As I was posting questions to ask +edige23 about his gm advice q&a, I realized she might be better served asking here in smaller quantities at a time.
1. Why are the (not sure of the correct word here) tags for people not popping up when I try to ping(?) them in a post?
2. I really like the worlds DP9 did for Heavy Gear/Jovian Chronicles and the anime, Gundam style personal war stories. Any suggestions for a game that does mecha well that better suits The Gauntlet? I’ve played and like Uncharted Worlds and have heard +Richard Rogers say that he likes Impulse Drive better. Would those do games where everybody has a ship, and differentiate them? Would it be better to start with something like The Watch (haven’t read it, but know it does personal war stories) or maybe even Nightwitches but add in mecha? Or maybe Adventures on Dungeon Planet (never read it)?
3. I loved the idea of kingdom building in Pathfinder’s Kingmaker Adventure Path (which confused me forever when I heard people here using AP for Actual Play) but in practice I didn’t like how self perpetuating yet meaningless it was. Any recommendations for a game that does that or have system that would bolt easily onto DW?
Also, is Slack a better venue for this kind of inquiry?
Also, is Slack a better venue for this kind of inquiry?
On kingdom building, Adventurer, Conqueror, King has it built in. It’s an OSR game but offers a model of the kingdom building system built into the core of the game.
On kingdom building, Adventurer, Conqueror, King has it built in. It’s an OSR game but offers a model of the kingdom building system built into the core of the game.
Graham Meinert Is it level dependant? I remember in old D&D, you got your castle, tower, or whatever at a certain level, 9 maybe? I’ll check it out.
Graham Meinert Is it level dependant? I remember in old D&D, you got your castle, tower, or whatever at a certain level, 9 maybe? I’ll check it out.
It’s tied to story and achievement rather than “at level 10 you get a keep.” PbtA offers Legacy, Life Among the Ruins. The settlements exist at the beginning of the game though and represent where the characters are from, but are effected by the characters’ actions.
It’s tied to story and achievement rather than “at level 10 you get a keep.” PbtA offers Legacy, Life Among the Ruins. The settlements exist at the beginning of the game though and represent where the characters are from, but are effected by the characters’ actions.
Taejas Kudva I think to tag someone, you need to do it using their name. Lowell Francis I believe is edige23. It’s a challenge to tag someone with a somewhat common name, who has not yet posted into the actual thread. For instance Jason Cordova. It’s a failing of G+ in my opinion. G+ should know people who are in communities you are a member of, and list those people first; and then the rest of the world.
Slack is great – but limits it to only Patrons; which some folks are not (like myself).
For your mecha game, do you need to do PbtA? There’s this:
giantitp.com – Mecha World: A Mecha RPG Powered by the Apocalypse (PEACH)
There’s also Vesna Thaw by Nathan Paoletta. Not sure if it’s what you are actually looking for though…
https://ndpdesign.com/ndp-microgame-series/
Taejas Kudva I think to tag someone, you need to do it using their name. Lowell Francis I believe is edige23. It’s a challenge to tag someone with a somewhat common name, who has not yet posted into the actual thread. For instance Jason Cordova. It’s a failing of G+ in my opinion. G+ should know people who are in communities you are a member of, and list those people first; and then the rest of the world.
Slack is great – but limits it to only Patrons; which some folks are not (like myself).
For your mecha game, do you need to do PbtA? There’s this:
giantitp.com – Mecha World: A Mecha RPG Powered by the Apocalypse (PEACH)
There’s also Vesna Thaw by Nathan Paoletta. Not sure if it’s what you are actually looking for though…
https://ndpdesign.com/ndp-microgame-series/
I’d also mention Stonetop as a PbtA very similar to DW but with settlement expansion rules built in. PCs aren’t intended to run a kingdom but they do run a village (Stonetop) and the rules allow the players to make decisions regarding building projects, trade, religion, etc. across years or decades.
I’d also mention Stonetop as a PbtA very similar to DW but with settlement expansion rules built in. PCs aren’t intended to run a kingdom but they do run a village (Stonetop) and the rules allow the players to make decisions regarding building projects, trade, religion, etc. across years or decades.
