck at 4E anyway, we have probably the most unoptimized party ever. Now to let that money I just spent set down a little bit and to sometime in the future buy Apocalypse World. My consolation is that this hobby is still cheaper than Warhammer.
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Jan 14, 2011 23:17
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What's everybody's opinion on FATE? I know it's not quite as indie as some other things mentioned, but still. I'm just starting to read Diaspora after hearing some really good things about it. And the Dresden Files RPG is on my to-read list as well. And while I'm going, who wants to play some Apocalypse World online sometime?
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Jan 15, 2011 13:03
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CNN Sports Ticker posted:What's everybody's opinion on FATE? I know it's not quite as indie as some other things mentioned, but still. I'm just starting to read Diaspora after hearing some really good things about it. And the Dresden Files RPG is on my to-read list as well. I took a glimpse at Dresden Files but was kinda put off by all the callbacks to the books. It seemed really heavy on the references, although that might have been the first few chapters or so, I dunno. I like FATE in general, although I haven't taken a look at the new Strands of Fate. Spirit of the Century is cool, although it's only really 'pick-up' once everybody already knows the rules. Starblazer Adventures looks interesting as a kitchen-sink sci-fi, but the page count is enormous.
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Jan 15, 2011 14:50
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CNN Sports Ticker posted:What's everybody's opinion on FATE? I know it's not quite as indie as some other things mentioned, but still. I'm just starting to read Diaspora after hearing some really good things about it. And the Dresden Files RPG is on my to-read list as well. I'm a huge FATE fan; I haven't gotten Diaspora yet, but Dresden Files is my favorite implementation of the system so far, followed closely by Legends of Anglerre. The biggest hurdles people seem to have are realizing that Not Everything Is An Aspect, and how compels work. You might also want to check out Icons, which is a slightly-modified-FATE superhero game. The PDF is only 2 bucks, too. Strands of Fate is good, but it bring the system in a crunchier direction than other games (i.e., it adds stats, more skills, item creation and such). I've seen it described as "GURPSified FATE", but it's not GURPS Vehicles-level complication. It's a good bridge for people who're more used to crunchier, more traditional systems.
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Jan 15, 2011 19:29
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Evil Mastermind posted:I'm a huge FATE fan; I haven't gotten Diaspora yet, but Dresden Files is my favorite implementation of the system so far, followed closely by Legends of Anglerre. The biggest hurdles people seem to have are realizing that Not Everything Is An Aspect, and how compels work. Get Diaspora, it's amazing. I've been seriously considering using a bastard lovechild of Diaspora and Starblazer Adventures to run an Eclipse Phase game. I've heard Strands described more as an enormous FATE toolbox, but I haven't actually read it. How does it present its content to the reader: required rules, or hundreds of pages of options? By the way, for anyone curious about the basics of FATE, check out this thread where the core of the system is laid out in a format you can print out on three pieces of paper.
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Jan 15, 2011 19:41
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Kestral posted:Get Diaspora, it's amazing. I've been seriously considering using a bastard lovechild of Diaspora and Starblazer Adventures to run an Eclipse Phase game. It's about 450 pages (which makes it about 100 pages larger than Heroes of the Fallen Lands at the same page size) of options, presented as a "modular" set-up that can easily be adapted to different campaign power-levels. There are several power-building mechanics included, but they also have a lot pre-made abilities to pick from.
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Jan 15, 2011 20:02
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CNN Sports Ticker posted:What's everybody's opinion on FATE? I know it's not quite as indie as some other things mentioned, but still. I'm just starting to read Diaspora after hearing some really good things about it. And the Dresden Files RPG is on my to-read list as well. If you want to read a whole (admittedly old) version of Fate, there's 2.0, which has been around a while. It has some good ideas and is fine on its own, but Fate Points are much more prominent in the latest versions (Dresden, Strands, etc.), to the system's benefit.
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Jan 15, 2011 21:47
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bewilderment posted:I took a glimpse at Dresden Files but was kinda put off by all the callbacks to the books. It seemed really heavy on the references, although that might have been the first few chapters or so, I dunno. If you're interested in the Dresden Files RPG aside from the callbacks to the book, I'd say it'd be worth it to give it another shot. The callbacks all seem to either be side-chatter between the characters from the book that can generally be ignored, or they use situations from the books as examples of how the game would play. If you straight skipped all the annotations the characters have, you'd only miss a little bit of perspective on some of the issues
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Jan 16, 2011 00:19
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Has anyone here played Blowback? I love Burn Notice and love the idea of this game, but like the review I linked to, I'm not quite sure how the mechanics work in actual play. The author is incommunicado (I suspect that's because if you order the hardcopy, her Paypal account will accept the money but you'll never get the book ; the PDF file purchase works fine, though), so I don't expect to get answers there. Edit: For the record, I did read this already, but it doesn't sound like he's (she's?) had a chance to play it yet either: CNN Sports Ticker posted:Blowback by Elizabeth Shoemaker-Sampat ibntumart fucked around with this message at 06:31 on Jan 16, 2011 |
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Jan 16, 2011 05:02
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ibntumart posted:Has anyone here played Blowback? I love Burn Notice and love the idea of this game, but like the review I linked to, I'm not quite sure how the mechanics work in actual play. The author is incommunicado (I suspect that's because if you order the hardcopy, her Paypal account will accept the money but you'll never get the book I played a con game with the creator and have done a lot of thinking and prep for running it myself. I'd say that one key thing to do is not mistake what I think the actual intended tone of the game is given the light and breezy "Burn Notice" description. It is about blacklisted spies doing small town-style jobs (and the civilians who love them/have to live with them), but it really seems to hum the more the characters are stressing each other's relationships and treating super-spies a bit more like the socially-maladjusted nuts they probably would be when dealing with day-to-day life (granted I haven't been keeping up with BN and maybe it's been leaning more in this direction). It's definitely taken me more re-reads and creating personal cheat sheets than I would have initially thought. You definitely want some prompts in front of you (and in front of your players) to remind them to take stress in certain situations and remind you what kinds of responses you have to their missed rolls. That may say more about me as a player/GM who can never remember rules without refreshing myself constantly. A nice benefit of the PDF version is that it is trivial to copy and print (or search for) those sections separately. Regarding your print copy woes, I think the initial run may have run out and it's being reprinted, but I'm not 100% on that.
