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So, I need a new RPG system...
Talonrazor
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I've got a dilemma. I've been running a science-fiction campaign (Novo Aether) for awhile now. I just restarted it and plan to continue this campaign using my current ruleset. I've been using d20 Future as the system for the setting but I'm fed up with the problems of d20 Modern. The problem is, the setting is homebrew and combines starship combat, cybernetics, virtual matrix-like worlds, Shadowrun-style hacking, biosynethic droids, big alien kingdoms, etc. All the good stuff. We've been mulling over what kind of system would work best for this setting. So far, we've come up with the following:
Rifts: Problem is, Rfits is horrible setting. I don't like the system, I don't like Rifts in general. It has as much problems as d20 Modern.
GURPS: I haven't played GURPS but what I've seen of it I'm not too excited. How does GURPS compare to d20 systems? What is it strengths? Weaknesses? Can it work for what I want?
Shadowrun: I love Shadowrun, great rules, great system. If I used it, I'd have to create a lot of custom homebrew rules to manage stuff like Starship rules and other stuff.
Cyberpunk 2020: Same problem as Shadowrun. I haven't used Cyberpunk, not sure of its pros or cons.
Anyone got any good recommendations? I'm really at my wit's end trying to figure out what would work best here. I'd like to continue running this setting after this current campaign runs it's course but I do not want to use d20 again.
Rifts: Problem is, Rfits is horrible setting. I don't like the system, I don't like Rifts in general. It has as much problems as d20 Modern.
GURPS: I haven't played GURPS but what I've seen of it I'm not too excited. How does GURPS compare to d20 systems? What is it strengths? Weaknesses? Can it work for what I want?
Shadowrun: I love Shadowrun, great rules, great system. If I used it, I'd have to create a lot of custom homebrew rules to manage stuff like Starship rules and other stuff.
Cyberpunk 2020: Same problem as Shadowrun. I haven't used Cyberpunk, not sure of its pros or cons.
Anyone got any good recommendations? I'm really at my wit's end trying to figure out what would work best here. I'd like to continue running this setting after this current campaign runs it's course but I do not want to use d20 again.
Talonrazor on
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If you're using Star Wars type physics the vehicle rules are likely fine just as they are. If you're running a game with real physics....I weep for your soul.
Hell, even the adept rules might work depending on what you've got in mind for the "Biosynthetic Droids" bit. Happily magic is the one thing that doesn't fit and that's pretty self contained. Provided you don't use the magical critter abilities you won't find anything that PCs can't deal with if you just up and remove magic.
SR4 does a whole lot with wireless networking and such. That might be a little weird since it's only recent sci-fi that has even begun to grasp what is possible with the current state of wireless communications. Nevermind advanced stuff like they have in SR.
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
Rifts has few things going for it as a system. The setting both sucks and is great, because it's the only near successful amalagation of every theme ever I've seen. Although it fails in cohesivenss and unity, I will say that the system has some fun themes and some cool stuff. But best in a league of suck is still suck. The system is prone to ubertwinkism, but the way the game is meant to be played means that it's the status quo, and also it's difficult to stretch your twink powers past picking an uberclass, which makes it easy to account for. Still, if I shoot a full round burst, I either hit with ten bullets or zero bullets, and that drives me insane. It was a system developed in what, the late 80s, and never got revised like it needed too.
Hmm, GURPS is a tough one. I both hate and love the freedom it gives. It gives a lot of options (I hear HERO does that too, but I haven't played HERO), and there are about a billion sourcebooks that can help you out. It certainly has rules for everything you want. The sheer optionism gives it the same potential for character minmaxing that d20 does, but the point system generally means that if you make yourself super rocktastic at something, you'll find yourself ineffective at a lot of other things. It does a better job at this than d20 future does. The rules are meant for you to determine the pacing and the depth. You can play it lite and just ignore a lot of things, but when you need to know "Would the bullet pass through his head and kill the guy behind him, just wound him, or not even graze him" or "Well a flatening bullet should have a harder time penetrating armor, but once it's in a soft target shouldn't it cause more tissue damage because of the flattening?". It's got those.