You want Chris Perrin’s Mecha
rpggeek.com – Mecha
You want Chris Perrin’s Mecha
rpggeek.com – Mecha
And, if BattleTech-style mechs fit your palette better than anime-style mecha, here’s a Mecha SRS for playing in the Inner Sphere:
docs.google.com – Succession
And, if BattleTech-style mechs fit your palette better than anime-style mecha, here’s a Mecha SRS for playing in the Inner Sphere:
docs.google.com – Succession
Chris Shorb So replying to a post seems to work for tagging someone. Still can’t figure out name dropping midpost. I’ll get there some day….
Checked out Mecha World. Very cool! Idea is still in infancy, but maybe I just add on the World of Dungeons move for the social bits out of combat – have to decide if non combat drama is the focus or the dog fights. Great starting point though, thanks!
Chris Shorb So replying to a post seems to work for tagging someone. Still can’t figure out name dropping midpost. I’ll get there some day….
Checked out Mecha World. Very cool! Idea is still in infancy, but maybe I just add on the World of Dungeons move for the social bits out of combat – have to decide if non combat drama is the focus or the dog fights. Great starting point though, thanks!
I’ve also been looking for a way to bring Heavy Gear to The Gauntlet. The only way I can think of for the moment is pregen characters. (For those of you who don’t know, character creation in Heavy Gear requires algebra)
I’ve also been looking for a way to bring Heavy Gear to The Gauntlet. The only way I can think of for the moment is pregen characters. (For those of you who don’t know, character creation in Heavy Gear requires algebra)
A few years ago, a group was developing Souls of Steel a PbtA game in which you play tankers, fighter pilots, or mech pilots (or some combination). It’s been shelved for a while, though
A few years ago, a group was developing Souls of Steel a PbtA game in which you play tankers, fighter pilots, or mech pilots (or some combination). It’s been shelved for a while, though
I’ve wondered for awhile if there was any appetite for a Battletech version of PbtA structured similarly to The Watch or Night Witches. I didn’t realise there was already one out there…I’m not entirely sure Succession hits the spot for me after giving it a read. For me at least, Battletech’s mechanics made actual mech combat the least exciting part of the game (although I did play a lot of it as a kid!). I’d rather tell a story about what the mechwarriors do in their downtime. Anyone else thought about doing this?
I’ve wondered for awhile if there was any appetite for a Battletech version of PbtA structured similarly to The Watch or Night Witches. I didn’t realise there was already one out there…I’m not entirely sure Succession hits the spot for me after giving it a read. For me at least, Battletech’s mechanics made actual mech combat the least exciting part of the game (although I did play a lot of it as a kid!). I’d rather tell a story about what the mechwarriors do in their downtime. Anyone else thought about doing this?
I do have a copy of Vesna Thaw. That could be a blast to facilitate.
I do have a copy of Vesna Thaw. That could be a blast to facilitate.
Stephen Humphreys, if you’d “rather tell a story about what the mechwarriors do in their downtime”, you really aught to read Mecha.
Stephen Humphreys, if you’d “rather tell a story about what the mechwarriors do in their downtime”, you really aught to read Mecha.
Lester Ward Thanks! I’ll give it a look!
Lester Ward Thanks! I’ll give it a look!
Lester Ward The RPG geek site didn’t have much on Mecha. Does Drivethru have it?
Also, how do you do things like italics? Is that computer only – maybe the phone app doesn’t support it? I feel frustratingly noobish. Even when I type a plus sign and then their name, it doesn’t tag people for me unless I am replying to a comment.
Lester Ward The RPG geek site didn’t have much on Mecha. Does Drivethru have it?
Also, how do you do things like italics? Is that computer only – maybe the phone app doesn’t support it? I feel frustratingly noobish. Even when I type a plus sign and then their name, it doesn’t tag people for me unless I am replying to a comment.
River Williamson To be fair, it’s not like it’s hard math. Annoying point buy, but not hard. I found the complexity stuff from SilCore that much more annoying for being so poorly implemented. Use 1st edition, for anyone inclined to run Heavy Gear, Jovian Chronicles, or (my fav) Tribe 8.
