Quote from: RPGPundit;370896For designed, I want games that are simple, even if they have a lot of parts.  Over the Edge is simple, and so is Starblazer Adventures, and so is the Palladium system, each having progressively more parts.  Whereas games like Nobilis, 4e, Champions, etc. are not simple.

I like unified game mechanics as a rule, but toolkits are the most important thing for me.
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I'm with you on these. Also, as a GM  I want small stat blocks, quick combats, and a mook rule for tracking health. I want a system I can tweak on one end without it breaking somewhere else. I like minis for display but I don't want a game that requires their use.   D6 System and Genrediversion 3 are perfect fits for me.

Assuming the op definition of playstyle means how it's presented in the book, I want a game that offers a lot of diverse opportunities for adventure and more importantly EXAMPLES of these different scenarios that I can use for inspiration. Don't just tell me that a good gm can run any type of adventure using Kingdoms of Kuzah'aiin , assume I'm a crappy GM and show me how.

Pete

Quoteand a mook rule for tracking health...

Argh minions.
Am I alone in the universe in hating these? Even as a player I'd rather have my character shine in playbecause  he's made to be awesome, instead of because the monsters are preset to explode.

Quote from: RPGPundit;370896For designed, I want games that are simple, even if they have a lot of parts.  Over the Edge is simple, and so is Starblazer Adventures, and so is the Palladium system, each having progressively more parts.  Whereas games like Nobilis, 4e, Champions, etc. are not simple.

I like unified game mechanics as a rule, but toolkits are the most important thing for me.
RPGPundit

I prefer Palladium to 4e D&D too, but I don't really understand your post.  How is Palladium more "simple" than 4e?  I recognize that you acknowledged the "lot of parts" and don't mind it, but what makes one more "simple" than the other?

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;371022Argh minions.
Am I alone in the universe in hating these? Even as a player I'd rather have my character shine in playbecause  he's made to be awesome, instead of because the monsters are preset to explode.

Mook rules are not necessarily for bashing nameless hordes of minions. They are simpler rules for big scale fights. For example, my own "mook" rules for my games:

Rather than tracking Constitution (HP) for each NPC, If you hit for X (very high) they go down, for less than X, they take a wound. 3 wounds and they're down. Simplified bookkeeping. Their hits don't do less damage than a PC either.

-clash

• I prefer skill-based systems. I don't care for classes.
• I'd prefer to use all my polyhedral dice, though I can live without it. I like Savage Worlds for this reason, though I dislike the clunky probability curves.
• Experience should be simple and elegant. I've always disliked D&D's soaring XP totals.
• In general I tend towards high-powered, non-gritty, fast-and-loose play style.

I'll guess that by "simple", Pundit means the number of rules acting on a situation at a given time? Each of Palladium's subsystems is reasonably straightforward on its own, just that there are a lot of them. Guessing this is actually a benefit of a non-unified system...if rules live in different compartments you don't need as many caveats and notes to make the same core mechanic "stretch" to do everything?

4e isn't really complex in rules structure, but there can be a fair bit of 'tracking' of often minor details (position, powers used, conditions, attacks of opportunity)

Clash: depending on what X (damage threshold) is, your system's really not so different from regular combat, just with rounding.  I only really squeal if X = automatically 1 (Feng Shui, 4e). Particularly for 4e, where the monsters arbitrarily get 1 HP (despite HP determination giving everyone +Con to HP!) or hundreds.
Mostly I like systems where higher levels or good to-hit rolls ramp up the damage enough that HP tracking isn't needing for the orcs. Unlike D&D, I ideally like multiple opponents to penalize the PCs defense too, so 1-hero-vs. lots-of-low-level-scum is actually a fair fight.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;371090Clash: depending on what X (damage threshold) is, your system's really not so different from regular combat, just with rounding.  I only really squeal if X = automatically 1 (Feng Shui, 4e). Particularly for 4e, where the monsters arbitrarily get 1 HP (despite HP determination giving everyone +Con to HP!) or hundreds.
Mostly I like systems where higher levels or good to-hit rolls ramp up the damage enough that HP tracking isn't needing for the orcs. Unlike D&D, I ideally like multiple opponents to penalize the PCs defense too, so 1-hero-vs. lots-of-low-level-scum is actually a fair fight.

Hi SBJ!

