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[General Roleplaying Games] It is our Fate to Run the Shadows Bearing Torches
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I'm glad you're enjoying it. I've only made it to episode 8ish so far, but it's been solid. It's crazy that they've made it to episode 30. I've never had a game stay together that long.
As to your second spoiler:
But I don't buy hard copies of books anymore, because all of my gaming buddies are too far away to use them, and I don't have the space for them, and PDFs are better to search from anyway. And since it is a well-documented fact that BW is never ever going to be a PDF, and I don't want to not support the industry, I'll just never get to play it, and that angers me.
I would highly recommend you make an exception in this one case. $25 for a 600+ page hardcover book that has everything you need is a steal. Also, Luke Crane (the creator of BW) has been discussing making digital character burners for desktop and tablets on the boards. I think it's still in the early planning stages, but it looks like it will happen.
Check out these threads:
http://www.burningwheel.org/forum/showthread.php?12447-Market-Research-Round-2
This is about what it will include.
http://www.burningwheel.org/forum/showthread.php?12513-Market-Research-Round-3
This is about using Kickstarter to fund it. Chime in so some of those stretch goals look better.
http://www.goodman-games.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=74&t=41850
My Orc is already in the running, and I think I figured out how to build a Necromancer today. Now all I have to do is put together 56347534573569 tables for it.
Would like to build a shit-ton more racial classes
Could I see your Ranger build? I'm not looking to ape ideas from it, but I'm just curious how it is differentiated from the Warrior.
Racial classes, I think, are where the most fun is at. I'm thinking of doing a Skaven class and having it be some hybrid of the Thief and Wizard (limited spellcasting, no luck but Thief skills).
I shall report upon the dark and forbidden contents tomorrow.
Twitch Stream
I'll send you a rough draft! It's actually built more around the Thief and Halfling than the warrior (the Thief's sneak attack expanded out to whenever he's making ranged attacks, coupled with the Halfling's dual wielding, but retracted to only when he's wielding small weapons)
Yessss...Yesssss...!
Its just too bad its Exalted.
Steam PSN: DerWaffleMous Origin: DerWaffleMous Bnet: DerWaffle#1682
That sounds cool.
(I *really* need a better camera.)
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
It's the d3, really. No other dice look like that. Did you ink those yourself or get them pre-inked?
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
The d24 is pretty shallow. I recommend crayons. Just take a soft crayon and mash it back and forth. Once all sides are done, polish it with a napkin.
how does it compare to Middle Earth Roleplaying? In terms of capturing the feel of the setting that system worked exceedinly well. And the sourcebooks are excellent reads.
The source code for the extension can be found here.
As a fan of MERP (it's the first RPG I ever played!), I think TOR is better, only because it approaches the game from a more modern story-game POV, and goes out of its way to hard-wire the themes of the books (fellowship, maintaining hope in times of fellowship, the mythic personas of the different peoples) into the game, whereas MERP, though a great game and full to the brim with useful Middle Earth info for GMs to craft a game around, treated the material in a more old-school way of keeping the system and setting fairly separate. If that makes sense.
I thought MERP actually ended up (perhaps untintentionally) making the combat mechanics really reinforce the themes in the setting quite well.
Since it is based on Rollmaster, combat has a large random component and is super deadly. While you have hit points, these only cover bruises and minor injuries (or even just a representation of your luck running out). It is very easy to end up with injuries that are quite difficult to deal with (broken bones, arterial bleeding, maimed or chopped off limbs, destroyed eyes or other permanent injuries, instadeath). Magicial healing, and magic in general, follows the setting in being quite hard to get hold of.
The result is a game where even very powerful characters need to be wary of a common orc because a scimitar in the gut will kill you. This matches the books quite well (less so the movies).
Anyway, after running it a couple times I thought the mechanics of MERP actually reinforced the actual written account of Middle Earth (as opposed to the spinoff tropes of "Tolkienesq Fantasy") very well.
The source code for the extension can be found here.
I remember there was a LotR RPG that came about the same time as the movies. Used a lot of images from the films. It was gorgeously presented and had a few interesting ideas, but most of it was just the d20 system recast without levels and using 3d6 exploding dice. The corruption system seemed stolen right out of the L5R RPG. It had feats and the way it handled races and combat was basically identical to D&D. The magic system had some interesting ideas with more subtle magical effects that seemed designed to encourage clever application. I think that may have been an accident rather than planned by the designers, in retrospect.