River Williamson To be fair, it’s not like it’s hard math. Annoying point buy, but not hard. I found the complexity stuff from SilCore that much more annoying for being so poorly implemented. Use 1st edition, for anyone inclined to run Heavy Gear, Jovian Chronicles, or (my fav) Tribe 8.
Here is a Drive Thru link to Mecha. (I wish there was a fixed page on the publishers site that linked to the various places you could get it, but I couldn’t find one).
As for text, if you start and end a word or phrase with underscores, you get italic text.
If you start and end a word with asterisks, you get bold text.
If you start and end a word or phrase with dashes, you get
strikethrough text.Nothing in G+’s documentation actually tells you this.drivethrurpg.com – Chris Perrin’s Mecha
Here is a Drive Thru link to Mecha. (I wish there was a fixed page on the publishers site that linked to the various places you could get it, but I couldn’t find one).
As for text, if you start and end a word or phrase with underscores, you get italic text.
If you start and end a word with asterisks, you get bold text.
If you start and end a word or phrase with dashes, you get
strikethrough text.Nothing in G+’s documentation actually tells you this.drivethrurpg.com – Chris Perrin’s Mecha
Lester Ward awesome, thanks. And sorry. In hindsight I could have just done a search on Drivethru myself. So actually, double thanks! 😁
Lester Ward awesome, thanks. And sorry. In hindsight I could have just done a search on Drivethru myself. So actually, double thanks! 😁
Lester Ward Now that we’re at it – how do people add things like the pin image?
Lester Ward Now that we’re at it – how do people add things like the pin image?
I don’t do emojis. Sorry.
I don’t do emojis. Sorry.
Taejas, it’s not much math, but a lot of my crew has trouble adding modifiers @__@
Taejas, it’s not much math, but a lot of my crew has trouble adding modifiers @__@
River Williamson oh, was it during gameplay? I remember the stats as being a zero average modifier to the roll. For me, the annoying math was always the squaring and then x 2 for the cost of skills during char gen. And I am never fond of tracking points expenditure when buying initial skills.
River Williamson oh, was it during gameplay? I remember the stats as being a zero average modifier to the roll. For me, the annoying math was always the squaring and then x 2 for the cost of skills during char gen. And I am never fond of tracking points expenditure when buying initial skills.
But I actually quite like the system, and very much liked all of the game worlds. Well, maybe not gear Krieg.
But I actually quite like the system, and very much liked all of the game worlds. Well, maybe not gear Krieg.
I’ve been noodling a lot about how to reduce all of that complexity at character creation. All the derived stats (secondary and tertiary stats and whatnot) I’m making slow headway.
The dice system in DP9 games is so elegant and impactful. They match the tone of Heavy Gear and Tribe 8 so well, I’d certainly want to keep them.
I’ve been noodling a lot about how to reduce all of that complexity at character creation. All the derived stats (secondary and tertiary stats and whatnot) I’m making slow headway.
The dice system in DP9 games is so elegant and impactful. They match the tone of Heavy Gear and Tribe 8 so well, I’d certainly want to keep them.
Do you think you’d want to get rid of the whole MoS/MoF multiplication thing? I think it worked. I liked how it used wounds and penalties instead of being hit point depletion, and how that cycled toward being easier to take down. It’s kind of like harm instead of hit points. But it’s still doing multiplication.
Do you think you’d want to get rid of the whole MoS/MoF multiplication thing? I think it worked. I liked how it used wounds and penalties instead of being hit point depletion, and how that cycled toward being easier to take down. It’s kind of like harm instead of hit points. But it’s still doing multiplication.
The Margin of Success/Failure is something I really like. It and damage multipliers work so well for crunchy things like mech armor.
The multipliers and MoS/MoF get a little weird if you try to apply them to more fluffy stuff like arguments, tho
The Margin of Success/Failure is something I really like. It and damage multipliers work so well for crunchy things like mech armor.
