sladethesniper

I can see why DIY PCs are interesting in an RPG but are fairly dangerous in actual combat. Doing your own thing in most FPS PvP games is also really bad. It is a habit that requires breaking when playing a team based game. Everyone thinks their ultra meta-build can go 4 v 1 and win...but usually fail big time, and when the game is a no-respawn type game, congrats now your team is down a player.

This sort of super min-max character dynamic is also discouraged in most RPGs with either niche protection (rogues don't heal, high level skills being very expensive in character development) and when there is super character, it often harms the team dynamic inherent in most RPGs. 

-STS

1 hour ago, g33k said:

Agree to disagree, and we both move on?

No problemo.

-STS

Whew, this is turning into a dissertation defense...

Shall we begin?

Lets start with the fun stuff.

11 hours ago, g33k said:

What about 4 PCs with (for example) a few henchmen, and a company of 30-40 mercenaries they've temporarily hired to deal with a few hundred orcs?  Or even just the PC's alone against a few score orcs?   Most RPG's really don't scale (at least not well!) to that sort of scenario!  But these sorts of scenarios are (IMHO) overwhelmingly more-likely to be wanted by an RPG table than most existing wargames... including Strife (which maybe generalizes perhaps a bit too far)?

OK, so you have 30 to 40 mercenaries? That is 3 to 4 squads of mercenaries. How are they equipped, trained, etc? That is the important part of the game, not that there is 40 bodies there.

So, lets say that they have 30 mercenaries in 3 squads of medium infantry, and 10 heavy cavalry?

1 x Heavy Cavalry squad is: Off 6, Def 6, Size 4, Initiative 4, Damage 24, Resilience 24, Speed 20 km/h, Range 3m, Endurance 4 hours, Charge: can double their speed for one turn

3 x Medium Infantry squads are: Off 6, Def 5, Size 3, Initiative 3, Damage 18, Resilience 15, Speed 8 km/h, Range 10m, Endurance 12 hours

The PC group is what determines the skills for this unit, and all the magic stuff increases the skills.

You want a group of 4 PCs (Fighter, Rogue, Cleric, Wizard), that is a Size 2 unit. Off 4, Def 4, Size 2, Initiative 1, Damage 8, Resilience 8, Speed 10 km/h, Range 100m, Endurance 18 hours.

Experience 45% (assuming 9th level), Medical 60% (what I am going to give for having a dedicated, professional healer), Perception 80% (for all the various spells and abilities they possess), Tactics 40%, Equipment 80% (because of all the magic items and stuff they drag along), Planning 20% (most PC groups kinda suck at making actual plans), Teamwork 40% (most PC groups are not the best at sticking to plans), Morale 80% (because PC groups hate losing "control" so need to minimize that), Fieldcraft 20% (they are trained to live, but if there was a Ranger or a Druid, it would probably jump up to 60%), Influence 60% (Charisma is a dump stat, but all those magic spells and psionic abilities do help bump it up pretty well).     
Notes: A lot of spell effects would go here like "1/day, can roll twice and take the better result on any roll," "1/battle, add a +1 to Offense or Defense to any unit under your command," "Fly at 90 km/h, altitude up to 100 meters."

And we are done, the mercenaries and a command squad of the PC, the skills and abilities converted to the skills and abilities in Strife.

This isn't anything that isn't already in the book (under building units) or could be extrapolated from the Scenario Book which literally has 4 fantasy scenarios (20 Dungeon Delve, 21 Invasion of Kasein, 22 Uprising in Chessary, 23 Genocidal War) that cover units such as liches, wizards, centaurs, elves, and a bunch of other fantasy staples.

The rules are only 34 pages... I am not wanting to recreate a 200+ page tome of RPG stuff and then add a hundred pages of Wargame stuff. 

There are a lot of different approaches to RPGs such as narrativist, gamist, simulationist....rules light, rules heavy....setting focused or general rules sets. My goal was a simulationish, rules light, general rules set that turns another RPG into a wargame if the PCs need it to...or it can be just a wargame.

Oh, as for what other players do, that is up to their group. If the players want to each run their own character (as a size 0 unit on the board) that is up to them. They do not have to combine to form a 4 man group. THAT is why the rules are written they way they are, to allow for a few individuals, a few squads, some off map supporting units, and one big kaiju monster.

Finally, ignoring D&D is not done at my peril...it is a game, but while it may be the biggest, it is not the best. I have no intention of competing with D&D, WotC or Hasbro...so why would I attempt to fit my idea onto their product. Strife supports D&D, but it is not the primary focus.

