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homullus posted:I'm interested in the other two. "Fantasy, but this time we don't have elves!" has never been enough for me. In fairness, that's not the pitch except on the surface. It's not actually fantasy. All the 'magic' is either psi or tech the people don't understand, because Fragged Kingdom is literally 'the society of Fragged Empire collapsed, let's look at how this one planet driven back to iron age tech is doing.'
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Aug 24, 2017 16:42
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I've been running sci-fi games for two years now, so Fragged Empire but fantasy appeals to me.
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Aug 24, 2017 16:43
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I'm starting my Fragged Empire campaign on Sunday and I'm really drat excited about it. Gonna use Ghost Ship Carthage as the introductory adventure, but because I'm a glutton for punishment I'm stapling on a prologue where the characters all meet up in a Mexican stand-off like the beginning of Wild ARMs 3. Basically, instead of someone contacting the already-together player group about a salvage opportunity, they each individually hear about some secret cargo that's important to them (for character-specific reasons) being secretly transported on a Corp-run passenger ship. I've given the players hints that the cargo has something to do with the lost Xi'on War ship Carthage, and a few possible motivations that characters from each race might be interested to give them ideas. It'll turn out to be a key to access Carthage itself, where the things they're looking for will probably be found, and my scheme to get them to work together is to have a third party who's interested try to kill them all to keep the key for themselves. The idea is that the player characters work together to survive the ambush, realize salvaging Carthage is going to be dangerous, and decide to do the job together since (from what I can tell from the ideas they've given me so far), none of their motives conflict anyway. They can take the hunk of junk ship the mercenaries leave behind and start Ghost Ship Carthage proper in the next session. (And the rival salvage crew the adventure includes will be related to the group that tried to kill the PCs, for the sake of some continuity.) Let's see how many different ways this goes wrong! I've also never run a premade adventure before, except for that We Be Goblins Pathfinder joke adventure years ago, so that'll be new for me, too. I think my only issue with Ghost Ship Carthage as an introductory mission is that it seems way too early in the "story" to have the players run into an actual, still-living Archon, but there are enough Big Things still out there in the setting that pulling out "you have met maybe the last surviving Archon" early on isn't too huge I guess.
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Aug 24, 2017 16:52
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Mors Rattus posted:In fairness, that's not the pitch except on the surface. It's not actually fantasy. All the 'magic' is either psi or tech the people don't understand, because Fragged Kingdom is literally 'the society of Fragged Empire collapsed, let's look at how this one planet driven back to iron age tech is doing.'
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Aug 24, 2017 17:29
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So if FK a "what if Fragged Empire's races fail to thrive after returning to space?" thing, or a "what if the Years of Darkness never ended/happened differently?" thing?
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Aug 24, 2017 17:40
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Harrow posted:So if FK a "what if Fragged Empire's races fail to thrive after returning to space?" thing, or a "what if the Years of Darkness never ended/happened differently?" thing? I don't see why it has to be either. It could just be a random planet in the fragged empire universe.
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Aug 24, 2017 17:43
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My understanding was 'random planet, but set farther in the future than the default Fragged Empire timeline because 100 years is not really long enough for going complete retrograde medieval times unless it's deliberate.
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Aug 24, 2017 18:55
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Harrow posted:So if FK a "what if Fragged Empire's races fail to thrive after returning to space?" thing, or a "what if the Years of Darkness never ended/happened differently?" thing?
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Aug 24, 2017 18:58
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Huh, that's a pretty cool idea for a fantasy setting. I wonder if Wade considers it "setting canon," as much as there is one (which is to say, not much), or just a "what if" scenario. Either way, that makes me more likely to want to run it someday. I hadn't read the playtest book yet so I didn't know that it was a far-future, lost-technology-as-magic sort of thing.
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Aug 24, 2017 19:11
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Well, it's the same premise as Tekumel, which was the very first published RPG setting.
Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Aug 24, 2017 |
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Aug 24, 2017 19:19
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Anyone have music recommendations to play during Fragged Empire? So far I've built up some playlists using some game soundtracks, including:
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Aug 27, 2017 15:41
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Music for games is my loving jam.
I went primarily with stuff I figured would fit the atmosphere of a Fragged Empire game; as such, I pulled a lot of futuristic-sounding material, with a touch of twangy Old West/Western Gothic in for good measure. Out of the whole list, EVE and The Ur-Quan Masters would fit perfectly for anything space related. I can't praise the Dirtwire LP enough though. It's so good.