The best and worst part of GURPS is that it shifts the focus from what thing you can get every few levels or how many points per level to "What can my character do and what is he, and what /can't/ he do." While you can make your character an agoraphobic hemophiliac to get more points so he's more of a badass, it gives your character more...character. There are more and better penalties as role-playing options than probably any other system: Your only rewarded options in d20 for losing something to gain something are stats, race, and mutation effects. But this all also means it's possible for someone to put all their points into pistols and be a God or for someone to take a brain tumor to be just as good a shooter as the combatant. I guess it's not so bad as long as you put some maximums and whatnot in chargen, because atleast the pure combatant doesn't have a tumor.
One other problem is cyberware. GURPS doesn't automatically treat cyberware the right way. It doesn't automatically do shit, in fact. The steampunk book says, "This is how to have a derrigible. And a steam space ship. And a clockwork mouse. Figure out which you want." Of course it also has some really interesting setting stuff, but I digress. GURPS cyberpunk is outdated. GURPS 4 reccomends that cyberware just cost the points for the ability with special considerations. A robotic arm that's just as strong as your fleshy one might net you a few points because it's more easy to break than your real arm. A retinal clock would just be the ability "Perfect Time". The problem with that is that I'm not sure it encourages a character to take the cyberware version, and cyberware that doesn't strictly use the point system has the potential to unbalance characters. But that's the way with anything; if you change shadowrun's system too, you might need to expect a bumpy ride.
The biggest part about GURPS is that you don't look a prestige class, class, or skill and say, "I want to be a badass rogue or a medic, or a wizard." You need to say, "I want to be a hardboiled detective with a limp and strong arm, a weak heart and a good soul, an addiction, but damnit can he talk what he wants out of a person. Okay, so I'll give him a limp disadvantage, a high strength, a chance to freeze in stressful situations, a moral code, an addiction, and a number of points in interrogation.
The shift can be quite the shift. I've only played GURPS twice, once good once bad. Take that for what it's worth.
I loooooovvveee Shadowrun. It's got flavor! It's got flare! There's a few problems, both in fourth and third (arm hacking and mages can do WHAT?), but it's one of the best systems and has the potential for a ruthless, well, punkiness, that lets the GM just sit back and say, "You didn't search for cameras; you did this yourself." I can't speak about problems you'll run into with Fourth, because I haven't had an oppertunity to play it (or much SR at all recently, sadly enough), but there are a few problems.
You'd still have to balance races and rely on your own judgements and hope you didn't leave some kind of hole you'll have to go by and fix later. Also, there's a bit of an identity issue, where the system was very much created for a very specific and well thought-out setting. I flick my move-by-wire on and slip my Ares Predator from it's holster, stare down the barrel and, with the help of my smart link, put two bullets right into the Red Samurai's armor. That's not difficult to get around, but it will be palpable if you don't rectify it. Also, although Shadowrun has plenty of non mage roles, you'll find some of them aren't strictly built for pure focused. You can build a decking focused decker, a stealth focused cyber ninja, a beefy merc, a crazy rigger, Mr. Fixit, or a face that knows a lot of people, but some things just aren't as representable. You can't put much focus into being a healer other than maybe an advantage and 6 points into Biotech, and what's to say that troll merc wont. Some of the balance came from magic, and I don't know if that will be reflected. Your 5 essence Face didn't just have the advantage of being pretty; she could talk her way out of problems you just couldn't shoot down (like a spirit), and probably knew a mage that could patch her up. She might be unduly weaker in non-magic conditions, or she might now. I'm not sure how it would balance out.
On the plus side, although I was just talking about balanced, it's much easier to keep everyone in line and let them have roles than it is in 20, it's harder for players to run amok than it is in GURPS, and less DM intervention than in either's chargen, once you get your rule-changes down. Plus soak is way more fun than HP for me.
I'd just as much assume this was swallowed up by the sands of time. Most of everything good was absorbed by Shadowrun when no new editions of CP2020 came out. We would play some brutal SR, but my experiences with CP 2020 is brutal to the max grimy organ selling backstabbing dossing. Even if you don't want players to be a band of criminals, let me say this: Playing a good guy in Shadowrun was much harder and much more rewarding than even the lawfullest goodest of paladins, simply because the odds are against you. You don't get to be the only guy with a holy avenger because you're good, you get to be the guy that doesn't have the money that Big Gun Tim has because Big Gun Tim found out that if he put the hole in someone's head instead of the liver, that liver could buy him an even bigger gun.
