If you had to recommend one of those "OSR"/retroclone/old school D&D systems, which one would you choose that's fairly balanced in terms of classes, has simple and plainly stated mechanics, and doesn't have too many fiddly legacy mechanics?
I'm not particularly interested in old D&D, but seeking out groups online is easier if you have familiarity with popular systems.
Before I give them the pitch, any last minute recommendations?
I'm putting Paranoia, Call of Cthulu and Dungon Crawl Classic up before them. Also the option to stick with 4e I guess (maybe Darksun?), and possibly Gamma World if there's a suitable adventure out there (as I hear the one in the rule book is a bit dull dungeon crawly).
WoD just doesn't appeal to me for now for some reason. Definately want to try it myself one day, but my gut feeling is this is not it.
I should warn you, Dungeon Crawl Classics uses non-standard dice. In addition to the "normal" seven, they use d3, d5, d7, d14, d16, d24, and d30s. You can get all of these results without owning them, but if your players are not math-minded, this may be a hinderance. For low level play, you will only see d3, d16, d24, and d30, and half of those are during character creation.
OK. New entirely different situation recommendation request! (France decision is in deliberation)
My weekly 4E D&D keeps being called off due to lack of numbers. Sucks but that's what you get with adults in a fairly low population area of Britain. I'm just happy I get a game at all.
But if we did have something we could do with the three more reliable people that would be great. So something that runs nice with 1 DM & 2 players or is DMless with three players. Unfortunately one of them is a D&D or bust nerd, so avoiding straying too far from the high fantasy D&D-esque genre would be good. And something with both combat (or at least challenge and dice rolls) rather than entirely plot based. I can't see them going for an entirely narrative game. They'll want to be 'fighting' something they can 'beat'.
Unfortunately anything involving the words 'board game' will likely go down like a ton of bricks due with said D&D guy. He'll want plot, not just gameplay.
All tall order. Is such a thing out there?
Does DCC with it's mob of characters per player fit here ? One DM, two players with 8 level 0 peasants each?
OK. New entirely different situation recommendation request! (France decision is in deliberation)
My weekly 4E D&D keeps being called off due to lack of numbers. Sucks but that's what you get with adults in a fairly low population area of Britain. I'm just happy I get a game at all.
But if we did have something we could do with the three more reliable people that would be great. So something that runs nice with 1 DM & 2 players or is DMless with three players. Unfortunately one of them is a D&D or bust nerd, so avoiding straying too far from the high fantasy D&D-esque genre would be good. And something with both combat (or at least challenge and dice rolls) rather than entirely plot based. I can't see them going for an entirely narrative game. They'll want to be 'fighting' something they can 'beat'.
Unfortunately anything involving the words 'board game' will likely go down like a ton of bricks due with said D&D guy. He'll want plot, not just gameplay.
All tall order. Is such a thing out there?
Does DCC with it's mob of characters per player fit here ? One DM, two players with 8 level 0 peasants each?
I'm more curious about your "D&D or bust" guy, is he just stubborn or is there something about that style of play that uniquely attracts him?
OK. New entirely different situation recommendation request! (France decision is in deliberation)
My weekly 4E D&D keeps being called off due to lack of numbers. Sucks but that's what you get with adults in a fairly low population area of Britain. I'm just happy I get a game at all.
But if we did have something we could do with the three more reliable people that would be great. So something that runs nice with 1 DM & 2 players or is DMless with three players. Unfortunately one of them is a D&D or bust nerd, so avoiding straying too far from the high fantasy D&D-esque genre would be good. And something with both combat (or at least challenge and dice rolls) rather than entirely plot based. I can't see them going for an entirely narrative game. They'll want to be 'fighting' something they can 'beat'.
Unfortunately anything involving the words 'board game' will likely go down like a ton of bricks due with said D&D guy. He'll want plot, not just gameplay.
All tall order. Is such a thing out there?
Does DCC with it's mob of characters per player fit here ? One DM, two players with 8 level 0 peasants each?
Narrativist games such as FATE or Burning Wheel still have fights and challenges you can beat. It's just that in these games, when you want plusses to your roll, you get them more by narrating cool stuff than by moving your mini around.
Are you sure he would hate even a D&D board game or something like Descent?
Why not just play D&D with a small group? Have another game in another setting, e.g. Dark Sun, and bring that out when others don't show?
Any game you play is going to have him complaining if it's not D&D, right? So Legends of Anglerre or The One Ring are not going to fly? How about the Mouse Guard RPG?
poshniallo on
I figure I could take a bear.
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VanguardBut now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
OK. New entirely different situation recommendation request! (France decision is in deliberation)
My weekly 4E D&D keeps being called off due to lack of numbers. Sucks but that's what you get with adults in a fairly low population area of Britain. I'm just happy I get a game at all.
But if we did have something we could do with the three more reliable people that would be great. So something that runs nice with 1 DM & 2 players or is DMless with three players. Unfortunately one of them is a D&D or bust nerd, so avoiding straying too far from the high fantasy D&D-esque genre would be good. And something with both combat (or at least challenge and dice rolls) rather than entirely plot based. I can't see them going for an entirely narrative game. They'll want to be 'fighting' something they can 'beat'.