The multipliers and MoS/MoF get a little weird if you try to apply them to more fluffy stuff like arguments, tho
Taejas Kudva Returning to your Q3 – how do you see Kingdom Building working for your campaign? Do you want level based kingdoms? I have not read Kingmaker myself.
Taejas Kudva Returning to your Q3 – how do you see Kingdom Building working for your campaign? Do you want level based kingdoms? I have not read Kingmaker myself.
Chris Shorb Mostly, I like the idea of heroes carving a chunk of civilization out of the wilderness and then protecting it and having an interest in the lives of the people who have ventured out to settle. I like the idea of watching it develop, but I want to do more than just play Kingdom.
I’d like to explore frontier life and relationships, the opportunities successful adventurers would create for others just by having tamed SOME (not by any means even most) of a threatening wilderness, and the budding political position of a small new power occupying a newly reopened trade route.
Kingmaker has an evocative set of threats to the settlement (maybe implemented with a bit of kludge when you leave the realm of adventuring), but the actual mechanics don’t push story very much (there’s a small kingdom events phase that’s underdeveloped) or really do anything beneficial for the party other than self perpetuate. There’s some economics simulation that’s affected by buildings you choose to develop, but that’s really only fit driving the engine of the minigame, and you’d have to develop any story connections based on what you’ve chosen to build yourself. The adventure has advice on how to just ignore the kingdom building minigame and make some hand waves and assumptions about what develops, but that I feel misses the point.
Chris Shorb Mostly, I like the idea of heroes carving a chunk of civilization out of the wilderness and then protecting it and having an interest in the lives of the people who have ventured out to settle. I like the idea of watching it develop, but I want to do more than just play Kingdom.
I’d like to explore frontier life and relationships, the opportunities successful adventurers would create for others just by having tamed SOME (not by any means even most) of a threatening wilderness, and the budding political position of a small new power occupying a newly reopened trade route.
Kingmaker has an evocative set of threats to the settlement (maybe implemented with a bit of kludge when you leave the realm of adventuring), but the actual mechanics don’t push story very much (there’s a small kingdom events phase that’s underdeveloped) or really do anything beneficial for the party other than self perpetuate. There’s some economics simulation that’s affected by buildings you choose to develop, but that’s really only fit driving the engine of the minigame, and you’d have to develop any story connections based on what you’ve chosen to build yourself. The adventure has advice on how to just ignore the kingdom building minigame and make some hand waves and assumptions about what develops, but that I feel misses the point.
Taejas Kudva Which volume of Kingmaker does this appear in? What you describe seems like it would be an awesome game, a la Pendragon. I haven’t heard of anything like that for PbTA. It sounds like it could also be re-skinned as a Western game; where a hardy band of settlers (adventurers) attempt to eke out a living in a hostile frontier.
Taejas Kudva Which volume of Kingmaker does this appear in? What you describe seems like it would be an awesome game, a la Pendragon. I haven’t heard of anything like that for PbTA. It sounds like it could also be re-skinned as a Western game; where a hardy band of settlers (adventurers) attempt to eke out a living in a hostile frontier.
In describing it, I realized it reminded me a little bit of what I know of mutant year zero. Unfortunately, I know almost nothing about mutant year zero.
Also unfortunatelyalso unfortunately the things that I most interested in our not really part of the adventure. There is the threat that you defeat to make the Wilderness safe for habitation, relatively speaking. There is a threat that follows after, and then an investigation into another settlement doing the same thing as your settlement but has gone dark. Those are volumes 2 and 3. There’s volume 4, exploring a vast swamp to the West to find out why a reopened a river trade route is being threatened. The 5th one where your characters are substantially higher level deals with a very established nearby city and its threat to your burgeoning kingdom, and then finally the uber threat to the entire wilderness region in volume six that masterminded much of the problems in the previous issues.
I think the threats at cool. When I ran it via Pathfinder (actually, converted to Fantasy Craft after a level or two), I got through a volume and a half. We semi-abandoned the kingdom building, which only begins at volume 1, because it seemed a little purposeless. We lost track of volume 2 because the group got embroiled in the plots that came up due to kingdom events and that wasn’t really supported by the adventure. And then two of us had kids, another guy finished his ph.d and moved, and real life commitments disbanded the group.