I couldn't think of any more systems that would do better for the time being; I'll let you know though.
Conclusions: Rifts can be fun, but not because of the system. It's a wrestling match and you'd probably have to do a good deal of work to make it ready for prime time anyway.
GURPS is designed to be anything and do anything. It's got advantages in that what you lose to become a badass tends to become great RP material, it can cover a lot of situations, and the fact that if someone (or you) wants to include something unorthodox, it's easier to handle. But it also has some annoying complexities, a pretty steep learning curve, options that can lose potential players. Converting
Shadowrun might take more work than you think, and the rules are tied to the theme, so if you find something specifically different, you'll have a lot of adaptation to go through. It's my favorite system, it seems to cover a lot of the things you want, the best cyberpunk came still in existence, with a lot of detail but a fast pace that rewards stealth and quick wit as much if not more than good shots and lots of Body. But it is very themed. If your theme doesn't match it, I don't know how well it can adapt. Will a scientist balance out with a ninja though? A medic might find that there just aren't the means to be a focused medic, and he'll have to either gimp himself or be a fighter or a face.
Cyberpunk 2020: Reply hazy, try again.
SR4 still uses D6's but it got rid of the target number system that produced the horrible jumps from needing a 7 to an 8 or 9. It's not like the current white wolf system where every die that shows 5 or higher is a hit and you need x hits to suceed.
Much better than the previous system.
GURPS is built just for my situation but I'm not sure how hard it would be converting. I've got AvCs designed for the setting and custom hacking rules, how tough would it be to come up with GURPS equivalent? And being as I've never ran GURPS, how tough would it be to learn everything?
The bubble sucked, but I did like the curve it resulted in
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It's really a thing of beauty
You wouldn't really convert the class itself. Instead, you would say, "This class has X ability. X ability would cost 25 base points + this limitation will take it down to 20, but this enhancement knocks it up to 30. Pay up if you want it or GTFO." You just decide what the ability is and how much it would cost, and it's almost always already covered somewhere in GURPS anyway.
I forgot about hacking, I'm not sure how GURPS would have you handle it. GURPS has several "modes", if you will, with a cinematic hacking mode where you roll a hacking skill and hack the gibson, or a totally realistic system where you know how to operate and how to program, and you can make a program to brute force, but that doesn't really work over the internet, and breaking into systems is about searching through garbage cans and manipulating people. That's not quite what you're looking for either. I've seen mentioned rules for dualities, so you could list what stats and abilities are available and used in the internets, assign point cost to them, and so people have to spend points on them. You might say, "Everyone gets 25 points on internets" and that represents your standard user avatar. If you want more points, they can funnel them in and take away from shooting and knowing for it.
The antiquated GURPS Cyberpunk sums up the issue of "Netrunning" by having: Realistic network rules and and then Cyberspace rules. You build a deck with points just like you would with a character, or with money. Cyberpunk ran into the same problem that I was talking about with GURPS before: One of the key components of Cyberpunk is that it doesn't matter that you've trained for ten years for this mission and you're ready: a cybered out freak job with millions of dollars can still take your ass down. So there's a bit of a "how to use points, how to use cash" running through the book. Anyway, different interfaces such as typing, using just pictures in front ofyou, or straight up matrixy you're fucking there dude cost progressively more points and affect how you can do it and how fast you act. Then you have "System Complexity" which is system-speak for, "How fast is your machine."
Then when you want to perform an action, you roll your "Cyberdeck Operation" skill. Doing multiple things in a phase has you roll that check at a cumulative -3, so a skilled enough hacker can do more on a bad machine than a crappy hacker on a good machine. It talks about how movement is relative, and so moving to a new system or a new node is a "hop" and takes two phases irregardless of real distance. Yada yada, what else; let's see. The biggest thing about thwat they say is timing. So a system twice as fast as the another system gets twice as many 'phases' since timing is relative in cyberspace. Most of the hacking seems to be pretty old-Shadowrunish. Attacking and defending is done with attack and defense programs (just line in Shadowrun). Each attack program has specific effects, and can be countered by defensive programmers. If you're running without any defense programs, their effects go on without a hitch assuming they make their roles. Otherwise you roll your defense program vs their offense program.
