Stats for LOTR characters?
tmul...@spliced.com
Gimli?
Aragorn?
Legolas?
Gandalf?
If so - please let me know - and why....
Tmuld
Unan Oranis
ive been thinking of lotr magic systems... im guessing that wizards
there have no spell points, they burn xp. making them the most
powerfull people in the universe, but unlikely to cast spells willy
nilly for fear of meeting an enemy sorcerer with just one more xp point
(assuming of course that wizards there can counter spell easily... as
somewhat reflected in the movie)
perhaps why they (gandalf vs saruman) stuck to some sort of cost
effective telekinetic power smash attack to see who could get the upper
hand? perhaps why they seem hesitant about engaing enemy spell
casters? perhaps a fitting mechanic to the witch king shattering
gandalfs staff? perhaps staffs reduce the xp burn to cast a spell by
half?
not that ive thought it through too much...
DragonFireCK
The first few paragraphs deal with the reasons for the character
motivations in Lord of the Rings (as I see them), and giving reasons for
their actions in the story. If you do not wish to read my reasoning,
skip to the final paragraph.
The reason Gandalf avoided casting spells was to avoid angering the
Valar (he was [I think] as Maiar). He rather wanted to be able to head
back to Valinor, and if he angered the Valar, he would not be able to go
back there. In addition, Gandalf did not want to kill Saruman for the
same reason; it is nicer to try to convert him over. Saruman was also
more powerful than Gandalf when they had their initial fight. Even
during the second meeting, where Gandalf was just as powerful, if not
more powerful, and had the upper hand, he wished to avoid killing
Saruman (in the books, Saruman did not die there). A possible example of
Gandalf's motivations exists in The Hobbit: when Gandalf believes he
will probably die at the hands of the goblins, "Gandalf, too, I may say,
was there, sitting on the ground as if in deep thought, preparing, I
suppose, some last blast of magic before the end" (270).
Saruman wanted to convert Gandalf, not kill him. If he could have
converted Gandalf, he might have managed to defeat Sauron and take the
ring of power as his own. During their second meeting, Saruman probably
would have just killed Gandalf, except Gandalf was more powerful then,
at least rivaling Saruman's power.
The same reason Gandalf did not seek to kill Saruman during their first
meeting is the reason the nine wizards did not kill Sauron (they did
fight him once, during The Hobbit, however); doing so would anger the Valar.
Ultimately, a game system based off Lord of the Rings would be difficult
to create, as most of the motivations of the characters are purely
role-playing. However, it would be possible to switch them over to
religious motivations, with characters losing their powers if they did
not follow various rules set down by their deities. The rest of the
characters would be relatively easy to create (Gimli, Legolas, Aragorn,
Frodo, etc.), just the spell-casters (including the Nazgūz).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gaming-World
DragonFireCK
Theo
ga...@kaynor.net
This message has been scanned by AVG Free Edition virus scanner.
Loren...@gmx.de
There was a long informative discussion starting with the
post "Lord of the Rings stats for D&D" last year.
No finished stats though...
LL
Unan Oranis
> The first few paragraphs deal with the reasons for the character
> motivations in Lord of the Rings (as I see them), and giving reasons for
> their actions in the story.
<snip>
Ultimately, a game system based off Lord of the Rings would be
difficult
> to create, as most of the motivations of the characters are purely
> role-playing. However, it would be possible to switch them over to
> religious motivations, with characters losing their powers if they did
> not follow various rules set down by their deities. The rest of the
> characters would be relatively easy to create (Gimli, Legolas, Aragorn,
> Frodo, etc.), just the spell-casters (including the Nazgûz).
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Gaming-World
> DragonFireCK
> Theo
> ga...@kaynor.net
>
> http://games.kaynor.net/
well i agree that "role playing" would be the largest deciding factor
to explain the lotr wizardry if you were to explain the story and world
in dnd terms;
but the motivation of gandalf for not going balls out with his magic is
fear of the wrath of higher powers, or disdain even from them, im not
so sure of.
does not gandalf battle from dusk till dawn on weather top against all
the nine riders? did he not speak that such pyrotechnics and lights
had not been seen since the battle beacons of old?
surely the same gandalf the grey some.. 70 ish? 40ish? years afore in
"the hobbit" stuck in a tree against a mere 100ish wargs could not have
thrown back all night long 9 ring wraiths!
he must have gained a few levels... perhaps those adventures where he
spied, and then later drove out, the dark lord from murkwood?
a true to the lotr dnd campaign would have to forget all about
balance... its just going to have to be what it is.
elves are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay better than humans, hobbits suck, and
wizards rule the universe, but are bent on subtlety and lore mastery -
holding in check their more crude and elemental powers of fire and
lightning for mysterious reasons... i guess your punishment from
dieties model works - tho xp burn does as well.
fighters i think are bang on for dnd rules tho. heroic, fantastic,
kill a hundred orcs...
--
unan
Justisaur
Unan Oranis wrote:
> > The first few paragraphs deal with the reasons for the character
> > motivations in Lord of the Rings (as I see them), and giving reasons for
> > their actions in the story.
>
> <snip>
>
> Ultimately, a game system based off Lord of the Rings would be
> difficult
Er....
Isn't there a LotR RPG, and has been for quite some time? MERPS by
ICE, not that I've ever played it.
- Justisaur
The Mad Afro
Unan Oranis wrote:
> Ultimately, a game system based off Lord of the Rings would be difficult to create
Looks like somebody forgot to tell these guys...
http://www.decipher.com/lordoftherings/rpg/
--
Jay Knioum
The Mad Afro
Eric P.
"Justisaur" <just...@gmail.com> wrote:
Yes, but we're talkin' D&D here. ICE's product is significantly
different, although conversion doesn't cause too much headache.
Somewhere on the 'net, there's an M$ Word file (a BIG one!) that
gives a "total conversion," as it were, for Tolkien's Middle Earth
in D&D. I've only glanced through it, but it appears impressive!
Roll high,
Eric
Eric P.
No doubt several attempts have been made. I'm not interested
in playing Middle Earth in any system other than 3.5e D&D...
but that's just me :)
Happy gaming,
Eric
WDS
Justisaur wrote:
> Isn't there a LotR RPG, and has been for quite some time? MERPS by
> ICE, not that I've ever played it.
It doesn't feel like Middle Earth at all, especially the magic. It's
just All Wrong.
The Mad Afro
The crit charts were fun.
Christopher Adams
>
> No doubt several attempts have been made. I'm not interested
> in playing Middle Earth in any system other than 3.5e D&D...
> but that's just me :)
I can't even understand why someone would want to play a game set in Middle
Earth at all, but (leaving aside my biases) especially not in revised Third
Edition D&D.
If you mean "the d20 System", or even "an Open Gaming License game", that's
different, but D&D proper? I just don't think it works. The game assumes a level
of magical items available to the PCs, and more importantly assumes the
existence of magical effects available to PCs, which just don't show up in the
setting.
I think an OGL game designed to specifically replicate Tolkien's tropes would
work very well - and on this point, I think many people who perceive Middle
Earth as a "grittier" setting would disagree, preferring less natively-heroic
systems like GURPS - but I think doing it in D&D per se requires altering so
much of the system that you'll be wasting your time.