I regret that my attempt did not meet your expectations. 

-STS

TL;DR I got rid of the RPG stuff and made Strife to sit on top of other RPGs.

Query, how do I explain that?

5 hours ago, g33k said:

having explicit page-numbers on each page would be useful within the document.

Yes, I know. I am still working on formatting. Not an excuse, but I forgot to add them in V0.1  Page numbers are included in V0.2

5 hours ago, g33k said:

A micro-Godzilla!

Oh, yeah... Got to change that. It is a Size 0, but with a BONUS size of +5 or +6 at least so it is listed as a Size 0 (7) and thus follows all "rules" as a size 7 unit. Or that is what my brain thought. Got to check on that.

5 hours ago, g33k said:

* I don't see any rules for "area effect" such as grenades, fireballs, dragon- (and godzilla-) -breath, etc.  There's some stuff "adjacent" to that (radioactive terrain that acts like an attack, etc), but not the specific case of area/volume attacks, booom/fwoosh/etc does damage now, and then done.

Very good point. I had not thought of that. Second thing to add. Suspect it will probably just be a note in the unit description "Grenade: Frag offense x, size y. Z uses per game.) For bigger units such as artillery and such, they may just have an AOE note. Will need to be fiddled with to see how it works or doesn't work.

6 hours ago, g33k said:

he rules for LOS, visibility, "negative contact," "hidden movement" & similar topics each look reasonable, in themselves.  Honestly though, I think a review with an eye toward combining them all into one unified mechanic (occurring at one place in the rules!)

A valid point. I need a overarching... name for those subjects. 

6 hours ago, g33k said:

I honestly see Strife as a fundamentally flawed ruleset

and

6 hours ago, g33k said:

It's fine as a wargame

Understandable. That version is still pretty bad. This is what a portion of the new preface reads as "Strife is designed to fit on top of another RPG such as BRP, another D100 system, Interlock, Palladium or D20. I did not want Strife to be another RPG reinventing the wheel when there are already many excellent RPG systems. I want Strife to be new." I really didn't think another RPG system was warranted, but a RPG wargame is (at least IMO.)

I came to RPGs from wargames and am well aware of the history of them and am actually thinking of Strife as "closing the circle" allowing RPGs to go back to the wargame roots.

6 hours ago, g33k said:

Where is that concept -- the "party of adventurers" -- in Strife?  How would you constitute D&D's traditional/baseline/default 4-character party (Fighter+Rogue+Wizard+Cleric) within the Strife rules?

Well, Strife is not built to model that 4 guys in a dungeon... it is built the model the 9th+ level (AD&D) party of heroes where the Fighter has a keep and a company of troops at least, the Rogue has a thieves guild, the Wizard has his tower and assorted magical effects, and the Cleric has some number of the faithful that heed his call. Those adventurers graduated from killing rats and are now leaders of their forces, not mere fighters. 

That is why I cut out the RPG stuff (but not the references to it in the text obviously). 4 guys in a dungeon is already handled perfectly by D&D and tons of other games. To my knowledge, there are few games that handle them as leaders. I realize that the newer generation of games keeps the 4 guys in a dungeon model as opposed to the AD&D model of growing into leaders, and that is cool.  I am not trying to force any "right" way of gaming. However, for gamers that want their PCs to grow out of the dungeon crawling, that is what I want Strife to allow.

6 hours ago, g33k said:

The rules for "combining units" also look to me like they are subject to substantial abuse by the munchkinously-inclined.  For example, if we define a unit of "Heavy Crossbowmen" which do extra damage + a unit of "Welsh Longbowmen" who have extra range... does the new, larger, combined unit do extra damage at extra range?  RAW, the answer seems to be "yes," but the correct answer should be "no."  In the "RPG" context of Strife, would you treat the "Party" unit (sticking with D&D (because ignoring the 800lb gorilla is never a good idea)) as if it were a multiclass Fighter/Thief/Wizard/Cleric ?  HP & armor & melee like the tanky fighter, stealthy & skills-y like the thief, self-repairing because there's a cleric, and massive ranged damage from the wizard?  Presumably not, but... if we take a party of D&D PC's into Strife as 1 unit called "the party"  (via the "combining units" rules)... that multiclass Uber-unit is explicitly what we'd get.