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Aug 27, 2017 16:15
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Running a Fragged Empire game, if anyone is interested. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3831088
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Aug 27, 2017 20:28
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I've made good use of the Stellaris soundtrack, which my players don't know. I also make use of the Mass Effect 2 & 3 soundtracks, which they DO know, so I'm a lot more specific about those. EDIT: There's some great Anno soundtracks, too. ProfessorCirno fucked around with this message at 22:07 on Aug 27, 2017 |
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Aug 27, 2017 20:43
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The Endless Space 2 OST is pretty fantastic in general. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UliYVYzIzDQ&list=PLtzah_dj5hUXssVw_j55Fnwjud0fZRle6
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Aug 27, 2017 21:38
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I've been putting together a lot of "Space Country"/Space Trucker stuff ala the Rochard soundtrack and bits of Rebel Galaxy, since about half the games I've been in have been leaning hard on the Firefly angle.
unseenlibrarian fucked around with this message at 03:37 on Aug 28, 2017 |
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Aug 27, 2017 22:33
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Covok posted:Running a Fragged Empire game, if anyone is interested. Wish I'd seen that earlier, I'm not sure I'll get a chance to get stuff together by 9 tonight.
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Aug 27, 2017 23:58
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Subjunctive posted:Wish I'd seen that earlier, I'm not sure I'll get a chance to get stuff together by 9 tonight. It looks like we'll start next week anyway. So feel freed to jump into the discord
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Aug 28, 2017 02:17
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First session went really, really well. My scheme to put everyone in a situation where they don't know each other yet but feel compelled to work together went off pretty much without a hitch, we had a nice tutorial fight that led to the team stealing the Hunk of Junk ship from some pirates who tried to kill them, and now they're off to explore the Ghost Ship Carthage next time. This is a cool system and I'm looking forward to running a full campaign of it. Also one of the players made a Tactical/Exotic full support character and I have a feeling she'll be the most useful character pretty soon, as soon as everyone else can take advantage of Lock On effects. The player figures his character is a "technical" pacifist--she doesn't mind the fact that she and her allies have to fight and kill to survive, but she doesn't have the stomach to pull the trigger herself, so she's sticking to stun weapons (started with a Disruptor Rifle), harassing drones, targeting computers, that kind of thing. Oh, and lots of medicine.
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Aug 28, 2017 14:07
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Support seems very powerful, when I made a Human hacker, I was basically unable to hurt people with the tiny rifle, but the on hit effects sure added up. I need to get involved in a campaign again, I loved the loving about with gear so much. Also more cool art; https://twitter.com/Des_Ministries/status/902335743153938434 Cassa fucked around with this message at 08:07 on Aug 29, 2017 |
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Aug 29, 2017 08:02
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Picked this up today - seriously impressed with the rules. I think someone said it earlier - it's a bit crunchy, but it is all with a purpose.
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Sep 2, 2017 19:50
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Having already brutally murdered this thread - I discovered this game on the week before my RPG group started a GURP campaign that looks to run and run so I need to get my fix elsewhere. Do we have any interest in a GMT/EU TZ Discord and Roll20 game?
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Sep 21, 2017 20:38
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atal posted:Having already brutally murdered this thread - I discovered this game on the week before my RPG group started a GURP campaign that looks to run and run so I need to get my fix elsewhere. Talk to Covok
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Sep 22, 2017 06:38
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atal posted:Having already brutally murdered this thread - I discovered this game on the week before my RPG group started a GURP campaign that looks to run and run so I need to get my fix elsewhere. Please!
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Sep 22, 2017 06:59
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I'd be interested.
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Sep 22, 2017 08:46
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atal posted:Having already brutally murdered this thread - I discovered this game on the week before my RPG group started a GURP campaign that looks to run and run so I need to get my fix elsewhere. I'm tentatively interested. I'm EST but if it's on the weekend I don't mind gaming early.
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Sep 25, 2017 17:09
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I've got another offline who has never Roll20'd , so we may have enough. I've been idling in the Goon Discord for Covok's game - hopefully he won't mind us squatting : https://discord.gg/SaYVXZU
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Sep 25, 2017 19:51
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Working my way through understanding the mechanics of this game, and I'm a bit confused on armor. When you take a critical hit, you reduce the Crit Damage by your armor, and take that much attribute damage. Does this mean that if you are in a mech suit (5 armor), then you are effectively immune to the half the weapons in the game? Wearing a mech suit, if you drop to 0 endurance, and are hit by a submachine gun that also rolls a 6 for a critical hit, then you still take no damage? Crit Damage: +3 [free critical hit from no endurance] +1 [free critical boost from no endurance] +1 [ turn the 6 into a critical boost] = 5. Reduce that by 5 due to your armor, and you completely ignore the attack. Is this right?