Yes, exactly. It's just way easier to track in a big combat - that's what it's for. I can look at a sheet of paper with each enemy listed, and one, two, or three ticks telling me his status. No numbers. X can be ramped, of course, depending on the enemy. For humans, it's quite high. Mine are not the only games where mook rules work this way - I never invent where I can steal - so I was just saying it's not really mook rules per se that are the problem. It's how they are implemented.

-clash

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson1) Lately I've tended to work on 2-way mechanics system where you're interfacing two different basic resolution mechanics: e.g. d20 roll under for success/fail and then a die-pool or step die (e.g. d4 to d12 depending on stat) for how well - then you've got a platform where you have the latititude to choose either mechanic exclusively for some rolls. Some mechanics work really well for some things and really badly for other things, so its nice to have some choices.

 2) Unifed character/monster mechanics...yep, totally agree here. Simpler and fairer. I'd probably take this a step further: I don't really like how some games divide the player's and GM's stuff into 'my things' and 'your things', e.g. how Alchemists are an NPC-only class in Palladium Fantasy for example, or how 4e D&D engineered out  monster criticals that would make combat unpredictable by making decent critical damage need a magical weapon, something monsters don't get.

3) Unique character abilities/feats....here, I'm uncertain. Its nice for characters to have unique abilities, but I like interesting/cinematic events in play (the fighter leaping down on a guy from a tree for extra damage, attempting to disarm a guy with a super crossbow shot, whatever...) and once you've decided you need a feats to represent that, its largely unfair to let the people who haven't 'paid up' attempt it.

For 1) I don't know if I like degrees of success using a different way to read the dice (which sounds like what you're saying). I've messed with it for hit locations and I prefer just having a second roll. But single resolution mechanics aren't an absolute rule for me. I'd rather not shoehorn in something that didn't fit (like using a skill check to handle your reputation or what have you).

2) I know what you're saying and yeah, I hate that. There are maybe a handful of abilities that monsters might get that might break PCs, but alchemy? That just seems odd.

3) Game I'm writing tries to address that. A feat like mechanic handles race, spells, anything truly unique. "Ordinary" characters (fighters, humans, diplomats) can take perks like skill focus (which is actually useful in my game) and a number of perks that eliminate penalties for specific maneuvers everyone can attempt. The maneuvers themselves are just sample implementations for a potentially more on-the-fly stunt mechanic. That's how I like it to be: Everyone can try everything, but a character with a "signature move" or "fighting style" is just better at it.

Quote from: jibbajibba;370678You know I can agree with nearly all of this. Even point 7 (some PCs in a game of mine set in Thieve's world burn the city to the ground.)

In a world where everything is made of wood and the PCs are the right mix of amoral and smart, arson can solve lots and lots of problems.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;371022Argh minions.
Am I alone in the universe in hating these? Even as a player I'd rather have my character shine in playbecause  he's made to be awesome, instead of because the monsters are preset to explode.

Minion rules ought to be optional, and I prefer the method clash describes or something similar. High damage or a crit gets a one-hit kill. Otherwise, just track the total number of hits a mook can take (5 in my game).

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;371090Guessing this is actually a benefit of a non-unified system...if rules live in different compartments you don't need as many caveats and notes to make the same core mechanic "stretch" to do everything?

Makes a good bit of sense.  I certainly wouldn't have thought about it like that.  I suppose streamlined does not equal simple.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid JohnsonAm I alone in the universe in hating these? Even as a player I'd rather have my character shine in playbecause he's made to be awesome, instead of because the monsters are preset to explode.

Re: Minions...first, your quote has convinced me that if I ever run 4e I'll be sending a wave of minion Dragonlance draconians at the PCs.  The ones that explode when killed.

Second, I implemented a mook rule in a 3.x game that sounds like what Clash did.  My one-hit-kill threshold always equaled Hit Dice.  I think weaker hits (wounds) added up like this: second wound killed S, M size.  Add one wound per size category above M.  Though I don't recall ever using anything bigger than an ogre as a mook - starts to get silly past a point.

Clash: Yep fair enough. Maybe minions aren't that bad...And yep stealing is great...

Bishop:

QuoteRe: Minions...first, your quote has convinced me that if I ever run 4e I'll be sending a wave of minion Dragonlance draconians at the PCs. The ones that explode when killed.

lol. Always though Dragonborn would have actually fitted into Krynn (as Draconians), better than they did for FR. Actually, running 4E could be even more fun if the PCs were Draconians that are exploding.