Unfortunately anything involving the words 'board game' will likely go down like a ton of bricks due with said D&D guy. He'll want plot, not just gameplay.
All tall order. Is such a thing out there?
Does DCC with it's mob of characters per player fit here ? One DM, two players with 8 level 0 peasants each?
Yes, DCC still fits. You only have that many characters per player during that first 0-level adventure, what they call The Funnel. It's a great introduction to the atmosphere of the game, and a great way to teach newcomers the basics without handing them a lot of rules. The number of peasants you give out certainly depends on what you run for them. If you go with Sailors on the Starless Sea, I found the sweet spot to be 7 each. Typically, I've had 4-6 make it out alive.
The Funnel does lean a little more towards the game side of things as your characters are going to die. I still have people roleplay, but they generally save the bulk of it for higher levels. Everyone I've played it with has had a blast at this level, and a lot of those people were regulars in my Burning Wheel game, which is about as opposite as you can get.
Low level play usually has players running 1-3 characters depending on how smart they are. I find DCC preferable to other D&D because of how quick the resolution of everything is.
Fairly light and fluffy adventures as they are a back up to our 'main' campaign that has been running for years. For the same reason, the less prep work (i.e. pre published = good) the better.
D&D or bust guy, I dunno, maybe he was burned by a previous badly run attempt at a Sci-Fi game before I joined the group? Maybe he's just lacking a bit in imagination beyond what he's familiar with? Maybe he's just a grumpy old git?
He's a good ropleplayer though and I'm sure I could talk him around to trying anything if it was good. My main concern is finidng something we can do with the just the three people including any GM.
I just don't think 4e combat is going to work with 2 players, multiple 4e characters at once is a headache and a detriment to roleplay, and if you aren't going to do the combat you might as well not be doing 4e.
A new and sudden plan arises. Two characters each should be easy at level 1. Let's throw the fuckers at Fourthcore and see what sticks!
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tzeentchlingDoctor of RocksOaklandRegistered Userregular
You could try Fiasco. A bit more heavy on the RP aspect, but it's pretty light (or at least as light as you make it). No real "combat" to speak of, but for a quick game it might work, and all three of you could easily play at once.
Woo, first session of Marvel Heroic Roleplaying just finished! Some quick thoughts before I go to bed:
-That was damn fun. I don't know the last time I've enjoyed GMing that much.
-It was really interesting to see how my players reacted to the game. Some of them took right to it, others really struggled with how much player agency there is.
-The players that struggled eventually caught on to their role in shaping the narrative, and you could almost see the moment that it clicked. Their enjoyment shot up significantly at that point.
-I apparently have a face that I make when asking if they rolled any ones. They found it amusing.
-I didn't want to stop playing. My players didn't seem to want to either. Both are good signs.
I picked up Hollow Earth Expedition and man is it excellent. I need more games like it and Mouse Guard that emphasize story and cohesion in a group over having the best numbers possible. Any suggestions?
I picked up Hollow Earth Expedition and man is it excellent. I need more games like it and Mouse Guard that emphasize story and cohesion in a group over having the best numbers possible. Any suggestions?
Burning Wheel is a natural extension of what you want. Numbers do matter, but the core is really the belief system and how much player agency one has.
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tzeentchlingDoctor of RocksOaklandRegistered Userregular
@Denada - speaking of Marvel Heroic RPG, when are you going to continue with the next part of your Lets Read? I am eager to find out what else my construct/robot can do!
@Denada - speaking of Marvel Heroic RPG, when are you going to continue with the next part of your Lets Read? I am eager to find out what else my construct/robot can do!
Soon, I think. Last week was a really crappy week, but I think I'll have time/motivation this week.
Woo, first session of Marvel Heroic Roleplaying just finished! Some quick thoughts before I go to bed:
-That was damn fun. I don't know the last time I've enjoyed GMing that much.
-It was really interesting to see how my players reacted to the game. Some of them took right to it, others really struggled with how much player agency there is.
-The players that struggled eventually caught on to their role in shaping the narrative, and you could almost see the moment that it clicked. Their enjoyment shot up significantly at that point.
-I apparently have a face that I make when asking if they rolled any ones. They found it amusing.
-I didn't want to stop playing. My players didn't seem to want to either. Both are good signs.
Yep, that tipped me over the edge into finally ordering it.
I would like to DM things on occasion, but I am terrible at memorizing all the rules I feel like I should know for that purpose -- which feat? Wait, what is the roll for that one thing?
13th Age sounds a bit more compact in that department. Rules-lite, but not rules-lacking. Is this an accurate assessment?
Don't know much about 13th age, but seriously don't worry about memorising every rule. There are [X+1] of you at the table so get the other [X] guys to help out. Hopefully you can trust your players not to outright cheat, in which case let them worry about their own feats and any odd mechanics they are intending to make regular use of. Knowing what the rule is can be substituted for knowing where to quickly look up the rule, or even glossing over the rule entirely, winging it and looking up what you should have done later.
Woo, first session of Marvel Heroic Roleplaying just finished! Some quick thoughts before I go to bed:
-That was damn fun. I don't know the last time I've enjoyed GMing that much.
-It was really interesting to see how my players reacted to the game. Some of them took right to it, others really struggled with how much player agency there is.