On another note, I've seen several people at RPG.Net suggest that Burning Wheel
is the perfect game for Middle Earth campaigns, mostly I suspect because of the
Instincts and Beliefs each character has and the scripted combat system.
Personally, I have my doubts that a game advertised and explained on the
official website with misspellings - "I always where my helmet" - is likely to
be all that coherent, but then again I'm prejudiced.
--
Christopher Adams - Sydney, Australia
-------
The question is whether it's pathological for a dropped egg to fall.
-------
Nothing says gritty fantasy like a whacky leprechaun knifing you in the junk.
-------
http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/mhacdebhandia/prestigeclasslist.html
http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/mhacdebhandia/templatelist.html
Eric P.
"Christopher Adams" <mhacde...@yahoo.invalid> wrote:
> Eric P. wrote:
> >
> > No doubt several attempts have been made. I'm not interested
> > in playing Middle Earth in any system other than 3.5e D&D...
> > but that's just me :)
>
> I can't even understand why someone would want to play a game set in Middle
> Earth at all, but (leaving aside my biases) especially not in revised Third
> Edition D&D.
Do you not like the setting?
> If you mean "the d20 System", or even "an Open Gaming License game", that's
> different, but D&D proper? I just don't think it works. The game assumes a
> level
> of magical items available to the PCs, and more importantly assumes the
> existence of magical effects available to PCs, which just don't show up in
> the
> setting.
The Forgotten Realms is positively obscene for magic! But yeah, now that
you mention it, magic abounds in Middle Earth, doesn't it? At least
through the Third Age.
> I think an OGL game designed to specifically replicate Tolkien's tropes would
> work very well - and on this point, I think many people who perceive Middle
> Earth as a "grittier" setting would disagree, preferring less natively-heroic
> systems like GURPS - but I think doing it in D&D per se requires altering so
> much of the system that you'll be wasting your time.
I'm intrigued...what would be a few problems you see to doing so?
> On another note, I've seen several people at RPG.Net suggest that Burning
> Wheel
> is the perfect game for Middle Earth campaigns, mostly I suspect because of
> the
> Instincts and Beliefs each character has and the scripted combat system.
> Personally, I have my doubts that a game advertised and explained on the
> official website with misspellings - "I always where my helmet" - is likely
> to
> be all that coherent, but then again I'm prejudiced.
Hah! Yeah, I don't take anything seriously when I see misspellings,
partly because I've spent so many years editing other people's writing.
To me, even a professional company's Web site loses credibility if it
contains errors I can spot. That includes grammatical and syntax
errors (yes, I'm that intolerant *L*). Oh, I'm fun in a chat room *W*
OK, so perhaps I could say that I'd want to use the d20 mechanic
for a Middle Earth game. I just don't see a difference between D&D
and d20 fantasy, but that's my own ignorance. Is there a distinction?
That would suggest that I could create something like "d20 Eric P.
Fantasy," right? Or no?
Peace,
Eric
Christopher Adams
> Christopher Adams wrote:
>> Eric P. wrote:
>
>>> No doubt several attempts have been made. I'm not interested
>>> in playing Middle Earth in any system other than 3.5e D&D...
>>> but that's just me :)
>>
>> I can't even understand why someone would want to play a game set in
>> Middle Earth at all, but (leaving aside my biases) especially not in
>> revised Third Edition D&D.
>
> Do you not like the setting?
Long story short: Hell no. Short story long: No, and I really personally prefer
no hint of Tolkienesque fantasy in D&D.
But whatever floats your boat is all right with me. It's not like I have to play
it!
> OK, so perhaps I could say that I'd want to use the d20 mechanic
> for a Middle Earth game. I just don't see a difference between D&D
> and d20 fantasy, but that's my own ignorance. Is there a distinction?
> That would suggest that I could create something like "d20 Eric P.
> Fantasy," right? Or no?
Well, D&D is the eleven classes in the Player's Handbook, a split between arcane
and divine magic with ten levels of spell effects, most classes have
supernatural or near-supernatural abilities, "mundane" characters requiring
magical items in serious quantities to contribute equally with their magic-using
colleagues in combats against high-level opponents like dragons, demons, giants,
and so on. It's beholders, illithids, colour-coded dragons, Outer Planes you can
go to and relatively humanised angels and demons living there.
None of those things are particularly suitable for Middle Earth. I don't seem to
recall Aragorn being fitted out with magic armour, weapons, shield, rings,
belts, boots, et cetera, and even if he had been would you really be able to say
that lesser heroes - like, say, Faramir's men - would have had some lesser
magical gear of their own? There's nothing to suggest that - though you might be
able to get away with the magic level, if you set things back in earlier, more
heroic ages.
Still, easier to take the basic assumptions of the d20 System - classes, levels,
reasonably rapidly-inflating capacities as you adventure. I don't think these
things are inimical to The Lord of the Rings.
If you use the Open Gaming License, and not the d20 System per se, then you can
do away with classes, levels, all that - you're left with things like the six
ability scores (which can be renamed, see the World of Warcraft RPG), rolling
high on a d20 to pass checks (and it doesn't have to be a d20, see the 3d6 thing
in Unearthed Arcana), and you don't even have to use hit points (True 20 uses a
damage save) or armour-makes-you-harder-to-hit (Unearthed Arcana has
armour-as-DR).
ManoDogs
Hi, new to the group and not a LotR fan, but as I am currently working
on a campaign using ICE's RoleMaster rules set (not the newest one --
the older one, I forget what they refer to it as) and I own(ed) the
MERPS (I can't find it and think an old gaming friend has it, but I did
own it at one point and it was basically just a watered-down version of
RM), I remember that there was a companion book that had all of the
saga's characters statted-up. If you get hold of Character Law (for
the RM system), it has complete conversion charts to a 3-18/d20 system.
RM is incredibly complicated, but MERP is not. The trick to the magic
system is to choose a Realm. I have read some of the LotR saga, but it
did not hold my interest, so I can't say for certain which Realm would
best fit it, but I would venture either Channeling or Essence. Again,
I could be wrong, and all three Realms can co-exist in the same
game/world. Of course, D&D really has only two "realms" of magic (MU
and Cleric), so that simplifies matters. Also, D&D was originally
quite heavily based on LotR, so a lot of the spells already contained
in the system are probably well-suited for the setting.
Eric P.
> >>
> >> I can't even understand why someone would want to play a game set in
> >> Middle Earth at all, but (leaving aside my biases) especially not in
> >> revised Third Edition D&D.
> >
> > Do you not like the setting?
>
> Long story short: Hell no. Short story long: No, and I really personally
> prefer
> no hint of Tolkienesque fantasy in D&D.
Are there any literary settings you find more appropriate a match for
the current incarnation of D&D rules? Or are you more of the opinion
that it's best to create an original setting for those specific rules?
> But whatever floats your boat is all right with me. It's not like I have to
> play
> it!
True enough. A guy I used to game with tried hard to get me into other
genres, introducing me to Cyberpunk (didn't like it), Shadowrun (might
have liked it, but we never played after I wrote a character), Champions
(didn't like it, either)...all to no avail. Another friend introduced me
to Vampire: The Masquerade, and to Changeling: The Dreaming, both
of which I enjoyed, to everyone's surprise, including my own :)
> > OK, so perhaps I could say that I'd want to use the d20 mechanic
> > for a Middle Earth game. I just don't see a difference between D&D
> > and d20 fantasy, but that's my own ignorance. Is there a distinction?