Anyway, I like what I'm reading here about The One Ring RPG, but right now I'm holding out for the Iron Kingdoms RPG. If it's terrible I'll give TOR a look. You've also made me want to check out Paranoia, but I doubt I could ever get my players to go for it.
Judging from your posts here and in the 5E thread, Paranoia is probably not the game for you.
Like I said, not something I could get my players into. I'm not interested in it as a game but I want to read it. It sounds fascinating.
What is TOR's "Keep on the Borderlands" like?
The source code for the extension can be found here.
It's a totally different thing from MERP. I liked MERP a lot, and you're right about how MERP reinforced an aspect or two of LOTR, but TOR explicitly and clearly has you create Tolkienesque characters who work in a spiritual world where despair and hope, not swords and armour, are the real conflict.
The PCs in the initial book are all ones from the areas you mentioned. There are no rules for creating a Gondorian, for example.
For me, MERP was a Tolkien-influenced D&D-type hack and slash game. TOR is a proper Middle Earth RPG.
This is exactly what I wanted to say, only phrased much more eloquently, thank you.
I only played one game of Paranoia, but I "won." We randomly selected secret societies, and I got PURGE. My secret goal was to cause as much damage as possible. I, in fact, secretly caused so much chaos and mayhem that Friendly Computer decided the only course of action was to nuke the entire area our party was in. Sure, the party, all our clones, and an uncounted number of innocent people died, but hey, I completed my goal.
Good times.
I'm not sure I understand every part of the question but I will do my best to answer it. The One Ring core book focuses on The Wilderland (or Rhovanion), the area past the Misty Mountains and largely focusing on Mirkwood. Reading the Hobbit would provide much more background material than the LotR. In place of races, characters are based around cultures, the included cultures only being those found within the area: Elves of Mirkwood, Bardings (Men of Dale), Beornings (the wild men Beorn became chief of after the Hobbit), Dwarves of the Lonely Mountain, Woodmen of Wilderland (mentioned in passing in the books but arguably the focus of most of the One Ring material), and Hobbits of the Shire (a stretch I know, but young Hobbits were known to try to follow in Bilbos footsteps and you can't have a LotR game without Hobbits). Cultures have different starting stats as well as unique culture abilities, which are the closest the game has to magic (Dwarven warding doors, the ability to talk to birds, etc). All characters pick backgrounds which alter stats further, and pick personal traits to give characters flavor. Each character also has to pick a motivation for being an adventurer, which can be exploited when they begin falling for the shadow.
All characters are adventurers who have left their society and home for whatever their chosen reason is (curiosity, fighting off forces of evil in the wild, etc). Players aren't really soldiers, and this is shown through the standing mechanic. Players lose standing with their homeland, having shamefully abandoned helping the community. This can be recovered by spending off seasons (time and continuity are big in the game) at home or investing funds in the local community. Think of it like a credit rating ability in Call of Cthulhu.
As for what the actually do, the mechanics are basically split in to three kinds of encounters: combat encounters for those with combat skills, traveling for those with survival skills, and social encounters for those with diplomat skills. It's good to have a well rounded group, as not having a good hunter or lookout with make traveling to combat that much worse, and having an ill-spoken dwarf in a game with racial prejudice can often lead to bad things. The included scenario, without spoiling anything, involves the party searching for a lost person of high standing, for money, and encountering different challenges on the way.
When you said that, I figured you meant the Decipher game, and I was going to internet fight you. But, I looked it up, and it's not what I was thinking.
Hooray Google!
So, I have no clue, other than this is really good.
Anyway, this game looks so great. I'm thinking I'm going to start up an IRC on Penny Arcade in a few days, so that will probably be with where I gush about it.
Twitch Stream
Anyone grabbing them?
A list of things, should you be of the gifting persuasion
So no.
Nintendo Network ID: AzraelRose
DropBox invite link - get 500MB extra free.
I was planning on grabbing them, but between me being poor at the moment and DCC RPG, I can't see myself ever actually running a 1E game.
But yeah, not paying a lot for something I'll probably never play. Been there, done that.