wellmoustachioed
Initiate Douchebag
Posts: 23
Preferred Game Systems: Trail of Cthulhu, FATE, Dungeon World
Currently Playing: Diaspora in Fate Core
Currently Running: Trail of Cthulhu
Favorite Species of Monkey: Proboscis
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Post by wellmoustachioed on Jul 23, 2014 9:48:42 GMT -8
There's no Gumshoe section, so I'll drop this here.
I'm helping a friend run an Ashen Stars game. I've run Trail of Cthulhu, so I know the system, but we're both relatively new to running a scifi game. The main thing that throws me is the huge overhead of a scifi setting: races, ships, equipment, etc. What are some good tips to getting the players invested in the setting? Any pitfalls we should watch out for?
The GM is going for a Firefly/Farscape/Alien feel. Less pew-pew-pew raygun, more wonder and horror.
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wellmoustachioed
Initiate Douchebag
Posts: 23
Preferred Game Systems: Trail of Cthulhu, FATE, Dungeon World
Currently Playing: Diaspora in Fate Core
Currently Running: Trail of Cthulhu
Favorite Species of Monkey: Proboscis
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Post by wellmoustachioed on Jul 8, 2014 15:19:13 GMT -8
This is due to the fact the 4e has 2 experience systems: the standard Experience Point and Gold Pieces. This makes GP just as "unreal" as XP, because there's no good way to cart around 1,000,000 gold pieces. It's silly. Gold as a currency past a couple hundred pieces has no meaning besides a metagame one of balance.
The way we worked it (besides heavy handwaving) is to use residuum (magic item dust) as your collected currency. There's not really a way to NOT give out the GP and magic items, or the balance is thrown off. You end up either with heroes who can't hit or heroes who have way too many HP to be threatened by a lower level encounter.
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wellmoustachioed
Initiate Douchebag
Posts: 23
Preferred Game Systems: Trail of Cthulhu, FATE, Dungeon World
Currently Playing: Diaspora in Fate Core
Currently Running: Trail of Cthulhu
Favorite Species of Monkey: Proboscis
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Post by wellmoustachioed on Jul 8, 2014 14:54:36 GMT -8
I got the book on a Bundle of Holding and for a crunchy, low fantasy game (not my usual at all), I really liked it. But I've never played it.
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wellmoustachioed
Initiate Douchebag
Posts: 23
Preferred Game Systems: Trail of Cthulhu, FATE, Dungeon World
Currently Playing: Diaspora in Fate Core
Currently Running: Trail of Cthulhu
Favorite Species of Monkey: Proboscis
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Post by wellmoustachioed on Jul 8, 2014 6:16:11 GMT -8
And I will run a Ghostbusters game in some system before I die! Inspectres! I guess I have to play Inspectres now, too! Also, Hillfolk. The greatest RPG I will likely never play. I had better live a heck of a long time because my bucket list keeps getting longer.
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wellmoustachioed
Initiate Douchebag
Posts: 23
Preferred Game Systems: Trail of Cthulhu, FATE, Dungeon World
Currently Playing: Diaspora in Fate Core
Currently Running: Trail of Cthulhu
Favorite Species of Monkey: Proboscis
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Post by wellmoustachioed on Jul 8, 2014 6:03:57 GMT -8
New recruit here!
Eric from Madison, WI. I have an irregular gaming group here that I've converted from D&D 4e to Trail of Cthulhu, but it's not enough gaming for me! I have a yen to play a bunch of new systems, especially all the great new hippie games. When I found out JackerCon was imminent, I finally signed up for the forums and G+ community! Thanks to everyone for being so welcoming.
I aim to not look like an a-hole when I game with DT Pints and hyvemynd and be that guy who doesn't know how to use Roll20 or G+ Hangouts. Any help anyone can suggest?
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wellmoustachioed
Initiate Douchebag
Posts: 23
Preferred Game Systems: Trail of Cthulhu, FATE, Dungeon World
Currently Playing: Diaspora in Fate Core
Currently Running: Trail of Cthulhu
Favorite Species of Monkey: Proboscis
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Post by wellmoustachioed on Jul 8, 2014 5:50:21 GMT -8
The free Basic Rules just saved me about a hundred bucks.
It seems like a perfectly competent system and there are a couple of new mechanics that I really like. They've blended healing surges with hit dice which is a nice blend of previous editions. It should make PCs hardier, but not impossible to kill (though I never had too much trouble in 4e). I really like the advantage/disadvantage die. Roll 2d20 and picking the higher or lower is a great math-free mechanic. Even my wife liked the idea.
However.
I've always played D&D because that's what people played. I've had a great time, and had a couple multi-year campaigns in 3.5 and 4e that had character depth and kickass heroic action. Reading through the Basic Rules, I was bored. I couldn't bring myself to care about the new version of D&D and resented that a lot of the material seemed to be copy/pasted from 3.5 right into the manuscript (equipment and spells, I'm looking at you).
Is it a good game? Undoubtedly. Is it a necessary game? Not for me. For a low-prep, high narrative, I have Dungeon World. For crunchy D&D with the serial numbers filed off, there's Pathfinder. For a sweet spot in between there's the fantastic 13th Age.
What do you guys think? Do I have D&D ennui? Should I be invested in 5e?
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wellmoustachioed
Initiate Douchebag
Posts: 23
Preferred Game Systems: Trail of Cthulhu, FATE, Dungeon World
Currently Playing: Diaspora in Fate Core
Currently Running: Trail of Cthulhu
Favorite Species of Monkey: Proboscis
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Post by wellmoustachioed on Jul 4, 2014 18:26:06 GMT -8
Fiasco, but one of my players would shrivel and die at that much RP. Dread, because just thinking about that dman Jenga tower make me nervous. And I will run a Ghostbusters game in some system before I die!
(Btw, Amber Diceless made a man of me when I was in high school.)
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wellmoustachioed
Initiate Douchebag
Posts: 23
Preferred Game Systems: Trail of Cthulhu, FATE, Dungeon World
Currently Playing: Diaspora in Fate Core
Currently Running: Trail of Cthulhu
Favorite Species of Monkey: Proboscis
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Post by wellmoustachioed on Jul 4, 2014 6:28:35 GMT -8
I will add another plug for Dread, the physicality of the Jenga tower would really add to the tension. Unless you have cats. From reading the book however, it seems like a good thing to play first and then run. Setting up a game, especially such a freeform narrative game, will be a challenge if you have no experience with it.
I've run Trail of Cthulhu (a GUMSHOE game) with quite a bit of success. It's a simple system, and easy to run. The dwindling resource pools of the characters really adds a desperation, especially the balance of spending points for Stability (part of the Sanity mechanic) without knowing the difficulty they have to meet. Plus, Ken Hite's writing is really inspirational in regards to the Cthulhu Mythos.
You might also want to check out Cthulhu Dark, by Graham Walmsley. It's a rules light (dark, get it?) game that has an amazing inevitability of insanity baked right in. Super simple, really flexible.
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