TTRPG's You've Wanted to MU* (But Probably Won't)

[il-volpe]

Conan

[Livia]

Phoenix Dawn.

Card game RPG that is all about hand management and has a little bit of deckbuilder in it. It's very interesting to stare at your hand and work out what string of actions you can put together -- no RNG dice rolls, just work out the best way to play the hand you have.

I also find the setting pretty interesting.

[friarzen]

@Livia Huh, I have not heard of Phoenix Dawn before. This is interestingly similar to an storyline deckbuilding idea I've been working on for my main game project. Thanks for the pointer, I'm going to have to read it and see what wisdom I can glean from their designs.

[Runescryer]

@Kumakun said in TTRPG's You've Wanted to MU* (But Probably Won't):

Scion I love the concept, but I don't think it'd work very well as a MU without some serious modification as much as I love to play TT.

Scion 1e worked just fine as a MU, pretty much right out of the box. As with most MU's, the key was staff being knowledgeable about the system and able to say 'no' to broken concepts or concepts that could eventually break the system.

@ZombieGenesis said in TTRPG's You've Wanted to MU* (But Probably Won't):

Rifts or TMNT. Both Palladium games which means people have a strong knee-jerk reaction but I've had fun playing both since the 80s/90s.

Rifts is a fantastic setting, but with old-school rules crunch. It's that last part that makes veteran gamers wary. The emphasis on 'RANDOM ROLL ALL THE THINGS!!!!' Character Generation is especially archaic these days. There was a FATE Rifts game, but I'm surprised that no-one's tried to do a Savage Worlds Rifts game, since there is an official adaptation for it.

[Runescryer]

@ZombieGenesis said in TTRPG's You've Wanted to MU* (But Probably Won't):

If you wanted to explore the sheer immensity of all that is Rifts, I think it'd be best to do PDF sheets on the wiki/web portal. There's just too much to think about in terms of code otherwise.

Just my 2 cents on how to approach Rifts/Palladium...

-Establish a 'Tier' system for characters based on sources. Limit the amount of characters from outside the 'base' area of the game.
EX: A setting in the Colorado Baronies...
-Tier 0: Rifts Core Book, Rifts Ultimate Edition, Juicer Uprising, New West, Spirit West, Lone Star, D-Bees of North America, and select other sourcebooks.
-Tier 1: Northern Gun 1 & 2, Atlantis, Secrets of the Atlanteans, Canada, Free Quebec, Dinosaur Swamp, Psyscape, Federation of Magic, other books that are reasonably close to the area
-Tier 2: South America 1 & 2, Madhaven, Shemarian Nation, Underseas; a bit further away, but still the same hemisphere
-Tier 3: Triax/NGR, England, Africa, Russia, Japan, Australia, Phase World, Wormwood (maybe), Palladium Fantasy, Beyond the Supernatural, Chaos Earth; the rest of Rifts Earth, the 'historic' past, and frequently visited dimensions.
-Tier 4: Skraypers, Heroes Unlimited, All other Palladium settings/sources

Also, potential outright banning of very powerful or unballancing character types like Cosmo Knights & Bhlaze. And conversion of C-Gen to a points-based attribute buy system; other random rolls are player's choice.

I do agree about making Character Generation web-portal based. Cuts down on alot of coding

[GreenFlashlight]

@Runescryer said in TTRPG's You've Wanted to MU* (But Probably Won't):

Just my 2 cents on how to approach Rifts/Palladium...

