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I want to like Cypher so much. The promise to the GM of "you get to make poo poo up like it's PbtA, your players get to chargen like it's 5E" is really, really compelling. But it's such a bland system in the end. I use something akin to cyphers in most systems I run now, though. High powered, borderline broken, single use magic items that can't be hoarded? 
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Apr 27, 2022 22:02
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I really like the idea of Cypher chargen -- here are three templates you can put together as a neat descriptor of your character -- and the art is always gorgeous, but literally everything else about it leaves me cold.
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Apr 27, 2022 23:08
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Xiahou Dun posted:(from memory, it's the company that's dodgy not the game system itself) I think it's the exact opposite of this, actually. I don't think I've ever heard anything bad about Monte Cook or his company (beyond the usual industry low rates, but you know, industry standard), but all of his game systems are just mediocre.
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Apr 27, 2022 23:24
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Tsilkani posted:I think it's the exact opposite of this, actually. I don't think I've ever heard anything bad about Monte Cook or his company (beyond the usual industry low rates, but you know, industry standard), but all of his game systems are just mediocre. I think I somehow mixed up Cypher with the Modiphius system because... my brain has been replaced with cottage cheese? I have no idea what the hell was going on there, but just discount that part and replace it with something even slightly useful.
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Apr 27, 2022 23:48
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CitizenKeen posted:I want to like Cypher so much. The promise to the GM of "you get to make poo poo up like it's PbtA, your players get to chargen like it's 5E" is really, really compelling.
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Apr 27, 2022 23:50
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Xiahou Dun posted:I think I somehow mixed up Cypher with the Modiphius system because... my brain has been replaced with cottage cheese? Uh… poo poo. What’s dodgy about Modiphius, other than a lack of quality control?
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Apr 28, 2022 00:55
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Yeah, I haven't heard anything particularly dodgy about Modiphius, either, other than the QC issues.
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Apr 28, 2022 01:07
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CitizenKeen posted:Uh… poo poo. What’s dodgy about Modiphius, other than a lack of quality control? I have no idea. That was all part of the cottage cheese-brain thing. I can explain what was going on, but it was like 3 false memories interacting. I’m not planning on editing cause that’s a gently caress up worth getting laughed at, but you should probably just ignore anything I said about the system. I still don’t think the system will be any good for this, but that’s different.
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Apr 28, 2022 01:32
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I made a twitter bot that plays The Warlock of Firetop Mountain via twitter polls, and I figured some people here might be interested, considering I don't think we have a Fighting Fantasy thread.
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Apr 28, 2022 01:54
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Xiahou Dun posted:I have no idea. That was all part of the cottage cheese-brain thing. I can explain what was going on, but it was like 3 false memories interacting. Phew. No worries. I've recently gone all in on the 2d20 system, after I realized the things I didn't like about it (shovelware IPs, poor editing) weren't part of the system, and that the system itself is everything I want from Cortex Prime with the chrome to keep my players really happy, so the thought I was about to get milkshake ducked caused my blood pressure to spike a bit.
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Apr 28, 2022 02:53
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CitizenKeen posted:Phew. No worries. Nah, even in the fevered mistake making state I meant like poor business practices, not like they secretly donate to QAnon or something. Which, again, was me being an idiot and had no basis in reality. I really like what I've read of the system and think it has some good legs on it, it's just not been done in a way such that it's plugging a hole I'm desperate to fill in my life. Like the Conan game looks rad as hell but I'm currently a bit sick of playing in that genre, or the Dune one looks like it might be really cool but I only have one RPG friend who's actually into the setting.
