Messages

1

General Chaos / Re: GenCon 2015 and the 6th Annual RPPR Fan Meet-up: The Edition Wars Edition

« on: July 24, 2015, 02:12:15 AM »

My first opportunity to attend Gen Con materialized on Sunday evening, and while I have a lovely itinerary and plans to run a set of informal games, this has left me in crisis mode looking for lodging.
If you need a male roommate to split costs with then please message me on the forums.
I'm a heavy sleeper and shower daily. I don't smoke, evangelize or run Palladium, but I won't hold it against you for doing any of those things.
Thank You!

2

RPGs / Re: Red Markets at GenCon/Upcoming Beta

« on: July 09, 2015, 01:43:16 AM »

My group is open for anything and is too lazy to play anything other than what our two GMs put in front of them. They have the patience and obsession to spend years on a campaign. The lack the assertion to demand we present them with a game not of our choosing.
We volunteer for campaign testing. May Augustine have mercy.

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Role Playing Public Radio Podcast / Re: Red Markets Alpha Playtest

« on: July 09, 2015, 01:23:23 AM »

Can't delete this post in the wrong thread, I'll think of an intelligent response when I have one.

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Role Playing Public Radio Podcast / Re: The Mitchum Cleary Time Loop?

« on: February 24, 2015, 05:49:32 PM »

Iafhtagn, you have accomplished a great work this day. For your excellence, insight, and obsession, I pass the title "even crazier RPPRchivist than I am" to you as Crawlkill once did to me. Long may you relisten.

5

General Chaos / Re: Kickstarter: Cool Stuff

« on: October 02, 2014, 02:17:43 PM »

It's an RTS from the Planetary Annihilation studio where the factions are Giant Robots versus Elder Things! Humans are the harvestable resource! Can you imagine the  Ross vs Aaron raillery potential?
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/659943965/human-resources-an-apocalyptic-rts-game

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RPGs / Re: the devotees???

« on: April 24, 2014, 04:32:46 AM »

It is.
One of the central npcs is Lam Cong Dong, the Nine Lives operative whose highlights include raising hell against the firewall squad (Know Evil episodes 1-3), being captured by Bartleby (episode 3, 1:34:35), being tortured by Bartleby until she worshipped him as god of the hunt (episode 12, 1:23:54), and dying for her god during the Erato Heist (episode 15, 2:14:36).
The inciting incident for the game is Lam acquiring a certain piece of Cognite's project AUGUSTINE and the ramifications of Lam delivering an incredibly advanced psychosurgery suite to an (insane?) crime lord.

In true Know Evil fashion, the players can only advance the plot by compromising their identities and sense of morality for knowledge no rational individual would want, and the central antagonist can pull off his philosophical mask to reveal the ultimate villains of any Caleb scenario: moral ambiguity and fundamental identity philosophy.

At the end of the scenario, one of the hooks presented would lead the surviving party or their Octopus-heavy replacements to follow up on project AUGUSTINE, which could lead them to having a certain THOUGHT. Perhaps they could KNOW EVIL.

7

Recruitment Board / Re: Looking to Start an ONLINE GROUP!

« on: April 07, 2014, 05:04:21 PM »

I feel like we should run a No Security scenario at some point simply because the idea of speedrunning a tabletop horror game amuses me.

A no security scenario? Darthrex, you muse of gamers!

I think I can put a session together where you speedrun all of them.

8

Recruitment Board / Re: Looking to Start an ONLINE GROUP!

« on: March 30, 2014, 08:33:59 PM »

I live on the extreme west end of North America. My availability varies but I tend to be free Friday-Sunday after 7:00 Central Time.

My group has little time to play so we're 4.5 years into our first d&d campaign. I like investigative games, and would love to run the No Security Hexalogy (Which I arrange as: Lover in the Ice-Revelations-Bryson Springs-Red Tower-Fall without End-Wives of March). Call of Cthulhu is a fairly simple game to play, and I know how to use Roll20 and Skype.

9

RPGs / Re: A Wild Mundane Challenge appeared! (looking for some ideas)

« on: March 11, 2014, 12:31:06 AM »

Donner Party 2: Electric Boogaloo

Donner Party 2: The Meat is You

Donner Party 2: Party Harder

Donner Party 2: Guess Who's Coming to Donner?

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RPGs / Re: Divine Fire?

« on: March 03, 2014, 01:24:32 PM »

Also, was a recording of part 3 ever posted? I recall Tom mentioning it on the podcast several years ago, then Glancy running Divine Fire Syria, then radio silence.

11

Role Playing Public Radio Podcast / Re: RPPR Gamedesign Workshop - To grog or not to grog.

« on: January 23, 2014, 02:40:13 AM »

I don't know if I want to look into using FATE Core like TO or wade into the eldritch bog of custom game mechanics, but I do know more or less what kind of gameplay I want from my system: the players will be working together to defeat singular, much more powerful enemies than them.

We're independently approaching the same mechanical concept. High five for Team overwhelming odds!

In addition, the players will die. Probably a lot. When they do they roll up new semi-random characters and continue with minimal penalty (You lose a certain amount of experience but not so much that you're useless to a veteran party depending on what 'tier' you're in) but they have to be careful not to experience an abundance of deaths or they will fail their assigned task/mission/operation as their master or whoever decides to avoid the sunken cost fallacy and just fires the survivors.

I would encourage group experience penalties. Turn it into a pool, so they don't have to immediately spend it. Say they've collectively gained 95 experience. As a group, they can collectively decide to spend 70 points to promote their planner, let's call him "Naleb", to the Monarch's right hand man. They split the remaining 25 points five ways and each buy 5 points of upgraded gear. Or maybe they take that 95 points and spend 15 on perfecting the Kobold-a-pault and use the other 80 to evolve their boss to his final form. Those adventurers are going to be surprised when they have to deal with the combined force of flying Kobolds and Mega-Cheney.