> > That would suggest that I could create something like "d20 Eric P.
> > Fantasy," right? Or no?
>
> Well, D&D is the eleven classes in the Player's Handbook, a split between
> arcane
> and divine magic with ten levels of spell effects, most classes have
> supernatural or near-supernatural abilities, "mundane" characters requiring
> magical items in serious quantities to contribute equally with their
> magic-using
> colleagues in combats against high-level opponents like dragons, demons,
> giants,
> and so on. It's beholders, illithids, colour-coded dragons, Outer Planes you
> can
> go to and relatively humanised angels and demons living there.
OK, yes, I recognize those concepts as marking out D&D among the
various game systems out there.
> None of those things are particularly suitable for Middle Earth. I don't seem
> to
> recall Aragorn being fitted out with magic armour, weapons, shield, rings,
> belts, boots, et cetera, and even if he had been would you really be able to
> say
> that lesser heroes - like, say, Faramir's men - would have had some lesser
> magical gear of their own? There's nothing to suggest that - though you might
> be
> able to get away with the magic level, if you set things back in earlier,
> more
> heroic ages.
>
> Still, easier to take the basic assumptions of the d20 System - classes,
> levels,
> reasonably rapidly-inflating capacities as you adventure. I don't think these
> things are inimical to The Lord of the Rings.
Do you reckon that Iron Heroes would be better suited to Middle Earth
than D&D specifically, then?
> If you use the Open Gaming License, and not the d20 System per se, then you
> can
> do away with classes, levels, all that - you're left with things like the six
> ability scores (which can be renamed, see the World of Warcraft RPG), rolling
> high on a d20 to pass checks (and it doesn't have to be a d20, see the 3d6
> thing
> in Unearthed Arcana), and you don't even have to use hit points (True 20 uses
> a
> damage save) or armour-makes-you-harder-to-hit (Unearthed Arcana has
> armour-as-DR).
I think this answers my last question :) Sure, you can call the core
ability scores anything you like. Also, I understand the 3d6 mechanic,
as I first gamed in The Fantasy Trip, which used d6s exclusively.
I'll have to look back into the notes a friend and I wrote up for
our own game system (which we never got to playtest), to see
if we discarded HP. I do recall that he suggested that attacks
cause "wounds" of varying severity, rather than a number of
points of damage. I favor the concept of armor reducing damage,
but (and I don't think Monte Cook took this into account), IIRC,
D&D weapon damage ratings already have armor DR built in,
which is why a longsword does 1d8, rather than 2d6 (as it would
in TFT rules). This example isn't much of a difference, but I
vaguely recall having read something, at some time, that
suggested this.
Happy gaming,
Eric
Chris Hayes
Consider yourself fortunate. I had the displeasure of getting the core
rule book years ago and since it uses the old Rulemonster.....er,
Rolemaster, ruleset, it was a real bitch to get off the ground. ICE
characters take a pretty long time to create due to heavy crunch and
those god awful critical charts (pages and pages of them) that slow
play down to a grind. I mean, the book had a whole slew of spells like
"Regenerate Nose" and petty shit like that. I ended up getting rid of
it without even bothering.
Eric P.
"ManoDogs" <mano...@gmail.com> wrote:
Heh, and the designers had the audacity to claim that they didn't
take Tolkien's works as source material, back in the day *L*
I find the statement that D&D has only two realms of magic to be
inaccurate, but it depends on your definition. Not only are there
schools of magic, but there are also variant approaches to how
magic works (what the source of the power is). Or perhaps I'm
remembering obsolete material here...?
I.C.E. also procuced some Middle Earth books as a campaign
setting that could be used with "any" FRP system, and somewhere
among those books was also a conversion of their d100 to d20
and 3d6 mechanics.
Happy gaming,
Eric
ManoDogs
Eric P. wrote:
> In article <1151253432.2...@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com>,
> "ManoDogs" <mano...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > RM is incredibly complicated, but MERP is not. The trick to the magic
> > system is to choose a Realm. I have read some of the LotR saga, but it
> > did not hold my interest, so I can't say for certain which Realm would
> > best fit it, but I would venture either Channeling or Essence. Again,
> > I could be wrong, and all three Realms can co-exist in the same
> > game/world. Of course, D&D really has only two "realms" of magic (MU
> > and Cleric), so that simplifies matters. Also, D&D was originally
> > quite heavily based on LotR, so a lot of the spells already contained
> > in the system are probably well-suited for the setting.
> I find the statement that D&D has only two realms of magic to be
> inaccurate, but it depends on your definition. Not only are there
> schools of magic, but there are also variant approaches to how
> magic works (what the source of the power is). Or perhaps I'm
> remembering obsolete material here...?
Hey, you're right -- I forgot about those. But still, they applied to
either "channeling" (clerical) or "essence" (magic-user) magic. Now, I
played the new D20/D&D 3.0 Build 9.2304972304970174019457023956708
Version B Home Edition Pre-release Beta whatever only once, and with
pre-generated characters, and while I was impressed with how they
streamlined a lot of things (specifically STs), I really found it to be
basically what most of us with our vast collections of Dragons, "The
Complete Book Of..."s, Grimtooth's Trps, Mayfair's Role-Aids,
Talislanta -- and so on -- supplements had been doing for years. I had
all the hardbound books for 1st-Ed. (many have wandered, but I still
have at least one copy of nearly all of them) and a pretty impressive
collection of 2nd-Ed. materials, but I have forgotten exactly how
magical schools and spheres and all that worked; I don't remember if
the "Necromancy School" for instance, allowed the student access to
Necromancy spells from both Clerical and MU lists. If it did, then you
are right.
But RM has 3 (4) Realms of magic: Channeling, Essence, and Mentalism
(Arms), and I was trying to draw a correlation between Channeling and
Essence (or Mentalism) and Clerical/MU spells in D&D.
As an aside, Warhammer had some sort of color-based magical "school"
which worked according to a color wheel. It was in a White Dwarf and I
had photocopies of it for years, but I don't know exactly where it is
now (and it's of no import to the discussion, anyway).
ManoDogs
Chris Hayes wrote:
> Consider yourself fortunate. I had the displeasure of getting the core
> rule book years ago and since it uses the old Rulemonster.....er,
> Rolemaster, ruleset, it was a real bitch to get off the ground. ICE
> characters take a pretty long time to create due to heavy crunch and
> those god awful critical charts (pages and pages of them) that slow
> play down to a grind. I mean, the book had a whole slew of spells like
> "Regenerate Nose" and petty shit like that. I ended up getting rid of
> it without even bothering.
Yeah, we call it "CPA Master" but I've heard "RuleMonster" a lot. It
really is incredibly deep, but that's its strength: all of the rules
are completely modular, so if you really get into it, the longest time
is the GM prep of going through the core books and Companions and
delineating which options are to be used.
Characters take a very long time to create, but are extremely detailed
and if you invest the time, you will get more out of it than you
thought possible. Even if you drop a lot of optional stuff
(secondaries, hobbies, racial skills), you're in for a long haul.
The key to the Crit Charts is to dump them, except for monsters and
NPCs and "big finales" (dramatic encounters in the scenario or campaign
-- usually defeating the "Bad, BAD Guy" or whatever).