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Apr 28, 2022 03:40
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I'd love to see if the 2e version of Cypher improved any, but yeah like everyone else is saying, my takeaway from 1e Numenera and The Strange was that while chargen is speedier than D&D, it's effectively just 3e with the system shaved down to 13th Age levels of simplicity as far as rolling Backgrounds instead of an expansive skill list, but then with a worse version of FATE Aspect Invocations in the form of GM compels layered on top. GM Compels can just be whatever. I don't know if it changed but in the OG version the GM holds 2 XP over your head, you can spend 1 XP to resist the compel, or eat it and absorb 1 XP and hand the other 1 XP to another player. Or if you roll badly the GM gets a "free" compel. It can be anything, like you shoot your friend with an arrow, the floor gives out from under you, the cops kick the door in, etc. So it's not even themed to the kinds of trouble a player might anticipate with a FATE aspect, which have to be linked to the Aspect invoked, either a scene aspect or one of the player's personal Aspects. Cypher just leans really heavily on "GM discretion" in a frustrating way for everything, kind of 5e D&D-style. Like okay, it's the labor of the GM to make up everything. I guess I prefer other "storygame" expectations that it's either in the player's hands or done with fair input from players. The Cypher games I've looked at are also mechanically unbalanced in the favor of casters over melee classes in really silly ways, like the aforementioned way melee classes have to burn their defensive stats way faster than casters, or the general 3e D&D-style "casters just can do more poo poo than combat attacks." The only really embarrassing thing I remember about Monte Cook Games as a company was how badly they handled indigenous people saying "Yo, the Thunder Plains place in The Strange is really gross and racist against Native Americans." But a lot of that is from deleted Facebook posts so it's hard to source back. Just picture how you think heavily oblivious white people would react to having it pointed out they're being racist against Native Americans and you'll get a picture of it. If I had to guess, a Cypher system "horror" game leans even harder into the "no gently caress u" resolution of GM adjudication, and I agree with hyphz [melts into goo] that I expect the Cyphers themselves to be more like Call of Cthulhu "read this and get hosed over" eldritch tomes or something. So... I guess the conclusion is that Cypher is bland applesauce if you need to get someone who can't comprehend non-D&D games to play something besides D&D because Monte Cook can afford good Magic: the Gathering-tier artists.
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Apr 28, 2022 03:42
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So the heist game successfully funded and is on track to deliver. As a bit of a MCG expert (have run Invisible Sun for 3 years now and started GM’ing with Numenera), I feel like Cypher System is well-suited to horror settings because you are spending your vitality as a limited resource. Cyphers really aren’t all that different from potions and other items in D&D, but their magnitude can really vary (but you could say the same thing about magic weapons/armor in other games). Where Cypher System really struggles is in making different classes/character types equally interesting to play and having the other things that affect your abilities (the “adjective” and “verb” of your character) differ significantly rather than just yield stat bonuses. It’s also hung up on using a D20 when you could really just use D10s or D12s to make the abstracted math less of a pain in the rear end.
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Apr 28, 2022 03:54
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Has anyone played Black Sun Deathcrawl or Null Singularity?
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Apr 28, 2022 06:44
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Thinking about it - cypher does seem to have limited resources and death spiral so that might actually be good for horror game.
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Apr 28, 2022 11:27
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Xiahou Dun posted:I really like what I've read of the system and think it has some good legs on it, it's just not been done in a way such that it's plugging a hole I'm desperate to fill in my life. Like the Conan game looks rad as hell but I'm currently a bit sick of playing in that genre, or the Dune one looks like it might be really cool but I only have one RPG friend who's actually into the setting. Good news, they're releasing an SRD/license this summer, so we may see some really cool 2d20 games next year.
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Apr 28, 2022 16:35
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CitizenKeen posted:Same boat. I love Star Trek but don't love the idea of role playing in that universe, and the other IPs are... almost universally not my thing, which was my main hang-up. Hm, I'm kind of curious if anybody has an articulate theory about what makes a given setting feel better for RP/expansion. Like people who don't even know what RP build their entire lives around Mad Max LARP by accident, the gravitational pull is so strong. Star Trek is a much more lived in, expansive universe than Star Wars (I say this as a person who has read A LOT of EU and was a huge star wars kid growing up, so don't @ me over not knowing enough about SW I know too much), but I agree I am very happy to watch shows etc set in Star Trek but have never really felt like I wanted to make characters in Star Trek while I grew up playing SWG and such. Actually I guess the question is: is there a good earthsea RPG?
