MCWOD and Amber d20

[finarvyn]

I never reallly thought that Amber could be done using the d20 system. Too mathematical, not loose enough for my liking.

Then I bought a copy of Monte Cook's World of Darkness, which takes the familiar lines of Vampire/Werewolf/Mage and puts them together in a 3.5E format. I'm not a fan of 3E but really like the way this book reads so far, in terms of the way the levels are charted out (the classes essentially become "Vampire" or "Werewolf" or whatever) and the magic system is nice because it allows for custom spells (ala SAGA system) and exhaustion rather than a pre-determined number of spells per day. There are special feats for each class/race, as well as general feats for all characters. It just seems to be well written overall.

So why post this on an ADRP forum?

Well, we've had a few discussion threads about using different systems to run Amber campaigns, and the first two settings that immediately popped into my brain were Amber and Harry Dresden. I have no plans to run WOD in the actual WOD universe, but now I think that it would be possible to create a d20 Amber rulebook in a way that could actually be fun to play. I'll bet that feats could be generated for each major power (pattern, logrus, etc) and the powers could correspond to classes.

Just thought I would share.

[joewolz]

I'd love to see a full review on Monte Cook's WoD.  I mostly just want it for the mechanics, but if it's a cool thing, I'll get it.  I just want a review

[RPGPundit]

I'd be very curious to see someone try to make a set of rules for Amberites in D20 that didn't utterly break that game.

RPGPundit

[finarvyn]

For me, it's funny that I even like the book. I'm not a huge Monty Cook fan and I don't enjoy most of the WOD stuff that I've bought. Somehow the combination hit the right note for me.

[Croaker]

Aaaargh!!!!

Really sorry on this one, I really despise the whole level and hit points thing, and this.... *shudder*

More seriously... I see already a problem, that even appeared in the Black Compagny Sourcebook (I actually bought this as a kind of encyclopedia. BtW, the magic system is nice, although not without his flaws), where some humans can wisthand ballista bolts, even with the massive damage rules. You'd have the same thing here. Fiona, 500HPs... ... ...

So, even with an unarmed PC with human warfare (in amber system), benedict would still take ages to kill you because of the 300 HPs granted you by your level 30 PatternMaster Class. I don't know if i'm clear on this one, but this seems like pure nonsense to me...

Grevious wounds and quick death are all part of the amber setting, but are tied to skill rather than randomness or just lack of overall experience (low levels and HPs).

In fact, the WoD system would IMO do a much better Amber than the D20.

[finarvyn]

Really sorry on this one, I really despise the whole level and hit points thing, and this.... *shudder*.

Why do people hate levels? All a "level system" represents is a simple template where characters can be set up without the need of identifying every nit-picking skill and such. If I did an Amber game with levels, I would simply set up each "class" as a power and decide which abilities would be gained at each level. Somehow, this bothers people.

As far as disliking hit points go, I wonder if this is based on a faulty understanding of the "hit point" and what it's supposed to mean. Going back to some of the Gygax editorials from 1974, one finds that a hit point is an abstracted way to represent the skill of a character to avoid taking damage; in other words if a 1st level character gets hit by a spear he might die but a 6th level character would be more likely to get a "flesh wound" instead of a solid hit. At no point were hit points ever really designed so represent a character taking a bazooka to the chest and shrugging it off. (Of course, back then the game wasn't strangled by rules, so a character intentionally taking a bazooka to the chest would have just died without the DM bothering to roll, so maybe OD&D and ADRP aren't that different after all.)

The problem happens as characters gain higher and higher levels and therefore gain more hit points. The orignal game was designed so that "hero" characters were level 4 and "superhero" characters level 8. Hit points could get big, sure, but not so gigantic as to upset the entire game system. As newer editions came out, the "hit point" became a coin of the realm and having them made you invincible. This philosophical change is when many of us began to dislike what Dungeons & Dragons was becoming. As level inflation went wild, they had to come up with artificial rules to account for massive damage and so on. (yawn)

In my campaign, if the top characters hit levels in the 8-10 range then some of the Elders could be around 12th. Nowhere near 500 hit points, at least the way I see the game being played.

So ... my plan iwould be to take the MCWOD rules and go back in time to the earlier versions of D&D that I love to play. The fact that I will need to tweak the rules to make them fit my campaign doesn't take away from the fact that the book is well done IMO.

Just my opinion.

[TonyLB]

Grevious wounds and quick death are all part of the amber setting, but are tied to skill rather than randomness or just lack of overall experience (low levels and HPs).

Grievous wounds?  Unquestionably.

Quick death?

I mean, I know I'm a bit limited, because of not having ever really grooved on the Merlin books (I'm a Corwin man at heart ... and I don't even have the decency to be ashamed of it), but ... I don't recall any incidences of quick death.

Eric is described as dying after many, many, many wounds in a grimly lop-sided battle ... and Fiona takes care to point out that the wounds themselves were not even what killed him.