-The players that struggled eventually caught on to their role in shaping the narrative, and you could almost see the moment that it clicked. Their enjoyment shot up significantly at that point.
-I apparently have a face that I make when asking if they rolled any ones. They found it amusing.
-I didn't want to stop playing. My players didn't seem to want to either. Both are good signs.
Yep, that tipped me over the edge into finally ordering it.
Looking forward to reading it.
I definitely feel like I got my money out of it. Of course the book was less than $15, so that's not a difficult proposition.
I wanted to talk a little bit more in depth about my first session, so here it is:
The Heroes:
The Hunstman: Basically Hawkeye. He can also turn invisible.
Omniknight: Has magic armor and a sword, and arcane control of the elements.
Dryad: Shape-shifting weather-controlling woman with a whip.
Rock Man: Sound manipulator with a high-tech bass that's also a weapon. He also has the power to mimic other people's powers.
Technicus: Technological whiz-kid and super genius.
The Mysterious Woman: Flying telepath that can talk to animals and control emotions.
The Session:
I started off by explaining what the major differences were between our universe and the one in the game, talked a little bit about whether they knew each other and whether they kept their powers secret, then went around the table with the following question:
"It's 2:30 in the afternoon on Saturday. What are you doing?"
From there we found out that three of them were doing manual labor at a school, one of them was at work, and two of them were hanging out at their house. To get things started I had an EMP blast go off near the twins, taking the power out and also triggering the psychic's telepathic defenses, which definitely got their attention. The three at the school felt a minor earthquake and detected a nearby forest fire, which they decided to investigate. The one at work was caught between the EMP and the forest fire, but she got to the session late, so we agreed to skip over most of her detective work and just get her to the action.
After some technical wizardry and telepathic searching, the twins headed for the epicenter of the EMP blast, where they found a giant metal sphere that had apparently crashed on top of a fountain. The sphere suddenly sprouted arms and legs (think Incredibles) and the Action Scene started.
Meanwhile, the other four heroes headed for the forest fire, where they found a giant flaming ball at the center of everything. After using their powers to put out the forest fire and douse the flames on the ball, they also found a metal sphere. I'm sure you can guess what the sphere did.
Both fights were actually pretty short. The techno-twin hacked into the first robot, making it go haywire, while the psychic-twin tapped into its telepathic interface and finished frying its circuits. The other robot was knocked down by a whip, smashed open by a high-tech bass guitar, then cut in half by a magic sword.
At that point, Iron Man (played by another player) dropped into the middle of the group and said, "There's some people I'd like you to meet," before I closed the Scene. Everyone was already excited about that, but then I really got them when I went back to the twins to close their Scene. After taking down the robot, the techno-twin decided to check its memory for any trace of why it was there or what it was doing. I gave him the last line in the robot's command log, which was "S.H.I.E.L.D. UPLINK DISCONNECTED." The table erupted, I told them we were done for the night, and everyone was hooked.
Running the Game:
MHR is seriously so easy to run. I think the main reason that I had so much fun being the Watcher (what MHR calls the GM) was because of how little work it was to actually do that. I had a basic plot-line in mind (a modification of the Breakout event in the book) and the rest was just presenting scenes to my players and seeing how they react. Pre-session work was minimal, little more than doing some reading then putting together some powerpoint slides for the various scenes.
Interestingly, I also found MHR challenging at first. I had to break myself from some old D&D habits, like looking for skill checks and things like that. Skill checks don't really exist in this game. If a player wants to do something and failure would be boring, then they succeed. There was something about not working so much before the game that was weird for me too. It took effort to get myself to stop at a certain point and leave the rest up to the session. Once I managed to stop treating MHR like D&D though, it was, well, like a whole different game. I was able to go from telling them what happens to asking them what happens. Seriously, "Okay, what happens?" was such a liberating question for me to be asking. I felt like I was playing the game as much as I was running it.
What's Next:
The next session is going to involve more robots, some SHIELD agents, and an underwater super-prison if we get to it. I'm going to be splitting up buddies, teaming up solos, and generally putting their powers to the test. I'm excited, and it kills me to have to wait two weeks before I get to do it.
OK. New entirely different situation recommendation request! (France decision is in deliberation)
My weekly 4E D&D keeps being called off due to lack of numbers. Sucks but that's what you get with adults in a fairly low population area of Britain. I'm just happy I get a game at all.
But if we did have something we could do with the three more reliable people that would be great. So something that runs nice with 1 DM & 2 players or is DMless with three players. Unfortunately one of them is a D&D or bust nerd, so avoiding straying too far from the high fantasy D&D-esque genre would be good. And something with both combat (or at least challenge and dice rolls) rather than entirely plot based. I can't see them going for an entirely narrative game. They'll want to be 'fighting' something they can 'beat'.
Unfortunately anything involving the words 'board game' will likely go down like a ton of bricks due with said D&D guy. He'll want plot, not just gameplay.
All tall order. Is such a thing out there?
Does DCC with it's mob of characters per player fit here ? One DM, two players with 8 level 0 peasants each?
Yes, DCC still fits. You only have that many characters per player during that first 0-level adventure, what they call The Funnel. It's a great introduction to the atmosphere of the game, and a great way to teach newcomers the basics without handing them a lot of rules. The number of peasants you give out certainly depends on what you run for them. If you go with Sailors on the Starless Sea, I found the sweet spot to be 7 each. Typically, I've had 4-6 make it out alive.
