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Author Topic: Recommend me a System  (Read 2010 times)

Pseudoephedrine
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Recommend me a System
« Reply #30 on: January 23, 2010, 03:39:00 AM »
I really like Heavy Gear 2nd ed's system, which has undergone some permutations to become Silhouette. It scales well and has extensive vehicle design rules that cover everything from tanks and wheelchairs to submarines that fly and interstellar space ships. The only thing that might be an issue is experience over hundreds of sessions, if you are indeed thinking of running an extremely long campaign. It can be easy for chars to become godlike experts given enough XP.
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The Pernicious Light, or The Wreckers of Sword Island;
A Goblin's Progress, or Of Cannons and Canons;
An Oration on the Dignity of Tash, or On the Elves and Their Lies
All for S&W Complete
Playing: Dark Heresy, WFRP 2e

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jadrax

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« Reply #31 on: January 23, 2010, 08:44:50 AM »
Quote from: Phantom Black;357235
Well, i can only speak on behalf of the SW:GE and SW:EX editions i've read, but
IMAO both the granularity (Just FMI, why do you think that granularity matters with respect to long campaigns, and why do you think that SW might not match that expectation?)

The Granularity issue I think is based upon, out of the listed professions, you are already limited to picking either Investigator or Ace by the game setting. Once you pair down the game to stuff that is only relevant to those two professions, its hard to see how you can gain say 500 xp for a medium to long campaign of 5 years without ending up maxed out in everything relevant. As for why Granularity matters, it matters because all the players I know believe it does, they like to be mechanically diverse. and they like to have to make meaningful choices in advancement.

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And why do you think that the pursuit/dogfight rules are not that good?

As I have not made any comments upon the quality of the pursuit/dogfight rules, I cannot really answer this point.

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What makes you think that the vehicles rules for SW aren't good?

again, as I have not said the vehicles rules for SW aren't good, I cannot really make meaningful comment in reply to this.

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You could let the PCs have a vehicle that's modded, don't you?

It depends what you mean by 'modded'. If you mean 'modded' by them as players, No, they are part of a Military organisation that will very upset if the PCs start going all A-team on one of their precious Tanks, they can only afford to have 3 on stand-by at a time as it is, without having the PC's cut holes in them for alterations.

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Or are you bothered that the run-of-the-mill-stats for vehicles are... generic?


They do seem to be pretty generic, which is no bad thing, until you start running a game heavily based upon vehicles. So a Rhino would probably look something like this:

Spectrum Rhino TRU/SPV
Type: Wheeled Battle Tank
Acc/Top Speed: 8/80; Toughness: 80 (60); Crew: 1 + 2
Notes:
2 x A.M.C.M. (Star Deflectors); Anti-theft System; Concealed Weapons; Escape System (Ejector Seat); Extendable Battering Ram; Harpoon Gun; Heavy Armour; Improved Stabilizer; Life Support System; 2 x Magnetic Clamp Gun; Multi Wheel Drive; Night Vision; Sloped Armour +4; Smoke Screen
Weapons:
Turret mounted Quadruple Barrelled Rhino Cannon
2 x Fixed Forward Hunter Seeker Missile Launcher with 1 missile

Which I don't think there is anything wrong with, apart from it doesn't make me leap up and down with joy with the idea of the sheer power of of one of the mightiest machines in existence. It's just a bit to utilitarian I think.

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Or what am i missing?


Well you seem to be confusing my posts for someone else for a start, and thus are asking me questioned based upon opinions I do not have.

Casey777

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« Reply #32 on: January 25, 2010, 10:33:13 PM »
For Savage Worlds, the Strike Force 7 conversion is in the DTRPG Haiti Aid bundle and is GI Joe+.

You may also want to take a look at d6, which has free OGL versions for download here:
http://www.wegfansite.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1451
The Adventure books would be the most directly applicable, though the space ones might have goodies too. Filesizes can vary wildly for no apparent reason. The system handles scaling and has lots of vehicles for it (well at least lots of Star Wars vehicles).

I know a group that ran a d6 campaign for years but not sure if it handles 150+ sessions out the box, not having personally run a campaign that long in d6.

Much luck however you go about this, I like the Gerry Anderson shows too.

Bobloblah

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« Reply #33 on: January 26, 2010, 05:45:30 PM »
I was going to whole-heartedly recommend Silhouette (or even just Heavy Gear 2nd), but then noticed others' warnings about the system. I'm not sure I understand the 'granularity' comment in particular.

As for Silhouette, I have run a couple of very long campaigns with it, and have not run into issues with XP or character advancement. It's important not to hand out XP willy-nilly, but this is true with most systems. Moreover, as long as characters are properly challenged, at least some of their XP will get eaten by 'Emergency Dice' (for those moments when you must succeed). Not only that, but improvement costs are not linear, but increase exponentially instead. Players are simply not going to be able to max out skills and stats all over the place, even after a very long campaign.

The Silhouette system also covers all the rulesets you are looking for quite well, and they are all integrated. Be aware that the system can be truly lethal, depending on how you play, and that one of the solutions to that is the aforementioned Emergency Dice.
Best,
Bobloblah

Asking questions about the fictional game space and receiving feedback that directly guides the flow of play IS the game. - Exploderwizard

Doctor Jest

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« Reply #34 on: January 26, 2010, 07:14:07 PM »
Quote from: Nicephorus;356356
My memory is vague on those shows but Savage Worlds is a good choice.  It plays a bit faster than D20.  But it still has feats (called edges in SW)

Pet peeve point: It's the other way around. d20 has edges and calls them "feats". Savage Worlds came out of Deadlands, which had Edges, and predates d20.

That said, I'll jump on the bandwagon with recommending Savage Worlds.

frogspawner

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« Reply #35 on: January 28, 2010, 06:15:34 AM »
Quote from: jadrax;356485
Quote from: frogspawner;356479
BRP is easy because it's intuitive, not simplistic. Easier than D20 by better design.

Also, from BRP Central's downloads, you might like to try these BRP vehicle design rules. The author is working on Spaceship designs too, and was recruiting playtesters...
Thanks for the link, however as the author points out, 'Emphasis is on qucik and dirty as opposed to detailed and accurate. ...
OK, maybe it's not an exact fit as-is for what you want. But maybe others will find it just the ticket.

That's the basic reason for this posting - I fixed the link (it changed) - so now readers can find it!
Free Download of Chaosium's Basic RolePlaying Quick-Start from your friends at BRP Central!

jadrax

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« Reply #36 on: January 28, 2010, 09:09:02 PM »
Quote from: frogspawner;357913
OK, maybe it's not an exact fit as-is for what you want. But maybe others will find it just the ticket.

That's the basic reason for this posting - I fixed the link (it changed) - so now readers can find it!


Its certainty interesting and ended up on my hard-drive in case I ever do something needing vehicles in BRP.