I wanted to get back to it, but in reflection, I realized that as much as I liked the exploration sandbox adventure stuff, it was all the links to the surrounding world the kingdom implied that was interesting. The wilderness region of the modules are surrounded by lots of interesting countries with neat politics and story hooks. It would be a huge campaign to try and include all of that, but I think some of it could be distilled into something shorter and cool. Maybe little arcs in an ongoing world, kind of like Gauntlet City Limits.
Also, let me apologize for always spewing tl;dr posts! Concise is not my thing.
In describing it, I realized it reminded me a little bit of what I know of mutant year zero. Unfortunately, I know almost nothing about mutant year zero.
Also unfortunatelyalso unfortunately the things that I most interested in our not really part of the adventure. There is the threat that you defeat to make the Wilderness safe for habitation, relatively speaking. There is a threat that follows after, and then an investigation into another settlement doing the same thing as your settlement but has gone dark. Those are volumes 2 and 3. There’s volume 4, exploring a vast swamp to the West to find out why a reopened a river trade route is being threatened. The 5th one where your characters are substantially higher level deals with a very established nearby city and its threat to your burgeoning kingdom, and then finally the uber threat to the entire wilderness region in volume six that masterminded much of the problems in the previous issues.
I think the threats at cool. When I ran it via Pathfinder (actually, converted to Fantasy Craft after a level or two), I got through a volume and a half. We semi-abandoned the kingdom building, which only begins at volume 1, because it seemed a little purposeless. We lost track of volume 2 because the group got embroiled in the plots that came up due to kingdom events and that wasn’t really supported by the adventure. And then two of us had kids, another guy finished his ph.d and moved, and real life commitments disbanded the group.
I wanted to get back to it, but in reflection, I realized that as much as I liked the exploration sandbox adventure stuff, it was all the links to the surrounding world the kingdom implied that was interesting. The wilderness region of the modules are surrounded by lots of interesting countries with neat politics and story hooks. It would be a huge campaign to try and include all of that, but I think some of it could be distilled into something shorter and cool. Maybe little arcs in an ongoing world, kind of like Gauntlet City Limits.
Also, let me apologize for always spewing tl;dr posts! Concise is not my thing.
Ah, so it was more the overall structure of the AdvP that implied a larger story/kingdom building. Sounds cool; but I totally get what you are saying – there has to be some sort of kingdom building game. One question Taejas Kudva – do you see this as a PvP sort of game? Or something else?
I wonder if either The Sword The Crown, The Unspeakable Power or Inglorious (Sage and Adam’s new game) are hitting any of your points?
Ah, so it was more the overall structure of the AdvP that implied a larger story/kingdom building. Sounds cool; but I totally get what you are saying – there has to be some sort of kingdom building game. One question Taejas Kudva – do you see this as a PvP sort of game? Or something else?
I wonder if either The Sword The Crown, The Unspeakable Power or Inglorious (Sage and Adam’s new game) are hitting any of your points?
I missed the SCUP KS, so I don’t really know. Not familiar with Inglorious.
I feel like Mutant Year Zero would do all this with a reskin based on what I’ve heard, but from what I gather it’s basically trad in that it’s largely skill resolution, and I’ve really fallen in love with the way PbtA mechanics create fiction.
So I was hoping for some mechanic I could bolt on to DW. I’ve picked up Reign and A Song of Ice and Fire as both have house mechanics. Haven’t really had a chance to look at them. Basically info gathering right now.
I missed the SCUP KS, so I don’t really know. Not familiar with Inglorious.
I feel like Mutant Year Zero would do all this with a reskin based on what I’ve heard, but from what I gather it’s basically trad in that it’s largely skill resolution, and I’ve really fallen in love with the way PbtA mechanics create fiction.
So I was hoping for some mechanic I could bolt on to DW. I’ve picked up Reign and A Song of Ice and Fire as both have house mechanics. Haven’t really had a chance to look at them. Basically info gathering right now.