The Funnel does lean a little more towards the game side of things as your characters are going to die. I still have people roleplay, but they generally save the bulk of it for higher levels. Everyone I've played it with has had a blast at this level, and a lot of those people were regulars in my Burning Wheel game, which is about as opposite as you can get.
Low level play usually has players running 1-3 characters depending on how smart they are. I find DCC preferable to other D&D because of how quick the resolution of everything is.
What kind of adventures did you have in mind?
Please tell me more about your Burning Wheel game. I picked up Burning Wheel Gold a few months ago, and It looks a lot more fun than D&D. If I am ever to get a chance to play it I'll probably need to be the one running the game though.
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AntimatterDevo Was RightGates of SteelRegistered Userregular
Woo, first session of Marvel Heroic Roleplaying just finished! Some quick thoughts before I go to bed:
-That was damn fun. I don't know the last time I've enjoyed GMing that much.
-It was really interesting to see how my players reacted to the game. Some of them took right to it, others really struggled with how much player agency there is.
-The players that struggled eventually caught on to their role in shaping the narrative, and you could almost see the moment that it clicked. Their enjoyment shot up significantly at that point.
-I apparently have a face that I make when asking if they rolled any ones. They found it amusing.
-I didn't want to stop playing. My players didn't seem to want to either. Both are good signs.
Yep, that tipped me over the edge into finally ordering it.
Looking forward to reading it.
I definitely feel like I got my money out of it. Of course the book was less than $15, so that's not a difficult proposition.
I wanted to talk a little bit more in depth about my first session, so here it is:
The Heroes:
The Hunstman: Basically Hawkeye. He can also turn invisible.
Omniknight: Has magic armor and a sword, and arcane control of the elements.
Dryad: Shape-shifting weather-controlling woman with a whip.
Rock Man: Sound manipulator with a high-tech bass that's also a weapon. He also has the power to mimic other people's powers.
Technicus: Technological whiz-kid and super genius.
The Mysterious Woman: Flying telepath that can talk to animals and control emotions.
The Session:
I started off by explaining what the major differences were between our universe and the one in the game, talked a little bit about whether they knew each other and whether they kept their powers secret, then went around the table with the following question:
"It's 2:30 in the afternoon on Saturday. What are you doing?"
From there we found out that three of them were doing manual labor at a school, one of them was at work, and two of them were hanging out at their house. To get things started I had an EMP blast go off near the twins, taking the power out and also triggering the psychic's telepathic defenses, which definitely got their attention. The three at the school felt a minor earthquake and detected a nearby forest fire, which they decided to investigate. The one at work was caught between the EMP and the forest fire, but she got to the session late, so we agreed to skip over most of her detective work and just get her to the action.
After some technical wizardry and telepathic searching, the twins headed for the epicenter of the EMP blast, where they found a giant metal sphere that had apparently crashed on top of a fountain. The sphere suddenly sprouted arms and legs (think Incredibles) and the Action Scene started.
Meanwhile, the other four heroes headed for the forest fire, where they found a giant flaming ball at the center of everything. After using their powers to put out the forest fire and douse the flames on the ball, they also found a metal sphere. I'm sure you can guess what the sphere did.
Both fights were actually pretty short. The techno-twin hacked into the first robot, making it go haywire, while the psychic-twin tapped into its telepathic interface and finished frying its circuits. The other robot was knocked down by a whip, smashed open by a high-tech bass guitar, then cut in half by a magic sword.
At that point, Iron Man (played by another player) dropped into the middle of the group and said, "There's some people I'd like you to meet," before I closed the Scene. Everyone was already excited about that, but then I really got them when I went back to the twins to close their Scene. After taking down the robot, the techno-twin decided to check its memory for any trace of why it was there or what it was doing. I gave him the last line in the robot's command log, which was "S.H.I.E.L.D. UPLINK DISCONNECTED." The table erupted, I told them we were done for the night, and everyone was hooked.
Running the Game:
MHR is seriously so easy to run. I think the main reason that I had so much fun being the Watcher (what MHR calls the GM) was because of how little work it was to actually do that. I had a basic plot-line in mind (a modification of the Breakout event in the book) and the rest was just presenting scenes to my players and seeing how they react. Pre-session work was minimal, little more than doing some reading then putting together some powerpoint slides for the various scenes.
Interestingly, I also found MHR challenging at first. I had to break myself from some old D&D habits, like looking for skill checks and things like that. Skill checks don't really exist in this game. If a player wants to do something and failure would be boring, then they succeed. There was something about not working so much before the game that was weird for me too. It took effort to get myself to stop at a certain point and leave the rest up to the session. Once I managed to stop treating MHR like D&D though, it was, well, like a whole different game. I was able to go from telling them what happens to asking them what happens. Seriously, "Okay, what happens?" was such a liberating question for me to be asking. I felt like I was playing the game as much as I was running it.
What's Next:
The next session is going to involve more robots, some SHIELD agents, and an underwater super-prison if we get to it. I'm going to be splitting up buddies, teaming up solos, and generally putting their powers to the test. I'm excited, and it kills me to have to wait two weeks before I get to do it.