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Sep 27, 2017 04:20
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Correct except you don't get a free Critical Boost for hitting a 0 End target. You get a free Critical Hit, you still need to spend a Strong Hit on any Critical Boosts you want to stack up. You can't use Critical Boost against targets that still have End remaining. Armor 3 is closer to average, 5 is pretty rare in general and by the time people are facing off opponents in 5 armor they should have researched or acquired gear options with Pen/Neurotoxins/Archon Gene Shredder/Plasma variants/Arc Fire/etc. Or just bust out the Grenades. You are fighting a dude in a mech suit or similarly armored person. Wade: "Players should never be shooting a Crit 2 Weapon vs an Armoured 5 target, that's an effort in futility and the GM should have the NPC walk up to the PC and promptly kill them :P" Wade: "They are handled separately, otherwise high RoF weapons (ie: SMGs) would be too powerful. The only way a low Crit Dmg weapon can kill a high Armour target is through stacking Crit Boosts. One of the best multiple Crit Weapons is actually a high RoF Rifle. Ie: a RoF 2 Rifle will commonly cause two Strong Hits (as it only needs to roll a 5 or 6) and could use both of these Crit 4 hits on an Armour 3 target (a very common Armour value) to cause 2 Attribute Damage while they still have Endurance. SMGs are great for Hitting targets (as they roll so many drat dice), Endurance Damage and causing Strong Hits (again, as they roll so many drat dice). There drawbacks are low Crit Dmg (so they suck vs Armoured Targets) burning through Ammo too fast (this is still rare) and vulnerability to the Block Action (as Strong Hit -1 removes their ability to cause Strong Hits). No one weapon is good at everything, but every weapon can contribute in a meaningfully way to (nearly) every fight." DemonMage fucked around with this message at 05:47 on Sep 27, 2017 |
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Sep 27, 2017 05:45
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DemonMage posted:Correct except you don't get a free Critical Boost for hitting a 0 End target. You get a free Critical Hit, you still need to spend a Strong Hit on any Critical Boosts you want to stack up. You can't use Critical Boost against targets that still have End remaining. Ahh, okay. That makes sense with Critical Boosts only being used against targets with 0 endurance. And I'm less worried about the GM throwing a 5-armor-foe at PCs, and more worried about a PC using all their resources on a mech suit once they hit level 3-4 and just trivializing combat for the party. As for SMGs, I was running some numbers and have a follow-up question: Weapons with high rates of fire seem almost guaranteed to hit. I know Wade said they are great for hitting targets, but this seems absurd. Am I reading this wrong: PC with 3 Perception, trained in small arms, and has a standard Submachine Gun, fires the weapon using the full 3 RoF. The PC's attack roll is 3d6 + 2d6 (additional for RoF) + 3 (Perception) + 1 (training) + 1 (submachine gun's innate bonus) = 5d6+5. The player has a 50% chance of rolling at least a 23. Let's stack some negatives. Say the target has Light cover (+2 Defense), and the player is shooting from 12 tiles away (-6 to attack roll, based on submachine gun's range of 3). Now we are at a 50% chance of hitting a target with a 15 or lower defense. Add on the fact that with 5d6, you have about a 60% chance of rolling at least one 6, which means you can use Strong Hit: Effort to reroll your lowest die. Not going to math that out, but let's say it bumps it up by 1. So a run-of-the-mill PC with average perception, an off-the-shelf submachine gun, and training in small arms (i.e. a generic level 1 character), has a 50% chance of hitting something with a 16 defense, even if it's 24 meters away with light cover? Duct Tape fucked around with this message at 06:38 on Sep 27, 2017 |
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Sep 27, 2017 06:10
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Competency is expected if you wanna survive, I guess. An SMG doesn't do a whole lot of damage at 24 metres though, and to get those extra dice you're going to burn through your ammo faster, and with a standard SMG that's going to be a lot of prep actions, too. As well as the Endurance damage with an SMG is going to take a while to chew through what defences they have. Cassa fucked around with this message at 07:13 on Sep 27, 2017 |
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Sep 27, 2017 07:10
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atal posted:Having already brutally murdered this thread - I discovered this game on the week before my RPG group started a GURP campaign that looks to run and run so I need to get my fix elsewhere. Sure
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Sep 27, 2017 08:50
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Duct Tape posted:So a run-of-the-mill PC with average perception, an off-the-shelf submachine gun, and training in small arms (i.e. a generic level 1 character), has a 50% chance of hitting something with a 16 defense, even if it's 24 meters away with light cover? Yes, and you'll do chip damage and nothing else. I legit don't get the horrible issue there; you're basically unloading at full auto, you get them with a bit of shrapnel; not enough to really hurt bad, but like, it stings?