 This is another reason I got rid of the RPG stuff. There is no reason for me to do it (poorly) when so many other games do it so much better. As for your example, heavy crossbowmen and Welsh Longbowmen would exactly have extra damage at longer range. That sort of benefit is exactly why combining different types of units can lead to increased combat power (can, not always).

IF you wanted to do that, then the 4 PCs would combine into a fireteam sized element that does work as you described because that is why humans combine into groups. The thief is out front picking the fastest and sneakiest routes, the fighter is the tank, the cleric is keeping the tank healed up and the rear secure, and the wizard is dropping damage on bad guys that the thief finds. The problem is that 4 minds are not better than 1 when in combat. Each PC wants to make their character shine, and is rarely able to think of the team as a whole. I don't see the issue... that sort of min-maxing is exactly what happens IRL with combat units.

As for all the other RPG stuff...yeah, I got rid of it specifically for those reasons. If I wanted to make a real deal RPG system...It would just be BRP with a lot of stuff stolen from other games. Nothing would be really "new" except my weapons damage stuff.

As for the big issue...Magic. Meh. It took me months to come to the conclusion that it isn't special. Making magic special just ends up with a bunch of splat books filled with spells that are only slightly different from each other. Magic in D&D (specifically) is just a way to do things... and if the DM actually followed the rules, Magic isn't OP, it is just a form of technology that over rides skills. 

Plus, having played a LOT of games, I think that going the Champions/Hero/Mutants and Masterminds/Marvel Heroic Roleplaying (basically superhero games) is the right way to handle things...they are all the same. No difference in the effect between magic missile or a shotgun or a phaser on Kill 1. It hits something and does damage... everything else is just description. Magic missile always hits, shotgun easier to hit, lots of damage, phaser terrible ergonomics, but if you hit, the target dies...unless it is a Klingon (brak'lul FTW.) 

I understand your argument that magic, psi is different and breaks the rules of the universe, BUT so what? What is the effective difference between spy satellites and scry? Identify vs tricorder? The Force vs a forcefield? Combat precog vs Combat Computer 3 or Sandevistan (from Cyberpunk). I mean they all DO the same thing, but in a different way. I see your point, but I disagree.

For the Magic Missile...a lot of it has to deal with the way that D&D treats armor. My personal interpretation is that passive AC is dumb, and I much prefer Damage Reduction as how armor works. So, due to that, magic missile loses a lot of it's power. Heavy armor (in D&D effectively negates it, which it should). I am not understanding how magic missile always hits, but lightning bolt doesn't? D&D is definitely NOT the game that I would choose to model.

I do not know what Harmonize does... so... can't comment on it. Does it just give a bonus to a skill? I mean you can talk people through something on a radio, right.

Invisibility is another thing that is way overblown... sound, smell, touch, all of those can be used. Invisible isn't going to help you wandering up on an enemy OP at zero-three in triple canopy. Silence is what you need. Plus, tech can negate a lot of that, radar, seismic, thermal, UV, IR might work...

Mind reading and mind control? We already have tech stuff that does that. Now a wizard can cast that spell and it appears that the lead time on that is zero...but the wizard needs to know WHO to mind read, who to mind control, and how long did it take to learn the spell. Mind control is effectively different than causing fear, or intimidation, or bribery, or any other way to get someone to do what you want. 

We can debate the relative strengths of magic vs other forms of affecting reality, but magic is rarely the only way to achieve a goal. It may be faster, but only when the all of the previous costs and times are not taken into account.

For another example, think about the game "Magic: the Gathering" there is rarely some definitive classification of magic or how it interacts with other stuff like tech, or psi, or whatnot. Effects, sorceries, instants, are primarily differentiated by the speed it occurs, not what sort of "magic" it is...and when there IS some special effect, it is usually described in the card text.

I am going to assume that my responses are not sufficient, and for that I apologize. 

Thank you very much for the feedback! I really do appreciate it, because honest criticism is hard to find. 

-STS

I have 42 scenarios ready to go (the maps suck, but I can't figure out how to make a nice map, then turn it into a pdf that you can take to a print shop and have them print it out at 26" x 26" or 42" x 36" or whatever.)

Any help would be greatly appreciated. 

The scenarios include stuff from the Seven Years War, WWII, anti-cult stuff, space monsters, space battles, kaiju, etc.