One of the first times we really tried to play, a friend spent a good
2-3 hours creating a character, then we spent a little time discussing
pre-game history. He had a horse and had to make a Horsemanship/Riding
roll -- just a general roll, mind you -- and he fumbled. He fell off
his horse, rolled damage and rolled a Crit which had him reroll on a
higher Crit Chart. On and on it went, with the final outcome being
that the character he'd spent 3 hours creating galloped out of the
gates, fell off his horse, broke his neck, and died. We decided then
and there to drop the Crit Charts for PCs excepting special encounters
or occasions. After all, if your character is going to make a
last-ditch leap across a 30' chasm, he might as well go out in style --
Dario Argento style! So, in those regards, RM works better for me
because I can more closely control the depth of realism just by using
this/that option or ignoring it, and it's all *right there* -- not in
this book or that magazine or that supplement from another company
or... I *know* I read it *somewhere*...
In RM -- as with games which depend on a lot of secrecy (horror, spy,
conspiracy) -- the GM is *the* most important key to a good game and he
has, far and away, the biggest job you can think of. With RM, the more
detail he has to supply, the better the game will be -- but if he's not
willing to go to those lengths, you may as well use an easier system.
And systems like D&D have such a wealth of information to provide that
it really alleviates the GM's time investment. The caveat is that
there is *still* a wealth of information to sift through, so if you
have the wherewithal, RM is a far more robust system AND, if you're
going to have to convert, why go through 3 systems when you can just go
through 2 (RM to D&D or vice-versa, as opposed to D&D/AD&D/AD&D
2nd/etc.)...
But I've played neither the newest D&D *nor* RM versions, so I'm just
throwing out suggestions. AFAIK, you should be able to simply lift the
MERP characters from the books and convert them -- no need to bother
with the MERPS or RMS!
Christopher Adams
> [snip]
>
>>>> I can't even understand why someone would want to play a game set in
>>>> Middle Earth at all, but (leaving aside my biases) especially not in
>>>> revised Third Edition D&D.
>>>
>>> Do you not like the setting?
>>
>> Long story short: Hell no. Short story long: No, and I really personally
>> prefer no hint of Tolkienesque fantasy in D&D.
>
> Are there any literary settings you find more appropriate a match for
> the current incarnation of D&D rules? Or are you more of the opinion
> that it's best to create an original setting for those specific rules?
Hmm. It's not so much the fact that Third Edition isn't appropriate for Tolkien
that bothers me - though I think that's true - as much as it is the fact that I
don't like anything that Tolkien wrote. I admire the achievement of creating
such a vibrant fictional world, in the abstract at least, but I don't like the
fictional world that he created, if you see what I mean.
So while, for instance, I love the Eberron setting which was built from the
ground up to suit Third Edition D&D, that's only a minor part of why I like it;
the majority of the reason for my affection is that it takes a very modern
approach to fantasy - I don't mean just the magitech aspects, but also the
myriad of ways in which it differs from your bog-standard pseudo-medieval
fantasy world while still having all the kings, knights, dragons, and elves you
could want.
> Do you reckon that Iron Heroes would be better suited to Middle Earth
> than D&D specifically, then?
I would have to say that you're on the right track, except inasmuch as Iron
Heroes presupposes a very "Die Hard" sense of heroics - that film is explicitly
one of Mike Mearls' touchstones - which I don't think really works for Middle
Earth.
The issue with using D&D when it comes to magic items is that high-level
monsters can't be readily defeated without access to magic items and powerful
spells. Any d20 System or OGL game which does away with the assumption that this
will be the case would suit your needs - so something like Arcana Evolved
wouldn't really work, since it's just a reinvention of the "D&D fantasy" genre
with some of the sacred cows of D&D itself stripped out, and Iron Heroes has a
feel and attitude of action-movie heroics which doesn't suit the tone of The
Lord of the Rings, but a game like Castles & Crusades (sigh) or True 20 (which I
quite like, after only a few chapters) might work better just because those
games abandon the D&D *style* while using most (or at least many) of the D&D
rules.
> I favor the concept of armor reducing damage,
> but (and I don't think Monte Cook took this into account), IIRC,
> D&D weapon damage ratings already have armor DR built in,
> which is why a longsword does 1d8, rather than 2d6 (as it would
> in TFT rules).
Well, see, mathematically speaking the DR rating of armour can be balanced
against any weapon damage size - it's just a matter of figuring out the amount
of extra damage taken due to a lower Armour Class/Defence Rating/whatever over
the course of a typical combat, and balancing the armour's DR to reduce the
difference to zero over the course of that combat.
Figuring out the "typical" combat is the hard part. ;)
Christopher Adams
>
> Heh, and the designers had the audacity to claim that they didn't
> take Tolkien's works as source material, back in the day *L*
It looks like what really happened is that Dave Arneson was the only fan of
Tolkien's work back in the original partnership - Gygax preferred writers like
Fritz Leiber, Jack Vance, and Robert E. Howard - so the elves and hobbits and
ents of the original materials were included because Arneson argued they'd
attract fans of The Lord of the Rings, but if it *had* been up to Gygax as he
sometimes claimed it was, they wouldn't have been used.
Which explains, perhaps, why the Gygax-authored First Edition books didn't
credit Tolkien with much - as far as Gygax was concerned, Tolkien really
*didn't* have much influence on the game.
Woof
The sword of Aragorn, not his travelling one but the Sword that was Broken,
along with Sting (Bilbo/Frodo's sword), and Gandalf's sword (whose name
escapes me) were magical swords created by the elder Elves long ago.
The gifts presented to the travelers by Galadriel were all of magical nature
(including the Cloaks of Elvenkind).
Boromir's Horn could be compared to the Horn of Valhalla.
Of course the greatest magic was the boost to the acting careers of Orlando
Bloom and Vigo Mortensen (sp?).
Malachias Invictus
"Eric P." <eri...@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:ericp06-BAF6F3...@newsclstr02.news.prodigy.com...
> Do you reckon that Iron Heroes would be better suited to Middle Earth
> than D&D specifically, then?
Absolutely. Without question. You would have to customize the magic
system, though.
--
^v^v^Malachias Invictus^v^v^
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishment the scroll,
I am the Master of my fate:
I am the Captain of my soul.
from _Invictus_, by William Ernest Henley
Malachias Invictus
"Christopher Adams" <mhacde...@yahoo.invalid> wrote in message
news:zhEng.16017$ap3....@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
> Eric P. wrote:
>> Do you reckon that Iron Heroes would be better suited to Middle Earth
>> than D&D specifically, then?
>
> I would have to say that you're on the right track, except inasmuch as
> Iron Heroes presupposes a very "Die Hard" sense of heroics - that film is
> explicitly one of Mike Mearls' touchstones - which I don't think really
> works for Middle Earth.
I disagree. Taking the movies for a moment instead of the books, take a
look at any of the battles in which the "bad ass" characters were involved.
The stunt system and the funky class abilities are well-represented.
Legolas' craziness in particular is *exactly* the sort of heroic action that
Iron Heroes is good at.
Malachias Invictus
"Christopher Adams" <mhacde...@yahoo.invalid> wrote in message
> I think an OGL game designed to specifically replicate Tolkien's tropes
> would work very well -
Midnight arguably does this, and is a pretty good game.