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Jan 16, 2011 07:22
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Man Dancer posted:I played a con game with the creator and have done a lot of thinking and prep for running it myself. I'd say that one key thing to do is not mistake what I think the actual intended tone of the game is given the light and breezy "Burn Notice" description. That's a good point. The mechanics do seem to lean toward serious erosion of trust and personal relationships, with somewhat cynical ploys to rebuild that trust. (Which I rather liked.) Man Dancer posted:It's definitely taken me more re-reads and creating personal cheat sheets than I would have initially thought. You definitely want some prompts in front of you (and in front of your players) to remind them to take stress in certain situations and remind you what kinds of responses you have to their missed rolls. That may say more about me as a player/GM who can never remember rules without refreshing myself constantly. A nice benefit of the PDF version is that it is trivial to copy and print (or search for) those sections separately. I don't think it's just you. I'd probably want to jot down at least a few potential responses, too. How smoothly did the games you were part of go overall? Man Dancer posted:Regarding your print copy woes, I think the initial run may have run out and it's being reprinted, but I'm not 100% on that. I hope so. I mean, it's a cool game idea and I want to support it all the more for being an indie RPG. I just wish she had emailed or put some blog up for those of us waiting in limbo for a couple of months is all. But if she does mention a new print run, I'd probably give her the benefit of the doubt and pick up a hardcopy.
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Jan 16, 2011 07:30
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ibntumart posted:I don't think it's just you. I'd probably want to jot down at least a few potential responses, too. It's a pretty simple system, but, as you mention, doing some prep work to have a stable of possible responses is probably better than trying to ad lib stuff on the spot. Part of that stems from the subject matter (spies operating in the "real world"). This wasn't a problem in the game I played, but I suspect Blowback could be more prone to arguments about "realism" than most other games when it comes to players describing the spy tricks they want to pull or, conversely, feeling paralyzed with a fear of shattering verisimilitude when trying to come up with said spy tricks on the spot. I imagine it might pay to have players do some homework and come up with some cool low-tech spycraft stuff out of sessions to be able to pull out during play. Even watching those Ask a Spy clips on Burn Notice's Hulu page can start ideas percolating.
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Jan 16, 2011 08:40
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I'm running Poison'd this Friday. Still kinda trying to grasp the rules properly, but I'm excited.
Bullbar fucked around with this message at 11:46 on Jan 16, 2011 |
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Jan 16, 2011 09:17
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Man Dancer posted:I imagine it might pay to have players do some homework and come up with some cool low-tech spycraft stuff out of sessions to be able to pull out during play. Even watching those Ask a Spy clips on Burn Notice's Hulu page can start ideas percolating. Oh, I like that idea. If I ever decide to run this game, I'll put up links to those clips as a player aid.
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Jan 16, 2011 11:57
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Am I allowed to pimp my own indie RPG here? It's a new take on classic D&D, because magical fantasy dungeoncrawling table-top RPGs were clearly an unfulfilled niche. To put it in game design-y terms, I guess you could call it a Prime-Time Adventuresish Basic/Expert dressing over the Redbox Hack engine with a pepper-grinding of Fourth Edition. It was a bit of an underground hit among some of the ENnies crowd at last year's GenCon, and thanks to that its undergone a lot of playtesting and refinement. Check it oooooouuuutt! ----> http://www.oldschoolhack.net/2011/01/basic-game/
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Jan 23, 2011 02:08
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I was just reading it (I got linked from John Harper's blog). It looks like a ton of fun. I can't wait to try it!
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Jan 23, 2011 03:08
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koboldstyle posted:Am I allowed to pimp my own indie RPG here? Fan-dang-tastic. Reads very well, looks beautiful in the stark, pamphlet-esque tradition of the RPG's early days. I like the character sheets especially. I can't wait to try it out. One area that did seem a bit sparse was combat, specifically arenas. Could you explain the concept of arenas a little more, perhaps giving an in-depth example?
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Jan 23, 2011 05:46
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Sticky Beethoven posted:Fan-dang-tastic. Reads very well, looks beautiful in the stark, pamphlet-esque tradition of the RPG's early days. I like the character sheets especially. I can't wait to try it out. Pretty solid Actual Play description: http://forums.oldschoolhack.net/discussion/6/actual-play/p1 How to run an OSH combat: http://forums.oldschoolhack.net/discussion/15/throwing-together-an-adventure-and-running-a-combat/p1 When I get back I'll pop back in here and answer any other questions.
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Jan 23, 2011 06:58
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just a quick reading of OSH, but it seems to be the perfect lightweight fantasy game ive been looking for. I especially love the way arenas work - seems to strike the perfect balance between description and mechanics. I'll be trying this out Friday hopefully, so ill report back on how it worked out. also, the presentation of the pdf is really well done, i'd gladly pay for a print version
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Jan 24, 2011 01:04
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I remember talking with the creator about the Arenas, very similar to rules I came up with to keep complex battles straight in my BtVS games. Rather than grids, use a physical representation to show who is in what scene and engaged with what adversaries.
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Jan 24, 2011 01:09
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