Here is a list of units that have been modeled using Strife:

Paleolithic hunter, Mounted knights, Musketeers, Egyptian 2 horse chariots, Mk V tank, M1E2 tank, M1A1 tank, Space Battleships, Instant Martians (from Looney Toons), ANZAC Infantry company (Gallipoli, c. 1915), Swiss Pikemen c. 1500 AD, 900 Roman Triarii c. 200 BC, 500 Anglo-Saxon housecarls c. 1066 AD, French Hussars c. 1805 AD, Mobile Infantry platoon (50 troops) using M8 Marauders, 200 armored skeleton infantry, Pinkie demon from Doom, Cyborg Blue Dragon, The Chosen Undeads/The Ashen Ones from Dark Souls, Gunzerker class from Borderlands, Titan Pilot in and out of a Titan, the Da Vinci tank c. 1784, a SEAL Team 6 fireteam, Spartan II in and out of different Mjolnir armor marks, a Witcher, 40K Space Marine, Jedi, Robocop, AT-AT, various Battlemechs from BattleTech, Zaku II, 40K Titans, various Transformers and Unicron.

The game was MADE to do this, and it does it well.

Always looking for more playtesters, readers, feedback and/or opinions

-STS

On 6/22/2022 at 6:36 PM, g33k said:

Can you give a precis?  In particular:
 - How is the scale?  Small-unit skirmishes?  Minor battles?  Major battles with thousands per side?
 - Do you incorporate magic at all?  If so, is it viable to run the "same" scenario with or without magic, and expect comparable results?

Strife is a complete variable scale wargame that also fits on top of a roleplaying game (BRP, other D100 games, Cyberpunk specifically...D20 and 5E generally-ish). This lets you play a wargame from gang bangers in an urban wasteland to planetary invasion fleets OR lets you replace the combat system with a much faster, but less granular one.

The scale is variable, so that scale 0 is for individual combatants. Scale 3 or 4 is for minor battles (units are squad sized). Scale 8 is battalion level units. 

Magic, guns and psychic powers are all incorporated in the same way. All of them are basically treated the same. Magic Missile is functionally the equivalent of a gun or psychic blast. The difference is how specific units interact each other, so that some units can dispel magic, or have resistance to magic, or are invisible except for magic. Thus magic, superpowers, psionics and technology are all the same functionally, but if there is some necessary differentiation it is handled in the unit's "Notes." Examples are vampires which can not be harmed except by "magic" or "fire" or werewolves which can not be harmed except by "silver weapons". So units like attack helicopters will numerically destroy those sort of units, but because they don't have magic or silver weapons...the most those units can do is slow them down by shooting at them a lot, but can not kill them.

These interactions are described in the "notes" of the weapons. 

This game is currently in playtesting, and the stuff I can send out is version 0.1 while I take the feedback and work on version 0.2

If anyone wants the links to Version 0.1, let me know. I'll DM you the links, just so that I can keep track of where I sent it.

Thanks for the interest.

-STS

On 6/5/2022 at 6:22 PM, g33k said:

a bit unexpected -- also vague and confusing

It's Moorcock, so totally on-brand IMO.

-STS

On 6/14/2022 at 12:10 AM, KPhan2121 said:

I’ve been looking around for a mass combat system that’s more involved, but a lot of these rules I’ve found resolve the battle in only a few rolls with little input from the PCs. The ones that do have player input don’t have enough. I’d prefer if the mass combat rules were smaller in scope and focused on smaller aspects of the battle in order to allow the players a space to dramatically influence the result.

So, if you are interested in a work in progress, I will happily send you my BRP roleplaying wargame.

It is in the playtesting phase and I'd love to get any feedback or input you have.

DM me and I'll send you the links for the game and 42 example scenarios.

-STS

Hmmm, lets see...

I took the alignments from D&D,

the heavy weapons, vehicles and powers stuff from Palladium

All damage and armor numbers are reworked off real-world numbers and testing

switched out APP for CHA,

added the Reputation system from Cyberpunk  

took a lot of powers/skills from D&D, Cyberpunk, Palladium, etc that are usually class locked...and made them a new class called "Special Skills" that cost double to buy and increase

The experience system is stolen from Renegade Legion

I got rid of the skill base chance and instead use the relevant stat as a percent (Strength 12 = 12% for a skill they don't have that is Strength based) for the base chance

So really, my BRP is a just a Frankenstein D100 roll-under system now

-STS

"Chaosium has sales numbers for "Basic Roleplaying" and have stated publicly that their numbers say books with integrated vivid settings sell, and setting-free books don't;"

This is what I hear from a lot of RPG/wargame designers and publishers as well.