Woo, first session of Marvel Heroic Roleplaying just finished! Some quick thoughts before I go to bed:
-That was damn fun. I don't know the last time I've enjoyed GMing that much.
-It was really interesting to see how my players reacted to the game. Some of them took right to it, others really struggled with how much player agency there is.
-The players that struggled eventually caught on to their role in shaping the narrative, and you could almost see the moment that it clicked. Their enjoyment shot up significantly at that point.
-I apparently have a face that I make when asking if they rolled any ones. They found it amusing.
-I didn't want to stop playing. My players didn't seem to want to either. Both are good signs.
Yep, that tipped me over the edge into finally ordering it.
Looking forward to reading it.
I definitely feel like I got my money out of it. Of course the book was less than $15, so that's not a difficult proposition.
I wanted to talk a little bit more in depth about my first session, so here it is:
The Heroes:
The Hunstman: Basically Hawkeye. He can also turn invisible.
Omniknight: Has magic armor and a sword, and arcane control of the elements.
Dryad: Shape-shifting weather-controlling woman with a whip.
Rock Man: Sound manipulator with a high-tech bass that's also a weapon. He also has the power to mimic other people's powers.
Technicus: Technological whiz-kid and super genius.
The Mysterious Woman: Flying telepath that can talk to animals and control emotions.
The Session:
I started off by explaining what the major differences were between our universe and the one in the game, talked a little bit about whether they knew each other and whether they kept their powers secret, then went around the table with the following question:
"It's 2:30 in the afternoon on Saturday. What are you doing?"
From there we found out that three of them were doing manual labor at a school, one of them was at work, and two of them were hanging out at their house. To get things started I had an EMP blast go off near the twins, taking the power out and also triggering the psychic's telepathic defenses, which definitely got their attention. The three at the school felt a minor earthquake and detected a nearby forest fire, which they decided to investigate. The one at work was caught between the EMP and the forest fire, but she got to the session late, so we agreed to skip over most of her detective work and just get her to the action.
After some technical wizardry and telepathic searching, the twins headed for the epicenter of the EMP blast, where they found a giant metal sphere that had apparently crashed on top of a fountain. The sphere suddenly sprouted arms and legs (think Incredibles) and the Action Scene started.
Meanwhile, the other four heroes headed for the forest fire, where they found a giant flaming ball at the center of everything. After using their powers to put out the forest fire and douse the flames on the ball, they also found a metal sphere. I'm sure you can guess what the sphere did.
Both fights were actually pretty short. The techno-twin hacked into the first robot, making it go haywire, while the psychic-twin tapped into its telepathic interface and finished frying its circuits. The other robot was knocked down by a whip, smashed open by a high-tech bass guitar, then cut in half by a magic sword.
At that point, Iron Man (played by another player) dropped into the middle of the group and said, "There's some people I'd like you to meet," before I closed the Scene. Everyone was already excited about that, but then I really got them when I went back to the twins to close their Scene. After taking down the robot, the techno-twin decided to check its memory for any trace of why it was there or what it was doing. I gave him the last line in the robot's command log, which was "S.H.I.E.L.D. UPLINK DISCONNECTED." The table erupted, I told them we were done for the night, and everyone was hooked.
Running the Game:
MHR is seriously so easy to run. I think the main reason that I had so much fun being the Watcher (what MHR calls the GM) was because of how little work it was to actually do that. I had a basic plot-line in mind (a modification of the Breakout event in the book) and the rest was just presenting scenes to my players and seeing how they react. Pre-session work was minimal, little more than doing some reading then putting together some powerpoint slides for the various scenes.
Interestingly, I also found MHR challenging at first. I had to break myself from some old D&D habits, like looking for skill checks and things like that. Skill checks don't really exist in this game. If a player wants to do something and failure would be boring, then they succeed. There was something about not working so much before the game that was weird for me too. It took effort to get myself to stop at a certain point and leave the rest up to the session. Once I managed to stop treating MHR like D&D though, it was, well, like a whole different game. I was able to go from telling them what happens to asking them what happens. Seriously, "Okay, what happens?" was such a liberating question for me to be asking. I felt like I was playing the game as much as I was running it.
What's Next:
The next session is going to involve more robots, some SHIELD agents, and an underwater super-prison if we get to it. I'm going to be splitting up buddies, teaming up solos, and generally putting their powers to the test. I'm excited, and it kills me to have to wait two weeks before I get to do it.
That sounds great. How did you generate their characters? I heard there isn't really a chargen system as such in the book?
I can't decide which is more fun - people playing Marvel characters or playing their own with the Marvel characters as patrons and opponents.
That sounds great. How did you generate their characters? I heard there isn't really a chargen system as such in the book?
I can't decide which is more fun - people playing Marvel characters or playing their own with the Marvel characters as patrons and opponents.
One of the players found a point-buy system someone had posted somewhere (rpgnet I think?) I then modified it a bit to my tastes and let them go at it.
The book's version of character generation is basically "do what you think is cool" and specifically says not to worry about being balanced. This could work fine with the right group, but I think for most people some form of rules are helpful.
As for generated vs official, I like a mix. The players can get nice and invested in their characters and can really feel like the stars of their own comic, but for someone who doesn't have the time to invest, being able to drop in and out with an official hero is a great option and helps the universe feel authentically "Marvel".
