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Post by hamurai on Jan 6, 2018 2:44:10 GMT -6
I'd like to add: while we always played without dividing the XP, we never had an army of henchmen with our group. I think at most our group would have been of about 8-10 people with half of them being PCs. Not sure if that would be considered a small group, I'd think of it as a "normal" group.
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Post by hamurai on Jan 5, 2018 12:29:26 GMT -6
That's actually how we always played, too. We did at first wonder if XP were to be shared or not, though. Our argument always was that you get XP for an experience, and experiencing a treasure or monster or quest would not be diminished by sharing the experience. If you learn something, would you learn less if someone is with you? Sharing XP never made much sense to me unless you see it just as "How big was your contribution to overcoming the monster?" That would make leveling WAY too fast. Depends on how much treasure the DM gives out, doesn't it? It would also remove most of the incentive for solo adventuring. Why? It's still a bigger challenge and you don't have to share the treasure and magic items.
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Post by hamurai on Dec 28, 2017 1:12:22 GMT -6
In fact, I'd recommend having a look at any edition of microlite - they're all free and well done. B/X Advanced is not standing out as much, for me at least. But it's v0.2 so...
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Post by hamurai on Dec 27, 2017 15:32:35 GMT -6
Sounds about right! Pretty much every time I play 0e there's someone who wants to play a thief, so most of the time we have 4 classes. But HD are d6! Alignment is usually law/neutral/chaos only. Our biggest point of disagreement is spells - which newer ones to include and the spell list in general. Do we allow newer versions, or do we only use the original ones? Stuff like that. That changes a lot, depending on who's the ref.
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Post by hamurai on Dec 27, 2017 14:20:11 GMT -6
I also got this as a thanks for a donation. I haven't really looked at it, though, just skimmed it a little. But I was really after the Microlite books, which I prefer. B/X Advanced looks good so far, but I wouldn't want to play it at the moment either. What you say about the many class/race combos is true - a gnome assassin? Not sure if I'd include it.
Back in the day we started with 1e/2e and even then there were many things I didn't really like. These days, I play either 0e (or even its microlite version '74), or 5e.
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Post by hamurai on Dec 24, 2017 1:05:14 GMT -6
Nothing wrong with a little railroading here and there to get or keep the story going. It's not (necessarily) bad GM'ing. It's not even about the lazy players. When you set out to play a specific story and the players know it (and agree), they'll happily agree to a little railroading to get into the story.
In our online group's experience, railroading is even often required after a full day's work. The brain is tired and the ideas don't come as easily as usually. That's when we regularly employ the railroad. The thing is, it's accepted by all and no one feels railroaded against their will. I think that's the point, really. Some players accept railroading, others don't.
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Post by hamurai on Dec 20, 2017 8:07:36 GMT -6
Along the way, my additional question that I was planning on asking (but apparently didn't merge with my original thought and original post) was to see what other situations folks have encountered where OS gaming (this being OD&D, AD&D, 2E, clones, whatever) really isn't built to handle. I'm thinking there ought to be quite a few. I've found some social situations to be represented too abstract or uninteresting, among them fear, (in)sanity, or (courtly) intrigue and ("scientific") debates and stuff like that. Of course you can handle all these with just a single roll of the dice and then tell the story about it coming to happen this way or that, but it lacks the depths of combat encounters. Therefore, I have once included a system for "social hit points" (derived from level and charisma) and "mental hit points" (derived from level and INT/WIS) in my game to make these situations a little more interesting. It was far from perfect, but when you play lords with your own castle, intrigue is one factor underrepresented in D&D in general. The decline of social HP* did make for a nice change, as players felt urged to make social decisions, to actually rule their land. Mental HP were used when I brought in some Cthulhu-esque elements, but that wasn't as successful as the social HP. * Other regents would try to discredit the PCs, wrong behaviour in public could cost social HP, making sound decisions in court would raise them, and so on.
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Post by hamurai on Dec 20, 2017 1:52:20 GMT -6
Great game, really recommended. And I second what foxroe said, the new cover is awesome!
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Post by hamurai on Dec 19, 2017 23:35:11 GMT -6
I've always interpreted this spells as the classic protection circle summoners use - to keep at bay what they called. So the "enchanted" creatures would be, in my interpretation, all spirits, demons, devils, angels, gods, demon lords, old ones.... whatever you can summon in your game. The spell grants the wizard time to make a pact with the summoned being or to use other spells to control it.