And if you use a pool, death penalties distribute along the entire group instead of the player who had a bad night. It represents the cost of having to integrate a new team member after cleaning the last one out of the shark tank.

How simple did you want the rules to be? Because I have a conflict resolution system sitting in my head that could handle the parts of the game players don't spend experience on. I will post that tomorrow and we can bash this new bashing system out!

12

Role Playing Public Radio Podcast / Re: RPPR Gamedesign Workshop - To grog or not to grog.

« on: January 22, 2014, 08:29:28 PM »

I see your point. Perhaps raising the success threshold to an 8 and allowing redistribution of damage on a 5-7? Or 6-7? That's more or less a 30% static evasion with 20-30% chance of redirecting the damage.

I think that's a model good enough for playtesting to start! A dodge chance of 40% fail 30% redirect 30% succeed seems weighted well enough for everyone except Tom. Either that or change redirect to 6-7 and make it 50% failure, because nobody complains about simpler math.

By the way, I can't wait for the mental combat supplement. "Vital areas: Id (3) Ego(2) Superego (1) Ego (2) Id (3). Total penetration eviscerates their self-identity."

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Role Playing Public Radio Podcast / Re: RPPR Gamedesign Workshop - To grog or not to grog.

« on: January 22, 2014, 07:57:43 PM »

What is the ultimate goal of a campaign? It is to break up Vanguard legally? To get the financial due the players are owed? Or to inflict a more personally crafted revenge?

In the words of General Payton "No plan survives contact with the players", so I see defining the approach as a mistake. Speaking about "The Kids Aren't Alright", any one of those goals has a risk/reward factor and the likelihood is that any of my gaming groups will combine several of them with the intent of maximizing the collateral damage inflicted on the Young Vanguard before they finish the job.

In the broader "Sling Stone" context there could be limiting factors- you can convince Superman to leave the Earth, but you have to put Batman down because just breaking his back/burying him alive/sending him back in time is not enough to stop him. If the campaign focuses on a Boys/Thunderbolts/Suicide squad style group the end goal could be recruiting the Superhuman in question. I'm imagining a "Team Aaron" campaign where the goal is to convince Supervillains to turn good... By any means necessary.

I forgot to add to the goals section that I'd like the individual members of the Vanguard to serve like tiers of play- they can take them out individually and ramp up against the target's power level. It's a lot easier to snipe the member whose head won't grow back.

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Role Playing Public Radio Podcast / Re: RPPR Gamedesign Workshop - To grog or not to grog.

« on: January 22, 2014, 07:40:26 PM »

Attack success is automatic unless prevented. Defender rolls to evade. On success the Defender avoids damage. On a failure the Defender can opt to change what is struck within narrative reason ("I hold my arm up to protect my head"). On 1 the attacker gets a clear shot.

Non-vital areas (arm, leg) are skin(1), muscle(2), bone(4), muscle(2), skin(1).

Vital areas (torso, head) are skin(1), muscle(2), bone(4), vitals (1), bone(4), muscle(2), skin(1).

While I find that the mechanics balance well, only having a 1/10 clear shot seems to mitigate the usefulness of having a call-shot style system. If the defender can dodge on 7-10 and change the area struck on 2-6 it seems like combat would devolve into "which of my limbs is the least damaged? I block with that one!"

Now, if perhaps a system was in place for amputation on a 10 instead of just a clear hit, blocking with a limb would have some real risk. Double bleed damage on an amputation? It would create the best Monty Python's black knight duels possible and... I think I just pitched "Chivalry: Tabletop Edition".

15

Role Playing Public Radio Podcast / Re: RPPR Gamedesign Workshop - To grog or not to grog.

« on: January 22, 2014, 01:51:24 PM »

Goals

        I want to run a campaign where the players are regular, damaged people. They were folks who lived human lives until one of the Young Vanguard’s off-hours activities made the choice that destroys both of them look like the best choice.
Following this, I don’t want the players to have any special abilities or training. No ninja-trained ex-FARC members or SEALs here. They are going to be on the back end of the power deviation curve.
        I want to employ a system that tracks the awareness and opinion of the three demographics influenced by the party and Vanguard’s actions: the public; the government; the superhuman community. Preferably a pool-style “we spend our social loot points to add to our punditry roll against the Vanguard’s public opinion pool.” “Well, the Vanguard get half that pool to roll the superhuman community’s awareness of your group.”
        I also want to include a Night’s Black Agents-style “intelligence” point bank. The party could spend small amounts to gather hard-to find information on one specific Vanguard member or on the whole team. Larger point spends get better quality information, but making the most of your points requires you to spend them while observing a superhuman in action.
        Lastly, I want a table for “Superhuman random encounters!” because the Vanguard are an active team, the players should have the luck (or lack of) to encounter them in the wild, either on duty or engaged in the kind of “fun” that already ruined their old life.

System

   The only superhero system I have experience with is Wild Talents. It seems appropriate to nail down the team composition and powers of the Superhumans, but I feel like accomplishing my goals will require adding a lot of additional parts to ORE. I’m also not great at estimating point caps for ordinary people.
        All advice is appreciated. My current thought process is that FATE (and Base Raiders) are inappropriate because Aspects are the great equalizer and can be abused to put players on an even footing with the Young Vanguard. FATE is also narrative-heavy and I would prefer more crunch to make powers and gunplay weightier.

Conclusion

        Thank you to Caleb and the community. Let us make this the best campaign possible!