Topic Of The Week

This forum is for the discussion of any topic you want to discuss - from other RPGS through to events in the world at large.
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Morthrai
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Re: Topic Of The Week

Post by Morthrai »

Okay, I admit once again than a weekly topic has eluded me so far but there have been reasons rather than the usual lack of impetus and focus!

Moved into a lovely quiet garden flat with no directly connected neighbours, so that's taken up most of my time. This is a really good space for my creativity so I'm already back writing and firing ideas around. Protodimension has fallen behind schedule but that's just coincidence, if it was my fault I'd say so! Norm's still active on social media but pretty quiet otherwise so I'm afraid I don't know what is causing the delay at the moment. I will find out and let you know.

So, anyone else got a topic for this week? :D
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Re: Topic Of The Week

Post by Phulish »

Good for you! If any of us can help with ideas, holler out. :D
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Re: Topic Of The Week

Post by Phulish »

What social standing? Nome, Mike, or criminal? I do mostly Mike, but am thinking of a roaming group like a motorcycle gang. lot's of combat, travel, puzzle pieces.
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Re: Topic Of The Week

Post by Morthrai »

Phulish wrote:What social standing? Nome, Mike, or criminal? I do mostly Mike, but am thinking of a roaming group like a motorcycle gang. lot's of combat, travel, puzzle pieces.
It has usually been Mikes or Proles for me. Most of the games I have played in were mainly in urban environments so the ability to blend into the crowd was an advantage :) I like your idea of a roaming group, there's a lot than can be done with that.
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Linden
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Re: Topic Of The Week

Post by Linden »

I've only ever played in one Dark Conspiracy campaign, back in the nineties. I based my PC on the character of Will Graham as portrayed in Red Dragon by Thomas Harris and the Manhunter film adaptation. So there was a federal law enforcement background along with some very low powered Empathic abilities. In play he didn't turn out much like his fictional forebear - mostly because I'm a piss poor actor and my own personality kept coming through (too much shouting).

As a GM I'm happy to allow a range of social types in the group. I think it makes for good roleplaying. Second campaign I ran they were mostly grungy types; struggling rock band member, Mexican hard man, former special forces soldier plus a Gnome girl who was arguably the most ruthless of the lot. She really came into her own when it came to dealing with officialdom and corporate types and was able to get into places her more proletarian friends couldn't. Her status also made the good occasional hook for adventures of the "something rotten in dreamland..." type.

So no preference really, anything that makes for a good game.
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Re: Topic Of The Week

Post by Phulish »

Watched "Sin City" again and thinking of cobbling an adventure or two with shady overtones.
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Re: Topic Of The Week

Post by Pennanngalan »

My characters were pretty much an even split between Mike and Criminal. I have never actually been a player in a DC game,

In Jr. high and high school, I ran DC and Dark Sun while my buddy ran AD&D 2nd edition Taladas (a part of Krynn and the Dragon Lance setting) and Forgotten Realms adventures for me.

In later games, there were quite a few more players present so I didn't have a need to provide characters for additional firepower in my D6 Adventure! and Fate versions of DC.

Hey Linden, did you ever get to try the Fate rules with a DC game? If so, I am curious of what you thought of it.
Last edited by Pennanngalan on Mon Jun 20, 2016 7:47 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Topic Of The Week

Post by Pennanngalan »

Topic for this week: Have you ever ported the DC world to a different set of rules? If you have, what rule-set and how did it go?



I'll start. I have used the Dark Conspiracy world with two alternate sets of rules. The D6 Adventure! rules and the Fate system.

The D6 rules conversion was the easier of the two, at first, being a rather simple d6 dice-pool rule-set. The only real problem came from an individual who, neither I nor the other members of our group at the time, currently bother speaking to. He was a Pathfinder man through and through. He was our GM off and on for about 25 years (with long breaks due to LIFE). When he hit burnout, he couldn't step aside and allow anybody to take over, even with a different system. The extremely unpleasant group implosion that followed, was just a matter of time....

Moving on. The players did not like a few small details that are part of the Adventure! rule-set. In combat, only body armor will resist damage. This makes a fight extremely deadly for everybody and they didn't feel it allowed them to be "heroic" enough since everybody was too scared to mix it up with the baddies. Easy fix, the old Star Wars version of the rules allowed the characters to use half of their Physique dice to resist damage. We'll just do that.

The other complaint was a mechanic WEG used to reduce the number of dice rolled in opposed contests and combat. When a roll is opposed, only the character with the higher skill needed to make a roll, with his dice pool reduced by the number of dice available in the opposing pool (I don't even remember doing this but it was mentioned... ehhh....). Another simple fix, just have everybody roll everything normally and total it all up. Easy. We will probably go back to the D6 rules at some point, though I will probably use the V6* version from Radioactive Ape next time.

*Free on RPGnow, if you want to check it out: http://www.rpgnow.com/product/70124/Ato ... oleplaying

On to Fate. This is the most recent attempt at using the DC world with an alternate rules system. Fate was a little harder for me at first, but was also a bigger hit with the players. The new (to me) way of thinking of things took a little getting used to, I am old and new concepts take longer to sink into my head than they did as a youth :oops: . Once we got started and we began using the system, it became much easier very quickly. Fate has a very short learning curve and proves to be a good system, it takes a lot of preparation-induced sweating off of the GM's shoulders (stat-wise) so you can spend most of the available prep-time developing story elements the players handed you the previous session. It was GREAT (!) for both myself and the players, this is one of the biggest pros of the Fate system, in my opinion.