-Establish a 'Tier' system for characters based on sources. Limit the amount of characters from outside the 'base' area of the game.
EX: A setting in the Colorado Baronies...
-Tier 0: Rifts Core Book, Rifts Ultimate Edition, Juicer Uprising, New West, Spirit West, Lone Star, D-Bees of North America, and select other sourcebooks.
-Tier 1: Northern Gun 1 & 2, Atlantis, Secrets of the Atlanteans, Canada, Free Quebec, Dinosaur Swamp, Psyscape, Federation of Magic, other books that are reasonably close to the area
-Tier 2: South America 1 & 2, Madhaven, Shemarian Nation, Underseas; a bit further away, but still the same hemisphere
-Tier 3: Triax/NGR, England, Africa, Russia, Japan, Australia, Phase World, Wormwood (maybe), Palladium Fantasy, Beyond the Supernatural, Chaos Earth; the rest of Rifts Earth, the 'historic' past, and frequently visited dimensions.
-Tier 4: Skraypers, Heroes Unlimited, All other Palladium settings/sources

I know piracy is a thing, but it kinda bothers me your tier is limited by your ability to afford the books.

[Runescryer]

@GreenFlashlight said in TTRPG's You've Wanted to MU* (But Probably Won't):

I know piracy is a thing, but it kinda bothers me your tier is limited by your ability to afford the books.

Not necessarily. It can also be seen as a focus for buying the books in order to concentrate on aspects that you find interesting. You start with the core rulebook, then go from there. The point is that there's so much ground to cover, so to speak, and the rarity and power levels of individual characters vary so much between books, there's no easy way to organize what character classes and equipment should be in a particular area in what amount except by geographical/dimensional/temporal means. Just like you shouldn't expect to see a bunch of Cyber-Knight characters in an NGR setting, you shouldn't expect to see tons of rune weapon wielding samurai from Japan in a North American setting.

[ZombieGenesis]

@GreenFlashlight said in [TTRPG's You've Wanted to MU* (But

I know piracy is a thing, but it kinda bothers me your tier is limited by your ability to afford the books.

It might seem that way but all you'd really need using that system is the core book and whatever supplement you needed for your RCC/OCC. Want to play a Ley Line Walker? Core rules will likely be all you need. You COULD use other books to flesh some things out but they're not needed.

[Kumakun]

@Runescryer said in TTRPG's You've Wanted to MU* (But Probably Won't):

Scion 1e worked just fine as a MU, pretty much right out of the box. As with most MU's, the key was staff being knowledgeable about the system and saying 'no' to broken concepts or concepts that could eventually break the system.

That's promising to hear. Scion would be a heck of a lot of fun, I think. Well, 1e. I haven't purchased/read 2e yet so I wouldn't know on that one. I'd think the power tiers would definitely go Gonzo after a while though - unless you just make people retire characters after a certain point. You're off to fight the good fight with your Pantheon now!

Rifts is a fantastic setting, but with old-school rules crunch. It's that last part that makes veteran gamers wary. The emphasis on 'RANDOM ROLL ALL THE THINGS!!!!' Character Generation is especially archaic these days. There was a FATE Rifts game, but I'm surprised that no-one's tried to do a Savage Worlds Rifts game since there is an official adaptation for it.

I haven't looked at the Savage Worlds adaptation is a while, a long while. And from the looks of it, it's rather expanded. I'll have to investigate more. Anything that might be more wildly than Palladium/ I've got a lot of nostalgia with the system, but yeah. Coding that monstrosity, haha.

[Kumakun]

@Runescryer said in TTRPG's You've Wanted to MU* (But Probably Won't):

@ZombieGenesis said in TTRPG's You've Wanted to MU* (But Probably Won't):

If you wanted to explore the sheer immensity of all that is Rifts, I think it'd be best to do PDF sheets on the wiki/web portal. There's just too much to think about in terms of code otherwise.

Just my 2 cents on how to approach Rifts/Palladium...