My player who took the role of Iron Man is a good example of the latter. He has a lot of other commitments and can't get fully invested in the game, but he now makes a perfect pseudo-npc for when the plot needs one or the PCs call for one.
Yeah my own copy of MHR arrived in the post two days ago.
The book is great, full colour throughtout, and is about the size of a TPB (which I think is intentional).
As mentioned earlier is literally giving yourself whatever powers you want at whatever level you want. I haven't tried it yet, but seeing as the game is very narrative based, even if someone gave themselves super everything at godlike levels (hell the game even has this as a pre-gen, hello Sentry!), it's not really going to impede everyone else's enjoyment, especially with the "limit" on every powerset. (Beware Incredi-man! Doctor Doom has learnt of your one weakness! And has developed it into his armour!)
Played year-long campaigns of both Rogue Trader and Dark Heresy. On the whole, I preferred Dark Heresy, as it is designed as lower level and I generally prefer being a scrub rather than Brigadier Awesome McCool-Pants with his Sword of Badass. The system itself is fun to run, though, as I like having degrees of success rather than pass/fail, and combat is fast and brutal.
I like the games. I'm glad there are 40k games, and in general FFG's background stuff is excellent. However they are prone to mistakes (in terms of rules), exceedingly lax at fixing them, and their planning/organising of material is not great.
The Koronus Expanse is an excellent mini-setting.
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OK. New entirely different situation recommendation request! (France decision is in deliberation)
My weekly 4E D&D keeps being called off due to lack of numbers. Sucks but that's what you get with adults in a fairly low population area of Britain. I'm just happy I get a game at all.
But if we did have something we could do with the three more reliable people that would be great. So something that runs nice with 1 DM & 2 players or is DMless with three players. Unfortunately one of them is a D&D or bust nerd, so avoiding straying too far from the high fantasy D&D-esque genre would be good. And something with both combat (or at least challenge and dice rolls) rather than entirely plot based. I can't see them going for an entirely narrative game. They'll want to be 'fighting' something they can 'beat'.
Unfortunately anything involving the words 'board game' will likely go down like a ton of bricks due with said D&D guy. He'll want plot, not just gameplay.
All tall order. Is such a thing out there?
Does DCC with it's mob of characters per player fit here ? One DM, two players with 8 level 0 peasants each?
Yes, DCC still fits. You only have that many characters per player during that first 0-level adventure, what they call The Funnel. It's a great introduction to the atmosphere of the game, and a great way to teach newcomers the basics without handing them a lot of rules. The number of peasants you give out certainly depends on what you run for them. If you go with Sailors on the Starless Sea, I found the sweet spot to be 7 each. Typically, I've had 4-6 make it out alive.
The Funnel does lean a little more towards the game side of things as your characters are going to die. I still have people roleplay, but they generally save the bulk of it for higher levels. Everyone I've played it with has had a blast at this level, and a lot of those people were regulars in my Burning Wheel game, which is about as opposite as you can get.
Low level play usually has players running 1-3 characters depending on how smart they are. I find DCC preferable to other D&D because of how quick the resolution of everything is.
What kind of adventures did you have in mind?
Please tell me more about your Burning Wheel game. I picked up Burning Wheel Gold a few months ago, and It looks a lot more fun than D&D. If I am ever to get a chance to play it I'll probably need to be the one running the game though.
What do you want to know specifically? BW is a pretty big thing to talk about. I did a write up of the first session, which you can read here.
I am giggling like a schoolgirl reading the MHR report and seeing all of you going to buy it. It's such a great system and I love seeing it get some attention.
I would like to DM things on occasion, but I am terrible at memorizing all the rules I feel like I should know for that purpose -- which feat? Wait, what is the roll for that one thing?
13th Age sounds a bit more compact in that department. Rules-lite, but not rules-lacking. Is this an accurate assessment?
13th Age hasn't been released yet, but from what I've seen it will be good for what you are looking for. Of course, you shouldn't wait for it to be released.
It's pretty great. If you want to run a Dark Heresy power level game, though, I would suggest just waiting for Only War to come out and using the character rules from it because the DH rules are very obviously outdated compared to the newer stuff. The games are good, but like mentioned, have some issues with organization and correcting/clarifying rules.
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But you could pretty much put any filter on it to create any kind of setting/theme you could care to name
I should warn you, Dungeon Crawl Classics uses non-standard dice. In addition to the "normal" seven, they use d3, d5, d7, d14, d16, d24, and d30s. You can get all of these results without owning them, but if your players are not math-minded, this may be a hinderance. For low level play, you will only see d3, d16, d24, and d30, and half of those are during character creation.
The first post in this thread explains how to do it in the simplest way possible: http://www.goodman-games.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=15068
I only mention this because some people have complained about the inclusion of these dice.
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My weekly 4E D&D keeps being called off due to lack of numbers. Sucks but that's what you get with adults in a fairly low population area of Britain. I'm just happy I get a game at all.
But if we did have something we could do with the three more reliable people that would be great. So something that runs nice with 1 DM & 2 players or is DMless with three players. Unfortunately one of them is a D&D or bust nerd, so avoiding straying too far from the high fantasy D&D-esque genre would be good. And something with both combat (or at least challenge and dice rolls) rather than entirely plot based. I can't see them going for an entirely narrative game. They'll want to be 'fighting' something they can 'beat'.