Many people claim that Fate is not suitable for a horror game since it is actually pretty hard to kill the characters and the characters can do so much, so easily, with the way Fate handles these things. I say bollocks, to that. Killing a character is not an important focus, to me, when I run a game. I want to do heroic stuff when I play and I want the players to feel free to be heroic and willing to take risks to save the people around them. I let the situation of the NPCs and the darkness of the opposition create the horror.

The characters may not die (unless the story makes it necessary, but that is a social contract thing) but they will get a permanent negative aspect (a crippling wound which gives a permanent penalty), if they are taken out in combat. That is fairly horrifying to me and most players I know, so it does keep the tension at an appropriate level. I also keep a tight reign on what a normal human (which is what the characters are when I run DC with the Fate rules) is able to accomplish. I don't care if they roll a stage +10 success, if a human can't do it, it does not happen. This sort of goes against the spirit of the system a bit but it does keep the game in the right feel and tone of normal people fighting back against the darkness.

Dark Conspiracy will live a long life with me and my current gaming group because of the Fate system. Everybody had fun and that is the whole point of playing.

At this point, I am going to go off topic and recommend that you give Fate a go, if you haven't done so already. The PDF is free to anybody who wants a copy, all they ask is, if you like it and want to float a little capital their way, just go back and "buy" another copy (for whatever you wish). Hell, I sought out print copies and bought them (no, I am not affiliated with Evil Hat and get nothing from this recommendation, though it might sound otherwise).

RPGnow: http://www.rpgnow.com/product/114903/Fate-Core-System

Evil Hat's own web-store: https://www.evilhat.com/store/index.php ... 65vphuqfj0
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Morthrai
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Re: Topic Of The Week

Post by Morthrai »

As it happens, the person who first introduced me to Dark Conspiracy hardly ever used the original rules right from the start! First thing he and his regular group did was to run combat using the Cyberpunk 2020 ruleset, as they were long-term fans of that game. In more recent years he has taken the background more or less intact and changed to using d20 Modern. This was because his younger players all started out with D&D so it's just easier for them to keep to the same basic rules.
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Re: Topic Of The Week

Post by Pennanngalan »

Interesting, I almost downloaded the Fuzion system (CP2020) for a trial run. I didn't because I have copies of, and came close to using, the D20 Modern rules or it's precursor Alternity. I just didn't want to use a level-based system.
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Re: Topic Of The Week

Post by Linden »

Pennanngalan wrote:
Hey Linden, did you ever get to try the Fate rules with a DC game? If so, I am curious of what you thought of it.
I never did. Mainly down to not having enough time as much as anything. My group all work, have families etc so we only meet once a week. I've been running a Call of Cthulhu campaign using the minisix rules for the last year or so and that tends to fill the available space set aside for gaming. Once the campaign ends there are tentative plans to do Dark Conspiracy again. I would want to use a different system though so will be taking a look at FATE. The other contender is STOCS Lite which is designed for DC style games and has a few similarities to the GDW House system but isn't so complex or fiddly. Combat's pretty lethal though - I tend to agree with your argument that the players are the heroes of the piece. They shouldn't be invulnerable but giving them a bit of an edge is fair enough in my book.

In the campaign I played in back in the 90s the GM adopted the Cyberpunk rules after a few games.
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Re: Topic Of The Week

Post by Pennanngalan »

Cool, I Just nabbed a copy of the STOCS lite to peruse, haven't seen that one before. Thanks for the heads-up :D
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Re: Topic Of The Week

Post by Linden »

I'd be interested to hear how STOCS lite works in play. I suspect you could convert it to run with attributes/skils on the 1-10 scale per DC without too much difficulty.

The other system I'd consider running DC with is the MiniSix system. It's worked well for the pulpish Cthulhu campaign I wanted to run. The PCs do tend to overtake most of the standard template NPCs after a while though. I use the hit points variant rule as I'm not keen on damage resistance rolls and my group likes to keep track of their hits, a possible holdover from some of them being reared on Dungeons and Dragons.
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Re: Topic Of The Week

Post by Pennanngalan »

I have a couple games in the cue ahead of it (if I get around to them), The Void, Noctum, New World of Darkness, Tri-stat DX, and Savage Worlds. As alternate GM, I am looking for a system other than D&D to keep it fresh for everybody at our table.

I would wager that you will get to STOCS lite before I do, I seem to be just collecting all the free game systems I can get ahold of for now (and CP2020 is still a possibility).
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Re: Topic Of The Week

Post by Linden »

Pennanngalan wrote:

I would wager that you will get to STOCS lite before I do, I seem to be just collecting all the free game systems I can get ahold of for now (and CP2020 is still a possibility).
I've got a dozen or so scenarios left to run which we'll probably get through in the next couple of months or so. After that I'll have a bit of a think what to run next. Might even do something non-horror.
"There's a lot of dignity in that, isn't there? Going out like a raspberry ripple."
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