My reasoning always was the word "conjurer" which I interpreted as "summoner", a person who can call upon otherworldly beings and force them to appear before him. Maybe that was just rather a narrow translation I made in my teens when my English wasn't so good.
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Post by hamurai on Dec 18, 2017 23:36:58 GMT -6
Happy holidays, folks!
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Post by hamurai on Dec 18, 2017 23:35:31 GMT -6
True, but is it fun to play heroes and the ref describes (to take the original example) a coach stopping next to you; a dark person jumps out and grabs one of the ladies at the market. She screams for help but all are too afraid to help, and then: "I cast Hold Person!", the wizard's player yells, intent on stopping the crime quickly without bloodshed. "You can't, he's too fast", says the ref. "I cast fog to distract him and the driver so they can't get away!" "That's not going to work." "I jump at the dark one and try to grapple him, at least throw him on the ground to stop him", joins in the fighter's player. "He's too fast", says the ref. "*sigh* OK then, you just tell us what must happen and when we can play our characters again."
That's nothing like monopoly or poker. That's a (bad) movie. A railroad. A bad ref decision. It's like saying "You're helpless when I say you are, and for that scene, you are." It's like loving the villain so much you don't want the characters to beat him with a quick strike, no matter how great the idea is. You take away the player's ability to join the game at this moment. This is not about the rules being a framework, I agree with you on that.
The same scene of the kidnapping could be much better if the coach stopped at the other side of the market and because the pc's have higher ground, they can see what happens. It's out of range for spells (and if the wizard casts a longe-range spell, the spell might hit but not work, the kidnapper shimmering in an arcane light, runes dancing about him and shielding him) and running over there will make them loose sight of the kidnapper, and it will take a while to get there because of the crowd. It's basically the same thing, the characters can only watch, but at least they can try. And when they try, they might learn about the kidnapper (spell-caster, or at least can employ scrolls?) and because they tried and failed, they'll be even more eager to get back at the dark one.
My opinion and experience. If it works for you to take away the player's ability to act and make them listen to your story, go for it. I tried in my early years of refereeing and the effect on the players was bad.
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Post by hamurai on Dec 18, 2017 7:19:57 GMT -6
No offence, but I disagree with the whole premise of this thread. Nothing is more hardcore Old School than just making crap up on your own and coloring outside the lines of the rule book or the accepted ideas of what the game is "Supposed" to be. There's a difference between making stuff up within the agreed-upon rules system, and making stuff up breaking or changing the agreed-upon rules system and denying the players their action. The latter is what comes across as annoying for many players. If you can't count on how the game works (the rules), then why would you need the rules at all? If the ref changes the rules back and forth as he pleases, without asking the players (and against the players), the game would be not much fun.
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Post by hamurai on Dec 17, 2017 13:14:03 GMT -6
Wouldn't it be even more interesting if you could make the character sacrifice their eye and/or hand? I once ran such an adventure and gave my characters the chance to do exactly that: Sacrifice an eye in the well of wisdom, and if the eye has seen legend and if it has seen true, then the gods may grant you wisdom beyond that of mortal eyesight. I told them they had to tell me the most impressive story their eye has ever seen and by that the gods would judge them worthy. One of my players agreed and till next session he wrote an awesome story about one of the adventures I had played with them. I deemed him worthy and he got Argos' Eye of True Sight which allowed him to "spend" 1 HP to gain the ability to see through illusions and invisibility for some rounds. And for the kidnapping: The kidnapper could use blinding bombs, illusion spell scrolls or similar things, or just the good old minions who keep the characters busy long enough for the kidnapper to escape.
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Post by hamurai on Dec 16, 2017 1:14:54 GMT -6
Btw, Does anyone know if the 1 rest turn per 5 rule was a way to mitigate and abstract-away some of these issues or was it more intended to be a consequence of actual physical exertion and to slow the pace of travel? I always saw it as 1) a means to abstractly account for small rests and 2) make movement and rest tracking easier especially for long time periods: each hour you can move 5 turns and must rest 1 turn.