Chris Hayes
ManoDogs wrote:
> Chris Hayes wrote:
> > Consider yourself fortunate. I had the displeasure of getting the core
> > rule book years ago and since it uses the old Rulemonster.....er,
> > Rolemaster, ruleset, it was a real bitch to get off the ground. ICE
> > characters take a pretty long time to create due to heavy crunch and
> > those god awful critical charts (pages and pages of them) that slow
> > play down to a grind. I mean, the book had a whole slew of spells like
> > "Regenerate Nose" and petty shit like that. I ended up getting rid of
> > it without even bothering.
>
> Yeah, we call it "CPA Master" but I've heard "RuleMonster" a lot. It
> really is incredibly deep, but that's its strength: all of the rules
> are completely modular, so if you really get into it, the longest time
> is the GM prep of going through the core books and Companions and
> delineating which options are to be used.
>
> Characters take a very long time to create, but are extremely detailed
> and if you invest the time, you will get more out of it than you
> thought possible. Even if you drop a lot of optional stuff
> (secondaries, hobbies, racial skills), you're in for a long haul.
>
Yeah, I know some people really love the old RM rules due to their
depth, but I prefer a more abstract system like D&D which has a decent
amount of crunch to it as well (I can't stand the other extreme like
LARP games or Amber either). When it comes to RPGs, some systems are
so rules laden that it disrupts the roleplaying. D&D, at least to me
and my buddies, is near perfect in balance in having enough rules to be
interesting to master it while being fairly simple and easy to use in
actual play.
Eric P.
"Chris Hayes" <hay...@fadmail.com> wrote:
Dragonquest was a heavy system, too, in this respect. Pendragon had
some cool details of character creation, though I don't recall what the
game mechanics were like.
I've wondered what the fantasy roleplaying experience would be like
using White Wolf's Storyteller rules. Maybe this has been done, I don't
know. Closest I got to that was playing Changeling.
It was the complexity of AD&D that made me resistant to trying it, but
a friend spent a year wooing me to the system. I went in kicking and
screaming, but then the only comparison I had was TFT, a simple (and
some might say "cute") system. With the advent of 2nd Ed, and especially
with the Players Option series of books, I really got into the system,
with my friends and me cooking up various home-brew rules for certain
things. After a while, and after exploring a few different systems in
different genres (how DARE they pull me out of my high fantasy! *L*),
another of my friends and I began discussions that led to our writing
something under the working title of The System 1.0. It hangs on the
d20 mechanic; perhaps I'll post elements of it to the ng for feedback.
Whatever the game mechanics, I like an environment where magic is
rare and wonderful, as it aught to be...where dragons and wizards are
few and far between, but impressive in their mighty abilities. Where
combat is heavy and brutal, and survival is almost its own reward in
the experience it gives a character, furthering his/her growth and
development. Make the tech level comparable to Dark Ages Europe,
and favor the Tolkien model for Elves and Orcs, but otherwise borrow
liberally from mythology and folklore of our Earth's past.
Happy gaming,
Eric
Christopher Adams
> An observation parallel to the conversation:
>
> The sword of Aragorn, not his travelling one but the Sword that was
> Broken, along with Sting (Bilbo/Frodo's sword), and Gandalf's sword
> (whose name escapes me) were magical swords created by the elder Elves
> long ago.
>
> The gifts presented to the travelers by Galadriel were all of magical
> nature (including the Cloaks of Elvenkind).
> Boromir's Horn could be compared to the Horn of Valhalla.
These items aren't of D&D artifact level - though maybe you could make an
argument for Narsil or whatever the thing's called, and Gandalf's weapon - but
you'll notice that this stuff is generally singular in nature. Boromir doesn't
have the magic sword he'd have in D&D at his apparent level, for instance.
Christopher Adams
> Christopher Adams wrote:
>> Eric P. wrote:
>
>>> Do you reckon that Iron Heroes would be better suited to Middle Earth
>>> than D&D specifically, then?
>>
>> I would have to say that you're on the right track, except inasmuch as
>> Iron Heroes presupposes a very "Die Hard" sense of heroics - that film
>> is explicitly one of Mike Mearls' touchstones - which I don't think
>> really works for Middle Earth.
>
> I disagree. Taking the movies for a moment instead of the books, take a
> look at any of the battles in which the "bad ass" characters were
> involved. The stunt system and the funky class abilities are
> well-represented. Legolas' craziness in particular is *exactly* the sort
> of heroic action that Iron Heroes is good at.
Granted. Of course, I wouldn't be the first to suggest that those moments from
the movies were somewhat at odds with the novels' tone, now would I? :)
Man, now that I think about it, I'd almost rather play a game based on the
books! At least they had the worldbuilding and I'd read through any one of them
faster than the theatrical version of the associated film, much less the
extended DVD edition . . . either would hurt, though.
Christopher Adams
> Christopher Adams wrote:
>
>> would work very well -
>
> Midnight arguably does this, and is a pretty good game.
Yes, so I've heard. I wonder how hard it would be to extrapolate backwards from
the "Sauron won" reality of the setting as written to the Middle Earth-esque
backstory?
Jasin Zujovic
mhacde...@yahoo.invalid says...
> > An observation parallel to the conversation:
> >
> > The sword of Aragorn, not his travelling one but the Sword that was
> > Broken, along with Sting (Bilbo/Frodo's sword), and Gandalf's sword
> > (whose name escapes me) were magical swords created by the elder Elves
> > long ago.
> >
> > The gifts presented to the travelers by Galadriel were all of magical
> > nature (including the Cloaks of Elvenkind).
> > Boromir's Horn could be compared to the Horn of Valhalla.
>
> These items aren't of D&D artifact level - though maybe you could make an
> argument for Narsil or whatever the thing's called, and Gandalf's weapon - but
> you'll notice that this stuff is generally singular in nature. Boromir doesn't
> have the magic sword he'd have in D&D at his apparent level, for instance.
Perhaps even more to the point, even the people that have a +3 sword
don't have a +2 ring, +2 gloves, a +1 cloak and a +2 set of armour, and
in D&D they most certainly would.
--
Jasin Zujovic
Sea Wasp
> "Christopher Adams" <mhacde...@yahoo.invalid> wrote in message
> news:CHkng.15502$ap3....@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
>
>
>>I think an OGL game designed to specifically replicate Tolkien's tropes
>>would work very well -
>
>
> Midnight arguably does this, and is a pretty good game.
>
There is an excellent variant of the AMBER RPG that handles
Middle-Earth material pretty well.
I think, however, that mechanics are very much beside the point. The
ICE materials were SUPERB -- not because the mechanics were suited to
Middle Earth, because they weren't, but because the people making them
clearly devoted immense effort to trying to make their supplements
WORTHY of Middle-Earth. I don't even USE RM rules, but I still use the
ICE Middle-Earth supplements often whenever running Middle-Earth games.
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/seawasp/
Justisaur
Except that longswords do d8 vs. someone in no armor.
> Well, see, mathematically speaking the DR rating of armour can be balanced
> against any weapon damage size - it's just a matter of figuring out the amount
> of extra damage taken due to a lower Armour Class/Defence Rating/whatever over
> the course of a typical combat, and balancing the armour's DR to reduce the
> difference to zero over the course of that combat.