-STS

While I do think that the DB might be a bit high, when you watch melee weapons against ballistic gel or other testing mediums, a full power blow by a trained male seem to take limbs off pretty easily (1 or 2 hits) without armor.  Forged in Fire comes to mind.  Also, this interesting document of sword injuries: https://hemamisfits.com/2020/04/02/very-perilous-a-sword-wounds-compendium-by-the-surgeon-ravaton/

-STS

He inspired me to do the 31 day challenge as well.  Super fun and kinda stressful.  I love watching John's channel.

-STS

I am ever so glad I bought Magic World the last time I saw it in print at a game store.  Poor Magic World.  

-STS

I just use D&D stats for ancient armor....and archaic weapons.  I modify this based on youtube videos by Shadiversity, Skallagrim and Tod's Workshop as well as stuff from Forged in Fire or the Deadliest Warrior (when they had experiments).

-STS

4 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

In Sweden, this is exactly what happened with the original Magic World (the one that was part of Worlds of Wonder back in 1982). It was licensed, got onto its own dev track, spawned other BRP games, and so on, and become the standard fantasy RPG and BRP the go-to RPG system for decades. Games as diverse as Mutant: Year Zero, Trudvang Chronicles and Forbidden Lands can trace their roots back to it in different ways (even those that now run under a different system).

Really?  That is great to hear!  

-STS

I really liked Magic World.  It was my fervent hope that somehow, Magic World would become the "default fantasy game" instead of yet another edition of D&D.

MW scratched the itch for a generic fantasy game that I could use for various purposes, specifically as a way to patch any holes in the eras for Cthulhu Through the Ages.  I love the book.  It isn't perfect, but as an intro to BRP fantasy, what more could people want?

As for Chaosium, I am grateful that the company is still here and hopefully will be for a long time.  Chaosium makes products I like and so I buy them.  I am a loyal fan.

-STS

Interesting take.  The turn length is the issue, not the total time.  I like this differentiation, and it better answers my question.  Thanks.

-STS

Hmmm, so...I am lazy.  I just converted Rifts to BRP and borrowed the Palladium megaverse and just added other stuff to that.

That sounds pathetic

-STS

On 12/24/2020 at 1:25 PM, Baron Wulfraed said:

* Webley did make a semi-auto revolver in the early 1900s. The barrel and cylinder assembly slid back&forth, cocking the hammer, while pin(s) on the non-moving frame ride in grooves in the cylinder to rotate it to the next position.

I did not know this.  Thanks!

-STS

What is your preferred time spent per combat encounter in real time?

Some games do combat encounters pretty quickly, such as Call of Cthulhu where combat is lethal and has a tendency to be very fast. Most combat encounters are 15 minutes max in my experience.  This is what I really prefer...fast and deadly.  This is one of the main draws for BRP to me...fast combat.

On the other end we have games like D&D 3rd Edition where combat encounters can last hours.  I can tolerate this only as long as my character can do something other than wait for my turn.  Other games from fast to slow are Cyberpunk (pretty fast), White Wolf (if you know what you are doing), Shadowrun, Champions (kinda slow).

So, what is your general time for combat encounters to last. This is not crunch, as you can add in a lot of optional rules to make combat longer, just as you can strip out huge amounts of rules to make combat very fast (as I usually do with Palladium games...).

If you have some games where you want combat to go long or just be done as fast as possible, feel free to explain why that is so.

Thanks in advance!

-STS

My family is my primary gaming group.  Everyone takes turns GM their particular campaigns.  We have played a lot of systems, but BRP is the one that my wife and I prefer.  Our kids prefer "newer" systems, but BRP is definitely the system most used.

Having the GM and campaign rotate is a great way to keep momentum going as well as giving people a break.  Two or three sessions of one game, then switching really keeps the interest up in each campaign.

-STS

I love about 25%  of their stuff, and really like another 25%.  Like an old man, I think it was better before it was popular.  

-STS

Ah, Coolness Under Fire...a much under rated mechanic!

-STS

This sounds like a very interesting setting.  It will be making its way to my collection...

-STS

1 hour ago, RosenMcStern said:

psionic asceticism ?

Same thing as asceticism, but instead of getting "magic" you get "psionic" abilities...not really a big mechanical difference, just a different descriptor.  I don't really know if there would be different ascetic traditions for them, so to cover my bases, I am assuming they are different.

-STS