Taun Posted October 3, 2012 #26 Share Posted October 3, 2012 (edited) Holy guacamole, I love that idea! Usually I just find a way to work around a terrible roll (unless it's AFMBE where the theme is your survive as long as you can in a zombie infested world). I'll have to implement this the next time I DM or suggest it to my friends who are. Brilliant! We have also added that at the end of an adventure - new plot points can be awarded as 'prizes' for excellent role play (but they can never have more than 3 at a time)... My players LOVE Plot Points.... I also let them use them to steer the plot towards their goals as well (within reason)... sometimes this results in rather interesting plot twists and sub-plots when two or more players get into "Plot line wars" - editing each others additions to the story line... Real fun! edit to add: But the GM has to keep a firm hand on the 'silliness' factor, and also keeping the main plot thread intact... Edited October 3, 2012 by Taun Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taun Posted October 3, 2012 #27 Share Posted October 3, 2012 I have played RPG's for a good portion of my life, haven't played for the last few years as I have not had the opprtunity. However do not let the fact that you may not live near other players hold you back if you really want to play. We live in an online world where you do not have to actually be face to face to interact with other gamers. There are many tools out there were you could set up online gaming session with relative ease. With a 30 second google search I found a website that lays out all sorts of tools for setting up online RPG play. http://rpgvirtualtabletop.wikidot.com/ This combined with the free program Ventrilo (online voice chat). You could play with anyone in the world. So if you cannot find local players go online and find some people that would be able to play at the times you can play. Heck you may be able to find some people on here even That looks interesting Grey... Thanks for posting... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Insanity Posted October 3, 2012 Author #28 Share Posted October 3, 2012 I have been using Fantasy Grounds II for a few years. www.fantasygrounds.com Has a chat window built in, virtual dice, there are rulesets for several games available, and if you are savvy with xml and lua, you can create your own. I've been looking at using roll20.net at some point in the future, bit simpler, but really all you need I think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HawkLord Posted October 3, 2012 #29 Share Posted October 3, 2012 I am currently playing D&D4E with a group of friends and family. Our GM happens to be in England and we are all here in Australia so we have to hook the laptop up to the tv. He can see us thru the webcam but all we can see of him is the game map he controls, he uses MasterPlan. Its a great way to play. Also we sometimes play a little Call of Cthulu. We would use MapTool but we keep getting connection problems with it. One of the things we like to use in D&D is the fumble rule. Its when you roll a 1 on attack roll, an example would be with the archer, the Gm would say "Your grip on the bow sudenly slips causing it to fly back and hit you in the face." He could then give some kind of penalty for the archers next attack roll. It can be damned funny at times. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Insanity Posted October 3, 2012 Author #30 Share Posted October 3, 2012 Our D&D DM used the fumbles and criticals tables, and more often then not, they worked to our benefit. Our group knew how each other of us worked fairly well, ironically my dwarf's best friend was the half-orc. The rogue had to adjust a bit as his first session with the group, he left the room where the rest of us were fighting, went down another corridor, hoping to get behind the rest somehow as he saw another door behind them. He opened the door to the new room and was confronted with about half a dozen hobgoblins sitting around a table enjoying a meal. Of course he lead all back to us. From then on, doors were his to deal with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grey14 Posted October 3, 2012 #31 Share Posted October 3, 2012 My favorite character that I played was a paladin that had horrible luck. I mean I would roll incrediably bad at times when I needed it to count. Such as one time when he was trying to save some peasants from an orge/goblin cave he rolled so bad on a roll that he fell through a rotten floor into what served as a flushing channel for the waste water of the cave (ie outhouse) and got flushed out of the cave and into a small river along with the rest of his party. Needless to say the peasants didnt make it and my character took it to heart as a failure on his part. And there were lots of situations he ran it that had outcomes like that, kind of like he almost would get to the end and save the day but invaraibly something stops him and