>
Iron Heroes introduced DR as a die roll (AFAIK not appearing before
anywhere else anyway), which I like, it gives the oportunity for armor
to stop some none or all the damage for a sword strike. It's a bit
more complex, but it's cool. I think with the loss of most magic a
little more complexity is o.k.
Most of the time spent in my current games in combat is waiting for the
spellcasters, to figure out what they are doing.
The one of the reasons i haven't given Iron Heroes a try yet is I
don't like the magic casting class at all. I suppose I could drop it
altogeather and just have non-magical types though, but I can't see
playing a campain with no magic either.
- Justisaur
Eric P.
"Justisaur" <just...@gmail.com> wrote:
Oh, good point! I didn't think of that. In that case, either the rules
weren't thoroughly thought through on this, or I'm misunderstanding
the concept. In TFT, for comparison's sake, your sword has a base
damage (what they call a broadsword does 2d6). Armor class doesn't
exist in that system; instead, armor subtracts x number of points of
damage from every physical attack. Chainmail, for example, stops 3
points from each blow. For this reason, when I started playing AD&D,
I found the weapon damages to be weak...but then TFT characters
sometimes have better "hp" when they start out, because, in that
system, STR and hp are one and the same. I'll stop here to keep
things simple and relevant :)
> > Well, see, mathematically speaking the DR rating of armour can be balanced
> > against any weapon damage size - it's just a matter of figuring out the
> > amount
> > of extra damage taken due to a lower Armour Class/Defence Rating/whatever
> > over
> > the course of a typical combat, and balancing the armour's DR to reduce the
> > difference to zero over the course of that combat.
> >
>
> Iron Heroes introduced DR as a die roll (AFAIK not appearing before
> anywhere else anyway), which I like, it gives the oportunity for armor
> to stop some none or all the damage for a sword strike. It's a bit
> more complex, but it's cool. I think with the loss of most magic a
> little more complexity is o.k.
I haven't read through closely enough yet, but I prefer a static damage
absorption quality of armor, based on how sturdy/deflective/etc. the
material it's made from is.
> Most of the time spent in my current games in combat is waiting for the
> spellcasters, to figure out what they are doing.
>
> The one of the reasons i haven't given Iron Heroes a try yet is I
> don't like the magic casting class at all. I suppose I could drop it
> altogeather and just have non-magical types though, but I can't see
> playing a campain with no magic either.
>
> - Justisaur
Well, IH still hangs on the d20 mechanic, so you could simply use the
D&D spellcasting classes, or any of the variants.
Ach, Himmel! A campaign with no magic? Kinda contrary to the concept
of fantasy, the way I see it. Rare, sure, but non-existent? No way! :)
Happy gaming,
Eric
Christopher Adams
>
> Well, IH still hangs on the d20 mechanic, so you could simply use the
> D&D spellcasting classes, or any of the variants.
Many people are looking at using simplified casting classes like the D&D
warlock, or turning to OGL spellcasting systems like Elements of Magic Revised
or True Sorcery.
C Lynn
--
- Chris
http://www.geocities.com/manodogs/
"Eric P." <eri...@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:ericp06-79932E...@newsclstr02.news.prodigy.com...
Yes, I love AD&D -- but I use a wildly optional homebrew mix of 1st-Ed,
2nd-Ed., 2nd-Ed. Xth printing, Dragon magazines, stuff from Arcanum,
Talislanta, Mayfair's Role-Aids supplements, Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, the
D&D world books (Anauroch, Kingdom of Ierendi, so on), The Compleat
Spellcaster -- literally a *host* of supplemental materials from magazines
and other companies. While I have most all of these options listed in my
"main" notebook, to really be effective, I have to literally cart like 3-4
milkcrates'-worth of gaming materials with me to play the AD&D game I like.
And let's not even get *started* on Oriental Adventures/Al-Qadim/Eastern
stuff (that's a whole other 2 milkcrates by itself)!
And that's cool! I mean, I've been playing AD&D since I was in the
6th-grade, so even though I have whole other systems I really love
(RuneQuest, RM, Warhammer, Pendragon -- which is great you mentioned that,
because you're one of the only other people I know that's familiar with it)
and several more I'm not so fond of (Palladium tops the list of these...), I
am always drawn back to D&D because I have 20+ years' worth of notes and
indeces and literally thousands of dollars' worth of materials for it. And
Warhammer, RuneQuest, Pendragon, and so forth, are very specific as to their
settings and flavor...
But with RM, All the books, including the War Law boxed set, fit neatly into
one box or crate, with plenty of room leftover for 3rd-party supplements,
magazines, and folders; *and* the rules are listed, per section, in a very
specifically-coded, outline fashion. So while the control book for D&D is a
morass of "check Dragon 98, pg.3, c. 2, p. 4" and "see stats Dark Folk, p.
4" and so on and so forth (of course, I've developed my own codes for
stuff), the RM control files are very specific, like:
Rules in Effect
ChL 1.3.2, 1.4b
CIV 5.3, 13.2.1a
And so forth. And there's no need to stop play for as long in order to
figure out which milkcrate the resource I'm looking for is in.
Plus, with RM, it is so well-designed and modular, that you can either plug
an option (CIII 3.2) in or leave it out, or even put it in just long enough
for a specific situation, and *then* pull it right back out. D&D has a
*ton* of options that can either work one way or another, or you can use the
other one, or you can blend several together to form your own -- on and
on -- and you often have to balance them against other options in other
places of the system. The only cool thing about this is that since I've
been playing it so long, I know a lot of this stuff off the top of my head.
Still, the physical load is so much lighter with RM, not to mention having
fewer resources to reference, that I prefer dealing with the massive set-up
time on the front-end... which I completely agree, is literally like an
actual job.
But I still love AD&D... guess I always will. By this point though, I'd
need an entire room filled with tables and maps on the walls, projectors,
bookshelves, chalkboards, a computer network, and who knows what-else just
to play it!
Eric P.
"Christopher Adams" <mhacde...@yahoo.invalid> wrote:
> Eric P. wrote:
> >
> > Well, IH still hangs on the d20 mechanic, so you could simply use the
> > D&D spellcasting classes, or any of the variants.
>
> Many people are looking at using simplified casting classes like the D&D
> warlock, or turning to OGL spellcasting systems like Elements of Magic
> Revised
> or True Sorcery.
Are those the titles of books? If not, where do they come from? I'd like
to know the sources, so I may look for them.
Thanks,
Eric
Eric P.
wrote:
> --
> - Chris
> http://www.geocities.com/manodogs/
> "Eric P." <eri...@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
[snip]
It greatly enhances the game when you can incorporate good ideas
from different sources, especially those that come from non-D&D
systems...provided the concepts integrate well. Oh, yeah, I remember
how my gaming backpack became heavier and heavier over time,
even in games where I was a player, and not DM. In either role,
I'd have a growing stack--which became a tower over time--of
books and mags, with many yellow stickies or bookmarks. My
main DM always allowed everything that was ever published for
any version of D&D in our AD&D 1st and 2nd Ed games. I didn't
mind this, but another friend strongly objected to allowing any
non-"canon" material without express prior consent by DM (when
he was DM). Our main DM, as a player, had trouble remembering
this, much to the other DM's displeasure, and that made for some
uncomfortable social interaction at times.