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Post by hamurai on Dec 6, 2017 23:43:06 GMT -6
Use the Fighting-man, and you could give an assassin a "favoured enemy" sort of bonus for humanoids (+1 damage), as assassins would probably be trained to quickly dispose of them (and not beasts or demons, for example). Unlike the FM, they'd likely not use (heavy) armor, shields and heavy weapons to be quicker. You could even restrict armor and weapon use, if you wanted to balance the favoured enemy bonus. I wouldn't limit alignment as there's the possibility that an assassin works for the law, too - hitting crime lords while being on the payroll of the kingdom, even. And I like the better surprise chance idea.
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Post by hamurai on Dec 4, 2017 1:53:51 GMT -6
You might want to check out Microlite20 which is very rules-light and condensing the D&D rules to a minimum. There are also versions for earlier editions called Microlite74 and so on. There is a version called M20 Fifth which is especially made for games with D&D 5E ( direct link - google docs). M20 Fifth changes a lot of mechanics (using Spell Points, for example), but use the gear and spells you get in the free 5E basic rules. But it's free and only 8 or so pages.
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Post by hamurai on Nov 23, 2017 23:11:13 GMT -6
Off the top of my head: Arthur C. Clarke - Rendezvous with Rama (the first book is enough); The Fountains of Paradise James Blish - Cities in Flight (not pure hard sci-fi, space opera)
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Post by hamurai on Nov 20, 2017 23:34:12 GMT -6
I'd probably use several factors to determine the alignment, the wizard's alignment being the base for it and then taking into account all the big and small details concerning the creation. For example, - the alignment of the stars,
- the place where it's created (Has a demon or devil been summoned here? An angel? Is it a place of joy or despair? Is a great evil near? A great good?...),
- the materials used and how they were acquired (Was blood shed to mine this ore? Was it mined by the wizard himself or by someone else? What alignment did they have?...)
- the wizard's intention (What alignment does he want the sword to have? What does he do to influence it?)
But I'd make sure the wizard knows at least about some of the influences so he can prepare accordingly. As a wizard, he'd probably know. If he's in a hurry, I'd roll the alignment based on the factors above, if he's well-prepared he'd probably succeed in giving it the desired alignment as long as it's not his opposite.
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Post by hamurai on Nov 20, 2017 9:40:09 GMT -6
Welcome back!
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Post by hamurai on Nov 15, 2017 23:13:05 GMT -6
I'll check it out, thank you!
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Post by hamurai on Nov 13, 2017 23:25:20 GMT -6
Thank you; I've talked to some of the gaming group and it looks like many would prefer the original system or Cthulhu Hack... I guess I might be ending up using the CoC rules after all, at least I won't have to worry about converting. I'll start by giving the quickstart rules of the 7th edition a closer look. I hope I'll be comfortable with the CoC rules again.
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Post by hamurai on Nov 13, 2017 23:18:20 GMT -6
Thanks for sharing! That's good to hear.
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Post by hamurai on Nov 13, 2017 10:30:34 GMT -6
I think the challenge will be to let players always have their doubts whether the dangers are imagined and, as you say, part of their PTSD, or real dangers only they can see. In the end, though, I guess you can play it either way, if you like. You could probably play it as urban fantasy where the dangers are real fantastic creatures, or you can have a more psychological horror.
My first associations were Neverwhere, The Fisher King and Brazil, which I really liked.
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Post by hamurai on Nov 13, 2017 1:27:16 GMT -6
"Kingdom of Nothing", by the way, was the single best horror-themed RPG I ever played, even if not at all comparable to the ones named so far; maybe that one is worth a look for you, as well. Wow, thanks again for this recommendation! As a fan of Gaiman's Neverwhere I just had to get this when I read the info text. I must admit Kingdom of Nothing reads really cool and while I'm not sure if it's what I'll use for my CoC campaign, I will definitely play this game vanilla!
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Post by hamurai on Nov 12, 2017 1:31:34 GMT -6
@rafael, thanks for posting the character sheet. I guess Morality would be the go-to stat, if it's anything like humanity and the paths of the old WoD. And I'll check out Kingdom of Nothing, thanks for the recommendation! Of course, CoC is best when the players know next to nothing about the setting. At least when it comes to the Mythos creatures. But there's always the option to introduce your own or to change the ones they know. What I like about the Horror on the Orient Express is that it's easily converted to another setting, as the story mainly features "human" antagonists. I guess it could even be played in a setting without magic and supernatural as well, although you'd have to make adjustments. DungeonDevil, joke aside, you are right of course. The adventure has a set path and the characters must follow the rails of the Orient Express. There are several optional paths along the way, though and there are even suggestions how the story can be more open, so the players won't feel railroaded so much. Many scenarios take place during the stops of the train, where the players are more or less free to act as they wish.