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Apr 28, 2022 17:55
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Star Wars characters solve their problems by being awesome space magicians, Star Trek characters solve their problems by combining the scientific method with tech babble. Seems obvious which is easier to translate to tabletop power fantasy. Plus Trek is genre-ambiguous. Is your system about defending the station from Klingons, or about exorcising hereditary Scottish sex ghosts?
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Apr 28, 2022 18:06
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Yeah, I just wish Bioware would allow there to be a Mass Effect TTRPG, because it's a universe that allows for the best parts of both Star Trek and Star Wars.
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Apr 28, 2022 18:15
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Tulip posted:Hm, I'm kind of curious if anybody has an articulate theory about what makes a given setting feel better for RP/expansion. Like people who don't even know what RP build their entire lives around Mad Max LARP by accident, the gravitational pull is so strong. Star Trek is a much more lived in, expansive universe than Star Wars (I say this as a person who has read A LOT of EU and was a huge star wars kid growing up, so don't @ me over not knowing enough about SW I know too much), but I agree I am very happy to watch shows etc set in Star Trek but have never really felt like I wanted to make characters in Star Trek while I grew up playing SWG and such. I think personally for me it's something like... Star Trek doesn't feel like it has a lot of space for player agency or non-canon conflicts. Spaceships don't really feel like they're something some group of goobers would just own, they'd have to be Federation bridge crew or some such. Secondly, the world feels organized into a few large species-defined power blocs, so if there's a conflict going on it's not some small-scale thing, it's going to be a galactic-scale war on the horizon. Plus the tools available to players would be a bit too powerful. Just having replicators, transporters and players with five brain cells to knock together would allow them to resolve almost every issue because replicators and transporters have never really been given costs or limitations in the Star Trek universe beyond "in this episode it would be too easy for them to solve everything with it." Star Wars, meanwhile, while I don't really like it much as a setting, is much more "wild west," with small-scale stuff to get involved in, the technology available is really just glowier versions of what we have(guns and laser guns, ships and spaceships, etc.) outside of Force powers, and thus won't inherently shortcircuit almost every challenge, and it seems a lot more feasible for players to just have their own ship they zip around in doing player things without being a bridge crew with a responsibility for hundreds of redshirts. So to sum up: Accessible to lower-scale stuff Freedom of action for player characters(especially ones who aren't part of the formal hierarchy) Tools that provide challenging or interesting solutions, rather than effortless ones
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Apr 28, 2022 18:26
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CitizenKeen posted:Yeah, I just wish Bioware would allow there to be a Mass Effect TTRPG, because it's a universe that allows for the best parts of both Star Trek and Star Wars.
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Apr 28, 2022 18:40
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Fragged Empire is great because it has mechanics for adding low level mooks that hate a specific PC to encounters as a reward for leveling up. Also because of the way spotting someone vs hiding works mechanically RAW everyone is better at hiding than spotting regardless of equipment and bonuses so it's a setting where ambushers are constantly getting ambushed.
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Apr 28, 2022 18:48
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I wish I liked Fragged Empires more than I do, but the layout / font choices are too big a hurdle for me.
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Apr 28, 2022 18:51
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PurpleXVI posted:I think personally for me it's something like... Star Trek doesn't feel like it has a lot of space for player agency or non-canon conflicts. Spaceships don't really feel like they're something some group of goobers would just own, they'd have to be Federation bridge crew or some such. Secondly, the world feels organized into a few large species-defined power blocs, so if there's a conflict going on it's not some small-scale thing, it's going to be a galactic-scale war on the horizon. Plus the tools available to players would be a bit too powerful. Just having replicators, transporters and players with five brain cells to knock together would allow them to resolve almost every issue because replicators and transporters have never really been given costs or limitations in the Star Trek universe beyond "in this episode it would be too easy for them to solve everything with it." I do feel like, in the modern age, we have the system tools to build a good Trek RPG. Something like a sci-fi Call of Cthulhu (horror with a dash of gunplay and sorcery), but with more optimism about using human ingenuity to tame the nihilistic universe, and technology that's better at detecting problems than providing solutions. I mean, Trek and Cthulhu are both genres where you would want a soldier and an archaeologist on your team.