That probably doesn't make a lot of sense, but I REALLY need to get to work on some stuff; I'll get back to you about it later. I do feel I should mention this though: One of the first times I was looking through a GURPS book, I noticed a disadvantage which was designed for disembodied conciousnesses like brains-in-jars, bodyless souls, AIs, etc. AIs are now in Ultra Tech, which I don't have.
http://talsorian.safeshopper.com/15/cat15.htm?535
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
Another thing you may want to look into would be Gamma World or maybe Star Frontiers. You might be able to find an old edition on eBay somewhere for a song. Or maybe even Metamorphosis Alpha, if you can find it (and if you do, tell me where it is, because I want a copy).
I'd say using GURPS or the Tri-Stat system would be smarter for something like this. You don't want to have to try to peel the game off the setting, because that gets a little messy, in my opinion.
GURPS is really looking like a strong contender. I just wonder if it's rules are going to be enough to handle cybernetics and starship combat.
Pkmoutl: Gamma World is a meh in my opinion. I remember its classes bing pretty specific, and I really didn't like what was presented there. I initially dismissed Tri-stat, but then I started looking at it, and it doesn't look too bad. I guess choosing between it and GURPS depends on what level of specificity/realism you want, how much 'crunch' you want, depth, and learning curve. Oh, and cost--It is still free.
EDIT: The answer to all questions is obviously SPECIAL.
So guys, I'm looking for a reasonably priced (~50€/70$) miniature wargame starter set which would offer variety, decently fun rules and a respectable amount of miniatures for the bucks. It should be a one-stop solution which promises lasting fun even if you don't later shell out for a Carnifex and a couple Predators to add to the mix.
Setting can be anything, personally I'd lean towards 20th century warfare or science fiction.
So far I've been eyeing
Mechwarrior: DA (Cheap pack, but few units and even fewer 'Mechs.)
Axis & Allies (Shitload of minis, but is it ridiculously slow and heavy on strategy?)
WH40K: Battle for Macragge. (How varied games can you get with just this set?)
Starship Troopers. (Is playing the bugs a boring as fuck rush to melee range?)
Star Wars CMG (For 5 units per side, 53$ seems steep.)
Prepainted is fine, preferable in fact. This would be for a boardgame club at our student organization which has until recently stuck with the likes of Go, Carcassonne and Citadels. While they're fine games, I'm sure people wouldn't mind dipping their toes in a little miniature lovin'.
Suggestions?
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My gut reaction is to go with shadowrun because I consider it one of the great gifts to mankind, but Shadowrun is very much built around the individual "runs." It's not pre-designed for campaign play or narrative heft, it's sort of a one shot/game with rotating cast dealy. Not that it couldn't be changed, but it'd have to be changed, and then we have to consider if another system + mods might be better.
I'm not sure if you could get the hardcover books anymore, but I'm sure PDFs still exist for Alternity, which was wizard's short-lived sci-fi game. You'll find the mechanics somewhat familiar, since on some level, it's what inspired d20, though the system is much richer than d20. It's got all the stuff you want as near as I can tell, I adore the ship creation rules.
Anyhoo, I'd be better able to answer your question if you could tell me:
1. Do you feel more like Star Wars (pulp, epic, space opera), Serenity (pulp, noir, episodic), or Star trek (fantasy, epic, space opera). Or some other combination of genre tropes.
2. What's the best part of your game? Exploring the setting, completing missions or just sitting around talking about what happened afterward? (or something else!)
3. What's the vibe like in your gaming group? Is it weekly? Irregular? Are there tensions? How long is a session, and how many do you have a month? Do people get bored?
It has a tendency to be noir only because we have a tendency to be violent, and it's not terribly epic except, well, when we decide to do something epic. Which usually ends in disaster.
They have the flexibility that you would want in order to use your own setting.
"Fun is Mandatory"