-Establish a 'Tier' system for characters based on sources. Limit the amount of characters from outside the 'base' area of the game.
EX: A setting in the Colorado Baronies...
-Tier 0: Rifts Core Book, Rifts Ultimate Edition, Juicer Uprising, New West, Spirit West, Lone Star, D-Bees of North America, and select other sourcebooks.
-Tier 1: Northern Gun 1 & 2, Atlantis, Secrets of the Atlanteans, Canada, Free Quebec, Dinosaur Swamp, Psyscape, Federation of Magic, other books that are reasonably close to the area
-Tier 2: South America 1 & 2, Madhaven, Shemarian Nation, Underseas; a bit further away, but still the same hemisphere
-Tier 3: Triax/NGR, England, Africa, Russia, Japan, Australia, Phase World, Wormwood (maybe), Palladium Fantasy, Beyond the Supernatural, Chaos Earth; the rest of Rifts Earth, the 'historic' past, and frequently visited dimensions.
-Tier 4: Skraypers, Heroes Unlimited, All other Palladium settings/sources

Also, potential outright banning of very powerful or unballancing character types like Cosmo Knights & Bhlaze. And conversion of C-Gen to a points-based attribute buy system; other random rolls are player's choice.

I do agree about making Character Generation web-portal based. Cuts down on alot of coding

I think the tier system is an interesting way to manage different OOC/RCC power levels - as things started to power creep over the years.

I think a character portal would be critical, actually. The thought of softcoding a system to handle the rules that Are Palladium makes me twitch some. Though! Once it's done? TMNT and Robotech and any other game released under the Palladium system are suddenly on the table. Hmm.

Haha, everyone's first 'banned concept' is Cosmo Knight (For good reason!).

[Ganymede]

@ZombieGenesis said in TTRPG's You've Wanted to MU* (But Probably Won't):

It might seem that way but all you'd really need using that system is the core book and whatever supplement you needed for your RCC/OCC. Want to play a Ley Line Walker? Core rules will likely be all you need. You COULD use other books to flesh some things out but they're not needed.

Yes, but you are playing the game with others. Presumably everyone of a particular Tier are playing or competing with one another, it becomes imperative to have the other books, which may have mechanics related how the occupations interact with one another.

[ZombieGenesis]

@Ganymede said in TTRPG's You've Wanted to MU* (But Probably Won't):

Yes, but you are playing the game with others. Presumably everyone of a particular Tier are playing or competing with one another, it becomes imperative to have the other books, which may have mechanics related how the occupations interact with one another.

I think it's more important that staff know how the two interact. This way they can act as a mediator for whatever conflict may erupt.

The good thing about the Palladium RPG is that it's not WoD. The mechanics are all kind of uniform giving bonuses or penalties to stats that all characters have. One character won't have Gifts that operate one way while another has Disciplines that operate a different way. I don't think there would be as big a disconnect between a character playing an RCC from book C and a character playing an OOC from book D as compared to something like WoD.

[Kumakun]

Just from mentioning it on another thread:

Deadlands. I was just never sure how to convert the playing card initiative mechanic online in a smooth way!

[Runescryer]

@ZombieGenesis said in TTRPG's You've Wanted to MU* (But Probably Won't):

The good thing about the Palladium RPG is that it's not WoD. The mechanics are all kind of uniform giving bonuses or penalties to stats that all characters have. One character won't have Gifts that operate one way while another has Disciplines that operate a different way. I don't think there would be as big a disconnect between a character playing an RCC from book C and a character playing an OOC from book D as compared to something like WoD.

90% of the time, that's true. And there is a great deal of balance between character classes. But, there are some exceptions that make certain concepts hard to integrate into a 'normal' group. Examples include the aforementioned Cosmo-Knights and Bhlaze. Another example I ran into as a GM was converting the Chi & Zenjorki abilities from Ninjas & Superspies into Rifts, where there wasn't anything to really counter those abilities. And there are subtle issues, like the Psi-Slinger (one of my favorite OCCs); they automatically convert incoming energy MegaDamage into SDC damage. No ISP or other cost, no roll, it's completely automatic. A GM needs to be aware and consciously prepare encounters to be able to provide challenges to such a character.

[Seraphim73]

Leverage. It has the 'small troupe style' problem that most RPGs do, but I adore the Flashback mechanics, so much so that I've brought them into the last two games I've run. Plus, who doesn't like competence-porn?