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Apr 28, 2022 18:56
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CitizenKeen posted:I wish I liked Fragged Empires more than I do, but the layout / font choices are too big a hurdle for me.
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Apr 28, 2022 18:58
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PerniciousKnid posted:I do feel like, in the modern age, we have the system tools to build a good Trek RPG. Something like a sci-fi Call of Cthulhu (horror with a dash of gunplay and sorcery), but with more optimism about using human ingenuity to tame the nihilistic universe, and technology that's better at detecting problems than providing solutions. I mean, Trek and Cthulhu are both genres where you would want a soldier and an archaeologist on your team. I think we have a good Trek RPG. I think Star Trek Adventures is a fantastic system for recreating episodes of Star Trek. But as noted by PurpleXVI, what makes for good television isn't necessarily appealing as an RPG. Like, do I want to spend my limited RPG time recreating The Measure of a Man or The Quality of Life or Remember? Probably not. I want some diplomacy and action science shenanigans, but I want my scifi closer to Atomic Robo, which is why I find the Star Trek universe for RPGs so unappealing. But STA is still really good, and I think you'd have trouble building a system with today's tools that did a (markedly) better job imitating the shows.
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Apr 28, 2022 19:01
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Halloween Jack posted:The layout is nightmarish at times, and I hope they've taken the feedback about that to heart for the 2nd edition. Wade was very active over on rpg.net during development of the game. Spoiler: He has not.
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Apr 28, 2022 19:02
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PerniciousKnid posted:I do feel like, in the modern age, we have the system tools to build a good Trek RPG. Something like a sci-fi Call of Cthulhu (horror with a dash of gunplay and sorcery), but with more optimism about using human ingenuity to tame the nihilistic universe, and technology that's better at detecting problems than providing solutions. I mean, Trek and Cthulhu are both genres where you would want a soldier and an archaeologist on your team. I think that could be a very good RPG but... I don't feel like it would necessarily be a Trek RPG, or need to be a Trek RPG. The tools you would, in my opinion, need to strip out or limit to make for interesting RPG tension are ones that are kind of defining of Trek's tech to me.
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Apr 28, 2022 19:15
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I did some writing for the original Star Trek RPG that was released by FASA in the 80s. My module was canceled by Paramount yanking the license six weeks before it was published, at least I still got paid. The Paramount Star Trek writers' guidelines were a loving nightmare to follow to 'keep the brand on target'.
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Apr 28, 2022 19:43
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Tulip posted:Actually I guess the question is: is there a good earthsea RPG? Burning Wheel took a lot of inspiration from Earthsea for its magic (some variants - there are a bunch of different versions of magic in BW). I would guess you could do a decent job of it there, picking the right lifepaths.
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Apr 28, 2022 19:52
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:I did some writing for the original Star Trek RPG that was released by FASA in the 80s. My module was canceled by Paramount yanking the license six weeks before it was published, at least I still got paid. The Paramount Star Trek writers' guidelines were a loving nightmare to follow to 'keep the brand on target'.
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Apr 28, 2022 20:11
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:I did some writing for the original Star Trek RPG that was released by FASA in the 80s. My module was canceled by Paramount yanking the license six weeks before it was published, at least I still got paid. The Paramount Star Trek writers' guidelines were a loving nightmare to follow to 'keep the brand on target'. It's alright, you got your revenge by writing for Enterprise. 