> And that's cool! I mean, I've been playing AD&D since I was in the
> 6th-grade, so even though I have whole other systems I really love
> (RuneQuest, RM, Warhammer, Pendragon -- which is great you mentioned that,
> because you're one of the only other people I know that's familiar with it)
> and several more I'm not so fond of (Palladium tops the list of these...), I
> am always drawn back to D&D because I have 20+ years' worth of notes and
> indeces and literally thousands of dollars' worth of materials for it. And
> Warhammer, RuneQuest, Pendragon, and so forth, are very specific as to their
> settings and flavor...
Ooh, yes, I greatly enjoyed RQ, though my experience with it was brief.
Some of the concepts for character development, particularly the skills
system, really appealed to me. My overall impression is that the
designers were really going for realism with RQ, in that respect.
I also liked the magic system. Just a really cool rules set overall.
I also had some Stormbringer materials for a while, but never really
got a game going with 'em.
> But with RM, All the books, including the War Law boxed set, fit neatly into
> one box or crate, with plenty of room leftover for 3rd-party supplements,
> magazines, and folders; *and* the rules are listed, per section, in a very
> specifically-coded, outline fashion. So while the control book for D&D is a
> morass of "check Dragon 98, pg.3, c. 2, p. 4" and "see stats Dark Folk, p.
> 4" and so on and so forth (of course, I've developed my own codes for
> stuff), the RM control files are very specific, like:
>
> Rules in Effect
> ChL 1.3.2, 1.4b
> CIV 5.3, 13.2.1a
Looks like very cool and efficient biblical chapter and verse style :) If
I wasn't so lazy, I'd develop my own indexing system! As it is, though,
I do have a sheet in my DM binder for my house rules. The list includes
the name of a rule, and the title and page number of the book where
the rule is printed. Some of 'em I've got in memory, but that's not as
easy as it used to be *L*
> And so forth. And there's no need to stop play for as long in order to
> figure out which milkcrate the resource I'm looking for is in.
My old main DM could quote chapter and verse from the core rulebooks
with high accuracy, but I frequently flipped through to double-check,
just to satisfy myself. This had the benefit of helping me to remember
some things as I saw 'em again.
> Plus, with RM, it is so well-designed and modular, that you can either plug
> an option (CIII 3.2) in or leave it out, or even put it in just long enough
> for a specific situation, and *then* pull it right back out. D&D has a
> *ton* of options that can either work one way or another, or you can use the
> other one, or you can blend several together to form your own -- on and
> on -- and you often have to balance them against other options in other
> places of the system. The only cool thing about this is that since I've
> been playing it so long, I know a lot of this stuff off the top of my head.
> Still, the physical load is so much lighter with RM, not to mention having
> fewer resources to reference, that I prefer dealing with the massive set-up
> time on the front-end... which I completely agree, is literally like an
> actual job.
Sometimes too many options, but OTOH it's better to have 500 optional
rules, so you can decide which 200 or so you want to use. Whatever fits
well with the campaign concept, etc.
For as long as I've played any version of D&D, I've longed for a lighter
physical load. That's one thing I loved about TFT (The Fantasy Trip,
by Metagaming's Steve Jackson). You had three rulebooks. There weren't
many other materials published for the system, except for a small
number of adventure modules. I think the emphasis was heavily
on people creating their own worlds and adventures there, even
though the books suggested a bare-bones setting. The system
was elegant in its simplicity, and play was usually fast.
With D&D, writing up an adventure while players prepare their PCs
always took a while for me, as I'd devote but a couple hours per
day working on it, skipping as much time as I needed to if I was
awaiting inspiration. Character creation takes me nearly as long,
as I first select race/sex/class, then roll ability scores, then flesh
out the character concept, and finally select skills, feats, gear, etc.
> But I still love AD&D... guess I always will. By this point though, I'd
> need an entire room filled with tables and maps on the walls, projectors,
> bookshelves, chalkboards, a computer network, and who knows what-else just
> to play it!
...and the hobby became a monster *L* Over time, I've come to the
thinking (as I'm sure some others have as well) that it's the story, not
the game system, that's most important. The Storyteller simply chooses
the rules system that satisfies his/her comfort level and works best for
the story. Thinking in this way, I can take any character concept, and
mold it to fit any rules system. Helps to hold the character's core
concept at something of a basic level, so not too many details need
be changed specific to a rules system while maintaining the integrity
of that character concept.
Happy gaming,
Eric
Shadow Wolf
Those are titles - they're both available on RPGnow.com (I don't recall if
they're available in hardcopy, though). Elements of Magic is from EN
Publishing, and True Sorcery is from Green Ronin.
--
Shadow Wolf
shadowolf3400 at yahoo dot com
Stories at http://www.asstr.org/~Shadow_Wolf
AIF at http://www.geocities.com/shadowolf3400
Christopher Adams
> Eric P. wrote:
>> Christopher Adams wrote:
>>> Eric P. wrote:
>
>>>> Well, IH still hangs on the d20 mechanic, so you could simply use
>>>> the D&D spellcasting classes, or any of the variants.
>>>
>>> Many people are looking at using simplified casting classes like the
>>> D&D warlock, or turning to OGL spellcasting systems like Elements of
>>> Magic Revised
>>> or True Sorcery.
>>
>> Are those the titles of books? If not, where do they come from? I'd
>> like to know the sources, so I may look for them.
>
> if they're available in hardcopy, though). Elements of Magic is from EN
> Publishing, and True Sorcery is from Green Ronin.
I know True Sorcery is either in print, or will be soon - that's Green Ronin's
pattern, to sell the PDF for a few months first. It lets them catch and correct
errors, too, before the book goes to print - and their policy is to contact
people who've purchased the PDF version and let them know a new file is
available to download when they *do* fix things, which pleases me greatly.
Note, however, that True Sorcery is a d20 System product first and foremost,
despite the similar name to True20 Adventure Roleplaying, Green Ronin's
simplified OGL game. There's an appendix for using True Sorcery with True 20,
but the magic system is based on that used in The Black Company Campaign Setting
which was a "straight" d20 product of sorts.
C Lynn
> from different sources, especially those that come from non-D&D
> systems...provided the concepts integrate well. Oh, yeah, I remember
> how my gaming backpack became heavier and heavier over time,
> even in games where I was a player, and not DM. In either role,
> I'd have a growing stack--which became a tower over time--of
> books and mags, with many yellow stickies or bookmarks. My
> main DM always allowed everything that was ever published for
> any version of D&D in our AD&D 1st and 2nd Ed games. I didn't
> mind this, but another friend strongly objected to allowing any
> non-"canon" material without express prior consent by DM (when
> he was DM). Our main DM, as a player, had trouble remembering
> this, much to the other DM's displeasure, and that made for some
> uncomfortable social interaction at times.
Absolutely! That was another big factor in my getting out of the D&D
systems. One particular example was when a friend got the Psionicist's HB
and was dying to play one, but they were *so* powerful, that we mused on
having a really powerful warrior character for the other player. So we
pulled out the Best of Dragon IV, looked up the Half-Ogre, and whipped out
the Fighter's HB and 1st-Ed UA, and converted the Barbarian class. We had a
blast the entire summer playing those two characters!