[MiserEnoch]

@runescryer

There was a RIFTS game I was on for a while where they had a very neat system to counter this.

It was basically a sheet of points - for selecting an RCC or OCC for your character.

0 points was perfectly normal, no natural MDC ability or extraordinary ability, such as the City Rat, Mercenary, and so forth. They depended on equipment to keep up.

1 point was mostly normal with some natural MDC ability, but not constant, like the Burster or psi-stalkers. Or had some extraordinary ability, such as Dog Boys.

2 was for something that could naturally keep up with a small MDC beast, like the Jolters, crazies, Juicers, and most magic users.

3 was for things that could keep up with heavy MDC beasts, like the Mind Melter, and Light Machines.

4 was for things that could mow down lots of MDC things all in a row and was generally getting up there in terms of raw output, like Heavy Machines and Heavy Robots, the Dragon Juicer and Crazy variants, etc.

5 was for things that were pretty much impossible to mix with something in the lower scale and still have the 0 to 2 pointers be able to contribute, like the Starchild or Galaxy knights. Things that could wipe the encounter map in one or two turns.

So depending on your selection, that was the expectation in terms of your character generation, with things over 3 points not available to new players off the bat. It led to a much lower bar game, where having an MDC pistol in the city was a pretty darn big game changer. A small vampire haven was a huge deal and took a lot of effort to purge. It was actually quite interesting. I'm probably not explaining it very well, and I wish I could find that game again - even the old website - just so I can rip off their sheet of points because it had a very extensive list of RCC/OCCs and where they fell on the power scale.

[Darren]

While we're on the subject of Rifts...

[Derp]

@miserenoch said in TTRPG's You've Wanted to MU* (But Probably Won't):

@runescryer

There was a RIFTS game I was on for a while where they had a very neat system to counter this.

It was basically a sheet of points - for selecting an RCC or OCC for your character.

0 points was perfectly normal, no natural MDC ability or extraordinary ability, such as the City Rat, Mercenary, and so forth. They depended on equipment to keep up.

1 point was mostly normal with some natural MDC ability, but not constant, like the Burster or psi-stalkers. Or had some extraordinary ability, such as Dog Boys.

2 was for something that could naturally keep up with a small MDC beast, like the Jolters, crazies, Juicers, and most magic users.

3 was for things that could keep up with heavy MDC beasts, like the Mind Melter, and Light Machines.

4 was for things that could mow down lots of MDC things all in a row and was generally getting up there in terms of raw output, like Heavy Machines and Heavy Robots, the Dragon Juicer and Crazy variants, etc.

5 was for things that were pretty much impossible to mix with something in the lower scale and still have the 0 to 2 pointers be able to contribute, like the Starchild or Galaxy knights. Things that could wipe the encounter map in one or two turns.

So depending on your selection, that was the expectation in terms of your character generation, with things over 3 points not available to new players off the bat. It led to a much lower bar game, where having an MDC pistol in the city was a pretty darn big game changer. A small vampire haven was a huge deal and took a lot of effort to purge. It was actually quite interesting. I'm probably not explaining it very well, and I wish I could find that game again - even the old website - just so I can rip off their sheet of points because it had a very extensive list of RCC/OCCs and where they fell on the power scale.

I did some web sleuthing and I don't think I found exactly what you were looking for. Though Rifts: Kingsdale did seem to have some kind of Tier System set up.

Other bonus, Shadows of Humanity 3 has a very nice Class List with book references. (It only does one letter at a time so either click the link on the left or change the letter in the URL up there.)

[Alzie]

Still want one of:
Ryuutama
Tenra Bansha Zero

[Kumakun]

@alzie said in TTRPG's You've Wanted to MU* (But Probably Won't):

Still want one of:
Ryuutama
Tenra Bansha Zero

Ryuutama looks really interesting, and really REALLY cute.