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Apr 28, 2022 20:12
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Apr 28, 2022 20:20
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:I did some writing for the original Star Trek RPG that was released by FASA in the 80s. My module was canceled by Paramount yanking the license six weeks before it was published, at least I still got paid. The Paramount Star Trek writers' guidelines were a loving nightmare to follow to 'keep the brand on target'. Man my high school friend group played the poo poo out of that game. Wait. No. We made characters using those rules, decided we hated the system, and played those characters free-form and then played a lot of the FASA Star Trek Tactical Combat Simulator thing. The FASA starship recognition handbooks were great, although maybe not entirely recognizable as Star Trek at the edges.
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Apr 28, 2022 21:35
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:The Paramount Star Trek writers' guidelines were a loving nightmare to follow to 'keep the brand on target'.
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Apr 28, 2022 21:47
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Do you guys ever feel like you're lucky your players haven't chased you down with torches and pitchforks yet?quote:The papers are full of unfamiliar terms but, taken on face value, seem to promise that the wizard is going to get a 50% yearly increase in his investment, something that apparently involves a crypt in East Korhagen and fifty-thousand skeletons. What the skeletons are actually doing there is completely impenetrable, but buried under the first papers describing the investment are receipts informing him that his Fib Coins(short for Fibula Coins) are consistently growing in value and warning him not to sell them. After introducing my players to Crypt Currency I definitely feel like I need to be watching my back.
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Apr 28, 2022 23:12
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PurpleXVI posted:Do you guys ever feel like you're lucky your players haven't chased you down with torches and pitchforks yet?
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Apr 28, 2022 23:44
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Halloween Jack posted:You already know we want to hear all about it! Unless you signed a NDA, not trying to be a jerk or anything. I doubt that anybody still has even a copy of the contract... In 1982 I was in college at the US-Madison, and a fraternity brother of mine (Hey Rich!) was a gamer and also ran a comic/gamestore as a sideline at conventions/mail order and poo poo. We both were good friends with the owners of our FLGS Pegasus Games (RIP) and Guy McLimore who was another friend of ours through the Wisconsin gaming conventions (including the Kenosha GenCons) had gotten a gig writing for FASA after leaving Steve Jackson Games. He called Rich up and said the gig was writing the new Star Trek game for FASA as they had wanted an outsourced team and they hadn't been able to tell anybody because of Paramount's NDAs but they wanted to demo it to some actual players that were not in-house at FASA. Rich told me and a friend of ours named Andy Hooper and Lori and her husband who owned Pegasus and we set up a demo at the Holiday in Beloit Wisconsin for some god only knows reason (probably because it was about halfway between Madison and Chicago). Jordan Wiseman, Guy, and Greg Poehlein (who was one of Guy's co-authors) were there and they ran us through a ship battle, an away team mission and how the character generation worked. When we left Hooper was already writing a module in his head (Denial of Destiny the first one that got published I think). I had college and then I was in the Army but I did some editing for Behind Enemy Lines 2e, and then I started working on and off on 'A Simple Act of Brotherhood' for Star Trek as a hobby really. I had just reenlisted when I heard from FASA that my module had been accepted and was going into publication. This happened as I was about to start Ranger School, so I was kind of out of communication during the process. I get finished at Camp Rudder and get a letter from Jordan saying that Paramount has dropped the license, but since I had completed my side of the contract I was going to get at least partial payment so it wasn't a complete waste of time. I just spent the last three hours looking for any of the documentation or drafts. If I find any of them (after 20+ years? It could happen), I will be sure to post.
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Apr 29, 2022 00:45
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PurpleXVI posted:Do you guys ever feel like you're lucky your players haven't chased you down with torches and pitchforks yet? I hope they will constantly be getting messages informing them of how rich/broke they've become.
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Apr 29, 2022 01:58
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PurpleXVI posted:Do you guys ever feel like you're lucky your players haven't chased you down with torches and pitchforks yet? Don't mind me, just immediately inserting this into my current BitD game.
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Apr 29, 2022 04:15
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