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Post by hamurai on Nov 11, 2017 10:59:56 GMT -6
I'd be tempted to use 5E CoC because that's what I have the most books for, but as it was written for 7E the advantage to using that would be you wouldn't have to convert anything. By the way -- I have been pondering buying this but it looks huge and I wonder if there is almost too much material for me to actually use. What's your take on this? The conversion is actually pretty simple from what I've seen so far. The main difference is that now all attributes are 3d6 x5, as the old luck score, for example. So every attribute is now a d% number to roll against, which is easily converted. Some other things were changed a little (opposed tests, for example, and HP more or less still calculated the old way). I haven't read through it all yet, but so far I really like the handouts and maps and the campaign overview is well done, too. There are 19 "core" adventures and several optional side stories (in different times even, from 330 AD and Cthulhu Invictus through the Middle Ages on to 2013 and Cthulhu Now), which is really cool. There are 6 books in the box, 2 of them are handouts and fluff text to supplement the campaign's journey. The fluff book can be given directly to the players as it has no spoilers and is written as a guide to the journey which would actually be given out for travelers on the Orient Express. The campaign book I read through easily on one evening, it is a very good introduction to the campaign and how to use it, and that there are optional adventures and even an "early" ending to the campaign if the GM wants to cut it short. There are also ideas for using the campaign in other times (Cthulhu Gaslight or Now) or even alternate settings like Achtung! Cthulhu, how to make adventures more pulpy or more gritty and so on. Another book is entirely dedicated to NPCs who can also act as "replacement" investigators if a player character dies. The campaign itself is in 3 books, which hold around 700 pages together. That's a lot, but there are maps, pictures, handouts and info boxes in there, too, and some adventures are optional. The handouts are a very nice addition for the players, but I guess you'll have to find a group that can hold their info together. Lots of information can be gathered to ensure survival and the group should collect this info and use it. TL;DR: The box is huge, but I think it's not overwhelming. The layout and presentation are well done and it probably helped that they split the campaign up in 3 books.
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Post by hamurai on Nov 11, 2017 10:41:13 GMT -6
New World of Darkness might be worth a shot - not the advanced systems, just the basic book where you get to play humans. I have yet to have a look at that. I'm not a big fan of dice pools, though. Does the nWoD basic book feature sanity rules?
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Post by hamurai on Nov 11, 2017 10:38:13 GMT -6
How would sanity be represented in the Traveller system? I would either reduce one of the existing ability scores, intelligence most likely, and consider the character has succumbed to the dark side when it reaches zero. Or, roll a new score. I think the time at GenCon I played in a Cthulhu-based Traveller scenario that is how it was handled. TLBB Traveller is my “go to” system for any non-fantasy milieu. I like Traveller's system, too. Hmm. I'm considering this Thanks!
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Post by hamurai on Nov 11, 2017 7:49:53 GMT -6
How would sanity be represented in the Traveller system?
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Post by hamurai on Nov 11, 2017 7:03:57 GMT -6
I haven't run a Call of Cthulhu game for 3 or 4 years now. Because I always enjoyed it, I finally grabbed the Horror on the Orient Express box and look very much forward to playing the campaign. The books are written for CoC 7th edition - none of us have this edition. I have the 4th or 5th edition, but I was considering using a different, more rules-light game system. The reason behind the decision to use a different system is simply that I doubt that the entire group will be present for the complete campaign. My guess is that 2 or 3 people will be there every session and 1 or 2 will be there if they can make it or let it be. Maybe we will invite others along the way to join us or have a guest player jump in spontaneously.
I have the Cthulhu hack, which reads really nice, but I'm unsure how it will be at play and if the mechanics will make characters as "fragile" as in the original system. Does anyone have any experience with it? Another idea was to use the Cypher System, which I also own and like because of the simple rules. (Edit: Has anyone of you used the suggested Horror Rules in there?)
What do you think, what other system would you consider for running a CoC campaign?
(I have pretty much ruled out the Savage Worlds' Realms of Cthulhu. I've run two games with these rules and wasn't happy with it.)
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