Unfortunately anything involving the words 'board game' will likely go down like a ton of bricks due with said D&D guy. He'll want plot, not just gameplay.
All tall order. Is such a thing out there?
Does DCC with it's mob of characters per player fit here ? One DM, two players with 8 level 0 peasants each?
You can probably find a good fantasy story game, or you could run abbreviated encounters-style adventures.
There's also just giving people a slayer as a second character. Takes almost no effort if you just focus on math feats.
I'm more curious about your "D&D or bust" guy, is he just stubborn or is there something about that style of play that uniquely attracts him?
A list of things, should you be of the gifting persuasion
Narrativist games such as FATE or Burning Wheel still have fights and challenges you can beat. It's just that in these games, when you want plusses to your roll, you get them more by narrating cool stuff than by moving your mini around.
Are you sure he would hate even a D&D board game or something like Descent?
Why not just play D&D with a small group? Have another game in another setting, e.g. Dark Sun, and bring that out when others don't show?
Any game you play is going to have him complaining if it's not D&D, right? So Legends of Anglerre or The One Ring are not going to fly? How about the Mouse Guard RPG?
Yes, DCC still fits. You only have that many characters per player during that first 0-level adventure, what they call The Funnel. It's a great introduction to the atmosphere of the game, and a great way to teach newcomers the basics without handing them a lot of rules. The number of peasants you give out certainly depends on what you run for them. If you go with Sailors on the Starless Sea, I found the sweet spot to be 7 each. Typically, I've had 4-6 make it out alive.
The Funnel does lean a little more towards the game side of things as your characters are going to die. I still have people roleplay, but they generally save the bulk of it for higher levels. Everyone I've played it with has had a blast at this level, and a lot of those people were regulars in my Burning Wheel game, which is about as opposite as you can get.
Low level play usually has players running 1-3 characters depending on how smart they are. I find DCC preferable to other D&D because of how quick the resolution of everything is.
What kind of adventures did you have in mind?
D&D or bust guy, I dunno, maybe he was burned by a previous badly run attempt at a Sci-Fi game before I joined the group? Maybe he's just lacking a bit in imagination beyond what he's familiar with? Maybe he's just a grumpy old git?
He's a good ropleplayer though and I'm sure I could talk him around to trying anything if it was good. My main concern is finidng something we can do with the just the three people including any GM.
I just don't think 4e combat is going to work with 2 players, multiple 4e characters at once is a headache and a detriment to roleplay, and if you aren't going to do the combat you might as well not be doing 4e.
-That was damn fun. I don't know the last time I've enjoyed GMing that much.
-It was really interesting to see how my players reacted to the game. Some of them took right to it, others really struggled with how much player agency there is.
-The players that struggled eventually caught on to their role in shaping the narrative, and you could almost see the moment that it clicked. Their enjoyment shot up significantly at that point.
-I apparently have a face that I make when asking if they rolled any ones. They found it amusing.
-I didn't want to stop playing. My players didn't seem to want to either. Both are good signs.
Is it anything like your avatar?
Burning Wheel is a natural extension of what you want. Numbers do matter, but the core is really the belief system and how much player agency one has.
Oh, this so calls for Feng Shui that I want to weep that he won't stray far from high fantasy.
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
Soon, I think. Last week was a really crappy week, but I think I'll have time/motivation this week.
Yep, that tipped me over the edge into finally ordering it.
Looking forward to reading it.
13th Age sounds a bit more compact in that department. Rules-lite, but not rules-lacking. Is this an accurate assessment?
I definitely feel like I got my money out of it. Of course the book was less than $15, so that's not a difficult proposition.
I wanted to talk a little bit more in depth about my first session, so here it is:
The Hunstman: Basically Hawkeye. He can also turn invisible.
Omniknight: Has magic armor and a sword, and arcane control of the elements.
Dryad: Shape-shifting weather-controlling woman with a whip.
Rock Man: Sound manipulator with a high-tech bass that's also a weapon. He also has the power to mimic other people's powers.
Technicus: Technological whiz-kid and super genius.
The Mysterious Woman: Flying telepath that can talk to animals and control emotions.
The Session:
I started off by explaining what the major differences were between our universe and the one in the game, talked a little bit about whether they knew each other and whether they kept their powers secret, then went around the table with the following question:
"It's 2:30 in the afternoon on Saturday. What are you doing?"
From there we found out that three of them were doing manual labor at a school, one of them was at work, and two of them were hanging out at their house. To get things started I had an EMP blast go off near the twins, taking the power out and also triggering the psychic's telepathic defenses, which definitely got their attention. The three at the school felt a minor earthquake and detected a nearby forest fire, which they decided to investigate. The one at work was caught between the EMP and the forest fire, but she got to the session late, so we agreed to skip over most of her detective work and just get her to the action.
After some technical wizardry and telepathic searching, the twins headed for the epicenter of the EMP blast, where they found a giant metal sphere that had apparently crashed on top of a fountain. The sphere suddenly sprouted arms and legs (think Incredibles) and the Action Scene started.
Meanwhile, the other four heroes headed for the forest fire, where they found a giant flaming ball at the center of everything. After using their powers to put out the forest fire and douse the flames on the ball, they also found a metal sphere. I'm sure you can guess what the sphere did.