Even Brand taking an arrow in the throat and falling into the very universal embodiment of nothingness ... does anyone actually believe that zeroed out his HPs?

I'm not so sure that I buy that quick death is a common trope in the books.

[Otha]

Yeah, if ANY setting actually makes the D20 level system make sense it's Amber.

OTOH I don't like prescriptive rule systems, that is, systems that say, "WIth this power, you can do this, this, and this... and nothing else."  It slows down creative play.

[Cab]

(Of course, back then the game wasn't strangled by rules, so a character intentionally taking a bazooka to the chest would have just died without the DM bothering to roll, so maybe OD&D and ADRP aren't that different after all.)

Thats an excellent point. Entirely correct IMHO, which is why if I was running an Amber game with a system other than DRPG I'd do it on OD&D, or at most BX.

So ... my plan iwould be to take the MCWOD rules and go back in time to the earlier versions of D&D that I love to play. The fact that I will need to tweak the rules to make them fit my campaign doesn't take away from the fact that the book is well done IMO.

Something like old fashioned classic D&D up to, say, name level, with the addition of weapon mastery rules from the RC or Masters set... Faff about with magic a bit to get the flavour right for Amber, and it would work a treat.

[joewolz]

So ... my plan iwould be to take the MCWOD rules and go back in time to the earlier versions of D&D that I love to play. The fact that I will need to tweak the rules to make them fit my campaign doesn't take away from the fact that the book is well done IMO.

That's why I want a review.  Maybe I can use some of the monsters and stuff in C&C.

[Otha]

OD&D was just as prescriptive as modern versions, it just prescribed fewer things.

I'd use another descriptive system on the same order as ADRP.

[Cab]

OD&D was just as prescriptive as modern versions, it just prescribed fewer things.

And because it prescribes less things, its less prescriptive.

I'd use another descriptive system on the same order as ADRP.

To be honest I think you could use any fairly rules light fantasy came if you chose to do so. Tunnels and Trolls, if you fiddled with spells rather, would be as good as any.

[Croaker]

Why I dislike levels in general?
You can't pick any new knowledge until you've gained one (the broken progression thing).
It gets harder and harder to learn anything, even if it is the basics of the skill. While I completely agree that improving a high skill should be difficult, I can't see why a 1-st level wizard of 20 years could learn equitation rather easily (few XP => level 2) while a 10-level wizard of 30 would have to toil and cry for it (lots of XP => level 11).
This makes more and more static characters.
OTOH, in the aforementionned WoD universe, you may have 5 points in all your skills and attributes save equitation, it won't get any harder to learn than if you were a beginning character.

a hit point is an abstracted way to represent the skill of a character to avoid taking damage; in other words if a 1st level character gets hit by a spear he might die but a 6th level character would be more likely to get a "flesh wound" instead of a solid hit.

I know this one, I've read both basic D&D (when you were limited to level 3) and 3.0
This always struck me a a valiant and doomed try to rationnalize a thing that, in some settings, is utterly ludicrous.
"Too bad I just dodged 2 ballista shots 30 minutes ago, I'm now too tired to dodge a sword blow", or "lucky me, i just dodged this artillery shot that fell right on me" :roofle:
The rationnalisation of the system doesn't change the way things work. This may be great fun, but isn't appropriate to every game and style of play.

Btw, in a swordfight between 2 high-level characters, one warfare-based, the other psyche-based, the first would still do his basic sword damage, and need to cut his way through his opponent's HPs, even if, in the Amber Game, he would have died instantly due to his Human Warfare.

I also hate the fact that, against similar opponents, at low levels, you're saved by your armor and AC, while at high levels, it's more your HPs that do the trick. And the whole "all or nothing" of armor... I really dislike the fact that, if you're hit, your armor will never make a single difference. On this point, GURPS had it right to me: Armor both deflected blows (passive resistance) and lessened them (damage resistance).

Don't bother, though, this is just personnal taste, I can very well understand why people would like this

Quick death?

I mean, I know I'm a bit limited, because of not having ever really grooved on the Merlin books (I'm a Corwin man at heart ... and I don't even have the decency to be ashamed of it), but ... I don't recall any incidences of quick death.

Because you're considering ranked opponents, with differences between mostly differences in ranks.
In amber, an unharmed human-warfare-ranked character with very high psyche going up against an harmed ranked character spells instant decapitation. In a d20-based system, it would take some good sword bashes before he dies.
In amber, you can always die quickly if you're outclassed and fight nonetheless. As levels get higher and higher, this is less and less the case.

As per the wound of Brand, ok, maybe he was still alive. But he was mostly out of the fight. After one single arrow. Not after 24. This is mythic stamina, not "You need a volley of ballista shots to stop me in one strike".

And while we're talking about amberites. If someone points a gun at corwin, or a PC for that matter, he will take the man seriously, even if if's only a shadow human, because a single bullet can kill him. With a d20 amber, this would just be "no problem, a handgun does 1D8, I have over 150HPs, I fear nothing".