I use to think that having a unified set of mechanics would be preferable.  But after playing 3E/3.5E/4E over the years, I'm not sure I still feel the same way about it.

Lately I've been playing a few evening pickup games with some friends, with a ruleset which looks like a simplified (or "dumbed down") version of OD&D or the basic or expert D&D box sets from the 1980's.

Beejazz: sorry with #1, I did mean using a second roll too (sorry). As an example of the sort of thing I tried (though awhile back) as a two-part system, say you have an "action roll" (to see if you hit/if your skill works), then an "effect roll" (to see how well). For instance on a normal roll, you might roll d20+DEX to see if you hit, then roll d10s equal to your STR vs. an armour target number and count the 'hits' for damage.

Then, you have a 'core mechanic' that gives you two possible ways of rolling - you could declare a task 'automatic' (no d20 roll) so that you can choose to just roll your bucket of d10s---for example you could say that spellcasting doesn't need a d20 roll, but needs the multiple-d10 roll to see how many levels of spell a character can cast, and have a fizzle on a 'botch'--or you can declare a roll to be 'fixed result' and just use a d20 (if you want to be able to roll a lot of rolls at the same time, say).
You can apply the idea to any pair of mechanics you want to use together, really...the idea being that you basically have 2 core mechanics to choose between for any task, and can still claim that you have a 'universal mechanic'.  Another application of the idea might be to (say) take D&D's damage system and make it universal, so that whenever you use a skill you roll a d6+stat mod, and interpret that to see how good the skill roll was, and you could have feats that work like Power Attack or Improved Critical for any given skill, not just combat.

2) Well Alchemists in Palladium fantasy do make the magic items, so it is a 'balance' thing. (PCs gotta pay). Still, I thought an Alchemist would make a great character in that system....off collecting demon blood and monster bits and strange herbs...and I would have liked the option to play one.

3) Yep that's probably a good way to do it, actually.

Quote from: flyingmice;371096Hi SBJ!

Yes, exactly. It's just way easier to track in a big combat - that's what it's for. I can look at a sheet of paper with each enemy listed, and one, two, or three ticks telling me his status. No numbers. X can be ramped, of course, depending on the enemy. For humans, it's quite high. Mine are not the only games where mook rules work this way - I never invent where I can steal - so I was just saying it's not really mook rules per se that are the problem. It's how they are implemented.

-clash

Yes. I started using mook rules with Star Wars WEG for stormtroopers. The PC's had gotten so powerful that stormtroopers didn't pose much threat but I still wanted them in there for effect. The fact that they could still do damage made them semidangerous and with mook rules could track their numbers rather than their health. Much simpler.

Pete

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;371090I'll guess that by "simple", Pundit means the number of rules acting on a situation at a given time? Each of Palladium's subsystems is reasonably straightforward on its own, just that there are a lot of them. Guessing this is actually a benefit of a non-unified system...if rules live in different compartments you don't need as many caveats and notes to make the same core mechanic "stretch" to do everything?

4e isn't really complex in rules structure, but there can be a fair bit of 'tracking' of often minor details (position, powers used, conditions, attacks of opportunity)

Yup, you got it exactly. I have to know a whole lot of little rules, track conditions, look up feats and powers, and all kinds of other shit; whereas in Palladium's system, everything just does its thing.

RPGPundit

1. Mechanics that emulate genre and flow easily in play. Boot Hill's Speed mechanics for gunfighting, Flashing Blades fencing rules - they take what's important about the genre and place it front and center, providing rules that give depth but don't bog down in actual play.

Five years ago I would've said something along the lines of, "Gimme a solid generic system and I'll make anything work." After renewing my interest in older roleplaying games, I'd have to say I prefer purpose-built rules systems.

Archetypes are fine for some games, but too limiting for others.

2. A small number of broadly defined skills. d20 has Jump, Climb, and Tumble; Flashing Blades has Acrobatics - FB wins.

Traveller started off that way, but allowed skill bloat to creep in; Admin was watered down by the inclusion of Trader and Legal, for example.

3. Status quo setting. The world is what it is, and it's up to the adventurers to find their way in it. I don't write adventures; I create a dynamic setting and the adventurers write the adventure with their actions.

4. Play 'em where they lie. Lots of random stuff, no fudging.