he falls short. So it added to his character since in his eyes any failure to protect the weak reflected on him. Now on the flipside there were several times when the situation was so dire(twice in this characters life) he was able to call to his diety and his rolls were so perfect that his diety would intervine and aid him. So in all though he was flawed he was also blessed and it was fun to play him. Even had a good name if i say so myself. Elsaheed Sabban Sadot Rushdin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taun Posted October 3, 2012 #32 Share Posted October 3, 2012 One of the things I like best about our game is that there are no Classes... You are just people (of whatever type)... Classes (we feel) are too restrictive... In real life I can learn just about anything I want, so why would I want to limit my fantasy to a select few skill sets?... If I want my character to be a sword weilding priest who knows a lot of mage type spells - so be it... Plus we have open ended skills... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Insanity Posted October 4, 2012 Author #33 Share Posted October 4, 2012 One reason I like Battlelords is that there are no classes, and no levels. There are a lot of skills, and your character is defined by what skill he/she has. Some races are better at some skills then others, and there are few restrictions. Experience points earned go to skill points, which are used to increase skills. A character is usually described in terms of how many experience points they've earned vs. class levels. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DieChecker Posted October 4, 2012 #34 Share Posted October 4, 2012 I do like class-less games, but it sometimes makes it uneven if some Players make their Characters much better then the others. This happens all the time in various super hero games where it is all based on points and managing your points. We one time worked up characters in Hero System, I think, that were to represent our own selves. It is interesting how some people think they are super intellegent and other thing they are super diplomatic and both are wrong. I got mondo skills because I had finished my Bachelor Degree and also been 4 years in the Army, while other Players had only done Sales since they were 20. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DieChecker Posted October 4, 2012 #35 Share Posted October 4, 2012 I do like the way the old *** (Chtulu) let your skills increase the more you used them. If you did well on a skill roll, your ability in that skill advanced. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Insanity Posted October 4, 2012 Author #36 Share Posted October 4, 2012 (edited) Yep, in Cthulhu I've had a few players get a few skills as starting characters in the 80s, knowing that when they get them above 90, they get some Sanity points back right away. One thing I've never really cared about with D&D is the spell slots, and having to memorized such spells as "Indentify" just on the off chance the need may arise for it. I did like in 4E were many of the 'non-combat' spells were made into rituals, and a wizard always had some spell or magic at his disposal, rather then using the last prepared spell slot and then switching to a light crossbow or staff. Edited October 4, 2012 by Insanity Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taun Posted October 4, 2012 #37 Share Posted October 4, 2012 In our game we have defined General Skills (like Mathematics, Bladed Weapons, Scavenging...etc)... we have no defined specific skills.... A player opens a General Skill - lets say "Scavenging" - it's Success Chance is based on the characters Governing Attribute and Talent (All General Skills have one of each) and modified by the Skills Difficulty Factor (DF)... We call these "Blue SKills" becasue on the Character Sheet (An Excel Spreadsheet) the Skills are in a Blue colored cell... The "Blue Skill" also has a factor called "Blocks"... Scavenging happens to have 30 blocks... To open a subskill (specific skill ) under Scavenging (say - "Technical" - scavenging for usefull bits of scrap technology) you would have to study and/or practice the skill for enough time (successful die roles - or study period) to reduce the 30 "Blocks" to 0 then you open the Sub skill to rank 1 (10 is MAX) - you remove various numbers of blocks by way of various levels of success... Since there are no clearly defined Specialty Skills - the Players create their own and the Success Chances are derived from the Blue Skill.... (with GM approval of course)... A person has no "Level" but is defined by their skill level in specific (or general) knowledge... Raising a Skill is through practice/study or use... We have 3 levels of Success... Regular Success (RS) - which earns the specific skill 1d20 Learning Points (LPs), Critical Success (CS) which earns 1 Experience Point (XP) and Heroic Success (HS) which earns 2 XPs... There are also 3 levels of Failure: RF (1d10 LPs because you can learn from failure) CF and HF which bring dire consequences... When a skill has 100 LP's they are converted to 1 XP... When the skill has 1 more XP than it's level the skill level goes up and all XP's LPs are erased... Magic/Psionics works more or less the same way except you only increase through Success (no LP's for RF)... Also there are no "Blue Spells"... All spells are created by the Player Characters (though they are then added to the Spell List and incorporated into the game)... Subject to GM approval and modification of course... It really involves the players not only in story telling but in Game Design - and allows for some very interesting and fun tailoring of the Characters... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taun Posted October 4, 2012 #38 Share Posted October 4, 2012 (edited) Here is an excerpt from a character's skill sheet: Everything is rolled for on d100 and yes you can have a Success Chance higher than 100 - remember it is modifed by the Difficulty Factor (DF) - the first Blue Number after the Blue SKill Name each DF subtracts 5 from the Success Chance to a minimum of 5... The Red number on the Right end of the Blue line is the Block Number for each subskill... Under that number is where you would keep track of Blocks remaining - or if you know the Skill, LPs... The XPs are kept track of in the Left hand column... The first block with an abbreviated word in it is the Governing Talent (natural ability of the Character - gained at birth), the next name is the Players Governing Attribute for that Skill... Skill Level is the third number from the right and the second from the right is the Success Chance... We put this on a spreadsheet so we don't have to constantly calculate formulae... Edited October 4, 2012 by Taun Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DieChecker Posted October 4, 2012 #39 Share Posted October 4, 2012 Looks pretty cool Taun. I played in a sci-fi game with my friends that one of them home-brewed that had skills much like that. But how we improved the skill was by logging time in training. So if you wanted to go from 3 to 4, it might take 80 hours of study, and then 200 hours to go from 4 to 5. But... the amount of time varied according to how specific the skill was. Having a skill at Super Mario Brothers would be a lot quicker to learn then a general Video Games skill. Thus most of us ended up with a few general skills and lots of specific skills that were developed over the game time. Starship Maintenance might take 500 hours to go from 2 to 3, and Starship Engine Maintenance might take only 200 hours from 2 to 3, but Starship Engine (Mark V Venture Industries) would only take 20 hours to go from 2 to 3. And then usually there was bleed over depending on how specific the skill was, so having a level 6 in that one starship engine would give you a 4 in all starship engines, and maybe a 3 in overall maintenance. But the time to get to level 6 on that one engine would be more then what was needed for level 4 general engines, so there was no loophole that way. The thing was that usually we also had Projects that we were working on at the same time, like improving the said Venture Industries engine, or working on the data for a new hyperspace route, or in direct adventuring, so you had to plan your Down Time with some care, so that your projects got done, but your skills also improved. (Since we were the Heros of the story, the story kept constantly moving toward bigger bosses and more dangerous activities, not increasing skills was a sure way to fail.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Night Walker Posted October 4, 2012 #40 Share Posted October 4, 2012 I played some D&D in high school but in order to turn individual games into lengthy campaigns I had to run the game myself. Afterwards I did the same for Call of Cthulu (which is just such a cool genre) and Vampire: The Masquerade. However, running games and campaigns takes a LOT of preparation time and work. To get the role-playing experience (ie to become absorbed with your character) I joined a LARP (live action role playing) group based on Vampire: The Masquerade which is more about Machavellian supernatural politics in which the characters are monsters struggling to hold on to their own humanity. My character was a crazy prankster vampire and I suspect that I was able to get away with much mischieve simply because I was good fun to have around. I found that I had most enjoyment playing the character when I cut loose, focused solely on the character's story, and lived in the moment rather than worried about what I should do in order to stay alive. It was a character that lasted until the End of the World (ie when international story arc came to an end). I haven't done any RPGs or LARPs for a while but would love to explore Changeling: The Lost or Deadlands (love the steampunk genre and Doomtown is my favourite CCG). Has anyone played these? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Insanity Posted October 4, 2012 Author #41 Share Posted October 4, 2012 One of my favorite characters was a gnome rogue. When we started playing it was AD&D 2E, and eventually we converted over to 3rd when it came out. In short, the gnome was a b******. More a cat burglar, most notably, he had murdered a family of elves once when a job went bad. Then the crime was framed onto another gnome by the guild he belonged too. Additionally, our group was on some quest, I think to find pieces of a broken rod. An evil wizard wanted it, and somehow I was kidnapped by him, and after some torturous nights in his tower, I was given a choice of spying on the group for him, or death. I chose to spy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MissMelsWell Posted October 5, 2012 #42 Share Posted October 5, 2012 How geeky is this? I have one group of friends who have essentially been playing the same D&D game for ... 33 years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taun Posted October 5, 2012 #43 Share Posted October 5, 2012 How geeky is this? I have one group of friends who have essentially been playing the same D&D game for ... 33 years. We tend to retire our characters after a few years... Usually they become too powerful after a while... or too beat up... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Insanity Posted October 5, 2012 Author #44 Share Posted October 5, 2012 How geeky is this? I have one group of friends who have essentially been playing the same D&D game for ... 33 years. That gnome was part of a game that lasted for about 13 years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DieChecker Posted October 7, 2012 #45 Share Posted October 7, 2012 How geeky is this? I have one group of friends who have essentially been playing the same D&D game for ... 33 years. That is Absolutely Fantastic. I love these games that keep good friends together forever. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DieChecker Posted October 7, 2012 #46 Share Posted October 7, 2012 (edited) One of my favorite characters was a gnome rogue. When we started playing it was AD&D 2E, and eventually we converted over to 3rd when it came out. In short, the gnome was a b******. More a cat burglar, most notably, he had murdered a family of elves once when a job went bad. Then the crime was framed onto another gnome by the guild he belonged too. Additionally, our group was on some quest, I think to find pieces of a broken rod. An evil wizard wanted it, and somehow I was kidnapped by him, and after some torturous nights in his tower, I was given a choice of spying on the group for him, or death. I chose to spy. One of my fav characters was a 3E Halfling Rogue/Fighter who self assigned himself to the partys Paladin/Knight as Squire. He was hilarious on his Riding Dog following Sir Andrew and telling the peasents to bow down and talking smack to the various bad guys how SIr Andrew was going to drop them in one shot and such. And the resulting, "YOU ARE NOT MY SQUIRE!!", in the middle of combat was almost too much. I think his name was Bartamaius Hollowhill, Bart for short, and he (By good luck and some fast-talking) had the feats, classes and levels to dual-wield two mastercrafted, repeating, hand crossbows. Sure a hand crossbow does 1d4 or some such, but combined with bonus, sneak attack, poison and magical effects and such he was able to drop anything less then a bugbear in one shot. He also had a weakness for candy and pies and got the party tossed out of more then one town for the occational unplanned pie theft. (Why do those housewives always put the pie in the front window? Don't they know that is impossible for a Chaotic Neutral halfling Thief to resist???) Good times. Edited October 7, 2012 by DieChecker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mysticwerewolf Posted October 7, 2012 #47 Share Posted October 7, 2012 (edited) < has played the D&D box set ( original basic set by gary gygax), AD&D first edition, 3.0 and 3.5 and pathfinder I've also played car wars and D20 modern Zombie Apocalypse Edited October 8, 2012 by mysticwerewolf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taun Posted October 8, 2012 #48 Share Posted October 8, 2012 < has played the D&D box set ( original basic set by gary gygax), AD&D first edition, 3.0 and 3.5 and pathfinder I've also played car wars and D20 modern Zombie Apocalypse Car Wars is a fun game... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mysticwerewolf Posted October 8, 2012 #49 Share Posted October 8, 2012 (edited) it's been a long time since i played car wars. I could never get enough money or equipment to make the vehicle i wanted and always died early in the game I much perfer fantasy gaming ( I like dragons and ....other mythical creatures ) Edited October 8, 2012 by mysticwerewolf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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