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Sep 27, 2017 11:27
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So far, the player in the group I'm running who took an SMG really regrets it, though it might just be because the first couple of sessions they've been up against enemies with 3 armor so her crits accomplished nothing. Unloading for full auto and doing chip damage is basically what she spent all her time doing. But we also forgot to set up her Faren Blast so next session she's going to trade that SMG for a Faren Blast based on a rifle, which should be an improvement.
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Sep 27, 2017 15:39
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ProfessorCirno posted:Yes, and you'll do chip damage and nothing else. I legit don't get the horrible issue there; you're basically unloading at full auto, you get them with a bit of shrapnel; not enough to really hurt bad, but like, it stings? I'm not saying it's a horrible issue. I was just worried that it wasn't balanced, since SMGs effectively don't miss. But I see that it's balanced by virtue of them dealing little damage, and you having to burn through ammo like mad to have an increased hit chance. All good. Yet another rules question. I posted this: Duct Tape posted:[...]which means you can use Strong Hit: Effort to reroll your lowest die. Not going to math that out, but let's say it bumps it up by 1.[...]
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Sep 27, 2017 19:30
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Harrow posted:So far, the player in the group I'm running who took an SMG really regrets it, though it might just be because the first couple of sessions they've been up against enemies with 3 armor so her crits accomplished nothing. Unloading for full auto and doing chip damage is basically what she spent all her time doing. Isn't 3 armor considered to be very high, the kind of armor only heavily armored elite troopers should have? The front line Legion Assault Armor only has an armor class of 2, and that's described as "heavily reinforced armor" in the lore.
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Sep 27, 2017 22:31
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DemonMage posted:One of the best multiple Crit Weapons is actually a high RoF Rifle. Ie: a RoF 2 Rifle will commonly cause two Strong Hits (as it only needs to roll a 5 or 6) and could use both of these Crit 4 hits on an Armour 3 target (a very common Armour value) to cause 2 Attribute Damage while they still have Endurance. Afraid not. Rifles have "Strong Hit (5-6) with all RoF 1 Attack Rolls", it goes away when you crank up the volume of fire. A Plasma variation (from Protagonist Archive) Assault Rifle provides comparable Strong Hits, although you can only make one attack per round. EDIT: Duct Tape posted:Yet another rules question. I posted this: And yeah, Effort can't be used on attack rolls since they're not Primary Skill rolls (it can be used on spaceship attack rolls, though!). The character sheet helps clarify this, listing Effort only on the Strong Hits for skills and Critical Hit only on the Strong Hits for attacks. VV DemonMage posted:Yeah it was either a balance change or poor editing on Wade's part. That quote is from the creator. He specifically mentions using a Gauss variant which gives +1 ROF, so not sure if it was changed after release or if it's actually meant to still work after gaining ROF via variants/mods. Even in the example Gauss rifle (pg 118) it still has that limitation, so not really sure what he meant. That post is only 6 months old and the game came out something like 2 years ago, maybe he's just misremembering. Oh whoops, I hadn't noticed that was still part of Wade's quote. Yeah, even the developer can misremember, I guess. Pieces of Peace fucked around with this message at 23:12 on Sep 27, 2017 |
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Sep 27, 2017 22:37
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Yeah it was either a balance change or poor editing on Wade's part. That quote is from the creator. He specifically mentions using a Gauss variant which gives +1 ROF, so not sure if it was changed after release or if it's actually meant to still work after gaining ROF via variants/mods. Even in the example Gauss rifle (pg 118) it still has that limitation, so not really sure what he meant. That post is only 6 months old and the game came out something like 2 years ago, maybe he's just misremembering.
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Sep 27, 2017 23:00
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Effort being allowable on attacks would be more then just a little absurd, to be fair. It adds swinginess to the math that is 100% a bonus for the players (which is a good thing in non-combat), and would make combat waaaay easier. Besides, Effort also kinda exists just to maintain "6's are good" as a general game rule, and you don't need that in combat.
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Sep 28, 2017 03:46
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ProfessorCirno posted:Effort being allowable on attacks would be more then just a little absurd, to be fair. It adds swinginess to the math that is 100% a bonus for the players (which is a good thing in non-combat), and would make combat waaaay easier. Besides, Effort also kinda exists just to maintain "6's are good" as a general game rule, and you don't need that in combat. Doesn't the Creative trait let you use Effort on attack rolls? Or am I misunderstanding something with how it works? Granted with Creative you have to take a max of 1 Focus with all the potential downsides that offers, so that does balance out somewhat. Actually, one thing I'm wondering is the base version of Effort mentions "Vehicle System rolls"; is that just non-combat rolls or can you already use Strong Hit: Effort in space combat by default? Was kind of confused there.
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Sep 28, 2017 05:56
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