Tulpa posted:

Thesaurasaurus posted:

Swagger Dagger posted:

Gazetteer posted:

Ratpick posted:

So, I've been running RPGs for elementary school kids for about a year now and today I learned another lesson about making things engaging for kids: the best kind of inventory system for kids is "A space on the character sheet where they can draw their character and their stuff, everything they can fit into that space their character has."

gradenko_2000 posted:

How feasible is it to run a horror game like CoC or Trail by the seat of your pants, with little or no preparation?

paradoxGentleman posted:

Horror is an hard atmosphere to create and mantain, so I personally would not risk it.

paradoxGentleman posted:

I am considering giving TG podcasts a try. Where should I start?

Serf posted:

Yeah, we stopped playing 4E D&D for 13th Age specifically to get to a faster-paced, less tactical d20 game, so I can't recommend it for that purpose.

And I've been reading Strike! and I can say that everything 4E does, it does better and with lower numbers. Getting ready to start running a game of it, so I'll reserve final judgment until then but I feel like it will scratch that tactical combat itch that 4E fulfilled.

Lichtenstein posted:

Btw, it's really sad that in D&D basic human decency is a gimmick.

Jimbozig posted:

There has never been a better time! The PDF is now out on DrivethruRPG, and I'm hoping to get the print version sorted out this weekend as long as I can find time around all my family stuff (it's Thanksgiving up here).

Galaga Galaxian posted:

A chat thread of three back weren't people kicking idea around for a Cthulhu mythos hack of Lasers & Feelings that used sanity and arcane knowledge as the two opposing stats? That might make a good halloween game. The world needs more Lasers & Feelings hacks.

Helical Nightmares posted:

I don't know anything about the Lasers & Feelings system, but the first thing I thought of when I read your post was Bloodborn and how some of the lore suggests how the Insight works in the world.

The two poles for a Bloodborne character could be Insight (high "madness"/low sanity/ability to do "magic") and Beasthood (low "madness"/low sanity/no "magic").

A normal human (and arguably the "best" place to be) would be on the middle of this continuum; balanced between Insight and Beasthood.

Bloodborne characters start with an Insight of zero. During gameplay Insight can be gained by consuming a Madman's Knowledge/Great One's Wisdom item, encountering a boss (A being associated with the Eldritch Truth), defeating a boss, opening up/discovering a new gameplay area (Eldritch location), discovering the truth about some NPC, being witness to an unnatural event, or killing another hunter associated with the Hunter's Dream (PvP).

As Insight increases, the player begins to observe hidden things (a doll comes to life, invisible creatures become visible), some monsters become more dangerous, and the player begins to have audio and visual hallucinations/visions that are relevant to the plot. This suggests as Insight increases the Bloodborn character is beginning to uncover the Eldritch Truth, go mad, or both.

The gameplay benefit to having Insight is access to a shop where the Bloodborne character can buy weapons, armor and items he has unlocked, by spending Insight as currency. Insight is also spent to call another player into the gameworld for Coop mode.

The downside to Insight is that each point reduces your resistance to Frenzy, and reduces the Beasthood stat.

This indicates that Insight is antithetical to Beasthood.

http://bloodborne.wiki.fextralife.com/Insight

Frenzy in Bloodborne:


Extremely alien and unnatural creatures in Bloodborne induce Frenzy.

http://bloodborne.wiki.fextralife.com/Frenzy

In a tabletop Lasers and Feelings Bloodborne hack, we could interpret Frenzy as the physical damage a high Insight/madness stat does to the body.



In game, Sedatives can reduce Frenzy at the cost of Insight. The above description also states "Blood serves to calm the frayed nerves" and "Naturally this leads to a reliance on Blood Ministration".

So on the other end of the spectrum, a character with a high Beasthood stat would behave like a beast, being faster and stronger than a character at the middle of the Insight/Beasthood spectrum, and craving blood to the point where they are feral.

The lore and plot suggests that individuals with high Insight have the ability to call/influence/transcend the Great Ones as well as possibly having greater facility with magic.

As far as I know there is no gameplay mechanic where a high Insight increases the amount of Arcane damage a Bloodborne character does; but in a tabletop hack, you could require certain thresholds of Insight for learning spells or simply make the roll to cast a spell additive with a character's Insight score to indicate higher Insight translates to greater facility with magic.









The thing I'm unsure of is how would you incorporate a shop where a character can spend Insight into this tabletop hack? Would you incorporate it at all? What would the justification be?

In terms of Beasthood, the gameplay mechanic is described as follows:


http://bloodborne.wiki.fextralife.com/Beasthood

So perhaps the benefit of a high Beasthood stat would be transforming into a werewolf(beast), berserker rage, increased damage, feral senses (increased observation) to stalk prey or the like.

Increasing Beasthood/reducing Insight in the tabletop hack could be governed by overindulgence in blood, imbibing a potent beast's blood, or relentless killing perhaps.

Evil Mastermind posted:

I still wish there was a Monster Hunter RPG or supplement for another game or something.

Galaga Galaxian posted:

I dunno, it sounds weird to me. Especially in the context of the subject matter. Also, it should just be "Fix Everything", its up to the players to interpret exactly what that means!

I wonder what other genres we could do a hack of L&F for. So far we've got Space Adventure, Fantasy Adventure*, Mythos and Cyberpunk. Western? Mecha (or would L&F cover this)? Maybe Metal Gear style crazy military poo poo? That last one could be interesting, Espionage & Action?

* I still wish the fantasy hack had used Magic & Might instead of Swords & Scrolls.

[edit] By the way, what did you use to make that Digital Raven?