Sure, this changes somewhat if you keep levels down. But then, aside from the fact that I doubt most people would limit themselves in the same way, you have a skill problem, in that you characters will not be the founts of knowledge amberites are. Hell, even a beginning PC can have enough skill to make any 20th-level character jealous.
12-th level amberites? Sure. Problem is, after a month of play by the rules, we were already level 9... Sure, it was tough, and we had to be clever bastards. But we did it (and the game was great fun, too). The elders sure wouldn't have lookek so tough.

I saw it before, you can adapt d20 to anything, sure, just as you can adapt any system to anything. But if you want to really fit the setting, this often requires massive changes that make it's no longer D20, which is probably the reason I've never seen it really done. If you don't do these changes, the system usually doesn't fit. The most daring attempt I've seen was the BC sourcebook (free magic rules, massive damage, no races templates...), and it was broken

If you decides that the gunshot, or the ballista for that matter, kills corwin or your PC, you're already way past usual D20 and into the realm of descriptive narating, amber-drpg style.

[Cab]

Why I dislike levels in general?
You can't pick any new knowledge until you've gained one (the broken progression thing).
It gets harder and harder to learn anything, even if it is the basics of the skill. While I completely agree that improving a high skill should be difficult, I can't see why a 1-st level wizard of 20 years could learn equitation rather easily (few XP => level 2) while a 10-level wizard of 30 would have to toil and cry for it (lots of XP => level 11).
This makes more and more static characters.

In classic D&D, a 10th level magic user learning a new first level spell can do so very easily. And a 1st level magic user learning a new spell can do so very easily. A 10th level magic user learning a 2nd level spell can do so easily, but the 1st level one can't do so at all.

Bear in mind that level progression doesn't always get slower because the numbers are bigger; generally, risks faced are more serious so the rewards are greater, and the rate of progression remains similar. This means that your tenth level wizar isn't toiling and crying any more than the 1st level wizard.

I see what you're saying, but I think its down to a misinterpretation of what a level based system does. And I therefore see no obvious reason why it shouldn't be possible to use such a system for Amber.

I know this one, I've read both basic D&D (when you were limited to level 3) and 3.0
This always struck me a a valiant and doomed try to rationnalize a thing that, in some settings, is utterly ludicrous.
"Too bad I just dodged 2 ballista shots 30 minutes ago, I'm now too tired to dodge a sword blow", or "lucky me, i just dodged this artillery shot that fell right on me" :roofle:
The rationnalisation of the system doesn't change the way things work. This may be great fun, but isn't appropriate to every game and style of play.

I don't see hit points as being like that. I think that there are two ways that make sense.

Firstly, treat them like Amber 'stuff'. Hit points define finite 'good stuff'. When you run out of it, you're likely to suffer wounds.

Secondly, treat them like a sort of karma; the more 'important' you are in the world, the more powerful you have become, the more the story shines on you, the more knocks you'll take before you die. Doesn't mean you can step in front of a ballista (the DM should just say that you die!), but it does mean that you'll survive more things. Plot immunity, in other words, which is part of why hit point based systems lend themselves to 'fantasy' games.

Would it work for Amber? I dunno. I'd have to think about it.

Btw, in a swordfight between 2 high-level characters, one warfare-based, the other psyche-based, the first would still do his basic sword damage, and need to cut his way through his opponent's HPs, even if, in the Amber Game, he would have died instantly due to his Human Warfare.

If I were to adapt D&D for amber, I'd incorporate the weapon mastery system from the Masters set and RC. High warfare characters would have high weapon mastery in a number of weapons, and they'd cut low warfare characters (without mastery or with low mastery) to ribbons very, very quickly.

I also hate the fact that, against similar opponents, at low levels, you're saved by your armor and AC, while at high levels, it's more your HPs that do the trick. And the whole "all or nothing" of armor... I really dislike the fact that, if you're hit, your armor will never make a single difference. On this point, GURPS had it right to me: Armor both deflected blows (passive resistance) and lessened them (damage resistance).

True, its a limitation of the D&D systems, but then again you should remember that D&D has never been a swing-per-roll system, its not a recreationist game, the hit rolls represent a number of attempts to hit. The all or nothing armour makes more sense in that context. But you're right, if you're after a more dramatic system then you could go for damage reduction instead/aswell.

Your other ponints about skills and adaptation from d20 I agree with. I wouldn't use d20 for amber for those reasons. I'd use classic D&D, and I'd modify it a little. Although I'm also of the opinion that Tunnels and Trolls would be a great way of doing it.

[Otha]

I think the attraction of the "early" systems like TnT and OD&D stems from the fact that when player actions strayed outside the rules, Gamemasters would improvise, intuit, deduce and fiat their way through the issue... just like in Amber, difference being that they have dice around to bolster their authority.