Both fights were actually pretty short. The techno-twin hacked into the first robot, making it go haywire, while the psychic-twin tapped into its telepathic interface and finished frying its circuits. The other robot was knocked down by a whip, smashed open by a high-tech bass guitar, then cut in half by a magic sword.
At that point, Iron Man (played by another player) dropped into the middle of the group and said, "There's some people I'd like you to meet," before I closed the Scene. Everyone was already excited about that, but then I really got them when I went back to the twins to close their Scene. After taking down the robot, the techno-twin decided to check its memory for any trace of why it was there or what it was doing. I gave him the last line in the robot's command log, which was "S.H.I.E.L.D. UPLINK DISCONNECTED." The table erupted, I told them we were done for the night, and everyone was hooked.
Running the Game:
MHR is seriously so easy to run. I think the main reason that I had so much fun being the Watcher (what MHR calls the GM) was because of how little work it was to actually do that. I had a basic plot-line in mind (a modification of the Breakout event in the book) and the rest was just presenting scenes to my players and seeing how they react. Pre-session work was minimal, little more than doing some reading then putting together some powerpoint slides for the various scenes.
Interestingly, I also found MHR challenging at first. I had to break myself from some old D&D habits, like looking for skill checks and things like that. Skill checks don't really exist in this game. If a player wants to do something and failure would be boring, then they succeed. There was something about not working so much before the game that was weird for me too. It took effort to get myself to stop at a certain point and leave the rest up to the session. Once I managed to stop treating MHR like D&D though, it was, well, like a whole different game. I was able to go from telling them what happens to asking them what happens. Seriously, "Okay, what happens?" was such a liberating question for me to be asking. I felt like I was playing the game as much as I was running it.
What's Next:
The next session is going to involve more robots, some SHIELD agents, and an underwater super-prison if we get to it. I'm going to be splitting up buddies, teaming up solos, and generally putting their powers to the test. I'm excited, and it kills me to have to wait two weeks before I get to do it.
Please tell me more about your Burning Wheel game. I picked up Burning Wheel Gold a few months ago, and It looks a lot more fun than D&D. If I am ever to get a chance to play it I'll probably need to be the one running the game though.
Cooooool
That sounds great. How did you generate their characters? I heard there isn't really a chargen system as such in the book?
I can't decide which is more fun - people playing Marvel characters or playing their own with the Marvel characters as patrons and opponents.
One of the players found a point-buy system someone had posted somewhere (rpgnet I think?) I then modified it a bit to my tastes and let them go at it.
The book's version of character generation is basically "do what you think is cool" and specifically says not to worry about being balanced. This could work fine with the right group, but I think for most people some form of rules are helpful.
As for generated vs official, I like a mix. The players can get nice and invested in their characters and can really feel like the stars of their own comic, but for someone who doesn't have the time to invest, being able to drop in and out with an official hero is a great option and helps the universe feel authentically "Marvel".
My player who took the role of Iron Man is a good example of the latter. He has a lot of other commitments and can't get fully invested in the game, but he now makes a perfect pseudo-npc for when the plot needs one or the PCs call for one.
Havn't decided if I like the software, though.
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The book is great, full colour throughtout, and is about the size of a TPB (which I think is intentional).
As mentioned earlier is literally giving yourself whatever powers you want at whatever level you want. I haven't tried it yet, but seeing as the game is very narrative based, even if someone gave themselves super everything at godlike levels (hell the game even has this as a pre-gen, hello Sentry!), it's not really going to impede everyone else's enjoyment, especially with the "limit" on every powerset. (Beware Incredi-man! Doctor Doom has learnt of your one weakness! And has developed it into his armour!)
Release the McCracken!
World of Synnabar was actually a not half bad game. McCracken's ridiculous ego is also somewhat endearing to me.
55k is Goddamn insane, but I would expect nothing less from this man.
Played year-long campaigns of both Rogue Trader and Dark Heresy. On the whole, I preferred Dark Heresy, as it is designed as lower level and I generally prefer being a scrub rather than Brigadier Awesome McCool-Pants with his Sword of Badass. The system itself is fun to run, though, as I like having degrees of success rather than pass/fail, and combat is fast and brutal.
I like the games. I'm glad there are 40k games, and in general FFG's background stuff is excellent. However they are prone to mistakes (in terms of rules), exceedingly lax at fixing them, and their planning/organising of material is not great.
The Koronus Expanse is an excellent mini-setting.
What do you want to know specifically? BW is a pretty big thing to talk about. I did a write up of the first session, which you can read here.
There is a metric ton of awesome community resources over at http://exploring-infinity.com/marvel-heroic-roleplaying/ if you're so inclined, including a solo "choose-your-own-adventure" style introduction to MHR.
A list of things, should you be of the gifting persuasion
13th Age hasn't been released yet, but from what I've seen it will be good for what you are looking for. Of course, you shouldn't wait for it to be released.
It's pretty great. If you want to run a Dark Heresy power level game, though, I would suggest just waiting for Only War to come out and using the character rules from it because the DH rules are very obviously outdated compared to the newer stuff. The games are good, but like mentioned, have some issues with organization and correcting/clarifying rules.