Traveller posted:

Call of Cthulhu d20 is not a bad system - or rather, it's not that much more inadequate than BRP CoC. Plus its GM section should be mandatory reading.

Has anyone here read The Cruel Empire of Tsan Chan? I remember it being bizarre as hell and PCs being basically cultists of Hastur and Tsathoggua fighting a losing battle against Cthulhu's influence in the post-apocalyptic world.

DigitalRaven posted:

My brain. I cannot shut it down.

Shaken & Stirred

quote:

I expect many Lovecraft fans will also have an interest in decadent literature and 19th century gothic atmosphere in general, so I'm just leaving this link to the download here so anyone who wants to give this a try can download, play and hopefully enjoy it. This game is sort of a Huysmans/Lovecraft mashup as far as the themes and atmosphere are concerned. Purple prose and literary references abound. The game is set in 19th century Paris where the protagonists are two decadent poets trying to outdo each other in decadence (by collecting occult books and binging on Absinthe and possibly contracting syphilis). The design of the board was inspired by Art Nouveau to get that lovely 19th century atmosphere. Rules are simple.

You can download it (.zip file containing PDFs of the board, cards and pieces, manual) here:

quote:

All you need apart from the printable material are three differently colored tokens and one dice.

'La-bas' is a two player game where players attempt to become the most decadent poets of 19th century Paris, while being hunted by a supernatural entity. It was inspired by weird tales such as those by H.P. Lovecraft, Robert M. Chambers and Algernon Blackwood and by the lifestyles of decadent artists of the 19th century. And of course by the novel La-Bas by J.K. Huysmans.

This is how it should look after some cutting & pasting

quote:

Short description
- 2 player game
- Both players are being hunted by a supernatural entity, being found results in possession which changes the gameplay as long as the possession lasts
- The goal is to get the highest score
- A game can last between a few minutes to more than an hour
- Both luck and strategy play a part in the game
- More or less horror themed, but also quite funny (depending on your sense of humor of course)

A lot of work went into designing the game so I hope people will play and enjoy it. Recommended for Lovecraft fans, lovers of decadent literature, connoisseurs of the weird and people who enjoy 19th century atmosphere.

One of my next projects is a board game adaptation of Hodgson's The Night Land.. Grin
I'll get my coat

dwarf74 posted:

Yeah, frankly me too. It's fun, collectible, looks great... Just really high quality all around.

e: It does look like some kind and enterprising souls have put up 3D printer files for most of the figures, though. If only I had a 3D printer!

Galaga Galaxian posted:

Maybe I've just been playing waaay too much Crusader Kings 2 lately, but are there any RPGs focused playing a Ruler and/or his closest aides/councilors? Not really looking for suggestions in the sense I actually want to run something, just curiosity.

Isn't Reign somewhat like that? I know very little of it, tbh.

gradenko_2000 posted:

Grey Hunter also did an Actual Play of RoleMaster, which seems stunningly apt for a guy that played War in the Pacific one day at a time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiTOy3IqhLY

Hiro Protagonist posted:

What can people tell me about this? Because drat that art and setting make that 99€ tempting.

Traveller posted:

Now I want to play with the AD&D Historicals books.

TheLovablePlutonis posted:

Stargate SG-1

Countblanc posted:

i got this in the mail today. hardcover, 'natch

FMguru posted:

260 pages of Luchadore adventuring rules and setting for the Hero System

YakOnFir posted:

http://esoteric-rp.blogspot.ie/

Here one that's gotten pretty far along

Evil Mastermind posted:

Exalted 3e went out to backers finally, and apparently the art is...

...well...



There's more, and they're bad in different ways.

gradenko_2000 posted:

What is Exalted about, anyway? I saw like a One Roll Engine + Exalted mash-up and it read like some sort of anime game?

potatocubed posted:

Any system which can handle superheroes can handle exalts, and the rest is all fluff anyway.

Kai Tave posted:

Adding to this, Weapons of the Gods/Legend of the Wulin is a crunchy wuxia RPG that has some stuff I think Exalted could take cues from to its benefit. Among other things it has the Great Game which is a literal social combat system that you can use for broad-reaching works related to warfare, bureaucracy, influencing regions spiritually/philosophically, etc.

Alien Rope Burn posted:

There are few games with non-transparent math that actually have good math. Generally when a game has non-transparent mechanics, it's because the devs thought a given die rolling system was cool, but didn't bother to work out the actual odds.

Alien Rope Burn posted:

That isn't always true, but it comes down to this: if you make a game, you should understand the odds of your dice mechanic. If you understand the odds of your dice mechanic, there's no reason not to share it with readers, save to be purposefully obtuse.

Alien Rope Burn posted:

Book of the Shadowlands for Legend of the Five Rings comes to mind. So does the 13th Age Bestiary. Also I have a soft spot for all the Planescape Monstrous Compendiums, but mainly I & II and the related pamphlets that game with most of the boxed sets. Green Ronin's Book of Fiends was pretty good for its time, too.

fool_of_sound posted:

I dunno. I think cyberpunk loses something when it's not fairly crunchy. It's a gritty setting powered by highly technical skills and specialized equipment.

Alien Rope Burn posted:

I always liked the sidebar back in the now-ancient GURPS Fantasy where it discusses crossing fantasy with cyberpunk, and instead of the literal crossover like Shadowrun would do, it instead discussed the idea of taking a lot of the cyberpunk themes and translating them into your standard fantasy setting. So you might have powerful mages guilds that run everything, having sidelined the nobility, and engaging in shadow wars with magically-enhanced (and dehumanized) special ops warriors while the peasantry flounders. Kind of surprised nobody's really picked upon that kind of thing in the past 25 years or so, though I guess Eberron had elements of that kind of thing.