A few years later, one of those players and myself were gaming with an
entirely different group and we mentioned this, and one of the players was
ecstatic and couldn't wait to play a Half-Ogre Barbarian, so we pulled out
the old notebooks and found the old notes and so on, and another player
balked. He showed us the stats in the Demi-Human HB and the Fighter HB and
some Dragon articles, as well as some Sage Advice columns, on and on, and
flat-out refused to game if the "unofficial" 1/2-Ogre Barbarian was allowed
in the party without *greatly* overhauling it... so we spent the better part
of the night overhauling it.
The same thing happened (with the same group and the same player) with Sea
Elfs, which I had modified from Mayfair's Role Aids Elves. And I understand
it: it's not just about what's "official" or rules-lawyering; it's also
about this guy spent $15.00 on his Demi-Humans HB and I spent $15.00 on
Mayfair's Role Aids Elves, and he's spent time reading over his book and
envisioning the character he wants to play and how it would work, and I've
spent time converting and balancing and envisioning how the character-type
would fit into the game and my campaign, and now one of us either has to
capitulate or compromise.
Like I said, this is both D&D's greatest strength and weakness: it's a
hulking behemoth of a system with so many options and supplements, there's
simply no way any one gamer -- or even *group/club* -- can afford all of the
materials, and even if they could, it would be a monumental feat to read
them all and develop a working system with which everyone agrees.
> Ooh, yes, I greatly enjoyed RQ, though my experience with it was brief.
> Some of the concepts for character development, particularly the skills
> system, really appealed to me. My overall impression is that the
> designers were really going for realism with RQ, in that respect.
> I also liked the magic system. Just a really cool rules set overall.
>
> I also had some Stormbringer materials for a while, but never really
> got a game going with 'em.
Oh yes! I *love* RQ (have both the Standard and Deluxe editions and am
trying to collect the Glorantha supps), but it's one of those games, much
like Warhammer, whose overall theme is built-in, and that's the greatest
strength/flaw of *those* systems (including Stormbringer, which is a really
good and very faithful system, but I didn't really care for Moorcock) -- the
major, overall campaign is integrated into the system and while you have
*some* room, it's not as wide-open as you'd want it if you have something
specific you want to do.
>> But with RM, All the books, including the War Law boxed set, fit neatly
>> into
>> one box or crate, with plenty of room leftover for 3rd-party supplements,
>> magazines, and folders; *and* the rules are listed, per section, in a
>> very
>> specifically-coded, outline fashion. So while the control book for D&D
>> is a
>> morass of "check Dragon 98, pg.3, c. 2, p. 4" and "see stats Dark Folk,
>> p.
>> 4" and so on and so forth (of course, I've developed my own codes for
>> stuff), the RM control files are very specific, like:
>>
>> Rules in Effect
>> ChL 1.3.2, 1.4b
>> CIV 5.3, 13.2.1a
>
> Looks like very cool and efficient biblical chapter and verse style :) If
> I wasn't so lazy, I'd develop my own indexing system! As it is, though,
> I do have a sheet in my DM binder for my house rules. The list includes
> the name of a rule, and the title and page number of the book where
> the rule is printed. Some of 'em I've got in memory, but that's not as
> easy as it used to be *L*
That's another thing I like: the indexing system is already there in the
books, so you don't have to develop your own. Plus, RMC IV has a full index
of all the Companions up to that one.
> My old main DM could quote chapter and verse from the core rulebooks
> with high accuracy, but I frequently flipped through to double-check,
> just to satisfy myself. This had the benefit of helping me to remember
> some things as I saw 'em again.
Yeah, most of the guys I gamed with (including myself) were very conversant
with the core rules. Thing is, I had the original PHB and DMG, and over the
years, I lost them and replaced them with the Nth-printing, black-covered
books with new art, and the pgs. are different, so my old notes all point to
the wrong pages... it's enough to make you ill! Heh.
> Sometimes too many options, but OTOH it's better to have 500 optional
> rules, so you can decide which 200 or so you want to use. Whatever fits
> well with the campaign concept, etc.
RM is very similar, except the options are far more limited and combined in
single tomes. Of course, you can port 3rd-party stuff into it (and it has
conversion charts! Not that the trusty Armoury screens can be thrown out,
but still...), and it leaves a lot open to allow for just that. Pretty much
anything you can think of for D&D has already been done or is in production
(as in the examples above), and it is very frustrating and costly to hunt
them down.
> For as long as I've played any version of D&D, I've longed for a lighter
> physical load. That's one thing I loved about TFT (The Fantasy Trip,
> by Metagaming's Steve Jackson). You had three rulebooks. There weren't
> many other materials published for the system, except for a small
> number of adventure modules. I think the emphasis was heavily
> on people creating their own worlds and adventures there, even
> though the books suggested a bare-bones setting. The system
> was elegant in its simplicity, and play was usually fast.
You know he was seminal in the hobby? Not just through GW, but just period.
He pioneered the gaming-by-phone across The Pond there (never really
caught-on here) and even has something I always wanted to do (but couldn't
afford, what with insurance and start-up and all): a castle for fantasy
LARPing! In fact, I picked up a tradeppb-sized book entitled, *Sorcery!
Khare - Cityport of Traps*, from the Goodwill a few weeks back for 50 cents!
I thought it was some kind of "choose-your-own adventure" book, but it's
apparently some kind of full-on solo gaming system. I really haven't looked
into it yet, but I'll let you know what it's about, if you're interested.
> With D&D, writing up an adventure while players prepare their PCs
> always took a while for me, as I'd devote but a couple hours per
> day working on it, skipping as much time as I needed to if I was
> awaiting inspiration. Character creation takes me nearly as long,
> as I first select race/sex/class, then roll ability scores, then flesh
> out the character concept, and finally select skills, feats, gear, etc.
Are you familiar with Central Casting's Fantasy Heroes? They have a series
of them for past, present, and future, and they are really in-depth
character background and lifestyle charts systems. I got extremely lucky
and bought some in a lot a while back and have been searching for the third
one ever since, but I mentioned them in a NG a while ago and the prices on
e-Bay skyrocketed! But I figure, they're highly sought-after now,
regardless of whether or not it had anything to do with my big mouth, and
they really worth it, so check them out if you get a chance. :c)
> ...and the hobby became a monster *L* Over time, I've come to the
> thinking (as I'm sure some others have as well) that it's the story, not
> the game system, that's most important. The Storyteller simply chooses
> the rules system that satisfies his/her comfort level and works best for
> the story. Thinking in this way, I can take any character concept, and
> mold it to fit any rules system. Helps to hold the character's core
> concept at something of a basic level, so not too many details need
> be changed specific to a rules system while maintaining the integrity
> of that character concept.
I am forever in search of the "invisible" system -- one that works beneath
the story and is almost completely unintrusive -- but having worked on some
of the more popular systems and developing my own, I'm coming to the
conclusion that it's almost impossible -- my own, sad, nerdy Holy Grail...
The closest I've seen so far is R. Talsorian's Interlock System
(specifically, Cyberpunk 2013). But too, there is some fun in the math
behind everything, so I'm starting to question whether or not anyone would
really like an invisible system. Plus, excepting diceless systems, how
invisible can a system with controllers (dice, cards, whatever) really be?
If you're interested in the concept, check out Atlas Games, specifically
Over The Edge and Robin Laws' work (which I keep saying I'm going to start
supporting on my site, but like the Sorcery! book... just haven't done
yet...).
> Happy gaming,
> Eric
You too!
- Chris
http://www.geocities.com/manodogs/RPG/